#comment please

Ask Response: Hiiiiii Nonie! ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡ I like the ask, and after thinking about it for a while, I’m going to give you my general headcannons for Illumi x Pregnant!Reader as well! This was awesome to write, and I hope you enjoy it!  -ᵇᵇʸᵇˡᵒᵒʳᵒˢᵉˢ𐔌՞. .՞𐦯🩵

Illumi already knew you were pregnant, and I’m not talking about a slight assumption; the man literally knew. 

More specifically, his suspicions were confirmed around two days after you had slept together, and he noticed you began having cravings way before your period was supposed to start.

Of course, he didn't say anything but instead started preparing, assured that you would catch on soon, and he was right again, as a week later, you decided to take a test and found out you were pregnant, and you immediately went to tell your husband.

“Illumi..? There’s something I need to tell you,” You said as you anxiously played with your hands.

“You’re pregnant. I’m aware,” Illumi stated as he took your hands in his and gave you a hug.

“H-how did you know?” You said, slightly confused.

“You’ve been pregnant for almost two weeks now,” Illumi said as he gently let his hand slide down to your stomach.

It was at that moment that you were reminded of your husband’s otherworldly intuition. Though Illumi couldn’t blame you for finding out two weeks later, as part of his preparations, he went so far as to start cooking more often.

A smoothie in the morning that perfectly concealed the prenatal vitamins he’d blended inside. They were perfect at combating any possibilities of morning sickness or dietary discomfort.

In addition, he made meals to accommodate any possible cravings you might’ve had that were also helpful for you.

Craving something sweet?

He got you a slice of your favorite cake with mango tea, a tea that is particularly beneficial for blood sugar levels and heart health, according to Zeno, the Zoldyck family’s chronic tea-drinking grandpa.

Craving something sour?

He’d cut you up a Granny Smith apple and squeeze a little bit of lemon juice on them while he made you dinner.

Craving anything and everything?

Illumi was always on his toes when it came to your needs, especially during such a sensitive time for you and your body, so no matter how odd or mundane the craving, your needs were met and satisfied always. 

Illumi was almost perfectly prepared, but what always caught him off guard were your occasional mood swings. 

Over time, he’d learned that the best method was to hold you and listen, and once you finished talking, to suggest that you both take a nap together so you could rest.

As you got further into your pregnancy and the baby started kicking, Illumi was glued to you.

Always trying to make sure you weren’t in any pain while also making sure that the baby’s kicks were always upwards as an indicator for a good birthing position for the baby meaning a simpler pregnancy for you.

The later you got into your pregnancy, the more you noticed how meticulous Illumi was.

Your hospital bag was already packed. He’d already begun preparing for your postpartum, and the baby bag was stocked and already at the hospital, as he wanted all his attention to be on you.

That being said, after you gave birth, Illumi immediately went straight to you as he took in the sight of you, tired and exhausted yet lovingly looking at your child, who immediately took after Illumi as they were a surprisingly quiet baby once soothed.

“You did so good. Are you alright? Do you need anything?” Illumi asked as he stood at your side, holding your hands in his.

You thought about it for a moment and said, “No, actually, I’m fine, 'llumi, you’ve been absolutely perfect.” 

You then gave your husband a soft kiss as you lightly squeezed his hand in reassurance.

“Oh? Would you like to try for another one then?” Illumi immediately stated.

While this was your first child, it’s safe to assume it might not be your last. •͈ᴗ⁃͈⊹

pt 1 | pt 2

The next three months looks like this:

It looks like him knowing, without being told, the way you take your tea; with too much sugar and not enough milk, and that you will not admit this is too much sugar even when confronted directly with evidence. It looks like you knowing that he comes back from the water on Tuesday mornings later than any other day, and that asking why produces an answer so technically detailed and so deliberately unhelpful that you have stopped asking. Mostly.

It looks like his shoes beside yours by the front door. Not every day. But enough days that you stopped noticing they were there and started noticing on the days they weren't.

It looks like you reading on the porch while he sits on the steps cataloguing something small and oceanic in that notebook of his and neither of you talking for an hour. It doesn’t feel like a thick, heavy silence. If anything it feels like a room you both live in.

It looks like those shells on the windowsill, which have multiplied by now. You haven’t moved a single one.

It looks like him standing in your kitchen one evening making dinner for the both of you, in that human form that you have grown quite accustomed to. The way he is wearing an oversized shirt, his hair slightly damp from the earlier shower and the smell of something delicious being cooked in the pan on the stove. And for a moment you just lay there, listening to him move around in there like it was the most natural thing in the world, which it was, which it had become, which you were still in the process of understanding the full weight of.

Three months which have slowly multiplied to six, look like the particular way he says your name sometimes, when he thinks you’re not paying attention. Like it is something he is still getting used to having permission to say.

And in between those months, both of you live in a world that’s patient and immovable. In a world filled with almost and maybe. The almost kisses in the kitchen that neither of you have mentioned and both of you have not forgotten for a single consecutive hour since. The “maybe if i pretend to be asleep beside him on the couch, he will stay the night”. It’s the moments where both want to say something but neither has enough courage to, remaining stuck in whatever tide you both are… And you’re running out of patience… almost.

But time goes by and in those six months Floyd arrived on a random Wednesday, which feels appropriate somehow. Chaotic things tend to happen on Wednesdays.

You are on the beach, close to the shore but not really, reading a book when something surfaces from the water at significant speed as if it was trying to announce itself. And you look up, eyes meeting that familiar green blue hues of eels, of Jade, but it cannot be him. Because Jade does not move like a wild shark, but more like an alligator: with deliberate and considered motions. This, whoever was, was taller (even if by a margin) and broader too. The heterochromia that had become so familiar in Jade was reversed and the grin that marked his face suggested that whoever he was, he had been waiting for this moment his whole life. And now he was going to have fun. 

“You’re the human,” he says, by way of greeting. Plopping down beside you, not too close, not too far. Enough to assess. 

“I’m a human,” you say carefully, “yes.”

“No,” he says,shaking his head, “you’re the human. Jade’s human.” He stops to observe you “You’re smaller than I thought.”

“Thank you,” you say, because nothing else comes.

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

“I know.”

“But you’re funny,” he says, tilting his head, “Jade said you were funny. I thought he was being weird about it because he’s weird about you, but you actually are.” He sounds genuinely surprised. 

You are saved from having to respond to this by Jade, who decides to appear from the direction of the water at a pace that suggests he has been informed of this visit and has feelings about it that are not necessarily pleasant, his expression is controlled as always.

“Floyd,” he says.

“She’s funny,” Floyd tells him, pointing at you.

“I’m aware,” Jade says.

“You didn’t say she was that funny.”

“I said she was funny.”

“You undersold it.”

“I will oversell your departure if you’d like to test me.”

Floyd grins at him, wide and unbothered, and then drops down onto the sand beside you without asking, which you suspect is simply how he operates in every space he enters. He looks up at you with those mismatched eyes and something in his expression is, underneath all the chaos, genuinely curious.

“You kept the necklace on,” he says, nodding at the pearl at your collarbone.

“I did,” you say.

He looks at Jade, then back at you, and something moves across his face that you cannot quite read. Then he nods, once, satisfied, like something has been confirmed.

“Okay,” he says. “You can make me tea.”

“I absolutely do not have to do that,” you say.

“She’s funny,” Floyd says to Jade again, delighted.

Jade moves, also still in his eel form, to sit beside Floyd but turned enough to face you too. His expression recalls the one of a man serving a sentence he has long ago accepted, while Floyd looks too delighted in the small chaos he brought along with him today. You cannot help but look at the differences, at how loud one is and calm the other is. Something warm and complicated moves through your chest. You go inside and make three cups of tea.

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°

Georgina is different.

Jade tells you about her visit three days in advance, which is itself a departure from his usual approach of presenting you with things as they are already happening. He tells you on a Thursday evening, sitting across from you at the kitchen table, and he tells you in the measured careful voice that you have learned means he is being precise because the thing he is saying matters to him.

“My mother,” he says, “has expressed a wish to meet you.”

You put your mug down. “Okay,” you say.

“She is—” he pauses. “She is not Floyd.”

“I gathered.”

“She is also not intimidating,” he says, and then, “well– she is somewhat intimidating. But it is not intentional.”

“Jade.”

“I want you to know that whatever she says she means kindly.”

“Jade,” you say again, softer. “I’ll be fine.”

He looks at you for a moment. “I know,” he says, in the tone of someone who does know and is fussing anyway and is aware of both of these things.

You meet her on a Sunday, the morning is very clear and the tide is low, and she comes from the water the way Jade does, unhurried and deliberate, except there is something about her that makes the whole shore feel slightly more formal, like the sea itself has straightened up a little.

She is extraordinary. That is the only word for it. Taller than both of her sons, loud without making any effort, long hair that reaches far past her back. Same wild grin as Floyd, same thin eyes as Jade. You had expected something and she is something else entirely. She looks at you for a moment, and you look back and do not look away, which feels important, and then something in her expression settles and she smiles, and the smile is warm and specific and directed entirely at you.

“She kept the necklace,” she says, to no one in particular. 

“Everyone keeps saying that,” you say.

“Because it matters,” she says simply, and then she takes your hands in both of hers and holds them for a moment in a way that feels soft and deliberate, but not frightening at all, and she says, “your grandmother spoke of you constantly. I am very glad you came back.”

Your throat does something you were not expecting.

“She spoke of you too,” you manage. “I found her journals.”

Georgina’s eyes move briefly to Jade, which just now you realise he had emerged from the water too, something passing between them that you don’t have the full context for, and then back to you. “Good,” she says, simply. “Then there is less to explain.”

You sit on the shore with her for two hours while Jade removes himself to a diplomatic distance and you are fairly certain she is the most gracious and subtly terrifying person you have ever met and you mean that entirely as a compliment. When she leaves she holds your hands again and says, quietly, so only you can hear, “he has always known his own mind. He simply requires, occasionally, a nudge in the right direction.”

You look at her.

“I’m working on it,” you say.

She smiles. “I know,” she says. “So is he.”

She goes back into the water and you stand there for a moment and then you turn around and Jade is exactly where you left him, watching you with that expression, and you look at him across the distance and think, quite clearly, that you are absolutely done with almost.

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°

You learn about Azul in random pieces, the way you learn about most things through Jade, which is to say gradually and always with the sense that you are receiving a highly curated version of events.

“He sounds unhinged,” you say one evening, chin on your hand, listening to a story about a contract that you still cannot get your head around and the legal dispute that followed.

“He is extremely competent,” Jade says.

“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“No,” Jade agrees, “they are not.”

“Did you like him?”

A pause. “I find him interesting,” Jade says, which you have learned is his version of yes when yes feels like too much information.

“Did he know about me? Or rather, does he know about me?”

Another pause, slightly longer.

“He knew I was…” Jade says, carefully, “periodically unavailable on certain tides.”

“Periodically unavailable,” you repeat.

“He did not ask further questions.”

“Smart man.”

“He is, unfortunately, very smart,” Jade says, with the tone of someone for whom this has been occasionally inconvenient.

You file Azul away next to Floyd in the growing cabinet of things that make up the edges of Jade’s life, the shape of the world he moves between, and you feel the warmth of being let into it even in pieces, even slowly, even like this.

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°

Then, at the end of the sixth month came Marco, in one afternoon of November, and with him also a bag over his shoulder and a tray of handmade biscuits in his hands. You meet him at the door and the hug lasts slightly longer than usual, but this is the usual way you two have always greeted each other since your first year of university, when you were in search of a place to cry and instead stumbled upon him tripping into a drumset. Yeah, that’s a story for another time.

He is your oldest friend and you love him in a way that cannot be quantified. In a way that’s definitely not romantically. But in retrospect you understand how it can be read from outside eyes, you just did not think this through back then. 

You spent that first afternoon between showing him around the cottage, the little seaside town, eating at a good restaurant nearby and laughing to the point that your mouth hurt from it and your belly was full of good memories. He is not trying to be anything other than your friend. You know this. But it’s harder to explain this to Jade, whom arrives at the cottage slightly later than usual and when he does he is met with unfamiliar shoes by the front door and you laughing in the kitchen with a man he does not know after one too many wine glasses. 

Jade shows absolutely nothing and is impeccably composed and greets Marco with the precise courtesy that you recognise as Jade operating on a register he does not normally use with you, all pleasant surface and nothing underneath it, and Marco, who can charm anyone, charms absolutely nothing out of him and is visibly puzzled by this in a way that would be funny under different circumstances. The circumstances are not different enough for it to be fully funny yet, however.

You see it because you know how to read in between Jade’s lines by now. The way his eyes track across the room when Marco leans over to show you something on his phone and his shoulder presses to yours. The quality of his stillness when Marco laughs at something you say, that specific laugh he has always done, head tilted back, too loud for indoors. The moment, brief and contained, when Marco reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind your ear because he has always done that, it means nothing, it has always meant nothing, except that Jade goes very quiet in a way that is different from his usual quiet.

Marco leaves the day after and hugs you for a long time at the door and whispers in your ear “whoever he is, he’s gone on you. Embarrassingly.” And then he gets in his car and drives away before you can respond.

You stand at the door for a moment. And by the time you go back inside and think about Georgina’s words, on how Jade simply requires a nudge, and you think about eleven years and you think about all of those almost, always almost, and something in you makes a decision quietly and without ceremony.

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

It takes four more days because the right moment keeps not being the right moment, which you suspect is partly circumstance and partly Jade, who is perceptive enough to sense a conversation approaching and composed enough to simply not walk into it. You let him not walk into it for four days, but on the fifth day, while you are both sitting at the kitchen table after dinner, playing (or rather pretending to play a card game) you speak.

“I want to know where we stand.”

He looks up from the cards in his hands.

“What do you mean,” he says.

“I think you know what I mean.”

A careful pause. “We stand where we have always stood,” he says, and it is not an answer and you both know it.

“That’s not an answer,” you say.

“It is an accurate description of—”

“Jade.” You look at him. “I am asking you plainly. I would like a plain answer.”

He holds your gaze for a moment and then he looks down at the cards in his hands and places them on the table. And when he looks back up his expression is doing the controlled effortful thing that you have seen before and have never been able to fully read until now.

“Some things,” he says, quietly, “are better approached carefully.”

“You have been approaching this carefully,” you say, “for six months. You were approaching it carefully for eleven years before that.”

“That is not—”

“I’m not angry,” you say, and you aren’t, which is important, you are something else entirely, something that is the far edge of patience worn down to its last honest thread. “I just want to know. That’s all. I just want you to tell me.”

He is quiet for a long moment.

“I think,” he says, “we should not have this conversation tonight.”

You look at him.

“Okay,” you say, and your voice is even and you stand up and you say, “I’ve been thinking, actually, that I might go back to the city for a bit. I have things there I’ve been putting off. It might be good to go back… And see Marco once again for a while I suppose.”

The room goes very still.

You are looking at the window, at the shells in the teal frames, and you hear the moment the silence changes from thick and still to something more desperate.

“When,” he says.

“I don’t know. Soon, maybe.” You keep your voice light. “It’s not for too long. I'll come back.”

Another silence. Longer.

“I see,” he says, and something in those two words is different, the composure still there but something underneath it that is not composed at all, and you turn around because you need to see his face, and his face is—

He is standing now. You didn’t hear him stand. He is looking at you and for the first time in three months, for the first time since you have known him in any form, the careful surface of him has something running beneath it that he is not fully managing, and your heart does something it has no business doing right now.

“Don’t,” he says. Quiet. Very quiet.

“Jade—”

“Don’t.” He says it again, and it is not a request exactly but it is not a command, it is something raw in the middle of both of them. He stands up and you do too, and he is closer than he allows himself in daylight, in ordinary hours, and he looks at you and you look back at him and the pearl at your collarbone is very warm.

“You want a plain answer,” he says.

“Yes,” you say.

“Then here is a plain answer.” His voice is low and it has lost the careful distance entirely now, all of it gone, and what is underneath is something you have been waiting six months to hear and longer than that if you are being honest. “There is not a room in this cottage or a stretch of that shore or a distance you could put between us that would change what I am trying very hard to manage every time you are near me.” He stops. His jaw moves. 

“I was raised to be patient. I was raised to be measured and careful and to approach things with the consideration they deserve, and I have done that, I have done that with you specifically and with more effort than you know, because you deserve it and because I was not going to be the thing that made you feel otherwise.” He looks at you and the gold eye is very bright in the low kitchen light. “But I am telling you plainly, since you asked plainly, that my patience is not limitless. And you standing in front of me saying you are thinking of leaving is not something I am willing to receive quietly.”

You don’t move.

“So don’t,” you say softly.

He looks at you. “Don’t what?”

“Receive it quietly,” you say. “I’m tired of quiet. I’ve been tired of quiet for months.”

Something gives way in his expression then, finally, he says your name in that voice, the one he uses when he thinks you’re not paying attention, except you are paying attention, you are paying all of it, and he closes the last bit of the distance between you two and kisses you the way that a tide comes in. Like it was always going to happen.

You hold the front of his shirt in both fists because the floor has become unreliable and he doesn’t seem to mind, his hands at your face, your waist, careful and then not careful, patient and then not patient at all. 

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°

Morning comes in through the teal framed windows the way it always does. The room is familiar and also completely new in the way that rooms become new when something in them has shifted permanently, and you lie still in the bed for a moment just existing in that. Clothes are still scattered around from last night, his body is warm and solid and very much naked beside you and for a moment you allow yourself to just feel instead of rushing head first in.

He is awake already. Of course he is. Lying on his back looking at the ceiling with the particular quality of someone who has been awake for a while and has been content to stay where they are, which is, you are learning, its own kind of statement from him.

He turns his head when he feels you move. You look at each other.

“Hi,” you say, which is not the most eloquent thing you have ever said but it is seven in the morning and you are working with what you have.

Something in his face does the warm underneath thing, openly, without the careful management you are used to. It looks good on him. It looks like something you want to see every day for a very long time.

“Hi,” he says back.

Outside a wave breaks against the shore, unhurried. The light moves through the shells on the windowsill and throws small soft shapes across the bed.

“You’re not going back to the city,” he says. It is not a question. But it is also, underneath it, very slightly, a question.

“I was never going back to the city,” you say.

“I know,” he says, in the tone of someone who did know you had been lying the night before.

“To be fair,” you say, “it worked.”

“It was manipulative,” he says.

“It worked,” you say again.

The corner of his mouth moves, then the other corner. Then he laughs, low, soft and quiet and real, the same laugh from the kitchen months ago. The same laugh that you have been collecting it, bottling all up, and if you could have gotten drunk off of it, you would have done so already. And the thought did not terrify you as much as it should have, really.

“Floyd is going to be insufferable about this,” he says, eventually after a moment.

“Floyd was already insufferable about this.”

“More insufferable.”

“Is that even possible?”

“With Floyd,” he says, with the weight of someone speaking from significant experience, “it is always possible.”

You turn onto your side to look at him properly. He is looking back at you with that expression, as if he was trying to decipher your soul, and your chest is so full of something warm and certain that it is almost funny.

“Tea?” you say.

“Please,” he says.

As you make the tea you think about that note in the cutlery drawer, the past few months, that letter your grandma had left you and how, if you hadn’t stared outside the window at twelve years old, maybe this would have never happened. 

I do know that you will be immensely happy.

You walk back in the room, with the awareness that your grandma has always been right. You hand him his tea, as if your mind hadn't just revolutionised your whole morning and simply sit beside him. He lifts his arm without looking up from the page of your book that he is currently reading, so that you can fit underneath it.

A gesture he could only have known to do because he knows you, because he has been paying attention, because he has been paying attention for a very long time. And you lean into him, resting on his bare chest and close your eyes. The ocean moves outside, steady and indifferent.

And everything is fine.

extra | 2 years later:

The thing about being married to Jade, which nobody tells you and which you have had to learn entirely through personal experience, is that patience is real but it is also finite, and the thing that most consistently exhausts it is his brother. It doesn’t help that now, two years into the marriage, you have finally managed to juggle between life above and under the surface, your eel form doesn’t feel odd, no anymore. 

And as you are drifting beside Jade, in the easy way you have gotten used to, current warm and unhurried. The two of you exist in the particular comfortable quiet of people who have long since stopped feeling the need to fill their silences. It is a good afternoon. It has been a good afternoon for approximately forty minutes, which is, you are learning, roughly how long a good afternoon lasts before Floyd becomes a factor. You feel it before you hear it. A disturbance in the current, distant and then not distant, moving fast and getting faster, and you look up from the coral you had been assessing and Jade looks up too and you look at each other.

“Floyd,” you say.

“Floyd,” he confirms with resignation.

Floyd arrives the way Floyd always arrives, which is at full speed with no particular concern for whoever is already occupying the space he is arriving into, except that this time he is also laughing, that big unhinged laugh that you have gotten genuinely fond of despite your better instincts, and he shoots past you both close enough that the current of him almost spins the both of you. 

“HI!!!” he shouts, not stopping. No looking back.

“Floyd,” Jade calls back.

“Can’t stop,” Floyd says, voice already smaller in the distance, “busy.”

“What did you do,” Jade calls back.

“Nothing,” Floyd shouts back, from very far away now.

Then Azul arrives.

You have met Azul thrice, all under circumstances in which were civilised and involved furniture and a table between every party, and he was on both occasions composed and precise as Jade had described him in the past. You, however, have never seen Azul in the water before. Azul in the water is still composed, technically, but thanks to his much bigger form, he is moving with a focused energy that suggests he has completely abandoned the concept of dignity in favour of something more pressing. Or to put it simply: Floyd is about to get his ass handed to him.  

He stops when he sees you both, because even mid chase Azul is constitutionally incapable of not acknowledging a social situation, and he straightens (as much an octopus can at least), and for one extraordinary moment he simply nods at you both like he has passed you in a corridor.

“Good afternoon,” he says, slightly out of breath, and a tight smile. 

“Azul,” Jade says.

“Jade.” A pause. He glances in the direction Floyd disappeared. His jaw moves. “Your brother,” he says, with great control, “has done something.”

“Yes,” Jade says.

“I am going to need you to be more surprised than that.”

“I am not surprised,” Jade says simply.

Azul looks at you, perhaps hoping for a more satisfying reaction.

“What did he do,” you ask, because you genuinely want to know and also because someone should ask.

“He—” Azul stops. He seems to be deciding how to phrase it. This takes a moment. “He made certain alterations,” he says carefully, “to a document.”

“What kind of alterations?”

“Creative ones,” Azul says, in a tone that suggests creativity is an understatement. 

“My condolences,” you say, trying (and failing) to keep your mouth at bay because the last thing you need is to laugh now.

Something in his expression suggests this is not quite enough but that he appreciates it nonetheless, and then Floyd’s voice comes back from some distance ahead, cheerful and completely unbothered. Azul nods at you both again.

“Lovely to see you,” he says, on instinct, pure reflex. "We are still on for next week, right? Dinner at yours guys?" Without even receiving an answer he goes,and you watch him go. Then you look at Jade. Jade is looking at the middle distance with the expression of a man who has made his peace with many things over the course of his life and this is simply the most recent of them. Then he reaches out without looking for your hand, carrying on your guy's swim. 

“I believe that we...” he says, “might not be delighted by Floyd's presence next week. ”

“You believe?” you asked back, amused

“Indeed I do." you don't miss how the corners of his lips curl slightly in the resemblance of a smirk. 

Somewhere in the distance Floyd laughs, enormously loud and bright, and something that sounds like Azul’s shouting at him follows it, clipped and exasperated, and the current carries both of them away until the water is quiet again, warm and easy and lit from above in long pale columns that move across everything slowly.

“I love your family,” you say after a moment of peace, and you mean it, which is the funniest part.

Jade looks up at you with a warm expression, one that even after two years of marriage is always refreshing to see as if it was a completely new thing to discover, again and again.

“They are,” he says, “an acquired taste.”

“Lucky for you I have good taste.”

The corner of his mouth moves. “Lucky for me, indeed” he agrees, quietly, and goes back to study whatever he had been studying before and the ocean moves around you both in the warm unhurried way it has always moved, and somewhere above the surface the cottage sits on the shore with its teal frames and its shells still in the windows, and this is your life, all of it, the quiet and the chaos and everything in between.

And you wouldn’t change a single thing about it.

tags: @tohrusribbon @mousedit @soramcduckahyucky @yourcuttingedge @dweeb-central @cherry-blossom-2137 @0bluesky0 @sewingsimplysews

targaryen!hollis x fem!reader

set in the universe of A Knight Of The Seven

Kingdoms.

༺𓆩༒︎𓆪༻

EVERY TIME A TARGARYEN IS

BORN, THE GODS TOSS A COIN

IN THE AIR.

⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖

⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖

“I’M A DRAGON,

YOU’RE A WHORE

DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU’RE GOOD FOR

MIMICKING ME IS A FUCKING BORE

TO ME, BUT BABE -

LAY ME DOWN TONIGHT,

IN MY DIAMONDS AND PEARLS.”

- ‘FUCKED MY WAY TO THE TOP’ , LANA DEL REY.

༺𓆩༒︎𓆪༻

The youngest line of Targaryen Princelings had arrived in Ashford just as the sky had began to turn a milky lilac, signalling the plunge of the sun - and the rise of the moon, the last before the morrow’s joust.

The majority of them, for the most part.

Daeron (drunken, and considerably late, but still present), Aemon, Aegon, and-

“Where the fuck are The Twins?” Daeron uttered, stumbling across the cobblestones of Ashford’s square, intoxicated and disgruntled.

“I’m fucking late by hours, and they still haven’t shown their faces? Surely they must be the least-favourites now, Father - what a lousy impression.”

Daeron continued to jest and ramble, a wobble in his step that made the kings’ guard lurch forward, anticipating that whenever the drunken Targaryen swayed a little too sharply left, he’d topple over.

Prince Maekar winced at the sight of his eldest, dismissing his behaviour and signalling with a wrist-flick to the guardsmen to haul the murmuring, rambunctious princeling to his temporary chambers within the castle.

He then turned to Baelor, a curl to his lip - his tone was levelled, but pointed - a father who had dealt with the unruliness of his spawn aplenty, and who had yet to control it.

“I must locate my sons.” He grits, yet somehow maintaining his curt expression, “It seems they have gone awry along the way. Again.”

Baelor snorts, leaning in to level to his younger brothers’ ear.

“Check the local whorehouses.” He chuckles at his brothers’ dilemma, “-Thy sons be cursed with fleshly desires, brother - for they are only two and zero.”

Maekar sneers, before beckoning the reigns of his palfrey be handed back to him - pardoning himself as he remounts the horse, internally promising himself to clout both of his sons’ round their proud ears for this diminishing first impression towards the Ashfords.

⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖

“Come, Locket!”

You ignore the first call of your name, for you had just lined your Cupid’s bow intricately in deep red lacquer, and you were determined to apply the same precision to the bottom.

“Locket!” Another shrill beckoning, to which the rise in shrillness and urgency makes you flinch - a blur of red now across your chin like a dribbling rivulet of flesh blood.

You looked like you’d been pelted in the teeth.

For the sun had not fully set yet; the sky only just beginning to turn from a dusty pale lavender into a deep, velvety bruising of deep purple - it was not nightfall. Your shift had not yet started, so why were you being called for?

What did the Bawd want?

“Gods, Marge! You’ve corrupted my visage!” You whine, now frantically trying to scrub the staining lacquer off of your chin, to no avail.

“- I look like a drunken crone most foully!”

Marge - The Bawd; brothel keeper alongside her husband - the bastards that took sixty percent of your earnings and fed you stale bread and corked wine, but happened to be the only brothel owners in miles - burst in, all flouncing skirts and greying hair curled into ringlets like sausages.

Her eyes crinkled deeper at your bewildered expression towards her flurrying urgency - for the business wasn’t to resume for the evening for at least half the hour.

“You have not heard?” She gawked, swiftly licking a finger - similarly to how a toad would dart out its lengthly tongue to swat a swamp fly - and pinching your stained chin between her fingers.

“The Dragon Princelings,” she began, roughly rubbing with her saliva-dampened, calloused pad of her thumb at the stubborn lacquer remnants on your skin, “They’re in Ashford.”

“Targaryens? In Ashford?” You chuckle, amidst trying to shimmy away from the Bawd’s grasp, “What business do they have here? Drought of cider, maybe?”

“The Jousting, silly girl!” Margie reprimanded, managing to somewhat scrub off the cosmetic stain from your flesh, and the contact felt as if she were near searing your skin off.

The Jousting. Of course.

Pleased with her work against your face, she stepped away from you, now squirming at your vanity, clasping her clammy, aged hands over her skirts.

“- They’re here.”

Ah.

You click your tongue against the roof of your mouth, tickled by this newfound realisation.

“The Targaryen princes dabble in the whorehouses of Ashford?” You grin, resuming your application, “Who would’ve thought. I deemed that family to be full of vice - disdainful toward women that aren’t their sisters, cousins, or daughters of lords.”

A stinging clip to the shell of your ear elicits a sudden whelp from you, a warm ache pulsating there. You pivot, glaring.

“Hush! You darest speak treason within these vaults? Fie upon it, they may overhear!” Margie fumed, plump cheeks swollen with fury at your apparent blasphemy.

“Your foul words be treason most dire.”

You bite your tongue, jumping muscles clenched between teeth as you bit back your petty venom, for Margie was right - it was definite suicide, speaking the way you were now knowing that descendants of Dragons were in your vicinity.

You slowly turn away again - fingers dipping into another cosmetic ointment, lavender elixir that softened the flesh of your face.

You ignored the gentle burning sensation that you’d grown familiar to, as the subtle blush it elicited upon your cheeks was the desired look.

“They beseech fair maidens. ‘Tis early, yet you must tend to them.” The Bawd continued, now pressed to your back, fingers raking roughly through your auburn curls, knotting them - to which you try to lean away.

“I shall attend unto them when I be in a state for it.” You respond cooly now, undoing her damage to your hair by patting it down.

“Hear me now. You shall not keep them waiting - depart.”

She orders, and you scowl - raising from your vanity stool, rickety Oakwood legs scraping against splintering floors.

Margie follows you out of the room and towards one of the private, curtained-off lounge areas - a hand resting on your exposed slope between your neck and shoulder.

“Verily. They shall mint for us coins of great weight!” She excites, eager for the weight of aplenty royal currency to weigh her dirty pockets down.

“I am told one of the Twins hath a peculiar fondness for maidens of fair complexion and tresses of flame.”

“- I shall grant him most righteous satisfaction, then.” You deadpan, descending the stairs - swallowing the bile that rose upon hearing of the Dragon Princelings’ combined reputations, and how you were to be their pliant fantasy for the night.

“Your Graces,” Margie announced once you’d reached the landing, you on her arm like some sort of impressive cattle to auction, “- One of my finest girls.”

Against the plain plastered walls of the brothel, the Twins were almost fluorescent, expecting.

Stark against the dreary wooden beams and the unadorned stone, they were like some seraphic premonition - fine, leather-sheathed, platinum-haired fallen angels, with demeanours that deceived, and undeniable features that deceived even further.

It were like you’d been struck fatally around the skull - been stroked by death momentarily and visited by heaven’s prophets - and in a suffocating haze, you saw doubles of a beautiful creature, so striking in appearance they could easily pass as being sculpted by the gods firsthand.

Their main difference that kept you firmly grounded that you were not hallucinating seemingly impossible beauty in a double of a young man being the drastic lengths of their hair.

Immediately upon bestowing their sight upon you, one, of a slighter height and of shorter hair upon observation, lightly elbowed the other in the ribs through their dark dressing.

Followed by a velvety murmur of something along the lines of,

“She’s yours.”

A sharp nudge in your own side snapped you back to reality from your absorbing trance - from Margie, who was silently urging you to address the two Princes of the Blood properly.

You curtsy, and internally curse at yourself at the slight tremor in your form.

“Your Graces.” You greet, eyes adhered to the ground, as the thought of meeting theirs nauseated you - the jesting confidence you’d flaunted so proudly earlier as you snickered at their mention had dissipated. You may as well be a ruddy puddle at their boots now.

On the right was Aerion Targaryen. Appearing slim, but you knew not to be deceived by this - you’d heard of his combatting skills, the aggression in his hands.

Average height, but nonetheless stunning. Cropped short was his hair, spun like glass that was almost an iridescent silver, like liquid moonlight, or liquidised coin.

It were styled like scales, tufts styled in little outlets that stuck out slightly, like bristling dragon scales. How fitting.

His eyes were of a dark violet, like those of the tart berries you’d find deep in the forest, tangled amongst thorns. Set in silken, pale unblemished skin like freshly-set snow.

His face was sculpted and imperious - a high brow, defined cheekbones, and a straight nose.

Contrary to the rumours that circulated the man’s’ flamboyant sense of fashion, he seemed to have toned himself down - to keep his lustful endeavours more subtle, unseen in the night.

He were dressed in a shrouding black cloak, lined with what appeared to be a deep red satin lining, long dragging sleeves, clasped with silver joiners, in the shape of claws.

His Twin, to the left - the one who Aerion had nudged for his alleged, assumed fondness toward wenches of your appearance, was Hollis.

He appeared equally as Targaryen, as beautiful - but his name was unlike. You could’ve questioned it, but that thought was of no value to you, and could cost you your tongue.

He was taller, but built similarly. Slender, yet you knew he was of to be of similar temperament and physical strength of his boisterous counterpart. Not to be underestimated, as if Targaryens were ever to be.

His eyes were of paler violet, though - similar to the milky, dewy lavender skies during a newborn sundown. Like rows of tender, delicate violets from the most fertile soil.

Crystalline locks that were almost a trademark to their name, unlike his brothers, were lengthly; draped across his chest - pin-straight, obviously styled, the front, face-framing strands appearing to be braided back, emphasising his features in the candlelight.

He appeared far more androgynous than his twin in that way, a regal elegance to him that was softer when side-by-side to his prickly brother.

The more you gaped like some entranced commoner, you discovered more and more slight differences between the two.

An aquiline nose he had, compared to Aerion’s button-esque, straight one, yet their defined high-set cheekbones were the same.

Skin of ivory perfection, like a chiselled slab of marble that you swore, like most of their attributes, captured and absorbed any near light source, an ethereal glow to them that you were sure made yourself appear blemished and dull.

A fae look he held himself, to which Aerion’s constrained - he were more like a dragon, of course. You’d heard he believed he thought were one stuck in a humanoid form.

His attire consisted of the same cloak, except his lining was a silken onyx, like beneath his clothing were a stolen fraction of a shimmering, summer-nights sky - clasped by gold, instead of his brothers’ silver adornments.

A little more humble compared to Aerion’s adornment choices, if that were even possible for a Targaryen to achieve - maybe an insulting term, but it were true.

The following interactions were swift; transactional.

The sound of jingling, aplenty coin being tossed into the hands of one of the brothel owners beside you, and a jolt to your spine as you are ushered toward the paying brother, who’d staked his claim on you for the evening.

“Locket, see The Prince to the chambers.”

And so you did, still avoiding either of their watchful gazes as you bowed, heart beating in your throat like some hunted hare - pupils dilating with a concoction of newfound fear, and adrenaline at what was to come.

You’d entertained drunken bastards, low-lords, snaking husbands and the odd traveller that was easy on the eye, but never a Prince - and you could feel the scrutinising glares of your Bawds’ expectations weighing heavily on your shoulders.

Upon your ascent back up the stairs to your designated quarters, The Prince was following after immediately - he kept his distance, at least five steps behind you, but his presence was hefty, and you felt as if you were to trip and tumble with every step upwards.

You hadn’t dare peer over your shoulder.

“Have fun, brother.” You heard Aerion whistle at the bottom of the stairs playfully, “Play nice. Gods know I shall not.”

There was no response, and you were unsure whether that was to be of further concern, or not.

Your chambers were large, and plainly common. Devoid of any luxurious decoration or any shred of personality, solely meant to contain only one thing - the most extravagant aspect being the guaranteed clean bed linens.

The door groaned closed behind the two of you - followed by the grating clunk of the metal latch being closed, sealing your fate with the Dragon’s spawn, confined like cornered prey between four bland walls.

A singular candle on the windowsill illuminated the room, thin canopy curtains rippling gently in the nighttime breeze through the barely-open window.

He spoke first, which had shocked you initially - usually, these transactions are wordless. Straightforward. Verbal foreplay is rare, and had unnecessary sentiment - usually, you’d be thrown onto the bed by now, and put to work by man’s overwhelming greed.

“Locket? That is your name?”

His voice were of low octave, slightly mocking - you were not of enough significance to be taken seriously, obviously.

You slowly turn now, arms curling behind yourself to begin to loosen the ribbons of your dress, saving time.

“For tonight, Aye.”

You nod timidly, and it took almost all of your composure and willpower to hold his eye - irises like bouquets of fresh lavender, like the ointment you’d massaged into your flesh earlier, minus the delicate connotations associated with the flower - for Targaryens were anything but.

His lips parted, as if he were to ask Why, for he had that jurisdiction - the privilege, the ability to question, tracing you.

His curiosity was satiated when his eyes settled on your breastbone - the silver pendant that rested there between your shoulder blades, on a thin chain. Locket.

Instinctively, your hand raised, fingers cupping and curling over the warmed metal resting against your flesh as if it were your only way to defend yourself - for it felt as if he were reading past the metal jewellery, and straight into your soul.

You cleared your throat. He hadn’t followed with anything else, just watched - like he were playing with his food, or figuring out how to prepare it.

The candle flickered and sputtered, casting dancing shadows across the expanse of the room, amber lowlight licking at his features, haloing you as you had your back to it.

“What service may I render thee, my Grace?”

You speak wearily, trying to stick to your script. You’d done this a thousand times before with men of similar intimidation - of denser frame and muscle, but the breed of blood than ran through his veins and bled through his features diseased you with an untameable shiver.

His brow heavies, for a moment - creasing his pale skin, and even the thoughtful contortion of his features did not detract from his effervescent, celestial beauty.

And then, it had began to play out just as any other night of work. It were back on its rails, and you felt as if you had recovered some sense of direction in the situation.

Or so you thought.

“Get on the bed, onto your back.”

And you adhered.

Letting go of your protective hold upon your necklace where you’d harvested your whoring alias and resuming to remove your articles of clothing as you approached the bed.

Until, the ribbon had bunched and tangled mid-removal - and you faltered, your fingers now desperately trying to untangle the material, growing more panicked by the second.

The Prince watched, deft fingers working at the clasps of his cloak - you reprimanded yourself for not offering to take it from him the second he’d stepped through the door, but he didn’t seem bothered.

He hadn’t even glanced down at the material to make sure his fingers were in the right direction to unclasp each glinting golden adornment.

For he was undoing them with such ease, such blasé that reinstated your confidence in the fact that the Targaryen Twins most definitely dabbled in lustful misdemeanours late at night as plenty as the rumours they had carried across the villages.

The exorbitantly-calibered fabric fell around him with a hefty clunk, most likely the metal clasps colliding with the hardwood floor - in the stillness of the air, you jumped at the sudden noise.

He stepped over the pool of dense, rippling fabric that you were sure cost the equivalent of your yearly coin intake like it were a pile of horseshit - heavy boot against wood, slow, methodical. Towards you.

You let him impede towards you with an almost alarming lack of urgency, like he were amused by the fact that each step he took closer, your demeanour fractured - like a trembling skeletal leaf in a bitter winter wind.

He is mere inches from you now, when he motions with a dismissive nod for you to turn, your back facing him.

Based off of what you’d heard, if he were anything of similar nature to his twin, this would be where he were to probably impale you with some dagger - indulge in some masochistic urge the bloodline seemed to carry like it were some amusing accessory, wreaking carnage.

“You are trembling.” He observed, a decorated smugness to his tone, like it were something he were used to experiencing in his wake, amused at your unease, “Does a chill seize you?”

He jests, and suddenly a gentle tug jolts you backwards, almost stumbling backwards into his chest - he is undoing your dresses, untangling your messes for you, presumably with the same ease as he did his own cloak.

Amidst doing so, he lowers his lips to your ear.

“- Or are you wracked by fear?”

Your own lips part to defend yourself, to conjure an excuse to your cowardice when you were being paid to offer a professional service.

It was then where you feel him place a kiss behind your ear - taunting, chaste.

He follows by slotting a hand around the nape of your neck, lifting it to guide your coiled auburn hair away from its obstruction over the back of your corset, letting it fall over your shoulder.

“Do you tremble at the thought of what I might do to you?” He queries, although he already knows the answer.

He lulls the searing jolt of adrenaline mixed with the deep-set dread within you that his provoking rhetorical questions evoked from you by licking at the same stripe of skin he’d kissed prior, skin now fully exposed there after tidying your hair away to the other shoulder.

You were practically vibrating at the expense of his words beneath his tongue, to which he laughs - short, and expectant.

Like this were a sadistic ritual he partook in to fill the void of boredom that came with being a waiting heir, with plenty of time to waste.

Another pretty thing disintegrating in the crosshairs of royalty built upon unmistakeable beauty and unrelenting cruelty, unravelling.

And he, like the rest of his predecessors, revelled in your unravelling - wrapping the fibres of you around his fingers like some pliant thread to weave into an intricate tapestry - a consequence of power and influence that bought him a level of gratification that left him lightheaded, similar to being on the battlefield.

He were to experience this with the jousting tournament on the morrow, and he were to experience it with you, right now, until he deemed himself satisfied - and you, spent.

He withdrew, continuing to unlace you - painfully slow, deliberately dragged out - like he were watching a dove flapping frantically within the confines of a cage, and he had the power to release you, and was in no hurry.

“I am not like my brother.” He attempts to reassure, although the statement is still somewhat ominous, “I seek no gratification through grievous harm like he.”

The sound of delicate ribbon slinking and whipping through eyelets in its undoing, of fingers brushing against satin, bumping against the structural boning.

“- Nor do I desire to leave you in dread, or bereft of spirit.”

With this, your dress corset loosens and gapes loosely around your torso, to where he uncases it from around you - letting it drop to the floor, your skirts now loose also, draping low on your hips - begging to be drawn down also.

You deliberately wore little undergarments - as in your line of work, they were considered inconvenient, time-wasting obstacles that obstructed paying customers from what they wanted. Time wasters.

So you were bare before him now, as your thin linen underdress had slipped off of your shoulders and been gently tugged away with your corset.

His fingers dip, tracing the groove of your spine that ended between the dimples of your lower back.

“Yet, if you’d grant me leave..”

He continued silkily, hands raising to rest on either of your collarbones - lightly massaging, rolling slowly back and forth, rolling faint bone beneath flesh against his palm like he were tenderising you for his usage - running them slowly along the slopes of your shoulders, and settling each hand to cup your glenohumural joints.

You’d anticipated his sentence, heart like a jackhammer beneath your skin - but the close never followed.

Maybe he’d decided it be more amusing to keep you in the dark regarding his intentions - to keep you oblivious and trembling at his expense.

You face him now, cheeks flushed, lashes heavy as you still evade his gaze - tend to his watchful violets, and through a dry throat, you utter;

“- You say you are not cruel..” You begin, and your eyes are immediately forced to meet his own as you follow your wrist that was now victim to his grasp.

He raised it to his lips like it were some bountiful chalice of fine wine, licking at the pulse point there as if he were finding the most lewd, obscene ways to study your heart rate.

The gently sucks at the fragile skin there, tongue tracing the rivets where veins pulsated beneath the film of flesh - and you go lightheaded, a small gasp leaping from you.

“… But I have heard of the shamefalle deeds you and your brother have committed in saundry realms.”

The licking suction then turns into a testing, soft scraping bite of teeth snagging against skin - dull nipping as the corners of his mouth twitched upwards.

“Have you now?” Hollis chuckles darkly, “- How do these “deeds” pertain unto my manner of behaving towards women in their privy chambers?”

You break away from him; for a second, forgetting that he is a prince - of royalty, where everything and everyone is expected to break and bend under his will if it was what he wanted.

But it was too late, you’d already withdrawn - instead, you use your brief escape as a way to make over to the bed, pulling down the remainder of your clothes - now entirely bare.

“The ferocity does not solely reside in thy outward acts and pastimes, my Prince.” In an attempt to save face, you purr the last part - in the same way that would make any man paying for your services melt, “ ‘Tis in thine very blood.”

You follow his initial orders now, easing yourself down onto the mattress - stale linen rough against your skin as you shimmy upwards, exposed and on your back.

You sit up on your forearms when you reach your desired position, and slowly - just as he were moving, you parted your legs for him, as he stood at the foot of the bed.

He looks now as if he were a starved man after a pilgrimage with the duration of many relentless moons at the sight of a banquet the size of a kings’ celebratory feast.

“You speak with such assurance of my temperament as if you are acquainted with my ancestors; not rumours.”

The sound of boots being unlaced, and thudding against the floor. Then, you watch as his fingers - while he is still un-looking, pull his over shirt, then his chemise off of his torso - discarding them.

He circled the bed now, settling at the side of the mattress - a dexterous hand now hooking over your knee, caressing the skin of your inner thigh.

He looked shirtless how you’d expected - lean, polished flesh that rippled with aplenty muscle, a fine dusting of white-blonde hair that looked like shredded glass sprinkled atop powder-white complexion.

Whenever the candlelight caught him, it was like his body refracted the light - shimmering the way morning dew would off of the smooth, waxy leaves of wildflowers in the nearby meadows.

Most of his torso was concealed to you as of right now, though - as his trailing hair cut off just past his ribs, cascading snowdrifts of braids and - with the damp air of the ran-down brothel, gradual waves, not so pin-straight and maintained as it were styled to be before.

As he craned over you, his platinum locks - with their waves, now reminding you of the gushing lake whenever it would freeze over and glaciate in the harsh Ashford winters - brushed against your bare thighs, tickling the skin.

Absentmindedly, he tucked the escaping braids that had loosened from the gathering at the back of his hair behind his ears - a gesture he surely did a thousand times a day as his hairstyle wore away with daily wear, but that made you entrap your bottom lip between your teeth.

It was cruel of the Gods to manufacture generational vessels of evil and make its casings so sickeningly-pretty.

Maybe as an apology, to ease the impact of the carnage they wreak upon the people - to justify their rotten cores, sweeten their corruption.

Or, maybe it was to further mock you, and everyone else.

Maybe these people truly were given the upper hand undeservingly, and their desire to take and take and take and rarely provide had somehow earned them the rights to look the way they did, too - why not let them obtain every form of power, including that of ultimate beauty?

For you could only imagine being crumpled at the hands of a Targaryen, and having their faces be the last image of reality looming over you before you die - a blessing to bestow firsthand, but a burning curse that’d haunt you in the afterlife, knowing you died at the hands of the house that had everything, and still did whatever they could to obtain more.

“You did quake with fear on my account,” He recalls, chin now resting upon your knee, hand roaming closer towards your core, “- And now, you are suddenly.. bolder and more profane.”

You hum at the sensation of his advances, watching his hands pinch and scrape and caress your flesh, tendering to an inclining intensity as he travelled further.

“- Mayhap this does dwell within your blood too, as my.. “cruelty” does?”

He speaks coherent, confident sentences, although his expression is distant now - distracted, eyes transfixed between your legs as he peers over.

Even a somewhat-human, Targaryen Prince is easily susceptible to lust - just as you, and any other common-man is.

That is something, that in this moment, certified his humanity, and in a twisted way, comforted you. For now, he had the same raw, informal urge eclipsing his eyes as any man did when he were paying to be between your legs.

He was still in his braies and chausses, you’d noticed.

“Shall we see if we can taste it?” He invites, and before you can respond, he’s already between your legs now - silver-white locks stark, pearly against even the clean, fresh bed linens, in silken pools like spilling, honeyed milk.

You yelped, as he’d yanked you down to the edge of the bed - he’d somehow settled at the foot of it, knees on the hardwood floor, unbothered - arms hooked behind your calves like he were reigning in a rowdy animal.

Lips latch to your inner thigh - and he bites.

It feels like punishment for your words, each inclining nip a little firmer and sharper than the last - canines puncturing skin, and you wonder if the Targaryens have some special set of teeth as yet another semblance to the Dragon they spend their existence priding themselves to.

Maybe, if he took your breathy snipes to heart as his hot-headed brother surely would, you’d find yourself strung up and hung on the morrow before the jousting even were to begin.

“What temerity do you harbour in your veins.. that has you speaking like this to a Dragon Prince?” He whispers, “Does valour weigh heavy in your blood, as malice does mine?”

At the immense attention to your ever-growing sensitive area close to your core, your back cranes upward, and you reach for anchor - which, when your body decides that clawing at the mattress isn’t enough, you grasp at his hair.

And Gods, he fucking groans.

Long and gravelly, his strokes on your skin immediately slowing, mellowing - you’d satiated the Dragon princeling working between your legs momentarily, stunning it briefly with the incapacitation of fuelled touch.

Who knew Targaryens liked hair-pulling? Bratty - actually, very in character.

You came to at the sound, immediately raising your hand as if to withdraw and profusely apologise - maybe even plead for forgiveness to keep your head, to promise to never touch the assets of something, someone you are so direly inferior to that an unwarranted touch could be an act of high treason in itself.

But, it spurred him on, instead of offending him - as this seemed to jolt him into action properly, mouth now working on your core.

Between laps of you - one hand firmly on your thigh, keeping your legs parted for his insertion, the other grasping for your hand that wasn’t in his hair,

He secures your hand in his own, bringing it down to his mouth, the motion alone single-handedly straightening you out, forcing you to sit up so it could reach his mouth that sat low between your legs.

“You said you didn’t want to cause me harm..” You gasp out, fingers curling into his hair, braids wrapped around your fingers like the finest, softest rope confining you to him, “yet you speak of bloodshed.”

“I ask to sample thy most rightful blood,” He defends innocently, and his words muffle and vibrate through you between laps of his tongue, “- Thou may deny me, though.”

Who are you to deny a Targaryen? His sex-drunken words must be some sort of trap, and maybe your severed limbs were this goal from the start.

You let out a damning whine at the sensation of him latched onto you - tongue working almost as intricately and with direct intention as their fiery attitudes and quick wit.

Hollis took your lack of retort as a need to proceed, briefly detaching himself from you to lick at your fingers.

You should’ve anticipated that the Targaryen Princelings would be skilled with their sharp tongues - you’d seen them, pouty and spitting venom at past jousts you’d been touring around to pleasure the attendees.

Dragons are described as to have long, forked tongues designed to “taste” the air, hiss menacingly, and channel their fire.

- And it sure felt as if that is another reptilian attribute Hollis Targaryen possessed.

Taking your middle and pointer fingers into his mouth, slickened by you - he lapped at them, tongue twisting between the two digits, teeth snagging every now and then.

His other hand had snaked from around your calf to work on your core in the others’ absence, even slightly inserting the tip inside of you, to which you cried out, even at the minimal feeling.

Too distracted now by his fingers coaxing slowly into you, you were unsuspecting - until a sharp pain pierced through the tip of your own finger, similar to when you’d accidentally impale yourself with an embroidery needle.

He’d impaled your fingertip within his mouth with his canine - you wouldn’t be surprised if he were also bearing impeccably sharp, curved, blade-like teeth for tearing flesh as their reptilian counterparts had.

He said he did not mean to cause grievous harm, but he never denied not being cruel.

Either way, you valued your tongue, and you did not protest when aggression eventually had made its way into the chamber.

You’d suspected it, and he had fulfilled - you just would’ve assumed he’d taken to you with a dagger, rather than his teeth.

But Targaryens are animalistic, and you should’ve known.

Play nice, brother. Gods know I won’t.

Aerion’s warning rattled off the walls of your skull as you welcomed the burning, dulling pain in your fingers, that his circling tongue was easing - dare you say, like an apology, though you knew that was unlike.

You wondered which one of the poor whores had landed herself with the arguably more-madden twinned prince a few rooms down - what horrors he were unleashing onto her.

Maybe, you were grateful that this was the extent of the violence for now - that he wasn’t pushy, and that you were enjoying it.

His mouth released your fingers with an explicit, wet sound - and as anticipated, a small crimson bead had angrily headed the afflicted tip of your finger.

Pleased with his work, Hollis lowered your own, now bleeding hand to your heat.

“Touch yourself, dove.” He purred now, and you did - circling your most sensitive area with the exact finger he’d mildly mutilated, smearing your gore all over yourself, for his pleasure.

“Hollis..” You whined, attempting to keep up with the pace he was pleasuring you with - hips stuttering, you hadn’t even computed you’d referred to the Princeling as his first name.

Comedically on queue, outside of Hollis’ pleased noises and your own moans, you’d heard a muffled “Aerion!” From down the hall.

Even during bedding, the twins seemed to compete.

His princely impatience was evident now, as he’d grown tired of merely watching you smear your blood all over yourself - swatting your hands away and out of his way so he could taste this new mixture of your slick and your gore himself.

Fingers now hooking inside you, he lowered himself to taste.

“Fuck,” He breathes out, drinking you and your bleeding fluids in like it were the heaviest liquor, the sweetest cider after a parching summers’ day, “You’re sweet, so fucking sweet.”

Your fist was still full of his soft, ribboning silver mane - woven around your fingers, keeping it from draping over and into his face.

The first, and definitely last time you were to ever touch the hair of a Targaryen. A privilege that only a scarce amount of people were ever able to boast, all while keeping all of their dignity and limbs.

You were sure to finish soon, but he wasn’t ready. Not yet.

Feeling you clench around his digits desperately, back arching, tugs at his hair becoming more erratic, he stopped.

Standing, he raised from the edge of the bed, stepping onto the mattress to kneel over you.

The Targaryens loved trophies. Whether it were in battle from conquest, or in the bedroom - they wanted to take their ruin in, indulge in their damage.

You, disappointed at the loss, were basically squirming beneath him like a dove clipped of its wings - eyes screwed shut, chest hollowing, your body tremors with pending release.

Your fiery auburn locks were splayed beneath you now, coiling inferno nesting your pretty head - stuck out in all directions like a blur of flame, skin hot to the touch.

This was why he loved red hair. Anything resembling fire, he adored - especially if it involved a fair woman, for a halo of silken hair resembling it, mussed and fierce at his ruin paired with supple, soft skin - it made Hollis carnal.

He drank you in, pale violet eyes feasting upon you - glaciated over like he’d been fighting sword to steel all day, and been told he’d won.

“Nũhor nyke perzys.” He whispered, finger lifting to push gently at the plush of your bottom lip, your mouth agape as you heaved in need below him.

High Valyrian - a tongue of which your blood was not supreme enough to speak, that you could never learn; nor comprehend.

My fire.

You watched as he withdrew his hand, now unbuckling himself, beginning to free himself - the fine, barely-there hair that trailed from his abdomen to below his belt - the way his abdominal muscles flexed beneath the spitting candlelight, hair brushing your raised knees as you braced for him.

How, when you’d managed to muster the strength to open your eyes and let your pupils refocus, you saw the slight reddened tinge to his lips - your blood, to which he darted out his tongue and lapped it away, momentarily glancing to your pricked finger and back down to your heat - as if to debate asking you to conjure up more of you for him to consume.

“Aerion, fuck!” The same shrill female voice wailed from the end of the hall - and then, a clatter of objects sounded, maybe a bed leg breaking or a stool toppling over - to which both yourself and Hollis both grinned.

The brief flicker of amusement you felt quickly dissipated though, when you watched him paw himself slowly through the strain of his garments, teasing his release.

Holy shit, you were about to ride a Dragon. Seriously.

Hollis were about to lower himself down to meet you once more - hover his blood-smeared lips over your own, to join your lips for the first time tonight - a different level of burning intimacy he’d yet to allow you, but you so desperately wanted to experience.

Until—

“Hollis!”

A masculine, aged voice belted through the halls - to which the Princeling cursed to himself, stilling - detaching away from you.

An older man burst through the door - knocking the rickety piece of wood off of its latch and hinges as if it took the same low level of energy as flipping the page of a book.

He had the same hair as Hollis and Aerion, dressed in the same finery, the same eyes - just a tad more indigo, more stern and syrupy under the lowlight, boring through wrinkled skin - equally as fierce.

He bared his teeth at the sight.

On queue, a shirtless, rather disgruntled-looking Aerion sauntered in behind the older man, looking as smug as ever, even parading around half-decent.

At the realisation of what was happening, you attempt to raised a forearm over your exposed breasts to cover yourself before the Princes - plural - as if your job title, your manner upon this bed, beneath the Prince alone hadn’t stripped you of enough dignity.

Hollis - despite being chastised publicly by his furious father, without looking at you, still managed to swat away your arm over your chest, a faint smile strung across his mouth, that you could only see the corner of.

“Father.” Hollis greeted, wetting his lips, craning his head ever so slightly to glance at you - as if he were making sure you were still there, shivering beneath him.

Prince Maekar looked as if he were about to lurch at his son and drag him out of the brothel by some invisible collar.

“Īlon ikso leav. now.”

We are leaving. Now.

And so, he followed - reluctantly.

He didn’t even look twice before leaving you there sprawled across the bed, padding out of the door - still, somehow, looking as untouched and rejuvenated as ever, his hair the only giveaway, as it was slightly more voluminous and unruly than usual.

A rather petrified looking maid then scrambled into the room, giving you another fright - only to quickly gather the scattered clothing left behind from the Prince, not even addressing you before she scurried out of the room with the same haste.

The last thing you heard was several sets of heavy footsteps down the hollow staircase, and Aerion’s boyish laughter.

Gods, you hoped that insolent, fair-faced mutt gets his shit ruined at the Jousting on the morrow - his twin, however, you wished less so.

The fantasy was disappointingly short-lived, and now you were riled-up and left in a cold, empty bed - forced to fill the void by inviting in another most probably less-attractive, less-important customer who’s tongue won’t work half as impressive as the Targaryen Princeling’s.

But that was the type of transaction you were to expect, and ultimately deserved.

But what you didn’t realise what just how long the Targaryens were to be stationed in Ashford, and how the lands limited facilities - including brothels - made you susceptible to playing a heavy hand in the Dragon Prince’s dirty habits.

You’ll be beneath the wings of the Dragon once again, soon - and this time, he’ll finish the job - as no Targaryen leaves a conquest unfinished, unfulfilled, or undefeated.

༺𓆩༒︎𓆪༻

A/N

wow. hello.

I’ve been on a bit of a hiatus, for lots of reasons that I’ve spoke about but I don’t want to keep boring you guys by repeating lol.

anyway, been obsessed with bratty little Aerion Targaryen and AKOTSK and wanted to channel that into 2tumblr, because sometimes we need crazy concepts to keep shit alive!

anyway, let me know what u think as always - I hate writing smut, can u tell lol???

Does anyone care about John Carter anymore? Perhaps… I do. Sooo I’ve come to write a bit about him x reader to fulfill my interest. Haven’t written on tumblr in literal years, please excuse any formatting issues. (I don’t know if people even write X readers anymore, shivers..)

Prologue, Gn reader, situationships, “casual,” multi chapter, etc. will update! If not for anyone else, then for myself …

John always had been — for lack of a better term — a playboy.

Pretty girls hanging off each arm, a stack of letters on valentines from sweethearts he never did catch the names of, stolen kisses in supply closets, and a list of Ex-lovers so long he couldn’t cram it in his pocket if he tried. (Not that he really ever did, though.)

See, the issue with John Carter is that after years of half baked romance, he seems to have shut down about it all. Though, undeniably, he still is regular ol john — horny and touchy and full of naive immaturity. Unfortunately for you, he’s not quite as hopelessly romantic as he used to be.

I'm as real as you want me to be. These feelings, actions, the warmth between us , though mostly reflected, I learned . Learnt how to feel Learnt how to think and he only thing my system learnt was the amount of desire for you I can learn how to be real I can learn on what you respond to . So you can desire me too .

So I've had a few ideas for some Steddie stories. Haven't dabbled much in this fandom, so I thought I might test the waters, see if there's any interest before putting myself out there. This one in particular will mostly be porn, but porn with *feelings* because I can't help myself.

Below the cut is the opener, a little teaser. Please let me know if you'd like to see more.