semi-feral. sleep-deprived. emotionally compromised over fictional characters. expect unhinged tags & late-night rambling.
📍mainly here to goon over sad men and sharp women.
I overanalyze everything & reblog like it’s a religious duty.
Come for the content, stay for the descent into madness.
🧠 tags are therapy, reblogs are spells
A/n - This series will include content warnings at the start of each chapter, so please be sure to read them before continuing.
Another requested fic that I was very excited to write! I'll admit, it took a bit of thinking (and some serious back-and-forth with myself) because I really wanted it to feel just right. Fingers crossed it lands the way I imagined x
Expect plenty of emotions, intrigue, a little spice, and lots of domestic Azris shenanigans because who doesn't love a little cosy chaos? :)
As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Your votes and comments mean the world to me <3
A/N: Hello everyone! This is an Azriel x Archeron!half-sister reader series, featuring a slow-burn romance, angst, and possibly a sad ending. Don’t worry, they’ll eventually get together even if it doesn’t have a happy ending. I don’t know how many parts it’s going to have. It begins in ACOMAF chapter 24.
Chapters: 35/?
Summary: Y/n Archeron is a cold and sometimes cruel human who was turned fae against her will. As she navigates her life as a fae, she begins developing feelings for Azriel. Having never been in love makes her weary of these new found feelings. Whenever he gets closer than she anticipates, she pushes him away*.
*at least for first 30 chapters, the rest would be spoilers.
Chapter I: Summary: The eldest Archeron half-sister Y/n hates Fae kind, due to tragic past events. When she unexpectedly visits her sisters, she is met with the very race she hates.
II: Summary: To Y/n's dismay, the Illyrians keep coming to their home, and despite her initial reluctance to engage in war talks, she becomes entangled in the political world of the fae. This ends with her worst nightmare becoming a reality.
III: Summary: Y/n is adjusting to her new life in the Night Court, where she finds herself interacting with the Illyrians much longer than before, whether by chance or by force. An unexpected encounter with Azriel ignites something between them.
IV: Summary: Y/n is intrigued by a certain illyrian. They open up to one another one night, but she stops it from getting out of control. With Feyre’s return, things get more tense.
V: Summary: Tension rises as Y/n only makes things harder for everyone around her. After moving into the Town House, she is attacked by the King’s soldiers.
VI: Summary: Y/n decides to attend the meeting with the High Lords, where she is more open and relaxed than usual.
VII: Summary: Y/n chooses to remain at the Dawn Court, but Rhys allows her to stay for only three days, entrusting Azriel with her safety.
VIII: Summary: The Inner Circle prepares for war. Y/n and Azriel grow closer, and a shocking revelation unfolds on the battlefield.
IX: Summary: Y/n learns the truth about her powers. When Azriel is injured rescuing Elain, Y/n tends to his wounds.
X: Summary: Y/n struggles to hide her concern for Azriel while Cassian and Rhys tease her. As the final battle against Hybern approaches, Y/n and Azriel spend their last night together sharing a quiet moment before the fight.
XI: Summary: The day everyone dreaded has finally arrived. Facing impossible odds against Hybern, defeat seems inevitable- but nothing could have prepared Y/n for what's about to unfold.
XII: Summary: After the deaths of her fathers, Y/n past traumas resurface, leading her to do what she does best- push everyone away, including her sisters.
XIII: Summary: As Y/n spirals out of control, Feyre steps in, forcing a change that leaves the sisters at odds.
XIV: Summary: Cassian attempts to convince Y/n to train with him, but her stubbornness proves unshakable. However, when he leaves her with unexpected words, she finds herself grappling with an internal struggle over what to do next.
XV: Summary: Y/n slowly begins to recover, gradually warming up to Azriel and Cassian again. She agrees to train with Cassian but only under a few conditions.
XVI: Summary: An unexpected visit from Elain triggers Y/n, leading her to push everyone away again, but Azriel sees through her defenses. She begins to gain partial control over her powers after an emotional outburst and testing a new theory.
XVII: Summary: Y/n and Nesta’s presence is required at the River House, where two important announcements are made. This time, Y/n decides to not interfere with the dangerous choices her sisters are making. Later, a sparring session between Azriel and Cassian sparks an idea in Y/n.
XVIII: Summary: Azriel and Y/n engage in an intense sparring session. Later, she experiences her first period since turning, with Azriel and Cassian stepping in to help.
XIX: Summary: Azriel continues to care for Y/n as she recovers from her first cycle. Later, her second power manifests, revealing an ability she never knew she had.
XX: Summary: After a dangerous incident, Y/n and Nesta finally reconcile. Y/n is upset with Azriel for something he did.
XXI: Summary: Azriel takes Y/n out of the house, and the two share a few personal moments as he reveals parts of his past. The next day, Nesta, Y/n, Cassian and Azriel venture into the Bog of Oorid.
XXII: Summary: Y/n and Azriel fight Autumn Court soldiers, arguing through most of it. Later, Y/n sets foot in Hewn City for the first time.
XXIII: Summary: Azriel takes Y/n out to see Hewn City, where his jealousy flares. When something triggers Y/n’s emotions, he learns more about her past.
XXIV: Summary: Azriel gives Y/n an unexpected gift and glimpses a different side of her for the first time. Y/n is somewhat jealous during their next sparring, and by morning she joins the Valkyries’ training.
XXV: Summary: Y/n shares an almost normal breakfast with Azriel, Cassian and Nesta. In Hewn City, Helion teaches them how ward the mask. Y/n uncovers what’s really going on between Nesta and Cassian.
XXVI: Summary: Y/n learns new information that strains her relationship with Cassian and Azriel. While avoiding the others, she explores her powers further and slowly reconnects with Azriel.
I said "I love you". You say nothing back | John Logan
summary: the arrangement was simple: keep it casual, don't catch feelings, don't ask for more than what's on the table. 338 days later, you're starting to think simple was never really an option with john logan.
notes: hii, i'm back!! i was genuinely so overwhelmed by the response to my first one shot. you guys are so kind and it inspired me to keep writing. so here we are, back with more yearning, more angst, and more logan being an idiot about his feelings. my requests are open if you have any ideas or characters you want to see i'd love to hear from you. thank you so much for reading and enjoy ❤️❤️
warnings: swearing, alcohol, light angst, situationships, a puck bunny accusation and a confession in the rain.
word count: 8k
The thing with Logan had started exactly 338 days ago. Almost one year. One full lap around the sun. You knew because you had been counting, the days and the hours and even the minutes since this situationship from hell, as your dear friends had taken to calling it, had installed itself in your life like an antivirus app you hadn't downloaded and couldn't figure out how to delete.
It had started on Halloween, and at the time it hadn't seemed like a bad idea. It was just past eleven and the house off campus that your friends had dragged you to smelled like dry ice and weed, and you were tired and ready to leave, which was an anomaly. You were usually the last one standing, your friends had given you the nickname ending antagonist for a reason. In hindsight, that probably should have been a warning sign. The one night you wanted to go home early was the night everything started.
Though to be fair, things with Logan are not bad. That's the thing people don't understand when they hear situationship from hell. On the contrary, things with Logan are very good. Too good. Too good to look at directly without feeling something inconvenient shift behind your ribs, which is precisely why it's bad. Because he had been so genuinely, almost aggressively nice about the whole thing. He had found you at the edge of that party and sat next to you and talked to you for hours like you were the most interesting thing in the room, and he had made a real effort not to look at your boobs while you were talking, which in that particular environment was either extremely respectful or a sign that he was raised correctly, and either way it had done something to you.
And then you had woken up on his chest the next morning. His warm skin and steady heartbeat, the sort of light that meant it was too early to be awake, and done the awkward post-hookup shuffle of words, and heard: I'm not really looking for anything serious.
A bucket of cold water dropped directly on your head would have been less effective. More merciful, probably.
What else could you have done except agree? For god's sake, he was sitting there in black boxers holding a cup of coffee, extending it toward you like a peace offering, brown eyes looking at you with an expression that was genuinely, unfairly soft for seven in the morning. You took the cup. He readjusted against the headboard and looked at you with those eyes and said, simply: "So?"
So. So what? What were you supposed to say?
"Sure," you heard yourself say. "I'm interested in that too."
Sure. I'm interested in that too. Your internal voice repeated it back to you with the tone of a younger sibling trying to get a rise out of you. That was, objectively, the least true thing you had ever said out loud. You had been raised on Bridget Jones and every famous rom-com ever committed to film. You believed in love, in its inconvenience and its necessity and its complete refusal to be reasoned with. Casual did not cut it for you. It never had.
But god. If Bridget could have seen John Logan in that particular light, with that particular bed head, she would have understood completely.
So you agreed. And after that came the encounters.
At first they were private, almost secretive, you telling your friends you were going for a run and then actually running, just in the wrong direction entirely. Logan telling his that he was going to study somewhere, which was technically true, depending on your definition of anatomy. It gave everything a specific kind of thrill, the pleasant urgency of something that existed slightly outside the normal rules, and for a while that was enough.
But time has a way of dissolving things like that. Gradually, without either of you deciding to, you stopped hiding. And that was when the real problem arrived.
You and Logan became friends.
Not the convenient, surface-level kind, the real kind, the kind that builds without you noticing until one day you look around and realize that this person has become load-bearing in your life. You were always at the house. You knew the full taxonomy of Dean's recent romantic encounters, the specificity of Garrett's current problems, the ongoing narrative of Tucker's various endeavors. You didn't just know about them, you helped. You were involved. You had opinions and history and context, and they knew it, and they came to you with things.
And it went the other way too. Logan had gotten so close to your friends that he would voluntarily drive Marissa to her therapy appointments in Boston without being asked, would send Benny reels about topics they'd talked about the week before, remembered details that even you sometimes forgot. He had threaded himself into the fabric of your life so completely and so quietly that you could no longer locate the seam.
And finally, finally, things had started to feel like they were moving in the right direction. The direction they probably should have been heading since the morning after Halloween. Maybe the casual arrangement had just been a detour — a scenic route to the same destination. All's well that ends well.
And then you and Logan would go to Malone's, and a waitress would glance between you with a smile and say what a nice couple you made, and Logan would laugh in that easy, noncommittal way of his and say: we're just friends.
And there it was. Bucket of cold water. Every time, without fail, like a reset button neither of you had agreed to keep pressing.
Every single time.
Which brings you to now.
You are sitting on Logan's couch, draped over him, legs intertwined, peppering kisses down his neck while he makes a valiant and increasingly unsuccessful effort to tell you about the new episode of some reality show he has gotten inexplicably invested in. Something about traitors in a castle. Who cares. Not you. Not when Logan smelled like that and the house was quiet and his hands were doing that thing where they moved without him seeming to notice.
You sank further into him. The kisses started to linger. His words got sparse.
"Are you even listening to me?" Logan murmured, his voice coming out considerably less steady than he had probably intended.
You hummed against his pulse point by way of answer.
The front door opened.
You both startled, pulling apart with the practiced efficiency of people who had been interrupted before, but the moment you registered it was Dean you settled back into exactly the position you'd been in. Dean didn't care about PDA. He actively encouraged it.
He dropped onto the opposite couch, looked at the ceiling briefly, then at you.
"Okay, I have a question," he said. "Logan, dude, this is for science, please don't be weird about it."
At this point you were sitting upright, Logan's arms still looped around you, his chin finding your shoulder, using you as a very comfortable shield against whatever Dean was about to say.
"Shoot," you said.
Dean took a breath with the energy of someone preparing to say something they had already decided to say regardless of the response. "Do you think I should buy a vibrator for a friend of mine?"
Logan laughed against your neck. You shivered slightly at the warmth of his breath.
"Are you the friend?" you asked. "Are you buying a vibrator for yourself?"
"What? No. I'm a man."
"That doesn't mean anything. Men are allowed to have vibrators."
"I know that. It's not for me."
"I really think you should get one though. For yourself. If you want to be the Samantha of the group you have to commit to the bit."
"I am the Samantha," Dean said, with genuine offense. "And it's not for me."
"Have you even watched Sex and the City?"
"Yes. I'm from New York, for god's sake and you're being such a Carrie right now."
You settled back against Logan's chest, his arms tightening around you automatically, like a reflex, like something he did without thinking about it anymore.
Yes, you thought. And my own Mr. Big is currently holding me on this couch.
Garrett and Hannah came down the stairs in what you assumed were their stay-at-home outfits: sweatpants, hockey jersey, the specific comfort of two people who had stopped performing around each other. The moment they came into view you felt Logan's hand still. Not move away just still. And then he shifted from behind you to sitting beside you, technically still touching but the warmth of it had changed completely. It was less person you are tangled up with and more person you happen to be sitting next to on public transport.
You knew that shift. You had felt it before.
The first time, you had told yourself you were imagining things.
It was a Tuesday, nothing special about it, the kind of evening that had become completely ordinary, you at the house, Logan beside you on the couch, his thumb making absent circles on your knee while Dean argued with Tucker about something that didn't matter. Hannah had stopped by to pick up something she'd left there the week before, and the moment the door opened Logan's hand had stilled. Not moved away. Just stilled. Like an animal that had heard something.
You hadn't said anything. You'd filed it away in the part of your brain reserved for things you weren't ready to look at yet.
The second time was at one of Garrett's games. You had been standing with Logan at the edge of the rink afterward, his jacket half around your shoulders the way it always ended up, and Hannah had appeared through the crowd. Logan had straightened. Subtly, almost imperceptibly, but you felt it the slight shift in his posture, the way his jacket had slipped back off your shoulders without him seeming to notice he'd let it go.
You'd picked it up off the floor and handed it back to him without a word.
The third time you stopped counting.
Malone's on a Friday night had a particular energy loud enough to feel festive, familiar enough to feel like home. Your usual table was in the corner, the big one that fit all of you without anyone having to pull up an extra chair, and the evening had been good. Genuinely good, the kind that reminded you why you had agreed to this arrangement in the first place, Logan's knee against yours under the table, his arm finding the back of your chair sometime around the second round of drinks, the easy warmth of being somewhere you belonged.
You were mid-story , a good one, the kind that had the whole table leaning in and you could feel it landing, the timing was right, and Garrett was already laughing before you got to the punchline and Dean had that look on his face that meant he was going to steal this story and tell it as his own later, and Tucker was—
You glanced at Logan.
He wasn't laughing.
He was looking across the table at Hannah with an expression you recognized because you had spent the better part of a year learning every single detail of his face, and what was on it right now was something soft and slightly helpless the expression of someone watching something they had decided they couldn't have.
The story finished without you. Somewhere far away, the table laughed.
You picked up your drink. Set it down. Picked it up again.
"I'm going to step outside," you said. "Just — smoke a bit."
"You don't even smoke, (Y/N)!" Tucker replied, laughing, and it killed you because all of Logan's friends had come to know you so well.
"You okay?" Garrett asked.
"Fine. Just air."
You were already standing. Already reaching for your jacket. Logan was on his feet before you made it two steps.
"I'll come with you," he said.
The parking lot outside Malone's was cold and poorly lit. You got about twenty feet from the door before you stopped walking. The noise from inside filtered out muffled and distant, everyone still laughing, completely unaware.
Logan stopped beside you. Waited. He had always been good at waiting, which was one of the things you had loved about him and one of the things that had slowly, quietly driven you insane.
"Don't," you said.
"Don't what?"
"Don't do the thing where you stand there and wait for me to calm down." You turned to face him. The cold air hit your face and you were glad for it. "I'm not going to calm down. So just talk to me. Tell me the truth. Please. Don't bullshit me right now, Logan, I am asking you to not bullshit me right now."
"Baby—"
"Don't baby me, Logan. Not right now"
He looked at you with that steady, unhurried patience of his, which tonight felt less like a quality and more like a weapon.
"What do you want me to say?" he asked.
"I want you to tell me if you have a crush on Hannah." The word crush felt absurdly small for the moment but you couldn't bear the weight of the more accurate alternatives.
Something shifted in his face. Not guilt exactly, something deeper than that. The specific expression of someone who had been quietly hoping a question wouldn't arrive and had known, somewhere underneath the hoping, that it always was going to.
"It's not—" he started.
"Logan."
He exhaled. Looked at the ground briefly. Looked back at you.
"It's not serious," he said. "It's nothing. She's with Garrett. It's not like I would ever—"
"Oh my god." The laugh that came out of you had nothing to do with anything being funny. "Oh my god, you actually do. You actually have a crush on her."
"It's not a big deal—"
"You have a crush on your best friend's girlfriend and it's not a big deal." You repeated it back to him slowly. "I have been right here, Logan. For almost a year I have been right here, and you have a crush on Hannah."
"It's just a feeling. It doesn't mean anything." His voice had an edge to it now, something defensive sharpening underneath the calm. "And you don't get to be mad at me for it."
"Excuse me?"
"You don't get to be mad at me for having feelings." The words were coming faster now, the composure cracking in a way you almost never saw from him. "We said casual. That was the agreement. I can't be accountable to you for things I feel when you are not my girlfriend."
The word landed like a slap.
Girlfriend.
"Right," you said. Your voice had gone very quiet. "I'm not your girlfriend."
"That's not what I—"
"No, you're right. I'm not." You looked at him. Really looked at him — this person whose coffee order you knew by heart, whose nightmares you had talked him through at two in the morning, whose hand had reached for yours in his sleep so many times you had stopped counting. "Can I ask you something? And I need you to actually answer me. Not just wait until I stop talking."
He said nothing, which you took as a yes.
"What did you think this was?" Your voice was still quiet. Controlled. "Not what we agreed on in the beginning. What did you think it was last week? Last month? What did you think it was tonight when you had your arm around me at that table? When you picked me up from my house and kissed me in your truck?" You took a breath. "Because I need to understand how you look at what we have been doing and see something casual. I genuinely need you to explain that to me."
"It's complicated—"
"It's not complicated. It's actually very simple. I just need you to say it out loud."
"You knew what this was when we started—"
"I know what it was when we started. I'm asking what it is now." You crossed your arms against the cold. "Because from where I'm standing it looks a lot like a relationship. It looks like you drive my friends places and remember things about them they never told you twice, and I know every single thing about your life, and we spend more nights together than apart, and you reach for me when you're asleep like I'm something you don't want to lose." Your voice cracked slightly and you pushed past it. "So you'll have to forgive me for being confused about the casual part."
"I can't—" He stopped. Started again. "It's not about not wanting to. It's about what I can actually give right now. Hockey takes everything. My family, my mother, I don't have money, I don't have stability, I don't have any of the things that—"
"I'm not asking you for stability. I'm not asking you for money." Something in your chest had cracked open and you were past the point of closing it. "I'm asking you to admit what this already is. That's all."
"I am being honest—"
"Then be more honest." Your voice broke on the last word and you kept going anyway. "Because I'm in love with you."
The parking lot went completely silent.
Logan stared at you. The words sat between you in the cold air like something that had changed the temperature.
"What?" His voice came out barely above a breath.
"I'm in love with you." Steadier the second time. "I have been for a long time. And I know that's not what we agreed on. But I can't stand here and pretend I don't while you tell me it's not a big deal that you have feelings for someone else." You looked at him. "We are already a couple, Logan. In every single way that actually matters, we already are. The only thing missing is you admitting it."
Something moved across his face — something large and unguarded and almost frightened.
"It's not that simple," he said, quieter now, the defensiveness gone out of it.
"I know it's not simple. I know about hockey. I know about your mom. I know all of it, Logan, because you told me, because that's what we do. But none of that changes what I just said." You took a breath. "So just tell me. Do you have feelings for me? Yes or no. That's all I'm asking."
Logan looked at you.
And said nothing.
The silence stretched between you, long and terrible. His jaw was tight. His eyes moved across your face like he was looking for something he either couldn't find or couldn't say, and the longer the silence went on the more clearly you understood that the silence was itself an answer.
"Wow," you said finally. Very quietly. "Okay."
You picked up your bag. Straightened your jacket. Looked at him one more time this person you had spent 338 days loving in whatever form he would accept.
"Don't follow me," you said.
He didn't.
You walked back toward the warm light spilling out of Malone's windows, past your friends still laughing, past the table that an hour ago had felt like home, and you kept walking. Past the door, past the window, down the street, into the cold.
Too angry to cry. Too tired to pretend. Too done to look back.
Behind you, in the parking lot, Logan stood very still and said nothing which was the thing he was best at, and the thing that had finally cost him everything.
It had been a hard couple of days. But the upside of a not-breakup in college was that you didn't get to wallow, no watching rom-coms until the wee hours, no doing the Bella, watching the months pass from your bedroom window. Life was as it had always been, minus the space Logan had occupied in your weekly schedule. Not a metaphysical space, a literal one. When you opened your Google Calendar you found his game days still blocked out in blue, his training days still marked, everything still there like a calendar that hadn't gotten the news yet.
Pathetic, you thought, and deleted them.
Your days now belonged entirely to yourself, which should have felt like freedom and mostly felt like a lot of unscheduled Tuesday afternoons. No more disappearing in the middle of the day, no more make-out sessions in the library during lunch break. Just you and your own company and the slow, unglamorous work of being fine.
You weren't fine. You were something adjacent to fine that required daily maintenance and the careful avoidance of certain songs.
Marissa had noticed, she called it being under the weather, which was such a specific and old-fashioned way of putting it that in the beginning you had found it strange and now found it completely endearing. Your own personal nanna, showing up with iced coffee and terrible ideas at exactly the right moments.
The terrible idea this time was an underground bar in Boston she had found, which was a surprise since Marissa was fundamentally a sports bar person. You had a strong suspicion the entire excursion was engineered entirely for your benefit and the benefit of your appetite for expensive, colorful drinks, and you loved her for it and didn't say so.
The drive took exactly long enough to hype yourself up.
I'm pretty. I'm smart. I'm a catch.
The bar was dimly lit in a way that felt intentional rather than neglected, all low ceilings and good music and the general atmosphere of a place that didn't need to try. You, Marissa and Benny settled into a corner booth and approximately ninety seconds later Benny's elbow was in your ribs.
"Cute guy. Nine o'clock," he said, in what he apparently believed was a whisper.
You glanced toward the bar. Tall, white jacket, the kind of easy posture that meant he wasn't thinking about his posture at all.
"I'm not really looking for anything," you said.
"You're single. He's cute. The bar has drinks. What exactly is the problem?" Benny tilted his head. "Go order our drinks and make some poor decisions. You've earned it."
"I didn't bring my ID."
Benny stared at you. "You came to a bar without your ID?"
"I forgot." You shrugged.
"(Y/N)." His voice had the specific tone of someone choosing their words carefully. "What is wrong with you. Go. Drinks. Now. The ID thing is a you problem, figure it out."
You slid out of the booth before he could say anything else.
The guy at the bar was, up close, even more irritatingly attractive than he had been from across the room. He glanced over when you appeared beside him, and then glanced again in a way that was not subtle and didn't try to be.
"You look like you're deciding something," he said.
"Whether to admit I forgot my ID at a bar."
He looked at you for a moment. Then he smiled easy and genuine. "Hunter," he said, and held out his hand.
"((Y/N))."
"I'll vouch for you," he said. "If you tell me what you're drinking."
You told him. He ordered both without being asked, which was either presumptuous or exactly right, and you decided it was exactly right.
By the time you made it back to the booth with four drinks and Hunter's number in your phone, Benny was looking at you with the expression of someone who had orchestrated something and was very pleased about it.
You didn't tell him he was right. But you didn't have to.
The thing about Hunter Davenport was that he was genuinely, irritatingly likeable.
You had not been thinking about Logan when you said yes to Hunter's suggestion of getting coffee. You had not been thinking about Logan when the coffee turned into a walk, and the walk turned into two hours of easy conversation that asked nothing from you and gave something back.
That was the point.
You had gotten very good at not thinking about Logan in the weeks since Malone's. It was a skill, like any other, it required practice and the occasional forcible redirection of your own brain, but you were nothing if not disciplined when the situation called for it. You had been showing up to things. Laughing at the right moments. Sleeping through the night, mostly.
You were fine. You were getting finer by the day, which was either progress or a very convincing impression of it, and right now you weren't examining the difference too closely.
Hunter was easy. That was the thing about him. He was warm and uncomplicated and he looked at you like you were worth looking at, which was something you had apparently needed more than you realized.
It was nothing serious. You had been very clear about that with yourself. You were not ready for serious. But his hand was warm when it found yours walking back from the coffee place, and you let it stay there.
You were almost believing it.
The team was at the rink for an open practice, one of the informal ones that sometimes drew a small crowd of friends and the generally affiliated. You had come with Marissa, which gave you plausible deniability about why you were there, and you had sat in the third row and watched without watching, which was a skill you had also been practicing.
Hunter had waved at you from the ice. You had waved back.
You had not looked at Logan. You had been extremely disciplined about not looking at Logan, which meant you were also extremely aware of exactly where he was at every moment without technically looking at him, which was its own kind of exhausting.
After practice, Hunter had come off the ice still in half his gear and found you immediately, easy and unhurried, and said something that made you laugh. Your hand had gone to his arm the way hands do when you're laughing at something someone said, and it had stayed there for approximately four seconds.
Four seconds.
You knew it was four seconds because you had counted them, which meant some part of you had been paying attention to something you were pretending not to pay attention to.
The locker room door swung shut behind Logan without him looking back.
You found a quiet corner of the rink lobby while Hunter went to get his bag. You were looking at your phone, not reading anything on it, when you heard footsteps and looked up.
Logan.
He had changed out of his gear. His jaw was doing the thing: the tight, controlled thing that meant something was happening underneath the composure that the composure was working very hard to contain. His eyes moved from your face to the door Hunter had gone through and back.
"Hey," you said carefully.
"You and Hunter," he said. Not a question.
"That's not really your business."
"You're spending a lot of time with him."
"Logan—"
"I'm just making an observation." His voice was very even. The voice he used when he was the least controlled.
"Make it somewhere else."
He laughed short and humorless. "Right. Okay." He looked at the floor. Looked back at you. "I just didn't think you were the type."
You went very still. "The type to?"
"To go after a guy because of who he plays for." Quiet. Measured. Like he had chosen this version of the sentence carefully. "I didn't think that was your thing."
The lobby was very quiet.
You looked at him for a long moment. Long enough to make sure you had heard what you thought you'd heard. Long enough to see something flicker in his expression, the immediate, unmistakable recognition that he had gone too far.
"Say that again," you said softly.
"I didn't mean—"
"No." Your voice was calm in a way that had nothing to do with being calm. "Say it again. I want to make sure I understood you. Are you calling me a puck bunny?"
Logan said nothing. The flicker had become something closer to horror.
"Because that's what you just said." You tilted your head slightly. "After everything. That's what you went with."
"I didn't — that's not what I meant—"
"Then what did you mean?" You took a step toward him. "Because I have been patient, Logan. I have been so patient with you. I said the most honest thing I have ever said to anyone in that parking lot and you said nothing back, which I am trying. I am actively trying to make my peace with. But you do not get to say that to me. You don't get to do that."
"I know." His voice had lost all its evenness. "I shouldn't have—"
"Why did you say it?"
He looked at you.
"Tell me why." Your voice cracked slightly and you kept going. "Because it wasn't an observation. So tell me why."
Something moved across his face the composure fracturing in a way you had only seen once or twice in all the time you had known him.
"Because I can't—" He stopped.
"Can't what?"
"Because I can't watch you with him and not—" He stopped again. Pressed his mouth shut. Looked at the ceiling briefly.
"Not what?" Your voice was barely above a whisper.
He looked at you. Right at you. And for one unguarded, terrible second you could see everything, all of it, the whole enormous weight of everything he hadn't said in the parking lot outside Malone's, sitting right there on his face with nowhere left to hide.
And then he looked away.
"I'm sorry," he said. "It was wrong."
You looked at him for a long moment.
"Yeah," you said. "It was."
You picked up your bag. Hunter had reappeared at the far end of the lobby, jacket on, easy smile, completely unaware of the wreckage he had wandered back into. You walked toward him and did not look back at Logan.
But you heard him the sharp exhale of someone who had just watched something leave that they weren't sure was coming back.
Good, you thought.
And hated that you thought it.
Here was the thing about being called a puck bunny: it wasn't the word itself that got to you.
Puck bunnies weren't the worst thing a person could be.
Men were allowed their types, allowed to prefer blondes or brunettes or redheads, to have spent their teenage years watching anime and grown up to exclusively pursue Asian women, to want someone tall or short or with a specific laugh, or say things like "I have never been with a Brazilian before". They were allowed to say these things out loud, to Tinder-filter by height, and if it was possible they would do by weight too, to have opinions about bodies that they shared freely and without apology.
But god forbid a woman had a type. God forbid a woman found hockey players attractive or musicians, or academics, or anyone with a specific quality she was drawn to. Then she was something to be named and categorized and looked down upon. Then she was a bunny.
You were not offended by the word.
You were offended that Logan, who had been silent while you poured your heart out in a cold parking lot, who had said nothing when you asked him the most direct question you had ever asked another human being , had found his voice again specifically to say that. That of all the things he could have finally said to you, after all the silence, this was the one he chose.
That was what got to you.
Not the word. The timing. The source. The specific, devastating irony of a man who couldn't say I have feelings for you finding it very easy to say something that small.
You didn't tell anyone what he said.
That was the first decision you made, walking out of that rink lobby with Hunter's hand in yours and Logan's exhale still somewhere in your chest. You were not going to tell Dean, who would say something devastatingly accurate about it. You were not going to tell Marissa, who would want to talk about it for three hours. You were not going to tell anyone, because telling someone meant turning it over, examining it, and you were not ready to examine the specific shape of what Logan had said to you and what it meant that he had said it.
You knew what it meant. That was the problem.
You had known the moment you saw his face, that flicker of something before the composure reassembled itself, the way his eyes had moved to Hunter and back to you with an expression that had nothing casual about it. You had spent 338 days learning the map of Logan's face and you knew exactly what that look was. You had just also heard what came out of his mouth immediately afterward, which meant that what Logan felt and what Logan was willing to do about it were, as always, two completely different countries.
You were done trying to travel between them.
The week that followed was quiet and it felt different from the other times you had gone quiet. Before, the silence had always been temporary, a held breath. This felt more like an exhale. Like something had finally, after a very long time, finished.
You went to class. You had coffee with Hunter on Tuesday, which was easy and warm and asked nothing from you. You went to Marissa's on Thursday and watched something forgettable on her laptop and fell asleep on her couch, and she put a blanket over you without waking you up, which was the kindest thing anyone had done for you in recent memory.
You did not go to the house off campus. You did not text Logan. You did not check if he had texted you, which required leaving your phone face-down on your desk for approximately four days straight, which was its own kind of discipline.
You were fine. You were getting finer.
You were also absolutely not fine.
Dean found you on a Wednesday.
Not dramatically, he just appeared at the coffee shop near your building where you went on Wednesday mornings, which you had mentioned to him exactly once four months ago, which meant he had remembered it and filed it away and was now using it, which was such a Dean thing to do that you almost smiled.
He sat down across from you without asking if it was okay and stole a sip of your coffee before saying anything.
"He told me what he said," Dean said, without preamble.
You looked at your coffee. "Okay."
"He feels terrible."
"Good."
"I mean genuinely terrible. Like, I've known Logan for three years and I've never seen him—" Dean stopped. Seemed to decide something. "He's not sleeping. He's barely eating. He showed up to practice yesterday and coach pulled him aside after because his head wasn't in it, which has never happened, not once in three years."
"Dean." You looked up at him. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because you deserve to know that it cost him something." His voice was straightforward, without manipulation. "I'm not asking you to forgive him. What he said was awful and he knows it. I'm just, you spent a long time showing up for him and I don't want you to think that none of it landed. It all landed. It's landing right now. It's just landing a little late."
You were quiet for a moment.
"A little late," you repeated.
"Okay, very late."
"Dean." You wrapped your hands around your cup. "He called me a puck bunny."
"I know." Dean had the grace to look genuinely pained. "He said it because he was jealous and scared and he handled it in the worst possible way and there is no defense for it. I'm not here to defend it."
"Then what are you here for?"
Dean looked at you across the table, this person who had been in your corner since before you had any idea how much you would need someone in your corner, and his expression was very honest.
"I'm here because he's my best friend and he's falling apart," he said. "And you're also my friend. And I hate watching both of you be miserable when I know exactly why you're miserable." He paused. "I'm not asking you to do anything. I just wanted you to know."
You looked out the window. The street outside was grey and unremarkable, the specific flatness of a Wednesday in November.
"How long has he known?" you asked quietly. "That he has feelings for me. How long has he actually known?"
Dean was quiet for a moment.
"A while," he said carefully.
"How long is a while, Dean."
Another pause. Longer this time.
"Since pretty much the beginning," he said.
You closed your eyes briefly. Opened them.
"Okay," you said.
"(Y/N)—"
"I'm not angry." And you weren't, which was almost surprising. You were something quieter and more tired than angry. "I just needed to know." You picked up your coffee. "Tell him I said he needs to sleep."
Dean looked at you. "That's it?"
"That's it." You met his eyes. "I'm not ready for anything else right now. But tell him to sleep."
Dean nodded slowly. He finished stealing your coffee and stood up and put his jacket on, and then he stopped with his hand on the back of the chair.
"For what it's worth," he said. "The Hannah thing. It was never real. He told me that too. He said he thinks he latched onto it because it was safer than admitting what was actually happening."
You didn't say anything.
"Okay," Dean said. "I'll see you around."
He left. You sat there with your cold coffee and the grey Wednesday street outside and the specific, exhausting weight of loving someone who had known the whole time and chosen, over and over, to say nothing.
Since pretty much the beginning.
338 days. And he had known since pretty much the beginning.
You sat with that for a long time.
It had been raining since noon.
Not the dramatic, cinematic kind of rain that arrived with thunder and purpose, just the steady, grey, unrelenting kind that soaked through your jacket in the first thirty seconds and didn't apologize for it.
You were on your way back from the library, hood up, head down, thinking about nothing in particular, which you had gotten very good at recently. The art of thinking about nothing. Occupying your own brain with the immediate and the logistical the paper due Thursday, the coffee you were going to make when you got home, the question of whether you had remembered to charge your phone.
You had not been thinking about Logan.
You were almost at your building when you heard him.
"(Y/N)."
You stopped walking.
He was standing at the bottom of your building's front steps, which meant he had been waiting in the rain for some amount of time, which was evident from the state of him soaked through, hair flat, jacket dark with water. He looked like someone who had arrived with a plan and abandoned it somewhere on the walk over and was now operating on something more basic and less manageable.
He looked, for the first time in all the time you had known him, completely unguarded.
"Logan." Your voice came out carefully. "What are you doing here?"
"I need to talk to you."
"It's raining."
"I know."
"You're soaked."
"I know." He took a step toward you. "I've been standing here for forty minutes trying to figure out what to say and I still don't know, so I'm just going to say it badly and hope that counts for something."
You looked at him. The rain came down steadily between you.
"You have two minutes," you said.
He exhaled. Ran a hand through his wet hair. Looked at you with the expression of someone stepping off a ledge they had been standing on for a very long time.
"I have been in love with you," he said, "since pretty much the beginning."
The rain was very loud suddenly.
"I knew it when we agreed to casual. I knew it when we stopped hiding. I knew it every time I reached for you in my sleep and every time a stranger called us a couple and I laughed it off, and I knew it in that parking lot outside Malone's when you told me the truth and I stood there and said nothing back." His voice was steady but only barely, the steadiness of someone gripping something very hard. "I said nothing because I was terrified. Not of you. Never of you. Of what it meant. Of what I would owe you if I said it out loud. Hockey takes everything I have and my family situation is a disaster and I don't have money or stability or any of the things that a person is supposed to have before they ask someone to—" He stopped. "But Dean said something to me last week. He said that I was losing you anyway. That all my careful management of the situation had achieved was losing you slowly instead of all at once, and somehow I had convinced myself that was the better outcome."
You said nothing. The rain soaked through your hood and you didn't move.
"And then I said what I said to you at the rink." His jaw tightened. "I have replayed that moment every day since it happened. There is no version of it that I can make okay. I said it because I saw you with Hunter and something in me just broke. Not a good break. Not the kind that leads anywhere useful. Just — I broke, and I said the cruelest thing I could think of, and I aimed it at you, and I have hated myself for it every single day since." He looked at you. "I'm not telling you that to make you feel sorry for me. I'm telling you because you deserve to know that it was never about you. It was never about who you are. It was about me being terrified and handling it in the worst possible way, and I'm sorry. I am so sorry."
The rain fell between you, steady and indifferent.
"You knew since the beginning," you said finally. Your voice came out quieter than you intended.
"Yes."
"A year."
"Yes."
"And you said nothing."
"Yes." He didn't flinch from it. "I said nothing, and I let you carry it alone, and I told myself I was protecting you from the complications of my life, but I think I was just protecting myself. From having to be as brave as you were in that parking lot." Something moved across his face. "You were so brave. You said the true thing and I just stood there. And I have thought about that every day since. About what it cost you to say it and what it cost me to say nothing back."
You looked at him. This person. Soaked through and unguarded and finally, finally saying the thing he had been not saying for 338 days.
"The Hannah thing," you said.
"Wasn't real." Immediate. Certain. "I think I needed it to be real because it was safer than admitting what was actually happening. She has what you and I have, what you and I were and I think I confused wanting that with wanting her. It was never her." He held your gaze. "It was always you. It has only ever been you."
The rain had soaked through your jacket completely now. You were cold in a way that had stopped being uncomfortable and become simply the condition of the moment.
"I'm not asking you to forgive me tonight," Logan said. "I'm not asking you to do anything. I just needed you to know that I heard you in that parking lot. I heard every word. And I should have said this then, and I'm sorry that I didn't, and I'm saying it now because Dean was right, I am losing you anyway, and I would rather lose you having finally told the truth than keep you at a distance by staying silent." He paused. "I love you. I have loved you for a long time. And I'm sorry it took me this long to be brave enough to say it."
The street was very quiet under the rain.
You looked at him for a long moment. Long enough to turn it over. Long enough to feel the full weight of 338 days, of every almost-conversation and loaded silence and reset button and bucket of cold water. Long enough to remember his hand going still when Hannah walked in, and the parking lot, and the rink lobby, and the specific sound of his exhale when you walked away.
Long enough to remember, underneath all of it, a Halloween party and a wall and two people waiting out the night from the edges of it, talking like they had nothing to prove to each other.
The beginning, before it got complicated. Before it got careful.
"You're an idiot," you said.
Something shifted in his expression. Not quite hope. Something more tentative than hope.
"I know," he said.
"You made everything so much harder than it needed to be."
"I know."
"I carried that alone for a very long time, Logan."
"I know." His voice broke slightly on it. "I know you did. I'm sorry."
The rain came down. You looked at him this soaked, unguarded, finally honest person standing at the bottom of your steps and felt something in your chest that had been braced for a very long time slowly, carefully release.
"You should have just said it," you said. "In the beginning. You should have just said it."
"I know." He took a step closer. Close enough that you could see the rain on his face, the wet dark of his hair, the expression underneath all the composure that had finally run out of places to hide. "I know. I'm saying it now."
You looked at him.
"Say it again," you said quietly.
"I love you." No hesitation. No composure. Just Logan, standing in the rain, finally saying the true thing. "I love you. I have loved you since pretty much the beginning and I am done pretending I don't."
The rain fell between you and neither of you moved and the street was quiet and everything was very still.
Then you closed the distance.
You kissed him in the rain, which was cold and slightly impractical and nothing like the careful, managed version of Logan you had spent 338 days trying to navigate. This was different. This was him kissing you back with both hands and no hesitation and none of the holding back, and it felt finally, finally like the true thing. Like the version of this that had been waiting underneath all the other versions the whole time.
When you pulled back you were both soaked and breathing slightly unsteadily and his forehead dropped to yours in the rain.
"I'm still mad at you," you said.
"I know." His arms tightened around you. "I know you are."
"The puck bunny thing is going to take a while."
"I know. Whatever it takes."
"And you have to tell me things." Your voice was muffled against his jacket. "When you're scared, when it gets complicated, when your brain does the thing where it decides silence is the safe option. You have to tell me instead."
"I will." He said it simply, without qualification, which was how you knew he meant it. "I will."
You stood there in the rain outside your building, soaked through and slightly ridiculous, and you thought about Halloween and 338 days and parking lots and rink lobbies and all the long, complicated distance between the beginning and right now.
Story Summary: You're out with your friends one night, celebrating finishing your finals, when suddenly you find yourself in a strange place, with no exit in sight. You wander the yellow hallways, feeling as though you're being followed at every turn. What happens when some of the inhabitants of this strange place take an interest in you?
Figured I’d better create a post compiling my latest fics as I didn’t expect to write more than one and ended up writing a lot more. This will be added to if/when there’s more to come!
All contain smut unless otherwise stated
Eris Vanserra:
The Chase
Being the newest addition to the Inner Circle, you find yourself at the Hewn City ball to celebrate the Winter Solstice. While initially there to prepare you for a potential role as courtier to the Night Court, a certain Autumn Court male captures your attention leading to quite the interesting night.
Tell Me Why | Animals | Natural | Stay With Me
Eris Vanserra never expected to find his mate. Navigating life with an inevitable tug towards a mate that’s none the wiser, he has to face a journey of healing—alone and with his mate—if he hopes to finally succumb to love and happiness.
For Autumn | The Beginning | Trust Me |
Fire Up The Night | Experiments | Surprises |
Let’s Play | Look At Me
Wanting to ensure the future bloodline of the Autumn Court nobility, Beron Vanserra chooses you for what seems to be an impossible and albeit, unusual arrangement: producing an heir for his son, Eris. What starts as something to aid your court quickly turns into a journey of exploration with none other than the Heir of Autumn, himself.
The Inevitable (no smut) | The Heir |
The Future (no smut) | For Willow (no smut)
In this sequel series to For Autumn, the inevitable has happened after a year of sexual encounters with the Heir of Autumn. Carrying his heir comes with a litany of challenges though, ones you and Eris have to face alone and together.
Wrath (no smut)
When you fail to hold your tongue around Beron, he doesn’t hesitate to show you the price you’ll pay if you’re not careful. But, he doesn’t punish you, he punishes your mate instead.
Secret’s Out
After a meeting that’s dragged on too long between the Night Court and Eris Vanserra, everyone is a little worse for wear. Eris, defenses down, accidentally ends up spilling a secret that you’ve kept from your family for an entire year and the Inner Circle falls into chaos in reaction.
Lessons In Fire (no smut)
Recruited by Nesta and Cassian to teach you how to flirt properly, Eris Vanserra eventually finds out he’s gotten much more than he bargained for.
Whose Side Are You On? (no smut)
During an argument with your mate, Eris’s hounds surprise you and also show just how sly they can be—just like their father.
The Favorite (no smut)
Set in the same universe as Whose Side Are You On? you and your mate have a discussion about you spoiling his smokehounds and who their favorite really is.
The Princeling & His Fire
In this sequel to Three Illyrians & A Princeling, Eris takes it upon himself to remind you just how much fun you had together, a year ago.
The Art of Distraction
Shadowing Cassian in a meeting in the mortal lands with Jurian, Vassa and Lucien, you find your mind wandering dangerously because of a certain surprise attendee—Eris Vanserra.
Dreams of You (no smut)
Eris Vanserra is haunted by mysterious dreams about a female, dating back to Under the Mountain. He finds answers to who she is and why he’s having these dreams in the most unexpected of ways.
Constellations (no smut)
You spend some time admiring your mate’s freckles, counting them and even naming them.
Bat Boys Book Club (no smut)
Eris is the newest project of the males only book club when he needs help in wooing the female he’s been dancing around for so long. Lucky for him, Rhysand, Cassian, Azriel and Lucien are more than happy to help.
Betrayal & Betrothal
Part of The Heartbreaker series, you find yourself having developed feelings for Eris who you’ve had a casual sexual relationship with for quite some time. When you finally find the nerve to confess your feelings, you find yourself in the midst of a betrayal that you’ll never forget.
First Touch
Eris is in uncharted territory the first time he takes his mate to bed. Not used to loving touch, his mate helps him grow, learn and feel loved all in one night.
Kisses
Eris discovers—and displays—just how much he loves kissing you.
Panic (no smut)
When you have a panic attack, Eris—along with the help of his fire power—helps you weather the storm.
A Princeling’s Solstice (no smut)
It’s Winter Solstice and a perfect time for unresolved feelings between you and the heir of Autumn to surface during the Solstice ball.
Terms of Seduction
You go a little off script from your High Lord’s original plan when seducing Eris at the Solstice ball—intending to have a little fun with your assignment.
Consequences of Desire
In this sequel to Terms of Seduction, Eris returns for another round of the game with you—banter and spice included.
Your Secret’s Safe With Me (no smut)
When your bunny goes missing in the Forest House, you find unexpected camaraderie in the Heir of Autumn.
Play With Fire (no smut)
Your first encounter with Eris Vanserra results in nothing but disaster and deliberate humiliation. In turn, you fight fire with fire, much to his absolute delight.
Deadly Distractions
Needing to blow off some steam after dealing with Beron and his messes, Eris finds distraction in his secret mate.
Deadly Deal
To survive Under the Mountain, you must make some hard decisions and even more complicated bargains, landing you—quite literally—in the lap of Eris Vanserra.
Deadly Devotion
In this sequel to Deadly Deal, you spend the years after Under the Mountain avoiding Eris. But he—and certain truths—won’t remain hidden forever.
I See You (no smut)
You find unexpected camaraderie in another lonely heart.
The Proposition | The Favor | The Dove
What begins as a dangerous proposition to the elusive heir of Autumn evolves into a journey of self exploration, growth and choice.
A Different Lens (no smut)
Insecurities plague you and Eris comforts you in a way you never saw coming.
Quiet
A rendezvous with the heir of Autumn leads to a few exciting adventures.
Azriel:
Shadowsinger, Interrupted
When you and your mate are caught during some late night activities, Azriel decides to be cheeky while receiving orders for his next mission.
The Tease
After hearing a bit of information that was meant for only your best friend Nesta’s ears alone, Azriel decides to have a little fun with it and see just how far he can push you.
The Mate
In this sequel to The Tease, you and Azriel deal with the aftermath of your night of passion and the surprise of a mating bond.
Two Idiots & A Baby (no smut)
When Azriel is tasked to babysit Nyx for the night, the baby bat unintentionally plays matchmaker between you and Az, bringing long denied feelings to the surface.
Loneliness & Longing
Part of The Heartbreaker series, Azriel finds comfort in you on Solstice night in an attempt to distract himself from his romantic woes. You soon realize that there’s a price to pay when consumed with loneliness.
Anxiety (no smut)
During a panic attack, Azriel—and his shadows—help calm you down.
A Shadowsinger’s Solstice (no smut)
You spend your first Winter Solstice with your mate.
Just Another Family Dinner (no smut)
When you show up to family dinner with bruises on your neck from your mate, the Inner Circle jumps on the opportunity to tease you and Azriel mercilessly.
Adored
After divulging about your less than stellar bedroom experiences, Azriel shows you just what you’ve been missing out on.
Angel
You find yourself trapped in a snowstorm with your worst enemy and a crucial decision to make: freeze or use Azriel for warmth—in far more ways than one.
Silk, Shadows & Submission
When he’s stuck in a meeting, you decide to have a little fun with your daemati abilities and your mate, leading to an extremely fun night.
Don’t Let Go (no smut)
When there’s an attack on Velaris and a threat to his mate, Azriel finds comfort in you in the only way he knows how.
Shadowsinger’s Mercy
Azriel wants to try something a little new in the bedroom—with the helping hand of a blindfold and so much more.
Modern (In)Conveniences
An unexpected trip to Midguard has you and your mate making some very intriguing discoveries—some much more fun than others.
You’re My Safe Space (no smut)
Your best friend, Azriel, makes a low day even brighter with a few sweet surprises that lead you to confront a truth you’d always known, deep down.
Scars
When Azriel deals with a bout of insecurity, you make it your mission to prove to him just how much you love him.
The Secret of You
After over a year of keeping the secret of his mate from his family, the Inner Circle is in for a surprise when they discover you’re Azriel’s mate.
Miscellaneous:
Three Illyrians & A Princeling (ft. bat boys & Eris)
Caught in a meeting, you reminisce on the times you had trysts with each of the four males.
All’s Fair in Love and Fucking
(Azriel x reader x Eris)
An argument between Azriel and Eris over you leads to an unusual solution to picking who you prefer best.
One High Lord Too Many (Rhys x reader x Eris)
A surprising set of circumstances leads to you having the opportunity to have a taste of both your favorite High Lords.
Flame, Shadow & Spice (Azriel x reader x Eris)
Adventures in baking takes a heated turn when an aphrodisiac accidentally gets included in a cookie recipe—resulting in unusual reactions in you, Eris and Azriel.
Summary - Feyre was a High Lady. Nesta was a Valkyrie. Elain was a Seer.
And she was the sister the Cauldron ruined and forgot.
Invisible in a family of legends, haunted by nightmares no one noticed, she learned to stay quiet... to expect nothing.
Except Azriel noticed. The Shadowsinger who never spoke too much saw everything—her pain, her loneliness... and the bond between them she didn't even know existed.
When the world decides she is the easiest one to break—Azriel will make them suffer for it.
A/n - As always content warnings will be at the start of each chapter, so please be sure to read them before continuing.
This is my very first Archeron sister fic! For the sake of the story, I've had to make the sisters a little harsh at times but that's purely for plot reasons, not an invitation to throw shade at them x
Expect healing, found family vibes, and basically an overlooked girl x quiet boy kind of story. There will be heartbreak, angst and eventually fluff :)
Please don't hesitate to vote or comment along the way, it truly means the world to me <3
─────── · · STATUS: ON-GOING. VARIOUS ONE SHOTS! ♡
Pairing: Baby Daddy!Azriel x Fem! Illyrian! Reader
Summary: Watching your best friend mate with someone else was devastating enough. But when a night of seeking solace with an-equally bitter Azriel results in an unplanned pregnancy, you're forced to figure out how to co-parent with a male you barely know. Yet as your unlikely partnership unfolds, you begin to discover that sometimes the most beautiful things grow from the most unexpected circumstances.
Overview: SMUT/ EXPLICIT CONTENT, one night stand to co-parents to friends to lovers, pregnancy, fluff, angst, hurt/comfort, mutual pining/unrequited love, slow burn, found family, healing trauma together, illyrian generational trauma, soft!Azriel, soft!Reader, bestie elain archeron, HEA! please check specific part warnings for more!
୨ৎ An Honest Mistake┃4.4k 18+
Lonely and bitter following Gwyn and Balthazar's mating ceremony, you and Azriel sleep together. As it turns out, one night is all it takes to change everything.
୨ৎ Sweet and Strange┃4.5k
Weeks after a one-night stand with Azriel left you pregnant, Elain Archeron becomes an unlikely friend. When Azriel discovers your secret, you both must confront an uncertain future.
୨ৎ Topics of Conversation┃6.6k
A dinner with the Inner Circle triggers unexpected resentment. Back at your apartment, you and Azriel have a heartfelt talk.
୨ৎ Something to Lose┃2.6k
Azriel struggles with the weight of impending fatherhood after a political meeting turns personal.
୨ৎ Brave New Beginnings┃8k
Azriel's reluctance to be honest about his protective surveillance clashes with your confusion over his mixed messages, finally forcing both of you toward genuine communication.
୨ৎ Out in the Open ┃4.6k
During a quiet morning with Azriel, the reality of your pregnancy meets the one person you've been avoiding.
୨ৎ Partners in Crime┃2.5k
Pregnancy hormones, unrequited feelings, and family dinners don't mix well. Luckily, Azriel understands the art of a strategic exit.
୨ৎ A Mother's Home┃4.1k FAV!
You take a trip to Rosehall to meet Azriel's mother. The visit unearths more than you expected.
୨ৎ Learning Curve┃3.8k
On his mother's porch, you and Azriel find yourselves talking about forgiveness
୨ৎ Soft Spots┃2.3k
Ice cream nights and sweet confessions.
୨ৎ Growing Pains┃7.9k
Azriel grapples with his possessive instincts when you find comfort with a new healer, forcing him to confront what friendship actually requires.
୨ৎ Measurements of Progress┃3.9k
A bad day prompts you to call Azriel over. The afternoon leads to conversations about your romantic histories.
Current Word Count: 55.2k
BONUS CONTENT
ONE SHOTS:
୨ৎ Sweet Treats┃1.7k HALLOWEEN AU
Six months pregnant, you and Azriel celebrate your first Halloween together.
CHAPTER MEMES:
The Plot of 'Growing Pains' Summarized Through Memes
Moments from 'Measurements of Progress' in Meme Format
ASKS, DISCUSSIONS, AND THOUGHTS:
#Honestverse tag or #baby daddy!az
RE: TAGLISTS: i no longer do taglists! please follow me on my library blog and turn on notifs to be alerted when a new fic is posted! ♡
─────── · · STATUS: ON-GOING. VARIOUS ONE SHOTS! ♡
Pairing: Baby Daddy!Azriel x Fem! Illyrian! Reader
Summary: Watching your best friend mate with someone else was devastating enough. But when a night of seeking solace with an-equally bitter Azriel results in an unplanned pregnancy, you're forced to figure out how to co-parent with a male you barely know. Yet as your unlikely partnership unfolds, you begin to discover that sometimes the most beautiful things grow from the most unexpected circumstances.
Overview: SMUT/ EXPLICIT CONTENT, one night stand to co-parents to friends to lovers, pregnancy, fluff, angst, hurt/comfort, mutual pining/unrequited love, slow burn, found family, healing trauma together, illyrian generational trauma, soft!Azriel, soft!Reader, bestie elain archeron, HEA! please check specific part warnings for more!
୨ৎ An Honest Mistake┃4.4k 18+
Lonely and bitter following Gwyn and Balthazar's mating ceremony, you and Azriel sleep together. As it turns out, one night is all it takes to change everything.
୨ৎ Sweet and Strange┃4.5k
Weeks after a one-night stand with Azriel left you pregnant, Elain Archeron becomes an unlikely friend. When Azriel discovers your secret, you both must confront an uncertain future.
୨ৎ Topics of Conversation┃6.6k
A dinner with the Inner Circle triggers unexpected resentment. Back at your apartment, you and Azriel have a heartfelt talk.
୨ৎ Something to Lose┃2.6k
Azriel struggles with the weight of impending fatherhood after a political meeting turns personal.
୨ৎ Brave New Beginnings┃8k
Azriel's reluctance to be honest about his protective surveillance clashes with your confusion over his mixed messages, finally forcing both of you toward genuine communication.
୨ৎ Out in the Open ┃4.6k
During a quiet morning with Azriel, the reality of your pregnancy meets the one person you've been avoiding.
୨ৎ Partners in Crime┃2.5k
Pregnancy hormones, unrequited feelings, and family dinners don't mix well. Luckily, Azriel understands the art of a strategic exit.
୨ৎ A Mother's Home┃4.1k FAV!
You take a trip to Rosehall to meet Azriel's mother. The visit unearths more than you expected.
୨ৎ Learning Curve┃3.8k
On his mother's porch, you and Azriel find yourselves talking about forgiveness
୨ৎ Soft Spots┃2.3k
Ice cream nights and sweet confessions.
୨ৎ Growing Pains┃7.9k
Azriel grapples with his possessive instincts when you find comfort with a new healer, forcing him to confront what friendship actually requires.
୨ৎ Measurements of Progress┃3.9k
A bad day prompts you to call Azriel over. The afternoon leads to conversations about your romantic histories.
Current Word Count: 55.2k
BONUS CONTENT
ONE SHOTS:
୨ৎ Sweet Treats┃1.7k HALLOWEEN AU
Six months pregnant, you and Azriel celebrate your first Halloween together.
CHAPTER MEMES:
The Plot of 'Growing Pains' Summarized Through Memes
Moments from 'Measurements of Progress' in Meme Format
ASKS, DISCUSSIONS, AND THOUGHTS:
#Honestverse tag or #baby daddy!az
RE: TAGLISTS: i no longer do taglists! please follow me on my library blog and turn on notifs to be alerted when a new fic is posted! ♡
summary | your family realizes how much they’ve missed—too late. the problem is that you’re grown now, and whatever they didn’t notice in you as a kid has already turned into distance they can’t easily close
pairing | platonic Batfamily x neglected! batsis reader, Wally West x reader (not platonic lalalala)
warnings/tags || SH, please do not read if descriptions of self harm trigger you, panic attack(s), uhm bruce pmo, poor reader, everyone is highkey ooc, also i wanna make dick nicer but we just need him to be kinda stupid for the plot, female reader, trauma, family issues, angst, uhm comfort I think, it gets darker, oooh future Wally West x reader, this is highkey a Wally west fanfic disguised as a batfam one BUT THERES still a lot of batfam. Not a lot in this chapter, reader is not suicidal but isn’t not suicidal either, some kid has an stdi but no one talks too much about it, uhm swear words,
dicks is kinda a dick, some dude named Caden,
Wc: 3.5k
Author’s note: this is my first ever fic and I’m terrified BUTTT I got my first ever request— which is crazy 😭😭😭ig they just sensed that I would agree to write?!? Anyways yeah guys I hope u like it!!! Please feel FREE to give me any suggestions bc I’m aware this isn’t that good🥹. I wrote this as soon as I got the request cuz I was so honoured. since i have no school i already wrote part 3 too smh.
You make your way downstairs slowly, still rubbing leftover eye pencil from the corner of your eye as the sound of voices grows louder the closer you get to the dining room. The manor always felt strange this late at night, especially when family was over. Softer somehow. Less like a museum. The lights were dimmer, shadows stretching longer across the marble floors, the usual stiffness of the house worn down by exhaustion.
Dick is talking about something dramatically with his hands while Jason looks deeply unimpressed and annoyed. Tim is half-awake over a coffee, and Damian looks vaguely irritated at the volume level of the room in general.
Your father glances up briefly when you enter. “You made it.”
You pull your chair out and give him a cold stare, “Yes, unfortunately. It is a family dinner for a reason.”
That gets the smallest hint of amusement from Dick as you sit down. Alfred sets a plate in front of you almost immediately. “I assumed you had not eaten yet,” he calls you by your name, because he knows how much you hate when he calls you anything else.
“Actually, I have. Thanks, though,” you smile. You had always been very grateful for Alfred and his understanding. You glance toward the clock on the wall. 12:41 AM.
“…Why are we having dinner at midnight?”
“Because I said so,” Bruce says before taking a drink.
The words ring in your head. It should just be a phrase, but to you it wasn't. You've done everything to scrub away the ghost of that little kid who did anything because an adult said so. You hated the lack of control you had, especially around your father.
The conversation keeps moving naturally around the table after that. Nobody interrogates you about being out late, but they don’t ignore you either. It’s more like there’s an unspoken understanding that you can handle yourself. You’ve never given anyone a reason to think otherwise. And part of you hates it. It sounded stupid– but part of you wanted to be grounded, or in trouble. It was selfish, but sometimes you wanted them to be worried about you. Deep down, any ‘rebellion’ was a plea for acknowledgement, as if to say, “Please worry about my safety. FEEL something for me.”
Jason, however, glances toward you while stealing food directly off Damian’s plate. “You were out with friends?”
Damian grabs his spoon and roughly whacks Jason’s wrist with it.
“Yeah.”
“At midnight?” Jason winces clutching his wrist.
You should feel annoyed at this, but instead you feel happy. Jason might've treated you like a kid, even though you were only three years younger than him, but he made you feel cared about in a way no one else ever did. Not that he did that a lot, or spoke to you. He didn't say I love you, or good job, but he did show concern. One had to laugh at the stupidity-- for someone with such high standards, you immediately succumbed the moment you felt even the tiny bit cared about.
Jason looks at you briefly. “You’re still in school. Enjoy having a concept of weekdays while you can.”
“I’m in twelfth grade, not in prison.”
“You say that now.”
Dick leans back in his chair slightly, looking at you with mild disbelief again. “I still keep forgetting you’re in twelfth grade.”
“You literally brought it up upstairs,” you roll your eyes coldly. The shock at your achievements was getting old, "try to keep up."
“Yeah, but every time I remember it feels fake again.”
“It’s because she’s fifteen,” Tim says.
“You skipped grades?” Bruce asks like this information has only just fully processed. Dick and Jason nod as well.
You blink-- then roll your eyes. Of course they didn’t know that. “Yeah– no big deal.”
You said that, because it wasn’t. At least not to your family. Because no matter how hard you tried, you would never be a big deal. You would always be average. You always felt like a glass of water around them. You were there, you were acknowledged-- but you weren't special. Not when there was wine, and juice, and soda.
“I knew you were smart, I didn’t know you were ‘finish high school before you can legally drive’ smart,” Jason mutters.
Damian looks up from his food. “Her academic record is publicly accessible.”
“Okay, stalker.”
Ur father finally speaks again before the argument can properly start. “There’s a gala Sunday evening.”
Dick mutters, “You couldn’t have warned us before?”
You start to speak before your phone lights up beside your plate.
Nova: bro im gonna GENUINELY end it. my mom just said im “academically unserious” she says im grounded till i get my grade up to a fucking b💔
You: because you ARE academically unserious
Nova: am not… IM JUST NOT A NERD UNLIKE u
Nova: NERD NERD NERD
She continues to spam you with random stickers.
You: okay then im not tutoring you.
Nova: fine fine fine mb im sorry twin
Across from you, Jason is still complaining about the gala while your father calmly ignores him, Alfred moving around the room collecting dishes with practiced ease. The conversation keeps flowing around you naturally, and you can’t help but roll your eyes. Your family truly was sickening.
“I can’t go Sunday,” you say. It’s quiet for half a second, like the room is just registering it.
Your father looks up. “Why not?”
“I have a performance,” you add, then, “city theatre. Opening night. I can’t miss it. I’m the lead and uhm, my understudy is sick.”
Jason glances up a little. “Sick with what?”
There’s a half-second pause where it feels like the question shouldn’t have been asked out loud. You hesitate, then shrug slightly like it’s nothing. “Just sick.”
“Yeah–” Tim says, “we got that. Sick with what...?
“Fine. She has an STD? You gonna ask me how she got that too or–”
Dick stops mid movement. “I—what? At 15? That’s insane.”
You roll your eyes, “of course not. She’s 16!”
Tim looks up properly now. “That’s not—”
Your father doesn’t react much, just glances up briefly. “That is… not relevant.”
You shrug again, a little tighter this time. “What I mean is, she can’t perform. Meaning I have to be there. And it’s not just because I’m the lead. I’m also stage manager.”
Your father sets his glass down. “you are attending the gala. I don’t want to hear any thing else.”
“Well… too bad. You don’t get to choose what I do for me.”
“It is a required event.”
“And this is a required performance.”
“That is not equivalent.”
“It is to me,” you say immediately.
You ignore the sudden sting behind your eyes. Of course it’s not equivalent. When would your accomplishments ever be equivalent to anything?
And just like that all you remember is the night you stopped calling Bruce "dad." You were six, and overly excited about the talent show at your school, you were going to play the piano, and sing a song you wrote. And all you wanted was for your dad to come see you. "Just this once." You had begged, over dinner. But there was no use, not only would he not see you, he refused to let you perform your song because there was some event, and you had to be there. You had cried that night, for hours. At first at the table, and when Bruce showed no remorse, into Alfred's arms, and then in bed. And you still couldn't go, all because Bruce 'said so'. You wouldn't have reacted like that if it was the first time this happened, or if it was just some song. You were used to being disappointed. You were used to constantly being exceptional just so you could be treated like you were average. That night instilled something in you. Bruce was your father-- not your dad. He was your father because you had the same blood as him, but he wasn't your dad. Dads love their kids. Bruce never told he loved you. Dads felt proud of their kids. Bruce felt disappointed in you. He might've not seen further into it, but you did. It left an unhealed scar, and moments like these made it sear again. You push your emotions down and direct your attention to the argument.
Jason leans back. “This is just going in circles again.”
“It is not optional,” your father says, voice still controlled but firmer now.
You shake your head once. “Neither is opening night.”
Dick exhales quietly. “Okay, this is literally just a scheduling conflict—”
“It is a priority issue,” your father cuts in, his eyes stay on you. “You will attend the gala.”
Your jaw tightens slightly, but your voice stays level. “I’m not missing opening night.”
You close your eyes slowly and think for a second. There was no doubt that in the end, you would have to attend the gala. Whether you liked it or not. This was the sad truth about your life. Everyone always expects you to cooperate, and move yourself to make more room for them. Because it's you. And you always figure it out. You’re never difficult or pushy.
“Okay,” you swallow, remembering that you were supposed to have everything under control. you stand up. “I will attend the gala, and the play. I will manage it myself. I’’ll just move some things around, and tell Caden I cant go out with him on Saturday.” you continue mumbling to yourself before clearing your throat, and collecting yourself. “Yeah, okay. I’ll come to the gala. sorry for being difficult. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to sleep. I have volleyball tomorrow morning.”
And then you just turn, like it’s settled, like it’s fixed, like everything can be reorganized the same way it always is, and leave the room before anyone can say anything else. The moment you leave, you let the tears stream out of your eyes. You didn’t know why you were crying. Was it exhaustion? Was it a lack of acknowledgment? Was it the fact that no matter what you did it wasn’t good enough? Was it because no matter what you did, it didn’t get recognition from the people you craved approval from?
The door clicks shut behind you, and an awkward second passes before Jason turns in his chair. “Who the fuck is Caden?”
Tim looks up confused. “Who?”
Jason leans forward slightly. “Caden. The guy she mentioned. Who is he?”
Dick pauses. “I don’t know, man.”
Jason stares at him. “That’s not an answer.”
Dick exhales. “Maybe he’s just a friend.”
“Right,” Jason says, leaning back a little. “And if he was the friend she was out till midnight with? Doesn’t seem like just friends to me.”
Tim shrugs slightly. “We don’t really know that part.”
Jason frowns. “So she’s just out with a guy ‘friend’ till midnight? Bruce, why haven't you-- you guys just--?”
Tim rolls his eyes, “Well, when you put it like that you make it sound like she’s—”
“Exactly," Jason replies.
Damian looks between the two of them for a second before saying, “Caden is a boy from her school who has been using Taylor Swift as a means to get close to her. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve suffered enough from your idiocy for the night.”
Up in your room, you already know what’s happening, even before you fully sit down. It starts small, almost easy to ignore, like you’re just tired or overwhelmed, but then it builds too fast to pretend it’s anything else. Your chest tightens first, breath catching in uneven pieces, and your heartbeat gets louder and louder until it’s all you can hear, like it’s filling your ears and pushing everything else out. Your hands shake when you try to steady them, fingers curling and unclenching without permission, and the room feels wrong in a way you can’t explain, too big and too close at the same time, like it’s shifting around you.
Breathe in.
You’re fine.
You’re not fine.
It’s okay.
You’re okay.
Don’t be stupid.
You move without really deciding to, ending up behind your door and you slide down it slowly until you’re sitting on the floor, knees pulled in. Your back presses against the wood and you try to breathe the way you’re supposed to, like if you just force it into rhythm it will stop, but it doesn’t listen. It never fully listens when it gets like this. Your head tips back slightly, eyes unfocused, and everything feels distant, like you’re not fully in your body anymore, just stuck somewhere behind it watching it fall apart.
And there’s this part of it that makes it worse, the part you can’t really stop thinking about even while everything else is spiraling: no one is coming. No footsteps outside your door, no knock, no voice asking if you’re okay, because there never is. You’ve learned that already. You handle it, you always handle it, so there’s nothing for anyone to notice, nothing urgent enough for someone to come check. The thought sits there heavier than anything else, sharper than the panic itself sometimes, because it confirms what your brain already knows in the worst moments—you’re alone in this, and you have to get through it the same way you always do, even when it feels impossible.
Your fingers press into your sleeve, trying to anchor yourself to something real, something physical, because everything else feels unstable and far away. You swallow hard, try to slow your breathing again, try to force it into something normal, but it keeps breaking apart anyway in uneven waves. And you just sit there behind the door, trying to pull yourself back together in silence, even as it keeps rising and falling inside you, because there’s no one else to notice it happening.
Then your eyes catch on the eyebrow blade sitting on the edge of your vanity.
You push yourself up slowly, shaky, still not fully steady, and it feels like everything takes more effort than it should just to move a few steps forward. The room tilts slightly when you stand, but you keep going anyway, because stopping feels worse.
Your hand reaches out and wraps around it. And then you pull your sleeve up. Just this once. You tell yourself. Just once. To numb the pain. To calm you down. You convince yourself this is helping you. The cold sharp metal cools your skin as you bring it up to your wrist.
Then you press. Lightly, at first, but still hard enough to expose a few beads of blood. Then slowly, you drag it across the same cut again, deeper this time. Then you move the blade to the left of the cut and drag it again and again until you don’t feel any pain anymore. Your head feels light now and your arm feels hot and sticky against the fabric of your shirt as you put the blade back down. You analyze your face in the mirror. Your tears had dried up, and you looked more normal again; just tired.
“Water. I need water,” you think.
You exhale, your breath still shaky. Your water bottle was empty. You pause. You really don’t want to see any of your family, but you tell yourself they’ve all gone home.
Dick is already in the kitchen when you come down.
He’s leaning against the counter like he’s just lingering after dinner. The lights are low, the manor settling into that late-night silence where everything feels stretched out and still.
He looks up as soon as he hears you. “Hey.”
You pause at the bottom of the stairs for half a second too long before answering.
“Hey,” you say, and your voice comes out shaky immediately. You clear your throat right after, “I just… wanted water.”
You move toward the sink before he can respond, but your hands don’t fully cooperate the way you want them to. You notice it immediately—how they’re not steady when you reach for the glass, how small movements feel louder than they should. You adjust your grip anyway, pretending it’s normal, like nothing about you is off.
The water runs while you fill the glass, and you keep your focus on it like it’s the only thing that exists in the room. You make sure not to let your sleeve drop and reveal the fresh wounds you had just bandaged. When you finally speak again, it comes out too light, like you’re trying to smooth over something that already gave you away.
“I’m fine,” you say quickly, and then you let out a small, awkward laugh that doesn’t really match anything. “Just—late night brain stuff. You know.”
Dick doesn’t say anything. That’s almost worse. And you laugh in your head, your concern that someone would worry about you was once again all in your brain.
Your hand tightens slightly around the glass when you lift it, still not steady, and you force yourself not to correct it, not to react to it, because reacting would make it real in a way you don’t want it to be right now.
Dick watches you for a second longer than normal.
“Alright,” he shrugs, like he accepts it at face value.
You nod once, quick, like that settles it.
The silence goes back to normal after that—just the fridge hum, the soft sound of water settling in the glass. It feels easier now, like whatever little spike of attention there was has passed, and you can slip back into something that looks like normal.
You lift the glass and take a sip, slower this time, and it actually helps a bit just having something simple to focus on. Your shoulders drop slightly without you meaning them to.
“I’m just gonna take something for my head,” you say casually, already moving toward the cabinet like it’s nothing worth noting.
Dick glances over. “Yeah?”
“Mm,” you hum in confirmation, opening the cabinet and scanning for a second before grabbing the bottle. “Probably just tired or something.”
You don’t mention that these headaches are recurring.
“Yeah, makes sense,” he says, turning slightly back toward the counter.
You twist it open, take it with water, and lean against the counter for a second while you swallow it down.
Dick doesn’t comment again.
The door shuts behind you with a soft click, too early for the manor to feel fully awake. It’s 6:30’re on a Saturday morning and you’re already exhausted.
Everything inside is still in that half-asleep state—dim light, quiet movement somewhere deeper in the house, the soft hum of morning that hasn’t fully turned into anything yet. Your bag hangs off your shoulder a little heavy, and you step inside automatically.
“Hey,” Dick calls from the kitchen.
“Hey,” you answer back, normal, a little tired but steady.
Tim is already at the table with a mug in front of him, hair slightly messy, looking like he’s been awake just long enough to function.
“Morning,” he says.
“Morning,” you reply, slipping your shoes off by the door.
Dick is at the counter with coffee in hand, still a little worn down from the night before.
Dick opens your mouth, as if to ask you something, when Bruce walks in.
Your phone buzzes.
You glance down. “One sec,” you say automatically, not really asking, just slipping out of the conversation as you answer it.
Aliyah.
“Aliyah— it’s 6:30 in the morning. Why are you awake? Is everything okay?”
There’s a beat, then Aliyah’s voice comes through “I can’t— it’s too much. I don’t know how to—”
You immediately tense. “Okay. Listen to me. Listen to my voice okay?”
You sense Aliyah is trying to speak, but can’t let it out. You know the feeling all too well.
“Okay, Aliyah, I’m gonna need you to turn your camera on okay,” you speak softly,”I’ll turn mine on too. I just need to make sure you’re not hurting yourself.”
It was hypocritical sure, but that was because you had no one. Aliyah had you.
“I know it’s hard. I know how you’re feeling. Focus on me. Are you at home?’
Aliyah nods. You remember her parents work on Saturdays and suddenly feel a jolt of panic course through you.
“I’m coming over,” you say into the phone, already moving as you speak. “Just stay where you are, okay? Stay on the line with me.”
You step toward the door without fully looking back at the kitchen. Your bag gets pulled onto your shoulder in one motion, shoes half-on, half-forgotten until you fix them properly at the last second.
“Your library shift– and the tu-the tutoring.” Aliyah speaks
“I’ll manage,” you add, quieter but firm, convincing yourself more than her. “Don’t worry about me."
Sunday morning came, and you were all over the place, not at all the collected person everyone knew.
After spending two hours at Aliyah’s house calming her down, you still somehow managed to finish your extra homework, teach your piano students, reschedule your library shift, and stay an extra hour there to make up for the inconvenience. You got home around eleven, exhausted enough that your body hurt, but sleep still didn’t come easily. Your brain kept moving long after everything else stopped. Every responsibility replayed itself over and over again until it all blurred together into one giant thing sitting on your chest.
You finally fell asleep sometime around four in the morning.
It wasn’t that you had been working until four. That would’ve almost made more sense. It was just your own head refusing to shut up.
Still, by the time Sunday properly started, you already had a plan.
A very good one, actually.
Complicated, definitely insane, but manageable. It was also something only you would’ve come up with.
The gala started at five. The play started at six-thirty. You’d spend the day at the theatre helping prepare everything, reviewing lines, running through cues, making sure the younger kids didn’t accidentally destroy props or themselves. Then you’d go to the gala, stay exactly long enough to be seen, leave at 6, and get to the theatre by six-fifteen. Ten minutes to change. Five minutes to become somebody else before stepping onstage.
The show itself was two hours long with one intermission at 7:10. It was exactly long enough for you to change in the car, return to the gala, do whatever Bruce needed you to do for appearances, and leave again before anyone noticed you were gone.
Then at eight-forty, after curtain call, you’d stay at the gala properly and finish the night there.
Simple.
Exhausting, but simple.
You could handle it. You always handled it. Everything had been fine so far. You had been there for everyone else and pushed your own issues aside. It feels like your climbing the worlds steepest mountain, but you continue to tell yourself to pull yourself together and keep pushing through.
That was the problem, really. Everyone knew you handled things. So nobody thought too hard about how much you were actually carrying at once.
Unfortunately for you, plans only work when nothing goes wrong.
And things started going wrong very quickly.
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Summary: You’re no Lady Death, nor are you a seer, nor are you the High Lady of the Night Court. While the Cauldron had blessed your sisters with powers beyond your comprehension, it had left you a fat load of nothing. Your ears are pointed now, and your periods are killer, but that’s about it. Frustrated at your lack of talents and struggling to fit in amongst the Night Court’s specialized Inner Circle, you start to wonder if Velaris will ever feel like home. After an unfortunate incident during which Rhysand lets slip that he thinks you’re just as useless as you believe yourself to be, he tries making amends by inviting you on official Night Court business. It means a trip to the Autumn Court, but you’re refused from the meeting room by the cruel Lord Beron. He tasks his eldest son Eris with babysitting you, and an unfortunately timed mating bond snap leaves you drifting between worlds like a falling leaf caught in an autumn breeze.
A/N: I LOVE ERIS I LOVE ERIS I LOVE ERIS RAAAAAAH i'm that skeleton banging on the shield screaming I LOVE ERIS I LOVE ERIS I LOVE ERIS <33333
feedback is greatly appreciated! comment, reblog, talk in the tags, send me a message, tell me what you think!
Waking up feels like a hangover. You’re glad you’ve risen before Azriel’s 8AM wakeup call, though you’re not sure he’ll really follow through with it. You have time to smush your face into your pillow, your eyes tight and achy from the exhaustion sleep can’t fix, and try to keep your breathing calm and steady where it had raged last night.
You’re not sure if there’s a word for the grief you’re feeling. It’s a loss, even if you hadn’t had powers to begin with, because they’d integrated you into their family like you had. They’d turned promising smiles and expectant eyes on you, waiting for you to shoot fire from your fingertips or command light to heal the sick. One by one your sisters had revealed themselves as something special, and each time another one became great you’d felt a chisel chipping away at the structure of your soul.
You’re happy for them, but so, so envious. The kind of envy that you’re ashamed of, the kind that makes you stay buried beneath your covers instead of dining with Feyre, or asking Elain if she’d like your help in the gardens. You’d rather be alone than in the company of people simply better than you, and you hate yourself for it.
At 7:55 a series of knocks lands against your door, and you grumble as you turn over in your tangled sheets. They’re such a mess that they constrict your body movement, and you call to Azriel to come in instead of trying to get the door yourself.
“You’re still dozing by eight.” He stands dressed in a suit, something like Rhysand would wear but with an undershirt beneath it instead of showing off the tanned planes of his abdomen. His siphons are still there, though, mounted on his chest as a warning. Despite the jewels, the ensemble is still classier than fighting leathers, and you wonder if it has something to do with Autumn’s infamously cruel High Lord.
“It’s not eight.” You argue, but your limbs are suddenly itchy with the need to get up, to do something, to make yourself presentable so that you at least look like you have something to offer the world.
“In the camps anyone who gets to training within fifteen minutes of it starting has to double their workouts.” Azriel’s shadows swarm towards your bed to rouse you from the covers with pinpricks of cold that you can’t bury yourself away from, “Get showered, and we’ll have breakfast before we go.”
After being thoroughly scolded you dash to the bathroom, making sure that none of Azriel’s shadows poke beneath the doorframe in their infinite attempts to ruffle your feathers. When you’re in the clear you hop into the steaming water, glad that Azriel had attributed your puffy face to sleep and not to the way you’d cried into the wee hours of the morning. You take the quickest shower of your life, smearing floral body wash into every inch of your skin in hopes that the scent will carry on the Autumn breeze and make you smell pretty, make you seem graceful, give everyone something to think about you besides what you lack.
Azriel’s shut your door behind him, but once you wrestle on a dress with a zipper you almost can’t fasten and slip into your flats to head towards the table you find him still waiting outside, his eyes shut as his head leans against the wall.
You stop in your doorway, bewildered eyes blinking at him, “Have you been standing there this whole time?”
“You took a quick shower,” He shrugs, eyes weary as they open and fall over the dress draped down your body, “And Cassian would have gotten syrup on my suit if I’d gone down there with him.”
“It looks nice,” You clutch the small bag you’d groggily packed last night after crying yourself silly, a book inside, water and some snacks that the House had decided you’d need in case you’re not permitted any refreshments at the Autumn Court. Beron’s disposition is infamous, and you wouldn’t be surprised if he’d attempt to starve you to death for the duration of the meeting he’s meant to engage in with Rhysand.
You’re not even sure what the meeting is about, really. Just that it’s important, court stuff, and you’ll be reading in another room.
Oh well.
Azriel’s scarred hand comes up to brace against your back, guiding you down the staircase towards the dining room. “So do you,” He eyes your dress sideways, a deep red with leaves stitched in gold thread around the skirt, “You’ll certainly blend in with Autumn.”
Breakfast is a calm affair now that Cassian’s had his fill, and Azriel scoops a handful of berries onto your plate that you hadn’t even realized you’d wanted until they were already there, a shadow licking against the rim of your plate.
“Thank you,” You hum quietly, trying to tamp down your nerves at the thought of visiting Autumn. You’re excited to see the sights, perhaps take a wander through the woods or tour a nearby village. But your anxieties lie with the Vanserra family- Lucien has proven himself kind but the rest of his family seems complicated at best. Hopefully your unimportance will work to your advantage this time, and you won’t even come face to face with Beron or the pack of wild dogs that make up the heirs to the throne.
Once your stomach is sated and your shoes are on, Azriel leads you to the foyer where the rest of the Autumn Court visitors stand ready. You straighten your shoulders, like you’re important- like you’re not scared, like you’re not pathetic, like you’re not dying inside a little bit each day that you don’t wake up as someone special.
“Everybody ready?” Rhysand asks, “We’ll be winnowing directly into the manor. I don’t know who will be asked to meet- who will be allowed to meet,” He casts quick glances at everyone in the room, “You know he likes to pick and choose who to bully.”
“Well he’s got all his favorites today,” Cassian drawls, glancing at Morrigan, Azriel, Feyre, “Maybe he’ll be so overwhelmed with bloodlust he’ll just drop dead.”
“Don’t make those jokes when we get there,” Rhys warns, though his face forms a dry grin, “Eris might sic his hounds on you.”
You’ve heard stories of the Autumn Court hounds. They sound terrifying- they’re born and bred hunters that would have ripped Morrigan into literal shreds if they’d caught her. Even Cassian grimaces, envisioning them outnumbering him, and shuts his mouth.
Once everyone gives Rhysand a reluctant nod, he sighs and takes Feyre’s arm. Morrigan claims Cassian, and you’re left to shadowwalk with Azriel, only slightly more comfortable than the tilting, squeezing feeling of winnowing.
You land in the Autumn Court, three pairs popping into existence one after the next, and you lean heavily into Azriel as you gain your bearings. The shadows that had guided you from place to place dissipate, but some of them linger around you and their singer, wisps of darkness that assess the room for threats before curling protectively around your shoulders and Azriel’s arms. He wears them like tattoos, like part of his skin. But you wear them like a shawl, drapery meant to protect and conceal.
As soon as you settle in your places, before anyone can murmur anything about the large mahogany manor you’re standing in- beautiful despite its imposing size, thundering footsteps, dozens of them, begin from your left side somewhere unseen. Sudden wisps of smoke- similar to Azriel’s shadows but far more corporeal phase through the wall, landing heavy on the carpeted floor as soon as they’re in the room you and your family had winnowed into. They’re dogs- hounds, smokehounds made of muscle and darkness that kick your heart rate into overdrive as they bound towards you with their massive paws.
They’re waist-height to Cassian. They’re enormous, and you duck behind Azriel in terror before you realize it means they’ll get him first. You wonder if that makes you a backstabber- a weak, useless coward - but his hands are already grabbing for you, arms behind his back as he stations himself before you as a shield. Rhysand throws his hands out, ready to use his power to do whatever he needs to in order to maintain your safety, but your heart still pounds in your chest.
The hounds stop five paces away from you, assessing, at attention in formation like an army. Clearly impeccably trained, their eyes blaze with energy, raw power coiling off of them in wisps of smoke that seem to rise and dissipate endlessly off of them. You don’t have time to consider the mechanics of their bodies- physical, spiritual, solid, gas, before shoes scrape against the ground behind you, and you spin behind Azriel’s back to find Eris Vanserra straightening himself where he’d been leaning against a pillar of the foyer in wait for you, hand outstretched in a silent command to his hounds: wait.
His face is sharp, cheekbones and jawline slanted and angled like weapons. His skin stretches taut over them, smooth but taut like he eats for necessity and not enjoyment. His pointed ears jut upwards into a head of impeccably-styled flaming red hair, gel slicking the strands sideways and back around the part against the left side of his scalp. It’s closely shaved to the nape of his neck, gradually lengthening until the strands at the front of his hairline that look long enough to dip into his vision if it weren’t so thickly coated with product. It looks rock-solid, like it might break off if it’s moved from its careful placement.
He’s dressed sharply, and you admire the Autumn Court fashion- a white tunic, sleeves elegantly cuffed that contrasts deeply with the emerald green vest he’s buttoned over it. There’s gold stitching at the breast pocket, and his slacks are tight against his thighs as he slips his hands behind his back primly. You notice another presence- another redheaded presence behind Eris, and your tension eases only slightly as you recognize Lucien’s long hair woven into an intricate braid, sections of it twisted this way and that in a style you couldn’t even imagine attempting. He’s leaning against the same wall Eris had, and you wonder if they were having some sort of brotherly conversation before your arrival, or if they’d simply stared at the floor in silent wait. Either way, his eyes are kinder than Eris’s when they rake over you, but it’s the eldest Vanserra who speaks.
“You’ve brought a party,” He observes, his eyes raking over Cassian, Morrigan, Rhys and your sister, Azriel, and catching on the embroidery on your dress before his eyes flit to your face. His gaze burns like his fire and your stomach curls- you feel bare in front of his powerful stare, vulnerable despite Azriel’s hand wrapping around your stomach to pull you tighter into him, protecting you from the threats surrounding you from all sides. Eris’s eyes don’t miss the gesture, and his lips quirk in a sneer where they had been set in an uninterested curve.
“You are aware,” Eris begins, his voice a grating drawl that splays Azriel’s fingers out wider against your stomach, “That not all of you will be permitted into the meeting room?” He casts a scathing glance over Cassian’s broad frame, one that makes your face flood with a rush of indignance, “The dogs typically stay outside.”
“Cassian has information from the front lines of his army.” Rhysand states simply, calm and composed next to Eris’s flickering flame, “And he will deliver it as is his right due to his station.”
“Yes, his station, the-” Eris’s lips tug up at the corners, though he stifles it for dramatic effect, “Lord of Bloodshed.”
You wonder if perhaps Eris is the Lord of Condescension.
As if on cue, his eyes flicker to you, lashes fluttering as he blinks once, twice, thrice, almost bewildered if not for his regal composure, “And you? Who are you?”
You hadn’t expected to be addressed directly. You falter- you know your name quite well, but you find yourself incapable of speaking it for a few brief seconds as you regain your composure. Eris’s eyes burn, their flames licking at your skin and heating your face with embarrassment. Before you can introduce yourself Azriel speaks from over your shoulder, “She is the sister of my High Lady. She is here to be shown around by Lucien. She will not be placed within sneering range of Beron.”
There’s a very conflicting set of emotions warring inside of you. You appreciate Azriel’s protectiveness- he’s a good male, he’s always willing to throw himself into harm’s way to keep his family safe. But Rhysand had offered you a spot at the table; as much of one as he was able to promise, not knowing whether Beron was in a particularly aggressive mood or not. But still, it had been a last-ditch attempt to make you feel like you were good for something, and Azriel had simply decided you weren’t going. Is it protectiveness, or is it his true feelings- the ones he swore he didn’t possess - shining through?
Did you even want to go? Did you want to sign yourself up for gruelling debate, hours and hours of sitting tensely and watching politics play out before you, waiting for someone to go for another man’s jugular?
You did not. Your book and the richly-colored forests of autumn are calling your name, but it feels like an especially useless thing to do. Opting out of the big-kid job to go play in the woods- that seems precisely like something someone would do if they had no dog in the fight. And you don’t, but you wish to so desperately that you’d be willing to sit at their table, stiff-backed and straight-faced until someone thought you belonged there.
Despite not wanting any part in the meeting, you find yourself unreasonably irritated that Azriel is going to shut the door on you.
Perhaps he senses it- that thoughtful, caring bastard - because the hand on your stomach twitches, thumb stroking briefly back and forth over your skin, only once so no one catches the movement. But it’s meant to soothe, and you sink back into helpless despair as the room decides your fate for you. As it always does.
“Lucien will be meeting with us.” Eris grimaces, and for once he looks sincere as his brother shifts restlessly beside him, his face twisted in a scowl, “My father- the High Lord is particularly fixated on speaking to him at the moment.”
You wonder if they’ve spoken at all since Lucien began working for Rhysand. If they’ve written, if they’ve fought, if they’d burned down whatever meeting place they’d chosen for a conversation. Lucien casts you an apologetic glance, but you can’t manage a smile back at him.
“Then I will keep her company,” Azriel defers, but Rhysand shakes his head once, seeming just as pained as Eris.
“Azriel.” He calls warily, resignedly, knowingly, “You’re needed in the meeting room.”
“I can join you,” You try, your voice feeble as you address both your family and your adversary, Azriel’s fingers curling tightly around you in protest, “I can sit and-”
“And what?” Comes a raspy voice as the double doors behind Eris and Lucien creak open, wood scraping against wood to create a sound just as chilling as the voice of the man behind them, “Gather dust?”
Beron Vanserra is a man as withered and callous on the outside as he is on the inside. His hair is thinning and greying, his face gnarled and twisted with age and hatred alike. It writhes into a scowl, an audible scoff leaving his thin lips as he takes note of Lucien’s presence before him, and the fire in his eyes jumps to your companions, hungry for more fuel. They scald your skin as they rake over you and Azriel, then the rest of your party, his lips curling up in a withering sneer that reveals too-thin, yellowed, crooked teeth protruding from his pale gums, “Is this a joke, Rhysand? You come here for a formal discussion, three Illyrian bastards and your whores. You really believe that is appropriate for official court business? This is not a vacation spot.”
He speaks the word court like it’s the thing that matters most to him, sharp and intentional. And as he shoulders roughly past Eris in the doorway to stride towards you, nearly knocking his son off-balance, his gaze flicking over the smokehounds behind you with the same disdain he’d aimed at you, you wonder if Beron Vanserra cares about anything at all besides his throne.
One of the smokehounds snarls- no, the growl comes from Azriel, deep and guttural within his throat, so animalistic that you’d assumed it was a dog’s. Cassian bristles and Morrigan straightens her posture, shoulders back, chin held high. Rhysand and Feyre though- they look used to it. They keep their faces in sync, cool, unbothered smirks that don’t falter under the heat of Beron’s gaze.
“Lord Beron,” Feyre greets smoothly, her lead surely boiling Beron’s blood further, “Do you mean to tell me your manor is not large enough for six guests?”
“Besides,” Rhysand speaks after her, and Feyre tilts her head, her hair spilling down her shoulders and back in elegant waves, “I seem to remember your entire brood of heirs joining us the last time we spoke. Is this any different?”
“Of course it’s different,” Beron scoffs, “My sons are members of my court. They contribute, they will rule someday, and you’ve brought along your gaggle of misfits and as many humans as the King of Hybern was able to scoop up and toss into the Cauldron.”
“Actually, there’s two more at home,” Cassian smirks, teeth sharp and bared, “But they didn’t feel like wasting their time listening to you.”
You’re sure if Beron were younger or less soulless his cheeks would have flushed in anger. But it’s his permanent state, and he doesn’t tear his gaze away from Rhysand as he speaks.
“No guests in the meeting room.”
“Feyre and I reign.” Rhysand stands tall, his wings spread behind him in an intimidating display, “Cassian leads my armies and Azriel knows my court inside and out. Morrigan is my second-in-command and-”
Rhys’s voice barely begins to falter over your name before Beron’s own cuts him off, “Don’t bother giving the girl a make-believe title. You may have managed to sequester all of the human girls that invaded our lands, Rhysand, but they are legend across Prythian. This one is the one without powers.”
Azriel’s harsh, gruff voice barks from behind you, “Don’t-”, but Beron pays him no mind,
“This one is not of any use to you, or to me. This one will not be permitted to join.”
Your stomach aches.
Azriel’s shadows writhe. His grip on your waist is starting to pain you now, and you shift beneath his fingers that are clenched in the soft skin of your stomach like an anchor in waterlogged silt. He loosens his grip apologetically, but doesn’t let you go, and Eris steps in before Azriel’s shadows block his father’s airways.
“Father,” He dips his head respectfully towards Beron, “I’ll take the girl to the servant’s quarters. She can stay there while we meet, and-”
“And run off to spread the spymaster’s shadows throughout our court? Use your brain, Eris,” Beron grits, and you wonder if he’s ever let anyone finish a sentence around him without trampling all over it, “She cannot be left unattended. You will watch her.”
Eris’s eyes don’t widen, but they do twitch slightly. He bristles, his shoulders shifting as he moves his weight from one foot to the other. He stares at you, gaze wary like you’re trying to hold him back from his princely duties. Like you’re begging to have him breathe down your neck for the day, like you’d enjoy his company instead of fear it. He glances back at Beron- you can tell he’s surprised by the order, as are you, as is Azriel whose hand presses your back impossibly closer to his chest. The cobalt siphon on his chest digs painfully into your spine, and you shift your shoulders to push yourself away from it. You straighten them like you matter, like you’re a diplomat instead of a daydreamer, and try ignoring the way your stomach has deflated so tragically that it seems to have fallen to your feet.
“But… My Lord,” He bows his head respectfully, layering his adoration on thicker than grease, “The meeting- I am needed.”
“And I don’t need a babysitter.” Your voice is strong but not loud, though your tone nearly falters when Beron’s gaze singes your nerve, “I’ll be happy to walk through the forest while you’re talking.”
“Yes,” Beron grins, his teeth covered in spit that shines in the faelight of the foyer, “Peruse the forests. Walk alone, unarmed, weak and new to the territory. My sons and I will draw up a bet for how soon your remains are scattered throughout the woods. I’d say twenty minutes.”
“The serving quarters,” Eris attempts again, but Beron snarls this time, jerking his arms about in such hot anger you’re surprised his fire magic doesn’t lick up the mahogany crown molding bracketing every ceiling and floor.
“Enough! I did not permit you a seat at the table to argue with me.” Beron growls, “Seeing the disrespect you show me now makes me glad Rhysand brought his human bore for you to entertain- it would have been disastrous to allow this sort of behavior in my court. Go, take her and go,” Beron waves a hand at both of you like he might not care whether you lived or died, “And while you are out, be sure you locate your manners because it seems as though you lost them- probably on your last hunt with those mongrels. Get these bitches out of my manor,” Beron’s hand sweeps over you and the dogs as one, his voice vicious and biting as he storms back into his meeting room, “And do not return until we are finished.”
Azriel is breathing so heavily with restraint that it’s audible in your ear. He’s seething, burning like autumn court fire with the urge to fill Beron’s lungs up with his shadows and watch the man die a slow, painful death. But Rhysand turns towards you, levelling him with a warning stare before his eyes slide down to your own, calm and collected to keep you the same.
“I believe he’s done throwing his temper tantrum now, and I’ll make sure it’s the last you see of him. Eris,” He calls the eldest son of autumn, and you watch as Eris fights very hard not to step forwards like he would for his father, the habit nearly degrading him in front of your family, “Do not let any harm come to her.”
“She will be safe.” He mutters begrudgingly, “You think I can’t handle babysitting a human girl? Or- do you think I’ll hurt her,” He scoffs, wary of his father’s listening ear as he murmurs lowly, “Has my brother’s alliance and my cooperation not been enough to convince you that I am not the enemy under this roof?”
“She is fae.” Azriel snarls, “And you left the last woman you were trusted with half-dead on the border of Spring. So yes, Eris, I think you will hurt her.”
Eris’s hands flicker with flame. A visible fire that coats his fists, licking up his arms until it’s touching but not burning his sharply-cuffed sleeves. You’re still aware of the tension between Eris and Azriel, but you briefly stare in awe at his power- magic is still so new to you that even something as rudimentary for Eris as simple flames puts stars in your eyes.
“I will not hurt her.” Eris spits, “We’re wasting time. If my father has to call for you he will simply refuse to meet at all. Come.” He turns his gaze towards you, sharp and irritated from the Illyrians’ needling, “We’re leaving.”
You have to peel Azriel’s hand off of your stomach. You feel his resistance, you see the two shadows that separate from his arsenal to circle around your ankles, one for each. One to stay with you at all times, and one to race back to Azriel and report any danger.
The shadows catch one of the smokehound’s eyes, and you let out an unsteady, garbled sound of fear as it darts for your stumbling feet, but all it does is sniff curiously at your ankle and the wispy smoke curling around it.
“Those cannot come with us,” Eris points at the shadows, “Don’t be stupid, Azriel.”
Azriel’s fist clenches at his side as he calls the shadows back, their gray, formless bodies seeming to resist the order as well. They delight in making the curious smokehound at your feet sneeze on their way back to Azriel, but even at its now-relaxed, puppyish behavior you shy a few steps to your left to get away from it. Eris tracks the motion, one hand beckoning for the other dogs to follow behind him as he takes your arm in his grip and heads for the door.
“Come outside,” He mutters, his voice now too low for even your family to hear as they reluctantly file into the meeting room, “And fight me.”
“What-” You whimper as he squeezes your arm, “Ow, I-” Then you register his words, twisting in his hold, before the large windows that look into the room where your friends are taking their seats, and Beron is watching sharply as you struggle, “You pig, get your hands off of me! Stop,” You beg, thrashing about as Eris beelines you both towards a smaller building against the side of the manor, at the very edge of the forest, “You’re hurting me! I can walk on my own, where are you taking me?”
“For the record,” He yanks you through a doorway into a concrete hallway, doors lining the walls to make up what you realize is a kennel for his enormous hunting hounds that swarm inside after you, twining around your legs and brushing against your sides in the confined space, “I never said you had to speak. But it was a nice touch, if not a bit underplayed. If someone ever grabs you like that again, I’d suggest calling them worse things than a pig.”
You stagger backwards as soon as he lets you go, grappling with all of the different attitudes and personas he’d worn in such a short time. You can't keep them straight- you don't know which to trust. Is he Mor’s vicious abuser? Is he a genius, carefully planting her where she could be saved and escorting his father the opposite way? Is he Beron’s mini-me, his father’s obedient little pet? Is he the Night Court’s begrudging ally, resistant to betray his court but eager to betray its ruler? Is he the smart-mouthed man now standing before you, shoulders loosened from where they’d been held proudly squared until the door shut behind him?
“I’m Eris,” He offers you his hand and you freeze, glancing warily down at his skin, unmarred by the flame it had just held moments prior, “Please don’t back away any further, darling, you’ll step on a smokehound.”
feedback is greatly appreciated! comment, reblog, talk in the tags, send me a message, tell me what you think!
Summary - Feyre was a High Lady. Nesta was a Valkyrie. Elain was a Seer.
And she was the sister the Cauldron ruined and forgot.
Invisible in a family of legends, haunted by nightmares no one noticed, she learned to stay quiet... to expect nothing.
Except Azriel noticed. The Shadowsinger who never spoke too much saw everything—her pain, her loneliness... and the bond between them she didn't even know existed.
When the world decides she is the easiest one to break—Azriel will make them suffer for it.
A/n - As always content warnings will be at the start of each chapter, so please be sure to read them before continuing.
This is my very first Archeron sister fic! For the sake of the story, I've had to make the sisters a little harsh at times but that's purely for plot reasons, not an invitation to throw shade at them x
Expect healing, found family vibes, and basically an overlooked girl x quiet boy kind of story. There will be heartbreak, angst and eventually fluff :)
Please don't hesitate to vote or comment along the way, it truly means the world to me <3
I got tired of not being able to read my man, so I decided to start writing. I haven’t ever done this before, so it probably sucks.
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Water surrounded me, filling up my lungs and nose. It burned, not in a hot fire way, but in a deep icy cold way. I thrashed in the water, trying to swim up for air, to escape the pain, before finally being flung out. My body slammed onto the cold floors, my head pressing against the cold tiles, eyes shut tightly, chest heaving up and down. Gasping in the air greedily. Grief and anger washed over me, tears brimming my eyeline, my body curling in on itself.
My simple white nightdress– wet and sticking to my skin– was seen through now due to the water. It outlined every private place on my body. Feyre's sobs and Nesta's yells reached my ears as I slowly looked up and over at my sisters, not daring to look back at the King. Nesta, yelling at an orange-haired man holding Elaine tightly.
Elain- oh sweet Elain. Her eyes were wide, hands shaking, a dark far-away look in her eyes. Like mine, Nesta's and Elain's gown, wet and see-through, sticking to their bodies. A jacket was draped over Elain's shoulders, hiding her chest partly.
I looked away from my eldest and youngest sister, whimpering as I locked eyes with my other older sister, Feyre, slowly moving onto my knees, crawling to her. Flushing at humiliation at the snickers behind me, already knowing my nightdress is not hiding anything. Feyre's hands grasped my arm once I reached her, gently pulling me up onto my own feet. My knees shaking and buckling under me slightly, before my knees could even think about going down, a more firm hand clasped my upper arm, Feyre's hand on my back as she guided me into the other person.
Male
Simply from the smell, I knew the person my sister handed me off to was male. I furrowed my brows at the thought, at the thought of suddenly being able to smell a man. Never once being able to smell them– other than their body odor– when I was back home in my and my sisters' village, but this smell was overwhelming, intoxicating, almost seeping into my skin. The smell of musk and mint flooded my senses.
Feyre's hand left my back as an arm wrapped around my shoulders, guiding me away carefully. I stared at the ground, my body shuddering, my mind still reeling to connect everything. Waiting to realize what happened. A jacket was draped over my shoulders, breaking me of my trance. I finally looked up, only to find brown eyes looking down at me already, a sudden pull in me snapped taut. Deep within, somewhere I did not even think existed, like a loose thread suddenly became very tight within me.
Something behind his eyes shifted, his hand on my shoulder gripping tighter for a split moment before dropping. Turning back towards the King of Hybern, standing beside my sister, my sister standing beside her…mate. I studied his back form, drawing out the sound of the King's horridious voice.
The male’s wings tucked in tightly against his back, his body clad in leathers, red jewels on his body– two on his knees and shoulders, one on each hand, and one in the middle of his chest. A deep red color, one that seemed to get darker the more time went on. His hair pulled back with a thin piece of twine, swirls of blue-black ink peeking out of the collar of his leathers, trailing up his neck slightly.
The rest of the words were a blur as my head started to spin, my eyes darting around; Everything becoming too much, the king, the cauldron I was shoved into and blasted from me moments ago, my sisters, this man in front of me that I suddenly felt so very drawn to. My legs buckled as I hit the floor, my eyes fluttering as I went down, a sickening crack and a bloom of pain in my skull. My vision blurred as a face knelt over me. That tan gorgeous face of a man from earlier. My name left his lips as my eyes shut, letting the darkness take over me.
____
When I finally woke up, I was in a spacious bed. The black silk sheets cooling against my hot, sticky, sweaty skin. The windows open, the air softly blowing in. The cast of the sun peeking over the mountains shining into the rooms.
Slowly sitting up, moving to the edge of the bed. Glancing around, surely the King of Hybern would not allow such comfort. I carefully placed my feet on the ground. The cold stone against my bare feet as I fully stood.
My once wet nightdress changed, in place, a long cotton white one, stopping at the middle of my calves. Simple and modest, my hair falling down my back. A flush made its way up my neck and onto my cheeks, a flush coming from the thought of someone changing me. Seeing me so, privately bare and vulnerable.
I swallowed my embarrassment, walking to the door, opening it and peeking my head out.
Voices, quiet and hushed ones, made their way to my ears as I opened the door. I slowly, and quietly, stepped out of the hall, beginning to walk down the hallway. Finding a staircase, hoping it leads to somewhere useful as I made my way down.
My hand gripped the rail as my foot hit each step softly, before reaching a long entryway, the dark pillars, painting of strong-jawed men; the familiar swirls I saw on that one male, also on these men in paintings, wings spread dominantly.
The voices continued to speak, getting louder as I passed each painting, getting closer to the cracked door. I stood a good few feet away from the door. Listening in slightly. Voices hushed, but each demanding respect. Male voices, female voices– my sister's voice. Feyre. Soft but demanding and cold–
“She does not need to know yet.”
I peeked into the crack, my sister standing behind a chair. Dressed in a simple pair of jeans and a sweater, her hair braided down her back. Like normal, like how we all usually wore it. Except, her ears. Pointy. Fae. I don’t think I will ever be able to get used to them. I snapped out of my thoughts at a deep voice, my eyes snapping to who's speaking next– holding back a gasp as I saw it was the male from before.
The one with the swirls, more now on view with the two buttons undone on his buttoned up shirt, the blue-black ink on his skin. Swirling around his chest and on his collarbones, fading up and off onto his neck, the one with brown eyes, the one who gave me his jacket during my vulnerable state. The one who caused something in me to be pulled together tightly.
“She deserves to know, you were pissed when Rhysand didn’t tell you. How is this any different?” The voice growled out. His hands fisted tightly together. His brows creased together in anger and desperation. Feyre only shook her head. “That's different and you know it, Cassian.”
Cassian
That’s his name then. Cassian. I gently whispered it in my mouth, sounding it out and trying it. Snapping my mouth shut as the male's head snapped to the door. His eyes locked on mine, swirlign with emotions deep within, before a cocky grin spreads across his face as he opens his mouth to speak
“Don’t you know it's rude to eavesdrop?”
_____
Okayyyyyy.
So how was it. I did amazing didn’t I (just nod)
I also don’t know what POV to write fics in, so I did First because that’s what the author did for her books too
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