white cishet she/her, est. 1984 | call me cas | i write pedro pascal characters fanfic & reblog whatever the hell I feel like | ADULT THEMES, 18+ only | I block generously | francisco morales is my main man | criticallyacclaimedstranger on Ao3
The most horrifying thing about being a human is that no matter how intelligent you are or how much customer service training you have, nothing will stop you from being the idiot customer on occasion. At some point you won't read a sign or you'll misread a menu or ask the dumbest question a human has ever formed and there is nothing you can do to prevent this. It will happen. Accept it and continue on your way as one of today's dipshit customers.
Tags/warnings (chapter specific): Pregnancy, feels, kind of slutshaming but not really?
Words: 954
Summary: A new year brings significant changes to your life. Pero arrives at your home again with the spring. How will he fit into your life, and can he? Should he?
Taglist: @amneris21 @iamskyereads @inkededucatednnerdy @rambling-in-purple (let me know if you want in!)
Spring sprouts with new life, both outside and inside. You feel the quickening one early morning before you rise, and you put your hand on your belly where the child you have suspected you are carrying has just made itself known for the first time.
You knew this day was coming, the day when the turn had come to you to have a child of your own, someone to teach all the things your mother would have taught you had she not died when you were very young. The things your grandmother taught you instead, with the wisdom of years your mother never had. You wish you still had your grandmother with you, to guide you and let you know what to expect, but it has been years since she passed. And you know the basics of it, the process and progress, the complications that can arise.
What you were unprepared for is the way it makes you feel to have that little butterfly flutter deep in your belly. It makes you smile, yet you already wonder how that little butterfly is going to fare in the womb, in the world. Will you be there for your childer longer than your mother was for you?
You remind yourself that this is how the women of your family reproduce: they take a lover, a passer-by who will never be seen again, and they take his seed, and have a child that will never be his. The crossroads always lead away from the cottage, to the village or the wider world, never back again.
The tiny butterfly flutters in your womb follow you to the shed where the cows are gathering for their morning milking. One of them, Rosie, has a little one of her own and you scratch Rosie between the horns and promise that you will never take her baby away. Is the certainty that you are carrying a baby of your own making you softer, more understanding of the grief of separation? Maybe. Still, there is no time for introspection now. The cows need to be milked, the hens let out and fed, your kitchen garden is only halfway done for the season.
The sun is warm on your skin when you sow your seeds, whispering your usual blessings to them while also directing some of the well-wishes to the child inside you. You will your own fertility to transfer to the rich soil between your fingers, wish for the baby to grow as strong as your crops. Other than that, you are silent. Grandmother always said that except for the blessings, sowing should be done in silence.
When you stand up and stretch your back, you see the horse emerging from the forest, and Pero on his back.
Pero Tovar. How is he back? How has he found his way where the crossroads meet?
Slowly, you walk to meet him when he has dismounted. He is as terse as ever but raises his hand to brush his fingers over your cheek. His skin is rough, there’s dirt under his nails but your nails are even dirtier.
“You look well.” His voice is rough, low.
You nod, unsure of how this works. What part will he play in your future?
Soon, Pero sits in your kitchen, fingernails cleaned, and devours the meal you have placed in front of him. You sit on the other side of the table, conflicted about what road to take. Should you tell him? Men have never been part of this process after they have planted their seed. Pero is no exception.
Or is he? The man who says he treats women unkindly but would not touch you even when you wanted him to for fear of hurting you. The man who keeps coming back with the changing of the seasons. The man who expects service but demands nothing.
You are morbidly curious about his reaction, you must confess.
“Pero,” you speak up. He looks at you from under those knitted brows. The scar over his left eye seems to cut the iris in half. Is there a brief softness in the way his lips purse?
“I’m with child.”
He barely blinks. “Is it mine?”
You nod. His gaze strays down to your still flat stomach before he directs it back to your face.
“What do you need from me?”
“Nothing.”
“I have no money.”
“I said I need nothing. I only wanted you to know.”
He scoffs, not unkindly but more matter-of-factly. “I didn’t spill inside of you.”
“Sometimes it still takes.”
“Apparently.”
You stare at each other in silence across the table, waiting for the other to make a move. Eventually, Pero rises and digs in his pocket for a few coins.
“I have to go.”
“Keep your money,” you tell him harshly. “I never invited you in for money.”
“No, you did it from kindness. And the same kindness demands I give you money.”
You shake your head, suddenly tired. Is this what women marry for, an endless offense from men whose pride mean more than the comfort of their spouse?
“My door is open for you, Pero, always. You do not need to pay me.”
“It is for the child.”
With that, he leaves. You hear the horse neigh as he gets up in the saddle, see a glimpse of him as he rides past the window and back into the forest. He did not even finish his meal. That surprises you the most. Every time has visited you, he has had a voracious appetite. First for food, later for you. It is not disappointment you feel, but relief. It is how it should be. He is gone. You are here, as is the baby.
That makes two of us! Rhey are so sweet together and will continue to be that for years to come. I don't think Pero will ever settle (at least not until he's old and creaky) but he'll visit as much as he can, and stay for longer each time.
Thank you so much for reading, I'm so happy you liked it ❤️ Thank you for the reblog too 😍
Tags/warnings (chapter specific): PiV sex (unprotected, cotus interruptus but you know, it doesn't work). Nothing kinky.
Words: 2,910
Summary: Defying the bitter cold of winter, Pero visits you again. In the warm safety of your cottage you find each other.
A/N: this is the last part. Thank you for coming on this journey with me. (To be continued...?)
The wind is howling around the house and there is a hint of a draft coming from the window despite the closed shutters. You feel the chill and glance at the window, frowning as you add checking the window from the outside the following day to the never-ending list of chores.
You sit by the table, at the end closest to the stove where a fire burns day and night in the dead of this cold winter. Knitting mittens for yourself, you enjoy the quiet and stillness. It’s warm indoors despite the blizzard outside, and you keep an eye on the lit candles. Not only a fire hazard, candles also do not grow on trees. You follow your grandmother’s rule of one burning one length of candle a night. After that, it’s bedtime. You burn with a low flame in the wintertime, sleep long nights to keep warm and preserve energy. Like the seeds that you know are awaiting their time in the frozen ground underneath the snow, you spend the winter months burrowed in your cottage, making excursions only to the cowshed and the village if you must and are able to. You mend clothes and think long thoughts. You knit socks and shawls and sing the songs your grandmother used to sing for you: about the water spirit who came to the king to ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage, about the queen who in jealousy tried to kill the king’s mistress but failed and was left alone while the king and his mistress travelled the world, about the mountain trolls luring a young man to marry one of their girls so that they can have children of human blood. Every single word is etched permanently into your brain, as is each note.
The sound of three beats to the door makes you jump, before you quickly grab a knitting needle not being used and get up to walk to the barred door.
“Who is it?” you call, trying to listen for an answer that does not come. Carefully, you open the little hatch in the door and peek out.
The cold wind immediately brings snow through the opening, and you shiver from the chill as you gaze on the tall figure, wrapped in furs, standing outside. You recognize the sharp stare of a scarred eye beneath the layers.
“Come in from the cold!”
You close the hatch, unbar the door, and open it wide. Pero Tovar steps in, face covered by a fur hat and the collar of his coat pulled up to his nose. He carries a big backpack that he lets down with a muffled groan as soon as he is across the threshold, and then he pulls off his hat and shrugs off the fur mantle, pulls down his collar, and turns his morose face to you.
You help him shed his many layers of soaked, cold clothes. Slowly, you unbuckle the many fastenings in the front of his coat and when you slide the coat off his shoulders he sighs audibly.
“You look well,” he says in a low murmur.
“I am well. And you?”
He only nods. Nothing in his demeanour suggests he is feeling anything but surly, but you’ve learned to read the subtle little signs: the way his gaze seeks yours, the slight parting of his lips when your hand brushes over his.
His lips, cracked from the cold yet full and surprisingly soft despite hard line of his jaw. You imagine that you can taste him, the voracious danger of him, all the things that you have never seen or lived, steel and blood and adventure.
To take your mind off physical pleasure, you hang his wet clothes to dry and gesture for him to take a seat by the table. You turn to the pantry and take out salt meat, a cooked egg that was left over from supper, bread, butter, and cheese. You serve him a mug of heated redcurrant juice and sit down on the other side of the table with one of the last apples stored since autumn. You peel it evenly before slicing it neatly, handing Pero half of the slices while you yourself eat the rest.
He eats in silence, focused on his plate, glancing up every now and then to look at you. That is new: he never did that before. You busy yourself with your knitting but meet his gaze each time he looks at you. When he has finished his meal, he leans back with a satisfied sigh.
“Thank you. Best meal I had in a long time.”
“I’m glad,” you smile at him, happy to have been able to still his hunger with what little you have. You rise and come around the table. Pero puts his hand briefly over yours as you reach for his plate. A quick stroke of his thumb over the back of your hand lets you know the extent of his gratitude before he lets go.
You put a few more logs on the fire to warm up water, then don your fur cloak.
“I’ll check on the animals for the night.”
The cold slaps you in the face and you wrap the cloak tightly around you as you hurry to the cowshed. The cows greet you in their usual, steadfast way when you step into the warmth of their shelter. You inhale the sharp smell of animal; their big bodies, their dung and urine, their food… Those are the heartening, safe smells of your childhood, of your whole life.
You see to it that the animals are contented. The sheep get a little more oat to eat, the cows get scratches between the horns. You, in turn, get your palms licked by big, affectionate tongues. You speak to them in a low voice, telling them about Pero’s visit, of the desire fluttering in your belly. The cows listen and when your heart has been poured out, you feel better for it and return to your cottage.
You find Pero stripped down to his breeches and bowed over the wash basin, splashing warm water into his face and neck. Unlike last time, however, you do not shy away but instead come up behind him and lean your forehead to his naked back. You inhale the smell of him; leather with a hint of metal from his chainmail, sweat, campfires, snowy roads. A drop of water runs down his spine and you catch it on your finger before tracing the bumps of his spine up to his neck, where your hand forms a warm cup over tired muscles. His breath catches but he does not move. You run your hand down his shoulder and arm, reaching his hand in the basin of warm water. The washcloth is there and you take it and wring it, one-handedly, before sliding it up his arm, retracing the journey of your hand, now dragging the cloth along with you.
You touch a new scar below his right shoulder blade before painting it with warm, herb-scented water. Your fingers trail to another scar, much older, and lean forward to kiss it softly. His shoulders sink a little as he relaxes more and more. Neither one of you speaks as you drag the cloth over the broad expanse of his back, occasionally kissing one mark or another. The scent of the herbal water mixes with the smells of firewood and smoke, reminding you of summer even now, in the dead of winter.
When you are finished, you put the cloth in the basin. Pero turns around. Characteristically silent, he raises his hand to your face. You let him cradle your cheek, and lean into the rough, warm cup of his palm. A deep sigh escapes you when you feel yourself dissolve into his touch.
The next moment, his lips are on yours and he is kissing you like he has spent every day since the last time he saw you longing to kiss you. Both of you cling to each other, gasps travelling from mouth to mouth as each kiss ends with the beginning of a new one. Pero’s hands clasp your waist before sliding down to your bottom. Your body knows what to do; you raise a leg, Pero immediately hooking his arm around your thigh, and then he lifts you up. He squeezes your buttocks in his hands as he carries you into the bedchamber, and not once do your lips part.
He puts you down next to the bed and pulls at the lacing of your bodice, swearing under his breath when it takes him too long. He takes a string and pulls, and the neckline of your shirt widens and bares your shoulders. You give him a hand, your own fingers clumsy with impatience and soon, the bodice is discarded on the floor and he’s pawing your plump breasts through the linen shirt. Your nipples knot to rock hard pebbles and your skin feels like it is on fire; all of you is on fire, especially the deepest pit of your stomach. The ache is red hot and only one thing can soothe it. You pull eagerly at his belt. Pero’s breeches open and you hitch up your skirts and lie down on the bed behind you, pulling him in between your legs. A grunted curse slips him when he fights to get off your undergarments but as soon as he has the apex of your thighs naked before him, he pulls himself out of his breeches.
The sight of him makes your eyes widen. You are not completely inexperienced in the ways of physical love, but you also have not had many lovers. Out of all of them, Pero is by far the most well-endowed.
You have no time to process the size before it splits you open. You feel it along the base of your spine, an icy burn that makes you gasp
oh! oh! yes!
and he is inside you, filling you up and stretching you out, moving with a painful urgency he can scarcely hold back. Your nails sink into his shoulders, into muscle and flesh, conjuring groans from him. Your moans grow louder for every thrust, for every scrape of his moustache and teeth along your jaw and neck, for every small bite to your breasts. He straightens his back, holding onto the back of your knees, and you wail when he thrusts into you. It hurts, but in a terrifyingly good way, a way you have dreamed of during the increasingly long nights of autumn and winter when you have gone to your lonely bed and pleasured yourself. You even invited another traveller into your bed to still your longing. He served his purpose but did not light your fire like Pero does.
Pero, whose brows now draw together in concentration as he brushes aside your skirts to get a better view of the spot where you are joined.
“How well you take me, hermosa,” he grunts, and it makes you claw at the sheets. You whimper at the delicious charge of his cock in your quivering cunt, your soaked softness still stretching almost to the verge of pain with his girth.
Pero sinks down over you while bucking erratically into you, and you feel the pulses of his cock as he quickly retreats, his seed spurting onto your slick folds as he groans. He rests his face against the crook of your neck and regains his breath before kissing your heated skin.
“This is what I mean about not being gentle,” he murmurs. “Did I hurt you?”
You shake your head no. No, he did not hurt you but only made you burn more brightly. You have not had release and need him to bring you to the brink of divine destruction.
Pero is removing his clothes and when you find your footing on the cold floor, he pushes you back against the bed.
“I want you again.”
“I have to check the fire,” you whisper, and he lets you straighten out your clothing – for warmth, not for modesty – and tiptoe to the kitchen. You feed the fire with more wood, barely feeling the heat against your own fevered skin. You blow out the precious candles made from sheep’s fat in the autumn before returning to the bedchamber, bringing only one lit candle with you for the chair next to the bed.
“Woman,” Pero tells you darkly as you strip, one short word to let you know he thinks you’re being too slow. As soon as you are naked, he pulls you to him, throwing the covers over both of you in the process, and the bed creaks when you make him turn onto his back so that you can straddle his hips. The chilly air hits your already hard nipples when you sit upright, the covers sliding down your back. Your skin is riddled with goose flesh and in the faint light of the single candle, you see Pero’s black eyes fixed on your breasts.
“Touch me,” you ask, each syllable so loud in the dead silence of winter. Pero’s callused hands cover your breasts immediately, thumbs brushing over nipples, fingers sinking into the soft flesh. You have wanted this since his visit in the most colourful days of autumn and now that it is happening, you are happy it is the dead of winter when the night is long.
He grows hard again, his cock rising against the inside of your thigh in search of your entrance. A low hiss escapes him when you touch the shaft, slick with your arousal. Your cunt starts to weep at the prospect of being ravaged again and the pent-up lust puts you in a hurry. You tease him until he is rock hard, then lead him into you. Slowly, you sink down on him, whimpering with how completely he fills you. His thigh muscles are flexed tightly underneath you and his breaths come out in shallow huffs. You place your hands on his chest, embossments in the skin telling your fingertips where there are scars, and exhale as your cunt swallows the last of him.
“Ride it,” Pero asks you, still fondling your breasts. “Ride it empty.”
You rock your hips, finding your rhythm, your pleasure, lean into his big hands, your gasps and the whimpers of the old bedframe the only sounds in the dark, Pero’s grunts occasionally punctuating them. You find that one spot inside you, the one that makes you dig your short fingernails into Pero’s chest as you hit it over and over and over, faster and faster and –
Your body is sending out contradicting impulses, flight or fight, let go and fall or hold tight and climb. It’s agonizing and you want to feel all of it, you force yourself to feel it all, and you know that this is where you need just a little more to fall. Pero has been holding your breasts all the time but now you pull one of his hands free and shove it down to where you are joined. He touches your throbbing nub and that’s all it takes for your cunt to pulsate, your body to shudder, and your back to arch as your head is thrown back with a cry. You clasp at him, desperately holding on as wave after wave drown you, pulling you under and onto Pero’s chest. His breath is hot against your skin when he thrusts up into you, drawing another wail from you as he selfishly chases his own release with jab after jab into your core. His seed splatters onto your skin when he pulls out with a bitten back curse, and you rest your head against his shoulder, your heart beating fast against his.
His is a warmth that keeps you up in the misery of midwinter. You fall asleep, you wake up and couple again. You sleep tightly in Pero’s embrace and until his cock finds its way into your slick cunt once more. You sleep some more but must straddle him again when you wake up. The dark gives way for grey light when you fall apart as he ruts into you from behind, like an animal. He spills his seed on you, not in you, and you wonder if he is wise from some earlier mishap. Very few words are exchanged between you except for his praise and your encouragement, but his sweet little nicknames for you speak more than long recitals of whatever feelings he may have.
Pero leaves after breakfast the next morning. You provide him with what you can spare and send him off. But this time you see in his eyes that he will think of you until he sees you again. It is a subtle shift in his glare: the smoothening of a line towards his temples, his brows relaxing slightly. The scar over his eyes seems less of a warning of his lethal capabilities and more like the result of a daring move attempted by a careless, much younger man.
His fingers touch yours when he accepts the provisions from you, and you know that you want him to return.
“You know where to find me,” you tell him. He nods almost imperceptibly.
THANK YOU SO MUCH. I'm so happy that you liked this series, and so grateful that you let me know what you think! I hope you enjoy the sequel parts too. I sometimes think about Pero and his witchy!reader. They're doing great 🥰
Okay but Frankie waking up early on a Sunday morning just so that he can sneak out before you wake up, and pick fresh raspberries from your garden for breakfast.
Normalize leaving unhinged comments on ao3 fics you like. I'm tired of being the only one brave enough to write "I am chewing on this fic" in the comment section. Be weird. Authors will love you for it
Does anyone else have an list of 10-15 untouchable thoughts that if you let yourself remeber or think about them for even a second it’s excruciating or is this a me thing
I wonder how my new blorbos would handle a girlfriend who can't sleep. I think Pope would probably not understand the problem, but try to fix it, then not understand when there's nothing to fix; you just can't sleep.
Abbot is most likely to offer his sexual services. Or a sympathetic ear if you want to talk.
If you are a white person in a racialized person’s life, especially as a partner or close friend, you should go out of your way to ask regularly “hey is there anything you have been holding on to that I did?” and critically both fix it and NOT DO ANYTHING TO PUNISH THEM FOR TELLING YOU.
As a white person raised in a white supremacist society, you’re gonna fuck up sometimes. That’s just a fact. But racialized people often aren’t able/comfortable speaking up when y’all do some shit because of the power imbalance/not feeling up to educating when you may be resistant/don’t think the “fight” will be Worth It.
Show initiative without making it A Struggle or playing the white guilt card. Show you actually care about them, their struggles, and the way you interact with them BEFORE they have to have a bigger Conversation with you, beyond when they need to yell about someone else being racist.
And for fucks sake if they’re making/showing you something from their culture fucking act like you realize the importance of that, that they’re showing you shows they grew up with or making you food they made with their families, that they’re letting you in and trusting you more than other whites in their life.
This would honestly be life changing for me. The idea came up because I feel so incapable of telling the people in my life when they do racist shit. And like furthermore, actually respond beyond just an I'm sorry. Like for the love of god actually internalize the shit the Black and Brown folks say to you.
I'm seeing a lot of tags from white people saying something along the lines of please tell me if I fuck up and like that really goes against the point of the post. Racialized people have to swallow so much racism on a daily basis and it's impossible to tell who is safe to confront.
Even close friends or partners are not necessarily safe. I have had partners dismiss accusations of racism just off hand, I have had partners treat me like a repository for knowledge on Muslim cultural practices despite the fact that *my family has been Christian since Jesus,* hell I have had a partner say I was overplaying my pain at the genocide to get sympathy.
Racialized people are constantly waiting for the other shoe to job. Constantly waiting for their "antiracist" white friend to decide they have learned all they need to. We need you to ask. We need you to care enough to be proactive literally at all. Stop asking us to trust you without doing any fucking work to prove you are trustworthy.
