Daeron the Drunken Dreamer [Original Art] "Not that I ever asked to have my honor redeemed. Whoever has it can keep it, so far as I'm concerned. Still, here we are. For what it's worth, Ser Duncan, you have little to fear from me."

if i look back, i am lost
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@lavandersky
Daeron the Drunken Dreamer [Original Art] "Not that I ever asked to have my honor redeemed. Whoever has it can keep it, so far as I'm concerned. Still, here we are. For what it's worth, Ser Duncan, you have little to fear from me."
No. 1 Party Anthem › 4
Daeron Targaryen x fem!reader
AKOTSK Modern!AU
What begins as polite professionalism, but slowly turns into late-night conversations and unexpected friendship—and when he finally finds comfort in her presence, the lines between duty, trust, and something deeper begin to blur.
Word Count: 6.3k
[Chapter 4/5]
Mostly angst and agony in this chapter. Pressure hitting the two from everywhere. Both are in denial, not sure what they're exactly feeling yet.
No. 1 Party Anthem › 3
Daeron Targaryen x fem!reader
AKOTSK Modern!AU
What begins as polite professionalism, but slowly turns into late-night conversations and unexpected friendship—and when he finally finds comfort in her presence, the lines between duty, trust, and something deeper begin to blur.
Word Count: 4.9k
[Chapter 3/4]
Fluff. Angst later. Daeron is very sad and lonely, but eventually found a friend. I want him to have some happiness too.
Never in my life have I thought that I would be a "I can fix him" girl until I saw Daeron Targaryen in a knight of the seven kingdoms
No. 1 Party Anthem › 2
Daeron Targaryen x fem!reader
AKOTSK Modern!AU
What begins as polite professionalism, but slowly turns into late-night conversations and unexpected friendship—and when he finally finds comfort in her presence, the lines between duty, trust, and something deeper begin to blur.
Word Count: 5.3k
[Chapter 2/3]
Fluff. Angst later. Daeron is very sad and lonely, but eventually found a friend. I want him to have some happiness too.
No. 1 Party Anthem
Daeron Targaryen x fem!reader
AKOTSK Modern!AU
What begins as polite professionalism, but slowly turns into late-night conversations and unexpected friendship—and when he finally finds comfort in her presence, the lines between duty, trust, and something deeper begin to blur.
Word Count: 5.1k
[Chapter 1/3]
Fluff. Angst later. Daeron is very sad and lonely, but eventually found a friend. I want him to have some happiness too.
›
She had been at her desk for an hour before she saw him.
An entire hour of polite smiles from passing executives, security badges being activated, passwords reset twice, and the routine of first-day observation. The executive floor did not hum the way the lower levels did. Conversations were kept low, laughter was softened before it could echo, and even the phones seemed to ring more discreetly up here.
The corridor outside her desk was lined with frosted glass offices, each name etched in clean silver or gold lettering. Directors. Senior Partners. Legal Counsel. The carpet was thick enough to swallow footsteps, a muted charcoal that absorbed sound and intent alike. Assistants moved with quiet efficiency, tablets in hand, heels precise against the floor. No one rushed. No one lingered either.
Her desk sat directly outside one of the largest offices on the floor.
Vice President of Strategic Development.
The plaque gleamed.
The desk itself was immaculate—larger than anything she’d been given at her previous firm. Two widescreen monitors were angled perfectly. A company laptop, still faintly warm from IT configuration. A leather-bound welcome folder embossed with the Targaryen crest. Even the stationery felt heavier than normal, thick ivory paper that made her old workplace seem almost temporary by comparison.
She had already read through her onboarding packet twice; once physically, once digitally, and she had begun digging into archived project drives out of sheer restlessness. Strategic Development, according to the internal database, oversaw cross-department initiatives, long-term forecasting, and exploratory ventures. In practice, the folders were thin. A handful of stalled proposals. A few draft presentations. Several initiatives were marked “pending executive alignment” with no further notes.
She leaned back slightly in her chair, taking it all in.
So far, the department seemed ornamental.
She had known the reputation before accepting the offer.
She had prepared herself for arrogance, indifference, or a quick transactional introduction from her new superior, who turns out to be the same age as her. He would skim her résumé, assign something vague to justify her salary, and vanish until his next required appearance.
At eleven past ten, the elevator at the end of the executive corridor chimed — a soft, restrained sound, as if even machinery was expected to behave up here.
She looked up from her screen.
The hallway was long and muted in charcoal and glass, light spilling in from the windows at the far end and reflecting faintly off brushed steel nameplates. Assistants moved in diagonals between offices, heels sinking into thick carpet. Somewhere, a printer exhaled a single sheet of paper. She’s not a stranger to such an environment.
Then, when she’s still comparing the past in her mind, the elevator doors slide open.
He stepped out alone without any assistants trailing behind; just a slim leather folder and a laptop in one hand. Dark grey suit, seems appropriately tailored. The fabric caught the light as he moved, dark and matte in contrast to the pale walls. His hair was brushed back neatly, though a few strands near his temple had fallen out of place. For a moment, he stood just beyond the elevator threshold, as if orienting himself to the fluorescent light before he began walking towards his office at the end of the corridor.
His gaze passed over the glass panels, perhaps trying to see if anything important was going on somewhere else that he might need to know. Daeron resumed walking toward her desk, placed the closest to his door.
Up close, she can take a better look of him; the faint shadow beneath his eyes—the slight pallor beneath the office lighting. The scent of perfume that already smells expensive; subtle and close-wearing—a clean musk that lingered so softly in the air, warm and understated, like freshly pressed cotton layered over something faintly woody beneath.
He stopped at her desk, hands relaxed at his sides.
“You the new hire?” he asked. His voice was low, smoother than she expected—unlike her old boss, touched with something almost dry—like he hadn’t spoken much yet that morning.
“Yes,” she said, standing. The chair wheels whispered against the carpet as she pushed it back. He blinked once and glanced toward the wall clock mounted between two offices. Eleven thirteen now. The second hand moved with clinical precision.
“You’ve been waiting long?”
“About an hour.” The leather folder and laptop shifted slightly in his grip. A small movement of his shoulders — not dramatic, just enough to register the information.
“I’m sorry.” It wasn’t said carelessly. He meant it. The word settled in the quiet corridor between them.
No one had given her an exact time to meet him; all she knew was that work starts at nine, and HR’s onboarding program finished at ten. It wasn’t entirely his fault. But he looked faintly displeased with himself, as if punctuality were a private contract he’d broken.
He stepped aside and pushed open the glass door to his office.
“Come in. We should talk.”
Inside, the temperature seemed cooler. Floor-to-ceiling windows stretched along the far wall, overlooking a spread of grey skyline softened by haze. The city looked distant from this height, reduced to geometry and muted traffic lines. The light filtering through the glass was pale and diffused, washing the room in a subdued glow.
The desk dominated the space—dark wood, broad and heavy, its surface almost too orderly. A crystal tumbler sat near the corner, it is empty but faintly smudged with condensation, and a neat stack of documents rested beside it. Two leather chairs faced the desk, perfectly angled as well.
She expected him to circle behind it, as every superior would. Instead, he moved around the side and leaned back against the edge, crossing one ankle loosely over the other. The leather folder came to rest beside the documents with a soft thud.
“So,” he said, glancing briefly toward the windows before returning his gaze to her, “why leave under a year? That’s usually either ambition or disaster. Sorry, I trusted HR more with the recruitments, so I didn’t have a chance to do the interviews.”
There was a flicker of humor beneath it. She hadn’t expected teasing.
She answered anyway; about stagnation at her old firm, about wanting exposure to legacy systems, about understanding how companies like this sustained themselves across generations, and something about her old boss giving three people's worth of tasks to just one person.
To her surprise, he seemed to be actually listening, and this is not just some ice breaker or anything. No wandering glance toward his phone. No tapping fingers against the desk. His attention stayed on her, eyes focused, posture relaxed but present. When she mentioned the structural inertia in older firms, his mouth tilted slightly.
“That’s a polite way of saying resistant to change,” he said.
“Or resistant to losing control,” she replied. “You know how it is when the people who still ask you how to combine PDFs are stubborn as hell.”
A faint exhale escaped from his lips, sounding almost like a laugh.
“Fair.”
He pushed off the desk then and moved slowly toward the window, hands slipping into his pockets. The city reflected faintly against the glass behind him, turning him briefly into a pale silhouette against steel and sky.
“Legacy companies survive by pretending nothing urgent is happening,” he said lightly. “Young companies survive by pretending everything is.”
He asked about her previous firm’s internal restructuring; specifics, not surface-level commentary. He referenced market shifts from two years ago without consulting notes. When she countered one of his points about scalability, he paused, considering, rather than dismissing. Within minutes, the air in the office had shifted.
The broad desk, the city view, the heavy furniture—all of it receded slightly as the conversation gathered momentum. It no longer felt like an onboarding discussion.
It felt like two analysts comparing observations across systems, neither entirely trusted.
The clock on the wall ticked quietly. Neither of them seemed to notice. They were discussing how old firms protected inefficiency under the guise of stability, how younger firms mistook speed for vision. Why does risk tolerance decrease with inherited wealth. He spoke thoughtfully, sometimes pausing mid-sentence as if reconsidering his phrasing. When she gently challenged one of his points about scaling strategy, he didn’t stiffen.
“Fair,” he said again, almost thoughtfully, as if he enjoyed being corrected. “That’s fair.”
The repetition wasn’t defensive. If anything, he seemed faintly entertained by it. There was a noticeable shift in him whenever the conversation pulled him away from whatever weight he carried into the room — a dryness to his humor, understated and intelligent, threaded through otherwise serious observations.
After a moment, he studied her with a tilted head.
“You’re not what I expected.”
“Should I … be worried?”
“Undecided,” he said, a subtle curve touching his mouth. “They usually rotate interns through this department. I’m a terrible teacher.”
The self-awareness was disarming. But it was not some self-deprecating joke for sympathy—just factual. She almost laughed, but still wanted to be polite.
He didn’t project authority the way the room suggested he should. The office was expansive, imposing in its clean lines and dark wood, but he moved within it like someone temporarily occupying borrowed space. As though the desk, the title, the skyline beyond the glass, all of it had been handed to him along with a key he never asked for.
He eventually stepped behind the desk, fingers grazing the edge of a drawer in passing. The contact lingered for half a second too long before he pulled his hand back, folding both hands together on the polished surface instead.
“You’ll have autonomy,” he said. “I don’t micromanage. Mostly because I don’t believe in it.”
“And partly because I’m not always here. I’m not here every day, but if there’s anything that you want to ask, hit me up on Teams.”
“That’s fine,” she replied evenly. “I don’t need hovering.”
His eyes lifted to hers properly then, holding them a second longer than before. They were lighter up close—grey, violet, she’s not entirely sure, and she doesn’t want to be caught staring too long like a weirdo. But whatever haze people spoke about wasn’t there now.
“Good,” he said, softer. “The workload isn’t excessive. We’re not understaffed. Someone decided departments of similar scope should have similar headcounts.” A small shrug lifted one shoulder. “So here you are.”
The way he said it carried a hint of shared absurdity, as if they were co-conspirators in a decision neither of them had truly made.
“But you’ll be treated fairly,” he added, almost as an afterthought. “As long as you do your job.”
From there, the conversation loosened.
They drifted away from anything that sounded like work and into the softer absurdities of the world they both occupied—mostly about the company events that seemed to happen every two months, to Daeron’s dislike. She learned that his father put every kid of age to work for a couple of years within the company first, then they’re free to choose whether they want to stay or do something else. He chose to stay because he prefers comfort to being challenged; even joked that he’s a coward—but under the joke, she understands what he meant. She caught herself smiling again, more openly this time.
It struck him, somewhere in the middle of her quiet commentary, how relieved he felt. They had finally placed someone his age under him—not a wide-eyed graduate trying too hard to impress, not a final-year intern watching him like a cautionary tale. Someone who didn’t look at him as an heir or a piece of gold, but simply as a person sitting across the desk, just another coworker.
The space between them shifted without either acknowledging it. The weight of his reputation—the whispers, the indulgent headlines, the inherited assumptions thinned. He felt less like the family’s errant son stationed in a borrowed office and more like a twenty-five-year-old young adult having a conversation with someone who understood the absurdity of it all.
When she eventually stood, glancing at the time and realizing nearly an hour had dissolved, neither of them remarked on it.
“Welcome to the team,” he said.
It was simple, almost understated. But there was a quiet gladness beneath it — not performative, not rehearsed. Something closer to relief. She stepped back into the corridor, back to her desk.
› ›
Two weeks in, she had learned the rhythm of her corner—or rather, the lack of one.
He had come in three times since her first day. Not consecutively, of course. A Tuesday afternoon that bled into early evening. A Thursday morning when he left before most people returned from lunch. Then a Monday that felt almost productive, his presence was quiet but steady behind the closed glass of his office.
No one announced when he would arrive. No one questioned when he didn’t. And she never asked—despite his offer to be present via Teams, she never really had anything she hasn’t been able to figure out with the other staff yet, nor anything urgent. Though she’d occasionally send updates on any finished tasks and proposals, which he’d only reply with a simple ‘Thank you’ and a separate smiley emoji.
By the third appearance, she had stopped feeling surprised when she glimpsed him stepping out of the elevator just before lunchtime—dark coat slung over one shoulder, no words were spoken until it’s his time to leave. Functional days, she had decided.
The executive cafeteria was noticeably quieter than the lower floors—not just in volume, but in atmosphere as well. The executive levels didn’t operate on hot desks or shared spaces; everything was assigned and insulated. During her HR onboarding tour, she’d been shown the three floors reserved exclusively for upper management and their small team of staff. The explanation had been simple: senior leadership preferred silence. It was where internal strategy meetings were held, where clients were received, where conversations carried weight and were meant to remain contained. So it is meant to be much better decorated and quieter.
She sat alone by the windows with a Caesar salad that was, unexpectedly, one of the best she’d ever had—crisp, properly dressed, and the chicken wasn’t dry. She scrolled through her phone more out of reflex than interest, just to do a little doomscrolling after seeing word documents after word documents, letting the quiet murmurs settle around her. It was easier this way. No one felt compelled to entertain the new hire yet, and she didn’t have to perform friendliness on demand.
She noticed him before she properly saw him—a shift at the edge of her vision, a presence that was difficult to overlook. He carried himself so casually, tall and broad-shouldered without seeming imposing, his posture relaxed in a way that suggested careless confidence rather than effort. Even in stillness, he occupied space instinctively, as if the room adjusted around him instead of the other way around.
He placed his tray across from her without preamble, the porcelain settling softly against the table.
“Is this seat taken?” he asked, though he was already drawing the chair back.
She looked up, mildly surprised but not unsettled. “Now it isn’t.”
Up close, there was something altered about him. Dimmed at the edges? His tie had been loosened slightly, sleeves folded once at the wrist as if he’d grown impatient halfway through the day. There were no visible signs of excess, yet there is a fatigue that felt deeper than a late night. Was he working late?
His tray was sparse: black coffee and a slice of plain toast.
“You eat rabbit food voluntarily?” he asked, glancing at her salad.
“It’s actually very good,” she replied, unfazed. “I'm a big fan of Caesars.”
A quiet exhale left him—still not quite a laugh, but close enough, she thought
They fell into a brief, companionable silence. He drank his coffee slowly, thumb scrolling absently through what looked like news on his phone, expression unreadable but intent enough to suggest he was only half-invested. She continued eating, unbothered by the lack of immediate conversation.
Around them, the executive floor moved in its usual restrained choreography — low conversations overlapping without ever rising, assistants passing with tablets held close to their chests, glass doors whispering shut instead of clicking. It was the sound of a place that never truly stopped, only lowered its voice.
At their table, however, the noise felt distant. Contained. As if the two of them were seated just slightly outside the current of it.
She set her fork down lightly. “Did you actually come in for something specific,” she asked, “or were you just bored at home?”
A faint curve tugged at his mouth. “That’s classified.”
Her brows lifted. “Oh? A secret task?”
This time, he did actually laugh, and it sounded genuine. It softened his face in a way that made him look less like the reluctant heir to something vast and more like a man her age, amused by something small.
He found himself watching her without meaning to; the absence of performance in her movements, the way she didn’t adjust herself under his gaze, or seem particularly aware of the significance others might attach to his presence. Most people carried something around him: curiosity sharpened to gossip, or caution disguised as politeness, or another bootlicking conversation.
With her, there was none of that. They felt, inexplicably, like two people who had met outside of hierarchy. Like friends who happened to share a table. She simply seemed normal—maybe because this is not her first job, he thought.
“I’m glad they didn’t send me another prodigy,” he said abruptly.
She blinked at him. “Should I ... be offended?”
“No— that’s not what I meant—” he replied evenly. “Prodigies are exhausting.”
“And what am I, then?”
He considered her for a moment longer than necessary. “Experienced. Seasoned?”
A small, genuine smile surfaced, though slightly confused. “I’ll take that … as a compliment?”
Neither of them acknowledged the quiet fact that he had chosen her table. That he could have remained in his office. That he rarely occupied shared spaces longer than required. When he eventually stood, his coffee still unfinished, he looked at her with something almost contemplative.
“I’ll be in tomorrow,” he said.
She arched her brow. “You sure?”
“Big monthly meeting, heads of departments and stuff. My dad’s gonna be there.”
He didn’t leave immediately after standing. Instead, he lingered by the table, coffee still in hand, waiting with an ease that suggested he had nowhere more urgent to be. When she gestured lightly to her half-finished salad and said she would head back up soon, he gave a small nod and remained there anyway, leaning a shoulder against the back of the empty chair beside him. He only stepped away to return his cup neatly to its proper place, then came back as if it had already been decided.
“Let’s go,” he said simply.
They walked toward the elevators together, the corridor quiet around them. When the doors closed and the mirrored walls sealed them into a private stillness, she glanced at him thoughtfully.
“Your grandfather started the company, right?”
He nodded once. “Daeron. He’s the one who built most of this. I was named after him.” His tone was even, stripped of embellishment. “Expanded the company beyond what it was meant to be. People like to romanticize it now.”
“And your father?”
“Maekar,” he said. “Fourth son.”
She tilted her head. “Fourth?”
“Uncle Baelor’s the eldest,” he explained. “Then Aerys. Then Rhaegel. My father’s the youngest of the four.” A faint pause. “Which meant he was never expected to lead the whole thing. Just manage his portion well. Which he actually did really, really well.”
“And you’re his eldest.”
“Yes.”
The elevator hummed upward.
“So where does everyone else fit?” she asked, genuinely curious now.
“Baelor’s son, Valarr, is the obvious successor,” Daeron replied. “He’s been groomed for it since he was old enough to sit through meetings without fidgeting. He actually enjoys it, and he’s really good, I have to admit.” There was no bitterness in his voice. “My brother Aerion will join at the end of the year. Father’s been preparing him for something—he’s graduating soon.”
“And you?”
He leaned back against the wall, hands in his pockets. “I was given a title early,” he said. “High enough to be respectable. Vague enough to be harmless.”
She studied him in the mirror. The structure was clearer now — Daeron at the top, then Baelor, Aerys, Rhaegel, and Maekar branching outward. Beneath them, their sons are slowly getting included. It wasn’t just a company; it was an inheritance layered over an inheritance.
“And you don’t want more?” she asked quietly.
He looked at her then, not at their reflections in the mirror surrounding them “Heh. No one has ever asked me that. But no, I don’t want to fight for something that was decided before I was born,” he said simply.
The elevator slowed, the soft mechanical sound filling the space between them.
For the first time, she understood the scale and the distance he kept from it. He spoke of the dynasty not with resentment, not with pride, but with the familiarity of someone who had grown up inside its walls and learned exactly which rooms were never truly his.
When the elevator doors opened onto their floor, he stepped aside automatically, one hand lifting in a small gesture for her to go first. Old-fashioned. They parted near her desk with nothing more than a brief look of acknowledgement.
After she returned to her desk, the executive floor settled back into another work rhythm. Several staff resumed their movements between offices, tablets tucked close to their chests. Somewhere down the corridor, a conference room filled slowly with low voices and restrained laughter, the sound carefully contained by frosted panels and thick carpeting. A printer hummed to exhaled a single page, and fell silent again. Phones vibrated discreetly against polished wood instead of ringing aloud. The building, having briefly acknowledged her return, moved on.
She opened her laptop and reread her notes, adjusting a few lines in the proposal draft she had begun outlining during their conversation. Her reflection hovered faintly in the darkened edge of her screen—focused, composed, already absorbed back into her work. From the corner of her vision, she could see his office door close, the glass dimming slightly as its opacity shifted.
But inside, the light changed—the afternoon sun filtered through the high windows at a shallow angle, softening the edges of the skyline and casting long, pale bands across the carpet. Dust motes drifted lazily in the air, visible only where the light caught them. The office felt larger now that she was looking in from the outside, the silence expanding to fill the space she had occupied so easily.
Daeron remained where he was. He stood by the window with one hand resting loosely against the glass, his reflection faintly layered over the city beyond. From this height, traffic looked unreal—slow and distant, reduced to thin threads of motion between blocks of steel and concrete. People moved somewhere far below, while he stood suspended above it all in a room that was never quite his.
Behind him, the desk waited—immaculate, symmetrical, untouched by clutter. Her neatly stacked notes rested beside his folder, aligned more carefully than he remembered placing them. But then she noticed that he hadn’t sat down, checked his phone, or his computer; his Teams is still yellow. For a long moment, he simply stood by the window, staring out at the muted skyline without really seeing it.
Eventually, his gaze drifted away and settled on the small bar cart positioned neatly against the wall beside a bookshelf. It was stocked with quite a number of bottles, she remembered earlier—two crystal tumblers, a decanter, several bottles arranged by height and label, everything aligned as carefully as the documents on his desk. It’s not an uncommon sight for those high enough to have their own office space, especially the ones overlooking the city.
Then Daeron turned from the window and walked toward it. His footsteps were soundless against the carpet. When he reached the cart, he selected a half-empty bottle from the back and poured himself a modest measure of amber liquid. He didn’t linger over it too long to inspect it. He lifted the glass and drank slowly, eyes still fixed on nothing in particular.
Over the next hour, she noticed him return to it twice more. Once, while reviewing a draft, fingers idly tracing lines of text as he drank. Once, after a brief phone call, his expression was unreadable as he refilled his glass. Each time, the pour was slow. Each time, the glass ended up empty.
By the time she glanced up again, he had poured a fourth, but he didn’t bring it back to his desk. Instead, he sank onto the low leather couch near the window, one arm draped loosely along its back, the glass resting on the side table beside him. He stared at the ceiling for a few minutes, unmoving, as though gathering himself, and took a nap.
He left a little after three.
He gathered his things without hurry; he didn’t bring much in anyway—sliding his laptop into a slim leather folder, tucking a few loose papers neatly inside. On his way out, he stopped by one of the corner offices where a department head was already waiting with a document flagged in yellow. Daeron skimmed it briefly, pen moving swiftly for a signature at the bottom. A quiet exchange, a nod, and it was done. He returned to his own office only long enough to retrieve his coat from the back of the chair. The fabric settled smoothly over his shoulders.
Though it was barely past three, no one questioned it. A few people glanced up as he crossed the floor—simply making themselves aware. His early departures were neither new nor debatable.
“If you finish the proposal, you can head out,” he said, tone casual, as though granting permission was an afterthought rather than something he had planned. “No one’s counting your minutes.”
She searched his face for a trace of irony and found none. “Even if it’s early?”
“Especially if it’s early,” he replied. “You’ve done what you needed to do. That’s enough.”
He gave a brief incline of his head, satisfied, and turned away. She watched him cross the floor before disappearing into the elevator lobby once more.
The doors slid shut behind him.
The floor continued exactly as it had before, but his absence was perceptible in the smallest way—like the dimming of a light you hadn’t realized one were orienting themselves by.
By 4:50 p.m., the floor had begun its gradual thinning. A few doors closed. A few supervisors packed up discreetly. The sky outside the windows had softened into late afternoon haze.
Her proposal had been done for nearly twenty minutes.
Still, she remained at her desk, cursor blinking idly on a reopened document she wasn’t really reading. It felt… presumptuous to leave early. She was new. Two weeks in. Everyone else seemed to stay until at least five, if not later. She didn’t want to be the junior who took advantage of a privilege she hadn’t earned.
The bottom right corner of her screen flickered with a Teams notification.
Daeron T.
Why are you still online?
She stared at it for a second before replying.
Finishing up a few things.
The typing indicator appeared almost immediately.
You finished the proposal.
She blinked.
How do you know that?
A pause. Then:
I can see the activity log. Lol.
She exhaled softly, right.
I just feel bad leaving early. Everyone else is still here.
The reply came slower this time.
Everyone else is not you.
She hesitated, then wrote:
It’s my second week. I don’t want to look unserious.
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Reappeared.
You staying ten extra minutes won’t change their perception. It’ll just change your habit.
She leaned back in her chair, reading that twice. Another message came through.
Go home. That’s not a suggestion.
She couldn’t help the small smile tugging at her mouth.
Are you always this bossy?
Almost immediately:
I’m kind of your boss. And that’s kinda my job.
She glanced around the floor — at the closed doors, the muted conversations, the quiet persistence of a building that would never truly empty.
Fine
A reply came before she could even turn around and gather her belongings.
👍
› ›
Another two weeks passed, and she was still online at 11:47 p.m, sitting by her kitchen table at her modest apartment.
She minimized her document and stretched, absently glancing at the corner of her screen.
Daeron T.
did u finish the deck for tmrw sorry *tomorrow ignore that
She stared for a moment, then typed.
Yes. It’s uploaded to the sharepoint.
The typing indicator appeared almost instantly.
thanks ur amazing 😄 i mean that politely sorry
She smiled faintly.
No worries.
A few minutes passed, then:
long day?
She hesitated, then replied.
A bit. You?
Several seconds passed.
longer than it shouldve been you make this place workable, btw sorry that sounded weird
She leaned back in her chair, reading that twice.
It’s okay. I get what you mean.
Then she was left on read.
From then on, it became a pattern.
Late-night questions, most of them dotted with small typos he never bothered to correct before sending. Early-morning apologies that followed—brief, polite, almost overly formal, as if he were trying to erase the informality of the night before. Half-finished sentences, sent too quickly, then amended in a second message with a single word changed or a missing thought restored.
There were occasional emails she quietly edited before sending back to him, fixing phrasing, smoothing transitions, attaching documents he had forgotten to include. Messages that began stiff and professional and ended, inexplicably, with the same three emojis he always used.
Sometimes, near midnight, he would begin typing and then stop, the indicator hovering on her screen for long seconds before disappearing altogether. No message followed. Nothing arrived.
Once, close to one in the morning, a notification appeared and vanished within seconds.
Message has been unsent.
She stared at the empty space where it had been for a moment, unsure whether she had seen the words or not. A minute later, another message arrived.
sorry ignore that
She pretended to believe him.
One night, after asking so furiously about a forecast model she had built, he went offline without warning. No goodbye nor any formal sign-off.
She stared at the screen for a moment longer than necessary, watching the green dot turn grey, watching her inbox remain stubbornly empty. Eventually, she saved her work and shut her laptop, the quiet of the apartment settling around her once more.
As she closed her laptop and headed back to the bedroom, she realized that she had begun to orient herself around those late-night green dots, looking forward to it, almost. Around his presence, even when it was reduced to a blinking cursor and imperfect sentences.
She told herself that perhaps they had become friends.
Hello, Brother.
Goodbye, Brother.
Their first touch and their last. We miss you Baelor 😭
And my father ... he never thought the throne would pass to him, and yet it did. He used to say that was his punishment for the blow that slew his brother. I pray he found the peace in death that he never knew in life.
“Eye contact is a dangerous, dangerous thing. But lovely. God, so lovely.”
— Hedonist Poet
"Imagine still posting fanart a whole year after the game came out" brother what are you talking about
Posted this because I saw an artist I like calling themselves cringe for still doing bg3 art in late 2024 like who hurt you
There are a lot of people who won't even be able to play the game for five years or more because they will have to wait for second hand equipment with the necessary hardware to run it.
This is what makes me so angry about all this 'late to the fandom' rhetoric - particularly in gaming. It's fundamentally classist, ableist, and generally discriminatory.
I was so excited to finally have equipment and money enough that I could buy both DA4 and BG3 when they came out, but my disability still means I am lagging behind the rest of you.
It's actually Very Common for people to not be able to afford a game for years and years - even a decade or more - after it came out. And if that's never been you, you're very privileged.
Lord of the Rings came out in 1954-1955 and yet there's brand new fic and art every single day.
Gale, grasping Tav’s hand in his, speaking passionately as he reads from a sheet of parchment: I swear, with all the Gods above as my witness, to love you for the rest of my life and beyond. My sole purpose is to cherish you so deeply and with such devotion it will make the stars weep. I want to lie with you under the evening sky and make love to you until our cries can be heard from the heavens. I want to find ways to pleasure you so intensely that your nails will permanently mark my skin. I want my hands to be more intimately familiar with your body than your own. I want to taste every last inch of you.
The cleric officiating Gale and Tav’s wedding (in front of Gale’s mother Morena, Tara, the Dekarios extended family, Elminster, Shadowheart, Astarion, Wyll etc., and a smattering of Gale’s Waterdeep colleagues): …thank you, Gale, for those very…descriptive vows. If we may continue with the ceremony, do you hereby take—
Gale: I have eighteen more pages to read
Vampire feeding from a willing volunteer but the volunteer brought their friend along to make sure the vampire doesnt drain them dry.
The friend feels like they’re sitting in the cuck chair when the vampire starts sucking on the mutual friends neck.
leather jacket jungkook is always a look
friendly reminders:
• stop obsessing over people who don’t put any effort into your relationship (platonic, non platonic, whatever)
• if the “love of your life” is happy with somebody else, be happy that they’re happy and move on
• stop comparing yourself to people who are so bland, you are astronomical
• don’t say shit about other people that you 1) wouldn’t say in front of a large audience and 2) wouldn’t want said about you
• “friends” that tell you you’re annoying or weird, don’t talk to you about your general interests, and leave you out of shit are not your friends
• if you can only gossip with somebody, they are also not your friend. also, why you out here gossiping? get a hobby. gossip is only best in small portions. if you just blabbing ‘bout Stacy and her 10 boyfriends all the time, that just makes you dull
• don’t get hung up on bad grades, bad people, and bad shit. you have approx. 80 years on this planet to do something great before it’s all over. don’t waste your time being down. go pet a dog, hug your friends, have some hot chocolate, and scream your favourite songs
yoongi - run! bts ep.42
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yoongi - run! bts ep.42