Sinopsis: Born without a title or noble name, you never expected to become Gwayne Hightower’s wife—or to raise Prince Daeron as your own son. But when war threatens the family you built together, promises, bloodlines, and loyalties are put to the ultimate test.
Warnings: Violence, forced participation in war, emotional abuse, physical intimidation, classism, misogyny
WC: 2,610 words approx.
Your hands smooth down your dress again and again, as though doing so could calm the trembling you feel inside. Your eyes remain lost upon the stone wall before you, cold and grey, just like this room that is not your home. You no longer clench your fists as you once did, but your fingers still tremble faintly as you run the fabric of the dress between them. You have been waiting for a long time, far too long. Gwayne should have arrived by now. Every night, when the sun disappears and everything falls silent, you whisper his name into the darkness, as though speaking it could make him appear, as though the words themselves possessed the power to bring him back to your side. But he does not return, and the fear grows within your chest like a weed you cannot tear out.
You remember when it all began, when Otto Hightower learned that Gwayne wished to marry you. It was a scandal that spread through every corner of the stronghold. Of course, you were nothing more than the daughter of an ordinary peasant woman, with no lands, no important family name, and no wealth to offer. And carrying the Hightower name after marrying him was almost an insult to them, something shameful they whispered about behind your back. But in the end, it was not quite so important, because Gwayne was the youngest of the family, the second son, the one who, according to the laws of the realm, had practically lost his importance from the moment he was born. He would inherit neither lands nor great titles, so if he married whomever he wished while continuing his training as a knight of the realm, there would not truly be a problem. And so Gwayne did it. He took you as his wife and, at the same time, became a knight, fulfilling both his dream and yours.
You remember that day clearly, as though it had been yesterday. Queen Alicent had left her youngest son, Daeron, with the Hightower family. Gwayne took him into his arms and looked at you, and in that instant, you understood everything without him having to say a single word.
“He is so small,” Gwayne said, holding him carefully and bringing him closer to you with a tenderness that made you smile.
You looked at him curiously, watching the baby who could barely open his eyes, and an unavoidable smile escaped you before you could stop it. “He has the Hightower name written all over him,” you whispered, pointing toward the small emblem on the blanket wrapped around him.
“Well, he was left with the greatest recognition a Targaryen can receive,” Gwayne admitted, before pointing toward the dragon egg that had been left beside the child, unhatched, cold and grey like a stone. “Father wants to send him far away so that he may be raised as a warrior.” His voice grew quieter as he spoke, as though he were sharing a secret. You lifted your gaze to meet his green eyes. “The same fate he chose for me,” he whispered.
“I can care for him,” you said, looking directly at him as you felt your hands longing to reach for the little one. “Having a child now is… well, your father believes it is not the right time. He has warned us many times, but with Daeron, we can… be that for him.” Your words emerged in a whisper, filled with hope and fear alike. “We can be his parents and give him the love he might not receive elsewhere.”
Your husband’s green eyes looked at you with a light you had never seen before, and he slowly nodded. “Although Alicent might someday… claim him,” he whispered, watching you with concern as he held the child with only one arm, while his other hand moved aside the brown hair that had fallen rebelliously across your face. When he tucked that strand behind your ear, his hand caressed your cheek with such gentleness that you closed your eyes for a moment, and then he tenderly lifted your chin so that you would look at him. “If we become attached…” He left the sentence unfinished, but you knew what he meant.
“You will have to do whatever the queen commands,” you said as you looked at him, feeling the weight of those words settle within your heart. But he shook his head.
“I would never take something away from my wife,” he said firmly, although his voice trembled slightly. “Least of all if doing so would make her suffer. I would stand against the Seven Kingdoms if they tried to take Daeron from us.” His hand tightened around yours, as though he wanted to make certain that you understood what he was saying.
“She has three children, Gwayne,” you said, remembering the other Targaryen children. “Making him grow up as though he had been forgotten would be… a miserable life, and he does not deserve a miserable life.” You moved closer to him, feeling the warmth of his body near yours. “We must give him a real family.”
And so he remained with you. Throughout all those years, you were always honest with the little boy who grew up as your son. You reminded him that his true parents were Alicent and King Viserys, because you believed it was only fair for him to know the truth, but you also told him that, to both of you, he was your only son, the most important one, the child who had entered your lives and filled them with joy.
But one night, when Daeron was eight years old, he asked you a question that broke your heart. He was preparing to sleep, his small head resting against the pillow and his large eyes looking at you solemnly.
“And when you have children,” Daeron asked in a calm voice, though there was a faint tremor beneath it, “will you remove me from your lives as well?” His fingers played with the edge of the blanket as he waited for your answer.
“No, never,” you told him, settling him into bed and carefully tucking him beneath the covers. “When we have children, they will be your siblings, because you are my son, my first, and your father loves you just as much as I do.” You gently stroked his hair. “It does not matter if they claim you. I will be there no matter what happens, always, because you are mine, and nothing will ever change that.”
And you kept that promise, even when war began in King’s Landing and everything changed. That night, Gwayne told you in a low, trembling voice, while your hands began to shake uncontrollably.
“Why now?” you whispered fearfully, feeling as though the ground were shifting beneath your feet. “Why does it have to be now?”
Gwayne knew it was the worst possible moment. Daeron was already a sixteen-year-old adolescent, a young man who loved the peaceful life you had given him, who spent his days caring for his younger brother Tyland, the child who had been born with the same red hair as a Hightower, just like Gwayne’s. That was enough for Daeron to truly love his family, because neither you nor Gwayne had ever drawn a distinction between your sons. Despite everything, Daeron carried Targaryen blood, and in that war, both of you knew what would come if someone claimed him.
“It is… I need to fight so that I may return to you,” Gwayne said, cradling your cheek between his large, warm hands. His fingers caressed your skin as though they wished to memorise every part of your face. “My sons and my wife are in danger. If Daeron is claimed in this war, I cannot imagine it. I cannot bear the thought of losing him or of someone using him.” His voice broke slightly, but he continued speaking. “But I will return. I always return. A knight never lies, and no matter where I may be, I will never dishonour my wife or my family.”
“Will you go with Ser Cole?” you asked, feeling the knot tighten in your throat. “The same man who never tires of insulting any woman who crosses his path.” You remembered the times you had heard his cruel words, the way he spoke of women as though they were lesser than men.
Gwayne shook his head, and his green eyes looked upon you with love. “Your husband is different, is he not? Have I not shown you, time and time again, that I am yours?” His fingers intertwined with your own. “Give me your trust once more, and I will return to you. I swear it by the Seven Gods.”
But the war caught up with Daeron, with you, and with little Tyland. One night, when you thought Gwayne had returned, Lord Ormund arrived at your home with his men and walked inside as though the lands belonged to him. You watched him from the doorway, feeling your heart begin to race with fear.
“The boy is coming with me,” Ormund said without any further preamble, looking you up and down as though you were nothing more than an ordinary servant. His voice was harsh and left no room for argument. Your body shuddered at those words, and your hands clung to the doorframe to keep yourself from falling.
“Daeron will not take part in that war,” you said in a voice firmer than you had believed yourself capable of, but Ormund laughed in your face, a cold laugh that froze your blood.
“This is what happens when too much power is given to a simple peasant woman,” he said, gripping your chin forcefully and pulling you closer until you could feel his breath against your face. “You are nothing before me. Now tell Daeron that he will fight for his family. I am going to begin cleansing him of that foolishness about you being his mother, because you are not. You never have been.”
“We never lied to him about where he came from,” you said with difficulty, feeling his fingers pressing into your skin. “If he sees me as his mother, it is because I did what Alicent could not. I gave him love and care. I raised him as though he were my own blood.”
Ormund smiled, but it was not a kind smile. That was when you heard Daeron’s voice behind you.
“Mother?” he asked, and then his tone changed when he saw Ormund. “Lord Ormund,” he said at once, his body going rigid.
Ormund released your chin and turned toward him with a triumphant smile. “I see that they have at least taught you some manners,” he said sarcastically. “We are going to war. Everything has already been prepared, and you will even bring that beast from outside.” He spoke of the dragon with disgust, as though it were an irritating animal rather than a powerful creature.
You looked at him, and you knew that Daeron would always protect you, no matter what. It was what Gwayne had taught him: to care for his family, to remain loyal, and never to abandon those he loved. But he was also your son, and fear ran through your entire body at the thought of what might happen to him.
Then your gaze returned to the present. You were in a room that was not yours, in Bitterbridge, which was nothing compared to your home. The walls were made of cold stone, the room itself was cold, and Tyland slept in the bed, the younger of your two sons, his dishevelled red hair spread across the pillow. Ormund had taken you with them. He had dragged you into the small encampment houses they had prepared for the war. Because, of course, he had to make certain that he would meet Gwayne despite everything, and if he kept you with him, then it was more than obvious that Gwayne would come. He always did. He always came looking for you, no matter how far away you were.
Your hands tightened over your dress as the memory of those days returned to your mind like a cold wave. You had been unable to protect Daeron, and that weighed on you more heavily than anything else. You had argued with Ormund so many times that you had already lost count. The first time was when he forbade Daeron from flying with his dragon, claiming it was a waste of time and that the boy needed to remain close to the ground like any ordinary soldier. The second was when he ordered the men in his army to shout at a group of defenceless civilians merely to frighten them, and you tried to intervene. But the worst of all was when he forced your boy, your Daeron, to kill an innocent man with his own hands. That day, you had tried to reach him, to run toward him and stop it, but Ormund seized your wrist with such force that you cried out.
“You cannot make him do that. He is only a child,” you said desperately, feeling tears threatening to spill from your eyes as you watched Daeron holding the sword, his hands trembling, looking at you with fear and confusion. His pale face broke your heart.
“It is none of your concern,” Ormund whispered with a cold smile, because of course he would not speak poorly of you while Daeron and his dragon were both in the same place. He knew the boy defended you, and that irritated him more than he wished to admit. “Servants do not interfere where they have not been summoned. You are not his mother. He was born for a greater role.” His voice became poisonous as he continued. “Besides, I need to make certain that your husband is still alive. Otherwise, I will decide what is to be done with you and your child.” His fingers tightened around your wrist, and you felt the pain all the way to the bone. “Now leave,” he ordered, and his men dragged you out of the hall while you could do nothing but look back and see Daeron with fear filling his eyes.
The mere memory of those days made several tears slip down your face now as you sat in that cold room. But then the door opened with a quiet creak, and you heard a voice you knew better than your own.
“Mother,” Daeron’s voice whispered, and you quickly wiped away your tears with the back of your hand, not wanting him to see you like this. You rose from the chair and looked at him, trying to appear strong.
“Yes?” you asked, straightening your dress and smoothing it down with your still-trembling hands. “We agreed that you cannot call me that here. I am your aunt,” you reminded him, looking directly at him and hoping no one else had heard. He slowly nodded, understanding the danger.
“Father has returned,” he whispered excitedly, and his eyes lit up in a way that reminded you of when he had been only a small child.
“Thank the gods,” you said with emotion, feeling the weight in your chest ease slightly. You looked toward the bed where Tyland slept and thought about how you would wake him to tell him that his father had returned.
But before you could leave to search for him, footsteps echoed through the corridor. Daeron immediately straightened, his body tense like a drawn bow, but when he saw Gwayne enter through the doorway, he relaxed completely. Your eyes fixed upon your husband, and your heart lurched.
“You look dreadful,” you whispered, taking in his filthy clothes, his dishevelled hair, and the dark circles beneath his eyes. But he approached you without caring about any of it, as though he had gone years without seeing you.
Gwayne cradled your cheeks between his large, warm hands and looked at you as though he were committing every part of your face to memory. He tilted your neck slightly so that he could see you better, and then took your hands in his. Daeron, who had been watching, did not understand his father’s actions until his eyes followed Gwayne’s gaze and landed upon the dark bruise around your wrist, the one Ormund had left days earlier when he had gripped you with such force.
“Did he do something to you?” Gwayne asked, his voice dropping to a dangerously low tone. But you shook your head, trying to make it seem unimportant. “Daeron, did Ormund do anything to your mother?” he asked his son without taking his eyes off you.
“No, Father,” Daeron replied quickly, but then corrected himself as you had taught him. “Uncle,” he whispered, lowering his gaze.
Gwayne clenched his jaw, and fire burned within his green eyes. “If he did anything to you—if he did anything to any of you—I will not hesitate to slit his throat,” he said with a calmness far more frightening than any shouting could have been.
“He did nothing to me,” you said, and he nodded, though he did not appear convinced.
Then he embraced you, and you felt his body against yours, the scent of sweat and earth clinging to him, and the beating of his heart against your own. “I know I smell awful,” he said with a tired laugh, “but I spent so many nights dreaming of holding my wife again.” His arms wrapped tightly around you, and you clung to him as though he were your only lifeline in the midst of a raging sea.
Daeron smiled nervously as he watched his parents embrace, but his smile faded when he spoke. “You are not going to leave us, are you, Father?” he whispered in such a small voice that both of you turned to look at him. His large, frightened eyes reminded you of when he had been an eight-year-old boy asking whether you would abandon him.
Gwayne slowly released you and looked first at you, then at Daeron. “I need to think about what we should do,” he said seriously. “He is their most valuable piece. You know that, do you not?” he asked you, referring to the way Ormund used Daeron as his most valuable weapon.
“He made that perfectly clear,” you said, feeling a knot tighten in your throat. “Perhaps he can escape from here with Tessarion,” you added, looking at Daeron. “And we can flee by land. Rhaenyra is queen now, and I know it will not be long before they come here.” Your voice trembled slightly as you said it, because you knew danger lurked around every corner.
“Then let us ask for forgiveness,” Daeron said, hope rising in his voice, but you shook your head, feeling the weight of reality pressing down upon you.
“Darling,” you said, taking his face between your hands, “they killed two of her children in the span of only a few months. They deceived her with a boy who was not you.” You remembered how they had used a false Daeron to deceive the queen, and a shiver ran down your spine. “Had they surrendered you alongside Daemon, Queen Rhaenyra would surely have forgiven us. But now she may believe that we are traitors.” Your fingers caressed his cheek as you watched him come to understand your words.
“We will get out of here,” Gwayne said with determination, looking at both of you. “I will do whatever it takes, but for now, we must be cautious around Ormund.” He looked directly at you, and his hand found yours. “Be prepared. We may have to leave at any moment. Daeron, study every possible escape route you could take with the dragon, and I will take care of your mother and your brother.”
Daeron nodded and then stepped closer to embrace you tightly. You could feel his body trembling slightly, and you wrapped your arms around him in return, pressing a kiss to his hair. Gwayne smiled, taking your hand and kissing it gently. He had spent weeks believing that he would never see you again, that you had been lost to him forever. The fact that you were here against your will was a grave mistake on Ormund’s part. He believed that manipulating Daeron would allow him to control Gwayne, that holding you hostage would make him meek and obedient. But all he had truly accomplished was enraging a husband devoted in body and soul to his family—a man who would do anything to protect those he loved, regardless of the consequences.
qifrey ﹠ easthies x apprentice!reader: healing magic ꒰ platonic. child!reader—they’re quite young here. gn!reader. based on this ask. ꒱
The glimpses of your malady led your Master to wonder: should he maneuver forbidden magic?ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ*english mistakes…
The uttermost regions of the globe had not been waltzed by winds that blew similar infamy.
Qifrey would not, in neither to-day nor in any foreseeable morrow, pictured an outcome as encrinsomed as yours: the burgundy waterfalls sullied the form you personalized before his pink-rimmed gaze. Ocean vistas had caused him dread which scarcely rivalized the grotesque-fashion with which you laid—chest that fastly behaved, only for its breath to quickly settle back to its early haphazardish momentum.
What to say of it? What to say about the future which stretched in virtuous phantasmagoria? The one he craved for your prepubescent mind to grow soberly within? Had he kept you back in the Atelier, had he not been bent by your stomping feet, you'd be safe in the four walls of your lodgings—nonetheless, he had supposed taking you to see the girls’ second trial had its pedagogical fairness. None was to blame but his inadequacy.
“Darling? You must answer me. Master wants to ensure your safety…” you whined like a wounded kitten, forcing a palm against the wound—removing it provoked the neverending pouring of the cascade.
“It hurts so much, Master Qippi…”
Oh, do not break his heart like this.
“It hurts.”
His chin quivered; he forced your wrist away from the wound—each pivot of his spine responding to the visual stimulum with a star-shaped horror of no resemblance. He gulped, well aware of how children would imitate their caretakers’ reactions: had he expressed extreme fear, you would worsen.
“Shush, come here, my love…” as Qifrey advanced to orchestrate your body closer, he learnt he hadn’t ever suffered in a form allied to this—you squirmed, assailing his ears with a shriek of pure horror, mingled with the saliva that heralds a newbornish wail.
“Oh… dear, I'm so sorry. My darling, Master Qifrey won't try to pick you up again. I'm so sorry, my love… I just…”
“It hurts, please… make it stop… please, Master Qippi…”
How utterly dreadful.
He was wont of being outlawly in the gloom of cisterns and antique grottos, with none but the echoes of stalactites to send his cooing notes spiraling. No red-bedight knights in sight.
Only him and the basin of blood forming underneath his world.
All heavens above shall watch it unfold and be gloated with unadulterated pardoning essence.
“I ‘prommy’ I'll drink any medicine, I won't cry-”
“Shush. No need to, my love.”
“No…? But Master Qippu…”
Qifrey smiled.
If Master was smiling, then the pain would soon diminish.
“Do you want to see a spell? It's a pretty one… here, Master will get closer…”
Qifrey reached for your garment, undressing only the necessary to expose your vexed flesh.
“Master… what will you do…?” He avoided looking up—in other moments, that red-eyelided stare of glossiness would be the cutest vision. But not now.
“Master…?” what was it? Why was he wielding his pen? Why did the chillness of its tip meet your skin?
“Master Qippi, you cannot! You taught me it's wrong!” you tried to kick him away, but you bore no strength and, even if you did, you couldn't fight a grown-up.
“Master Qippu!”
He wrought the initial symbols, stretching your skin with the index and the thumb of his non-dominant hand to ensure the straightness of his linework.
“Master told you we cannot do it, yes. But now you're hurt and Master Qifrey cannot take you to the Medical Spire in time. You're dealing with…” he pressed his lips together. It could not go wrong. Any misplaced line could unravel an unfairly worse outcome. “You’re dealing with so many big feelings now, hmm? Oh, it must hurt so bad… but Master is here, alright, sweetheart? Yes, breathe slowly… you're so brave. So, so brave, more than I could ever manage.” he sighed while fretting away, watching your little eyes blink. “Master is so proud.” he closed the circle. “So proud of you. Oh, you cannot fathom how much.”
The queer sensation begun, one of every blood vessel intertwining in its designed position; adipose tissue returning to its pre-defined place and muscles knitting themselves back
together—Qifrey rejoiced. For him it was pure joy.
“Oh, baby…” Qifrey embraced you, kissing the entirety of your face, running his nosetip over your countenance and wuthering sounds akin to cries. “Hurts still? Tell Master Qifrey, please? Oh, you must still be so bashful. But can you? Please?” his face was on the crook of your neck, silver locks tickling your chin and cheek. Master was so nice to hug.
“Doesn’t hurt anymore! Master Qippi made it stop!”
“My sweetheart… I will never let it happen again. I will protect you, I ought to… come here, give me a kiss?” you giggled, obeying his demand. “Hmm… so good! Aren't you the bestest cheek kisser in the world…?”
“Master Qippi, the drawing on my tummy…“
“Oh? My, my. Do not fret. Master knows a couple of hidden spells. The ink will vanish, but you'll remain safe. Now, you must remember…”
“Hmm?”
“It’s our little secret. No one else can know about it. Just you and Master. Can you do it? Can you keep our tiny, itty sized secret?” he caressed your scalp with a fingertip of sub rosa undertones—just like when he made you fall asleep.
“I can! I won’t tell anyone!” you pinched your index and thumb together, pretending to zip your lips with them.
“Gorgeous! Now… come here, my love… oh, you lost so much blood. No, do not look. I'll cook you something really tasty and rich in iron…”
He hadn't wasted saliva with those accolades for no reason, he had truly meant to keep you in the light. Yet you were still so small. You'd grow to comprehend the components of his feat and he could not let you—nor could he allow that dark memory to take roots and tarnish your mind. As soon as the needed seconds passed and that spell could be removed without bringing you back to that disgusting state, he would take charge of another feat. If freeing your mind from such a moment was cottony to your brain, so would he do.
It's none but one’s perception of the world through the years who’s the best tutor at lecturing about misery and its polychromed presentations. Nevertheless, for Easthies, its promised multicolorness spread in nothing but crimson—drank unassumingly by his vests, which neatly synthesized it in its same hueness. The reaching of his palm served no purpose but of resting atop your hand’s back, pressing your own palm forcefully as a way to tell you not to remove it. Certainly, keeping your non-disinfected hand against an open wound was far from pertinent. But had he other choices, he'd be the first to utter this thought.
Easthies had more to worry himself. His first reveries were of the pact and how he was bound to no tresspassing, even a millimetrical step.
His second one was of how he could convince himself to overcome it, putting you on the pearly plateau of his mind and dissing all forepromised duties.
Saving the life of a child with the use of forbidden magic would be, if adapted into sturdy book spines, seen as the act of a knight, one whom no net ensnares.
Now here he is: pondering things he had promised himself to never wonder.
“Master Eas, will I die…?” you weep like a litter that find itself in no state other than motherlessness. Last time you asked him the same question, you had occupied yourself with hiding a scrapped knee. Now you were not so far from the truth: you would if he deemed fit, if he thought a child with upcoming years of life should be sacrificed in the name of the pact—the laws of the pact shall be upheld through any means.
“Master Eas…? Talk to me… please…”
“I’m here, darling. You shall not worry… can you move?” you shook your head.
“It hurts…”
“I know it does, my dear. But…”
“Make the pain go away, please…”
You couldn't conceptualize what was running through his mind in the time being. You could not know that, the moment you begged for him to stop it, he had thought of applying unthoughtful methods. Your begging weaved a chorus in unison, both intimate and profane—although the last adjective was one only he applied to it.
“I can't do it, dear.”
“I promise I won't cry! I'll drink any medicine at the hospital!”
“The Medical Spire is too far.” He held onto the flagpole until his fingers became white. “I cannot take you there.”
He could still do something, couldn't he? His knowledge wasn't wide, he refrained from harboring anything that stepped too far. Yet counterclock was a good option. He could safely remove it when approaching the Medical Spire. He would clean it off pristine and swiftly so as to not raise any suspicions.
Nothing would be off place.
“So I will die…?” it was sorrowful how you uttered those mostly to seek his affection. You did not believe you would, not when Master was close—he was your knight in shiny armor, none could lay an ill-intended finger upon you if you had him within reach. Yet could he protect you from his ideological cage?
“No, dear. I will not allow you to. Here, I'll help you out…” Easthies removed a small percentage of your attire. Your cheek was tear-rolled, for part of the fabric had stuck to your wound. “Hurts? It'll stop soon, I assure you.” you squeezed Master’s forearm and, once enough skin was exposed, he retreated. Could he? No one should be unwilling to save a child, especially if that child is one’s own. Therefore He brought his pen forward.
“Master Eas, what are you doing…?”
“Shush…”
“M-master, no! You cannot!”
“Do not squirm. If the lines are shapeless it will worsen your case.” he pressed the pen’s tip against your side, neatly mastering a straight line. He had already stepped too far. No ink should be on one's skin but blotches from practicing.
“Master Eas, you told me we cannot do it!”
“You’re right, darling. Master is being a nincompoop today, I must agree.”
He looked upon the scene before him, the childhood of rosy frame you've been sharing by his side—nothing but preciousness could be expected from you. But he still had time to pull back and watch the watery aspect of your eyes becoming the only thing to give your gaze a glow of life. He could still stop it and ruffle your hair, cooing your way towards forevermore.
qifrey ﹠ easthies x apprentice!reader: healing magic ꒰ platonic. child!reader—they’re quite young here. gn!reader. based on this ask. ꒱
The glimpses of your malady led your Master to wonder: should he maneuver forbidden magic?ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ*english mistakes…
The uttermost regions of the globe had not been waltzed by winds that blew similar infamy.
Qifrey would not, in neither to-day nor in any foreseeable morrow, pictured an outcome as encrinsomed as yours: the burgundy waterfalls sullied the form you personalized before his pink-rimmed gaze. Ocean vistas had caused him dread which scarcely rivalized the grotesque-fashion with which you laid—chest that fastly behaved, only for its breath to quickly settle back to its early haphazardish momentum.
What to say of it? What to say about the future which stretched in virtuous phantasmagoria? The one he craved for your prepubescent mind to grow soberly within? Had he kept you back in the Atelier, had he not been bent by your stomping feet, you'd be safe in the four walls of your lodgings—nonetheless, he had supposed taking you to see the girls’ second trial had its pedagogical fairness. None was to blame but his inadequacy.
“Darling? You must answer me. Master wants to ensure your safety…” you whined like a wounded kitten, forcing a palm against the wound—removing it provoked the neverending pouring of the cascade.
“It hurts so much, Master Qippi…”
Oh, do not break his heart like this.
“It hurts.”
His chin quivered; he forced your wrist away from the wound—each pivot of his spine responding to the visual stimulum with a star-shaped horror of no resemblance. He gulped, well aware of how children would imitate their caretakers’ reactions: had he expressed extreme fear, you would worsen.
“Shush, come here, my love…” as Qifrey advanced to orchestrate your body closer, he learnt he hadn’t ever suffered in a form allied to this—you squirmed, assailing his ears with a shriek of pure horror, mingled with the saliva that heralds a newbornish wail.
“Oh… dear, I'm so sorry. My darling, Master Qifrey won't try to pick you up again. I'm so sorry, my love… I just…”
“It hurts, please… make it stop… please, Master Qippi…”
How utterly dreadful.
He was wont of being outlawly in the gloom of cisterns and antique grottos, with none but the echoes of stalactites to send his cooing notes spiraling. No red-bedight knights in sight.
Only him and the basin of blood forming underneath his world.
All heavens above shall watch it unfold and be gloated with unadulterated pardoning essence.
“I ‘prommy’ I'll drink any medicine, I won't cry-”
“Shush. No need to, my love.”
“No…? But Master Qippu…”
Qifrey smiled.
If Master was smiling, then the pain would soon diminish.
“Do you want to see a spell? It's a pretty one… here, Master will get closer…”
Qifrey reached for your garment, undressing only the necessary to expose your vexed flesh.
“Master… what will you do…?” He avoided looking up—in other moments, that red-eyelided stare of glossiness would be the cutest vision. But not now.
“Master…?” what was it? Why was he wielding his pen? Why did the chillness of its tip meet your skin?
“Master Qippi, you cannot! You taught me it's wrong!” you tried to kick him away, but you bore no strength and, even if you did, you couldn't fight a grown-up.
“Master Qippu!”
He wrought the initial symbols, stretching your skin with the index and the thumb of his non-dominant hand to ensure the straightness of his linework.
“Master told you we cannot do it, yes. But now you're hurt and Master Qifrey cannot take you to the Medical Spire in time. You're dealing with…” he pressed his lips together. It could not go wrong. Any misplaced line could unravel an unfairly worse outcome. “You’re dealing with so many big feelings now, hmm? Oh, it must hurt so bad… but Master is here, alright, sweetheart? Yes, breathe slowly… you're so brave. So, so brave, more than I could ever manage.” he sighed while fretting away, watching your little eyes blink. “Master is so proud.” he closed the circle. “So proud of you. Oh, you cannot fathom how much.”
The queer sensation begun, one of every blood vessel intertwining in its designed position; adipose tissue returning to its pre-defined place and muscles knitting themselves back
together—Qifrey rejoiced. For him it was pure joy.
“Oh, baby…” Qifrey embraced you, kissing the entirety of your face, running his nosetip over your countenance and wuthering sounds akin to cries. “Hurts still? Tell Master Qifrey, please? Oh, you must still be so bashful. But can you? Please?” his face was on the crook of your neck, silver locks tickling your chin and cheek. Master was so nice to hug.
“Doesn’t hurt anymore! Master Qippi made it stop!”
“My sweetheart… I will never let it happen again. I will protect you, I ought to… come here, give me a kiss?” you giggled, obeying his demand. “Hmm… so good! Aren't you the bestest cheek kisser in the world…?”
“Master Qippi, the drawing on my tummy…“
“Oh? My, my. Do not fret. Master knows a couple of hidden spells. The ink will vanish, but you'll remain safe. Now, you must remember…”
“Hmm?”
“It’s our little secret. No one else can know about it. Just you and Master. Can you do it? Can you keep our tiny, itty sized secret?” he caressed your scalp with a fingertip of sub rosa undertones—just like when he made you fall asleep.
“I can! I won’t tell anyone!” you pinched your index and thumb together, pretending to zip your lips with them.
“Gorgeous! Now… come here, my love… oh, you lost so much blood. No, do not look. I'll cook you something really tasty and rich in iron…”
He hadn't wasted saliva with those accolades for no reason, he had truly meant to keep you in the light. Yet you were still so small. You'd grow to comprehend the components of his feat and he could not let you—nor could he allow that dark memory to take roots and tarnish your mind. As soon as the needed seconds passed and that spell could be removed without bringing you back to that disgusting state, he would take charge of another feat. If freeing your mind from such a moment was cottony to your brain, so would he do.
It's none but one’s perception of the world through the years who’s the best tutor at lecturing about misery and its polychromed presentations. Nevertheless, for Easthies, its promised multicolorness spread in nothing but crimson—drank unassumingly by his vests, which neatly synthesized it in its same hueness. The reaching of his palm served no purpose but of resting atop your hand’s back, pressing your own palm forcefully as a way to tell you not to remove it. Certainly, keeping your non-disinfected hand against an open wound was far from pertinent. But had he other choices, he'd be the first to utter this thought.
Easthies had more to worry himself. His first reveries were of the pact and how he was bound to no tresspassing, even a millimetrical step.
His second one was of how he could convince himself to overcome it, putting you on the pearly plateau of his mind and dissing all forepromised duties.
Saving the life of a child with the use of forbidden magic would be, if adapted into sturdy book spines, seen as the act of a knight, one whom no net ensnares.
Now here he is: pondering things he had promised himself to never wonder.
“Master Eas, will I die…?” you weep like a litter that find itself in no state other than motherlessness. Last time you asked him the same question, you had occupied yourself with hiding a scrapped knee. Now you were not so far from the truth: you would if he deemed fit, if he thought a child with upcoming years of life should be sacrificed in the name of the pact—the laws of the pact shall be upheld through any means.
“Master Eas…? Talk to me… please…”
“I’m here, darling. You shall not worry… can you move?” you shook your head.
“It hurts…”
“I know it does, my dear. But…”
“Make the pain go away, please…”
You couldn't conceptualize what was running through his mind in the time being. You could not know that, the moment you begged for him to stop it, he had thought of applying unthoughtful methods. Your begging weaved a chorus in unison, both intimate and profane—although the last adjective was one only he applied to it.
“I can't do it, dear.”
“I promise I won't cry! I'll drink any medicine at the hospital!”
“The Medical Spire is too far.” He held onto the flagpole until his fingers became white. “I cannot take you there.”
He could still do something, couldn't he? His knowledge wasn't wide, he refrained from harboring anything that stepped too far. Yet counterclock was a good option. He could safely remove it when approaching the Medical Spire. He would clean it off pristine and swiftly so as to not raise any suspicions.
Nothing would be off place.
“So I will die…?” it was sorrowful how you uttered those mostly to seek his affection. You did not believe you would, not when Master was close—he was your knight in shiny armor, none could lay an ill-intended finger upon you if you had him within reach. Yet could he protect you from his ideological cage?
“No, dear. I will not allow you to. Here, I'll help you out…” Easthies removed a small percentage of your attire. Your cheek was tear-rolled, for part of the fabric had stuck to your wound. “Hurts? It'll stop soon, I assure you.” you squeezed Master’s forearm and, once enough skin was exposed, he retreated. Could he? No one should be unwilling to save a child, especially if that child is one’s own. Therefore He brought his pen forward.
“Master Eas, what are you doing…?”
“Shush…”
“M-master, no! You cannot!”
“Do not squirm. If the lines are shapeless it will worsen your case.” he pressed the pen’s tip against your side, neatly mastering a straight line. He had already stepped too far. No ink should be on one's skin but blotches from practicing.
“Master Eas, you told me we cannot do it!”
“You’re right, darling. Master is being a nincompoop today, I must agree.”
He looked upon the scene before him, the childhood of rosy frame you've been sharing by his side—nothing but preciousness could be expected from you. But he still had time to pull back and watch the watery aspect of your eyes becoming the only thing to give your gaze a glow of life. He could still stop it and ruffle your hair, cooing your way towards forevermore.
Summary: A noble lady from a disgraced house that supported Blackfyres is married off to Lord Bloodraven as a reward for his loyalty and prowess in battle. But he prefers to occupy his time with duties as the Hand of the King. Comfortable but lonely, she befriends one of his ravens. Part 1 here .Warnings: arranged marriage, yearning, angst, fluff, Westeros politics, Shiera.
King Daeron's court was full of whispers, and the whispers about the Hand and his lady wife were among the most persistent.
You heard them, of course. You could not help but hear them. The serving girls who thought you out of earshot, the lords who forgot you were standing in the shadow of a pillar, the ladies who smiled at you sweetly with acidic eyes. They spoke of the Oakheart girl who had married the sorcerer, who had been given to the one-eyed bastard as punishment for her family's treachery. They pitied you, mocked you, or marveled at your composure in the face of such a grotesque match.
What they did not know, what they could not see from their distant tables and their whispered huddles, was that you were quite happy.
It was an odd thing to admit, even to yourself. Brynden Rivers was not a man who inspired joy in the hearts of maidens. He was strange and secretive, pale as a corpse, with his missing eye and his wine-stain birthmark and his unsettling habit of knowing things he should not know. He did not dance, did not laugh loudly, did not shower you with the flowery compliments that other lords bestowed on their ladies.
Yet you woke each morning in his bed, your head pillowed on his chest. He rarely slept, you had learned that his strange nature included an ability to go for days with only the briefest snatches of rest, but he would lie still for hours in the darkness, one hand resting on your back, his heartbeat slow and steady beneath your ear. Sometimes you would wake in the small hours and find his single eye open, watching the ceiling. You would murmur his name and feel his hand tighten on your shoulder in wordless acknowledgment.
"Am I keeping you?" you would ask, in the early days.
"No," he would answer every time.
This morning was like the others. You woke to dawn light filtering through the narrow windows of the Tower, to the familiar scent of old parchment and candle wax, to the gentle rise and fall of your husband's chest. His arm was around you, his long fingers splayed against the curve of your waist. His eye was closed, his breathing even. He looked, in these rare moments of counterfeit sleep, almost peaceful.
You propped yourself up on one elbow and studied his face. The birthmark that others whispered about, the blotch of deep red that climbed his neck and pooled on his cheek, no longer seemed odd to you. It was simply part of him, like the silver of his hair or the pale arch of his brow. You traced a finger lightly along its edge. His eye opened.
"Good morrow," you said.
"Good morrow." His voice was rough with disuse. "You are staring."
"I am admiring."
A faint crease appeared between his brows, his version of a puzzled expression. "There is little to admire."
"There is everything to admire." You leaned down and pressed a kiss to his forehead, then to the bridge of his nose, then to the scarred hollow where his missing eye had once been. He held still for this ritual, as he always did, and when you reached his mouth, his hand came up to cup the back of your head and hold you there for a moment longer.
"You are very odd," he said when you pulled back.
"I am your wife. I am allowed to be odd."
"Hm." The sound was almost amused. He released you and sat up, the sheets pooling around his waist. The morning light caught the pale angles of his torso, the lean muscle. "I have something for you."
"You always have something for me."
He rose from the bed and crossed to his desk, where a small wooden box sat beside a stack of parchments. You watched him, the way he moved with that uncanny grace, the way his silver hair fell across his bare shoulders. When he turned back, the box was in his hands.
"For you," he said, placing it on the bed beside you.
You opened it. Inside, nestled on a bed of black velvet, lay a necklace. The chain was white gold, so fine it seemed spun from spider silk, and from it hung a pendant of deep green emerald, carved into the shape of a leaf. Oak leaves. Your house sigil.
"Brynden." Your voice caught in your throat. "This is…where did you find this?"
"A craftsman in Myr. I commissioned it some moons ago. It arrived by ship yesterday."
The emerald caught the light, flashing green fire. You lifted it reverently, and the chain slithered through your fingers like water.
"It is beautiful," you breathed.
"You said once that you missed the Reach. The trees, the green." He was standing awkwardly now, his hands clasped behind his back, his eye fixed on your face with slight anxiety. "I thought perhaps you might like to carry a piece of it with you."
"I love it." You rose from the bed and went to him, the necklace clutched in your fist. "Put it on me please."
He took the chain with careful fingers and fastened it around your neck. The pendant rested against your collarbone, a small green anchor to the home you had left behind.
"There," he said. "It suits you."
You looked down at the emerald leaf, then up at your husband's pale, strange, beloved face. "You give me so many things," you said. "The ruby bracelets, the sapphire hairpins, the pearl drop earrings. The ivory comb from Volantis, the silk shawl from Yi Ti. My jewelry chest is overflowing."
He tilted his head, that familiar birdlike gesture. "Do you not like them?"
"I adore them. Every piece." You reached up and touched his cheek, the smooth skin beside the birthmark. "But you do not need to bring me treasures every week, Brynden. I am not Shiera."
The name hung in the air between you. It was the first time you had spoken it since that night in the solar, the night everything had changed. You watched his face carefully, looking for the flinch, the shadow of old pain. It flickered there for a heartbeat, and then it was gone.
"I know you are not," he said.
"I only mean that I do not require rare jewels to be happy. Shiera collected beautiful things. I…" You hesitated, searching for the right words. "I collect moments."
He was silent for a while, his eye searching your face. Then, slowly, he leaned down. It was a gesture he had developed in the first weeks of your true marriage, when he had noticed how you stretched onto your toes to reach his mouth. So he had taken to bending toward you whenever you were close, a small, unconscious courtesy.
You kissed him. When you pulled back, he looked thoughtful.
"I see," he said.
"I am not ungrateful…"
"You are not." He touched the emerald leaf at your throat. "But I have been foolish. I have been courting you with the wrong currency."
"Brynden…"
"I have a meeting with the Master of Coin this morning." He was already turning toward his wardrobe, reaching for his doublet. "It will be tedious and I will likely have to threaten someone before it is done. But afterward…" He paused, his shirt half-buttoned. "Afterward, I have no obligations. The afternoon is clear."
You blinked at him. "It is?"
"I have ensured it." He finished the buttons. "I thought we might take a walk in the gardens. I have heard there is a new fountain, some ghastly thing from Braavos with mermaids. I would like to hear your opinion on it."
A walk in the gardens. Such an ordinary, unremarkable thing that any husband might do with any wife. Yet your eyes stung with sudden tears, because you understood what he was offering. Time. His time, which was the rarest treasure of all.
"I would like that," you said, and your voice came out steadier than you felt. "Very much."
He nodded, a crisp, businesslike gesture, but you had learned to read him now. The faint relaxation around his mouth, the slight softening of his red eye. He was pleased.
"Good," he said. "I shall send for you when the meeting is done."
He crossed to the door, then stopped, turned, came back to you and leaned down again, pressing a kiss to your forehead.
"Wear the necklace," he said. "It truly does suit you."
True to his word, Brynden sent a servant to fetch you in the early afternoon. You had dressed with care, a gown of pale cream silk, simple in cut but elegant in drape, the emerald necklace displayed against the bare skin of your throat. Your hair you had left loose, the way he seemed to prefer it. When you descended the Tower stairs and found him waiting in the courtyard, his single eye swept over you with an intensity that made your cheeks heat.
"You look lovely," he said.
"You look like you have just threatened the Master of Coin."
The corner of his mouth twitched. "I did. He was most cooperative afterward."
The gardens of the Red Keep were beautiful in the afternoon light, the roses in full bloom, the lemon trees heavy with fruit, the sea breeze carrying the salt-tang of Blackwater Bay. Lords and ladies strolled along the gravel paths, their silks and velvets a shifting tapestry of color. As you walked at Brynden's side, his arm tucked through yours, you felt their eyes on you. The whispers, too, rising like the hum of insects.
"…the Oakheart girl and the sorcerer…"
"…look at his face, gods be good…"
"…she seems happy enough, poor deluded thing…"
You had learned to ignore them. More than ignore them, you had learned to pity them, for they could not see what you saw. They could not know the quiet sweetness of the man beside you, the way he described the Braavosi fountain in a dry, precise deadpan that made you laugh aloud. The way he paused to point out a particularly clever raven perched on a fig tree, explaining how it had been trained to deliver messages. The way his hand tightened on your arm when you stumbled on an uneven stone, steadying you before you could fall.
"That fountain," he said, gesturing to the marble monstrosity ahead, "The mermaids were supposed to spout water from their mouths. As you can see, they are spouting from their…elsewhere."
You clapped a hand over your mouth, but the laugh escaped anyway, bright and startled. The mermaids were indeed spouting water from anatomically dubious locations, their stone faces frozen in expressions of eternal surprise.
"Who commissioned this?" you managed.
"Lord Redwyne, as a gift to the king. I suspect it was revenge for the wine tariffs."
You laughed again, and the sound drew stares from a nearby cluster of ladies. You did not care. You were walking in the gardens with your husband, your arm in his, he was making you laugh, the afternoon sun was warm on your face, and the emerald leaf was a cool weight against your skin.
"Brynden," you said, when your laughter had subsided.
"Yes?"
"Thank you. For this afternoon."
He was quiet for a moment, his eye on the fountain. The mermaids continued to spout water from various unseemly places.
"I have been thinking," he said, "about what you said this morning. About collecting moments. I have realized that I do not know how to be a husband. All of my tools are wrong." He turned to face you. "I gave Shiera jewels because jewels were what she wanted. I gave you jewels because I did not know what else to give."
"You give me plenty," you said, touching the emerald. "I was not complaining."
"But you were teaching me." He took your hand, his cool fingers wrapping around yours. "And I am a quick learner."
He lifted your hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to your knuckles, right there in the middle of the garden path, with half the court looking on. The whispers rose to a crescendo, but you did not hear them. You only heard the beat of your own heart, the soft intake of your husband's breath, the rustle of the wind through the trees.
"Come," he said, releasing your hand but keeping your arm in his. "There is a bench by the sea wall. I am told the view is tolerable."
It was more than tolerable. It was magnificent, the bay spreading out before you in a sheet of hammered gold, the sails of ships glinting in the distance, the sky a pale, washed blue. You sat together on the stone bench, your shoulder brushing his, and watched the waves.
"May I ask you something?" you said after a while.
"You may."
"What do the ravens see? When you look through their eyes?"
He was silent for a moment, and you worried you had overstepped. But then he spoke, his voice low and contemplative.
"It is difficult to describe. It is like…being in two places at once. I am here, with you, but I am also above the city, riding the wind. I see the rooftops and the streets and the people going about their lives. I see ships coming into harbor and carts rumbling along the roads. I see a thousand small moments that no one else notices, all happening at once." He paused. "It is overwhelming, sometimes. It is why I do not sleep well. There is always something to see."
"Does it hurt?"
"No. It is simply…much." His eye found yours. "Does it frighten you? Knowing that I can see through them?"
You considered the question. "It should," you admitted. "But I have grown rather fond of ravens."
"One raven in particular, I suspect."
"Pebble is a good friend."
"Useless creature."
"You could stand to be kinder to Pebble."
Brynden Rivers laughed. It was a small sound, rusty, as though his throat had forgotten how to make it. But it was unmistakably a laugh, and it transformed his face. For a moment he looked young.
"I shall endeavor to be kinder to the raven," he said. "For your sake."
"Thank you."
A raven fluttered past, disappearing into the dusk sky towards rookery. You slipped your arms around his waist, pressing your cheek to his shoulder.
"Bad news?" you asked.
"No. Merely information." He turned in your embrace, his hands settling on your hips. "Lord Butterwell has been buying up land. I will need to look into it."
"Tomorrow."
He blinked. "Tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow." You reached up and traced the line of his jaw. "Tonight, you are mine."
His eye softened, the red dimming to something warmer. "Am I?"
"You are." You tugged gently at his collar, pulling him down. He leaned obligingly, bending to your level, and you pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. "We are going to have supper. You are going to eat more than three bites. And then we are going to sit by the fire, and you are going to tell me about the most ridiculous thing you have seen through your ravens this week."
"The most ridiculous thing?"
"Surely there must be something. Courtiers are absurd creatures."
He considered this. "Lord Bracken was seen attempting to serenade a milkmaid last Tuesday. He fell into a cow pat."
You laughed, delighted. "There. That is exactly what I mean."
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Very well," he obliged. "Supper. And cows. And…being yours."
"Good." You kissed him again. "Brynden."
"Yes?"
"I am happy."
"So am I," he said, and there was wonder in his voice, as though he had only just realized it was true.
The hour was late, and the Tower of the Hand was silent save for the crackle of the fire in the hearth and the distant cry of gulls over Blackwater Bay. You had retired to your chambers hours ago, leaving Brynden to his endless parchments and his murmured consultations with agents who came and went like shadows. You had grown accustomed to these nights, they no longer stung the way they once had, back in the cold early days of your marriage, when every empty hour had felt like a rejection.
Now, you simply waited. You knew he would come to you eventually.
You were half-drowsing when you heard the door open and close, the soft tread of boots on stone. The mattress dipped as Brynden sat on the edge of the bed, and you heard the familiar sounds of him undressing: the rustle of his doublet, the soft thump of his boots hitting the floor. You kept your eyes closed, a small smile playing at your lips, savoring the anticipation.
He slid under the covers beside you, and his hand found your hip in the darkness. His touch was urgent in a way it rarely was. Usually, he came to bed with a kind of restrained gentleness, as though he were still learning the language of intimacy and wanted to pronounce every word correctly. Tonight, his grip was firmer, his body pressing closer, his voice was rough with a weariness that went beyond the physical.
"I need you," he muttered. "Today was…I need to not think. I need to be here. With you. Only you."
Your heart clenched. You knew his burdens, the weight of a kingdom pressing down on his shoulders, the endless schemes and counter-schemes, the dark whispers that followed him wherever he went. You opened your eyes to tell him that you were here, that you would always be here, that he could lose himself in you as much as he needed…and then you remembered.
"Brynden," you whispered carefully. "Wait."
His hand had been sliding up your thigh. It stopped. "What is wrong?"
"Nothing is wrong. It is only…" You bit your lip. "There is something under the covers."
He went still. You felt the shift in him, the instinctive alertness of a spymaster who had survived a dozen assassination attempts. "Something," he repeated.
"A friend."
"A fr…" He stopped. His eye, adjusted to the darkness, dropped to the lump in the blankets between your bodies. A small lump.
From beneath the covers came a soft, contented squawk.
Brynden reached over and pulled back the blankets with a sharp flick of his wrist. There, sprawled across the soft mound of your stomach, wings spread as though drunken, lay Pebble. The raven's eyes were closed, his beak slightly open, his round belly rising and falling with each tiny breath. One of your hands was still resting on his breast feathers, frozen mid-stroke.
There was a long silence.
"My lady," Brynden said, in the tone of a man who was choosing his words with extreme care, "why is there a raven in our bed?"
"He was lonely."
"Lonely."
"He was tapping at the window. It is cold outside tonight. And you were working so late, and I was alone, and he looked so sad with his little beak pressed against the glass…"
"So you brought him into the bed."
"I put down a towel," you said weakly. "In case of…accidents."
Brynden stared at Pebble. Pebble, perhaps sensing that he was the subject of discussion, opened one bleary black eye, regarded the Hand of the King with casual insolence, and closed it again.
"He is lying on your stomach," Brynden said.
"He likes to be close to me."
"He is lying on your stomach in our bed, where I was about to…" He stopped himself, took a breath, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "My love. You have made my raven into a lapdog."
"He is not a lapdog. He is a raven."
"A lapraven, then. A creature that does not exist in nature. You have invented it." He reached down and scooped Pebble up with one hand. The raven let out an indignant squawk, his wings flapping uselessly. "This bird was bred to carry messages across the Seven Kingdoms. To fly through storms and evade hawks. To serve as my eyes and ears in places no man could reach. And now he sleeps on silk sheets and eats from your fingers."
You sat up, clutching the blankets to your chest. "He still carries messages."
"Once a fortnight. To the kitchens. Begging for scraps."
You tried to look dignified. It was difficult when your hair was mussed and your husband was holding your pet like a naughty child. "I will put him back on his perch," you offered.
Brynden sighed. It was a long, tortured sigh of a man who had spent the day dealing with treasonous lords and bickering councilors and who had come to bed wanting nothing more than to bury himself in his wife's warmth, only to find a plump bird in his place.
"Stay," he said. He crossed to the perch near the window and deposited Pebble onto it with more gentleness than you had expected. The raven ruffled his feathers, gave Brynden a reproachful look, and tucked his head under his wing with the air of a monarch who had been grievously insulted.
Brynden returned to the bed. He did not lie down. Instead, he sat on the edge, his back to you, his silver hair catching the firelight. The scars on his shoulders, old and pale, traced patterns you had memorized with your fingertips.
"I am not angry," he said, without turning around.
"I know."
"I am…concerned."
You crawled across the bed and knelt behind him, wrapping your arms around his chest and pressing your cheek to his back. He was tense, the muscles hard. "Concerned about what?"
"Pebble is not a pet. He was never meant to be a pet. He is a tool that has forgotten its purpose. And you…" He paused, and his hand came up to cover yours where they rested on his chest. "You have made him forget. With your kindness, with your attention, with your need to nurture something."
"Is that wrong?"
"It is not wrong. But it is…misdirected." He turned, shifting so that he faced you, his single eye found yours in the dim light. "A raven cannot love you back. Not truly. It can only take what you give and grow lazy on it. You deserve something that can return your affection."
"Pebble returns my affection."
"Pebble returns to anyone who feeds him. I have seen him beg from the kitchen maids."
You wanted to argue, but the image of Pebble waddling after the scullery girls, croaking pitifully for bacon rinds, was unfortunately vivid. "I like ravens," you said instead, a little defensively. "They remind me of you."
Brynden went still. "They remind you of me."
"Your eyes. Your cleverness. The way you tilt your head when you are thinking." You reached up and touched his cheek. "When you are away, which is often, Pebble is…a piece of you that stays with me. A small, feathery, ill-behaved piece. But a piece regardless."
"Then perhaps," he said slowly, "what you want is not a raven at all."
"What do you mean?"
He took your hand from his cheek and held it in both of his.
"Perhaps what you want is a child."
The word hung in the air between you. A child. Your breath caught, your heart stuttered, and you felt the blood rush to your cheeks.
"I…" you started, and stopped. "I did not mean to suggest…"
"You did not suggest. I am suggesting." His thumb traced circles on the back of your hand. "You have made this Tower warmer than it has ever been. You have filled it with your laughter and your gentleness and your stubborn insistence on loving things that are not easy to love." His eye met yours, and there was something almost vulnerable in its depths. "A child would be lucky to have you as a mother. And I…" He hesitated. "I would be honored to give you one."
Your throat tightened. "Brynden, you do not have to…you said once that you were not a man given to tender feeling. That you were strange and secretive and cold. If you do not want children…"
"I did not say that."
"Then what are you saying?"
He leaned closer, his forehead nearly touching yours. "I am saying that I have spent my life serving the realm. I have given my eye, my youth, my conscience, everything I have, to the Iron Throne. And I would do it again. But there is a part of me that is tired. A part of me that wants something that is not duty." His hand tightened on yours. "Something that is ours."
Your eyes were burning. You blinked rapidly, but a tear escaped anyway, tracing a hot path down your cheek.
"You want a child with me?" you whispered.
"I want a family with you." He said it simply, as though it were a fact he had long since established and was only now reporting. "I want to see you holding our son or daughter in your arms. I want to teach them to read and to shoot a bow and to understand the language of ravens. I want to watch you be the mother I know you will be: patient, kind, fierce when you need to be." He paused, a ghost of a smile crossed his lips. "And I want to stop finding birds in my bed."
A laugh burst out of you, wet and startled. "That is what this is about? You are jealous of Pebble?"
"I am not jealous of a raven."
"You are. You are jealous of a useless raven."
"I am not…" He stopped, his smile widened involuntarily. "Perhaps a little. He sees more of you than I do, some days. And he is always on your stomach."
You laughed again, it the tears spilled over. You threw your arms around his neck and kissed him. He caught you and kissed you back with a fervor.
"You are a ridiculous man," you murmured against his mouth.
"I am a pragmatic man. I see a problem, I propose a solution."
"A child is a solution?"
"A child is many things." He pulled back, his red eye bright in the firelight. "A legacy. A hope. A piece of us that will outlast all the schemes and wars. A child is the one thing that matters more than the realm." He gently brushed a strand of hair from your face. "You asked me once what I wished for. I told you I had wished for foolish things. But this…this is not foolish. This is the wisest thing I have ever wanted."
You kissed him again. His hands slid up your back, pressing you closer. You felt the tension drain from his shoulders as he let himself sink into you.
"What about Pebble?" you asked breathlessly as his lips traced a path down your throat.
"Pebble," he said between kisses, "can sleep on his perch tonight. And every night hereafter. Our bed is about to become considerably less accommodating to ravens."
"That seems unfair to him."
"I will buy him a larger perch. The finest perch in the Seven Kingdoms." He lifted his head and looked at you, his expression was serious now. "But this is not about the raven. This is about us."
Part 3: coming soon...
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Summary: A noble lady from a disgraced house that supported Blackfyres is married off to Lord Bloodraven as a reward for his loyalty and prowess in battle. But he prefers to occupy his time with duties as the Hand of the King. Comfortable but lonely, she befriends one of his ravens. Warnings: arranged marriage, yearning, angst, fluff, Westeros politics, Shiera.
The raven was a greedy, ungrateful beast, and you loved it dearly.
You had named him Pebble, for no greater reason than the smooth grey of his breast feathers, which reminded you of the stones along the Mander where you had played as a child. He came to your windowsill each morning, croaking his hoarse demands, and you obliged him with crumbs of bread and shreds of cold meat saved from your supper. In return, he permitted you to stroke the ruff of his neck and mutter your foolish secrets into the space between his blinking black eyes. It was a small, pitiful comfort.
The Tower of the Hand was a cold place, despite the braziers that burned in every chamber. You had been given rooms near the top, close enough to the Hand’s own solar that you might, in theory, encounter your husband on the winding stair. In practice, you saw his servants more often: the silent men in their grey wool cloaks, the Raven’s Teeth who guarded his door with bows strung across their backs. They nodded to you when you passed, respectful but distant, as though you were a ghost they had been instructed not to disturb.
You were a ghost, in a way. A shade drifting through the Red Keep in your pale gowns, your House’s green and gold folded away in chests because wearing them felt like a provocation. Oakheart. The name sat heavy on your tongue these days, a fruit gone bitter on the branch. Your father had played his double game during the rebellion and lost, and you were the price of his redemption, a trueborn daughter gifted to a legitimized bastard, a man who had not wanted you, who had asked for another woman’s hand a thousand times and been refused, and who had accepted you as a lord might accept a parcel of land he had no intention of farming.
You tried not to think of Shiera Seastar. It was impossible.
Her name was everywhere in the Red Keep, whispered by serving girls and sung by minstrels, painted in miniature on ivory pendants that his paramours wore at their throats. The most beautiful woman in the Seven Kingdoms, they called her, and when they said it in your hearing, their eyes would dart to you with something between pity and amusement. See the Oakheart girl, their glances said. See how plain she looks beside the memory of Seastar’s shimmer.
Back in the Reach, you had been called beautiful. You had believed it. Here, you were a candle held up against the sun. Back in the Reach, you were praised as a proper lady, and Shiera was called a shameless whore with nothing more than derision. But King's Landing valued influence, the ability to captivate and draw interest, which Shiera had in abundance.
You did not hate her. Hatred required energy you did not possess. But you feared her. You feared the day she would return to court, trailing silk and scandal behind her, and you would have to stand beside your husband and watch his single eye follow her across the hall. You feared the quiet, courteous dismissal that would surely follow. You had married a man who loved another woman. It was a common enough fate for highborn ladies, you knew, but knowing it did not make your marriage bed any warmer.
You spent your days wandering. The gardens, with their rose trellises and marble fountains, their sharp-scented herbs and imported lemon trees shivering in the sea wind. The library, where you read histories of the Seven Kingdoms until the words blurred before your eyes. The sept, where you knelt before the Maiden and asked for guidance that never came. And the stairway that spiraled up to the Hand’s solar, where you would sometimes sit on the cold stone steps with a book open on your lap, close enough to hear the murmur of voices beyond the iron-banded door, the scratch of a quill, the rustle of parchment. You never knocked. You were too afraid of being turned away.
It was on one of those steps, three moons into your marriage, that Brynden Rivers finally spoke to you about the raven.
You had Pebble on your knee, feeding him strips of roasted capon you had wrapped in a napkin and smuggled from the kitchens. The bird was growing stout, you could see it in the way his breast swelled over his claws, the way he waddled rather than hopped when he moved along the windowsill. You had noticed but you had not cared. You had to keep feeding him so he wouldn't leave you as well.
“What am I doing, Pebble?” you whispered. “What am I doing here? My husband does not want me. The court does not see me. My family’s name is a jest and a warning both. I am a wife in name only, and I do not know how to become anything more. I was not taught how to be a wife to a man like him. I was taught how to be a wife to a lord who wanted a gentle lady to manage his household and bear his children. But Lord Bloodraven has a household that manages itself and no desire for children of his body, or so they say.” You paused, your fingers stilling on the raven’s feathers. “Perhaps he would want children if they were Shiera’s.”
The raven croaked.
You stroked the raven’s feathers again, and your voice cracked. “I am even afraid that you will leave me, Pebble. You are the only friend I have in this place. Please do not fly away.”
The door to the solar opened. You scrambled to your feet, the napkin falling from your lap, capon scattering across the stone. Pebble let out an indignant caw and flapped onto the windowsill, his wings laboring under his weight.
Lord Bloodraven stood in the doorway.
His hair, silver-white, fell straight to his shoulders, and his skin was so pale it seemed to drink the light. The red birthmark that crept up his neck and cheek, the source of his name, was vivid as a splash of wine against snow. He wore black, and the eye that fixed on you now was the deep, unsettling red of dying embers.
The other eye was gone. A pale, smooth scar ran from brow to cheekbone, and beneath it, a dark hollow that seemed to see more than any living eye could.
“My lady wife,” he said. His voice was quiet, precise, each word placed as carefully as a stone on a cyvasse board.
“My lord.” You dropped into a curtsy, your heart hammering. You had not expected him to emerge. He rarely did before the hour of the bat. “Forgive me, I did not mean to disturb you. I was only...”
His gaze had moved past you to the raven. Pebble was worrying at a shred of capon, his beak tearing at the meat with smug contentment. Bloodraven’s expression did not change, but the air shifted, a faint tightening like the pause before a thunderclap.
“That is my raven,” he said.
“Yes, my lord. I hope you do not mind. He comes to my window, and I...”
“He is fat.”
The words fell like a stone into still water. You felt heat rise to your cheeks, the familiar burn of mortification. Your fingers twisted in the folds of your skirt, a pale lavender silk, pretty and demure. Here in the grey light of the tower it seemed washed-out and childish. You were a woman grown, a wife, and yet you felt like a girl being scolded by her septa for some minor transgression.
“I have been feeding him,” you admitted in a small voice.
Bloodraven stepped forward. His movements were unsettlingly smooth. He lifted one long-fingered hand, and the raven, your Pebble, your greedy, ungrateful Pebble, fluttered up to perch on his wrist without the slightest hesitation, as though you had never existed.
“A raven of the Tower must be lean,” Bloodraven said, stroking the bird’s breast with one pale thumb. Pebble closed his eyes in bliss. “He must fly swiftly over distances that would exhaust a lesser bird. He must carry messages through weather that would kill a hawk. He must be quick, clever, and sharp as a blade.”
He turned that burning red eye back to you.
“You have made him useless.”
The words struck harder than they should have. You had not thought yourself capable of tears, you had not wept once since leaving the Reach, not at your wedding, not on your wedding night when your husband failed to come to your bed, not in all the lonely days that followed, but now your throat tightened and your vision swam. You blinked rapidly, fighting it down, but a single tear escaped and traced a burning path down your cheek.
You ducked your head, hoping he had not seen. The silence stretched, unbearable.
“I am sorry,” you whispered. “I did not know. He came to me. He seemed friendly. I only offered him kindness.”
“Friendly.” He said the word as if it were a foreign concept. His blood-eye seemed to gleam in the half-light, and for a moment you could have sworn you saw the raven’s reflection in it, a dark bird within a darker pool. “Ravens are tools, my lady. They are not pets. This one has been made useless by your kindness.”
The word useless stung again. You dropped your gaze to the floor again, studying the worn flagstones beneath your slippers. “I apologise. I will not feed it anymore.”
You did not wait for a response. You gathered your skirts and fled down the winding stair, your slippers slapping against the stone, your breath coming in short, hitching gasps. You did not stop until you reached your chambers, where you threw yourself onto the great empty bed and buried your face in the pillows and wept until there was nothing left inside you.
You did not go to the Tower the next day, nor the day after that. You kept to your rooms, claiming a headache when your maids inquired. You took your meals alone, the food tasteless on your tongue. You did not open your shutters, though you heard the scratch of claws on the sill more than once. You could not bear to see Pebble, to see the raven who had abandoned you as easily as breathing, who had flown to his master’s hand without a backward glance.
It was on the third day that a servant knocked at your door and informed you that the Hand of the King required your presence in his solar.
You dressed carefully, your hands trembling on the laces of your gown. You chose a dress of pale green, the color of new leaves, the closest you dared come to the Oakheart colors. You pinned your hair up in a simple coil. You looked, you thought, like a woman preparing for an execution.
The solar was warm, lit by a fire in the great hearth and by candles in iron holders. Books lined the walls, more books than you had ever seen in a private chamber, their spines cracked and worn from use. Maps and charts covered a long table, and in the corner, a perch held three ravens, their heads tucked under their wings.
Bloodraven sat behind a desk of dark oak, a quill in his hand. He did not rise when you entered, but he set the quill down and gestured to a chair across from him.
“Sit,” he said.
You sat. Your hands folded in your lap, the picture of a well-bred lady. You had been trained for this, after all: to be still, to be silent, to be pleasing. It was the only weapon you had ever been given.
Bloodraven regarded you for a long moment. In the firelight, the port-wine stain on his cheek seemed to shift and writhe like something alive. His eye, that terrible red eye, seemed to see straight through you, past the careful composure and the pretty dress and into the hollow ache at your center.
“You have not been to the Tower,” he said.
“I did not wish to disturb you, my lord.”
“You have not been to the gardens, either. Nor the library. Nor the sept.” He leaned back in his chair, steepling his long fingers. “My birds tell me things.”
Your heart lurched. The ravens. Of course. You had forgotten, in your misery, the whispers that surrounded your husband like a cloak of shadows. He could see through the eyes of his birds, they said. He could watch the whole of the Seven Kingdoms from his Tower, and nothing escaped his notice. You had thought it a fanciful tale, a legend spun to explain the unerring accuracy of his spy network. But the way he looked at you now made you wonder.
“I have been tired,” you said, which was not entirely a lie.
“You have been crying.”
The words were blunt, without softening. You flinched, your gaze dropping to your hands.
“My lady,” Bloodraven said, his tone had shifted. It was not kind, you did not think kindness was in his nature, but it was less cold than before. “Look at me.”
You raised your eyes.
“The raven,” he said. “You named him.”
It was not a question. You nodded anyway.
“Pebble,” you said, your voice barely above a whisper. “Because of his breast feathers. They reminded me of home.”
Bloodraven was silent for a moment. Then he rose from his chair and crossed to the window, his back to you, his silver hair catching the firelight.
“I have had many ravens,” he said. “Hundreds, over the years. I breed them in the Tower, train them, dispatch them across the realm. They are tools, nothing more. I have never given one a name.”
He turned, his single eye finding you again.
“No one has ever named one of my ravens before.”
You did not know what to say. You sat frozen, your heart beating a nervous rhythm against your ribs.
“He is not useless,” Bloodraven said, and there was something akin to curiosity in his voice. “I examined him this morning. He is plump, yes, but he is healthy. His plumage is glossy. His eyes are bright. He is more docile than the others, more accustomed to human touch. There are uses for such a raven.”
He took a step toward you, then another, until he stood before your chair, looking down at you with an expression you could not read.
“I have been a poor husband,” he said.
Your mouth opened but no sound came out.
“I did not ask for this marriage,” he continued, “and neither did you. We were both bound by the king’s will, and I have not made the binding easier for you. I have been…absent. Preoccupied.” He paused. “Unkind.”
“My lord, you have been...”
“Do not,” he said, lifting a hand to stop your protest, “be polite. I am surrounded by polite people. I find it exhausting.”
You closed your mouth.
Bloodraven lowered his hand. “I loved Shiera,” he said, and the name was a blade between your ribs. “For many years. I asked for her hand more times than I can count. She always refused. Perhaps she was wise.” His jaw tightened, a flicker of old pain crossing his pale features. “But she is not my wife. You are.”
He reached down, and before you could react, his fingers closed around your hand. His skin was cool, dry. But his grip was steady.
“I cannot promise you love,” he said. “I am not a man given to tender feeling. The whispers about me are not all false. I am a sorcerer, of a kind. I do see through the eyes of my ravens. I have done things that would make you flinch to hear, and I will likely do more before I am through. I have little patience for the courtly games that fill the days of most highborn ladies.”
He paused, and his thumb brushed once across your knuckles.
“But I am not cruel without cause. I do not take pleasure in suffering. And I have watched you these three moons, my lady. Through the eyes of my ravens, yes. I have seen you in the gardens, sitting alone on the stone benches. I have seen you in the library, reading the same page over and over because your mind is elsewhere. I have seen you feeding my raven, speaking to him as though he were a friend, because you had no one else to speak to.”
Your face was burning. You wanted to look away, to hide, but his eye held you as surely as a pin holds a butterfly.
“I did not intend to spy,” he said, and there was a note in his voice that might have been regret. “At first, I was merely curious. Then I was...concerned. You are withering, my lady. Like a flower deprived of light. And I am the one who has kept you in the dark.”
He released your hand and stepped back.
“I would like to propose a truce,” he said. “A beginning. I will not pretend to be something I am not. I will always be busy with the affairs of the realm, always be strange, secretive and perhaps a little frightening for your liking. But I will make an effort to be present. To speak with you. To…know you.” He tilted his head, a gesture eerily reminiscent of his ravens. “If you will permit it.”
You stared at him, your heart pounding so loudly you were certain he could hear it. This was not what you had expected. This was not the cold dismissal, the polite abandonment, the quiet return to separate lives. This was an opening, a crack in the armor.
“I would like that,” your voice came out steadier than you had hoped. “My lord.”
“Brynden,” he corrected. “If we are to attempt this, you may as well use my name.”
You swallowed. “Brynden.”
The corners of his mouth twitched, the barest suggestion of a smile. “See? Not so difficult.”
He returned to his desk and picked up his quill, but he did not dismiss you. Instead, he gestured toward a smaller table near the fire, where a tray of fruit and cheese and a pitcher of wine had been laid out.
“Stay,” he said. “Eat. You have been hiding in your rooms for three days, and I suspect you have not been eating properly.”
You rose from your chair, your legs unsteady beneath you. As you crossed to the table, you saw a perch near the window, separate from the others. On it sat Pebble, his head cocked, his black eyes fixed on you with reproach.
“He has been sulking,” Brynden said, not looking up from his parchment. “He does not understand why you stopped coming.”
You reached out a trembling hand and stroked the raven’s breast. Pebble made a soft sound and pressed his head against your fingers.
“I am sorry,” you murmured to him. “I am here now.”
Behind you, you heard the scratch of the quill pause for just a moment, and then resume.
From that day, you took your evening meals in the solar with Brynden, sitting at the small table by the fire while he worked at his desk. He did not speak much, but he answered when you asked questions, and sometimes he would pause in his writing to ask one of his own. Small things at first: how you found the Red Keep, whether the sea air agreed with you, what books you had been reading. You answered honestly, and he listened with a focus that was almost unnerving, his eye fixed on you as though every word you spoke were a piece of intelligence to be filed away.
Then he started inquiring about your life, so you told him. Your father had pledged fealty to both King Daeron and Daemon Blackfyre, sending one gold and the other men. King Daeron had kept his crown, and House Oakheart's reputation had suffered. Instead of emerging unscathed either way, as Lord Oakheart had intended, the King inflicted punishments on him. His eldest son, your older brother, was assigned to become a Kingsguard. He had to refute his title, land and future of marriage and instead serve as a guard to the same King he had fought against. You, the eldest daughter, were given to Hand of the King as a reward he didn't ask for. A legitimate lady to solidify his standing. Your mother had acted as if everything was fine, which you suspected was for your sake, although you didn't want such strained treatment. And you scarcely saw your brother since arriving in King's Landing, even though you both lived at the Red Keep.
You learned things about him in return. He had been born with the birthmark, with hair already white, and his mother had wept when she first saw him. He had been a poor swordsman as a boy, too thin and frail, so he had turned to the bow out of desperation. He loved his Blackwood sisters. He did not sleep well. He never had.
One evening, a fortnight after your conversation in the solar, you gathered your courage and asked the question that had been burning in your throat since the day you arrived.
“Do you wish I were her?”
The quill stopped. The fire crackled in the silence. Pebble, perched on the back of your chair, shifted his weight from one claw to the other.
Brynden set the quill down slowly. “That is a foolish question.”
“I am not afraid of the answer.” You were, of course. You were terrified. But you had spent months living in the shadow of a ghost and you could not do it any longer.
He rose from his desk and came to stand before the fire. The flames cast his face in red and gold, the birthmark nearly invisible against the glow. His back was to you.
“I wished for many things,” he said at last. “I wished for her to love me. I wished for her to choose me, just once, over all the others. I wished for a great many foolish things that a wiser man would have let go long ago.” He turned to look at you. “But I do not wish you were her. You are not her. You are nothing like her, and that is…not a bad thing.”
“I have heard she is the most beautiful woman in the Seven Kingdoms,” you said, and you hated the smallness of your voice, the jealousy that crept in despite your best efforts.
“She is,” Brynden said, and your heart sank. “But beauty is a strange thing. Shiera’s beauty is like wildfire: brilliant, consuming, and utterly indifferent to what it destroys. I spent years burning in it, and I have the scars to show. You are different. Your beauty is like…” He paused, searching for the word. “Like the first green shoots after winter. Blooming. Steady. Something that grows rather than blazes.”
You did not know what to say. Your face felt hot.
“I am not good at this,” Brynden said with a flicker of frustration in his voice. “I am no poet. I do not know how to court my own wife.”
A laugh bubbled up in your throat, unexpected and slightly hysterical. You pressed your hand to your mouth, trying to stifle it, but it escaped anyway, a small, surprised sound that made Brynden’s eye widen a fraction.
“I do not know how to be courted,” you admitted. “I was taught to be a lady, not a wife. No one ever told me what to do with a husband who did not want a wife.”
“I never said I did not want a wife.” He took a step toward you. “I said I did not ask for this marriage. There is a difference.”
“Is there?”
Another step. He was close enough that you could smell the faint scent of ink and old parchment that clung to his clothes. Close enough that you could see the tiredness around his eye.
“I am learning,” he murmured, “that I may have wanted something I did not know I did.”
His hand rose, and this time, he did not stop at your fingers. His cool palm cupped your cheek, his thumb brushing the corner of your mouth with a gentleness that contradicted everything you had heard about him: the cold sorcerer, the ruthless spymaster, the man who had killed Daemon Blackfyre and his sons with arrows guided by dark magic. In this moment, he was only a man, touching his wife’s face for the first time.
“You are trembling,” he said.
“I am afraid.”
“Of me?”
“Of this ending.” Your voice cracked. “Of Shiera returning. Of waking up tomorrow and finding that you have remembered you do not want me after all.”
His eye searched your face. You had the unsettling sensation that he was seeing more than your skin and bone, more than the fear in your eyes. Seeing into you, the way he saw through the eyes of his ravens.
“Shiera is in Lys,” he said. “She left months ago, before our wedding. She may return someday, she always does, but she is not here now, and she has no claim on me. Whatever I felt for her, it is done. I have been a fool for her long enough.”
He leaned closer, his forehead nearly touching yours.
“As for waking up tomorrow,” he murmured, “that is simple. You shall wake up in my bed.”
Your breath caught.
“The bedding ceremony was waived,” he continued, “because I requested it. I did not think it fair to subject you to the court’s crude jests when we were strangers. But we are not strangers now. Not entirely. And I find that I am tired of sleeping alone in my cold solar while my wife sleeps alone in her cold tower.”
His thumb traced the line of your jaw.
“If you are willing,” he added, and the hesitation in his voice, the faint uncertainty, undid you completely.
“I am willing,” you whispered.
He kissed you. His lips were cool, like his hands. The kiss was cautious, almost experimental, as though he were tasting a new wine and trying to decide if he liked the vintage. But it deepened, slowly, his hand slid from your cheek to the back of your neck. You felt a knot of tension loosen in your chest.
When he pulled back, his breathing was slightly unsteady.
“You will not be alone.” He took your hand again, this time, he laced his fingers through yours. “I have a thousand eyes. Some of them will always be watching over you.”
It was perhaps the strangest declaration of affection any woman had ever received. But you found yourself smiling anyway, a real smile, the first you had worn since leaving the Reach.
That night, you did not return to your lonely tower rooms. You slept in the Hand’s bed, in the Hand’s arms, and though he did not sleep, he had told you he rarely did, he held you in the darkness, his fingers tracing idle patterns on your shoulder.
In the morning, you woke to find him already dressed, standing at the window with the pale dawn light on his hair. He turned when he heard you stir.
“Good morning, my lady.”
“Good morning, Brynden.”
He crossed to the bed and sat on its edge. From behind his back, he produced a single winter rose, its petals white as fresh snow, its center a deep, vivid blue.
“There are no winter roses in King’s Landing,” you said, taking it with trembling fingers. “How did you...?”
“I have my ways,” he said, the faint smile on his lips was no longer tentative. It was the smile of a man who had unraveled a mystery and found the answer rather pleasing.
You lifted the rose to your nose and breathed in its sweet, cold scent. Through the window, you saw a raven circling against the pale sky, not Pebble but another, its black wings cutting the air with swift precision. It was returning home, carrying something in its beak.
“What is he bringing?” you asked.
“A letter,” Brynden said. “From the Arbor. Lord Redwyne is plotting something tedious involving wine tariffs.” He paused. “Would you like to watch me unravel it?”
“Yes,” you said. “I would like that very much.”
He offered you his hand, you took it.
Pebble, watching from his perch, let out a satisfied croak and followed you and your husband up the winding stair to the solar.
Part 2: see here
a/n: Please don't let this flop guys, I have an entire series planned out.
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a/n: Comment if you'd like to be added to the series taglist. Rn I'm tagging those who went along with my freaky birdman propaganda.
Pairing: Dark (FBI) Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter x (female) Reader
▶ Dead Dove Do Not Eat. This is a yandere/dark work and it may contain triggering content so please READ THE WARNINGS before. Do not read if minor.
More at Masterlist
SUMMARY: Dex believes you to be the key to solve his problems. You think he has serious mental issues. Unfortunately that doesn’t prevent you from being held captive in his apartment.
AN: Around 11k, not entirely satisfied with it but here it goes. It would mean the world to me if you guys could just take a moment to reblog and leave a comment - if you liked reading this. Feedback is very much appreciated. Enjoy 🤗
--
The first thing Dex notices when he opens the door is how quiet the apartment is.
The whole space is immersed in silence - or as silent as living in a city like New York can be, traffic sounds muffled down by the windows and the distant cry of a baby a few doors down the hall.
But the apartment itself is quiet.
That’s a good sign, he thinks as he carefully sets his work bag in its respective place by the door and neatly sets the keys in the wall hook. That’s a good sign, he thinks as he makes his way to the bedroom and yet his skin prickles with anxiety.
With a hand hovering just over the knob, Dex hesitates.
His heart accelerates, thrumming against his ribcage as if attempting to escape. The buzzing in his head overwhelms him and Dex stumbles a step back, trying really hard to push away the thoughts that threaten to swallow him whole.
Breathe in and breathe out.
Closing his eyes, Dex works on his breathing, focusing on the slow exhale of air, mimicking the breathing exercise doctor Mercer taught him. He can do this. He’s dealt with much worse. He can do this.
He can do this.
With a twist of the knob, Dex lets himself inside the bedroom.
The small room is enveloped in absolute darkness, the curtains tightly closed just like he left them this morning before leaving for work - the last thing he needs right now is for curious neighbours from across the building to peep into his apartment.
His knee bumps hard against the leg of the bed and Dex lets out a small curse, now moving with more careful steps in the darkness. It takes nearly ten seconds for him to finally get to the bedside table. He flickers open the small lamp and as soon as his eyes adapt to the yellow brightness of the light, Dex turns his attention towards the small figure curled upon the bed’s edge and just like that, everything gets better. It works like magic every time.
The moment his eyes land on you, his mind calms down, the buzzing dissolving away into a serene quietness.
You’re deep into slumber, closed eyes and features softened by sleep. Dex watches you with something that borders admiration, watching you sleep as always has been precious to him.
Despite the dampness that clings to your eyelashes, proof of the tears you must’ve shed a few hours or a few minutes ago, there’s a serene expression in your face. A gentle peace that has been lacking for the past few days.
Dex hesitates for a brief moment before he crouches down and brushes the hair away from your cheek.
His touch receives no reaction - no terrified flinch, no scared grimace - and Dex feels lighter, both in soul and body. With the back of his fingers, Dex gently strokes your cheek, feeling the soft skin under his stiff touch. A soft smile slowly creeps up to his lips and for a minuscule moment, his mind flees at how nice it would be if things were always like this, unrushed and peaceful.
Dex wants this moment to last forever.
But of course, all good things must end - particularly soon when he is involved. So distracted marveling at the softness of your cheek, Dex is caught off guard when he realizes that your eyes are wide open, fear quickly pooling in them.
Fuck!
He immediately snatches his hand away and stands up.
“You were sleeping. I was just… the hair on your face.” he blurts out, as if whatever excuse is gonna magically erase the fact that you just woke up with his hands all over you. Great. Now in addition to kidnapper, you’re also gonna think he’s a pervert.
Just what he needed right now.
You look away from him mid-sentence and squirm, wincing a moment later when you’re pulled back by the cuffs latched onto your feet.
Right, he almost forgot about them. Dex takes that as his cue to remove the bindings keeping you in bed.
“Here, let me just- ”
He reaches over, carefully as to avoid touching you too much, and begins to loosen up the cuffs keeping your feet chained to the bed and the belt from around your wrists. Your wrists are left indented and the skin irritated by the belt that was tightly clasped around them.
You don’t move for a few moments, body too numb and weak from the countless hours you spend in bed with close to zero mobility, bound and chained to make sure you’re not running to the door the moment you get a chance.
Dex watches you wince before pulling at the cloth tied around your head, a weak substitute for a gag; just a precaution in case you remember to start hollering for help while he’s away at work.
With a snail’s pace, you move to sit at the edge of the bed, breathing heavily as Dex expectantly stands to the side like a shadow.
Dex opens his mouth to say something, maybe ask a stupid question ‘are you alright?’ but before he can even get a word out, you’re standing up with unsteady feet and limping your way to the en-suite bathroom without so much as glancing at him.
His feet follow you on instinct, but the door that slams hard on its hinges stops him from going any further. The lock aggressively clicks into place, a repulsive sound that echoes in his head like a gunshot.
Dex has to take a deep breath to ease up the impulse of putting his fist through the door.
–
Your stomach growls as you eat the pizza slice.
It’s still warm, laced with extra cheese and tasting absolutely divine - although your opinion may be biased on the last part. Anything would taste delicious after a fast of nearly eight hours.
Dex - that’s what he called himself although you’re not too sure if you believe him - clearly isn’t prepared for the logistics that holding someone hostage involves because if he were, you wouldn’t be left to rot in bed the entire day without so much as a drop of water while he goes to work. For the past three days, you’ve been surviving solely on breakfast and dinner, without any snacks or lunch throughout the day.
The arrangement sucks, always leaving you with a mouth drier than the desert and with a stomach ache that doesn’t fully go away even after finally eating.
Dex tries not to make it obvious that he’s looking at you, while chewing his own slice.
Seated right next to you on the small dinner table, he’s much closer than you'd prefer, his arm nearly touching yours every time he moves. The living room’s light shines on his face in a particular way, revealing the small patches of silver on the sides of his short brown hair, and the sharp angles of his face. There’s a small dimple in his chin and he’s clean shaved. Albeit tired, he looks… normal.
A normal-looking guy, living in a normal apartment with a normal life. But looks are often deceiving, aren’t they?
It’s not hard to understand that he has issues. Serious ones, the type that could easily secure him a place in a psychiatric facility - the assumption supported by the drawer full of meds you found in the bathroom cabinet the first night.
In all honesty, you have a hard time understanding him. But so far Dex hasn’t done anything remotely weird to make you feel like you’re about to get jumped at and you’re grateful for that. He’s been polite enough to let you use the bathroom unsupervised and his eyes never linger towards where they shouldn’t. His hand hasn’t been raised against you and no explicit threats have been hissed your way. It’s almost like you’re roommates, of sorts.
But the positive aspects don’t outweigh the negative ones nor do they alter the fact that he has kidnapped you and is currently holding you hostage.
He lies as well because you have serious doubts about him being an FBI agent, like he said that one time. The badge that is usually perched on his belt could very much be a fake and the gun on the holster an illegal one.
You distractedly glance at him and for a moment, your eyes meet.
You regret the eye contact as soon as it happens because Dex immediately takes that as a sign to strike a conversation.
“How’s the pizza?” he eagerly asks, “It’s the same one you always ask for.” He’s right, it is the same pizza with the exact same ingredients you tend to order for yourself on a regular basis.
While this shouldn’t shock you, considering Dex has reluctantly admitted to following you around for weeks, you still can’t shake off how creepy it is for him to know the exact specifications of the food you find comfort in eating.
What else does he know about you that he shouldn’t know? What else has he seen about you that he shouldn’t have?
Your stomach answers for you, letting out an absurdly loud groan.
“It’s fine.” your voice comes out hoarse and weird, not a surprise given this is the first time in the whole day you’re using it.
When you grab the glass of water in front of you, his hazel eyes flit over to your wrists and the marks engraved into the skin from how deep his belt dug in, the skin itchy and red.
“I’m sorry ‘bout that.” Dex lowers his head, “Didn’t mean to tie them so hard. I’ll… I’m gonna find something better for your hands.”
“Or maybe you could just not use them.”
Your voice is low, barely above a whisper but Dex catches them anyways. He shifts in the seat, a wrinkle settling in between his brows.
“Maybe one day. In the future.” he says.
“Why not now?” you press him. “You don’t trust me?”
“I do.”
He doesn’t.
You know he doesn’t. Both of you know that. And he’s right not to because you’re bolting out of the door the moment you get a decent chance.
“I do. I trust you.” he repeats, this time with more conviction. He leans closer to you and you do your best not to push yourself off the chair and walk away. “I trust you more than you know.”
“But not enough to let me out of the bindings, right.”
He swallows hard, shaking his head. “It’s complicated.”
“Right.” you sigh, tearing your eyes away from him and back to the food.
Dex sighs your name, slumping back on the chair. “I know this might be hard to believe in but this isn’t what I want either. It’s really not. I don’t want to keep you all cooped up like you’re a prisoner. You’re not one, anyways.”
He rubs his face with one hand, jaw set tightly. Your eyes notice the thickness of his arm, the subtle but defined muscle stretching underneath the shirt. An FBI agent, he said, a former army soldier too.
“I just can’t take risks right now. Not until… we figure things out. I know this arrangement, if we can call it that, isn’t the most beneficial for you. But I need you. I need your help.”
You freeze, hand stopping mid-air with the remainder of the pizza slice.
“My help?”
Dex nods, nudging his chair closer. His cheek ticks for a moment as he gathers his thoughts.
“Yeah, I… how can I put this.” he breathes in deeply. One of his hands reaches forward, nervously fidgeting with the edge of the table.
“I’ve seen the way you are around people. You feed the homeless. Help blind people cross the street. Bake cookies for your elderly neighbour.” his own lips curl into a smile at that, “You’re kind to people even if you don’t have to be. You listen to them and show them compassion. That’s… that’s something I really need in my life.”
The confusion you feel has your thoughts scattering all over your mind. He thinks you’re kind. How is that enough reason to kidnap someone?
“I don’t understand…” you say, brows raised.
Dex presses his lips together, rolling his shoulders tensely. “Being kind, compassionate like you are… it doesn’t come easy to me. Never has, not even back when I was a kid. So I do the second best thing and try to pretend it. It’s what I’ve been doing my whole life, pretend like I care about the good and the bad and hide who I really am.”
You hesitate, before asking. “And who is that? Who you really are.”
His fingers still and when Dex answers, it’s with a shadow obscuring his face, his eyes focused on some distant point beyond the wall.
“Someone who has killed before.”
Your blood runs cold. Maybe you had a suspicion that there was something deeply wrong with him, but for him to admit it loudly is a whole new thing.
“It’s part of why I joined the bureau and the army before that.” he reveals, with a cold voice and a hardness in his face. “I get to kill without feeling bad for it. It’s part of the job now, strictly professional and nothing personal about it but it fulfills more than what duty calls for. It scratches that itch that never really goes away.”
You swallow dryly, the knot in your throat refusing to go down.
The fear and shock that flood you are hard to push down but you quickly mask them when Dex glances back at you. He visibly swallows, slightly shaking his head.
“I’m sorry.” he apologizes, “I know this isn’t what you want to hear right now. But I promise that you’re safe. I’m not going to hurt you, I would never do that to you.”
Right. His words fail to reassure you after what he has just revealed, but you pretend otherwise. Maybe if Dex thinks you believe him then his guard will be lowered.
“I’m aware that it’s wrong, I know that. But I just… I can’t help it, sometimes.” he swallows, fingers twitching. “I’m trying to do better. Trying to steer into the right path. That’s why I need you, I need your help.”
“Me?” you mumble, completely lost.
Dex doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he stares, focusing on you with an intensity that makes your skin prickle.
“I do better when there’s a North Star to guide me.”
–
A small, muffled sniff comes from inside the room, bed gently creaking as you adjust yourself. With an arm half-bent beneath his head, Dex stares at the ceiling. It’s nearly midnight and he has an early day tomorrow but sleep evades him.
The couch is stiff under him, much too short to comfortably accommodate all of him but Dex doesn’t complain, he’s slept in much worse places before.
Compared to sleeping on the hard floor, no pillow or blankets, stones and dirt digging into his back with the obnoxious snoring of fellow army soldiers ringing in his ears, this is far from unpleasant. Especially with you sleeping just around the corner.
The apartment is small enough that the couch sits just outside the bedroom and with the door wide open, Dex can hear the sound of your breathing. You’re awake, he gets that from the way your breathing keeps changing every now and then, the soft clink of the metal cuff on your feet as you shift once in a while, trying to get comfortable.
His mind is calm now, no incessant buzzing or relentless thoughts.
It keeps drifting towards you instead. Details cling to him such as the way you smelled like him when you came out of the shower, having used what he owns - his soap, his shampoo, his moisturizer, his lotion. Even his clothes. With wet hair and dressed in his clothes, you looked like a dream.
He tried to not ogle much at the freshly moisturized, shiny skin of your legs; tried not to let his hands wander too much when closing the cuff around your ankle and securing the other end to the bed’s metal structure.
The small scowl on your face didn’t go unnoticed by him and part of him gets it. Sleeping cuffed to the bed can’t be easy and you deserve to be treated like a princess, not like a prisoner but Dex’s hands are tied for the moment being.
Giving you too much freedom when things are still slowly building between you two can be dangerous. He wishes things weren’t this way but right now he can’t afford to give you that amount of leeway.
In theory Dex knows that what he’s doing is bad. Really bad.
He has full conscience that this is far from healthy .
That what he’s doing falls on the exact opposite side of the spectrum of what he and doctor Mercer agreed he should do to keep him in the straight, narrow path and that if she were alive today, she’d be horrified at what he’s done. Kidnapping his North Star.
That sure would make her reconsider everything about him. Holding onto a good person isn’t the same as making one hostage and definitely not what she had suggested, not even in the slightest, before passing away.
If doctor Mercer was here, she’d be disappointed beyond measure and she’d force Dex to release you, to let you return back into your life.
He supposes it’s a good thing that she’s dead. Because Dex isn’t sure he could give you up without a fight. You mean so much to him, more than you could ever know and enough for him to refuse allowing you the chance to just walk away like he means nothing.
Everyone in his life - every single person - has abandoned him. Left him to fend for himself in the dark solitude of his mind, of the buzzing thoughts that plague him day and night. Dex refuses to let you do the same.
You’re good, kind and sweet. You’re the missing piece of the puzzle, the solution to his problems. You’re gonna help him get back on the right track, even if you aren’t sure about him.
You didn’t lash out at him after everything he revealed during dinner. You didn’t scream or call him a monster or push him away. No, you just sat there and patiently listened to him. Tried to understand him. Told him that you’d try to help him.
He smiles, hope fluttering in his chest.
So long as he has you, everything will be alright.
–
Your stomach lets out a soft growl.
Judging from the bright sunlight filtered out by the closed curtains and from how badly the pit in your stomach is starting to feel, it’s around lunch time. Not that it matters, you won’t be getting any food even if you want to. Not in your current position.
You let out a sigh and move your head around, trying to find a better position.
By the end of week, you’ll be surprised if the bed doesn’t show a permanent dent shaped to your body given it’s where the majority of your days and nights are spent.
Dex did follow through with his word and found some handcuffs this morning to use around your wrists instead of the circulation-cutting belt. The cuffs are nicer, looser than the belt, but still offering little to no opportunity to evade them.
The more you think about it, the more helpless you feel. You have no plan, debunking each and every one given their potential of failure but mostly due to fear. Every time you begin to craft an escape plan, hesitation has you faltering.
So far Dex has been nothing less than an exemplary kidnapper… what happens if you get caught trying to escape? The words from the other night are still bouncing around in your head, unwilling to let you forget who he truly is.
Will he hurt you, or do worse, if you get caught - maybe as a lesson, maybe as a punishment or maybe because he wants to. You don’t want to find out what Dex can do and with your life on the thin line, reckless actions are what you can’t afford to do.
Every single night, after Dex removes the chains, your body aches to act on the most basic survival instinct. Run. To lunge forward and reach for the door, to run down the hall and scream as loudly as you can.
Every night you fight against that impulse, nails digging into the palm of your hands every time Dex turns his back on you and the opportunity presents itself right there for you to seize.
Every night you have to control yourself, eyes flickering towards the door and adrenaline running through your veins.
Think positive, is what you tell yourself.
A little hopeful voice whispers into your ear that maybe luck will be on your side and maybe you won’t have to do anything at all and that before you know it, the police will break down the apartment’s door and rescue you.
That’s one of the nice, comforting fantasies that keeps you entertained for a good amount of your days; distracted from the miserable turn your life has taken.
The exhaustion you feel on a mental level adds up to the physical one. The tension accumulating in your body is hard to shake off, shoulders burning up at the uncomfortable position that allows your wrists to stay chained to the bed’s headboard. And you absolutely despise the sharp needling that occurs in your legs when you finally get to stand up. Ugh.
Dex thinks you’re his North Star, someone kind enough to help him get into the right path. You genuinely don’t believe in it.
How are you supposed to help him? How can you possibly help him be a good person? For all you know, he might be lying to you, using some half-baked lie to get you to lower your guard. Maybe it’s a side-effect from the medicine he takes.
You don’t know, you genuinely don’t know.
Closing your eyes, you inhale deeply. The music reaches the end and the announcer takes over, something about good weather these days.
Another song begins shortly after, some energetic tune you don't recognize.
It was a nice gesture from Dex to leave the radio on. To keep company, he had said. And indeed it does keep you company although the radio station he tuned in keeps repeating the exact same playlist of old songs over and over again. But beggars can’t be choosers and you’re glad to at least have something to dull the static silence of your days.
*knock*
The sound startles you.
For a moment you freeze, heart accelerating in your chest.
You try listening in despite the interference of the radio that is still going on, the song playing on a low volume making it hard to listen properly. For the next few seconds nothing happens and your brain nearly convinces you to believe the door knock to be a product of your imagination.
And then it happens again.
Subtle and hard to listen to, but it’s definitely there.
Without wasting another second, you scream as loudly as you can with the gag cloth around your mouth. Despite being laced with desperation, your voice comes out muffled down, the gag absorbing much of the sound and tears of frustration begin to build in your eyes.
The cuffs securing your hands and feet rattle when you tug at them as aggressively as you possibly can with the hope that the clanking of metal can attract the attention of whoever is outside the apartment.
Despite your best efforts, nothing happens.
There’s no more knocking on the door, no booming voice asking ‘is everything alright?’.
Nothing.
After excruciatingly long minutes, exhaustion wins and you give up, teary eyed and devastated.
–
“Can I help? I don’t mind washing them.” you offer, eyeing the plates and silverware pilling on the sink.
Dinner is over and now it’s that weird time window where Dex handles chores while you just lurk around the apartment without any real purpose. Back in your apartment, this would be the time for you to pick the next day’s outfit and prepare your work bag while listening to your favorite podcast.
Here you don’t have any chores or obligations. No dishes to wash, no clothes to iron, no meal prep.
There’s nothing for you to do other than walk around in circles around the apartment and pretend you’re not counting the minutes until it’s bedtime and the cuffs are back on.
“It’s okay. I got this.” Dex turns you down, rolling the sleeves of his white shirt up to his elbows and turning the faucet on.
Your shoulders slump in the slightest as you awkwardly stand by the counter, watching the meticulous way in which Dex scrubs and re-scrubs every piece.
You were half-hoping to take advantage of a distraction moment to sneak away a knife. Or a fork. Anything sharp enough to be used as a weapon although to use under what circumstances, you’re not yet sure. You’re not sure of anything.
Your nerves are rattling you on the inside tonight, the memory of the door knocking still lingering in your mind. Dex hasn’t mentioned anything about neighbours and you’re not stupid enough to bring it up.
You don’t know what to do. All the ideas your brain conjures feel… risky. You can’t stop feeling scared, like one wrong move and you’re gonna mess everything up. If you attempt to escape, only to fail…
Dex has blood on his hands, more out of pleasure than for his alleged job. Despite his promise, what guarantee is there that his hands won’t ever become stained with your blood?
You nearly wince when Dex speaks, pulling you out of your thoughts.
“Are you okay?” he asks, shutting off the faucet and drying his hands before turning towards you. “You look a little… I don’t know. Is something wrong?”
Yes. Everything. Everything is wrong and it’s all his fault.
Dex considers you with a little wrinkle between his brows. “Is it your wrists? I saw you touching them earlier. I can get something for them, if they are bothering you.”
You shake your head slowly. And then speak without meaning to, the words just slipping out of your mouth before you have the good sense of keeping them to yourself.
“I need my phone.”
You can tell the words takes Dex by surprise from the way he tenses up, shoulders straightening up.
“Why don’t you sit down on the couch?” he stiffly suggests and then turns his back on you, opening and closing the kitchen drawers practically without looking at them too much. “I’ll make some of that tea you like so much.”
“I need to call my parents, Dex. They must be worried about me.”
“They know you’re fine. I already texted them on your behalf." Dex says, bumping against an open drawer with a hiss. “Said you’d be cutting back on phone time.”
A small incredulous sound escapes from your throat.
“They won’t believe that.” you argue, crossing your arms. “We talk over the phone every week, sometimes even videocall. Please, Dex, just one phone call. I promise I won’t say or do anything suspicious. Please?”
Dex closes a drawer with enough force to rattle its contents.
“We can talk about that later.”
“Dex, c’mon, one call. Five minutes, on speaker. Please, it’s all I ask for.”
“Later.”
“Dex, please, just one-”
The knock on the door interrupts your argument.
Both of you snap your heads towards the door and something twists inside you at the sound of voices in the hallway. But before you can even consider getting a word out of your mouth Dex moves with a speed so impressive that it startles you, cornering you against the counter with his palm firmly pressed against your lips.
“Not a word.” he whispers, brown eyes focused on you intently. “Please.”
It’s suffocating to have him so close, body nearly molded to yours and trapping you against the counter, his breath fawning over your face and you can see every short, light-brown hair from his five o’clock shadow.
It’s only when you give a small nod that Dex finally looks away and turns his face to the door when another knock resonates and a chirpy female voice speaks. “Hello, Jehovah witnesses here. If we could just have a moment of your time…”
“Yeah, thanks but I’m not interested.”
You glance at the door, eyes drawn to it like a moth to flame and heart thrumming at the fact that there are people on the other side of the door. People that might call the police if a commotion is heard…
Almost as if tuned in to your mind, Dex glances at you and his remaining hand reaches for you with fingers slithering around your forearm, holding onto you firmly.
“Oh, but sir, if you could open the door it would only take-”
“Not interested.” Dex loudly repeats, losing the polite tone from just moments ago. “Now get lost before I call the cops on you.”
Seconds drag by but the hand clamped over your mouth only slackens when the disappointed voices dim down into distance, footsteps scampering away from the apartment.
Only when the coast is clear does Dex fully remove his hands from you, fingers brushing against your lips one last time and you let out a shaky exhale.
“Thank you.” Dex blurts, stepping aside and finally putting some space between you and you can see that the tips of his ears are blazing red. “For not….y’know. Making a scene.”
You nod, but can’t shake the nagging feeling in your chest that maybe you wasted an opportunity that might not appear again.
–
It’s late when Dex comes back home the next night.
That alone is enough to set alarms ringing in your head as Dex is never late. Punctuality is a trait of his, always adhering to consistnt routines and schedules.
It gets worse when you notice the heavy expression Dex wears, lips pressed into a tense line as he greets you. Something is off in the way he moves, tense limbs and a stiff spine. He tries to hide it, but the recoil that runs down his body when he bends down to release your cuffs and then again when he slams the radio’s off button reveals it.
You slowly sit on the bed, rubbing your sore wrists and watching him storm into the bathroom. The sound of water running travels through the ajar door, but it's the pained hiss that catches your attention.
After a moment of pulling yourself together, you stand up and take small steps to the bathroom, supporting yourself using the wall as your legs slowly recover from a whole day of inactivity.
Another distressed sound reaches your ears and you hesitate only for a brief second before pushing the door open.
“Dex.” you call him, “Are you okay?”
He’s hunched over the bathroom sink, palms pressed against the small vanity and face hanging low between his shoulders.
You can’t avoid the concern that prickles you when he turns around, face pale and dewy, looking more like a ghost than a human. Is he sick?
“I’m fine.” Dex grits out and palms a hand through his face with a rough motion, cheeks hollowing as he exhales sharply. “Just give me a second.”
His face twists as he holds back a wince and this time his hand flies to press against his torso. You gasp when you catch sight of his ruined white shirt, horrified at the way the left side of the material is soaked in bright crimson.
“Dex, you’re bleeding!”
“I’m okay, it’s nothing.” Dex rushes to say, one hand trying to hide the shirt with his coat but you’re faster than him and pull it away to get a clear view.
“It doesn’t look like that.” you remark. “Let me see it.”
“You don’t have to, I told I’m-”
“Yes, you keep saying that. Just let me see, please.”
Dex sighs at the stubbornness you show but thankfully relents under the pressure, removing his coat and shirt while you attempt to help him.
When the shirt comes off of his body you freeze. There’s an injury on the side of his stomach, the skin torn and raw, blood trickling out of the wound.
Dex curses when he looks down and then glances at you.
“It was work.” he explains, “FBI had a raid today and this guy had a gun. The bullet grazed me for a second. I’m fine, really, I’ll put some bandages on and get dinner started.” Dex tries to step aside but you get in his way.
“Forget dinner, what you need is to go to a hospital.”
His answer comes quickly as lightning. “No.”
“Dex.” you cross your arms, incredulous.
“I’m fine.”
“You got shot at, you definitely aren’t fine. That looks like it needs stitches.”
“I’ll survive.”
You shake your head, biting your lip. Maybe later when you’re back to being cuffed to the bed and spending your days rooting in bed you’ll regret this, but right now the humanity inside you refuses to let this go.
“Let me help you.” you propose, “You don’t wanna see a doctor, fine. Let me do it instead. I once did a first-aid workshop for work, I know the basics. I can help.”
Dex looks at you, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand and not looking entirely convinced with your suggestion. You sniff, glancing at the blood that now trails down to his waist, staining the top of his pants. God, you’ve never liked the sight of blood.
“The other night you told me you watched me help people. You also said that I’m here because you need me and my help. My kindness, right?” you start, taking a step towards him with the back of your neck burning as Dex holds on to every word you say like it’s the gospel.
“Then don’t shut me out now, Dex. You’re not alone in this. Let me help you, okay? Let me show you kindness. Let me take care of that wound. Please.”
You watch Dex gulp, Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows like it’s the hardest thing in the world. You know the words hit the right spot when at last he nods with a small, shaky movement of his head. “Okay…”
The next forty minutes are spent in mental agony of blood smearing and dripping everywhere - and you mean absolutely everywhere: your hands, your clothes, the counter, the floor - as you do your best cleaning the gunshot wound and then having to steady yourself while holding a sterilized needle in your trembling fingers to sew up the split skin back together as Dex guides you through it, with his medical training from back at Quantico.
He is surprisingly calm as you sew him up at the best of your abilities, gripping the counter so hard his knuckles become pale, exhaling through clenched teeth.
It’s only when you’re patting down a bandage over the stitches that it dawns on you how close you are to Dex, on your knees with face nearly pressed up against his bare torso.
The realization of the position’s intimacy suddenly has your heart racing and when you glance up, you find yourself to be the center of Dex’s attention.
He doesn’t look away when your eyes meet and his intense stare is penetrating enough to have shivers run down your spine and you freeze when his hand reaches for your cheek, thumb gently rubbing against your cheekbone.
“Thank you.”
–
You’re folding one of Dex’s shirts when he speaks.
“I bought some brownies, the ones with the caramel filling. From that bakery you like so much.”
Spinning your face around, you glance at Dex, hiding your confusion with a smile. “Oh, thanks, Dex. That’s… really sweet.”
The corner of his lips curl into a smile as he looks at you, stirring the pot of pasta that is meant to be your lunch without breaking eye contact. “Yeah, I know how much you like those things.”
The silence hangs awkwardly in the air when you turn around, focusing back on the small mountain of warm clothes fresh from the dryer waiting for their turn.
It’s a nice distraction from the boredom of having nothing to do, simple enough for you to handle and harmless enough for Dex to trust you with. That’s part of why you like the weekends so much. With Dex around the apartment the entire day, except when he’s running errands, you get to stay free of the cuffs and the bed.
Even if he’s looming and hovering over you at all times, like he’s unable to let you out of his sight at the risk of losing you in the minuscule apartment.
As the days morph into weeks, things have started to change and you’re not sure if you like the shift.
Something changed that night you patched up Dex, though you can’t exactly put your finger on it. Since then, you’ve lost count of how many occasions you’ve catched him staring at you, when you’re drying the dishes or helping him vacuum the apartment. His eyes often find you even while he’s doing chores around the house, fingers finding excuses to brush against you and it’s beginning to bother you.
The lingering touches, the fixated gaze, the nice gestures, it’s all starting to make you uneasy. Despite how much you attempt to brush it off, you can’t avoid feeling a romantic undertone in his demeanour.
You wonder how truthful were his words when he said he needed your guidance and how much of that was a lie. And while maybe Dex has forgotten the nature of your relationship, you haven’t. Not for one second.
You know all about Stockholm syndrome and you have zero intention of falling for that bullshit.
It’s only after lunch is over, when Dex takes out the small paper bag of brownies from the fridge and brings them over to the table, that you remember them.
He takes out one of the pieces, chocolate sprinkled on top, and offers it to you. “Wanna do the honors?”
You stare at it.
“Maybe later. I’m full right now.” you lie.
“C’mon, one small bite.” Dex insists, but you shake your head. You really don’t feel like playing into whatever fantasy he has.
“Really I’m-”
“One bite.”
Dex opts to ignore your excuses and the chocolate delicacy is insistently pressed against your mouth, leaving you no choice other than to part your lips and begrudgingly take a small bite from the brownie.
Only then does Dex pull his hand away, watching you chew on the food. A dimple appears in his cheek, his eyes dropping to follow the movements of your lips.
Before you can wipe your mouth clean, his fingers brush against your lips, pulling away a dark crumb left behind. A knot curls tighter in your stomach when he pops his fingers into his mouth, tasting your leftover crumb with a hum.
“Tastes delicious.” he nods, shoving the rest of the brownie into his mouth. “Knew you had good taste.”
You force out a smile. “Thank you.”
“Maybe next time we can try making these at home.” he suggests and your hands clench at the word he uses. Home. This isn’t your home. “Homemade is always better and you’ve always been good at baking, I’d love to try something of yours.”
“Yeah, sure. Whenever you want.” Maybe by then you’ll find some laxatives to slip into the food.
You grab your glass and gulp down the water. Dex folds the paper bag with the brownies inside and stops you from grabbing your plate, taking it in his hands. His fingers brush against yours.
“s‘okay, I got this.”
“Thanks.”
Dex smiles. “Anything for you.”
–
There’s a rotten feeling taking root in Dex’s mind.
He sets the paper sheet on the table in front of you before claiming the seat next to you. Your fingers immediately hold onto the paper, lip pulled between your teeth as you consider the words that are probably memorized by now. He insisted on practicing for an entire hour before finally pulling your phone from his pocket but even with your insistent promises, insecurity still gnaws at his mind.
“Just stick to the script.” Dex repeats for the fourth time in less than a minute, “Stay calm, don’t say anything you normally wouldn’t say. And if they ask-”
“I’m just taking a break from technology. Yes, I know. We’ve been over this.” there’s a slight edge in your voice and that has Dex jittering his leg in an anxious bounce.
“Okay.” he nods, dragging the moment for as long as he can. “Let’s get this over with then.”
Dex unlocks your phone and goes through your contacts, absolutely despising the long list of friends and family he has to scroll through til he gets to your mom’s number.
The tense grip Dex has on your phone grows tighter by the second as the call rings.
He’s not happy about this.
If he could have it his way, your phone would be hammered down and its pieces scattered in the bottom of a garbage dumpster. But that would undoubtedly cause you distress and Dex doesn’t want to see you upset. Especially after everything you’ve done for him. Not just the fact that you patched him up that other night or that you haven’t tried to escape in all these days you’ve been a ‘guest’ in his home, but your presence alone is enough to give him a sense of peace that usually escapes him.
You keep him sane. You make him be better. With you around, he feels less… lonely. He’s not alone anymore, you said so the other day, didn’t you. He’s got you now and you fill the void inside him with your warmth and kindness. You’ve been so kind and good and sweet and no one’s ever been like that to him.
So he supposes that after everything you’ve done for him, a short two-minute phone call with your parents following a pre-prepared script is a small gesture of gratitude he can give you.
But that doesn’t mean his nerves aren’t burning him on the inside, an intrusive thought telling him to just crush the phone with his bare hands, throw that piece of shit through the window before someone answers on the other side of the line and be done with all of this. You don’t need to talk to your parents, you don’t need to talk to anyone other than him-
He stops himself before he gets too worked up. He can’t do that. He can’t be cruel to you, not after giving you hope. You’d be beyond disappointed and upset and then you’d definitely hate him for giving you false hope.
Dex wants to do better for you and that starts with this.
But that doesn’t stop a frown from twisting his features, something ugly threatens to come out of his chest as he watches the genuine smile growing on your face at the sound of your mother’s voice.
“Mom! Yeah, I’m doing fine. Just busy and….”
Dex tenses up, fingers picking at the material of his pants, listening intently to every word that you say.
You don’t steep out of line, don’t say anything remotely suspicious or let your voice waver. You’re a good actress and don’t crumble under the pressure, which comes handy for this moment.
Dex trusts you, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be tempted into taking your chances. You’re only human, same as he is.
The numbers on the screen keep on increasing and Dex impatiently waits until it marks exactly two minutes and then signals you. That’s your cue to finish up the call.
Your shoulders slump and annoyance fills your face but you oblige.
“...tell dad I love him. I have to go now, mom. Love you too-”
Dex thumbs the red across the screen and finishes the call as soon as you’re done with your goodbyes. The chair scrapes the floor as you get up on your feet and storm off to the bedroom, the bathroom door slamming shut a second later.
Dex waits exactly one minute before he retraces your steps, making a small detour to turn off your phone and place it inside the safe in his closet.
His knuckles rasp against the bathroom door and he doesn’t wait for an answer before pushing the door open. He freezes at the sight of you leaning against the counter with watery eyes and you sniff, quickly cleaning your cheeks.
“Hey. Everything alright?”
“Uh uh. I just miss them, is all.” you justify your reaction with a weak smile that doesn’t reach your eyes.
“I’m sorry. That sounds… hard. Really hard.”
Dex reaches for you and you move away, the smile fainting away from your face.
“I just need a minute alone, Dex.”
“If you wanna talk about this-”
“I said I need a minute.” your voice rises and Dex frowns at that. You’ve never used that tone with him before.
He slowly walks out of the bathroom, the door shutting behind him with a harsh sound. He walks back to the living room like he’s in a trance. Pulling out a chair, he stiffly sits on the table with his hands crossed in front of him.
Two minutes.
Two fucking minutes.
That’s all it took for someone else to steal your attention away from him and that’s all because of him. It’s his fault. He allows you a taste of freedom, offers you a good deed and now you’re pulling away. You’re shutting him out. Like he’s nothing. Like he means nothing to you. His hands clench at the unbearable thought.
Things were finally starting to work out between you two and now this happens. He tries to be good, for once, and this is what he gets.
It’s his fault. It’s all his fault. Isn’t it always?
He always messes up and maybe that’s why no one ever stays around him, because he’s never enough for anyone. Everything about him is broken, unfixable and fucked up beyond repair.
He’s a fuck up.
Time passes. Seconds, minutes. Maybe hours, he’s not sure.
It feels like an eternity later when he’s pulled out of the buzzing that had taken over his mind with a gentle tapping on his shoulder.
It’s you, standing with eyes dried up and an apologetic expression. Dex stands up so fast he nearly knocks into you and his hand flies to your forearm to keep you from tumbling.
“Shit, sorry.”
“No, it’s… I’m the one who has to apologize.” you sigh, lips pressed together. “I’m sorry about earlier, I didn’t mean to sound… ungrateful or something like that.”
The pressure in Dex’s chest eases up, like a heavy weight has been lifted from him. “You don’t have to apologize.” he forgives you right away because how can he not when you’re looking up to him with those pretty eyes of yours, giving him all of your undivided attention. “I could never be mad at you, I mean you… you’ve done so much for me. You’re very special to me, I don’t think you realize just how much.”
He notices the way you squirm and how your eyes flit down to the grip Dex has yet to let go off, but he makes no move to remove his hand. If anything his fingers tighten around your arm, pulling you closer.
“Dex…”
“You’re the most important person in my life.”
Your eyes widen when he brings his other hand up to your face, cupping your cheek in his hand.
You nervously gulp and he can’t help but glance at your parted lips, slightly glowy from the lip balm he bought you a few days before you could ask for it. Same brand, same flavor you always used.
“All this time you’ve been so good to me, no one’s ever been this kind to me before. You make it all better and you don’t even have to try.” he leans closer, a heartfelt smile breaking through. “You make this apartment feel like the home I never had and you make me so damn happy. My whole life, there was something missing and now it finally feels like I found that missing piece.”
“You mean the world to me. And I…. I love you.” he abruptly confesses and your eyes start getting teary again. Happy tears.
Dex captures your lips with his and suddenly everything clicks into place, everything makes sense. You belong together. You’re every thought that consumes his mind, you’re everything he can feel, everything he can touch.
Pretty and so damn delicate in his arms, you’re all he needs.
Not just his North Star, but you also own his heart, his mind, his body, his everything.
You’re his.
–
“Sweetheart?”
The knock on the door startles you.
Not even five minutes in the bathroom and Dex is already acting like you’ve been apart for hours. God, he has given the word clingy a whole different meaning after everything that went down the other night.
He’s been breathing down your neck ever since he kissed you and now you’re stuck playing along with his fantasy, acting as though you share his feelings and love him back.
Your suspicions were right all along. Dex is a liar.
The whole moral compass dilemma, the North Star thing, the keeping him on the right track, it was all one big lie and you’re so stupid because you should’ve seen that from the beginning.
It feels like one of those insane dreams that have you waking up in the morning, feeling more exhausted than rested, where logic doesn’t exist and nothing makes sense. How the hell did you even end up in this situation, playing house with your kidnapper?
It’s only been three days since that happened and you still can’t wrap your mind around Dex’s confession and everything it involves.
You need a way out. Immediately. How many days until his hormones dictate him to do more?
While his newly proclaimed affection has granted you some benefits - you don’t need your hands cuffed to the bed anymore, which has been a relief for your chaffed wrists and sore shoulders - it doesn’t go without a few sacrifices on your behalf. For now, Dex is settling with kisses that don’t go beyond pecking on the lips and clumsy hugs, but how long until he decides that’s not enough?
The way he hesitates every night around the bed, kissing you goodnight with eyes fleeting to the spot next to you. How his hands sweep the entire expanse of your back and then back up when he hugs you. You’re not stupid, you know how men are and what they want and in the present moment, you are very much stuck with one.
Dex is a ticking bomb and you’re at risk of being collateral damage.
The knob rattling has you holding back a sigh. Still, you take your sweet time in washing your hands and drying them. Why must you hurry when you have to be around Dex all day?
When you finally come out, Dex has his back to you while standing by the window, phone to his ear and speaking in hushes.
“... I’m off duty today, I told you. No, I can’t-” he hisses, hand on his hip as he looks outside. “Damnit, Ray, fine. Just drop the files and I’ll take a look at them. You know my apartment block, I’ll meet you downstairs.”
You wait until he’s finished with the call before making a show out of closing the bathroom door with an audible click. Dex immediately swirls around, shoving his phone in the back pocket of his pants and away from your sight, irritation vanishing from his face.
You barely get one step in his direction before he beats you to it, rushing across the room to meet you and you have to physically hold back a wince when his hands reach for you and he leans forward to peck at your lips.
He’s getting a lot more comfortable around you than you are with him, touching and kissing you and frankly, you’re not certain if he genuinely enjoys the affection or if he’s just reminding you that you’re still stuck playing house with him.
“You okay?” he asks, “You spent a lot of time in there. Was getting worried.”
His comment brushes you in the wrong way.
Dex’s attention to details sometimes borders on obsessive vigilance and the way he notices every detail about you, no matter how small and insignificant, feels like a violation of your privacy. Sure, the apartment is small and crowded, but you get the feeling Dex specifically monitors every action you take and finds satisfaction in doing so. Maybe control issues.
“My head is feeling a little heavy, actually.” you lie, figuring you can dodge Dex for the better part of the afternoon. “Think I might lay down for a while.”
The price you pay for such a small lie involves enduring with tremendous patience as Dex fusses and hovers over you as he gets you in bed, arranging and rearranging the blanket several times and having to refuse his offer of painkillers at least six times.
His hand caresses your head and it’s only when you close your eyes and pretend to fall asleep that he finally leaves you be, with a soft ‘rest well’ and a kiss to your forehead before quietly slipping out of the bedroom. At least he doesn’t put the cuff around your feet, a small comfort. The door doesn’t close all the way and so, you listen to the quiet clinking of glasses and metal as he works around the kitchen, drying them off as he always does after lunch.
Minutes are slow to pass and you nearly doze off until the chiming of a phone brings you back to consciousness.
“... yeah, I’m coming downstairs. Wait up.” Dex irritatedly hisses. The apartment door opens and keys clank before the door slams shut.
Your ears twitch at the complete silence that submerges the apartment and it takes you a solid moment to understand that Dex stepped outside the apartment.
With your heart pounding in your ribcage, you push yourself off the bed and hesitantly peek into the living room.
He’s not there or in the kitchen.
He actually left the apartment without cuffing you.
You can’t believe it. An incredulous chuckle escapes you, but it quickly dies down when you run for the door only to find it locked from the outside. That’s not good, you need to leave now. Time is running out because Dex surely won’t be gone for long, you heard him on the phone.
The emergency stairs are the only option left so you sprint towards them, knocking your elbow against the wall in your haste.
You waste precious time fumbling with the complicated lock but eventually manage to figure out how to open the living room window and push it all the way up, wincing when scraping your knees in the sill while getting out. Ouch. You’re so rusty you can’t even move straight.
The cold wind blowing strongly has you freezing the moment you find yourself outside for the first time in weeks, goosebumps erupting all over your body as your lungs fill out with fresh air and you nearly tear up at the freedom of the moment, after so long of being held up in the four walls of Dex’s grim apartment, it feels surreal to be outside.
The sound of the door shutting has your head snapping backwards, heart sinking. No, no, no.
Dex is back inside, keys dangling as he locks the door.
Shit. You didn’t even hear the door opening. He hasn’t noticed you yet so maybe you can still… Your attempt to sneak down the stairs fails massively when the metal plate sharply creaks under your weight as soon as your bare feet touch the step.
The moment processes like a slow motion frame of a movie and you watch with horror as Dex’s head snaps to the side, alerted by the sound as he takes notice of the open window and realizes that you’re standing on the emergency stairs like a deer caught in the headlights, instead of laying down in the bed he tucked you in, recovering from a headache.
The files in his hand carelessly drop to the floor, same as his keys, and the change in his expression is immediate and terrifying and it makes your blood run cold.
He holds out one hand, taking one cautiously slow step towards the window.
“It’s chilly outside, sweetheart, gonna catch a cold if you stay there.” he says with a normalcy that both confuses and scares you. “Why don’t you come back inside? It’s warmer here. C’mon.”
You don’t reply nor take your eyes off him, your grip over the handrail being the only thing keeping you steady.
You don’t run just yet, not just because Dex will easily catch up to you the moment you make a break for it, more because you’re scared down to your core. This whole situation is a ticking bomb and you’re just stalling - for what, you have no idea.
Dex repeats your name like a warning, eyes narrowing when you go down one step and then another.
“Please. Just come back inside. Trust me, you don’t wanna do this, alright?” he pleads with a deep exhale, features twisting when you ignore him and his words in favor of descending one more step. “Come back and I promise we can just forget about this, act like it never happened. I promise, okay?”
Dex mirrors your movements, stepping forward just as slowly to keep you from evading his vision.
You don’t dare turn your back on him, terrified, but there’s no way you can reach the street if you keep this slow, hesitant rhythm.
“Dex, please.” you gulp, blinking away tears that insist on clogging your eyes. Your voice wavers and you sniff. “I just wanna go home.”
“You are home, damnit.” Dex snaps. “This is our home, you and me, we belong together. Can’t you see that?” his jaw tightens, same as his hands. “After everything we’ve been through and you’re still… you still wanna abandon me. Just like everyone else. Yeah, well, I’m not letting you.”
The steel determination in his voice, the dangerous glint in his eyes is enough for your hands to turn clammy and sticky and you warily take another step down, heart thrumming in your chest when your foot nearly skips down that step.
“Sweetheart. Not another step.” he growls, “Think this through, okay? You’re not leaving, we both know that. So, you can make things easier for both of us and come back inside on your own or we can do this the hard way, which none of us is gonna like. It’s your choice.”
His words may appear honest, but you know the truth behind them.
None of this was ever your choice. You didn’t choose this, didn’t choose him, didn’t choose to be his North Star or play whatever farce he’s been throwing at your eyes the whole time and yet here you are, forced to confront a situation you never imagined yourself in.
You’ve never really had a choice when it comes to Dex.
All you know is that you can’t go back in there, living a mad man’s fantasy, caged in an apartment especially now that you’ve broken his delusions. Before your mind can fully process it, your legs make the decision for you.
You spin around and take off down the stairs, feet slapping against the metal stairs as the muscles in your legs strain to keep up with the adrenaline that curses through your veins.
There’s clamour behind you, heavy steps resonating through the metal structure at an impressive speed and Dex shouts something you can’t quite understand but you don’t dare glance behind.
The ground floor street gets closer the faster you run and there’s a hint of hope flourishing in your chest at the possibility of actually being able to reach freedom-
Something small collides against your back, harshly and with such a strength that it sends you tumbling forward, pain exploding in your vision when your forehead slams against the metal railing.
You crash and cry out when your knees land on the metal, one of your kneecaps ruthlessly bumping against one of the steps. There’s an agonizing hammering in your head and you go limp. Darkness takes over your mind but not before the dizzy, distant realization of being scooped up by firm arms.
–
"Fuck!"
A frightened sob escapes you as the tears overflow from your eyes and you push your knees to your chest and hide your face in the small space, though you find little comfort in the motion especially with the awkward stretch of the only hand cuffed Dex apparently remembered to cuff.
The painkillers somewhat helped with the pain that is splitting your head in two and the sharp throb in your left knee, but they do little to numb the blood-curdling fear that Dex’s erratic behavior is provoking in you.
Ever since you woke up, a while ago, it's been like this.
There’s a trail of destruction in the bedroom, the contents of the bedside table scattered through the floor, broken and mutilated and you try not to stare at the fist-shaped holes decorating the wall.
The deafening sound of plates and glasses shattering against the kitchen floor makes you flinch, an animalistic holler following soon.
You don’t think Dex is upset. More like absolutely furious and livid and right now, you just want the floor to swallow you whole and make you disappear. There’s nothing you can do except to hope and pray his focus doesn’t turn towards you, even if you are the reason behind his violent crash out.
You listen to him ravish and destroy the apartment for for what it feels like an eternity, objects violently crashing on the floor and his shouting bouncing off the walls until it progressively dwindles down. And then it finally ends.
The silence feels oppressively quiet, in contrast to the loud destruction from moments ago, but it doesn’t make you feel any safer. Not that you’ve ever felt safe in this place.
The quietness feels dangerous in its own way but your energy drains quickly, exhaustion settling in after the events of the day. You close your eyes, intending only to rest for a few minutes if the pain allows you to do so.
When you groggily blink your eyes open, you’re disoriented to find the entire room swarmed by the darkness of the night.
Only the small bedside lamp casts a dim, yellow light to the room and you nearly jump with fright at the tall figure looming by the bed’s edge.
It’s Dex, looking beyond miserable, messy up hair and red-rimmed eyes. He’s staring directly at you, vintage-looking headphones covering his ears as his unsettling focus remains on you, dark eyes clinging to you obsessively.
He looks somewhat calmer, despite appearing as pale as a ghost and the heavy breathing that shakes his bare chest and you only now do you notice how he’s only wearing his black shorts, his skin dewy with sweat.
Your eyes meet and Dex pulls the headphones away, throwing them onto the table. Weariness begins to grow in you when he climbs to the bed and reaches for you, your cuffs jingling as you try to back away from him.
“Dex, I’m so sorry, please-”
His lips crash against your with a vigor that sends him toppling you and you cry out when his weight presses you down, crushing you against the bed and putting awful pressure over your aching knee as your left leg gets trapped between his legs.
Your hand, the only one who isn’t cuffed to the bed, flies to his chest and pushes against the humid skin but to no avail, Dex has always been stronger than what he looks like. His hands cradle your head with a tight hold, strong fingers framing your face and it worsens the pain in your skull until it feels like your head is gonna implode.
His kiss is forceful, his mouth pressing painfully hard to the point you can’t breathe, muffling down every sob and wail of yours.
Something hard pokes your thigh and you dig your nails into his arm when Dex groans and presses harder against your leg till you can’t even move it away. Bile rises in your throat when he begins to move, humping your thigh with a pace that quickly becomes frantic enough to have the bed creaking.
There’s little you can do except to just shut your eyes and let your hand limply fall to the bed, knowing in your conscience that you’ll never be able to wash off the humiliation and disgust of this moment.
Dex breaks the kiss, hovering over you as his mouth sucks desperate kisses over every inch of your tear-streaked face.
“s’okay, sweetheart, I forgive you.” he breathlessly growls into your skin, teeth grazing your cheek.
Dampness soaks through the thin fabric of his shorts and onto your leg as he moves faster, your leg having gone numb at this point. “I forgive you. Cause I love you and I know you love me back. Need me just as much as I need you.”
And when Dex finally reaches his peak, with an obscenely loud grunt by your ear, with his whole body collapsed on top of yours, with the wetness of his cum staining your thigh, it dawns on you that you’ll never truly escape him.
𓊆박성훈 x fem reader𓊇 hold me, kiss me. whisper sweetly that you love me forever. hold me, kiss me. whisper sweetly that you love me forever. hold me, kiss me. whisper sweetly that you love me forever.
part two of two ― read part one
⤫ 28253 ⤫ ― based & inspired on the movie: obsession (2026), heavily major spoiler alert: warnings, style, plot. ― gore, body horror, psychological horror, incel horror, cannibalistic themes, supernatural obsession, graphic violence, self-harm + mentioned of razor on wrist, suicide, toxic co-dependency, coercive control, drugs & alcohol use, smut, technically sex with a demon, blood, mentions of cuts, animal death (cat), profanity, mental health themes, dubcon, noncon sexual content, missionary, cowgirl, blowjob, please let me know if i've missed any!
⊹ 𐙚⋆˙˚ oh my gosh... i meant to do this in 15k but i accidentally doubled the amount haha... omg enjoy... :"( i hope it's not as shit as i think it is ajneabse i've proofread this like ONCE. p/s: i love this movie so fucking much it's sickening and unhealthy... please don't forget to leave your comments, thoughts, and inboxes :(( it makes me so happy!!!
being with you was even better than sunghoon had ever imagined.
you were so different than what he’d expected—warmer, more openly affectionate, almost clingy in the sickest, sweetest way possible. the girl who used to be shy and reserved with her feelings now looked at him like he was the center of her universe.
it was intoxicating.
the two of you were making breakfast together in his kitchen. you stood behind him while he cooked eggs, arms wrapped around his bare waist, chin resting on his shoulders as you hummed. every few seconds you’d press a kiss to his neck or cheek.
sunghoon laughed softly when you stole a piece of fruit from the cutting board.
“you’re gonna eat everything before it’s done, baby,” he teased, squeezing your hands on his tummy. you giggled and kissed his jaw, pressing you chest against his back.
“can’t help it… you look so cute when you’re cooking.”
you both ended up eating at the counter—you sitting on the top and sunghoon standing in between your legs as you fed him pieces of bacon. he laughed at how cute you looked, and you giggled at his terrible jokes.
it felt domestic.
at work, you two couldn’t keep your hands off each other.
in the breakroom, sunghoon had you pressed against the wall, kissing you deeply. your hands were in his hair, pulling him closer as you moaned softly into his mouth. you made the breakroom like his bedroom.
jake walked in at the wrong moment. he froze, eyes wide, then quickly looked away with a muttered, “jesus christ…” before backing out. he found it odd. weird, bizarre even to see sunghoon and you… but you, especially in this state.
he supposed he didn’t know you enough—despite knowing each other since the earliest days of jake’s life.
haewon, who had been right behind him, looked visibly uncomfortable, eyebrows furrowed as she turned and left without a word.
you and sunghoon didn’t even notice. or even if either of you did—no fucks were given.
on the floor, you were “checking out cds” together—but really, it mostly meant him standing behind you with his arms around your waist as the two of you decided which movie to watch for the night.
even during his band practice time that you’d tag along—sunghoon spent most of it teaching you how to use his electric guitar, sitting on his lap with your back pressed flashed against his chest, sunghoon’s arms wrapped around your waist.
his members would give him a look, and so did your girl friends who shared the room.
it’s weird. it’s unlikely.
every night was spent together under the sheets.
you loved kissing him. you could do it for hours, everywhere, anywhere—slow, deep kisses that turned hungry, soft pecks all over his face, neck, chest, or just lying there with your lips pressed against his for long moments.
you’d pull him on top of you, legs wrapped around his waist, whispering i love you between kisses like it you couldn’t bear even an inch of space between your bodies.
sunghoon wasn’t complaining. not even a little.
he had never been this happy.
waking up with you curled into his side, making breakfast together while you hugged him from behind, stolen kisses, falling asleep with your head on his chest every night—it felt like a dream he never wanted to wake up from. the constant affection, the way you looked at him… it filled every empty space he’d carried.
days turned into weeks.
and now it had been almost two months together.
“acoustic guitar?”
you and sunghoon were sitting across from each other at a small table by the window, sharing a plate of pastries and drinks. your fingers were playing with his hand on the table—tracing his knuckles, interlacing your fingers, gently squeezing every few seconds.
you genuinely couldn’t stop touching him.
sunghoon chuckled softly, watching the way your pretty manicured fingers traced the lines on his palm. “yeah. the band’s been doing mostly acoustic sets now. the electric stuff is fun but… i don’t know, it feels different when it’s just the guitar. personal, i guess?”
you nodded, still playing with his fingers. were you even listening?
“i like when you play acoustic. your voice sounds really nice like that.”
“you think s—”
RING—!
sunghoon glanced down to his phone with its screen facing upwards—seeing jake’s contact. he simply acknowledged it before flipping his phone.
the conversation flowed easily as it should between two lovers—about his band’s past gigs, practice, and whether he should start his own project since the band wasn’t as active anymore.
“you should,” you said, eyes sparkling. you squeezed his hand, nails lightly digging into his flesh. “you’d be amazing leading your own band. i wanna come to every show—wanna follow you everywhere you go.”
sunghoon smiled, warmth spreading through his chest.
“of course you will.”
you picked up a piece of bread, tore a small chunk, and fed it to him with your fingers. sunghoon accepted it, lips brushing against your fingertips. he was about to do the same for you when his phone buzzed on the table.
jake was calling, again.
sunghoon sighed. “hold on, baby. it’s the second time he’s called now. i’ll be quick.”
he excused himself from the table and stepped outside to take the call.
you watched him go, your expression shifting. your smile faded. a subtle annoyance flickered across your face as you stared at him walking away, fingers tapping lightly, impatiently on the table.
“what?” he answered, a little impatient. “i’m busy.”
“busy with yn?”
sunghoon sighed. “what do you want?"
there was a beat of hesitation on the other line.
“okay, so…” jake started. “i haven’t told anyone because i don’t know how true this goes, but i went to yn’s house the other day to pass some pie. her grandma was asking where yn is.”
sunghoon frowned, “your point?”
“she thinks yn lives with me. thought she was sick of her. i didn’t tell her what yn said about her kicking her out but… something’s going on.”
sunghoon glanced back at you. you were staring in his direction, smiling in an unnatural, almost too–wide way. he gave a small wave. you waved back, smiling.
jake continued, voice lower. “and plus, this is just so weird, man… i’ve never seen her acting this way. i didn’t even know she liked you.”
that ticked sunghoon off—he didn’t like that. so what if it was fucking weird? so what if jake didn’t know you liked sunghoon? jake didn’t need to know everyfuckingthing there is to know in this world. just because you and him were childhood friends, it doesn’t mean you need to tell him everything.
his grip on the phone tightened. “what the hell are you trying to say?”
a beat.
“i’m just saying it’s weird,” jake replied carefully. “i’m happy for you two, really. but it’s… it’s like yn snapped into a different person.”
sunghoon looked back at you again. you were still staring at him with that same unwavering smile. it was as if you didn’t stop smiling, at all.
jake kept going. “i don’t know what’s going on with her… or you… but i think you guys should be apart for a while. she literally hasn’t been home.”
a beat.
“hello? sunghoon?”
call ended.
sunghoon hung up and slowly walked back to the table. he was annoyed, slightly shocked, and trying hard to hide it. his mind was still replaying jake’s words.
you looked up with him with that soft, adoring smile.
“everything okay, baby?”
he sat down, forcing a small nod. “um, yeah.”
you tilted your head, watching him carefully.
“actually, do you…”
“mmmhm…?” you hummed, leaning forward slightly. sunghoon hesitated, then shook his head. “nothing.”
you studied him for a second longer before smiling again. “hm, okay…. i have something for you.”
you reached into your bag and pulled out a small red box, sliding it across the table toward him.
sunghoon blinked. “what’s this?”
“...open it.”
he hesitated for a moment, fingers hovering over the box, before finally opening it. inside was a beautiful gem—a deep, dark onyx with flecks that caught the light. it was attached to a simple silver chain, clearly old but well–cared for.
“oh… wow,” he murmured, genuinely surprised.
you smiled gently. “it was my grandma’s… then my mom’s, then mine. but i want to give it to you.”
sunghoon looked up at you, confused. “why are you giving it to me?”
you reached across the table and gently took his hand. “well… it’s important to me. and so are you—but you’re way more important.”
sunghoon looked at the onyx in his palm, then back at you. “you sound like you love me,” he said, heaf–teasing, half–testing.
you gave him an eerier, almost creepy smile—too wide, too unwavering, full of teeth. “hoonie… i love you so much. i love you more than anyone else.”
the way you said it sent a chill down his spine.
he tried to keep his voice light. “you’d be sad without me?”
you didn’t even hesitate. “i could die.”
the silence that followed was heavy. sunghoon played with the stone between his fingers, the weight of your words sinking in. then, what jake had said slipped into his mind.
i’ve never seen her acting this way. i didn’t even know she liked you.
yn’s grandma thought she was sick of her.
“yn?”
“yeah?”
“did your grandma really kick you out?”
a beat.
you blinked. then you started chuckling—low, strange sound that quickly turned into scoffing. you stood up from the table abruptly.
“no, no, no, no, no…”
sunghoon looked up at you, confused. “what?”
you raised your voice, almost childlike in your denial. “nooooo, don’t you do that!”
the entire restaurant went quiet. heads turned, the uncomfortable tension was immediate—all eyes on your table, whispers began scattering around in the space.
sunghoon stayed seated but reached out, gently grabbing your hand.
“what? baby, calm down. let’s sit first, please?”
your eyes were twitching, and so were your fingers—gripping into the hem of your pretty sweater. “why does it matter?!”
he looked around, clearly embarrassed, cheeks burning as people continued staring. you pulled your hand back slightly but didn’t sit back down.
“i thought we were having a nice date?” your voice trembled. your head jerked and tilted sideways, shoulders shuddering. to others, it might just seem like a girlfriend getting psycho over the boyfriend, but to sunghoon who knew better—
it was anything but it.
“we are! we are…” he tried to reassure you, lightly nudging you to sit down again—but you wouldn’t budge.
“so why does it matter?” you repeated, voice getting smaller. just then, you started crying—softly, almost childishly, tears rolling down your cheeks as you stood there by the table with sunghoon’s hand holding yours.
the silence around you was deafening.
sunghoon was growing concerned and embarrassed—people were getting the wrong ideas, he could feel the judgemental eyes on him—the guy must have done something terrible to make his girlfriend cry in public.
swallowing the lump in his throat, he squeezed your hand gently. “doesn’t matter to me, baby. doesn’t matter,” he said quickly, voice low and soothing.
he finally managed to pull you toward him. you collapsed into his lap and chest almost instantly, sobbing quietly against his shirt. sunghoon wrapped his arms around you tightly, one hand rubbing slow circles on your back, the other cradling the back of your head.
you finally went quiet.
“shhh, it’s okay… i’ve got you,” he whispered into your hair, holding you close as your body trembled with hiccups. “it doesn’t matter. it doesn’t matter to me.”
the restaurant slowly, very agonisingly so, went back to their own conversations, but the uneasy atmosphere lingered.
sunghoon kept holding and rocking you gently, completely focused on calming you down.
——
the night ended with another fucking session. tonight lasted slightly longer than usual—one sunghoon could only assume was due to your frustration from the dinner date earlier. admittedly, it was sunghoon’s fault. he shouldn’t have brought it up, shouldn’t have listened to jake, shouldn’t have put you on the spot.
if you really wanted to talk about it, you would’ve.
sunghoon accidentally woke up sometime in the middle of the night. groggily, he checked the time on his phone.
03:47
and your side of the bed was cold.
he sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes as he looked around the dark room. at first, he thought you might have gone to the bathroom, or went down to get yourself a glass of water. but then his eyes caught something in the far corner—behind a stack of boxes.
a figure. barely visible. so faint it might’ve been nothing.
sunghoon sat up and leaned forward, squinting to get a clearer view. the figure stepped forward at his movement.
“yn…?”
you were standing there in nothing but his oversized shirt, the hem barely covering your ass. your nipples were visibly perky through the thin fabric, and your eyes reflected just enough light from the window to look almost glowing. eyeshine.
“go back to sleep,” you said softly.
sunghoon’s heart rate picked up.
“what are you doing…?”
you tilted your head slightly. a small, serene smile on your lips.
“watching you sleep. you’re cute when you sleep, hoonie.”
then, without a word, you stepped back into the shadow of the dark corner, becoming almost invisible again. sunghoon stared at the spot where you had been for god knows how long—unable to shake the chill that ran down his spine.
“...can you come back to bed?” sunghoon asked. voice careful.
“no.”
“yn?”
“no.”
the silence that followed was thick and suffocating. sunghoon sat there in the dark of his room, heart beating faster, tummy gurgling with uneasiness. he was getting weirded out—uncomfortable—getting scared by the girl of his dreams.
you were just standing there, not doing anything. not fiddling with the hem of his shirt that you were wearing, not moving an inch, not blinking or cracking a smile. hell—sunghoon couldn’t even see your lungs expanding.
it was… uncanny.
he thought of calling out again—but out of nowhere, you started giggling. a childish, high–pitched sound that didn’t belong in the middle of the night, and was definitely not yours. your shoulders shook and trembled with each giggle that slipped past your lips, but you weren’t moving.
“yn—”
you were acting fucking weird when you hopped back toward the bed like nothing had happened, crawling onto him and kissing his cheek with wet, eager presses of your lips.
“you know i love you the most, right?” you whispered sweetly against his skin, voice dripping with something unhinged. “i love you sooooo much…”
your hands roamed his bare chest possessively, cold fingers digging into his skin as you groped his bicep, squeezing like you were testing how much of him you could claim—ripped out with your bare hands.
you kissed down his neck, grazing your teeth along his pulse point—not quite biting, but close enough to send a shiver of fear through him.
“i could eat you up…” you murmured, teeth scraping harder this time, voice low and obsessive and not yours. “just…. consume every little part of you until there’s nothing left for anyone else—not even for yourself. wouldn’t that be nice? you’d be all mine. only mine. forever.”
your nails dragged down his chest as you nuzzled into his neck again, pressing your chest against him. sunghoon state frozen beneath you, heart hammering. the earlier warmth completely replaced by a deep, instinctive dread.
with your hand roaming along his body, they travelled down until you were caressing his thigh, close to his boxer. sunghoon let out a small grunt as you licked the part where his major jugular vein pulsed, then followed it with wet, butterfly kisses along the slope of his neck.
sunghoon had never noticed or felt how sharp your canines are.
“i wanna do it again,” you murmured, fluttering your pretty lashes with that same unhinged adoration.
even through the fear he’d never felt before in his life, sunghoon couldn’t deny you. not when you leaned in closer, lips brushing his ear as you whispered,
“fuck me, please?”
——
sunghoon stepped out of the bathroom, still half–asleep as he adjusted his shirt. at the same time, you walked out of the kitchen looking as normal, cute, girlfriend–ly, and happy as ever—bright smile, fresh face, still wearing the same oversized shirt as last night.
“oh! good morning, my baby!” you chirped, immediately walking over and kissing his cheek sweetly.
sunghoon smiled despite the lingering unease from last night. “hi, morning.” he hummed, kissing you back softly on the lips.
he hesitated for a moment, then spoke carefully.
“... can we, uh, talk about last night?”
your expression shifted. you looked down for a second, then back up at him with wide, innocent eyes.
“ugh, i’m sorry,” you said softly. “i had a really bad dream… and i think i was sleepwalking or something. i don’t even remember most of it…”
sunghoon hummed, rubbing the back of his neck. “it was kinda scary. you were saying and doing stuff. and the way you looked at me—”
“i know, i know,” you cut in gently, stepping closer and wrapping your arms around his waist. you hugged him tight, pressing your cheek against his chest. “i’m so sorry, baby. i won’t do it again—promise.”
he slowly hugged your back, arms clinging around you. his voice was relieved, but still worried.
“it’s okay. just promise me it won’t happen again.”
“i promise,” you said sweetly, giving him a squeeze. “i love you so much.”
“i love you too.”
it’s all so weird, but also not. just last night, sunghoon swore he could piss himself on the bed—but came the morning, and he couldn’t help himself.
he reached for his nametag on the counter and pinned it on. “i’ll see you later.”
“mmhm,” you hummed happily. then you suddenly perked up. “oh! i made you a little something.”
you hurried back to the kitchen counter and came back holding a neatly packed lunchbox, handing it to him with both hands like it was a precious gift.
“since i’m not working anymore, i couldn’t stand not doing anything for you and feeling like a useless sex doll—”
sunghoon frowned almost instantly, cutting you off. “what? what are you talking about?”
for a split second, your expression glitched in real time—eyes flickering, smile twitching unnaturally like a bad video feed. your pupils constricted and dilated before it went back normal. you recovered almost instantly, laughing it off like it was nothing.
“what? sorry, just forget it! here.”
you pushed the lunchbox into his hands with a wide smile.
sunghoon took it, a little confused. “um… alright.”
you leaned in and kissed him again—soft, lingering, and full of that obsessive affection. he kissed you back, placing his hands on your hips momentarily.
you pulled away with a bright smile, brushing off nothing from his shoulders like a doting girlfriend. then, you did that cute giddy thing—standing on your tiptoes, dropping back down, then rising onto your tiptoes again, hands clasped in front of you.
“enjoy your day, hoonie!” you said sweetly. “but not too much.” you smiled.
“i’ll be right here when you get home.”
sunghoon gave you a small smile, and turned toward the door.
only to find it taped shut, literally. layers of grey duct tape crisscrossing over them frame and knob and wall, sealing it completely.
he stopped dead in his tracks, eyes widened in shock and disbelief. “uh… um…”
he didn’t say anything else. he just walked over and tried to pull the knob—the tape held firm.
behind, you stood perfectly still, watching with that same serene smile. you were still standing on your tiptoes, then dropping back down, then onto your tiptoes again.
“you okay, baby?” you asked, voice soft and innocent. “you seemed to struggle a little… maybe you should just stay at home?”
sunghoon forced a chuckle, still tugging at the door. “no, no, i uh… i got this, baby. just…”
with a sharp rip, he finally tore enough of the tape off to open the door. he turned back to you, trying to act normal.
“i’ll see you soon.”
you waved at him with an unnervingly sweet, cute smile. still standing in the same spot—still doing your tiptoes movement.
——
sunghoon and haewon were in the aisles arranging the new cd arrivals.
“been a while since we hung out,” she said casually, sliding a few albums into place.
“yeah,” sunghoon replied, not looking up from where he was crouching down. “got busy. and yn’s not exactly the hang–out type anymore.”
haewon paused, looking down at him with a raised eyebrow.
“what, really? she used to come over a lot and watch movies with jake and i.” she shrugged. “huh. guess relationships change people.”
sunghoon chuckled, then he smiled, finally looking up to her. “what’s up with that?”
the girl laughed lightly, shaking her head as she continued with her task. “nothing? i always thought yn was like this really cool, whimsical girl, you know what i mean? but now i barely even see you, let alone her. just… bummed.”
sunghoon’s hands slowed on the cds. “uh. i guess so.”
the silence between them grew a little awkward. sensing it, haewon quickly changed the subject with a brighter tone. “oh, yeah, also—jake wants to hold this big, cool movie night at our place tonight. you’re joining?”
sunghoon pursed his lips, then thought for a little while. true—it’s been a while since the three—or four, if including you—hung out together since sunghoon and you became a thing. it had also been a while since he properly talked to haewon and jake outside of work.
everything lately had revolved around you.
“...yeah, sure, actually,” he finally said. “who else is joining?”
haewon smiled, relieved that the awkwardness had passed. “mm, i think jake invited some band people too. aerona’s there too, if you remember.”
sunghoon nodded. “sure. yeah, that works.”
they were cut off by kim calling out from the front counter. “haewon! can you work on this aisle? and sunghoon, you can take your break now!”
haewon grunted softly, rolling her eyes. “i’ll see you tonight.”
“sure,” sunghoon replied with a small smile.
with another grunt from him, he stood back up, rubbing his hands together and setting the box aside.
as he was walking toward the counter to head to the breakroom, sieun—your bestfriend—suddenly appeared in front of him. she was wearing a low cut sleeveless top and jeans shorts, boots that rose up till her knees.
“sunghoon, hi!”
he was slightly taken aback. “oh, sieun, hey. what are you doing here?”
he kept walking, slipping behind the counter and into the small breakroom to grab his lunchbag. the breakroom door was right behind the front counter, so sieun waited in front with her arms folded in front of her, pressed against her chest—making her cleavage appear more… prominent.
when he came back out with the lunchbox you’d made him, sieun grinned.
“oh, you know… i kinda wanna rent something,” she said, voice playful. “secretary, maybe?”
sunghoon didn’t know sieun like that aside from sharing a band practice room together occasionally. so seeing her this way, kinda changed the way he viewed her.
he hummed, letting out a small scoff. “we don’t sell porn here.”
sieun giggled, tilting her head. “oh! so you know?” she leaned forward a little more. “it’s not porn, though? it’s just… suggestive.”
the atmosphere between them felt changed—flirty on her end.
“well, you gotta pirate it, ‘cause we don’t have it here.”
he then set the lunchbag you made him on the counter between them, creating a space. sieun’s eyes flicked to it.
“awe, mommy made you lunch, sunghoon?”
“nope,” he replied, a small smile tugging at his lips. “yn did, actually.”
sieun let out a soft laugh, raising her eyebrows. “oh, how sweet. she’s the best at cooking,” she hummed, raising an eyebrow. “very… housewife material of her.”
sunghoon chuckled lightly and opened the lid.
the smell hit them both at the same time.
inside was the most unappetising, inedible, atrocious looking lunch either of them had ever seen—it was just a sandwich. except, the sandwich was both burnt and wet at the same time—the bread charred back on the edges while the middle looked soggy and slimy. a small bug was even crawling slowly across the top.
both of them recoiled instantly.
siuen made a disgusted noise and turned her head away. sunghoon quickly slammed the lid shut, eyes wide with horror.
the lunchbox landed in the trash.
——
the drive started quiet. after shift, jake asked for a ride home in which sunghoon agreed—having lived in the same row of neighborhoods, after all.
then, jake cleared his throat.
“i wanna talk about you and yn.”
sunghoon kept his eyes on the road. “what’s there to talk about?
“come on.”
the driver sighed, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. “you know i like her. for a long time too.”
“i know,” jake said carefully, knowing how fragile the topic was. “but i just think you guys should be apart for a bit—”
“i’ve never been so fucking happy,” sunghoon cuts in, voice sharp, laced with defensiveness. “not after my dad passed.”
jake tried again. “it’s just for a little—”
“and you’re trying to give me reasons not to be.”
a heavy beat of silence settled in the car.
“look, i just don't want you, or yn for that matter, to get hurt,” jake said, tone more serious now. “she’s my friend, and you’re my bestfriend, and i’m totally thrown and weirded out by this. can we please break this down?”
sunghoon’s grip on the wheel tightened. “i don’t want to break it down for you.”
jake pushed. “she lied about her grandma. she didn’t have a reason to—”
“i’m still not breaking down our relationship—”
“we don’t even hang out anymore—”
“right, like i had to hear about your cool–ass party from haewon—”
“and you don’t think this is fucking weird at all?”
“were you going to invite us?”
their voices overlapped, the argument building fast and messy in the confined space of the car.
jake frowned. “don’t change the subject. and i wasn’t sure if i wanted to, if i’m being completely honest.”
sunghoon’s jaw clenched. “why not?”
the car slowed to a stop in front of jake’s house.
he turned to sunghoon, expression serious. “because it looks like yn is going through something worse than molly, and it seems to me that you’re taking advantage of it—”
“oh, for fuck’s sakes!” sunghoon snapped, turning to jake. his arms rested on the shoulder of the car seat. “she’s all over me! are you fucking kidding?”
“exactly!” jake shot back. “you were all over her, now she’s all over you and it doesn’t look good. it doesn’t look good at all, man.”
sunghoon let out a bitter laugh, gripping the steering wheel tighter. “why are you trying to ruin this for me? she’s the one who won’t leave me alone.”
jake exhaled, rubbing his face. “alright. then be a man, and make that clear. you can come, but out of love, yn can’t. or yn can come, and you stay at home.”
just before jake stepped out of the car, he paused, one hand on the door.
“i don’t want my friend’s relationship to be built on some weird codependency or what-the-fuck-ever.”
he shut the door behind him.
——
tired from the long day and the argument with jake, sunghoon pushed the door open and flicked on the lights. he just wanted to shower and rest—and cuddle with you until sleep took over.
but the moment he stopped inside, the smell hit him first—sour, acrid, vomit, and urine.
you were still standing in the middle of the living room, the same spot he left you in, soaked in sweat and vomit, standing in a pool of your own piss. the same shirt from earlier was ruined, clinging wetly to your body. urine stained your legs and the floor beneath you.
you hadn’t moved from that spot.
“hoonie!” you said brightly.
sunghoon froze, eyes wide with horror.
“oh, shit—yn?! what the fuck? are you okay?”
you seemed to realise the state you were in. at his reaction, you stepped back embarrassed, looking down at yourself with a small, confused frown.
“i—i’m sorry… oh gosh, i should’ve showered…”
sunghoon moved toward you quickly, concerned and utterly confused. he grabbed a tissue from the tv stand and started wiping your face, trying not to gag at the smell.
“what happened?” he asked, voice laced with worry.
you looked up at him, eyes glassy. “my body feels weird and i couldn’t stop puking… ugh, i don’t know…”
sunghoon’s eyes widened. he scrunched his nose at the overwhelming stench. “did you have a seizure or something?"
you shook your head slowly.
“i was waiting for you to come home.”
you looked down at yourself again and shivered with visible revulsion.
“oh gosh… i’m so disgusting… you’re probably so disgusted with me. i’m so sorry—let me shower, and i’ll clean this all up.”
you walked toward the bathroom. sunghoon followed close behind, but you slammed the door in his face before he could do anything. the shower water turned on a second later.
“yn, i don’t understand how—” he started, voice raised above the noise of the water.
“i’ll clean it, baby,” you called back, voice sweet despite everything.
sunghoon stood right outside the door, shoulders slumped, forehead resting against the door.
“yn?”
“yeah?”
“...you love me, right?”
“yeah, a lot!”
he closed his eyes.
“...okay. so never do that again, hm?”
“do what? wait for you to come home?”
sunghoon rested his head fully against the door, voice tired.
“not that, baby. you can wait for me—but you know, you can also do things around the house.”
“okay, baby.”
a beat of silence.
“so uhm… what did you do today?”
“nothing, baby.”
another long pause. defeated and unsure, sunghoon finally spoke up again, “i’m going to jake’s house tonight.”
the shower water stopped. and everything went eerily quiet.
you sounded hurt when you replied. “okay.”
“so i, uh… i’m gonna go there, okay?”
“yup. i can get dressed after this.”
“that’s nice, baby, but uh… i think it’s just a band thing.”
“oh, i know ‘cause sieun was telling me she’s going.”
sunghoon frowned, taken aback. “sieun too? what, really?”
the bathroom door suddenly slammed open.
you stood there, drenched, wrapping only in a towel. hair dripping water onto the floor. your eyes were wide and intense.
“yeah. why? are you happy? excited? is that why you’re telling me not to go?” with every sentence, you walked towards him. your eyes were wide, and your skin was warm and flushed from the hot water. you tilted your head once harshly, it threatened to break.
sunghoon stepped back until his back met the wall, hands raised. “no, no, no, baby, no that’s not it—”
then, like a switch, you stood still, like normal, with an innocent look on your face. “but um, okay. if you want me to stay at home, i can stay at home, hoonie.”
now he was feeling overwhelmingly guilty. he didn’t know sieun, your bestfriend, was coming too—so now it just seemed like an overall big misunderstanding.
“no, it’s okay. i’m sorry—you should come.”
“mm, it’s fine. you can go without me.”
he started persuading you to go, but you kept insisting in that soft tone of yours—”i don’t want to bother you, i’ll just wait here like always,” “i don’t want to make you uncomfortable…”
sunghoon didn’t know what to do.
——
jake deadpanned sunghoon the moment he walked in with you clinging to his arm. sunghoon avoided his gaze. around the low table were two other guys from the band circle and sieun, who gave sunghoon a flirty little wave.
you and sunghoon sat together on the couch, your body pressed close to his. jake and haewon were sitting on single chairs across the table, and others just scattered around.
the group was playing “dare or drink”—a stack of cards with ridiculous and explicit dares.
one of the guys, jaemin, pulled a card and grinned.
“switch spots with whoever you want.”
“hell yeah,” he said immediately, eyes landing on you. “i wanna sit next to yn.”
your eyes widened slightly and you instantly looked over to sunghoon, pouting and pleading, “nooo…” and caught sunghoon’s hand as he got up, squeezing it lightly. “baby, i’ve showered…”
he gave your hand a gentle squeeze back. “it’s fine, babe.”
he stood up and moved to the only empty spot—right next to haewon.
jaemin happily took his place beside you. you looked visibly sad, like a kicked puppy with your eyebrows frowned inwards, scooting slightly from the other guy.
he laughed. “damn, sunghoon, what kinda spell you got on her?”
the group chuckled. sunghoon forced a smile but didn’t say anything.
it was now your turn. you pulled a card but didn’t read it out loud. instead, you stared at it for a long second before standing up and suddenly speaking in a soft, rambling voice—like you were telling a story no one asked for.
“my wish is to die like an angel, sinless… i don’t know what it is, and i don’t think i’m the only one. falling from the sky with wings made of glass, shattering beautifully so everyone can see who i really am inside. but i can’t. i can’t die like an angel, and i think i can’t die at all. i can’t die like an angel like i wanted to. i’m not an angel—i’m not—i don’t know. i just want to be something.”
the room went deathly quiet. whatever it was… hung heavy in the air—deeply unsettling in everyone’s ribs. jake blinked, swallowing the lump in his throat. haewon, too, blinking confusedly, her lips parting like she wanted to say something—but not sure what.
sieun made a face—a clear what the fuck….? expression—while the other two guys exchanged awkward glances, one of them muttering a quiet, “what…?”
sunghoon just stared at you, completely confused, mouth slightly open like haewon—wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words.
sieun finally broke the silence, raising an eyebrow. “uh… you good, babe?”
you blinked, sat down again, then smiled like nothing strange had happened at all.
“yeah. i’m perfect.”
haewon cleared her throat awkwardly. “um… okay, sunghoon—it’s your turn.”
sunghoon blinked, snapping out of it. “oh shit, okay.”
he reached forward and pulled a card. his face paled the moment he read it. he glanced at you—you were leaning forward with sweet anticipation, smiling brightly. then he looked at jake silently pleading.
“...kiss the person to your left.”
it was haewon.
“ooohs,” and “wows,” rippled through the group. sunghoon made eye contact with you again. your expression had gone completely dead—emotionless, empty. then, the corners of your mouth stretched downwards tightly while your eyes remained unblinking and wide.
then you stood up slowly. everyone’s eyes followed you.
you stood behind haewon’s folded chair for what felt like forever.
swiftly, you moved behind haewon’s chair and grabbed the back of it—dragged it backward with a loud, grating creak that echoed through the room. haewon’s eyes widened and she gripped the armrests for support and balance.
then you crouched right next to sunghoon’s chair, puckered your lips, and waited.
the whole room was shocked into silence.
sunghoon stared at you for a second. he hadn’t even planned to do the dare—he was going to drink instead. but the way you were looking at him now…
he leaned in and kissed you.
then, you looked at sunghoon with glassy eyes.
“no one on this earth will ever comprehend what it feels like to love someone as much as i love you,” you whispered against his lips.
you stood up abruptly and giggled, clapping your hands once like a child who’d just finished a performance.
“that was fun!”
jake looked almost hurt for a second, but then forced a smile. “um, okay… dare still count. who wants shots?”
a beat.
jaemin raised his hand. “i’ll take one.”
“god bless, thank you jaemin,” jake said, trying to keep the mood light.
“who else?”
you locked eyes with sunghoon. he looked rather uncomfortable. guilt suddenly washed over your face. your heart beat once, then twice, then thrice before something in you snapped.
you jolted violently, swiping the entire stack of cards off the table with one arm. before anyone could react, you grabbed the vodka bottle and smashed it hard against the edge of the table.
CRASH.
glass exploded everywhere. everyone jerked back in fear, chairs scraping loudly as people scrambled away. haewon nearly stumbled over her chair.
“it’s not me!” you screamed, voice cracking. “i’m not the devil!”
you kept smashing the broken bottle against the table, shards flying. sieun gasped aloud, but wasn’t able to do anything to stop you. sunghoon too, just watched in horror.
“help her! shit—sunghoon!”
“get her to the fucking hospital!”
then, in a frenzied motion, you lifted the sharp, broken vodka bottle and stabbed the jagged end into the side of your face.
the blunt glass failed to puncture deeply, but it still caused crazy damage—tearing open your cheek in a ragged, bloody gash. blood poured down your face instantly, dripping onto your pretty little dress (too pretty for a simple movie night) and onto the floor.
sobbing, you kept pressing it in, twisting it slightly. more blood spraying as the glass cut deeper into your skin.
“please—it’s not me!”
the room erupted into chaos—people standing up, chairs knocking over.
“yn, shit!”
sunghoon just stared at you from where he was sitting, almost… emotionless. almost. he blinked like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. his mind was racing—every moment, every strange behaviour, every time he’d ignored it all. he didn’t move.
he couldn’t.
you kept pressing the jagged glass into the side of your face for a few more terrifying seconds before you suddenly stopped. the broken bottle slipped from your bloody fingers and clattered to the floor.
your expression changed instantly. you blinked, looking around the room like you just woke up from a nightmare.
“oh… oh my gosh, i’m so sorry…”
you looked horrifying. blood poured freely down the left side of your face from the ragged rash on your cheek, staining your pretty dress. your hands were cut and bleeding from gripping the broken glass—and your eyes were wide and teary.
you chuckled awkwardly, nipping at the bottom of your lip as you darted your tongue to lick the blood around your lips.
everyone in the room was horrified. haewon had her hand over her mouth. sieun was colourless. the other guys were frozen. jake looked like he was about to be sick.
you tried to smile, voice shaky as you stood up, wiping your bloody hands on your skirt.
“okay, okay… i’m so sorry, guys. oh gosh, silly me,” you let out a weak laugh, tucking your hair behind your ear. “it was just a joke, um—i’m leaving. sorry, sorry…”
you started crying softly, tears mixing with the blood on your face.
then, you turned to sunghoon, voice small as you extended your arm out.
“come on, baby.”
everyone’s eyes snapped to him.
——
the hospital didn’t take you in.
the nurse had asked sunghoon to make a report and leave you there for treatment, but he refused. he didn’t want to leave you alone. not now, not like this, not ever.
so he drove home instead, your head nuzzling into his shoulder the entire ride, one of your hands tightly gripping his free arm like you were afraid he’d disappear.
back at his house, sunghoon sat at the dining table. the cut on your cheek had stopped bleeding but the parted flesh looked raw and ugly. it gave him chills how you were so unbothered by it.
he was about to stand up when you grabbed his hand.
“where are you going…?”
“just getting water, yn…”
you looked down on your lap, still holding his wrist. sunghoon stared at you for a long, heavy moment—contemplating, licking his dry lips wet.
“why did you do that?”
you finally looked up to him, eyes showing visible sadness, your eyebrows dropped. “...you and haewon were going to kiss…”
sunghoon sighed. he’d half–expected that’d be your answer. sighing, he ran his other hand along his face. “i wasn’t even going to do it,” he said, frustration creeping in. “i was going to drink—you… you scared everyone.”
swallowing the lump in your throat, your gave his wrist a gentle squeeze. “i don’t know why i did it…” you whispered.
sunghoon shook his head, sitting back down. “look at your face,” he said, voice softer but still strained.
“i’m sorry—i got scared…”
he reached out and gently wiped the dried blood from your cheek with his thumb. you leaned into his touch like a starved animal.
then, you added quietly, “sieun likes you too.”
sunghoon’s patience finally snapped. he frowned, and pulled his hand back, growing frustrated. why the fuck would it ever matter if sieun liked him?
“that’s… god, that’s—”
you looked up at him, confused, pulling your hand back. “what…?”
it all blew up.
“god, everything was fucking normal!” he burst out, voice cracking as he stood up. sunghoon turned around to face the wall, clear frustration, anger, disappointment, confusion—all displayed on his face.
“and now you’re so—you’re so—!”
sunghoon turned and stopped himself, seeing the way you flinched, eyes wide and shocked and teary.
“i’m sorry… i’m sorry,” he said quickly, voice breaking as he reached for you again. his hands were shaking as he held your cheeks, thumbs gently brushing away the tears.
“you’re normal,” he whispered, voice cracking. “you’re so normal, and you’re so beautiful and i love you so much but—oh god, yn, please don’t ever do that again.”
sunghoon’s eyes were glassy, filled with fear and guilt and love all at once.
“it’s not okay,” he murmured, shaking his head. “this isn’t okay.”
you looked up at him. he searched for your face desperately, still cupping your cheeks.
“do you… do you like me?”
“of course, hoonie. i love you—”
“no, no, no, no, no,” he cut you off, shaking your head frantically. his grip on you tightened a fraction. “do you like me? do you even like me?”
you tried to answer again. “i lov—”
sunghoon frowned—he almost pressed his thumbs into your flesh. “did yn like me?” he pressed, looking right into your eyes for answers. “is yn happy? did she like me?”
slowly, you cracked a smile, all teeth and almost like a grin.
“yeah.”
sunghoon let out a shaky breath, eyes filled with pain and confusion. “yeah… no, no, no, no…” he whispered, suddenly pulling away, standing up and walking away.
you stood up too, voice small and scared. “where are you going?”
“bathroom, yn,” he said almost quickly, not turning around. “can i even do that?”
you frowned, now looking frustrated. the obsessive mask cracking as it bled through like the blood from your cut fleshes. “well, can you tell me you love me?” you said, tone laced with something of annoyance and eagerness.
sunghoon stopped and turned around. his eyes were red, exhausted, and full of everything he’d been holding in.
“yn… this is all i’ve ever wanted.”
you tilted your head before stepping closer. “of course. i know that. this is all i’ve ever wanted too.”
sunghoon shook his head slowly, stepping back. “no… it’s not…”
you stepped forward, eyes wide and pleading. “yes it is. this is all i’ve ever wanted.”
“i want this to work so bad,” he murmured, pain clear in his voice as he rubbed his face.
“it can,” you said quickly, almost desperately as you stood before him. “of course it can.”
“no, it can’t.”
“yes it can.”
he ran a hand through his slightly sweaty hair, exhausted but not quite slowing down. sunghoon was borderline tearing up too out of frustration that you were just not getting it. “okay—so i’m gonna send you home and we’re gonna take some space—”
you immediately broke. your shoulders slumped like your soul just left you, like all the energy within had drained out. “noooo…” you started crying, then sobbing, then full–on wailing in a matter of seconds.
“i don’t want space! i don’t wanna be apart from you! tell me what i should do!”
sunghoon frowned, voice cracked with frustration as he stepped away. “just be normal! be normal, yn!”
you screamed through your tears, “i can be normal!”
“god, i just want you to be yn!”
“i can be yn!” you screamed back, voice breaking and sobbing as your shoulder trembled. you followed wherever he went. “i can be anything you want!”
“don’t say that.” sunghoon said quietly, obviously drained. he held your shoulders, pressing his thumbs into your flesh to keep you steady. “yn will never say that.”
“it’s true!” you insisted, tears screaming. you held onto the hem of his shirt like an upset child. “i’ll be anything!”
sunghoon looked completely exhausted, no emotion left on his face. he was quiet now, staring at the floor.
your lips parted when he didn’t look at you in the eyes.
“oh… i’m so sorry. i’m so sorry, baby.”
you dropped to your knees in front of him with a thud, wrapping your arms tightly around his leg, clinging desperately as you buried your face against his thigh. your tears wet the fabric.
“i can be yn… i can be yn… i’ll be whatever you want.” you murmured, kissing his thigh through his jeans.
“i’ll be sweet, and soft, and kind, caring… like yn… i’ll take care of you and we can cook and read together. i can be yn…” you continued, pressing your cheek into his flesh.
sunghoon slowly crouched to your level, cupping your cheeks so you were looking at him.
“i love you too…” he whispered, voice breaking.
sunghoon really did.
then something in you snapped.
your face went completely emotionless. your eyes were empty, and you weren’t smiling—and it was as if your tears just stopped trailing down your flushed cheeks. you stood up in one unnaturally smooth, but quick motion—moving backward toward the table with stiff, mechanical steps.
it didn’t look human.
sunghoon’s eyes widened in terror as he stumbled backwards against the desk, knocking things over.
“stop! stop—fuck, yn, stop!”
you stood still in the darkness of the room, body rigid. for a terrifying second, he couldn’t predict what was coming next—only hearing his own heavy, ragged breathing and loud thumping of his own heart beat in his chest.
sunghoon didn’t know what was coming—cause you lunged forward, running straight at him—
but you stopped yourself.
“i’m sorry,” you murmured.
a beat passed.
sunghoon was terrified, chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath.
“okay… god, okay. yn, i… i’m gonna step out. why don’t you… why don’t you take the bed, and i’ll just… i’ll just sleep somewhere else and i’ll come back in the morning before you’re even up.”
you stared at him for a long moment—sunghoon couldn’t see, but he could tell you were because of how heavy everything felt.
“okay.”
then you turned around and walked into the kitchen. a loud crashing sound echoed through the house—glass shattering, cabinets slamming, steel pans and pots clattering through the tiles.
sunghoon flinched, frozen in fear.
“yn?! what the fuck is happening? what are you doing?!”
the loud chaos went on for the next few seconds before it completely stopped. eerie silence. you came back out of the kitchen, still shrouded in shadow. your voice was calm, almost sweet, but the words were nothing but.
and you were holding a knife.
“well… if i have the bed all to myself tonight…” you tilted your head, voice distant and almost flat, like you were not in the same space as he was. “...you’re not going to touch me. so i’ll do it myself. over and over and over. i’ll keep going until there’s nothing left inside. until every piece of me is used and hollowed out. my hands will move long after they go numb—and my body will keep moving even when it stops feeling like mine. it won’t stop until it hurts, and i won’t stop until i’m empty. i’ll just keep pushing until the last little bit of me breaks,”
“...and then there’ll be nothing.”
the sharp blade of the knife in your hand glinted.
then you switched again.
“or you can stay!”
sunghoon’s eyes remained wide in terror as he gripped the carpet beneath him. trembling and shaking in fear, he let out a soft—
“...yeah.”
——
“do you love me?”
that was the 27th time you asked that night.
you were on top of him, riding him slow and deep, hips rolling in a rhythm. your arms were wrapped tightly around his neck, pulling him as close as physically possible. you wanted to intertwine the cages of your ribs with his’—if that was possible.
you couldn’t stop kissing him. kisses that tasted like salt from your tears and blood from your cut cheeks that didn’t want to leave your skin.
“do you love me?” you whispered against his lips for the 28th time that night.
sunghoon groaned softly, hands gripping your waist as you sank down onto him again, taking him to the hilt. despite everything—the fear, the confusion, the guilt, the violence—it felt so fucking good. too fucking good.
you’re perfect around him, warm and tight and desperately his.
“yeah…” sunghoon breathed, voice hoarse. “i love you.”
you smiled against his mouth, kissing him deeper, tongue sliding against his as you rode him harder. your hips moved with needy, possessive rolls, like you were trying to fuse your bodies together.
“i love you so much, hoonie,” you murmured between kisses, whispering the confession straight into his insides. “i love you so much like no one else can…”
sunghoon’s eyes stung, wet. a tear slipped down his cheek as the overwhelming mix of pleasure hit him. he loved you. he loved you so much. even like this, he still loved you.
you noticed the tears and slowed your movements, cupping his face with both smaller hands.
“why are you crying, baby?” you whispered sweetly, kissing the tear away. “i love you so much. i love you so much…”
you rode him again, slower this time, grinding down deep as you kissed him like the world was ending tomorrow. your bodies moved together in the dark of his room.
sunghoon held you tighter, burying his face in your neck as tears fell down your shoulder, along your collarbone, tits, and down.
he didn’t know what this was anymore.
and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know.
——
some hours later, after the sex and the clinging, sunghoon was awoken by the soft buzz of his phone.
slowly, quietly reaching for it and careful not to wake you up. the screen lit up.
sieun: can you meet me at the park?
sieun: i need to tell you something about yn.
at first, he quickly typed back with one hand.
sunghoon: i can’t.
sieun: please. it’s important.
sunghoon: text.
the bubble appeared, then disappeared.
siuen: if youre not cmg, then im cmg over
sieun: its about yn
he stared at the scene for a long second.
sunghoon: fuck. fine
he glanced at you—sleeping on his arm, naked beneath the blanket, looking as soft and calm as ever. slowly, very slowly, he moved your arm off his chest and slipped out of the bed. he put on his pants and shirt as quietly as possible.
sunghoon was just about to leave the bedroom when—
“sunghoon.”
he froze.
“i’m just getting water…” he whispered back, heart pounding. he didn’t want to deal with another breakdown.
there was a long pause. then your voice came again—different, smaller, quieter.
“sunghoon… kill me. please.”
he stopped dead in his tracks, ashamed and in disbelief as he stared at your unconscious, sleeping body.
“what?”
“shh… she’s sleeping. it’s me.”
despite the tremble in your voice, you were sleeping soundly.
“you are you, yn.”
“shh… please don’t wake her up.” your voice cracked, desperate. “just kill me.”
a beat of heavy silence.
sunghoon’s throat tightened as he glanced at the floor, before returning to your sleeping form. your hair covered your face, but even so, he knew your eyes were closed, and your mouth was shut.
“what would be so bad… about being with me?”
he could hear the tears in your voice.
“i’ve never been with you, sunghoon.”
a single tear slipped down your cheek.
“just kill me. please.”
sunghoon stood there, frozen. his heart shattered like it had never been before. without sparing you another glance, he turned and left the room.
behind him, your voice followed, weak and broken, repeating and chanting like a prayer—
“please… please… please… please… please…”
——
sunghoon got into her car, closing the door behind him.
“alright. so what about yn?”
sieun raised an eyebrow, unbuckling her seatbelt. “jeez, calm down… what’s up with her first? is she fine?”
sunghoon darted his eyes away, sighing. “nothing. she’s uh… she’s fine. she just wasn’t feeling well at the party.”
the girl gave him a look. a long one. full of suspicion and doubt. “she was about to kill herself.”
“i know,” sunghoon said quickly, trying not to recall the moment you stabbed yourself in the face with a vodka bottle. “but she’s fine now. she’s just going through something.”
the car fell quiet for a moment. sieun tapped her fingers on the steering wheel before she shifted in her seat.
“um, okay… well, first of all, i’m saying this as yn’s friend. and also your acquaintance, somehow.” she paused, raising an eyebrow, then continued. “i’d hate to see your hurt, and—oh, yn too, i guess. and i wouldn’t have done this if you guys weren’t together.”
sunghoon frowned. “yeah…?”
sieun took a deep breath, dropping her hands from the steering wheel and onto her lap where she played with the hem of her short skirt. “i promise yn i wouldn’t tell you this.”
“what are you on about?”
“well… yn and jake have been hooking up on and off like, three years ago—and they’ve stopped, but i’m not sure when. probably a year ago, or something. it’s chill. i don’t think it’s romantic. and i know jake’s your bestfriend and all, and i’m sure he stopped going after her because he knows you like her. i’m just saying this just so you know.”
sunghoon stared at her, stunned. his heart was beating as fast as it could. he never knew this. he never fucking knew you had a history—a fling—with his own bestfriend before.
the thought of jake fucking you the way sunghoon did was making his blood boil. the thought of you moaning jake’s name the way you did in his dream was making his skin crawl. the thought of the two of you sharing a kiss—the same lips sunghoon kissed every night—was making him… repulsed.
“what the fuck…?”
“yeah,” sieun said softly. “i just… i don’t know if she’s told you that, so i felt like i had to.” she said, still playing with the fabric. “you couldn’t imagine what it’s like being me, and having to be in a room with jake, you, and yn all together.”
the mood in the car shifted. sieun leaned a little closer, her voice dropping into something more… slicky.
“i just think you deserve someone more… outgoing. or something. like, chill…”
sunghoon looked at her and swallowed the lump in his throat. distracted, his hands landed on the way her fingers were moving around the skirt.
he parted his mouth to say something when—
CRASH.
the driver–side window shattered violently.
glass exploded inward as you ran head–first into it like a battering ram. before sieun could even scream, you wedged a brick against the steering wheel, grabbed a fistful of her hair—so tight it threatened to rip off her scalp—, and slammed her face down hard against the brick.
HONK!
the horn blared with every slam..
you didn’t stop.
you yanked sieun’s head back by the hair and smashed her face into the brick again.
HONK!
blood sprayed across the dashboard and onto sunghoon’s face. sieun’s nose crunched on impact, splitting open. her cheek tore wide open, teeth falling down on her lap.
HONK!
more blood poured from her broken nose and split lip. her cheekbone cracked with a wet sound. one of her teeth flew out, clattering against the windshield.
HONK!
you were relentless, animalistic. your face was covered by your hair, unfiltered rage as you kept yanking her head back by the hair and driving it down over and over and over again.
HONK! HONK! HONK!
it was a bloodbath inside. on the seats, the roof, the windows, sunghoon. her face was unrecognisable, swollen, and mangled, one eye swelling shut, the other was exposing her eyeball. she was gurgling, choking on her own blood,
dead.
nothing to the name anymore.
playgirl’s just lost the lead singer.
sunghoon sat frozen in the passenger seat, paralysed by shock and terror. his body wouldn’t move, not a centimeter. his mouth hung open in silence as he watched you—the girl he loved—violently smashing her bestfriend’s face with raw force.
he could only stare.
HONK!
with one last slam, you let go of sieun’s chunk of hair that you’d pulled out. her body slumped lifelessly against the seat, head tilting back. warm blood poured from her face, dripping down.
sunghoon stared. smoke from the broken horn lingered in the air like a ghost. he was paralysed—eyes widened, body frozen in horror.
you finally sighed, lifting your head up to face him with a bright, almost cheerful smile, blood smeared across your cheek and hands.
“oh—oh gosh! i’m sorry you had to see that, baby!”
you moved your hair out of your face, still smiling.
“my heart took a path i never chose… but just know you wanted this. this is all your fault. this is what you’ve wished for.”
sunghoon’s face was pale, mouth slightly open but nothing came out. upon his terrified reaction, your heart broke and the smile was instantly wiped off your face, replaced with a concerned look.
“oh, no no no no no—” you rushed to his side, opening the passenger door. you cupped his face with your bloody hands, wiping the sweat and specks of blood from his skin. “breathe, baby, breathe,” you said, taking deep breaths.
“it’s okay. i’ve got you. that’s all that matters… you’re fine, baby. i’m soooo sorry for the drama, but this is your fault. sieun’s your fault.”
you pulled him into a tight hug, pressing your blood stained cheeks against his chest.
“and you’re gonna have to help me get rid of her body, okay?”
sunghoon shook his head frantically. “no… no no no—”
“yes, baby. you’re gonna help me.”
“no, no, no—” he groaned, voice breaking.
you pulled back, still holding his face gently, eyes soft but insistent.
“baby, i forgive you and i won’t hold it against you. but we have to get rid of her, okay? now shake your head yes.”
he shook his head again, tears welling up.
you smiled patiently. “yes. yes. yes, baby.”
he kept shaking his head.
“nod your head yes.”
realizing he had no choice, sunghoon finally nodded, tears slipping down his cheeks.
——
sunghoon helped you move sieun’s body into the trunk of your car. you kissed him softly on the lips before saying you’d take it from here.
he drove back to his house but couldn’t bring himself to go inside. the fear was too heavy even though he knew you weren’t inside. the thought of being in his house by himself, waiting for you to come back was too much.
so instead, he drove until he reached crystal cove.
it was barely 8 in the morning when he barged in, the bell above the door ringing violently. he went straight to the shelf where he’d found the one wish willow—
it wasn’t there.
“what the fuck…”
out of breath, sunghoon rummaged through the other display boxes, panicking—if it was all just his imagination. when he couldn’t find it, he stormed to the cashier, voice shaking.
“where is it? where’s the one wish willow?”
“what?”
sunghoon’s eyes twitched. “the one wish willow! it’s—it’s a white box with a twig that you can only wish for one thing!”
the cashier, with a cup of coffee in hand, raised an eyebrow, clicking his tongue.
“hey, look—you gotta chill… it like 7AM. what’s with the vibes you’re giving off?”
sunghoon was frantic, he looked around the shop for it. “come on, one wish willow! please, please—”
he stared at the bloodied guy like he was crazy. “...what? are you okay?”
sunghoon’s heart dropped. “what…?”
was it because of the blood on his shirt that nobody was taking him seriously? or was it because there was no such thing as one wish willow in the first place?
he was in disbelief.
“no, no, no—don’t fuck with me. you guys had those!”
the cashier looked at him weirdly for a second—before chuckling like it’s the funniest fucking thing ever.
“chill out, jeez… i’m just messing with you. we moved them here.” he pointed right at the counter, where a small display now sat.
sunghoon frowned, wanting to flip the cashier off but decided there was more important matter now. he grabbed the remaining one wish willow box from the display.
“how can you fucking sell this to people?!”
the cashier shrugged, sighing. “look. we just sell what the boss wants us to sell. now if you can’t chill out and wipe that theatre blood off your face, i’m not gonna scan those for you.”
sunghoon snapped out of his rage for a second, realising how crazy and unhinged he sounded. he let out a deep breath and rubbed his face with one hand, on the verge of another round of tears and break down.
“sorry… fuck, i’m so sorry. oh god…”
the cashier’s expression softened a little when sunghoon calmed down, then he glanced at the boxes, and realisation kicked in.
“... what did you do?”
sunghoon couldn’t speak. the words wouldn’t come.
the cashier sighed. “oh well. that’s just how it is.”
sunghoon’s voice cracked as he put the boxes on the counter. “help me reverse it.”
he shook his head. “nope. already used mine.”
“please, please, please—”
sunghoon was begging at this point.
“nooo, you know that’s not how it works. it’s one wish for a reason! the box is full of warnings—did you read the instruction paper?”
“instru—dude, please, please—”
“nope. you know what you were wishing for.”
“i didn’t—”
“no.” the cashier said firmly, now looking at sunghoon straight into his eyes. “you do. there’s no way to undo, or break the wish unless you kill youself—”
sunghoon’s eyes widened, he froze.
“—unless you kill youself, or have someone else reverse it.”
“k—kill… myself?”
the cashier nodded, drumming his fingers against the countertop. “yeah. that’s usually the easy way people do it. i’ve dealt with unsatisfied customers like you all the time for the same reason. it’s too much of a hassle to explain it to others, so they just kill themselves.”
sunghoon remained frozen, swallowing the lump in his throat. his hands shook around the box. the weight of his mistake finally came crushing down on him when he realised just how heavy the consequences were.
noticing sunghoon’s reaction, the cashier sighed, rubbing his head.
“just have someone undo it for you. that’s probably the best option you got here—since,” he lifted an eyebrow, seeing sunghoon in a state of shock.
“...you don’t wanna kill yourself.”
the cashier scanned all the one wish willows for sunghoon.
——
sunghoon knocked on jake’s door—loud, frantic, over and over until jake finally opened it, looking confused.
“hey, what’s up? you almost knocked my door over.”
sunghoon ignored it and pushed past him into the house. jake closed the door behind. the friend wanted to ask about the stain and blood on sunghoon’s shirt, but didn’t get the chance to when sunghoon began.
“is haewon here?”
jake frowned at his friend’s urgency before shaking his head. “no… she left cause she wanted to check up on yn…”
“what—?! fuck, uhm, okay, listen to me first. listen to me well. you know—you know how yn started acting all weird and liking me all of a sudden?”
jake nodded slowly, still confused. “...yeah?”
sunghoon pulled out one of the one wish willow boxes from his pocket and held it in front of jake with shaky fingers.
“it’s ‘cause… it’s ‘cause i made a wish. i made a wish—and i broke this twig and at first i was confused as hell but it’s real!”
jake frowned, staring back and forth between sunghoon and the box. “what…?”
“no, it’s real!” sunghoon insisted, voice shaking. “you can make a wish, but just one! just one… and it’ll work. i wished yn loved me, and i didn’t think it was gonna work but it worked and it’s why she’s acting insane all of a sudden!”
sunghoon’s voice cracked. “you don’t even recognise her anymore.”
a beat.
jake took it all in, quiet for a long moment. then he looked at sunghoon with wide, stunned eyes.
“...you made a wish… on yn?”
sunghoon looked down on the box in his hands. “...yeah.”
jake was shocked, almost disgusted. it felt as if he didn’t know who was standing before him. “why the fuck would you do that… why the fuck would you wish something like that on her?”
“because i fucking like her, jake!” sunghoon exploded. “i fucking like her and you know it and you would’ve done the same too if you had this! and—and i know you guys have been fucking!”
jake’s face hardened. “what the fuck? that’s none of your business! and for the record, you know i liked yn first. you fucking know it but you decided to like her too and i’m too kind of a friend to give that to you!”
he snapped, heart pounding. jake’s never fought with sunghoon this bad, ever.
quietly, like a murmur, he continued, “and no, i’m not that big of an asshole to wish something like this.”
sunghoon scoffed, bitter. “sure. right. ‘cause you’re yn’s most perfect guy that she loves. because you’ve been with her since childhood—so naturally, you guys are meant to be together? is that it?.”
the tension in the room was suffocating.
not being able to stand jake anymore, sunghoon swallowed the lump in his throat before storming away from the house, slamming the door behind him loudly.
——
“...yn…?”
the house was dark except for the slivers of sunlight cutting through the curtains and the candles flickering across the house. the air smelled like wax, and heavy with metal.
you were nowhere to be found.
but on the coffee table was a memorial, or at least what looked like it—photos of sieun, locks of her hair, her eyeball that threatened to roll out of the skull, her id, and her belongings from the car.
there was also stuff of haewon’s, arranged carefully with flowers and little trinkets. it looked like a shrine too.
next to the table, on the tv—played clips of sunghoon sleeping, with you recording and appearing every now and then.
sunghoon’s stomach dropped. “yn…?”
“i’m right here, baby.”
you stepped out from behind him.
you were wearing sieun’s clothes—a short denim skirt, boots, and a tight tank top. your hair was cut shorter, choppy, and you’d stabbed a nose piercing through your nostril. blood still trickled down from the fresh wound.
you smiled at him sweetly.
“do you like me better now?”
sunghoon was stunned, shocked into silence. his mouth opened, but no words came out. he couldn’t get his eyes off you.
“...yn… yn, i need you to do something for me… okay?”
you tilted your head, eyes wide and glassy. even after all these, you still weren’t enough for him.
“why can’t you just love me? why don’t you love me?”
you started hitting yourself—hard, open–palmed slaps against your own face until sieun’s rings and bracelets split your cheek open, fresh blood running down.
“i just want you to love me!”
“stop! stop!”
you stopped, standing still. sunghoon stumbled backwards, backing away slowly, terrified. you stepped closer, voice dropping obsessively, hungrily, and almost sweetly inhumane.
“gosh, i want to eat you up… i want to be with you,” you licked your lips, tilting your head as you followed him. “i want you to love me… i love you more than anyone else in this world…”
sunghoon’s breath hitched.
outside, a loud knocking started on the door.
jake’s voice came through, urgent.
“dude, i’m sorry! i’m so sorry—tell me again what’s happening and let’s fix it! can we still save her?!”
sunghoon’s eyes widened. he fell back onto the couch, mouth open like he wanted to scream at jake not to come in—but he couldn’t bring himself to. the words died in his throat as he’s forced to look at you.
you straddled his lap, eyes wild and unhinged. the screaming outside grew louder as jake kept banging on the door.
“hoon—i’m coming in! shit, i’m coming in!”
you pressed the tip of the knife you’d been holding right in front of your left eyes, smiling with pure psychotic glee as blood trailed out of your mouth.
“i’ll kill myself, hoonie! i’ll fucking kill myself right in front of you!”
the horror in sunghoon’s face was pure. his body was shaking as he stared at the blade hovering too dangerously close to your eye.
right at that moment, you turned with crazy speed and hurled the knife toward the door.
THUD.
the blade sank deep right into jake’s chest the second he forced the door open. he stumbled back, eyes wide with shock as blood instantly soaked his shirt. he collapsed, back hitting the door shut.
dead, before he even hit the ground.
almost instantly, you turned back to sunghoon, fisted the collar of his shirt before screaming—
“i’ll rip my fucking eyes out of my skull and shove them up my fucking cunt, hoonie!”
you vomited stomach acid right at his face. sunghoon flinched, shutting his eyes as the warm, burning liquid slid down his skin.
he was trembling, broken, unsure what to do or what was real anymore, but the words still came out soft and full of the love that had ruined everything.
“i love you. i love you, yn. i love you.”
you screamed at him, eyes wild. “scream it!”
“i love you! i love you, yn!”
like a flick of a wrist, you fell on top of him, sighing contentedly as you rubbed your cheek against his chest. your voice dropped into that sickly sweet tone again.
“i know… i know. i love you too, baby. you owe me that. you owe me that.”
sunghoon’s voice was hoarse and dry as he lifted his arms to wrap them around your frail body. “we can… we can work this out.”
his hand came upon your head, brushing your hair.
“mmhm. mmhm. i’m sorry for the drama… ugh, i don’t know why i do that. i know you love me. i’m gonna stop on the mollies…”
he nodded slowly, still in shock. if you could feel, or hear his heartbeat—you didn’t comment.
you nuzzled closer, kissing his jaw. “i’m such a mess… i’ll be pretty again, i promise."
“no, no,” he whispered, holding you tight as he planted a kiss on top of your head. “you’re gorgeous, baby. i love you so much. i love you.”
“i’m sorry—”
“you’re beautiful. my beautiful girl.”
you smiled against his neck, all soft and loving.
“i love you so much. more than anyone else in this world.”
he knew that.
sunghoon closed his eyes and looked up, tears slipping down his cheeks. he’s fucked up. he’s fucked up like no one else ever did before. he’d ruined you—an angel, the sweetest girl anyone’s ever met. he’d turned you into a version of yourself not even your parents could recognise—admit it was theirs.
a version not even you, would know.
“let’s take a shower. let’s take a shower, okay? freshen ourselves up.”
you hummed happily. “mmhm.”
——
“open up! open this fucking door, hoonie!”
you were yelling and slamming on the door like manic, voice shifting from wild rage and sickly sweet.
“baby, please… i’m sorry, i’m so sorry—did i scare you? just open the door. i love you. i love you so much. don’t leave me! don’t you dare leave me—!”
“let me in, bitch! fuck you, fuck you!”
“oh shit—just a second, baby! just a second!” he screamed back.
“okay, just a second. thank you!”
sunghoon stood in front of the sink, staring back at himself in the mirror. his face was bloodied—did some belong to him? some yours, some sieun’s. he’d like to think jake’s and haewon’s were there too.
his eyes were empty. he couldn’t cry if he wanted to. there was just nothing left.
he touched the onyx necklace you had given him, the stone cold—meant for protection and grounding, felt meaningless in his hand.
“baby?”
a beat.
“i thought about what you said, and maybe you were right… we need some time apart for us…”
sunghoon opened the cabinet with shaking hands and pulled out a razor. he held it to his wrist, then his throat, then his neck—aiming for the spot that would it fast.
his hand trembled as he pushed the blade deeper into his skin, not yet puncturing, but making a dent.
he couldn’t do it.
“if space is what you need—then sure, okay, we can take some space.”
sunghoon pulled away with a deep breath, shaking his head and tossing the razor aside. he rubbed his face and pressed the heels of his palms deep into his eyes—praying this was all some sick nightmare that was about to end.
and then he’d wake up, and everything will be fine. you’ll invite him over for a movie night where he would come in bringing popcorn and drinks. and he’ll confess—tell you everything he’s been keeping to himself.
just like the way he rehearsed it.
“i’m really sorry for scaring you, hoonie. i just—i just love you but i want to respect your decision.”
instead, sunghoon opened the cabinet again and found the old bottle of insect poison pellets—the same ones that had killed kibbles.
he sat on the toilet, staring at the bottle for a long moment. he knew there was no turning back. he poured one pellet into his palm, then put it in his mouth and swallowed it.
not convinced enough, he dumped the rest of the bottle straight into his mouth and forced them all down, choking them dry.
“hoonie…? baby, please open the door…”
sunghoon got off the toilet and rested his forehead against the door, when he knew you were standing and waiting for him on the other side of the door.
he spoke softly, exhausted.
“um, yn… i… i’m really sorry.”
he swallowed hard, eyes closed.
“i’ve liked you for so long. so fucking long. i just… i couldn’t find the courage to confess. i thought you didn’t like me back and i was scared of losing you,” sunghoon said, the tip of his nose brushing against the hard wood.
“and now… now this is happening and there’s nothing i can do to fix it. i just like you so much. i love you so much.”
a beat of silence.
it felt like hours passed in a matter of seconds.
then a whisper, barely audible through the door—
“she likes you too.”
sunghoon’s eyes snapped open.
“what?”
before something shifted.
a spark ignited within him. the world snapped back into focus as the heavy fog that clouded everything lifted.
his eyes widened. he stared at the bathroom door like it was the first time he was seeing it. slowly, sunghoon opened the door and walked out.
you were standing across from him, smiling shyly at him, a little nervous, a little hopeful. your hands are clasped in front of you. all sweet and innocent girlfriend.
he smiled back.
the two of you laughed together.
it was romantic when he approached you. sunghoon leaned in and kissed you passionately, hands cupping your face. his lips moved against yours with all the love and longing he had. on your tiptoes, you cupped his cheeks as well and with a soft flick of his tongue, you parted your lips partly and he wasted no time slipping his tongue in, overlapping and dancing your own.
“i love you,”
when sunghoon pulled back slightly, his face was covered in blood from your wound, but neither of you cared.
then suddenly, his knees buckled.
sunghoon collapsed—but you caught him, lowering him onto the sofa on your lap. pure panic flooding your face as you cradled his cheeks, hands trembling.
“baby… babe… oh gosh, don’t leave me alone—what did you do? oh gosh, baby no!”
your voice cracked, high and desperate, as you searched his face for anything. his eyelids fluttered, skin already turning clammy. you could feel his warmness fading beneath your palms.
“no, no, no—stay with me. stay with me, baby,” you whispered, pressing frantic kisses to his forehead, his temples, his lips. tears streamed down your cheeks, mixing with the blood still drying on your hands. “you can’t leave me. i love you more than anything. i did everything for you… everything. don’t you dare go. i won’t let you.”
you wailed, hugging his head tightly to your chest, rocking him back and forth. you stroked his hair while the other clutched his shirt, fingers digging into the fabric as if that could hold his soul down.
sobs wrecked your entire body as you buried your face in his hair, breathing in his scent. his breathing was growing weaker and shallower—white foam of saliva began forming to the corner of his mouth as his body went limp.
"i love you... i love you so much, hoonie, please—"
his body gave one final, weak shudder in your arms.
then everything went still.
for a heartbeat, the room was silent except for your ragged breathing.
the moment his heart stopped beating, you snapped back.
your eyes widened in horror—followed by a blood-curdling scream ripped from your throat as you shoved yourself backward, letting sunghoon's limp body fall onto the bloodied floor with a dull thud.
you stared at your bloodstained hands first—they were coated in sticky crimson that you could probably never remove no matter how many times you washed your hands. then your gaze darted around the room, confused, panicked, scared.
jake's body slumped by the door, eyes still open.
the memorial of haewon's and sieun's on the table.
and... sunghoon's motionless on the floor when you'd pushed him off you.
the wish shattered, and reality crashed over you like ice water.
"no... no, no, no—"
you scrambled onto the sofa, pulling your legs up and hugging your knees tightly to your chest. your sobs came harder and harder, violent, whole body shaking as you rocked back and forth.
tears poured down your face as you buried it between your knees, screaming and sobbing louder. the weight of every horrible thing you had done—despite being only a witness hit you at once.
SUMMARY: After your parents' divorce, your mother's greatest concern isn't healing—it's appearances. Her new boyfriend is everything right: respectable, charming, and endlessly courteous. Unfortunately, behind immaculate manners and polished smiles, some forms of devotion are far more dangerous than open cruelty.
CW: RAPE/NON-CON, parental problems (both maternal and paternal), lack of attention, personal coding, abandonment, manipulation, jealousy, sexual assault, explicit content.
WC: 10.4 K
The house had a way of becoming almost invisible in the afternoons.
Sunlight poured through the tall windows in long ribbons of gold, warming polished wooden floors and shelves lined with books that had long since become more familiar than most people, while somewhere outside a fountain murmured steadily beneath the shade of old trees, its rhythm blending with the occasional rustle of leaves carried by the breeze. Nothing demanded attention here, and nothing hurried.
You preferred it that way.
Curled into the corner of the sitting room sofa with one leg tucked beneath you, you held an aging copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray. A chipped ceramic mug rested on the table beside you, forgotten long enough for the tea inside to grow cold, while your eyes lingered on the same paragraph for several minutes.
To define is to limit.
You smiled faintly. Oscar Wilde always sounded as though he were arguing with the world.
The front door opened. Even before the sound of heels echoed across the marble floor, you knew your mother had returned.
She never simply entered a room. She arrived.
Her perfume preceded her by several seconds—something floral and expensive that lingered like a carefully rehearsed first impression—and when she appeared in the doorway, she looked untouched by the outside world. Every strand of honey-blonde hair remained precisely where it belonged, her ivory blouse showed not a single crease beneath the tailored camel coat draped elegantly over her shoulders, her lipstick was subtle enough to appear effortless despite the twenty minutes it had undoubtedly taken to perfect, and her freshly manicured nails caught the afternoon light as she removed her gloves.
For a brief moment, neither of you spoke.
She stood framed by the doorway, polished down to the smallest detail, while you remained curled beneath the window in an oversized sweater several winters too old to be fashionable. Your hair had long since surrendered, escaping the pencil that barely held it together, and the afternoon sunlight painted you not with elegance but with an almost careless softness.
You had inherited your mother's features. The same eyes, the same mouth, the same graceful lines that made strangers glance twice and yet, the resemblance ended there.
She treated beauty as something to be maintained. You treated it as something that happened, or didn't, with little consequence either way.
Looking at the two of you felt less like looking at a mother and daughter than at two women who had learned entirely different definitions of what it meant to exist in the world.
Her eyes found you. Then the oversized sweater. The loose cotton trousers. The socks that didn't match. The pencil holding your hair in a carelessly assembled knot. She sighed.
"You truly have a remarkable talent for looking like you've survived a shipwreck."
You glanced down at yourself. "I thought I looked comfortable?"
"Comfortable," she repeated, as though tasting the word and finding it disappointing. "Comfort has become terribly fashionable lately."
She crossed the room without waiting for an answer, adjusting a vase by less than an inch before straightening a picture frame that had never been crooked to begin with. You watched her in silence.
She could never enter a room without changing something. A cushion. A curtain. A vase. If everything already appeared perfect, she simply searched harder until she found an imperfection no one else had noticed. You, on the other hand, had always believed a room should look lived in. She believed it should look admired.
"Presentation matters," she continued absentmindedly. "People notice these things."
"I've noticed."
"No, darling." She smiled patiently. "You don't." Silence settled between you for only a moment before she opened her handbag and began searching through its contents with meticulous precision. "I met Baelor for lunch."
The name meant little for you. Baelor, you remembered, was the name of your mother's new romantic conquest—as you liked to call him. Another replacement for your dad's position, a position no one would ever truly fill.
You hummed politely.
"He's looking forward to meeting you."
That finally drew your attention away from the book. "Oh?"
"This Saturday."
She withdrew a hardcover volume from her bag and placed it gently onto your lap.
The title gleamed in gold lettering.
Modern Etiquette for Formal Society.
You blinked. "...Seriously?"
"Entirely."
You turned the book over. "It teaches table etiquette, conversational decorum, introductions, proper posture, the correct use of silverware" She counted each topic on perfectly manicured fingers. "Everything you'll need."
"I know how to eat."
"You know how to consume food." She smiled again. "There is a difference."
You laughed quietly. She did not.
"There will only be Baelor and his sons," she said, her tone softening just enough to disguise, though never quite conceal, the calculation beneath it. "I'd appreciate not being embarrassed."
You looked at her for a long moment. The words lingered in the room. Not I'd like you to make a good impression. Not I hope you like him. Only that.
Don't embarrass me.
Sometimes you wondered whether your mother had ever realized how often she spoke about appearances without mentioning feelings even once.
"Are you introducing me to your boyfriend—" You lifted the heavy book slightly. "or applying for admission into a royal court?"
"If you knew the difference," she replied smoothly, "I wouldn't have needed to buy the book."
You looked down at the book resting across your lap without opening it again.
Your mother was already moving through the sitting room once more, adjusting the folds of a curtain that didn't need straightening, aligning a decorative bowl by barely half an inch, polishing a fingerprint from the polished surface of a side table with the edge of her sleeve.
She couldn't walk past disorder without correcting it, even when the disorder was imaginary.
You watched her in silence.
It occurred to you that she never seemed tired of perfecting surfaces. Every gesture she made was directed outward, toward the version of life other people would eventually witness.
She never asked what book you had been reading. She never noticed the tea had gone cold. She never wondered why you preferred quiet afternoons to crowded dinners.
Somewhere along the way, the distance between the two of you had stopped feeling like something either of you intended to cross.
She adjusted one final picture frame, smiled with quiet satisfaction at a room that had looked exactly the same five minutes earlier, and reached for her handbag.
"Saturday," she reminded you without turning around. "Please don't make me regret introducing you."
The front door closed softly behind her.
The house returned to its familiar silence.
You remained on the sofa for several moments, listening to the fading sound of her heels until it disappeared completely, before lowering your gaze once more to the forgotten page in your lap.
—
Saturday belonged entirely to your mother.
You realized it the moment she swept open your bedroom curtains without asking, flooding the room with pale morning light before laying a garment bag across the foot of your bed.
"We're leaving in twenty minutes."
You blinked sleepily from beneath the blankets. "For what?"
She looked at you as though the answer should have been obvious. "Preparation." She pronounced the word with the solemnity another person might have reserved for surgery. "You aren't meeting Baelor looking like..." Her gaze traveled over your oversized sleep shirt, your tangled hair and the novel lying face-down beside your pillow. "...yourself."
You couldn't help smiling.
"I thought that was exactly who he was supposed to meet."
Your mother's expression barely shifted. "Not the first time."
—
The salon smelled of jasmine, hairspray and freshly brewed espresso, while women drifted gracefully between mirrors discussing charity galas, upcoming holidays and social engagements beneath the soft strains of classical music that floated almost unnoticed through the room.
Your mother belonged there effortlessly. She greeted the receptionists by name, kissed one of the stylists on the cheek and accepted a cappuccino before anyone had even asked whether she wanted one.
You, meanwhile, settled awkwardly into an oversized leather chair with your backpack resting between your feet, feeling as though someone had accidentally invited a university student into a room designed exclusively for women who never appeared to have an untidy day in their lives.
Within minutes, strangers surrounded you. Your hair was brushed until every knot disappeared before long sections were lifted, examined beneath bright lights and discussed over your head as though you weren't sitting there at all.
"It has beautiful texture."
"It only needs shape."
"A little movement."
"No," your mother corrected gently. "Elegance."
You watched your reflection while another stylist carefully curled the ends of your hair, realizing with quiet discomfort that you barely recognized the girl in the mirror already.
The manicure came next.
The technician smiled warmly as she took your hands into hers. "You don't usually have your nails done."
"No."
"They're lovely."
"They're practical," your mother corrected before you could answer. "There's a difference."
The woman laughed politely.
You lowered your gaze while the file moved rhythmically across your nails, surprised by how something so insignificant could make even your own hands begin to feel unfamiliar.
—
Boutiques proved even more exhausting.
Dress after dress disappeared beneath your mother's unwavering scrutiny.
"Too casual."
"Too youthful."
"Too loud."
"Too plain."
Sales assistants hurried between racks while you obediently stepped in and out of changing rooms until the fabrics, colors and silhouettes blurred together into a single expensive haze.
Eventually one of them returned carrying a midnight-blue dress whose elegance came not from embellishment but from restraint. There was no glitter, no embroidery, nothing that openly demanded attention. It possessed the quiet confidence of something that never needed to ask to be admired.
Your mother smiled the instant you stepped out wearing it. "There you are."
You turned toward the mirror. It fit perfectly. For reasons you couldn't explain, that only made you feel worse.
—
By the time the afternoon ended, shopping bags occupied nearly every available space inside the car. Shoes, jewelry, a silk scarf and a small evening clutch lay carefully arranged across the back seat while your mother drove home wearing the quiet satisfaction of an artist admiring a masterpiece nearing completion.
"You'll make an excellent impression."
You rested your forehead against the cool glass of the passenger window. "I wasn't aware making an impression was my responsibility."
"It always is."
—
The house felt unnaturally quiet by the time evening settled over it.
The dress waited outside your wardrobe. The jewelry remained inside its velvet case. The shoes sat perfectly aligned beneath the bed, every detail prepared with the meticulous precision your mother considered indispensable.
One piece at a time, you dressed.
The fabric settled comfortably across your shoulders, the necklace rested lightly against your collarbone and the earrings caught the light with the smallest movement. Only when everything was finally in place did you step before the mirror.
You stopped.
The young woman reflected in the glass was undeniably beautiful. Her hair fell in soft waves instead of the untidy bun you wore almost every day, while makeup so subtle it was nearly invisible brightened her eyes, softened every feature and erased the quiet university student who spent afternoons reading novels beside forgotten cups of cold tea.
She looked graceful. Elegant. Refined. Exactly the sort of young woman your mother wanted the world to admire.
You continued staring. Five seconds. Ten. Twenty. Searching for something unmistakably yours.
The thoughtful expression that always appeared when you reached an interesting paragraph. The quiet awkwardness you had never felt the need to hide. The girl who forgot to match her socks because she had become distracted by a book.
She wasn't there.
For one impossible moment, it felt as though someone had borrowed your face and learned to wear it better than you ever had.
A gentle knock broke the silence. "Darling?" your mother's voice called through the door. "Baelor will be expecting us."
You didn't answer immediately. Your eyes remained fixed on the stranger standing inside the mirror.
When you finally spoke, your voice sounded oddly distant. "I'm coming."
The woman reflected in the glass moved exactly when you did, and you weren't entirely convinced she was you.
—
The drive unfolded beneath a sky slowly surrendering to dusk, where the last traces of sunlight dissolved into long ribbons of amber reflected across rain-darkened streets. Beyond the windows, the city continued with its ordinary rhythm. People hurrying home, cafés beginning to fill, traffic lights blinking patiently at crowded intersections, but inside the car there existed only your mother's voice.
She spoke almost without interruption, moving effortlessly from one subject to another as though rehearsing a speech she had delivered countless times before.
Baelor's career, his impeccable reputation, the elegance of his home, the charity foundation he chaired, the respect his family commanded; every detail seemed carefully selected, polished until it gleamed, another stone laid upon the immaculate image she had spent months constructing around her new life.
Listening to her, one could almost forget that only a year earlier she had been speaking about your father with the very same certainty, with a love that you still kept like an arcane relic inside you, but he had vanished from the face of her psyche like the wind does with the sand.
You answered when necessary, though most of the time a nod seemed sufficient. Silence had always come more naturally to you than conversation, and your mother had long ago mistaken that quietness for agreement.
Every few minutes she glanced sideways, not to ask whether you were nervous or excited, but to inspect the work that had occupied her entire afternoon. She straightened an invisible fold near your shoulder, smoothed the fabric gathered over your knees and frowned when she noticed the faintest imperfection in your lipstick.
"You've smudged it."
Instinctively you rubbed your thumb against the corner of your mouth.
"No, darling." She sighed with patient resignation before retrieving a neatly folded handkerchief from her handbag. Leaning across the console, she corrected it herself with delicate, practiced movements, then leaned back to admire the result. "There. Perfect."
For a brief moment you wondered whether she had ever looked at your face that carefully after you had cried the night she and dad separated.
—
Baelor's residence stood beyond imposing wrought-iron gates framed by ancient oaks whose branches intertwined above the driveway like the vaulted ceiling of an old cathedral. It was undeniably grand, yet possessed none of the ostentation displayed by people who felt compelled to advertise their fortune. This was quieter wealth, older wealth, the kind that had ceased needing to impress because everyone already knew it existed. Warm light spilled from tall windows onto perfectly maintained gardens where marble statues rested among trimmed hedges, and somewhere beyond them the gentle murmur of a fountain drifted through the evening air.
Your mother drew a slow, almost imperceptible breath before stepping from the car. Had anyone else been watching, they would never have noticed. You did.
The front door opened before either of you reached it.
Baelor himself descended the steps to greet you.
He was taller than you had imagined, broad-shouldered without appearing imposing, dressed in a charcoal suit that fit him with effortless precision. Everything about him projected understated refinement, from the silver watch resting beneath his cuff to the warmth with which he smiled the instant he saw your mother. There was nothing performative about his manners; they seemed so deeply woven into him that courtesy had become instinct rather than performance.
"There you are."
His voice possessed the calm confidence of someone accustomed to making other people feel welcome. He kissed your mother's cheek first, greeting her with easy familiarity before turning toward you. The expression on his face softened almost imperceptibly.
"So this is the famous daughter."
The words themselves were harmless. Perfectly polite. Something about them unsettled you before you could explain why. Perhaps it was the quiet amusement in his voice, perhaps it was the strange certainty with which he said them, as though he had heard enough stories to feel he already knew you.
Your mother rested a light hand against the middle of your back. "My daughter."
You extended your hand automatically. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Targaryen." You answered in the way your mother had instructed you.
Instead of taking it immediately, he smiled with gentle care. "Baelor." He made you repeat it, only then did he accept the handshake.
His grip was light, respectful and brief, exactly as etiquette demanded. Nothing about the gesture crossed any boundary, and when he released your hand, his eyes lingered on your face for the smallest fraction of a second too long. It wasn't staring. It wasn't inappropriate. It felt more like quiet observation, as though he were committing your features to memory with a concentration too subtle for anyone else to notice.
The sensation vanished almost immediately.
You told yourself you had imagined it.
The dining room reflected the same restrained elegance as the rest of the house. A long walnut table occupied its center beneath an antique crystal chandelier whose warm light settled softly over polished silver, delicate porcelain and crystal glasses that caught every flicker of candlelight. Fresh white lilies rested in low arrangements along the table, beautiful enough to enrich the room without obstructing conversation, while the scent of rosemary and roasted herbs drifted from the adjoining kitchen.
Two young men were already waiting when you entered.
"The eldest," Baelor said, resting an affectionate hand upon the taller one's shoulder, "is Valarr."
Valarr greeted you with a slight inclination of his head before offering his hand. He appeared only a few years older than you, impeccably dressed and impossibly composed, with the effortless confidence of someone who had spent his entire life succeeding at everything expected of him. Peculiar features, you noticed. Attractive heterochromatic eyes, and a silver streak impossible to miss. Every movement seemed deliberate without becoming rigid, every word measured before it was spoken.
"It's a pleasure." His voice was low and calm.
Beside him stood another young man whose expression immediately suggested a far less disciplined temperament.
"And this menace," Baelor continued with an affectionate sigh, "is Matarys."
"I object to that introduction."
"You object to everything."
"I simply have standards."
Baelor laughed softly. "I'll let you discover those standards for yourself."
Matarys grinned before shaking your hand with easy enthusiasm. "I promise I'm considerably more entertaining than my brother."
"That isn't a particularly high achievement," Valarr replied without looking at him.
"Oh, don't encourage him," Baelor said, though the fondness in his voice betrayed how accustomed he had become to these exchanges.
The room relaxed almost instantly.
Dinner unfolded with surprising ease, carried along by the comfortable rhythm of a family that had long ago perfected the art of talking over one another without anyone feeling unheard. Matarys possessed the peculiar gift of transforming even the most ordinary events into elaborate adventures, embellishing every story until it became impossible to distinguish memory from invention. Baelor corrected him with long-suffering amusement whenever the exaggerations grew too ambitious, while Valarr quietly dismantled each embellished detail with the patience of someone who had performed this exact ritual since childhood.
"That professor didn't throw you out."
"He intended to."
"He asked you to lower your voice."
"Which, under the circumstances, amounted to the same thing."
Valarr sighed into his wine. "I was there."
"Traitor."
Laughter circled the table, even your mother relaxed enough to forget, for a few precious minutes, the careful perfection she carried everywhere.
Baelor never attempted to dominate the conversation. Instead, he listened far more than he spoke, thanking the staff by name whenever they entered the room, asking thoughtful questions without prying and allowing everyone else the space to answer at their own pace. He seemed genuinely interested in whatever people chose to say, a quality so uncommon that it almost felt rehearsed.
Eventually his attention settled upon you.
"Your mother told me you were an avid reader. Tell me, what are you reading these days?"
"The Picture of Dorian Gray."
Something brightened behind his eyes. "Wilde."
You nodded. "I've nearly finished it."
"And what do you think?"
You considered the question before answering. "I think everyone mistakes admiration for love."
Silence settled gently across the table. Not uncomfortable. Reflective.
Valarr looked toward you with unmistakable interest. "I would've said vanity."
"So would most people."
"And you disagree?"
"I think vanity is only the excuse."
For several seconds nobody spoke. Baelor continued watching you with quiet fascination before smiling almost to himself.
"You notice things."
You hesitated. "I like books."
"I'm not talking about books." His voice remained as warm as before, yet something about the remark settled strangely beneath your skin. "I'm talking about people."
Before you could answer, Matarys interrupted with another wildly exaggerated account of an ill-advised fencing tournament that immediately pulled everyone else's attention away.
Yours never fully returned to the conversation.
Throughout the remainder of dinner, you became increasingly aware of Baelor's gaze. He never stared openly, never allowed his attention to linger long enough for anyone else to notice, and never behaved with anything less than perfect propriety. Yet every time discussion shifted elsewhere and you happened to glance in his direction, you found him already looking at you—not at your dress, nor your carefully arranged appearance as your mother had done all evening, but at your expressions, your pauses, the small unconscious movements that escaped your control. It wasn't desire. It wasn't impropriety. If anything, it resembled quiet fascination.
For reasons you couldn't name, that disturbed you far more.
By the time dessert arrived, your mother looked happier than she had in months. She laughed easily, Baelor listened whenever she spoke, Matarys continued filling the room with effortless humor and Valarr had drifted into an animated discussion about politics with the calm precision of someone who genuinely enjoyed intellectual disagreement. It should have been a pleasant evening. It should have felt reassuring to watch such decent people surrounding your mother.
Instead, an uncomfortable certainty settled silently inside your chest.
Baelor was, by every reasonable measure, a good man. Thoughtful. Patient. Courteous. The kind of man any daughter should have hoped her mother would meet after a painful divorce.
That was precisely the problem.
Every kindness he offered only reminded you that he wasn't your father. He occupied a chair that had once belonged to someone else. He poured wine into your mother's glass with familiar ease. He made her laugh using stories that should have belonged to another life. No amount of gentleness could make him feel like family.
When the evening finally came to an end, Baelor accompanied both of you to the front entrance himself.
"It was truly a pleasure meeting you."
You offered the polite smile expected of you. "You as well."
He held your gaze for just a heartbeat longer than courtesy required before returning your smile. "I hope this won't be the last dinner we share."
The words were perfectly innocent. His expression was perfectly kind. As your mother climbed into the waiting car visibly content with how the evening had unfolded, you found yourself turning back one last time.
Baelor remained standing beneath the warm light spilling from the doorway. Still watching, still smiling, and, for reasons you couldn't explain, you couldn't shake the quiet certainty that throughout the entire evening, he had paid far more attention to you than anyone else at that table had realized.
—
The following Saturday arrived wrapped in one of those quiet afternoons that seemed suspended outside of time. The city moved lazily beneath a pale autumn sky, parks slowly filling with families, cyclists drifting along tree-lined paths and children chasing one another through blankets of fallen leaves while cafés spilled soft conversation onto the sidewalks. It was the sort of day that had once belonged entirely to the two of you.
Your father had always insisted that weekends were sacred, no meetings, no work, no excuse, and because of that you had grown up believing Saturdays existed for museums where he somehow knew the history behind every painting, for bookstores where he never left without buying you one more novel than he'd intended, for long walks that inevitably became improvised history lessons as he pointed toward old buildings and transformed ordinary streets into stories about forgotten kings, architects and revolutions.
When you were little, he had possessed this remarkable sense to make the world seem endlessly interesting, answering every impossible question you asked with absolute seriousness, and when he didn't know the answer, he would simply smile and promise to learn it before the following weekend.
Back then, it had been impossible to imagine a version of your life in which spending time with you wasn't the highlight of his week.
After the divorce, that certainty dissolved so quietly you almost failed to notice it. At first, the distance disguised itself as exhaustion.
He answered your messages a little later than usual, cancelled a lunch because of work, forgot to return a phone call and apologized with genuine sincerity the following day. You believed him because you wanted to. Adults became busy. Divorce complicated things. Life had simply become heavier than either of you had expected. But weeks slowly stretched into months, and every conversation seemed to require more effort than the last.
Eventually, arranging a simple lunch with your own father began to feel less like speaking to family and more like requesting an appointment with someone whose schedule you were grateful had managed to accommodate you at all.
It took three unanswered messages, two calls that rang until voicemail and nearly two weeks of waiting before your phone finally vibrated one evening. The message contained only four words.
Dad 💗
Saturday. Two o'clock. One hour.
There was no I've missed you. No How have you been? No apology for the silence that had settled between you. Not even your name. You stared at the screen for several minutes before replying with a simple I'll be there, telling yourself it didn't matter how brief the invitation was because what truly mattered was that he had answered at all.
The café overlooked the river, its terrace scattered with wrought-iron tables where elderly couples lingered over coffee, students revised notes beneath striped umbrellas and children leaned over the railing to watch boats drift lazily across the water. You arrived nearly fifteen minutes early, partly because you had always inherited your father's punctuality and partly because some childish part of you still hoped he might already be there waiting. You chose the table closest to the river because it had always been his favorite place to sit whenever the weather allowed it. The waiter asked whether you wished to order something, but you only requested a glass of water, promising you were waiting for someone.
At exactly two o'clock, you saw him crossing the street.
Your heart recognized him long before your mind did. The familiar stride, the dark wool coat you had seen every winter for as long as you could remember, the same broad shoulders that had once carried you through airports whenever you had fallen asleep on family holidays. For one impossible second, instinct urged you to stand and throw your arms around him just as you had done countless times growing up.
Then he glanced at his watch before looking toward you, and that impulse disappeared. "I'm sorry," he said as soon as he reached the table, pulling out his chair before sitting down. "Traffic."
"It's okay," you answered immediately, smiling more brightly than you actually felt.
He returned the smile politely. It was warm enough to avoid seeming cold, yet strangely formal, the sort of expression exchanged between acquaintances who respected one another rather than between a father and the daughter who used to climb onto his lap every Sunday morning demanding pancakes shaped like dinosaurs.
"You look well."
"So do you."
Silence followed.
Not the comforting silence you remembered from childhood, when the two of you could spend entire afternoons reading different books in the same room without either of you feeling obliged to speak. This silence felt unfamiliar. Empty. It searched desperately for a conversation that refused to begin.
The waiter returned. Your father ordered black coffee without looking at the menu, and you asked for the same simply because, for years, copying his order had become such an unconscious habit that you did it before realizing it. When you were younger he would always laugh, teasing you for refusing to develop tastes of your own. This time he didn't even seem to notice.
You carried the conversation the way one carries something unexpectedly fragile, careful not to let it slip through your hands. You asked about work, and he told you it had become demanding. You asked whether he had finally finished renovating the study he'd always talked about, and he admitted he hadn't found the time. You asked after your grandparents, whether they were healthy, whether he'd visited recently, whether the roses your grandmother insisted on planting every spring had survived another season. Each answer arrived complete enough to close the subject before another could naturally grow from it, leaving you constantly searching for something else to ask.
Finally, you reached for memory.
"Do you remember when we got lost trying to find that little bookstore near the cathedral?" you asked with a laugh that felt almost genuine. "You were absolutely convinced you knew the way."
He frowned faintly, searching through recollections that once had belonged to both of you.
"Vaguely."
"You insisted we were only one street away."
"I guess…"
"You definitely weren't," you smiled. "We walked in circles for almost three hours before we discovered the bookstore had moved months earlier."
He smiled back. A small, courteous smile. "I suppose." Nothing else followed.
The story, which had once made him laugh until tears gathered in his eyes whenever either of you mentioned it, simply ended there. You lowered your gaze toward your untouched coffee, realizing with quiet disbelief that the man who had once been capable of turning every shared memory into an hour-long conversation now responded to them as though they belonged to someone else's life.
You had imagined this meeting so many times over the previous months. In every version, eventually something softened. Eventually he admitted the divorce had broken him too. Eventually he apologized for disappearing, asked whether you were sleeping alright, whether your mother's new relationship had been difficult, whether you were lonely. Instead, his phone illuminated against the tabletop. He picked it up almost immediately, typed a brief response without explanation and placed it face down once more.
"I'm sorry," he said almost absentmindedly. "Work."
"It's alright." The answer escaped you so naturally that you barely noticed yourself saying it. Lately, it's alright had become another way of saying please don't leave yet.
By the time the waiter returned with the bill, you realized with growing horror that nearly the entire hour had been spent trying to persuade your own father to remain inside a conversation he seemed eager to escape. As the two of you walked slowly toward the parking lot beneath rows of yellowing trees whose leaves drifted lazily across the pavement, you deliberately shortened your steps, stretching the distance for as long as possible because some stubborn, frightened part of you still believed that if the afternoon lasted another few minutes, perhaps your father would finally become your father again.
"So..." you began carefully, clasping your hands together. "I was wondering... maybe next weekend we could go to the museum again? They're opening a new exhibition."
Genuine hesitation crossed his face. "I'll have to see."
"Oh."
"My schedule's complicated lately."
You nodded too quickly. "Right."
"I'll let you know."
You smiled anyway, even though both of you already knew he probably wouldn't.
When you finally reached his car, neither of you moved immediately. You stared at the pavement for a moment before forcing yourself to ask the question that had been living inside your chest for months.
"I've been texting you."
"I know."
"I thought maybe—" Your voice faltered. "—maybe you weren't seeing them."
"I saw them." The answer was gentle, almost unbearably so.
"Oh."
Another silence settled between you.
"I didn't want to bother you—"
"You weren't."
"You seemed busy."
"So were you."
You swallowed hard, your fingers tightening around the strap of your bag. "I just—" The words caught painfully in your throat. "I miss you."
He looked away toward the rows of parked cars, and for a fleeting instant something unreadable crossed his expression. Regret. Fatigue. Guilt. You couldn't tell.
"I've had a lot on my mind."
"I know," you whispered immediately. "I know."
Another pause.
"I just kept thinking—" You laughed quietly, ashamed of how desperately you suddenly sounded. "—that maybe if I called at a better time..."
He sighed. Not with irritation, simply with exhaustion. "You don't have to keep trying so hard." The sentence was spoken softly, kindly, which somehow made it infinitely crueler.
You stared at him, unable to reconcile the man before you with the father who had once answered every midnight phone call simply because you couldn't sleep. The man who had never missed a school recital, who used to arrive thirty minutes early to every performance just so he could wave from the front row before the curtains opened, who texted you photographs of pastries he'd discovered because they reminded him of the ones you loved as a child, who once apologized for an entire week after missing a single bedtime story because an unexpected meeting had run late.
Now you were apologizing for wanting him to answer your messages.
"I'm sorry," you murmured automatically. "I didn't realize—"
He smiled. "It's alright."
You felt something inside you collapse with astonishing quietness not because he was angry, not because he had shouted, but because the smile resting on his face no longer belonged to your father, it belonged to a courteous stranger trying not to hurt someone else's daughter.
He stepped forward, pressed a brief kiss against your forehead out of habit rather than affection, wished you goodbye and climbed into his car without looking back. You remained standing exactly where he had left you, watching until the vehicle disappeared into the flow of traffic, your phone still clutched tightly in your hand.
Only then did you understand that grief was not always born from death.
Sometimes it arrived much more slowly, hidden inside unanswered messages, postponed lunches and conversations that became smaller every month, until one ordinary Saturday afternoon you found yourself standing alone in a parking lot realizing that you had lost your father while he was still alive.
—
The weeks that followed settled into a pattern so painfully predictable that they eventually ceased to feel like individual days at all. You still texted your father every now and then, always with the quiet restraint of someone terrified of becoming an inconvenience. Sometimes you asked how he was doing. Other times you told him about something inconsequential—a novel you had just finished, an amusing lecture at university, or a café you'd stumbled across that reminded you of the one he used to take you to when you were little. You never wrote much. Somewhere along the way, you had learned to compress affection into as few words as possible, as though love itself could become too heavy to send. His replies arrived hours later, sometimes the following day, and sometimes they never arrived at all.
"Busy."
"Maybe another day."
"We'll see."
Two words. Three, if you were lucky.
You kept telling yourself it meant nothing—that the divorce had been difficult for him too, that he simply needed time to rebuild a life that had been broken just as thoroughly as yours. You repeated those explanations with the discipline of someone memorizing a lesson she already knew wasn't true, because the weeks became months, the months continued slipping by, and still he never called unless you reached out first. Eventually, your messages became shorter as well, not because you had less to say, but because hope had quietly begun to teach you the value of lowering your expectations.
Saturdays began to resemble one another so perfectly that they blurred together into a single memory. You would wake with the quiet, unreasonable hope that perhaps your phone would contain a message from him and, when the screen remained empty—as it almost always did—you found yourself sending one instead.
Would you like to have lunch?
I'm near your office today.
I could stop by if you're free.
You always added an escape at the end, carefully constructing an excuse for him before he had the chance to make one himself.
"f you're busy, that's completely fine.
Whenever you have time.
No pressure.
It was remarkable how love could find endless ways to excuse neglect.
One Saturday, nearly a month after the last time you had seen him, he agreed. Not enthusiastically. Not happily. Simply:
Thirty minutes.
Nothing else.
Thirty minutes.
As though spending time with his daughter could be scheduled no differently than a business meeting, but for you, who had lived in a desert waiting for his affection, that was an oasis.
You arrived ten minutes early. You always arrived early when it came to him. He was already seated beside the café window, paperwork spread neatly across the table while he spoke on the phone. He didn't even look up when you walked inside. Instead, he raised one hand absentmindedly, gesturing for you to sit while he continued discussing contracts, deadlines, and meetings that seemed infinitely more important than your presence. So you waited. Five minutes. Seven. Ten.
When he finally ended the call, he offered you a polite smile—the sort of smile he might have given a client.
"Sorry. Busy morning."
"It's okay."
You always said that.
Always.
He ordered another coffee and asked how university was going. He nodded while you answered, though every few seconds his eyes drifted back toward the phone vibrating endlessly beside his cup. Halfway through one of your stories he answered an email; moments later he declined another incoming call, not because he wanted to hear you speak, but because it interrupted the rest of his schedule. You continued talking anyway, not because you believed he was truly listening, but simply because, after so many months, you had begun accepting anything that vaguely resembled spending time together.
When he finished his coffee, he glanced at his watch.
"I have to go."
You had been there twenty-six minutes.
He hadn't even stayed for the thirty he had promised.
You hugged him before saying goodbye. He returned the embrace with a distracted pat against your back, so brief it almost felt accidental. As you watched him disappear into the crowd, you found yourself trying to remember the last time your father had hugged you first.
You couldn't.
Baelor noticed long before anyone said anything. It wasn't obvious. There were no arguments between you and your father, no raised voices, no visible hostility. It was, strangely enough, the complete absence of those things that made the distance between you so unmistakable. Whenever your father appeared, something inside you seemed to shrink—not physically, but in a quieter, subtler way, as though part of you immediately began searching for his approval. You spoke more carefully, measured every sentence before letting it leave your lips, and smiled with a cautiousness Baelor never saw when you spoke to anyone else. He noticed something else, too. You were always the one reaching across the distance. You called. You texted. You asked. You tried. Your father simply responded... when he responded at all. The imbalance became impossible to ignore once Baelor had seen it.
He never mentioned it. It wasn't his place, nor did he ever attempt to replace the man who already occupied that place in your heart. Baelor understood that there were loves no one could inherit, absences no amount of kindness could erase, and wounds that belonged exclusively to the people who carried them. Still, he began paying attention. He realized that every time you returned from seeing your father, there was a new book tucked beneath your arm—not because your father had given it to you, but because you bought one yourself, usually on the way home, as though you needed to leave those meetings carrying something because you always walked away feeling as though your hands had been emptied.
One rainy afternoon he found you sitting on the library floor, surrounded by uneven stacks of novels while an annotated edition of Jane Eyre rested open across your knees. You had been staring at the same page for so long that it was obvious you had stopped reading several minutes earlier. Baelor didn't disturb the silence. He simply walked to one of the bookshelves, let his fingertips wander thoughtfully across the rows of worn spines until they settled upon a dark green volume, then crossed the room and held it out to you.
"Have you ever read this one?"
You lowered your eyes.
The Remains of the Day.
You shook your head. "No."
"I think you'd like it."
He offered no explanation. He didn't tell you it was about opportunities left behind, emotions buried beneath duty, or the quiet devastation of realizing what should have been said only after it had become impossible to say it. He simply handed you the book.
You accepted it with a small smile. "Thank you."
"If you disagree with the ending..." A faint smile touched his lips. "—I'd like to hear why."
That was all. He didn't linger when he saw your attention return to the pages. Instead, he selected another novel for himself, settled into the armchair opposite yours, and began reading in comfortable silence. For the first time in months, someone sat beside you without asking anything of you—without demanding conversation, without expecting smiles, without trying to rescue you from your own quiet. He simply shared the silence with you, and somehow that gentle restraint said far more than any attempt at comfort ever could, that act contained more attention than your father would ever have given you.
—
Over the following weeks, the distance between you and Baelor dissolved so gradually that neither of you could have pointed to the precise moment when occasional conversation became routine. It began, as many unexpected things do, with books. He noticed that every time he found you somewhere in the house, there was another novel resting on your knees, another page folded over with absentminded care, another pencil tucked between the chapters. One afternoon, almost out of simple curiosity, he asked what you were reading, expecting the sort of polite answer that would end the exchange after a sentence or two.
Instead, you spoke for nearly half an hour.
You talked about history, about unreliable narrators, about the peculiar loneliness that seemed to haunt nineteenth-century literature, and about the strange comfort of characters who were never entirely understood. You listened before you disagreed, challenged ideas without hostility, and possessed the rare ability to make disagreement feel less like conflict than collaboration. It reminded Baelor of conversations he had once believed existed only within university halls, the kind that lingered in the mind long after they had ended.
From then on, speaking with you became remarkably effortless. It was never inappropriate, never unusually intimate, simply natural. Conversations that began with a recommendation soon wandered into philosophy, politics, poetry, architecture, or history, only to circle back to literature again. Sometimes they spoke for ten minutes. Sometimes an hour slipped away without either of you noticing. There was nothing unusual about it, at least not on the surface.
Your mother couldn't have been happier.
She had hoped the two of you would eventually find common ground, and watching the awkward courtesy of that first dinner slowly transform into genuine ease felt, to her, like confirmation that she had made the right decision. Whenever she found the two of you discussing history over breakfast or exchanging books after dinner, she smiled quietly to herself, pleased that the man she loved had taken such sincere interest in making you feel welcome within what he hoped would soon become a shared family.
She mistook familiarity for harmony.
She had no reason not to.
By the time the invitation to spend the weekend at the family's seaside villa arrived, your conversations had become an ordinary part of daily life. No one questioned them anymore. Baelor would ask what you were reading, you would ask whether he had ever finished the biography he had mentioned the week before, and the discussion would unfold naturally while everyone else carried on with their own routines. It looked exactly as one might expect from two people who simply happened to enjoy the same subjects.
The villa overlooked the sea, its wide terraces bathed in warm afternoon light while the constant rhythm of the waves softened every conversation into something almost dreamlike. Guests drifted naturally into smaller groups. Your mother remained beneath the pergola with a glass of wine in her hand, exchanging stories with friends, while Matarys disappeared toward the shoreline in search of shells, leaving you leaning comfortably against the stone balustrade with Valarr.
The conversation had begun, as so many of yours did, with a book.
Valarr insisted that a certain character's downfall had been inevitable from the very first chapter. You disagreed immediately, folding your arms with quiet certainty before explaining that it had never been ambition that doomed him, but vanity itself. He laughed, accusing you of always defending impossible arguments. You answered that he had a habit of confusing confidence with intelligence, prompting him to place an exaggerated hand over his chest and declare himself mortally offended. You smiled despite yourself, and a soft laugh escaped your lips, carried away almost instantly by the sea breeze.
Across the terrace, Baelor looked up.
At first, your mother assumed the sound of your laughter had merely drawn his attention. Then she realized he was no longer listening to the conversation unfolding around him. Someone sitting beside him continued speaking, another guest laughed, glasses clinked gently against the table, yet none of it seemed to reach him.
He was watching you.
Not with pride, not with amusement, not even with suspicion.
His attention had narrowed so completely that everything else appeared to dissolve beyond the edges of his awareness. He followed the conversation between you and Valarr with an almost unsettling concentration, as though every sentence you spoke deserved to be carefully examined before it disappeared, every smile unconsciously catalogued, every gesture committed to memory without him realizing he was doing it.
It was not affection, it was not desire. It was something your mother found far more difficult to understand.
It resembled the fixed concentration of a scholar confronted by a question he could not solve, or a collector standing before a painting he could not persuade himself to stop studying. There was something strangely absolute about it, something that excluded the rest of the world with quiet, almost frightening ease.
Then Valarr said something else.
You laughed again.
Only for a moment. Nothing more than a brief burst of genuine amusement.
Yet, in that same instant, something crossed Baelor's face so quickly that your mother almost convinced herself she had imagined it. His jaw tightened by the smallest degree. A faint crease appeared between his brows before vanishing just as quickly, like a ripple disturbing perfectly still water before the surface became smooth again.
The transformation lasted no longer than a heartbeat.
Someone beside him asked a question. He answered without hesitation. He smiled. He lifted his glass.
Within seconds he had resumed the effortless composure for which everyone admired him, carrying on the conversation as though his attention had never wandered elsewhere.
No one noticed, no one except your mother.
She could not have explained what disturbed her so profoundly. There had been no inappropriate gesture, no careless remark, nothing she could ever repeat aloud without sounding irrational. If anyone had asked what she had seen, she would have struggled to put it into words.
And yet, as she watched Baelor continue embodying the flawless gentleman everyone believed him to be, an unfamiliar unease settled quietly beneath her ribs.
She had not witnessed the expression of a man who had simply become distracted. She had witnessed someone whose attention had remained fixed on a single person for far longer than it ever should have.
For the first time since bringing the two of you together, she found herself asking a question she could neither answer nor dismiss.
Not what Baelor had been thinking, but why, for those few silent moments, he had seemed to forget that anyone else in the world existed.
She had never provoked that in him before.
—
The library had become their unspoken meeting place.
It was the quietest room in the house, sheltered beneath high ceilings and walls crowded with books collected over decades. Afternoon light filtered through the tall windows, settling over polished oak shelves and turning the floating dust into slow-moving flecks of gold. Somewhere beyond the glass, the garden shimmered beneath the summer heat, but inside, time seemed content to remain still.
You sat in one of the leather armchairs, a novel resting open across your knees.
Baelor entered carrying two cups of tea.
"I thought you might be here."
"I usually am."
"I've noticed."
There was nothing unusual in his tone. He placed one cup beside you before his eyes drifted toward the book in your lap.
"Lolita?"
You looked down at the familiar cover. "I've never actually read it."
"No?"
"I know what people say about it."
"They usually say the wrong thing." That caught your attention.
"You don't think it's a love story."
It wasn't a question. Baelor smiled faintly.
"No." He lowered himself into the chair opposite yours and folded one leg over the other.
"I think it's one of the greatest examples of an unreliable narrator ever written."
You tilted your head. "So the opening doesn't romanticize him?"
"It seduces the reader," he answered after a moment. "There's a difference."
He reached toward the coffee table, where an old annotated copy already lay waiting, and opened it with the familiarity of someone returning to a place he knew by heart. Without theatricality, he read the first lines aloud.
"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul."
The room fell quiet.
He closed the book again. "It's beautiful prose."
"It is."
"And that's precisely the danger."
You frowned.
"The language is so extraordinary that, for a moment, you forget who's speaking."
You traced a finger along the edge of your own copy. "So the beauty becomes... camouflage."
A small smile appeared on Baelor's face. "Exactly."
He seemed genuinely pleased—not because you agreed with him, but because you had arrived at the conclusion yourself. "The novel asks something uncomfortable of the reader," he continued. "Whether elegance can make evil sound convincing."
You considered that for several seconds. "I don't think it can."
"No?"
"It can delay your judgment." You looked toward the rain beginning to gather against the windows. "It can make you hesitate." A pause settled between you. "But eventually," you said quietly, "you have to remember who's telling the story."
Baelor's gaze rested on you for a brief moment before he nodded. "Yes.” His voice had become strangely thoughtful. "That's the part people forget."
Neither of you spoke again for a while.
The silence wasn't awkward. It was the kind born from a conversation that had ended naturally, leaving both people with something to think about.
Outside, the first drops of rain began striking the windows. Inside, the two copies of Lolita remained open on the table between you—not as a romance, nor as an object of admiration, but as a reminder that the most dangerous stories are often told by voices eloquent enough to make us forget, if only briefly, that they cannot be trusted.
You'd learn that soon.
Baelor remained quiet for a while after closing the book, his fingertips resting lightly against its worn cover as though reluctant to break the silence that Nabokov's opening had left behind. Outside, the rain continued tracing slow paths across the windows, blurring the gardens into muted shades of green and gray.
"May I ask you something?"
You looked up from your own copy.
"Of course."
He considered his words carefully before speaking, his eyes focused on you, and in them, the same strangely appreciative look that he had given you at the first dinner. "Have you ever experienced that suffocating desire for someone?" He leaned closer to you. "That heavy feeling coursing through your bones, stealing your breath? Disturbing your sleep? Corrupting your very being?" His face was now just inches from yours.
Yes, you were going to answer, yes. I've felt it for my father's affection, I've begged for it. I've gone to bed thinking about the barriers that stand in the way of our nonexistent connection. That he doesn't love me, that he suffocates me and revives me every time I see him.
But you stopped. Overlapping you were two kinds of desires inherent in human beings: the thirst for affection that you projected onto your father, and, beside you, the unequivocal primal desire that Baelor's eyes transmitted in you, towards you, for you. Your reaction was late when you felt the contact of his lips against yours, his aging skin against the firmness of yours.
The third sensation was a revulsion that boiled within you, preventing you from pushing him away from you with a strong thrust. Anyone who witnessed the act would interpret this as consent, but this could not be further from the truth.
This was wrong. There was no fancy word to disguise it, no right thermal. Recovering from the vulnerability, you pulled away from the seat and from him. "What—what the hell did you just do?" Your voice was trembling.
"I..." Baelor was looking at you the same way as always, with that hint of something inscrutable that you hadn't yet deciphered. "My deepest apologies. I noticed that glimmer in your eyes—"
"You assumed that I wanted it."
"—and I decided to take it."
Take it. As one does with one's own belongings when they fall to the ground. Take it. As when one believes legitimate possession over something or someone.
"I didn't want to—I didn't—" You looked anywhere but at his face. "You're my mother's boyfriend. I'm the same age as your oldest son, why would I want to?"
Instead of answering immediately, his eyes drifted to your lips, to the sweet nectar he had just tasted. He rose from his seat, and taking a few steps closer, he was standing in front of you. "I see you" He began. "You wish it because I see you. I'm the only human who pays attention to you. I know your blessings and sorrows, the way you shrink when you send a message from your father. You need me, you're hungry, and I can feed you."
He saw you. He had done it; he had seen the need for love, the misfortunes that occurred in your mother's company. He noticed the balm that books were for you, how absence was your life, and, consequently, his best way of access you.
He was right.
"You—" You pressed your lips together, trying to calm your inner turmoil. "You have no right to judge me or my life. You don't know me, you are not important to me."
While you defended what you believed to be reality, he breached the remaining thin wall to reach you. With genuine affection, he wrapped his arms around yours. An embrace. Something so simple, yet so devastating.
"Shhh," his calloused fingers caressed your scalp. "Let it go." Heavy tears streamed down your cheeks, trailing down to his immaculate shirt. The dampness of the fabric clung to your skin, and it was unpleasant, just like the lively erection that stood against your thigh.
But it was attention, right? You wanted it. It didn't matter from whom, just please, notice me.
His large palms slid down to your waist. "You're just a pathetic little girl who needs to be noticed, Y/N." His face buried itself in your hair. "You want it. You've been chasing him ever since your parents separated and Dad, as a customer who's paid off his debt, washed his hands of the bank. He didn't love you the way I do."
"You're no longer his responsibility. That's why he abandoned you, little one." He slowly leaned you down at the table where they had both been sitting. "A burden, your father sees you as a burden."
You knew it. You felt it. You were it.
Your father showed it with every postponed outing, by only fulfilling his financial obligations, in how he spoke of your meetings as mere slots in his schedule. You weren't his daughter, just a task on his endless monthly to-do list, if you were lucky.
When Baelor placed his lips against yours again, you realized. You wanted him, didn't you? You wanted someone to want you. Not like this, but it was still want. His mouth was gentle, expert and patient, just like the rest of him.
He wanted you to believe that you deserved to be touched by him. That way, this violation wouldn't feel like a crime or mere lust, but like liberation, and he was succeeding.
"I'll give you everything" was what you exactly wanted to hear. "You're not a burden, sweetheart. You're a blessing. The personification of an angel sent from heaven," he proclaimed as his palms cupped your breasts over your clothes, squeezing. "Say it. Say you deserve it."
What exactly did you deserve? His dirty hands on your body? Your mother's demands? Your father's abandonment? Misunderstanding? Isolation? Insecurity?
What, what was it that you so richly deserved?
You didn't say anything. You were frozen, crying on the table. His hands moved down to your thighs, his touch now demanding as he groped you, making his way to your crotch.
"Say it," he demanded. "Tell me. Tell me what you deserve."
This was the Steppenwolf Hesse referred to in his prose. Wild, maladjusted, hidden. He tore at your underwear with such intensity that panic surged through you at the reality. The ruined fabric was real, as was his uninvited touch on your skin.
You kicked him, and he stopped you. "Stay still," he warned. "You want it. You haven't pushed me away once, and you do it just when things escalate?" He squeezed your thigh roughly, digging his fingers into your flesh, making you whimper. "Tell me. Say you want it."
"No—"
"I would be careful with the words that come out of my mouth" One last sentence. "Now. You'll open your legs like the good girl you are, I'll take you, and no soul will ever know about this. Or do you want to lose your only source of affection?" His face was close to yours. "Do you prefer your mother getting to know what a whore she has for a daughter?"
His language was foul. There was no ethical or respectful gentleness accompanying his words. It was raw, real. The wolf—or dragon—beneath disguised as a sheep.
You didn't answer. That was answer enough. "Good."
You didn't realize when he had removed his pants, but you did when you felt his phallus tear at your walls. A painful sob escaped your throat, one that was silenced by your unpleasant lips. It was impossible not to notice the temporal difference in their bodies, the youth and the age.
His attacks were cruel. His hands, restless. They were digging somewhere to grab, and they were never satisfied.
—
"Baelor asked how your classes were going."
Your mother's voice carried the same effortless composure with which she spoke about the weather, dinner reservations, or charity galas. There was nothing particularly significant in the sentence itself, yet something about the way she chose to mention his name made it sound almost rehearsed, as though she had been waiting for the right moment to introduce it into the conversation.
You continued stirring your tea without looking up.
"That was thoughtful of him." There was a certain unease in your voice, almost anxious.
"He seemed genuinely interested."
The spoon circled lazily against the porcelain before you set it aside.
"He likes talking to you. He mentions your conversations surprisingly often" The sound of her heels echoed as she approached you. "Especially the conversations in the library."
Library.
"He says you have an extraordinary way of looking at literature." Her fake smile widened almost imperceptibly. "Apparently the two of you spent nearly an hour discussing Lolita the other afternoon. He seemed quite pleased, if you ask me."
You knew what he meant, and you weren't going to answer.
"Pleased, Y/N. My boyfriend looked pleased."
"Mom—"
"You—you slept with him. With your own mother's boyfriend." She bit her perfectly painted lip. "I know. He smelled like your perfume. That's why he pays you so much attention, the reason he looks at you the way he does: like he's eyeing prey."
"He raped me!" you exclaimed, your voice breaking, dark circles under your eyes visible. "He took me, he—" Herhand slapped you across the face, hard.
She felt betrayed. Her own daughter sleeping with her partner, accusing him of rape after moaning his name surrounded by books and walking out of the library as if nothing had happened, making her look like a fool.
"You little brat." She pointed a finger at you. "Baelor would never—he would never do that unless you provoked him. You've been sleeping with your mother's boyfriend, Y/N. Aren't you ashamed?!"
You didn't know this version of Mom. The out-of-control, irrational one, the one who believed him.
"And you dare accuse a man of his caliber of raping you? You?" He looked you up and down, judging you. "You, who won't dress up unless I tell you to? Who would rape a girl who doesn't even take the time to care about her appearance? You damn whore."
Baelor was right.
Humbert had captivated thousands of readers with nothing more than language. His greatest weapon had never been desire, but narration. He chose which details deserved to be remembered and which would quietly disappear between paragraphs, softened cruelty beneath exquisite prose, and wrapped obsession in poetry until even intelligent readers found themselves hesitating before condemning him. History had always belonged to whoever told it best, and the voice that controlled the story inevitably controlled the judgment that followed.
Baelor understood that better than anyone. He controlled the narrative.
🍃 summary: after one reckless mistake too many, your parents send you away for the summer in hopes that a few months in the countryside with your grandmother might finally straighten you out. you fully intend to count down the days until you’re free again…right up until a bug loving little boy and his father begin making the mountains feel a little more like home.
❀ pairing: single dad!anton x f!reader
❀ genre: single parent au, slow burn, rich kid au, found family
❀ word count: 7.2k
⟶ chapter warnings: discussions of drowning, teen parenthood discussion, nothing beyond this!
🌱a/n: thank you all for your patience this week! chapters will be posted every friday at 12pm est.
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By the third week of June, it becomes strangely normal for you to find Anton and Minyoung in your grandmother’s backyard. Not every day but often enough that you’ve stopped retreating upstairs the second you spot them through the kitchen windows.
Somewhere between the town festival and now, the duo have become part of your days. At first it was small things: sitting outside with Minyoung while Anton fixed a broken hose or replaced a loose plank near the garden shed, letting Minyoung drag you along on one of his increasingly ambitious bug hunts, there were even some afternoons where Anton would bring over sketchbooks and pencils and the three of you would sit at the patio and draw.
Minyoung would spread himself out somewhere in the shade with a stack of paper and start drawing whatever insect or dinosaur had his full attention that day. Anton would sit nearby with a pencil of his own, sketching beautiful landscapes or even faces.
You were never much of an artist, you stuck to architectural designs and sometimes landscape but it was never your specialty. You never really showed people your architectural work, not even Maya or Harvey but you found yourself wanting to share your work with Anton and he always complimented you without fail, noticing little details that would have gone unnoticed by many.
Other days, Minyoung would climb into your lap with a book too big for his hands and read to you until he got bored and started spitballing facts about sea otters and tree frogs. Sometimes the books were about insects, sometimes dinosaurs, once an entire one about deep sea creatures that left you momentarily worried for Maude and her family who were on a cruise across the Pacific.
You had even stopped checking your phone every ten minutes to see what everyone else was doing without you. You still missed Harvey and Maya of course, you still missed noise and traffic and being able to order food past midnight but the FOMO had died down and the mountains stopped feeling like such a huge punishment.
The mountains brought you a father and his bug obsessed six year old son, a duo you never would have thought you needed but yet manage to bring joy to your otherwise dull and lonely life.
You can confidently say Anton has become a good friend.
He listened when you complained, which was unfortunate because you did a lot of that. About the heat, the bugs, the reception. He often would just look at you and let you go on and on before asking if you were finished or give you a reasonable answer to your complaints. After that you would move on and talk about pretty much anything, from the weather to music to what he should make Minyoung for dinner. It should be odd how well you fit but you enjoy his company.
Which is why, when you come downstairs that afternoon and find Mrs. Kim in the kitchen arranging three jars of lemonade onto a tray, you don’t need to ask who they’re for.
The lemonade is pale yellow and suspiciously cloudy with enough sugar in it to make your teeth ache just looking at it. Minyoung likes it that way. Anton says it’s less lemonade and more liquid candy but still drinks it every time he’s here. You catch sight of the extra little plate balanced beside the jars too, already stacked with sliced fruit and chocolate chip cookies you baked the day before.
Mrs. Kim looks up when she hears your footsteps and offers you a small smile before lifting the tray. “I was just taking this outside.”
“I’ve got it,” you say, stepping forward before she can protest.
The tray is cool against your palms, the glasses clinking softly as you carry it through the back doors and out onto the patio. The humidity hits you almost immediately. By the time you cross the stone toward the lounge chairs by the pool, you can already feel the heat settling at the back of your neck.
Minyoung notices you first. He sits cross-legged on one of the chairs with a book open across his lap, his glasses sliding low on his nose and his hair slightly damp from the heat. Anton is beside him in a white wife beater and shorts, one arm stretched along the back of the chair while he half listens to whatever Minyoung is saying and half squints down at something on the page. He looks good you think to yourself.
You set the tray down on the little table beside them and hand him the sweetest-looking glass first. “Well duh, I live here, bug.” You say dryly.
Minyoung giggles and reaches for the lemonade with both hands. The outside of the glass is already sweating in the heat, little drops of condensation sliding down over his fingers as he takes a long sip. Anton takes his next, glancing down into it like he already knows exactly how much sugar is waiting for him.
You prop a hand on your hip and look out toward the water, the pool glittering bright beneath the afternoon sun. “Gosh, it’s hot.”
It’s not lost on you how you make sure to sensor yourself to avoid cussing in front of the kid. It’s something you find yourself doing more and more often. You turn your head and catch Anton wiping the back of his wrist across his forehead. The heat has left a slight sheen across his chest and shoulders, the white tank doing absolutely nothing to make him less distracting. You look away before your gaze can linger long enough to become obvious and nod toward the pool.
“It’s a good day to go swimming.”
Anton’s head turns toward you immediately looking almost worried that your words might reach Minyoung's ears. You cock your head to the side in confusion as Minyoung sits up straighter in his chair, lemonade forgotten in his hands. “Drowning is one of the leading causes of accidental death,” he says.
You blink at him. “I’m sorry, what?”
He pushes his glasses up his nose. “For children and also…” He squints down at the book in his lap as though the exact number might be written somewhere between the butterflies and fish. “A lot of adults too, probably.”
You stare at him for a second then slowly turn toward Anton. Anton sighs into his lemonade and sets the glass down. “Minyoung doesn’t know how to swim.”
You frown. “Really?”
Anton nods once. “Not for lack of effort. I tried when he was younger.” His mouth twitches faintly, though there’s more resignation than humor in it.
Minyoung hunches a little over his book. “I don’t like not touching the floor.”
Anton glances at him. “I know.”
The patio goes quiet for a moment after that. Minyoung looks almost embarrassed at the fact but Anton doesn’t push. He just reaches over and taps the side of Minyoung’s glass with one finger. “Drink your lemonade before all the ice melts.”
Minyoung obeys, though not without a small frown and you find yourself watching the way his shoulders hunch around the book. “You know…I didn’t learn how to swim until I was eighteen.” You say after a moment.
Both of them look at you, Minyoung’s eyes widen. “Really?”
You nod. “Really.”
It isn’t exactly something you talk about often, there has never been much reason to. Back home, swimming had always been Maude’s thing. Maude and her records and her water polo matches and her endless collection of medals your parents used to display like religious relics.
They had tried with you too, when you were younger. Lessons, instructors, the whole routine but you were never quite comfortable in the water and it took longer for things to click than anyone wanted it to so eventually they stopped paying for the lessons and pivoted to the one thing you were actually good at, horse riding. Something you took to quickly enough that nobody had to waste time being patient with you.
“It was kind of embarrassing,” you admit, looking down at the condensation slipping over your glass.
Minyoung is listening to you now, even Anton has gone quiet. “My friends taught me,” you continue. You were on your first trip with Maya and Harvey freshman year to the Amalfi Coast, they were shocked you were willing to go yachting with them not knowing how to swim so they took it upon themselves to spend the whole first day teaching you.
“I thought they were going to laugh at me.”
“But they didn’t?” Minyoung asks.
You shake your head. “Not once.”
The answer seems to matter to him. You clear your throat and bend down so you’re level with him. “So if you want, I can teach you.”
Minyoung glances immediately at the pool, fear lighting up his face so you quickly cut in. “We can get floaties and stay in the shallow end the whole time. You can hold onto me if you want or your dad, or both of us.” You shrug one shoulder. “Whatever makes you feel safer.”
Minyoung worries his bottom lip between his teeth. “But what if I go under?”
“You won’t,” you say simply.
He doesn’t look convinced so you add, “Because I won’t let you.”
You can feel Anton watching you closely but you don’t look in his direction, instead you keep your attention on his son and say even more softly, “your dad will be there too and he used to swim professionally so between the two of us you’re probably the safest person in South Korea.”
That earns another small smile from Anton though he says nothing. Minyoung still hesitates, his fingers now twisting in the hem of his shirt. “With floaties?”
“With floaties,” you promise.
“And I can touch the floor?”
You nod slightly, “at first, yes.”
“And if I don’t like it I can get out?”
“Immediately.” You say seriously.
He looks at Anton then, his father meets his eyes and says, calm as ever, “We’d both be right there.”
Minyoung’s grip loosens from his shirt then very slowly, he nods.
Anton looks at him for another second as if making sure the answer is real and not something his son is about to immediately take back. When Minyoung doesn’t, he glances up at you instead. “I can run home and get his swim trunks,” he says.
You nod. “I’ll find floaties.”
That seems to settle it. Minyoung slides off the chair with his book still tucked beneath one arm and begins pacing the edge of the pool. Every so often he mutters something under his breath that sounds like a list: breathe, shallow end, floaties, daddy, noona. It’s weirdly endearing.
Anton notices it too. He presses a hand briefly to the back of Minyoung’s head and says, “We’ll be back in ten, okay?”
Minyoung nods without looking at him. “Okay.”
Anton disappears with him not long after that and the second they’re gone you head inside to find whatever inflatable neon-colored monstrosity your grandmother’s storage closet has to offer. You end up with a pair of arm floaties decorated with little cartoon fish and a bright pink pool noodle. You drop the items off by the pool before heading back inside.
You go upstairs and stand in front of your suitcase for longer than necessary before finally pulling out a bikini. It’s one of the nicer ones you packed for Greece and never got to wear, pale blue and minimal. It would’ve looked excellent on a yacht somewhere off the Saronic gulf but now will have to settle for your grandmother’s pool in the mountains of South Korea.
By the time you make it back outside, the two of them are already by the water. Minyoung has changed into little navy swim trunks and stands near the edge of the pool with his goggles looped around one wrist, not yet brave enough to put them on. Anton is beside him in black swim trunks, arms folded loosely across his chest as he watches his son scan the water thoughtfully. Neither of them notices you right away and for a moment you just stand there, taking in the sight.
Minyoung is clearly trying to work himself up to it and Anton with the patience of a saint is just standing there letting him.
He just stands there letting his son have the time he needs without crowding him or trying to force him before he’s ready. Anton looks up first when he hears your steps on the stone.
His eyes find your face then dip just briefly to the details of your bikini. It’s quick but not so brief that you miss it. The look is quick enough to be polite and long enough to tell you he definitely noticed your figure. Something flickers across his expression and then he’s looking back at your face like nothing happened. You pretend not to notice.
You walk over to the floaties to begin blowing them up while Minyoung continues his walks round the pool perimeter, taking his necessary precautions. Anton comes over to help you, while you work on the right floatie he blows up the left.
“Thank you,” he says quietly.
You shrug and hold the floatie up. “Don’t tell anyone. It’ll ruin my street cred.”
That gets a laugh out of him, you find yourself feeling pleased and left with the desire to keep being the one making him laugh.
“I’ll try to keep your reputation intact,” he says.
Minyoung turns at the sound of your voices and spots the floaties immediately. You walk over and crouch in front of him, holding them out. “Ready bug?”
Minyoung stares at the cartoon fish printed on them. “They look babyish.”
You gasp in mock offense. “Excuse you! All the great swimmers have used these floaties before.”
A tiny smile tugs at the corner of his mouth despite himself.
“That’s how you know they’re good,” you continue. “Only the best swimmers get fish like these.”
Minyoung giggles before shaking his head. “You’re silly noona!”
You smile in response and help him put on his goggles before he lifts his arms and allows you to place on his floaties. Once they’re in place, he stares down at them for a second trying to adjust.
“Well?” you ask.
He rolls his shoulders experimentally. “They’re okay.”
You clap. “Awesome!”
You stand and set the pool noodle aside for later then look at the pool. “I’m getting in first.”
Minyoung’s attention snaps right back to the water.
You toss your cover-up on the nearest chair and step toward the shallow end, aware in the back of your mind that Anton is still watching you.
The water is cool when you lower yourself in, a sharp relief against the humidity clinging to your skin. You wade in until it reaches just above your waist then turn back toward the edge and hold out your arms to Minyoung.
“See? No drowning. Very boring so far.” You say.
Minyoung hovers at the edge, floaties bright against his small arms. Anton crouches beside him, one forearm braced over his knee as he looks up at his son. “You don’t have to do this today. If it feels too scary, that’s okay. We can try again another day.” He says quietly.
Minyoung’s fingers curl against the tops of his floaties. For a second you think he might take the out. He looks at the water then at you then back at Anton. His mouth presses into a tiny line.
“Daddy does stuff that scares him,” he says after a moment, voice small but certain.
Anton’s face softens immediately. “Yeah?”
Minyoung nods once. “So I can too.”
You find yourself suffering from cuteness aggression. Anton smiles big enough for Minyoung to see it and take courage from it. “You can,” he assures.
Minyoung turns back toward you after that and gives one tiny, solemn nod. “Okay…I’m ready.”
You step a little closer and hold out your hand. “Come on then, bug. Nice and slow.”
He takes it. At first it’s easy. The water barely reaches his ankles, then his shins, then his knees as you guide him carefully down the shallow steps one at a time. You don’t rush him. Every few seconds you pause and let him adjust, let him feel the water moving around him, let him decide for himself that he’s still safe. Behind him, Anton follows a step or two back, close enough to catch him if needed but not so close that it feels like crowding.
Minyoung’s grip on your hand tightens the deeper he goes. By the time the water reaches his waist, his breaths have started coming quicker. You can see him doing the math in his head, measuring the distance back to the steps, the slope of the pool floor beneath his feet, all the possibilities that end with him sinking instead of swimming. He takes one more step and his heel slips just enough off the bottom that panic flashes across his face all at once.
“Noona—”
You move before he can spiral. Your arms wrap around him immediately, one around his back and the other beneath his little arms as you gather him against you. He clings just as fast, floaties squeaking softly as his arms lock around your shoulders and his knees tuck reflexively against your hips. “I’ve got you,” you say at once. “I’ve got you, bug. You’re okay.”
Behind you, the water shifts. Anton fully gets in then, the pool sloshing quietly around him as he moves closer. A second later he’s there, close enough that when you step back to steady your footing, the solid plane of his chest brushes your back for half a second. You have to force your attention away from that immediately.
Minyoung gulps against your shoulder, still breathing too fast. “Okay,” he says, though it comes out shaky. “Okay…I’m okay.”
“You are, you’re doing really well.” Anton says from behind you, voice calm and even.
Minyoung loosens his grip only enough to look between the two of you. His eyes are still wide behind his goggles. You shift him a little higher and smile. “See? No drowning. Still very boring.”
That earns the tiniest breath of laughter out of him. Anton slips a hand around your waist and squeezes gently, you fight the urge to press up against him. “I’m going to go to the other end,” he says to Minyoung. “You and Noona come to me when you’re ready, okay?”
Minyoung hesitates then he nods. Anton gives him one more encouraging look before swimming backward toward the far side of the shallow end, giving the two of you space while still staying close enough to reach you in seconds if he needs to. You turn your attention back to Minyoung and adjust your hold so he can start to feel the floaties doing some of the work.
“Okay,” you say softly. “We’re not going to do anything scary. Just gonna start with the basics, floating.”
Minyoung looks deeply suspicious of this plan. “You promised,” he reminds you.
“I know and I meant it.” You smile.
Very slowly, you lean him away just enough that the floaties catch the water properly beneath his arms. He stiffens immediately, every muscle in his little body locking with the effort of trying not to sink, even though you’re still holding him.
“Bug, You have to stop fighting it.” You say gently.
“But what if—”
“You won’t. The floaties are holding you. I’m holding you. Your dad’s right there.” You nod toward Anton at the other end, where he waits with his arms resting along the pool edge, eyes fixed entirely on his son. “Nothing bad is happening.”
Minyoung swallows and tries again. This time he lets himself lean back a little more. Not much. Just enough for the floaties to bob properly. His mouth opens in surprise.
You grin. “There you go.”
He looks over at Anton immediately. “Daddy!”
Anton smiles. “I saw.”
The pride in his voice seems to do something for Minyoung because when he looks back at you, he looks a little less frightened and a little more curious.
“Again?” you ask.
Minyoung nods eagerly. This time when you lean him back, he doesn’t go rigid quite as fast. He still grabs for you at first but after a second he remembers what just happened and forces himself to loosen his grip and the floaties keep him up. “There you go, see? You’re okay.”
Anton smiles from the edge of the pool. “You’re doing great, buddy.”
You spend the next several minutes doing little more than that. Floating, straightening, letting him feel the water hold him. Eventually the panic leaves him. Once he’s managing to float you shift him upright again and say, “Okay. Now we try kicking.”
He looks at you betrayed. “You said this was just floating.”
“And now it’s just kicking.” You shrug.
He pouts but doesn’t argue. “Just kick behind you. Kinda like…” You pause, thinking. “Like you’re trying to splash your dad.”
That, more than anything, seems to do it. Minyoung kicks once, tentative and awkward then again, a little harder. Water splashes up around his legs in uneven bursts, some droplets making its way over to Anton.
“Again,” you encourage.
This time he kicks harder. His body stays afloat more easily now, especially with your arm steady beneath him and little by little his movements stop looking choppy and awkward flailing and start looking like something closer to swimming.
“There you go! Keep doing that.”
Minyoung’s face changes as he realizes he is actually moving. His kicks get stronger, messier too but stronger. Anton pushes off from the wall and moves a little closer to the pair of you holding his arms out.
“C’mere, you can do it.” He says to his son.
Minyoung looks at the distance between you and his father like it might as well be the Atlantic. You lean in slightly and say, “I’m still holding you.”
That seems to help ease a bit of his fear. At first you keep both hands on him, one beneath his middle and one ready at his side whenever his balance wobbles. By the time you’re halfway to Anton, he’s doing enough of the work himself that your help becomes unneeded. You realize a second before he does that he doesn’t need you quite as much anymore so you let go.
For one glorious little stretch, Minyoung swims completely on his own without realizing it then his eyes widen. “Noona–”
“You’re doing it!” you say quickly, matching his panic with a grin. “Bug, you’re doing it by yourself!”
He looks down at the water then up at Anton then back at you and before grinning like a mad man. His kicks get even faster after that, all enthusiasm and determination. The last bit of distance disappears in a flurry of splashing until Anton reaches forward and catches him under the arms.
Minyoung immediately throws himself against his father. “Daddy!”
Anton laughs and gathers him close, pride written all over his face as he presses a kiss to the side of his wet hair. “I know!” he says. “I saw! I’m so so proud of you!”
You stay where you are, water lapping softly around your waist, catching your breath a little from laughing and the strange amount of emotion wrapped up in watching a six year-old kick four feet through a pool.
Minyoung twists around in Anton’s hold, looks right at you and shouts, “I did it!”
The joy in his voice is so huge and so unguarded that you can’t help smiling back. “Well you had the best teacher ever so I’d be more shocked if you didn’t.”
Anton snorts, "conceited much? I could have sworn it was a team effort.”
You lift your brows. “Really? Could've fooled me."
Minyoung giggles between the two of you, still clinging to Anton. “Daddy helped,” he says loyally.
“Thank you,” Anton says at once, like he’s been vindicated.
You playfully roll your eyes. “Traitor.”
You end up staying in the pool far longer than any of you mean to. Once Minyoung adapts and loses his fear, he refuses to stop. The three of you spend the rest of the morning in the water with the sun climbing higher and Minyoung growing bolder by the minute, his little face splitting into the proudest smile every time he manages something that had terrified him an hour earlier. By the end of it, his hair is plastered to his forehead, your fingers are pruned beyond repair and even Anton admits maybe it’s time to get out before Minyoung turns into a raisin.
You’re standing near one of the lounge chairs toweling off your hair when Minyoung, half wrapped in the towel Anton draped around his shoulders, looks up at his dad and asks, “Can we go to the library?”
Anton glances down at him while rubbing another towel over his own hair. “Sure, we need to return your old books anyway.”
Minyoung brightens then turns toward you before apparently losing courage halfway through the motion. He tugs once on Anton’s hand instead, eyes flicking over in your direction. “Can Noona come too?” You hear him whisper.
Anton’s expression softens immediately. “Why don’t you ask her yourself?”
Minyoung looks offended by this suggestion but after a second he lets go of Anton’s hand and pads over to you anyway, damp hair dripping at the ends and towel trailing behind him like a cape. He stops directly in front of you, tilts his head all the way back to look up at you and clasps his hands behind him.
“Noona,” he says, in the softest little voice that mimics his fathers tone, “do you want to go to the library with us?”
He is, frankly, too cute to say no to. Which is exactly why you sigh like he’s put you out terribly. “Little man, don’t you ever get tired of reading?”
Minyoung shakes his head immediately.
You rest one hand on your hip and pretend to consider it. “Fine…but! You have to read to me this time. You do the voices better than I do.”
His whole face lights up. “Okay!”
Then he whirls around and runs back to Anton with excitement that can’t be matched. “C’mon, Daddy,” he says, grabbing for his hand again. “We have to go change so we can go read!”
Anton lets himself be dragged a step before looking back at you over his shoulder. There’s something sheepish in the smile he gives you, like he knows perfectly well his son just bulldozed through your afternoon plans and expects you to be upset with him for it.
You’re not. He seems to realize that when your mouth twitches upwards in a smile instead of flattening out. Minyoung tugs him again and Anton lets himself be pulled away, the two of them disappearing back toward the house while you stand there with your towel still half twisted in your hands.
A minute later you head inside too, already mentally calculating how fast you can shower and change. By the time you finish, the bathroom is thick with steam and your hair is only half dry. You change into black capri leggings and a navy Dior top with lace trim at the neckline, you finish off the look with sambas. You’ve just finished fixing the last few damp pieces of hair away from your face when your phone buzzes against the vanity.
2:12 pm | plant daddy 🌳: we’re outside
You respond with a thumbs up before leaving your room. You barely make it to the foyer before your grandmother intercepts you. She’s standing near the console table with a book tucked beneath one arm and her reading glasses low on her nose. Her eyes move over you once, taking in your outfit and the fact that you’re leaving the house rather than sulking.
“And where are you going?”
You pause with one hand on the strap of your bag. “Anton and Minyoung invited me to the library.”
You see a faint smile start to lift on her lips. “That’s nice,” she says.
You nod, suddenly unsure why the interaction feels so…odd. Your grandmother finally allows herself to fully smile. “It’s good to see you lively again.”
You blink at her words, the weight of them not lost on you. You return her smile before continuing on your way, unable to find the right words to respond. Outside, Anton’s car is idling at the curb. You slide into the passenger seat and find Minyoung already in the back, buckled into his booster, five library books stacked neatly beside him.
“Noona!”
“Hello to you too, bug.”
Anton glances over from the driver’s seat, his gaze flicking over you for half a second before he pulls back onto the road. “Ready?”
You settle into your seat. “Always.”
The moment the car turns out of your grandmother’s drive, Anton begins quizzing him on the books piled beside his booster seat. “Okay, how many did you finish?” Anton asks.
“All of them!”
Anton lifts a brow in the rearview mirror. “All five?”
Minyoung nods once, insulted by the implication that he might be lying. “Yes.”
“Mm.” Anton reaches the first stop sign and glances at him in the mirror. “Can you tell me a fact from the frog ones?”
“Tree frogs,” Minyoung corrects immediately. “Not just frogs.”
You bite back a smile and look out the window.
Anton to his credit doesn’t miss a beat. “My bad. What were the tree frog ones about?”
Minyoung straightens in his seat. “One was about red-eyed tree frogs and how they sleep under leaves during the day ‘cause they’re nocturnal. The other one was about poison dart frogs…even though that’s not technically a tree frog but it was still in the frog section so I got it anyway.”
Anton hums and nods as he takes a left turn. “And the story books?”
Minyoung glances down at the stack. “One was about two secret-agent alligators traveling through the sewers. Another one was about a girl who kept bringing home lost animals. And one was about a dragon who couldn’t breathe fire but then it turned out he could, he was just nervous.”
Your brows raise, impressed. “How long did it take you to read all of that?”
Minyoung kicks his feet, “A week.”
You turn in your seat a little, more interested now. “You read all of those in a week?”
Minyoung looks at you like the question is silly. “Yes.”
Anton hums, faintly amused. “He’s been trying to beat his own record.”
You look back at the little stack of books and then at Minyoung, who has already moved on to absentmindedly straightening the corners so they line up perfectly again. It’s a little absurd how knowledgeable he is. Not just bright but genuinely curious in a way that makes him feel older than he actually is.
“You’re like…kinda a nerd.” You tell him.
MInyoung only giggles and shrugs. ‘Books are cool! Daddy says I read better than uncle Sohee!”
You laugh, you don’t know who that is but you can only imagine how close he must be to Anton for Minyoung to feel so comfortable dissing him in your presence.
By the time Anton pulls into the library lot, Minyoung is already wiggling in his seat with barely contained impatience. The second the car is parked he’s reaching for his books, hugging them to his chest while Anton unbuckles him and reminds him for what is probably the hundredth time not to run.
Inside, the library is cool and quiet. Minyoung follows Anton to the return desk with a seriousness that suggests he considers returning books to be both a privilege and a sacred duty. You trail beside them, watching as he hands over each book one at a time while Anton speaks to the librarian.
The moment the last one disappears behind the desk, Minyoung turns on his heel and sprints toward the children’s section like he’s been released from captivity.
“Walk,” Anton calls after him.
Minyoung slows for approximately two steps before speeding up again, disappearing between two low shelves decorated with cut-out clouds and cartoon animals. Anton lets out a quiet sigh through his nose, though there’s more fondness than frustration in it, and turns back toward you.
Just like that, it’s the two of you.
For a moment you just stand there then in unison your eyes drift toward the children’s section where Minyoung has already begun making his rounds. He moves from shelf to shelf with quick little bursts of purpose, pulling one book out, inspecting the cover, tucking it beneath his arm or placing it back with surprising care before moving on to the next. Every now and then he pauses long enough to crack one open right there in the aisle, lips moving silently as he skims a page then carries on.
You watch him for a second before saying, “He’s really smart.”
Anton hums and even without looking at him you can hear the pride in it. “Yeah, he reads four grade levels ahead.” He says.
Your head turns. “Seriously?”
Anton nods once. “He finished kindergarten this year.” His eyes stay on Minyoung as he says it. “But he reads at around a fourth grade level now. Maybe a little higher, depending on what it is.”
You look back toward the shelves where Minyoung is now half kneeling in front of a lower section, building himself a little stack.
“You should be really proud of him. He seems like a really good kid.” You say.
You see a full smile take over his face. The two of you drift toward a pair of beanbags near the edge of the children’s section, close enough to keep an eye on Minyoung without hovering. Anton lowers himself into one and you take the other.
“I am proud of him,” Anton says after a moment. “He surprises me all the time.”
You glance at him. There’s something almost shy in the way he says it. It makes you smile before your thoughts can stop themselves from wandering elsewhere. “How old were you when you had him?” you ask.
Anton doesn’t flinch at the question this time around. “Sixteen.”
You blink. It shouldn’t be shocking, not really. You’d done the math before, you knew he was young but hearing the number out loud...sixteen. A sophomore in high school, give or take. Sixteen and terrified, probably. Sixteen and suddenly responsible for another life before he had even figured out his own.
You imagine him sitting in some high school classroom fighting to stay awake because Minyoung had been sick all night. You imagine him rushing home after school, homework abandoned on the kitchen table while he warmed bottles or folded tiny clothes or googled things he was too embarrassed to ask anyone else.
You imagine him standing over a crib with dark circles beneath his eyes wondering if he was ruining his son’s life simply by trying his best. The thought twists something deep inside your chest because Anton makes fatherhood look easy now but maybe that’s only because he’s had six years to practice. Maybe there had been nights when he’d cried too. Maybe there had been mornings where he’d looked in the mirror and seen a scared kid pretending to be someone’s dad.
Yet somehow, despite all of that, Minyoung turned out wonderfully.
You find yourself wondering about Minyoung’s mother before you can stop it. Is Anton still with her? Surely that can’t be, otherwise she’d be around more, right? You’ve spent enough time with the two of them to know the shape of their lives. There are no phone calls asking when Minyoung will be dropped off. No photos of a woman tucked into his wallet. No offhand mentions of Mom when Minyoung tells stories. It’s always Dad said this, Dad made that, Dad promised we could do this tomorrow. The absence of her isn’t glaring exactly, but it’s there if you look for it.
Was she sixteen too? Older? Younger? Was she Anton’s first girlfriend? His first love? Relationships like that don’t last, right? Teenage love burns hot and dies quickly. People grow apart, they go to different universities, they meet other people. Life happens. The odds were always stacked against them, weren’t they? Yet, looking at Anton now, it feels strange to imagine anyone giving him up. Even stranger to imagine him giving someone up.
Your gaze drifts across the room. Minyoung is curled into a beanbag, knees tucked up to his chest, a thick book about insects spread across the floor. His glasses have slipped halfway down his nose. An angel of a child and his father…a sweetheart, though you would rather die than admit that out loud.
You think about the way he always packs extra snacks because Minyoung gets cranky when he’s hungry. The way he kneels to Minyoung’s eye level whenever he’s upset. The way he listens, even when his son is rambling about beetles or dinosaurs or whatever niche interest has captured his attention this week.
You wouldn’t have left.
The thought comes fast and sharp and embarrassingly mean. The moment it crosses your mind, you recoil from it because what the hell is wrong with you? You don’t know her, you don’t know if she left, you don’t know if Anton asked her to. You don’t know if she’s dead or sick or trying her best from a distance. You don’t know anything so why do you care?
The question settles uncomfortably in your chest. Why do you care where she is? Why do you care whether she still loves Anton? Why do you care whether there’s still a place for her in this little world he and Minyoung have built?
You look down at your hands for a second, annoyed at yourself for the direction of your own thoughts. When you finally speak again, it takes effort to keep your tone even. “He’s really blessed to have you as his dad.”
Anton actually blushes. It’s fain but it’s there. He ducks his head slightly and lets out a breath through his nose like he doesn’t quite know what to do with the compliment. “Thanks…it’s not easy.” He says after a beat.
Your eyes move back to him. Anton’s fingers toy idly with the corner of one of the library receipts still tucked into his pocket. “Being twenty-three with a six-year-old…” He trails off for a second, looking out toward Minyoung again. “Sometimes I worry I’m going to mess him up.”
“Mess him up?” you repeat.
Anton shrugs, but there’s no real nonchalance in it. “I don’t know. Do something wrong. Miss something important. He’s a kid, you only get so many chances before something sticks.”
“Anton,” you call, your voice coming out more serious than either of you expects. “I’ve known you for what, a month?”
He glances over at you. “About that.”
“And within that month you’ve been nothing but…” You stop, searching for words that don’t sound too earnest and failing almost immediately. “The kind of dad most kids would be lucky to get.”
Anton says nothing so you keep going. “I mean, he’s six and reading at the level of a ten year-old. He’s polite, he’s kind, he feels safe enough to be weird and completely himself around you.”
You look back to Minyoung who has folded himself into a pretzel while continuing to read. “You make him feel loved and I think kids can tell the difference between being raised by someone who feels responsible for them and being raised by someone who genuinely wants to know them…he’s going to grow up into a really good man because of you.”
Anton clears his throat and turns to look at you but before he can say anything, you keep going. “It might sound weird but sometimes seeing how patient you are with him or how kind you are with him almost makes me…” You trail off, really thinking about the honesty you’re about to drop.
“It makes me a little jealous, I guess.” You laugh once under your breath and shake your head. “Not of him. Just…some kids get fathers like you. Some don’t.”
For a moment Anton says nothing at all then, very gently, he says your name. You look up at him. There’s no pity on his face which somehow makes it worse. “I’m sorry,” he says after a moment. “That you know what that feels like.”
You don’t respond right away. Partly because your throat has gone a little tight and partly because he’s said it so simply there’s nothing to argue with. No lecture, no well maybe if you just tried harder. Just an apology for something he didn’t even do.
Anton glances toward Minyoung for a second, watching him turn a page with exaggerated care before looking back at you again. “You deserved that kind of father too. Every kid does.”
Your mouth twitches but it isn’t quite a smile. For a second you think about saying thank you and leaving it there but the instinct to make it lighter kicks in before you can stop it. “At least he came with a private jet, you win some you lose some.”
Anton huffs a laugh through his nose, not because your joke is particularly good but because he sees exactly what you’re doing and decides, mercifully, not to call you on it.
“Right, how could I forget.” he says dryly.
You snort softly and look away, grateful for the out even as part of you resents needing it. Anton opens his mouth but before he can say whatever he’s about to, Minyoung leaves his beanbag and comes back toward the two of you with a stack of books pressed to his chest so high it nearly hides his whole face.
“Noona! I found one about deep sea worms and one about sharks and–” He stops just long enough to shove the top book into your hands. Before he can continue his tangent, Anton cuts in.
“Okaaayy” Anton says, pushing himself up from the beanbag with a groan dramatic enough to make you roll your eyes. “Pick your final three and then we’re leaving. We have dinner with grandma and grandpa today, remember?”
Minyoung gasps like this is the first he’s hearing of it and immediately spins back toward the shelves. You laugh as you watch him go before turning to Anton. “...thank you.”
He only shrugs before stretching out his arms. “What are friends for?”
🍃 summary: after one reckless mistake too many, your parents send you away for the summer in hopes that a few months in the countryside with your grandmother might finally straighten you out. you fully intend to count down the days until you’re free again…right up until a bug loving little boy and his father begin making the mountains feel a little more like home.
❀ pairing: single dad!anton x f!reader
❀ genre: single parent au, slow burn, rich kid au, found family
❀ word count: 9.3k
⟶ chapter warnings: family conflict, self-destructive behavior, unhealthy coping mechanisms, profanity, referenced physical abuse (slap from parent).
🌱a/n: reader is a bit insufferable this chapter ngl but i promise there’s some slight character development towards the end! chapters will be posted every friday at 12pm est.
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10:14 am | you: i hate it here
10:14 am | harvey💋: good morning to you too sunshine
10:15 am | maya🍸: smth happen?
10:15 am | you: i’d rather be euthanized than stay here for another minute.
10:15 am | harvey💋: that’s a little dramatic…
10:17 am | you: harvey i need you to understand
10:17 am | you: it’s been four days of absolute HELL.
10:17 am | you: there are no other people
10:17 am | you: no prada or hermès within a five mile radius
10:17 am | you: no stables to even go riding.
10:18 am | maya🍸: when was the last time you even went riding?
10:19 am | you: besides the point.
10:19 am | harvey💋: can you at least terrorize the gardener for entertainment?
10:19 am | you: he hasn’t been back since the first night but doesn’t matter anyway bc of his son remember?
10:20 am | maya🍸: forgot he has one of those
10:21 am | maya🍸: have you at least spoken to wonbin
10:21 am | you: sent a boob pic last night but no response
10:21 am | harvey💋: that’s why you’re so cranky
10:21 am | you: i’m not cranky
10:22 am | harvey💋: right
10:22 am | maya🍸: you are a little cranky babe
10:23 am | you: moving on !
10:23 am | you: how’s greece
10:24 am | maya🍸: we found the cutest little place by the water
10:24 am | maya🍸: wait i took pictures hold on
10:25 am | harvey💋: also there are two brothers in the villa next to ours
10:25 am | harvey💋: one for each of us
10:25 am | harvey💋: gonna try to find a third for u
10:25 am | you: music to my ears
10:26 am | maya🍸: uploading…
10:26 am | maya🍸: uploading…
10:27 am | maya🍸: loading…⟳
The message never loads.
You stare at the little spinning symbol for another ten seconds anyway, as though sheer irritation might somehow coerce the signal into cooperating. It doesn’t budge, Maya’s half-sent photo remains stuck in limbo while the loading icon mocks you from the center of the screen. Somewhere in Greece, your best friends are probably halfway through getting dressed for another day of beach clubs and overpriced drinks while you lay across a couch wearing all black sweats and a hoodie.
Eventually the screen dims. You tap it again immediately only to be met with the same useless loading symbol. With a sigh, you drop your phone onto your stomach and sink further into the living room couch.
Reception in the mountains comes and goes whenever it pleases. Sometimes texts send instantly, other times they arrive thirty minutes late and completely out of order. Facetime is a joke and tiktok refuses to load at all unless you stand in one specific corner of the upstairs hallway with your arm half-raised toward a window. You tried that yesterday for nearly twenty minutes before your grandmother walked by, took one look at you and asked if you were stretching.
The problem however, is not just the reception.
It’s everything. From the quietness of it all to how slowly time moves here. Back home your life had always moved quickly enough to outrun itself. There was always somewhere to be, someone to see, some invitation to accept, some rooftop or restaurant or boy willing to help kill a night. Here there is nothing but trees and mountains.
For four days you have done little besides sleep late, complain to Harvey and Maya whenever the signal allows for it, pick halfheartedly at meals and wander from room to room like a ghost. You’ve already explored the library, the sitting room, the sunroom, the gardens surrounding the house and one very ill-advised trail your grandmother suggested might “clear your head” only for you to turn back twenty minutes in because your sandals were not made for incline.
Your grandmother, thus far, appears unimpressed by your suffering.
Yesterday, when you mentioned maybe having something from Erewhon flown in because the house had no decent coconut yogurt, she looked up from her tea and asked whether stupidity was a hobby of yours or a permanent condition. You’ve disliked her slightly ever since.
Not enough to forget that she is still preferable to your parents but enough that this strange quiet version of tough love is beginning to wear on you. You stare up at the ceiling, already exhausted by the prospect of being conscious for several more hours.
One hundred and nineteen more days of this and you may actually lose your mind.
The sound of socked feet descending from the stairs catches your attention and pulls you from your loathing. You lift your head to find your grandmother standing at the edge of the living room, dressed as neatly as ever in slacks and a blouse that probably hasn’t known a wrinkle a day in its life. Her gaze moves over you where you’re sprawled across the couch, phone still resting on your stomach and the disapproval is immediate enough to make your own irritation rise in response.
“You’re still lying there?”
You stare at her. “Good morning to you too, grams.”
“It is nearly eleven-thirty.”
“Exactly,” you mutter. “Morning.”
Your grandmother ignores that and glances toward the dark television, the discarded throw pillows and your untouched tea gone cold on the side table. You suddenly become very aware of how you must look from where she’s standing. She takes a slow sip of tea before speaking again. “Have you done anything useful today?”
You blink at her. “I’ve been trying to text my friends.”
“That’s not useful.”
“It is to me.”
She hums and takes another sip. “Your grandfather used to say boredom is a privilege only lazy people complain about.”
You stare at her for a second. “How philosophical.”
Your grandmother ignores that. “For four days you have done nothing but sleep and complain. At some point you will need to start helping yourself.”
You let out a short laugh and sit up a little straighter. “Help myself do what exactly? Frolic in the mountains? Take up birdwatching?”
“That attitude is exactly what I mean.”
“My attitude?” You repeat incredulously. “I got dumped in the middle of nowhere against my will. Forgive me for not embracing the situation.”
“You’re here now.”
The simplicity of the response makes your jaw tighten. “Amazing. Thank you oh wise one. That helps a lot.”
Your grandmother remains unmoved. “Sulking on my couch will not improve your circumstances.”
“You don’t get to lecture me on how I am. Your son raised me this way in case you forgot.” You say, the defensiveness arriving faster than you can stop it.
That gives her pause. When she speaks again, her tone is still level. “My son may be responsible for many things but what you choose to do with yourself now is your responsibility.”
You stare at her. It’s the exact wrong thing to say. Of course this is what your pain gets reduced down to. Discipline and action. Never hurt, never grief or the complex messy emotions you’ve been drowning in. “Do you hear yourself? I’ve been here four days and not one person in this family has managed to say anything remotely normal to me.” You say.
Your grandmother’s brows knit slightly. “Normal?”
“Yes, normal.” You’re fully sitting up now, phone forgotten beside you. “Like I don’t know: I’m sorry that happened to you, are you okay, I love you, I’m sorry. Any of those would be great, actually.”
She studies you for a moment, and the silence that follows is somehow worse than if she’d snapped back immediately. When she does answer, her voice is calm. “What happened to you was unfortunate.”
You laugh in disbelief. “Unfortunate?”
“It was.”
“That’s all you have to say? Insane.”
“No. What would be insane is allowing one terrible thing to dictate everything that comes after it.” Your grandmother says.
You can only stare at her. Of course even here it circles back to endurance. Everyone in your family seems pathologically incapable of simply letting pain be pain. It always has to become a lesson or a challenge.
You shake your head. “You’re unbelievable.”
“And you’re behaving like a child.”
That does it. You’re on your feet before you realize you’ve moved, the blanket slipping from your legs and pooling onto the floor. “I am so tired,” you say, voice shaking now despite your best efforts to keep it even, “of every person in this family acting like if I would just wake up one morning and decide to be better then everything would magically fix itself. As if none of you had anything to do with how I got here.”
Your grandmother’s expression hardens slightly. “That is not what I said.”
You shrug. “It’s what you mean.”
“No, what I mean is that you are twenty-two years old and at some point you need to grow up enough to decide whether you intend to keep rotting or do something useful with yourself.”
You blink at her dazed from her ability to both validate and invalidate your emotions. “Your son slapped me yet somehow, my actions are the main takeaway?"
“I’m sorry that happened.”
The apology is hollow to your ears. It’s come eight days too late and from the wrong person. Just when you think she’ll end it there and let you go back to your self pitying, she continues. “But lying on this couch waiting for your life to start again will not change it.”
You let out a scoff. “You just had to keep going.”
Your grandmother’s mouth tightens. “Would you rather I lie to you?”
“I would rather one person in this family know how to stop talking for five seconds and just feel something.”
Her gaze sharpens. “Feeling something has never been your problem. Discipline is.”
Without another word you snatch your phone from the couch and brush past her, too furious to trust yourself to keep standing in that room another second. You hear her call your name behind you but don’t stop. By the time you shove through the back doors and step out onto the patio, your hands are shaking.
The air outside is cooler than you expect, though it does nothing to settle your anger. Your pulse is still pounding from the argument, every nerve in your body buzzing leaving you in a blind rage. All you can think about is distance, putting as much of it between yourself and the living room as possible before you say something even uglier.
Which is why you don’t notice the little dark head bent near the stone path or the glass jar sitting beside him. You storm down the walkway to enter the garden but your right foot kicks the glass jar with force. You curse under your breath as pain shoots up your foot.
The jar tips sideways and you stumble, your arms flinging out to try and catch yourself before you go down completely. Your foot comes back down and the sole of your slipper lands on something that crunches under your foot. Behind you, a small voice cracks.
You whip around and find Minyoung on his hands and knees beside the path, eyes huge and horrified as he stares at the jar now rolling uselessly on its side. A few leaves and sticks have spilled out across the stone along with several glossy black beetles, two of which now lie crushed beneath the edge of your sandal.
His whole face crumples. “No! No, no, no!” He cries, dropping fully onto his knees.
He reaches for one of the beetles with both hands as though he might somehow be able to fix it. “I’m sorry,” he says breathlessly, though it isn’t clear whether he’s apologizing to the beetles or to you. “I’m sorry, I was just letting them get air! I was watching them I promise! I didn’t mean–”
One of the live beetles skitters toward your shoe and you jerk back so fast you nearly lose your balance again.
“What the fuck! Why would you keep beetles in a jar in the middle of the fucking walkway!?” You snap, already overstimulated enough that the sight of insects scattering over the stone is sending your skin crawling.
Minyoung freezes. His watery eyes lift to your face and for one awful second he just looks at you, with those big doe eyes of his. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were coming.” He says again, much quieter this time.
“Well obviously.” You scoff.
“Minyoung!”
Anton’s voice cuts across the garden a second before he appears around the side of the house. He must have heard the glass tip over. His gaze lands on Minyoung first. “What happened? Are you okay?”
Minyoung’s mouth wobbles immediately. “I wanted them to have fresh air,” he says, words coming out too fast. He points shakily at the ground. “But then she came and I tried to move it and I couldn’t and now they’re dead and I’m sorry and I didn’t mean to!”
Anton crouches beside him at once. “Hey, hey, slow down.”
Minyoung doesn’t slow down. “I was gonna put them back, Daddy, I was! I just wanted them to see outside first and then–” His voice breaks cleanly in the middle of the sentence when he looks at the crushed beetles again. “They got stepped on.”
Anton’s face tightens at the way his son tries to hold in his tears. He pulls Minyoung into his arms without hesitation and Minyoung cuddles into him immediately. One small fist knots in Anton’s shirt while the other still clutches uselessly at a leaf from the jar.
Anton glances at the tipped container then at you. “It was an accident.”
You let out a disbelieving laugh. “Your son’s weird little science project nearly took me out.”
Anton’s expression hardens. “Hey.” The single word is sharp enough to make you look at him properly. “Don’t speak to him like that.”
The reprimand lands badly, mostly because some part of you knows he’s right but your mood is far too rotten to admit it. You cross your arms. “Then maybe don’t leave him out here with a jar full of beetles in the middle of the walkway.”
Anton rises with Minyoung still in his arms. “He’s six. It was an accident.”
Regardless of the fact that it was indeed an accident and Minyoung has already apologized, you can’t find it in you to care or have any sympathy so you lash out yet again. “Maybe next time leave your sperm at home while you work.”
For a second Anton just stares at you. Like he’s trying to decide whether he actually heard you correctly and if responding would do anything other than make the moment worse for the little boy clinging to his shirt. In his arms, Minyoung’s crying has gone quiet, his small shoulders still shake against Anton’s chest, one fist twisted in the front of his shirt while Anton holds him close with one hand and rubs a slow steady path up and down his back with the other.
It’s that, more than anything, that gets under your skin
The love they both so clearly have for one another. The way Minyoung melts into him without hesitation. The way Anton doesn’t look embarrassed or inconvenienced or impatient to get back to whatever he had been doing before. He doesn’t sigh, he doesn’t tell his son to toughen up. He doesn’t hand the problem off to somebody else and disappear behind work or a phone call or the vague promise of later. He just holds him.
Like his son’s grief, however small or silly it may look to anyone else, actually matters.
Anton meets your gaze again. “Don’t talk about my son that way. He didn’t do this to upset you. He made a mistake and he’s already apologized.”
You say nothing. Anton shifts Minyoung higher against his chest before continuing. “Whatever’s put you in this mood, take it up with them and not my son.”
For one humiliating second, you can’t think of a single smart thing to say back. In Anton’s arms, Minyoung sniffles and curls closer, face tucked against his shoulder. Anton glances down at him immediately, some of the hardness leaving his expression as he smooths a hand over the back of his head. “It’s okay,” he murmurs softly.
The sight causes jealousy to flare in your veins. It’s embarrassing to admit you’re jealous of a six year old so instead you do what you’ve always done best when you feel cornered: you roll your eyes like none of this matters, like you aren’t standing there feeling flayed open by the sight of some stranger loving his child better than your own father ever managed to love you.
“Whatever.”
Anton says nothing to that. He only adjusts Minyoung more securely against him and glances down at the crushed beetles on the stone before looking back at you with an expression you can’t quite read.
You brush past him before the silence can turn any more unbearable and head back toward the house with your pulse hammering in your throat. The second you step through the back doors you nearly collide with your grandmother standing in the doorway.
For a moment neither of you speaks. You can tell immediately from the look on her face that she heard enough.
“Anton and Minyoung are good people,” she says at last.
You stare at her, still breathing too hard, too revved up on adrenaline to speak.
“They did nothing to deserve that.”
“I know.” You finally say.
“Do you?” She pushes back.
Your grandmother folds her hands loosely in front of herself, her voice remaining calm. “Because from where I was standing, it looked very much like you took everything you feel for your father and dropped it onto the nearest people least equipped to defend themselves from it.”
You cross your arms defensively. “What do you want me to say?”
Your grandmother’s gaze doesn’t leave your face. “Minyoung is a child and Anton is not your enemy. Do not drag innocent people into this war you have waged with your father.”
You purse your lips before bitterly laughing. “You all keep saying things like that as if I’m some kind of monster.”
Her expression doesn’t soften. “If I thought you were a monster, I wouldn’t bother correcting you.”
You look away and she takes a step closer. “What happened to you was wrong,” she says, and for a second you hate how much you still need to hear that. “What you do next is still your choice.”
You swallow hard and say nothing. What are you even meant to say to that? That you were jealous of a six-year-old?
Your grandmother studies you for another moment before stepping aside from the doorway. “Go upstairs,” she says. “And when you come back down, decide whether you intend to keep proving everyone’s worst assumptions about you correct.”
That one stings. You press your lips together so tightly they almost ache. Then without another word, you shoulder past her hard enough to make your point and head for the stairs. When you reach your room and shove the door shut behind you, your heart is still racing. Beneath all the anger and humiliation, something worse has started to take root: guilt.
You throw yourself onto the bed without bothering to take off your shoes, your phone still clutched in one hand as you open TikTok out of instinct. For a few seconds the app cooperates, you watch a girl show her haul from White Fox before the screen glitches. You wait but nothing happens.
The video buffers, jumps back three seconds, buffers again and then stops altogether. You stare at it for another moment before scrolling only for the next video to do the same thing. By the third frozen screen you let out a sharp breath through your nose and toss the phone onto the duvet beside you.
You lie there for all of thirty seconds before the restlessness starts creeping in. You roll onto your back and stare at the ceiling then onto your side then back again. Finally you push yourself up and begin pacing. From the bed to the window, from the window to the vanity then back again. You try, with limited success, to convince yourself this isn’t worth the spiral. They were beetles! Minyoung is six, children cry all the time. Anton is a stranger whose opinion of you should not matter in the slightest and yet your brain seems unwilling to accept any of those arguments.
You stop pacing and glance toward the windows. You hear voices drift faintly through the window. You catch Minyoung's soft voice mixed in with sniffing and despite yourself, you move towards the window.
You part the curtain just enough to look out and immediately wish you hadn’t. Down in the garden, not too far from the path where you lost your mind twenty minutes ago, Anton is crouched beside Minyoung in the dirt. The jar with the remaining beetles has been set off to the side and between them, Anton is using one hand to brush back a patch of loose soil while Minyoung kneels close enough that their shoulders almost touch, carefully placing the crushed beetles into the little hole they’ve made.
You can’t hear every word from this distance, only pieces of it carried up through the open crack in the window. Minyoung says something first, voice soft and a little stuffy. Anton answers in that same gentle tone he seems to reserve for his son. Then Minyoung speaks again, louder this time. “Did you know beetles are good for the soil?” He asks.
Anton glances up from where he’s helping him dig. “Yeah?”
Minyoung nods, his lip wobbling slightly as he looks down at the little grave. “When they die they decompose and put nutrients back into the ground.”
For a second Anton says nothing. He just looks at Minyoung then at the beetles resting in the dirt between them. “Then I guess they’re doing one last good thing for the earth. That's a pretty nice legacy for a beetle,” he says softly.
Minyoung goes quiet at that, though the sadness doesn’t leave his face. He swallows once and asks, “Do you think they knew I loved them?”
The question hits you right in the center of your chest. God you’re such a bitch. Anton doesn’t laugh, he doesn’t tell his son to not be silly. He reaches over instead and smooths a hand gently over the back of Minyoung’s head. “Yeah, I think they knew,” he affirms.
You press your forehead lightly against the cool windowpane and close your eyes. A small part of you wants to crawl back into bed and ignore the whole thing until dinner. Another part, quieter and far more annoying, is beginning to understand that your grandmother was right. What happens next is your choice.
You exhale slowly and straighten. You’re going to have to apologize.
You spend the next five hours doing absolutely nothing and yet somehow feeling exhausted by it. By late afternoon the guilt has completely consumed you. Around six, you finally force yourself off the bed.
You rehearse your apology the entire way downstairs, you start and stop scrap and rephrase but none of it sounds right. You don’t know how to do this, how to not hide behind sarcasm or put together a string of words that properly convey your shame and remorse.
By the time you reach the foyer, your stomach is tight enough to make you consider turning around and trying again tomorrow. You’re about to turn around but stop short when you catch sight of Anton.
He stands near the front doors with his keys in one hand and Minyoung’s little jacket draped over the other arm. Minyoung himself stands beside him in tiny sneakers, face washed and his hands scrubbed of dirt clutching the jar of his remaining beetles. Anton looks up first when he hears your steps and for one mortifying second all three of you just stare at one another.
You awkwardly walk the rest of the way over, every instinct in your body screaming at you to abort the mission. Up close, Anton’s expression is unreadable. You stop a few feet away. “I’m sorry,” you say.
Anton blinks once. “For?”
The question makes your face heat immediately because of course he would ask that. You glance down at the floor then back up again. “For earlier.”
Anton says nothing. The silence stretches just long enough that you realize how flimsy that sounds. For earlier could mean anything, for the bugs, for being rude at dinner four nights ago. You let out a short breath and make yourself try again.
“I shouldn’t have spoken to Minyoung like that…none of it was his fault.”
Minyoung presses a little closer to Anton’s leg at the sound of his name but doesn’t look away from you completely. Anton remains still, waiting. “I was angry. That’s not an excuse. I know it isn’t. I just...” You stop and shake your head, frustrated with your own inability to apologize correctly. “He didn’t deserve that and I shouldn’t have said what I said to you either.”
Anton’s gaze stays on your face. You push through the rest before your pride can intervene. “I was upset and I took it out on both of you because you happened to be there. That was shi–sucky of me...I’m sorry.”
Anton nods once. “Okay.”
You blink. “Wait, really?”
He shrugs slightly. “You said sorry, didn’t you?”
Your arms move behind your back almost on instinct, hands clasping together as you nod once. “Right.”
For a moment Anton just studies you as if trying to figure out what to do with this newer, quieter version of you. Anton glances down at Minyoung briefly before looking back at you. “We’re on our way into town.”
You frown a little. “Town?”
“There’s a festival tonight,” he explains. “They do it every year. It has food stalls, games, music, stuff like that. Do you want to come? Might do you some good to get out of the house, make you less cranky.”
Under normal circumstances, you would probably take offense to that.
The invitation catches you off guard enough that your first instinct is to refuse. You can practically hear yourself saying no thanks, I’d rather stay here, as if spending another night sulking in your room is somehow the more dignified option but after the day you’ve had and all the chewing out your grandmother has done, you can recognize how unhealthy that would be.
It’s about time you start doing at least one thing differently so instead of refusing, you nod. “If you really don’t mind.”
Anton shakes his head once. “I don’t.” He glances down at Minyoung, who has thus far remained tucked close to his side in wary silence. “I need to get him home and bathed first but I’ll swing back for you.”
You nod hesitantly, “okay…thank you.”
Anton only nods again, then reaches down to guide Minyoung gently toward the door. The second the front door closes behind them, you exhale. You stretch your arms out in front of you before beelining for the stairs to go and get yourself ready.
An hour later you’re standing in front of your mirror applying your Dior lipgloss while looking over your outfit. You settled on low rise jeans and a baby pink Aritzia henley that buttons low enough to let the edge of your white lace bra peek through at the top. Not the most appropriate choice for what might be some kind of wholesome local festival but modesty has never ranked especially high among your priorities and besides, the shirt looks better this way.
You throw your little Coach bag over your shoulder, smooth your hair down one last time and head downstairs before you can change your mind. Your grandmother is passing through the foyer when you reach the bottom step.
Her eyes flick over your outfit quickly. You expect some comment about your chest or your midriff but instead she only smiles. You return it before you can think too hard about why and continue toward the front door. An unspoken truce neither of you seems interested in ruining just yet.
Outside, the evening air has cooled. You settle onto the front steps to wait, one leg crossed over the other as you scroll uselessly through your phone. No new messages and still terrible reception. You drop it back into your bag and glance up just as headlights sweep across the drive.
An all black Range Rover pulls to a stop in front of the house.
You look away uninterested, the car looks to be one of the latest models, all glossy black paint and dark tinted windows. You assume it must belong to some other wealthy retiree your grandmother has befriended out here. You yawn and stretch out your arms then the passenger window slides down. Anton leans slightly toward it, one hand still on the wheel. “Are you coming?”
You blink, caught so off guard you actually forget how words work for a second. “O-oh? Yeah, sorry.”
You push yourself off the steps and walk toward the car trying not to look as surprised as you feel. What the hell? How many lawns does he mow to make this kind of money? You wonder if he’s taking advantage of your grandmother. The thought is probably unfair yet it follows you all the way to the passenger door.
Your suspicion only deepens once you get inside. The stitching is immaculate, the seats are cream leather, it smells faintly of lavender and body wash. You pull the door shut and fasten your seatbelt, taking in the dashboard while trying not to look too interested.
Anton glances at you briefly as he pulls away from the house. “Everything okay?”
You blink and force your attention away from the interior. “Mhm.”
He doesn’t look convinced, though thankfully he lets it go. In the backseat, Minyoung has apparently recovered enough from earlier to become a chatter-box. He starts talking almost as soon as Anton is out of the driveway. “Daddy, did you know dragonflies can see almost all the way around themself?”
“Themselves,” Anton corrects gently.
“Themselves,” Minyoung repeats. “Almost all the way around themselves.”
Anton nods once. “How much?”
“Three hundred and sixty degrees."
You glance back at him. At dinner and in the garden he had been so quiet you’d almost filed him away in your mind as one of those children who only communicate in nods and shy little half-sentences. In the car, though, he’s a completely different person. Still soft-spoken like his father but a walking mini encyclopedia. Facts keep tumbling out of him one after another, each one more specific than the last.
A few minutes later Minyoung starts again. “Daddy, did you know drosophila taste with their feet?” He asks as he tugs at the zipper of his jacket.
Anton glances at him in the rearview mirror. “No, I didn’t buddy, that’s pretty cool.”
You look out the window before either of them can catch the smile threatening at the corners of your mouth. You’re beginning to understand that his silence earlier had never been a lack of personality. He had simply been unsure of you. Given time, or maybe just the safety of a moving car and his father’s attention, he turns into a child entomologist.
By the time Anton turns into town, the roads have grown busier and warm light spills across the street from lanterns and food stalls. Music drifts through the windows and the whole place glows. Anton parks, climbs out and circles around to unbuckle Minyoung from his booster seat. The little boy hops down and immediately slips his hand into Anton’s without prompting.
You follow them toward the entrance, trying not to look as out of place as you feel. A woman stationed beneath the lantern-strung archway smiles as you approach. “How many?”
“Three,” Anton answers.
Before you can even think to reach for your bag, he’s already pulling out his wallet. The woman takes his payment and tears off three wristbands, sliding them across the table one by one. Anton helps Minyoung with his first, fastening it carefully around his little wrist before taking the other two. He passes one to you and you blink down at it for a second before looking back up at him.
“Thank you.”
Anton shrugs lightly. “No problem.”
You fasten the wristband around your wrist and follow them through the entrance. You fasten the wristband around your wrist and follow them through the entrance. Lanterns hang overhead, music drifts from somewhere deeper in the crowd and every few feet another stall seems to appear selling something fried, skewered, candied or entirely unrecognizable.
Minyoung, for all his earlier chatter in the car, goes a little quiet again once you’re swallowed by the crowd. He stays close to Anton’s side, small hand tucked into his father’s, eyes moving everywhere at once.
A little farther in, a cluster of children around his age are crowded around some kind of water gun game, shrieking every time one of the targets lights up. You notice Minyoung slows down as you get closer.
He just stares as one kid knocks down the last target and throws his hands up like he’s won the lottery. Minyoung’s grip tightens on Anton’s hand for half a second before he looks away. You glance at Anton, who has clearly noticed too but appears content to wait and see if his son says anything. Minyoung, apparently, has no intention of doing that.
Before you can think too hard about it, you point toward the game and ask, “Can we go play that?”
Anton’s attention shifts to you looking mildly surprised. Then something small and unmistakable passes over his face. You think it's gratitude but it's gone as fast as it came. “Sure,” he says.
Minyoung looks up at him. “Really?”
Anton nods once and smiles. That’s all the encouragement he needs. The three of you make your way over and Anton pays for the game before you can argue. The attendant hands out the water guns and when Minyoung realizes he’s apparently going head-to-head with you, he looks delighted and deeply determined.
Once the attendant gives the count down and the game starts, you decide to be a good person and let him win.
You try not to make it obvious and you don’t give in right away. You make enough of an effort to keep it interesting, hit a few targets, even narrow your eyes in pretend concentration so he’ll think he’s genuinely taking you down on skill alone. By the end of it he is practically vibrating with excitement, squealing each time another target lights up under his aim.
When the final buzzer goes off and his side has more points, he gasps like he can’t quite believe it. He whirls around toward Anton. “Daddy, Daddy, I won!”
Anton is already smiling. He crouches just enough to scoop Minyoung up before the words have even fully left his mouth. “I saw,” he says, grinning as Minyoung all but launches himself into his arms. “You crushed her.”
“I did!” Minyoung says, still breathless with joy.
You playfully scoff and shake your head but say nothing as you place down your watergun. Anton tickles his side and Minyoung giggles so hard he nearly folds in on himself. “Okay, okay! Put me down!” He squeals.
Anton does, setting him back on his feet just as one of the boys from the group standing beside the game earlier wanders over. He can’t be more than seven or eight, cheeks pink from running around. “Do you want to come to the bouncy house with us?” he asks Minyoung.
Minyoung immediately turns to Anton, eyes wide and hopeful.
Anton nods once. “You can go but please be safe.”
That’s all it takes. Minyoung gives his fathers leg a quick hug before he looks back at the boy and then the two of them are off, joined by the rest of the little group as they go running toward whatever inflatable nightmare is waiting for them across the festival.
Anton watches Minyoung disappear into the crowd of children, his eyes following the little group until they reach the brightly colored bouncy house at the far end of the field. Only once he’s clearly satisfied that Minyoung has joined without incident does he look back at you. “Thank you,” he says.
You shrug and adjust the strap of your Coach bag higher on your shoulder. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Anton huffs under his breath at that as he shoves his hands into his pockets. The two of you drift away from the water gun stall together, falling into step almost without thinking. Around you the festival keeps moving in every direction at once, children running past in sticky hands and sneakers with their parents calling after them, music blending with the sound of laughter and carnival games.
After a few steps, Anton glances toward the bouncy house again before speaking. “Minyoung is a little…” He pauses, as though searching for the right word and not quite finding one he likes. “Shy.”
You lift a brow. “A little?”
That gets another small laugh out of him. “Okay, very.” His shoulders rise and fall in a little shrug. “He likes people just fine once he knows them. It’s the getting there that takes time. I’m trying to encourage him to be more social. Spend time with kids his age. It’s…a work in progress.” He says as his mouth twitches faintly.
You nod, glancing out toward where Minyoung has already disappeared into a blur of other children and bouncing plastic walls. “I’m sure he’ll get the hang of it. You seem like a good dad.”
Anton looks at you. The compliment seems to catch him more off guard than your apology did. You see a faint dusting of pink over his cheeks and he ducks his head just slightly, the reaction so unguarded it makes your own face heat in response.
“Thanks,” he says quietly.
You hum and let your eyes drift elsewhere because if you keep looking at him right now you might start feeling weird about things you are not prepared to feel weird about. A tanghulu stall appears a little farther ahead and you gesture toward it. “Do you want anything?”
Anton shakes his head. “I’m good.”
You don’t bother arguing, already stepping toward the stall. “One green grape, please.”
By the time Anton reaches for his wallet, you’ve already beaten him to it, passing over your blackcard before he can protest. He glances at you as the vendor hands over the tanghulu.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
You take the skewer from the woman and thank her before turning back toward him. “You’re not paying for everything.”
“I invited you.” He says simply.
“And I was rude earlier.” You take your first careful bite, the sugar shell cracking sharply between your teeth. “If anything, I should be the one paying gor everything.”
Anton waves a hand lightly like he has no intention of taking that argument seriously. The two of you start walking again, slower now weaving through the crowd while you pick at the grapes one at a time.
“I already forgave you. You don’t need to punish yourself.” He says after a moment.
You bite through another grape and say, “That’s all I ever do.”
The sentence hangs there and your steps falter almost immediately. Heat climbs up your neck so fast it makes you want to disappear into the nearest food stall and stay there forever. “Oh my Gosh. Sorry. Just…forget I said that.” You mutter.
Anton doesn’t answer right away. When you finally risk a glance at him, he isn’t looking at you with pity or surprise or even curiosity. He just seems to be thinking. “I used to be like that too,” he says at last.
You blink. “Really?”
He nods once. “Yeah.” His gaze shifts toward the festival lights ahead, unfocused for a second. “At some point though, I had to forgive myself and become better. Not just for me but for Minyoung too. It’s easier when you have a reason outside of yourself.”
His words leave you uncomfortable. Not because they’re preachy. Anton doesn’t sound like he’s trying to teach you anything or fix you or guide you toward some moral revelation. If anything, he sounds like he’s just telling you the truth as he understands it.
Still, it leaves you thinking. About reasons, about why’s. About the fact that for as long as you can remember, self-destruction has always come more naturally to you than self-improvement. You’ve never had a Minyoung, never had someone small and watching and worth rearranging your life around. Even architecture, the one thing you’ve loved enough to work for, never quite managed to become a reason to change everything else.
You stare ahead and say, more to yourself than to him, “I haven’t really found a reason.”
Anton goes quiet beside you. You don’t think it's because he doesn’t hear you but because he seems to take the sentence seriously enough to think before answering. When he finally does, his voice is gentle. “Maybe start with forgiving yourself.”
You don’t respond.You don’t disagree exactly but that particular mountain feels too high to even look at directly. Forgiving yourself sounds nice in theory but what happens after you forgive yourself? Who are you without the guilt sitting in your chest, without the endless list of evidence proving you deserved every disappointed look, every cold shoulder, every headline, every person who decided you were exactly as awful as you seemed?
Forgiving yourself would mean accepting that you were never going to become Maude no matter how hard you tried. It would mean admitting that architecture was not a betrayal, that wanting something for yourself did not make you selfish, that being messy and angry and loud did not make you impossible to love.
More terrifyingly, it would mean accepting there may have never been a version of you capable of earning what you wanted from your parents. No perfect report card, no business degree, no carefully chosen husband, no version of yourself small enough, polished enough or obedient enough to finally make them look at you and decide you were enough.
You’re not sure you know how to live with that. You know how to blame yourself. You know how to laugh first, leave first, hurt first. You know how to become the worst thing people expect from you because at least then no one gets to act surprised.
So instead of touching that at all, you stop and turn your head and ask the question that has been sitting with you ever since the foyer. “Why did you forgive me?”
Anton glances over at you, a little surprised by the sudden shift. He looks back ahead and says, as though it's the most obvious thing in the world, “You apologized.”
You stare at him. The simplicity of it almost irritates you. “That’s it?”
He gives a small shrug. “Isn’t that usually how it works?”
A short laugh escapes you before you can stop it. “Not in my family.”
Anton’s expression shifts slightly, not quite confusion and not quite pity either, more like interest. You roll the stick of your tanghulu between your fingers as you try to put it into words.
“In my family, apologies don’t really mean anything. They’re either forced or said because somebody wanted their ego stroked. Never because anyone genuinely feels bad.”
Anton listens without interrupting. When you finish he shrugs again, unoffended by your inability to understand him. “In mine it means everything.”
You nod once and file it away. For a little while the two of you keep walking in silence, the festival moving around you. It should probably feel strange, opening up like this to someone you met less than a week ago but Anton has a way of making silence feel nonthreatening rather than awkward. Nothing about him seems particularly performative. He just listens and gives you space to be. That’s why the next question slips out before you can reconsider it. “Do you know why I got sent up here?”
Anton glances at you. “No.”
You take a breath. “I called my father a whore.”
Anton chokes on his own spit. You look sideways at him just in time to catch him coughing into his fist, eyes narrowing slightly as he tries and fails to recover with dignity. The reaction is so immediate and so unexpectedly human that for one ridiculous second you smile. Anton clears his throat and gestures lightly with one hand for you to continue.
You look ahead again. “He said it first,” you explain. “Called me an embarrassment too, said I kept degrading myself and the family name amongst other things. I just…snapped. I don’t know. It was early and I hadn’t slept and he was standing there acting like the worst thing about me disappearing all night was the headlines that might come from it.”
Your voice stays even enough but your thoughts don’t. They keep circling back to the foyer, to the bourbon in his hand at eight in the morning, to the way he looked at you like a problem to be managed rather than a daughter who had not come home the night before.
“I can’t remember a time my father showed genuine interest in my life. He knows things about me, obviously. Where I go to school, what I major in, who I’m seen with when it becomes inconvenient for him not to know but as far as actually asking whether I’m okay?” You shake your head. “I think I must’ve lost my mind to expect that. I’d been gone all night and the first thing he wanted to talk about was what investors were saying.”
Anton’s frown deepens but he still says nothing, letting you get through it in your own time.
“I asked him why he was my mother’s whore without even thinking and then he slapped me. Told me he was done. That he’d given me chance after chance and I kept digging myself deeper. Then he sent me here.”
You finished your tanghulu somewhere in the middle of the story. You toss it into the nearest trash can as the two of you pass and immediately feel jarring for how normal the movement looks compared to what you’ve just admitted.
You glance at him then and force out the rest before your pride can stop you. “I don’t mean to trauma dump on you.” You let out a short breath. “I just want you to understand why I’m having a hard time understanding why you forgave me.”
Anton is quiet long enough that you start to regret saying any of it. Then he says, “Minyoung makes mistakes all the time.”
You stare at him. “He’s six.”
Anton shrugs. “And?”
“That is not exactly the same thing.”
“Maybe not but when he messes up, I want him to understand what he did wrong. I don’t need him carrying it around forever.”
Anton glances over at you, taking in your appearance. You already knew you were wrong and you apologized. I don’t take pride in kicking people when they’re clearly already down.
You swallow around the sudden tightness in your throat and nod once because it’s the only thing you can trust yourself to do. The two of you continue walking, even slower than before. You think Anton’s taking his time to give you a breather, so you can compose yours;ef before you come across more people.
“For what it’s worth,” he says after a moment, “he shouldn’t have hit you.”
Your throat tightens all over again. Anton looks straight ahead as he says it, giving you the kindness of not making you meet his eyes. “I’m sorry no one was there to protect you.”
You look away immediately, blinking hard and fast enough that the lights ahead blur. By the time you trust yourself to speak, your voice comes out quieter than usual. “Thank you.”
Anton shrugs slightly, a soft smile touching his mouth. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
A few minutes later, Minyoung comes racing back toward the two of you with flushed cheeks and grass stains on one knee. “Daddy,” he says breathlessly, already reaching for Anton’s hand. “Daddy, can I have cotton candy?”
Anton looks down at him and pretends to think about it, his mouth pulling faintly to one side in a way that suggests the answer was always going to be yes. “Hmmm…why not?” he says at last.
Minyoung lights up instantly. Before you can fully process what’s happening, he reaches for your hand with his other and begins dragging the both of you toward a stall further down the row. You blink and let yourself be pulled.
The whole way there, Minyoung talks in one long breathless stream about everything you apparently missed while he was off with his new friends. Something about a boy named Jisoo who could jump really high in the bouncy house, something about another kid cheating at a ring toss game, something about nearly falling and not actually crying which he mentions with great pride.
“And then we all went down the big slide at the same time! Jisoo said maybe next time I can come earlier because his dad brings snacks and–” He looks up at Anton suddenly. “Can I invite them over?”
Anton glances down at him, amused. “Maybe not tonight buddy.”
Minyoung frowns automatically. “But–”
“Another day, if their parents say it’s okay.” Anton says.
Minyoung considers this and then nods, apparently satisfied enough by the possibility of a future yes. You can’t help smiling a little at the exchange.
When you reach the stall Minyoung rises onto the balls of his feet to stare at the options arranged behind the glass. There are flowers and hearts and one shaped vaguely like a bear, but his eyes land immediately on the yellow and black one near the center. “The bee! Can I have the bee?”
Anton nods and reaches for his wallet but you place a hand over his. “I’ve got it,” you say.
He glances over. “You don’t have to.”
“I know…Please?”
Anton hesitates for half a second before relenting with a small nod and stepping back. The woman takes your payment and a moment later hands over a giant cotton candy bee balanced on a paper stick.
You bend down and hold it out to him. “Here.”
He reaches for it carefully. Before he can pull it fully into his arms, you clear your throat and say, “I’m sorry about your beetles.”
Minyoung pauses. For a second you wonder if he’s going to retreat into Anton’s leg again or stare at you blankly or say nothing at all. Instead he just looks at your face…really looks almost as if he’s trying to decide whether you mean it.
To your surprise, he smiles. “It’s okay! It was an accident.”
You smile back at him, touched by his willingness to forgive you so easily. “Thank you.”
Minyoung nods as if to say of course, then immediately turns his full attention back to the cotton candy bee in his hands.
The three of you wander through the festival for another hour, stopping wherever Minyoung’s attention lands long enough for him to beg Anton to let him try something. Ring toss, a fishing game with little magnetic poles, some booth involving darts that Anton firmly refuses on the grounds that six-year-olds and sharp objects should never share the space. You end up playing more than you expect to, mostly because once Minyoung decides you are tolerable, he starts looking at you whenever he wants to do something slightly ridiculous he knows his father will say no to.
You let him drag you from stall to stall without too much complaint. At one point Anton wins him some cheap plastic bug-shaped keychain that Minyoung immediately clips to one of his belt loops. Later, at another game involving throwing bean bags through painted holes, you win him a plush dog with floppy ears and a ridiculous tongue lolling out of its stitched mouth.
Eventually, the excitement starts catching up with him. His words come a little slower and his steps drag just slightly. The cotton candy bee is long gone and the plush dog keeps slipping lower in his grip each time he readjusts it. Halfway through whatever story he’s telling the two of you about one of the boys from the bouncy house, his sentence just sort of trails off.
Anton notices and slows his speed before glancing down and asks, “You tired?”
Minyoung shakes his head automatically then nearly walks into Anton’s leg because he isn’t looking where he’s going. You laugh before you can stop yourself.
Minyoung glares halfheartedly up at you. Anton crouches in front of him without a word and Minyoung climbs onto his back with all the practiced ease of someone who has done this a hundred times before. Anton stands again with him settled against his back, arms hooking securely beneath his legs while Minyoung drops his head onto Anton’s shoulder and hands his father his plush dog.
The walk back to the car is quieter after that. By the time Anton buckles him into the booster seat, Minyoung is already blinking slowly enough that it seems unlikely he’ll make it through the drive awake.
You slide into the passenger seat and Anton starts the car and pulls away from the festival. The radio is playing softly in the background while the two of you talk about whatever comes to mind. You interrogate him on his music taste and he returns the line of questioning before you move on to ask him about living in a small town. He shrugs and says he likes it, he likes the community before he switches the topic to ask you about your life in Cali. You tell him about Stanford and Maya and Hravey, how they’re both in Greece living it up without you.
By the time the house comes back into view at the end of the drive, Minyoung is fully asleep in the backseat, plush dog still tucked beneath his chin.
He puts the car in park while you gather your things. You turn to face him. “Thanks for tonight, I really needed it.”
He nods his head. “Anytime.”
You smile and hesitate before adding, “goodnight.”
“Night.”
You unlock the door and step outside. When you make it to the door you glance back and find Anton is still there, waiting to make sure you’ve gotten in safely. You smile to yourself before pressing in the code for the door. You look through the peephole and see him drive off once you’re inside. You stand in the foyer for a moment longer than necessary, watching him drive away.
Maybe the next one hundred and nineteen days won’t be so bad after all.
🍃 summary: after one reckless mistake too many, your parents send you away for the summer in hopes that a few months in the countryside with your grandmother might finally straighten you out. you fully intend to count down the days until you’re free again…right up until a bug loving little boy and his father begin making the mountains feel a little more like home.
❀ pairing: single dad!anton x f!reader
❀ genre: single parent au, slow burn, rich kid au, found family
❀ word count: 8.7k
🌱a/n: welcome to the first chapter!! this is mostly exposition, so slightly boring but things pick up next week! chapters will be posted every friday at 12pm est.
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Your father has spent the better part of the last four months cleaning up after you. Not literally of course, there has always been someone else to do that. The messes you’ve created are considerably more expensive.
The first article appeared sometime in February, a grainy photograph taken outside a nightclub in Palo Alto showed you stumbling into the backseat of a friend’s Porsche at three in the morning with a cigarette hanging loosely between your fingers and a smile stretched across your face. The headline had been stupid, something about Stanford’s Party Princess. Your mother had complained about it over breakfast while your father sat silently behind a newspaper pretending not to care.
The second article came two weeks later when photographs surfaced of you skipping a charity gala hosted by your family’s company to attend a music festival instead. Someone had managed to capture a video of you perched on a stranger’s shoulders screaming the lyrics of bed chem with a drink in each hand. Your father canceled your credit cards for three days before eventually giving them back.
By April the articles had become routine. Apparently there was an entire section of the internet dedicated to tracking your poor decisions. You discovered this accidentally while procrastinating a structural design project worth thirty percent of your grade.
One particularly humiliating article had compiled every rumored relationship you’d been involved with since arriving at Stanford and presented them in chronological order. You would’ve found the entire thing funny if your parents weren’t threatening to disown you every other week.
Contrary to popular belief, you were actually a good student but the articles never mentioned that part. They never mentioned the nights spent hunched over drafting tables at three in the morning surrounded by empty energy drinks and half-finished models. They never mentioned the professors who liked you or the fact your grades were consistently good despite the chaos of your personal life. They certainly never mentioned that architecture was the first thing you’d ever truly loved.
Instead, they focused on the easier stories: Stanford’s Princess Photographed Nip-Slip or Rich Heiress Caught Buying Weed. Sex appeal and drugs always sold better than structural designs.
Your father paid the tuition bills every semester without complaint but you’ve never once gotten the impression he was proud of where that money was going. Architecture wasn’t the family business. It wasn’t useful. It wasn’t practical. It certainly wasn’t the future he’d spent your entire childhood envisioning.
That future belonged to your sister.
Maude graduated top of her class with a business degree from Harvard, completed every internship your father arranged, married a man your parents adored and somehow managed to produce twin girls who looked like they belonged in a luxury magazine spread.
Every Christmas she arrived with homemade cookies and thoughtful gifts while your father spent the entire evening telling anyone willing to listen how proud he was of her. She was elegant in a way you never managed to be, always wearing tasteful dresses and speaking softly. Even her mistakes seemed graceful.
You, on the other hand, showed up late and slightly hungover half the time. You didn’t wear tasteful ballgowns, you preferred mini skirts and tight tops, designer sunglasses and jewelry expensive enough to give your mother a headache whenever she saw the receipt. Your parents had spent half a million dollars on just your elementary schooling in hopes you would grow up to speak sweetly like your sister but to their horror, you cussed beautifully in both French and English.
If Maude was the daughter your parents proudly displayed to the world, you were the one they kept having to explain.
In many ways though, despite all your efforts to be different, you were your mother and father’s daughter. You inherited your fathers selfishness and pride and your mothers vanity and conceitedness. You liked the finer things life has to offer, you enjoyed being admired and getting your way. Beneath the rebellion and poor decision making, you were still very much their daughter.
Maybe that’s why the disappointment always felt so personal. Perhaps your father didn’t look at the articles and see some child spiraling. He looked at them and saw himself reflected back in all the worst ways. Unfortunately, none of that changes the fact you’re currently sneaking through your parents’ home at eight in the morning wearing another man’s hoodie.
You almost make it upstairs. In hindsight, that should’ve been your first clue something was wrong because nothing ever goes your way that easily.
The foyer stretches around you in all its usual ridiculous grandeur, imported marble beneath your feet, fresh flowers perched atop every available surface and a chandelier so expensive you once looked up the price out of curiosity and immediately wished you hadn't. Your mother changes the floral arrangements every week depending on the season and some designer she follows online. This week it's peonies, last week it was hydrangeas. You can't remember what came before that because unlike your mother, you have never particularly cared for what dead plant is sitting in the foyer.
The oversized hoodie hanging off your shoulders smells faintly of weed, expensive cologne and whatever detergent Wonbin’s housekeeper uses. Your heels dangle from two fingers, abandoned the moment you stepped through the front doors because marble is surprisingly loud at eight in the morning and the last thing you need is announcing your return to the entire household…
Fortunately for you, most of the staff won't start filtering in for another hour and your parents are rarely awake before nine unless business requires otherwise. At least that's what you're counting on.
While you’re currently reaping the consequences of your actions, last night had been worth it.
Objectively speaking, skipping your parents' dinner party had been a terrible decision. There had been investors there, family friends and according to your mother, the son of some executive she'd spent the better part of a month attempting to introduce you to.
Every conversation she'd started recently somehow circled back to him. Do you know he attended Columbia? Do you know he speaks four languages? Do you know his family owned this, invested in that and sat on the board of whatever company happened to be relevant that week? You'd stopped listening around conversation three.
So instead of attending dinner like a respectable daughter, you'd spent the evening in a dingy basement with your friends Maya and Harvey getting cross faded while some guy named Tyler attempted to DJ from an iPad. By midnight you'd forgotten the executive's son's name entirely, by two in the morning you were making out with Wonbin and by four you were in his bed getting deliciously eaten-out and remembering exactly why you kept going back.
The staircase is only a few feet away when a familiar voice cuts through the foyer.
"Stop."
You freeze mid step and curse under your breath. For one hopeful second you consider pretending not to hear him. Unfortunately your father is many things but stupid has never been one of them.
Slowly, you turn around and find your father sitting in one of the armchairs overlooking the foyer with one leg crossed neatly over the other and a crystal tumbler balanced in one hand. His Van Winkle ‘17 bourbon catches the morning sunlight streaming through the windows behind him. Well that’s not promising.
For a moment neither of you speaks. You simply stare at one another across the foyer, the silence stretching long enough to become uncomfortable. Then again, discomfort has always been something of a family tradition.
Your father has spent the better part of a week pretending you don’t exist. Ever since Stanford let out for summer and you returned home, your parents have adopted an almost impressive strategy of avoidance. Your mother suddenly finds herself very busy with charity functions and board meetings while your father buries himself in work, speaking to you only when absolutely necessary. At first you assumed they were calming down. Giving themselves time to cool off after another semester spent reading headlines about their youngest daughter embarrassing herself.
Your father finally breaks the silence. “Do you enjoy embarrassing our family name?” He asks, sounding genuinely curious. “Because at this point I’m struggling to come up with another explanation.”
Straight to the point. You say nothing in response. Partly because you know there’s no answer he would accept and partly because you’ve had this conversation so many times the script is practically memorized. He says you’ve become a disgrace, you remind him that nobody forced journalists to follow you around. He lectures. You argue. Neither of you listens.
It’s a remarkably efficient system.
His gaze lingers on you for another moment before he sets his glass down and rises from his chair. The movement is slow enough to feel deliberate and suddenly you’re reminded that despite the grey beginning to creep into his hair, your father remains an intimidating man when he wants to be.
He stops directly in front of you and wrinkles his nose. “I thought your mother and I told you to stop smoking.”
You sigh dramatically. “I wasn’t smoking.”
The lie hangs between you for all of half a second before both of you silently agree not to acknowledge it. Your father has caught you sneaking home at eight in the morning wearing another man’s hoodie. Neither of you is under the illusion that you’re winning any awards for honesty today.
“Do you know how many calls I’ve taken this month because of you?”
You shrug. “I imagine it surpasses twenty?” You supply dryly.
“Twenty-seven,” he says immediately.
You blink at the tone. Your father rarely raises his voice. Sadly, he’s always been at his most frightening when he’s calm.
“Twenty-seven calls. Eight from investors. Three from board members. One from your grandfather asking if I’d completely lost control of my household.”
His jaw tightens. “Do you know how humiliating that was?”
“Then stop answering.” You say.
For a moment your father simply stares at you. “Excuse me?”
You shrug. “Just an option.”
Your father sends a sharp glare in your direction before swiftly switching topics. “Where are you coming from?”
“Wonbin's."
You swear you see his eye twitch. Your father has hated Wonbin since the day he met him. According to him, he represents everything wrong with your generation. Too loud, too careless, too immature. The fact you’ve been sleeping with him on and off for nearly a year has only made things worse.
“Why do you insist on being that boy’s whore?”
The question hangs between you, ugly and entirely unexpected. For a second all you can do is stare at him. Not because the word itself is particularly shocking; you've spent years being called every variation of spoiled, reckless, promiscuous and ungrateful by people who have never met you a day in their lives but because somehow hearing it from him feels different…worse.
Maybe because throughout this entire conversation not once has he asked if you're okay. Not once has he asked where you've been emotionally these past few months, why you've suddenly become incapable of staying sober for longer than a weekend, why every bad decision somehow felt easier than sitting across from him at the dinner table.
Instead he's spoken about investors and headlines. About embarrassment. The entire conversation has revolved around damage control and standing here now you realize with startling clarity that your father isn't looking at you and seeing his daughter. He's looking at you and seeing a problem. A stain on a family name he's spent decades building.
Your therapist would probably have something annoyingly insightful to say about this moment. Something about attention-seeking behaviors and emotional neglect and the way children often spend their entire lives trying to earn affection from parents incapable of giving it. You can practically hear her voice now, asking why you continue to provoke them when you know how it ends. The answer has always been embarrassingly simple: some pathetic part of you keeps hoping they'll react differently. That one day your father will stop acting like a CEO long enough to become your father. That your mother will stop worrying about appearances long enough to notice you're drowning. That someone will ask why instead of immediately demanding that you stop.
Looking at him now, standing there with disappointment etched into every hard line of his face, you finally understand how stupid that hope was. He doesn't care why. He never has. As far as he's concerned, the only tragedy here is that people are talking.
Something twists violently inside you then. Whatever hurt had initially flared in your chest curdles into something far uglier. Anger has always been easier to carry than disappointment. Anger doesn't leave you lying awake at night wondering what exactly is so fundamentally wrong with you that your own parents can’t seem to love you.
Your jaw tightens as you think about every riding competition he missed, every birthday dinner interrupted by business calls, every report card he'd glanced at before immediately asking why there wasn't another A within it. You think about the way your sister somehow learned to become exactly what they wanted while you've spent twenty-two years failing spectacularly at it. Most of all, you think about the fact that even now, standing in front of him after not coming home all night, he still hasn't asked if you're safe.
You let out a short laugh that sounds foreign even to your own ears. Your father frowns immediately. You shake your head and look away for a moment, suddenly afraid that if you meet his eyes too long he'll see exactly how much that question hurt you. Your pride won't allow that.
“I don't know,” you say finally, looking back at him. “Why are you my mother’s?”
For a moment your father simply stares at you.
You watch the realization cross his face before it morphs into pure rage. Most people never see your father angry, he’s too controlled for that. His entire career has been built on remaining calm in situations that would send lesser men into cardiac arrest. Billion-dollar acquisitions, hostile takeovers, public scandals, market crashes. None of it rattles him. While everyone else panics, your father simply adjusts his cufflinks and finds a solution.
You’ve always hated that about him. The way nothing seems capable of touching him, the way he can stand there completely composed while making everyone around him feel small. For the first time all morning, that composure cracks.
You see it all happen in real time and some deeply self-destructive part of you feels a vicious sense of satisfaction. Good, let him hurt too.
Your satisfaction lasts all of three seconds. You watch him reel his hand back and slap you clean across your cheek. One moment you’re standing there and the next your head snaps violently to the side as a sharp burst of pain explodes across your cheek as your father’s ring catches the skin just beneath your eye. The impact sends your heels tumbling from your hand and clattering across the marble floor while a startled gasp escapes your lips. For a second the entire foyer seems to tilt sideways around you.
For twenty-two years your father has been many things: demanding, critical, controlling, impossible to please yet he has never put his hands on you.
Your fingers rise shakily to your cheek as you stare at him in shock. He meets your gaze head on. He recovers first. “I have tried. Your mother and I have given you chance after chance after chance and yet every time I think you’ve finally hit rock bottom, you somehow find a shovel and keep digging.” He says, his voice devoid of emotion.
You remain frozen where you stand.
“I sent you to one of the best universities in the world. I paid for every opportunity imaginable. Every tutor, every school, every advantage. We have spent your entire life trying to give you a future and this is what you choose to do with it?” He laughs bitterly and drags a hand through his hair before beginning to pace across the foyer. “You spend your nights getting high with barbarians who contribute nothing to society, you parade yourself across every gossip site willing to pay for a photograph and then you stand here wondering why people no longer take you seriously.”
You swallow hard. The sting behind your eyes has nothing to do with the slap. “Are you not ashamed? Does any part of you feel embarrassed by the reputation that precedes you? Do you have any idea what people say when they hear your name now?” He demands.
You could tell him you’ve memorized every article and every comment section. You could tell him none of them have managed to come up with an insult you haven’t already said to yourself but you keep quiet, it wouldn’t change anything.
Your father exhales sharply before shaking his head as though he’s finally reached the end of whatever patience he’s been clinging to these past four months. When he speaks again, his voice is calm. “Go pack your things. You’re spending the summer with your grandmother.”
For a second you honestly think you’ve misheard him. Your grandmother lives halfway across the world up in the mountains where she doesn’t have reliable cell service. Your father turns away before you can form a response.
“I’m done,” he says quietly.
Then he walks away, disappearing down the hallway without another glance in your direction, leaving you standing alone in the middle of the foyer with your cheek throbbing, your heels scattered across the marble floor.
You aren’t entirely sure how long you stand there. Long enough for the reality of what just happened to begin sinking in. Your father slapped you. The thought repeats itself over and over in your head, each repetition somehow sounding just as ridiculous as the first. Your father slapped you.
The man who insisted physical discipline was for parents who possessed low IQ’s, the man who once threatened legal action against a boarding school after discovering a teacher had grabbed your arm too roughly during an argument. He slapped you.
“____?”
You turn your head to find Madeline emerging from the hallway near the kitchen, her expression stricken. For a moment neither of you speaks.
Maddie has worked for your family for nearly twenty years. Long enough to have helped raise both you and your sister. Long enough that some of your earliest memories involve her chasing you through the garden to put on your sunscreen while your mother attended meetings and your father worked late.
She’d taught you how to braid your hair, how to ride a bike. When you broke your wrist at ten years old, it had been Maddie sitting beside your hospital bed while your parents flew to Singapore.
The second she sees your face her own crumples. “Oh sweetheart.”
Maddie crosses the foyer in seconds and gathers you into her arms before you can protest. You bury your face against her shoulder and hate yourself a little for how quickly the tears come. “It’s alright,” she murmurs, rubbing a hand up and down your back.
Maddie waits until you’ve collected yourself enough to stand upright before gently steering you toward the staircase. One arm remains looped around your shoulders as she guides you upstairs. By the time you reach your bedroom your tears have mostly stopped. Maddie closes the door behind you before crossing the room and gently cupping your chin between her fingers. “Let me see.”
You sigh but allow her to tilt your face toward the light. “His ring caught you.” She says softly before pushing you to take a seat on your bed. Maddie disappears into your bathroom before returning a moment later with the first aid kit. She kneels in front of you, carefully dabbing antiseptic against the small cut beneath your eye.
You hiss at the sting and she blows some air on the area to soothe it a bit. “Sorry.”
You nod but stay mute and let her continue to clean you up. She says nothing for a little while after that, only places the used cotton aside and reaches back into the first aid kit for a bandaid. When she speaks again her voice is gentle in the way it always is right before she tells you something you don’t want to hear.
“You should apologize.”
Your eyes lift to hers immediately. “For what?”
Maddie presses her lips together as though choosing her words carefully. “Not because I think you’ve done anything wrong but because your father is angry and when your father gets angry, the fastest way to make him calm down is to give him something he wants.” She says quietly, smoothing the bandage between her fingers.
A short humorless laugh escapes you. The suggestion itself feels insulting. Your father has never particularly cared whether an apology is sincere. He only cares that it restores order.
“I’m not apologizing for him hitting me.”
Maddie’s expression flickers at that. “That’s not what you should apologize for sweetheart.” She says softly.
You look away first. Maddie peels the backing off the bandaid and leans in closer. “Hold still.”
You do and she places the bandaid carefully over the cut beneath your eye before leaning back to inspect her work. Only then do you glance down at the wrapper and realize it’s baby pink with a tiny Hello Kitty face printed in the center.
For a moment you just stare at her. “Maddie.”
A small guilty smile tugs at her mouth. “It was the only one I could find.”
Despite everything, your mouth almost twitches. Maddie closes the first aid kit and sets it aside on the edge of your nightstand. When she looks back at you the trace of humor is gone from her face entirely. “I’ve never seen him that angry,” she says.
You lean back against the headboard and cross your arms loosely over your stomach, as though making yourself smaller might somehow make the conversation less irritating. “He’ll get over it.”
Maddie doesn’t answer. You frown. “He always gets over it.”
Again, you’re met with nothing in response. You lift your eyes to look at Maddie and find her looking at you worriedly. “I think he means it this time…about sending you away.”
You scoff before she even finishes her sentence. “Please. I’m twenty-two years old. My father cannot dictate my summer plans.”
Maddie’s eyes linger on your face for a moment. There is no judgment there, only concern that makes you want to look away. You’ve already cried in front of her today. Your dignity is hanging on by a thread as it is.
“Maybe not but he can make things difficult.”
That, at least, is true. Your father has spent your entire life proving that wealth makes almost anything possible and almost everything miserable when properly weaponized. He can’t physically drag you onto a plane and hand-deliver you to your grandmother’s doorstep but he can cancel cards and freeze accounts.
Still, the very idea of him following through feels absurd. “He’s being dramatic,” you say.
Maddie lets out a small sigh and rises to her feet. “I’m going to start breakfast. You should try to eat something.” She says, smoothing a hand over the front of her dress.
You don’t answer and after a moment she leaves, pulling the door shut softly behind her.
You ease yourself further back on the bed until your shoulders hit the pillows and stare up at the ceiling.
The chandelier above you catches in the light and scatters faintly across the plaster. You used to count the reflections as a child when you couldn’t sleep, long before your room became a showroom of everything your mother thought a daughter’s bedroom ought to be. Designer furniture, tasteful wallpaper, shelves color-coordinated by someone else’s hand. There has always been something ironic about the fact that this is probably the most expensive room you will ever sleep in and also the loneliest.
Your eyes sting again.
It would be easier, you think, if your father had always been cruel then at least this morning could be filed away neatly alongside every other terrible thing he had ever done but that is not the shape of your relationship with him and that is what makes the whole thing feel so destabilizing.
Your father has been cold, certainly. Controlling in ways that have shaped the entire architecture of your life. Yet even at his worst there had always remained some line you believed he would not cross. Not because he was especially kind but because he was too proud, too convinced of his own superiority to behave like men who lacked discipline.
Apparently that assumption had been just another luxury you can no longer afford.
You press the heel of your hand against your eyes and turn your face into the pillow before the tears can slip free properly. They come anyway, quiet and humiliating, soaking into Egyptian cotton pillowcases your mother probably had monogrammed in Italy. You cry without making a sound.
You remain sprawled across the center of your bed in Wonbin’s hoodie with your makeup smeared, your cheek aching and the chandelier light drifting lazily across the ceiling above you.
You don’t leave your room for the rest of the day.
Two days later your father proves just how serious he was.
By then the bruise blooming beneath your eye has faded enough to be mostly hidden beneath concealer though the cut his ring left behind still stings faintly whenever you wash your face. You have avoided him almost as skillfully as he has avoided you. The two of you move through the estate like opposing dignitaries forced to share a country neither particularly likes, speaking only through closed doors and staff members too well-trained to show discomfort.
It’s easier that way.
If you don’t have to look at him then you don’t have to think too hard about what happened in the foyer. More importantly, if he continues pretending you are invisible then you’re free to believe Maddie was wrong. Free to tell yourself that the threat had only been that, a threat.
So by Thursday afternoon you’re stretched out beside the pool in a black and gold bikini and oversized sunglasses shielding your eyes while you tan.
One of the pool boys is skimming leaves from the far end, though his attention has drifted in your direction often enough that the task is taking significantly longer than necessary. You notice every time and he notices you noticing. It’s the sort of harmless game you’ve always been good at, boredom dressed up as flirtation.
Your martini glass sweats on the side table beside you. Somewhere nearby, speakers hidden in the landscaping play your curated playlist. You hear footsteps approach across the stone patio. You don’t lift your head. Your mother clears her throat first.
You push your sunglasses up slightly and find both of your parents standing a few feet away. Your father has his hands tucked into the pockets of his trousers despite the heat while your mother looks as elegant and disapproving as ever in some linen set. Together they cast a long shadow over your lounge chair.
You reach for your drink and take a sip before setting it back down. “I’m trying to tan,” you say.
Your mother’s gaze drops pointedly to your bikini. “Clearly.”
Before you can respond, she bends to snatch up the towel lying at the end of your chair and tosses it toward you. It lands across your stomach in a heap. You stare at it for a second before sighing and draping it properly over yourself because arguing about modesty in ninety-degree weather feels beneath even you.
“Nick will be here in fifteen minutes,” your mother says.
You blink once behind your sunglasses. “Okay?”
“Maddie has packed your bags.” Her tone remains maddeningly calm. “You should go upstairs and change.”
For a second the words do not quite register. Packed your bags…change…Nick. You sit up a little straighter and pull the sunglasses off entirely. “I leave for Greece in two days. Harvey and Maya are meeting me there Sunday.”
Your father answers this time. “You’re not going to Greece.”
For one stupid second you simply stare at him, waiting for the rest of the sentence. Waiting for the part where he clarifies that he means not unless you apologize or that he bumped your flight because he’s in need of the jet the day you’re meant to leave for Mykonos. Some evidence that this is still a theoretical punishment rather than what it actually sounds like.
Nothing comes. “No,” you say.
Your father exhales quietly through his nose. “Go upstairs and get dressed.”
You’re on your feet before you fully realize you’ve moved, the towel sliding from your lap and pooling forgotten beside the chair. “No. Absolutely not!”
Your mother’s expression tightens almost imperceptibly. Your father’s does not change at all, which is somehow worse. You look at your mother first because despite everything some deeply humiliating part of you still expects rescue to come from the softer parent. “Mom!”
She only folds her arms. “If you don’t want to freeze on the jet, I would suggest changing.”
The finality of it hits you all at once then. He actually did it. Somewhere in the last forty-eight hours your father turned one sentence spoken in anger into a fully executable plan and never once felt the need to consult you.
“You cannot be serious.”
Your father meets your gaze evenly. “I have never been more serious.”
Without another word you brush past them and head for the house, bare feet slapping against the hot stone, you swing the back doors open hard enough that one of the hinges rattles. The cool air inside hits your damp skin immediately but does nothing to calm the heat rising beneath it. You hold on to your anger all the way through the breakfast room and into the main hall where the first thing you see is one of the footmen dragging a suitcase toward the front drive.
For a moment you stop short, staring at the familiar cream-colored luggage set disappearing toward the front doors. It’s one thing to hear a punishment spoken out loud, it’s another to watch it become real.
“Maddie!?” Your voice comes out quieter than you intend.
She appears a second later near the base of the staircase, already moving toward you before you can say anything else. One look at your face and her own floods with sympathy.
“What’s going on? Why are my bags outside?” You demand, even though by now you know exactly what is going on.
Maddie reaches for your hands automatically. “Your father made arrangements for you to stay with your grandmother for the summer.”
You stare at her. The words should not still be capable of shocking you and yet somehow they are. “No! No Maddie, he can’t do this!” Your fingers tighten painfully around hers.
Her face softens further and suddenly you hate that too, hate the pity of it. “Sweetheart–”
“Don’t,” you snap, already shaking your head. “Please don’t do that.”
Maddie glances toward the foyer where staff continue moving in and out with your things. The discretion of the household has always been one of its more valuable assets but even discretion cannot disguise what this is: you are being sent away. Everyone knows it yet everyone will pretend not to.
You feel the tears coming before they fall and turn your head sharply, furious with yourself for crying again. “You have to talk to him.”
Maddie stays quiet.
“Maddie!”
“Your father won’t listen to me.”
“He listens to you more than he listens to me!” You beg.
“That doesn’t mean he’ll change his mind.” She reminds you softly.
You pull your hands free then because the gentleness of her grip suddenly feels unbearable. “I don’t need time away. This is insane! I have plans! I’m supposed to be in Mykonos in two days! Harvey already booked the villa, Maya booked us reservations, I–”
Maddie wipes at the tears slipping down your face with the side of her thumb the same way she used to when you were little and that nearly undoes you completely. “Maybe some time away is exactly what you need.”
The betrayal of it lands harder than it should. You stare at her as though she has become briefly unrecognizable. “Maddie…?”
Her expression breaks a little. “Go upstairs. I laid out clothes for the flight on your bed.”
For a moment you consider refusing. You are twenty-two years old. You could walk right back through the kitchen, out the side gate, into some waiting car that takes you anywhere but here. You could call Maya, Harvey or even Wonbin. You could break something expensive. Force your father to look at you long enough to understand that whatever satisfaction he hopes to derive from this, he will not get it quietly.
Instead you do nothing because the terrible thing about power is that when it’s real, you can feel its weight and implications. You know how this ends if you make a scene. Your father has had twenty-two years to learn precisely how to win against you. So you nod once and retreat to your room.
The next hour passes in fragments.
At some point you are upstairs pulling on soft grey sweats and a cashmere zip-up Maddie laid neatly across the duvet. At some point you scrub the last of your makeup away and collect your personal items to keep in your carryon. At some point Maddie passes you your passport and reminds you not to forget your charger. By the time Nick loads the final suitcase into the trunk, your mind has gone strangely blank.
The drive to the airfield passes in near silence. Nick, wisely, does not attempt conversation. You sit in the backseat with your arms folded tightly across yourself and watch the city fall away through tinted glass. Your phone rests uselessly in your lap. There are messages from Maya in the group chat about bikinis and dinner plans in Greece, two missed calls from Wonbin you have no interest in returning and an email from Stanford about course registration. All of it belongs to a life that, as of an hour ago, no longer seems entirely yours.
The private terminal is quiet and efficient. Someone takes your handbag, someone else offers you water, the pilot greets you by name. You say nothing to any of them. By the time you climb the stairs into the jet you feel less like a person and more like cargo.
Inside the cabin everything is cream leather and chilled air. You sink into the seat nearest the window and curl slightly toward it before anyone can attempt conversation. One of the flight attendants asks if you’d like something to eat. You shake your head. Another offers champagne with takeoff, you ask for an ambien instead.
As the jet lifts from the tarmac you keep your eyes fixed on the window.
It occurs to you with sudden bitter clarity that this is probably exactly how your father wanted it done: quickly and cleanly. The efficiency of it all makes your chest ache more than any screaming match might have. At least a fight would’ve implied you were still worth engaging with.
You don’t realize you’ve started crying again until a tear slips sideways into your mouth.
Sometime after takeoff, once the plane has leveled and your phone manages to claw its way back into a few uneven bars of service, it begins vibrating in your hand. The screen lights up with Harvey’s name.
For a moment you consider declining it but against your judgment, you answer.
“Hey!” Music thumps faintly in the background on her end. “Maya and I are finalizing clubs for Saturday. She wants one with a beach view and I said that sounds tacky but now I’m looking at photos and maybe tacky is fine in Mykonos. Also did you ever find your white Pucci set? Because if not I–”
“I’m not coming.”
The words leave your mouth flatly. There’s a brief pause. “...what?”
You look out the window. Clouds drift endlessly beyond the glass. “My father is sending me to Korea.”
Another beat of silence, longer this time. “What do you mean sending you to Korea? What’s in Korea?”
“My grandmother’s estate. My punishment for the summer.”
Harvey’s confusion immediately turns into outrage. “For what!?”
You let out a short laugh. “Bruised his ego beyond repair this time.”
That’s what finally does it. Not the flight, not the goodbye you never got to say. It’s Harvey’s horrified silence on the other end of the line. Your mouth trembles so you press the heel of your hand hard against your lips.
“What happened?”
For a second you consider lying, something vague and glamorous and easy to laugh off later. Family drama, my father’s being insane, you know how he is but the words stall in your throat. When you speak, your voice barely sounds like your own.
“He slapped me.”
Harvey goes completely silent then you hear a rustle on her end. When she speaks again her voice is farther from the phone. “Maya’s here.”
A second later Maya’s voice cuts in, sharp with disbelief. “Your father did what?”
You stare out at the clouds. “You heard me.”
“No, I heard the word I just want to make sure I’m understanding them correctly before I say something that gets me put on a watchlist.” Maya says.
Despite everything, you laugh. Harvey must hear it because her tone turns gentler. “Baby.”
“It’s fine,” you say automatically.
Both of them scoff at once.
“It is very much not fine,” Maya says.
“Where are you right now?” Harvey asks.
“Somewhere over the pacific.”
“He sent you away already!? What the hell is wrong with him?” Maya mutters.
For a little while they do most of the talking. Harvey slips into asking practical questions: did you eat? Do you have your charger? Did Maddie pack enough clothes? Maya interrupts every few seconds with far less practical but significantly more entertaining commentary. A comment she makes about ordering a hit on your father pulls a laugh at you.
The conversation drifts after that. They ask where exactly in Korea you’re going and you explain as much as you know. Your family owns homes all over the world because apparently obscene wealth loses all meaning if it isn’t geographically diversified. Your grandmother just happened to claim the Korea estate for herself years ago.
Back when she still sat on the board, she used to travel constantly for work. Your family’s company had sponsors and business interests in South Korea which meant she was in and out of the country often enough to fall in love with it somewhere along the way. First the cities, then the food and according to some gossip through the grapevine even some of the men. By the time she retired, she claimed the massive estate tucked deep in the countryside.
“It sounds kind of beautiful,” Harvey says.
“It sounds desolate,” you reply.
Maya hums. “Maybe it can be both.”
The three of you proceed to stay on call for another two hours before you decide to call it. “If you’re still there in a week, Harvey and I are sending a jet.” Maya says.
You smile despite yourself. “And when we get you back, there will be fresh limoncello, a beach and at least three men to worship the ground you walk on.” She continues.
“Only three?” you murmur.
“Don’t push it.”
The call ends a few minutes later and after that the rest of the flight passes in a blur. You doze at some point without meaning to and wake only when the wheels touch down in Seoul. From there the transition is so smooth it barely feels real. A driver is already waiting for you when you step through arrivals. He takes your luggage without being asked, bows politely and ushers you into the backseat of a dark sedan.
The drive from the city to your grandmother’s estate takes nearly three hours.
At first there are glass towers and traffic and enough motion outside the windows to keep you distracted but gradually Seoul gives way to quieter roads then long stretches of mountains. You spend most of the drive with your cheek pressed against the cool glass, too exhausted to think properly and too angry to sleep.
By the time the car turns through a set of iron gates, the sun has completely set. The estate reveals itself in pieces. First the long private drive curving up through manicured trees then the house itself, large enough to feel almost ridiculous even by your family’s standards.
The driver pulls to a stop in the circular driveway. You find your grandmother already standing outside waiting. She opens her arms before you’ve fully stepped out of the car and you go to her without thinking. The hug is brief but firm.
When she pulls back she doesn’t ask whether the flight was alright, she doesn’t ask about the cut below your left eye. She doesn’t ask a single question about home. “Your room is upstairs, second door on the left,” she says simply. “Dinner is in thirty minutes so go freshen up.”
You nod, appreciative of the simplicity of her words. As you turn toward the house she adds, “I invited my new gardener to stay for dinner as thanks for all his hard work today.”
You barely spare the comment a thought. “Okay.”
Upstairs, your room is large and neat and somehow already contains enough of your things to make your father’s efficiency feel sinister all over again. You shower quickly, change into the first decent thing you can find and stare at yourself in the mirror for a long moment before finally heading back downstairs.
When you make it to the last step, your eyes catch sight of an auburn haired male coming in through the open back door form where you assume holds the garden. He must be the gardener. His hair is lightly damp at the ends and his sleeves are pushed up to his forearms. There’s dirt smudged faintly along one wrist and his t-shirt clings to his body, making you briefly jealous of how tiny his waist appears. He looks up when he hears you and offers a polite smile.
You cock your head to the side as you stand on the last step. Well, things just got interesting. He inclines his head slightly in greeting before disappearing down the hallway without a word and you find yourself watching him go a beat longer than necessary before making your way toward the dining room.
At least you’ll have some delicious eye candy while lounging out back. Maybe he can even be a replacement for Wonbin for the time being. You pluck your napkin and smirk to yourself as you begin plotting on the unsuspecting man. You catalog bikinis you hope Maddie packed. Maybe the string set from White Fox? The pale yellow one with the ridiculous gold hardware if she really loves you. If not, your black one would do. Men usually prefer black. It’s easier to imagine taking off.
You smooth your napkin across your lap and glance toward the doorway just as he reappears. Only this time he isn’t alone.
A little boy rests half-asleep against his chest, one arm looped lazily around his neck while the other clutches a hardcover book to his small body. He looks no older than five or six. For a second your brain stalls trying to make sense of the image in front of you.
The child is dressed neatly, his dark hair mussed slightly from sleep and the book in his hand appears to have some sort of bug printed across the front. The man adjusts him more securely on his hip as he steps into the room and whatever mildly entertaining fantasy you’d started building for yourself collapses almost instantly.
You pray to God that’s his younger sibling. There is simply no other explanation that feels reasonable. The man looks too young. Young enough that the idea of him being someone’s father seems almost laughable. He moves to the seat across from you and just as he starts to settle, the little boy lifts his head sleepily from his shoulder.
“Daddy,” he says, voice soft from whatever nap he clearly got dragged out of. “Can we go to the library tomorrow? I was reading about how Monarch Butterflies are an endangered species now, I’d like to know why.”
Your brows rise before you can stop them. “Daddy?”
The word leaves your mouth with enough disbelief attached to it that the man’s expression shifts immediately. Not offended per se but faintly sheepish that makes it obvious the reaction is to your tone rather than the title itself. He adjusts the child more securely against him and clears his throat.
You stare at him for another second. “Aren’t you a little young to be a father?”
Your grandmother swats the back of your head as she passes by carrying a small glass of milk toward the child.
“Ow!” You yelp.
“That was rude,” she says sharply, setting the milk down in front of him.
You rub the back of your head and send her an irritated look she doesn’t bother acknowledging. Across the table, the man clears his throat.
“I had him young,” he says simply. No elaboration nor attempt to make the situation less awkward for your benefit. You slump back in your seat with a quiet sigh.
The seemingly only fuckable guy in this fuckass town is a father, go figure.
The little boy sits up straighter now, quiet again, one small hand wrapped around his glass while your grandmother murmurs something to him in a softer tone than the one she’d just used on you. You watch the exchange without meaning to and decide up close he is undeniably cute, which is unfortunate because you have never been particularly good with children. Your sister’s twins have spent the last two years proving that you lack whatever instinct other women seem born possessing. Babies cry when you hold them, toddlers run in the opposite direction when you appear in their line of sight. This one appears more polite than most but you don’t trust it.
As the staff begins bringing out dinner, you look toward the nearest one. “Can I get a bottle of wine?”
The woman barely has time to turn before your grandmother cuts in. “Do not under any circumstances serve her alcohol.”
Your eye twitches. You should have accepted that stupid champagne on the flight. For one long second you consider arguing. It’s not like you particularly need the wine but rather the principle of being denied it in front of strangers irritates you beyond reason. Unfortunately, the mountain of emotional energy required to pick a fight over alcohol after being exiled to South Korea feels higher than you’re currently willing to spend.
Across the table the little boy is staring at you now, almost curiously. You stare back at him for a moment before grimacing slightly. “Um…hello…?”
He immediately bows his head politely before looking away again so fast it’s a shock he doesn’t get whiplash. Behind him, his father glances over at you with the faintest hint of apology in his expression. “Minyoung can be shy,” he explains.
You say nothing and drag your gaze back to Minyoung only to find he’s already turned his attention back to the book he carried in with him, flipping it open with careful little hands. He holds it up with much effort and points to something on the page. “Daddy, this one says the jewel beetle can see colors people can’t. Isn’t that cool?”
The man looks down and his expression softens as he glances between the page and his son’s face. “That is cool but no books at the dining table, remember?”
Minyoung pouts immediately. It’s not bratty the way most children seem to weaponize disappointment, a small downturn of his mouth as he looks reluctantly at the book in his hands and then back at his fathers face as though hoping the rule might somehow bend for him.
The man only lifts his brows. After a second, Minyoung closes the book with visible reluctance and sets it beside his plate.
You watch the whole exchange for a moment before saying, “You should cry next time.”
Both of them look at you. You lift one shoulder and reach for your water. “Or at least drag the pout out a little longer he’d probably give in eventually. Fathers tend to.”
For a second the only response you get is silence. Anton just stares at you as though you’ve said something genuinely deranged. Across from him, Minyoung tilts his head slightly, confusion written all over his small face as he tries to decide whether you’re offering actual advice or just talking because you enjoy hearing yourself do it.
Your grandmother, tired of your antics, folds her napkin neatly across her lap before turning toward the man beside her. “Anton, this is my granddaughter. The one I told you about. She’ll be staying with me for the summer. You’ll have to excuse her lack of manners.”
Anton. So the gardener has a name.
He looks up at that and offers you another one of those polite smiles. “It’s nice to meet you.”
It is, unfortunately, the kind of polite smile people use when they are trying very hard to be cordial while privately reserving judgment.
You nod in his direction. “Sup.”
Anton’s mouth twitches in amusement. “Well,” your grandmother says, lifting her own glass. “Let’s eat.”
Minyoung stays tucked against Anton’s side for another moment before finally sitting up properly once food appears in front of him, his earlier sleepiness apparently forgotten. Anton thanks one of the cooks quietly when she sets down another dish near his elbow, then cuts Minyoung’s food into smaller pieces before touching his own.
You look away and take in the room. The quiet is the first thing you notice, there are no cars honking outside, no distant sirens, no muffled bass from some house party three streets over, no familiar Californian noise bleeding in through open windows. Beyond the walls of this estate there is nothing but trees and darkness.
More than that, there is no one here who belongs to you. No Harvey or Maya to talk you down or talk you into something worse. No friends to sneak into your room with gossip and Grey Goose. No Wonbin to supply you with weed and satisfy your voracious sexual appetite. All you have is this house and seemingly, the three others occupying the seats.
Four months of mountain air and forced sobriety. You lower your fork and stare down at your plate.
GENRE : all fluffs, Na Hwajin being a clingy lover.
WARNING : none
SUMMARY : These days, Hwa-jin gets to spend less time with you as the pressure on ERPB is more with the increase in the number of cases in the city and even outskirts. You knew, he had a job that needed him right at the moment and in the middle of whatever he was busy with in his personal life. It was a bit of a habit over time for you, but it wasn't safe to say it was the same for Hwa-jin. He missed you all the time, and needed you by his side even during missions as much as it wasn't allowed.
A/n : thank you for this wholesome ask, anon! Hope you like it
The rain in Incheon had a habit of making the city feel smaller, trapping everyone under a heavy, grey blanket. Inside your apartment, however, the world was reduced to the soft hum of the refrigerator, the rhythmic clicking of your laptop keyboard, and the steady, comforting weight of the duvet, spread all over over as you worked on a report.
It had been three weeks since you last saw Hwa-jin in person. Three weeks of brief, midnight phone calls that usually ended with him sighing deeply into the receiver, his voice gravelly with exhaustion, before he had to hang up to handle another crisis the next day. The ERPB was being stretched to its absolute limit. A sudden spike in severe school violence cases away from the city and in a township meant Hwa-jin and others were seperated from their home for a long time, tearing down corrupt administrations and dealing with delinquent rings.
You understood. You really did. Being an crime reporter yourself, you knew the weight of jobs which required constant moving. You had eventually adapted to the empty space on the couch, the cold side of the bed, and the quiet apartment. People around you kept commenting, on how this made you lonely; yet you thought of it as a habit- indeed a lonely one, but a habit nonetheless.
But as for your husband? It was a completely different story.
Beneath that chaotic, untouchable exterior, Na Hwa-jin was a man possessed by a quiet, fierce possessiveness when it came to you. He didn’t handle the distance well. If he could have legally or illegally appointed you as his permanent partner-in-crime on every single ERPB deployment, he would have done it in a heartbeat.
Your phone suddenly buzzed on the coffee table, vibrating violently against the wood. You picked it up, a small smile instantly forming when you saw the caller ID.
"Hey," you answered softly.
A long, dramatic groan echoed through the speaker, followed by the sound of a car door slamming and the faint chatter or you can say a shriek of Hanrim in the background. "I am dying. Officially. My cause of death will be extreme deprivation of my favorite person."
You chuckled, leaning back into the pillow. "Rough day at the office?"
"We just wrapped up a case in Gyeonggi. I’ve been stuck in a car with Bong Geun Dae and Han-rim for three hours, and he refuses to let me smoke," Hwa-jin complained, his voice dropping into that low, magnetic register that always made your stomach do a soft flip. "But that’s not the main issue. The main issue is that I haven’t seen your face in twenty-one days. For your information I counted. Do you know how hard it is to maintain a terrifying reputation when all I want to do is drag you away from all these menace and be somewhere with just is?"
"I miss you too, Hwa-jin. But you're saving kids. You're doing important work."
"Let Han-rim and Geun Dae save them for a day," he muttered, completely shameless. You could practically hear the pout in his voice. "I told the Minister today that we need to hire an external specialized journalist for our upcoming missions to report our work to the media. I explicitly recommended you. He told me to stop abusing my power in bringing my wife."
"He’s right, you know," you laughed, a warm flush rising to your cheeks. "I have my own cases to handle."
"I don't care about logic right now," Hwa-jin murmured, his tone suddenly shifting from playful to incredibly soft, laced with a genuine, aching vulnerability that he only ever showed to you. "I just want to come home to you, darling. I'm so tired."
Your heart melted, a wave of profound affection washing over you. "How far away are you?"
"About twenty minutes from our house. They are dropping me off. I have a few days' window before my next briefing, and I intend to spend every single second of it attached to your side."
"I'll be waiting," you said softly. "Drive safe."
The moment the line went dead, you sprung into action. You closed your laptop, tossed it onto the desk, and practically ran to the kitchen. If Hwa-jin was exhausted, he needed comfort food. You quickly put a pot of water on the stove to make a simple, hearty stew, threw a batch of rice into the cooker, and ran around the living room tidying up the area.
Precisely twenty-two minutes later, the electronic lock on your front door beeped.
The door swung open, and there he stood. Hwa-jin looked a bit disheveled, his usually perfectly styled dark hair was messy from the rain, his tie was loosened and hanging haphazardly around his neck, and his long black coat was damp. But the moment his dark eyes locked onto yours, the exhaustion seemed to vanish from his face, replaced by a look of pure, unadulterated relief.
He didn't even bother taking off his shoes properly, kicking them off at the entryway before taking three long, sweeping strides across the room. Before you could even say welcome home, Hwa-jin’s long arms wrapped securely around your waist. He lifted you right off your feet, burying his face into the crook of your neck and planted a soft kiss on either sides on your cheeks.
"Ah... finally," he breathed out, his grip tightening as if he were trying to merge you into his very bones. He inhaled deeply, taking in the familiar, comforting scent of your shampoo and the warmth of your skin.
You wrapped your arms tightly around his broad shoulders, burying your fingers in the damp strands of his hair. "Missed me that much?" you whispered, smiling into his shoulder as he gently set your feet back on the ground, though he didn't dare loosen his grip.
"More than you can possibly comprehend," Hwa-jin murmured. He pulled back just enough to look at you, his large hands cupping your face with a tenderness that completely contradicted his fearsome reputation. He scanned every inch of your face, his eyes warm and heavy with affection. "You look beautiful. Have you been eating well? You look like you lost weight. Did you miss me? Tell me you missed me."
You let out a small hearty laugh, upon listening to his concern. "I missed you terribly," you smiled, leaning into his touch. "And I've been eating just fine. I actually just made some stew."
Instead of answering, Hwa-jin leaned down and captured your lips in a deep, lingering kiss. It wasn't demanding or chaotic like he usually was; it was slow, sweet, and filled with a desperate, quiet devotion that made your knees feel weak. His lips were cool from the rain outside, but they quickly warmed against yours. He kissed you as if he had all the time in the world, his thumb gently stroking your cheekbone.
When he finally pulled away, his dark eyes were hooded, a soft smile playing on his lips. "The stew can wait. Right now, I need to hold you."
But you lightly pushed him away, placing your hands on his chest to stop him.
"Go change out of those damp clothes, you idiot," you laughed, giving his chest a playful shove. "I’ll set the table." He let out an annoying groan, like a child who has been denied from playing.
A few minutes later, Hwa-jin emerged from the bedroom wearing a pair of soft grey sweatpants and an oversized black t-shirt that you had bought him. Without the sharp suits and the imposing aura of the ERPB, he looked incredibly boyish, his damp hair falling naturally across his forehead.
He sat down at the small dining table, immediately reaching out to grab your hand the second you sat down across from him. Even as he ate, he refused to let go, awkwardly navigating his spoon with his left hand just so he could keep his right fingers intertwined with yours.
"You know, it’s really hard to eat when you’re holding my hand like a lifeline," you pointed out, though you made no move to pull away.
"Deal with it," Hwa-jin replied smoothly, taking a bite of the rice. "This is my emotional support hand. If I let go, I might dissolve into a puddle of stress."
"You are so dramatic."
"I am a man of passion," he corrected, his voice dropping slightly as he squeezed your fingers. "Seriously, Y/N. The city is getting chaotic. Every school we visit has some new mess. And the entire time I’m dealing with arrogant principals or bratty delinquents, all I can think about is how much better the day would be if you were standing next to me."
"I don't think the Minister would appreciate me distracting his top agent."
"I'm not distracted by you," Hwa-jin murmured, his gaze locking onto yours with an intensity that made your heart skip a beat. "You're the only thing that keeps me focused. When the world gets loud, you're the quiet I look forward to."
The sheer sincerity in his voice caught you off guard. You squeezed his hand back, your eyes softening. "Then I'll always be here when you get back. No matter how long it takes."
After dinner, Hwa-jin absolutely refused to let you do the dishes alone. He stood right behind you at the sink, his chest pressed firmly against your back, his long arms reaching around you to wash the plates while you rinsed them. It was completely impractical and resulted in water splashing onto the floor, but neither of you cared. He kept pressing soft, fleeting kisses to the side of your neck and your shoulder, whispering ridiculous complaints about his colleagues just to hear you laugh.
Once the kitchen was clean, Hwa-jin practically dragged you to the living room.
He pulled the large, fluffy duvet off the bed and spread it across the couch. He sat down first, leaning back against the armrest, and immediately pulled you down into his lap. You settled against his chest, your back against his torso, as he wrapped the blanket tightly around both of you, locking you in a warm, impenetrable cocoon.
The rain continued to patter softly against the windowpane, creating a soothing, rhythmic white noise. The apartment was dimly lit, the only illumination coming from the soft glow of a movie playing on the television, though neither of you were actually watching it.
Hwa-jin rested his chin on your shoulder, his long fingers gently tracing patterns along your forearm beneath the blanket.
"This is perfect," he whispered, his breath warm against your skin. "No phones. No cases. No high school bullies. Just us." He shifted slightly, tightening his arms around you, pulling you so close that you could feel the steady, reassuring thud of his heartbeat against your back. It was a grounding rhythm, one that instantly washed away all the lingering loneliness of the past three weeks.
"Sometimes," you began quietly, staring at the television screen, "I worry that the job takes too much out of you. You carry a lot of anger for the sake of those kids, Hwa-jin."
Hwa-jin was silent for a moment, his fingers pausing their movements on your arm. When he spoke, his voice was remarkably gentle, devoid of the sharp edge he used against the rest of the world. "I do. The world can be a pretty ugly place, you see it too, in your line of work. People can be cruel, especially to those who can't defend themselves."
He turned his head slightly, pressing his lips to your cheek, holding the kiss there for a long, tender moment.
"But when I come back here... when I hold you like this, and I see how kind you are, how safe this room feels... all that anger just evaporates," he murmured against your cheek. "You're my reset button. As long as I have this to come back to, I can handle whatever the city throws at me."
Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes, filled with a warmth that spread all the way to your toes. You turned your head, meeting his gaze. In the dim light, his dark eyes were incredibly soft, filled with a profound, unwavering adoration that belonged entirely to you.
"I love you, Hwa-jin," you whispered.
Hwa-jin’s expression softened even further, a breathless, genuinely happy smile gracing his handsome features. He leaned in, capturing your lips in another kiss; this one sweet, slow, and full of a quiet promise.
"I love you more, Y/N," he murmured against your lips when he broke the kiss. "And don't argue with me on that. I'm the supervisor here; my word is final."
"Unbelievable," you laughed softly, resting your head back against his chest. "You really can't leave the job at the door, can you?"
"Only the parts that let me win arguments against you," he teased, his hand moving to gently stroke your hair, his fingers threading through the strands in a slow, hypnotic motion.
The warmth of the blanket, the soft purring of the kittens, and the gentle rhythm of Hwa-jin’s fingers in your hair quickly began to work their magic. The exhaustion of the past few weeks finally caught up to both of you. Your eyelids grew heavy, and you let out a soft yawn, shifting closer into his embrace.
Hwa-jin noticed, his chest shaking with a silent, affectionate chuckle. He pulled the duvet up a bit higher, tucking it securely around your shoulders.
"Sleep, sweetheart," he whispered, his voice incredibly gentle, a soothing lullaby against the backdrop of the falling rain. "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."
"Promise?" you mumbled, your voice already thick with sleep.
"I promise," Hwa-jin murmured, pressing one final, lingering kiss to the top of your head. He rested his cheek against your hair, closing his eyes as his arms held you securely against his chest.
Outside, the city continued its chaotic, fast-paced rush through the rainy night, filled with cases, deadlines, and noise. But inside the small, dimly lit apartment, the world had slowed down to an absolute crawl. There was no distance, no pressure, and no loneliness. Just the quiet, heavy warmth of a man who loved you entirely, completely content to spend his hard-earned peace exactly where he belonged with you.
-
A/N : I kinda lost rhythm while writing as it gets overwhelming sometimes with my exam and studies, I tend to lose motivation or go blank amidst writing, still I tried to write just like I thought/imagined. Hope it's up to your liking :)
Pairing: kid!Qifrey x motherly!reader
Warning: MANGA SPOILERS! THIS IS PURELY PLATONIC!
Pronouns: she/her
Like my writing? Drop by and buy me a Ko-Fi!
MINORS EMPTY BLOGS AND BLOGS WITHOUT AGES WILLL BE BLOCKED WITH NO EXCEPTIONS (No, seriously, stop being shocked this boundary is reinforced y'all)
Marked by fear and instability, Qifrey turned to the only place that he truly ever felt safe. A quiet home shaped by patience and routine care, he learned what it meant to be held together when the world felt overwhelming. As he grows, the distance between dependence and identity began to stretch forcing both child and caretaker to confront what it means to be family when nothing about their bond was ever simple, and everything time touches is bound to change.
Part 1 Part 2 (Currently here)! Part 3 (coming soon)
TAG LIST (Open!):
@analiee6 @azulibela
Qifrey hated leaving your house.
Clinging to your leg, Qifrey's knuckles turned white from just how hard he was holding onto you, glaring at the man in front of him.
"Come now, apprentice! It's time for you to return!" Beldaruit insisted.
Beldaruit the Wise held out his arms, expecting the boy to let go of you, and run to him.
Instead, Qifrey turned his back and hid under your robes.
"Qifrey," you softly sighed. "Sweetie, you made a promise, remember? You said you'd go back today."
"I don't wanna," Qifrey hiccuped. "I wanna stay with you."
Your heart broke at his hiccups before kneeling down to his height.
"I'll still be here," you assured. "You know where I live, where my door is. My door will always be unlocked for you."
"No!" Qifrey hiccuped again, throwing his arms around you. "I wanna stay!"
You sighed again, hugging him back.
"Oh, Qifrey," you murmured. "I know you do, but you need to go back, baby. You need to be a big boy."
Qifrey shook his head, tightening his grip.
"Why can't you teach me?!" He insisted. "I-I don't want a-an old man to teach me!"
Beldaruit stood agape, jaw dropping.
"Sweetie, that was rude," you lightly chided the boy. "Can you-"
"No!" Qifrey cut you off. "I won't! I want you!"
You gave Beldaruit an apologetic smile before gathering Qifrey up, bringing him a bit away from the man.
"What's wrong, sweetie?" You softly asked him. "What's got you acting this way?"
You brushed away his tears with a soft coo, the boy's lips quivering.
"H-he's stinky-" Qifrey hiccuped.
You had to hold back your snicker before fixing your expression.
"And?"
"A-and he's old!" Qifrey continued.
"And?"
"A-and he's not you, Mama!" Qifrey burst into tears.
Ah...he didn't provide the same safety net.
"Oh, sweetie," you softly said, brushing away his tears again. "Sometimes, baby, there are things mothers can't teach. Sometimes they need someone else to teach their children."
"But-" Qifrey protested.
"I know you don't want to leave me, but think of this way. Once you graduate and you're older, you can come back and take care of me as I took care of you," you told him. "And if you don't, that's okay too. I want you to be happy and I can't help you do that alone."
Qifrey's lower lip quivered again.
"I'm not asking Beldaruit to keep you forever," you assured him. "It's only for a few hours then you can come running back home."
"Promise?" Qifrey hiccuped.
"Mhm, promise," you assured.
"Pinky promise!" Qifrey insisted, holding his pinky out.
You softly laughed and hooked your pinky with his.
Pairing: kid!Qifrey x motherly!reader
Warning: MANGA SPOILERS! THIS IS PURELY PLATONIC!
Note: honestly I have no clue how to explain this to anyone properly, but I will say I LOVED writing this soooo much. This will have multiple parts! Stay tune for more!
Pronouns: she/her
Like my writing? Drop by and buy me a Ko-Fi!
MINORS EMPTY BLOGS AND BLOGS WITHOUT AGES WILLL BE BLOCKED WITH NO EXCEPTIONS
Marked by fear and instability, Qifrey turned to the only place that he truly ever felt safe. A quiet home shaped by patience and routine care, he learned what it meant to be held together when the world felt overwhelming. As he grows, the distance between dependence and identity began to stretch forcing both child and caretaker to confront what it means to be family when nothing about their bond was ever simple, and everything time touches is bound to change.
Part 1
"Oh, you're here again."
You looked down at a small boy at your doorstep before carefully opening it fully for him to step inside.
Qifrey's visits never surprised you as much anymore.
He always came running when everything was too much for him.
Sat on a chair, Qifrey didn't speak as you took his boots off for him then his robes. Silently held his arms up, asking to be picked up, and you did without question.
Resting him on your hip as you carried him to the bathroom.
You knew he hated getting wet, but Qifrey always braved through baths. As long as it was you giving it.
His tiny fists clung to your shirt as you washed him down before applying soap in his hair then lathered him with more.
Once done, you helped Qifrey dry himself before giving the boy one of your old shirts. Then guided him to the kitchen to get him some food.
A bowl of hot stew with some bread and a tall glass of milk.
"You and Olruggio fight again?"
Qifrey tore off a piece of bread with his teeth, refusing to answer as he chewed.
"Did you start it?" You softly asked.
A bite of his stew this time.
"You know I'm going to find out one way or another," you reminded him.
Qifrey avoided your gaze before swallowing.
"…mhm."
"Mhm to…?"
"…I started it."
You sighed and sat back in your seat.
Qifrey's…an odd one. It made you wonder what made Beldaruit want to take him in as an apprentice. After all, he is an outsider. But then again, he's just a boy.
"Over what?"
Qifrey picked at his food before muttering something under his breath.
"Hm?"
Qifrey coiled his shoulders in and muttered again.
"Qifrey-"
"I said it was over how you aren't my mother!" Qifrey finally snapped.
You flinched, staring at Qifrey before slowly standing causing him to flinch.
"Is that it?" You softly asked, kneeling in front of him.
You turned his chair so Qifrey is facing you before you cupped his cheeks.
"Do you see me that way?"
Qifrey's lower lip quivered before ducking his head away, shoulders curling in.
"Oh, sweetheart…"
You brought the boy close to you, cradling him.
"I'm honored you see me that way, Qifrey. You don't have to be ashamed."
"But he said you weren't my mother," Qifrey hiccuped.
"I know he did," you assured him. "We may not be by blood, but if you have chosen me to be your mother then so be it. I'm your mother, Qifrey."
You pulled Qifrey to rest on your hip, his head resting comfortably on your shoulder.
"Now. Let's finish your meal and get you ready for bed, okay? I'll write a letter to your master to let him know you're staying for the night."
qifrey, olruggio ﹠ easthies x apprentice!reader: dealing with a scary night ꒰ sfw. child ﾉ minor!reader. gn!reader. based on this ask. ꒱
The struggles of a nightmarish sleeptime arise, hence you seek the safety of your Master’s bedroom.
Once upon a bleak midnight, you sleeplessly pondered archaic dreams, which hovered over your head akin to a sullied halo. Nothingness embellished the outside, for, beyond the vast meadows, rested nothing but the neverending monochromatic array of the midnight sky.
Cloud-looking woods, shadowy surrounding—you set foot on the ground, yet you couldn't discern the floorboards, for darkness swallowed them in its rusty throat. The night beckoned you with multiform and single-colored fright, hence why you swiftly waltzed towards Master Qifrey’s room, avoiding the shadows tip-toe style.
There would be no fear at all had you not overheard Tetia's brimmed hat stories. In fact, you should rest assured that your light-minded self of another timeline was drifting to dreamland, meanwhile you, bearing only braveness enough to reach Qifrey’s door, could not gloat om blessings of slumber.
You bedecked his door with sheepish knocks, armoring yourself gallant and bedight in one sock fashion (you don't know where the other half if the pair was found, purloined by faes, perchance?) and wide eyeing his upcoming arrival, preparing tears so no disarmable disapproval was foreseeable.
The door clicked.
“Darling? Are you still awake? My love, I must remind you it's way past your curfew. Are you feeling ill?” you shook your head, clutching the brim of your clothing tightly as to provoke his mercifulness. No word was uttered by your lips, you suppose he could, with the guiding of the ember cast ablaze by the candleholder, discern your disarrayed grimace.
“Hmm… perhaps you are frightened…?”
You nodded. No chagrin was needed with Master Qifrey, especially not when his hands found its commune to your cheek—you leaned onto his touch, brushing your cheeks against his fingers. Your Master grinned.
“I’m scared…”
“I suppose so. You do look a bit uneasy, sweetheart. Mind spending the night with Master Qifrey? I too have found myself unable to overcome such a dark night.”
You jumped onto his duvets. Qifrey didn't keep his room sumptuously furnished, yet the grimoires and the incessant ebb and flow of his clock’s pendulum weaved the feeling of gently born tastes, which did not dare to come to surface with tremendous strength.
“Master will tuck you in, sweet child. Lay down as you please.”
“Alrighty!” it was easy to obey him. Qifrey doted on you, Master Olly even advised him not to step too far, or else you'd become vexing and prone to fiendish misbehaviour. Glad fully, Qifrey saw you as this golden-hearted soul, bearer of bucolic naivety and pinafora softness.
“Master?” he offered the candle for you to blow, so you did, gifting darkness to the room when you pleased. He chuckled, murmuring an ‘hmm?’
“Will mean brimmies come for me…?”
“Master Qifrey has warned you not to read the books on the top area of my shelf. Have you been misbehaving and getting a hold of the gothic tales?”
“No! Tetia was telling stories… oh… I am a killjoy! A tattletale!”
“I will not punish any of you, darling. You shall rest assured, Master Qifrey bears no grounding plans.”
“Pinky promise?”
“May I intertwine my pink with yours, love?”
“Sure!”
The pact was sealed, you laid down, getting your tummy patted by Qifrey, who then kissed your brow.
“Dear me, it’s too late past midnight to be killed by a sweet child and their heart-melting forbidden magic. Come here, remember? We must kiss your cheek to ensure a safe trip to dreamland…”
Qifrey embraced you, pulling you so close you could fuse into one. Your nose was a bit squished against his chest, but it was fine. “Master?”
“Hmm…”
“No brimmed caps, right…?”
“No, my love. I'll protect. Now, don't you want to fall asleep? You might dream of wonderful things. I promise to make them all come true by morning.”
The dark alleys in which you dared to force entrance disclosed a much eerie nature of your imagination—resulting in a desperate worsening of your wounded condition.
After opening your eyes, your limbs were weakened by the mid-dream awakening your mental faculties witnessed. You searched to stretch, touch, ensure yourself of the total integrity of your limb which, in the recent reverie, had been injured.
The natural, common composition of your nightmare, made it palpable to unfold in the real world. Nonetheless, this is what made you unafraid. In the closeness of your room, being heavily injured was far from plausible. But shadows that grasp and phantasms that yell are out of what magic can possibly do, and (once no one had come to a formidable answer to confirm or not their truthfulness), you were left wondering, fearing—dreaming dreams your awakened self had not dared to dream before.
Hence why you travel, searching for the frantic fire whose expostulation you could easily undo by the grimacing a smile or two.
Knock. Knock.
Olruggio got up, it was past midnight, you should be asleep (and so should he). Yet he could not bear to yell a ‘go away!’, not when you could be hurt or, in the silliest of cases, scared.
Soon the door was opened, freeing you of your lonesome state amidst the nightly brume. “Kiddo, you better tell me why you're not sleepin’…” Olruggio was disheveled as always, a messy arrangement of loosely tied garment and ruined posture. Yet he only cast his warmest glare.
“Master Olly, I had a nightmare…”
He sighed. “Hop into bed.”
Your ‘yuppie’ sound was the final blow needed to undo all fortresses he could've built while hunching over an unfinished commission. He decided he should very well join you, leaving inkwells open, for he hadn't realized any of the messiness he desk found itself onto.
“What was the nightmare about, baby?” his bear brushed against your eyebrows’s parting point as he smooched your forehead, giving your collarbone ticklish caresses. “You can tell me, ya know…“
“I was hurt!”
“Hmm, really? At least not ghosts and stuff. But I bet it felt real.”
“A lot! I thought I had a very ugly cut!”
“Well…” he sat down, pulling the duvets to cover himself as well. “If you did, you'd only need to look for me, just like you did now… do you ‘wanna’ cuddle or something?”
You nodded fastly, so much your face was blurry in his perception. Olly giggled, tilting your chin and biting a small chunk of your cheek.
“Master Olly!” he cackled, ruffling your hair as an apology.
“What? Just do the same to me.”
“I cannot! You have all this beard!”
“Oh, what a pity. Come ‘ere.”
“No! You'll bite me!” you moved around, he wasn't up to play fight with you, he was tired, but he soon realized you were just purposeless ruining the sheets around you—you just wanted to be tucked in again, didn't you?
“No biting, I ‘prommy’. Only when I shave so you can bite me too. Now, will you come ‘ere or not?” before you could guarantee anything, Olruggio pulled you closely, your back against his chest as he directed a blow to the nearest candle. “Goodnight, muffin…”
“Goodnight, Master Olly… Master Olly?”
“Hmmm?”
“Can Mister Qifrey’s water magic go boom like yours too?”
“You came here to sleep or ask silly question?”
“Hmmm…”
“No ‘hmmm’…” he pressed you closer.
“Sweet dreams, Master Olly thinks you're a cutie. Now shush.”
Dim valleys would weave a patchwork of shadowy hours, whose green, once manifolded in plural hues, was now diminished to a sullied teal—englighted here and there by the wax and wane of the moon.
Tapping onto your window ceased any nap time you could get—for now you were sure a full night of sleep was impossible, resorting to the implications of a further coming nap, which was now as plausible as your trip to slumberland (it means, simply, that it would not happen.
That ebony finger-like appearance the tree beyond the lattice took was stretching the horrors you promised not to ponder. Your soul grew stronger, not to turn around and sleep, but to sit up and chase for your comfort source—who, different from you, was a sleeping beauty of kinds.
You found no spot within the gloom that bought you solace, but the commune to your Master’s room was graved into your school, hence why you sought it in the darkness as this task bore no trial. That closeness was the only thing that made you able to grapple the shadowy fancies that crowded upon your head. You opened the door, slowly.
Master Easthies lied upon his duvet, half of his sheets were off bed but a grey one which he kept closer ‘everynight’ His hair sprawled in straight locks that descended, mixing with the darkness cast onto the wooden floor. He breathed slowly, you tried to synchronize your oxygen intake with his.
Finally, you got to his side, front to front, your eyes, now used to the dimly lit hour, could distinguish his countenance—he looked quite pretty when he was this calm. You turned around, your back close to his chest as you gently picked his arm, purposely placing it upon your torso. He slept soundly. Good…
“Goodnight, Master…” you whispered, yet such a word echoed back, only its final half receiving a reshaping.
“Good night, apprentice…”
“Huh…”
It was awkward.
“Did I wake you up? I'm sorry?”
“No, you did not. In fact, I hadn't fallen asleep. I heard your footsteps approaching.”
“Oh…”
The arm of his, which you had maneuvered, pressed you closer, until he could lie his chin upon your shoulder.
“Are you feeling insecure about the darkness?”
You nodded.
“Such a foolish fear.”
“Do you want me to go back?”
“The toll a sleepless night can take upon you is no thing to be taken lightly. If you find solace here, you shall stay. What were you scared of?”
“The dark and some sounds…”
He hummed in agreement, giving your shoulder a peck, then one to your nape as well.
“I see, it must be harsh. I beg you to stay. Now, I must sleep, so do you.”
“Goodnight Master Eas!”
His other arm passed through the thin slit between your body and the mattress so he could fully embrace you.
“Huh… your arm will go numb, Master…”
“I may retreat if it does. Now, shush… goodnight and sweet dreams, dearest…”
