bry @strawbryy11 - Tumblr Blog

when the sirens call || choi jiung

➻ pairing | fae!jiung x crimeboss!reader ➻ synopsis | after being backstabbed by your own team and exiled from your country, you set adrift to the seas in search of a new purpose. you don’t expect to find it with a set of wings and beautifully tragic eyes.

➻ warnings | nsfw (minors dni), mature themes, discussions of suicide, minor/background character death, smut, violence, blood

➻ details | fantasy au | angst, hurt/comfort, jiung has blue eyes in this for my world’s fae anatomy, making love, implied virgin jiung, sub!jiung, softdom!reader, unprotected sex, jiung cries (what’s new), reader simps for jiung, keeho makes a cameo (sort of) ➻ length | 11.1k

➻ inspired loosely by the world of six of crows; reader is heavily inspired by kaz brekker 𓆩⟡𓆪 note || im actually proud of this one and i know it’s long but pls lock in and read 🙏 ALSO THANK YOU SM FOR 200 FOLLOWERS!!

You have lived by one simple rule your whole life: have faith in no one but yourself— everyone else is either an enemy or an opportunity.

It was this one rule that took you from slumming it in the ruddy streets of Kevras as an aimless child to living like a king with a fortune bigger than the city and yourself. It was also this one simple rule that led your crew to stick a knife in your back and swindle your throne.

You could call it betrayal all you wanted, but it was ultimately your rule and your controlling tendencies that had set them off. And you have always been a fraud, someone untrustworthy even to yourself so you shouldn’t be surprised that it was really your own hand that twisted the knife.

And now you wade through the night, nothing but the moon, the stars, and waves of salt that cut and bruise to keep your lonesome company. You’d set adrift weeks ago to leave behind the life you knew with the knowledge that your journey could end in two ways: you could find a new place to make your own and conquer, or you could get lost among the waves and die with no one to mourn your body. A death at sea wouldn’t be too tragic, you suppose. You can’t imagine anyone would mourn you even if you’d died in Kevras.

These morbid thoughts have become something of a friend now that you have nothing else to do but steer astray and eye for any land in the distance. Life, death, consequences; it all seems so fickle now that you haven't anything to call your own. You’d already accomplished your life’s mission: to rise to the top. The only way forward from there was to fall and you’d done that too. Where Death was once your enemy, you would now welcome with open arms and a bottle of rum.

Even so, there’s a whisper in the recesses of your mind, an itch settled in the marrows of your bones that tells you there’s something out there in the oceans. Whatever it is, it calls to you like a silent beacon. The overzealous businessman in you just had to see if you could find it, determine if it's worth your (metaphoric) coin, and claim it.

Even if it’s nothing, you can take it and turn it into something; you are living proof of that talent.

So you sail and sail and now months have passed and you’re down to your last bits of sanity. Food is down to meager grains and your last possessions (a water distiller, a dagger, a cane, a pair of binoculars, and a bottle of your finest rum) remain idly in the cargo. The dagger is there for when you decide to find Death on your own terms, the rum there to comfort your way through that journey.

You sit at the helm and look out at the sea, black and twisting and glimmering. The night blankets heavily over you, the stars feeling particularly suffocating. Your dagger sits heavy in your palm. The rum bottle taunts you at your side. You feel the last dregs of your resolve slip through your fingertips like water in an hourglass, fleeting and misplaced.

You’d known for a few weeks now that you’ve strayed off the course and were adrift in the middle of nowhere with nothing in sight. Even if there was something out there like your gut was suggesting, what would it matter to conquer something else knowing that the only fate for you is to fall once again? Surely there was a force of justice that existed somewhere out there, a being greater than yourself to judge and restore balance no matter how hard you try to tip it to your own advantage.

Now the only thing on your mind is how you should wield the dagger for a final time. The efficient way would be a slit to the apex of your jugular. Quick, easy, bloody as you always liked. The poetic way would be to the back. You were never one for romantics but you were no coward either, and you figure as your formal admission of defeat you should put the blade through your back to appease Justice and place a little good back into the world as you go.

With an emphatic breath, you scrounge out the rum bottle from your pack.

That’s precisely when you see it; a glint of light taking form in the corner of your eye, far too sharp and far too white to be just a distant star.

The bottle and the dagger clatter to the floor as you reach for your binoculars instead. It's too far to make out what the source of the light is, but it blinks in and out in a steady rhythm.

Land, you think as you scamper to start steering towards that light, ignoring the wave of nausea that almost knocks you off your feet.

It's like the vigor in your blood revives from the weak and weary thing it had become, anchoring your resolve once more to search for that something that just might be means for a new purpose. Whether that be simple survival or people to conquer, you’ll decide later. You just know that you have to get there first.

It feels like what must be hours before that source of light starts to take shape; in the backlight of the moon and between the blinks of light it emits, its shadow looks tall and slender. Behind that thing is a small strip of more shadows less tall than it.

A lighthouse. Trees. An island?

More hours pass and the first hints of orange tints the sky to your left. You know for sure now it’s an island and you feel both excited and apprehensive. Who knows what this land entails, what type of people, or creatures, might crawl it. Will they let you in, let you nurse yourself back to health, maybe give you a place to stay even for just a little, or will they spear you upon sight. You feel the tips of your fingers prickle at the possibility of a negotiation— you love a good negotiation. Negotiation is your weapon. Negotiation is your friend.

But as the shore comes slowly to view, a handful of kilometres away from you and your measly boat, you feel that excitement dwindle. It looks lifeless; trees fruitless and limp, sand rocky and threadbare, grass limp and barely green. Even the waters around it look grey and murky under the growing rays of the rising sun and nothing like the deep blues and silvers that you’d waded through to get here.

Your brows are pinched with distaste as you wash onto shore and anchor your boat. With your dagger in hand, cane in the other, you hobble onto land and realise with a startle that the rocks in the sand are not just rocks; they’re bones. Human bones. Among those bones are wooden rubble from boats that have rotted and broken down.

Your nerves crackle like livewire and your grip tightens around the hilt of your dagger. There are no signs of birds or animals, no signs of life really. How many people have waded here and died for it?

The lighthouse stands tall by the shore in front of the trees like a guard on duty. It's grey and cracked and stained, looking worse for wear as its roof continues to blink like a pulse.

There must be someone here to maintain that light.

That thought keeps you on your toes as you wage forward with quiet steps towards the thick, wooden door settled between cracked bricks. Your legs, weak with disuse, protest with each step and your wounded knee cries against the sudden weight of your body despite the cane’s support.

The inside is as ratty as the outside; the spiral stairs leading all the way to the top are similarly wounded. They look like they might give under your weight if you try to climb up, and your body screams at you as you consider the lengthy way to the top. In spite of the pain, you trudge forward and take the first few steps up.

Immediately you hear the concrete beneath your weight crackle, and rubble from the underside fall to the ground below.

“I wouldn’t go up if I were you.”

Every muscle in your body goes taut as a low voice echoes around the walls, the words clinging onto you like restraints.

You bring your hands up in surrender, cane and dagger still in clutch. “I come in peace.” Your own voice sounds raspy, unused for months like the rest of you.

“So drop the weapons and turn around.” The voice replies firm, deep, and honeyed.

Like you’re under a hypnotic spell, you feel every fibre in your body itch to obey the commands. But you’ve spent your entire life defying authority, so your body is well adjusted to stand in its defiance no matter how hard it wants to heed to this strange man.

But you’re also not stupid. Reluctantly, you drop your dagger and let it fall down the steps down to the floor but hold your cane in your left hand, parallel leg raised off the ground to alleviate the pressure.

“That one too.” He’s starting to sound irritated, and you should do something about that, but you also just want to keep listening to him talk.

“I need this one to walk.”

There’s a silence where you hope the man is considering your request. But you’ve never been a lucky one. “Drop it and turn around.”

His voice is seething now and you know when it’s smart to back down so you follow his command, dropping your cane down to let it clatter after the dagger and turning to face the stranger who holds your fate in his hand.

Whatever you were expecting this islander to look like, you have never been so happy to have your expectations be so direly misled. Your breath is knocked straight out of your lungs when you see what might be the only muse you could ever stomach to wax poetic about.

His eyes are deep blue seas the sirens call you to, unrelenting and stormy under thick black lashes. His nose slopes in a delicate arch, his lips are thin and sharp, his brows are slant and furrowed. They’re draped by inky strands of black silk, hair thick and mussed from sea wind. You feel your fingers itch at your sides to card through those tresses of silk, begging to learn if they’re as soft as they look. The curves of his slender face are all delicate lines and sharp points. You want to know what it's like to lick along them and map out the crevices of this beautiful face.

His skin is porcelain, soft and clean and tight over planes of wiry muscle that you see of his chest and arms not covered by his beige shirt. He’s tall and lean under his loose clothing but he stands with authority, a trait you’re usually keen on defying but on him, you want to flock to it like a moth to a flame and, for once in your life, obey.

His eyes would be the most striking feature on him. Would be, if it weren’t for the black feathered wings stretching out intimidatingly behind him like he was rearing to attack. Which, by the look in his eye, he was. The feathers look as silky, as inky, as touchable as his hair.

“A fae,” you whisper, voice wrangled out of you as something breathy and nearly, scarily reverent.

The man bristles at that, his stance drawing defensive, a scowl overtaking his delicate features and fashioning them into something deadly. “What do you want?”

“I come in peace. And in shambles, if you haven’t noticed,” you say, vaguely gesturing over yourself. “Even if I wanted to do something to you, I’m one strong wind away from crumbling to dust.”

You see his eyes narrow and the corner of his lips twitch just a fraction. The mere prospect of getting a reaction out of him fills you with a bizarre sense of satisfaction. If you had no respect for yourself, you would jump with glee.

“I’ve met plenty of people who have appeared weak,” he states solemnly. “Do you want to know what I did to them?”

“Skinned them alive and used them as seashells for your sad little beach?”

His eyes narrow further so they’re just sharp, piercing slits. You have to strain to see the blue in them. “I can do worse.”

“I don’t doubt you can.”

He takes a cautious step forward and you take a backwards step up, more crackles sounding under the give of your weight. The man’s eyes flit to where you stand, panic sewing between his ire. “Don’t,” he all but pleads. He opens his mouth to continue but clamps it shut and bows his head to evade your gaze.

You think you saw a flash of sorrow there and hate the way that the sight twists your gut. Slowly, you step down the stairs, footsteps echoing and catching his attention. He backs away as you lower to the ground, wings twitching just slightly, eyes flicking between your hands and your feet.

He’s nervous, you realize, and feel the need to do everything in your power to ease it out of him.

Very slowly, you reach your foot to where your dagger lay on the ground and snag it under your boot before kicking it towards him. It skids across the concrete with a screech and stops in front of him. You do the same with your cane and the wood rattles as it stops beside the dagger.

The man stares at the items like they’ve personally offended him before reaching down to pick them up. He holds them in tight fists before he looks back at you.

“If you know what's best for you, you will leave this place and never turn back.”

His words are sharp and his stance is rigid but the sorrow never leaves his eyes.

“You and I both know if I set out there, I won’t survive more than a few days.” You hope to reach the humanitarian in him, if there is any, and that he will allow you to stay. Because now more than anything you want to survive and you want not to leave behind this treasure you’ve found. “I don't have any more food.”

He fixes you with his cold stare, considering. You can feel his eyes rake over you as he assesses you, sizing up the potential risk of letting you linger in his territory.

“Stay out of my way,” he says with finality before stepping out through the doors. “And stay out of here.” Before you can respond, his wings span out and he’s flitting away up in the air.

You can’t hobble out quickly enough in time to see him fly away; he’s gone, vanished into the air by the time you get there.

You learn later as you’re lounging in your docked boat that he spends all his time at the top of the lighthouse. You’d seen him way up at the top as you emerged from the forest earlier with anything edible you could find, meagre leaves and berries. He’d been sitting at the edge of the outlook, just staring out at the sea. You wondered distantly if he was guarding this place and that lighthouse, though you didn’t see anything from your brief exploration of the land worth guarding. There was nothing at all, not even animals besides the occasional flock of birds that flew by over the island. You’ll have to figure out a way to catch one of them soon; berries won’t do you much for long.

You let yourself watch him as you chew on your leaf wrapped berries with your leg propped up to rest after your hours of exploration. It becomes part of your routine for the next week or so. You wake up in your boat, watch the fae boy as he sits up in his spot like he’s the sun that greets you in the morning, go scrounging for food while you stretch your limbs, watch him again as you eat, bathe at the shore, then settle back down in your boat for the night and let the sight of him among the stars lull you to sleep.

After years of running around and swindling people, to a drastic change to a sailor’s life, then to this, you find it to be a nice change of pace. You think you’d be okay spending the rest of your days like this if it meant lounging around with no town to worry over and watching the fae boy sit up in the sky like your personal angel.

You see him move around up there from time to time, retreating inside for a few moments before perching back on the balcony like it’s where he’d sit if this were a painting come alive. He fits well with the moon and the night sky as his landscape, his wings a mere shadow at his back in the dark.

You really hoped he would come down again. You’d like to see him closer one more time. Maybe you’d like to hear his voice again, whether that be to scold you, to check on you, to tell you to leave again. But he does none of that. Not until another week after, when the island gets its first visitors since you washed up to shore.

A rowdy group of sailors approach the shoreline in a flurry of chaos on a rundown boat. Bandits, more like. Maybe pirates. Whatever they are, they don’t look like they’ve come to sight see. You’re not hidden enough in your shelter to be missed by them and their attention falls right to where you’re sitting at the helm of your boat.

You find yourself looking back to the lighthouse, searching for the fae, but for the first time in the weeks that you’ve been here, he’s nowhere to be seen. You don’t even see the outline of him through the glass windows; he’s not in the lighthouse at all.

Normally, you’d be thrilled for a fight with foolish men but the pretty fae had taken all your weapons and you’re too malnourished to wield your own limbs to any capacity. Even still, you feel a zip of excitement as you hobble out of your boat, dropping to your feet onto the bone-sand rubble. You ignore the sharp pain in your knee from the impact; you can’t show weakness or you’ll lose before the fight even begins.

“Hey, little lady,” the man you assume to be their captain says. He’s round and ruddy with dirt, clothes ragged and unwashed, his voice garish as he saunters his way up to you. His flock of men follow after him, armed with weapons from bows to spears to cutlasses.

“Hello, little man,” you parrot back in the same patronizing tone.

He gets close enough for you to see his eye twitch as he tries to hide the scowl behind an exaggerated smile. It doesn’t help, it only makes him look clownish. “What’s a girl like you doing out here on your own?”

The other men keep moving, ‘subtly’ taking position to circle around you. You keep your ground, arms folded behind your back. You should feel scared, out here alone with these men prowling around you like you’re about to be their next meal. But you feel a calm in the recesses of your mind like still water. You don’t know where he is but he’s watching. You can feel it. Whether you can count on it is the question but you’re ready to find out.

“On a trip,” you say drily. “Beautiful here, isn’t it?”

The men look around, faces twisted in various levels of disgust. “That’s one word for it,” the captain says. His eyes latch onto the necklace hanging around your neck. You can practically see his eyes sparkle when it lands on the small compass pendant made of solid gold. “I can show you a lot of places, places far more beautiful than this. Not as beautiful as you, of course.”

You feel cold tendrils of mild distress burn up your spine when you hear a crunching sound of the bone-sand behind you and the towering presence of their brute closing in.

“Can you?” You ask, keeping your voice steady and light. You subtly adjust your hands at your back, pressing around for the tiny blade you keep hidden under your belt. You curse when you feel that spot come up empty. The fae must have taken it, and every other weapon on you, while you were asleep. You reroute for the naive girl image that men like him seem to take an odd liking to. You tilt your head and bat your lashes. “Don’t I have to pay you anything?”

He chuckles, a deep and ugly sound as he steps closer to you. Your nose threatens to twitch at the stench that violates it when he gets in your space and you have to fight not to keel over and throw up your stomach acid. You feel the other man’s presence behind you get closer. Your chances of coming out of this alone are dwindling. Maybe it’s your hunger induced delirium that’s making up your fae’s presence nearby and you truly are on your own.

The man’s hand reaches for your face. “Pretty thing,” he coos, brushing his greasy hand down your cheek, down your neck, then down the gold chain. “Very pretty.”

You swallow as he grasps the compass pendant in his palm, then yanks, bringing your head closer to his. The sudden movement sends your head spinning, and you catch yourself at the last moment before you collide into him.

“I’m afraid I can’t let that go,” you say through grit teeth, not faltering under his wolfish gaze.

“Then you’ll just have to come with us,” the man behind you speaks, voice just as gruff as the man before you. His hands clasp down on your waist and that is about as much as you can take.

You smile at the captain, sickly sweet. “Sure thing.” Then you fling your forehead right against his nose, getting a satisfying crunch out of it, then send your elbow back up at the other man’s neck behind you in quick succession. It was foolish to fight but you were stubborn first and you would be damned if you didn't go down swinging.

You don’t stand your ground for long— you don’t expect to against four armed men— before two of them have you held back with a blade to your neck. The captain regains himself, swiping away the blood only to smear it over his lips. He scowls at you as you struggle against their hold despite the blade digging into your skin and drawing blood.

“Stupid girl,” he snarls, wasting no time to grab the necklace around your neck. You feel a childish spike of anger as it’s ripped away from your neck. ‘That’s mine,’ you’d yell if not for the blade threatening to slice if you spoke.

You can almost feel Justice looking down at you, cackling as you fall under the hands of the very type of men you’d swindled in the streets of Kevras. The captain yanks the cutlass out from his lackey’s grip, bringing it up to the air above your head.

“Should’ve taken your chance at a better life with us.”

“I’d rather die,” you spit, closing your eyes just as he brings the blade down.

It doesn’t hit. You hear a horrid scream, not yours, and spring into action. You bring your foot down hard on the ankle of the man holding the blade to your neck and it bristles him enough that you can dislodge the cutlass from his hand and swing it back to slice his head clean off.

You don’t get much time to process the next few seconds. All you see is him, the fae, murderous glare set on his face as he closes in on one of the men. You see the other cretin running up from behind the fae with his dagger drawn. You don’t even think. You don’t have the time to before you’re throwing yourself between them.

The searing pain in your abdomen flares throughout your body and blinds your other senses. You can feel yourself collapse but you can’t tell when you hit the ground. The last thing you see when your vision clears is the fae, wings splayed, hands— talons— drenched in blood, and pale skin splattered with red.

𓆩⟡𓆪

You wake up in unfamiliar sheets in an unfamiliar room drenched in sunlight and a feeling of safety you’ve grown distant from these past few months. It takes you a minute to clear the fog from your brain as you turn your head this way and that, taking in the concrete walls and wooden, worn down furniture of the room you’re in. When you see the large opening against one wall that leads to the balcony over the sea, you realize you’re at the top of the lighthouse.

You wince when your body protests as you try to get up to snoop so you lay back down with a defeated groan. You’re stiff all over more than you are in pain. Which comes as a bit of a surprise since you’d been stabbed and you most certainly were too weak to make a recovery like this. You shouldn’t even be here, you realize. The blade to your stomach should have been a lethal hit in your state.

There’s not enough time to mull over it before there’s a rushing wind from the opening, the sound of flapping wings, then a thump as the fae lands on the balcony. He’s clean now and he’s carrying things in his arms, weapons and a few pouches that are brimming with food and other things. You try to eye the contents of them when he walks inside. He doesn’t pay you any mind as he passes you before dropping everything in an existing pile of what you assume to be other loot from previous folk who had the misfortune of stepping on this island.

“So this is what you do,” you say as you watch him begin to organize the mess of things. He takes out a few gold items from one of the pouches and tidies them away in the small chest. “You rob people.”

“If they try to disturb my peace, then yes,” he answers simply, in that same honeyed voice you've been craving to hear again for the past two weeks.

He doesn’t seem so on guard to be near you like he had been that first time you’d met. Putting your life on the line for him must have done the trick to lower his defenses.

“How long have I been down?” You ask despite your sore throat for the sake of getting to listen to him to talk some more.

He still doesn’t look at you as he answers, just waves a hand in the general direction of his nightstand to gesture to the glass of water waiting there for you. “A few hours.”

You pause before you slide your hand up your shirt to feel around your abdomen. It’s bandaged carefully with gauze and when you press down, there’s no sharp pain. Just a soreness you’d feel from a healed over wound.

“How…” You trail off, not knowing what the right question to even ask was. “I should’ve died from that.”

The fae stands up to his full height and finally turns his attention to you, and it’s as devastating as the first time he looked at you. “Medicine,” he answers. He walks closer and you feel like every nerve in your body livens with each step forward. He picks up the glass of water that you failed to and pushes it into your hand. “The dust from fae horns are very potent healing agents. Or drugs.”

That’s when you see them. The small, pointed black horns that sit curved between tufts of his hair, hidden unless seeked. Though one of them looks a little stumped at the end, like it’s been shaved down.

Your eyes widen in realization. “Did you—“

“It’s fine. It’s not my first time doing it,” he says, glaring lightly at the glass of water in your hand. You take the hint, pulling yourself up a little to drink and only then does he back down and walk away to the desk laden with vials and powders and mortars.

You watch his back as he works in careful, finely-tuned movements. His shirt is cut low at the back to give way for his wings. It also gives way for more of his smooth, muscled skin. You try not to leer, ripping your eyes to look at the side of his face instead.

You flinch his fingers suddenly light aflame, flames that he uses to light the lantern at his desk.

“You can fire?” You ask dumbly, staring at the embers as they spark out and leave his fingers with a thin layer of char.

He continues working to organize his desk as he answers. “Yes.”

You’d known fae could be born with different abilities but he hadn’t shown any signs of them during the fight. “Why didn’t you use it against those guys, then? You could’ve obliterated them in seconds.”

His movements falter. “I don’t like the smell of burning flesh,” he says. There’s a hardness to his voice that warns you not to question it. So you take the answer as you get it and reroute.

“You saved me,” you find yourself saying. It’s true, but this is the kind of admission you don’t like to make.

“You risked yourself for me,” is what he answers with, like that was all the reason he needed to take you in and nurse you back to health.

You, the one who lived for years with those selfish rules, putting your life on the line for someone you don’t know. “I suppose I did.”

“Why?” He asks you, looking at you over his shoulder. He looks unsure as he waits for your answer, like he was expecting there to be some sort of ulterior motive. He wouldn’t be entirely wrong to do so considering your past.

The question trumps you; you can’t figure out why he makes you want to do the opposite of everything you’ve preached and practiced. Your mind has always been an enigma even to yourself. So you settle for an answer you’re familiar with to bring you some comfort in this unfamiliar territory. “I guess you’re worth more to me alive than dead.”

It’s the wrong answer, you learn, because he immediately tenses and his eyes turn cold again, that defensive shield he’d worn before back in full force. “Worth?”

You bite your tongue at your careless wording. You’re aware of the trafficking that’s done with fae in countries outside of Kevras. For their feathers, wings, horns, talons. They’re all pricey resources used to show status or make medicine and potions people can only dream of. You’ve had offers to bring that trading into your city but you wanted no business in slaving other beings, non-human or not. Besides, if all fae were as beautiful as him you’d want to preserve them, not send them away to be broken apart.

“You don’t have to worry about that,” you admit with a wry grin. “I’d rather keep you to myself than give you away.”

He blinks at that, his cheeks tinging the lightest red as he considers the implications of those words.

“Besides,” you continue, “Money’s not worth much to me anymore anyway.”

His shoulders slowly relax as he brings his defences back down. “Who are you?”

That hits you harder than you expect it to. You have no real identity anymore. Something you’d always considered to be a curse but might just become a small blessing if you allow it to be. “A wanderer.”

“And what brings you here?”

“Exile,” you answer, pulling yourself to sit straight, wincing at the throbbing that spreads through your body. “Sailed my merry way down here with no real direction.” You stretch out your arms above your head and roll your neck, feeling your joints pop loose bit by bit, humming in satisfaction as they do. “And you?”

When your eyes move back on him, he blinks out of a stupor like he’d been caught in a daze from watching you. “Me what?” He asks, tilting his head.

You notice the red colouring his cheekbones turn a shade deeper and smile to yourself. “Why are you out here all alone?”

He gets quiet again, hands clenching at his sides as he debates whether to answer. Eventually, he concedes. “This was my home. Years ago. Until…” He looks at you with a sharp look of anger, though it’s not pointed at you, per se. “Until your kind happened.”

You hold your breath under his intense gaze. You have a feeling where this story’s going, but you don’t interrupt.

“They came, they conquered, they stole.” He laughs bitterly. “My mother hid me away. Told me to stay put, that she’d be right back. I stayed underground for weeks. When I came out everything was gone. Everyone was gone.”

He looks at you again, blue eyes shifting to a grey as they well with tears, like water glimmering under a stormy sky. Sadness has never looked so tragically beautiful on someone.

“This is all I have left,” he says, glancing around the room then out at the sea. The lighthouse. The remnants of his past life.

“So you stay here. All alone,” you conclude as he blinks away his tears and turns from you, hiding his emotion away in shame.

He shrugs as he goes out to the outlook and takes a seat over the edge with his legs dangling, the same way you’ve watched him do for weeks now.

You push yourself up to your feet, wincing when your bad knee nearly gives out. You have to sit back down to let yourself recover before you try again. He looks back at you when he hears your grunt of pain. “What happened to your leg?” His voice, curious, is a bit far now but the wind brings it to you where you’re still on the bed.

You stretch out your leg before you stand up again and hobble to join him out on the balcony. He looks at ease as he sits there, leaned back on his hands, his wings folded behind him, the lengthy ends splayed on the wooden floor. He looks at home.

“My old master wasn’t a very nice guy.” You sour as you recall the old creep. He was the first of the many men you’ve killed. “Didn’t like it when I talked back.”

“Humans slave humans?” He asks, shock colouring his face.

“Humans are the most corrupt species.” It’s a morbid truth you’ve had to learn the hard way.

He doesn’t bristle as you approach to stand beside him, welcoming you quietly. There aren’t any rails, you realize, but for a being that can fly it’s probably not really a concern. The way down is a long one from up here. You wonder if you fall, would he catch you or let the water do it.

“How long have you lived here?” You ask as you take a seat beside him, letting your legs dangle like his.

“A hundred years, give or take.”

Shock filters out through your breath. He looks not a day over twenty. “Sounds lonely.”

There’s a heavy silence for a moment as you both stare out at the waves. The cold breeze and salt air feel familiar to you now. You think you wouldn’t mind it becoming something of a new home.

“I don’t remember the difference between what’s lonely and what’s not,” he finally says.

You hum in understanding. “I don’t think I know either.” You grew up alone on the streets, then with your crew of criminals that was only a hastily put together shell of a ‘family’, and now you’re here, back to the way you started. On your own.

“Maybe,” he starts, then hesitates and lowers his head. He’s shy, you come to realize, feeling that a fondness has already carved out a space for him in your heart. “Maybe… we don’t have to be alone anymore.”

He must feel lonely, even if he doesn’t recognize it, to ask you to stay with him in a roundabout way.

You find yourself grinning, itching with the need to prod him and get him to admit it directly. “Are you saying you don’t want me to leave?”

“Yes,” he says with an honesty you’re not used to. Your life has been riddles and lies and twisted truths. He, this weary fae, might just be the change you need. Before you can say anything, he’s digging into his pockets in search of something. “Is this yours?” He asks, holding out a familiar gold chain. It’s splotched with blood and a little dirty, but it's yours.

You take it from him, the final remnant that tethers you to your past life, to your old ‘family’, but you don’t feel much anymore as you stare at it. You prod it with your nail to scratch off a bloodstain as you debate whether to chuck it over the edge and into the water. When you look back up at the fae, you see him staring intently at the chain, eyes blinking slowly, teeth worrying his lower lip. You’ve heard about faes’ affinity for all things shiny, gold especially, and you’re more touched than amused that despite his hoarding instincts, he still returned it to you.

With a decisive hum, you unclasp the necklace and bring the chain around his neck. He startles and tenses at the proximity for a split second until he realizes what you’re doing and instinctively leans in.

“Are you sure?” He asks as he picks up the pendant and stares at it, pretty eyes wide, mesmerized by the way the gold catches the setting sun. There’s a small smile on his lips and you think that this sight is the one that just might be the thing to destroy you. You’d give up all the gold you’d earned in your lifetime if it meant seeing him smile like that forever.

“Yes,” you say, left breathless by the sight of him. If all it takes is a simple smile from him to ruin you, this fae just might be your kryptonite. You’re left hypnotized for a long moment, watching his eyes twinkle with glee, before you find your voice again. “Do you have a name?”

He drops the pendant to let it dangle between the unclasped buttons of his shirt and looks at you with a smile wide enough to carry the stars. “Jiung.”

“Jiung,” you whisper, tasting the name on your tongue. You don’t miss the way his cheeks redden again. “Do you like rum?”

𓆩⟡𓆪

The alcohol burns as Jiung presses the doused cloth a little too aggressively against the cut on your leg. You hold back a hiss, reluctant to show how affected you are when he’s kneeled right there with his face inches from yours, delicate features set in hardened stone. Angry and splattered with the blood of his enemies, he looks like he walked straight out of your dreams.

He hasn’t spoken to you since he flew you back up to the lighthouse in tatters, holding in the scolds you’re sure he wants to pelt you with but he knows you’re too stubborn to receive.

“I’m alright,” you assure him again, hoping to get a response out of him this time but to no avail.

Jiung had flown you down so you could take your evening walk down the shoreline. It was going as peacefully as every other day; you got to relish in the sight of him seaside and windswept, until another boat of hagglers showed up at the shore for the first time since the attack that brought you two together. And despite Jiung’s warning for you to keep back while he took care of it, you marched right in when things got too sticky for your liking. You managed to get a few blows in and one man down before you took a few near fatal slices yourself.

You’re not so sure what was so wrong about what you did, why he’s so torn up about something you came out of alive from at the end of the day. You were helping. But you’d rather have him yell at you than deal with this silence and have him shut away into himself again. You’ve worked so hard these past few weeks to get him out of his shell, and with one bad decision it all seems to have gone out the window.

When he still doesn’t respond after another one of your assurances, you pull out your trump card. “Jiung,” you say in a low, soft voice, and that finally gets him to falter. It’s not fair, you know it’s not, because every time you say his name he just can't help but to let his guard down.

He’s gentler as he applies healing salve to the cut, his eyes still avoiding yours. “I told you to stay back,” he says, not angry anymore, just upset. But you’re more than happy to hear him speak again. You thought you might’ve suffocated in the deafening absence of his voice.

“I was trying to help,” you reason, like he was the one being unfair. “I can handle myself. Besides, I’m okay, right?”

“Well, what if you weren’t?” He snaps, the anger flaring back. You blink, taken aback by the sudden sharpness in his tone. It stays as he scolds you. “When I tell you to stay back, you stay back.”

Your eyes flare, your instinct to fight right back nearly taking control. You have to remind yourself that he’s not one of those men from Kevras that had taken your life under their authority.

You take a slow breath to calm yourself before speaking. “I don’t back down and I don’t like to be sidelined,” you state. “I thought you would’ve known me enough to know that by now.”

That seems to go through to him. He appears a little chastised as he looks down at the container of salve, rolling it between his hands. “I just—“ he starts then stops. He tries again but fails with a quiet, frustrated groan.

It’s often that he has to pause within sentences to curate his thoughts. His years of isolation have left him unrefined with his words so you've given him the grace of patience as he gets used to communicating again with you.

He finally musters up what he’s been trying to say. And he says it in such a fragile voice, like he doesn’t really want to know the answer but asks it anyway, that you wish he wouldn’t have said it at all. “What if you didn’t make it?”

That’s what it was, the fear of being left alone again. The strange overprotectiveness he’d gained over you when you agreed to stay on the island for a while; refusing to let you out of his sight for a walk on your own, secretly watching over you when you sleep (you’d caught on within the first few days of living up in the lighthouse), or even when you go out to bathe (though he keeps his respectful distance then).

It was convenient that you felt the same sense of protection over him, though yours was more out of a sense of possession. You didn’t deny the lack of distance because you weren’t too keen on letting him out of your sight either. You may have more selfish reasons for that, founded a little more on your lecherous desires, but you didn’t want him disappearing on you either.

You let out a sigh as you feel the salve work its magic, soothing away the stinging pain in a matter of moments as he wraps gauze over it. The gash on your arm was quickly on its way out under the layers of salve and bandage.

“I get it,” you start and he looks up at you again. It’s a sight that has your breath nearly catching; him on his knees on the ground in front of you while you sit on the edge of the bed. He’s so close that you have to refrain from reaching out and running your hand through his hair or the feathers of his wings which are right within your reach. This craving has been festering since you met him and became even more persistent with your growing proximity to him over the weeks, but you’ve dutifully kept your hands to yourself so as not to spook him away.

“You don’t,” he argues with a frown set stubbornly on his lips, brows furrowed. “You don’t get it.” His eyes go distant as they often do when he recalls moments of his past life, like he’s reliving them through no choice of his own.

You think you do get it. But you bite it back. “What don’t I get?” You ask in hopes of reaching a little more clarity. Clearly there’s something more to it if he looks this bothered by the prospect of somehow losing you.

He hesitates for a moment, averting your gaze as if he was admitting to something guilty. “You’re not the first one who’s stayed here with me,” he says solemnly.

You feel a sharp spike of jealousy hot in your chest when you hear that, bitter and ugly, but you swallow it down. “I wasn’t?” It’s not fair to feel that way; he’s not yours to feel possessive over. He’s lived a life much longer than yours so it would be stupid to think there hasn't been anyone he might have gotten close to from the hundreds of people that have likely shown up here. But you've always been selfish and you don’t shy away from admitting to yourself that you don’t want him around anyone else, don’t even want to think about it.

Jiung nods, capping off the container of salve with distracted movements. “His name was Keeho.”

You find yourself holding your breath as he gets up to put away the medical supplies then sits back in the same spot, hands folded over his knees with his wings pressed to his sides almost protectively. You let it out when he starts to speak again.

“He arrived here fifty years ago.” The faraway look in his eye is back as he recounts the story. “He was really annoying. I hated him at first. Wanted him gone but he was… persistent,” he pauses to glance up at you, like he’s just noticing the familiarity of you in his old friend. “He was a wanderer like you with no place to go. I didn’t kill him because he didn’t really do anything wrong. He just hovered. Eventually I went down and talked to him, tried to get him to leave. But it only took a few hours for him to wear me down.” The smallest smile flits his mouth, fond but sad. “I hadn’t had a friend before, not since I was a child. Not a human one.” His smile fades away, tears treading in its stead. “He was here for only two years. The bandits—“ He chokes off, hands curling into fists at his lap as his lips wobble with restrained emotion. “I told him to stay back. But he was stubborn.

“He was the first body I ever burned.” His tears start to fall in steady streams and all you can do is sit there and watch. “I can still remember it… the smell.”

When it clicks into place, you can’t bring yourself to speak. It’s difficult to describe the way your chest twists with ache for him, the trauma he’s had to carry all on his own. You’ve never felt someone else’s pain like this before.

Your hand moves with a mind of its own to brush away the tears from his cheek. The touch brings him out of his mind and then suddenly he’s latching onto your hand, looking up at you with eyes you can only describe as begging. “Please,” he says, holding your hand to his cheek like he’s scared you’ll pull away. “When I tell you to stay back… Please stay. I don’t want to lose you too.” His voice is a shaky thing as his eyes search yours, pleading you to listen to him.

“Jiung,” you whisper, frozen in place from the admission.

He only burrows in, shuffling closer on his knees, turning his face into your palm and nuzzling, clutching your arm with both of his hands. “Please,” he whispers again, breath ghosting the inside of your wrist.

You’d never touched him before, not like this. It feels every bit like the dreams you’ve had of having his skin beneath your palm, warm and soft. Real.

You slide your hand up from his cheek and into his hair, the silky tresses just as soft as you imagined as they slide between your fingers. He melts into the touch, his wings relaxing down at his sides as he basks in the touch. You wonder how long it’s been, if ever, since he's been held, touched, worshipped.

He only seems to want to get closer. His cheek presses against the bare skin of your knee where the hem of your nightdress is lifted. A thread of heat climbs up your leg from the contact, your hand faltering in his hair. He nudges his head against your palm, a quiet plea for more.

You give in, because you don’t think you can do anything but give in to him. You let your hand card through his hair and let your thumb run up the short length of his horn, smooth under the touch. It gets a stuttering breath out of him, his wings fluttering from where they lay boneless at his sides.

There’s a blush forming at the apples of his cheeks as he croaks out a quiet, “Sensitive.”

The thrill that that knowledge sends through you leaves you feeling a little heady. You didn't think it was possible to ever get drunk on a person before, but here you are.

“Yeah?” You ask, repeating the motion, slowly this time. The reaction it has is all the more inebriating; his jaw falling a little slack as he lets out another shaky breath, eyes fluttering shut.

His twitching wing drags your attention to it, though you’re reluctant to look away from all the ways his face twists beneath your touch. You raise your other hand from your lap and reach, pausing to brace yourself before you let your fingers glide along the spine of it, light as a whisper.

His breath fully hitches this time as he chokes back a sound. When you look down at him, he’s already looking up with wide eyes and his cheeks burning. He looks embarrassed, but you can’t have that.

You interrupt what is sure to be an unnecessary slew of apologies by letting your fingers drag back up his wing, the touch more solid this time. His entire body jolts and he visibly frazzles from the onslaught of sensations it brings him. You bring your hand from his hair back down to his cheek, cradling his face as you lean down. “It’s okay,” you whisper. His eyes flutter when your breath brushes against his cheek. He turns his face into your palm, hiding in it as his hands fall to your lap and bunches into your nightdress.

“Please,” he says, his lips seeking out the pulse point of your wrist. You wonder if he can feel your hammering heartbeat against them.

You let your hand fall into the feathers of his wing and they feel impossibly softer than his hair. You run your fingers through them, seeking out the softness, and it brings out a broken moan from him.

He tries to hide his face fully into your lap but you don’t let him, taking hold of his chin to lift his gaze to yours.

He looks gone. His face is flushed a pretty scarlet, his lips quivering as short breaths puff through them, and his eyes, those glittering eyes, are half-lidded and glazed over, teary enough to make you want to drown in those azure pools of desire.

“Please,” he says again, less a word, more a breath.

You swallow, trying to keep your threadbare sanity intact. “Please what, Jiung?”

He lets out a tiny whine when he hears his name fall from your lips. His gaze turns a little panicked as he searches for an answer to your question. Does he even know what he wants?

You have to be a lot more careful than you were thinking. This is a fragile, delicate situation and Jiung is here, on his knees, seeming ready to give himself up to someone else for the first time. To you. You can take. This is the one time where you can take and get away with it.

But you only find yourself wanting to give.

“I-I don’t…” He starts to say, floundering for words but you lean in, shushing him.

Your eyes fall to his lips, shades of pretty pink that taunt you. Your thumb brushes against them and they part like it’s an instinct. Warmth spreads through your core at the sight of him so pliant, all for you. You push your thumb slowly in through his parted lips, taking a trembling breath when he lets you press it against his tongue.

He just takes it. He doesn’t pull back, doesn’t suck, just takes it as you slide it back and forth against the wet muscle in slow strokes. All while he looks up at you, starry-eyed and reverent.

“Fuck,” you breathe. It takes everything in you to pull it back out and brush your spit slick finger over his lower lip. “You’re going to kill me.”

His brows furrow and the fog in his eyes clear a little at your words. “Don’t want to kill you,” he says, words nearly slurred.

You have to bite your tongue to hold back the curses you want to yell at the gods for keeping him from you for so long.

He leans into you when you press your forehead down to his, eyes locked steadily on yours, waiting, wondering, wanting.

“Do you trust me?” You ask, because you need to know before you can make him yours.

He answers without missing a beat. “I do.”

That’s all it takes for you to surge forward and seal your lips over his, swallowing his noise of shock. He freezes for a second, and you wait for him to pull away, but then he’s breathing out, melting into it, and giving into you.

It’s not slow, it’s not careful, it’s not hesitant. He’s eager as he moves his lips with yours, his hands finding and holding your hips tightly. He lifts up on his knees to push himself further into the kiss, into you, and you have to bury your hand in his hair and tug at the tufts by his horn to get him to falter back. His lips part with a choked whine and you take your chance, sliding your tongue into his mouth and searching for claim.

He seems eager to give it up as he takes you into his mouth, lets you control and lets you claim. His arms snake around your waist and he tugs. You let him pull you off the bed and onto his lap as he sits back on his haunches, hands falling to your hips, mouth still fully under your command.

You can feel just how hard he is when you settle on his lap and you just can’t deny yourself anymore. You line your core right over him and press down. A full body tremor rocks through him hard enough to break the kiss as he throws his head back with a moan, his grip going iron on your hips as he chases that feeling again with a desperate roll of his hips. The pressure of him grinding against you is enough to leave your head reeling.

When he comes back down to himself after the initial shock of pleasure, he fixes you with that pleading look again, tears rolling down his cheeks. “Please,” he gasps as he pushes his lips back onto yours, wanting to kiss you but too mind fucked to do it properly. “Need more,” he nearly sobs. “Need you.”

You’re not convinced that you didn’t drown out in the sea somewhere and have somehow scammed your way into heaven.

“Yeah?” You ask, rolling your hips down again, slower this time. The pressure of him growing harder against you has building pleasure pooling low in your gut, has you leaking with arousal.

His eyes roll back as he keeps rutting up into you, like hips are out of his control as they search and search for more of your warm heat. You have to bite down on your lip to keep yourself from teetering to the edge at the mere prospect of having him like this, letting out needy little grunts with every stroke of sensation.

“Jiung,” you say, having to repeat yourself for his attention. It’s still only half there, the main focus of his brain seeming to be chasing your heat. You have to press your hips down hard to get him to still, which he does with a broken yelp at the sudden pressure. “You want this?” You ask him. You cradle his face with both hands while he fights the fog in his mind to actually hear the words he’s watching your lips form.

He waits for a breath as lets himself process the question. “Want it,” he murmurs, voice low and gravelly. His hips start to buck up again in desperate little rolls. You can feel him throbbing even through the layers of clothes. “Want whatever you give me.”

That’s all that you need before you’re crashing your lips back to his, stealing his little gasps right from his mouth. You don’t bother with the hassle of clothes as you reach down between you two and slide your hand into his trousers to grasp him, hot and heavy and already slick with need.

He abandons the kiss as he whimpers at the feeling of your hand wrapped around him. The sounds he makes as you stroke him are a song you want to capture and hoard all the way to your grave. The face he makes when you pull him out and slide him along your slick folds is an image you’re sure has burned itself into the corners of your mind. You’re not mentally there when you finally sink down onto him, the stretch burning you from your core to every nerve ending in your body.

You tense up when he’s fully sheathed, pausing to try to catch your breath as they’re being stolen right out of your lungs. He buries his face in your neck in a similar state of ruin, breaths pushing against your neck as he tries to steady himself from the feeling of you wrapped around him, tight and hot and pulsing. His hands move under your dress in search to feel the bare skin of your hips as he holds you with iron force. But he doesn’t move you, trusting you enough to let you take the lead for him, not trusting himself enough to not mess it up.

And when you do, it’s like he’s seeing the stars reflect behind his eyes. He lifts his head to see you’re looking back at him already, eyes ablaze as you fuck yourself on him with shaky breaths, slow, steady, deep. He withers to ashes under your gaze just as he lights aflame from your touch. He knows in that moment that he doesn’t want the warmth if it’s not from your gaze, tender and loving even as he gives all of himself up to you.

He offered himself up to you and instead of just taking, you’re giving yourself back.

He knows it from the way you whisper his name, run your fingers through his hair, run your lips down his neck then back up to steal a kiss, that this is you worshipping someone else, something else besides your own greed for a change.

You know it too that you’re too far gone to ever come back from him. You don’t want to. You’ll drown yourself in him first before you can ever think of leaving.

You can feel it in the way his hips stutter as they fuck up into you that he’s there at the brink, ready to fall. You’re right there with him when his wings wrap around you, securing you both in your bubble, shielding you as you fall apart for him.

“Jiung!” You gasp when he shifts and angles himself just right to his that spot inside of you that has you seeing stars, then moan when he does it again. His face twists in focus when he sees what that does to you, and he tries again to hit that spot inside you over and over. “Jiung, yes, just like that— Ah!“ You yelp when you’re suddenly flipped onto your back, the cold concrete biting into your skin through your thin dress.

He’s still buried in you as he grabs your thighs and pushes them to your chest, his hips spurring back to life as he abuses that spot inside of you relentlessly, the one that has you clawing at his arms and has moans spilling unrestrained from your lips. You can tell he’s moving on instinct now, his movements unrefined and hurried, but it’s doing no less to tip you right over the edge.

“Jiung,” you gasp. “Please!”

It’s you begging now and it has him trying harder than before. It’s the sight of him over you with his forehead pressed to yours, eyes boring down to yours in burning devotion, wings spread over you like your own night sky, your chain dangling from his neck, all of it together that finally does you in.

You come with his name on your lips, the very sound that drives Jiung right off the edge with you as he fucks it out in, in, in to you before he finally collapses.

It’s your tandem breaths and the flickering lantern that keep you company while you both come down, his head on your chest, your hands in his hair. You don’t dare to move in fear of breaking this delicate, perfect moment.

Until Jiung is moving, gathering you in his arms while managing to keep himself buried in you, and moving you both onto the bed, together for the first time.

(He’d never let himself sleep while you slept claiming he needed to watch over you, and would only take the bed on the rare occasions that he needed a nap after making sure you were nearby and not going anywhere.)

You sigh in relief as he places you gently against the mattress, the softness welcome after the hard concrete. Jiung places a soft kiss on your shoulder as if he was apologizing for it before he buries his face in your hair. You can feel him shift inside of you with every movement and despite the mess, despite the discomfort, you relish in the connection.

He can’t look you in the eye when he finally asks the question he’s been scared to voice, unsure if he’ll come out of your answer sane. “You’ll stay, right?” He asks softly into your hair, treading carefully over this fragile moment.

You’re quiet for a moment too long that has his heart racing with dread. With the way he’s pressed against you, there’s no doubt you can feel his hammering heart even through the layers of clothes.

“I won’t survive here,” you answer honestly, running your hand through his hair. “Not for long.”

He lifts himself up on his elbows and looks down at you, crestfallen. The sheen of sweat makes the pallor of his skin shine brighter under the moonlight, making it look even more so like he was carved out of marble. He looks so beautiful, even when he’s devastated.

You press your hand to his cheek, slide your thumb along the sharp cut of his cheekbone and down to catch the teardrop before it falls from his eye. “Come with me,” you say, pressing your folded legs to his sides and pulling him in, gasping with him when it pushes him even deeper inside you. “Come with me and we’ll find a place. One we can make ours.”

He swallows as he stares down at you, hands clutching the sheets where they’re laid at your sides. “Where will we go?”

“It doesn’t have to be far,” you assure as you trace your finger over the crevices of his face, memorizing. “You can come back here anytime you miss it. But we can go wherever you want. I can give you anything you want.”

“I just want you,” he whispers, like it's a prayer he's sending into the night, desperate to be answered. He presses his forehead to yours, rocks his hips into you once, twice. “Just you.”

His voice settles like a hearth in your chest, eyes full of devotion that you don’t quite deserve but you’ll have to learn to accept because you don’t plan on letting it go anytime soon.

You sigh in content, hooking your finger around the chain that dangles from his neck, the small compass tinkling with every rock of his body.

“I’m yours.”

note: i was so tempted to give this a sad ending…

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