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~ hello! my name is v and this is my second acc on tumblr so some fics may look familiar :3!
~ i am a big leon fanatic so most of my fics will be about him but i do write for other fandoms so never be afraid to pop in and request a fic of your fav (check under cut for more of my favs)
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non-con r@pe, incest, body fluid kinks (iykyk)
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ateez
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ptv
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Summary: After the Battle of the Gullet, Prince Jacaerys Velaryon should be dead, instead, he washes ashore on a mysterious island, where a lonely woman nurses him back to health. As the days pass, Jace finds himself falling in love with his beautiful savior.
CW: The relationship contains themes of coercion, emotional dependency, and captivity. SMUT
Genre: Dark Fantasy
AN: First Jace fic! Different from what i usually write, comments are appreciated!
WC: 26K
He should be dead.
The last thing he remembered with any coherence was the sky, a sky choked with smoke and screaming. Beneath that memory lay only fractured images that swam behind his closed eyelids, fragments of chaos that refused to assemble into anything whole.
Vermax.
The name pierced through the darkness like a blade. His dragon. His beautiful, loyal Vermax, who had hatched from an egg placed in his cradle when he was nothing more than a squalling babe with a tuft of dark hair that already marked him as different from his silver-haired mother. Vermax had shrieked as the grappling hooks tore into his wings, as the Triarchy ships surrounded them, as the sea rose up to swallow them both.
Jace’s chest seized, he remembered the impact. He remembered the bone-shattering crash as Vermax slammed into the churning waters of the Gullet, and he remembered the dragon’s terrified, agonized roar. That sound had carried more than pain. It had carried something that felt like betrayal, as if Vermax could not understand why the sky had abandoned them. The cold of the sea had been absolute, salt water flooding his mouth, his throat, his lungs.
He had surfaced somehow. He had gasped and choked and reached for something, a piece of wreckage or a shattered mast, though the memory refused to sharpen. The waves had tossed him like a child’s toy. Through the spray and the smoke, the first bolt had taken him in the shoulder. The second had buried itself in his side, just beneath the ribs. The third was a blank space in his memory, a sensation his mind had simply refused to record.
What remained was the feeling that followed. A slow, spreading numbness. The way his limbs had stopped obeying him. The way the sky had tilted and spun, grey and gold and red bleeding together like watercolors on parchment. His last conscious thought had not been of his mother, nor of his brothers, nor of duty or the Iron Throne or the war that was tearing the realm apart. It had been of Vermax.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
—
He woke to the glow of candlelight, the light came from dozens of candles, the air smelled of salt and something else, something green and living. Herbs, perhaps, or flowers. It was an earthy smell, a growing smell, utterly unlike the smoke and blood and terror that had filled his nostrils before the darkness took him.
Jace tried to move, and his body screamed in protest. Every muscle, every joint, every inch of skin felt like an open wound packed with burning coals. Pain lanced through his shoulder, his side, his ribs. He sucked in a sharp breath through clenched teeth, and even that small motion sent fire racing down his spine.
“You shouldn’t move.”
The voice was soft and female, carrying an accent he had never heard before. The vowels were rounder than he was used to, the cadence lilting and unfamiliar, Jace turned his head slowly, every vertebra in his neck protesting, and saw you.
You were kneeling beside the bed, on a cushion of deep blue silk, and you were looking at him with an expression of such open relief that Jace forgot, for a moment, how to breathe.
You were beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with the powdered faces and elaborate hairstyles of court ladies. You wore no jewelry, no rings, no gems at your throat. Your dress, if it could even be called that, was unlike anything he had ever seen, layers of fabric in pale ivory and soft gold that had been draped rather than tailored. The cut left your arms bare, and the neckline was wide and flowing. It was clothing from a warmer world entirely, bearing no resemblance to the heavy velvets and structured bodices of Westeros.
“You’re awake,” you said, and your smile was like dawn breaking over still water. “I was beginning to fear you wouldn’t open your eyes again.”
Jace opened his mouth to speak, all that came out was a dry, rasping croak. His throat felt as though it had been scoured raw.
You reached for a clay cup beside you, glazed deep blue, and lifted it to his lips with a careful hand. “Drink. Slowly. You’ve been without water for a long time.”
The water was cool and impossibly clean. It slid down his throat like mercy. He drank until you pulled the cup gently away, your expression soft but firm.
“I said slowly. Your body has been through a great ordeal.” Jace sagged back against the furs, his breath coming in shallow gasps. Even drinking had exhausted him. He could feel the heat radiating from his own skin, a fever burning beneath the surface. “Where…” His voice was barely a whisper, cracked and ruined. “Where am I?”
You set the cup aside. “My home. I found you on the shore.”
He tried to form another question, but his thoughts were slipping away from him like water through fingers. The shore. The battle. The arrows.
“Your body was full of arrows,” you said quietly, as if you had followed the path of his scattered thoughts. “You looked dead. I do not know how you survived.” A pause. “But I am glad you did.”
Jace stared at you, his vision blurring and sharpening in turns. The candles made halos around your silhouette. The cave walls curved around you both like cupped hands. He lay in a bed of soft furs with clean linen bandages wrapped around his chest and shoulder. The space around him was strange, a blend of cave stone and polished wood and silk cushions.
He tried to focus on you again, on your strange dress and your unfamiliar accent and the way you looked at him without the calculating gaze of a courtier. Your expression held only simple, unguarded relief.
“You…” he started, but the words crumbled before he could shape them. He was so tired. The heat in his blood was growing worse, sweat beading on his forehead despite the cool air of the cave.
“Shh.” You leaned closer and pressed a cool cloth to his brow. Your touch was impossibly gentle. “You have a fever. The arrows were laced with something, I think. A poison, or something like it. It will take time to burn it out.”
Jace’s eyes fluttered. The cool cloth was a mercy, and your hand was steady against his skin.
“Where is this island?” he managed, the question barely a whisper. “How far from the battle…”
You shook your head, a small and quiet movement. “This is my island. That is all that matters now. You are here, and you are safe.” Your hand brushed the dark, sweat-soaked curls back from his forehead. “You are my guest. I will take care of you.”
He should have questioned you. He should have demanded to know where he was, who you were, how any of this was possible. He was a prince, raised on suspicion, trained to trust no one. But the fever was burning through him, and you were so calm, so steady, and your hands were so gentle, and he was so gods-damned tired.
“Rest,” you murmured. “You are not strong enough to stay awake. But you will be. In time.”
Jace’s eyes closed against his will. The darkness pulled at him, soft and warm. The last thing he felt was the cool cloth on his forehead and the gentle weight of your hand smoothing his hair back from his face.
“Sleep, Jace,” you whispered.
—
The days blurred together like watercolors left in the rain, Jace measured time by the changing quality of light that filtered through the cave's entrance, a distant glow that brightened and dimmed in a rhythm he slowly came to recognize. Morning, afternoon, evening, night. The cycle repeated itself over and over. He could not see the sky from his bed, only the rough stone ceiling and the flickering candles and, whenever he turned his head, the soft silhouette of you moving through the chamber.
You were always there, that was the first thing he truly understood once the fever broke and his mind began to piece itself back together. You were always there. When he woke gasping from nightmares of Vermax screaming, the arrows striking, the water closing over his head, you were beside him with your cool hand on his forehead and your voice murmuring words he could not quite catch but that soothed him anyway. When the pain in his wounds flared hot and unbearable, you were there with the medicine, spooning bitter liquid past his cracked lips and following it with cool water to wash away the taste. When the fever spiked and he thrashed in the furs, soaked in sweat and half-delirious, you were there with cloths dipped in cold water, pressing them to his chest, his neck, his brow.
He did not know how you slept. He did not know when you ate. He only knew that every time he opened his eyes, you were somewhere nearby, kneeling beside his bed or mixing herbs at the stone table or simply sitting on your silk cushion with your hands folded in your lap, watching the candles burn.
“You don’t have to stay,” he rasped one night, though it might have been day for all he could tell the difference. His voice was still weak and still cracked, but it no longer hurt to speak. “You must have other things to do.”
You looked up from the bowl you were mixing, and your lips curved into that soft, patient smile he was beginning to recognize. “I have nothing more important than keeping you alive, Jace. That is a full-time occupation, it seems.”
He wanted to argue, but exhaustion pulled him back under before he could form the words, the fever broke on what might have been the fifth day, or the sixth, or the seventh. He had lost count.
He woke drenched in sweat, his hair plastered to his forehead and the furs kicked to the foot of the bed, but his head was clear. For the first time since he had opened his eyes in this cave, his thoughts were not swimming in a haze of heat and pain. He could feel the wounds in his shoulder and side, still tender and still healing, but they no longer burned with the sharp, insistent fire of infection.
He was alive. He was going to stay alive, and that meant he had to get back.
His mother. His brothers. The war. Every day he spent lying in this bed was another day the Blacks fought without him, another day his family believed him dead, another day the Greens advanced their stolen throne. He had to get stronger. He had to return to Westeros.
“Your thoughts are very loud.” Jace turned his head. You were sitting on your cushion beside the bed, a piece of fabric in your hands and a needle moving in small, precise stitches. He had no idea how long you had been there. He had not even noticed you.
“My thoughts?” he repeated, his voice hoarse but steadier than before.
“You are frowning at the ceiling as though it has offended you.” You did not look up from your sewing, but there was a hint of amusement in your voice. “I assume you are planning your escape.”
Jace blinked. “I was not planning an escape. I was only thinking about how to leave.”
“That is the same thing.”
“It is absolutely not the same thing.” Now you did look up, one eyebrow raised, and Jace felt his face warm. He had walked directly into that.
“You want to go back,” you said, and your voice was quieter now, the teasing edge softened into something more serious. “It is natural. You have people waiting for you. A family. A war, perhaps, judging by the state of you when I found you.” You returned your attention to your stitching. “I understand.”
He was quiet for a moment, watching your hands move. The fabric you were working on was pale blue, the stitches neat and even. You were making him more bandages, he realized.
“Yes,” he admitted finally. “I have to go back. My family needs me. They probably think I am dead.”
“Then we will work to make you strong enough to leave.” You bit off the thread with your teeth, smooth and practiced. “But you cannot rush it. The wounds are healing well, but if you push too hard, too fast, you will undo all my hard work. And I have worked very hard, Jace.”
There was something almost stern in your tone, and despite himself, he felt the corner of his mouth twitch upward. “I would not dream of undoing your hard work.”
“Good.” You set the sewing aside and rose to your feet, your gossamer skirts rustling softly against the stone floor. “You have been lying in that bed for days. I think it is time you tried to sit up properly. Do you think you can manage it?”
Jace took a breath. His shoulder throbbed. His side ached. But the fever was gone, and his head was clear, and he was so gods-damned tired of lying flat on his back.
“Yes,” he said. “I think I can.” It was harder than he had expected.
His muscles had atrophied during the days of fever and stillness. His arms shook when he pushed himself up, and the wound in his side pulled sharply, and by the time he was sitting upright against the carved headboard, he was breathing hard and sweating again. But he was sitting. He was upright. He was looking at the cave from a new angle, and it was strange and wonderful and disorienting all at once.
“There,” you said, and you were smiling now, truly smiling, something brighter than the gentle curve of lips he had grown used to. “That was not so terrible, was it?”
“Terrible,” Jace managed, still catching his breath. “Absolutely terrible.”
“But you did it.”
He looked at you, at the way the candlelight caught the strange color of your eyes, and he found himself almost smiling back. “I did it.”
—
The days that followed fell into a pattern, you would help him sit up in the mornings, propping him against the headboard with pillows and furs. You would change his bandages, your fingers quick and efficient, your touch never lingering longer than necessary but never cold or impersonal either. You would bring him food, strange fruits he had never tasted before, sweet and tangy, and a porridge made from some grain he did not recognize, and fresh water that tasted cleaner than anything he had ever drunk in his life.
And you would talk about small things, the weather on the island, the herbs you used in your medicines, the fish you caught in the tidal pools below the cliffs. You had a dry, quiet sense of humor that surprised him, and a way of tilting your head when you were thinking that he found himself watching for.
In return, he told you things about himself. He was still a prince, still trained in caution, and so he held back the details that mattered most. But he told you about Dragonstone, about the volcanic rock and the sea winds and the dragons that wheeled in the sky. He told you about his brothers, careful to speak of them in the present tense even though Luke was-even though Luke had become something he could not yet say aloud.
He told you other things instead. That he missed the sea. That he had never been good at dancing. That his mother had taught him to read when he was four years old, and he had been so proud that he had carried the book around for a week straight, showing it to anyone who would look.
You laughed at that, a real laugh, bright and surprised, as if you had not expected him to say something so ordinary. “A week?”
“I was very proud of myself.”
“I can imagine. A little prince with his book, demanding that everyone admire his genius.”
“I did not demand. I simply made strong suggestions.”
“That is the same thing.”
“It is absolutely not the same thing, and I will not have my diplomatic skills insulted.”
You laughed again, and Jace realized with a jolt of surprise that he liked making you laugh. It was a good sound, your laugh, unstudied and unguarded, the sound of someone who spent too much time alone and had forgotten to be self-conscious about joy.
You were his only companion. His caretaker. His only visitor.
He had not seen another person even once in all the days he had been lying in this bed. No one came to the cave. No one called your name from outside. No one brought supplies or messages or news. It was only you, always you, appearing and disappearing through the winding passages of the cave system with the quiet confidence of someone who knew every stone by heart.
He had not asked about other people. It felt rude, somehow, when you were taking care of him and feeding him and changing his bandages and sitting beside him through the long, fevered nights. To ask about the absence of others would have sounded like an accusation, as though your company were insufficient, as though he had grown bored of you.
So he did not ask, but the question sat in the back of his mind, growing heavier with each passing day.
—
The day he walked for the first time was the day everything began to shift.
It was morning, the pale silver light filtering through the distant cave entrance, and you had just finished changing his bandages. The wounds were healing well, the flesh knitting together into angry red scars that would fade to white in time. You told him he would have a collection of them, a constellation across his shoulder and ribs. He said he would wear them with pride. You called him ridiculous.
“Today,” you announced, rising to your feet and brushing off your skirts, “you are going to walk.”
Jace looked up at you. “Walk.”
“Yes. Walk. Put one foot in front of the other. I assume you knew how to do it before you arrived here.”
“I knew how to walk.”
“Then today you will remember.”
It was harder than sitting up. It was harder than anything he had done since waking in this cave. His legs felt as though they belonged to someone else, weak and unsteady, the muscles wasted from days of lying still. You had to help him, your arm around his back and his arm across your shoulders, bearing some of his weight even though he tried very hard not to let you. You were smaller than him and slighter, and he was terrified of crushing you.
“You will not crush me,” you said, as if reading his thoughts. “I am stronger than I look. Stop trying to hold yourself up with pride alone and lean on me.”
He leaned on you, by the time he had taken five steps across the chamber, his legs were shaking and sweat was dripping down his face. But he had walked. Five steps. Then ten. Then, a few days later, he crossed the entire chamber without help, his hand braced against the wall and his breath coming hard and fast.
And the day after that, you smiled at him and said, “I think it is time you saw the sun.”
The cave system was a maze, Jace knew, that your home was larger than the single chamber where he had been lying. He had seen you disappear down passages and emerge from different directions, had caught glimpses of other rooms, a kitchen carved into the rock, a storage chamber lined with jars and barrels, a space where water trickled down the wall into a natural basin. But he had not grasped the full scale of it until you led him through it yourself.
The passages twisted and turned, branching off into side tunnels and dead ends. Some were narrow, barely wide enough for a single person to squeeze through. Others opened into wide chambers with high ceilings, lit by candles placed in alcoves and by thin shafts of daylight that pierced down through cracks in the rock. The walls were rough in some places and smooth in others, worn down by time and water and the patient labor of whoever had carved this place.
“Did you build all this?” Jace asked, his voice echoing strangely in the stone corridors. He was walking slowly, one hand on the wall for balance, but he was walking.
You glanced back at him. “The caves were here long before me. I only furnished them.”
“You furnished them very well,” he muttered, stepping around a carved wooden chest that would not have looked out of place in a merchant’s manse.
“I had time.”
That was all you said, as if it explained everything. As if it explained anything at all.
The light grew brighter as you walked, the grey-silver of filtered daylight giving way to a warm golden glow. Jace could smell the outside now, salt air and flowers and something green and growing. His heart beat faster. He had been underground for so long that he had almost forgotten what the sky looked like.
Then you stepped through the cave entrance, and he followed you, and the world opened up around him.
It was beautiful, there was no other word for it, no word that could possibly capture what Jace saw as he stood at the mouth of the cave, blinking in the sudden brightness, his eyes struggling to adjust after so many days of candlelight and shadow.
The island spread out before him like something from a dream, the cliffs where the cave was carved dropped down to a shoreline of white sand that gleamed in the morning sun. Beyond the beach, the water was the most extraordinary shade of blue he had ever seen, turquoise at the shore, deepening to sapphire further out, clear and calm and glittering with reflected light. The sky was vast and cloudless, a pale, soft blue that seemed to go on forever.
But it was the island itself that stole his breath, flowers grew everywhere, wild, sprawling, abundant blooms that cascaded down the cliffs and carpeted the meadows in explosions of color. He saw flowers in shades he had never encountered before, deep violet, vivid orange, a blue so pale it was almost silver. Trees heavy with fruit he did not recognize bent over natural pathways, their branches laden with something golden and round, something dark and pear-shaped, something that resembled a pomegranate but was the color of honey.
The air was warm and sweet, thick with the scent of blossoms and salt and damp earth. Birds sang somewhere in the distance, strange, melodic calls that were not quite like any birdsong he knew. A waterfall tumbled down the cliff face to his left, a thin silver ribbon that caught the light and threw rainbows into the air.
Jace stood there, swaying slightly on his still-weak legs, and he could not speak.
“I know,” you said quietly, standing beside him. “It is a great deal, after so long underground.”
“I have never seen anything like this.”
“It is home.” Your voice was matter of fact, but there was something softer underneath it, something almost sad. “Come. There is a place to sit not far from here. You should not stand for too long yet.”
He let you lead him to a flat outcropping of rock cushioned with moss and ferns, and he sat down heavily, still staring out at the impossible landscape. The flowers swayed in the breeze. The waterfall sang its endless song. The sea glittered and danced.
And there was no one here, the realization crept up on him slowly, settling over his shoulders like a cold cloak. He looked out at the island, the meadows, the fruit trees, the white sand beach, the cliffs, and he saw no houses and no fishing boats pulled up on the shore. He saw no paths worn by the tread of many feet and no smoke rising from chimneys. He heard no voices calling in the distance. He saw no sign of human life at all.
Only the flowers. The birds. The waterfall. The sea.
And you.
—
He did not say anything at first, you helped him walk a little further each day, down to the edge of the meadow where the strange golden fruit grew on low, sprawling trees, up to a ridge that overlooked the eastern shore where the water was even bluer and the sky even wider. You showed him the tidal pools, teeming with tiny creatures he had never seen, brightly colored shells that moved on dozens of legs, star-shaped animals that clung to the rocks, fish that darted and flashed like living jewels.
And everywhere you went, you were the only person, he saw no footprints but yours, he saw no structures but the cave. The only signs of cultivation were a small vegetable garden tucked into a sheltered hollow behind the cliffs, neat rows of plants he recognized, mostly herbs and some kind of root vegetable, and further back, half-hidden by a grove of flowering trees, a low stone wall enclosing a patch of churned earth.
He heard the pigs before he saw them, a grunting, snuffling chorus rose and fell, punctuated by the occasional indignant squeal. Jace followed the sound, moving carefully along a narrow path between two rock formations, and emerged into a clearing where at least two dozen pigs were milling about in a large stone enclosure. They were fat and healthy, their coats glossy, their ears flopping. Piglets tumbled over each other in the dirt while larger sows dozed in the shade of the trees.
And you were in the middle of them, you were scattering something from a woven basket, scraps of fruit rinds and vegetable peels and some kind of grain, and the pigs crowded around you like old friends. You were speaking to them in a low, affectionate murmur, and your hands moved among them with the ease of long familiarity.
You looked up and saw him standing at the edge of the enclosure. Your expression shifted, just slightly. Something guarded, something wary, flickered behind your eyes before you smoothed it away.
“You found my pigs,” you said, Jace leaned against the stone wall, catching his breath. The walk had been longer than he had realized, and his side was aching. “You have a lot of pigs.”
“They keep me company.” You tossed another handful of scraps into the enclosure, and a particularly large sow shouldered her way forward to claim it. “And they are useful. The meat, the fat, the leather. Nothing goes to waste.”
He watched you for a moment. The pigs jostled around your legs, grunting and snuffling, and you moved among them without the slightest hesitation, like a shepherdess, like someone who had been doing this for years.
“Where are the other people?” he asked.
Your hands stilled on the basket. You did not look up.
“What other people?”
“The villagers. The farmers. Whoever else lives here.” Jace gestured vaguely at the enclosure, at the pigs, at the island beyond. “You said this was your island. But someone has to help you with all of this.”
He trailed off. You were looking at him now, and your expression was strange, as though you had been expecting this question and dreading it in equal measure.
“There are no other people, Jace,” you said quietly.
He stared at you. “What do you mean, there are no other people?”
“I mean it is only me.” You set the basket down on the stone wall. Your hands, now empty, folded together in front of you. “There is no village. There are no farmers. There are no fishermen or shepherds or traders. There is only me, and the pigs, and the birds, and the fish in the sea. That is all.”
The words refused to make sense. Jace shook his head, a short, sharp movement. “That cannot be right. You cannot live here alone. How do you survive? How do you get supplies? There has to be someone else, a trader who comes by ship, a neighboring island, something.”
“There is no one else.” Your voice was calm and steady, but there was something raw underneath it now. “No ships come here. No traders. No neighbors. The island is hidden. It does not appear on any map. No one knows it exists.”
“That is impossible.”
“It is simply true.”
Jace pushed himself off the stone wall, ignoring the protest of his healing wounds. His heart was beating too fast. His thoughts were spinning. “How did you get here, then? How do you live? You cannot simply be alone on an island forever.”
“I did not say I chose it.”
The words stopped him cold, you were still standing in the middle of the pig enclosure, surrounded by grunting, oblivious animals. Your strange dress fluttered in the breeze, the pale fabric catching the sunlight. Your face was composed, but your eyes were dark with something old and heavy and carefully buried.
“My brother sent me here,” you said. “As punishment.”
Jace opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. “Punishment for what?”
“For disobeying him.” Your voice was flat now, reciting facts rather than feelings. “I did something he could not forgive. And instead of killing me, he sent me here. He had the means to do it, the ships, the men, the knowledge of this place. He left me with supplies and seeds and animals and told me I would never leave.”
“You have been here ever since,” Jace said slowly.
“I have been here ever since.”
“How long?”
You looked away, out over the blue water, and for a moment you were utterly still. “A long time.”
Jace’s mind was racing, scrambling to fit the pieces together. A brother with enough power to exile someone to a hidden island. Ships and men and the means to keep the place secret. A lord powerful enough to make his sister disappear without anyone asking questions.
“Who is your brother?” he asked.
Your jaw tightened. “A lord. That is all you need to know.”
“A lord of what? Where? What house?”
“It does not matter.” Your voice sharpened, just slightly, the first hint of steel he had ever heard from you. “What matters is that he is powerful enough to do this. Powerful enough that if I try to leave, if I find a way off this island and set foot on the mainland, I will be found and I will be brought back, and the consequences will be worse than exile.”
Jace stared at you, you were alone. Completely, utterly alone. You had been alone for what might have been months or years or decades. You had built a life in a cave, furnished it with silk and polished wood, grown a garden and raised pigs and taught yourself to heal. And no one had come for you. No one had visited. No one had even known you were here.
Until a dying dragon prince washed up on your shore.
“I am sorry,” he said, and the words felt pathetically inadequate. “I did not know.”
“How could you have known?” You picked up the basket again, your movements brisk and practical, as if you were eager to change the subject. “You were unconscious when you arrived. It is not as if I introduced myself and gave you a tour. Welcome to my prison, please enjoy the flowers.”
“It is not a prison.” You looked at him, and your smile was tired and sad and strangely kind. “It is a very beautiful prison. But it is a prison nonetheless.” You turned and walked away, the basket tucked under your arm, the pigs trailing after you like a strange, grunting entourage. Jace watched you go, your bare shoulders and your flowing dress and the way you moved through the meadow as if you had memorized every inch of it.
And he understood, suddenly, why you had never hesitated to save him. Why you had sat beside his bed for days on end. Why you had laughed at his stupid jokes and argued with him about the proper way to brew medicinal tea.
You were lonely.
Jace stood at the edge of the pig enclosure, the sun warm on his face and the sea glittering in the distance, and he thought about his mother and his brothers and the war and the throne.
He had to go back. He had to, but as he watched you disappear into the grove of flowering trees, your figure growing smaller and smaller against the impossible beauty of the island, he realized that leaving might be harder than he had thought.
—
In the days following your revelation—it is just me, there is no one else—Jace threw himself into the work of recovery with a ferocity that surprised even him. He woke early, before the light through the cave entrance had shifted from silver to gold, and he pushed his body harder than was probably wise. He walked the island's paths until his legs stopped shaking. He climbed the low cliffs until his arms stopped burning. He ate everything you put in front of him, slept when you told him to sleep, and bit back every complaint when you made him drink your bitter medicines.
"Someone is motivated," you remarked one morning, watching him pace the length of the chamber. He had been doing laps—back and forth, back and forth—testing the strength of his newly healed legs. The scars on his shoulder and side had faded to pink, then to white, and the pain was a distant memory now, only flaring when he moved too quickly or twisted the wrong way.
"I have to get home," he said, not breaking stride. "My mother needs me. My brothers need me. Every day I spend here is another day they think I'm dead."
You nodded, your expression unreadable. "Then we had better build you a boat."
The boat took shape slowly, you showed him a grove of trees on the eastern side of the island, tall and straight, their wood pale and close-grained, ideal for shipbuilding. You had an axe, kept sharp and well-oiled in one of the storage chambers, and you handed it to him without ceremony.
"I will help where I can," you said, "but I am not a shipwright. You will have to figure out most of it yourself."
Jace had never built a boat before. He had sailed on dozens of them but knowing how to sail and knowing how to build were two very different things. He felled the first tree through trial and error, the axe handle blistering his palms, the sweat dripping into his eyes. By the time the trunk crashed to the ground, he was exhausted and exhilarated in equal measure.
"Not bad," you said from where you sat on a nearby rock, a pile of mending in your lap. You had been watching him work for the better part of an hour, offering no advice but plenty of company. "For a prince who has never done a day's labor in his life."
"I've done labor."
"Name one example."
He opened his mouth and swung the axe into the fallen trunk with more force than necessary. "I trained with swords. That's labor."
"Swords are not labor. Swords are play for princes."
"Then what do you call this?" He gestured at the tree, the axe, his blistered hands.
You smiled, that slow, warm smile that was becoming as familiar to him as the sunrise. "I call it a good start."
The days passed, Jace shaped the wood as best he could, stripping branches and hewing planks with tools you provided from the depths of the cave. Some of them were strange—shaped for hands slightly different from his own, their handles worn smooth by use that was not his. He didn't ask where they came from. He was learning that there were questions you would answer and questions you would not, and the line between them was invisible until he crossed it.
But you were always there, always nearby.
He had grown accustomed to the rhythm of your presence, the rustle of your strange, flowing dresses, the soft pad of your bare feet on stone, the quiet humming you did when you worked. You brought him water when the sun grew hot. You checked his scars every evening, your fingers against his skin, pronouncing him healed and healing well. You sat with him while he ate, and you talked about nothing and everything, and your laugh was the brightest sound on an island full of bright sounds.
"I should be further along by now," he said one evening, staring at the skeleton of the boat with frustration. The hull was taking shape, but slowly—too slowly. At this rate, it would be months before it was seaworthy.
"You are one person building a boat by hand," you pointed out. You were sitting cross-legged on a flat rock, sorting through a basket of herbs. The setting sun caught the planes of your face, the curve of your bare shoulders, the way your dress draped across your lap in soft folds. "I think you are allowed to take your time."
"I don't have time." He ran a hand through his hair—longer now, curling past his ears, in desperate need of a trim. "My mother—she needs me. The war—"
He stopped.
The war.
What war?
The thought slipped through his mind like water through fingers, there and gone before he could catch it. There was a war. Of course there was a war. He was fighting in it. Or he had been fighting in it. That was why he had been in the Gullet, why Vermax had—
Vermax.
His chest tightened. He remembered the dragon's scream. He remembered the water closing over his head. He remembered the arrows.
But what was the war about?
"The war," he repeated, more quietly now. "I have to get back to the war."
You looked up from your herbs, and your expression was gentle. Unreadable. "You will. When the boat is ready, you will."
"Right." He nodded, the motion jerky. "Right. The boat."
He picked up the axe and got back to work.
—
One afternoon you were down by the shore, sitting in the shade of a flowering tree while Jace worked on the boat's hull. "Brothers," he said, sanding down a rough edge of wood. "Three of them. Well—two full brothers. Two half-brothers. That's four. No, wait." He frowned. "Joffrey and... and the little ones. Aegon and..."
He stopped, the name wouldn't come.
"Viserys," you said quietly.
"Viserys. Right. Viserys." He shook his head, laughing at himself. "I don't know why I couldn't remember that. He's the youngest. Named after my grandfather."
You said nothing. You only watched him with those shifting sea-glass eyes, and your fingers were very still on the mending in your lap.
"And Luke," Jace continued, the name coming easier now. "Lucerys. He's the second one. He's..."
Dead.
The word surfaced from somewhere deep, cold and sharp as a blade. But it didn't hurt the way it should have. It was distant. Muffled. Like a scream heard through a closed door.
"He's what?" you asked.
Jace blinked. "He's... he's at Dragonstone. With our mother. Waiting for me to come home."
You nodded slowly. "I am sure he misses you."
"He probably thinks I'm dead." Jace turned back to the boat, running his hand along the smooth wood. "I have to get back soon. Before he does something stupid. He's always doing stupid things, Luke. He's impulsive. Reckless. He doesn't think before he acts."
Luke is dead. Luke was torn apart by Vhagar above Storm's End. You weren't there. You didn't protect him.
But the voice was fading. Growing quieter. Harder to hear over the sound of the waves and the breeze and your soft, steady breathing.
—
The boat took longer than it should have, some days Jace worked on it from sunrise to sunset, his hands raw and calloused, his back aching, his mind fixed on the singular goal of getting home. But other days—more and more days, as the weeks wore on—he found himself... distracted.
The waterfall, for one thing.
It tumbled down the cliff face on the western side of the island, a silver ribbon that caught the sunlight and scattered it into rainbows. The pool at its base was deep and clear and shockingly cold, fed by some underground spring that kept it cool even in the heat of the afternoon. Jace had discovered it on one of his exploratory walks, and he had been drawn back to it again and again.
You came with him sometimes. You would sit on the rocks at the edge of the pool, your feet dangling in the water, your dress hiked up to your knees. You would tilt your face toward the sun and close your eyes, and Jace would find himself watching you instead of the waterfall.
"Are you going to swim or are you going to stare?" you asked one day, not opening your eyes.
"I wasn't staring."
"You were staring."
"I was... appreciating the scenery."
You opened one eye. "The scenery."
"The waterfall," he said, gesturing vaguely. "It's very nice."
You laughed—that bright, unguarded laugh that he had come to love—and he felt something warm bloom in his chest. Something that had nothing to do with the sun.
"Come on, then," you said, and before he could react, you slid off the rock and into the water with a splash that sent droplets arcing through the air like diamonds.
Jace stared at you. You surfaced a moment later, your hair plastered to your head, your dress clinging to your skin, the wet fabric rendered nearly transparent. The water lapped at your collarbones, and you were laughing again, and you looked—
You looked beautiful.
He had known you were beautiful from the moment he opened his eyes in the candlelit cave. But there was something different about you now. Something that had shifted, the curves of your face seemed softer. The color of your eyes seemed deeper. The way you moved—the way you laughed—the way you looked at him—it all seemed more vivid. More precious.
"Are you coming in or not?" you called, treading water in the center of the pool.
Jace pulled his shirt over his head and dove in after you, the water was cold and clean and wonderful. They splashed each other like children, chasing each other around the pool, ducking under the waterfall and emerging gasping and laughing. Jace couldn't remember the last time he had laughed like this—freely, openly, without the weight of duty pressing down on his shoulders.
Your dress clung to you like a second skin, the wet fabric outlining every curve of your body. Jace tried very hard not to notice. He failed. "You're staring again," you said, but your voice was different now. Quieter. Almost shy.
"Sorry." He wasn't sorry.
—
"I was betrothed," he said one evening.
You were sitting on the rocks overlooking the western sea, watching the sun sink toward the horizon in a blaze of orange and pink. Jace sat beside you, close enough that he could feel the warmth of your arm near his. The boat sat half-finished on the beach below, forgotten for the day.
"Was?" you asked.
"Am. I am betrothed." He frowned. "I think. We were supposed to marry before... before I left."
"Before the battle."
"Before the battle, yes." He stared out at the sunset, trying to conjure her face. His betrothed. She was a Targaryen, he was sure of that. Silver hair. Purple eyes. A dragon. But her name—her name wouldn't come. "She's my cousin, I think. Or my step-sister. Both, actually. It's complicated."
"What is her name?"
Jace opened his mouth. The name wasn't there.
"I can't remember," he said, and the admission felt strange. Not frightening—it should have been frightening—but strange. Like discovering a pocket in a familiar coat that he had never noticed before. "I know her face. She's... she's fierce. Brave. She has a dragon. A small one, I think. Or maybe it's large. I can't..."
He trailed off.
You were quiet for a moment. Then, very softly: "Do you love her?"
"Love?" He considered the question. "I don't know. She's family. She's duty. She's... she's what I'm supposed to do, but i care for her, a lot."
"That is not the same as love."
"No," he agreed. "It's not."
He didn't say anything else. Neither did you. But your arm was warm against his, and the sunset was beautiful, and when he finally walked you back to the cave, his hand found the small of your back without thinking, and you leaned into the touch instead of pulling away.
—
He forgot about the betrothed entirely by morning.
—
The days grew warmer. Or perhaps they didn't—perhaps it was only that Jace had stopped paying attention to the passage of time. The boat sat on the beach, half-finished, and he told himself he would work on it tomorrow. Tomorrow came and went, and he spent it with you instead—walking the island paths, gathering fruit from the strange golden trees, sitting by the waterfall and talking about nothing.
What are you doing? a voice whispered in the back of his mind. You have to go home. Your mother needs you.
But what did his mother need him for? There was something—something important—something about a throne, a war, a betrayal. But the details were foggy now, blurred like ink left out in the rain.
He remembered her face. Her silver hair. Her voice saying his name, but the rest was slipping away, piece by piece, day by day, and the more he forgot, the more he noticed you.
The way you moved through the meadow, your skirts brushing the wildflowers. The way you hummed when you cooked, some melody he had never heard before but that felt familiar anyway. The way you looked at him sometimes, quick glances from beneath your lashes, as if you were checking to make sure he was still there. Still real. Still alive.
The way your hand felt in his when he helped you over a rocky patch of ground.
The way your laugh echoed off the cliffs and came back to them multiplied, a chorus of joy.
The way your eyes caught the light of the setting sun and held it, like they were made of something more than flesh.
He loved you.
He loved the sound of your voice and the curve of your smile and the gentle patience with which you had nursed him back from the edge of death. He loved your dry humor and your quiet strength and the way you never pressed him for answers he didn't have. He loved the life you had built here, alone on an island that should not exist, and he loved that you had let him into it.
He loved you.
And the more he loved you, the less he remembered.
—
The morning was hot and still, Jace had woken early, as he always did now, but instead of reaching for the axe or walking down to the beach where the half-finished boat sat waiting, he had gone straight to the waterfall.
The pool was cool and clear, fed by the endless rush of water that tumbled down the cliff face in a silver curtain. He shed his clothes on the rocks, just the loose linen breeches you had sewn for him from fabric found somewhere in the depths of the cave, and dove in without hesitation. The cold shock of the water stole his breath and cleared his head, chasing away the last cobwebs of sleep.
He floated on his back, staring up at the pale blue sky, watching the birds wheel overhead. His dark hair fanned out in the water around him. The scars on his shoulder and side had faded to thin white lines, barely visible now. He was stronger than he had ever been, his muscles hardened by weeks of manual labor, his skin tanned golden by the sun.
He should have been thinking about the boat, about going home, about his mother and his brothers and the war.
He was thinking about you. Your laugh, your smile, the way your eyes caught the light. The way your hand felt in his. The way you looked at him sometimes, soft and searching, with something unspoken hovering just behind your lips. He had kissed you before, small kisses, brief and chaste, a press of his lips to your forehead when you fell asleep beside him, a brush of his mouth against your knuckles when you handed him a cup of water. But he had not kissed you properly. He had not kissed you the way he wanted to, the way he had been imagining for weeks, the way that left no doubt about what he felt.
He was thinking about that when he heard your footsteps on the rocks above. "You started without me."
Jace turned in the water, treading easily, and looked up at you. You were standing at the edge of the pool, barefoot on the smooth stone, wearing your dress of pale purple gossamer that drifted around your ankles in the faint breeze. The sun caught the planes of your face and the curve of your neck and the dip of your collarbones, and the sight of you struck him silent for a moment.
"Someone has to," he called back, forcing his voice into something approaching normal. "You sleep too late."
"I was gathering herbs. Some of us have work to do."
"Swimming is work. It builds character."
You laughed, that bright, warm sound that he had come to treasure more than anything else on this island. "Is that what you are doing? Building character?"
"Come in and find out."
You hesitated for just a moment. Your eyes met his across the water, and something flickered in your expression, something tentative and questioning, as if you were making a decision and waiting to see if he would notice.
Then you reached up and untied the clasps at your shoulders.
The dress fell and Jace stopped breathing.
You stood above him in nothing but the sunlight, bare to the sky and the water and his gaze. The curves of your body were soft and smooth, your skin glowing in the morning light. Your breasts were full and round and tight in the open air. Your waist dipped inward in a graceful curve before flaring out to the swell of your hips.
You were the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
"Are you coming in or not?" he asked, his voice rougher than he intended.
You smiled, then you dove into the water in one clean, graceful arc, slicing through the surface with barely a splash.
You surfaced inches from him, the water lapped at your collarbones, but beneath the surface he could see the pale shape of your body, distorted by the ripples, impossibly close. Droplets clung to your lashes. Your hair floated around you like ink spilled in water. Your lips were parted and slightly wet, and you were looking at him with those shifting sea-glass eyes, and Jace forgot how to think.
"The water is nice," you said, and your voice was teasing and light, but there was a tremor underneath it.
"Nice," he repeated. He could not stop staring at your mouth.
"Very refreshing."
"I had not noticed."
"No?"
"No."
His hand found your waist beneath the water. Your skin was cool and slick and impossibly soft. You did not pull away. You drifted closer, your bare legs brushing against his, and the contact sent a jolt through him like lightning striking water. He could feel the heat of your core through the cool water, a promise of the warmth waiting for him, and his cock stirred against the confines of his breeches.
"Jace," you whispered.
That was all. Just his name, but the way you said it, breathless and aching and full of want, broke something open inside him.
He kissed you, his mouth strong against yours. His hand tightened on your waist, pulling you flush against him. His other hand came up to cup the back of your head, fingers tangling in your hair. You made a small, desperate sound against his lips and kissed him back just as fiercely, your arms winding around his neck, your bare breasts pressing against the hard plane of his chest.
You were bare beneath his hands, there was nothing between his palms and your skin but water. He could feel every curve of you against the hard muscle of his own. His thumbs traced the ridges of your middle, and you shivered, and he swallowed the sound you made. His hands slid lower, cupping the full curve of your arse, kneading the firm flesh, pulling your hips against his so you could feel the rigid length of him pressing against your belly through the wet linen of his breeches.
"Jace," you gasped against his mouth. "Jace, I—"
"Tell me to stop." His voice was wrecked, barely recognizable. "Tell me to stop and I will stop."
"Do not stop." Your fingers dug into his shoulders, nails biting into his sun-warmed skin. "Please do not stop."
He kissed you again, deeper this time, slower. His tongue traced the seam of your lips, and you opened for him with a shuddering breath. The taste of you, sweet and clean and faintly herbal from the medicines you were always brewing, flooded his senses. He explored your mouth thoroughly, learning the texture of your tongue, the ridge of your teeth, the softness of your inner cheeks. You moaned into his mouth and sucked on his tongue, and the sensation went straight to his groin. He could feel your heart pounding against his chest, or perhaps that was his own heart, hammering so hard he thought it might crack his ribs.
Your legs wrapped around his waist beneath the water. The movement was instinctive and natural, and it brought your hips flush against his, the heat of your sex pressing against the hard ridge of his cock through his breeches. He groaned against your mouth, low and rough, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of your thighs. You were so warm. Even in the cool water, the core of you radiated a heat that he could feel through the fabric separating them.
He walked you backward through the pool, still kissing you, still holding you, until your back met the smooth stone of the cliff wall. The waterfall rushed beside them, a curtain of silver sound. He kissed the hollow of your throat, feeling your pulse flutter against his lips. He traced the delicate line of your collarbone with his tongue, tasting the clean, mineral tang of the spring water on your skin. He let his mouth drift lower, over the swell of your breast, and when his lips closed around one tight, pebbled nipple, you gasped and arched against him, your fingers fisting in his hair.
He lavished attention on your breasts, suckling first one and then the other, his tongue circling the tight buds, his teeth grazing them with just enough pressure to make you moan. Your breasts were perfect in his hands, full and soft, fitting his palms as though they had been made for him. He kneaded them gently, thumbs brushing over the wet peaks, watching your face contort with pleasure. Your head had fallen back against the stone, your lips parted, your eyes squeezed shut. The sight of you like this, bare and wanting and completely surrendered to his mouth, made his cock throb painfully against his breeches.
"I have wanted this," he breathed against your skin, his voice ragged. "Gods, I have wanted this for so long."
"Then do not wait any longer."
He lifted his head and looked at you. Your eyes were dark with want, your lips swollen from his kisses, your chest rising and falling with rapid, shallow breaths. The water lapped at your breasts, revealing and hiding, and he could feel every inch of you pressed against him, every curve, every soft place, every point of contact where your body met his.
"Are you sure?" he asked. He needed to hear it. He needed to know.
In answer, you cupped his face in your hands and pulled him down to you. "I have never been more sure of anything in my life."
He kissed you again, soft and sweet this time, a promise and a question all at once. Then his hand slid down your body beneath the water, tracing the curve of your waist, the swell of your hip, the sensitive skin of your inner thigh. Your legs tightened around his waist, and he felt you tremble against him. His fingers found the heat of you, warm and slick even in the cool water, and he traced the folds of your sex with a feather-light touch. You gasped and bucked against his hand. He explored you slowly, learning the shape of you, the soft outer lips, the slick inner petals, the hard pearl of your pleasure at the apex. When he circled that sensitive nub with his thumb, you cried out, a sound half-lost in the rush of the waterfall. He swallowed it with his mouth, kissing you through it, his touch gentle and searching and patient. He slid one finger inside you, feeling the tight, wet heat of your body grip him, and you moaned against his lips. He added a second finger, stretching you gently, his thumb still circling your sensitive peak, and you writhed against his hand, your inner walls clenching around his fingers.
"Please," you whispered, the word broken and beautiful. "Please, Jace. I need you inside me."
He withdrew his fingers, and you made a small sound of protest that he silenced with a kiss. He reached down and freed himself from his breeches, his cock springing out, hard and thick and aching. The head was dark with need, a bead of moisture already forming at the tip. You glanced down through the clear water and your eyes widened at the sight of him, long and rigid, curving slightly upward toward his belly.
"You are so beautiful," he murmured, positioning himself at your entrance. He rubbed the head of his cock against your slick folds, coating himself in your wetness, teasing you both with the promise of what was to come. "I want to watch your face when I enter you. I want to see what I do to you."
Your legs tightened around his waist, your heels pressing into the small of his back. "Then do it. I want to feel you."
He pushed into you slowly, so slowly, inch by agonizing inch. The water made everything liquid and easy, but he wanted to savor this, the way your eyes fluttered closed, the way your mouth fell open, the way your body welcomed him. You were so tight and so warm and so perfect around him. He could feel every ridge and fold of your inner walls as they gripped him and fluttered and stretched to accommodate his size. Your heat enveloped him, searing even through the cool water, and he had to stop and breathe when he was fully sheathed, his forehead pressed to yours, his whole body shaking with the effort of holding back.
"Look at me," he murmured. "Please. Look at me."
Your eyes opened. They were dark and shining, full of something that looked very much like love. "You feel incredible," you breathed. "I am so full."
He began to move, he withdrew almost completely, feeling the drag of your body against every inch of his length, and then pushed back in with a slow, deep thrust that made you both gasp. The sensation was overwhelming, the tight clutch of your body, the heat, the way your inner muscles rippled around him. He set a steady rhythm, each stroke deliberate and full, sliding into you to the hilt and then pulling back until only the head remained inside you. The water splashed gently around them, ripples spreading outward in concentric circles with every movement. Your legs tightened around his waist, your heels digging into the small of his back, pulling him deeper with every thrust. Your hands slid down his spine, tracing the ridges of muscle that flexed with every movement. You were making soft, breathless sounds, gasps and moans and fragments of his name, and he caught each one with his mouth, kissing you, drinking you down like wine.
"You feel incredible," he groaned against your lips. "So tight. So perfect. I could stay inside you forever."
"So do you," you gasped, your words barely coherent, slurred with pleasure. "Harder, Jace. Please."
He did not need to be asked twice. His pace quickened, his hips slamming against yours with increasing force. The sound of their coupling echoed off the cliff walls, wet and rhythmic, the slap of skin against skin beneath the water. Your breasts bounced with every thrust, and he watched them, mesmerized by the way they moved, the way the water lapped at the peaks. He bent his head and captured one nipple in his mouth again, sucking hard, grazing it with his teeth, and you cried out sharply, your inner walls clenching around him.
He shifted his angle slightly, tilting his hips, and on the next thrust you cried out sharply, your head falling back against the stone, your whole body arching against his. He had found the right spot, that sensitive place deep inside you, and he drove into it again and again, watching your face contort with pleasure. Your brow furrowed and your lips parted and your eyes lost focus, and you were babbling now, a stream of broken words, his name and pleas for more and incoherent praise.
"There," you gasped. "Right there. Do not stop. Please do not stop."
He did not stop. He could not have stopped if the world was ending. There was nothing but you, your body, your voice, your hands on his skin. He felt your inner walls begin to flutter around him, the first warning signs of your approaching climax, and he moved his hand between your bodies, finding the slick, sensitive pearl of you beneath the water. He pressed his thumb against it in tight, circling strokes, matching the rhythm of his thrusts.
"That is it," he murmured against your ear, his voice low and rough. "Let go. I want to feel you come apart around me."
Your climax took you by surprise. He felt it building, the way your breath quickened, the way your nails bit into his shoulders, the way your body tightened around him until he could barely move. And then you shattered, crying out his name, your head thrown back, your whole body arching and shuddering against his. He felt the rhythmic pulsing of your release gripping his cock, your inner walls milking him in waves, and he watched your face contort with pleasure, your mouth open, your eyes squeezed shut, your cheeks flushed dark. The sight of you, bare and beautiful and completely undone, was enough to push him over the edge. He drove into you one final time, burying himself to the hilt, and let go. His release surged through him in hot, pulsing waves, spilling deep inside you, and he groaned your name against the curve of your neck, his body shaking with the force of his climax.
For a long moment, neither of you moved, your breathing slowed, your chest rising and falling against his. Your fingers traced lazy patterns on the back of his neck. He remained inside you, still half-hard, reluctant to separate from the warmth of your body. He could feel his seed and your slickness mingled together, warm and wet around him, and the sensation was so intimate, so perfect, that he never wanted to move again.
"Jace," you whispered, and your voice was hoarse and sweet and utterly content.
He lifted his head and looked at you. Your cheeks were flushed. Your lips were red and swollen. Your hair was a wild tangle around your shoulders. Your eyes were soft and hazy with satisfaction. You had never looked more beautiful.
"I love you," he said.
The words came out before he could stop them, before he even realized he was thinking them. But once they were spoken, he knew they were true. He loved you. He loved you so completely and so absolutely that he could barely remember what his life had been before you. You were everything. You were the sun and the sea and the stars. You were the only thing that mattered.
Your eyes widened. "I love you too," you said. "I have loved you since the moment you opened your eyes."
He kissed you again, softly this time, tenderly, a kiss that tasted of water and salt and promises. And then he held you, your body still wrapped around his, the waterfall cool against his back, the sun warm on his face.
They did not leave the pool for a long time. When they finally climbed out, their skin pruned and their limbs heavy with satisfaction, they did not bother to dress. Jace carried you to a patch of soft grass beneath the flowering trees, and he laid you down among the fallen petals, pink and white and gold. He knelt between your spread thighs and looked down at you, at your bare body glistening with water droplets, at the place where his seed was already beginning to leak from your swollen folds, and he felt himself harden again at the sight.
He made love to you again, slower this time, sweeter. He kissed his way down your body, his mouth tracing the hollow of your throat, the swell of your breasts, the plane of your stomach. He paused to dip his tongue into your navel, making you squirm, and then continued lower, pressing kisses to your hip bones, the sensitive crease where your thighs met your body. When he reached the junction of your thighs, he settled between them and looked up at you. Your scent was intoxicating, musky and sweet and mixed with the salt of his own release. He could see the evidence of their earlier coupling, the glistening slickness that coated your folds, and the sight made him groan with want.
He tasted you properly for the first time. His tongue parted your folds, tracing a slow path from your entrance to the peak of your pleasure. The taste of you combined with the taste of him was earthy and raw and utterly intoxicating. You cried out and fisted your hands in the grass, your hips rising to meet his mouth. He took his time, learning what you liked, alternating between broad, flat strokes of his tongue and focused, circling attention to your sensitive peak. He slid two fingers inside you as he sucked on that tight bundle of nerves, curling them forward to press against that sensitive spot on your inner wall, and you came apart against his mouth, your thighs trembling around his head, your voice breaking on his name, your body gushing wetness that he lapped up eagerly.
After that, they walked back to the cave hand in hand, bare and unashamed, their clothes forgotten on the rocks by the waterfall. The sun had climbed higher in the sky, and the island was alive with birdsong and the scent of flowers. Jace kept his hand on the small of your back as you walked, unable to stop touching you, his thumb tracing small circles against your skin.
When you reached the bedchamber, the bed where he had first woken, the furs soft and the candles flickering on the walls, he took you again. This time you pushed him down onto his back and climbed on top of him, straddling his hips. You looked down at him and you reached between your bodies to guide him to your entrance. He watched his cock disappear inside you, inch by inch, watched the way your folds stretched to accommodate him, and the sight was almost enough to make him spend right there. You sank down until he was fully seated inside you, and you both moaned at the sensation.
You began to move, rolling your hips in a slow, sinuous rhythm. He watched you move above him, your breasts swaying with each roll of your hips, your stomach flexing, your head thrown back in pleasure. He reached up and cupped your breasts, rolling the tight peaks between his fingers, and you gasped and increased your pace. Your thighs flexed as you rose and fell, taking him deeper with every stroke. He guided you with his hands on your waist, helping you find a rhythm that made you both moan, his thumbs pressing into the soft flesh of your hips.
"Look at you," he breathed, his voice full of wonder. "You are so beautiful riding my cock."
You leaned forward, bracing your hands on his chest, and the new angle made you gasp. He thrust up into you from below, meeting your movements, and the wet sound of your bodies joining filled the chamber. Your inner walls were fluttering around him again, your breath coming in short, sharp gasps. He moved one hand to where your bodies were joined and pressed his thumb against your sensitive peak, circling it in time with your movements. You cried out and shattered above him, your body clenching around him, your back arching. The sight of you, lost in pleasure, pushed him over the edge. He thrust up into you one final time and spilled his seed deep inside you, groaning your name, his hands gripping your hips hard enough to leave marks.
You collapsed against his chest, spent and trembling, and he wrapped his arms around you and held you close, still buried inside you. Your breath was warm against his neck. Your heart hammered against his chest. He could feel the thrum of your pulse where your bodies were still joined, and he never wanted to let you go.
You fell asleep like that, joined together, your body draped over his, and when you woke an hour later, the candles had burned lower and the light through the cave entrance had shifted to the gold of late afternoon. You stirred against him, and he felt himself harden again inside you, still buried in your warmth. You smiled sleepily and began to move your hips in a slow, lazy rhythm, and he rolled you onto your back and made love to you again, gentle and tender, whispering your name like a prayer.
After that day, they could not keep their hands off each other, it was as if a dam had broken. Every moment they were together, they were touching. His hand on the small of your back, your fingers tangled in his hair, his lips on your shoulder, your thigh pressed against his beneath the dinner table. The boat sat forgotten on the beach, the wood beginning to weather and grey in the salt air. The days blurred into a haze of sun and water and skin.
He took you in the meadow, surrounded by wildflowers, the grass tickling your bare skin as he moved inside you, your legs wrapped around his waist and your fingers digging into his back. The sun was warm on his shoulders and the scent of blossoms was thick in the air. He rolled onto his back, pulling you on top of him without breaking their connection, and you rode him among the flowers, your head thrown back, your breasts bouncing with every movement, the bright petals clinging to your damp skin.
You pulled him into the storage chamber one afternoon and pressed him against the cool stone wall. You sank to your knees before him on the worn stone floor, looking up at him and you freed him from his breeches with practiced hands. He was already hard, his cock springing out, the tip glistening. You wrapped your hand around the base of him, feeling the weight and heat of him in your palm, and then you leaned forward and took him into your mouth.
He groaned and buried his fingers in your hair as your lips closed around him. You took him slowly, deliberately, your tongue tracing the ridge on the underside of his shaft, your cheeks hollowing as you sucked. You worked him with your mouth and your hand in tandem, your head bobbing in a steady rhythm, your tongue swirling around the sensitive head on every upstroke. He watched you move, mesmerized, watching his cock disappear between your lips again and again, feeling the wet heat of your mouth, the gentle scrape of your teeth. When you took him deeper, relaxing your throat to accommodate his length, he groaned your name and tightened his grip on your hair.
You pulled back, your lips slick and swollen, a strand of saliva connecting you to his tip. You looked up at him and smiled, a slow, wicked smile, and then you took him deep again, hollowing your cheeks, increasing your pace. Your hand cupped him gently, rolling him in your palm, and the dual sensation pushed him closer and closer to the edge. When he could not hold back any longer, he warned you, his voice ragged, but you only took him deeper, and he spilled into your mouth with a ragged cry of your name. You swallowed everything he gave you, your throat working around him, and you did not pull away until he was spent and trembling.
You looked up at him, your lips slick and swollen, a tiny bead of his release at the corner of your mouth that you caught with your tongue. The sight of you, kneeling before him, having taken everything he had to give, made his spent cock twitch with interest. He pulled you to your feet and kissed you deeply, tasting himself on your tongue, and then he spun you around and bent you over the stone table where you mixed your medicines.
He bunched your skirts around your waist, baring you to his gaze. Your folds were already slick and glistening, your arousal dripping down your inner thighs. He ran his hand over the curve of your backside, kneading the firm flesh, and then he positioned himself at your entrance. He entered you from behind in one smooth thrust, burying himself to the hilt, and you gasped and clutched at the worn stone surface. He set a hard, fast rhythm, one hand gripping your hip hard enough to leave fingerprints and the other braced on the table beside yours. The sound of his hips slamming against your backside filled the small chamber, wet and rhythmic, punctuated by your breathless gasps and his low groans.
"Is this what you wanted when you got on your knees for me?" he asked, his voice rough. "Did you want me to bend you over and fuck you until you screamed?"
"Yes," you gasped, pushing back against him. "Yes, I wanted this. I wanted you."
He reached around and found your sensitive peak with his fingers, rubbing tight circles in time with his thrusts. The angle was perfect, driving him deep, hitting that spot inside you with every stroke. Your gasps turned to cries, your cries turned to screams, and when you came, your body clenching around him so tightly that he could barely move, he followed a heartbeat later, groaning your name into the curve of your shoulder, spilling himself deep inside you.
He stayed inside you until he softened, his forehead resting against your shoulder blade, both of you breathing hard. Then he pulled out gently and turned you around, and he kissed you softly, tenderly, his hands cupping your face.
Every night, they fell asleep tangled together in his bed, their bed now, and every morning they woke the same way. Sometimes he would wake first and simply watch you sleep, the soft rise and fall of your chest, the way your lips curved into a faint smile as if you were dreaming of him. Sometimes you would wake first and trace the lines of his scars with your fingertips, until he stirred and rolled on top of you and the day began the way all their days began now, with your legs around his waist and your soft cries filling the candlelit chamber.
He could not get enough of you. He could not get enough of your taste or your scent or the sounds you made when you came apart in his arms. He could not get enough of the way your eyes fluttered closed when he kissed your neck, or the way your back arched when he ran his hands down your sides, or the way you whispered his name in the darkness, over and over, like an incantation. He learned every inch of your body, every sensitive spot, every place that made you gasp and every place that made you moan. He learned the rhythm you liked, slow and deep when you were tender, fast and hard when you were hungry. He learned how to read your body well enough to know which one you needed before you had to ask. He learned that you liked it when he talked to you while he moved inside you, telling you how beautiful you were, how much he loved you, how he wanted to stay buried in your warmth forever.
And every time he was inside you, every time you came apart in his arms, every time he lost himself in the heat and the pleasure and the overwhelming, consuming love he felt for you, something else slipped away.
In many ways, you were. You were his world now. You were everything.
And he was forgetting that there had ever been anything else.
—
The ship appeared on the horizon like a ghost from a life Jace had almost forgotten, he was down by the shore, skipping stones across the glass-flat water while you gathered shells further down the beach.
Then he saw it, a dark shape cut against the glare of the sun. At first he thought it was a cloud, or a trick of the light, or one of the strange birds that sometimes wheeled overhead. But the shape grew larger and sharper and resolved itself into masts and sails and a hull cutting through the water.
Jace's hand froze mid-throw. The stone dropped from his fingers and plunked into the shallows.
"Jace?" Your voice came from further down the beach, laced with concern. "What is it?"
"A ship."
The word felt strange in his mouth, foreign. He had not seen a ship in how long? Months? Years? He could not remember. Time had stopped meaning anything on this island.
He squinted against the sun, his heart beating faster. The ship was large, a warship by the look of it, three masts and a reinforced hull. As it drew closer, he could make out the banner snapping from the mainmast.
A seahorse. Silver on sea-green.
Velaryon.
The name hit him like a wave. His grandfather's house. His mother's allies. His family. The memories surged up from wherever they had been hiding, Dragonstone, Driftmark, the fleet, Lord Corlys, the war.
The war. He was fighting a war. His mother needed him. He had to go home.
"They are here for me," he breathed, and then he was running down the beach, waving his arms over his head, shouting at the top of his lungs. "Here! I am here!"
The soldiers came ashore in a longboat, six of them, their armor gleaming in the sun, the Velaryon seahorse embossed on their breastplates. They were grizzled men, seasoned fighters, and when they saw Jace standing on the beach, their faces broke into expressions of shock and relief and barely contained joy.
"Prince Jacaerys," the lead soldier breathed, dropping to one knee in the sand. "We thought you were dead. The Queen, your mother, she sent ships to every corner of the Narrow Sea. She never gave up hope."
Jace pulled the man to his feet, his hands shaking. "My mother. Is she well? Is the war still—"
"The war continues, my prince. The queen has taken Kings Landing. She will be overjoyed to see you. Everyone believed you had perished at the Gullet."
The Gullet. The arrows. Vermax screaming. The water closing over his head.
Jace shoved the memories aside. "I am alive," he said, and he was laughing now, giddy with relief and adrenaline. "I am alive, and I am coming home."
He turned to find you, you were standing a few paces back, your hands clasped in front of you, watching the soldiers with an expression he could not read. Your strange dress fluttered in the sea breeze, and your eyes were dark and unreadable.
"This is Y/N," Jace said, pulling you forward. You came reluctantly, your bare feet dragging in the sand. "She saved my life. She pulled me from the water and nursed me back to health. I would not be alive without her."
The lead soldier bowed to you, respectful. "The Queen will want to thank you personally, my lady. You have done the realm a great service."
You said nothing. You only nodded, a small, stiff movement.
Jace pulled you aside while the soldiers began unloading supplies from the longboat. His hands were still shaking. His heart was pounding. He felt more alive than he had in weeks, or months, or however long it had been.
"You are coming with me," he said, the words tumbling out in a rush. "I know what you told me about your brother and the exile. But I am a prince, and my mother is the Queen. Whatever power your brother holds, it is nothing compared to the Iron Throne. We can protect you."
Your eyes widened. "Jace..."
"I mean it." He took your hands in his, squeezing tight. "You saved my life. You have been alone here for so long, and I am not going to leave you behind. Come with me to Westeros. I will keep you safe. I swear it."
For a long moment, you only looked at him. Your sea-glass eyes searched his face, looking for something he did not recognize. It might have been doubt or hesitation or some reason to refuse, then you smiled.
"Yes," you said. "I will come with you."
Jace pulled you into his arms and held you tight, his face buried in your hair, breathing in the scent of you, salt and flowers and home. "We leave at dawn," he murmured. "Tomorrow, we leave at dawn."
That night, you cooked a feast, the soldiers were camped on the beach, their tents pitched in a neat row above the tide line. They had offered to share their rations, but you had insisted, telling them in that quiet, gracious way of yours that they were guests on your island and that you would feed them.
Jace helped you carry platters of food down to the beach. There was roasted pork, crackling and golden, seasoned with herbs from your garden. There were strange fruits sliced and arranged in intricate patterns. There was fresh bread baked in the stone oven at the back of the cave, still warm and fragrant. And there was wine, more wine than Jace had ever seen in the cave, deep red wine in clay amphorae, rich and dark and potent.
"Where did you get all this?" he asked, watching you fill cup after cup for the soldiers.
You smiled, your hands steady on the amphora. "I have been saving it. For a special occasion."
The feast was a joyous affair. The soldiers laughed and sang and told Jace stories of the war, battles won and lost, allies gained and betrayed, the endless, grinding struggle for the Iron Throne. He listened with half an ear, nodding in the right places, but his attention kept drifting to you.
You moved among the soldiers like a ghost, refilling cups, offering plates of food, your smile never wavering. The men thanked you with drunken enthusiasm, their faces flushed with wine and gratitude. Jace felt a swell of pride watching you, his savior, his love, soon to be his companion in Westeros, where he would shower you with every luxury you had been denied on this lonely island.
"To the Prince!" one of the soldiers bellowed, raising his cup. "To Prince Jacaerys, returned from the dead!"
"To the Prince!" the others roared.
Jace raised his own cup and drank deep. The wine was stronger than he expected, and it went to his head almost immediately. The stars above seemed to blur and swirl. The fire on the beach danced and flickered. Your hand found his under the table, and he squeezed it tight.
Tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow, we go home
—
He woke to sunlight and the sound of birdsong, his head pounded. His mouth was dry and sour with the aftertaste of wine. He groaned and pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes, trying to drive back the ache that throbbed behind them. How much had he drunk? He remembered the feast. He remembered the soldiers laughing, the wine flowing, your hand in his beneath the table. He remembered the fire on the beach and the stars wheeling overhead and the giddy, overwhelming relief of knowing that he was finally, finally going home.
The soldiers, Jace sat up so fast that the furs tangled around his legs and nearly sent him sprawling. The soldiers. The ship. They were leaving at dawn. He had to get up. He had to get dressed. He had to—
He stumbled out of the bed and through the winding passages of the cave, his bare feet slapping against the cold stone. The light grew brighter as he ran, golden and warm, and then he burst through the cave entrance and stopped dead at the edge of the cliff.
The beach was empty, his eyes swept the shoreline, back and forth, back and forth, searching for the tents and the longboat and the supply crates. He looked for the ship, the great Velaryon warship with its three masts and its silver seahorse banner, riding at anchor in the bay.
There was nothing there, the white sand stretched out below him, pristine and unmarked. The sea glittered in the morning sun, calm and blue and utterly empty all the way to the horizon. No ship. No sails. No sign that anyone had ever been here at all.
"What..." Jace's voice came out hoarse, cracked. He turned and ran down the path to the beach, his legs still unsteady, his heart pounding against his ribs. He reached the sand and walked through the place where the camp had been, his eyes scanning the ground for any trace of the soldiers. A footprint. A scrap of cloth. A ring of stones where the fire had burned. A spilled cup. Anything.
The sand was smooth and unblemished. The tide had come in during the night and erased whatever marks might have been left behind.
"Jace?" Your voice drifted down from the cliff above, calm and curious. "What are you doing?"
He looked up. You were standing at the mouth of the cave, barefoot, wrapped in one of your flowing dresses, your hair loose around your shoulders. The morning light caught the soft curves of your face and made your eyes gleam.
"The soldiers," Jace called up to you. "The ship. Where are they?"
You tilted your head, your brow furrowing slightly. "What soldiers?"
The question hit him like a physical blow. He stood there on the empty beach, staring up at you, waiting for you to laugh or smile or tell him it was a joke. You only looked back at him with mild, patient confusion.
"The soldiers," he repeated, his voice rising. "The Velaryon soldiers. Six of them. They came yesterday in a warship. They landed on the beach. We had a feast. You served them roast pork and wine. They were going to take us home this morning."
Your expression did not change. That small, puzzled frown remained, as though he were speaking a language you did not quite recognize.
"Jace," you said gently, "I think you must have dreamed it."
"I did not dream it." He was breathing hard now, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. "They were here. They said my mother sent them. You spoke to them. You—"
He stopped, you were walking down the path to the beach now, your bare feet moving sure and steady over the rocks. When you reached the sand, you came to stand beside him, and your hand rose to rest against his cheek.
"You had a great deal of wine last night," you said, your voice soft and soothing. "More than I have ever seen you drink. Sometimes wine can make dreams feel very real."
Jace shook his head, pulling away from your touch. "It was not a dream. They were here. They were real."
"Then where are they now?" You gestured at the empty beach, the empty sea, the empty horizon. "Where is the ship? Where are the footprints? Where is the fire? If six men camped on this beach last night, where is the evidence of it?"
The sand was smooth. The sea was empty. There was no smoke rising from the ashes of a campfire. There were no tent pegs driven into the earth. There was no ship, no longboat, no sign that anyone but the two of you had ever set foot on this island.
"I do not know," he said, and his voice sounded thin and uncertain even to his own ears. "I do not understand."
You stepped closer, and your hand found his cheek again, and this time he did not pull away. Your palm was cool against his flushed skin.
"You have been through so much," you murmured. "Your body is still healing. Your mind is still healing. Dreams and memories and wishes can all blur together. But you are here with me, and you are safe. That is what matters."
Jace stared down at the sand. His head was pounding. His thoughts were tangled, slipping over each other like stones in a landslide. He remembered the feast so clearly, the taste of the roast pork, the sound of the soldiers' laughter, the weight of your hand in his. He remembered the banner snapping in the wind, silver seahorse on sea-green. He remembered the lead soldier kneeling in the sand, the shock and relief on his weathered face.
But the beach was empty.
"Perhaps you are right," he said slowly, and the words felt like surrender. "Perhaps I dreamed it."
You smiled, and your smile was warm and gentle and full of something that might have been relief. "Come back inside. I will make you something to eat. You will feel better once you have eaten."
He let you lead him back up the path and into the cave. He let you sit him down at the stone table. He let you place a plate of fruit and fresh bread in front of him, and he ate without tasting it, his mind still chasing the fragments of the dream that had felt so real.
That was what you had called it. A dream. And perhaps you were right. Perhaps the longing for home had grown so strong that his mind had conjured a rescue where none existed. Perhaps the wine had done the rest, weaving the longing into something that felt like memory.
Perhaps.
He did not think about it for the rest of the day, it was not until late afternoon that he noticed the pigs, he was walking past the enclosure without any particular destination in mind, his feet carrying him along the familiar path, when he stopped and frowned.
The pigs had always been numerous, he had never bothered to count them exactly, but now, looking at the enclosure, he could see that there were more than there had been the day before. Many more.
The sows jostled and grunted. The piglets tumbled over each other in the dirt. They were fat, healthy animals with glossy coats and floppy ears, rooting in the churned earth of the enclosure, there were at least twice as many pigs as there had been the day before.
Jace stood at the stone wall and stared at them. The pigs stared back, their small dark eyes unblinking, he stood there for a long time.
—
Days later, Jace found the hole by accident, though later he would wonder whether anything on this island ever happened by accident at all. He had been exploring, something he did more and more often now, wandering the island's paths and cliffs and hidden coves as if searching for something he could not name. He had walked further than usual that afternoon, following a thin stream that wound through a cleft in the cliffs, its water cold and clear and tasting faintly of minerals when he cupped his hands to drink. The stream led him deeper into the interior than he had ever gone before, past stands of flowering trees whose blossoms released a sweet, drowsy perfume, past moss-covered boulders that loomed overhead like the shoulders of buried giants and that was when he saw it.
A dark opening in the rock face, half-hidden by a curtain of flowering vines that spilled down from the cliff above in cascades of white and purple. The vines were thick and tangled, but they did not quite conceal the gap behind them. An opening wide enough for a man to walk through without ducking his head.
He should not have gone in. He knew that, even as his feet carried him forward, even as his hands reached out to push the vines aside. A voice in the back of his mind, the voice that had once belonged to a prince trained in caution and suspicion, whispered that he should turn around and walk back to the sunlit meadow and forget he had ever seen this place. But that voice had grown very quiet in the months he had spent on this island, and something else had grown louder.
The darkness swallowed him whole. He stood motionless for a long moment, waiting for his eyes to adjust, one hand pressed flat against the cool stone of the wall. The passage sloped downward, the floor worn smooth by the passage of time or water or the tread of feet. He could not see more than a few feet ahead, but he could feel the space around him opening up, widening into something larger than a simple tunnel. The air was dry and still, the silence so complete that he could hear his own heartbeat thudding in his ears.
He walked deeper, the passage twisted once, then twice, then opened abruptly into a chamber so vast that Jace's footsteps echoed back to him from walls he could not see. Thin shafts of daylight pierced down through cracks in the ceiling high above, illuminating the space in pale, dusty columns that fell across the floor like the bars of a cage made of light and in those columns of light, Jace saw them.
Armor.
Dozens of sets, perhaps hundreds, arranged against the walls and stacked in corners and laid out on stone slabs that rose from the floor like altars. Breastplates and greaves and gauntlets and helms, their surfaces catching the thin light and throwing it back in dull gleams. Some were polished and gleaming, as if they had been cleaned and oiled with meticulous care. Others were rusted and crumbling, their edges flaking away into red-brown dust, their shapes barely recognizable beneath the corrosion of years or decades or centuries. Swords and axes and spears and maces, their blades dull with age and disuse, their hilts wrapped in leather that had rotted away to nothing.
And clothes, stacks and stacks of clothes, tunics and breeches and cloaks and boots and belts and gloves. They were piled against the walls in drifts that rose nearly to the ceiling, some of them neatly folded as if awaiting a return that would never come, others tossed carelessly into corners in tangled heaps of faded fabric. Some were new, the dyes still bright, the wool still soft, the linen still crisp and clean. Others were ancient and moth-eaten, their threads crumbling at the slightest touch, their colors bleached to ghostly echoes of what they had once been.
Jace stood in the center of the chamber and turned in a slow circle, his breath caught in his throat, his heart hammering against his ribs like a fist beating against a locked door. The scale of it was incomprehensible. There were so many. Too many. More than one person could ever need. More than a dozen people could ever need. More than a hundred people could ever need. This was not a collection. This was a graveyard for the belongings of the dead.
His eyes caught on a breastplate near his feet, and the world tilted sideways, it was newer than the others. Its metal still held a faint gleam beneath a thin layer of dust, and its leather straps were still supple, and on its chest, embossed in silver that caught the light like a blade, was the seahorse of House Velaryon.
He remembered the lead soldier kneeling in the sand, his weathered face breaking into shock and relief. He remembered the feast on the beach, the crackling fire, the roast pork and the wine and your hand in his beneath the table. He remembered waking to find the beach empty and the sea bare and you standing at the mouth of the cave with your head tilted and your brow furrowed, asking him what soldiers he meant, telling him it was only a dream, only a dream, nothing more than a dream.
The soldiers who had never been here. The soldiers he had only imagined. Their armor was lying at his feet.
He stumbled backward. His heel caught on a gauntlet and sent it skittering across the stone floor with a sound like a startled crab. The noise echoed through the chamber and died away into silence, and Jace stood there with his hands shaking and his mind blank with a terror so absolute that it felt almost like calm. He could not think. He could not breathe. He could not make sense of what he was seeing, and some part of him understood with terrible clarity that making sense of it would destroy everything he had built on this island. Every moment of peace. Every hour of love. Every whispered word in the darkness. All of it balanced on the edge of this pit, and if he looked down, if he truly looked, he would fall.
"What are you doing here?"
He spun around so fast that his boots skidded on the stone floor, his heart slammed against his ribs, once, twice, a frantic drumbeat of pure animal terror.. "Nothing. I was only looking, I wanted to understand—"
"You were only looking." You stepped out of the shadows and into the thin light that filtered down from the cracks in the ceiling, and the expression on your face made his stomach drop. The gentle warmth he had come to love was gone. The softness was gone. Your jaw was tight, the muscles corded beneath your skin, and your hands were clenched into fists at your sides, and your eyes were fixed on him with a glittering intensity that pinned him in place like a butterfly on a board. "At what, precisely? At the belongings of dead men? At the evidence of my sins? At the proof that I am not the gentle, lonely woman you thought you loved?"
Your hands unclenched and clenched again, the fingers curling and uncurling in a rhythm that seemed almost involuntary, as though you were strangling something invisible.
"I asked you a question, Jace." Your voice dropped, soft and dangerous. "What are you doing here?"
He should have been afraid. He was afraid. The hair on the back of his neck was standing up, and his heart was beating so hard he could feel it in his throat, and every instinct he possessed was screaming at him to run. But something else rose up inside him too, some scrap of the prince he used to be, some stubborn remnant of the boy who had faced down enemies on the battlefield and never flinched. He straightened his spine and met your eyes and refused to look away.
"Why are they here?" he asked, gesturing at the armor that surrounded them. "All of these. Dozens of sets. Hundreds, maybe. The soldiers who came for me, their armor is here. The same breastplate, the same sigil. It wasn't a dream was it? What happened to them?"
You stared at him. A muscle in your jaw twitched.
"It does not matter."
"It matters to me."
"It does not matter, Jace." Your voice was rising now, cracking at the edges, splintering into something raw and desperate. "It should not matter, Jace. Those men are gone. Let them stay gone. Let the past stay buried. We were happy. We were so happy. Why could you not leave well enough alone?"
"Because I need to know the truth."
"The truth will not make you happy. The truth will not keep you warm at night. The truth will not hold you when you wake from nightmares and tell you that everything is going to be all right."
"The truth is the truth. I deserve to know it."
You laughed, it was sharp and bitter and jagged, the laugh of someone who had been hurt too many times to believe in fairness anymore. "You sound just like them. Every single one of them. They all wanted the truth. They all thought they deserved to know. And do you know what happened when they found it?"
Jace did not answer. He did not need to answer. The armors answered for him.
"What happened to the soldiers?" he asked instead. His voice was very quiet. "The ones who came for me. The ones whose armor is lying at my feet. What did you do to them?"
Your face crumpled, the coldness shattered and the fury crumbled and underneath it was something far older and far more terrifying, a grief so immense it had calcified into rage over centuries of solitude. The tears that spilled down your cheeks were real, hot and sudden and utterly convincing.
"Why do you want to leave me?" you screamed, the sound echoed off the stone walls and came back multiplied, a chorus of accusations that battered him from every direction. Your voice was raw and ragged, shredded at the edges, and the pain in it was so enormous that Jace felt his own heart clench in response. The anger that had been building in him, the righteous fury at being lied to, began to waver. How could he be angry at someone who was in so much pain? How could he accuse someone who was so clearly suffering?
"Why do you want to leave me?" you cried again, and your voice broke on the last word. "Why do they always leave? Every single one of them, they wash up on my shore and I save them and I nurse them back to health and I give them everything I have, everything I am, and they tell me they love me, they look me in the eyes and they swear they love me, and I believe them every time, every single time I believe them because I am so desperate to be loved by someone, anyone, and then they remember. They always remember. And they always leave. They always want to go home. Why am I never enough? Why am I never enough for anyone?"
The question hung in the air, raw and bleeding. Your chest was heaving. Your hands were shaking. You looked at him with those burning eyes, and Jace felt his resolve crumbling, you were not a monster, you were wounded, a woman who had been abandoned and betrayed so many times that she had forgotten how to trust. How could he blame you for what you had done?
"I love you," he said, and his voice was shaking but he meant it with every fiber of his being. "I love you. I do. I love you more than I have ever loved anyone."
"Then why do you want to leave me?" Your voice was small now, wounded, the fury draining away to reveal the vulnerability beneath. "If you love me, why isn't that enough? Why do you need to go back? Why can't you just stay here with me? Why do you need a mother and brothers and a war and a throne? Why can you not just stay here and be mine?"
"Because I have a family." He was pleading now, hating himself for the pain he was causing you. "Because I have a mother who needs me and brothers who are waiting for me. Because there is a war, a war I was fighting, a war I was supposed to win. Because I have a duty."
"A duty." You laughed, but it was a broken sound, a laugh that was really a sob. "Duty. Honor. Family. I have heard all of this before. Every single one of them said the same thing. They had to go back. They had responsibilities. They had people who needed them. And what about me? What about what I need? I needed them. I loved them. And they left me anyway. They all left me. Just like you will leave me."
"I don't want to leave you," Jace said, and the words felt inadequate, pathetic. "I want to go home, yes. I want to see my mother. I want to protect her from the enemies who would see her dead and her throne stolen. But I want to take you with me. I want you to meet her. I want to marry you properly, before the whole court, with a septon and a cloak and vows spoken in the light of the Seven. I want to make you my queen. When I sit the Iron Throne, you will sit beside me."
He reached for you, desperate to comfort you, to wipe the tears from your cheeks. You did not pull away, but you did not lean into his touch either.
"I do not care what you did to these men," he said, his voice low and fierce. "I do not care what you have done. I love you. I love you more than I have ever loved anything in my life. I just want you to come with me. Please. Come with me."
For a long moment, you were silent, then you shook your head. Slowly. Miserably. With the exhausted certainty of someone who had heard these same promises too many times to count.
"It is not true," you whispered. "They always say this. When my brother sends them here, they always tell me they love me. They always promise they will stay. They look at me with those earnest eyes and they swear they are different from the others, and I believe them. I always believe them. Because I want to believe. Because I want so desperately for it to be true. And then they remember who they were before, and everything changes."
You pulled your hands out of his grip and wrapped your arms around yourself, your shoulders hunching inward as though you were trying to make yourself smaller, harder to hurt. Jace felt a surge of protectiveness so strong it almost knocked the breath out of him. He wanted to hold you. He wanted to shield you from everything that had ever hurt you.
"They remember their old lives," you continued, your voice barely above a whisper, "and they tell me they will save me. They tell me they will break the curse and take me away from here and marry me in a real sept with real vows. They promise me everything I have ever wanted. And for a little while I let myself hope. I let myself believe that this time will be different. This time the love will be real."
Your voice caught on the last word, splintering into something that was almost a sob. Jace felt tears prick at the corners of his own eyes. Gods, how could anyone have done this to you? How could anyone have been so cruel?
"But they never mean it," you said. "They are only saying what they think I want to hear. They are only trying to placate me, to buy themselves time, to find a way to escape. And when they try to break the curse and they fail, when they realize their love is not strong enough, when they understand that they do not really love me at all, they run. They try to leave. And I—"
You stopped. Your hands were trembling violently now, the fingers twisting together in front of you.
"What do you do?" Jace asked, though he already knew the answer. He knew it, and it horrified him, and yet somehow he could not bring himself to judge you for it. You had been hurt. You had been betrayed. You had been left alone for so long that you had forgotten what it felt like to be held. How could anyone expect you to react with grace when another man tried to abandon you?
"I do not let them leave." Your voice was barely a whisper, so quiet he had to lean closer to hear it. "They do not get to leave. They do not get to go back to their families and forget about me while I rot here alone. They stay. They stay here with me. Forever."
"The pigs," Jace said.
"They are happier as pigs," Your voice took on a defensive edge, almost childlike in its insistence. "They do not remember their old lives. They do not feel the disappointment. They do not want to leave. They are content. They have food and shelter and each other. I take care of them. I take better care of them than anyone ever took care of me." Your eyes searched his face, looking for understanding, looking for absolution. "They are better off this way. I gave them peace. I gave them a life without pain. Do you know what my brother gave me? Do you know what it feels like to be left here, alone, for centuries, with nothing but the sound of the waves and the crying of the gulls and the knowledge that no one is ever coming for you?"
Jace's throat was dry. "Why did you not do it to me?"
"Because I thought you were different." Your voice was small now, so small it was almost swallowed by the shadows of the cave. "Because when I looked at you, when I held you through the fevers and listened to you talk about your home and your family, I thought—I hoped—that you might really love me." A tear slid down your cheek, and you did not wipe it away. "I thought you would stay."
The guilt hit Jace like a physical blow. You had hoped. You had let yourself hope, despite everything, despite centuries of betrayal and abandonment, and he was about to become just another name on the long list of people who had disappointed you. He was about to leave you, just like all the others. He was about to prove that your hope had been misplaced, that love was a lie, that no one would ever truly choose you.
"I am sorry," he said, and he meant it with every part of himself. "I am so sorry. I do not want to leave you. I want to stay. I want both things. I want to go home, but I want you to come with me. Can I not have both things?"
"No one ever wants both things." You pulled your hands away, and your expression was hardening again, the vulnerability sealing itself back behind walls of old resentment. "They want to leave. They always want to leave. As soon as they remember their old lives, they want to leave. And when they realize they cannot break the curse, they run. They all run. And I have to stop them because if I do not stop them they will leave me alone again, and I cannot be alone again, Jace, I cannot, I would rather die than be alone again—"
"What curse?" Jace cut through your spiraling words, his voice urgent. "You said they could not break the curse. What curse?"
"It does not matter," you said. Your voice was empty now, drained of all the fury and grief that had filled it moments before. "You are going to leave me too. You are going to try to break the curse, and you are going to fail, because no one has ever succeeded, and then you are going to run. Just like all the others."
"Tell me what the curse is. Please. Let me help you."
You stared at him for a long, long moment. The candles flickered in their alcoves, their flames guttering in a draft he could not feel. The armor gleamed dully in the shadows, the relics of a hundred men who had stood where he was standing now and made the same promises he was making. Somewhere far away, muffled by stone and distance, the pigs grunted in their enclosure. The men who had failed. The men whose love had not been strong enough.
"My brother exiled me here," you said finally. Your voice was flat now, reciting facts rather than feelings, as though you had told this story so many times that the words had lost all meaning. "Centuries ago. So long ago that the world I came from does not exist anymore, and when I disobeyed him, when I refused to do what he asked of me, he put a curse on this island as punishment. I cannot leave. No ship will carry me. No boat will bear my weight. If I try to swim, the sea itself will rise up and drag me back to shore. I am bound here, bound to this rock, until the curse is broken or the world ends."
"How do I break it?"
You looked at him, and your eyes were ancient and exhausted and utterly without hope. Jace felt his heart twist. You had been disappointed so many times. You did not believe he could do it.
"There is a cave," you said. "Behind the waterfall on the western cliff. There is a statue inside, a statue of me carved from black stone, wrapped in chains. I cannot enter the cave. It is spelled against me." Your hand rose unconsciously to your neck, as if feeling for the links of a collar that was not there. "If the statue is broken, the curse will be lifted. The chains will fall. I will be free."
"Then I will break it."
"It is not that simple." Your voice was quiet now, almost gentle, and there was something in it that felt like a warning, a kindness, an attempt to protect him from the disappointment you were certain was coming. "Only a man who knows my true nature can destroy the statue. Only a man who has seen what I am, what I have done, every monstrous thing I have committed in my long and miserable existence, and still loves me truly. Not charmed. Not tricked. Not fogged by the magic of this island. Real love. Clear-eyed love. Love that looks at the worst of me and does not flinch." You paused. "If his love is false, if it is only gratitude or loneliness or the lingering effects of my enchantments, the statue will not break. It will not even crack. And I will know. I will know that his love was a lie."
"I am not them," he said.
"You are. You are exactly like them."
"No." He stepped forward and took your face in his hands, his thumbs brushing the tears from your cheeks. "I am not them. I am going to break the curse. I am going to set you free. I am going to take you away from this island and give you the life you deserve. I swear it."
"You cannot promise that."
"I can. I am." He pressed his forehead against yours. "I love you. I know what you are. I know what you have done. And I love you anyway. I love you not despite the worst of you but because of it. Because the worst of you was born from pain, and I want to heal that pain. I want to be the one who finally proves to you that love is real. That you are worthy of it. That you have always been worthy of it."
You let out a sound that was half laugh and half sob. "You are a fool, Jacaerys Velaryon."
"Take me to the cave behind the waterfall," he said. "Let me prove it."
"Alright," you whispered, as if you had expected him to ask. "I will take you. But do not say I did not warn you."
You turned and walked out of the cave, and Jace followed you, his heart pounding and his mind clear and his love for you burning in his chest like a flame that no wind could extinguish. He was going to save you. He was going to be the one. He was going to prove that love was stronger than any curse, stronger than any magic, stronger than centuries of solitude and betrayal.
He had to be the one. The alternative was unthinkable.
—
The walk was silent, you led him along the familiar path, the meadow with its strange flowers swaying in the breeze, the grove of fruit trees with their golden bounty hanging heavy from the branches, the rocky outcropping that overlooked the western shore where the sea stretched out blue and endless and utterly indifferent to what was about to happen. The waterfall was roaring louder than usual, or perhaps it only seemed that way. Perhaps it was the blood pounding in his ears. Perhaps it was the weight of what he was about to do pressing down on him like a physical thing, a stone laid across his chest that made every breath feel shallow and insufficient.
You stopped at the edge of the pool, where the water churned white with the endless cascade. Your face was pale. Your hands were shaking at your sides, the fingers twisting together in that nervous gesture he had come to recognize, the one that always made him want to pull you into his arms and promise you that everything would be alright.
"There," you said, pointing, Jace squinted through the spray. Behind the curtain of falling water, barely visible through the silver torrent, was a dark opening in the rock face. A cave mouth, smaller than the one you lived in, half-hidden by the cascade. It looked like something that did not want to be found.
"I cannot enter," you said, and your voice was quiet, almost reverent. "The spell prevents me. The moment I step through the water, I am pushed back. It burns." You wrapped your arms around yourself, your fingers digging into the flesh of your upper arms. The gesture was meant to look vulnerable, meant to make him feel protective. It worked. "You have to go alone."
Jace nodded. He had expected this. Of course he had expected this. The hero always had to face the trial alone. That was how these stories went.
"I will come back," he said.
You did not answer. Your eyes were fixed on the waterfall, dark and terrified, and your lower lip trembled just slightly, just enough for him to notice.
"Hey." He touched your chin, turning your face toward him. Your skin was cold beneath his fingers. "I will come back. I promise."
"Everyone promises." Your voice was barely a whisper, and there was something in it that snagged at his heart like a fishhook. "Everyone who has ever stood on this shore has promised to come back."
"I am not everyone."
He kissed your lips and for just a moment he felt something move beneath the surface. A flicker. A pulse. Something that was not quite human. Then the moment passed, and you were just you again, fragile and frightened and looking at him with those sea-glass eyes that held all the sadness in the world.
He turned away before he could lose his nerve. He dove into the pool, and the water closed over his head like a fist.
The cold was shocking. It was more than cold. It was the absence of warmth, the absence of life, a cold that sank into his bones and wrapped around his heart and squeezed. He surfaced gasping, his breath torn from his lungs in a ragged gasp, and swam toward the waterfall with strong, desperate strokes. The roar grew louder as he approached, a wall of sound that pressed against his eardrums until he could hear nothing else. The spray blinded him, stinging his eyes, filling his mouth with the taste of minerals and stone. The current tried to push him back, tried to shove him away from the cave entrance as if the water itself did not want him to pass.
But he kept swimming. He had promised. He had promised he would come back, he reached the rock face and pulled himself up onto a narrow ledge, slick with moss and running water, his fingers scrabbling for purchase on the wet stone. The cave entrance yawned before him, dark and silent and somehow hungry, as if the darkness itself was waiting for him to step inside. He looked back once. You were still standing at the edge of the pool, a pale figure in a pale dress, your hands pressed to your mouth. You looked like a ghost. You looked like a memory of someone who had died a long time ago.
Then he turned and walked into the darkness.
—
The cave was small, smaller than he had expected. The passage was short, barely twenty paces, the walls rough and wet beneath his trailing fingers, the floor sloping downward into the heart of the rock. The roar of the waterfall faded behind him, muffled by the stone, until the only sound was the drip of water and the soft scuff of his bare feet on the rock and the steady, insistent pounding of his own heart.
The passage opened into a round chamber no larger than your bedchamber back in the main cave. The walls were smooth and wet, glistening with moisture, catching the light and throwing it back in a thousand tiny reflections. The only illumination came from somewhere above, a thin shaft of daylight that pierced through a crack in the rock and fell in a single golden beam onto the center of the chamber. It was like something out of a sept, that beam of light. It was like the light that fell on an altar, or a tomb, or a place where something sacred had been buried and forgotten.
And in the center of the chamber was the statue.
It was you, smooth and luminous, carved with such skill that it seemed almost alive. The surface of the stone had been polished to a soft gleam, catching the golden light and holding it, and the details were so fine that Jace could see the individual strands of hair. The statue knelt on a stone pedestal, its head bowed in an attitude of submission or prayer, its face frozen in an expression of such profound sorrow that Jace felt his chest tighten just looking at it. The eyes were closed. The lips were slightly parted, as if caught in the middle of a sigh. The shoulders were hunched forward, the spine curved, every line of the body speaking of exhaustion and despair and the weight of an eternity spent alone.
And the hands, the statue's hands were raised in front of its chest, palms facing each other, fingers slightly curled as if holding something invisible. And around those marble wrists, coiled so tightly they seemed to be part of the stone itself, were two snakes.
No. Not snakes. Bracelets. Golden bracelets, each one shaped like a serpent eating its own tail. But the serpents were not connected to each other. They were separate, independent, each one locked around a single wrist, each one devouring itself in an endless cycle of consumption and renewal. Their golden eyes gleamed in the shaft of daylight, bright and watchful and aware. Their scales were so finely detailed that Jace could count every one, each scale overlapping the next in perfect, reptilian precision. Their jaws were clamped tight around their own tails, and their bodies were wound around the marble wrists in coils that looked tight enough to bruise.
They were not chains. Not exactly. They were something worse. They were a trap that could not be escaped because there was nothing to break. The snakes held her wrists, and her wrists held the snakes, and neither could let go, and the whole thing was a perfect, closed loop of imprisonment that had no beginning and no end.
Jace stood in the darkness at the edge of the chamber, staring at the statue. His heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in his throat, in his temples, in the tips of his fingers. His hands were slick with water and sweat. The marble figure knelt in its beam of light, motionless and patient, and the golden snakes watched him with their glittering eyes, and the silence was so complete that he could hear the blood rushing through his own veins.
He bent down and picked up a rock from the floor of the cave. It was heavy, sharp-edged, big enough to do damage. He turned it over in his hands, testing its weight, feeling the rough edges bite into his palm. Break the statue. Break the curse. Simple. You had told him what to do. You had told him it was simple.
He took a step toward the pedestal.
"Are you quite certain about this?"
Jace froze, the voice was male. Low and smooth and echoing, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. It bounced off the wet stone walls, slid through the darkness, coiled around him like smoke, like water, like something that had been waiting in the shadows for a very long time. It was not a human voice. It was too resonant for that, too layered, as if many voices were speaking at once in perfect, dissonant harmony.
"Who is there?" Jace demanded. His voice sounded too loud in the silence, too harsh, too frightened. He hated how frightened he sounded.
No answer. Just the dripping of water. The distant, muffled roar of the falls.
"You should think very carefully before you do something you will regret for the rest of your life. Which, I should warn you, may not be very long."
Jace spun around, the rock raised like a weapon. The chamber was empty. The passage behind him was empty. The shadows pressed against the walls, still and silent and utterly unoccupied.
"I said who is there?"
"A friend." The voice was almost gentle now, almost kind. It was the voice of a father speaking to a wayward son, a mentor guiding a confused student. "Someone who does not want to see you make a mistake you cannot undo. Someone who has watched this same scene play out more times than I can count, and who is very, very tired of seeing young men throw their lives away."
Jace's grip tightened on the rock. The edges cut into his palm, grounding him. "Show yourself."
"I cannot. I am not really here. I am just a voice in the dark. A warning. A kindness, if you will let me be." The voice paused, and when it spoke again, it was softer. Sadder. "I am the only person on this island who is actually trying to help you, Jacaerys."
"Don't listen to it," Jace muttered to himself. He turned back toward the statue. "It's just another part of the curse. It's trying to stop you. She said there would be things trying to stop you."
"Is that what she told you?" The voice sounded amused now, deeply and darkly amused. "That the curse is the villain? That she is the victim? How very convenient for her. How very convenient that she has a story that makes her the helpless damsel and everyone else the monster. She tells that story very well. She has had centuries of practice."
Jace ignored it. He stepped closer to the pedestal. The marble woman knelt in her beam of light, motionless and sorrowful. The golden snakes glinted.
"She is very beautiful, isn't she?" the voice continued, and now it was almost conversational, almost casual, as if they were two old friends discussing the weather. "Of course she is. She's had centuries to perfect the act. The dresses. The smiles. The way she looks at you like you are the only man in the world, like you are the answer to every prayer she has ever whispered into the darkness. It is all very convincing. It is meant to be. She has been refining it for longer than your entire bloodline has existed."
"You do not know anything about her."
"I know everything about her." The voice was sharper now, the amusement draining away to reveal something harder underneath. "I know what she is. I know what she has done. I know how many men have stood exactly where you are standing now, holding a rock just like that one, thinking they were going to be the one. The special one. The one whose love was strong enough." A pause, heavy with meaning. "Do you know how many of them succeeded?"
Jace did not answer.
"None. Not one. In all the centuries she has been trapped on this island, not a single man has broken that statue. Do you know why? Because it cannot be broken. It is a trap. It is the bait, and you are the fish, and you are swimming toward it with your mouth wide open."
"You are lying." Jace's voice was shaking now. He hated that it was shaking. "You are just another part of the curse. You are trying to stop me from freeing her."
"I am trying to stop you from destroying yourself." The voice was closer now, seeming to come from just behind his left shoulder. He spun around, but there was nothing there. Only shadows. Only the dripping of water. "Let me ask you something, Jacaerys. Can you remember your mother's name?"
He opened his mouth but nothing came out, the name was gone. It had been there a moment ago, he was sure of it. He could see her face, silver hair and sad eyes, could feel the shape of her in his memory. But the name, the name would not come.
"Your brothers," the voice continued, relentless and calm. "How many brothers do you have? What are their names?"
"I have brothers. I know I have brothers." His voice sounded desperate, even to his own ears. "Luke-Lucerys. And the others. The little ones."
"You are reciting words. You are not remembering. She has taken them from you, piece by piece, day by day. She has been stealing your memories since the moment you arrived. The food she feeds you. The wine she pours you. The herbs she puts in your medicine. They do not just heal your wounds. They erase you. They hollow you out. They make room for her."
Jace's mind was blank. Empty. There was nothing there but fog, thick and white and impenetrable, where his memories should have been.
"She has taken them from you," the voice said, and now it was almost gentle again, almost pitying. "Piece by piece. Day by day. Every moment you spend in her presence, she is stealing more of who you are. Your family. Your home. Your past. Your very self. And you call that love? You think that is what love looks like?"
"She saved my life."
"She kept you alive because she needed you. There is a difference. She needs a man to break the curse. She always needs a man to break the curse. That is how it works. That is how it has always worked. She lures them in with her beauty and her vulnerability and her sad, sad story, and she makes them love her, and then she sends them here to die. Because no one can break the curse. No one. The statue does not break. It has never broken. And when the man fails, when he realizes his love is not strong enough, she has her excuse. She was right all along. No one really loves her. So she turns them into pigs and waits for the next shipwreck, the next castaway, the next fool who will believe her lies."
He kept going "You think that is love?" The voice laughed, a soft and pitying laugh. "You think a woman who erases your past and steals your future and traps you on an island where you can never leave loves you? You think any of this is real?"
"I love her." Jace's voice cracked. "I know I love her. That is real. Whatever else she has done, my love for her is real."
"Oh, it feels real. I am sure it does. But do you know why it feels real?" The voice paused, letting the question hang in the darkness. "Because she makes it feel real. That is what she does. That is what the magic does. It wraps around your mind and makes you think you are feeling something true. But it is not true, Jacaerys. It is a trick. A trap. You have been ensnared since the moment you opened your eyes in that candlelit room and saw her kneeling beside your bed like a worried bride."
Jace's arm was lowering. The rock felt heavier now, so heavy he could barely hold it. His hands were shaking. His whole body was shaking.
"She told me you would say things like this," he said, but his voice was weak. Uncertain. "She told me the curse would try to stop me. She warned me there would be voices."
"The curse is not stopping you. I am not the curse. I am the only thing standing between you and an eternity of rooting in the dirt with all the other men who believed her lies." The voice was right next to his ear now, so close he could feel the cold breath of it against his skin. "Do you want to know the real story, Jacaerys? Do you want to know who she really is?"
He did not answer. He did not want to know. He wanted to cover his ears and run back through the waterfall and hold you in his arms and forget this voice had ever spoken to him. But his feet would not move. His body would not obey him.
"She is not a victim," the voice whispered. "She is not a lonely woman trapped by a cruel brother. That is a story she invented centuries ago because it makes men feel protective. It makes them feel noble. It makes them want to save her. The truth is much simpler, and much uglier. She is a goddess, a thing that was worshipped before your ancestors crawled out of the mud. And she was imprisoned here not as punishment, but as containment. Because she is dangerous. Because she feeds on devotion the way a spider feeds on flies."
"You are lying."
"Am I? If you break that statue," the voice said, "she will be free. And the moment she is free, she will have no more use for you. Her love for you, such as it is, will vanish. It is not real love, Jacaerys. It is bait. It is a lure. It is the promise of everything you have ever wanted, dangled in front of you to make you do what she needs. And once you have done it, once you have served your purpose, she will discard you like all the others."
"Stop." Jace's voice cracked on the word.
"That is the part she did not tell you, is it not? She did not tell you that her love is conditional. She did not tell you that it lasts only as long as she is trapped. The moment she is free, the magic breaks both ways. The chains fall from her wrists, and her love for you falls with them."
"You are lying." Jace's voice was a raw whisper, barely audible over the distant roar of the waterfall. "You are the curse. You are trying to stop me from freeing her."
"She told every man before you the exact same story. Word for word. The cruel brother. The lonely exile. The curse that can only be broken by true love. She told it to the knight in rusted armor whose bones are rotting in that cave. She told it to the merchant captain whose shield is propped against the wall. And you are just the latest audience."
"Stop."
"She does not love you. She cannot love you. She is not capable of love. She is capable of hunger, and she calls it love because that is what makes men stay. But it is not love. It has never been love. It is just need. Just appetite. Just the endless, grinding loneliness of a creature that consumes everything it touches and is still never full."
Jace opened his eyes. The statue knelt in its beam of light. The golden snakes watched him with their glittering, knowing eyes. The marble face was frozen in its expression of eternal sorrow.
What if the voice was right?
What if none of it was real?
What if he broke the statue, and your love disappeared, and he spent the rest of his life chasing a ghost?
What if he was just the next fool in line?
"Go back," the voice whispered. "Go back to the beach. Build your boat. Leave this place while you still can. While you still remember enough of yourself to want to leave. She will try to stop you. She will cry and plead and tell you she loves you. But it will be a lie. It has always been a lie. Go back, Jacaerys. Go home. Save yourself."
—
You had been waiting for hours. You stood at the edge of the pool, your bare feet sinking into the damp sand, your eyes fixed on the curtain of falling water. The roar of the waterfall filled your ears until you could hear nothing else, but you were listening for something beneath the roar. A shout. A crash. The sound of stone breaking. The sound of a man drowning.
Anything. Please, anything.
Jace surfaced at the edge of the pool, gasping, his dark hair plastered to his forehead, his skin slick with water and gleaming in the sunlight. He pulled himself onto the sand, his chest heaving, his arms trembling with exhaustion, and for a moment he just knelt there on his hands and knees, catching his breath, water streaming from his body in rivulets. You just stared at him, searching his face for some sign of what had happened, some clue in the set of his jaw or the light in his eyes. Was the curse broken? Had he succeeded? Had he been the one, the only one, the man whose love was finally strong enough?
"I did it," he said, and his voice was warm and triumphant and full of a joy you had never heard from him before. "I broke the curse."
You stumbled forward, your legs barely supporting you, your hands reaching for him before your mind had fully registered what he had said. "You—you did? It is broken? I am free?"
"You are free." He rose to his feet, still smiling, and opened his arms to you. "You are free, Y/N. We can leave. Together. Just like I promised."
A sob tore from your throat, raw and jagged and utterly involuntary. You threw yourself into his arms, your body shaking, tears streaming down your face in hot, messy rivulets. He caught you and held you tight, his hands warm on your back, his lips pressing kisses to your hair, your temple, your cheek, his voice murmuring reassurances that you could barely hear over the pounding of your own heart.
"I love you," you gasped, the words tumbling out between sobs, unstoppable, irrepressible. "I love you, I love you, I love you—"
"I love you too." His voice was soft. Tender. Everything you had ever wanted to hear. "I told you I would save you. I told you I was different. I told you I was not like the others."
He kissed you, it was a deep kiss, a passionate kiss, the kind of kiss that spoke of relief and joy and a future finally within reach. You melted into him, your body pressing against his, your hands sliding up his chest, his shoulders, his neck, tangling in his wet hair. The waterfall roared behind you, but it sounded different now, less like a threat and more like applause. The sun was warm on your skin, warmer than it had ever been. You were free. You were finally, impossibly free. After centuries of solitude, centuries of hoping and losing and hoping again, someone had finally loved you enough.
You did not notice anything until you felt the cold metal snap shut against your skin, you tore away from him, stumbling backward, your hand flying to your wrist. Something was there. Something heavy and cold and horribly, sickeningly familiar. You looked down, and the world stopped.
A golden snake. Coiled around your forearm, its tail clamped in its own jaws, its scales gleaming in the sunlight with a wet, organic sheen. Its eyes were bright and watchful and alive. It was warm against your skin, warm like something that had a heartbeat, warm like something that was feeding.
Identical to the ones in the cave. Identical to the ones that had bound the statue for centuries, the statue that was supposed to be destroyed, the statue that he had told you he had broken.
But the statue was not destroyed. You knew that now with a cold, creeping certainty. He had not broken it. He had done something else. Something worse.
"What—" Your voice came out strangled, barely a whisper, the words catching in your throat like bones. "What is this?"
Jace was still standing by the water's edge. His smile was gone. His face had changed, shifted into something you did not recognize. The warmth in his eyes had drained away, replaced by something flat and cold and terribly, terribly calm. He looked at you the way a scholar might look at a pinned insect, curious and detached and utterly without feeling.
He raised his own arm.
The matching snake was coiled around his wrist. Twin to yours. Identical in every detail, from the curve of the scales to the glint of the golden eyes. Linked by nothing visible. Linked all the same. You could feel it, the connection between them, an invisible chain that stretched from your wrist to his and bound you together tighter than any iron ever could.
"I could not break the curse," he said. His voice was calm. Too calm. The voice of a man who had made a decision and was at peace with it. "The statue would not break. I struck it with the rock, and the rock shattered. I struck it with my fists, and my knuckles bled. I threw myself against it, and it did not even crack." He paused, his dark eyes fixed on yours, unblinking. "The voice, your brother, he told me the truth. He told me what you really are. He told me what you have done. He told me what you would do to me the moment you were free."
"No." You shook your head, backing away from him. Your wrist was burning where the snake touched your skin, a cold fire that spread up your arm and into your chest. "No, Jace, whatever he told you, it is a lie. It is always a lie. He is trying to trap you, he is trying to turn you against me—"
"Is it a lie?" He tilted his head, regarding you with that terrible calm. "He told me the curse made me love you. He told me you have been feeding on my devotion since the moment I opened my eyes. He told me you would leave me the instant you were free."
"That is not true!" You were screaming now, your voice raw and cracking. "I love you! I have never loved anyone the way I love you! You have to believe me!"
"Then why can I not remember my mother's name?" His voice cracked on the word mother, just slightly, and beneath the coldness you saw something flicker. Something wounded. Something that still hurt. "Why can I not remember my brothers' faces? Why did I wake up this morning and realize that I could not recall the sound of my father's voice, or the color of my brother's eyes, or the name of the dragon I rode into battle? You took everything from me. Everything I was. Everything I loved. You hollowed me out and filled me with yourself, and you expected me to believe it was love?"
"I did not mean to!" You were sobbing now, the tears hot and bitter on your cheeks. "I did not want to take your memories, i loved you so much i did not want you to leave me."
"You loved being loved." His voice was flat. Final. "There is a difference."
You stared at him. Your chest was heaving. Your wrist was throbbing, the golden snake pulsing against your skin like a second heartbeat. You could feel it now, the thing that bound you together. It was not just a chain. It was a tether. A leash.
"The statue forced you to have a physical body," Jace said, and his voice had shifted again, becoming almost conversational. Almost pleasant. "You are not mortal. You are not human something that was bound to this island and trapped in the stone. The chains kept you here. The statue kept you solid. Touchable. Real." He paused. "Without the statue, you would have no body. You would be nothing but mist and memory. Is that not what your brother wanted? To keep you contained? To keep you in a form that could touch and taste and take?"
You did not answer. You could not answer. Your throat had closed around the words.
"I could not break the curse," Jace said, and he took a step toward you, his bare feet silent on the sand. "I could not destroy the statue. But I could transfer it. I could take the chains off the stone and put them onto something else. Something living. Something that could carry them." He raised his arm again, showing you the snake coiled around his wrist, and his smile returned. It was not a kind smile. "You are not bound to the island anymore. You are bound to me."
The world tilted. The roar of the waterfall seemed to fade, replaced by a high, thin ringing in your ears. The sun was too bright. The sand was too soft. The golden snake was too warm against your skin.
"You—" Your voice would not work. "You did not—"
"I did." He was still calm. Still cold. Still looking at you with those eyes that used to be so full of love. "The voice told me it was the only way. The only way to make sure you could not leave me. The only way to make sure your love was real. The only way to be certain that when I woke up tomorrow, you would still be there, and the day after that, and the day after that."
"You trapped me."
He laughed. It was a soft laugh, a quiet laugh, but there was nothing warm in it. "I freed you. You can leave the island now. The chains that bound you to this rock are gone. You can walk onto a ship and sail away and see the world again. Is that not what you wanted? Is that not what you have been begging me for since the moment we met?"
"You bound me to you!"
"And you bound me to you first." His voice sharpened, the calm cracking for just a moment to reveal the fury underneath. "You made me love you. You made me forget my own mother's name. You drugged my food and whispered in my ear and wrapped yourself around my mind so tightly I could not tell where you ended and I began. You trapped me on this island long before I ever trapped you. The only difference is that my chains were made of kisses and lies, and yours are made of gold."
"I loved you!" The words tore from your throat, raw and ragged. "I loved you! Everything I did, I did because I loved you!"
"You made me forget my mother's name," he said again, and his voice was quieter now, almost sad. "Do you understand what that means? Do you understand what you took from me? She is out there somewhere, fighting a war, grieving a son she believes is dead, and I cannot remember her name. I cannot remember her face. I know I love her. I know I owe her everything. But when I try to picture her, there is nothing there. Just fog. Just you."
You opened your mouth, but no words came. What could you possibly say? What defense could you offer that would not sound hollow and selfish and monstrous?
"You stole my memories and drugged my food and lied to me for months," Jace continued, and now he was walking toward you, closing the distance between you with slow, deliberate steps. "You let me believe I was going home. You let me build a boat I was never going to finish. You let me dream of a future that did not exist. And when I found out the truth, when I confronted you in that cave full of dead men's armor, what did you do? Did you apologize? Did you offer to help me leave? No. You cried. You made yourself the victim. You told me how lonely you were, how sad you were, how much you had suffered. You made me comfort you. You made me feel guilty for discovering your lies."
He stopped in front of you, close enough that you could feel the heat of his body, close enough that you could see the pulse beating in his throat. "And I did feel guilty," he said. "I felt so guilty that I almost forgot what you had done. I almost let myself believe that you were the victim. That I was the one who had wronged you by wanting to go home. That is how good you are at this. That is how deep your hooks go."
"Please." Your voice was barely a whisper now. "Please, Jace, I am sorry. I am so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I only wanted to be loved. I only wanted—"
"I know what you wanted." He reached up and touched your face, his fingers gentle against your tear-streaked cheek. The gesture was almost tender. Almost loving. It made your skin crawl. "You wanted someone to stay. You wanted someone to choose you. And now someone has. I have chosen you. I have chosen you over my family, over my throne, over my memories, over everything I ever was. I have given up my entire life to be with you. Are you not happy? Is this not what you wanted?"
"You have made me your prisoner."
"I have made you my equal." His thumb traced the curve of your cheekbone, wiping away a tear. "We are connected now. Bound together. What happens to one of us happens to the other. If you leave, I will feel it. If you try to run, I will know. And if you try to hurt me—" He shrugged. "The snakes will not let you. They protect what they hold. That is what the voice told me."
"The voice. He told you to do this?"
"He gave me a choice. Break the statue, free you, and watch you leave me the moment we set foot on the mainland. Or bind you to me, keep you close, and never wonder again whether your love was real." His smile returned, and it was the saddest smile you had ever seen. "It was not a difficult choice. I love you. I cannot lose you. So I made sure I would never have to."
You stared at him. The man you loved. The man who had just destroyed you. The man who had looked at your chains and decided to put them on himself rather than break them, because he could not bear the thought of you walking free.
"This is not love," you whispered. "This is possession."
"Is there a difference?" He tilted his head, his dark eyes glittering. "You tell me. You have been doing this for centuries. You tell me where love ends and possession begins. You tell me whether what you felt for me was really love, or just the desperate hunger of a lonely creature who needed someone, anyone, to fill the void. You tell me whether I am any different from you, or whether I am just the first man who was willing to sink to your level."
You opened your mouth. Closed it. The words would not come.
"Exactly," Jace said. "You cannot tell me. Because you do not know either. Because you have been confusing love and hunger for so long that you cannot tell them apart anymore. And now I am the same. You have made me the same." He leaned closer, his lips brushing your ear. "We are equals now. Partners. Two monsters bound together for eternity. Is that not romantic? Is that not what you always wanted? Someone who would never leave you, never abandon you, never choose anything over you?"
"You are insane," you breathed.
"I am what you made me." He pulled back and looked into your eyes, and his expression was unreadable. "You wanted me to stay. I am staying. You wanted me to love you. I love you. You wanted me to be different from the others. I am different. I am the one who did not run. I am the one who looked at the chains and chose to wear them. I am the one who gave up everything to be with you." He cupped your face in both hands, gentle and terrible and utterly inescapable. "Why are you not happy? If you really loved me, you would be happy. This is what you wanted. This is what you have been asking for since the moment we met. Someone who would stay. Someone who would choose you. Someone who would never leave."
He kissed your forehead, and his lips were warm, and the golden snake pulsed against your wrist like a second heart.
"I am going to build us a boat," he said. "A real one this time. One that can carry us both back to Westeros. And you are going to meet my mother, and I am going to take back my throne, and you are going to be my queen. Just like I promised. Just like we planned. The only difference is that now I know you will not leave me. Now I know your love is real. Because it has to be. Because you have no choice." He pulled back and smiled, and his smile was beautiful and broken and utterly terrifying. "You are free now, Y/N. Free from the island. Free from your brother's curse. Free from the statue and the chains and the centuries of solitude. You can go anywhere you want. You can do anything you want. The whole world is open to you." He took your hand, the one with the golden snake coiled around the wrist, and pressed it to his chest, over his heart. "As long as you never leave my side."
You looked down at the snake. At his hand holding yours. At the invisible chain that stretched between you, unbreakable and eternal.
summary : when jason’s brothers start digging into the quiet, hidden love he kept before his death, they uncover far more than any of them expected. and once they know, jason can’t help but learn the truth too. now he has to face the reality that his death didn’t just take him from you, it took him from the daughter he never knew he had.
author’s note : i love this trope with jason sm and i see it quite often so i wanted to do my own take on it. i really got carried away writing this if you couldn’t tell. some more parts mayyy be in the works if you guys like it. i didn’t proofread sawry but i don’t have the time to reread 12k words over and over again unforch. lowercase intentional.
jason todd isn’t selfish.
at least, that’s what he tells himself as he looks down at the worn-out polaroid in his hand. most people in his position, not that many die and come back from the dead, would’ve gone straight to the girl wrapped around jason in the photo after returning to gotham. but not him, not in a state as broken and hollow as he is now.
you’re probably better off, he thinks. surely you’ve moved on, found bigger things in life to hold onto. you were only fifteen after all, though that factor hasn’t stopped jason from thinking of you with a persistence that matches the beat of his heart. but that’s him, with all his scarring and quiet ache. not you, sweet and steady you, who could calm even the fiercest storm.
but jason is something worse than a storm now.
he tells himself that staying away is mercy. you don’t need to see what he’s become, what’s left of the boy who used to walk you home after school, his fingers brushing yours just to feel alive. you loved a boy who believed in second chances, in doing good. what stands in his place now doesn’t even believe in redemption, only in revenge that feels too much like breathing.
sometimes he catches himself walking near your old neighborhood during patrol. the streets haven’t changed much. the same flickering lamppost on the corner. the same cracked pavement where you once tripped and he caught you, laughing. the memory hits too hard. he tells himself he’s just checking in, making sure you’re safe, but even he doesn’t believe that lie anymore.
he wonders if you still keep that soft, faraway look when you’re thinking. if you still write poems in the margins of notebooks or hum songs without realizing it. he tells himself that it doesn’t matter. it shouldn’t matter. but there’s a part of him—quiet, stubborn, human—that still aches to know.
and when he dreams, it’s always the same. the sound of your laughter. the light in your eyes when you used to say his name. and then the silence that follows, the kind that only the dead can understand.
“what are you doing?”
jason whips his head around at the voice, muscles tensing as if he’s been caught committing a crime. the polaroid in his hand glints faintly under the cave lights before he shoves it halfway into his pocket. damian stands just behind him, arms folded, brow furrowed in that permanent mix of irritation and suspicion.
“patrol starts in five,” damian says after a pause, his tone sharp and precise. he sounds older than he looks, every word heavy with command.
“yeah, sorry,” jason mutters, his voice uncharacteristically soft. his usual edge is gone, replaced with something quieter, maybe nerves, maybe guilt. he doesn’t look at damian, doesn’t offer his usual sarcasm or smirk.
damian’s gaze drops toward his pocket, catching a glimpse of the corner of the photo. “what are you looking at?”
“nothing,” jason says quickly. too quickly. “mind your own business, kid.”
he grabs his helmet and stalks toward his bike, the movement too sharp, too rehearsed. before damian can ask another question, the engine roars to life, echoing off the stone walls of the cave. by the time the sound fades, jason is gone, leaving the air smelling faintly of exhaust and something unspoken.
damian glances around the space where jason had been standing. something small rests on the edge of the workbench. the photo.
he hesitates only a moment before picking it up. it’s old, the corners creased and soft. a younger jason, maybe fifteen, smiling wide beside a girl his age. she’s bright-eyed, laughing at something behind the camera. damian studies the image longer than he means to, struck by how open jason looks. he doesn’t think he’s ever seen that version of him.
curiosity pulls him deeper into the cave. the computer hums to life under his fingertips, the screen filling with layers of search prompts. he uploads the image, isolates the girl’s face, and runs it through the facial recognition system.
the search takes a few minutes. while he waits, damian leans back, studying the picture again. the girl’s smile is so real it almost feels like she’s still laughing somewhere, still out there.
a soft beep breaks his thoughts. results populate across the screen. name, address, employment. she stayed in gotham. no criminal record, no aliases. a normal life, at least on paper.
he clicks through her files one by one, reading the small, ordinary details. then something catches his eye; a hospital record dated five years ago. childbirth. the listed father’s name is blank.
he narrows his eyes, pulling the full medical document. the patient’s age, location, the date of birth — all of it lines up. he cross-references it with his family’s old files, timelines, mission logs.
jason todd’s official death certificate: eight months before the child was born.
for a long moment, damian just stares at the screen. the cave hums around him, low and distant. he glances at the photo again, at jason’s younger face, bright and alive, then back to the data in front of him.
he’s so focused he doesn’t hear footsteps until a voice breaks the silence. “whatchu looking at?”
tim stands behind him, hair messy, one hand still holding a mug of coffee. he blinks at the computer screens, at the old photo damian hasn’t hidden, and frowns. “that’s jason, right? he looks young. who’s the girl?”
damian doesn’t answer. instead, he brings up another window, layering records, piecing together the information faster now that he knows what to look for. “she had a child,” he says eventually, his voice quieter than usual. “five years old. born eight months after todd’s death.”
tim steps closer, leaning in and setting the mug down beside the keyboard. “you think the kid’s his.”
“i don’t think,” damian replies, scrolling through the files. “i know.”
tim leans forward, scanning the data himself. medical records, school enrollment, archived birth certificate. the child’s last name matches the mother’s, no mention of a father. he looks closer at the child’s listed name.
first name: elizabeth
middle name: todd
“holy shit,” tim murmurs.
they work in silence after that, every keystroke measured, methodical. tim tracks down old addresses and cross-references them with known red hood sightings over the past few years. damian pulls up archived city cameras, comparing timestamps and locations.
tim’s voice is quieter when he says, “he doesn’t know.”
“no,” damian replies, his expression unreadable. “he doesn’t.”
the two of them exchange a glance — not the usual tension, but something heavier. for once, neither has a quip ready.
tim finally breaks the silence. “we can’t just tell bruce.”
“of course not,” damian says. “not now at least.”
tim nods, rubbing the back of his neck. “so what do we do?”
“we find proof,” damian says. “irrefutable. and then we tell him ourselves.”
tim lets out a long breath but doesn’t argue. he sits beside damian and opens another database, his fingers moving in rhythm with the younger boy’s.
the hours slip by. medical records confirm it again and again. the timelines overlap too perfectly to be coincidence. jason todd died, and eight months later, a child with his eyes was born.
when they finally stop, the evidence glows across the monitors in quiet, damning light.
tim leans back, staring at it all. “he’s going to break when he finds out.”
“maybe,” damian says, folding his arms. “but he deserves to know.”
the cave settles into silence again, the hum of the computers steady and constant. outside, rain starts to fall against the surface world. steady, cold, relentless.
and somewhere in that rain, jason todd rides through the city unaware that two of his brothers are sitting beneath it, staring at the truth that’s about to change everything.
“that tickles!”
lizzie’s laughter rings through the bedroom, bright and unrestrained, as you try to run the brush through her damp curls. she wiggles away from your hand, kicking her legs under the blankets, water still clinging to her lashes. her cheeks are flushed, eyes sparkling like the day hasn’t ended yet.
“baby, you need to calm down,” you say through your own laugh, though your voice comes out more fond than stern. you press a kiss to her temple and set the brush down, fingers still smelling faintly of her shampoo.
“i can’t, mama,” she giggles, hopping off the bed to follow you into the bathroom. “it’s too early.”
“it’s nine o’clock,” you remind her, tossing the brush back into the drawer.
“too early,” she insists, peering up at you with the kind of stubborn confidence that makes her look so much like him it hurts. “can i sleep with you tonight?”
you sigh, half-exasperated, half-defeated. she always asks, and you always say yes. because she clings to you like you’re the last solid thing in the world, and truth be told, on nights like this, you need her warmth just as much as she needs yours.
“yeah, baby,” you murmur softly. “go hop in bed, i’ll be there in a second.”
lizzie grins, triumphant, and darts back into your room. you linger a little longer, washing your hands, staring at the reflection in the mirror. tired eyes, a few stray ink stains from work still on your fingers, and that same small, wistful smile that always comes during this time of night.
when you walk back into the room, lizzie’s already tucked under the blankets, surrounded by a pile of stuffed animals. in her lap is a worn, familiar hardcover. pride and prejudice. she hugs it to her chest like a treasure.
“again?” you tease gently, sitting down beside her.
lizzie grins, curls bouncing. “duh,” she says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “start where we left last time.”
you smile, a quiet warmth settling in your chest. “fair enough.”
you sit down beside her, smoothing a wrinkle from the blanket as she presses the book into your hands. the spine is cracked from years of use, the edges soft from being thumbed through so many times. you find the folded corner that marks your place and open to chapter thirty-four. you begin to read, voice soft and rhythmic, the words filling the room like a lullaby.
“When they were gone, Elizabeth, as if intending to exasperate herself as much as possible against Mr. Darcy, chose for her employment the examination of all the letters which Jane had written to her since her being in Kent.”
the words are familiar, not just to you but to her too. she mouths some of them under her breath, pretending to read along, her lashes already fluttering with the first signs of sleep.
you pause once to glance at her. she’s resting her head on your arm now, eyes heavy, one hand clutching the edge of your sleeve. you smile faintly and keep reading, slower now, letting the story unfurl.
by the time you reach the end of the chapter, her breathing has evened out completely. her lips part slightly as she drifts off, the faintest trace of a smile still on her face.
you close the book gently, running your thumb over the worn cover before setting it aside on the nightstand. the room smells faintly of lavender shampoo and rain from the open window.
you turn off the light and lie beside her, feeling her small body instinctively curl closer. her curls brush against your chin, and you rest your hand against her back, tracing slow circles until your own breathing matches hers…
“this feels like an invasion of privacy.”
“it is,” damian replies flatly, not even looking at tim as he adjusts his position on the narrow rooftop ledge. his voice carries the infuriating calm that makes tim want to shove him off it.
below them, through the cracked curtains, the apartment is bathed in warm lamplight. they’ve been there for almost an hour now, watching in guilty silence as you brush your daughter’s hair, read to her, and eventually turn off the light. the two boys look more like burglars than detectives. hoods up, crouched near your window, trying not to make a sound.
tim exhales quietly, rubbing at his temple. “you know we said we’d tell jason the next morning after we found her, right? not stake out her apartment like a pair of creeps.”
“you said that,” damian corrects, eyes never leaving the window. “i said we should confirm what we saw.”
tim rolls his eyes. “oh right, confirm it by stalking a single mom and her kid. real noble of you, robin.”
“tt. you wanted to see her too.”
tim doesn’t bother denying it. his throat feels tight at the thought. “yeah, maybe i did. just… not like this.”
the room below has gone dark now, the only light coming from the faint glow of the city bleeding through the curtains. damian shifts slightly, the leather of his boots scuffing against the concrete.
“so what do we do?” tim asks quietly. “we can’t keep this from him forever.”
before damian can respond, a voice behind them says, “so which one of you is going to explain why we’re looking through this random window?”
both of them freeze. damian’s hand twitches toward his katana before he recognizes the voice.
dick grayson stands a few feet behind them, arms folded, expression unreadable in the low light. his mask catches the faint reflection from a nearby streetlight, and he looks equal parts exhausted and unimpressed.
“you’ve got to be kidding me,” tim mutters under his breath.
“we can explain,” damian says immediately, straightening his posture like he’s standing at attention.
“you better explain,” dick says, stepping closer to the ledge and glancing down at the apartment below. “because from where i’m standing, it looks like the two of you are about three minutes away from a restraining order.”
tim sighs, dragging a hand down his face. “okay, but— listen, we didn’t mean for it to go this far. we found something, and then it just… spiraled.”
“spiraled into felony-level surveillance?” dick raises a brow. “that’s not a great look, guys.”
“todd has a child,” damian blurts out before tim can stop him.
the words hang there for a moment, heavy and disbelieving. dick blinks once. “what?”
tim exhales. “we found records… medical, school, the whole thing. we double-checked everything. the timelines line up. she was born eight months after he died.”
dick looks from one brother to the other, his expression softening as the words sink in. “you’re sure?”
“completely,” tim says quietly. “we saw them. her and her mom.”
“her name is elizabeth,” damian adds, almost defensively. “she’s five. she likes books and skipped senior kindergarten.”
dick runs a hand through his hair, letting out a long, low breath. “jesus.” he leans forward slightly, peering through the window just enough to catch a glimpse of the dim room below, the faint outline of you curled beside a sleeping child.
“does he know?” dick asks after a moment.
tim shakes his head. “not yet. we wanted to be certain first.”
“and?”
“we are,” tim says. “it’s her. it’s his.”
dick stares down at the apartment for a long while, the faintest smile ghosting at the edge of his mouth before a look of worry takes over. “he’s going to lose it when he finds out,” he whispers.
“yeah,” tim agrees, his tone bittersweet. “but… maybe not in a bad way.”
the three of them stand there in silence for a moment, the sounds of gotham humming low beneath them. distant sirens, the rattle of the wind, the faint echo of the city carrying on.
then dick straightens, clapping a hand on tim’s shoulder. “come on,” he says. “we’ll tell him tomorrow. all of us.”
damian nods, glancing one last time through the window before turning away. “he deserves to know.”
tim lingers a moment longer, watching the faint glow behind the curtains, the shadow of the woman and child asleep inside. “yeah,” he murmurs. “he does.”
and as they disappear into the night, the city stretches out below them — endless, sprawling, alive, unaware that one small apartment has already changed everything.
the morning light creeps in through the blinds like it’s testing jason’s patience. he groans, rolling onto his back and staring at the cracked ceiling for a while before deciding to move. his alarm never went off. or maybe he turned it off in his sleep again. either way, the sound of gotham outside feels a little too loud for the early hour.
he drags himself through the motions. shower, toothbrush, dark jeans, worn jacket. the mirror fogs up while he runs a hand through his damp hair, the smell of cheap coffee grounds already drifting from the kitchen. routine keeps him steady, the predictability of it.
he burns the toast. again.
“figures,” he mutters, scraping the black edges off with a knife that’s seen better days.
his phone buzzes. roy’s name flashes on the screen. he ignores it. then a message from dick, something short like “you coming by the manor today?” followed by a smiley face emoji.
he frowns. dick doesn’t usually text before noon.
still, he goes. he tells himself it’s because alfred probably made something worth the trip, not because part of him misses the noise of the manor.
the drive’s quiet. gotham’s skies hang low and gray, the sort of morning that smells like rain but never delivers. the gates swing open automatically when he pulls up, and the manor looms above him, too big, too familiar.
inside, it’s the same as ever. spotless. quiet except for the faint clink of dishes from the kitchen.
tim’s in the dining room when he walks in, sitting with a newspaper that he’s definitely not reading. the paper’s upside down, for one.
“morning,” jason says.
tim startles slightly, straightening the paper like that’ll hide it. “hey,” he says, smiling too quickly.
across from him, damian’s hunched over a sketchbook, though his pencil hasn’t moved in the last two minutes. he doesn’t look up.
“you two look… normal,” jason says, drawing the word out as he pours himself coffee.
“we are normal,” tim says immediately.
damian grunts. “speak for yourself.”
jason hums, leaning back against the counter. he takes a slow sip of his coffee, watching them like someone waiting for a punchline.
something’s off.
tim’s voice is too even. damian’s too quiet. neither of them will meet his eyes.
“where’s dick?” jason asks after a beat.
“in the cave,” tim says. “busy.”
“busy with what?”
“things.”
“ah,” jason nods, smirking. “things. very specific.”
tim clears his throat and looks back at the paper, pretending to read about stocks or politics or whatever the upside-down headline says. damian shifts in his seat, his expression calm in that fake way he gets when he’s hiding something.
the silence stretches, heavy and strange.
finally, jason pushes off the counter and grabs a piece of toast from the plate on the table. “you two are terrible liars,” he says easily, half a grin tugging at his mouth. “whatever you broke, it’s not my problem.”
tim forces a laugh that sounds way too bright. “we didn’t break anything.”
damian rolls his eyes. “stop talking.”
“you stop talking.”
“no, you—”
“what did i say about bickering in the dining room?” alfred’s voice cuts through the air as he steps in, carrying a tray of coffee refills.
they both shut up instantly.
alfred sets the tray down, offering jason a polite nod. “good morning, master jason. lovely to see you joining us.”
“yeah, well,” jason says, shrugging, “couldn’t pass up the chance to see gotham’s most awkward breakfast club.”
tim hides a nervous smile behind his mug. damian pretends not to hear.
alfred gives them all a look that could probably disarm a bomb, then turns to leave. “eat while it’s still warm,” he says, and disappears down the hall.
once he’s gone, the tension creeps back in.
tim fidgets with the corner of the paper. damian’s gaze flicks toward his brother, then away again. they’re both quiet — too quiet for them — and it’s starting to make jason’s skin itch.
“seriously,” he says finally, “what’s going on with you two?”
tim’s head snaps up. “nothing’s going on.”
“uh-huh.”
“really.”
“you’re acting weirder than usual, and that’s saying something.”
“we’re fine,” damian insists, voice clipped.
“sure you are,” jason says, but his tone softens. he lets it go, mostly. there’s only so much weird he can handle before his second cup of coffee.
still, as he sits down, he catches the brief look that passes between them — a flicker of something unspoken. guilt, maybe. or nerves.
whatever it is, it’s about him. he can feel it.
and when dick finally walks in a few minutes later, hair clinging to his forehead from the shower, smile too easy, both tim and damian straighten just a little too fast.
“morning,” dick says.
they echo the greeting in unison.
jason squints at them over his mug. “what, you three rehearsing lines now?”
“just being polite,” dick says with that same practiced calm, but his eyes don’t quite meet jason’s.
and that’s when it hits him. the subtle shift in their voices, the quiet glances, the way they move around him like something fragile’s about to crack.
jason’s halfway through his second cup of coffee when dick gives tim a look across the table, all eyebrows and silent communication. damian catches it too, and for once, doesn’t immediately roll his eyes. the three of them seem to share a collective breath, like they’ve silently agreed this is it.
“so, uh,” tim starts, shifting in his seat. “there’s something we kind of need to tell you.”
jason hums, not looking up from his plate. “if it’s about my stash in the garage, that’s not for you.”
“no, it’s not—” tim pauses, realizing how that sounds. “okay, it’s definitely not that.”
dick leans forward slightly, resting his elbows on the table. “it’s… something important, jay.”
there’s a tone in his voice that makes jason finally glance up. the usual sarcasm drains a little, replaced by cautious curiosity. “okay,” he says slowly. “then what is it?”
damian looks uncomfortable. that’s new. his posture’s too rigid, and he’s been staring at the same crumb on the table for the last minute like it might save him.
“it concerns your—” damian begins.
but before he can finish, the sound of heavy footsteps fills the hallway.
bruce walks in first, looking like he hasn’t slept in three days. which, to be fair, he probably hasn’t. duke trails behind him, scrolling through something on his phone, and steph follows last, her hair pulled into a messy ponytail and her hoodie about three sizes too big.
“morning, bitches,” steph says brightly, grabbing a chair and spinning it around so she can straddle it backward. “alfred said there’s bacon left. i call dibs.”
“good morning,” duke adds, smiling as he sits beside her. “you’re all up early.”
bruce doesn’t say anything, just nods and heads straight for the coffee pot. the room fills with the quiet clink of the mug and the faint shuffle of movement.
dick visibly deflates. tim’s mouth opens, then closes again. damian looks like someone just stole his sketchbook.
bruce finally sits, stirring his coffee absently. “alfred insisted.”
“of course he did,” tim mutters under his breath.
the conversation around the table drifts into something normal. or at least as normal as it gets in the wayne household. steph teases duke about his playlist, damian complains about cass stealing his training gear, tim keeps fidgeting with his phone, and dick… keeps looking at jason like he’s trying to work up the nerve to say something again.
but there’s no way now. not with bruce here, not with half the family joking and passing plates around. the timing’s gone.
jason doesn’t notice. or maybe he just doesn’t want to. he’s too busy buttering toast, half-listening to the noise around him, pretending this feels like just another morning.
“so what was that thing you wanted to tell me?” he asks casually, looking up from his plate.
the table goes quiet for a second too long.
“uh,” dick says, clearing his throat. “it can wait.”
“yeah,” tim echoes, forcing a grin. “nothing urgent.”
damian’s jaw tightens. “for now.”
“for now?” jason repeats, eyebrow raised.
bruce looks up from his mug, gaze flicking between them. “something you three need to share?”
“nope,” dick says a little too quickly. “just… something minor.”
bruce studies him for a beat longer, then goes back to his coffee.
jason snorts, unconvinced but not pushing it. “you’re all getting weirder by the day.”
“takes one to know one,” steph mutters, earning a smirk from duke.
dick laughs, the sound too forced. he glances at tim, who’s avoiding his eyes, and at damian, who looks one deep breath away from snapping.
they’d planned to tell him. they’d agreed this was the morning.
but as bruce starts discussing patrol rotations, and steph reaches for more toast, and jason leans back in his chair with that familiar half-smile — that same unguarded ease that makes him look younger, lighter — the words die in all their throats.
not now. not yet.
because how do you tell someone their life changed five years ago without them ever knowing?
so they wait. for a quieter moment. for better timing. for courage.
the quieter moment never comes.
the manor settles into its usual hush after midnight. lights dim, footsteps fading, the soft hum of the cave below like a heartbeat under the floorboards. jason gets back from patrol long after the others, armor still dusted with grime and the faint sting of adrenaline wearing off in his veins.
he heads down to the batcave out of habit more than need. barbara’s offline, her chair empty and monitors dark. it’s quiet, which means he can use the batcomputer without her watching over his shoulder or bruce hovering with a lecture.
the glow of the screens paints him in blue light as he types in a name. a trafficker he’s been hunting through the narrows, a lead that’s been eating at him all week.
then something flickers.
a new file loads. it’s not what he was looking for. it’s a list, cross-referenced names, civilian records. his brows knit as he scrolls down, irritation quickly turning to confusion.
and then he sees it.
your name.
he freezes. his fingers stop moving, breath catching in his throat.
he scrolls down again, slower this time. one name becomes two. the second is smaller, placed under yours, in the neat system font that suddenly feels cruel. a child. five years old. birthdate falling eight months after he died.
he stares at the screen, the cursor blinking like it’s mocking him. each click opens another page, another piece of your life that he didn’t get to see. schools, medical forms, birthdays, grocery receipts, even a video still from a city camera, your face turned toward the little girl with the same dark hair and green eyes that could only come from him.
the realization hits like a punch to the gut.
he can’t breathe.
for a second, all he can hear is the low hum of the cave and the echo of his own heartbeat. nausea curls up from his stomach, tight and hot, but the sickness quickly burns into something else. something sharper.
anger.
it floods through him, quick and merciless.
his chair scrapes hard against the floor as he stands, every muscle locked tight. his fists shake. there’s too much heat in his chest, too much static in his head.
and then he hears it. footsteps. the sound of the elevator doors sliding open.
bruce.
he’s barely through the entrance before jason’s on him.
“how fucking dare you?”
bruce doesn’t even get a word out before jason’s got him by the collar, slamming him against the concrete wall hard enough for the sound to echo through the cave.
“jason,” bruce grits out, his hands half-raised. “what—”
“don’t you dare play dumb,” jason snaps, voice low, shaking, almost vulnerable. “how long have you known? about her? about them?”
bruce stares, eyes narrowing in genuine confusion. “what are you talking about?”
“don’t lie to me!” jason’s voice cracks, raw and furious. “you’ve been keeping tabs on them, haven’t you? all this time— my kid, my kid, and you never said a goddamn word!”
bruce’s brow furrows, the confusion deepening. “jason, I don’t—”
but jason’s already pulling back like he might hit him, the fury boiling over. his knuckles are white, chest heaving, tears threatening to fall down his face. “you had no right,” he spits. “no fucking right—”
“what’s going on?”
the voice cuts through the noise.
they both turn.
dick’s standing at the entrance to the cave, still in his suit, mask pushed back onto his curls. tim and damian are behind him, both looking something between exhausted and dreadful.
the air in the cave shifts instantly.
bruce straightens, brushing off his collar, his jaw tight. “your brother seems to think I’ve been keeping something from him.”
“seems?” jason laughs, sharp and humorless. “you’re damn right you have—”
but he pauses for a moment when he sees tim’s face.
guilt. plain and visible, written all over him.
“tim,” jason says, voice dropping an octave. “you knew too.”
tim hesitates, eyes darting to dick, then to damian, then back to jason. “jason, listen—”
“you knew.”
damian steps forward before tim can speak again. “he’s right,” he says bluntly. “we did.”
the words hang in the air like smoke.
jason’s whole body stills. his grip loosens. “we?” he repeats.
“it wasn’t bruce,” dick says quietly. “it was us. we found something a few days ago. records, photos. we wanted to tell you, but we needed to be sure.”
“sure?” jason’s voice shakes, half disbelief, half rage. “you thought you’d just play detective with my life until it was convenient?”
“we didn’t want to blindside you,” tim says quickly. “we didn’t even know if—”
“if what?” jason cuts in, stepping toward him now. “if she was mine? if it mattered?”
damian folds his arms, meeting his brother’s fury with a steady, solemn expression. “it always mattered. we just wanted to confirm the truth before we handed you pain you weren’t ready for.”
“don’t talk to me like you know what I’m ready for,” jason snarls.
“we weren’t trying to hurt you,” dick adds, voice low but firm. “we were trying to protect you.”
“yeah?” jason laughs bitterly. “you ever think maybe I didn’t need protection? maybe I just needed someone to tell me the damn truth?”
silence.
bruce stands back, still tense, still confused, but quiet now. letting the brothers hash it out.
“how long?” jason finally asks, quieter now, but no less angry.
tim swallows hard. “almost a week.”
“and you watched me sit here,” jason says slowly, like every word is costing him something, “not knowing that I had a daughter out there.”
tim looks down. damian stays still. dick doesn’t speak.
for a moment, all that fills the cave is the distant hum of machinery, the faint clicking of cooling metal.
then jason laughs again. hollow, tired, aching. “you’re all real pieces of work, you know that?”
he turns away before any of them can respond.
“jason,” dick calls softly, but he doesn’t stop.
he grabs his helmet from the workbench, the red light flickering to life as he slides it on. “don’t follow me,” he says, voice muffled but firm. “not tonight.”
and then he’s gone. the rumble of his boots fading into the sound of the elevator doors closing behind him.
the three brothers stand in the silence he leaves behind, the echo of his anger still heavy in the air.
bruce looks at them finally, his expression unreadable. “what did you find?”
tim hesitates, then quietly answers, “his family.”
jason doesn’t go home that night.
he rides until the city bleeds into nothing, until gotham’s skyline becomes a smudge of light and shadow in his mirrors. the wind bites at his face, sharp enough to sting but not sharp enough to quiet his thoughts. the hum of the engine under him feels like the only thing tethering him to the present. every streetlight he passes flickers like it’s judging him, like the whole city knows what he found.
eventually, the roads thin out, and he ends up at one of his safe houses. one of the older ones, one that nobody else remembers exists. the lock sticks; he kicks the door open and lets it slam behind him. the sound echoes in the empty space.
he drops his helmet on the table and stares at it. the silence that follows is too heavy.
he runs a hand through his hair, pacing. he doesn’t want to sit down because sitting feels too final, too much like giving in. but when he finally does, the couch creaks under his weight, and all the air leaves his lungs at once.
the file still burns in the back of his mind — your name, the child’s name, the dates that line up too perfectly to ignore. he can still see your face in the picture, smiling that small, distracted smile that used to drive him crazy when you were trying to look composed and couldn’t quite manage it. beside you, a little girl with wild curls and bright eyes. his eyes.
he doesn’t need a test to tell him. he knows.
he thought he’d buried every version of himself that could still be surprised by pain, but apparently not. because this isn’t the sharp kind. it’s the deep, sinking kind that makes it hard to breathe.
he presses his palms into his eyes, like maybe he can push the thoughts away if he presses hard enough.
you must’ve gone through hell.
raising a kid alone at an age so young. working. surviving gotham. doing all of it while he was underground, rotting, clawing his way back to a life that kept moving without him. he tries to picture it, you holding a newborn, probably exhausted, probably crying, but still fighting. because that’s who you were, who you are.
and where was he? in a coffin. in a pit. in the red hood’s armor, trying to pretend revenge could fill the hole in his heart.
you deserved better. both of you did.
the anger he feels isn’t loud. it’s quiet, simmering, the kind that builds and builds until you forget where it started. he’s angry at himself, at the universe, at everyone who knew you back then and never told him. and beneath all of that, beneath the guilt and the fury, there’s something gentler, something terrifying.
he still loves you.
he realizes it like an old scar’s ache. faint, but impossible to ignore. maybe it never really went away.
he remembers the sound of your laugh, the way you’d quote books he never understood, how you’d press your hand against his chest when he got too wound up and just whisper, “breathe.” he hadn’t thought about that in years.
and maybe what he feels now isn’t exactly love. maybe it’s something tangled up with memory and regret. but it’s close enough to hurt like it.
love doesn’t survive death. it shouldn’t. but maybe the part of him that came back from the grave brought it with him anyway.
when morning comes, he’s still on that couch. the city light spills pale through the cracked blinds, dust motes turning in the air like snow. he’s exhausted but wired, an exhaustion that sleep won’t fix.
he makes coffee — black, bitter, cheap — and stands by the window as he drinks it, staring at the streets below.
what’s she like? does she smile like you? does she talk too much, read too fast, ask too many questions? does she have your patience or his temper?
he swallows hard.
does she know him at all? did you tell her stories about him, or did you let him become a ghost? a name you never say out loud?
the thought twists something in him, but he can’t blame you for it. maybe you were protecting her. maybe that’s what good mothers do.
he wants to see her. that’s the part that terrifies him most. not the idea of finding you, but of seeing her and realizing what he missed. the birthdays, the first steps, the scraped knees, the school plays. five years of moments that never had his shadow in them.
how do you make up for that?
he doesn’t know. he’s never been good at soft things, never been good at asking for forgiveness. he’s rough edges and broken timing. what could he even say to you? sorry for dying? sorry for coming back too late?
he laughs under his breath, but it sounds hollow.
the next few days pass in fragments. no sleep, no real meals, just coffee that goes cold before he finishes it and the constant lump in his throat. he doesn’t go back to the manor. he can’t. the thought of facing them, of seeing pity in their eyes, makes his stomach twist even more.
he keeps his distance, but he can’t stay still. jason’s always been a man who needs motion when his mind gets too loud. so he rides all through the night, through alleys and rooftops and streets that mesh together until he forgets where he’s going. when he finally stops, it’s outside a convenience store. he picks up a copy of the gotham gazette without even thinking about it.
he doesn’t expect to see your name there.
but it’s printed right under the title of a feature column, small and neat, the same way it was written in the school newspaper, though it feels a lot more serious now.
he stands on the curb, reading the first few lines, helmet under one arm. it’s about something mundane. a story on a community garden opening in west gotham. but he can hear you in it. the way you write is the same as you used to talk: quiet, observant, warm. you always noticed small things other people didn’t.
he buys every paper he can find after that. stacks of them end up on his kitchen counter, some old, some new. he spends hours going through the archives online too, scrolling through old columns, human-interest stories, interviews. the more he reads, the more he feels the years collapsing in on themselves.
you never left gotham. you stayed right in the heart of it, writing about its people like you still believed there was good to find here. he doesn’t know if that makes him proud or furious.
he reads a short editorial you wrote two years ago for the gotham university newsletter about motherhood, about how it changes the way a person measures time. some days it feels like i’ve lived a lifetime in three years, you wrote, and some days it feels like i blinked and she grew up.
he rereads that one more times than he’ll admit.
it’s strange. he’s spent his whole life trying to understand people through what they do, through what they fight for. but with you, it’s in what you notice, what you choose to write down. there’s an intimacy in your words that feels like home, even after all this time.
and then there’s the part that hurts: he can see traces of her in your stories. little mentions. not by name, never in detail, but enough to tell him you’re proud. my daughter insists flowers grow better when you talk to them, one line reads. another mentions a little girl who believes every cat in the city is secretly a vigilante.
he reads those lines until they blur.
each time he closes the paper, he promises himself he’ll stop. but every morning, he finds himself looking again. he doesn’t even know what he’s looking for anymore. maybe a sign, maybe an opening, maybe proof that it’s not too late.
the nights are worse. he finds himself standing on rooftops near your neighborhood without meaning to. he knows exactly where you live now. he didn’t want to know, but he couldn’t stop himself once he started digging.
he never gets closer than a block away. just stands there, hands in his jacket pockets, watching the warm glow of your apartment light through distant windows. it’s pathetic, he thinks, but he can’t help it. there’s something grounding about knowing you’re still there, real and alive in a way he didn’t think he deserved to see again.
the more he learns, the heavier it gets. the anger, the guilt, the longing. it all churns together until he doesn’t know which is which. he wants to be angry at himself for not telling anyone about you back then. he wants to be angry at himself for dying, for making it impossible for you to tell him about her.
but mostly, he just feels tired.
every night ends the same. him on the couch, papers spread out, your words staring back at him. his fingers trace over your byline like it’s something fragile, something alive.
he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do next. not that he needs to, dick decides that for him.
the knock at his door starts early in the morning. he thinks at first it might be a neighbour or some delivery mix-up. it keeps going, steady and rhythmic, until a voice follows.
“i know you’re in there, little wing.”
he groans. he knows that voice. it’s warm but firm, laced with that eldest brother patience that makes him want to hit something.
“not today,” he mutters to himself, sinking deeper into the couch.
the knocking gets louder.
“i’m serious, open the door or i’m climbing through the damn window,” dick says.
that gets him up. he drags himself to the door and opens it halfway, squinting into the morning light. “you’re unbelievable,” he mutters.
dick doesn’t wait for permission. he walks right in, taking in the apartment like someone stepping into a storm shelter after a hurricane. his eyes land on the papers scattered across the table, your name printed over and over.
“you’ve been busy,” dick says, voice careful.
“don’t start,” jason replies, shutting the door behind him a little too hard.
dick looks at the mess again. there’s no judgment in his face, only that infuriating mix of concern and sympathy. he’s holding back questions, jason can tell.
“you’ve been off the radar,” dick finally says. “tim said you’ve been ignoring him. damian too. well, everyone really.”
“yeah, well, i’m not really in the mood for family bonding.”
“you never are.”
jason glares at him. “you here to lecture me or what?”
“i’m here because you’re hurting,” dick says simply. “and because i know what it looks like when you try to pretend you’re not.”
jason exhales through his nose and rubs the back of his neck. “you think you know everything, don’t you?”
“i know enough.” dick steps closer to the table and picks up one of the gazettes. he scans the byline and looks up at jason, eyes softer now. “she’s good,” he says. “really good.”
jason looks away. “you shouldn’t know about that.”
“tim told me,” dick admits. “and damian. hell, if damian thinks she’s good she must be phenomenal— anyway, they’re worried about you, i’m worried about you.”
jason lets out a low laugh, sounding more tired than amused. “great. everyone’s worried. that’s new.”
dick sets the paper down gently. “they only told me because they thought you might need someone to talk to. they didn’t mean to hurt you, jason. they just didn’t want you to go through it alone.”
“too late for that,” jason mutters.
the silence after that feels thick enough to choke on.
“yeah,” jason finally says, voice low. “before you start, i haven’t done anything. i’m not going to show up and ruin her life.”
“you don’t know that’s what would happen,” dick retorts gently.
“come on, dick. look at me. i’m not the guy she used to know. i’m not the guy she’d want around a kid. especially not her kid.”
“you don’t get to decide that for her.”
jason’s jaw tightens. “i think i do.”
“no, you don’t,” dick says firmly. “you don’t get to erase yourself from her life forever just because it’s easier than facing what happened.”
“you think this is easy?” jason snaps, voice rising. “you think it’s easy knowing she went through all that alone while i was—” he cuts himself off, swallowing hard. “while i was… gone.”
dick doesn’t back down. “no, i don’t think it’s easy. but i think you owe it to both of them to try. to show up. even if it’s messy. even if it hurts.”
jason turns away, gripping the back of a chair so hard his knuckles go white. “she’s better off without me. they both are.”
“you really believe that?”
he doesn’t answer.
dick sighs and takes a step closer. “you can’t undo what happened. but you can decide what you do now. you’ve got a chance to make something right, jay. maybe not everything, but something.”
for a long moment, neither of them speaks, everything feels to heavy.
finally, jason lets go of the chair and sinks down onto the couch. “i wouldn’t even know what to say,” he admits, voice quiet now. “not like this kind of thing happens often.”
“you don’t have to have the perfect words,” dick says. “just be honest. tell her the truth. tell her you’re alive, for starters. tell her you’re sorry.”
“you make it sound so simple.”
“it’s not,” dick says, a small smile pulling at his mouth. “but it’s worth it.”
jason looks down at the papers again. your words, your thoughts, your life written in printer ink. the same voice he used to wake up to, now out there for the whole city to read.
he sighs, the sound rough in his throat. “you think she’d even listen to me?”
“i think she might,” dick says. “and if she doesn’t, at least you’ll know you tried. at least you won’t have to keep wondering.”
jason sits there for a while, staring at the stack of papers. his hand drifts to the top one, tracing over your byline with his thumb.
when he finally looks up, there’s something different in his expression. not peace, exactly, but something close. resolve.
“fine,” he says. “i’ll talk to her.”
dick smiles faintly, relief softening his shoulders. “good. and hey, i can come with you if you want. moral support.”
jason shakes his head. “no. i’ve got to do this myself.”
“then do it. before you talk yourself out of it again.”
dick claps a hand on his shoulder before leaving, the door clicking softly behind him.
for a long time after, jason just sits there, staring at the papers spread across his table. outside, morning is starting to break, pale light creeping through the blinds.
he breathes in slow and steady, like he used to before going into a fight. maybe this will be one too — just a different kind.
he gathers the papers into a neat pile, grabs his jacket, and finally steps outside. the city feels heavy but alive, full of potential and second chances.
for the first time in years, jason doesn’t turn away from it. he starts walking.
he doesn’t mean to end up there. he tells himself he’s just riding, clearing his head, burning through the nerves that have been eating him alive since dick left his apartment this morning. but somehow, when he finally stops, he’s parked across the street from the gotham gazette.
he kills the engine and just sits there, staring at the glass doors. people move in and out, clutching papers and coffee, talking fast into their phones. he can see the reflection of his bike in the windows and feels absurdly out of place.
for ten minutes, he doesn’t move. his heart’s beating too hard, his palms slick against the leather of his gloves. he’s thought about this a hundred times — how it might go, what he’d say, how you’d react — but now that he’s here, the weight of it freezes him.
does he just walk in and ask for you? what would he even say? hey, remember me, the guy who died and came back wrong? surprise, I know we have a kid.
he grimaces at the thought, jaw tight.
he’s still debating whether to leave when the doors open and you step outside.
you’re on your phone, scrolling, a half-empty cup of coffee in your other hand. the afternoon light hits you in a way that makes his breath catch. it’s you, but older. softer somehow, but more mature. your hair’s longer, your clothes are the same kind of whimsical they were when you were fifteen, but now work-worn. he shouldn’t notice this much, but he can’t help it.
it’s noon, he realizes. lunch break. fate’s cruel sense of timing hasn’t changed.
he takes a step forward before he can talk himself out of it.
you don’t look up right away. you’re smiling faintly at something on your screen, and for a split second, he gets to see what your life looks like when you’re unbothered, unguarded. and then your eyes lift, catching on the figure standing across the street.
you freeze.
the world goes silent for a beat. your fingers slip slightly on your phone, your breath stalling. it’s like your brain tries to make sense of what you’re seeing, but it can’t. because it can’t be him. it can’t.
he died.
and yet—
he looks older. broader shoulders. a streak of white cutting through dark hair. but the eyes god, those eyes, they’re the same. a little greener, but the same. the eyes that haunted too many dreams.
your lips part, air hitching, but no sound comes out.
he swallows hard, his throat dry. “hi,” he says softly, like the word might shatter if he says it too loud.
for a heartbeat, you just stare. your mind’s racing, trying to catch up to what your eyes already know. and then the world tilts.
the sound leaves your throat in a strangled breath as everything inside you collapses under the weight of disbelief. the pavement blurs, your vision narrowing, heart hammering too fast.
you hear him say your name. rough, desperate. but it’s already fading as your knees buckle.
he catches you before you hit the ground. his arms are around you in an instant, solid and familiar in a way that makes his chest ache.
“hey, hey, i got you,” he mutters, voice shaking. people are starting to notice, heads turning, but he doesn’t care. he crouches low, one hand at the back of your head, the other gripping your shoulder gently.
your phone lies forgotten on the sidewalk, screen somehow not shattered. he glances down at you, at the curve of your face, at the faint crease between your brows, and his heart breaks all over again.
you’re real. you’re here. and the sight of him made you fall apart.
he’s not sure if that’s better or worse than what he expected.
he exhales shakily, brushing a strand of hair from your face. “you’re okay,” he whispers, mostly to convince himself. “you’re okay, sweetheart.”
but his hands are trembling, and his pulse won’t slow down, because the truth is, he’s not sure if you’re okay. if he’s okay. not anymore.
he crouches next to you on the sidewalk, the sound of gotham around him muffled beneath the rush in his ears. his heart feels like it’s caught somewhere between disbelief and panic, watching you still and pale in his arms. people pass by, some slowing down to stare, others pretending not to notice, and jason barely registers any of it. he is too focused on the rise and fall of your breathing, too terrified that you’ll stop.
he kneels there for what feels like hours though it’s only a minute or two, his hand shaking slightly as he brushes the stray hairs away from your face. he says your name once, quiet and uncertain, and his stomach twists when you don’t respond right away.
then you move. a soft sound leaves your throat, a small groan, and your eyes flutter open. you blink up at him, confusion clouding your eyes.
“hey,” he murmurs, his voice softer than it’s been in years. “you’re okay. you fainted, but you’re alright.”
your eyes focus slowly. the first thing you see is him, his face hovering above yours, older but familiar in a way that makes your breath catch. you blink again, unsure if your mind is playing a cruel trick on you.
“jason?” your voice comes out cracked.
he exhales, shoulders sagging with relief and guilt all at once. “yeah,” he says, voice barely audible. “it’s me.”
you stare at him, too stunned to speak. your body feels weak, your mind a blur of memories you thought you buried forever ago. when he helps you sit up, the world tilts for a second and he steadies you instinctively, his hand warm at your back.
the sound of a door opening behind you makes both of you turn. your editor in chief rushes out of the gotham gazette building, his tie loose, his face pale.
“jesus, we thought you hit your head,” he mutters with a gotham accent almost as thick as jason’s, crouching beside you. “you scared the hell out of us, kid.”
you try to sit straighter, embarrassed by the growing crowd. “i’m okay,” you say weakly, but the look he gives you says he doesn’t buy it.
he glances at jason, taking in the leather jacket, the streak of white in his hair, the way his arm is still around you. “you her boyfriend?” he asks bluntly.
you shake your head before jason can answer. “no. he’s— he’s an old friend.”
your editor looks between the two of you, clearly skeptical but too concerned to press further. “fine. old friend, boyfriend, whatever. take her home. she’s not coming back in today. and if i see her back here before tomorrow morning, i’m locking her out.”
you open your mouth to argue but he cuts you off with a hand. “nope. go. i’m not losing my best writer to stress or whatever the hell this is.”
he straightens up, mutters something about needing a drink, and disappears back into the building.
the street feels quieter after that. you and jason stay where you are for a moment, neither of you knowing what to say. the weight of five years sits heavy between you.
you finally look at him again, really look. the streak of white in his hair, the faint scar above his eyebrow, the tiredness that does not belong to someone his age. his eyes though, those are still the same.
“you’re alive,” you say softly, as if saying it too loudly might break the illusion.
he nods once, his throat tight. “yeah. for a while now.”
you draw in a shaky breath and press your hand to your chest like you’re trying to slow your own heartbeat. “they buried you,” you whisper, the words trembling out of you. “i saw the reports, the funeral—”
“i know,” he says, cutting in quietly. “i can explain.”
you swallow hard, your vision blurring. “how?”
he hesitates. there are a thousand answers in his head and none of them sound right. “i’ll figure it out,” he finally says. “just not here. somewhere a little more… private.”
the air between you feels heavy again. your lips part like you want to reply, but you can’t think of anything to say. you can feel your knees starting to shake again, exhaustion pulling you down.
“come on,” he murmurs, standing and offering his hand. “let’s get you home.”
you hesitate for only a moment before taking it. his grip is steady, warm, grounding in a way that makes something deep in your chest ache.
he walks you to your car in silence. neither of you speak, afraid that the moment will shatter if you do.
as you reach the driver’s side door, you look back at him once more, still searching for the boy you used to know in the man standing before you.
“follow me,” you say, your voice low but steady despite the tremor running through your hands.
jason blinks, caught off guard. “what?”
you glance up at him, the city light flickering across your face, making your expression unreadable. “follow me home,” you repeat. “i can’t just… go the rest of the day pretending this didn’t happen. i need to talk to you.”
he wants to argue. he wants to say it’s not a good idea, that too much has happened, that he doesn’t even know what to say once you’re alone. but the words won’t come. instead, he just breathes out slowly and nods.
“okay,” he says quietly. “we do need to talk, don’t we?”
you give a small, almost nervous smile before stepping back toward your car. “i’ll drive slow,” you say, your voice barely above a whisper.
“i’ll keep up,” he replies.
you nod once and slip into your car, shutting the door carefully as if any sudden movement might break the fragile calm between you. the engine hums to life, headlights cutting through the faint evening mist.
jason watches for a second, grounding himself in the sight of you actually there, moving, breathing, real. before he turns and walks toward where his bike is parked at the corner.
he pulls his helmet on, his fingers lingering against the edge of the visor as you pull out into traffic. the red glow of your taillights catches his attention immediately. he revs the engine and follows, keeping a careful distance.
the ride through gotham is quiet in a strange, yet peaceful way. the streets are slick from a drizzle earlier, and the glow of the streetlights stretches long across the asphalt. he stays behind you, watching the rhythm of your turns, the familiar way you drive. he remembers teaching you once. late nights, empty roads, the two of you laughing as you stalled the car for the fifth time.
he shakes the memory away, jaw tight. this isn’t the same. too much time has passed, too much has changed.
you drive through the old neighborhoods near downtown, the kind with brick buildings and flickering street lamps. when you finally slow and turn into a narrow street, he recognizes it vaguely. one of those quiet, tucked-away areas far enough from the chaos of gotham to almost feel safe.
you park in front of a three-story apartment building with ivy crawling up one side. your car door opens, and you step out, glancing behind you as if to make sure he really followed.
he kills the engine, the sudden silence pressing in on both of you.
you look at him for a long moment, searching his face for something. anger, regret, maybe the boy you once knew. whatever you find there makes you sigh softly, tension easing just slightly from your shoulders.
“come on,” you say, nodding toward the entrance. “we’ll talk inside.”
you look away first, unlocking the complex door with your card, pretending you don’t notice the way he stiffens slightly at the sound of it.
he follows you up the narrow stairs, the scent of rain and coffee lingering in the air. when you unlock your door, warmth spills out. not from the heat, but from the space itself. your apartment feels alive, soft, and lived in, like the kind of place that hums quietly even when empty.
sunlight filters through sheer curtains, painting the hardwood floor gold. books are stacked in uneven piles, some open, some bookmarked with crayon drawings. a record plays faintly from a corner, a low, scratchy jazz tune that makes the air feel slower.
there are plants in chipped mugs on the windowsill, a blanket tossed carelessly over the couch, and a tiny pair of pink sneakers by the door beside your own shoes. a child’s watercolor painting hangs on the fridge — a house, two stick figures, a red heart above them.
the whole place smells faintly of books and vanilla and something sweeter underneath, something warm and unmistakably you.
and standing in the doorway, jason realizes this is exactly what he used to imagine you’d build. a world full of color, softness, and a life he somehow missed watching grow.
you leave the door open for him, walk in without looking back, and he steps in after you, closing the door behind him.
for a moment, neither of you say anything. you set your keys down on the counter, your hands shaking slightly, and he stands in the entrance, unsure if he should sit, move, speak.
finally, you turn to him, your expression soft but exhausted. “five years,” you say quietly. “five years, jason. and now you’re just here.”
he opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.
you let out a shaky laugh, running a hand through your hair. “i don’t even know what to ask first.”
“start anywhere,” he says finally. “i’ll try to keep up.”
you nod slowly, moving to sit on the couch, your fingers brushing absently over the edge of a cushion as if grounding yourself. the words leave your mouth quietly, but with a steady sort of weight. “then let’s start with how the hell you’re alive.”
he stays standing for a second, jaw tight, like he’s debating how to begin. then, with a quiet sigh, he sits down across from you, elbows resting on his knees, eyes lowered to the floor. “it’s not a short story,” he mutters.
“i’ve got time,” you say softly.
so he tells you. once he starts, it spills out in pieces, raw and uneven, like it’s still hard for him to believe it himself. he tells you about the joker, about the crowbar, about the moments he remembers before everything went black. his voice goes quiet when he reaches the part about the pit, about the cold and the rage and the way it burned everything he used to be.
he doesn’t look at you as he talks about the al ghuls, or about clawing his way back to gotham with too much anger and too little reason. his tone steadies when he mentions the red hood, the years of fighting, the half-rebuilt bridges with his family.
you listen silently, your hands clasped in your lap, every few seconds feeling the breath catch in your throat. the story sounds impossible, but the man sitting in front of you is very real, his voice rough and tired in the way only truth can sound.
he mentions how it was damian who found your photo first, how tim ran the records, how everything unraveled from there. the moment he says it, his eyes lift, hesitant, as if he’s not sure what comes next or how much he’s allowed to say.
the silence that follows stretches, heavy and trembling. you realize you’ve been holding your breath.
“you know about lizzie,” you finally breathe out. it isn’t a question, not really.
he nods once, slow, eyes dark. he doesn’t trust himself to speak.
your chest tightens, the weight of six years pressing down all at once. the sound of the record still hums faintly in the background, the low crackle filling the silence between you.
“she’s yours, you know,” you say after what feels like forever, the words coming out quiet but certain.
his head lifts at that, eyes meeting yours for the first time since he sat down. there’s something fragile in the look he gives you. a longing.
“you want to see her”, you say softly, and he almost looks ashamed.
”she thinks i’m dead.”
”so did i.”
his eyes flicker up at you again, and this time there’s something raw in them. a mix of guilt and ache and a tenderness he doesn’t know what to do with. you can tell he’s holding back, that he doesn’t want to push, doesn’t think he deserves to.
“i don’t even know where to start,” he admits, his voice small in a way that startles you. “i missed everything. her first steps, her first words, birthdays, school, all of it. and it’s not like i can just walk in now and say hey, surprise, i’m your dad. that’s not fair to her.”
you nod slowly, fingers tracing the hem of your sleeve. “she’s curious,” you admit. “about him. about you. she asks sometimes, and i tell her the truth. that he was brave, and kind, and that he would have loved her more than anything.”
he exhales shakily, and for a moment you think he might break.
“i did,” he says, almost to himself. “i do.”
your eyes soften, a small, sad smile tugging at your mouth. “she’d like you,” you murmur. “she has the biggest imagination i’ve ever heard of, and she’s a little too clever for her own good. she laughs like you used to.”
he looks up at you then, and something inside him shifts. a quiet realization that no amount of lost years could erase what he still feels, for you or for the child he’s never met.
you pause for a long moment, weighing something silently while jason waits, tense and still. then you stand. your hands linger at your sides for a second like you are bracing yourself before you say, “wait here a second.”
you disappear down the hallway. he hears the soft sounds of a closet door, something being shifted, then the quiet shuffle of you returning.
when you come back, your arms are full. a small stack of books, their covers worn, corners softened by years of being opened and reopened.
you sit beside him again, close but not touching.
“baby books,” you say quietly. there is no embarrassment in it, only a kind of careful honesty. you set them on the coffee table and take the top one. a pale yellow notebook with a peeling label.
you open it. inside, a sonogram picture is taped to the first page. the date is written in the corner in your messy fifteen year old handwriting.
“i started this the day i found out,” you say, thumb brushing the edge of the picture. “i was fifteen. it was may.” your voice softens, barely more than breath. “you’d been gone for a month.”
jason’s shoulders go rigid. he stares at the page like it might shatter if he blinks too hard.
“i didn’t believe it at first,” you admit. “i just thought everything in my life was spiraling because you were… because you were gone. i thought that was the reason i felt sick all the time. why i couldn’t sleep. why everything hurt.” you huff a faint, humorless laugh. “took three tests before mom found me crying in the bathroom.”
you turn the page. more sonograms. notes scrawled in handwriting that’s both young and exhausted.
“i read pride and prejudice every night for weeks,” you continue, not looking up. “i guess i needed something that felt like you. i was debating between naming her jane or elizabeth but i thought you’d want her to be named after someone a little more headstrong.”
you flip forward to a page that’s nearly torn from being handled so many times. a journal entry from january.
“the birth was… long,” you say, a soft laugh slipping out. “she didn’t want to come out. i was in labour for twenty four hours. and when she finally did, she came out screaming.”
there’s a picture taped beside the entry. you in a hospital bed, eyes exhausted, hair a mess, cheeks blotchy from crying. tiny lizzie is tucked against your chest, her face scrunched and red. you were so young.
“i held her and i just… i felt a kind of love that i never really knew existed.”
you breathe out slowly, steadying yourself, then continue.
you flip to a page taped with your high school diploma. the ribbon from your graduation cap is taped beside it with a picture of you in your gown, holding baby lizzie. jason looks confused, not saying anything but the furrow in his brow says enough.
“i graduated that june. two years early.” your voice softens as you touch the corner of the diploma. “i pushed through everything, doubled my classes, took summer classes, begged teachers to let me test out of anything i could. i didn’t want her growing up watching me struggle through school at the same time i was trying to be her mother.”
jason sighs, guilt overtaking his features. “you shouldn’t have had to.”
“i know.” you reply simply, obviously not wanting to go into the unfairness of it all.
you thumb through the rest of the pages. lizzie’s first smile. her first laugh. her first stubborn refusal to nap. drawings she made when she was two, scribbles labeled in your handwriting.
you sit with him for hours, long enough for the soft afternoon light to fade into molten gold, then into the deeper blues of early evening. it happens slowly, quietly, like the world outside is holding its breath along with the two of you.
at some point, you call your mom asking her to pick lizzie up from school, that you would appreciate her keeping her for the night if she could. jason sits perfectly still the whole time, pretending not to listen but visibly absorbing every syllable.
after that, you return to him and to the little universe you two laid open between you.
you show him everything.
every baby book, every messy page, every carefully taped sonogram and crinkled hospital bracelet. every picture of lizzie with her tiny fists curled, her squinty newborn glare, her first wobbly steps, her toothy grin at two years old. every story you can remember spills out of you, things you have not said out loud in years, things that feel heavier now that someone else is holding the memory with you.
you talk about the nights she would only sleep if you laid her on your chest, and the mornings she woke up babbling nonsense at her stuffed animals. you talk about the first time she said mama. the first time she asked if she could wear your sweater because it smelled like you. the times she refused to nap unless you read to her.
jason listens like he’s memorizing each missed second and tattooing it into his heart. there’s grief in his eyes, raw and quiet. but there’s also awe. and something like gratitude. and hope.
the light grows dimmer. you turn on a lamp. the room becomes smaller, softer, wrapped in warm light.
when you close the last book, hours have passed. the quiet that follows is heavy but not suffocating. it feels like standing on the edge of something large and unfinished, something that could still become something good if you’re careful.
you fold your hands in your lap, gathering your breath.
“i’ll talk to her,” you say. your voice is soft but sure. “about you. about meeting you. if she wants to. i’m sure she will, but i’m asking anyway. i didn’t really explain the whole… dead thing yet so that won’t be an issue, i guess.”
jason’s breath shudders in his chest. his eyes drop, then rise again, bright with something fragile and breaking open.
“thank you,” he says. the words shake. “i… thank you.”
you stand, because you need to move or you’ll fall apart with how he’s looking at you. he rises too, slower, like he’s afraid the moment will vanish if he shifts too fast.
for a moment you both just stand there, suspended in a silence that feels too full, too fragile. he looks like he is standing on the edge of something he never expected to face, and you feel like your heart is a trembling thing trying to leap out of your chest.
then he takes one small step toward you. his hands lift just slightly, not quite touching you, not quite confident enough to ask. it is the most hesitant you have ever seen him.
you close the distance.
the moment your arms slide around him, something in him breaks. not a violent break, but a quiet, devastating one. he exhales sharply into your shoulder, a sound that is half relief and half grief, and his arms come around you in a slow, careful sweep, like he is gathering something he thought he lost forever.
he pulls you in close. closer than you expect. his forehead drops to your temple, and his hands flatten between your shoulder blades, holding you like he is afraid you will disappear if he loosens his grip even slightly.
his breathing is uneven. shaky. he tries to mask it, but you feel every tremor through the press of his chest.
you curl your fingers into the back of his jacket, anchoring yourself against him as if your own knees are beginning to give out. his heartbeat is a frantic, disbelieving rhythm against your cheek. it’s the most grounding thing you’ve felt in your life.
he smells like leather and rain and something faintly smoky. familiar, but older. heavier.
his cheek brushes the top of his head as he shifts, tightening the hug just a little more, like he’s memorizing the feel of you. like he’s trying to apologize without speaking. like he’s trying to say he missed you without saying the words out loud.
you don’t know how long you stay like that. seconds, minutes, something in between. enough for the world outside the apartment to fade. enough for the ache in both your chests to settle into something warm and painful and necessary.
finally, his voice slips out, quiet and raw.
“i didn’t think i’d ever get to do this again.”
you don’t reply with words, your arms just tighten around him.
when you pull back, his hands linger on your arms, grounding you both, before they fall away.
“i should go,” he murmurs, the words hurt to speak. “give you time. give her time.”
you nod, blinking through tears threatening to fall and the weight in your chest. “i’ll call you. after i talk to her. i promise.”
he swallows hard, nods once, and turns toward the door.
but at the last second he looks back, eyes sweeping over the warm light of your apartment, the books on the table, the remnants of a life he never knew he had helped create.
there’s pain in his expression. but there’s hope, too. small, trembling, stubborn.
he leaves quietly, descending the stairs with a slow, heavy tread. you hear the front door open, then close.
and when the silence settles again, your apartment feels different. like the air has shifted. like the world has cracked open in a way that might finally let something good grow.
country/cowboy leon x reader inspired by thoroughfare by ethel cain … lmk what yall think 😏
cowboy leon x reader ib thoroughfare ??
yes
mmm no
Voting ended onNov 13, 2025
(thoroughfare is a little dark in a sense, i kinda want it to be like a sweet love story but if u guys want dark … lmk)
if u don’t know what thoroughfare is abt look beneath the cut
so basically,
ethel is running away from home and she’s walking alongside a road. a man in a truck stops by and asks her if she wants to ‘see the west’ bc he’s looking for love out there. she gets in his truck lol. there’s some innuendos that he actually kidnapped her rather than ‘giving her a ride’. that’s what i mean when i say it’s a little dark.
they travel to from texas to california, in and out of diners and motel rooms. eventually when they reach cali, he says ‘hey i didn’t find love but maybe i found smth better and she’s right next to me’
the story after that is a little dark since the next song is gibson girl which is abt the same man p!mping and drugging ethel, locking her up, having random men come to her for sex, etc. but that’s smth i would, personally, NEVER write for leon or any other character.
Pairing: Jason Todd x f! reader (has a pussy + fem pronouns)
Summary: when Jason finds a pair of handcuffs hanging from your bed, you never expect it to turn into the two of you tangled in the fading sunlight
CW: 2.7k, smut/nsfw, porn w plot, bondage (handcuffs), switch! Reader, switch! Jason, horribly awkward moments, awkward sex, idiots in love, friends to lovers, unprotected sex, creampie, riding, lots of reassurance, yes this is smut but it is also sm more i swear
froggi yaps -> genuinely surprised jason won that poll, i thought it was gonna be dick or roy tbh. this might not be what people expected from it but im actually so happy with how this turned out <3 i hope you guys enjoy & are having a lovely day
i feel like this is too poetic of a title for what this is lol
“Are you sure I can’t get you a beer or anything?”
Jason looks up from the dresser he’s in the midst of building, the allen key in his hand looking comically small as he turns it as far as it will go. “Nah, it’s okay.”
“I feel bad.”
“Why?” He goes back to screwing the furniture together, “didn’t you know building furniture is my passion in life?”
You lean back in your chair, shaking your head at the man. When you’d first asked him to come help you—crying tears of frustration from your failed attempt at building it—you didn’t actually think he’d say yes.
Sure, he’s always been handy, always changing your oil and putting on your winter tires. You just didn’t have him pegged as the ‘come over and build your furniture for you’ type of handy.
Still, watching him screw together the pieces bit by bit, biceps rippling beneath the seams of his black t-shirt, is a treat.
“Where are we putting this, again?”
You blink, realizing you’ve been staring at his arms the whole time. Jason’s eyes are piercing, an eyebrow cocked in your direction as you wet your lips and regain your composure.
“Oh, uh, my room. Do you want me to show you where?”
He nods, pushing himself to his feet. He follows you to your bedroom, footsteps falling only seconds behind yours.
You gesture to the corner of your bedroom where you’ve cleared a spot for it. “I thought it could go here. It’ll fit, right? The website said it would be fine.”
“It should, yeah.” He looks around your bedroom, to the pictures hanging from your wall to your immaculately made bed to—he freezes in his tracks.
You notice the shift immediately, the amusement in his eyes. You follow his gaze, eyes following his until you see it. Two pairs of handcuffs still clipped onto either side of your headboard, dangling idly over the tops of your pillows.
He laughs dryly. “Wow, I didn’t think you were the type.”
The room swells with the awkwardness between you, your own stomach turning over itself with anxiety. You open and close your mouth, worried you must look vaguely fishlike in your desperate search for an explanation.
Somehow, you settle on, “what’s that supposed to mean?”
The sudden bite to your tone takes Jason aback. He raises his eyebrows—his face a mix of cautious surprise and subtle amusement.
“I just,” he rubs at the back of his neck, regretting his decision to point them out in the first place. “You barely like being confined in an elevator, I can’t imagine you being chained up.”
“Chained up?” You smile at his wording.
It’s not often you can embarrass Jason. Yeah, the man is socially stunted (coming back from the dead will do that to you) and sometimes too awkward for his own good. But embarrassed? By the sight of handcuffs? It’s laughable given the stuff he deals with daily.
You relish in the slip of his composure. “Besides,” you look him dead in the eyes, “I never said I was the one being handcuffed.”
“Fuck.” The word is half-laugh, half-breath, Jason blinking at you like he’s seeing you for the first time.
There’s a sudden heat to the room, a newfound tension that wasn’t there before. He tries his best to keep his eyes from wandering back to your bed, back to the handcuffs dangling from your bedframe, but he fails.
And you’re not sure where you get the confidence, if you’re drunk on the stagger in his usually well-maintained composure, or what.
“Do you want to try them?”
If it could get any more horribly awkward, it just did. Silence blankets the air, your eyes tentatively meeting his. Curiosity clouds his features and you find yourself wondering if this is something he’s ever considered, if someone like Jason could ever truly give away his power.
He swallows, “yeah. Yeah I do.”
It feels too simple, like this tension has suddenly resolved itself without a climax.
“Okay,” you nod. “Yeah, okay, me too.”
And then you’re perching yourself on the side of your bed, leaving a space next to your pillows for Jason to come and sit. You pat the spot, watching him expectantly as he walks himself over to you.
He sits next to you, the seams of his jeans rubbing against your leg. He side eyes the silvery cuffs hanging only a foot away from him.
You crawl to the centre of your bed, sitting criss crossed. “It’s easiest if you lay on your back.”
He hums in agreement, shifting himself into the middle of the bed and laying himself across your mattress. He spreads his legs on either side of you, his flexibility stunning you as usual.
You don’t even think before you’re crawling over him, straddling his hips and reaching across his head to grab the cuffs. You reach for his other hand, lacing your fingers with yours to bring his arm up the bedframe.
Jason sucks in a breath and only now do you realize how compromising this position is, how weird this whole situation has been.
“Sorry.” You pull away for a minute, keeping your hand laced with his. “Are you sure this is okay?”
“Yeah, yeah.” He glances at the cuff in your hand, “those aren’t real cuffs anyway, right? I think I could break out of them if I needed to.”
You nod, “and I can let you go anytime you want.”
With Jason’s permission, you loop the cuff around his wrist and click it shut. You slowly drop his hand, testing the weight of it against the flimsy metal. Satisfied he’s restrained enough, you repeat the process on his other hand.
Jason’s breathless while you move on top of him. For all of the confidence you’d shown, you’re somehow blissfully unaware that you happen to be sitting right on top of his semi-hard dick.
“So, what now?” He asks.
“I—well, usually this is the part where we have sex.” Your eyes widen, “but, it’s you so...”
Jason parrots your words from earlier. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing, sorry. I just—you were here to build my furniture and now we’re here and you’re really hot, but like I don’t wanna take advantage—”
He says your name, levelling you with an amused look. “You’re sitting on my dick.”
“Oh.”
You shift your hips backwards and only now do you feel it, feel him. You swallow, risking a glance down to where your thighs are spread out, giving his bulge the perfect angle to rub against your clothed pussy.
“Do you want me to move?”
His handcuffs jingle as he tries to move his hands to your hips. A sigh passes through his lips when he remembers he’s restrained, and though he’s frustrated by his inability to touch you, there’s something that excites him about it too.
Something about the way everything here can be on your terms, about the way you can use him in the way you want, almost makes him glad for all this awkwardness.
“Don’t move” he says, and even he’s surprised by the pleadingness of his tone.
Jason’s not fond of casual sex, but he’s no stranger to it. But something about being right here, right now, with you, has the world around him dizzy and dreamlike. Maybe it’s the closeness of the bond you share or the setting sun outside that paints the room—paints you—in wonderful shades of gold and pink.
“I want this.”
“Jason…”
“I’m being serious.” He tilts his chin defiantly, “I want you. I let you handcuff me to your bed, for fucks sake.”
You can’t help but giggle at that, wondering how the situation devolved so marvelously. How you went from him building your furniture to you restraining him to your bedframe and sitting on his dick.
It takes you a minute to process everything, and when you finally do, the warmth of the situation hits you. Jason, your friend—your really good friend—wants you. Wants you in the way you’ve wanted him.
“Can I kiss you?”
He hums lowly and then you’re leaning in, lips brushing over his own. The taste of your gingerbread chapstick washes over him, soothing the winter chap of his own lips. He finds himself straining against his cuffs, trying to push his face further against yours, trying to capture more of you.
You roll your hips over his while you kiss him, bringing your hands up to cup his cheeks. You pull yourself tighter against him, flushing your body against his until you can’t tell where he starts and you end.
His eyes are wide, his gaze softened, when you pull away. He mumbles your name, his mouth slack.
“Can I take off your shirt?” You ask quietly, as if anyone else could hear you, “I wanna see you.”
He swallows and nods, and then you’re hooking your hands on the hem of his shirt and pulling it up. You pause for a minute when you realize it won’t be able to fully come off with the cuffs on his hand.
You shrug it off, leaving his shirt pushed up to his neck, the scarred skin of his chest and abdomen exposed. You trace at the silvery scars that line his skin, part of you remembering a confession not too long ago that he resents them.
He sucks in a breath when your fingers trail too low, dangerously close to the waistband of his jeans. You pull away, looking at him with nothing other than admiration.
“Here,” you say while hooking your fingers under the hem of your own shirt, tugging it up and over your head. You shiver slightly, the air in your room a little cold for your liking.
“You’re so pretty.” He finds himself wishing he could touch you, and could trace the curves of your skin. “So damn pretty.”
You pull him in for another bruising kiss, your tongue just barely grazing the inside of his mouth. His cuffs jingle—a sign of his barely contained restraint—and his hips buck into yours. You gasp, swallowing him deeper, letting yourself fall more and more.
“I need you,” the words fall from your lips like a confession. “Wanna feel you so bad.”
“Fuck.”
You pull away slightly, locking your eyes with his. “You’re really sure this is okay? I don’t want this to change the way you see me.”
“Nothing is going to change the way I feel about you.”
You let his words sink in while you fumble with the button on your pants, fingers frantic to free yourself of the fabric. You prop yourself up on your knees and tug down both your pants and underwear, leaning forward to fully shimmy your way out and toss them over the side of your bed.
You feel a little insecure like this—mostly naked and on top of him, his eyes grazing every inch of you. You take slow breaths and push past your initial awkwardness, hands moving to pop open the button of his jeans.
It takes you a minute, and a lot of awkward shuffling around between the two of you, but you manage to get his jeans and underwear off. You sit back on your heels, blinking at his hard cock.
Dear god, you’re about to fuck Jason Todd.
You sling a leg over his, moving to straddle his waist once more. “You’re sure this won’t change anything?” You look at him through your lashes, “promise?”
“You could murder someone in front of me and it wouldn’t change anything.”
You blink. “We’re gonna have to work on your standards.”
And he chuckles at that, and the sound makes everything feel easy again and the anxiety that swelled in your chest starts to fade. Because this is Jason, your Jason, and if he says this won’t change the way he sees you, you’re implored to believe him.
You reach a hand between your legs, rubbing slow circles on your clit. You’re already wet and sticky from all the grinding you’ve done, your walls clenching in untamed anticipation.
You slide your hand away from your pussy, gripping the hard length of his cock and lining it up. And then you’re lowering yourself down, hands braced on the smooth muscle of his chest as you slowly guide yourself down.
Jason forces himself to stay still, laying his hips flat against the bed no matter how badly he wants to fuck you. He can feel the tightness of your pussy, the way you struggle to take him in, and he wouldn’t dare do anything to make you feel uncomfortable right now.
You whine when your hips are finally flush against his, taking a moment to catch your breath. “Does it feel good?”
Jason swears he could cum from that alone. You, on top of him, looking all ethereal and asking if he feels good. “Feels so good,” his voice is raspy, “you’re so good.”
You slowly raise your hips, letting him out inch by inch before lowering yourself back down. You fall into a shaky rhythm, focused only on the way he feels inside you and the warmth of his skin and how fucking deep he gets with every bounce of your hips.
Quiet gasps leave Jason every time you let him fully bottom out. The sounds—of which he’d usually be embarrassed about—are like music to your ears, another sign that this is okay.
“You’re so cute,” you hum between moans, “you make such cute sounds.”
And Jason’s been called a lot of things but he can’t remember the last time he’d been called cute, the last time anyone had seen past the red and the anger. Another whine leaves his mouth, one he’d be tempted to conceal with his hands if they weren’t restrained.
The sun outside gets lower and lower, warm shadows being cast through your open window, painting your room in shades of fading gold and lavender. The fading light reflects on your skin, catching the sheen of sweat that forms from your effort. It only makes you look prettier in Jason’s eyes.
The longer you bounce on him, the closer and closer you get, a knot forming in your tummy. Your movements get sloppier, motions getting shallower. Jason knows you’re close, starting to roll his hips into yours from beneath you.
You whimper, leaning forwards to capture his lips in a needy kiss. He thrusts his hips up to meet yours, picking up the pace until you’re a whimpering, whining mess. He greedily swallows your sounds, savours the feeling of your pussy clenching around him, relishes in this moment.
And then you’re gasping and your muscles are tensing and Jason knows exactly what’s happening. It’s not the clenching of your pussy around his cock that drives him to finish. It’s not even the pretty noises you’re making.
It’s the way you fall into him, the way you give yourself to him completely, that has him finishing. He thrusts roughly, hips flush against yours while he cums. He fills you completely, his warmth combined with your recent orgasm leaving you lightheaded.
Sometime between you finished and when he finished, he’d somehow broken free of his left cuff, the metal dangling uselessly against your bedframe.
You let yourself lay against him a while longer, catching your breath in the afterglow. He rests his hand on your back, rubbing slow, calculated circles on your skin.
You lift your head up, just enough to lock eyes with him. “You promise this hasn’t changed anything?”
“I see you the same way I always have.”
“I see.” You purse your lips, “and what would that be?”
Jason’s read hundreds of books throughout his life, studied poetry, listened to music. But right now, his words seem to fail him. How could he possibly begin to describe the things he feels for you?
“You’re beautiful,” he decides. “And you make the world feel lighter for me. I just—this sounds so lame. You make me want to see the good in the world again.”
“Careful,” you murmur, “it’s starting to sound like you’re in love with me.”
You’re teasing, but there’s a slight question to your tone.
“Yeah,” he says. His lips find your forehead, planting a gentle kiss. “Yeah, maybe I am.”
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tysm for reading & have a great day! /ᐠ > ˕ <マ ₊˚⊹
summary: falling in love with each other was easy—a little too easy. after a series of dates and getting to know the other better, it was only a matter of time, right? no longer able to hold it in, dick finds himself desperate and decides that tonight will not end until he gets to walk home with a kiss, from you.
notes: 4.1k words…. fluff!! with a side of nasty kissing, dick is absolutely fed up and DESPERATE, reader has never had a boyfriend before so dick is the very first guy you’ve ever been with. so many feelings and love and yearning you guys are so obsessed with each other its genuinely DISGUSTING. but dick is like way worse because at least half of this is him yearning for you,,,, also a lot of making out...dick literally eats ur face. all the dialogue is later in gomenasorry. written with black reader in mind >0<
Dick Grayson was on a mission. Tonight’s date, he decided, was going to be extra special than usual. Why, you ask? Because tonight, he was going to secure his kiss from you—poor, unsuspecting, you.
Tonight marked the 8th date you guys have gone on ever since your first meeting at a late-night convenience store around the corner of his apartment, where the once peaceful environment was interrupted by a measly burglar waving his gun around with arrogance and the demand of money.
It was the one night when Dick wasn’t in costume and was nursing a severely bruised body from a villain he had encountered two days earlier. The situation irritated him even more than he already was—Bruce was still chewing his ass out over a case that he was working on; he still needed to go to work with his bruised body because he can’t exactly let them know what violent activities he’s up to at night and his injuries—now this.
So it’s an understatement when saying the burglar was dealt with easily and quickly, as Dick was able to disarm him before the man could even take another step towards another innocent customer—someone Dick learned later was you.
The anticlimactic moment ended with the man scrambling out of the store with much less confidence than before, the store clerk shakily thanking Dick with the promise of free items of his choice tonight and the next time he comes in. Accepting the gratitude, Dick was ready to go home with the multitude of free items in his grocery bag--until he spotted you.
Standing near the entrance, dressed in sweatpants about twice your actual size with a hoodie you were equally drowned in, Dick found you absolutely radiant. He wasn’t someone who believed in love at first sight beforehand, but now? Certainly, this is what it means.
It took him a few seconds of silence and staring at you with an open mouth, like a goldfish for him to realize that you were speaking to him, and just like the store clerk. you were thanking him profusely for saving you from the gun that was previously pointed to you. Dick can't remember what happened after that. But he does remember walking out of the store a happy man, your phone number having found its way into his phone.
Back in the present, Dick knew that maybe 8 dates was a little too much to come to this decision; after all, for him it was only on date number 2 that he knew he wanted you, badly. But he knew he had to be patient, especially after you revealed that you’ve never been in a relationship—or on a date at all. It was for this reason that he decided to take things slow and wait for a sign that you wanted him too.
By now, he’s reached his limit.
Every other date you’ve had prior to this had been more casual: going out for coffee, the arcade, movie nights at his place (more often yours because he absolutely adores your cat, mocha), grocery shopping together, and going for a stroll in Melville Park to walk Haley, his adorable pitbull you fell in love with.
Tonight, Dick took you to a nice restaurant with tables reserved on its rooftop. He knew you weren’t someone who frequented fancy restaurants too often, so he found a solid one just in between fancy and casual.
Dinner was going well, and you were absolutely perfect. He’d told you beforehand to come wearing a blue outfit, and the dress you wore had surpassed his expectations so much that he considered dropping down on one knee right then and there before ever asking you to be his girlfriend, if it wasnt apparent just how much it affected him seeing that colour on you with his lovesick gaze the entire night.
The dress you’re wearing is dark blue silk, the kind of colour that shifts like midnight water under the lighting of the restaurant's stringed lights. It drapes across your frame in a way that seems deliberate, highlighting your curves, and Dick feels his mouth dry at how it complements your brown skin—like the colour was meant to be worn by you, and you alone.
The glow of your upper body lets him know of the shea butter you’d rubbed on yourself, your legs that slip through the slit sharing the same glow.
The matching gold jewelry you wear and the updo you’ve done with your curls make him fight demons he never even knew he had, wanting to jump over the table to show you how much he loves you.
It truly doesn’t help how much he’s reminded of his Nightwing costume every time he looks at you.
He finds himself murmuring more compliments than usual because he can’t contain how much it moves him. The blue that once belonged only to his suit now belongs to you too, and he adores it—adores you—in a way he can’t keep from showing.
Dick finds himself craving dessert earlier than usual.
But he knows he has to act accordingly; he can’t afford to scare you away. So he does what he’s best at and eyes you with a disgustingly lovesick, yearning look as if he’s some schoolboy with his very first crush for the entire night as you guys chat over dinner.
He pays even closer attention to you than ever (if that’s even possible), maintaining intense eye contact with every word delivered in the air, squeezing your manicured hand (that has the nails he paid for) while you excitedly share the plot of the most recent book you read last weekend, and feeding you some of the food he’s ordered (you protested against stealing his food, but he insisted, claiming, “It’s my duty to feed you.” how do you even respond to that?).
Overall, dinner was perfect. He thinks this is the best date you guys have been on so far, as after dinner he surprises you with tickets to the movie he remembers you wanted to see when it came out.
What a coincidence that today happens to be its release date, and the happy squeal it pulled from you once he revealed the surprise made the rest of his year, he thinks. It’s something he could listen to on repeat for hours and never get sick of.
As the night got darker and you got tired, Dick knew it was time to take you home. As much as he’d love for this night to continue, he doesn’t want to keep you up later than you’re used to.
It brings you both to his car, pulling up into the neighbourhood of your apartment complex, the car filled with a comfortable silence as you gaze out to the passing buildings. His jacket covers your previously bare shoulders during the car ride after he’d noticed the goosebumps rising on your skin (he wouldn’t quit sulking at the fact that you didn’t tell him anything about you being cold and forced you inside his jacket desite your protests).
Parked in front of your building, you unbuckled your seatbelt and grabbed your purse, ready to thank him for tonight once again and wish him a goodnight—before you were surprised with him unbuckling himself and turning off the engine. He paused his actions when he spotted your questioning stare.
“What? You thought I was gonna let you walk up there alone? Absolutely not,” Dick huffed, quickly circling around the car to open your door and making space for you as you stepped out. “What kind of gentleman would I be if I didn’t walk you to your door? I need to make sure you make it inside safely, you know.”
Normally you would’ve been your own ride home (he’s never liked it but agreed if it made you happy), but Dick insisted that he’s the one who drives you home this time.
Dick walks you into your building, already knowing his way around from past visits, and unlocks the lobby’s door with his own copy of your keys, then leads you further into the elevators with a hand on your back that’s still covered by his jacket.
It’s almost pathetic how during the entire elevator ride, the two of you are stealing glances at each other—oblivious of the other person’s nervous shifting. Dick knows that it’s tonight that he gets that kiss from you.
At last, when having reached your door, it’s as though the once simmering tension has announced its presence, and settles in the air between the two of you. As you turn to face him with your back to your door, he gives you a soft smile that lets butterflies rise in your stomach, the warm orange lighting that complements his tanned skin doing nothing to help.
If anything, it makes whatever you’re feeling worse, and you don’t know if you can keep acting oblivious to your true feelings.
“I had a really great time,” his voice snaps you out of your thoughts, your full attention back on him, “And I really loved our conversations tonight. I'd love to do something like this again, with you.” His tone at the end has a hopeful implication. He hopes he doesn’t come off as too desperate, but part of him can’t get himself to care.
He thinks now would be the perfect time for that kiss, but he doesn’t want to pressure you. Dick knows it would kill him to ruin what you guys have, and this might be the most nervous he’s ever been in his entire life.
“Yeah?” You ask with a hint of shyness, holding your hands behind your back. “Thank you, Dick. I had a really great time with you tonight, too. The movie made me really happy and...I’m glad you remembered that small detail.”
Dick feels his heart practically melting at the sound of your voice. Your obvious nervousness only boosts his confidence in what he plans on doing, and he can’t get over how much he loves your voice. You’re so adorable. He thinks to himself.
His next smile is a lot more dorky, cheeks warm with his dimples coming out to reveal themselves. It’s your favourite feature on him, right after his blue, blue eyes, you think. You both feel like high schoolers again with a pathetic crush. “Nothing you tell me is ever small.”
He’s taken aback by how fond he let that come out of his mouth, but he decides it’s worth it when your eyes avert down to your feet—flustered. It’s his favourite look on you.
But he knows just like this isn’t enough. This thought leads him to slowly reach for your arms behind your back, gently uncrossing them while his hands trail down to hold your own. He searches your eyes for any discomfort before intertwining them, when having found none, his calloused palms swallow your smaller, softer ones. The contrast does nothing but make his heart beat faster.
It’s when you look up at him with wide, glimmering dark eyes filled with hope and a drop of insecurity that it clicks—you are the woman he wishes to share his life with.
You’d be lying to yourself if you said you didn’t have a crush on him. It was impossible not to, with his easygoing grin that you’ve observed goes toe to toe with the sun itself. With each action done with careful consideration of you, with each compliment given, with each laugh he’s pulled out of you, with each dinner cooked together, with each night spent on his fire escape with shoulders touching– each day learning about what makes you, you.
It was too easy falling in love with Dick Grayson.
And that scared you.
Similarly to Dick, it was around the third date that you knew you wanted something blooming between you.
Love. What a strange concept for a girl who’s never fallen in love.
You find that the only reason why you hadn’t initiated anything further with him is because you’re unsure if this is how the process goes. Along with the slight insecurity of slipping up if you did, with Dick having more experience than you did. Soon those worries disappeared, because Dick had done nothing but soothe them.
Every moment where you felt as though you needed to initiate anything physical beyond what you were used to, he noticed, and every anxious thought was blown away with a simple reassuring smile.
He never said more than a quiet, “It’s okay,” because to him it was always about your comfort before anything.
He’s never made you feel forced to do anything, content to lead you through each encounter until you found the moment you were ready.
You realize as soon as he holds your hands in his—he’s the one for you.
Dick chuckles softly at the look in your eye and squeezes your hands gently. His blue eyes, nearly swallowed up by his dilated pupils, are fixed on yours, studying your reaction with an intensity that makes you want to squirm. He can feel how warm your skin is and his heart feels like it could pop out of his chest.
With a deep breath, Dick takes another step closer, now only inches apart. He lifts a hand to lift your chin ever-so-slightly, making you tilt your head up to meet his gaze. Dark eyes meet blue.
You swallow thickly as your eyes remain locked on each other, feeling his other hand move down to your waist. His expression is so vulnerable and raw as he looks down at you, and you think you might throw up from nerves alone. Your eyes water as these thoughts circle through your mind.
It doesn’t take detective skills to read you like a book. He can tell what you’re thinking. He knows the reason you’re unsure as you begin shaking in his arms. His thumb traces slow circles against your jaw, coaxing you to relax. He hopes you can’t hear how fast his heart is beating, how he’s memorizing the sound of your soft breaths.
The two of you are the only ones in the hallway at the risk of being seen by neighbours, but neither of you can find it in you to care.
"You okay?" He murmurs softly, searching your face with those impossibly blue eyes. There's no teasing now–just genuine care and something achingly tender beneath it all. "I can... we can stop if—"
(But the way he lingers shows he really doesn’t want to stop.)
"No!" you interject louder than intended to, freezing when you realized ust how loud that came out. A surprised laugh bubbles out of him at your sudden outburst, the sound warm and so fond. That adorable reaction just makes him squeeze you a tiny bit closer.
"N—no, I... this is okay. I'm okay." You finish softly, heart aching for more. You’re incredibly greedy when it comes to his touch, and you don’t feel a drop of shame for it.
"Good," he murmurs, leaning in until his forehead brushes yours—so close you can feel his breath against your lips. His free hand lifts to cradle your cheek now, thumb sweeping beneath your eye to catch that traitorous wetness before it falls.
"Because I really wanna kiss you right now," he admits in a whisper, grinning that stupid lopsided grin that makes your stomach flip. "But only if you really want me to."
Your heart almost stutters to a stop, and your gaze is consumed by nothing but want. Your pupils were almost as blown as his, and the way the wind blows, tussling at his wavy hair, drives you crazy. You melt against him as your foreheads touch, letting out a shaky breath.
It’s as you lose yourself in the pool of his impossibly blue eyes that you realize death doesn't scare you if it's by drowning in his eyes.
You lean into his warm palm, memorizing the sweet scent of his cologne. You give your answer in a hushed tone, as though sharing a secret that's to remain between the two of you alone. "I really wanna kiss you, too."
It sends a shiver down his spine. Holy smokes, he thinks to himself. You look like a dream.
The world seems to melt away as he gazes down at you with an intensity that is both gentle and smoldering. Dick can feel your breath on his lips, and it drives him insane.
"Damn," he mutters roughly, his voice suddenly raw with emotion, "you're going to be the death of me."
It's the only time he'll use the Lord's name in vain.
Just like that, he can't hold back any longer. The dam breaks, and he closes the last meager distance between the two of you, capturing your mouth in a deep, starved kiss.
A cut off gasp is swallowed by his lips, your eyes tightly shutting closed as your lips lock with his— and you feel alive. This is your very first kiss, and it's one you will never forget.
Dick’s arms circle your waist completely, pulling you flush against his body as his one hand slides up your spine until his fingers thread into your hair, tilting your head back as he kisses you with everything he has.
If it weren't for his arms holding you up, your knees would have buckled. He can feel how your body shakes with nerves and anticipation against his lips, and he can’t resist brushing his tongue over your bottom lip, groaning at the rewarding whimper he gets.
The smack of your lips is nasty; after each smack comes the sound of a deep groan which then triggers a breathy whine. Your blood is rushing to your head, and you think you might die. You’re suddenly immensely grateful for living on a nearly empty floor.
DIck groans low in his throat when he feels your grip tighten on his dress shirt, like you’re terrified he might pull away. As if he would ever want to. His tongue teases along your bottom lip again—asking without words.
His other hand drops from your chin to squeeze your hip possessively, fingers digging in just enough to make you gasp against his mouth.
"Sweetheart," he murmurs between feverish kisses, voice wrecked already, "c'mon, open up for me."
That tone—half praise and half demand—sends a bolt of heat straight through you. Holy shit. You’re embarrassed at the mewl that escapes you at the pet name. Please call me that again, please, please—
It's almost instantaneous that you open your mouth, giving his tongue access. The pleased chuckle that escapes him makes your entire body flare up in warmth. It felt good, getting his approval.
Dick takes full advantage of your obedience, the kiss turning downright filthy as he explores your mouth, his tongue coaxing against yours in the most distracting way. He groans again, a hungry, guttural sound that reverberates through his chest. He has to have more of you.
"Dick—" you whine against his lips as the smacking of lips circles around the small, dark quiet hallway. You find out just how easy it is to forget your surroundings when Dick Grayson is all-consuming in your mind, and on your lips.
The sound of his name on your lips grows his greed, wanting to own every gasp and whine and whimper you make. When your tongue brushes against his, something ignites in him, some feral, possessive feeling that makes his skin burn. You're so cute; he feels like a starved animal.
He pulls away with a wet sound, breathing heavily against your lips and resting his forehead against yours. He can feel your heart racing. He presses one last desperate peck to your lips.
"God," he mumbles raggedly, "you're doing things to me, sweetheart."
"I d-didn't do anything," you pant quietly, catching your breath as a string of drool remains between the two of you—your eyes half-lidded.
Dick stares at your face, taking in your flushed cheeks, the way you pant, and that adorable little strand of drool—God, he is so obsessed with you it isn't even funny.
His hands roam your body, one still gripping your hip and the other sliding up to cup your cheek, his calloused thumb tracing your kiss-swollen bottom lip, wiping away the wetness. You resist the urge to take his thumb in your mouth where it sits against your lip.
"Baby, look at you," he murmurs, gaze darkening as he looks down at you. "I could eat you alive right now." His comment makes you squawk. "Please don't," you sigh weakly, a protesting frown on your lips.
"I won't," he murmurs between nips and pecks along your jaw, "not unless you ask very nicely." He punctuates it with a slow drag of his teeth against your pulse point before pulling away just enough to see the reaction on your face.
His fingers tuck a stray lock of hair behind your ear as his expression softens into something warmer—something more like home. "But I should probably get going before I actually do something reckless."
Oh. Yeah.
"You should..." You realize sadly that as much as you wanted to stay out longer with him, you couldn't risk getting in trouble with your roommate. "I wish you didn't have to," you murmur sadly, looking down at your heels.
His face falls for a second, reading the disappointment in your tone instantly. Dick pulls you back into a tight hug, pressing his lips to the top of your head before sighing dramatically.
"Ugh, don't look at me like that," he whines, squeezing you lightly as he rests his chin on your head. "You're gonna make me stay. And then I'll have to explain to your roommate why I'm camped out on your doorstep like some lovesick stray."
You couldn’t resist the giggle at his comment, equally wrapping your arms around him. You’re overwhelmed and also not whelmed (heh, yj ref) enough by his scent. “I would've let you stay the night like usual, but she just came back from vacation. Sorry, Dick.”
He only sulks above you, letting out one last dramatic sigh. He’s as dramatic as ever. “It’d be easier if I could just bring you back to mine,” Dick huffs enviously. “If only life were so easy.”
“You talk like I won’t just see you soon, silly. I promised Haley treats.”
“So you only like me for my dog?”
“Crap, you caught me...” you grin, unbothered
He lets out an undignified squawk, your laughther following up with the dramatics.
“To be fair, she’s super adorable. I can’t resist her eyes; she’s just a baby!”
“I’ll have you know, I was the one who trained her. Her cuteness is a direct reflection of me.”
You laugh, shaking your head. “Fine, fine. Maybe I like you a little too.
Dick beams instantly, smug as ever. “I knew it.”
He pulls back just enough to cup your face again—and this time, there's no joking in those stupidly blue eyes. Just something painfully sincere.
"But I’ll see you soon? Like… really soon?" His thumb traces the apple of your cheek hopefully.
You nod eagerly, returning his hopeful smile with a tender one of your own. “Yeah...I’d like that.” You confess quietly, holding his hand against your cheek.
His smile brightens immediately, boyish and so unfairly charming. You hate him. "Good," he murmurs, pressing one last lingering kiss to your forehead before finally—reluctantly—stepping back.
Dick walks backwards to the elevator like an idiot, unable to tear his eyes away from you. "And hey," he adds with a grin that promises trouble, fingers tapping against his chest where his heart is still racing. "You did this to me."
You can’t resist a laugh at his antics, pulling out your keys from your purse as he gets closer to the elevator. You grin like a lovesick teenager—you both do. “I sure did, Golden Boy. Call me when you get home?”
“Always,” he promises, taking a moment to admire your glowing figure under the warm lighting. He stuffs his hands in his pockets to keep himself from walking back over and hauling you into his arms again.
It’s when you unlock your door and give him one last smile that he dramatically blows you a kiss, his heart warming even further when you playfully catch it.
Dick’s grin softens one last time, pausing as the elevator doors open. “Goodnight, baby.” He tells you, you parrot after him. “Goodnight, Dickie.” Only you know how much that nickname makes his heart flutter.
And then— just like that—you disappear into your apartment.
(you only realize minutes later—thanks to your roommate— that you completely forgot to hand back his jacket. when mentioning this to dick he only laughs and tells you to keep it as a souvenir.)
heyyy!! i’m so so sorry for the absence lately 😭. ik i haven’t posted a fic in a fat fat while but life just really got in the way.
1) i got into a relationship which is going great
2) i am still in college pursuing a nursing degree
3) i’ve been very unmotivated to write anything, but if i do i write more for my enjoyment than posting it on here or ao3
i’ve gotten so many requests like this but don’t worry guys i am back! i think i just needed to find balance in my life and also get that inspiration back. this isn’t an empty promise but there will be leon AND other fics coming soon 😽!!
summary: clark suddenly begins to distance himself—afraid he’s being too clingy, and it’s your job to remind him that he should be obsessed with you.
ib: @lovingyoulovinme
warnings/tags: not proofread so i apologize for any spelling mistakes, all in lowercase, established relationship, written in both reader and clark’s pov, fluff if u squint, clark is absolutely head over heels for reader, reader knows he’s superman, sub!clark, the term good boy is used once, oral (f receiving), unprotected p in v (wrap it b4 u tap it ppl), based off sabrina’s new song my man on willpower
word count: 2.9k
note: this is my first time writing smth like this... i’ve dabbled in a few imagines here and there wayyy back then, but never anything like this so pls. bear with me. also tried to integrate some of her lyrics in there so lmk if u catch them hehe
it’s been three months since you and clark started dating. and he’s the best boyfriend you could have ever asked for. he’s clingy, he’s loving, and he always initiates calling and touching.
exactly what you desired in a man.
what’s there to complain about when you have a man who’s completely and utterly obsessed with you?
turns out there’s a few things, actually.
clark sat at his desk, the document in front of him waiting to be written on. he stares blankly at the computer screen, his fingers resting on the keyboard but not moving whatsoever.
jimmy slaps a hand down onto clark’s desk, causing the taller man to jump. “wha—what was that for?”
“you’ve been staring at a white screen for five minutes now.”
clark feels a hint of embarrassment upon hearing jimmy’s words and clears his throat. “it’s just writer’s block,” he murmurs.
“didn’t you finish that article on superman the other day?” jimmy raises a brow, resting his hip against the edge of clark’s desk as he looks down at the dark haired.
clark sighs and turns his chair around to face jimmy. “alright, can i be honest?” he doesn’t give the other time to respond before he’s already adding on, “i had the best night last night.”
jimmy is immediately intrigued. “well, go on.”
clark begins to tell him that yesterday was your guys three month anniversary—explaining how he went to your apartment and surprised you with dinner after you got off work.
“so you snuck into her apartment while she wasn’t there and started cooking some stuff up?”
clark rolls his eyes. “you’re making it sound like i’m some sort of stalker. she consented to giving me a spare key, by the way.”
“i’m just sayin’ man. some girls hate that stuff.”
“hate what exactly?”
“the clinginess.”
clark’s face falters, slowly taking in what jimmy is saying.
“i know a ton of girls who hate it when guys are too clingy. sometimes, the ladies just need their space.” jimmy shrugs.
you picked up your phone and checked the time for what felt like the tenth time. it was already six o’clock, meaning clark got off work an hour ago.
but he hasn’t called. which is very unusual for him.
you decide to take it upon yourself to initiate the call, pressing on his contact before bringing the phone up to your ear.
it rings twice before he finally answers.
“clark?”
“hey dear.”
“you didn’t call after you got off work, i got worried," you say, slouching back against the couch.
“i’m sorry, it must’ve slipped my mind,” he answers, his voice low.
“are you still coming over for movie night?”
“uh… unfortunately, i don’t think i can make it this time sweetheart. perry assigned me a really hard article and i can’t miss the deadline.”
a small frown forms on your lips but you understand. “okay. maybe next time.”
“yeah, sure. have a good night baby.”
he hangs up before you can say it back, catching you off guard, but you simply brush it off.
throughout the rest of the week, you began noticing how distant clark was becoming.
it was always, “i’m busy” or “i’m working”, like he didn’t have time for you anymore.
he only visited your apartment once that week. and when he did, the slutty pajamas you wore didn’t even get a single glance out of him.
it’s like something inside him had switched after celebrating your three month anniversary. it’s the first time you’ve ever seen him be this reserved.
he didn’t bother to call as often, always seemed tense when walking you home, barely invited you over to his apartment, rarely even stayed over at yours anymore, and overall… just seemed off.
something was definitely wrong.
you were currently getting ready to go out with clark and his friends. they’re your friends too. kinda.
you’ve met lois and jimmy a handful of times, but both were very sweet and you all seemed to get along well.
lois had invited you to come with her and the boys to the new bar that just opened down the street from the daily planet.
you gladly accepted.
you finish getting ready, quickly fixing your hair with a glance at the mirror before making your way to the living room, where clark sat, having been ready for the past ten minutes.
“sorry for taking so long—my hair wouldn’t cooperate, but i’m ready now,” you tell him.
clark stands up off the couch, pushing his glasses up with his finger before shaking his head dismissively. “don’t worry about it. let’s go,” clark says, his hand resting lightly on the lower of your back as he guides you to the front door.
by the time the two of you arrive, lois and jimmy have already sat down in a booth. jimmy is the first to speak up. “kent! over here!” a wide grin on his face as he waves the both of you over.
“took you two long enough,” lois adds, her finger running over the rim of her drink.
“to be fair, it was all me. clark was ready way before i was,” you reply, a soft chuckle leaving your mouth as you slide into the booth, clark sitting down next to you.
clark opened his mouth to say something—it was second nature for him to throw compliments your way—but quickly closed it shut, worried it’ll just ick you out. especially in front of your friends.
“well, that doesn’t matter anymore. new bar means an excuse to drink, so let’s get on with it!” jimmy exclaims.
as the night got darker, the four of you continued to chat amongst yourselves—mainly clark, lois and jimmy. you couldn’t find it in yourself to chime in all the time, most of the time not even knowing what the three were talking about.
they were currently in the middle of a conversation about… you have no idea what.
you’ve been zoning out for the past twenty minutes, wanting nothing more than to go back home and have clark all to yourself.
your hand goes to hold his under the table, fingers interlacing with his. you’d hoped he would’ve at least spared you a glance—but no.
you squeeze his hand in an attempt to grab his attention.
still nothing.
you watch as he continues to talk to his coworkers, not even seeming remotely interested in looking at you.
you huff in annoyance, removing your hand from his. he doesn’t even seem to notice that.
you prop your elbow up on the table, resting your temple against your knuckles as you keep your gaze fixated on him, waiting for him to say something.
but he doesn’t.
“what the hell is going on?” you blurt out, cutting him off from whatever he was saying.
the entire table’s eyes are on you now, but you don’t pay mind to jimmy and lois—solely focused on figuring out where your boyfriend went.
“uh… sweetheart? is everything okay?” clark asks tentatively, tilting his head slightly.
you sigh heavily, your shoulders slumping as you fight the urge to roll your eyes. “no, clark, everything is not okay. you’ve been acting weird ever since we celebrated our anniversary. suddenly you’ve given up on calling me daily, you barely visit my place, it’s been over a week since we had our last movie night—jesus, clark, you used to be literally obsessed with me.“
clark is taken aback, not expecting such a reaction from you about his recent distance.
before he can say anything, jimmy clears his throat and hesitantly speaks up. “i may or may not have told him he was being too clingy…”
you turn to shoot jimmy a glare. “seriously?”
“i’m so sorry honey, i never meant to make you feel like i was pulling away from our relationship. i know i can get too needy sometimes and i also know that can be a dealbreaker for some and well… i didn’t want to scare you off,” clark explains, his hand immediately going to envelop yours.
a sense of relief takes over you upon hearing clark’s words. to know that he was just holding back in fear of losing you made your heart skip a beat.
your gaze softens, admiring his selflessness. “clark… that is the absolute last thing you have to worry about,” you reassure him.
you turn back towards jimmy. “never get into my boyfriend’s head again.” you point a threatening finger at him, to which he simply nods.
“the hardest thing to believe here is clark actually being able to restrain himself,” lois remarks.
“honestly yeah. i didn’t even think you had the ability to stay away from her for more than five minutes,” jimmy says.
“trust me, it was torture,” clark tells him.
“well,” you start, guiding you and clark out of the booth. “me and clark have some catching up to do. don’t bother contacting him for the rest of the night.” before the other two can get a word in, you’re already leading him back to his car.
your stumble back against the door, clark shutting it closed with his foot before guiding you to your bedroom.
you shrug your jacket off and let it drop to the ground, his joining almost immediately after.
clark’s glasses fog up as the two of you continue your heated make out session and he ultimately decides to throw them off, the sound of them hitting the floor catching neither of your attention.
clark’s hands find their way to the back of your thighs and swiftly pick you up off the floor, his chest flush against yours. you let out a muffled moan against his lips and loop your arms around his neck, your legs automatically encircling his waist.
he gently places you on the bed, his body hovering over you. his mouth leaves yours and instead goes to press open-mouthed kisses along your neck.
you instinctively arch your neck to allow him more space, a sigh of satisfaction leaving your lips. “i want nothing more than for you to be obsessed with me, clark,” you whisper.
the words go straight to his groin—his cock already straining against the fabric of his pants.
“and i want nothing more than to continue being obsessed with you, baby,” he murmurs against your skin.
he slowly makes his way down your body, his lips leaving kisses anywhere they can—your collarbone, the valley between your breasts, your stomach—absolutely anywhere.
eventually, he reaches the waistband of your jeans and silently asks for permission. once you nod your head yes, he wastes zero time pulling them down your legs.
he eyes your damp panties as he begins to leave a trail of kisses along your inner thigh, his big hands wrapping around the supple flesh.
“gonna make you feel so good, sweetheart,” he mumbles before reaching where you want him most.
his thumb goes to press against your clit through the fabric of your underwear, making your breath hitch.
clark throws your thighs over his shoulders before delicately pushing your panties to the side, letting him get the perfect view of your glistening cunt.
his tongue is flat against your folds as he licks a stripe along your pussy, eliciting a low moan out of you. he takes your clit into his mouth, wrapping his lips around the bundle of nerves and swirling his tongue around it before moving back with a pop.
your hand finds its way to his hair, your fingers tangling themselves in his dark strands. “just like that baby.”
“missed this sweet pussy,” he murmurs, his voice sending vibrations through your body.
he gives up on teasing and decides to give all his attention on where it matters most. his lips stay attached to your clit—tongue flicking across your sensitive bud and causing you to gasp out.
“clark, ‘m so close,” you breathe out. “yeah?” he continues his ministrations. “let go for me, baby. wanna taste you on my tongue,” clark says.
and that’s all it takes. you feel the knot in your stomach snap—your orgasm taking over you.
your grip on his hair tightens just a bit as you ride out your high, before finally loosening up.
your chest heaves up and down as you catch your breath, clark immediately coming up and pressing a light kiss to your shoulder. “you okay?” he asks you.
you don’t respond, his lips colliding with yours before you can even think.
your hands claw at the collar of his shirt before clumsily unbuttoning it open and throwing it off his shoulders. he shrugs it off, letting it join the growing pile of discarded clothes on your bedroom floor.
you flip the both of you over—clark now laying on his back while you straddled his lap.
you take your blouse off and anything else you have on before moving your focus to clark’s belt. you fumble with it for a few seconds before eventually getting it off. clark lifts his hips, shimmying his pants down, along with his boxers, before kicking them off completely.
a week. a whole week since you’ve had clark inside you.
it was time to change that.
he was already leaking with pre-cum, his pretty pink tip waiting to enter you. you swipe your thumb across the slit—a whimper leaving his mouth.
you line the tip of his cock with your entrance and hover above it, no intention to sink down just yet.
your eyes meet his.
“you want this? you want to feel my wet cunt all around you?” you say, gliding your soaking folds across his fat tip.
“yes, please baby—gosh, i need you so bad,” clark pleas, his hands squeezing your thighs.
“beg for it,” you deadpan.
clark doesn’t hesitate. “please, sweetheart. i’m sorry for distancing myself from you—i shouldn’t have ever done that. i love you so much, please baby—wanna feel your pretty pussy all over my cock,” he babbles, his voice cracking slightly in desperation.
the corners of your lips quirk up in a faint smile. “good boy,” you coo.
you finally give in and carefully sink yourself down onto his thick cock—feeling him stretch you out in the most pleasant way possible.
your eyes flutter shut for a moment as your mouth falls agape, having missed the feeling of the way he fills you up so good. “god, i almost forgot how big you are,” you mutter, letting yourself adjust to the size for a quick moment.
clark on the other hand, was already lost in a state of bliss. he knew he wasn’t gonna be able to last long with the way your walls clenched around him.
“oh gosh… you’re so tight sweetheart,” clark groans, his hands moving to grip your hips.
your hands rest on his chest as you lift yourself up, letting his cock almost leave, before dropping right back down.
a moan leaves clark’s lips, his head thrown back in pleasure. your finger taps his chin. “eyes on me.”
he does as you say and lifts his head, watching as you begin to form a steady pace.
your breathing quickens as you start to bounce up and down on clark’s lap—the tip of his dick hitting your sweet spot with every move.
one of your hands go to run through his hair, causing a whine to escape his throat. “you’re gonna continue being obsessed with me… and i’m gonna love every second of it,” you state, rolling your hips against his.
clark nods eagerly, his hands giving your hip a squeeze. “i’m so infatuated with you, dear—good gosh i love you so much, you don’t even know.”
you start to move up and down once again, this time increasing the pace just a bit. a soft moan leaves your mouth as you feel yourself nearing your second orgasm.
clark notices the way you stutter in your movements and thrusts his hips up to meet your bouncing. “wanna make you come again—wanna feel it all over my cock, beautiful,” clark mumbles, one hand leaving your hip to cup your breast.
he palms the soft flesh and runs his thumb over your nipple, noticing the way you shudder under his touch.
“oh god, don’t stop,” you moan.
“i have no intentions to, baby.”
it isn’t long before you reach your second climax of the night, clark’s eyes never leaving your face.
he watches the way your teeth tug at your bottom lip while your eyes stay shut. your hair lays perfectly along your shoulders, some strands falling across your face.
he thinks it’s you’re the most beautiful thing ever.
“i’m close sweetheart—where do you want it?” clark asks, his breathing quickening.
“inside—just do it inside me,” you tell him.
clark does exactly as you say and gives one final thrust of his hips before letting his cock fully sit inside you—letting out a strangled moan as he comes, his hot seed filling up your gummy walls.
after a few moments, you slump down onto his chest, the both of you worn out from tonight’s activities.
clark wraps an arm around your waist, his nose nuzzling the top of your head. “do you seriously mean it when you say you don’t care how clingy i am?” clark murmurs.
you lift your head up to meet his gaze, a tired chuckle leaving your lips. “yes, i mean it. i could never get sick of you.”
clark smiles sheepishly. “then i have no choice but to continue to bother you 24/7.“
HIII I'M AZARI! 16. sheher. black. bruce's pretty girl. multifandom writer i write whatever im most into, im big on dc at the moment but loveeee animanga warning inconsistent writing and a lot of word vomit? asks are always open for discussion. currently not taking requests. ^_^
