#adhemar x reader

[hope-to-hell]

A Fairytale in Silver and Glass masterlist

1. In this place, an endless rain

2. From a great height

3. To hold the sun

4. The benthic

5. To the bone

6. Kintsugi

7. Mercy

8. Nascent trees

[hope-to-hell]

A Fairytale in Silver and Glass: part three

To hold the sun. Adhemar x Reader. Dreams are the stories we tell ourselves.

This isn’t a fairy story; this is marble and oak and the echo of footsteps in the distance. This is misery with your hand tracing rain down the window while the city sleeps below. But despite the storm outside, all is silent within the tower behind its many inches of shatterproof glass. It is only in the greenhouse that the storm is thunderingly loud and alive. And though Adhemar is never there when you arrive, there is always, now, a book tucked beneath the cushion of his chair.

(Dream, my darling he says as hoofbeats hammer all around you; he leaves bruises with how harshly he pulls you up to ride before him. The appetites of men are more terrible than those of any beast.

He is wrapped in thick wool against the cold; his cloak flows about him and though the wind is cruel against your cheek, he holds you tightly and he is warm. I will keep this one he says, but to whom? It’s only you and him and the frozen ground.)

Something draws his gaze beyond the lamplight.

He doesn’t share what he sees but when he called you to him and said read to me there was broken stone in his throat.

(He says come no closer. There is something writhing in him; the words fall burning from his lips.

You were gone so long. I worried, I—

What, were you afraid? How I wish you hadn’t sought me out. His teeth are so sharp; he smiles like a razor opens: his lips curl back and when he speaks it cuts. Afraid for me, my sweet, or for yourself? Do you think anyone would come to collect your bones? Any kindness crawls back over itself and leaves only this biting cruelty. Here you are, you wretched thing. And he grips your jaw to make you open wide.)

Continue, please. The story is finished, the book laid in your lap. There is nothing left to read, and yet he asks.

(Will you tell me about all those far-off places, about oranges and dragons and your daring adventures?

You’ll be disappointed. He leans into your hand and sighs; sweat and filth drift from his curls as all his travels catch him up. He breathes war through lips peeled raw by the sun; there are threads of blood between his teeth. He is more than tired— he is weary.)

This is not a fairy story, but it’s still something of a fantasy. Once upon a time, when I was little, I wondered what it would be like to live in the sky. I thought if I could just fly high enough, I could stand on the clouds and hold out my arms to catch the sun.

Hn.

I know it’s silly, but

No.

Hm?

You were meant to dream beyond your means. It’s what makes you human. There is a tightness in his jaw that speaks to hard-learned lessons. Continue.

(He waits in silence while his father holds court. Adhemar watches, and he learns, and he remembers everything. Every bluff, every threat couched in polite concern, every fleeting alliance: all can be used and turned against these men.

They bow to your position and your wealth, not to you. He spits the words and doesn’t give a fig about the consequences. The bloody nose is worth it; he sees the stone crumbling beneath his father’s feet and tracks its fall. I will be better.)

I held the sun in my hands and it was somehow cold; when I sank into the stream I clutched it to my chest and watched the water freeze around me.

You were frightened?

No. Just tired

and

the air weighs heavy in these halls; the storm cannot be heard but it can be felt. This isn’t a story; it’s a fragment of a dream, a scrap of mood. And in the dream there is no catharsis, only spreading emptiness. It’s the feeling of reaching out a hand and finding nothing in return, of feeling frostbite and sunburn creeping in at once, of the moment after lightning strikes when all the world holds its breath. He doesn’t want to hear about the dream, he can’t want to. He is power and wealth and inscrutable design; he is above and yet.

And yet he asked. And when you raise your eyes to him, he is watching. And he sees.

[hope-to-hell]

A Fairytale in Silver and Glass: part one.

in this place an endless rain.

Once I had a casual acquaintance with my impending doom

Years ago she promised me someday soon

But how? I've moved from room to room

—Cory Branan, The Corner

AdhemarxReader, slow burn, eldritch Adhemar, all the metaphors. This is an indulgence, an extravagance; this is haring off into the wilds without map or compass. This is ash and sin, oceans and islands. This is a shadow of a memory of a dream.

This is a story told again and again, and though the details may change, the core of it remains the same: once upon a time, in a fearsome castle, there lived a Beast.

The book in question is Italo Calvino’s if on a winter’s night a traveler.

There is silver in his beard and in his hand; he turns the ring this way and that to catch the light. It’s a relic of another time, when he still believed he could be kind. When he speaks his voice is dry like ashes; he says sit and the only thing for you to do is settle at his feet. I know you think I have been cruel. He has been cruel, but that is not the point. The point is him in the here-and-now, not humbled by time and trials but rather hardened. He bears the years in the grooves cut deep at the corners of his eyes, and in the whisper of fingertips that stroke absently down your cheek.

Even the sons of lords must scrap for their living, whether by fists or by strange alliances born in back rooms. Adhemar is measured not by the city that has grown prosperous under his care, nor by the bones that molder in the deep places where he sowed his secrets, but by the cut-crystal glass at his elbow, by the many eyes that try not to meet his own, by the way his steps echo on marble floors. So many years of war, of humiliation, of vengeance— and here he is. He has fallen to the deepest pits of hell and clawed his way back out, remaking himself a thousand times over. His success is evident in the view from his high window, looking down on steel and glass and all the insignificant dramas of the people below.

They are his people, his charges, and however he might feel about them he fulfills his responsibility. And they, in turn, pay tribute with averted eyes and folded hands. They leave their offerings of letters and drawings, loaves of bread, little jars of sand. Now and then they leave their finest gifts: companions with chilly fingers and uncertain faces, eager to please and just the slightest bit afraid. And you: you are the latest in a long line of— what? Objects? Bedmates? Lovers? There are stories, of course, whispered on cold nights.

(I heard he chains them to his bed until they starve.

I heard he takes their hearts.)

It’s all tall tales, scary but with the fantastic slapped on with a heavy hand; it’s less Evenson and more Goosebumps. The truth of it is that no one really knows what happens to them. The Adhemar who sits at state dinners and smiles a polite half-smile is not the same as the Adhemar sitting here in the light of a low-watt lamp, his gaze clear and keen. There is unease in the space between you and him, stemming from the way he watches in silence as you weigh his words.

He has been cruel, he has; for hours and days you’ve had no companion save for the echo of your own steps and the meals that are always somehow ready just when your hunger begins to surface. You’ve been taken care of, yes, but that’s not the same as being cared for. It’s sharper than you meant and there’s a moment where you simply stare at one another. I—

You feel I have been neglectful. Yes, but that is not the point. The point is the way he presses his lips together, thinking, and then says come with me.

There are no horses here, no green fields, no quiet stolen moments where he could breathe his troubles into the open air. But he has his rooftop garden, cased in glass against the cold; he has a comfortable chair and a little table and a key he places gently in your hand. When I am away, you can still find something of me here. It’s not a comfort, not yet, but it is a kindness and that is something unexpected.

The next time he leaves, he does not look back but only brushes his fingertips against the doorframe. Perhaps there is a pause in his step, but then again he is a man of firm decision. He does not waver in anything, and surely not when parting from someone he barely knows. Yet the image lingers; it slips between your thoughts like watered silk and in the dark of night you stand before the greenhouse door with his key pressing its negative image into your palm.

Rain slides down the greenhouse walls; it pounds against the roof and all around is a cold grey emptiness, but inside the great room it is warm, the air perfumed with violets and moss. It smells like him. His chair is leathern, softly worn in the shape of a man. Perhaps he broods here in the evenings, head resting in his palm while those dagger-sharp eyes see the pieces to a game known only to those who understand the weight of power.

There is a book here, stuck between chair and cushion; its pages are soft with wear around the edges, its cover creased; it falls open on the words This is what I mean when I say I would like to swim against the stream of time… Perhaps there is something of him in these pages, if nowhere else then at least in the way the corners are curled from the absent stroking of his thumb.

It’s hard to imagine him relaxed, though he is often still; there seems to be something sharp-toothed in him, something that shines through in glances that cut through you to the bone. And yet he must have been here in moments past, reading and re-reading, listening to rain on glass.

(He’s got to be some kind of monster, hiding in there all alone.

Don’t be stupid. Monsters are monsters and men are men.)

He is there in the morning when you wake, his face a little greyer and more haggard than before, but the crinkles at the corners of his eyes speak to some private amusement. Perhaps it’s the sight of you curled in his chair, all tangled limbs and sighs as you rise from sleep. I read your book. It’s soft, quiet, like the sharing of a secret. He waits, unmoving, his very stillness drawing the words from your lips. It was—.

(It’s an answer that leads to another puzzle, and I wish I knew why I’m here.)

Where was he, in the depths of the night? Was he sipping from the bloodied throats of innocents, or howling at the moon? Perhaps he met with others— not quite of his station, because truly there is no one like him, but with humorless faces floating above bespoke suits, giving counsel and taking their cut. Wherever he might have been, the strange sharpness of ozone clings to him, seeming to fall in wisps from his shoulders as he bids you to rise. And when he offers you a hand his palm is warm.

[hope-to-hell]

A Fairytale in Silver and Glass, part 8: nascent trees

—

He is a man composed of heavy doors and endless rooms, in which his secrets lie in drifts across the floors.

No, wait.

He is the final lingering echo of the last bell that rings in the new year.

Still not right.

He is a man aflame.

He is Adhemar: alone and maybe lonely, sitting with one hand cradling his face.

Here you are.

I thought you’d gone.

(When you try the door, the knob turns beneath your hand; whether you stay or leave, the future is unknown— and in your choosing, the what-might-be becomes what-might-have-been.)

I am no more and no less than this. One piece of me is tied to all the rest, and if you pick one up you’ll have them all.

(Do you withdraw?)

Islands rise from fire, from ash, from clouds that form and tear themselves apart at once. He doesn’t play at penitence; it isn’t in him. He is who he is because of what he’s done and seen, because of the fire that roils beneath his skin like hellfire from the ocean floor. But also—yes— within that bitter burning darkness there is nonetheless

life.

(How, then, can he find his grace? Arrogant sharptoothed flint-edged vicious selfish raging scheming)

He sees the scaffolding that ascends into the heavens and at its base is heaped dirt and blood and shit; his hands are pierced by splinters, but still he climbs. At the apex of this tower is a box made of glass: a greenhouse where the air is silent and waiting, waiting for him to see new land forming in the distance.

Saplings rise and pull strength from the ashes; one leaf unfurls, then two, then ten, then thousands. They send their roots deep and drink their fill. And Adhemar rises from his chair; he opens in the way that oaken doors open: slowly, with the weight of years.

(May the worms take him if the vultures don’t.

But he could be kind, he could be, he could be, he let them go, and listen: there is silver in his hand and through this fire there beats the heart of a man; tear him open and the smooth cool stone at his center will catch the light.)

I thought I’d leave. I nearly did. And yet you press your ear against his chest to drown out the rain in the oceanic roar of his pulse and in his sudden sharp inhale as what-has-always-been becomes what-could-be.

You held the sun in your hands and it was cold; it sank with you into the river and flowed with you to the sea. This is the part of the dream you’ve kept for yourself: the light is argent in the depths and as it spreads it makes a path beneath the waves to lead you home.

[hope-to-hell]

A fairytale in silver and glass: part seven

Mercy. Adhemar x Reader. At last, the penultimate chapter. What is hope, anyway?

—-

I thought I could imprison my failings in a cage of glass, to be examined as relics of a distant time. You see, there was a moment once– long ago– when the world as I knew it turned upside down. I swore to do better, to be better– and yet. He sits and you sit with him; there is blood beneath his nails and crusted in the grooves along his palms. He throws heat like a furnace; it's always surprising, somehow, to find that he has human warmth.

You're hurt. It's absurd: your mind is still fumbling around the afterimage left by whatever writhes inside him, still faintly rimed with ozone and black tar. This is an echo of a moment, spiraling in upon itself to be spun out anew. And in the endless sea of how and why and what will be you fetch up against him, new land rising steam-shrouded from the water, all naked cliffs and stone and

(This is how the world was made)

when you open his hand, his palm is limned with silver scars. All his years are written there in long-healed cuts and torn calluses, overlaid by livid crescents in the shape of a clenched fist. Do you regret it? For him to say either yes or no would be a lie;

It is a complicated question.

(Do you withdraw?)

the only answer he can give is in the briefest closing of his fingers over yours.

We burned the forest to drive them out, but though a hundred men were hidden there, fewer than a dozen emerged. We kept one for information and another for a messenger; the rest met a swift and bitter end.

Mercy?

We had none. It was a matter of practicality; we had no further need of them.

And the one you kept?

He became a vessel for our anger and our grief. And I was…unkind. His words brush against the edges of some bloody evening long ago, over some poor soul whose last glimpse of light was the spark and howl of flames tearing through the trees. I left the cloth over his eyes, even when it didn’t matter anymore.

There’s the fire in him again, his voice burred and raw, but among the smoke and ashes lies the scent of violets and moss, of petrichor, of leather; and though his hand is burning hot, when you cease the mending of his wounds to close both your hands over his, he reaches equilibrium and he is warm.

(What do you think happens when the setting sun touches the earth in winter? Is it spiteful? Does it seek to scorch the land?

I think— I think, perhaps, it gives itself away to warm the far dark corners of the world.)

You have been cruel.

I have.

You have been terrible.

Yes. He waits, and in him is the weariness of years. A man is a man is a man, and for all his power he cannot plumb your thoughts.

And will you not let me leave?

You can leave only once. And you cannot return. Such is the way of things: the tangle of want and need, the smell of rain on wool, the patter of bare feet on stone and concrete, a locked door and an ending that’s the same as always. The cycle is reflected in the lines on his face and in the gnawing writhing told you so, you were and are and will be nothing more than this that eats at him.

A gift is not a gift unless it’s given with an open hand.

(He could be kind)

I think— I think the measure of a man is in his actions. You have been cruel, and yet—

Hope is a breath, a whisper; it is the first drops of rain on parched earth. There are no guarantees, no happy ending promised to those who tear themselves open on the edge of what might be. Everything in him screams to close himself up tight, to stoke his fire until he bursts in gouts of blood and tar, but

(What is the measure of a man?)

Hope is a smooth stone reflecting morning light; it is the richness of turned earth and the spark of silver in his hand. Hope is a weakness, yes, but what else can he do but let it stab into his breast? And so he holds himself open and shudders through an exhale, through fire and ash and gnashing teeth, through years and miles, through endless frightened faces, through rain and moss and and and—

—and yet you could be kind.

[hope-to-hell]

A fairytale in silver and glass: part five.

To the bone. Book quote from Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story. The cracks are beginning to show.

—-

He doesn’t ask if you miss your life before because stupid questions beget stupid answers. Truth be told, he rarely asks you anything at all. He watches, and sometimes he commands—

—and oh the steel in his voice when he caught you with your hand on the door to his study; all he had to say was no and it sent a violent shiver from your toes up through your shoulders; his eyes were heavy on you til you’d slunk out of sight, and your heart was pounding when you later lay in bed and slipped your hand beneath the covers—

—but most days there is little talk between you. He doesn’t ask and you don’t offer.

He leaves and as he does the air runs in eddies around him, pooling at his lips with words on the verge of being said. I will return, perhaps, or be good

(Be safe)

and though your supper is on the table every night there is still a gnawing hunger in your belly. You wake each dawn to neatly folded clothes, to breakfast on the side table, to wan light streaming in through the narrow window. Days pass in an endless patter of your bare feet on cold floors and the scent of brass that clings to your hand each time you try the door.

(I held the sun in my hands)

This is a sleepless night; days and nights scratch at one another til they’re hopelessly entangled. There is no feeling the breeze on your face, no deep inhale to draw the dawn into your lungs. The closest you can get is Adhemar’s greenhouse, but it is a sealed box that always seems to be surrounded by clouds and rain. The air within these walls is still and empty, and for a moment you cannot breathe.

(I clutched it to my chest)

The study door is ajar tonight.

(Really? You made it all the way here and didn’t notice? You, whose pulse quickens when shadows cross the hall beyond your door? Or were you hoping—)

Where do you go?

He doesn’t answer.

Night and day exchanged glances, and in the long slow blink between them he returned. His veins pulse close to the surface and their frantic tattoo can be nearly heard.

Golden light fans out through the open door; it’s a gentle glow that pushes back the visual static of the darkened hall. He is there and he is not; he holds a silver ring in his hand that he walks across his knuckles: back and forth, back and forth, until it disappears into his fist.

What do you miss the most? he doesn’t ask.

Sunlight. Pavement. Midnight conversations. Laughter over supper. Human touch. He doesn’t ask, and so you cannot answer. In the space between words unsaid he looks to you and sees beyond. The ring turns in his hand again and when it reappears it’s streaked with red.

Are you—

Leave it.

His voice is a tangle, burred and harsh and each word buries its hooks deep to leave threads of worry behind. He is not measured nor aloof; something in him teeters on the edge of anger. There is silver in his beard and in his hand; the light is golden on his skin and melts through him to his bones. Hie to your chamber. He is old now, ancient even, layer upon layer of tar and filth and recklessness, of moments that could have become his doom and his grace were he not held back by whatever it is that eats at him.

No. Are you hurt? Do you need— There is pain in him, some struggle that gnaws him from the inside. It flies in the face of your judgment and experience, but

(Who are you to kick at the pillars of the sky)

his fractured parts are visible at last and he cannot push them back inside himself.

Go. To. Your. Chamber. There it is: the fire, the crack in the earth, the stone dropping molten from his tongue. He stands upon the edge of reason and though he is all aflame there was still a tattered book waiting for you in the greenhouse. And still the words were smeared on the page when you read:

But if all at once it looks as though your wish might come true, you suddenly find yourself wishing you had never wished for any such thing.

And when he rises— when he is so close you can smell the rain and ozone still clinging to his curls— when the flecks of green in his eyes are so clear— when he rises, he is fighting back something

something

that you cannot name but can only feel.

Please, he says; the word lands silvery in your hand.

(Dust in an empty room, black powder, drifting smoke. Light and heat and all around is the crashing of a house as it falls to its knees. He is there and he is incandescent; if he takes another step he’ll burst and all the good, the bad— all the teeth and shadows and meadowgrass— will come pouring out.

Can a man change his stars?)

A man is a man is a man, but sometimes a man is a vessel of oil. Sometimes a man is a footprint in deep mud. Sometimes a man is a bloody hand. Sometimes a man is a single word held aloft by a fine thread. Adhemar curls himself around his please, around the smooth cool stone at his center. The thread vibrates. It sheds fragments of fiber that are incinerated by his writhing burning something. And it holds.

Go, he says again, and drops his gaze, although to do so grinds his teeth and makes his bones shiver in their sockets. To your chamber, he says, and what else can you do but obey?

[hope-to-hell]

The benthic. Adhemar x Reader. This is his past; whether it becomes his future is still in the wind.

Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire— Jorge Luis Borges, A New Refutation of Time

‘Live, and long may your choice weigh heavy upon you.’ This is the curse laid upon him so very long ago, when his victories rang near as hollow as his defeats, when the stars were merely points of light that hung immutable in the sky. ‘Live, but know that the core of your being lies rotting underground. Live, and feel yourself crushed by the weight of who you failed to be.’

He howls then, torn asunder; he feels his own blood warm on his hands but when he looks down there is nothing. He cannot reconcile what he sees with what he feels; he thinks of rabbits and foxes, their red fur flying. There are hounds baying somewhere close by, scenting their quarry. The image is pinned to his breast with bright points of pain and though his thoughts are fractured he understands that, somehow, this is the easy part.

He breathes.

The muddy ground of the yard dries beneath his body; stars and sun exchange glances overhead and he feels his breath catching on cracked lips.

He breathes, and does not wonder why no one comes.

(No one? How terribly sad.)

If he lies here much longer he will be merely a man-shaped hollow in the earth. The difference between crusted blood and dried mud is merely a matter of the source; both are equal in the misery they cause: he itches inside and out, unbearably. He does not move because he cannot move, because the stars are wheeling overhead and he is fixated on them.

He breathes.

Move, you bastard.

There is something crawling in his bones.

Come, would you really give up so easily?

He shifts and warmth ripples out around him; there is a deep hum in his ears and he cannot think; he moves and the hum becomes a roar becomes

nothing. His ears are ringing and there is a strange flavor on his tongue. When he was a boy, lightning struck the old oak in the near meadow; the air was sharp and exhilarating, threaded through with punky wood and smoke. The memory pulses with each beat of his heart.

The itch abates and he moves to sit with his forearms on his knees. Perhaps he will be sick; nausea crawls along his spine and curls at his nape. But he is proud, despite all this; he chokes it back and grits his teeth. He’s held his own against princes, ruffians, peasants— he’s suffered injuries to flesh as well as pride, but none of it was like this. Those beatings-down at least made sense; he was placed firmly in his position and knew the names of those above and below. But this—

whatever this is—

(Look at him, pathetic thing.)

Adhemar finds a crust at his side, and cheese, and a cup of something passably strong. He chews and lets the thoughts filter back into his head. They shy away from something dark and thorny— something writhing and hungry and he thinks again of foxes and the hunt— but there’s room enough for most of him to squeeze inside.

How long have I been here?

He eats and drinks and ponders the basket that held his meal. Willow branches and a homespun cloth: these are simple things, but their textures entrance him and he runs his fingers over each until the bread goes sweet in his mouth. The yard is muddy, yes, but the basket is dry. Someone brought it, thought enough of him to bring him food despite his sorry state. Or perhaps it was because of this— this—

(What is the true measure of a man?

Wealth?

Faith?

Prestige? What will buoy him up before the Gate and grant him peace?)

Perhaps someone’s concern was enough to bring them stealing across the yard to leave a meal beside his nerveless form.

Perhaps they felt it was their duty. It’s a palatable enough reason; being vulnerable— pitiable— is a thorn that pierces deep, but duty he can understand. Duty keeps men upright in their places; it forms the pillars that hold up the sky.

(You’re not meant to like them, boy. Doubtless they do not like you, worm that you are. But you are responsible for them.)

Perhaps someone worried over him, pitied him even, and it turns the bread sour on his tongue.

(Again. His arms are shaking from the weight of the blade; he cannot see for the sweat in his eyes and all around is the maddening drone of summer insects.

We’ve been at this for hours.

And we’ll be at it all night as well if you don’t pull yourself together. This will save your life someday.

He burns from fingertips to toes but he finds the hard smooth stone at his center. In his mind’s eye he closes a fist around it and feels its spreading coolness. He raises his blade and this time it is he who says again.)

Adhemar rises on legs gone stiff. He scratches at his nape and starts across the yard. He takes the basket with him.

[hope-to-hell]

A Life in Fragments. Adhemar x Reader. Smut. I have no idea what I’m doing here; I barely even remember this film. Blame @punemy-spotted for reigniting my lust for Rufus Sewell.

—-

The house is deep in the grip of winter when he returns; snow falls from his furs and he reaches out to tilt your chin just so. If he were soft for you, you wouldn’t know it; he wouldn’t know it for how deeply he is mired in his own thoughts. But for a time he partitions his mind; he cannot train until the snow begins to melt in spring, and so he is free to ponder other matters.

Morning light. He faces the sun but it doesn’t matter; in his mind’s eye Adhemar sees his opponent fall. Trust your horse. He lets the world go white before him. Be steady enough to find your moment, and cruel enough to take it.

His hands are cold but there are sparks and embers in his voice; his did you miss me is timed to the stroking of finger and thumb down the column of your throat. He watches the way you shiver, tracing your gooseflesh with callused fingers, tilting his head just a fraction as he studies the catch of your breath and the racing of your heart. You waited up for me. How…sweet.

His booted foot is unyielding against your cunt; he watches slick shining over leather. Ride it harder, like you mean it. Don’t make me tell you twice. He meets each twitch of your hips with a firm downward press of his hand. Better. He is a man like a burning house in winter; he has been called cruel before, and so he is— but he is not cold. Even when his body is still, there is flame licking through his veins; it is reflected in his gaze and burns its way through your flesh.

There is mist caught in his curls and beading on his cloak. He is haloed, angelic, bright-eyed and awful. The messenger’s head is heavy in his hands; Adhemar cradles it for a moment, then lets it fall. This part is never easy but he does it well; he stays with the man until the end and if he doesn’t pray it doesn’t matter. Some secrets are written in blood. Perhaps one day the blood will be mine to give, but today you were unlucky.

When you look up from your place between his feet, his face is full of shifting shadows from the firelight; he looks like a man who’s never smiled in his life.

A loss?

Mhm.

His calluses are bleeding; he was in the training yards til darkness fell, tilting again and again and again. He leaves a crimson streak across your cheek when he strokes his thumb across it, and though his expression never wavers there’s that little catch to his breath. He traces that same thumb across your lips and pushes it into your mouth. His other hand is trailing lower, torn and bloodied just the same; he leaves strange glyphs across your skin and when he strokes you from the inside there’s a small wet sound in his throat.

Back to your knees. I intend to use you well.

His maps are open on the table; the screams of the dying are everywhere and this is not what he expected. Glory, his enemies crushed beneath his boot, an honorable retirement after having discharged his duty. Not this. Not blood and sweat and shit and the certainty of his survival flickering. He presses down his fear, encapsulates it, lets his body form a hollow around it. If he lives long enough it will be pushed out like a splinter; he will look back and wonder how could I have ever been afraid?

He smells like sweat and horses; his shirt is plastered to his skin and underneath it the hair of his chest curls thick and dark. He pulls you to him and if he is not gentle, at least he isn’t cruel. His limbs move loose and easy; the tournament ended in his favor and now he claims his victory anew. You will pleasure him and serve him, and when he’s finished you will doze with your head against his knee, the taste of his spend still bitter on your tongue.

Evening. Breathless heat gives way to sweet cool air as his horse picks its way along the path. He knows you will be waiting with the candles lit; their soft glow flickers across the miles and is reflected in his tired eyes. Adhemar is coming home.