summary: when barok gets a little drunk, he suddenly says things you've never expected to hear from him...
“i wonder… what your lips taste like…”
the feared reaper of the bailey seemed to have had a few too many glasses of wine, leaning in a bit too close to you. his eyes were fixated on your lips, his hand clenched, as if he was holding himself back.
“i crave you so much… to know the taste of you… my body is aching for you…”
slowly barok raised his hand, seemingly having lost the battle against himself. he gently caressed your cheek, as he leaned in closer, glancing up at you to meet your eyes, wondering if you yearned for this as much as he did…
Description: Having spent the night at Lord Van Zieks Manor, you have a midnight still and end up spending the night with the Lord of the manor.
Warning: Tame and pretty fluffy not an ounce of cursing mildly inaccurate old English ngl. Pretty descriptive too minimal dialogue. Not really an established relationship but in the end it is implied.
A/N: man I need to pick a fandom ngl but I more or less wrote this for me but I'm sharing it w y'all to who like this tall man to.
Words: 1,337
You shut the guest room door quietly behind you, clutching your small candle close to your chest. Your bare feet pad against the carpet of the dark manor with little thumps. Whilst you walk through the corridors, you take a look at the intricate wallpaper on the walls and the delicate loops of design on the large windows. You glance at the doors you've stopped at and try to remember which one leads to the library. Walking a little further, you see the flickering of a light. Getting closer, you press your ear against the door and hope that it's one of the servants just doing a late-night cleaning. Sighing through your nose, you knock gently on the door and wait for an answer.
"Enter." The low voice that responds practically makes you jump out of your skin. You glance at your current state of dress and ponder if you should just run back to your room. Instead, you gently open the door and peek your head in. Partially in the room, you look around and start to remember this as Lord Van Zieks' office, as if his voice didn't give it away. Finally meeting the face of the voice, your eyes meet with ice blue ones. You blink, then enter his home office, shutting the door quietly.
"My apologies, your grace, I was unable to sleep..." You trail off feeling nervous under his gaze, and he takes in your appearance, your thin night gown, your hair freely falling below your shoulders. His eyes snap back up to yours, and he quickly clears his throat and gets up.
"You're quite fine, Ms. ( )." He moves towards the side table by the settee in the center of the room, grabbing two glasses and filling them with wine. He motions you over with the glass, and you meander over timidly; accepting the glass, he takes a seat and looks at you expectantly. Noting the hint, you sit down hastily beside him, and you sneakily ogle him as he gracefully sips his chalice. He looks at you from the corner of his eye as he swallows, and you look back at your own drink, trying to pretend you weren't just watching him.
"If you don't mind, my Lord," you start softly after taking a swig of your own glass.
"What are you doing up so late?" You ask, and he sets his drink down, leaning back in his seat. He looks relaxed, his shirt is slightly unbuttoned, and his waistcoat and cravat are nowhere in current sight. He looks just as handsome as he does in the courtroom.
"Finishing up the last of Mr. Asogi's and my paperwork." He sat back upright and looked back at you. You leaned closer to him, and he watched as you inched closer to him.
"Pray, forgive the discourtesy," he murmured to you as he leaned closer and pushed a few stray hairs away from your face. He moves to pull away, but you swiftly latch onto his hand and bring it to your cheek, holding it there while leaning in to the cold, smooth skin of his palm.
"I feel I should be the one to say that your grace." You whisper. "Do you know what they say about cold hands, my lord?" He lets a hum egging you to continue.
"That people with cold hands have a warm heart." His lips twitch slightly at your statement. You let go of his hand, and he reaches behind you, leaning in slightly closer to you, putting his hand quite close to his chest; you can smell the red wine that he is drinking. constantly, the ink from his papers, and the warmth of his body. When he settles back, something warm is draped around your shoulders.
"It is rather late, Ms. ( ), I shall escort you back to the safety of your room." He starts to shift to get up, but you hasten to grab the lapel of his open shirt and tug him back down to you. He studies your face, and as you hold him there gently, eventually you steel yourself and raise your face to his and peck his cheek sweetly. You sit yourself again and stare at the buttons of his shirt, too nervous to look at him again for your rash action. His bare hand tilts your chin up to him, and he leans down to your lips and pauses his movement to give you a chance to move, then dips his head to give a proper kiss. One of your hands holds his wrist while the other grips his shirt. You part at the mouth and breathe lightly while holding your head to his. He stares deeply into your blurry gaze as you pant. Suddenly, he gets up and crouches down in front of you.
"Pardon my boldness," is all the warning you get from him before he hoists you up into his arms; he blows out his candle from his desk, then blows out the one you brought. You clutch him tightly as he moves around the room with ease, while carrying you out back into the corridor you came from. Van Zieks turns in the opposite direction from how you arrived and takes long strides to a new location. Halfway through the walk, he abruptly stops.
"Do you wish to return to your room tonight?" He prods lightly, but behind it, you can hear the longing. You clutch him tightly, curling up closer in his arms, while vigorously shaking your head. His grip tightens, and he picks up his previous stride. At last, he stops you both at a door, and he shifts you in his grip and opens the door. He shuts the door behind you both, then walks to the bed with the large canopy, setting you carefully down on the velvet sheets.
"I shan't be long." He lets your hair lovingly before walking off to one of the armoires in his room. You take in as much of the room as you can with the bit of light that you have from the window. It's a Gothic and cold bedroom with dark blacks and simple purples as accents; it fits his personality perfectly. Grasping at the fabric around your shoulders, you look down at it and come to the epiphany that it is the Lord's dress coat from today. You bring the article to your nose and breathe deeply; it smells like him, the whole bed smells of him. Such a heady aroma that he makes. Peeking up at the rustling of fabric, you catch a glimpse of his toned back with a flash of his scars near his shoulder blades before his nightshirt is all the way on. His shoes are gone as well, you note as he walks over to you, opposite to the side of your bed that you're on. He sits down and silently watches you as you take all of his appearance in.
"May I?" He comes closer to grab the coat from your shoulders, and you shrug it off into his hands. He puts it near his side table to deal with in the morning.
"With the way this night is ending, I feel almost as if you're courting me, your grace." You tease him as you shift closer to his personal space. He wraps an arm around your waist and pulls you into his lap.
"I should hope I made that clear with my earlier actions." He offers curtly, twirling a strand of your hair. You blink owlishly at him as you lean your head into his broad chest, listening to the steadiness of his heart.
"You won't wish to be rid of me in the morning, will you?" You prod mutely, his head rests atop your own as he moves you both under the lines of the bed.
"Pray forgive me, but I should not want to be rid of you ever." You doze off in the comfort of both his arms and his reassurance.
Most people would never think it, let alone say as much, but you know the truth: Barok is adorable when flustered and blushing.
It's only ever light-hearted little teases and gestures, you don't want to embarrass or humiliate him, but you cannot help yourself when the opportunity arises. You know of a few surefire ways to fluster him, such as walking over and kissing him; complimenting him on how handsome he is; playfully flirting with him; telling him how much you love him and praising his legs.
Of course, you keep these games to private moments – alone in his office, or at home – but outside of that, he never knows when you might pop up and throw him off with a compliment or a kiss. Yet, he doesn't seem to mind one bit even as he coughs and blushes and mutters.
──────≪⊰✥⊱≫───────
"Hello handsome," you said before sitting down in Barok's lap as he opened his arms to welcome you. There was already a light blush on his face, it seemed he was still unused to being called 'handsome'.
"Good evening, love," he could see the mischief in your eyes, his voice had a knowing tone to it, "And what's on your mind?"
"Oh not much," you said as you snuggled against him and kissed his chin, "I just wanted to spend some time with you," your fingers tiptoed up his shirt then toyed with the ruffled trim.
Barok coughed softly, "Oh.. I see..." then nodded, "Very well, um, carry on..." you could see a smile creeping over his lips as he held you all the firmer and immersed himself in your presence, "Even if you're terrible tease."
"Me? A tease? Perish the thought!"
"Mmm-hm," he sounded unconvinced as you tugged him down by the shirt to lightly kiss his lips, "You say... as you kiss me so wantonly... it seems you delight in flustering me like this..." his cheeks were burning all the hotter, yet he didn't seem to want to pull away from you. Not even a little bit...
pairing: herlock sholmes x gn!reader x barok van zieks
tags: polyamorous relationship, wholesome fluff, public relationship, bit of jealousy
while barok would love to keep his relationship with you as private as possible, herlock can't stop talking and bragging about dating you! and through herlock, people find out that you're dating barok as well…
honestly, people will judge you for your relationship. two boyfriends!? isn't that a little too much? why can't just one man satisfy you?
but barok and herlock are always quick to jump to your defense and stand their ground, making it clear that they won't tolerate anyone losing even a single bad word about you!
the three of you don't spend a lot of time together. usually you're just with herlock OR barok, rarely both of them. the only exceptions are at court, when herlock has to testify and barok has to deal with his antics…
the two men get along, but if it wasn't for you, they probably wouldn't be very close. you are what gives them a reason to spend time together and they slowly form a sort of friendship because of you
both men are a little jealous of each other, but are mature enough to not act on that jealousy. they might have those feelings, but they'll simply ignore them, in favour of having a peaceful time with you
pairing: herlock sholmes x gn!reader x barok van zieks
tags: romantic rivalry, silly!herlock vs. serious!barok
both barok and herlock are highly regarded by the public, seen as outstandingly intelligent men and yet, one of them is as serious as it can be, while the other one can't stop goofing around
barok can't flirt with you openly the way herlock can. herlock simply jokes around, until his jokes turn into flirting and somehow he got you charmed
meanwhile all barok can do is invite you out for dinner or wine. and anytime he does that, he gets looks from others, who clearly notice he's making advances towards you
especially herlock is quick to point out that barok likes you! but both men are smart and knew from the start that the other one was interested in you…
herlock will often poke fun at barok for his crush on you, knowing it takes quite a bit to make barok snap. usually he simply tries to ignore herlocks teasing…
barok takes this romantic rivalry far more seriously than herlock. after all, barok wants to be the only one for you, while herlock wouldn't even mind sharing you with barok…
pairing: ryunosuke naruhodo x gn!reader x barok van zieks
tags: polyamorous relationship (ryu + barok dating reader but not each other), wholesome fluff, implied post-canon
ryunosuke and barok might've not had the best start, but they not only grew to have a mutual understanding and respect for each other, but they grew closer as well through their shared love for you
even before they started dating you, they both started to get along for the sake of you, bonding over their adoration for you. but since they started dating you, they're almost something like friends!
most of the time, ryunosuke and barok split up the time they have with you. they both prefer alone time with you, as those moments are far more intimate than when another person sticks around them – even if that other person is also your boyfriend
the concept of a polyamorous relationship is likely new to at least one of those two! japan and england really are quite different, so what's normal for one of them might be something entirely new for the other one!
ryunosuke is more publicly affectionate with you than barok is! but that doesn't mean that ryunosuke is more affectionate in general! because in private, barok can get quite loving and affectionate with you
barok has a soft and loving side that he only shows you! he doesn't want to show vulnerability towards anyone else, but ryunosuke slowly starts to pick up on the fact that the reaper of the bailey seems to be a softie when it comes to you…
barok hates the japanese! it's something he's not very shy about, leading to even more confusion when he suddenly ends up crushing on you, a japanese exchange student, studying law in england
usually, barok would be great at hiding his feelings for someone! he's not very obvious when having a crush on someone, due to his usual laidback and calm demeanour
but with you, it's way too obvious, simply because you're japanese! if he didn't like you, he wouldn't even give you the time of day! yet here he is, actively seeking out your company and trying to converse with you
even while trying to pursue you, barok is actively struggling with his feelings. he likes you, but he hates your kind. even if you were to reciprocate his feelings, how could a relationship between you two even work?
barok has a lot of baggage from the past that he needs to overcome before he can date you. perhaps having you in his life can help him, but he slowly begins to realize that he needs to tackle his problems before being someone worthy of your love…
