Dec 19, 2024
WELCOME TO MY BLOG
nicky ᡣ𐭩 he/it
matthew’s secret bf (˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶)
writer & boyblogger
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WELCOME TO MY BLOG
nicky ᡣ𐭩 he/it
matthew’s secret bf (˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶)
writer & boyblogger
tagged by the adorable @destiniesfic 🌹 thank you love!
How many works do you have on AO3?
ten (not counting deleted ones)
What’s your total AO3 word count?
29,376 total words
How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?
can’t count across my lifetime (lets not touch my old quizilla history) but currently there are three
What are your top 5 fics by kudos?
get me to the altar - 960
maybe this is danger and he just don’t know - 629
open for me - 395
the way you see it fall apart - 326
just your neck, and my beloved - 290
Do you respond to comments, why or why not?
if there’s something i looooove it’s receiving comments! more than kudos tbh. and yes, sometimes i do respond to them. however, i selfishly try not to respond to any that don’t merit a response because i feel like it only ups my comments number for no reason. also, some are complimentary rather than inquisitive so i don’t know what to say other than “thank you”. i do read every single one and appreciate it though!
What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?
obviously this bad boy almost gone (in these little moments get your cards out)
Do you write crossovers? If so, what’s the craziest one you’ve written?
neeeever hehe
Have you ever received hate on a fic?
not that i recall thankfully
Do you write smut? If so what kind?
... my account is almost exclusively smut. if i were to write something in depth or emotional i wouldn’t want to waste it on fanfiction. rather i’d save that for manuscripts of original stories. so my account is one small little bubble of pwp!
my specialties range from emotional catharsis to bondage to dom/sub and dirty talk with slapping and surprisingly enough, it’s come to my attention that several of my fics have slight voyeurism? which?? 👀
Have you ever had a fic stolen?
nope! i did notice, however, that after posting get me to the altar some new fics sprung up with throne sex 😶 do with that info what you will
Have you ever had a fic translated?
that has never come to mind, actually. despite being bilingual myself that’s EMBARRASSING
What’s your all time favorite ship?
give me a J! give me a U! give me a DE! give me a catboy! what’s that spell? the ship with the most daddy issues! that’s right - JUDECARDAN!
What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?
funny enough i have a finished wip! it’s heavily doused in religious themes though and i doubt it would be well received by the internet so i kept it in a secret google doc and sent it only to select friends. because who would want to see judecardan roleplay as jesus and judas, right? anywho, other than that, i started an au where jude wasn’t abducted by madoc but rather found by ahem other people. it spanned into this long umbrella academy-style storyline that i doubt i can see through.
What are your writing strengths?
uhhh this is difficult for me to say considering i’m self-aware but i can’t really see my own writing from an objective point of view. therefore i invited a guest!
zara “that bitch” sanktaleksander comments: i enjoy your characterization and dialogue because it feels very real
What are your writing weaknesses?
as my bestie zara says, verbatim: Over fucking description bro I’ll kill u for that
What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?
i love it. i try to do so as often as i can, including my judecardan’s babies mini-fic! it’s glaringly obvious that i love a character when i make them multilingual
What was the first fandom you wrote for?
gosh who even remembers. probably some dumb 14-year-old take on ghostgirl or avatar the last airbender
What’s your favorite fic that you’ve written?
get me to the altar was the first smut fic in which i “put myself out there”. it was so well received i wrote the rest! it will always have a special place for me. second to that is probably right at the borderline is where i’m gonna wait
a dozen thanks for the ask! 🕊️
tagging: @slightlyrebelliouswriter23 @moononastring @jurdanhell @wanderingpages @anonniemousefics
Hey
It would be very cool if yall check out my Wattpad acount. I write self indulgent oc stuff (with a lill sonic AUs on the side)
https://my.w.tt/dPzuuHAFF4
almost gone (in these little moments get your cards out)
tfota | jude x cardan, she doesn’t come back au, no smut, hurtful and punishable tbh (ao3)
entry to jurdan week 2020 by @jurdannet - day 7: wild card! a what-if au had jude tried to make a new life in maine (don’t worry, cardan shows up). heaps of angst. little payout. sorry in advance. trigger warnings: violence, guns, shooting, and death mention.
[canon divergence from twk ending. title from “lay your cards out” by poliça]
*
gone. she’s gone. avulsed from her land, never hers, and her lover, never loved. the mortal world welcomes her with wide arms, arms that are shorter than she remembers, a little less homely, much less magical. after all, how can the ordinariness of television, powder tea, and surround sound compare to the true magic of faerieland?
vivi says it will be well. of course she does. why wouldn’t she, with her strong blood and pointed ears.
jude stares and stares at the tv. at the window. at the door. she’s not so stupid as to believe it will allay her want, but like programming, she follows the routine nonetheless.
*
two months. oak is recalcitrant to her teachings. vivi is buoyant in her obliviousness. they do not see her. she cannot see herself. the closest thing she has to a mirror is miles away, attending a new husband and parading with stars dangling from rounded ears. if taryn were to come, jude thinks she wouldn’t recognize either of them.
*
she is ashamed to watch her pillowcase blotted with tear stains at nightfall.
it’s more embarrassing than waking up the first time to menstrual blood staining her sheets, two stories up in madoc’s estate, knowing not what it meant or what to do.
jude duarte avoids as superfluous emotions as sadness or hopelessness. being a mortal in faerie, those sentiments would wash her out of focus, riddle her with doubt, and with a certainty would so far as kill her.
but, she thinks, i am not in faerie anymore. i am no longer in a place where blood is a better find than tears. where eyes are dry and swords are sated by throats and bellies.
perhaps in her native world it is safer. that’s what jude wanted this whole time, was it not? safety. if she were meant to feel relief, she should feel it now.
survival feels wet against her cheek.
*
he keeps slugging his damn arms. jude tugs oak roughly to her, fixing his stance, and urges him to strike.
“will i still be king someday?”
as per usual, he tries deflection to talk out of a combat lesson. jude is unmoved. “yes.”
“are you sure?”
she shifts her weight to her other leg. “there is no other way.” his form is poor. she identifies his weaker side and rounds slowly to it. “the crown answers to blood. raise your elbow higher. protect your face.”
oak listens for once. his voice is shrill still. “so there is no one else?”
of course there’s someone else. another bearer of the crown, another royal to lead their nation. but jude grits her teeth and resorts to her best asset: lying. “no. no one else.”
her little brother pauses, their lesson half-present in his mind. intrigued, she watches the scrunch of his brows as he formulates a thought. “unless cardan has a child. then there would be another.”
if he sees her freeze, he doesn’t mention it. the scenario turns her thoughts errant, threatens her with a conniption. some sick part of her wishes to linger on the possibility, but with oak before her and posed to fight, she cannot allow herself that masochism.
oak stands expectant, his arm growing weary and slouching. the least she can do is not lie.
“i suppose.”
he remembers none of the stance the next evening.
*
“no word from dad. taryn either.”
jude lifts her face to catch vivi rummaging through envelopes of mail. “what, were you expecting miracles? a shift in the weather?” she scoffs, coming back to her task. counting money. hard-earned cash from late shifts of all services and flavors. espionage, theft, the occasional sparring match. the underground fae crime ring taints the soul, but it pays in fifties.
vivi interrupts her quick fingers. “he liked you best, you know. dad always gave more of himself to you than to me or taryn.” she notices her brother sitting at the couch, leans in to rumple his hair. “or oak.”
jude shoots vivi a cruel look, an exasperated look. “what good that did to me.”
her sister’s eyes are fierce as a growling cat where they pin her in place. “quite some good, your highness.”
jude does a fucking great job at not screaming.
*
she hates to think of the name.
what could his true name be, she wonders? if she commanded it, before the brokering of their epically failed marriage for his release, jude asks herself if he’d given it. if he’d hated her that much more.
her mind swirls with reminders of midnight black eyes, of fingers against her lips and the abstruse feeling of possession by another being.
she won’t think of it. she won’t dream of it. she won’t aerate the two syllables in a whisper of dark sky. she certainly won’t be pelted with the scariest word, the four letters she refused since childhood to allow a place in her. the word that died with a blade on its back as it ran to the kitchen. the word that meant a certain foolishness, a certain danger. she won’t. it’s her new mantra: she won’t, she won’t, she won’t.
falsehoods have always been her strongest asset.
*
“we shouldn’t be watching this shit,” heather sighs between mouthfuls of red licorice.
they’re leaning on the couch, lined up like soldiers catching their breath amidst pilgrimage to battle. the television blares high. jude notices heather has shifted her free hand to cover oak’s eyes.
she inspects the playing show more closely. one second there’s a wide shot of scenery, familiar in its medieval setting, and the next there’s a person. a striking young woman with silver hair like new iron falling in tresses across pale shoulders.
the figure is so intimate it nearly makes jude jump. “a princess,” she murmurs.
heather shakes her head. “no. oh no. well, sorta.” oak squirms in her hand, breaking free of her hold, to which she sighs and acquiesces. “sure, i guess, but more than that. it’s complicated.”
from her place next to oak, jude nods. “royals tend to be.”
her sister’s lover, or ex lover (certainly an ex something), barrels on. she uses hand gestures to further her explaining. “her father was the mad king, but she was only a baby when he got dethroned. she was exiled from her home, far across the sea. then she married a powerful man, leader of a tribe, and sorta grew into herself. after he died, his rivals and his people tried to disbar her. turns out she had more in her arsenal than was believed.” heather wags her eyebrows at the show.
jude couldn’t be more confused until a huge, black winged creature crosses the screen. “are those…”
“yup,” heather confirms. “the mother of beasts. and her husband’s people, they followed her. even though he was gone, and was their real ruler, and it was unacceptable that she rule on the basis of who she was, they still accepted her as leader.”
jude stiffens. “really.”
they made it seem so close, so easy to reach. the princess-who-wasn’t-a-princess straightens her spine, amplifies her voice. when she speaks, people heed.
heather slices her reverie. “because she has magic.” she points to the overflying monsters. “badass.”
ah. because. she. has. magic.
a non-magic girl slouches back in her non-magic couch, watching a non-magic box, consumed by baneful imaginings.
*
unprepossessing. that is what they called her. ugly, if wine or fury loosened their vocabulary. how had i let someone who called me that touch me at the collarbones? kiss my throat? call me his sweet villain? jude has no answer. she replays and loops the plethora of adjectives her dear husband and company had called her. wormfood. unsightly. repellent. direful. unbecoming. synonyms alike to the same derivative, final word.
mortal.
the circle of worms, she and taryn. daughter of dirt.
she wishes she were nobody’s daughter.
*
it takes her three nights after that to realize now she really is nobody’s daughter.
*
her exile hits the half year.
*
bride of faerieland. the mortal queen.
a fugacious dream, she finalizes. no more than a fleeting child’s wish. had she remained at home, no, in faerie , she’d never have been queen. not without the people’s approval and not with her mortality. a hollow crown, a fool’s wreath.
she cements it into her brain, sears it to memory. she never. would. have been. a true. queen.
oh, but what a vision they would’ve been. jude, stiff boned with graying hair, and cardan beside her, youthful as ever and tethered to her with ball and chain. unescapable. a fresh minted prison for him. he’d be gagged to ask for her kisses, much less beg for them. when her skin sagged and time plundered her heart, how quick he’d be to run from her. a bat out of hell.
when it processes that she’s thought of his name, written it to existence in the myriad of her thoughts, she breaks into a cold sweat.
*
she won’t call her exile a blessing. there’s many descriptors for the singular event that redefined the last leg of her fleeting teenage life, and blessing won’t cut it. recently, however, jude has had the chance to add timely to the list.
jude kills a troll. he’d been preying on humans the same time as her abscond to the human realm. this particular troll began his horror streak after developing a taste for the helpless glaze in their eyes at final moments before teeth sunk into shoulders, the way they rolled back or if the occasion came up that the eyelids would fall crookedly. the funny look of a drugged, passed out, mindless loon. except these were dead loons, victims to the desire of a beast. these humans had been lured into the abandoned subway tunnel, but jude had strolled there all on her own.
“that bitch carries the devil,” commented one of the fae. gathered in a ring, stealing glimpses of her over their shoulders.
waiting for her pay, jude kicked the tip of her boot into the solid ground, arms crossed. “that bitch can hear. i may not have fae hearing, but i’d abstain from testing me were i in your shoes.”
the fae she had spoken to was of the sea, and was barefoot. irony not lost on her.
sooner than expected, jude duarte developed a reputation. successful runs, frightening recounts of what she did to earn her money, it swiveled up and circled around her like a tornado. some fae considered testing if the legend was bigger than the person, and some fae had lost the use of a limb. she knew she’d been strong before, but this new world taught her what an unstoppable force she was. had always been.
they give her a nickname. fearful of evoking the name given to her at birth, though being human it had no effect on her. still, shadows shivered at her wake, watching, consuming jude duarte’s trail of defeated foes. in the damp, cold streets of maine, in a world she long since had cut true tethers from, she’s reborn as the wrath.
in her mind, somewhere in the bowels of the elfhame palace, the court of shadows laugh up a storm.
*
oak grows less querulous and more capitulant to his role. jude in turn decides to do the same with her old-but-now-new home amidst mortals.
she watches tv. repaints her bike. buys new clothes. eats toasted waffles with peanut butter and honey.
when heather mentions a museum across town, jude no longer stares at her blankly. she doesn’t fumble or grasp for words. her foot’s planted on the ground, steady and strengthening.
she becomes inclined to music. an old trait, now in a new ambient. vivi glamours money to grant her a gift, a small excuse to cheer her up. the gadget fits most of her hand, sensitive to her tact and bright during the darker hours. heather hauls her laptop once in a while to upload new songs onto it, teaching jude how to sift through the list.
music player in her hand, jude sheepishly assembles a queue of songs that she likes. tunes that have replaced bards in taverns or notes plucked from lutes.
an aggressive song by a vexed wife goes first, the one with words that hit jude harsher than she wants to admit, the title saying not to hurt yourself. another one called once upon a time. a wedding song turned rock, a “strong electric guitar” according to heather, the singer belting about being loved tenderly. paint it, black by the stones that roll. where once her fingers would’ve stumbled over the gadget’s buttons, today she masters with ease.
the stunted child, the wraith of a human girl she once was rears her head in jude’s dreams. she gains color with each passing day.
*
by the time her exile hits eight months, jude begins the transition. she intends it to life, gives it air to breath.
i, jude duarte, will be happy in the mortal world.
she wills herself to change on a molecular level. when the desire of faerieland hightails back, she slams it to the back of her mind. she transforms the pain into power, into will. the scar left behind from her banishment becomes fuel for her new life. for the transformation into who jude could truly be in this wide, marvelous, enormous human world.
they don’t want you. they have not once wanted you.
he doesn’t want you. not like you do him.
he
doesn’t
want
you.
move on, she begs herself. move on. move on. move on. stop chasing after ghosts.
*
the wrath is elbow deep in a goblin’s guts. he swindled bryern a bagful of gold coin. it came down to her to rescue it back, and assure the impediment of a repetition. that’s when she met her.
“hnnnnggg…” moans a figure across the room.
jude ignored the drugged out junkies on her way in, leaving them in the back burner while working through the bulk of her job. but the turncloak goblin is dead, and was that noisy mound moving?
“help…” she hears.
jude rarely considers herself so altruistic. but the meekness of the plea pulls her across the room, tugs her legs to the sprawled person.
human. a girl, dirty blue hair all too reminiscent of nicasia, but not so polished as to pass for a sea princess. no, this girl appeared on the edge of a precipice, thin coat of sweat across her body.
“more,” the girl begs.
like clockwork. jude squats down to get closer. “want me to get you out of here?”
weakly, the girl nods. “she’ll find me.”
“what’s your name?”
the stranger smacks her lips, eyes rolling in her head. “lolli.”
lolli turned out to be an easy haul but a terrible map. jude exasperatedly dragged her through alleys and corners, hearing the laments of her companion through the journey. lolli got sidetracked from her ride-or-dies, see, shot up a bit too much powder - something she called never - and had an urgent need to return to the clan.
jude’s self-preservation rang high when she knocked on the selected door and met a fae two heads taller than she. his red skin shone bright in the doorway, his glamour invisible to jude’s geas.
“thank you for bringing pop back to us. i’m qylin” he says across from jude, having invited her in and given her a once-over. “uh, you mortal?”
she’s declined a drink, but accepted a chair. “as they come.”
qylin moves closer. “and you took out melbor? pop’s supplier?”
“is pop meant to be lolli?”
“her full name’s lollipop.”
“oh. i see.” a red flush runs across her face. “melbor huh? didn’t catch his name. i did catch both his kidneys though.”
qylin whistles. “damn. a mortal.” he pronounces it with wonder. nothing like she’s used to. it falls with disbelief in her ears.
“that’s quite a might you got in you. here.” in an outstretched hand, jude finds a tiny acorn that no doubt has a message inside it. “if you ever quit meandering for coin and want to run with the real wolves, i’ll answer.”
wolf. she’d been a girl and she’d been a mortal. then she’d been wormfood and after that she’d been a queen. couldn’t say jude once considered herself a wolf, or imagined running with them. then again, she had become so many things far from her imagination.
the ward. the mortal. the queen. the wrath. her list of faces ran endless, each mask pressing heavier and heavier on her fragile composition.
*
in the beginning, vivi congratulated her like a preschooler with a trophy. “look at you, making an effort. i told you home wasn’t so bad.”
months later they’ve turned to “you are too far out” accompanied by the tapping of her foot, a face riddled by concern. “you’re jumping into danger again.”
vivi didn’t know how jude missed being afraid.
*
if she dreams of cardan, the sting pulls her awake and breathless into the chirping crickets of the dark hours.
*
ninth month. her exile is a baby somewhere, born and breathing. a marking reminder of her incipient rule cut short.
jude duarte makes a decision. she steps outside of the girl she used to be, the teenager latched to a world that had not once been hers.
the acorn is light in her hands. she splits it open, unrolling the paper inside, and when she sees the address and phone number it takes her a total of eighteen minutes to pack.
*
saying goodbye without telling them it’s goodbye cracks a new wound in her already shattering heart.
*
oak thinks she’s going to the gym. vivi thinks she’s babysitting oak. heather might’ve had a clue, but she kept silent while jude hugged her, muttering a quick thanks for watching her brother while vivi came from the post office.
it appears, after years, she’d learned to say farewell to all things that were close to her.
*
qylin refrained from asking questions, just as jude liked it. she watched, studied, learned, kept to her rank while scheming for more. the room and cot qylin offers is as home as any she’s had.
*
when she urged cardan to inveigle the princess of the undersea, it led them to a hidden alcove draped with vines, to a couch where she’d bared more of jude duarte than she had in her entire life. the memory is both a memory and the dream that recurs most in her sleep. their tryst, their unculminated tumble, their fumbled connection, whatever people would want to call it. in her sickest hours, jude allowed herself to think of it with a tender gaze, with a pink shiny filter, with the dreaded word she’d been on the run from for years.
that you hate me. tell me that you hate me.
“i hate you,” jude whispers. “i hate you and i married you and i hate you.” the two phrases weren’t mutually exclusive.
*
lollipop has been gone for weeks, but her junkie spirit is alive.
the wrath evaded nevermore like cats did water, but the gradual acclimation to qylin’s ring fills her with misplaced ease. it took them damn near six months, but jude finally surrendered her arm.
it pricks, the needle, like the pinch on her finger when cardan stabbed her for the salt in her blood. for the antidote to faerie fruit.
she’s high. she’s at a revel in new york and she’s vulnerable and she’s high.
it doesn’t take long for jude to cement her decision to never do drugs in her natural life again. but once that’s been engraved in her think tank, the world turns mellow and technicolor. it tells her to enjoy while it lasts.
she’s surrounded by leaves, platter of fruit, dancing pixies and slender fae. painful reminders of the home she direly tries to forget.
in a mirage, she pictures black curls under a golden crown of flowers. cruel lips forming a smile.
as if underwater, ears plugged with chlorine liquid, jude hears a seductive voice to her side. “what a pretty thing.” a woman. tall and thin, fae ears and slit green eyes. eyes that fall down to jude’s chest. “busty.”
not all quite there, jude struggles but succeeds in recognizing the tone coming from her courtier. and before she can respond, to her surprise, a second woman emerges from the back of her new companion.
she’s got beautiful straight teeth and straighter talons. “careful. saphine can bite.”
after being called hideous half a life, this come-on douses jude awake like a bucket of water. she studies the two girls and the raking nature of their eyes. she thinks perhaps if she paid more attention she could’ve recognized that in cardan’s eyes. could’ve told it apart from the hatred, the arrogance and the disgust.
without preemptiveness, without pause to think it over, jude tugs both girls to her. her body busts in sensation.
she remembers cardan in a maze, draped in languor and gold faerie drug and girls. black shark eyes watching her while horned girls had their way with him. one kissed his neck, she remembers, and another his knee.
“here,” she scoffs, pushing down sapphire or whatever’s head to her knees. “above my boot.”
a chuckle. “feisty, huh?” she hears, and she truly doesn’t care.
next, jude unceremoniously pulls the second girl up to her neck, leading them exactly where and how she wants them. she’s a constellation of heat and brief spikes of libido.
does cardan think of her? when he’s in bed or bedding someone new, whichsoever activity he performs at night, does jude cross his mind? does he remember her? sometimes in the ridiculous seclusion of her mind she thought cardan would be faithful to her once upon a time. she could slap her own cheeks for such foolishness.
his face appears stark in her memory. deep hollows on his collarbones, raven black hair and eyes devouring her like fruit. his lips, they’d been so soft.
jude leans her head back and laments her ghosts. she inhales sharply.
after the hot spell passes, after jude feels the trickle of tongue make its way up to her thigh and another down her chest, she pushes them away.
why? she doesn’t know. jude is only sure of the fact that she’s tired and doesn’t want this and instead wants a glass of water then maybe a bed.
saphine tilts her head, rolls her eyes, and waves her off, moving along. jude is thankful, for the first time, at being so easily discarded.
*
a month later makes two years since her infamous exit.
“unless cardan has a child,” oak said. many moons past.
the memory of him brings upon a dream. the opposite to her listless, watered-down dreams she grew used to having.
she sneaks through the palace, it’s name near forgotten to her, crawling against walls or chasing shadows.
he’s there. he’s in many of her dreams and he’s there in this one. hair astray. tilted crown. reclined on a couch, his tail freely swishing left and right.
if he remembers their pact of marriage, he doesn’t bother to show it. no mourning, no sadness, no desperation. unlike the other dreams of him, in this he’s placated. joyful, even, in a way so seldom his character.
jude’s understanding is little.
something squirms in cardan’s arms. when she gets closer it nearly takes her breath away to a fault, threatening to kill her. it’s a baby. older than a newborn but small enough to fit in his arms, to paw at his chin and gargle.
no test could prepare her for this sight.
and cardan. he’s absolutely changed. reinvented in the light of this babe, this creature jude hasn’t seen the face of. because that is his spawn, the tiny tail swishing from its rear indicates as much. that, combined with the black tresses, leaves no doubt that she is looking at a king and his heir.
in the depths of her shriveled dignity, jude duarte senses another break, another disgusting branched crack.
her husband is inconsolable in love. his bright smile slashes wide across his face, softening his sharp cheekbones. he lifts the baby to his face, pressing their noses together, cooing. she hardly recognizes him. but she recognizes the lack of a need for her.
this was a nightmare.
cardan lets the child descend, adjusting them in his lap with heartbreaking gentleness. to her horror, the toddler turns and pierces jude in place with raven black eyes.
she runs cold all over. the child has the look of a girl.
her coloring is unique, darker than cardan’s and any fae’s. it’s closer to… jude’s own. and below the black curls, which she realizes now is actually dark amber brown, there’s ears. rounded, untipped, human ears.
jude is utterly unmoored. the scene melts. she wakes up to hands descending upon her, to frightened questions of why she was screaming and that she’s woken up half of the gang. they cannot get a straight answer from her, and after plowing her with cups of water and aspirins from a quick run to the mini-store, the most they get from jude duarte is a somber face and a fall into her pillow.
*
jude becomes a gallery of girls. she’s judy, and she’s martina, and she’s amelie with the occasional latika. running in qylin’s underworld gang requires her to. police don’t catch her, fae detectives don’t either, and if by chance she needed to run an errand the name she gave was one of a basinful of fake i.d. cards.
“i once had a twin,” she offhandedly told someone.
“what was her name?” they asked.
jude slurped from a tall gas station soda cup. “doesn’t matter.”
*
three years. the earnest smile she’d lost a number of winters ago returns tenuously but surely. as a sliver, as a tiny reminder, as a planted seed showing the very smallest evidence of root.
*
a pixie joins their ranks. young and limber. her cerulean skin reminds jude of a blue court under the sea.
“fand,” she greets the mismatched group. “newborn nomad.”
jude welcomes her by the form of a nod, turning back to the display of headshots splashed on the table, organizing it into a semblance of order.
she feels fand dance around her, suspicious to her presence. she thinks for a hot minute that fand might want to cause trouble. jude focuses her attention to the knife hidden between her breasts.
the pixie stares at her, unabashed, and right as jude thinks to reach to her chest, fand grows the courage to ask. “you. do i know you?”
the question falls flat. “i don’t believe so. there’s little chance our paths crossed.”
fand squints. “well, i’ve just left elfhame. finally broke from that unruly mess.”
lightning forks in jude’s chest, attacking her nervous system. an old phantom possesses her body, causing her to still.
the pixie moves closer, inspecting. “your look, it’s so familiar.”
jude understands in a minute.
taryn. fucking taryn. always, forever, impossible-to-be-rid-of taryn.
summoning years of falsehoods and acting experience, jude breaks eye contact to laugh and feign offense. “all mortals look the same to fae, i’m sure.”
that is not a lie. she learned that from the wickedest prince himself.
*
when fand slips away from the gang two nights later, jude forces herself to block it from memory.
*
she’s almost twenty-one. in faerie she might have died since she was eleven.
here, she’s got a family. a rough knit circle of confidants, people she rarely thinks twice about trusting anymore. her music keeps her company, and her growing arsenal of skills, of wins, it warms the smallest piece of her soul.
how could she have hated such a place?
*
“counterinsurgents. we calculate two dozen below the bridge,” jekka, qylin’s second, explains over a map.
jude’s focus is precise, uninterrupted.
the years, the lack of practice from a simple lack of need to, makes it so that she doesn’t religiously check the perimeter, doesn’t spot a green face. his dark tuft of hair and hooked nose, spying from the window, hidden among leaves and wind.
if she had seen him, she might’ve remembered her old friend. if she’d seen him, she might’ve broken down in tears, or begged for a word, or done none of those things to help jekka figure out their positions for the next day’s raid.
*
“watch for the sniper!” one of her gang yells.
jude ducks, experienced muscles leading her across the space, the shielded street with broken streetlights. abandoned houses repurposed for criminal night creatures sprawl one after the other. they’ve chosen one a stone throw from the river, so close they could taste the salt while counting bloody fae or human scalps.
five, six, seven leaps and she’s out of shot, crammed into a wedge in the building. she took down three counterinsurgents already. the wrath ran rampant today.
another figure jumps out the window, two yards from her, and takes off running through the backside of the house, the one facing the water. swift as the wind, jude pursues in fervor.
bam.
first the noise like thunderclap. then the pain.
oh.
when they screamed sniper, she expected an arrow. she expected a taut bow and a sharp, easily removed tip of metal. not a bullet.
*
in the end, jude has been a galaxy of abridges.
she’s had abridged parents, gone before her eighth birthday. that led to an abridged innocence and an abridged life in their rudimentary home in maine. she’s had an abridged relationship with her sisters. an abridged sense of belonging.
she had an abridged romance with a prince and king. that chapter being severed short was, as they all were, not her fault.
she had an abridged marriage. an abridged kingdom rule.
to be culminated in an abridged life. thin and meager.
she hopes no matter how small her garden has been, that each poison flower and cherry blossoms she’s sowed has done its best to enrich the tiny piece of universe allotted to her.
*
she should’ve known when she saw the river.
in water all began, and in water it ends.
there are no screams. no chaos. the gang has left her, chasing their foes further up the street, looking to corner them. jude? she’s going for a dip. a passage to the next life. she’ll float to it. gargle on the last of life.
“huh,” she whispers.
the ache is pungent in her back, the bullet hitting close to the spine but not quite. deadly, though. deadly for sure.
she wasn’t queen of nothing. she was queen of death, the hierophant of misery. her whole life has been a string of it. well, no longer.
jude duarte reaches the water’s edge, using each fiber of her strength to not fall in quite yet.
*
in the haziness of all that she’d done and all that she’d run from, he comes to her. in dream, in flesh. she’s not yet in the water.
“jude.”
this has to be the mark between. the straddling line of life and death. because somehow, impossibly, she hears him.
“jude!”
or?...
her brows scrunch in confusion, a naked toe in the river already. she wants to turn, but the seeping life at her back won’t allow it.
she doesn’t need to. long arms surround her, someone moving in front of her to read her face, to see what lies there.
it’s him.
jude’s lids droop. her back is on fire, and she burns in the flames. he’s barely changed. matured into his looks, if she had to put it into words. his tar eyes, slender lips, pointed nose and legendary black curls suddenly remind her of being seventeen.
there’s so much in his face she can barely read any of it. “is it you? is it really you?” he demands.
she’s always been jude. who jude became, that was a different question. one she no longer cares to ask.
“i found you. i finally finally found you.” his voice is incredulous.
is he the harbinger of the beyond? was that his role to play this entire time? her thoughts eddy and murk the more time passes with a hole in her back.
it is an arcane thing, in truth, to be held by a creature she’s craved and despised. her body responds on its own by pressing closer, seeking warmth.
he might be crying. could also be the angle of the sun.
“please,” he whispers.
she hasn’t said his name in years.
“cardan.”
his eyes fall closed.
her mouth repeats the motion, recognizing the familiarity of his name. cardan. once her king. her husband. the sight of him brings forth a wave of emotions, cascading through her like a waterfall.
cardan tugs her close to a punishingly tight degree. “i thought you dead.” he speaks into her ear. “we searched for years. i thought you were gone. gone, jude.”
the word pulls her back, creates distance between them. jude lets herself get lost in his eyes, those splendid eyes, bottomless and infinite, a serene look on her face as she responds:
“almost.”
the fractious prince too arrogant to be a ruler does not stand in front of her. this man is similar, but a sense of strength she hadn’t seen is forefront and shining. jude wishes she could appreciate it.
if only this weren’t the last time.
“so it is you.” she says it with wonder, with a detachment that lets her turn away from his arms and face the river.
cardan’s intake of breath indicates he has finally seen her wound. he twists his neck, shouts to someone far back, hidden in the houses. “shes hurt! SHE’S HURT!” his voice is raw and desperate.
jude walks into the water.
a hand at her arm stops her, keeps her in place, but she shrugs it off with newfound confidence and turns around. cardan’s incredulous face sparks memories of faraway lands and kingdoms.
“what are you doing?” he demands.
jude’s lips break into a smile. how she missed his voice. she walks back until water reaches her waist, then her chest, then the crown of her head.
“stop!” she hears.
the layers of the girl she was, who she is, who she could’ve been, they merge. yes, she had missed faerie. yes, she had wanted cardan. yes, she had wept tears of rage at knowing she could not have either of them back. if she cried now, her tears would turn to river water, melding into the beautiful greater whole.
a hand grips her chest. another tugs on her neck, urging her up, up, up.
air. sweet air in her lungs.
jude gasps, her plans interrupted. the bulletwound at her back sears at the salt water, the sensation so intense it actually numbs her and leaves her feeling very little.
cardan presses her flush to his body. he raises her up, and his face is marked with horror and betrayal.
“how could you?” he weeps. his features are anguished, desperate. he’s shaking her by the shoulder. “how could you?”
jude smiles a wet smile. “remember when you pushed me into the rapids? and you forced my twin to abandon me and kiss your cheeks? i can’t remember a time when i’ve been warm since then. the water, it was cold. like a leech.”
“the roach is gathering for a salve. jude, you will be okay. you need to get out now.”
she realizes there’s something wrong. “wait. no. that’s a lie. i am a liar.” she tilts her face to his, eyes meeting. “you were warm. behind the throne room and in your bed. you kept me warm. but you ripped me from my home and i've been cold since.”
cardan does something she didn’t imagine him capable of. he didn’t do so when balekin beat him. he didn’t do so when his family was slaughtered. he did so this moment, with her encircled by his arms. cardan sobs.
maybe this is when he understands he’s been forever her herald. the marker of her death. their destinies, interlinked, but only for this.
as he bares himself open, jude candidly studies his face. there’s freedom in allowing herself to admit she missed him. missed all of it. her kingdom that never was.
“i’ll heal you,” he implores. his hand runs down wet and shakingly down her face. “you’re my queen. we’ll use our magic. we will, jude, if you stay with me. don’t you get it? the exile was fake. i never meant for you to vanish. i’m begging you, please, help me heal you.”
her forehead falls on his. waist-deep in water, she feels his short breaths fall on her cheek. “you held hatred for me once.”
slowly, miserably, cardan shakes his head. the motion makes her pull away but he doesn’t let her, staying together. “love. i held love, jude.”
love
four letters.
years of running. and it caught up to her all the same.
his words hit her worse than the sniper did. she staggers in his embrace.
“hold.” he says the word with intensity. “i hold, jude.” cardan refuses to let her go, won’t let her fall. “you walked away with my heart.”
thoughts swirl in her head. they swim around like the fish crossing in between their legs.
“hold,” she says weakly.
hold love. he loves me.
impossible. and true.
“huh.”
*
“hold me,” she asks him. and he does.
he does.
he appears vacillant to his actions save for holding her.
jude can’t remember a time when she wasn’t running. from her parents’ demise. from madoc’s threats. from the cruel fae. from her sister’s betrayal. from cardan’s torments and, apparently, his ministrations of love. from her own shadow.
they haven’t moved from the water. it’s been a minute. it’s been four years.
jude feels her body slag, the water making up for the new deadweight.
“i wish you’d never left me,” he murmurs.
gratingly, she lifts her hand to trace a finger along the hard, straight line and point of her husband’s ear. “cardan, are you here to ask me for a divorce?”
his face breaks. she’s fully leaning on him, his long arms cradling her to his chest. amidst their soaked clothes, she feels the thudding of his heart against her cheek.
jude’s eyes flutter open and closed. “i want to tell you i will. i want to tell you i’ve waited for it. i - ah…” a jab of pain causes her to pause. “i want to tell you it hasn’t been eating me alive to be apart from you. i want to tell you… so… many… lies.”
through her misty vision, she sees cardan shake his head. “you are not leaving me.” the conviction in his voice draws a laugh from her.
“oh, cardan.” it’s the last good breath in her lungs. in the distance, she feels the ripples of someone entering the river, racing towards them. she sees only pitch black eyes. “i already have. i already have.”
they are esoteric, rendered in numinous light. from their entwined bodies in the water, there grow white flowers at the riverbed, their petals straining for the sun.
swear they smell the blood on me
shatter me | aaron x ella, fix-it fic, untimely inappropriate smut (ao3)
this fic takes place during imagine me and contains spoilers don’t say i didn’t warn you
[takes place during imagine me. title from “blood on me” by the sampha]
***
He unbuttons my shirt, his deft hands moving quickly even as he kisses my neck, my cheeks, my mouth, my throat. I cry out when he moves, his kisses shifting down my body, searching, exploring. He pushes aside the two halves of my shirt, his mouth still hot against my skin, and then he closes the gap between us, pressing his bare chest to mine, and my heart explodes.
Something snaps inside of me.
Severs.
A sudden, fractured sob escapes my throat. Unbidden tears sting my eyes, startling me as they fall down my face. Unknown emotion soars through me, expanding my heart, confusing my head. He pulls me impossibly closer, our bodies soldered together. And then he presses his forehead to my collarbone, his body trembling with emotion when he says—
“Come back.”
***
It is gone.
The blinking blue light is gone, rid of it, snatched out from my forearm like a parasite. Yet the blurriness remains.
I am screaming to get out.
There is someone inside of me clawing at the edges, fighting for freedom.
Who? Who?
Who is he?
The boy kneels next to me. I am still bare on my front. He made sure of that, when he ripped my shirt open. When he pressed his naked heart to mine.
And I want it back.
Because that touch, that heat, it woke me up. Rippled my soul until whichever girl lives within my skin figured a way to reach out, to yell. I need it.
“Touch me again.”
Green eyes, emerald glitter, widen at me. He breathes hard, and the heat of his body might as well still be on me.
I don’t move from where I sit, petrified. Blood oozes down my arm but the cut heals quickly. I need him with a desperation I’m not sure I’ve known before. “When you touched me, I remembered something.” He tugged me out. He is the answer, the key to help me unlock the Juliette trapped inside. My eyes turn supplicant. “Please.”
Please help me climb out.
His name, I search for his name when he smoothly crosses the few inches between us, grips my arms, pulls me to him, and kisses me again. One after the other, he kisses me like
like
the edge of the world
and I remember it. The tether. The line connecting us. He is the only emotional through line in my life that ever made sense. He's the only constant. I thought this once.
Him. His name.
I kiss him harder, whimpering against his lips, begging for myself to claw out. He hears me, pulling back to gasp and look into my eyes.
“You,” I say with tears. It is all I have, and he understands.
He nods. I notice his eyes are glassed over. With impressive strength, he swoops me into his arms and stands at the same time. My eyes fly open while he moves us back to the metal table, lays me on my back on it.
“You,” he whispers back to me. A hand runs down my neck, across my collarbone, at the side of my breast and down to my hip. His movements are not soft or exploring. He knows me. Each place he touches flares up.
My voice is meek when I whisper: “Help me.”
He presses down on me again, and a bird with golden feathers flies through my mind. Both his hands go to mine, putting them over his thundering heart. “Home,” he says, and he’s said this before, and he’ll say it again. As many times as it takes for me to remember.
“Home,” I repeat. My hands are shaking.
He kisses my wrists, one after the other. When our chests meet for the second time I welcome it more openly.
There is static on my mind, that slight shift in sound when you’ve hit very close to a channel, to voices. Close, but not quite. It comes back to me, a second name, not his but mine.
Ella?
She is Ella. I am Ella. Caged.
I gasp.
The boy (mine shouts a thought) clutches me so tight it’s hard to breathe. “I’ll help you,” he promises. “Anything for you love. Anything. The world.”
My eyes water. The thin veil draped across my memories is breaking my heart. “You.” You are the world, shouts the voice within me. “More.”
I shatter him with a single word. More, I asked him. He trembles, arms vibrating against my sides. I hear him cry out and before I know it, his mouth is traveling down from my neck, my collarbones, falling into a familiar path. His lips close around my breast, sucking on my skin.
My entire being is on fire.
The meld of sensations has me losing my mind, crashing common sense, and I’m not sure if his hand going down my pants are an illusion or reality. He knows my body better than I do right now, and how can that even be?
He’s been here. He’s always been here.
The brave hand of his strokes me in such a way that leaves me breathless, eyes and mouth open as I keep staring at him. His face is pleading, begging, lustful. “You know me. I’ve been yours for as long as I remember.” His fingers send a jolt through my body and I jerk, pressing my nipple back into his mouth. He takes the opportunity to suck it again, in earnest and I go blind.
Training rings. Linen sheets and soap.
He moans with pleasure against my body, drawing another mewl from me. His hand, it’s making me go crazy. My groin is drenched, my body electrified as I come closer to the edge.
He stops kissing my chest to look up at me. “Who am I?”
I want to know. So badly.
Our gazes meet, where he sees I don’t yet have the answer. My bottom lip trembles. His eyelids fall closed, pain etched on his face. His fingers stop, and I’m left dissatisfied, abruptly abandoned.
“Don’t,” I beg. I guide his hand back down my body with my own, desperate for him. But he doesn’t resume.
He kisses my lips, my jaw. “I’m right here.” I’m not at all prepared when he bites down, marking my throat and filling me with a cocktail of desire and pain. When I look down to see his face, I notice he’s undoing his pants. My eyes spring open.
Green irises nail me into place, forcing me to feel his movement as first his pants lower down, then as he works on my own. “Who am I?” he demands, his voice deep and close to me. He tugs down my clothes, taking every article, leaving me naked to his touch.
“I...” I begin, “You... I know you.” And the utter hopelessness I feel at this stupid cloud over my thoughts brings water to my eyes.
He says no more, perhaps afraid to. But our bodies are singing, more than ready for each other. This, I realize, is where I belong. My mind’s racing but my legs don’t hesitate to widen, to open for him and pull him close. My arms wrap around his back, my forehead touching his. My soul screams Who are you? Give me the key.
“Please,” he utters against my lips. “Come back to me.”
He slides inside me and I feel one of his tears hit my cheek.
And it resonated with me, harder than before, what he meant.
Home. This, us together, my body welcoming his, making room to fit inside, this is what he meant. It was a fact as undeniable as sunrise.
We gasp in unison, overwhelmed with heat. I’m blazing within, heat sparking where we touch. Ella climbs her way out, close to being free.
I moan, letting him hear it. My mouth drops open, perpetually open, my eyes never breaking from his.
When he thrusts for the first time, I know then that we are synonyms. Pertinent to each other, the impossibility of naming him without me. We fit perfectly.
A frenzy overtakes us, rapid fire traveling across the place where we’re together. He moves into me with intent, hitting the right places as if to mark me. To show me just how well he knows me. His forehead digs into mine, and his eyes close briefly as he grunts, keeping the pace slow but steady.
The feeling of him gliding in and out of me is flooding my nerves with sensation, with joy and ecstasy and ear-shattering screams to remember, remember, remember. I can’t remember ever feeling this incredible.
He hits a certain spot inside me that makes me jolt again, losing my senses, but when my head moves from the dizziness he won’t let it. My face is trapped by his hands, the strength of him keeping me from moving. He won’t let me go, won’t let me look away. He wants me back.
Him. It comes back to me.
A cold room and a warm embrace. White walls, his warmer arms around me.
And
I think my heart is going to explode.
Ignite, my love. Ignite.
My heart is yours. Please don't ever give it back to me.
Aaron.
Forever, Aaron. Of course.
When I start crying his eyes turn hopeful.
“Aaron,” I say it with the finality of fate, with the love that unravels from my heart at the sight of him. “Aaron.”
There is rapture, there is joy, there is relief and love in his face. “Yes.” He clutches my face harder, digging his forehead to mine.
He won’t meet my eyes anymore, the feeling too intense. Sobs keep coming from me, the mess of my memories swirling and tripping out.
“I remember you,” I cry into his face.
He starts fucking me harder, deeper.
My voice shakes the next time I say it. “I remember you — Ah!”
My words drive him mad, drive him to move into me more fiercely. “Yes. Aaron.” Even though his movements are hard, his voice is pleading. “I’m Aaron, love. Your Aaron.”
I want you to call me Aaron.
How could I not have known? So many times?
He and I, we meet again and again, and it was always bound to end like this.
I start to fuck him back.
Aaron meets my every shift, synchronizing our bodies flawlessly. He hits that place, the one that ignites a high-pitched sound from me, over and over. Soon I’m a shrieking mess, the slap of our skin creating a rhythmic clapping that lulls me over the edge. I break apart, laid bare, my hips curving to his as I ride it out. During that bliss, that small taste of nirvana, another memory comes barreling to me. An important memory.
Oh my God.
Aaron pauses, slowing down. He breathes hard into my cheek, smiling. The look on his face tells me he’s not done yet, confirmed a second later when he flips us over. I must wear shock on my face at being on top, by the look he gives me.
“What else?” he asks. I know what he means. What else am I?
He doesn’t lay back, doesn’t expect me to take the reins and pleasure him. Instead Aaron stays close, hugging our fronts together as he sits on the table with me straddling his lap. Hearts hugging.
Close. Close like that night, at the tent home.
Marry me.
If there were any tears left in me I would’ve shed them. I run a shaking hand through his hair. His gaze roves over me like I’m his only salvation, like I alone command sunlight and miracles. One hand runs down my spine, the other planted on the table behind him to steady him. He starts to move, to thrust into me from below. The sensation destroys me.
“My husband.” I suddenly find those tears, feel them drip down my face. “You wanted to be my husband. You asked me to be your wife.”
Ella. You’re going to be my wife.
She comes soaring out, the girl I used to be, the Ella and Juliette hidden under this skin. I gasp and throw my head back, screaming once.
He hugs me through it, through the greatest moment of clarity I’ve ever had, and only after do I register the heat. Building up for a second time, clenching my stomach. Sparks course through me as he urges me to make love to him back. As I comply.
My hips press down onto his, following the rhythm. We kiss hard, desperately, my tears and his mixing and wetting our faces but we do not care. I sob again, from the pain of losing him and the joy of having him back. Soon I’m panting hard, pressing my cheek to his, letting him hear what he does to me. I swing my hips back and forth, back and forth, making us both groan, making me see colors in my field of vision and beg for this not to end. He feels so good. He’s thick, long, and hard inside me as he pumps, as he fills me completely each time. I might be losing my mind after all.
He grunts loudly, pressing me closer to him and quickening the pace. “I asked you to marry me. And what did you say?” he asks. His breath hits my collarbone.
The change in pace leaves me breathless. “I said...”
He takes the opportunity to thrust into me even harder, even quicker. His hands behind my back and at my hip move me so I can only surrender to this, to us. It’s not long before I start screaming.
“Yes!” I go. “Oh, yes. Yes!”
I yell it, shout it into his shoulder as we come together with floor-shattering perfection. He shakes harder than me, his entire spirit revealing itself as he clings to me, as he keeps calling for me.
“I love you,” he whispers into my chest as we breathe hard together, recovering. “My one and only. You came home.”
right at the borderline is where i'm gonna wait
tfota | jude x cardan, post-reconciliation, nsfw, the idiots get biblical. seriously. (ao3)
[give or take three years after qon. title from “meet me halfway” by black eyed peas]
The apple had been shiny. Decadent in gold, everything about it inhuman.
Jude inspected it with a slithering memory of it stuffing her nose, trickling down her cheeks. Back when Valerian was alive and planned to make a fool of her. How could something so beautifully venomous appear so harmless?
She was uncomfortably reminded of her twin sister. To shake away the thought she spoke.
“An apple doomed humanity.”
Cardan lifted a brow. His tail swept at his back, causing a small hissing noise. They were done with food, lounging at the table close and carefree, political matters long dealt with.
Jude scrunched her brows, trying to remember. “In some religions of mortals, the first man and woman were kicked out of heaven for eating an apple. Her, specifically.”
“Really?” he asked, intrigued.
She nodded. “Adam and Eve. They were meant to live in the garden of Eden but a devilish snake charmed Eve into eating the forbidden fruit.” She grabbed the faerie apple, lifted it for closer inspection. She could smell its sickly sweetness. “Then she convinced Adam to do the same.”
His face was full of amusement. “A snake.”
“A snake.” Jude placed the apple back on the platter. There was more, she knew there was, but her time in the mortal world was long past. “The devil in disguise, actually.”
He nodded as if in understanding. “Is that your creation?”
Jude felt stunned by the use of ‘your’. She shifted in her seat, moving her right leg so it was no longer in contact with his. This subject was bringing back memories forgotten or repressed for more than a decade. Crosses. Stars. Going to school, seeing churches on the way there through the car window. Thick books hidden in a drawer in every hotel room. Like anything mortal, religion had been ruined by Elfhame even if the Duartes had never been particularly devout. She found herself unable to move forward from this yet wanting to run away.
“Religion was never a strong verse of mine. Especially considering the age I came here.” The thought drifted off into silence. It was all she could say. Cardan had the decency to hold her gaze, to allow her this vulnerability without pity.
Her eyebrows scrunched again. “It must all sounds so…absurd to you.” She had to look away.
Cardan remained silent, his tail quiet at his back. He grabbed the apple and gave it a hard bite. Through juicy chunks he bid her, “What happened to them?”
For a handful of days, she told him here and there. Not much but the mere basics. Jude herself didn’t recall too well. She remembered the tale through Cardan. He asked, more intrigued than was to be expected, either for her favor or a genuine curiosity over human beliefs. She even managed to stop by a human library during a visit to Vivi’s, where she found and printed out a picture from the internet to show her husband. He saw a drawing of two naked people ambling by bushes of green and red. They had leaves between their legs and expressions of wonder. Of children. Jude still couldn’t pinpoint how to feel. It settled weird in her stomach, as she held up the tiny print out and Cardan squinted with an unreadable expression. To think that this was her beginnings. How faeries must’ve seen them. Standing in the shoes of an outsider, it made her feel more human than she felt in a long time.
She thought the subject to be blessedly forgotten, until a few days later.
Cardan was guiding her with hands over her eyes. The guards were called away, instructed not to interrupt them. Jude felt the pounding of her own heart up to her ears. She could sense and hear grass under her feet, smell leaves and moss. The place they were going to was warm.
“Why is it growing quieter?”
Cardan didn’t falter. “We’re moving deeper into the forest is why.”
“Will we run into wild animals? I remember studying the mountain lions-”
His chuckle cut her off. “No lions, Lady Devout Student. I found this place not too long ago, in the years prior to my ascension to the throne. It is quiet and secluded.” There was a pause. He stopped both in their tracks. “I’ll admit it was lonely. I was often lonely. At least here, the view was better than my chambers at Hollow Hall.”
Cardan removed his hands.
Jude huffed in a breath. She couldn’t appreciate being led blindly through the woods, but the sight before her took the words away.
It was a small bit of everything a human would expect of a fairytale. A nook in the woods, some place forgotten by the maps. There was an ample space surrounded by greenery. She could only describe it as a concealed meadow. The trees formed in a natural alcove, hugging the space into intimacy. Even the thin slices of sunlight creeping through leaves looked magical. And flowers. Those were everywhere. Their smell filled her nose, enticing like honey.
“There,” Cardan pointed.
It was an apple tree. Small and with only a few golden apples dangling from its branches. She did not know what to make of the metaphor.
“It’s…bewitching,” she told him.
He walked over to the tree. Pried a fruit off it. “I never showed this place to anyone.”
That simple sentence reached her heart. He walked over back to her.
“I was reminded of this place,” he began, “when you first told me the mortal creation story.”
Ah. Everything was clicking. Jude took a deep breath, inhaling with it the scent of the apple. “The garden of Eden was meant to be heavenly.” She smirked at him, lifting a brow. “This is presumptuous of you.”
His hand found her chin. “Presumptuous it may be. Conceited, even. Poetic, hopefully?”
It was endearing to see him this way. To allow him to care. She stepped closer, his loose linen white shirt brushing hers. She didn’t have a dramatic black coat over hers but that was attributed to his taste and her lack thereof. The black tint around his eyes was perfect.
“Am I supposed to fall hopeless to your faerie charms?” She stepped even closer, so close she pretended to clean lint off his coat.
His free hand fell to her hip. “Are they successful?”
She scoffed. “You fell for my foolish mortal wiles. Anything should be possible.”
With the hand holding the apple, he brushed some strands of hair out of her face. “Here I am, attempting to be elegiac.” He leaned down and planted a soft, deep kiss on her lips.
Jude allowed her eyes to close. She let herself be vulnerable, allowed him to lead. He kissed her again, still slow as if afraid she would turn and leave. When they pulled apart he was breathing heavy. Then he licked the skin of the apple, not quite biting it, while maintaining eye contact.
Her breathing hitched.
“Never have I been the doted student so correct me if I'm wrong.” His lips met her cheek, then the other. “I recall that Adam and Eve had but two rules.”
“Rules?”
He pulled back and rolled his eyes. “Expectations.”
Jude let out a laugh. “You’ve become a better student.” He’d become a better lots of things. “What rules?”
His one hand still gripped her waist. “The first was not to eat the apple. Which,” he threw his golden apple in the air and caught it again, “they failed.” He said it with a certain finality that fell ill on her belly.
Her eyes fell directly on the faerie fruit in his hand. It all suddenly swirled around in her head. Her humanity. The memory of being helplessly under its spell that school afternoon, and the memory of desiring more. How at that moment, at the raw experience of eating the single fruit she lost semblance of herself, her basest instinct of survival. It pushed her to act against her own self-interest, to destroy herself. Succulent and blissful it had been, but the cost of it was the fall. A beautiful fall, but a fall nonetheless.
She felt too close to Eve at that moment. A shudder ran down her body. Eve, the first mother, who many pointed to as the broken woman who cursed humankind. The single bite that ruined the world.
Cardan could tell she got lost in her head. He lowered his hand and brought her eyes to his. He demanded all her attention.
“I don't believe you are foolish.” He whispered it like a caress. “I never have.” He paused, gathering his thoughts and granting her the same courtesy. “My own prejudice blinded me, as yours did me equally.”
“You thought me an insect for so long.”
“And you thought me a monster.”
Some days it was hard to convince herself that either of them was wrong.
He let the fruit fall from his hand so he could cup her face fully.
“Adam and Eve are a whimsical tale but I would not call anyone naive for believing in it. Not you, if you did, or any other mortal. From a certain light it’s...innocent. Sweet.”
Jude scoffed, her heart lightened. “Sweet? The doom of humanity is sweet?”
He smiled at her laugh. “No. The intention of you. Residing in heaven, living in ignorant bliss with your love and your equal is what makes it sweet.”
At this she lifted a brow. He might be bringing some of his own interpretation to the tale. But gender relations and faith had always been different in Elfhame, so he knew no better. “Like I mentioned, I am not well-versed in the text. Some mortals would even call you wrong. But I suppose a story is to be made whatever the reader wishes to make it.”
“Here's what I make of this one.” And he pulled her into another hungrier kiss.
Jude could’ve almost laughed, as he tugged at her clothes and her fingers shed him of his trousers. Piece by piece, they rid the other of clothing. When air bit her bare skin, she jumped back without thinking. They were in public. They could be found.
Cardan studied her expression quickly, worried. He understood immediately. “The guards. I sent them off to a perimeter, remember? We are alone.”
Right. Tension left her muscles as her spine straightened again. She brought his body back to hers, only his shirt and socks left. She helped him with the first as he stepped out of the second.
“I cannot believe your biblical seduction worked.”
His fanciful smile flashed. Sparkling white teeth. “It is not finished yet.”
Part of her couldn’t believe it. “Frankly, it’s hard to fathom you could care so much.”
He ignored her, as they were now fully uncovered. Silently, he leaned forward and shook out her hair, fluffing it out in wild tangles. It was unlike her, aside from moments in training when her pleats came loose. His long fingers touching her scalp sent shivers everywhere in her body, and her eyes drooped. Jude’s brown hair was so long and fluffy it fell down streams past her shoulders, brushing the tops of her breasts and tickling her back. When Cardan appeared satisfied with the results, he stepped back to rake her all over. From crown to heel.
As naked as they had come into this world. Mortal and fae alike. There was a metaphor there.
“You forgot the second.” Cardan whispered this into her neck as he guided her down onto the floor.
“What?” It was hard to think.
“The second rule. You forgot to ask about it.” They settled on the pasture.
Part of her was so confused. Also annoyed. “Oh, you’re teaching now?”
He made a show of pinching the side of her ass. Jude yelped. He soothed her by nuzzling her nose with his.
“The first rule was not to eat the apple. Correct?”
This was so out of bounds but it had to be going somewhere. She nodded.
Her husband took a deep breath. Inhaling her in. Perhaps afraid of what he would say next. Of what Jude would think. “The second was to go forth and be fruitful.” His pale hand trailed her sides, skimming her hips. “To continue humanity.” His lips marked kisses on her clavicles, descending to her chest. “To have many,” a kiss to her sternum, “many,” another right above her belly button, “many children.” The last kiss was at her abdomen, his hands on either side of her stomach.
The air was knocked right out her lungs. Cold shocked her entire body, then in a flash she was hot all over.
She looked into his eyes. Cardan was calm, serene. He was upright now, leaning on one hand on the ground. His thumb drew circles on her hip. A part of him seemed resigned, as if ready for a blow. In that moment she felt his spirit as open as she had privilege to see very few times prior.
Jude trained her voice not to shake. “You wish to be fruitful, my husband?”
A long pause. They only stared at each other until Cardan leaned down to kiss her stomach again. “To try, certainly.”
She couldn’t find any words. Therefore she used her body instead. One hand cupped his face, gently, then the other. As if holding a delicate bird. His black crow eyes could tear her soul apart.
Half of her didn’t know what she was doing when her hands pulled him up, meeting his lips with hers. It was neither an answer nor a rejection. A response, the best she could give him for now.
Nevertheless he answered threefold. The High King refused to break apart until they were both gasping for air. A small smile adorned his face when he seductively muttered into her lips.
“Let us play like Adam and Eve. I’ll have you with leaves in your hair and grass beneath our backs.” He planted a kiss on her ear, nibbling. “The blue sky can be our witness.”
Her hand kept him where he was as she groaned. “You would play at a mortal amongst the dirt?”
Instead of celebrating her banter, he bit her harder. This time she hissed, and he moved lower.
“We,” Cardan mumbled on her skin, “are the only two beings in here.” Unable to lie, he couldn’t play along with their roles and say ‘in the world’. It had to be ‘in here’, in the alcove, yet she appreciated his way around it all the same. The sentiment remained. That sinful mouth floated over the skin of her belly. It traced a line falling low. Jude gasped when he teased the area above her center. Between her legs is where she wanted him, where he refused to go. A whimper escaped.
It made him look up. “There is no one else.” With that, his red tongue licked the bundle of nerves amidst her thighs.
Jude could only grip his hair, shut her eyes and moan. He drew circles, adding pressure that drew louder noises. When he took all of her into his mouth and sucked she started to scare the birds off the trees.
His hand, snake-like, slithered up her hip and to her breast, where he caressed and squeezed her. The other…it went to her center, aiding his lips, teasing. One finger, then two, and the tongue circling harder.
Jude couldn’t make sense of up from down to the point where her peak came in a waterfall without notice. It felt nothing short of natural. Her chest heaved, eyes closed and back arched. When Cardan withdrew his fingers they were soaked.
Pleased beyond sense, she only felt him work his way back up, align his chest to hers. Smother her neck with kisses while pushing her thighs apart with his knee.
“No one else,” he murmured against her throat.
Her eyes fluttered. “No one…”
He kneeled upward suddenly. Cardan reached for a flower, two, pink and bright from a bush next to her head. He threw off the stems, leaving only the petals and crushing those between his long hands. She was still busy riding her high to ask what the hell he was doing. Then he took what remained of the flowers and smeared it over her body. Across her chest, down to her stomach. She was glazed in petals. Everywhere he touched, she shuddered. Her body was a canvas in pink. Clinging to her skin, staining and perfuming her. Grass glued to her back and flower petals to her front, hair fanned out. It was the farthest from dirty she’d ever felt. His expression was hungry, reverential, and some other unreadable thing.
“Jude.”
She met his gaze. “Cardan.”
His hand went between their legs, and she felt the nudge at her entrance. Her breathing stopped.
He leaned down to touch noses, foreheads, to share breath. “We are primordial.”
He could not lie. He believed it, some part of him, some twisted explanation. She didn’t give herself time to ponder.
“Cardan.” Sliding into her was the easiest thing.
All thoughts died with a sigh.
Everything stilled. His eyelids fell shut, breath tickling her face. “There is only you and me.”
Time went by oddly. Jude couldn't separate one coupling from the next. Something out of a fever dream or the drowsiness that follows a strong poison. She was overwhelmed with the primal nature of the story, by the pleasure in her body.
Cardan was thrusting into her from behind, both laying on the grass on their sides. Wet leaves stuck to his legs, to her hip. She was moaning, a fist of grass in her hand and a fist of her hair in his. He pulled, brought her closer. “My love,” he whispered in her ear.
Then she was straddling him. Moving up and down painfully slowly, torturous drags. She had his chin in her hands, powerful, forcing his eyes to hers. She was whispering, unrecalled heinous things she wouldn’t remember later. Only the feel of him inside and his hands on her hips.
That might have been the first hour. Or the second.
He was slamming into her. Jude was dizzy with the pace, strong and rhythmic. Her back was to an old tree, steadying her. Cardan kissed her breast. He was not going fast, focusing on going deeper. There were petals stuck to his chest now too, and some grass blades. The paint around his eyes was smudged. She yelped once. An evil smile formed on him, a smile that reminded her of taunts and tricks. His hands fell to her sides, one on her and one on the tree. His hips charged harder, making their pelvises meet and slightly pushing her up the tree. She squealed louder.
Jude was riding him again. She was on her front this time, facing away from him, each hand on his knees for support. Her hair was a mess; tiny stems and petals caught on the ends, the odd twig here and there. It was far from her priorities, though, or his. She even thought the ferality heightened his desire. At her back, Cardan hissed, grip on her waist as she impaled herself on him over and over. Slick sounds filled the meadow.
His tail whispered up her left side. The tuft coil slid around her throat, cutting off a groan, settling as a choker. “Oh,” was what she could manage. A particularly strong moan escaped Cardan. She rode him harder. Faster. Leveling her body so only her waist moved, keeping them close. Back and forth, back and forth, blinding her senses. She came again, as swiftly as an autumn breeze.
That was when he decided to push her forward. His tail stayed at her throat, tightening. She was on all fours, limbs trembling.
Cardan shifted into position behind. “On your knees, Your Majesty.”
It took a few gasps to gather a response. “Majesty? I thought I was Eve from the garden-” but the rest was gone to his thrusts. The grass under her hands was ripped off.
Where had their base necessities gone? For hours they wouldn’t stop to eat, to drink, only to rest for some heartbeats in between positions. A mere catching of the breath. Blue sky turned to pink, purple, to a reddish tint marking sundown. Jude thought the garden had truly driven them mad.
He was on top, eyes locked on hers. Jude sprawled on the ground with one leg horizontal and the other on his shoulder, his hand holding it close. She had one foot in the air and her thighs open wide. Anything but them, but the glistening sight of their joining ceased to exist.
She kept one hand at his hip, beckoning him forward, controlling the pace even with him moving above. It was a fantastic dynamic. Below him, she whispered praise and any unintelligible phrase that came to mind. “Just like that,” she’d say. “Right there. Harder. That’s better.” There was even a shaky “That feels perfect.” It only made him more dutiful. Then she noticed him looking at her breasts. How they bounced by the efforts of their movements.
“Touch them,” she commanded.
His hand went to one, fingers splayed wide, clutching.
“Harder than that.”
With a moan, he squeezed harder, sparking pain and pleasure through her nerves. Her limbs were aflame.
Skin met skin. The slaps were like a song, lulling her and encouraging him. Cardan took a glance at the place where he disappeared in her, again and again.
“You’re drenched.”
She had coated them both until their groins were wet.
Jude grasped his shoulders, snatching him to her, chests meeting. As close as they could be. In that liminal state, in that indescribable eternal in-between, she planted kisses on every inch of him.
“Love me.” She whispered in his ear, his hair, any reachable place. “Love me. Love me. Love me.”
Their last thoughts blurred into oblivion.
There is only you.
There is only me.
For now.
get me to the altar
tfota | jude x cardan, post-twk, pretty much porn my good bitches (ao3)
[set two years after jude’s return from exile. title from “gemini feed” by banks]
Jude decided that watching her husband's tongue shoved down a lean-limbed fae girl was a good enough excuse to storm away from the revel. She didn’t care. She didn’t want to care. Most of everyone was amongst the wood’s trees, dancing and singing, leaving very few people behind at the palace. For a second she thought of making a beeline to her own chambers but one look at the throne room made her halt. Jude recalibrated. Yes. Some peace in that vast quietness was better than her hauntingly empty room.
Of course he followed. Why wouldn’t he.
Jude had the throne room to herself for a solid four minutes of simmering shame, sadness weighing her down. Then the king’s footsteps thundered her way.
“Queen away from her own revel? Does not seem fitting.”
She stared at the throne, not giving him so much as a glance. She offered silence.
“Oh don’t hate me, dear. Understand that me being here could be from a territorial nature. Simply assuring that no other male has followed you into your rooms.”
She turned with a red face. He was as beautiful as ever. Dark clothes, flowy material just hugging his form, begging to be ripped apart. For a revel, his face was surprisingly plain, only the smallest hint of dark liner on his eyes and silver on the cheeks. A corner of his mouth turned up, and things started clicking into place.
She waited a beat and then asked “Did you kiss her on purpose?”
More silence. His face was unmovable when he replied, “Do not flatter yourself, wife. Clearly I was enjoying myself.” He smirked in a way that reminded her of palace school.
Jude didn’t have the energy for this. She turned to the throne once more. "Are you planning on tongue-fucking some faerie's mouth every time you want my attention?" Jude's voice was drenched in hatred. "There are simpler ways."
“I’m sure there are...” he said from behind, less eager. His voice adopted a grave tone. “Not that you’ve been enticed to share my company for the past two years.”
“Cardan, tell me what happened before those two years.” She was near screaming. Jude kept her temper in check but now she fully faced him, approaching with a pointed finger.
His smile was long gone. “I’ve already told you that was for—”
“Yes, yes, to protect me, whatever. Tell it to your pillow.” She headed for the door. “Starting to think the mortal world is where I actually belong.”
His hand shot out, stalling her. The king’s entire demeanor turned somber.
“Don’t. Don’t say that.”
“Why not? It’s what you say to me, again and again, every time you betray my trust. Every time you withhold your counsel, your plans, your feelings—”
“As if you are any different.” He growled.
“Every time you bring another girl to scream into your bed.” She hissed.
She was hurt. Jealous. It was true that since her return, Jude evaded Cardan as much as possible. Especially his rooms. It wasn’t from lack of feelings. Quite the contrary, she did so to protect herself. By staying away, Jude was building a wall around her own heart, already shattered once when her own husband and king exiled her.
Who had made no real move in the years since to apologize. Nothing except parade possible lovers in her face, trying to entice a reaction. Jude knew this, she wasn’t stupid.
Cardan had never kissed another in public, though. So unabashedly shamed her. Until now. He opened his mouth to speak except Jude bit him off.
“I am beginning to think my place isn’t here after all. The mortal realm is always waiting.” Even just thinking it hurt. Jude placed another brick on the wall, sealed it around her heart.
His face fell. “Don’t be— Jude stop with the— stop with the nonsense.” That fire was back, there in his eyes. That spike of anger and desire.
She answered by pushing him away with an open palm to his chest when he tried to step closer.
“Not such nonsense. You don’t want me, that much you’ve made clear. Why stay?”
His eyes blazed.
“So start talking. Change my mind.” Her voice was unwavering as internally she begged for him to react. “Tell me the truth,” Jude ordered. Her palm pressed harder on Cardan's chest. “For too long now you’ve been trying to tell me something through secret plans and foolish maneuvers, by sparking my jealousy and tasting mouths of others. Say what you want. Tell me or I will leave.”
Fury radiated off him. Cardan's jaw clenched, silent for too many heartbeats. Then, through gritted teeth he said, “I want to see you.” He spit it out like an insult. “I want to see my wife bouncing on my lap while I sit on that throne.” He pointed to it.
Her breath caught.
“Not that faerie. Not anyone else.” He stepped forward, cornering her towards the seat. “In two years, not a single being has shared a bed with me because I am faithful to you. Because I want you. I always have.”
Jude was petrified. They were steps from the throne when his anger all of a sudden turned to a sort of shock.
“I— I dream about it. Often. Your stupid mortal face won’t leave my sleep.”
The term woke her up again, filled her with fire amidst the chaos. She scowled. “Must make you feel impotent.” His nose was a hair away from hers. She closed the distance, letting go. The simple pleasure of meeting her lips to his felt like fresh water, like floating on a summer pond. Two years she had denied both of them the most basic heart-fluttering pleasure. No more.
His resolve broke. Both his arms enveloped her immediately, pulling her to him like a lifeline. For a second she could not draw breath how close they were. Jude unglued herself from him, panting. Cardan leaned in for more and was stopped when she retreated more. She had to look up at him, his ridiculous height placing hers to shame.
It felt like she was dying. Inhaling sharply, she said “Tell me more about that stupid dream.”
It was his turn to breath in heavily. He grabbed her, maneuvering them both onto his royal seat. He fell upon it, pulling her down atop his body. Black eyes looked up at her. Jude stepped back, so she was standing between his legs, spread open where he sat. It felt like they were about to devour each other. His chest rose and fell, his sounds still loud. She studied him from crown to toe, taking in the torn edges of his clothing where she clawed at. The muscles under his tunic. The thick thighs she stood between. His face paint, now disheveled. “Tell me,” she all but sneered, “how did I torment your sleep?”
Cardan’s gaze should have killed her on the spot. Instead, without breaking eye contact, he began pushing down his pants. “You take off your undergarments, but leave the rest.” His voice was dark.
She watched him, as her hands fell under her dress, as they tugged at the underwear and let it fall to the floor, stepping out of it. His lower half was exposed.
“Then...” he trembled, “Then you sit on my lap and tear open my shirt.”
Jude hated herself for settling on his legs. For making sure not to touch him where he wanted yet. Where she wanted too. For following his order as if under glamour. His shirt was ruined. The skin now exposed was radiating heat.
Cardan got the hang of it. His voice no longer wavered as he next told her: “Kiss my neck.”
She shuddered. Her tongue left a trail, swirling against his neck from one end of his collarbone to right beneath his left ear. Cardan’s groans no longer had a leash. Hands rested on her hips.
Her hand reached for him, clutching tight and beginning to stroke. Whatever sound left his mouth was more animal than fae. “Is this what I did next?” No more than a whisper against his cheek. Every inch of him was hot. “Did I let you spill on my dress?”
Cardan bit down at her ear. She curved her neck in order to look at what she was doing. He was big in her hand, too big, the tip swollen and most of it turning red. Two hands, she decided. With both hands she grabbed him, and in tandem massaged up and down at a faster speed.
The High King howled her name. It echoed through the empty room.
She picked up the pace again, intrigued by the feel of him, by the sound it made when she pumped over and over. Her body turned hot all over, in tune to his growing arousal, her desire to be joined with him growing by the second. The apex of her thighs nearly touched him, separated only by the cloth of her dress. It made her feel even hotter inside. She needed to get him first, though.
Without warning, his mouth fell upon her nipple, hands massaging what he couldn’t reach. She bit down her moans. There wasn’t a lot more to hold in until he broke, she thought.
But it wasn’t so easy. Not as her hands gyrated on his length at violent speed, or as his teeth left marks on the other breast. He was near yelling. Jude herself could not resist much longer, after all. “Give it to me,” a low command on his ear, “Give me the power to destroy you.”
In answer, he squeezed her body closer to his, melding their forms. “Pull me in,” he rasped, “quick.” He was close. He didn’t want to come without having touched her first.
Jude grabbed his cock, brought it under the skirt of her dress. Blindly, only through touch, she aligned him and slowly started to sink. Both hissed. Not being able to see made Jude feel it that much more, the sensation welcomed.
When he was fully impaling her, she halted.
A slow loud breath escaped Cardan’s lips. He couldn't help himself. He said it. “I love you.” Without an ounce of spite.
Jude pressed her palm over his mouth. “Not yet.” Her voice was soft. Amidst Cardan’s features of tenderness sparked curiosity. She had to explain: “Let me be angry first. Later...”
His eyes grew heavy-lidded, then he nodded. Understood enough to catch her drift and settle back in his seat. Jude was silently grateful, pulling away her hand.
Cardan grabbed her hip. “Let me see,” he murmured. With his free hand the High King gently moved aside her dress, the cloth blocking his view. He bunched it up and heaved it to her side. There, he could see them. Could see the place where her body took in his length. Jude hadn't even moved yet and already elicited a groan from him.
Cardan stared, as if in a trance. Slowly, pressed his thumb to her clit, drawing lazy circles. Jude hissed.
“What did I do next,” she gasped, “in your dream?”
His gaze fixed on hers. “You ride me.” His finger did not cease with the teasing. “Until we collapse.”
The words alone pushed her closer to an edge, to a long fall. Slowly, testing the pressure, Jude lifted from her hips and sank back down.
It was indescribable. A sweet filling, a pulse-racing delight.
She did it again, resting her arms on his shoulders. His thumb still worked her slowly, and she decided to go slow too. Jude no longer cared that she was loud, she began riding him while mewling out some otherwise pathetic-sounding moans. Her head fell back as she picked up the pace.
A hand on her waist stopped her, halting her movements. “Slower,” he barely even whispered. Again, he looked at her sex rather than her face, enraptured. “I want to watch you take in every inch.”
She shivered all over. And did as he said. Once she had all of him inside again, he grabbed her waist and kept her from moving. The hand working her clit pressed down harder, picking up speed. She could only bite down on his shoulder, eyes screwed shut and nails digging on his back. When she almost toppled over the edge, he stopped. Pulled the hand away. She hated him.
Finally, he looked up. “You really wish to know what I want?”
Jude couldn’t think past his cock reaching her belly. She only touched foreheads with him. In that close intimacy he rasped “I want you to use me. I want you to find your own pleasure with my body.” He was breathless. “Fuck me how you want, how you need. Use me, Jude.”
She felt like collapsing.
“Use me.”
She rocked her hips again, lifting and falling.
“Use me.”
Her hands clung to the back of his head, keeping them in place, assuring he wouldn’t go anywhere. She showed the king her teeth, anger and want and love forcing her body to move again, to press them together like waves hitting a sea shore. Jude carried something feral within her, and it woke up. Cardan reached forward and kissed her, fingers leaving bruises from how hard he clung to Jude’s waist. “Use me,” he kept saying, repeating, like a prayer. Each time he did she let out a small sound.
She bounced on his lap wildly, granting him his wish. Again, that heat crawling up her belly and spine. It twisted, reaching to the furthest ends of her body. The slapping sounds they were creating were obscene.
"Is this what you wanted?" she groaned above him. "You want your wife to fuck you on your throne?"
He only missed a beat. “I want her to ride her husband's cock until she loses sense.”
She gripped the back of his hair, tugging harshly. He didn't even flinch.
If anyone, absolutely anyone, were to enter the throne room, they’d find their queen springing up and down the king’s length, gladly burying every inch in her.
“Gods, I love these,” he growled as a hand cupped her breast. She still wore her dress, the fabric meeting her breasts when they rose and fell to their movements. “Love how they bounce while you fuck me.”
“Fuck,” she shrieked. His words, her thrusts, it felt delicious in every place of her body. Her knees gave a hint of ache but she could not have cared less if they detached from her body. She was close, yet not close enough. Suddenly, she decided to change tactics. Stopping only briefly, she maneuvered her legs so the weight was placed on her thighs. Then, instead of moving up and down, she started rocking back and forth. Fast.
“Yes,” Cardan moaned from below.
Fucking him was like being split open.
She didn't register any movement until Cardan's hand struck her ass, once, loudly. Jude shrieked. She lagged her head back, facing the sky.
“Yes, my wife.” By now he knew the effect his words had on her. Damn him. His breathing started to quicken too. His eyes bore into her soul as a hand pinched her nipple. “Keep me inside, all the way in.”
Jude undulated her hips faster, at a speed that made her scare herself. Each wave brought him out the slightest bit before pulling him back in. Her vision started to blur, legs frantic. Screams might’ve started.
“Look at you,” Cardan said in a voice unlike himself.
Again, again, again, she got her fill of him. Jude yelled at the ceiling.
His hands yanked her back to him, so they faced each other in the wildness of their joining.
“You see why I can’t sleep? Why I can’t think without you?”
She could only respond in small gasps. His hands forced her in place, for their noses to touch. Tears of pleasure welled in her eyes.
“You can’t stop, can you?”
She shook her head, sobs starting to escape her throat. Her teeth began to clatter, a sign that she was close.
His ferality mirrored her own. He was also showing teeth. “I will see you when you peak. I will watch you come undone.”
His damned thumb went to her clit.
“I want to see you shaking.”
She nodded.
“I want you trembling."
She nodded.
“Will you beg me for it?”
She started sobbing into his face.
His own peak was close. “Call me your husband.”
Jude could barely breathe, barely think.
“Say it.” There was wildness in him.
Somehow she managed out: “You’re my husband.”
“Again.”
“You’re my husband.”
“Again,” his tone was now of begging.
She was crying now as she spoke. “My husband, my husband, my husband...”
“Look at me...” he pleaded. Her hips were about to give out when he bore into her eyes and said, “I love you.”
Jude wailed at the sky.
Cardan screamed into her neck. He came inside her in hot pulses.
A thousand pieces of them fell to the floor. Shatter of her and shatters of him.
In the minutes that followed, there was only their panting. Calming down, blood cooling. She slipped off him and immediately lamented the loss. Cardan was the first to speak.
“Come back to my rooms. Our rooms. Please.” He twined his fingers in hers. A bit of that sadness was back in his voice. Sadness and longing. And...hope.
Jude thought over what he said. Not just through words, but through his body and his commands and his willingness to voice the deepest of his desires.
“You love me.” She didn’t expect an answer. “You could have just told me.”
“Consider this,” he breathed heavily, a lesson in disarray, “my confession.”
open for me
folk of the air | jude x cardan, post-twk, so nsfw it’s not even funny holy shit
Jude opened her mouth to gasp for air, but when she did, Cardan covered it with his own, moaning directly into her mouth. Not a kiss, not even the touching of lips, but so much worse.
She hated this. Couldn’t stand it. Of course fucking Cardan was what she wanted, but not like this. Jude wished to be the one making him beg. Making him give up every secret he kept locked up.
But he didn’t. And the moment he pressed her back to the wall, Jude knew she was hopeless.
So she decided to hurt them both instead.
Cardan ripped open her loose shirt, grabbing for her breasts with hunger. His teeth bit into her neck and she decided to strike.
“Is this,” a moan, “how you kissed Nicasia too?”
Cardan paused, taken aback. His gaze met hers, blazing, and he pushed her off the wall and into bed. As she bounced on it, Jude asked, “Before she scorned you, did her tongue taste sweet?”
Hatred filled his eyes. Like a madman, he opened her pants and snatched them off. “Her kisses were more practiced. As were her hands on my cock.” Not bothering with the underwear she had on, Cardan tore it. “She knew exactly how to twist her wrists.”
Jude turned away. Her heart broke at the words, hating how he did not fall for her trap. She wanted Cardan to hate her, to be disgusted and hurt, and pull away. But he didn’t. Couldn’t. She kept trying.
“Well I’m sorry for my lack of experience.” She snarled. “Don’t worry, any day now I can find myself a mortal stranger who will teach me how to fuck good and proper. With my mouth and with my hands and with my entire body—”
“Stop,” Cardan ordered. His hands reached for his back, releasing him of the white blouse. His trousers came next. How could he possibly still want to be with her? Was he not hearing what she was saying?
Even though it tore her chest apart, Jude continued. “Maybe I should’ve let Locke between my legs when I had the chance. I bet he could make me see stars.” Push me away, push me away, push me away, she thought.
“Stop,” he said again, this time pleading. He kissed her, hard. Half hatred and half desperation. For what? He would not say. Jude wanted to cry. She kissed him back just as intensely, gripping his hair, sobbing. Her hand reached down, feeling for his length. As soon as she touched him, Cardan breathed sharply. His eyes were mere inches from hers, and they were full of fear.
Jude started maneuvering her hand over him, spirit cleaved in half. She wasn’t Nicasia, or any of his previous lovers. He was probably thinking of them right now, comparing.
Surprisingly, he shut his eyes roughly, and aggressively pushed her hand away, like it hurt. “No.”
Jude was shocked for a moment, not sure what to do or think. She didn’t have to, though, since Cardan lost no time. After smacking her hand away he spread her thighs, whimpering as he guided himself in, thrusting.
She gasped. It didn’t hurt, where they joined. Just felt different. She remembered, from the first time which was also with him.
He did not move for a time, face buried in her neck, refusing to look at her. Controlling his breathing. Then, finally, still not meeting her gaze he pulled out and pushed back in. Out and in. His pace was normal, his thrusts shallow. With her, then without her, complete, then not.
Jude had to catch her breath, washed with pleasure. It has never been anything but pleasure with him, in a masochistic way. Yet she was still angry. She bared her teeth like an animal.
“How many people have you fucked like this? How many before me?”
He growled. His hands left her hips and traveled to the back of her neck, thumbs at her jaw as if to choke her. Then his pace increased.
Jude was ready to shout. She gripped his arms with her hands, holding on for dear life. After a few seconds of adjusting to the feeling, she could not stop herself from hurting again. “Did you enjoy plunging inside them again and again, as you do with me? Did they scream for you?” Her words came out as rasps.
Cardan didn’t pause, only met his eyes to hers. “Not as loud as you will.”
“I will never—” but she was cut off by his thumb working at the apex of her thighs, circling down so hard it nearly pained her. It brought tears to her eyes, both pleasure and self-hatred, at his expert hands, at her stupid heart and body for loving him. She bit down on her lips to keep all noises within.
He noticed. Stopping for a moment, he reached behind both her knees and angled them higher, so most of her legs pressed against his stomach. With a strength she never knew he had, Cardan pushed her hard onto the mattress and resumed. A loud intake of air escaped her, accompanied by the sound of his skin on hers.
He proved his point. “Guess fucking all those girls taught me a thing or two,” he said while fully meeting her eye. “Since I am so good at getting fae on all fours.” His voice was unkind. His frown was unkind. Yet there was undeniable sadness in his own black eyes.
Jude showed him her teeth again. “I hate you.”
He fucked her harder. His bed was moving. He probably would not care if it broke. She clawed down on his arms, wishing to draw blood.
“Open,” Cardan ordered her, “open your legs.” His right hand was putting pressure on her thigh, willing her to spread wider.
Too lost in the incredible feel of him inside her, she ignored him for a moment. Jude didn’t know why she only loved her body when she was fighting and when she was fucking Cardan. She let out a moan, then did as he asked.
He had learned some things, she realized. By opening her legs wider, the feel of him was deeper, reaching farther. Cardan let out the most guttural groan she had ever heard, his eyes closing.
“Fuck,” Jude shouted. It only prompted him to keep going.
She began shaking. First at her feet, then it spread all over her body until even her teeth clattered a bit. The feeling was too much, too strong. It scared her, and by instinct she clutched her thighs back closed, interrupting Cardan’s pace.
“Open,” he said again, loudly.
Jude was afraid. Afraid of that shattering feeling but she obeyed. Jude widened her legs and Cardan continued to fuck her deep. His tail wrapped around one of her thighs to keep it in place, to press it against the bed and let him inside her entirely.
She was being torn apart. The angle, the heat of his skin over hers, the pleading in his eyes. It’s not that she wanted to stop. In fact, she never wanted this to end. That sensation, it’s one she never had before, and Jude wasn’t entirely sure what it was. And Cardan, he wouldn’t look at her. Instead, he was transfixed down below, watching their joining. He could see every time their bodies met and separated. She started to sob in time with his thrusts, teeth clattering, and her thighs met again.
He looked up at her, eyes lined with silver. “Please,” he whimpered. “Please, open for me Jude, open.”
Without thinking, before she could hold herself back, she whispered into his mouth, “It’s too good.” A shake of her head. “It feels too good.”
Cardan’s full body froze. He never climbed off her. Only peered into her face, trying to read what was there.
He surrendered. “My love,” he confessed, “let me in.”
She decided to surrender too.
Again, she relaxed. Again, he plunged inside her body.
This time he did not hold back. His hands, carefully clutching the back of her neck, pulled her to him with each movement, leaving Jude gasping for air at the same rhythm of their bodies. Cardan’s face hovered just above hers, watching, nothing human about him. He was also gasping, as loud as she. Every thrust brought him nearly out of her, every push filled her to the hilt. Her gasping stopped, her mouth only open in a face of petrified shock. No sound, not even breath coming out of her. Jude’s eyes were fixed on his, unmoving. No part of her was moving on her own, only the movement of him fucking her and the shaking of her hands and feet. Then, before he lost himself, he said, “Only you. It’s only you, Jude. All I ever wanted. Just you.”
Somewhere in the middle of this Jude had started to scream.
His thrusts were heavenly. One second, only the tip was inside. The next, she could feel him somewhere in her belly. This is surely how people die.
One last time, he begged mere inches from her face. “Open.”
She did, and was overwhelmed onto the brink of pleasure. A single, loud, heart-stopping scream escaped her and then silence. That petrification again, eyes screwed shut, the open mouth, her shaking hands. If she could see Cardan amidst the fog of her pleasure, he was probably no better off. His entire weight fell on her, crushing her into the bed. Noises were coming from him. If she were to mishear him, she’d think he was crying. But he was only catching his breath.
Neither moved for a long time. When they did, it was Cardan, leaving his place at her chest and coming up to her. There was so much sadness as he spoke. “They all mean nothing compared to you.”
Jude didn’t want to cry more than she already had. The only thing she wanted was for him to say the truth, if only once. And he had, only after she hurt him a thousand times. “I wish I didn’t have to fight you for you to say how you feel about me.” She refused to let her eyes grow wet again.
Cardan tried to hold back his grief, but it showed. “I’m sorry.”
“Will you say it again?”
“Will it makes things better?”
Her fingers grazed his cheek. “So much.”
Cardan never broke their gaze. “My love. My queen.” He lovingly kissed the hand that caressed him., smiling a little.
Inside both of them, a little something began to heal.
(ao3)