Little thing i wrote at literally 1-2am. Fluff, kinda gn!reader? i dont remember if I put in any male pronouns for reader so I think gn! but reader is taller/a bit wider in stature. Mentions of alcohol so reader is 21+ Thomas is 40-50 and has an ex-wife!
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You were drunk. Vaguely black out, stepping over yourself, overly touchy, everyone could tell you were almost at that point. But many others were as well.
Including your boss. Thomas.
It was a pretty uncommon name for a man of his… profession. And he was getting real close to you. But, you didn't mind so much. He was freshly divorced, and he is your boss who seems to be hugging you and resting his head on your chest in the corner of the party.
His blazer is quite soft, and hes clinging onto your hoodie like his life depends on it. He murmurs something starting with an "M"? You don't know but you agree either way. He's your boss, usually when he's drunk he's still a bit professional!
You worked as a janitor, specialized in cleaning up after particularly heavy messes and swiftly. You were also quite tall and wide so your boss tended to stay closer when its especially cold. I mean, how much can a suit really keep out the cold.
He invited you on most "missions" as some would say, they were mostly collecting money. This… mafia, it's more of a energy company now, doesn't kill. (Unless they are heavily threatened with guns) so you don't do much.
But you like it, the pay is nice, it helps you pay off the medical debts. Which there are way too many of. And it helps you pay for the little trinkets you like, with this pay you could basically fill your whole room with them!
But going back to Thomas, he's taken your hand in his. His hand is actually quite small compared to yours. And he leads you along with him from out the bar.
The cold air smashes against your face like a blizzard, making you almost flinch and close your eyes instinctively. Thomas treads along like an old-fashioned car, slow and steady. It's a bit admirable. He leads you to a car waiting outside. Chauffer inside and he opens the door for you. You weren't that drunk but you appreciated it anyways.
He sits beside you after going around the car and you two talk. He tells the driver the destination before you start to ramble on and on about miscellaneous things like family debt, or your car, or what drinks you like. And he listens quite intently, and makes sure to never interrupt you.
You love that. He never talks down at you despite you working for him, he holds the door open. It's the bare minimum but at leastt he's there.
Once you finish talking he speaks up, his words clear, atleast clearer than yours, during his drunkenness. He expresses his sorrow for your debts and strikes a deal you can't turn down.
He pays your debts, and all you have to do it let him cuddle with you?! You said yes immediately. He almost jumped onto you, hugging you like when you were still at that… company party to say.
You smile, and he buries his face into your pecs. He talks about how he just likes being close to someone, he's quite clingy. But that's never a downside.
Anyways, the night went on, you don't remember much past that point. All you know now is that you have a massive hangover, and your boss is laying on top of you. You feel the need to go get w-YOUR BOSS IS LAYING ON TOP OF YOU??
Thomas is asleep like a rock, he looks so cute but that's your boss, you have to ignore it for now. But when you try to move him off you he instinctively grabs tighter. You'll ask him if his spirit animal is a koala later.
Right now, your head is killing you. So you do the next best option of course! Pick him up and bring him with you, or atleast you try. His asleep version doesn't seem too happy about being picked up.
So you try to think of another plan. Waiting would work, but how long could you wait?
Well you didn't have to wait so long. Thomas' eyes open, and he looks up at your face and sits up immediately.
He rushes out apologies of how unprofessional he is and how sorry he is but, you gently pull him back down onto your chest in a hug.
He shuts up. Despite your lethal hangover you chill with him on your chest for a bit. He deserves it. And so you two wait, you feel his quickened breaths against your neck slow down.
And as you wait you notice something on your hand. A gold band, it's quite cute, you wonder if he bought it for you but that's not your concern for now.
You look at him closer. He prided himself on being a self-made man. He worked for his own success with nearly zero help. He had dark-circles under his eyes but you didn't know if those were from work or his ex-wife. Either way, it didn't matter. He was clearly tired, even after sleeping. He was around 40-50 but he had gray hairs in his full beard. And he dodges your eye sight, embarrassed to be laying on his employee.
It was his place, you just realized it. You're both fully clothed, besides having no shoes, and laying in his silk sheets. He gently grabs you hand, gazing at it and notices the gold band.
Once he sees it he is gobsmacked, like Medusa is staring him down. He half laughs, half disbelief, and somehow a third half panic.
He mutters "I can't believe it" under his breath but in the silence of the morning you hear it. You question him, and he's quick to answer.
"I… I think we got married."
What?
You're struck, you ask him to repeat it but your hungover mind isn't playing tricks on you this time. He said that.
He grabs your hand and compares the matching bands, both having each of your birthdays on it and a small lab grown perfect moissanite (diamond). There were little shards of other gemstones on each, the different stones being some of your favorites and on his rings you guessed there were his favorites. He had expensive taste, rubies and jade across his and alexandrite and others across yours.
There was no doubt.
Definitely wedding rings.
You were a bit shocked but what's done is done? You have to go drink some water before your brain falls out of your ears.
The old woman paused, having been kneeled before the cave’s mouth. She’d brought an offering, one of bread and wine, just as she had for most of her life.
Her hands remained clasped, but the beginning of her prayer had caught in her throat.
There was a long moment of silence, and the woman almost considered that she had hallucinated the voice.
But no, it returned.
“What have I done to deserve such unfaltering devotion from you, human? Have I not left you alone and your prayers unanswered the entire time you’ve known of me? You kneel before my cave as you have since you were a child, now shriveled and grey. I have done nothing for you, not once, and yet you still come to me whenever you’re able. Why?”
He knows it's coming. Can feel it in the creaking of his joints, in the numbing of his fingers, in the way his scars ache in the cold.
Still, when Jessamine opens the door to his chambers, closes them quietly behind her, wraps her arms around him and asks him to relinquish his position it feels like the world is ending.
Corvo is 59, and though he doesn't like to hear it, is getting too old to remain Royal Protector. Jessamine sees her opportunity and seizes it.
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He knows it's coming. Can feel it in the creaking of his joints, in the numbing of his fingers, in the way his scars ache in the cold. It feels like it was only yesterday that he and Jessamine were young, were fooling around in the rosebushes when time allowed, when time still felt like it was endless. And yet, after a blink of an eye that was also eternity he's 59, and though they they still sometimes fool around in the rosebushes his hip now cracks much like the branches they step on in the process.
He knows that to experience it is an honour, that he may very well not have, may not yet. He knows there were many before him who have not.
Still, when Jessamine opens the door to his chambers, closes them quietly behind her, wraps her arms around him and asks him to relinquish his position it feels like the world is ending.
She mumbles into his shoulder as they hold each other, promises him that she will find him a posting. Royal Protectors who live to see their retirement are paid a pension and most receive an estate, as it is common for them in their line of duty to give up their birthrights to siblings. Corvo didn’t have one to give up in the first place. It all but guaranteed him a cushy estate somewhere in the countryside. It would amount to banishment from court, to only ever see Jessamine and Emily for official occasions or perhaps a private meeting when their duties allow.
The thought makes his heart shudder.
Jessamine promises him a different fate, though she doesn't know more yet. A position with titles and honor and little responsibility probably. Nothing to do but pretend not to hate his situation. At least it would allow him to remain at court, to stay at least somewhat close to them.
Jessamine kisses him and swears that it isn't her choice, that she would keep him as close to her side as she could for rest of their lives, creaking or not, but parliament has been putting pressure on her. And as much as she hates it, as much she would fight parliament with all her might for him, she worries for him. Is terrified of the day when it just won't be enough. Not for her, but for him. The day when his shoulder will give under the pressure of the years and another's blade. He tries not resent the mere notion. (Not her, never her.)
And so, though he dreads the future, he agrees.
The date of his retirement is set for his 60th birthday.
Preparations are made for Jessamine to choose a new Royal Protector, and he is closely involved in the proceedings. Jessamine asks him what he thinks of the recruits, listens attentively to his detailed scrutiny and doesn't mention that he rips into them far more than he ever has before. Even Tayah, usually blunt as her homeland is cold who had very nearly punched his nose in during the preparations for Emily's own choosing, leaves him to it and shrinks back into her charge's shadow. Emily herself walks as if on eggshells around him, talks softly and brings him warm tea when his hands start to shake at night. He tries to focus on the love in it, on the care that makes them act like this and drowns his despair at it in what work he can still do in these last few months. He revises patrol routes, checks security systems, and terrorizes the recruits until the Tower Guard captain tells him to back off and leave them some room to breathe. He wants to argue, bite back that room to breathe is a luxury they may very well not be able to afford, that none of them will ever be good enough for Jessamine, but Emily drags him off before he has a chance to.
Eventually Jessamine makes a decision, Cairn, a young man from Morley, who Corvo had begrudgingly commended for his skill with the blade. He is disciplined, loyal, and well trained, and his selection will mark another milestone in cooperation between the Isles. Corvo clenches his teeth and doesn't argue.
The decision is made long before the official choosings ceremony, a matter of much less pomp and drama for a woman decades on the throne rather than a young heiress, either of them. There will be some pretending at a spontaneous choice, some chance for pageantry and puffing egos for the nobles, but no one deludes themselves into believing the choice hasn't long been made.
In the weeks before the ceremony, his birthday fast approaching, Corvo runs Cairn ragged until they both breathe heavily under the strain, sweat nearly blinding them. The boy never complains. Nor does he comment on Corvo's habit of calling him such, boy, as if he isn't already respectably into his third decade. Corvo was younger in his place. Even so, Cairn merely obeys, determination steeling his eyes. It should assure Corvo, should reaffirm him in Jessamine's decision. Instead it only fans the flames of his resentment. And jealousy. He tries to douse them in training.
One night as he lies in bed and feels the cold settling into his bones the secret door next to the fire place creaks open and Jessamine steals through on bare feet, her long, greying hair draped over in her shoulder in her loose sleeping braid and her nightgown softly swaying around her legs. She doesn't speak, doesn't ask anything of him, only comes closer and slips under his blanket. He makes space for her, as he has always done and she fits herself into his body, folds into him like he was made for her.
For a long while they don't move and neither of them sleeps. Corvo knows it shouldn't feel as much as a goodbye as it does.
Eventually, as his lids finally do get heavy and sleep tugs on his limbs she whispers into his neck: "If you could, would you still marry me?"
Corvo answers without hesitation, without thought and tells her same thing he's always told her in nights like this, when it all becomes too much and they seek refuge in the impossible fantasies that have never lost their luster for their impossibility. "Always." She hums and tugs him even closer, until neither of them is quite sure when one ends and the other begins. It's a trivial matter in the end.
Corvo drifts off that night with Jessamine in his arms and dreams of other times they've had his conversation. More in detail, sometimes spinning silly stories about what they would do as husband and wife, what things they would get up to if they Empire was not resting on her shoulders, the things they would do if they weren't both bound to Dunwall. And sometimes they were more serious deliberations. Maybes and perhaps', plans to try and get around all the things that make the dream impossible, laying out what such an endeavour would cost them, politically and personally. But in the end it was always too much. It would have cost Jessamine the respect of the broad nobility and the ability to try and play around any unruly nobles with the possibility of later, legitimate children. It would have cost Emily her status, better a bastard child of a mystery man, potentially a noble of whatever degree, than the legitimised daughter of a serkonan commoner. It would have cost him his position as Royal Protector and would have forced him into the role of prince consort, a technically higher rank that would have left him far less opportunity to protect his family. No, marriage was always a futile fantasy, no matter how much they yearned for the idea of it.
The next weeks leading up to his birthday, and to the end of his life as it feels, Jessamine keeps busy. She isn't avoiding him, always makes time for a kind word at least and a peck on the lips if she can get away with it, but for anything more there it no time. She bustles around the Tower in a hurry, from meeting to meeting, planning his honorable retirement and her new Protector's ascension. Emily follows for the most part, and when she doesn't she is busy with her own meetings, ever the diligent crown princess. It leaves Corvo mostly alone, his only companion Cairn, who, as Corvo now can only tiredly admit, is both incredibly patient and as ready as he will ever be.
The selection ceremony passes without a hitch, and Cairn is officially designated as his successor.
And so Corvo feels his birthday approach with numb dread.
The days before the festival are barely more than a blur. He is informed about the process, when he has to stand where, what he is to wear, and what words he has to speak. It all passes him by without his notice. It's not like he has to remember. Someone else is preparing his clothing, someone else will push him where he needs to be, and someone else will tell him the words again if they matter.
No one tells him how he is supposed to live on afterwards.
The day comes and the fog enveloping his mind disperses, leaving behind only the cold clarity that this is it. This is the day. Jessamine visits before the ceremony, slings her arms around him and kisses him on the lips for as long as she can before someone calls her away again. There is a buzzing energy about her, an excitement almost and all Corvo can feel anymore is vague gratitude that at least someone is enjoying it.
Thankfully the rite takes little of his involvement and so he stands, his dress uniform collar feeling tighter and hotter than it ever has before, and listens to Jessamine extolling his virtues. Or the ones fit for others' ears at least. She thanks him for his service, for his protection, and lists some of his accomplishments, as if any of it really matters, as if the only success he's ever cared about wasn't the two women standing alive and well before the congregation of nobles today.
He waits.
Jessamine calls him forth. He steps in front of her, his feet feeling like lead. She smiles at him softly, her eyes twinkling like the stars themselves even as her lips form cruel worlds.
"Lord Corvo Attano, are you prepared to relinquish your post to your claimed successor?" He is not.
"I am." He pulls out his sword, the ceremonial one, polished to perfection, and lays it across his palms, holds it out to her. She takes it from him and yet it feels like his arms are heavier than ever before.
Cairn kneels beside him. Jessamine turns to him, the sword in hand, and he recites the oath, Corvo's oath, to defend the Empress' life with his own, for however long he can. When he is finished Corvo can't tell if the roaring in his ear is the crowd or his own blood.
With the trading of the sword and recital of the oath, Cairn moves to take his new place, behind and to the side of the Empress, poised to protect her. Corvo stares to the ground and waits for Jessamine to dismiss him, to send him into the crowd where he would endure the questions, compliments and back-patting while feeling the world collapse around him.
She does not.
Instead she waits some moments, until the crowd is silent again. Steps to the side and takes something before returning to where Corvo is still kneeling at her feet.
And she asks another questions.
"Corvo Attano, are you prepared to take on your new duties? To represent this Empire to the best of your ability? To serve at my side with pride and loyalty?" What?
None of her words make any sense, and Corvo raises his head. Jessamine stands above him, a soft smile still on her lips, and a dainty golden circlet the size of a head resting on her fingers. Of his head. The consort's crown.
Corvo's head is empty and at the same time too full, his thoughts turning into an undecipherable tornado. He remains silent for what is likely too long to be fashionable, as he stares up at her, how she stands there before him in her intricate suit, holding in her hands a future that he'd never expected could ever be reality. And she is still smiling, something unspeakably soft in her eyes as he fights to fill his lungs with breath.
Distantly he thinks he knows the answer he is supposed to give here, but in reality there is only one option he could possibly force his lips to shape, past the unbearable force pressing shut his throat and threatening to drown him in the heady mixture of love, hope and complete bafflement.
"Always."
(He is better prepared for the official wedding vows.)
This is random but do you remember a very charming mothman oc you wrote as a side character in one of your stories.. I believe he was renting the reader a room? Possibly? And I think he might’ve been slightly older as well? Anyways I just remembered him out of the blue and was wondering if you had any other information about him/headcanons I guess 😅
I don’t actually recall which of your stories he was in but I liked him! If you ever have a spare moment and feel like sharing more information I would happily read it 💖💖
I believe you're thinking of Reginald from the sleep paralysis demon story? He found himself a few fans when I shared the story first time, and I was chatting with a friend about how he deserves to find some love too. I don't have any more thoughts on him just yet, but I'd like to write him a story one day.
Hey I love your blog, it helps me a lot and now I've a question myself. How can you write about older people while you're still young yourself? The main character of my story is 43 years old but I'm 17... I try to pay attention to how her life experience has shaped her personality but sometimes I feel like she seems too much like a teenager. Have you ever written about characters older than you? And what helped you the best to make them realistic? Do you have any general tips on writing adults?
Thanks for asking, this is a good question, and I like that your MC is much older than you. You'll learn a lot by writing them.
I've written for a number of ages, and aside from some extremely minimal research online, I just started paying attention to other people. I watched films about X age group, read books by/about X age group, listened to interviews of adults with certain fields and backstories, listened to people older than me at work, listened to customers, neighbors, relatives, my own parents. Kids are tougher since I don't know many little kids, but just asking questions of teachers and family friends gave me insight into the lives of people older than me.
Once you know what a person is like on the inside and why, writing their dialogue and behavior is a piece of cake. Surely you know some adults or can look up some public figures and study their lives, dialogue, and behavior. Base your character off several real people and they will come across as more authentic.
