Is there any chance you could do a crow!reader x Tamar fic? There’s never enough written about her and I love the way you do it
You Cannot Push Me Away - Tamar Kir Bataar
Content Warnings: Canon Compliant Threat And Violence. Not Beta / Proof Read.
A crow isn't exactly where Tamar thought she would be cashing in her chips exactly, but love is found in odd places, Tamar was no stranger to that concept. And in love she is, smitten her brother might say if he could see her right now, hanging from every word you speak as if she did not know all the things you've done.
You can't ignore the way she is looking at you, the way she talks to you, that smile that she only seems to get around you, the way her eyes light up and you can hear her heartbeat just as clearly as she can likely hear yours. And you can't quite understand it.
Tamar is a soldier, a woman with faith and a cause, and you... you work with the greatest thief in Kerch, maybe anywhere. Or work for, you guess is more accurate.
She has taken the time she has spent here in Ketterdam, on some mission she hasn't told you much about, and you haven't asked much about, getting to know you. And in the barrel, you wear your wins like armour to anyone who isn't Stadwatch, so she knows your sins, she knows what you have done, admitted to or not to get you where you are, to survive the barrel, to suit The Dregs, to keep moving. And yet she still looks at you like that.
"Come on little bird," she tries, her tone like silk and sugar. It makes you want to agree with anything she says, agree to anything she asks of you. But what she is asking is crazy and you won't lose sight of that.
"Crow's are actually medium sized birds," you counter.
"Nice try," she replies, "come on, say you'll leave with me, let me take you back to Ravka, let me spoil you."
You laugh, walking the wall as she keeps to the street, you feel safe up here, one misstep from falling, keeps you calm, focused, and Tamar... Tamar makes you feel like you could depend on someone, rely on someone, that someone could know you and love you at the same time.
"Tamar..."
"Say my name like that gorgeous and I may just have to climb up there and kiss you," she says.
"Threat or a promise," you tease back.
"Can't flirt your way out of this one," Tamar says. "Come away with me."
"I can't," you tell her. You're walking faster, but not as fast as you're running in your mind. For someone who is saying they can't leave, you've gotten so good at running away. You've convinced yourself no one could understand you, love you and stay.
"Why?" Tamar asks.
"Why?" you echo.
"Give me one good reason," Tamar says, "a real reason."
"I feel like I am going to hurt you," you explain, but Tamar just keeps smiling at you. You've never known someone to be as fierce, as relentless, as endlessly down to fight as Tamar, able to look so welcoming in the face of a threat. A non intentional threat, but a threat none the less.
"You won't hurt me," Tamar says plainly. She looks at you so certain, so adamant. Like all her faith is in this statement, like she knows nothing else to be as true as those words. She speaks them so easily. But you know yourself, and you want to be what she sees you as but your fears that all you've done to become who you are will keep you from being anything more are ever present. And you do not want to be that person for Tamar, you want to believe in who you could have been if things were different. But you cannot put that on her. You can't.
"It's not a risk I would like to take," you say, an amount of rage flaring up in your voice, you suck the air in through your teeth trying to keep the flames at bay.
"There's a risk in anything," Tamar says, her fingers absentmindedly brushing over the blade of one of her axes. "Always in life, and especially in love."
"You're not hearing me," Tamar can see your frustration as clearly as you can feel it. "I am scared I am going to hurt you." Admitting to fear, something you had hoped you would never have to do again. Being a in the dregs, being a crow, you'd really hoped you'd left fear in a lockbox in the back of your mind, or at least that you could hide it behind walls, and fake stoicism. You had hoped you'd never had to admit to the weakness of fear again, Kaz would never. You wanted to be more like Kaz.
"I am not scared of getting hurt," Tamar says, "I can handle it."
"Tamar... I mean hurt you, hurt you, like... get you killed kind of hurt you," you say biting your tongue hard, almost enough to draw blood, hoping that it can give you composure, keep you from shaking. You like Tamar, you really like Tamar. She was the first good thing you've ever known. The first thing you make you feel like a real person and not a weapon. The first person who wanted to care for you, and not want anything in return. Tamar works on honour. You'd never met a person like that. Tamar expects nothing in return for what she has offered you. She isn't striking a bargain or trying to get the upper hand like every other person in this rotten city. She has faith in something more than riches. She has a calling that gives her purpose and not greed. She's good. She has blood on her hands, and a fight in her that keeps raging, and yet she is somehow still good. If you told her that you did not want her, because you did not want her, and not because you were scared to want her, she would ask nothing of you. She would give you the space you need and not punish you for it.
But you want her, of course you want her, you've never wanted anything as much as you want her.
"Then kill me," Tamar says, stepping closer, "I'd like to see you try, and honestly, it's the only thing that will stop me wanting to be beside you, only in death will you free me from that."