⚜️summary: secrets and uncertainty plague a young queen in her arranged marriage to a kind but distant king. the farther she drifts from her husband, the closer she gets to one of his most trusted men.
⚜️pairing: queen!reader x royalguard!hoseok
⚜️rating: mature, 18+
⚜️genre: royal AU, historical AU, smut
⚜️warnings: infidelity (it’s complicated, y’all) mentions of pregnancy, fertility issues. OC struggles with depressive thoughts and episodes.
⚜️word count: 6.5K
⚜️notes: phew. chapter two is finally here. i re-wrote scenes in this chapter several times because i’m dumb i really needed to make sure i got the tone right and y'all, i really hope i did. i promise not to make you wait as long for chapter three and a serious thank you to everyone who reads and talks to me about my stories. you guys have no idea what you mean to me and of course, i cannot pass up an opportunity to thank my beta readers and sanity coaches @hobi-gifand@btsarmy9593. thank you for everything, you’re both amazing.
Your sister had been the one to discover it. Naturally.
You can still recall the wicked grin she’d worn the night she’d stolen into your room with her appalling news. Trouble always had a way of finding her – or perhaps it was the other way around – and you knew trouble when you saw it.
Or heard it.
“You should stop that at once,” you’d hissed, afraid to let your voice rise above a whisper. Eyes darting nervously towards the door as though you’d expected your mother to darken it at any moment.
“Why should I?” she’d challenged, one perfect brow lifted high. “Why would anyone?”
The question was fair enough, you’d supposed.
But the truth was that you didn’t know how to answer it. Didn’t know how to feel about her intimate confession beyond the embarrassment that made your entire face burn hot. So you’d reached for the only answer you could be entirely sure of.
“Mother wouldn’t like it.”
“Mother doesn’t like anything,” she’d shot back. “Perhaps if she spent a bit of time with her hand between her legs she wouldn’t be so – ”
Ok so there is a lot to say about this but first and foremost er gotta discuss the stable scene with the sweaty hot stable Hoseok. I am but a mere mortal. I can’t take that. I nearly expired full out reading that bit. It was bloomin magnificent. Like let me live I’m OUT. SO GOOD.
It’s hard to pick a favorite part as your writing is routinely characterized by sentence after sentence weaving into the next expertly and seamlessly like a glorious tapestry of imagination. The feeling and subtext of this piece are sumptuous and I just want to scream.
I know it’s goofy but my heart kind of broke for Namjoon a little in this one. It really did. Like they are both in such a difficult place. But unlike him she has no respite. No power. No recourse. I love this story so much.
And Hoseok coming in at the last minute when she is so vulnerable and all her desires are laid bare… OOF. THAT WAS— GAH! The whole thing is just exquisite. I love it so much. Just fantastic.
Ow wow, this is amazing @paint4life1 XD I’m absolutely chuffed to bits that my art inspired you to make this, thank you. The rainy day is certainly a Jono mood ;D
