Blue Royalty | Miscellaneous Thread

Littlefeets · 4 March 2025 06:21

Trigger Warning: Physical Abuse

Summer-ish? 2000 - just after Addie’s wedding to Harry

He couldn’t breathe. By the time he turned the handle of his hotel door, his legs felt weak. His heart felt like it was beating too hard. He let the door close behind him and he fell to his knees with a broken cry. She was gone. There was no getting her back.

Each breath was more difficult than the last. He had to place his hands on the floor to brace himself. For a moment he thought he might pass out, hyperventilating. He couldn’t handle it.

One by one, tears landed in a silent splash against the floor.

He never cried.

Only when the love of his life was in a hospital bed, when he’d had no idea if she’d even wake up again. Or when he was in such excruciating pain he couldn’t handle it, but it wasn’t enough to make him pass out.

He lost her. She was gone. He lost them both.

His heart had already been ripped out, but then it was crushed.

He felt like he was going to die.

It would’ve been easier if he felt numb.

It wasn’t like how he felt finding the note she left that day, with that fear of not being able to find her and not knowing what happened. This was somehow worse. He knew she was fine. She was with her husband, his best friend. She was with someone else, and he couldn’t be with her.

He was supposed to be the one calling her his wife. He was supposed to be marrying her. She was supposed to be his, and he was still hers.

He was still in pain thinking about how Addie was now married to his best friend when he returned home, and the pain only got worse from there. He wasn’t alone, his father was waiting for him.

“You f^^king lost a duchess to a f^^king black piece of s^^t? You couldn’t even f^^king do that?” Despite Leo’s friendship with Harry for all those years, he knew his father never approved of him. Leo ignored his father’s blatantly racist comments as much as he could, knowing what happened every time he tried defending his friend.

“I tried to get her back… I tried… I don’t know why she didn’t want me…”

“I know why. Clearly she saw how you’re a f^^king failure in everything. You can’t do a f^^king thing right. You’re a f^^king sorry excuse for an Azure.” Leo’s gaze was glued to the floor, even as he flinched at the sound of his father opening the clasp of his belt. “You clearly haven’t f^^king learned, Leonardo. You’re still a worthless f^^king stain on my name.”

“I’ll be better, father…”

“You won’t. I know it.”

His father’s insults began to blend together as he was shoved against the wall. Most of it he’d heard thousands of times. He was worthless. An embarrassment of a son, of an Azure. A failure. Why would Addie have even wanted him in the first place? He was nobody special. Hell, even his best friend, the man Leo had been hit countless times for defending as a child, left him. They both chose to leave him. He wasn’t someone they wanted to stay around for, and he was a fool for thinking he deserved a friend like Harry had been for so many years, for thinking he deserved the love he had with Addie. They deserved better than him. Maybe he deserved Addie leaving, deserved Harry picking her over him. Harry would love her and care for her, and maybe he would be better for her than Leo ever could’ve been. Harry would be everything he’d been for Leo all those years and more.

“That girl left because of you, you know. Clearly she realized you weren’t even worth her time. You were such a f^^k up that she ran from you.”

Twenty one f^^king years old, and he still couldn’t stand up to his father. He couldn’t fight back. He tried so many times, but any time he tried, it only got worse. As a child he begged. As a teenager, he fought and tried to resist. Nothing worked, nothing made it easier, nothing stopped it. The most he could do was let his shirt fall to the floor so it wouldn’t be ruined in the process, and brace himself against the wall.

He was weak. He didn’t deserve Addie. She deserved more than a weak child who couldn’t stand up to his own father. How had he even thought he could be a good husband for her? He was nothing. It was his fault she was gone. His fault that she didn’t want him. All of it was his fault. Everything always was. He knew it. His father knew it. The scars on his back proved it.

He almost didn’t notice his father’s continued words as the crack of the belt sounded in Leo’s ears. Pain followed, stinging on his back, burning more with the second hit.

He was broken, weak, worthless, undeserving, alone. Maybe it was better that Addie wasn’t his anymore. His only true skill was that of f^^king everything up. He lost her, maybe that was better than them getting married and him finding a way to f^^k up even worse and get her hurt in the process. His father didn’t approve of everything she was wanting to do, all the things Leo wanted to help her do, anyway. Maybe it was better that he wouldn’t try to stop Addie. Harry would help her reach for the stars. Leo’s father would have no reason to be angry that Leo wanted Addie to succeed if they weren’t together.

Leo felt the warmth of blood begin to run down his back. The buckle of his father’s belt had hit his back with enough force to split the skin. Again, Leo felt the slicing pain, just before his legs finally gave out and he found himself on his knees.

He didn’t have to even register what words came out of his father’s mouth. The meaning was clear. Leo was the problem. It was his fault, like always. If it wasn’t for his words, his actions, none of it would’ve happened. If he hadn’t f^^ked up, yet again, his father wouldn’t have gotten angry. Leo knew it, yet he still found every opportunity to anger him. It was like he’d never learn.

Leo had no idea how long it was before his father finally stopped, the snap of the belt still repeating endlessly in his ears. “This all could have been avoided, Leonardo, if you would’ve just listened and did what you were told.” Leo winced as his body finally began to relax, knowing there wouldn’t be any more contact. He crumpled to the floor, lying there until he could no longer hear his father’s footsteps.

Uneasily, he stood on shaking legs and carefully walked to his bathroom. He was merely able to rinse off the blood that dripped down his arm, from his shoulder, before he turned to collapse onto his bed. He couldn’t bear to look at his reflection. He wasn’t the man Addie wanted. He was worthless, nothing, a coward. He couldn’t do anything right, even when it mattered most.

@benitz786

benitz786 · 6 March 2025 02:57

The “Something Old” - 2031 - Part 13

This dream felt real. Too real.

Jess sat across from him in a room that didn’t quite exist. She knew that. Some part of her did.

The walls stretched endlessly, shifting as if they couldn’t quite decide what they wanted to be. One moment, they were sleek and modern, all polished glass and sharp steel edges, the kind of office where power was wielded with a flick of a pen. The next, they melted into dark mahogany panels, dimly lit by antique sconces, casting elongated shadows that stretched toward her like grasping fingers. The air was heavy—so thick she could feel it pressing against her skin, muffling the sound of her own breath.

And across from her sat Leonardo Azure.

Or… Kai?

Because, fck, the resemblance was unnerving.

Leo was composed. Effortlessly so. He lounged in a leather chair, his posture regal, like he was meant to sit at the head of the table. His suit was pressed to perfection, a shade of navy so deep it almost looked black. A gold cufflink glinted at his wrist when he moved—just slightly, just enough to tap a single finger against the armrest in a slow, rhythmic motion.

His jawline was sharp, almost too sharp, his features so defined they could have been carved from stone. His grey-blue eyes flickered with something unreadable, like they could dissect her if she stared too long. And his blond hair—perfect, untouched, like not a single strand dared to be out of place.

It was Kai… It was Leo. It was both?

And Jess wasn’t sure how to separate them.

Her stomach twisted.

She had spent years forcing herself not to think about Kai. Not to remember the way he had once looked at her, how he had once loved her, how he had broken her.

And yet… here he was.

Except it wasn’t him.

It was Leo.

But it wasn’t.

The realization made something crawl beneath her skin, unsettled and restless.

Jess forced herself to sit up straighter, her fingers tightening around the pen in her hand. The notepad in front of her was filled with precise, clean strokes of ink, but the words—her words—shifted if she stared too long, blurring, distorting into something unreadable.

It was confusing… why was she here again?

Oh.

This was supposed to be an interview.

That’s what this was. That’s why she was here. Right?

She had a job to do.

Jess cleared her throat, forcing her voice into something even. Something professional.

“Mr. Azure, thank you for sitting down with me today.”

He didn’t smile.

His blue eyes—Kai’s eyes, her mind whispered, but she shoved the thought away—flickered with something unreadable.

“Of course,” he said smoothly. His voice was low, even, practiced.

Jess inhaled sharply. Get a grip. But even his voice… it sounded like Kai.

That hurt.

It’s Leo.

It’s…Leo.

She had studied him. Read about him in headlines. Whispers passed between journalists who were too afraid to ask the real questions. Or, were paid not to ask those questions. He was a man wrapped in power, cloaked in ruthless efficiency. A businessman. A kingmaker. A phantom looming over the business world with nothing but a flick of his wrist.

And funny enough, unless one looked, no one would know how powerful this man was.

But Jess had read about him—the real him—in her mother’s journals. Not just the titan, not just the empire.

The boy.

The boy who had once loved so fiercely. The boy her mother had loved so fiercely. The boy who had shattered her.

The boy who had shattered… her.

Kai.

No this wasn’t Kai.

He looked like Kai.

NO.

no.

And for the first time, Jess realized—he was young.

The man sitting across from her wasn’t the Leonardo Azure of today. He wasn’t in his fifties, hardened by decades of life. No.

He was younger than she was.

And that fact—it rattled her.

His hair was golden, untouched by time, slicked back in the way Kai used to style his. His face was unlined, sharp with youth and arrogance. And his suit… his perfectly tailored suit… rested against his frame like it belonged to him before he even knew what power was.

Jess clenched the notepad tighter, forcing herself to move past it.

It’s not Kai. And… and she didn’t have time to dissect why he looked like this…

This was her chance.

This was an interview. Her interview.

She glanced down at her notepad, at the shifting, unreadable words that moved on the page, sliding away from her, refusing to be pinned down.

It didn’t matter. She moved ahead anyway.

“Let’s… start with your latest acquisition—”

Leo tilted his head… just slightly… just enough… and something in his expression made her pause.

And suddenly, everything in the room went still.

His expression was unreadable, too controlled. His fingers—long, calculated—tapped against the armrest, so… so… deliberate.

Then—

“Cut the bullshit.”

Jess blinked.

The words rang out, shattering the polished illusion of formality.

She knew she should have been surprised…should have been.

But instead, a chill coiled in her spine. Because the way he said it—the exact inflection, the exact cadence—was familiar. Too familiar.

And it wasn’t Leo’s voice anymore.

It was Kai’s.

Leo… Kai?.. No, Leo… leaned forward, elbows resting on the polished wood of the desk between them. The light above them flickered—just for a second.

Jess could hear her own breathing—shallow, uneven—like she had just asked something forbidden.

But she hadn’t…

“You didn’t come here to ask me about business.”

Jess swallowed, shifting in her seat. Something about the way he looked at her sent sharp unease in her gut.

It was a look reminiscent of what Kai gave her at one moment… but she couldn’t… place when?

Irrelevant.

But he was right.

She hadn’t.

Her fingers trembled against the notepad, gripping it tighter.

“Who was she to you?”

A flicker of something passed through his expression.

“Excuse me?”

His voice was quieter now, measured. But it wasn’t confused. It wasn’t the voice of a man caught off guard.

It was the voice of a man deciding how much to give away.

Jess’s grip tightened around the notepad. She felt like she was teetering on a ledge of somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be.

But she didn’t back down.

“My mother. Who was she to you?”

Another pause.

A long, uncomfortable pause.

Leo’s fingers twitched where they rested on the table, but his face gave nothing away. She watched him - leaning back, the movement slow, precise, calculated…

Then he exhaled a soft laugh, but there was no humor in it.

“You already know the answer to that.”

Jess’s stomach clenched.

“I want to hear it from you.”

Leo’s jaw tightened, the muscle ticking ever so slightly. His hands—so still before—clenched just barely.

He didn’t like this.

Jess knew when a man was cornered.

She…knew what Kai looked like when he was cornered…

“She was…” His voice trailed off.

He looked away.

Jess leaned forward. Her pulse was pounding now, hammering against her ribs, but she kept her voice even.

“Did you love her?”

His head snapped back to her.

The temperature in the room dropped.

Truly… it was so, so cold now. The temperature had dropped so drastically that the very air felt sharp, slicing against her skin like daggers. Each exhale shifted into the space before her, dissolving into the thick, frigid silence that wrapped around them. The room itself seemed to shrink, the walls closing in under the weight of the cold, turning the very air dense and brittle—icy in a way that seeped deep into her bones.

Even the light had shifted, the once warm glow now tinged with something colder, harsher, as if the frost had crept into every crack, draining the warmth from the very space around them.

His eyes—Kai’s eyes, Leo’s eyes, the Azure blue eyes—locked onto hers, sharp as glass… or ice… and there was a storm in those eyes.

She knew it well.

She had seen it before.

“This interview is over.”

“No, it’s not.”

Jess didn’t move. Didn’t even blink.

“What happened between you two?”

Leo stood abruptly, the chair scraping against the floor in a way that made Jess flinch.

“I said—”

“Do you know why she left you?”

That stopped him.

Jess swore she saw the faintest hitch in his breath, barely perceptible, but there. The kind of reaction a man like him wasn’t supposed to have. A muscle in his jaw clenched—tight, controlled—but something about it felt… fragile.

Like a crack forming in ice around them… just before it shattered.

And for a fleeting second, Jess saw it. Saw him. The split-second flicker of emotion behind those stormy blue eyes. It was raw, exposed—like a wound torn open before he could cover it.

It was Kai.

The face in front of her blurred, shifting between past and present, between the man she had walked away from and the one her mother had loved. It was Leo and it was Kai, blending together so seamlessly it made her stomach turn.

And then—just as quickly as it had faltered—the mask slid back into place. The sharp, unreadable expression returned. Leo Azure was back.

Jess tightened her grip on the pen.

The silence stretched between them, heavy and unbearable.

And she knew—she had him.

Honestly…

She hadn’t known why she needed to ask this. Why it felt so urgent.

But now, looking at him—at the way his breathing had changed, at the storm behind his carefully neutral expression—she knew.

“Did you even fight for her?”

Leo pushed his chair back even more. The legs scraped against the floor, the sound cutting through the thick silence.

“Enough.”

But Jess didn’t stop.

“Did you ever even tell her how much she meant to you?”

“Stop.”

“Do you still love her?”

And that—that was the breaking point.

Leo shot to his feet.

The light above them flickered again—faster this time, more erratic.

His fists were clenched at his sides. His breathing was sharp, uneven.

Jess watched as his shoulders heaved, as his jaw locked, as the cracks in his mask widened and split.

And then—

He turned away.

“Leo, we’re not done”

Jess started but he was still moving.

“Leo.” Jess tried again, getting up from her own chair.

“KAI.” Jess screamed this time, unable to stop the name from leaving her lips. And… and she finally saw him stop in his tracks. Why had she called him that?

Why?

Jess barely had a moment to register the shift. The world around them wavered, the office walls dissolving into something else.

A scream hit the room.

Distant, small.

Unnerving.

Was Leo crying? Was… Kai crying?

No… No this wasn’t an adult.

It was a baby’s cry that cut through the room.

Jess snapped her head toward the sound, confusion lancing through her chest.

He was still standing there, but his back was to her now. His shoulders trembled.

And the cry—

It grew louder. And louder.

But now it was coming from him… or she assumed it was him…

And then, the office collapsed.

Jess woke up with a gasp. Her body jerked upright, her skin damp with sweat and her pulse pounded in her ears, the remnants of the dream clinging to her like static.

The crying— It wasn’t from the dream anymore. It was real.

Shay.

Her daughter’s wails echoed through the room, piercing through the last hazy remnants of sleep.

Jess’ heart clenched as she turned to the bassinet, her hands moving on instinct.

“Hey, baby,” she whispered, lifting Shay into her arms, pressing a kiss to her tiny forehead. “I’ve got you.”

Her daughter’s warmth grounded her. But Jess’ mind was still elsewhere.

Still caught in that dream.

Still hearing Leo’s voice… Kai’s voice? —his silence—echoing in her head. Still wondering what the hell it all meant.

And knowing—without a doubt—that maybe she wasn’t ready for the truth.

But she was going to hear it anyway.

@Littlefeets

Caticorn · 20 March 2025 16:52

“I really did, didn’t I?” He agreed, laughing as she told him he’d set the bar too high in high school.

They continued talking about his lonely piece and he had to admit, it was nice to discuss it with someone whose first response wasn’t ‘you’ve been seeing that therapist, right Dom?’

Not that he didn’t appreciate how much his husband cared, he just needed to describe his art without the concern sometimes.

“That’s why I put those pieces into my portfolio and on display at my shows.” He explained. “I’m sure that one day it’ll be described as a ‘dark period’ in my work, but I want it out there.”

There was a sense of affirmation as Candice told him that what he had been saying made sense. A comfort in knowing that someone else understood how it felt to find the person who makes everything feel just a little bit lighter.

She finally conceded to his insistence on not being the centre of attention, he felt relieved. That is until she joked about changing her mind. But she was only joking, right?

He listened attentively as Candice continued telling him how she met her husband. “Easy answer. You don’t.” He responded with a playful smile. “I know that feeling though. Colin moved across the country to be with me so I wouldn’t be disrupting my girls’ lives too much. There was no way I was saying no when he asked me to marry him.”

“Much appreciated.” He responded when she said she’d have a drink waiting for him on Saturday and when she pushed back her chair, he did the same, nodding when she explained that she should get going. “I should do the same. My girls don’t need a babysitter anymore but Colin’s working late and I don’t want to leave them alone for too long.

“See you soon, Mr. Lucier-O’Brien. Annnnnd, don’t be late.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Saturday Night

There was nothing like atmosphere of a gallery opening. Dom felt that it was one of the best feelings in the world. This one was different from the others though, because he wasn’t able to employ his usual tactic of blending into the crowd and hoping no one recognized him. For this one, he was in the spotlight right away. He began to warm up to the attention as more and more people, mostly art collectors and photographers, came to speak to him.

His husband had already branched off on his own, sparking conversations with whoever he found and his daughters were wandering around, looking at all of the different pieces.

He smiled back to her as Candice approached him, smiling with a drink in her hand.

“I wouldn’t expect any less.” He responded when she said that she would make him work for his drink.

“And you look stunning, as per usual, Mrs. Clarke-McDowell.” He laughed when she suggested that he might be planning to take over her gallery. “Trust me, you have nothing to worry about there. Tonight has been great so far though. I’ve spoken to some really interesting people. I will admit, it’s strange having people know who I am right away. I usually don’t make myself known at my shows.”

Then a man holding a little girl approached them and when he situated himself beside Candice, Dom assumed that he was her husband. He laughed again as Candice’s words caused him to recall their many adventures when they were younger.

“You know, I think you’re right.” He replied as he reflected. Candice then confirmed his suspicions by introducing the man as her husband and the girl as her daughter. “Pleasure to meet you.”

He briefly scanned the room for his husband but laughed at Charlie’s quip, which he followed with a comment on Dom’s work. “Thank you. I’m glad both of you like it. Unfortunately though, my husband can’t help himself and started networking as soon as we got here.” He answered, seeing his daughters making their way over. “His speciality is criminal law but he also does copyright and intellectual property so an art show is a perfect place for him to find new clients.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He replied as his daughters came up to him. “Candice, these are my daughters, Clara and Amanda. Their brother Jacob is somewhere around here with Maverick.” He introduced them, making sure he didn’t leave out their brother. He gestured to each of the girls as he said their names and they each gave a small acknowledgment. “Girls, this is Candice. She’s the owner of the gallery.” At this moment, the elusive husband decided to make an appearance.

“I feel like I missed a memo or something here.” Colin quipped as he walked up beside Dom.

“Not at all. I was just introducing Candice to my daughters.” He explained, feeling himself relax a little more now that his husband was beside him. “Colin, this is Candice and her husband, Charlie. Candice, this is my husband, Colin.”

“Pleasure.” Colin responded, shaking hands with Candice. “I have to applaud you on getting my husband to not go undercover when his work is being shown.” He added with a small chuckle as Dom rolled his eyes.

@benitz786 - Candice