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flickering-chandelier · 7 months ago

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Falling Slowly

Pairing: Azriel x fem Reader

Summary: Reader and Azriel slowly get close and realize they’re destined to be together.

Word Count: 5.5k oopsie. this man makes me feral.

Your feelings for Azriel really snuck up on you. Of course, as soon as you had been taken in by the High Lord and his inner circle, you noticed how unbelievably gorgeous he was, but that was true of all of the Illyrian men that became your family. He was such a quiet, steady presence, it was easy for him to blend into the background, and you had a feeling that he didn’t mind that one bit.

Slowly though, he let you in more and more and you started to see through the shadowsinger’s thick shields that he always kept up. It started when you had been in Velaris for a few months, and you were finally feeling like you were settled in, that you had a home there. You were reading in the library of the House of Wind and he came in, settled down in a chair a few feet from the one you were occupying, and lifted an eyebrow when you glanced at him, no doubt silently asking if he could stay. You nodded, smiling faintly. He picked up a book that looked to be for research, his brow furrowed in concentration and his shadows wisping around him every time you dared look up at him. And thus, started your library time together.

It had gone on like that for a week or two, never a word spoken between you, but you enjoyed his comforting presence more than you liked to admit. Though it did become harder and harder to keep your eyes on your book when he was present. Finally, one day when the two of you had been reading silently for about ten minutes, he cleared his throat and said in a low voice, “you read a lot.”

The sudden sound of his slow, deep voice after weeks of silence sent a shock through your body, making your toes curl. You shrugged, hoping he couldn’t see the heat in your cheeks in the dim light. “So do you, it seems.”

He held eye contact as the side of his mouth quirked up into the slightest smile that sent electricity through your body again. You noticed his shadows were back, circling around him idly. They didn’t often show up in the library anymore. It took all you had to not squeeze your thighs together, knowing full well that he would notice. “Research,” he said. After a beat he added, “Plus, I like the quiet. It’s nice to hide out from Cassian for a while.”

You couldn’t remember if he had ever said so many words to you directly. You found yourself hoping that he was just trying to keep the conversation going. “Completely understandable,” you laughed. “I come here for the books first and foremost, but the quiet is definitely welcome, too. I love that I’ve found a family here, but it can get… overwhelming at times.”

He nodded, like he knew exactly what you meant, continuing to gaze deeply into your eyes. “I’m glad. That you’re here, I mean. That you see us as your family,” he said quieter than before, almost like he was unsure if he should be saying it.

A smile broke out on your face, and he held your gaze for another beat, his smile widening just slightly before he bowed his head back to his book, seemingly done with the conversation.

You hoped he didn’t notice that you did not read a single page for the rest of your time in the library that day.

A few days later, you were itching to get out of the house and wander the beautiful streets of Velaris. After breakfast, you worked up the nerve to call Azriel’s name as he was leaving, timing it out perfectly so the two of you would be left alone in the dining room. He raised his eyebrows, clearly surprised.

“What are you up to today?” you asked, trying to sound casual.

He cleared his throat, definitely caught off guard. “Well, Rhys has me off to get some intel this morning, but if everything goes to plan, I should be back around lunch…” he trailed off, obviously waiting for you to explain yourself.

“Perfect,” you said, not able to keep the smile off your face as you looked up at him. “Do you want to go to lunch in Velaris with me? I’ve been dying to get out of the house and try somewhere I haven’t been yet.”

Azriel studied you for a moment, his head tilting slightly, one of his shadows curling around his ear, like he was trying to use his skills to see through to your intentions. “Okay,” he said finally. “Sure. Lunch. I’ll find you when I get back?”

“Great,” you grinned up at him before swooping out of the dining room, trying your best not to bounce on your toes. There was no denying it anymore: you had a crush on Azriel, and you couldn’t wait until he got back that afternoon.

You were in the library, of course, when he returned. He was out of his fighting leathers, but still wearing all black, his clothing perfectly tailored to him. He looked…so good. The side of his mouth was quirked up the slightest bit, leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed, his wings tucked tightly behind him. “How did I know I’d find you here?” he murmured, almost playfully.

“Lucky guess,” you smirked, placing your book on the table next to your chair and sidling up to him. You noticed his eyes trailing after you, for once not focused on your eyes, but on your body, watching the way your dress hugged your hips as you moved toward him. You flushed.

“Do you have a place in mind for lunch?” You asked when you were so close to him, your toes were almost touching. He towered over you, his eyes latched onto yours now, his shadows nearly tickling your arms.

“This was your idea,” he said, a hint of teasing in his voice. Azriel? Teasing? Heat went straight through you again. You tried to control your breathing.

“You’ve lived here longer,” you countered. “You know places that I don’t.”

He smiled. A real, full smile. It was life-altering, ground-shaking. You tried to take a picture in your mind of your first real Azriel smile. You couldn’t help but return it. “I’ve got somewhere in mind,” he said finally.

“Lead the way,” you said. Even to your own ears, you sounded too giddy. You tried not to be embarrassed.

It wasn’t until you were standing outside on the mountain that you realized the implications of what you had asked. He would have to fly you down to the streets of Velaris. It’s not like you hadn’t had one of your Illyrian friends fly you somewhere before, but now it felt… different.

You glanced at him, and his hesitant expression told you that maybe he was thinking the same thing. Trying to make the transition the least awkward it could be, you walked right up to him and titled your head. “Ready?”

That tiny half smile appeared as he scooped you up into his arms bridal style, holding onto you tightly, yet being as gentle as possible as the two of you left the ground. You had gotten more used to flying with them, but it still made your stomach twist into nervous knots. You couldn’t help but close your eyes and lean your face into Azriel’s chest, not wanting to look at the ground approaching.

As you leaned into him, you felt his muscles tense. “Sorry. We’ll be on the ground in a moment.”

“Don’t be sorry,” you said, leaning up to look at him, so he could hear you. “You’re better to fly with than Cassian or Rhys. They always try to scare me more.”

His body tensed, his grasp on you tightening. “I would never do that to you,” he said, his voice suddenly serious.

“I know,” you said, just as he smoothly landed. He held your gaze as he gently set your feet on the ground.

Your knees felt a bit shaky, whether from the flight or from your proximity to him, you couldn’t tell. You held onto his rock solid forearms for a minute, trying to steady yourself.

“Are you alright?” he murmured, his eyes scanning your body, concern flashing on his features.

You cleared your throat, finally letting go of him. “Yes, sorry. I’m still getting used to that."

He nodded, still watching you as if to make sure for himself that you were okay. After a moment, you started walking, hoping to push down the heat that you’d been feeling at the touch of your skin against his.

The two of you walked side by side through the streets of Velaris, not saying much, though you could see from the corner of your eye how often he glanced at you. You watched as his shadows circled around his arms, as he stretched his wings out when the walkway was clear enough. You couldn’t remember seeing him do that before. They were usually tucked in close behind him when he walked around the house.

“Are they heavy?” you asked.

He just looked at you, his brow slightly furrowed.

“Your wings,” you clarified.

They seemed to bristle a bit once you mentioned them, a tiny wave rippling through from one side to the other. “You get used to it. But, yes.” The hint of a smile appeared on his face again. “Why do you think Illyrians are all so fit?”

You smiled, playfully nudging him with your shoulder. “I haven’t met any besides you three,” you looked up at him to find his eyes already latched on your face. “I thought it was just a you thing."

His face remained stoic except for his eyes, which widened very slightly.

Suddenly, he cleared his throat, finally taking his eyes from yours, and gesturing at a small building, nestled between what seemed to be two other restaurants. Unlike many of them in Velaris that were open and had tables stretching out into the outside, this building was completely closed, keeping whatever was in there concealed. “We’re here,” he said, his voice a bit more gravelly than before.

You followed him inside, past a roaring fireplace to a small table in a corner of the restaurant. It wasn’t crowded at all, which was a relief since it was so small. It was cozy and inviting though, with low light, candles flickering everywhere and soft music playing from somewhere nearby. You noticed that the chair he was seated in was perfectly accommodating to his wings. You could tell why Azriel was the one out of the group who liked it here. It was calm, quiet, dark. Intimate.

Azriel’s eyes were on you as you settled in, seemingly trying to detect how you were feeling about his choice of establishment. You looked around before meeting his eyes. “I see why you like this place. It’s like the library.”

The side of his mouth quirked up in that half smile you were starting to memorize. “I thought you might appreciate it.”

After you ordered, you looked at him and his eyes were already on you. “You have intense eye contact, do you know that?”

He coughed, but you saw the smile he tried to hide. He slid his eyes back to yours and you tried hard not to react. “I study people. It’s my job.”

“You’re not on duty now, are you?” you said teasingly.

Azriel shrugged one shoulder noncommittally. “It’s hard to turn off the instinct.”

“Alright, then,” you said, already regretting it before the words even came out of your mouth. “What intel are you picking up on me right now?”

He leaned forward, bracing his forearms on the table in front of him, eyes boring into yours like they could see straight into your soul. Hell, maybe they could. You had never had the courage to ask what exactly his skillset entailed. “You seem… curious about me,” he said in a low, gravelly voice that brought heat to your cheeks. “For whatever reason,” he smiled faintly, lifting one eyebrow.

“Azriel, is that some self-deprecation I hear?” you said, trying to keep your voice steady.

Leaning back in his chair again, he took a moment to respond. “Maybe a bit.”

You shook your head. “No, I will have absolutely none of that from the Night Court’s shadowsinger and spymaster. You are far too cool to be talking about yourself like that.” You tried to sound playful, but even to your own ears, you sounded far too serious. You meant it though, of course. How could he not see it?

He just studied you for a moment, not moving except for a slight tick in his jaw. Finally, he said, “As you wish, Lady.”

Clearing your throat, you settled back into your chair, mirroring his posture. “So is that all you’ve picked up on me?”

A slight smile. “All I wish to share.”

Mercifully, before you could reply, your food had arrived. Azriel seemed to hesitate, waiting for you to take your first bite before he dug into his own food. It was delicious, and somehow made you feel right at home.

You ate in silence for a few moments, your focus so wrapped up in the delicious food in front of you that you did not realize his eyes were once again fastened on you. Once you finally took a reprieve from digging into your meal, you looked up, found his eyes on you, his expression unreadable, and you flushed, slightly embarrassed.

“I’m not eating like a lady right now, am I?” you asked, your voice slightly wavering, no doubt showing your concern at the lack of decorum.

He let out a quiet chuckle that was music to your ears. “You look like a lady to me,” he said, his gaze not leaving yours.

You flushed even deeper, and he smiled, lighting up his eyes. Two real Azriel smiles in one day. You felt faint.

“You should do that more,” you whispered.

The smile dropped as he raised an eyebrow. A silent question.

“Nevermind,” you said, turning back to your meal, fearing that if you admitted how much you savored the smiles, they would stop appearing.

Azriel seemed like he wanted to push further, but decided against it. You thought he could probably figure it out anyway. He wasn’t the spymaster for nothing.

You could feel his eyes on you as you finished your meal, too distracted by him now to properly taste any of it.

At last, he said “Did you enjoy it?”

Despite how few real interactions you’ve actually had with the man, you felt comfortable with him, so much so that you dared to say, “The meal? Yes. The company?” You paused, looking up at him from under your lashes. “Absolutely.”

Perhaps it was wishful thinking, but you swore you saw his fingers clench for a moment, heard his breath catch, as the shadows appeared around him for the first time since the two of you sat down. After a moment, he said, his voice thick, “I’m glad.”

Your last remark took all the bravery you had, and you didn’t dare ask him the question back.

Later, the two of you walked in companionable silence back to the House of Wind. His arm lightly brushed yours as you neared the mountain, and you again felt electricity jolt through from the point of contact all the way down to your toes. You may not know Azriel extremely well, but you were pretty sure every movement his body made was deliberate. Was that one deliberate, too?

At the foot of the mountain, the two of you turned to face each other, and he smiled lightly. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” you said, stepping closer to him before he gently picked you up. You could tell that he was making an extra effort to fly smoothly for you.

“You doing okay?” he asked, low in your ear.

Looking up at him, you nodded. “Going up is better than going down.”

“Good to know,” he met your eyes for a moment, his eyes twinkling. Your fingers flexed where they held onto him, and the side of his mouth tilted up the slightest bit.

He landed on the balcony outside of the dining room, setting you on the ground, but not letting go of your arms yet, his eyes searching your face, like he remembered that you needed a minute to get settled on the ground earlier. You reveled in the feeling of his rough hands on your bare skin, and after a moment, you reluctantly stepped back, unable to stop your hand from lightly grasping his bicep as you did so. “Thank you, Azriel. For all of it.”

Azriel nodded, smiling faintly, his eyes not leaving yours.

You wanted him to say more, desperate to continue whatever this was, but unfortunately Cassian walked out onto the balcony. “What are you guys up to?” he asked, his voice dripping with amusement, his gaze flicking back and forth between the two of you, no doubt noticing how close you were standing.

You glanced at Azriel, not sure what to say. He seemed to understand and answered Cassian. “We just went to grab lunch.”

Cassian grinned. “Just the two of you? Alone? Interesting.”

Azriel rolled his eyes. “Goodbye, Cassian.”

Cackling, Cassian mock saluted at the two of you, and left.

You suddenly felt awkward as the two of you were alone again. “So…” you trailed off.

He laughed, and you could feel heat rise to your cheeks for what felt like the hundredth time that day. “See you at dinner?” he said.

“Dinner. Yes. Absolutely.” By the cauldron, you were starting to sound like him.

Azriel seemed to be thinking the same thing as he studied you for another moment, his eyes sparkling with what could only be described as a hint of mischief before he spread his wings and soared into the sky without another word.

You wandered around aimlessly for the rest of the day, not able to focus on anything but the memory of his hands on your skin, so gentle despite the scars, his eyes gazing into yours, the smile that you hadn’t gotten to see before today.

Dinner came and went mostly without incident, though you often felt Cassian’s eyes darting between you and Azriel. You glared at him, silently begging him not to make a big deal about what he saw, especially in front of everybody. Thankfully, he got the hint and said nothing.

The next day, you got up a bit earlier than usual, chose a dress that was a bit nicer than what you would normally wear around the house, braided and pinned your hair carefully, and set out to very casually lounge in the library, like you would any other day.

You tried not to sigh with relief as Azriel came in some time later, his shadows nowhere to be seen, and took his normal seat near yours.

He eyed you, and smiled faintly. “You look nice,” he said, quietly.

You blushed. His smile grew. “Thank you,” was all you could say.

Azriel lifted an eyebrow. “Are you going somewhere today?”

“Not that I know of…” you trailed off, debating on whether to attempt to explain your appearance to brush it off, or let him assume correctly that you did it because of him.

“Do you… want to? Go somewhere today?” He said, his voice more hesitant than you would think possible for the Night Court’s spymaster.

“With you?” You asked, sure your eyes were lighting up with excitement.

Azriel smiled, holding your gaze. Your knees would have buckled if you hadn’t been sitting. “That was the idea, yes.”

“Of course,” you beamed, trying to keep your voice even.

Just like that, you were in Azriel’s arms again, flying down to Velaris, where the two of you wandered happily, with no real destination. He was a bit more talkative today, asking you about books you were reading and your life before Rhysand found you and brought you into his family. He told you about the far-off places he’d been throughout his years as Rhysand’s spymaster, what it was like growing up with Rhysand and Cassian as his found family. You had never heard him speak so much, and you couldn’t get enough of it. You wanted to listen to everything he could possibly share, wanting to savor every detail of it.

And that’s how it went, just like your routine with the library. Every few days, when Azriel had the time, he would fly you down to Velaris and you two would wander the streets, stopping for food, perusing the shops. Slowly, slowly, he opened up a bit more to you, talking about his past every once in a while. He never went into much detail, but it was more than you ever expected from him. You were honored that he trusted you even that much. You became addicted to the sound of his voice, to the rare moments when his arm would brush yours, or when he would place his hand on your back to steer you away from somebody in your path who wasn’t paying attention.

On, and on, and on, you kept up your routine and you could feel the walls that he kept up for everybody break off little by little.

Still, you couldn’t tell if it was friendship that he was feeling for you or something else. It certainly wasn’t friendly feelings you had towards him. His gorgeous face, his piercing eyes, now had a permanent spot in your mind and in your dreams.

One afternoon, when you assumed Azriel was out doing his spymaster duties because you hadn’t seen him all day, you were about to leave your room when you heard his voice low, speaking to someone. He sounded mildly upset. You knew you shouldn’t eavesdrop, but you certainly didn’t want to walk past them, so you waited it out.

“When are you going to tell her?” the other voice said, in a rushed whisper. Cassian.

“I don’t know. How are you supposed to just … tell somebody something like that?” Azriel sounded more frustrated than you’d ever heard him.

“How should I know? You’re the one who spends all your time with her. You should know what the best way to tell her is.”

Azriel sighed, and you could picture him running his hands through his hair. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.”

“Well, you better figure it out. She’s going to think that you’re not into her.”

“You think so?” Azriel sounded worried.

“Dude, you’ve been spending every moment possible with her for weeks, and you haven’t made a single move.”

Before Azriel could respond, footsteps sounded in the hallway, and their conversation cut off completely. You seized your chance, hoping to gain some insight as to who they were talking about.

You left your room, trying to look casual, and at the sound of your door opening, the two of them whipped their heads towards you.

You raised an eyebrow as you walked towards them. “What? Do I have something in my teeth?” you teased, trying not to dwell on what you had heard. Azriel was into someone?

Azriel just stared at you, his cheeks dusted red. Cassian smirked at you. “Nope, beautiful as ever, sweetheart.”

Azriel’s eyes darted from yours to Cassian’s, his expression turning lethal and his shadows suddenly appearing, swirling around his head, his arms. You had only seen that kind of quiet rage in his eyes when there was an enemy present in the Night Court.

You couldn’t fathom what would warrant this reaction. “Az, are you okay?” you asked, softly.

His eyes met yours again, the rage flickering away into something else entirely, though you couldn’t quite place it. He opened his mouth, but couldn’t seem to speak for a moment. Finally, he choked out, “Yes, fine. I’m just -- I have to go.” Without another word, he bolted down the corridor, out of sight.

Cassian rolled his eyes, turning back to you. “You guys have been hanging out a lot lately, huh?”

You shrugged, trying not to let your feelings show. “Yeah, we’re friends now."

He cocked an eyebrow. “Friends? You sure?”

Sighing, you leaned your back against the wall. “Honestly? I don’t know. Sometimes I can’t tell.”

He pushed further, as you figured he would. “Well, how do you feel? Do you want to be just friends?”

You narrowed your eyes at him. “If I tell you, do you promise not to make fun of me, or run off and tell everyone about it?”

Smiling, he raised his right hand, like he was taking an oath. “I solemnly swear that your secret is safe with me.”

“...Fine. No, I don’t want to just be friends. To be completely honest, I think I’m a little in love with him.”

Cassian’s eyes widened, but before he could respond, you said, “I swear to the Cauldron, if you say anything to anyone, I will get Amren to toss you into the pit of the library.”

At that, he clamped his mouth shut and held up his hands. “I won’t say anything to anybody,” but his demeanor turned serious as he leveled you with a steady gaze. “But I really think you should tell him.”

You swore you could feel your heart beat faster at just the thought. “What if it ruins everything?” you said quietly.

Cassian held your gaze. “It won’t.”

Before you could press him on what he meant, he smirked and clapped you in the shoulder, following in Azriel's wake down the hallway.

Surely it wasn’t incredibly narcissistic to think perhaps the “she” they were talking about before you interrupted was you, right? Who else had Azriel been spending all his time with? But… What was it that Cassian wanted him to tell you? Was Azriel interested in you?

Your head spun for days, especially as Azriel was noticeably keeping his distance from you. He had not come to the library, and had hardly talked to you at all. You felt an ache in your chest at his absence.

After he had been avoiding you for a week, you couldn’t take it anymore. You knocked on his door after dinner, realizing as it opened that you had never seen his room before. Over his shoulder you could see a humongous bed with black sheets and weapons scattered about on tables pushed against each wall.

He was clearly surprised to see you, hovering in the doorway, like he was unsure if he should invite you in or not.

Before he could say anything, you blurted, “Did I do something wrong?”

His brow furrowed in confusion, his shadows suddenly swirling around him. “Why would you think that?"

You shrugged incredulously. “It’s the only reason I can think of for you ignoring me for the past week,” your voice broke and you cursed yourself for showing him how much you had been hurting.

His eyes softened, his expression pained. “I-- come inside,” he said, stepping away from the doorway so you could venture inside. He closed the door behind you and you gulped, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room.

He slowly walked over to you, stopping a few paces away, his wings folded tightly behind him, his body tense. It took him a moment to finally meet your eyes. When he did, he said simply, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” You asked, your voice wavering. “Az, what’s going on?”

Running his hand through his hair, he sighed, and gestured behind you at an armchair nestled between two of his tables laden with weapons. You sat down gingerly and he sat on the edge of the bed, facing you. His enormous wings stretched out behind him now that he was settled.

“I need to tell you something. And I’ve been avoiding you because… I wasn’t sure how to bring it up. I’ve been trying to figure out the right way to say everything, and I didn’t know how you would react,” he said, his eyes on you as his shadows swirled around his head.

“O-kay,” you said. “What is it?”

Azriel took a deep breath and bowed his head, staring at his hands clasped in front of him, his elbows resting on his knees. Finally, he said quietly, “You’re my mate.”

You felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room.

“I --” and before you could question him, you knew it was true, feeling the bond snap into place. You looked up at him to find his eyes on yours, more anxious than you’d ever seen him. “I feel it now,” you whispered.

His eyes widened and his body went even more rigid. It didn’t look like he was breathing.

“How long have you known?” was all you could think to say.

It was a long moment before he answered. “I… had a feeling for a while. I felt connected to you from the beginning. Even if you weren’t my mate, I knew you were different. Special. When you first met me, you never paid attention to my scars.” His fingers flexed as he said it, his deep voice slightly shaky. “Most people can’t help but stare, but you… whenever you looked at me, your eyes were on my face. Always.” He drew a deep breath and his eyes bore into yours, like he wanted to make sure you were still there.

He continued, “But I wasn’t sure, didn’t know how it was supposed to feel when the bond snapped into place, so I started going to the library to be close to you, hoping I could confirm it. That first day at lunch, when you asked me what I was sensing about you… that’s when it happened. That’s when I felt it… that unflinching rope tied around my heart, connecting to you. Then, I couldn’t stay away, that bond was always tugging me toward you.”

You gaped at him, images of him over the past few weeks blurring together in your mind.

“I didn’t know how to tell you,” he said, his voice breaking on the last word. “I didn’t know how you felt about me and I didn’t want to ruin what we started.”

The hurt in his voice finally spurred you into action. You got up from the chair and crossed over to him. He sat up fully, his eyes locked on yours as you straddled him, settling into his lap and holding his face in your hands. His body finally relaxed, his shadows dissipating as his hands held your waist gently.

“I’m in love with you, Azriel,” you said quietly. “I could not be happier that I get to be your mate.”

He made a choking sound, his eyes swimming with emotion. “You’re not mad?”

“Why would I be mad?” you said, your face inching closer to his.

“I kept it from you.”

“It’s okay, love,” you said gently, wrapping one arm around his neck and running your other hand through his soft hair. “I understand.”

“You love me?” he asked, finally smiling, his mouth an inch from yours.

“Of course I do.”

“I love you,” he murmured, cupping the back of your head with his hand and leaning in to kiss you gently.

You felt tears stream down your cheeks as he kissed you, and he wiped them away with his thumb, his touch featherlight.

“Happy tears?” he whispered against your mouth.

“Mhmm,” you mumbled, deepening the kiss.

He kissed you gently for a few more moments before he groaned, wrapped an arm tightly around your waist, stood up, and tossed you onto the bed.

Your eyes widened and he smirked, making your toes curl.

“Ready to stay up all night, mate?” he teased, his eyes flashing with lust.

You could only nod.

-----

You two missed breakfast the next morning, too wrapped up in each other to pay attention to what time it had become.

Mercifully, you were left alone most of the day, and it took some coaxing, but you finally convinced Azriel that you would need nourishment to continue the fun you were having, so eventually you did make it to the dining room in time for dinner.

All eyes were on you both as you sat down side by side, trying to be as nonchalant as possible even though you knew that all your friends could smell the new mating bond on you.

Cassian broke the silence, grinning at Azriel. “Well, she looks absolutely ravished, Az.”

A growl released from deep in Azriel’s throat as he lunged across the table at Cassian, tackling him to the ground.

Rhysand laughed, opening the door to the balcony, and the two tumbled out, arms and wings thrashing. He looked at you, mischief twinkling in his eyes as he shut the door behind them, locking them out on the balcony. “He’ll be better at controlling that, with time. Trust me.”

You laughed, feeling your cheeks heat at the protectiveness that Azriel now felt for you.

“I guess you’re officially part of the family now,” Rhysand smirked. “Congratulations.”

#acotar #acotar fic #acotar one shot #acotar x reader #azriel acotar #azriel #azriel x reader #azriel x you #azriel one shot #azriel fanfic #azriel fluff #acotar azriel

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bloodymiso · 6 months ago

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★ part 1: ma chérie — genshin impact x gn reader

the first part of a little series im making; “them as malice mizer songs”. i was originally gonna just put it all im one post but i made the first one a little too long..oopsies.

warnings: none ^_^

ma chérie ( translation from here! )

“ forced against my will, because of these stiff shoes. in the show window, that doll cannot move “

life was..confusing to say the least. strings they called “their path” tied them to faith, tied them to their destiny. “it is what it is” as what they would say. at the start, all they really knew was to conform to society’s..unique standards, to be what they “needed” to be.

“ i might even try to be colored by these people around me “

what happened to them? well, they weren’t so sure. it was as if the universe sent them their own supernova, as if faith played around with the strings of the harp, perhaps they messed up a note? either way, something changed. you, maybe? who knows.

“ let’s wait for a starry night and make a wish “

silence was what they considered “comfort”. though life will never be truly silent, as will the mind. calming nights with you, gazing at the stars, that was their true silence. the crickets in the background were nothing but white noise to their ears, to them, the silence was like music.

“ ma chérie, are you missing me? “

days without you felt like years. they missed the sweet nothings you whispered as you held each other tight. perhaps a tear or two fell down their face as they let their problems spill out of their throat, not that you were one to take notice.

“ lovers don’t have reasons, nor do they have motives “

i don’t need to explain this one, really. despite being “detached”, they had a pretty well understanding of what love was—to them, at least. they were in love with your soul, not just your body. every word that made it’s way up their throat would always come from the heart(not just their vocal chords).

“ look, the happiness spilling from that window. “

they kept intimate moments well, intimate. sure, pinkies intertwined here and there, an arm sometimes found its way around your body, but those simple actions could never come close to how they really showed their love. cuddles were shared, legs were tangled together so much so that if a toddler saw the scene, they would assume your two figures were one.

“ the people all around me generously overlook me. “

they didn’t like being the center of attention, you knew that. the days they could comfortably hold your hand in a crowd were ones they cherished. they love whenever you sit in the corner of a restaurant, just for them, or when you make sure conversations with your relatives are quick and straight to the point, so they don’t get caught in an auntie blackhole.

“ yesterday at noon i dreamt a bit more “

you set them into a trance, really. with the absense of your presence, they found themselves longing for the next page of the book. longing for the next time you’d nestle right into their lives.

“ these words i repeat are words of a prayer “

the millions of times the three words “i love you” have left their mouth will never, ever be enough. but perhaps the little actions they made, the little ways they showed they cared would help.

gi. SCARAMOUCHE. WANDERER (theyre considered seperate characters, right?). zhongli. XIAO. alhaitham. neuvillette(ish). ganyu. shenhe.

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roseeyes · 4 months ago

Text

Hey guys, I’m new to writing this kind of fanfic so take it or leave it and let me know if you want more

Summary: Logan Howlett is your new roommate in a New York City mutant base. You want to learn more about him but he’s not ready to open up yet.

You just walked Into your new shared living space with your realtor bestie Amara who is currently trying to sell you this flat in the NYC mutant base.As you walk in you see two hot middle aged men sitting on the couch one with burned skin the other had fluffy hair and a chain around his neck. “Hi I’m Wade and this is Wolvie I mean Logan oopsie!” Wade is laughing while holding Logan’s whiskey up in the air Logan growls at Wade trying to get his alcohol back because he can’t do anything sober.

Hi im y/n Amara didn’t tell me id have two roommates . “oh I live Nextdoor Logan is your roommate but we will see each other a lot I promise” wade says, he looked you up and down taking you in he can’t help but notice how your tits are practically popping out of your crop top.

Amara says I’ll let you meet your new friends while laughing and walking away. you look to Logan first noticing his gruff and mean look softens when he looks at you. Logan slightly smiles asking you if you want anything to drink he usually could never get this hot and bothered over a girl but you were different he needed to know more of you . You nod while smiling you immediately know you need to get Logan alone with you so you could learn more about him.

“I’m going back to my flat but I’ll see you tomorrow wolvie and friend don’t have two much fun without me!” Wade says while making a sexual innuendo with his fingers. Logan scowls but you notice that he definitely has some sort of a soft spot for wade.

“Sorry about him” Logan says in his gruff and deep voice

It’s ok he seems really friendly. “if you can call that friendly” Logan says while snickering to himself.

When you go to sit on the couch you notice Logan’s claws and ask about them Logan explains he’s part of a group called the X-men you explain how you are also a mutant with the ability to heal in record time and you can’t die. Logan says that you should meet Charles soon that the X-men could use a girl like you which makes you blush.

Logan explains how this building was built to help protect mutants from the outside world and that’s why you both decided to start living there.

As you get to know some of who Logan was and the night went on you eventually stopped chatting deciding to go unpack in your room. The trashy reality tv show wade had turned on slowly blended into background noise while Logan fell into a deep snoring sleep on the couch.

You unpacked your cute mini shorts and your brandy Melville fits while thinking back to why you decided to move here to the New York City mutant base was it for work as a mutant hero or something more you needed to know more about Logan Howlett you knew that there was more to his story that a drunk cranky middle aged mutant wolverine. What was his story and how did he get those long metal claws?

You walk out into the living room seeing that Logan was still fast asleep noticing a long metal chain dog tag hanging from his neck out onto the couch.

Walking over you know that it must be a clew to who he was in his past. Without thinking you approach his snoring body to pick up the tag to get a closer look staring at it you see a number and his nickname Wolverine etched into the metal. What could it mean?

All of a sudden Logan growls loudly waking up his claws stick out one of them going through one of your hands you wince in pain the skin on your hand already starts to grow back. The chain swinging back to Logan’s neck. You try to calm Logan down wondering what could have possibly made him wake up in this way.

You hold Logan and try to tell him he is safe and that no one is trying to harm him after about ten minutes of this he calms down and you sit together at the kitchenette “I’m sorry Bub is your hand ok?” It’s fine you say as Logan pours you a cup of the leftover whiskey that he was drinking earlier even though you don’t drink you reluctantly sip it down to make Logan feel better.

“What did you want to see my chain for?”Logan asks. I was wondering what it’s for since usually people where those who were in the military. “I wasn’t in the military but you could say I did my time to get the piece of metal.” You could tell Logan wasn’t ready to open up quite yet since you had just met each other but it still made you sad that he didn’t want to tell you his past. “I’m going back to sleep now I’ll see you in the morning” you say while walking away back to your room. Logan looks at you with a sense of guilt and hunger in his eyes he’s never met anyone so kind and gentle before he feels awful for hurting you. Later that night you awake to hear the fridge open laughing to yourself hearing Logan get more beers for himself.

I can’t wait to learn more about Logan tomorrow you smile to yourself excitedly knowing that he will soon be an open book to you it just takes time.

Let me know if you guys want me to continue this or not because I already have a storyline in my head for this I also want to say that this will eventually lead to smut but I want to make it a slow burn also I will include more of wade. Xoxo

#logan howlett #logan howlett x reader #wolverine x reader #deadpool #fluff #slow burn

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agerefandomstuff · 4 months ago

Note

Hey! Can you give some caregiver!Sam winchester headcannons? I read your dean hcs and i loved them so much!!! <3

• Will genuinely get sad if you decline a bedtime story. He LOVES to read with/to you.

—If he doesn’t get to do a bedtime story he feels like HIS routine is thrown off. Or he worries that you don’t actually like bonding with him. since this was the first and easiest thing for him to settle into and get excited about with you when you're regressed.

However, a little reassurance helps that insecurity.

• Also bedtimes are a must.

—He has a schedule and chores for you to complete every week.

—But the fun part is you got to sit down with both Sam and Dean to make and decorate the chore sheet. AND you get STICKERS to mark off what you’ve done.

(Sam almost regrets the sticker idea since he has to buy them in bulk now since one or two or five might end up on the boys’ faces rather than just the sheet. Oopsie! Haha!)

• Strict no thumb sucking rule.

—If he even SENSES your thumb going anywhere near your mouth, you’re getting the: “where have our hands been? And how do we know what the demon touched was clean? Exactly. We don’t. Get that thumb back in your lap. And use the necklace/pacifier I got you.”

—He knows about chewlery.

—Almost got you and Dean a matching pair but he didn’t want to hear Dean’s complaining (you both know he would’ve liked it eventually and it would’ve saved all of Sam’s pens.)

• Sam was uncomfortable at first holding you since it’s been a long time since he got to hold and cuddle someone. And back then it was romantic. Not… parental. He was worried about crossing boundaries or that he would be holding you wrong or just… h-he was uncomfortable! And nervous! Alright?

— But he cuddles you plenty now to make up for his original nervousness and he adores how you settle against him on the couch or on the bed.

—He’ll sit for hours with you curled up on his lap or leaned against him. The lights turned down to a soft yellow glow. Just bright enough for him to read his book but not bright enough to hurt your eyes or overwhelm your senses.

Sometimes he’ll softly play music off his trusty iPod or turn on a sweet nature documentary for some quiet background noise.

• Otherwise he puts on educational cartoons like magic school bus, osmosis jones, wild kratts, word girl, bill nye, myth busters, etc.

—He wants you to learn things (Dean complains to Sam about how they’re all educational because you know he’s sitting and watching them with you. He’s a sucker for cartoons.)

—But also those are the only cartoons Sam can really stand to watch for long periods. He’s almost burnt out on Scooby-Doo, Dory, and Frozen. Because of how much Dean played them but he’ll still watch them with you if you want.

• He gets crazy proud of you when you (or Dean) later repeat a fact you learned from one of the shows he put on for you.

Y/n: “Wild Kratts say that wolves’ prey will escape by swimming in water! So maybe if we go swimming the werewolves won’t get us!”

Sam: “Baby, I love that you remembered that.. but it’s not going to convince me to let you out of the safe zone until this hunt is over and I know you’re safe. Besides, you're way too little right now. How about you help by watching more of the Kratt Brothers so you can tell me more facts about wolves, okay?”

Dean: “Did you guys say something about Wild Kratts being on? Whatever it is, throw in a beer and some popcorn and I’m in.”

Sam: “Dean… c’mon..”

Dean: “What?”

Sam: “You’re going out on the hunt with me. You can’t stay back and watch cartoons with (y/n) right now.”

Dean: “But it’s Wild Kratts! I don’t want to get behind!”

Sam: “Dean.”

Dean: “Ugh.. fine. I’ll gank the werewolf with you.”

Y/n: “Then we can go swimming?”

Sam sighs, “Then.. maybe we’ll go swimming.”

Thank you for the request!! I hope you like this one as much as Dean’s!

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ainsellshadewalker · 3 months ago

Note

oopsie, sorry totally didn’t see that message till today. This is about the platonic yandere x-men post i requested. For clarification i wanted yandere x-men 97( if you can do that), and just X-men( no brotherhood pleas), and in terms of characters i was looking forward seeing in particular, i think mostly Scott, hank, remy, hell maybe storm too i think there so underrated

Kay, Kay!

Let's start with some background and basics.

Like many mutant youths, you ran away from home once you realized your parents would never accept you. You've tried to suppress your mutation to appease your parents but it has grown to be too painful for it to be a permanent solution. You could store energy and release it in an assortment of ways. You could decide if it would be a permanent or temporary fixture and what forms it could take. You created butterflies of light, self-sustaining stars, little rabbits that left embers in their wake. You truly could make whatever you wished. But even though it was such a wonderful gift your parents refused to see you as nothing more than a freak that should not be accepted, so you ran.

You should've taken the time to give your plan more thought. So focused on escape you forgot how cold the nights would get and were left shivering in a corner of a dark and dingey alley.

That is how Scott found you and so soon after losing Nathan. Could you blame him for getting attached? For seeing you as a second chance at fatherhood? He couldn't even bear to give you the chance to say no to accepting help. So he took you away to the mansion and decided that it would be his responsibility to guide you. He often can come off as patronizing but well-meaning. He doesn't mean to treat you like a little kid, but you remind him so much of what he could've had. So you let him read your bedtime stories, leave kisses on your forehead, and wear the pajamas he was so kind to gift you even though they are childish in nature. And if he seems to coax you into calling him dad surely you're just looking too far into things.

You were such an inquisitive soul always looking to learn more. How could Hank not love you? You latched onto science so quickly and looked up at him as if he made the stars when he explained things to you. And how quickly you understood what he taught! Normally he wouldn't allow anyone into his lab unless they had a reason to be there. You were the sole exception. It was to the point that whenever you were in the lab with him the others weren't allowed to take you away unless they wanted to deal with an angry Beast. Nobody ever wants to deal with that.

Remy adored how clever and mischievous you were. Ma Lapin is what he likes to call you. Buckets of water and glitter glue mixture from doorways was your first prank. It took everyone at least three weeks to figure out it was you. Remy after that started to show you tricks of his trade. His obsession grew from there. Whenever you left the mansion he was never too far behind. Not that you knew that. He has taken out quite a few creeps who eyeballed you a little too much, or at least what he considered a creep. The human eye is so easily drawn by pretty lights after all.

Ororo's obsession started by finding you frightened in the dark. It was storming so hard that the windows shook. Why wouldn't you be frightened? And how could she not see you as smaller than you are? You were under a table shaking while little stars floated around you. She had to say farewell to so many people already and she does love being the protector. So, whenever a storm approaches you find shelter with her. If she creates a few of them, well, that isn't anything you need to know about. Just stay safe tucked into her arms while she runs her fingers through your hair and coos at you.

**This was fun! I hope you enjoy it!**

#x-men #yandere #platonic #scott summers #cyclops #storm #ororo munroe #hank mccoy #Beast #remy lebeau #gambit #x men 97 #My post

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idontknowreallywhy · 7 months ago

Text

Very veeeeeery remotely linked to Day 2’s prompt (blink and you’ll miss it) but here is a bit of a sequel to Inebriated Fishtank… in which they have not entirely ceased to be under the influence…

💛💚💛💚💛💚💛💚💛💚💛💚💛💚💛💚

An enthusiastic steel drum version of ‘Under the Sea’ blared out and Scott slammed his hand on to the comm, eyes still screwed shut… if he didn’t open them he wasn’t awake. And it could have been a butt-call…

He’d never prayed so hard for it to be a butt-call.

“Hey heeeeeeeey Scooooty-McNoodle!!!”

Scott pried an eye open to glare in the general direction of heaven…

“Hello Gordon. Which police station?”

“I am OFFENDEDED ancient brosicle! How could you pres… presufimicate such a thing?”

“You don’t need bail? Then why are you calling me? Go to bed you drunken fool.”

“Ah yea about that… “

‘What about it? Just sleep it off.”

“So… funny story! My fuzzy wuzzy beary pops actually did the whole arrangementing of beds thing.”

Wait.

Scott’s brain clicked up a gear from basic muscle memory to something resembling cognition.

“Gordon where is Virgil?!”

“He’s here!”

“Can I speak to him?”

“Um… noooooooooo”

There were several voices worth of giggling, none of which sounded like Virgil.

“Who’s with you? Where is Virgil?”

“Oh how rude of me over here we got…” There was a clatter and his brother’s voice faded out amongst some more distant giggling before Gordon returned, piercingly loudly:

“Stooopid floor. Anyways here we got Florrie, Alice and Alexi, say hi to Scooter ladies, he’s my biggest olderist bro and he’s even sexier than me and old dribbles here.”

A chorus of “Hi Scooter”

“Gordon! What’s wrong with Virgil?”

“You gotta say hi!”

“Gordon!!”

“You’re being rude! Say hi to the ladies!”

“Hi ladies” Scott muttered.

“NICELY!”

Scott knew an immovable squid wall when he heard it. Fine. He turned up the charm, and the volume, to max.

“Hello ladies!”

“Owie! Geez bro.”

“Virgil, Gordon?!”

“Yeah he’s pretty handsome. Look… see? He was on front’ve Vogue that one time. Still single too! Sure I can give you his number…”

“GORDON!!”

“Heeeeeeeeey bro. Love you bro. Love all the bros. Specially the grumpy turtle one.”

Scott tried another tack

“I love you too squid, but what happened to the grumpy turtle one?”

“Hezzzz a snooooozy liddle turtle.”

“So he’s in bed?”

“Nooo I toldja he’s here. Say hi Virgie.”

Silence.

“Awww he droolin’”

Scott was beginning to join the dots here.

“Gordon, please tell me Virgil wasn’t trying to match you?”

“I can one hunderb percival tell you that.”

“Would it be true?”

A pause and a definite snort in the background.

“Noooooooooooooooo”

Oh no.

If he’d consumed enough to make Gordon tipsy, there was no way Gordon and three women were going to be able to move the bear. He thought Virgil knew better.

Scott got up and put his trousers on. He could get to Brisbane in a few minutes in One…

There was more giggling and a deep bellowing laugh followed by a grunt.

“Omigosh I’m sorry I can help… gimme his arm… oopsy tha’s ‘is leg.”

More rustling noises.

“Oh I am sooooo bad manners! Scotty you gonna say hola to Juan too, he’s helping.”

“Hola Juan. Gordon, where are you? Do I need to come get you?”

“Naaaaw we goddim Scooteywoo”

“Then why are you calling Squid?”

“Need the bed place.”

“I don’t know where he booked Gords! Stay put I’ll come and get you.”

“Nawwwww I wanna take him to the art tom… tom… tomorning. Art ‘n waffles…. I pinky promised the Virg!”

Scott rested his head against the wall and counted to ten.

“What do you need Gordon?”

“T’get in his phone! I dunno his pass-thing! Need to find the resersermmmnn”

Scott did know it There were a million and one reasons why Gordon did not.

But he could either spill the beans now and take the consequences later, or head out to find them just in time for one or both of them to be sick on his shoes. Or in One. He shivered. No option really.

“Gordon you have to promise not to do anything bad with Virgil’s phone.”

“Yeah yeah I’m a good fishy”

“Gordon, pinky promise me.”

There was a tut and Scott could almost hear the eyeroll.

“I can’t reach your pinky to promise!”

“Fine. Pinky promise Juan then.”

Gordon did a stage whisper

“He doesn’ know a huge lodda English Scoobydoo.”

“Ok err” Scott racked his brains “could you put um, Alex was it? On the phone?”

Gordon huffed.

Rustling.

“Well hello there, handsome, this is Alexi.”

Pushing down the desire to bring about Gordon’s imminent demise, Scott had a sudden brainwave and put the charming voice on again. Yes, giving a total stranger access to his brother’s phone was a risk but less of one than allowing Gordon unfettered access without the security of a pinky promise - generally accepted to be the only law he considered himself bound by.

“Alexi listen carefully, I’m going to give you the passcode. Could you use it to find the reservation then lock the phone again please?”

“Sure, honey.” The reply was breathy. Intimidatingly breathy.

“Ok, you ready?”

“I’m all yours”

Shudder.

“Exclamation mark, eight, one, zero, zero, capital D, lower case Y, exclamation mark; capital F, one, five, lower case H, exclamation mark.”

“Ok honey that worked, I’m in. I’ll get your brothers to their hotel. I’ll leave my number on your brother’s phone just in case you need it later, ok?” She was essentially purring now.

“Oh that won’t be…” Scott paused. He needed all the allies he could get here.

He cleared his throat “That would be lovely, thank you for your help Alexi.”

There was a shriek and more unmistakable giggling as Scott hung up with a wry smile before collapsing back on to his bed and closing his eyes. Good luck Juan and co.

Aa he drifted off he considered how it was a shame Virgil would have to change that one tomorrow.

It was so apt.

💚💛💚💛💚💛💚💛💚💛💚💛💚💛💚💛

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #scott tracy #virgil tracy #gordon tracy #fish tank #fishtankweek2024 #inebriated tracies #idontknowreallywhy fanfic #day 2: orchestra aquarium art museum #thunderfluff #Fishtanked-Up fic

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skellymom · 1 year ago

Text

"Vagabonds" Chapter 4 "Meet The Fam"

Ongoing fanfic Hunter x Reader/Fem Reader/OC

Hunter meets a smuggler Nomaadi Star Woman with a powerful force sensitive teen who changes the trajectory of CF-99's lives...as they ALL try to escape from The Empire together.

Chapter 3:

https://www.tumblr.com/skellymom/729052697841582080/hunter-x-ocfem-reader-ongoing-series?source=share

ᴛʜɪꜱ ꜰɪᴄ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴀɪɴꜱ ɴꜱꜰᴡ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ. ɪꜰ ʏᴏᴜ ᴀʀᴇ ɴᴏᴛ 18+ ᴅɴɪ

Word Count: 2K

Background: Hiding evidence, meet the fam Bad Batch Version, and Hunter made an "oopsie"!

Warning: Crying, fear, mention of sex, Hunter fluff/angst.

(Credit: Cool moving star dividers by @4ngelic-wh1spers )

"Meet the Fam"

Later that morning Hunter and Mad discreetly left The Oasis. They made sure it was neat as a pin, especially the firepit. Everything was as they left it minus a certain settee. Hunter carried a trash bag of ashes down to the street and dumped it under the rest of the bags awaiting pickup.

Hunter turned to Mad. They regarded each other for a moment. This was the awkward part. What do you do now after spending intimate time together? Go to breakfast? Take a break and go separate ways? Are they done? Or do they plan on seeing each other again?

Hunter had no idea what to do next. His relationships tended to end after the night was over. He was a specialized Republic Commando then and constantly shipped out. Too busy to have anything even remotely steady. Usually, he was the fun lay between the sheets, and nothing more.

Mad was used to guys just giving a lame excuse and disappearing. Very occasionally she would touch base again with someone who didn’t mind her Nomaadi status, genuinely liked to keep up, or hadn’t disappeared or died yet. A very small pool of people. She didn’t want to speak first. Purposely keeping silent to see exactly where Hunter stood in this situation.

Brown eyes searching green ones.

“I...uh...don’t know how to say this...” he struggled with the words.

“Yeah?” Mad nodded waiting for more.

Hunter cleared his throat, “Well, I...uh...” Fidgeting.

Mad shifted her weight and grimaced. Maker, this was painful watching him board the Struggle Bus. All his sexy bravado evaporated since leaving The Oasis.

“Listen, if It’s that difficult, just go. I won’t fault you for not having the words to say goodbye. It was fun while it lasted, Hunky.” Mad smiled and turned to leave.

“I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO!” Hunter blurted out. He looked horrified to have said that. He said the quiet part out loud. “Just...don’t go. Please.”

Mad turned back around shocked. This was new. A strong, rugged man just coming out and proclaiming he didn’t know. The loud outward show of vulnerability...touching, endearing...and sexy.

“No actual relationship experience, huh?” Mad’s face softened. “So, just you, your siblings, and work twenty-four-seven. For real???”

“No. And yes.”

“Sounds like the last guy I got really close to...approximately 15 years ago.”

“Love’s Father?”

“Yep. Didn’t know I had such a specific type.” Mad quipped sarcastically.

Awkard silence.

“Walk me to my ship. You can meet the rest of my family. That ok?”

Hunter smiled warmly, “Perfect. But only on one condition.”

“Oh???”

“I can hold your hand all the way there.”

Mad blushed, “Why not? You got to hold everything else.” She smirked and winked at Hunter.

He chuckled with that wonderful low smoky tone that hit her ear just the right way.

Mad walked back up to Hunter and offered her hand. He took it and intertwined her fingers with his. His hand was warm, strong, callused, his grip secure, yet gentle. Mad gave his hand an affectionate squeeze. A tingle shot up their arms again. Small, surprising, only enough to make goose bumps.

“Mmmm...” Hunter purred.

“How? What is it with you???”

“What is it with us?”

“Gift of the Force, maybe?”

“What’s that?”

“A Nomaadi expression. I’ll explain on the way to my ship.”

“There she is. The Dread Beldame!” Proclaimed Mad

Hunter took in Mad’s home. The ship was three times larger than the Marauder. It made sense, as she and Love lived on it all the time and constantly moved cargo. Certainly, it was going to be more comfortable than the cramped space the five of them had to share. The ‘Dame looked a bit on the old and shabby side, but clean and well kept. Mad and Love were constantly working on it.

“Tell me about the meaning of her name.”

“Well, it’s an old ship. Ships are usually referred to as female. She’s an old lady. A Dame if you're generous. Or, if you’re superstitious, a Beldame Witch. She may be old, but dreaded and comes with a veiled threat. We retrofitted her with some upgrades, and that includes weapons. Kinda like don’t fuck with this old lady, boys!” Mad laughed. “She’s the old gramma that houses and takes care of us.”

“I like it.”

“What’s the name of your ship?”

“The Havoc Marauder. We go from place to place ‘plundering’...ahem...running jobs...and bringing mayhem. We don’t try to bring it...mayhem just seems to follow us. Plus, it sounds badass.” Hunter chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Yeah...I totally get that.” The clusterfuck on Coruscant flashed into Mad’s mind. STILL thanking the Force that they escaped with Sil in tow.

As Mad and Hunter entered the ‘Dame, they noticed it was a literal disaster area. Mantell mix and fizzy drink cans littered the ship. Aside from the mess, Hunter noticed the ship was ornately decorated. Exotic tapestries, fabric curtains, and vibrant coverlets adorned the bunks. The walls of the ‘Dame were painted with colorful images of flowers, plants, animals, the elements, symbols, eyes, handprints and so much more. They wove around the ship, even covering the ceiling, like a pictograph story. While the Havoc Marauder was utilitarian grey steel and flickering screens and buttons, the Dread Beldame was an explosion of texture, color, even smells. Hunter’s nose picked up the familiar scent of Mad’s perfume, coming from a clear glass jar nesting on a bin of personal items. It was empty save for a thin residue coating the glass. Underneath that odor was the smell of incense, and past meals that had been cooked in the galley kitchen. Hunter also smelled a small animal that must have lived with them, although he couldn’t account for its whereabouts.

Mad heard a loud snoring coming from the bay. A very large bald man was laying on his side asleep on the floor drooling. A Tooka doll clutched in his arms. Nearby, on the bunk above, was Love and a blond child asleep, limbs sprawled out and hanging over the edge. Pieces of Mantell Mix stuck in their hair. Sil on the lower bunk lying face down and sleeping the sleep of the dead.

“WHAT THE KRIFF IS GOING ON IN MY SHIP! DANK FERRIK, LOVE, SIL, WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE!!!

Sil bolts awake and slams his head on the upper bunk. Love startles awake, jostling the blond child who yawns and stretches.

Hunter firmly nudges Wrecker with his foot to wake him, “What are you and Omega doing here?”

Wrecker snorts awake, sits up, “Oh...Hunter. Met a new friend! How did ya know we were here???” Scratches his head, wiping slobber from his chin.

Mad looks from Wrecker and Omega, to Hunter, “You know them?”

Omega is now awake, sees Hunter and is instantly excited. Jumping off the bunk, she immediately runs up and hugs him. “This is Love and Sil. Wrecker and I met them at the Mantell Mix stand. They needed help fixing the shield on their ship. We radioed Tech and all met at the Beldame. We watched holos while Tech worked on the ship.” She seemed so pleased with herself.

“I see you all FINALLY decided to awaken.” Everyone turns to look and sees Tech standing at the entrance of the Beldame. He’s holding a tray of caf cups and a large bag of food. “Hunter, good of you to EVENTUALLY make an appearance. I have been messaging you REPEATEDLY since last night.”

Hunter looks down at his comm... he turned it off to have private time with Mad. Several messages lit up in queue left unanswered. Looks up at Tech with a guilty expression...to be met with a pair of annoyed spectacled eyes.

“HELLO! Names please!!!” Mad throws up her arms, exasperated that NOBODY was answering her questions!

“Mad... meet my family. Big guy on the floor is Wrecker, this is Omega”, Hunter grabs Omega by her shoulders and spins her around to face Mad. “The sassy one with the takeout is Tech.” Hunter clearly looks embarrassed and off guard.

“Oh...HELLO!” Wrecker is finally aware Mad was standing there.

“Good morning...? Nice to meet you...?” Tech politely starts his greeting, then looks at Hunter with frustration. Clearly Hunter is overwhelmed with the situation and doesn’t catch the cue to introduce Mad.

“I’m Maadienne, but prefer to be called Mad” she nods to Tech and Wrecker. They both nod back respectfully.

Mad sighs and turns to Hunter, then motions to the teen now picking Mantell Mix out of their black spiky pixy cut and eating it, “This is Love. My rando chaotic kiddo.” The skinny teen with the port wine stain resembling a heart over one eye and bi colored irises smiles sheepishly and waves.

She nods across the ship, “That’s Sil. He’s Mads Couzin and my Nephew.”

“Hi” rubbing his aching head. Sil’s curly black shoulder length locks are sticking out all over the place. Hunter stares for a moment at the teen and notices he shares Sil’s skin tone and hair color. Sil slightly resembled Hunter when he was Sil’s age.

Mad scans the ship, someone is missing...

“Where’s Tiggy???”

Everyone is silent for a beat and looks around at each other cluelessly.

“Nobody was keeping an eye on the destructive poop factory?”

Love is still calmly chewing on the Mantell Mix, Sil and Omega looked uncomfortably embarrassed, Wrecker scratches his head again, Hunter clearly has no idea what is going on...

“The canine neonate has eliminated this morning. She potty trained quickly and gives clear cues when she must move her bowels or urinate. Tiggy was fed exactly at 8am this morning and is now sleeping somewhere peacefully on your ship.”

All heads whip around to Tech.

“Everyone, PLEASE help yourself to Caf and Breakfast Biscuits” as he sets them down, a flurry of hungry hands tear into the food. “Mad, I attempted to repair your shield generator last night. Unfortunately, it must be replaced. The model is...rather antiquated. Echo has located a vintage parts dealer on the other side of Ord Mantell. We think a suitable replacement can be found there.”

Mad is taken aback by Tech’s words and the scene in front of her: Wrecker, Omega, Sil, and Love are all sitting together on the floor or up on bunks eating and chatting like they had known each other for forever. Hunter, sipping caf is listening intently to his brother Tech explain how he and their OTHER brother Echo are trying to fix the ‘Dame’s shield. She hardly ever encounters strangers (other than children) that just casually try to help without strings attached. This is something she sees her allies among The Star People doing all the time. It’s refreshing to see non-Nomaadi extend a helping hand...

...but something keeps bothering her. She can’t place it right away. It’s elusive. Mad scans the room, back and forth between the faces of the new acquaintances she just met...

Tech is still info dumping.

Wrecker is eating like he’s been starved for a week.

Hunter is half listening to Tech, nodding, picked up a cup of caf from the tray.

Something...it’s just at the tip of her brain...

...her eyes flit continually between the brothers. Tech, Wrecker, Hunter...Tech, Wrecker, Hunter...something familiar...Tech, Wrecker, Hunter...Mad’s struggling to make sense of something...a niggling feeling taking shape in her gut...Tech, Wrecker, Hunter...

“Love?” Mad reaches out with The Force.

...HOLY MAKER...it finally hits her...she didn’t see it with Hunter until now...but Tech and Wrecker’s faces...certain notes in their voices...THEY ARE CLONES!

She stands still and tries not to convey any fear. Are they safe with Hunter and his brothers? They don’t dress like clones in service to the Empire. Would they try to kill Love if they found out about their Force sensitivity? They seem so friendly...but Mad is concerned this could change in an instant.

“LOVE! Hunter, Wrecker, and Tech are...CLONES!!! I don’t know about Omega...”

Love looks up as nonchalantly as possible to meet Mads eyes. She can see veiled fear in Love’s expression.

Love reaches out with The Force to Sil, “Couz...Wrecker, Tech, and Hunter are clones!”

Sil, lacking Force ability and incapable of answering back nonverbally, froze staring back into Mad’s eyes.

The hair on the back of Mads neck stands on end as she sees a change in Sil and Love’s expression. Mad glances over to Hunter to see him staring a hole through her, caf raised just short of a sip. She can’t read his expression. Tech, totally oblivious continues to talk. Wrecker’s attention span is lost in his breakfast. Omega chewing on her biscuit notices Sil’s expression and shoots a look at Hunter.

Hunter sensed something brewing with Mad, then smelled fear suddenly coming off her. Then he picks up on Love’s fear and Sil’s body language. THEY KNOW, he thinks and suddenly regrets not being more honest back at Cid’s. He opens his mouth...” Mad...”

Mad immediately reaches for her holstered blaster...

PLEASE like, comment, and/or REBLOG!

To read Chapter 5

https://www.tumblr.com/skellymom/733456994638462976/vagabonds-chapter-5?source=share

#the bad batch #star wars #tbb #bad batch #tbb hunter #clone force 99 #hunter #sergeant hunter #fan fiction #skellymom #tbb fanfic #tbb hunter x reader #sergeant hunter x reader #tbb x reader #hunter x reader #clone thirsting #star wars fic

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hidden-behind-the-fourth-wall · 1 year ago

Text

Love isn't something you just learn Commander. Part 2

Pairing: Commander Cody x F!Reader

Words: 14 536 (oopsie)

Warning: Angst, like A LOT OF ANGST, a description of violence, DEATH, a little bit of action, wouldn't call it a smut even. Fluff. Cody being an idiot. ANGST. Bur Fluff as well.

Summary: A lot has happened and Cody realised that maybe things change.

A/N: So it is not editted. I am sorry, maybe I will do it later. I just really wanted to post it :D And I'm not sure I am 100% with the ending. It feels rush. Maybe I will come back one day and re-write. But for now. ENJOY :)

P.S. My Tag List is open to yeah... :D

It was new and scary. The thought itself wasn't really welcoming. You were a stationed medic, not trained to be a field doctor. So when the request came in for you and your team to accompany the Troops on the next mission you weren't sure if that was just some silly mistake.

Of course you were promised to be secured as well as it was possible, but the thought itself wasn't really as welcoming as you'd like it to be. The War was scary and you weren't a soldier. Not one bit, and you never hid that.

"We need some medical support. What we have from the Clones army isn't enough", Obi Wan explained, hoping to find a common ground with you. "We work well with your team. You know Kix and our medic, so both the 212th and 501st would be able to cooperate well with you."

"We're not soldiers, Kenobi" you answered, looking at your closest medics. "Most of my team consists of civilians volunteering to help, with not even any medical background." You stopped and sighed deeply, feeling all the eyes on you. "Are we going to get any basic defense lessons?"

"The first mission starts in three days. We don't have time for that. Most of your people would stay behind as a background help. Only those with more medical experience would be put in front of the battles as a better equipped help." Saying that, his gaze was moved to his soldiers and nodded his head at them, making you frown. "I'm sorry Y/N", your brow raised hearing him say your first name. Manipulative son of a bitch. "I know, you didn't sign up for that, but…"

"I will talk to my people. It is their decision, alright?", he nodded understanding your point. "I will help as much as I can of course. I'm just…" you trailed off, feeling bashful all of a sudden. "I don't want to be a bother if it comes to it."

"You won't be, Doc, trust us." Cody spoke and you turned towards him. It has been almost a month since that fateful talk. You kept your promise to him to be adult about it and to your surprise Cody made sure you felt comfortable around him. What's more, he and you spent more time together than ever. At the beginning he would come for a check up, staying a bit later just to talk. Nothing special, nothing that would make any of you uncomfortable. But with time the two of you noticed that your conversations became more and more fun rather than essential. “We would still prefer to give at least a basic defense training for the medics that would accompany us into an actual field. You included.” You swallowed and nodded. No, you didn’t like that one bit. There was a solid reason why you decided to never become a soldier. You weren’t the physical type of person really. Always keeping your nose in books has made you averse to any physical activities. “Some of my people and a bunch of 501st guys will be happy to teach you guys some basics.” Despite Cody’s soft spoken words you were still not sure about it. But it was War and you promised yourself that you would help the Clones and the Jedi win it in any way possible.

“Let me talk to my team and I will let you know about the final size of the eventual group.” All of them nodded their heads. You could decide for your own, but your people’s lives weren’t yours and they had a right to decide. “I will accompany you, of course, but I will have to leave Garialth here to keep an eye on everything.” Kenobi wasn’t too happy about it, but he understood that someone must stay behind in case and if he was forced to choose, you were still the best possible option. “How much time does my team have to decide?”

“None, really” Rex interjected, sending you one of his apologetic looks. “Even if the smaller medic teams wouldn’t accompany us to the field, we still need to give them a basic military brief. And we leave tomorrow morning so…”

“Give me half an hour?” Rex smiled, thankful for your cooperation. “I need your word, Kenobi, that if any of my men decides to stay here, there will be no consequence.” The Jedi nodded and promised that nothing bad would happen. “And I want to have a way to contact all of the teams that will be made up from my medics.” Another nod and well, you had to give it to Kenobi. After all, he was a negotiator. “Half an hour.”

***

You were proud of your men. There were only a handful of them that didn’t want to join the Troopers. Most of them may have been civilians joining your team, but they have quickly become the true medic team of the War. Even Skywalker and Kenobi were surprised when you gave them the numbers. Yes, you were proud of your men, and even more afraid now. The more joined the field, the bigger probability that more would never come back.

“Come on, Doc.” Cody’s hand on your shoulder shifted your focus onto him. “I’m responsible for your training.”

“Excuse me?” You gaped at him, not believing what you were hearing. “For sure you have some better things to do than that!” He turned and looked at you with a raised brow. He sighed deeply and then you truly looked at him. He was tired, very tired. The rested man that left your hospital bed was long gone and the Cody you knew took his place. The blacks under his eyes were getting bigger, his face despite not showing any emotions gave away more to those that looked closely. You noticed the way he would look for a quiet place more than often, probably due to the headaches that were probably becoming an everyday occurrence in his life now. His sullen cheeks worried you a bit that you have already been taking care of. Whenever he would come to you for a caff or just a talk you always had something to eat. Whether it was something as stupid as a sandwich or even something sweet. But something more than ratio food.

“Keeping you and other medics safe is our priority now.” He smiled softly seeing the way you were looking at him. “Stop analyzing me.”

“I’m not” you pouted and chuckled when he raised his brow at you playfully. You rolled your eyes and sighed. “Fine, maybe I am. But can you blame me? You left my hospital looking shiny, like you came right from Kamino and not even a month later you are once again.. Well you…”

“Me?!” He laughed at that and you cursed the little butterflies in your stomach at that sound. It wasn’t often Cody would truly laugh, but when he did, it was the most beautiful sound and you swore you’d do anything just to hear him again. It was like an addiction, when you had it once, you wanted it always.

“You look tired Cody. I know you’re the Marshall Commander but when was the last time you actually rested? I can’t make you train me when I know you could spend that time resting.” He raised his brow at you and you stood your ground, knowing what he was doing. The bastard knew how imitating he was, but you were a head medic of the Coruscant Hospital. You weren’t one for intimidation. And so you crossed your hands and locked eyes with him, making him smirk.

“You are stubborn, has anyone ever told you that?”

“One or two of your brothers”, you shrugged and he rolled his eyes at that, making you smile.

“How about we go through the strategy for this mission, and while you revise it yourself I would close my eyes for a while?” You narrowed your eyes at him but obliged, happy with a somehow compromise. A simple “close my eyes” wasn’t what you initially was aiming for, but when it comes to Cody, you knew it was more than what you were able to get.

"Just a heads up, I'm a very slow reader!" The man chuckled and you were already forming a plan for him to rest as long as possible. Even if it meant reading the damn strategy briefing more times that it was logically necessary.

***

The sound of your angry groans was the only thing that could have been heard for a while now. No matter what you'd do, the damn thing wouldn't work as well as it did for Cody and the bastard seemed too smug about it.

"You won't become an A-class shooter after just an hour, Doc" the little smirk on his lip would normally bring a soft smile to your lips, but you were tired and annoyed. Nothing seemed to work. No matter how you stood, how high or low your arms were, or what direction your feet were facing, you were unable to shoot the damn target.

"Your breath is too hectic", he started, taking a stand next to you. His blaster at a perfect angle with his arm, the stance was just as he showed you, and his eyes never leaving the target. A perfect soldier shooting a perfect 10. "It's like you hate the solemn thought of holding a blaster." You looked at him and bit your lips nervously. He had a point, the first time he gave you the gun to hold, you could feel your hand shaking. You weren't a trained soldier. You were a medic, a doctor, and holding a gun was the last thing you wanted.

"I'm a medic, a doctor," you started, avoiding his eyes. It felt stupid. Here you were in front of a Marshal Commander, a man you lo… you look up to, looking all so weak and pathetic. "I swore to protect people not kill them." Cody frowned and sighed, ignoring the way you flinched at it a little bit.

He never thought of that. He knew training you wouldn't be easy, after all you weren't a trained soldier, bread for it. But he never truly comprehends that your complete lack of skill with a blaster would have another reason, other than just you being unable to do it. He would never have guessed that someone would just be opposed to even holding it and with an actually good reason.

"A gun isn't just for killing," he started, not sure how to go with it. He wasn't good with talks like that, Rex or even Fives would probably have a better go, but you were here with him and his job was to keep you safe. He wanted to keep you safe. And to do it, he needed you to learn the basics of self defense. "It can save people as well. This is how we do it, why we Clones use it." You raised your brow at him but looked at him giving that benefit of a doubt. "Killing is hard and the last result when it comes to humans. This is why the blaster has two options. To stunt and to kill. We may be machines made to win a war but we do not like killing any more than you or other civilians."

"You're not machines!" He smiled at your interruption. He would never admit, but his heart did skip a bit whenever you showed your protective side towards him and his brothers. He would never admit to it, but he liked the way your eyes shine with anger whenever someone spoke wrongly of Clones, he couldn't help but smile at the way your tone gets more serious and your feet stumble with a bit of anger, almost as if to emphasize your words. It's kind of childish, but he still adores it. He doesn't know when that happened, but whenever you speak and defeat them, his heart does this weird thing he never truly understood and he thinks he never will.

"Is that all you got from my speech?" His question, despite being serious, weighs some kind of cheekiness that only Cody would show. "Think of a gun like one of your scalpels and equipment you use to save our lives." He gave you the weapon back and you looked down at it, weighing it in your hand.

It was so warm. From that short time he held it it already became his. She felt different, like his touch on it took away the scary aspect of it. After all, if Cody could hold it and use it, it can't be that bad. Right ?

"How do you feel with a knife?" The question got you off guard. You raised your brow at him and smiled mischievously.

"I did cut you open nicely", your heart skipped a bit with his laugh and you were never more proud of yourself. Cody had one of the most beautiful laughs. Despite him being a clone, you were sure that you would be able to distinguish him from the others with that laugh alone. It was deep and soft at the same time, with that something in it, something mysterious.

"Maybe the gun isn't really your thing after all."

***

"So no knife either?" You felt like crying. Nothing worked. The knife was even worse than the blaster. With the latter, you were at least able to shoot remotely close to the target, with a knife… well it took Cody one simple move to take it away from you. You felt angry and embarrassed and you don't know when you started to cry. "Hey, Doc, are you alright?" The concern in his voice brought a quiet sob from you, which he didn't miss. His hand on your shoulder would have probably brought you comfort if you weren't so mad at yourself right now. "Did you hurt yourself?"

"I'm angry", you hissed, throwing away the knife and trying to get rid of the angry tears pouring down your cheeks. "I'm so damn furious at myself." He raised his brows and whether he knew or not, his hand tightened on your shoulder. "We're off on the first mission tomorrow and all I did for the past two days was waste your time. I'm so angry because I'm sure you had better things to do than babysit me around and teach me things I'm so terrible at. You tried so hard and here I am…" you looked up in alarm when you heard a chuckle coming from the man. You expect all the different reactions but not this.

"I'm sorry Doc, I really am… it's just" he composed himself and straightened sending you one of his soft smiles. "I thought you hurt yourself or I worked you off too much and here you are… gosh you really are adorable!" The both of you froze at his words.

From the way his eyes searched anything but you, it was obvious he did not plan on saying it. At least not saying it out loud. You looked away and bit your lip nervously. You must have misheard him, it was impossible that the Marshal Commander Cody saw you as adorable. But it was not the time for that. And so you did all you could to master the most neutral face, like you didn't hear it at all.

"You're tensed", he finally continued when he noticed that words he stumbled didn't have any effect on you. He wasn't sure if he was thankful for that or the complete opposite. "It's like you are already preparing yourself for failure." You rolled your eyes, trying to control your breathing once again. "Here." There was a millisecond of uncertainty, but he picked up your knife and walked behind you, handing you the weapon. "Take it and slowly take a deep breath. Try to feel it in your hand, but empty your mind. Do not associate it with anything rather than just a knife. A blade you used hundreds of times in your entire life." His gloved hand was on yours, the second one protectively on your other arm. "You're holding it so hard, I'm afraid you'll break it", you couldn't help but chuckle, despite the uncontrollable feeling in your stomach, when he moved closer and you could feel him almost leaning on you. "Take a deep breath, Doc. Breath with me. Come on", he turned you around and put your hand on his chest. Despite the inner happiness in seeing him in only his blacks, you really wished he had his chest plate now on. You could feel his muscles from the thin fabric and you did your best to focus on what he wanted you to do.

And so you closed your eyes and listened to the controlled beating of his heart. How his chest would move wu\ith such peace that you envied him for it. "Breath with me. In and out and repeat."

He smiled softly, feeling how you started to drum your fingers on his chest, almost looking for a rhythm that would relax you somehow. He would never guess that you were so stressed. He knew that feeling well. Having the lives of others on your back was enough to make your nights sleepless. Also the longer the War was taking, the more tired you would become, the more of his brothers would make your life more and more tiring. He knew and saw numerous times how you cared deeply for him and other Clones and he knew that whenever any of them didn't come back it hurt you more and more. And yet you never let it affect you. You always smiled and supported them. You were always there when he or the others needed you. You would send him to get some sleep, not caring about the oh so growing bags under your own eyes. You were way beyond tired, you were exhausted and yet here you were on a way to a mission you really could have said no to. However, you never even thought for a minute about yourself, your main priority was your man. You didn't think twice before saying yes, but your men’s lives weren’t yours to decide. You were not a soldier and yet you were stronger than anyone Cody knew. And he admired it, he watched you since his hospital visit and he couldn't take his eyes off.

In the beginning he would come and talk to you, because he felt bad for the way he reacted to your feelings. But the more he observed, the more time he spent with you, he learned to realize that he actually enjoyed that time. You were such a fun and interesting person, with a lot to talk about. And what he found himself to be waiting for yet another evening he would spend just with you. Talking about the War, politics and the situation of the medic teams. But also about your favorite planet, the language you both would like to learn, about the dish you'd like to try and things you'd never touch and how awful Kenobi's lack of any reason is. He found himself thinking what would you think of the last planet he was on. Would you enjoy it or would you hate it as much as he did. What he learned was that he didn't find it scary that he started to think of you more and more often. And that scared him the most.

"Now open your eyes and just do what I taught you." And to your surprise the knife actually hit the target. Maybe not the actual target per se, but it stuck into the oval plate, which was a much better outcome than the other tries before. You gasped surprised and looked up at Commander smiling widely. You were so excited about the outcome of your last throw that you didn't realize how close you were to the man. His hands were still on you, his body closer than before. "Good girl." He murmured and it was then you realized. The praise never left him before and it was so unexpected that you had to stiffen the little moan trying to escape. Was he doing it on purpose, did he know what he did to you? Could you even dream to think that maybe you had a small effect on him as well? "Now let's see if that would work on the blaster as well." He took a step back and removed his hands from yours, putting the practice blaster in the same place the knife was just seconds ago. "Just like you did before take a deep breath."

You tried your best to concentrate and remember the feeling just before you threw the knife. But your mind was blank,completely. Your body felt cold and stiff again and you missed it. Miserably. You looked away afraid to see disappointment in his eyes.

"Again", you flinched a little bit, unsure if it was the Commander voice he used on you now, or you were just being paranoid. "Relax, Doc. You're stiff and awkward again. Take a deep breath, just like I showed you."

You weren't sure what it was that made you say it. Was it the overwhelming feeling or failure that you wanted to end. Or just a reminder of his hands on yours, the dream you know that would never come true. The reminder of him behind you, so close that could feel his heartbeat. The same heart you saved weeks ago. The heart of the man you were so desperately feeling in love with and you couldn't help it.

"Would you remind me, please?" Cody's eyes widened, hearing your quiet and soft question. You still weren’t looking at him, but he was sure to see your cheeks getting this adorable color of pink. It's not that Cody isn't familiar with women, hell no. He had enough adventures with them when he went to the 79's. But these were emotionless, he always knew what to expect. A night of fun and release and a goodbye before the sunrise. A one night stand. Nothing more, nothing less. But despite it all, he knew when a woman flirted with him. And despite the women in the club being more forward, he was sure that little question was not innocent. Not when you yourself were so flustered.

He felt divided when he stood behind you. He knew that he shouldn't, he didn't want to give you hope that anything could happen between the two of you. He knew he was becoming soft on you, but you weren't like those girls in the club. He didn't want to use those feelings of yours as a way to release his stress. You were so much to him already. So much more than he would dream to accept.

But the other part of him was pulling him towards you. It wanted to be closer to you, to be touched by you and show the most vulnerable parts of himself, he never showed anyone, not even his closest brothers. He wanted to get to know you more and more. And not only on the physical level but the emotional as well, and as scary as it was it was most importantly thrilling. And the more time he spent with you the more time he realized the second voice always won.

And so he grasped your arm in one of his hands, turned you around and pulled you towards him in a way that your back was pressed against his chest. The hand on your arm traveled down to your hand holding the blaster, changing its position to make sure you held it correctly. His other hand was hovered over your hip. "Relax, mesh’la" you shivered slightly hearing his voice so close to your ear. You swallowed hard and did what he asked, ignoring the Mando word you were sure you've heard before in your life. "There, good girl!" Now you were almost sure he was doing it on purpose. There was no way that he was as cruelest as that. You felt so warm and no matter how much you tried, you felt heat on your cheeks and your mouth was getting drier and drier. "Good, deep breath. Close your eyes for a second and relax." You followed his instructions and smiled, actually relaxing with his touch. He smelled amazing as well, like pinetree forest. So fresh and natural and so when you opened your eyes and shot, you actually hit the little disk not too far away from the target.

He turned you around and smiled softly at you. The kind of smile you have never seen. You could see it in his eyes how proud he was of you right now. His other hand joined the first one in your hip and he pulled you closer, closing the distance between the two of you even more. His eyes shifted to your lip and you swallowed, unable to look away from this beautiful, amazing man. As you were about to pull him down by his neck, the loud beeping pulled you two away from each other.

"General", his tone lacked the softness and he was back to being the Commander of 212th. "Yes, we are done here." You felt a weird twist in the stomach when he didn't look at you. "She'll manage when it's necessary", you looked away from him and put the gun away, the feeling getting nastier every second. "Yes, sir. I'm coming" He ended the call and without giving you even a look, walked to his armor and put it on quickly, including the helmet. "Practice what you learned alone. I will send Boil to supervise your progress" and he left, leaving you completely dumbstruck. Without even a glance back, the doors closed behind you and you felt tears in your eyes.

What the hell just happened? There were so many questions in your head now and you weren't sure, you were able to find an answer to any of them. Were you too forward with the request ? If you were, why didn't he say anything? It was him, who pulled you closer, it was him that gave you that look. It was his hand on your hips and it was his smile that lured you towards him. And despite knowing it all, you still felt as if you screwed up. You were standing there searching for a reason why he just left, moving you to someone else, as you were an incompetent shiny.

You cursed when tears started to fall. Why did he just leave? Did he hate you now ? Did you read the room wrong ? The more you thought about it, the more you felt your heart breaking. You thought, damn that, you hoped, that maybe you two were getting closer. You never expected him to return your feelings. You just wanted to be his friend. You just wanted him in your life. And somehow, not even sure how, you screwed it all up.

It was stupid of you to think that someone like Cody would ever be interested in you. You were just one of the medics, working for GAR. There was nothing special about you. You weren't even able to use a blaster. How would you even think, the Marshal Commander would spare you any time. You should have been happy that he spent his precious time with you. Something you were sure that you have lost.

And so, you followed his order. An order of the Marshal Commander of the Republic army. You calmed yourself down and practiced, to make sure that you wouldn't bother anyone.

***

"You look angry" Rex was looking at his vod with concern in his eyes. "You seemed optimistic with the plan on the debrief."

"It's a good plan." Cody answered shortly, taking a sip of caff, or whatever the hell that was supposed to be.

"Then what's going on?" The Commander sighed and hid his face in his hands, unable to even explain it. He was angry at himself. So damn frustrated, that he let himself go when it came to you. He acted like a damn shiny. It was stupid, but he knew what he wanted at that moment. He wanted you, so damn much. He wanted to taste you in all the ways possible. He wanted to feel those soft hands on his skin, he wanted to hear you say his name. He wanted you. And that was the stupidest thing he did, even worse than getting drunk with Wolffe that one night, and that was stupid already.

"Nothing. I just have to get my head straightened to focus on the mission", the captain raised his brow in surprise. Cody was always focused on the mission. Rex hasn't met anyone as serious about the War as Cody was. So whatever got him distracted must be huge. "I have to focus on what's really important."

"You spend too much time with General Kenobi… you start talking in the same mysterious ways" the Commander chuckled softly and took another sip from his cup, hating it even more than the first one. What he wouldn't do for a cup of an actual caff. He would have to definitely go see Fox after that mission. The bastard was one lucky son of a bitch. Sure he had to work below Palpatine, but he had the best caff.

"Have you ever thought about something more?" The question surprised both of them. Cody wasn't sure if it was the tiredness and lack of sleep that pushed him to start the topic, or just the fact that he felt worse and worse everytime he remembered the look on your face when he just left.

"More than what? That piss they dare call caff?

"You know what I mean Rex’ika" the captain of course knew what his brother meant. But he was still working out the surprise of the question itself. Cody was a dedicated soldier, one of, if not the best one out there. And here he was, asking about the alternative future. Something more than being a soldier. "What if there is more and we're just too afraid to take it?"

"We're soldiers, Clones… we are at War. I won't lie to you and say that I never thought of what it would be like to have a family one day. To wake up to a nice warm body wrapped around me and not wonder about the awkwardness of the morning after." He chuckled nervously. "But I'm aware that those are dreams of common men, and we, my friend, are not common men." He hated to see the way Cody shoulders dropped a bit at his words. But he preferred to be honest with him straight away than to give him a false hope that would break him even more, later on. "So I'm guessing the training was eventful?"

It was Cody's time to chuckle nervously, sadly even, which didn't go unnoticed by Rex. It wasn't a surprise to Rex about your feeling towards his Vod, and he may have heard of the rejection you got from the said man. So it was surprising to see when Cody has started to spend his time with you, more often than not. And he was more than surprised when it was the Commander that volunteered to train you for the upcoming mission. Rex worried it would only make things more complicated, but he never thought it would turn out like that. With Cody falling for the sweet Doctor. If they weren't Clones, during the War, he would have found the situation hilarious. If only.

"Boil is going to train her that last day" Rex' eyes widened at Cody's words and tone. "I need to focus on the strategy and the briefing. I don't have time to babysit. "Not waiting for a response, the Commander stood and left the kitchen, hoping to get at least a bit of sleep.

Rex was staring at the closed doors unable to comprehend what just happened. But whatever did happen between the two of you must have scared the man quite a bit, seeing how he decided that running away from his problems and putting down the emotional barrier was the only way to go. Rex only hoped that it would not affect you that much.

***

Boil was an excellent teacher. He was patient and fun to be around. He gave you some tips for when you have to shoot and you don't have time to think. Or he gave you an idea to hold the knife differently. Of course he didn't make a soldier out of you in a day, but you were more than thankful to him for the support. You still felt nervous now, sitting at the briefing room, but you kind of felt like you would be able to do something. He also made sure you trained hard enough not to think of Cody.

Cody, the same man, who was standing near the table covered in plans, who was ignoring your presence. It was like you didn't exist. Like that little scene between the two of you never happened. Like all that relationship you worked so hard in maintaining just seemed to cease. It broke your heart, seeing how he bluntly ignored you, not even daring looking your way.

"You with us, Doc?" You blinked a couple of times, turning your attention towards Kenobi, who was relying on the brief for the mission.

"My people are ready, whenever you need us." You started, walking closer to the map, stopping as far away from Cody as possible. "My technical team will be stationed here", you pointed at one of the caves about half a click from the main medical base and about a click from the main battle front. “Kix' team will support my guys there and have some moving men between those two places." You circled around the spots you talked about. "This will give us a good flow of pace. Team Alpha and Beta will be placed under both you General and Skywalker as medical support for the Clones teams." You paused and looked at the two Jedi with nothing but seriousness in your eyes. "Please remember I put these men's lives into your hands, Masters. I trust I won't have to focus on writing any apology letters to their families." This was one of the points you brought up regarding the mission. Your men would be as safe as it was possible. "Ceavis and I will lead two small teams closest to the Generals and focus on first aid and logistics. Each team will consist of 4 men plus the leaders. What we say, goes. Understood?" You were sure you noticed a smirk on both Rex' and Ashoka's lips. But no one dared to say anything but to nod.

This mission was one of the most important ones yet. Two objectives during one assault. One team would focus on the fighting and defending objective. Keeping the army as far away from the separatists' base as possible. And that mission fell on the more offensive 501st. The other one would be responsible for saving the political prisoners and getting the stolen information back to the Republic - fallen under the responsibility of the 212th. This was why the medic team was needed. There was no time to retreat and help the injured back in the base. The base would have to move with them and help those that would still be working, hoping to minimize the casualties.

"Doc, you keep with me and Cody." You tensed a bit, unable to hide it away from the Jedi, who only raised his brow. "We will listen to you regarding the medical knowledge and expertise, but Cody here is responsible for you, so you listen to him. Understood ?" He mimicked your words with a lace of joke in his voice. You nodded looking at the Commander, who was still looking at the map, memorizing it to the last detail.

You couldn't blame him, you knew that. He was focused on the mission and the War and keeping his brothers alive. But it still hurt you that he bluntly ignored you, like you were some kind of disease. It hurts you to be able to see the softness in his eyes and feel it on your skin and so absurdly be punished for it. You never expected anything from him, and you told him that, and for just one moment you felt so happy and full. So full and finally able to breathe when he looked at you with those eyes of his. Like you were the only thing in the world at that short moment, like you were a magnet pulling him towards you. And then it was over, it ended sooner than it actually started and he wasn't even able to look at you.

"Don't worry, Kenobi. I know my place." You didn't mean it to sound as hurt as you did, but it did make Cody finally look at you. He frowned, but didn't say anything. Putting his helmet on, he left the room, telling his General he's off to double check everything.

"So…" you looked at Rex who walked to your side. You were thankful it was him and not Kenobi, or worse, Anakin. "Will you at least tell what my di’kut of a brother did?" You couldn't help but smile softly at the Captain. You weren't sure if Cody spoke to him about what happened… on the other hand you would like to know yourself what happened.

"Getting rid of any interruptions." The Clone raised his brow at that and sighed. He was afraid, whatever Cody started talking about, was more what he originally thought. And seeing the way you both reacted to each other, Rex knew that whatever you worked so hard to build, was somehow destroyed. And he couldn't get the feeling off his chest, that it was somehow his brother's fault. "It's my fault really. I was stupid enough to hope that whatever was building between us was something more than a typical professional relation." And before Rex was able to say anything, you left the briefing room, hoping he would have missed that single tear that dropped down your cheek.

***

"I hope you know I don't like it one bit" Ceavis growled under his breath, preparing for the upcoming mission. Ceavis was your third in command and as much as you appreciated his work and knowledge, you and him were never truly friends. You both had too different characters and a completely different look on the world and your jobs.

"Yes, you mentioned that once or twice", you rolled your eyes at his tone and sighed. You were in no mood to listen to his constant negativity. It was the last thing you and your men needed. You knew it wasn't a good idea, but the decision has been made. "I'm not sure which team would actually be a better and safer option." You stared at him for a while, waiting for him to at least start packing the essentials, but apparently he had all the time in the world, while you were repacking for the fifth time already.

You didn't know how Kix did it. You were only allowed a small backpack, enough to keep you alive, but not enough to actually do anything productive. It scared you, the thought that you had to choose from the essentials, that the Clones had to choose like that every damn mission.

"Master Skywalker and the 501st's team will be much bigger, that's why I'm sending you there." You started, trying to control the annoyance in your voice. "You and Enya will focus on firming two formations. Let Enya handle the stay put one, while you take the teams and get the help directly to the soldiers. Your team got the basic training right ?" He nodded visibly, not happy with the way you still wanted to go with the mission. You wonder why he even agreed to come. "Anakin knows that the lives of my people are his priority. He wouldn't want to get under my skin, so whenever you feel like the mission is out of the hands of the 501st speak with Rex and Anakin." You got a nod from him and you turned to leave the room. "We are part of something bigger here, Ceavis, try to remember that", and not giving him any time to respond you left, going to meet up with your team.

***

"Is there any reason for this weird energy between you and Doc?" Cody frowned at his General. He should have known Kenobi would have picked up any unusual behavior. "I thought you were becoming close."

"Too close", the Commander answered, before he was able to think of the words coming out of his mouth. He sighed at the Jedi's raised brow and continued. "We're at War, General. It would be irresponsible to get attached to anyone."

"You don't mind the relationship you share with me and your brothers."

"This is different, sir!" Cody murmured, knowing well enough what the man next to him was trying to do.

"Well I hope so, I'm really not good at dealing with romantic feelings" Cody's head snapped at him, his eyes widened and mouth opened almost as if he was ready to fight with his General, but nothing came out. "Whether you're blind or really afraid. Frankly I never considered you a coward and for the success of the mission I hope there's nothing wrong with your eyesight." The Clone swallowed hard and the Jedi smiled. "What's really the matter, my dear ?" Cody hated it when he used these words of affection. He would never be able to say no to his Jedi, and he hated the fact that the general had such power over him. With nothing more than some words.

"I don't really know myself. Before I knew it, I started to actually enjoy her company. She's smart, witty, interesting and…" He coughed awkwardly, playing with his helmet. "She's really pretty." He looked away, hearing the Jedi chuckle softly. "I felt bad at the beginning. I never had anyone declare their love for me and I didn't want her to get hurt. I hoped that if I tried to stay friendly she wouldn't feel bad. But the more time I spent with her the more I thought of her." He shook his head in annoyance and kept on playing with the helmet. "The last couple of days, when I trained her… I know not every Jedi believes we’re nothing but the weapon for the Republic, but it's still weird to hear it from civvies." He scratched his neck nervously, feeling his Jedi's eyes on him. "She sees us. Like really sees us and I can't help but wanting to see her as well. She cried angry tears because she thought she was a burden to me." He chuckled, but got serious again with the flashbacks. "I never felt such a pull towards anybody. I wanted to comfort her not as a Commander, but as a man. Her man." He clenched his hands around his helmet and closed his eyes. "I… you called when I almost …egh.. you know."

"Kissed her", Kenobi helped him out, laughing at the way his Commander stared at him. It was like he said something in a line of taboo. Obi Wan could not help but admit that it was adorable to see the always stoic Commander, all flustered with a thought of kissing someone.

"I'm starting to realize why the Jedi opt for no emotions involved." Cody started again, making the Jedi frown again. "I asked Boil to train her after that and we haven't really spoken… I'm trying to ignore her, because if I'm near her, all I think about is her going on that mission with us. And the thought that something may happen to her paralyzes me to the ground. It's pathetic isn't it?"

Kenobi smiled softly at the man and patted him on the shoulder. It wasn't a secret to him that you were utterly in love with the man, but it was new to see the Clone smitten with you, especially after he rejected your feelings in the first place. He knew the way others looked at the Clones, and he would lie if he said he wasn’t angry whenever someone said something bad about them. For the General, his Commander and his brothers were as much human as he or anyone in the Galaxy and they deserved the respect for protecting the Republic. So whenever he went out with his battalion to 79th, he truly enjoyed seeing them relaxed and flirty with the girls. And it wasn't a secret that he saw Cody as more than his Commander. He was happy to call him a friend and right now, he couldn't help the happy feeling in his stomach seeing Cody in love with his other friend.

"It's not pathetic, Cody. It's childish that you ignore her, yes." He grinned at the angry look from the Clone but continued nevertheless. "But definitely not pathetic. We Jedi see more and feel stronger. So much stronger than anyone in the Galaxy. To control those feelings we opt for these no attachment rules. But it's not like we don't feel. Feeling makes you human. It makes you act faster and stronger to protect those that you care about. You are a great soldier, my dear, and there is not doubt in me that the mission will be a success, even when you worry so deeply for our Doctor." The Clone smiled softly and nodded. "Love isn't easy and it doesn't always end well, but running away from it may be the most stupid mistake you'd made in your life. If you care for her, talk to her. Tell her how you feel, but for the love of the Force, don't ignore her. You'll only hurt yourself and her even more." He ended at the same moment when your team was slowly getting hungry. "Trust me, my friend. Life is to short for regrets."

***

"I want to set a camp of some kind in here" you stated, showing a place that was supposed to be abandoned, not too far away from the final destination, but far enough that the medics would have time to fall back. "If you need a medic to come with you, I volunteer, Boil and Commander Cody have trained me enough not to be a bother. Aila will stay and take command over the camp." The young girl nodded, already hearing the plan from you, before you presented it to the battalion. "Cath has also agreed to go if you decide to split during the mission. This would give a total of four medic in the move-in team, which is more than enough." You looked at Cath, a young man who, as one of few, had some experience with blasters.

"Sounds good to me" Kenobi started, looking at his Commander who was still looking at the holomap, a frown on his face. He didn't like the fact that you so willingly wanted to go with them, but he knew if it was anyone else he would have agreed to a good plan. You were the best medic he knew and it would be a stupid ass decision if he declined your help, especially that it was what he trained you for.

"It sounds good. Having a small camp will help in case we would need to fall out and go in a smaller group." He nodded, more and more impressed with your planning skills. It made him a bit at ease, when he knew you were prepared for that mission. "The entry to the building seems like a labyrinth, it would be a good idea to divide the teams right now, to save time later."

"I'll take the lead with the first team, you can have the other team." Kenobi started looking at Cody, who nodded in agreement. "I want to see what Cath is capable of." He didn't miss his Commander's eyes on him and he knew there would be a stern talking about it later on. He bit down a chuckle at that. "You and Doc work well together, are you OK with that ?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Sure, Kenobi", both of you answered at the same time, not daring to look at each other. Working well with each other. You almost scoffed how untrue that was at the moment. You probably would if Cody would have enough guts to look at you… and well, if you weren't such a coward yourself. But this was a mission, no personal attachment was prohibited and you had to hide the hurt you felt. And shame. It was the second time you let the same man break your heart. He didn't even have to do much, his ignorance was enough for you to bring tears in your eyes at night. But it was in the past, nothing was more important than the present. And right now you had to work together to make sure the mission went smoothly.

"Alright! We move out in ten, get ready!" Everyone around turned and was ready to follow the Jedi into the ship, already prepared for the upcoming mission. You did the same, turning to leave when you felt a hand on your wrist stopping you.

"Can we please talk?" You raised your brow wanting nothing more to just walk away and tell him there was nothing to talk about. But your stupid heart made you stop and nod at the Clone. "I must apologize. What I did in the training room was a mistake." So two was not enough. He just broke your heart the third time. A mistake - that closeness, that softness in his eyes, the touch of his hands on you. It was all a mistake. "I should not have gotten so close. I… I mean there is a mission and I think we should both focus on that right now." He tried to make the last two words stand out, but the nervousness made it only sound harsher than he ever intended.

"I understand", his eyes widened at your affirmation and he seemed to relax a bit, until he actually looked at you and his heart broke just a little. Your expression was emotionless, your eyes had no life in them, like you didn't care about anything. "You don't have to worry, that mistake won't happen again." He voluntarily flinched at your monotone voice and the repeat of his own words. Somehow, hearing them from you, felt foreign, painful. "The mission is a priority, Commander." And then you left him alone in that empty briefing room. Feeling worse than he has ever felt before.

***

The planet was a nightmare. Whenever you stood, you could hear someone fighting. It was like a war zone on the whole damn planet. You tried to ignore the dead bodies of locals, just left there. Forgotten by everyone, like a bag of trash forgotten, when it wasn't needed anymore.

"We divide here." Kenobi started, looking at your team, as if encouraging you. You sent him a small smile, which je reciprocated with a firm nod. "Cody, I will let you know when we get the data back, I'm awaiting your response when it comes to the situation at your sector."

"Yes, sir !" The Clone turned towards your group and showed the small map from the holopad. "We will focus on that road here. It's a recon mission from us. If we can avoid the fight we will. 501 has that covered." You couldn't help but smile at his tired tone, when he mentioned Anakin's division. "We may encounter local forces there. If you have to fight, if you don't, capture them. Reckon! Everyone gets it?” A chorus of yes sirs was heard and the men scattered to get into the position. “Stay close to me, Doc.” You turned, after hearing his voice. Despite the command in the tone, you could see a vulnerability in his eyes. You didn't understand where that came from, but you nodded.

You weren’t about to be a bother to him. You have decided. The moment that mission is over, you will come back to your hospital and regain that professional relationship Cody was so fixated about. The last thing you wanted was to make his life any more difficult than it already was. You desperately hoped to become his friend. Someone who would be able to help him whenever he would have been in need. But he wasn’t looking for a friend. You realized he was just being nice. A good, old Cody. Always the gentleman. All this talk the two of you had was some kind of an apology from him for turning you down. And that thought was making you want to break down and cry right here right now.

“Boss” you heard Aila’s voice in your right ear and turned to commlink on. “The camp is set up and we have divided work throughout our stuff and the Clones.” You smiled at her words and nodded at Cody who looked your way, as if to confirm that all is fine.

“Good! Make sure that you’re aware of both your surroundings and the medical stuff. Try to divide it into small teams as we discussed. Get Grail and Tylie focus on the equipment. The rest make sure you show off to those Clones. We can’t be worse than them.” You ignored the chuckle from the Commander and smiled at the one from the girl on the base. You believed in your men, your medics were the best and you weren’t being subjective. You trained them well, and you trusted them with your life. All you could do was boost their morale as much as possible. Even with some stupid jokes like that. “If anything happens let me or Commander Cody know.”

“Boil and Waxer have already instructed us on the military shit.” The girl laughed at the two Clones that were left behind as a support. “You be safe, OK, boss? I need a raise and I won’t get it, if you don’t come back.” You laughed at that and turned off the comm, when you walked into the tunnel.

“Focus now. Blasters out, get them into stun mode and keep your heads up.” Cody muttered, turning on the light on his helmet. “And remember we only kill the damn clanckers.” You followed his order, getting your blaster out. You could almost hear your heart beating, with how loud it was getting. You tried your best to control your breathing but it was getting more difficult the further you went into that tunnel. The damn gun was also much heavier than it was during the practice. You noticed how your hand shook a bit when you lifted the blaster slightly. This was ridiculous. You shouldn’t be this nervous, you knew what you were getting yourself into. It’s too late to change your mind. Survive this and you can come back to your patients and white walls of your hospital.

“I won’t let anything happen to you.” Cody whispered softly, seeing the way your hands were shaking. He wasn’t surprised to see your nervous state. Despite being an amazing doctor, you were just a civilian, that was always as far away as possible from the battlefield. All this must be terrifying for you. Not only were you afraid for your own life, but knowing you, you were also thinking of your team. Always the caring one. “Do you trust me?” He didn’t know where that question came from. He wasn’t supposed to focus on any kind of conversation with you. His job was to observe and act as quickly as possible. Not have an existential dialogue, with the woman he was annoyingly falling for. This should be left for after the mission. And yet here he was, trying his best to make you feel better.

“Yes”, the certainty in your voice made his heart skip a beat. He didn’t expect you to answer so quickly and with such confidence. He looked down and smiled softly seeing the way you were completely focused on your surroundings. ‘Good girl’, he thought to himself.

“Good, then we have nothing to worry about”, she smiled softly and he felt lighter seeing that little lip quirk. He felt proud for making you feel at least a little bit at ease.

“Commander!” He stopped, motioning to others to stand by. “Its Vice here. We are at some kind of door, about half a click from your position. We can check it out, or should we wait for you?”

“Wait for us.” He commended, signaling others to move again. “All the medics are here with us, in case something happens no one will be able to help you. Stand down, and wait, Tropper.” A soft yes, sir was the last thing Cody heard and he took some extra, longer steps to get where his men are. He could hear how you already contacted the CLone medic for this team, to be ready. Well, there go the nerves.

“Isn’t it too quiet, Commander?” If they were in any other situation, he would have hated the way you addressed him. But it was the mission, and he was telling himself you were just being professional. Something he should focus on as well. “I may be paranoid, but…”

“It’s possible that the real action will start after we open those doors Vice told us about”, he answered but couldn’t get rid of the nasty feeling in his stomach. He actually did feel the same as you. You all walked for 15 minutes now and nothing was going on. Not only you haven't missed anything, but there was no one waiting for you. “General”, he finally spoke to his comm, when they stopped at the doors with Vice by his side. “Do you read me?”

“Loud and clear, Cody.” hearing as Kenobi answered almost automatically it seemed that nothing was happening on his side. “Something doesn’t smell nice in here.”

“Same here, Sir.” He murmured and signaled for his men to take position. “ We are at the doors. We will open them and see where it gets us. Has General Skywalker been in touch”

“The 501st are having the time of their lives right now, from what I heard.” You couldn’t help but chuckle softly at his sarcastic tone. “But Anakin didn’t sound like he was complaining.”

“Nothing new then”, Cody commanded and the General hummed softly. I will contact you in 15 minutes. If you don’t hear from me or anyone on the team, please assume the worst.”

“Same here, Commander. Stay safe!” And that was it. No commands from the General to the Commander. There was no need. Obi Wan trusted Cody completely and the Clone Commander knew that well. That trust went both ways.

“Ok, on count to three, Howl, open up that damn door.” raising his hand, he started to count down from three and when he closed the fist, you expected some kind of commotion, a boom or a blaster fire from the other side. But once again nothing was there. One part of you was happy that nothing has happened yet, but the second part knew that there was something fishy in here. “Move, move. Keep your eyes open, but let's keep on moving. Instinctively you moved closer to Cody, after his instructions, your fingers tightening on the blaster just a little more.

“The sensor shows around 50 people a click away from here”, Guts reported, showing the screen to Cody. So the intel was correct. There were people being held captive. “There are kids as well.” He nodded and looked down at you. You nodded, understanding. The moment they got there, it was your job to get to those poor people and help those that were in need. Your other, free fist clenched around your bag, ready for the action.

“General. We have sensed 50 lives a click away from us. We are ready to move in. We will meet you at the rendez-vous point, when we can.” He frowned when there was no response. He tried again, and again, but the line was quiet. “Howl, Vice, Doc, try your comms and contact the General.” You all did as he asked, but the outcome was the same. Silence.

“Shouldn’t we help them?” You asked and he looked at you, shaking his head.

“They may have encountered the enemy. We should finish our mission here and then help them.” You wanted to argue. What if they were ambushed, what if they needed our help but couldn’t contact us, what if… “You said you trust me, Doc.” You looked at him and frowned, when he took off his helmet. “Then trust me on this one. And let’s finish our first mission together.” You opened your mouth to respond, but couldn’t find any words. You did trust him. And his judgment. And so you nodded, closing your eyes to relax.

“Ok boys, let’s get this done and go help the General.” They all cheered and you all got ready to storm the place down, unable to hear the quiet rumble from the General in your ear. A silent “it’s a trap” that would later on be a constant nightmare to those that somehow survived.

***

All you could hear was the ringing in your ears. You tried opening your eyes, but you felt as if they were all too heavy. The air felt polluted and heavy all of a sudden. Your head, and that damn ringing wasn’t helping the migrene that was forming, quicker than you liked to admit. Something wasn’t right. But you were still too out of it to realize what was happening.

“Doc!!” you must be dreaming, because you are sure, you hear that soft voice of the commander near you. But for some reason he sounded so worried, almost scared. If that was even possible. You so desperately wanted to keep on dreaming. To have him speak to you in that same soft manner. With his hand on your cheek. This dream was what you wanted for so long and so you closed your eyes and focused on sleeping. “No, no, open those eyes. Come on, sweet girl! Look at me!” He never called you that. Those sweet words were like honey to your ears and you wanted to listen. But you were afraid that if you did, you would wake up and be met with reality. “You have to wake up, damn! Come on!” The pain in your stomach, however, brought you back to reality. With a gasp you sat down and opened those heavy lids, squinting, when the dust was getting into them. “Thank the Maker!”

You looked around and stiffened seeing the scene. If it was only biologically possible, you were sure, your heart just stopped beating right at that moment. You were used to blood and suffering and screams of pains, but what you were now surrounded by was more like Hell. It was how you imagined it to be.

“Don’t look!” it made you look up at him for the first time, since you opened your eyes. He didn’t have his helmet, there was a trickle of blood flowing down his handsome face. There were cuts on his cheeks and his always well-kept hair was a total mess now. He looked awful, and yet you still find him so incredibly handsome. “Focus those pretty eyes on me, OK?” You frowned and tried to look around again, but he stopped your head with his hand on your cheek. His forehead resting on yours, making your breath hitch at the proximity. “I need to get you out of here.”

“Cody”, you started but hissed when you tried to move. You looked down at the source of pain and your eyes widened. Your shirt was no longer white and one of Cody’s hands was pushing on the spot there, trying to stop the flow as much as he could. “What happened?” You asked quietly but he only shook his head and you released that he was shaking slightly. “Cody… Are you… Are you OK?” You were slurring a bit, but you had to make sure. He had a cut on his head. You needed to check on it, to make sure he didn’t have a concussion.

“I need to stop that fucking bleeding and I will be just fine, Mesh’la!” He said, pushing on that wound of yours, making you scream in pain. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Please, please tell me what to do!”

“I need to help others first. Need to take a look at your head!” You looked around again and a shocked sob escaped your lips, when you finally realized what surrounded you. Masses of motionless bodies, laying in the most bizarre positions. Some crushed by the rocks, some not even full. You weren’t sure if you were even able to locate the part of each of the bodies, to try to put them back together? What for? You didn’t know. Not like those Clones had families that would like to bury them. They all died here with their family. All of them, from what you saw. All these men that accompanied you here, were lying dead in front of you. And not just them. In the further part of the corridor you could see bodies of the civilians you came to save. Men, women, kids. Even babies. All dead, buried under the rocks, with blood pouring through the leaks of those rocky walls.

You tried to look away but you couldn’t. Even Cody’s hand on your face didn’t work this time. Your eyes were following each of the bodies surrounding you. A young man holding a woman in his arms. A child separated from his mother. A young woman with dreams cut so drastically. And your whole squad. Those men you loved so much and cared for. You tried to scream when you noticed Vice’s body laying not too far away from you. But you couldn’t as no sound left your lips. He just laid there, still in his armor. If you truly wanted, you could imagine, he was just resting. If you only shook him a bit, maybe he would wake up and smile at you.

You looked at Cody again, when you heard him calling you by your first name. You couldn’t remember if he ever did that? He did use your last name once or twice, but normally stuck with Doc. Until now, you weren’t sure he even knew your name. You chuckled to yourself, but caught when the pain was back, You gasped and almost fell back, if not for Cody keeping an eye on you.

“I know you worry about everyone. But please, Doc. We have to take care of you first.” Oh, yeah you were bleeding. The adrenaline was wearing off and you did start to feel it all. You tried to take a deep breath and relax a bit. You knew that if you let yourself, you will get into a panic attack mode, and that was not good for your heart. And then Cody would have to take care of even more than he does now. Poor guy. He did not sign up for this. You weren’t supposed to be a bother. No to him. No… You shook your head slightly, trying to get back to the topic at hand.

“As the bleeding isn’t exceeding, it means you did a good job and left whatever is there blocking it?” Speaking was getting more and more difficult, but you needed to instruct your commander what to do. You wouldn’t do it to him. You won’t just die, and leave him be. Alone in that Hell you found yourself in. “Don’t take it out even if I go into shock and ask you to do it, got it?” He nodded and still kept the pressure on the wound. “As I’m still able to actually think it means, I wasn’t out for too long and haven’t lost that much blood yet.”

“No… It all happened about 5 minutes ago.” You nodded and slowly sat up, easing your breathing with every second. It all meant one thing. You were probably in the second class of hemorrhagic shock, which wasn’t that bad. You did feel anxious, but the total confusion hasn’t come yet. “I’m not sure if we're actually safe here, so I would prefer to move you…”

“No”, you stopped him, mid sentence, shaking your head. “Any sudden move will lead me to bleed out. We need to stop that blood coming out of my body before anything else.”

“And how do we do that?” You clenched your hand around something, which you later on realized it was Cody’s thigh, you were holding on. But he didn’t seem to mind at all, not even caring that you would probably leave some bruises there.

“My bag”, you said softly, realizing that what you’re about to offer will be a hell on its own. But either that or bleeding out on your first ever mission. And that was just sad. “You will have to…” A cough stopped you and you cursed feeling a metallic taste in your mouth. Not good, very not good. “You will have to act fast. OK?” He nodded and he opened your back. To your surprise nothing broke there and you happily found what you were looking for. A pair of gloves, a bottle with a silver nitrate solution, you were so glad you decided to prepare. Some swabs, bacta patches and hemostatic dressings that should help the bacta to do the trick.

“Ok, some pay back for sticking my hands into your chest.” He raised his brow and smiled softly, happy to see you still had enough energy for some silly jokes. “First of all, put the gloves on. Then prepare some swabs and then after removing that thing in my body, you will pour the…”

“You just told me not to remove it”, he countered and you sigh, giving him a stern look. You didn’t have the energy to do any of it. You were slowly getting into class three of shock that wasn’t good.

“You will pull that out of me and pour that bottle’s continent on the wound. Do not stop even If I cry and scream. You need to pour at least half of it. You need to do that the second the thing is out of my body.” You looked at him and he nodded, understanding your implication. “You then put the dressing on and patch it up with some bacta. And hopefully it will stick till we get some help.”

“Hopefully?” he raised his brow at you but put on his gloves and started to follow your orders. He has never done anything like that. He wasn’t a medic. He wasn’t trained to do it. Your life depended on him and he hated it. He was supposed to protect you and here you were, lying injured because you saved him. He wasn’t sure you even remember how you pushed him away, when the bomb went off. How without thinking you just jumped to action saving his sorry ass.

He closed his eyes to relax and acted before he changed his mind. He tried. He tried so hard to ignore that hellish scream from you when he poured whatever there was in that bottle. He knew he would dream of nightmares of that scream and part of him knew he deserved it. But he kept on going. He did what you told him to do and when you laid there with your eyes half closed, breathing hard, your face covered in tears, but with the wound sealed somehow and no blood was flowing, he was fine with being the one to bring that scream out of you, if it meant you would survive it.

“Hey, Mesh’la, you OK?” You smiled weakly and nodded. “Ok, I’ll clean that up quickly and we need to go, ok?”

“I need to have a look at your injuries… We need to see if someone…”

“No-one survived.” It was like a slap to your face and you recoiled, feeling your eyes water at that. “It wa s a fucking trap. They knew we were coming and they used civilians to get us here.” He shoved the medical things into your bag, and took it on his shoulder. “I tried contacting the General, but no sign yet.” You looked around again, and sniffed looking at all those bodies laying around.

“I’m a doctor, Cody… I was supposed to save them. I was supposed to do something… I can’t just leave….”

“You couldn’t do anything for them… But you saved my life, if that makes you feel better.” You frowned, and gasped softly, when he lifted you up into his arms. He was so careful with you. It was such a contrast to the hardened soldier he was. “You pushed me away when the bob went off. I will always be in favor of you.” You looked up at his stoic face and hid your face into his chest, letting yourself cry. For real this time.

***

“Have any of them answered?” Obi Wan raised his eyes on his former Padawan and sighed, shaking his head. “Rex has his team ready to go. We will take Kix and Cath with us and we can go search for them.” Anakin looked at his Captain who nodded, ready to go and save his brother. “You can take Rex and go save your men.” The Master smirked and looked at Skywalker, who shrugged. He was a good man. Kenobi knew that Anakin understood. If it was Rex buried there, the young Skywalker would not have been as calm as his Master.

“I should have felt it in the Force much quicker. I should have acted sooner.”

“It’s not your fault, Master!” Ashoka added, frowning at Kenobi. “I don’t think anyone out there would blame you for that, and so you shouldn’t.”

“When did your Padawan become so smart, Anakin?” They both laughed softly and he sighed. “I hope she’s alright. It was her first mission.”

“Cody is there, so there is nothing to worry about, Sir!” Rex said, making the Jedi master smile softly. Yet, the Captain was right. Cody was the best soldier Kenobi knows. If there was anyone who would survive that and protect you, it was him. And so he stood and took his lightsaber from Anakin, ready to save his friends.

***

“I’m sorry Cody”, he looked down and your form crawled at his thighs. You looked so small, so adorable, if only those tears didn’t stain that pretty face of yours, he would be a happy man to hold you so close to himself. Almost losing you made him realize that he was an utter idiot. He should have been honest with you at the base. You two should have talked. And he promised himself, he would not leave your side. He would be your shield. Physically and emotionally. He would let you sleep on him, he would let you wet his armor with your tears. He would let you do anything to him, only if you felt just slightly better. “You lost so many of your brothers and I’m the one who’s…

“You cry for my brothers.” He ended for you, kissing your temple softly, making you freeze. You closed your eyes, enjoying the tender feeling of having him so close. You should not be enjoying it. It was selfish, and yet you couldn't help it. Despite the armor, you could feel the heat of his body. Or was it your body heat you felt? “Not many do that. Not many care enough to share a tear for them. And here you are. Your beautiful eyes puffy after crying so hard for those that were meant to die.”

“I hate when you say that.” He chuckled sadly, and hugged you closer, his cheek on the top of your head. “I wish I would have done more.” And yet it was like a lighting shock. You straightened, hissing in pain. Cody frowned and looked at you in alarm. “Let me see if you’re injured!” He exhaled and couldn’t help but smile.

“You should rest. I don’t know how long that patch will last…” You bit your lip and your hand slowly raised to go through his hair.

“Please, Cody. Let me be useful.” His eyes widened and he once again leaned his forehead to yours. A soft touch, an intimate gesture of the culture he was raised in. A quiet plea and the feelings exchange, of all the things he’s like to say but couldn’t. And so he nodded. And let you. He let you step away from him, keeping a safe hand close to you, just in case. He just sat there and let your small, soft hands take his armor off. Slowly, almost afraid as if your moves would bring any harm to him. If only you knew how different it was. How he yearned to feel you touch. To be cared for by you, with that loving touch of yours. “Can I?” He nodded his head, afraid to say anything. Not sure if he would be able to. “Oh, Cody!” You gasped, seeing his bruising ribs. It was impossible for him not to feel pain. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You were more important.” He murmured, not able to look at you. Such a strong Marshal Commander, unable to look at the woman he… yes, he loved, look in the eyes. What shocked him was how easy it came to him. Losing was like a spur for him to realize his feelings. “If I didn’t take care of me, who would save me like you could?” You blushed and smiled shyly at yourself, opening your bag. You carefully cleaned his bruises and the cuts on his cheek and head, making sure to bring him as little pain as possible. “I was scared I’d lost you out there.” You froze and his words, but stayed quiet, letting him say whatever was weightining on his chest. “I never wanted to hurt you. Never meant to be such a jerk. I…” He finally looked up and your heart broke a bit at his sad expression. It was like a mere memory of his actions that hurt him physically. “I was scared, because you were becoming someone so very important to me in such a short time and… I’m a Marshal Commander.” You apologized quietly when he hissed at one of the head injuries, when you put a patch of bacta there. “I’m… I’m supposed to only have War on my mind and yet here I am… I was so scared, when you laid there, unable to move.” You swallowed hard when he softly circled his fingers around your wrist. He brought your hand towards his lips and left a soft kiss there. A lingering touch, you will dream about when that mission is over. “I got scared when I realized that I cared so deeply for you. Back in the base. When I almost kissed you. You told me that love is when you can’t get someone out of your mind. And I keep on thinking of you all the damn time.” Your breath hitched at his admission.

Your shaky hand lowered to take care of his bruised ribs. And you tried to ignore how he shivered at your touch. And you hoped deep inside, that you had the same effect on him as he did on you. You should be a professional, but here he was, half naked in front of you. You tried to focus on your job, but his words shook you. He just admitted that he was falling for you. You swallowed hard, wanting to say something, do something, but you couldn’t. And so, you just wrapped his torso and ribs safely and looked up at him when you finally finished. Happy to know that there was nothing critical.

“Please don’t say all these things, if you’re going to ignore me, the moment we are back.” He flinched at your declaration, and you felt bad, but you needed to know. Needed to be perfectly sure, that if you let yourself dream, hope, then that won’t just crush after all this is over. “I have loved you for so long, so if you…” But you weren’t given a chance to finish. His lips were on you, before you were able to react. You froze, not sure if you were actually dreaming. His lips were softer than you imagined. It was kind of innocent and sweet, as if he was unsure of himself. When you didn’t move, he stepped back and awkwardly started to apologize, but you didn’t give him a chance. You crushed your lips to his, ignoring how your stomach hurt a bit with those sudden movements. But you didn’t care. You were finally kissing the man you have loved for such a long time.

Cody didn’t waste his time. Calloused, soft hands cupped your face, pulling you forward even more. He tilted his head, deepening the kiss, licking the bottom of your lip asking for permission to enter. And you let him, because who were you to make him wait. And he doesn’t waste that chance. It wasn’t just a kiss. It was a way, a chance to show you how much he adores you. His tongue is gently messaging yours, sensually, taking the time to get to know you.

He pulls away, but doesn’t waste any time, kissing your jaw softly, nipping at it softly, making you gasp softly at his touch. His hands grasp and your waist. Tightly, but enough to hurt you, mindful of your injury. He was so careful with you, so loving. You tilt your head back, wanting more. More of him, more of his warm and hot kisses. You feel him inhaling you and you can’t help but moan softly when he tastes you with his skillful tongue.

“Cody!” You shriek and he laughs, when you playfully pat him on the shoulder when he bit and sucked your pulse spot at your neck, for sure leaving a mark there. “What if someone notices?”

“Let them. They will know who you belong to!” Normally you would never let any man talk to you that way. But with Cody it didn’t feel disrespectful. It was like he was confessing, that at the same time he belonged to you and you almost cried with happiness. “But I have to stop now, cyare.” Your heart skipped a beat with the Mando leaving his mouth. “You are injured and I’m unsure if I would be able to stop myself if we go any further.” He softly kissed your forehead and you blushed at this innuendo. As you were about to say something even remotely flirtatious, a voice could be heard from Cody’s comlink. He quickly turned it on and you felt tears appearing in your eyes when you heard Kenobi’s voice on the other side.

“Cody, report.”

“General!” You could hear the Jedi relaxed sigh on the other side. “You have no idea how good it is to hear you.”

“Are you OK? Is anyone injured?” Your smile dropped and you clenched at your shirt nervously.

“Doc will need medical attention as we had to make do with her injuries.” He held your hand and sighed, readening himself to tell his Jedi the bad news. “It was a trap, Sir. The moment we walked in, the bomb activated. All of my team, including the civilians are gone.” There was silence on the other side. Probably no one expected the news to be so devastating.

“My sincere apologies, my dear. I did realize it was a trap, but…”

“Don’t blame yourself, Obi!” You interjected, hugging into Cody’s (still) bare chest. He raised his brow and you were expecting a similar reaction from the Master on the line as well. It was the first time you said his name like that. “No one could have expected that. We can’t save everyone.” You sniffed softly and Cody, wrapped his arm around you.

“It’s good to hear you”, you smiled when he used your name, instead of the nickname. “You both stay where you are. Rex has traced you, we should be there with two medics to take care of you.” And the line was off and you leaned into Cody, kissing his collarbone softly.

“When we’re back”, he started before Kenobi and the team would come. “I will properly apologize to you.” You frowned, and wanted to deny whatever he thought, but he only kissed you softly at the top of your head and shut you up completely with that sweet move. It was a truly weird feeling. You were so very happy, despite being so devastated at the same time.

***

It took you a whole month of rehabilitation and Kix’ nagging of you staying in bed, before he was remotely OK to let you leave the hospital. Cody was visiting you every day with some sort of a gift. A single flower, a chocolate, a cup of coffee, or a book, you could read to kill the boredom. You both talked, he apologized almost everyday and made sure that he bid you with the sweetest of kisses. You did have a serious talk about where you both saw this going. He promised you that he would do his best to open up to you, but he did ask to give him some time. He never even considered something as stable as a relationship and it was all new to him. And you were more than willing to give him all the time he needed. And so you both decided to take things slow. For the both of you.

So when he didn’t pick you up from the hospital today, you were worried. He was on his leave and he promised he would a week ago. But here you were, walking to your apartment alone. There was this sick feeling in your stomach, which you tried to get rid of. There was probably something holding him up. Something important.

You opened your flat doors and gasped, letting the bag fall from your shoulders to the floor. There he was awkwardly standing, in the middle of the room, with some flowers, a table ready for dinner.

“General Skywalker and Ashoka helped me with it… “ He walked towards you, handing you the flowers. “I’m sorry I didn’t pick you up from the hospital. But I do owe you a first date, don’t I, Cyare?” He leaned forward and pressed a sweet, quick peck on your lips.

“Oh, you are more than forgiven, Commander”.

Tag List: @loving-the-cambridges

#star wars #the clone wars #commander cody #star wars fanfiction #fanfiction #commander cody x reader #cody x you #idiots in love #idiots in denial #the clones #star wars the clone wars

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chthonicgodling · 1 year ago

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okay so I don't know if this is in the realm of what you're in the mood of talking about BUT seeing that Loki was responsible for exploding thanatos (lol) I'm curious how well they knew each other ?? *if* they knew each other ??

ohHhhHh MARS LIKE I SAID I AM SO… SO GLAD YOU ASKED THIS

this is going to be very, very, very long but before I jump behind a cut and answer your actual question, allow me to share & recap some crucial background information to paint the scene first for where we were - this was many years ago . Hmmm even this preamble is stupid long. I’m so sorry.

(OoC, around the year 2013 BUT our in-canon 5 year jump ahead took place in the middle of this duration so the actual in-canon year no longer matches up or— whatever)

the important refresher facts (and new info?) are, of course Loki falls into Elysium, the gang rehabs him, Loki comes around, sleeps around with the palace, ends up knocked up by Laphi with Fjöer; despite Loki briefly disappearing in panic he does eventually return (with… with an egg lmao) and this is NOT a crisis because Loki is learning to trust his new friends; Fjöer’s born —

Fjöer gets kidnapped to the mortal world. Loki relapses straight back into supervillainy and goes absolutely ballistic, torturing and almost murdering A Certain Key Player of A Certain Superhero Team while convinced he had something to do with it. He did not. Tory gets Fjöer back. To keep the peace in the mortal world, he promises that Loki will never, EVER leave the underworld again. To make this happen, Tory tricks Loki into eating the food of the dead, thus damning him to the Underworld in accordance with ancient magic laws. Loki (though feeling incredibly guilty) is horrified and enraged at this betrayal.

Loki proceeds to hack into the entire magical grid of the Underworld and recenters its magical essence TO HIM, now holding all the power of the whole realm in his very being and becoming the vessel for all those ancient magic binding rules so… now he can resume going wherever he pleases. This is SO dramatic that Tory fuckin rolls his eyes and gives the fuck up okay FINE LOKI YOU WIN just please don’t try to kill anyone again. ok deal:)

then our in-universe five year jump ahead takes place… now, approximately six and a half years after Loki first fell to Elysium —Loki’s just given birth to baby Rane; Tory is now heavily pregnant with his and Loki’s oopsie twins Eisa and Einmyria, it’s a high risk pregnancy made none the easier of the drama of that whole situation (long separate story). here we are. got it? good.

Now, your actual answer.

When Loki had first entered Elysium and was ~*bonding*~ with everyone, and unpicking the pieces of the trauma he’d gone through, slowly one by one the residents of the palace began to open up in very limited bits and pieces to Loki about their own tragic backstories. Curiously enough, EVERYONE’S tragic backstories centered mostly around this ONE individual, a mysterious evil god Thanatos who, Loki was informed, was currently imprisoned in Tartarus for the crime of kidnapping baby Neo, just before Loki had arrived.

Though everyone was kinda hesitant to share all the gory intimate details with this uhh, hostile stranger, as time went on and Loki opened up himself and everyone became friends Loki gathered more and more bits and pieces of info and found himself learning quite a bit about Thanatos. More than anything, Loki was taken aback by how much of an influence he’d had on so MANY lives, how much terror and fear he’d inflicted upon all these lovely people Loki had just met and kindave liked . Loki also was very alarmed by the thought of having such an alleged huge threat living in a jail cell like. Just next door. hello?!!! And… finally….. he also… didn’t really believe it was possible that one singular god could be so dangerous? Like, they’d successfully arrested him, soooo. What was even the big deal.

Cocky as ever, needing to have the upper hand, perhaps taking sick pleasure in the fact that everyone would be really, really mad if they found out what Loki was doing, BUT just mostly, curious like a feral horrible little cat - Loki snuck into Tartarus. He introduced himself to Thanatos, who seemed to be slightly delirious under the influence of Epi’s poison nightmares. Assessing the big scary legend of Thanatos before his eyes as not much of a threat at all, Loki decided to become fascinated with the thought of picking through his head…. And he figured it was best and harmless to do this under the guise of socializing. Loki FUCKING MADE FRIENDS WITH HIM.

He proceeded to secretly visit him in Tartarus about once a week for FIVE ENTIRE YEARS OF THAT JUMP.

What was the harm anyway? Though annoyed that Loki kept bothering him, Thanatos clearly had been put thoroughly out of commission and he didn’t really seem to have a real grasp on where he was or that Loki was not some sort of hallucination. Still, to be safe, eventually when Loki got pregnant with Rane, he temporarily stopped his visits, resuming them but briefly after she was born, before pausing again to deal with Tory’s pregnancy. In the meantime, through those gaps…

Loki’s cocky underestimating of Thanatos was in fact a fatal mistake, because the entire time they’d been together Thanatos had faked his delirium. Only ever saying just enough to keep Loki from detecting his whole ruse was a lie, while Loki was having fucking picnics Thanatos was studying the HELL out of him.

All that Underworld magic tangled up within him was accessible to Thanatos due to his own standing realm as God of Death, enmeshed into the Underworld himself - and without Loki detecting a thing, Thanatos spent five years discreetly SIPHONING out the powers to control the realm that Loki had amassed. Slowly but surely. Little bits, so that Loki wouldn’t notice.

During the double maternity leave, Thanatos from his jail cell managed to get ahold of Chal, who (VERY PRE EVERYTHING THIS WAS LIKE THREE YEARS BEFORE HER WHOLE THING) was loose in Tartarus trying to escape Ker again. Thanatos had now collected enough of the Underworld’s magic to track down the information about how to get the keys or whatever that locked him in. He sent Chal off to find that key and break him out. Eventually - Chal ✨did this.✨ Thanatos was now LOOSE, and they escaped together off the grid.

The palace discovered Thanatos was loose because, (secretly at this point), he now had a whole litany of magic abilities and he just started APPEARING in television screens and mirrors of the palace that November to give villainous speeches - clearly out of prison, clearly of his usual “sound mind”, and clearly making HUGE THREATS. The palace went into FULL LOCKDOWN panic and Epi and Loki - Tory was way too pregnant! - split up to go find him.

Loki found him (and Chal - what the fuck this was Thanatos’s kid??! This wobbly teenager?! Loki made a mental note to do something about that much later👀) immediately. In this confrontation, Thanatos played delirious again and Loki STILL WILDLY UNDERESTIMATING HIM, but slightly shaken at how panicked his friends at the palace were, made Thanatos promise to leave the palace alone in exchange for Loki not ratting him out and turning him in. Batting his eyelashes, Thanatos agreed. His own secret shield of magic he’d built successfully blocked out Loki’s built in lie detector - and, crucially, unwise to the tips and tricks of the Underworld, Loki did NOT make him swear an unbreakable oath. He,, took him at face value?!?! And flounced back to the palace to announce that he couldn’t find him but he probably would not cause any trouble.

And then Thanatos began to project himself into the palace.

You know Loki’s little clones? Haha since fucking when did Thanatos know how to do that?! Though these clones were not solid and he couldn’t lay a finger on anyone, he began to terrorize verbally everyone hiding within the palace, all the people he’d hurt - Maci. Eury. Hypnos. Hess. Bullied away again and again by Epi and Loki - keeping Tory far away, who again ahhhhh high risk pregnancy! - but coming back more and more, just over the span of mere hours, days, the palace began to break down into psychological torment - and the more time these Thanatos clones spent around Loki - the more he began to draw from him and. Oh god. Oh no. FEELING THE CHANGE, Loki realized what was happening. He realized what he’d done and enabled. In a rare moment of respite, He confessed. EVERYONE WAS FUCKING FURIOUS, just at his show of cocky hubris especially now that Loki, in increasing panic, was admitting that he’d grossly underestimated the danger of Thanatos and - LOKI, OH MY GODS, YOU DID THIS, FIX IT BEFORE SOMEONE GETS HURT. Thanatos was growing too powerful and Loki could no longer locate him oh my god oh my god oh nNOOO—

Unsure if Thanatos was copying his magic or fully DRAINING it away and, in horror suspecting the latter, Loki quickly began to formulate a plan with Epi. The Underworld magic he held within himself was meant to protect him and if he could somehow trigger that Defense mode into action, then surely that would be powerful enough to knock Thanatos out enough to— idk, figure it out from there? But how to trigger that? He and Epi began testing by fuckin attacking the shit out of Loki (after all this, Epi was more than happy to do this 😌) and letting that power indeed force field him back in retaliation so now it was just a matter of honing that to be stronger.

Before he could perfect it, Thanatos figured out how to make a partially solid clone, and straight from the balcony of the palace, kidnapped - um. a certain nymph of great importance to Loki (staring directly at the camera bc…. you know,, but this, is in progress due to Circumstances and may change, not important who this is rn!) OKAY WELL NO MORE TIME TO WASTE GO GET THIS FUCKING BASTARD NOW — Epi used dreams to find where [redacted] was being kept and they went on the attack.

But this was a trap - luring Loki there was all according to plan, because what Loki didn’t account for in his tests was how his defense magic would react to going up against ANOTHER budding vessel of the Underworld. And when Thanatos - who HAD figured this out - attacked him, that power rushed back — and Thanatos caught it.

AND TOOK IT.

draining Loki of almost everything within him and ✨also stabbing him✨ Thanatos now fucking controlled all the magic of the Underworld AND THAT INCLUDED THE ELYSIUM BARRIER. He collapsed the barrier that kept him physically out of the palace and went straight there, Epi tearing after him, Loki weakened and dying and collapsed in a heap. He broke into the palace - trapped Epi into a little bubble barrier of magic that he couldn’t get out of - and in a scene of utter chaos proceeded to get to attack Maci, Hess - Icy in the playroom before Meli managed to shield the rest of the kids away - Eury, in front of Epi - Tory, pregnant and hidden away was next once he found him and —

Loki reappeared.

The Underworld’s magic had bound himself to HIM. It was intwined within his bones, his genes. He’d done the work, laid the spells, it was loyal to HIM and not the leech who’d torn it from him.

Thanatos uncontrollable and unstoppable, his full unhinged reign of carnage, in his absolute peak hysterical villainy - it had been so long, so many attempts, he was completely insane unraveled by this point - screaming and GLOATING and grinning and advancing - stopped suddenly in his tracks as Loki staggered in the hallway and reached out to him. Bleeding out, Loki understood very very well now the threat that Thanatos really was and always had been.

The Underworld’s magic felt Loki reach for it with a snarl. And it stretched out to return to the vessel it properly belonged in…… all at once.

Thanatos exploded.

*twirls hair* and so Umm. in short..,,, um. yeah.

they knew each other. :)

#LONG POST #asks #marscats37 #oc talk #WELL IVE ALWAYS WANTED TO TELL THIS STORY AT LENFRH SO HERE WE GOOOOO #violence tw /#abuse tw /#ask to tag //#eloki #Elysium essays

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mymelodyisme · 6 months ago

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18, 27, 32, 34, 38, 44 😍😍

😄HELLO LIBBY MY LOVE!! Asdfghjkl I started this last night and then didn’t finish it but here we are back at it again 👏🏽

18: A quote I live by

For once I can easily answer this!! Something I’ve always said and you can probably find on this blog is

“I am nothing if I’m not kind.”

🤔 “nothing if not” means to a strong degree or very but like that’s not the way I see the sentence. 🤣 nothing if I’m not. All this to say I will be kind otherwise I become a version of myself I don’t want.

Hooraaaay for me twisting language in my grubby little fingers🙌🏽

27: My favorite book I read for school

Of Mice and Men! And Little Women. 😭 I was so in love with Laurie. Funnily enough I HAVEN’T seen the newest movie yet. I’ve seen clips but my head says I’m not ready. Soooooob

32: A little known fact

Oh no 🤔 okay I share so much I don’t even know what I haven’t shared. Uh I do happen to have a list of fun facts or something let me go take a look—

WELL

I share this one often but I’m a miracle baby🙌🏽 Though the doctors couldn’t get me to breathe when I was born and ushered me off before my mom could even see me. 🙌🏽 🙌🏽

Yeah so my parents were told they couldn’t have kids and then oopsies helloo it’s ME 💅🏽 and then they went and had three more girls 🤣

34: I time I succeeded

Ooh!! Okay so I was in honor choir t-three times? Two maybe? The first time I was in Junior high we had to audition to get chosen. Then we took a bus back to the school or theatre they had us practice in and we performed at a big named theater in our area 😄 the second was basically the same thing but without the audition. And I THINK I had a third one in there somewhere but I can’t remember.

I don’t have very many successes in life but I am in my city’s time capsule so 😎

38: My favorite band.

This one used to be easy to answer COUGH PALAYE ROYALE COUGH. 😒 actually it still kinda is. I really love MCR and Set it Off. Epecially SIO. I LOVE Cody Carson’s voice. And also his name it’s so fun to say. 😭 my favorite song from them rn would probably be Punching Bag. THEY COLLABED EITH MIKU. I love them s m they make up a good portion of my car karaoke music. I need more songs though I only listen to a handful cause I don’t actually go and seek out my favorite artists new stuff unless I happen across it 😔 to all my SIO fans give me your faves please

44: My favorite TV Show

Last but not easiest! I can’t say I have one 😭 I like a lot of shows but I don’t have any one favorite I could turn on and just unwind. I know a lot of people love like the office, use it as background noise, and can quote it easily. I don’t have that kind of love or relationship with anything in particular. Back in the past I GUESS it would have been Adventure time or Steven universe but as of now I’ve come to this knife fight empty handed. 🤔 that said I’m SO excited for Umbrella Academy to drop the final season. Oh also I feel like I have to mention that I love Fruits Basket with all my heart 🩷♥️🩷♥️🩷

😭 I swear I say some ridiculous things and no one’s ever been like “hey Melissa you do ____ how did you not notice??” YALL can probably tell me more about me than I can cause you’re forced to watch me day in and out.

Anyways I lov e you thank you for 🥺 being my friend.

♥️ The Ask Game ♥️

#seriously though WHAT IS MY FAVORITE SHOW #you know what I know why I can’t answer that #my mom watches the same show every single day #she rotates which show it is every few months and right now it’s 227 all day unless we take the tv it’s the same episodes over and over #I don’t think I can watch tv that way even if I wanted to 😭#anyways my sister just got out of school I gotta drive 😄 i hope the chaos is understandable #mys mail 💌

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deathxproof · 1 year ago

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Get To Know Rory Williams & The Master!

It’s an AU where Rory Williams is actually, gasp, the Master in a fobwatch! Verse and timeline dependent. That’s it. All natural whole ingredients you can pronounce. Sometimes. Established in 2013, Various Verses to choose from. Before jumping in, Here Are My Rules! Please check them out! Now! Come meet Rory Williams. Come meet the Master. Come meet Rory!Master.

Name: Rory Williams

AKA: [REDACTED] Williams, Rory Pond

Age: ~26-33

Gender: Trans Man

Sexuality: Bisexual

Species: Human

Occupation: Nurse. Time Lord babysitter.

Faceclaim: Arthur Darvill

Rory’s Playlist!

Record Scratch

Name: The Master

AKA: Koschei Oakdown, Koschei, and an entirely too-long list of stupid aliases.

Age: ??? ??? 2500 ?? 3000? 3500??? He isn’t really sure anymore after Rory’s Auton Stint

Gender: Masculine-Adjacent (** If it ever comes up, I write Rory & Rory!Master as, what can best be described for an alien Time Lord as afab trans masc. If that bothers you or somehow rubs you incorrectly, I can’t believe I have to point it out, but you’re on the wrong blog.)

Sexuality: A flavor of psychosexual obsessive Space Queer

Species: Time Lord

Occupation: Being A Menace

Faceclaim: Arthur Darvill again!

The Master’s Playlist!: Destroying Planets Out Of Spite

Rory!Master !

Disaster TARDIS: The Master Edition (The Master’s Music Taste?)

Bonus!(older playlists): I Got Stuck In A Fobwatch & All I Got For It Was This Lousy Found Family && Help! My Husband Is A Time Lord With A Really Weird Thing For My Best Friend!! :(( && I Am So Old And So Tired Of My Ex’s Shenanigans

Background—

Rory Williams—

Current Residence: Leadworth, otherwise the TARDIS Parents(Living): Brian Williams Parents(Deceased): Mallory Williams

Significant Others: Amy Pond

Children: Melody Pond/River Song

Other Significant Friends: The Doctor (friend, pain, technical son-in-law)

Rory Williams’ timeline falls(or ends?) sometime between early Season 7 to post-Angels Take Manhattan when the fobwatch opens- just sort of depends on the timing. As usual I’m pretty fine with adapting if it comes into play— but even then, that mostly just falls for Elevens, Amys, Rivers, and those applicable to those seasons I guess yknow ¯_(ツ)_/¯.

Verses—

Super flexible with verses and situations to throw Rory & The Master in! His(and thereby the Master’s) five main-ish verses are—

Default- exactly what you imagine. Fobwatched!Rory comes up the same way in the show— he dates and marries Amy, they travel with the Doctor.

Rory A Little To The Left- a catch-all verse for… A lot of other stuff. Do you want your character to generally be in Amy’s place? Does Rory have a friend who he confides in about his time traveling and the weird watch dreams he has because of it? Rory as the Master’s companion, somehow? Anything else A Little or A Lot To The Left?

The Boy Who Waited- Pretty much what it says on the tin. Rory’s exactly in Amy’s place. A fun barely-used exploration in throwing the Doctor into Rory Williams’ backyard instead of Amy and the results of that.

The Girl Who Didn’t Have To Wait- Oops! Oopsie! Rory opens the watch incredibly early! Amy Pond(or your character) gets offered to be the Master’s companion.

Rory’s Back- Oops! Something else went wrong! The Master’s the Master again, but Rory Williams… Comes through sometimes? They share a body? Rory is essentially condemned to a personal hell?

Want to work out something else? Have something else in mind? Let me know dude!

The Master—

Current Timeline: Post-Missy, Pre-Dhawan, Post-Season-6A

Current Residence: TARDIS

TARDIS Appearance: Busted up Vending Machine, otherwise a pretty gritty and grimy Payphone Booth.

Parents:

Significant Others:

Children: Susan Foreman (Granddaughter?)(Weird daughter?)(Step-something?) River Song???

Other Significant People: The Doctor (arch enemy, messy ex, millennia-long-object-of-obsession)

The Master… Well. Missy— the Master- never intended to be anything more than a simple human for a handful of decades. It almost felt like vacation, but instead it came across more as insurance that they wouldn’t… Run into… Any versions of themselves. Or more importantly: the Doctor.

Alright, failed step one.Just went a bit backwards.

It all happened rather fast in hindsight. A last-minute decision to go under the chameleon arch, just before Missy was regenerating. The change was supposed to happen post-regeneration, in a new body, a new Master. It happened, instead, mid-regeneration. It produced a child. No name, no backstory, no plan.

The night Amelia Pond settles into a house with a crack in the bedroom wall in Leadworth, a TARDIS crashes in Brian and Mallory Williams’ backyard a few streets over. A little girl comes wandering into their kitchen from the backyard. And suddenly both of them remember that they were supposed to be renovating their daughter’s bedroom (that strangely looks like a home office at the time), and put Mallory(it means unlucky, ha.) Rory Williams to sleep on the couch.

The Master, meanwhile, sits inside of an old and tarnished up wrist watch. What was supposed to be a 90-odd-year excursion maximum accidentally turned into a 1000+ year technicality due to the Doctor, of all people.

Default is that he releases from the watch sometime before Angels Take Manhattan. The longer they stay in the TARDIS, the worse Rory gets, the more things start to stick out in the end…

Darvill!Master weasels his way out eventually, usually after Rory’s attention is turned to the wrist watch that’s conveniently come with him throughout weddings and moves and the Pandorica and all of his deaths and the TARDIS and—

When he comes out(ha.) there’s a lot of mixed feelings. Nothing has been processed fully from Missy, he’s suffering from a strange millennia-old regeneration hangover that hung on in the watch, the Master was human for entirely too long. Rory was around for entirely too long and managed to get his life wrapped up in one of the two people in the universe he was hiding out from.

What could possibly go wrong with that?

#character; rory williams #about; rory williams #character; the master #character; the master(rory!master)#about; the master(rory!master)#verse; rory a little to the left #verse; the girl who didn’t have to wait #verse; the boy who waited #verse; rory’s back #muse page

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spiderlilac · 1 year ago

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thank u for tagging me @offdutym0del !!! good to know you’re a fellow spanish speaker 🥰

How many works do you have on AO3?

nine ! hoping to post another halloween one today though lol

What's your total AO3 word count?

98,890

What fandoms do you write for?

only hotd at the moment

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

born from delicate violence

ornery, scandalous & evil

the tides talk to me

life is a willow

take you to promised lands

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

i do and i always will, even if it takes me a year to answer lmao. i highly appreciate anyone who takes the time off their day to comment on my silly stuff, and there’s just something deeply adorable in them saying what their favorite part was, what part made them feel this way, that way, etc. i wish i could kiss everyone who comments because they deserve it !

What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

i think it’s the third entry of the tides series, ornery, scandalous & evil. ngl pretty much all i had in mind was that i wanted it to be angsty and cram together as much characters as possible. i think it worked lmao. it also helped to set background on said characters too — like helaena and her kids, daeron and daemon. and the arrival of the very expected lucemond baby which was kinda ruined by luke. oopsie

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

weirdly enough, i think the grace of a rotting corpse is the happiest one. of course circumstances aren’t looking good, but both luke and aemond are tucked away in their happy little moments (which are kind of gross), and as long as alicent doesn’t know, they’ll be fine.

Do you get hate on fics?

lol the first time i posted omega aemond i got flooded with weird comments that suggested i was somehow disrespecting omega luke (??? 💀) but after that, everything was fiiiiiine.

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

i do, the freaky kind— mostly because i like building up ‘intense’ scenes that end up in smut one way or another lol. the smut itself is just smut, but i enjoy the gymnastics around it.

Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

nope. if i ever did i don’t remember. i haven’t found two ‘fandoms’ or universes i’d like to mix personally

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

nope!

Have you ever had a fic translated?

yeah! someone once requested to translate one of my oneshots into portuguese for another fandom and i said yes. i felt so honored

Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

no and honestly, i feel like that’s just not for me. i’ve got a very disorganized writing ‘process’ that is organized FOR ME so if i tried cowriting with someone who does it differently it would not work lol.

What's your all-time favourite ship

i feel like this changes every few months tbh. lucemond is my current fave, although there are other asoiaf ships i read about too like rheanicent

What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

oof. born from delicate violence maybe? listen, that fic was my baby. i loved it and i loved writing it last year, but as weeks went by i got into some bad thoughts and realized that this fic was written at an specific time of my life that i didn’t necessarily want to remember, and between the things to remember, was the inspiration for this fic. i still like it and i do think i still have the original doc for the finale, so perhaps i’ll post it one day, but i feel like posting an ending that’s not even properly edited just for closure will not make me feel right. i also don’t want to post anything that i consider lackluster, since i know a lot of people followed the story last year.

besides that, i had this lucemond thingy in the docs that was very angsty, during the dance era and all. i wrote an entire summary and started the first chapter. i finished and then i just didn’t like the idea anymore, so i left it there.

What are your writing strengths?

not sure about this one. i’d like to think dialogue, or maybe to set a scene. i’m very passionate about setting scenes lmao

What are your writing weaknesses?

definitely typos. also, i finish writing something, i read it a couple of times more to ‘edit’ then post it, so i feel like i don’t spend much time actually editing it ?? hopefully that makes sense. i don’t know how to write fluff without making myself cringe either, so it’s a constant battle

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

in fics that are not mine? i love it. for example, in hotd fics we see a lot of high valyrian stuff and i love when other authors use it as a creative resource. if translations are not available on the fic itself, sometimes i look up the word, sometimes just go with the context of the fic instead. the same with other languages; i don’t have a problem with it. now, writing it for my own fic is a whole different story. i don’t have the patience to add high valyrian in my fics, i prefer to dodge it or just refer to it instead lol. besides english i speak spanish, and if i feel a fic needs dialogue in another language, i’d choose spanish right away instead of trying to use a translator and butchering the poor language.

First fandom you wrote for?

omg i have no idea. i’m pretty sure it’s between marvel and some creepypasta fanbase.

Favourite fic you've ever written?

so far, my absolute favorite is mean bad dog. i love aemond’s clinginess and instability. i love luke’s moral dilemmas and how he tries to fix it all in his head. yum

i’m not tagging anyone but if u want to do it go ahead!!!! reading and making this thing were veeery entretaining.

#my fics

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murdickdocked · 3 years ago

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Hi!!! How are u?? I hope your ask still open >< and if it is, can you do a hc or imagine/scenario with Dano!Riddler and a fem innocent reader? Maybe Ed is being protective of her, pleeease? Thank you so much! You’re awesome!!

Y*swoons* he's a total sweetie, I swear!!

here's them hcs, darling, it’s quite alot haha

Guess what? You met in a diner, shocking, right?

Okay, but this time, you're just another patron there, who just so happens to have the same schedule as entering.

He would admire you a few tables away at first, but in the next few days he just gets closer...

and closer...

until you two would just be beside each other.

you don’t notice it at first, but you did when he was a table away.

the next day with him being beside the table you are usually go to, you pat the seat beside you and asked him if he wanted to sit with you.

cue him blushing and stuttering “oh, i-if you don’t mind!”

oh, the first thing he noticed when sitting beside you was how strong your scent was.

wowie, he’s hooked. he’ll be looking into buying the exact same perfume/cologne as you later on.

you both were silent at first, the waitress comes up to the both of you and raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t ask any questions

while waiting for your orders, you turn to him, clasping your hands together and just started talking about your day as if you two had been friends for a long time

he’s mesmerized, he doesn’t realize you’ve asked him how his day was until he only heard silence and he’d see you pouting at him.

“so-sorry, lost my train of thought, what— what were you asking?”

“i asked what was your favourite riddle” you’ve seen him carry around a riddle book, you thought it would be for someone else at first, but you saw him read it and mumble to himself, it’s cute.

why were you interested in him??? omg you were interested in him. he’ll never let this go.

he tells you the first riddle that came in mind, he was surprised and elated to hear you answer him easily.

you look at him with a crooked smirk, you were so charming, you’re gonna kill him just with that stare, “what’s your name, stranger?”

oh. oh, uh, he almost forgot that you didn’t actually know him and that he wasn’t supposed to know almost everything about your social media life and background. oopsie.

for the next few days, you’d say you’re fast friends, then turns into a blooming relationship.

every day when you’re supposed to meet at the diner, you go to your and his table, and he’s already there.

you hold his hand and give him a kiss, that’s when you’d start talking together. you were a comfort to him.

he’d walk you home too, every alley you walk by, every person that brushes into you rudely makes him grip your hand protectively, he’d pull you closer to him. you feel safe.

eventually he starts to slip, he’d accidentally say something you’re not supposed to know, and you’d laugh it off and think he’s joking.

eventually, it turns into a game for him.

he’d say something unhinged, disturbing, or just something creepy, and you’d laugh it off, think he’s being silly, give him a kiss on the cheek.

one day, you were watching a horror movie in your apartment and he actually fitted himself inside your walls. You were texting him, you told him you were watching “The Boy”.

he felt giddy, excited. what would you do if you caught him, when you’d eventually start being curious or suspicious?

he texts you “I am inside your walls”

you start giggling.

he almost starts laughing himself, but stuck to sighing quietly and reveling in your laughter.

you text back “uhuh, wish u were here tho xoxo”

“what if i already was”

“could you give me a can of soda from the kitchen pls? lol jk”

mf actually went out to get soda and put it behind you, where you wouldn’t see him.

then he went back to where he was, watching you watch the movie.

you never questioned it, to you, edward was just a sweetheart, a true gentleman. he’d never do anything bad to you, right?

#Edward Nashton x Reader #The Riddler #The Riddler x Reader #The Batman #the batman movie #Paul Dano x Reader #Edward Nygma x Reader #x reader #the batman 2022 #eddie nashton x reader #eddie nashton #Edward Nashton #hc #asks #paul dano riddler #paul dano #dano!riddler

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bakujho · 2 years ago

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Another rant about another eel

It’s been a while since my last eels rant, but here I am again to rant about good ol’ Jade Leech and how the fandom seems to uhhh… gloss over the canon information we’re given and give him whatever personality they feel like. As always, if you don’t care about canon lore, or the blatant information we’ve been given and prefer house husband uwu soft Jade, carry on and do what you will. I’ll put the rest of this under a cut because it’s likely to get long because I am salty and so so so so so sick of takes that completely ignore his canon characteristics to replace it with uwu baby he’s so soooofft instead. At this point I am BEGGING the EN twst fandom to read more than bad youtube translations of the main story only, and read the card stories and events since the characters get their own spotlight and time to actually dig into their personalities because the uwuification of Jade is the *worst*

*ahem*

So, one of the VERY FIRST THINGS we learn about Jade, is that he enjoys playing with people, and using them to best suit whatever plans he’s aiming to achieve. For example, the conversation in Jade’s robes story spells out REALLY QUICKLY what kind of person he is

Jade: Frightening students so quickly after they entered school…..

Jade: Don’t you think there’ll be plenty of chances to do that later?

Floyd: Eeh~. If you want to tell people something, isn’t it best to say it straight away? That’s way faster!

Jade: Of course, that’s one way to do it….. But it’s not preferable.

Jade: The thing I desire the most is not fear, but chess pieces that can be moved for the sake of Octavinelle

Jade: And in order to get that, one of the most important things is “public confidence”. And to obtain that, first impressions are crucial

Jade: In addition to the country of origin, hobbies, preferences, the food they dislike and subjects they are bad at…

Jade: I also listed all their MagiCam accounts. I just happened to come to know about those too.

Azul: Oh….. And the ID’s listed under “private”?

Azul: Incredible, could it be that you managed to obtain everyone’s private accounts despite their attempts to hide them?

Jade: Ah, oopsie. It was so incredibly easy to find, I may have accidentally gone and written all of those down too.

Azul: Oh, how terrible. If this list were leaked, everybody would be oh so troubled.

Jade: In that case, you should make sure to properly manage the list so that it does not get leaked.

This isn’t some misunderstanding, or fear of Azul to act, or some other misplaced garbage softboy bullshit the fandom sometimes spouts, he knows exactly what he’s doing, and it’s something that he ENJOYS. It's why he and Floyd work so well together cause Jade will happily fuck with their head before Floyd breaks their bones (standby for the ‘stop uwufying Floyd’ rant cause you know I have one of those too). And Azul knows and takes advantage of that exact fact. None of them are soft uwu babies, they all know what they’re doing, and are exceptionally good at it.

I’m not sure if this is at large just a “we didn’t read that card or the translation was bad (like the Floyd fish nicknames for affection when it just says nicknames) or read at surface level or inability to understand what’s NOT being said” etc, but I see it a lot. A lot of things about Jade aren’t said outright, because that’s EXACTLY the game he plays to fly under the radar. He’s Monsieur Mastermind for a reason, Rook knows that every single one of his actions and mannerisms is thought out and pre-planned so I don’t understand why some folks out here are refusing to see it, especially when even in universe the characters regularly comment on this exact thing. There’s MULTIPLE instances of Jade using people and being facetious to keep up the facade of Azul’s lackey without much else going for him at all. His magic is understated, he fades into the background and lets Azul/Floyd be the standout Octa students, but he always seems to know *exactly* what is going on and where, and how to manipulate the situation to suit what it is he’s after.

In his own dorm card he pretends to leave Octavinelle in order to manipulate Vil into doing some free promo work for the lounge, and no one is sure of his intentions the entire time he’s there. Rook and Vil know that he’s using them but can’t quite put their finger on what he’s up to, BUT because he’s so good at his job they let their inhibitions go and let him get on with whatever he’s up to. Jade knows how to act and what to do to get people to trust him, and part of his charm is that he keeps to himself so that there isn’t any negative correlations with him like there are Floyd. It seems everyone is afraid of Floyd’s mood swings, but no one suspects Jade of having any ulterior motive because he’s always so well behaved and kind to people. Even when Kalim is making him tea and he’s thinking to himself that his teeth are going to rot out of his mouth, he keeps up the kind demeanor and drinks the tea, because Kalim could always be a powerful pawn (which he then becomes in ep 4). During beans day 2 Azul mentions that between the twins, Jade is the more dangerous of the two, and who better than the one that knows them best to make the observation. I think it’s pretty obvious that Jade’s favourite type of game is playing chess with those he’s around (he even mentions he likes terrariums because he controls everything inside of them), but I think the focus on mushrooms and mountains sometimes detracts from that. Even sociopaths have hobbies, friends!

And that I think is where it gets confusing for some people, there’s the sociopathic tendencies, but he has friends and likes mushrooms and mountain climbing and smiles genuinely sometimes, so he can’t be all that bad! Except, having things you enjoy isn’t reserved for good people. Plus, look at the people he’s closest to. Floyd is what I would personally call a psychopath (I know there’s a lot of takes on this, but that’s an essay for another day), and Azul is a few screws loose of being normal himself. They’re all brilliant, but that doesn’t mean they’re good people. Some of the examples I’ve seen for how Jade is ‘misunderstood’ as ‘evil’ are easily debunked by canon, because he almost always says something facetious and creepy afterwards to undermine the ‘sweetness’ of it. Not to mention that good and bad isn’t black and white. You can do good things while still being a bad person and vice versa, and doing good things while being a bad person is Jade’s bread and butter. Twisted wonderland in general is very much about morally grey characters where none are implicitly good or evil, and I think we’ve yet to see anyone *actually* evil, BUT the Octavinelle trio are the closest to classic disney villain bad guy we’ve gotten to see so far.

To go off topic here a bit, I do wonder if the uwu-fication of the Octavinelle trio as a whole is due to the whole weird purity push that makes it so you can’t enjoy morally grey characters unless you can find the redeeming and good qualities in them. Hmmm. I understand wanting to find the good in people and so on and so forth, but the whole redemption of the villain to be able to like them without getting cancelled or whatever it is is really stupid. Let the shitty characters be shitty, because that’s what makes them interesting. It’s like with Crowley, he’s not a good role model but that doesn’t mean he’s a bad character because he’s a teacher and should be a good role model (or whatever mental gymnastics are there). The point of having a colourful cast is that not everyone is static or good and the characters grow, though sometimes that growth isn’t in a positive way, and that’s okay because it’s fiction.

Okay back on topic, and back to Jade.

So if we’re operating on the assumption that not every character needs to be a good person to be a good character, Jade is an EXCELLENT example. He is very multifaceted and if you look at him just on the surface he seems like a really decent dude. He IS very helpful, and he CAN be very kind, and he DOES enjoy wholesome things wholeheartedly, BUT i think boiling it down to those points and ignoring the sea of red flags is the entire point of his character. He wants to fly under the radar and not stand out as a bad-guy. That’s how he gets things done. Even in canon it’s commented on by Trey and Riddle, with Trey being taken in by the good guy act and Riddle mentioning he needs to look beyond the surface because Jade never does anything without reason. I think one of the best examples of how Jade thinks is in Silvers FG card. He immediately changes his tactic when dealing with Silver when the latter balks at Jade mentioning “forcing” the fairies to do anything for them. He immediately sees the change in atmosphere and as such changes the way he interacts with him and takes control of the situation with the fairy to get the results he desires. Silver, being the goodest of boys, doesn’t seem to see the point of Jades plan and words to manipulate both of them into doing the work he needs done. Afterwards, Jade seems amused by Silver’s words that he ‘spoke from the heart’ as if it’s something he himself had never tried.

Jade: I didn't expect you to flatter them to receive it. You are quite the negotiator, aren't you?

Silver: Negotiator…? I only spoke from the heart.

Silver: If you speak with sincerity, it does not matter if they are human or fae, they will understand.

Jade: From the heart… I see. Well now, that is a wonderful vision.

“Sounds fake but okay” - Jade Leech, probably. This point in the story could be where we see more character development in that Jade learns that maybe shady and underhanded isn’t the best way to go about things, BUUUUUUUT, since the event is an “IF” version of a side event, I wouldn’t count on it happening anytime soon (if at all). Jade is definitely one of the most nuanced characters in TWST (imo) so I think it is easy to miss all of the hints and things that have been scattered between the main story, character stories, voice lines, and events, but once you put everything together I think it it paints a very clear picture what kind of person he is, and unfortunately it’s not the uwu soft boy house husband pushover that most of the EN fandom stuff I see seems to take him for. Again, if that’s your personal preference you do you, but I find it very hard to ignore the information that is SUCH a big part of his character. (Speaking of, I did see a complaint that most of the fandom is with me on the ‘Jade is a sociopath’ front, so like… can someone tell me where to find it cause I always find the opposite) To throw it all out the window to focus on the much smaller parts of his personality I think are doing him and his character a huge disservice by just … missing the point. Jade is a good character BECAUSE he’s a bad person, and because he doesn’t seem to want to be a good person at all. He (and Floyd) enjoy causing problems, and watching chaos unfold, and ignoring it for the less often seen softer points is lame.

Moving onto how he cares for people. Of course he’s able to genuinely interact and appreciate those that he cares about. His relationship with Floyd and Azul of course is different in nature than it is with anyone else at the school. He’s known Floyd since birth and been friends with Azul since middle school, that being said… that doesn’t mean that there’s no tension there at all. During beans day, Jade mentions he’s glad to be on the opposite side as Azul so that he can challenge him, and can’t wait to see the look on Azul’s face when he loses (rip tho lol). He does provoke Floyd occasionally as well when he’s in a shitty mood, so it’s not as if he’s all sunshine and rainbows with them either. He does after all, fully agree with Azul to wringing the eel slime out of Floyd despite knowing that it’ll be really painful for him, laugh at him when he gets blasted by Riddle at their entrance ceremony and tease Azul after his overblot. In regards to the overblot, of course he’s worried afterwards. Azul is his friend, whereas the same can’t be said for most other people in the cast. Azul is more than a pawn, and though he would likely not hesitate to use Azul if necessary, Azul knows him well enough to help with his schemes openly knowing about any shady reasoning behind it so there would be no reason to. I think as far as friendship goes for him, the only ones he truly opens up to are people like himself (like Azul and Floyd) not because he’s worried that he’d frighten them, but because he wants people that will help him and enjoy the same things as him. His hobbies are his own personal interests so Azul and Floyd not sharing them with him is fine, but when he has the more malicious intentions, as is shown SO many times, he wants to have friends that will increase the chaos rather than trying to diffuse it. Even in his official profile it says that he dislikes being bored.

One of the other arguments that I had seen about Jade was that he was “canonically shy” and doesn’t like showing his teeth because he’s embarrassed. I think it’s important in these situations to consider the context in which the information is presented. Jade has already said in several places that he doesn’t like when people watch him, and that he doesn’t like when people watch him eat (because he’s got such a big appetite) so taking a conversation such as this:

Ruggie: So in this school, doesn’t that mean Jade-kun and Floyd-kun would have a big advantage?

Ruggie: Cause they’ve got big bodies. And their teeth are sharp.

Jade: Fufufu, I wonder. I would be embarrassed to open my mouth so wide while everyone watches…

Jade: Contrary to everyone’s expectations, I may dawdle too long and be unable to grab an apple.

As facts he’s embarrassed needs to be looked into deeper. There absolutely could be a hint of embarrassment for someone that’s put on such a refined persona to open his mouth that widely since the row (or rows if you’re a pharyngeal jaw believer) of serrated teeth is a frightening view that could completely ruin the image he’s worked so hard to maintain. He does mention in his voice lines that he doesn’t like when people look at him too closely, and I think instead of that being shy/embarrassed or whatever else, it’s more that he prefers watching to being watched. This I think becomes especially clear in his PE story where he feels Rook watching him and seems to be uncomfortable about how much Rook may have learned from watching, though remarks that he probably had gotten nothing from it at all. He spends the rest of the card fufufu-ing with Rook because they’re the same sort of people. They both have their secrets, and they’re both hunters, though of a different type. (Also, Rook is great, Rook haters u suck). The idea that Jade is insecure etc about himself at this far in the game is absolutely absurd. He knows his strengths and weaknesses (are there really any?) and knows exactly how to progress and overcome any obstacle. In fact, when he confronts the Heartslabuyl team/yuu/grim in episode 2 with Floyd, he demands to know why they were spying and challenges them to a fight (then of course proceeds to chase them down with Floyd afterwards) These aren’t the movements of someone that isn’t sure of themselves, and is quite the opposite.

I think I’ve rambled enough here at this point (we’re at over 2500 words weeeew), but I do think a lot of people overlook the shady and instead focus on the very clear parts of Jade that are present but DON’T make up the core of his character, because again, when characters are nuanced they’re not just one trait. Jade isn’t just a mushroom lover. Not just a mountains lover. Not just a poisoning his classmates for fun enjoyer. Not just a blackmailing his fellow students just because kinda guy. Not the knocking his classmate off his feet with a pie throw guy. Not just a making his close friends dance for his amusement while under his control guy. Not just a shady mf that has LITERALLY SAID he would tie someone up and drag them to the bottom of the ocean never to be found again if they double crossed him. He’s all of those, and I think putting more weight on the “positive” and “good” traits is doing him a great disservice since those are just the cherries on top of his entire fucked up personality, because lets be real, the shady GREATLY outweighs the cute or soft things he does. And if anyone has read this far and for some reason still thinks he’s soft uwu boy (unironically), I’ll leave you with one of my favourite Jade quotes proving that he’s much shittier than he is soft, which is exactly what makes him such a good character. I could probably talk more about this, but this I guess covers the majority of what I’m salty about.

Indeed. If I were ever to be betrayed like that…I would drive them into a corner, destroy them emotionally, and then tie them up and drown them deep into the sea…Seeing you blame yourself and acting like such a martyr is, pardon my words, truly disgusting- main story ep 4

But no, tell me more about how he’s soft and sweet and misunderstood.

(Translations taken from a combo of the inactive @/twstarchives @/mysteryshoptls and kanadesmusingsblog)

#jade leech #jade meta #twisted wonderland #twst #disney twisted wonderland #octavinelle #azul ashengrotto #floyd leech #twst jade #twst azul #twisted wonderland meta #twst meta #character study #jade is a sadist and y'all can pull it from my cold dead hands

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