#I had no idea why anybody would exercise before exercise

[mydnyteraven]

I had no idea warmups were so important to any task

Dude, the moment i realized that i need to warm up before writing was mind blowing. I would get so pissed when sentences just wouldn't come to me the moment i start writing. Then i noticed a few paragraphs in and it's going a lot easier. Ideas and thoughts are connecting, i'm less distracted and it's slowly coming together. I guess i need some time for the ideas to fully form and see where i want the thing to go, and get the hang of how i want to write something. Yes, the first few paragraphs are hell, but after a bit i get reminded why i actually love writing

[prettyflyforawhitelie]

Hazbin Hotel x Sick!Reader

A/N: Hey guys! I wanted to do some more x reader headcanons just because they’re so fun! I love the idea of the characters caring for you when you’re sick, it’s just so cute. I hope you enjoy it!

Pairing: Hazbin Hotel x Reader

Warnings: None (if you don't count tooth-rotting fluff) 

Characters: Alastor, Charlie, Vaggie, Angel Dust, Husk, Sir Pentious, Lucifer

🦌📻Alastor📻🦌:

Essentially hides you away in his room: wants more than anything to take care of you, but refuses to expose this “softer” side of him to anyone else. If anybody knew that you were the Radio Demon’s only weakness, not only would that put him in danger, but you as well.

Will prepare any food that your heart desires - his mother brought him up to be an excellent cook! His recommended feel-good food is his mother’s jambalaya, but you absolutely love when he makes etouffee!

If anybody dares to try and disturb your well-needed sleep, he broadcasts their screams to remind them just why the hotel has a radio tower… 

Will suggest that you take advantage of the bayou-side of his room for the fresh air, but of course will not force you to do anything against your complete comfort.

The best thing that he knows to do is what his mother did to him whenever he was sick: Sit in bed with him and tell him Creole folk tales. They always enamored him, and just the fact that he was allowing you to see this personal side of him made you feel better. 

At the end of the day, Alastor would take advantage of the beautiful setting that the dark bayou side of his room provided and conjure up a lovely scene of fireflies, all while softly playing his piano and singing his favorite songs to guide you to sleep (You are the only person he will let hear his singing). While Alastor may seem heartless from afar, you wouldn’t trade this demon for all of the money in the world.

🗝️😈Charlie😈🗝️:

Would definitely notice that you were sick before you did and insisted that you get plenty of bedrest. When you refused, insisting that you were ok, she would monitor you until you finally accepted that you were sick and let her take care of you. She would say, “I’m not saying I told you so, buuuuuut…”

Takes care of you to the point where some tasks of the hotel were neglected, but to be honest, it was a win-win for everyone in the hotel. She was happy that you were being taken care of, and everyone else was happy that they didn’t have to participate in trust exercises. 

She would crack open her book of the story of Hell - it always calms her down during an extermination, so hopefully it could calm you down as you try to sleep. 

If she absolutely had to leave the hotel to do/get something, she would most definitely buy a little keepsake and bring it back for you.

She would use her love for singing to lull you to sleep, singing sweet lullabies that her mother used to sing to her as a child.

You have to constantly remind her to take care of herself as well, as she will literally remain at your bedside, not caring to eat or sleep, until you get better. She often gets so caught up in caring for others that she forgets to care for herself! You tell her that it would genuinely make you feel better to see her taking care of herself as well.

🪽⚔️Vaggie⚔️🪽:

Gets more defensive over you than usual, which honestly scares everyone. Nobody wants to so much as speak to you wrong in fear of Vaggie literally attacking them. Having Vaggie around is the definition of scary dog privileges. 

She’s honestly extremely dramatic when it comes to you getting sick, which may seem ridiculous, but think about it: she was thrown away by her “family” in heaven, and now you’re the only person that she truly has. You confide in her, you allow her to let her guard down. If she lost you, she doesn’t know how she could even exist. So whether you have a cold or something more serious, she will automatically jump to the worst conclusions and get worried as Hell.

As tough as she seems, Vaggie loves to cuddle. She will literally lay in bed with you all day, not caring if she gets sick as well. You’re the only person that she can be vulnerable with, and if you have to be in bed all day, you better bet she’ll be right there next to you. 

Her love language is absolutely telling you about all the things that she would do to defend you. She will go into immense detail about the things that she would do for you, and you will always listen in awe. She has been through so much, and this is the only way that she knows how to express her true love for you. 

The last thing she wants is for somebody to feel abandoned in their struggle like she did when she fell from Heaven, especially you. She will make sure that you know how much you are valued and loved, not just by her, but by everyone at the hotel.

When you’re finally ready to get out of bed and start participating in hotel duties again, she monitors you the whole time to make sure that you’re not over-exerting yourself.

🕷️💖Angel Dust💖🕷️:

Is very upset and on edge - Valentino forces him to work everyday, no matter the circumstances, and not being at the hotel to care for you or at least watch over you makes him feel horrible. 

Basically forces you to sleep as much as you can, even better if it’s in his room so he can see that you’re okay immediately when he gets home.

Encourages you to cuddle with Fat Nuggets - he’s essentially a cute and cuddly heating pad. (He actually gives Fat Nuggets this adorable pep talk about how he needs to take good care of you while “dad” is at work)

He wholeheartedly believes in the power of comedy, so he essentially treats your bedrest as a stand-up comedy show for him to perform in order to make you laugh. He’ll tell stupid jokes, put together horrible dances, or even just hide in places and scare you in hopes that making you laugh will help you forget how bad you feel. 

Loves talking to you after work. You’re essentially the only person that he takes off his hypersexual mask around, and he knows that he can be himself around you, that you would never judge him. So, sometimes he will get home to find you already asleep and get in bed with you, holding you tight, whispering all of the things that he wanted to tell you about today, hoping that at least some of his words wiggle their way into your dreams. 

Loves sappy rom com movies and will 100% force you to watch them with him. He claims it’s because the “good vibes” of the romance will make you feel better, but to be honest, he just wants someone to watch his dumb movies with.

♦️🥃Husk🥃♥️:

Will blame himself for your sickness, claiming that he shouldn’t have let you drink so much over the past couple of days (He literally cannot comprehend the idea that people can be sick NOT from being hungover lol).

When you insist that it’s not his fault, he’ll ease up. He’ll use some of his bartending skills to make some sort of juice mocktail for you and will definitely sneak in some vitamin C to heal you faster.

Everyone - specifically Angel - will wonder why the fuck the bar hasn’t been stocked in days (It’s because Husk has been chilling in bed/taking care of you nonstop).

This is the only time that he will completely surrender to the idea of being one big stuffed animal to cuddle with. I mean, he’s warm, soft, and he purrs! What’s more therapeutic than that?

This is also a great time to get uninterrupted talking time with Husk. He’s a great listener, so you’ve always opened up to him, but it took him a while to open up to you too. He had told you that you were one of the only people that he trusted enough to confide in, but always seemed to air on the side of caution when sharing his personal struggles because it always seemed that someone would just pop up at the bar asking for a drink whenever it happened. This was one of the few times that the two of you could be completely open and vulnerable with each other without the risk of outside judgment. 

Given the fact that he was such a gambler, Husk has a knack for all sorts of card games. If you get too bored, just give him a deck of cards and the possibilities for entertainment are endless. Want him to teach you how to play poker or rummy? Done. Want him to embarrass himself while he tries to relearn some card tricks that he used to flaunt? Done and done.

🐍⚙️Sir Pentious⚙️🐍:

The second you told him you were sick, he would waste no time in finding one of his many inventions that could help you in some way. He definitely has some complex medical screening device hidden somewhere that he could use… he just has to remember where he put it. 

If you complain about being sore, he will insist that you snuggle up next to him. Because he’s a cold-blooded reptile, his body is one big ice pack! On the other end, if you feel yourself coming down with some feverish chills, he has you covered! His bedroom ceiling is essentially one huge heat lamp, so feel free to chill under there, too!

Has assigned himself as your personal nurse and will provide anything that your heart desires. If it for some reason cannot be found within the hotel, he will travel to any ring of Hell necessary to make sure that you are well taken care of. This man is DETERMINED.

You can tell that he’s taking this seriously because he actually neglects his “evil duties” for a couple of days. The airship isn’t even mentioned until you heal (unless, of course, you feel that taking a ride on the airship would make you feel better. Then, of course he will set it up for you!).

Despite literally voicing his complete and utter devotion to your every flight of fancy, this man is still as awkward as ever. He will still struggle to ask you if you want to cuddle, quite literally fluttering around the subject until you bring it up for him. 

At the end of the day, though, Sir Pentious is probably the sweetest sinner you could’ve ended up with as your caretaker. He may be awkward, but boy, does he love you!

👹👼Lucifer👼👹:

While you are resting in bed, he will conjure up the most delightful images of anything you request (his favorite, though, is a group of ducklings waddling through a golden lake together 🫶)

Being the King of Hell, he has so many interesting stories to tell you if you’re willing to listen. He will gladly tell you stories as you lay in bed with him, slowly lulling you to sleep. (His daughter clearly got her love of storytelling from him).

He loves that you trust him enough to let him take care of you - he doesn’t often have people around, let alone people that he truly loves. Just your presence in his room truly fills him with so much joy.

He didn’t want to annoy you with his ramblings about his many rubber ducks so he was ecstatic when you asked him to give you a tour of all of them. This man was telling you each and every duck’s name, backstory, etc. and honestly, it was adorable. When he quickly glazed over one of the ducks anxiously, you asked why. He then shyly revealed that it was, in fact, a rubber duck that looked just like you. 

His love language is definitely gift-giving. This rubber duck would lead to him showing the many, MANY gifts he has created for you in his free time. He always has a ton of downtime, so making gifts for people is his favorite hobby. These gifts include, but aren’t limited to: various duck items, binded storybooks, music boxes, paintings, etc. This man is TALENTED, to say the least. He just hopes that looking at these will distract you enough from being sick. 

Also, his room is by far the comfiest to sleep in while you’re sick… the mood lighting that is naturally provided from his glowing light shows is simply unmatched.

[whore-ibly-hot]

Yan!Bully x Reader x Yan!Freak Pt 2

"Boys Night Plus One."

18+ Minors DNI

Warnings: Bullying, name calling, degradation, violence, non-consensual photos, nonconsensual touching, male pronouns for the yans, mentions of school, general perversion, toxic behaviors, creep behavior, cum, masturbation, male and female genitalia.

Part 1 here

(AN: This one is for you, anon who sent me a bullet-point list of some ideas for Ahmed and Patrick which were better than anything I could have come up with. I love you.)

You groan, struggling to yank off the cotton top you had taken to wearing for PE class. You had been sick for a week or so, and in order to stay up on your grades you had been doing classwork after school. Today, you are making up some time for gym class using the school's exercise facilities. Once you finally get it off, you unlock your locker and put your gym clothes inside, reapplying your deodorant and putting on your school shirt. Just as you shut your locker, you hear the door of the girl's locker room flap shut, and you perk up at the sound. That's odd, after a few days of working out after school, you've never run into anyone else using the facilities.

"Hello?" You call out, peering around the row of lockers. Suddenly, a fist slams into the locker behind you, making you shriek. You whip around, to see Patrick, the schools most notorious bully laughing his ass off at how spooked you got. "Patrick!" You yell, smacking him lightly. "Ooh, feelin' fiery, huh?" He takes a breath, calming himself after laughing so hard. "What's got you so pissed off?" You roll your eyes.

"You scared me, and you're in the girls locker room!" He fakes shock, and looks around. "Really, the girls locker room? Huh, wonder how I wound up here..." He muses, playfully leaning up against the lockers. "If it was the boys locker room, why would I be here?" You ask. He shrugs. "I don't know, maybe you were tryna' sneak a peek at some dudes after football practice." He grins, leaning over you a little more. "Or maybe you wanted one of them to sneak a peek at you." You blush, and push him away. "Go away, Patrick, there's no reason for you to be here right now." You try to quickly gather your things, and make your way to the door.

"Woah, woah, hey, where ya' going? I'm just checking on you. You haven't been to class lately, I was getting worried." He uses your moment of surprise to grip your wrist and gently pull you back over. "I was sick, just needed some time away from class. Why does that matter to you?" You ask, confused. He's always enjoyed tormenting you, and you would think you were special if he didn't also torment everyone else. Of course, Patrick knows where you've been, because he's had Ahmed posted outside your bedroom for the duration of your absence, both to get photos and make sure you aren't hanging out with anybody else. He shrugs again. "I missed seeing you in these." He reaches into your gym bag, gripping one of the pairs of gym shorts and pulling them out. "Y'know, I don't think these follow the dress code..." Admittedly, you needed to get some new shorts. These ones were small, but you just hadn't gotten around to buying new ones. "Gym class is already fuckin' boring, especially when I can't see your sweet little ass bent over, trying to do toe-touches or yoga or whatever the fuck we're supposed to in that sweaty shit-hole."

You only blush and grab the shorts from him, stuffing them back into your bag. "Well, I'm sure you managed fine without me. There's plenty of girls to perv on that aren't me." You whimper. Patrick chuckles, and shakes is head. "Yeah, but I don't want any of them." He pauses, then clicks his tongue. "That reminds me though, I did make a friend while you were gone. I had a lot of free time since you weren't around to play with." You glance up at him. "Another member of your gang?" You ask. The last thing this school needs is even more assholes hanging out with Patrick. "Nope. It's someone I knew before you left, but I've made amends with them. Patched things up, self-improved." He brags. He looks down at you smugly. "You should be proud of me, I'm a changed man."

"What do you mean?" You aren't sure what previous acquaintance he's referring to. Due to Patrick's widespread terror, it could be pretty much anyone. "You know that new kid, Ahmed?" Your mouth opens in shock. You had heard things about the new boy, with dark hair and wide eyes. You had noticed him a few times in English class. He was always quiet, only occasionally speaking when he was being picked on by the other kids, quietly protesting the abuse. You had traded poetry a few times for an assignment. He seemed very creative. You weren't really sure why the other kids picked on him so much, but you suspected it was because Ahmed was Patrick's new favorite. You had heard of the things he'd done to Ahmed, robbing him, beating him, stealing his classwork. You didn't do anything, how could you? Patrick hated when people stood up to him, and you didn't want his attention on you anymore than it was.

"You're... friends with him now." Patrick nods. "That's cruel, Patrick. You can't do all that stuff to somebody, then force them to play friends with you. It's not right!" You exclaim, boldly defying him for a moment. He only exhales lightly, and puts his hands up in surrender. "You got it all wrong, baby. We are friends, me and him. We've made amends. I told you, I'm changing. I'm a reformed juvenile." He looks up to see if you're buying it. He pouts when he notices you still seem skeptical. "Alright, I guess I'm not 'reformed', exactly, but me and him really are friends now." You only nod, hoping he will drop it and go away. This reaction makes him scoff. "You still don't believe me? Fine, I'll tell you what. I'm going over to see Ahmed at his house tonight, to hang out. Why don't you come with me?" He offers.

You shake your head no quickly. "I'm not going anywhere with you, Patrick." You exclaim. "Well, if you do go, and see me and him are friends, you'll know I'm not such a bad guy, and you might like my new friend. If you don't go though..." He chuckles lowly. "Me and this guy may not be friends... and by not going, your risking this kid getting beat up in his own home. Do you want that on your conscience?" You bite your lip, but shake your head. "No, you don't. I could handle that, but you couldn't, pretty thing. So come on, grab your shit and head over there with me, alright?" You make no movements, and Patrick groans, grabbing your gym-bag. "Fine, since I told you I'm changing, and I'm a gentleman, I'll carry your stuff." His free hand grabs your wrist. You both walk out of the school doors towards the bus stop. As you stand waiting for the bus, he leans in, his lips almost brushing your ear. "We're taking the city bus, and it's late enough that it's gonna be crowded." You nod, not sure where he's going with this. "Lots of hard working people want a seat, and we should give it to them. Being good members of the community and all that shit." He sighs. "So whether or not there's a free seat for you, I expect that ass on my lap for the whole ride, you feel me?" You blush, and look at him with wide eyes. He chuckles, leaning back from your ear. "Gotta save some room for everyone else. Besides, I'm plenty comfortable."

Ahmed is sitting on his bed, foot bouncing at a pace so rapidly it practically shakes his whole scrawny form. He stares at the clock, counting the seconds until Patrick shows up. He promised, promised he'd have a way of getting you here. After weeks and weeks of photographing you from a distance, Patrick promised he would finally get to be near you, talk with you. Ahmed wasn't exactly sure how Patrick was going to accomplish this, but he knew given his reputation it would be easier for Patrick to get a hold of you than him. He just hoped whatever Patrick did, it wouldn't be as severe as what he endured before Patrick and him entered a truce. He didn't want you in his house for the first time, scared and unsure why you were brought there. No! He wanted his new house guest to be comfortable. His room was dark, with books, figures, and posters strewn about. He did his best to make it homey though. He opened the curtains, cleaned out any trash, (hid his camera and photo collection). He was sure Patrick was going to laugh at him for all this, seeing as Patrick had seen the state his room was in before. Ahmed shakes his head. He wasn't worried about Patrick right now. No, he was ready to see you, talk with you. Maybe... maybe even get to touch you.

The door creaks, and Ahmed hears footsteps approaching. Heavy boots, followed by the light patter of smaller feet. He bites his lip to the point it almost breaks skin. Patrick had done it. You were waiting just outside his room.

He hops back onto his bed, trying to look as casual as possible as the blonde menace he now called a friend traipsed in, with you behind him. "Ahmed... looks like you cleaned up a little in here. Huh." Patrick looks around, hands in his pockets as he leans against Ahmed's bed frame. "Ahmed, I believe you know my new friend." Patrick motions at you. Ahmed nods quickly. "Uh, yeah. We have an English class together." He says. "It's nice to actually meet you Ahmed, you and Patrick are-" You sigh. "Friends?" Ahmed nods. "Yeah, we actually have a lot in common..." He chuckles, shrugging. "Crazy, huh?" He coughs awkwardly. You nod, still not fully convinced.

"See, baby? I told ya' there's nothing shifty going on here! Me and Ahmed are just best buds." Patrick flops onto Ahmed's bed, bouncing the boy up a little as he wraps an arm around him, his grip rough on Ahmed's shoulder. 'Best buds' wasn't really a term Ahmed would use, especially considering two days ago Patrick was pounding Ahmed into this very bed, making the scrawny outcast cry and beg for his cock to go just a little deeper, just a little faster to give him that relief. Of course, Patrick was a jerk, and didn't let him reach that peak for at least three hours into the session, when Ahmed's parents came home. Patrick enjoyed making the boy finally cum on his cock, while trying to muffle his cries knowing his parents were just downstairs.

"So, w-would you like to watch a movie, or play a game? I've got Mario Kart, and Mortal Kombat-" Ahmed lists off a few more games, hoping something would catch your attention and endear him to you. You smile awkwardly, but shake your head. You hadn't really planned on staying, considering you were so sure that Patrick was just tormenting this poor boy. "I actually should get going, it's a Friday night, I don't want to intrude on your boys time." You move to grab your gym stuff, and Ahmed's face falls. He looks at Patrick, glancing at you and silently begging Patrick to do something. Anything, just to keep you here longer. "Calm down, I'll fuckin' handle it." Patrick whispers, before running a hand through his hair and turning back to you. "C'mon, baby! We don't mind you hanging out. Besides, Ahmed's had kind of a rough time in our school. I'm the only friend he's got." Ahmed blushes, not realizing the strategy was to make him look like a pathetic loser. "Patrick-" Patrick shoves his shoulder and continues. "Don't you wanna help him make at least one more friend?" You hesitate at the door, before sighing. It certainly isn't healthy for someones only friend to be Patrick, so you nod. "Fine, I'll stay..."

Several hours go by, and after two movies, four rounds of Mario Kart, and one two-liter of Sprite later, you are on the verge of passing out. You aren't really sure what happens in the next few minutes, but all you know is you are now laying in Ahmed's bed, with Patrick to your right and Ahmed squished on your other side, between you and the wall. Patrick fell asleep first, oddly enough. For a guy with so much energy, he gets sleepy quick. Now it's just you and Ahmed.

"Sorry about this, I didn't realize it was so late..." Ahmed apologizes. He isn't sorry. He imagined hundreds of ways this evening could go, but none of them ended with you pressed up against him, in his bed. God, you were getting your scent all over his sheets and his t-shirt. "M' never gonna wash these sheets again." He mumbles to himself. "Mm- what?" You ask groggily, making him jolt and blush. "Nothing, sorry." You go back to trying to sleep, and eventually pass out.

Ahmed tries to sleep as well, but just as he closes his eyes, he feels a weight on top of him. He gasps, and opens his eyes to see Patrick on top of him. "Come on, freak. We've got work to do." He sits back on the boys lap, allowing him to sit up. "Wha- I thought you were asleep." Patrick scoffs, and shakes his head. "Nah, just knew she wouldn't want to fall asleep around big bad me if she thought I was awake. But, I am. Now go find your camera." Ahmed looks confused, making Patrick roll his eyes. "Come on, you didn't think we were just gonna have a sleepover, did you? Tell secrets and make friendship bracelets like a fuckin' girl scout troop? We have a chance to get some close-up shots we could never get otherwise right now. Maybe even get a feel of her, now hurry up." The plan now confirmed, Ahmed scrambles as quietly as he can off the bed, practically throwing himself onto the floor as he blindly feels around under his bed for the camera. He knocks some stuff around, making Patrick his. "Shut the fuck up!" He whispers harshly. "M' sorry! It's dark." Ahmed whines. Finally, his fingers close around cold metal the camera, and he climbs back onto the bed beside Patrick.

"I'm ready. Just tell me when to snap a picture, and I'll do it." Patrick nods. "Heh, I've always wanted to see what's under this shirt." Patrick carefully slides the thin cotton up, not removing it from you but placing it just under your chin, exposing your breasts to the two boys. "Why doesn't she have a bra?" Ahmed asks. "She was coming back from the gym, already took off her sports bra, I guess. It's in her back over there, if you wanna smell it or some shit." Ahmed blushes. "S-smell it?" He stammers. "I don't know, you're the freak here. I'm just guessing that's something you're into." He isn't wrong.

"God, she's got a nice little pair, huh?" Patrick motions for Ahmed to snap a few photos. "Get one of my hands on em' too." Patrick's large hands cup your breasts, his thumb barely brushing past the nipple. Once Ahmed get's the photos, Patrick begins to gently rub his thumb and fore-finger over the nipples, watching as the delicate buds harden. "Fuck, I always like them better when there hard n' shit. Seeing them poke through t-shirts. I caught her out in the cold once, took everything in me to not make her pop em' out right there in the alley behind the school." Patrick smiles and the memory. Ahmed squirms, causing his friend to take notice.

"Gimme your camera." Patrick orders. "Wha- no! This, this camera is everything to me!" Patrick just groans at the boys pleading. "I'm not gonna' break it, freak. Just giving you a chance to free up your hands so you can play with her tits too." Ahmed looks between Patrick and your breasts, which are now peaking in arousal at Patrick's teasing. He sighs. "Okay, fine." Patrick takes the camera, and Ahmed places two hands on your breasts, squeezing ever so gently. "Wow, they're really soft, except for her nipples, I guess..." Patrick restrains himself from laughing so loud he'll wake you up. "God, you are such a fuckin' virgin. Do something photo-worthy, for fucks sake." Patrick eggs Ahmed on, and in a moment of boldness, the boy places a kiss on your collarbone, before slowly trailing his way down to your left breast. After a bit of careful kissing and teasing, his chapped lips find your nipple, latching gently.

"Shit... there you go." Ahmed is so lost in the taste of your soft skin that he doesn't register the camera flashing a few times as Patrick snaps some pictures. What he does hear however, is the soft, wanton moan that escapes your lips. He pulls back, eyes wide as he looks at Patrick. Patrick seems just as shocked, but this is quickly replaced with a toothy grin. "C'mon, clearly your making her feel good. Grab at her shorts, I wanna see if she's wet from us just playing with her girls." Patrick insists, and Ahmed obliges. Trembling fingers pull at your shorts, slowly inching them down your relaxed thighs. "Hurry up-' "I'm trying! It's hard when she's asleep, not exactly cooperating." Ahmed eventually gets the thin shorts down your legs, just above your knees in case they need to move them back up in a hurry. To his delight, he managed to hook your underwear down with them, leaving your soft mound exposed to the two boys.

Ahmed's nimble fingers move to spread your lips, the strings of slick breaking apart as he parts them, coating his fingers. He almost finishes right there, seeing the light of the camera as Patrick snaps a picture reflect off of your slick, letting them know just how soaked you are. "Fuckin' soaked... just from a bit of teasing." Patrick groans, making sure to get a picture of both your holes and Ahmed's fingers parting the folds around them. "Is that not normal?" Patrick shrugs. "I don't know, some people are more sensitive than others, I guess. Especially when they haven't been touched." Ahmed's eyes light up at that, and he whips his head towards Patrick.

"You- you think there's a chance she hasn't... y'know..." Ahmed trails off. "We're literally taking nudes of her cunt right now, just say 'had sex', 'fucked', anything. Jesus." The weaker boy shrinks into himself at the blonde's words. "I mean, it's possible. I've never heard of any guy doin' her, and I've never seen her with another guy around school." Patrick continues. "Isn't that your fault?" Ahmed asks, making his new friend chuckle. "Maybe. You're the one who's been outside her window for the past month, ever seen a guy over?" Ahmed shakes his head no. "Then maybe she's just been waiting for the right guy to come and show her a good time." Patrick moves a little closer to Ahmed, pressing himself against the boy's back. For the first time, Ahmed isn't bothered by Patrick towering over his smaller frame. "Well, right guys, y'know." Ahmed doesn't respond, his mind filling with ideas of what might happen, that night when him and Patrick finally get to be your firsts.

Would you be scared? He'd comfort you as best he could, but Patrick wouldn't be much help with that, (though he knows Patrick can be gentle when he really wants something.) Ever the anxious mess, he can't even focus on his fantasies without worrying. He needed to get condoms, and were you on birth control? Patrick should definitely get tested first, who knows what he's got going on. If Patrick takes you first, what should he do? He's content to sit in the corner and play with himself, but he know's Patrick would only make fun of him for 'not getting any'. A final thought strikes him. Would he be jealous? Would you like Patrick better? You've known him longer, and he's definitely more popular. He's pretty, whereas Ahmed is skinny and feral-looking. He's drawn out of his panic by the sound of a zipper.

"Whatcha thinkin' bout, 'Mhed?" Patrick asks. He can tell when his little freak-friend is spiraling. "You wanna touch her, huh?" Ahmed nods. He can feel the rough, calloused hands of Patrick palming his cock through his boxers. He shudders. "So much. I want... god, can I take her first?" Ahmed begs, gasping as Patrick pulls down his waistband, letting his cock stick out. Patrick gently rubs his thumb on Ahmed's tip, collecting a bead of pre-cum. "Maybe. You still' passing science?" Ahmed furrows his brow at the odd question. Why was Patrick asking about classes while he jerks him off over your sleeping form. "Yeah, I'm doing p-pretty well in all my classes..." He replies. He tosses his head back into Patrick's shoulder as the strong delinquent begins to stroke his length with quick, tight strokes. Patrick's free arm wraps around Ahmed's stomach, pinning the boy's back to his broad chest. "Gimme your notes for all your classes then. If you're good for me, n' keep proving you're worth something-" Another harsh stroke. Ahmed is on the verge. "Then maybe I'll let you be the one to break in her sweet little hole." Ropes of white, hot cum spill from Ahmed's cock as he cries out, before quickly biting his lip to try and silence himself. If you woke up now, there would be no way him and Patrick could make an excuse to get out of this. Just the thought of being your first leaves Ahmed so emotional that as his cock twitches in pleasure, he can feel himself tearing up.

"Are you fucking crying?" Patrick presses his lips to Ahmed's cheek, getting a taste. "You get jerked off one time thinking about our pretty girl and you fuckin' cry. Maybe you aren't ready to be her first." Ahmed gags, and turns around. He moves his arms, frantically whispering, begging. "No, no! I won't cry then, I'll be good. I'll make her feel good, please. I- I've gotta be her first, you don't-" Patrick shushes him. "You've got a long way to go. I think you and I will have to practice some more, making sure you last longer than you did just now." Patrick leans to the side, taking in the sight of your nude torso now decorated with Ahmed's cum. He grins. "Alright, here's the deal. You take some photos real quick, make sure we can see the pretty paint-job you gave her." Ahmed blushes as Patrick stands. "Where are you going?"

"Gotta go get some wipes, and I gotta be quick about it."

[topoeiaz]

Chapter 11: Forever Starts With Us I'd Love to See Me From Your Point of View (HP) Tom Riddle x OC

18+ blog • minors dni

word count: 2.8k

hp masterlist • pov masterlist • ao3

Unbeknownst to each other – yet, clearer than ever – Thea and Tom had to exercise tremendous self-restraint to not pounce at one another and kiss them breathless right where they sat in the Great Hall. Nothing seemed abnormal as they shared greetings and small talks, but if one looked closely, they would notice Tom’s hand gently caressing her thigh whenever it was unoccupied, which Thea held onto with their fingers interlocked once she had been done with her meal. As the plates began clearing away and chatter rose in volume, Thea absentmindedly played with his hand on her lap as she talked.

“…which reminds me!” The group had been groaning about the potions project and Thea turned to the women upon remembering their own personal project, “I’m pretty much done with the research presentation. Just a couple more finishing touches left, and everything should be prepared by Sunday. I’m open to running it by you after lunch then?”

Druella’s eyes sparkled. “Sweet! Yeah, that works for me!”

“Works for me, too,” Walburga pitched in.

“Great!”

Before Thea could say more, she was interrupted by Rosier. “What’s this about a presentation?”

Thea looked to the boys in surprise when all of them sported looks of curiosity. “Oh, have I not shared with you all?” At their head shakes, she furrowed her eyebrows in thought. “Really? I guess I must��ve forgotten to. Anyways, it’s just this research on the consequences of inbreeding that I’ve collated to, one day, present to Ella’s and Wally’s parents. We’re having a mock presentation first so that I can get feedback for improvements.”

Then, Druella perked up with an idea, “you boys should attend too! Your insights would be much appreciated.”

“That’s right! Sunday, after lunch, is when we’ll be doing it. What do you say?”

A round of agreements echoed back and Lestrange asked, “where will it be held?”

Thea parted her lips to answer, only to close them back up when she realised she hadn’t planned for that. She shared a glance with the ladies, who were just as clueless as she was, and was about to suggest the Room of Requirement when she was beaten to it.

“You could always use our common room.”

Heads turn to Tom in bewilderment and he only shrugged. “You join our table every day and you’ve even made acquaintances with the other Slytherins. I don’t see why anyone would argue against that idea.”

The split-second gleam in his eyes told a dangerous story and Thea, having glimpsed it, could only make a guess as to what would happen if anybody did raise a disagreement against it. Amusement quirked her lips up and she sent him a feigned unimpressed look which he only countered with exaggerated innocence. “Well, I suppose if no one is against that, I’ll gladly take you up on your offer.”

“That’s decided, then!” Walburga stepped in before anyone could express a different opinion – not that anyone would, seeing as, besides that fact that they liked Thea, they knew just how far Tom’s murderous tendencies go – and everyone was quick to nod along. “Sunday, after lunch, in our common room.”

“Prepared to be absolutely amazed by it.”

Laughter ensued at Thea’s playful arrogant tone and Avery commented, “that confidence could almost give Malfoy a run for his gold.”

“Almost?!” Thea huffed, “well, I suppose if it’s Malfoy we’re talking about, I’ll take it.”

That earned her more chortles which she prided herself in achieving. When she glanced at the boy beside her, his added pride of her that spoke through his expression gave her a tinkling feel in her gut that she welcomed with open arms. She relinked her hand with his and intertwined their fingers once more. Anticipation bubbled her nerves as she thought about tonight. He had provided her no hints as to what she could expect but she knew, regardless, that so long as it was Tom she was with, she would find herself enjoying the moment.

Classes passed by with lingering eyes thrown at each other. As the day darkened, so did their glances. Any touch from the other sent heat through their body – whether it be a hand on Thea’s back as Tom moved past her in their station during potions, or Thea’s hold as she fiddled with his hand on her lap at mealtimes – the warmth mixing into the flames that roared in their hearts and making it harder and harder to reign themselves in throughout the day. Where their skin had touched that evening, when she had kissed him on the corner of his lips again, they had burned on impact. The feel of their lips nearly meeting remained even as the clock ticked away, keeping them company until the short-hand neared nine.

Humour entered Thea when a glance to the timetable by the door to the steps up to the astronomy tower listed a class to be taken place at this time of the day. She was familiar with the tower availability and knew that it wasn’t quite true. Tom’s manipulation of it meant that others would steer clear of the vicinity for the next hour, however, and for that, she thanked Tom.

Reaching the final steps of the stairs, her gaze fell on the only figure in sight, sitting cross-legged on the floor with his back against the pillar as he stared out into the glimmering night sky. The person turned to face her upon hearing her footsteps and she was met with Tom’s composed face, bathed in the calm moonlight that lined his features gracefully. His lips curled up as their eyes met and he was the first to breach through the silence. “I figured you’d be here early.”

Thea matched his fond smile with ease and inwardly reminded herself to continue walking once she had realised that she had unintentionally stopped in her tracks to admire Tom. Mirth coated her words as she spoke into the night air, “stalking me now, are you?”

Tom gestured to the space beside him and shook his head. “Not at all, love. Just smitten about you.”

Thea had to force herself to resume her pattering steps as a comfortable warmth rushed through her. She cleared her throat when she had reached his side and settled on the floor beside him, adjusting to face her body towards Tom when he did the same and turned his back to the sky. He extended his hands in the space between them, palms up, and Thea unhesitatingly placed hers atop his. Their hands fell onto where their knees met and he ran his fingers gently across the back of her hands, trailing soft touches onto her fingers and halting when they arrived at her right, index finger.

Her heart skipped.

Walburga’s words echoed in her ears from their time spent together two days ago when the ladies had taught her the traditions of a courtship.

“…and the first gift is always a ring that holds the crest of the lord’s family. It goes onto your right hand, index finger, and signifies to the public that you’ve accepted that specific lord’s proposal to court you.”

The hope that Druella and Walburga had tended to, grew in size and danced violently, as if ready to defend itself against any unwanted enemies. The doubt in Thea’s mind only relinquished in response and allowed the flames to embrace her heart and soul protectively.

Tom’s eyes flicked back to hers, from where they had fallen onto her hands, and she saw the slight furrow in his eyebrows as he fought against his own set of uncertainty inside him. “I would like to ask you a question regarding a… certain aspect of my possible lordship. Purely out of my desires and not responsibility,” he clarified when his initial words left a distaste in his tongue.

Thea hummed in acknowledgement and waited for him to continue with all the patience in the world. An encouraging smile plastered onto her lips when he hesitated for a moment longer, and she mimicked his soothing touches on his hand. The haze of insecurities that dulled his eyes cleared up upon meeting her assured ones, and his words began leaving his lips as he basked in the arrant love she bestowed upon him.

“Can I… or rather, will you accept a gift from me… if I do become a lord?”

His heart stilled-

“I’d wear them every day.”

-and she brought him back to life.

Thea’s immediate and honest response brought a startled widening to his eyes and she smiled knowingly. Recognising that she knew exactly what he had been referring to, his eyes softened and his lips wavered in rare diffidence. “Will you?”

She understood his hesitance in accepting her words, having gone through a similar experience with Druella and Walburga recently, and it was with absolute credence that she patiently answered him again.

“For as long as you want me.”

Tom’s voice was soft and almost inaudible when he asked, “even if it’s for a lifetime?”

Thea lifted a hand up to cradle his face, smiling tenderly when he leaned into her touch. Similarly, she replied lowly but surely, “even if it’s a lifetime and more.”

His hand went up to clasp over hers as he searched her eyes for any sign of apprehension or unwavering resolve, only to find none even as she laid her feelings bare for him to see. Her volition to render herself vulnerable for him intensified his affections for her and he knew, like he trusted her, that she was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

True to her words, Tom could love. He may not have known it back then, but she had cared for him ever since she had first graced him with her magical presence, and through this love she had shown could he learn to reciprocate it. Never had he, nor did he think he ever would, wanted to be loved by someone so desperately and yet would wait eons if it meant that she would love him out of her own desires. It was unlike him to not seize his yearning with force, but she had taught him to be patient when it came to her, for she had treated him the same way. No magic nor power could even begin to try taking away the love he held for her.

He took her hand from his cheek and placed a grateful kiss onto the back of her hand. Her sights went to his lips and so had his, onto the lovely smile playing on her lips. Memories rushed by of the times she had kissed him so chastely, and with a whispered question that she had said yes to, they both leaned in and met their lips in a soft touch. Their first was brief and all-smiles. Their second, a joyous giggle had bubbled from Thea’s throat when Tom held her jaw assuredly to angle their heads so that he could press against her lips securely. She had expressed her unadulterated jubilation when he had asked, bringing an affectionate smile to his face. Then, their third had been longer and heavier.

Taken by the pure happiness radiating from the girl, Tom had captured her lips with enough vigour that had her gasping in delighted surprise. He had swiped his tongue across her bottom lip to test the waters and had tangled it with hers when she had parted her lips further to respond in kind. When his other hand had fallen onto her thigh while the other had gone around the back of her neck to pull her closer, Thea brought it upon herself to do them – and their backs – both a favour and adjusted in her seat so that she could bring her legs under her. Before Tom could even part himself from her to question her intentions, she planted her hands on his shoulder for stability as she pushed forwards and swung her legs over his lap, one by one, so that she hovered over his legs slightly. His hands caught her by her waist and unhesitatingly pulled her down onto his lap so that she could sit on it comfortably, smiling into the kiss at Thea’s bold move and immensely pleased.

One of her hands had gone to the back of his head to tangle itself in his hair while the other remained on the juncture of his neck and shoulder. Warm, hefty air was exchanged in short breaths as they languidly licked and nipped at each other’s mouth. A pleased hum vibrated from the back of her throat at the current circumstances they had found themselves in and she tugged on his hair firmly to earn herself a raspy groan and a tightening of his hold on her waist.

His hands swept down to her hips, past the edge of her blouse, then back up and under the fabric so that he felt her bare skin underneath as he skimmed around her waist and back. Another hum left her as a breathy keen at the feel of his warmth directly on the uncharted expanse of her skin, as her hand travelled down from his shoulder to his sternum, her nerves sparking excitedly when she felt the rapidity of his heartbeats.

It was then, that their kiss slowed down gradually, when they were bordering on the other stage of intimacy. The astronomy tower was hardly the place for them to explore further and, as Tom had said to Thea previously, there’s always time for us. Heavy gasps were mixed into the air as they each regained their breaths, their foreheads planted together so that they didn’t steer too far away from each other. Tom’s hands had paused on her waist, thumbs caressing her skin delicately, while one of Thea’s played with his hair on the back of his head, and the other, with the topmost button of his shirt teasingly. Their elation had only strengthened over the past couple of minutes and their satisfied smiles might as well have been permanently etched onto their flushed faces.

Once their breathing had returned, Tom whispered into the small space between them, “I just remembered…” Thea hummed questioningly when he trailed off. “…I do actually have a gift for you in the meantime.”

“Hm?”

Tom pulled his head away, which prompted her to blink her eyes open, and she watched him retract a hand back to pull out a small velvet box in the exact shade of blue as the roll of ribbon she had used to tie around the paper cranes she had first gifted him – she had taken note of it for it was her favourite colour after all. She took it from his hand at his insistence and spared him an inquisitive glance before opening it by lifting the top cover off. A surprised gasp of wonder escaped her as she brought the box closer to examine its details carefully. “Tom- that’s beautiful! Where- how did you even manage to find that?!”

His grin grew at the excitement on Thea’s face as she fawned over the contents of the box. “I made the charm myself, actually. Alchemy taught a few things that I thought I’d put them to good use.”

The item in Thea’s hands had turned out to be a jewellery box and inside was a pair of earrings, a dainty, silver paper-crane-shaped charm dangling a few millimetres from the heart-shaped stud that contained a clear gemstone.

As if his thoughtfulness on the choice of charm wasn’t touching enough, Tom proceeded to explain, “I’ve noticed that all your earrings had been silver so I stuck to the same material. You only wear studs on days with potions so I figured you might like it if it was designed to drop like the ones you tend to wear.”

“Oh, Tom…” Thea looked at the boy in disbelief and she could feel her emotions hitch at her throat. The glimmering of her eyes eased Tom’s lips into a fond smile and he tucked her fringe away when it had covered her eyes. With great effort, she could muster up more words in a soft voice. “I love it.”

“I’m glad, my love.”

Overflowing with feelings she didn’t quite know how to express in words, Thea instead surged in to kiss him again, pouring out her immense love for him this way so that he could feel them rushing through him in waves.

The rest of their hour together was spent staring into each other’s eyes dreamily as they talked softly, in tune to the calmness of the night, or admiring the enchanting view of the clear sky in moments between kisses of varying length and intensity. He had gifted her a final kiss on the doorstep to her common room that had left her breathless as her mind hazed over with sentiments that only he could pull out of her. Even her lack of sleep, that spanned only five hours, couldn’t diminish her glee, and she found herself humming joyfully as she prepared for the day.

Gosh, the feelings that he made her feel!

ao3 🌱 topaz 🌱 masterlist

don’t steal my work, claim it as your own, upload it to another site, or use it to train AI

dividers by: @strangergraphics-archive & @saradika-graphics

[irishhills]

love in second-period drama class

Luke Egan is absolutely ready.

He’s the youngest student in his drama class at school – the only freshman – and the junior girls love him. They really do. Whenever they have to write their own sketches, this group of three junior girls always want him in their group, and they always feature him in a part. Last week, when their prompt was nightclub, they had him play “Tony Manero, but he can’t dance.” It was a hit.

But Misty Meuller seemed to like it best.

Misty Meuller, with the light brown hair, like an old jazz standard. It almost feels surreal to have a class with her. She’s one of the popular kids, a frontrunner for next year’s homecoming queen, and maybe the sweetest girl Luke has ever met. Somehow, by the grace of God and all the prayers Luke says at school Mass, she doesn’t have a boyfriend, either.

And that probably means she doesn’t have a date for this year’s homecoming dance.

Luke doesn’t share his plans with anyone. His friends don’t know. They’re too immature to understand what it really means to like a junior. They’d think it was all about sex, but Luke knows it’s more than that with him and Misty. They really make each other laugh. Last week, when she was pretending to be Tony Manero’s dance partner, she had Luke in stitches. It’s only been a month, but Luke thinks they really get each other. Why else would she always want to sit next to him? She could sit next to anybody.

Chris seems to know something about it, somehow. On their way to school, less than two hours before Luke plans to ask Misty to the dance, Chris says something about how Luke always has a crush on older women. He rattles off a litany: Mom’s best friend Ruby, her other friend Mary, that picture of Mary’s daughter whom he’s never met, Raquel Welch on The Muppet Show, the lunch lady in elementary school. He would have gone on if Luke hadn’t punched him in the arm. It was well worth Mom snapping at him not to punch Chris in the arm. What does he know, anyway? He’s in seventh grade already, his best friend is a girl, and he doesn’t even have a crush on her. Damn kids.

Drama class begins the same way everyday. Their teacher, Mrs. Hopkins, makes them do breathing and trust exercises for ten minutes. Like always, Luke and Misty Meuller are partners. As they breathe in and out, Luke tells Misty he has something important to discuss.

“Is it that scene where we make fun of The Andy Griffith Show?” she asks. “I mean, I’ve seen a few episodes, but I’m really worried the rest of the class isn’t going to get it.”

“It’s not that,” Luke says. “And The Andy Griffith Show is awesome. Everybody will get that.”

“I don’t know. I thought Angela’s Happy Days idea was a little more universal.”

“It’s not about that. It’s not about class, and it’s not about any sitcoms with Ron Howard in them. It’s about the homecoming dance.”

Misty’s eyes light up. So, it’s on her mind!

“Oh, Luke!” she says. “Are you going?”

“Well, I was planning on it.”

“That’s so great! Do you have a date?”

His heart feels like it’s going to split in half and pop out both of his ears. Misty grins at him, those big brown eyes like the prettiest doe in the woods. Maybe Luke will die before asking her to the dance. Maybe that’s what he wishes for, actually.

No such luck. He’s still breathing, and he’s still suffering the world’s worst case of teenage tachycardia.

“Not yet,” Luke says. “I was actually wondering if … well, if you wanted to go with me.”

The powdered blush on Misty’s cheeks looks unnatural now.

“Oh,” she finally says. “Well …”

“I never see you with any guys like that,” Luke says. “And I figured … I don’t know, I figured I must have won the lottery or something. I know I’m …”

“The sweetest,” Misty interrupts. “But I think we got our … my boyfriend graduated last year. He goes to Eastern. Hey, isn’t that where your mom teaches?”

Luke swallows hard.

“Yeah,” he says.

“Cool. Maybe he’s in one of her classes.”

“I doubt it, unless he really likes learning about Shirley Chisholm and Betty Friedan.”

Misty makes a face like she – somehow – doesn’t know who either of those women are. Luke represses the urge to shake his head. Maybe she wasn’t such a great dream date after all.

“Anyway, I got a guest pass for him yesterday,” Misty says. “He’s taking me to the dance. He’s a little beyond it now, but I’d feel like I was missing out if I went without him. You know?”

Luke nods, even though he can’t begin to imagine it.

“But, hey,” Misty keeps trying. “Maybe I could help find a girl for you to ask. Like another freshman.”

Another freshman.

Sounds like Luke’s worst nightmare.

But he nods and tells Misty Meuller he thinks that would be a great idea.

At least he’ll get to spend more time with her.

[yellowcry]

Hot issue

Camilo wasn't really close to his middle prima. And, maybe it was the reason why he was so suprised when she fainted from a heatstroke while she was working

Camilo groaned as he leaned back in the chair, lisening Abuela's morning speech. It was just like always, be nice, help everyone... Why did she even keep telling the same thing every day? Camilo could repeat it without any mistakes.

It was very hot day. Camilo's shirt clamed to his body, his hair greasy melted together. As he could see, everybody felt no better than him. Mami tried to create a rainy cloud, but it didn't help very much, since she seemed to be in a wonderful mood today. And if somebody would ask Camilo, he would prefer to die from the heat than ruin her day. It seemed like having knotted hair was today's rush of fashion. It was pretty strange to see Mirabel or Isabela who always had their hair loose with neat buns. Camilo also wanted to make a hairstyle with his hair, but instead he cursed the fact that he cuted it  few months ago, because now it was long enough to make his neck sweating, but still too short to make any hairstyles. Maybe he could shapeshift his hair? Yes, it seemed like a good idea. Camilo let out a satisfied sigh, as he felt a little bit better

He eated arepa, looking on suffering faces. Even Abuela looked sick, as she wiped a sweat drops off her face. The only person who actually seemed to not sweat was Luisa. Camilo understood that she might be used to working under the scorching sun, but he still was too suprised, remembering her morning exercises. Camilo would even think that Luisa wasn't suffering from heat at all if her face wasn't so red.

Soon, the whole family dispersed to their chores. Camilo knew that he has to be in town too, but he really doubted that anybody would walk out of their houses today. But he also realized thay Abuela won't take it as excuse.

"Camilo, what are you doing?" Of course. He groaned as he stood up, okay atleast he probably would have a full day for himself.

Suddenly, Dolores interuppted them "I think that Camilo would be better if he would be happy, instead of suffering from heat. Afterall, it's his job to make everyone happy." She explained. "And it would be totally easier if Camilo wouldn't be dying from heat."

"What if somebody needed him to look after their kids?" Abuela insisted standing still and holding her arms behind her back.

"I could tell him." Dolores sighed. "I can use my power in any place of Encanto." She smiled. Camilo could barely hold back a sly smile as he understood that his hermana just wanted to have a reason to stay at home.

Abuela's face became unsure for a minute, before she closed her eyes and sighed. "Okay, I'll be in town." She stared at Camilo for a moment before said stricly. "I'm doing it only because of your role." Unsaid be happy, make everyone else happy floated in the air.

Camilo gave Dolores a thankful smile and jokingly nudged her. She gigged as she reached down for her hermanito and ruffled his hair, forcing him to frown playfully.

"You ruined my hair!" Camilo announced as he put his hands on his chest and looked away.

Dolores rolled her eyes. "You can just-" She stopped at the middle of sentence when Camilo shapeshifted his hair again. "Yes."

****

A couple of hours passed. It was pretty unusual to see Casita so empty and quiet. But since everybody was working he could be here. Camilo played a scene for himself taking sips of cold water sometimes, and Dolores seemed to be listening to the town.

Squeak.

"Camilo, we have to go!" She whispered worriedly as she grabbed her hermanito.

Camilo let out a frustated sigh when he realized that his day off just finished.  "So, who is it?"

"Luisa."

Camilo raised an eyebrow, running next to Dolores. "Why does she need me?"

"I think she might have a heatstroke." Dolores sighed. He took a chaotic breath in, he could swear that even senõrita perfecta's flowers were dying under the direct sunlight. Running totally didn't help to cold down his body.

Soon, Camilo noticed a giant figure lying on the groung surronded by worried donkeys. Without any doubts it was Luisa. Her body was twisting in convulsions, and Camilo could hear how she mummbed some incoherent delirium. Camilo realized that she probably had some hallucinations from heat. Donkeys worriedly puted their noses in her, rolling her on the groung. Then they moved their heads to the sound of running kids and took few steps back.

"Let's took her to mami." Dolores sighed when Camilo turned into the second Luisa and helped to put original one on his shoulders. Camilo really disliked being turned into Luisa, because everytime when he would do it, he would get an endless list of tasks immediantly, but at the current situation everybody would probably understand that something is wrong. Also, Luisa's body didn't seem to be sweating as much as his own, Camilo took a guess that it was because her body was used to overheating due to a hard work. One of the donkeys came closer and helped to rise Luisa. She was hot, her skin felt way too dry, almost desiccated. Luisa's natural muscles helped to carry her, but she still was too heavy, so Camilo started losing his breath. The fact that she was convulsing didn't help. She also stopped mummbling, so Camilo gussed that she fainted. He suffocated cursing Luisa for passing out. Why couldn't it be somebody small and light? Then Camilo could carry them way easier.

"Mom is over here." Dolores took his hand and lead him to the left

"Thank you, seniorita." Camilo heared one of the villagers. In very hot days like this Pepa were visiting town people homes and make rain in them. She said that it was more effecively than making it rain all over Encanto.

"Mi amor, how are.." Now it was Felix, but he was interrupted by his kids voices.

Mami!" Camilo screamed, his parents turned around and saw how Dolores, who was covering her ears from sceam, and Luisa were holding other Luisa.

"Luisa, are you serious?" Pepa groaned running to them with panic on her face. "She's even worse than usual!" Apperently, it seemed like fainting from heat was something that Luisa did often enough to condition her condition woud be admited even worse than usual. "I swear, I'll kill her myself one day." A wind began to blow around them. Camilo couldn't help but happily relaxed when the heat subsided.

Mami focused, and soon a cold rain started to fall on Luisa's face. Camilo gently placed her on the ground and took a few steps back as he shapeshifted into himself again. Dolores wiped her forehead suffocaring from running.

"It's reminding me about old times." Pepa sighed, looking at her sobrina's face. "When she was a baby I had to rain on her whole days because she was too hot." Her voice trembled as she worriedly walked in circles.

"Wow, I didn't remember it." Camilo tried to defuse the situation with a smile leaning against the wall of one's of the houses and crossing his hands.

Dolores hited his head playfully. "Of course, you weren't even born back then." Camilo scratched hitted spot indignantly.

"Something never change." Felix shooke his head. They kept standing here in awkward slience interruptible by sound of raindrops hitting Luisa's body. Her face was red, still twitching from heat.

"She hadn't faded like that almost for three months." Pepa sighed worriedly rubbing her braid and kept walking around. Camilo looked at his mom with suprised face. He was really shoked after realizing that not heaving a heatstroke for couple of months seemed to be a very long time for Luisa. "I thought that she healed. Why mami even let her working?" She started to spiraling mummbing under her nose, Felix took her arm, helping to control her emotions as she continued to whispering to herself. Camilo felt awkward, so he kept talking with Dolores. He used to be the one who make everyone happy, but he was pretty sure that his abilities would do nothing to help his prima right now.

"Pepi it's okay." Felix put his palm on Pepa's hip when her cloud started to thundering. For a second cloud turned into the sun, but then mami shuddered in fear and rain started to hit the ground again.

And, it also was a lot to proceed. Camilo and Luisa wasn't really close. Mostly because Luisa always worked, Camilo sometimes thought that Luisa was working even in her sleep. She got her gift when Camilo wasn't even one year old, so he didn't really know how things were back then, the only Luisa that he ever knew is the always working and responcible one, Luisa who never took breaks. Maybe it was the reason why he was so suprised after hearing the fact that she overheated pretty often, since nobody else seemed to be suprised by it. And he couldn't shake mami's words out of his head. She said that Luisa hasn't faded as if it was the longest time without it in a whole life. And, according to Mami's face expression, Camilo thought that it definetly was truth. He was great in reading face expressions, after all, how can you pretend to be somebody else without knowing all their thought written on their faces?

It took around twenty minutes before she finally woke up. Luisa groaned as she sat down leaning on her hands, then she looked up at the cloud over her. Her skin still seemed to be a little pinker than normal, but she totally looked better. Camilo came closer to see her better, mami also stopped circuling, but rain still was falling on Luisa's wet body.

"Tía Pepa?" She shuddered in realization. "What I'm doing in here?" She scratched her neck. "Wasn't I taking donkeys into the barn?" She looked around trying to remember what happened.

"You passed out again!" Pepa shouted leaning towards her. "Sorry, dear." Mami whispred as she saw Dolores covering her ears

Luisa's face became worried as she started to count something on her fingers. At first, Camilo thought that she was remembering the chores that she has to do, but her face was telling that Camilo was wrong. "But it's an hour before my usual time." She shuddered. "Why would I have a heatstroke so early?"

Papi stared at her in suprise. "Luisa, your body does not obey the clock."  He put his hands on his sides. Camilo desided to not mention the fact that Luisa literally had an exact time when she supposed to faint.

Luisa looked at each of them biting her lip. "Then how do you expect me to get when I need a little cold water?" She raised her eyebrows and spread her arms to the side. Camilo frowned trying to proseed what she said. Wasn't it obvious? "Well, I still have a work to do." Luisa announced clutching her arms together.

"Have you lost your mind?!" Pepa trew her hands in the air and Luisa recoiled as lightning struck next to her. Mami took a deep breath as Felix slighty pat her spine.

"You literally feel hot when it's too hot around." Camilo put out frowning and pointed on Luisa with a finger gun. How come she didn't realize it? But his parent and hermana looked at him awkwardly as if they wanted to say something, but couldn't explain it.

It became quiet for a while as Luisa fixed her hair, stood up and gave Camilo unsurely look holding her elbow in hand. "I don't really feel... temperature." She said and her voice's tone rised up as if it was a question. "Guess It's the side effect of my gift." She shrugged.

He threw his hands in the air indignantly acting like a drama queen, so atmosphere around would be no longer so tense. "How many abilities you've got from your gift?" He crossed his arms on his chest.

Felix sighed looking in his son's eyes. "It's not a good thing because Luisa's still affected by weather."

"It's still unfair." Camilo rolled his eyes and looked at embarrassed Luisa who looked away with a guilty expression.

She scruthed the back of her head. "I really had to work, I didn't even start to rerouting the river." She explained quietly and moved forward humming some tune.

"Luisa!" Pepa's scream was interrupted by lightning. "You are sick!" She tried to run after her sobrina, but Luisa already was too far away, soon her voice faded in town's noices.

"She's okay now." Dolores whispered putting her hand on mami's shoulder. "I'll listen in case it would happen again."

Camilo kept staring at place where Luisa was heading for a moment until he stretched out with a sigh, and asked. "Can I go home now?" Dolores noded, as both of them hugged their parent as goodbye. And Camilo just thought about what happened. Luisa wasn't only super strong and invulnerable, but also unable to feel temperature. Was it how she managed to carry a hot food to the table without letting her face muscles twitch? Camilo could be almost jealous to Luisa with all the abilities that she got. But... After seeing how she convulsed on the ground... He prefered to know when it's too hot without passing out.

Camilo never realized that he stopped feeling so hot when he shapeshifted to carry Luisa.

[laffy-taffy-creations]

Welcome to day 17!!!!!

This fic was cross-posted on AO3 here

Currents of Past and the Shocks of Present

Collar | Touch Aversion | "Leave me alone"

Fandom: My Hero Academia

Words: 1,741

Warnings: electrocution, shock collar, PTSD episode, mentioned AND implied kidnapping, temporary memory loss/repression, let me know if I missed something

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Okay, today’s exercise is a little different,” the teacher in charge of today’s training started out with.

What a way to begin your explanation.

“You’ll all be set up with sensors and shock collars. Now, before anybody freaks out, all of them will be set on the lowest setting. It should be no more than a tingle. We’ll be going until the last person standing, once yours goes off, you’re out.”

There was a chorus of affirmation. I didnt nod. I didnt say anything. Who’s sick idea was this?

I reluctantly let the ones running the simulation put the wretched thing around my neck.

“What would happen if ours malfunctions? Are we able to contact anyone?” I had to know my options.

“If something goes wrong, you’ll be able to talk to us in the surveillance room with the code words ‘hello HQ’, much like if you were in a real mission.”

I nodded. At least there was a contingency. That was good. The discomfort of one of these on my neck again was something I wasn’t able to shake. I gave it 10 minutes maximum before I was thrown into an episode or forced myself out of the simulation.

We were given a few minutes to spread out in the fake forest. I immediately ran upon being released. There was a small area I came across that I settled into. A dense amount of trees. Hopefully nothing would go wrong. Hopefully nobody would find me.

My hand wandered up to the collar. I couldn’t just break it. Fingers traced along a familiar surface. They found the strength dial.

The number is so low… I thought on my file it said maximum strength…

The forest around me transformed into something familiar. The trees hiding me from the sun. Hiding me from the doctors. They cant know I’ve escaped. They cant know where I’m hiding.

I heard shuffling of leaves. I prayed it was an animal.

“OV?”

Who is that. How do they know my name.

“Dont hide your self with your illusions you idiot. I already know you’re there.”

“Dont get any fucking closer!”

Whoever it was stopped, startled. “Vee? Are you okay?”

Who are you. How do you know my name. Why are you using my nickname.

I finally looked at the unfamiliar voice. A girl. Purple hair. Red marks on her face.

My breathing picked up. Who are you?

“Found a pretty nice place to hide out, huh?”

“Are… are you with the doctors?” I managed. The quiver in my voice was impossible to hide.

She looked at me like I was insane. Maybe I was. There person who did this to me after all was-

“What doctors? Are you okay? Do I need to contact the pros?”

The questions overwhelmed me. Dont call the pros he’ll know where I am, he’ll find me.

I couldn’t hear over the sounds of my hyperventialation. The images flashed through my head, my vision started going fuzzy. I felt her hand touch my arm.

Pain. Blinding pain. Searing pain. Agony. Whatever the fuck you wanted to call it. It fucking hurt.

It stopped after 10 seconds. My vision cleared, I was on the ground now, and whoever this girl was looked at me in terror. Her hands were close to her ears.

Shit, I screamed didnt I. I remembered Masami saying my scream rivaled that of a hero she knew of with a voice quirk. They’re going to find me.

“Hello HQ. Uh, we have a situation, something’s going on with OV. I dont know what.”

No no no dont contact HQ-

I heard a guy’s voice ask “Was that fucking scream one of you two?”

I didnt look over. I didnt want to.

“It was OV. Something’s going on with them, I dont know what-”

“Can you two just fuck off already!” I snapped. “I dont want whatever ‘help’ you think you can provide, I dont want HQ or whatever, I dont even know who you are!”

“:..OV are you fucking insane?! What do you mean you dont fucking know us?!” He stomped over to me. I could sense him reaching towards me and Slingshotted myself a few feet further away from them.

“...YOU CAN TELEPORT?” the girl asked.

“I can do lots of shit. Leave me alone.”

“<OKAY EVERYBODY, WE’RE PUTTING AN END TO THE SIMULATION. EVERYBODY PLEASE LEAVE NOW. Bakugou, Jirou, and OV stay where you are. We'll get to you three in a moment,>” I heard from the stupid thig around my neck.

Jirou? Bakugou?

“Ohhhh shit,” I said to myself.

“What was that.”

I looked back up at the guy. I finally recognized him. It was fuzzy, but I could remember certain things about him. His name, his quirk, his general attitude. I knew this would happen.

I knew this exercise was a bad idea.

“Thi-this was a bad idea, ‘HQ’,” I whispered into the collar. I slowly regained my sense of the situation. I am Clover Morgan, I am 16, I am no longer 13, I am no longer at that stupid facility, I am not under the control of the doctors or the founder.

Not anymore.

“Where… where are we?”

“Vee. What the fuck was that,” Jirou demanded.

I sat up and took a deep breath. At least I knew her name again. “Answer my questions first, and then maybe later I’ll be able to answer yours.”

“No I think you’re gonna answer ours right fucking now-”

Bakugou reached towards me, probably intending to threaten me, and the pain started up again.

Blinding. Searing. Agonizing. The hand that had picked me up by the shirt dropped me.

I fell and looked at the two people again. I didnt recognize them. I knew I had a moment ago. Something in the back of my head continuously nagged me that they were probably safe. But the fact I’d been shocked now by both of them told me otherwise.

Based on their expressions, I dont think they meant it. I could tell by my birth quirk they hadn't meant it. They were both shocked. They were as confused as I was.

Some sort of noise came from where they both were wearing something around their necks too. It looked like the thing around mine… It looked like the thing around mine!

The guy sighed. “Call that shit off, you really think that’ll help them right now?!”

I backed up. Anger was never good. Not when you had someone like him. I could sense a powerful quirk.

He knelt down and held his hands up. A gesture of peace. That I knew. Based on his expression I could tell it wasn’t something he wanted to do. Something was going on behind the scenes. Something I wasn’t aware of.

“OV. I’m not going to fu-” he cut himself off and took a breath, “-I’m not going to hurt you. Do you recognize me.”

I shook my head.

“What do you know? It can be anything.”

“I… I dont know what I know.”

“Then start with the basics.”

“Uhm… my name is… My name is Clover Donovan Morgan, I’m… uhm…” why cant I tell what age I am?... “I was born with the Illusion quirk, and I… I have multiple…”

A look of what I only could tell was surprise because of my quirk’s connection to the mind crossed his face. “Do you know how old you are?”

“I…” I thought about it. My mind gave me conflicting answers. I felt tears of frustration running down my face. “I-I do-nt know-w…”

The girl spoke up, “You said something about multiple quirks. Maybe you tell us about that?”

I shook my head.

“How about your family? Do you remember shit about your family?” the guy asked. Who he was was coming into focus but I still couldnt quite tell.

“Uhm… Biologically, my mother’s name was Rose, she had the same quirk as me, and she was more commonly referred to with her middle name Ramona, my dad’s name was Peter and I was born with the same brown hair he has… I haven’t seen either of them in… I dont think you need to know that.”

“But you do.”

I paused. “I haven’t seen them since I was nine. If we aren’t talking about family in the biological sense, there’s Masami, Agno, Sayovai, Max, Rullo, Zharata, Indira, Relena… those are the main ones that come to mind actually when you say family.”

“Relena?” the girl asked quietly.

“Yes, Relena. I think her last name was… uhm… Himokya! That’s what her last name was. She was like a mother to me until I…” escaped. I escaped.

“Until you…?” she urged.

“U-uhm… I dont… wh-where am I?”

“UA.”

And everything came crashing back into focus. I froze realizing exactly what I’d told my classmates.

Taking a breath, I got up and pointed at each of them. “Jirou. Bakugou.” The relief was almost instant and just as mutual now that I could recognize them. Another deep breath. “You tell no one about anything that happened here. Am I understood?”

“You have some fucking explaining to do!”

“I dont owe you shit. Not an explanation. Not anything.” I started walking to the exit.

“...Vee?” Jirou said, following me.

“Yeah?”

“The pros in the surveillence room heard most of what you said.”

“Well they better shut their traps or I’m erasing their fucking memories. And whatever footage they got.”

“I dont…”

“OV,” Bakugou interrupted.

“Yeah?”

“Care to tell us why you collar was on the highest level? And why Himokya Relena, the most talked about missing person for the past half decade used to be something of a fucking family figure to you?”

“...And here I was thinking you’d ask about the multiple quirks.”

“Oh no, we’ll probably both be getting an earful from Deku about that. Now tell me.”

“Ever heard of ‘it’s not your fucking business’? Just because I told you something while I was in an unstable mental state does not make anything about it your business.”

“I’m pretty damn sure the part about you knowing where a missing person is falls under everybody’s fucking business.”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“At this point I think we deserve an answer,” Jirou spoke up.

I sighed and walked through the gate to the main area.

Fuck whoever thought a shock collar was a good idea for a training exercise involving teenagers.

[alitwebster]

closed starter for @drewxjackson

Losing touch with friends always had a toll on Ali’s mind. He was aware he wasn’t the best at keeping in contact, but he also thought that he was made of every little encounter he had, like small imprints of other people in the person he was. So you, Andrew, were definitely a part of Ali. 

He was in a weird place, when he met you. He was also very different from the man he was today. Back then, Ali Webster didn’t know who he was, wasn’t sure about who he loved, but definitely knew he wanted to reinvent himself. You helped him do that, in a way, with beers and long nights and wild adventures. 

However, living in a van comes with disadvantages and at the time, social networks weren’t a big thing. Not that Ali uses them much more nowadays, but, you know, the nomad lifestyle made it hard for him to keep track of everyone he needed to remember. He trusted you to have a good life and last time he spoke to you, you were finishing up University.

If he had known today would be the first day in years that he would get to talk to you, Ali would have probably asked you to meet up at a bar. For old time sake, right ? But it didn’t happen quite this way… 

It was 2 pm when the new East Haven resident decided to rent a small boat down at the adventure center, threw his backpack at one end, and sat at the other. Anybody could do that, right ? Except if you knew Ali just a little bit, you’d know he was terrified of water. If there was the tiniest bit of current, you could be sure the guy was sweating through every pore of his skin. So why was he on a boat ? 

He wanted to surprise Aindreis. Since he arrived in East Haven, his adventures in the city were mainly furniture shopping, decorating, reading and exercising. Don’t forget about cooking, too, and looking for a job that apparently didn’t want to be found. Safe to say, Ali had a lot of time on his hands. So today, he thought it would be a great idea to tackle one of his biggest fears, and start slow, in the hopes of maybe, being able to accompany his partner on these boats he seem to like so much. 

It started off great, and even though he had to focus really hard on his breathing, he managed to not freak out in the first five minutes. He even got to take a picture of a cute house without dropping the paddles in the water. That cute distraction also led him to follow the wrong path, when two were offered before his eyes. 

He started panicking when all he could see his boat go towards was a huge lock, left opened. His heart beating against his chest, Ali was doing his best to make the embarkation turn around, without much success. When he tried to use one of the paddles to reach the trees around the water, all he actually did was turn the boat over, and fall into the water, letting a loud noise escape his lungs. 

Oh, did I forget to mention Ali wasn’t the best swimmer ? Panicked and in an element he didn’t master whatsoever, Ali grabbed the first branch he could and started to wait. He couldn’t let go ! What if he fell into that lock ? And his bag ? Where was his bag ? Oh no shit… His phone ! “HELP ? HEEEELP?”

[1legitconnor]

“Okay, everybody,” Alifras yelled at the crowd of peasants and soon-to-be war fodder. “Shut up. Ask your questions one at a time and I will answer them as I see fit.”

The crowd of various species, mostly made up of representatives that had been called together for the announcement that had just been given, quieted to a murmur. Then one of them raised a hand.

“Sure, this works,” Alifras shrugged, still reclining in his throne that he had had moved out to the amphitheater, as it was the best space to accommodate everyone who was allowed to show up. “You - with the hand raised, what do you want?”

“What’s the catch?” the woman asked. “You’re setting us free? All of us? Why?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Alifras said, between bites of a pastry. “And because I’m bored. I haven’t had a real fight in much too long. So, I’m giving all of you a year to prepare and then I’ll be back to take all of you over again.”

During the stunned silence that followed, Alifras motioned for a servant to refill his wine. After he had taken a sip, he glanced around at his audience.

“Well, if there aren’t anymore questions, then-”

“Hey, fuck you, man,” a voice shouted out.

“We aren’t just here to entertain you,” called another.

The crowd burst into shouts of agreement with these statements, repeating and rephrasing them in their own colorful ways.

Alifras let the rabble have their fun for a few moments, then shushed them back down to silence.

“First of all, love the energy, keep it coming,” Alifras grinned. “Second of all, yes you are here to entertain me. I have only ever viewed any and all of you as a means to keep me from getting bored. But you’ve been my subjects for so long that ruling you all is now getting boring and your little revolutions and resistances are taking too long to develop, so I’m helping you all out. You’re welcome.”

“What if we just…don’t revolt?” another representative near the front asked.

“Well, that would still be a sort of resistance, wouldn’t it?” Alifras said. “But also, you don’t need to revolt if I’m just freeing you, right?”

“Okay, sure,” the representative nodded. “But like, what if we didn’t defend ourselves when you came back to take us over? Just made this whole exercise useless?”

“Then I’d give you credit for committing so well to being spineless cowards and also, if anybody does it, I will kill your family, specifically, for giving them the idea,” Alifras said, while looking for the best-looking fruit on the platter being presented to him by a servant. “But my takeover is going to be pretty high in the collateral damage count whether you resist or not. If you don’t feel like punching back, that’s your call.”

A hand slowly raised.

“Yeah, you,” Alifras pointed.

“In planning our revolutions, can we-” a voice began before their hand was smacked out of the air by whoever was standing next to them.

“Don’t tell him what you’re planning to do,” their companion hissed. “Just do it.”

“Oh, yeah, totally,” Alifras nodded. “No spoilers or anything. Just throw whatever you can at me to keep it interesting.”

“I have a request,” a voice from near the back called out. “Can you stop saying that this is all just for you to have fun?”

“What?�� Alifras gasped in mock offense. “You want me to lie to you? My faithful former subjects? Now that I will not do. I need you all to be clear on how I view you all and if you want it to not be fun for me then, uh, I don’t know, make it not fun for me. Idiot.”

Alifras rolled his eyes and took another drink of his wine. The crowd waited for what he would do next, still not sure if this was some kind of joke or cruel prank as he was known to play. But he looked up at them after a moment and shrugged.

“Run along,” he shooed them with a motion of his hand. “Freedom granted. Make your preparations and all that. And set your watches. You’ll be hearing from me soon. And it’s going to be a blast.”

A tyrant emperor, bored out of his mind because he has already conquered every planet in the galaxy, has the brilliant idea of deconquering all the planets just so he can conquer them again. The rebellion is extremely angry and confused by this.

[dashielldeveron]

Okay Shy Anon from before back here, I’ve been re-reading in anticipation and I so want to know!! Who do you imagine Shinsou got off with during the villain attack (trying to be as vague as possible for anybody who hasn’t read it yet)?

Touya’s prosthetic!! It seems like he has complex functional use of it and reader couldn’t tell it wasn’t the arm he was born with when appreciating him shirtless. Was your idea that it was some specialized quirk-enhanced prosthetic? Did Enji abuse his power to get his son top of the line technology from a support item company??

Also!! It seemed like Touya had control over the soulmate bond sometimes, the connection stopping or starting at extremely convenient times for him. Is it just extremely lucky coincidence? Does he have an innate control over the bond? Or maybe because he’s technically had half of the bond going for presumably longer than reader (it seemed implied to me that he was exposed before and when reader was exposed both pieces snapped into place)? Like a muscle he’s subconsciously been exercising, when everything connected he was already practiced and given enough time reader will be able to turn it on and off at will?

Also also, I don’t think I properly conveyed this im my first gush, but the remnants of his shrine still existing is so devastating. A constant reminder in his eyes that he’s dead to them. They got Dabi back, but the Touya they used to love is still dead, like he can’t be good enough now after what he’s done (whether that’s true or not). Sorry to keep blowing you up, you just occupy so much of my brainpower lately.

i am throwing flower petals on your head. i hand you a jug of wine and loaf of bread. we spread out our blanket for our beautiful picnic.

answered below cut, bc spoilers (?) for aizawa's/shinsou's/dabi's routes of soulmate trope

shinsou and seredipity: there's a line in shinsou's route said by aizawa along the lines of "just be grateful you were trapped alone" in the aftermath of the airport stuff. i imagined shinsou to have been separated from the group in a place where serendipity's quirk didn't even leak into. this is mostly bc

1) i think shinsou wouldn't've had the energy to have that conversation with ito if he'd had to deal with serendipity's quirk already, and

2) lololol if shinsou were in the same place as the rest of them, it gives them all an easy way out with his quirk--and in my head, i think it's funnier if bakugou says "i'm not gonna suck icy-hot's dick" and then he does. (i actually think it'd be more in character for bakugou to get one of them to give him a handjob but critique their method the whole time, but the dick sucking thing is funnier).

touya's prosthetic: i like to think that such prosthetics are available on the market for everyone. unrealistic, i know, but it's my fic, and i have high hopes for humanity. but since there's quirks specific enough to, say, matching colour palettes to complement skin tone, why shouldn't there be quirks to make lightweight but mechanically complex prosthetics? if endeavor interfered, i'd like to think that it was only to get an exact skin tone match made or perhaps as a rush order.

touya's control over the bond: FUCK that's so good that's SO good. i wish i had thought of that. the reason it cuts at convenient times is bc i needed it to cut for the plot lololol. in my head, yes, touya breathed in the dust first, but since his assigned soulmate hadn't yet breathed it in, it's like the quirk sat dormant, like a sleeper agent, until reader was affected. but fuck the idea of him practising with it is so cool!!! i bet that he and reader could use that to practise with the link now that they're together!!! that would make it safer when, like, one of them is driving or something lololol. and could lead to adorable shenanigans.

touya's empty shrine: urgHUGHrughrughhgurhg you're the perfect reader. you're exactly whom i want reading my bullshit. because yes yes yes it's fucking devastating that touya has to walk by essentially his grave!! and since his fam has cleared it out, they've clearly been, like, "yes this is inappropriate bc touya is living," but since they've left the shell, it still leaves the message that they're still mourning whom he used to be!!!! screams

my beloved picnic-companion!!! don't apologise!!! i am so achingly desperate to talk about this stuff, esp. bc my beta reader doesn't even like anime and thus doesn't catch detail work!!!! but i am tickled pink that you've been thinking about the fic so much!!! i'm so glad it can fill some of your time and make you happy :)

i am working hard on shigaraki's route!!! i hope you like it, too!!! xx.

[survey--s]

688.

Do you know anybody who is ambidextrous? I feel like I do, but I can't think of who.

Have you ever been 4-wheeling? No. It just doesn't appeal to me.

What’s the weather been like today? Miserable - pouring down rain and a weather warning on top.

What was the last exam you sat for? It was my pet first aid course.

Will you be attending any weddings in the near future? No.

Do you currently have any unread text messages, and who from? No, not at the moment.

Speaking of text messages, what colour is your cell phone? Blue.

Do you live anywhere near the woods? Yeah, I can see them from the front door, pretty much. I go most weeks when the weather is decent - unfortunately this time of year they just turn into mud so I don't really bother.

Would you ever consider a career in the tourism industry? It wouldn't be at the top of my list but a job is a job. Not everyone can afford to be picky about what they do.

Do you have any important anniversaries you celebrate? Not really. Mike and I don't really bother with our anniversary.

When was the last time you used q-tips? 3-4 days ago.

How does your hair react to humid weather or rain? It goes frizzy and horrible.

What’s your favourite flavour of iced tea? Raspberry or peach.

Do you understand music theory? I studied it when I did piano but it's been decades now. I'm not sure what I'd remember, in all honesty.

How many hours of sleep did you get last night? About seven years.

Are you expected to act professionally at your job? I work with dogs so no, not really haha. Even with my clients I'm more polite/friendly than professional - it's not really the kind of job where you need an official "

Infomercials: entertaining or stupid? Both.

What’s your favourite brand of energy drink? I don’t like any energy drinks.

Do you have (or have you ever had) acne? Yeah, I've had it since I was about 12.

When was the last time you got pins-and-needles? Last night. I get them all the time as I always end up sleeping on my arms or hands.

Why did you click to take this survey? Because it was one I hadn't taken before.

If you have glasses, have you ever smashed them? No, they're really badly scratched though :/

How do you get new music? Buy or download or what? I pay for Spotify Premium.

Have you ever sent someone an abusive text message? In an argument, sure.

Do you require a lot of time to do things or are you quick? I'm pretty quick. I'd rather get things done than have them hanging over me.

What will be the next concert you attend? I have absolutely no idea.

Turn the nearest television on, what’s on? I'm watching The Big Bang Theory.

How often do you “wake up on the wrong side of the bed”? Maybe once or twice a week, but normally I get over it pretty quickly.

Can you rap? No.

What do you usually order when you’re at McDonald’s? Chicken nuggets, fries and sweet and sour sauce. In summer I get a McFlurry or milkshake and in winter it's a coffee and an apple pie.

Are there any textbooks near where you are right now? No.

What’s the time? 3.30pm.

Do you know how to use a DSLR camera? No.

How’s your body temperature right now? I mean, it's fine?

Do you use Celsius or Fahrenheit? Celsius.

What was the last thing you got a really good deal on? Dog treats thanks to Black Friday.

Have you ever studied any ancient societies? Yeah, Romans and Aztecs mostly.

Do you like to wear long, dangling earrings? No. I have a kitten who would rip them out of my ears in seconds, lol.

What was the last reason you took medicine? A headache.

Do you exercise regularly? Yeah, I walk dogs for a living. I cover 8-10km a day.

What is your coffee of choice? (flat white, cappuccino, etc.) Cappuccino or flavoured latte.

Do you pay any attention to your country’s politics? To an extent.

Are you feeling worried about anything right now? No.

Are you a gossipy type of person? Yeah, but not in a malicious way.

When will your next meal be, and do you know what it will consist of? Dinner and I have absolutely no idea. Maybe soup.

Tell me about the sickest you’ve ever felt. I've had a few bad viruses that have left me bedridden.

What’s your opinion on your in-laws, if you have any? They're lovely and really good people. I got lucky.

Do you make excuses often, or do you just get things done? For the most part I just get things done, but it does depend on my mood.

Have you seen your best friend today? Yeah.

What can you smell right now? My candle, which smells of coffee beans.

Any important birthdays coming up? Mine is tomorrow.

Fireworks: yay or nay? I like them but I wish they were limited to organised displays only.

Do you have any plans for the rest of the day? No. The weather is horrendous lol.

How about tomorrow? Any plans? We're meant to be going out for lunch but if the weather carries on like this I might not bother, in all honesty.

Do you know how to do your own laundry or does someone else do it? I do it. I mean, I'm an adult, nobody else is gonna do it for me.

If you could eat or drink anything right now, what would it be? I'm good.

What colour are your headphones? Black.

Think of the last long car trip you had, where did you go? I have no idea. Probably the Peak District.

Do you have a Twitter account that you use regularly? No.

Have you ever seen a horseshoe crab? They’re scary, right?! Only on TV. They don't really scare me but they are pretty weird.

What was the last movie you saw at the theatres? I don't remember.

Are there any new movies that you’d really like to see? I still haven't seen Barbie and I quite want to see Wonka too.

If you could play one instrument flawlessly, what would it be? Piano or guitar.

Do you overthink a lot of things? Not so much anymore.

Is there anybody you miss but can’t see again? Layla.

When was the last time you had a hangover? About four years ago.

[wilquinones]

Exercising Empathy in Museums

(pictured above: Burial located in the Mán Bạc site in Vietnam, if you want to read more about it, click here, photo credits to Lorna Tilley)

As I mentioned in a previous entry, empathy is fundamental to human nature. We are social animals; if people didn’t care for one another, we would have never had communities, built societies, established civilizations, indeed, humanity as we know it would never exist. I’m not a particularly religious person, but when I was younger and went to church with my mother, it would always strike a chord in me when hearing what Cain said to God: “Am I my brother’s keeper?”. I think about this passage when I see archeological findings of ancient human remains with healed injuries, because they were taken care of, to no one’s benefit, or read about studies that show that babies cry in response to hearing other newborns cry. How intrinsic it is for us to be each other’s keeper, a collective voice that responds “yes” to Cain’s sarcastic question. 

However, I know that I am once again viewing history through a more romantic and generous lens. Greed and arrogance are just as part of the core of humanity as empathy, and it is why systems of power such as white supremacy, misogyny and heteronormativity all exist and have persisted to the present day. It is also why institutions such as museums, who have participated in these structures since their conception, must consciously practice empathy towards minorities, marginalized communities and anybody who has been hurt by the aforementioned systems. This idea is reflected by The Empathetic Museum: A New Institutional Identity, stating that empathy should define institutional structures and policies (p. 506). 

In my museum practice, I intend to use empathy as a guiding principle to engage with visitors. Museums are not just repositories of artifacts and history; they are platforms for dialogue and understanding. By empathizing with visitors' varied backgrounds and experiences, I hope to create environments where everyone feels welcome. This might involve incorporating bilingual signage, providing accessible materials, or developing interactive exhibits that cater to different learning styles. In doing so, I aspire to break down barriers and make the museum a place where people can connect with art, history, science and any other subject that was unavailable to them before.

The Empathetic Museum outlines five ways in which museums can apply empathetic practices; namely: civic vision, institutional body language, community resonance, timeliness and performance measures (p. 510). In order to put civic vision into practice, museums must work with different organizations in order to improve its community's quality of life and promote social justice. Institutional body language refers to the subtle ways in which museums project their identities and values, such as location, staff demographics, and choices being made on exhibition content, design and programs, and the article encourages museums to look critically at their own behavior and actively address it in order to create a welcoming environment to all demographics. Museums should also resonate with their communities, understanding and addressing its unique needs and interests. Additionally, museums should provide timely and relevant answers in times of changing circumstances, unrest or crisis. Finally, There should be measurable indicators of how well the museum is embodying these qualities, from regressive to proactive levels, reflected on the Maturity Model provided by The Empathetic Museum.           

I believe that the article provides efficient guidelines to how museums can serve as more empathetic institutions to the communities they serve, and I aspire to advocate for these guidelines in my professional career as an educator. I value empathy deeply as an individual and I actively try to apply it within my personal life, but museum educators should also strive to transform the institutions they dedicate themselves to, and continue that collective voice onwards for future generations. 

References: 

Jennings, Gretchen, Jim Cullen, Janeen Bryant, Kayleigh Bryant‐Greenwell, Stacey Mann, Charlette Hove, and Nayeli Zepeda. “The Empathetic Museum: A New Institutional Identity.” Curator: The Museum Journal 62, no. 4 (September 9, 2019): 505–26. https://doi.org/10.1111/cura.12335.

[colbyflask]

what i am doing here

listen - or actually read because you most likely aren't listening to this. if you are listening to this, why are you using text to speech?? or am I reading this out loud in the future? is there an AI out there mimicking my voice, impersonating my likeness to make an insane amount of profit? does this mean I finally got to blow up (not in the exploding sense), and act like I don't know anybody?

this little project is more like an exercise - I've been wanting to write for a long time. but not serious writing (at least not yet) - the last time I wrote something was exactly a year ago and that was a research paper for my last grade in undergrad (I got an A, like it matters). The process was terrible. Like most of my assignments, I held off for as long as I could and panic wrote in the hours leading up to the deadline. I missed those deadlines, asked for extensions, and used the pure fury of that panic to drive the assignment to completion. I pulled all-nighters, consuming terrible coffee which made me feel worse than it tasted. I couldn't feel my legs, and my head would be pounding. I ached for sleep, but my academic writing process forbid it. While my writing usually got me the grade I wanted, I wasn't satisfied with the product I produced. I always felt like I could've done more, that my arguments were weak, like I didn't know enough to put words on the page. Despite the fact that I formulated the words after hours of research and calculated planning, it wasn't enough. I felt as if I could've been doing so much more, but I just couldn't execute it. There was no joy in the process of seeking knowledge and repurposing what I'd learned, and I began to care less and less about the topics at hand. And when most of your assignments are related your interests in your chosen specialty, let's just say the process of writing becomes even more grueling. the vicious cycle continued, and I only managed to escape by removing myself from that academic environment. I won't lie to you - I want to go back someday, but I can't do it the way I did before. I really don't think I'll make it out - so I guess this project/idea is way for me rebuild before I go back. Maybe something else will come out of it, or maybe everything will be exactly the same. I can't really say .

Writing is something that I used to enjoy - crafting little non-sensical stories that were the result of either weird dreams I had or ideas that came to me after reading a book that I loved. I never got into that whole fan fiction thing (I didn't have time and I was absolutely the type that didn't want to read something if it didn't come from the "original creator." I like to think that I've grown out of that mindset a bit, but I have yet to really read any kind of fan-fiction). I've wanted to practice writing for a while, going beyond the artificial research papers or timed assignments. I don't think I've written anything fun since the fourth grade (unless you count my dumbass tweets), and I've really lacked that kind of inspiration. I wouldn't even know where to start - what even is a writing process??? Here's what I do know - I use WAYYY too many hyphens (I had a professor call me out on it once). I enjoy using them. I like to think of my writing as listening to someone's thoughts, and the hyphens are another way to convey a pause. I also know that me and writing have had a rough relationship over the past few years, which is heartbreaking because I feel like I had the potential to be a phenomenal writer. That likely sounds egotistical, and you know what? It is. If I don't say it, who will? If I don't believe that I have the potential, why should anyone else? So there it is. I want to write, and I want to be good at it. That's why I'm here. But I can't improve my writing if I don't practice, so that's why I'm here. I'm going to write about what I want to write about, and I want to share what's going on in my brain. I want to do it on my own terms. Will people read this? Again - I can't really say. If you are reading this (because I wrote a lot - sorry), thank you. My goals here are to make this an interesting experience - I want it to be entertaining, but also insightful. I don't want you to feel like you just wasted five minutes reading gibberish. I hope you (and me) will stick along for the ride.

Something I've wanted to do for a while is write about the music I like. Like musical reviews. I have absolutely no qualifications - I just want to write about what I enjoy (or not enjoy), and I want to share that with the world. I spend a lot of my time listening to music, but it'll usually be the same thing on rotation until I feel comfortable to move on to something new. So I think that's where I'll start - writing about the music that I like and why I like it. I don't know how long it'll take me - I haven't decided if it'll be polished and proofread, or a jumbled mess (like this one). I haven't decided if it'll be one big post, or a conglomerate. And you know what? that's okay. I don't need to plan everything out. I just need to put something on the page (...or, text post in this case). So that's where we'll start - vivi vibing to vibrations (thx sofia for the name)

that's all I have for now. I'm not the most well-versed in this website, but I feel like I know enough to get me going. the rest will come. and on that note of rest, I need some.

'-V

may 5. 2023

[swirlysmile]

enemies to lovers

reader is a pilot, callsign not established

timeline is a BIT janky

warnings: there are some innuendos in here, some swearing, name calling, good natured rivalry, poorly written, bad military knowledge. you get the gist

word count: 1.9k

I can’t be who you want me to be.

You grimace from across the room. Hangman is playing pool, Coyote by his side, and he’s probably insulting Bob. Poor Bob, who has never done anything to Hangman, but is always the butt of his cruel jokes.

Coyote says something with a smile, and you can almost hear the sound of Jake’s laughter when you see his body shake.

“He is so, so insufferable!” You say to Rooster. It’s the third time he’s heard this rant, and he might agree, but that doesn’t mean he cares. So, instead of listening, Rooster takes another sip (gulp) of his beer and absentmindedly nods. He’s staring in the direction of some pretty lady who just walked in.

“I’ll leave you to complain.” He says, patting 

your shoulder

You groan a little, because you aren’t complaining, just sharing a strongly worded opinion about one of the cockiest, most annoying, arrogant, and awful people you’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting.

Hangman is paying no attention to you, even when Coyote mentions the death glares he’s receiving. 

“She’s just jealous.” 

“What’s there to be jealous of, Bagman?” Phoenix asks.

She receives no response, Hangman is too busy lining up the pool stick to make another painfully perfect shot, a winning shot. 

Bob groans at his loss while he’s putting the cue back on the wall. 

“Who knows what she’s jealous of, but it’s gotta be something. I mean, there’s no way anybody could hate me without being envious of something?” 

He makes a sort of shrugging gesture, almost like he’s implying that it’s obvious.

Phoenix almost laughs.

“I’ll leave you to ponder with your, very, wrong thoughts.” 

She pulls Bob to the bar, near where Rooster is sitting.

“Good morning aviators!” Maverick grins. “It’s time we take a little detour.” And you don’t like that idea because whatever detour Mitchell has planned is bound to end badly.

You’re hoping, praying, the whole way to the beach that this will end well. 

Hangman is driving the cramped car you ended up in, claiming that carpooling is good for the environment. You can't argue the facts, but maybe you could have carpooled with someone less, douchey? 

“Dogfight football? The hell does that mean?” Yale asks, and he makes a valid point. 

“Offense and defense, at the same time.” Maverick replies. He sounds like he’s a kid who’s just been struck with the best idea ever, and it’s a tad funny. 

“A chance to beat Seresin? I’m in.”

“C’mon sweetheart, you know you love me.”

You end up on the opposite team from him, thanking whatever god decided to take pity on you today. Everyone is running around, their focus on winning has been lost. You would be having a great time too, but you keep reminding yourself that Hangman is near you. 

Maverick taps out, but the rest of the team keeps playing. The scores out the window- not even Hondo is keeping track. The teams have mixed and switched, yet you’ve still managed to stay away from Hangman.

“I’m out.” You say. You run up the beach to the small cooler that Maverick brought along and grab water out of it.

Gradually, the game gets smaller and everyone comes over to the cooler. Maverick is ranting about ‘team building exercises’ and Bob is pretending to be interested, or maybe he really is? It’s hard to tell. 

You feel arms wrapped around your waist, and you wish you didn’t know whose they were when you glanced down.

“Seresin, put me down.”

“Could at least pretend like we’re friends.” he says, hauling you towards the water. You don’t know his motives, but guess he’s doing this out of pure assholery.

“I’m not much of an actor, hence why I decided to be a pilot.”

He’s ignoring your every kick, shout, grunt, basically anything you do to try and get out of this death trap.

“Cat doesn’t want to go for a swim?” He jokes before throwing you into the shallow water.

“You’re a douche.”

“Born and raised, baby.”

You start walking away, up the beach. 

“Where are you going?”

“Walking home.”

“What?” 

“I don’t want to be in a car with you, so I’m going to walk home.”

He scoffs. “You’re so childish.”

You offer a shrug in return and keep walking.

He’s sitting in one of the chairs looking all high and mighty when he brings up Rooster and Maverick’s past. 

Dickwad.

Rooster lunges at him, and Maverick is continually yelling “That’s enough!” but it’s not helping. Hangman won’t stop talking.

“I’m cool, I’m cool.” He smirks, and it is infuriating.

When he leaves, you chase after him. He’s walking down the hall without a care in the world. 

“That was such a dick move, Seresin.” 

“I know.” 

“And you’re not going to apologize?” 

“No.”

You groan, and you’re about ready to turn around again, but you think about what he said and it makes you mad all over again. 

“You’re tormenting everyone. You’re being an awful coworker, and friend. I hope you don’t get picked for this mission, especially to be a leader. I wouldn’t want you leading me, or my friends. You’d kill everyone on the mission, and still manage to make yourself look like a savior.” 

He sighs and rolls his eyes. For a second it looked like he was affected. Just a second, then he went back to looking like a total douche without a care in the world.

“Let’s face it sweet cheeks, I can't be who you want me to be. Stop trying to fix me.”

It’s the mission date, and you already know you’re not an option. There was a mishap with ejection that resulted in you gaining a sprained wrist and being unable to

fly. Your head is spinning while Maverick is calling the team, and you’re hoping that he won’t call on Hangman.

Sure, it’d be funny and bruise his ego- but with Phoenix and Bob up there? You don’t trust him at all, he knew you didn’t, but Maverick didn’t, and frankly Maverick wouldn’t care if he had decided Hangman was the right choice. 

“And for my wingman, Rooster.” 

Your heart stops. This is both the best -and the worst- possible outcome. Hangman is put on reserve, only to be sent out in case of an emergency. But Bradley is out there, and he’s an amazing friend. Even though he doesn’t like to listen to you rant about your hatred of Jake, he has redeeming qualities.

“Good luck out there.” You say to him, giving him a hug that he reciprocates immediately. 

You do the same for Phoenix and Bob, and when Hangman approaches Rooster, you get anxious.

He stands there for a second, and you don’t know if he’s going to punch (or kiss) Rooster. 

You can’t hear anything over the roar of engines, but you can only hope that Hangman didn’t say something shitty to Rooster before a suicide mission.

You take that as your cue to leave and sit by the comms, reminding yourself that ‘hey, maybe they’ll make it out of this alive.’

You’re over analyzing every word they say, and your head is pounding. 

“Permission to launch?” You hear Hangman over comms after Maverick goes down.

“Denied.”

“He is so annoying.” 

When Rooster goes down too though, every thought of Hangman is pushed out the window. Did you just lose your best friend? 

Hangman requests permission to launch again, but you hardly hear it over the ringing in your ears.

You just sit there, tears brimming, heart aching. 

“Permission to launch?” he asks for the third time, and you just scoff. 

“Granted.”

Phoenix runs into the room, sitting next to you. Bob does the same, comfortingly rubbing your back. You wish it was you up there, saving Rooster and Maverick. Not for the bragging rights, but so you could ensure that they’re really safe- not just a glory ploy for Hangman’s autobiography. 

“This is your savior speaking,” he starts, and you almost scream in joy. Your friends look just as elated, and surprised, that Hangman managed to save them and only be a little bit of a douche about it.

Right as they land, you follow the rest of the team towards Bradley and Maverick, but falter when you see Hangman standing to the side. 

“Thank you.” you speak tenderly. He wraps his arms around you to reciprocate the hug you initiated. It shouldn’t make you feel so warm and fuzzy, but it does.

A little reunion-celebration later, and you’re standing on the other side of Hangman’s door, trying to build up the courage to knock and apologize. 

“Uh, hi.” He says, swinging the door open. You’re still standing there, dumbfounded. He has his keys in his hand, and you immediately step out of his way.

“Sorry Seresin, I just-” you stop yourself, almost turning to walk away when he questions you. “I want to apologize. I was out of line the other night.”

He just laughs and runs a hand through his blonde hair. 

“It bothered me more than it should have. I told you I couldn’t be who you want me to be, but I don’t know if that’s true. I tried really hard.” 

“I'm proud of you, Jake. You saved my friends today, and my sanity.” 

He runs a hand through his hair again, like it’s some kind of nervous habit.

“Thanks for talking some sense into me. I needed it.” 

“Thanks for listening.” You said, nudging his shoulder. 

It goes silent for a minute, then you remember he was about to leave and stutter out a nice goodbye. 

“Don’t you want to come to the Hard Deck?” he asks, his head tilted. 

“I didn’t know I was invited.”

The music is blaring, the lights are blinding, and the drinks keep coming. It’s nice to drown your sorrows with some alcohol.

Everyone’s celebrating, and how could you not? The entire team dispatched came back in one piece, safely. The only damage? A few scratches, two planes, and some bruised egos.

And Hangman is paying, so may as well get some drinks. 

Tonight’s different though. He doesn’t find a random, pretty girl to take home. Instead, he’s directing all his energy at you. 

When you step outside and gesture for him to come too, he follows.

“Look, Seresin, I don’t know what you’re doing with the flirting but I’m not interested in being a one-time thing.”

“So you are interested in being a long-time thing?”

“Depends on what you mean by that.”

“As in, a relationship?” He chokes out, face flushed and if you didn’t know any better, you would have assumed it was the alcohol.

“Maybe.”

His hands snake around your waist while you reach to wrap your arms around his neck. He doesn’t even really lean in, he just jumps at you. His lips press against yours, kiss simultaneously soft and hard. His lips are a little chapped, no doubt matching your own.

“I should have tried that a long time ago.”

“I would have broken your nose.”

“With the extra steps?” 

“Maybe so, Lieutenant.” 

He laughs and leans in, “I could do this all the time.”

“I’m sure you could.”

[lingering-42-long]

Request - Rodolfo Para x Reader [Fluff]

Prompt/Idea (you don't have to use it) - The reader is new to the special forces and is very shy. Some people question her on how she got into the special forces despite being heavily shy, she feels like an outcast. Until Rudy notices her and decides to take her out to make her feel more welcome.

Bonus: Alejandro ships them heavily

Polilla

Rodoflo Para x gender neutral Reader

Ask and you shall receive! I am all for this juicy juice! Sorry it took so long to write this! The reader isn’t explicit on what gender. I did write this for a female, but you can apply for male.

Warnings: fluff, mentions of death,

Note: I am very aware that superiors are not supposed to be dating their subordinates in the military, but this is a game that also teaches war crimes so…. I wanted to try my hand at writing in different styles as well. That’s why I am writing in a gender neutral form.

It was your ability to hack into Any security device that led you onto the special forces team known as Vaqueros of the city Las Almas. Your gift was unmatched by anyone, even the hardest of Coding cannot keep you out for more than five minutes, however; as renowned of a hacker as you were you were also a recluse. Rarely adventuring outside of your respected office and room only to accompany those on missions.

You weren’t very strong you didn’t have survival skills and overall most people would consider you as a liability. The most people didn’t know that you had the gift. They saw you as face value which is understandable considering that you didn’t make an attempt to reach out for yourself. It’s not that you didn’t like people it’s just it was very difficult for you to interact with others. You did not know what to say at parties, you did not know how to respond to certain questions, nor you did not have the same Charisma that others had. I you were an enigma to everyone on the team who didn’t know you personally.

Alejandro Vargas, Commander of the special forces, and his second-in-command Rodoflo Para ,and a handful of others, were the only ones that knew your skills and your strength. It wasn’t like anybody else didn’t try. There are many soldiers who found you attractive and reached out to you, But out of panic, you declined. Leaving you to kick yourself mentally for ruining another good chance at being with a partner.

Most only asked once before moving on, except Rodoflo. He was different. He never pressured you, or over asked you, or made you feel uncomfortable. If anything, he always tried to include you in almost any exercise or activity the team was performing for fun.

He went by the nickname Rudy. He was A tentative to you, watching you from afar, not in a creepy way, but in a loving, respectful way, like a photographer watching wildlife.

Rudy knew that a lot of times you worked late into the night, Knowing that that’s the best time that you got the most work done when everyone was asleep and you didn’t have to feel the pressure of the world on your shoulders. He would come in and gently knock on the door before entering, handing you A cup of tea and asking how everything was going, genuinely curious about the progress that you’re making.

At first you were nervous about having a superior looking over your shoulder, thinking that he wanted to report on your progress, but after some time you grew used to having his presence at night. Sometimes when he couldn’t sleep he would ask to join you, of course you said yes thinking that he needed to talk to you about some thing, however; no words came out. He just sat reading a book as you would work from your desk. The silence was stifling but over time it became welcomed.

The two of you now had a ritual. Around ten to eleven in the night, he would meet you in the office with two mugs of tea and a book for him, almost every night. What nights he couldn’t make it he would let you know. Rudy was always good and making sure to check in with whatever he was doing with you.

As of recent, there had been a mission That had gone south. Few casualties, lots injured, and no progress. You had did everything you could to get into the security system, but there was somebody on the other end that was manually blocking you. A lot of the members on the team, due to low morale, began blaming you for the lost cause. “What good is a hacker if they can’t even open a simple door.” Or “ I bet they are a mole.” Or “We lost a lot of good friends because of them.” This was your time to shine and you blew it. Even though deep down in your heart, you knew that there was nothing that you could have done, and you had did everything that you could possibly do, it still ate away at your soul.

You hid in your room. With all of the rumors spreading around, all you wanted to do was just vanish, to hide, to disappear. You could hear people on the other side of the door, any time somebody walked by your door they would make it very clear on how they felt about you with the others, louder than usual so that you could hear what they were saying. The words echoed around your dark room. You felt responsible for the deaths because you couldn’t open a door.

Sometime in the night you heard a knock on the door. “Go away.” You called out, not wanting to be bothered. “Please, mi polilla, let me in.” It was Rudy. You sighed, you couldn’t escape from everything as much as you wanted to try. “Come in” you called and the door opened, revealing Rodoflo Holding two mugs, a book, and a thick blanket. “I… I know you’re going through a rough time right now… I… I wanted to see if you would like to join me in the mess hall for some reading… no one’s up.” He looked at you with hopeful eyes. “I’m…. Im not ready to come out…” you sunk deeper in the bed trying to curl up and fade from the world. “Oh… then may I join you?” He asked gently, not trying to overstep his boundaries. Right now he was not her commander, right now he was her friend.

You looked at him unsure, but you finally decided that you needed somebody to talk to. “Sure.” That is all you said. He came in quietly, shutting the door behind him. He sat down your mug of tea on your nightstand as he sat across from you. “How are you feeling?” He asked.

“Like shit.” You groaned “ I can’t believe I failed… so many lives depended on me to open that door…”

“Hey now! Listen to me, it happens to all of us. Don’t think I don’t regret some of my own decisions that I’ve made in the past. You’re not the only one who regrets not being able to have control over a situation” his words were firm but gentle. Rudy knew what it was like to have the guilt of the world on ones shoulder.

“What does ‘mi polilla’ mean.” You ask after a while of silence.

“What?” Rudy looked at her in the dim light of her lamp.

“mi polilla. You called me that… what does it mean?”

“Oh!” Rodoflo chuckled, “it means my moth. It’s fitting because you always stay up at night, no?”

“Yeah.. I guess so…” you looked outside at the training yard. If you were on night duty patrolling the yard walking around making sure the gates were secured but mostly it was a quiet night. You could hear the crickets outside of the window chirping and the occasional owl hoot. In the distance coyotes were howling.

“Care to walk with me outside? It’s a nice night.”

You thought about it. “ I think fresh air would do me good.” You carefully got up out of bed. You were still wearing your On base outfit, a simple Olive green shirt and camo pants. So was Rudy.

The both of you took a stroll around the base perimeter. The guards that were out did not pay too much mind as they were too busy making sure that the place was secure for the night. You had your hands in your pocket. While the days in Las Almas were hot, they gave away to cool nights. Mainly because the sand did not hold in the heat very well. You fell and I’m around your shoulder. Rodoflo walked alongside you, enjoying The cool quiet nights with only the noises of distant animals keeping you company. “I am sorry that it has been rough for you this past few months. But please know that the commander and myself and many others are very glad that you could be on our team… I know the others are giving you trouble but it is not your fault.” He spoke with reassurance, his eyes glistening in the Moonlight. Looking down, you noticed some small, tiny flowers in the pavement cracks. A little tiny moth was fluttering around the flowers, its fat body beating its wings furiously in order to stay on one of the flowers stems.

“You know… I have always been really fond of you… you are Smart, intelligent, funny, creative, sarcastic… you may not think so but I love the things that you talk about. You’re so intuitive about it small details and things that you’re passionate about. One of my favorite things is when you tell me stories from your childhood.” There was a slight blush on his cheeks but it was hard to see in the night, underneath the light posts.

“If I didn’t know any better I would assume that you were telling me you have a crush on me.” A slight chuckle came from your lips.

“And what if I was?” His voice was soft, quiet, but firm. He was being honest with her

“I’ve been trying to get your attention for the past few months… surely you knew that’s what I was doing, right?” Rudy looked at you.

The sudden realization hit you hard. Every time he would ask you to go out with him, every time he would spend time with you when he could be sleeping, every time he would look at you from across the table in the mess hall watching you. He was silently letting you know he was interested in you. He wanted to be with you. Rodoflo Para was truly infatuated with you..

“No…no I didn’t know” You too blushed as you looked away, The overwhelming amount of shyness washing over you as you wanted to retreat somewhere.

“I understand if you don’t see me the same way, but I do ask that you… consider me-“

“Yes!” You blurted out. “I mean yes I do consider you…. I’m sorry I’m not very good with these sort of advances. I’ve been on my own since a teen I think I forgotten how to communicate with other individuals.”

Rodoflo gave a lighthearted chuckle. “Don’t apologize. It’s cute…. Does that mean that you want to see if this works out?” He gave a simple gesture between the two of you as he faced you head on.

“Yes… I want to try.” You nodded and noticed the man grinning.

“Wow… ok… umm.” He got flustered from the sudden realization that you liked him. “There’s a local Café in town I like to go to on my off days… would you be willing to join me there?”

“Yes. I would love that.” You chuckled and held onto his arm for the first time, being the bold one. “Come on let’s go back inside, I’m getting cold.”

“Ah! Sí. It’s well past our bedtime.” Rudy laughed. “May I walk you to your quarters, Mi polilla?”

“Yes” you smiled as the two of you walked back into bace. The little flower in the pavement gently bended to a slight breeze that had blown across it, making the fat little moth flutter off into the night.

Alejandro Watched from his window at the two, smiling to himself, “Good for you Rudy, You finally did it.” He had been watching the two from a distance and he had never been more happier, knowing that his best friend finally made the move on the person that he loved. He went back to working on his computer finishing up late night work before heading home.

[no-droids]

Out of a Trillion

gif credit: @bestintheparsec​

Part Fifteen of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 12.6K

Warnings: uhhhh so there is a bit of SMUT in this one, not too much and I imagine if you’ve made it this far then that won’t be too big of a deal LMFAOOO uh some ANGST and my attempt at HURT/COMFORT and also violence/blood/injury description, so look out for that!

A/N: I started writing this before the season finale aired and I know we all want a bit of goodness and softness after it, but hopefully this will be okay!  I’ll start working on the next part tonight

***

Everything changes and yet somehow nothing does.  

From that point on, it’s like… like you’re both just suspended in this perpetual state of wondering, waiting for the other shoe to drop.  You know he said it’s up to you, but what the fuck?  Look whenever you want?  That’s way too much fucking pressure, he’s out of his mind.  You’re not equipped to handle that, who does he think you are?  Someone that can just… decide things?

And it’s not like you’re afraid of the commitment, or that you don’t want to look.  You do, but every single time a moment comes, it just never… feels right.  You don’t know what you’re waiting for, what feeling or meaning you’re expecting to magically present itself to you, but you can’t shake the idea that there should be more to it than just randomly deciding to open your eyes at some point, shouldn’t there?  Din said there was no ceremony, nothing fancy, and he gave you permission to look because he said he’s not allowed to ask outright, whatever that means.  It’s a standing offer because you guess he isn’t allowed to prompt it for some reason, but unfortunately, that leaves you in just about the shittiest position possible.  Now everything falls to you—initiation, execution, and consequence—and Maker knows you’ve never been that great making decisions under pressure.

But you do want to look.  Sort of.

Sort of.  Because… well, this probably won’t make that much sense, but you’re afraid.  Mostly for him.  What if he’s making a mistake?  It sounds stupid, but you’re afraid of what this means for him, the sheer perpetuity of this decision he’s now expecting you to make for the both of you.  This isn’t your creed, not yet, and you feel like there’s still so much to learn.  Not only about the Mandalorians and his culture, but about him.  To know is to love, and so you’ve taken to asking any nonsensical question you can think of whenever he’s around.  Though you weren’t expecting it at first, you’ve learned that he’ll always give you some sort of an answer.  Some of the highlights include:

“How old are you?”  (“I don’t know.  Probably mid-forties, but there’s no way to tell anymore.”)

“You don’t know your birthday?”  (No, I… think it was in the winter.”)

“What’s your last name?”  (“Djarin.”)

“Do you have any freckles?  Or moles, or birthmarks?”  (“No, none that I’ve ever noticed.”)

“Do you cut your own hair?”  (“Yes, but it’s been awhile.”)

“Do you have dimples?”  (“I don’t smile in mirrors.”)

“Are your earlobes attached or detached?”  (“What kind of question is that?”)

And so forth.

He also gives you so many fucking opportunities to look.  One right after the other.  You used to think Din was incredibly trusting with how often and voluntarily he decided to take his helmet off around you—he didn’t wait a single day once he first felt your hands on his skin to take it off in your presence.  You remember being blown away by his unexpected willingness to part with it after hearing so many tales of the Mandalorians from Kuill; stunned by the ever-present ability to just open your eyes at any moment and that’s all it would ever take.  One simple movement—life-altering, and so easy.

Now you find it nearly impossible, muscle memory just won’t allow it to happen naturally.  And yet somehow, avoiding it is like stepping around land mines.  He doesn’t trick you—he doesn’t set it up, he doesn’t surprise you or anything, but he’s… less careful.  When the kid is awake, Din acts normal—he walks around fully armored, he goes on hunts and returns a few days later with a quarry, teaches you more self-defense techniques in the cleared out hull while the kid watches and giggles at your pain from the safety of his floating crib.  But when the baby goes to sleep, he’s taken to lounging with the helmet off.  He only used to remove it to eat, sleep, or… do other things with you, but he never used to take it off just… because.  Now he does.  Now he’s less careful about darkness, less strict about how much light he allows to touch him.

Now he shares every single meal he can with you, sitting just off to the side so you’ll never see him on accident but providing the free exercise thereof should you ever decide to seek it out purposefully.  Now he interrupts you in the middle of your complaining about the bruises on your knuckles just to lift the rim of his helmet the slightest bit, lean down and give you a quick kiss, and then lower it back into position again before you can even catch a glimpse of the lips you only recognize by touch.  Now he keeps the light on when he goes to take a shower, he leaves the door cracked.

It’s starting to give you heart palpitations, you swear.  At one point, he lets you to see the entire back of his head and it nearly launches you into a fucking crisis.

It’s the middle of the night and he just got up from bed to use the restroom.  He’s quiet enough not to wake you on the way over, but then across the hull and with his back to you, Din flicks the light on in the small bathroom without closing the door.  Immediately rousing you after being so accustomed to the pitch blackness, you lift your head from the warmth of your shared pillow just enough to blearily make out the sight of him leaning a hand up against the wall and dropping his head down, and it takes you a second to realize that it’s actually him.

Soft, dark brown locks ending at his collar but somehow looking longer than you ever imagined when you’ve run your fingers through them.  Cascading in shaggy, natural curls—tall, broad shouldered and trim waisted, naked as the day he was born.  Your heart starts to squeeze in your chest and it just never stops, and for the second time in your life, you feel like he woke you up in the middle of the night just to show you one of the most beautiful things the universe ever decided to hide.  There are trillions of people in this galaxy and how many of them have ever seen a sight that would compare?  He’s just a man, you don’t think a single person would bat an eye.  But to you, he’s… his own monument.  Constructed in honor of everything dazzling that happens to lie just underneath something else.  A breathtaking view, even from this angle, that could only ever mean something to you.

Would you ever be able to know him?  No, that’s not phrased right.  What you mean is that… over the course of all your time together, you remember thinking that if he ever took his helmet off, he could walk right by you and you’d never be able to tell the difference.  He could be anybody.  There are trillions of people in this galaxy and how many of them have the same features?  Brown hair, brown eyes, sunkissed skin that only one person is allowed to kiss, not even the sun.  Would you ever be able to know him?

Staring at his back in the blissful silence of hyperspace and feeling like the Maker himself is letting you in on one of his proudest secrets, some wild thought suddenly occurs to you that… you think you would.  Somehow.

You can’t explain it and you’d never be able to prove it, but you feel like if you lined up every single person in this galaxy shoulder to shoulder, all however many trillions of them there are, then you could walk the entire length of it and somehow come to a stop right where he’s standing.  Every single time.  You feel like you could do it in the pitch black.  You could do it with your eyes closed.

And, he must just be so gorgeous.  Maybe not in a traditional sense (or maybe in one, you’d have no way of knowing), but mostly in just… the rawest sense imaginable.  Not like how symmetry and straight lines are gorgeous, but how a mountain is gorgeous.  Rocky, dangerous, steep, the product of constant conflict between two immovable sides.  He’s got scars littering his body, one of which you remember giving him yourself with a cauterizer on his lower back.  He holds himself like his shoulders could tell their own story if anyone ever asked them; built to endure, weighed down and made strong with a collection of burdens he chooses to strap to them, steel or otherwise.

You don’t want to close your eyes once Din slowly turns around to look at you, but it happens anyways and you’ve never been so disappointed in your own cowardice.

But then, in a way, it could just be your own self-preservation instincts taking over.  No matter how stunning and life changing the spectacle would be, why would anyone ever stare directly at a supernova?  For so long, you’ve told yourself that his face is something you shouldn’t ever see on principle, but in a way, you suppose it’s fair he put this decision on you because he always has, even from the very beginning.  He trusted you to keep your eyes closed for months on end and you never had a problem with it, so why is it so hard to open them now that he’s given you permission?

A couple weeks of that, and you start to worry that you’re unintentionally rejecting him.

It’s the last fucking thing you want, but how can you avoid it?  Din is… different, he notices.  He’s made a living off of finding things that inherently don’t want to be found—he knows all too well what secrecy looks and sounds like, he’s quick and observant and you don’t stand a single fucking chance against him in all the years of his practice.

But strangely, for as often as you feel like you can figure out what he’s thinking without ever seeing his face—realizing what his intentions are ahead of time and not feeling slighted when he phrases things a certain way or just chooses not to speak at all—you never truly realized how much that extended back to you.

He knows you, too.  He told you so.

For some reason, you didn’t even consider the possibility of it working just as well the other way around.  That you could choose to stay silent, and he’d know why.  You feel like the mystery of him just eclipses you in every single way that you don’t consider even yourself much of anything, much less something else to be contemplated and understood.  While you wouldn’t necessarily qualify the conflict as not being ready to commit, he seems more than willing to respect it regardless and nothing about the way he treats you or interacts with you changes.  Normally you’d say it’s like he forgot the whole thing ever happened, but it’s almost the exact opposite.  Like he was just naturally expecting it from you.

Are you truly so predictable, you wonder?  He said you’d say no.  Was he right?  You’re not saying no, you just… can’t remember the word for yes right now.  It’s right there on the tip of your tongue and the harder you work for it, the more frustrated you become with your own inability to find it.

But, instead of waiting, you think Din just decides to continue the conversation with the promise to come back to you when you finally figure it out.

Sometimes, especially when he’s gone, you find yourself thinking about what moment you’d choose, if you could.  Since you can never seem to find the right one naturally, how would it all go if you could construct everything yourself?  Where would it be?  Naboo?  No, that’s too cheesy.  One thing you and Din both have in common is your practicality, your respective propensities for wanting to tackle one thing at a time and not needing frills attached to something in order to find a deep connection to it, a personal value to it.  You weren’t even bothered when he didn’t claim you as a girlfriend to Peli, that’s how reasonable you used to be about labels.  Now you’re your own antithesis, trying to conjure meaning where there isn’t any just so you don’t feel like you’re the one who’s ripping it away.  You want this decision to feel as permanent as it is.  You want it to be a happy thing, something that happens when you’re both so in love that you can’t bear to have metal separating you any longer.

You think… you’ll just know it when the time comes.

***

“I have to leave,” comes Din’s hushed voice through the darkness, and even though it’s the first thing either of you have said in hours, it sounds frustrated.  Like it’s been bothering him for awhile and he’s just now finally telling you.  “I… fuck, I can’t stay here, I should’ve left a long time ago.”

You whine softly into the pitch black, turning your head into the pillow and curling your fingers into his hair.  “But it’s still so early…”

“It’s mid-afternoon,” he groans back, dropping his forehead down against your skin and breathing hot air along it.  “We’ve been parked here for hours, I don’t know how you can sleep so long.”

“I’m not sleeping,” you pout, before gently dragging your nails down his scalp and feeling his whole body shudder with it.  “Earlier I was.”

“Mhm,” he murmurs, leaning down to give you one last long, slow kiss.  You sigh when his tongue comes out and glides soft and hot against your lips, tightening your grip on his hair.

But soon he pulls away, lifting the covers from over his head and pushing up from between your spread legs.  “This one shouldn’t take long,” he gruffs, planting both palms next to your head and kissing you once more in the darkness, dipping his tongue into your mouth this time.  You moan softly and taste yourself on him, moving to wrap your arms around his broad shoulders, but he breaks the kiss and leans back before you can, preemptively avoiding the possibility of getting lost in it.  “I’ll be back around dawn.”

You’ve known it was coming for hours now, so you’re able to play it off way better this time around.  “Okay,” you breathe softly, dragging your palms up his bare chest as he lifts himself tall over your body.  The slight disappointment underneath is so masterfully hidden, you’re almost positive you’re going to get away with it.  “Be safe.  Please.”

But then… well.  Bounty hunter.

Din pauses for a moment like that in between your open legs, letting you slowly slide your hands down his ribs and over the lines of his stomach.  You wait for him to move, find his clothes so you can get around and make some food, wake the kid up from his nap in an hour or so.  Can’t stay in bed all day, no matter how much you wish you could.

Only, he still hasn’t moved and you start to become concerned.  “Din?”

But then he suddenly groans like he just can’t help it, grabbing both of your spread legs and easily lifting them up.  You make a sound of confusion as he maneuvers them until they’re pressed together and draped over one of his shoulders, and then his hips drop and push forward to slide himself thick and perfect into your blazing hot cunt.

Still drenched and swollen from cumming in his mouth so many times earlier, you gasp and he just groans louder, a ragged thing scraping out of his throat while you struggle through blind and unexpected euphoria to reach him.  But you can’t—Din hugs your legs tight to his chest and settles in just like this, turning his head to drag soft lips and a hot tongue over your ankle before he starts fucking you.  Right up against your g-spot, with your whole lower body in the way and preventing you from slowing him down.

You just have to clap both hands over your mouth just to keep quiet since you can’t reach him.  You feel his teeth sink into the meat of your calf, hips pistoning far beyond your reach and it feels so fucking good that you almost don’t hear his gritted words against your skin.

“I have to go,” he groans, repeating it over and over until his voice begins to pull tight and it just sounds like a plea.  “I have to go, I have to go, I h—have to… h-have to go, I have to, I have to, I have…”

*** 

When Din finally steps foot out of the ship, fumbling with his rifle and cursing quietly through the modulator, it’s the middle of the night some twelve hours later.

***

Steady…

Steady………

Fire.

—and… you blink as bark splinters.

Did you…?  You look down at the blaster in your hand and then back to the ginormous charred tree trunk for a few seconds, wondering if you’re just seeing shit.

No, it’s real.  You actually fucking did it.  You…

… hit the target.

All of a sudden, your ecstatic giggle echoes loudly throughout the foresty autumn wonderland around you, reds and oranges and yellows crunching under your feet while you start to dance.

“Hey!  See that, bug!?”  You call out, shoving the blaster into your waistband and shimmying up to your enthralled audience of one, who just so happens to be smiling as wide as you are as he’s scooped up into your arms.  “I hit the target, I hit the target,” you sing, beginning to sway the baby back and forth as he squeals, laughing while you bounce him.  “No demon powers necessary, little man!  I figured it out, I just have to use one hand instead of two.  You can retire now, you’re the right age for—”

A twig snaps in the distance somewhere to your left, and you quickly spin around while reaching for the blaster behind your back.

Except all you see is a blue Twi’lek standing out amongst all the fall foliage, his hands cuffed behind his back and stumbling a few steps at a time while a considerably taller suit of beskar shoves him forward.  You relax and immediately turn to look down at the ground, trying to bite your lip so you don’t smile too hard while they both approach.  You did it—finally, you did it, you’re on top of the fucking universe right now.

You wait for them to pass by and move up the open metal ramp to the carbonite chamber, but then Din apparently decides to pause when he’s directly behind you, yanking the quarry to a sudden halt.  

You know you should probably turn around to address them, but you can’t hide the happiness from your expression, it’s way too obvious.  Though, after a moment, you decide to shyly turn to face the two men while continuing to bounce the baby in your arms, hoping that his and your matching expressions of excitement aren’t too terribly inappropriate right now.

Din looks from you to the splintered bark on the tree, and then back to you again, before slowly tilting the helmet up in a way that feels… proud of you.

“Congratulations,” he finally says, and you can hear the genuine smile hidden in the modulated drawl.

“Thank you,” you beam up at him, feeling the blood rush to your cheeks.  “Was pretty awesome.”

“I’m sorry I missed it,” he tells you, and you don’t know why, but the tone of his voice makes you go so warm.  It’s not like he’s openly flirting with you, but coupled with your giddiness and sounding like that in front of a bounty he caught in record time, it just makes your heart fucking throb for him.

“It’s alright,” you murmur, shuffling your feet through the crunchy leaves below and trying to play it as cool as possible.  You have company.  “I’ll be able to do it again.”

“Let’s see it, then.”  He tips the helmet over at the tree, and you look between him and the unfamiliar quarry for a second, not used to Din just… ignoring their existence entirely for you.  It’s not like the Twi’lek has said anything or inserted himself into the situation at all, but still.  Din has one hand latched onto the cuffs behind his back to prevent him from booking it, but other than that, it’s like he’s pretending he’s not even there.

“Uh…”  You immediately feel yourself get nervous.  “I can… try.”

He nods one single time in silent encouragement, and you slowly turn to face the tree once more.  The kid stays cradled in your arm while you reach for the blaster in your waistband, removing it and using your longest finger to flick the safety off with a practiced fluidity.  Then, extending it out in front of you and taking advantage of your newfound strategy of only firing with one hand, you line up the sight and pull the trigger.

You wish you could say it hits.  It would be so fucking cool and impressive if you hit the target like that, wouldn’t it?  But it doesn’t hit.  It misses, like usual.  Miserably.  And then an amused snort comes from behind you.

“Right stormtrooper, you are—” you hear an unfamiliar accent begin to snark, but the rest of it turns into a garbled howl the second Din jerks his elbow back to slam it in his face.

You whip around just in time to see a cascade of blood pouring down blue lips and sharp teeth—holy fuck.  You gasp and take a step backwards with the kid, not horrified by the sudden display of violence (not after Din spent an hour teaching you how to do that, too) but not quite expecting it at that moment, either.  But then, well… that’s the second time he broke a quarry’s nose for addressing you with disrespect.  There was that other one he choked, you’re pretty sure—though you can’t remember exactly what initiated that.

Din yanks the bounty up the ramp without another word, leaving both you and the kid there to process while he shoves him through the hull and towards the carbonite chamber none too kindly.  However, by the time he seals the quarry to his fate and eventually makes his way back to you, you just… 

Fuck, you feel so stupid.

You shouldn’t even bother, what’s the point?  All that practice and nothing to show for it.  If you can’t even hit a stationary target with the pressure of others watching, what makes you think you’ll have any hope at all in a situation where you actually need to shoot?  Are they gonna stand still for you?  Are they gonna be as wide as a fucking treetrunk?  You’re horribly embarrassed, so downtrodden in the face of a cruel taunt that you don’t even want to look at Din when he steps in front of you.

“Hey, just try it again,” he says without delay, but the damage has already been done.  It’s not his fault, you’re just… not the kind of person who is meant to shoot a blaster, maybe.  

“Ah… it’s alright,” you look out and smile sadly at the line of trees surrounding you, wondering how it’s possible that you only managed to hit one of them this whole time.  You don’t see it, but Din quickly touches the tips of his fingers to the side of his helmet twice before you look back at him.  “I hit it earlier.  I did, I promise.  You can see the mark if you look.”

His glove reaches out to brush your hair back, so unbelievably gentle after using the same arm to shatter bone just a few minutes ago.  “I know you did.  It was a perfect shot, you hit dead center.  I see it.”

“I did it with one hand, that’s why I tried the thing,” you mumble stupidly, looking down at your feet.  Dumb.  Dumb.

A strand of your hair is tucked behind your ear.  “Wish I was here.”

You glance over at him, feeling your expression suddenly go soft with a wave of affection.  It stops all the harsh criticisms, halting your negativity in its tracks and replacing it with just… soft, abstract things.  Mostly just warm, nonsensical fluff, but one clear and resounding thought breaking through.  You wish he was here, too.

“Maybe I’ll get good at it eventually,” you sigh, slowly handing him the blaster with the barrel pointed down and away from both of you.  Din carefully takes it from you, tucking it away somewhere on his utility belt while you gaze out at the designated target and victorious char mark decorating it.  “Or hopefully just okay at it at some point.  I guess I just need to practice more, right?”

“That’s right,” he tells you warmly, catching your free wrist.  “Try using this one when you do.”  And then a lightweight piece of metal is gently pushed into your empty hand.

Your expression furrows while you quickly look down at it, and—

You go utterly still at the gift, not even knowing what to think.

The first thing that you notice is the craftsmanship.  Brilliant, structurally flawless, the perfect size to fit your hand.  You don’t recognize the specific kind of metal that was used—definitely not beskar—but you think it might be constructed from the same material as Din’s old armor.  Dull silver, but with reflective chrome filigree accents around the handle, trigger, and safety.  It’s uniquely constructed and unlike any weapon you’ve ever seen before—no hard lines or edges, just a soft fluidity to the design that’s so aesthetically pleasing, it doesn’t really even resemble a blaster at all.

You can feel the visor silently studying your reaction while you continue marveling, noticing something new every time you look.  The safety is towards the back of the chamber, just like he said it’d be.  The sight is electronic, and you examine the way it’s built directly into the barrel.

Are those extra magnets on the inside?  Is this able to micro-adjust the plasma release for the best shot?  Holy stars, it must have cost a fortune.

“Din, this is…” you can’t decide where you want to look—the gorgeous crafting, the custom design, or him.  Standing so close to you, not saying a word while you search for the right ones.  “It’s so beautiful, I…”

“Was made for you,” he murmurs.  “Had to be.”

You look back down at the blaster to stop your eyes from tearing up.  He didn’t have to do this.  This is so… sweet, such a lovely thing to do.  Don’t cry, don’t cry—

“What is this?” You ask breathlessly instead, rotating the gun until he can see the symbol branded on the handle.  You recognize that it’s his signet, but you never bothered to ask him what it’s called, you never saw it as your place.  It’s an animal of some sort, one with a giant spike attached to its skull, and you’re glad you’ve never come face to face with one.

“It’s a mudhorn,” he answers quietly.  “They’re… dangerous animals.  Fiercely protective, preferring solitude.  The kid saved me from one a few days after I met him.  It’s… the mark of my clan.”

How fitting, you think, and an honor.  Perfect for him, and a bone-deep reminder of your two favorite people in the galaxy on your hip wherever you go.

“Thank you,” you tell him, hoping the sincerity in your voice sounds anywhere close to how you feel.  You haven’t even had it in your hand for longer than a minute and it’s already your prized position, the most important thing you’ve ever called yours.

Din nods and takes a small step back.  “Now hit the target.”

Feeling invigorated and renewed in every single way, you keep the kid tucked firmly in one arm while raising your blaster with the other.  The safety clicks off and your back straightens, chin lifting until something about the angle feels… right.  The trigger moves easily under your fingertip, and there’s almost no kickback considering how light the weapon is.  What you’re not expecting is the pure white beam of plasma shooting out of the barrel—unlike any blaster you’ve ever seen before—but then the immediate sight of it hitting the tree dead center sends a roar of triumph through your ears.  Fuck yes.

“Look at that!”  Din calls out over the kid’s happy squeal, and there’s nothing you can do to stop your loud whoop of victory.  Even though you know it only hit with the addition of those extra magnets to correct your terrible aim, that still feels so good—you feel so fucking powerful and dangerous.  You glance over to Din with a wide smile, but then his arm extends out towards the trunk directly next to the one with charred bark.  “Hit that one.”

You automatically swing the blaster in that direction and shoot.  A few pieces of wood split on impact and send sharp bits flying as soon as the bright white beam collides with it.

“That one,” Din tells you, and then bark splinters a half second later.  “That one.”  Bark splinters.  “That one, that one, that one—” hit, hit, hit, white plasma flying through the air and bark splintering in rapid succession.

He stops and spins around, pointing to a tree at the very edge of the clearing.  “That one?”

It’s furthest away but the trunk’s diameter is enormous.  As you lift the blaster, you know you’re likely to get it easily with this sophisticated weapon, even across the considerable distance.  So instead, feeling like nothing at all can touch you right now and wanting to see how smart the aim mechanism is, you raise up a few degrees higher before pulling the trigger.  Pale plasma launches from the barrel, and then one of the tree’s most prominent branches comes creaking and crashing to the ground right where you split it.

You’re beaming by the time Din turns back to you, the most excited you’ve ever been with your own progress.  He holds there for a moment while you lower your blaster and wait for him to speak, both of you looking at each other and not moving, until suddenly you hear his voice coming back to you.

Hit the target and I’ll marry you.

One of Din’s hands slowly comes up to the edge of his helmet, but before you can even process the implication behind the gesture, you’re immediately looking down at the crunchy leaves under your feet and clearing your throat.

There’s a beat of silence where you stare down at the dead foliage and wonder why the fuck you just did that.  Right in front of him, right to his face, too startled at how quickly you were being confronted with the possibility that you responded in an equally startled way.  It was instinctual, automatic and entirely out of your control, but that doesn’t mean you don’t want to take it back.

But… you can’t take it back.  That’s the way things are, and after a few moments, you hear his boots begin to cross the distance to you.

“Come on,” Din murmurs gently through the modulator, carefully taking the blaster from your hand and clicking the safety back on again.  “We have to get going.  The fifth quarry is far.  Three day trip through hyperspace.”

He doesn’t sound upset or disappointed by your unintentional rejection, thank the Maker.  You want to explain yourself somehow, but it appears it isn’t necessary in the slightest.  His arm wraps around your lower back and he leads both you and the baby back up the open ramp of the Crest, squeezing you close enough to his side that you have to learn how to walk in a different way to stop yourself from tripping over his boots.

The helmet turns and presses to the top of your head while you focus on moving straight.  “Proud of you,” Din murmurs quietly, and your chest fills with enough air that you’d be worried about floating away if he wasn’t latched onto you so tightly.

He eventually releases you and walks over to the armory, pressing a button to unlock the doors while you hold the kid and watch him start to remove the multitude of weapons strapped to his body.

Maybe… maybe this isn’t the right time, but something brave surges up inside you.  After receiving the most precious gift imaginable from him, hitting all those targets and hearing him say that he’s proud of you, you’re buzzing with just enough energy that for better or worse, it makes you open your mouth and ask.

“Could I… come with you this time?”

Din nearly jerks upright and looks over at you immediately, but he takes a while in responding.  You hope he sees it in your eyes.  You hope he sees just how much you don’t want to be stuck here again when this is possibly the one time you’d be able to tag along.  It’s a bullshit quarry, one he could do in his sleep, and you’ve been getting increasingly restless while stuck on this ship.

When Din eventually does respond… well, judging from his shift in tone, you’re assuming he was just shocked at the question and didn’t take any of that time to actually consider his answer.

“No.”  Short.  Unfeeling, and not sorry about it in the slightest, before turning back to return the blasters you were using previously to the armory as if you said nothing at all.

Okay…  Um.  Not great, not what you wanted to hear, but maybe if you explain yourself better, he’ll listen.

“I just… I’m the only reason you have to get this quarry in the first place.”  Your voice is quiet, trying to let go of some of the concerns you’ve kept to yourself over the past two weeks.  Your fingers fiddle idly with the kid’s little woolen sack as he hangs out in your arms, wanting to plead your case but feeling slightly nervous now.  “You were out having a crazy expensive blaster made for me while I shook hands with Karga and agreed that you’d take more work for less pay.  I hate that I did that.”

“You had no choice,” Din mutters, turning around and striding past you while pressing a button on his vambrace to close the Crest’s ramp.  “My fault for being late.”  And… for as warm and comforting as his voice sounded earlier, it now just sounds… dismissive.  Aloof.  Half-listening, not really wanting to talk but forcing himself to.

“Well this time, I thought maybe… I might be able to help?  Maybe?”  Maker, you feel yourself going quieter the more he walks around the hull and ignores you.  “Karga said it was just a missing person, not even a criminal…”

“Karga says a lot of things,” he grunts with his back to you, voice completely monotone through the modulator.

Come on, speak up.  You’ve lacked a backbone for so long, you’ll never get what you want unless you say it out loud and let it be known.  You take a deep breath and straighten your shoulders, trying to put a little bit of spine into it.  “I can be useful.  I can fight now, I’ve been working on my—” 

“You think I’m telling you no because I don’t think you’re capable?”  He suddenly whips around, voice ringing sharp and challenging throughout the hull while you freeze.  You don’t move but everything about you suddenly feels like it shrinks.

“I-I didn’t—” But he cuts you off, taking a step forward.

“I know you can fight, a Mandalorian taught you how.  I know you’re useful, I know it’s just a missing person, and I know you hate it when I leave.”  He pins you with his eyes through the visor, his tone harder than you think you’ve ever heard it before.  “No.  Your job is to stay here, on this ship, with my son, where it is safe, and my job is to go get the quarry.  Quit asking.  I’m not telling you again.”

The baby makes a tiny little distressed sound in your arms and you blink a few times up at the cold metal, feeling all the good feelings from before just… drain out of you.

Okay, that’s fine.  Uh.  You… the cockpit is behind you, you’ll go up there and fly then.  No reason, just… he should get going.

“Okay, yeah,” you nod and tell the wall over his shoulder brace in immediate agreement, before abruptly spinning around and grabbing the ladder.  Din doesn’t move a single fucking muscle while you try to find your way up to the cockpit with the baby held to your chest and a dead stone sitting heavy inside of it, hoping your face doesn’t show the vulnerability you feel wanting to take over as you retreat.  Get to the cockpit first, get to the cockpit first, get to the—

“Sweet girl, I…” you barely hear murmured through the helmet from the floor, soft enough to sound slightly shocked, but you scramble into the cockpit and shut the door behind you before he can say anything else.

***

Silence didn't used to feel like this.

At first it was eerie, unnatural and stifling when you spent years in a wide open desert, wind swirling and dust pelting.  It suffocated you the first few times you jumped into hyperspace, a phenomena you read all about and considered mathematically fascinating before ever experiencing for yourself.  It was… foreign and strange, but you began to value it more and more as time passed.

Then, you started to get to know him and silence just became comforting.  Something you could bask in, knowing it was a comfort to him.  A choice he made because it just fit him best.  You felt safe in it, you felt like you didn’t have to be anything else but you.  You never had to break it just to avoid awkwardness, you became… closer to it, until you learned to fall in love with it.

But only when he was with you and it was his silence.  Not… everything else’s.  Now it’s haunting again.  Now the sheer lack of sound through hyperspace is a stranger to you, and the distortion of light surrounding the cockpit feels less about the sheer magnificence of manipulating space time and more about the fundamental disconnect it causes.  Gorgeous, but at its core, a severance.  Ripping the fabric of the universe apart, tearing a wound in it.

It’s been a few hours and nothing exceptional has happened since your conversation in the hull.  

You’ll admit that you’re a sensitive person, and because of that, you’ve always had a problem knowing if you were right or wrong when someone comes at you with a hard enough will.  You second-guess yourself, it’s one of your worst traits, and you feel like trying to squash that tendency without knowing the limit is partially to blame for why you’re holed up in this cockpit with the kid.  You’re quiet but in a different way from Din.  When he doesn’t speak, it’s because most of the time, he’s sure of himself and doesn’t need to.  When you don’t speak, it’s because most of the time, you’re insecure and don’t want to.

After being left alone with your thoughts for this long, you’re starting to realize that… he was right.  What were you thinking, wanting to tag along?  Wanting to hang out while he risks his life for this occupation, you probably sounded so fucking ignorant.  Maybe… maybe he didn’t have to say it like that, but his point is still very valid and you’re not sure if you’re really justified in hiding like this anymore.

The way he said… your job, though.  That still stings a bit.  This hasn’t felt like an actual job in a very long time.  Was that just an expression, or did he mean it literally?  You’re stuck on it, you’ve just been going over this for hours in your head, trying to figure out if you should be the one to apologize or not—or if this is just you overreacting from the start and no apologies will be necessary at all.

“Sorry you got stuck with me, kid,” you mutter sadly to the baby, watching him fiddle with his favorite metal ball in your lap.  He makes a little gurgle, purring in that weirdly adorable little way of his and it somehow feels like a reassurance directed to you that he’s just fine the way he is.

Maker, you haven’t heard anything from the hull in a fucking eternity; it’s like Din turned into a ghost, hasn’t even made a single footstep that you could hear since you last left him standing there.  You remember performing a quick flight check as soon as you got up here, lifting off as fast as you could and hoping the thrusters would rumble loud enough to cover your series of pitifully shallow sniffles at being yelled at unexpectedly by a very large and intimidating man, not really crying but not really able to breathe normal either.  The little monster was able to wiggle himself around in your lap as you were trying to punch in the correct coordinates for the fifth quarry with rapidly blinking, watery eyes, and then proceeded to give your belly the smallest hug you think you’ve ever been given and pretty much break your heart with it.

Lovely little boy, so sweet when he wants to be.  He’s sat with you this whole time, he even tried giving you his metal ball to play with but ultimately decided to keep it to himself when he realized you aren’t nearly as fascinated by it as he is.  You know it’s probably getting late for him, and you’ve been weighing the idea of handing him over to his father so he can at least get a good night’s sleep somewhere that isn’t your arms.  There’s no blankets in here, just your lap.

“I think I gotta go take you to your dad soon, tiny.  He’s probably missing you,” you tell him, trying to keep quiet enough that you won’t disturb Din in the hull.  There’s a good chance he’s already asleep.  “I think… he might still be mad at me.  Maybe you can give him the big eyes, soften him up a little?”

Right on cue, his enormous eyes start to droop closed, and you let out a tired sigh of exasperation.  That’s not gonna work, come on.  They gotta be open, booger.

You watch him slowly drift to sleep, his ears relaxing until they too start to droop, but when you try to take the ball from him and set it down on the console, his eyes immediately pop back open and the toy slips from your fingertips.  It levitates right back into his tiny hands as you watch, and then he closes his eyes once more while tightly cuddling the thing he loves most to his body.

Unbelievable.

He’s a child, and yet he’s…

“How are you so strong?”  You ask him, unable to even fathom.  “You’re the smallest, most helpless little thing I’ve ever seen and you’ve got such… strength.  You defy the universe for a piece of metal.”

He doesn’t hear you, you think he’s asleep again.  It’s just as well, you figure.  He needs to go sleep in his crib, it’s time.  You scoop him up and make sure the little ball stays tucked snugly in his arms, before finally standing up and stumbling over to the door on numb legs.

Only, when it slides open, you quickly stop short.

Because there, sitting on the floor and resting his helmet against the corner of this small little platform leading to the ladder, is the Mandalorian.

So much closer than you expected him to be.  So big, crammed into such a tiny place.  You didn’t hear his footsteps climbing the ladder, and you would’ve noticed it during the hours you’ve spent in the suffocatingly muted quiet of hyperspace.  He can be silent but not when absolutely nothing else exists and he’s got a thousand fucking pounds of steel weighing him down at any moment in time.  You took off almost immediately once you barricaded yourself inside the cockpit, so has he… did he follow you up in those last few seconds, right after you shut the door?  The ones when you were sniffling like a child and trying desperately to turn the thrusters on before you let the tears come?

His head lifts and his back straightens as you’re looking down at him with his sleeping son cradled in your arms, your eyes slightly redder than they should be.  You’re a mess and… he’s been here this whole time?

“Could you hear me in there?”  You whisper in sudden mortification, but Din just keeps gazing up at you through the impenetrable metal visor.  A complete mystery again.  Unreadable—he could be anyone.

When he doesn’t answer you, your heart twists with the possibility that he’s still upset with you, and you quickly turn to the ladder to figure out the best way to get down without jostling the baby.

“I’m sorry.”  His voice stops you dead in your tracks.  It’s so soft, nearly flipping in and out of the modulator from the lack of volume, the most cautious sounding thing you’ve ever heard coming through the filter.  “I… hurt your feelings.  I’m sorry.”

And…  Maker, if anybody else had said it.  If literally anybody else had said it, you know it would’ve sounded like the most sarcastic, dickish remark in such a delicate moment.  But, you also remember him telling you once that you were tenderhearted.  That the galaxy would never be as kind to you as you are to it.  This… comes out sounding like he’s trying to change that.

It comes out sounding like he’s trying to use his voice to hold you because he doesn’t think you want to be touched right now.  Like… like he’s doing everything he can to be as careful as possible here because you think he might be attempting to do something he’s never done before.  Apologize for saying something he didn’t mean.

“You don’t have to,” you quickly tell him.  He’s not good with words and apologies are difficult enough to phrase for normal people, you don’t want him to fret over it if that’s what this is.  “It’s okay, I know you’re not… you don’t have to.  It was stupid of me to ask.”

“It wasn’t,” he instantly counters, his voice finally seeming to find the floor when it was just hovering before.  Not loud—still gentle, still making sure the kid doesn’t wake up and you’re not frightened away, but a bit more grounded this time.  “It wasn’t… what I wanted to hear, and I didn’t take it well.  Not stupid.”

“It was stupid,” you return amicably, looking down at your feet.  “That’s not my… job, like you said.”

Din suddenly hangs his helmet down to his chest, pressing his gloves to the part that curves over his forehead and rubbing it.  “Shit.  I didn’t mean—”

“You were right,” you acknowledge, having spent the past few hours coming to the understanding that it’s the hard truth and he just phrased it poorly.  “I’m not… built for it, I’d only get in your way.  I barely just managed to shoot stationary targets with a blaster today, and that’s only with that aim corrector built into the barrel.  I’m here to be helpful, not—”

“What are you saying?”  He suddenly lifts the beskar to study you, sounding genuinely confused.  “What aim corrector?”

That… makes you pause.

“The, uh…”  Now you’re confused.  “The one that adjusts the plasma release on the gun you gave me.”

He doesn’t move an inch or say a single thing to you in response and you awkwardly shuffle your feet for a second, everything so quiet that you can hear every little snore that goes in and out of the kid’s tiny button nose.

You blink at him after way too long of that, not knowing why he still hasn’t said anything.  “There’s an electronic sight and like a bazillion extra magnets packed into the barrel, Din, what else could—”

“Sweet girl, that’s… that’s for the Philithiorium,” Din breathes out, like he’s absolutely blown away by you right now.  “That gas is less stable than normal canisters, it takes more magnets to focus the white beam without overheating the metal.”

You stare at him, not truly processing.  He’s saying that… you made all those shots today without any help at all?  By yourself?

Your eyebrows furrow and you blink a few times, but then his slow, heavy sigh echoes throughout the metal walls with disappointment… and you don’t think it’s directed towards you.

“You’re just… always so unsure of yourself.”  He sounds genuinely distraught as his helmet tips down to look at the ground.  “I made that worse today.”

“It doesn’t matter,” you quickly shake your head, your chest already beginning to loosen slightly by just being around him, hearing his voice, seeing the metal glint under the fluorescent light overhead when he’s in such a vulnerable position on the floor.  “It’s okay, let’s just… pretend neither of us said anything at all, okay?”

“Is that what you really want?”  He asks you after a moment of quiet, and for some reason, you hear something in your mind tell you that his arms look so nice right now, don’t they?  You could fit right there, perfect and safe again.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” you smile at him, feeling a bit of the ache trapped inside you continue to work itself out little by little.  You’ll be back to normal soon, it’s fine.

“No, I mean… do you really want to come with me?”  Din asks you, the words sounding cautious.  Confused, like he truly never expected the proposition from you at all.  “Or… do you just not want me to go?”

Oof, what a fucking question.

Why would he ask this?  It’s not pointed; it’s the softest, gentlest inquiry you’ve ever been posed.  Maybe in other circumstances, you’d say that him leaving doesn’t have anything to do with it, but… you’re certain that internally, it absolutely does have at least something to do with it and he was just able to know it before you did.  Which is probably why his sharp words seemed all the more cutting earlier.  It hurt because he said the truth first, verbalized a very deep insecurity you’ve been trying to hide from him and threw it right in your face when shutting you down.

Though, if it worked differently and you were the one who had to be away while he stayed here, you’d like to think you’d handle it way better than how it is now.  At least you’d have a real mission to focus on, new things to see and experiences to have.  You just feel… confined sometimes.

You take a deep breath and figure you’ll use sitting down as an excuse to think for a second.  There’s practically no room but you find it in the back of the cockpit near the doorframe anyways, doing your best to keep the kid level while you slowly lower yourself to the ground near him.  Not touching him, but close.

“I just… I lived my whole life stuck in one spot, wanting to see the galaxy,” you finally admit to him, staring at his chestplate but seeing the helmet tilt slightly in your peripheral.  “Sometimes it’s just… hard to see the galaxy and still be stuck in one spot, I guess.”

“…You want an adventure,” Din proposes quietly, and though there’s not a single hint of mockery in his voice, you suddenly feel like it’s really fucking dumb when he phrases it like that.  What are you, an eight year old?  Wanting to go on an adventure, see things you’ve never seen without any concept for real life?  Credits?  Time?  Resources?

You shrug a shoulder to make it seem like it’s no big deal.  Why is he even entertaining this right now?  “It’s stupid, I kn—”

“Like on Naboo,” he goes on, ignoring your harsh self-criticism, not allowing you the ability to even get it out once he heard the first couple words.  “Going through the forest, seeing that waterfall.  Someplace to find for yourself.  Explore.  Experience.”

You… you want it so badly that you think your eyes might tear up just hearing the words coming out of his mouth when he says them like that.  Like he… just inherently understands.  He knows.

He knows you.  He’s not good with words and yet he found the single most succinct way to put what you thought was a complex yearning without even trying.  You can’t even answer him, he hit the target dead on and you’re left with nothing to say that wouldn’t just be a miserable lie.

“Okay,” Din says after a moment, giving you a small nod.

You’re lost now.  “…Okay?”

“You’re never going on a hunt with me,” he tells you very seriously, no room for arguing.  “Ever.  And not because you can’t handle it, understand?”  He inhales, quickly adding on to his response before you’re able to analyze it the way you want to.  “But if you want an adventure, then… I can try and find a way to give you one.”

Stars.  He’s… too kind.  You somehow feel like it’s more than you deserve.  You were honestly hoping to just shadow him on a hunt, watch him work and stay well out of the way when he needs you to.  Helping if you think you’d be of any help; an extra set of eyes and hands.  You would’ve been fine even if he didn’t apologize for raising his voice at you, he doesn’t have to do this for you.

“Thank you,” you say for the third time today, feeling like each one has somehow multiplied in sincerity.

“It can’t be right now,” he quickly tells you, apologetic but earnest about it.  “I have to find the quarry, and I’m supposed to meet with Karga again in a week.”

You never did let him know about the other part of the deal you made with Karga, you admit.  Four pucks, no hassling, no hard time constraints.  That’s what you shook on, but you just never found a way to bring it up to Din.  Especially since you’ve been so preoccupied with hiding your growing disappointment from him whenever he has to go.

“If…” you pause, wondering the best way to phrase this.  Yikes, this is a toughie.  “Um.  If Karga… I don’t know, hypothetically, if Karga decided to loosen the time constraints back to the way they were before the Corellian bounty, would you… still need to meet with him again in a week?”

You don’t think he even bothers shuffling through all those words.  “Say what you mean.  Please.”

“That was part of the deal I struck with him,” you quickly explain.  “You can hunt on your own timetable again and he’ll keep giving you four pucks like before, no more or less after this one extra quarry.  It’s like a… replacement of sorts, for the one I kept you from getting the time before.  If credits aren’t an issue, you can take more than a week.  But only if you want to, you don’t have to.  It’s just there and you should know, that’s all.”

He takes his time responding, lifting his helmet just the slightest bit in… surprise?  Maybe?

“You never told me you did that,” Din finally murmurs.

“Ah.  Well.”  You look down at the sleeping kid in your arms.  “I didn’t want you to think I was trying to… keep you here.”

It genuinely is a struggle for you, and you think he’s just now realizing that.  As much as you know he gets frustrated with you for always wanting him to be here when he physically can’t be, you think it’s only now that he’s truly realizing the lengths you go to in order to stomp that part of you down whenever you feel it threatening to come up.  You allowed him to leave every single time without telling him he could stay, knowing that all that was left for you was babysitting and target practice for days on end.

“Will you come over here?”  Din finally asks, and the tone of his voice just punches you in the chest.  So soft, so distressed from having you so close yet so far from him and just… full of a quiet hope, like he’s fully expecting you to say no.

“Will we fit?”  You whisper after a moment, even quieter.

He doesn’t answer, he just reaches for you.  You do your best to scoot over to him without waking the kid, and then Din pulls you the rest of the way once he has a grip.  You go right into his arms, laying sideways across his lap and supported by his steel embrace.

Oh, it’s not comfortable but you’ve also never been more fucking comfortable.  One of his knees lifts and allows you to rest your back against it without worrying about falling over sideways and down the ladder to the hull, thank the Maker.  The beskar pauldron over his shoulder digs into your cheek, but Din immediately pushes an arm up to nudge his helmet off and make it better for both of you.  Your face automatically fits into the crook of his neck while he sets the beskar on the bend of his knee, and then he silently cradles you while you do the same to his little boy… who does the same to his favorite metal ball.

“Ni tar’tayl su,” he murmurs into your hair, the one phrase in Mando’a you do recognize, especially with how beautiful and elegant it sounds rolling off his tongue.  “Forgive me.  Ni ceta.”

You sigh your contentment and melt into him, well aware that you’d still be more comfortable in bed.  But when you’re pressed hard against his chest like this and the baby is fast asleep in your arms, you get to feel both of them breathing.  Din’s right lung is probably bigger than the kid’s whole entire body, but you like the radically different cycles they go through.  You think you count six full breaths coming from the brown sack in your palms for every one of Din’s and two of yours.  It creates the most beautiful little symphony that sometimes gets a little off track, but always finds its way back around again.

“How do you say…”  You ask, feeling his hand slowly move down the curve of your spine, mindless and hypnotic.  It catches the edge of your shirt and goes underneath, and even though it’s not his bare hand and there’s no skin to skin, it still feels so good.  Not sexual or sensual even, just… a comfort to you.  “In Mando’a, how do you say… out of a trillion?”

Din’s breaths pause for just a second, his portion of the synchronized rhythm faltering.  Soon it starts back up, and his head turns to press his lips against your hair.

“I don’t think there’s a word for it,” he admits, gently brushing a thumb across the baby’s forehead while he snoozes.  “There could be, but I don’t know it.  I’d use… out of a million million millions.  Dayn alanyc bal alanyc bal alanyci.”

Your eyes begin to drift closed, exhausted from keeping them open after shedding a few tears earlier.  Your first fight and you’re already completely in love with him again after a handful of hours of sulking and one conversation.  How is that possible?  You’re normally a very forgiving person and it wouldn’t have taken much to make you feel better, you just never expected him to… actually want it from you that badly, care enough about it to get on the floor and ask.

Din doesn’t move the entire night through.  You assumed he’d make everyone get up at some point and move to the hull, but he doesn’t.  You fall asleep against his chest, comforted by the silence once again.

***

The next morning, Din quietly climbs into the cockpit while you’re humming in the shower.  You’re too busy basking in the indoor rainfall to feel the ship pull out of hyperspace, and then jump back into it a few moments after.

***

“How long do you think you’ll be this time?”  You ask two days later, sitting on the extended flattop of Din’s old cot and swinging your legs back and forth.  The baby is currently sitting on your lap and trying to roll the metal ball down your knee so you’ll kick it in the air, you think, because he keeps dropping it at different moments and forcing you to stop moving your legs to prevent accidentally denting a wall.  Every time the ball clatters to the floor, he makes a sad sound and it immediately lifts back up into his tiny hands for another try.

Heavy boots clang against the metal floor as Din drops down from the ladder, having just landed the Crest on the surface of whatever planet you’re on.  “I’m not leaving yet.”

“Oh…”  You blink, surprised.  “Okay.”

“I wanted to do some more training with you first, if that’s okay.  You can say no if you want, but maybe not,” Din drawls, striding over to the armory and opening it.  He carefully removes your blaster from the front shelf, speaking with his back to you.  “You’re going to run.”

“Um.”  You take a moment to glance around the enclosed hull, before turning to look back at him with your eyebrows raised.  “What, like… in place?”

Din sighs and closes the armory before leaning back against the doors, rubbing the face of the helmet in exasperation.  “From me, sweet girl.”

Your legs stop swinging, and the baby grumbles and slaps three fingers against your knee.  “What?”

“We’re on Sanctuary II,” he explains, turning to grab his black bag from one of the storage shelves.  He unzips it and reaches back into one of the larger pockets on his utility belt, before grabbing a handful of credits and stuffing them inside.  “It’s a moon, the New Republic occupied it years ago and made it a safe world for refugees and orphans of the Empire.  You’ll have your blaster, some credits, a communicator, and a day head start.  You’re going to run from me.  Show me how much you’ve learned.”

Is… he for real?

Right now?  You don’t even know how to respond, you’re too surprised.  Even when Din approaches and carefully trades the kid for your blaster, setting the bag down next to you on the metal bed, you still haven’t answered him.

“If you want?”  He asks after a moment, and you quickly jerk your head into a nod and jump off the raised platform, almost knocking into him with your sudden excitement.

“Okay!  Fuck yeah,” you grin, but Din shakes his head.

“Rules,” he says seriously, and you quickly do your best to frown, trying to compose your thrilled expression to match his tone.  “One.  This is a safe world, but things can always happen.  You have a blaster now, but it’s for emergencies only.  Do not shoot me with it.  Do you understand?”  You nod, but Din reaches forward to grab your elbow.  “Out loud, please.  For me.”

“I will not shoot you with this blaster,” you vow obediently, carefully cradling the precious firearm in your hands.

“Do not shoot me,” he repeats while pointing a leather finger at you.  “Do not… shoot at me.  Near me.  Around me.  No, just—don’t shoot.  Unless I am… very far away.  Okay?”

Well, he didn’t have to phrase it like that.  You frown, but acquiesce regardless.  “I will only resort to blastering if it’s an emergency and you are not around.”

He nods a thank you for putting it into better words.  “Second rule.  Since you don’t have a ship, I won’t either.  We’re on foot.  I don’t doubt you can hotwire a piece of junk to do what you need it to do, but I’d prefer it if you didn’t.  Good?”

Entirely accurate and entirely fair.  “Good.”

“Three,” he says.  “I’ll have the kid with me, which is both good and bad news for you.  Good news is he’ll slow me down, bad news is I can’t promise he won’t also try to intervene at some point if you’re serious about putting up a decent fight.  What I can promise is that I won’t encourage it.”

“Reassuring,” you nod.  “Also not really a rule.  Please continue.”

“Four.”  He pauses for a second.  “I think I’m wanted by the New Republic.”

You nearly jerk back.  “What?”

“I can’t confirm it and I’m not proud of it,” Din quickly tells you, probably the vaguest possible explanation he could provide.  “I’m only telling you so that you’ll know your advantage and find a way to exploit it.  I can’t be seen by any officers, or they might arrest me.”

Is he fucking serious?  “I don’t want you to be arrested, Din, I—”

“I won’t be,” he assures you.  “They owe me one, I just don’t want to cash in yet.  Trust me.”

You… do.  Insanely, and against every logical thought flittering through your head, you do.  If you were ever going to bet money that someone would be able to navigate a safe world on foot without being caught by the numerous officers scattered across the surface, then you’d put all your credits on Din Djarin.  It… also shouldn’t really surprise you at all that the people seeking his incarceration also owe him a favor, should it?  It actually sounds right on par for him.  “Okay.”

“Fifth, and this one is important, so listen up,” he continues gruffly.  “You check in with me tonight over the e-comm, alright?  I don’t care where you are or how safe this planet is, if you don’t check in, I’ll come find you before the sun rises.  Say you understand me.”

“I understand you,” you tell him, your heart beginning to pound in your chest at the reality of this actually happening.  “I’ll check in tonight.”

“And if,” he goes on, “by some miracle, you manage to make it more than a full day, you check in with me tomorrow night, too.  Say it.”

“I will check in with you every single night for the full five days it’ll take you to find me,” you assert, the adrenaline starting to make you brash and giddy.  

Din tilts his helmet at you sternly.  It is a very, very stern tilt.  “Okay.  New plan, forget everything I just said.”

Your expression furrows.  “What’s the new plan?”

“That is the new plan,” he says, dead serious.  “Us.  Not doing this.”

“Oh, come on,” you grin cheekily up at him, poking his chestplate.  “I’m just giving you some motivation to find me quicker, that’s all.”

Din stares down at you, and… yeesh.  Tough crowd.

“Tell you what,” he finally grunts, sounding incredibly unamused with your jesting.  “If you can last that long with only a day head start, I’ll let you come with me to collect the fifth quarry.  You can even cuff the bastard yourself.”

You know it’s just because he’s rightly confident in his own deadly skill, but hearing him propose the possibility still shoots a thrill down your spine.  “Oh ho, you are gonna regret saying that, shiny,” you beam up at him, starting to hop back and forth on each foot with excitement.

“But if I’m able to find you, you can’t ask me ever again,” he finishes shortly, and you immediately go still in front of him.

“What?”

“If I’m able to find you in five days, I don’t want to hear about you coming with me on a hunt and you can’t ever ask me not to go on one,” Din tells you, his voice rough and gravelly through the modulator.  Not mean or harsh, but firm.  “From now on, it’ll be off-limits.”

You… take a moment, not knowing if you should feel scolded or not.  When you don’t immediately say anything in response, he sighs and turns the helmet away from you.

“Leaving is hard enough as it is,” he mutters, looking at the ground.  “Hearing you ask… makes it impossible.”

You slowly lower your gaze to the floor as well, feeling your heart constrict tight in your chest.  There’s a real pull under his voice, telling you that information even though it sounds like he doesn’t really want to admit it out loud.  It… really is a struggle for him too, then.  You understand.

“Okay,” you nod.  There’s not a single part of you that actually thinks you’ll be able to stay hidden from him for five days while stuck on foot, so this is essentially a given.  You’re not thrilled about the idea, but you’re going to do your best to respect it nonetheless, especially if he cares enough to put off hunting and allow you this experience for yourself.  It’s a better compromise than you ever imagined, and you’ll do everything you can to hold up your side of the bargain.

Din clears his throat and straightens his spine, turning the visor until it faces you head on once more.  “Final rule.  I reserve the right to break any rule we just agreed to, or any fucking rule in this galaxy to keep you safe.  Good?”

Your cheeks flush with heat, your stomach suddenly filling with butterflies.  He doesn’t do that.  Din says what he says or he doesn’t say anything at all, there’s no… taking things back, he’s already breaking his own code.

“What happened to The Way says no take-backs?”  You ask quietly.

“This is my way,” he answers you.  Quick, not even taking a moment to think about it, before pulling out a fancy looking wristwatch thing and clipping it on you himself.  “This is your communicator.  It takes more power than the one you have now but it’ll reach a further distance.  I have one just like it, they’re locked into the same frequency and timesynced together, and the batteries need to be charged every three days.  If you make it that long, I’ll remind you.”  Din grabs the bag while you slide your arm into it, helping you hook it around your shoulder with one hand while he cradles the kid in his other.  Your heart is pounding now, pumping with adrenaline as he pulls you towards the middle of the hull and then wraps an arm around you.

“Hey,” he murmurs, pulling you tight to him and pressing the helmet to the crown of your head.  His voice is barely a whisper through the modulator.  “Gar darasuum.”  For an eternity.

You find some way to wrap your arms around him, even with your blaster in your hand and the kid hanging out in his dad’s other arm.

“Dayn alanyc, bal alanyc, bal alanyci,” you murmur dutifully against the beskar chestplate, knowing your accent is probably butchering the words but hoping they still carry the same sentiment.

And then you’re squeeeeeezed hard enough to get a little air out of you, before you’re let go and he turns around, pressing a button on his vambrace so the ramp begins to lower.

It’s bright outside but not too bright, and everything is warm and gentle and breezy, right in the middle of a lush plain.  You inhale the fresh air into your lungs, looking out across the wide open field, having no fucking clue this is where your day would be leading when you woke up this morning.  Oh Maker, it’s gorgeous here.  Not like Naboo, where every single thing is picturesque and fit for an e-card, but in a soft, understated kind of way.  The sky is a canvas of swirling pastel clouds, pale pinks and yellows and blues, and the communicator on your wrist lets you know that it’s just after noon here.

You take one single step down the ramp, before immediately stopping and turning around to bite your lip at him.

“How am I… how am I supposed to outrun you?”  You ask, already clueless.  “You’re too good, better than me at everything.”

“That’s not true,” Din reminds you sternly, grabbing your hand at your side.  “You already know who’s after you, that’s an advantage nobody else has ever had against me.  You know how I think.  I don’t know how, but sometimes it’s like you can…”  He slowly shakes his head.  “See me.  Through the metal.”

“But… but that works both ways,” you point out, breathless at hearing him say that but needing to focus right now.  “You know me, too—you’ll know exactly where I—”

He shakes his head again, but quickly this time.  “Remember what I told you a long time ago?  What your best weapon is?”

You… do not.  He told you so many things, and you’re assuming every single one of them is going to come into play during this endeavor if you want to outlast.  You’re going to have to think back and remember all of them individually, find the time to figure out your best plan of action based on the remarkably little you know about how he hunts.

“You’re smart, remember?”  Din murmurs, squeezing your fingers.  “Your mind works differently, it sees things in ways I’ll never be able to, not even with this helmet.  So…”  He shrugs a shoulder like it’s the simplest thing in the galaxy.  “Don’t try to outrun, okay?  Just try to outsmart.”

You give him a nod after a moment, still not really sure about it, before giving his hand one last squeeze in return and eventually letting go.  

Outsmart.  Outsmart him, use what you know about him to be the most elusive quarry he’s ever hunted down.

As you make your way down the ramp, you’re already thinking.  His helmet tracks footprints, that’s a thing you know.  You’ll have to find someone to trade shoes with, then—yours aren’t too beat up, maybe you can find a local who’d appreciate a better pair.  Are you going to a city?  Would there be one in walking distance?  The wilderness won’t work, you’ll be too exposed and it would make you an easy target for either him or wild animals.  The weather seems clear here though, and you don’t think you’ll need to worry about rain or snow, but if—

“Oh—but when you do see me,” Din decides to add when your feet finally touch the grass, and you pause once more to turn around and look at him.  He stays quiet for a second, studying you through the helmet for too long.  Like the anticipation is getting to him already.

You bite your lip back at him and adjust the bag on your shoulder, tummy swirling with nerves and excitement.  He tilts the visor up, gazing down at you from the hull with the kid tucked in his arms.

“Try to outrun,” he says gruffly, before turning back into the ship and letting the ramp slowly close behind him.