#I hate drawing hands why did I do a close up panel of an intimate hand hold

[alcnolien]

Now he did take her hand, his fingers tightening around it as warmly as any embrace. She did not jerk back in startlement, though an odd shiver ran through her. Isn't starving yourself a betrayal too, self against self?

Hey gang, guess who’s back on her A Civil Campaign bullshit- it’s me, it’s always me, it’s constantly me

[tokky231]

Has anyone thought about this?

How this is very similar to this?

Aren’t these two really similar? The second main character sacrifices themselves to safe the main protagonist from dying without knowing why and just because their bodies moved on his own.

We know that Hori said in one of his interviews that he is a fan of Kishimoto and that he is taking a lot of inspiration from Naruto and other mangas. I have seen a lot of references from other animes in BNHA. But this is heavily similar to the way Sasuke saved Naruto from dying in the hands of Haru, a tactic that he planned to drive Sasuke into his trap and get him. This is almos the same as what happened to Bakugo, even tho Shigaraki didn’t do this as bait, the stabbing and Deku asking him why he did it, it’s just as how happened with Naruto and Sasuke.

I am a big fan of Naruto, I am a SasuNaru shipper and I dread how their relationship was drawn at the end of the manga. Everyone saw chemistry and potential for those two to be a couple, but the majority of people were against them and decided for them to go with the other way. Kirishima wanted Naruto to end up with Sasuke that he even blew up his arms because the company didn’t want him to draw them holding hands. The relationship between Naruto and Sasuke is very similar to Bakudeku, even tho Sasuke never bullied Naruto like Bakugo did to Deku, they thought of each other as rivals and wanted to surpass each other at any cost. Plus Naruto has a strong will and an explosive personality, specially when it comes to Sasuke. They grew up together, but they didn’t become friends, something that both of them regret in the future.

Bakudeku were childhood friends that out of nowhere their relationship fell apart. Midoriya doesn’t even know why Bakugo changed and started bullying him. Maybe, it really came to be because he was quirkless and in the eyes of society heroes and normal people don’t mix.

There are a lot of similarities to each panel, Bakugo’s only thoughts were of Deku and himself while he was moving, just like Sasuke but instead of Sasuke being in the move, he was standing in front of Naruto. All his memories were of Naruto and himself, while they were fighting or bickering, to the accidental kiss they had in chapter 3. Funny thing is that Sasuke never knew it was an accident, he always though that Naruto kissed him out of his own will, but why did he think about the kiss in the brik of his death? For someone who was always talking about hating his brother and getting revenge by killing him, all thoughts were on Naruto and Naruto alone. There were no memories of family or his sensei or even Sakura, very odd. It’s the same as Bakugo, he didn’t think of anyone else but Deku. Specially, the time when he was wrapped in the sludge villain, a moment in his life that he hated so much because everyone will only remember him for that but it was also when Deku decided to charged forward to attack the villain to safe Bakugo. Sadly, we still don’t have a kiss scene like SasuNaru, yet.

And this is were we see how these two unleashed their hidden power, for Naruto the demon he had since he was born and for Midoriya,another quirk was triggered. This is where Shigaraki draws his conclusion that Bakugo is very closed to Deku and someone very important to him because of the way Deku only responded to Bakugo being injured. Haru drew his conclusion that both of them have a much more intimate relationship and even linked it with his relationship with Sabusa.

When I read this chapter, my only thoughts where on sasunar when Bakugo delivered those words, even tho they weren’t say out loud, Midoriya still got mad and went berserk, this has not been the only time Midoriya has gone mad when he was seen or think Bakugo is in danger or injured.

I like where the story of bakudeku is going, just like sasunaru, this is why sometimes it makes me hopeless that they will end up together at the end. It might not be because of hori, like what happened to Kishimoto, it might be because of fans’ actions and higher ups but I hope this doesn’t happen with these two. But that’s if Hori wants it to happen. I can’t wait to see how Deku reacts when he gets to know Bakugo is dead T.T

[barnes-dameron]

hi, do you think you could write a mandalorian x reader where the reader gets hypothermia? maybe din goes off on a bounty hunt for a few days and a couple days into him being gone the heating completely stops working and reader can’t fix it and she gives almost all the blankets to grogu to stay warm? cue din freaking out when he comes back to a barely conscious and freezing reader and he warms her up and it’s just cute

Frigid 

*gif not mine

Mandalorian x reader

Word Count: 1.7k

A/N: This seems very fitting for me right now since there’s a foot of snow outside of my house! The reader is gender neutral  

***

You looked out the wind shield of the Crest to watch the frantic swirls of snow that encompassed the ship. Though you couldn’t feel the cold at that moment, the sheer thought of it was enough to send a shiver down your spine, causing goosebumps to rise, and the tiny hairs on your arms to stiffen. The howling wind outside was so strong that it gave the Razor Crest a gentle shake. You hated the idea of coming to Hoth, but the Mandalorian insisted; a bounty worth a ton of credits was hiding out in a cave somewhere nearby.

Shaking your head, you descended down the ladder to be greeted with the beskar clad bounty hunter who was packing for his hunt.

“I shouldn’t be gone for long,” he said, his deep voice doing nothing to comfort you. “Keep the heater on, and you and the Child should keep warm.”

You nodded at his words, pulling your jacket closer to you at the mere thought of being cold.

“How long will you be gone?” you asked, trying to conceal your anxiety.

“A few days at most,” he replied, shoving a blaster into his holster before slinging his prepared bag over his shoulder. “But I’ll be back in no time.”

That was the last thing he said to you before departing into the white abyss, leaving you and the Child in solitude.

It was quiet in Crest, except for the hum of the heater and coos from the Child every now and then. There was little to keep you occupied, much less to distract you from worrying about the Mandalorian. There was nothing on board that interested you, and the Child couldn’t do a lot, much less talk. The only thing that kept you company was your anxieties. However, you put all those thoughts aside when it was time to eat. You heated up some pre-made soup, serving both the Child and yourself. But as soon as the hot broth reached your lips, the humming stopped.

Your heart began to quicken its pace as fear began to spawn within you. At of all the times for this to happen, why did it have to happen now? You stood up from your seat on the floor, grabbed the toolbox, and made your way to the control panel for the heater. Removing the metal paneling that was concealing the controls, you stared at the wiring and tried to make sense of the thing. You didn’t know much about this sort of thing, only how to hot wire a speeder, but you hoped that this wouldn’t be too different. You rearranged the wires, and nothing. You reprogrammed the system, and nothing. You stepped back, putting the panel back, then began your frantic search for anything that will keep you warm.

Days. That was what the Mandalorian said. He would be gone for a few days. A few days for you and the Child to survive without heat. You gathered all the blankets that you could find, all your clothing, the Mandalorian’s capes and shawls, and an old animal pelt you found in the back. The Child watched in curiosity as you began to make a nest of blankets and clothing in the small bunk. You grabbed the little guy, placing him on the make shift bed, and continued to wrap him in the Mandalorian’s capes.

“Go to sleep, little one,” you murmured. “Hopefully you’ll keep warm, and by the time you wake up Mando will be back, and we’ll be far away from here.”

You closed the door to the bunk, praying that the Child will stay warm and that the Mandalorian will come back soon. If anyone knew their way around this ship, it was him. You sighed to yourself as you pulled on more of your clothes, the layers hopefully keeping in your body heat. You made your way to the cockpit, and settled in the pilot’s seat, looking out the wind shield in hopes that a beskar clad figure would appear in the winter desert. You didn’t care how long it took, you will stay there to make sure he comes back.

Hours have passed by. The never changing scenery doing nothing to keep your interest, much less to keep you awake. You lost all feeling in your toes and fingers. You were now able to see your breath every time you breathed. You continued to shiver in place, trying to stay awake to see the Mandalorian. But the swirls from wind and snow caused your eyes to grow heavy, lulling you to sleep despite the cold that was beginning to bite your cheeks.

***

The Mandalorian dragged the body of the his dead bounty behind him as he approached the Razor Crest, but a certain dread overcame him when he entered the hull only to find the interior was just as cold as it was outside. His heart dropped as the idea of the situation washed over him. He released his hold of the corpse’s feet, the thud echoing. Din closed the hatch to the hull, and began to look for you and the Child.

He opened the door to his bunk to find a little bundle of blankets on top of his cot. Din pulled aside some of the blankets to find the little womp rat, curled in a ball with his eyes closed as he napped. Turning on the heat signature on his visor, he was relieved to see the Child warm. He nodded to himself, placing the blankets back on top of him before going to find you.

Din climbed up the ladder to the cock pit, and his heart began to sink when he laid eyes on you. You were nearly blue through the heat signature vision, and panic started to arise within the Mandalorian. He turned off the heat signature, and began to examine you.Your features lost color; your lips were pale and chapped, and eyes shut. Your body was shivering, and your teeth were chattering softly. Din shook your shoulders, and began to repeat your name, trying to will you to wake up.

Relief flooded him as he watched your eyes flutter open, though they seemed lifeless, it held the light of someone who had hope.

“What happened?” Din asked, trying to keep your attention before you go back into your sleep.

“H-h-heater,” you stammered out, your teeth chattering as you did so. “B-b-broke.”

Din nodded, before hastily ripping off the cape that rested on his shoulders. He wrapped the garment tightly around you, making sure it covered a good portion of your head so that some warmth could return to your face. It was then that he set forth towards the control panel, pulling out the tools that Kuiil gave him from what felt like ages ago. Din recounted the words and advice from the wiser being as he fixed the wiring and checked the internal structures of the heater so that it would last. When he gets back to Nevaro, he will pay a mechanic to install a new one so that this will never happen again.

Din sighed in contentment when he began to feel the haul warm up, the soft humming filling the air once more. Turning back, he returned to the cockpit to find you once again sleeping. Taking off a glove, he pressed the back his bare hand to your cheek but then instantly pulling back when feeling how cold you were. It would take some time for the whole ship to warm up, and he would have difficulty carrying you down the ladder. You were still unconscious, practically dead weight. He would have no problem with anybody else, but this was you. He didn’t want to even risk hurting you.

Weighing his limited options, Din decided to do what he thought best. One by one, the Mandalorian removed pieces of his beskar armor, setting it aside on the floor, but not removing his helmet. Once it was all laid side by side, Din dragged you off the pilot’s seat, moving you towards the door so that the heat could get to you sooner. He pressed his back to the wall, holding you close to his chest as he circled his arms around you; pressing as much of his weight on you so that you could receive some his heat as well.

Din didn’t know how long it took for you to begin to warm up or even regain consciousness. To be completely honest, he enjoyed this intimate moment with you, despite the circumstances of the whole situation. He took this time to remind himself that you were safe, alive, even though he was gone. Even though you were helpless in this situation, you remained alive.

He was pulled from his thoughts when he felt you shift under him. He turned his head to look at you; the color has returned to your face and your eyes fluttered open to reveal the light of life within them. Din brought his hand to your face once again, relieved that it was warm instead of frigid cold.

“Mando?” you whispered, your voice hoarse.

“I��m here, cyar’ika,” Din said, grabbing your hand and holding it in his glove less one. “Are you okay?”

“Better,” you replied, snuggling closer into his chest. “The Child?”

“He’s okay,” Din assured. “Sleeping soundly in the bunk.” Din stroked your hand, relishing in the soft texture that he so rarely felt. “Can you move?”

“I think I can,” you said. “I can wiggle my toes.”

“That’s good,” Din affirmed. “Do you want to get up?”

“Not yet,” you answered. “Can we stay like this for a bit longer?”

“Whatever you want,” Din replied.

He leaned his head back to rest on the wall behind him, allowing you to get closer to him; resting your head on his collarbone, right underneath his chin. If he were to lean forward, he was sure to feel the top of your head beneath his helmet. But this wasn’t about him, it was about you. He wound his arms tighter around you, but still held your hand, tracing patterns on the back of it.

“Hmmmm,” you hummed, causing Din to draw his attention to you.

“What?” he questioned, curiosity getting the better of him.

“Nothing,” you replied. “I just never really realized how warm you are.”

Din felt you squeeze his hand tighter, but he pulled away for just a moment. He positioned it so that your fingers would interlock with his, palm to palm. It was this moment that Din would cherish forever: holding your hand with you so close to him in the solitude of the ship with the heater humming in the back and the harsh cold outside.

Taglist: @tangledlove27 @absurdthirst @caswinchester2000 @16boyfriends-and-me

[beesloosewithcanon]

Fictober2019

Thank you, nonny for the prompt submission! 

Lord, what is it with me and Mass Effect pairings? I went a little overboard on this one, too, clocking in at just over 3k words! I’ve provided a “keep reading” line so I don’t utterly bog down all y’alls feeds. <3

If you’re interested in seeing a writing drabble from me for a specific f/f pairing, look at this post and let me know which you’d like to see! (I currently write in Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and Avatar Legend of Korra; I’d be open to also delve into the following fandoms – Avatar the Last Airbender, Overwatch, Stardew Valley, to name a few).

Prompt #1 – “It will be fun, trust me.”

Fanfiction – Mass Effect

Pairing – Jack & Miranda

***

This whole night had not at all been what Miranda had been expecting, especially since she’d run into Commander Shepard and her crew, who were here working on some undercover mission apparently. Being here herself was a coincidence and Jack had made a similar statement that it was odd that all of the old crew seemed to gather here tonight. But that didn’t stop Jack from eagerly agreeing to help create a distraction so Shepard and her small team for the evening could sneak into a secure location of the casino.

Miranda had no idea what kind of distraction she had in mind. Only that Jack had come up to her and said they were going to help the Commander out for the night and they were on distraction and diversion duty. Miranda hadn’t even had a chance to refuse before Jack had grabbed her wrist and started walking. 

“It will be fun, trust me,” Jack said as she pulled her along with her.

“Wha-” Miranda started but was cut off as Jack’s forward momentum jolted her forward, her heels sinking into the lush carpet of the casino gaming floor. “Jack, shouldn’t we have some sort of plan, first?” she hissed, pulling Jack back a little.

“I already have one, sweet tits.”

“Jesus, Jack,” Miranda rolled her eyes, finally falling into step with the volatile biotic woman who had an iron-clad grip on her own wrist. 

The convict’s demeanor hadn’t changed since the last time she’d had to work with her. By all rights, she was surprised to even be seeing Jack again. Miranda would have been wholly contempt with life had she not had to cross paths with the woman again, but here they were. Their working relationship had started out contemptuous at best, but Shepard had been able to bridge the gap between them and they had become increasingly less hostile towards each other as the time had passed aboard the Normandy. They were even cordial at times. Saying they were friendly towards one another, however, was pushing it. 

Miranda had to admit, though... she liked Jack’s newest look. Her long hair and undercut paired with her studded leather jacket that ended mid ribcage and the white straps that disappeared into her tight fighting pants that constituted some sort of shirt. The look left nothing to the imagination. She realized that she was too preoccupied looking over Jack’s attire, that she didn’t realize that Jack had come to a stop in front of her and walked straight into her back. The studs of her jacket making cold contact against the exposed skin of Miranda’s chest. She was beginning to regret wearing the floor-length gown with the very open front, showing off her chest and stomach in the current fashion. If they were going to do mission work, it was the least practical thing she could be wearing. But at least it was bright red. She wouldn’t go unnoticed, which was good for being a distraction. 

To her surprise, Jack didn’t cuss her out for running into her. Instead, she pulled her hand a little more, pulling her slightly around her and then casually slung an arm around her waist, leaning in close to her ear. It felt almost intimate.

But she had to be imagining things.

“Okay, you see that shithead over there?” Jack asked as she gestured subtly beyond a doorway. 

Miranda ignored Jack’s hot break on her neck and forced herself to look where she’d indicated. But the convict’s digging fingers on her hip made it hard for her to focus on what she was looking at, her brain choosing rather to focus on how those fingers felt and what they could potentially promise.

“W-which?” she got out before clearing her throat quietly. “The one with the gun or the one with two holstered guns and a taser rifle?” she added flatly. 

She felt Jack’s breath again as she let out a singular humored breath. “Taser dick,” she said simply before she moved. Jack kept her hand on her waist as she moved to stand in front of Miranda, her fingers trailing along her low back before settling on her opposite hip.

Miranda swallowed, continuing to ignore the feeling of pressure from Jack’s fingers. “Alright. What’s the plan?”

 “You gotta go up to him and try and seduce him,” Jack said simply.

Miranda blinked twice at her. “I beg your pardon?!” She then looked to the man holding the taser rifle. “Why the hell would I do that?”

Jack’s free hand came up and cupped Miranda’s chin tightly, bringing her back to look at her. “Because it’s apart of the damn plan,” she said, a mischievous arc to her eyebrows. “Now shut up and listen. You try to seduce him. Then I come in, all in a rage of a jealous lover or some shit and start fighting him. Shepard sneaks by squeaky clean. Simple as that.”

Miranda blinked. That was quite possibly the worst impromptu plan she’d ever heard and was sure Jack simply wanted to start a fight. She always seemed far too eager to throw punches or biotic fields. 

“And we land ourselves in jail,” Miranda said flatly as she moved her chin to the side, out of Jack’s grasp. “Or did that not cross your mind?”

Jack waved a dismissive hand at her. “Nah, we can take ‘em.”

“Did you forget that we’re in a casino? The security here is insane.” Miranda brought a hand up to her forehead as she let out an exasperated sigh. The plan was horrid. Just from here she could spot five cameras, and those were the ones the casino security wanted the patrons to see. There was no telling how many cameras were hidden out of plain sight. There was also no way they’d walk out of the casino if they started a fistfight in anything other than handcuffs. 

She shook her head. “That’s an insane plan. Give me a second and I’ll think of something better.”

“Oh, what? Your tits can seduce anyone. My plan is perfect.”

“Shut it, Jack,” Miranda said with a glare. “And enough about my breasts, already.”

“What?” Jack asked, shrugging her shoulders before giving Miranda a thorough look up and down before grinning. “You’ve got a great rack and that dress of yours displays it nicely. Why the fuck are you ashamed of it?”

Her glare soured as she shook her head again. “I’m just not so keen to hear you mention them every other ruddy sentence.”

“Awe, what? You sad cause they haven’t gotten enough attention lately?” Jack teased with an over the top pout. 

“So help me, Jack,” Miranda threatened. “Shut it or I’ll shove your head through the nearest wall.”

“Yeesh. Get laid, will ya?”

Miranda rolled her eyes again. She then looked over Jack’s shoulder through the doorway to see the men change positions. They were in front of what looked like a control panel, a secure hallway, and another locked room. Whatever was in there wasn’t for any regular casino patron. So what the hell did Shepard want with it? She was the white knight of the galaxy who never did anything morally ambiguous. She must have had some interesting intel… 

But that’s not why she was here. 

An idea clicked and she smiled. “Why cause a fight when all we need to do is distract?”

“Because if they’re fighting us, they’re not paying attention to anyone else? Duh.”

“I have a better plan. Well,” she paused and looked back to Jack, looking her face up and down before offering a sly smile. “Maybe. So long as you’re up for it, that is.” As soon as she said it, she heard how flirtatious her voice sounded and hated it.

Jack quirked an eyebrow. “Let’s hear it. Shep will be here any minute.”

Miranda bit her lip as she looked between Jack and the guards again before settling back on Jack’s face. “Why don’t we stumble in, kissing, acting hopelessly drunk. I’m sure them seeing two women going at it will be enough to draw their attention.”

Jack sneered. “We’d really have to be going at it.”

“At least my plan won’t land us in jail.”

Jack’s only response was her sneer widening, her mischievous look turning downright devious. She didn’t say anything but rather moved her hand from Miranda’s waist and laced their fingers together and began walking towards the area in question. 

Miranda wished that she’d been able to take a shot before they set their plan in motion, but Jack didn’t give her any time. She was thankful for the glass of wine that still sat warmly in her stomach from earlier. But if she was ever going to kiss Jack, she was sure she would have had to be much more intoxicated and not practically sober.  

Jack was a better actress than Miranda expected. It seemed like she’d simply turned on a switch and immediately seemed intoxicated as she started to walk in a wobbly fashion, pulling Miranda along with her. She even let loose a giggle that suited a very intoxicated woman that was normally unbefitting of Jack herself. 

When they cleared the doorway, Miranda noticed both men take a step forward and open their mouths, probably to tell them they were in a restricted area, but Jack was quicker. 

Her hand pulled Miranda forward in a sudden tug, causing her to slightly trip. Jack’s hands were ready and caught her by the hips and then pivoted her, pinning her to the nearest wall, hard. 

“Finally able to get your sweet ass alone,” Jack said in a loud whisper.

Miranda had to remember that they were playing a part and that they had to be distracting. She bit her lip and put one of her hands on Jack’s shoulder and the other hand gripping just below the base of her skull.

“Shut up and kiss me already,” she said. It felt odd to say it as loudly as she did to ensure the men heard but, it was a part.

She pulled Jack forward and their lips crashed together. Miranda wasn’t at all prepared for how good Jack’s lips felt; they were demanding, impatient, and a touch forceful, but the pressure of her body moving flush against hers was similar yet enjoyable. It was an overbearing presence of a woman who she at one point swore she would kill if push came to shove back in their Cerberus hay days. 

It wasn’t that she’d expected Jack to be soft and pliable. The thing that was unexpected was her own reaction to Jack’s body. Her fingers grabbed greedily at Miranda's hips before moving to push up the sides of her body. Once their bodies were fully flushed together, Miranda had no room to move back any further. Jack then pressed her leg forward, forcing space between Miranda’s thighs and pressed further, causing Miranda to let loose an involuntary moan into Jack’s mouth and her nails to rack along the back of Jack’s stubbly undercut. 

She felt Jack smile against her as she salaciously pushed her leg forward again. It was a stronger motion this time and it caused Miranda to break their kiss and let out a sharp moan, her head angled towards the ceiling. 

“Does the cheerleader like that?” Jack whispered, her breath hot against Miranda’s ear as one of her hands moved to cup one of her breasts just as her mouth latched onto the pulse point on Miranda’s neck. The question had been too quiet for their onlookers to hear.

She didn’t deign an answer or else she feared she’d maker a further embarrassment of herself. Or acknowledge that Jack seemed to be flirting without thought of the facade of lovers. She genuinely was teasing just then. And it didn’t help that this wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind when she said kissing and going at it in front of the armed men. She’d thought that they’d make out, not have the prelude to sex with an audience. But she wasn’t about to stop what Jack was doing. She wasn’t used to having such a demanding partner, but it was a refreshing change of pace. Normally she was the one that her ex-boyfriends would expect to be the more sexually dominant one. But as she was pinned to the wall by Jack, she felt utterly helpless. And she liked it. She didn’t want to admit it but she did. She had no control in the situation, as Jack’s strong hands and leg kept her in place as her lips moved deftly across her skin and all she wanted was more demanding pressure from the woman.

Jack moved back up and kissed her on the mouth, her tongue unceremoniously moving into Miranda’s mouth and tangling with her own just as her leg moved forward again, going slightly higher. A moan vibrated between their lips and Miranda wasn’t sure that it was wholly hers. Her hand then moved up, grabbing at Jack’s hair at the base of her ponytail, urging her closer. 

“We’re in,” Commander Shepard’s voice echoed statically. 

Jack then broke the kiss, her chest heaving heavily against Miranda’s. That’s when she saw that Jack’s implant had a small blue pulsing light. Perhaps it worked as a comms device, too. 

“You two look cute together, by the way,” the Commander added with a playful lilt. 

“Shut the fuck up, Shep,” Jack growled back quietly. She stayed still for a long moment, her eyes decidedly looking at Miranda’s lips as their chests continued to heave together in unison. She then blinked and looked over her shoulder and Miranda followed her gaze. The two sentries were staring at them, mouths slightly agape and one with a definite bulge in his trousers.  

“Shit. Didn’t realize this place was so popular,” Jack said before her face fell into a glare and her hands moved back to holding Miranda’s waist. Miranda might have imagined it, but Jack’s grip felt possessive as she held her, still looking over her shoulder and glowering at the two men. “Get lost, fuckers.”

“Uh, you’re in a secure area, ma’am.” The man with the taser rifle cleared his throat, ignoring the new tightness to the front of his pants and took a step forward. “We’re going to have to ask you two to leave.”

“Oh, you say that now? Cheap bastards just wanted a free show,” Jack said harshly before taking Miranda by the hand again and started walking. “Get fucked,” she said, raising her free hand in the air with her middle finger prominently displayed. 

Miranda smiled, using her free hand to tuck her hair behind her ear as they walked. When they cleared the threshold of the room, she tugged Jack to the side, out of the way of a cocktail waitress who had a tray full of shots. 

“What?” Jack asked, glancing over her shoulder to see if they were followed. 

Miranda didn’t know what she was doing. Jack was infuriating to deal with and definitely not one of her favorite people. But there was no denying the way that Jack made her body feel and how much she enjoyed the demanding movements of the woman. She hadn’t even used her biotics on her but her entire nervous system sparked at the feeling of Jack’s leg between her own. Perhaps it had just been a while since she’d been with anyone. But she also knew she’d never been with anyone quite like Jack. And her body wasn’t done with its wanting. She was just getting started and would be damned if that was all that was going to happen between them tonight.

Miranda pulled the convict into another kiss, pushing her body into hers. Jack reacted in kind by grabbing eagerly at her waist and urging her closer without any hesitation. With a few quick steps, Jack had her against another wall, her hands moving low to press her thumbs into either side of Miranda’s hips. 

Miranda wrapped her arms around the convict's neck and encouraged Jack’s movement. But it made no sense. This was a woman that she’d hated for a long time and had only recently learned to be able to simply be in the same room with. But she felt so good that she didn’t care that they couldn’t carry a conversation without it resulting in a yelling match. They didn’t have to talk. What they were doing was perfectly fine. And who was to say it had to be anything more than just one night of sex?

Miranda reluctantly pulled her lips away but stayed close, her breath hot on Jack’s lips.

“Wanna get out of here?”

“And go where?”

“I have an apartment on the presidium.”

“Then why are we still standing here? Let’s fucking go already.”

Miranda smiled and moved forward, kissing Jack again. Jack smiled against her lips and indulged for only a moment before pulling away. She then brought her finger up to her implant as she started walking away, her hand still holding onto Miranda’s. “Shep. Something came up and I gotta boogie. Get out safe, okay? Or I’ll fuck you up later.”

Jack was quiet for a moment before she shook her head. “Heh. Something like that.” She then tapped her finger to her implant.

Miranda squinted at her but ignored it. Shepard had probably teased her about something. But that didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting Jack back to her place, out of their respective clothing, and burning out whatever they’d ignited. Tonight. This had to be a one-time thing. There was nothing between them that would satiate anything long term. But one night of what she was expecting was going to be spectacular sex? Well… with the reapers taking more and more worlds, she felt she deserved at least one night of overly satisfying passion before all hell broke loose. Or worse.

Jack summoned a taxi as they got out of the casino and practically bounced on feet as she waited. She wanted this just as much as Miranda did, apparently.

She smiled to herself, stepping forward and wrapping her arms around Jack’s waist and planted an opened mouth kiss on her neck, letting her teeth move up against her skin before moving to suck on her slightly salty skin. Tonight was turning out to be far more fun than she had initially anticipated.

“Fuuck, get here already!” Jack whined as she looked upward, leaning into Miranda’s lips as her fingers pressed impatiently against the top of her ass and pulling her flush next to her.

[littlebitoffanfic]

Back On Track

Fandom: Captain Marvel Characters: Talos, Carol Relationship: Talos/reader Request: have you seen the new captain marvel movie? I really want to see what you would do with a Talos request. You sat at the console, watching Carol as she flew in front. She would be getting tired and would need to stop soon, but not quite yet. She could return to the ship and enter through a bay at the back which would close and inside door to open the outside one for her to come in. Once she was inside, it would swap and close the outside one then open the inside. this would allow her to enter the ship and leave when she desired. Most of the Skrull were fast asleep throughout the ship apart from one or two who were still a little on edge about everything. You had decided to help them find a home along with Carol. She was your sister, and the thought of losing her again made your stomach twist horribly in your stomach. After her disappearance, you rose through the ranks and ended up working with Fury. You had been there from the start, you had seen all this unfold and watched in disbelief as your sister not only rose from the grave but also in a ball of fire. You had been there when you all entered Lawsons ship and reunited Talos with his sister and niece. When the time had come for her to leave, she offered you to come with her. Fury had agreed, saying that there was going to be a shift in the whole galaxy, and he would need someone he could trust. And so, here you were. leaning back in the seat, your eyes skimmed the empty space around you, wondering where she was leading you all. You heard the door to the room open and looked over to see Talos enter. He smiled and nodded to greet you which you returned. “You should be asleep.” His voice was deep and a little gruff as he walked over and sat at the control panel next to you. “probably.” You agree with a chuckle. “but I cant.” you looked at the Skrull who sat next to you. The first time you had seen him, you had felt anger and hate for him and his kind. But you had been misinformed like some many others. When your alliances changed, you began to look at him more kindly and felt a great respect for him. He fought a losing battle in hopes of seeing his family again. He admitted he had done things he wasn’t proud of, but he did them for his people and so they could survive. You could relate to him in some ways. You had lost your sister and the grief had driven you near insanity. They never found a body, or anything else for that matter. The thought that she might still be out there, somewhere, haunted you. You couldn’t pinpoint the moment you realised you were attracted to him. Some small voice at the back of your head whispered it had been right from the start, and even though you shook it away, you had a suspicion it was right. His features and colour were so unique and otherworldly. You partly hated that you were so attracted to him because you spent a lot of time with him now. The two of you were very close, and he seemed genuinely happy when he found out you were accompanying them. “Cant?” Talos chuckled as he sat back in the chair comfortably. He was more relaxed around you than most other. Maybe because with you, he didn’t have to be a leader. He didn’t have to be the fearless general, the ruthless commander. No, he just had to be himself. “Im still getting use to the lack of sun.” You explain, looking out past Carol into the black void. “Ah.” Talos hums, seeming to understand immediately as he nods. “It does take some time.” “why are you still awake?” You ask, turning your chair to face him. You instantly saw a soft smile dawn his lips as he glanced at you. “I still have a journey ahead before I can rest easily again.” He tell you, making you offer him a soft smile. He was worried about his future, the future of his people. “you don’t have to carry that burden alone anymore.” You keep your voice soft, and quiet. you knew he wouldn’t want anyone to overhear such things. Talos frowns and tilts his head to the side. after a moment of watching you, he signs slightly and shakes his head, looking away from you. Talos suddenly stands, turning and walking towards the door. You dart up from your seat. You didn’t mean to offend him or upset him. Grabbing his hand, he stops when your skins touches his own. You were so much softer than his own kind. The palms of your hand, the pads of your fingers, so soft. unlike his own hands, which were rough but no less sensitive than your own. “Talos?” you call his name, drawing him back a little as he turned to face you but you didn’t drop his hand. In fact, you felt him clutch your hand. “You’re not alone anymore.” “you think im lonely?” Talos smirked, as if he found the idea amusing in some way. “A little. Yes. I think you’re so use to being on your own.” You confess to him, stroking the back of his hand with your palm in a soothing motion. “And?” Talos asked, his eyes falling to your hand as he marvelled at how small they were in comparison with his own. “And you have me.” You tell him, unsure if he could sense the true meaning of your words. “you?” He smiles, but not in a malicious way. “Im know im not much.” You giggle, looking down as you cheeks burned red. A soft chuckle echoed from his chest as he reached up his free hand. Gently, he took your chin between his forefinger and thumb and guided your attention back up to him. His eyes darted between your own eyes and your lips. “You are so much more.” He breaths, his voice filled with love and a hint of lust. “you are perfect.” All you could do was look at him with wide, owlish eyes as he smiled and leaned closer. He paused an inch or so away from your lips, his eyes darted up to meet yours. It dawned on you that he had paused to allow you time to reject him. You could lean away, turn your head to the side or tell him to stop. But you didn’t want that. Closing your eyes, you leaned forward and met his lips. He kissed you softly, sweetly. Your hand drop from his own so you could wrap your arms around his neck. His own hands found your hips, pulling you against his solid chest, not that you minded. You pressed yourself against him, feeling one of his hands slip around to rest on your lower back. Something in the kiss shifted. It was in a moment, barely a blink of an eye. It went from soft and sweet to desperate and needy. You didn’t know if you had changed the kiss, or he had. But you found yourself clinging to him, moaning against his lips. He pulled you to the side where there was a table. Pushing you up against it, you instantly knew what to do. You hopped you, spreading your legs and pulling him between them. One of his hands fell to your thigh then back to your hips as he held you tightly. His other hand left you hip, coming up to rest on the side of your neck. In a slow and sensual way, he brushed all your hair away from the right side of your neck. You broke the kiss, gasping for air. But Talos seemed to be unable to stop. He pressed kisses down your jaw to your neck, seeming to have planned it since he had moved the hair from that area. You couldn’t help but smirk as you let out a soft moan at the sensation. Turned your head, your eyes fell on his large ears. Pressing your lips to the tip of the pointed ear, you pressed soft, open mouth kisses and immediately got a response. His entire body trembled as he growled against his skin. But the moment was ruined when your eyes fell on the windows and you noticed there was no longer a flame in the distance. “Shit.” You gasped, jumping as Talos immediately stepped back, afraid he had went too far. His eyes filled with fear as you jumped off the table, but he was thankful to see you weren’t angry or upset at him. “Wheres Carol?” You nod to the window, still panting slightly. Talos looks out and realizes why you had jumped. “Im right here.” Carols voice made you jump again as you see her walk into the room. She smiles but, judging from her innocent dementor, she didn’t know what had just happened. “Everything okay?” “Yes, fine.” You nod, answering a little too quickly. But Talos was able to regain his composure a lot quicker than you were. “We were just going to get some thing to drink. Do you want anything?” He asked Carol, who thought for a moment before shaking her head. “No, im going to bed.” She tells you before leaving after bidding you a good night. Once the door was closed, you immediately relaxed with an audible sigh. Talos let out a small chuckle as you turned to him. You raise an eyebrow. “I didn’t know a humans neck was so… sensitive.” He smirks, his eyes darting down to the area he had been giving so much attention to before. “I didn’t realise a Skrulls ears were so sensitive.” You smirk right back at him. “Looks like we both have a lot to learn.” A soft chuckle left talos’ lips as he wraps an arm around your waist. To your surprise, he leans forward and presses his forehead to yours. It wasn’t a gesture you were use to, but something about it felt really intense and loving. A soft purr came from Talos as you looked up and saw he had his eyes closed. In that moment, you knew it was a sign of affection. Smiling, you place your hands on his shoulders, gently nuzzling your head against his own for a moment. “Now, about that drink?” You asked as he pulled away. “I have some supplies in my quarters.” Talos glances to the door, as if checking no one had snuck in during the intimate moment. “Perfect.” You giggle, pulling away so he could lead you to the door. Whatever Carol had ‘interrupted’, you were very keen to get it right back on track.

[willowlark369]

Conflicts of Duty

So, between the Infinity War trailers and finally getting to see Black Panther, I had a few ideas that needed to be written.

Read this on AO3.

“Do you ask this as my brother or my king?”

Shuri spoke the words softly, her tone more serious than she typically used. She didn’t want to admit that as she progressed on her project, her confidence in the simplicity of the solution had changed. To verify that her algorithm could do as she proposed—as she had bragged that it could—she had been forced to begin learning two different fields of science: neurology and psychology. Both fields were far removed from her preferred fields of programming and engineering. Given more time, she was certain that she would be successful in her goal of helping Sgt. Barnes regain his independent agency, but it would not be as quickly as she had previously projected.

On the other hand, the technology she already possessed allowed her to review a person’s memories from their perspective. Initially, she only had visual and audio information, but recently she had cracked the barrier for internal processing. She had spent weeks reviewing the life of James Buchanan Barnes as intimately as the man himself had. She had witnessed truly awkward moments that made her question just how sane any boy or man could truly be and gave her a recurring case of boys are icky feels. She also had seen some things which did not match the man she had believed Steve Rogers to be from the American movies she had watched with Baba.

As discreetly as possible, she had reached out to Dr. Stark. She had been expecting her request for information on the BARF to be rejected out of hand. At the very least, she was expecting to be questioned extensively or to have him demand regular updates, for him to meddle. Everything Steve Rogers and his compatriots had said in her presence about the man indicated that he was little more than a petulant child, prone to throwing tantrums and hoarding his possessions regardless of how many might benefit. Instead, he had been perfectly willing to send all his research to her, including the fab-specs for the device itself. The packet even included an impressive amount of studies and papers. He outlined his issue with making the device more available, which seemed to stem entirely from the power source being a really teeny arc reactor.

It was when she realized that he had included the fab-specs for that where he moved from Tony Stark, billionaire white boy, to Dr. Tony Stark, holder of four doctorates and five honorary doctorates. Despite what her sources, both media and those who had worked alongside the man, had said, Stark had shared a closely guarded secret with her, had treated her as a fellow engineer and genius. He had fought against publicly sharing the technique for miniaturizing his father’s arc reactor; he had kept every version of the ones he had built out of anyone’s hands except for his. Yet he had, after a five-minute discussion, just sent her everything. Then he had told her what had gained her that level of trust.

“I worked with your father,” Stark had said, his voice sounding suspiciously thick with something. Her mother’s voice had that same quality occasionally. “He was… he was really something. Hated me but up front about it and why. No spin; no recriminations; no directives. I’ve come to appreciate that kind of honesty.” He paused to draw an audible breath. When he continued, his voice sounded stronger, more certain. “Your father had a vision, of how the world could possibly be, of how to fix something he had broken. I know how that looks on a person.

“Anyway, T’Chaka was one of the few on the panel willing to actually listen to the people meant to be governed by the Accords, so um, we ended up talking a lot. You know how that works. Inevitably, conversations shift, and other things come up. He mentioned you, his brilliant daughter who refused to quit tinkering even when she should have been in bed.” Dr. Stark had chuckled. It was a warm sound, not quite the same as Baba’s had been but similar enough to make her ache a little. “God, he couldn’t stop bragging, you know? Every time you or T’Challa could even remotely be connected to a topic, you were, and he was so, so proud of everything you were doing, were leading others in doing.”

“That’s why you trust me more than your own leaders? Because my father was proud of me?”

“Well, that’s the grown up responsible thing to say and you should definitely use it as the main reason if anyone asks, but honestly? He mentioned a rant you went on about how Leia was the true Balance of the force and Luke was mostly just making messes like brothers do. Anyone who prefers the Ambassador over other characters is someone worth knowing. And the brother bit really reminded me of someone, so double the marks in your favor.”

Between all the chaos of Erik Stevens’ temporary coup, the fallout from it, and learning new subjects in order to help the first broken white boy T’Challa had brought her, she hadn’t been feeling generous as she continued sorting through Barnes’ memories. Part of her could recognize the hero from the American movies and shows she used to watch curled up next to Baba. She could see a man who had to fight to prove himself and never gave up trying. But she could also see how Steve Rogers had just never listened to the advice of others and made messes that just kept growing harder for others to clean up.

And he had used her grandfather’s gift to Howard Stark, a symbol of trust and promised loyalty, to do a lot of it. Dr. Stark had never brought up Siberia, not once, but she had seen it through Barnes’ eyes. She loved her brother, but she had seen him be so focused on revenge and making amends that he forgot to even ask about someone he had fought beside.

She could absolutely create a replacement for the Captain America buckler. It would be simple, boring. It would be hardly any effort at all to work in improvements. After all, she knew her people’s most precious resource far better than a colonizer in the Forties had.

She just didn’t want to.

But she understood that she had a duty to Wakanda, and through that duty, to her king.

“Does it matter?”

“A sister may refuse a brother a request if it goes against her heart.” Shuri raised her chin, unintimidated by the big brother she loved to tease about exposed toes in her lab. She gave a silent prayer to the Mother Bast for strength of will. Okoye had made this dilemma between two loyalties look so easy, yet this seemed harder than watching T’Challa fight his challengers had been. “But a loyal subject is bound to the will of her king. So do you make this request as my brother or as my king?”

“You will always be my sister first, Shuri,” T’Challa replied after a long moment. There was that strange thickness of tone again, on yet another person. Like she would a frustrating project, she examined her brother carefully.

She saw the same look in his eyes that he had when showing her the building he had purchased in Oakland for the Outreach Program. She thought of the memories she had watched and the old interviews she had started binging on to try and understand why people would think the things they did about Dr. Stark. She thought of how weighted Baba had looked in the last years of his life and the determination in every line of Okoye’s body as she aimed her spear at her own husband in defense of what was right. It occurred to her that maybe she knew how wanting to do better looked on someone, too.

“As your sister, I advise against providing more help to Steve Rogers. The debt you believe you owe for your pursuit of vengeance for our father is not to him and continuing to assist him in his endeavors is a betrayal of the ideals Baba spent so much of his last months working towards recognizing. Steve Rogers is a man who will not listen to any who tell him that he is wrong and refuses to acknowledge the rights of anyone who may find themselves in the path of the collateral damage he leaves behind. He is a face for everything Baba feared about the world discovering the truth about Wakanda and everything our uncle and cousin spent years stewing about. Even now, he flaunts the law our father died to see ratified, without regard to potential collateral damage. Arming this man, who claims to be a hero but whose actions show otherwise, is as foolish an idea as your stupid flip-flops and will make you look just as stupid in the long run.”

“He’s been good at getting the job done.”

“When will you learn that just because something works does not mean it cannot be improved? There is more to being a hero than defeating the bad guy. If you don’t believe me, have Nakia explain it to you. She does it better than me.”

“Something you are not good at?”

“You couldn’t handle me if I was perfect,” she quipped. Then she set her expression into something resembling solemness. “I understand that the danger incoming is great and that we will need everyone working together to have any hope of succeeding, but he is unworthy of that symbol and the trust that comes with giving him a weapon of my design.” She paused as an idea came to her.

“What’s that? I know that look. That’s the one you get before you play one of your tricks!”

“I think I may have a way of fulfill both callings. Changing the design will take away the symbol he betrayed with his actions and allow me to hide one of my remote disabling switches in it.”

“The ones you developed to prevent Wakandan technology from falling into the wrong hands?”

“Just so, my king,” she said, including the crossed arms and slight bow. She grinned when he batted at her a few times. She should make a few memes comparing him to an actual cat. Just for kicks. She grabbed a designing tablet and began working, too distracted by possible rebuilds to worry about maintaining complete focus on her conversation partner. T’Challa was used to it by now, surely. “If I change the design, he will also be more limited. I can take away his range, make him unable to tag team an opponent. That will be useful if he decides that only he knows how things need to be done again. It will need to be similar enough to a shield that he won’t question but different enough that he will be forced to adopt a different style.”

“You truly believe him to be an enemy?”

T’Challa sounded shocked. Shuri returned her gaze to him. He looked as lost as he had when preparing for Challenge Day. She had to stifle the urge to call for Mama or Okoye. She was too young to handle her big brother looking like that. A flash of Barnes’ memory settled behind her vision, steadying her as it steeled her resolve.

“Steve Rogers believes himself to be a good man. Everything he does comes back to that belief. He divides the world into two groups with it. Everyone who agrees with him is also good; everyone who doesn’t, isn’t. Because Steve Rogers believes that he is a good man. What can a good man do if not the right thing? Would that not make others wrong?” She took a deep breath, silently hoping to emulate Baba with her next words. “Believing is not the same as being. To be a good man, one must show compassion to all, even one’s enemy; one must build bridges, not barriers; one must be honest but not cruel; one must be willing to see worth in all things.”

“You’ve been watching Moulin Rouge again, haven’t you?”

“Baba has never steered me wrong before.” She gave T’Challa a sad smile. “Why would death change that?”

“When did my little sister become so wise?”

“Well, one of us had to be, and you were too busy staring at Nakia.”

“I do not—”

“You do so! It’s cute. Everyone thinks so.”

They bickered back and forth as she continued to work. If occasionally T’Challa would regain that lost look, well, Shuri was mature enough to not mention it. Even brothers could be broken, and she was good at fixing broken people.

She had so much practice, after all.

[fullyrealisedlegend]

We Are (Not) Monsters: Ch. 5

aaaand, in quick succession, Chapter 5!! I’m seriously considering breaking this up into smaller, separate stories, as part of the same collection, because while they’re all related, I follow a few different mini arcs within the main plot... hmm... I might cut it off where Lance finally returns to his family.... thoughts?

oh! quickly as well, I’m not sure on Allura’s age. I know there’s talk of her being a teen now but this started well before that and it’s too late to change it now. Not that’ll it will really come up, anyway.

Read on AO3, Ch1, Ch2, Ch3, Ch4

Setting: Future AU - canon setting, but further in the future and with my signature ‘dark with psychological trauma’ twist on it.

Pairings: Klance is the focus - background mentions of Shallura

Rating: Mature - starts out reasonably tame with only mentions of past trauma, death, torture, abuse, etc. Will probably get a bit more explicit later on. Lots of swearing. Like, LOTS. This chapter has implied sexual content but nothing graphic.

Summary: Rumours of the Paladins of Voltron jump from planet to planet. Most are good. Freedom Fighters, they’re called. Heroes. Warriors of Peace. But some are darker. Merciless killers, some say. Brainwashed child soldiers say others. Monsters. They hear them all and ignore them all. They have their own reasons for fighting. But when they’re called back to Earth, they realise just how much they’ve changed. Not entirely for the better.

Lance sighs around the screwdriver in his mouth as he snaps a gleaming panel back into place on his leg. It’s still weird, and cold where it meets his real skin. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to missing a limb, but at least it kind of looks badass. He takes the tool out of his mouth and spins in absently in his hand with a sense of déja vu. It’s an odd mimicry of the day he realised he wanted to get to know Keith as more than friends. That was a good day, he thinks, so maybe this is a good omen. Or maybe not.

It’s definitely different from back then, he can’t deny that. It’s been maybe six months, give or take. He’s not entirely sure, time is so hard to track out in space. They barely even keep track of when it’s ‘day’ and ‘night’, simply trying to keep to some sort of rhythm in their lives. It rarely works - they can’t exactly predict when they have to assemble so they usually just catch sleep when they can. Anyway, things have changed both majorly and in more subtle ways. Lance’s leg is a more advanced model now; it looks sleeker, is generally sturdier, and he can make a blade extend from his heel. It doesn’t even need the maintenance he’s doing on it right now, it’s more like a nervous habit. Lance thinks it’s cool as fuck. That’s a subtle change. He kind of hopes the changes in his personality counts as subtle too. Or at least somewhat positive. It might be asking for too much, though, he knows he's developed a level of cynicism and a skill for manipulation. Death has become normal. He’s becoming numb. He doesn't entirely like it, but shit happens when you're an elite soldier.

Generally, and more obviously, the team has come a long way. They fight better, they know each other better, they are just… better. Except maybe their mental states. Those are probably… worse. Killing is easier than it should be. He reigns in that train of thought. He can’t allow himself to get too caught up on how damaged they all are, not this close to having present themselves as functional ambassadors for their cause.

The other major difference is that this time he can hear the sound of Keith running the sink tap in their bathroom. Because they share a room now. And a bed. And a life, really. Inseparable and totally in love. He wouldn’t have it any other way. Even if they can swing between passionate fucking and passionate arguing in a split second. Both of those have activities have increased in violence recently as well, if Lance is completely honest with himself. He tries not to be that honest though; it’s a sad reminder of how violence has become ingrained in their lives, normalised. He knows it’s the same for the rest of the team but, hey, whatever works. As long as they get the job done, make Allura proud, and support each other. And it's not like it's unwanted violence (Lance would be the first to admit his kinks got a bit messed up along the way), nor is it their entire relationship. There's a lot of gentleness too; a lot of love, a lot of cooperation, a lot of support. Support that his boyfriend really needs from him right now.

Keith’s thoughts are a constant buzzing in the back of his mind. All he needs to do is focus ever so slightly on it in order to hear what’s going on. They normally keep themselves reasonably detached, but that’s not going to help right now. It’s not even a privacy thing because they’ve talked about it and trust each other with their deepest thoughts at all times. It’s more for their own sanity, really. It’s only those highly charged, emotional occasions where they lose control of it and the barrier drops fully. During a desperate battle, or a bad argument, or when they’re having sex - it’s at these times that their minds bleed together and they can’t tell which consciousness is Lance and which is Keith - they become one and the same. The weightlessness, the overload of emotion, the void of their own minds. It’s disconcerting, but euphoric. It’s also dangerous. Early on, they nearly lost themselves and it took a lot of effort to be coaxed back into their separate bodies by the others, though they've gotten better since then.

Right now, however, he just wants to get a feel of Keith’s mental state, which has been a bit fragile since Allura’s announcement, so he tunes in. Keith is a mass of worry and fear, bordering on panic. His thoughts are a mess and it’s hard to make out a coherent thought, but Lance gets the gist. It’s about his appearance. The fact that he doesn’t look quite human anymore, and how people on Earth are going to react to that. Humans have never been great with ‘different’, Lance knows. If the reaction he and Keith both experienced to their sexualities was any indication, this was going to be painful. At best, Keith would be a novelty, like a freak at a fair. At worst? Well… He puts that thought aside with the other things he doesn’t want to examine.

Babe?

Lance sends a gentle question over their telepathic link, but Keith does panic then and drowns him out. He sighs again (he thinks he’s doing a lot of sighing today, and they only woke up a few hours ago) because now he knows for certain that something’s wrong. It’s not like the panic attacks are new. Hell, the entire team has had a few at varying points, and Keith has walked Lance through his own on more occasions than he’d like to admit. But Keith’s are rare, and the fact he’s had more than one in such a short amount of time is troubling. Especially because they can be very severe. He stands up smoothly and makes his way into the bathroom to offer comfort.

Keith is hunched over the sink, his hands bracing him as he stares into it, looking at nothing. He’s sucking in large breaths of air, pausing, then releasing, and Lance is honestly so proud because Keith is one of the strongest people he has ever known and trust him to be able to walk himself through his own breakdown. It still helps to have someone there for you though, so Lance quickly wraps his arms around Keith’s waist, pressing them chest to back, and letting his lips brush his neck.

“Ba-abe. Ke-eith.”

Lance draws out the words, wheedling, speaking them out loud at the same time as he says them directly into Keith’s mind. They don’t need to speak at all, technically, but they prefer to. It’s a good habit to keep; stops them from accidentally cutting others out of conversations, or forgetting how to talk at all. But when it’s just them, it’s easier to get their message across. It’s more intimate, more nuanced, more them . Lance nuzzles behind Keith’s ear as he tries to calm him, following the curve of it, nibbling on the small metal cuffs towards the top, and brushing over the soft fur that creeps up the base. His mouth follows it all the way to the pointed tip, which he tugs slightly with his mouth. Keith huffs, but Lance can feel him relax and drop his defenses.

You okay now? I know you’re scared, babe.

I’m not- I’m not…

There's a pause.

Scared?

I’m so fucking scared, Lance. Aren’t you?

Terrified.

Really?

Keith twists in his arms to look at his face, as if he has to search there to find out whether Lance is lying or not. Lance shrugs.

“What did you expect me to say?”

“I dunno. ‘Who, me? The great Lance? The dashing and charming blue paladin? Scared? Never!’”

“Do you want me to say that? If it’ll make you happy I’d tell you anything you wanted to here. Complete lies. ‘It’ll be fine, Keith, nothing will go wrong. Nobody will hate you’” He says it gently, nearly begging. He doesn’t want Keith to be scared, but he’s not going to lie to him. Not now, not like this. “Does it help at all?”

“No.” Keith mumbles back. And because he knows how much Lance is hurting alongside him, “I’m sorry.”

Lance just presses their lips together in response.

Don’t be.

How do you do it? How come you appear so brave?

And Lance nearly laughs because, him? Brave? He doesn’t think he’s been brave a day in his life, really. But that’s the point, isn’t it? People think he is. People think he’s so completely filled with confidence and self-assurance when the simple truth is he’s not. He’s a wreck. Keith knows this. That’s exactly why he asked.

“Because I have to be.” He says aloud, and wow, that’s a terrifying throw back in time. The memory flashes through his head and Keith gets it. Of course he gets it, he was the one that said it first over a year ago. And because Keith understands, he kisses Lance. It’s soft, innocent, comforting. It gives them an anchor as emotions, memories and thoughts flick between them, using the past to distract themselves from the future.

Lance can’t help but remember the events that unfolded. Things had happened in such quick succession that it had caught them all off guard. He and Keith had become a actual couple. Two days later an accident had occurred that had melded their minds together permanently. It was something to do with a wormhole and their link to their lions. Lance had never really understood and he didn't remember the actual event very well, but suddenly he could hear Keith's thoughts as if he was saying them out loud. Scary, dangerous, but not all bad, so they accepted and adapted. It had taken them five days to be sufficiently functional to perform missions again; and they had done so much more efficiently and smoothly than before. Thank you, two-way mind reading.

Two more days and it had all come crashing down around them.

The pair had gone on a routine check of some old ruins on a picturesque planet. It was supposed to be uninhabited. Of course it was supposed to be; weren't they always? They had let their guards down and been ambushed. The Galra, as always, had attacked. The Paladins had been outnumbered and unprepared.

Keith had been captured.

Lance hadn't been able to do anything on his own, and then they had flown away to Alfor knew where, taking his world with them. All he could do was scream. The team had found Lance later, near comatose with the emotional agony of stretching the mental link. It was an indescribable pain, felt deep within his heart; something was desperately, entirely wrong . They were searching for Keith before Lance had even awaken from his forced cryosleep in a more stable state and he'd never been more grateful.

A full four weeks later, they had finally tracked Keith down and it shaken them all. It was a scientific institution hidden away on the edges of an unwelcoming galaxy. The residents weren't Galra themselves, but it was clear they worked for Zarkon nonetheless. They had taken an interest in creating Galran chimeras, and Keith had become their favourite subject. Apparently humans were particularly compatible. He wasn't the only victim, but he was the only one they had been able to save. The anger from the whole team had been palpable, only getting worse as Lance had steeled himself and put a suffering experiment out of its misery. He hadn't even been able to tell what it had once been.

Lance had found Keith curled up in a filthy cell, shackles on his raw wrists, covered in dried blood and freshly bleeding from a cut on his head. Snarling, he'd shied away from Lance at first and long minutes passed before he finally recognised Lance and threw himself into his arms. It wasn't until they had him back at the castle, cleaned and healed, that they got a good look at the changes. Alien DNA had been spliced expertly with his own and had left Keith physically altered. Mostly Galran, but there seemed to be other bits and pieces to stabilise and specialise. His ears now swept up into a point, partially covered in fur, like that were stopped halfway into turning into cat ears (Lance suspected that Voltron had, in fact, interrupted the process). One of them had also been mauled at some point so it was now torn and ratty.

Keith's irises had become a bright gold that shone with an unnatural light when he was emotional or needed to see in the dark. His teeth they were sharper than they should have been, canines in particularly resembling very realistic vampire caps, and when Lance held Keith's hand he could feel the partially retractable claws that took the place of fingernails. Additionally, he had taken on a vague purple hue over his hair and skin, though with a bit of practice he learnt to suppress this enough that it barely showed unless he wanted it to.

Finally, there was an increase in Keith's physical abilities. Speed and strength, sight, hearing… The experiments had intended to turn him into an animal, a weapon. They had somewhat succeeded. The way he moved and held himself elicited images of a predator, like a panther stalking through a jungle. If he was known for his instincts before, they were even stronger now. Lance had felt Keith's hold on his sanity slip more than once, acting without thought, and needing to be calmed like one would sooth a wild animal.

Keith was dangerous and looked it. There was no doubt that everyone back on Earth was going to be scared of him. But Lance didn't think it mattered. Keith had them. He had the paladins, and the Alteans. He had Lance. Who honestly (and slightly guiltily) found it hot as hell. And more importantly Lance loved him, no matter what. Always would. Loved him for the danger he presented and his ferocity and sometimes for his feral nature. He loved his ears and teeth and eyes. It was all Keith, and it didn't matter what he looked like. It was because of Lance's dedication, that Keith loved him back just as much.

Back in the present, Lance pushed his lips harder against Keith's. The memories had flashed through their minds in mere seconds and now they had both been drawn back to the way the other feels pressed against them. Lance could drown in the heat of these kisses. He’s given his heart and soul to Keith, would follow him anywhere, trust his life to his hands. He would give Keith anything he ever asked for. But he doesn’t ask. Not really. He’s asked for Lance’s trust in the same way that he trusts Lance, and Lance gave it all. And that’s the core of their relationship. Even if they argue or tease or prank each other, they have complete and absolute trust in one another to have their backs. It means that on the battlefield they are a flawless team, in means that when they fight they always return. It means that Lance will still flirt shamelessly with nearly anyone they encounter and Keith doesn’t mind because at the end of the day, it’s his bed that Lance will be in.

Gods, Lance loves this boy.

Keith whines into his mouth, responding to his whirlwind of emotions; the overflowing affection and need to show it. Lance complies instantly, tilting his head and parting his lips, giving Keith access so his tongue can flick over Lance's teeth. Keith’s grip tightens on Lance’s shirt and then he’s pushing back, forcefully shoving Lance’s back into the bathroom wall. Air rushes out through Lance’s nose at the impact but he doesn’t break the kiss, instead wedging himself against the wall so he can wrap his legs around Keith’s waist. When they break apart, they’re both breathing heavily but Lance notices the smile dancing on Keith’s lips once more. Well, sometimes distraction is the best way to cope, and who is he to complain?

“So, how long do we have?”

Keith snorts, knowing exactly where Lance’s mind is taking him, but answers nonetheless.

“About five hours until we have to be back in the Control Room. Think that’s enough time for a nap?”

His tone is teasing and Lance just laughs. A nap honestly sounds great, but he also refuses to be led astray. He knows what he wants and no-one is going to tell him he can’t have both. He kisses Keith again before answering.

“Mm, yeah but maybe, like, fuck me first? Then nap?”

Keith’s smile turns into something darker, hungrier, and his eyes flash. Lance feels his blood boil and his pulse race. It doesn’t matter how often he sees this, he’s pretty sure he’ll always have the same reaction. He shudders slightly as Keith nuzzles into his neck and tilts his head for better access. Fingers run over the sensitive scarring on his thigh where prosthetic meets flesh, drawing a whine of need from him.

Bed?

The question flitters across his mind and he immediately sends back waves of agreement. They're about to go into a whole new situation with it’s own dangers, and they’re both scared, but for now they can have this. They can draw on each other for support and remind themselves that they’re still alive and together. Together, Lance is pretty sure they can do anything. And that includes the minefield of politics and bureaucracy. In a few hours they’ll be ready; standing behind Allura in their gleaming Paladin armour and back on Earth. Despite everything, he’s excited.

His back hits the bed, Keith’s warm lips meet his skin, and Lance’s brain stop running.

[ace-dameron]

What You’re Really Fighting For

Can also be found on my (very much bare and abandoned) AO3.

The Nephilim were born into a life of fighting, bred to be soldiers from the moment they entered the world. Shadowhunters trained and fought to maintain a weak semblance of peace while discontent brewed exponentially. They spent their entire lives constantly surrounded by arrogance, being fed rhetoric of their superiority to the Mundanes they sought to protect and to the lowly Downworlders. Their angelic blood supposedly meant something grand in the scheme of things, something that those of demonic blood couldn’t ever hope to achieve. 

Alec rolled his eyes as he set down the official Clave document he finished reviewing. His stomach churned uneasily from the thinly veiled hate for those who weren’t Shadowhunters. Similar documents had been landing on his desk more often than their usual daily occurrence with the buzz of a Downworld uprising on their hands. The Clave wasn’t necessarily hiding their plans to punish those who even thought of breaking the accords. And despite all of his current contempt for those in Idris, Alec couldn’t feign ignorance for he too held those prejudices for far too long and only begun stripping himself of such ugly thoughts after Magnus entered his life.

His breath hitched before he leaned back in his chair, his long legs stretching out to where his feet brushed against the front panel of the desk. The thought of Magnus hollowed him out, leaving an ache only subdued by falling in line with his birthright. Alec needed to be the leader that his kind needed, the emotionless and headstrong soldier he had been before all of this had happened. Would it stop him from scoffing at outlandish comments about downworlders? No, of course not. But at this point, distraction was key. Distraction made his mind stop wandering to morning kisses to his chest as the beautiful man draped across him slowly awoke. It made it bearable to rise one day after another in a cold, sterile bedroom he had once thought to be idealistic. No frills or fuss, just a bed, a dresser for his things, and a desk. The first time he had been in the loft, it seemed almost gaudy to his senses, but it had quickly become home. No, Magnus had become his home.

He knew they would find their way back to each other again, drift into what they were when things settled. Two people who loved each other as much as they did would always fall back into place, side by side. 

A soft throat clearing from the door drew him back into the present, away from his memories. (He hated that all he currently had were memories.)

Izzy came into the office, a folder in her hands. Alec held open his hand to accept it but she wrenched it back, maneuvering it behind her back. “Not until you talk to me. You can convince everyone else that you’re fine and they’ll buy it or respect your privacy, but this is getting ridiculous, Alec. It’s been weeks.”

Alec heaved a sigh, giving Izzy a look reserved specifically for her when she was pushing boundaries. “Like I told you before, there’s nothing to talk about.”

“I told you to not let him push you away. And that’s exactly what you’re allowing to happen.” Her accusatory tone diminished as the concern in her eyes shone through. Naturally, his sister had his best interest at heart, but she didn’t understand that Alec didn’t want to continuously think about what transpired.

Alec clenched his jaw, drawing in a breath as he unwillingly found himself thinking about that night again. The desperation he felt as Magnus told him that he couldn’t have both Alec and the ability to lead his people. In that moment, nothing made sense and perhaps, nothing still did. Nothing but throwing himself into his work, quelling his desire to take off in a sprint across the city until he reached that familiar building, not stopping even after a burning sensation set into both his lungs and legs until he could see Magnus somewhere other than his dreams.

He stood up, more to steady himself than to seem intimidating, “There’s a war brewing and whether we’ll be able to pull together the Shadowhunters and the Downworlders to defeat Valentine and Sebastian or not, there is still going to be war. As simple as it should be, it isn’t. Our biases concerning each other are still heavily looked down upon. There’s so much stacked against us and our relationship.” He licked his lips, looking down briefly, trying to hide whatever flicker of hurt he knew was there. “You can’t deny that. He may have made the decision, but I am upholding it because he’s right. Right now, we can’t have each other and command of our people.” Weeks of stony silence, not even so much as the smallest text or even a blip of Magnus on his extended radar left Alec to rely on his common sense. They were doing the right thing for the right reasons. The distance and the silence and the loneliness, it was all for the right reasons in the end. Even if this all felt alienating and wrong whenever he sat long enough to let their most intimate moments invade his mind, letting emotion cloud his judgment wouldn’t change anything. 

Isabelle handed over the folder, her expression unreadable as she headed toward the door. “Just don’t close yourself off, Alec. Focus is excellent, but don’t forget what you’re really fighting for.” Her words echoed in his ears long after the clicking of her heels in the hallway vanished.

He knew why he was fighting. To assure the survival of the Shadowhunters and Downworlders alike. Placing the folder down, he dove into work again, ignoring the voice in the back of his head telling him to stop oversimplifying things.

The relative stillness erupted into chaos in a matter of days. Despite all of their training and preparation, a nervousness settled into Alec’s bones as they geared up as quickly as they could. Perhaps, fear described the situation better; fear that their fighters wouldn’t be enough, fear the Downworlders wouldn’t aid them. Realistically, they had no reason to, but this city belonged to them as much as it did the Shadowhunters.  

Another fear remained in the forefront of his mind, taunting him with a chest-tightening anxiety. Of course, the loss of his siblings had been a constant for years now, any time they went out to battle demons. But even as he glanced around the room at Izzy and Jace, his mind drifted to another person and time.

Magnus laughed, but the fondness in his expression kept Alec’s embarrassment almost at bay. Almost. The redness trickled into his cheeks as his head ducked in its usual manner. 

“You needn’t worry about me like that ever, Alexander. I could decimate a demon while giving myself a manicure.” The playfulness did little to curb the worry Alec had when concerning Magnus’s well-being. High Warlock of Brooklyn or not, Alec loved him. Cared about his well-being above his own, which wasn’t unusual for Alec with those that he loved. 

“I can’t just not worry.” Alec gesticulated as he spoke until Magnus scooted closer on the couch in one smooth motion, covering his hands with his own, steadying them.

Magnus leaned in, pressing the softest kiss to his lips, “I know. You’ll be gray before long.” He teased, his eyes glancing up as if to look for those hairs. 

“Hey,” Alec said with a warning tone and a screwed up expression, trying to keep a smile at bay.

“Never fear, darling, you’ll definitely be a silver fox.” Magnus laughed at the confused expression Alec gave him before leaning in once more for a kiss. “I always appreciate your concern. But I’ve survived for a very long time.” The wistfulness seeping into his tone seemed to speak both of the time Magnus lived before Alec and probable time he’d live long after Alec was gone.

They had avoided the immortality talk mostly and Alec didn’t relish having it now. Not with the chances of a war in the imminent future. They needed to survive all of the death and destruction that would surround them in the upcoming months. Then he’d worry about grays and wrinkles and all of the things that came as one aged and all of the things that came with having a lover who didn’t. 

“Still going to worry.” Alec grumbled a bit before pouncing on him, tackling him down into the couch and attacking him with open-mouthed kisses.

As Magnus’s fingers tangled up in his hair, tugging ever so slightly, Alec could have sworn he heard a breathy ‘thank you’ among the appreciative noises. 

Alec shook his head, pushing away the memories of what he considered an easier time as he adjusted the placement of his quiver. 

Magnus would be out there. Even if the rest of the Downworlders turned their backs to what was happening, Magnus would be there. The thought both terrified and exhilarated him. 

He jerked his head toward the door when all of the movement in the room stopped and everyone filed out of the room, nothing heard other than the quick movement of feet as they rushed to head into the streets of the city. 

They encountered their first pack of demons merely two blocks from the Institute. Alec quickly reached for an arrow, aiming for a demon and making the first kill before the rest of them rushed past him, preferred weapons raised and ready to strike. In quick succession, Alec launched his arrows in the direction of demons, feeling nothing as they disintegrated into charred ash. When the amount of demons seemed more manageable, Alec took a group of Shadowhunters with him deeper into the city, following the screams of unknowing Mundanes.

Magnus’s presence was felt long before Alec spotted him, the glow of his cat eyes somehow brighter than the red, angry magic flowing from his fingertips. The demons kept charging in and the constant flow of magic just kept coming, ticking them off in groups at a time. It was mesmerizing; seeing Magnus’s power always was. 

Sometimes, Alec unintentionally forgot all of the power Magnus possessed. When they were soft and sleepy with tangled up limbs after what was proclaimed as the best sex of their relationship (an ongoing ruse after every time they made love), when they were so entirely mundane, he’d forget the power the man beside him had within him.

Alec shot an arrow into a demon mere feet from Magnus when his magic wavered in the slightest bit. Whether the cessation was from exhaustion or from the challenge of letting the demons in closer before sending them back to hell, Alec couldn’t tell. Their eyes met despite the hundred or so meters that separated them. Alec felt his lips quirk upward into a smirk despite himself before shooting off more arrows, feeling more alive than he had in weeks. At some point, they wound up in close proximity, Magnus’s buzzing around him as he concentrated on taking out their common enemy one arrow at a time. 

It could have been hours or merely minutes before the demons were gone, just piles of ash standing in their place. Alec didn’t realize they were standing nearly back to back until Magnus slumped against him in the slightest. 

“Are you okay?” Alec murmured only loud enough for Magnus’s ears. 

The responding laugh, one colored with exhaustion and fondness was all the answer he needed. 

As they stood, back to back, without another word being spoken, Izzy’s words came back to him. ‘Don’t forget what you’re really fighting for.’ He was fighting for this, this right here. The privilege of being beside Magnus after a long tiring fight, whether it be a physical one or otherwise. 

Alec mumbled, as he turned around, placing a hand on Magnus’s shoulder, “There will always be a war. A mission. A problem to solve. Look, I speak from experience. If you fail to grant time for the things you care about, you’ll forget why you’re even fighting at all.” Magnus’s words to him all of those weeks ago flowed from his lips effortlessly.

“Alexander…” Magnus’s tone sounded weary as he turned around, no glamour to hide his eyes.

“I’m fighting for you–” He stopped short, feeling frustration like he always did when he felt his words wouldn’t suffice. “For us.” Testing the waters, he reached up and cupped Magnus’s face. When he didn’t flinch or pull away, Alec brushed his thumb along his jaw. “When I’m out here, I am doing whatever I can to ensure our future together. When I’m at the Institute, the same applies. Is it selfish? Ye–”

“No.” Magnus cut him off, his expression soft. “It isn’t selfish. Everyone has a motivation for why they fight. Selfish would be not fighting, not taking charge of the situation, not standing up for what you believe in. You’re anything but selfish, Alexander.”

Alec leaned in, forgetting that other people existed, let alone were still milling around, and pressed his forehead against Magnus’s, looking into his eyes, “I’ve missed you.”

“Have you?” Classic Magnus, flirty and playful. He closed his eyes and sobered, “I’ve missed you too.” Magnus closed the space between their lips, leading them into a slow, careful kiss as if they were new lovers once more. Just like the battle, that kiss could have lasted minutes or hours. Alec’s perception of time didn’t exist whenever Magnus was near. 

“Come home with me, Alexander.” Magnus whispered after they broke the kiss, their lips only centimeters apart. “I don’t know what tomorrow holds. I can’t promise things will resume normalcy yet, but I can offer tonight.”

It was progress. And if it was only for the night, it would be more memories to hold Alec through until tomorrow could be promised. “Let’s go home, Magnus.”

Sliding his hand into Magnus’s, they took the long way back to the loft. 

[archiveofolives]

Ring of Keys and Other Stories III

A/N/SUMMARY this is the first hurt/comfort fic i have ever written my entire life so fair warning about amateur writing skills. this also doesn’t make any sense timeline-wise so just try to suspend disbelief for a bit thanks ♥ 

RATING/WARNINGS mature/extensive foreplay, mentions of sex, also the author does not know how to write intimate scenes At All

WORD COUNT 6,266

AO3 here

—

He heard the crack of his head more than he felt it. Not for the first time, he wondered if there would be blood leaking through a wound but that seemed a distant worry compared to a more urgent danger. Still dazed, he felt the man mount him, and those rough fingers close around his neck, driven by murderous intent. He choked, but those thumbs only pushed in further to ruin his windpipe. Maybe this time, maybe this time he would actually do it.

“Jedi scum!” Words of hate filtered through the mouthpiece of a helmet.

Chirrut grinned in spite of his pain, a laughter wheezing through his teeth. “Are you blind, as well?” he rasped. His words tasted the same as when he’d first spoken them: his blood and the dirt on his back. “You should get your eyes checked.” He felt the tension in his muscles as he pulled his lightbow free. It fanned out.

Heat burst at the pull of a trigger, a cruel hand ripping it from his belly. He gasped sharply, a man drowning. Numbness surrounded him like a heavy blanket. He felt disconnected all of a sudden, a vessel lost in the cold, dark void of space, floating untethered. He heard nothing, saw nothing.

Felt nothing. Not even the fingers still attached to his neck, or the dead weight pressed to his own. No fire, no empty coldness.

There was nothing.

⚭

Panic roused him from his nightmare. It took him a second to realize that he was awake—him being blind—until another one ticked and he discovered that no, not yet. He was still trapped within the phantoms of his mind, one of those cruel, endless dreams like a twisted torture machine. Horror seized him anew, coursing through his bones with an electrifying urgency as he struggled free from the arms that confined him and beat the body that suffocated him back. His breaths came in rapid gasps. He had to escape.

“Chirrut,” someone called to him. “Chirrut!”

He stopped just when a hand snatched both his wrists from their flight. He listened to the echoes of the room, the soft buzzing in the air like the wings of a tiny insect, acquainted his breathing to that one next to him. He knew that pattern, could play the sound of it even in his sleep.

“Baze…?” he whispered feebly, scared to get it wrong.

Baze exhaled a great sigh. “You’re awake,” he said in his deep voice that sent a comforting shudder down Chirrut’s spine. “You’re safe. No one will harm you here.”

A wave of relief washed over Chirrut, his limbs turning to gel. Recollection followed swiftly and surely as he sank back to the rough face of their one pillow. It smelled strongly of naphthalene and cold stone, the way the rest of their windowless, narrow apartment did. The way home smelled like.

Baze had practically dragged him there after the encounter near the market and stayed with him except for when he had to go and scout for dinner or use the communal bathroom, which always left Chirrut half-mad with anxiety. The only way he could fall asleep then was to be pressed up to Baze, nose to skin, both of them stripped to the waist and covered in layers of thin blankets up to the neck. Chirrut leeched off the man’s warmth and odor, languished in them. Baze kept his hands and arms where Chirrut could feel them.

“You had a nightmare,” Baze said, freeing his wrists. It was both a question and an answer.

Chirrut considered the silence a bit longer, though empty thoughts were all he had, before he replied, “You haven’t been sleeping.” He felt not unlike a child, meeting accusation with even more accusations in a desperate effort to come off cleaner and more worthy of forgiveness.

Baze shifted slightly beside him. He still smelled of sweat, sweet musk, the heat of his skin and warm metal. “I managed a bit,” he admitted. “I woke up again when you got all tensed. And then you started hitting me.”

Chirrut’s eyes fell, drawn by habit. A careful hand alighted Baze’s shoulder, its muscles coiled tight from carrying his armor and his ammo tank day in and day out, and then followed an invisible map down to his solid chest. Baze’s hand, rough, but warm and familiar, sealed it to his flesh. “Forgive me. I’d thought you were…” The corpse, still trapping him to the ground, immovable. He could not say it, not out of good manners, but simply that it was a thought he could not fathom. Baze’s corpse. Not even his nightmares could be so powerful as to draw for him something so…unreal. Baze’s non-presence, his inexistence. How could that be when he was always around? Just there, within arm’s reach.

Baze didn’t chase it. Chirrut knew he knew what he meant but was grateful for the silence all the same. “What time is it?” he asked softly, seeking another subject.

Baze shifted again. He felt the bed sink a little beside him, as it would if Baze braced his weight on an elbow. The answer didn’t come quickly. “Three hours past midnight,” he said. Chirrut knew then that the tenement’s power supply was scraping the last of its dregs again, and that the single light panel on the ceiling was probably not performing at its optimum. That would explain why the air buzzed when there were no windows to speak of. Baze had said, when they’d moved in, that it was like the color of a fierce sunset when turned on. Now Chirrut imagined it was closer to mud than an everyday miracle, and that it was flickering besides.

“Three hours past midnight,” he sighed. Just three hours…and he still had an entire darkness to sleep through. He couldn’t take this.

He pushed down their covers and rose; his head felt a little heavy. In the soft silence, Chirrut sat, elbows on his knees, staring at nothing. The sheets rustled as the mattress bounced and creaked. Baze must have rearranged himself now that he no longer had to share their pillow. “I’d killed a man,” Chirrut began quietly to break the silence, turning a little to where he imagined Baze was lain, “hadn’t I?”

He knew, of course. He’d known since he pulled the trigger of his lightbow and blew a hole through his would-be murderer’s belly. As a youth, he learned that death was a part of life as much as birth was, and that killing for the defense and preservation of one’s ideals cannot be condemned if it must be done. He had no regrets, but he could not have been less prepared to take a life. This was only the first time he’d done it.

He remembered again the great, black weight pushing the air out of him, the smell of scorched flesh and burnt air mingling with metal. He could still taste them in his mouth, bitter like poison. Baze had come to rescue him before he threw up lying down, practically flinging the corpse off him as he gathered him in his arms, clawing him from the dirt. He might have been sobbing. He might have been retching over his shoulder, he couldn’t remember that part too well.

Only this: Baze’s voice hissing to his ear, “Remember what you taught me? When we were kids. I am one with the Force,” he inhaled, “And the Force is with me,” and exhaled. “I am one with the Force…and the Force is with me. Breathe with me, Chirrut! I am one with the Force…”

It was a breathing technique he’d discovered to aid with their exercises when they were still initiates. He never imagined then that Baze would use it to save his life.

He waited in silence for the man’s response…

“That’s about the size of it,” he said.

Chirrut snorted, smirking a little. “That’s one way of putting it,” he agreed. He returned slowly to his feet, toes wiggling and flexing as if he could see them play. The muted buzzing of the light filled the space again. An unchanging rhythm, the music of a private world.

He opened his mouth. “I…” he began uncertainly, looking for a discernible path through his labyrinthine thoughts, a way to punch through the crowd, to make it give. “…felt him. Baze,” he finished, flicking a tongue across his lips. “He was…there.” His hands rose to hold a shape between his shoulders. “A black mass, coiling and shifting. He would have killed me. I would have suffocated. It felt…” His brows twisted with the pain of remembrance. It was difficult to find the words to describe something that was…much more than all of them. The Force was never meant to be pared down to such simple words, but he persisted. “Heavy,” he said. “I felt its crushing weight on my chest, expanding. It was…” His features writhed again. “like dread. Cold and hot at the same time. Like you perspired,” he tossed a hand somewhere to his right, “but inside, you felt cold. I never thought I’d meet anyone who could be filled with so much anger. And hatred and abhorrence. And bask in them.”

His shoulders fell, and he shuddered. His stomach felt hollow inside him. “And then he was…gone. I, I pulled the trigger and he…” His hands flew up. “Shattered. Torn to pieces. To…” Non-existence. “Nothing,” he said. “I…” His hands fell on his chest. He felt restless with confusion and shock, both of them etched deeply on his face. “felt him. He was there, alive, breathing with so much…intensity!” He tossed his hands up. “I, I just…” He frowned at his feet. “I just don’t understand how something so…big, so powerful and…so present…alive could suddenly be nothing. He was alive, he was bearing down on me but all that could not have preserved him from nothingness. How could there be nothing in spite of it all?” he demanded of Baze, turning to him. “If that’s how it all works, if that’s how it all ends, then what are we worth? We’re supposed to be connected to the Force of others. All of us!”

Baze said nothing. There might have been a time when the man—when he was still a boy—might have shined some light on the will of the Force but that boy was gone, and it was not the boy or the man’s fault. Chirrut could not and would not take it against him. He never expected Baze to attempt an answer, just to hear him out.

But when the sheets shifted and the mattress moved, Chirrut waited with eager patience, holding himself still. Baze’s warmth filled his back, and then those arms engulfed him, anchoring him to the man’s energy, connecting them again. He shuddered with relief, embracing those arms, wearing them like a scarf. He inched backwards. He wanted to be closer still, closer than their flesh allowed them to be.

“I’m so glad you’re still alive,” he sighed, shaking while Baze marked his bare shoulder, the crook of his neck and the side of his head with kisses, his beard and mustache scraping lightly at his skin. These reminders of Baze’s life, his presence, his warm, large, familiar presence, became his shield against his nightmares, against trauma. He filled himself with them, breathed them in. He wanted to focus on Baze, and only him. He was the safe world where nothingness did not exist. If Chirrut had to compare him to something else, he was like a burning hearth. Light, warm, safe, golden. Within his circle, he was protected from the darkness that surrounded them.

“You’re just saying that to congratulate yourself,” Baze mumbled between his kisses.

Chirrut laughed with his breath. “You don’t sound happy,” he said. That was how it all started, after all, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. No one expected an incursion of stormtroopers in a sprawling marketplace and when it happened, all he and Baze could think of was saving the civilians from the crossfire between the Empire and Saw’s rebels. Baze had stayed close to him as he charged forth, throwing and kicking down anything that could block the fighters and pave a safe exit until a child, a young aqualish, had run out into the open despite his mother’s warnings to stay inside. Baze rushed to pick him up, saving him.

And then Chirrut came in to smash his lightbow onto a stormtrooper who’d aimed at Baze and the child. He would later pay for that with his neck.

“You haven’t even thanked me yet,” Chirrut reminded him when he paused from his kisses to breathe in his thin hair. He raised a hand to slip his fingers between Baze’s thicker locks, idly pressing on his crown like a lazy masseuse.

“You sound like a tax collector,” Baze said and they laughed. Briefly.

It felt good to laugh, but it felt as if he’d forgotten how to do it. There seemed nothing to laugh about. There was nothing to laugh about. He’d killed a stormtrooper. He’d killed a stormtrooper.

Baze pressed a kiss to his ear. “You’re not cracking any jokes,” he whispered.

Chirrut turned slightly towards him. “Do you want one?”

“If it’s black humor, I don’t want it. You don’t do black humor well.”

Chirrut smirked a little. “Shame that,” he said quietly. And then those arms slipped away from him. And then he panicked. His connection to the Force of others. Baze’s presence, they were both leaving him again. Alone. He sat in complete paralysis, hardly breathing, straining his ears to follow Baze’s movements even when the man’s warm hands fell on his arms and pulled him gently around.

“What?” Baze asked, the slightest tension ringing in his voice, although he may as well have screamed and shaken Chirrut, and he would have heard it no differently. “What? I’m here.”

Baze was here. And of course he would be. Where else would he go? What was he thinking? Even in the past, Baze would not have left if Chirrut had stopped him, no matter that they parted ways in bitterness then.

He felt his face burning. He couldn’t even look up to Baze in his embarrassment. He raised both hands to his head.

“Hey,” Baze beckoned to him, tilting his head up a bit. “You’re in shock. You’re traumatized.”

“What did you feel when you’d first killed a person?” The question spilled out of Chirrut in one breath, hands falling to the space between his crossed legs. “Was it this? Did you feel the life go out of them? Did you look for it? One second, it was connected to yours and then it wasn’t. Was it like that?”

“It should have been,” Baze answered carefully, a tinge of sadness in his voice. In the confines of their four walls, Chirrut heard it loudly and clearly. He felt it in his being, where it resonated. “But…you know…it wasn’t. I don’t see…and feel the Force the same way as you do anymore.”

Chirrut’s brows met. “So it was just…nothing. You felt nothing before you killed the person…and you felt nothing after you killed them.”

A pause…but Chirrut already knew what he was going to say: “That’s about—”

“—the size of it,” Chirrut finished with him. He was surprised to feel the familiar tugs of a smile on his face. “That seems awfully convenient.”

“If disrespectful.”

Baze knew the concepts, of course, even though he’d lost faith. He was raised in it, it had been his life, the air that he breathed. It was how they met, what pulled them together.

He felt Baze’s rough fingers stroking the tips of his. His hands fanned outwards, turning over, and Baze filled his palms with his. They folded their fingers around each other, a habit that had survived years of separation. Something that came back to them as easily as a happy memory.

Something slammed against the wall, and then the entire place thrummed deeply. The heating had come on, a clunky old thing that kept the tenement’s residents half-alive somehow. There was a soft clink overhead. Chirrut imagined that the light had gone out. Thankfully, neither of them needed it.

“What are we going to do?” he asked, seemingly bolstered by the cover of the generator’s motors.

“What do you mean?” Baze asked.

“I killed a stormtrooper.”

Baze snarled. “They had it coming.”

“Baze,” Chirrut shook their combined hands, “we talked about this. This was not supposed to happen!”

“So you should have just let him kill me and then kill you.”

“That’s not what I meant!” Chirrut snapped. He never did pull back even when Baze was starting to show a little of his temper. He always figured that was part of why they worked so well together. “We have tried to oppose the Empire and look at what happened. Look where we are now!” He shook those hands again. “We were supposed to stay low. To find an opportunity to strike. Let me be clear on one thing: I may not like what Death felt like but I do not regret killing a stormtrooper when he was asking for it.”

Their walls jumped again and the heating changed pitches, moving a notch lower.

“But if the Empire finds out what happened—”

“That stormtrooper,” Baze responded with a slow, low, and careful tone, with just a hint of his natural grumble, “could have been killed by me, a rebel, or one of their own, caught in a misfire.”

“That’s the thing about this place!” Chirrut protested. “There are spies everywhere. Imperial spies, rebel spies, Saw’s spies. There are spies for spies of spies!” He broke a hand free from Baze’s grasp, flinging it behind him to the approximate direction of the door. “Those stormtroopers would never have found the marketplace if no one told them it was one of Saw’s strongholds.”

“You think Saw’s rebels, his ragtag crew, are actually professionals, don’t you?” Baze asked with a note of surprise.

“If they knew about the marketplace long before, then why didn’t they attack it then? Why now?”

“I won’t say I know the Empire’s reasons,” Baze said, “but I won’t be surprised if they’d known about it all this time and simply chosen to strike now.”

“So nowhere is safe,” Chirrut said with a finality. His face crumpled at his ghastly conclusion. “One day, at their fancy, they could just…grab us and that would be that. There’s no telling what will happen after.”

“Chirrut, what are you saying?” Baze asked, sounding incredulous. “Do you mean…are you saying we should leave NiJedha? Do you hear yourself?”

Chirrut didn’t know if that was what he’d meant, but he couldn’t say it wasn’t what he’d meant either. Could he really do it, though? Leave the world that he knew, leave the life he was constantly being forced out of to maybe find a new one. He thought about the Temple of the Kyber, his old friends and those that have shown charity to him and Baze. He thought about the streets he could walk blind, even without Baze by his side. The familiar spices, how the earth used to smell when it was still rich.

In spite of himself, his lips made an upward twitch. “We could go and make our own nomadic crew. It’ll be fun.”

“I guess you’re feeling better now.”

Chirrut offered a small smile. “I try,” he said.

Shyly, the light clinked again. Chirrut didn’t ask if it was back on, or how bright it was.

“So what are you really saying?” Baze asked after a moment.

The answer came to him with surprising clarity: “I just don’t want us to be separated again.” He didn’t want the stormtrooper’s nothingness to happen to them, and the dreadful future of the Empire storming into their tiny room, ripping them apart with no hopes of reconciliation. Baze was his comfort when the Temple fell. He had protected him all this time, and he’d saved him earlier when he’d killed the stormtrooper and succumbed to his shock. He cared for him after…where would he be without him? What could, and would, he do without him?

“I could kill,” he continued, “a thousand stormtroopers…I could tear down the entire Empire with my own bare hands, for as long as I know that you will never be gone from me.”

“And where do you think am I going?” Baze asked. He thought he heard the softest laughter under his breath. He wondered if Baze was smiling.

He should burst out in happiness if he wanted to. Chirrut would love it. He understood why—a world without both of them together, whoever thought of something so stupid? But for now, he couldn’t join Baze in his certainty. He just had to say one more thing, one last thing before he would allow himself to be returned to the darkness and sleep, to Baze’s arms and reassuring presence. “Somewhere I can’t follow,” he replied earnestly. “Somewhere I can’t find you. Where you can’t find your way back.”

If that place existed, they didn’t want to think about it just now. Chirrut knew that if it ever came to a point where they had to be parted, they would fight to find their way back, no matter how ruined that might leave them. Scars were old friends to them. Wounds and broken bones, they know how to mend. But without each other, these struggles, all that they’d been through, would mean nothing.

“Hey,” Baze said. “Look at me.”

“Really, Baze?” Chirrut chuckled even as Baze commandeered his face to look at him. Baze clicked his tongue. Chirrut suddenly, and finally laughed.

“Blind fool,” Baze muttered. His hands came off Chirrut’s cheeks. “Remember that game we used to play when we were young?”

“Now you’re making us sound our age.”

“When you’d just gotten blind? You didn’t like being touched because you couldn’t see who was touching you. Your ears were still weak…it became a problem because you were having trust issues.”

He remembered, of course. That had been a trying time. But Baze never left him, even when he’d given him every reason to do it. Even then, he was always beside him.

“So I thought, how do I get you back? I couldn’t just let this go on and leave you in the dark forever. Do you remember how to play it?”

Softly, Baze’s hand alighted his face, tips on his forehead, palm on his nose and lips…it was hard to fight off a smile when nostalgia reached out to you. Those sweet old days when all he worried about were his duans, or being caught by the Abbot outside his curfew.

“Where am I?” Baze asked in a whisper, his voice rough.

That was how it always began. Chirrut knew where he wanted him to start, too. He took Baze’s hand and moved it down, until those fingers touched only his lips.

Baze obeyed readily, coming forward with a kiss. His breath shook upon contact, and he might have sighed in sweet bliss, shoulders falling slightly. He remembered that when they started this game, the young Chirrut had been so frightened to kiss back, at that point already uncertain of Baze’s motives for all that he’d done to make him comfortable. The game moved quickly in those days.

This time, he could not let Baze go without catching his face, trapping his fingers in his oily hair and running the others down a familiar route of scars, wrinkles, the rough mat of his beard, once an irritation, but now something closer to an obsession. He might have trembled just at the feel of it, knowing the places it would go.

He felt Baze’s smirk and he chided him for it, wiping it off his lips with his own kiss. They slipped and parted, and met again in an unhurried state, sucking lightly. Baze’s lips were chapped. At any other night, he might have scolded him gently for it but the rules of the game had no room for such domesticity. Instead, Chirrut welcomed himself to nip at Baze’s lower lip as they parted again. Baze rested his hands carefully on the back of Chirrut’s bare shoulder as an anchor of sorts. In the past, he never did that. In the past, he touched only when asked.

Chirrut ran the tip of his tongue lightly under Baze’s lips. His heart was pounding. When Baze moved in to kiss him again, he stopped him to ask, “Where are you?” He caught the edge of Baze’s lips with his thumb just as the man smirked again. In response, he found himself biting his lower lip. He couldn’t say if he did that on purpose or not.

Baze rose; something about the bed felt lighter and steadier. A young Chirrut might have started to panic at this point but now, he was hard-pressed to keep his smile to himself, even when he bowed his head to hide it. Practiced ears kept track of Baze’s footfalls to his right, soft and heavy. Quiet—but never to him. These were the steps of a trained predator, but to Chirrut that word just meant something different.

He’d almost told him, I can hear you, you know? but swallowed the jab before he broke the rules. For a time, Baze was silent. He’d stopped, but Chirrut knew he was somewhere behind him.

Baze? Chirrut imagined himself asking, even turned his head slightly to his shoulder.

Those hands fell carefully on his back again, fingers folding to hold him in place. Chirrut was grinning where Baze supposedly couldn’t see him. That was when he sank into the mattress again; by the weight, Chirrut could tell that he was on his knees. Anticipation built up in him, his breathing coming out louder but still controlled.

Tender lips met the base of his skull. Chirrut arched his back slightly with a delightful shudder. A hand fell lightly on his crown to guide him sideways. Chirrut craned his neck happily to his left to welcome Baze to his open right. He took it with tender kisses, mustache poking softly, scraped his teeth lightly on the empty flesh which made Chirrut laugh. He left a trail of wet patches all along his shoulder that only seemed to frustrate the blind man. He swallowed a little and flicked his tongue briefly over his dry lips. He wanted those lips again, but he would be patient. He knew he would get more of that later where it came from.

He followed Baze on his way up to his neck, the edge of his jaw and finally his ear. He kissed it, and Chirrut shuddered. Could he do it again?

“Where am I?” Baze asked. He did it again.

Chirrut felt happy. There were so many places he wanted explored now, so many places he wanted Baze to touch. He turned, shifting and wiggling until he was facing his general direction again. His pants had gotten rather twisted up around him in all that movement.

He raised a hand, and Baze took it. Chirrut smiled. Now where could he put that hand? He could finish the game now and move on to the next, but he figured they had all night to play.

He carried it, slowly, to his throat, swallowing so Baze’s thumb could feel the bobbing movement keenly. Baze responded by tracing the shape of it with his own fingers, careful and light. Chirrut breathed deeply, smiling wider. When he went to sleep tonight, he knew this would be what he would dream about then: rough fingers cupping the column of his neck tenderly.

Hands drawing a path down to his chest, those calloused pads scraping lightly. Chirrut barely bit back a whimper of disappointment when they slipped down to his tummy but Baze whispered shushes. Promises that Chirrut hung onto. They would get there soon—but for now, his fingers slipped to the sides of his waist and pulled forward slightly, holding him in place once more.

Chirrut obeyed happily, a marionette in the hands of his master, and a quiet one at that even when it seemed like Baze was going to make him wait forever for his kisses. Even though his chest was bursting, and he could hardly breathe at the suspense. Baze felt absolutely still, steady—stubborn—as a rock. He was like a void that melted into the humming of the walls, and Chirrut would have been driven mad had it not been for Baze’s solid grip around him, the one thing that anchored him to everything. He could hardly feel his own fingers curled over his knees, tensed. Please, his entire being seemed to beg.

He almost leapt with joy when Baze’s lips closed into the skin of his throat, nipping lightly. It made him laugh again. He loved it. He tucked his fingers into Baze’s tangle of hair to pull him closer, trapping him before he got any smart ideas again. The bastard knew how to play this game he made, after all. And he laughed, too, the ass.

Baze’s lips moved up and down his throat, his kisses wet, erasing the trauma from the fight. He traced his path back to the skin under Chirrut’s chin with the length of his tongue and Chirrut sighed, his breath shaking.

“Where are you?” Chirrut breathed.

Baze rose. Chirrut held his breath. Those hot hands released him, callous brushing, and scaled his back up to the pits of his arms where he held him again. Chirrut’s chest expanded. He waited in expectation.

When Baze kissed him at the tip of his nose, Chirrut sent a sharp kick out to Baze’s thigh, easily displaced when the man knocked it sideways with his knee. He was barking in delight, Baze with him, a full-blown laugh that filled their entire room, bounced off the walls where once there was only dread and silence. This was not what he was promised!

“Where are you!” Chirrut demanded, face split sideways with a mean beam. Baze had given him the wrong answer, but he loved him for it. It felt good to laugh, to worry about nothing except…except nothing. What was there to worry about when he was safe? Baze answered whenever he asked, ever-present.

Now the silence that passed between them was the kind of silence shared by lovers. Soft. Comfortable. A secret language only they could decrypt. Their foreheads met in a single motion. Chirrut breathed in Baze’s scent—the oil in his hair, NiJedha on his skin, his breath. He wanted to be covered in them, swathed, soaked. His fingers traced the shape of Baze’s jaw, fell lightly on his shoulders to bend and knead. Baze groaned contentedly. One day, he’ll have to look into those tightened muscles, but not tonight.

“Where are you?” Chirrut asked quietly.

He was on his lips, sealing him with a full kiss, and then he was traveling down to his open chest—a violation of the rules of their little game but no one was keeping tabs anymore. Baze’s mouth opened up, warm breath tickling him, and swallowed one of his taut tips with a wet kiss. Chirrut arched forward with a gasp and a sigh, fingers weaving together at the back of Baze’s neck to keep them close. Not that Baze was going anywhere—he lapped and nipped, and then he suckled. Chirrut’s pleasure came out in half-made grunts, milky blue eyes rolling back. He missed the days he could still watch Baze. He used to get off at the sight of his lathering tongue, at those eyes looking up to him with a challenge. He thought about those eyes as Baze’s lips bit, and his tongue flicked. He thought about how soaked he was. He whined, writhing between his legs. Could he ask Baze to touch him there?

That thought flew out of his mind when a hand ghosted to his untouched nipple and pinched it. His shock came out with a cry but the hand was as relentless as the tongue, twisting and playing, stroking and pressing. A deep moan escaped him from his open mouth. His heart was racing and his form was sagging. Chirrut’s mind was torn between two pleasures, the pressure between his thighs and the heat within his belly.

It stopped all of a sudden, and he couldn’t be more relieved. He was done with this.

Baze climbed up to his lips for a quick kiss and the question he’d been waiting for: “Where am I?”

Everywhere. He wanted him to be everywhere.

“Take me home,” Chirrut asked of him, panting. That was the end of the game—and thank all that was holy for it, too.

Baze was quick to celebrate it with a crushing kiss, inelegant as compared to their earlier sweetnesses, one that was sure to leave a flowering bruise but Chirrut took it in its entirety, sucking him back. He braced his hands around Baze while the man looped an arm around the back of his waist and guided him down, back to the pillow. Their lips broke with a smack as Baze flew up. Chirrut growled out in frustration but he wasn’t one to waste a second on waiting uselessly. His ears followed Baze’s progress, his grunts, the sound of fabric sliding down flesh, as his own hands worked quickly to undo the cords of his trousers and shove down his bottoms. Baze’s hands came to help, and then they were throwing off their clothes and Baze was crawling up to Chirrut, who spread his freed legs wide open for the man. They kissed, wet and quick and repetitive. A pleasant shudder ran up Chirrut’s spine when he felt the familiar weight of Baze’s length on the inside of his thigh. Anticipation carried his knees up.

They shared the first of their long kisses for the night, Chirrut trapping Baze’s jaws with his hands again, when the man drew a line down his aching sex to catch its length. Chirrut gasped and moaned within their mouths. His toes folded themselves back while Baze measured him up and down the shaft, grip slipping easily with his first seeds.

Chirrut had to break the kiss to breathe and to ask him one thing, “Don’t make me come. Not just yet.”

“I know,” Baze assured him and kissed him quickly.

“You know how, and when, I want it done,” Chirrut groaned, raising his head to meet Baze on his forehead again. “I want to do it that way.”

“Don’t worry too much,” Baze chuckled. “You’re in good hands.”

Chirrut laughed at the pun, smiling widely. “Baze, I’m so glad you’re alive…”

Imagine his shock when Baze’s hand froze mid-stroke. It felt like a cold lake had been poured down his rising libido, catching his breath, filling his lungs with shaking nerves. He started to ask why but Baze beat him to it with a serious question of his own: “Do you mean that honestly or is that an innuendo?”

Confusion lasted Chirrut all of a second. With a sudden enlightenment, he burst out in laughter, shoulders shaking so hard, he had to fall back to the bed because he couldn’t carry his head anymore. Somewhere in the ruckus he was making, Baze was chortling. He kissed Chirrut’s chin, nipped him on his throat and proceeded to leave the same breadcrumbs down to Chirrut’s parted legs.

“Oh Baze,” Chirrut wheezed, breathing heavily in bliss. “When did you get so funny? Who are you and what have you done to my Baze?”

“I’ve always been here, Chirrut.” Those warm hands wrapped themselves around his fruits and Chirrut hummed in pleasure. “I never left you.”

“I know,” he sighed happily, fingers grasping for their sheets. “I know,” he repeated, because it was a joyful rediscovery. He knew. Chirrut had always known that about Baze.

He felt Baze’s breath on his waiting length. He hissed, and let out a moan too soon which made Baze laugh. He certainly knew how to take his time. A kitten’s kiss fell on his throbbing head and he shuddered. A wet tongue ran up the underside of the shaft and Chirrut whimpered, “Please.” He swore he was leaking, even before Baze had taken him.

Their walls thrummed as the heating came back on, a chorus to Chirrut’s sighs and moans, the soft exhalations of Baze’s name. He lost track of it when his moans came out in tight gasps and whimpers, cries of pleading that followed the rhythm of Baze’s sucking. He couldn’t remember what had led them to here. That heavy black mass that had encroached his waking hours suddenly seemed so insignificant to Baze’s warmth, his all-encompassing light and fire. Safety. Home.

He would take it all. He would take Baze’s fingers slipping inside his entrance, the taste of Baze’s sex as he wrapped his mouth and tongue around the head. His rocking motions, his grunts and groans of victory.

They were an orchestra of pleasure, filling the room with the music of their union, banishing the nightmares that had once lingered. They passed the remaining hours of darkness hand-in-hand, their bodies entwined.

Chirrut woke up with a kiss from Baze and a quiet, sweet, “Good morning.” Hearing that the night had passed, Chirrut smiled.