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dfroza · 2 years ago

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A coming act of rebirth

“You will roll them up and change them into something new.”

Today’s reading of the Scriptures from the New Testament is the 1st chapter of the book of Hebrews:

Long ago, at different times and in various ways, God’s voice came to our ancestors through the Hebrew prophets. But in these last days, it has come to us through His Son, the One who has been given dominion over all things and through whom all worlds were made.

This is the One who—imprinted with God’s image, shimmering with His glory—sustains all that exists through the power of His word. He was seated at the right hand of God once He Himself had made the offering that purified us from all our sins. This Son of God is elevated as far above the heavenly messengers as His holy name is elevated above theirs.

For no heavenly messengers have ever heard God address them with these words of the psalms:

You are My Son.

Today I have become Your Father.

Or heard Him promise,

I will be to You a Father,

and You will be My Son.

Now, when the Son, the firstborn of God, was brought into the world, God said,

Let all My heavenly messengers worship Him.

Concerning them, God said,

I make My heavenly messengers like the winds,

and My servants like a flame.

But to the Son He said,

God, Your throne is eternal;

You will rule Your kingdom with the scepter of justice.

You have loved what is right

and hated what is evil;

That is why God, Your God, has anointed You

with the oil of gladness and lifted You above Your companions.

And God continues,

In the beginning, You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth

and set the skies above us with Your own hands.

But while they will someday pass away,

You remain forever;

when they wear out like old clothes,

You will roll them up

and change them into something new.

But You will never change;

Your years will never come to an end.

Did God ever say to any of the heavenly messengers,

Sit here, at My right hand, in the seat of honor;

and I’ll put all Your enemies under Your feet?

No, of course not. The heavenly messengers are only spirits and servants, sent out to minister to those who will certainly inherit salvation.

The Book of Hebrews, Chapter 1 (The Voice)

A note from The Voice translation:

Most images of angels are influenced by art and pop culture—and are far removed from the Bible. The word “angel” literally means “messenger,” and it can refer to either a human being or a heavenly being. The Hebrews author is writing about heavenly messengers.

In the Bible, heavenly messengers have several functions—executors of God’s judgment, guardians of God’s people, heralds of God’s plans. They appear at critical moments to chosen people who play important roles in God’s salvation, such as arriving to announce the birth and resurrection of Jesus and to transmit God’s law to Moses. They are no more than messengers, created beings, who serve the will of God and His Son. Recognizing their place, they bow before the Son in loving adoration.

Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is the 10th chapter of the book of 2nd Chronicles where Israel becomes divided:

After his father died, King Rehoboam went to Shechem in Northern Israel to be coronated before all the Israelites. The news of the impending coronation reached Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, where he was living as an exile in Egypt, so he hastily returned to Israel.

The Israelites requested that Jeroboam meet them in Shechem at the coronation. Together, they made a request of Rehoboam, who would be their new king.

Israelites (to Rehoboam): Your father made us work very hard for the building of Israel. We built cities and palaces and temples and roads for him. We are tired of this constant work which your father required. If you will reduce the amount of work we are required to perform for the nation, then we will coronate you as king and serve you as your people.

Rehoboam: Let me think about this for three days. Then I will give you an answer.

As the Israelites left, King Rehoboam asked older men who were his father Solomon’s advisors for advice about the situation.

Rehoboam: What do you think I should tell the people?

Solomon’s Advisors: Listen to their concerns, show them kindness, and please them. Then they will be your subjects and will always respect you.

But Rehoboam did not listen to the advisors’ recommendation. Instead he asked the opinions of his childhood friends who were more likely to give him the advice that he wanted to hear.

Rehoboam: How do you think I should answer these people’s request that I reduce the amount of work my father required of them?

Rehoboam’s Friends: Tell those who want a reduced workload, “I am stronger and more virile than my father ever was! You will long for my father’s leniency. He made you work hard, but I will make you work even harder. He disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with the sting of scorpions.”

On the third day, Jeroboam and the Israelites returned to Rehoboam as the king had requested. The king followed the advice of his young friends, answering harshly and ignoring the advice of his father’s advisors.

Rehoboam: You will long for my father’s leniency. He made you work hard, but I will make you work even harder. He disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with the sting of scorpions.

By ignoring the Israelites’ desires, the king fulfilled the Eternal God’s prophecy that was spoken through Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam, son of Nebat. Just as predicted, the Northern tribes formed a nation separate from Judah because the king did not listen to them.

Israelites (to Rehoboam): God promised the kingdom of Israel to David and his sons. Why should we follow David’s descendants when we do not share in the inheritance of Jesse’s son? Let us form our own nation in the North, and so every Israelite should return to his house. In the same way, let the Judahites and the Benjaminites continue by themselves as the house of David in the South.

Most of the Israelites left Shechem to form a new Northern Kingdom, but a few Israelites remained in the cities of Judah, the Southern Kingdom, because they recognized that Rehoboam was their rightful king.

In a final attempt to reunite his father Solomon’s kingdom, King Rehoboam sent Hadoram, the superintendent of Solomon’s forced labor, into Israel to compel the Northern Kingdom to accept Rehoboam as their king. But the Israelites stoned Hadoram to death. Realizing the anger of the Northern Kingdom, King Rehoboam fled in his chariot to Jerusalem. Thus the Northern Kingdom of Israel has rebelled against the Southern Kingdom, the Davidic kings in Judah, until today.

The Book of 2nd Chronicles, Chapter 10 (The Voice)

A set of notes from The Voice translation:

After the death of King Solomon, nothing is ever the same in Israel. Many of the Israelites rebel against God, no longer follow God’s elected Judahite kings, and form the new Northern Kingdom with their own kings and heretical temples.

This next conversation between Rehoboam and the tribes is pivotal for the nation of Israel and the twelve tribes. The prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite in the 1 Kings 11 story foreshadows that God is going to give Judah—and neighboring Benjamin—to Rehoboam, but Jeroboam in the north gets ten tribes. The story is ironic since it appears that the Eternal favors Jeroboam by giving him most of the Israelite tribes and territory, and Rehoboam is portrayed as a despotic fool. In the end, the Davidic offspring, King Rehoboam, has a disastrous reign, and Jeroboam sets up Dan and Bethel as temple sites to worship the Eternal One. It seems that a king, whether in the Northern or Southern Kingdom, is a bad deal for the people.

A link to my personal reading of the Scriptures for Saturday, february 25 of 2023 with a paired chapter from each Testament of the Bible along with Today’s Proverbs and Psalms

A post by John Parsons about the inner illumination of the Tabernacle and Temple:

One of the main components of the Mishkan (i.e., Tabernacle) was the Menorah (מְנוֹרָה), a beautifully designed lampstand that illuminated the Holy Place. All its intricate parts (i.e., its seven branches with seven lamps, nine flower blooms, eleven fruits, and twenty two cups) were formed from a single piece of pure gold (זָהָב טָהוֹר) that was "beaten" or "hammered" into shape (Exod. 25:36). The gold color is symbolic of the divine substance (gold has a hint of the color of blood combined with the pure white). The six lamps of the menorah faced the central lamp, called the shamash or “servant,” so called because it bore the flame from which the other lamps were kindled.

The seven lamps of the menorah were lit daily, "from evening until morning," starting from the central lamp (i.e, the shamash) and then moving right to left (Exod. 27:21). According to the Talmud (Shabbat 22b), while all the lamps received the same amount of olive oil, the "westernmost" lamp (according to Rashi, the center lamp, due to its orientation) miraculously never ran out of oil, even though it was kindled first in the sequence. When Aaron would rekindle the lamps every evening, he saw the shamash still burning, so he simply refilled it with oil and trimmed its wick. This miracle is also said to have occurred during the Temple period, though it abruptly ended about 40 years before the destruction of the Second Temple (c. 30 AD), after the death of Yeshua the Messiah, the true Servant and Branch of the LORD. As it is attested in the Talmud: "Our Rabbis taught: During the last forty years before the destruction of the Temple the lot ['For the Lord'] did not come up in the right hand; nor did the crimson-colored strap become white; nor did the westernmost light shine" (Yoma 39a).

The Scriptures declare that God is light, and Yeshua is the true Light of God (1 John 1:5; John 1:9). The light from the menorah reveals spiritual light. It was not seen from the outside of the Tabernacle, but only while inside the holy chamber, before the holy place of sacrificial atonement. The light itself came from the burning of pure and beaten olive oil - a symbol of anointing and the Holy Spirit (רוּחַ הַקּדֶשׁ). It enabled service to God to be performed, though it was not a light to be used for profane purposes. Notice that the six lamps faced the central lamp -- a picture of Yeshua, the Light of the World whose arms and legs were “hammered” for our sins.... He is the suffering servant (shamash) who lightens everyone in the world; He is the center, the supporting trunk for the other branches (John 15:5).

[ Hebrew for Christians ]

========

Lev. 17:11c Hebrew reading:

https://hebrew4christians.com/Blessings/Blessing_Cards/psalm36-9-jjp.mp3

Hebrew page:

https://hebrew4christians.com/Blessings/Blessing_Cards/psalm36-9-lesson.pdf

More on the Menorah:

https://hebrew4christians.com/Scripture/Parashah/Summaries/Tetzaveh/Menorah/menorah.html

2.24.23 • Facebook

Today’s message (Days of Praise) from the Institute for Creation Research

February 25, 2023

Our Eternal Guide

“Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.” (Psalm 73:23-25)

Note Asaph’s sole dependence on his eternal and loving God. But his attitude didn’t begin this way. The psalmist had acknowledged being envious of the prosperity of the wicked (v. 3). He experienced a radical turning point after he came to worship God in His Sanctuary (v. 17). Bathing his mind with the truth of God’s Word, Asaph remembered God will ultimately judge the wicked (vv. 17-20), and he showed a deep sense of repentance (vv. 21-22). The psalmist’s accusatory attitude at the beginning of this psalm is replaced with a quickened spirit that cleaves closer to God in godly delight.

Contextually, three tenses may bring out the fullness of the phrase “continually with thee.” One commentator translates:

You took hold of my right hand—past

You always guide me with your counsel—present

You will receive me with glory—future

Note how this mounting experience of salvation complements the great theological sequence also found in Romans 8:29, encompassing the finished work of God from election to glorification. Notice also the paragraph’s thrust from the opening theme where God alone is “continually with thee” to Asaph’s supreme confession “Whom have I in heaven but thee?”

Believer, can you picture the psalmist humbly on his knees with arms raised in praise and worship, realizing God’s compassionate grasp? This truth is sustaining me this day. How about you? CM

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giorno-plays-piano · 3 years ago

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Abominable Part 1

Pairing: mage!Peter Parker x mage!Reader

Warnings: yandere, obsession, stalking, murders, possible gore in the future chapters, pretty dark story overall.

Words: 1543

Summary: An investigator of the Mage's Association, you are sent to discover the mystery behind a series of murders before more sinister events take place.

P.S. This was inspired by The Garden of Sinners particularly. I loved it dearly when I was a teenager.

To avoid any confusion, the reader is neither good nor bad due to the nature of her profession. Peter is an adult.

____________

Stepping on a platform with a vintage Samsonite briefcase in your hand, you looked at the people standing aside, most of them waiting for other passengers to leave the train. Although you knew the face of a magus who was supposed to meet you, it was hard to recognize him in the crowd, and you stared at all those people in front of you, clenching the briefcase’s handle. You hated waiting.

Of course, Lord Pierce wasn’t too happy with your arrival: the old fool thought he was untouchable even after a series of murders and an unnatural magic activity in Tombra that got the Mage's Association alarmed. You remembered the revulsion in Mr. Stark’s voice when he talked of Alexander. The old aristocracy, Lord Pierce was an outstanding magus who had long abandoned practicing any decent magic and instead preferred to exploit the strength of his numerous successors. While he still had some friends in the Association, Stark hated him greatly and was happy to remind him who was in control.

Naturally, Pierce knew why you came to Tombra, and the conversation between you two didn’t go well. You didn’t hide your intentions: you were the Investigator of the Clock Tower, and your job was to figure out what was happening in that megalopolis where Lord Pierce resided proudly. It meant you were going to be a great disturbance and a possible danger to many aristocratic families under Alexander’s protection.

It wasn’t surprising he chose the most useless assistant to help you find out the truth. His name was Peter Parker, and he was class D+ magus who attended neither Clock Tower nor Atlas Academy. His role was to slow you down, you thought and sighed.

Suddenly, you saw a familiar face when a young man hurried to you, his cheeks red, sweat running down his face: apparently, he was late. You snickered, looking at his formal attire - his black tie was so long as if he stole it from his father.

Once he was close enough, the young man stood tall, at attention, waiting for you to say something as he stared at you with awe and horror.

“Lady Ragna of the Clock Tower,” you named your rank coldly, and your companion nervously bit his lower lip, acting exactly how you expected of him.

“Peter of Tombra! Pleased to make your acquaintance!” He sounded too excited, and his hands were trembling a little, although he tried hiding it.

Gods, what was he good for in a situation like this, unless he possessed some extraordinary powers not stated in his file? Well, now was the time to discover that, you thought as you narrowed your eyes at the young man.

"Your primary magecraft?"

"B-bounded fields and healing!"

Nothing spectacular there, but bounded fields could be of use to you if you would ever be attacked while performing magic.

"Elements?"

"Water and wind!"

This was better: magi controlling more than one element were still rare, and the boy could make a nice apprentice if he were to be send to the Clock Tower. Besides, with Tombra surrounded by a river, a liquid manipulation skill Peter definitely possessed could be valuable, too.

"Magic circuit composition?"

"N-normal?"

"Any familiars?"

"None."

He was clearly feeling like a mouse in front of a snake, his face getting even more red with every second, and you found the situation rather funny.

"Your motto?" You stared him dead in the eye.

For a second Peter looked horrified, his mouth slightly open as if he were to say something, but you heard no sound coming from him. Then, as if struck by lightning, he gibbered with fear, "Live p-proudly?"

Oh boy. He really thought you were being serious when you talked rubbish with a stony face. If anybody was to talk about a personal motto, even the most pretentious magi of the Clock Tower would burst out laughing.

Rolling your eyes skyward, a gleam of deviltry in them, you smirked, "It was a joke. Don't ever use a motto, it's a terrible idea."

"Thank goodness! I thought it's something high magi of Clock Tower have." The next second Peter made a sigh of relief, and then the both of you laughed loudly, making other people on the platform throw glances at you.

Although you realized the young man had much less experience than you, you still felt he would be fun to have around. If he could make your life a little easier, you would accept his help.

Moving away from the platform and soon passing through the station's hall, you went straight to the city streets instead of catching a taxi. Peter hurried after you, still perplexed at your refusal to let him carry your bag - you guessed he expected you to boss him around, and it made you chuckle. What Pierce was doing with young magi here if Peter had such an impression about higher-ups?

"Lady Ragna, I was informed that the cottage where you chose to stay is in the suburbs. Did you decide to change it?" He asked, seeing you walking to a completely different place.

"No, it's the same cottage. If you wonder why we aren't driving there right now, I'd prefer to patrol the streets tonight to get to know the city. We can discuss the details of the job in the meantime."

You walked away fast, not looking at your companion anymore and watching the night city instead: you had never been to Tombra before, but many magi from the Clock Tower were born there, and their talk about the city always made you a little jealous. Born in a small town to a simple human woman who knew nothing of magic, you always wished to know what it was like to grow up in a true magic society like the one in Tombra, a home to many noble families, albeit smaller and less significant than those living in the capital.

The city looked exactly like you imagined it: giant grey buildings stood besides the streets, and while they didn't look particularly pretty, you loved those countless neon signages and bright posters that were shining even in the darkness of the night. The streets were busy with tourists admiring the city, couples walking out of the fancy restaurants and cinemas, and young people, recklessly snooping around some nightclubs and bars, trying to get in despite the security glaring at them and requiring them to show their ID cards while the kids pretended they forgot them. There was also a small marketplace with colorful food trucks and booths, offering both local and international cuisine, and you blended into the crowd immediately, taking some crepes and then buying takoyaki - Peter, following you like a puppy, looked shocked.

"I can't do my job on an empty stomach," you smirked and handed him some takoyaki.

Funny enough, he accepted the second you showed the plastic plate into his hands, eating so hungrily as if he had been starving the whole day.

"Well, now since I feel a bit better, let's talk business," you motioned the young man to follow you, and turned to a narrow alley, leaving the noisy market that was going to be full of people for at least a couple of hours more. "Do you have any idea why I have been sent by the Association?"

Licking his fingers, Peter looked somewhat shyly at you, probably afraid he would say something silly, "From what I understand, the reason is some unnatural magic activity the Association couldn't trace, and the involvement of its user in several murders."

"Correct." Crossing the alley, you scratched the chipped paint from an old building in front of you and looked at your fingers, furrowing your brows. "To be precise, the reason why the Association didn't leave these murders to a human police is the method how these murders were carried on. Whoever did it pretty much sucked the soul out of victims' bodies."

Peter frowned, staying still while you kept examining the concrete wall in front of you, drawing strange symbols that started glowing immediately as you finished them.

"It may sounds funny, but the ritual necessary to prevent the soul of a dead person to come back to Akasha is known only to a couple of magi, and each of them is considered a great danger to the society by the Association. This alone is a threat, but Mr. Stark's other concern is the indefinite nature of magic practiced in Tombra. It is likely that the magus responsible for the deaths is planning something much more sinister, and we can't allow this to happen."

Finding what you were looking for, you nodded to yourself and moved further, Peter walking right beside you with a concerned expression on his face. He was probably surprised you didn't need his guidance, but you spent the last three days memorizing Tombra's map.

"Do you mean that the souls of victims can be combined to become a power source for some... dark ritual or something?" He asked nervously, licking his lips.

You smirked, turning to him and pointing to the wall of the next building that started to glow subtly as you got close, "Exactly, Peter."

__________

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haikyuuuuuhypeeeee · 3 years ago

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Ch. Seventeen

⚠WARNING: Swearing

• ────── ✾ ────── •

For five days Osamu ignores you. Your texts go unanswered, calls are sent to voicemails, meet ups at the café are now solo trips.

You’re beyond upset at this point. If this is his way of needing space, that’s fine. You’d be okay with giving him space - you just need to know if he wants space. Having this awful radio silence between you is driving you mad. What if he’s sick? What if he needs to go to the hospital? He lives alone and his family isn’t close, and he hasn’t mentioned other friends to you before. You’ve talked plenty about Oikawa, Mattsun and Makki - surely he would’ve offered up stories about his friends if he had them, no?

But you also worry that you’ve done something to really offend him. He’s a pretty laid back guy (all things considered) so you must have really pissed him off if he’s resorting to ignoring all forms of communication.

You just need to know. Even if it will be the end of your friendship (something your brain isn’t ready to comprehend, thank you very much) you have to know why Osamu doesn’t want to talk to you.

So you’ve changed plans. You decide to skip afternoon classes and set up camp at the cafe. You knew he visited the cafe at least once a day, and you thought that maybe he was coming at different times to avoid you but you weren’t gonna let that happen so you would change your schedule and ambush him.

It was literally the only idea you could think of and at this point you were desperate.

“Jasmine tea, right?” The barista greets you when you step up to the register.

“Yes please,” you answer, reaching to grab your wallet from your bag.

“Hey, I haven’t seen that one guy who you’d been studying with in awhile. He used to come all the time.” The barista sets down your tea and types at the register. “What was his name, Osamu?”

You nod, trying to swallow your disappointment and pass over money to pay. If the employees here haven’t noticed Osamu coming in then maybe he is sick. And the odds of you coming across him here are slim to none.

You thank the barista and grab a table in a different spot of the cafe. The whole point of this is to change up your routine and try to see if Osamu will stop by. The last thing you want is for him to walk in, see you sitting at the table, and leave. You sit at your table, pull out your notebooks and get settled. Hopefully you can get some studying done while waiting.

A faint bell to indicate a new person coming in rings, and you nearly snap your neck to look in the direction of the front door. But it’s a young woman talking on her cell phone who walks in, not Osamu. You sigh to yourself and open your books.

~~~

The front door bell rings again, and like before you quickly look up. To your dismay, a group of three guys probably close to your age walk into the café and make their way to the register.

You’ve been at the café for 45 minutes and this time it’s the 10th time you’ve been tricked by someone walking in. You feel yourself wilt and look back down at your books, ignoring the stinging in your eyes. This is pointless.

“We’ve checked the campus all morning, and Shin combed the library top to bottom.”

The group of guys waiting in line are standing close enough to your new table that you can just hear what they’re saying. You don’t really eavesdrop on people, but it’s hard when they’re not really trying to keep quiet. And you had given up on your homework ages ago, so you just sit staring at the table while listening to the three friends talk.

“We know that he’s studying here. We should just go up to the registrar’s office and find out where he’s taking classes.” A second voice speaks up.

“Yeah, and how is that going to work?” The first guy was speaking again. “We’re going to waltz onto a campus of a school we don’t go to and what, ask nicely if they can tell us where our friend is? We’ll get the cops called on us for sure.”

“Enough.” The third friend spoke, and you didn’t have to look to know that his voice commanded an air of respect. “We’re here for a few more days, we cannot argue amongst ourselves.”

“Kita, it’s a big campus in a big city. It’s gonna take more than a miracle to find him.”

You look up and around the café, and you can’t help but let your eyes wander to the three guys who’s conversation you had overheard. The shorter friend takes his coffee from the barista with a nod and moves towards the sugar and creamer station. “Him ignoring our phone calls is making things difficult.” The guy paused again to pour sugar into his coffee. “But it’s his mother’s birthday soon, and I know she would like him to be home for it.” You look away to gaze outside but continue to listen (eavesdrop) to them. You can’t help but think that the shortest guy’s accent sounds very familiar to you.

“To hell with the birthday.” The second guy speaks again, sounding agitated. “Osamu should be home with us, not holed up in this city alone.”

Your head snaps in their direction again. The shorter man with black and white hair is nearly dwarfed by two other men, one dark-skinned and the other with dark hair parted down the center. The shorter man and dark-skinned man are busy making their coffees but the one with dark, parted hair catches your movement. You stare at each other, him having no problem holding your gaze. You watch him pull his phone out of his pocket, tap at the screen (without looking away) and bring the phone up. A quick flash and you realize that this stranger has taken your photograph.

What the hell?!

You start, not expecting the action and look back down abashed. This is what you get for eavesdropping, you dummy. You chance a quick glance and see the shorter man giving the photog a stern look. You look away again but you can’t shut your ears off as you hear them speak again.

“Delete that photo right now Suna.”

“But she was looking right at me!”

“Delete it.”

Footsteps approaching your table make you look up again and your pulse quickens when you realize the shorter man is approaching you. Behind him the dark-skinned man is scolding the other friend, both looking cross with each other. But you can’t focus on them as the short man has finally arrived at your table. To your massive surprise he bows in front of you.

“I sincerely apologize for my friend. I assure you that he deleted the photo he took and he will not be doing anything like that again.”

Hearing his voice you can definitely pick up the same accent Osamu has. His eyes are gentle and kind and he does look remorseful for his friend’s actions. “Uhhh, no worries.” You stammer out, still dazed by everything that is happening.

Before you can think to voice your confusion out loud the man bows again and takes his leave. He doesn’t get a few feet from your table before you're blurting out.

“I heard you talking about Osamu.”

The two friends hear you (as did everyone in the cafe) but they immediately make their way to your table. The dark-skinned man is looking at you with surprise but it’s the other friend’s face who catches you by surprise. He stomps over and leans down to your eye level.

“Where is he?” You’re taken aback by the ferociousness in his voice, and the frantic frazzled look in his eyes. The shorter man steps back to the table and rests a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“We’re friends of Osamu from back home, and we’re having trouble finding him. Are you a friend of his?”

“Uh, yes. Well, I think so.” You weren’t sure of your status now after he’s been ignoring your calls and messages.

“Well which is it?” The other man asks aggressively. You don’t get a chance to answer as you all hear the café door open and you turn to look at the newcomer.

Your heart flutters when you see Osamu walk through the door. It’s the first time you’ve seen him since realizing that you like him more than a friend, and besides relief at seeing him in person after he’s been ignoring you, you feel comfort at seeing him.

You meet his gaze and watch him stop in his steps when he sees you. His eyes widen slightly in surprise, but it’s nothing compared to the look on his face when he takes in the full scene. Your heart twists when he pales, and before you can call out to him he takes off.

“Shit!” The man who took your photo takes off, expertly weaving through the small crowd in the café and following Osamu out the door. The second tall man chases after them a second later, having a bit more trouble getting through the other patrons.

The third, shortest friend remains, and you hear him heave a sigh. After a beat he speaks up. “May I join you?”

You start but not immediately. He doesn’t waste time in sitting down in the chair next to yours. Only when he gets situated do you realize what you’ve done - you’re letting someone who supposedly knows Osamu sit with you, someone that makes Osamu look like he’s seen a ghost and run away as fast as he can.

What if this man is dangerous? Did you just endanger Osamu’s life?

“We’re not here to hurt Osamu.” Your companion at your table speaks up. You have no idea how he was able to read your mind, and you feel even more suspicious. “My name is Kita Shinsuke - the one who took your photo is Suna Rintarou, and our other friend is Aran Ojiro. We’re friends of Osamu’s from Hyogo.”

You nod at his introduction, but you’re not buying it. Saying outright that you’re not going to hurt someone is exactly what someone who wants to hurt someone else would say.

Kita must sense your hesitation again and he reaches into his pocket. He pulls out his phone, taps the screen and sets it on the table facing you. He nudges it in your direction, and you cautiously pick it up. What you see on the screen nearly makes you drop the phone in surprise.

It’s a group of guys - you immediately recognize this Kita person with his black and white hair, as well as Suna and Aran. You also see Osamu, giving the camera a lazy smile.

And his exact replica, standing next to him with a wider, cockier smile.

His twin.

Besides the initial shock of seeing a picture of Osamu’s twin, you see Osamu looking happy. He’s got his small smirk you’ve only seen a few times, and even then it pales in comparison to the smile he’s wearing in the photo. It’s such a stark difference to the cold, apathetic Osamu you know now that your heart can’t help but twist.

You hand the phone back to Kita silently. He takes it and puts it away.

“How long have you been friends with Osamu?” He asks.

You swallow. “A few weeks.”

Kita nods. “And do you know about Atsumu?”

“Is that his twin?” Kita nods at your question. “Then yes, that’s how we became friends, kind of.”

Kita gives you a confused look (his expression barely changes but you can just detect it.) You clear your throat. “I lost my best friend a few months ago. We realized we both had something in common and we’ve been able to talk about it with each other.”

Surprise flickers across his face before a serious, somber look takes its place. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” you reply automatically. You appreciate his gesture, and you’ve been handling these kinds of interactions with general strangers for months. If, for some godforsaken reason, the passing of Hajime comes up in conversation everyone immediately offers their condolences, you thank them, and then the conversation continues. You’ve long been able to push aside the wave of grief that comes with the briefest of mentions of his passing. You understand that sometimes the stranger you were talking with doesn’t really mean the words they’re saying.

But with this Kita Shinsuke, you feel the sincerity behind it. It only comes from someone who can understand what you’re going through because they’ve gone through it themselves.

“Can I ask how much you know about Osamu and Atsumu?” Kita asks.

You struggle to find an adequate answer, embarrassed by your lack of knowledge about Osamu’s past. He always seemed uncomfortable talking about Atsumu, and you never wanted to push him. Gosh, can you really say you have deep feelings for him when you don’t even know how to answer this simple question?

“I know he came to Sendai for school.” You answer carefully, putting your insecurities away for now. “I think he wanted to get out of Hyogo.”

Kita’s response is a hum. It’s thoughtful, and you can see gears turning behind his head. You wait for him to reply, unsure of what else to say.

“Osamu definitely wanted to get out of Hyogo, and he did come here to attend Sendai University.” Kita confirms. “But what you may not know is that he vanished from Hyogo, without a trace save for the letter he left for his parents to never call him again.”

Kita’s brief explanation feels anything but that. It shocks you to your core, freezing your lungs. Any reply you would have had to it was wiped clean, and you really can’t do anything but sit and stare.

Kita nods. His features soften, and you now see a hint of sadness in his eyes. “I understand his actions. I cannot imagine living in a place with constant painful reminders of his loss.

“But he didn’t give any hint of wanting to leave. He never told anyone his plan. One day we woke up and he was just gone. His parents are heartbroken. They had already lost one son, and now another that leaves no open channel of communication, no desire for any of us to reach him. To them, it feels like they’ve lost both sons.

Your heart clenches painfully. You know Kita isn’t accusing Osamu of anything - you can’t hear any blame in his voice. But you can’t help but feel the need to defend your friend for his actions that are, frankly, self-serving.

Kita goes on. “Aran, Suna and myself have an old schoolmate, one of Osamu’s old friends as well. He recently reached out to tell us that his cousin thought he recognized Osamu here at this campus when he came to play Sendai University’s mens’ basketball team. It was pure dumb luck, and honestly not even a hint of a confirmed lead, but we got a chance to find Osamu. We arrived two days ago and have spent all of our time searching every corner of the campus looking for him.”

You still can’t get over the new information you’ve learned about Osamu. Leaving his small town and the only people he knows with no plans on returning. You can’t help but remember little bits of information gleaned from your conversations with Osamu.

He moved to a new city and got a new phone and new phone number. He doesn’t have any friends or family here in Sendai. How unwilling he was to find a therapist and seek help for unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Now with the added information of knowing Osamu left home without a trace, you’re left with a revelation that sends you reeling.

He’s running away.

Osamu is trying to run away from the trauma of losing his brother. He’s doing his very best to shake off any trace of his past and reinvent himself in a new city. Zero contact with friends or family and no support to help him work through a disturbing life event that shouldn’t happen to anyone. And he’s shoving it all down.

Why? Why in the world would anyone want to do that to themselves? And is this what he’s been doing to you now? Running away from you?

A ringing disrupts your disturbing thoughts and you watch Kita bring his phone up to his ear. “Hello?” Whoever is on the other line must tell him some disappointing news because Kita’s face falls again. “Ok, I’ll meet you at the hotel.” He hands up the phone and sighs.

“Aran and Suna lost Osamu. Not surprisingly, since Osamu was always quick, and he knows the area better than we do.” He stands. “I will leave you to your studying. May I borrow a slip of paper and a pen?”

You wordlessly hand over a scrap piece of paper and pen, letting Kita bend down to write on the table. He hands the items back to you and straightens up. You look at the paper and see his full name and phone number written down.

“You have no obligation to, but if Osamu reaches out to you will you please let me know?”

You think of the messages you’ve sent him and the calls you’ve made - all unanswered. But you can’t bring yourself to tell that to Kita now. “I’ll try my best.”

“I greatly appreciate it.” Kita bows and makes to leave. But he hesitates and looks back at you. “We’re not here to drag him back to Hyogo against his will. If he wants to stay here in Sendai he can, he’s an adult. I just want him to know that he has people that care about him, people that miss him.”

You watch Kita pause, standing still. He swallows hard and you see his hands ball into fists. Watching Kita compose himself somehow hurts you the most in this entire interaction you’ve had with him.

When he speaks, his voice is strained. “I don’t think he knows that. I think he believes that he’s truly alone.”

Kita nods and takes his leave, leaving you sitting alone at your table in the café.

• ────── ✾ ────── •

A/N: Enter the Hyogo friends! But Osamu doesn't seem too happy to see them....are we gonna find out why? Also a sad Kita is literally the worst thing in the world and it makes me not okay! :')

Taglist Open! Please send an Ask with the request to be added to It’s [Not] Okay Fic & SMAU: @psycho-nightrose @camcam1617 @kamalymaly @toobsessedsstuff @shookykookie30 @roro-707 @qualitygiantshoepsychic @cerealfrdinner797 @ara-mitsue @gray-444 @tanakasimpcorner @rintarovibes @jellien @everytimeswift @bongofrito @babucrow @beidouluvr @kozuken-ma @imarriedachef @badkarma-a

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heavenhasaroad · 3 years ago

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Story and Chapter Titles for Heaven Has A Road

Heaven Has A Road But No One Walks It, Hell Has No Gate But Men Will Dig To Get There is a Chinese proverb lamenting how eagerly people will rush toward their own destruction rather than travel the straight and narrow.

When I was looking for a good name for this story I knew I wanted something to do with journeys or roads, preferably from a Chinese context. When I stumbled upon this proverb, I knew right away I had found the perfect title. It has that roadtrip vibe, it has that spiritual connotation for the daoshi - in a way, they are walking the road to heaven, the ultimate happy ending, but the journey is almost literally hell at times. Not seldom in some way self-inflicted.

As for the chapter titles, I set a challenge for myself. I wanted every title to have at least two meanings or connotations. The titles themselves are almost always inspired either by quotes from The Untamed, daoist texts, lyrics from the official Untamed soundtrack or inspired by chengyu, the short idioms used generously in the Chinese language. I also wanted them to carry a secondary meaning, often more symbolical than the obvious, or connecting to a subtle theme of the chapter – or, conversely, surprisingly literal in unexpected ways.

These are the titles and meanings of the chapters so far. I will update this list as new chapters get posted, so check back now and then if you're curious!

The Missing Piece – The primary reading refers to the lacking piece needed to bring back Xiao Xingchen's soul. Was it Song Lan's presence? Wei Wuxian's powerful demonic cultivation? It's vague for a reason. The secondary reading is what Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji came to Yi City looking for – Nie Mingjue's body, the missing piece in their investigation.

The Risen Moon – The first meaning of course refers to Xiao Xingchen's resurrection. The Bright Moon, risen from death back into the land of the living. The secondary reading is the endless night itself.

Poison In The Air – This can be read very literally – there is corpse poison in the air, and staying in Yi City may cause them all to succumb to it. The other, almost as literal reading, is the hate and enmity and messy past shared by these three people. A lot of resentment and anger and bad blood between them.

To Kill A Monster – Ambiguous for a reason. Does it refer to Song Lan's desire to kill Xue Yang both as vengeance and to remove a dangerous threat? Or to the more literal monsters they're sent out to Night Hunt?

Is It You? - Twice, Xiao Xingchen uttered those words in Yi City. The first time out of worry for his friend, Chengmei, who was attacked by a fierce corpse while on the way home from the market. The second, realizing in horror that the fierce corpse nearby is his beloved Zichen. The the double meaning is simply in that both his companions could respond to that call. As they do in this chapter, when he can't help but ask a question out loud to see who will answer.

Sticks and Stones – Xue Yang fought the snakes with an actual stick for a weapon, and when he and Song Lan got into a fight after the battle, Song Lan defeated him by slamming him down on the rocks several times. But of course the deeper meaning lies in the unspoken ”words can never hurt me”... Referring to Xiao Xingchen being so distressed by Xue Yang trying to goad him into taking bloody revenge that it almost kills him.

Reawakenings – the primary reading is about Xiao Xingchen awakening from his death-like coma. The secondary refers to the embers of his and Song Lan's love slowly being breathed back into life. Their old companionship reforged, and the first fragile longing for something more.

The Coffin House – The immediate association is of course the Coffin House of Yi City, the home Xiao Xingchen and Xue Yang shared, the past Xiao Xingchen finds himself struggling with. But then, far more starkly, a reality. They are told Xue Yang is dead. A body, taken to a Tanzhou Coffin House.

Bitter Medicine – the primary reading is the healing treatment Xue Yang receives. The secondary is in the symbolic meaning of the idiom - ”something difficult but necessary to accept or come to terms with”. In this case, for Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen, it implies the latter's reluctant realization that he's not ready to lose Xue Yang, not yet. As well as Xue Yang being told that Song Lan has been given Xiao Xingchen's blessing to take his revenge as he sees fit.

Lay It To Rest – this refers both two Xiao Xingchen's new calling, in settling restless spirits, knowing now what the dead need to hear to dare let go and move on... But it's also a cautious lowering of enmity and past resentment. Not gone, or forgiven, but a burden laid down for the time being.

Strangers With Teeth – referring to the story Wu-daifu tells, and a parallel to that, Xiao Xingchen taking pity on a wounded stranger outside Yi City, which cost him everything in the end.

Settle Your Dust – this is part of a passage in Dao De Jing, one of the foremost daoist texts: “Close your mouth, block off your senses, blunt your sharpness, untie your knots, soften your glare, settle your dust. This is the primal identity.” It also alludes to the road dust, of their being back out on the road again. And finally also to the confrontation near the end, and how Song Lan carves a condemnation into the dust to make Xue Yang shut up for Xiao Xingchen's sake, and how they metaphorically all let the dust settle after that.

Silver Tongue – the apparent obvious meaning is of course Xue Yang smoothly ingratiating himself with the other travelers, convincing them to pay him in treats and coin for his ”wisdom”, and then using that same stolen daoist wisdom to needle Song Lan when he comes to stop him. But at the end the meaning becomes literal, as he presents Song Lan with the speech talisman, crafted from a silver coin.

Crossroads – two meanings, the literal and metaphorical. They reach a crossroads where they make the first conscious choice of where to go together, unspokenly accepting that they are in fact traveling together now. And the metaphorical crossroads is the same, which Song Lan reflects on during that conversation. How they speak of worldly directions, but also of how to move on from here.

Three Cobblers Make A Genius – this is a chengyu that means that enough varied skill put together can outdo even one single-minded genius. And there are indeed three very different people, with very different skills here. But once they actually put themselves together into a whole, they can accomplish something beyond the sum of their parts.

Dreamers – a seemingly simple title, holding different meanings throughout the chapter. The first refers to the three sharing a dream and working together in making it come true. The second tells of Baoshan Sanren and Lan Yi, the parallel of noble heroes of the past who dreamed of greatness, but who were torn apart by a corruptive dream that should never have been pursued. At the very last, Kuizhou is referred to as a dream/nightmare to finally be left behind.

The Living Dead – a title that refers both to Song Lan (and Xiao Xingchen if you squint), and the fierce corpses they fight in the plague graveyard. The title itself is also the name of one of the spin-off Untamed movies.

Men and Monsters – Here of course the twist is that both Xue Yang and Song Lan could be considered the monster. Xue Yang has been called ”beast” so often throughout his life, he just mocks it as a weak and uninspired insult. And Song Lan is objectively a monster, a zombie, a walking corpse. So what makes a man? What makes a monster? What makes a man a monster, and a monster a man?

We All Drown Together – the title is taken from a response Song Jiyang, Xiao Xingchen's actor, gave in an interview to the question ”If Song Lan and Xue Yang are both drowning and you can only rescue one of them, who would you save?” and without hesitation he replied ”I jump in too! We all drown together.” As a chapter title, this both refers to the fact that they are all carried off by the river and almost do literally drown, but also underscoring that as a group, they have reached the stage where they will face danger together rather than any individual seeking safety for themselves.

Etched In Bones And Heart – this is another chengyu, meaning ”things that can never be forgotten”. Since this is a chapter where Xue Yang and Song Lan make an effort to get along better, it of course calls up the memories of all the wrongs and bad blood they have between them, things that can't be forgotten, or forgiven. (Or can it?) In the literal sense, the charms they look at are carved stone, wood and indeed, bone.

Closest And Most Like-Minded – in some of the translations of the novel, this is how Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen were described, as a team of wandering cultivators. With all the daoist themes in this chapter, that description is apt both to describe how they two of them are growing closer again, but also the sense of connection and community they share with the other daoshi they are welcomed by.

And On The Mountain Was A Temple – in the literal sense, this simply refers to the temple of Yanxia that they're visiting. But it also the opening verse of a Chinese nonsensical children's story/nursery rhyme. Specifically a nursery rhyme that a-Qing quoted in the novel when Xiao Xingchen told her the story of his master's three disciples who descended into the world.

A Lingering Death – this is literally another name for lingchi, the death of a thousand cuts, that Xue Yang used to kill Chang Ping. But it is of course also the inevitable doom that lingers among the unbearable truths of Yueyang to shatter the fragile peace the three of them had finally built.

A Source Of Bitterness And Grief – this is one of the encyclopedic descriptions of wormwood aka the literal meaning of Xue Yang's family name. Here of course it refers to him, as well as the events of Yueyang, the truths bringing bitterness and grief.

Come Without A Shadow – this is also part of a chengyu: ”Come without a shadow, leave without a footprint” meaning to pass through a place undetected. Ironically meant, since it soon becomes apparent the clash of Yueyang brought a lot of attention, and people are now actively hunting Xue Yang.

Putting Out Fires With Wood – another chengyu, meaning to attempt to fix something but doing it so badly, it ends up far worse. Which sums up this chapter quite well. Fire, and its various forms of symbolism, is also a thread throughout this chapter, with the first scene having Xiao Xingchen firmly stomp out embers that could be read as lingering affection, then Xue Yang furiously burning the rejected peace offering of food in an act of utter destruction, and finally a symbol of companionship in the last scene where Xue Yang and Song Lan have a quiet talk over the campfire while Xiao Xingchen is asleep.

A Firefly Glow In The Dark – inspired by a line from Huang Cheng Du, Xue Yang's character song. He sings of seeking and searching in the dark, hoping for ”a firefly glow to appear in my heart”. In this chapter, a first glimpse of hope returns, like that firefly glow. And of course it very literally references the glowing Jin messenger butterfly, bringing good tidings at last.

Ascending On White Wings – also inspired by a line from Huang Cheng Du. This particular line is very poetic with several meanings in the original Chinese. A translation could be ”ascending into the constellations”, where the daoist term ”ascend” is written as ”transforming into a feather(ed being)” and the last part, ”star constellations” is homophonous with Xiao Xingchen's name, so it can also be read as ”Xiao Xingchen has ascended (to heaven)”. The ”feathered being” associated with ascension is often symbolized by a crane, carrying a pure soul to heaven, hence my artistic liberty to throw in white wings specifically. In this chapter, Xiao Xingchen soars up toward the stars to bring down the white-winged mowang, and so like the original song line, it can be read symbolically as well as literally.

Floating Clouds, Morning Dew – this is another chengyu, describing the ephemeral nature of fleeting things. Like the happiness and companionship of the beginning of this chapter... More literally, it alludes to the sea of clouds and mists of the Muaishan mountains.

Searching In The Dark Of Night – another line from Huang Cheng Du. In the song, it refers to Xue Yang searching for a way to fix things, get Xiao Xingchen back. Which is also what he and Song Lan are doing in this chapter, seeking blindly in the literal dark of night to find and save Xiao Xingchen.

Lifting The Moon From The Water – this one is inspired by another chengyu that can be translated as ”fishing the moon from the water” or ”lifting the moon from the bottom of the sea”, ie fishing for the moon's reflection as though it's something tangible to be caught. It means attempting something ridiculously impossible. Which entering the spirit world to fight the mist demons on their home turf could be said to be. Also of course referring to bringing Xiao Xingchen through the mirror surface back into the world of the living – the moon lifted from the water.

Still Breeze And Quiet Waves – another chengyu, meaning a moment of peace and tranquility, the calm after the storm of the previous frantic chapters. The still breeze also referring to the comatose Xiao Xingchen – the Gentle Breeze, stilled and silent.

Love The House And Its Crow – a chengyu with the meaning of ”loving the whole package” or ”taking the bad with the good”. Here it refers to Song Lan and Xue Yang, who have previously only accepted the other as an unfortunate extension of Xiao Xingchen, slowly begin to appreciate aspects of each other for their own sake. Or maybe the ”crow” of the idiom just refers to the songbird...

Don't Forget Me – The words Xue Yang called after Xiao Xingchen after their very first meeting in the original series. He spoke them again in the first chapter of this story, as his chosen farewell for Xiao Xingchen when Song Lan readied his sword to execute him. And of course, the bitter, bitter irony here is that Xiao Xingchen has, indeed, forgotten him...

Bound By The Past – another line from Huang Cheng Du. This is a very simplified translation – a more detailed one would be "the events of the past (have me) trapped / surrounded / left stranded". In this chapter, it refers both to how bound together these three are by their shared past, as well as Xue Yang being literally bound by bandages and locked doors.

To Thread A Needle – a chengyu that describes someone acting as a go-between. In English, the idiom refers to the difficult task of striking a balance between conflicting forces. In this chapter, Song Lan reflects on how he feels like a needle going back and forth between two utterly disconnected compartments of his life, unconsciously being the thread that still binds them all together. (And if you squint just a bit, you could read it as a sexy innuendo...)

Chasing Memories Without Direction - a line from the Yi City theme song Gucheng, “Entering the abandoned city—chasing memories without direction“. In the song, it’s about the memories being all that remain as tragedy tears everyone in this arc apart. In the chapter, of course, it alludes to Xiao Xingchen’s lost memories, and how directionless and lost he feels about them being missing in the first place.

One Can Be My Teacher - this is part of a Confucian idiom, “Whenever I see three people walk together, surely one can be my teacher.” It means being open to the idea that anyone you meet may have something to teach you, even the most unexpected people - and for Song Lan, having to one day take Xue Yang as a teacher in anything was certainly unexpected! The first part also fits neatly with the group - these ‘three people walking together’ all have things to teach, and learn from each other.

... more chapters to come as the story keeps updating!

#meta

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spvce-cowboy · 4 years ago

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reunion

ch. 3 of i’ll be here in the morning (the mandalorian x fem!reader)

previous-ch. 2: “gentle things”

next-ch. 4: “songbird”

rating: mature

8k words

warnings: alcohol, drug use mentioned, jealous/protective mando, animal cruelty, descriptions of gore

summary: the luxurious rot of Canto Bight is enough to put anyone on edge. Mando is forced to ask for your help in finding a high profile quarry.

Mando leaves the fighting ring before the caterwauling nexu is able to deal the killing blow.

He can still hear the sound of the gore spraying against the floor as he climbs the stairs towards the exit, the roaring jeer of the crowd obliterating the speakers inside his helmet. The inevitable outcome of the fight was clear from its onset given the state of the nexu’s opponent, some kind of sand-bear, who was already injured upon entering the cage-like structure.

This wasn’t the Outer-Rim fighting rings he was used to. This place has carpets and a fucking chandelier suspended right above the blood clotted, dirt floor of the pit. It has pipe smoke and dark liquor, the low rumble of voices that only rise in tandem with the progression of the fight. There’s a strange reserve among this crowd that Mando has never seen before, not in this context at least.

The patrons still had that starved look in their eyes though—bloodlust, pure and simple. Somehow, all the tuxedos and hair gel makes it far more sinister than it normally would be.

Karga sent him here to gather information about the quarry, but after an entire day spent searching along with the past hour he’d spent floating around the fight hall where the informant was rumored to be, he knew to give it up before he wasted any more time.

Mando exits the underground arena, stepping into the late afternoon heat just as it begins its gradual descent towards an oncoming chill. Upon arriving at Canto Bight, he had learned very quickly to avoid the main streets. There were too many eyes and whispers for a bounty as high profile as this one for him to be spotted on his own like this, obviously searching for something.

There’s something about this city that makes him absolutely revolted. It’s not the strongest testament to his resolve or his character, but, at the same time, it’s not something he can necessarily help.

Mando still has absolutely no clue what Karga was thinking, but here he is, regardless if it made any sense or not.

He returns to the Crest, deflated after a second unsuccessful day of trying to gather information about the quarry’s whereabouts. He is desperate for a lead, two of three informants proving to be completely useless and his patience growing thinner every second he has to stay on this forsaken planet.

Closing the ramp behind him, Mando heads straight for the cockpit, needing a moment to regather his thoughts. To brainstorm a better plan of action before it becomes too late to rendezvous with Karga’s third, and last, possible informant.

The problem was that there was absolutely no way he was going to be able to get into the racetracks on his own. Getting into the fighting pit—which was considered “seedy” by Canto standards--was already a total hassle, costing him far too many credits and straining what limited negotiation skills he had.

The second problem was that he’d rather take a blaster to the leg than involve you in one of his missions. But now that was kind of his only option.

Mando rubs a hand over the forehead of his helm as he paces. When that doesn’t work, he settles himself in his pilot’s seat, hunching over slightly against the weight of the beskar against his bones. Maker, he is fucking tired.

Swiveling his head to the side, he notices a pile of something on the console that he can’t exactly make out until he leans over it.

Resting on the command board is a leather string, a few palm-sized pieces of stained glass already fashioned to hang from it by smaller loops of the same material in varied lengths. It looks like you were in the middle of working on it when something else distracted you, several more discs of glass piled onto one another to the right of the unfinished project, and a few loose scraps of leather in a pile on the copilot’s chair.

Mando allows himself to admire it for a moment, rubbing his gloved thumb over the glass’s surface. By the time he glances up through the windows of the cockpit, looking at all the people milling about outside, his breathing has somewhat evened. It’s easier to think straight, at least.

He stands and climbs back into the hull, rounding the corner to peer into the space you’ve made for yourself.

It takes him a moment to see you over the pile of blankets you’ve kicked off your mattress. You’re asleep. Under the table. The kid taking a nap with you. Of course that’s where he expected you to be if you weren’t in the cockpit but—but.

You’re on your belly, head buried in your folded arms. You have one, bare leg hitched up over pillow. The length of your calf spills over onto the floor, socked foot delicately pointed. That’s not really what stops him in his tracks. Well, it is in part.

But you’re wearing one of his shirts.

It must have just been a mistake, he knows that. He’s seen you in one of your own that’s the same general color and cut, but he knows this one is his because of the hole in the elbow where it had caught on an exposed screw and torn a few days previous. He’d been too busy to mend it.

Mando tries to wake you before his thoughts could go anywhere else. He says your name quietly, then a little louder. It wakes the kid, who yawns and blinks up at Mando, making happy sounds up at him from where he’s snuggled into your side.

When that doesn’t work, Mando nudges your calf with the tip of his boot. You startle awake, a protective hand shooting out to automatically bring the child against your chest, blinking rapidly up at him.

“Oh,” you wince slightly at the light coming into the cabin but otherwise doesn’t visibly react when you realize it’s him. Your arm loosens from where it had wrapped around the kid. “You’re back. I thought you’d be gone a while longer.”

“I need your help with something,” Mando crosses his arms in front of his chest. It gives him something to do with his hands and how awkward they feel just hanging at his sides as you prop yourself up into a sitting position to listen to him, the loose material of his shirt pulling up to reveal little glimpses of your lower back and belly as you do. “I have to have a companion with me, to go into the racetrack. They won’t let me in if they think I’m looking for a quarry.”

You nod, rubbing your eye with the heel of your palm, voice croaking and still hazy with sleep. “Yeah, yeah sure. I wanted to check it out anyway. Just lemme get changed and we can head out.”

You pick the kid up and place him back on the floor of the hull. He toddles over to Mando, nearly falling—your hands automatically reach out to hover over his sides--but he manages to catch himself on Mando’s pantleg, tugging the fabric in a determined up, now.

Your brow furrows. “What’re we gonna—”

“There’s a nursery. Karga cleared it,” Mando reaches down and scoops up the kid.

“Gotcha,” your voice already sounds clearer. You reach out a hand for Mando to pull you up, he obliges. The blankets fall from where they’ve pooled around your lap as you do.

You pad down the length of the hull towards the fresher, your hips sway with the movement as you lift an arm to continue rubbing the sleep from your face. The shorts you’re wearing are a few sizes too big, you have them rolled twice at the waistband to keep them up. Mando looks away sharply once he notices.

“Alright womp rat, how does some dinner sound?” Mando smiles to himself when the kid gives an impatient squeak. “Yeah, yeah okay alright. I’m the worst caregiver in the galaxy, I know.” The child keeps giggling as Mando makes his way into the cockpit.

Mando is running through some of the Crest’s vitals on the command board when he hears you climbing up the ladder.

“Do you think this would be okay, for the racetrack?” There’s a certain timid quality to your voice he doesn’t think he’s heard before. You have also literally never asked him for approval on something, so he’s already a bit surprised before he turns to look at you.

The clothes you chose were simple, a fitted long sleeve and a pair of loose-fitting pants long enough to at least partially conceal your work boots. It shouldn’t have felt like much of a departure from your usual roster of outfits because it really wasn’t, but for some reason there’s something different about it that he can’t put his finger on.

You have your hair piled on top of your head in a bun. With it pulled back like that, all attention is drawn to the canvas of your neck, your delicate throat that gently eases into the soft planes of your face. There’s a nonchalant beauty to you that sucks all previous thoughts straight from his head.

“You might want to bring something warmer, a jacket or something.” He turns back to the command board, desperate to look busy and hide how long he looked for. “Temperatures drop on Cantonica as soon as the sun starts setting.”

“Oops—yep. Desert planet. I forgot,” you sigh. He hears the sound of your boots scaling the ladder back down.

He purposefully doesn’t look up when you enter the cockpit again, when you announce you’re ready he nods curtly, making brief but direct eye contact with you before setting a quick pace out of the Crest and into the streets of Canto Bight.

The nursery is tucked away, out of reach and notice, protection guaranteed. He leads you through a series back-street passages to get there, too nervous about the attention the three of you would get with the kid and the main roads. You carry him against your hip most of the way, occasionally adjusting the little hood you’ve fashioned to cover his most distinguishable features with every person you pass.

The door is nondescript, positioned in the alleyway behind a semi-busy restaurant. Mando can sense your apprehension the second he steps up to press the buzzer. Within seconds, there’s the sound of a series of bolts unlocking.

A warm faced woman opened the door, wearing the clean white uniform of a nurse. “When Karga called in I hardly believed it,” her voice is light, but there’s a grating, nervous squeak to it that makes Mando scowl. Maybe it was just the day he was having, but just about anything was able to set him off.

Mando and the nurse exchange a few blunt words about pricing and care. He winces, slightly, at the cost, but it’s not anything either of you could notice. Right as Mando is about to turn to take the kid from your arms, you speak up.

“Is this… safe?” You ask again, holding the kid a little tighter to your chest. He realizes that it’s the first time since you’ve joined them that you’re separating from the kid, Mando thinks his anxiety is partially feeding off of yours.

“Karga gave me his word. It’ll only be for a few hours.” Mando glances at the nurse, who was giving the two of you her very best customer service smile. “C’mon pal,” Mando nods towards the nurse. The child’s big eyes stare apprehensively up at you, then at Mando. One of his small hands unfixes itself from your shirt to reach out towards the bounty hunter. The nurse clucks her tongue, her hands on her hips.

“Someone seems like he’s already gonna miss his daddy.”

His stomach drops without warning. “I’m not his father.” The correction is biting in a way he doesn’t intend it to be. He’s vividly aware of your sharp inhale at his words. The nurse looks startled for a half second before blinking her eyes and retaining composure.

“Yes, yes of course,” she stretches out a hand as an offering of assurance towards the child, who has resumed clinging to the fabric of your shirt. “Hey little guy, c’mon. I’ve got a lot of friends for you to play with, and some snacks. You like the sound of that?”

Mando catches your smile at the child’s ears flicking with interest, despite the fact that his hands are still firmly attached to you. Mando mutters something under his breath before taking the child from you, handing him off to the nurse and trying to push down the terrible feeling it gives him hearing the kid give a small whimper as the two of you walk away.

The racetrack is down a major boulevard, towering sandstone buildings line either side, their circular doors illuminated by bands of glowing yellow neon. The streets are a different kind of polished stone that makes Mando’s skin absolutely crawl for not discernible reason.

He thinks you’ve caught on to his worsening mood because you try to keep the conversation warm and light in a way he’s never seen you do before. Your eyes are fixed to a constant arcing movement, taking in as much of it as you can, but your mouth keeps moving about anything but Canto Bight. You avoidance just draws more focus towards the situation at hand, but he appreciates the effort.

When the two of you reach the racetrack, you stop talking completely as you scale the stands. You and Mando settle on two chairs pulled up to a tiny table, overlooking the standing room crowd below. Mando faces the crowds more than the track itself, however you angle your chair so that you can look at the racing fathiers with ease. Eventually you turn away, grimacing.

“What is it?” He asks, out of curiosity as well as a desire to fill the silence.

“They’re so beautiful,” you cast one more glance over the track as the group rumbles past to the sharp roar of the crowd. “But they look so sad.” You keep looking at the beasts for a beat longer before fixing your gaze to your hands clasped in your lap.

Mando finds his words slowly. “This planet… this amount of abundance. There is always a cost. They always make someone else pay.”

You wince, shifting your body so you’re only facing Mando and the expanse of the crowd that’s over his shoulder. You don’t look at the track for a while after that, purposefully keeping your body turned to keep your gaze away.

Mando finds fleeting solace in the fact that he was at least able to keep you away from the fighting ring, which is quickly replaced by guilt in exposing you to a similar cruelty in a less bloody form. He does his best to remind himself that you mentioned wanting to see the races previously, that the indecipherable emotion on your face was not entirely his fault.

The wait spans an hour. The tension in Mando’s shoulders grows with each passing minute.

“He isn’t coming,” Mando eventually grits out. “It’s… Maker I—”

Jobs have started off way worse than this, he’s not sure why he’s allowing all of it to get under his skin. It’s this damn city, something about it makes him feel like there is a knifepoint digging between his ribs.

You tap his hand lightly. Twice, with your index and middle fingers. It happens so quickly he’s almost able to believe he’s imagined it if it weren’t for the fact that you were still adjusting your hands in your lap after your hand had retreated. As if you didn’t know what possessed you to do that, either.

“Hey. It’s fine. It’ll work itself out, yeah?” You maneuver your head to stare directly into his visor. For some reason that alone is infinitely more intimate than your brief touch. “We can just stay here for a bit longer in case the informant shows up, then pick up the kid, grab something to eat and hunker down in the Crest. Tomorrow’s a new day, or whatever.”

Mando looks you over, then nods.

The sun is setting on the horizon, the tracks illuminated by the last vestiges of its light. This is the beginning of most everyone’s day, yet the drinks are already flowing, and have been for quite some time.

There are far too many extravagant outfits, ridiculous little hats barely teetering on large skulls. The roar of the crowd grows with their drunkenness, the races becoming crueler the more the stands fill. Mando will never understand the value in any of this and he’s genuinely not sure what’s worse—the icy coolness of the fighting rink or whatever all this is.

“Who’s the quarry?” You blink up at him. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Tyreus Cavill. Some filthy rich kid who doesn’t know how to keep his damn mouth shut. He’s taunting the Gild to the point of insult,” Mando rubs his hand over the brow of his helm. “It’s been confirmed that he’s supposed to be at some kind of party tonight. That was just about the only information I could get.”

“Was that why Karga mentioned deep cover?”

Mando nods. “He said it would be my most viable option, which doesn’t make any kind of sense. Especially with no pre-existing contacts that could get me any intel on where he’s hiding.”

You speak up after a while. Mando isn’t sure how long, too comfortable in the silence as is.

“You know my mother worked for the Alderaanian court?” You say it softly, quickly looking at the racetrack to avoid drawing attention to your words. You’re kneading the hem of your sweater, a nervous tick of yours he couldn’t help but notice. “I still remember all the things she had to teach me when we went to dinners at the homes of the survivors, the etiquette and everything. I’m positive it’s much of the same, here. All this,” you twirl your index finger in the air, gesturing to the whole of the track and presumably what lay beyond. “Seems very familiar. I could help, if you need it.”

“Your mother?”

“She was the court singer--or, well, one of them,” your voice is tense. “My father was a professor. I don’t remember a lot, just that they loved me very much.” Your eyes are searching the crowd in some desperate search for something, he’s not sure what. Probably for any kind of distraction, or any reason to keep your eyes away from his. He waits in silence, patiently. “They moved to a different planet to have me, a few years before the annihilation, there were a few other survivors who were off planet when it happened. I remember my parents hosting them, and they us, on a few occasions. It was always a multi-day affair of trying to remind me what proper manners were.” You wrinkle your nose. “It’s all very stupid, if you ask me. But,” you turn your head finally and look at him evenly. “I can—”

Mando watches as your gaze floats to a space just above his left shoulder. Your entire body visibly tenses, lips parted in what he can only think is total shock. Your hands drop the edge of your shirt and hover in your lap, as if you don’t know what to do with them.

Before Mando can ask what is wrong, you’re getting up from the table and pushing through the crowd. It takes him a beat to register what has just happened before he is up and following after you, making considerably better time in catching up given the fact that the crowd seems to naturally part for him. He almost reaches out to touch you, but instead settles for aiding your pursuit by keeping pace and staying at your side, clearing a path for you with his body and an outstretched arm to motion people to the side.

“What is it?” He tries to keep his voice low enough to not be overheard, his head in a constant survey of the crowds before you. You shake your head and keep pushing forward, higher into the stands, swerving around servers with platters stacked high with strange looking drinks. “Hey—if we go any further we’d need clearance—" the higher in the stands, the richer the patrons get. They wouldn’t let either of you in without identification after the eighth flight, which you’d just swiftly pushed past. Mando checks over his shoulder and, sure enough, a server is murmuring something to a guard droid, pointing up at you.

You’re so far up by that time that you have at least a minute until the droid catches up with the two of you. You climb onto one of the raised platforms dotted with various aristocratic parties, dining over bright white table cloths, centerpieces of bizarre orange flowers bursting through the tables. You make a beeline for the centermost table, where a Twi’lek woman is dining with an Abednedo and a human male.

You approach the Twi’lek in three swift strides, grabbing her shoulder. “Febhana.”

When the woman turns, standing, there’s a kind of wide-eyed shock of absolute wonder that immediately turns into pure joy. The two of you leap into one another’s arms in a cacophony of ecstatic, indistinguishable sounds. One of some long awaited reunion.

The Twi’lek woman, Febhana, holds your face in her hands, yours slide over hers. There are tears in her eyes as the two of your chatter over one another in breathless delight.

“I thought you—”

“I had no idea that—”

“I’ve tried to find—”

You both cut each other off, staring into one another’s eyes before laughing again and embracing tightly.

From over your shoulder, Febhana gives Mando one of the quickest, scathing once-overs he’s ever received. He can’t help but automatically have a little bit of respect for it, especially compared to the terrified, diverted eyes of her companions.

“Who is this?” She asks, pulling away from your embrace slightly. You open your mouth to respond but she’s already babbling over your warmly. “Oh! No. Don’t tell me. Not yet. Let’s do this over drinks at mine—please. Please indulge me. Maker, look at you.”

You let loose a laugh Mando doesn’t think he’s heard before. A certain tonal quality of complete release, familiarity. You nod as Febhana clasps your face between her hands again, in marvel. Mando doesn’t blame her, with that look of utter joy on your face he’d—

Well.

“Do excuse us,” Febhana swiftly addresses her dinner mates, they nod and mutter forgiveness, eyes still fixed to the ground. Mando knows for a fact that at least one of them has a fob on them by the tight anxiety exchanged in their brief glances towards one another. He ignores it for the sake of maintaining the moment between you and your friend.

Mando trails behind the two of you by a few paces. As Febhana guides you through the crowds, she waves off the guard droid with an elegantly manicured hand.

Febhana’s apartment could be considered a house twice over by Mando’s book. She leads you and him through so many tall-ceilinged hallways and rooms to get to the… lounge, he guesses would be a proper term for it… that he genuinely can’t remember where the entrance is.

The room contains a bar stocked better than any cantina on Nevarro, a few odd pieces of furniture, and a large fireplace. Heavy, dark blue curtains hang from windows so tall he has to crane his head upwards to see the top. He guesses the luxury is communicated through the refusal to occupy the space with much else, despite the fact that it could be considered a small banquet hall.

Febhana makes you and her drinks while you settle on one of the sloping, white couches, scanning the room in the same way Mando has been, with a little more plain wonder in your eyes.

Mando hovers on the periphery, unsure of where to place himself until you motion him over to sit on one of the opposing chairs, equally abstract as the rest of the furniture. Febhana settles across from you on the couch, handing you your drink before leaning back and kicking off her heels.

The two of you are in a constant chatter that has so many names and dates and overlapping speech that Mando has a difficult time keeping up. What he does catch is limited and mostly inferred: the two of you escaped from the same warlord at different times, Febhana was able to scale the social ranks of Canto Bight with ease and an inherited wallet--most importantly, the two of your missed each other very much.

It’s been at least an hour since the three of you sat down when Febhana directly addresses Mando for the first time.

“And what are you doing here, Mandalorian?”

Mando feels your eyes on him, burning, as you take a sip of your cocktail.

“She saved my life,” he manages as a straightforward reply. “I’ve hired her as a medic.”

“Febhana,” you say. When you’re slightly tipsy like this, you have a breathless wonder in the way you go about describing things. “It’s… it’s been so good. I’ve been practicing all these languages and… Maker, all the places I’ve been. It’s just like you described, when we would tell each other stories to go to sleep. Everything’s so big and there are so many people.”

Febhana throws back her head in a laugh, nodding. “Well I know that, darling. Oh, stars, it’s so good to look at you again.”

You and Febhana go back and forth a while longer still, Mando happily settles into the rhythm of it. There’s the warm, familiar way women get so engrossed in one another that he finds completely novel, if not enviable. It softens something in him to see you so relaxed as you prompt Febhana to detail her exploits, the excited yip you make when she flashes you the wedding band strung on a series of thin gold chains looped around her neck.

Then again, the way the two of you seem so physically intimate occasionally makes something in his chest constrict uncomfortably. He isn’t sure where it comes from, all the little touches you give each other seem to come from a place of purely platonic joy in reunion. But there’s a little jolt in his stomach whenever he sees it happen. He doesn’t want to acknowledge it as jealousy, but… she gets to feel you. So unabashedly.

At some point there’s a lull in the conversation. You take this moment to stretch your arm across the couch, clasping Febhana’s hands in your own. “We’re actually here for a specific reason,” you say. “And I’m only asking you out of genuine, pure desperation—Mando… has a job, here. That’s gotten a little tricky. The bounty is on the head of Tyreus Cavill.” Febhana’s eyes widen considerably, but other than that she maintains composure. Taking a deep breath, you continue, “He needs to find him, Febhana—there’s intel that he’s supposed to be at some kind of event. Possibly tonight.” You glance up at Mando to check if you’re getting the details right, he gives you brief nod of assurance when you do. “Do you know anything about it?”

Febhana scoffs, shaking her head and withdrawing her hand from yours to grab her drink resting on the low glass table in front of you. “If you’re referring to what I think you are, it would be the Gathering of Rams, one of the most exclusive events hosted on Canto. I’d imagine that’s why he’d dare show his face, even with the price on his head. Unless you already have an in, you’re fucked, Mandalorian. That place is more fortified than a warship.”

You visibly deflate. “What do you mean?”

“It’s an old, and I mean old, money tradition. A dinner for just about every despicable person in the galaxy. I’ve only heard rumors about what goes on, definitely some serious cult-y type shit, oaths, rituals, the like.” She chews on a nail as she thinks. Something in her eyes lights up. “Wait. I think I… yes! Yes, I got the announcement a few weeks ago. Stars I think—” she looks down at the device on the inside of her wrist, tapping on it until—“Christ you two are the luckiest couple of bounty hunters in the galaxy, you know that? The Tagges are hosting the afterparty, tonight. The most eligible of all of Canto Bight will be there, and then some. I was invited a few weeks ago, I’d completely forgotten. With any luck he’ll be dumb and drunk enough after the Gathering to go.”

“The Tagges?” Your voice is filled with apprehension. You glance to Mando, then quickly back to your friend. “Febhana, there’s no way he can get in.”

“Hm, I’d think so too but there could be a chance…” Her eyes narrow, her face breaking into a toothy grin. “No, I’m a complete idiot. Maker, this is gonna be perfect--most of the ladies in waiting here dress their guard droids as glorified curtains. It’s a new thing if you get what I’m saying. If we go in together and disguise the Mandalorian as even more of a hunk of metal than he already is—” Mando grunts at the slight jab—“all one of us would have to do is get the target by himself with a little eye-batting and it would be a done deal.”

You and Mando speak in unison.

“I am not going to be a honeypot.”

“She will not.”

Febhana raises a brow, one side of her mouth pulling up in poorly concealed amusement.

“Oh I suggested no such thing, I’d happily volunteer. But I do need a wing-woman, for appearance’s sake. I am taken, you know,” she flashes the wedding band again, pulling the collar of her dress down a fraction to do so. “Would be unbecoming to go on the prowl in public like that without pretending like I was just assisting.”

Mando glances over at you, trying to gauge your reaction to her proposal before he came off as to overbearing. He didn’t have the right to, he knows that. But there’s some raw part of him that winces at the very thought of you and your safety getting involved in one of his jobs. Maker if you got hurt in any way—

Febhana’s voice breaks his thought before it can be fully formed. “Oh, this is going to be excellent.” She practically purrs, jumping off the couch and extending her hand towards you to help you up. You comply, giving Mando a raised-brow glance of well, let’s see where this goes.

As Febhana begins leading you across the room, Mando stands.

“Should I contact the nursery to let them know to keep the child overnight?”

“The child?” Febhana’s eyes flick between you and Mando quickly. “I’m sorry, what?”

You curse under your breath, pressing your hand against your forehead. “A kid we’re looking after,” you clarify for Febhana. “I’m so sorry Mando, I got excited so it completely slipped my mind. I…” you bite your lip. “If you feel like it would be safe doing that I… guess that should be fine.”

“My wife could also look after it,” Febhana regards Mando evenly for a moment. “If you’re worried about safety. Would that be sufficient?”

Your eyes brighten slightly, glancing at Mando, tilting your head in question.

Mando nods, addressing Febhana directly. “If she trusts you, I do. I can travel back and get him while the two of you get ready.”

“I’ll send a car for you,” Febhana throws the remark over her shoulder, already busying herself by flinging the double doors that lead into the hallway back open.

You inhale sharply as if remembering something, tapping your friend on the shoulder before she begins to walk down the hall. “Wait, Febhana—the car, is there maybe a taxi service you could call? With an actual driver? He… we don’t really ‘do’ droids, if possible.”

“I have an ‘actual’ driver, darling,” Febhana playfully chides. Her eyes flick towards Mando. “I’ll ring him, he’ll be downstairs in a moment. You remember where the entrance is, right?”

Your delicate rephrasing, that “we,” rings in Mando’s ears for the entire trip back to the nursery.

Mando quickly returns with the child, slightly weirded out by the enclosed landspeeder Febhana sent for him. It’s unlike anything he’d seen before, more like a carriage than any hover-craft he’d ever set foot in. There’s a dividing curtain between the passenger cabin and the driver’s seat, which he has pushed away to make sure the silent man at the wheel doesn’t try anything.

The driver has a stony demeanor that seems very similar to Febhana’s—she clearly wasn’t one to suffer fools, and the people she surrounded herself with seemed to reflect that. Thinking back to the way you initially interacted with Mando, he could potentially see how your shared history with Febhana could have informed that. The characteristic briskness, the unflinching resolve.

The child spends most of the returning trip chattering in relief, little hands reaching out to touch Mando’s beskar in a continuous greeting.

“Right here, kid. Always right here,” he affectionately rubs the corner of the child’s ear. There’s a heavy guilt that had settled itself in the bottom of Mando’s stomach since dropping him off.

He wants to apologize in some way, to blame it on his mood or the mounting anxiety surrounding the job, but he doesn’t know how to phrase it in a way that wouldn’t make him sound like a complete jackass. So he settles for bowing his helm to bump foreheads with the kid in a small display of reassurance. It seems to settle something in both him and the child almost immediately.

Mando glances up sharply, nearly forgetting the parted dividing curtain. The man, a wiry looking human male, glances back at the two of them through the thin pane of the rearview mirror, then returns to chain smoking while wildly maneuvering his way through traffic.

The hover-car’s abrupt stop breaks him from his thoughts. He glances out the window, recognizing Febhana’s apartment building. The entire block is in a similar style as the boulevard you both had walked down earlier, circular doors outlined by bands of glowing yellow light. The only difference were the towering, wrought iron gates in front of each building and a set of tall stairs made of the same sandstone leading up to each house. The driver gets out and opens the landspeeder’s door for Mando and the kid, then steps forward and unlocks the gate, holding it open for the two of them.

“Sir.” The driver’s voice is more of a growl. If it weren’t for the enhanced settings of Mando’s visor, it would be too dark to see the mass of scar tissue that formed a jagged line across the man’s throat. The old wound is only partially concealed by the lapel of his coat pulled up against the drizzling rain. He’s abnormally tall, so thin that it looks as if his skull is actively attempting to escape his face. “Febhana’s apartment is the third buzzer. The service droid will let you in. She told me you should follow it.” The cigarette balancing against his lip bobs as he speaks, his heavy drawl disrupted only in part by his eviscerated voice box.

Mando’s lip curls slightly but he nods, thanking the driver, ducking out of the hover-car and climbing the steps leading to the apartment’s door.

Just as the driver said, the front door of Febhana’s apartment is opened by a droid. Mando stiffens despite the fact that the thing just barely reaches his knee. It gives off a series of little sounds before turning away and maneuvering down the front hall. Muttering something unsavory about Canto Bight under his breath, Mando follows it inside.

When he arrives at the threshold of Febhana’s dressing room, she’s only just started pulling out dresses for you to try on. He deflates slightly, really hoping that the two of you would have gotten this part over with so he could begin scoping out the Tagge mansion as soon as possible.

Mando accepts his fate and seats himself for the time being, placing the kid on the ground to let him toddle over to you. You lean down immediately and scoop him up, lifting him in the air with a happy: “Hey, stinky!” The child giggles as you snuggle him to your chest, pressing kisses all over his face in reunion.

You keep gently playing with the kid as you and Febhana resume your conversation: wiggling your fingers over his face for him to grab, tickling his tummy, gently pinching his socked feet. It’s something you sink into so naturally Mando can’t help but be mesmerized by it. It calms something in him, to see both of you like that. He pushes the implications of that feeling away for the time being, as he always does.

Febhana gives the kid a bit of a once-over but looks overall disinterested, turning her attention back to rummage through her closet. “So it’s supposed to be a formal dance, but if it’s anything like the similar things I’ve gone to, that shit quickly disintegrates. But it’s still weirdly important for them to keep up the illusion of appearances, even though most rooms with closeable doors are occupied by people railing lines or fucking. Or both. Usually both.” The Twi’lek woman plucks out some kind of red, silken shift, holding it in the air then shaking her head and returning to her hunt. “I’ve been to enough Tagge parties to be a familiar face, we can play you off as an old friend of mine, some kind of lady-in-waiting thing or whatever. Crowds like these don’t tend to prod too deeply into personal histories, and with tits like yours I don’t think they’ll be interested in asking too many questions.”

Mando clenches his jaw so hard something starts hurting. You give a bit of an embarrassed laugh, quickly diverting the conversation. “So how do we get introduced to Cavill?”

“Honestly? The easiest thing to do would be getting you to snuggled up with one of his friends. He runs around with a group of bachelors who are not… pleasant company by any standards. Snotty rich kids,” she makes a face. “But if that’s not an option I could try to push some of my contacts there to get us into their circle. Seriously, darling, with men like this involved it is probably going to be one of the easiest bounties he’s ever going to collect.”

The strain being placed on every cell in Mando’s body in response to this conversation alone says the exact opposite.

Febhana continues pulling out dresses, layering some over a bench and discarding others all together.

“Febhana, will they know?” You ask it suddenly, your tone—not tense, necessarily, but definitely controlled, as if you were expecting an answer you didn’t want to hear but were willing to take regardless.

“It’s the Tagge family, so of course they know what happened to that fucker, but I don’t think they would care,” she waves off your fearful tone with a shake of her head. “Just as long as we make a bit of an effort to conceal your identity, for formality’s sake, it’ll be fine.”

“What happened to who?” Mando asks. Once he does, all the air is immediately sucked out of the room.

After an extended moment. “You didn’t tell him?” Febhana’s head cocks, you visibly swallow.

“I um…” your nostrils flare with the sharp inhale you take as you search for the right words. “When I escaped…”

Febhana interrupts. “She stabbed the shit out of the warlord who owned us. All his wife found was pulp. Didn’t take it well, the cunt. Nearly catatonic. The rest of us were able to practically waltz out of there because of this one. Owe this gorgeous bitch my life. All of us do.”

You smile at Febhana, reaching out to squeeze her hand. She winks at you, covering it with her own before turning to go rifle back through her closet. You keep your gaze to your hands when she does, lips pressed together. Mando doesn’t remove his eyes from you as Febhana continues.

“So it might be a little difficult getting her in there, but to be honest the Tagges hated him anyway. Rival business type stuff, though, not the whole holding women captive or worker’s rights violations and debt bondage thing,” her voice drips with a kind of contempt that Mando prays he’ll never have directed his way. He notices your hands tighten slightly from where they lay in your lap, your arms loosely looped around the kid who now sits upright in your lap. “I know someone who can forge some papers well enough to present to the guards, he owes me some favors anyway,” Febhana continues. “They’ll be ready by the time we have to leave. Doll you up enough and I’m sure it’ll be fine—ah!” It is only then that Mando looks back over to the Twi’lek woman. Her eyes are lit up, fanged mouth pulled upwards in a triumphant smile. The dress in her hand is a deep plum color, fabric so thin he cannot make out what it actually looks like without a form to fill it. You reach out to it, rubbing the dress between your thumb and index finger.

“Perfect.” You and Febhana say it in unison, your widest smile of the night parted up at her. There’s a delighted, mischievous tilt to your mouth he’s never seen before.

Mando swallows, despite the sudden tightness in his throat.

He waits outside while the two of you change, sitting on a strange tufted seat pushed against the hallway’s bay window. It’s piled with an obnoxious amount of silken pillows—it seems the longer you’ve been with him, the more surfaces his beskar encounters that it never would have otherwise. A part of him is able to find the humor of that, despite the discomfort of feeling wildly out of place in your friend’s luxurious home. He settles with his legs slightly spread, back hunched to brace his elbows against the tops of his beskar-clad thighs.

After about thirty minutes, a woman comes down the hall, absentmindedly cleaning a pair of large-framed glasses with the corner of her sweater, a thick, leather-bound book tucked under one arm. She looks as out of place in this hallway as he does—more like a Galactic librarian than a resident of an apartment like this. She puts her glasses back on and stops in her tracks once she sees him.

“Who are you?”

Mando clears his throat. “A friend of Febhana’s.”

“No you’re not.”

“Yes, I am--well. A friend of a friend.”

Her eyes narrow quizzically. “I’ve been married to that woman for five years now. I think I would know if she had a Mandalorian as a ‘friend of a friend.’”

As if on cue, Febhana emerges from the beaded curtain suspended over the entrance of her dressing room, barefoot and wearing a blue gown. She pads over to the woman, something bulky tucked under one arm, the other carrying the child in a sleeping bundle. Febhana places him in her wife’s arms delicately. “Lovely, we’re just getting ready for the party. Don’t mind her play-thing,” she tilts her head towards Mando without directly looking at him. “He’s just here for decoration.”

Mando physically bites his tongue.

Febhana’s wife glances at Mando, before leaning up to gently kiss Febhana. “Alright, I’ll be in the study. Wake me when you get back.”

Febhana cups her wife’s face gently. It’s such an intimate gesture that Mando looks away, feeling as though his presence alone is an interruption. The couple talks quietly for a moment, then her wife exits through the same door she came in from.

“Here is the guard’s uniform. The measurements should be right,” Febhana stands in front of Mando, handing him folded pieces of dark fabric, and then a helm. It’s two halves of a black metal shell meant to fit and tighten over the face of a droid. There’s a thick pane of darkened glass cutting through the middle of the mask, presumably to not disrupt a droid’s sensors but it will render Mando’s absolutely useless. This night just keeps getting better and better.

The whole thing is not something Mando has ever seen before, though he was never one to frequent circles like Febhana’s. The only distinguishable features are symmetrical dips cutting severe cheekbones into the object’s silhouette. Two fixed pieces of gilded metal form a swooping triangle that hovers just over where his nose will be under the helmet’s featureless surface. Looping, thin chains dripping from the decorative structure to partially conceal the mask’s lower half. When he holds it up in the low light of the hallway, their movement creates glinting waves of light.

All of it is purely flare, for the most part. At least the tailor made plenty room for armor beneath the--as Febhana put it--glorified curtains usually meant to conceal a droid. He heaves a sigh, taking the uniform from her. “This is the only option?”

Febhana shrugs. “Unless you want me and your girl going in by ourselves and trying to lure him out to you--which is certainly an option--yes.”

“She isn’t ‘my girl.’”

“Oh, trust me,” her smile is biting. “I know that.” She tilts her head towards the dressing room. “C’mon, the pretty one is almost done. You can use my room to change.”

When he enters, you’re seated at Febhana’s vanity. All the air is sucked out of his lungs.

The dress is really nothing more than a series of gauze-like drapes that spill from your body and pool onto the floor. The expanse of your back is completely exposed, the dress only resuming to cover you right above the base of your spine. One long piece of fabric serves as the illusion of sleeves, cinched at the swooping neckline by delicate, medallion-like embellishments that rest at the dip of both shoulders. The sleeves’ near-transparent fabric are fixed to ovular gold rings you have on the middle fingers of both hands.

Mando watches the fabric shift over the bend of your arm as you use said finger to swipe a little pigment on your lips. It glistens in the mirror he looks at you through. In that initial moment of deep focus, you have the severe look of a high official’s wife. Utterly untouchable. The most beautiful creature he’s ever witnessed.

His entrance breaks your concentration, you smile up at him, warmly, through the mirror.

“I’m almost done,” your voice breaks him from his stupor. Your other hand dips a small brush into a pot of powder. You dab it under your eyes and then stand, going to a crystalline bar cart and spraying some kind of perfume on your neck.

Febhana steps into the room behind him. After a moment Mando finds his voice.

“And you said she isn’t supposed to be the honeypot?” It’s hard to keep the pain out of his voice as he says it. At this point it’s like the two of you are actively trying to kill him.

Febhana laughs, and the smile you give him is expansive yet strangely private at the same time. As if you and him were in on some secret, some inside joke. You cross the room and pat him lightly on the shoulder twice, before moving him aside in order to link arms with Febhana.

The two of you leave the room, picking up whatever conversation you were having before Febhana left to give Mando his things. He stands there until his heartbeat steadies, then moves behind the wooden room partition to put the uniform on.

It’s going to be a long night.

a/n: mando, babes, u don’t even know the half of it

jokes aside i am so excited for the next chapter you guys have no idea how much fun this is to write !! love a good ol’ fancy party w a bunch of degenerates.

tag list: @im-the-nerdiest-of-them-a11 @walkingthegrounds @roseallisonparker @kaitlyn2907 @dinsbeskar

please let me know if you would like to be added/removed!

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x you #din djarin #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #din and grogu #mandalorian and grogu #grogu #reader insert #i'll be here in the morning #i'll be here in the morning ch.3 #fanfic #star wars fanfiction

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whats-rambled-rambled · 4 years ago

Text

Long Nights - part 4

Neil x Reader

Chapter 4: World gone mad

(see chapter 3, 2, 1)

summary: inverted heist calls for inverted training

warnings: 18+, explicit language, gun mention, crackheadery, and possible whiplash

author’s note: Hi, yes, I know, took me ages, but hey, I hope it's worth the wait! 5.2k words, how even--

Anyway.

The song for this part is Bastille - World Gone Mad

Enjoy! All feedback is greatly appreciated, let me know what you think?

——————

Tag list: @cxnnienikas @neutron-stars-collision @ergunbilge @invertedneil @wanderedaway @mellifluous-cosmos @wonderwoman292 @buckysgoldenheart @townmoondaltwistle @theriverbeneaththeriver (please let me know if you want to be added/removed from the list)

-----

The fact that you knew how to handle guns wasn’t equal to you being very good at it. Or enjoying it, for that matter. Sure, you could more or less hit the target, especially with some useful tips you got from Neil regarding a trigger finger discipline, but still - you’d rather avoid reaching for a pistol altogether.

You put back the weapon you’d been training with and Neil handed you another one. You couldn’t really tell the difference, at least until you checked the magazine. The lack of ammo meant you finally got to the fun bit that Neil teased in The Protagonist’s office and you smiled, looking back at your companion. He grinned at you, the gaze sparkling behind yellow-tinted safety glasses as he pointed at the wall next to the targets you used for practice.

“Just aim and pull the trigger. ” Seeing your nod, he added, “Okay now, be careful, it might feel--”

The bullet whizzed back into the chamber of your pistol and your eyes widened.

“Oh fuck me sideways,” you hissed under your breath.

“-- a bit weird, yeah.” Neil chuckled at the shock painted on your face. “All right?”

“Yeah, just processing.” Trying to blink the consternation away, you asked, “How do you make these? You put it into that...turnstile and voilà?”

Neil shook his head. “No, it’s not that simple. We receive a stash every now and then, we don’t know how to manufacture those,” - he smirked - “at least not yet. I do have a few theories I’m working on in my spare time, but...” hesitating for a moment, he raked a hand through his hair and sent you a nervous smile. “Wouldn’t want to bore you to death, though.”

“Dude, come on, with that smooth and soothing voice of yours? You could read the yellow pages to me and I’d still listen like that--” you mocked a dreamy heart-eyes expression, watching with satisfaction as that remark pushed Neil further into a flustered state.

Apparently, when explicit teasing got a little-to-no reaction now, you could still make him blush with a more wholesome compliment. As you started laughing, he rolled his eyes and scrunched the nose slightly, joining you with a stifled giggle. Grinning, you continued a little softer, “I’m not gonna lie - I probably wouldn’t understand a majority of the physics jargon, but I’d still want to hear all about that.”

A thankful look you got in return made your chest clench painfully, and your mind wandered off to those breaks near the river, and Neil’s animated rants. You knew one thing. Anyone who had ever ridiculed him for his passion for even the nerdiest things could rot in hell, and you’d gladly see to it personally.

A disgruntled huff coming from behind made you both snap out of the moment.

“Oi, lovebirds, I’d appreciate it if you could leave all that to after I prep you for the mission.”

Bottling down your annoyance, you batted your lashes at the commander, who’d just come back with keys to one of the conference rooms near the range.

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry, you have my full attention now.”

Ives nodded, waving at you to follow him. Meanwhile, Neil’s small smirk let you know that he noticed that faint undertone in your voice, but he said nothing, patiently waiting for the events to unfold.

Another person was waiting for you at the door. You recognized the woman who’d driven you to that abandoned factory on your very first day - you’d never gotten properly introduced, but you remember asking Neil about her once and he called her Wheeler. To be honest, with these guys you never knew if they used their real names, nicknames, codenames, or whatever. Not that you cared, quite used to it in your own line of business. You exchanged a court nod with her and went into the room.

As you sat down at the big table and Ives booted a projector, your eyes bore into the man. Definitely one of those types who enjoyed his beret and the paramilitary structure of the field branch of the organization. Probably a bit too much. You bit back a smug grin.

Those were particularly fun to mess with.

Ives caught your piercing stare and stopped the brief of the location.

“What?”

“Nothing,” you said, propping the chin on your palm, a polite smile on your lips. “It’s fascinating.”

He furrowed his brows, perplexed.

“What is?”

“How your commanding presence literally adds you inches,” you said, using all your willpower to keep a serious face. “I wonder if it works only for your height or--”

Neil’d futile attempts at masking an amused snort with a cough didn’t go unnoticed. Ives shot him daggers and then glared at you. “For fuck’s sake, would you focus?”

Your eyes flared up at the threat in his voice and you pouted, taunting him further.

“Or what, you’re gonna spank me?”

“No, I’m gonna shoot you,” he deadpanned.

You raised a brow.

“Kinky.”

Ives groaned, turning to Neil.

“How you survived this long without choking her is beyond me.”

Neil puffed his cheeks and gestured vaguely, but as he opened the mouth to answer, you chimed in, with a shit-eating grin plastered on your face.

“Oh, he very much did so, all right.”

The awkward silence that followed was pretty satisfying.

“Can we keep her?” asked Wheeler casually, leaned back in her chair, fiddling with a bullpen.

Ives gaped at you all, then slumped his shoulders in defeat, sliding a hand through his features. He was so done you could almost hear The Sound of Silence playing in the distance, but apparently, his sense of duty was stronger than the urge to leave you without finishing the briefing, so he just drew a deep breath and continued.

“...anyway…”

You caught Neil’s glance and you couldn’t help but poke the tip of your tongue out at him. The mischievous sparks in his eyes reflected your own as he shook his head, tugging the bottom lip between the teeth. Wheeler’s curious gaze flitted between you two, and as you didn’t feel like drawing too much unnecessary attention to yourself anymore, you focused on the plan that Ives was persistently going through.

Time frames. Blueprints. Entry points. Exit routes (you spotted at least one additional way he left out, but you weren’t sure if you could drag Neil through there, judging by that alley performance, so you didn’t bother to mention it out loud). Everything seemed clear enough. You still had no idea how being inverted would affect the lockpicking, but when you voiced that, Ives promised you some time to figure it out before the mission.

The mission. Huh. It wasn’t that much different from your usual assignments - at least if you forgot about that tiny insignificant detail like moving backwards in time - but something in this paramilitary and/or espionage vibe made your heart beat faster with excitement.

It had been quite a long time since you had company at the job. Working alone had its perks, but you wouldn’t mind a trusted partner in crime having your six for a change.

Another thing that you certainly wouldn’t mind - seeing Neil in tactical gear. Not that either of you would need one, but the image got planted in your head and suddenly you wished you’d had a bottle of water.

You realized that everyone was looking at you expectantly. Shit, was there a question or…?

“I’m good,” you said, shooting in the dark, hoping that would be enough to cover your distracted ass.

Ives squinted, but fortunately, that was an acceptable answer.

“Well, as you two can proceed straight from here - Wheeler, they’re all yours.’

“Okay,” - she smiled and stood up - “we don’t have any turnstiles on-site, but there’s one in the base outside the city, I’ll talk you through the basics on the way.”

So that little daydream cost you a chance to come back home to prepare? Grand. The problem was - you needed your heavy-duty tools, but you’d rather eat rocks than back away in front of Ives. Luckily, he called on Neil to wait for a moment, so that was your chance.

“Umm, Wheeler?” you asked quietly, following her outside.

She glanced at you curiously.

“What’s up?”

“I know I said I’m good, but could we stop by my apartment for a second, please?” An awkward grimace ran through your face. “I gotta pick up my tools. You know, just in case.”

She wasn’t surprised by your request. Moreover, she sent you a knowing smile.

“Sure thing,” she said and winked, and then it was your turn to present a slightly flushed face. “I’ve got you.”

----

You didn’t know what to expect from the whole inversion process.

The first time your brain stuttered was when Wheeler pointed at something she called the proving window, just in time for you to see the three of you coming out on the other side. You caught inverted-you glancing back at your present self; the schooled expression, but with the gaze shining with anticipation.

The second time was when it was you on the other side, looking at your wide-eyed past self. Feeling the incoming headache, you took a deep breath and followed Wheeler and Neil to the stand with oxygen masks.

“How are you feeling?” asked Neil, handing you the equipment.

“Weirdly normal.” You shrugged. “Or maybe not more backwards than usual, if that makes any sense.”

He smiled lightly.

“It’s the airlock. When you see the outside, you’ll get a whole new perspective.”

Wheeler nodded. “What he said. And to recap: you’re inverted, the world is not - all forces will be pushing back on you. Besides gravity.” She double-checked the oxygen bottle secured to your belt. “Just mind things that might be rising instead of falling.”

You furrowed the brows.

“Wait, didn’t Ives mention the rain?”

Neil smirked from behind the mask.

“Afraid of getting wet?”

“Never.” You grinned, meeting the sparkling blue eyes. “Should know that by now.”

Wheeler snorted and shook her head, walking to the panel near the exit.

“You’ll have plenty of time to finish the job before you move far enough to catch up on that. Although, if you ever find yourself in the inverted rain, here’s a tip: pop your collar.”

“Why would you--” Oh. The sole thought of the water going up from the ground to the sky made you nauseous. You swallowed with effort, leveling your breath in the mask. “...right.”

Wheeler opened the door and you almost gasped at the view. The golden rays of sunset (...or was it technically a sunrise now?) flickered on the training grounds’ equipment as the sky painted the scarce pools of muddy water with greyish violets and reddening oranges. Leaves shuffled in the wind, their dance almost satirical with that inverted spin.

Wheeler’s voice stopped your mind from wandering further into the landscape.

“Okay, ready? Ives asked me to remind you not to try any cowboy shit, you need to be in one piece at the end of the training.”

“Yes ma’am,” you mocked a salute and stepped outside, stretching your limbs, readjusting to the reality being slightly off. Neil stood right beside you watching you warming up, ready to take you to the obstacles section.

But as soon as the airlock’s doors closed behind you, you spun around, tapping his shoulder - “Tag, you’re it!” - and without waiting for his reaction, you leaped towards the assault course.

Surely that turned out overly optimistic. You counted on the element of surprise and a head start, but Neil had an experience with running while being inverted, while you… well. You tried.

“B+ for effort,” laughed Neil, catching up on you even before you reached the first obstacle and tapping you back. “But you can do better than that.”

“Just you wait!” you retorted and vaulted over a low hurdle, the mild confusion caused by the dumbfounded senses slowly eased up as you tuned out the brain and let the muscle memory guide your movements. Because hey, in the end? Yes, the natural forces were acting up against you. Yes, Neil had years of inverted training behind him. But you’d been challenging different obstacles your whole life, and courses like this one were your favourite playgrounds.

You caught on him by the next wall, playing dirty and tugging at his leg, pulling him down before he could jump to the other side. The exasperated huff he gave you in protest got lost in the squelch of mud under your feet, the sound more like a suction instead of the much-expected splash. Shuddering with disgust at such abomination, you rushed to the set of monkey bars, hearing Neil following up closely. You gritted your teeth, swinging your body to help yourself get through the part, and that’s when you felt a light tap on your foot.

You glared to your left, where Neil was gaining an advantage over you.

“Damn you and your infinite legs, man! It doesn’t count!”

“Losing looks good on you,” he said, landing and then instantly ducking under your reached out hand.

“Too bad it’s not gonna stick,” you scoffed as you ran after him to jump on one of the parallel logs. Balancing was easy enough, even with inversion; it gave you the perfect opportunity to plan ahead, while Neil had to maintain full focus. “Must say - all that sass definitely makes you like... ten percent hotter.”

But you’d taught him well, apparently, and instead of losing his pace, he only shot you a quick glance accompanied by an arched brow.

“Only ten?”

“Dunno, come over here and let me take a closer look,” you teased, getting a short chuckle in response. “No?” - you sighed - “Alrighty then.” And you leaped to the side straight into Neil, pushing him off the log. He yelped and grabbed you by the shirt, the momentum sending you both straight into the mud. You landed on top of Neil, collapsing into his arms for a moment to catch a breath and to stop laughing.

You leaned back to look him in the eyes.

“Okay, maaaybe fifteen,” you panted, booping his mask as you would do to his nose.

Neil snickered and nodded.

“I’ll take it.”

When your gazes met, his features softened, and he tucked a strand of hair behind your ear gently. You smiled behind the mask and sat up, straddling his waist. Neil was studying you closely, his hands grazed your sides and rested on your hips. Nibbling at your bottom lip, you leaned over him again and slowly reached out, and--

“Simba…” you choked out with reverence, brushing a muddy thumb across his forehead.

Tears from the held-back laughter threatened to spill any second as you observed Neil blanking out in utter confusion. The five stages of grief ran through his expression and then he closed his eyes and sighed theatrically.

“The fate of the world is in the hands of a complete madwoman.”

...the what now?

You tilted your head, grinning.

“Aren’t you a little dramatic?”

Then, without a warning, Neil shifted under you, rolling you off him and pinning you down.

“Birds of a feather and all that,” he said, clearly enjoying the way you squealed and squirmed as the mud got under your shirt. “You think you got a hang of the inverted movement already?”

“I don’t know,” you shrugged. Neil realized your intentions a second too late. A handful of mud splashed on his face and you chuckled with satisfaction. “Yeah, now I think I’m ready to go.”

You turned up at the airlock soon after, looking like something that cat dragged in, but beaming widely. Dreaming of a hot shower and a clean set of clothes, you put down the mask and the oxygen container and headed to the turnstile.

Wheeler was waiting for you near the machine, and seeing the state you were in, she just gaped at you both, trying to come up with an adequate question.

As you noticed her quizzical look, you gave her a thumbs up and smiled.

“If you ain't dirty, you ain't here to party! Wooo!” you whooped, throwing your hands up and trotting past her straight into the turnstile.

Right before reverting yourself back to your original state, you heard Wheeler’s hushed question.

“You two all right?”

And then Neil’s answer.

“Don’t worry, we’re good.”

--------

The truck’s engine hummed steadily, which could only mean you were on some sort of highway. At least the container stopped wobbling, so you could practice in peace.

No wobbles meant no excuses, though. You sighed, readjusting your grip on the tools.

Neil had fallen asleep some time ago, after making sure you figured out the locks and hearing your solemn promise that you would follow him soon.

One day after that eventful night, then inverting and going straight back without proper sleep. You knew he was right and you needed at least a nap. But you couldn’t. Not before you were absolutely sure you got it. The usual locks weren’t that bad. The inverted ones were a whole other story.

It’d taken you long enough to crack them in the safety of your own apartment, without the weird physics, ever-present even within the air-locked container. Without the pressure.

The fate of the world.

What the fuck was that supposed to mean?

You didn’t even know what was that thing you were supposed to retrieve soon. It was okay, you didn’t need to. It was a quite common situation in your work history. That kind of knowledge could be dangerous, after all.

The pin clicked and you sighed again, squeezing your eyes shut to stop the burning sensation even for a moment.

Besides, you were doing it for Neil. The memory of that panicked look on his face when he’d seen the documents was enough to keep you going.

But did he have to say that?

You had to do it. Not only because you felt responsible for him, in a way. What you’d told the boss was true and you weren’t the only one at fault for Neil not being fully ready for that assignment. He was your friend, wasn’t he? And there was no way you’d leave a friend in need.

You pressed your lips together, forcing yourself to breathe.

Probably a stupid joke, nothing more.

But what if he was being serious? What if that thing out there was really that important? And you were about to fuck everything up because you couldn’t get your shit together fast enough to figure out the bloody inverted mechanism again. And with every minute wasted and not spent on resting there was a higher chance of messing up at the actual location.

Hell of a locksmith you were, huh?

The feedback from the tools came with a final warning like a sobering slap. If you were to continue, they would snap any second now.

You let out a shaky breath and retraced from the lock, hiding your face in the palms.

A gentle touch on your shoulder almost made you flinch. Of course, he had to wake up in the middle of your breakdown.

“Go back to sleep, we still have a few hours left,” you muttered into your hands, trying to collect yourself.

“Not before you talk to me,” said Neil as his fingers slid down your arm. He was crouching right beside you, the blue eyes boring into you with concern. “What is it?”

You sighed and shifted in your seat to face him.

“Wanna make sure I got it, that’s all.”

Neil’s brows knitted together.

“But I saw you open that lock once, why--”

“Once! And that’s exactly the problem!” you fumed and glared at the table. “I can’t crack it again, I--” your voice wavered and you gritted the teeth in frustration. “What if it was a stroke of dumb luck? Should I start praying for another one to happen there?”

Another delicate touch, this time on your knees, was enough to make you look back at Neil. A shade of smile tainted his lips as he searched your gaze.

“Someone used to tell me all the time that if you did it once, you can do it again.”

You hung your head and huffed, “Maybe that someone was full of shit.’

“I know for a fact that she wasn’t,” he chuckled, taking the tools out of your clenched fists and putting them back at the table. “She was utterly brilliant,” he continued, reaching for your cramping, trembling hands and taking them in his, ”and always reminded me to take a break instead of agonizing over a stubborn lock.”

That you did, all right. Your laugh sounded awfully close to a sob. God, if you weren’t exhausted.

Mustering enough strength to look him in the eyes, you squeezed his hands, trying to convey all the gratitude in the gesture. And hide that bit of embarrassment, too.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he said and his thumbs brushed over your knuckles. “Scoot over.”

You moved back on the provisional bench, making enough space for him to sit next to you. And so he did, not letting go of your hands even for a second. He started rubbing small circles into them and you grunted softly. Neil gave you a knowing smile and soon enough, his fingers glided between your forearms and fingertips, applying pressure to the tensest places, careful strokes and precise moves bringing a much-needed release. You couldn’t help small groans escaping your mouth, every one of them adding to the self-satisfied grin hiding in the corner of Neil’s mouth. But then, instead of teasing you, his features softened and you caught his glance, warm and sheepish.

“I don’t think I properly thanked you for offering to help me with this mission.”

“I couldn’t let you have all the fun,” you laughed and winced as Neil’s thumbs worked on your wrists. “Don’t thank me yet, we still need to pull it off first.”

“Well, maybe we already have, from the typical point of view,” - he pondered, lighting up - “seeing that we are moving back--”

“Neil, please, I’m all for discussing it later, but right now it’s about to give me a pounding headache.”

When you met his eyes, you noted with relief that he didn’t mind you cutting him off like that. He knew that you were tired, nothing more.

“Right, sorry.” Then he looked at you with determination, suddenly serious. “Whatever happens… thank you. It means a lot.”

“Of course,” you said quietly as your heart ached with unexpected fondness.

Neil smiled, shaking off the sentimental moment. His hands cupped yours and gave them a light squeeze.

“Now would you please get some rest?”

“Will you tuck me in?” you grinned and batted your lashes at him, earning an amused snort in return.

“I can even sing you a lullaby if that means you’ll fall asleep faster,” he said, standing up and tugging at your hand.

“Ah, I’m afraid I’m gonna crash too fast to properly appreciate it,” you giggled as he kited you all the way to the resting area at the front of the container. “But I’m definitely taking a rain check on that.”

“Sure.” One final brush of his thumb over your fingers and he let go of your hand, smirking. “Now sleep, I’ll wake you up when we get there.”

-------

Neil proved to be an excellent companion.

You disabled the alarms simultaneously, paying attention to all the possible silent traps. Forcing the main locks went smoothly, almost surprisingly so. For having something of such importance hidden there, the owners of the place seemed strangely old-fashioned; it shone through the antique decor of the lofty apartment as well as the security choices. Too easy. Tuning out an intrusive thought rattling in the back of your head, you scouted the dark rooms, careful not to leave any traces of your presence.

There.

The office you saw in the photos.

...but they’d redecorated.

“That’s one fancy safe they got there,” you said nonchalantly, eyeing the ornament piece of metal lit by your flashlight, “Too bad it somehow got left out at the briefing.”

Neil’s face dropped when he followed you inside the room.

“Christ, and what now?”

Good question. You’d worked with safes before, hell, you’d cracked a fair share of them using simply manipulation. But never going bloody backwards in time. How would that even work? Was it normal or inverted?

Well, there was only one way to find out.

“I’ve got this.” And that’s how you felt, despite the initial panic. There was a method to it, and you had most of the things you needed with you. Perks of overpreparing. The only issue was-- ... “It might take a while, though.”

Neil nodded.

“Let me know if you need anything.”

“Keep an eye on the time for me, I gotta focus,” you said, reaching into your backpack and accidentally pulling on the thin tube. Right. “...and maybe on the oxygen levels as well?”

“Will do.”

Your brain switched into the challenge mode, and your fingers tingled to give it a try. Armed with a sound amplifier and a little notepad, you sat down next to the safe and got to work.

Figuring out your way in was meant to be a hit and miss, doubly so with the goddamn inversion. But minute after minute, click by click, you determined the first contact points, and the years of experience took you from there. You scribbled numbers and variations in the notepad, fully focused on the task. Almost there.

Another combination. Inhale. Exhale. Pull.

Gotcha.

“Neil?” you called out in the hushed voice as the beam from the flashlight landed on a small metal box of a peculiar shape.

He was next to you in no time.

“That’s it,” he said, kneeling down. He reached inside and took out the box, then carefully placed it inside his backpack. The blue eyes glimmered in the dim light. “Good job!”

“Thanks,” you smiled and closed the safe. “Now let’s get out of here.”

You gathered and packed all your stuff, double-checking for any leftover signs of your entry.

Then you heard it. A faint, slightly off patter against the huge windows. You froze in place as your mind tried to grasp the view of trickles of rain coming up the glass.

Neil glanced outside, not mindful of the absolutely bonkers scene that wiped any coherent thought from your head. Although judging from how quickly his face lost all the colours, the view he got was even more disturbing.

“Christ…” he uttered, shooting you a panicked look. “We’ve got company.”

You dashed to the window to see for yourself. A group of people was crossing the empty street, moving pretty much normally, and that only meant...

Fuck.

“The owners?”

Neil shook his head. “Impossible. The third party, probably.” With his hand already on the holster, he hesitated, considering the options.

But there were only two: fight or flight. The problem was - the numbers didn’t look good for you to try pushing through the crew downstairs. And as for the second one, your initial exit routes seemed to be cut off already.

Although, there was still one path left. You almost smiled to yourself. He was not going to like it.

“Let’s go through the roofs.”

Neil’s eyes widened. “Are you sure?” he asked, scanning your face for any sign of doubt.

There was none.

“Yes, but we have to leave right now.”

He swallowed with effort and nodded.

As soon as you bolted out of the apartment and rushed up the stairs, the footsteps coming from the lower levels quickened. Time was running out.

You were about to barge outside when Neil grabbed your hand as if he sensed what was going to happen next. The doors opened and you lost the momentum, startled by the view. Heavy showers replaced the drizzle you saw through the window, intensifying the nauseating effect.

The last strands of sanity threatened to leave you, but Neil’s touch was like an anchor, grounding you and keeping you from spiraling further.

“Which way?” he shouted through the hammering, almost deafening rain.

You blinked rapidly and looked around to match the data from the brief to the actual location.

“Over there!”

Wishing you’d had a goddamn collar to pop, you leaped to the side, guiding Neil through your only escape route. You let go of his hand to vault over the vents, and just as your feet touched the surface again, you heard distant yells behind you. Shit.

The high density of the area was working in your favor, but only for so long. There was meant to be a gap between the buildings sooner or later, and one of them was coming right up. The jump was doable, even for Neil - all you needed was speed and a decent launch.

But when your companion noticed the edge of the roof, he slowed down and stopped by a low parapet wall, cursing.

“No fucking way!”

“Yes fucking way, Neil, come on! We don’t have time!” you urged him as the voices behind you grew louder.

He swallowed with effort, too transfixed on the gap. You bit back an impatient groan and grabbed him by the shoulders, forcing him to look at you.

“Neil, listen to me. You can do this. All you need is a run-up.”

He didn’t seem convinced. You gritted your teeth, trying to keep your own rising panic in check.

“Do you trust me? Yes or no?”

He met your eyes and his features hardened. There.

“I do.”

And when you opened the mouth again, the first bullet whizzed past you. You flinched, but maintained the eye contact, afraid to lose Neil’s newfound confidence. “Then go first, I’m right behind you.”

Neil nodded and backed away quickly. Watching him jump, your heart skipped a beat, but he landed on the other side without too much trouble. Good. Your turn.

You dashed towards the rim and another bullet missed your legs by a hair’s breadth, hitting the parapet wall right ahead of you. A little close to the top, as you noted, jumping on it to leap across the gap.

But the realization came a moment too late. The wall crumbled under your feet.

Enough for you to not make it to the other side.

Someone screamed.

Was it you?

It didn’t matter.

The world dissolved in a flash of agonizing pain.

And darkness.

----

Static beeping. The smell of disinfectants. And your every particle throbbing in dull pain.

Somebody was having a quiet conversation nearby. The Protagonist… and Neil?

A wave of relief flooded over you. He’d made it.

Grunting, you opened your eyes and squinted, waiting for your sight to readjust to the poor light. Weird. Why would they keep you in such a pitch-black room?

“Gents?” you called out, carefully shifting upwards, wincing. “Would you mind getting the lights?”

The conversation stopped and you heard a gasp.

“Lights? But it’s the middle of the day?” said The Protagonist, but Neil cut him off.

“You’re awake!” Footsteps and a sudden touch on your hand. Neil’s voice trembled slightly, as well as his fingers. “Are you okay?”

You bored into darkness, hoping to see the familiar face.

To see anything.

To see.

(next chapter ->)

#neil tenet #neil tenet x reader #neil x reader #tenet #robert pattinson #neil tenet fanfiction #tenet fanfiction #neil tenet imagine #the protagonist tenet #ives tenet #wheeler tenet #long nights

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emilyoftheshadows · 4 years ago

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Person A catches a bus home everyday, but today, they're so exhausted that they fall asleep, suddely they feel a light tap on their shoulder and open their eyes to see a cute guy/gal/person smiling at them. "Sorry to wake you, bit this is your stop, i hope you slept well"

So, this is the first piece I have written and posted here! This is a fluffy drabble loosely based on the prompt above as well as some tik tok ideas i've seen. I hope you enjoy and don't judge too hard :)

~~~~~~

Aelin never knew that she could feel such a wide range of emotions in such a short amount of time. The hectic events she had endured earlier in her day had left her drained and in dire need of sleep.

She started out her mornings as usual - brewing her coffee with the help of an overly excited Fleetfoot. On the subway ride to work, coffee in hand, she explicitly remembered checking her emails for any important notices regarding her job. As an advertising agent, she dealt with multiple clients at one time. With her meticulously organized calendar and the help of her overworked assistant Marion, she was usually able to keep everything in check. Today was not one of those days.

As she entered her office, Marion greeted her with her tablet in hand- Aelin’s schedule color coded, labeled and sorted by hour.

“Good morning Ms. Galathynius, ready to hear your schedule for today?” Aelin nodded, sipping her coffee as Marion listed her client meetings for the upcoming day. As they entered her office, Aelin paused.

“Marion, could you please repeat that first meeting again?”

“The Havilliard Scotch pitch at 12?” And that was when Aelin knew she was fucked. This pitch was meant for a well known drinking company in New York, fast on the come up. Havilliard Sr. was known to be picky about his branding, scrutinizing most agencies that had helped him before. She had barely gotten this client, practically begging Nehemia for the job. As she worked the branding, she had become worried about the content she was producing.

She was so worried about this pitch, that she had taken her laptop home last night in hopes of triple checking her work for mistakes and to fine tune some details. And that's where her laptop was at that moment. At her apartment, across town, sitting on her desk, collecting dust. Her mind raced at how to solve her predicament. The subway ride to and from her apartment was too long of a trip to make before the meeting and, like an amateur, she hadn’t saved her files anywhere else but her laptop. She was completely fucked.

Marion stood in the doorway, confused on what was going on in Aelin’s head. Aelin decided to finally release herself from her stupor. “Marion, could you please go find Aedion for me? And tell him it’s an emergency.”

With a determined look on her face, her assistant went as fast as her short legs could carry her to Aedion’s office on the adjacent part of the building floor she was on. Within minutes, Aedion was standing at her door, panting like he had just sprinted the fastest race of his life. The good thing about having her overbearing cousin work with her, is that she knew that in any problem he would help in an instant. And this was one hell of a fucking problem.

“What happened Aelin? Are you okay? Were you hurt? Do you need an ambulance?”

“You idiot I am physically fine, but still screwed and I need your help.” Aedion released the first breath Aelin had seen him take since entering her office.

“You know, when Marion power walked into my office saying you had an EMERGENCY and she didn’t know what was wrong with you, I definitely thought you would be passed out on your floor with blood on your face. But, you know, thanks for the heart attack. Really woke me up this morning.”

Aelin rolled her eyes at him. He was more dramatic than her, and that spoke volumes in itself.

“Aedion, please it really is an emergency. I have the big pitch for the Havilliard Scotch today and I left my laptop with the presentation at my apartment.” Aedion’s eyes widened in surprise. He knew that Aelin had been obsessed about this pitch and that mistakes like this only happened to her once in a blue moon. Aelin saw understanding dawn on his face and took that as a sign to continue.

“Now, I know a while back I sent you the rough drafts of the branding from when I first got the pitch. Is there any chance that you have the email or presentation saved still? If I have the basis of the presentation, I have an hour to build on it and hopefully fix this.”

Aedion’s face fell at the request. “We can go look, but you know I’m not the best at organizing my files Ace. It could be anywhere on my computer or not at all.” With those reaffirming words, Aelin and Aedion walked at a brisk pace back to his office. Combing through Aedion’s computer was an agonizing process. There were files saved from years ago that should’ve been deleted, and backtracking through all the contents of his computer made Aelin want to stab her eyes out. But it was all worth it, because hidden in the depths of this man’s terribly organized computer was the presentation. With a quick click of a button, she emailed the document to herself. She gave a half ass hug to Aedion, then practically ran to her office to start reworking her pitch on the computer there.

Aelin believed it was pure adrenaline that enabled her to finish her pitch in time for the Havilliard meeting. With a strong foundation laid out before her from her first draft, she had constructed almost her exact pitch that was left at home. Aelin waited for the Havilliards in the boardroom, smoothing out her clothes as she paced at the front. Far too soon, Marion escorted Havilliard Sr., Dorian Havilliard, and their close friend and partner Chaol Westfall into the room for her presentation. The three men had sat down in silence with no introduction, except for a small encouraging smile from the younger Havilliard. Taking that as her sign to start, Aelin cleared her throat.

“Hello gentlemen, today I want to present to you the future of Havilliard Scotch…”

---

As the men had exited the room single file, Aelin finally allowed herself to relax. That had felt like the longest pitch of her life. Going into the meeting, she had known the men were notorious for being extremely serious and critical of their agents. What she had not expected was the whispered words between the men after she had finished her presentation. As she looked on, Dorian Havilliard had finally broken away from their circle to address her.

“Miss Galathynius, thank you for your time. We will get back to you shortly about our decision to run with this branding or not.” With a quick nod and gesture to his companions, the trio had stood up and left the room. She was utterly shocked. Aelin had poured her sweat and tears into this pitch, quite literally, and they had just thanked her and left. No critiques, no opinions, no nothing.

Quite honestly, Aelin was exhausted. She had spent most of her brain power reworking that pitch in that 45 minutes before that meeting and she had nothing left to give today. Yet, she still had a full schedule left to woo clients and work on her other projects. By the time Aelin trudged back to the subway, she was ready for a nice dinner at home followed by a restorative night of sleep with Fleetfoot at her side.

Now, as she entered the subway, she immediately noticed the mystery man sitting down a few feet away from her. The man was moderately built, with muscles that were outlined by the fabric of his long sleeve t-shirt. His style was simple with a pair of nice jeans and Doc Marten boots, but that just allowed one's focus to settle on the beautiful creation that was his face. Mystery man had a strong jawline, lined with a bit of stubble and scruff. His eyes were a beautiful shade of green like none that she had seen before, his head topped with luscious silver hair. As the subway started, Mystery Man continued to sketch drawings into his book. Now, Aelin was never one to back down from an opportunity to flirt with one of the most attractive men she had ever seen. She was a single woman in a big city, why the hell not. But her day had taken a toll on her, and she just didn’t know if this was the right time or place. So, she opted to put in her headphones as she waited for her stop, listening to relaxing music to calm her anxieties regarding the failed Havilliard pitch.

Seeing that her stop was next, Aelin rose from her seat to wait in line for the doors to open. As she waited, she felt a light tap on her shoulder. Low and behold, there was the Mystery Man standing next to her with a piece of paper in hand. As she pulled her headphone out, the man silently handed her the paper. Looking down, she saw a pencil sketch of herself on the subway. The drawing was beautifully done with bold lines and harsh shading, contrasted by highlights created from the fluorescent lights of the subway. Her eyes welled up, immediately grateful for this thoughtful gift after such a horrible day. The Mystery Man saw her emotions, startled to see tears welling up in her eyes.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude on your privacy. I just… I like to draw and when I saw you… I mean, it’s just you’re so stunning..” The man’s face flushed red as he tried to justify his beautiful art. Aelin laughed out loud for the first time today at his misunderstanding of her swell of emotions.

“Oh no, these are just tears of..uhmm.. happiness? I guess…” She started to flush at her own awkwardness, trying to explain her emotions this time.

“I just had a really rough day and feel like shit. But this drawing is beautiful and I really am grateful that such a talented artist like yourself chose me as your muse today.” Aelin watched as the Mystery Man reacted to such a lavish compliment, somehow developing an even deeper blush with a shy smile . Gaining confidence from his reaction, she decided to make her move before she exited for her upcoming stop.

“Hey, Mystery Man, why don’t I give you my number? Seeing that I am your muse and all, I would really like to learn more about your art.” It was a subpar pickup line at best, but hey, she had a long day and for the circumstance she thought it good enough. The man gave a deep timbered laugh at her pickup line, clearly enjoying their conversation now.

“I think I might be one step ahead of you actually. Flip the drawing over.” As she flipped the paper, she saw a messy scrawl with the name Rowan, and what she could only assume was his number. The sight of these two things brought her complete giddiness. Giddiness that made you want to jump in the air and pump your fist because you're so excited. She looked up at Rowan, smirking as she tucked the piece of paper into her purse.

As the subway doors opened and they were pushed apart by bypassers, she turned around one last time to look at the man who had brightened her day beyond belief. She winked at Rowan as she walked away, not missing the wide smile he gave in return as the subway doors closed and continued on to the next stop.

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dragonheart-swtor · 4 years ago

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Imperial Agent Storyline: Drunk History Version

Since people really seemed to like the last one! Y’all’s collective wish is my command. Spoilers for the Imperial Agent storyline, obviously. Enjoy!

- so you start out with your agent on Hutta, a little polluted slimeball of a world that literally everyone but the Hutts canonically hates. there's lore but we're going to ignore it. the important thing is that you're here to con a Hutt, always a dangerous gambit, into working with/for the Empire.

- you sneak into a corner to space facetime your boss, a guy we only ever know as Keeper because Intelligence is weird about names. sneaking into corners to facetime people is a repeating theme throughout the story.

- you are informed that you've already got a cover story set up, and you'll be posing as an infamous pirate called the Red Blade who'll be able to get in close to the Hutt in question, whose name I've forgotten. Nethro or Nefro or something.

- "wait, what about the actual Red Blade," you ask your boss, probably

- "he's halfway across the galaxy, you don't need to worry about him," your boss replies, in a textbook example of what we in the writing business call “foreshadowing”

- (spoiler alert: you need to worry about him)

- but we won't worry about that for now. bada bing bada boom, you stroll on into the Hutt's place. you are immediately confronted by a guy who, shock and horror, actually knows the real Red Blade and knows you ain't him. (one would think that all-seeing Intelligence would have known about him, but nuance.) this is a problem for a number of obvious reasons.

- your options are as follows: bribe him, kill him, or sleep with him. (this is also something of a recurring theme throughout the story.) whatever option you take, he's dealt with. (yes, this is the man eris fucked five minutes into her storyline.)

- (I didn’t want to pay him money, leave me alone.)

- anyway, the mission progresses smoothly. meet the Hutt, do some jobs for the Hutt, betray the Hutt's right hand and stab him in the back right after convincing him you were friends, invade the Hutt's rival's palace, McMurder the Hutt's rival, you know. your average day at the office

- most of the way through, the Hutt's other right hand starts to be suspicious about you. this is Kaliyo Djannis, and she will be Plot Relevant™.

- by which I mean she shortly thereafter walks in on you facetiming your boss and gets hired by Intelligence to help out for gods know what reason. welcome to your first companion

- (or possibly you walk in on her facetiming your boss in your room, I.. don't remember, honestly. something like that.)

- anyway one Hutt is dead the other is working with us bada bing bada boom this is going great and hey remember when I said you needed to worry about that guy you're impersonating this whole time? yeah, about that,

- so the real actual Red Blade comes sailing in to Hutta and Intelligence immediately calls you up like "hey, hate to bother you, but your cover's about to get blown in a big way and we need you to murder the guy whose identity you've stolen before he can expose you.”

- "so, just like that training mission last week. gotcha, boss, no problem."

- murder time™

- congration you done it! go home to Dromund Kaas.

- "You're on Imperial soil now, agent. Welcome home." [nonhuman Agent immediately experiences 27492738957 microaggressions] (this joke isn’t mine, for the record)

- first off, Intelligence HQ has a bomb aesthetic, as does the entire Empire in general

- second off, you do walk in on your boss talking to - by which I mean "being given a speech by" - a Dark Lord, which is less than optimal for a number of reasons, first and foremost that speeches by Dark Lords of the Sith quite often immediately precede someone getting killed

- said Dark Lord is one Darth Jadus, who will proceed to be a thorn in your side for approximately the next three hours of gameplay

- (don't worry, after that three hours you'll get a worse thorn)

- Darth Jadus decides he likes you and declares you "his" agent, which you immediately get the gist is about the worst thing that can happen to an Intelligence agent from the way everyone around you treats you like you've just had a ticking bomb strapped to your back for the rest of this meeting

- you're sent on a handful of missions, including one to the Dark Temple which, you know, Force-deaf people aren't supposed to be in, but Jadus Does Not Care

- Jadus calls you into his office at one point and tells you he's going to do some ritual to bind you to his service or something, it's not really clear, but it's clearly Not Optional and also terrifying in concept

- now, quick sidebar. there are basically two paths to take here: one where you suck up to the Sith and treat them with the utmost care and respect and fear like you're kind of supposed to, and one where you mouth off at every opportunity. Eris is mortally terrified of Sith, so she just kind of.. submitted knowing she was going to die if she didn't.

- my second run, however, was just a "hey how bad can I fuck this up" character because I already knew the story.

- I decided to mouth off to Jadus at every opportunity, including adamantly refusing this ritual.

- "What can he do to me?" I asked the person I was playing with. "I'm the protagonist! It's not like he can kill me!"

- Jadus: *kills me*

- me:

- (mechanically, anyway; story-wise I'm sure he just. put her on the brink of death. but mechanically speaking he literally actually did kill my toon)

- (this should be a warning for exactly how much this storyline is willing to put its usually-heavily-plot-armored protagonist through.)

- anyway.

- do some missions, blah blah blah, Sith possession in the Dark Temple, blah blah blah, you know the drill

- well, turns out Jadus is going on tour with several hundred Imperial civilians, military, and Sith, allegedly all hand chosen, to share his ~vision for the Empire~. that's all well and good, whatever I gue-

- sorry what do you mean his ship exploded

- what do you mean a member of the Dark Council just blew up in orbit

- cue Kill Bill sirens

- Panic! At The Intelligence HQ

- this throws everything into chaos; not only was Jadus more directly involved in Intelligence, but he was a Dark Councilor so now there's a massive power vacuum

- the Sith who ends up filling this power vacuum? Jadus's daughter, Darth Zhorrid.

- remember when I said you'd have a bigger thorn in your side after Jadus?

- so yeah. so Zhorrid is, for lack of a better word, fucking terrifying

- she's sadistic and completely careless of others' lives or wellbeing and oh yeah she also instantly latches onto you even harder than her father did and demands you find his killer

- a lot of your meetings with her aren't really plot-relevant so I'll sum them all up here:

- Zhorrid was horribly abused by Jadus, completely broken. She tells you a story about how she used to sing, and her father hired a tutor, then had her sing at a Kaas City performance until her throat was so damaged she could never sing again. He tore every scrap of joy out of her life, completely failed to teach her what she needed to know to survive the rigors of the Dark Council, and instilled every ounce of hatred, sadism, and complete lack of pity he could in her.

- She kills people for no reason other than a whim, because she was listening to a Sith opera and the aria was "very moving" (an actual literal thing that happens).

- She acts like a complete spoiled brat child. At one point the other Dark Councilors literally beat and torture her, presumably for this reason because she's insufferable and arrogant and way out of her depth, and she cries to you about it

- If you’re like me, your response to all this is basically “cool motive, still murder”

- I have sidetracked very hard. where was I

- so you spend a while trying to hunt down the people who blew up Jadus's ship. There's a bunch of rebels, you hunt them down, they've got biotech weapons called Eradicators set up to destroy cities on multiple planets, skippity skip to the big reveal

- Jadus is alive, and he organized the whole thing so he'd be able to remake the Empire into the image he wanted. He tortured and enslaved the survivors of the Dominator's destruction

- Jadus gives you a whole speech about how fear is a gift to be shared and "Through victory my chains are broken" but there must be chains to break and blah blah blah holy shit this man is genocidal

- you have three choices: join him for real, pretend to join him so you can sabotage his ship and then kill him (at the cost of hundreds of thousands of Imperial lives), or refuse outright and save those hundreds of thousands of lives but Jadus escapes (and you know he's allegedly likely to return and do even worse damage later).

- (Quick sidebar again, for those who haven’t played it: Eris chose the second option and has nightmares about it for the rest of her life. It's actually extremely haunting in-game - as you're running through Jadus's ship to sabotage it as fast as possible, you can hear the distress calls from various colonies and planets being attacked, the screams of the dying that you doomed. It's horrifying.)

- so yeah there’s really no winning that situation but hey! at least Chapter One’s over. surely in Chapter Two things can’t get worse.

- Chapter Two: Things Get Worse

- there's this guy, Ardun Kothe, an SIS agent. he's a huge threat for some reason I don't remember. you're supposed to infiltrate the SIS to get close to and eventually kill him. not an easy job, but okay, we can do this.

- Intelligence sets up the meeting; months ago they sent the first word to Kothe that there was an Intelligence agent ready to turn and they've been building up from there, sending him a steady stream of information

- enter Hunter, aka the worst bastard in this entire storyline and that is an achievement. He's the one you meet first on Nar Shaddaa.

- you do some missions for the SIS, whatever, it's not important. You finally get to meet the rest of the team - and Ardun Kothe.

- Kothe wants to speak alone, which is p typical tbh. He expresses some doubts, which you assuage as best you can; he gives you your code name: Legate. It's from a form of sabbac, he explains, you'll have to play with him sometime.

- (It is difficult for me to make what happens next funny instead of horrifying, so forgive me if the tone changes a bit here.)

- Everything is going fine.

- "I'm sorry about this, Legate."

- What?

- "Keyword: onomatophobia. Engage Thesh protocols, phase one."

- Everything is not fine.

- You black out and have an extremely rude awakening.

- So it turns out whatever happened with Jadus, the Dark Council decided you were too dangerous (usually for doing your job too fuckin well) and that you needed to be leashed. So not you have mind control programming in your brain, and anyone who has your keyword can take complete and unequivocal control of your body. this is, in a word, not great.

- (This is, as I mentioned, actually extremely horrifying. You have dialogue options and they don’t change what you actually say. You have an opportunity to shoot Kothe and even if you try to select it nothing happens. But we’re not here for the horror take (not today, anyway) so let’s just This Is Fine that and move on)

- Tl;dr you can’t harm Kothe or any members of his team, you’re forced to obey anyone who has your keyword, and this wouldn’t be that much of a problem because we’ll just tell Watcher Two what’s happened and oh wait you can’t tell anyone about your programming either. well, shit.

- You go on to work double agent, like it was planned, with this new, uh. twist

- about a third of the way through the chapter, your mind kind of cracks and you start having hallucinations - seeing things you know can't be real during a holocall, passing out in the middle of your ship and waking up in medbay.

- After that, a new voice lives in your head! Watcher X, someone you either killed or let flee on Nar Shaddaa, has sort of joined the party. Is he an AI in the spinal implant the real Watcher X gave you? is he a figment of your broken mind trying to process its situation? Who knows! Not you! either way, this is not optimal but at least he seems to be being helpful this time

- so anyway we should probably try and figure out how to undo this programming bc Intelligence is being Wholly Unhelpful

- (ASAP, please, especially with how horrible Hunter acts toward you - let’s go with “uncomfortably leery,” which I promise is generous.)

- by the way, your companions still have no idea what’s going on during all this, although they try to be varying levels of supportive (thank you vector I love you bug husband)

- Good news! The Intelligence Archive almost definitely has information on what they did to you and how to fix it. Bad news! You’re definitely not authorized to look that up and crashing the power mainframe to make sure they don’t see you do it sends the security droids after you. whoops.

- Good news! There’s a way to fix you. Bad news! You have to make and inject yourself with a still-kinda-experimental cocktail of chemicals and it may or may not give you permanent brain damage. it’s fine. this is fine.

- also it takes a while to kick in which is Less Than Optimal and by the time it finally does you’ve just been left with a binding order to stay and guard the door on what is, for you, a suicide mission. there’s some incentive to “break your chains” for ya.

- You fight and kill Kothe. Who, shock and awe! is an ex-Jedi! this was in no way painfully obvious by how he kept talking about “sensing” things, I’m sure. definitely not.

- Hunter escapes, because of fuckin course he does. Hunter, who suddenly seems far more in control of everything than he had before. Hunter, who knows far more than he should. Hunter, who ends up leading you to a much, much larger conspiracy.

- End Chapter 2.

- Hate to disappoint, but Chapter 3 is honestly the least interesting to me personally, so this’ll be brief compared to the previous chapters

- You spend a lot of time hunting down this much larger conspiracy, including Hunter specifically. There's a lot of betrayal and secret reveals. (It's not tedious by any stretch of the imagination, but the story beats definitely don't stick in my head as well as the first two chapters, even after two playthroughs.)

- you go to Voss and, in order to get into a Voss-only archive, get married to a person you just met before almost immediately leaving the planet (and your new spouse) behind. this is never mentioned again.

- you get hold of a holorecording from the Star Cabal, the big conspiracy. problem: the holorecording contains a trap for the brain-enhanced Watchers, and now half of Intelligence is in a vegetative state. this is not optimal.

- partially as a result of this, Intelligence basically gets dissolved, which is Not Great because it puts you right under the thumb of yet another asshole Sith lord

- the Watchers are recovering, though, so that’s something. Watcher Two, now Keeper (the old Keeper got promoted), contacts you so you can keep working on this Star Cabal thing.

- you get intentionally captured so the Star Cabal can torture you and you can “break” and give them false information to lead them into a trap. you are immediately afterward expected to get back to work like nothing happened. this is never mentioned again.

- You track the Star Cabal to their base, way out in the Unknown Regions iirc, and infiltrate it during a meeting of the top agents.

- murder time 2: electric boogaloo (well, more like murder time 45, to be honest, but shh it’s fine)

- You fight the Star Cabal guys, chase Hunter through the whole place, and finally corner him.

- (Salt warning ahead on my part for the next story beat, if you can call it that.)

- Hunter, when beaten, reveals what I personally think is the most bullshit stupid reveal in the entire game: he is actually a she, and has been using a stealth field generator (or something similar) to change his/her appearance the entire time. There are multiple interpretations of this - "he's trans" is my least favorite, sorry-not-sorry, because a) it's pretty clear she still considers herself a woman and Hunter is just a convenient persona, and also b) a clearly predatory man is absolutely horrid representation as far as playing into harmful stereotypes about trans people, thanks. Personally, my rather cynical interpretation is that they wanted one more shock value reveal at the end of the storyline and I guess couldn't come up with anything better. It's my least favorite thing in the whole IA storyline.

- anyway, that's not really important. I just needed to be mad about it for a minute. ignore me. moving on

- The important part is this: what you gain from the Star Cabal's base is an item called the Black Codex, an ancient piece of technology with the power to erase all records of a person's existence.

- Unless you are very stubborn about it the Agent’s reaction to this is basically “oh thank fuck I’m freeeeeeeeee” and you fly off into the hyperspace sunset with your crew, giving middle fingers to the Sith whose grip you’re escaping all the way. which, really, who can blame you.

And that’s the Imperial Agent storyline, folks. Roll credits. I’ll probably do the Bounty Hunter storyline next while it’s still fresh in my mind, but I could also do the Sith Warrior storyline probably if y’all’re more interested, vote now on your phones.

#unfortunately I don’t remember jack shit from the Jedi Knight storyline #so until i finish replaying it y'all're just gonna have to hold your horses on that one #swtor #imperial agent #drunk history swtor #i have the original much more serious version of me summarizing that first scene with kothe in drafts btw #should anyone want to see it #it's the version where i actually tried to get across to someone who'd never played the game the absolute horror of that scene #and was; i think; fairly successful #the notes on the sith inquisitor post have finally slowed down so i think it's time to post this one

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yeongwvnhi · 4 years ago

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You and I on top of it all

This one is quite the brutal piece of work so proceed with caution and be mindful of the warnings. Do tell me if I missed something possibly triggering.

—

Pairing - Oneus Hyung line (only one makes it) x fem reader

Genre - Angst, Suspense, Suggestive, Horror, Gore

Warnings - murder, violence, blood, weapons, language, death, injuries, guns, shooting, graphic descriptions of murder and violence, romanticizing these themes for the plot

Taglist - @twancingyunhoe @runaway-fics @bearseokie @kingleedo @malzenn

Word count - 3k

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It was 11pm and you were hurrying down the street to get back home. You weren't planning on being outside when it started. Last year still left you shaking in your boots, but this year you will turn the table and stop being afraid.

What exactly is it?

It is the purge. The day every crime is made legal and services like police, firefighters or paramedics aren't available.

Originally you were planning on just hiding out somewhere safe until the 12 hours were over but not this year. This time you wanted to let loose, go absolutely crazy and see where the night will take you. Maybe you'll find a companion or more? Maybe you'll die, who knows?

Back on topic.. Why were you even out this late? Simple. You bought some nice weapons for tonight. What were those weapons? An array of knives, a bat with spikes and even a damn katana. This time you wouldn't hold back.

A guy came your way and immediately changed course after seeing your array of weapons. This was exactly what you wanted people to do. Fear you, be scared for their life and just run as far away as they could from you.

Eyeing the clock above your TV in the living room while taking off your shoes, you realize that it's barely 11:20pm. The fun would have to wait.

With a shrug you move into your bedroom to put on tonight's outfit. You were going crazy tonight and no one would hold you back, not even your damn clothes.

You have carefully picked out your clothes a few days ago just for tonight. All black to blend into the night, your casual tight fitting jeans and shirt and your newly bought jacket. There you would store all the knives since it had a lot of pockets.

The sound of a notification from your phone made you stop examining yourself in your mirror and with an eye roll you go to check.

Hwanwoong: Hey Y/N, I know that you will be partaking in tonight's purge… I hope you won't die so I can see you again soon..

Your best friend has always been worried about you and everything that could happen.

You: I will be just fine, Woong, don't worry. You better be safe tho or I will kill you.

After you sent your reply, you didn't bother to check if he answered. You wouldn't be taking your phone with you tonight. Everything else besides your weapons will be staying in your apartment tonight… besides your keys, you decided to give them to your friendly neighbor since he would be waiting out the event tonight.

Once again your eyes find the clock and a small smile slowly crawls onto your lips. 11:30pm. Soon the fun would begin and you just couldn't wait to finally get your sweet, sweet revenge.

You secure your sword around your back with the holster and then take your baseball bat. These spikes were so sharp and you couldn't wait to see the damage they would cause.

The weight of your jacket slowly increased the more knives you put into the pockets and you were so full of adrenalin, to find the person who took everything from you.

11:45pm, the crazed smile slowly made its way back onto your lips. Just a little while.

You got up and put your also black leather boots on, tired of waiting for the chaos to unfold.

With the baseball bat in one hand and your keys in the other you exit your apartment. You lock the door and go to knock on your neighbor's door.

The man opens the door and you give him a less crazy smile upon seeing the fear in his eyes. "Hey Keonhee, don't worry i just came here to drop off my keys!" You say and hold up said object.

The taller guy visibly relaxes and smiles back at you. "You scared me there, Y/N"

"Sorry~" you chuckle and put your keys into his outstretched palm. "Please be safe, yeah?"

Keonhee chuckles nervously and nods. "You too"

"Oh I will" you reply, "I'm going to go now. I'll see you tomorrow at 12"

He closes the door and you hear several locks clicking shut behind it, one after another.

You swing the bat up and rest it on your shoulder, mindful of the spikes, and walk down the street. It was awfully quiet now and your gaze meets the giant digital clock on a huge building.

11:53pm

"Hey!" Someone calls after you and you halt in your steps. "Where are you heading to?"

You turn around and look at the guy. Tall, black hair and also full black attire. "Why would you wanna know? But I suppose you already know the answer judging from your choice of clothing"

He walks closer and you now fully see his features. He looks too good to be true. The black turtleneck sweater isn't helping your thoughts either. "You're right" he replies with a sinister smirk. "I'm also going to fuck up someone's life"

You immediately felt drawn to him, he looked just as crazed as you right now.

But that didn't mean you'd stay here any longer to chat away, no. It was almost time and you wanted to get your hands dirty.

So you give the guy an almost too nice looking smile and turn back around.

"Hey, where are you going?" He asks and you hear his fast paced footsteps approach you. "Don't just leave a conversation like that"

You chuckle and start swinging your bat around. "I don't really care about conversations right now, pretty boy"

The Guy scoffs, but you see his smirk in your peripheral vision. "So… are you out for someone special tonight? Or do you just want to blow off some steam?"

"Does it really matter?" You question in return and meet his eyes for a second. "Also, who even are you?"

"I'm Youngjo" He replies and shoots you a grin, this time less sinister. "And I guess it does? I could help you out"

He did have a point, maybe he would actually be of help. "Fine" you nod. "Someone-"

A loud alarm shakes the silence of the city, the purge has started.

The two of you immediately look at each other with an excited expression. "Fuck it, let's spill some blood" he says and grabs you by the wrist, dragging you right into the chaos of people running around left and right.

You manage to escape his grip and fasten your pace to match his.

"Out of my way!" Someone yells and you see a guy running straight at you.

No way you're having that shit tonight. "Fuck off!" You spit back and swing your baseball bat right at the guy's head.

Pretty much to his horror because he can't stop and runs straight into your death trap. His skull smashes against your spiky weapon and you feel his blood splattering onto your face.

Youngjo has stopped running the moment he heard you spitting back at that guy and witnessed the gory scene. He felt his heart skip a beat and met your eyes, both of you dazed.

"That felt so fucking good" You murmur and Youngjo nods eagerly. For that moment the two of you completely blended out the chaos around you.

Until there were gunshots, that's when you reacted and pulled him into an alleyway, hiding behind the wall to not get shot.

Youngjo cornered you against the wall, one hand beside your head for balance. He had his gaze fixated on your side profile while you were checking where the gunshots were coming from.

"Hey" The tall guy mumbles and your attention belongs to him this instant. "I never thought I'd think that watching a girl smashing a guy's head in would be this hot"

You click your tongue and roll your eyes, but can't help the smirk that appears slowly. "You're crazy"

Youngjo's head falls down and he breathes out a chuckle before looking you dead in the eye. "It would be boring if I wasn't, wouldn't it, sweetheart?"

You can't deny the tingling feeling you felt in your stomach at that and your free hand went up to the back of his neck. "Shut up"

"Make me"

"What the fuck are you doing?" A new voice interrupts the two of you. "Wait- Hyung?"

You turn to look at the guy, annoyance written all over your face for having interrupted the moment. "I fucking hate you for this"

The guy chuckles nervously and Youngjo leans away to stand at a normal distance. "Why are you here, Seoho? And where is Geonhak?"

"You didn't just ask me that" he retorts and holds up a bloody machete. "Obviously I'm out for blood tonight"

A shiver runs down your spine, the vibes that guy gives off are insane. Quite literally.

"Oh" Youngjo's mouth forms an o-shape. "I see. But now where is Geonhak?"

"Ah! Right" Seoho piques up and nods his head in the left direction. "He started chasing some weirdo who was about to get a bit too comfy with this girl"

"Still the nice guy even during a time like this, huh?" Youngjo laughs. "Anyway, we should continue our little fun game now, shouldn't we?"

You grin and pick up your bat. "We should just go as a group, covering more people n shit"

"What's your name?" Seoho asks you out of the blue, nodding at your suggestion.

"Oh, I'm Y/N" You reply before making your way out of the alley and onto the street. "And I see a group of people right up front"

"Let's spill some blood then, shall we?" Youngjo smirks.

The two guys follow you and you hear one of them clinking blades together.

"Hey you!" You shout and the group of four, three guys and a girl, look at you. "Wanna die?!"

"What are you gonna do, little girl?" One of the guys shouts back and you halt in your steps.

With a dark chuckle, you open your jacket and pull out a knife. "I'll fucking kill you" is your only response as you throw the knife at him. It connects with his thigh, making him scream in pain and fall to the ground.

"You have good aim, doll" Youngjo mumbles while passing by you. "Now I'll finish him"

"Leave some fun for me too!" Seoho whines and just runs at the group of people, slicing the girls throat with his machete with ease.

Her blood pours out of the massive gash and you hear her gurgling on the liquid.

One of the two unharmed guys squares up against Youngjo, but he's at a disadvantage in height.

Youngjo makes quick work of the guy, pulling out a knife from a pocket on his pants and stabbing him in the chest. He pushes the guy away from him and he collapses on the corpse of the girl.

The fourth guy must've ran away so it's only the injured man on the ground and your little group.

"Finish him! Finish him c'mon!" Seoho jumps around and you look at Youngjo, but he just nods towards the guy. Your sign to kill him.

"Too bad that you will die now, huh?" You say and lunge the bat right into his face, killing him right on the spot. "Bastard" You spit and pull out your knife from his thigh and put it back where you took it from.

"Jesus christ" Seoho murmurs and you look at him. "That was fucking hot"

You shake off the remains of the guy's brain from your bat. "Shut up" you hiss, slightly flustered. "We should find your friend instead"

"Right" Youngjo agrees. "Let's go"

He leads the way with Seoho and you following behind.

"So… are you out for someone special tonight?" Seoho asks and looks at you through his sharp eyes. "You look tense, darling"

"I probably won't find him anyways, I'm tense because I don't know if I will die tonight" You give him your answer and hold your bat just a little bit tighter. "So I'm going to use that as my fuel to create as much chaos as I can"

"I see~" He chirps and focuses back on Youngjo who's still leading the way.

After a bit more walking, the two guys spot their friend sitting next to a wall, gun in hand and blood on his hands and face.

"Geonhak, what the fuck happened" Youngjo asks him straight away and kneels in front of him.

"I killed that asshole, but I also accidently shot the girl. They're both dead" he mumbles, but a satisfied grin forms on his lips. "Now she won't suffer anymore"

"Hey get up, we gotta create more chaos!" Seoho urges and you exhale a breathy laugh.

"I think there are a lot of people in the inner city. It's getting louder the closer we get" You say and nod in the vague direction. "Let's go guys"

"Ooohh sure~" Seoho immediately agrees and Youngjo also looks pleased with your suggestion.

"Oh you guys brought a companion?" Geonhak asks and stands up. "What's your name pretty girl?"

You shake the hair out of your face and scoff at the compliment. "I'm Y/N. Now let's go!"

"I know a shortcut" Seoho exclaims. "It's just-"

"No! Your shortcuts are dangerous as fuck!" Youngjo rejects his suggestion.

"C'mon let's just go this way" you tell Seoho. "We can take your shortcut on our way back, alright?"

"Fine" He grumbles in response.

Your group quickly gets to the big commotion in the inner city and you just decide to let hell break loose.

Geonhak starts shooting whoever comes into focus, Youngjo aimlessly stabs people in his way and Seoho attacks everything in his way.

"Let's dance little lady" some weirdo says and faces you, pipe in his hand. "Got ya!" He yells and strikes at you.

You dodge in the last moment, swinging your spiky bat at the dude's face, making him stumble back in surprise. "You got a mean one there, hun. Would be a shame if it went out of your hands, right?"

"Shut up asshole" you hiss and and take another swing at him, this time grazing his arm with a spike and making it bleed.

"That hurt you stupid bitch" he spits with venom. "I'll end you"

"Good luck" you huff and take a step back.

"What-" before he can finish his sentence, you hear a gunshot and blood splattering everywhere.

"Nice shot Geonhak!" You shout and give the man a thumb up. "Saved my ass"

After that little exchange you quickly go on and just smash in people heads left and right.

One was a tough nut though.

"You've got some nerves, little girl" a tall man smirks after he smacked the bat out of your hands and a good distance away from you. "Attacking others from behind. Tch"

"Stop talking, bastard" you growl and pull out your katana, glad you took it with you. "I'll kill you"

"Try to~" he laughs and throws a punch, but you step aside at the last second.

"Go to hell!" You yell and swing your blade at him, slicing his cheek and leaving him in shock.

"You'll pay for that you damn bitch"

After that, a painful shout came from behind you and you heard Geonhak calling out Youngjo's name.

"Shit-" you go to turn around and leave this fucker behind, but he kicks away your legs and you fall to the ground.

"Fuck you" you huff in pain, the katana luckily still in your hand. That's when you see your three companions.

Geonhak has Youngjo's head in his lap and repeatedly smacks his cheeks to get him to wake up.

But he won't.

He's dead.

"Oh noo~ Did your friend die? What a shame" the man mocks and laughs.

You clench your hand around the handle of the katana and roll onto your back and thrust the blade right into his torso.

"What-" He coughs in shock before falling to the floor backwards.

You just stand up and run towards the guys now, falling to your knees next to Youngjo's lifeless body in Geonhak's lap.

"Who did this?" You ask, emotionless, eyes void of anything but rage.

"I did" Geonhak mumbles, hanging his head. "I wanted to shoot the fucker you were fighting, but Hyung caught the bullet"

You remain silent, but you see Seoho behind Geonhak going rigid. "You… killed Youngjo Hyung…?"

"It was an accide-"

Geonhak couldn't finish his sentence. Seoho slit his throat right there and the green haired man's blood splattered your already dirty face even more.

But you weren't fazed. You couldn't help him anymore anyways.

That's when you noticed just how quiet everything suddenly was, so you looked around and saw corpses upon corpses.

"When did this happen?" You ask and look at Seoho, his blank stare not bothering you at all as you stand up.

"I killed the last person before I saw you guys here" He answers and you step away from the two men on the ground, dead and bleeding out.

You heard Seoho walking up next to you. "So this is it? We go home after this and try to get our lives back together?"

"Not necessarily" he says, "we can stay together"

"What do you mean?"

"People who kill together, stay together" he explains and smiles. He actually looks cute and for a second you forgot that he's a serial killer.

But so are you.

"That sounds nice" you smile back.

"So now it's you and I on top of it all" He whispers and pulls you in close by the waist. "You're mine"

Your hands wander up to his shoulders and you move closer. "Only yours" you mumble against his lips and he closes the gap, greedily moving his mouth against yours. His grip on your waist tightens and pulls you impossibly closer.

You'll never forget this day.

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bumbershots · 4 years ago

Text

A CERTAIN ROMANCE

CHAPTER FIVE: A SPECIAL DAY

Author’s note: Hello! We have finally reached the awaited date between Harry and Alma. I was really excited for this chapter, hopefully you will enjoy it as much as I did, forgive me in advance for any mistakes, my beta reader (my boyfriend) was unavailable, so this is a good time to say that if anyone out there has the time and willingness to beta read any future chapters send me an ask or message to let me know. Enjoy! (:

Story masterlist ** Word count: 2.6K **

Harry wakes up feeling excited, nervous and hungry. He takes care of the latter, decides to make some blueberry pancakes, turns out he can't eat more than two and a cup of coffee. Not that the pancakes weren't great, in fact they were fantastic, he even decides to brag about them on an Instagram story that is published for his close friends only. Nick quickly replies to it with a laughing emoji.

You should take a Tupperware full of them to your date ;)

The reason behind his excitement and nerves make his heart race, he decides to type in a polite 'fuck off' to his mate before heading to the shower. Under the warm spray of water he tries to sort out his thoughts. Harry doesn’t want to think about his upcoming trip to California.

It was necessary for the album or so he thought last week, after going through a box with the very few memories he kept from his ex. He wasn’t in a right state of mind then, he feels pathetic. The only reason why he wanted to spend time in Los Angeles was because everything there —from the pavement to the sky— was tainted by her.

Why would he want to go back to that place where the constant reminder of his pain was literally living in the same neighbourhood? Because it would provide him the cathartic release he was looking for. That’s the line he used after Sarah and Mitch tried to dissuade him from flying across the Atlantic and Harry was so proud of himself when it worked.

That very same day, he got the first text from Alma, it was the address like she promised. ‘In case one of your talents isn’t stumbling upon my work place ;)’ the second text read and Harry had to endure Sarah’s questionnaire about the girl that made him blush with a mere wink emoji. Not that he minded talking about her, he could go on all day.

He usually preferred a shower before breakfast, usually even work out before then but well, hunger clouded his judgement earlier today. Even with that taken care of that dread still niggled him away. Just slightly. So, he decided to pick up his guitar for a moment and strummed. There was no real intention to play seriously, or to write anything down on the journal by his desk. It was more of something he enjoys too much not to do it, a way to keep his hands and mind busy, faffing around with chords. With a bit of luck he might come up with a song, a tune which just worked, that just... clicked.

Contrary to what people might believe, genius didn't strike him here and then. Not like when he'd come up with Sign of the times or Two ghosts. But finding a neat little pattern of chords a good thirty minutes later makes him smile, it's something he can work with. It needs a little polishing from Mitch and company, sure, but it has a good rhythm. He scribbled down some notes on his journal and sent the audio to his fellow musician.

Maybe he will find the words in one of the old notebooks that are somewhere in the other room, perhaps on the ones that are still on his unpacked suitcase from Japan. Silently he also hoped to find the lyrics around London. He had lived in the capital for a few years now, but he had been different then. Now he likes to think that he's a man, no longer the teenager from the boy band or the shiny new solo artist. He has new perspectives, sights, smells in this new home of his. New ideas.

Harry gazes out his bedroom window; the view is not great –mostly of the other houses in the complex. His mind focused on the cloudy sky, confused because he swore it was sunny just a few minutes ago, can bet on his life that he woke up to dazzling sunshine rays of a warm yellow colour peeking through that same window. He puts his guitar away on the bed with care and makes a beeline to his wardrobe. He needs to figure out what to wear, pronto.

Skipping her afternoon kip was not something Alma did, it was a rare occurrence which meant one thing: something special was happening.

Walking down Oxford Street, trying to decide where to get some lunch without a care in the world, that was until the calmness faded, when her schedule for the day hit her.

She had a date with Harry. A date, with Harry Styles. It was weird to go by his full name in her head, she couldn't bring herself to call or think about him as The Harry Styles.

Maybe she'd settle to call him Harry the tube guy.

The clock on her phone showed that it was no longer single figure hours, she needed to get some food now or starve until her shift was over, and then he would have to watch her feast at whatever place he chose. Alma groaned, thought how ridiculous it was to worry about him watching her eat. Harry was a grown man; of course he knows that women eat too, right?

Walking into the nearest Sainsbury's she decided to take a deep breath. He's just some guy, she concluded after paying for her chicken baguette. Nothing to stress about.

Harry showered again, while belting out some classic pop tunes. Namely Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears, something that in the past he'd swear blind you'd misheard and it was actually The Rolling Stones or Pink Floyd. But he'd come to terms that he liked what he liked.

Towel clad in the bedroom, trying to shirk off hypothermia, he was quick to put on some pants and jeans, before throwing on some simple white tee proclaiming some fading band name. He uses a dry clean towel from the closet and attempts to dry his hair, as he styles his flopped mop the thought of a haircut crosses his mind. It was getting a bit long.

One last look at the clock and he is ready to leave. "You'll be fine. Trust me." He quietly speaks to himself before closing the last few buttons of his green parka and fixing the newsboy cap on his head.

When he walks out of Colindale tube station, a little earlier than half past five, he sees the bakery from her instructions just below the large modern building Alma was kind enough to describe. She was right; the bakery is right across the street, he waits for the green man to light up to cross, shoving his hands in his pockets. The huge front windows of the establishment allow Harry to see her behind the till, feeling the heat rise to his cheeks. She looks better than she did three weeks ago. He hesitates about going in for a few minutes, but feels it ought to be better than to lurk on the street.

Alma can feel his presence the moment he sets foot into the shop, her eyes are drawn to him and a content close lipped smile is the best greeting he could ask from her. The only customer in the place can feel the shift in the atmosphere when they lock eyes. So, picking up her bag full of baked goods, she steps out and leaves them alone.

"Sorry if I'm too early." He begins while she takes off her apron and hangs it in the back wall.

"You're right on time," Alma says after checking her watch, "I'm off Carlos, see you tomorrow!" She hollers to the employee that is taking a non-allowed nap in the back. Harry holds the door open for her and follows out of the warm store. "Shall we take the tube?" At his affirmative response, she then takes out her Oyster card and leads the way.

The café was not somewhere Alma expected Harry to go, the little shop with soothing music and simple stools full of the scent of organic coffee brewing is dazzling and unique. A bit like him, she thinks. She liked it. It reminded her of the places she used to frequent when she had recently moved into the city.

Harry orders a black coffee at the counter before asking Alma what she'd like.

"A cappuccino, and remember I'm paying for our food," she hands him a tenner that he reluctantly takes from her.

"Absolutely," he iterates the order to the woman behind the counter and adds two salted caramel cupcakes handing over the cash. "If you get a seat, I'll bring it over."

Alma thanks him before scampering across the room to sit at the back two seat table tucked in the corner. It was right beside the large back window, dimly lit. Before she sat, she removed her signature burgundy coat and Harry couldn't help his eyes being drawn to certain aspects of his companion. Nice arse, he remarked with a raise of his brows before the woman behind the counter tells him for the third time that his order is ready, a look of disdain as she probably caught his gaze. Giving her a sheepish smile to appease her, he manages to balance the two plates and mugs in his hands and walk over to the table.

"They asked if you wanted whipped cream or foam and I settled for foam, hope that's not a problem." He plonks himself on the seat across from her, removing his parka in a clumsy manner before hanging it in the back of the chair.

"No problem, I actually despise–

"Whipped cream, yeah, I kind of remembered what you told me about that birthday party of yours," the green eyed lad finishes for her and scratches the back of his neck. "You know with that dare..."

Her eyes flickered down to the cupcakes laid out before them and she started picking the caramel out of one, hoping to hide the nerves his words caused.

"Right enough, yeah... I can't believe you remembered that or that I told you about it." She chuckled nervously at the anecdote she chose to share with him, it was a bit inappropriate due to the amount of vomit around it, literally. But he shrugged with a charming smile. No big deal. "Nice place," she noted.

"I know it's a bit of a strange choice. It doesn't strike me as, you know, the kind of place you put so much effort into for a first date..." Harry stops talking and now his eyes meet the cupcake in front of him. "Bollocks I must have sounded so daft, I'm sorry." Lucky for him, she doesn't laugh, instead she reaches out to stroke his hand and give it a gentle squeeze.

"Nothing to be sorry about, I can be quite daft so..."

"I doubt that Miss suave." He gets a laugh out of her then, one that is almost a snort and earns a few glances from other customers.

"I’m far from it! Honestly, I once accidentally stepped on dog shit and didn't notice until my date couldn't bear the stink anymore and checked my shoe, in a very fancy restaurant. Terrible story. Trust me, I can be daft." Alma held up her hands and the musician giggled at her.

"Promise you won't laugh?" he raised an eyebrow at her, pleading. She promised. "Well, I kind of always wanted to have a first date here. It's always one of the first places I visit when I'm back in London, the food is amazing, and service is excellent. Came here completely hung-over after my twenty-first birthday party. I guess it has a lot of good memories." Pinked cheeks gave away Harry's embarrassment, he wanted to relax and for her to be more comfortable around him.

With a sincere smile Alma placed her hand over his resting on the table. "I think that is very sweet." This reply was not what he had expected; she leant in and beckoned him closer. "For your information Harry, this is exactly a great place for a first date." Up close he swore the darkness of her eyes were about to swallow him whole and spit him out to an alternate universe. He swallowed hard and took a sip of his coffee to distract himself a bit. Perhaps caffeine was not a good choice on a day where his heart was speeding so frequently.

"Did you have a good day today at work?" he asks with a familiarity that Alma can get used to.

"Yeah, had a bit of free time to plan my next video blog. It's been ages since I uploaded one." She bashfully admits. "This cupcake was delicious, a great flavour choice." And just like that they fall into easy conversation until their cups are drained. The place is almost empty around quarter to eight and they both know it's almost closing time –the death glances from the employees behind the counter gave it away. They put on their garments again before leaving.

Harry makes his way to the door expecting Alma to follow. Instead she first gathered up their mugs and plates, to place them neatly on the counter and thanked the three workers behind it with a genuine smile. Harry looked surprised; she didn't quite have to do that. She noticed.

"Just being polite," she stated the obvious, before walking under his arm that held open the door. He chose not to comment and fought back a smile.

They stood outside, not really sure of what to do next. Usually he would suggest going back to his place. It was near, but he watched her yawn discreetly and he suddenly remembered that she had a real job, well actually jobs in plural. He broke the silence.

"It was nice to see you again Alma." He meant it and she smiled as she toyed with the buttons of her coat. British summer weather was hardly cold, but today it seemed to be punishingly windy. Harry near gave a shiver, but instead took a deep breath before speaking again. It was now or never. "It'd be quite great, if I could... I'd like to see you again. Please." He shifted on one foot, nearly drowned in the silence that followed.

"I'd quite love to see you again," Harry gave a slight gulp, very slight and got out strength from the words she spoke to take a big risk, the first of today.

He stepped closer and cradled her face in his hands before leaning down and kissing her cheek. It wasn't the full on kiss he wanted to give her. But it is something he'd been dying to do since he first saw her today, something he hoped would make clear how attracted he was to her. Harry smelled like coffee and caramel. God this man's lips are prettier up close, she thought right before he straightened up.

She stayed close to him before speaking again. A low murmur so that the passing London traffic wouldn't steal her words from him.

"This was an amazing date."

Alma walked with him the long distance of one mile to the tube station, their hands brushing against each other. He was desperate to just hold hers, kiss her soft knuckles and ask about the lightning-shaped scar on her little finger. But decided against it, he knew that West Hampstead was not a common area for paparazzi, but he didn't want to risk her. Especially after the splendid afternoon they just shared.

They said their farewells.

"I'll call you," he said again. She warned that he better, before entering the station, he took great delight in watching her walk away from him, his gaze falling once more to her bum now covered by the coat. Harry spun on his heel and walked the short distance to his home.

Surely London could help him find the lyrics for that tune, this city definitely had something.

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