#Not going into what the fuck would happen with crests

[mariana-oconnor]

The githyanki are the absolute worst. I don't know why, but every time I end up fighting them it's ten times worse than any other fight I have.

Just... they're so mobile. They can heal. They immediately and enthusiastically go after the weakest members of the party. They attack far too many times.

I'm on Explorer mode and all the other encounters mostly live up to that. But the bloody githyanki. Every damn time.

Although I have them to thank for hearing the 'Gale! No!' line from my Tav... multiple times. Man was practically a yo-yo in that fight.

[rowarn]

everyone stop what you're doing i just had an idea of simon who likes to edge himself.....omg....

afab!reader, no prns, edging obvi, ruined orgasm, simon being selfish <3 not edited oof

when he's fucking you, hips pumping in a rhythm that basically melts your brain. he's got you pinned beneath him in a press, legs spread obscenely wide so your knees are against the bed. he's got you stuck there under his massive weight. you can't do anything but stare up at him with wide eyes as he fucks you.

he looks so good above you, muscles flexing with every movement and his dark eyes lidded with pleasure that he's getting from working his fat cock into your dripping little cunt.

"fuck, that's good," he groans, blunt nails biting into the tender skin under your thighs, "feels so fuckin' good 'round me, love."

you clench around him at the sound of his voice and the corner of his lips twitches up at the blatant, shameless reaction you have to him. he brings one hand up to his mouth, meeting your eyes in a heated stare as he licks the pad of his thumb, quickly bringing it down to press against your swollen clit -- twitchy and sensitive from neglect since he'd just settled for fucking you so far.

"you gettin' close?" he practically coos, making you whimper. the sound goes straight to his cock and god, he loves the sounds you make, "yeah, i know, pretty thing...i treat you real good, don't i?"

you're tightening up around him and he practically feels the breath punch out of his lungs. you're getting close; he's learned all your tells by now. the way your back arches and your mouth open as you whimper his name. you get wetter and wetter, gooey cunt making a nice little mess for him to fuck into. it makes lewd, squelching noises as he sinks balls deep with a slow roll of his hips.

"s-so close, simon!" you cry out, blindly reaching your hands down to press against his hips.

you always do that -- it's adorable. you actually think that'll stop him from sinking deep, deep inside. his cock knocks against your back well, the little pang of pain making your body twitch. usually, he bats your hands away just to be mean and watch you whine. you really think your trembling hands would be enough to stop the powerful movements of his hips.

he's close to his own end. his cock throbs the closer he gets with every deep thrust he gives you. both of you racing to your ends -- it would be so sweet to cum together, he thinks.

but he knows that's not going to happen.

it's his favorite thing to do. he just can't explain what it is he loves about it.

just when his orgasm starts to crest he pulls his cock free from the hot clutch of your cunt. he feels a little bad, he knows you had just fallen over the edge as he did -- leaving you nothing to cum around, little pussy clenching and cumming all empty and no pleasure from it. a sob tears free from your chest and the sound goes straight to his cock. you squirm under his weight as he watches his own cock twitch against your drooling cunt from his own denial, willing himself not to cum untouched at the sight of you cryin' for him. he closes his eyes and waits for his orgasm to wane before he looks at you again.

"simon..." you practically wail in despair, drawing his gaze up to your face. and fuck, you're so sweet for him.

your eyes are teary and he clicks his tongue, "sorry, love...that was mean of me, huh?"

you nod your head, pouting up at him. despite the ruined orgasm, you're still sensitive enough to twitch beneath him when he sinks his cock back into you with a swift grind of his hips.

"let me make it up to you, yeah?"

your sweet, trusting eyes makes his heart melt and he almost feels bad. almost.

because he knows for the rest of the night, he's going to be edging himself using your pretty little pussy until he finally decides he's ready to cum. and he's not going to care if you actually properly cum or not, because this is gonna be about him using you.

by the end of the night, his cocks so hard that it fucking hurts. he'd edged himself more times than he could count, the more he did the less time he got in between. he started simply dipping his length into you and pulling it right back out, eyes rolling at the sticky strings that connected the head to your clenching hole.

"please, simon...please, please, please..." you're breathlessly begging. he has no clue if you'd even properly cum the entire night, he had practically entered a trance and become a mindless beast thinking only with his cock. theres tears on your cheeks, dried and new and the sight is so lovely that he wants to take a picture and keep it on him at all times.

he finally takes mercy, however. your pretty little clit is so swollen and he just has to press his fingers against it. it's so sensitive that you almost immediately start cumming -- this time around his cock, he makes sure of it.

you pull him over the edge with you, letting him dump a nice, hot load into your pussy while you cum nice and hard around him.

when you sag into the bed and sniffle, cutely reaching out for a hug, he can't help but press a kiss against your forehead <3

[spnbabe67]

Knee Deep In The Passenger Seat

Kinktober Day 1: Road Head (D.W)

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Fem Original Character

Warnings: Oral (M. Receiving), slight mentions of blood, face fucking, hair gripping?, perilous situation?

Summary: What does one do when they have a free afternoon? Tori and Dean go driving. What happens when ones love language is acts of (sexual) service.

Word Count: 1510

It was rare to have a day like this. Tori couldn't remember the last time she and Dean had an afternoon that wasn't preoccupied with lore research, various repairs to the Bunker or assisting other hunters on cases ranging from basic salt and burns to exterminating whole nests of vamps. The stars had finally aligned and for the first time in a while, Tori and Dean found their afternoon wide open for leisure. So when Dean showed up at her doorway with Baby’s keys dangling from his fingers, Tori couldn't get up from her desk fast enough.

Tori had lost track of how long she and Dean had been cruising the open backroads. The only break in miles and miles of gold fields was the occasional cars. She'd fallen asleep sprawled across the front seat around the 2 hour mark, head lolled back against the windowsill, lower legs draped across Dean's thighs. 

That was where she woke some amount of time later, the leather of the seat creaking as she stretched awake. Tori felt Dean's warm hand squeeze her calf, running his calloused palms up and down her shins. She shot him a sleepy grin reaching her arms up and out the window in a languid movement.

It was an unusually chilly early fall day, so the crisp wind whipped through the car, teasing goosebumps across Tori's bare arms. Her legs were kept warm enough via her jeans and the residual heat from Dean's legs and hands, but she'd opted to wear a cutoff tank in lieu of Dean's suggestion for a sweater. Sure she was a little on the cold side, but her pride wouldn't let her accept the jacket he'd offered her on multiple occasions. 

Tori blinked sleepily at her lover, admiring the way the golden glow of the midafternoon sun clung to every topographic feature of his face, how it crested over the bridge of his nose, stippling across his 5 o’clock shadow. The wind had swept his brown locks in a way that Tori knew would feel positively divine were she to reach up and run her fingers through it like she so desperately wanted to. 

“Sleep well, my love?” God, even his voice was sexy.

Tori hummed a noncommittal answer, not bothering to hide the way her eyes dragged over Dean’s form, even when he looked over at her.

“What?” Dean laughed, eyes flashing between Tori and the road before him. 

“Nothin’” Tori grinned cheekily, ignoring the loss of warmth as she pulled her legs from Dean’s lap and under herself instead to sit cross-legged next to him. “I can't admire my sexy ass boyfriend?”

Dean laughed sheepishly and Tori watched the telltale rosy hue stain his cheekbones. “I didn’t say that.”

Tori carded her fingers through his hair, letting her nails gently scratch his scalp, the strands extra fluffy from his shower that morning. Dean’s hum of contentedness reached her ears and Tori felt the rush of satisfaction at pleasing her lover. Speaking of which… Tori glanced sidelong out the windshield seeing nothing but open road, a devious idea flooding her brain. With a smirk, Tori leaned forward, pressing an open mouthed kiss to Dean's neck, her hand in his hair continuing its movements.  

Tori felt Dean go stiff and liquid all at once, hearing the creak of the leather as his grip on the steering wheel tightened. “Tor,” Dean began, her name half warning half moan. “Whatcha doin babe.”

Tori didn’t deign to reply, simply smiling against his neck as she kissed the spot beneath his ear, her lips trailing south. Her teeth nipped at his pulsepoint, sucking a dark mark against his tan skin. Somewhere along the way Dean had tipped his head to the side, providing her better access. Tori let her free hand that had been resting on Dean’s chest wander down, feeling the soft skin that laid taut over the muscles of his torso until she arrived at the button of his jeans. That was when Dean’s hand shot to hers, encompassing her wrist and hindering any further movement. 

“Tori.” Dean scolded her half convincingly, his voice breathy, chest rising and falling shallowly. 

“Do you trust me?” Tori whispered into his ear, lips caressing the shell as she shook off his grasp. “‘Cause I trust you.”

Dean didn’t make any further moves to stop her as Tori expertly undid the button of his jeans, sliding her hand between the fabric and his feverish skin. Dean’s gasp as Tori’s hand wrapped around his length shot heat directly to her core. He was already half hard beneath her grasp as she ran her hand up and down his length before pulling him free from his boxers. Tori spared a glance upward as she shimmied herself backwards, bracing one knee on the footwell, the other stretched out under her as she lay on her stomach. His eyes were laser focused on the road, his hands locked in death grips on the wheel. His bottom lip was raw from the abuse of his teeth gnawing on it, likewise his cheeks were flushed pink. 

Tori felt the car swerve sharply as her tongue made contact with the swollen red tip of Dean’s cock. She knew it was mean to torture him, kitten licking at the top of his dick, the tang of precum soaking into her tongue. Dean made a desperate sound at the back of his throat as Tori’s hand lazily pumped up and down his shaft as her tongue worked the head of his cock, dipping into the slit at the apex and tracing every contour. His hand shot to the back of her head, fisting in her hair as without warning Tori let his cock slide along her tongue and into her mouth. 

Expletives spewed from her lover's mouth in the form of a guttural moan as her mouth engulfed his cock, feeling the fat head of it nudge the back of her throat. Dean’s grip in her hair loosened, rubbing the back of her head in small circles, a silent apology for his accidental roughness. Tori languidly bobbed her head up and down on his length, utilizing her hand slick with her spit for whatever her mouth couldn’t quite take in. Tori could feel her own arousal soak into her underwear, her clit throbbing almost in time to the grunts and groans slipping past Dean’s lips. Tori gagged slightly as Dean's hips snapped up slightly, chasing her mouth wrapped around him. She blinked back tears, her free hand digging into his thigh to steady herself. She half wondered if she could cum just like this, with her lover's cock shoved down her throat, his big hand tangled in her hair guiding her head up and down; it wouldn’t be the first time she’d gotten off pleasing Dean.

Dean’s hips thrusted up to meet her as she willed her throat to relax, gradually taking almost all of him past her lips. Tori couldn’t help but moan as Dean gave a particularly harsh tug on her hair, sending vibrations down his shaft that had him uttering a low moan. Every so often the car would snap back to center, shifting Tori ever so slightly. Just as Tori felt her jaw start to become sore, the steady rhythm of Dean’s thrusts into her mouth stuttered, his rhythm becoming sloppy, his hand more forceful on the back of her head. Tori let him fuck her face, feeling tears slip down her cheeks as she resisted the urge to gag against his cock bumping against the back of her throat.

Dean’s hips stuttered violently as he came with a ragged moan down her throat. Tori tried to swallow all his spend but some frothed out the side of her mouth as she pulled off of him. She went to wipe the residual cum off her face but before she could Dean’s hand still tangled in her hair guided her back up, slamming her lips to his own. Tori barely registered Dean driving the Impala off to the side of the road, slamming Baby into park before hauling her into his lap. His tongue assaulted her mouth, tasting himself on her tongue. His hands massaged her hips through her jeans, kissing her harshly like he had wanted to since she started on his neck. 

He pulled back only on the lack of oxygen, both of them breathing heavily. Dean reached up caressing Tori’s cheek as he gazed at her, a soft look etched across his face. Tori’s eyes scanned his face, her own hand coming up to cup his jaw, thumb dragging across his lower lip where he’d dug his teeth in hard enough to draw blood. “What?”

“Nothin’,” Dean smiled at her tipping his head into her hand, his grip on her waist holding her to him. “I can’t admire my sexy ass girlfriend.”

Tori giggled at his words mimicking hers, leaning in to kiss the wound on his lip. “I love you.” She murmured into his mouth. Dean’s answering kiss was all she needed.

[windvexer]

Hey chicken,

You previously said that you believe even doing simple things in spellwork, like leaving something in a dish of salt, need to be worked over. How would you work over simple things like that? Burning a candle? Just infusing it with some energy?

Even more simple than infusing it with energy, maybe.

This isn't like, set in stone. But I generally believe that the first step of all Witchcraft is permission.

As in, you speak from a place of authority as a Witch, and give permission that reality may become abnormal.

Witchcraft is abnormal, in my opinion. I think it's perfectly nice that people build paradigms based on the idea that magic is altogether completely natural and there is no difference between the magic and normal, but I like the sinister stuff.

So IMO the first, most basic, essential "working over" is to take something (the dish of salt) and, give it permission to become abnormal and begin to effect reality abnormally.

This is the hinge upon which Witchcraft pivots: the Witch going in and taking normal things, and realigning the tracks of fate beneath them, compelling things to start happening which never would have happened if not for that specific intervention.

A dish of salt does not normally just make a space clear of emotions. If it did so, that would not be normal. It would be abnormal. Paranormal, even.

So how do you get salt to stop being normal, and start being a paranormal substance that does abnormal things?

Charging with energy is a later step. You charge with energy to fulfill an intent already set.

The first step is to give reality - the reality of the salt, of the emotions in the room - permission to be a fucked up little guy. It's easy as pie. And it mostly comes down to magical headspace: you seeing reality as something quite permeable, and easy to change, and almost illusory, springing from the web of fate that underpins it; but you can change that fate. Reality likes us. It mimics us to show that it wants to be friends. Put yourself in a state where the world is mutable, and around you the world complies.

So step one is magical headspace.

Step two is telling the salt what to do. "Listen here, you fucked up glorious little guy. Before you were dead, only crystals harvested and mined, sold on a grocery shelf where you've been reduced to nothing but flavor. They chew on your bones and forget to worship your soul. But here, in my house, you are a god. Rise from your grave in this new form, to this new purpose: purify from this room the unwanted, the harmful, and the malignant. By my word and my will, this new fate has been granted to you."

No energy work. No visualization. Just tell it like it is.

Or you could be more corporate about it. "This salt purifies negative energy from the room." It's just setting intent, if you want to be crude.

It's hard for me to do corporate magic. With all apologies to the people who do prefer the very simplified present-tense intentions.

Reality mimics us. If something is stirring inside of you, then something is stirring inside of the salt. No visualizing energy roots required.

A simple sentence may not be enough, or a paragraph. Sometimes it takes a while to find the right words. Maybe the salt isn't really a god. Maybe it's a gnome, a saltwork machine, the dead crest of a long-forgotten ocean wave that preserved a billion amoeba in crystalline purity, ready now to purify your room.

Over time, intuition and experience will both grow and combine to advise exactly what to say.

After all, you're telling it like it is - not making it up.

Go to the place where magic is real and you're doing it.

Assign new fates through words.

These are the simplest steps to working over something.

[moonlight-prose]

If you’re taking those as prompts, ❛ don’t you know what you’re doing to me? ❜ with Din perhaps?

LOVE IS A FIRE THAT BURNS UNSEEN

a/n: so i took forever on this, because i kind of fell out of writing for din for...well....awhile. i can tell you this sat in my wips folder half finished for months. honestly i was wondering if it would even get finished. but i was re-watching mando last night and decided why the fuck not. i can't remember which prompt list this was from because it's been so long, but that's okay. this is not beta read or edited, but we live and die by the pen.

summary: on your list of things that could possibly happen while bounty hunting with din, dying from hypothermia wasn't included. nor was finally admitting the truth to yourself about your feelings.

word count: 3.1k+

pairing: din djarin x f!reader

warnings: EXPLICIT SO MINORS DNI, near death experience, angst, feelings being admitted sort of, p in v sex, a hint of choking, they're so in love it's sickening.

It’s fucking cold in the Razor Crest as you sit in the cockpit waiting for his return. You’re bundled in a jacket that has seen better days, but even with the extra layers you swear you’ll freeze to death before he comes back. Tempted to turn the ship back on in order to get some heat—you do the most to distract yourself from the frost currently eating away at the skin of your face. Din’s instructions were clear. Keep the ship hidden until he comes back with the bounty, which would be simple enough.

That is if the bounty he was currently hunting resided on a planet with a temperature that wouldn’t kill you from exposure. Everything had been fine two hours ago. You were working on repairing an old comlink as he tracked the bounty through space, having caught their signal on the outer edges of the galaxy. Except then…they were attacked. Neither of you could see who caused it or even why, but suddenly a lone ship was heading into the atmosphere on the one planet you always said you’d rather die than visit.

Hoth—a frozen pit that once housed the Rebellion of all places.

So, there you were. Shivering to gain some warmth as you scanned the area for Din’s signal. If the ship was right, he still remained alive. You only wished you could say the same for yourself by the time he came back.

The cold had begun to seep into your layers, hitting your chest directly and causing you to cough harshly. If he didn’t return within the hour he would find you dead due to hypothermia. Except that’s not what scared you. It was the fact that he would be the one to find you—a man who showed absolutely no interest in you whatsoever.

You weren’t sure when the crush started or even why, but you do know the realization hit you harder than a speeder-bike going at full speed one day while you were sitting beside him in the cockpit. He laughed at something you said, the chuckle low and slightly clipped due to his modulator and that’s what did it. What had you sitting there in shock—eyes wide—as it suddenly dawned on you that…you liked him. A lot more than you would have ever thought before.

“Maker fucking above,” you muttered, your teeth chattering with the words. “Hurry up, bucket head.”

Vaguely you recalled some survival tips from your time as a teenager on Bracca working as a scrapper. Never touch live wires, always look out for yourself, and when stuck in freezing temperatures—layers become your best friend. So, you stumbled out of the cockpit chair and towards the ladder that would lead you to the rest of his ship. Slow small steps were all you could manage as your body went into overdrive to try and keep you warm. Except the ship acted as an icebox rather than a heater.

You could lock yourself in his small cot, burrowing under the blankets he’d bought because of you complaining there wasn’t enough on the ship. But you’d first have to get there. It was a struggle to even climb down the ladder—your breath coming in gasps as your lungs fought against the freezing air. How long had you been sitting up there? You held no answer to the question, because the results were clear to you now; you were up there long enough to lead you right to death’s doorstep.

Dragging yourself along the side of the ship wall, you flinched as the cold metal touched your cheek. You should have gone against his orders and simply turned the ship back on. It would keep you from this—currently fighting against hypothermia as Din took his sweet time coming back.

The sound of the airlock on the door releasing when it opened brought a small flicker of hope to life, burning bright in your chest. But it faded just as quickly as it came. You caught sight of him dragging a half dead bounty up the ramp—his helmet turned towards you—before you collapsed to the ground. Your body shivering in a final attempt to generate enough body heat in order to keep you alive.

His voice calling your name echoed in the back of your mind as you drifted off—the concept of sleep far more enticing than it should be.

Steady breaths against your bare back was what you woke up—your mind drifting slowly back to reality. Or at least what you thought to be reality. The last thing you could recall was seeing Din’s helmet as your body did what it could to survive. How you ended up in the darkness of his cot, pressed against someone you assumed to be him…naked, was a mystery to you. Perhaps you were still dreaming. This must be how your mind envisioned some form of peace to ease your soul into an afterlife.

“You’re awake.” His voice caught you off guard—the breath in your throat catching.

“How…”

The shift of his body created a low burn of heat to appear at the bottom of your stomach as his arm tightened around your waist—drawing you closer. “You almost stopped breathing when I got back. Your body went into shock from the cold.”

“I was dying,” you said softly, the realization far less jarring than waking beside him in the nude.

He hummed, the low pitch a vibration you felt along your back. “I had to get you warm.”

“So you took off my clothes?” you asked, the smile prominent in your tone.

“Generating enough body heat only works when—”

“Both of us are naked.”

His fingers gripped onto the soft skin of your belly. “Yes,” he replied—voice slightly strained.

Somehow it never registered that he was actually sans armor and clothing until you felt his hand glide further up. The soft skin of his palm turned the spark into a fully formed flame that traveled its way through your body. He was laying beside you…naked. If you concentrated hard enough, you could feel the rise and fall of his stomach against your lower back—his skin soft there too.

Any other time your brain would have short circuited, but the sluggishness from sleep had yet to wear off. It made you rather docile—something you felt oddly grateful for. You were entirely aware, fully conscious of your words and decisions, but the tranquility in your body seemingly spurred you forward. No other time would you be this centered—this sure of yourself—and maybe that’s where you made the mistake, because this was dangerous. Revealing the feelings you’d harbored for months was like poison to your heart…positively lethal.

“Din,” you murmured, the soft heat coming from his body now spreading into yours.

If you knew you’d end up like this after one visit to Hoth, you would have come here a lot sooner.

“Yes?” Even his breath was warm as it brushed across the bare skin of your shoulder. Maker you were close in his bed that was barely big enough for him, let alone you beside him.

“I—” The words caught in the base of your throat, lodging themselves there like a stone you couldn’t swallow. You wanted to say it. Get everything out into the open and be done with it, but your mind seemed to be slowly coming to its senses.

“What is it?”

Closing your eyes, you let out a shuddered breath in the hopes that it would push down the erratic nerves which jumped under your skin. If you chickened out now, you’d never say the words. They’d be your secret—forever trapped in the cage of your heart until it was far too late to confess them. What’s funny is that they seemed like such easy things to say. How hard was it really to say I love you? How much effort did it take? Only you now realized it took a lot more than you expected.

It was far easier to die than to admit your feelings.

“I have to tell you something and I just—” Inhaling, you curled your hand around the blanket beneath you. “I don’t want you to look at me differently if things don’t turn out the way I hope.”

His thumb rubbed a soothing circle against your hip. “I won’t.”

You scoffed. “You probably will.”

The subtle shift of his body against yours caused flutters to go through your heart—rendering you speechless for a moment. He was so close it was maddening. If you had the courage you’d turn around, press yourself to him, and whisper the words against his lips. But you were practically stone, unable to even turn your head slightly to feel the press of his lips against your neck.

“For a while now I’ve felt…well…my feelings towards you have changed.” You blurted them out, hoping it was like ripping off a bandaid. Except the silence of his response hurt more than you expected.

Until—

“I know,” he said, his hand pressing a bit harder on your hip.

Nothing could have prepared you for the shockwave that went through your body. “You know?” you exclaimed.

“I’ve known since our trip to Coruscant.”

You paused, trying to form something to say, but all you could come up with was: “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Why had he let you think he held no feelings towards you? That you were alone in this. You felt him stiffen behind you, his hand pulling away slightly and your heart sank in your chest. Perhaps you had asked the wrong question. Or even touched on a part of this he didn’t want you to see. But you had to know the truth. You knew why you waited—why you couldn’t get the words out for the life of you—but why had he?

That is until he wrapped his arm around your waist tightly, jolting you back towards his body. A soft yelp left you as you tried to refocus yourself in the pitch black space. Except then you felt it. Pressing hard and insistent against your lower back—a part of Din you had only ever imagined, but never seen.

He grunted, his hand splaying across your stomach as you shifted against him. “Don’t you know what you’re doing to me?”

You gasped. “Din—”

“What you’ve been doing?

His hips canted downwards, grinding against you and sending heat sparking up your spine. Enough to combat the cold that still remained in you, but you wanted more. You craved it. Moaning softly, you pushed back against him, pressing your thighs together to hopefully appease the growing ache that formed. Except he was one step ahead of you. Shoving his bare thigh between your legs, he pressed it upwards, grinning at the way your head fell back against his chest—a guttural moan leaving your lips.

“Every day is fucking torture,” he rasped, his hand sliding even lower until his fingers were hovering right above where you needed him most. “Because I can’t touch you.” His lips pressed against the curve of your jaw. “Because I can’t kiss you…”

“Maker,” you gasped, reaching down to wrap your hand around his wrist. “I-I want you to touch me. Want you to kiss me.”

His fingers dipped down even lower, finally parting your folds. A ragged groan was pressed to your jaw, his teeth scraping down against the skin when he found you wet and dripping for him. You could feel his heartbeat against your back. How it was erratic and almost as quick as yours. He was just as nervous as you were—if not more so, because of his creed.

He wanted you to be his, to love him as he was with his creed, but he was scared that this wasn’t permanent. You wanted to show him the inner workings of your mind, the makeup of your heart—how he was seared into it. He was ingrained so deep into your soul that you couldn’t even fathom the thought of being parted from him.

“Are you always this wet for me?” he asked, disbelief clear in his tone.

Nodding, you felt another moan begin to form, only for it to die as he pulled his fingers away. “No—”

“Shh,” he breathed, cupping your jaw as he moved even closer. “I’ll take care of you.”

Heat flooded your stomach, a whine forming in your throat as he pulled you back, the head of his cock now nudging against your entrance. You dug your nails into his forearm, your lips parting to form around his name. A ragged moan echoing in his small quarters, and he began to push forward. Sliding into you slowly as you fought to keep yourself quiet.

“So fucking tight,” he hissed, wrapping his arm around your torso and thrusting into you completely, his hips pressing against your ass. “Won’t last—”

You keened when his hand fell to your clit, circling it with enough pressure to send jolts up your spine. For a moment he simply held himself there. Encompassed in your heat as he worked you over, building your release steadily until you were pressing into him. Your hips rolling against his fingers—fucking yourself on his cock. Soft moans were pressed to your skin, the stubble on his jaw scratching along your shoulder, and that only heightened everything.

For the first time…he was entirely yours. Bare and open as he indulged in something both of you had held back from doing for so long.

Squeezing your eyes shut, you turned your head and caught the corner of his lips in a kiss. Something so tender yet so powerful. It nearly sent you over the edge and you felt Din’s surprise at the action. How his body jolted, his hips nudging forward and fingers stuttering in their motions. Even though he had proudly claimed he wanted to kiss you, to finally feel your lips against his. He had never expected it to come true.

“Cyar'ika,” he breathed.

“I want…” You gasped, hips rolling against his fingers in quick movements as that blinding feeling continued to overtake you. “Kiss me Din. Please, please—”

His mouth found yours in the darkness of his cabin, and you felt your heart scream out. Felt your entire body give into him, his name, his signet forever carved into your heart. He was your future and he knew it. Which is why he kissed you with a fervor that you believed only existed in your dreams—a passion that you felt right down to your toes. His tongue slid along yours, tasting the shitty caf you had earlier—the desperation on your tastebuds.

“Ah…” You tried to form the words on your tongue. The feelings that were trapped in your heart, but they refused to be let loose.

“I know you want to cum,” he breathed, fingers speeding up as your walls began to flutter around his cock. His other hand shifted, wrapping gently around your throat to keep your face close to his. Pressing down lightly as you gasped. “Let me feel it.”

A keening broken moan of his name ripped from you, hands scrabbling to grasp for something, settling for his arm that kept you pressed against him. White flashed behind your closed eyes, his lips swallowing every sound you made as you writhed against him. Gushing around his cock.

You didn’t hear the hoarse shout that he pressed into your mouth, his hips thrusting into you quickly as he followed you off the edge. Filling you with a warmth that you swore you felt  in your chest. Biting down on his bottom lip you sucked into your mouth, moaning when he canted his hips forward, prolonging the sparks that ran up your spine. He was a panting mess and you tried to picture what he looked like.

Was his hair a mess? Were his cheeks stained red? Were his lips swollen?

The urge to simply open your eyes nearly overtook you, but you understood what came with that action. What would have to happen afterwards. Din had explained enough for you to grasp the basic details of what being a Mandalorian meant. So you kept them closed and opted to simply feel. You memorized how his lips against yours felt, what being full of him felt like.

You kept what you could nestled against your heart, remaining here for as long as possible. Din’s cock softened in you, twitching every now and then when your walls fluttered. But you solely had him to blame. Because he was running his hand along your body, grazing your nipples lightly before pulling away—the familiar feelings in your stomach stirring once more. If he wasn’t careful neither of you would be leaving this bed for quite some time.

Which didn’t bode well for you seeing as how you hated the planet you currently resided on.

“Din,” you breathed, pulling away to catch your breath before he dived down again—ready for round two of the hottest makeout session you’d partaken in.

“You want to leave,” he panted. There was something scary about how he could see your thoughts so clearly. You’d have to ask him about it later.

“No…” Your head fell back against his shoulder. “I want to stay here, but Hoth.”

He chuckled, pressing a kiss to your shoulder. “We can stay here for as long as you want.”

Half expecting him to pull out and place his helmet back in its rightful place, you were a bit surprised when he remained put. Curling himself around you closer until his body perfectly molded yours. The cold still remained in the ship—the heaters unable to counteract the snowy planet—yet you found that you were perfectly content to remain right where you were. Wrapped in his arms—the certainty of your future now nestled in his heart. Mimicking yours in every way.

“Din,” you breathed in the darkness, feeling him trace something along your waist.

“Yes?”

“I just wanted to say…” You took in a breath, trying to calm the racing of your heart. “I feel like you should hear me say it.”

He pressed a kiss to your temple, his fingers pressing down. “I know cyar'ika. I feel the same way.”

“You do?” you asked softly.

“I do.”

You settled into the bed, allowing your muscles to relax and your body to once more give into the temptation of sleep. With Din right there, you felt as if you were able to finally relax. To give in and allow yourself to float.

“You know…” You yawned, feeling his chin settle against your shoulder. “Maybe Hoth isn’t so bad.”

He smiled, his lips brushing along your skin as you drifted off, mind succumbing to the sweet snare of unconsciousness. “No,” he breathed, continuing to trace the shape of his signet on your skin, because whether you wore it or not…you were a part of his clan. His life. “It’s not.”

[alltheirdamn]

Give Me Tonight | Joel x f!reader

Summary: Joel has to leave. Rating: 18+ Word Count: 2k Warnings: a fuck ton of angst (sorry) A/N: This is a tiny one-shot for the lovely @janaispunk and their 1500 Kisses Challenge ... Thank you for giving me the inspiration and the ability to celebrate your milestone!! xoxo

Masterlist | Ko-Fi

Things between you and Joel were strictly physical. You fulfilled each other's needs and parted ways at the night's end, no questions asked—no kisses exchanged. That was an unspoken rule both of you had decided: you didn’t kiss. Kissing was romantic. Emotionally charged, if you wanted to be more specific. Nothing about your relationship with Joel was emotional; you were okay with that. For the most part, at least. 

There were times, however, when Joel had his body pressed against you that you so desperately yearned for his lips on yours. When his face twisted up in pleasure, and the beads of sweat rolled down the curve of his nose…that is when you wanted to kiss him the most. Amidst the carnal need driving the force of his endeavors, you noticed a hint of softness in his eyes. It was most prominent when the moon crested over the sky and you were saying your goodbyes. Joel lingered a few moments too long at the door when you turned to leave, almost hesitant to see you go. If he asked you to stay, the answer would always be yes.

But the question never came, and the answer was never given. 

One night in particular, much later than expected, Joel showed up at your small apartment. Given the circumstances within the Boston QZ, it was run down and rather barren, which is why you favored Joel’s place over yours. You could only count a handful of times Joel appeared at your place, and that night had been a shock. After a sharp knock on your door, you opened it wearily, scared it was to be a band of raiders coming after you. God knows it was bound to happen at some point. But luck was in your favor, and your time hadn’t run out. Joel stood before you, a plain denim button-up stretched across his sturdy frame and his hair disheveled. 

“What are you doing here?” You asked. There was something unreadable in his eyes, a swirling emotion swimming in the chocolate pools you hadn’t seen before. 

“Can I come in?” He asked.

He was halfway over the threshold before he asked the question, inviting himself in like any other time. You closed the door soundly, following him into the living room—if you could call it that. There was only one dingy sofa against the wall, along with a half-broken coffee table and a radio that sat near the window. Joel stood in the middle of the room, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. 

“Joel,” you cautioned. “What is it?”

“I’m leavin’ tomorrow.”

He didn’t even turn to look at you as he said the words—three words shaped into a weighted knife that slid right between your ribs. You couldn’t articulate why it hurt, but it did. It was the end of whatever this was between you, the end of warming each other's beds, and the constant need to fill a void left inside both of you. Joel wasn’t a man of many words, but you knew the grief he harbored from losing his daughter twenty years ago. You had lost people you loved over the years, as well, and you craved the connection only Joel could give you. 

“Leaving where?” You asked. 

“Marlene’s asked me to do somethin’.”

“Are you going to tell me what she’s asked you to do?”

Finally, he turned to you, an amalgamation of emotions swimming across his features. You’d never seen him so conflicted, as though the weight of the world balanced on his shoulders. Whatever Marlene was asking of him, the price must be high. Joel wasn’t one to give his help freely, yet here he was, tormented by a nameless job he could not reveal.

“I can’t,” he admitted. 

Static buzzed between your bodies, a teether vibrating in the wavelengths of denial that neither of you sought to unfurl. Too many nights had you spent under his body, mapping the constellation of scars that marred his skin. He could argue it all he wanted, but Joel had also memorized yours. The deep understanding of each other's bodies had become something rooted further than just physical. You couldn’t hide from that truth, nor could he.

“When will you be back?” You asked.

You saw the answer so plainly on his face: the clench of his jaw, the averting of his gaze. He didn’t know. Or worse, he knew and didn’t want to say. Saying it aloud meant it was real. 

“I only came to say goodbye.”

“Oh.”

What else could you say? Truthfully, you didn’t want to say anything at all. You wanted to stay in this moment and savor the time you had left. Even if it meant standing feet apart and staring at each other helplessly. He’d go, and you’d stay. You had no place in his life, only the purpose of warming his bed and giving him release. 

“You didn’t have to,” you offered. “I would’ve figured out you were gone. You don’t owe me anything.”

“That ain’t fair to you. Y’deserve a goodbye.”

You looked down at your hands, your nails digging into the skin of your palms. You weren’t used to Joel speaking so much, let alone in such a solemn way. 

“And I wanted to see you,” he added. “Just one more time.”

Under the weight of your eyelashes, you tracked the shadow of his body growing closer. He would swallow you whole if you let him—and you would. Whatever emotion this was that you refused to acknowledge, it had latched itself so tightly to Joel you feared it would never come undone. You’d live your days without seeing him again and learn to be okay with it. You survived this long with the loss of your loved ones; you could do it again. 

“You’ll be okay, right?” 

You lifted your head, though you were afraid of the truth staring right at you. He nodded, but you saw through it. He was lying. 

“I don’t—.” You swallowed your words. Try again. “I don’t know what to say.”

Joel stepped forward, his calloused and rough hands molding around your face. Never once had he touched you so carefully—never had you realized how desperately you ached for it. He tipped your face up, your eyes steady on his. 

“Then let’s not say anythin’,” he whispered.

You stared, wide-eyed, as Joel dipped his head towards yours. A slight tilt, an exhaled breath, and his lips were colliding with yours. You froze under his touch, letting the movement of his lips on yours guide you through your uncertainty. You didn’t trust yourself not to fall apart in his arms. If you cracked under the weight of your emotions, would he catch you?

Joel’s fingers flexed around your cheekbones, coaxing you silently to give way to your control. Keeping your distance would at least save you the massive heartbreak in the end, but he was gifting you this one moment. Why would you deny yourself that?

Parting your lips, you welcomed Joel’s tongue into your mouth. A slow, languid kiss that deepened every time your lips met. You melted into one another, consumed by a heavy grief that wrapped around your bodies. It was just you and Joel, locked in each other's embrace while the world tore itself apart around you. Your trembling fingers worked at the buttons of his shirt, fumbling over each as they popped open. Joel’s hand came to rest on yours, halting your exploration.

“Not tonight,” he muttered, breaking from your mouth.

Crestfallen, you pulled away. What were you without your body? That’s what Joel wanted, wasn’t it? It was all you had left to give, and even at that moment, he turned you down. Joel curled a finger under your chin, tipping your face up until you swam within the stormy chocolate waves inside his eyes. 

“I just want this,” Joel confessed. “Just give me this. It’s all I need tonight.”

Words failed. They evaded you, though you searched for them and came up empty. Joel took your silence as an invitation to continue his feverish search for solace upon your lips. A broken cry stifled your breathing as you let Joel slip his tongue over yours. Tender strokes overlapping with pitying cries, you resolved to nothing but a heap of devastation. 

Joel tangled a strong hand in the tendrils of your hair, guiding your head in whichever way he chose fit. Control fell to the wayside, and you allowed him to overtake the moment. Whatever he wanted, you’d give him. He could ask you to break apart your ribs and rip out your heart, and you’d ask him for his hand to hold it. 

This kiss was your undoing. 

“Joel,” you whispered.

“Hmm?”

“Promise me you’ll come back.”

He pried away from your swollen lips and rested his forehead against yours. You looked up through tear-drenched eyelashes to see the crease between his brow furrowing deeper. He carried so much pain in his expression. 

“I can’t make promises like that.”

Honey-sweet tones of his voice were replaced by an emotionless staccato—a monotone-sounding blade slicing through all hopes you harbored inside your chest. 

“Stay with me,” you pleaded. “Just for the night.”

“I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?” You argued. 

“It’s better if we leave it like this.”

Joel broke from the cocoon of denial you both had built, the walls tearing down and crumbling around your feet. He strode toward the door, his fists clenched and his back hunched with tension. 

“Joel!” You called out. 

Your body moved on its own accord, crashing into his large frame the second he twisted around at the sound of your voice. He wrangled you into his arms, hauling your body up until your legs strained to wrap around his hips. His hands found their place against your body, one gripping the back of your neck, the other pressed to the base of your spine. 

Joel brushed his nose against yours, his eyes drifting shut as he inhaled your aroma. You tempted him into a soft kiss, a subtle coax of your lips hovering over his. 

“Kiss me goodnight, Joel,” you whispered, your words spoken over the curve of his mouth. “Kiss me goodnight and give me hope there will be more. I can’t accept that this is it.”

“I can’t give you hope,” he lamented, his mouth moving against your skin.

“Then give me tonight.”

Joel crushed his lips against yours, a ferocity awakening inside him that hadn’t been there all night. You shaped yourself into his form, arching into every hard ridge of his body; no space between you was left unfilled. Joel’s fingers flexed around the curve of your neck, his hand sliding over its shape until his palm rested against your throat. The familiarity of his possessiveness sprung into place, a simple reminder of what you meant to him.

Whatever that may be. 

The room spun around you as Joel walked you both toward your bed. He laid you out gently, piecing apart your clothes until you were bare beneath him. His clothes followed, and you returned to his heavy embrace once again. 

He took you slowly, every thrust and moan shared between you becoming the only noise inside your small apartment. Terminal moments faded away into the late hours until you both lay side by side in morbid silence. You expected Joel to leave when he finished, yet his body stayed glued to the bed. 

Rolling onto your side, you traced a path down his arm, allowing your brain to catalog every inch of his skin and the marks he bore. Years of pain ingrained themselves into his body, and he would collect so many more as time passed. Time that did not include you. 

Joel eventually turned his head in your direction, his tired eyes barely holding their weight. You hummed softly, hoping to guide him to sleep. Reaching for his hand, you lifted it to your mouth and kissed each of his fingers, tears rolling down your cheeks as you made your way over each knuckle.

“Goodnight, Joel,” you whispered.

You stirred awake, turning over to see the dent in the mattress beside you.

He was gone. 

Joel wasn’t coming back.

[dreaisgrayte]

HEHHEHEHEHEH WHATS UP MY BBG? I hope you have had a good day/night! I have this idea in my head that I'm ITCHING to get out but you can feel free to ignore❤️

Can you do what would happen and what would Sanemi, Giyu, Tanjiro, and Obani do if reader got turned into a demon during a battle?

LIKE I SAID FEEL FREE TO IGNORE!! YOU DA GOAT BBG❤️

GEHEHE I'M DOING SO GREAT! 🫶🫶I HOPE YOU'RE DOING EVEN BETTER THOUGH 😡🥹 It was raining here all day and I was a worrisome parent and got soaked going to check on my kitties🥰🥰. (also why would I ignore such an angsty request MWAHAHA😈)

Includes: Sanemi Shinazugawa, Giyu Tomioka, Tanjiro Kamado, and Obanai Iguro CW: pretty much reader dies in all scenarios, but... yeah no my heart hurt writing these so there's no hope for any of us. Death, angst, sadness.

Sanemi Shinazugawa

The demon’s claws slice through you, tearing your skin apart. You fall to the ground, crumpled and bleeding

“San-Sanemi,” You choke out, the life draining from your beautiful eyes.

A vengeful scream erupts from his throat, burning his very vocal cords as he rushes the creature

Its head falls to the ground with a gruesome thump, Sanemi dropping to his knees next to your corpse. “YN...I’m so-”

Your eyes, they’re open and your pupils pull into slits. His next breath catches in his throat. “Sorry,” He breathes, his eyes stinging with hot tears

He picks up his nichirin blade, using it to help him into a standing position. Sanemi’s choked sobs echo through the forest valley. The glint of fresh sunlight reflecting off of his blade as he plunges the tip into your heart. The sun is cresting over the mountains in a new dawn.

Your garbled noises nearly drive him to the brink of whisking you off to a shadowy haven, but you wouldn’t want to live out your life being the very thing you fought so hard against. 

As the ashen belongings of your body blow past him he feels like he’s just stabbed himself through the heart.

“Sorry…so sorry.” He cries, but the sunlight dries his tears. 

Giyu Tomioka

He was by your side one second then cornered off by a second demon. He wants to remain close to you and protect you, but as he lands the final blow to the demon in front of him he catches the tail end of the demon lifting you by your throat. 

His blood runs cool, the demon’s features twisting in a cruel sneer as it makes you lick up the blood from his wounds. 

Too late, too late, too late

Just like with Sabito, Giyu was too late to save you. His head spins, running through possibilities to somehow not fuck up again

Tanjiro and Nezeko were a special case, who’s to say Giyu would break through to you? And when he didn’t? Would his heart finally go numb? The risk was too great.

The demon has dropped you and ran off, leaving you panting on the ground. You touch your throat, hacking up the blood it tried to feed you. A glimmer of hope sprouts in Giyu’s chest. Maybe you had saved yourself? You meet his gaze, tears rolling down your cheeks.

“Giyu,” you smile, the one he’d grown accustomed to seeing every morning when you greeted him. “Giyu, I need you to be strong,” you start, but he can’t hear you. He doesn’t want to.

“No, I’m not strong,” His voice is trembling. His body aches with the knowledge of what you’re about to request of him. He couldn’t do it. You meant too much to him and he was a selfish man. When everyone else ignores him you see through his suffering to the little boy underneath, scared of being seen for the fraud he was. 

There’s that smile again. “Giyu. You’re a Hashira, you’re more than strong – you’re kind. You know what you have to do. Please, before it’s too late.”

Giyu’s body feels limp as tears mix with his sweat. He was too weak to save Sabito, but he could still save you. He yells into the night, a pained scream that rustles the birds from their branches.

Your head thumps to the side, fanning into dust as he sinks to his knees, sobbing over your remains. Turns out – he wasn’t numb after all. 

Tanjiro Kamado

You’re bloody, a demon standing over you, it’s foul stench dripping round droplets onto your wound

“Let’s see if you have the heart to kill one of your own, slayer.”

Tanjiro had been through this before, with his younger sister Nezeko and things were turning out alright with her.

Would his bond be strong enough to snap you out of the demonic craze? You had acted like an older sibling to him, watching over his progress and always cheering him on. Often he thought the gods had blessed him with you so he would have someone to look after him when he had no one. 

“YN!” He screams, the demon slipping away into the night. “YN talk to me. If you can still talk that means there’s still time.” But the veins on your face bubble and contort your expression to one of hatred.

Tanjiro falls back on his hands, heart loudly echoing in his ear. “YN, please… it’s me…your little brother.” But it’s far too late to work on your once human heart. As you rise to your feet Tanjiro stumbles to his as well

His katana is shaking in his grip. You were a demon, but also his friend. He can’t see through his blurry vision. 

“Pathetic,” you spit, then before Tanjiro can will his heart to do what he knew he couldn’t, you spill into the shadows

His vow to cut the head from Muzan Kibutsuji’s body grew a thousandfold that night

Obanai Iguro

You had been on this mission for weeks now, fighting side by side. Obanai had grown fond of you.

That was until a demon stole you away, reminding him that fondness sprouted weaknesses. However, he tracks you down regardless.

The demon had set up in a cave, the dawn making this rescue mission easier, but as he steadily slides into the heart of the cave he finds you’ve been tied up, dried green blood on your lips

“Fuck,” Obanai hisses into the darkness, searching around for the creature that did this to you

“It’s gone Obanai…” You drawl, your voice raspy and strained. He winces at the state of you.

He rushes to untie you, hoping it’s not too late and the insect Hashira can work some miracle cure on you. If Obanai was fond of you he couldn’t even imagine how the corp members felt about you. 

It had been a while of your fighting off the urge to turn, there had to be hope for you. If only he could get you back to headquarters fast enough…

As if reading his mind you shake your head solemnly. “Please, let me see the sunrise one last time,” you croak, gaze drifting to the sunlight filtering in from the cave’s entrance. 

Obanai squeezes his eyes shut, the electric buzz of his heart making it hard to fulfill your request. He was stagnant, breath quickening as you pleaded with him.

He offers you his hand, willing his chest to return to steel. He leads you to the outside world and your grip tightens as you step into the sun. Obanai’s body aches with unrelenting sorrow. If only he’d kept a better eye on you.

Soon enough, a faint ‘thank you’ blows past him on the wind, and he rushes away from the spot, not willing to look at what he had so carelessly taken for granted. 

[hollyhomburg]

Before I Leave You (Pt.71)

(Omegaverse au, Mafia au, Bts x Reader)

Summary: Freedom isn't always a good thing... sometimes stupid pups get in trouble.

Tags: slight angst, lying, implied psychopath Jin, Confirmed autistic Jimin, discussion of murder and killing others, Jimin and Jin both have dubious morality, needy m/c, Frottage, Teasing, Knotting, knot-fucking, desperate sex, messiness kink, (slight) pleasure dom hobi 👀, public sex, riding, squirting, car sex

W/c: 15.6k

A/n: it's kinda crazy that this chapter, last chapter, and next chapter was supposed to be a single chapter (it would have been over 30k), this one is my least favorite out of the bunch! please give it a bunch of love when it comes out though 🥺 if you don't love it i'll be sad!

Previous part - Masterlist - First part

The pack goes back to work the next week, nursing hangovers and hurts and everything in between. Every injury both visible and not.

Hoseok's bruises get covered up by Tae's makeup every morning, color corrector applied in thin layers, and then foundation, and then Pink lipstick kisses over top. Tae's lips, your lips, everyone's lips, pressed to those thankful inches between Hoseok's head and his heart.

It becomes their little ritual- and on the nights that Hobi's nightmares keep him awake- her concealer goes under his eyes too. And his lips get pressed more reverently with kisses. Easing apart his tense pout and his frown like the sun parts petals into bloom. It's sweet, the way that Hoseok surrenders himself so willingly to Tae's doting.

Hoseok doesn't know if he likes the makeup as much as he likes the attention. From both you and her.

There’s barely a morning that you don’t wrap yourself around Hoseok’s back while Tae does his makeup, nuzzling against his nape, sneaking your cold hands under the hem of his sweatshirt. alternating between dragging your throat down the crest of his back so that everyone knows he has an omega to come home to, and sleeping curled between. Staying close to your alpha's (the easy ones, the ones that aren't still mad at you).

Hoseok's not the only one who's still dealing with the aftereffects of what happened. The physical side effects and the mental ones.

Jimin still says up and guards the door most nights too, perched on the edge of the nest listening for anyone or anything that might be coming to hurt you. The protective parts of him fester in the meantime before he heals enough to go back to work. He's got too much time on his hands to wory.

He's only diligent with his physical therapy because you tattle on him to Namjoon when he doesn’t do his exercises. Eager to be good, eager to do anything you can to please the pack alpha.

It hasn’t escaped any of them that you’ve been extra agreeable and extra obedient recently. Eager to please. Eager to make up for what happened. Jimin isn’t bothered by it so much- if only because having something to do seems to make you happy. He’ll gladly tolerate you hounding him.

Especially when you bound up to Namjoon to give him a report when he comes home from work, on the receiving end of a very genuine "good pup, making sure your alphas are careful' from Namjoon. especially on those days when that is the only praise that the pack alpha gives you.

It’s not that Namjoon and Yoongi have been treating you coldly, just that there’s a small distance between the two of them and you. Kisses that would have lasted minutes only last second (or they aren’t initiated at all when it comes to Yoongi). Jimin wishes it didn’t remind him of how Tae treated him after she came out but it does.

Hopefully, like with her, Namjoon and Yoongi just need time.

You ask him about it, midmorning stretched out in Tae’s library room where you both wait for her to finish deciding what dress she’ll torture you both with today. You three have taken to hanging out together here. You and Jimin cuddled up on the couch, doing PT, watching Tictok’s, napping, kissing cuddling. Placing shy touches below the pulled blankets to see how far you can go before Tae notices and stops you both with a disapproving lilt to her eyebrows.

“I said no sex- if you guys are gonna hang out with me while I work- you’ve gotta behave.”

You’d melted below the covers and Jimin had firmly placed his hands back over the covers, noticeably damper than they were the last time Tae saw them.

“Sorry mommy,” recalcitrant enough to avoid a spanking (but maybe that is what you’d wanted- what you’d needed). But getting scolded is part of the fun, teasing, seeing how far you can push each other until you break.

You'd squirmed against Jimin's thigh as she'd gone back to work. clicking away at her keyboard without giving you a second glance. "you're not even going to like, let him finish-" You're whiney. Need and wanting down to your bones, a wanting that is only heightened by the vision Tae strikes today; the peachy set of silky bloomers and ruffled top that shows off the little bit of cleavage she has now.

She'd just leaned over the back of her chair and eyed you up and down. "No, if you want to distract me from my book you can suffer pup."

You'd whined and Jimin had hid his laugh in your shoulder. "No buts pup. Maybe later, If you're good, then you can bounce on Jiminie's knot all pretty for me."

"Yes Mommy." But you hadn't ended up doing any of that. You'd fallen asleep curled up around Jiminie (whose hands had unfortunately remained on his phone and above the covers), to the others already awake and at home and would you please help water the plants with Hoseokie pup? You know he doesn't always notice when they overflow.

It’s been harder for you to ask for things since the day you almost ran away. A wanting that can't be sated by simple touches and kisses simmering low in your stomach. Burning through you at strange moments.

Like another moment when you and Jimin are in the library room again. Tae is reorganizing and fussing. What you'd call nesting if she was an omega. The desk is on the opposite wall today. it's Cramped, it won't stay like this for long. The couch moved below the bay window.

You watch Jimin's face as he looks out that window, at the way that the wind tears at the trees around your house, makes them bob and creek, showing the silvery underside of their leaves.

It’s easier for you to Jimin all sorts of questions because he’s not mad at you. (Sometimes you feel like he's the only one who's not mad at you for what you did.)

“Have you thought about how you’ll do it yet?”  

The paranoid bits stretch out and teem. The worst part of Jimin have festered in the meantime. Maybe he'd be less restless if he had something to do but the danger has passed now.

Moonbyul seems like she’s truly gone, you’ve heard neither hide nor hair from her- absolutely nothing since the day that she left. No one from the family has tried to contact Yoongi. Even Jin’s unceremonious exit from the FBI had gone without struggle or suspicion.

Jimin had just continued to watch the window, the spring raindrops drifting down the pain of glass all slow. “Thought about how I’d do what?”

You’d raised your eyebrow at him, and thankfully Tae had come in and disrupted whatever conversation you might have had about murders that might need doing. Twirling in the doorway and showing off her slinky dark green lingerie for you and tae to oooh and ahhh at. Your questions forgotten.

Sleeping bears don’t do well when they’re poked. Jimin knows that. The others know that. It might seem pity as far as retribution goes (Jimin still gets angry when he sees the bruises on Hobi’s throat or watches Namjoon examine the scars that crisscross your hands, red and angry. Or the nights that tae twitches in her sleep).

Maybe the best retribution is to live like this- free and unincumbered by anything like revenge. Revenge is also a burden. Revenge means you still care about what happened to you, that it still hurts, that you're still bleeding. Jimin doesn't know if he wants to be bleeding anymore. His alpha that hungers for blood and pain wars with what Jimin knows will logically help the pack more.

But Jimin’s not the only one who's feeling a little paranoid. A little unfulfilled.

The pack instills a buddy system for those who go to work still and for any excursions outside the house. No one goes anywhere alone. Jin starts driving Namjoon to work every morning and picking him up every evening. With kisses and coffee and snacks, especially on the days that Namjoon has long surgeries and he comes home exhausted. Jin like Jimin is trying his hardest not to be too idle. He turns in his sparkly FBI badge and his weapon the first day he's sober enough to drive. 

Your recipe book and an audio file of Jimin's, yours, and Yoongi's 'interviews' where you explain everything gets locked in a safe that Jin knows the code to. Gets built into the wall in the basement and plastered over. It’s an afterthought, something just in case (you’ll never need it).

There are a lot of other things for Jin to fixate on now. Not everything is good.   

It’s a difficult conversation that Jin doesn’t want to have. Especially not with the pups. This is a conversation that’s too big, too stressful, too much for you to handle- that Jin is certain of.

You certainly look very pupish this morning, still dressed in the matching pink pj’s that Jin left out for you last night, you’d firmly followed his showering instructions not to scrub too hard and even let him button you into them and brush your hair (something you don’t always let Jin do, sometimes you ask for your mommy to do it instead and Tae takes that pleasure from Jin’s fingers with a feral smile).

Your body perfectly moisturized and taken care of, skin glowing and supple and healthy under Jin's inspectory touches. A perfectly obedient pup. So so good it had Jin purring and scenting you so thoroughly you’d gone sweet and dizzy and dependent.

But for once, for this morning, Jin feels like he's dependent on you.

The whole pack will be dependent on you financially. If you decide what Jin thinks you’ll choose.

Jin looks at you across the table (small, yawning, still sleepy, tipping into namjoon and clearly itching for an alpha and a nest) and can’t help but wonder if this conversation, this ask, is best left for later. After having so many difficult conversations in such a short period of time he's lost his taste for them.

Without Jin earning an income right now, the pack’s finances aren’t quite as orderly as they could be. As they should be. Hoseok, Jungkook, and Namjoon are the only ones working now, and Jimin won’t be bringing nearly as much in as he was before- something Jin knows the pup is worried about- he’d even asked if he should get a second job. Having any of his pups overworked is something Jin can’t handle.

And Namjoon is already overworked. Namjoon confessed a little thoughtlessly a few days ago after his first big surgery back- that it’s a good thing he hadn’t quit his job yet. He might not quit it at all now with the pack in limbo. That had been your last straw, and you’d asked Jin if there was anything you could do to help.

That’s a lie- you knew there was something you could do. Sitting in that little file that Moonbyul had dropped off with Hobi’s car all those months ago. The things you’d inherited from Geumjae’s estate as his late wife. The beach house abroad, the apartment in Miami, and the brownstone that had housed his final moments in a city far far away that you don’t ever want to return to.

What other use can it serve?

Yoongi had used most of his Geumjae’s life insurance payout to buy the house and renovate it. And you’ve been living off the leftovers since then, but even that sum won't last forever.

It's a good thing property in Manhattan never depreciates in value.

“This is a lot of money, and I’d understand if you didn’t want to-”

You roll your eyes at Jin, crossing your arms bratty, if Jin were less stressed he might be inclined to take you over his lap for that one. But he wants all of your faculties on board right now. Big financial decisions and omegaspace do not mix well.

Jin is to anxious about this to want to make you submit. Too worried about pushing you too far, asking you for something you might not want to give and overstepping. The clothes and doting are easier- Jin knows exactly how to take care of you that way. He knows exactly what you want when it comes to that.

“Jin, I do not give a shit, like honestly.”

Namjoon is wordless between the two of you, massaging down your and Jin’s necks to soothe you. You don’t understand why he’s pussyfooting around it. What Geumjae has left you and trying to find something to do with it, some way to help the pack, isn't something you're nervous or unsure about. Not even a little bit.

You don’t mind, you really don’t mind. If it helps them stay fat and happy, they can take all of it.

His eyes go softer, less cagey. You lean forward at the kitchen table. Reaching for his hand. He lets you take it. “Jin, just say it-” Jin bites his lip and throws the pen onto the table with a clatter.

“If you sell the house in New York City and put even like 1/3 of it into a trust. The pack would be set for the rest of our lives off the interest alone. Even more if we go the private equity route. Even our kids could-”

Tae calls from the library room, leaning back in her chair to shout through the open door. Clearly listening in on your conversation. “I am not raising trust fund pups hyung!”

Namjoon barks a laugh, “no one is talking about pups yet Tae” he strokes down the nape of Jin’s neck gently, delicately. And you know he’s fixated on the idea of /////yet and when that yet will become soon.

Jin's not getting any younger. Although you and Jungkook are still firmly in your 20's. Jin's going to have to make some big life decisions soon. Not this year and not the next. But the year after definitely.

It’s hard for Jin, to balance what he knows is logically here on the table and what is best for you. He's not sure that he'd make the same choice- the decision to support a pack that you have not known for a calendar year yet (although the anniversary of Jimin finding Yoongi again is sneaking up on you. You’ll have to figure out a day that you want as your anniversary.)

To make decisions with them in mind seems a little…illogical. From a practical perspective. Jin has had these sentiments shoved down his throat since he was a pup. all omega's have.

Don't mate someone until you've known them for a year, don't move in together until you've dated someone for 6 months, and certainly don't combine finances if you don’t like the shape of an alpha’s knot. be a strong independant omega!

You reach for your water and namjoon grabs it for you, holding it so that you can suck at the draw. putting it at the other end of the table to that you don't risk spilling it. wiping the moisture off the corner of your lip when he's done.

Jin huffs. Independance is never something you've wanted- clearly.

All said and done It’s an easy decision for you. Giving them space and time to heal after what you’ve brought down on them and a bit of financial freedom on top of your newfound physical freedom.

You don’t put 1/3 of it into a trust, you end up putting all of it after some discussion.

Jin handles everything involved with selling the brownstone. From contacting a broker to verifying through lawyers that still hold ownership over the property and getting everything notarized. He does all the legwork of opening up a fucking trust to put the frankly insane amount of money that the brownstone goes for in it. Your name on it because namjoon had insisted, and then the pack alpha and omega.

You’re incredibly thankful that you don’t have to go back to the city (especially since you hated it so much in winter and wet springs.) You don’t even bother going back there to get some of your things. You know it probably accumulated dust in the year since you’ve been there. Jin even contacts an estate sale company that sells all of your and Geumjae’s things.

Jin has spent most of his newly gotten free time doing exactly what he’s always done; taking care of his pups.

He’s got interviews with a therapist tomorrow for Hobi (this one has had a very cohesive background check done on him, Jin has learned his lesson). And there's a nail appointment on the books scheduled for Tae today, her hair appointment and facial 2 days from now. A doctor appointment for you and Jungkook the day after. A time slot for Hoseok’s car to get a tune-up later this week (after Jimin’s reckless driving it’s been running a little rough). And the final check-up with Jimin’s surgeon the day after.

You don't know how you'd keep everyone's appointment straight, but maybe that's why jin is the pack omega and you're not. Everything is where it should be. Jin rather enjoys it too.

Namjoon’s scrubs get steamed and hung up before he leaves for work every day, a lunch packed with cute heart-cut strawberries and carefully arranged rice and slices of chicken. Nesting materials warmed in the dryer before you and Jimin and Tae settle in for your mornings of undisturbed library time. Jungkook’s workout clothes color color-coordinated and his long hair brushed shiny and curly with a pat to his bum out the door.

Jin only realizes he might be going a little overboard when he starts a chart to monitor the pack's water consumption. You pressed along his spine trying to rub away your name on the little whiteboard. "If you make me drink that much water I'm gonna have to pee like all the time-"

"Careful," Yoongi had teased, voice rough and gravely from disuse. "You might make Jin want to keep track of that too."

Jin had hummed considering it genuinely, and you and Jimin had jumped up to drag him on to other things in the house before he got any ideas.

Jin spent the rest of this particular morning helping Tae do her hair. Jin’s pups need to look their best at all times. She curled the front, and Jin curled the back so that she didn't have to stretch her poor little arms. A kiss pressed to her knuckles and a "let Jinnie do it my pretty pup" sounded persuasive enough.  

Everyone is pup to Jin right now. In his element. Playacting as the perfect house omega.

Jin and Jimin do their assessment while you, Tae, and Yoongi are at the nail salon.

It's a Wednesday and a few days before he goes back to work from injury leave. Although Jimin enjoyed the first week of lounging with you and Tae in the library room watching her write her story (and get predictably nothing done with you and him there to tempt her) now Jimin has gotten too antsy to settle. Going to the gym with Jungkook yesterday helped a little.

It’s the last snow for the season and the big fluffy flakes hit the window with a faint clink. Jin and Jimin have a few hours of privacy to get this done; the psychopathy assessment that Jimin had asked after the other day, drunk and on the floor of the kitchen bellies full of your sweets.

Jin should probably manage the packs sugar intake too.

His pack omega instincts are settled in a way they aren’t usually now sitting here with Jimin in the spare bedroom (a room that will one day become the pack’s nursery and pup nesting room. But Jin doesn’t know that yet).

Jimin lounges on the window seat and stares up at the sky while he talks and answers Jin’s questions. Jin sits, legs crossed in a big blue velvet chair that you and Hobi found on one of your thrifting walks the other day.

You’ve been going on more of those- walks with Jungkook and Hobi around the neighborhood when the weather is nice. to see the flowers- the daffodils and snowdrops and magnolias starting to bud. You stumbled into an estate sale last week where you bought all sorts of things including the velvet chair and an old rug that yoongi had sighed over and then relented, dragging it off to the basment to work on restoring it.

Jin knows you're working up to attending classes at Jungkook’s gym (you have an open invitation from Wonho). Jin will never not be proud of you, that you seem to be at least trying to get healthier and be more active.

He lounges with a notepad and a few printouts in front of him. A copy of the DSM-five is under the chair just in case he needs to reference it. His silk dressings gown is yellow and green striped with blue and pink floral decals on the shoulders. A tad more eccentric than Jin usually goes because this silk robe used to belong to Tae before she switched to pink everything, folded over his striped pajamas and fuzzy slippers. Pink, also Tae's.

It’s easier for Jimin to do this if he doesn’t have to stare at Jin's face, dewy underneath the thick-rimmed glasses. Jin has had more time to devote to his grooming now that he’s unemployed.

Jin listens, and Jimin talks for what feels like hours. laid out in his most comfy sweats set, also cleaned and pressed by Jin earlier (do sweatpants even need to be ironed?) This one is rough in all the right places, worn familiar from years of wear. Jin doesn't even know where Jimin got it- he checked but the tag had already been cut out, probably years ago.

It's strange, how easy it is to ignore things until you connect the dots.

He sits up towards the end looking at Jin and fiddling with the new earrings in his ears. Teasing at the loose cool chain with the tips of his fingers like noodle bats at the tassels on the edge of the curtain in Tae's library room. It's an absentminded action- Jimin's body is too loud for his mind to think of should and shouldn’t’s.

You've warned him time and time again that if he plays with the fresh piercings too much, they might get infected. Namjoon has done his best to dot disinfectant whenever he gets home and, in the morning, too sometimes.

But Jimin always always fiddles. He can't help it. Small bits of paper, the ends of his hoodie that somehow always end up in his mouth. Tae's hands, the soft little ends of Tae's hair, Tae's jewelry, Tae’s everything. It’s weird to see Jimin talking if he’s not fiddling with something.

He’s nervous, so he fiddles. Jin has notes and a completed screening form in front of him. Looking at Jimin now with fresh eyes Jin doesn’t know how he never noticed. How he never put it together.

The psychopathy assessment below taunts Jin.

Failure to conform to social norms concerning lawful behaviors, such as performing acts that are grounds for arrest. Deceitfulness, repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for pleasure or personal profit. Lack of remorse, being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another person

"And did it bother you? When you killed those people?"

"Those bad people hyung," Jimin corrects, and Jin can't help his smile.

"Did it bother you when you killed the bad people, Minnie?"

Jimin fiddles, quiet, like he doesn’t want to admit it. "Only when it got messy."

"Why do you think the mess bothered you?" Jin’s asking half because he wants to know, and half because he’s genuinely curious.

Jimin’s hands rub up and down his knees and he shifts forward than backward. But his words come out even and measured. "Because it wasn't the way it was supposed to go- the way I organize it in my head, the same way you probably think through what clothes will make Namjoonie hyung blush the most. It didn't happen the way it should have."

Monsters aren't supposed to bleed.

"The only way I don't get overwhelmed by things is whey I make sure they happen they way they should."

"What does it feel like when you get overwhelmed minnie?"

"It's like- fear I think? My chest gets really tight, and everything gets extra extra loud. It makes my alpha like- riled. And I have to remind myself that I don't need to get angry about it."

They move on to other topics, different than Jimin’s apparent lack of remorse (it's not lack of remorse, but conditional remorse. Jimin only feels within the firm lines of what he believes he should feel) But they circle back to it because Jimin uses the words ‘bad people’ more than once.

"Why do you think that they needed to be bad to kill them? Why does if they were bad matter to you so much?"

"Because that’s the rule- bad people are supposed to die, aren’t they?" Jin cannot fault Jimin for that- because it is the rule. Generally. You do not Mourne monsters. You do not Mourne the villains.

"I'm not so sure about that, plenty of bad people never get punished."

"Like Moonbyul and me you mean?" Jin almost breaks the pen he's holding, almost.

"Do you believe that you're a bad person Minnie?"

Jimin bites his lips, looking down and away, not fidgeting at all. But his teeth work away at his lip. It takes a second for him to gather his words, a second to respond. Jimin has always been hard to read.

"I was hoping you would tell me. I can’t ask Tae. She wouldn’t be able to tell me the truth."

No, Jin always noticed. He just didn’t think of it beyond late-night musings wrapped in Namjoon’s arms. Gossiping about their pack because If there’s one thing that the pack omega and pack alpha like to talk about- it’s their 6 pups. They used to gossip about you the most that way- but Namjoon has been resistant to discuss you recently and Jin doesn't have to ask why.

He sees the conflict and love in his soulmate as easily as he sees the diagnosis written out on the paper right now. He'll check the DSM later for autism spectrum disorder but he won't find anything that varies from his notes.

Uses only limited facial expressions to communicate, frequently flicking switches or spinning objects, speaking in a repetitive way, narrow or intense interests, having trouble with changes to their schedule or changing from one activity to another, and hyper-reactivity to sensory input.

Sometimes talking about things too seriously does more damage. Jin keeps that particular diagnosis to himself.

Jimin looks at him imploringly, not reaching out to touch, because maybe Jimin is a little too overstimulated right now from bearing his heart to initiate contact. His eyes are bright and hopeful. They are not glassy and vacant. Jin has looked at countless pictures of psychopaths before- and none of them have eyes quite like Jimin's

They’ve been at it for 4 hours already, Jin has gotten up twice to pee when Jimin sits up without the intention of lying back down.

"So, what do you think hyung? Am I crazy? Am I a psychopath?"

I think you're a whole lot of things Minnie. Autistic for one with a hyper fixation on the people you love, Tae in particular.

Jin winces, looking Jimin up and down, and the alpha flushes but stays still under Jin’s evaluation. His sensory issues are painfully on display in an extra big sweatshirt, the ends of his sweatshirt pulled loose so that they're not tight around his wrists. His hips, baggy pants, and slides. Jimin’s toes flex, like he can’t help but push at the one item of clothing that constrains him.

He never has the same problem with the neat dark suits that his bodyguard job makes him wear. When Jimin knows what's expected of him- he doesn't have a problem following the rules or lying.

Bad people die. That's the rule, isn't it? Jin has a tallied kill count on the corner of the page, every time Jimin references a different murder over the last 5 hours, Jin has added a tally.

He's run out of room on the notepad.

Jin will bring it up to him later. Will tell him later, to be sure. Jimin asks after something much scarier, much more dangerous to his pack right now. Jin will do anything he needs to do to protect his pack- and that's part of the problem.

There are things that Jimin doesn’t need to know.

Jin covers that evaluation with his fingers. Only a few words are viewable between the narrow edges of his long fingers.

A peculiar lack of empathy, but not a lack of anxiety. An ability to distinguish between right and wrong but not an inherent understanding of those concepts. A tendency to lie. But is that really so scandalous? So damning? Is lying not a necessity and an instinct when the truth can do so much damage? Would Jin blame anyone for lying about these things?

“I do think that psychopaths don’t wonder if they’re psychopaths Jimin. Asking these questions of yourself isn’t a bad thing. If you were crazy, I’m not sure you’d care to be here.” And you’d be trying to convince me too.

Jin stands up and walks over to Jimin the one or two steps. Leaving his notepad behind to cup Jimin’s cheek, running his thumb along the alpha’s plush lips. Jimin’s eyes are wide and glassy, unable to tear themselves away from Jin. Jin’s omega wants to purr at the show of devotion, at the sight of Jimin below him almost on his knees. Jimin places a gentle palm on Jin’s thigh, Just to feel.

"I don't think you're crazy Jimin, I just think you're an alpha who will do anything for the people you love." Is it lying if he believes it to be the truth?

"And there's nothing wrong with that?" Jimin asks, Jimin’s hand fiddled with the tasseled end of Jin’s dressing gown with a delightful shiver of sensory pleasure.

Jin leans down and presses his lips to the alpha’s brow. Jimin almost sags against Jin’s front.

"There's nothing wrong with that at all. Come with Jinnie. It's well past time for lunch, and I won't be able to stand it if my pups are left unfed."

~-~

Jin spends his days gloriously unemployed putting the pack back together piece by treasured piece. But that’s not the only thing that needs his healing touch.

He spends most of his time helping Yoongi restore the house to its former glory. Switching out crown molding and cracked wall sconces. He rarely ever changes out of his matching pajamas and matching pink sweat sets even if they get speckled with dust and wood stain and eventually paint. He thoroughly enjoys sitting elbow to elbow with Yoongi and just- living. Just existing next to the beta without any thoughts or secrets between them.

They don’t talk much, sometimes Yoongi plays music, and sometimes he picks the paint splatters out of Jin’s hair, or the splinters out from his fingers oh so gently. Yoongi’s been quieter since everything went down- if that even seems possible. Less likely to joke, the smiles when Jin puts his paint-splattered hands-on Yoongi’s ass don’t last quite so long.

But unlike with Jimin, any words of wisdom and questions aren’t met receptively; Yoongi just walks away. And Jin knows he’s not ready to talk about it yet. Jin worries that your and his relationship is only part of the problem.

It’s a good thing Yoongi’s fairly organized and has kept all the paint buckets in the coat closet under the stairs. He teaches Jin how to fill the bullet holes in the banister with wood filler and sand it down. The muddy stain sits until they can hardly tell. After a few days of their hard work, it feels like the last few weeks are just a bad memory.

He spends his afternoons polishing away the bullet holes in the antique doorframes, re-spackling the parts of the wall you crashed into that got indented. Every little fleck of blood that leaves even the barest hint of a stain against the ceiling. The drywall cut out and replaced in certain spots. They spend it in companionable silence and Jin tells himself that staying by Yoongi’s side is enough.

Now that the pack knows that they’re not going to be discovered right away there is time to take care of the evidence beyond just bleach and cleaner. The cops haven’t come to their door even once. Not even a noise complaint from your days of revelry.

They're meticulous in the way that they check over every inch of the house. Jin goes over everything with luminol and a blacklight just to be sure. The bights of Yoongi’s eyes extra white as he watches. But no one is better at covering up a murder than them. (If they had a mind for it, they might have a handy side business. Jin jokes, but Yoongi just huffs and doesn't dignify it with a response.)

They dig up the body later.

They make sure everyone else is out of the house. Tae’s hair appointment serves several purposes beyond making sure the pack's prettiest alpha feels her best. Tae goes a little lighter- blonder, less red, and more chestnut. Long and brushing past her shoulders now. Perfect for the spring that hovers on the edge of every breath of warm air.

It won’t be long now. The daffodils are already coming up in places in the front yard. Yellow and bright and happy.

They put the man in a metal bucket, fraying clothes and all. Jimin and Jin mix up the chemicals wearing full hazmat suits. Lye bubbles and burns and leaves little left of the man other than some errant buttons that must have been on his pants and a twisted mess of a zipper.

Jin and Jimin toss them into the fireplace upstairs before anyone gets home, watching as they bubble and burn and disappear like a bad memory. The assassin and lye slurry gets poured down the drain, and carried out to the ocean to find rest- no longer haunting you. Yoongi mixes up more concrete and pours the hole and it’s like it never happened, like Tae and you never murdered that man.

When the pack gets home Jin has picked a few daffodils, put them on the kitchen table, and opened up all the windows. Tae twirls when Jimin asks to show him her hair. The way it falls in pretty ringlets.

"Beautiful"

“Fumigation” Jin will tell their neighbors when they ask about the smell. the subtly tangy chemicals that fill the culdisac. "You know our cat, the angry one, brought a whole punch of pests in. You might want to test your basement too."

Jin is the best liar in the pack for a reason.  

You come home laden with bags and just cuz gifts. You’d gotten your hair trimmed and Jungkook too- tight on the sides and long on the top. Jungkook’s bought new star-shaped pillows to go with the light blue couch and Namjoon brings home a pink moon one for you. A stuffed animal one with floppy feet and a tastefully neutral expression that you clutch to your chest during movie nights.

On nights like tonight, when it's so quiet that you need something soft to hold onto- least you remember other deceptively quiet nights.

The rain outside has lulled to a gentle pitter patter and the pack is likewise lulled to a similarly gentle sleep. Moving this way and that, settling like the bones of the house that creek with every harsh gust of wind. Asleep around you in heaps.

You nested earlier with Jin and Jungkook- fluffed every pillow and folded every blanket. It’s not quite as fluffy as your old couch but it is bigger, large enough to accommodate everyone lying this way and that. Jin purrs are sleep deep and soft. Almost pearly in the nighttime.

It's so quiet.

Your hair catches the highlights of the TV screen when it bursts bright and colorful. Hobi twirls a lock of your hair around his fingers while the movie drones on. Animated this time- because none of you have had the stomach for any movie that features too much violence. Nothing lifelike yet. You’ll stick to familiar fantasies in the meantime.

You're curled on your side and stretched out, your feet in Namjoon's lap. The top of your head so close to Hobi's thigh that you can feel the warmth of it along the top of your head. You're not touching him. But his warmth and safe alpha musk is close and thick. More satisfying to your nesting instincts than any blanket, to have your alpha nearby and alert.

Not that you're not welcome, Noodle occupied that spot until recently. Yawning and slinking off with a jingle of his bell collar once Hobi alternated from petting him to petting you.

He twirls a lock of your hair around his finger and watches the movie.

It’s a movie that you've seen before. It's familiar backtrack the perfect thing to fall asleep to here. The room is dark. The blue-red then pink light of the television flashes with scenes. Sounds too far away as your eyes get heavier and heavier. You're not the only one who's clearly feeling the effects of the nighttime or the smooth unaffected happy scents of your packmates.

Tae in particular smells rich and flowery, happy sprawled out between Jungkook and Jimin and Yoongi. Jimin’s hand sits under the hem of her white tank top, the translucent lace edge hides the movements of his fingers as he strokes up and over her hip lazily. Your mate's face is hidden in her hair, and Jungkook is belly down draped over their legs. Your mate's long fingers rest still against his spine. His shirt pulled up to the small of his back. His small huffs are infrequent and gentle. Like a puppy twitching in their sleep.

Namjoon's loud snore punctuates the quiet from the other side of the couch, his head tipped back against the cushions at an uncomfortable angle. Lost to the world like Jinnie tucked small into his side. His cheek fluffy and resting against the hollow of the pack alpha’s throat. Nose tucked to the safest place in existence.

Well, maybe the second safest. Hoseok’s lap is empty afterall.

You never would have said that Jin was skinny or waifish before, but after quitting his job it’s clear that the stress was affecting him. He looks healthier now. Less sallow-skinned and the space under his eyes is less hollow. Jungkook too has a pink glow to his cheeks- although that might just be where he’s rubbed it raw over Tae’s tight And Jimin’s side. He’s half asleep while he scents them. He mumbles and grumbles something like a purr before he goes quiet and still. 

Even Yoongi at the end of the couch, has his eyes closed, although you can tell they’re moving under his eyelids, his breath coming out with little huffs that tease the top of Jimin’s hair, sock feet stretched out. You close your eyes and open them, eyes drawn to yoongi at first sight. he's always the first person you look for when you open your eyes.

Only to see Noodle purring from his lap. Your and Hobi's company abandoned in favor of his new favorite person.

“Traitor,” you mumble. Hobi laughs quietly.

"We should take his treats until he comes back to us."

"Noodle? or Yoongi?"

"Both." you giggle and turn onto your side.

His fingernails itch down the back of your neck, not a scruff but close and you turn till you're belly down on the couch so that he has a better vantage point to play with your hair. Your eyes flutter, and when they open again Hobi is still staring at the screen. You're the only two awake and half his face is colored green from the movie.

When you look at the screen- Howl and Sophie are traipsing across flower-filled fields. colorful and bright.

"We should find a place like that, when spring really starts up in a few weeks."

Hoseok's eyes are dark and reflective when he looks down at you, huffing fondly, teasing, "are you asking me out on a date?"

"Maybe. You gonna say yes if I am?"

"Maybe." He teases, and you reach up to pinch his thigh, he takes your hand before you can and holds it, pinning it up there on his thigh. You tangle your hand with his pant leg and leave it there. He goes back to watching the movie and you go back to watching him. Quiet and peaceful in the silence of gentle nighttime

“It always bothered me” Hobi knows you’re watching him. Even without looking down. Yoongi's other hand rests on the back of his neck, you see his slack fingers twitch when he looks at you.

“What?”

“He didn’t use real flower types when he animated this- they sort of look like cow vetch- but they’re not.”

You snort, rubbing your eye, “only you would complain about the flowers in Howls Moving Castle.”

Hobi huffs, his fingers trailing over your forehead gently, smoothing out the crease between your eyebrows. Hand sliding to your shoulder under your arm.

"Come here, I don't bite." You go with little protest. You let him usher you up onto your knees, scooting across the couch until your head and most of your body is sitting in his lap. Laying your heavy body down. You tuck your legs to the side and someone else other than Namjoon snores but it doesn’t matter who. The eight of you tangled here.

"We should wake everyone up and go upstairs."

"Leave them for a minute. This is my favorite part."

He hesitates, looking down at you, then slowly, like his hand can feel the weight of the gesture, he draws your hair away from your face, the pads of his fingers brushing the corner where your ear becomes your jaw, his pulse by your ear visible in every little tremble. You breathe, and Hobi touches your neck, just mindless circles, eyes eventually drawn back to the TV.

“This place is gorgeous Howl! it’s like a dream.”

You swallow, and you suddenly feel more awake than you have in years, in months. It's frightening the sudden clarity at which you are aware of him- of everything. The softness of his faintly calloused hands, the feeling of his flannel pj's rough under your cheek. The smell of the peach-scented body wash he must have used in the shower earlier. Everything about him in frightening clarity.

You like the way he's touching you, over your cheek and down your throat. None of you doesn't like it. None of you is afraid of what Hoseok might do next. You're not even thinking about it. An alpha has his hands on your neck and you feel-

You feel perfectly at ease, perfectly happy, perfectly in love.

It's like you've been sleepwalking this whole time, or maybe that your soul has taken a vacation, forsaken your body for greener pastures, and then snapped back to this moment right now. Your belly feels full of almost there laughter. You're tired but you're not exhausted. Your shoulders don’t even ache. There isn’t a lump in your throat.

Your breath is so smooth and so easy when you exhale and inhale. You can breathe.

Hobi’s face flashes blue, then the brightest chartreuse. His hand finds the popcorn bowl, and part of it misses, hitting somewhere in your hair but you don’t care at all. You look up at him, watching. Chest going all tight again- your body is fighting it, whatever this feeling is. You're simultaneously more awake than you've ever been and suddenly- not sure if you're not sleeping.

His wrist is over your nose and you nuzzle into it as he reaches for another handful of popcorn, fighting back tears. even as one curl falls from his overful fist and hits your face.

He mindlessly picks the popcorn out of your hair, eating it anyway (at least Jungkook didn't put too much butter in it) He doesn't realize that something is very wrong yet (that something is very very right).

“Sorry.”

“S’fine”

Hobi goes back to watching the movie and you wait a few more minutes, a few more seconds fighting back tears, before you disturb the quiet again. 

"Hobi," Your voice is quiet and scratching. He doesn't hear you over the movie. Not at first.

Your heart is so thick in your throat and you stretch out. Your body is truly lax for what feels like the first time in ages. Not a bit of tension in your muscles. Your head doesn’t feel so heavy, and that vaguely sick feeling that’s always sort of in your stomach is gone. You breathe and it doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t feel tight. It’s easy.

Namjoon mumbles near your feet. And Jimin lies Tae down more properly, disturbing Yoongi a little, Noodle hops off his lap and slinks off into the darkness, and everyone re-settles. Everything is slow and simple.

And safe.

Your hand goes vicelike on Hobi’s wrist and he looks down at you, inhaling sharply. There is no hatred in his face, though there hasn't been in months. There is nothing in his eyes besides the most blush pink love, a love that speaks of roses and bumblebees and butterflies- every other small flying thing that has nurtured the world to life. The panic is immediate. This is not a feeling that you are used to. This is not a feeling that you remember.

You don't remember the last time you felt safe.

"I feel- Hobi I feel safe. I feel so safe right now- Hobi- I can't-" 

You’re frantic with the knowledge of it, words rushed and a little panicked, you’ve forgotten this feeling, how complete and peaceful it is. Peaceful and yet panicked because this is not a feeling that you're used to.

The knowledge thrums through you, the relief choking you with its pretty purple vines. His hands go ridged in your hair, knotting a little before they smooth it out. Your scent- it's not unhappy, but it is pungent. Hobi curls his body over you, bowing to protect it from any unseen threat. He would protect you from anything that came through the front door. Anyone.

He smiles down at you gently, petting your throat, down the side of your body. Oh so gentle. "I know it's- it's good, right? It's okay. Right?"

"Yeah- it's okay, it’s-"

And it is okay. More than okay. It’s okay even when the tears form at the corner of your eyes and find their death in Hobi’s lips as he leans lower to kiss them away so softly you hardly feel it. He knows what this is. He’s happy to hold you through it, the first time your body has let go. Relinquished the tightness and control of being on edge. That little thing that makes prey animals prey animals. The part of you that has always been more animal than human, more fight and flight than fawn.

But you're safe now, all the hard things are over. all the hard things aren't heavy anymore because you're safe. Here in Hobi's lap, here in the house that Yoongi made for you all. You're safe.

It’s a feeling you can’t explain. Like why the snow smells clean and why the air smells like a memory sometimes. Safety is one of those intangible things, you know when it’s here and when it’s gone.

He only hopes that this time, it’s here to stay.

You feel safe in his arms, and you feel safe when minutes later Namjoon wakes from a particularly loud snore. You're asleep finally, but your name is the first on his lips.

Namjoon smacks his lips, scenting the distress on the air without opening his eyes. “Pups? What’s wrong?"

Hobi smiles at Joon, his half-asleep pack alpha brain running paces while his instincts have gone miles. "It's okay Joon, she's just happy, go back to sleep."

"Okay, love you," the pack alpha grumbles out. Curling back over Jin’s body with his, all but pinning the pack omega to the couch. Jin just purrs louder.

"Love you too Joonie." Hobi looks down at you, holding you in his lap, and thinks. Yeah, we're both gonna be safe, aren't we?

(When you wake in the morning, you’re back in the nest upstairs. You smell like Hobi and Yoongi and You don’t remember being carried there at all; you just remember the comfort.)

~-~

You do not spend the next week helping Yoongi and Jin fix the house. you spend the next week baking.

Luckily the kitchen escaped most of the damage in your gunfight. Everything is unharmed except for a small spot by the coffee station where a bullet lodged itself in the drywall and one spot in the blue tile backsplash that needs re-doing.

Yoongi waits for that last, hovering, watching you hum along to the music and scoop out things into little trays. Onto the baking pans, you do not catch him watching. But when a glass breaks, he's there waiting with a dustpan to sweep it up.

He doesn't manage to protect you against every hurt however. there are some things that you just can't anticipate.

You go through every recipe you’ve ever made, honey cakes and macarons that take several tries to get right. Pretty Raspberry Charlottes with meticulously arranged raspberries and ladyfingers. Chocolate cookies with crackly tops. Red bean buns and pineapple cakes.

You make everything in your cookbook once and then again. Tweaking the recipes and adjusting them to copy them over into a new recipie book that Hoseok gets you.

(It's not a courting present, it's not- he swears)

(It's totally a courting present)

The book has a thick pink cover, a snap-in binding so that you can take pages in and out at will. And a small pink tulip on the front cover that quickly gets stained with butter, lemon juice, and a tiny tiny bit of blood.

“You need to be more careful.” yoongi says, in his pj’s. hair all spiky from where jin gave it a fresh cut in the kitchen last night. Short enough that it makes his cheeks look all chubby. A band-aid in his hands. You’re pretty sure there’s still a little bit of his hair on the kitchen floor, but you’ve never been one to complain about that sort of thing so you let it slide. you let namjoon wrap your finger with the bandaid with a small whine.

"I was being careful- I just-"

“I was watching her hyung,” Jimin says, a little fluffy, a little ruffled. His headphones pulsing dully around his throat. You read between the lines with that and make no comment. I was watching her hyung, I know she didn’t do it on purpose.

You got him a pair of nice over-the-ear headphones last week and picked them out with Hobi’s help. They’re the kind that makes everything- even the most grating hum – ease away into silence. Your gift has helped a lot more than any of them anticipated when you’d first set out on your “let's figure out what makes Jimin have grumpy pup time” Adventure.

Some things had been easy, and routine. No microfiber, no oily foods. other things are less anticipated- his leg hair. A trigger he didn’t even know he had. Discovered after he watched Tae shave in the bathroom, the air all hot, the sudsy pool of water foaming pink as Tae filled it up and sat on the edge. Jimin's heavy eyes followed her as he asked why she does it, why you do it too.

"Wow It's like- really smooth."

"Can I try?"

"Are you sure you don't just want to feel?"

"I'm sure."

Tae had shaved him, oh so gently, gripping around the back of his knees. and Jimin hadn't realized, hadn't known what kind of effect it had on him until he was sitting in the nest in utter bliss a solid hour afterward. Rubbing his legs together like a cricket, absolutely lost to the sensation of skin on skin and no tugging.

"Can you do it tomorrow? Please? I wanna feel like this every day," a relaxed laugh warping his words. "Wow leg hair like totally sucks- I didn't know I didn't- I didn't know at all, I didn't realize-"

There are so many things you don't realize that hurt. You and Tae hand cuddled up close to him, rubbing up and down his thighs to feel how soft Minnie's skin actually was. Gentle. Your touches ease away his distress.

"Sorry Minnie, it won’t feel the same, you have to wait a few days for it to grow out."

So no leg hair, no sellophane. Absolutely no tags on clothing. Headphones when things get too loud. Jimin goes quiet and soft and gentle with the headphones. He tries not to wear them all the time, but when the house goes particularly loud in the afternoons after he's come home from work- it's become his new favorite thing. To sit in Tae's library room with her and enjoy a few moments of companionable quiet.

It's good, it makes you happy that Jimin is leaning a bit more into the sensory stuff than usual since his tentative diagnosis from Jin. The rest of the pack had completely accepted it, almost without a second thought. A few careful nuzzles and a few reassuring kisses.

Jungkook had immediately set out to make a list of Jimin’s safe foods. “I don’t know if I even have any- I don’t know if it’s like an autism sensory thing Jinnie just said that I’ve got something.” But the secretive looks Jin had sent the rest of you had been proof enough. You all believe the pack omega’s words like they’re gospel. And really- when it just comes to loving the people you love and listening to them to love them better that's an easy concession to make.

And it's also a little fucking cute when Jimin leans into the sensory stuff. Yoongi ruffles his hair now where the headphones sat Making the hair that it pressed down poof up again.

“It’s okay Minnie, accidents happen.”

Everyone’s been sensitive to Minnie recently. So careful and intentional with the way that they love him. So much so that they’re letting other things slip through the cracks.

It’s not a big deal. It’s really not- you’d gotten used to a certain level of contact from them over the past few months and while you never audibly complain about it and you’d never admit it. One fact remains; unavoidable and inescapable, haunting you in your simple moments.

You’re fucking needy.

You can only take so much- so many times of Jungkook coming home with the front of his shirt sweat-damp from a run, pulling up and showing off his abs too cool off. Of Namjoon when he changes into pajamas, tiny little shorts that show off all his thighs straining and pulling. Jimin when he’s stretched out, fiddling with the hem of his shirt, all growly and close to Tae whose skirt is pulling high.

Your mate washing his hands in the sink definitely shouldn’t leave you with your mouth dry, slinking off to the upstairs bathroom to clean up just so that no one scents it on you.

It’s embarrassing. You feel like a freshly presented pup.

No one has…sought you out since your little mishap. No one has let their hungry touches linger and go hungrier. No one has given you exactly what you know you need since Hobi- before Moonbyul. Almost 3 weeks ago now.

But to put pressure on them now, when it’s clear that maybe- you need to tread lightly when you already have so much to apologize for. It Feels like too much too soon. You’re not a monster- you can control yourself.

In the meantime, you bake your heart away. Needing something to get your mind off them. The whole house is littered with powdered sugar and sawdust, dusted with frosting and wood filler. There isn’t a single shelf left in the fridge that isn’t covered with cakes or sticky custard tarts, or personal cheesecakes topped pretty with heart-cut strawberries.

The only one Jimin had said was slightly grating to him was the super sticky raspberry tarts. So Tae feeds them to him with a giggle, then Yoongi leans in close, demanding the same treatment, his lips gently swallowing tae's long fingers whole.

You shiver and watch.

"It's so sticky," Yoongi licks forward, lapping at tae's fingers, "but sweet!"

You can't stop your hungry look as you watch Tae lick the whipped cream off the top of a tart, her tongue darting out to lick over her lips. feeding tae a bit of whipped cream. some of it gets on his face and jimin smacks his pulsh lips, glossy.

You feel like you want to smack your face into the table. You actually do grip it hard. You wonder if it's normal, to want so much. To want things so hard. your cheeks feel so hot you might be able to back cookies off them.

Breath crusts your ear, lips just barely brushing your skin "these are really yummy."

You jump, Hobi's next to you and he grins, his fingers traitorously resting on the edge of the counter and you know he knows exactly what you were just thinking. What you were just wanting. You blush hot and needy, embarrassed at being caught staring at them. Busying yourself with pulling the remaining tarts off the drying rack and packing them away with parchment paper.

Tae's cheeks are speckled with powdered sugar. And she giggles- completely unaware of your obvious wanting. You nibble just a little at your own pastry. Appetite is suspiciously silent.

Jimin’s definitely not absorbing your conversation either, too busy watching Tae just like you were. Yoongi slinks off with a quiet thank you- intent on completing whatever project he's currently working on.

Jimin's eyes flick up and down Tae's face. Honed in, unable to look away. "The eye glitter-"

"Eyeshadow Minnie," Tae corrects, a little meanly, a little know-it-all in her tone. The same exact what she gets when she takes her knot and tells you exactly how to-

You need to get a grip. You forcefully turn away from the two of them and flip through your new recipe book. Searching for something sweeter, something else you can make other than fixate on this.

You clench your thighs together and watch Jimin cup Tae’s cheeks, her neck, hands skimming down her waist hungrily.

Jimin lets out a little pent-up breath, "It's like- super mesmerizing today- can you show me which one-"

Tae pulls him up from the table with a sweet giggle, leading him into the other room- Jimin looks a little dazed, stumbling on the carpet as he goes. Hoseok laughs and plucks another cookie from the tray before he helps you put them back inside, shaking his head.

These have powdered sugar on them too, you watch Hobi lick the white from his fingers. Hobi has nice hands, nobly in all the right places. You let out a breath and he licks them again, raising an eyebrow at you.

"Are you like okay or-"

"I'm fine." You whine, a little petulently. Setting down the container a little hard. Hobi laughs, and you wish it didn't make your knees a little weak. You need to get it together. You set the back of your hand against your flaming cheeks.

The fact of the matter is that You've gotten used to a certain amount of attention from the pack. Your body mostly, has gotten used to the near constant attention. Since everything happened, people have been- warming up to it slowly. Baking is also a good way for you to mediated away your sexual frustrations, bury them deep below layers of dough and batter and sparkly sugar.

Hobi's hand scratches under the hem of his shirt and you let out a heavy breath. He looks over at you and his nostrils flare.

"So, ugh- what's next- what are you baking next?"

"I wanna try to make this recipe I saw on Ticktok but I'm out of powdered sugar so-"

"You want me to drive you?" Your eyes flicker up. And you perk up at the idea of getting out of the house right now.

"Yes," you say, is your voice shaky? Are you the only one who notices the way that Hoseok's hand curls over his keys? or the way that you move restlessly? Pent up.

You leave, you tell others, but you find it hard to look away from Hoseok long enough to send a text to the group chat The same way that it was hard for Jimin to look away from Tae.

You make it to the store without any sort of comment from him, anything beyond his hand and your hand intertwined over the center console. Although you do see Hobi's mouth quirk as you stare and stare and stare.

There is something unfairly attractive about the way that Hoseok drives; one hand on the back of your headrest to back in the car. Something that makes you feel like you're melting when he follows you around the store. Taking one step for every two of yours, slow and leisurely, lingering close behind you protectively as you debate milk chocolate and semi-sweet. Reaching over you to get the sugar from the top shelf. His bicep brushing the top of your head.

Your jeans have rips in them, a courting gift from Tae who claimed they were cute (the pockets on the back are heart-shaped) His index and middle finger stay tucked into the back pocket of them, tugging you back close when you almost step in front of someone's cart, his thumb resting on the hollow of your back. Rubbing.

But when he gets into the car he pauses, "do you want to-"

"The beach?"

He swallows hard, "yeah- just for a bit?"

You drive, and instead of returning your hands to the center console Hobi’s hand creeps, settling on your knee. Hobi hooks his finger into the biggest rip in your jeans, one on your upper thigh, stroking the skin higher and higher. You go still, look down, and watch his hands rub smooth circles on your inner thigh.

Hoseok has very pretty hands.

A heat creeps up the back of your neck as Hobi keeps his eyes on the road and not on you. You try not to squirm, not to close your legs either. Although you know he'll be able to smell and feel your slick if he keeps it up for too long. You know your scent is swelling treacherously sweet, but you hope he won't comment- won't notice.

But when he pulls into the parking lot and the ocean is right there, turning dark green and a little violent at high tide. The air is stormy but sweet through the cracked windows. He turns to you, already smirking. The quirk of his lips teases and you realize he knows exactly what he's been doing to you this whole time.

You're already shoving his hand off of you, and he laughs at your flaming cheeks. "Oh my god shut up-"

"I didn't say anything."

"Oh, you little shit-" Hoseok grins.

"You're cute when you're flustered from being teased."

"Call me cute one more fucking-"

"Cute."

You put your head between your knees and actually scream. It's soft, not all that loud. Hoseok's laugh is louder as he throws his head back. And you regret ever making the mistake of falling in love with your best friend.

"Oh my god you are totally getting horny because of a car-"

"It's not the fucking car-" you whine, almost petulant.

"Oh, so it's me then?" The way Hoseok raises his eyebrow at you makes you want to scream. The smirk that has your omegan instincts rankled back on his stupidly pretty face.

"And if it is?"

Hoseok grins, reaching over to cup your cheek in his hand. Pinching the sides so that your lips push out. Holding you hard so that you can't squirm away.

"Then c'm here."

There are other things that you both crave beyond sugar and sweets. kisses that turn into giggles. Hoseok's lips move, good and gentle for a second. Exactly what you need, what you've been craving. His kisses offer a little relief.

And then he bites your lower lip.

It smells like gasoline and sea salt and blood when you pull it apart. rubbing at your stinging lip, a little angry. You're not bleeding, but it feels like you could be. A Hoseok-shaped space over your heart, wrenched clean, bleeding because where he sits is so far. If the distance and wanting could make you bleed- you would be.

(Hoseok bit you to keep you close because, for a second, it felt like you were about to pull back. His alpha didn't like that.)

You bristle an omega that needs settling. Hoseok almost wants to bare his teeth at how on edge it makes him. You smell so needy. Sticky sweet the way that Jungkook does sometimes. Hoseok's half surprised that the other omega didn't get to you before he did. Usually, Jungkook is the kinda of packmate who notices these things.

You flush hot. Half anger, half wanting. "Bitch-"

Hoseok reaches down between his legs for the lever under the seat to push it back. He pushes his seat away from the steering wheel and makes room for you. He parts his legs wide and gestures to his lap.

"I said come here."

The beach is empty and so is your part of the parking lot. It's getting late, past sunset and into twilight. The butter in the back seat of the car gathers condensation and starts to thaw but you don't even think about it a little bit.

You don't think about the people who might be nearby, the people who Could clearly see what you're doing in the car as you clamber over the center console. You leave your shoes behind in the passenger seat (you already have a habit of taking them off in the car). Bruising knees as you move over to the driver’s seat planting hungry kisses along Hobi's cheek, his jaw, every inch of his skin that you can reach, and then his lips finally. So shaky with wanting that you're clumsy. gripping the front of his shirt.

You can feel his grin against every kiss. You can feel it when he starts to grimace and you pull back. Hobi winces covering your banged knee with his big palm. You'll definitely have a bruise tomorrow.

You just take his hand and put it on your hip higher, and he raises an eyebrow at your brazenness. "Wow, you really want it huh?" He taunts, and you melt against his front past the point of pretending that you're not fucking needy, that you don't need him and need this right now if he's willing to give it.

"Hobi please-"

He just laughs at you, "though you were gonna spontaneously combust watching Yoongi eat that tart- it was fucking hilarious."

You whine high and needy. But he likes to tease, and you like he when he teases. Is this what having sex with your best friend is like? All jokes and jabs and fun. It feels nice when you can feel Hobi's laugh this way. Pressed against your stomach when you shimmy closer. It’s a bit cold, but he's warm and big against your front sitting in his lap like that. 

You lean back, and hit directly into the steering wheel and horn. You bury your blush in Hobi's chest as he laughs and laughs, and Hobi's hands fist on your hips, pulling you closer, then farther apart, then closer again.

"Hobi what if someone heard."

"They didn't- there's like no one here- fuck-" You feel his lips with every beat of your heart, kissing so hard it tastes like bruising.

He holds you around your waist and guides you into a subtle sloppy grind, he's only wearing his sweatpants, no boxers underneathand it's clear he's not as unaffected as he claims. The hardness tents in the gray frabric. Pushed up against you. His cock is already hard and firm and twitching.

The front seat of the Lambo is not as spacious as you'd like, but you don't care enough to move to the backseat. Already shaking from just a few kisses. You let out a small whine as he guides you to grind harder against his front, controlling your rhythm with two hands on your ass. You can tell you're getting sloppy, leaking slick. You feel hot all over, simmering as Hobi looks up at you and grins.

"You're like totally gonna cum from this-"

"Oh my god shut up-"

He leans in to bite the tip of your nose, "Make me."

A nearby gull caws loudly, dissonant with the darkness, it’s just a hair past twilight, and the streetlights cast his face in yellow and blue chiaroscuro. It's not private at all but it's perfect and as easy as breathing. Your hips, his hips, and not an inch of space between.

You curse Tae who finally convinced you to buy jeans again as Hobi helps you pull them off, jostling you, hitting your head on the top of the car with a muted "ow!"

Hobi kisses the top of your head holding it reverently while he giggles, and it feels like you're a pair of teenagers again. It feels like for all intents and purposes the last month hasn't happened- like you're right back to where you left off. None of this is heavy, none of it hurts.

The kisses don't stop. Migrating from your mouth down under your jaw, the hollow of your throat. You've soaked through the front of your panties, and Hobi pulls back to look down. Touching the little damp patch you've left against the front of his sweats humming thoughtfully. Breathing a little heavy. Hair all pulled at and messy from where you ran your fingers through it.

The quirk of his mouth is mischievous, "wanna rile the others up?"

You scoot back a bit, grinning, loving Hoseok is like a super special inside joke. "Just don't get my face."

Hobi snaps a picture of your thighs on either side of his, your pussy, barely clothed in semi-translucent fabric all dark blue. His cock wet and hard straining up against the grey sweats. He sends it and then throws it to the passenger seat to jerk you closer.

Hoseok’s phone starts vibrating almost immediately but texts go unanswered, every call goes unanswered in favor of shimmying his sweatpants down and letting his cock pop up, a pearly bit of precum already wetting the tip.

You still, and he guides his cock up at the same moment he settles you down, hand cupping your hip to guide you, pulling your soaking underwear to the side in his haste. His teeth grit and he sighs, you're so warm, so hot inside.

"There you go, is that better?"

"Fuck," you murmur, sinking down slowly, giving yourself time to adjust before your riding goes, still syrupy slow. “So much better.” You don’t want to thank him for something like this but you do anyway.

It’s unhurried as he pulls you closer and closer. You don't know why Hobi likes to fuck like this, so close and slow. Barely pulling back to fuck his cock in, he just keeps you close and lets you grind wrapping his arms around your waist to pull you as close as he can get you. The car starts to rock, squeaking, and the sounds of sex greet you as Hoseok fucks up into your wet hole. All sloppy and wet sounding, coupled with the smacks of your kisses.

“So fucking wet all the time, so fucking messy,” he growls out, and you whimper, pressing your face into his neck and gripping his arms helplessly.

“Can’t help it- can’t-”

He rises up, hands bunching in your short-cropped zip-up sweatshirt, to pick up up and down, up and off of his cock. Hoseok usually isn’t so physically strong, but he helps you ride him, making it faster and filthier. The fabric slides off your shoulders with the hastiness of your grinding, and the white tank top with the thin straps fall down to your elbow. He bites with his teeth when you clench around him, listening to the thud thud thud of your heart and counting every breath.

You get sweaty and sticky until the back seat of the car and all the windows fog up. Hobi kisses endlessly up and down your throat as his hands hold you loose and gentle and then tighter as he continues to force you up and down at a maddening pace.

Even with you on top, Hoseok is still an alpha, still needs to be in control. You can't move even a little bit without him controlling where you go. He pulls you back down into his lap and then pulls you tighter, forcing his cock deeper. You feel like you can feel Hobi all the way in your throat, letting out a weak sob.

"There we fucking go-"

"Fuck Hobi! I'm- please- I need-"

"You can- just-"

At the last moment, Hoseok's hand settles not on your side, but on your stomach, pressing down. you paw at his wrist helplessly.

"Don't! if you do that i'm gonna-"

But it's already too late, You cum, so worked up that it doesn’t take much, You'd like to think that you only squirt because he's making the fit extra tight with his hands, or because it's been a long time since you've cum at all. But you blush furiously as your cunt continues to spasm and drip.

Your Hand on the door keeps yourself up a little, almost forcing Hobi's cock out of you with how hard you clench down and drip slick onto his lap. Letting out a loud moan that someone could certainly hear if they were standing just outside the car.

Hoseok just fucking giggles.

You teeter, cumming so hard you're dizzy, Head lolling to the side until he guides you to rest against his shoulder. "I've got you, I'm sorry- that was mean," he drags his teeth down your scent gland and you tremble.

Hobi pulls back to look at the wet splatter. The front of his white shirt is translucent. He touches where it clings to his abs. Flexing and twitching. And then he looks up at you. As you shakily come down, keeping your pussy up, the head of his cock is still inside but not much else.

He pulls you back down, hard, and you yelp. hoseok has something in his eyes that's just as hungry as you were, something that you wouldn't be able to explain. You cumming doesn't make him quiet, it only makes him hungrier.

He guides you to bounce, up and down, at a faster pace, chasing his own orgasm now. "So, fucking needy, that's what you needed right?" He growls and you nod. Helpless. He forces you down on his slowly inflating knot a little, hard enough for you to feel it.

Your socked toes curl where you're kneeling, and he strokes up one of them. You jerk, ticklish, whimpering, body humming and oversensitive (is this how Jimin feels all the time?) His hand slides up your knee to grip you harder, and you squirm on his cock. 

You rest your cheek on his shoulder, looking up at him. A little cock drunk, a little fucked out. "Like it when you call me needy, like it-" he kisses your slack mouth, bitten, pinker. "Cause it means you know I need you and you don't mind." you babble, and Hoseok just grins.

"Could never mind," His kisses interrupt his words. Like he can't be bothered to remove his lips from your skin long enough to speak. "need you too."

Hobi cums and his cock twitches. The smell of gasoline and burning tires on your skin. His knot inflates so quick and hard that you jerk, with little control of your body, curled to his chest- there’s little place for you to go. Shivering and twitching as his cum spurts, hot and wet filling you up with a sigh.

Which is how your face ends up hitting right up into his nose.

Hoseok has had more violent comedowns as he clutches his nose throbbing, wet and slimy blood. “What the actual fuck” you’re murmuring out sorry after sorry, still knotted together unable to move from his lap more than scrabbling at the passenger seat for some tissues, panicking until he starts to laugh.

And he's not angry no- he just laughs and wipes away the blood from his lips. “Not broken, don’t worry fuck-” it's payment for the teasing from earlier- karmatic because you don't like your alphas bloody. you hold the napkin to hoseok's nose and try not to move, his cock still occasionally twitching with a fresh spurt of cum. The nosebleed is over in a second.

It feels strange to laugh over something like blood, especially after the last few weeks you've had. But for once- it doesn't trigger either of you. He holds you close and gets blood on your sweatshirt probably but the car is full of the sound of laughter whereas 3 a minute ago it was full of the sloppy sounds of car sex and moaning.

“M’sorry”

His hands go up and down your waist, hungry, your slick is cooling and the sweat on the back of his neck is turning balmy. “It’s okay, I know you didn’t mean too.”

You try to pull back and squirm away from the way he’s holding you, but he holds you firmly against him. “Knots gotta go down soon, just stay like this a while.”

You settle, and he scents the top of your head, it’s useless, anyone will be able to tell what you’ve been doing after this, you can feel his cock twitch wet as he cums again a little more, and your pussy clamps down, milking his knot for all it’s worth. You sigh at the feeling.

Compared to your other packmates Hoseok is such a comfortable fit. Whereas when Namjoon knots you you can hardly move, Hoseok's knot is almost comforting. Soothing. The ache in you that wants to be filled truly quiet. (If you got a tape out and measured, you'd see that Hoseok's knot thickness is only a little wider than Namjoon's fully hard)

Alpha musk sweetens the air in satisfaction, but also challenge, the way that Hoseok smells when he and Jimin wrestle and he gains the upper hand- however briefly. Definitely not the way that the alphas usually smell after popping a knot.

You recognize the cross look on his face and aim to kiss it off of him. planting the type of kiss that almost always makes Hobi smile at the corner of his lips.

You pause for a second, for dramatic effect, but it still doesn't make him stop his pouting. “Okay- now you’ve got to tell me what's wrong you’re still literally inside me and you’re not smiling-” you laugh against his throat, pull back worried, “not that you have to be happy fuck- I didn’t mean-”

Your words jog him out of his thoughts and shimmies forward, Hoseok pecks your nose, your lips, still warm from your sighs and moans that he got out of you. His shifting causes his cock and knot to rub up and more fully inside you just slightly, forcing a tiny bit of cum to slip out, cooling and sticky.

But oh well- the inside of the lambo has seen worse messes in recent weeks. You sigh at the movement and rest your face against the hollow of Hobi’s throat, pouting petulantly as he continues the small juts of his hips, content to rip another orgasm out of you (although the front of his white shirt is already soaked translucent with it). He's competitive like that.

You grab his arms to try and slow him, already a little overstimulated and unable to feel your thighs, but Hoseok just grabs your waist and lifts you up, however briefly- to seat you more firmly on his knot, "Hobi fuck-"

There's an itch under his skin that just won't quiet down. Won't settle. You can see that now, his instincts are on edge, gnashing their teeth.

You tilt your throat, offering it up, bearing it to him.

Hoseok watches the action, eyes flinty. Sounding too serious. "How many times does Yoongi usually make you cum?"

Your eyes flutter, and he settles you back against his chest, his heart thuds quick against your ear, "like two or three times usually." Hoseok's knot deflated enough to pull out and he does it slowly, mindful of how sore you must be.

Hoseok goes slowly, but he’s still cum enough that you can’t clench closed enough to keep his cum in, you try and stop it but Hoseok catches your wrist so that you drip out, down, hitting the leather seat. He can’t stop watching you clench, hole pink and fucked, clit twitching because of him. Rubbing smooth circles on your thighs transfixed for a second but then reaching for his phone because.

“Fuck- Namjoon’s gonna go crazy.”

You cover your flaming face with your hands but you let Hoseok send another picture. This time of your wet and messy entrance, pink clit, a bit of his cum in the picture, dripped milky around the leather seat it's- fuck It's utterly pornographic. Might just as well send Namjoon into a rut with how fucking provocative it is.

Hoseok takes another, pressing the head of his cock to your hole, not inside, but just close enough that it's like they're kissing. Hot and wet and dripping with your slick and his cum. pooling a little on the head of his cock.

Hoseok sends it, and immediately gets another call from Namjoon. Hoseok sends it to voicemail only to grin at the amount that the pack alpha has already left.

“Guess how many voicemails he left?” You’re still shaking, still trembling from how hard you came, but Hoseok is so unaffected, all languid and satisfied.

“I don’t know, four?”

Hoseok laughs, husky, and pecks your shoulder. “Fucking seven” he clicks one and you laugh out loud for the scrabbling in the background alone.

“Jimin you are not going to drive to them- calm the fuck down.” Jin's says, sounding angry, in the background but Namjoon’s is deep. More of a growl. “Pups, come home right now, preferably before you end up knotted to each other in public,”

he snickers, "Too late."

You shimmy forward. Unwilling to separate from Hobi even though you're not knotted together anymore. You wouldn't mind just staying like this, cuddled up against his chest. But Hoseok knows what you want, what you need. He pulled out a little too soon (not for the knot, with that he was very very gentle) but because of your instincts. You still need him close.

He sinks inside of you with a sigh and you sniffle, “Keep it nice and warm yeah?” He teases, and you swat at his arm but let him. The drag is hot and filthy and slow.

You think that’s all he’ll do until He reaches down between the two of you to put his thumb and pointer finger around your clit. You jerk, scrambling to grip onto his wrist as he tugs.

“I thought you said Yoongi made you cum 2 or 3 times."

"Yes but- I'm sensitive."

"I like that you're sensitive, for the record, even though I'm probably going to tease you about this later." His voice is so husky, so deep and alpha that you melt and let him do what he wants.

You gasp and he plays with your clit, actually plays with it, rubbing it this way and that. Parting your lips to watch it tremble as you try and clench. His cock twitches where it fills you, starting to rock up and into you just a bit.

“That’s all you wanted right, just someone to touch you right here" He teases, eyes dark, breathing through his teeth as you clench. You tremble from overstimulation but nod dumbly.

Hoseok rubs the tight v of his fingers up and down, popping your clit up and down, such small movements that drive you crazy. You can’t clench any harder around his knot ( starting to fill out again, starting to pulse thick and hot) but Hoseok groans as you try to hold onto him, fingers going faster, sloppier.

You lean back, putting your hands on his knees, letting him see all of you, the damp hem of your shirt where you made it messy. Your pink cunt all for his viewing pleasure as you pop yourself up and down his length.

"Can't-" You're dumb, actually unable to speak as Hoseok starts fucking you again in earnest. The drag so much wetter with his cum already filling you up, squishing out around his cock again.

“Can’t come again?” He raises an eyebrow. “What? You’ll come 3 times for Yoongi but you won’t for me?”

“That’s not- it’s not-“ You can’t think with the way he keeps rubbing, tiny little movements as he continues to tug and rub, the small movements maddening. “Alpha!” you cry as he tugs again, cumming so hard and Hoseok’s fingers- tug again, milking a bit of squirt from you. Just a bit.

You clench so hard it forces his knot out, cum and slick dripping everywhere. Darkening his sweatpants with a dark laugh.

He doesn't leave you unfilled for long, guiding his cock back and forcing it to pop back in. The car rocks and you sob. And yeah- this is exactly what you needed. Your brain shuts off for a bit. You needed someone to fuck and knot the thought out of you gently, but not so gently as to let your mind wander.

You can tell hobi's close by the tone of his voice, how close to a growl it is. “Gonna make you milk my knot, gonna make you cum until Yoongi will have to compete with me. Until I’m the one who-“ Hoseok cuts himself off as his knot pops for the second time.  

His knot feels hotter the second time around, thicker too- maybe it’s just because you feel so tight and full of his cum.

It’s calm for a second, calm. The sound of the crashing waves, his breath as he breathes in deep. You don't know how long you stay like that, so close to each other that you can hardly breathe. His knot still hasn’t gone down. His breath and your breath, you kiss his temple his cheek. And when you pull back to look at him, his face has that same look to it. You don’t even have to ask him, he already knows that you're going to ask what he meant by the last bit.

“It’s nothing.” but you wait because you know it’s not and that he's just working up to it.

You kiss at his temple. (How lovely is it- that your favorite place to be kissed should be called the same name as a house of worship?) Hoseok kisses you back just as reverently.

Earlier when he was thinking about something, he got that competitive look on his face, and he wears that same look now. “It’s just, earlier I was thinking about it.”

“When you were frowning the first time?”

“No. At the house.” Hoseok is silent for another second, rubbing a soothing hand down your spine. And you realize you’re not afraid of anything he might say, not even a little bit, not even at all.

“You said, with Tae- that you wanted to marry her.”

Hoseok closes his eyes, just briefly. His eyelashes catch the light from the streetlamps. “I've never thought about getting married, not at all, and I'm not asking that's not- I'm not-" Hoseok sighs, frustrated. He's fine with dirty talk and teasing but this- this is so much harder to say.

"I was just looking at you and wondering...wondering why you chose her out of the whole pack and not someone else"

Why not me?

You and Hobi have agreed that saying the scary things is the way you get through it. Love will do you no good if you can’t do it scared.

You pull back and the look on your face makes Hobi blush, it’s so open and honest, like a hint of humor chased with all the love in the world. Hoseok pulls you tighter, more firmly against him in the front seat of the Lamborghini.

You’ve only been officially official for the last few weeks. But already Hobi can’t think of his life without you, can’t think of any world where you don’t mean just as much to him as the others do. If mating marks could go 8 ways it would be an easy choice, but they don’t work that way.

He’s never even called you his girlfriend for Christ’s sake. And he’s already talking about mating marks and marriage. and feeling hurt when you offer those shows of devotion to other people and not him. Jealousy in packs shouldn't exist, but it sort of does sometimes.   You nudge his nose with yours. A small little nuzzle. “You and I are more matching tattoo people, aren’t we? I thought you’d want more than just a ring.”

A laugh jumps out of Hoseok’s chest like lightning, surprising him with how little he expects it, “Really? Fuck- you’d get matching tattoos with me?”

You lift his palm up to your throat, the blank side and then the one marred by Yoongi’s mating bite. “I’ve already got one mark on me that I can’t erase, gotta give you the same treatment.”

He’s a little speechless, eyes glittering with stars (they’re just from the streetlights but still) you keep it going. “If you could bite me? Where would you put it?”

Hoseok sits up straight, dragging his kiss down the side of your throat, “here maybe?” the tops of your breasts, “or here maybe,” next to your heart, Hoseok brings his hand to his face, kissing the center of it. “Probably here.”

You cover his hand with yours and then grip his shoulder, thumb rubbing up and down his pectoral, your foreheads resting against each other.

“If you ever need, if you ever want- like today- you can just ask me.”

“You sure? It wouldn’t be like- too much?” you don’t say her name, you don’t say that it would be like before. But Hoseok closes his eyes, he knows you won’t ever do anything like that. He doesn’t honestly think you’d be capable of that…the guilt and the forcing.

Hoseok isn’t worried about it in the slightest. He knows if he ever felt even a bit like that, he could tell you and you’d stop without a second thought. Whatever you need.  (If that doesn’t count as marriage, I’m not sure what god is looking for.)

“I’m sure. I like this, it’s nice.” It’s nice when it’s just the two of us, you’re my best friend.

You’re coming down, still resting against his chest. Hoseok’s knot will have deflated enough for him to pull out without pain in a few moments, a few breaths as you exchange sleepy soft kisses. Nowhere to go and nowhere to be. The panic has worn out of you. The frantic desire simmering low and sated in your veins. The fire turned down low. The fear was non-existent.

Until a loud screech punctuates the quiet.

It’s pretty immediate how everything falls apart. One moment you and Hobi are curled up against each other. And the next second you look over his shoulder and see the red and blue flashing lights. You have seconds, maybe a breath before the sirens blare and those lights flash brighter. A foreign voice coming over the loudspeaker shattering the quiet. “Stay where you are!”

“Shit! Hobi!” Hoseok jerks, you are still knotted together but he pulls you off of him with little care for your comfort. You don’t blame him too panicked as you slide to the passenger seat and he tucks his cock back into his sweats. Reaching for your jeans a second too late.

“Crap- pull up your pants- oh fucking hell-“

Both of you turn syrupy slow when the police officer taps on his window. Shining his light inside of the foggy car.

~-~

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Notes:

yoongi gets fewer parts in this chapter because he's going to get a dedicated moment in the next chapter!!!

to be honest- i'm not really totally sure that jimin in bily has autisim or not- if he does have autism slightly or not, he does have the same sort of sensory issues that i do, i guess i can't answer the question for jimin because i can't answer it for myself yet.

jimin like me- realizes that the sensory stuff really affects him- i think he's never been allowed to realize how things make him feel. he's never been that sure of his emotions and his feelings.

if leg hair has one hater it's me, if leg hair has no haters then i am dead.

i wrote this chapter with the understanding that if jimin does have some form of psychopathy- then jin certainly does have it too- like out of all of them i think that the dynamic that fits them best is "jimin is crazy and knows it, jin is crazy and doesn't know it."

Song inspiration is just Rm's- Around the world in a day. i know we only have one song but!!! what a break of charecter!!

was i inspired by namjoons "she a pro-rida, Oo Oo Oo Oo rida~" for this chapter? yes i was. and what about it??

hoseok and the m/c are such a mess i swear to god i love them so much like- they're just so cute in their little car sex scene.

[absurdthirst]

Do you think you could do one with the Pedro boys who are a/b/o and who have a omega reader in heat but she doesn't want to spend it with them but just be alone? If not that's totally cool and I love your writing:)

When You're In Heat & Want Nothing To Do With Him:

*** When reblogging or talking about Omegaverse, please remember that ‘a/b/o’ without the slash punctuation marks (/) is considered a slur for the Aboriginal people in Australia.

**Female Reader

Javier Peña: Pouty for sure. He had even told Steve he was taking off work, dreaming of having you on his cock the entire time. Now his ass is traveling back to Medellín with Murphy in the passenger seat. Deciding that getting out of town was the best option.

Ezra: Now that's just not going to work for him, little bird. The aphrodisiac that your body produces calls to him like a siren. Beckoning him to take what your very nature wishes to give him. In that tent, there's no privacy. While Ezra might not lay a hand on you, he will not shut up about what he would do if you would give him permission.

The Mandalorian: Takes the kid, engages the ground security protocols on the Razor Crest and leaves. He will be back in 3-5 business days, with multiple bounties to throw into carbonite and then takes off for the next world on his parsec tour. He doesn't even seem mad about it, it just is what it is.

Pero Tovar: He still expects you to ride your horse. If you aren't needing to be holed up in a nest with his body wedged between your thighs, then you must be moving. He cannot lose more time on this journey to the East and you are attracting more alphas that he will just have to kill.

Frankie Morales: Confused. Wondering if everything that has happened has made you think that he's no longer your alpha or maybe not the alpha you want. He wants to talk to you about it, but he knows that you are vulnerable right now, so he packs up the kids and they all go stay at Uncle Benny's for a few days so you can be alone like you want.

Marcus Pike: He's disappointed. He had everything planned. He was going to make sure that your every need was met and you were in as little pain as possible as you worked through you heat. Instead of being able to do it in person, he decides that it might be best to sleep at the office until it passes so he doesn't overstep. However, he has meals delivered to you and your favorite ones at that.

Max Phillips: Tilts his head at you and gives you that fake pouty look. The one that says he doesn't believe you for a second. You don't want orgasm after orgasm? That's strange, and people said he's the one without a beating heart.

Dave York: Angry. He is not happy that you want nothing to do with him. He needs to take care of you and you are denying him that. In a huff, he takes on a target and takes his aggression out on them. It's a little more messy than his normal jobs.

Oberyn Martell: Finds it fascinating. You are a mystery. An omega who doesn't wish to be cared for by an alpha. He sighs, thinking that it's a pity, it would have been fun, but he leaves you in peace. He will spent the time in the whorehouse, drinking and fucking while you have your wish.

Zach Wellison: It hurts. It makes him think that he's not good enough and it will definitely tap into that inferiority complex that he had. But he will give you what you want, you won't see him for days while you are going through your heat.

Marcus Moreno: Doesn't understand it, but that's not for him to decide. If you don't want him around, he needs to figure out a game plan. Do you want to stay somewhere else? Do you want him and Missy to go to his moms? Once you tell him exactly what you want, he's doing that and nothing more.

Max Lord: You were in heat? He didn't even notice. He was too busy trying to save his company.

Javi Gutierrez: Heartbroken that he cannot take care of you himself. He wants to pamper you and comfort you. Instead, he sends you to one of the best resorts for Omegas who wish to ride out a heat without an Alpha. Leaving them to pamper you.

Dieter Bravo: Whiny. He can smell how horny you are. How can you not want him to fuck you? Keep you full of his cock and cum? Aren't you about to tear your skin off???? You actually have to throw him out of the damn house in order to have a moment's peace.

Tim Rockford: Honestly? That's a relief. He's got this case that is eating up the hours and he doesn't have time to focus on you. He ends up sleeping at the office for two weeks straight and you have to call him to come home.

Joel Miller: He thinks you're stupid. He knows you will suffer more, but if that's what you want, be stubborn. He will give you the space you need, but he will also be standing guard around the decrepit house you are holed up in, making sure that no other alpha gets a whiff of you.

Marcus Acacius: Doesn't understand why you would not want him to be around you. But he's not going to fight you on this. He has his most trusted guards posted around his villa, they are betas so you will not be harassed by them. They will protect you because he has already been called before the emperors to discuss yet another bloody campaign on behalf of Rome's glory.

[tvseries-writings]

From a great power comes great responsibilities

Wandanat x Bioquake x Bobbi x reader

Plot: Reader goes beyond her limits with her powers to help others (exhausts her powers)

TW: death for a moment(?)

It all happens so fast that you don't realize it until the building starts collapsing over your heads. You see a chunk of concrete the size of a car fall on top of you, and before your brain can connect, your body acts on instinct, carrying you, Daisy, and Bobbi out of the building. You concentrate on teleporting all three of you, intact, inside the quinjet where Jemma, Natasha and Wanda are running the operation, or at least, were before everything went to hell.

You land on the floor of the plane with a thud, falling forward and coughing hard to expel the dust that has filled your lungs. You glance at your girls making sure they are okay and then, you cross your arms to teleport again but Natasha's hand on your left arm stops you.

"Don’t even think about it, everything is collapsing, you can't teleport in there. It is suicide and you are not going to save anyone if you are dead, do you understand me?"

You swallow, watching the building collapse, and so, with a small smile on your lips, you lean toward Natasha and kiss her. It lasts a few seconds and she is distracted enough to let go of her grip on you.

"I'm sorry but I have to do this," you whisper and then, you close your eyes and feel the earth vanish from under your feet. You focus on the 'one safe place inside the building that you know with absolute certainty will not collapse. The beauty of a secret Hydra base was the bunkers, after all. Those crazy fucking Nazis had thought that sacrificing at least a hundred of their own people was a fair price to pay to take out three S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, and they had blown up the load-bearing walls of the building with a simple and very trivial click. Nazis, they never change.

When you open your eyes again and realize you are not dead or under some boulder, you gloat internally and mentally thank Natasha for forcing you to learn the floor plan of that base. You remember perfectly her stern look when she had presented you with the mission and forced you to learn every single detail by heart. At that moment you had hated it but now...now you really wanted to kiss her.

You raise your hands in the air when you notice a score of soldiers pointing their guns at you, hiding behind them their "incentives," as Hydra liked to call them. Wives, husbands, children, mothers and fathers hid behind those men and women in black with a crest that did not belong to them.

"It's okay, I just want to get you out of here. I can teleport you all but in multiple groups."

You curse yourself internally, you know you'll never be able to take this much effort, the last time you tried to teleport five people together you fainted and were unconscious for six hours you can't even imagine what would happen with forty, including soldiers and families.

You take a deep breath and think quickly about how you can take everyone out of there. The floor under your feet trembles and just as the children begin to cry, the earpiece in your ear comes alive.

"Y/n, damn it, Daisy can't hold it much longer...you have to get out of there, do you hear me? The structure won't hold much longer" Bobbi yells in your ear and you nod, well aware that she cannot see you, before giving her a verbal response.

"I'm trying honey, thanks for the advice though."

You mumble sarcastically, no longer listening to what your girlfriends are shouting at you over the comms and focusing instead on getting the people in front of you to safety. The soldiers lower their weapons and pull off the bands on your arm, throwing them to the ground.

"Are there others in the base?"

"They're all dead, ma'am" the lieutenant, or who you think is the lieutenant, answers you by looking around as if to confirm what she just said. Your stomach clenches at the thought of all those people who died for a cause they didn't even believe in but you quickly shake off that feeling, you don't have time for it. You quickly count them, noting that there are twenty-five of them before thinking about how to get them all out of there safely.

"So… I can take all the children outside."

You point to the little ones; some of them are crying while others are looking at you with wide, fearful eyes but charged with the same admiration and hope with which a child looks at his favorite superhero. There are nine children but you can make it, they are worth four times one adult, right? You can even take four adults with you, then; you have to do it, you won't have the strength to make three more trips, you are sure.

You gather them around you and have each of them touch arms or legs, depending on where their little hands reach, and do the same with the four women, two old and two young, who accompany them. As they say, women and children first.

"Y/n, we have set up a camp out here, four hundred meters from the base in a southwesterly direction."

-What the hell is the South?" you think, before shrugging your shoulders and closing your eyes. The feeling of the floor vanishing beneath your feet is not something you will ever get used to, if you have to be honest. You hear the children scream, whether from excitement or fear you can't tell, and then, in less than a second, you find yourself at that poorly set up base camp Jemma told you about a few seconds ago. A little dizziness forces you to lean on the ground, on the hot sand beneath you, and small drops of blood color the grains beneath your fingers. You raise your hand, reaching up your nose and finding the source of the bleeding. Children are being rounded up by an officer but you fail to recognize him as your girlfriends run toward you. Jemma has a first aid kit in her hand, but before she can set about playing cheerful surgeon with you, you scan to the side, staggering on your own feet.

"I'm fine, I've got to get back in there."

"You can't stand y/n, you can't-"

You frown, noticing only in that moment that Daisy is not there with all of you.

"Where's Dee?"

"She fainted, tried to absorb as many shocks as possible. She's collapsed y/n and that's also what's going to happen to you if you continue, you're already in a very bad way."

Jemma lifts your head, causing your gazes to cross and looking critically at your pupils and the nosebleed that doesn't seem to have any intention of stopping coming out. You back away a few steps, looking into their eyes.

"Go to Daisy, I'll take care of this," you say and then disappear again.

You repeat the same process as before, surrounding yourself with six soldiers and watching the remaining six.

"I will come back for you, I promise."

And as you disappear into thin air, another tremor shakes the ground.

The landing is more abrupt this time. Your heart beats so weakly that you feel as if oxygen is not getting to your brain. Contrary to what you expected, Natasha grabs you by the arms before your face can splat on the scorching sand. You struggle to stay awake and if so out that you don't even notice Daisy, pale, sweaty, and trembling, over the shoulders of the former Russian spy. You blink a few times to focus on the image in front of you and finally the sounds reach your ears again.

"Y/N!"

Natasha shakes you by the shoulders and you awaken from your stupor. The worried gazes of Wanda, Jemma, Daisy, Natasha and Bobbi are fixed on you as Natasha gently lays you on the ground and Jemma places a bottle of water on your lips, helping you drink it. As soon as you remember where you are, you try to sit up but Daisy stops you, simply putting a hand on your chest to keep you down.

"I'm-I'm fine, mm-missing six people-D-I have to an-go."

You stammer, the effort you've put in doesn't even make you able to utter a coherent and clea sentence. Another jolt shakes the floor beneath your feet and Daisy groans in pain, bringing her hands to her head and squeezing her eyes shut. That small advantage allows you to roll over and with an absurd effort you manage to get to your feet and disappear back under their gazes.

When you get to the bunker, the first thing you do is fall to your knees and throw up. You completely empty your stomach under the disgusted gaze of the six soldiers in front of you. You wipe your mouth with your suit, wrinkling your nose at the disgusting taste of vomit in your mouth and leaning against the wall to pull yourself up without passing out. You must hold on a little longer, just a little, and then you can collapse to the ground.

The six soldiers surround you-diligently avoiding the pool of vomit on the ground and the blood that keeps coming out of your nose-and in a moment you are out.

As soon as you hit the sand, you sprawl to the ground. Your cheek scrapes against the sand and this time Natasha is not quick enough to catch you. Jemma drops to her knees next to you, turns you so that your face is facing her but your eyes are closed. She checks your chest and when she notices that the latter does not rise or fall, she checks your pulse before a gasp of terror and fear escapes her lips.

"Bobbi, adrenaline and defibrillator. Now!"

Natasha tilts your head back, her eyes glazed over as she opens your mouth and blows air into your lungs. Jemma begins compressions.

1,2,3,4,5

Nat puts air into your lungs and your chest rises and falls once before falling back inert. Wanda's sobs and Jemma's barely stifled ones are the only sound before a crack makes your girls nauseous.

"It's okay, it happens during compressions," Jemma's voice trembles as she says it and then, she performs another round of compressions. Your arms burn but that pain is nothing compared to the dull ache that is burning in your chest at that moment.

1,2,3,4,5

Natasha forces your chest up again and then Bobbi arrives with defibrillator and adrenaline in hand. She is sweating and her heart is racing. She has never run so fast in her entire life.

"Bobbi, take my place."

Jemma continues with compressions, then, on her go, Bobbi gets in place and follows her own rhythm.

"Come on rockstar, it's not your time yet, come on."

Bobbi's breath barely hides the tremor in her voice but not the tears that line her cheeks. It takes two defibrillator shocks before your heart starts beating again.

"Oh my God" Wanda bursts into tears, leaning over your face and gently kissing your forehead, brushing a few strands of sweaty hair off your face.

"Good, you did great love" Natasha whispers, taking your hand in her own as Bobbi laughs from relief.

Daisy instead stands by, frowning, and Jemma is the first to notice.

"Dee, what's wrong?"

Daisy looks at you and then, nods.

"Something's wrong, her heart, it doesn't have the usual vibes, non-"

And then, your heart stops beating again.

"Fuck, Bobbi give me the adrenaline."

Jemma Simmons never swears but there are always exceptions.

Jemma performs two more rounds of compressions before injecting adrenaline into your chest. She hooks you up to one of the monitors that Fitz had devised a few months earlier, at the request of the biochemist, for just such situations, and when he sees that the line remains flat, his heart, too, seems to stop for a few seconds.

Your body is shaken by the shock emitted by the defibrillator; it arches upward and then falls back to the sand as hard as a puppet whose strings have been suddenly dropped. The line remains flat and Jemma's tears now gush without limit.

"No no, Jem you have to try again. She can't, she can't..."

Wanda bursts into tears, looking at your lifeless body lying on the ground. Natasha punches the ground with such force that the crack that can be heard echoing cannot mean anything good. Bobbi cries as she takes the former Russian spy's hand and gives her a look. Anything not to think about what just happened.

"No, it doesn't end like that."

"Daisy...she-"

Daisy takes your lifeless body in her hands, shaking it by the shoulders.

"Do you understand me? You can't fucking die, you can't. You promised us, you stubborn idiot, you promised us!"

The Inhuman hits your chest hard, her fist closed, and without her really being able to control what she's doing, a powerful jolt goes through your chest and crashes against the ground, creating a small crack beneath you, and then, the flat line of the monitor disappears, replaced by regular little roller coasters.

"W-what?" Daisy whispers, sitting on the floor suddenly much more tired than before from the effort she has just made. Jemma hurries to personally check your pulse and when she feels the pulse under her fingers, a shuddering breath of joy leaves her lips.

"I...I think your tremors got her heart beating again Dee."

Jemma does not detach her fingers from your wrist, lulling herself into the sweet sensation of your heartbeat, albeit weak. Wanda covers her face, bursting into tears, and the other girls also let out a liberating cry, releasing all the tension and fear they had felt up to that moment.

...................................................................................................

Your body takes five days to heal just enough to open your eyes. You realize you are in the Quinjet's medical capsule within seconds, by now you have been there so many times over the years that you know the smallest details: the familiar beeping sound of your heartbeat, the red button to call Jemma just below the lamp behind the back of the bed, the IV that feeds drugs into your veins, and the glass from which Jemma checks that you are not doing anything the doctor has forbidden you to do. A little unfair of her since she is the doctor. You feel as if a truck has hit you and then a car has run over you to complete the job. You raise your hand to scratch your nose but the oxygen mask prevents you from doing so so you squeeze it between your fingers to remove it but just as you are about to do so, a hasty knock against the clear glass causes you to smile a small smile of exasperation. Even before you turn around, in fact, you already know that you will see your beautiful doctor on the other side. To your surprise, however, she is not alone.

"You just woke up and already you want to take off your mask, I have no words really. Who is the doctor here? You have to do what I tell you if you want to get better, between you and Dais I really don't know who is worse."

Jemma admonishes you and you blush, feeling like a child being scolded by his parents.

"Hey, what do I have to do with this now?" Daisy pouts before slinging herself into your arms. You can't help but notice that his forearm is completely bandaged. When he notices where your gaze points, the Inhuman shrugs.

"It was worth it."

She slides the mask off your face, kissing you with so much passion and love that it leaves you breathless for a few seconds before the Inhuman promptly rushes to slip the mask back over your face.

"You scared us malyshka" Natasha approaches you and her plastered hand makes you frown. The Russian blushes, and for some reason you realize you don't really need to ask her how she broke her hand. Wanda caresses your cheek, leaving a tender kiss on your forehead.

"How are you feeling detka?"

"I'm just a little tired but I'm fine; exactly what happened?"

Their faces darken and that joy you had seen quickly fades.

"You collapsed, your heart couldn't take the strain, and we had to revive you twice." Bobbi's voice trembles as she says this and you reach out your hand toward her; the blonde grabs it and intertwines your fingers, turning a small smile to you.

"You were really a rockstar but if you do that again, I think we might actually kill you."

"Oh yes, don't think we haven't thought about what punishment to give you. Besides not being able to use your powers for at least four months-"

"What? Four months? But that's an eternity-" you jerk back to your seat, removing your mask and immediately regretting it as your vision blurs and the pain in your ribs increases exponentially, so much so that you lean to the right and vomit into the only thing you can grab.

Jemma strokes your back while Wanda holds your hair as you empty the meager contents of your stomach. As soon as you finish, you are so weak that dizziness takes over and your head falls back forward. If it weren't for Wanda, your face would be splattered against the floor. Jemma casts a glance at the heart monitor, and the value it reads makes your heart beat so fast you're afraid your chest might explode. She puts on your oxygen mask and then checks your vitals again.

Your pupils roll back, and as you fall helpless into Wanda's arms, the Sokovian panics a little.

"Hey, hey, detka wake up."

Wanda taps your cheeks but the only thing that changes is the further lowering of your heart rate.

"Jem, what's going on?" Daisy strokes your face, putting her hand on your chest to check your heart vibrations.

Jemma rummages through the drawers of the medical capsule and then, at the fifth drawer she ravages for something, she finally finds what she is looking for. In her hands she clutches a small glass case, inside which she glimpses a metal disk less than three centimeters in diameter and less than two centimeters thick.

As soon as she sees this, Bobbi cuts off your suit exposing your bare chest except for the three electrodes and the black bra you are wearing.

Jemma places the diskette on top of your left breast, just above your sternum, and presses the button above it. The disc blends in with your skin, being invisible to the human eye, and your body jerks, before your heartbeat returns to normal. The small jolt causes you to open your eyes and grimace in pain.

"What the hell-" you mutter, reaching out to massage your chest but Jemma stops you before you can.

"Hey, your heart rate was extremely low and I had to put a pacemaker on you. It's not invasive, Fitz designed one that blends in perfectly and doesn't give any problems whatsoever but you'll have to avoid EMPs but you can't take it off love, okay? I think the effort you put in was such that it damaged your heart, and without a peacemaker you could have another heart attack so until we find another solution and until we have done more tests, you can't use your powers."

You nod, squeezing your eyes shut as fatigue takes over.

"Rest now, we're here malyshka."

Natasha leaves a kiss in your hair while Daisy leaves one on your cheek. Jemma dims the lights to allow you to rest and Wanda lies next to you in the crib while Bobbi closes the glass curtains facing outward to give you all some privacy as you fall into dreamland surrounded by your girls.

You don't know it yet but one of those children you saved is going to become one of the best agents S.H.I.E.L.D. has ever had so maybe a slightly battered heart is worth it.

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. Leave like, comment and if you like support me on ko-fi. Have a great day!

Taglist: @wandanatsbaby @bioquake-archives @bioquakeweek @daisyjohnsonx @wandanatsgirlfriend @chaekhan @station19 @resilientpendragon @so-no-kissing-then @thearchpitbullmx @ashadash0904 @kingshitonly @alwaysgoodnight @callistic @xjule @yuleni18 @simpforwandanat @alexxislexi @mrsdanversromanoff @coollemonsaresour @hushed-woodsman @razorscooteer @eponine-xx @maniacallinc @michelle170 @classyig @elenaguarnieri @scarletwidow @tati3001 @cristin-rjd @your-my-mission @mr-nicely @hi-i-1 @anniethurs @ktstwice @scarlet-raccoon @maria-403 @goldfishthegr8 @wandanatfan @looiegirl-blog @bioquake-blog @daisyjohnsonx

[no-droids]

Another Rough Day

gif credit @chrishemsworht

Part Twenty of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 13.7K

Warnings: Angst, violence, canon-typical blood and gore, language, hurt/comfort

A/N: i wanna thank yall for sticking around during my hermit era, in the time ive been gone i am now officially a junior at a university majoring in aerospace and it’s a fuckin nightmare and i hate everything and god help us all literally kill me and I will be posting INCREDIBLY slowly because of that (I’m talkin weeks or months in between updates yall, im sorry I can’t dedicate more time to this but I am going to finish this fic within the next handful of chapters idk maybe 5 or 6 so you shouldn’t have to wait too too long).  As a heads up there will be hard angst as we enter the final arc, there will be hurt and it’ll get dark but everything is gonna turn out alright so thanks for sticking with me and continuing to stick with me. im sorry if you dont like it or your expectations were subverted or if this isn’t what you’d hoped it would be after following and waiting around for so long but this was planned a long time ago and it took me a good year or two to recognize that I started writing this fic for me and now I’m going to end it writing for me and I hope yall can respect that

ALSO I asked my best BEST FRIEND in the entire world @cptnbvcks to collaborate with me for this after we both took a very long break from creating and she drew some GORGEOUS artwork for this chapter so it will be posted at the end, everyone please go follow her and say hello

ps brittany girl you’re a fuckin menace i had to use my own two ears and listen to ethan literally say the words “the mandalorian cums, hard” what the fuck was that im actually suing

anyways chapter below the cut lets get serious yall

---

You take two of them down before they even realize they’re being attacked.

Your aim is as swift and steady as if Din were behind your shoulder right now, calmly pointing out which stationary tree to hit next in rapid succession.  You’re positioned perfectly at the bottom of the ramp to take full advantage of the ambush, the only thing running through your mind is strategy and the constant calculating of angles and ricochets.  The other three troopers are trapped inside the open Crest and you’re right next to a large boulder that you can step behind for cover, but it proves unnecessary as the rumors were apparently true.

They’re… awful.

Not a single blaster is even fired in your direction—you think you see maybe one panicked red shot bounce around in the hull, but that’s it.  The troopers fumble for their guns and trip over each other at the unexpected attack—a few scream like children through the modulators, but you’re temporarily deaf to anything besides the screech of your weapon hitting its target and the crumpling of armored bodies.

Later on, if someone were to ask you to describe exactly what happened—who died first, who ran for cover, who cried out for help—you don’t think you’d be able to.  You don’t even really feel like a person right now.  The entire thing is cold, robotic survival instinct, pure ruthlessness rising in your soul for the first time in your life.  It feels sick.  Wrong in your bones.  Born from preemptive defense in fear of your life, but that doesn’t mean you stop.  Not until all of them stop moving.

You empty the entire fucking canister for a handful of stormtroopers, firing plasma and char marks across every square inch of the pristine hull even after the last one drops.  Your heart is beating too fast, your finger keeps pulling the trigger multiple times even after the blaster clicks uselessly, completely empty and beeping a warning that it must’ve begun emitting ages ago.  Being out of ammo scares you—you suddenly feel vulnerable, even though the very far away logical part of your mind reminds you that they have to all be dead at this point and no physical threat was ever able to graze you.

Regardless, you quickly spin behind the boulder and grab another canister from your belt, giving it a spare check for leaks while the empty one slides and drops to the rocky ground.  It’s the first time you’ve ever had to reload this weapon instead of just pointing and shooting, but the mechanics are relatively simple and your brain makes up for your lack of coherent thoughts with lightning fast perception.  What's difficult is that your hands are starting to shake now that you’re not aiming, you’re not breathing correctly because you’re not really breathing at all.  You can’t tell the difference between the adrenaline-fueled dissociative silence that muffles everything around you or if it really is just that quiet now.  No more clatter of armor, no modulated voices or terrified screams.  No blasters, no footsteps along the ramp, no birds singing.

You quickly pause to lift your elbow and check the enormous eyes blinking up at you, tiny claws still holding tight to the fabric of your tunic and completely unharmed, and then you force yourself to move.  The blaster is held out in front of you while you walk forward and your finger rests on the trigger, begging to be pulled again.  It’s suspenseful and terrifying in a different way than before—now it’s less about psyching yourself up for confrontation and more about the fact that any sudden movement could mean your very swift end.

Silence.  Silence.  You’re numb and raw at the same time, walking up the ramp as your eyes fly everywhere, not even registering the blood or gore, just searching for movement.  You don’t know if you feel like a predator or prey, you’re that much more brutal and inhuman because of how fucking terrified you are.  You count four stormtroopers in the hull laying crumpled and still on the metal floor, but the one in the far corner only has blood on his shoulder.  You quickly swing the blaster around to remedy that, but then—

“P-Please don’t kill me!”

His words remind you of something.  Reality, maybe.  A world outside yourself and the kid’s survival, the living beings behind the bloody armor your enemies wear.

It’s a miracle your finger stays hovering over the trigger, and you watch him throw the blaster at your feet with a clang and scramble to show you his empty hands.  “Please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me—I’m not loyal to the Empire, I don’t want to be here, please, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die—”

Behind the mask, your expression furrows.  Stormtroopers are loyal to the bitter end, what is he saying?  They embrace their expendiality, it’s the only thing that makes them any sort of a real threat.  Kuiil told you horror stories about them during your childhood, the cloning facilities and the propaganda they’re force fed since infancy.  It’s nearly impossible to find one who hasn’t been raised from birth to serve the Empire, no matter how crumbled and trace its remaining authority may be.

No, this is a trap, it has to be.  Your expression twists with dread after hearing him speak, readjusting your aim with the blaster and preparing yourself for the years of nightmares that’ll follow—but then he cries out, “Wait!” and then removes his helmet with trembling hands.

You pause, staring down at him in shock.

It’s him, you recognize him immediately.  It’s the same face from a hologram puck you bore into your memory, spent multiple days staring at so you’d be able to spot him under any disguise or circumstances.  Oshua Ryler.  Your quarry, the fifth puck, the one Din was out Maker knows where searching for before this entire mess happened.  A stormtrooper?  His puck said nothing about the Empire, this doesn’t make any sense.  What is he doing here?  Stormtroopers don’t have pucks, they don’t have bounties or relatives or loved ones searching for them.  They’re brainwashed, replaceable, faceless soldiers in suits of armor and they don’t even have names.

“Please don’t kill me,” he begs again, staring at you with wide eyes even as he cowers.  “I have a family, I-I just want to go home, please—”

“Shut up.”  You can’t think straight with him crying like that and you’re wasting so much time just standing here trying to process when your brain had to literally shut itself down to even do the things you’ve already done.  You have to kill him and escape, you have to—you can’t trust this complication, not with the tiny claws currently digging into your back and reminding you of your purpose, but it was so much easier when he had on a helmet.  You hate looking at his face.  It’s going to haunt your dreams now, just like the man you stabbed on Corellia.

“Please don’t kill me—please don’t kill me,” he screws his eyes up and breathes over and over instead, and your stomach wrenches with disgust.  His posture and expression are so fucking pitiful, you can barely keep your eyes on him through the overwhelming nausea and aversion that climbs up your throat.  He’s with the Empire, and they’re looking for the baby.  You know what needs to be done.  Pull the trigger, just one small movement from you and it’ll be all over.  It would be the easiest thing in the world, it would be so easy.

But then instead, you ask, “Why are you a stormtrooper?”

“I’m n-not—I hate the Empire—”

“The Empire is ashes.”  You don’t know if you’re yelling or whispering with how much blood is roaring through your ears.  “They hold no power anymore.  Why are you with them?”

“Because the one thing they have left is money!”  The quarry shrills the words at you, ghostly pale to the point of turning green.  “Th-They buy troopers now—they opened up a whole new market for the smugglers, there’s a base nearby that’s used for training and…”  He stares wide eyed at you and gulps.  “C-Conditioning.”

Your brain is already going a trillion lightyears an hour and it doesn’t have the capacity to empathize or understand anything beyond the child’s survival and the relevant details right now.  “Were they expecting the baby?”

“W-What?”  He squeaks up at you.

“Was the bounty put out on you a trap set by the Empire?”  You ask him, lifting your free arm just enough to flash him the tiny child clinging to your side.  “He said they’re coming after the baby, so tell me if this was planned from the beginning.”

“Who is ‘he’?”  The stormtrooper asks, furrowing his eyebrows and looking around.  “What are you talki—”

“Tell me if the bounty on you was a trap to take this baby!”  You roar, your blaster shaking as you aim it down at him.  Your mind is acutely focused on the tiny claws hanging onto your tunic, the continued safety of the kid and the life or death situation facing him that you were given absolutely no information about.  “Now—”

“If it was I didn’t know!”  He quickly cries out, pleading with you and clamping his eyes shut in terror under the barrel sight.  “I don’t know anything about a b-baby, or a bounty!  They just put blasters in our hands and told us to search for a ship and to bring back anyone we find alive, I swear!”

You’re silent for a moment, biting your lip under the mask and caught halfway between discerning and stalling.  You could still kill him.  You should still kill him, time is ticking down and more troopers could be heading this way any second.

Shit.  “Who put the bounty out on you?”  You ask sharply.  It might not be a completely fair question, but he can’t exactly blame you for not feeling completely fair right now.

“I—I don’t know,” he gasps, clutching his bleeding shoulder.  “Could’ve been anyone—my mother, Cyra, o-or my dad, Obediah, or Thia, or Benja, or S—”

“Thia,” you interrupt his rambling, catching the slurred word and repeating it back to him.

“Yes!”  Oshua jerks his head up, tears and hope immediately filling his eyes at the sound of her name, “Yes, Thiadura Celi Ryler, that’s my sister!”

Maker, if he’s lying, then he’s fucking brilliant at it.  You look towards the cockpit of the ship, biting your lip under the mask.  Get to Nevarro, tell Karga and he’ll… something.  Din was cut off before he finished.  Help?  Know what to do?  You’re lost, but you have a clear directive and the precious seconds are sliding by.  The controls are right up there, two steps to the ladder and less than a minute until you’re rising into the atmosphere.

But then you think back to the terror in Din’s voice.  The blistering panic that made him speak faster and with more urgency than you’ve ever heard from him.  Get to Nevarro.  Tell Karga.  Get to Nevarro.  Tell Karga.

You look back at the quarry.  “How many of you are there?”

“At the base?  Around three hundred,” he immediately spills.  “Half of us are in the hole right now getting brainwashed, they do it in shifts, but they can be mobilized in a few hours.  There were a lot of bodies outside when we were ordered to split off, maybe a third of our squadron, but the rest were still shooting at whatever was—”

“So around a hundred left,”  You finish breathlessly, almost wanting him to speak faster and cut to the chase so you can calculate quicker.  “How many were dispatched on the search?”

“Uh, there were eight groups of five sent in each major direction,” he informs you, still trembling on the ground.  “Told us not to come back until we covered the entire sector.”

Of which, four you’ve already taken care of.  In other circumstances, you’d be nauseated at the thought, but right now, it’s just another number to subtract, just more panicked math in Din’s frightening absence.  That leaves at least sixty troopers left wherever the base is, minimum, and likely a couple more hours before they’ve combed the sector.  If this wasn’t a preconceived trap purposefully set for the kid, then that means reinforcements haven’t arrived yet but likely will soon.  And if this is a base meant for training and conditioning, then that also means there’s a chance not all of them will be loyal yet.

You make the decision immediately.

“Okay,” you announce, clicking the blaster’s safety switch and holstering it, sounding lightyears more certain than you feel.  “Then you’re going to help me carry out a rescue mission, and I’ll take you back to your sister.”

“You…”  He looks uncertain, blinking at your blaster and slowly lowering his hands.  “You want to rescue the men?”

Ideally?  Sure.  Realistically?  You don’t say anything in response.  Instead, you kick his regulation firearm at your feet further away from the quarry just in case your judgment is flawed, and then turn around and grab one of the bodies behind you.

Your adrenaline is still blaring so fast that you only just barely note the severity of what you’ve just done and what you’re continuing to do.  The corpses aren’t real to you right now, they’re inanimate things that you need out of your ship before you can close the doors to it.  They are, however, heavy as fuck, but the only other adult here has a wound in his arm from the gun on your hip.  Regardless, you have experience with lifting dead weight without a big, strong, capable man to do it for you.

“Help me out here, kid,” you mutter over your shoulder, and in response, you feel his claws dig in and climb up just a little bit until he can peek out in front of you.  Thankfully, the burden is suddenly lifted and you can quickly slide the dead troopers down the ramp with ease.  It takes hardly any time at all—you just yank and haul and release and all four of them tumble the rest of the way all by themselves.

When you stand back up, Oshua hasn’t moved and he’s looking at you with a pale, queasy expression.  Glancing down, you see that your white robe is now stained with streaks and patches of rusty blood.  Instead of swallowing back bile at the sight and bolting to the shower to scrub off every last remaining trace, you breeze past it, noting nothing more than a change of color.  Dirtying your white, pristine clothing with the consequences of protecting this baby—you’d rather have blood-soaked fabric with an unharmed kid clinging to you than any other combination of those things.

“Can you make it up to the cockpit?”  You ask the quarry, kicking his rifle off the ship before closing the ramp and then gesturing up the ladder.  Your voice is calm and steady but your hands are beginning to shake again.  “I need as much information as possible about the base.”  You know that’s where Din is, judging from the wall of blaster screeches that drowned him out through the comm.  Logically, you know you could be headed right into a trap, and every instinct inside you wants to find safety, but… you just cannot imagine flying the ship away from this planet without Din onboard.  It isn’t fucking happening, you’ve made your choice.

Without waiting for a response, you climb the ladder and plop down in the pilot’s seat of the Crest.  While Oshua finds some way to clamber up the steps behind you in bulky stormtrooper armor with one good arm, you hold the kid closer on your lap and begin flight checking.  Din will be fucking furious, but the scolding you’ll be sure to get is the least of your worries right now.  Following his instructions and going back to Nevarro is just making shit infinitely more dangerous for him, turning what could be a potential rescue mission into an undeniable suicide mission.  Even if Karga somehow decides to send a few guild members along to infiltrate the base, it’ll be a war you want to avoid.

Besides.  What did you always tell him about running away from him, even when he instructs you to?

It’s just… not really your thing.

---

They’re everywhere.

They crawl like flies out of the base, and for every single body that falls, three more spill from the open doors.  Rapid fire plasma beams launch from the end of Din’s blaster, melting white armor with every twitch of his gloved finger.  Their aim is terrible, as is to be expected, but the sheer number of them more than makes up for it, as is by design.

Din’s heart pounds with exertion, his breath comes in ragged huffs through the modulator as his helmet identifies and isolates which body is closest to him, which body he needs to bring down next.  His blaster is so hot it nearly burns his hand, even through the thick gloves he wears.  When he runs out of ammo, he holsters the pistol and swings his rifle from around his shoulder, spinning to catch a handful of troopers behind him in the obliterating blast.

He’s not thinking much.  He can’t think, even though your safety and that of his son is currently dangling by a thread.  If he focuses on that, he’ll be dead before he can even picture your faces.  He just reacts, he maims and kills without a single thought in his mind.  Blood splatters, screams and sirens blare as he becomes surrounded by more and more troopers.  Din can hear the sound of plasma colliding and ricocheting off his armor; every single one of them is a potential injury he could currently have but might not even be able to feel right now.

His helmet starts beeping rapidly and he turns just enough to see, highlighted in bright red on the screen, two enormous artillery turrets slowly rising up out of the roof of the imperial base.  He feels a fierce flash of anger burn in his chest, it’s like a lightning strike to his veins.

Din needs to go.

And yet… if he was another man.  If he wasn’t a father, or a husband, if he had no family and no attachments like the creed declared he should, he would go.  With just a twitch of his fingers, he could be launching into the sky and retreating as far away from this battlefield as he could reasonably get.  He’s never been the type to run from a threat, but this isn’t just a threat.  Dozens of troopers are gaining on him, they’re trampling their own dead to get within range.  Plasma pings off his shoulder, another one hits his back as they flank from behind.  He can feel the heat through the sizzling beskar, he can see them surrounding him on all sides, and the propulsion trigger for his jetpack is right there under his wrist.

Din holds his ground and continues firing, he plants his feet firmly to the dirt with only one thought in his mind.

Run, sweet girl.  Run.

---

You type in commands to scan for Din’s signal, quickly locating it through the Crest’s computer onboard.  Not far from here, three minutes or less.  The ship rumbles to life beneath you, slowly lifting off the rocky ground and rotating in place as it hovers.  It’s not on autopilot but you feel like you are, you can barely feel your hands as they move the yoke forward and the Crest takes off in the direction of Din’s blinking frequency.

“Tell me about defenses,” you instruct Oshua, restlessly bouncing your leg while the baby coos.

“Two plasma turrets on top of the base,” the quarry quickly answers.  “There’s usually guards stationed around the perimeter, but everyone who’s capable will be outside right now.”

Your mouth twists downwards under the mask.  Blasters don’t scare you much from this high up, but Din’s armor doesn’t cover every inch of his body, he’s not completely invincible.  Doubt churns in your stomach, but you have to stay focused on one task at a time so you don’t get overwhelmed.  The turrets, then.  “Are they automatic?”

“Manual,” he corrects with a shake of his head.

“Radar?”

“Old.  Only engages above fifty meters.”

You eye your altitude and dip the Crest considerably, beginning to weave through the rocky canyons and dodging crumbling cliffs while you travel.  “What about ships?”

“None,” Oshua says, “except for a passenger shuttle used for transport.  TIEs are flown in the Vesta sector, this base is remote and used for basic training only.”

“Anything else?”  You ask, stomach twisting with the knowledge that barely four questions is all you’ve got.  You’re planning to drop into an imperial base to save the man you love and you can’t think of a single other question?  

The quarry shrugs, and your heart slams, does somersaults in your chest at the mere notion that you could fucking die here.  Today, in two minutes or less, you could die here.  The child in your lap looking over the ship’s front panel with a quiet determination in his eyes could die here.  Din could already be dead—that signal broadcasts his location to this computer regardless of whether he’s still breathing or not.  He could already be gone and you’d be flying the baby right into a trap without knowing any differently.

Whelp, you think while taking a deep breath, some strangely calm existential acceptance beginning to flood your soul.  If he isn’t dead, he will be soon if you don’t make it to him on time.

You immediately lift your wrist and speak into the communicator.  “Mando?”  You have no idea if he can hear you, but you need to try anyway.  Your voice is still firm, there’s a strength to it you don’t feel in your chest, but it certainly sounds convincing.  “I’m coming to get you.  Less than a minute to your location, do everything you can to get outside.  If you can’t, I’ll just… uh.  Try to figure something else out.”

That’s it.  That’s it, improvise until you don’t have to.  Even if you’re lacking confidence, you can at least scrounge up some conviction.  Your arms gain feeling again while you veer the Crest through the stony terrain, the familiar reverberations under your feet begin to fill your body with a powerful sense of purpose.  Your breaths begin to come steady, every falling rock you see through the transparisteel feels like it drops in slow motion, allowing you to evade them easily.  It would normally be stupidly dangerous to fly this low with so many unexpected obstacles and hazards narrowly missing the ship, but considering what you’re flying into, a few boulders seems comical.

“Where’s your helmet?”  Oshua asks out of nowhere, and for a second, you don’t think you heard him correctly.

But then it strikes you all at once what he’s attempting to imply, and the sheer lunacy of the thought is enough to make you laugh while you clutch the controls.  “I’m not a Mandalorian.”

“You wear the armor of one,” he points out… rather fairly, you have to admit.  “You cover your face like one.  You have a blaster that fires Philithiorium, a rare and expensive gas native to Mandalore’s stratosphere, and you’re a bounty hunter—”

“I’m not a Mandalorian.”  Your words are short and cutting, you have a daunting task to focus on and don’t feel like having small talk right now.  “I’m not a bounty hunter, either.”

But then again, Karga made you a member of the Guild, didn’t he?  He handed you Oshua’s puck and said this one is for you to find, and you are technically part of a Mandalorian clan.  All of this seems like it happened without your knowledge.  You may be marrying a Mandalorian, you may wear his armor and mother his child and shoot a blaster with his signet branded into it, but war isn’t in your blood.  This robe was a costume when you first made it, this armor was a relic that was restored as a hobby.  In a sense, it still feels that way.  The mask covering your face lended itself to a temporary surge of bravery earlier, but beyond that, the only thing that’s keeping you moving forward now is your family.  The man you love that may or may not be alive right now, the baby holding tight to your leg while the ship sways and weaves through the stony landscape.

Your eyes quickly flick down to the child in your lap, both of his three fingered hands clutching onto the stained fabric of your knee without moving a single inch.  He’d know, you tell yourself.  If his father is gone, he’d already know somehow.  Din is still alive, and he’s counting on you.

---

There’s too many for Din to handle.

They swarmed him, overpowered his endless artillery with massive numbers and there’s nothing he can do anymore.  The backs of his knees are kicked from behind and he slams down to the ground with a clatter, his sizzling hot blasters are ripped from him, and Din folds his hands calmly behind his back even as one of the stormtroopers barks out, “Binders,” to another one, who disappears quickly in response.  In the meantime, a few of them apparently decide to just attempt holding his arms in place, and their measly combined grip is almost enough to make him roll his eyes under the helmet.  These imperial soldiers are even more pitiful than they usually are, but his silent resolve to stall to ensure your escape is enough to keep him stationary and compliant for the time being.

Eventually, a few voices call out from beyond the crowd and there’s some movement from the back.  Dozens of troopers with their blasters all pointed at him begin to shuffle to make way, careful to keep their barrels aimed at him while a path slowly forms.  The crowd of white parts and a stormtrooper with a singular red pauldron on his right shoulder saunters confidently towards Din as he kneels on the ground.

An officer, he assumes.  Conveniently missing from the firefight, the scanner inside his helmet would’ve caught the change in color and Din would’ve made sure to kill him first.

“Well now, what do we have here?”  Comes his thin metallic voice through the tinny filter.  The officer studies him curiously for a few moments, before slowly looking down by his feet, reaching out one cheap, plastic covered foot to gently nudge the body of a dead trooper on the ground with a sigh.  “What a shame.”

Coward, he thinks, his lip curling with disgust under the helmet.

“This is an imperial training base,” he turns his attention back to Din to inform him when he doesn’t immediately respond, rather stupidly he might add.  “How were you able to find us?”

Silence.  The grip on hands held behind his back is even looser now.  He just tilts his chin up slightly in defiance, the scanner inside his helmet locating each weapon strapped to the man’s body and highlighting it red.  Small text boxes blink into existence under each one with a manufacturer and classification—a BlasTech E-11 rifle, a Merr-Sonn thermal detonator, a Kolvo vibroblade—and Din is severely unimpressed with the quality.  The detonator is the only weapon that even catches his eye, and that’s only because the chamber inside that houses the explosive baradium has a release mechanism that’s completely dead.  Useless, then.  Good to know.

After a long moment of quiet tension where Din refuses to speak and the officer continues to confidently scrutinize him, in some strange sort of silent battle of egos that only one seems to have a genuine interest in, another stormtrooper makes his way to the front, shoving past his fellow soldiers to address the superior in charge.

“Commander, we’ve sent out an alert for an intruder,” he tells him, slightly out of breath from running through the crowd in the lightweight armor.  Din wants to roll his eyes, but what he says next makes him snap to immediate attention.  “The fleet informed us that Moff Gideon is currently on route.”

Gideon.  The last time someone spoke that name, it was a quarry on Coruscant and you just barely managed to stop Din from suffocating the bastard for even saying it aloud before freezing him in carbonite.  It would’ve meant half the return on a hunt that lasted nearly a month but he saw red and his hand was crushing his windpipe before he realized what happened.  But he’s dead, Din thinks with a clenched jaw and fists tightening behind his back, he watched that TIE fighter explode and slam into the ground, crushing the man inside it.  The wreck was unsurvivable, he can’t be alive.

“For what?  This Mandalorian?”  The trooper in charge scoffs in response, and Din remains completely mute.

“Yes, sir,” the other one confirms.  “Orders were to capture him, alive.”

“Hm.”  The officer turns his attention back to him, less analyzing and more musing while he tilts his head.  “I see,” he eventually says, and he sounds like he’s grinning, before strolling slightly closer as Din stays completely still on his knees.  “He must want the beskar.  I’m sure it’s worth more than this entire battalion combined.”

All of a sudden, a gloved hand carelessly catches the rim of his helmet and tugs, and Din’s movement is explosive.  He launches off the ground, arms easily slipping from the pathetic grip they were being held in and his fist colliding with the side of the officer’s flimsy white helmet, the plastic making a deafening crack against his face.

Multiple hands immediately rush forward to grab him and yank him back down again while the commanding trooper stumbles backwards in shock, and Din amicably drops to his knees and folds his hands behind his back once more like nothing happened at all.

“Binders!”  A trooper behind him roars loudly once more, and a few men surrounding him begin trotting away this time.

The officer in red stands a few feet away from him now, grabbing his helmet and twisting it back to its proper position on his head where it was skewed.  There’s a shattered hole near his jaw where the material splintered and busted like the cheap piece of banthashit it is, and while he might normally feel pleased with himself for being able to see his skin peeking through, it just fills him with more righteous fury.  It’s such a punchable jaw.

After a few awkward moments of silence, the other one clears his throat and continues.  “He… has inquired about the location and status of a child that should be accompanying him.”

Din inhales deeply through his nose and grinds his teeth.  He wants to snap their necks one by one for even just mentioning his son, but there are just too many, more than even his whistling birds can neutralize.  Still, he gave you as much of a head start as physically possible.  You should be rising into the atmosphere right now, making the jump into hyperspace towards safety.  Karga will know what to do—he’ll protect his family, separate you and the boy so the threat is evenly dispersed instead of collected all in one place, and arm dozens of trained hunters to keep watch over you both individually.  It’s the best Din can do, and it’s the only thing keeping his knees planted on the ground and his body completely motionless while they continue speaking.

“We are combing the sector for a ship with as many men as we can afford to lose,” the trooper in red says, but his voice filter is shattered and now sounds like a puny little droid with a broken voice box, “but our numbers are unimpressive.  Assistance may be required.”

It’s too late, Din thinks, mouth twitching under the beskar with a satisfied smirk.  They’re wasting their time, looking for a ghost.  You’re both long gone by now.  They’ve got no idea you even exist—

“He also spoke of a girl.”

And then he feels his heart stop in his chest.  Every single cell in his body turns to fire, it’s a fucking miracle he doesn’t move a muscle in response.  His sweet girl, the one so far removed from the nightmare of the Empire that she made best friends with the orphans of it.  How the fuck did he know?  He shouldn’t even be breathing, let alone gathering information about you, how did he know?

But then Din thinks back, remembering your makeshift bed on the floor, your panicked eyes and heaving chest as the quarry taunted him with a sick little smile.  Who’s this, Mando?  She’s just darling, isn’t she?  Does Gideon know your crew has a lovely new addition?

“A girl?”

The trooper nods.  “Moff Gideon insisted that if the Mandalorian did not have a child with him, then a girl would likely be protecting him instead.”

He’s going to kill them, Din decides.  Every single one of these imperial pigs, every single soldier standing right now is a dead fucking man.  The blood pumping through his body suddenly turns to acid, deadly black hate poisoning his soul.  His heartbeat morphs into a war drum, the armor strapped to his limbs is the barrel of a gun.  He’s going to fucking kill them and leave an imperial base full of bodies to greet his old nemesis upon his return, and he’s going to enjoy every single second of it.

Except, then—

“Mando?”  The sweetest voice in existence suddenly crackles through the earpiece under his helmet.  “I’m coming to get you.  Less than a minute to your location, do everything you can to get outside.  If you can’t, I’ll just… uh.  Figure something else out.”

And, as Din kneels there in surrender, surrounded by a crowd of enemies he thought he destroyed long ago, all the anger—all the fury and defiance and murder surging through his veins—suddenly morphs to fear.

The emotion is so foreign and old to him, it feels like a face he barely recognizes and a name he can’t remember.  He’s panicked before.  He’s been in situations where a threat has made him blind with rage, he knows what it’s like to look death straight in the eyes and say that he’s busy and to come back another time.  This is different.  This is ice cold that freezes over beskar.

He can’t speak out loud to warn you—he can’t move his hands to press the button on the back of his helmet and allow him to talk without detection.  There’s plasma turrets on the roof of the base, he can see them right now.  The helmet’s scanners say they’re manned and engaged, and though he is outside and this is how you retrieved him before whenever he needed a quick escape, he has fifty fucking imperial blasters trained on him and you know absolutely nothing about this threat.  You’re flying right into a war zone and if either you or his son dies, he won’t ever be able to forgive himself.

Behind the helmet, his eyes fly to each and every trooper, wondering which blaster will be the one to do it.  Which weapon is going to be the one he can’t block in time when you descend, the one that’ll kill him right in front of you.  Which turret will be the one to obliterate the Crest with you and his son inside of it.

“Maker, where are those fucking binders—” he hears someone behind him snarl, but the white noise of pure terror roaring through his ears drowns them out.  His chest starts heaving against his will, sheer panic begins to blur his vision.  For the first time in his life, his armor feels too heavy, his lungs feel like one of these boulders are sitting on them instead of beskar.

All too soon, his helmet starts making a familiar sound that signals quietly in his ear, alerting him of an incoming ship, and the only thing he can physically do is count down the seconds to prepare himself for what is to come.

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two…

Like lightning, Din breaks the grip of multiple troopers and surges up, tackling the officer in red to the ground.  There’s a clatter as they both slam into the rocky floor, but in the ensuing scuffle, he easily snatches the thermal detonator from his side holster and holds it up for everyone to see, before pressing the red button on the front and hearing it begin to beep rapidly.

---

You’re right on time.

The Crest rises up through the rocky cliffs surrounding the base and you spot the turrets you were warned about.  Weapons controls are already engaged and you’re too low to be detected by radar—you fire once, twice, and blast both of them to smithereens from behind before they can even rotate around to target you.

Alarms start wailing but the guns are destroyed.  It’s not comforting, though; blasters won’t touch you up here, but that doesn’t mean they can’t fire at Din on the ground.  Your eyes dart across the sea of white, looking for a flash of silver anywhere, and then you spot him instantly in the chaos.

For some reason, the troopers in his vicinity all seem to be bolting away from him.  Their rifles are down, clutched in their hands while they nearly fall over each other to run away as fast as possible, and your heart soars when you spot his jetpack firing up.  Din launches into the sky while another trooper is revealed underneath him, seeming to juggle something in his hands and then throw it into the crowd of retreating soldiers, but the sight of the man you love rising into the air while a flurry of blaster shots from the far edges of the imperial structure follow him gives you the confidence to immediately turn the guns down towards the horde of troopers.

“Which ones are in charge?”  You ask Oshua breathlessly, who leans forward and points out the transparisteel.

“Red pauldrons—” he barely has time to say it before you aim and fire at one of the troopers wearing red that was closest to Din, the plasma beam launching from the Crest so powerful and devastating that it outright obliterates the surface he’s laying on.  Pieces of shattered armor fly and a smoking crater of rubble is all that’s left behind, but your mind is whirling and you’re already onto someone else wearing red at the edges of the complex, and then two more near the doors, and then another—

To their credit, you think the sixty or so soldiers in training seem to figure out that you’re not aiming into the enormous collection of them.  If you were, the damage would be catastrophic and spraying everywhere, but you’re precise and meticulous with your shots, and the only ones who are loyal enough to the cause to hold still and raise their blasters at the incoming threat tend to be the ones you need to mow down anyways.  The rest of them scatter in all directions, scrambling over each other to escape and then disappearing into the distant boulders surrounding the base—but you notice that not a single one of them runs back inside the safety of its open doors.

The hull dips with the weight of Din dropping in, and relief floods your soul even as you continue raining hell down on the superiors in charge.  Any flash of color you see is a target, your eyes lose focus of everything, your vision blurs and turns monochrome as you just search for red.

“Lift up!”  You hear Din’s voice roar from the hull.  You can hear his rifle unloading through the open door.  “Now!  We have to go now!”

You press the button to shut the hull door with Din inside and punch it, rising so fast that the shove of gravity makes it difficult to keep your head up.  Through the sudden surge of downward force, you just barely manage to raise your incredibly heavy arm to push the button that pressurizes the Crest and ignites the launch boosters, preparing the vessel for space travel.  Outside the transparisteel, the gray sky begins darkening as the atmosphere eventually disappears.  The ship’s engines roar, burning so much fuel at once that you’re actually accelerating through the climb, you’re boosting through the gradual ease of gravity as the planet’s curvature and glow becomes softer and softer below you.

As soon as the blackness of space begins to fill the windows, the slight subsiding of force allows you to plug in the coordinates for Nevarro with less difficulty, but you’re still moving, still rising, still escaping.  You can’t find it within yourself to slow down, but then something catches your attention.

Claws suddenly dig sharp into your thigh, sharp enough to sting and cause you to wince, and you look down to see that the kid has gone incredibly tense.  Deadly tense.  Your heart is still pounding even though you’re away from danger, you’ve got Din in the hull, everyone is safe, and yet—

It flickers into existence all at once.  One second it’s just space, just the endless depths of nothingness spread out for light years in front of you, and within the blink of an eye it’s suddenly there.

A star destroyer.

Your body freezes in horrified awe, having never seen a ship so fucking big in your entire life.  It looks like a massive satellite, the size of an enormous asteroid instantly appearing in your vision and dwarfing the vastness of space around it.  All the stars you used to dream about are suddenly blotted out within a fraction of a second, terror so immense seizes your soul that you stop thinking.  You stop calculating, you stop being yourself for a split second that lasts an entire lifetime.

Before you can move a single muscle, the computer beeps quickly and lurches the Crest into hyperspace.

---

The stars streak across the transparisteel like so many times before.  Utter silence nearly deafens you with how abrupt it is after so much noise, but the peace it used to bring does nothing to quell your fear.  Everything is the same as it always was, same bursts of light as you hurdle faster than it towards Nevarro, same quiet, same rumbling hum of the ship.  But now, everything has changed.

You hear the quarry next to you suddenly inhale and exhale loudly, and it shocks you a little bit, reminds you that there’s a person next to you and another is on your lap.  Other people exist outside of the vision of death that just flickered out of existence just as quickly as it appeared.  They’re breathing, Oshua is shakily unbuckling his seatbelt, life is continuing on in the quiet cockpit but you can’t seem to move like he is.  You can’t seem to breathe like he is.  It’s only when the baby slowly maneuvers himself around on your thigh and blinks up at you, placing a tiny hand on your stomach that you finally feel air enter your lungs.

After a moment, you reach down and click open your seatbelt with trembling fingers, scooping the kid up in your arms and slowly attempting to stand.  Everything feels wobbly and dreamlike, you have to brace yourself on the headrest to prevent yourself from falling back into the chair again.

“That was…” Ryler mutters, his voice sounding foggy and distant, “uh.  A close one.”

You look over at him, recognizing that he’s speaking but not quite able to understand the words right now.  Red catches in your vision, and you blink down at the way he’s clutching his left shoulder, the smear of blood darkening the white armor he’s wearing.  You blink a few more times at the sight of it, and though it feels like you normally would be sickened at the wound, somehow shocked out of your state of shock, it does nothing to you.  When you look back up at his face, his expression seems strangely grateful, even when it’s screwed up in what you know must be excruciating pain.    You did that, a quiet voice whispers in your mind, even though the rest of it seems incredibly blank.

Instead of responding, you stumble a few steps over to the ladder, spinning around and hesitating for a moment.  You’re severely lacking in coherent thought, but one thing seems to break through.  You’re not sure if you have enough coordination to do this safely right now.  However, when there’s movement in your peripheral and you look to see Oshua gently offering his right arm to you, seeming to understand you’d like to use both hands for this, you snap back to your senses just the slightest bit and hug the baby tighter to your chest.  Carefully, you begin making the slow climb down the ladder with the kid, still trembling with the aftershocks of adrenaline.  Your limbs feel extra heavy, but eventually the floor meets your feet.

Din is standing there when you slowly turn around, armor gleaming and still as a statue, but he has his back to you.  His helmet is tilted down at the ground, and when you follow his gaze, you’re met with the sight of the bloodstains of dragged bodies that leave dark red streaks all the way up the ramp.

You feel something this time.  It’s… cold.  A burning, searing cold that creeps into your skin.  Like your heart decides to pump nitrogen through your chest instead of warm blood.  You did that.

There’s a sudden urge inside of you to speak, to address him and inform him of your presence, tell him everything is okay, everything worked out, but you can’t find it in yourself to say a single word.  You can’t find a single word to say.  The kid twists as best he can in your clutch, his ears drag against your chest to greet his father, but for some reason, there’s still a strange sense of fear in your bones.  It’s enough to wake you up slightly, it’s enough to tell you it’s not over yet.  There’s a terror in your heart that hasn’t left since he first called over the comm and begged you to run, a crippling dread that you thought climaxed after seeing that star destroyer appear, but it’s somehow only increased after laying eyes on him like this.

You watch as his helmet turns, slowly meeting the pauldron on his shoulder, and for some reason, you feel yourself harden.  Your feet brace against the metal floor like this is another threat you have to face, you let its unyielding metallic strength transfer up through the souls of your boots to your heart in your chest.

But the second you hear cheap white armor clatter as the quarry steps down the ladder behind you, Din bursts into movement.  He suddenly spins and storms up to you in one single step while catching your holstered blaster on your hip.  It’s out and aimed in the blink of an eye, and it’s a miracle you remember how to speak before he remembers how to kill.

“Mando—” you warn, just in time for the quarry to land on the floor of the hull and turn around to reveal his face.

Din holds there for a second, his helmet locked on Oshua’s features.  His gloved fingers twitch wildly on the trigger of your gun held over your shoulder, like he has to remind himself multiple times not to.  You hear Oshua’s armor clack while he likely raises one good arm in surrender, but then Din’s helmet moves a fraction of a millimeter to your face and holds there.  He just stares down at you, and the air feels heavy, your body feels heavy, the feather light child in your arms feels heavy.

Slowly, he lowers his arm, lets it fall while he continues looking at you from behind the visor.  You look back at him, unblinking, unfeeling, and there’s a few seconds that last an utter eternity where nobody moves.  Nobody speaks, nothing happens, but then a soft coo comes from your arms before you can finally break eye contact, knowing there are still some things that need to be done.

You eventually turn around and lift your chin to address Oshua.

“You have to go into carbonite,” you inform him quietly.  Your voice sounds strange, like it’s coming from outside of yourself.  “We’re taking you to Nevarro, and then you’ll be transported to your home planet. When they unfreeze you, your sister will be there to collect you.”

He looks uncertain, one hand still raised while the other hangs uselessly at his side, and you don’t blame him.

But you also don’t feel like saying anymore, not unless he decides he doesn’t want to go in willingly.  Normally you might’ve tried to empathize, offer him further reassurance beyond just a couple short sentences, but you don’t.  Speaking feels difficult, thinking feels difficult.  You’re still in survival mode, not active but reactive.  There’s also no reason for you to lie to him about this, and you can see him glance at Din standing silently behind you, who hasn’t moved a muscle.

He eventually nods and you walk him over to the chamber without another word, watch him turn to face you as he backs into the opening while you reach up towards the control panel.

But then there’s a moment.  One where you hesitate slightly, one where your vision flashes back to the sight of those bloodstains on the floor, and that burning cold fills you again, so cold it feels completely numb.

“I’m… sorry,” you whisper quietly to him, though your voice sounds so empty.  There’s so much emotion that should be there but isn’t, so much regret and pain that should break through but can’t.  “I’m sorry I… killed your friends.”

Later, you’ll think about how you felt absolutely nothing saying it.  Your heart doesn’t constrict with remorse at the mere words leaving your mouth, guilt doesn’t flood into your soul, pain doesn’t wrack through your bones.  You could’ve been saying anything at all and nobody would be able to tell the difference.

He blinks at you, flicking his eyes between yours for a second or two, but then you press the proper button and watch the gas quickly freeze him where he stands.  He’ll be conscious the entire time, but Karga will send him to the correct location and you have no doubt that this elemental purgatory is leagues better than where he just escaped from.  It’s a benefit being the last quarry to be retrieved—he’ll only have to spend a few days trapped in here before being reunited with his family.

When that’s done and Oshua is a complete statue in front of you, bulky white armor now colored a dull metallic gray and frozen in time, you will yourself to finally turn around to face the enormous mountain of a presence behind you.  The baby gently reaches out for him, but Din doesn’t move from where he’s stood.  Your blaster is still clutched tightly in his hand, and he isn’t looking at you.

Slowly, you walk over and stop directly in front of him in the middle of the hull, blinking at him while the helmet subtly moves to lock onto your face.  The kid begins wiggling in your arms, making soft impatient noises while you both stand in complete silence across from each other.

After a few moments, you hear him flick your blaster’s safety on by his side and then toss it carelessly to the ground.  It skids along the floor, light enough to be mostly quiet.  Gloves reach out as he carefully takes the kid from you and settles him in the crook of one arm, and then he looks you up and down, still not saying anything.

Your eyes follow his movement, watching his arm slowly reaching out to you, and you think he’s going to cup your jaw, or brush your hair back.  Give you some sort of physical reassurance since he hasn’t spoken a single word of it.

Instead, Din suddenly grabs the armor clinging to your chest and starts ripping it off you with one hand.  It clangs to the floor so loudly in the silence of hyperspace, the kid’s ears twitch and flutter with each shattering bang.  You hold still while he does it, you barely respond except the unavoidable movement your body experiences as the pauldron is yanked from your shoulder and thrown against the ground.  The ammo belt is tugged over your head and hurled away, the thigh braces are snatched from your legs and they clang to the floor, and the pearly, opalescent fabric revealed underneath is stained in dead man’s blood, rusty and in such great quantities that it shows up as brown instead of red.

“Are you hurt?”

He sounds… dead.  So monotonic that you can’t possibly gauge his emotional state.  He doesn’t move.   His fists don’t clench, he says every single word like it means the same exact thing as the last.  If nothing at all was a person who could speak, they’d use his tone of voice.

“No,” you eventually whisper.

The helmet nods once, and then he spins around and walks away without anything else.  Without saying anything, without touching you, or double checking you for injuries in case you were lying.  You stand utterly still while Din climbs the ladder with the kid cradled in one arm, and you don’t even flinch when the door to the cockpit slides shut behind him.  You have no idea how long you stand there in the splitting silence afterwards, numb and unmoving.

You feel… nothing.  Absolutely nothing.

The hard defenses you strapped to yourself today to reconcile the things you had to do are still high and strong, guarding your soul even if he stripped away your physical armor.  Self preservation is still animating your body, and your facial expression barely changes.  Your first thought, as soon as you remember that you can have one, is that there are things that still need to be done.  Tasks to complete.

Alone, you shower the lingering traces of blood off your body, the normally clear and refreshing water running a sickly, toxic brown.  Alone, your stomach rolls and suddenly decides to empty itself of the very little that was in it as the scalding drops rain down over you—mostly liquid and bile that easily rinses down the drain.  The water is too warm, it beats down on you like blazing hot sand pelting your skin in the desert.  You feel like you did those first few months with Din, where the silence was suffocating, where you’d only interact with the baby if he was on a hunt or if you could tell he didn’t know how to calm him when he was fussy.  If you were in hyperspace, you usually spent time by yourself in the hull while he lived in the cockpit, and if he decided he needed to be in the hull for whatever reason, then you’d trade places with him.  It was… isolating.  Lonely by yourself.  The quiet used to haunt you before it became your cherished friend, but now it’s a betrayer, a ghost that whispers memories and nightmares in your ears.

When you finally finish rinsing the blood from your skin and get dressed, you see the sheets that used to make up your bed now have fried holes in them from your charred plasma marks, the inside of the hull is covered in them and the trails of dried blood where you dragged the bodies down the ramp.  Your armor is still strewn about the hull, the kid’s hovering shield lays dead in the corner.  Everything you meticulously cleaned and organized and collected and created, now the scene of a bloodbath.  One committed by your hand, your blaster still laying uselessly on the floor forever linked to this atrocity.

You spare a glance towards the ladder, but you don’t want to come face to face with Din yet.  You already knew he’d be furious, but… you had hoped that he’d at least…

What?  At least what?  Comfort you?  Coddle you after you deliberately ignored his instructions?  What exactly, in the past year or so of learning Din’s inner workings and intricacies, would ever give you the impression that he’d come give you a big hug after you purposefully defied him?  You flew the kid directly into an imperial base after being told to protect him, you ignored every order he gave to you in the moments he thought would be his last, and though you did it to save his life, you have a feeling that Din has never valued his life even a fraction of what you do.

The misery stabs at your soul, but your mind is finally beginning to process things logically.  He’s alive, the kid is alive, the quarry is secure, and you’re all onboard the safety of this ship hurtling through hyperspace where nobody, not even the Empire, can touch you.  You weighed the consequences before making your decision, you did what you had to do.  If he wants to be mad, then he can fucking well be mad and you’ll find some way to comfort yourself.  At least he’s here being mad, at least he’s alive and safe and breathing and mad, and your rare act of disobedience is to thank for that.

Somewhere in the back of your mind, you realize it’s probably easier than it should be to reconcile the punishment.  Right now, you welcome the exclusion, the negativity and sorrow beating itself into your soul.  Four innocent people died today on this ship, gunned down under your blaster while they panicked and ran for cover.  You keep hearing their screams.

So you start to clean up the hull, needing another task to focus your thoughts on.  You work to erase every inch of the evidence of your deeds, make it disappear like the pool of blood Din once cleaned up while you were sleeping and never acknowledged again.  You only allow the bloodstains to fuck with your head for a single moment, and then you swallow back the nausea until you’re a blank slate again and sink to your knees with a rag in your hand.  After that, your vision stops focusing and it just becomes red contrasting against gunmetal gray, and you work tirelessly to get rid of all remaining traces of it.

Then you start on the blaster marks, you need them gone.  After a few informed attempts at mixing cleaning chemicals, you find one concoction that allows you to wipe them away like they’re nothing more than dirt that got tracked in.  The Crest’s oxygen recycling system works overdrive to constantly purify the air so you don’t get high or pass out, but your nose still stings.  It’s fine, it’s sterile, it burns a bit but it smells sharp and metallic and keeps you hyper focused on the task at hand.

After that’s done, you pick up the charred blankets and ball them up to throw into the trash vent.  You don’t feel anything as you do it.  You don’t think about how long it took you to collect these over months and months of being stuck on this ship, how comfortable they were when everything else was industrial and rigid, how many nights you spent with Din curled up in their softness while he breathed easy and warm.  Sheets are just luxuries, they can afford to be lost.

Next, you gather your armor and wipe it down with the rag, put it away along with your blaster.  The stained robe goes in the trash, along with the sheets and the blood soaked cloth you used to clean everything.  They’re all ruined, you’ll never be able to make them right again.

The hull is sparkling clean when you decide to take another shower.  Nothing on you is dirty except your hands, but you feel filthy.  Wrong, cold, numb, cold, stained, cold.

After scrubbing your skin raw under the water and changing clothes again, since you don’t really know what to do with yourself anymore, you slowly climb the ladder to the cockpit, keeping perfectly silent.  When you reach the upper platform and come face to face with the closed door, you can just barely hear Din’s whispered voice speaking quietly to the baby beyond it.

You raise your hand for a moment, hovering your knuckles over the metal, but then it eventually falls.  Instead, you look over and spot the corner, the same corner Din bunched himself into when he snapped at you for even suggesting going on a hunt with him, blew up at you for the mere notion of something happening like what happened today.  You back yourself into it in defeat and slowly sink down on the floor, resting your head against the metal and hugging your knees to your chest since you don’t have a tiny baby to take their place.

You can’t sleep.  You don’t even try, it’s pointless.  The concept feels foreign the longer you sit here by yourself.  You don’t hear Din or the baby anymore, but you feel… so fucking awful that it’s fitting that you don’t knock or go looking.  You don’t want to hold that sweet child with hands that were covered in blood just a few hours ago.  You killed more people than you can count on your fingers today, and of the ones who had done nothing wrong…  They screamed like younglings, ducked for cover and were able to fire off one single useless shot in the mayhem before you closed their eyes forever and left their bodies to rot in armor that wasn’t ever their choice to wear.

You didn’t know they were kidnapped and smuggled and forced into that situation.  You couldn’t have known, but that isn’t the point.  In this case, knowing doesn’t make one bit of difference.

You also can’t face Din yet, not like this.  You don’t want him to see you cowering, shattered with guilt over the decisions you made under pressure.  How will you ever get him to forgive you for not listening to him when you can’t even forgive yourself for the result of your choices?  Din is a hardened man who grew up in blasterfire and bloodshed, just because you love him doesn’t mean he’s going to magically become someone he isn’t.  You’re here letting guilt sink sharp claws into your chest over four dead men when he had a good fifty or more corpses scattered on the battlefield around him.  You decided to wear that armor, you decided to fly into an imperial base with the kid on your lap, and this is now your penance.  You’ll accept it with your back straight and your chin held high.

Figuratively, of course.  Physically, you’re smaller than you’ve ever been.  Crumpled up into a ball, taking up as little space as possible, curling up as tight as you can like an animal protecting all your vulnerable parts during a brutal attack.

So, since he isn’t here to comfort you himself, you just try to think about what he would tell you.  A long time ago, what would he tell you?

Din would tell you… that you killed someone.  Multiple people, this time.  He’d also tell you that it doesn’t matter what he tells you, what you could have reasonably foreseen or what you should have done.  The end result won’t change.  You own this now.  You’ll carry their deaths with you.

You take a few deep breaths, self-soothing with the undeniable truth that would be murmured matter of factly from his quiet voice.  He wouldn’t argue with you.  He wouldn’t deny the decisions you made or the consequences of them.  It happened, and at the end of the day, you either learn how to handle that, or you don’t.

And, for the four you did shoot, you were responsible for freeing ten times that amount.  You’re responsible for reuniting Oshua Ryler with his family, even if your place in yours is momentarily shunned.  You’d rather be out here alone than in there with the kid, wondering where his dad is or if he’s even still alive.  You rescued Din and now he gets to be here to shut this door on you, hold his son, and whisper calm reassurances to him.  If you listen really hard and imagine, you can pretend they’re for you, too.

That’s it.  Focus on them both, alive and well together.  Focus on the bodies wearing white armor that were moving, the ones that were bolting away from the imperial training base as fast as they could, free from the torture of imprisonment and conditioning.

Finally, you close your eyes and slip into unconsciousness.  It’s not a testament to your exhaustion, but rather just how long you’ve been left to sit here by yourself.  Hours, maybe.  Time is strange in hyperspace.

You dream of a faceless man ringing bells.

---

When you wake up, a small baby has been placed in your arms, and you’re being dragged into a strong, secure beskar hold on the floor.

“Din,” you suddenly lift your head as soon as you’re conscious and nearly bonk it into solid metal, apologies rising in your throat before you even remember where you are.  You did what needed to be done to keep your family alive and together and you’d do it a thousand times again if necessary, but that doesn’t mean you won’t apologize anyways.  After the deeds you’ve committed today, regret feels as natural on your lips as speaking your own name.  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I know you’re mad at me but I—”

“Shh,” he whispers, running his gloves through your hair.  He’s still wearing his helmet, he hasn’t taken anything off yet.  “Don’t say anything.  Just… stay here, stay right here with me.”

“I tried to save you,” you croak, tears instantly flooding your eyes.  You did save him.  You saved him and the baby and yourself but you’re so physically and emotionally exhausted that all you can recall is your intent.  “I tried.  Wasn’t gonna leave you there by yourself.  I tried to be brave, like you—y-you wouldn’t have left without me.”

His arms tighten around you, cradling you in such a strong embrace that you burrow into him, you find a place for your head on the hard metal strapped to him and bury yourself there, wishing that you had shovels of dirt being piled on you to justify the death you still feel staining your soul.  Your heart is starting to pound now that you’re remembering, your body is starting to shake with tremors of shock now that you’re aware of your own skin again.

“I was so sc-scared, Din, I didn’t—didn’t know what was happening,” you lament through watery eyes, gasping it out in hopes that it’ll relieve the slightest bit of the gut wrenching guilt just mercilessly crushing you.  It caught you before you could protect yourself against it, that armor you built around yourself isn’t on when you first wake up.  “I-I didn’t want to kill them, but they were already on the ship and y-you said—you said they were coming after the kid s-so I had to, I had to—”

“Stop,” Din whispers, voice so quiet that you can barely hear him.

“I-I cleaned up the blood,” you turn your face against the cold beskar to let all the positives you listed for yourself before scrape across your throat.  They don’t sound comforting anymore, they just sound like excuses.  “It’s gone, it’s like it never happened, everything is okay now, I got the quarry, I protected the baby, I saved a bunch of people, you’re both safe—”

“Stop,” he chokes out.  The modulator cuts off before you can hear his next breath, but you feel it shudder under your body.  “St-Stop it, please.”

Your eyes clench shut so tightly you feel like the streaking stars outside are behind them, tears drop down against his pauldron and you press your face tighter to it like it’s a wound, like the pressure will somehow ease the bleeding.

“Listen to me,” he says very quietly, and you instantly brace yourself.  The walls you just let down shoot right back up, your body physically tightens in preparation for another pain, another trauma, another scar you’ll carry, and you stop shaking.  You stop breathing, even when his hand comes up to ease your face away from his armor.

“You,” he whispers, holding your chin so you’re staring right at him, and your eyes flick fearfully in between his behind the visor, “are a sweet girl.”  Din’s leather thumb brushes along your skin, dragging over the tears below your puffy eyes.  “Not,” his voice catches, “a Mandalorian.”

Your heart goes cold.  Again, everything turns numb.  It doesn’t matter that you already said this yourself out loud earlier today.  It doesn’t matter that you acknowledged this fact, verbally insisted it more than once to hammer home the truth and felt some sense of comfort in it.  For some reason, hearing the words from his mouth is a fucking knife to your chest.

“I taught you how to fight, how to shoot a blaster,” he murmurs, thumb catching every single tear that continues to fall as he speaks.  “I taught you everything I know, everything that’s been taught to me.  I taught you how to defend yourself, how to protect yourself when you’re in danger.  I gave you your blaster, I gave you my armor, I gave you everything I could give you to keep you safe.  And when I thought you were ready, I let you loose on Sanctuary II.  Do you know why I did that?”  The helmet tips forward the slightest bit at the question, probing deep into the most shattered part of your heart.  “After all those months of fighting, and shooting, and training, do you know why I told you to run?”

You blink silently at him, a shaky breath quaking through you, and your expression wants to crumple under the reprimand.  You’re so fragile right now, taking hit after hit after hit to the softest parts inside you, and you want to just give up.  Let the guilt and remorse take you, let it wash you away.  But then, instead…

There’s a flicker of something inside you.  Something strong, endlessly strong, and it makes you want to revolt against what he’s saying.  It replaces the hurt and fear and desperation for comfort with a strange sense of insurgence, like it did earlier when you were hiding behind a boulder, cowering and trembling and not wanting to die.  You’re filled with a quiet urge to defend yourself in the face of this, stand up for yourself and refuse to be beaten down any longer.

“Because you needed to know how to escape danger,” he answers himself when you don’t.  “You needed to know how to disappear, how to outsmart any pursuer and find safety, even the trained ones.  Especially the trained ones.  Anything else was meant to be your last resort.  Not your choice.  Not something you chose.”

“I couldn’t leave you,” you admit to him quietly, voice shaky and tears still coming even as you try to speak up for yourself.  The regret you carry has nothing to do with this, and you decide right now that you won’t feel bad for saving him.  Your hurt comes from the meaningless things, the ones without any need whatsoever, not the necessary ones, and you tried.  You repeated his words to yourself over and over again, told yourself to run, told yourself to get to Nevarro, and it wasn’t going to happen.  “I couldn’t do it.  It wasn’t a choice.”

“It was,” he tells you.  He says it softly, whispers it like it’s the gentlest thing in the world, but the power and inherent distance of the armor strapped to his body finds its way into the words.  “And it was the wrong one.”

“What was I supposed to do?”  You ask, just a hint of that rebellion swimming to the surface now, rising out of the waves of self doubt, the one that feels like a spine growing in your back, an energy coursing through your veins that makes your heart start to beat faster.  Din’s hand slowly drops from your cheek but you don’t care.  “Was I supposed to run away and just let you die?”

“Yes.”  It’s quick and blunt and completely emotionless.  Delivered like a punch to the vulnerable parts of yourself he taught you how to protect, and the utter silence following this single word is comparable to the physical pain you learned to defend against.  It jabs hard against everything good and sweet and tender inside of you, and you’re left speechless even as he continues impassively.  “That’s exactly what you were supposed to do.”

It takes a second, but then that unfamiliar feeling suddenly surges up, breaches with the power of an entire ocean.  Your voices may be nothing more than whispers in the dark, you may be clinging to each other, holding each other with the softest, gentlest love in your hearts, but the strength of your conviction on this would rip metal apart.

“No.”  The word holds the might of your entire being, and it stands alone and defiant in the face of everything you fear, everything that threatens you, him, and this child.  Never.  You’ll die before that happens.  “I love you, and there’s nothing in this galaxy that would ever make me do that.  Not fear, not danger, not the Empire, nothing.  Not even you.”

Din stares at you.  His visor reflects your hardened expression back to you, the force in your soul and the purpose in your eyes, and you don’t even realize the gravity of what you just said because like your love for him, gravity is a constant.  It’s a fundamental truth cemented into the rules that govern your actions and it stays true no matter where you are, no matter what terror you face, or how scared you become.  You have him, you have this little boy in your arms, and if that’s all you have, then you have everything.

After an eternity of this, of feeling his eyes pierce deep into you from behind the helmet while you refuse to wither under his stare, you watch him slowly turn and look down, landing on the sleepy child tucked between you both.  He holds there for a long time, before finally whispering, so quiet that the modulator barely picks it up, “It was the wrong choice.”

You stay quiet.  It happened.  What’s done is done, you can’t change the past.  He can scold and reprimand you about this as much as he wants, but you did the right thing and that decision is the only reason he’s even here to be able to do so.  This exhausted child was reunited with his father because of your choices, and this exhausted father was reunited with his child.  You won’t argue anymore, but it’s a certitude that lives deep in your heart now, builds a home there right alongside the both of them.  Din eventually looks up, his eyes find yours again behind the visor, and his hand rises once more to gently cup your jaw.

“I… thought I’d enjoy seeing you in my armor,” Din finally whispers.  It’s not what you expected, but his voice sounds… weak.  Broken.  “You wore mine once before, and it was…”  He brushes his thumb along your cheek, and then his head shakes slightly, pushing the thought away.  “It wasn’t real.  It didn’t fit.  It dwarfed you, it made you look out of place, it made everything soft and innocent about you stand out.  I liked it because it wasn’t real.”

“Was it… really that bad?”  You whisper back, partially to ease the tension just slightly but quickly breaking eye contact with him when you realize it doesn’t land correctly, it just sounds self conscious and sad.  You try to find that conviction again, that strength and assurance that propped you up so sturdily before, but…  Not a Mandalorian, he’d said.  Of course not.  Of course not.

“It wasn’t the armor.”  Din gently tugs up on your face so that you look at him again.  “It was you covered in blood.  It was you purposefully putting yourself in danger.  You killed multiple armed soldiers of the Empire, you dragged their bodies off the ship.  And then you flew into an imperial base, where you killed the officers, too.  You…”  He shakes his head slowly at you while speaking, and although you can’t see his face, you don’t need to in order to hear the horror in his voice.   “You… collected a quarry… in the middle of a massacre, sweet girl.”

Not a Mandalorian.

“You don’t chase down bounties,” he tells you.  “You don’t fly into war zones.  You don’t kill imperials, you don’t collect quarries, you don’t sacrifice yourself, or our son, to save me.  You said you tried to be brave… like me.”  His fingers tighten against your cheek, he dips his helmet to make sure you understand.  “I’ll never ask you to be brave.  I’ll ask you to survive.”

“I’m… sorry,” you finally whisper, and his arm drops from your cheek to join the other in wrapping around you and holding tight.  They hug you and squeeze, encasing you and the baby in a beskar shield and staying there for a long time.  Long enough for you to tuck your head back into its proper place under his helmet, long enough to start to feel okay with the silence again.  It brutalized you the last time you were surrounded by it, it made you feel alone and desolate and barren inside.  You greet it warily now, settling into it for an unknown amount of time until it’s forgiven once more.

After a while, Din quietly breaks it.

“How many?”  He murmurs to you.  You already know exactly what he’s asking, there's no more clarification necessary on his behalf.

You slowly close your eyes and think back to the smoldering craters, the blood soaked ramp, the fear in Oshua Ryler’s eyes as he begged you not to kill him.

“That didn’t deserve it?”  You ask, clenching your eyes tighter at the memory.  “Four.”

And maybe, maybe six or eight months ago, you would’ve begged for some guidance on how to reconcile that.  Hell, maybe a few hours ago, you could’ve used his arms around you exactly like this, his low voice repeating the same things he’s already told you before, over and over again, if only for some semblance of stability when everything feels turbulent and uncertain.  You’ll never be able to change it, though.  This belongs to you now.

This time, all Din says is, “I’m sorry, too.”

And that covers everything.

The silence envelops you both again, but… there’s something else.  Something that still sits deep in your worries, an image that isn’t a scar of what’s happened but a dread of what’s to come.  You need to tell him.  You don’t feel like saying it, you don’t want to speak it aloud for fear of bringing it into existence, but you need to tell him.

“Din?”  You breathe out, and he makes a soft noise in his throat while cuddling you on the floor.  “I saw…,” you whisper, every word sitting tight and reluctant in your throat.  “Right when we made the jump, I was looking through the window and I-I saw…”

“A star destroyer.”  He says it like… like it’s the worst thing in the world and also completely expected at the same time.  He says it like he already knew, yet can’t even imagine.  You lean every bit of your weight against him since you can’t hold him in return, squish him as best you can against the small corner and curl up even tighter in his arms for comfort.

He takes a deep breath, a shuddery sound you don’t think you’ve ever heard him make before.  It holds untold anxiety, unsaid conflict, uncertain action, an unknown path forward.

“I don’t know what to do,” Din eventually whispers to himself, to you, to the baby in your arms.  His voice is barely a breath through the modulator, his fingers digging into your skin with how many emotions he’s repressing.  “What do I do?”

He sounds so distressed that you automatically feel your soul find the floor—instantly, you become steady and calm and you locate all that rationality that kept you going today.  All your worries still twist deep down, all the guilt and the turmoil wrestles with your soft, easy nature until you can only find bits and pieces of it in the most vulnerable places inside you, but if he’s struggling this terribly, then the least you can do is offer some good, true, unwavering faith in times of uncertainty.  You’re in hyperspace, everything worked out, and it’s going to stay that way for right now.  If he doesn’t know how to talk about it yet, then you trust him enough to wait for him.

“It’ll be okay,” you tell him with a newfound confidence and purpose, carefully easing the baby into one arm so that the other can find its way to the other side of his helmet and pull him closer.  Din tucks his head and allows you to brush your lips against the metal, whisper the words soft and steady to him.  “We’ll figure it out together.”

---

@cptnbvcks thank you so much for the incredible art!

[avonne-writes]

sweetest of the sunflowers

Fandom: Masters of the Air

Pairing: Buck/Bucky

Rating, word count: T, 4k

Summary: John takes care of Gale after his wisdom teeth surgery. (young vets au)

A/N: This is my gift to the amazing, sweet @bcolfanfic in the HBO War Summer Exchange organized by @hbowardaily (thank you for all your work!). My prompt was hurt/comfort with Buck and Bucky, preferably in the young vets au. Mollie, I hope you'll like what I came up with, I tried to do your lovely au justice. Happy exchange day, dear 💕

Link to the AO3 post

Bucky taps his right foot against the ugly brown-gray vinyl of the waiting room's floor, trying to focus. Goosebumps skitter down his arms, but he doesn’t know if it’s from the cold air blasting from the dental clinic's AC to combat the summer heat or if it’s a symptom of his mounting anxiety. Somewhere behind the door he has been staring at for the better half of an hour, Gale is getting his wisdom teeth pulled out under general anesthesia. He’s unconscious, at their mercy. What if something goes wrong? What if they measured the drugs incorrectly and he never wakes up? What if there are complications and he wakes up in excruciating pain? Bucky bounces his knee and digs the fingers of his right hand into the back of his left in a white-knuckled grip. The faux-leather chair creaks under him, barely containing his bulk. 

When his ears pick up on the blare of an approaching ambulance, his head snaps up like a hypervigilant dog’s. It’s not coming here, the rational part of his mind reasons. Everything is okay with Gale. No complications, just a clean, routine surgery, and he’ll be back to normal in a few days. But the sound of the siren keeps getting louder. It’s impossible to ignore it. Bucky’s pounding heartbeat plays a cresting drum solo to accompany it. His mind jumps back to that dreadful night when he tried to end it all. How the ambulance sped with him through those dark Wyoming roads, the long hours when he could barely tell if he was dead or alive, and whether life was the better option out of the two. The most fretful sleep he has ever had.

He remembers how Gale followed him with the car all the way there in the middle of the night. Seven hours. What if Bucky has to do the same for him? What if something happened in there, behind that dark door, and the ambulance is coming to take Gale and rush him to the ER? 

Nervous sweat gathers under Bucky's arms, soaking into his short-sleeved shirt. After they’d called Gale in for his surgery, he went down a rabbit hole of Reddit posts and articles describing the most horrifying wisdom teeth surgery outcomes until he felt like he was going to throw up. He was itching for a smoke - or better yet, a drink, since he has a flask hidden in the glove compartment of the car - but he held himself back. Gale needs him to be at full capacity today. He’s determined to stay firmly planted in his seat until they call for him to take Gale home. 

His leg continues jiggling in agitation until the ambulance comes into view through the wide windows of the clinic. Bucky clenches his teeth, but it just speeds down the road in a plume of dust, its destination unknown. It wasn’t coming to the dental clinic. 

Never even blinking, he keeps staring at the window in utter stillness for a long moment before he finally relaxes. When he sinks back in his chair and looks around the room, several pairs of eyes flicker away. The flush of embarrassment creeps up his neck, especially when he spots a teary-eyed kid with trembling lips clinging to his mom. Fuck, Croz was right not to let him babysit in the state he's in. He’s not fit to be around children. Not fit to be around anyone, he thinks with a dark tone. He’s in public, completely sober, and still, he can’t get a grip on himself and ended up scaring a child, who must have already been in need of comfort because dentists are freakin’ scary. What would Bucky’s episodes do to a kid of his own? No, he can’t subject anyone to that. He can’t even bring himself to think about it. It’s more than enough to see how badly it affects Gale, and Gale is a grown-ass man who sticks around out of his own volition. Before he could even consider parenthood, he needs to get better first.

“Don’t worry, dear.” The elderly woman sitting next to him tells him gently and pats the back of Bucky’s linked hands. “They’re the best around here. They’ll sort your teeth out before you know it. You won’t feel a thing.”

Bucky clears his throat and croaks out a thanks, glancing around and finding strangers turning away again as they get startled by him looking back. He knows his ears must be bright red. I’m a veteran, he wants to tell them. The shit I’ve seen doesn’t go away just like that. But what kind of an excuse is that? By all means, he should have already recovered. He’s not the one whose leg - He shuts that thought down before he could spiral deeper into it. This is neither the place, nor the time. Gale depends on him. He had tried to postpone his own surgery because of Bucky’s issues until his sister found out about it and had a tense talk with both of them. What does that say about Bucky as a husband? It’s high time for him to step up and show Gale that he’s there for Gale too, not just the other way around. He can’t let him down by causing a scene or freaking out. 

Besides, it’s nice not to be “the crazy vet” for once. Now, he’s just the hulking guy with the dentist phobia. Marginally better.

He spins his wedding band around his finger to distract himself. He wants to text Curt just to have someone tell him he’s an idiot to worry and nothing’s gonna happen, but he holds himself back. His incessant unhinged texts and calls are enough of a burden already. He’ll manage this on his own for as long as he can.

Suddenly, the door swings open and the peppy assistant steps out, smiling as she calls for “Mr. Egan.”

Bucky goes deaf and blind from nerves for a split second before he stands up, wipes his clammy palms on his thighs and makes his shaky legs carry him to follow after the woman. She smiles at him warmly as if she hasn’t noticed. 

“Did -” Bucky clears his throat again once they're inside. He struggles with the words, feeling awkward. This place is nothing like the psych ward, but clinical environments will probably never fail to unsettle him. “Did it go all right?”

“Yes, everything went well. All impacted teeth have been removed without any complications.” She directs her cheerful expression at him again as they walk past the operatory. “Mr. Cleven is just through here, in our recovery room.” 

She gestures at the second door they’re approaching. “He’ll be a bit dazed and confused, and he might not be in control of what he says, but remember that this is perfectly normal after anesthesia. Try to reassure him and keep him calm. He needs to stay in the recovery room for at least thirty minutes, then the doctor’s going to check if everything is all right, and whether Mr. Cleven is able to stand and walk on his own.” Her reassuring smile never wavers, and her persistence pays off - Bucky feels the worst of his anxiety drain from his body. “If all is well, he’ll be discharged and you can take him home.”

Bucky nods, feeling slightly dazed himself. He already knew what to expect, but he doesn’t know what the reality of that is going to look like. Gale was so anxious about this part beforehand, and it’s easy to understand why. Helplessness and loss of control would be scary to anyone, but to Gale? It’s a nightmare. He was so scared of it that he refused his sister’s offer to be here in Bucky’s place. I’m not letting anyone else see me like that, John, he said when Bucky tried to discuss whether that would have been the better idea instead. Bucky can only hope that he can provide him enough support. 

He exchanges a few more words and a quiet thanks with the assistant, then pushes the door handle hesitantly.

The room is specifically designed to be a calming space for recovery after procedures requiring anesthesia. It’s quiet, the walls are painted in warm beiges and browns, and the lights are much dimmer than the harsh neon of the operatory. There’s a small cot in one corner and several padded chairs scattered around. Opposite, close to a door with a bathroom sign, a comfy-looking brown recliner armchair takes up the space. That’s where Bucky finds Gale sitting with his feet propped up and his hands limp on the armrests as though the staff arranged him like that themselves. Gale watches him silently, with hooded blue eyes that match his t-shirt and a displeased downward curve of his mouth that makes him look like a cat. There’s gauze sticking out between his lips, but otherwise, he looks fine.

Bucky feels like the sharp inhale of relief he takes is the first one since he saw Gale walk inside.

“Hi sweetheart.” He says gently as he pads over to Gale and pulls up a chair on Gale’s right side. He doesn’t know why he lowers his voice. It’s not as if speaking louder would hurt Gale. He feels ridiculous for it, but it’s instinctive. He hopes Gale doesn’t mind. With a sigh, he sits down and takes Gale’s hand.

Gale pulls it away sluggishly. “Don’t touch me.”

Bucky’s heart freezes in his chest at those slurred words. Is Gale angry with him? Or is he in pain, maybe? How can Bucky make it better? “I’m sorry. I won’t touch you if you don’t want me to.”

At a snail’s pace, Gale turns his head to direct his hazy gaze at the door. “You’re handsome but I have a husband, you know.” He mumbles, barely able to get the words out clear enough to be understood. “I’m not a widower.”

The way Bucky’s heart sinks leaves him lightheaded. He has seen a lot of videos about people saying weird things after sedation and he laughed heartily at them all. But there’s nothing funny about this. Nothing. Not being recognized wounds already, but it’s Gale’s second sentence that leaves him truly speechless with guilt and grief. It sounded like Gale was trying to reassure himself that he does, indeed, still have a husband. That the bullet went into the wall, and Bucky to the psych ward instead of the cemetery. There’s nothing funny about hearing Gale unintentionally admit that he thought he might become a widower.

“I know.” Bucky tells him, trying not to get overwhelmed. “I know, darling. It’s me. I’m your husband.”

Gale frowns at the door and blinks slowly, not turning back to Bucky. “My husband is a soldier. A soldier… Your’re in jeans.”

It takes a second for Bucky to make sense of the logic of Gale’s jumbled thoughts and realize that he expected someone in uniform. He’s not sure how to argue with that, so he just bites his lip and reaches for Gale’s hand again. He remembers not to touch only at the last moment, so his hand is left hanging awkwardly on the armrest. Gale’s head tilts as he looks down at it. Slowly, he touches Bucky’s ring with a fingertip and tries to spin it on Bucky’s finger, but his strength leaves him after a moment and he lets his hand drop into Bucky’s open palm. Bucky shifts to hold it properly. This time, Gale doesn’t protest. 

“Gale, look at me, sweetheart. It’s me, John. Bucky.”

Gale’s pale blue eyes find his, blink a few times, then Gale’s lips split into a loopy smile that Bucky finds adorable despite the gauze sticking out of his mouth.

“John!” Gale exclaims, startling Bucky with the volume. “I missed you!”

Despite the fact that he’s still reeling from the reminder that he almost left Gale forever, Bucky can’t help but smile back. “I missed you too. How are you feeling?”

Gale gives him a stricken look and wetness wells up in his eyes. He tries to reach for his own face but seems to decide that he doesn’t have the strength to do it after all and lets his free hand drop back in his lap. “They took all my teeth.” He sniffles.

“No, they didn’t. Don’t worry, they’re still there.”

“They took them!” Gale insists, waving with his arm. He drops his head back against the chair, closes his eyes and makes a crying sound. “I have no teeth and you won’t love me anymore.”

Rationally, Bucky knows that he and Gale are going to laugh at some of the things Gale is saying right now, once Gale is back to himself, but he still feels his heart ache from how vulnerable Gale is like this. What if Bucky couldn't be here? What if the bullet hadn’t gone into the wall, but hit its target instead? Bucky’s guilt intensifies until he can barely take it. He pulls Gale’s hand to his lips and presses a kiss to it. “Do you trust me?”

Gale looks up at him with watery eyes. “Yes.”

“I would still love you without teeth, Gale. But they didn’t take all your teeth, I promise. Only your wisdom teeth.”

“You still love me?” The words stumble wetly from Gale’s mouth. He ignores the rest of what Bucky told him.

“Of course I love you.” Bucky smiles and presses another kiss to Gale’s hand, to which Gale’s reaction is patting at Bucky’s mouth clumsily. He rubs at Bucky’s moustache, seemingly fascinated by those short whiskers of hair. He looks lost in his delirious thoughts. Bucky lets him - he doesn’t think he could deny Gale anything now, so overcome he is with fondness.

“I wanted a bunny.” Gale says mournfully. His articulation is getting better, but his eyes are still unfocused and he clearly doesn’t have any of his filters working. “For my birthday. A black bunny. Not white because white bunnies have red eyes.”

Bucky can’t help it, he snorts a laugh. Gale snickers along with him, completely out of it. Gently, Bucky pulls Gale’s hand away and holds it in his own. “This year?” Probably not, but it’s a hilarious thought nonetheless.

Gale doesn’t answer. He stares at Bucky, narrows his eyes, then widens them in a look of wonder and glances around the room. His head tilts in a way that suggests he can barely hold it up. “Whoa, can we get one of these chairs?”

A frown pulls at Bucky’s eyebrows. “Which ones?”

“The blue ones.” Gale says, pointing shakily at the corner of the room that’s set up for children. There’s a low table with sheets of paper and crayons scattered on it, and around it, a few plastic kid chairs.

Bucky stifles another laugh. “Those are for kids, baby. I know you keep saying I’m a big child, but I don’t think that could hold my weight.”

Gale hums. It stretches out so long that it’s like a growl, as if he enjoys the vibration of his own voice and doesn’t want to stop until he runs out of breath. “‘s for our kid.”

Bucky’s smile falls. “Our kid?”

They haven’t talked about that since Bucky’s… Since the worst night of his life. It was clear as day that they couldn’t bring another soul into the mess he caused with his fucked-up mental health. Gale never mentioned it, never even hinted at it since that night. The longing is still there in his eyes whenever he sees Bucky play with children, but this is the first time that Bucky heard it from his mouth that he wants a kid. That he still wants it, after everything.

“I think they’d like it, it’s - it’s -” Gale doesn’t finish his thought out loud, but jumps straight to the next. “You’d be a wonderful dad. The best dad. I’ve thought it all out.” He nods to himself. “The best dad.”

For the second time since he entered the room, Bucky’s heart contracts painfully. “I'm not fit to be a dad, Gale. Not now.”

Gale makes a sudden, wide gesture of frustration and hits Bucky’s arm by accident, but it’s too weak to hurt. “Told you I’d thought it all out.” He mumbles something unintelligible, then drops his head back against the chair. “You take good care of your plants. The plants love you, John. They’re beautiful.” He takes a deep breath and sighs as if settling down to sleep. “I love you too.”

Bucky doesn’t know what to say, so he just swipes his thumb back and forth over the back of Gale’s hand and goes for humor. “And you’re beautiful. I think I see a pattern there.”

“Yes, I’m beautiful.” Gale smiles, as if anything Bucky told him now was a universal truth. "You’re not allowed to kiss me."

Bucky bites back a grin. He may not be allowed but it sounds like Gale certainly wants him to break that rule. "Why not?"

"Dangerous." Gale pouts and touches his own lips. Before he could stick his fingers in his mouth to explore what must be a weird sensation of numbness in there, Bucky grabs his wrist and pulls it away.

"How about a kiss on the cheek, hm?" He shakes Gale’s hands playfully. He knows he shouldn't French kiss Gale for 24 hours after surgery, but that doesn’t mean that everything is off the table. "I think that’s allowed."

After a moment of contemplative silence, Gale gives him an uncoordinated nod. "Only if you keep it a secret."

"Deal." Bucky chuckles and presses a kiss to Gale’s cheek, where it curves like an apple whenever Gale smiles wide.

“Can we go home now?” He hears Gale ask when he pulls back.

He glances at the clock on the wall. “We need to stay here for a few more minutes. Just until you feel better.”

“Oh, okay.” Gale says, then, immediately after, “I feel better.” 

“You need to be able to walk first.”

Gale’s eyes snap open and he starts wrestling with gravity to pull himself up and out of the chair. “I can walk.”

Bucky tries to nudge him back down. “Don’t be impatient. We’re not running anywhere, are we?”

“I’m running.” Gale declares with all the determination and none of the muscle control needed for a normal gait. He pushes himself to the edge of the armchair, which already proves to be a struggle, then he turns sideways instead of tilting the recliner back into its default position. “I’m good at it.”

“Easy, easy.” Bucky stands up and places his hands on Gale’s shoulders lightly. An amused smile plays around his lips. “Why don’t you stay put, just for a little while more? Hm?”

A small, frustrated grunt escapes Gale’s lips as he tries to push himself up. “I can do it.”

“Gale, sit your ass down.”

The forlorn look on Gale’s face makes Bucky’s smile widen in fondness. 

Gale glares at him, profoundly annoyed. “I can walk. I could do a cartwheel. I just don’t want to.”

“Sure you could.”

“I’m the best at cartwheels. The best. Better than you. I practiced in our backyard.”

“Our backyard?”

“I don’t know.” Gale huffs, then shakes his head. “Practiced after school.”

Bucky bites his bottom lip to keep from grinning. It must have been primary or middle school then. He imagines a wildly blond ten-year-old falling all over himself in the grass, stubborn to get it right. “Did you wanna impress someone?”

Gale hums in agreement, then hugs Bucky around the waist with his trembling arms. He pushes his forehead against Bucky’s stomach. “John, I wanna go home.”

“Shh.” Bucky soothes him, stroking his hair. When he puts a hand on each of Gale’s arms, Gale goes completely limp. He lets Bucky hold him up. “I’ll take you home in no time.”

“Can we go to Subway first?” Gale’s voice is muffled in his shirt. It’s not terribly slurred anymore, but it isn’t clear and measured either. “Like a date? Like a Bagram date. Can you take me back to Bagram? I wanna flirt with you.”

Bucky laughs softly and rocks them back and forth in place. He doesn’t like to think of Bagram, but the memories of their Subway dates remain bright, happy spots like a string of fairy lights in the clusterfuck of darkness the rest of it became. He makes a mental note to take Gale out on a date once he’s allowed to eat solid food again. “You don’t need to go back to Bagram to flirt with me.”

“I’m flirting with you now.” Gale says automatically, and tightens his arms around Bucky’s waist. “I think it’s working.”

Bucky grins and pushes a hand under the collar of Gale’s shirt to stroke his back the way Gale likes it. “Yeah? What gave me away?”

As he turns his head sideways, Bucky can see that Gale’s eyes are closed, and he’s smiling. “Just a gut feeling.” Gale hums contemplatively. “And Curt says so too.”

“Curt, huh?”

“Curt loves you too.” 

Golden warmth spreads through Bucky’s chest. It’s strange that marriage can feel like this sometimes. Affection so deep that it wounds. “Makes sense, since he claims to be a pretty boy.”

Gale giggles.

They stay embracing like that until Gale’s dentist comes back to check if he can be discharged.

~♡~

On the way home, in the familiar safety of their car, Gale gets even chattier than before. He narrates the entire drive, happy and relaxed, and sings along to the Fleetwood Mac songs Bucky put in his playlist. It’s only when Bucky turns the car onto their driveway that he quiets down. He doesn’t say anything when they stop, not even when Bucky gives him a reassuring smile. He stays silent even as Bucky climbs out of the car, circles around to his side and unbuckles his seatbelt. However, as Bucky helps him out of his seat, his limbs start trembling again.

At first, Bucky thinks it's muscle weakness, but when he loops Gale’s arm around his shoulders to walk him inside, Gale’s steps are steadier than he expected. He guides Gale into the bedroom and helps him lie down under the covers, but still, Gale doesn’t stop shaking. He’s very lethargic now, but when Bucky sits on the mattress beside him and runs a hand through his blond hair, his lips curl into a faint smile.

“Do you need anything?” Bucky asks quietly.

Gale gives him a tired look. “I'm cold.”

“Oh.” Bucky wants to slap himself for not considering that. He roots around in their closet until he finds Gale’s JSTOR sweater, then helps Gale into it, one arm at a time. He wishes Gale had told him sooner or that he’d realized what the shaking meant, but he can’t do anything about that now.

When he tries to tuck the blanket around Gale again, Gale pulls at his arm until Bucky lies down too, spooning Gale from behind. Speckles of marigold-yellow light sneak in through the half-drawn blinds. Some of them dance on the books lying on Gale’s nightstand, sparks of magic on the colourful covers. Bucky feels himself relax just looking at it.

“You’d be the best dad.” Gale repeats. His breathing slows down. “Told you.”

“All right.”

“I'm so tired.”

Bucky presses a kiss to the back of Gale's neck and breathes in his sweet scent, the smell of home. “Go to sleep.”

“I don't want to.”

“Why not?”

It takes Gale so long to reply that Bucky thinks he has fallen asleep. But eventually, he mumbles something into his pillow. “I'm scared.”

“Don’t be.” Bucky tells him softly and strokes his arm, then his side before wrapping his arm around his waist again. He slots his body as close to Gale's as possible to cradle him in warmth and comfort. “I'm here.”

Gale tightens his grip on Bucky’s hand. “Promise you won’t leave me.”

Bucky squeezes back. “I promise. I’ll be here when you wake up, baby.”

Safe in his arms, Gale finally falls asleep.

[gallaghersgal]

DAY ONE → apocalypse, lip gallagher

TAGS & WARNINGS → honestly not much, js mentions of an apocalyptic society. otherwise fluffy!

WC → 662

you’d never thought you would live to see the day that life as you knew it fell to ruin. it happened quicker than you could’ve ever imagined. one day you were nineteen, smoking a joint out the gallagher boys’ bedroom window, swapping kisses with lip while ian rolled his eyes, and carl tried to steal the goods right out of your hand. then suddenly your family was gone, the city wasn’t safe anymore—not that it ever had been, but it was much worse now—and you were piling into a van with all seven gallaghers, your eyes set on the safety you’d heard of in more rural, southern parts of the country. the way veronica cried and clinged to fiona as she said goodbye was burned forever into your brain.

three years later, you were making do in the shadow of the appalachian mountains. it was honestly cruel, the beauty of what surrounded you. outside of chicago the land had stretched on forever in uniform, level plains, and while you’d always said you hated it, what you wanted now more than anything was to see those stupid boring fields again. the land here was sickeningly gorgeous, with the high altitude making way for clouds to kiss the mountaintops which your town was settled beneath. 

lip sits in the open window, his eyes glancing between your sleeping form, and those same mountains you’d traveled through years ago. he watches the faint lights of the high society assholes who drive up there, passing over the dark underbelly of their society without a thought. he watches as the sun rises, then watches as you slowly blink awake in the pathetic excuse for a bed the two of you share. 

“lip? come t’bed, please,” you mumble, and he obliges. the bed dips as he lays next to you, bringing one arm to circle your waist. “’s apple pickin’ day, y’need to rest” you murmur to him, one finger gently stroking the bridge of his nose. he would never admit it, but he loves the sensation. 

“eight fuckin’ mile walk, all f’some apples,” he says in a low grumble, but you can see his mouth is turned into the barest hint of a smile.

it’s not long before he drifts off, the exhaustion taking over his body. you untangle yourself as quietly as possible, giving yourself time to take some semblance of a bath and tuck your hair into a neat style to keep it out of your face. when the sun starts to crest above the mountaintops you wake him.

lip grumbles, of course he does, but he drags himself out of bed and the two of you start off towards the orchard. a few hours in the cool autumn air have you arriving at the small, abandoned tourist town.

lip catches sight of an old country general store, and he elbows you gently. “y’think i can find a pack ‘f cigs in there?” he asks.

you shrug, standing at the top of the hill and looking down over the expanse of the orchard. neat rows of trees with rotted wooden labels boast bright red fruits on their untrimmed branches. for the first time in recent memory you truly smile. 

wind sweeps across your face as you turn back to him, slinging the empty backpack off your shoulder to fill it with the prized fruits. “i dunno, i’m gonna go pickin’,” you say with a kiss to his cheek. 

before you can take a step lip hooks a finger in your belt loop. “nuh-uh baby, y’re stayin’ with me.” he ignores your grumpy expression, gently tugging you with him towards the store. “we don’t know what fucked up shit is down there. i’m keepin’ you in my sight so i know y’re safe.”

you want to pout, but the simple action shows you how much he cares for you. words are hard for him—emotions even harder—but he shows you in these small ways. it warms your heart.

MASTERLIST || INBOX

[pedroshotwifey]

Idk if you still do those nsfw requests... but if you do, can I request Nr 39 and either Din? Because I feel like din would be so taken aback by everything, as he just seems like a virgin at heart (sorry not sorry🥲)

Hi baby!! Don't you know sub/virgin Din is my specialty? 😏 I really enjoyed writing this, and I hope you enjoy!!

Pairing: Innocent!Din Djarin x GN!reader

Warnings: premature ejaculation, grinding, innocence kink, embarrassment, stuff I'm probably forgetting

Word count: 927

Cramped

*****

“Din, I really don’t think there’s enough room in that thing for all three of us,” you admit. 

“No, look,” he walks over to the small ship and points at the bubble on top. It appears to be a repurposed droid pit. “Grogu will sit up here.” 

You bite your tongue and nod, not wanting to let him down but knowing you need to explain that it’s just not going to happen. The N1 is a big downgrade from the Crest, but you can’t blame him for trying to make it work. 

“That’s really smart, but look at the cockpit.”

You watch as his helm turns to the small, single seater cockpit. 

“What do you mean?” 

You resist the urge to just stare at him. What does he mean ‘what do you mean’? 

“Din, do you really want to travel for days at a time cramped in that thing with me? I’d practically have to be in your lap.” You ignore the way your cheeks heat as a crude image pops into your head. You’ve been painfully aware of Din’s innocence for as long as you’ve been flying with him, but this is next-level. Does he really not get why this may be a problem? 

“It’ll be fine,” he says. “We can stop more often if we need to.” 

You sigh at him, about to bring up the fact that you’ll be wasting a ton of fuel if you stop every day you’re traveling. 

“Here, I’ll show you.” 

“Din, I–” 

“Just try it, please?” 

He’s already lifting the seal and getting in, settling himself in the pilot’s chair. He shifts his hips and spreads his thighs as he gets comfortable and makes room for you. It makes your mouth go dry. He’s a few years older than you, but absolutely fucking clueless. 

He says your name when you don’t move from the spot you’re standing in. “C’mon,” he motions his hand for you to come take a seat. You chew on your lip for a second but decide to indulge him. You’ll just have to be careful. 

You grab his hand and let him help hoist you up, bringing you to stand between his legs and then lower down. You make sure to shift down a bit so that your ass is on the edge of the seat instead of against his crotch. Of course, though, Din’s hands come to your hips to drag you toward him, getting the two of you flush to each other. 

You can feel heat in the tips of your ears now as you’re pulled over him slightly. You know he’s just trying to make sure you’re comfortable, but his efforts have the opposite effect when you can feel his soft cock pressing against you. Your body stiffens and you bite your lip, sending a prayer up the maker that it stays that way. 

The bulge is fucking impressive, you’re not going to lie. You’ve caught glances of it before—intentional or not—but this is insane. 

You try to subtly move yourself off of him the tiniest bit, more to relieve the pressure to his appendage than anything else. He lets you do so, but not much with his hands still on your hips with nowhere else to go. Then he moves them to your thighs, one resting on each. Okay, maybe they did have somewhere else to go. 

Another image shoves it’s way into your head, this one of his hands further between your legs, no barrier between the two of you as he uses one of them to—

You shake yourself out of it, squirming as you silently scold yourself. 

“See? It’s fi—” 

He chokes on his words as your ass brushes against him, the brief friction something he’s not used to. 

“Fuck, sorry,” you apologize frantically, trying to get up off of him so you don’t make him uncomfortable. You can already feel him stiffening. He moans softly and his hips shift a little as well, causing even more rubbing on parts that do not need to be rubbing. His hands tense on your thighs, holding you to him so you can’t move. You yelp, unsure of how to get out of this predicament without stirring him further. 

“What the fuck? Do that again. I liked it.” 

Your jaw drops. 

“W-what?” 

“Do that again. What was that?” 

“I–” 

He bucks his hips again, stimulating his now fully hardened cock. 

“Mph, that.” 

“I-Din, I don’t think you unders–” 

But he does it again, and you can feel arousal stirring within you despite yourself. He ruts up, a moan crackling through his modulator. His hands grasp harshly as he starts to grind against you. 

“D-Din–” 

Suddenly, he groans behind you, his body tensing and trembling as your face floods with embarrassment. You can feel his cock twitching and pulsing, a wet spot forming in his flight suit. It goes on for longer than you’ve ever seen before. You throb with want between your legs as you listen to him come down from his orgasm.

The two of you sit in silence, Din panting slightly as you try to process what just happened. 

“Cyar’ika?” 

You swallow. “Yes, Din?” 

“W-what was that?” 

“You just came,” you explain, trying to keep your hoarse voice loud enough for him to hear. 

“Oh,” he says, though you can tell he has no idea what the fuck you just said.

“Can I do it again?” 

You let out a shaky breath and turn your head slightly his way, knowing you’re not getting out of this explanation.

*****

Here’s the link to the prompt list if anyone else would like to request 🫶

[thyme-in-a-bubble]

the busted engine

lilac, chapter one

a/n: the plot of this series came to me like fucking lightning, essentially all at once with how quick it fell into place. sometimes it's like that, sometimes magic happens in your brain. I hope you all enjoy this ride as much as I am having writing it. get ready for everything, because I've got twenty chapters planned out and ready, and spoiler, they aren't all just gonna be insanely wholesome small town cuteness... we getting angsty... we getting the drama.... but most of all, we be getting slutty. strap in folks.

summary: “I, um,” your eyes briefly flickered to the bundles of firewood needly stacked in the back of the pickup, “my car broke down and my phone conveniently also decided to run out of battery, so, uh, could I perhaps borrow yours just a moment? I just need it to make one call, that’s it.”

warnings: lumberjack!frank castle x reader, lumberjack AU, pete castiglione era, past domestic violence, crazy ex trope, slow burn, car trouble, meet cute

word count: 2674

∼ gentle reminder that feedback, but especially reblogs are the way you support writers on here ∽

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Your vision couldn’t help but linger every time it drifted over your hands gripping the steering wheel. The immense weight the sight of your bare ring finger lifted off your shoulders was so overwhelming that you found yourself fighting tears from blurring the road before you. 

The sun was beginning to set as you had been driving all day long, not stopped for even a second to let the gravitas sink in of what you’d done at the crack of dawn. 

The fear of Preston stirring from his slumber and finding you in the midst of sneaking out still hadn’t settled within your gut. Your paranoid brain still compelled you to check the rear-view mirror every couple of seconds just in case the sleek sportscar of your former fiancé would appear.

You had finally done what he had drilled into your mind you weren’t capable of. You’d left him for good. 

Equipped with only a small backpack of your belongings, the last thing you’d done before sneaking out of the apartment had been to toss the ring he had so insistently forced upon your finger into the trash. 

Ripping you out of your cloudy thoughts, your car suddenly began to cough like a mythical monster that was dying. 

“Oh shit…” you felt the vehicle begin to slow as ominous smoke started to billow out from under the hood. Mindful of the bushy pine trees framing the road, you guided it to the edge just in time before it gave out. 

Stepping out with an exhausted sigh, you promptly cracked the front open to take a look, though what you saw within didn’t soothe your worries as all of the fumes oozing out only made the broken engine look like that much more of a mess. 

“Fucking great,” you mumbled heatedly, fiercely slamming the hood shut in an effort to relieve some of your abundant stress. Curving back around, you swung the passenger side open and rummaged for your phone, though when you located it, the only solution it flashed you was a blinking red battery icon before the screen went completely black, “seriously?” 

Not knowing if you were about to scream or burst into tears, you chucked it back inside before hurling your spine against the side of the car, leaning against it as you cursed up at the grey sky. 

Was this the universe showing its true bias? You’d hoped that was the one thing money couldn’t buy, but perhaps you were wrong, just like he always said you were. Perhaps it would be best if you went back to the city. His reaction towards a stunt like this couldn’t be that bad compared to what you had endured before, could it? 

The sound of another vehicle cresting the thicket on the rural road caught your ears and you turned your head to see a navy-blue truck appear.

Your hand shot up to wave it down before you could even ponder the action. Fearing that it was a lost cause by the speed the driver was going at, it caught you by surprise as it suddenly came to a halt a ways in front of you. 

“Are you alright, ma'am?” the driver asked as he slammed his door shut behind him. The tall man certainly looked like the type to call the area his home. Dark beard scraggly and hair in unkept waves long enough to tickle the furrow lines decorating his forehead, his wide palm traced the lines of the truck as he made his way towards you.

“I, um,” your eyes briefly flickered to the bundles of firewood needly stacked in the back of the pickup, “my car broke down and my phone conveniently also decided to run out of battery, so, uh, could I perhaps borrow yours just a moment? I just need it to make one call, that’s it.”

Eyeing your busted vehicle a moment, his low timbre then rumbled out once more, “sure,” as he reached into his pocket and fished out his telephone.

“Thank you so much,” seizing it, you swiftly clicked it to life, “you have no idea what a lifesaver you are–, oh fuck,” your vision zeroed in on the lack of bars in the uppermost corner, “of course there’s no fucking services out here,” your eyes briefly screwed shut and your jaw clenched in an effort not to scream, “it’s fine, it’s fine! I’ll just walk then!” you tried not the throw it as you handed the phone back to the helpful stranger, “I’m sorry that you had to stop for nothing, but thank you anyways.”

Swinging your door open to yank out your stuff, the stranger’s feet stayed fast, “what direction are you headed?” 

“Dunbrook,” you answered as your body folded to reach your tossed telephone.

“You wanna catch a ride?” he unexpectedly offered, causing you to bump your head on the roof of the car.

“Ow–, what?” you blinked back at him through the windshield as your hand shot up to rub the top of your now sore head, “no, I couldn’t… I–, uh, I kinda recognise this area, the town is not too far from here, so I can walk, it’s fine.”

“Yeah, but it’ll properly still take you all night. Please, it’s no bother, I’m headed in that direction anyways.” 

Gnawing at your bottom lip, you slowly retracted out of the vehicle, “you sure?” 

“Yeah,” he nodded, attempting a faint smile in order to soften his gruff and intimidating features. 

“Alright,” swinging your backpack on you slammed your busted car shut, “thank you.”

Sliding into the passenger seat, you clicked on the seatbelt and slotted your bag between your legs. Fiddling tensely with the straps for a moment, it dawned on you how your sleeves were still rolled all the way up to your elbows from when you had checked under the hood. Pulse instantly picking up and thumping in your ears, you hastily tugged them back down to cover the lavender bruises peaking out. 

Had he noticed?

Hearing the door slam to your left, being too caught up in your own mess, it only caused your form to jump in the seat.

Trying to play it off as nothing, you attempted a casual, “I’m Y/n by the way,” though your voice came out much more strangled than you’d intended. 

Catching your flickering eye a moment before turning the key, he likewise enlightened, “Pete.” 

Your bottom lip didn’t escape the prison of your teeth the entire ride, gnawing subconsciously at it as you purposely stare out at the wild flora you passed in order to not look at the advantageous stranger. 

Though after you passed the crooked sign welcoming you back to your small hometown, Pete’s gruff voice broke the silence.

“So, where can I drop you off?”

“The inn,” you turned your head to inform him, “the Lilac Inn, if you know where that is.”

“Yeah, I know it,” he nodded, sucking in a knowing breath as if he didn’t need any more information to figure you out, “so you’re a tourist? One of those nature people who come out here to hike or something?”

“Not exactly,” was all the explanation you offer as you watched the familiar scenery come into view. 

Dunbrook. To call it a town was very generous indeed as the whole population could properly fit under the same roof if they really wanted to, and they often did. The rolling fields of wildlife that surrounded the village also divided and broke up the infrastructure of the old settlement, causing most of the homes and businesses to not all the clustered together as you had grown accustomed to seeing after moving to a metropolis as vast as New York. 

Every familiar structure rolling by evoked memories long ago buried and forgotten. The corner where you fell learning how to ride a bike. The quaint general store where you once stole a lollipop, walked for all of 48 seconds before turning right back and apologising to the owner with tears in your eyes. But most of all, the large Victorian structure at the bottom of the tiny town by far held the fondest of memories in your heart. 

The dust puffed up around the truck as you rolled down the narrow dirt road, the bushy lilac trees that flourished all over the property haven not quite yet come into bloom, yet still forewarned your destination that already peaked over the tops. 

“Here it is,” Pete exhaled as the car came to a stop before the vast veranda, “the Lilac Inn.” 

Eyes glued to your childhood home, you stepped out of the truck, “thank you,” slamming the door shut, you turned to add awkwardly through the rolled down window, “and also thank you for not turning out to be an axe murderer or something,” a nervous laugh swiftly bubbling out at the notion.

Glancing back at your bumbling form, he simply flashed you a tight-lipped smile and said, “you have a good trip, ma'am.” 

“You too–, I mean, you have a good, uhm, rest of your life,” you fumbled as your feet slowly backed up, “it was nice meeting you, Pete.” 

“Yeah, you too,” he just managed to reply before you spun your mortified flush away from his stare and scurried up the steps of the porch. 

Pushing the creaky, stained glass adorn front door open, you tiptoed inside. 

The lighting dim and the atmosphere nothing short of comforting, a smile finally bloomed upon your lips as you let out the breath you’d been holding for who knows how long. 

Peeking around the corner into one of the sitting rooms, you only spotted one patron sitting by the small round table next to the crackling fireplace, working away at a puzzle. Either the others had gone to bed already or this fellow was the only one staying here. 

“Excuse me,” you gently interrupted from the archway, “would you happen to know where the owner, Harvey, is–”

Though before you managed to get out the remainder of the sentence, a bustle from the kitchen answered your question for you, “every time I forget to whisk long enough and every time I say it’s gonna be different, but this time I mean it!”

Sharing a knowing look with the guest, you chuckle, “never mind…” 

“This time I won't just stop when my arm feels like it’s gonna fall off,” even though it was clear he was talking to himself, his usual vibrato still carried, “oh no, no, you just wait and see how light and fluffy you turn out this time, cake!” 

Poking your head through the ajar door, you spotted the familiar greying man grumbling into the contents of the bowl he was furiously beating with a whisk. 

“Dad?”

Nearly jumping out of his skin, your father gasped, whisk jolting upright as he laid his eyes upon you, subsequently splattering some batter across the kitchen, back near the sink, “Y/n?” he exclaimed, his eyes growing to the size of saucers, “is that really you? Is my little baby girl really standing in my kitchen or is this a hallucination?”

“Hi,” your head tilted in a soft chuckle. 

Staring at you as if you were just a newborn puppy, “oh, come here, munchkin and give your pops a hug!” the moustachioed man’s arms went wide and pulled you in, dropping whisk still in his hand as he blubbered into your hair, “ah, I’ve missed you so much,” squeezing your form in the magical way that only parents could, “I haven’t heard from you in, well I don’t even know how long, that’s how long and if you ask me then that’s too long,” he pulled back, cupping your cheek as he gazed at you, “you don’t write, you don’t call.”

“Not true, I do write,” you corrected him light-heartedly, “and you don’t have a cellphone.” 

“Well, there’s the telephone out in reception, why would I need more?” he shrugged, lending you to then slip out of his grip, swiftly boosting your own form to hop onto one of the empty counters, “also, your last letter was 10 months ago.” 

“No, it wasn’t, was it?” you gasped, thinking back.

“You can check the date, they’re still in the cookie tin up there,” he gestured to one of the top shelves before reuniting the whisk in his grip with the large bowl on the table. 

Only briefly glancing up at the enamel box, you already knew that you didn’t wanna revisit them. However vague the letters were, which they always were, you were still certain that they’d have the power to send you right back there into Preston’s iron fist, even though you’d never even mentioned him once in all the years you’d been with him. They only ever really contained small talk and pleasantries, never about something so personal as to whom you were dating, but you also didn’t share at all as things took a turn for the worse, when you were in so deep that you felt like you couldn’t escape. Perhaps it was out of pride, perhaps it was to shield him from the truth, or maybe even in a way yourself, not admitting to the fiend you had welcomed into your own bed, creating some false reality as a coping mechanism. 

Averting your gaze, you then uttered softly, “I’m really sorry dad,” gliding your right thumb over the jagged edge of the counter as you gripped onto it with both fists.

“Ah, it’s fine,” he waved a hand, “you’re young, out there living your life. You shouldn’t have to check in with your father every few seconds. I am aware that you’re 29 after all. Although, you know I wouldn’t be a pose to just a little bit more…” he winked, playfully bumping the side of his hip against your shin before picking up the speed of the whisk once more, “so, did I forget it’s my birthday or did you just miss your old man?” his jovial glance flickered between you and the batter. 

“Can I stay here a while? I just need some place to,” lay low, “figure things out, you know?”

Whisk halting, his gaze upon you grew in concern, “of course you can, honey. Is everything okay? What’s wrong?”

“I’m okay, I just–, uh… needed a change,” not looking him in the eye, you spoke, “I don’t know to where or what I’m gonna do next, but I do know that I don’t wanna go back,” you felt a lump of emotion swell up in your throat, “and I won’t just stay here for free, I’ll pay you rent,” you tried to appease the stubborn sensation of being a nuance to everyone, even to your own kin, “though I don’t really have any money right now, so I’d have to get a job first, but that’s fine, I’ll figure something out–” 

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” your father cut you off, “you can stay here as long as you want, it never stopped being your home even when you moved away. Still keep your room exactly the same, just in case,” he offered you a warm smile, his silver moustache stretching wider, “how about you just give me a hand around here, huh?” 

“Alright,” you exhaled, “deal.”

His grin turning more mischievous, he then noted slyly, “you know I’ve always dreamed of you taking over this place one day, running the family business…” 

Rolling your eyes, you chuckled, “not this again…”

“Just think about, you could–”

“Dad, I’m not gonna take over the inn! Running a place like this isn’t what it used to be back when your parents opened it up. You might have always been dead set on taking over it, but I haven’t.”

“I know, I know,” he gracefully backed down again as he always did, “you want adventure, isn’t that what you called it when you went away for college?” 

Adventure… it was that kind of philosophy that had sent an innocent young girl into the arms of a devil…

© 2023 thyme-in-a-bubble 

[auras-moonstone]

say don’t go — ethan landry

word count: 3.2k

pairing: hockey player!ethan landry x fem!reader

based on: say don’t go by taylor swift

summary: ethan has to move to another state to play for his dream hockey team so he decides to break up with his girlfriend, leaving her heartbroken

warnings: angst. break-up. fluff.

author’s note: hiii! long fic bc of my absence:) LOVE writing about hockey player ethan 😫 by the way, i saw retribution the other day, i actually really liked it. it wasn’t as bad as people painted it.

Y/N AND ETHAN HAD BEEN DATING FOR ALMOST A YEAR, which meant that they knew each other like the back of their hands, hence why Y/N had the intuition that his boyfriend was planning on breaking up with her.

The distance started when Ethan was signed off to the Chicago Blackhawks. As soon as he finished college, he would move to Illinois and Y/N didn’t know where she would fit in his new life, if she would even fit. He hadn’t talked about it with her, he barely even mentioned hockey around her anymore. And she just knew—she would soon stop being part of his life and it was a matter of time until Ethan sat her down and tell her.

The waiting was sadness, and as the days flew by it was slowly driving her into madness. And then she finally got the text from him, asking her to go to his house. She drove there with a heavy heart, knowing it was going to be the last time she passed those streets.

Meanwhile, Ethan was pacing around his living room with a tight chest and tears threatening to leave his eyes. He did not want to do it, he had been pushing away the conversation because he wasn’t ready to let her go. He still wasn’t ready, but it was for the best.

When Y/N parked the car in his driveway and got out, she walked towards the entry with slow heavy steps. It was like standing in a tightrope—she held her breath so hard and felt like one wrong step might make her collapse to the ground. She didn’t want to reach the end of that metaphorical tightrope because nothing good was awaiting her on the other side. Yet, she had no choice, so with the knuckles of her shaky hands she knocked on the door.

Ethan stared at the door for a few seconds, and eventually ordered his body to open the door. He faced the most devastating sight—his girlfriend, standing there looking smaller than ever, with dark bags under her saddened eyes and wearing an expression of defeat. At first, he thought something had happened to her but the reluctance of meeting his eyes was enough to make him realize that she knew. She knew what was going on.

“Hi.” he said in a low pained voice. “Come in.”

She greeted him with just a nod and a pathetic attempt of a smile, aware that opening her mouth would just trigger the tears she was trying so hard to hold back. Y/N just wanted him to rip the bandaid off so she could walk back to her car and cry her heart out.

“Let’s sit on the couch.” he said, his heart breaking by her crest fallen state.

“Just say it, Ethan.” in her mind, the way the words left her mouth were harsh and sharp like a knife, but truth was, her voice reached the highest level of vulnerability. The pain in her voice was clear.

He swallowed down the knot in his throat. This was even more painful than he had imagined. “Y/N… I’m sorry.”

She hated herself for feeling the urge to wrap him in her arms and brush away his tears. He was the one tearing up the relationship, not the other way around.

“I don’t understand.” she frowned sadly, trying to make sense of the decision.

“I know you don’t… I just, I can’t do this anymore, Y/N/N. I’m going away, the first months are going to be rough. I need to show them they didn’t make a mistake when they chose me. I can’t afford any distractions” as soon as those last words left his mouth, he knew he fucked up.

Y/N flinched, and took a step back as if he had slapped her. “Oh, wow. That’s just the cherry on top, Ethan.”

“Shit, no. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Maybe you didn’t mean to say it, but it’s what you think. That I’m a distraction. That’s why you’re breaking up with me.”

It wasn’t that. She would never be a distraction—not the bad kind, at least—, but he couldn’t tell her the real reason why he was breaking things off. She would try to fight it, and that’s not what he wanted.

“No.” he sighed. “I just need to focus on doing my best, and I won’t have time for a relationship. I can’t just keep dating you when I can’t give you what you deserve.” he took a step closer, and cupped her cheek. “I don’t want you to hate me. Please don’t hate me, I really think this is for the best.”

“I just… why didn’t you tell me this sooner? These past few weeks were hell, I was constantly scared of this moment to come. It was agonising.”

“I was so selfish, I know. But I couldn’t let go, I wanted to spend a few more days with you. I didn’t know I was already hurting you.”

“You always knew you were going professional.” she whispered. “Did you always know you would break up with me in the end?”

“I didn’t expect to like you so much.” he said truthfully. “You know I didn’t do relationships, so I thought the thing between us would end way before I had to leave.”

“And you couldn’t have told me our relationship had an expiration date? Why’d you have to lead me on?”

“I… I don’t know, Y/N. I thought it was obvious that we couldn’t do long distance.”

Y/N’s scoff resonated in the room. “No, Ethan. It wasn’t fucking obvious. I thought we would try…”

“For what? These things never work. And with my schedule, I don’t see how this could not end in disaster. Why would we risk it?”

Y/N didn’t even contemplate it, and blurted out the words she had been meaning to say for a while “Because I love you…”

Ethan’s mind went blank, and he stood there in front of her completely speechless and frozen. He didn’t even noticed the way Y/N’s eyes got glossy, the way her hands shook or the anxious glances she threw his way.

Finally, Ethan fell on his butt on his couch and buried his face in his hands. It was painful, the way he wanted to say it back and the strength it took to restrain that urge. Ethan loved Y/N, and he knew perfectly well that she would follow him anywhere head first, but he just couldn’t let her do that. Her whole life was in New York, no matter if she was willing to let go of that for him, that wasn’t what Ethan wanted for her life. What if she ended up resenting him for allowing that?

Y/N didn’t know how long she stood there, waiting for him to say something, anything at all, but he wouldn’t even look at her. It was like twisting the knife he had already pierced her with, and she needed to get out of there. The silence was so loud she wanted to scream.

“Guess you didn’t like me that much.” she laughed a humourless laugh. Guess she was his, but he wasn’t hers. It sucks that she had to found out that way. “Good luck, Ethan. That team is lucky to have you, and I’m sure the coach will think so too. You’re going to do so well.”

And then she walked away, and a small part of her was hopeful he would suddenly react and say ‘Don’t go’. But he didn’t, and she had to hold back the tears until she was in the safety of her car, where Ethan wouldn’t be able to hear how much he had hurt her.

MONTHS FLEW BY, and Ethan was still being haunted by those three words and the way things had ended with Y/N. He was living his dream—he was part of an incredibly team, his teammates had been super welcoming, as well as the fans, and he managed to bond tightly with some of them, they were winning matches and the coach was delighted with his talent. He should be the happiest man on earth, but something was missing and he knew exactly what, or who.

Some of his teammates preferred to enjoy the female and male attention that being famous brought to play the field, and others were fully committed to their partners. And then, there was Ethan, who didn’t want to play the field and he had let go of his partner and only person his heart had belonged to. Missing her was painful, especially knowing it was all on him.

Y/N watched every single game of Ethan’s, not matter how overwhelming it was. She loved seeing him achieving his goals and dreams and felt beaten every time the team lost and she had to witness Ethan’s crestfallen face. She still loved him very much, and missing him was the hardest thing in the world.

But the fact that she missed his face didn’t mean she was ready to see him again, which was why the news hit her like a truck.

“Are you okay? You look like you’re going to pass out.” her teacher asked worriedly.

Tara looked at her with pity, knowing exactly the reason behind her weird reaction to something that was supposed to be an incredible opportunity. “She’s just shocked.”

“Oh.” the teacher smiled. “I assume you’re a fan of the Chicago Blackhawks, then.”

“Something like that.” the girl managed to say.

Apparently, one of the professors had contacts in the team and they managed to convince the coach to let two of Blackmore’s top marketing students work on a special project that involved the team’s publicity. And Y/N had been selected, which meant that he would be seeing her ex-boyfriend for the first time in six months in less than twenty four hours.

THERE WAS A MIX OF NERVOUSNESS AND ANXIOUSNESS IN THE LOCKER ROOM. Knees bounced and no words were uttered because of the uncertainty of the situation.

“Morning.” the coach spoke, exiting his office to stand in front of the team. Rolling his eyes, he let out a laugh then he said, “Unclench your asses, boys, there’s nothing wrong.”

“Why’d you ask us to come minutes early, then?” the captain asked.

“I just wanted to tell you that the following practices and games are going to be a bit different.” the team exchanged confused glances. “We’re having two marketing students present. They’re going to work on the team’s image as their final project for college.”

“Oh, cool. What’s the college?” Chad, goalie and Ethan’s closest friend, questioned.

“Blackmore University. It’s in New York. I have a friend working there and he asked me if I would be up to working with the students.”

Ethan’s hockey stick fell from his sweaty hand, landing on the ground with a resonating thud. Every pair of eyes landed on him, but his shocked face was focused on the wall.

“You okay, bud?” Chad asked, shaking his shoulder.

“W-what?” he blinked a couple of times, then shook his head. “Yes, sorry. I’m just- nothing.”

“You know the school? You’re from New York, right?” the captain asked.

“Yeah… I actually go there. I’m finishing the year online.” he answered.

“Oh, shit.” Chad said, eyes widening as the realization kicked in. “She goes there, right? Tell me she’s not in marketing.” but Ethan’s anxious eyes answered for him. “Well, fuck.”

“What’s going on?” Wes, another teammate, asked.

“My ex… she’s a marketing student. We broke up the night before I moved here.” Ethan said running his fingers through his hair.

“Let me guess, it did not end well.” Danny grimaced.

“It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either.” Ethan began to explain everything about that night.

“Why didn’t you say it back?!” the coach asked as if it had been the juiciest gossip he had heard in years. “You didn’t love her?”

“Of course I loved her. Fuck, I still do. So fucking much. And I miss her like crazy, I’m just not ready to see her yet. She probably hates me and I still think of her everyday.”

Everyone looked at him with soft eyes. Ethan was like a golden retriever, and everyone had a soft spot for him despite having meeting him a few short months ago.

“But no matter how badly I want her back, I can’t. She lives in New York, and I live here.” he sighed. “I’m probably overreacting, though, maybe she’s not one of those two students.”

“Well, you’re about to find out because they are already here.” coach said, looking at the text he had received. “Let’s go.”

It wasn’t hard for the team to realize that Ethan’s ex was there. The two teenagers couldn’t keep their eyes off each other, and the tension was obvious to everyone in that rink.

“So, what are we doing, bosses?” Chad asked Tara and Y/N once the introductions were made.

“Well, Y/N had this idea and I think is amazing.” Tara said, tilting her head at Y/N urging her to go on.

“You’re probably going to hate me.” Y/N started, which was followed by some Oh, god’s and groans. “So I thought we should focus on Tik Tok. Not only is the most popular app right now, but hockey players are super trending there.”

“Why?” the captain frowned in confusion.

Tara and her exchanged smirks. “Hockey rom-coms.” they said in unison.

“Of course.” the words left Ethan’s mouth unconsciously and followed by a deep laugh, remembering when he would catch Y/N giggling and swooning over fictional hockey players.

The beautiful sound went straight to Y/N’s chest. Even though part of her still resented the way he had left her, she couldn’t help but smile. At that moment, the feeling of having missed him was stronger than the hurt and sadness of their break-up.

Two minutes within his presence and she was already a mess. She didn’t know how she was going to survive getting used to being so close to him again, only to board a plan in a few days and go back to just daydream about him. She was already dreading to go back to New York, a place that didn’t feel like home anymore.

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MONTHS, Ethan lived his victory with pure ecstasy and happiness. Winning always felt good, but he never got to enjoy it fully because he had no family to celebrate it with. But now, even though it was not for him, Y/N was there in the stands. She was clapping and cheering with Tara, and when her eyes connected with his, he swore he was levitating.

“Hey…” Y/N said when he and Chad skated towards them. “Congratulations, guys. You were amazing as always.”

“Thanks, Y/N/N.” Chad smiled. “We needed that victory after the last match.”

“Don’t beat yourself up for that. That referee sucked. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the team bribed him.” Y/N shrugged.

Ethan looked at her in surprise. “You watch our games?”

Y/N blushed and cursed herself internally. “Uh, yeah. Anyways,” she cleared her throat. “Are you going to celebrate?”

“We usually go to a bar after a victory. You’re very invited, of course. Drinks on us, you’ve been doing an amazing job in our social media.” Chad said.

“Told you. Miss Y/N is a marketing genius.” Tara pinched her cheek, making the girl squeal.

“She is.” Ethan said with a proud smile. And fuck if it didn’t make Y/N want to kiss him.

“We’ll drive you. You can go with me and Y/N can go with Eth.” Chad and Tara shared knowing glances.

“Perfect.” Ethan spoke up before Y/N could object. He gave her the keys to his car. “I’m going to take a quick shower, you can wait there.”

After a couple of minutes, Ethan climbed into the driver’s seat “Did you enjoy the game?”

“Yes. It was insane!” she said with an enthusiastic grin. “I’m really happy for you, Eth. You’re living your dream.”

Ethan forced a smile. “Yeah.”

Y/N frowned. “Well, don’t sound so thrilled. What’s wrong? You looked very happy out there.”

“I was. I mean, I am happy. For the first time since I played here, I can truthfully say I’m the happiest.”

“Why? You have won before.”

“Because it’s the first time I get to share my victory with someone I love.” he looked at her with bright eyes. “Every game, I would look at the crowd, hoping to see you there, cheering for me with my number on your back. But you never were, until today. And I have never felt so on top of the world.”

Y/N stared at him dumbfounded. “Eth… fuck. That’s… I- I watched every game. I’m so fucking proud of you. And I would’ve been here, you know that. But you left me.”

“I know.”

“I would’ve stayed forever if you’d said don’t go. I would’ve followed you everywhere. I told you I loved you, and you said nothing back.”

“I loved you, too. And if you hadn’t noticed yet, I still do. My dream had always been playing professional hockey, but ever since you walked into my life, you became part of that dream. I wouldn’t be happy without hockey, but being without you? It feels fucking void. And I’m sorry that I hurt you, I should’ve never let you go.”

“Why did you?”

“You have your family in New York, you have friends, you were about to finish the degree you’d worked so hard for… I couldn’t be selfish to ask you to come with me.”

“It would’ve been selfish to force me to come. But ask? That’s what you should’ve done. We could’ve talked about it. But you didn’t even fight for us, you made your choice and didn’t let me do the same.”

“I was scared you would’ve chosen to come with me, and then regret it and hate me for it.” he confessed, eyes glossing with tears.

“Babe, I could never hate you.” she said softly, brushing his dump hair away from his forehead. “You know what my decision would have been?” Ethan shook his head as he grabbed her hand. “I would’ve told you I could finish online. I would’ve told you that my family isn’t going anywhere, and that I could still visit them. I would’ve told you my friends and I would still be able to text everyday. And above all, that you’re the love of my life. That I want to be cheering for you on the stands with your number on my back. And then, depending on how the match goes, we’d go celebrate together or cuddle as I reassure you that everyone has bad games and you’re one of the best players I’ve ever seen.”

Ethan didn’t know it was possible to fall harder, but there he was. “Do you still want that?” he asked hopeful.

“More than anything in the world.” she pressed her forehead against his and they both smiled. “I missed you horribly. I don’t want to be apart from you ever again.”

“God, me neither. I’m keeping you forever.” he gave her a soft kiss. “You’re moving in with me.” another kiss. “I’m going to marry you.” another kiss. “We’re going to have kids.” another kiss. “And we’re going to grow old together.”

“I love you so much. That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard and I can’t wait to live that life with you.”