#a little brainless today so answers are a bit short but i hope they make sense

[punkranger]

I'm about to be annoying!!!! Eros-3 Philia-3 Storge-5 Agape-5 Ludus-4 Pragma-4 Philautia-3 for the babies! For all of them (if you're a masochist); one kid per category (writer's choice?); or all for my precious kitty boo boo fuck (Densil) 😘

Grief you could never be annoying! I do however not feel like a masochist today, so it's only your precious kitty boo boo fuck (warning you though it's densil it's gonna be depressing lol)

How do they feel about public displays of romantic affection?  Does it make them uncomfortable?  How do they feel if a romantic partner kisses them in public?

Densil is not fond of public displays, but as always that doesn't mean he won't use it to make his partner blush. It's better to be on the offensive. That's also one reason he likes Chen, who is even more uncomfortable with it. Mortum is a bit more forward, but Love can handle that, or distract easily enough. A kiss in public is one of the less awkward options, affectionate words are much worse.

What qualities does your OC most value in a friend? Loyalty? Shared sense of humour? Or something else?

Loyalty. Going above and beyond is the only acceptable measure of friendship. It's never enough anymore though. Densil values friendship much higher than romantic relationships, and has much higher standards for them. Trust is also important and they never learned to do that.

(Also answered this for Antoine if you're interested in the comparison^^)

Is your OC able to love without necessarily needing or expecting reciprocation or reward?  Or are all their relationships to some extent transactional?  Have they ever loved another person unconditionally, whether a child or another adult?

Densil has definitely loved unconditionally, or thought she did. The first and last person she loved like that was her first handler. Let's just say it was not good, did not end well, and fucked her up to the point of doing a complete 180 and never considering any relationships without first counting the cost vs benefit. 

Does your OC find it easy to empathise with their enemies? Or do they see it as important to dehumanise them in order to combat them with sufficient determination? 

Now this one's fun because if you dehumanise yourself as well as your enemies, you sort of end up feeling for them. Ofc that doesn't stop Densil from killing people. Quite the opposite, seeing their own faults in others just makes it more satisfying to wipe them out.

Who was your OC's first crush?  How do they feel about it now?  

I think even Densil has had a brief crush on Ortega… did not go anywhere and he was more than fine remaining friends allies. Now he wouldn't even consider it, just another stupid idea his past self got into his head. 

After the initial fires of passion cool to some degree, what would keep your OC engaged in a relationship?  Shared goals?  Similar values?  Or contented companionship?

With Densil it's fiery passion or cold ashes, no in-between. Which might be difficult to tell, but if he's interested he pays attention and most importantly sticks around. I guess what draws him in in the first place is also what makes him stay – with both Chen and Mortum their intelligence is something he enjoys, and their ruthlessness is something he can understand. 

Does your OC judge themselves by the same standards as they apply to others?  Or are they sometimes hypocritical in condemning others for faults they also possess? Or perhaps they find it easier to forgive others for things that they cannot abide in themselves?

Hmm, in a way Densil is both hypocritical and as harsh a judge with himself as with others. A lot of minds that she sees leave much to be desired, but she can look at her own actions with the same critical eye. There's no forgiveness to be had there, and in the end all that matters is survival. 

[no-droids]

Mercy, Sabotage, and Dead Space

(gif credit to @redwyyne-archive)

Part One of The Bet series

Pairing: Poe Dameron/Reader

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 12.7K

Summary:

1. No sex.

2. No touching yourself.

3. No orgasms.

Warnings/Tags: DUBCON/NONCON elements, fuckboy Poe (OOC), Enemies to Lovers, degradation/humiliation, mentions of oral sex, SMUUUTTTTTTTT also I’m not sorry for what I did but you’re not allowed to read if you’re gonna get mad at me okay byeeee

***

This.

This shit, right here.

If the question was ever, “What’s the stupidest fucking thing you’ve ever let Poe Dameron somehow talk you into doing?” then the answer is this stupid shit, right the fuck here.  This is like.  You remember that one game, Mercy?  The one where you’d dig your nails in and twist arms and just needlessly inflict pain on each other as children until one of you cried uncle because someone somewhere once decided to turn torture into a matter of pride?

You always thought those games were fucking ridiculous.  Who can hold their breath the longest, who can handle a lit deathstick against their flesh the longest, who can take the hardest punch—who cares?  It’s child’s play.  It’s self-inflicted agony for the sake of bragging rights and even as a youngling, you refused to fall for it.

But then you met… fucking Dameron.

You know those people that… they don’t just rub you the wrong way, but literally every single aspect about their personality is sandpaper against wet skin and your whole entire being feels chafed raw just by existing in their general vicinity for an extended period of time?

You’re… you’re not usually a competitive—much less aggressive person.  You never have been.  It’s just not part of your nature.  If you ever excel at anything in life, it isn’t because of some secret, deep-seated desire to win or be better than anyone else.  You just… do you.  You do whatever you do, and if it’s good, it’s good.  And if it’s bad, it’s good.  Because at the end of the day at least it’s still you, and you’re okay with that.

But this?

This shit?  Right here?

“This is fucking dumb,” you say, because you know it’s what you both must be thinking so you may as well just get it out in the open.  “This is the dumbest fucking thing, Dameron.  What are we doing?  Why are we doing this?”

The grumpy, orange-jumpsuited figure sitting behind you just sighs heavily and slumps even further down in his bucket seat, as if it isn’t the first time you’ve tried asking this incredibly valid question (it totally is), bringing a palm down to thunk the top of the guidance controls between his legs in a quiet irritation you’re almost certain has everything to do with the very topic you’re trying to bring up. 

“Because,” comes that infuriating drawl.  You can only see his face from this angle by looking at his reflection in the transparisteel barrier directly in front of you, but even just imagining the way his mouth moves while he rounds out the words makes your jaw clench.  “The coordinates we picked up were scrambled and this rendezvous could be going down at any one of thirty-six locat—?”

“No,” you interrupt him with a scowl, “not why I’ve been floating in dead space in this Maker-forsaken ship with you for eight fucking hours a day since… fuck, what’s today?  Thursday?  Friday?  Nope, can’t be Friday, Friday’s our off-day.  Thursday, then. …Thursday?”  You shake your head.  “Ugh, see?  Time doesn’t exist when I’m not allowed to cum, life is like one never-ending nightmare.”

“Oh.”  He takes a second to think about it in silence, the calloused tips of his fingers scratching the side of his face while he considers.  It wouldn’t usually be as loud as it is right now.  Maybe it’s the haunting quiet of space surrounding the ancient powered down hunk of metal you’re both stuck in, inadvertently isolating and amplifying the sound—or maybe it’s because your copilot’s jaw is currently covered in a thick, dark beard that you swear barely took his testosterone-overloaded ass a fucking week or two to grow, if that.  Regardless, the dark bristles crunch loudly under his short fingernails and it takes you about a grand total of five whole uninterrupted seconds of the scraping sound to realize you’re grinding your teeth along with it.  “Well,” he finally says, “that was your stupid idea.”

“Hmmmmmmmno,” you contest firmly, wiggling your elbow back to poke at his shin with your index finger once, twice, thrice, until he finally slaps your hand away in quiet irritation.  To the misfortune of you both—and likely the other hundred or so pilots concurrently taking rotating shifts in these tandem x-wings in a glorified mass stakeout, the cockpit of this ship is just way too fucking small.  Your arm is squeezed uncomfortably against machinery and electronics to get to him from this angle and a light slap isn’t going to stop you now that you’re here.  “You—” (poke) “—have a superiority complex and decided to turn it into a competition, not—” (poke) “—me.”

“Oh, I have a superiority complex, okay,” he scowls and nods in vehement, fake agreement, finally giving up and letting you poke at will, but the appeal is lost as soon as you realize he’s over it and your arm eases back into your lap.  You watch his reflection look out of the viewport and scan the empty void of space for the twentieth time in the past five minutes, clearly just as desperate to get back to base as you are.  “So what is it you call saying—wait, no no, not even saying, loudly declaring—‘Of course I can go longer without sex than “wham bam thank you ma’am” Dameron, you brainless fucks, it’s a simple fact!’”

“Alright—I don’t sound like that, fuck you very much,” you return, in reference to his shrieking, high-pitched impression of you surrounded by your fellow pilots in the rec room when you’ve had a bit too much to drink.   “Also, you don’t have to finger-quote literally every single syllable of my fucking sentence, Dameron.  First and last word, that’s all it takes.  And if it’s so superiority complex-ey of me to state simple facts, then what is it you call saying ‘betcha two weeks worth of pay you can’t, pretty baby’?”

“Uh, easy credits?”  He immediately asks, side-eyeing your reflection through the transparisteel.  “ Easy credits.  Just begging for it.  Two weeks of your slutty, sexy, easy fucking credits just begging to be taken and used— ”

“You need to get laid,” you cut in to tell him bluntly, scrunching your nose in what you hope looks like disgust.  As per protocol, the power to the x-wing was cut at the beginning of your shift—what feels like a fucking eternity ago—as a preventative maneuver in case the target falls out of hyperspace unexpectedly.  Avoiding the scanners of a fleet that may never actually show means it’s cold and dimly lit in here—just starlight in front of either you, but you’re hoping he can gauge the severity of your revulsion with your back to him.  “You just turned my money into a sex object.  It was vile.  I feel violated on its behalf.”

“Sounds like you’re the one who needs to get laid,” he tosses carelessly back at you, and you roll your eyes with as much sass as you can physically muster, so tired of all the dodging.  You know this hasn’t been easy for him either, he just has too much pride to admit it.  “Besides, you’ve gotta be past the withdrawal stage by now.  Is it really all that bad?”

“The fuck you mean, ‘Is it really all that bad’?”  You snap at him, shuffling around grumpily in your seat, hating the way the bulky weapons controls sit right between your thighs and prevent you from closing them.  Withdrawal stage, ha.   “Of course it’s all that bad.  It’s horrible.  It’s the fucking worst.  And more importantly, how are you not having any trouble with this?  Oh, wait—that’s right,” you answer yourself before he has a chance to.  “Because you cheated.”

“I did not cheat,” Dameron’s reflection immediately challenges with an accusatory finger pointed at you.  “I did not.  When the fuck did I cheat?  I swapped housing assignments with your shitty roommate and slept in the bunk below yours for a month and a half—all because you don’t believe in the honor system—just so you could tell me I fucking cheated?”

You scoff, feeling your annoyance spark even more.  He’s always been able to get under your skin, but the neglect you’ve been forcing your body to endure is just throwing gasoline on an already roaring fire.  “Okay, first of all?  Rude.  I am a fucking joy to have as a roomie, alright?  I put up with your snoring, your 2:00 AM dinners, you blasting your radio while I’m trying to sleep, I barely complain about your body odor—”

“My snoring is adorable, I get snacky at night, only sad people with fucked up lives hate music, I smell amazing,” Dameron casually lists off on his fingers, the self-confidence so easy and unshakeable that you swear he’s almost preening at the compliments he just gave himself by the time he’s finished rebutting everything you can think to throw at him.  And, while you’d never admit it, he does smell good.  He smells… unbelievably fucking good.  Always.  Something dark and woodsy, you can never quite put your finger on.  It pisses you off, so much that you’ve made a habit of pulling a face of disgust whenever the warm, rich scent noticeably reaches you, hoping it deflates his ego just a little bit.  No such luck so far.  

“Whatever.  The point is I’m a good fucking neighbor, alright, I’m neighborly as fuck,” you grumble, crossing your arms over your chest defensively.  “And don’t make it sound like I’m putting a chastity lock on your balls every night, because you can fuck anyone you want.  In fact, I strongly fucking encourage it—I just want to know about it when it happens.”

Dameron smirks and you groan, already knowing what’s coming.  “You wanna hear it?”

Yep, there it is.  “Second of all—”

“Feel the whole bunk rock with it?”  He goes on, completely ignoring you.  “Use the excuse that you’re trapped up top so you can just stay there the whole time and listen?  You know you can do a lot more than just—”

“Second of all,” you project over him, “you’re seriously telling me you haven’t had any wet dreams then, hm?  No snorgasms?  Hmmm?  No happy naps?  No captain midnights?  No mattress fracking?  Hmmmmmm???”

His voice very quickly sounds… shocked.  “How many fucking euphemisms—?”

“Wait wait, one more—” you quickly interrupt, too much momentum to stop now, “—sleepskeet.”

You watch in immense satisfaction as his expression seems to progress through all five stages of grief, before he exhales a long, unamused sigh and scratches his beard again.  You want to pluck each strand of it out of his face one by one.  “Anyways.  Wet dreams are totally different and don’t count.”

“It’s not different!”  You burst out, unable to help yourself, “it’s an orgasm, and rule number three is no orgas—”

“I know what the rules were, Gold-Ten,” he returns calmly, and it infuriates you, how he’s always able to make it seem like you’re the instigator who’s overreacting.  And he knows exactly what he’s doing by calling you by your flight designation, and it pisses you off even more because calling him Black-Leader in any other situation besides active warfare just feels like an unnecessary reminder of his skills.  Why he’s currently behind you manning the guidance controls and why you’re currently stuck in the front seat with the bulkier weapons systems.  “The question is if you’re seriously that bad enough of a sport to automatically disqualify me because of something that happens to any human with a dick indiscriminately when we blueball ourselves.”

“But that’s the entire fucking point, Dameron!”  You shrill, throwing your hands in the air in pure exasperation.  “There it is!  You need it more than I do, you just said it yourself!  Not to mention I said I can go longer without sex than you can— sex , not orgasms, but as it turns out I win at both.  Now can we please call this shit off so I can finally cum?  This isn’t fun anymore.”

“Nope,” he says immediately, popping the P with a bit too much hard emphasis to be genuinely amused.  He’s frustrated, too—his voice is too pleased, too fake to not be masking irritation underneath.  “Sorry.  But this was also your stupid idea, so.”

“You’re insufferable,” you grumble, anger flaring equal to his, just way more… verbal.  And descriptive.  “Wet dreams don’t count, fucking right.  Tell that to the oceans of Kamino I got going on down there, huh?  I move on this seat wrong and I’ll slide off it—”

A loud slam of a palm against the controls suddenly echoes throughout the small cockpit, causing you to jump slightly.  

“Don’t,” Dameron snarls, “... say shit like that to me.  Not right now.  Not right now, fuck .”

You go quiet for a moment, not expecting that much of an outburst at something you considered to be a throwaway remark, but then… oh.  Something occurs to you, something… sinister.  Oh, well, now there’s an idea.

Everything inside you immediately surges up and burns at the thought—the mere whisper of a way out of all of this, quickly, without giving in and letting him hold your surrender over you for Maker knows how long.  It’s so fucking simple, you don’t know why you didn’t think of it before.  You don’t have to wait him out at all; instead, you just need to… entice him into giving in first.

Neither of you say anything for a while, and you don’t know what he’s thinking (nothing, probably—a dry tumbleweed bouncing across an empty desert landscape, you imagine) but you take the dip in conversation to consider a plan.  You can’t go at it too outright, it’ll be too big of a turnaround and he’ll see it coming lightyears away.  A halfhearted joke about your pussy tossed out without thinking is what catalyzed the most substantial reaction from him you’ve seen, so… maybe you can keep steering the conversation towards the idea.

“How many wet dreams have you had?”  You suddenly ask, your heart beginning to pick up in your chest as soon as the words are out of your mouth.

“Excuse me?”  Dameron grunts from behind you, and you catch his reflection raising a thick eyebrow at you.

You take a deep breath and disguise it by stretching your back out just a little bit, lifting your shoulder blades and arching the sore muscles there, before settling back down in your normal crappy posture once more.  “Now many times did you cum in your sleep?  Had to at least been once for you to claim they don’t count.”

“Why does it matter?”  He asks, completely sidestepping the question for the second time.  “It was involuntary.”

You shrug.  “Just so I know how many freebies I can get tonight.”

“No,” Dameron instantly counters, his voice dead serious.  “Not fucking allowed.”

“Why not?”  You ask, and this time, there’s significantly less challenge than you’d typically deliver it with.  Instead, your voice is soft, questioning.  Not argumentative, but curious, and there’s just enough of your point left unsaid that it’ll seem like he conjured the rest of the image himself.

There’s silence while he considers his response to the perfectly executed bait.  You assume you’re both picturing the same thing, because it’s what you’ve pictured almost every single night spent in this celibate hellscape.  The cool darkness of your shared quarters, the standard-issue sheets that still feel crispy and rough on your skin no matter how many nights you’ve slept in them, with one of your hands pressed tight over your mouth and two of your fingers circle your clit.

“You only get to do it if I’m in the room,”  he poses instead, and you swallow thickly, feeling your body tighten with an unintentional drop of pure heat through your tummy at the thought.  Maker, it must be really bad if Poe fucking Dameron is getting to you like this.  The bane of your existence shouldn’t make your insides twist in on themselves—at least, not in a good way.

“Not like I’d have much choice,” you eventually respond, keeping it purposefully ambiguous.  “It’s your room, too.  Unfortunately.”

Stars, it’s been so long since you’ve done this, since you’ve walked the fine line between flirtation and seduction, wanting to turn on the charm slowly—gradually ease it up like a hyperdrive lever under your fingertips so that you’re at maximum by the time he realizes you’re even there.  You take a moment to glance at his reflection, watching Dameron look back at you curiously, a flash of interest in his eyes.

“By the way, how does that one girl feel about us doing this?”  You ask out of nowhere, suddenly remembering the existence of his pretty little number.  You’ve seen her under his arm around base at least a few times, which is more than you can say for the rest of them.  “Red-Six.  Tall brunette with the tattoos—I don’t bother learning names, they all come and go.”

“Nihla,” Dameron nods with a wistful sigh, tilting his head to rest against his shoulder.  “Or, wait… Neah.  No—it was… Nalal.  Yeah, Nalal, I think that’s right…”

“Unbelievable,” you mutter.  “One of the greatest mysteries of the universe is how many people get in line for you, I’ll never fucking understand it.”

“They just want me for my cock,” he tells you without missing a single beat, sounding like he’s not joking in the slightest.  “It was starting to get obnoxious.  Glad I finally have an excuse to turn them down.”

“Unbelievable,” you repeat, stunned by how truly, mind-blowingly full of himself he is.  “You’re… fucking…”

You end up just staring at him and making a sound somewhere between a laugh and a scoff, at a complete loss for words, and Dameron eventually shrugs and continues on after you fail to form a coherent thought in the allotted time frame he provides.

“Now I can just tell them I’m in a long-running bet with Gold-Ten over who can sexually deprive themselves the longest and weirdly enough, they don’t seem all that interested anymore,” he remarks, tilting his chin up and rubbing at his beard again, and for some reason… the sound of it bothers you somewhat less now, the way he phrased that resonating deeper inside you than it should.  Lower than it should.  You blink a few times, almost shocked by your body’s unprecedented response to his admission—Poe Dameron uses you as an excuse to turn down sex with pretty girls?  Happily?—and your mind goes blank for a second while he watches you through the transparisteel.  “It’s alright,” he eventually goes on, tilting his head.  “Sometimes a sabbatical is good.  I do really miss pussy, though.”

“Well,” you finally tell him, oddly not having much else to offer at the moment.  “I’m sorry?  And… you’re welcome.  I guess.”

Dameron shrugs once more and makes an apathetic sound without opening his mouth, and you drop your stare down to the machinery between your spread thighs after feeling like you were looking at each other for too long.  The position started uncomfortable and seven hours later, it’s still fucking uncomfortable.  At first the discomfort twinged at your hips and lower back, but now the sensation seems to be… centering itself a bit more, finding a spot right between your legs, especially when his words echo through your subconscious and make you naturally want to push your thighs together.  I do really miss pussy, though.

You try to snap out of it a bit, try to stop hyperfixating on the way your underwear has felt sticky and wet for fucking hours now, but it’s so fucking difficult to chill yourself out when your body already went into this whole situation with a month and a half long stumbling block.  He’s not really doing anything at all—he’s leant back in his chair and staring out the window into the black emptiness of space when you steal a look once more, but something about how his casual responses are affecting you makes it seem like he’s the one currently seducing you.

Maker, you have to focus.   You have to control yourself.  You’re starting to feel a little warm in your thick jumpsuit—a particular shade of orange that does not compliment your complexion but you normally rejoice in wearing regardless.  It’s baggy and uniform and hides most of your curves and most importantly, it keeps you toasty on missions like this.  Space is cold —especially this far out in the Cauper Void, and there’s no fucking reason this powered down hunk of floating metal should feel as muggy and stifling as it does in here.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” you suddenly hear yourself say, spontaneously, no thought put into it whatsoever.  One last try, one last attempt to avoid it, a last-ditch go at flight before he gives you no choice and you’re left with this one remaining option.  “This isn’t a good idea.  It’s… not healthy.  I don’t want to do this anymore.”

This gets a small chuckle out of him.  “I know you don’t, pretty baby.”

“Then let’s just call the whole thing off,” you propose once again, trying to lighten your tone, make it a… a friendly thing.  It sounds so fake, even to your own ears—since when would you be desperate enough to let the dreaded petname slide?—but granted, you know what they say about time and measures and all that shit.  “We can call it a tie, just go back to the way things were befo—”

He cuts you off and pins you with his gaze through the reflection.  “You realize that you begging me to put an end to your suffering is—ridiculously hot, mostly—but also only an incentive to make me keep pushing until you finally give in?”

You groan and comb some of your hair off your forehead, not liking the way it’s getting just the slightest bit damp.  “Fine, we won’t call it off, but can we at least just stop—”  You immediately catch yourself, not wanting to unintentionally push this too far too quickly, but your hesitation is clear and compelling enough for him to prompt you.

“At least just stop what?”  Dameron asks, and though you don’t think it’s intentional or even noticeable from his perspective, something about the way his voice sounds… husky.  Low to the ground.

“Stop dragging it out,” you breathe, your heart pounding.  Why is your heart pounding so fucking fast?  This is a fucking sting op, a facade, so why are you getting so caught up in the lie you’ve spun for yourself?  “Finish it.  Sooner, rather than later.  Quit being masochists about it, just fucking put it to—”

Maker, your eyes instinctively snap to his at your poor choice of wording, having almost said bed on complete accident.  Genuinely, you didn’t mean to phrase it that way, but at the same time, the thought of it almost burns you alive.  Fuck.  Dameron, and you, in bed.  It could be mean.  It could be rough.  A fight for dominance more than anything.  He’s bigger than you and he could make it fucking hurt, especially after going without it for as long as you have, but something about how double-edged that type of relief would be isn’t really sinking in for you right now.  Like a person slowly dying of thirst that’s fantasizing about drowning.  Regardless, the idea of a night with him and the sudden assortment of vivid imagery it provides is enough to get you to shut up and take a deep breath, just wait with your mouth shut for whatever his response is.

Unfortunately, you don’t have to wait long at all.

“This is cute,” he suddenly tells you, and you jerk back and sputter a bunch of consonants stupidly like he smacked you.

“Fuck you?”  Are the first recognizable words that can be heard.  “I’m not—this isn’t fucking— cute?”

“It’s cute,” Dameron repeats, hiding a soft smile from you with a few of his fingers pressed to his lips.  “You,” he says as he points at your reflection, twirling his finger around in circles, “trying to be all sneaky about it, go about your little performance.  It’s like… watching a little kid just blatantly fuck up a magic trick but they’re naive enough to think it’s working.  Keep going, I’m enthralled.”

You hold still for just a second as ice suddenly sinks through your tummy and clears away any trace of warmth you may have once felt from before.  Of course.  Stupid.  Stupid, you shouldn’t have even tried something like that, you don’t know why you thought…

Horrifyingly, you go dead silent and the lack of an immediate response from you hangs awkwardly in the still air.  You’re usually so quick with him, so fiery, letting the things he throws at you just glide right off you, but for some insane reason, you’re actually fucking… embarrassed?  A little bit?

You should say something, but your whole body is just frustratingly blank, almost buzzing in mortification, and it gets worse and worse the longer you stay quiet.  You don’t usually put yourself in a position to be compromised, and you certainly didn’t think the place he decided to jab this time had particularly thin skin.

You… you’d forgotten what it’s like to have someone laugh at you when you’re genuinely trying your best to flirt.

Well, it’s too late to say anything now, you think.  Now it’s just uncomfortable in here—true discomfort, not the typical angry silences.  You’re used to that, you’re used to huffing and crossing your arms and ticking your jaw through the breaks in conversation, refusing to say a word because you’re beyond pissed off.  This is different.  This quiet sits different in the air, this emotion hits different in your chest, somewhere vulnerable.  A crack in your armor he found without even necessarily intending to, but at this point, the stupid way you can’t seem to hide the wound from him is just as much to blame.

“So, uh…”  Dameron clears his throat as you shut your eyes tight against the awkwardness, but you can still feel a strange little shift in the air from behind you.  There’s something about the enclosed space, the quiet darkness surrounding you both, you feel… too close to him.  Sharing his air, feeling the energy when it’s cramped and you’re not able to just get up and storm away from him like normal.  You don’t like it.  You don’t like that you can immediately tell something has changed without being able to see him, that type of intimacy between you is pushing a boundary you can’t quite pinpoint but know exists.

You snap your eyes open and look over at Dameron’s reflection when he’s quiet for too long, and though you try to glare as fiercely as possible at him while you do it, the look on his face almost stops you dead.  The pure intensity raging in his expression, the way he’s got his eyes narrowed, flicking back and forth between yours, carefully studying you, wondering if perhaps he may have gotten it all wrong.  “I mean, y’know.  Theoretically speaking, and all.  If I broke, you’d let me fuck you?”

You… aren’t expecting that.

You don’t know why but your heart suddenly starts to race again, but it’s not the same as before.  Before it was speeding up and at an angle, like a rocket trying to escape a body’s gravitational pull, to go somewhere, search for something.  This time it just feels like it’s ricketing downhill, unsteady and out of control, about to break apart with every single pothole that rattles and slams through you.  Shit.  You didn’t expect the ultimatum would be presented to you so up front like that—you thought there’d be… some resistance, at least.  

Fuck, you take way too fucking long thinking about it, and your face feels warmer and warmer the more you mentally pick apart his specific phrasing, wondering where you should even begin.  You still haven’t said anything, but the damage is already done.  What should've been a firm, instantaneous go fuck yourself is left suspended, unanswered, open for interpretation.  You miss your window of opportunity to shut him down, you overshoot it by a longshot, and then you feel that spark of a what-if flare deep down once more.

No, fucking stop it.  Stop it.  Maker, your eyes do everything they can to not look at him while you concentrate and work to tap into your anger, stoking the flames of your fire to avoid feeling… temptation.  How dare he?  How fucking dare he do this to you, especially when there’s no chance to get out of here, to abort mission and cut your losses?  You clench your jaw and isolate that fury, magnify it until it’s the only thing you can feel anymore.

“My turn now,” Dameron eventually breaks the silence to clarify, blinking at you, and by this point you’re so fucking pissed off that you don’t recognize that isn’t actually a question.

“No,” you immediately snap, strung far too thin to deal with this new, treacherous territory with him.  Defaulting to normal is best, it’s easier.  “No, it’s not your turn, and fuck no, you can’t fuck me, not even if it means I win this stupid bet.  No to everything that has anything to fucking do with you, alright?  Don’t talk to me.  You’re lucky if I agree to sleep in the same fucking room as you tonight.  And—and?—I think your beard looks dumb.”

Okay, so maybe the last part was just a little bit childish, but you’re in such a bad fucking mood and you want to insult something he’s clearly just trying out for right now, hasn’t yet solidified as part of his usual appearance and unshakeable confidence in it.  It’s a downright lie—you think he might look more attractive with it than he ever has.  Effortlessly rugged and masculine, framing his face and making his eyes all the more piercing.

You don’t think it works, but regardless, he heeds your sharp words and says nothing for a good few minutes at least.  You had hoped the break in interaction would allow you the ability to reset a little bit, give yourself time to work through it, but it’s like the pressure in the air steadily increases regardless of how silent it is in here—or perhaps, because of it.

You can’t help it.  You flick your eyes to the transparisteel in front of you once more and catch his reflection staring directly at you, unmoving.  It jars you as much as it sparks your anger, and you glare down at your hands and give him a few seconds.  A few seconds of grace, of mercy, before you try again.

Sure enough, he’s still got his dark eyes pinned to you when you go to check once more, like he’s actually fucking thinking about something right now, which is just… astounding, for obvious reasons.  Mainly, the nerve of him.  The fucking nerve of him to be able to look at you like that, like he’s just entitled to study your every feature, searching your eyes for things you’ve never looked deep enough to find within yourself, making incredibly loud assumptions with his mind that he has absolutely no right to be making.

“Shut up,”  You snap at him defensively, feeling like you’re sweating buckets even in the freezing emptiness of dead space.  You can’t figure out if it’s a cold sweat or if your body is legitimately just malfunctioning under his stare.  “Shut up.”

You watch as his reflection suddenly drops his head back against the seat and rolls out the stiffness of his neck, blinking his eyes shut and raising his eyebrows like you’re completely overreacting, like he has absolutely no idea.  “I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re not that dumb,” you challenge.  “You’re… plotting.  Evil plotting.”

A thick eyebrow drops so that only one is quirked up, and a grin pulls at his lips.

“You’re right,” Dameron admits casually after a moment with his eyes still closed, his voice pitched low in the cramped ship.  “I was thinking about what it’s gonna take to get you to lose.”

You swallow against the dryness in your throat, starting to unintentionally bounce one of your legs up and down without even realizing it.  Fuck, this ship is small, it’s too fucking small in here—you gaze wistfully out at the vast endlessness of space, wanting to grit your teeth at the irony of being surrounded by the one thing you so desperately wish you had.

“I just have to find a weakness,” he shifts forward in his seat and reveals to you, bewilderingly shameless in his honesty.  Like all of a sudden you’re an accomplice to this endeavor instead of its target, as if he isn’t spoiling the secret by letting you in on it.  “Something that you like, that gets you going.  Something that riles you up, gets you all hot and bothered down there—”

“So you can exploit it,” you huff, slouching over a bit and trying not to sound like you’re pouting.

“—so I can exploit it,” he finishes happily, collapsing back into his seat like he’s glad you caught on so quick and he doesn’t have to explain further.  “Now we can do the whole routine—the bickering, the tension, the undeniable sexual chemistry we have—or we can skip all that and you can just tell me flat out what it’s gonna take to rev that pretty little engine up, because I want it purring.”

And, it’s so fucking weird, because the specific verbiage that would normally make you cringe just hearing it spoken aloud doesn’t inspire the typical response, even though it feels like it should.  It feels like you should be grossed out, it feels like a moment you should screw up your facial expression and act offended, but you’re… not.  This is actually fucking working, it’s unbelievable.  The undeniable fact infuriates you just as much as it stumps you.

“You do realize that everything you say is a game that two can play at, right?”  You point out, not really sure where you’re going with this but feeling heated about it all the same.  “What’s stopping me from exploiting something you like?”

“See now that’s a great idea,” Dameron announces, clapping his hands together happily and sending you jumping a few inches in your seat at the sudden sound, your hand automatically shooting up to rest on your thumping heart.  “I can tell you what I like, and you can just listen.”

Alright, no, wait—backtrack—

“How about I tell you what I don’t like,” you snip breathlessly, tucking your hair behind your ear and feeling all the blood rush to your cheeks.  Default to normal, default to normal.  “Your fucking attitude.  Your demeanor.  The way you talk down to me.  You don’t listen.  You walk around like you’re such hot shit just because you’re a good pilot but none of that means anything when you don’t ever fucking listen.  You’re terrible at it, doesn’t matter who’s talking—you don’t listen to me, you don’t listen to people who actually like you, you don’t listen to orders, you don’t listen to reason—”

“You think I’m a good pilot?”  He suddenly asks, and you have to take a second.  This cockpit isn’t designed for anything other than sitting, much less turning all the way around, but you’re sure you can find some way to throttle him from here.  He chuckles as you let out the loudest sigh you’ve ever heard yourself make—which, is an incredible feat you think both of you should be congratulated for—before Dameron eventually carries on.  “You could tell me that,” he admits with a shrug, a hidden smile on his face that he’s trying to bite back.  “Or you could tell me the truth.”

You shouldn’t encourage him, but you just can’t fucking help it.  There’s something inside you, something you can only compare to a morbid sort of curiosity.  Maybe you’re just a glutton for punishment, even more so than agreeing to this bet has already confirmed.  “And that would be—?”

“That you use anger as a defense mechanism because I touch a nerve you didn’t realize you had,” Dameron replies breezily.  “Have since the moment we met.  And that you maybe want me to touch something else, but you’re too stubborn and proud and committed to hating me to ever admit it.  You can admit it, it’s okay, I can touch whatever you need me to tou—”

“How about the emergency eject button?”  You hiss, finally feeling your frustration peak.  “Pop the top on this bitch.  Put me out of my fucking misery, right now.  You’ve got such a big head that the blood flow will probably keep your tiny little brain warm enough as long as you strap yourself down beforehand, I’ll wait.  And then you can go back to base, alone , and find another poor girl to emotionally torture since you probably don’t get enough of it from the ones you work your way through but can never remember the most basic things about.”

Remarkably, that actually shuts him up.  You’re doubtful the jab really hurts him, but you’re not going to feel bad about it either way.  He deserved that.  You cross your arms over your chest and don’t even bother looking at him, huffing and flushed with the climax of your ferocity, now left feeling strangely exhausted in its wake.  Eventually your breathing evens out and disappears into the silence, until nothing at all can be heard.

It’s like that for a moment—only a moment, before the loud tearing of velcro suddenly shreds through the quiet in the cockpit, completely rattling you.  Automatically your eyes shoot over to his reflection, watching large hands pull the orange jumpsuit apart at his chest and then shrug it over broad shoulders.  It’s not sexual.  It can’t be sexual, because there’s just no fucking room to allow it—it takes him forever to pull the long sleeves down his arms, but the way he drags it out somehow just increases your anticipation for an event you should have absolutely no interest in spectating.  He’s wearing a white sleeveless undershirt underneath and the jumpsuit bunches at his waist, making him look all the longer and more defined as he finally collapses back into his seat and reclines in it, the distant constellations bathing his lean torso in dim speckles of starlight.

Your gaze catches on every good part of him—it falls down the muscular lines of his neck and follows the thin gold chain wrapped around it, disappearing into the white of his scooping neckline.  His toned body finds a place to rest and stretch out without looking awkward or uncomfortable, coarse hair darkening his jaw and dusting the strong lines of his forearms—but it’s his eyes that make your heart stutter.  They’re endlessly deep and dark and knowing , and you can’t seem to look away from him, not even when he opens his mouth to address you.  

“You’re always so fucking mean to me,” Dameron remarks, and for just a split second—just a split second, you feel a stab of regret.  “I should eat you out tonight.”

Fuck, he hits the nail right on the head on his very first try, and just hearing the words come out of his mouth so effortlessly makes your pussy clench in on itself in need.  Nothing about his inflection changed from one sentence to the next, nothing in his voice made it seem like he just flipped the fucking galaxy upside down with just a few words.  To an onlooker who doesn’t speak Basic, they’d have absolutely no hint as to why your face is suddenly radiating heat at an industrial capacity, blazing hot enough to warm the whole cockpit.  You feel like you’re literally burning up with it.  You have to put a palm to your cheek to make sure it’s not actually on fucking fire.  “What— what did you just say to me?”

“That’s what you need,” he drawls, unbothered by the sharpness of your tone.  “What you’ve needed, ever since I can remember.  Should’ve done it a long fucking time ago, now that I’m thinking about it.  How long’s it been?  Tell me the truth, I know it’s been awhile.”

You feel like you’re being roasted alive like one of those hairy little Kowakian monkey-lizards that you’re pretty sure have sentient designation but are the first to be skewered and cooked over the firepit regardless.  Your heart is slamming against your sternum and you scramble to come up with an even slightly clever response after such an ambush.

“This is your plan?”  You raise an eyebrow at him, feeling a bead of sweat drop down your temple and onto the corner of your lashes.  Oh fuck, be cool, be cool.  “You think this is gonna work?  Ask me if I want a weak orgasm and rugburn on my thighs?”

“I can shave,” Dameron proposes quietly, lifting his chin and gently scrubbing the side of his cheek.  The sound of the thick bristles against his fingers makes you swallow thickly and push back very vivid thoughts of how his face would feel between your legs.  How soft and wet his mouth would feel at the center of that thick, coarse beard.  “Tonight, I’ll shave it off.  Make it nice and smooth for you.”

Something inside you surges up to assure him he absolutely should not shave, and you actually have to bite your tongue to keep it buried at the last second.  Stars, that was a close one, what the fuck prompted that?

“I don’t give a shit what you do,” you quickly return, resisting the urge to wipe your brow.  “Beard or no beard, makes no difference.  Foreplay is overrated, I’m not big on wasting time.”

“Oh, you poor thing,” he immediately laments—so quick , and the worst part is that the sympathy in his voice actually sounds sincere.  You’re having trouble looking him in the eyes right now, hearing the genuine pity come through in his tone.  “Who… who did this to you?”

“You said you want to figure out what I like, what turns me on,” you return, tucking your hair behind your ear once more and trying not to sound self-conscious.  Maker, how long until your shift is over?  You need to get out of here, this shit is… way out of your league.  “I’m not into it, so try again.”

“Really?”  Dameron takes a moment to look at you, furrow his thick eyebrows at you in barely concealed curiosity, before his head tilts sideways and drops to his shoulder.  “Normally I’d respect that, but I meant it when I said you need it.”

“We fucking hate each other, Dameron,” you hiss, a reminder to him as much as it is to yourself.  Fuck, you really don’t like where this is going.  ��You don’t know anything about me, you don’t know what the I n—”

“I bet you think we’d fuck hard,” he murmurs, low enough that you have to take an unsteady breath and physically brace yourself for whatever is going to come from that dirty mouth next.  “You think that maybe I’d throw you around a little, give it to you from behind, teach you a fucking lesson for always talking back to me.  But that’s primitive shit, Gold-Ten, that’s not for you.”

Resist.  Resist .  You’re part of the fucking Resistance, for Maker’s sake, you’re taught to hold out until death in torture scenarios.  Since when did this tin can suddenly become a new POW camp simulation you have to train for?

“I want to take you apart so slow that you can’t talk at all,” Dameron continues quietly, and you close your eyes, biting your bottom lip hard enough to sting.  “We don’t even have to fuck—I mean, I want to, but mostly I just want to taste you.  Go nice and slow.  I want you on your back, so I can look in your eyes and see all that anger just… fade away.  I want to watch you try to fight how fucking good I’ll make it.  How hot it’s gonna be when you can’t glare at me anymore, when your pretty doll eyes go all soft and sweet and you finally realize that I’ve never hated you at all.”

Maker.  This is a trick.  It’s not a question, it shouldn’t be presented like one—this is a dirty rotten trick , and you’re not gonna fall for it.  You can’t fucking fall for it.  It’s a low blow, and you refuse to even acknowledge he said anything at all.  He’s lying to get your guard down.  He laughed at your flirting.  He’s a shit person, he’s using you, this isn’t real.

Real or not, you still gulp loud enough for him to hear it.

“We could go back to our room after our shift is over,” he offers out of the blue, and you have no clue why, but when he pauses and lets it hang in the air for a second, you don’t interrupt him.  You stay completely silent while he waits for you, waits for your typical snarky comeback.  You have it in your head instantly, you know what you’d normally say.  Your room.  It’s not ‘our’ room, it’s fucking your room that you’re generous enough to let him bunk in, a privilege he’s this fucking close to losing—but you can’t find it in yourself to say it right now.  Your anger is gradually losing the war to your arousal and you’re forced to watch every single small defeat inside you happen from the sidelines.

His reflection blinks at you through the transparisteel, his eyebrows raising just slightly at your prolonged silence, before he suddenly sits up a little and leans forward.

“And I could lock the door,” Dameron continues, lowering his voice, both in volume and register.  “The lights in there are way too fucking bright but I don’t want to be in complete darkness, so maybe we can turn them off and open the port shade, let just enough light come through to see.  I could turn on the radio, find something quiet, easy to listen to.  Something you like, I’ll let you pick it out.  And then… Wait, hang on, which bed?”

You clench your jaw and purposefully say nothing even as your pussy squeezes, glaring right through his reflection into the black void of space.

“Mmm.   Your bed,” he eventually decides.  “I want you comfortable.  You shower at night.  Your hair will be wet and you’ll be in those baggy pajamas that you think I can’t see your nipples through, the ones that I know you take off under your covers and then put on in the morning when you think I’m still asleep.  That’s good, I want you relaxed, so that maybe… maybe you’d let me take your panties off at some point.  And you could lay back and open your legs, and I could go down on you for a little while.  However long you need.”

Fuck.

No, this isn’t fucking happening.  Your lower muscles aren’t twisting in so hard that it actually fucking hurts, your pussy isn’t leaking through two layers of fabric under your jumpsuit, your body isn’t outright revolting against the sheer neglect you’ve put it through.  Maker, it’s fucking painful.  You have to clench your hands into fists and dig your fingernails into your palms before you can open your mouth.

“You want to know what I need?”  You nearly wheeze, a drop of sweat sliding down the back of your neck this time.  Your body feels like it’s three sizes too big for this cockpit and your skin feels like it’s three sizes too small for your body.  “I need you to shut the fuck u—”

“What you need,” Dameron purrs, sliding up closer behind your seat and sighing soft against the worn material of your headrest, “is a warm mouth to cum in.  Don’t be shy, pretty baby, you can tell me.”

You growl out his last name as threateningly as you possibly can before he purrs yours right back in your ear, and fuck, you’ve never heard it sound so sexual before.  Last names allow pilots to maintain a respectful distance from each other.  Flight designations are Resistance-wide, but last names are just… allies.  Not friends, not companions, but a vast network of people brought together by a common enemy.  It hurts to lose a first name.  But the way yours sounds rolling off of Dameron’s tongue is just too sinful, too intimate when calling you that is meant to sever intimacy by design.  He says it slow and makes it dirty, muddies it in the back of his throat as he slides up even closer to you, until his face is right next to yours as you stare at each other through the transparisteel.

“I’m really…” he pauses, before exhaling through his nose and swallowing thick enough to make his Adam’s apple drop and bounce up again, his tongue coming out to wet his plush lips as he blinks slowly at you with a heavy gaze, “… really good at it.  Call me Poe and I’ll do it for you all night.”

Shit, your pussy is just a fucking mess right now.  It feels like it’s melting sweet and syrupy all over your thighs, throbbing and pounding and clamping up and screaming at you to do something, at least press your hand down there to alleviate some of the aching tensi—

No— stars, no touching yourself is rule number two.  You drop your hands to your thighs and squeeze them, trying to reign yourself back in.

“I think you’re—just projecting,” you try, but turns out responding in general is just an all-around bad idea.  Nothing about it comes out right.  The ‘just’ sounds like your tongue is stuck to the roof of your mouth and your voice cracks on the word ‘projecting,’ but you don’t even have time to be self-conscious or embarrassed at how much you’re giving yourself away—all your energy has to go towards fighting the tightness between your open legs, how you’re so fucking turned on that you’re worried you’ll cum without even touching yourself.  Oh Maker, can you imagine?  How fucking proud of himself he’d be?  You can’t let that happen, but fuck, holding back something so appealing is so much harder than it sounds.

Tap into that anger, tap into that anger—only, you can’t suddenly find it.  Where’d it go?  Fuck, doesn’t matter, conjure it.  Quick, before it’s too late, get mad —don’t let him lure you into a… a false… 

Dameron tilts his chin down towards the line of your shoulder and then slowly turns his head towards your neck, breathing you in gently.

A false sense of…

His soft exhale makes goosebumps break out all the way down your arms.

… What?

“Maybe you’re right,” Dameron acknowledges, talking just under your ear.  You watch his eyelids dip and the dark beard brushes against your skin and you catch just a hint of that woodsy, spicy scent engulfing you.  Like… teakwood, maybe?  Stars, you don’t know, you think you’re starting to lose your mind.  What the fuck does teakwood even smell like?  “Maybe it’s just what I need.  You should exploit it, chances are I’ll still cum first.”

That rockets another painful spasm down low.  It hurts so fucking bad—fuck, maybe you could… rub yourself up against these weapons controls?  Just a little bit?  That joystick, right there, just ease yourself up against it just to nurse this wound a little bit…?

No, fucking— bad.  That’s bad, you have to stop—

“This isn’t real, this isn’t—y-you just…”  You flutter your eyelashes shut, digging your fingernails into your thighs like it’ll help break through the fog of his lulling voice, how fucking amazing he smells right now.  “You just want to win th-the b—”

“ Fuck the bet,” he tells you quietly, his head dipped low enough now that his lips brush against your neck, and you shudder so hard at the sensation that your shoulder almost knocks into his chin with it.  “You really think I’m doing all this for a fucking bet?”

Don’t trust him, don’t trust him, don’t—

Your deep breath is so stuttery and uneven that it’s technically just a series of shallow inhales all anxiously strung together, too desperate for oxygen to go about it legato.  It’s painfully obvious to him by now, it has to be, but you very quickly miss the shaky breathing as soon as he takes away your ability to do it all together.

“Let me taste you,” he whispers, his voice almost breaking with how gentle it is, how it sounds like it flips in and out of his register when he speaks this low.  “Right now, let’s make it real, let m—I know you have to be soaking fucking wet, baby, just let me try a little bit of it, please—I’m… holy shit, I’m so hard just thinking about it.”

“You c-can’t,” you stammer, reaching up to pinch the bridge of your nose in frustration.  At him, at the situation, at the painful throb of emptiness between your legs.  “Fuck, it’s not allowed, it’s against the rules—”

“It won’t be,” he assures you, and you hiccup when you suddenly feel his hand brush against your side, strong fingers branching out to curve against your ribcage.  “You don’t have to do anything, you can stay just like this.  Just a few seconds and then I’ll stop, I promise.”

Oh, Maker, it’s on the very top of your tongue, so unbelievably close to telling him something—but you don’t know what it should be.  You’re right at the tipping point, on a tightrope right between what you want and what you should want.  And, knowing you’re this close to giving in, Dameron slowly eases his hand down your side and starts to trail it inwards, and just the lightest brush of his warm tongue against your neck shatters any composure you have left.

You whimper and instinctively try to close your legs, but you fucking can’t— your knees are forced wide apart by controls and your whole body freezes when his hand slides down and folds gently along the curve of your pussy through the thick fabric of your jumpsuit.

The feeling of being held like this by him is just too good , cradled so perfectly in his palm as he opens his mouth and flutters his tongue out to taste your skin again, giving you a little more of it this time and letting you feel the roughness of his beard with the way his lips move.  Your breath catches, then he hooks his fingertips up just the slightest bit and pulls back, and you suddenly have to smack your whole hand over your face in a terrible attempt to stifle your loud gasp.

“Oh, Maker, I c-can’t,” you stammer against your fingers, not being able to trust him or your own body.  You continue to protest even after he moves back up, resting his palm low on your abdomen, letting the heat bleed through the fabric and transfer directly to your floor muscles as he lifts his head up from your shoulder.  “I can’t, we can’t, I…”

You can’t see him, but you know he’s looking at you.  He’s staring right at you through the reflection, studying the way you’re hiding your face from him, how you’re still melting, still losing your composure just from the warm palm pressed tight your tummy.

His touch leaves you for a second. But then the deafening sound of velcro ripping at the crotch of your jumpsuit has you dragging your hand down your mouth and your eyelids dipping.

“Dameron,” you breathe into your fingers, just as his carefully slip into the small opening and begin to work at the button to your pants. “Dameron, this isn’t—you don’t want—”

“You don’t get to tell me what I don’t want,” he grunts at you, and you try not to bite yourself at the sound of him unzipping things and yanking fabric to the side.  “What I really fucking want is the real thing, but I guess this’ll have to do for now.”

“I—”  Your mind whirs desperately, trying to process when his fingers wedge under your panties and down.   But he doesn’t give you a single fucking second.  As soon as the tip of his middle finger reaches your slit, he’s dropping it and sliding it through your slick, hot, unbearably neglected cunt.

“Fuck,” he spits, and you feel like you might be about to break your own fucking jaw with how hard you’re clutching it, trying so desperately not to make a noise.  The pad of his finger is rough and calloused as it drags against your clit in slow, tight circles, and you clamp your eyes shut and try to breathe normally, but it’s no use.  Fuck , it’s been so long .  You’ve been aching for it for a full fucking month and a half now and you know that even if he couldn’t feel it, he can hear how drenched you are right now.  It’s making an obscene sound as he steadily masturbates you with one heavenly finger, giving your body what it’s desperately craved for so many weeks.  “Fuck, baby’s pussy got fucking wet hearing me talk about how good I’d lick it, huh?”

That sends a bright flare launching through you and you gasp raggedly, both hands whipping out to snatch at his forearm where it disappears between your legs.  “No, shit, wait, stopstopstopstop stop , I—”

His hand slips out immediately and yet you continue to tremble like his finger is still right there, like your clit is just imagining it so vividly that it’s successfully convincing itself of the illusion.  The aching bit of flesh is burning, that good burn, the one that’s searing and bright that makes your muscles continue to chase the sensation long after the stimulation is gone.  Fuck, he almost made you cum.  He barely touched you for a few seconds and yet your fingers have to tighten into claws to slow your body down the fuck down, flexing against your thighs and trying your best to halt the impending climax.

By the time you’re able to wrangle yourself back from the edge and look at his reflection, his middle finger is already in his mouth and he’s blinking slowly at you, his pupils blown wide.  You’re breathing hard at him, staring open-mouthed at the way his lips are closed below his second knuckle, how he takes forever dragging it back out again.  You have to close your eyes.  You have to clamp them shut and keep them that way, knowing you won’t be able to look at him through whatever he’s going to say next.

Except, oddly, he doesn’t say much.

“Shit,” he breathes, dropping his mouth to your neck once more.  “Shhhit.  I…”

Your eyes snap open in sudden, blind panic when he doesn’t continue, horrified at the possibility that he doesn’t like it.  Dameron always has something to say, he doesn’t go speechless.  “Oh—Maker, is it not—?”

“Mmmfuck, just—” he grits, panting hot air against your skin, “—fuck.  Give me a second.”

You can only see the crown of his head with the way he’s angled, but you can see his shoulders a little further back.  They start… moving slightly.  Just the littlest bit, a smooth motion, like his whole body is slowly easing back and forth—

The nav controls are between his legs, you immediately realize.  He’s grinding up against them with how close he is to you and your seat.

And suddenly, it’s like there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.  A ray of sunshine that breaks through the raging storm.  Dameron might cum in his pants like this.  Which means you’ll win, and arguably more importantly, you’ll finally be able to cum.  You don’t even take a moment to consider the potential consequences—how you’re going to have to withstand the stimulation until he succumbs to it, how you’ll have to outlast—but you’re not thinking straight.  You’re not really thinking at all.

“You can…” you suddenly hear yourself whisper, and your heart pounds in your throat when he instantly stops moving.  “One… one more.  If you want.  You can put your finger inside this time, it’s where I’m the… w-wettest.”

“Fuck,” Dameron croaks into the crook of your neck, his voice scraping low and rough and sending a tremor through you.  “Fuck, okay, yeah—”

His hand slides across your hip and down, but you catch him just in time.

“But don’t touch my clit.”  You try to sound as firm as possible through the breathlessness, still trying to put your foot down even when you’re giving in, and Dameron’s teeth come out as he stifles a soft groan into your neck in response.

“Yes, baby,” he murmurs obediently as his hand sinks down once more, and so diligently, he avoids it altogether.  His fingers slide under your panties and fall straight down to your entrance, down to where you know you’re the hottest, where your pussy is flexing and pushing wetness out with a steady, wicked throb.  The pad of his middle finger presses gently against the tight muscles there, rubs just the slightest bit to feel that resistance, and then the length of it eases inside you so slowly that your knees rattle against bulky metal.

“Fucking Maker , ” he hisses as he slides it in, his body making a sudden jerk against the controls.

Your eyes roll back at the feeling of something inside you after so long, after such a torturous buildup, and you grasp at his forearm again when it curls naturally up against searing pleasure.  Oh, it’s so good, it’s so good, your hands shake while he very carefully moves it in and out, the raw sparks of heat threatening to incinerate you as your muscles cling to every ridge of his finger.  He gets it sopping wet, bathes it so completely in your slick that you’re almost certain it’ll come out pruny and drenched.

“Shit, okay,” you pant, squeezing desperately around his finger, “o-okay, fuck, that’s enough.”

His hand pulls out… slower this time.  He slips his finger out of you quick enough, but he drags the tip of it through your folds as he retreats, just barely grazing your clit and making you jolt in your seat.  Shit, you don’t know if it felt intentional enough to fault him for it—mostly it just excites you, thrills you to have him edge you like this without really needing to put any effort at all into it.

Dameron lifts his head to sink his finger deep into his mouth once more, and you tremble as you watch him enjoy it, staring at the way his shoulders seem to relax as soon as your taste is on his tongue, how his face goes soft with it and he almost slumps.

Relief.  Genuine, not embellished.  He still doesn’t say anything after he slowly slides it out and blinks at you, no sugar sweet drawl telling you how amazing you taste, no candied words to make you give in and let him have another go.  You’re both breathing hard at each other, staring, waiting to see who will break first.

Stars, you… fucking like this.  You want him to keep going, but you can’t offer it again.  It’s just too exposing, too revealing to let him you’re actually really fucking enjoying this, you can’t—

“Do you w—?”  Your voice automatically comes out through the silence without your permission, sounding just absolutely fucking wrecked by this point, but his palm is already slithering back down as soon as you speak, and you make the softest little submissive noise in your throat at him taking immediate initiative like that.  He’s not as careful about it this time—his hand finds its target with less frill, his finger slides in quicker, sinking deep into your heat with little hesitation, lighting you on fire from the inside out, and you bite the meat of your thumb to stay quiet.

“Fuck, this is so hot,” he suddenly breathes next to your ear while your legs spasm and you gasp brokenly.  “This is so—fuck, pretty baby letting me do this to her, I can’t fucking believe—”

Dameron eases a second finger inside you this time, letting you feel that delicious stretch from this angle, unable to lift your legs or shuffle around to help and subsequently resigned to simply experience it the way he gives it to you.  Your teeth have probably permanently indented your bottom lip from how hard you’re clamped down, a testament to how much you’re trying to hold back the loud moan you miraculously haven’t released yet.  Somehow it makes it sexier, not letting him hear you, not having your own noises to drown out the spark of urgency in his voice beginning to peek through.

Shit, it’s too much.  You can only let him touch you a few seconds at a time before you feel that familiar tug towards mind-numbing bliss, and the more he does it, the more appealing that feeling then becomes.  It’s teasing you, floating right in front of you and calling into question what could possibly be so bad about just reaching out to meet it?  You could.  You could cum right now.  What’s two weeks of pay?  You could cum all night long if you want, that is a thing you can do—

Quickly snapping out of your hypnotic downfall, your trembling hands snatch at his forearm once more, and Dameron, the fucker, drags his fingers slowly over your clit on the way out— so not accidental, not even close to it this time, but the sensation makes your hips stutter upwards and chase it nonetheless.

“Fuck you,” you groan at his audacity, your chest arching as you drop your head back, “I said don’t touch my—” but two wet fingers slipping past your lips and onto your tongue muffle the rest of your sentence.  Your heart does half a somersault before slamming down early, the taste of your pussy filling your mouth as you automatically start sucking on them.

“None of that,” Dameron tells you softly, massaging his fingers along your tongue before pressing a sweet kiss under your ear.  “Be nice.  I’m being nice.”

You should bite him.  Instead, you just close your eyes and mphh weakly around his fingers, your body sagging as you give into it and let him explore your mouth with them, your lower muscles cramping up in painful desperation even when he’s not anywhere near that part of your body right now.  Your tongue even comes up to lick between them, swirl around them so soft compared to how hard you’re puffing through your nose.

Dameron slowly inches his fingers out, letting the tips of them rest against your bottom lip for just a brief moment, before his hand is moving again.  Not down, but back and around, so he can open his mouth and taste you another way this time.

Shit, you feel like you’re dying.  You need air.  Your hands clench into fists and you use the back of one to wipe the sweat from the bridge of your nose while he takes his time sampling you like this.  If anything, he looks just as blissed out as before, continuing to rub his crotch up against the solid metal between his legs and teasing you with it as much as he’s teasing himself.

“Maker, let me do this for real tonight, okay,” Dameron pants after dropping his fingers from his mouth, sounding like he’s fighting for his breath while you can’t find yours at all.  Your eyes flick down to watch the way his hand disappears behind the chair to grab the controls and push his cock up against them even harder, how he drops his forehead to your neck like he just can’t fucking handle it anymore.  “Fuck, I’ll shave, I’ll do anything you want, just let me—”

“Cum,” you gasp out before you can stop yourself, and there’s a moment after it where his hips suddenly stutter against the controls, and you both freeze.

Shit.  Shitshitshit, did that actually work?

No, you very quickly realize, his body isn’t spasming like it would if he finally emptied his load after a month and a half.  He’s just… holding there, his head buried in your neck, completely still.

You didn’t mean it like that.  Well… fuck, you did, but you didn’t realize you’d be that reckless about it, that upfront about reissuing the challenge.

Dameron pulls back to look at you from the side this time, but it’s too cramped—he keeps his head turned facing you even as his eyes flick up to the transparisteel to take in the finer details of your features, the thin sheen of sweat on your forehead, and the slightly alarmed way you’re blinking back at him, worried you just shot your blaster at him in the midst of a mutual ceasefire and you fucking missed.

You see the understanding in his eyes instantly fall into place, and it’s not fucking good.  Ohhhhhh no, it’s not good.  Your chest starts rising and falling rapidly, suddenly registering the position you just put yourself in.  Fuck, you didn’t think—you saw your opening, so clearly, you didn’t have time to think about the consequences.

“D-Dameron…” you try your best to placate.

“Don’t touch your clit?”  He asks quietly, the raspiness of his voice ripping a hole through you while his hand suddenly shoves its way back down your body once more.

“Dameron,” you whimper, your heart stuttering in panic as you grasp weakly at his arm reaching between your spread thighs, “Dameron, this is—this is against the r-rules—”

“You keep saying that,” he comments, his fingers easily finding the opening in your jumpsuit no matter how hard you flex your thighs against bulky mechanics to try and close them.  “How clearly do you remember the rules?  What were the rules again?

You open your mouth to respond but his hand sliding under your panties and down just obliterates any chance you were going to attempt.  No words, nothing comes out but a shaky whine as his finger sinks into your soaking heat, going right for the kill.

“Come on, baby, the rules,” Dameron reminds you when you never give him an answer.  “Tell me.  No fucking, no jerking off, and…?”

You suddenly struggle forwards in a last-ditch attempt at preventing the inevitable, hoping you can scoot up enough in your seat to escape his reach from behind.  But fuck, your thighs have been shoved wide open for nearly eight hours—none of the muscles are working the way they should be anymore.  There’s just enough room in front of you to get there and you probably would’ve been able to do it at the beginning of the shift, even with his hand between your legs like this, but you’re sluggish and your thighs pull sharp and urgent with the movement.  The frantic maneuver enough to veer his fingers off course just slightly, moving one of your lips to the side at an angle, and you keep pushing against the pain no matter how useless it is.

“—No cumming,” he finishes for you, and his other hand is slithering up under your arm and groping one of your breasts through the jumpsuit before shoving you back tight up against your seat once more, totally helpless against it.  “Probably have another fifteen minutes or so before our shift ends.  Better hold it in, pretty baby, because this one is all you.”

“This—this isn’t fair, this is—”  The second the slippery pad of his finger presses hard against your clit, you’re biting your lip to cut off a breathless whimper that slips out.  “This is… is sab— sabotage— ”

“Oh, I know,” he moans next to your ear, mocking your high plea of distress with a fake, overly sympathetic whine.  “Feels so fucking good though, doesn’t it?”

Fuck, it does.  The build feels like an orgasm in itself, just working your way to it.  You’re already so unbelievably close after just a few seconds of direct stimulation, an obvious consequence of originally agreeing to such a hardcore edging workout.  You’re pouring sweat, so swollen and tight between your legs as you do everything you can to revolt against your body’s needs.

“Oh fuck, stop touching my clit—” you gasp raggedly, heart thundering in panic while your lower muscles start to immediately seize up, “oh—fuckfuckfuck— Poe, take your finger off m—”

Instead of doing it, his hand just slows down until the tip of his finger comes to a halt, maybe less than an inch over top of it.  You still can’t catch your breath though, not when you feel yourself throbbing against absolutely nothing, the calloused pad holding perfectly still over the bundle of nerves.  The swollen bud still arcs and flares at a steady frequency, building and building, and you choke out a wordless garble, absolutely fucking furious that this is what’s gonna make you cum.

“Don’t make me cum,” you switch up your sentence but not the terrified plead in your voice, the way it’s pitching up and out of control in the dead quiet of space.  He doesn’t even acknowledge it.  “Don’t make me cum, don—”

“Say it again,” he prompts instead, and lightning arcs up your spine.

“Poe,” you wheeze, the words coming from you without thought, your fingernails digging into his forearm even as your hips jerk up into his touch, “fuck, don’t make me cum, Poe—please don’t make me c—”

“But it’ll be so good,” he counters lowly, and your clit throbs in desperation at the richness of his voice when he speaks like this, saying things from deep in his chest.  “It’ll be so fucking good when it happens.  Stars, you’ll feel so much better, won’t you?  Cum right now and I’ll give you as many as I can until we have to go home.”

“N-No,” you whine, feeling his teeth scrape at the crook of your neck.  “No, I can’t—”

“Cum for me,” Dameron raises his voice, sharpening it into a direct order.  “Right now.  Come on— fucking make yourself lose.”

“But I—I—” you sob, starting to feel your body curl inwards, nearly about to succumb to the burning, the tightening, right on its last breath, “I-I don’t want to cum—”

“And I don’t fucking care,“ he hisses while your hands start flexing unintentionally, grasping helplessly at his immovable forearm where it disappears between your legs, the dark hair sliding under your fingertips as you claw desperately at it.  “You’ll fucking cum when I tell you to cum and you’ll like it, you disrespectful, cock-deprived, bratty little—”

And then everything goes dark.

No, literally.  The stars disappear.

The cockpit is suddenly shrouded in pitch blackness, and you’re almost certain it’s because you pass out, except then Dameron is all but ripping his hand out of your jumpsuit and cursing repeatedly in alarm.  You crumple in on yourself, eyes clamped shut and not hearing anything, right at the peak of your ecstasy and ready to soar into the light completely unassisted, your muscles doing all the work on their own—

“—shit, they’re way too close—” you hear his voice shout, “—we have to turn the engines on—Gold-Ten, baby, turn the fucking eng—”

You’re almost there, you’re almost there, you’re gonna cum, you’re gonna fucking—

Your first name, roared out in startling, blinding panic.

You don’t often hear it.  Just during roll calls mostly, but only if you’re flying with a different squadron and need a new temporary flight designation for the day.  First names hurt.  You can’t remember a time you’ve ever willingly told anybody yours.

Your head jerks up to look at his reflection but something else beyond the transparisteel takes immediate precedence.  Your brain takes about two seconds to catch up before thundering terror slams through you and halts your previously inevitable orgasm in its fucking tracks.  A runaway train about to launch off its tracks suddenly slamming directly into a megaton force-field of cold, hard fight or flight instincts.

A staggering fleet of First Order ships silently plunging out of hyperspace on all sides—your powered-down x-wing stationed right in the middle of the drop location.

***

Stay tuned for part two coming soon!!

[stevenbasic]

So far AJ’s day, his first at this new job, had been predictably miserable. He figured that was sort of normal, kinda expected. He’d been his own boss, owner of his own little construction firm for years, so going back to being a manual labor grunt for someone else again was sure to feel like ten steps in the wrong direction. But working on a demo team for a bunch of girls? The women, the company that had put him out of business? That was turning out to be particularly soul-sucking and demeaning work. But, hey, a buck’s a buck and he needed as many of those as he could muster these days. His saving grace was, with a little effort keeping his head down, that he could remain faceless and anonymous and just do his work. The morning had been spent taking down some walls in the area of the building that was to be the new wing. He’d sat by himself for his meager lunch outside - his buddies, guys that used to work for him, were on another team entirely, at another site - and he had now this afternoon been asked to step into the doctor's office area to look at some venting. Privately, he leapt at the chance: maybe he’d be able to see Angie. Or, for that matter, catch a glimpse of - or even meet - that statuesque, brunette boss of hers, her friend Melissa...

He was in luck.

“Oh! H-hey, hun,” AJ said, acting surprised to bump into his girlfriend, Angie, as he turned the corner in the back hallway. He’d already checked out what he’d needed to see, looked at the thermostats, and had been sort of aimlessly drifting around, avoiding others, waiting for just this moment. He managed what he hoped was a casual smile. “Funny meeting you here haha,” he joked, wiping plaster dust from his forehead, “H-how’s the first day?”

At first, Angie looked surprised to see him, too - eyes widening. But she didn’t even give him a word of greeting before her eyes flashed, her smile grew into a grin, and she bit her lower lip. Looking behind herself, down the hall, checking if they’d be seen, she then suddenly grabbed him by the collar of his green, grime-covered t-shirt and pulled him aside. “Here, let’s go in here-“ she said, opening the door to a supply closet and yanking him into it. She shut the door behind them and flipped on a switch.

“Hey wow..!” AJ exclaimed, eyes immediately going wide in pleasant surprise, “Nice to see you too!”

The switch she had hit had turned on an overhead fluorescent, which was just flickering to life. “Shush,” she said, locking the door, “The last thing I need is someone to see us together.” She’d just gotten out of lunch, where all the office girls had assembled, crowded into the too-small breakroom for a welcome meeting.  She’d had a few great little chats and was just really beginning to grasp what was going on here, what she was now part of. It was thrilling and her blood was still on fire from the excitement, the potential. Yes yes yes...female empowerment, sisters united, blah blah blah. But there was opportunity here for her.

She’d just been headed to her new temporary, makeshift desk in accounting when she ran into her, well, boyfriend. Though AJ was here doing some work for the construction company hired to renovate the building, she really didn’t want to be seen with him. Things were too big here, there was too much at stake for her to risk getting muddled down by, well, him. “I can’t be the girl dating the hired help,” she said, not smiling, but her heart still thumping.

“Hey, that hurt..!” AJ remarked, taken a bit aback by her bluntness but trying to laugh. Angie looked so good in her short, floral dress, boobs big and on display. “How’s the first day?” he repeated.

Angie faced AJ, mind still swimming with the excitement from the meeting and an electric, estrogen-fueled energy. “Eh, sort of chaotic, with all these new girls, there’s not enough space for us all until the new wing is ready,” she answered, looking him up and down. She’d seen him in his construction gear countless times before, but here - on the job, dirty, as a low-level grunt - he just looked so plebeian. And too tall. “I got to meet the doctor, this morning,” she said, feeling her eyes sparkle and the enthusiasm in her voice, “he’s sooo vulni…”

He’d heard that term before, and he knew how girls were all starting to like that: small, weak, vulnerable men. It had been why she’d had him stop going to the gym, eat less, get skinnier. He thought she liked it, though it never seemed as if it was quite enough for her; he was still tall and lanky, and he felt she’d actually like it if he was somehow smaller than her, shorter than her, weighed less than her. That was the fad, these days, and Angie was into it. But he’d never heard that weird tone in her voice when talking about another guy, not in all the months they’d been together. Here in the supply closet he felt the first pangs of jealousy, starting in his stomach, and it was envy for Angie’s new boss. Not because he was successful, a doctor, and was her superior here (though Ang probably loved that too), but because he was so “vulni” . As he watched her face, seeing how she talked about this guy, the sensation grew heavier, and worked its way up to his throat.

“He was hiding, totally hiding, in his office. But I went in and met him,” she said, “he looked like a kid sitting at a big-boy desk. He was afraid to stand up in front of me, but I bet I’d be taller than him in my heels…”

There it is, AJ thought.

“Your friend Melissa probably has him by more than a foot, then,” AJ blurted, smiling but speaking before thinking and immediately regretting it as Angie’s eyes narrowed, analyzing him. His grin disappeared as her expression changed.

“Yeaaaaah...have you noticed?” she continued, still watching his face, “a lot of the girls here are tall. They’re all hot…”

Smart enough at least for this moment, AJ held his tongue. Saying too much would just dig him deeper into the hole that he was apparently already in.

Angie still looked at her boyfriend of these many months, her smile crooked, and considered him. He’d always felt like she could read his mind, and seemed to be doing it now. She knew what he wanted. “Take off your shirt,” she instructed, hands on her wide hips.

Without as much as a thought, AJ was peeling himself out of his dusty work tee, revealing his trim, lean torso, his ink. Angie’s eyes immediately drifted from his still-defined abs, up his chest and went to the new tattoo on his throat, her name: “Angie Wade”. She reached out and gently caressed it.

“Yeah, he’s surrounded by women here, pretty women,” she continued, once again talking about this dude that AJ was starting to like less and less, “Lots of them are taller than him, walking around in their pumps, their high wedge sandals.” Her hand drifted up to cup the right side of his face, tenderly, watching how her words affected him. “They’re all ditzes, but they adore him,” she said, her expression still hard for him to read, “Imagine that? Imagine being surrounded by huge, brainless bimbos that all love and adore you and just want to get into your pants? I’ll bet he loves it. God that’s so hot.”

AJ, still knowing he shouldn’t say a word, just watched her as she looked at him. Despite his rising jealousy - what kind of girlfriend talks about another guy like this? - he was starting to feel himself hardening between his legs. He had no idea what she was thinking, what she was doing (or why she’d had him take off his shirt) but there were gears turning in her head, for sure.

“And,” she pressed on, “his office is smaller - a lot smaller - than hers. The way she was talking today, you’d have trouble knowing exactly who was in charge, here...” Angie’s left hand had settled behind AJ’s shaved head, holding it, and her right was now resting lightly on his chest. The feel of her soft palm on his shaved skin was exciting him. “...But I’m going to find out. There’s something going on under the surface here, something big. Here. Sit-“

At that, Angie pushed his chest, forcing him to half-sit back on the low shelving unit behind him. He knocked over a couple reams of paper towels, but was left with his eyes at just about boob-level.

She stepped in close.

“Lunch, with all the girls,” Angie continued, smiling again as his eyes settled right into her cleavage, “There was so much estrogen in the air, what with all the laughing and rah-rah cheering for this new place. Most of the girls here are morons, but damn if they aren’t hooked up to the right train, as things are going to be changing.”

She was talking almost to herself, he thought, while he knew he was being so passively quiet. He struggled to think of something to say. “Wow, Ang,” AJ finally spoke, “your tits look really big today.”

Angie chuckled, took a casually deep breath for him.”He’s a boob-guy, just like you,” she mused, reveling in the gift of her naturally big, full bosom, with its perfect, milky skin, “so, yeah, I wanted show them off…think he’ll like me?”

The jealousy continued to sit with him, inside his throat, tightening.

“Well, uh, y-yeah, of course,” he managed, figuring he should be supportive rather than risking her ire by sounding indignant. “Wh-what are they going to have you doing?”

“I’m going to be working with Kathy, this lady reassigned from some pharmaceutical company, to help run the practice’s accounting,” Angie continued, “Technically she’s my immediate boss, for the time being. But it’s okay, for now. She actually sounds like she has half a brain.” Her hand went up onto the side of his head, stroked his scalp leisurely, kept his gaze focused where she wanted it. “If I play my cards right, I’ll get hooked up doing financials for this study, with all the money coming in from the grants,” she said, her tone aggressively self-assured, “I’m going to be on it, totally in the right place, when things go down. Meet the right people, rise up the ranks, make more and more money…”

This was...yikes, wow...really turning him on. Secretly he loved hearing Angie embellish her own ego like this. Her boastful narcissism - she was constantly convinced that she was the smartest person in the room - was just always so hot to him. And he wasn’t nearly sure what she was talking about, but he loved how excited she sounded and how, in the face of his recent career troubles, how powerful she wanted to become. When had he gotten this way? When had he gotten to be such a junkie for the, well, submissive thrill he felt hearing a woman talk about being smart, successful...superior?

“Yeah, well, t-they’ve given me some responsibility too…” he found himself saying, maybe out of a reflexive knee-jerk reaction, some male pride bubbling weakly to the surface, “They’re having us tear out the old HVAC systems, and have me inspecting the venting, some of the thermostats...” Angie was letting him talk, possessively stroking his head, so he just continued. “Supposedly they’re putting in a new central one that’ll handle the whole building,” he explained, “be able to put some sort of aromatherapy into it. Weird, huh?”

“Aromatherapy, huh?” Angie asked, her interest piqued - and betrayed by a new purr, “In the air-conditioning?” She continued to pet his head, and drew in a little closer to him as she thought to herself. “Can you find out...any more about that for me?“

“Oh, uh, yeah...sure…” he agreed, though not really sure what he could do. Lots of this project seemed so under-wraps, at least from the guys. He hadn’t laid eyes on much in the way of blueprints or tech sheets or whatever.

“Good boy…” she praised, speaking plainly, “pull down your pants.”

Suddenly, AJ’s heart leapt. Was he about to get some?? Here in a storage closet?? Ha he’d take anything he could get these days, he thought to himself as he clumsily unzipped his thick, loose-fit utility pants, started to pull them down.

“B-boxers too?” he asked.

“Sure,” Angie allowed, and in a moment they were down at his knees, too. His erection already stood proud; of that he was glad. He wanted her to know how much she turned him on. But, then he thought - how had they gotten here? Didn’t she used to be the swooning drama nerd in high school, who’d barely been on his radar? The one who used to have the crush on him??

“A-Angie…?” he began.

“Shush, quiet,” she said, “grab your cock.”

“Wh-what?” he stammered, knowing exactly what she wanted him to do, “n-no I’m not going to, like, j-jerk off here in a cl-“

“Yes you will,” she stated, her confidence only making him harder, as she physically took his hand and planted it on his erection, balling it into a fist around his turgid shaft, “because you're submissive, just like him, and you’ll do exactly what I say...just like he will, some day.”

”I-I’m n-not,,,’submissive’..!” he bristled, male ego once again raising its battered head in the face of insult and jealousy. Like, what did she mean, ‘just like he will’??

“Okay sure, you’re not submissive,” she chuckled, laughing unpleasantly at his little snit, “prove it.”

With that, Angie took AJ’s full head between her hands, palms on his face and manicured fingers stretching back behind his head, and faced him solidly into her plumply bulging cleavage.

“Now stroke,” she directed, and to his own aghast he couldn’t help but obey. He’d been conditioned, over these past months, helpless when confronted by her, powerless to defy her will...especially when she used her tits. What was wrong with him??? In his hand, with his eyes plastered on the pale, soft flesh of her big breasts, his cock suddenly became even more needy, ached immediately for release. He groaned, both in spleen at himself and this crippling arousal.

She laughed again. “Not submissive, hm?” she purred, “Look at you. You're totally dominated by women. You’re working for women now, you do everything women tell you to do. At the job here, in bed with me…”

”hey..!” he began to protest, eyes rising for the moment, looking for hers, “I thought you liked-”

“Oh, I do, we all do,” she capitulated, shaking her hair over her shoulder with a toss of her head, redirecting his gaze back to her chest, “we love when the roles start reversing like this. Like you, getting to be my little bitch.”

“h-h-heyyyy…” he began to protest, but his voice faded, most of his fight lost between her E-cups.

“Aww, don’t feel badly,” she said, “I’ve been reading up on this. I really think men in general are getting more submissive, turning more beta, just watching as women take charge more. The doctor here included. Look what he’s done - or let happen. This whole place is run by girls.”

“H-h-huh…” AJ stammered dumbly, not even realizing he’d fallen into a rhythm, stroking himself, staring at Angie’s breasts.

“This is my chance, to get in, to take my piece,” she pronounced, ego swelling her bosom like a deep breath, “I’m so fucking alpha, I could run this place.”

”oh, uh, y-yeah..?” he spoke, bewitched and befuddled by every ripple and jiggle under her skin.

“You men like me to be in charge, don’t you? The thought of a woman boss?” she pressed, “You’d all never admit it but it gets you excited, how the women here - everywhere - are really the ones running the show, that any male authority is really just a thin facade, ready to be, like, cracked.”

“Oh my god Angie,” AJ moaned, now in the full grip of arousal, starting to pump himself with more abandon as Angie’s words struck chords with him neither he nor she had yet heard. Angie was experimenting, learning.

“Women have always been the ones to take up responsibilities, accept them and take them on, when men fail. We’ve been getting more able, more and more competent, while you all just, like, get lazy and dumb and shrink away,” she said, watching how his eyes were glazing over, his face going slack. Still he stared at her tits.  “And you know the best part? It fucking turns you all on. You like getting weaker, losing responsibility and authority, your lives getting smaller as ours get bigger…”

“J-j-jesus Angie yes,” he stammered, mouth fully gaping now, his whole body shaking as he jacked off to her, to this vision of women.

She pulled his face closer. “Look at my tits. Look how big they are, look how deep and dark my cleavage is,” she commanded, “I’ll bet you wish you could shrink down and sink in there. Just become a little man and live between your girlfriend’s tits.”

“A-Angie n-n-n-...” he began, trying to deny but unable to come up with a sentence, in the face of the shame.

“Shhh, I know. I know what kind of porn guys have been into these days. I know what kind you’ve been into,” she said, “the shrinking, the bodybuilders, the giantesses…”

“unnh...unnnh…” he grunted, vision starting to close in, laser focused between her tits.

“And our breasts,” she continued, but knowing she had him close, “When did you become so obsessed with breasts? Even when you sleep, they’re there, aren’t they? Vision of my breasts swim in your head all night long.”

It was true. Her boobs were all he dreamed about. He moaned in forbearance and began to shudder.

“It’s true,” she said, her words echoing his thoughts, right as his climax began to crest, “It totally is. It’s why you wake up in the middle of the night sucking your own thumb. You want to be our fucking babies…”.

That was it, that was the final blow, and AJ could take no more. He groaned, finally closed his eyes, and came. His body lurched, shook, and cum shot up out of his cock.

Angie backed off, an inch, his head still in her hands. “There you go,” she said, plainly, “don’t get it on my dress.”

AJ, for himself, opened his eyes again, now jerking himself through it while staring into her tits again. He didn’t want to get it on her dress, so he pointed it back at himself, soiling his hand, his belly, his thigh.

“That’s right, get it all out,” she employed, patience now starting to wear thin, a new edge sharpening her voice. Though his climax still had him, she released his head, backing off another step. Her hands went to her top, pulling her neckline now more fully up over her breasts. “Finish up…”

AJ groaned in distress, his orgasm waning but ruined in its final moments. He just wanted those tits to bury himself into, and she was stepping away...

“Mommy’s got to go,” she said, finally, looking down at herself, shimmying herself back into some semblance of modesty, “Now, Aaron. This is it for us. I’m through.”

“w-w-wait whut?” AJ sputtered, confused, as his cock - just starting to deflate - leaked its final jisms onto his hand.

“I said I’m, like, done,” Angie said, straightly, looking down at him again, “You’ve been the perfect toy to practice on, and I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t been fun. But I’m moving on, to bigger and better things.”

“Wait, no…” AJ managed, sobering quickly in shock but still struggling to grasp what was happening, “...are you...b-breaking up with me?”

“Yep,” she said, no hint of empathy softening her words as she watched the guy she’d lived with, the man she’d broken, start to shake. He was flailing, looking down at himself, at his mess, unsure what to do.

She reached out, grabbed a team of paper towels, and tossed it at him. “Here, clean up.”

“Angie, wait,” he tried, pulling several sheets out and starting to wipe himself down. She can’t do this, not now..! he thought, What will I do? Where will I live?? He had to stop her. “Let’s-“

“No, I’m done waiting,” she stopped him, turning away, hand already reaching for the door, grabbing the handle. An image of Melissa, her last Instagram post, flashed into her mind, made Angie seethe. “I’ve got things to do.”

And then he was alone.

=============================

sorry for the poor image quality, ‘twas the best I could do.

more stuff, newer posts at my Patreon

[saffron-nova21]

X. Waking Up

Remember Me Masterlist

< Previous Chapter • Next Chapter >

Warnings: Strong language, angst, Suna is an asshole. It’s gonna hurt. :)

The first Light Mode is Shinsuke and call/second Light Mode screenshot is Y/N

Dark Mode is the twins.

It had been two really long weeks. And in that short span of time, you’d lost your best friend and most everyone at school’s support. Everyone loved the volleyball team, and by extension, Atsumu Miya. After coming up with their own assumptions about how you’d hurt the twin, they turned their back on you.

Even the volleyball club had.

The only person you had backing you up, currently, was Shinsuke. And even then, sometimes you wondered if he wasn’t beginning to waver as well.

That didn’t matter right now, though. Losing most every friend you had didn’t matter, at all, right now. Because Rintarō was waking up. And he’d know what to do. Suna Rin always knew what to do, when it came to making you feel better.

That didn’t matter right now, though. Losing most every friend you had didn’t matter, at all, right now. Because Rintarō was waking up. And he’d know what to do. Suna Rin always knew what to do, when it came to making you feel better.

In a few moments, you’d find all that hope that swelled up in your chest absolutely crushed.

   Though currently, all you were concerned with was the elated feeling of knowing that your boyfriend was awake and he was okay. You’d finally get to hug him again, to take naps with him, and to sit on his lap after a long, hard day. You’d finally get him back. And after two long weeks of feeling shunned by pretty much everyone within your school, you desperately needed him.

   After you’d been allowed into the room, you looked around, noticing Rintarō was sitting on the edge of his bed, talking to Rei, who brightened immediately as she pointed towards you in excitement. Everyone missed the look of confusion on Rintarō’s face. His father was talking to the doctor, while his mother was standing near, listening to the conversation. But after seeing you, she just smiles, a few happy tears trailing down her cheeks. It had been two weeks, a short amount of time, seemingly. But every one of those days had dragged by like and eternity, everyone hopeful, as each day came and passed, that this would be the day he woke up.

   Nodding at you and waving you on, the older woman shoos you toward your boyfriend. With that encouragement, you take a few steps forward, moving in front of him to wrap your arms around his neck, being wary of his injuries. “I missed you so fucking much.” You whisper into the crook of his neck, so caught up in your emotions that you hadn’t noticed the way he tensed up, until it was too late.

   “I’m so glad you’re awake, I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you, Rin. The team misses you, as well. The twins have been driving Shinsuke cra -”

   His reaction is delayed, but as soon as he’s able to regain himself, he’s shoving you off of him and giving you a look of clear annoyance, effectively silencing you. “Don’t fucking touch me.” He spits, brushing himself off lazily, as if you’d soiled his clothes just by touching them. “Excuse me, do I fucking know you?”

   You furrow your brows, looking at him for a moment in confusion. Was he joking? Your eyes flicker to his mother, who looks just as surprised by his hostility towards you as you do. Your eyes shift back to him hesitantly, to which he responds with a scoff. “Are you brainless? When asked a question, you’re usually supposed to answer, you know?” His tone was one you hadn’t ever heard from him. It was condescending.

   All of the hope that Suna could make things right, with how dull your life had gotten, recently, dissipated. Instead, the weight on your shoulders grew and it felt like it was going to crush you at any given moment. You can’t find it in you to speak for a moment, finding it hard to even breath. Though with a tug on your sleeve from the eight year old beside you, you shake your head and respond... Well, as well as you can, at least.

   “Rintarō, I’m... We’re... We’ve...” You can’t quite manage to speak through your distress and confusion.

   So, Rei speaks for you. “Rinny, this is Y/N, don’t be silly! You two have been dating for like a whole... Two years!” She grins happily, not quite reading the room. Though she was eight, that was to be expected. “You’re gonna marry them, remember?” The little girl takes your hand and shows off the dark promise ring on your finger. 

   Rintarō’s eyes soften as he looks down at his little sister, a smile crossing his lips. “Hey, kid, why don’t you take mom and dad and go get us some sodas? I’m parched.” 

   Rei watches him suspiciously for a moment, before smiling and turning to you, grinning. “You want a drink, Y/N-chan?”

   Swallowing the lump in your throat, you can’t look away from Suna as he locks you in an intense gaze. “No, I’m good, Rei. You go ahead...”

   His parents frown a bit at the thought of leaving you both alone, with Rintarō’s hostility, but they both cave, when Rei starts tugging on their arms, dragging them out of the room, the doctor quickly following behind.

   Suna stands slowly, making you shrink and take a step back from him, still trying to process - why couldn’t he remember you?

   “Doctor mentioned some shit about amnesia. Roughly four or five years of lost memories.” He states, eyeing you and raising an eyebrow. “You’re attractive, I’ll give you that. So what was it? A bet? Friends with benefits?” Rintarō crosses his arms as he eyes you over, watching your confusion further.

   You finally manage to speak. Though it’s hard with the way your heart has dropped to the floor and with the lump in your throat, just barely containing more tears shed. Why, on top of everything else? “What? What do you mean?”

   He scoffs and runs a hand through his dark hair. “Come on. I wouldn’t actually date anyone for so long, without some benefit.” He laughs a bit in amusement, shaking his head as he looks at you. “Wait... You’re serious? I actually gave you that shit?” His pointed gaze shifts to your hand.

   You nod and let out a shaky breath. “There was no bet, Rintarō... I... I can show you pictures of our dates and all of our texts, if you want, but... We... We’re a couple... We’re happy.”

   Rintarō continues to watch you through lazy eyes. “Were. We were a couple. We were happy. Past tense, darling. I don’t even know your name.”

   “Y/N... Y/N Kita.” You respond quickly. “Look, it’s - it’s fine that you don’t remember me, but... Will the amnesia wear off?” 

   “Doctor says probably so. Could take a while. He also said hearing people talk about memories we had might help.” He shrugs nonchalantly. “Hurry up and get out your phone, I want to see that supposed proof.” He holds his hand out for you, no room for question resting in his tone.

   Gingerly handing your phone over, Rintarō lets out a sigh, noticing you’d forgotten to unlock your phone. Though to both of your surprise, he opens it, typing in the code with ease. Then, he scrolls through your phones, spotting the familiar screen and apps, finally finding your photos. “You have me as your background? Really?” He spares you a short glance, before looking through your photos, most of them with him. “If I’m your boyfriend, who’s this? With the piss colored hair.” 

   “Atsumu. He’s got a twin named Osamu. We’re all second years at Inarizaki. We play volleyball with them. He’s... He was my best friend.” You rub your arm uncomfortably as you stand there.

   Rintarō nods, letting out a hum of acknowledgment, before going to your texts and finding his contact, tapping on it. “Clingy thing, aren’t you?” He notes, before beginning to read through.

   It’s a long few moments before he speaks again, shutting off your phone and handing it to you. “Do you remember anything?” You ask, attentively monitoring his expression.

   Shrugging, his lips quirk up a bit in a lazy smirk, “No, but like I said. Doc said it might come back. So, let’s hear more about this relationship of ours.”

   As much relief washed over you at his words, you were completely unaware that this wasn’t the Suna you had met three years ago, who had matured enough to allow himself to get close to you and eventually fall in love with you. This wasn’t the Suna Rintarō who you’d fallen in love with. This was a very different person, in every sense of those words. 

Rintarō doesn’t curse at you, or around you, really. Anyone who knows him, knows he can have a foul mouth. But, he tries to be better for you.

Rintarō matured a lot, over the course of the two years that you both dated, and even the year that you both new one another, before you started dating.

Yeah, that follow from Kuroo, a couple of chapters ago? That’ll be coming into play soon 😊

Well, I hope you guys are enjoying! Sorry I didn’t post yesterday or today. It honestly slipped my mind! So I hope you’re ready for a multitude of chapters, soon! 😅

You guys better be getting something to eat, drinking some water, and taking care of yourselves mentally and physically! Remember, I’m proud of you, no matter what, and I love you! You’re doing great, love! Keep it up! 🤍

Taglist:

@kookie-doughs @halesandy @ermahgerd-larry-and-ziam @kac-chowsballs @saltylettuce @its-the-aerieljeane @javj @ash-levi @babyshoyo @hiraeth-z @random-fandom-girl-24 @kodzuklutz @tsukkiswifeey

[lifeofroos]

Part 34: This chapter is made up of two parts: The first part is just your dose of This Might Be Crazy. The second part is a story I wrote years ago, which I think fits the main story. 

In short: Nico gets therapy from Dionysus. In this chapter, sits down for a talk with Hephaestus. The rest can be found on AO3 and FanFiction.net! Also in Tumblr tags like Nico di Angelo, Dionysus, fanfic etc. 

This Might Be Crazy: Chapter 34: Cappuchino 

I knocked on the gates to Hepaestus’ workshop. The doors opened without making a  sound. I peeked inside. There was no-one to be seen, but I did hear the sound of a hammer hitting an anvil. I didn’t know whether that was because Hephaestus was working on something or if it was just for dramatic effect. 

Slowly, I walked inside. As soon as I was a few metres in, the gates began to close, causing me to quickly jump further into the workshop. With a slow thud, the doors closed behind me. 

A little shaken through, I looked around. ‘Eh…’

Out of nowhere, an automaton in the shape of a giant insect appeared in front of me. ‘Do you have an appointment?’ 

I stared at it. ‘Not exactly…’

‘Then you leave.’

‘Hey! I did not come without cause! I got something for Hephaestus!’

The automaton did not budge. ‘No appointment…’

‘Let him in.’ The automaton dissappeared at once, while Hephaestus limped into the room. In the background, the hammering went on (Which meant that it was definitely for dramatic effect). 

Hephaestus studied me from head to toe. ‘Nico di Angelo, right?’

I nodded. ‘Yes.’ I could not see his entire body. There wasn’t enough light. I wondered whether Hephaestus had done that on purpose. 

He scratched his ear. ‘What is it?’

‘Eh… I need decorations for a cabinet.’ I wasn’t going to mention that I got it from IKEA. 

‘I can do that. Is it at camp?’

‘Yes, in my cabin.’

Hephaestus nodded. He snapped his fingers and in a second my cabinet appeared. 

He laid his hand on the top for a second. ‘Hm. I know what I can do with this.’ He looked back at me. ‘Maybe you should come with me while I work.’

I nodded while I walked after him. 

After five minutes of watching Hephaestus work fast as lighting, I scraped my throat. ‘You know I get therapy from Dionysus, right?’

‘Therapy, is that what you call it?’ The blacksmith looked up from his work for a second. 

‘Yes.’ 

‘Hm. When I had it, they just called it ‘dragging you back to your senses.’’

‘Ah-ha. Eh, that is what I came here to talk about, actually.’

Hephaestus let his work rest and leaned back for a second. His metal brace clicked. 

‘I am not ashamed that I needed his help. But neither am I ashamed of what I did that made him realise I needed it. It might have been wrong, it might still be wrong, but I am not ashamed.’

He meant tying Hera to her throne as revenge. Right. ‘I think I understand.’ 

‘I don’t think you do.’ He coughed and adjusted his leg brace. I did not see what needed to be adjusted, but okay. 

‘You probably know the story. All the gods try to get me to free Hera. They all fail, except for young Dionysus, who managed to get me so drunk that I willingly came along. Except, no.’

I was confused by the last sentence for a second. ‘He… you mean he didn’t get you drunk?’

‘Does he intoxicate you? Of course not. Neither did he intoxicate me. The other gods just couldn’t fathom the fact that he had been a puny mortal so soon before.’ Softly, his hands stroked the silver decorations he had just attached to my cabinet.

‘Eh, this does not surprise me,’ I said after a pause.

‘I am not surprised it does not. You seem clever enough.’ He coughed again. I moved back a little. 

‘Hm.’ He snapped his fingers. A table came walking over, with two cups of cappuccino on top.

I took my cup, even though I had little interest in drinking it. The last cup of coffee I had gotten from Hephaestus was abhorent. I did not expect this one to be much better.

‘I don’t think he knew what to expect when he came to see me,’ Hephaestus continued, ‘Maybe someone in a fury, maybe someone who was depressed. Probably something in between. But no matter what, he treated me like it didn’t matter. The way he would treat any other guy. Came by, helped out in the workshop…’ the blacksmith rolled his eyes for a second, ‘... So called help, at least. Half of the time he was ‘helping’ me, he was an inconvenience. But when I needed someone to talk to…’ he shrugged. ‘You know that yourself.’

‘Yes.’ I did. 

He took a sip of cappuccino. ‘Well, slowly, we get onto the subject of Hera. Why I had chained her up, what it did with me to live with my actions, and what would be the best thing to do next.’ He took another thoughtful sip. ‘Dionysus did not want to talk about what would be best for the universe. He meant what was best for me.’ Hephaestus shrugged. ‘Now, that turned out to be the best for the universe as well. Yet, I know I would have been worse off if I had kept Hera chained up.’

I raised my eyebrows. The universe would have been worse with Hera chained up?

‘You can look at me like that, but it is the truth, young man.’ 

Sure, sure, balance and all that. I took the tini-tiniest sip of my cappuccino. And would you have it, it actually tasted good. 

‘Eventually, I was the person who said we should go back to Olympus. Now, that wasn’t easy for two outcasts. We had to travel by donkey, which…’ he sighed. ‘But still, he kept helping me. Kept talking to me. And I began to feel like we would get to Olympus, and it would be fine.’ 

There was something in his tone that got me concerned. ‘What happened next?’

‘You’re an observatory young man. What happened is that your therapist, as you call him, caught a horrible fever, so that I had to take care of him instead of the other way around.’ 

Wait. What? Dionysus had been immortal at this point. ‘How did he even catch a fever?’

‘He must have been more mortal then he seemed. I…’ the god sighed, a little sad. ‘I was worried. It might have been the most worried I have been in my entire life. He was terribly ill and I was afraid I would lose him. After all that happened, I couldn’t afford to. If he would have died, I would have gone back.’

‘But… he didn’t.’

‘No, he didn’t. That is why I am the blacksmith of the gods, Hera is free, nature grows as before and my friend got to live his life.’ 

The god took a sip of his cappuccino.

‘Sorry for asking,’ I muttered. I stared into my cup.

‘It’s okay. I was actually expecting you to come over someday, after what I said when you were here with Hades.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘And I know you won’t blab.’ 

‘Of course not!’ 

‘Good.’ He looked at my cabinet. ‘I just need a few more minutes.’

‘Take all the time you need.’ 

Indeed a few minutes later, my cabinet was just the way I wanted it. ‘Here. I hope you get some use out of it.’

‘I will.’

‘Good.’ He wiped his hands on a cloth. ‘I also hope you learned something today.’

‘I think I did.’ 

‘Hm. If you take away anything, please let it be that Dionysus wants to help you for you. Not for anyone else.’

I nodded, a little slow. 

Hephaestus gave me a single nod. ‘Okay. Then Sierra will see you out.’ 

The automaton from earlier appeared in a second.

Swiftly, I stood up. I scooped up my cappuccino and took a large gulp. ‘Okay, Thanks, bye!’

‘The cabinet will follow you.’

Thanks, that is horrifying. I walked after the automaton, to the gates of the forge. 

When I was back in my cabin, I stared at my cabinet and thought. Yes, I learned something today. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A/N: Bonus chapter, maybe? Anyway, Leo and Hephaestus story, which I wrote ages ago and I thought fitted the This Might Be Crazy chapter. 

Leo was alone in bunker 9, repairing something for Frank which he had promised to repair ages ago. It didn’t go so well, even though repairing a sword was usually brainless work. His mind was constantly trailing off. A lot of things went wrong the past few days. Aside from screwing a few screws the wrong way and latting a vat of mild greek fire explode, he had forgotten Annabeth’s birthday, camp half-blood’s 3900 year anniversary and the weekly get-together of the Hephaestus cabin, and who knows what else that people just had not told him about yet. 

The third time Leo accidently hit himself with his hammer, he screamed and angrily threw it across the room. ‘Curse this whole damned world and everything that can go wrong in it!’ He screeched. 

‘That’s not very nice. I didn’t expect to hear that from you.’ Leo gasped and turned around. Hephaestus had appeared behind him. 

Leo lowered his arms. ‘I am sorry if....’ 

Hephaestus shook his head.  ‘I think you are having some problems with the world around you.’ Leo nodded.

‘I just can’t seem to remember my appointments, I drop everything I hold and now my thumb is bleeding as well.’

‘We can fix your bleeding thumb.’ Hephaestus pulled a band-aid out of thin air and put it around his sons’ finger. ‘So. Slightly better?’ 

Leo shrugged. ‘I guess it is one issue less.’

Hephaestus nodded a bit. ‘One step at the time. Someone told me that once.’

‘Someone did?’ Leo looked up when there came no answer. The gods’ gaze was muddled, as if he was somewhere else with his thoughts. 

‘Thetis, I can’t tell you how thankful I am that you allowed me to live in your house but I have to leave. I need to get back to Olympus.’

 Hephaestus looked at the nymph in front of him, who was rubbing her hands together.  ‘Are you sure about this, Hephaestus? Your mother threw you out, back when... aren’t you afraid she’ll do it again?’ The god shook his head. 

‘I have a plan. It will be okay.’ The nymph sighed. ‘Take care and don’t forget that if things go wrong up there, you’ll always have a place here, where I live.’ She gave him a small smile. 

‘I will. And I’ll never forget that you were the one who raised me and cared for me, I promise.’ 

Thetis’ smile became broader. ‘Have a save trip, Hephaestus.’

‘Dad? Dad!’ Leo’s voice brought Hephaestus back to reality. 

‘What? Oh, I was just thinking about something.’  the god scraped his throat. ‘Have you taken a moment to think about why you have been forgetting your appointments?’ He asks. Leo shrugged. 

‘Not really, I guess. It just keeps happening.’

‘Maybe you should think about it for a little while.’ 

‘Alright.’ Leo looked at his hands, and quickly trailed off in thought, not realizing that the same happened to his father.

The other Olympians stared at Hephaestus with wide eyes. Some of them backed away. Hephaestus was looking at his mother. She was furious, afraid and a little sad at the same time. Hephaestus took a deep breath. ‘Once again, thanks for the way you treated me, mother. And to the others: don’t try to release her, because nothing will work.’ He looked around the room one more time, before walking away. No-one dared to say anything.

With a start, Hephaestus looked up. Leo was talking.

‘I did have a lot of appointments the past few weeks and I must confess that I didn’t write those down anywhere. Yet, that doesn’t explain why I forgot our cabin meeting or the anniversary of Camp Half-blood, because everyone was talking about those all day long. It is not like I had a lot of projects that were distracting me. I mean, maybe…’

Four gods had already tried to persuade him into freeing Hera. Ares had threatened him, Athena had tried to reason, Poseidon had told him he would flood the forge and Demeter had said she would let all the plants around the forge die. None of it had had any effect. 

Hephaestus looked over at the door, just as the fifth ambassador walked into the workshop. He looked extremely young and somehow didn’t feel like the others. He wasn’t mortal, but he wasn’t fully immortal either.

He didn’t say anything, until Hephaestus spoke: ‘If you are here just to ask me to free Hera, just go away already and don’t waste my or your own time.’ 

‘That’s not why I am here.’ Hephaestus shook his head. 

‘Then why are you? Listen, kid, four gods have tried to persuade me the last few weeks. So just get onto that, alright?’ The stranger chuckled.

‘My lord, I am not here for that, and even if I was, I do not think there is a lot I could do. I do not have Athena’s wit or Poseidons’ power over the sea. And I could not try fighting you if I wanted to. Why, you are at least fifty centimetres taller than I am.’

‘I…’ Hephaestus stopped talking. He hadn’t realized that this stranger was, in fact, very small compared to him. Actually, he seemed to be the same height as most mortals (maybe even on the slightly short side), which confused him even more. He narrowed his eyes. ‘You might be right. Tell me your name and what you want.’

‘... and I think that might be why I have forgotten nearly everything in the last few weeks.’ Hephaestus jerked his head up. He hadn’t heard anything Leo just said. His son sarcastically raised his eyebrows. ‘So I think I might get a diary, ask people to remind me of my appointments and make sure I work extra carefully the next couple of days.’ Leo smirked. ‘You know, dad, you were right. This whole thinking thing really works. Now, can you tell me what you were thinking about?’ 

Hephaestus shrugged. ‘You notice more than people think.’ Leo nodded.

‘I tend to.’ 

‘We are really walking all the way from Lemnos to Olympus, so I can free Hera from her throne.’ 

Dionysus sighed. ‘True. It is strange that we are technically helping the other Olympians now. I mean, what have they ever done for us? We are outcasts, we don’t have any fancy flying chariots or great magic like they do and they are still relying on us for help!’ 

Hephaestus laughed. ‘I guess that is the Olympians for you!’ He sighed. ‘Another thing. Deep inside, I want to be an Olympian and I don’t know why. Maybe it is the feeling of inclusion?’ Hephaestus turned his head to his companion, who had stopped walking. ‘Dio? What do you think?’ The other god sighed as well. 

‘Could be. For me, I think... I just became a god, you know. No warning, no-one asking me if I even wanted to, nothing. Maybe I am reaching for Olympus because if I have to be a god, why not go the full way?’ 

Hephaestus nodded. ‘You might be right. So, how far do you think we can get today?’

‘I was thinking about my own past. I was cast out as a small child and it didn’t seem like I had anybody I could trust on Olympus.’ 

Leo slowly nodded and beckoned his father to continue. ‘After chaining Hera up and retrieving to Lemnos, I only really cared about my forge, not about anything else. Not even myself.’ Hephaestus thought for a second. ‘Well, I think I cared about Thetis and about my donkey. Yet, Thetis wasn’t there, and my donkey… was a donkey. The person who showed me how to care again was Dionysus. He hung around the blacksmith just because he appreciated me and he was the one who got me so far that I admitted I wanted to go back to Olympus and right what I did wrong. He showed me some people did care about me. About me, and not just about what I did. It made me care for him as well.’ 

It was nighttime, but Hephaestus was wide awake. A few metres away from him, Dionysus was finally asleep. They were close to Olympus now, only about two days of walking away, but they had not moved forward at all in a week. Dionysus had caught a fever, and there was no way he would be able to climb Olympus in his current state. 

Dionysus moved and yelped in his sleep. Hephaestus sighed. He didn’t know if fever dreams were always this bad, or if they were worse because of Dionysus’ relation to madness. With a scream, his friend woke up, just half an hour after falling asleep. Hephaestus quickly moved over. Dionysus stared at him with damp eyes. ‘Dionysus….’

‘It will go away, it always does.’ He shivered and Hephaestus quickly put another blanket over him. ‘Are you sure? I did occasionally meet mortals every now and then, back on Lemnos, you know. A lot of them had relatives or friends who had caught a fever, and they had...’ Hephaestus swallowed. ‘I don’t want you to die, Dionysus. Please, you can’t die, you can’t.’ Dionysus closed his eyes. Yet, he was smiling. 

‘I probably could have gotten that from anybody else as well. But I didn’t. I began to trust Dionysus and he never broke that trust once during our entire trip from Lemnos to Olympus.’ 

Hephaestus walked into the throne room, with Dionysus by his side. The gods turned their heads, every single one of them surprised. Hephaestus didn’t say anything. He walked over to Hera’s throne, spoke a few words and the cables loosened. It took a few seconds before she felt comfortable enough to step down. ‘Thanks...’ 

‘Keep your thanks,’ Hephaestus muttered. The other Olympians began crowding around Dionysus, glad that there was someone they could safely call a hero. The wine god looked over at Hephaestus, who nodded. 

‘After I got back on Olympus, the other gods quickly got used to me. Hermes and some others made the effort to get to know me, and slowly I found my place. Sometimes, I still feel like I don’t belong, or that I am just a nuisance. But then there is always Dionysus, who is there to support me.’ Hephaestus stopped talking. Leo was listening with his mouth open.

‘That was a wild history lesson, dad.’ Hephaestus smiled. 

‘I hope you learned something from it.’  

‘I sure did.’ He jumped up. ‘But now I have to go buy a diary in the store and apologize to a few people. Thanks again, dad. I hope you’ll come visit me some more.’ Leo ran out of bunker 9, leaving his dad behind. Hephaestus hardly noticed his son was gone at first, until he sighed, with a little smile. 

‘You are a god.’ Hephaestus nodded, while he looked into the gorgeous eyes of Esperanza Valdez. The woman stayed calm, as if she knew all along.  Hephaestus laid his hand on her cheek. ‘I can’t stay for much longer.’ He tried to smile. ‘Please stay safe, Esperanza. I want you to live a happy life.’ She laughed. 

‘I hope so, too.’ She gave him a kiss on the cheek, before he left. 

From up on mount Olympus, he could see her. She stood by the door for a long time, with a hand on her belly, before she walked back into the house. 

A/N: I freakin’ love the tale of Dionysus and Hephaestus. If I ever write a retelling of greek mythology it would be about the tale of Dionysus and Hephaestus. They are my boys.  

Okay so, myth-accurately, Dionysus gets Hephaestus drunk. Except I dislike that version so I made my own (sue me). Also Dionysus didn’t catch a fever, that is just for the drama (again, sue me).

I must have written the second part at least three years ago. Of course, I re-wrote it for a bit, but it surprises me how many elements of it survived the test of time. 

[zenithlux]

Cadence CH 4

Catch up on the story here!

I’ve gotta keep the calm before the storm, I don’t want less, I don’t want more Must bar the windows and the doors To keep me safe, to keep me warm

Head Above Water - Avril Lavigne

While Aki was only a few blocks away, Dante’s endless chatter made the walk feel miles longer. Vergil didn’t quite understand it. His brother had always been a talker, even as a child. Most of the time, Vergil simply ignored his ramblings, but Roxy was responding to everything. And that didn’t make much sense either, as she was clearly embarrassed and still in pain. Every few sentences, she’d suck in a sharp breath, regain her thoughts, and finish with a much quicker answer than she probably wanted. 

And, as much as Vergil wanted to ignore both of them… his mind wouldn’t let him. Because Dante was asking all the right questions, and that bothered Vergil more than the chatter. 

“So he was a gift from your father?” Dante said.

“Yep,” She said. “Tenth birthday.”

“So your dad worked with demons or…?”

“He studied them, yeah,” She said. “His best friend was an old demon witch doctor.”

“Is that so?”

“Diadona,” She said. “We still talk now and again.”

“What about demons interested him?”

“Dad believed that he could harness demonic energy to heal others,” she said. Another sharp breath, but this time, she continued as if it hadn't happened. “Since most demons have much stronger healing factors than humans, my father was testing the possibility of using blood to cure certain illnesses or even transplants to save a person’s life.”

“Transplants?” Vergil said. Now that was something he hadn’t heard of. The idea of implanting a piece of a demon into a human seemed… peculiar. It wasn’t like his and Dante’s devil forms that they could slip in and out of with little effort. This was figuring out how to integrate demonic organs into an incompatible host. “Was he successful?”

“On a very small scale,” She said. “I can’t recall any human tests, but he had been working with primates around the time of his death so…” Her eyes fell to Dante’s shoulder. “I was hoping I’d get his work as part of the inheritance, but it all vanished before I could see it for myself. Diadona was furious, and blamed my mother. But mother blamed me for… well…” She paused. “It’s too long of a story for this walk.”

“Naaah we get it,” Dante said with a light shrug. Roxy winced, and Vergil noticed an actual spasm in her lower back. Regular humans wouldn’t have seen it. But when Vergil’s eyes locked with Dante’s for the briefest of moments, he knew he had felt something too. “We don’t talk about our pops very often either.”

Vergil bristled at that. He expected the questions to start the second that sentence left his brother’s lips. Who’s that? Where is he? Do you know? On and on and on... He could think of dozens on his own. But, Roxy’s curt nod and quiet smile caught him completely off-guard. “I’m glad I got to spend the time with him that I did. He told all kinds of amazing stories.” She paused again. “I guess it helped me see the world a bit better.”

“What was his favorite story?” Dante said as they rounded the corner. Aki had migrated to the rooftop at the end of the block, staring down into a plaza. Vergil heard the faint sounds of lesser demons and knew this agonizing walk would be…

“He met Sparda when he was a teenager.”

Vergil nearly choked. Dante burst into laughter. Roxy blinked, confused. “Is something wrong?”

“What did he think of him?” Dante said. 

Roxy tilted her head in thought. “He said he was in awe at first, and really nervous. But Sparda was welcoming, and answered all of his questions.” She shrugged. “He only saw him once, but I think that’s what convinced my father to pursue that line of research.” 

“Did you meet him?”

“Sparda?” She shook her head. “Father said he disappeared about 15 years before I was born.”

Vergil assumed that was around the time their parents met, as Sparda had chosen to seclude the family in an attempt to protect them. It had worked for a while, but…

“How old are you?” Vergil said.

Dante practically screeched to a halt before whirling on his brother. “Vergil!” He said with a disappointed click of his tongue. Roxy winced after another, small spasm. This time, however, Dante didn’t notice. “You never ask a lady her age!”

“32,” Roxy said.

Dante groaned, glaring over his shoulder before he turned back around. “You can’t let him get away with that.”

“It’s a simple answer.”

“Well sure, but...”

“Enough,” Vergil said as he blinked to the end of the path. As expected, a group of three empusas were there, drinking an absurd amount of blood. Demonic, Vergil thought. The smell was undeniable. The red sacs on their backs were engorged with fluids, but Vergil could see swirls of black beneath; an excess of demonic blood. They wouldn’t last long. 

“Weaklings,” Vergil muttered. 

“Works for me,” Roxy slid gracefully off Dante’s back. She flinched as she landed, but walked past them both with confidence. Again, the twins exchanged glances. Except this time, Vergil wasn’t certain what was going through Dante’s mind. He was still smiling, but his eyes were clouded in thought. Was he concerned with her well-being, or lost in some other random idea that had nothing to do with the situation?

Vergil shook the thought off. No use considering it. 

“So, sunshine,” Dante said. "What's the plan?" Vergil glared at him, and Dante rolled his eyes. “Why did you of all people respond to that?”

Vergil huffed and looked away. Roxy held her hand up and whistled; a loud, short sound that echoed more than Vergil expected. The empusas’ heads shot up in confusion. A streak of purple shot off the rooftop above them, and Aki chirped once as he dove straight for her hand. A milli-second before they collided, he vanished in a flicker of bright light. In his place was a gray bow that rippled with demonic energy. Purple light swirled around the strings in an endless pulse of energy between both sides of the weapon. Metallic, purple and gray feathers fanned out from the otherwise simple grip. It was much larger than Vergil expected, given the small stature of the demon that had turned into it. But Roxy held it with ease, unbothered by the fact that it was only about a foot shorter than she was. And, to be entirely fair, it was less ridiculous than most of Dante’s devil arms, so it really wasn’t all that fantastical.

The fact that she could summon it with such ease despite her weakened state was infinitely more interesting. 

No, He chided himself. Not interesting. Insightful.

He imagined Griffon snorting at that. “Whatever you say, Shakespeare.”

“Damn,” Dante said. “That’s pretty nice.”

Roxy chuckled as she snapped her fingers. A trio of arrows appeared. A couple of empusas scrambled away. One just stood there, either too full of blood to move, or too brainless to realize what was happening. “I do apologize,” Roxy said as she nocked all three arrows with little effort. The bow shifted to accommodate as her fingers wrapped around the strings. “I can’t show you much today, but I’d love to join you again sometime.” 

As she pulled the strings back, she tilted the bow gently to the left. Energy pulsed along her arms and vanished as it reached her head. One quiet breath later, she let go. The arrows shot forward at blinding speeds, each one darting in separate directions. The first empusa died before it had time to react, the arrow piercing the sac of blood. The other two shrieked, but they too were impaled within seconds. Roxy snapped her fingers and the arrows pulsed with electricity. The creatures exploded. Demonic blood burst in all directions, congealing in the all too familiar red orbs. They hovered for a brief moment, before darting straight at Roxy. 

Dante’s eyes widened. “Wait…”

Vergil grabbed Dante’s arm, yanking him back before he could get in the way. When the orbs reached her, they vanished, just as they did for Vergil himself. And as the last of them swirled into her body, her back straightened, her shoulders relaxed, and Vergil heard a content sigh as she stretched her arms out for the first time that night. A quiet pop echoed back, but it only seemed to add to her relief. “Much better,” She said as she tossed the bow into the air. It transformed back into Aki within seconds, and the demon landed on her shoulder with a purr of satisfaction. 

“Y-you…” Dante stopped short, shook his head, and continued with that not-quite-at-ease-but-I’m-trying smile. “You absorbed them?”

Vergil resisted the urge to roll his eyes by crossing his arms in disapproval instead. “That part was quite clear, brother.”

“But I thought humans couldn’t do that.”

Roxy rubbed at her neck, breaking their gazes. “Technically,” She said. “Aki’s absorbing it. It just looks like I am.”

While that excuse seemed to satisfy Dante, Vergil’s eyes narrowed. A devil arm absorbing energy was plausible. But using that same energy to heal her? Impossible. At least, it wasn’t something he’d ever heard of. Humans couldn’t tolerate demon blood. Most who tried either went mad or turned into demons themselves. But there was nothing demonic about her, as far as he could tell. There would be more obvious signs. Her heartbeat would be different. She wouldn’t have such random aches and pains. She’d smell different. She’d probably act differently…

“Earth to Vergil!”

He blinked once before glancing at his brother. “Yes?”

Dante shook his head. “What world did you just go to? ‘Cuz it sure wasn’t this one.”

Vergil didn’t answer him. “Are we done?” He said, turning back toward Devil May Cry before either of them responded. “As fascinating as that display was, I have things to do.” He dripped that sentence in as much sarcasm as he could muster. Still, it wasn’t enough, for Roxy simply beamed at him with pride. His heart skipped in what he assumed was exasperation. “We’re going…” 

Demonic energy swept over him before he finished that sentence. A portal snapped open behind him, and a large pack of empusas spilled out in a chaotic mess. Dante sighed dramatically as he summoned his Devil Sword and propped it up on his shoulder. “Time to take out the trash,” He said. Roxy’s eyes widened for a brief moment before she yanked her gaze away. “I’ve got some magic of my own, Sunshine,” Dante said with a grin as he clapped his hand on her shoulder. 

She gasped in pain as her back spasmed. She stumbled away, fumbling for the closest wall. Except she didn’t make it, crumbling to her knees only a few steps away. “Dammit,” she hissed, hands hitting the ground. “I wasn’t ready for that.” Aki chirped in a panic, rubbing his head along her lower back as if trying to heal her. Instead, she convulsed one last time before rolling sideways, arms stretched as she stared blankly at the sky. 

Dante stared at her, dumbstruck. “What the hell…?”

She scowled at nothing. “Don’t mind me,” She muttered. “Just figured it was a good time to rest.”

“Riiight,” Dante said as he took many large steps back. “I’ll let you take care of her then, Verge.”

“What? This is your mess.” But his brother had already leaped into battle with a whoop of delight. The waves of empusas were seemingly endless, but this was child’s play to him. Vergil wouldn’t waste his time fighting over it. 

Instead, there was the problem of the woman lying at his feet. 

“So…” She said, eyes flickering toward him. Except he was out of her view, and she gave up within a few seconds. “I’m currently looking to hire a semi-friendly escort back to safety if you’re up for it. I’ll even pay extra since you’ll have to carry me.”

“Carry you?” Vergil said. “And ruin your rest?”

She sighed in defeat. “This street isn’t the most comfortable place in the world. I’d much prefer a bed."

Vergil glanced at his brother, but Dante was too engrossed in the fighting to care. And when a much larger empusa queen stepped out, Vergil knew he would be busy for quite a while. “I suppose I don’t have much of a choice,” He muttered. 

“I mean you could leave me here,” Roxy said. “But then I’d probably get eaten, and that’s on you.”

“Technically,” Vergil said. “This is Dante’s fault.”

“Also true,” She said. “But I have a feeling you may be a little more careful with such a delicate situation.”

Vergil couldn’t decide if she was naive or painfully accurate. His mind settled on the former. “What is this strange illness of yours?”

“Long story,” She said. 

“We’ve got plenty of time.”

“Unfortunately, no,” she said, wincing. Aki hopped onto her chest and pressed his forehead to her chin. “I’ll probably fall unconscious in about… two minutes.”

“... You’re joking.”

“Nope.”

Vergil rubbed at his temples, trying to shove away his irritation. It didn’t work. “And how long will you be unconscious for?”

“A couple of hours,” She said. “It’s only my legs that don’t work, by the way. I can hold on to most anything with enough warning.”

With another, almost longing glance at his brother, Vergil sighed. He lifted her with ease, and was almost amused by the shocked look on her face. “I know I don’t weigh much,” She said wearily. “But I didn’t know I was that light.” 

Vergil said nothing, trying to ignore the painful thudding against his ribcage. If she expected him to say something else, she didn’t show it. Instead, she curled her head toward his chest as her hand half-heartedly clung to the lapel of his jacket. “Thank you,” She said, her eyes fluttering. “Hopefully next time, I’m not so much of a burden.”

“Next time?” Vergil echoed. But it was Roxy who returned the silence, as she fell asleep within seconds. “Infuriating,” Vergil muttered. 

“But at least now you’re enlightened!” 

If Vergil could strangle the bird, he would. But the fragmented memory cackled before slipping back into his subconscious where it belonged, leaving him to trudge back to Devil May Cry. 

--------------------------

Roxy left around three in the morning, and Vergil didn’t try to stop her. She’d been quiet enough, after all. If he slept even halfway like a normal person, he wouldn’t have noticed. He did, however, wander downstairs the moment he felt Aki’s presence fade away. It was the only time he could get Dante’s miserable amount of paperwork done in relative peace. It was also a good time to think. Or maybe stop thinking. He wasn’t sure which one was more important at the moment. 

But as he reached Dante’s desk, he stopped, bewildered. For there, sitting between three mounds of paperwork, was check and a bookmark.

His mind went blank for far too long before he picked it up. It was different from the last one. There was no glossy finish or smooth, plastic covering. Instead, this one was made from thick paper and laminated. The picture - a water-colored, sunset sky over mountains and a lake - looked to be hand-painted. Then, there were the words painted in perfect cursive with black ink; the same calligraphy that Vergil recognized from the cover of the book she’d given him.

Hold infinity in the palm of your hands, And eternity in an hour.

He flipped the bookmark in his hand and wasn’t surprised to see her phone number again. This time, however, she had signed her name: Roxanna. Had she made it herself? It was possible. The paint, while dry, smelled fresh, and the cursive on the front matched the name on the back. But that just confused Vergil even more. Did she often hold onto bookmarks for random people? Why would she give him another one after he’d ignored the first? What was her goal? Her plan? Did she even have one? Was he…

“So are you going to call her this time?”

Vergil flinched, but that was the only startled reaction Dante would ever get from him. “What are you talking about?” He said as he went to tuck the bookmark away. But Dante plucked it out of his hand before he had a chance. 

“Damn,” He said, followed by a low whistle. “That’s a pretty impressive second chance.”

Vergil snatched it back. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You never messaged her, right?” Dante said as he crossed his arms. “Guessing you ran into her on your way home or something?”

“Why does it matter?”

“You still haven’t used that number.”

“Again,” Vergil said. “Why does it…?”

“At least put it in your phone.”

“What?”

“The number.” Dante shrugged. “You’re clearly interested. At least a tiny bit.”

“And what makes you think that?”

“You carried her back,” Dante said. “Instead of asking me to do it.” 

Vergil said nothing. Dante chuckled. “You want to be a part of this world, right? Here’s your chance.” He pointed to the bookmark. “A friend.”

“A friend,” Vergil echoed. 

“Yep,” Dante sighed wistfully. “My big bro’s growing up.”

Vergil rolled his eyes, but quickly realized how tense he was. His grip on Yamato was so tight his knuckles had turned white, and the muscles in his shoulders were practically shaking from the tension. But why? What was this feeling? Anger was his first guess, but he hadn’t been angry at Dante’s teasing in months. So why…

“Don’t be afraid,” Dante said.

“I’m not afraid.”

“Then put that number in your phone.”

Vergil stared at him. For a long moment, neither of them said anything. Dante watched him expectantly, tapping his foot in something between amusement and annoyance. Again, Vergil found himself caught in a whirlwind of conflicting emotions. She had proven him both right and wrong on multiple occasions on the same day. She was a weak, injured, clueless woman who would likely drag him down. Yet, she was strong enough to wield a devil arm with incredible precision and absorbed demonic power as he and Dante did. She clearly trusted people way too easily… but she hadn’t given up on him.

“What would V do?” Dante said.

Vergil frowned, but his eyes fell back on the bookmark. Did he even know the answer to that question? V’s memories were there, of course. Always tugging on his mind whenever he tried to make such decisions. But they were rarely clear. At least, not in moments like this. Though he supposed that he hadn’t had many moments like this, so that wasn’t fair. There hadn’t been any hard decisions since returning from the Underworld. Everything just… happened around him. He took the jobs. Sent the money where it needed to go. Failed to get along with his son. Argued with his brother. That was life. 

But surely that’s not all you want?

Vergil held back a sigh and threw the bookmark at Dante. His brother snatched it out of the air before it hit - a shame, really - and raised an eyebrow. “What do you want me to do with it?”

Vergil glared at him. “I do not… possess that knowledge.”

Dante snorted. “Dramatic as always.” He tossed his own cellphone into the air in a needless display of something and spun it twice as it landed between his fingers. His was much different than Vergil’s. Whereas Dante had gone for every upgrade under the sun - touch screen, fingerprint scanner, and a million other things Vergil didn’t care about - Vergil’s was simple. A sliding phone with a keypad which was, arguably, still more than he needed. “So you open it,” Dante said as the screen flickered on. “And you find the button that says, “Contacts.” He wiggled his fingers under the phone as if summoning a demon. 

“Quit with the theatrics.”

“But that’s the best part!”

“Do you want me to do this or not?”

Dante rolled his eyes but walked him through the rest of the steps in the most business-like tone he could manage. And while it took a few minutes, as Vergil hadn’t really looked at the phone beyond answering the occasional call, he eventually figured it out. By the end, he was left staring at his nearly empty contact list: Dante, Morrison, Nero, Nico and…

Roxanna. 

He snapped the phone closed. “There,” He said. Dante stared at him in pure horror. Vergil twitched. “What?”

“You’re not gonna message her?”

“Why would I do that?”

“How do you think she’ll get your number, dumbass?”

Vergil bit back a response, unwilling to admit that he hadn’t thought that part through. But when he reached for the phone again, he hesitated. He did not, however, miss Dante’s not-so-subtle eye roll. “Just say ‘hello’ or ‘this is Vergil’ or ‘I’m the idiot that spent two weeks ignoring you’.” He grunted as a summoned sword careened into his shoulder, but grinned back as he put his hands on his hips, not bothering to remove it. “You know, something straight to the point. Just like you.”

Vergil’s eyes drifted back to the phone. And after another long moment of silence, in which his thoughts were both frustratingly chaotic and entirely unhelpful, he tucked it back in his pocket. “Later,” He said as he blinked to the stairs. Dante sighed behind him, and Vergil was certain he heard a muttered ‘you’re hopeless, bro’. But the older son of Sparda ignored him as he slid back into his room, locked the door, and grabbed a book to calm himself. His frown deepened when he realized which book he’d grabbed: her gift that he had yet to read. But it was the only book from his small collection that he hadn’t poured through yet. Her first bookmark slipped from the back, and his eyes fell to her number once again. 

Thank you. Hopefully next time, I'm not as much of a burden. 

Vergil's hand shifted toward his pocket but stopped short.

Why? 

Why are you so… infuriating? 

Frustrated, he set the book on the bed and teleported out the window, more interested in the random demons of Redgrave than his thoughts.

[maladaptive-ninja-returns]

Bruises

Loki x Reader fluff

Warnings: Talk of emotional abuse.

Word count: again...it was written on the phone so idk (sorry guys)

This was requested by @lazytrashbarbarian after she read the first Loki fic. 😅

(I really hope I was able to do some justice...even a little 🙇)

You can read this fic in continuation with the first if you'd like. No biggie.

(This gif doesn't belong to me. Credits to the owner)

"Isn't that t-"

"Too revealing? Oh God! I knew this dress was too good to be decent."

You walked back into your room and quickly shut the door behind you, taking both Loki and Clint by surprise.

Clint frowned as he looked at Loki for an answer, who himself wore a confused look.

"I was going to say isn't that the dress you wore at the fundraiser last year?"

Clint raised his brows, holding back the smirk as he nodded. "Good memory, yes. The funny thing is it was the same fundraiser where she kicked your ass before Thor told us you'd been our inside guy the whole time."

The confusion was replaced with a death stare. "Well, I let her kick my ass otherwise you brainless twats wouldn't have stopped coming at me till my incessantly positive brother arrived," Loki let a growl of disappointment as he recalled the event.

"You should go talk to her," Clint said reassuringly as he went on his way to train with Peter outside.

"Spider-baby's going to learn what it's like being a spider in an open field where he can't build webs in the corners of a building," he'd told Loki, who was sure he saw a menacing grin on his face and was scared for the human arachnid's safety.

You had changed into your shorts and tank top. Looking at the dress in your hands you thought to yourself how the dress did look great on you.

"But it does look stunning on you."

You jumped as a tiny scream left your body before you turned around and came face to face with Loki.

"Sorry, I didn't see you there," you haphazardly moved around his towering figure planted between you and your closet, burying the dress in a corner before turning back.

This had been the second time Loki was confused by your actions.

"Usually it would be me apologising for sliding into your room without any prior notice and you would be the one throwing punches and powerballs at me." Loki plopped on your bed, next to the side you slept on.

"Oh, why is your bed so hard?" He said as he adjusted his body till he found a comfortable position and eased himself onto your most private furniture, crossing his arms behind his head.

"For my back. It runs in my family. Sorry" You sighed, cursing yourself as you saw his resting bitch face scolding you wordlessly for another 'sorry'.

"I can't help it, okay. And for the record, you caught me off guard otherwise it wouldn't have just been powerballs aimed at you. It would have been the fundraiser fiasco all over again."

Loki laughed, the emotion reaching his eyes as his head was thrown back in utter delight. You hadn't seen him this carefree ever and seeing him laugh because of you made you realise how warm it made you feel on the inside. You were nearly melting with joy.

"What is bothering you love?" The green and blue in Loki's eyes danced like a clear ocean in the sun rays coming in from the window behind you. The word 'love' on his lips was meant just for you and your entire existence still could not get used to the idea that you were together right now.

'Love'- it would send such a tranquil vibration down your entire body that you would feel every ounce of unnecessary stress leave you at the command of his voice. It truly was magical.

You let out a huge sigh, a little tension leaving your shoulders as you planted yourself next to him, resting your hands on your stomach, consciously relaxing all your body parts, just like Strange had taught you during your counseling sessions.

You tried to find the right words, not knowing how to begin, all the while Loki lay there beside you, showing no sign of hurry.

"I really like that dress," you let out softly.

"You should," he replied, his breathing not faltering for even a moment, "you make it look worthy."

"That's not what I've heard from some people," you said under your breath.

You felt him turn his head in your direction. The silence between you was always weirdly comfortable.

"I-uh..." you gulped, taking a moment to form a sentence, "I went through some...stuff with one of my...uh...ex-boyfriends. There were issues of emotional abuse-" you heard you voice crack. Taking a second to clear your throat you continued.

"But it's all in past. And I don't want to sound overdramatic. I mean, I know people who've had it worse."

You could feel the heaviness in your chest build a little. Great, throwing your old baggage in your new potential- as you were taking things slow mostly because of the many concerned people living with you- lovers, you thought.

"First of all," Loki's soft voice broke your train of thought, "when something haunts you so much that it moulds you as a person, it's never in the past."

"Second of all," he turned in your direction , his head now supported by his arm as his biceps waited to be rescued from under his blue T-shirt, "overdramatic would be Thor retelling all the tales of how I 'cheated' during playtime with my magic when I was clearly not as physically fit or extraordinarily energetic as him."

You let out a laugh as Loki used the air-quotes and all he could do was look at you with soft astonished eyes as a smile found its way to his lips.

You met his gaze and the ocean eyes brought every anxious thought to pause for a minute.

"Breathe, love."

You did. You did the best your lungs could before letting all the heaviness flow out.

"I broke up with him on the 'fundraiser fiasco' day."

You could see his brows furrow in confusion.

"Mrs. Stark had bought the dress for me a day before. She said she'd seen it in the store and thought of me and she'd made me promise to wear to the event. Loki, the moment I tried it on for the very first time it felt like I was seeing something glowing in me that I'd never seen before. But the guy who I was with thought otherwise. He...umm...called me disgusting for wearing it and going out with men twice my age, even emotionally blackmailed me into not going to save the kids if I didn't want him to break up with me. I almost didn't make it that night. I almost, didn't," you broke into a soft laughter between the tears, "kick your ass that night had it not been for Bucky and Clint. They'd both shown up at my door at the right time. I bless Clint's instincts till this day to have thought about making Bucky escort me to the venue that night. And...and when I came back home, he..." your voice trailed away for a moment before finishing, "he left me."

You shrugged your shoulders.

Before you could clear your blurry vision, you felt cold arms embrace you. Every shaking muscle was being eased by his touch while every stinking memory was replaced by his enticing smell. You found yourself burying your face in his chest as his lips touched your aching temple, burning away the heaviness bit by bit.

"I reckon this wasn't the first time he'd done this?"

Loki voice never grew up from a soft humm. It often ached your heart to wonder what he must have gone through to know what hurts and what doesn't.

You shook you head. "No, it wasn't."

Loki's embrace got tighter. You could hear his heart beating faster. You wrapped your arms around his torso, waiting patiently as the beats steadied back to a normal pace.

"I must say I'm jealous. That dress looks so hot on you," Natasha raised her champagne glass as you entered the terrace that twinkling in fairy lights today.

A string of happy birthdays filled the air as everyone raised a glass to toast to you.

"Where's David? Didn't he say he was going to come today?" Steve shouted from the other end of the bar, genuinely concerned.

You froze at the name of your ex-boyfriend, wondering if there was nice way to tell Steve that the S.H.I.E.L.D. operative was not a welcoming site for you in so many ways.

"He had an emergency. He won't make it." Clint shouted from your end, making a Jagerbomb for you, him and Loki-who had disappeared- while he handed a bottle of root beer to Peter.

"Peter, what happened?" You couldn't help but notice a large bruise down his neck towards the shoulder.

He noticed your worried look and tried to hide it, giving you a sheepish grin, telling you not to worry about it.

"Clint, don't tell me it was you."

"It was the concrete, really."

"You worry me Barton. And that's coming from me." Loki chimed in, taking the empty seat next to you and planting his hand on your back.

Peter rested his head on the cold bar top as he smiled like a puppy on seeing you and Loki.

"You two are so adorable I would die for you." Peter's flushed face was really not able to keep the happiness inside.

"Oh God," Clint tiredly looked at the empty bottle beside Peter, "I gave him the wrong beer. Please don't tell Tony."

"Aww! I'd die for you too Peter." You patted his head and looked at his content face.

"I won't let that happen," Loki looked at Peter and then you with great resolve, his eyes never faltering. He drew you close to him, pulling your hair away from your face.

"Now kiss." Peter whispered as he giggled and passed out.

---

Loki had been the one to call Clint into Bruce's lab after he left Y/N feeling a lot better about herself.

Clint had been right on time with Peter following him on his heels, a sense of relief on his face to have gotten out of the training today.

"Who was Y/N's boyfriend?"

There were no greetings. Loki had gone straight up to the point of concern. Bruce stood at one end of the lab, listening to what exactly was going down.

"Why? Are you planning to duel with him? Mortal combat or-?" Clint was cut mid-sentence.

"Remember the fundraiser? When I had been trying to avoid fighting Y/N that night, I was also making sure to keep her out of the way of the enemy attack. I am quite sure I had ended up bruising one of her arms and neck when I had pulled her away from the line of fire and held her to the ground."

Clint did not take his eyes away from Loki even as he stopped talking.

"Yes, she had to get an ice pack so that it won't develop into a bru-wait a minute. She didn't come to the Facility next day and when I'd gone to visit her, she had a huge one around her jaw."

"That was the first time he felt the need to use physical force on her Barton." Loki said with undoubted assurance.

Suddenly the room grew tense as Loki's hands curled into a fist while Clint's jaws clenched tightly as he let out a 'son of a bitch'.

"Here," Bruce threw, what looked like a taser gun, towards Clint, "it's ten times more damaging. He'd wish he were dead."

"I'm coming too." Peter was as serious as anyone present in this room.

"No one hurts my friend and gets away with it."

No one argued.

"Very well," Clint said before rushing out of the lab with his partners in crime, "let's make that bastard pay a visit to the emergency room."

[thefandomdirtymind]

Hungry Jealousy

Gotham 

Jeremiah Valeska x Reader 

Warning: Smut, jealousy, hickeys, unprotected sex.

Request: Anonyme: Jealous Jeremiah Valeska and Female Reader smut, please!

* I hope that you will enjoy it as much as I do and that respond at what you ask for sexy anon.

The files of the new project under your arms, you enter in the office of Mr. Valeska, the sound of your medium high heels beating the floor introducing you way before anything else, except the camera. 

Working as an interlocutory between the engineer and the outdoor world, you sometimes have to pass at the bunker to keep the man aware and make him sign some paper. Always nice and professional, Jeremiah listen to you and usually welcome the advice you often propose for the good of the current projet.

Standing at the end of his work table like usual, he was busy at drawing some complexe mechanic, making you wonder why he even bother to have a chair. Raising his gaze to meet yours, he gave you a politely nod of the head before leaving his work behind. 

“ Miss Y/L/N, good morning” He greeting you with a small nervous tone. You never knew why he always seem so nervous to speak to you , but, you guess that living hide like that with for only companion that emotionless woman is certainly a great reason. 

“ Good morning M. Valeska, I have some paper for you today “ You say, approaching the last clear place of the table. 

Displaying the paper, you give him space, adjusting your black and gray pencil skirt, your driving session for coming here had disturb. Busy with the piece of clothes, you didn’t notice the eyes of Jeremiah, lost in the perfection of your skin, giving you a head to toe look. 

“ You’re really pretty today, an occasion in particular ? ” He ask, passing one by one the paper like if he didn’t watch you like if you were a piece of art just few minute earlier. 

“ Thank you, I have a meeting at the office, as your representation, I though I have at least to be well dress.” You reply, looking at you skirt and matching blouse. 

“ You’re right” He simply reply, reading the footnote you had let to his intention in a file about a big project.

Standing in silence waiting for the signing paper, you jump a little when your phone start to ring, filling the quiet room with an orchestra memento. 

“ I’m so sorry, I usually close it before coming here, I just forget” You apologies.

“ That okay, you can answer” He retort.

Taking the call, you try to not disturb his reading. Finishing your discussion, you close your phone, letting it lost itself in your handbag. 

“ Who’s was it ?” Jeremiah ask, strangely curious and even moody.

�� One of the agent of Wayne entreprise. He say that the material will be there later in the day and we will probably start the preparation for the project.” 

“ And about that dinner I though hear ?” He continu, his tone now more tense, an emotion you never seen taking place on his face.

“ Oh, the man is a real flirt, every time we’re in contact he try to ask me out, today it was for a dinner” You answer back, not seeing the big deal. 

“ Do you consider to saying yes ? “ He finally ask, heading to his personal mini bar, the paper forget. 

“ I don’t know” You reply, a bit confuse 

Drinking is glass, he approach you, giving you goosebumps. You always though that your boss was gorgeous in his nerdy kind, but, with his angry look he was hotter that ever.

“ What do you waiting for, this man clearly want to stealing you from me, professionally or personally ” He tell, his mood worst that you ever seen. 

“Nobody will steal me. I mean, that man isn’t my type at all. He’s almost brainless and only think about how many woman he can put on his bed. I prefer a man who’s kind and use his brain for good. More a man...like you” You finish. 

A deadly silence fall on the room, break by the empty glass of scotch Jeremiah put on the table. Reducing the distance between you he taking your waist in his hand. The jealous rage was still on the surface, telling him that other could possibly hit on you soon and make it lose you. 

“ When do you see that Wayne agent ?” He whisper, pulling you closer.  

“ This afternoon, at the office meeting, but I refuse his invita...” You didn’t finish your phrase, his mouth, warm and demanding was on yours, his hands exploring your back.

At first surprise, you respond quickly to his kiss, passing your hand on his neck. Slowly for not break your embrace, he make you step back until the lower of your back find the border of the work table. Then, he easily sit you in it, pushing away the now uninteresting paper.

“ I want to show at this man that you already below to me, I want to show it at every man who will put their eyes on you, all this perfect skin and so brillant mind, even your bright smile is mine” Jeremiah say, making you discovers another part of his personality, a jealous and possessive part.

Playing at the same time with the sensitive skin of your tight, pushing slowly his hand inch by inch under your skirt. He start to kiss your neck, going down on your throat. Eyes close, you try to regulate you breath, feeling your panties, now partly expose and frame on each side by the hand of the man, becoming wet. The first hickey, well executed in the sensitive skin of your left boob, make you jump and moan a little. 

“ If he see this one, I will be really angry” The voice of the man, deeper by the desire and his face bury on your breast say. 

“ He will not see it” You swear, lifting you pelvis to help him to removing your underwear. 

“ Good, then, I will have to mark you again and again “ He reply, catching you lips for another kiss,throwing your panties somewhere in the room.

Hand shaking of excitation, you pull away his jacket, reaching fast the long trail of small button closing his shirt that you remove one by one. The action, usually easy, was a bit more difficult with the fact that your mind was totally focus on his long finger, slowly pushing and pumping in and out of your pussy. But, you finally succeed to open the piece of clothes, giving you access to his bare chest. In the same time he reach your clits with his thumb, starting a series of delicious small circle. 

“ Oh god” You moan, feeling the pressure rising in your belly and his mouth leaving you a more visible second hickey on you neck.

Removing his finger of your now so sensitive vagina, he help you to get ride of your last piece of clothes and his, by the same time. Once totally naked, he couldn’t help himself to look at you, sit and spread in that table he love so much, already hot for him, a fresh new mark of his at only few centimeter of your tits.

Pulling you closer of the border of the table, he take your legs in his hands, holding them firmly in the air, creating the perfect angle for pushing himself easily inside you. 

“ Jere...miah “ You moan, biting you lips, when he try to find the good rythme for making both of you climax. “ Jeremiah, ooh !” 

“ Hearing you saying my name like this is even better that when you calling me M. Valeska “ He say, accelerating the cadence, his breath fast and his finger bury in the skin of your leg. 

Moaning of pleasure, you let yourself go against the wood of the table, biting you lips. 

“ Say it again, scream my name again” Jeremiah demand, pushing harder in you, making you arc your back. 

“ Jeremiah ! “ You scream, feeling the pressure in your body building faster. “ Again, please again !” You almost cry. 

But, your wish isn’t granted yet. Stopping the movement, frustrated you for a short time, he help you without a word to get off the table, guiding you to the tall leather chair where he make you kneel, offering him your back. Press against you,his hand around your stomach and the other covering one of you boob he introduce his cock in you again, letting you breathless. Standing like that, you could feel him filling you completely. Picking a fast rythme who’s almost drive you crazy, you could feel his hungry mouth letting a trail of love bite on your shoulder and the side of your throat. 

Inside you, the pressure was beating like a second heart, almost ready to break you in a million piece of pleasure. You could heard, by his fast breathing and low moaning that Jeremiah was close too, even if his pounding didn’t lost a bit of intensity. 

“ Y/N...Y/N “ He moaning on your ear before pushing his pelvis hard against your ass.

The pressure inside you, break like a huge wave, giving you a devastating orgasm. Holding you firmly when you was shaking and moaning his name, like if your life depend of it, he kiss your back,maintain the in and out, driving him more and more close of his own release.

When the wave caught him too, letting you both shaken, he smile at you, his usual mood back. 

After a well earned shower, you both came back in the office, watching the mess you primal desire had make. 

“ Well I will have some clean up to do but it worth it” He say, reaching a sign paper on the floor, searching for the file to put it back. 

Smiling, you pick up as much paper you can, trying to not forget any important form for your meeting later. Once the file are complet and sign, you clear your throat. 

“ I think the meeting will be greet for both compagnie” 

“ I agree” Jeremiah said, his gaze looking at the few hickey you hadn’t cover with make up. “Come back tomorrow for inform me of how it goes “ 

Nodding of the head, you smile when your eyes fall on the mark you have yourself made on his neck. 

“I have to go, but, Jeremiah” You start before he kiss you goodbye. 

“ Huh ? “ He reply, lost in the feeling of your lips. 

“ Never throw away that chair”

“ Never make me jealous again or I will tied you up to that chair ” He reply, amuse, kissing you one last time.  

Your skin cover of goosebumps and hickeys, you came back to your car, feeling your body hot like a fever for the second time that day.

Tag :  @joker-valeska-twins @crimsonredcoco @badlikecaffeine  @jawavoncherie @riddlesonriddles

[mayjaymayjay]

Title: One Percent (Part 2: Pregnancy and Birth) Word Count: 6404 Pairings: Romantic Alphyne (Alphys and Undyne), Platonic/Romantic (Could be seen as either) Papyton (Papyrus and Mettaton), Platonic Toriel/Asgore Warnings: Arguing, Lying, Major Character Death, Death, Birth, Birthing Scene, Water Breaking (Let me know if I missed anything!) Summary: Alphys and Undyne have a baby shower and things go as good as it could while Alphys holds her tongue. Author Note: Part Two of the last fanfiction I ever wrote for Undertale! Hope you enjoy!

The new MTT Resort’s restaurant was closed that day, or, rather, reserved for a special occasion that Alphys and Undyne had planned out to announce the grand reveal that the fertilization was a success and Undyne was two months pregnant.

Most of their close friends had attended, even King Asgore and the pun queen herself, Toriel made sure they would attend, even if they didn't know what it was exactly about.

Sans, on the other hand, knew immediately what it was about, but came along anyway to support them, despite the slight sense of impending doom, but he put it in the back of his skull, today was going to be a day that should be celebrated, not worried about.

Everyone had arrived, all except Frisk, who couldn't attend due to some trouble at the capital. They were the ambassador of two species, of course, they would have responsibilities to handle, even if they did want to go to the party.

The monsters were all dressed formally, which was Mettaton’s only request to rent out his restaurant, but some were more excited about the attire than others.

“Damnit,” Undyne complained, pulling at the dark red choker she wore, the golden tear-shaped pendant catching a perfect amount of light. “This necklace is really itchy.”

She wore a beautiful scarlet evening gown, that would shimmer in different angles, her hair was in a simple and semi-messy bun, just tight enough for it to stay intact, but loose enough for her to be comfortable, even her red bangs were let loose over her eye-patch. She wore black, short heels, after all, there was no way in hell that she would wear high heels, she claimed that her outfit was “girly enough” without them.

“I told you t-that necklace would be uncomfortable,” Alphys told her. “You should've gone with the pearls.”

Alphys decided to get a new dress for this momentous occasion, it was a simple blue evening gown, that had silver, tiny polka dots scattered on it, a silver bow wrapped around her waist for a finishing touch. She wore simple black flats, since she never was comfortable in heels, let alone, high heels.

“But it's like the one from Mew Mew Kissy Cutie!” Undyne argued. “It's too awesome not to wear!”

“I-if you say so,” the scientist shrugged, grabbing her wife’s hand under the table. “Are y-you nervous?”

“Nope!” The ex-royal guard squeezed her hand anyway. “What? Are you?”

“A-a l-little,” she stuttered. “I j-just don't like p-public speaking.”

“Hmm,” Undyne pondered for a moment, then turned to her wife. “How about I do the announcement, would that make you feel any better?”

Alphys nodded, then, quickly after, Undyne slipped her hand from her wife’s grip and stole a quick kiss Alphys’s head sweetly. “It's going to be okay, Alphys.”

Undyne stood up, tall, then cleared her throat to get the attention of the chattering crowd, who were presenting theories on what this gathering was about, but stopped to listen to what the elegant fish monster had to say.

“Alright,” she began, clasping her hands together. “So I bet you all are wondering why we are here and why the hell we are wearing these dumb dresses and tuxedos.”

Undyne glanced down at her protruding abdomen, then back at the crowd. “Well, last time we got together like this, we announced our engagement. I'm not sure if you would consider this better or worse, but we’re pregnant.”

The whole room enveloped in shouts of joy, while Alphys stood up and grabbed Undyne’s hand as they both grinned, the taller helping Alphys onto a chair, knowing that hugs of congratulations were necessary.

Papyrus was the first to come up, tears were clearly forming in his eye sockets. “ I cannot believe this! I'm so happy for you two, oh my God!”

Papyrus had worn a black tuxedo he had gotten with Sans and Mettaton a few months back, which Mettaton quite enjoyed to see him in. It had a golden flower on the right side and, as good as he looked in that bow tie, he decided to go with a simple black neck tie, because he didn't like the feeling of the bow tie.

“Come here ya punk!” Undyne pulled Papyrus into a noogie.

“Please don't noogie the emotional skeleton!” Papyrus exclaimed, soon escaping the grip of his best friend. He wiped a tear from his eye socket as he smiled again. “Congratulations, my dear friends.”

Papyrus leaned slightly awkwardly as he hugged both Undyne and Alphys, leaving the two afterward to go back to his table and sitting down.

Up next was Toriel and Asgore, the two had become great friends, after a year of Asgore begging for forgiveness. Toriel apologized as well, stubbornly, for the grudge and they've been good friends ever since.

They were both clothed formally, like everyone else. Toriel wore an elegant royal purple dress with a white trim, it shimmering somehow in every angle, and had long droopy sleeves. As far as footwear, she wore the same colored flats. Asgore, on the other hand, wore a simple black tuxedo, with a purple bow tie.

Toriel couldn't hold back the tears of joy and pride for the two spouses. “I could not be happier for you two. Nothing is better than the process of having a child, I wish you both the best, my children.” She wiped away another stray tear.

Asgore raised an eyebrow at his ex-wife, who had a grip on his right arm. “If I remember correctly, you acted quite miserable during your pregnancy.”

The motherly woman playfully pushed her friend. “Oh, hush, you.”

This brought a grin to Alphys, Undyne, and even Asgore himself, as they all chuckled lightly at the cute duo.

“Anyway,” Toriel looked at the two wives again, letting go of Asgore as she walked over to them for a hug. “Congratulations.”

They both hugged her back, Asgore going into a hug as well for a nice group hug. This was by far the most comforting and sweet hug they've gotten so far.

After the rather long hug, Toriel joined arms back with Asgore and returned to their table, which was right next to Papyrus’s table.

Second to last was Mettaton, wearing a black tuxedo with a hot pink bow tie wrapped around his collar, cried hysterically and ran towards the two brides, as if he hadn't seen them in years. “Oh, my gosh darlings! I'm so unbelievably happy for you two!”

They were a bit taken aback by the hug, since the force was unexpected and, quite frankly, hard, since he was made out of various types of metal, but they hugged back nonetheless.

Mettaton let go of the hug, a smile ingrained on his face, along with black tear stains along his riveted, metallic, yet, perfect cheek. “Words cannot describe my joy for you two, all I want  is that the baby will be at least half as amazing as you two are, but I'm sure with your genetics, that would be nearly impossible to not happen.”

Alphys twitched slightly, but unnoticeable, at those words, “genetics”, she knew she had to tell Sans eventually, but now wouldn't be the best time.

“T-thank you, Mettaton,” Alphys stuttered, as he hugged them one last time, and went back to Papyrus’s and his table.

Last, but not least, Sans was up, wearing a simple sweater vest, white long sleeve formal shirt under it, with a light blue bow tie wrapped around his collar, and black formal pants and shoes.

“Well, I guess it worked,” Sans shrugged.

“It wouldn't have been possible without you, Sans,” Alphys replied.

“Eh, you would've found someone eventually,” he shrugged again. “Anyway, congrats, I couldn't think of anyone more deserving than you two to have children. Well, maybe one other person.”

They glanced over at Toriel and Asgore, who were laughing and joking with each other, probably reminiscing about the past and the good times. This made the trio smile.

“So, uh, Sans,” Undyne called, earning his attention. “Alphys and I have been thinking and we've decided on something.”

Alphys grabbed a hold of her hand.

“We want you to be the godparent,” Alphys completed.

“Whoa, I, uh,” he was astonished. “That caught me off-guard.”

He scratched the back of his neck but returned his gaze back to the couple. “Why me? I mean, Toriel and Asgore seem to be much more suitable to be parents than I ever would, they've had children and-”

“Sans,” Undyne interrupted. “They declined.”

“What?” Well, he definitely didn't see that coming.

“They have Frisk and, even if they didn't,” she continued. “They've had their time as parents, they're tired.”

“Man,” the skeleton sighed. “I'd be brainless to decline after that point, huh?”

“Was that a pun?” Alphys glared at him.

“You do know me, right?” He joked.

They laughed, now that was out of the way, maybe Alphys could drop a hint about the whole “one percent” ordeal.

“Hey, um,” Alphys started, getting Sans’s and Undyne’s attention, as she touched her wife’s hand. “Can you, uh, c-check on everyone.”

“Okay, sure,” Undyne shrugged and took the hint, walking off the small stage, and went over Papyrus’s table.

Alphys reverted her attention back to her skeleton friend. “S-so I have a q-question.”

“Shoot,” he replied.

“J-just out of curiosity,” she began, scratching the back of her head awkwardly. “Why were you s-so insistent on this baby not getting any of your genetic code?”

“Psychological disorders are genetic,” he answered bluntly, without any thought, like that answer was rehearsed. “I don't think anyone truly deserves one. Especially if I can help it.”

“I-I g-guess that's f-fair,” now, she was anxious.

“You seem nervous, Alphys,” he pointed out, light concern glistening in his eye sockets. He could read her so easily.

“N-no! W-why would y-you think that?” It was blatantly obvious.

“Alphys,” his voice lowered, concern was out of the question. “Is there something you wanna tell me?”

This party of joy and celebration was rapidly turning into more of a get-together of anxiety and condolences, needless to say, this was not going as well as expected. Sans was onto her, he wasn't dumb, he was outrageously smart, he just never really showed it.

“Alphys,” he gained back Alphys’s attention. “Did something go wrong with the transfer?”

She hadn't noticed it before, but the room was eerily silent, she looked over his shoulder, then grew more anxious than ever. “Sans, l-look b-behind you.”

Sans turned around, his pupil dimming out immediately. Everyone was looking at them, they had heard their conversation, and, was completely baffled. That conversation sounded a bit too fishy. Transfer?

“U-uh,” Alphys stuttered. “I, um, this sounds a bit s-suspicious, however, it's e-easily explained.”

“Alphys,” Sans called. “Just tell them the truth, they were gonna find out eventually, anyway.”

“O-okay,” she started shaking, and it wasn't because of blood sugar. “L-looking for a-a donor was more d-difficult than we thought, s-so, after much consideration, we asked S-Sans to do it.”

Most of the guest, although a bit shocked at the choice of a donor, seemed unmoved by the news, though another skeleton in the room seemed enraged.

Papyrus got up and stormed out of the room without a single word. His brother looked at Alphys, who was lost for words, then back at the crowd, they didn't have any words either. His main concern was his little brother. He ran off the stage and left the room as well.

“Papyrus!” He burst through the front doors of the resort, seeing his younger brother walking away. “Papyrus, wait!”

The tall skeleton stopped walking, just stood there as Sans caught up. Why couldn't this happen differently?

“Okay, Pap, look-”

“I don't want to hear your excuses and lies, Sans,” he snapped, now, turning towards his brother, then pointing an accusing finger at him. “Why didn't you tell me?”

“I don't know, I just,” he sighed. “I just didn't want to hurt your feelings or anything.”

“Feelings?” The angry monster quoted. “Why would my feelings be hurt? At least you would finally be telling me something!”

“Wait, that's not what you're mad about?” Sans, for once in quite a while, was puzzled.

“No! I'm angry at the fact that you never tell me anything!” Papyrus flailed his arms to emphasize his frustration. “You hide things from me all the time! Do you think I'm ignorant or something?! I'm not some little child anymore, I can handle it! I'm an adult for goodness sakes!”

Sans buffered for a second, he never really realized how much he's lied to his brother until now, how could he not have realized that? “Bro, I'm sorry, I just wanted you to not worry about me.”

“Well, you did that well,” Papyrus never thought sarcasm was a great argument or humor tool, but he didn't care about that at the moment.

Sans was a bit taken aback by the comment. “Would you rather have me complain about having a bad day or just being in a bad mood? It's more often than you think.”

“No, Sans, I just want something from you!” He exclaimed, sighed, crossed his arms, and looked away from his brother. “Do you remember when we were little, you would give me piggy back rides and tell me stories off the top of your head?”

Sans nodded.

“The stories would be different each time, but always related to your feelings for that day or just how your day was,” he stared at the ground for a second, then returned his gaze back to its original point. “I missed those fun stories, they were so… Abstract and extravagant,”

He smiled to himself, but then returned to his frown. “Then they slowly began to feel more and more forced to have a happy ending, until, finally, you just started to read me that silly book.”

Sans did remember that, if only he could remember what exactly caused that, but most of his childhood was just a blur.

“Brother, I don't know what happened, but I miss those times,” He continued. “I miss you expressing yourself in little odd ways. But most of all, I miss you. I just want my older brother back.”

The shorter skeleton stood silent, but soon began to walk towards his brother, Papyrus flinched slightly as his shorter brother hugged him. Hesitantly, he bent down awkwardly and hugged him back.

“I'm sorry, Pap,” he cleared his voice. “I just don't want to bring you down.”

“The only thing that's bringing me down is this distance,” tears beckoned to fall, but he blinked them away, the Great Papyrus mustn't cry, at least in public. “I love you, brother, I just need you to talk to me.”

“Okay, bro,” Papyrus was right, Sans hid way too many things, but he had always thought it was for the better, but what good was it doing?

The two let go of each other, Papyrus, whipping up a sincere smile. “Are we good now?” Sans asked.

“Yes, brother,” the taller brother agreed, before walking with his brother back inside.

As they went back inside the room, they could both feel the thick tension, so thick, in fact, they could probably couldn't even cut it with the knife, well, maybe Frisk was a better candidate for things such as that.

All eyes averted from Undyne and Alphys’s stuttering to the two skelebros, who were exchanging glances with each other, mentally arguing on who would be the one to explain what just happened.

“Um,” Papyrus blurted, immediately regretting doing so. “Everything is sorted out now, so we should just go back to having fun.”

“Everything is far from being sorted our, dear,” Mettaton interjected, crossing his arms. “I'm curious as to why him?”

“It wasn't anything personal, Mettaton,” Sans replied, hoping to smooth over the situation.

“I understand that I'm just curious,” he turned back to Alphys, awaiting an answer.

“W-well,” she cleared her throat, preparing herself to speak. “I never installed anything like that in your system, M-Mettaton. I-I knew Asgore would be uncomfortable with it, a-along with Undyne and m-myself, s-since he is more like a father t-to both of us. Anyway, P-Papyrus just didn't feel or seem right, since he and Undyne have a more sibling relationship. The final candidate was Sans, who was so kind to do this for us, e-even after that machine m-messed his hands up so badly.”

Sans still had scars and jagged grooves in his palms from that day, most of the wounds healed, but there are plenty still there as a constant reminder.

“I just find that reasoning difficult to understand considering Sans’s medical history,” he retorted, for someone so “understanding”, he sure acted offended.

Sans’s white pupil disappeared again as the room filled up with silence again and even more tension, both of them were unsure what to say at this point. Everyone’s darted from the short skeleton.

“That's it!” Undyne stomped her foot, stepping in front of her wife, grabbing the knife as she did so, earning back the attention of the room.“Listen here, punk. I'm growing sick of your attitude, I don't know what your problem is, but accusing my friend of some sort of-”

“Undyne, he's right,” Sans interrupted.

“Wait, what?” Undyne blurted unintentionally.

Sans interrupted, staring back at the floor with blank eye sockets. “Back when I was a teenager, I was diagnosed with clinical depression, it's not that big of a deal, everyday people and monsters deal with it every day of their lives, some, not even knowing that it's a problem they have, and they function one day at a time, just like you.”

He looked back up, this time, directly at the robot, point a finger at him as well. “I'm genuinely happy now and functional, so why don't you chill your motor, Mettaton?”

Mettaton had no comment, looking away with a scowl on his face. Sans lowered his hand and sighed. “Now, that's enough of drama for one damn night. Let's just have a good time.”

“Y-yeah!” Undyne exclaimed, trying to bring back the positive energy. “I don't know about you, but I'm ready for some awesome gifts and cake!”

Undyne succeeded, the rest of the night was uneventful as far as drama goes, everyone went back home happy and blissfully unaware of the future that was at hand.

…

“Ugh!” Undyne groaned, lounging on the couch in front of the TV, poking her abdomen. “When the hell is this damn baby coming?”

It had been almost seven-and-a-half months since the baby shower, Undyne was due a few weeks ago, but the baby didn't seem to care, sure, there were false alarms, but that's about it. The lab had a few adjustments as well, a new nursery was added, along with a couch that sat in front of the huge screen, that used to be used for security cameras to track the human, now, it had cable feature added.

The captain of the Royal Guard couldn't care less about what was on television at the moment, though. She just wanted, as she would put it, “this thing” out of her. She was tired of sitting on her rump, she wanted to train with Papyrus or just herself, but the little monster inside wouldn't let her, earning herself maternity leave from anything she considered fun.

“Should be here any day now, Undyne,” Alphys wearily answered, she was just as ready as her wife was, she needed to stop being rudely woken up to a false alarm, if she was going to be woken up, it should be for the actual thing.

Alphys walked over and handed Undyne a cup of tea, the fish lady sitting up and propping herself on her arm, to give room to her very sleep deprived bride on the couch. “That's what you always say.”

“That’s the o-only t-thing I can say truthfully,” she took a sip of her tea, she made it a tad bit too sweet, oh well. “If I c-could just magically make it happen, I-I would.”

“There is still the option for a c-section,” Undyne took a sip as well, a bit too salty this time, but she wasn't too picky.

“You rejected that option last time because you wanted to do it the ‘hardcore’ and ‘natural’ way. As you put, ‘Just how my awesome ancestors before me did it,” Alphys added air quotes, emphasizing her irritation.

“Oh yeah,” the blue-scaled creature leaned her head back, searching for an idea. “We could try searching for one of those home remedies or whatever.”

“Those never work, only make a mess,” she took another sip, yup, still too sweet. “I don't want s-screw up anything with the process either.”

“Fair point, I guess,” Undyne was tired of this, not sure if he was more tired of the conversation or the pregnancy itself.

“I-I know one thing, we need more s-sleep than what we’re getting,” Alphys definitely had a fair point there.

“Agreed,” She nodded, then took another sip of her tea, eh, it was slightly better.

Undyne slowly spun around, pushed herself backward, and laid her head on the yellow lizard-like monster’s lap, it was quite comfortable. Alphys ran her fingers gently through her love’s scarlet hair. The calming situation made the two doze off, but Alphys was rudely interrupted by a knock at the door, Undyne was always difficult to wake up.

She slipped from under her and softly made her way to the door. When she opened it, she was greeted by Sans and Papyrus, carrying gym bags in their hands.

“O-oh hey, guys,” she welcomed. “U-uh, what's g-going on?”

“We were making sure you both were okay,” Papyrus stated truthfully. “You've seemed a little… Uh…”

“Bone tired,” Sans joked, making his brother glare at him, along with Alphys. “What?”

“Nothing,” Papyrus groaned. “Anyway, we’re worried about your and Undyne's health.”

“We just haven't gotten m-much sleep because of all the f-false alarms,” Alphys rubbed her eye, trying to keep herself awake just a bit longer. “We're fine, I-I promise.

“I suppose,” the taller one sighed.

“Well,” Sans piped up. “We think we should move in temporary, ya know, to help around the place and stuff.”

"I-I appreciate the gesture, r-really I do,” she replied. “But I-I think we really are fine.”

“Obviously, you're not,” Sans bluntly said, then sighed. “Look, you two need help, I don't want to be forceful, but this is becoming unhealthy and unSANSitary.”

“Did you just make a pun with your own name?” Papyrus asked, somewhat confused.

“Yup and I'm proud of it,” Sans admitted, jokingly, then returned to his original tone. “Anyway, we just want to help you two.”

“I-I understand that, b-but-”

“Uh, Alphys,” Undyne’s voice interrupted her, making all three of them face her.

“What, now?” Alphys groaned once she turned to her wife, though, her eyes widened. Undyne was surrounded by some type of liquid.

“I think my water just broke,” Undyne was just as surprised as Alphys.

“Oh, crap!” Alphys ran over to her wife as the two skeletons did as well. “O-okay! Dammit! The closest legit monster hospital is on the surface!”

“Here's what we’re going to do,” Sans declared. “Papyrus, carry Undyne!”

“Alright!” Papyrus picked up his mentor, his arms between the underside of her knees and head and neck, with a bit of trouble since she was not only not to fond of the plan already, feeling that she looked rather weak being carried around like a princess, but she also was very heavy.

“I hate to do this, but we’re going to have to take a shortcut,” he stated.

“Are you sure that will be safe for Undyne and the baby?!” Alphys questioned.

“What other option do we have?!” He countered the question.

She stood silent.

“Everyone, hang on!” Sans commanded as everyone gripped on his jacket.

Snap!

Undyne felt a sudden jump, almost as if the force of the teleport pushed the baby further. The friends rushed into the hospital, Undyne winced as the contractions began, full force, Alphys yelled at the nurse, gaining their attention. The four were soon surrounded by nurses as Papyrus was ordered to place Undyne on a gurney, they followed her and the crowd of nurses to a maternity ward room.

“Whoa there, guys,” a female nurse stopped the friend. “Only the partner and/or the father of the patient can be with her at this time. So, who is her partner?”

“I-I am,” Alphys stuttered, the nurse raised an eyebrow.

“Really? Well, who is the father?” She asked, looking at the two skeletons.

“Technically, I am,” Sans raised his hand slightly then put it back down as he stepped forward.

“Well, this is an odd circumstance,” she placed a hand on her hip. “Anyway, enter please.”

“You're okay by yourself, right, Papyrus?” Sans asked, turning towards him before he went inside.

“The Great Papyrus can handle himself, brother!” He exclaimed proudly. “Just, please make sure Undyne is okay.”

“Will do, bro,” he nodded, then went inside, the nurse shutting the door behind him.

Alphys and Sans rushed to Undyne’s side, Alphys grabbing her hand as Undyne held back screams of pain. Sans placed his hand on top of Alphys’s hand, earning a quick glance from her, but she averted back to the situation at the time.

“Alright, Mrs. Undyne,” one of the nurses called. “Are you ready?”

“Just get on with it!” She screamed, pain prevalent in her voice, Alphys squeezed her hand in reassurance.

“I need you to push for me, alright?” The nurse gingerly told.

She did as she was told with another scream, as she squeezed Alphys’s hand, as the yellow monster quietly whimpered at the slight, sudden pain.

“You got this, Undyne!” Sans cheered. “I'm rooting for ya!”

The fish-like monster nodded as she was commanded to push again, doing the same thing once again, tears beginning to well up in her eyes, earning squeeze to her wife’s hand. This time, Alphys only winced.

“Damnit! I can't do this!” She cried, choking on her own tears.

“We didn't go through all this trouble just to give up! That isn't like you!” Sans exclaimed, slightly squeezing Alphys’s hand. “Stay determined, dammit!”

“We need another push, you're doing great!” The nurse encouraged.

She did as she was told, yet again, screaming a bit louder.

“They've breached!” The nurse exclaimed. “One, two, three!”

Undyne yelled as she pushed once again, not squeezing Alphys’s hand as hard this time, the shorter wife could tell her lover was losing her will and strength.

“U-Undyne, please!” Alphys barked. “I promised we'd work t-together, and I intend on keeping that promise, b-but you need to keep your side of the bargain! S-so don't give up and leave me!”

Sans glanced over at Alphys, but too quickly for her to notice, he felt somewhat appreciative of Alphys at that moment, though, he couldn't quite explain why exactly. The Royal Guards-woman squeezed her hand in agreement, soon ordered to push once again, and did so.

“One more strong one, okay?” The nurse coaxed. “One, two, three!”

The final push was given, along with a shout of agony from Undyne, and another piercing cry a few seconds later of the new born baby.

“It's a girl!” The nurse cheered.

Alphys smiled at her wife as tears fell down her face as Undyne did the same. She climbed up to kiss her love’s head as Sans let go and stood back from the bed, admiring the couple.

“Sans, do you want to cut the umbilical cord?” Alphys asked, turning towards him.

“Nah, you should do it, you’re her wife,” he put his hands up in defense just to put them back down.

She didn't bother to argue and walked over to do the deed. With a simple snip, she was given the baby in a small pink blanket.

The baby looked more so like Undyne, with her blue color and scales, but had a small tail trying to poke out the bottom of the blanket. She seemed so peaceful and quiet now, not to mention the most beautiful baby Alphys has ever seen, even if her opinion at that moment was a little bit biased.

“Do we have a name, yet?” The nurse asked gently and kindly, almost seeming to be a bit excited for the infant.

“Do we, Undyne?” Alphys asked, turning to her wife, who seemed to be asleep until she noticed that her chest wasn't lifting up and down. “Undyne?!”

“Take her to urgent care, now!” Two other nurses quickly grabbed the gurney and ran it out the door, as another gently took the baby from her mother, the mother willingly giving her to them, as she attempted to follow the nurse crowd, but Sans interrupted her pace with his arm in the doorway.

“Sans! Let me go!” She cried, trying to push him out of the way. “I need to go help her!”

“The nurses will help her!” He replied, adding more force as she did the same thing.

“But she needs me! She needs…” she weakened her fight until she stopped completely. “She needs… me.”

The skeleton shifted over to hug her as she sobbed hysterically into his shoulder. “You're going to be okay. They're doing everything they can.”

“Why aren't you telling me she's going to be okay?” She whimpered. “I know I will, why can't you say that about her?!”

“Alphys…” He tightened the hug as she sobbed harder.

“W-what just happened?” A sudden, shaky voice asked as Sans looked up to meet the eye sockets of his brother. “Why was Undyne rushed somewhere?”

“I… I don't know,” he answered honestly. “They are going to do everything they can, whatever it's for.”

“I h-hope she'll be okay,” Papyrus stuttered, he was just as worried as everyone.

“Me too, Pap,” Sans agreed.

Sans let go of Alphys as she did the same but quickly gripped his arm like a clingy, nervous child would to their parent during a bad thunderstorm. Then, they made their way outside of the room and sat on the floor, leaning against the wall.

The royal scientist eventually fell asleep on Sans shoulder, finally getting the sleep she needed, and snoring quietly.

“Do you really think Undyne is going to be okay?” Papyrus whispered, not even facing his brother, his gaze seemed as if it was off somewhere else in the universe.

“I honestly don't know, bro,” he replied. “All we can do right now is hope.”

Silence pierced the room.

“Sans,” Alphys called, causing him to turn his head her direction. “Remember when Undyne and I told you that we wanted you to be the godparent if anything happened to either of us?”

“Yeah,” Sans replied, he knew where this was going,

“Good,” she didn't proceed the conversation further, she knew the Sans knew what she meant.

Seconds felt like minutes, minutes felt like hours, hours felt like days until the nurse finally came out of that room, distress drawn all over her face. She removed her surgical gloves and mask as the three friends stood up in the sight of her.

“I need Mrs. Alphys and Mr. Sans to come with me, please,” she motioned back over to that horrible room.

Sans looked back at his brother, who placed a hand reassuringly on his shoulder, then sat back down. The shorter brother got the message and followed the nurse, alongside Alphys, who was trembling in fear and anticipation.

Upon entering, they were instantly flooded by the smell of a mixture of fluids and unkept tools that were defiantly overdue for a cleaning. Presented in front of them was a table that had been covered by a thin, yellow-white sheet, surrounded by the same nurse from before, who all shared the same look: failure.

Once the two stood feet from the table, the nursed gingerly pulled back the sheet to reveal a small pile of dust. Alphys screamed as Sans simply starred in shock. How could this possibly happen to Undyne the Undying? Sure, Sans thought about this happening, but he never would've fully accepted it as a possible reality.

“N-no!” Alphys shook her head as she covered her mouth in shock, feeling both nauseous and emotionally disturbed. “T-that's not her, i-is it?! I-it can't be!”

The head nurse turned her head away in disgrace.

“No. No. No! No! It's not her!” She began to look around, forcing herself to laugh. “C-come on, Undyne! This i-isn't f-funny anymore! Joke’s over!”

“Alphys,” the skeleton muttered, reaching a hand out to touch her shoulder, but it was quickly slapped away as she turned back to him.

“N-no! Don't act like s-she's dead! She isn't!” She was in full denial. “She c-can't be! S-She has to come back, b-because she promised s-she wouldn't leave!”

“Alphys, please, I know that this is difficult to accept,” he said, in some odd attempt to calm her down. “But she's gone.”

“B-but she promised,” she said in a voice almost as soft as a whisper. “S-she p-promise she w-wouldn't leave. S-she did.”

Sans pulled her into another hug, she didn't hug back, she simply stood there in silence, as he forced his eyes shut and his tears back.

“S-she promised s-she would never leave m-me,” she whimpered before eventually hugging her friend tightly and sobbed into his shoulder.

“Sometimes promises like that can't be kept,” he somehow got out without enveloping into sobs as well, he knew that too well.

“S-sir,” the nurse called. “I'd like to inform you two that I would like to help in any way that I can, I know how hard it can be to lose someone close to you, so please let me assist you in any way I can.”

At first, Sans was angered by her interruption but then had an idea. “Alphys, did you hear that?”

“Y-yeah,” she managed to let out.

“Do you want to go with her while I go talk to Pap?” He asked, letting go of her as she slowly did the same.

Alphys wiped away her tears and nodded, much like a child who had just gotten teased by a bully and comforted by her caring parent. She then walked over to the nurse and was escorted to a room next to the operating room they used to be in.

Sans walked out the room and down the hall, Papyrus, tearing his gaze from the wall across the hallway that he had been sitting in since the doctors went to the operating room to attempt to bring back Undyne.

“H-how is she?” The tall skeleton stuttered, standing up as Sans stood in front of him. “Is she okay?”

“I uh,” he tried to find the right words but only stammered. “I don't know how to tell ya, Pap. This is… This is a lot harder than I thought it would be.”

“I-I understand,” Papyrus interrupted Sans’s thoughts, his voice shaky, but then clearing it afterward. “She's gone, isn't she?”

“I'm sorry, bro,” Sans apologized. “If I just declined when Alphys asked me to help, this wouldn't have happened.”

“Sans, this isn't your fault,” he boldly stated. “If they had gotten any other donor, this would've happened either way. She w-would've… Would’ve…”

He covered his mouth, as tears flooded from his eye sockets, then falling to his knees. “Oh, God…”

Sans hugged his brother while Papyrus returned the embrace and sobbed into the shorter brother’s shoulder while he repeated her name over and over again, taking in ever syllable, along with every pleasant memory that went with it until the very last moment.

“It's going to be okay, Pap,” Sans tried to comfort him. “I… I promise.”

The two brothers finally let go, Sans grabbing Papyrus’s shoulder as they did so, forcing his brother to look at him in the eye sockets.

“What I'm about to request you is going to be hard, but I really need you to do it, okay?” He asked.

“O-okay,” the younger brother stuttered, wiping away his tears.

“I'm gonna need you to stay with Alphys while I help with the baby, I don't want her to do anything she may regret,” he told him. “Just until Mettaton comes back from tour, it should only be a week or so.”

“I'll do it,” he nodded, his voice now devoid of emotion.

“Thanks, bro,” Sans quickly hugged him. “I'll be back, I need to see the baby.”

“Where's Alphys?” He questioned.

“She's in the room next to the operating room, she's talking to the nurse that helped us earlier, she said she would help her,” he answered.

“Okay,” Papyrus stood back up, he even walked with no emotion, that kind, innocent, and positive brother was gone, and Sans wasn't too sure if he was ever coming back.

Sans shook his head of his thoughts and walked down the hallway, this time, he was on his way to the nursery.

As he walked down the corridor, many monsters passed, some in worse condition than others, but, in this very moment, he shared some emotions as they did, and he felt that which he didn't quite feel very often. He felt the anxiety, anticipation, worry, and some with sadness and anger as well, all of it, they were shared with him and other monsters at the hospital, for once in a long time, he felt that he could relate to another monster about how he felt. Though this definitely wasn't the place to feel relatable, in fact, he wished it was the least relatable place.

Sans was snapped out of his thoughts when he stood in front of the nursery. He had observed that the hospital was very outdated and this wasn’t any exception. Regardless of observations, Sans had a mission: to make sure the baby was there safe and sound. He took a look inside of it, peering through the gigantic panel of windows. There was the baby, sleeping quietly, she looked just like Undyne.

Sans smiled, though, it was a sad smile, it was a happy one too.

The baby woke up, with a small yawn, it looked up at Sans and giggled, this made him laugh a little bit until he examined her eyes. Her eyes were mostly normal, except for the blueish tint in her left eye. The skeleton was right, Alphys couldn't avoid natural genetic code.

End of Part II

[certifiedskywalker]

Family Name - Jughead Jones X Blossom!Reader

can you write soemthing where the reader is the youngest blossom and openly dating jughead and no one has actually asked how youre doing since jason disspared/body was descovered, except for jug. and one day reggie makes a comment on how dating a loser wouldnt be what jason wanted and you are litterly ready to fight him. But Cheryl, who hasnt really spoken to you since the body was found, is like i know my brother would want our sister happy

I’m sorry it’s so short, but I hope you like it anyway!

“How’s today been so far,” Jughead asked, squeezing your hand. You looked up at him and you shot him a soft smile. “Better now,” he let out a breathy laugh and rolled his eyes. You looked down the hallways and when you didn’t see anyone you knew, you leaned up a pressed a kiss to Jughead’s cheek. It wasn’t like you and Jughead were dating in secret, it was just that most of the people that were close to your older siblings didn’t like it. It was those same people, that called themselves your friends, who also seemed to forget that you had lost a brother too, not just Cheryl. The whole football team, who looked up to the Blossom family name when Jason was captain, seemed to have forgotten about the youngest family member. Since your brother’s cold, lifeless corpse had been found, even Cheryl hadn’t spoken to you. Your heart sank with the thought of your sister, because if you were still struggling, who knows how she was fairing.  

“Hey,” Jughead said, stroking your cheek, “where’d you go?” You just shook your head in response. When you looked back up at him, his green eyes were squinted in concern. “I’m okay, really.” He nodded, but you knew he didn’t believe you. “I’m feeling so good, that I want to go to the football game tonight.” He raised his eyebrow at you and you smiled. “Will you come with me,” you asked sweetly, holding both of his hands now. He smiled at you, leaning down to look into your eyes, “of course.” The warning bell rang, signaling to get to your next class. “See you in the lounge after school.” He leaned down, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead, “see you then.” You let got of his hands, walking down the hall to your next class.

The day couldn’t go by fast enough; you longed to get your life back to some sense of normalcy and attending the school football games would be the first steps to get it back. When the final bell rang, you darted out of your classroom and made your way to the lounge as quickly as your legs could carry you. When you got to the door, you saw Jughead waiting outside. His gaze met with yours, but he didn’t smile. You walked up to him, “What happened?” He just shook his head at first, but you wanted a real answer. “Reggie and the rest of the rich boys are in there,” he said, staring at you, “talking about Jason.” You swallowed, feeling every muscle in your body stiffen. “We don’t have to stay in there, we can go to my house until the game or,” you just shook your head. “No, I need to move on, even if it’s just a little bit,” his lips gave you a small.

“If they say something that antagonizes you,” he starts but you hush him, intertwining your fingers with his. “We’ll leave,” you finished for him and he nodded. The moment you and Jughead walked through the door, everyone went silent, even Reggie. You and Jughead quickly found a spot to settle down without uttering a word to anyone. Jughead opened up his laptop and quickly got to work on his novel. You opened up your book, trying to get ahead of your other classmates in the reading. You were almost down with the chapter when you heard someone clear their throat too loud to not get attention. You looked up and saw Reggie staring at both you and Jughead.

“Jason would be so disappointed in you Y/N,” he said and you could already feel your blood start to boil. “Dating a loser like Jones, tainting your family's good name with a weirdo like him.” You stood suddenly which caused Jughead, who had been watching Reggie with cold eyes, to stand up at well. “Shut up Reggie,” you yelled, “you don’t know Jason like I do, he’s my brother!” “Didn’t,” Reggie said plainly, “you mean I didn’t know Jason like you did.” You grew quiet, your hands curling into tight fists. “And I did know Jason, I knew his opinion of your creepy boyfriend and it wasn’t a pleasant one.” The only thing that kept you from lunging towards Reggie was the feeling of Jughead grabbing your wrist and the sound of someone entering the room. You looked towards the door and saw your sister standing there, hands placed sassily on her hips. “That’s enough Mantle, crawl back into your cave of self-loathing and leave my baby sister alone.” You smiled at her remark, and she made her way in between you and Reggie. “If Jason knew how happy Jughead makes Y/N, I think he would have the decency, unlike you brainless baboons, to accept their relationship.” Everyone grew quiet, until Cheryl stormed out. You followed her close behind, and you were tailed by Jughead. In the hallway, Cheryl stood with her head in her hands. You walked towards her, moving in front of her and placing your hands comfortingly on her shoulders. “You okay,” you asked, prompting Cheryl to look up at you.

“I’m so, so sorry,” she whispered, “I should’ve been with you from the start.” You felt tears stinging your eyes, and soon tears were flowing from all the remaining Blossom’s children’s eyes. After you both calmed down, you looked her in the eye, “What matters is that you’re here now.” She nodded and you both hugged once more. “I’ll see you out on the field,” you said, wiping her tears away. She nodded, but before she left, she turned to Jughead. “I hope I did right by defending you,” she said, “treat my sister well or I’ll have your head.” You let out a laugh and both your sister and you boyfriend smiled. “You have my word,” he said, crossing his heart. You sister nodded and walked out of the school to the football field. You took a few steps toward Jughead, who met you in the middle with one long stride. “Looks like you’re stuck with me,” you whispered, smiling at the look on his face. “Then I guess I’m lucky,” he murmured, leaning down to press a small kiss to your lips. “Shall we wait on the bleachers,” you asked when he broke to kiss. “Sure, as long as I’m not tainting your family name.” You giggled at his imitation of Reggie and nodded, “we shall.”

[blatherkatt]

Title: The Calm Is Terrifying When The Storm Is All You Know [Homestuck]

Chapter 1: Crows and Chainsaws

Summary: There were two kinds of trolls who went to Earth: rich shitheads with too much money and free time, and desperate assholes who couldn’t survive on Alternia, even with the best efforts of the young Condesce. Karkat hated the planet almost immediately, but with his home planet too dangerous for mutants, he really didn’t have any choice but to hide out on this weird little diurnal planet. At least he’d be safe. Or so he thought, right before blundering his way into an accidental friendship with the son of an anti-troll terrorist. 

Rating: M

Chapter Warnings: Implied abuse, mentions of terrorist activities; Illustrated

FIRST | PREVIOUS | NEXT

Karkat had known Earth was going to be a lot different from Alternia. There’d been plenty of cheesy, overly saccharine pamphlets available at the spaceport spouting off about how wonderful and foreign the planet was, and he’d heard plenty more rumors from other trolls (“Humans are super soft pushovers!” “It’s actually against the rules to kill people there, I hear. How weird is that?” “They don’t even have quadrants! What a bizarre species.”).  None of it had quite readied him for the culture shock of actually getting there.  As soon as he’d stepped off the ship, he’d been greeted by Kanaya and Terezi, the former of whom had immediately slapped some sort of hat over his head (“It is called a ‘baseball cap’ and it will be very useful for you while you adjust to being active in the daytime,” she had said, and upon venturing outside Karkat had immediately conceded to himself that she’d been completely right. Earth’s sun may not be as vicious as Alternia’s, but it was still obnoxiously bright out). Terezi’d helped Karkat deal with the necessary paperwork, as promised, and then the two had helped him get onto a huge, smoke-belching hunk of machinery that humans apparently called a “bus” and used to travel over long distances.  

The humans set up their cities so differently from anything Karkat was used to (not that he’d ever lived in a city back on Alternia, or even visited one, but he was sure Alternian cities must have been completely different - nowhere sensible could possibly be this loud all the time), and on top of that, they were just so friendly.  The suspicious, sometimes even malicious looks some humans would shoot him, he’d been expecting. He was an alien on a foreign planet, and there’d been that invasion some seven-ish sweeps ago. But for every human who treated him with mistrust or blatant dislike, there was another who greeted him with a big smile and a cheery, “Welcome to Earth! How do you like it here?” A lot of them complimented Karkat’s hat, too, no matter how many times he had no idea what the fuck a “Texans fan” was.  

(Kanaya eventually explained that the ‘baseball cap’ bore the insignia of a local ‘sports team.’  She had no way of explaining what ‘sports’ were, though, and Terezi had followed up by explaining, “I’ve been here for five years, and I still barely understand human sports. They’re like the blood games back home, except usually without the blood, and no one’s supposed to die, which kind of feels like it defeats the purpose to me. Humans take them really seriously, though, for some reason.”)  

It seemed like a lot of the human behavior had rubbed off on the Earthbound trolls, too; all who had been there for long enough to have acclimated showed all kinds of behavior Karkat found incredibly disorienting - even Terezi had changed up a lot of her vocabulary to the Earth equivalents, and Porrim, Kanaya’s (and now, Karkat’s as well) boss, was patient in a way that Karkat was sure had to be a side effect of living on this obnoxiously saccharine planet.

His friends had been right about Earth being safe, Karkat thought. It was so safe here it made his stomach churn.

It was so different from home, and even though some part of him knew this place was better for him, he hated it. He hated it for being so incredibly, painfully different from everything he’d ever known.

He couldn’t sleep. Not even on days off, when he had the chance to sleep through the day. Porrim had provided him with some furnishings for his new, small housing in a big building (Kanaya was just up the hall from him), including a recupracoon, but sopor slime in the concentrations used back on Alternia was not allowed on Earth for some reason, and without it, he couldn’t get anything more than the most fitful bursts of sleep.  

He instead spent his first three days off from his new job as a “cashier” at Porrim’s shop watching the movies he’d brought to Earth, curled up under a massive blanket and with the curtains drawn to make his respiteblock as dark and quiet as possible.  

The fourth time a free day rolled around, however, Kanaya insisted on Karkat seeing a bit of the city, chiding him for “holing up in his room like a chastised wiggler.” After a great deal of bickering and a final, exasperated push from Porrim, Karkat found himself dragged off to some sort of communally-used, grassy stretch of land that Kanaya called a “park.”  Karkat had a lot of other words to describe the place, none of them nice.

“Why is it so fucking hot out here,” he groaned, sprawled on a leisure platform and tugging irritably at the brim of his hat. Even now, after several weeks on Earth, he still had to wear the thing every time he went outside during the day. Curse this wretchedly bright, overly hot planet and its diurnal inhabitants.

“Houston is known for being rather hot,” Kanaya answered. “Even so, from what people are saying, it is apparently unseasonably warm today.”

“Why the fuck did you make me come out here. There’s nothing to do here and it feels like the entire atmosphere is made of fucking fire.”

“The fresh air will do you some good,” Kanaya said. “This is not our final destination, in any case. There is a small shopping center on the other side of this park.”

“It’s my day off and you’re making me go shopping?”

“Not making you, no. Human shopping centers are interesting places, you’ll be surprised. There is quite a lot to do there.”

“I’ll be too busy fucking melting.”

“You wouldn’t be so hot if you had worn lighter clothing like I specifically told you to.”

“AaaARGH, get the fuck OFF ME!”  A voice interrupted the usual banter, and both trolls snapped their heads toward the source of the sound. A figure was being mobbed by several large, black featherbeasts. Dark feathers hid most of the form, keeping Karkat from getting a good look, but the occasional flash of blonde hair probably indicated a human.

Karkat and Kanaya exchanged a look. Karkat sighed and pushed himself to his feet as Kanaya pulled out her lipstick. “Just don’t like…actually cut any, okay?” he muttered. “I don’t wanna deal with seeing blood all over the place today.” Kanaya nodded, and pulled the chain on her chainsaw, striding toward the chaos. Karkat trotted more slowly afterward.

Several of the beasts immediately fled at Kanaya’s approach. The whirring of the chainsaw sent them all scrambling away in a panic save one, which seemed quite intent on clawing up the human’s hand. A near miss of a swing from Kanaya convinced the creature to change its mind, as well as startling the human into falling over.  He recovered quickly, however, pulling off a shoe and uselessly throwing it after the last retreating black form.

“Yeah, you better run!” The human shouted.  “Goddamned brainless feathery fucking assholes, Jesus Christ — holy shit would you put that thing away, lady, you’re gonna take someone’s arm off.” With the birds gone, Karkat could finally get a better look at the human. He was almost as tall as Kanaya, his hair messy. His clothes were ruffled after the ordeal, and the dark sunglasses perched on his nose were slightly crooked. A white scar stood out rather vividly on his cheek, which Karkat found surprising — weren’t humans supposed to be more nonviolent than trolls? Was this one a warrior or something?

Karkat shook off the thought. It probably wasn’t important.

“Sorry,” Kanaya said, converting her favorite weapon back to its smaller state.

The human stilled, mouthed “what the fuck,” and then shrugged. Karkat almost laughed. The technology Kanaya’s favorite weapon utilized was common enough on Alternia, but hadn’t seen much use on Earth as of yet, apparently.

“So, anyway,” the human said, fixing his shades, “uh, thanks for that. Goddamn crows won’t leave me alone, it’s fucking ridiculous.”

Kanaya beamed. Karkat shrugged. “The fuck did you do to piss them off like that?” he asked.

“I dunno, exist?” he said, moving to pick up a large bag abandoned a short ways away. “Ah, fuck me, the ground’s all fucking muddy here. God dammit, it’s not allowed to be fucking damp when it’s this hot out, fuck’s sake.” He continued grumbling to himself quietly as he hopped awkwardly to pick up his discarded shoe. He paused after retrieving it, took off his now-muddy sock, and then put the shoe back on.

“Are you alright?” Kanaya asked as the human again stepped toward his bag. He walked eerily quietly, Karkat noticed. “Those creatures had some pretty vicious looking claws-”

“Son of a fuck,” the human burst out upon reaching his bags. “Fucking crows got my sandwich, god dammit. Was looking forward to that shit, augh.”

The smallest of the beasts - crows, he called them? - started making a raucous noise from its perch in a barely budding tree. The human scowled.  

“Yeah, laugh it up, asshole! I hope you fucking choke on it. Joke’s on you, shit had turkey in it, so that’s like, cannibalism or something. Motherfucker.”

Kanaya sighed, and spoke up again. “I do not mean to push, and it sounds as if you are quite fine, but —”

“Wha?” The human finally turned his face toward Kanaya. Karkat rolled his eyes. “Oh, shit. Yeah, I’m fine. Hungry as shit, but I’ll get over it. Thanks again for saving my ass. I really gotta go, though. Bro’s gonna be pissed if I take much longer to get back.”

And just like that, the human took off, quickly disappearing from view.  

“Fucking rude,” Karkat grumbled.  

“He certainly seemed rather odd for a human,” Kanaya agreed. “In any case, we should get moving. We don’t want to be late.”

“Late for what?” Karkat said, blinking. Kanaya’s only answer was a smile.

The meeting place this time was an old, abandoned record store in the shadow of two huge buildings, because of course it was. With Bro’s flair for the dramatic, it was about what Dave had been expecting.

“He’d do it on a rooftop if he wasn’t afraid of getting spotted,” Dave muttered to himself. He adjusted the bulky duffel bag slung over his shoulder, took a quick glance about the empty sidestreet he stood on, and hopped into the building through a smashed-in window.  The place was dark and empty, at least out in the front. Bro and his cronies would be in the back room, probably, so that was where Dave headed. He was late, he knew, which meant Bro was going to be on his ass about it. What else was new.  

Sure enough, he found Bro and a handful of the usual suspects gathered in a small room at the back of the old store.  They all looked up when Dave entered, despite his every effort to walk in quietly.

“You’re late,” said Bro.

“Called it,” Dave muttered. Louder, he answered, “Sorry, Bro. Traffic was hell.” He could practically feel the weight of Bro’s annoyance at the obviously nonsense response - they all knew full well Dave had walked to the meetup. “What’d I miss?” Dave finished, dropping his bag.

“Oh, just the whole fuckin’ meeting,” drawled one of the Usuals. Some dude with a beard whose name Dave kept forgetting (only partially on purpose); Stan or Steve or something like that.

Bro tapped his fingers lightly against the half-rotten desk he was sitting on, drawing attention back to himself. “Save it. I’ll deal with him later,” he said. Dave swallowed. Called that, too. “Everybody knows what their job is today?” All the Usuals’ heads bobbed solemnly. Beardy cracked a brutal smile. Bro turned toward Dave pointedly.

“No fucking idea. Am I gonna be doing something cool? Something big? Could it just maybe, possibly, be the same fuckin’ thing you’ve been drilling into me all god damned week? We just don’t know, it’s a fucking mystery —”

Bro slammed his hand against the desk, standing. Dave jolted.

“Hit the lights, keep the getaway wagon running, don’t get seen,” he said.

“Good,” Bro said, giving Dave an almost imperceptible nod. Dave let out a tiny bit of the breath he was holding. Bro rolled his shoulder, slinging his sheathed sword across it, and twitched his head toward the door. “Let’s get going. We’re already behind schedule.”

This was no ordinary day at the human shopping center, apparently. A large banner hung above the entrance, the words “INTERPLANETARY CULTURAL FESTIVAL” written across it in both Alternian and English.

Karkat looked at Kanaya, one eyebrow raised in an unspoken question. Kanaya smiled back.  “I heard about this event from one of our customers,” she said, “and I thought that you might appreciate it. I know you have been feeling somewhat hivesick - or, well, planet-sick, I suppose? And I thought,” she said, nervously smoothing over her skirt, “that perhaps you would enjoy being able to indulge in some pieces of Alternia, and talking to some other trolls in a similar situation, as it were. I have some money for you to spend if you wish, or we can just wander around, or…”

In the end, they decided to just look around a while. Inside the huge respitehall immediately within the center’s entrance, several temporary stalls were set up, most of them manned by adult trolls. (And that was something Karkat really wasn’t used to about Earth - all the adult trolls around, not remotely a threat. Granted, Alternia had more adults on it with the new Condesce’s rule, since she no longer forced all trolls to join the military upon adulthood, but adults generally stayed out of the neighborhoods kids grew up in, and seeing them around usually meant trouble. Here on Earth? Adults everywhere, most of them completely harmless. So weird, this planet.)

A few minute’s wandering found Kanaya chatting amiably with an oliveblood and a yellowblood running a stand selling some of the smaller Alternian musical instruments. Too uncomfortable around adult trolls to engage in conversation, Karkat didn’t pay the talk any real attention and instead glanced around the big room. The ceiling in this place was really high, he noted. All around there was a low murmur of chatter, and if he paid attention, he could hear some faint music playing, probably over some intercom. Somewhere across the hall, a young brownblood was showing several marvelling human children her lusus, a big barkbeast with five eyes.

“Really? He was seen all the way out here?” Kanaya was saying. The concern in her voice brought his attention back to the three women’s conversation.

“That’s the rumor,” the goldblood said. “Dunno what the hell he’s up to out here. I told Dee maybe we should rethink coming to this shindig if he’s in the area, but she insisted.” The oliveblood stuck her tongue out at her friend, but Karkat interrupted before she could speak.

“If who’s in the area?”

Kanaya looked very nervous, as did the oliveblood. The goldblood took a quick, almost-casual look around, and leaned forward a bit.

“Strider,” she said.  Karkat stared. “You ain’t heard of him yet? He’s been a big fuckin’ problem for some time now. He’s a human, and he really hates trolls. Guy apparently fought against us in the invasion and never got the memo that we’re allies now. He and some buddies have been attacking embassies and gathering places all over the state for a few sweeps.”

“Really?” Karkat said, trying to let the breath he’d been holding out as subtly as possible, “You’re all nervous over a bunch of humans? What the hell can they do to us, friendly us to death?”

The goldblood snorted. “You’re definitely new to this planet, kid. Trust me, talk to some trolls who fought in the invasion sometime and they’ll tell you that humans are plenty scary when they want to be.  And Strider’s extra scary. Guy was about your age when the invasion started, and that didn’t stop him from killing a bunch of trolls and apparently holding up a big chunk of the invasion practically single-handed.”

“I-I’m pretty sure th-that’s an exaggeration,” stuttered the oliveblood.

“You know what ain’t an exaggeration?” the goldblood shot back, “The fact that he somehow planted a god damned bomb in that ambassassin’s room last month.”

“J-just a small one,” the oliveblood responded, but her fading voice gave away that she knew she’d lost the argument.

“And this guy’s been around here?” Karkat said. He could feel his pulse starting to race.

“It’s only a rumor,” Kanaya said. “Just some mentions of him maybe being spotted in town. There’s rumors of that sort all the time, though.”

“Don’t worry too much,” the goldblood said. “There’s plenty of other trolls on edge enough to have weapons, so even if he does show up, if you find some quiet corner to hide in, you should get out alright. Just keep your eyes open. He’s a tall guy, kinda spiky hair, always has an orange cap like yours and the stupidest fuckin’ sunglasses you ever saw.”

“I think th-they’re kind of cool,” said the oliveblood.

“You think everything’s cool, Dee,” said the goldblood.  

The two started gently bickering again, with Kanaya joining in now and then to ask about local goings-on, gossip and such, and Karkat tuned out again, lost in thought.  For a couple minutes, at least. This time, his attention was drawn not by Kanaya, but by a sharp, familiar sound.

A…A crow? In this building? The ceilings were high, sure, and from what Karkat heard humans did keep some animals indoors, but crows didn’t seem like they fit that description.

But…Yeah, there it was, across the respite hall, perched up on a sign reading “MAINTENANCE” —  a small crow, squawking away. Karkat thought its eyes flashed red in the light for a moment, and then it fled its perch, seeming to somehow vanish in an instant.  

Karkat blinked, shook his head, and looked at the sign again. He was about to give up and try getting Kanaya to move on when he noticed movement at the door below the sign.

The human from the park was there, trying to look inconspicuous while blatantly picking the lock on the door.  Karkat wasn’t sure why no one else had noticed him, actually; now that he’d noticed the human, it was pretty obvious that he was there. He started to turn back to Kanaya, but she and the goldblood were now pretty deep into whatever conversation they’d gotten into, and Karkat didn’t feel like wading through that lake of hoofbeastshit over one weird human. He rolled his eyes, and trudged off toward the kid. He was about halfway across the room when the kid got the door open and slipped inside. Karkat, suddenly curious, did his best to be quiet, for once in his life, and carefully followed after.