#and then this last month was a fucking nightmare it happened so fast. like i wasnt prepared

[yuukei-yikes]

I also lost my cat recently. it's horrible. take care of yourself, ok? you'll be ok.

yeah dude its fucking awful... im sorry for your loss too :( i wish they could live forever with us. or at least as much as possible.... my boy wasnt even a senior, he was around 10 years old and i had had him for 8..

[aliceinborderlandsquidgame]

New Years | Gi-hun x Fem!Reader | S2

Summary: one year after the games you and Gi-hun battle to find the men who recruited both of you and also try to survive.

Warnings: Takes place right at the start of S2 - There is still another full year till they meet with Salesman - Paranoid Gi-hun + Reader - Depression - Survivor guilt - Soft!Gi-hun - Mentions of medication - Starving -

"Really how many will be coming today" You whispered, your eyes checking the cameras of the Love Hotel Gi-hun and You were using as a base and to live.

Currently another couple came to the door, looking for a room only to meet with a closed love hotel.

Your nerves were still high as you keep on checking the camera from the door and the rest, your gun close just in case.

You jumped when you felt a hand on your shoulder, turning around fast you met Gi-hun worried eyes.

"Hey its just me.." He said lowering your gun that was now pointing at him.

"Fuck, announce yourself next time, I could have shoot you" You said tone cold.

Gi-hun made a sound like he was giving you the reason and sat besides you on another chair seeing the cameras.

"How many?" He asked looking to fill up the silence

"Last hour? At least six" You responded "One would think they would be with their families or at least at home, like really, on New years ?" You said closing your eyes for a moment, missing the old simple worries you had in life.

One year ago, Gi-hun managed to track you down back in Seoul after you two won the games.

Maybe you two were in love but also too broken to go on and parted ways. You thought you would never saw him again.

Big was your suprise when he knocked at your door one afternoon and forced you to cut off no less than a tracker from behind your ear.

These fuckers were still in your life even when you had walked out victorious but with lots of scars.

To said you became paranoid after it was to be too simple. You destroyed all your devices and would not leave your aparment. If it wasn't for Gi-hun who took care of you during that time you would have died.

He would bring you food, clothes and even medication after you told him how you have ended needing them after all of what happened.

He never judged you. He was there for you. Even when you acted reclutant at first to help him, to you his idea was nuts, but you also understood him.

The nightmares that would wake any of you. Sometimes you screamed for him and sometimes he did it for you.

The two of you were a mess for a few months, but one thing was clear. You both needed each other.

And so you accepted, moved in with him to his new "home" where he showed you just how real he was about his plan.

Cameras, guns, and the peopel who he was in debt before now worked for him ? It felt like a fever dream, even he admited he would wake up somedays and find this new reality hard to accept or believe. He would ask himself if everything that had happen did truly happen.

"(Y/N)" His voice made you come back. You looked at him, he looked so tired, so done with life but there was also that spark, that need to understand why or how. Maybe it was the only thing that kept him going.

"Im here" You assured him, tough he was not convinced.

"Are you alright? I saw your meds, you are taking more this days..." He was worried not trying to judge you.

"Its just" You paused tears starting to form "I keep seeing them and each day that fucker manages to escape us. Its has been one year and we have no trace of him.

Gi-hun undertood your frustration, he was frustrated too. But he could not let them win and could not let you fall and get worse because he asked you to help him.

"Lets go, I managed to get us some takeout"

"But-"

"I dont think they will try anything today, these fuckers must be working for next years game" Gi-hun said taking your hand and softly guiding you to the couch, in front was a small table were the food was.

"Im not hungry" You told him sitting down besides him.

"You have been eating less and less, you need to eat, you must eat"

"Whats the point? Maybe this is what I deserve to starve myslef...after all"

"It was not your fault (Y/N)" Gi-hun said in a firm tone making you look at him. "All the deaths were never your fault, it was all the fault of them, you and I were victims"

"Then why, why do both of us get the luxury to live ? Why did they let two winners at the end ? Why did they put trackers on us  ?"

"Because they are sadistic fuckers who does not care for others and does not sees us as humans. But nothing good will come from you starving yourself.

I need you, and im sorry we got separated when we first got out, I should have never leave you, and im sorry for have asked you to help me again. I was, no Im still lost, I fear everyday one of them will find you or me and just kill us like nothing. I fear everyday that what im doing its for nothing but when I see your suffering I just get streght to go on and end them.

"Gi-hun...how can you be so strong?"

He smiled pulling your hair behind your ear then he got closer his forehead against yours.

"Im not. I never was, remember how I ran from my debts? How I ran from you? I was never strong or brave but you make me less bad, less well useless"

"You were never useless you were lost and then we both were broken...I should have insisted more on you staying by my side"

"Im here now, and nothing will change that" He assured you taking your head between his hands. His eyes soft, full of love and devotion.

"I wont ever run away from you again (Y/N) I can guarnated you that, you are all I have left, the only person who can understand whats going on inside my head. Im in love with you, I was for such a long time, but I always ran because I was scared. But I cant be scared all my life, not when I was so close to lose you.

You started to cry as he softly clean your tears, it was too much. You felt happy but you also felt like you did not deserve any of it.

And Gi-hun must have read your mind because he continued

"You deserve to feel loved and good (Y/N), nothing I repeat, nothing was your fault or will ever be your fault. Do you understand me?"

You nodded slowly then moved to hug him.

"Never leave me again, please never again"

Gi-hun's heart ache by how fragile and vulnerable you were being right now. All these days of acting strong for him...

"Dont cry, we will get over it, I promise you"

Silence filled the room again till the sound of fireworks and cheers started.

That happiness seemed too far away for both of you.

"Gi-hun..."

"Mhm" He said not having stop the hug

"Happy New Year" You finally said with a hint of humor in your voice, one that you had not show in a long time.

Gi-hun could not help but chuckle a it

"Happy New year to you (Y/N).."

"And Gi-hun...I love you too"

~○~○~○~○~○~○~○~○

FINAL NOTES: This was kind of a New Years special. Love ya all.

[thecreelhouse]

one breathes life unto the other

Paring: Steve Harrington x Reader (GN terms & pronouns, reader has breasts & a vagina)

This is part two of one sin leads to another (both also on ao3), I highly suggest reading this first so you’re not lost! Also, this is the end of this little two-part fic. MDNI!

Summary: The catastrophic destruction of Hawkins leaves Steve utterly hopeless. You refuse to give up on him, trying to find a shred of comfort to offer among tragedy.

WC: 10k+

Includes: angst, hurt/comfort, a lot of grief and survivor’s guilt, suicidal ideations, PTSD, mentions of blood and wounds, mentions of memory loss, brief appearances of other characters, friends to lovers, fuck-ton of feelings, smut— handjob, soft dom!reader, sub!steve, dirty talk, PiV sex (unprotected), nipple play, oral fixation, praise kink, etc.

A/N: I wanted this out months ago, but life happened. This one is heavier than the first, focusing on Steve’s feelings/pain post-s4 destruction, but there’s comfort smut and a realistic happy ending as promised. If it’s not your cup of tea, I understand. Please heed the warnings if you decide to read! I appreciate y’all so much<3 title is from dusk - chelsea wolfe, and dividers from @strangergraphics!

Despite only just reconnecting with your childhood best friend again, you still knew the way to Steve’s house like the back of your hand.

What you weren’t so great at navigating were the roads all torn to shreds, cracked wide open. Down the street, you can see the front of Steve’s house, with no smoke or fire in sight; you assume his was one of the lucky ones that weren’t sucked into the ground.

Rolling to a stop, feet away from a fissure in the ground, you sigh; foot on the brake, chin atop your resting hands on the wheel, you break the silence.

“Steve?”

He barely has the energy to acknowledge you, weakly humming in response. It’s hard to fight the weight tugging his eyes shut, but he somehow manages to.

“I don’t think I can get any closer to your house from here.”

You offered to drive, after all was said and done; everyone was hurting, emotionally, physically, but you knew Steve was in no shape to be behind the wheel.

“S’just a bump in the road,” he murmurs, not bothering to peer out the windows. 

“I’m not wrecking your car trying to get through this shit.”

“Drive in the grass. Who cares?” He still won’t look out the window, stare landing on you instead. “All these fucks are gonna move after tonight anyway.”

Steve’s not wrong about his neighbors, wealthy enough to quickly find homes elsewhere, you know that. Hell, his parents will probably never set foot in Hawkins again after tonight; won’t even come home to assess the damage, gather personals, just leave a mess for their son to handle.

But the damage hasn’t discriminated what paths to take; some houses are crumbled wrecks, too, falling into the mini canyons the earthquake created. If you could even call it that.

“It’s not safe—“

“I don’t even care if the car gets scratched up—“

“Even if I found a way around this shit, there’s a chance we’d fall right through the ground.”

Silence falls between the two of you, and you wonder if Steve fell asleep. Seconds of quiet feel like hours, but he eventually answers, and it’s not one you’d like to hear.

“Fuck it. Not like this was worth surviving anyway.”

Your heart sinks, and it sinks fast. Never once have you heard him so hopeless before. Not even in the past day.

“Steve, don’t say that—“

“Bet it was nice to just… be asleep during this shit.” He throws a hand out to the ruins of a nearby house, void of any faith left in existence. “Not even know the ground opened up wide under your house, die in your sleep— it- it’d be so quick, you’d never even know. You’d be stuck in a dream, forever.” 

You want to counter that with the fact his dreams— more often than not, are nightmares— but you hold your tongue.

The last 24 hours alone have changed you drastically; you can only imagine the amount of change Steve has undergone time, and time again these last several years. But this isn’t him; no past, present, future version of him would ever sound like this.

 This is a polar opposite of the Steve you’ve always known.

You blink away tears, scorching hot, while your throat threatens to close, aching as you do your best not to give into your emotions.

Don’t be a crybaby. Don’t cry, don’t cry, please don’t fucking—

“How can you say that?”

No tears, not yet, thankfully. You’re shaking, though.

“It’s true—“

“It’s not true, Steve. I- I can’t imagine how awful this all feels, how heavy this weighs on your heart every time something terrible happens, but you can’t believe that.”

“Well, I do, so deal with—“

Rage shoves sorrow into the backseat, takes control before your mind can catch up with your mouth. You slam your hand on the steering wheel.

“Don’t you dare tell me to “deal” with you feeling so hopeless like it’s… like it’s some fucking chore. I know you feel awful, you have every right to, but I’m not going to ignore the way you’re talking, either.” Resting your head on the wheel, you sniffle harshly. “Eddie is dead, an- and Max… she’s barely hanging on. I am not trying to guilt you, but goddammit, Steve, this group can’t afford to lose you, too.”

You take a deep, shaky breath, sitting up again.

“Dustin looks up to you and Eddie, you’re both practically older brothers to that kid.” Steve slinks down in his seat, almost trying to make himself small, picking away at the callouses on his fingers. “Don’t make that harder on him.”

A mirthless laugh bubbles out of his chest. “Now you’re definitely guilting me—“

“Fine! Maybe I am! A- and maybe that’s fucked up, but we all need you. We need you here.”

“Always needed, but no one ever wants me to need them.”

You’re balancing on a line between empathy and anger, a very dangerous, thin, wavering line. So, you don’t respond, you only reverse his car away from the fissures, find a safe enough spot to park it on the street, cutting the engine. 

“Get up. We’re walking.”

“What?”

You’re already out of the car, slamming the door behind you; rounding the hood, you tug his door open, hand outstretched towards him.

“Out.”

“Just leave me here.”

“I—“

A shrill static flows out of the walkie on the floor of his car, followed by a tinny voice.

“Hey… what’s the status on your house, Dingus?”

Dustin cuts in, “Robin, you’re supposed to say ‘over!’” He sighs dramatically.

The sound of the kid’s voice— somehow strong enough to still be a little shit after the traumatic night— brings tears to Steve’s worn eyes, fixated on the floor. He can’t bring himself to grab the walkie to respond, so you do.

“Uh, we have to park a few houses away, the street’s all torn up. I think his house is safe, though.” You’re quick to add, “Over”, before Dustin can scold you. While Steve rubs his glazed-over eyes, a hint of a chuckle escapes him. It gives some relief; an ounce, but it’s relief, nonetheless.

While you give the others the rundown, you watch Steve disconnect from the present, face blank and weary stare off in the distance. They agree to meet at his house, since everyone else’s are blocked off by carnage, or completely uninhabitable from the destruction.

Next step: convincing Steve that rotting away in the car isn’t an option.

“Do you want me to help you out? Or do you want to wait for Robin? Because she might drag you out.” You feel like you’re trying to bargain with a child mid-tantrum. He scoffs, crossing his arms; how fitting. “And if she doesn’t, you know damn well Dustin will. Do not make that child drag your grown ass out of this car—“

“Okay, okay, Jesus.” Cautiously, he climbs out, hands gripping the door’s frame. His stare flits to yours, only for a moment; it falls to the cracked ground. “I’m sorry. This— I can’t stop thinking— it just feels like…”

Steve trails off, unable to either find the right words, or unable to speak them into existence. You give him a moment, but he just runs his hand through his hair with a sigh.

“C’mon.” Gingerly, you wind your arm around his torso, tucking it under his arms to help him walk. It’s impossible to remember where his wounds are under his shirt and jacket, so you do your best to keep a gentle hold; he winces as your hand brushes against a raw spot. “Sorry, should I let go?”

It embarrasses him how quickly he responds, swallowing down his pain as he gasps, “Please don’t.”

“S’okay, I got you.”

What should be a five minute walk feels like an hour long trek, weaving around the fissures and splits in the ground; illuminating red, the sweltering heat radiates out, while thick smoke billows out of a few. Some neighbors are missing their cars, or parts of their house have been swallowed by the ground beneath them. You wonder how many of them were home when this happened.

You wonder how many of them are still alive.

Steve has to pause every now and then, catch his breath and assess the surroundings; one wrong step could be fatal for the two of you. 

“God, I can’t wait to sleep,” He murmurs as his house comes into full view. A sigh of relief spills out at the sight of his house completely intact— at least, from the front, it seems. “Gonna crash as soon as we get in.”

“You can’t go to bed like that, you’ve got…” You give him a once-over, grimacing, “… Upside Down gunk on you.” He snorts as you make your point. “And you have to clean your wounds.”

“Yeah, do I? Thought I’d let them get gross this time around.”

“Ha-ha. Very funny.”

The rest of the journey is uneventful, much to your relief; you get Steve inside and help him up the stairs. He begins to wander to his bedroom, but you gently redirect him, hands on his shoulders, pushing him into the bathroom. 

“Nope. You’re gross. I’m gross. I can guarantee we’re both still covered in each other’s—“

Steve groans, more out of disgust than anything.

“God, yeah, okay. Yeah.” He carelessly shrugs his jacket off onto the tile floor. Dirt, soot, and dried blood sprinkle off the leather, tainting the pristine surface. “I’ll… tomorrow.” He’s too tired to care about complete sentences right now.

Removing his shirt is another story; the fabric catches on his bandaging before he can pull it over his head. He winces, hissing in pain. 

Blood soaked through his makeshift bandaging from his wounds— which really should’ve been re-dressed by now, but there were bigger concerns at hand. Now, it’s been— and still is— seeping through the fabric, through his shirt, sticking it uncomfortably to his skin as it dried over, and over, against the gashes on his torso.

The discomfort makes his head spin, like he hadn’t paid much attention to the severity of his injuries until this moment; he reaches for the edge of the bathroom sink, breathing shakily.

“Did it— is it kinda hot in here?”

“Hm? No, I kinda think it’s a little cold— shit—“

Steve’s knees buckle, and you don’t completely catch him in time, but you attempt to anyway. Quickly, you throw your arms out behind him as he falls; you lose your balance as he stumbles back against your chest, slamming against a wall.

“Okay,” you groan, holding onto him tightly. “You need to be at the hospital, not here—“

The fear in his eyes reflects in the mirror before you, breaking your heart.

“Yeah, no, that’s not an option—“

“It’ll have to be if you’re just gonna bleed out on the floor—“

“Well maybe that’s for the best,” he grumbles, finding his footing again only to lower himself clumsily to the floor. “The room’s spinning like I have the worst hangover, I have a headache the size of Alaska, and—“ He squints up at you, frowning. “There weren’t four of you before, when did that happen?”

“Yeah, I’m calling 911–“

Steve uses the little strength left in him to grab your ankle, anchoring you in place to the floor.

“Don’t.” He forces himself to sit up, wincing with a sharp hiss. “M’fine, and there’s no reason for me to take up a bed a the hospital when someone else might need it more.”

You drop back down to the floor in front of him, “Are you fucking kidding me right now?” Sounding more wounded than pissed, Steve can’t meet your gaze; he averts his stare as he tilts his head back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling. “For once, can you stop putting others needs before your own? You mean well, I get it, but you need help, too.”

“I can’t go.”

“Give me one good reason why not.”

That’s when you notice a tear cascade down his face, then another, and another.

“I’ve never seen anyone outside of our friends deal with this shit. What if I— shit, this is so stupid—“

You take his hand in yours, embracing it with a reassuring squeeze.

“If it upsets you, it’s not stupid at all.” 

His eyes screw shut, attempting to stop the tears, but his body betrays him, only letting them flow freely.

“I can barely handle seeing any of our friends getting hurt, and I just know if I see anyone else we know, it’ll make all this shit more real. A- and I can’t see Max. I know we should visit, but—”

“Steve, it was only a few hours ago. They’re taking care of her, and probably wouldn’t allow visitors anyway, and you’re in no condition to check on others right now.”

His shoulders jump as he suppresses a sob, but it’s no use when the dam breaks. He blankets his face with his empty hand, splaying it over his spiraling expression. He shouts into his palm, voice raw from agony, “We shouldn’t be living through this shit- why the fuck are we living through this shit?!” 

Sliding closer, you keep your voice calm, even as it wavers with the threat of your own cries; somehow it’s easier to push your emotions aside to take care of Steve, though.

“We shouldn’t… and I don’t know why, but we’ve survived it this far, so we gotta keep going.”

Steve shakes his head, his cries steadying into full-blown sobs. Hand falling away from his face, you notice how swollen his eyes are already.

“I don’t want to, I don’t fucking want to!” He removes his hand from your own, glaring back at you. “I don’t want to be strong, or brave, or any of this fucking bullshit.  I just want to go to sleep, and never wake up. I want th- this shit to go away. I want to go away.”

It’s years of turmoil, torment, and trauma, all spilling over into what he believes to be a last ditch effort to end the suffering.

“Can’t help my friends—“

“You do, Steve—“

“One of them is dead!” He’s inconsolable; while it’s better to let out the emotions than bottle them up, you’re scared of the way he’s spiraling so rapidly. “One of them is dead, one is barely alive, we all got hurt one way or another— I couldn’t— I just want everyone to be safe, but I can’t even protect anyone.”

“It’s not your job, and realistically, you can’t protect everyone. No one can. We do our best to watch each other’s backs, help out where we can—“

“And you,” his bottom lip curls into a trembling pout, while his bloodshot eyes bore into your own. “You could’ve been killed, and it’s my fault you were hurt to begin with. Then those— the fucking vines, god, the more I think about it, the more I realize how insanely fucked up that was.”

“But we survived, Steve. I’m okay, I promise.”

“That shit was against our will,” voice cracking, he runs his hands through his hair, tugging with stress. “Wh- what the fuck do you mean you’re okay?!”

You scoot closer, hands softly grabbing his face on either side. 

“I’m okay, ‘cause it was with you. I wish you never went through that, never even saw what happened, but you saved me anyway.” Calmly, you reassure him you’re fine. Granted, you’re not, you’re far from fine, really, but you’re more stable than he is right now; if he won’t take care of himself tonight, you will.

His grip slips out of his hair, expression softening with your touch. 

“We’re beat up, and mentally, we’re fucked. For life, probably, just from those stupid fucking vines.” Tilting your head forward, you rest against his, sighing. Steve shudders with a small, broken noise, face twisting up with grief. His tears drip onto your cheeks while he reaches out to you. “But we’re alive, we’re home.”

He brings you closer, cautious of the physical state you’re both in. The moment he ducks his head into the crook of your neck, the cries build back up.

“I don’t want this to be home anymore.“

“I know, sweetheart,” you hold him close, choking back your own tears. 

There’s no bright side to look to, no silver lining hiding in the clouds; you have no words of comfort that’ll actually relieve his pain. Reassuring he’s not alone won’t do much here either.

What the fuck do you do? How do you convince him surviving this tragic, reoccurring, living nightmare is worth it?

Instead, you let him sob it out, whisper anything you can think of to remind him you care, his friends care, that it’s worth sticking around than disappearing forever.

 Time is lost on the both of you, and if he needed all the time in the world to cry on your shoulder, you’d let him. When he starts calming down, he begins to murmur something into your shoulder, but makes a frustrated huff.

“What’s on your mind?”

“Will you… would you mind… helping?” He nervously asks, face still squished against you shoulder, breath tickling your throat. “Helping me, I mean… with the- in the—“

Steve has put everyone first for so long, it’s as if he forgot how to ask for help for himself. You realize it’s not that he doesn’t want to ask, he doesn’t really know how. Not without feeling like a bother to others, or that his problems are minuscule to anyone else’s.

“Of course, I’d help you with anything, y’know.”

He slides back, loosening his grip with a teensy, tiny, fraction of a smirk, “Anything? You’d rob a bank with me?” 

“I’d even bury a body for you,” you joke, but cringe at yourself; the timing isn’t the best.

Read the fucking room.

Yet he allows his smile to grow, not much, but enough for it to be visible. “For me? Not with me?”

Snorting, you roll your eyes teasingly, rising to stand with your hands held out. “Can you stand?”

It takes patience, soothing encouragement, and keeping him upright to get him undressed and into the shower safely. Unfortunately, that’s not the hardest part of this process.

Steve leans against the shower wall while you strip quickly, worried to watch him collapse again. As you fiddle with the water temperature, you hear his breath hitch; you glance over your shoulder to check on him, still facing the shower head.

“What’s wrong?”

His gaze is fixated on your back, eyes wide with concern.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?”

Your brows scrunch together, turning to him as the water finally feels comfortable enough. “What are you talking about?”

Trembling hands gently spin you around by your shoulders while he examines your back.

“Shit…” He breathes, fingers gliding along your skin. “Your back is all scraped up.”

“Goddammit.” Poking your head out of the shower, you glance down to your shirt on the floor; sure enough, there’s blood stains on the back of the garment. “Is it bad?”

“The marks don’t look deep—“

“Then I’m fine.” You push past the sharp stinging in your wounds as water rolls over them. 

“Bullshit.”

“Fine, okay, yeah. Compared to you, though, I’m okay, so let’s clean you up first, alright?”

Steve’s first instinct is to argue, but one glance at the look you give, and he bites his tongue instead. Allows you to guide him under the water, murmuring for him to take his time. You brace yourself for his cries as the blood and grime washes out of the gashes on his body, but they’re nonexistent.

It hurts, it really, really fucking hurts, more than any other injuries he’s had in the past— and that’s saying a lot after everything he’s endured, yet he can’t react. His emotions feel frozen, stuck in between bottling them back up, and breaking down all over again.

“I hate that you’re quiet right now,” you suds up soap between your hands. “If you need to cry, or scream, or whatever helps, you can.”

Steve shakes his head, stare far away in some distant thoughts, exactly like earlier, while trying to coax him out of the car.

“Okay… well, you’re safe with me. You know that, right?”

“Don’t want to scare you after… all of that.” He means the outburst he had— minutes, maybe hours, who fucking knows— ago.

“After tonight, you’re the farthest thing from scary.”

The light teasing leads him back, just enough, to the present, to you; he snorts, and it brings you some relief.

“Was I scary before?”

“Oh, the scariest,” you quip, careful to keep your touch light as you massage soap onto his forearms. He groans as you sweep your fingers along his biceps, aching from exertion. His limbs feel heavy with pain and grief, but your touch is a soothing balm amidst the suffering. “Never met anyone as scary as you.”

He’s not used to this, being doted on with extra care and precision, and the bonus hint of playfulness, too— but maybe he can get used to it, as long as it’s with you.

You take your time, washing around his wounds, trying to avoid and divert any soap slipping into his wounds. It surprises you how still he stays, but you notice the way his jaw tightens when your fingers wander too close to some of the gashes. 

“You doing alright?”

“Kinda, y- yeah, nothing I can’t handle,” he mirrors your words from earlier, after the vines finally released you. 

“Can you turn around for me?”

Steve’s eyes snap wide open, “What? Why?”

Your brows knit together, “So I can clean up your back too?”

“Oh. Right.” He turns, hands planted on the shower wall for support. You continue your meticulous work of cleaning away dried blood and soot from the Upside Down off his skin. In time, he’s free of any filth that hell left behind.

Tenderly, you massage any areas far enough away from the wounds, hoping it brings some relief.  It’s relief in itself to watch his shoulders relax, while he releases a soft sigh. It goes on like this for a bit, until you get closer to Steve’s hips. That’s when he tenses up again.

“Does it hurt?”

“No,” he strains out.

You’re not buying it. “Steve, what’s wrong?”

He doesn’t answer you, rather, mutters to himself, “Christ, am I really—“ Steve forces a laugh, hair flopping forward as the water weighs it down. Sighing, he leans his head against the wall, eyes shut. “Ah, fuck.”

“What’s up?” Your hands wind around his hips, fingers brushing low against his hard-on. “Oh. Well, I guess you’re up.”

It bubbles a laugh out of him, a real one; it’s weak, but you’ll take it.

“Wow, that was—“

“Smooth, right? I know.”

He doesn’t answer, only turns slowly, hand splayed out against the tiled wall for support.

“Second time in 24 hours I’m hard when I shouldn’t be. That’s fucking embarrassing,” he mutters, shaking his head with a bashful smile. You quirk a brow at him, a smirk curling along your lips.

“Second time? When was the first?”

Steve’s eyes meet yours over his shoulder, before looking away. He murmurs, “When I found you.”

Oh. Duh.

“Why are you embarrassed? It happens. The— getting hard part, I mean. Not the whole… weird mind-controlling pollen that turned us into insatiable freaks thing, that… that doesn’t happen. Often. Ever. At all.”

The two of you hold one another’s stare for a second before bursting into a fit of laughter. He’s caught up in the brief moment of joy, he doesn’t notice you step closer, eyes pinching shut as he snorts. Not until your hand slides around his shaft, then the laughter dies abruptly; his breath hitches for a moment, then he shakily exhales.

In a languid motion, you stroke him with one hand, while the other finds his face, palm resting on his cheek. His head lolls into your touch with a whimper.

“Hey, you don’t— it’s— don’t feel like you have to do this.”

“I know I don’t. I want to.” Your thumb rolls over the head, catching a bead of pre from the slit. You laugh softly, hand sliding down to his neck while you kiss the opposite side.“Actually, what I really want is to get on my knees for you, but there’s no way I’d get back up right now.”

Steve begins to smile, but you stroke him just right, enough pressure over that prominent vein to lure out a beautiful, breathy moan.

Without disturbing his injuries, you lean as close as possible into him, head resting on his shoulder to gaze up at the pleasure written all over his face. The blush on his face has crept down his neck, spreading along his chest; you can feel the heat under his skin turning red. His eyes screw shut as he bites his lip, muffling the sweet sounds you’ve grown to love in the last 24 hours.

For a split second, Steve appears tortured in his expression, but sinks deeper into bliss. Your hand on his length slows, while the other lets go of him, concerned.

“Are you alright? Does it hurt?”

He shakes his head frantically, managing to look down at you without losing it right there. 

“N- no, it— pl- please keep going.”

 His back arches off of the wall, reminiscent of the way he writhed on the floor for you earlier. Now, though, he’s not bound by vines, nor is he in a frenzy, looking for a way to put the fire out. It’s your gentle touch turning him to putty; a drastic contrast from the way you treated one another in the Upside Down. One hand slides around your waist, holding you even closer, while the other cradles the back of your head, kissing the top and lingering there. His moans are quieted while he nuzzles into your wet hair.

 God. This man is un-fucking-real.

“When you said no one ever wants you to need them… that just isn’t true,” you mumble into his neck. “I need you, and I want you to need me, too.” You’re trying not to get emotional while giving your friend— boyfriend? whatever— a hand job, but the vulnerability won’t stop pouring out. “I’ve always wanted you. I’ve always needed you. And I’ve always wanted you to feel the same.”

Steve tucks his head against your shoulder, “Close…”

“You’re so good, Steve. So good to everyone. So good to me.” You wish you could shut up, you’re probably ruining the moment, but it’s true. It’s all true. The praise seems to spur him on, regardless; he’s thrusting into your fist and panting. “Shhh… let me take care of you, for once. I got you. Do you trust me?”

“Yeah, I- I do,” he’s whining into your skin, sucking marks along your shoulder. “I trust y- you, I  really—“ He chokes back a wavering whimper.

“Don’t be afraid to be loud with me,” you reassure him, stroking him at a steady, delicious pace. “S’okay, Stevie. I got you.”

Just as Steve finally reaches his peak, about to release some of the most sinful, beautiful moans you’ve ever heard, the front door slams shut.

“Hellooooo?”

Eyes clamped shut, he bucks wildly in your grip, whimpers building into those sounds you were oh so lucky to hear earlier. You already know from experience he is loud, and you just encouraged it, but you’re forced to mute his audible bliss, throwing your hand over his mouth.

Steve’s eyes spring open, glancing down at the hand over his mouth, trailing his gaze to you, only to nearly cross as they roll back. The vibrations from his moans shake you to your core, but never mind that. He spills over— your hand, the shower floor, his stomach, your leg— it’s all a mess, matching his demeanor. 

“Good boy,” you whisper, rewarding him with soft, slow kisses, planted along his neck, under his jaw. He shudders, your hand still guiding him through the last of his climax, but then he jolts under your touch, squirming and panting under your palm. Barely finished, another wave of pleasure rolls through him, and he’s shooting pearly, thick ropes everywhere again.

“Is that really all it takes to get you off? Just some praise and kisses?” Steve nods aggressively, eyes fluttering shut as he slumps against the wall. “Fuck, that’s hot.”

“Are you guys here?!”

His head falls back against the tile, catching his breath. “Ah, shit.”

“Yeah… um, sorry for the whole ‘be loud for me’ thing… kinda got carried away and forgot they’re coming over.” When your hand slips away, he gives a drained, yet content smirk. 

“Thought this whole time—“ He holds a finger up, trying to ease his breathing steadily. With lids still hooded, he glances over your way, smirking ever so slightly. “— You weren’t into taking control.”

“What? Why do you say that?”

“I thought it was just that pollen and the vines earlier.”

BANG!

“Christ on a fucking—“

“I hope you’re not dead in there!”

“We’re actually far from it—“ Steve slaps his palm over your mouth this time, glaring as you whine.

Well. This is horrible timing.

“We’re alive, just— just give us a minute!”

“Us?” Nancy’s tone would pair well with a pearl-clutching expression. “Are they—“

“You two are gross!” Robin chastises through the door, kicking it for emphasis. “Wasn’t once enough?!”

 Dustin gasps, “Once? Wait, are you saying—“

“I can’t believe this is happening right now,” Steve grumbles under your palm, head falling onto yours, sighing. You pull his hand off your mouth, rolling your eyes.

“Steve was bleeding out, and I was trying to— ugh—“ Frustration overwhelms you while calling out your defense; to be fair, you’re not lying, just… not telling the entire truth. “— can y’all for once, just once, not make it weird?!”

Though they don’t sound like they’re buying it, Robin, Nancy, and Dustin murmur apologies through the door before walking away.

Sighing with relief, Steve’s arm slides around your waist, reeling you in closer. Water continues to tumble down between your bodies, rinsing away evidence of his arousal. Under calmer, lighthearted conditions, you’d be happy to clean him with your—

“Hey,” Steve’s hand cradles your face, leaning in to kiss you softly; it’s quick, but reassuring, breaking you from your thoughts. “Thank you. For taking care of me, I mean.” He’s got a dazed smile on his face, one that doesn’t reach his eyes, but he’s content, just enough in this moment.

“Not sure if you’re thanking me for making sure you didn’t bleed to death, or for the handjob, but you’re welcome—“ He clasps a hand over your mouth again, eyes wide.

“Shhh!”

“Not even 24 hours ago, you were railing me with a buncha’ fucking vines—“

“Oh my god.” With a groan, he glares at you, “Please shut up—“

“And now you’re too shy to talk about a handj—“

Both hands fly up to cover your mouth, which you only giggle under them.

“You’re so lucky we’re not alone right now.” It’s cute, watching him try to take control all on his own; he’s a flustered mess without the pollen running through his system.

“Oh, please, like you’re in any state to fuck me at all.” You slip out of his grasp before he can pathetically try to silence you once more. He rolls his eyes, but again, a hint of a smirk lingers.“Lemme bandage you up before we go downstairs.”

“Hang on,” he grabs your hand, stare falling to your back again. “Gotta take care of your back, first.”

“It’s fine, really—“ Hands flying to your hips, Steve gently leads you under the water again. His forehead rests against yours, lips brushing together.

“Let me take care of you, too.” 

He sounds so broken, desperate to repair something within him by doing what he knows best— putting others before himself.

You don’t have the heart to deny him right now; with a simple nod, you allow him to dote on you, too.

“Fucked up we can’t order food right now,” Robin grumbles, digging through the kitchen cabinets. “Could really go for some comfort pizza.”

Dustin frowns, “Robin, people died.”

“Like I don’t know that— I’m trying not to think about how many people we might know that didn’t survive tonight, so let me whine about pizza, okay?!”

“Pizza would be in the freezer, not the cabinets,” Steve, fighting sleep that he needs in the worst way, counters. He’s leaning against the kitchen island, chin in hand, elbow on the table, falling asleep every so often. It’s when he begins to fall over that he wakes up, and repeats the process all over again.

“Okay, y’all just go— go be comfy somewhere, I’ll make something.” When Steve lingers while everyone else files out, you narrow your eyes. “Steve, babe, that means you too.”

“You don’t need help?”

“With what? I still know where everything is.”  You begin opening cabinets and drawers, not looking when you name the contents correctly. “Plates, silverwear, mugs on the bottom, glasses on the middle shelf, top shelf has the nice glass—“

“How the hell do you remember this?”

“— The really fancy glass is in that hutch,” you throw a thumb over your shoulder in its direction, rummaging through a drawer. “The one your mom hated us running around when we were kids.” Steve’s silence catches your attention, finally looking up. “You alright?”

He opens his mouth, ready to speak, but can’t find the words he needs. He loses them, like a dream slipping away after waking up, just dissolving the longer he thinks about it.

“Steve? Did I say something wrong?” You step closer to him as he shakes his head, running a hand over his face with a sigh. “Is it weird that I remember this stuff? I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

“You didn’t, you don’t,” his voice splits with despair as he gets up suddenly. “I— I need to lay down.” You don’t get a chance to comfort him as he rushes to the stairs, wincing and hissing from the deep aches and stabbing pain all over his body. 

Instead, you’re left standing alone, stumped, and a little hurt.

What did I do?

“What happened?”

Nancy’s soft voice, laced with curiosity, startles you out of your thoughts.

“Sorry,” She grimaces, but notices how tense you are. “Are you okay?”

“I… don’t know. Not really, I guess.” You still stare where Steve was moments ago. “I have no clue what’s going on. I think I upset him,” You tell her what happened, slumping into a chair nearby, sighing with defeat. “He just… froze, and left.”

Nancy seems to catch on immediately, nodding with her lips pursed. “He didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

She slides into the chair next to yours, sighing with a shake of her head.

“He’s been pretty beat up the last four years, but the damage left behind is worse than he likes to let on.” She glances down at her hands, folded in her lap, speaking carefully. “He’s still himself, but sometimes he— he has these memory lapses, and gets really frustrated with himself, even if it’s out of his control.”

You feel sick. This is a detail he shouldn’t have left out while reconnecting with you. You’d never judge him for what he can’t control, and of course one could only take so much damage before there’s heavy consequences.

“I think the trauma kicked it off, because it’d happen at times when we—“ She cringes, pausing, not wanting to cross a line, but you’re not bothered by the past they have.

“S’okay, you don’t have to tiptoe around it, Nancy.”

Offering an apologetic smile, she continues, “He’d forget things here and there, when we were dating, but it wasn’t enough for the alarms to go off, at least not for me. It changed quite a bit after Billy nearly beat him to death. We weren’t really close anymore at that point, but it was still noticeable, even from a distance.

“Some days seem to be better than others… at least that’s what Owens said. Then last summer, he was even more roughed up, and this time has to be the worse yet.”

Yet.

God, you want to vomit.

“It’s the trauma and head injuries combined,” she explains, voice wavering. “Steve’s still Steve, but sometimes he just… loses himself for a bit. It’s not so life-altering that he can’t be independent, but it’s gotta be terrifying just… forgetting your own life, even for a second. Especially while we’re still young.”

“So that’s why he left,” you realize aloud; Nancy nods solemnly. You need to check on him. “I— do you care if I go—“

“I got it under control, it’s all good.” She rushes over to the pantry, pulling out boxes of pasta— angel hair’s easy enough to make with low energy. 

“Thank you so much, Nancy.” You wipe your eyes as you head for the doorway, but she calls your name, spinning you back around.

“I’m glad you two found each other again, even if the timing is shit.” Her sincere sentiment eases any lingering tension. “He needs someone like you.”

The door to Steve’s bedroom is ajar, and he’s sitting on the edge of his bed, looking through a book.

“Steve?” You call out softly, poking your head through the door. He whips around, dropping the book, facing you with a bloodshot stare. “Shit, sorry, I just— I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

He gives one, dismal laugh, “I think you know the answer to that already.”

You step inside, gently shutting the door behind you. As you move closer, you notice he wasn’t holding a book, but a photo album; when he dropped it, some of the photographs spilled out onto the floor.

Most of the images are of you and him throughout your childhood years.

You crouch down, collecting and handing them back to him. Your eyes meet his own, soaked and swollen in sorrow.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the memory loss?” It’s not out of anger, or hurt, it’s out of concern, if anything at all. 

“Would you believe me if I said I forgot?” He chuckles, but again, it’s lifeless. “I wanted to say something, but I kept pushing it off, and really did just… forget.”

Shuffling next to him on the bed, you wind your arms around him as he continues.

“When you brought up that old memory, it scared me that I couldn’t remember. The photos help, and shit eventually comes back to me, but those moments where everything dissolves away is—“ He chokes up, “It’s fucking terrifying.”

Steve rests against you, head on your shoulder as his arms lock around you, like you too, would dissolve at any moment.

“I scared you enough earlier, didn’t wanna do it again.”

“It scares me for you, but really, I could never be afraid of you. This is out of your control.” You kiss the top of his head, fingers running through his hair, gently scraping along his scalp in soothing, slow repetitions. “But you can’t get rid of me that easy, Harrington.”

The two of you sit in a comfortable silence, holding onto one another for dear life.

After managing to stomach some food and water— all five of you weren’t hungry in the slightest, but needed something in your systems before sleeping— you finally get Steve alone again, cozying up to one another in his bed. Clothes strewn around the room, you burrow under the covers, tangling around one another without fabric barriers— aside from bandaging, wanting to feel as close as possible.

You figured the two of you were both far too exhausted and depressed to fool around, but he’s determined to try and return the favor; you’ve tried telling him there’s nothing to return, you were happy to distract him, make him feel good, even for a little bit, but he wouldn’t have it.

“As much as I want this right now, we both really need sleep.”

“Please? I jus’wanna be good for you,” He nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck, sporadically leaving kisses on your skin. “Please…”

It pains you to say no, but you shake your head anyway. “Steve, you were ripped apart earlier, a- and flung around like a damn rag doll. I need more than anything for you to rest, okay?”

Silence hangs heavy above the both of you, buried beneath the sheets of his bed. Steve’s the first to shatter the quiet, barely above a whisper:

“What if you leave? What if I go to sleep and wake up and you’re gone?”

You lean up on your arm, trying to get a better look at him, but it’s too dark to make out his expression.

“Why would I leave?”

“Everyone always leaves.” He shudders a breath, adding, “You did.”

“Whoa, wait…” You’re baffled. “Steve, you left me behind. You walked away from our friendship for some—“

“Earlier, I mean. When you ran off. You just… left.”

“Because you were saying awful shit to me—“

“‘Cause you didn’t need to get tangled up in this mess!”

“It’s too fuckin’ late to argue that, Steve. It’s said and done— why the hell are you upset over this now? I don’t get—“

“I could’ve lost you!” His voice breaks into a pitchy rasp, trembling against you. “All of this has been so… so… confusing. Do you know how relieved I was to see you come through that gate, but how badly it pissed me off you’d even put yourself in danger to begin with?!”

“We talked about this—“ The sheet covering your naked form falls as you abruptly sit up, scoffing. “I was scared, and you never even asked what I was afraid of. Did it ever cross your mind I was scared to lose you?”

Steve shakes his head with a mirthless, forced laugh. “You said you were scared because everyone left—“

“And you never let me finish that thought, ‘cause you were too focused on being some… some know-it-all dickhead.”

“Yeah, yeah that’s real mature,” He sits up, close to you, but it’s still too dark to make out the details of his expression, whatever that may be right now. “Did it ever cross your mind that I never wanted you to see that place? That maybe I never wanted you to experience a hell like that? That— this— all of this has ruined my life. I’d never want you to feel what I feel— or what I don’t feel sometimes.”

“I’d follow you into hell, any form of it, if it meant helping you stay alive.” You say it so calmly, like it’s a no-brainer, and it is. 

To Steve, it’s just another display of your well-intentioned naivety. He grabs you by the shoulders, hands shaking through his grip.

“What don’t you understand?” His voice cracks, weakened by exhaustion and hopelessness. “Why would I want you to do that? I want you safe. Not down there with me. I wanted to you stay here. Stay safe.”

“Well, sometimes, when you care about someone, you do stupid shit for them—“

“No, no way, you don’t get to use that as an excuse,” He flatly laughs. “You don’t see me pulling stupid shit ‘cause I love you.”

Your ears ring, nearly drowning him out as he begins to nervously ramble.

He what?

“A- and look, I get— I’m sorry. I really am. I know we said earlier we’d leave that shit behind, but I need you to know it was out of—“ He pauses, catching himself before letting the word slip again. “It was never a mistake fixing our friendship. Not for me, at least, but you’ve always deserved better. Fuck—“ His hands leave you to press the heels of his palms into his eyes as he sighs; that much you can tell from the sliver of moonlight creeping in through the window. “I never wanted you down there ‘cause you deserve better. You always have. If anyone deserves to live a normal life, it’s you.”

“Oh, fuck normal, Steve.” Pulling his hands away from his face, you lace your fingers between his. “When has normal ever been my thing? I don’t care how much it pisses you off— I love you enough to follow you into hell, and did.” 

This is the version of you he knew all those years ago, before leaving you behind for a chance of a higher status that never would matter in the real world. A version so unapologetic your own skin, to defend what and who your heart embraces the most.

You’re climbing onto his lap, swinging a leg over to straddle him, and all he can do is watch you with a perfect balance of hearts and stars in his eyes.

 One hand leaves his to cradle his face, skin tingling as he turns his head, kissing your palm. “I’m sorry I caused so much trouble, with the— y’know—“ Talking about the vines is a little difficult without the intoxication of that sinful, stupid, demonic plant you found. “But I’m not sorry for loving you.”

Steve’s struggling to find the right words, eyes searching your own for any doubts, any signs to keep his guard up; all he can find is the sincerity you’ve always shown him, but it’s deeper now, rooted in love. 

His hand reaches to the back of your neck, fingers splaying out and up to clumsily pull you towards him. You gasp once his lips meet yours, matching the hunger he kisses you with. It’s passionate, but slow, at first; in mere moments, he’s pressing his free hand to your back, pushing you even closer into him, whimpering into the lip lock.

Bucking up against you, his bare length glides along your slick heat; you’re caught off guard, completely forgetting the two of you never bothered to get dressed before bed.

“Shit—“ You throw your head back and grip tightly onto Steve’s shoulder. He hisses in pain, pulling you from the haze you’d began to lose yourself in. You immediately release your hold, realizing he was bruised badly. “Fuck, Steve, I’m sorry.”

“S’okay, I kinda— I forgot the vines did that,” He rests his head back against the headboard, wincing as the burning ache lingers. “You were right, we should just go to sleep. Neither of us are in the best shape right now, and—”

“What if I do all the work?” Your offer catches his attention as you run a hand through his hair. “I’ll be gentle, I promise, and you wouldn’t have to do a damn thing, ‘cept take it like a good boy.”

Steve shudders, cock kicking underneath you, still nestled between your folds. He wants it. Wants it bad. Real fucking bad. But, ever the gentleman that he is, there’s still concern over your current state.

“Yeah, but you’re not… you’re pretty beat up, too.” He swallows a gasp, hips twitching as he holds himself still. “Don’t wanna hurt you just to make me feel good.”

You shrug, like the pain’s not a big deal, and really? It’s not, not one bit. All you feel is love and heartache all at once, and you both need a distraction, to channel out the energy built up in that confession.

“I’ll let y’know if it’s too much,” You kiss his forehead, leisurely making your way down to his lips, only ghosting yours over his own. “But I’m gonna be so real with you, Steve—“ When you shift your hips, sliding tauntingly slow along his length, he whimpers, biting his lip to muffle what would’ve been a beautiful sound. “Can’t stop thinking about fucking you since yesterday.”

“Oh, fuck…”

“Shh, gotta be quiet for me, honey.”

It’s a surreal sight, having Steve writhe underneath you with overwhelming desire, whimpering again with his eyes rolling back as you call him honey.

That’s when it clicks; all Steve’s ever wanted is someone who can be as soft with him as he is with them. He just wants to be seen as precious and important as he sees you— wants to feel as treasured as he tries to make you feel.

And god, Steve Harrington is the most precious, important soul in your life. He’s so treasured, every fiber of his being— everything, even the stubborn, bitchy moods— you love all of him. Always has been near and dear to your heart, and always will be.

“Do- don’t think I can,” He pants, desperately trying to keep his voice at a whisper as the head of his cock catches at your entrances. Bucking up into you, he’s rushing out, “Just need t’be inside you. S’all I want, all I need— I- I need you so bad, angel.”

“I know, Stevie,” You grind down onto his cock, biting your lip to mute your own pleased sounds. “It’s all I want, too.”

His arms wind around you, reminiscent of the vines in their selfish urgency, but otherwise, his embrace is filled with a tender adoration.

Eyes flicking down to where your bodies meet, you glance back up at Steve, and oh, what a fucking wreck he is already; stare hooded with lust, mouth parted as he pants, the anticipation of your next move has him on edge, to say the least.

You search his expression for a final grant of consent, and he offers it in the form of a frantic nod, whimpering, “Mhm.”

The stretch as you slowly impale yourself onto him will take time getting used to; it was easier under the spell of some fucked up aphrodisiac, but completely tuned into reality has you taking it slow.

“Fuck. Fuck— Were you this—“ A moan attempts to leave him, until he strangles it into a grasp while you sink further onto him. “T- this fucking tight yesterday?”

Jaw falling open, you keep the cry of bliss to yourself, fully sheathing him while your breaths fall shallow. “M’sorry, I— give me a—“ Steve surges forward to kiss you, hoping it calms at least one of you. 

He breaks the connection, just barely, to whisper against your lips, “I know, s’okay—“ The way you scrunch your eyes shut catches his attention, drags him out of the fog of lust, just for a moment. “Hey, hey, look at me,” Gently, he holds your face. “If it hurts we- we can stop.”

Your gaze is glassy as you open your eyes, shaking your head as your body trembles.

“I- I don’t know how to— it’s like you’re—“ You take a deep breath, then another, for good measure. “Yesterday was… intense, but you… you’re here, we’re both here.”

Steve’s puzzled. “Well, yeah, f’course we are—“

“I thought— shit, m’sorry, I was trying so hard to— I didn’t want to fuckin’ cry.” You mirthlessly laugh at yourself; the action flutters your walls around him, but again, for your sake, he finds the strength to ignore it, pushes back a throaty groan. “S’like… knowing we’re somehow still alive makes it I- I sound insane—“

“Not even close, honey.”

“I feel— you feel closer, somehow. I- I- don’t know how to describe it, but I feel you everywhere, and now that I know y’feel the same, it’s— you—“

“Shhhh, sweetheart, just breathe for me,” You take a deep breath, inhaling rapidly and constricting around him; with a sharp gasp, his cock throbs inside of you. “Okay, not— fuck— not like that, or I’m gonna lose it.”

The lapse of restraint gives you a step up, helps you regain control over your emotions. With a few more slow breaths, you settle down, anchor yourself into the present.

“Are you okay?” You manage to ask, and Steve, in need of rest more than anything, smiles dopily at you.

“M’good, you?” He grabs your hips, lazily guiding you back and forth on him. 

“Uh-huh.” When you discover a rhythm gratifying enough for you both, he moans out, too tired to react in time to quiet down. “Steve.”

“Can’t help it,” He leans into your neck, kissing and failing to keep his mouth busy. “Not with a pussy like this.”

Flexing his hips into you, there’s nothing you can do in time to cover the quick yelp you make,“A— ah! Oh my god…” 

Steve tries his hardest to hold back his needy sounds, but has to bite down onto your shoulder to muffle the noise somehow. 

You rush out in a whisper, “Oh, fuck, Steve! Shit…” Riding him with a steady pace, you pant, “Wish I had something to gag you with.”

“M’sorry, m’so sorry,” He whispers frantically as you bounce on his cock. While you keep a gentle hold on his face, he parts his lips, turning his head towards your thumb, inches from his mouth. A brilliant idea crosses his mind, “Shit… use those.”

“Use… what?” He manages to flit his tongue out to the pad of your thumb, whimpering some more as his taste buds hit your skin. “Oh. You want this?” You bring your hand closer, and happily, greedily, he sucks your thumb in, tongue lapping around your digit.

“More,” He mumbles around your thumb. “Please… more.”

How could you deny his simple, yet sweet, request?

Sliding your thumb out, you replace it quickly with your pointer and middle fingers; selfishly, Steve takes in your ring finger, too, sucking sloppily on all three. With his mouth stuffed, just enough, he begins to drool a little at the corners of his mouth, while gazing up at you so lovingly.

“You’re fucking perfect, Steve.” You praise him, grinding down into his lap. He twitches, desperate to fuck up into you, but holds his composure. “So good for me, so, so good… this feel okay?”

Tears prick his lash line as he nods wildly, still gagging himself on your fingers as you fuck him.

“Here I was, trying to make love to you, but you still need it to be filthy, huh?”

“Mhm,” is all he can manage to reply with, but nearly loses it when you remove your fingers. “N- no, wait—“ The noise of protest dies on his lips as your hand curls around the back of his head, guiding him toward your chest.

“Would this help?”

“So fuckin’ much— mnph!” You push his face into your chest the moment he latches onto your nipple. He laps and sucks with abandon, drooling all over your breast as you lift and fall over his length.

You push his hair away from his eyes, running your fingers through it softly a few times. A rosy blush dusts over his cheeks, watching you watch him; he’s a bit embarrassed by how turned on he is just from this alone, but that’s clearly not stopping him.

“You’re so pretty like this, Stevie.”

Against your fluttering walls, he pulsates over your sweet words. He paws at your chest, toying with your neglected nipple, still swirling his tongue around the other.

“Can’t wait ‘til we’re alone so I can hear all those pretty moans you make,” You murmur to him, feeling him twitch inside you again. He’s whimpering again, stifled by his oral fixation. “I wanna take care of you, all of the time… would y’let me?”

He nods feverishly, teeth grazing along your nipple, earning a pitchy gasp from you. Lips glistening as he pulls back, a thread of spit still keeps him leashed to your skin.

“You’ll let me do the same, ye- yeah?” Steve asks, tucking his bottom lip between his teeth to quiet a groan; you lean back, arching yourself into him and finding a delicious angle for you both while you still ride him. “Jesus… you’re unreal.”

“Mhm… just gotta…” You trail off, biting down on your fist as a squeal threatens to form. “Gotta heal up for me first, okay?”

Steve shoves your hand away, holding your face again; he whispers his promises of healing, ones he plans on keeping. As he babbles on, drunk off the shared bliss while you meld together, he begins to get emotional. “I promise, yeah, I really do, I mean it, m’gonna get better, gonna be okay,” He whispers, kissing up your neck, avoiding any heavy bruising from the vines left behind. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

“Sorry? For what, Steve? Nothing’s wrong—“

“I fucked up, saying I didn’t wanna be here anymore. It’s so… fuck, it’s so hard sometimes to find reasons to stay.”

Your thrusts begin slowing to a stop, “Don’t ever apologize for telling me how hurt you are. I want you safe, and happy, but if you need to get it out, you get it out—“

“Yeah, but I shouldn’t—“ Steve attempts to guide you back into your steady pace, needing the physical connection to steady his train of thought. “I really wasn’t thinking—“

“I love you, and I mean that.” You’re as careful as can be, but wrap your arms around him, leading him to rest against your shoulder as you start grinding on him again. “This has to be hell… to relive over and over…” He can’t help it, bucks up into you, taking your breath away. 

“Y’got every right to want the pain to end,” He’s going to leave aching bruises behind with the grip he’s got on your hips, fingers digging into your curves. “B- but it can’t end like that.”

What an emotional rollercoaster to ride while fucking.

“It won’t, I swear,” Voice wavering, he lifts his head. His eyes, filled with endless emotion, meet yours; pain, adoration, fear, passion— it’s all on display in his bloodshot, spent, tear-lined gaze. Resting his forehead on yours, he whispers, “Never, ever.”

“Good, ‘cause I- I— o— oh— kay—“ Steve finds your clit with ease, toying with it slowly. “If I c- can’t disappear, you can’t either— christ, Steve, don’t stop.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, honey.” Your thighs tense up, squeezing around his body. His hips jerk up, slamming himself into you, so he plants his feet on the bed, intentionally fucking up into you. “Shit, you’re close, huh?”

You barely nod as your jaw slacks, body trembling as pleasure hits you all at once. Steve kisses you, just in time to muffle your cries of bliss. Your high racks through you in convulsing waves, coaxing him to the edge of his own climax.

He practically swallows your moans and mumbles against your lips, “M’gonna— I’m— honey, please—“

“Let go, Stevie,” You manage to tell him through pathetic whimpering. “I got you, a- always.”

Returning the favor, you smash your lips against his, muting his symphony of ecstasy, much to your disappointment. He forces gravelly groans down your throat while he sloppily runs his tongue over yours, sucking softly on it. With a borderline violent grip, he pins you closer to him, as close as physically possible, spilling over into you. Your aftershocks are enough to milk his cock for everything he’s got; he better sleep well tonight after this.

You’re so lost in the moment, drunk on passion, it takes a moment to realize he’s babbling something between kisses and winded breaths.

“Don’t let me go.”

Shaking your head, your nose brushes against his, feeling the dam of your emotions finally crumble. Your tears mix with his, holding him with great care.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, honey.”

Sleep breaks itself apart for you both; if one of you has a nightmare, the other stays awake to provide comfort. Steve’s taken more painkillers than his stomach lining can handle, and still continues to toss and turn from the deeply embedded ache in his bones. You have a harder time falling back asleep than he does— after all, it’s not his first rodeo.

Maybe, at most, you gain an hour or two of continuous rest, but daylight breaks far sooner than either of you would prefer it to.

It’s a little bizarre, hearing birds chirp outside among the never-ending sirens that have droned on through the night; the early morning skies paint the world outside his window in soothing hues of orange and pink.

You don’t dare to look longer, fearing the billowing smoke will break the little bit of illusion left that things are alright. If you avoid peering through certain windows in his house, you can’t see the bleak reality; you stay put, shielding yourself from the truth, just a little longer.

“Hey, Steve?” You’re draped over him from behind, cautious of where you rest your body onto his. You’re quickly learning you like any position where you’re wrapped up in one another, but being the big spoon for him might be your favorite yet.

“Hm?” His voice is gravelly, and you wonder if it’s always like this in the morning, or if it’s just free of charge with the suffering he’s endured all night.

It’s a naive question to ask, but you still want to know how he feels; after all, he is the seasoned veteran out of the two of you. “Do you think the world’s really ending?”

He exhales roughly through his lips pressed together, falling into a pause. “… I don’t know, honestly. It’s, uh, pretty scary, huh?”

Burying your face into his neck, you shrug. “Yeah… but it’s not as scary as it’d be going it alone.”

Squeezing your hands, holding them close to his chest while carefully pulling you closer against him, he sighs. His lips meet the backs of your hands, warmth lingering as he keeps them close.

“I take back what I said last night.” He whispers into your skin, “M’really fuckin’ glad we made it home alive.”

“Even if home’s hell right now?”

“Yeah,” Rolling over, Steve’s hand embraces your jaw, resting softly on your neck. He traces your bottom lip with his thumb, stunning hazel stare holding your own; it’s still bloodshot, but there’s now faint traces of rest, at least. “‘Cause it’s still home with you.”

[no-droids]

Another Rough Day

gif credit @chrishemsworht

Part Twenty of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 13.7K

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

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

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

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

anyways chapter below the cut lets get serious yall

---

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

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

They’re… awful.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“P-Please don’t kill me!”

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

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

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

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

You pause, staring down at him in shock.

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

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

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

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

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

“I’m n-not—I hate the Empire—”

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

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

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

“W-What?”  He squeaks up at you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You make the decision immediately.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s just… not really your thing.

---

They’re everywhere.

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

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

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

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

Din needs to go.

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

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

Run, sweet girl.  Run.

---

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

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

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

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

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

“Radar?”

“Old.  Only engages above fifty meters.”

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

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

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

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

Whelp, you think while taking a deep breath, some strangely calm existential acceptance beginning to flood your soul.  If he isn’t dead, he will be soon if you don’t make it to him on time.

You immediately lift your wrist and speak into the communicator.  “Mando?”  You have no idea if he can hear you, but you need to try anyway.  Your voice is still firm, there’s a strength to it you don’t feel in your chest, but it certainly sounds convincing.  “I’m coming to get you.  Less than a minute to your location, do everything you can to get outside.  If you can’t, I’ll just… uh.  Try to figure something else out.”

That’s it.  That’s it, improvise until you don’t have to.  Even if you’re lacking confidence, you can at least scrounge up some conviction.  Your arms gain feeling again while you veer the Crest through the stony terrain, the familiar reverberations under your feet begin to fill your body with a powerful sense of purpose.  Your breaths begin to come steady, every falling rock you see through the transparisteel feels like it drops in slow motion, allowing you to evade them easily.  It would normally be stupidly dangerous to fly this low with so many unexpected obstacles and hazards narrowly missing the ship, but considering what you’re flying into, a few boulders seems comical.

“Where’s your helmet?”  Oshua asks out of nowhere, and for a second, you don’t think you heard him correctly.

But then it strikes you all at once what he’s attempting to imply, and the sheer lunacy of the thought is enough to make you laugh while you clutch the controls.  “I’m not a Mandalorian.”

“You wear the armor of one,” he points out… rather fairly, you have to admit.  “You cover your face like one.  You have a blaster that fires Philithiorium, a rare and expensive gas native to Mandalore’s stratosphere, and you’re a bounty hunter—”

“I’m not a Mandalorian.”  Your words are short and cutting, you have a daunting task to focus on and don’t feel like having small talk right now.  “I’m not a bounty hunter, either.”

But then again, Karga made you a member of the Guild, didn’t he?  He handed you Oshua’s puck and said this one is for you to find, and you are technically part of a Mandalorian clan.  All of this seems like it happened without your knowledge.  You may be marrying a Mandalorian, you may wear his armor and mother his child and shoot a blaster with his signet branded into it, but war isn’t in your blood.  This robe was a costume when you first made it, this armor was a relic that was restored as a hobby.  In a sense, it still feels that way.  The mask covering your face lended itself to a temporary surge of bravery earlier, but beyond that, the only thing that’s keeping you moving forward now is your family.  The man you love that may or may not be alive right now, the baby holding tight to your leg while the ship sways and weaves through the stony landscape.

Your eyes quickly flick down to the child in your lap, both of his three fingered hands clutching onto the stained fabric of your knee without moving a single inch.  He’d know, you tell yourself.  If his father is gone, he’d already know somehow.  Din is still alive, and he’s counting on you.

---

There’s too many for Din to handle.

They swarmed him, overpowered his endless artillery with massive numbers and there’s nothing he can do anymore.  The backs of his knees are kicked from behind and he slams down to the ground with a clatter, his sizzling hot blasters are ripped from him, and Din folds his hands calmly behind his back even as one of the stormtroopers barks out, “Binders,” to another one, who disappears quickly in response.  In the meantime, a few of them apparently decide to just attempt holding his arms in place, and their measly combined grip is almost enough to make him roll his eyes under the helmet.  These imperial soldiers are even more pitiful than they usually are, but his silent resolve to stall to ensure your escape is enough to keep him stationary and compliant for the time being.

Eventually, a few voices call out from beyond the crowd and there’s some movement from the back.  Dozens of troopers with their blasters all pointed at him begin to shuffle to make way, careful to keep their barrels aimed at him while a path slowly forms.  The crowd of white parts and a stormtrooper with a singular red pauldron on his right shoulder saunters confidently towards Din as he kneels on the ground.

An officer, he assumes.  Conveniently missing from the firefight, the scanner inside his helmet would’ve caught the change in color and Din would’ve made sure to kill him first.

“Well now, what do we have here?”  Comes his thin metallic voice through the tinny filter.  The officer studies him curiously for a few moments, before slowly looking down by his feet, reaching out one cheap, plastic covered foot to gently nudge the body of a dead trooper on the ground with a sigh.  “What a shame.”

Coward, he thinks, his lip curling with disgust under the helmet.

“This is an imperial training base,” he turns his attention back to Din to inform him when he doesn’t immediately respond, rather stupidly he might add.  “How were you able to find us?”

Silence.  The grip on hands held behind his back is even looser now.  He just tilts his chin up slightly in defiance, the scanner inside his helmet locating each weapon strapped to the man’s body and highlighting it red.  Small text boxes blink into existence under each one with a manufacturer and classification—a BlasTech E-11 rifle, a Merr-Sonn thermal detonator, a Kolvo vibroblade—and Din is severely unimpressed with the quality.  The detonator is the only weapon that even catches his eye, and that’s only because the chamber inside that houses the explosive baradium has a release mechanism that’s completely dead.  Useless, then.  Good to know.

After a long moment of quiet tension where Din refuses to speak and the officer continues to confidently scrutinize him, in some strange sort of silent battle of egos that only one seems to have a genuine interest in, another stormtrooper makes his way to the front, shoving past his fellow soldiers to address the superior in charge.

“Commander, we’ve sent out an alert for an intruder,” he tells him, slightly out of breath from running through the crowd in the lightweight armor.  Din wants to roll his eyes, but what he says next makes him snap to immediate attention.  “The fleet informed us that Moff Gideon is currently on route.”

Gideon.  The last time someone spoke that name, it was a quarry on Coruscant and you just barely managed to stop Din from suffocating the bastard for even saying it aloud before freezing him in carbonite.  It would’ve meant half the return on a hunt that lasted nearly a month but he saw red and his hand was crushing his windpipe before he realized what happened.  But he’s dead, Din thinks with a clenched jaw and fists tightening behind his back, he watched that TIE fighter explode and slam into the ground, crushing the man inside it.  The wreck was unsurvivable, he can’t be alive.

“For what?  This Mandalorian?”  The trooper in charge scoffs in response, and Din remains completely mute.

“Yes, sir,” the other one confirms.  “Orders were to capture him, alive.”

“Hm.”  The officer turns his attention back to him, less analyzing and more musing while he tilts his head.  “I see,” he eventually says, and he sounds like he’s grinning, before strolling slightly closer as Din stays completely still on his knees.  “He must want the beskar.  I’m sure it’s worth more than this entire battalion combined.”

All of a sudden, a gloved hand carelessly catches the rim of his helmet and tugs, and Din’s movement is explosive.  He launches off the ground, arms easily slipping from the pathetic grip they were being held in and his fist colliding with the side of the officer’s flimsy white helmet, the plastic making a deafening crack against his face.

Multiple hands immediately rush forward to grab him and yank him back down again while the commanding trooper stumbles backwards in shock, and Din amicably drops to his knees and folds his hands behind his back once more like nothing happened at all.

“Binders!”  A trooper behind him roars loudly once more, and a few men surrounding him begin trotting away this time.

The officer in red stands a few feet away from him now, grabbing his helmet and twisting it back to its proper position on his head where it was skewed.  There’s a shattered hole near his jaw where the material splintered and busted like the cheap piece of banthashit it is, and while he might normally feel pleased with himself for being able to see his skin peeking through, it just fills him with more righteous fury.  It’s such a punchable jaw.

After a few awkward moments of silence, the other one clears his throat and continues.  “He… has inquired about the location and status of a child that should be accompanying him.”

Din inhales deeply through his nose and grinds his teeth.  He wants to snap their necks one by one for even just mentioning his son, but there are just too many, more than even his whistling birds can neutralize.  Still, he gave you as much of a head start as physically possible.  You should be rising into the atmosphere right now, making the jump into hyperspace towards safety.  Karga will know what to do—he’ll protect his family, separate you and the boy so the threat is evenly dispersed instead of collected all in one place, and arm dozens of trained hunters to keep watch over you both individually.  It’s the best Din can do, and it’s the only thing keeping his knees planted on the ground and his body completely motionless while they continue speaking.

“We are combing the sector for a ship with as many men as we can afford to lose,” the trooper in red says, but his voice filter is shattered and now sounds like a puny little droid with a broken voice box, “but our numbers are unimpressive.  Assistance may be required.”

It’s too late, Din thinks, mouth twitching under the beskar with a satisfied smirk.  They’re wasting their time, looking for a ghost.  You’re both long gone by now.  They’ve got no idea you even exist—

“He also spoke of a girl.”

And then he feels his heart stop in his chest.  Every single cell in his body turns to fire, it’s a fucking miracle he doesn’t move a muscle in response.  His sweet girl, the one so far removed from the nightmare of the Empire that she made best friends with the orphans of it.  How the fuck did he know?  He shouldn’t even be breathing, let alone gathering information about you, how did he know?

But then Din thinks back, remembering your makeshift bed on the floor, your panicked eyes and heaving chest as the quarry taunted him with a sick little smile.  Who’s this, Mando?  She’s just darling, isn’t she?  Does Gideon know your crew has a lovely new addition?

“A girl?”

The trooper nods.  “Moff Gideon insisted that if the Mandalorian did not have a child with him, then a girl would likely be protecting him instead.”

He’s going to kill them, Din decides.  Every single one of these imperial pigs, every single soldier standing right now is a dead fucking man.  The blood pumping through his body suddenly turns to acid, deadly black hate poisoning his soul.  His heartbeat morphs into a war drum, the armor strapped to his limbs is the barrel of a gun.  He’s going to fucking kill them and leave an imperial base full of bodies to greet his old nemesis upon his return, and he’s going to enjoy every single second of it.

Except, then—

“Mando?”  The sweetest voice in existence suddenly crackles through the earpiece under his helmet.  “I’m coming to get you.  Less than a minute to your location, do everything you can to get outside.  If you can’t, I’ll just… uh.  Figure something else out.”

And, as Din kneels there in surrender, surrounded by a crowd of enemies he thought he destroyed long ago, all the anger—all the fury and defiance and murder surging through his veins—suddenly morphs to fear.

The emotion is so foreign and old to him, it feels like a face he barely recognizes and a name he can’t remember.  He’s panicked before.  He’s been in situations where a threat has made him blind with rage, he knows what it’s like to look death straight in the eyes and say that he’s busy and to come back another time.  This is different.  This is ice cold that freezes over beskar.

He can’t speak out loud to warn you—he can’t move his hands to press the button on the back of his helmet and allow him to talk without detection.  There’s plasma turrets on the roof of the base, he can see them right now.  The helmet’s scanners say they’re manned and engaged, and though he is outside and this is how you retrieved him before whenever he needed a quick escape, he has fifty fucking imperial blasters trained on him and you know absolutely nothing about this threat.  You’re flying right into a war zone and if either you or his son dies, he won’t ever be able to forgive himself.

Behind the helmet, his eyes fly to each and every trooper, wondering which blaster will be the one to do it.  Which weapon is going to be the one he can’t block in time when you descend, the one that’ll kill him right in front of you.  Which turret will be the one to obliterate the Crest with you and his son inside of it.

“Maker, where are those fucking binders—” he hears someone behind him snarl, but the white noise of pure terror roaring through his ears drowns them out.  His chest starts heaving against his will, sheer panic begins to blur his vision.  For the first time in his life, his armor feels too heavy, his lungs feel like one of these boulders are sitting on them instead of beskar.

All too soon, his helmet starts making a familiar sound that signals quietly in his ear, alerting him of an incoming ship, and the only thing he can physically do is count down the seconds to prepare himself for what is to come.

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two…

Like lightning, Din breaks the grip of multiple troopers and surges up, tackling the officer in red to the ground.  There’s a clatter as they both slam into the rocky floor, but in the ensuing scuffle, he easily snatches the thermal detonator from his side holster and holds it up for everyone to see, before pressing the red button on the front and hearing it begin to beep rapidly.

---

You’re right on time.

The Crest rises up through the rocky cliffs surrounding the base and you spot the turrets you were warned about.  Weapons controls are already engaged and you’re too low to be detected by radar—you fire once, twice, and blast both of them to smithereens from behind before they can even rotate around to target you.

Alarms start wailing but the guns are destroyed.  It’s not comforting, though; blasters won’t touch you up here, but that doesn’t mean they can’t fire at Din on the ground.  Your eyes dart across the sea of white, looking for a flash of silver anywhere, and then you spot him instantly in the chaos.

For some reason, the troopers in his vicinity all seem to be bolting away from him.  Their rifles are down, clutched in their hands while they nearly fall over each other to run away as fast as possible, and your heart soars when you spot his jetpack firing up.  Din launches into the sky while another trooper is revealed underneath him, seeming to juggle something in his hands and then throw it into the crowd of retreating soldiers, but the sight of the man you love rising into the air while a flurry of blaster shots from the far edges of the imperial structure follow him gives you the confidence to immediately turn the guns down towards the horde of troopers.

“Which ones are in charge?”  You ask Oshua breathlessly, who leans forward and points out the transparisteel.

“Red pauldrons—” he barely has time to say it before you aim and fire at one of the troopers wearing red that was closest to Din, the plasma beam launching from the Crest so powerful and devastating that it outright obliterates the surface he’s laying on.  Pieces of shattered armor fly and a smoking crater of rubble is all that’s left behind, but your mind is whirling and you’re already onto someone else wearing red at the edges of the complex, and then two more near the doors, and then another—

To their credit, you think the sixty or so soldiers in training seem to figure out that you’re not aiming into the enormous collection of them.  If you were, the damage would be catastrophic and spraying everywhere, but you’re precise and meticulous with your shots, and the only ones who are loyal enough to the cause to hold still and raise their blasters at the incoming threat tend to be the ones you need to mow down anyways.  The rest of them scatter in all directions, scrambling over each other to escape and then disappearing into the distant boulders surrounding the base—but you notice that not a single one of them runs back inside the safety of its open doors.

The hull dips with the weight of Din dropping in, and relief floods your soul even as you continue raining hell down on the superiors in charge.  Any flash of color you see is a target, your eyes lose focus of everything, your vision blurs and turns monochrome as you just search for red.

“Lift up!”  You hear Din’s voice roar from the hull.  You can hear his rifle unloading through the open door.  “Now!  We have to go now!”

You press the button to shut the hull door with Din inside and punch it, rising so fast that the shove of gravity makes it difficult to keep your head up.  Through the sudden surge of downward force, you just barely manage to raise your incredibly heavy arm to push the button that pressurizes the Crest and ignites the launch boosters, preparing the vessel for space travel.  Outside the transparisteel, the gray sky begins darkening as the atmosphere eventually disappears.  The ship’s engines roar, burning so much fuel at once that you’re actually accelerating through the climb, you’re boosting through the gradual ease of gravity as the planet’s curvature and glow becomes softer and softer below you.

As soon as the blackness of space begins to fill the windows, the slight subsiding of force allows you to plug in the coordinates for Nevarro with less difficulty, but you’re still moving, still rising, still escaping.  You can’t find it within yourself to slow down, but then something catches your attention.

Claws suddenly dig sharp into your thigh, sharp enough to sting and cause you to wince, and you look down to see that the kid has gone incredibly tense.  Deadly tense.  Your heart is still pounding even though you’re away from danger, you’ve got Din in the hull, everyone is safe, and yet—

It flickers into existence all at once.  One second it’s just space, just the endless depths of nothingness spread out for light years in front of you, and within the blink of an eye it’s suddenly there.

A star destroyer.

Your body freezes in horrified awe, having never seen a ship so fucking big in your entire life.  It looks like a massive satellite, the size of an enormous asteroid instantly appearing in your vision and dwarfing the vastness of space around it.  All the stars you used to dream about are suddenly blotted out within a fraction of a second, terror so immense seizes your soul that you stop thinking.  You stop calculating, you stop being yourself for a split second that lasts an entire lifetime.

Before you can move a single muscle, the computer beeps quickly and lurches the Crest into hyperspace.

---

The stars streak across the transparisteel like so many times before.  Utter silence nearly deafens you with how abrupt it is after so much noise, but the peace it used to bring does nothing to quell your fear.  Everything is the same as it always was, same bursts of light as you hurdle faster than it towards Nevarro, same quiet, same rumbling hum of the ship.  But now, everything has changed.

You hear the quarry next to you suddenly inhale and exhale loudly, and it shocks you a little bit, reminds you that there’s a person next to you and another is on your lap.  Other people exist outside of the vision of death that just flickered out of existence just as quickly as it appeared.  They’re breathing, Oshua is shakily unbuckling his seatbelt, life is continuing on in the quiet cockpit but you can’t seem to move like he is.  You can’t seem to breathe like he is.  It’s only when the baby slowly maneuvers himself around on your thigh and blinks up at you, placing a tiny hand on your stomach that you finally feel air enter your lungs.

After a moment, you reach down and click open your seatbelt with trembling fingers, scooping the kid up in your arms and slowly attempting to stand.  Everything feels wobbly and dreamlike, you have to brace yourself on the headrest to prevent yourself from falling back into the chair again.

“That was…” Ryler mutters, his voice sounding foggy and distant, “uh.  A close one.”

You look over at him, recognizing that he’s speaking but not quite able to understand the words right now.  Red catches in your vision, and you blink down at the way he’s clutching his left shoulder, the smear of blood darkening the white armor he’s wearing.  You blink a few more times at the sight of it, and though it feels like you normally would be sickened at the wound, somehow shocked out of your state of shock, it does nothing to you.  When you look back up at his face, his expression seems strangely grateful, even when it’s screwed up in what you know must be excruciating pain.    You did that, a quiet voice whispers in your mind, even though the rest of it seems incredibly blank.

Instead of responding, you stumble a few steps over to the ladder, spinning around and hesitating for a moment.  You’re severely lacking in coherent thought, but one thing seems to break through.  You’re not sure if you have enough coordination to do this safely right now.  However, when there’s movement in your peripheral and you look to see Oshua gently offering his right arm to you, seeming to understand you’d like to use both hands for this, you snap back to your senses just the slightest bit and hug the baby tighter to your chest.  Carefully, you begin making the slow climb down the ladder with the kid, still trembling with the aftershocks of adrenaline.  Your limbs feel extra heavy, but eventually the floor meets your feet.

Din is standing there when you slowly turn around, armor gleaming and still as a statue, but he has his back to you.  His helmet is tilted down at the ground, and when you follow his gaze, you’re met with the sight of the bloodstains of dragged bodies that leave dark red streaks all the way up the ramp.

You feel something this time.  It’s… cold.  A burning, searing cold that creeps into your skin.  Like your heart decides to pump nitrogen through your chest instead of warm blood.  You did that.

There’s a sudden urge inside of you to speak, to address him and inform him of your presence, tell him everything is okay, everything worked out, but you can’t find it in yourself to say a single word.  You can’t find a single word to say.  The kid twists as best he can in your clutch, his ears drag against your chest to greet his father, but for some reason, there’s still a strange sense of fear in your bones.  It’s enough to wake you up slightly, it’s enough to tell you it’s not over yet.  There’s a terror in your heart that hasn’t left since he first called over the comm and begged you to run, a crippling dread that you thought climaxed after seeing that star destroyer appear, but it’s somehow only increased after laying eyes on him like this.

You watch as his helmet turns, slowly meeting the pauldron on his shoulder, and for some reason, you feel yourself harden.  Your feet brace against the metal floor like this is another threat you have to face, you let its unyielding metallic strength transfer up through the souls of your boots to your heart in your chest.

But the second you hear cheap white armor clatter as the quarry steps down the ladder behind you, Din bursts into movement.  He suddenly spins and storms up to you in one single step while catching your holstered blaster on your hip.  It’s out and aimed in the blink of an eye, and it’s a miracle you remember how to speak before he remembers how to kill.

“Mando—” you warn, just in time for the quarry to land on the floor of the hull and turn around to reveal his face.

Din holds there for a second, his helmet locked on Oshua’s features.  His gloved fingers twitch wildly on the trigger of your gun held over your shoulder, like he has to remind himself multiple times not to.  You hear Oshua’s armor clack while he likely raises one good arm in surrender, but then Din’s helmet moves a fraction of a millimeter to your face and holds there.  He just stares down at you, and the air feels heavy, your body feels heavy, the feather light child in your arms feels heavy.

Slowly, he lowers his arm, lets it fall while he continues looking at you from behind the visor.  You look back at him, unblinking, unfeeling, and there’s a few seconds that last an utter eternity where nobody moves.  Nobody speaks, nothing happens, but then a soft coo comes from your arms before you can finally break eye contact, knowing there are still some things that need to be done.

You eventually turn around and lift your chin to address Oshua.

“You have to go into carbonite,” you inform him quietly.  Your voice sounds strange, like it’s coming from outside of yourself.  “We’re taking you to Nevarro, and then you’ll be transported to your home planet. When they unfreeze you, your sister will be there to collect you.”

He looks uncertain, one hand still raised while the other hangs uselessly at his side, and you don’t blame him.

But you also don’t feel like saying anymore, not unless he decides he doesn’t want to go in willingly.  Normally you might’ve tried to empathize, offer him further reassurance beyond just a couple short sentences, but you don’t.  Speaking feels difficult, thinking feels difficult.  You’re still in survival mode, not active but reactive.  There’s also no reason for you to lie to him about this, and you can see him glance at Din standing silently behind you, who hasn’t moved a muscle.

He eventually nods and you walk him over to the chamber without another word, watch him turn to face you as he backs into the opening while you reach up towards the control panel.

But then there’s a moment.  One where you hesitate slightly, one where your vision flashes back to the sight of those bloodstains on the floor, and that burning cold fills you again, so cold it feels completely numb.

“I’m… sorry,” you whisper quietly to him, though your voice sounds so empty.  There’s so much emotion that should be there but isn’t, so much regret and pain that should break through but can’t.  “I’m sorry I… killed your friends.”

Later, you’ll think about how you felt absolutely nothing saying it.  Your heart doesn’t constrict with remorse at the mere words leaving your mouth, guilt doesn’t flood into your soul, pain doesn’t wrack through your bones.  You could’ve been saying anything at all and nobody would be able to tell the difference.

He blinks at you, flicking his eyes between yours for a second or two, but then you press the proper button and watch the gas quickly freeze him where he stands.  He’ll be conscious the entire time, but Karga will send him to the correct location and you have no doubt that this elemental purgatory is leagues better than where he just escaped from.  It’s a benefit being the last quarry to be retrieved—he’ll only have to spend a few days trapped in here before being reunited with his family.

When that’s done and Oshua is a complete statue in front of you, bulky white armor now colored a dull metallic gray and frozen in time, you will yourself to finally turn around to face the enormous mountain of a presence behind you.  The baby gently reaches out for him, but Din doesn’t move from where he’s stood.  Your blaster is still clutched tightly in his hand, and he isn’t looking at you.

Slowly, you walk over and stop directly in front of him in the middle of the hull, blinking at him while the helmet subtly moves to lock onto your face.  The kid begins wiggling in your arms, making soft impatient noises while you both stand in complete silence across from each other.

After a few moments, you hear him flick your blaster’s safety on by his side and then toss it carelessly to the ground.  It skids along the floor, light enough to be mostly quiet.  Gloves reach out as he carefully takes the kid from you and settles him in the crook of one arm, and then he looks you up and down, still not saying anything.

Your eyes follow his movement, watching his arm slowly reaching out to you, and you think he’s going to cup your jaw, or brush your hair back.  Give you some sort of physical reassurance since he hasn’t spoken a single word of it.

Instead, Din suddenly grabs the armor clinging to your chest and starts ripping it off you with one hand.  It clangs to the floor so loudly in the silence of hyperspace, the kid’s ears twitch and flutter with each shattering bang.  You hold still while he does it, you barely respond except the unavoidable movement your body experiences as the pauldron is yanked from your shoulder and thrown against the ground.  The ammo belt is tugged over your head and hurled away, the thigh braces are snatched from your legs and they clang to the floor, and the pearly, opalescent fabric revealed underneath is stained in dead man’s blood, rusty and in such great quantities that it shows up as brown instead of red.

“Are you hurt?”

He sounds… dead.  So monotonic that you can’t possibly gauge his emotional state.  He doesn’t move.   His fists don’t clench, he says every single word like it means the same exact thing as the last.  If nothing at all was a person who could speak, they’d use his tone of voice.

“No,” you eventually whisper.

The helmet nods once, and then he spins around and walks away without anything else.  Without saying anything, without touching you, or double checking you for injuries in case you were lying.  You stand utterly still while Din climbs the ladder with the kid cradled in one arm, and you don’t even flinch when the door to the cockpit slides shut behind him.  You have no idea how long you stand there in the splitting silence afterwards, numb and unmoving.

You feel… nothing.  Absolutely nothing.

The hard defenses you strapped to yourself today to reconcile the things you had to do are still high and strong, guarding your soul even if he stripped away your physical armor.  Self preservation is still animating your body, and your facial expression barely changes.  Your first thought, as soon as you remember that you can have one, is that there are things that still need to be done.  Tasks to complete.

Alone, you shower the lingering traces of blood off your body, the normally clear and refreshing water running a sickly, toxic brown.  Alone, your stomach rolls and suddenly decides to empty itself of the very little that was in it as the scalding drops rain down over you—mostly liquid and bile that easily rinses down the drain.  The water is too warm, it beats down on you like blazing hot sand pelting your skin in the desert.  You feel like you did those first few months with Din, where the silence was suffocating, where you’d only interact with the baby if he was on a hunt or if you could tell he didn’t know how to calm him when he was fussy.  If you were in hyperspace, you usually spent time by yourself in the hull while he lived in the cockpit, and if he decided he needed to be in the hull for whatever reason, then you’d trade places with him.  It was… isolating.  Lonely by yourself.  The quiet used to haunt you before it became your cherished friend, but now it’s a betrayer, a ghost that whispers memories and nightmares in your ears.

When you finally finish rinsing the blood from your skin and get dressed, you see the sheets that used to make up your bed now have fried holes in them from your charred plasma marks, the inside of the hull is covered in them and the trails of dried blood where you dragged the bodies down the ramp.  Your armor is still strewn about the hull, the kid’s hovering shield lays dead in the corner.  Everything you meticulously cleaned and organized and collected and created, now the scene of a bloodbath.  One committed by your hand, your blaster still laying uselessly on the floor forever linked to this atrocity.

You spare a glance towards the ladder, but you don’t want to come face to face with Din yet.  You already knew he’d be furious, but… you had hoped that he’d at least…

What?  At least what?  Comfort you?  Coddle you after you deliberately ignored his instructions?  What exactly, in the past year or so of learning Din’s inner workings and intricacies, would ever give you the impression that he’d come give you a big hug after you purposefully defied him?  You flew the kid directly into an imperial base after being told to protect him, you ignored every order he gave to you in the moments he thought would be his last, and though you did it to save his life, you have a feeling that Din has never valued his life even a fraction of what you do.

The misery stabs at your soul, but your mind is finally beginning to process things logically.  He’s alive, the kid is alive, the quarry is secure, and you’re all onboard the safety of this ship hurtling through hyperspace where nobody, not even the Empire, can touch you.  You weighed the consequences before making your decision, you did what you had to do.  If he wants to be mad, then he can fucking well be mad and you’ll find some way to comfort yourself.  At least he’s here being mad, at least he’s alive and safe and breathing and mad, and your rare act of disobedience is to thank for that.

Somewhere in the back of your mind, you realize it’s probably easier than it should be to reconcile the punishment.  Right now, you welcome the exclusion, the negativity and sorrow beating itself into your soul.  Four innocent people died today on this ship, gunned down under your blaster while they panicked and ran for cover.  You keep hearing their screams.

So you start to clean up the hull, needing another task to focus your thoughts on.  You work to erase every inch of the evidence of your deeds, make it disappear like the pool of blood Din once cleaned up while you were sleeping and never acknowledged again.  You only allow the bloodstains to fuck with your head for a single moment, and then you swallow back the nausea until you’re a blank slate again and sink to your knees with a rag in your hand.  After that, your vision stops focusing and it just becomes red contrasting against gunmetal gray, and you work tirelessly to get rid of all remaining traces of it.

Then you start on the blaster marks, you need them gone.  After a few informed attempts at mixing cleaning chemicals, you find one concoction that allows you to wipe them away like they’re nothing more than dirt that got tracked in.  The Crest’s oxygen recycling system works overdrive to constantly purify the air so you don’t get high or pass out, but your nose still stings.  It’s fine, it’s sterile, it burns a bit but it smells sharp and metallic and keeps you hyper focused on the task at hand.

After that’s done, you pick up the charred blankets and ball them up to throw into the trash vent.  You don’t feel anything as you do it.  You don’t think about how long it took you to collect these over months and months of being stuck on this ship, how comfortable they were when everything else was industrial and rigid, how many nights you spent with Din curled up in their softness while he breathed easy and warm.  Sheets are just luxuries, they can afford to be lost.

Next, you gather your armor and wipe it down with the rag, put it away along with your blaster.  The stained robe goes in the trash, along with the sheets and the blood soaked cloth you used to clean everything.  They’re all ruined, you’ll never be able to make them right again.

The hull is sparkling clean when you decide to take another shower.  Nothing on you is dirty except your hands, but you feel filthy.  Wrong, cold, numb, cold, stained, cold.

After scrubbing your skin raw under the water and changing clothes again, since you don’t really know what to do with yourself anymore, you slowly climb the ladder to the cockpit, keeping perfectly silent.  When you reach the upper platform and come face to face with the closed door, you can just barely hear Din’s whispered voice speaking quietly to the baby beyond it.

You raise your hand for a moment, hovering your knuckles over the metal, but then it eventually falls.  Instead, you look over and spot the corner, the same corner Din bunched himself into when he snapped at you for even suggesting going on a hunt with him, blew up at you for the mere notion of something happening like what happened today.  You back yourself into it in defeat and slowly sink down on the floor, resting your head against the metal and hugging your knees to your chest since you don’t have a tiny baby to take their place.

You can’t sleep.  You don’t even try, it’s pointless.  The concept feels foreign the longer you sit here by yourself.  You don’t hear Din or the baby anymore, but you feel… so fucking awful that it’s fitting that you don’t knock or go looking.  You don’t want to hold that sweet child with hands that were covered in blood just a few hours ago.  You killed more people than you can count on your fingers today, and of the ones who had done nothing wrong…  They screamed like younglings, ducked for cover and were able to fire off one single useless shot in the mayhem before you closed their eyes forever and left their bodies to rot in armor that wasn’t ever their choice to wear.

You didn’t know they were kidnapped and smuggled and forced into that situation.  You couldn’t have known, but that isn’t the point.  In this case, knowing doesn’t make one bit of difference.

You also can’t face Din yet, not like this.  You don’t want him to see you cowering, shattered with guilt over the decisions you made under pressure.  How will you ever get him to forgive you for not listening to him when you can’t even forgive yourself for the result of your choices?  Din is a hardened man who grew up in blasterfire and bloodshed, just because you love him doesn’t mean he’s going to magically become someone he isn’t.  You’re here letting guilt sink sharp claws into your chest over four dead men when he had a good fifty or more corpses scattered on the battlefield around him.  You decided to wear that armor, you decided to fly into an imperial base with the kid on your lap, and this is now your penance.  You’ll accept it with your back straight and your chin held high.

Figuratively, of course.  Physically, you’re smaller than you’ve ever been.  Crumpled up into a ball, taking up as little space as possible, curling up as tight as you can like an animal protecting all your vulnerable parts during a brutal attack.

So, since he isn’t here to comfort you himself, you just try to think about what he would tell you.  A long time ago, what would he tell you?

Din would tell you… that you killed someone.  Multiple people, this time.  He’d also tell you that it doesn’t matter what he tells you, what you could have reasonably foreseen or what you should have done.  The end result won’t change.  You own this now.  You’ll carry their deaths with you.

You take a few deep breaths, self-soothing with the undeniable truth that would be murmured matter of factly from his quiet voice.  He wouldn’t argue with you.  He wouldn’t deny the decisions you made or the consequences of them.  It happened, and at the end of the day, you either learn how to handle that, or you don’t.

And, for the four you did shoot, you were responsible for freeing ten times that amount.  You’re responsible for reuniting Oshua Ryler with his family, even if your place in yours is momentarily shunned.  You’d rather be out here alone than in there with the kid, wondering where his dad is or if he’s even still alive.  You rescued Din and now he gets to be here to shut this door on you, hold his son, and whisper calm reassurances to him.  If you listen really hard and imagine, you can pretend they’re for you, too.

That’s it.  Focus on them both, alive and well together.  Focus on the bodies wearing white armor that were moving, the ones that were bolting away from the imperial training base as fast as they could, free from the torture of imprisonment and conditioning.

Finally, you close your eyes and slip into unconsciousness.  It’s not a testament to your exhaustion, but rather just how long you’ve been left to sit here by yourself.  Hours, maybe.  Time is strange in hyperspace.

You dream of a faceless man ringing bells.

---

When you wake up, a small baby has been placed in your arms, and you’re being dragged into a strong, secure beskar hold on the floor.

“Din,” you suddenly lift your head as soon as you’re conscious and nearly bonk it into solid metal, apologies rising in your throat before you even remember where you are.  You did what needed to be done to keep your family alive and together and you’d do it a thousand times again if necessary, but that doesn’t mean you won’t apologize anyways.  After the deeds you’ve committed today, regret feels as natural on your lips as speaking your own name.  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I know you’re mad at me but I—”

“Shh,” he whispers, running his gloves through your hair.  He’s still wearing his helmet, he hasn’t taken anything off yet.  “Don’t say anything.  Just… stay here, stay right here with me.”

“I tried to save you,” you croak, tears instantly flooding your eyes.  You did save him.  You saved him and the baby and yourself but you’re so physically and emotionally exhausted that all you can recall is your intent.  “I tried.  Wasn’t gonna leave you there by yourself.  I tried to be brave, like you—y-you wouldn’t have left without me.”

His arms tighten around you, cradling you in such a strong embrace that you burrow into him, you find a place for your head on the hard metal strapped to him and bury yourself there, wishing that you had shovels of dirt being piled on you to justify the death you still feel staining your soul.  Your heart is starting to pound now that you’re remembering, your body is starting to shake with tremors of shock now that you’re aware of your own skin again.

“I was so sc-scared, Din, I didn’t—didn’t know what was happening,” you lament through watery eyes, gasping it out in hopes that it’ll relieve the slightest bit of the gut wrenching guilt just mercilessly crushing you.  It caught you before you could protect yourself against it, that armor you built around yourself isn’t on when you first wake up.  “I-I didn’t want to kill them, but they were already on the ship and y-you said—you said they were coming after the kid s-so I had to, I had to—”

“Stop,” Din whispers, voice so quiet that you can barely hear him.

“I-I cleaned up the blood,” you turn your face against the cold beskar to let all the positives you listed for yourself before scrape across your throat.  They don’t sound comforting anymore, they just sound like excuses.  “It’s gone, it’s like it never happened, everything is okay now, I got the quarry, I protected the baby, I saved a bunch of people, you’re both safe—”

“Stop,” he chokes out.  The modulator cuts off before you can hear his next breath, but you feel it shudder under your body.  “St-Stop it, please.”

Your eyes clench shut so tightly you feel like the streaking stars outside are behind them, tears drop down against his pauldron and you press your face tighter to it like it’s a wound, like the pressure will somehow ease the bleeding.

“Listen to me,” he says very quietly, and you instantly brace yourself.  The walls you just let down shoot right back up, your body physically tightens in preparation for another pain, another trauma, another scar you’ll carry, and you stop shaking.  You stop breathing, even when his hand comes up to ease your face away from his armor.

“You,” he whispers, holding your chin so you’re staring right at him, and your eyes flick fearfully in between his behind the visor, “are a sweet girl.”  Din’s leather thumb brushes along your skin, dragging over the tears below your puffy eyes.  “Not,” his voice catches, “a Mandalorian.”

Your heart goes cold.  Again, everything turns numb.  It doesn’t matter that you already said this yourself out loud earlier today.  It doesn’t matter that you acknowledged this fact, verbally insisted it more than once to hammer home the truth and felt some sense of comfort in it.  For some reason, hearing the words from his mouth is a fucking knife to your chest.

“I taught you how to fight, how to shoot a blaster,” he murmurs, thumb catching every single tear that continues to fall as he speaks.  “I taught you everything I know, everything that’s been taught to me.  I taught you how to defend yourself, how to protect yourself when you’re in danger.  I gave you your blaster, I gave you my armor, I gave you everything I could give you to keep you safe.  And when I thought you were ready, I let you loose on Sanctuary II.  Do you know why I did that?”  The helmet tips forward the slightest bit at the question, probing deep into the most shattered part of your heart.  “After all those months of fighting, and shooting, and training, do you know why I told you to run?”

You blink silently at him, a shaky breath quaking through you, and your expression wants to crumple under the reprimand.  You’re so fragile right now, taking hit after hit after hit to the softest parts inside you, and you want to just give up.  Let the guilt and remorse take you, let it wash you away.  But then, instead…

There’s a flicker of something inside you.  Something strong, endlessly strong, and it makes you want to revolt against what he’s saying.  It replaces the hurt and fear and desperation for comfort with a strange sense of insurgence, like it did earlier when you were hiding behind a boulder, cowering and trembling and not wanting to die.  You’re filled with a quiet urge to defend yourself in the face of this, stand up for yourself and refuse to be beaten down any longer.

“Because you needed to know how to escape danger,” he answers himself when you don’t.  “You needed to know how to disappear, how to outsmart any pursuer and find safety, even the trained ones.  Especially the trained ones.  Anything else was meant to be your last resort.  Not your choice.  Not something you chose.”

“I couldn’t leave you,” you admit to him quietly, voice shaky and tears still coming even as you try to speak up for yourself.  The regret you carry has nothing to do with this, and you decide right now that you won’t feel bad for saving him.  Your hurt comes from the meaningless things, the ones without any need whatsoever, not the necessary ones, and you tried.  You repeated his words to yourself over and over again, told yourself to run, told yourself to get to Nevarro, and it wasn’t going to happen.  “I couldn’t do it.  It wasn’t a choice.”

“It was,” he tells you.  He says it softly, whispers it like it’s the gentlest thing in the world, but the power and inherent distance of the armor strapped to his body finds its way into the words.  “And it was the wrong one.”

“What was I supposed to do?”  You ask, just a hint of that rebellion swimming to the surface now, rising out of the waves of self doubt, the one that feels like a spine growing in your back, an energy coursing through your veins that makes your heart start to beat faster.  Din’s hand slowly drops from your cheek but you don’t care.  “Was I supposed to run away and just let you die?”

“Yes.”  It’s quick and blunt and completely emotionless.  Delivered like a punch to the vulnerable parts of yourself he taught you how to protect, and the utter silence following this single word is comparable to the physical pain you learned to defend against.  It jabs hard against everything good and sweet and tender inside of you, and you’re left speechless even as he continues impassively.  “That’s exactly what you were supposed to do.”

It takes a second, but then that unfamiliar feeling suddenly surges up, breaches with the power of an entire ocean.  Your voices may be nothing more than whispers in the dark, you may be clinging to each other, holding each other with the softest, gentlest love in your hearts, but the strength of your conviction on this would rip metal apart.

“No.”  The word holds the might of your entire being, and it stands alone and defiant in the face of everything you fear, everything that threatens you, him, and this child.  Never.  You’ll die before that happens.  “I love you, and there’s nothing in this galaxy that would ever make me do that.  Not fear, not danger, not the Empire, nothing.  Not even you.”

Din stares at you.  His visor reflects your hardened expression back to you, the force in your soul and the purpose in your eyes, and you don’t even realize the gravity of what you just said because like your love for him, gravity is a constant.  It’s a fundamental truth cemented into the rules that govern your actions and it stays true no matter where you are, no matter what terror you face, or how scared you become.  You have him, you have this little boy in your arms, and if that’s all you have, then you have everything.

After an eternity of this, of feeling his eyes pierce deep into you from behind the helmet while you refuse to wither under his stare, you watch him slowly turn and look down, landing on the sleepy child tucked between you both.  He holds there for a long time, before finally whispering, so quiet that the modulator barely picks it up, “It was the wrong choice.”

You stay quiet.  It happened.  What’s done is done, you can’t change the past.  He can scold and reprimand you about this as much as he wants, but you did the right thing and that decision is the only reason he’s even here to be able to do so.  This exhausted child was reunited with his father because of your choices, and this exhausted father was reunited with his child.  You won’t argue anymore, but it’s a certitude that lives deep in your heart now, builds a home there right alongside the both of them.  Din eventually looks up, his eyes find yours again behind the visor, and his hand rises once more to gently cup your jaw.

“I… thought I’d enjoy seeing you in my armor,” Din finally whispers.  It’s not what you expected, but his voice sounds… weak.  Broken.  “You wore mine once before, and it was…”  He brushes his thumb along your cheek, and then his head shakes slightly, pushing the thought away.  “It wasn’t real.  It didn’t fit.  It dwarfed you, it made you look out of place, it made everything soft and innocent about you stand out.  I liked it because it wasn’t real.”

“Was it… really that bad?”  You whisper back, partially to ease the tension just slightly but quickly breaking eye contact with him when you realize it doesn’t land correctly, it just sounds self conscious and sad.  You try to find that conviction again, that strength and assurance that propped you up so sturdily before, but…  Not a Mandalorian, he’d said.  Of course not.  Of course not.

“It wasn’t the armor.”  Din gently tugs up on your face so that you look at him again.  “It was you covered in blood.  It was you purposefully putting yourself in danger.  You killed multiple armed soldiers of the Empire, you dragged their bodies off the ship.  And then you flew into an imperial base, where you killed the officers, too.  You…”  He shakes his head slowly at you while speaking, and although you can’t see his face, you don’t need to in order to hear the horror in his voice.   “You… collected a quarry… in the middle of a massacre, sweet girl.”

Not a Mandalorian.

“You don’t chase down bounties,” he tells you.  “You don’t fly into war zones.  You don’t kill imperials, you don’t collect quarries, you don’t sacrifice yourself, or our son, to save me.  You said you tried to be brave… like me.”  His fingers tighten against your cheek, he dips his helmet to make sure you understand.  “I’ll never ask you to be brave.  I’ll ask you to survive.”

“I’m… sorry,” you finally whisper, and his arm drops from your cheek to join the other in wrapping around you and holding tight.  They hug you and squeeze, encasing you and the baby in a beskar shield and staying there for a long time.  Long enough for you to tuck your head back into its proper place under his helmet, long enough to start to feel okay with the silence again.  It brutalized you the last time you were surrounded by it, it made you feel alone and desolate and barren inside.  You greet it warily now, settling into it for an unknown amount of time until it’s forgiven once more.

After a while, Din quietly breaks it.

“How many?”  He murmurs to you.  You already know exactly what he’s asking, there's no more clarification necessary on his behalf.

You slowly close your eyes and think back to the smoldering craters, the blood soaked ramp, the fear in Oshua Ryler’s eyes as he begged you not to kill him.

“That didn’t deserve it?”  You ask, clenching your eyes tighter at the memory.  “Four.”

And maybe, maybe six or eight months ago, you would’ve begged for some guidance on how to reconcile that.  Hell, maybe a few hours ago, you could’ve used his arms around you exactly like this, his low voice repeating the same things he’s already told you before, over and over again, if only for some semblance of stability when everything feels turbulent and uncertain.  You’ll never be able to change it, though.  This belongs to you now.

This time, all Din says is, “I’m sorry, too.”

And that covers everything.

The silence envelops you both again, but… there’s something else.  Something that still sits deep in your worries, an image that isn’t a scar of what’s happened but a dread of what’s to come.  You need to tell him.  You don’t feel like saying it, you don’t want to speak it aloud for fear of bringing it into existence, but you need to tell him.

“Din?”  You breathe out, and he makes a soft noise in his throat while cuddling you on the floor.  “I saw…,” you whisper, every word sitting tight and reluctant in your throat.  “Right when we made the jump, I was looking through the window and I-I saw…”

“A star destroyer.”  He says it like… like it’s the worst thing in the world and also completely expected at the same time.  He says it like he already knew, yet can’t even imagine.  You lean every bit of your weight against him since you can’t hold him in return, squish him as best you can against the small corner and curl up even tighter in his arms for comfort.

He takes a deep breath, a shuddery sound you don’t think you’ve ever heard him make before.  It holds untold anxiety, unsaid conflict, uncertain action, an unknown path forward.

“I don’t know what to do,” Din eventually whispers to himself, to you, to the baby in your arms.  His voice is barely a breath through the modulator, his fingers digging into your skin with how many emotions he’s repressing.  “What do I do?”

He sounds so distressed that you automatically feel your soul find the floor—instantly, you become steady and calm and you locate all that rationality that kept you going today.  All your worries still twist deep down, all the guilt and the turmoil wrestles with your soft, easy nature until you can only find bits and pieces of it in the most vulnerable places inside you, but if he’s struggling this terribly, then the least you can do is offer some good, true, unwavering faith in times of uncertainty.  You’re in hyperspace, everything worked out, and it’s going to stay that way for right now.  If he doesn’t know how to talk about it yet, then you trust him enough to wait for him.

“It’ll be okay,” you tell him with a newfound confidence and purpose, carefully easing the baby into one arm so that the other can find its way to the other side of his helmet and pull him closer.  Din tucks his head and allows you to brush your lips against the metal, whisper the words soft and steady to him.  “We’ll figure it out together.”

---

@cptnbvcks thank you so much for the incredible art!

[beautifulfuckup99]

ok ok i just got this random idea bare with me

Chubby mid size cute reader, she is very confident but gets inscure from time time

Namjoon is her BF 😉😉and they are camping with their friends. ( some of them are not that nice to her abt her looks).

One girl then says a comment pitting her that she cant be carried or manhandled due to her wait.

Later Namjoon carries her with one arm out of the blue in front of everyone and then a nice spicy time in the woods

Very random 😂😂😂 only u can make it happen😂😂😂

I feel blessed to have so many Namjoon requests!!

Title: For Me...

Warning(s): Insecure!Y/N, Slight B0dy-Sham!ng, Hurt/Comfort, Smut! And of course Fluff!

Author's Note: Obviously set in an AU where Namjoon has his license and drives lol. Enjoy!

*****************************************

"Yes!" Namjoon cheers the second he throws the car in park. You look up from your book, blinking the sleep from your eyes.

"We're here?" You ask, feeling the surge of relief that you no longer have to sit in this car anymore.

"Uh-Huh." He says fast as he gets out of the car, pausing to breathe in deep through his nose. "Baby! You smell that? That's nature, baby!" He cheers excitedly and you close your book, giggling softly as you get out of the car while watching your boyfriend of just six months spin around giddily.

He was a giant dork, and it made your heart flutter in the best way possible.

"Ay! Namjoon! There you are, man. Took you long enough to show up!" Dae laughs as he walks over from where the tents were set up.

When Namjoon had told you about this camping trip with his friends, you were pouty, you had to admit, but you were understanding that he needed time to cut loose with his friends. Especially before he had to run off to the military. BTS being on hiatus meant he had more time to roam and explore and the one thing he's been looking forward to is getting back into nature. When he invited you to join the camp trip, you hesitated. You knew the members of BTS, yeah, but these were buddies of his from back home. Guys who knew him from way back when. School days.

You wanted them to like you, that's all. You slowly get out of the car as Namjoon starts hugging his buddies who run over to greet him. You fix your shirt and hold the sweater more around you. Your sweatpants now feel like a bad idea since all his friends look actually put together. You had done the bare minimum of getting ready, and now you couldn't help but fuss at your hair a bit.

"Oh! Guys, this is my girl. Y/N..." Namjoon smiles proudly, dimples on full display. The four guys surrounding him all eye you up and down.

"This is Y/N?" One guy says slowly as if you're not who they expected. You smile sheepishly as you walk over to grab Namjoon's hand that he's holding out for you.

"Hi, guys. Sorry to interrupt guys' camping weekend. I promise, you won't even know I'm here." You try joking as they continue to just look at you.

"Ay, it's all good. My girl came with too." Dae shrugs as he nods to the campsite where a girl still sat, flipping through a magazine. You nod, kind of relived that you wouldn't be stuck in these woods with just guys.

"I'll go get the bags." Namjoon says and squeezes your hand to assure you before he goes back to the car.

"So, what are you guys thinking for lunch?" You ask to try and start a conversation. The guys all share a look and one finally snickers.

"Too easy." He says before walking away while shaking his head as if humored by something. You feel your heart drop at that moment.

Fuck, this was a mistake...

***************************************

The next morning, you're woken up by Namjoon kissing all over your face as he wraps his leg around your waist. You grumble playfully and open your eyes to face him. Last night had been a nightmare for you. It was full of backhanded compliments and little glances from everyone in the group around you, as if everyone was in on a joke that you didn't know about.

But you DID know the joke. You knew your body, you knew the difference between you and Namjoon, you knew the irony. 'Ha-Ha, Namjoon is all about the gym and health and look at him dating a plus sized girl'. You weren't dumb or blind. You knew your body weight and type, but you also knew that you had one of the best leaders of K-pop wrapped around your finger and drooling over you at any given second. It didn't full stop the self-doubt, but it helped a bit.

You've been chubby since you were a kid. You've heard and dealt with it all. A weekend with jerks like your boyfriend's friends wasn't gonna hurt you too much. And you definitely didn't wanna bring this to his attention either. After this weekend, you'd never have to deal with these people again...

"Morning, baby. We were gonna head to the lake. You're coming, right?" Namjoon whispers finally after a moment of just rubbing his nose with yours. You hum softly at that and stretch a bit.

"That sounds nice." You nod tiredly. You hadn't slept much due to how hungry you were. You picked at your dinner the night before as to not be a cliché plus size person. You watched though as Namjoon had three bowls of the ramen and his buddies all drank and had about two to four each. It was a bit unfair. You wondered for a moment why you had to act carefully when slurping up noodles when your boyfriend sat proudly right next to you, eating and drinking away. Why you had to take small sips of water and after a few bites of food claim you were full when everyone around you shameless enjoyed themselves. Could it be because you had something to prove? Yup, exactly.

"Hey. You okay?" He asks softly as he eyes you closer, hand pushing your hair back to really look at you. You look up at him and the urge to vocalize your uncomfortability is strong, but you shake it off. It was Saturday and you'd be saying your goodbyes Sunday morning. You could do this.

"I'm all good. It was just so hot last night. I couldn't get comfy..." You lie softly and Namjoon nods, pecking your nose.

"Maybe we can sneak away after swimming for a bit and take a nap." He offers softly as he rests his forehead against yours. It makes you blush as you nod along. You two get up soon enough and throw on your bathing suits.

You make sure your black one piece is on right since it was kind of strappy in a few places. You step out of the tent real soon and see all the guys and Dae's girl all look over at you, eyeing your body. Dae's girlfriend gently tugs at Dae's shirt and whispers something in his ear, making him laugh and nod his head in agreement.

The overwhelming feeling of regret swallows you whole and you grab one of Namjoon's shirts to put on over your shirt. You try and act none the wiser to all the snickering which only makes your self anger grow more.

"Okay! Bag is packed and ready to go!" Namjoon says as he steps out of your tent and pauses. "What's funny?" He asks his buddies and they all laugh before shaking it off.

"Nothing, man..." Dae says before walking off with his girlfriend. The other boys follow and Namjoon eyes you and smiles a bit as he tugs at the shirt you had on.

"What's with the cover up?" He asks and you shake your head.

"Just don't wanna get sunburned..." You say softly, not wanting to put a damper on Namjoon's vacation. Just one day. Just one day...

He nods and offers you his arm for the short walk to the lake...

When you get there, the water is cool and clear which is a great contrast to the sun that was beating down on you all today. You get in the water and focus on swimming with Namjoon when Dae grabs his girlfriend from her tanning spot on the dock. He lifts her with both arms as she screams for him to let her down and not to throw her. He doesn't listen and chucks her right into the water.

When she surfaces, she starts yelling at him for throwing her while all the guys laugh expect for Namjoon. He holds you a bit closer to his chest as you both bob in the calm lake. She finally sees you looking at her and glares at you.

"What?" She asks.

"Nothing. Just... Sucks that he ruined your hair." You say back gently. She eyes you a bit and then puts on a false smile.

"Well, at least my boyfriend can pick me up." She says in a joking tone and the boys laughing makes your heart feel heavy in your chest.

"What?" Namjoon asks, having heard her right but shocked that those words even left her mouth.

"Oh, Nam, calm down. It was a joke." One of his friends chuckles and Namjoon glares, obviously pissed at this moment.

"Yeah? I'm not laughing." He says shortly before swimming over to the dock and getting out.

"Namjoon, come on..." Dae tries as your boyfriend grabs his towel and then one for you too. You swim over silently, knowing better than to do anything else but just go with Namjoon to get him out of this situation before he blows up.

He helps you out of the lake and wraps the towel around you before you both leave back to the campsite, ignoring his friends as they try calling you for you guys.

****************************************

You sit between Namjoon's legs, pressed back against his hard chest as you hold the newest novel you have to share cause if not, one of you will read ahead. The walk back to the tent had been silent, the shower at the bath house had been quiet, and now the reading time you two share was full of this tense silence. You knew Namjoon was still pissed and you just hoped you could keep him calm till you left tomorrow morning.

"Done?" You ask, so you could know if you should flip the page or not. When you don't get an answer, you turn your head to face Namjoon and see him deep in thought, jaw clenched and face hard set. You frown softly and gently grab his face to make him look at you.

"Babe. It was a dumb joke..." You try quietly and he looks you in the eyes.

"You didn't sleep well last night because of them, didn't you." He says quietly, putting it all together in his head. It makes you frown, but you couldn't lie to him.

"I was... A little upset. Yeah." You admit quietly.

"Why didn't you tell me? I never want you in a place where you're that uncomfortable, Y/N. You know that." He says as he looks at you.

"They're you're friends, Joonie. I-I just... Wanted you to have fun." You try as he looks at you with a frown.

"Well I'm in hell when you're being hurt." He says quietly. You sigh softly and move to nuzzle into his neck.

"I'm used to this, babe. I grew up plus size." You point out quietly and Namjoon shakes his head.

"And? It wasn't right then, and it sure as hell isn't now." He says.

"I know your body. I love your body. Because your 'body' is just skin. Skin that protects everything in you that matters most." He states seriously. "It protects your heart... Which is full of love and care for the world. It protects your brain... Which is always more intriguing to me than any book out there. And it protects your spirit. Which is what I fell in love with. These amazing curves are a bonus." He says softly and you snort playfully while rolling your eyes.

"I know. I'm perfect to you." You mutter playfully, as if you're annoyed by hearing it.

"You're not just perfect to me. You're perfect for me, Y/N. I love you. And I'm not gonna let anyone talk about or to you in anyway." He says quietly as he holds your waist.

You hum. "Tomorrow morning, we can leave." You assure.

"First thing in the morning..." He agrees.

*************************************

Later that evening, everyone sits around the fire, silently eating and drinking. The tension is thick, and no one dares to make a joke or try and break the silence in anyway. You wanted Namjoon to let go of the grudge and have one last dinner with his friends, but he had insisted that anyone able to make you feel shitty was no friend of his. You were still trying to fight off the guilt, but you knew if you had anyone around you that made Namjoon feel a certain way, they'd be gone ASAP too. You just had to stand by your boyfriend's choice.

"I think..." Namjoon finally says, his deep voice demanding all eyes on him, and they are. Everyone is looking at the five-foot-eleven Korean man as he sets his plate down and rubs his hands together slowly. "Before we call it a night, a few things need to be done.

"One. I'd like to remind you all... That she," He nods to you as you sheepishly play with your bowl of beef stew cooked over the campfire. "Is my girlfriend. The woman I love. And I expect nothing but respect for her." He says, his voice calm but with this dark edge to it. Like he was not expecting any argument to his statement.

"Two." He continues. "At the end of the day, you don't have to find her attractive. She's mine for a reason. Because I find her attractive." He states. "And thirdly, if you don't find her attractive? You're just lying to yourself." He snorts and you bashfully roll your eyes at him.

"You all... Need to apologize for what the hell went on with this trip, and you'll be lucky if I ever want to see any of you again." He states honestly. You gaze along the faces of all his buddies, and you feel slightly guilty, maybe even a little childish due to this lecture. You felt like a kid who just tattled to the teacher. But... You hadn't 'tattled'. Namjoon had heard it. You weren't being overdramatic, you weren't play victim, and you didn't deserve this treatment. And you just had to keep telling yourself that...

With a deep sigh, Dae is the first to speak. "Y/N, we're... We're sorry. We were just joking, you know. Giving you a hard time? That's what we do in this friend group..." He says and you look away from him at that.

"Yeah, well that's not what you do with her." Namjoon speaks for you, and you set the bowl down and nod once at Dae. "Don't accept that half ass apology." Namjoon says to you, and you keep your mouth shut. He stands up finally and dusts his hands on his shorts.

"We're leaving tomorrow morning, early. Y/N." Namjoon says, and you quickly stand up only to feel his arm, wrap around your waist from behind. You feel him lift you up and squat down a bit to put you over his shoulder as you squeal in slight alarm.

"Y/N and I are going to bed. Don't bother us." He says shortly before looking a Dae's girl. "And maybe Dae could lift you, if he went to the gym more." He says simply before carrying you away towards your tent that you had moved away from the others for the night.

"Joonie! Put me down!" You hiss as he gets you two into your tent and sets you on the small foam mattress inside your tent.

"What were you thinking? You could've hurt yourse-" He cuts you off by kissing you deeply, you instantly get lost in the kiss.

"Don't disrespect my lifting abilities like that..." He teases quietly against your lips before kissing you more passionately. You can barely react in time as he pushes you back on the bed freely, climbing on top of you.

"What... What are you..." You pant against his lips before he quickly sits up to take off his shirt and then lays back on top of you, covering your jawline and neck with kisses that made you shiver.

You shut your eyes, melting into the cot as he lowers his lips down towards your cleavage. He's quick to pull your tank top up and bra cups down, freeing your nipples as he grips your breasts in both hands.

"I'm showing you that I love this body..." He whispers before tonguing your nipples one at a time, sucking each one hard to turn them into sensitive buds as you arch your back, head rolling back to moan before you cover your mouth.

"Don't cover up. I want them to hear it. Let them know that I know exactly how to handle you. That I thoroughly enjoy you whenever I can..." He whispers before moving down your body, biting all along your tummy as you look down at him, body feeling on fire at this very moment.

"I'm the luckiest man on earth to have you..." He whispers honestly as he settles between your legs, making you blush hard.

He makes quick work of your shorts and keeps your underwear on, blowing softly on the wet spot and making your clit twitch.

"Joonie... Oh fuck..." You gasp as you reach down to grab his hair, needing to feel something against your soaked core and fast.

"Such a goddess." He praises softly before he gets to work lapping at your clit slowly at first. Your head rolls back as you shut your eyes, always enjoying these sensual moments. Namjoon never teases, but he also loves when things slowly build up, especially since the closer you get the louder you get. He had a thing about you being... Verbal.

"Namjoon..." You pant, keeping this in mind. You loved making him feel good over his ability to make you feel good. It was an exchange of sorts. Sometimes you even found yourself twisting and arching your body in different directions as you screamed out because it just egged him on more. Thank god for porn. It was the best teacher...

He turns sloppier the louder you get, and you lose track of where you are at this point as your moans and hard tugs at his hair egg him on more.

At a certain point, feeling how drenched your underwear is from both your juices and his saliva, you pull him up to kiss him, your tongue exploring his to taste yourself on him. He grabs your neck to hold your head still and proceeds to suck on your tongue, and you all but lose all decency at that second, flipping you both over so you're on top.

"You want them to hear? The let's make sure they hear..." You pant with a giggle as he grips your hips hard and sits up to pull you harder against his bulge that is very much present through his shorts.

"Fuck yes, darling..." He whispers in awe before kissing you hard.

**********************************

The next morning, no one can look you both in the eyes and that's fine, because you're still too blissed out from last night to care what they can or can't do. Namjoon says nothing as he packs up the tent and you know you can't force him to drop the attitude long enough for a proper goodbye.

"Joonie..." You say quietly when you two are finally in the car and driving down the dirt road away from the camping grounds. He hums, eyes stuck on to the road with one hand on the wheel.

"Don't stop being friends with them because of me." You whisper and Namjoon smiles slightly at your concern before he grabs your hand.

"Damn your good heart." He says softly and you pout.

"I'm serious..." You try and he brings your hand up to his lips to kiss it tenderly.

"I know you are. And so am I." He says softly. "You're my best friend, Y/N. And I wouldn't have it any other way." He says honestly and it stops your pouting for a bit as you look down at your entwined hands sheepishly.

"I love you." You finally mutter and lean over to kiss his soft cheek, feeling his dimple form under your lips and it just makes you giggle ever so quietly.

"I love you too..." He whispers, looking at you for a moment to show he means it, and you couldn't be more confident of that in this moment...

***************************************

From one plus size girly to another: You are ENOUGH! You are attractive, and you are indeed that bitch lol. Love you all!

[nalyra-dreaming]

hi nalyra, a couple of days ago i saw you answering something about the possibility of tr*mp being elected and that not being great for iwtv and shows in general i think. i'm not sure i understood what's going to happen now that the nightmare came true. would you mind explaining to me?

Well….

I mean, you heard about Project 2025, maybe?

If you haven't... well, I posted about it months ago, and ... it might be too late now, but the Trump administration and his enablers set up this nice little playbook. It's worth looking into, because that's what they want.

We'll see if they manage, but... remember how fast the environmental websites disappeared last time? The LGBT ones? Yep. I remember. First day. And it's easy to check the shit show that happened because of Trump's first term, and still...

Anyways, what does that mean for IWTV?

Let me be cynical for a moment - what do you think it means?

A show, addressing racial issues, with a color-conscious recast. A show, featuring more or less all queer characters. A show, about to feature non-binary and genderqueer characters. A show, not afraid of putting its fingers into wounds.

It is a good thing they're about to start filming s3 already.

I hope we will get s4.

For more I do not dare to hope for.

I ... don't think it's going to be cancelled immediately. And maybe we'll get lucky and AMC will continue to thrive through the people loving the show. Luckily AMC is situated in New York, too.

But if they implement legislation, like they plan to?

Then that will impact. You probably cannot quite fathom how much - yet.

If the Trump administration manages to implement half of what they're planning it will throw back the US for decades.

And with it the culture, and ... well. TV shows, too. Remember all the porn bans, and - even more benevolently - the cookie popups?? LEGISLATION. The wet dream of these people. And they just scored a major victory.

IWTV is the very antithesis for a lot of their beliefs. Queer, racially sensitive and highly critical.

It will be a thorn in their side, and they will seek to remove it.

It will be up to us to make it lucrative enough for AMC to put up with the backlash btw or even fight back against legislation/censorship. Like, seriously. Should IWTV get 10 seasons? YEP. Does AMC plan to do so? Yes. At this point at least they do.

Will they be able to fight against legislation? Debatable.

So maybe this fandom can fucking stop infighting about fucking fictional characters and maybe actually work to keep this friggin' show.

Hope dies last. -.-

Oh, and while we're at it: It's a good thing Ao3 is in CA, but please don't think that they are absolutely safe there. Four years is a long time, and I don't think Trump is going to hold any election after those four years.... -.-

[riacte]

Space Opera AU dashboard simulator

🥧 syrupstars Follow

Anyone else think that Red King racer is a little... y'know... fruity?

👑 falsewellsupremacy Follow

He literally says "ladies, gentlemen, everyone in between, get in line" so I think that answers your question.

🥧 syrupstars Follow

What about the "#Ally4Life 🏳️‍🌈" on his Twilight handle?

👑 falsewellsupremacy Follow

I genuinely have no idea. Maybe he thinks it's about him being an ally to cishet people

#idk ren's just like that sometimes #void knows what he's doing #also prev tags you do not want to get into the black hole of who ren has dated #he has rumours with 3/4 of the grid #edit: WHO MENTIONED BAD BOY TEENAGE REN IN MY NOTES #the shippers are here... oh no #edit 2: not ren at the club.

74 notes

🛑 bluebatshater Follow

oh my voiddd ofc That Duo got p1 again... i need them to dnf in the race. i hope they crash and burn and die and i need crastle to get podium for ONCE. i am so mad. i am calling for the goddess tsuki to curse them. dnf dnf crash burn DIE

🌻 lesbianlumian Follow

the goddess tsuki LITERALLY protects racers and that's why they pray to her? you think the goddess tsuki, creator of lumians, will curse an actual lumian? be so fucking fr

🛑 bluebatshater Follow

if you dont have anything productive to say get off my post. freak

#those blue bats stannies are SO ANNOYING THEY ARE EVERYWHERE #they're overshadowing all the other teams #cant even be a bitchy hater in peace #salt #negativity #hateposting

12 notes

🔮 queenofstarz03 Follow

OMG FALSE IS SO PRETTY SHES MY QUEEN OF HEARTS OMG OMGOMGOGM 💖💖💖💖💖💖 i tihnk im gonna pass out. HER HAIR FLYING IN THE WIND AND HER RED FRECKLES AND HER SMILE WHY IS MY HEART BEATING SO FAST and Ren is hot I guess he's tall like a ferris wheel

🔮 queenofstarz03 Follow

Looking at posts from five years ago is funny like how did I ever believe I was straight

🍦 jelliepopsicle Follow

OP, I think I recognise your url... did you write that viral Bad Boy Ren x QoH fic on Launchpad?

🔮 queenofstarz03 Follow

💀 Shut the fuck up right NOWWW!!

#STOP MENTIONING THAT FIC I WFOTE WHEN I WAS THIRTEEEN!!! #everything before my gay awakening is not canon. sorry #tbh... as much as a nightmare it was i kinda miss that stupid fic #it was from a simpler time #now im in university trying to contact my groupmates and i think one of them got lost in a blackhole last tuesday (again) #sigh. this keeps on happening to me #my cousin worked on one of the moons last summer for two weeks and came back like he'd aged six months #my friend's ex got sucked into a black hole and was briefly spaghettified but they managed to revive her and she gloats that she's finally taller than my friend's ex #whoops sorry for dumping in the notes #anyways. bad boy rk x good girl queen of hearts. awful idea. even more awful fic. yet i wrote it #i regret everything and nothing

25 notes

🗣️ peace-and-planets-deactivated63891092

PSA: Sunblr user @/summerheavens writes RPF of the Exterra 1 racers. She is a big name fan in the Miraculous Laserbug fandom so I thought you all would like to know. This is gross and disgusting behaviour and I implore you to stop.

🍬 summerheavens Follow

umm @/peace-and-planets i literally saw your kudos on my fic. the evidence is out there. girl what are YOU doing at the devil's sacrament. what are you doing on my roseduo rpf titled "hang your head low in the glow of the vending machine (we're not trying)".

but i'm glad you liked it enough to give it a kudos ^_^ will certainly be putting more on the starchive!

❄️ justwingit Follow

LMFAOOOO OP DEACTIVATEDDDDD 😭😭😭 sunblr user got killed by a rpf author. if you're gonna secretly read rpf maybe not leave a kudos?????

🚀 exterrablrheritage

Exterra 1 Heritage Post

⚡ littlewoodbabygirl69

It's been ten years since this post... @/summerheavens are you okay after recent developments

🍬 summerheavens Follow

am i okay? is ANYONE okay??? in these trying times??????? with the most chaotic gp to ever exist?????? i am PULLING OUT WIPS i dropped out of respect ten years ago. i've got to send my kid to daycare but once i'm done you bet you're seeing me on the starchive. miss swift even dropped her 20th album just in time for me to use lyrics as titles. i am LIVING and i am THRIVING

#ohhhhhhhhhh #let's go #also can't believe taylor finally addressed the vehicle manslaughter rumours from like twenty years ago #how fitting #also littlewood needs to get his shit together #why does he look like he's the one who hasn't seen his man in 32738102371 years and got his soul shattered #he's weak and won't survive the winter

27,408 notes

🧈 butteredbread Follow

WHAT is wrong with that lykos. i desire him carnally

🌳 treebark

@/handoftheking

🪓 handoftheking

I mean... yeah. Let's face it, we're all like that 🤷

⭐ nonbinarystar Follow

MR LITTLEWOOD WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE

#WHAT IS WRONG WITH HIM #I HATE HIM SO MUCH #PARASOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS CAN ALSO BE ABOUT HATE #THIS GLOWSTICK MF IS MY WORST ENEMY #he just canonised treebark for the sixth time #also prev tags so real #need to slingshot him into a faraway galaxy

34,091 notes

🫃 spaceshipmpreg Follow

Who put that Just a Dream FalseRen AMV on my dash again

🔮 queenofstarz03 Follow

Respect your roots!! That 125M views Just a Dream AMV raised a generation. Every kid in my school played it on loop on their ipods during recess

🔮 queenofstarz03 Follow

wait op can you explain your url

🫃 spaceshipmpreg Follow

No 👍

#i think we should get the dogwarts freighter pregnant

6 notes

[igncrxntripley]

HEYY GIRL IM BACK

okayy i feel so goofy asking for specific smuts BUT can it just start out as a regular match after a breakup ( reader & rhea arent on good terms rn ) and they work things out towards the end? like they admit that theyve both been thinking about eachother all the time & stuff. regular smut & switch rhea & reader pleasee

ty for replying so fast 🙏 my rhea obsession is an emergency

forgiveness

a/n: two posts in one day...i'm wild

mentions: NSFW 18+, smut, fighting/volatile relationships, heated makeouts, grinding/scissoring, touching, fem!reader, switch!reader, switch!rhea, slight break of kayfabe (use of rhea's real name), minor descriptions of in-ring violence

taglist: @thesithdiaries @cassiesgreta @roseheartsworld @theworldofotps @babybatlover @ripleyswhore @auburnwrites​ @obl1vionblackhart​ @emogoblin-666​ @hereliespumpkin​ @blxxdshxteyes @neptune-lover​ @bunnysmyname​ @i-have-issues-lol @ares-athena​ @thatonepansexual2000​ @witcherfromwallachia

work used to be your safe place. you could go and be with your friends, meet amazing fans, and do what you loved every single day. who wouldn't want that for themselves?

that all changed, though, when you and demi broke things off. the two of you loved one another but the stress of your jobs and constantly being on the road took its toll. the rare times where you and demi got to see one another were spent screaming and fighting, and the last time you spoke to one another was the day she stormed out of the house with her bags and called it quits. you never thought you'd be so happy but so sad to see the woman you love leave, but since then nothing had been the same.

you didn't even see how badly demi was struggling with it either. every night she wanted to pick up the phone and call you; she wanted to apologize, pretend like nothing happened and move on with you. but how could she after saying the things she said? after storming out of the house rather than talking through your issues like a regular couple? both of you had fucked up numerous times during your relationship, but demi still hadn't forgiven herself for what she'd done.

the best part? both of you had to go to work like nothing was wrong. every week on the road, it never failed that you saw one another backstage. you always hoped with how many people were backstage at a time that you could avoid her, but with your luck that wasn't going to happen.

the cherry on top of it all? you had a match against her. yep, you and your ex - in a ring together, for twenty minutes at least, needing to practically be on top of one another.

your life was an actual fucking joke at this point.

from the moment you walked out into the ring from gorilla and saw rhea standing there, you felt nauseous. practically everyone in the audience knew about what had happened and they just kept staring at the both of you. but you kept up your character to the best of your ability, doing what you needed to do to get through this nightmare of a match you were about to have.

it almost felt...wrong. to have your hands on demi in any way shape or form. sure, this was rhea ripley and not demi. you were both in character. you were putting on the personas that the audiences were familiar with. but as you and demi grappled on the mat and inflicted physical pain on one another, it continued to bring up all of those unresolved feelings.

each hit, slap, kick, tug of the hair...it was an accessory to the words you'd spat at each other in your arguments over the last few months. not only that, but rhea ripley was known for tormenting her opponents. she wasn't above getting in their face and giving them a piece of her mind; and you best believe she did the same thing with you.

at one point, demi was straddling you in the ring. both of you breathless with exhaustion, you absolutely a mess both physically and emotionally, and rhea was clearly in her feelings about everything as well. the last straw, though, was when she leaned in closer to your face and said her first words to you since breaking things off.

"you're nothing to me. and you'll never be anything to me."

you saw red the moment she said that to you. whether she said it in character or meant it, you didn't care; she knew what she was doing by saying it. it was like the crowd and the cameras disappeared, and the absolute rage in your body overpowered everything else and you unleashed hell on her. that anger gave you the opportunity to end the match and deliver a finisher, and while normally winning felt amazing...this felt like garbage.

--- ---

alone time in your dressing room gave you way too much time to think about everything that had gone on the ring. you couldn't erase the look on demi's face as she stood over you...the sound of her voice telling you that you meant nothing to her when you'd given so much of yourself to her during your relationship. but apparently you meant nothing? you could barely comprehend it.

a knock at the slightly open door brought you out of your thoughts, but the sight of demi changed out of her ring gear and freshly showered sobered you up real fast. "don't even think about coming in here and talking to me after the shit you pulled out there." you mumbled, already standing up and looking to make your escape.

demi blocked the doorway and closed the door, a gentle look on her face replacing the one riddled with intimidation and anger from earlier in the night. "i just want to talk to you." she said softly. "i know you're pissed, because i would be too. but i just need to talk."

you hesitated, but eventually you gave a small nod and sat back down on the couch. "start talking, then." you mumbled, watching as demi took her spot on the coffee table in front of you.

she ran a nervous hand through her hair and let out a shaky breath before she finally managed to talk to you. "i didn't mean what i said out there." she said softly. "i...i didn't mean any of the horrible things i ever said to you."

you wanted to believe demi, but how could you? the last half of your relationship with her was filled with fights. you'd internalized all of the awful things she'd managed to say to you, whether she meant them or not, and she was just now saying she didn't mean it? "demi, i-"

"no, y/n. i promise." she said quickly with a gentle shake of her head. "i regret all of it. i hate that i ever hurt your feelings or made you cry because that wasn't my intention. i was just...i'd get so angry that i would start saying things but never actually thought of how they would hurt you." you knew when demi was serious...and the this was the most serious you'd seen her in a long time. "i know you probably hate me, but i still really care about you."

her words made your stomach flip; butterflies erupted, knowing that she meant what she was saying. but the pain lingered from everything that had gone on during your relationship. your heart was speaking a lot louder than your brain though, and as you gently reached for demi's hand you spoke up for the first time since she entered the room. "i still really care about you, too."

demi's face lit up like a lightbulb as the realization that not all hope was lost. her free hand came forward to hold your cheek, both of you slowly inching closing to one another until your noses gently touched. "let me show you." she whispered before finally catching you in a gentle kiss.

your next moves were almost a complete blur; the tension had changed around you and demi to not so much angry tension, but this time one of a sexual nature. the two of you hurried in between kisses to remove articles of clothing until there was nothing left, your hands exploring one another's bodies for the first time in weeks. even though it had been some time away from demi, you personally hadn't been with anyone else; the pain was still too real, too fresh for you to introduce another person to this level of intimacy. but this - having demi in this way - it felt so normal. like you hadn't skipped a beat.

her kisses moved down from your lips to your neck and collarbone. demi was quick to adjust herself so you were both sat with your legs interlocked with one another, your bare centers pressed against one another and the heat of the moment causing both of you to moan and whine with anticipation. "dems..." you mumbled breathlessly, your fingers tangling in her hair to keep her as close as possible.

nothing else needed to be said; she knew what you needed, because she needed it just as badly. a small gasp left your lips as demi slowly began to move against you, her arms tightening around your body in response. "look at me, baby." she whispered, leaning your foreheads together as you made eye contact and moaned against one another. as she moved and created friction against your clit, you moved your own hips against her to give demi the same sensation. "you're so beautiful. can't want to feel you cum against me like you used to."

once again, demi's words drove you crazy. you whimpered, your ankles locking behind demi's back to keep her there and move a little faster. as the two of you moved and kissed, it only brought both of you closer and closer to a climax that neither of you had experienced in so long - let alone one the two of you shared - and that thought alone made you cling to demi as if she was going to slip away. "wanna cum with you." you mumbled.

demi smiled, your sweaty forehead leaning against her shoulder while you let out soft incoherent mumbles of the same few words. please...baby...demi...need you...

all of that alone, along with the increased speed creating more friction against your bodies, caused both you and demi to reach your highs at about the same time. you leaned back on your hands with a gasp as your thighs trembled. "fuck...oh fuck!" you whimpered. demi wasn't far behind, her own body shaking with euphoria as she finished as well. she was quick though to pull you closer to her body again, running a hand through your hair and exchanging kisses to work both of you down from your climax.

you opened your eyes to look at demi, a small smile tugging at the corner of your lips. "i think i forgive you." you teased softly, demi's fingers twirling your hair as you cuddled with one another.

[missmaywemeetagain]

A Pink Scarf Thanksgiving 💗🧣🦃

A very happy Thanksgiving weekend to those who celebrate! ❤️

This blurb came out of nowhere, in a fit of Thanksgiving inspiration (and a special thanks to Norah for inadvertently nudging me towards a Thanksgiving prompt)! Because of this, it is not overly edited or revised. I will say, I'm not sure yet just how canon I want this to be in terms of the PS Universe, but I figure it came out of me for a reason, so I decided to go with it for now. 

I think my current moody headspace influenced the vibe for this--for us fans, it's a slightly indulgent "what could have been" scenario. But that's PS in a nutshell, isn't it?  🥹

Anyhoo, I hope this hits you in the feels! And I hope you know just how much you matter to me, even though I've been a bit MIA recently. 

Much love xoxoxox, Madi 💗

TW: It's 1977, so...medical issues/trauma/strife. Panic attack. Thanksgiving stress. A little hint of sexy at the end bc I couldn't leave you on a melancholy note! 💋

A Pink Scarf Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 1977

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. P, but the oven is out. Lamar took a peek, but the thing is as cold as ice and don’t look like it’s gonna be warm any time soon,” Mary says, looking as distraught as you feel. “I’m sorry I didn’t catch it sooner.”

The naked, trussed, and cold turkey on the counter mocks you.

“No, no, it’s not your fault, Mary. We’ll…figure something out,” you try and reassure her, but it feels like a weight has just been placed on your chest. You pinch the bridge of your nose to stave off the massive headache that began early this morning when Nicky barged into your room at the crack of dawn sobbing because he’d had a nightmare that Mr. Gobble Gobble, a monster turkey, had eaten Daddy instead of the other way around.

This was one of many nightmares that your poor little boy had suffered since August, but certainly the first starring a murderous Thanksgiving turkey. He’d barely been consolable and neither of you had gotten back to sleep.

You take a deep breath, holding back the tears that threaten your vision.

Today needs to be perfect. It was supposed to be perfect.

But you should have known. After all, this year has been far from perfect.

You force yourself away from the wave of despair trying to overcome you. No, we’ve been lucky, you think. It could be so much worse.

Unfortunately, your nerves are shot, which makes sense considering the last few months you’ve had. You’ve kept it together so well. You’ve had to. For Nicky. For Elvis. But that tried resolve begins to crumble with the pressure of it all, as though everything that has happened is hitting you all at once.

Now you have a house full of hungry people, Elvis will be home any minute, and your usual quick-footed problem-solving skills have flown out the window. Your hands begin to tremble.

The panic swells as the kitchen swarms with people looking to you for direction, and in that moment, Nicky runs through the adults, chased by one of the other kids. It happens so fast—you barely have time to register the commotion before disaster strikes.

You watch in horror as the kids fly into the sideboard, knocking the precious side dishes and desserts onto the floor with a resounding crash.

The collective gasp of the adults in the room sends your panic into overdrive.

Thanksgiving is officially ruined.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” you shout. The entire room goes silent. It’s not everyday Elvis Presley’s calm and collected wife loses her shit. No, that is something usually reserved for the man himself.

“Well, that’s not quite the welcome home I was expecting,” a familiar baritone chuckles from behind you.

You whip around, your bottom lip quivering. “Elvis?” you whisper.

He’s standing right here—standing! On his own!—leaning on his cane for support, a twinkle in his eye that you haven’t seen in ages. One you weren’t sure you’d ever see again. And the sight of him finally being home again after so many months in the hospital is more than you can bear. After standing tall and strong for him for so long, you crumble into a thousand pieces. An uncontrollable sob chokes out of you, your tears overflowing.

“Aw, honey,” he says quietly, slowly making his way to you, waving everyone else out of the room with the commanding flick of his hand. They exit in a flash with their concerned and pitied looks. Not that you care, because the second you can, you are falling into your husband’s open arms.

“I’m so sorry…your homecoming…it’s all ruined,” you sob into his chest, being mindful of the long scar down the center. Feeling the warmth of him engulfing you is overwhelming. His scent, untainted by antiseptic and hospital smells for the first time in a long time, swirls around you, caressing your senses.

“It’s okay, sweetheart, it’s okay. Let it all out, Satnin,” he coos, stroking your hair with his free hand. “Hers has been so strong for hims, but hims is home now.”

The tenderness of his baby talk in your ear sends a fresh wave of tears to your eyes, staining the silk of his blue dress shirt. He’s dressed up, you think absently, knowing this is a huge thing. Even before that fateful August morning, he’d been mostly wearing his tracksuits when he wasn’t performing. He’d been so uncomfortable and in pain, you’d understood why.

You bury your head into his neck, pent up emotions violently shuddering through your body as you let your tears fall freely for the first time in months. You can barely breathe with how you wedge yourself into him, with how he holds you tight. He’s so much slimmer now that the edema is gone and his colon has been tended to, you realize, but he’s still soft in all the right places. You still fit against him perfectly, and his grip on you makes you realize he understands just how raw you are.

You cry more, thinking about how the last time he was here was when you’d found him unresponsive on the bathroom floor. How you’d never been so scared in your entire life, not even when you yourself had brushes with death.

It's a miracle he’s here at all. None of you, doctors included, were sure if he’d ever step through the doors of Graceland again. Not after the heart attack, or the coma, or the complications from his various surgeries. It had been one blow after another, for weeks, months. But somehow, in true stubborn Elvis fashion, he’d pulled through.

He’d gritted his way through healing, through physical therapy, through weaning off so many of the meds he’d been on before and during his hospital stay, and he hated every second of it. He’d been livid about the colostomy, but you’d had no care for his vanity when you’d had to make the decision to save his life. You didn’t care if he hated you because at least he’d be alive to tell you so. He’d gotten past it, mostly, especially once he was feeling better.

The entire ordeal had terrified him. Something had changed in him in those weeks he’d lingered between life and death, something he wasn’t ready to talk about just yet, but even with all the setbacks, his determination to come home was intensely motivating.

Which is why you’d wanted it to be special, and why it being Thanksgiving had so much meaning. Elvis was finally coming home. Then everything had gone to hell in a handbasket.

“I wanted everything to be perfect for you. You deserve it,” you say quietly, sniffling, holding him as tight as you dare without wanting to hurt him.

“Darlin’, just bein’ back home with you and Nicky is more than I ever dreamed of. I don’t need no big fancy dinner or welcome home committee. I jus’ need you.”

You pull back then, your heart about ready to burst, and look at him. He looks downright debonair with his silvery hair (which you’d convinced him not to dye back after it had grown out during his illness), freshly cut and shorter than it had been in years, fluffy but brushed back off his face in a style reminiscent to when he was younger. His apple cheeks are full and have more color than they’ve had in months.

“What?” he asks looking down at you, almost bashful under your gaze.

You reach up and cup his freshly shaven cheek, smooth and soft under your palm. Those deep ocean blue eyes of his threaten to swallow you whole. Staring into their depths, you don’t want to imagine a world without him in it anymore.

“I just love you,” you whisper, barely able to get the words out without choking up again. “So much.”

Eyes shining, Elvis pulls you up and into him. His lips are as sweet and as soft as you remember when they press into yours. The kiss is full of yearning, of love, and of everything you two have been through the past twenty years. It’s truly like coming home.

The kiss turns hungry then, more so than you expect. It’s been so very long since you’ve had each other in this way and it surprises you how readily your body remembers, despite all the pain and trauma you both have experienced. You open for him, and he moans when his tongue brushes against yours. A fiery wave of heat blisters through you then, hastily banishing away your tears.

Despite all the challenges you’ve faced over the years, you’ve always felt the pull of him in your soul. You’ve always wanted him, neededhim, even when you convinced yourself to forget because you thought you couldn’t have him. And now, after almost losing him for good, you can think of nothing else but him. The warmth of his body pressed against yours causes you to melt. The way his lips and hands roam over the curves of your body sends you soaring.

You thought you’d never have this again. It had almost broken you.

“I’m here, baby. I’m home, I promise,” he mutters into your skin, as if reading your mind.

You kiss him deeply, yanking him into you by his pretty shirt, taking his breath away.

He pulls away and presses his forehead to yours, and you can feel him sway on his feet, a little unbalanced.

“Good news—looks like Little Elvis is back in working order,” he says breathlessly, pressing his thickening erection into your belly. He seems pleasantly surprised.

Honestly, with everything dire that happened, it hadn’t even crossed your mind as a concern, but it makes sense that it could be an issue. You grin up at him with the knowledge that it isn’t, then roll your hips against him.

He groans. “Bad news—not sure I have the energy to do all the things I wanna to ya, and we got a house full of people.” Doesn’t stop him from grabbing a handful of your bottom, however.

“Oh, that’s never stopped us before, now has it?” you muse, walking your fingers gently down his chest and over his belly to palm his length.

“Lord have mercy, woman,” he moans, his eyes fluttering closed. You notice him lean more heavily on his cane and instantly ease up. One blue eye opens with a quirked brow. “Hey now, I din’t say stop.”

You laugh. “Well, it seems dinner is ruined anyhow,” you say, surveying the disaster of broken dishes and scattered food all over the floor, and the cold, raw turkey on the counter. “Maybe we better get you upstairs to rest.”

Rest is, of course, the furthest thing from your mind now, which you let him know with a little squeeze to his butt.

“Mmhmm, yes, I definitely need to lie down,” he mumbles as he peppers you with kisses. Suddenly, he freezes against you. “But, honey, I-I-I’m not sure how much I can do,” he whispers, a wave of uncertainty washing over him.

“Hey, it’s okay. We’ll take it slow. Real slow. One step at a time, like fumbling teenagers,” you say lightly, cupping his face and looking up into his eyes. “Or we can just kiss and hold each other. I’m just happy you’re here, baby.”

He nods, seemingly reassured by this. “I know I don’t say it as much as I should, but I thank God every day for you and for what we have together, Satnin,” he says quietly, brushing your hair behind your ear, kissing you gently. “I love you.”

Your heart and body ache for him. “We better get you upstairs to “rest”before I start crying again,” you snuffle, laughing, slowly walking with him toward the stairs.

“Well, tears aren’t entirely off the table…I can think of a couple good ways I can make you cry,” he teases, nibbling at your ear.

“Elvis Aaron, you did not just…” you gasp.

“What??” he says innocently. “Am I wrong?”

A shiver runs down your spine and settles in the heat of your belly.

You’ve missed him. Terribly.

But you do have so much to be thankful for this year, namely for the infuriatingly talented, generous, and stubborn man you married and are gingerly leading up the stairs for the first time in months.

In fact, there’s nowhere else you’d rather be.

*

Taglist Pt 1

@eliseinmemphis@russian-soft-bitch@tattywood

@sassanoe@thella @suspiciousmidge @hiddlepiddlediddlewiddle@carolinesbookworld @juggernort @aesthetic-lyss @stitchattacks @donnamarie23

 @littlebitofgreen@paigevis@bugg06@xhannahbananax03@artlover8992

@18lkpeters@frozenhuntress67@girlblogger2002@kendralavon7@misspresley

@be-my-ally @whositmcwhatsit @vintageshanny @ellie-24 @thatbanditqueen @powerofelvis @from-memphis-with-love

 @precious-lil-scoundrel @stylespresleyhearted @prompted-wordsmith @crash-and-cure @elvisgf @lookingforrainbows @fic-over-cannon @godlypresley @ab4eva @whatstruthgottodowithit @elvisabutler @amydarcimarie@idontwanttoputanything @callieselvisobsessed @captainamerica1235-blog  @xenaspace3-blog 

@simplyamberj@claire-elvisgirl@everythingelvispresley@louisejoy86@deniseinmn @madelynpresley

[ultimatemissadhd]

Fuck I don't care this fandom is more dead than my grandma and that no one will know what I'm talking about

Cassandra from Tangled the Series Headcanons (spoilers for the whole show)

Tw: Mentions of self harm, depression, other mental health issues

- Between her leaving and the last episode there is a time skip because the show kinda made it look like there wasn't and I don't like that so there was a few months time skip

- During that time skip, she struggles with her mental health a lot. She keeps finding ways to punish herself like not properly taking care of herself. Rapunzel and others would take care of her and make sure she is well fed and rested.

- The idea of her leaving would actually come early after the finale but she would hesitate. Not only her, Rapunzel would be worried that Cassandra with how bad her depression was at the moment, wouldn't take care of herself properly on the road which could have really bad consequences. Eventually, Cassandra would get better enough for Rapunzel to not be worried about her that much.

- Cassandra did not know how to take off her armour after the finale and had to go to Varian for help. It was all a very embarrassing experience, she doesn't like talking about it.

- She was very wild as a teenager.

- She has lots of scars on her body from different incidents (most from her teenage era)

- She began having really bad nightmares after the finale.

- She and Rapunzel would (obviously) write to eachother while she is away. Rapunzel would write a lot, every minor event would result in a letter, Cassandra would love to hear about all of them. However, Cass would struggle to write to Rapunzel sometimes since she struggles to express herself and her feelings. As much as Rapunzel worries, she understands. On the bright side, it would make Cassandra's letters very long since she would have a lot to write about after putting it off for so long.

- She did want to get included in the search for the lost princess multiple times but her father forbid her from it. He was very strict about it, eventually she gave up on trying. (You may figure out the reason on why he was so strict about it yourself iykyk)

- The only person (probably in the whole kingdom) aware of what happens to the lanterns after they look pretty and fly away. She didn't have a heart to tell that to anyone because of the meaning of the tradition.

- She did have problems with her hand after it got burned and it did hurt her a lot when she used it but she never told anyone and pretended it's fine. (I don't like how fast the show moved on from her hand getting burned like she got over it too fast idk)

- The moonstone had very weird effects on her other than providing her energy (so she didn't need to eat or sleep). One of it being that her chest did hurt sometimes because of the moonstone being stuck there, she did her best to ignore it. There's a high chance that if she kept it for longer, the pain could become unbearable.

- The moonstone effected her brain more than she thought, sometimes making her dissociate or have derealizations. This why she doesn't actually remember many moments of her life after she grabbed the moonstone, especially the moments between the mayor events when she'd be alone.

- Always wanted to explore the world but never had a chance. She was a bit jealous of Eugene whenever he would describe the places he have been to but she would never admit it.

- Actually witnessed the dancing scene from the movie and was a part of it at some point very very much against her will.

- Dissociates when emotions become too much, Rapunzel always gets extra concerned during those.

- Touch starved but also hated touching it's complicated.

- Cold hands

- (This one is based on this one shot I read on ao3 I might put it later when it's not 1am for me)

Growing up she never learned how to take care of her curly hair, since she never had a mum and the other maids working in the castle weren't much of a help. Eventually, Eugene would help her with it and teach her to take proper care of it.

[mrsnegan]

Only If For A Night

[Soooo...yes, I might have yet another obsession with a fictional, emotional unavailable man, haha. This is just a little drabble for you. I still write for Negan, of course. In the meantime, I hope you also enjoy this little fic. If it isn't your cup of tea, feel free to scroll past it.]

Summary: Joel has a nightmare. You try to make him feel better, make him forget his demons, only if for a night.

Warnings: angst, brief talk of trauma, smut, blowjob, fingering, unprotected p in v, f!Reader on top, creampie, cockwarming I guess?

You woke from heavy breathing and occasional grunts coming from the makeshift bed on the other side of the room.

Joel had insisted to sleep on the sofa, offering you the bed for as much comfort as this world still beheld. He was gruff, not a big fan of casual conversation, but he was a man of his word, one you could rely on, the only one you trusted with your life. You had met some months ago during a smuggling mission and had worked together since. Your new job required you to transport ammunition to one of the safe zones well outside of your usual territory. It was risky to say the least, but you needed the reward. So here you were, finding shelter for the night in an abandoned house. Joel must have fallen asleep during his watch which was very unusual for him. You rubbed your eyes which slowly adjusted to the darkness around you. Your bare feet touched the wooden floor and you shivered. As soundless as possible you made your way towards Joel who was fast asleep, one arm hanging down the sofa, the other draped across his eyes.

"Joel?" you questioned carefully, your fingers lightly touching his arm. He still breathed heavily, unevenly, and with your next touch to his heated skin, he jolted awake and upright, eyes wild with fear. You had never seen him like this, it made your blood freeze.

"Jo-Joel?" you asked again, this time very timidly, carefully.

He seemed to wake up fully, recognizing you. With a deep sigh, he rubbed his hands over his face.

"Sorry for scaring you, t'was a nightmare..." Joel's voice was heavy with sleep, barely above a whisper. "It's always rough 'round this time of the year."

This time of the year.

He talked about when the world turned to shit. You had heard about his past, about what happened to his daughter, but never asked him anything about it. It wasn't your place to talk with him about such traumatic things.

"It's okay, you're awake now, I'm here."

He scoffed at your remark, his eyes not meeting yours.

"That's sweet o'you, but it isn't somethin' you can influence. It's my issue, has been for a very long time. I'm used to it."

You huffed at his statement, deciding to ignore it, carefully sitting down beside him.

"Go back to sleep, it's still dark outside", he tried again, but you just shook your head.

"No, won't let you sit alone with your nightmares."

Joel's eyes met yours, his icey stare bore into you, he was pissed you could tell, though it seemed too tired to really make a scene.

"Wasn't an offer," he just spat, voice cold and distant.

"Mine neither", you stood your ground, meeting his gaze with equal determination. Before you could think about it any longer, you leaned into him, pressing a soft kiss to his lips.

At first he didn't respond, didn't move a single finger. When you pulled away to look at him again, he just looked at you, a mix of surprise and anger plain on his face.

"Told you to go to bed."

"No. It isn't your decision to make, Joel. You're always in charge, always functioning. You're not okay. And I won't sit around or sleep when you're hurt like this."

"You're not my wife," he said, nearly muttered under his breath.

"I know," you just mumbled, heart beating fast. Of course being someone's wife wasn't on your list, it held no special meaning in this fucked-up world, though you couldn't deny the feelings you had developed in the last few months. The need to help Joel, the need to touch him, to touch his body and his heart, to make him smile, if only a little, to make him feel good...it was hard for you to ignore this need, this pull you felt towards him. Even harder now that he really needed comfort even if he would never ask for it because he was so used to deal with his demons all on his own.

"Just let me...," you tried again, your hand resting lightly on his arm. You felt him tense under your fingertips, not used to a tender touch either, your tender touch.

Joel didn't meet your eyes, his gaze was fixed on your hand. He seemed to fight with himself, not sure if he wanted to push you away or pull you into him.

"Joel," you whispered, making him look up to you. "Please, let me make you feel good. Let me-"

You couldn't end your sentence, Joel's hand grabbed yours on his arm, before he brought it to his lips, pressing a kiss to your fingertips before letting it go.

The shaky breath you drew in was the only sound in the abandoned house. Lightly, carefully, your fingers grazed his lips, his cheek, before you leaned in again to kiss him. This time he kissed you back, slowly but he did. The kiss lasted a long time and grew more passionate with every passing second. His hands wandered from your hair to your shoulders, downwards to your hips and urged you to stand up and straddle him.

His hands were all over you while you ground down on his lap, feeling his hardening length through your trousers. He grew impatient by the second, clawing at your clothes while not breaking the kiss. This felt better than any wet dream could prepare you, better than what your imagination came up with in lonely nights.

Your lips wandered downwards, kissing his jaw, his neck, his collarbone. Meanwhile your fingers undid the buttons of his shirt, one by one, exposing his chest to the cold air. Noticing the goosebumps right away, your lips kept kissing his skin, feeling him shiver.

"Fuck," he mumbled, when your nails grazed one of his nipples, followed by your tongue.

With every downward motion, you also slid down further, sooner than later landing on your knees between his spread legs. He looked so handsome from your perspective, cheeks heated, mouth agape, eyes wild.

Biting your lip, you undid his belt, then the button of his trousers and the fly. When you motioned to help him pull them down, he stopped you.

"You don't have to do this."

Heart still beating fast, your desire got the best of you, kissing his hard length through the denim of his trousers.

"Shit," he swore, his head lulling to the side.

"I want to, so much," you answered him, face mere inches from his groin.

"It's yours, darlin', c'mon, make me feel good," Joel finally exclaimed, voice thick with arousel.

You didn't have to be told twice. With fast movements you helped him pull his trousers down towards his ankles, his briefs went with it too. When your eyes met his hard cock, your mouth watered. He was a sight, packing exactly what you always imagined.

Experimentally, you kissed his tip, tasting the salty precum. Joel's moan was music to your ears, so your fingers grabbed the base of him, stroking his length with enough pressure to make him shake above you.

He was silent except for the occasional moan and curse, enjoying your touch, the feel of your hand around him, pumping him just right. When your lips finally closed around the head of his cock, his hand flew into your hair, anchoring himself.

"Fuuck-," he managed to say before you went down on him, swallowing as much of him as you could at the first go. Feeling the wetness between your thighs, you kept bobbing your head, taking him deeper and deeper with your movements. What didn't fit in your mouth, you stroked with your hand.

Joel was much more vocal now, his own thighs tensing with the pleasure, fingers still woven into your hair.

"Shit, so good. Such a good girl, fuck, feels so...gooood."

The deep sound of his voice made you tingle all over, moaning around his length with the praise he gifted you with.

"Up, c'mere," he demanded after some moments, guiding you away from his throbbing length by your hair.

"Take off your clothes, darlin'." He let go of you, lips puffy and eyes hooded and he didn't need to tell you twice. With shaking fingers, you got rid of your trousers and underwear, pulled your shirt over your head and made quick work of shedding your bra. Meanwhile Joel, not taking his eyes off of you for a heartbeat, drinking in every inch of your skin, got rid of his already open shirt and kicked off his trousers and underwear still stuck at his feet.

When you were cold at the beginning of the night, you only felt heat now, naked from head to toe, bare and vulnerable, but the gaze Joel gave you made you feel anything but. You felt like a goddess.

Straddling him again, your wet center came in contact with his length which pulled whimper out of your mouth and quiet curses out of Joel's. His right hand travelled from your cheek towards you neck and from there down, down, down, groping your breats, finding its way over your stomach to your dripping pussy.

Two of his fingers stroked you while your eyes fluttered shut at his ministrations.

"Look at me," he exclaimed, voice deep.

Your eyes shot open, locking with his just in time for his fingers to enter you. He met no resistence, sliding in perfectly, fucking you slowly.

"Fuck, darlin', you're so wet, y'hear that?"

He pumped his fingers a bit faster now, the sound of your wetness obscene in your own ears. With your mouth agape, your hands flew around his neck to anchor yourself, your hips kept moving with Joel's strokes, like having a will of their own.

"That's it, fuck y'self on my fingers, just like that."

"Joel," you moaned, feeling him curl his fingers just right, his thumb coming down on your clit, flicking it with the right amount of pressure to make you see stars. Your hips stuttered, clenching around his fingers when you came with his name leaving your lips.

He held you steadily in his lap with his other hand by grabbing the flesh of your hips, pumping his fingers time and time again before he retreated them.

The bliss of your orgasm clouded your mind, your legs and arms felt like jelly, your heart beating so fast, faster than you were used to. You didn't register Joel lifting you up a bit to position himself at your entrance, stroking himself, coating himself in your juices. You didn't register it until he pushed into you, pulling you down, down, down, impaling you on his girthy length. He was a tight fit, stretching you deliciously.

"Fuck, Joel," you babbled, cock-drunk, and so full of him.

"Yeah, I know. Shit, you feel so good, so tight." He kissed you, tongue licking at your lips and slipping past them. His hands embraced you, keeping you safe and secure while he bottomed out.

His heated skin against yours, his hot breath against your neck when he broke the kiss to nip at your skin, his heartbeat, fast, so fast against your own chest, you could have died then and there.

Hands still around his neck and secure in his embrace, your hips kept lifting a bit before sinking down again. The movement made him moan, his cock dragging across your walls deliciously. It didn't take long for you to increase your movements, bouncing on his lap. His hands grasped your hips, helping you lift yourself up and down, up and down.

"Like that, darlin', just like that", he mumbled into your skin, occasionally biting at your sweaty flesh while the next high kept building inside of you.

"Joel, I'm gonna...," you warned him, riding him faster and faster.

His hands held you still then, pumping himself into you with sharp thrusts upwards, driving the air out of your lungs.

"Go on, cum on my cock, sweet thing, c'mon."

One look into his stormy eyes and you came shaking on his lap. He fucked you through it, praising you so sweetly, only his rough voice gave away how close he was himself.

"Don't," you babbled, letting him guide you on his cock, faster and faster, chasing his own high.

"What?" he breathlessly asked, gaze fixed on your face.

"Don't...pull out."

The moan it ripped from him, this one little sentence, made you unravel again in his arms, cock still pushing into you time and time again against that spot.

You felt him tense under you, moaning your name when he came, forehead resting against yours, giving you all he had to offer.

And then he fell silent, your unsteady breaths the only sound. He locked eyes with you again after a while and you could see a faint smile painting his lips before he shook his head.

"What?" you questioned, insecure all of a sudden without the adrenaline of arousel. You motioned to stand up on wobbly legs, but his hands pushed you down, keeping you impaled on his softening cock.

"Don't," he said, voice low and spent, "Stay."

His lips found yours in a soft kiss and your heart ached. You knew with the first sunlight this side of him will be gone again, his soft touches and heated words, his kisses. He will be the ever grumpy and cold-hearted Joel, so you decided to enjoy this as long as you could, letting him wrap the blanket next to him around your cooling bodies, embracing you with warmth.

[my-castles-crumbling]

Hey Cas, Outlet anon here with another vent. I want your advice, but there isn't really a question, just... what you think about the whole thing.

I think this might be religious trauma, but it doesn't really feel like trauma to me. More a couple bad things that happened to me and affected my life significantly (the literal definition of trauma is "...an emotional response to a terrible event like an accident, crime, or natural disaster. It can also refer to the lasting emotional response resulting from living through a distressing event, which can include psychological symptoms such as depression, anxiety, flashbacks, and recurring nightmares." But it doesn't Feel significant enough to be trauma.).

Anyway. I was raised christian in a christian household with very christian relatives, and, unfortunately, that comes with heaps and heaps of homophobia (I know some christians are differen't, but those people aren't part of this story). I, on the other hand, am very, very queer, and I look the part (stereotypically, anyway. I have a bunch of piercings, a shaved head, weird outfits, etc etc. The whole nine yards.)

In my last ask, I mentioned 'Al' (my sibling's dad). To add some more icing to the cake of amazing thingsTM (/sarcasm) about him, he's one of the Very Homophobic christians.

Growing up, 'weird' (LGBTQIA+) people never bothered me. I'm not sure why, but it might be because I was bullied (for how I dressed and what shoes I wore, stuff like that, but thinking back now, it probably had something to do with my weight & very obvious autism that nobod every told me about, but that's a different story for a different time.), though I've also never really cared about that sort of thing. Like, it didn't change anything if someone wanted to be called something else or if they liked someone of the same identity. It just... never crossed my mind to care. I guess that's one plus of Al hating and ignoring me; his views never rubbed off.

When I got old enough to understad gender and sexuality and whatnot, some things about me slid right into place. It took a year or so (barely any time at all, compared to other people) for me to get stuff right and figure out which labels did and didn't fit, but when I finally got it right, I was happy & content. Go back a year or so to my *first* label: lesbian. My mother found out because I was young and dumb and didn't know about search history, but she just asked me about it and told me that telling Al wasn't a good idea.

I listened for a couple months and kept my head down; however, this was back when I still desperately wanted a dad and was still trying my best to make Al love me, so telling him about my identity felt important. Well, I did. Needless to say, he wasn't happy and he became more passive agressive (this was after he stopped interacting with me really at all, so he didn't hurt me or do anything physically except restrict my already restricted internet). His negative response is what got me to finally stop trying with him and to just say "fuck it, I don't need a dad".

I was still calling myself a christian, but I'd started to question a lot of stuff that nobody wanted me to question. Fast forward a year and I'd taken up witchcraft and my questions still hadn't been answered. I was told "god loves the real you" and then forced to be someone else. Naturally, that didn't sit right.

I kept going to church to keep up pretenses and keep Al content. At one point, they did a sermon about LGBTQIA+ people, and the end message was "we don't have to accept you to respect you". Which. Just. What a fucking fantastic thing to say to a bunch of queer people, one of which had started thinking of youth group as a safe space with safe people where I could be myself. That was like a slap in the face, and suddenly the people I thought were safe weren't anymore.

I started to really resent Al and became more reclusive at home and more flamboyant at school. Now that I'm typing it out, this sounds pretty insignificant, but this shit hit me deep and hard. I was just a kid who wanted to be wanted. Instead, I was hated for something that wasn't my choice.

I have an uncle (Al's brother, but he's earned the 'Uncle' title in my eyes) who came out as gay then moved to Germany to get away from everyone. It took him like 20 years to talk to his parents again.

I'm happier now, with a collection of deities who are kinder to me, a community that's happy to have me around, and a friend who I can share my religion with. Which, honestly, is more than I could ever ask for.

Anyway. That's all I can think of. I hope your day is magical, I give my regards to you and your wife. Thank you for listening <3

You: I think this might be religious trauma, but it doesn't really feel like trauma to me. More a couple bad things that happened to me and affected my life significantly Also you: But it doesn't Feel significant enough to be trauma.

I mean, I'm not a professional, but...that feels like trauma to me? Something that has to do with religion that negatively affected your life in a significant way?

I think a lot of people don't want to label their trauma as trauma because they've heard other people have "had it worse" and like...just because you weren't send to a conversion therapist doesn't mean what you went through wasn't trauma. (did I say that right? there were a lot of negatives in there).

You're allowed to recognize your experiences as horrible and upsetting and life-altering. It doesn't negate other people's experiences, I promise <3 (and I mean this in a kind way, not a rude way)

You're always allowed to vent to me, and I'm so glad you're happier now. But yeah, it sounds like you went through some awful shit, and I'm giving you tons of hugs.

[obaex]

the one that chases you (one) - rafe cameron

summary: jj makes a decision that will alter the course of your summer, driving you to figure out who you really are and who you really want.

word count: 1k

warnings: mention of drugs, heartbreak

a/n: my first series! i hope y'all enjoy it. it's fully written, i plan on releasing a new part every few days. let me know if you want to be added to the taglist!

series masterlist

You were laying with your head on JJ's lap, eyes fluttering, heavy with the weight of a day in the sun and the weed that had been passed around earlier. John B navigated the boat to the dock and JJ shifted you off of him to help tie it off and unload the cooler. He had been off today. Distant. When you kissed him, you felt like his mind was somewhere else and he wasn't his usual handsy self. You had chalked this up to a bad day, but you couldn't scratch the feeling that there was something else brewing under the surface. You had been dating for months now and with summer just getting started you were excited to spend your days surfing, going to the beach together and partying at the boneyard.

You were the last one off the boat and JJ pulled you aside as the others wandered off the dock and into the chateau.

"Hey, can we talk for a minute?"

Your heart plummeted into your stomach. This didn't bode well.

"JJ…what is it?" you said, instantly concerned.

"The last few months have been great. Honestly, so fun. But, summer is here and we're going to be so busy with everything and I want to have time for the boys, you know? To hang out with John B and Pope, I mean even Kie really. I think we'd be better off as friends. Just keep things chill, you know?"

This wasn't happening.

Every word was a punch to your gut. Your lip was quivering involuntarily, but you didn't want him to see you cry. Just keep things chill? After six months together spent tangled up in his sheets, your hands running through his blonde hair, blue eyes transfixed on you? Just keep things chill? You had been falling hard and fast, the L-word lingering on your lips, too afraid to say it for fear it wouldn't be reciprocated and now your worst nightmare had come true. You thought you had finally held the attention of the island's playboy, now you were just one in a long line of broken hearts. You felt like a fool.

You knew if you tried to say anything your emotions would get the best of you, so you pursed your lips tightly and nodded like you totally, absolutely understood and agreed.

"Nice! Right on. I knew you'd get it” he said. “So, like we're cool to start seeing other people, it won't be weird?"

Was he really asking you about seeing other people in the same breath that he was breaking up with you?

"Seriously, JJ?" you broke your silence, incredulous. "Un-fucking-believable." And with that, your tears began to flow. "I don't know why I thought I was any different to you, why I thought I was special. Clearly I'm not, so go do what you want to do, I won't stand in your way."

You shoved past him, picking up your pace as you ran down the dock, embarrassed and ashamed that you let him see you crumble. He didn't say anything, he didn't try to follow you, he just let you go.

"Hey - what's going on?" Sarah called from the back porch as you ran past her towards your car. She continued to call after you, chasing you as you got into your front seat, your tears falling heavily now as sobs wracked your body. You fumbled your keys, trying to put them in the ignition and failing.

"Oh my god, he didn't" she said, instantly piecing together the situation. "I am so sorry, come here." She crawled into the front seat next to you, pulling you into her arms.

"Give me the keys, you can't drive like this. I'll take you home." You relented, crawling into the passenger seat, resting your head against the window and continuing to cry as she navigated back to Figure 8.

Just like her and Kie, you were a kook-turned-pogue, enticed by the carefree, laidback nature of life on the cut and the smooth-talking blonde surfer that had said all the right things. So much for that.

Sarah pulled into your driveway, located right next to hers. You had been best friends and neighbors your entire life and you never felt more grateful to have her taking care of you as she came inside and tucked you into your bed.

"Obligatory best friend speech" she said, "I know you cared about him, more than you let him know. I am so damn sorry Y/N, I hate to see you like this. You deserve so much more than him. Seriously, you deserve someone that's going to chase after you and pursue you and only have eyes for you. And I promise he's out there. Everything happens for a reason. But, for now you need to give yourself time to rest and heal and cry and eat the tub of ice cream in your freezer. Okay?"

You nodded, sniffling and reached out to hug her before burying yourself deep in your sheets.

Sarah crossed through your backyard into hers, sliding through the front door and making her way to the kitchen where Wheezie sat on her phone.

"Are you seriously home on a Saturday night right now?" she asked teasingly.

Sarah shot her a look, "Friend emergency."

"What happened?"

"Do not repeat this, but Y/N and JJ broke up. It was awful, she's devastated."

"What!? What an asshole."

"Wheezie!"

"It's true!"

"You're not wrong. He is just not boyfriend material. Promise me you'll stay away from boys forever?" Sarah said, ruffling her sister's hair as she made her way upstairs. She rounded the corner and ran straight into Rafe who was lingering in the hallway. She eyed him suspiciously, “Were you eavesdropping?" she asked.

"What? No? M'just going to get a drink" he mumbled, brushing past her.

In reality, he had heard every word and his mind was running a mile a minute.

part two series masterlist

[di-writes-stuff]

Shrike

Alex Keller x Reader

One Shot

TW: Descriptions of panic attacks, PTSD, war, torture, death, canon typical violence, arguing, nightmares, trauma, suggested alcoholism. It’s a rough one, can’t lie. Hozier fucked me up.

“I couldn’t whisper when you needed it shouted. Ah, but I’m singing like a bird bout it now.”

You promised yourself you wouldn’t do this. Be the sad girl in the sad movie standing outside of her ex-boyfriends door because she just can’t take the distance.

Yet, here you are. The sad girl, in what feels like anything but a movie. It’s not like you wanted to leave him. You loved, no, love him more than you knew you could. So much that it felt like it gripped you by the throat and knocked the wind out of you.

It was overwhelming.

Terrifying.

Amazing.

And for the last couple months, it’s been gone. In the blink of an eye, it the snap of a finger, it disappeared.

At first you tried to ignore it. Ignore the ever present signs that something was wrong. Except you can’t anymore, not when the memories that were so clearly signs fly through your mind.

It’s happening again. It started with the whispers. You couldn’t quite make out what he was saying, but it sure as hell didn’t sound good. Then the feeling of his arm tightening around your waist as he woke up, his heart racing in his chest pressed to your back, and fast, panicked breaths leaving his nose.

You turned around quickly to see his eyes glazed over, pain so deep you could practically feel it lacing his gaze. “Alex?” You make your voice as soft as you can, but it still manages to startle him as he snaps out of what seems like a trance with a jolt.

And then, he does it. The same thing he’d continue to do again, and again, and again, until you couldn’t take it anymore. Until you couldn’t keep pretending that he was fine when he so clearly wasn’t. That smile that swept you off your damn feet the first day is thrown your way, along with a kiss to your forehead and a lie whispered in darkness.

“I’m okay, doll. Get some sleep, we can talk in the morning.”

Except you never talked. Not in the morning, and not any of the nights that followed the same pattern after. And so you ignored the way his voice shook as he willed you to let it go, and let him lie. Let him pretend he didn’t need help when he obviously did.

As the door to his apartment slides open, you can’t help the way your breath hitches in your throat.

He’s too handsome for his own good, really. His dirty blonde hair is messy from laying down. Sweats hang low on his hips, and his shirt…well, his shirt’s not there.

“Shit.” He whispers, closing the door abruptly, and you can hear a couple things fall down as he frantically searches for a shirt, praying you don’t leave. Soon enough he’s opening a door, fully clothed this time.

His shirt’s inside out.

You don’t mention it.

For a moment he tries to look casual, as if he wasn’t just getting ready to drink himself into oblivion when you knocked. Although, it’s no use. You see the bags under his eyes that have never been so dark as they are now, and the way his facial hair is grown out a bit, longer than you ever let it get before cleaning it up for him. The sweet times that bring tears to your eyes nearly every day lately.

You slap his chest as his hand wanders up your thigh for what feels like the hundredth time, a shit eating grin on his face from the way you blush. Normally you would have had this done ten minutes ago, but with the way you’re sat upon his lap, Alex doesn’t know how you expected to get anything done.

“I swear to God Alex, one more time and the mustache is coming off.” You warn, holding the razor in your hand up to his face. He just laughs in response, knowing how empty the threat is. “Oh, doll. We both know you’d miss it more than me.” his voice is lower than normal as he leans in, kissing you softly, his arms sliding underneath your thighs slowly.

You don’t even realize what he’s doing until he’s stood up, leaving the razor buzzing on the counter as he carrie’s you out of the bathroom. Both of your laughters echo through the halls as clothes fall behind you in a trail to Alex’s bed.

He clears his throat awkwardly before speaking, his voice hoarse. “What are you doing here?” His words lack the annoyance that usually comes with a question like that, confusion the only thing seeping through.

And pain.

So much pain.

That’s the one question you were hoping he wouldn’t ask. The one you don’t have an answer for. As you’d gotten dressed to leave, it didn’t even feel like you’d make a conscious decision to go back. It was like magnets clicking back together once held too close.

It was natural. Necessary, even.

Words spill from your mouth before you can think of an answer that sounds less pathetic than what you end up saying. “I miss you.” Your voice is all exhale as you speak, like letting out air held for too long.

You miss him.

Alex isn’t exactly sure how he thought you were. Certainly better off that him, considering the half empty bottle of whiskey sitting on his table. You were better than him, he’d always thought that.

So you not being able to let him go? Still being hung up on him after months? It’s unbelievable.

He thinks to respond, but no words come out, only an awkward sound that seems like he might have choked. It’s only a moment longer before his arms are around you, and you feel like a person again.

Calloused hands come to cup the back of your head and run up and down your back as tears begin to form at the corners of your eyes. Alex soon buries his face in your hair, the familiar smell of your shampoo filling his nose.

He’d just gotten back from deployment, and you laid against his chest, warm bath water surrounding your bodies. His fingers ran through your hair, lathering it up with the soap that he’d missed the smell of so much.

It was jasmine, if he remembered right, which he usually didn’t. He didn’t really care much either way. All he knew was that it smelled like you. A small smile rested on your lips as he dipped his head down, pressing a kiss to your shoulder, and then another, and another, and another…

“Missed you, Alex.” You mumble sleepily, sighing contentedly as his lips travel up your neck.

“Missed you too, doll. Every day.” His gets the words out between kisses that won’t lead to anything more. You’re both already exhausted, and this, here, is perfect.

He slowly pulls away, his heart breaking all over again as you look at him with those same tear stricken eyes from the night you left. You’d been out with a friend getting drinks, and you came home a little later that usual.

It was eerily quiet when you opened the door. Alex never liked silence, there always had to be something. Music, usually whatever you both liked at the moment. The lack of response when you called his name only added to the stress, everything culminating when you found him shaking in a corner of the kitchen, tears streaming down his face, a broken plate on the floor next to him.

He’d been making, or trying to make, you dinner when it happened. A car backfired in the parking lot outside his window, and it was just loud enough to send him back. To the bombs dropping, to the fire and the smoke too thick to see through, and the screams. The pleas for help that he would be too late to answer.

It took you getting on your knees in front of him and shouting his name for him to snap out of it. He was back, and you were there.

Oh, fuck.

You were there. There to see him like this. Like the mess he’d turned into all because a damn car. You’d tried to comfort him, tried to take care of him. But of course, Alex being Alex, he refused. Stood up and tried to walk away from you and insist false equanimity for the last time. You grabbed his arm softly, watching in shock as he whipped around, fear cleverly disguised by anger in his eyes.

“Stay the fuck out of it.”

His words were harsh, cruel, and un-loving for the first time since you’d known him. Once the images of war that were there to haunt him every time he closed his eyes faded, once the panic left his body exhausted, he’d begged. The man in front of you begged for you not to leave.

“I’m sorry, doll! Please baby I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you. I just need you to let me handle this on my own, I’m sorry!” He hadn’t stopped following you since he’d yelled, apology after apology slipping from his mouth.

You hadn’t responded to a single one until now.

“No, Alex! I can’t let you handle this alone, because you’re not fucking handling anything! All you do is pretend it’s not real because you’re too damn scared to admit that it is. You have issues, Alex! You need fucking help, and you’re certainly not gonna take it from me, so I’m done. I’m fucking done!”

The words you’d shouted at him that night sting in your mind like spitfire. It was true, of course. You just wish it hadn’t been said like that.

Alex slowly lets you into the apartment, wincing as you take in the view before you. Frankly, it’s a mess. Laundry is stacked on the couch where you used to sit, and it looks like he’s been sleeping on it for God knows what reason.

The truth is, the bed still smells like you, and he couldn’t take being in it alone.

The table is the most worrisome, a bottle of whiskey sitting on it half emptied, along with a cup and the vase you’d picked out.

The flowers, too. They’re dead, the petals laying around the vase in a circle, but he couldn’t bring himself to throw them out.

You’d picked them out, and it was jasmine, after all.

You turn to look back and him, the slump to his shoulders that never used to be there killing you. He sighs, running a hand through his unkempt hair. “It’s a mess, I know.” He admits, humiliated at the state you’ve found him it.

You quickly shake your head, trying to console him. Or placate, if you’re being honest. “It’s fine, really.” You answer awkwardly, not quite knowing what to say now that you’re here.

Alex clears his throat, knowing what he should do, what you always needed him to do. It doesn’t feel like the right time, but it probably never will. “I need help. I mean, I know I need help.” His voice falters for a moment, ready to run away and pretend that his words aren’t true.

“Your help.”

You breath a sigh of relief at hearing the one thing you’d needed him to say, to admit.

“I just-“ The sign quickly turns tired as you prepare yourself to hear an excuse as to why he won’t open up to you. “I just don’t want you to hate me.”

Now that, you weren’t prepared for. You not understanding? Sure. Wanting to “keep his lives separate” as he coined it? Definitely.

But you hating him? Not once did you ever even think of hating him. It’s unnatural. Impossible.

Ridiculous. So much so that you almost laugh as you run an exasperated hand through your hair. “Really, Alex? Hate you? Why the hell would I hate you for doing the one thing I needed you to do?” You slowly walk closer, cupping the side of his face with the softest touch you can manage. Watching as he sinks into the contact, exhaustion seeping from his every movement.

“Please, Alex.” You whisper “Please, just let me help you. We can fix this, you just have to talk to me.” His eyes slide open, showing the same shade of blue that sparkled under the dim lighting of the bar where you first met.

He sighs through his nose as he looks down at you, one thought running through his head.

She won’t understand.

He doesn’t want to make it your fault, it isn’t, of course. So he opts for skirting around what he really means. “You don’t know what I’ve done.” He answers simply, his voice quivering like the ebbing and flowing of a birds song.

“Then tell me. Tell me everything you think will make me hate you.” You partially expect him to refuse, for this to just be another broken plea for his trust added to the ever growing list.

But something, maybe the wells of sadness found in your eyes, maybe the desperation in your voice, maybe the hope that he could have back the one thing that he ever really cared about, you. Something snapped.

And so he does.

He tells, and he tells, and he tells until you don’t think you can take any more information. Tells stories of women, and children, of the aftermath of attacks he helped make happen. Tells stories of enemy soldiers begging for their lives, uttering pleas of families waiting for them as he tortured information out of them.

He told you everything.

And then, it was done. It was laid out before you, like his skin was torn from his body to reveal every ugly, cruel thing he’d ever done, all for your scrutinization. All for the judgment, the hatred, the scorn he was sure would come.

It never would, of course. Just an answer, a debunking of truths that only existed in his mind. The same thing you’d been trying to tell him this whole time.

“I love you, Alex.”

You can’t even count how many times you’d said that, but never had you seen a reaction from him like this. Seen the way tears immediately came to surface in his eyes, seen the tightening of his jaw, the shock so plainly written all over his face.

“Why?” He chokes out, still fighting against the tears that threaten to spill over his eyes. The fact that he doesn’t get it would almost be annoying if he wasn’t in this state.

“Because, Alex. You wouldn’t be this distraught over the things you’ve had to do if you were a bad person. You never were, you were a soldier that did what he had to do. How could I hate you for that?” It all makes sense to you, and Alex is smart, you know he understands. That doesn’t mean he believes it about himself, though.

Still, the chance of you, sitting in front of him, being here again?

He can’t pass that up. He’d be the biggest fool in the world to pass you up. And so he lets you in, he lets you love him, he lets you help him. His voice is shaky and dry as he speaks, but you don’t think you’ve ever loved another sound more.

“Thank you.”

“Then when I met you, my virtues uncounted. All of my goodness is goin' with you now.”

A/N: happy early veterans day, i guess

- di <3

[becauseplot]

Staying Level-Headed

You know everyone was looking at qPhil coming back chanting “KILLZA KILLZA KILLZA” and like yeah we all want it, and we sort of got it through the initial chaos: the lava cast over the presidential building, the threats of further action against the Federation. It's not exactly the violent/furious rampage some might've been wanting or expecting, though.

And honestly? I'm glad---because it makes perfect sense.

Since the start, Phil has been very upfront about his thoughts concerning the egg situation. He knew and believed and repeatedly expressed (to his kids, sometimes!) that there was a very good chance they were going to die, or get taken away. He's always been very practical about death and treated it as an inevitable force that can't be evaded. Man, you can trace it back in his character so far. When the Nightmare happens, and Phil is holding a dying Chayanne in his arms, he says something to the effect of, "I'm so sorry, they just don't want you to live in this world."

A fact. A hard, cold, undeinable fact.

Phil is pragmatic. Married to Death. Hinted at having lived a long, long time; seen many things, outlived many people.

He is a survivor. And rule number one of being a survivalist: always be prepared to be faced with the cruel, the unfair, and the unexpected.

So, yes, of course it hurts. He never wanted his kids to be taken away from him---but he's braced for the blow. He has been mentally fortifying himself for a moment like this for months, and on another level, most of his life.

Thus, after he has a moment to allow himself to break, he takes a deep breath and keeps a level head. He talks to Tubbo and Fit, lets them fill him in on the situation, doesn't demand answers they don't have. When they tell him about how the island's president has gone off the deep end, Phil's immediate instinct is to believe the best in Forever and that he must be being manipulated by the Federation in some way. (Seriously! He draws that conclusion so fast! He immediately recognizes Forever as a victim rather than a threat or an enemy, despite Forever's position of power and "emotional unavailability.") And yeah, Phil instagates the lava cast, which is still griefing, but it's a localized, controllable form of griefing that is inflicted upon Federation territory only, and he follows it up with threats of further action with a viable plan. Then, he immediately plunges into an investigation of the old freezer/prison with Tubbo to look for any possible clues left behind.

Look, this isn't to say that the way that qPhilza---or ccPhilza, for that matter---is handling the situation "better" than anyone else, or that the other characters aren’t capable of making rational decisions. All of the other characters' various reactions, breakdowns, retaliations, and quests for answers are believable, well-played, and fascinating. (Like fuck dude the ccs are COOKING right now; and objectively speaking, the mines are pretty goddamn funny lol.) I just want to outline exactly why qPhil's reaction works so, so, so well for his character and why I'm ultimately glad that he didn't go all hyper-murdery, stewing about putting the Federation's heads on a pike or storming the Federation HQ or anything like that.

((Also, it's worth mentioning that all of his plans aren't """perfect""" decisions for the situation! Like his plan to play keep-away with Forever's briefcase of drugs until the effects of his last dose wear off. We know how unstable Forever becomes when the withdrawal starts to set in---he began to panic and pulled a gun on Phil. As terrible as the pills are for him, Forever becomes a danger to himself and the people around him when the medication wears off. He's so fragile right now, so if Phil going to try to get him to go cold-turkey, ideally, Phil would need to do it in a safer environment than just, fucking anywhere. Also Phil's follow-up plan is to assassinate Forever, potentially by taking advantage the apparent trust Forever has in Phil??? Like I get it, desperate times require desperate measures, and it still makes for an interesting story line that I would absolutely gobble up, but OW???? Like qPhil, bestie, are you sure that's the best plan in the long run????? Anyway, I digress.))

So that's about it. I miss my little huevos but I love this arc SO so much and I love pPhil and I have so many thoughts about him and I can't wait to see where this goes. Rambles over. Gn <3

[hunter-creature]

Capturing A Song: Part 1

I was at the bar with some friends. We loved to go to karaoke night and let loose. She approached me when I went to the bar to refill my drink. She was stunning, wearing a flowing red dress that felt out of place in a college town dive bar. She had heard me singing, and wanted to compliment my voice. The small talk quickly turned to flirting, and my friends knew well enough not to interrupt. It wasn’t often you found someone interested in girls like me, and I had just been dumped last month. I think I drank too much trying to calm my nerves, she was so pretty, and now the rest of the memories are so hazy.

When I woke up it was so dark. I was laying on something soft, but as my eyes got used to the dark I thought I could make out the bars of a cage. Did I get arrested? Fuck, I must of done something stupid, I-. The sound of a door opening interrupted my thoughts, and I tried to sit up too quickly. My head was pounding, my mouth felt dry, and all my clothes felt uncomfortable. But still I called out, “Hello? Is anyone there?” There was so distant shuffling before suddenly something pulled away from outside the cell. The whole place flooded with light and I quickly had to shut my eyes. “Oh, thank goodness. You’re awake, are you alright?” this vaguely familiar voice was so loud, like someone turned a tv too far up, the tone didn’t change to shout, it just hurt to listen to.

Opening my eyes I couldn’t believe it. It was her, and she was huge, in fact the whole room was giant. Almost instinctively I tried to back up, but I quickly hit more metal bars. I was trapped in some sort of suspended cage. I could feel it swaying as I moved around. The door had some sort of latch on the outside. “Do you need anything?” When her voice boomed again I screamed. This had to be a nightmare, this was all too much. Imprisoned, hurting, and so- so small. The panic hit me in waves, and I curled up protectively. I could feel tears on my cheek. “Hey, hey, was I too loud? I can talk softer. I just want to make sure you’re okay and then we can figure this all out,” she almost whispered, in that same tone people used with scared animals. It was almost comforting. You tried to talk several times, babbling out sounds and sobs before squeaking out, “Water.” It wasn’t long before she returned with one of the paper cups for condiments that you used to find in fast food places, but this time it was filled with water. And now, to me, it was the size of a large bucket. She quietly placed it in my cage before closing the latch again. You had to cup the water with your hands in order to drink from it, but it was starting to make you feel better. “Can- can you let me out of here?” Her huge face gave me a little frown before saying, “No, I don’t want anything bad to accidentally happen to you, and you’re safest in here until we get you back to… normal size.” That was reasonable. What was I going to do at the size of a mouse in a world built for humans? But how did I get to this? “What happened?” I squeaked. “Well, we were flirting, and you were getting really tipsy. Then you started getting really cuddly, and could barely walk so I offered to help you get home. You were really cute,” I could feel myself blushing, and I couldn’t look her in the eyes anymore, “Then we got outside, and I lost my grip on you, and you fell over. It was like magic, you just kept getting smaller. There wasn’t anything else I could do, but gather up your stuff and bring you home with me. I put you in some clothes I had for my dolls, I hope they aren’t too uncomfortable.” I couldn’t remember what I was wearing that night, but now that I noticed I didn’t own anything like this. It was a pastel blue dress with some sort of white apron sewn on it. It didn’t fit quite right and was itchy on the inside, but I lied and said, “It's fine. Can you get help or something?” “That's the problem. I don’t know anyone who could help you, and it's not like I’m taking you to the cops. Those pigs will just send you to some lab to get dissected. Maybe I could contact a family member or partner of yours? They might not be able to help, but maybe you’ll be more comfortable seeing them. I have your phone, but I don’t know the password.” That might be for the best. Being stuck with a stranger I just met, and kept in a cage like some kind of pet was… it was bad right? God, who would I even call about this? “Um yeah, okay. The password is 318008. Maybe my mom or dad? They are in my contacts just as that. Um, my brother would be a really bad idea, but maybe uh Diana? She’s my ex, but I don’t know. She’s probably the closest.” Her smile wasn’t quite right. It sent a shiver down my spine, but I was probably imagining things. Maybe she just wanted me out of her hair, and didn’t want me to feel unwanted. I've seen those kinds of smiles a lot in my life. She quickly tapped the numbers into my phone and started scrolling through. “Okay, I’ll make a couple phone calls, and be right back,” she quickly made for her door. It only took her a few steps to travel what looked like whole city blocks for me. “Wait! Aren’t you going to take me with you?” but it was already too late. Her door closed quickly with a thunk, and once again I was alone.

It was starting to get dark. The curtains in the room were drawn closed, but they were thin enough to still let in light. It seems like I’m in her room hanging over a desk. The cage was made of a brassy metal, and had some sort of padding on the bottom that was covered in scraps of cloth. After what felt like a few hours, I started getting worried. I didn’t know this woman, what if she wasn’t going to get help after all? Or maybe my parents just called the cops on her, and they’ve put her into some sort of mental hospital. I’m going to starve if that happens. I tried to reach the latch, but I could only reach it at such an awkward angle, and I wasn’t strong enough to push it out of place. It was then that the door swung open, I hadn’t heard her footsteps, and scrambled back into the center of the cage. She seemed to be carrying some sort of old shoebox that she placed down on the desk, before looking back at me. “Were you able to get a hold of anyone? Does anyone know how to help?” Maybe I wasn’t the only one this was happening to and they figured out a kind of cure. “Well… I did, but… unfortunately,” she was giving that look of pity that I hated. This was bad. She opened the box and pulled something out to lift up and show me. I gasped when I saw my asshole of an older brother. Why was he here? Why was he so small as well?!? “What- why-” I asked in disbelief, before he screamed “You! This is your fault! You had this bitch do something to me, you freak!” I felt tears starting, when suddenly something lashed around his leg, then a lot of that something. Wet, reddish pink tentacles or tongues straight out of some sci-fi horror, coiling around him, and ripping my brother from the giantess’ hand. Quickly dragging him back between her lips, where his screams were quickly muffled, along with what sounded like snapping twigs. For a moment she looked surprised, then she gave a smirk. I was too stunned to move as the screams turned to gurgles, then silence. She finally swallowed, and I couldn’t look away as the lump traveled down her throat. “Gods, I thought I could keep up the act for a little while longer. I just got too hungry,” eyes start opening on the right side of her face, and more down over her right shoulder and arm. They looked red and wild, some staring at me, and others looking out at things unknown. “I- p-please, please don’t eat me,” I didn’t know what else to say, I felt my blood run cold. I led a monster right to my family, and now she was going to kill us. She tipped the cage and I fell back until I hit the bars at the back of the cage. She pressed her face close to the front of the cage, and opened her mouth. They exploded out, wrapping around the bars, and reaching for me. Some were long enough to slide against my body, leaving trails of wet saliva. I kicked and screamed, trying desperately to keep them off. Then she pulled away, a cruel look painted across her face.

“Oh, I won’t. Yet. I’m going to savor you, my little songbird, and this meal ticket you’ve given me.” Every time she spoke I could now see the alien way her mouth moved. Accommodating for so many squirming tendrils. Whatever illusion she held before had been shattered. I could only watch in horror as she ate both my parents. Sobbing on the floor of my prison until I saw her pull up Diana, “No! Please don’t! She doesn’t deserve this, please! You can take anyone else, I’ll do anything! Just let her go, I’m begging you!” I screamed out as I watched her be taken in by the tentacles, but this monster didn’t let go of her arm pinched between two fingers. I had the faintest trace of hope that she was considering my offer as I watched Diana’s arm jerk and twitch. Instead when she pulled her arm away, Diana didn’t come out with it. It had torn away from the rest of her body, pulled out the bones up to the elbow. Now it dangles with strips of sinew, dripping blood onto her lips and chin. It was almost the same color as her dress. “I must say, you have such good taste in women. She was irresistible. Oh! But you must be so hungry stuck up here all day. Try her for yourself, you might understand why I just had to eat her.” She dropped Diana’s arms into your little prison. I could smell the blood from here. I wailed in grief over my Diana, more than for my whole family. I didn’t want to admit I still loved her, but now it didn’t matter. Finally, that monster left me alone to go turn off the lights, and went to bed. I couldn’t stop crying, but eventually exhaustion took me.