#anyways seemed like a good clip after the ever lasting sickness

[tobisonfire]

etho talking about his health and working out 4 years ago (LP ep 521)

[blackreaderfics]

Off the Record | Clark Kent x Black!Reader

↳ Pairing : MAWS Clark Kent x Rapper!Reader (You)

↳ Rating :  M (18+)

↳ Summary : Clark knows Kryptonians don't experience sexual attraction in the same way humans do. One night, he figures out who exactly turns him on.

↳ W.C : ~1.2k

↳ Tags + Warnings : logicalnerd!clark, clark is a late bloomer kinda, kryptonian biology is weird i guess, allusions to asexuality, sexual awakening(?), pwp, masturbation, fantasizing, onlyfans lol, mentions of leaked sextape

Masturbation was healthy; that much Clark had already known from sex ed classes and Google searches. And though he knew from his research that most pubescent kids started jerking off in middle school, along with having erections, he had never in his 30 years of life experienced sexual attraction. Ever.

When kids in high school drooled over naked women posing on the covers of Playboys or Maxims, he still tried his best to act the part of "horny teenager". He had crushes in his teen years too, but he never actively sought out sex.

There was this one time when a girl he liked had tried to initiate sex, but he was honest to a fault and truthfully told her that he didn’t like her in that way. Needless to say, she’d gotten offended and never spoke to him again. Since then, he’d hidden that quirk about himself from every single one of his romantic partners without fail.

Don’t get him wrong, Clark has had sex before and from what he could tell, he was pretty good at it too. Just like with his studies, as long he understood the proper mechanics of the subject at hand, he could go above and beyond for any performance. 

It was basic biology. Having an erection required a higher flow of blood towards his penis; which he could do himself pretty easily since he had amazing control over his body. That was the result of learning how to be Superman for the past few years. Because of his “training” he lasted long and the (very) few men and women he chose to bed loved him more for it. 

There were still some things he thought he’d never understand the concept of, however. Like, how do Kryptonians procreate if he can’t seem to produce the semen to ejaculate? The white liquid he’d seen in porn as a teen was like a myth to him. Jor-El never mentioned that in the Fortress of Solitude. He wouldn't be finding any Kryptonian biological literature available to read at any Metropolis public library either. It wasn’t like he didn’t try, but after some (controlled) tests, he concluded that perhaps Kryptonians didn’t ejaculate and he was okay with that.

So when Clark felt a strange sensation in his pants one night when he saw you on TV, he immediately thought that he’d fallen ill. Which was strange for him because, well, he’d never gotten sick. But there you were, mesmerizing him as clips flashed on screen of you rapping while wearing a risqué outfit leaving nothing to the imagination. Suddenly everything felt too tight, too hot. He gulped, nervously pulling at the collar of his t-shirt, but a knot remained lodged in his throat.

The camera angles panned across your chocolatey skin and ample curves, cutting right at moments where it veered dangerously into porn instead of what it was supposed to be—a rap music video. Clark had seen porn before and full-on bare naked women anyway, but he’d never been affected like this before. So why now? And why you?

Once the music video ended, Clark snapped out of his trance, but it wasn’t long before the now rock-hard and throbbing situation in his pants urgently reminded him of more pressing matters.

He quickly powered on his computer to search your name and, not long after, pictures of you filled the screen. There was a never-ending stream of shots of you on the red carpet, you on stage, photoshoots, and pictures you’d uploaded yourself on social media.

Every time his eyes would linger on a photo of you in a suggestive position, i.e. licking a popsicle or pushing your breasts together, his cock would twitch against his zipper. It didn’t take a genius to figure out where his cock wanted to be right now and it was right at the back of your throat. He unbuckled his pants, letting his first-ever unassisted erection bob up and against his sweater-clad stomach.

He’d never fantasized about someone having his cock in their mouth until tonight. Sure, his partners had given him blowjobs before, but he couldn’t even pretend to enjoy them. Truthfully, it looked like it hurt when they couldn’t even take all of him in, and he never liked to be the reason anyone felt pain. Clark scrolled on.

You had a sex tape? His brow furrowed in disapproval though he could feel his face grow warm. He couldn’t pinpoint what exact emotion he was feeling right now. Whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t a positive one.

The page he had landed on showed a closeup of you, eyebrows knitted in ecstasy as someone (he didn’t want to know who) hovered behind, hands gripping your ass, already in the middle of ravishing you. The screenshot made the corners of his mouth tug down in a frown. He didn’t particularly like the idea of watching other people have sex at all. And he especially didn’t want to see some other guy “balls deep” inside you instead of him. 

More importantly, it just wasn’t right. He’d seen reports that your tape had been leaked without your consent; by watching it he would be actively infringing on your sexual boundaries. That definitely wasn’t right either and though he desperately wanted to, he didn’t have the heart to press play. 

Onlyfans? Clark's eyebrows quirked up in curiosity. He clicked on a link he’d found on your Instagram page and there you were; verified with pages of content ready to be unlocked. After a moment of thought, he concluded that this was the most ethical alternative; much better than masturbating to your pictures or your sex tape. This way you would be paid for your work, and he would gain implied consent as a customer. He felt much better about this as he clicked the blue purchase button. 

His cock throbbed again when he finally saw you, full lips planting soft kisses onto a dildo, your large almond eyes heavy-lidded and boring into him with lust. That’s when Clark brought a hand to his cock and began to stroke. What was once a motion that was alien to him, felt more and more natural as he pumped, matching his strokes to your pace. Your image on screen bobbed your mouth up and down making lewd slurps and moans, purposefully throating the shaft to the hilt. Each brief moment you came up for air brought a mess of saliva with you. 

Clark watched on, immersed, bucking his hips into his fist as he imagined he was the one making you make those vulgar sounds. But something in the back of his mind was disturbed. Was this what he, Clark Kent, liked or was it an innate biological desire he couldn’t control from a planet he never knew? He felt disconnected; outside his body until, not even a minute after he had started the video, a sensation he’d never felt before came over him. He groaned and tightened his grip as he felt himself release.

A warm sticky liquid had dripped down his cock and onto his hand. Clark grimaced down at the mess he’d made, breathing erratically until he finally calmed down. His cock twitched and the last of dregs of his cum spilled out from his reddened tip. 

He'd made two major discoveries that night:

1. Kryptonians did ejaculate after all, and 2. When it came to you, he wouldn’t be able to last very long.

©️ blackreaderfics // credit to cafekitsune for the dividers

[cellarfulofnose]

poison headache

The story of Maggie’s Farm comes to life in a series of diary entries from the mid-’60s. Twenty-nothing poet Bob Dylan works on the McCawell farm under the iron fist of Joseph “Pa” McCawell, his pious wife “Ma” Edith, and their harebrained son Willie. Maggie McCawell, the boss’ coarse daughter, seems to have her sights on Bob, but he only has eyes for Joan, a lovely servant girl. 

March 4, 1965

They moved me from the cabin into Danny’s old room. I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t know till today it’s been sitting empty all this time. It was around Christmastime that he went and got married or ran away or something. I’d marry the first girl who passed by if I thought it’d get me out of here. It’s supposed to be sowing season, but the rain’s so bad the fields are mud. I lost both boots in the north field and walked back in my socks. My only hope is that a boot bush’ll spring up in the summer. With my luck they’ll all be two sizes too big. I guess I better start saving newspaper now.

Danny’s room is nothing fancy. There’s a desk by the window and a big wardrobe. It’s small, but it’s better than six guys in five cots and one hammock, rolling over three people every time you toss and turn. They said Danny packed up and left. The room smells like he might’ve died in it. Or something did, anyway. I haven’t had the guts to open the wardrobe.

We can’t plow without compacting the soil, so I’ve been doing inventory. Started two days ago and I haven’t even finished with the cans. There’s walls of them. Pa McCawell is always going on about the Reds and making the servant girls duck and cover. I guess if there really was an atomic blast we’d be all right, food-wise. I wear a can opener clipped to my belt now. Willie said it makes me look like I’m fixing to kill a man, and if I ever try anything funny he’ll be on me like ugly on an ape. Didn’t make me take it off though. I think it scared him pretty good. I lost my knife in a tree when I first got here, so this is the next best thing.

I hope I'm sick. My throat itches and my nose is running, and now this cough won't go away. It comes in spells, I can't breathe for a couple minutes at a time. I hope it's a good old rollicking case of influenza. Or bronchitis or pneumonia or any of your old standards. You start spitting green around here and you get the day off—if you're lucky. I couldn't have been luckier the last time I had a fever. McCawell didn't want to pay the doctor so they gave me to Joan. I talked about her last week and probably a month before that. The half-Mexican kitchen girl. She’s always singing. You hear everybody say that if she’s got breath to sing, she must not be working hard enough, but she gets her work done just as well as anybody else. When I was laid up, she got my fever down and kept me on mullein tea that knocked all the crap right out of my lungs. It was like having Clara Barton nurse you, she was so good, and her black hair parted in the middle.

Joan’s something else. She’s pretty but I don’t know how to describe it. She looks old fashioned, from another time. I got here maybe a year after she did, and I feel we used to know each other before that. Before time. Like we were twin stars, or two little twin girls in the Levant. I think she knows it. She let me pick her guitar once.

Joan got sick too the last time she was taking care of me. I must’ve given it to her. She stopped singing for days, and when she started again, her voice sounded different. I don’t suppose she ever forgave me. If Pa hands me over to her again, I don’t think she’ll be too happy to nurse me, and I don’t blame her. Well, I hope it’s just a little cold or something that’ll go away in a day or two. No sense in bothering her about it.

March 5, 1965

The rain’s stopped. Willie got into a heated debate with Charlie and a couple field hands over the sowing. We’re so behind on planting, he said they better start to plow, but Charlie said they’d never get the tractor out of the mud if they started before it dried out a little. Willie blew his top and climbed up in the tractor himself. It took him fifteen minutes to figure out how to get it moving and all four mules to haul it out of the mud. You never saw his Ma so mad. I heard her tan his hide when they got back to the house, but she didn’t mention the tractor once. She was yelling at him for swearing like a sea dog in front of Maggie and the servant girls. I’ve heard Maggie say worse on a Sunday in Lent.

Willie’s lucky McCawell weren’t home. He left before dawn to make the stock auction in town, otherwise he would have made a jacket out of that boy. Ma is gonna raise hell to Pa when he gets back. Last time Willie got in hot water, he had to advance Danny two weeks' pay to keep him from running and telling McCawell. I guess Charlie gets the payout now, and he'll distribute it as he sees fit. 

I don't care about money if I can't sleep. I was up half the night last night sneezing. I didn't even get a break from the cough. If this is a cold, it's unlike any I ever had. No aches, chills, nothing. Just this feeling like the air’s heavy with dandelion wisps and they're all trying to take root and bloom in my nose. 

There were a couple hours in the middle of the day where it wasn’t too bad. Don’t ask me how I managed to get out of bed, but once I made it through the cans and started inventorying the boxes, I wasn’t sneezing anymore. Better for Joan, I thought, we’d both get off easy. But then right after supper it started again, just as bad as it ever was. I have to pause in my writing just to catch my breath. The cough is ugly but it’s not deep, just stubborn. No point in trying to get a day off out of it. McCawell would say I sounded fine in the house and that he ought to put me to work after supper too, since it seems to cure what’s ailing me.

There’s more to say but I can’t go on writing. This sneezing is taking it out of me. Not much to be done but to sleep it off, though I don’t know how I’ll get to sleep tonight. I was sleeping standing up today, lock-legged, like a horse, from not catching any the night before. I know where Efren keeps the horse pills, if it comes to that. Last time I took those, they woke me up with cold water. Right now that sounds like a vacation. Joan hasn’t noticed how I'm doing, and Ma won’t bless me.

March 6, 1965

It was Ma who called the doctor. Whatever it is, it got bad enough that I came down with a bloody nose. When I started in to sneeze, it wasn't pretty. I was in the barn at the time, so I came in the house looking for something to clean myself up. She saw me with blood all over my face and shirt and about started crying. I must have been coughing then, you couldn't tell her it wasn't consumption. A couple of girls hung around to calm her down. I thought I'd better leave. 

The blood stopped by the time the doctor got here. He took my temperature and listened to my chest and told me I wasn't sick with anything contagious. That meant back to work, but it also meant that Joan was in the clear.  I know it was ridiculous to imagine she might still end up taking care of me. Anyway, it’s better this way.

Then again, who’s to say the doctor knows what he’s talking about? He said “hayfever” and a couple eavesdroppers and I told him it’s not even haying season, and I don’t have any problem when it is. But his advice was that it must be environmental, so I should try and fix my environment. He said to change my bedding to get rid of the built-up dust, then I should stick my head in a steam bath and see if that helps. He’d been anticipating TB, so he didn’t have anything for me to take. Pa said in that case he wasn’t paying. I left when they started arguing, to go strip the bed in Danny’s room.

It was dusty all right. Set me off again pretty good. I gave up halfway through—I didn’t want my nose to start bleeding again. I got the window partway open, and I was just sitting on the half-empty bed when Maggie came in. She heard I wasn’t feeling good and wanted to come see how I was doing. I took out my harmonica because I didn’t want to talk to her. But between the coughs and sneezes, I had to give it up. It’s not that Maggie isn’t a great girl. She’s got a head full of bouncy red curls and freckles all over her body, and she wears tied-off shirts and denim shorts to prove it. I think it’s her eyes that put me off. They’re so big and round and she lines them black. She looks like an owl. Cute, I guess, but I wouldn’t be alone with her in the same room if I could help it.

Maggie said the room smelled like a swamp. That’s one good thing about all this; I can’t smell anymore, so it doesn’t bother me. She got real friendly when I told her that, saying she knew how to clear my head. Maggie likes to fixate on how all the functions of the body are linked to orgasm. She once told me an orgasm is equivalent to eight sneezes. I don’t know how she figured that, but I’d be a lot happier and a lot looser by now if she’d been telling the truth.

She didn’t try to take my pants off. She seemed to want to do it with them on. I told her if she really wanted to help me she’d boil me a pot of water and get me a towel to trap the steam. Most of the guys wish they could lay Maggie, but they’re terrified of incurring McCawell’s wrath. Some of them she flirts with just to piss her daddy off. He threatened Efren with a 12-gauge and now no one wants to look at her. It’s not McCawell I’m scared of. Something about Maggie tells me she’s not satisfied until she sees the white of bone.

I touched her up till she came, the fastest I’ve ever seen her do it. It seemed easier than trying to talk her out of it. Maggie’s not a bad girl. She’s just stuck here like the rest of us, and sex starved. It can’t be good for a girl her age. Once she calmed down, she said Pa had agreed to pay the doctor but he was taking it out of my check. She promised she’d get him to change his mind. I kept telling her she didn’t have to, but she gave me one of her nice handkerchiefs as collateral, with the little MM stitched on the border. I sneezed fresh blood into it within minutes of her leaving. Pa and Maggie and the doctor were all arguing in the kitchen, so I couldn’t boil water for a steam bath, and the bed was still unmade. I ended up just going to the shed for the horse stuff. Taking half a tablet doesn’t knock me out, and they last longer that way besides.

March 8, 1965

A lot has happened so I’ll try to tell the short version.

Danny’s room is growing mold. It’s more mold than room. I don’t know how it didn’t collapse on me. On Sunday I was picking at the wallpaper and a section of it crumbled away. The wall was black. I thought it was ants. Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. I ran outside and coughed until I lost my breakfast. It was Sunday, so we couldn’t get the doctor, but he couldn’t have told me anything I didn’t know by then. It was the mold that was making me sick. The dust couldn’t have helped either.

Pa won’t get the room repaired. I wasn’t even the one to tell him about the mold. It must have been Maggie or one of the girls. Still, he wouldn’t swallow it. I found out Maggie volunteered to let me stay in her room until they fix Danny’s. Now whenever Pa looks at me he gets all red with fury and can’t speak. I don’t hold it against her. He’d only take it out of my check, anyways.

Willie jumped out of his skin when he saw me. Somehow the news had warped as it traveled, and he’d heard I was dead. I didn’t have any evidence to the contrary, so I let him be.

The real mess happened after I got a few doses of horse pills down. I went to go sleep in the loft when I ran into Joan. She was stealing some wine and said half was mine if I wouldn’t tell. I’d never say no, but horse stuff and booze are like fire and gasoline. We drank the whole jug. I got sloppy. I remember I wanted to kiss her—I don’t know if I did it. I told her I was in love with her and she started crying, saying Maggie was gonna fire her when she found out. She’s jealous that way. I told her again and again I wouldn’t let that happen. Joan kissed my head, and when I woke up it was dark. I waited until dawn, then I marched into the house and told McCawell I quit. He laughed and kept on eating. Even Maggie didn’t say anything. 

I slept in the loft last night, and I haven’t been back in Danny’s room but for a minute to grab a few things. Already, it feels like it’s getting better. I only sneezed once after I woke up this morning. Mostly no cough either. There’s a weird sort of pounding feeling behind my eyes any time that I do cough. Could be nothing, I never know. I was out in the rain a lot yesterday before I ripped up the wallpaper; maybe that’s got something to do with it.

This is my second night sleeping in the loft. It’s supposed to rain again tomorrow. No one knows when it’ll end. Danny’s room is empty again and it looks like it’ll stay that way, but I found another jug of wine squirreled away up here in the hay. Whatever’s coming, I might not end up weathering it alone.

[a-christmas-carol-from-hr]

i'm very sorry that you have to have a body, one that will hurt you and be the subject of so much of your fear, it will betray you, be used against you, then it will fail on you, my dear

tw: major character death, stroke

an: uh hi i crave validation and love to talk about this thing i’m working on so uh have one of the side pieces i wrote for it C:

-

2012.

The Christmas Eve rain beat against the window as Jacob Marley, one half of Marley and Scrooge Financial, looked out over the London landscape. It was a terrible night, even by London’s standards. The rain seemed to lash at the window like some sort of typhoon, as if trying to break the glass and reach inside.

No doubt it was the rain that had brought on his headache.

Marley rubbed at his eyes as he looked out at the darkened sky. He’d had it ever since he’d gotten off the flight from New York. Must have been the elevation. He’d better not be picking up a flu from some nasty brat. He had no time to be sick. Scrooge was in Beijing until the New Year, closing out an account they’d been working on for years. It was his duty to hold down the fort until she returned, and he had no time to be ill.

But still the headache continued, throbbing persistently behind his eye. Fantastic. Americans.

Marley gave one last look at the infernal weather before turning and leaving his office. He needed a coffee.

Bob Crachit was in the kitchen, furiously stirring at some container on the counter. Her dark hair, barely held back with a cheap hair clip, tumbled over her face as she worked. She brushed it away, but all too soon it fell back again. Were Scrooge here, she’d have scolded Bob. She never looked presentable enough, the clothes she’d managed to scrape together that were office appropriate far below the standards of most everyone else in the firm. But Bob was the best executive assistant in London, and both Marley and Scrooge knew that. So her ‘issues’ were overlooked.

Even the most recent one. Bob stopped stirring at what looked like her dinner to place a hand on her stomach, winded from the effort. She was winded from most things these days, being nearly too pregnant to walk, let alone work. But business was business, and she needed the money. She rolled her neck one way and then the other, trying to gain some relief from her discomfort. And then she returned to her work. Bob was like that.

It made Marley feel a certain…way when he saw her fatigue, though he dare not voice it, even to himself. 

He didn’t bother to clear his throat as he entered, and Bob jolted in surprise as soon as she caught sight of him.

“Ah! Mr. Marley!” He had to give her credit. She could put on a happy face at the drop of a hat. What had been an expression of fatigue and discomfort turned to one of happy helpfulness. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Obviously.” Marley replied. “How about a cup of coffee, Crachit?” “Oh, no thank you!” She said with a smile, her good humor not dampened by Marley’s general aura of unpleasantness. But she turned to start one anyway. “I don’t think we have any more of the Arabia you prefer, Mr. Marley. Ms. Scrooge said-.”

“Not to bother ordering any.” Marley finished with a grumble. Figures. The unpleasant smell of burnt sodium reached his senses, and he damn near recoiled, the pain in his head inflaming at the sense.

“Dear god, what is that?!”

“Oh! I’m sorry!” Bob said, moving to move her meal. “It’s my dinner, sir. Instant ramen. I suppose it *is* a bit overdone.”

“You eat that slop?” He said incredulously. Bob laughed, embarrassed.

“It’s my late lunch. Just to tide me over until dinner. ‘Fraid I’m always hungry these days. But I can just toss it if it bothers you. After all, tonight we get a proper feast.” She said with ill-hidden delight. “The hubby’s getting it all ready. A proper roast meal. I’ve been saving for ages. I don’t think the Queen’ll eat better than we will.”

Marley doubted that, much to his own surprise. Crachit was ill-paid even by assistant standards, and much of her money went to supporting a disabled husband, paying London rent, and dealing with a now-impending baby. Why the damn fool got herself in the family way when she couldn’t afford it was beyond him. It was none of his business what others chose to do, but it became so when it hurt his business. And she’d be out on Mat Leave before long, and then what would they do. The girl was competent, even if it was her only saving grace. Very inconvenient. Bad for business.

His mind ached.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to breath out. Crachit stopped her prattling. “Mr. Marley?” She asked, quietly. “Are you alright?”

Her voice was so sincere. It nearly made him mad. The damn fool was worried about him, and he never spared her a thought of worry. Something, deep in his pained mind, prodded him. He didn’t like it.

“Fine. Headache. Look, Crachit.” He reached into his walled, pulling out a glossy credit card worth more than Bob’s entire family put together. “My head is killing me, and since Ms. Scrooge in her infinite kindness has seen it fit to deny me my coffee until the New Year, go get me one. From the cafe up the street. With-.”

“Oat milk and two stevia.” Bob replied instantly.”Of course, Mr. Marley. I’ll be right back.”

Marley turned to look out the window. And he looked at the meager meal Crachit had to eat. And something twisted in him again. “Crachit!” He called out. He heard the sound of footfalls before she poked her head around the corner.

“Yes?”

“Get a sandwich while you’re there.”

“Yes, of course.” Bob replied. “What would you like on it, Mr. Marley?”

“Whatever you want, you bloody fool. It’s for you?”

Bob’s eyes widened. “Me?”

“Did I stutter, Crachit?”

“No, sir.”

“Get my coffee and yourself a sandwich, and be quick about it. I need to review the New York notes with you.”

Crachit couldn’t hide her smile of pleasure as she nodded, and that made him feel even worse. Shouldn’t have even offered in the first place. Now his mind hurt from multiple things. He found himself wishing Scrooge was here. Things seemed easier when she was around. Facing their present made it easier to ignore the past. Especially on December 24th, of all nights, where Crachit had to be there with her baby bump and-

The pain burbled behind his left eye, springing up like water. Marley stumbled, bracing himself against the counter. *Jesus Christ* it hurt. He’d ask her to get pain killers on the way back. The strongest they had.

“Crachit!” He called out, hoping she was still in listening distance.

But the word did not leave his mouth. Distantly, as if underwater, he heard his own voice. He heard the shapeless sounds that cried from his mouth. And then, then Jacob Marley felt fear.

The pain grew, bursting out into his skull. It wrenched a scream from his throat and crippled his body, like a puppet whose strings all were cut at once. His limbs flailed out as he fell to the floor, that distant voice that was and wasn’t his own screaming all the while.

He felt himself hit the ground even all through the pain and his mind was melting, struck with volt after volt of electricity, and *jesus* he could feel every cell of his mind *die* and he was dying he had to be he was going to die, right here on the floor of his counting house and he was alone, all alone, and the pain rose up into his throat and into his body, chaining him to the floor and chaining him to his fading mind and chaining him to *god no please no here not alone not with her so far from me im sorry im sorry fire flame volt make it sTOP*

He thought the word *Ellen*.

And then he thought nothing at all.

[jodilin65]

THURSDAY, MAY 31, 2001 The babies have sprouted enough fur to tell what color they’re going to be, but their eyes haven’t opened yet.

They were right, those who said it would seem like I never left home once I got back there. It’s like that 6-month gap isn’t even there. Now, I’m just left with a greater appreciation for life’s simple little things, like the right to pee in private, wonderful memories of Palma, Rosa, Mary, and others, and a future to look forward to with Teddy Bear (I still worry about pigs and black bitch, although I don’t sense any trouble in the near future).

I hope. Even though I always believed that she and I were as meant to be as Tom and I, anything could happen over the next 6 months to a year. Maybe she’ll change her mind. Maybe someone else will come along and sweep her off her feet. I wonder, though – if I didn’t call her next year, would she call me?

I miss her so much and at times I just can’t get her off my mind! I never thought anyone I was attracted to enough to think about all the time (female) would like me too.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 30, 2001 Paula’s 34 today. Happy birthday, girl!

They put the house in place, right where the old house was. It’s shorter than the old single-wide. I wonder if it’s an investor. Or maybe the woman’s daughter and her husband next door bought the land and decided to stick a new house on it, although they don’t strike me as the type to have that kind of money. They live in an old dump.

A part of me was hoping inmates at the jail would forget me, but nope. I got a letter from Mary! It was so nice, and I just can’t turn my back on her. Fuck what the state and government say. Who the fuck are they to tell me who I can and can’t have for friends anyway? I’m sick of being told what to do! I did tell her, though, that because one of the terms of my probation forbids me any contact with those with criminal records, even though I know she’s no “criminal,” I do have to limit my writing for now.

Mary, who’s back in M201, says that she was thinking of what a wonderful journalist I am and was wondering if I’d be willing to write a book on her behalf. She says her prosecutors want her to write one, but she doesn’t think she has what it takes. She plans to have a book started in the near future – “The Story of Baby Gretchen, who touched our lives forever.” She said it’s the only way she knows how to say a proper goodbye to her little queen who was her world. She says she hopes it’ll help other women get away from abusive men before it’s too late.

In my reply, I asked her why she was still there and assured her that although I’m flattered she thinks I’m a good journalist and would be honored to write for her, she is a good writer, too. I’ve seen enough of her writing to know. I told her, though, to be more specific as to what she wants. Am I to type up rough drafts for her, or what? I also need to know more about her case. All I know is that her ex killed her baby when she was at work. I told her I could probably get permission from my PO to do the book for her, although I think that by the time this book was ever published, I’d be off probation anyway.

I promised Mary that after 03, when my probation ends, I’d send her a copy of my jailhouse journal. Meanwhile, I sent her a clip from the night she told Palma I had a crush on her, the day I went to M Dorm for the last time.

Wouldn’t it be funny if one of the reasons I was meant to be thrown in that place, as unfair as it was, wasn’t only to meet Teddy Bear, but to write this book, too? I wouldn’t count on it, though. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

TUESDAY, MAY 29, 2001 Been home for a month now. The time really flies when you’re not counting down the days!

I walked for a half hour, worked out, sang, cleaned, and cooked, and after working on my jailhouse journal for a while, I’ll go to work for the freeloaders by finishing up the remaining 60 or so bottles I have left.

MONDAY, MAY 28, 2001 The babies have ears now. They’re born with them stuck to their heads, but they just popped out. Their eyes still aren’t open yet, but in another day or two, they will be.

I haven’t had any jail-related dreams or bad vibes since being home, to my surprise, but this is an excellent sign. Before sentencing last October 30th, I had nothing but freeloader, pig, and jail-related dreams.

SUNDAY, MAY 27, 2001 Got a good shot of the pinkies yesterday, and no, there aren’t 7 or 8. There are 12! We went from 3 mice to 15! I’m going to let her have another batch, then I’ll separate the sexes. I doubt she’ll have a dozen again, though. Back in Phoenix, when I tried to shoot the first sets of babies, they came out all blurry. The digital camera can focus on smaller things much better.

It was so cute how The Gray Lady moved the babies like a cat moves her kittens after I cleaned the cage.

Tomorrow’s going to be 100% freeloaderless. Absolutely nothing I do will have any connection to the freeloaders whatsoever. Not when I sleep, not when I get up, not what I do – nothing. If I need to sleep 9 or 10 hours tomorrow, that’s what I’ll do. I’m not one who can go to bed earlier when she’s backed up on her sleep. This means I have to sleep in later, instead. Once a week I need a day in my life without it revolving around the freeloaders.

SATURDAY, MAY 26, 2001 Just a quick update. My visit to Scot was as he said most visits would be – short and sweet. He informed me that my piss test came back clean (good, they didn’t plant anything in it)! and said he wasn’t going to do one that day (yesterday). He said that since I wasn’t in on a drug charge, the tests would lessen in time.

He asked why Helen hasn’t returned his call. I have no idea why. If she still hasn’t talked to him by the time I see her in mid-June, I’ll mention it to her.

Due to the fact that it was a wet winter for a change, we’ve got these things sprouting up all over the place that Tom insists are cactuses. I don’t think so. I think they’re just fancy weeds, but we’ll see what they turn into.

The biggest change around here is that Dan’s old single-wide was yanked out and now they’re in the midst of putting a new small double-wide in its place. The new house hasn’t been put in place yet, cuz the site hasn’t been prepped, and the old house is sitting way down at the other end of the property. Tom says newer houses will up our property value. Although I can’t imagine any blacks or Mexicans being able to afford the place, if it’s freeloaders - we’re out of here. I won’t do freeloaders for neighbors ever again! It’s very unlikely Teddy Bear bought the place. It’s too fast for her to have bought the place, then got the new house hauled in.

Still, there’s a lot of land for sale around here. If she hasn’t moved, though, by the time I talk to her, I’ll let her know that Tom and I discussed it and decided we’d sell her an acre and let her live on our land. That’d be so cool! But if having her as a neighbor is too good to be true, having her on our land is definitely too good to be true. We’d have to sell her the land, rather than give it to her because she no doubt has a gun (it would only take a buck to make it legal). The government, which likes to tell people what to do, says I can’t have a gun while I’m on probation, but if it’s her land, it’s her land and it’s got nothing to do with us.

We dropped off 171 bottles at the recycling place and Gina was nice enough to round it off to 180. She’ll tell Scot I did 9 hours of work. There were no bottles to pick up today, so I have 60 left to do that are soaking in the tub right now.

THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2001 After 12 hours of working for the freeloaders, scraping labels off of bottles, I decided to take a day off. Just a day in my life without anything I do being connected to the freeloaders! freeloaders, freeloaders, freeloaders!!! That’s all my life is – serving the freeloaders. Doing this because of the freeloaders, doing that because of the freeloaders. freeloader this, freeloader that – ugh! The freeloaders control and disrupt the use of my bathtub (because that’s where the bottles are soaking). The freeloaders control and disrupt my walking path (because that’s where the boxes of bottles that are done are sitting). Then tomorrow I’ll have to piss for someone for them, and hope I don’t get thrown back in jail for something they framed me for.

Tom insists they’re done with me and that they’re not going to bother doing anything else to me. Especially with me being out of Maricopa County. But we didn’t think they’d go as far as they already have either, so anything’s possible when it involves these freeloaders and their piggy connection.

As funny as this may sound, Tom and I were discussing how we’d prefer this bullshit to stay listed as a felony, rather than be dropped to a misdemeanor upon completing successful probation (if no one fucks it up for me). If it stays listed as a felony, I don’t have to worry about being badgered to do jury duty, which I refuse to do, and it’s not like I’ll ever be working outside of the house. Like Tom, I’m totally prejudiced against anyone within the system, meaning pigs, lawyers and judges, and I refuse to have anything to do with them. They’re nothing but corrupt, lying, power-hungry demons with no conscience whatsoever as to whom they hurt. Tom pointed out something that made perfect sense, but that I didn’t quite realize because I try not to think of this bullshit. The more I think about it, the more it just pisses me off. I knew that like me, he blames the pigs and lawyer for this, but he says he also blames the judge. When I pointed out that the judge was simply going by what was presented to him with no way to know it was planted evidence, he reminded me of things the judge said that meant he did know the evidence was bullshit and said that he blames him for ignoring those who are framed, and we know I’m not the only one that this happens to. It’s true that I remember certain statements he made that were a dead giveaway to his knowing what was going on. He had to have known.

There is some good news amid all this bullshit. The Gray Lady had babies! Lots of them, too. Like 7 or 8 of them. They were born some time on the 23rd.

TUESDAY, MAY 22, 2001 Another day of probation stress, black bitch and pig worries and fears, and missing my Teddy Bear. At least I’m free most of the time and don’t have to worry about getting a psycho celly! I wonder – could Teddy Bear miss me as much as I miss her? I doubt it, or else she’d have broken down and called by now. Tom said that losing a job is scary to a lot of people. Not that scary, I’d think.

Tom said he thought he heard hammering at Dan’s place Sunday when he was out working on the sheds. He couldn’t be sure it was coming from there, though. Neither of us has seen anyone over there. There have been no lights on at night. My vibe has faded a bit as far as her getting the place. I knew it was too good to be true anyway, but at least we’re in the same state. That couldn’t have been her hammering, cuz she wouldn’t hammer anything before moving in. I think she’d move in first and then fix up whatever needed fixing up. Most people usually do their moving on the 1st, so it’ll be interesting to see if there’s any activity over there on the 1st, but I doubt there will be. She probably decided the place was either too far out, too dumpy, or maybe they were asking too much for the place. If the price was right, though, and it wasn’t such a long drive to the jail, I’d think the place would be perfect for her. She really goes with the place. She just seems so much more of a country girl than a city girl. I can totally picture her on a horse out here, whereas Palma would look so out of place.

Tom asked if it’d be OK if we could “try” to have sex this week, saying he wanted to mention it so I wasn’t caught off guard. I’m at such a tug-of-war with myself over that! Naturally, I want to please him and do what he wants, but I’m just so sick of sex with him after all these years. Do you know how bad that sounds? He said. I understand that, and I’m sorry, but what was I to do? Lie to him? It isn’t him. I love him more and more each year. It’s just that I no longer find sex new and exciting. Especially after doing it with the same person for so many years. At least his not cumming will no longer be an issue. I don’t want him to cum. Why make a mess when you’re just as content not to cum and you’re not trying to get make a baby? So now that that’s out of the way and no longer a problem, my new problem, since I’m sexually cursed, is dealing with the fact that I’m so bored by it. I feel not one ounce of desire for Tom sexually. There’s no spark whatsoever. All I feel for him is emotional. It makes me wonder – what problems would Teddy Bear and I have if we got into it sexually? How long would it take before one of us or both of us was sick of the sex?

Got a letter from Paula, saying she’s glad I’m out of jail, she got Section 8, someone called DSS cuz of problems Justin was having in school, she’s waiting to see a guy who’s in jail, and things like that. I was right too, about her being between phones now. She owes a couple of hundred bucks. But if she’s only paying a few hundred a month in rent, she should be able to pay it off soon. She gets a ton of money each month.

This bottle thing has me wanting to do things to the bitch that I don’t dare put in writing. Ugh! Someone make the mother-fuckers disappear, please! I never would’ve believed it in a million years if someone told me just how much hell those freeloaders were going to inflict upon me and my life. Some of the labels fall right off, but for the most part, it’s a fucking bitch.

SUNDAY, MAY 20, 2001 How could I have been so dumb not to see that yes, the Mexicans really did move for sure, and why they split. As Tom pointed out today, they were illegals, so when things started heating up with the shit they started with me, they ran. Meanwhile, the dumb and blind DA assumed they all ran out of fear of me “stalking” them.

This is exactly what I mean when I say that people will put themselves out to get at others. They fucked themselves over, giving up a free house, just to get at me. That’s how desperate and obsessive these sick freeloaders are, and that’s scary. They’re not going to just go away when my probation ends.

Poor Tom had to work all day and night yesterday. He worked from 7 AM - AM, but it earned him 2 days off. Now that he gets a salary, he gets time off for overtime, rather than more money.

Ever since going to jail, I’m miraculously cured of getting upset stomachs when I eat dairy. Now I can enjoy things like milkshakes.

Gina, the lady from the recycling center, was nice enough to bring over some bottles yesterday. They consider 100 bottles to be 5 hours’ worth of work, but since no one picked any up yesterday, she brought me over 200 bottles. I have 80 of them soaking in the tub. I wish we had a pool! I’d just throw them all in there. Since we don’t, thank God for this huge tub, and thank God the shower stalls are separate from it, so we can still shower. I just can’t take a bath for a week on account of the black bitch. She even controls when I can use my own bathtub! Anyway, there’ll be 3 tub loads soaking 2 days each. Some of the labels will just fall right off, but for the most part, I think it’s gonna be a bitch, scrubbing off the glue that’s the adhesive for the labels. They have to be spotless for what they do with them. They melt them down, sand them smooth and put designs on them, so they’re like decorative plates, only in the form of a flattened bottle.

Since there’s no Harry to go with Tom and Dick, I’ve officially changed their names. Tom’s now Little Buddy and Dick’s Sneezy. Lazy would’ve also been an appropriate name for him too since he never comes out. Keeping up with just Little Buddy is enough of a job for me, though!

FRIDAY, MAY 18, 2001 The man with the easy-going voice, Scot, is my PO. We met with him yesterday in Casa Grande and it was both good and bad. Just when I think those freeloaders have taken all they can of my dignity, and can’t surprise me with anything new, they do. There’s no end to what I have to endure on account of them! I had to pee right in front of a female PO. I guess this is so that if you’re on drugs, you can’t use someone else’s clean pee. I was really surprised to be hit with a drug test because my case isn’t even drug-related. All this stemming from loud music!!! I couldn’t go at first. I was just too humiliated. I had to wait a while until I felt like my bladder would burst.

Tom said he went through the same embarrassment in the Air Force. Yeah, but at least he chose to be in the Air Force. I didn’t choose to be a victim of lying, vindictive freeloaders with connections to the corrupt “justice” system.

Scot looked a little older than I pictured him to look. He’s probably late 30’s or so. He’s short and stout.

He surprised me by saying that he didn’t care if I worked at home. Good, because I don’t have a choice. He also surprised us both by informing us that he has an office in Maricopa too, and that I can do community service at home. I guess I’m going to be picking up wine bottles and stripping them of their labels. Our tub’s so big, we could soak a lot of bottles in it till the labels fell off on their own!

My 4 main worries right now are as follows:

I worry that he may not accept farming as a “good enough” job, so to speak, after a while.

I worry that Helen doesn’t have all the necessary credentials they want and that I’ll have to start over with someone new.

I worry that I’ll be framed for more shit. Tom says it’s not likely they’ll continue to fuck with me out here since her connections were in Maricopa County, but what happened to me can happen to anyone, and it can happen more than once, too.

I also worry about them searching the place, which they don’t need a warrant for. I know we have nothing to hide. That’s not the issue. The issue is them doing it just to do it, and them taking shit just to be taking shit, as the Shadow Men did. They took shit that was perfectly legal and allowed in jail just because they couldn’t find anything to take that wasn’t legal or allowed. Power-play is everywhere when it comes to authority figures and we don’t need or want anyone going through our shit and stripping us of yet even more dignity.

Anyway, the meeting was mostly boring, because he went over the same old shit that’s been gone over with me a million times already. He wants me to see him twice a month and he says he’s coming to the house twice a month, too. I was surprised he wants to see me only twice a month. I thought it’d be more like 4 times a month (yeah, and I’m sure I have dozens more humiliating, degrading piss shows to put on for lady POs, too). I was also surprised he said he’s going to come to the house twice a month. That, I thought would only be a one-time thing to verify I live here. So, I have a long time to make sure I stay on a day schedule, thanks to the fucking freeloaders who still own and control my life.

Believe it or not, some parts of this probation shit are even harder than being in jail! In jail, I didn’t have to worry about my schedule. All the noise and shit that’d be going on from 6 AM-noon would keep me on schedule. At least I’m free and have my life to myself some of the time, and don’t have to worry about crazy, loud or rude cellies! Oh, how I miss my Teddy Bear, though! Day after day I miss and think of her, looking so forward to the day we meet again, wherever she lives.

Logically speaking, he shouldn’t visit the house till June because that’s when my probation starts. However, he told me to jump on the community service as soon as I could, since I’m “not working” (no homemaker is ever working).

When I asked if I could work any probation time off by doing extra community service, he informed me of what I already figured – that judging by what the “victims” said, I have no chance of getting off probation early. In other words, the vengeful, spiteful, vindictive bitch lied bad enough, using her piggy connection to coach her along the way, so that as always, I don’t stand a chance against her. She wins. Always has, always will.

Always with her, always with me.

Although neither of us picked up bad vibes from Scot, you just never do know. Neither of us trusts anyone within law enforcement. Except for Teddy Bear, of course, who Tom guessed might be a UPS driver. That’s physical and that’s delivering stuff, but that doesn’t fit with how she said her other job threw more work at her. Why would UPS suddenly throw more work at her? I’d think they’d be pretty consistent.

Anyway, Tom and I talked about maybe leaving this communist country and its corrupt government and law officials, but that’d take many years of saving up. And who knows where we’d go? There are not too many places that are much better than the US.

Scot also told me that if I have any arrests or contact with the police, I’m to contact him right away (yeah, I’ll let him know if I receive any police harassment). The same goes for if I see my two “victims.” Two victims? I thought the Mexicans were supposed to be out of this as soon as I was suckered into pleading guilty. Anyway, he told me to just walk away if I saw them. Walk? Fuck walk! I’d run! My “victims” are really my enemies and believe me, I wouldn’t be sticking around.

Although we did let Scot know I was innocent of what I was convicted of, he said what I figured he’d say, but what could he say? He has no control over that. He did say that people tell him all the time that they’re innocent. I’m sure they do, and in the past, I’d have said that they were all lying and that anyone in jail deserves to be there, but not after what’s happened to me. I know I’m far from the only one who’s been framed. I know there are a lot of people in jail who were framed. And you don’t think it can happen to you till it does. Until then, being set up like I only happened to other people or so I thought.

After leaving Scot’s, we went to Walgreens. I picked up a couple of large sports bras since I’m not going to lose weight again. I also got a puzzle and the best stuffed animal I’ve ever had. And I’m not big on stuffed animals, either. I see them as nothing but cute dust collectors. However, this lifelike dog I got was so cool looking. I was surprised it was only $15. It’s posed sitting on its tush and its head comes to just a few inches below my hip. It sort of looks like a collie, but it isn’t. It’s pretty realistic looking for a $15 stuffed animal. Tom and I were joking that we lied to Scot when we told him we don’t have any dogs!

THURSDAY, MAY 17, 2001 A guy from the probation department called a couple of days ago and left a message. He wanted me to call him yesterday to verify that I was at this number, then to call him today to set up a time to meet. All he said was he received my folder and was to determine whether or not he could take my case. Something like that, anyway. Judging by the sound of his voice; if he could be my PO, I just might have it made. He sounded pretty passive. I still picture myself getting stuck with some big old mean prejudiced black PO, though. This guy didn’t sound the least bit black.

Gizzy, the old mouse, died the other day, but at least The Gray Lady’s looking more and more pregnant.

Tom the rat is so playful! I never had a rat this playful. He loves to run around and chase me.

An unwanted friend came to see me yesterday. Yeah, I killed my first scorpion. Oh, how I wished Tom was home to deal with it! It was up near where the ceiling peaks, so I hit it with bug spray, hoping it’d fall down so I could suck it up with the vacuum, but it didn’t. So, I knocked it off with the broom. It was still alive, but barely, before I sucked it up.

I asked Tom if Mom and Mary dumped him because of me because I noticed they hadn’t called and he hadn’t visited them since my release, but he said the only reason he hadn’t been to visit was that they’ve been so caught up in themselves. Then Mary called last night. She thought I wasn’t to get out till sometime this month. Mom’s going on a long vacation with Johnny and Evelyn in their motor home, and Mary said we could stop by with or without Mom there.

SUNDAY, MAY 13, 2001 My schedule’s gone haywire again, now that I don’t have a million things to get up for. I never thought I’d sleep like this again. It won’t last more than a handful of months or years, though.

Just finished exercising. Before I was doing my upper body every other day and my lower body every other day and walking 20 minutes daily. Now I’m doing a total body workout every other day and walking 30 minutes every other day. I’m currently 116 pounds.

Tom and Dick are adjusting well. Tom and I really like each other, but Dick’s still a bit timid. Tom likes to run all over the place at night. He gets really playful.

The one and only mouse that was alive before I went to jail is very old and arthritic, but the newcomers look OK. If the Gray Lady’s pregnant, it doesn’t show.

The new wheel mouse I got turned out to be a real pain in the ass because the ball kept sticking, so Tom gave me back my old wheel mouse, and installed a new modem for me, too. I went online and browsed various sites. I did find a site about Mary’s ex being indicted for murder but couldn’t access it. Figures, huh?

Tom showed me a better game site.

Tom and I were discussing just how fucked up the world is. Especially this country and its government. Its control freaks really scare me to think of.

Everyone wants to kill the guy who did the Oklahoma City bombing because he felt that somebody had to fight back against the government, and too bad that innocent people got killed. Meanwhile, had everyone suddenly become a millionaire because of it, he’d be a hero instead.

Tom knows this lady at work whose husband was deliberately cut off while driving. He gave them a taste of their own medicine and cut them off. Then they cut him off again and so did he. Then he, the one who didn’t even start the shit, got arrested and charged with child endangerment simply cuz a kid was in the car. Oh, so we’re endangering kids when we cut each other off, but not adults? God, I love this world!

Some pig in Cincinnati shot an unarmed black. It’s true that no unarmed person should be shot, regardless of color, but what kills me is that the pig was charged with a misdemeanor, while the journalist goes to jail for the people who harassed her for years, charged with a felony for speaking her mind. And of course, the city’s blacks, being the poor losers that they are, had to riot about it. That’s a black’s way of dealing with things that piss them off – to riot and hurt and steal from innocent people. Do the people that pissed them off get hurt or stolen from? No. Do they get anything changed/accomplished by throwing their tantrums? No.

Another thing that gets me is how people don’t expect a reaction when they fuck with someone, then they act all shocked when they do get one, and then the law says it’s wrong. Wrong to fight back, basically. Could the freeloaders really be that stupid that they thought they could shit on us and not get some sort of reaction? Whatever gave them the impression we’d just sit back and take it?

Later…

I was browsing through the white pages online out of curiosity. There were no hits for Juanita Palma, but that could still be her name, and she could still be unlisted. Her phone could also be in someone else’s name, too.

If Teddy Bear lives alone like I think she does, it’s unlikely her first name is Rachel, unless she’s unlisted. The 3 Rachels I got were in Tucson and Prescot. It’s more likely that she’s a Renee, Rebecca, Rhonda or even a Rita, though that one’s unlikely. I didn’t check other ways to spell Renee and Rhonda. I didn’t check Rhoda, either.

I checked for Ron F, Ida’s husband’s name, and got one in Glendale. She told me she lives in Chandler, though.

FRIDAY, MAY 11, 2001 After being weak and sickly since around the time I came home, Harry died. Did he die of a broken heart over Houdini? Did I jinx him? Or was there some other reason?

Tom gave me a keyboard with a lighter touch. The other one’s keys were stiff as shit. Now I just need a different mouse. The ball keeps getting stuck on this one.

After learning to sleep through noise in jail, I’ve been sleeping with the fan on low, rather than high. That may change periodically. It’s just been unusually quiet since I’ve been back. The renters have been lying low, and I agree with Tom when he says he doesn’t think Dan’s been around all winter. It’s been too quiet over there. No lights, no music, no engines. Tom says it looks like he’s moved already. Maybe that’s why he quit trying to sell the place himself and is having a Realtor handle it; so he could get out of there sooner. Maybe that’s a good thing because he ought to be desperate by now. Desperate enough to give Teddy Bear a major break on the price.

Tom picked up some mace for me today. Hopefully, I won’t need to use it on any dogs or any vindictive freeloaders, but actually, I want them to dare themselves to show up here. I wish they would! I may’ve gotten Teddy Bear and a lot of interesting and new things out of my being jailed, but they still fucked me over.

Miss Jackson and her friends may be innocent of stealing my mail, after all. This is because of the dates. The mail that’s missing is from 3/3-3/7. The Shadow Men came on the 6th. Tom had a couple of suggestions. One is that maybe a DO took it because of the way inmates were paranoid about me writing a book. Highly unlikely. Another is that when the PO Box got full, maybe the PO sent them back, and the jail never gave them to me. That seems like it may be the most likely thing that happened. As for the other 4 pages that are missing from around the start of the year – that was probably the PO fucking up.

An out-of-area call came today (I didn’t get up till 3:00). I wonder if it could’ve been Ida. I’d think she’d leave a message, though, and because I haven’t heard from her yet, I doubt I ever will. That is unless she’s already gone to Germany.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 9, 2001 My guess was right. Unless Paula has a new number, she’s phoneless right now. I called her, but someone else answered, telling me I had the wrong number. I’m going to tell her in my next letter to to write me if she can’t call me, to at least let me know she’s getting my mail before I go sending any more to her.

TUESDAY, MAY 8, 2001 I called Helen and spoke to her. She sounded really glad to hear from me. I asked her if she wanted my documentation of jail all at once, or as I typed them up, and she said I could bring them in as I typed them up. I made a couple of evening appointments, two weeks apart, for the month of June.

I also called the probation department and was told they haven’t received my paperwork yet.

I tried to call Dr. Rose to get an otologist referral to get my ear cleaned, but I can’t get through. I hate dealing with doctors!

Later I’ll try calling Paula. Because of the fact that she hasn’t called me, I’m wondering if she even has a phone at the moment.

I’m ticked at Tom because every time I turn around, I find something else he let the rats chew on while I was gone. He knew better, and he gave me his word that he would watch them. Well, he didn’t.

I thought of an easier way to make mashed potatoes. Rather than peel, cut and boil them, which can also get a little messy, I find it’s easier to bake them, then skin them like I do when I’m making us baked potatoes, dump them into a big pot, then add milk and butter to them. After I’ve done that, I take the masher and mash them up.

I miss my Teddy Bear! I can’t get that woman off my mind. I think of her every day, and I wonder – does she think of me, too? And what would’ve happened the last night I was there with her if Misha hadn’t been in the picture? What would she have said to me? Would she have hugged or kissed me in the end?

Will she be single till I see her again? If we do have an intimate relationship, how long will it be before she’s with a lady she can live with and have full-time? I know that’d be inevitable, but she’s worth any amount of time I can have with her, and again, I know we’ll be more than friends.

Later…

I’m seething with rage right now at the black bitch. Not the old neighbor black bitch, but the Jail Intelligence one called Jackson. I didn’t discover it till today, but 20 journal pages from early March are missing. I was pissed at Tom because he said he was keeping track and that nothing was missing. Not that I could do a damn thing about it, as usual, whenever someone decides to fuck me over, but I trusted him. I’m not nearly as pissed at him as I am at that fucking bitch – ugh!!! And I know it was her and the Shadow Men that stole it because the pages were written right after they went butting into my business, being power-hungry control freaks, ripping me off. This is illegal too, to steal someone else’s mail, but of course, they can make or break the laws whenever they fucking feel like it. By law, they should’ve notified me that they were going to go meddling in my mail and mailed Tom at least copies of the stuff because technically, it was his mail being addressed to him. Since I obviously don’t have the right to write what I want to in my own journals, I’ve quit using the N-word in parts of my journals that I may choose to share with others, since people act like it’s an illegal word. Whatever happened to – sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me? Calling a child fat, ugly and stupid is one thing, but if an adult can’t handle being called a name in someone else’s journal that they shouldn’t even be sticking their nose in, then as far as I’m concerned – that’s their problem! Meanwhile, I believe in freedom of speech and I’m not going to stop expressing myself as I see fit in my own journals! No one’s taking from me again – no one! I am not a child and I will not be treated like one. I’m sick of being controlled, sick of being ripped off, sick of this fucking world! Tom says control freaks are everywhere in this country. Yeah, well, they’re gonna have to rip someone else off and control them. I’m through with society and its fucking bullshit.

There are also 4 pages missing from earlier in my sentence. I’ll do my best to fill in the gaps. Although there are only 5 days’ worth of stuff missing, thanks to Miss Nosy Jackson, I wrote an awful lot. I averaged about 4-6 pages a day while I was in there.

Mark my words, those of you who have used and abused the law against me – you will be dealt with in the appropriate ways. I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but everything that needs to be done to expose and bring these people to justice will be done. Then, their lives will be more miserable than mine’s ever been. They won’t be messing with anyone else, either. I’m not just making sure these people get what they deserve for my sake. I’m protecting others from going through the same thing, or worse. I don’t just get mad, I get even. And I do it in ways where any innocent people who haven’t wronged me don’t get hurt. For now, I will not write anymore on the subject until what’s done is done.

Tom says it’s like this all over the country with people being obsessed with controlling others. Yeah, I know. But that doesn’t make it any easier to deal with.

MONDAY, MAY 7, 2001 Tom’s first day back at work was hectic. They had a machine down. On the good side of it – he got a $600 bonus!

I’ve been cooking and cleaning. It sure feels good to be back to being the wife/homemaker that I am. Wish I could be Teddy Bear’s wife/homemaker, too!

Back when I only suspected Teddy Bear liked me too, but didn’t know it for sure, I had vibes telling me we had been connected for a very special reason(s) and that we were to play important roles in each other lives. Well, we’ll see. I also had a vibe the other day that Teddy Bear will be buying Dan’s place. Time will tell if it’s true or just plain old wishing thinking. She totally goes with this place, though. I mean, I can picture her living in the country. She seems much more of a country girl, whereas someone like Palma clashes with the place. Palma would probably be miserable out here.

Instead of taking bags of trash to dump in Mary’s dumpster, we’re burning everything. Anything that won’t burn or that could explode, like batteries, gets buried along with the ashes.

Tom got 2 good-sized sheds up at the side of the house. They almost look like giant refrigerators. We’re definitely going to paint them.

He caught a toad earlier to show me, then we let it get away.

I don’t like this keyboard I’m typing on as much because the keys feel stiffer. That’s what I get for spilling coffee on my other one!

I’ve been walking and working out. I’m not as weak as I thought I’d be for being away from the Bowflex for so long. I only had to drop the weight by 5 pounds, and not on all exercises.

SUNDAY, MAY 6, 2001 I’m really cursed in the rodent department lately. Now Teddy Bear doesn’t look well. She’s weak and I found her bleeding. At first I thought the bleeding was coming from her nose, but it looks like it’s coming from her paw. It doesn’t look like anything Harry did. They’ve always gotten along, and I would’ve heard the commotion going on if they were fighting. I don’t know what it is or if she’ll live, but I tend to doubt it. Never have I had a sick rodent recover. It’s really too bad too, because this one really likes me, and I really like her. I think she may be pregnant, too. Tom suggested that maybe she had an infection that she instinctively bit to bleed clean, and maybe being pregnant is tiring her out. Well, she’s not all scrawny like Harry and like most dying rats are.

So far, the other mice and Tom and Dick are full of spunk and good health.

I was going to start working out today, but the doll cleaning, among other forms of cleaning, really wiped me out. I don’t know why. I slept for 11 hours. Yet I’ve been tired all day.

Later…

I can’t believe that 2 out of the 7 animals we got are already dead! What the fuck is going on?

SATURDAY, MAY 5, 2001 The mouse that I noticed looked sickly when we got home did die. Oh well. Tom can stop in and get another mouse tomorrow. He’ll be in the area grocery shopping.

FRIDAY, MAY 4, 2001 I can’t believe it took me this long to figure out how my fingerprints got on threatening letters I never sent! How could I have been so stupid?! When the pig was interrogating me, he asked if I recognized these “letters,” which he handed to me. That’s how my prints got on them and that’s how the fucking bastard of a pig framed me. Wait till I tell Tom tomorrow, who’s in bed now. Again, though, the problem is proving it. The freeloaders would have to be recorded discussing it, and I don’t see how that’ll ever happen.

In about 6 hours, I’ll get to sleep through another “Are you OK?” from the nurse on my soft, comfortable bed. Then they’ll exchange towels for the 4th time that week. Then Baldilocks will be yelling on her hour out, and on and on and on!

In the end, Palma would be the highlight of A Tower, and Teddy Bear would be the highlight of M Dorm. Most of the DOs were cool, once they got to know you.

I still can’t say I really have any regrets. Not with all I learned about life and even myself. I learned I’m tougher than I thought I was, met interesting people, and fell in love with such a wonderful woman. And it was mutual! All I regret is the time I lost from Tom, the animals, the house, and the negatives of being in jail – the shitty food, the cold showers, the hard beds, the bad bunkies, and the lost sleep.

For now, I just enjoy my freedom and wait for my Teddy Bear (and hope nothing fucks it up in the meantime). I know she’ll be in my future.

And between my legs.

It’s inevitable. I just know it.

I will be blessed with two loves – a man and a woman. Do I feel any guilt over having the best of both worlds and leaving jail twice loved? Nope. If Tom had a problem with Teddy Bear, he’d have said so by now, and I don’t think the man’s stupid. He knows we won’t be just friends. Another reason I don’t feel guilty is that the man hasn’t shown an ounce of desire for me since I’ve been home, but as you know, this has been going on for years. It was only at the beginning of our relationship that he lusted for me. This has become a mutual thing over time. I don’t have any desire for him, either. After so many years of screwing the same person, it gets old. I’m sure I’ll tire of Teddy Bear someday too, when it’s no longer new and exciting. So why do I stay with him? Because I love him, and I know he loves me. I think my relationship with Teddy Bear will be more of a lust thing. I’m not gonna say I don’t have any feelings for her, because I do. Especially with all she’s done to help me. And I know there are feelings on her part too, or else she wouldn’t have bothered doing the things she’s done for me.

Unlike mine, Tom says his gut instinct is that she won’t contact me before a year is up for fear of it getting back to my PO.

Now, how would it do that?

She won’t wait.

Later…

While we were bombing the house, we went to two different pet stores today and got a total of 7 new animals! At Petsmart, we got a couple of male fancy rats. I named them Tom and Dick to go with Harry. At Petco, I got a female jumbo rat who looks exactly like Houdini and named her Teddy Bear. There, I also got 4 mice, but one of them, like Harry, doesn’t look like it’ll make it. I got one gray female and 3 male mice. Two of the males are dark brown and white, and one is brown.

THURSDAY, MAY 3, 2001 I’m still a bit busy to be writing much. It feels great to be so busy and active for a change!

I still haven’t called Helen or Paula or worked out yet, but I will just as soon as the spring cleaning’s done and he’s off vacation.

Today we didn’t do as much. Just went out to Dairy Queen, the PO, and Circle K. All I got at Circle K was coffee. I just can’t stand anything rich or sweet anymore after living on that month after month. I also helped him with the sheds a bit, then we read together. I made a walking track in the living and dining area that’s approximately the same size as the one in M Dorm so I can walk 20 minutes a day. Yeah, at my convenience! Not when someone else says I can, which may be just a few hours after I’ve gone to bed.

Keeping a schedule at home is harder. It’s easier to fall asleep around the same time in jail cuz you don’t do anything but lay there or listen to the radio. Here, there are all kinds of things to be doing. Also, it’s easier to get up around the same time in jail due to all the noise and shit that goes on in the mornings. Last night I didn’t get to sleep till around 5 AM and didn’t get up till 1 PM.

Tomorrow we’ll be bombing and buying rats and mice!

A snake was apparently living in this giant bin he’s got outside because he found a snakeskin that a snake had shed in there.

Teddy Bear, I miss you! Have you been to check out the area yet? I hope so!

I converted some pictures I don’t use as wallpaper from BMPs to JPGs.

My teeth are noticeably whiter now that I can use an electric toothbrush again. I still need them scaled and filled, though.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 2, 2001 On the way home from jail I mentioned how psyched I was to see Houdini, and that’s when Tom came out and told me he was dying of a tumor. I nearly choked on my chicken strip. How fucking unfair! How sad and mad I was to have buried one rat just a couple of days before I went in, and just a couple of days after coming out, I’d be burying another one, which we ended up having to do today. He rests by Ratsy and Scuttles. It saddens me to know we’ll never play like we used to, but it would’ve been all the harder on me had I been here all along these last 6 months. Friday, while we bomb, we’re going to get new rats and mice. Right now we only have one rat and one mouse.

From what I counted, I sent home about 80 envelopes while I was in jail. Page 37 is missing. Was it stolen? Lost? Or is it waiting to be picked up at the PO? We’ll see.

Sure enough, the house was trashed, though not as bad as I thought it’d be. It was horrendous in certain areas. I know Tom’s been busy, but once again, if he’d kept up on it as he led me to believe he was, it wouldn’t have had to get this way. Nonetheless, I planned on doing a thorough cleaning once I got home, anyway. I’m going room by room. I did the master bath today, and tomorrow I’ll do the bedroom and retreat. Yes, I’m already working.

I like the new air cleaner that Tom got in addition to our old one that plugs into the wall and the new kind of sawdust he’s been using. It absorbs much better. The place would stink with the old stuff and the old air cleaner running on high, but with this stuff, and with the two air cleaners on low, it doesn’t stink unless you stick your nose right in the cages.

I finally got to open my Christmas presents, and yes, one was a doll. It’s a pretty one too, with brown eyes and auburn hair. Her name’s Autumn and she’s a foot tall. Got a couple of pairs of slipper socks, a couple of small stuffed animals, and some stupid thing called The Cup of Destiny. It’s some kind of fortune-telling thing, with a cup and saucer with symbols on it. It’s got a book too, but I haven’t read it yet. We also got a candle set. That’ll come in handy come the monsoon season. I can’t wait for that! I love the kick-ass, exciting storms we get out here. Especially now that the front door doesn’t leak underneath it since he sealed it up good with weather stripping.

It turns out that they didn’t have to cut my ring to enlarge it. All they did was just stretch it. It’s more comfortable now.

Quite by accident, I’ve lost 2 pounds since being home. Guess that’s what happens when you’re suddenly 10 times more active and not eating 5 candy bars a day.

I’m not as emotional about being back as I thought I’d be. I guess that’s cuz jail didn’t turn out to be so bad after all. Just boring and uncomfortable, with shitty food. Oh, how I miss my Teddy Bear! She’s never far from my thoughts. Anyway, being home feels different than I thought it’d feel. For the most part, I wouldn’t know there was that 6-month gap. Some things I’d forget and have to take a moment to think about to remember, like where the dishes were kept, how to save stuff to disks, etc. Tom refreshed my memory on how to superimpose, so I’m ready for Teddy Bear whenever she shows up.

I haven’t had the nightmares I expected to have about being stuck back in jail.

Listening to music on my stereo has been great. The base was a bit overwhelming to me at first, though. I’m getting used to that again too, while enjoying my old CDs and the 5 new ones I just got of various artists.

The visit to the PO went way better than I ever dreamt it could go. That explains why I didn’t have bad vibes upon going there, but there’s nothing to say that things might not change. It’s too soon to be too hopeful about it because I didn’t even see Mary B. I saw some guy. According to him, seeing Helen should take care of the anger management classes. Meaning, that’s part of it; my being counseled by her. Also, living here and being a homemaker with plans to farm her acreage might not be a problem, either, since what they’re mostly concerned about is their damn money (unless someone else tells me differently). I was like – you mean I worried my ass off over this shit for nothing for 6 months?!

Well, better to worry for nothing, I guess.

Meanwhile, while they’re doing my courtesy transfer to Pinal County, and until they receive all my paperwork, all I have to do is call in once a week.

The only neg to the visit was finding out I can’t write to Mary, Marla, or anyone that’s either in jail or on probation (Ida’s not on probation). I hate to ditch them, but I’m not taking any chances whatsoever. I’ve only sent out letters to Paula, Officer Rule, and Ida, who’s gonna shit when I tell her about Teddy Bear. I decided not to bother with Mom. At least not for now. She and Mary haven’t even called to see how I’m doing.

After reporting to the PO office, we went to the mall. He got jail food (a hot dog) and I got Chinese. Then we hit Fry’s electronics. That’s where I got the CDs, 10 colorful CD cases, 20 colorful disks, a new modem, and a new wireless mouse with a side clicker and a wheel. Our last stop was the grocery store. For $10 I bought a pre-cooked lobster and it was great. More than just a few bites too, so I decided we could postpone Red Lobster.

Got home around 8:00 my first day home, then slept a couple of hours around 2:00. When I finally did fall asleep around midnight, I slept a whopping 9 hours straight. Yesterday and today, though, I only slept 5-6 hours, which has become the norm for me.

When I first went to jail, I was stuck all the time. In the end, I was regular. I’ve been stuck for two days now, now that I have to get used to this new way of eating all over again. Tom’s building sheds at the utility side of the house so he can clear a lot of the crap out of his office and put the stuff that’s outside that wouldn’t fit in the aluminum shed into it. These are going to be wooden sheds on metal frames.

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2001 I’m free at last! Oh, it feels soooo good to be home! I don’t miss jail at all. Just my Teddy Bear. It felt so good to finally be able to take a bath after half a year. To take a shower with real water pressure where I could adjust the temperature. To trim my pussy hair with scissors, rather than nail clippers. To sit on a plastic toilet seat, rather than a cold metal one. I even straightened my hair, though I don’t intend to make a habit of it.

I’ve either been too busy or too tired to write until now. I haven’t even jumped back on the Bowflex yet (I’m 119 pounds. Not quite the 124 I expected to be). At the same time I’ll be doing current journals, I’ll be typing up the Estrella journals, too. I was going to attach all of Tom’s letter, including the one to the bar association complaining about the public defender, to the bottom of the file, but I decided not to. Especially since I mentioned in enough detail the things Tom would say in his letters to me.

OK, I’ll write in order of events now.

Temple didn’t make it in to kick me out, but I don’t hold it against her. I’m sure she tried, just like Teddy Bear tried to get in Thursday, yet couldn’t get in till Friday. Instead, Beaudoin got the honor. She rarely worked M. She was dyky yet cool with a nice smile. She got a kick out of my impatience. I wasn’t pulled from M till 5:00, but it turned out to be a good thing because all I would’ve done was sit in the miserably hot, stinky holding tank. Instead, I dozed off. I was surprised. I didn’t think I could sleep with all the excitement, but it was only for an hour or two.

When she pulled me out, she told me to sit down in the dayroom and wait for an escort. I waited a few minutes till some guy came and got me. On my way out M’s door and down the hall, J’s door popped open and out came Pérez to say that she saw my name on the list and that she wanted to say goodbye to me. How cool of her! I’m so glad I got to say goodbye to her too, since she rarely worked M. She was definitely one of my favorites. In a year, besides writing to Palma, I’m going to drop Pérez a note, too. As for Rule, I’ll send her letter out as soon as I can find her rough draft, and as for Teddy Bear, I really don’t think she can stand to wait a year any more than I can. Not if she likes me as much as I like her, anyway, but I’ll just have to go along with whatever she does. She’s worth waiting many years for if I had to.

Anyway, I quickly said goodbye to Pérez in the midst of all the shock and excitement that my time had finally come, then I was brought past the control station, past visitation, past B and A Tower and to the intake area. Right before I reached the intake area, who should I run into but crazy Melinda herself. She was actually nice to me, though, wishing me good luck as I passed by her as she was mopping the hallway. I wished her luck, too. There was no point in being mean to her at that point.

It was weird, leaving and all. It’s like leaving a house you’ve lived in and leaving all your roommates behind. It’s like the day room was the living room, then you have the showers, then your rooms. All we didn’t have was a kitchen.

There were a couple of guys in intake I’d never seen before. No women DOs at all. It didn’t turn out to be the long, drawn-out ordeal I thought it’d be, but it was no quickie, either. I waited in a little holding cell with 8 others, 4 of whom were in their own clothes because they were only in for 24 hours. After a while, we were given bags containing our clothes. The DO put a sheet up over the door, then told us to change. After we were changed, we were called up to a little desk where our right thumbs were printed. Then, to further verify we were who we are, we were asked a few questions. I was asked my DOB, husband’s first name, and the state I was born in. Then I was given a couple of sheets of paper stating all the transactions within my account, refunded the little bit of money I had left over, then kicked out the door!

There was a small crowd of people outside waiting for others that were being released and fortunately, the media wasn’t there to hound me like I thought they might be. At first I didn’t see Tom, then he came driving up the drive. With tears of joy and excitement, I hopped into the car, we hugged and kissed, and away we went!

We stopped at Whataburger where I got chicken strips, but I wasn’t quite ready yet for Circle K’s coffee.

Not much has changed around Maricopa. Just a few new houses.

The garden Tom started in back looks great. The fence he has around it is nice, too.

Our land is now littered with those weeds I hate so much. The land is definitely better looking in the summer when it’s just dirt instead of weeds where there are no trees/bushes. It still needs more cactuses and a couple of palm trees. Just like Tom told me, a clump of weird things is growing by the stairs where I’d feed the p-dogs. We’re thinking it has to do with the seeds I’d throw out to them last year.

God, it’s hot out there! And it’s not quite over 100° yet. After 6 months of living in a refrigerator, I’ll have to readapt to this hot climate.

[bellshazes]

so hypothetically speaking, if i were to take on the 10 year backlog of ethubs content….. where would i even start?? its so much content that it’s totally overwhelming to me, and you seem like the only person on the planet to have sifted thru all of it, so i need ur wisdom 😭

trust me I have not and I know there are others (hi rio) but imo the key is to just. follow your heart. they are constantly bringing up old stuff and each other anyway so you will find new shiny things to go check out if you start anywhere. like, the whole reason I watched UHCs for the first time is bc of etho lying to say bdubs voted him out (not a UHC mechanic) and called him a son of a sweetheart in his LP. that said, I do have a masterpost of my fave bdubs mindcrack episodes which frankly is a lot of etho + bdubs, as well as a list of some of my favorite clips.

off the top of my head, suggestions to poke around in:

survival of the fittest, s1 and s2 - bdubs' death game with prox chat. the handcuff thing in s1. i shan't say any more. watch etho for s1, bdubs for s2.

nether hubs, mindcrack s3 and s4 - literally the s4 one is so good, and the episodes they build it in also cover some of the best death games 2.0 moments between them. chicken noodle soup. etho's POV for the first one but bdubs for the second, if you have to pick.

feed the beast call of duty pvp arena - one of the first but not the last arena project. highlights include bdubs ordering etho to strip and also them killing each other for fun.

speaking of arenas, the immediate sequel to the COD map is the fire and ice arena in mindcrack s4. etho builds a house outside the arena itself, stealing bdubs' block palette, and only an episode or two later getting bdubs to help and decorating his room across the hall with quote justin bieber posters unquote, causing at least zisteau to later ask if bdubs really is a belieber.

whatever the episode is that etho hires bdubs to kill someone for him and then showers him with meat in mindcrack s3

here is a secret: i have not yet watched The Trial. but it's foundational. all the etho vs. the b-team stuff is so funny especially how often he and bdubs are literally collabing on something at the same time.

UHCs - etho's POV of UHC 4 is classic and victorious. bdubs' POV of UHC 11 is the worst thing i've ever seen in my life, watch it immediately. there's other ones but i haven't seen most of them because i feel compelled to watch for Live Bdubs Reactions but it makes me want to throw up every time. because he is Insane.

OOGE - three different CTM maps, ymmv; this ranking is spot on, but i've also watched OOG (bdubs + guude) so like clearly my tolerance is not normal. watch kaizo caverns

horse courses, mindcrack s3 and s5, hermitcraft s8 - beyonc? and taylor swift horses of all time. you really just should watch etho or bdubs' first mindcrack seasons. s5 mesa one also features doc and genny and the running sick joke you will recognize from the s4 nether hub and last life.

those three entire episodes of etho helping bdubs with his spawner situation that's only in bdubs' POV, starting with bdubs going oh let's not bother him and then freaking out a little when etho volunteers himself to help. the first but not the last time etho says he wants to live in bdubs' basement.

hermitcraft s7. just the whole thing both their povs don't worry about it, you already know, etc. but personal soft spots of course for etho killing bdubs with kindness and the delivery boy saga, which references an ancient joke about pink shirts. also hcs8 overlapping last life and bdubs' very very blatant etho-obsession is just so much.

also of course the life series but instead of telling you what you already know please consider how bdubs signing his invoice "luv bdubs" to etho but reading it out loud as "love, professionally, bdubs" aired immediately after "he loves me! he cares. he does" happened. we don't talk about that weird little no homo enough

thank you for reminding me i need to finish the etho mindcrack best of list. i'm surely missing a ton of stuff but this is a rough approximation of my favorites and/or essentials. but seriously i have jumped around and finished some series, only watched a few select episodes of others, and straight up forgot to finish several more. be free! go nuts. (you will go nuts. this part is not optional)

[singswan-springswan]

I just realized it’s May haha 🥲

What am I doing with my life that May was so far away and yet suddenly slammed me full-stop with a punching bag I don’t understand. Anyway have my Mermay contribution

Holy kriff what actually is this quality dumblr? grr.

I did the artsy a while back, but I’m pleased to announce that I still can’t draw consistent characters 😌 whaaaat? Psh, I mean—this is an aquarium AU, so obviously they can’t be clones irl come on 👀 that’s why they don’t look like each other.

Also, I wrote a lil blurb for the concept so enjoy :3

~

“So,” Padmé said shortly, keeping both eyes firmly fixed on the clipboard in her hands. “What do we know already?”

It was easier to stare at the infuriatingly thin packet of papers on the board than to raise her gaze just a little tiny bit and look into the pool she and Rex were standing over. For one, nothing in the pool moved much. The water only barely dipped and splashed on the very minute occasion from whatever sluggish filter had been placed inside. The water otherwise was clear and plain, and—honestly—a little boring.

It was another generic holding tank they kept at the aquarium: nothing Padmé hadn’t dealt with dozens of times before. They used the large, platformed containers to rehabilitate all kinds of sick and injured marine life, ranging from dolphins, to turtles, to stingrays, and even a few arthropods, though Padmé was decidedly less involved in some of those projects. The only nuance in this situation was the species—creature, really—currently within the tank.

To put things simply, it wasn’t something they already knew much about. And it was easier to stare at her papers than to risk looking at it.

“Nothing, really.” Rex sighed. He ran a hand over his clipped curls and gave the stack of papers a pitying look. “It’s been hard to run any tests since the three of them came in. Normal tranqs don’t seem to work as well, and anyone who’s tried to get close so far has been… compromised.”

Padmé’s thoughts strayed to Sabé’s broken arm, and the thing that had caused such a gruesome injury; how it was coiled at the bottom of the tank in front of her and—

She reigned her attention into focus.

“So this—all of this is it?” To distract herself, she flipped through all five papers with incredulous surprise. There was maybe one whole page of lab results, a few more of random notes, and a sad scattering of anatomical data. It was some pathetic compilation. Especially considering their aquarium’s research reputation. And the significance of this… species. “There’s no file? No report? This is all the information we have?”

“I’m afraid so.” Rex dropped his hands behind his back. “The director wants to commission individual research assignments for each subject. Or at least, that’s what I’ve heard. You might just be the first, so don’t get too discouraged.”

Padmé wasn’t daunted by the task of personally studying the animal in the tank before her. She was more concerned about safety parameters. The last time she’d gotten close, it’d tried to drown her (almost had, actually), and it’d taken Dooku ripping one of its fins off to subdue the thing.

She wouldn’t ask why Sheev thought she of all people was best suited to personally researching this animal. Nevertheless, she had without a doubt been assigned the project, and Padmé had never underperformed in a task. Anyway, it was… a good opportunity. She should be thrilled—honored, even. Plenty of others would certainly die to have this chance.

After her first encounter with what she’d originally thought to be a beautiful, majestic creature, however, she was a little hesitant to be working so closely with it. It was dangerous. Worse than that, it was intelligent. It was the smartest thing Padmé had ever handled here at the aquarium, and she’d barely spent ten minutes in its presence.

“Alright,” Padmé’s huff sounded more frustrated than she’d intended. She tried to ignore the amused twitch to Rex’s lips and slapped the papers down against the clipboard. “I can work with this.”

He nodded.

“I suspect it won’t be an orthodox schedule, however. I may need access to the holding tank at odd hours.”

Rex chuckled and put a hand on her shoulder, camaraderie and sympathy in one go. They weren’t the closest of friends, but they were both dedicated to their work, and he understood her undeterrable drive which—in some cases—was slightly less than healthy. If her most recent disaster was anything of note.

“I know. And Palpatine knows too, don’t worry. You’re getting a lot of free reign over this assignment.”

It was good news; not that it reassured her about much. This was going to be difficult, conditioning such an intelligent creature to recognize her as its handler. It might take weeks, and Padmé was a stubborn person, but she wasn’t the most patient.

“Good. I’m going to need it.” Padmé looked up from the clipboard and met his eyes to communicate the authenticity of her thanks. She refused to look inside the pool. Only Rex.

“I appreciate your help.”

He smiled, nodded, then turned and went for the stairs that led down the side of the tank. “Good luck!” He tossed over his shoulder, leaving her alone with the merman.

[no-droids]

Dove

Part 2 of 2 of The Locked Door Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 19.7K i apologize for NOTHING

Warnings: DUBCON ELEMENTS, SMUUUUUUT, religion kink, virgin kink, authority kink, degradation kink, praise kink, age gap, ohhhhh the list goes on y’all been here long enough

A/N: I have nothing to say for myself this time im sorry

***

Obi-Wan feels like he’s going to be sick.

Dinner in the grand hall was difficult enough, forking down mouthfuls of expensive food he’s sure was absolutely marvelous, if he could’ve tasted it.  The s’Ziscari clearly splurged on the celebrations—expensive food, expensive decor, expensive everything, down to the silk napkin he studied and fiddled with under the table as he awkwardly waited for you to finish your plate.

He felt uncomfortable, absolutely.  He’s felt uncomfortable ever since he shuffled into this blasted, Maker forsaken robe not long after he left your quarters earlier.

Not black, no.  Not like yours.  Not like what appears to be an overwhelmingly vast majority of the people he’s encountered so far this dreadful evening.

No, his robes are blue.

A strong, eye-catching royal blue, covering his body in waves of fabric—softer than anything he’s ever worn before and leaving him feeling incredibly exposed.  The far more practical robes he traded for these atrocious garments are made of a thick, scratchy wool, a testament to the Jedi’s philosophical rejection of fine or expensive materials.  And, against all logic—to somehow make matters even worse, the sash tying this uncomfortable piece of attire closed has no place to clip his saber, unlike the leather belt he usually wears.  As a consequence, he’s left simply carrying it around by his side.

Granted, for some unknown reason, his robes are still far thicker and longer and more protective than the… stars, the ultra-thin black silk wrapped around your body, but Obi-Wan is so self-conscious about his appearance that he’s not even allowing himself to look at you.  Obviously that doesn’t stop him from refusing to leave your side the entire night, and he finds himself rather grateful that only a very few number of s’Ziscari are fluent in Basic, if only to provide him with a valid excuse to socially detach.

Of the very few people he’s noticed wearing robes resembling his, they’re all far younger than him—much closer to your age than Obi-Wan’s, and stars, everything about this celebration is unbelievably unnerving to him—including, if not most of all, your response to it.  One of the reasons he knows the food was grand, apart from the immaculate plating and lavish dinnerware of course, is because you momentarily excused yourself from the seat next to him to dish yourself out a second helping.

Even now, even in the skybox seats of this distressingly packed arena, Obi-Wan struggles to keep down what little food he could eat while you stand tall next to him and seem completely unbothered by the situation—and by the Maker, it bothers him.  He isn’t used to this.  He’s used to you being the emotionally turbulent one, the one whom he has to pacify, and it twists his stomach with the way the roles have suddenly found themselves reversed.

“I think the blue looks nice, by the way,” you lean sideways to mention casually to him, and he knows.  He knows you’re just jesting, just trying to lighten the mood, but he feels the bile rising up his throat at the fact that you even commented on it aloud.  “Fitting.  Matches your saber.  Your face, though.”  The smallest hint of a smile tugs at your cheeks.  “It’s beginning to match the color of mine.”

“Thank you for that, young one; your sense of humor is positively delightful,” Obi-Wan gripes, clutching the metal hilt tightly in front of him with both hands while he gazes out at the stadium before him, bustling with black hooded figures and a rare flash of blue.  It does not escape his notice that in complete contrast, your arms are loosely meeting behind your back, your saber dangling in one hand while the other lazily holds your wrist.  Your body is… open.  Draped in garments somehow equally as opaque as they are revealing, presented to the wide panoramic view of the audience and stage with no qualms whatsoever.

“Wonder who I got it from,” you ponder with a tilt of your head, and… fair point.  “How long is this thing supposed to last anyways?”

“Stars—‘this thing’ can’t get over with soon enough,” Obi-Wan grumbles, his eyes anxiously flicking down at the empty stage in the center of the audience.  He’s struggling with butterflies and nausea like he himself is meant to have a starring role in this debauchery.  “They’ll have… acts.  Plural.”

“Heavens,” you sigh under your breath, and oh yes.  He agrees.

He’s also painfully aware that he should be using this free time to continue contemplating his decision about… matters concerning later this evening with you, but he’s already feeling massively overwhelmed as it is.  Right now, it’s all he can do to just breathe and attempt to face one trial at a time.

But then, as if the Maker is feeling just particularly malicious this evening, Obi-Wan’s stomach drops when something quiet flashes in the Force and the roar of the enormous crowd instantly falls to dead silence.  The ominous sign rockets through him and while a Jedi should not know fear, this might be the closest he’s ever felt to truly terrified.

“Ooh, dramatic,” you whisper, but regardless of your laissez-faire attitude, his heart is positively pounding as he watches the figures of robed Force sensitives slowly file out onto the stage, and everything inside him lurches at the realization that—

They’re all wearing blue.  Every single one of them is clothed in fabric that matches his current attire, the one that made him feel like a blot on the landscape the entire dinner and subsequent mass pilgrimage to the arena.  A bright splash of color in the midst of an almost inescapably giant ring of black.

You’ve stopped talking.  Truly, he has no idea if that’s a good or bad thing, not right now.  The Force sensitives join hands and create a ring in the center of the stage while every single person in the arena sits in perfect silence, and Obi-Wan feels dizzy.  He’s not getting enough air right now, but he doesn’t even want to breathe too loudly and somehow draw even more attention to himself.

Two of the blue robes break off from their fellow acolytes and meet in the middle of the circle, and to simply avoid having a heart attack, Obi-Wan very purposefully chooses to ignore—like he’s done multiple times this evening—the subtle flicker of curiosity he experiences at the significance of the color blue and what it symbolizes to the s’Ziscari.  He can’t even bear to watch the way the two of them slowly lean in and allow their lips to touch from under their hoods.

Maker, if he turned his saber on and stabbed himself with it, could he convince you it was an accident?  Probably not—no, definitely not, what a stupid thought to have—

“How does she wipe?”  He hears your voice whisper, and Obi-Wan’s facial expression immediately screws up in confusion.

He turns to you, his tone equally hushed but the bewilderment sharpening his consonants.  “How does who what—?”

Only—you’re not even looking at the scene unfolding in front of you.  Your expression is just as confused as his is, but instead of looking down, your chin is lifted and you’re staring directly across the arena at the viewing booth opposite to yours.  He still has no idea what you’re talking about though, not until he follows your line of sight and sees the way s’Zerthia has her jaw propped up in her hands on her throne, looking bored as usual, and how the length of her newly manicured fingernails curves halfway up her scalp from this angle.

“That’s dangerous,” you remark quietly.  “They’re like talons.  Gaudy little weapons she always has attached to her that she decorates, makes them seem less vicious than they actually are.  I see them.  I certainly don’t envy whoever she picks tonight to—”

You cut yourself off with a bit lip smile and turn your face away from him, and Obi-Wan is almost mystified by how casual you’re able to be about this. 

“Whomever she picks to…?”  He trails off with a sigh.  “Do I… Do I want to know?”

“Never mind,” you tell him quickly, lifting your chin once more while still clearly trying not to laugh.  You’re trying not to laugh, while… while that is happening in the center of the audience.  “It was, uh… tasteless.”

He blinks, wondering what that could possibly mean.  Everything about this is tasteless, the entire thing is just an absolute nightmare coming to life.

Though, after a moment of silence, Obi-Wan soon realizes he much prefers it when you fill the void.

“Members of the Royal Court take turns doing it for her,” he eventually replies, decidedly looking anywhere but where the man is slipping the blue robe from the woman’s body.  It takes you a second to register to what exactly he’s referring, but when you finally do, you snort.  It’s too loud.  A few heads closest to your isolated seats turn as Obi-Wan very quickly thrusts his elbow into your ribs.  “Quit being disrespectful,” he hisses under his breath.

“You just—!”  You quickly clamp your mouth shut and face forward again, trying not to smile in an appalled sort of way.  But then—“Oh,” you blurt, not loud enough for anyone else to hear in this open setting but still loud enough for him to glance around and be slightly anxious about it.  “Oh.  Wow.  I wasn’t… expecting…”

Obi-Wan’s eyes automatically flick down to the couple, only just long enough to catch a quick glimpse of stark nudity in the center of the arena before his gaze immediately bounces back up again and focuses on the incredibly interesting steel beam currently propping up the Queen’s viewing box, clearing his throat.  “I… did warn you.”

“Well, yeah, I expected them to…”  Your hushed voice trails off and you stay quiet for too long, too long to imply you’re still formulating an end to your thought.  You’re distracted by something, but then you appear to snap back to your senses and immediately clear your throat.  “I just wasn’t expecting… the, uh.  The… positioning.”

He says nothing in response.  It… it doesn’t give him great comfort, wondering how you could possibly know enough about this type of profanity to have expected a different sort of positioning.  The stark contrast between the color of his ceremonial robes and yours still remains completely unspoken, but it quietly pulls at the back of his mind nonetheless.

“What about it?”  Obi-Wan immediately hears himself prompt and oh, no, this is completely inappropriate.  Not only should he not be encouraging this kind of talk with you, but he also shouldn’t feel so… so negative, not about something so personal to you and something that’s certainly none of his business.  Regardless, he… still has this buried, unexplainable desire to know the truth about it.  Regardless of the indirect way he’s attempting to go about it, he wants to know the truth about whether or not you broke your oath, and while he recognizes it’s completely improper of him, the urge is still strong enough to manifest itself using his vocal cords.

“Oh, I don’t know, it’s just…  It’s…”  He doesn’t even have a visual reference for what you’re attempting to find the words to describe.  He doesn’t want to.  He just wants to know what you think about it.  “…Bold,” you finally settle on.

Bold.  It’s bold.  Perhaps Obi-Wan wouldn’t be analyzing your verbal responses so closely if he had something more interesting to look at besides the general coliseum-like structure of the large outdoor stadium, but there’s a certain horizon he just won’t let his eyes dip below right now and unfortunately for him, being so high up above the crowd, the upper hemisphere of his visual field remains relatively dull.

“Who would've thought,” he eventually sighs, blinking up at the star-splattered sky now and attempting to see if he can use the Force to break off a piece of a satellite and have it impale him in a tragic accident.  “Considering the s’Ziscari are such a conservative bunch.”

His eyes soon wander back to s’Zerthia, and—Obi-Wan startles to find her staring directly at him with a thin eyebrow dangerously quirked.  She motions two long fingers in a V shape at her eyes and then points down towards the stage, her expression expectant and waiting.

Obi-Wan’s teeth hurt at how hard he clenches them together, his jaw flexing but the thick blanket of his beard doing well to conceal it.  She’s playing with him, he realizes; he can see the hidden smile on her lips all the way from here.

Maker, maybe she’s right.  Maybe he’s—maybe he’s being ridiculous about this.  This is fine.  This is fine.  His stomach feels like it’s all his food might come up at any second, but he’ll do it, he’ll look.  He can at least just look, right?

His gaze slowly begins lowering, trying to take in just a few things at a time so as not to overstimulate himself.  Thousands of s’Ziscari lining the seats of the arena, almost every single one of them dressed in black.  Lower still—the platform leading up to the stage.  A perimeter of blue figures now sitting down in a circle and then, at its center, a… a naked man and woman.

Obi-Wan’s heart pounds as he struggles to comprehend the sight, never having laid eyes on a nude woman before.  She’s on her elbows and knees, forehead lowered and resting against the floor, and the man kneels behind her, one hand holding her hips and the other wrapping around his—

Stars, Obi-Wan wants to end it all.  Right here.  His aim will be true.

But then… oh, no, he’s an idiot.  He’s a complete dullard, because he forgot.  Consumed by his own sheer anxiety and unease, Obi-Wan stupidly forgot an extremely crucial detail of the incredibly little he’s been told about the Sh’inzith.

—the projecting.

All at once, he’s nearly knocked over by the strength of the two Force sensitives at the center of the arena as they deliberately cast their minds out across the entire audience, presenting every sensation and fleeting thought they’re experiencing in all its intensity.  Obi-Wan immediately works to reinforce his mental shields as soon as he feels the shockwave about to hit, but there’s thousands of Force sensitives present—all of them congregated into one relatively small area, all of them tuning into the same two signatures and then suddenly… amplifying them back until it’s impossible for him to shut out.

“Oh, uh—” he just manages to hear you mutter through the whirlwind, just the slightest hint of panic in your voice peaking through the symphony of whispered thoughts and pulsing sensations coming from the stage, “—that isn’t good—”

Obi-Wan abruptly stumbles backwards and gasps at the awful, wretched feeling of something brunt pressing up hard against somewhere elusive, somewhere he’s never felt before towards the lower part of his body, and his mind fights viciously against it as he feels you spin around and reach out for his rapidly retreating figure.

“Wait, no—it’s okay, M-Master, it’s okay, it’s—” your voice cuts off and your hands suddenly fist into the robes at his chest, your forehead dropping to his shoulder against the sharp sting just continuing to push and push and push, “—i-it’s okay, it’s oka—”

He trips over his feet in the chaos and falls back on complete instinct and you’re so tightly attached to him that you’re yanked forwards with the momentum, the two of you plunging to the ground in a clumsy heap of grunts and tangled limbs.  Obi-Wan immediately starts crawling backwards across the floor underneath you, still trying to escape the horrible, inescapable sensation digging into a part of his body that doesn’t seem to exist, but it’s like you’re of the same mind—you’re scrambling forwards in the same direction trying to get away from the same thing, frantically attempting to calm him and simultaneously deal with the agony yourself, and then suddenly—

Oh—oh, Maker—

Suddenly something gives and surges in, and then Obi-Wan gasps—his elbows buckling under him and as the both of you drop down onto the floor because stars, it’s nearly blinding with impression.  Not only the aching, hard fullness stretching sharp and deep somewhere in his lower abdomen—but now a new sensation.  A tight, wet silk he feels swallowing him between his legs, concentrated on a part of his body that… does exist, a body part that’s currently pressed up right between your spread thighs.

“Fuck,” you moan hot against his throat, trying to find somewhere to brace yourself next to his shoulders and push yourself up off him, and he tries—Maker, he tries so hard not to, but his hands shoot out to grab your hips before he even knows what he’s doing and then he’s dragging his lower body up into yours on instinct alone, clamping his eyes shut and groaning out a desperate sound he’s never heard himself make before as his head drops against the floor.

It’s staggering.  It hurts.  He can't even hear your muffled noises anymore, not over the roaring encompassing his mind and body.  All he knows is that your hips quickly jerk back and grind down into his in response, sending Obi-Wan reeling while you bury your twisted cry of pleasure and pain into his neck.

The sound of it breaks through everything else.

Obi-Wan’s hands shake violently as they suddenly release you and then frantically shove at your shoulders, trying to push you off without hurting you.  He can’t think, he can’t see, he needs to leave—

“Get away,” he rasps desperately up at the sky, blinking his eyes wide but somehow not seeing anything in front of him but blackness.  “St-stars, get away from me—”

Suddenly you’re flipping off his body and onto your back next to him, too quick for it to be a mechanical movement alone, and he doesn’t even have the space in his mind nor the processing capacity to figure out if he Force pushed you off him or if it was you who did it to yourself.  He just clambers to his feet and stumbles away in a terrified, graceless retreat, bent in half, limping and gasping and fighting for every step he takes.

***

Your Master was right to leave as soon as possible, you think.  You were wrong to linger here for just a second to try and gain your bearings, because the more you work to grasp and attempt to organize them, the more mindless and disorienting they become.

You eventually have to heave over and drag yourself after him.

The further away you get from the arena, the easier it becomes to block the projection, but Maker, it’s exhausting.  You’re resigned to start out with a crawl—one of those Jedi Core crawls you haven’t had to do since the Academy but this one exponentially slower, forehead dropped down and eyes closed, just focusing on alternating shifting your elbows and your knees forwards and dedicating the rest of your mental energy to just isolating your mind from the debilitating assault.

Consulars don’t usually see much of war—you tend to do absolutely everything in your power to avoid it.  It’s the Guardians who experience the horrors of combat most often, who deal with ambushes and onslaughts from enemies of the Republic.  But Maker above, every merciless thrust into that poor little virgin at the center of the arena is like a blaster shooting directly at you, but then couple it with the thousands of reflections and ricochets in robes lining the bleachers?  You’re in the trenches of a deadly battle you had no idea was even about to break out and you have no weapon of defense besides retreat.

When you finally get far enough away to be able to push yourself upright as much as possible and continue staggering back to the palace on two feet, you have no concept for how long it’s been.  You can still feel the projection vibrating and clawing sharply at the edges of your consciousness, but at least the majority of your thoughts are your own now, and it gradually becomes easier and easier to focus and speed up to a clumsy run.

Though, no matter how successful you eventually are at muffling the vibrant sensations and thoughts of the two Force sensitives behind you—when they cum, you stumble down to your knees again and have to bite the back of your fist to keep from screaming.

Maker, it takes you a minute to recover.  You don’t even cum, you just feel it—the burst of energy from the Force in every direction, the violent explosion from the stadium that feels like it should fracture the ground beneath you.

You’re able to get up after a moment, if only because they decide to take mercy and finally cut off the projection.  You know that it’s a temporary relief, that they’ll likely be at this all night, but you hope the palace will be far enough away from the arena to block out the sensations completely.  You wonder if Master Kenobi felt that through the Force or whether he was too determined to block it out that he was able to simply ignore the nuclear missile that just detonated less than a few miles away from him.

You force yourself forwards and you want to hurry, you do—but strangely, in your wild state of exhaustion, stark reality is almost as debilitating as swimming through that endless madness was.  It’s quiet around you but the noise of still air pulses deafeningly in your eardrums after breaking free from such a thick mental filter separating you from your surroundings.  You still have your lightsaber clutched in your hand, Maker rejoice, and your thin robes are skewed awkwardly across your body, but you eventually find your way to the doors of the palace.

Though, trying to navigate the empty halls back to your Master’s chambers takes you longer than it should.  His signature is cloaked spectacularly, concealed to a mere speck you wouldn’t even know was there if you weren’t so closely acquainted with it for more than a decade.  You follow the flickering pixel of blue light through the obstacle ridden darkness, adjusting the front of your robes with one trembling hand while you wipe your brow with the other, closing your eyes and doing your best to take deep breaths.  He’ll be spiraling right now.  He’ll need a boulder to cling to in this tsunami, solid ground to stand on while the stars are falling out of the sky.

You… find him in your quarters instead.

The door is open and his handsome profile is to you, the thick fabric stretching over his broad shoulders now an agreeable light cream, familiar and telling of his intentions.  His hands are moving.  Setting something down on your bed—your robes, you soon realize.  He’s laying out your Jedi robes neatly for you across the fur blanketing the large mattress.

Master Kenobi begins speaking as soon as you step foot into the room, the tone of his voice very clearly impatient after having waited for you for so long.

“Change out of those ridiculous garments,” he tells you hastily, neatly laying out your leather belt across your dark tunic without even turning his head to look at you properly.  “We must leave.  Quickly.  Also—tell me you didn’t forget your saber at the arena, because if so, I’m afraid it’s lost to us forever now.  Ilum is only three days from here, perhaps we can stop there on the way back to Coruscant to find you another kyber cryst—”

You drop the hilt of your lightsaber on the floor and step forward, cautiously reaching out for his figure as he continues to ramble.  “Master, I—”

Your hand is thrown to the side with a subtle flick of his wrist and you instantly jerk to an abrupt halt, holding your palms out in front of you and keeping completely still while he spins around, his jaw slack and staring at you wide-eyed.  He takes a few steps away from you in shock.

“I’m sorry—” he immediately gasps, reaching out towards you even though the rest of his body is still desperately evading yours.  “Stars, I’m so sorry—that was just… That was excruciating, young one.  Why would anyone ever willingly—?”

“It—it doesn’t always—” you cut yourself off just in time, clamping your jaw shut before you can finish your sentence.

“We must leave,” he says once more as he turns back to your mattress, not appearing to hear you at all and shaking his head, far too frantic to sound like he’s just reminding you alone.  “We can’t do that.  I can’t do that—”

“It doesn’t always have to be—”  Maker, what is wrong with you?  Your heart kicks up in your chest and somehow stutters to a halt at the same time.  It’s the lingering effects of the assault your mind just experienced coupled with your desperate urge to console him that’s making you so utterly careless, you realize, it’s making your tongue loose.

“Stars, what do you mean?”  Master Kenobi finally snaps, and your blood runs ice cold.  “How do you know that?”

It takes the sum of all your years of training to keep the raging hurricane of emotion from showing in any capacity.  You feel like he’s holding his saber to your neck with how dangerously little you’re even allowing yourself to breathe right now, how utterly and completely still you’re holding yourself in front of him.

Lie, a little voice in your mind supplies quietly, the little voice you keep locked inside an impenetrable box of everything you are but have never been allowed to confront, haven’t been allowed to openly think just in case someone is listening too closely.  Lie.  Lie, right now.  Your silence is giving you away.

Only—you can’t.  You shouldn’t.  It’s not fair to keep this from him, not when you’re asking him to do something so structurally compromising to his belief system.  If… if you tell him the truth, perhaps he won’t judge you too harshly.  Perhaps he’ll feel… reassured, knowing he’s certainly not the first Jedi to break a sacred vow when he felt times were desperate enough.

Besides.  This might be the only secret that could potentially get you kicked out of the Order, but… it still isn’t your worst one.

“Because.”  The word is out of your mouth before you can rethink it, barely above a whisper.  “I… know.”

He doesn’t respond, and no.

No, you were wrong.  You were wrong to tell him the truth, and the look on his face immediately shoots panic through your whole body.

He doesn’t look reassured.

He looks… alienated.

“‘It doesn’t always?’”  Your Master eventually repeats back to you, and fuck—the implication is instantly clear.  The implication is made so clear from the sharpness in his tone, the hard edge to it as he rounds out the vowels in the last word that makes your heart twist and throb in your ribcage.  He might as well have just asked you how many times you must’ve violated your code of honor to know the difference.

“It’s not.”  You clear your throat and flick your gaze up to the ceiling, feeling like he’s using the Force to squeeze your chest in on itself.  “That was the absolute worst possible sensation that can be felt during… It’s—it’s not like that.  It won’t… be like that.  Not.”  Are there tears coming to your eyes?  “Not… with me.”

Utter quiet.  So quiet that if you really concentrate, you can hear the distant sounds of the arena continuing on with the Ritual without you.  You bite hard at your lip and wait for him to say something, anything.  Yell at you, tell you how disgusted he is, banish you from the Order.

Instead, Master Kenobi quite suddenly… deflates.  He sighs—not a heavy, exhausted one, but a soft one.  A quiet, accepting sort of sound.

He slowly lowers himself to the edge of the mattress and closes his eyes, running both hands through his hair, and it’s just enough to give you pause.  You glance over at him, trying not to let tears fall beyond the plateau of your lower lids with the frantic downward movement of your eyes, and you’re only just barely successful at it.

“It’s alright,” he says gently.  “It’s… it’s alright, young one.  I… suppose I am in no place to judge.  Quite… quite literally,” he murmurs, gesturing to the space around him with a lazy wave of his hand.  Maker, his figure is too watery and unfocused to make out his facial expressions, but you don’t want to blink to clear your vision just in case a sudden downpour escapes.  “It’s none of my business and I shouldn’t have asked.  You’re… not my Padawan anymore.  I should have no reason to… even care at all, really.”

There’s something that feels… major in that, something monumental yet incredibly well hidden, but you’re still too full of blind panic to interpret it further.  Your breathing is shaky and you wonder, quite stupidly and not for the first time in your life, if it’s somehow possible to use the Force to evaporate the water in your eyes before it turns into tears.

“I am certain it took place in your younger years, a long time ago,” he continues calmly when you don’t immediately say anything.  “You did always have a… a rather unconventional relationship with the rules.” 

Your only response is a quick jerk of a nod.  Yes.

“Yes,” you immediately agree, hoping your tone sounds convincing enough through the lingering tremors.  “It was… a long time ago.  I’ve changed, since then.  Grown up in many ways.”

It’s his turn to nod, and you manage to calm down just slightly.  You’re still breathing too hard and you’re a bit too braced, too much of a stance to truly feel like relief, but your heart rate is beginning to settle back into a somewhat acceptable rhythm.

Master Kenobi looks over at you, and he says absolutely nothing about the traces of water still glistening along your eyelashes.  He just smiles softly and pats the space next to him.

You cautiously make your way over to him after a moment, feeling more unsure now than you’ve felt this entire mission.  You leave at least a half a foot of space separating the two of you once you carefully sit yourself down on the mattress, and you can’t even look in his general direction.  You just focus on the long, draping sleeves of your black robe as you look down at your hands and wait for him to speak first.

“Sometimes,” he eventually sighs.  “Sometimes I… feel like you’re the person I know best in the entire galaxy, you know.  I’ve… I’ve known you far longer than I ever knew my own Master, young one.  I picked you out of thousands, and I’d do it thousands of times again.  Sometimes—especially since the day of your accolade and subsequent absence, I feel like I can know exactly what you’re thinking, even from across an entire star system.  And yet somehow, you… always surprise me.  Even after all these years, I am just.  Consistently surprised by you.”

You don’t know how to take that.  You just sit there in a guilty silence, still unable to turn your head or offer any sort of response.

“I chose you as a Padawan because you surprised me, you know,” he reminds you quietly.  “I had certain expectations for you, and you did not meet those expectations.  Instead, you presented an alternative I’d never before considered, an alternative that forced me to reevaluate you—and by extension, myself—far beyond what I had previously.  That is not a bad thing.  It has never been a bad thing.  As is made blatantly obvious by the fact that I’m the one currently standing in the way of saving lives, and you’re…not.”

Maker, this is thin ice.  You don’t know what to say that’ll express hesitant agreement with his sentiment without making it sound like you’re not apologetic for breaking your oath.  You’re… well, you’re not, not really.  His response itself is causing you to feel far more turmoil than any legitimate regret for your actions.

“It was—” On instinct, you almost say it was a mistake regardless of the conflicts you’re just so happening to encounter on this mission, but something stops you.  You suddenly remember your place here, your goal.  To save the galaxy from the Separatists’ reign.  And, by extension… sleep with your Master.  You can’t call it a mistake if you’re going to ultimately try to convince him to do the same thing.  So instead, you scramble to finish your sentence with a different thought, knowing his full attention is pinned to you right now.  “…A long time ago,” is all your exhausted mind is able to come up with.

“Yes,” he gives you a small, companionable smile.  “It’s alright.  Your prior lapse—or, well… lapses in judgement… will forever be safe with me.”

And still, you don’t feel relief.  Not when Master Kenobi very quickly appears to look uncertain.

“I… apologize,” he offers after a moment, “if.  If I ever made you feel like… like you could not confide in me about any struggles or… or urges you may have been experienc—”

“Maker,” you suddenly interrupt with a frantic wave of your hands, everything cringing inside you, “Maker, we don’t have to do this.  None of it, it’s okay.  Know what?  Let’s just go home—screw the galaxy, I don’t care, just stop talking.”

He snaps his eyes over to you, a sudden bark of laughter escaping him before the rest of his face even seems to register something was funny.

It evolves.  Eventually he’s covering his face and stifling ridiculous little snorts behind his hands, trying to apologize in between the chuckles but laughing even harder.  It’s almost like… just a form of pure stress relief for him.  So far beyond traumatized that it’s revealing itself in a slightly hysterical way, even if what you said wasn’t hysterical at all.

“Now you have a mere glimpse into what my experience has been like today,” he finally tells you with a sparkling grin once he composes himself, lifting his chin as he looks at you and scratching his beard with a quiet flicking sound.  “Shall I keep going?  If this mission has taught me anything, it’s that no matter what, things can always get worse.”

“They don’t have to.”  You say it without thinking, the gentle reprieve caused by his laughter flowing through you in waves and making you throw caution to the wind.  The four words serve to shut him up quite quickly however, even though it was the opposite of your intent, and your smile drops.  Maker, just freely conversing with him about these things is navigating a minefield for his mental state.

“You… you say that, and yet even—” Master Kenobi eventually responds, cutting himself off with a cough.  “Even the things I’ve heard are meant to feel… pleasant, were just.”  He shakes his head and blinks his crystal blue eyes over at you.  “By all accounts.  Agony.”

“I know,” you nod.  “I know.  Projecting that specific situation was… sadistic of them.  A distortion of the truth.  Probably rooted in deep tradition, but also a great scare tactic if I ever saw one, playing with us by presenting the absolute worst of it before anything else.  It won’t hurt.  At all.  I promise.  In fact—I-I can make it feel—”

Maker, you don’t even finish your sentence, but you must think the general idea loud enough for him to understand.  You don’t actually have a specific word in mind—good, great, amazing, euphoric?—and yet, something quiet settles over you two at the silent implication, the mere whisper of the possibility of you pleasuring him.

And him… allowing it.

“Master, I—”

“Don’t,” he quickly tells you.  “Don’t call—You don’t have to… call me that.  Just for right now, it’s.  I don’t—” he takes a breath that sounds shakier than it looks, and then he paints an easy, fake smile on his face following the exhale.  You recognize that smile anywhere, though.  While you’ve never seen him wear it before, it’s the smile that politicians make when they’re about to present a lesser truth to you, a smile shown to you in negotiations all the time that signifies something… hidden.  He’s hiding something, something important, and you have no idea what it could possibly be.  “I don’t feel like I even deserve to be called that right now, young one.  Perhaps you should be the Master, and I the learner.”

“Ah yes, the circle is now complete,” you can’t help but jest in return, wanting to keep the tone light even though the subject matter is heavy.  “Is now when we trade lightsabers?”

“Indeed,” he smiles, this time more sincere, and… you can’t pinpoint when exactly it happened, but it appears you’re physically closer to each other now than you were when you first sat down.

“Do they, uh… actually expect us to…”  You clear your throat and wave a hand around, “…Project the entire time like that?”

Master Kenobi quickly shakes his head.  “No.  s’Zer—Queen s’Zerthia informed me that.  Ah.  For us, projection will only be necessary during the… well, she called it the ‘closing ceremonies.’”

Your eyebrows shoot up and you nod.  “I… see.”

It’s like you can physically feel his body start to break out into a cold sweat next to you at the sudden… realness of it all, the realization that it has to be getting late.  Close to midnight, if you’re not already pushing it.  It’s come time to make a final decision, you both know it.  You want to console him, offer him some kind of solace or reprieve, but stars, you just don’t know how, not when you’re this much of a mess about this, too, but for entirely different reasons.  You don’t have a single clue how to make him feel better about any of this.

“I just,” you rush before you lose the nerve, “I want you to know that—e-even if you feel like you’re somehow alone in this, you’re not.  Okay?  I’m… I’m really nervous, too.  I don’t… I don’t actually know what to do at all right now.  I don’t know whether to respect your apprehension or tell you it’s unfounded.  I don’t know if I should remind you what’s at stake here or whether I should avoid mentioning it at all costs.  I have no idea what position I should take, but I’ll—I’ll take whichever one you want me to.”

And it’s odd, because when you first launched into your confession, Master Kenobi gradually began to look more and more relieved, but at a certain point, something just goes horribly wrong.  You don’t know what you said, but whatever it was, it seems to rocket through your Master and suddenly his breathing stutters.

For a moment, you think he’s going to reach back, yank your neatly folded Jedi robes up from the mattress and push the dark fabric into your hands.  Tell you he’ll meet you at the docking bay posthaste, tell you not to linger, tell you that the mission was a failure.  But then—

“Before,” he suddenly says, the word almost startling you with how abrupt it comes out sounding.  Almost like he wasn’t quite expecting himself to say it either.  “Earlier today, you asked… you asked if there was anything you could do to… make this easier.”

“Yes,” you prompt immediately.  He won’t look at you, and for some reason your heart begins beating faster and the inside of your thighs are getting warm.

“I… I’m not sure I’ll be able to go through with this,” he admits with a whisper, his voice sounding so quietly reluctant, like he doesn’t want to say the words aloud but is forcing himself to.  “But… the Council put you in charge of negotiations.”

Your eyebrows furrow, trying to understand his implication.  What does that have to do with anything?  Is he saying that you’re supposed to be in charge, and therefore he’s defaulting to you?  “I’m not sure I—”

“The Galactic Republic…”  Master Kenobi enunciates very, very pointedly, still unable to look at you, “…put you in charge of negotiations.”

Specifying—or in this case, generalizing—doesn’t help much.  “I’m still not—”

“Maker, for—for the good of the Republic, young one,” he presses under his breath and finally flicks his gaze up to meet yours, sounding urgent and torn in equal parts.  “Negotiate.”

Stars, negotiate with who?  With—with him?  For the good of the…?  Is he asking you to somehow reason with him beyond what you’ve attempted to do already, or persuade him to do what’s right for—?

Maker—Master Kenobi is asking you to seduce him.

Shock paints your expression blank and his eyes instantly evade yours once more.  You have to sit there for just a second and double-check that you’re not dreaming.  None of this seems real.  All of it seems like an incredibly elaborate illusion of the Force, ever since you first laid eyes on him at the start of this mission.  You know you missed him but stars, did you truly miss him this terribly?  Your longing must rival something fierce to unconsciously conjure this wild of a scenario.  Is he actually here right now?  Have you been speaking to a ghost?  Are you actually here right now?  Are you going to wake up any second and remember he’s thousands of lightyears away and has been for years, risking his life on the front lines of galactic war while you’re left to play politics and negotiate treaties behind the scenes?

These thoughts aren’t safe to have in normal interactions with him, but nothing about this situation is normal, and while you know Master Kenobi has years of experience reading your signature, he most likely won’t be able to gauge the specific details of your thoughts when you can sense how intensely he’s focused on guarding his own chaotic mind from you.

So you let yourself think.  If only for a second, you sit next to him and allow yourself to just… think about him.  About how much you care for him, how desperately you ache for him—you let all these improper longings finally have their moment with you.  You let yourself confront it, crack the lid of the hidden box tucked away behind your consciousness and brave it, because if there was ever a moment to do so, it’s right now.

Your heart starts slamming up against your ribcage and your hands feel like they’re tingling.  He wants you to convince him to have sex with you.  He’s asking you to corrupt him.  He wants you to negotiate the galaxy’s survival with the last man standing in the way of its prosperity—a good man with strong, immovable morals, a man who understands the consequences that follow integrity around and won’t be easy to tempt.

“This was a bad idea,” suddenly comes Master Kenobi’s voice, quickly backpedaling after too long of a silence.  “I shouldn’t have said that.  Forget I said that, we should just g—”

“Would you like to meditate?”  You immediately ask him on a complete whim, shuffling back towards the middle of the mattress for the second time today.  You’re careful to make sure he doesn’t see you carelessly flick your neat robes to the floor with the Force, clearing the top of the large mattress.  “Let’s meditate.”

“Stars,” he breathes, shyly his head turning to follow you, “I’d love nothing more, but there truly just isn’t any time—”

You find it easier than you thought it’d be to pull a playful face at him, crossing your legs and straightening your spine.  “Please, you’re a Guardian.  You blue sabers practically invented battle meditation, did you not?”

He looks skeptical for a moment, as he has a valid right to be.  “Is this a battle?”  He eventually asks over his shoulder.

You say nothing in response to that, instead using the Force with a flex of your finger to tug at the loose cream fabric of his robe at his elbow.  “Come on, it’ll do us good.”

He looks conflicted for a second, but then ultimately decides to humor you.  “Alright,” Master Kenobi finally agrees, turning around and crawling towards you on the mattress, and you’re just quick enough to stamp down a flicker of arousal at the mere sight of it.  “It won’t hurt.”

“Of course it won’t,” you agree with just a bit too much air in your voice, but he doesn’t seem to notice it.  He just seats himself directly in front of you, facing you, crossing his legs close enough to yours that your knees barely touch, and—

—Maker, he’s lovely.

You purposefully let yourself think it as his eyes slowly fall closed and he takes a deep breath, beginning to tame the wild tempest of his mind.  You let the word flitter around your thoughts without instantly repressing it like you always do, and just the mere act of allowing yourself to acknowledge the truth is freeing.  He’s lovely.  He’s lovely.  You could scream it.

Your eyes trail down the lines of his ever softening, tranquil expression, not even bothering to pretend to meditate for his benefit this time.  Your gaze roams shamelessly across his face, the way his hair is combed back away from it.  The sandy, masculine beard leading down to the thick column of his throat, the broad lines of his shoulders draped in pale fabric, the way his chest slowly moves as he breathes.  Lovely.  Lovely.

And then you go… lower.

His abdomen is stretched long with how upright he’s sitting, his flawless meditation posture.  His thighs are spread wide in this position, pants stretched tight into an elusive drum over his crotch and preventing you from truly seeing anything—but stars is it a thrill even just letting yourself look. 

Especially knowing that the more his mind works to compose itself, the easier it’ll be for him to hear you.

You keep thinking, growing bolder the more you’re left alone with this box wide open.  You think about how lithe and strong his body is, how it would feel under your hands.  You think about all the different things you want to show him, all the… the mind shattering pleasure you can give him if he’ll allow y—

Master Kenobi says your name without opening his eyes.

It doesn’t sound the way you expect, though you don’t really know what you expected it to sound like.  A sharp, frustrated bark?  An exasperated, pleading attempt to get you to stop?

No—none of those.  It’s a quiet, low growl of a sound, and the clear warning in it absolutely burns a hole through you like he picked up his lightsaber and used it instead.

You take practiced breaths, trying to calm yourself down.  Stars, he just said your name, he’s said it so many times before, and yet hearing it in his mouth with that tone in this context feels like he just strapped rockets to your ankles and told you to stay put.  You’re impatient.  You’re turning yourself on, working yourself up, trying to get to where you can actually make a move on him after dedicating so many years to desperately repressing the longing to do so.  Once he told you to negotiate this deal with him, however, it’s as if every ounce of the impeccable self control you’ve practiced so spectacularly throughout most of your life slowly started to unravel.

Reaching out tentatively so as not to startle him, you wrap both of your palms around the bend of his knees and squeeze gently.  Master Kenobi displays no physical signs of—well, anything really, keeping his body completely rigid under your hands with no noticeable alterations in his breathing pattern.  Biting your lip, you begin to slowly rotate your thumbs, making sure to keep your movements slow and perfectly symmetrical.  Complete relaxation is your ultimate goal here—coaxing your Master into a serene state where physical contact is desired, not obligatory.  He's so uncomfortable with the concept of intimacy in and of itself though, from the way his eyebrows start to furrow and his spine begins gradually tilting back and away from you, it's almost as if your ministrations are dampening rather than fueling.

“Relax,” you murmur, and stars, even though you make it sound quiet and gentle, it’s like the melodic lull of your voice appears to startle him more than if you’d just spoken normally.  Maker—it’s counterintuitive; how are you supposed to turn someone on when the mere state of being turned on turns them off?  “Relax with me, it’s okay—”

“But I just can't, young one,” he suddenly implores, his voice pressed up tight in his throat, his cerulean eyes popping open in frustration and something else—an honest, heartfelt emotion that's strikingly less familiar to you, even after years spent by his side: deep, hot, stomach-wrenching guilt.  You watch your Master’s palms run the length of his thighs; back and forth, back and forth—almost like a nervous tick, you think—and it’s oddly endearing, if not increasingly concerning.  “I just can't, this is all so wrong.  Don't you understand?  E-Even if the Council did provide a—well, a rather admittedly ineluctable blessing for this downright ludicrous endeavor, i-it’s… I don't…”  He takes a deep breath, and visually, it looks like he's attempting to collect his thoughts and composure, but you know your Master all too well.  You know what he's really doing, and at this point, it's almost… frustrating.

“What are you so afraid of?”  You clutch his knees and whisper quietly, interrupting him before he can verbalize whatever perfectly logical reason he's trying to formulate as to why you both should leave the planet immediately, what he's going to say to the Council if they ever inquire as to why negotiations ultimately failed.  He jerks his head up sharply to look at you.

“The Jedi fear nothing,” is his automatic response, though his previously intense gaze strays slightly from yours after a second of too much eye contact.  “Fear is the path to the Dark Side, you know this.”

“And yet you are afraid,” you remark calmly, studying the way he’s turned his face away from you completely now, how you can still see his jaw clench under the thick beard with his profile shown to you like this.  “I—I’m trying to understand, Master, but I—I don’t.  Even if this mission were half as important as it is, your loyalty to the Order would follow you right into an early grave.  But this?”  You remove a palm from his knee to gesture between the two of you, the mattress beneath the both of you, “fulfilling this mission and these terms to save the entire galaxy is too ‘downright ludicrous’ for the Great Negotiator?  I don’t believe it.  Tell me what you’re really afraid of.”

Only, he’s suddenly moving—away from you.  Turning and planting his palms to fur, beginning to climb to the edge of the bed and sweep his legs around under him, and your voice has an unintentional edge to it when you address his back.

“Do you know how many lives over I owe you?”  You ask, and he jerks to an abrupt halt, feet just shy of stepping on the floor.  “Do you have any idea the stockpile of mortal gratitude you’ve amassed from me?  How many times you’ve risked your death to save me from mine over the years—can you count them?  I have.  I know my debt to you, I know the weight of my life piled on top of itself over and over again.  I remember each and every one of them like they happened yesterday, and not once did you hesitate even slightly, let alone the way you’ve hesitated today.”

”And?”  Master Kenobi quite suddenly snaps over his shoulder as he grips the edge of the mattress, sounding sharp but not necessarily directed towards you.  “What is your point?”

“My point is that if you’d so readily trade your death time and time again to prevent that of even one other person, let alone a difficult Padawan who caused the Order nothing but grief for years, then what is it that makes the deaths of trillions—” you nearly say preferable to bedding me before you realize how incredibly harsh that would sound, but something about the way he seems to tense his shoulders and curl inwards implies he was following the general cadence of your agitated signature more than the specific content of your words.

He says absolutely nothing, but he doesn’t move to drop his feet to the floor, either.  If only you could punch a proverbial hole through his practically indestructible mental barriers, you'd see the real reason he's so flustered, why he's purposely attempting to deceive you.  Unfortunately for you though, they feel like they're made of triple-reinforced beskar, a countermeasure gradually increasing in strength the more you try to probe.

But then—all at once, something clicks.  Something… fundamental.  An understanding. 

Your Master is a gifted negotiator, yes.  But more than that.

He wields a blue saber.  Not a green one.

He’s a Guardian.  A warrior.  He fights.  It’s something that has never truly been part of your nature, no matter how much you struggled with it over the years—but it is a part of his, no matter how exceptionally he’s been able to mask it for even longer.

So, all at once, you stop pushing.  Your signature abruptly pulls away from him, gives him room to breathe and simply hovers within your own personal space, unassuming and careful not to disturb him.  You see your Master lift his chin and straighten his spine slightly, immediately noticing your absence and the constant pressure you’d been applying, and you honestly can’t tell if he relaxes or tenses up even more because of it.

Finally, when you feel like it’s been long enough, you slowly reach out and gently place your hand on his arm.  This time, there’s no underlying motivation attached, no inherent desire for him to fulfill any sort of obligation.  Just a warm, companionable gesture to reinforce the simple knowledge that you’re both in this together, for better or worse.

Please tell me, Obi-Wan, you quietly whisper to him through the Force, allowing your tone and energy to transfer through your open palm and into his troubled spirit as softly and gently as you possibly can—a caress more than anything even close to a sentence or inquiry.  Your usage of his first name is entirely unprecedented however, and your Master sucks in a sharp breath in response.

I don't… But then the subconscious, half-formed thought fades away almost as quickly as it’s offered to you from behind the solid, unyielding fortress of his mind.  “W-what are you doing?”

You bite your lip, wondering how honest you should be with him right now.  Though, you suppose, if you truly want him to confide in you, you should at least meet him halfway.

“You’re the locked door,” you finally settle on.  “This is me knocking.”

Obi-Wan turns around and blinks at you, looking for all the stars in this galaxy like that was quite possibly the last thing he expected you to say.  You can see the frantic thoughts pass through his eyes almost as if the clear blue was completely transparent, likely remembering all the times you’ve leaned on him for guidance, listened intently and learned from his wisdom and experience.  And now you’re a fully grown woman patiently offering him your ear, wondering if you’ve earned enough of his trust for him to do the same.

“I’m afraid I’ll form an attachment to you.”  The words tumble from his mouth even though his body all but whips away from you in the process.  “It’s unreasonable for the Council to expect this from me.  From us.  I’m afraid our relationship will forever be tarnished from this, that neither of us will ever be able to go back to the way things were before.  I’m afraid that regardless of whatever decision I make, I won’t be able to carry the guilt on my conscience and continue to call myself a Jedi and Guardian of the Republic.  But mostly, I just—I-I—”

Your heart is pounding as Obi-Wan buries his face into his hands and his muffled voice groans raggedly, “—I’m afraid I’ll like it.  I’m afraid I’ll want it again, and again.  I’m afraid it’ll follow me back to Coruscant, that I’ll save the galaxy but spend the rest of my days aching for something I’ll never be able to keep, and that’s petrifying.  Desire, passion, selfishness, possession; all of them lead to Darkness, and I can—I can feel it right now.  Your soul is so gentle, so peaceful, and yet you… you inspire such Darkness in me, dove.”

Maker, you’re trying so hard.  So hard to keep your legs from clenching together at the utter desperation in his tone, how his breathing has picked up now that the words have ripped themselves out of his throat, like the whole thing was physical agony even just to say.  You have to take a second.  You’ve been so patient this entire time, but stars—this one makes you need a moment.  You’re so glad his eyes are clamped shut behind his fingers right now because yours lose focus trying to mask the absolutely debilitating wave of arousal that sinks down hot through your stomach.

Even when you regain the ability to speak, the ability to form a safe and proper response to the bombshell he just dropped on you completely evades you.

You purposefully don't say that you're already helplessly attached to him, that the colors of the galaxy somehow lost their brilliance the day you graduated to Knight, the day you left his side.  You don't say that you want this so badly you can feel it in your neck, that it would probably break you in half if he said no to this now.  Though it's the honest-to-Maker truth, you know discovering this information will only cause your Master to further distance himself from you, and somehow that thought alone is a million times worse than being denied the opportunity to be this close to him.  Even… even if what you end up sharing is more emotional than physical.

So you take a deep breath to center yourself, and choose your words very carefully.

“A compromise, then.”

Obi-Wan suddenly raises his head, turning around to look at you and blinking twice.  “A what?”

“You told me to negotiate.  What do we do as negotiators, hm?”  You raise an eyebrow, giving him a gentle smile and trying not to curl your fingers into the fur underneath you with how hard it is to conceal your burning arousal.  Do it for him.  Do it for your Master, you’re in l—you… care about him, and you care about the things he cares about, even if doing so feels like it’ll rip you apart.  “We compromise.  Yes?  So, let’s find one.”

He shakes his head.  “I don’t see h—”

“If you were to…”  You cut him off and look down, trying to find the most delicate way to phrase this.  “If you were to… find other means to bring yourself to completion, would you be able to convince anyone listening that I was the one doing it?”

Obi-Wan doesn’t even blink this time.  He just stares at you, holding himself like a statue in front of you.  Finally, he seems to find himself.  “I… I don’t—I don’t know if I can.”

“You’re stronger in the Force than anyone on this planet, Master,” you encourage softly, placing a hand back on his arm and squeezing this time.  “I’ve felt it.”

“N-No,” he practically hiccups.  “No, I mean I-I… I don’t know if… if I can.”

Your eyebrows narrow, a mixture of confusion and concern coloring your expression.  “If you can…?”

He looks back at you almost desperately, his eyes practically begging you to figure it out so he doesn’t have to say it.  Finally, Obi-Wan sighs, seeming to collapse in on himself with its intensity.  “I—I’ve never… purposefully reached completion before,” he admits.  “I’m—I’m not sure how to.”

Your eyes widen, wanting to kick yourself for making assumptions.  Of course.  Of course he’d follow his oath to its strictest interpretation, why would you ever think otherwise?  “Oh, y-yes, of course not,” you stutter, sounding incredibly stupid and perfectly mirroring the embarrassed flush also painting your Master’s cheeks, “I didn’t mean to imply—”

“It’s alright,” he holds up a hand.  “We simply… view such things differently.  So long as you do not pass judgment, then neither shall I.”

You nod and look down at your hands, wondering how else you can attempt to tackle this predicament.  “What if I…”  You blink slowly, almost wanting to keep your eyes closed in case he’s offended by the idea but figuring you should have them open to read his responses.  “What if I… don’t touch you?”

Now he just looks confused.  “I’m sorry?”

You blush and clear your throat, obviously phrasing this wrong.  “If you can modify the context of your projection, then I can… get you there.  Without touching you.”

“How could you accomplish such a thing without tou—” Obi-Wan immediately cuts himself off when you lift your hand and close your eyes.

His thigh.  The right one—you focus on it.  There.  Right above the bend of his knee folding over the edge of the mattress, you concentrate all the energy from your fingertips and reach out, connecting the two together.  And then you take a deep breath and begin to draw your attention slowly upwards.

Your Master’s breath catches in his throat as you use the Force to delicately trail further up his leg, not laying a single hand on him as his muscles start to visibly tighten and quiver.

“Young one, I—”  His breathing stutters when you keep your hand raised but let your head tilt and drop down towards your shoulder with your energy, slinking down the inside of his thigh like water and getting dangerously close to his— “Stars, hang on—”

You blink your eyes open at him and continue concentrating right there, letting your focus melt warm and thick along the muscle and squeeze it—

“Maker—”  Obi-Wan gasps and drops his head back, his legs nearly spasming apart.  “Maker, hang on, I…”

“Do you…” You breathe tightly, flicking your eyes down to the way he’s fisting the fur under his hands and subconsciously flexing his hips up just the slightest bit.  Even though the Force, his body feels good.  Strong, sturdy, and braced tight under your attention.  “Do you want me to keep doing this?  I can… go higher.”

“You can…?  The—the Force isn’t—” Obi-Wan groans, his eyes clamping shut, “—isn’t meant to be used in such… in such… If I’m to break my oath, young one, it needn’t be so… so blasphemous—”

Trying to conceal the hot sparks of arousal deep in your stomach, you simply allow your metaphysical hand to continue resting right at the juncture of his hip and thigh, waiting for a real answer.  You bite your lip and wait for him to tell you to either cut it out or to keep going.  He doesn’t even have to say it out loud if he doesn’t want to—he can just slide it under the impassable door still separating him from you, the door you’re eventually going to get him to unlock himself.

His back is to you, so you can only see a bit of his face from this angle, but you can hear him loud and clear when he opens his mouth and whispers to you, barely louder than a breath.  “Go higher.”

Adrenaline rockets through your veins and slowly, your fingers curl in thin air while your gentle energy wraps itself around his cock.

Both of Obi-Wan’s hands instantly fly up to his face and he releases a tight, longing whimper into his palms, and you feel almost as desperate as he sounds.  You can sense the ghost of his thickness in your hand, and the way he’s already throbbing for it is like pure spice to you.

You can’t stop your crossed legs from shuffling and rotating your body to face his hunched spine more directly, just taking a second and allowing him to adjust to the sensation of you just holding him between his legs like this.  Your fingers rest gently along his pulsing skin while he hides from you, and if only to get a little bit more of a reaction for your own sake, your thumb just barely angles to delicately brush up under his frenulum.  

Obi-Wan shudders and makes a choking noise behind his palms, and oh good Maker, you really want to see his face.  You know it’ll probably never happen unless you take your own initiative, but you also don’t want to overstep and snap him out of this blissful reverie.  Still, something compels you to be so gentle about it that he hopefully won’t even notice. 

You start to slowly work the length of him and squeeze his cock a bit more firmly, but a tendril of your energy slowly slithers upwards, so quiet and full of caution that it hardly even counts.  Very carefully, you start to flatten the lifeforce from your other palm over his stomach and trail it up, gradually urging him to stretch his slouched figure upright and then eventually start to tip backwards, never once letting your focus on his throbbing erection falter.

Your courageous efforts bestow prosperous rewards.  Obi-Wan’s hands drag down the length of his face and he makes it almost too easy to keep pressing him back—back back back until his muscles give up what little fight they were putting up against it and his shoulders are dropping down to the mattress, his head falling into your lap.

“There we go,” you whisper under your breath, just loud enough to softly encourage him if he’s listening but avoiding a break in his focus if he’s not.  “That’s not so bad.”

“It isn’t,” Obi-Wan gasps up at you, his eyes tightly closed but his jaw slack and his handsome features screwed up in rapture.  “Oh, no, it’s… it’s really… rea—good.”

You bite your lip and your cunt flexes hard between your legs without your permission, feeling so empty.  If you’re being honest, only touching him through the Force causes your hand to become increasingly bold, also feeling too empty.  Obi-Wan’s head rolls to the side and he pants hot air against the thin black fabric covering your thighs as you tighten your hold around him just slightly and start to move up and down his cock in earnest.

“Fuck,” he whispers, the dirty word and rasp in his voice contrasting brilliantly with the proper Coruscanti accent and the crisp enunciation behind it.  “Fuck, this feels so good, I—”

His fingers grab at the fur covering the mattress top and pull at it, his adam’s apple bobbing sharp along the arching column of his throat as he groans and twists his head around in your lap.  He confesses it like it’s so wrong, but it can’t be wrong when he fits so perfectly in your hand?  How can this be wrong when it’s the only pleasure you can possibly give him that’s anywhere near close enough to match the way you feel when he’s around?  Even then, it’s but a fraction.

Your gaze flickers briefly from his face to check your progress with his body, and—stars, there’s a startling wet spot staining the front of his pale trousers, his cock tenting up shameless and needy for you to ache and throb just as desperately for in return.  Fuck, he deserves this, he deserves more—

“I can—I can make it better—” you can’t help but gasp, your eyebrows slanting upwards with need.  “Oh fuck, I can make it so much better than this for you, Obi-Wan—”

“You…?”  He blinks his stormy eyes open and sounds like he’s about to explode.  “This can be—” he chokes out, “—better?”

You can’t stop yourself.  Your pussy is clamped up so tight between your legs and Maker, you want to reward him for being so good to you, give him true adoration instead of phantom touches.  You don’t think before you’re moving out from under him and slinking down onto the floor, slipping in between his spread thighs.  You use the Force with a bend of your finger to tug his pants down just enough, just enough to let the swollen tip of his cock peak through the waistband, and then your head is dropping into his lap as you let it slide into your hot mouth.

Obi-Wan lifts his head and snarls at you—and something across the room shatters as you widen your throat for him and slowly sink down his length, curling your finger to stretch his hemline further as you go.  His fingers aren’t gentle when they fist into your hair and neither is the way he immediately twists it sideways, feeling like he’s trying to pull you off and shove you down on him at the same time.

You’re stuck between going as slow as you physically can to drag this out and giving him the best oral you’ve ever given to make him dream about this for the rest of his life.  You want him to want this as badly as you have for so many years.  You want him to fall into this Darkness with you, to crave you and what you can give to him so much that he’ll never want to leave you again.

So you make it wet.  You make it soft and slow and wet, switching between sucking gently at the tip and swirling your tongue around it, and then inching his length down your throat and swallowing around the thick girth of it once you can’t fit anymore in your mouth.  Obi-Wan is just an absolute mess about it—he can’t sit still, he’s tugging uselessly on your hair, whimpering out his bliss into the quiet room while you close your eyes and ignore his squirming, just taking your sweet time enjoying him and the way he feels.

He tastes exquisite.  Maybe it’s just because all your broken, stupid brain can think right now is slightly varying forms of my Master’s cock is in my mouth and it’s fucking leaking while you slowly nurse from it with your tongue, but stars—he tastes exquisite.

He’s swollen.  Throbbing.  Aching for you.  Releasing precum from the tip like his body is producing way too much of it after decades of neglect and just needs to get it all out at once.  Shifting and writhing underneath you but managing to never move his hips or cock a single inch away from the soft attention you’re giving him.  You can feel his smooth skin pulse against your tongue as you continue your lazy pleasuring, finally giving him what you’ve both been denied for so long and steadily swallowing down the spoils of your endeavors.

“—Wait, wait, Maker—stop,” you faintly hear gasped from above you not long after you even begin, and it takes the sum of all your efforts to unlodge his throbbing cock from your throat and pull away from him.

“I’m sorry,” you exhale automatically, trying not to slur your words as a bit of drool slides down your chin.  “I’m s’sorry, Obi, I should’ve asked before I—”

“Something’s… n-not right,” Obi-Wan interrupts you and lifts himself up to his elbows, his abdominal muscles heaving and a wild, frenzied look in his startlingly bright eyes.  “My stomach was—I-I felt—”

Heat blooms through you along with a realization, and your eyelids begin to droop slightly at just how sexy it is—the fact that this man, this fully grown, red-blooded, warrior of a man is currently teetering on the precipice of his very first ever orgasm, and you’re the only one with the power to give it to him.

You shuffle backwards slightly, grabbing hold of his thighs and squeezing to get his attention.  “Hey.  It’s okay, relax.”

Obi-Wan nods his head vigorously down at you, the exact opposite of relaxed.

“Listen to me,” you urge quietly, trying to ignore the sight of his thick, swollen cock twitching restlessly against his abdomen, precum still steadily dribbling at the tip.  Is your mouth watering?  “This is it.  You’ll need to start projecting when you’re ready.  It’ll be tricky, but not impossible.  You’ll just have to imagine you’re inside me when it happens.”

Obi-Wan shakes his head vigorously from side to side, vehemently opposed.

“No, I don’t—” He croaks, “—I don’t know what it’s like, I won’t be able to—”

“Doesn’t my mouth feel similar at least?”  You ask, looking down at his cock once more.

“I-I—” Obi-Wan sputters, “I don’t know, young one—you tell me!”

Okay, well.  He… makes a valid point.

You settle back on your knees even further, gazing at your Master thoughtfully.  His chest continues to rise and fall with heavy breaths, a thin sheen of sweat coating his temples and a mild flush high in his cheeks, but his eyes have regained a bit of their focus.  “You can just try to imagine the, uh,” you try, your cunt nearly convulsing with burning need at the mere sight of him, “the same positioning and sensation from… earlier?”

“Alright, I can…”  Obi-Wan nods, though his hands are shaking.  “I’ll do the best I…”

You can’t help but lean forward to press a soft, encouraging kiss to his thigh, and he jerks under your touch.  You try it again, receiving the same result, and it makes you pause for just a minute longer.

“I’m nervous,” he blurts unceremoniously after a moment of stillness, as if you hadn’t noticed.  “Oh stars, I’m nervous, I—”

“Obi-Wan,” you let your voice lull, your hands squeezing gently around the bend of his knees once more.  “Calm down.  Clear your mind.”

He hiccups and you wait.  You wait with your mouth a few inches away from his cock, waiting for his breathing to slow and for him to follow your lead.

Can you hear me?  You murmur through the Force, and he quickly whimpers and nods.  Focus your thoughts.

You gently kiss at his tensing thighs once again, and he doesn’t flinch away from you this time.  His breathing slows into a calmer, steadier rhythm, letting you trail your lips gently along the curve of his leg.

Will you let me try something?  You ask after a moment, opening your mouth just the slightest bit to brush your tongue out and taste his skin.

“Y-Yes,” Obi-Wan says quietly, his breath stuttering through the word.

And—perhaps you shouldn’t have, but you give him something; a suggestion, more than anything else.  You give him a… visual.  A reference to guide his mind through the Force.

You, still in your black robe, slowly standing up from between his legs.  Widening your stance to straddle his lap, pull you robes up just enough, and then adjust your hips just slightly over the head of his cock.

Obi-Wan inhales sharply at the vision, his eyes clamping tightly shut against it in vain.  He can close his eyes, turn away, hide his face all he wants—he can’t escape the way your body looks as it slowly begins to sink down on his.

At the exact same time, you lower your mouth around his cock once more, and you try to make it as close to the sensation as possible.  You don’t even move your tongue, you simply lift your soft palate and close your lips around his girth, beginning to carefully bob up and down along his length in time to the image you’re conjuring of you riding him.

Only, you already feel his balls tightening up and his body starting to go rigid with tension once again, and you can sense him still wanting to resist his approaching orgasm.  It’s okay, Master, you encourage quietly through the vision, it’s okay, just let it come easy.

“I—I’m not—” he shakes his head back and forth against the bed frantically, his breathing getting shallower and almost immediately picking back up to where it was before you stopped.  “I d-don’t want—”

Stop fighting, you tell him, continuing to mimic the sensation of him thrusting into your aching, neglected cunt with slow and steady movements of your throat.  Don’t run from it, let it take you.

He grits your name tightly in response and subconsciously begins to rock his hips up to match your unhurried pace, his ragged breathing gasping out into the quiet room and gradually increasing in volume and desperation the longer he stubbornly tries to hold out against it.

You know not strong enough to use the Force to coax it out of him.  You can’t alter your technique and break the illusion, either.  So you have to resort to desperate measures.

There’s enough remaining wherewithal to your mind that prevents you from permanently damaging his clothing when you tear his robes open with the Force and allow the metaphysical image of yourself to rip them apart with your hands.  Obi-Wan gasps when both versions of you reach up his bare torso at the same time and dig your nails into his chest.

Master—you demand, taking his cock down your throat as far as you can go and then clawing hard down his stomach—cum.

And thank everything good and right in the universe that he remembers at the very last second to start projecting, because being this close to someone as strong in the Force as Obi-Wan when he finally succumbs to his first taste of the Dark Side is just a fucking atomic missile straight to your nervous system.

It’s all you can do to just remember to keep swallowing.

The projection he casts out through the shockwave is utterly flawless—brilliantly composed, looking and feeling so authentic and overwhelming even from this distance that there should be no issue at all convincing any s’Ziscari in the wide vicinity who are tuning in right now.

Except—then you hear it.  Through the roaring pleasure of his thoughts, a flicker of his subconscious he’s unable to mask through the mind blowing bliss.

Is she…? Maker above, she’s drinking it—

A ragged groan tears through the silence of the room, his cock pulsing spectacularly on your tongue.  He just keeps cumming, and cumming, and so you just have to keep swallowing, and swallowing.  You suppose you should’ve expected this from a fully grown man who lived a life of celibacy, but what would typically be a rather short moment with anyone else subsequently goes on long enough to where Obi-Wan is actually able to lazily raise his head up from the mattress and simply watch you continue to swallow his load, dazed and reverent in his stare, glassy blue eyes trained on the hypnotic movements your jaw and throat make around him.  The remaining traces of whatever visual he attempted to maintain immediately flicker out of existence, replaced instead by the sight of your mouth around his cock, diligently taking down each rope of cum he gives you.

When he finally stops throbbing, you reluctantly let his cock fall from your mouth and slowly stand up as the botched projection fizzles out completely.  His gaze eventually follows the movement like he’s on a five second delay.

“So, uh…”  Your voice is hoarse.  “We… need to have sex.”

“Alright,” he agrees dreamily, his eyes lazily dragging down your body.  “Alright, we can have… I… Wait, what?”

“You, uh.  I know it wasn’t intentional, but you might’ve, uh…”  You  shuffle awkwardly from side to side, wondering why you’ve chosen now of all moments to become shy with him.  You’re literally still savoring the taste of his release in your mouth.  “You might’ve accidentally projected a very specific thought towards the end there and let everyone know that we weren’t actually doing what we’re technically supposed to be doing.”

“What did… what did I think?”  The question would likely be nonsense in literally any other situation, but you understand.  And truthfully, for the life of you, you can’t find it within yourself to feel even a little bit mad about it, not when it means you can continue doing this together.  You can’t even conjure up a single shred of disappointment in his failure, it’d just be a lie.

“Doesn’t matter,” you assure him, your heart continuing to pound.  You know you should make your next move now while he’s still so loopy, the post-orgasm bliss causing his signature to vibrate with pulsing endorphins as he blinks up at you slowly from the bed.  “Though we won’t be able to do it for a little bit, just uh.  Just for general… anatomical reasons.  But that should’ve at least counted for… initiating the Ritual, so I don’t think we have to worry about time anymore.”

Obi-Wan just stares at you, his Force signature feeling more serene and spaced out than you’ve ever sensed before.  Oh Maker, how you wish you felt the same.  You swallow thickly, still tasting his hard orgasm on your tongue, and then try not to clamp your thighs together with how embarrassingly turned on you are.  Anyone with any experience whatsoever would know exactly what you’re going through with just a mere glance—you’re biting your lip with your entire body is subtly crumpled in towards your swollen, neglected pussy—and your Master has been watching you struggle through it this entire time.

“Are you alright?”  He asks dumbly, finally managing to at least push himself upright, still completely unaware or unconcerned at his softening cock on full display for you and your starving libido.  “You’re… shaking.”

“I—won’t die,” is the only serious assurance you can make to both him and yourself right now that’ll ease your suffering the smallest bit.  The last thing you want right now is to come on too strong and snap him back to his senses, bringing everything back to square one.  “Just, uh… r-really worked—worked up.  Trying to just.  C-Cool it?”

Your fingers flex at your sides because no matter what you try, you just can’t stop thinking about his.  They’re right there.  They’re so close, so strong and thick and—

“Aren’t you…”  He trails off, letting his head tilt and then drop to his shoulder with a combination of confusion and exhaustion.  “Aren’t you going to…?”

“To what?”  You prompt shortly, your hands suddenly clenching into fists to deal with another violent wave of arousal at how unbelievably drunk he still looks.  Maker, you did that.  That’s all you.

“s’Zerthia said all—” Obi-Wan murmurs, blinking long lashes lazily up at you, “—all Jedi must… participate.”

Fuck. Just hearing him provide you an excuse to give into the boiling arousal causes you to suddenly break out into a sweat.  You don’t know if he wants you to get yourself off or if he’s indirectly implying he wants to help, but you’re so far beyond desperate that you jump at the chance as soon as he so much as hints at the opportunity.

Very slowly, you move forward and lift one trembling knee to brace next to his thigh on the mattress, and then carefully swing your other leg over his lap, lowering yourself into a straddle in the same exact position he attempted to project earlier.  You’re so unbelievably cautious about his cock, making sure you don’t accidentally touch it and jolt him awake.  Instead of your newfound proximity scaring him away like you feared though, he stays so… docile.  Still so relaxed from his very first orgasm that he even rests his large palms over the thin fabric covering your thighs, letting the loose silk drape and fold over his hands as he drags them up and down.

His eyes follow your trembling fingers as you work at the knot tying the material around your body, your cunt throbbing between your legs at how he’s just… staring.  His eyelids are dipped slightly, breathing so calm and slouched under you, pliant and waiting.

The thin fabric slowly parts only enough to reveal the valley between your bare chest to him, and you watch his eyes fall down the thin strip of skin and catch on the dark line of your panties riding low on your hips.  Maker, you can’t help but remember his terror at even glimpsing the two acolytes taking off their robes earlier—the way his eyes bounced around and how his cheeks lost whatever color they had left to them as soon as he finally made himself look.  Now, though.  Now he can’t seem to drag his eyes away from the soft flesh of your tummy, the way your nipples are still covered by the thin fabric of your slightly parted robe but are impossible to miss while your breasts subtly move with your breathing.

You gently call one of his wrists to your hand with the Force and Obi-Wan is either mentally or physically too weak to resist your will.  He allows you to catch his hand and slowly lead it downwards with both of your smaller ones to the part of your body that’s longed for his attention for years, though now it’s absolutely weeping for it.

You don’t want to scare him.  You don’t want to scare him.  Oh Maker, you need him to be brave for you right now, or at least just continue to be stupefied.  You can work with stupefied, but you cannot work with panic, especially when you feel your own wanting to rise up the more you drag this out.

When the tips of his fingers brush against the waistband of your panties, Obi-Wan’s hand pushes under it without your guidance.

You’re throbbing.  It’s been years in the making.  Unable to stop the way your thighs contract and you lift your hips against his palm as it steadily curves down the slope of your soft curls, the sight of the finish line so within reach makes you reckless and too quick.  You can’t help it.  When he gets hesitant and eventually slows down to a halt right above your slit, you don’t even think before you’re suddenly giving his wrist an abrupt shove with the Force, pulling his hand down before he’s ready and forcing his middle finger deep through the soaking cleft of your pussy.

Your shameless moan of his name comes out sounding so grateful—you pour everything you have into it and sag into Obi-Wan’s chest at the feeling, but he startles and all but rips his hand out of your underwear before you can stop him.  He was a hair’s breadth from touching your clit and the denial of it—the sudden turnaround from your goal is just so massively overwhelming that tears suddenly spring to your eyes.

You can just barely make out the sight of him staring down at his trembling hand between the two of you, your slick shining wet and hot along the length of his finger. 

“Stars,” he rasps, blinking his wide, sapphire gaze up to yours—and then he quite suddenly looks alarmed.  “Did I—Did I hurt you?”  Obi-Wan gasps, his energy beginning to outright seize with distress while you blink rapidly and try not to crumble on his lap.

“No—I’m sorry, it’s just—I’m just… oh, fuck, I n-need it,” you stammer.  “Oh fuck, I need it Master, I’m so sorry—I’m trying to be calm but—”

“What is it, little dove?”  He urges, reaching his hand up to your face and flicking his eyes back and forth between yours, sounding almost as panicked as you do from your desperation.  “What do you need?”

“Oh stars, Obi-Wan, I need you to just—” You can’t fit anything into words, a tear finally making its way down your cheek when you clamp your eyes shut in frustration.  You just need him to understand, to give you what you’ve been craving for so long—but when you blink your eyes back open, his troubled expression has suddenly resolved itself.

Your Master’s hands immediately grab tight to your hips and twist you around, easily tossing you back up onto the mattress.  The jostle of bouncing back into the soft fur startles you, but not nearly as much as when he climbs over your body and braces an elbow next to your head, gently placing the tips of his fingers to your temple.

He pushes carefully but firmly against your natural mental barriers, flexing the energy shields inwards gently enough to not hurt you but with enough force to let you know he’s entirely capable of breaking through should you refuse to let him in.

So you do.  You let him in without a single thought, never mind a second one.  Obi-Wan gasps as your shields all but collapse for him that easily, and then he’s finally breaching the surface of your thoughts.

“Oh—Maker above, little one,” he grits almost immediately, his forehead dropping to your shoulder and his other hand wrapping tight around your arm as he struggles to acclimate to the blinding distress you’re experiencing.  “Collect—” he groans as your cunt clamps down at the rasp of his broken voice, “—collect yourself.  I can’t—can’t think—”

Oh, no, it’s too much.  It’s way too much, even just having him inside your head without being able to read him in return—it’s too much for you.  You start hyperventilating and instead of wanting him out, you just want to drown out the sensation of everything else.  The endlessly pulsing, aching throb between your legs that you’ve been dealing with for so long, the way you can feel his cock dragging against your tummy from this angle and how much you already want it in your mouth again, the way your nipples are so hard right now that even this soft fabric feels so rough and sharp against—

Your robe suddenly rips itself off your chest, and you whimper up at the ceiling as you dig your fingers into thick fur and writhe under him, almost completely naked and just desperate for him to do something, to at least just use his hands or his mouth to make you feel bet—

Obi-Wan’s head drops and his blazing mouth opens hot around your nipple, his tongue rolling soft and slick up under the hard bud.

You choke out the first part of his name and you barely even have a flicker of a thought—a brief flash of a rabid, baser desire you’re not even able to consciously recognize before you feel his jaw opening and his teeth closing gently around it, biting down just hard enough to make you spasm bright and urgent between your legs.  “Oh, fuck—”

As soon as you feel the pleasure and twisting ache spark deep in your core, Obi-Wan flutters his eyes shut and wedges his hand back into your panties, humming low in his throat when your legs jerk apart for him.

This time, your clit is the very first thing he touches.

He zeroes in on it.  The tip of his finger starts to rub it exactly how you’d do it to yourself, exactly the right angle and speed and pressure that your body suddenly feels massively overheated and dizzy from it.  It blindsides you.  It makes sense he’d be able to do this, after all, but for some reason, the whole thing just absolutely blindsides you.

“Maker,” you whimper at the ceiling, soft and pitched high in your throat, eyes rolling back when Obi-Wan gently bites down on your nipple again and continues to work to relieve you even as every muscle in your body feels like it’s tightening up.

“Stars—” he whispers when he pulls away, “This—this feels incredible, Padawan.”

You moan and roll your hips against his hand, on cloud nine at just how he’s slowly allowing himself to become filthier with you, to lower himself in all his righteous beliefs and descend into delicious sin with you, and—

—wait, did he just…?

Your cunt clamps down hard with realization as he continues massaging your clit better than you’ve ever even done it yourself.  Maker, it shouldn’t turn you on so much but it does, hearing that word in this context.  Padawan.  Padawan, holding her legs open while her Master explores her pussy.  Padawan, moaning desperately as her orgasm buzzes deep down inside with a rising, threatening resonance.  Padawan, Padawan, Padawan—

“Oh, you liked that,” Obi-Wan remarks tightly, taking a second to tug on your clit.  You nearly start to cry again, your insides pulling up and going rigid at the sensation.  “I heard it, little one.  You like it when I call you that?”

“Oh I like it when you do f-fucking anything,” you choke out helplessly, your words starting to slur together.  “Oh fuck, you’re so amazing, you’re so good at everything, you’re the best Jedi in the whole entire galaxy Master, you’re so much better th—”

“My, you’re agreeable like this, aren’t you?”  Obi-Wan grits, his touches growing stronger and quicker and rocketing you straight to the edge of madness.  “Shall I take that to heart, my darling little Padawan?  Or did you say such flattering things to the oth—”

“Wait!”  You suddenly exclaim, desperately trying to push his hands away.  “Oh, nonononono—wait, wait, wait, I—I-I’m about to cum—I need to—”

His hand yanks itself out of your underwear once more and you take giant, gasping breaths and try to compose yourself at least somewhat, but then your Master is quickly scrambling down your body and using the Force to rip your panties down your hips—

“Obi-Wan, wait—” you choke out, “that isn’t—you don’t… h-have to…”

He looks up at you, dark brows furrowed in confusion.

“I’ll be able to—y-you don’t—”  You have to take a few gasping breaths and remember how to speak Basic.  “I used my mouth on you before because I… I wanted to.  If—If you don’t want to do that, you don’t have to.  It’s not… oh fucking stars above, it’s not n-necessary.”

“Are you telling me this because you don’t want me to?”  He immediately asks, though you both already clearly know the answer to that considering how exposed your wild thoughts are to him right now.

“Ah, no I, uh… I just.”  You try to clear the thickness from your throat and you feel your body tremble while you focus as much effort as possible into trying to explain.  “I just want to be sure I’m not taking advantage of you, that’s all, I—I want you to know the truth about these things.  It’s not… necessary, b-but.”

“But.”  He repeats the word meaningfully as he glances back down at your weeping cunt, nodding slowly to himself.

And then your Master leans in, flutters his eyes shut, and slides his warm tongue deep into the seam of your pussy with absolutely no hesitation whatsoever.

“Obi—Wan—!?”  You gasp, somewhere between a squeak and a squeal, your entire upper body launching upwards around his head as your clit is immediately enveloped into a slick, dexterous furnace.

Hold still, you hear his voice warn through the Force, sounding so much closer than you’ve ever heard him before.  Whether that can be attributed to the fact that the command came directly from wherever he is inside your head or whether it’s simply because his tongue is now tracing gentle circles around your clit as you whimper pitifully into the quiet of the dimly lit room, you’re not sure.  All you know is that his mouth feels like velvet between your legs and his beard is scraping across your thighs and your fingers have buried themselves in his hair without your conscious permission.

Hold still, young one, he urges once more, but you just close your eyes and moan shamelessly at it this time, opening your legs wider for him.  His voice, it’s… it’s maddening like this, coming directly from your own thoughts.  Deep, precise, somehow sounding so true, so much clearer and full-bodied without your pesky ears in the way.  Your hips are subconsciously rolling slowly against the lower half of his face when Obi-Wan apparently decides he’s had enough.

An invisible energy wraps around each of your individual limbs and snaps them against the mattress without any warning.  You whimper high in your throat, arms and legs held so firmly against the bed with the Force that your internal struggles aren’t able to be translated outwardly; he doesn’t allow your body a single centimeter to move under him, no matter how hard you fight it.  Which means you have to lay there and just take the way Obi-Wan’s hot mouth continues to lick and kiss at your clit slowly, taking all the time in the universe to properly explore you between the legs he’s forced apart.

“Obi—” you croak breathlessly at the ceiling, feeling a familiar heat start to burn hot and tight through your core, “Obi, I—I have to p-project—before I—ah!—before you—before you ma-make me cu—ugh, f-fuck—I have t-to—”

Then project, he encourages simply, gently fluttering his tongue over your clit.  You gasp and he hums, murmuring through the Force once more to you.  We’re not hiding anymore.  They’ll all know I’m using my mouth on you like this.  It’s alright.  Let them know.

You realize you’re going to cum the second you hear your Master’s voice say the words using my mouth on you like this while he slowly sucks on your clit, and you barely have enough wherewithal to gulp in a giant breath and begin projecting your signature as far across the palace and surrounding city as physically possible before your body shatters hot into searing euphoria under him.

Obi-Wan groans deep in his throat and holds you perfectly still under him as you cum with a ragged, hoarse wail of his name, giant waves of white hot bliss beginning to radiate through the Force from you with spectacular power.  The contractions are so much more pronounced when it’s one of the only sets of muscles in your body he’s granted permission to move.  It’s like everything is concentrated and multiplied there because of it.  You can feel each individual spasm your floor muscles make as they convulse against his tongue, how each blazing shot of ecstasy that shatters through your body wrings more and more wetness from your cunt into your Master’s mouth.

Never.  Ever ever ever.  Has anyone done something so mind blowingly sexy to you.  Nobody.  Ever.  He’s a virgin, you frantically remember as Obi-Wan purrs softly into the folds of your pussy while it cums all over him.

Your thoughts, young one, you can just barely make out his voice remind you gently, just as gently as he sucks on your clit through the aftershocks, somehow sounding even more aroused than he did before.

After allowing your projection to flicker out of existence with a putter, you’re completely dazed.  Incapable of moving regardless of the way he keeps you pinned with the Force long after he pulls away, slowly moves back up your body and waits while you work to regain your bearings.  You don’t even want to open your eyes right now, knowing he’s looking down at your peaceful expression while you work to catch your breath.  You’re too stupid with pleasure you almost don’t even process the soft touch of something against your lips.

You’re lovely.

The thought is so quiet you don’t even recognize it isn’t your own.  Not until he keeps pressing his lips to yours so sweetly, not knowing to do anything else when your mind is too fractured with ecstasy to unconsciously act as his compass like before.  Everything is innocent and gentle and not reminiscent of the fact that the robes you’re both wearing are wide open and your mouths tasted of each other even before he kissed you.

Instead of melting into the soft touches, though, they just start to burn you alive, the thick fog of your orgasm clearing more and more with each gentle press of his lips and your need for him steadily growing.  He’s kissing you.  Master Kenobi is kissing you for a few precious, heart stopping seconds at a time before pulling away, pausing to look at your face each time to make sure your eyes are still closed, before leaning down and carefully pressing his lips to yours again.

The only part you can’t stand is that he won’t even let you move your jaw to kiss him back.

Kiss me, Obi-Wan, you urge desperately through the Force, not wanting to interrupt to speak.

“I am, little one,” he replies between kisses, and the sincerity in his tone tells you he’s not purposefully teasing you.  No, this is him kissing you, genuinely, the only way he knows how to.

Let me— you start to struggle in earnest against his hold on you, —please, let me—

The warm breath from his nose puffs softly against your cheek with a quiet little sound from far back in his throat, and then you suddenly gain the ability to move from the neck up.

You immediately part his lips with yours and Obi-Wan pulls back just the slightest bit in response, but your neck lifts up to compensate as you lick deep into his warm mouth.  He gasps at the foreign sensation and loses his concentration for a split second, enough for you to break free of it completely.  Your hands quickly fly up to cradle his face as soon as they can move and your fingers hook around the thick beard blanketing his sharp jawline, urging him back down into you.

Your legs come up to wrap around his lower back and he sags against your strong will with a needy groan, dropping down closer and obediently keeping his mouth open for you to taste.  As soon as he presses his body into yours, his cock strains and drags against your lower stomach, already throbbing hot and leaking precum along the soft hills of your skin.

Maker, you want it but somehow you… you don’t.  You just want to savor tonight as long as you physically can, keep holding him and kissing him like this for another few hours at least before you try to take his cock, but he’s unintentionally grinding it against you while his tongue shyly dances with yours, needy and already raring to go in his own timid way.

Do you want it, Master?  You finally murmur to him, running your fingers through his hair and gently biting his bottom lip, scooting your hips up to let him rub himself against something better than your tummy.  You feel… ready.

The only response you get from him is a shuddering, helpless moan into your mouth and you hold him tighter to you, grinding your still sensitive cunt up against his cock while he pulls hard at the soft fur next to your head.  Your feel your soaking pussy lips part around the solid curve of his length and gradually coat the underside of him in slick with every gentle circle and roll your hips make, and Obi-Wan finally pulls away from your mouth to drop his forehead to your neck.

“Yes, I—” he moans into you skin, “Oh stars, I want it.”

With a gentle wave of your hand, you use the Force to drop his hips down to the proper angle and tilt the head of his cock to line him up perfectly.

And now this is the part you don’t want to rush.  This is when you take Obi-Wan Kenobi’s virginity.  You’ll savor just being able to remember this for the rest of your fucking life.  You’ll see him in Council meetings years from now and be reminded that you’re the only person in the galaxy to know the thickness of him as he rests heavy up against your entrance, the way his voice presses deliciously tight in his throat as he gasps out into the quiet room.  You’re the only one who will know that sound, that sound is yours, that sound belongs to—

“Padawan,” he grits, hips stuttering into you while you wrap your arms around his shoulders, “your thoughts—”

You groan up at the ceiling and your pussy tightens at the reminder that he can still hear you, but your body is just too bold and desperate for it.  Your thoughts begin to flare bright, growing more possessive by the second, and you can’t even wait for him this time.  Every single muscle in Obi-Wan’s body goes rigid when you tighten your grip around him and roll your hips up into his cock, letting it break you open nice and slow.

It stretches you wide with a deliciously sharp fullness and pleasure rips through you as Obi-Wan instinctively tries to lift off you and away from it, but you’re clinging too tightly to him.  Your whole body hovers off the mattress to stay with him. 

“You said—” he gasps, “—it wouldn’t h-hurt—oh—”

“It doesn’t,” you groan, continuing to tighten your legs and hoist yourself up, lifting your hips to take his cock deeper inside you.  “Oh, Maker, it feels so fucking good, Obi—feel it—”

His elbows shake where they’re locked and braced against the mattress but he drops his head and holds strong like this while you work your muscles to take him as far as you can from this shameful angle.  Your body feels like it’s on fire while you desperately cling to him and the length of your robe brushes against the mattress while you just keep trying to get him deeper inside you—

Suddenly something grabs hard at your hips and tries shoves you downwards and off his cock, but you want it too badly.  You summon the hidden strength of your energy and then channel it into your legs where they’re hooked around the curve of his lower back.

Obi-Wan chokes at the unexpected resistance and his elbows buckle, dropping you both down to his forearms with a jolt, but you’re too busy mentally clashing with each other for it.  The result is… well, it’s maddening.

Every time your pussy is able to swallow him more than halfway, you pull back and let his energy shove you down his length—but then dig back in right before you drop completely and use the Force to bend your legs and fight the uphill battle to his cock once more.  Your Master gasps, beads of sweat gathering at his temples while you fight him with every ragged breath in your body to keep fucking him.

Except—he’s the fighter.  And you should’ve known.

You’re no match for the sudden blast of energy from him, easily hinging your legs apart from around his back and then ripping you down off his cock with a wet sound, bouncing back down into the mattress once more.

In order to stop the desperate tears of defeat from coming to your eyes, you immediately clamp them shut and twist your face away from Obi-Wan’s, but he makes a low growl and uses the same ferocious royal blue energy to keep your knees pinned open and wide against the bed. 

And then drops his hips and rocks back into you, giving you those last few precious inches of his thickness you weren’t able to get at before.  It hits sharp nirvana up inside you with his thighs pressed tight to your hips like this.  His name rips itself from your throat while Obi-Wan clenches his jaw and starts to lose himself in the pleasure, holding you down into the bed with the Force while he allows your desperation to guide him to the perfect angle and speed to sate you. 

He’s so gifted, so strong in the Force, he’s able to use your mind as his anchor and give you pleasure beyond anything you’ve ever experienced.  And in return, you want to do the same to him.  You want to read his thoughts, instantly be able to give him everything he never knew he needed—

“You do,” your Master chokes out, “darling, you already—”

Everything inside you surges up at the admission, aching that much harder to hear him, to hear everything the way he can hear you.  The tips of your fingers find his temple, slick with sweat, and you press just hard enough to tell him your intent.

“Let me in,” you whisper, wicked arousal swirling tight in your lower muscles as they start to bear down on his cock.

“I—I can’t—” Obi-Wan gasps breathlessly, “I can’t—”

“Open—open the door, Master,” you beg, “please, open th—”

“Fuck,” he cuts you off, his voice rising in pitch while his his hips snap just a little harder against yours and his rhythm falters, “—It’s too good, Padaw—I’m going t-to—stars, are you—are you r-ready?”

Some terrifying, swirling darkness manifests itself deep in your thoughts.  It rises up, part of the desperate, hidden subconscious that you’re typically capable of stifling.  No, it says, don’t let this be over.  Not yet.  You don’t want to go to sleep alone, wake up and remember you’ll never have this again.  You need there to be a next time, and a time after it.

You try your hardest to push the longing downwards when you recognize it, but your Master is too quick, too talented to deceive when he’s this close to you.  He easily plucks it from your mind and expands it, enlarges the chaotic string of thoughts until you feel them pulsing at the edges of your consciousness.

And then Obi-Wan sees it all, immediately playing out in your memories as you helplessly watch on.  Every desire you buried for him unearthed, every whimper you stifled with the back of your hand when you touched yourself at night and thought of him amplified.  The years of repression, the blind hope that simply ignoring it would make it go away.  How hard you worked to deaden the burst of affection that radiated through the Force when you finally saw him after two years apart.  The circumstances behind the night you lost your virginity—not a long time ago, as he suggested before, but only just last year.  So desperate in your loneliness and longing for his presence that you began routinely sneaking around and fucking other Knights—Guardians with blue sabers whose souls were just marginally close enough to Obi-Wan’s, and you thought of him the whole time.  Every time.

But, perhaps, worst of all.  The… fantasies.

He sees himself dropping to his knees and congratulating you for passing your trials by burying his tongue inside your warmth and telling you how proud of you he is.  He sees you opening his trousers and slowly licking his cock while he meditates, trying to get him to break his concentration.  He watches the two of you fucking in every conceivable position, how incredibly ready you always are to take him when he needs it.  Most importantly, he recognizes your inherent, blazing desire to drag this out as long as physically possible, to permanently brand every moment in your memory to get you through his impending absence.

And then… then Obi-Wan does something unexpected.  Something incredibly uncharacteristic.

You watch as he morphs the fantasies right before your eyes.  He's still on his knees with his head between your legs, but now he’s telling you how proud he is of you for negotiating the mysterious, confidential deal that ended the Clone Wars.  You’re licking his cock as the ship autopilots itself through the week-long journey back to Coruscant from s’Ziscari, letting him slowly cum in your mouth as he sprawls lazily in the captain’s chair.  He’s taking you against the wall of your quarters after a mindless and dull Council meeting; you’re riding him quietly in his bed after lights-out at the temple; he’s rubbing your clit while he sits behind you and advises you on matters concerning your own Padawan you’ll be choosing sometime soon, two fingers deep and squeezing a bared nipple when he whispers in your ear how much he absolutely adores you.

Thoughts that aren’t your own begin to fill the empty spaces of your mind, a lovely pale blue tenor to harmonize gorgeously with the soft green alto of your own consciousness.  The resulting color of your combined energies fills your soul with Light, a stunning turquoise of a color you’ve never loved more, one you wish you could live in for the rest of your life.

For every debased thought of yours he sees, he shows you one even more revealing.  The way he used to dream of you at night, especially after a close battle where many Jedi and Clones fell, and then he’d wake up in a cold sweat with an erection pulsing feverish and so terribly shameful between his legs.  How he tried to shove a pillow down there once to somehow relieve himself of the aching hardness, and then had to rip it away and launch it across the room with the Force when he realized he’d been dragging himself against it and thinking of you.

“I’m gonna—cum—” your voice scrapes across your throat, and you can already sense him throwing his beautiful consciousness out like a net.  You match him with what little mental strength you have remaining, wrapping your arms around his shoulders and your ankles around his lower back and pulling him down into you.

Obi-Wan’s energy keeps swirling a brilliant aquamarine with yours, presenting his every subconscious thought to you, one right after another, so quick you can barely keep up.  How he’ll always be with you, no matter what.  How the Maker himself won’t be able to drag him away from you now.  How quiet jealousy still tugs at his heart just thinking about the fact that you broke your oath—before you both could do it together.

Everything swells up inside you and you scream when it finally crashes over, your blended signatures sealing themselves together permanently and then detonating in a debilitating shockwave that ripples the air around you.  You’re blinded and deafened by its vivid energy, powerful and dazzling every shade between blue and green and Light and Dark, all balanced perfectly together.

You lay there in the gentle afterglow afterwards and feel your pussy still clamping tight to him, pulsing in random intervals while Obi-Wan slouches into you and every muscle in his body trembles with the comedown.  Everything is right.  Everything in you sparkles.

“Stars, Obi,” you start chuckling up at the ceiling, the sheer joy overwhelming you and bringing tears to your eyes.  “Stars, did we just—”

“We just won the Clone Wars, my dear,” he slurs into the crook of your neck while his cock still throbs inside you, and you can feel the exhaustion creeping up his spine, every single thought in his mind completely dead at the moment.

“How long do you… do you think it’ll take before it’s over?”  You ask quietly, brushing your fingers through his hair.  Obi-Wan groans and buries his face deeper into your neck.

“Few months, maybe.  Time for s’Ziscari…”

He stays like that for just a second, and you press your nose to him and breathe him in, marveling at how utterly gorgeous his signature is right now.  Clear blue with the lightest touch of teal, rippling like quiet water in a crystal calm riverbed.

Lovely.

You keep softly playing with the hair at his nape, and then quickly wrap your arms around him when he goes to try to brace his forearms next to your shoulders and lift up just the slightest bit.

“Wait, don’t—it’s—”  You bite your lip and feel him sink back down into your body without another word, clearly having only attempted it for appearances.  “This is good, let’s just… stay for a second.” 

He doesn’t respond, he doesn’t even move, and—a few months, you think.  A few months of his absence, of wondering where he is but never being able to ask.  It burdens your heart, but you understand it’s necessary.

The Council may… grant me a position with a more permanent location after this mission, he responds quietly to your dip in the Force after a moment, too tired to even talk anymore and exhaustion weaving his every thought.  On Coruscant.

Your heart pangs with sudden hope, and you know he can feel it.  “They would do that?”

I could ask to oversee the s’Ziscari’s assimilation into our ranks, he offers alongside a stifled yawn into your collarbone.

He’d… request that?  To be closer to you?  But why?

He doesn’t hesitate before offering the words to you simply, not even considering them before they’re the only thought in his mind.  Because I care for you more than there are stars in the sky.  I always have.

Lovely.

No, no, not even, that’s just.  Love.  By itself.

“Yes,” Obi-Wan murmurs softly into your neck, and your soul feels like it grows wings.

You both lay there in silence for a long time after that, and it takes you even longer to realize he hasn’t succumbed to sleep yet, even as the aching fatigue weighs heavy on his back.  He’s resisting it, keeping his eyes purposefully open against your neck while yours are blissfully shut.

“Master,” you eventually whisper up at the ceiling, and his cock twitches inside you.  Oh stars, you’ll have to remember that.  “Go to sleep.”

I have one more confession.  The thoughts are slurred and distorted, barely conscious as he desperately tries to outlast the sleep trying to pull him under.  I didn’t even want to mention it before because I didn’t know how this was all going to go, but…  He blinks slowly against your neck even as his eyes droop, only just a few seconds from passing out with exertion.  The Sh’inzith lasts six days, dove.

Your eyes pop open in shock just as his finally fall shut, and Obi-Wan stops fighting.

[ultimatetrashyfanfic]

Non-despair AU! And ever since I watched that thirty minute anime clip with Nagito’s perspective on things, I’ve really liked the idea of him being buds with Kazuichi and Fuyuhiko. And Nagito openly talks about his past trauma on a plane so… what better way to bond than bonding over trauma? Anyway, I love these three so much. Also Komahina because I love them - Circle

(Also forgot to add this, sorry, but it’s on AO3 too) https://archiveofourown.org/works/33483538

Warning: descriptions of panic attacks, nausea, motion sickness, very mild vomiting (like barely any).

Fuyuhiko always thought Nagito was spouting a whole load of bullshit when he lamented about his talent being useless; he would’ve loved having Ultimate Luck right now.

“Haha! You got the short straw, Fuyuhiko!” Akane crowed. “Tough luck!”

“Wait, no! Can’t we do a best of three?”

“Somebody has to sit with them, man,” Nekomaru said. “You guys are already friends, it’ll be a great bonding experience.”

“I don’t want to bond with them in that situation. Because you all know it’ll be a shit show. That’s why we’re fucking doing this,” Fuyuhiko growled, glaring at each of his classmates in turn. Only two were missing, the pair who’d triggered this whole unfortunate drawing of straws in the first place.

“Why can’t you sit with them, Hajime? Nagito is always hanging off you anyway. And Kazuichi is your friend too,” Fuyuhiko said.

“I’m afraid I can’t, Fuyuhiko.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“Because I didn’t draw the short straw.”

“Go fuck yourself.” Fuyuhiko stomped away, his classmates’ laughter echoing behind him. This class trip was already more trouble than it was worth and it hadn’t even started. He was almost tempted to skip the plane journey with the rest of them and hop on a different flight to Novoselic, just to show them. It wasn’t like he needed Sonia to pay his way. But she’d been so enthusiastic about taking her friends to see her home country, and Fuyuhiko couldn’t think of any way to tell her without causing offence. He couldn’t really say he just didn’t want to be stuck babysitting Kazuichi and Nagito on a flight.

It wasn’t that Fuyuhiko didn’t like Kazuichi and Nagito. Sure, Kazuichi could be a real pain in the ass sometimes, and Nagito would go all weird and self-deprecating if you didn’t watch out, but Fuyuhiko still considered them close friends. But the flight to Novoselic was long. Kazuichi could get motion sickness on a fucking bicycle, and Nagito hadn’t set foot on a plane since his parents died on one right in front of his eyes. There was no way it could possibly go well. Fuyuhiko pictured hour after hour of Kazuichi puking and complaining and Nagito… well, he wasn’t sure what the hell Nagito would do. He’d never seen Nagito get flustered before. Hell, that was much more terrifying. He had to get out of this.

In the days before the trip, Fuyuhiko kept trying to convince his kinder classmates to take responsibility for at least one of the other men. “It’s gonna be impossible to help them both,” Fuyuhiko said. “It’ll be better for them if you help me.”

“You could sit between them,” Mahiru said. “And I’ve already promised Hiyoko I’ll sit with her. Sorry.”

Asking Twogami was a no-go too. “It’ll be more considerate to the other passengers if they’re both in one area,” he said. “To limit the disturbance if they become distressed.”

“I’m the one who’ll be feeling fucking distressed,” Fuyuhiko snapped.

Peko overheard, and came over at once. “I’ll take your burden, young master.”

“No, not you!” Fuyuhiko hated the whine in his tone - and he hated the smirk on Twogami’s face too. “You don’t have to do it. You sit with Gundham and pet his hamsters or something. I… I want you to be happy,” he mumbled, blushing fiercely.

Damn it. He could be as bad as Kazuichi sometimes.

There was no way to wriggle out of it. The morning of the trip dawned bright and sunny, and Fuyuhiko’s ticket set him directly between Kazuichi and Nagito. Fantastic.

At least check-in and security went by reasonably peacefully, the walk to their gate quiet. Only Akane and Nekomaru seemed to be properly awake this early in the day, and they stuck with each other. Fuyuhiko glanced at his two friends. Kazuichi still seemed half-asleep, curled on one of the uncomfortable chairs by the gate, watching the planes take off and land in the distance through the huge windows. Nagito was much more concerning. He was smiling brightly… but he didn’t look happy at all.

“Hey, Fuyuhiko, want to know how a plane engine works?” Kazuichi asked.

“No,” he said, but he sat down with a sigh as Kazuichi started talking anyway. He tuned out after a second, though Nagito looked like he was listening.

“Seeing you talk about your ultimate talent is so inspiring, Kazuichi,” Nagito said - and smiled. That weird smile again, desperate and strained.

“It’s nothing. I just think planes are interesting. From an engineering point of view. I really wish I didn’t have to fucking ride one,” Kazuichi groaned.

“Aha, I can’t help feeling apprehensive too. The last time I was on a flight, both my parents died.” Nagito spoke emotionlessly, as if reciting a shopping list, but that smile was still fixed on his face. “But it’s okay. That bad luck brought me a lot of good luck later on. You just have to have hope that things will work out.”

Kazuichi stared at him, mouth open. “Um. Okay. Sorry.” He caught Fuyuhiko’s eye and mouthed what the fuck? Fuyuhiko wasn’t sure if Kazuichi was just now hearing the story or if he was confused by Nagito’s weird behaviour. He shrugged helplessly.

There wasn’t much conversation after that. You couldn’t really carry on your casual chit-chat right after somebody brought up their dead parents. Fuyuhiko kept an eye on Nagito. He was bolt upright in his seat, his eyes staring straight ahead, hands clasped so tight in his lap his knuckles bleached white. With his pale hair and ashen face, he looked like all the blood had drained out of him completely.

Their flight number was called far too soon, and Fuyuhiko dragged his motley crew to the right aisle, pondering where to put everyone. Kazuichi should probably be on the end if he’d be passing vomit bags to some poor stewardess. Fuyuhiko needed to be in the middle, so that left Nagito by the window. He’d have to keep the shutter pulled down.

Hajime passed them on the way to his own seat, and stopped short when he saw Nagito’s face. He leaned right over Kazuichi and Fuyuhiko, ignoring their complaints and curses, and took Nagito’s hand. “Are you alright? You look… off.”

“Don’t worry about me, Hajime.”

“Your hands are clammy.”

“Ah, I’m sorry. How disgusting for you,” Nagito said, smiling. Always smiling.

“That’s not what I meant… Look, do you want to sit with me?”

“Can we move it along please?” somebody called irritably down the aisle.

“You’re holding up the line, Hajime. Don’t worry about me,” Nagito repeated. Hajime looked like he was worrying dreadfully, but he was forced to move along. Nagito clasped his hands again and fixed his gaze on the seat in front, smiling smiling smiling. It was freaking Fuyuhiko out. He looked like he was wearing a mask and his eyes were the only real part of him, swirling with turmoil.

“Hey.” Kazuichi nudged Fuyuhiko’s shoulder and whispered in his ear. “Are Hajime and Nagito… you know. A thing?”

“Mate, you told me you’ve seen them leave Hajime’s cabin together in the mornings.”

“They could just be having a sleepover. As bros.”

“I don’t think it’s that, Kazuichi.”

“Are you sure? ‘Cause I don’t want Hajime to get a new best friend,” Kazuichi said.

Fuyuhiko sighed. “I think you’re safe.”

There was a pause. Then another shoulder nudge a second later. “So Hajime and Nagito? Seriously? Am I the only person on my own in this class?” Kazuichi muttered.

Fuyuhiko was spared from responding by the flight attendants starting the safety briefing, demonstrating how to use the oxygen masks and the life jackets in case of emergency. He had to admit, it was pretty eerie to think that you could, however unlikely it may be, crash into the ocean or need extra oxygen to live long enough to get to land. He glanced over at Nagito nervously. His arms were now curled across his chest, hands gripping his elbows. His head was bent, a cloud of puffy hair hiding his face. Maybe that was for the best.

“Can you try not to puke as long as possible?” Fuyuhiko whispered to Kazuichi. “I feel like I might have a situation to deal with.”

“I’m never trying to puke,” Kazuichi said, but he seemed worried too, glancing past Fuyuhiko. “Hey, Nagito, you doing alright?”

“Don’t worry about me, Kazuichi,” Nagito said, eerily calmly.

“That’s not the same thing as saying you’re fine, is it?” Kazuichi whispered to Fuyuhiko.

“He’s clearly not fucking fine,” Fuyuhiko snapped.

“Should I ask Hajime to swap?” Kazuichi asked.

Fuyuhiko nodded, but before Kazuichi could even undo his seatbelt, the plane jerked and started reversing out of the gate. Fuyuhiko heard Nagito draw in his breath sharply - then he was the one fumbling for his seatbelt, standing unsteadily.

“What the fuck are you doing, man?” Fuyuhiko yelled, catching onto the back of Nagito’s coat as he tried to clamber over the seats. “Sit down!”

“I’m afraid I need to get off,” Nagito said, voice still calm despite his frantic movements.

“It’s already moving, for God’s sake! Sit down before a flight attendant sees you!” It wasn’t hard to force Nagito back into his seat - he seemed light enough for a strong gust of wind to knock him over - and Souda hastily got the belt fastened again just as the plane rolled onto the runway.

“Okay. It’s fine. You’re fine,” Fuyuhiko gabbled, trying hard not to shout or swear or scream at all his classmates for making him deal with this. “Just sit still and… I dunno, plug your ears. The takeoff part is the worst.”

There was a cacophony of whirring as the engines roared to life and Fuyuhiko would be very grateful for all that noise in a second, because Nagito started to laugh. Dry, hysterical laughter, his eyes over-bright and manic, lips bared in that grisly parody of a smile.

“Has he lost his fucking mind?” Kazuichi asked, sounding genuinely frightened.

“You must really hate me, Fuyuhiko,” Nagito gasped. “To restrain me here… You must despise me.”

“I’m not restraining you!”

“Then let me off.” He locked eyes with Fuyuhiko and for a second the manic grin faded. “Please…”

The engines roared to a crescendo and the plane shot forward so quickly everyone was pinned to their seats with the force, zooming on and on until they could feel the entire structure lurch into the air. Kazuichi groaned softly, shutting his eyes, but Fuyuhiko was far more focused on Nagito. He had his eyes squeezed shut too, but his hand clamped hard onto Fuyuhiko’s arm. Really fucking hard. Shit, maybe Nagito wasn’t as weak as he looked. Fuyuhiko cursed as his terrified companion started digging his nails into his skin, actually drawing blood. The pain prompted Fuyuhiko to try prying the hand loose a little, but Nagito clamped on harder, carving several new scratches. Fuyuhiko didn’t dare attempt again; he’d get his arm cut to ribbons.

When the plane was flying high and the swirling, disoriented feeling had eased, Fuyuhiko checked on both men. Kazuichi had his head in his hands, but he gave a shaky thumbs up when Fuyuhiko prodded him.

“‘M okay,” he mumbled. “Got through takeoff. Gets better when it’s levelling out.”

“Right, good. Try to stay that way, yeah? I’ve got a lot to handle right now,” Fuyuhiko sighed. Nagito was still shredding his arm up, but he could feel one finger tapping for attention.

“What? What do you need? Please, no bullshit, Nagito. I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do,” Fuyuhiko said. He was practically yelling in his panic, and the people across the aisle turned to glare.

It was several seconds before Nagito could gather enough breath to speak. Fuyuhiko saw that awful smile stretch across his face again, like somebody had twisted his frown the wrong way round. “Aha, I’m sorry to trouble you, Fuyuhiko, but I think I might be having a panic attack.”

“What?” Fuyuhiko felt like he was going to have a panic attack too. “Why? What’s going on?”

“I can’t seem to catch my breath. And the cabin has been spinning for several minutes.”

“Jesus Christ! Why didn’t you say anything?” Fuyuhiko hurriedly pushed Nagito’s head down as far as it would go before it bumped the seat in front. “Fucking… think of things you can see or something? Shit, I don’t remember.”

“Five things you can see,” Kazuichi chimed in. “Is he really gonna pass out? Hajime is gonna kill us.”

“I’m gonna fucking kill him for leaving this shit to us! How stupid can you get?”

“Ahh, I’m such a nuisance. If I’d known I’d react in such a shameful way, I’d have been sure to take a seat away from all the Ultimates. Why are you taking care of someone like me?”

“Nagito, shut up, this isn’t your fault,” Fuyuhiko said shortly. “Stop babbling on about ultimates and do the panic attack thing. Listen to Kazuichi, he knows how to do it.”

Nagito did as he was told, working through the grounding techniques with Kazuichi while Fuyuhiko held onto his shoulders feeling helpless. Nagito was shaking so hard it was difficult not to drop him altogether. He didn’t pass out, but even after the grounding Nagito looked far from what you’d consider calm. He was grey-white when Fuyuhiko carefully hauled him back upright.

“Are you okay..?”

The smile came back, though it seemed a lot more tired than manic this time. “Ah… I don’t think so, Fuyuhiko.”

“Well. At least you’re honest. Can you tell me how you’re feeling? Physically, I mean. Clearly I see you’re fucked mentally. And please stop smiling like that, you’re creeping me out,” Fuyuhiko said.

Nagito finally released his grip on Fuyuhiko’s arm, his nails coated with blood. He bent forward slowly, carefully, like he was terrified any sudden movements would send him spiralling again, and let his elbows rest on his knees. “I still feel slightly lightheaded. And nauseous. I’d still like to get off.”

Fuyuhiko examined the long scratches on his arm, sighing and mopping the blood with his sleeve. “Well, you’d have a long drop if you tried to get off now. You should cut your damn fingernails too. I’m going to get Hajime.” He turned to Kazuichi. “Watch him for a minute, okay? I don’t fucking care about drawing the short straw anymore, I can’t handle this.” Fuyuhiko scrambled over Kazuichi’s lap into the aisle, ignoring the flight attendant yelling for him to remain in his seat until the seatbelt signs went off.

“Hey! What did you mean drawing the short straw?” Kazuichi called behind him. Fuyuhiko didn’t look back.

“Hajime!” Fuyuhiko yelled when he was still more than six aisles away from the startled man. “You’re swapping with me!” He lowered his voice when he reached Hajime’s seat, but only marginally. “I can’t handle this. I don’t know how you expected Komeada to react to this shit, but whatever you thought, it’s worse. Way fucking worse. And I can’t help him. So go fucking do it yourself.”

“Well, I was going to swap as soon as the seatbelt signs were off,” Hajime said pointedly.

“I don’t give a shit. Look at my arm! Your fucking boyfriend nearly ripped it off at the elbow.” Fuyuhiko brandished his scratched, bloodied arm, and Hajime looked genuinely shocked.

“Oh my God…” He stood up hastily, clinging to the seats in front as the plane was still slightly off-balance. “I’m sorry, Fuyuhiko. I didn’t expect him to panic so much. He never said anything much about it when I asked.”

“Yeah, well, no offence, Hajime, but you can be as thick as three short planks sometimes. So if he implied anything, I don’t doubt you missed it,” Fuyuhiko snapped, taking Hajime’s empty seat - next to Chiaki, thank goodness. She hadn’t even looked up from her Switch this whole time. Perfect.

“I have taken some offence…” Hajime mumbled, then turned to go back down the aisle, trying hard not to catch the eyes of the other passengers staring like they were all part of a circus act. He was pretty sure the whole class was going to get banned from this airline. Gundham had been in trouble already for taking his hamsters out of their little travelling cage - several times. He was insulted by the insistence of the staff that all pets had to be contained, both by their labelling of his hamsters as mere pets and from their implication that his dark devas could ever be contained.

Hajime followed the sounds of more disgruntled passengers to Nagito’s seat. He was in the middle now, hunched over one of those white sick bags, while Kazuichi awkwardly patted his back. He looked relieved to see Hajime, beckoning frantically. “Come help me! I think he’s gonna spew. Weird that it’s not me for once.”

Hajime sighed, struggling to shuffle past his friends to get to Nagito’s other side, squashed by the window. Nagito didn’t acknowledge him. Hajime could see he had his eyes closed, his face strangely calm and smooth, though his breathing was erratic.

“Hey, Nagito? You hearing me?” Hajime called, tapping the other man’s pale cheek.

“Did I drive Fuyuhiko away?” Nagito said, voice strained. “I’m not surprised. To bother the Ultimates with the problems of an insignificant nobody like me.”

“Dude, shut up,” Kazuichi groaned. “Nobody thinks that. Stop being so weird. Fuyuhiko just doesn’t know how to look after people.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to sit up? I doubt you’ll throw up, you wouldn’t eat anything this morning,” Hajime said.

At that exact moment, almost as if to pointedly prove him wrong, Nagito made a choked retching sound and ducked his head down further, cringing.

“Oookay. Or not. Um. You’re okay,” Hajime muttered, placing a wary hand on Nagito’s hair to keep it out of the way. It was strange hair; soft yet thick at the same time, and it poofed up determinedly no matter how many times Ibuki tried him out with different hairstyles.

The seatbelt signs were now off, so Kazuichi stood up hastily, trying to shield Nagito from the people hurrying up the aisle to the bathrooms. Hajime was grateful, but part of him wished he could switch places with Souda. He didn’t think he’d be having to coach Nagito through something so strangely intimate so soon into their… relationship? They’d never come out and actually said they were boyfriends, not even to each other, but their classmates seemed to think they were a couple.

As Nagito really hadn’t eaten much of anything all day, the actual vomiting didn’t last too long, but the dry heaving continued for several agonising minutes, and the nausea remained indefinitely. But Nagito felt safe to lift him head, his pale cheeks dusted with pink. He smiled shakily at Hajime. “How embarrassing. I caused a scene in front of all these people. You must be lamenting the day you set eyes on me.”

“Stop,” Hajime sighed, taking the soiled bag and handing it to Kazuichi.

“Hajime!” Souda squealed, hastily handing it off to a flight attendant, who offered a bottle of water for Nagito in response. Her smile didn’t slip once. Hajime was impressed by her poker face.

“Drink,” Hajime prompted, forcing the bottle into Nagito’s hands. “I want you to try eating something later too. You’re going to pass out.”

Kazuichi sat down again, glancing at Nagito. “You feeling… okay now? Like as okay as you can?”

Nagito took a long drink of water, eyes blank. Then he smiled again, that strange, forced smile. “I really am pathetic, aren’t I? Causing such a dramatic spectacle over something that happened years ago. I don’t deserve such attention from the Ultim-“

“Stop!” Hajime took Nagito’s face in his hands, forcing him to meet his eyes. Hajime thought he saw something flicker in them, some semblance of an honest emotion. “Nagito, can you please stop trying to act like you don’t have feelings. I know you’re scared. And you know what? It’s okay. It’s completely fucking normal to feel like this right now. I shouldn’t have left you. That was me being dense, and I’m sorry. But you can stop pretending. It’s just me here - and Kazuichi, but he’ll understand too. He’s scared of everything.”

“I am not!” Kazuichi cried, outraged.

Hajime didn’t break eye contact with Nagito, both breathing heavily. Nagito glared back at first, his face twisting into a scowl, but Hajime didn’t falter.

“Let me in,” Hajime muttered. “I know you, for God’s sake. You’re not gonna scare me off. It’s okay to need help. Please.”

Another silence for several long, tense seconds. Then - finally, amazingly - Nagito made a soft frustrated noise, lunged forwards and wound his arms around Hajime’s neck so tightly that for a second Hajime thought he’d messed up so badly Nagito was trying to throttle him.

“Hey, careful,” Hajime said, but his voice was gentle and he didn’t try to pry Nagito off. Nagito let his forehead rest on Hajime’s shoulder, his hair falling to shield his face completely. Hajime snaked his own arms awkwardly around Nagito’s slender waist. He could feel Nagito shaking, feel the warm puff of his breathing against his shoulder. The shaking never eased, but as time passed the breathing seemed to calm slightly.

Nagito didn’t speak as he clung to Hajime for dear life. Not a single word. But Hajime hadn’t really expected him to. This was already a degree of vulnerability that Nagito was completely unaccustomed to showing anyone, let alone his almost-boyfriend, his classmates and an entire plane full of strangers. It was a good place to start.

Kazuichi watched them slightly bitterly. “It’s alright for some. I wouldn’t mind someone to cuddle up to,” he muttered.

“That’s your other talent. Ultimate Third Wheel,” Hajime quipped.

Their row of seats was reasonably peaceful after that, though Hajime could hear the laughter and yelling from their classmates further back. He hoped the sensible members of the group could stop them causing too much trouble. Hajime couldn’t go tell them to knock it off himself; whenever he moved at all Nagito would tighten his grip.

He sat there, hour after hour, until he had to pry Nagito off him for a bathroom break. It wasn’t easy. Nagito fought him and clung on as much as he could, though Hajime explained he’d be back in five minutes.

“Look, cling onto Kazuichi while I go pee,” Hajime suggested. Kazuichi didn’t look overly enthusiastic about that idea, but he didn’t protest.

Nagito sighed. He slowly drew back his arms, and whispered three breathy little words into Hajime’s shirt before he went, perhaps the most raw, vulnerable words Hajime had ever heard Nagito say: “Please come back.”

“I will. Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere,” he murmured.

Nagito shifted shakily in his seat, turned to Kazuichi and lunged at him too, wrapping his arms around his neck. Kazuichi squealed and whined that he was being strangled, but he didn’t shove Nagito away. Hajime almost felt like they were new parents, passing their newborn between them: “I’ll hold him for a bit, you go to the loo.”

There was a queue for the tiny airplane bathrooms. Hajime stood impatiently, wriggling his cramped shoulders and rocking back on his heels; he was glad Nagito seemed to be trusting him more, but he was pretty stiff after sitting in the same position for hours.

Two women ahead of Hajime in the queue seemed to be having an animated discussion about something, and when Hajime caught the word “school” he started to listen properly.

“I don’t know what sort of school they come from, but they’re a strange bunch,” one lady hissed. “There’s an odd boy in the row ahead of me, one of that lot, who has a collections of rodents, all free from their cage! Running all over the seat trays! Well, that’s not very hygienic, is it? But when I told him as much, he gave me the most incredibly rude answer.”

“Young people have such foul mouths these days,” the other lady agreed.

“No, he wasn’t swearing. It was ever so strange, almost as if he was… well, you’ll think I sound silly. But it was like he was cursing me.”

It was a good job for Hajime that the toilet became available and the lady rushed inside, because he was biting his cheeks to contain his laughter. When he’d used the loo himself and gone back to release Kazuichi from Nagito’s vice grip, he recited the story for both of them.

Kazuichi laughed, poking Nagito gently. “There you are, Nagito. No need to worry. No matter how weird we are, we can always count on Gundham to be weirder.”

Nagito didn’t respond, but Hajime saw a hint of a smile - a real smile - on his lips before he buried his face in Hajime’s neck again.

[previousloversandmuses]

Slow Burn - Prologue

Part I | masterlist

A/N: This is a “must read” precursor to the whole series. Please read it to know what the origin story is. 

Pairing: Y/N x Obi Wan Kenobi

Words: 2048

Warnings: None. Brief mentions of violence. Low self esteem.

I am always one to experience emotions at a heightened frequency. Dangerous for a Jedi in training I know, but the council never took it as a sign of caution, just a minor set back. Happiness is bright, and beaming, even painful. My cheeks hurt for days after, smile lines sculpting my skin too early in life. Anger is powerful, my skin becoming vicious, and hot. Ripping through me like a silver bullet, and tearing my already unrelenting gut apart. I am loud, I am violent, and most of all, passionate. I would later become grateful of this curse, turning it into a blessing. Sadness is so deep. Tears crash like an ocean, and my heart would ache in my chest. The physical symptoms of my despair become overwhelming, and make me sick.

A fresh eighteen myself, my graduation is only a year or so away. Compared to other padawans, ones that don’t deal with the same struggles as myself, have already been graced with knighthood. They make their masters proud, and have already completed more missions at sixteen than I think I ever will in my entire career. 

I had the choice to become independent, to take my morals by the throat, and shove them deep down inside me, never to be seen again- but it really just isn’t that easy. See, I’m taking this time for meditation, or even a “behavioral therapy” of sorts. I have meetings with other council members, more powerful, and more prominent than my own master, who is often off tending to matters elsewhere. A mighty general he is, but they see me as someone who would cause more of a distraction, so I stay here at the temple left to my own devices. Sometimes I think it may be because I’m a woman, and other times I just take a good look in the mirror and recall the outburst that has stained my face only minutes before. 

Today was like any other; wake up, meditate, exercise, study, combat training, study, try and find time to eat something, and study. I walked down the main hallway with Master Yoda. He spoke to me about how he once struggled with his emotions as well, but with enough meditation, learned how to keep them at bay. Looking down at him and his vacant expression, I was surprised he had ever even felt an emotion a day in his life. That was until seconds later…

Stopping in my tracks, my hand flew over my heart. I recalled feeling out of breath, like my heart had physically stopped beating in my chest, or at least was trying to catch up with the rest of my body. I was shaky, yet somehow managed to take a knee. Something was off, that feeling in my chest grew and grew until I was faced with the blackest black I had ever felt. The darkest emotion to ever run through my body, as cold as ice, and heart stopping. It was deep, I felt it within the darkest abyss in my soul. It wrapped around my insides and nestled itself a home deep within the most shielded corners of my subconscious. That’s when Master Yoda felt it too. His hand flying over his heart, and steadying himself on my own shoulder. His face morphed into a snarl, gasping at the sudden pain that now infected his unwavering calm aura. 

...

After a painstakingly slow recovery, I sat on the edge of my bed. My quarters were neat and tidy. My bed, usually made up in the morning, because I have always been one for a routine. My walls weren’t bare, in fact they were almost completely covered in photographs I have taken from my travels as a Padawan. I'd go to the library, and butcher borrowed books, clipping photos of different words, and alien fauna. But today, those bright colors capable of producing fantasies for hours and hours, seemed black and white. 

I had been staring at the floor for sometime, desperate in trying to heal the ache in my chest. It felt as if I had a cold, like the burn after a deep cough. I felt so tight, so tense, an actual living embodiment of rigor mortis. Yet, at the same time, I hardly felt all there. It was as if my existence was floating all around me, and my shell was sitting vacant on an uncomfortable mattress. The knock on my door was enough for me to engulf myself again. 

“Y/N, are you decent?” The voice asks. 

“Yes,” I reply, rolling my shoulders back. 

“The council has requested an audience. Please report downstairs within the next few minutes.”

I nod my head, as if whoever was behind the door could see me. 

“An audience,”  I think. “Let’s add another year to that training plan, shall we?”

...

Walking downstairs to the council room, I can’t help but feel that all eyes are on me. They cut through me like a hot knife, slicing me thin. I feel so vulnerable. Like everyone around me can feel what I feel, and if I’m being honest, they probably do. A good Jedi who is in tune with the force, and especially in tune with others, can sense an intense emotion from a mile away. I’m sure at this moment I pretty much equate to an open book. No reason to try and hide it, force knows I struggle with concealing even an inkling of agitation. 

Seeing the council room in sight, I take a deep breath. This is it. I’m done for. This reaction was way too over the top. I’ve scared people, I’ve scared Master Yoda. Might as well just turn in my saber now and call it a day.

I walk into the door. Only a few masters sit scattered around. Master Yoda of course perched dead center, Master Windu waiting patiently to his right. But my master was nowhere in sight. You’d think if they were going to terminate me, that maybe my own mentor would be among them? Shaking his head, sending me glares that one could only compare to fucking daggers. He was tough on me for sure, maybe he was too ashamed of what I’d done to even bear to see me in this moment. 

“Coming here so quickly you did,” Starts Master Yoda. “Grateful we all are.”

I smile and bow my head. 

“Y/N,” Master Windu starts. “We’re here to discuss the events that happened earlier.” 

Oh god here it comes. This is it. I’m totally done for. I can’t even keep myself calm now. My face, getting hotter and more red by the second, is going to be the biggest tell. At least let me go out with some dignity. 

“Your reaction, what you felt at least, was not just brought on out of the blue. Master Yoda had the same experience, as did all of us on the council, and most Jedi and padawans in the temple.”

“I don’t understand.” I say. 

“At around 1 Coruscant time, an enemy bomb was detonated on Nal Hutta.”

Then it hit me. My heart sinking, I began to shake my head. 

“Unfortunately, Unit 505, and Master Cato were all killed on impact.”

My ears ring. Slowly, I move over to a chair, bracing myself. 

“That’s,” I start, trying to find the words to say. “He would’ve felt it, all of them would, I don’t understand.”

“We have a feeling it was planted by a Sith. That’s the only way it would’ve clouded any judgement.”

I slump into it, my vision going black, my head spinning. 

Master Cato has been with me since I was a very little girl. Although rough, tough, and brutally honest, he has done nothing but be a father to me time and time again. Everything I do is a reflection of him. He had been so busy at war, fighting day in and day out, I caught myself missing the commands, and demands I once so passionately despised. I took our whole relationship for granted, and now, is this the price I have to pay? The last time we spoke he told me how disappointed he was in my outburst in my Alien Fauna lab. I was being stubborn, I was bratty, and rolled my eyes. We had argued that entire call. He didn’t even attempt to say goodbye. Now, for an eternity, I will have to face the catastrophic guilt of my actions. Live with the fact that I never, ever told him how much I appreciated him. And even, how much I loved him so. The closest thing to family in my life, gone, in the snap of a finger. 

Both Master Yoda and Master Windu continued to talk but it all felt like empty words. I couldn’t hear them anyway. 

“Although this situation isn't ideal, we and the rest of the council applaud you for being able to feel something most of us haven’t been able to experience yet.” Claimed Master Windu.

I don’t listen. I stand up again. 

“What am I going to do? I don’t feel comfortable with being knighted yet. I had- we were working on so many things I-,” I stumbled on my words. 

“You’ll get placed with a new master.”

“There are no new masters. And even if I had been trained a certain way, I don’t know how to learn otherwise.” 

There is silence. 

“The force works in mysterious ways. Meant to happen, I feel.” 

I scoff. “Meant to happen,” what an evil thing to say.

I begin to walk off, stopping of course, only to get in the last word. 

“Not only have you told me that my master has been killed, but you lack any empathy. There is no emotion in your eyes. Nothing.”

“We mourn your master y/n, just as much as you do. You know what we stand for. You know our view on attachments.”

“He's like-,” I choke. “He was like my father.”

I can’t even begin to explain the pain I feel. Disgust in myself, I should’ve been better. I could’ve been better. The last few years of our relationship I’ve just been behaving poorly and rebelling, and then getting angry at him when he made me face the consequences. Like I wasn’t aware of the job I was made to do. I should’ve been nicer, I could’ve been nicer. It’s all going in a circle, all the things I should’ve done just morphed into things I couldn’t do. Maybe I was too emotional. Maybe my tears that fell leading up to this moment was all part of the plan, the final kicker to show that I wasn’t apathetic enough for this job. My empathy, my burning passion will always be my biggest flaw. This hole that gapes inside of me will never be filled, and now it grows bigger. It’s like a disease. Am I enough? Will I ever be enough?

“Put you with Master Kenobi, we will.” States Master Yoda. 

Master Windu is quick in turning his head. He glares at him. 

“Master Yoda, General Kenobi has just finished his training with Anakin. It is far too early to give him a new Padawan, if at all.”

Yoda nods, almost giggling. 

“Yet so freshly knighted, a Padawan Anakin already has. Obi Wan will have no problem with taking on a student. Graduates soon, she will.”

“But General Kenobi and I have two completely different methods of combat, let alone ideals.” I scoff. 

“All Jedi have the same ideals.” Adds Windu. 

“He is a Jedi guardian, I am a Jedi sentinel-“

“Train with General Kenobi you will. Not long ago he also lost his master too soon.”

Master Yoda nods to me. He stands up and walks over to the large windows behind him. Looking out over Coruscant, he takes a deep sigh of relief. 

“Master Windu,” says Yoda. “Get in contact with the 212th battalion.” 

I watch on as my fate now rests in a stranger's hands.

[whumpmatsus]

Why hello there new blog. 👀 I shall watch with interest. Would it be fine to ask for Karamatsu with a bad stomachache/similar?

hehe, I hope you enjoy watching!

and YES of course! God I'm such a Karamatsu girl 😩

We've got some of everything here, I think? Oops All Matsus! XD ... but the Choukeimatsu is definitely strong in this one haha

enjoooooy! <3

-

It’s kind of a given that in a house with six brothers in close quarters, anything one of them catches is going to end up running its way through all of them.

It’s… less of a given that Karamatsu is going to be the one who recovers last.

Most of the time he’s the first one to push through it, seemingly via sheer power of will because he wants to take care of the others. Or, at least, he’s not usually the one still down for the count when everyone else is on the mend.

This time around, he’s been curled up on the couch since all of them woke up this morning. They’re all feeling fine, while he’s apparently still feeling like crap.

He’s set himself up with a wastebasket nearby and he’s refused everything his brothers have tried to shove down his throat ― water, food, even medicine is turned away. They all might think he’s just being stubborn if not for the fact that he’s so clearly still sick. Regardless, they’ve stopped trying to offer since they know he isn’t going to take any of it.

As far as Karamatsu himself is concerned, if whatever sickness he’s got is going to kill him, he wishes it would hurry up and do so already. He doesn’t know how much more he can take. There’s an uncomfortable, cramping heat in his belly that’s constantly threatening to flip into something much worse. He’s been vomiting for a couple days now, on and off, like the rest of his brothers. Unlike them, however, it hasn’t gotten much better for him.

He tries so hard to be cool and unbothered. This is starting to worry him, though. How come everyone else is back to normal while he continues to struggle not to puke at the mere thought of plain rice?

For as much as Totty claims to hate germs, the youngest has been camping out next to the couch most of the morning, playing on his phone. It affords Karamatsu a view of the games Totty’s playing and the videos he’s watching; distractions as he tries to keep himself from tossing what little there is left to toss in his stomach. He isn’t sure whether or not Totty planned it that way, just that he’s grateful for something else to focus on other than the unbearable nausea.

“Heyyyy, Karamatsu-nii-san,” he suddenly speaks up, holding the phone closer to his miserable older brother’s line of sight. “What do you think of this pretty girl? Is her dress the right color for winter? It’s cute, but, I don’t know… I think maybe she would have looked better in blue…”

Now, Karamatsu isn’t sure what it is about the video clip Totty is showing him. It might be the bright lights in the background, or it might be the twirling motions the woman on the screen is making. Or, quite frankly, it might be nothing at all, since he feels so horrible.

But only a few seconds after he squints at the video clip, his stomach rebels against something. Although he wants to reply to his dearest younger brother, the second he parts his lips to give a clever retort, he feels his stomach clench. Saliva pools in his mouth, and he quickly raises a hand up to his face.

He swallows once. Twice. Three times. He tries to take a breath, in through his nose and out through his mouth like Choromatsu taught him. Nothing helps, because he ends up gagging anyway.

Immediately Totty yelps and launches himself away from the sofa. All the noise, particularly Karamatsu’s heaving, catches the attention of the rest of the sextuplets. Soon enough, someone has hurried over to hold the wastebasket beneath him, and someone else is using what feels like all their strength to help prop him over it so he doesn’t miss.

A brief glance up reveals that the one holding him is Jyushimatsu ― of course, he’s the most coordinated of them all ― and Choromatsu is playing trashcan jockey. Karamatsu’s head swims again, and that small motion is all that’s needed for his stomach to protest again. He retches a few times before whatever is left, which can’t be much at this point, splatters into the can.

“Totty!” he can hear Choromatsu scolding the youngest. “W-what the hell was that for?!”

“What was what for?!” Totty retorts. “I was trying to cheer him up! It’s not my fault!”

Ichimatsu snickers from his spot in the corner. “Che, so you made Shittymastu sick by trying to help. Sounds about right for you.”

“Excuse me?! You take that back or I’ll post that video of you being a drunk asshole online so everyone can laugh at my big, dumb brother!”

“HEY!” It’s Osomatsu who quiets the entire room with one sharp word. He’s knelt next to the couch, one hand trying to keep Karamatsu’s hair out of his face. “Would you guys all shut the fuck up? For God’s sakes, let the poor bastard puke in peace! The last thing he needs is to hear you douches arguing while he’s giving the trashcan a new coat of paint!”

For his part, Karamatsu appreciates his older brother standing up for him when he’s unable to do so himself. It’s just a little hard to convey that when his body is trying to bring up everything he’s eaten ever in his life.

It hurts, too. The sensation in his stomach is tight now, painful like there’s a knife stuck in his middle. Every gag makes a stabbing, all-over pain spiderweb through his whole body. As if he’s made of porcelain and something is repeatedly making cracks.

Finally he thinks it should be over, because nothing else is coming up. He shudders and heaves and it doesn’t produce anything other than an uncomfortable ache in his throat. Honesty, his entire body is aching now.

He lets out a few ragged breaths before slumping back onto the sofa, predictably pulled into a more-careful-than-usual Jyushimatsu hug. “It’s okay, Karamatsu-nii-san! I’ve got you!!”

“Aaah.” Karamatsu lifts his hand and places it, shaking, on his little brother’s head to praise him for a job well done. “Jyushimatsu… I’ll leave it to you… to tell my Karamatsu girls… I loved them…”

He hears Ichimatsu scoff. “You should be more worried that you were puking without puking than your nonexistent fangirls, you dumbass.”

“Yeah, that was weird,” Osomatsu agrees. “You heard that too, Ichimatsu?”

“Mhm. It almost made me want to hurl again.”

“Yeah… he should be better by now. I mean, we’re all fine. And he hasn’t been eating, so it’s not like there’s anything left in there. What’s his stupid body trying to throw up? His Goddamn kidneys?”

Karamatsu hears Choromatsu groan. “Oh, my God, you guys are disgusting!” When Karamatsu looks up, the third eldest is hovering over him with a concerned expression. “Ah… they… might be right, though. Karamatsu-nii-san… you’re just as sick as we all were at the beginning of this. It doesn’t seem like you’ve improved like we have. How… do you feel now? Any better since you threw up?”

He tries to laugh. It comes out sounding more like a sob, though. “N… no…” It feels like even too deep a breath will tip the scale on his nausea and cause another avalanche. “I’m… I’m dizzy… it still hurts.”

“A-ah, gosh…” Choromatsu’s hand sets lightly against Karamatsu’s cheek, then neck, and if his face is any indicator, he doesn’t like what he feels. “You’ve… still got a fever. And you’re sweating and lightheaded and… still throwing up. Shit.”

He moves his hand to gently card through his big brother’s hair as if trying to reassure him. “Karamatsu-nii-san… d-do you think you could make it to the doctor? If we helped you?”

That’s not an idea he enjoys entertaining. Having to get up off the couch, bundle up in a coat, ride the train… it sounds so exhausting. He’s already tired. But… if Choromatsu is even bringing it up, he must think it’s a better idea than Karamatsu continuing to try and recover on the couch.

He manages a nod. “Sure… sure, if you help me.”

“Great.” Choromatsu straightens up and heads for the door. “I’ll go call the office and see if they can get you an appointment today. If they can, I’ll go with you, and…” He surveys the rest of the room. “… I’d prefer at least onemore person go with us, just in case.”

“Yeah, I’ll go, no problem.” The eldest’s voice is one Karamatsu didn’t expect to hear, though maybe he should have. Osomatsu is still lingering on the floor next to him, taking the spot where Totty was, and, now that Karamatsu thinks about it, he can feel his older brother gently rubbing his shoulder. “… Do you think maybe we should try to force him to drink something, too? You can’t survive without water, right?”

Choromatsu sighs; not necessarily because it’s one more thing to add to the list, but it sounds like he’s just worried. He probably doesn’t want to force one of his brothers to do anything ― especially one of his big brothers, and especially when said big brother is already so sick. “I mean… yeah, it’s not good that he hasn’t had anything to drink today, and not much in the last few days. Throwing up so much is probably making him dehydrated… which, stupidly enough, can make him throw up more.”

Osomatsu hums in thought and gives Karamatsu’s shoulder a small squeeze to get his attention. “Hey, Karamatsu. Do you think you could handle some tea?”

“Really weak tea,” Choromatsu hurries to clarify. “You’re not supposed to drink anything too intense after throwing up.”

Karamatsu shuts his eyes in a desperate bid to avoid the worried, pleading faces of his brothers looking back at him. Just thinking about anything going into his body and sliding down his throat right now makes his stomach swirl viciously.

He feels Jyushimatsu hug him a little tighter, which doesn’t help matters. “Aww, please, Karamatsu-nii-san! You can drink some tea for your little brother, right? Riiiiight?”

A groan is what he gets in response, though the giggling suggests he isn’t too broken up about it.

His hair is brushed back, and stroked through a few times. “Well,” Osomatsu says softly, “how about for your big brother, then?”

After a moment of thought, Karamatsu lets out a whimper, leaning his head closer that way in an obvious attempt for more affection. “I… suppose I do only have one older brother, after all…”

He hears Choromatsu chuckle by the door. “Good, good. I’ll make some, then. We’ll try not to make you drink too much… and… I’ll call the doctor while I boil water for it. Hopefully they can fit you in. In the meantime, just, um… try to rest, alright?”

At the very least, he doesn’t have to tell Karamatsu twice. The second eldest relaxes, keeping his eyes shut. He hears Osomatsu quietly urge Jyushimatsu to switch positions, and he scoots himself up onto the couch. Somehow he manages to pull Karamatsu into his lap, letting his younger brother curl up against his stomach.

“Hey, there. It’s okay. Big brother’s gotcha, Kara.” A careful touch runs up and down Karamatsu’s back, bringing the slightest sense of relief. “Get some sleep.”

Then Osomatsu pauses, and with a laugh he adds, “Just… warn me if you’re gonna puke again, okay?”

[purrincess-chat]

Marinette Dupain-Cheng’s Spite Playlist: Remix CH9

This is the first new chapter! Every last bit of it has never been read before (except by me and my betas)! What nefarious schemes will Adrien and Chloe try? Find out below!

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Chapter 9: Emperor’s New Clothes

“Are you sure this is going to work?” Adrien asked as Chloe adjusted her wig. He peeked over the railing to the courtyard below with a frown. All of their classmates were gathered, enjoying their break—completely unsuspecting of what was about to commence.

“Of course it’ll work. These people are idiots who will believe anything.” Chloe snapped her compact shut and tossed it into her purse. “If they had any sort of intelligence, they would have seen right through Lila by now.”

“Yeah, but what if they-” Chloe pressed a finger to his lips.

“Just leave this to me, Adrikins. Being mean isn’t exactly your area of expertise.” She patted his cheek. “Little Miss Lie-la is about to be exposed. Now get into position!”

Adrien swallowed hard before climbing down the stairs to stand by the science lab door. Even though he agreed to help Chloe get back at Lila, he wasn’t entirely ready to deal with the guilt that came with it. Lila was a menace, and her lies needed to stop—that much Adrien could agree with, but he’d be lying if he said it didn’t make his skin crawl.

To justify going through with it, he reminded himself why he’d agreed to help in the first place. Marinette didn’t deserve to be pushed away from her friends, and freeing them from Lila’s grasp would help her move on. This was for Marinette, and on those terms only, he could accept it.

“Hello, everyone! It’s me, your favorite superheroine, Ladybug!” Chloe called into the courtyard as she descended the stairs, and every head turned to face her.

“Is that Ladybug?”

“It is Ladybug!”

“Is there an akuma?”

Adrien hung back with a wince as a crowd gathered around her. This was for Marinette. Lila needed to be stopped. He agreed to this.

“Yo, Ladybug, what are you doing here?” Nino asked.

Chloe placed a hand on her hip. “Oh, I was just in the neighborhood being a super amazing superheroine and protecting Paris from akumas, and I thought I’d stop in and visit my bff. So where exactly is Lila Rossi?” Chloe pressed a hand over her eyes and scanned the courtyard.

“She’s over here!” Alya waved. Despite Lila’s best efforts to shrink behind Alya, her new bestie wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to talk to Ladybug.

“Ah, there you are, my bff. It’s been so long since we’ve last seen each other. You remember? That time I saved your life, and we became instant bffs?” Chloe crossed her fingers. “You haven’t returned my calls, so I was starting to get worried.”

“Lila’s been out of the country until recently, and she’s been super busy catching up on school ever since she got back,” Alya explained. She patted Lila’s shoulder with a beam, and Lila offered a sheepish grin in return.

“Uh, yeah…” Lila’s face blanched.

They had her cornered. This was actually working! Maybe Adrien wouldn’t have to get involved after all.

“Oh, right, you went to Achu to visit Prince Ali. Funny though, I talked to Prince Ali yesterday—his assistant wanted to make sure that Paris was safe for his upcoming visit, so naturally they called me—I asked him how your visit went, and he didn’t remember inviting you to come to his palace.” Chloe cupped her cheek in one hand. “How weird is that?”

“Wait, what?” Everyone turned to look at Lila who stiffened, and a smirk curled on Chloe’s lips.

“But you were gone for over a month, Lila. I thought you said Prince Ali invited you to come stay with him,” Rose said. She hugged her scrapbook full of Prince Ali magazine clippings to her chest.

“He did!”

“But Ladybug just said he didn’t.” Alix crossed her arms over her chest.

“Well, she must be mistaken,” Lila said. “I’m your friend. Why would I lie to you?”

“Ladybug is a superhero. She’d never lie to us either.”

“What’s the truth then?”

“Yeah, Lila, tell us the truth.” Chloe egged. “Or perhaps you’d prefer to hear it from someone else? I’ve got a pretty killer witness. Adrikins, be a dear and come over here.”

Adrien hesitated, heart hammering in his chest. He couldn’t go through with this. Even though Lila deserved it, he couldn’t bring himself to call her out like this in front of everyone. There had to be another way.

“Wait a second, Adrikins?” Alya’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t think we have to wonder who’s telling the truth, do we, Chloe?”

“What? I’m not Chloe! She has way better hair than I, Ladybug, do. Plus she’s way funnier, prettier, smarter, and hey!” She spun around as Kim ripped off her wig.

“Ugh, we should have known,” Alya said. “You’re just upset because Lila beat you for class rep. Honestly, Chloe, grow up!”

“Yeah, Chloe, this is super lame.”

“Why do you always gotta pick on people?”

“You just can’t stand that someone’s getting more attention than you.”

Chloe shot Adrien a cutting glare as if to say, “Get out here and do your part,” but Adrien shot her an apologetic wince before ducking into the science lab.

“What are you doing? You can still stop that girl,” Plagg said when Adrien pulled his shirt aside.

“I panicked. I don’t want it to go down like this,” Adrien said. He ran a hand through his hair with a sigh. “I just can’t do it.”

“So you’re just going to let her keep using everyone?” Plagg asked.

Adrien squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head. “Transform me!”

“Nice try, Chloe, but Lila won fair and square,” Nino said when Chat Noir landed in the courtyard.

Chloe blew a piece of hair from her face grumpily. “You all are so stupid if you actually believe anything she says. Even Dupain-Cheng realized she was a liar. I don’t want to be your class representative anyway. You’re all so lame.”

“The only liar here is you, Ladybug,” Alix said, and Kim waved her black wig over her head tauntingly.

“Lila is a liar! Ask Adrien. He can tell you!” Chloe’s cheeks flushed an angry red.

“Dude, leave Adrien alone.” Nino groaned, shaking his head. “Just admit you’re jealous, so we can all go home.”

“I’m really sorry if I’ve upset you, Chloe. If you want, I can talk to Mlle. Bustier about letting you be the class rep instead if it means so much to you. I don’t want us to fight,” Lila said humbly.

“Liar!” Chloe stomped her foot.

“I’m not lying! I promise,” Lila said. She held up her right hand for emphasis.

“Oh really?” Every head turned around as Chat Noir laid his staff across his shoulders.

“Yo, it’s Chat Noir! Like for real this time!”

“What are you doing here, Chat Noir?” Alya pulled out her phone to record.

“I heard that m’lady was making a house call, so I thought I’d come by and make sure everything was in order.” He cast a smirk in Chloe’s direction. “But it looks like someone just wanted to play dress-up.”

Goading Chloe probably wasn’t his smartest move, seeing as she was absolutely going to kill Adrien for chickening out, but he needed everyone on his side. Taking cheap shots at Chloe was always an instant crowd-pleaser.

“So, since you’re so honest, is there anything you’d like to share with the class?” he asked Lila. “Now would be a good time to get anything that your friends don’t know about you off your chest.”

She didn’t seem deterred by his presence at all, eyes glinting with amusement. Chat Noir bristled, grip tightening on his staff. Lila held no remorse for any of her actions, and she’d cling to her lies until the very end. Chat Noir bit his tongue hard as she turned to everyone else and plastered on a pout.

“There is something I want to tell all of you…” She clasped her hands over her heart. “I’ve been hesitant because I know you all have mixed feelings, but I think Marinette is behind all of this.”

“What?” Chat Noir and Chloe said in unison.

“Why do you say that, Lila?” Alya asked.

“Well, the other day on my way home I saw Chloe going to Marinette’s house, and now she’s here calling me a liar just like Marinette used to do,” Lila said, letting her face fall into her hands. “I just don’t know what I did to deserve to be treated this way.”

Everyone crowded closer to her offering their sympathy as alligator tears rolled down her cheeks, and a host of cutting glares aimed at Chloe. They should have planned for something like this. Lila always bent the truth to suit herself.

Rage boiled in Chat’s core, and it took every ounce of his willpower not to tackle Lila to the ground. How could anyone be so despicable?  

“Hang on,” he said firmly, forcing his shoulders to relax. “I’ve met Marinette a few times, and she doesn’t seem like that type of girl.”

“Yeah, I’m not so sure that’s true either, Lila,” Alix spoke up. “I mean, Chloe and Marinette hate each other. Chloe would rather die than set foot in her house.”

Alya pursed her lips and turned to Chloe. “Is it true? Did you go to Marinette’s house?”

Chloe averted her gaze, crossing her arms over her chest. “I did go to see Dupain-Cheng at her tiny, disgusting hovel, but…she refused to help me—stupid little goody-two-shoes,” Chloe said. She met Alya’s gaze head-on and squared her jaw. “But with friends like you, I’m starting to see why she left. She was nothing but nice to you losers, and yet you’d so easily believe that she’d help me get back at someone. You’re all so pathetic.”

“The only pathetic one here is you, Chloe. Lila’s never done anything. None of us have! We’re sick and tired of putting up with your crud,” Nathaniel said, and several classmates echoed their agreement.

“Whatever. I don’t want to be your class representative anyway if you’re all too stupid to tell the difference between a diamond and a lump of coal.” Chloe flipped her hair over her shoulder, hips swaying as she stalked to the locker room.

Chat Noir almost chased after her, but his staff beeped with a message from Ladybug. There was an akuma across town. Chloe was going to have to wait.

♪♫♪ Broken Pieces Shine ♪♫♪

Marinette chewed her pencil, tilting her head to examine her designs from different angles. Clara’s deadline was still several weeks away, but she already had tons of ideas. Would Clara like a tasteful pantsuit or a flowing gown? Which one said ‘award-winner?’ Maybe if she added a sash or changed up the neckline…

The lunchroom bustled several simultaneous conversations, condensed into a uniform hum in Marinette’s ears while she worked. She was vaguely aware of her friends at the table with her, but when Macy leaned in to get a closer look at what she was working on, she still jumped.

“Ooo, are those for you-know-who?” she asked.

“Shh!” Marinette covered her sketchbook and glanced around to ensure no one had overheard. “Yes, but they’re not final. I’m just playing around with some ideas.”

“I like them,” Macy said. “Look at this one, Eliott. Eliott?”

He was unusually quiet that day, but Marinette had been too enthralled in her own work to notice. His nose was buried in a booklet, seemingly as engrossed in it as Marinette had been with her designs. He only looked up when Macy stuck her hand in front of his face.

“What?” He blinked.

“Marinette is designing top-secret things, and she needs opinions,” Macy said.

“Can’t you ask Martin?” he asked.

Macy gave him an incredulous look. “Martin left 10 minutes ago to go work with his group on their science project. Weren’t you listening?” She scolded. Though in Eliott’s defense, Marinette hadn’t noticed either.

“Oh, sorry. Guess I was distracted.” He closed the cover but marked the page with his finger. “So what do you need?”

Macy shook her head, taking a bite of her cake. “You two are such space cadets today.”

“What are you studying, Eliott?” Marinette asked. She tilted her head to get a better look at the cover.

“I’m in a community play, and we have rehearsal tonight,” he said nonchalantly.

“Wow, that’s so awesome! What part did you get?”

“Oh, it’s nothing special…” Eliott sat back with a smirk and shrugged.

“He’s being modest. He’s playing one of the leads, and he’s super excited about it. He memorized his lines in like 3 days, but he always reads over the script again before rehearsals.” Macy finished her cake and stood up. “I’m gonna get another drink. Help Marinette with her designs!”

“Fine, but can you get me a slice of that cake, please?” Eliott requested. He pressed his palms together with a smile. Macy rolled her eyes but headed for the dessert stand anyway.

“So, you got a lead role. What play are you guys doing?” Marinette asked, and Eliott tossed her the script.

Miraculous! The Battle of Heroes’ Day

“Oh, so it’s about Ladybug and Chat Noir,” Marinette said with as much casualty as she could muster. “Wait, if you’re playing a lead role then that means…”

“You guessed it, m’lady.” He winked.

Marinette bit back a laugh. The director definitely cast the right person. Put Eliott in a blond wig, and even she’d believe he was Chat Noir.

“That’s so awesome! When is it opening? I’d love to come watch.” She passed back the script, and he found his page again.

“Not for a couple more weeks, but if you want, I can see about getting you into one of our dress rehearsals soon,” he offered.

“Really? Yeah, I’d love to.”

Macy returned with Eliott’s slice of cake, but not before Gabrielle locked on target. “Did you save any cake for the rest of us? No wonder your uniform looks so tight these days.”

When Macy froze, Marinette turned to Gabrielle with a glare. “She got it for Eliott because some people don’t spend all of their time thinking about themselves.”

“I think about other people all the time,” Gabrielle said with a wicked grin. “I’ve actually been feeling sorry for Macy after Simon rejected her three weeks ago. If only she were prettier, then maybe Eliott would be more than just a friend.”

“Eliott and I aren’t like that.” Macy shot back.

“Clearly,” Gabrielle said with a grunt. “Tell me, Eliott. Have you ever thought about dating Macy?”

“Well, no, but-”

Gabrielle threw her head back with a laugh, and Macy’s cheeks flushed a deep red. She stormed from the cafeteria, tears bubbling in her eyes. Gabrielle watched her go with a triumphant smirk that made Marinette’s blood boil.

“You should go after her,” Marinette said to Eliott.

“Trust me, she doesn’t want to see me after that.” He shrugged and returned to his script.

“How can you say that? She’s your best friend, and best friends should always be there for each other no matter what!” Marinette slammed her palm on the table, but when Eliott refused to look at her, her jaw clenched. “You’re wrong. I think you’re the exact person Macy wants to see right now.” She didn’t wait for his reply before gathering her sketchbook and chasing after Macy.

The halls were empty and quiet, the chorus of chatter from the cafeteria fading as Marinette raced down the stairs. Macy was nowhere in sight, and Marinette didn’t know where to begin looking for her. After a week, Marinette was still learning her way around—not to mention still learning her new friends.

If it were Alya, Marinette knew exactly where to look, which treat from the bakery would always cheer her up, and as a last resort, where she was ticklish. She didn’t have those ins with Macy yet.

Eliott would know.

Eliott… How could he sit by while his friend was upset? Didn’t he care about her at all? If they really were best friends, then why didn’t he stand up for her and believe her when she said she was hurt? It was so obvious that Gabrielle just wanted attention. How could he let her come between them? Why did he let her walk away? Shouldn’t he chase after his best friend and make sure she was okay? Isn’t that what friends were supposed to do?

Marinette leaned against a row of lockers, shoulders heaving and tears stinging her eyes. Wasn’t she a good friend? Didn’t she always take care of everyone? So why would they turn their backs on her? How could they leave her all alone?

“What’s wrong, Marinette?” Tikki poked her head out of Marinette’s blazer.

Marinette sat on the floor with a sigh, resting her head against the lockers. “It just gets so hard,” she whispered. “Always being there for everyone. Being the one to fix everything for everyone. Sometimes I just wonder… who will be there to fix me when I need it?”

“You’ve got me,” Tikki said. She floated up to nuzzle Marinette’s cheek. “And your parents, Master Fu, Adrien.”

Marinette smiled at that, petting Tikki’s bulbous head with one finger. “Thanks, Tikki. I needed a friend.”

Screams echoed up the hall, and Marinette jumped to her feet. Shaking off the last of her doubts, she slapped her cheeks and took a deep breath. She wasn’t alone, and she would make sure her friends never were either.

“That sounded like it came from the cafeteria. I think it’s safe to say we know where Macy is,” Marinette said. “Transform me!”

Terrified teens with crooked teeth and unibrows rushed past as Ladybug entered the cafeteria. All around the room, her classmates cowered from the akuma zeroing in on Gabrielle in the center. Macy had become the perfect porcelain doll carrying a mirror in her hands—no doubt where the akuma was hiding.

Ladybug hooked her yoyo around Gabrielle’s shoulders and tugged her to safety, even if she deserved whatever punishment Macy was about to give her.  “Get somewhere safe,” she ordered.

“Duh,” Gabrielle said. Ever the gracious one.

“You’re welcome.” Ladybug rolled her eyes as Gabrielle raced off.

With Gabrielle out of the way, the akuma settled for Thomas. She held her mirror in front of him, and his handsome face broke out in angry red zits. The misshapen students fleeing the cafeteria all made sense. Gabrielle told Macy she wasn’t attractive, so now she was making everyone else look the part instead.

“You shouldn’t have let her get away, Ladybug. I think everyone here would like to know what she’s ashamed of,” the akuma said.

While that much might have been true, Ladybug wasn’t in the business of agreeing with one of Hawkmoth’s villains. “Revenge is never the answer, Macy. You’re better than this. Let me help you.”

“I’m not Macy anymore. My name is Mirror-Mirror!” she shouted. Her glassy eyes bore all of her pain, the real Macy screaming inside. “If you want to help me, then give me your Miraculous!”

Ladybug dodged her strike, flipping backward onto a table. Mirror-Mirror wasted no time charging in again and again, the destructive force of her anguish taking its toll on the cafeteria. It was impossible to get a hit in edgewise without seeing herself in the mirror, and Chat Noir hadn’t turned up yet.

“Kitty, I’m battling an akuma, and I really need your help! Where are you?” Ladybug spoke into her yoyo phone. Looks like she’d have to navigate this one on her own. “Lucky Charm!”

A slingshot seemed straight forward enough, but what could she use as ammo? Nothing stood out, and in her moment of distraction, she barely dodged a flying table. Her lucky charm skittered across the floor as she stumbled into her landing, and Mirror-Mirror closed in.

“Mirror, Mirror on the wall, what darkest fears hide in us all?”

“No!” Ladybug tried to shield her face, but it was too late. Her eyes locked with her reflection, and she sank to her knees, all of the fight leaving her body.

What was happening? Everyone else got pimples or big feet, so why couldn’t she move? If Macy’s mirror made everyone unattractive, then why? Why did she feel so…helpless?

What darkest fears hide in us all?

Of course! Her mirror didn’t just make people unattractive. It turned them into the thing they’re most ashamed of—the parts of themselves they hid from the world. And what was Ladybug ashamed of? Failing? Perhaps. Having her identity exposed? Probably.

But as Mirror-Mirror reached for her earrings, their eyes locked, and she saw what she truly feared. The mirror didn’t take her powers. It took her will to fight. More than anything she wanted to save Macy. To save Alya. Her friends. Everyone. But her legs refused to move.

Ladybug’s greatest fear wasn’t losing. It was being powerless to help the people she loved most.

“I can’t do it,” she whispered, head falling.

Mirror-Mirror’s fingers closed around her earrings, but before she could remove them, Chat Noir’s staff struck her side, sending her flying into the wall.

“Ladybug!” He rushed to her side. “Sorry it took so long, m’lady. Are you alright?”

“No.” She shook her head.

Chat Noir cast a nervous glance at Mirror-Mirror as she stood up. “Come on. We’ve gotta move.”

“I can’t,” Ladybug repeated.

“Are you hurt?” Chat Noir bent one of her knees. “M’lady? What’s wrong?”

“I can’t save her, Chat Noir.”

He searched her expression before scooping her up and leaping out of the way of another attack. He set her down gently and brandished his staff. Would he leave her one day too? What if she couldn’t protect him either?

No. That was ridiculous. Chat Noir would always have her back.

You thought Alya would have your back too. Look how that turned out.

That was different. Lila was manipulating her.

Who’s to say a villain couldn’t do the same to Chat Noir? He could turn his back on you.

He wouldn’t.

But he could.

Ladybug squeezed her eyes shut, pushing against the darkness clouding her mind. Ever since she became Ladybug, she’d always relied on her head to get through tough situations. Now even her own thoughts were working against her. She didn’t know what to believe anymore. Macy needed her help. She needed to save her friends.

Mirror-Mirror kicked Chat Noir in the gut, spreading him on his back. His staff rolled into Ladybug’s feet as Mirror-Mirror closed in. She needed to help him, but her legs wouldn’t budge. Her lucky charm was only a few yards away. If she moved now, she could reach it before Mirror-Mirror changed Chat Noir too.

But what was the point? Even if she did reach it in time, she still hadn’t figured out what to do with it. This battle was over.

“Hey, Macy!”  Eliott stood in the doorway, shoulders squared and head high. His hands were balled into tight fists to hide how they shook as he approached.

Ladybug assumed he ran away after getting zapped just like everyone else, but he looked completely normal. She hadn’t seen him since she left to find Macy, so he should have been in the cafeteria when Mirror-Mirror first attacked. Had he gone to look for Macy after all?

Mirror-Mirror abandoned Chat Noir, freeing him to rush to Ladybug’s side. He retrieved her lucky charm on the way and placed it in her hands. “Come on, Ladybug. Think.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t stand up for you earlier,” Eliott said, and when she raised her mirror, he shoved his hands in his pockets. “Go ahead if it will make you feel better, but it’s not going to do you any good.”

When Eliott remained unchanged, she lowered the mirror with a growl. “Why isn’t it working?”

“Because I’m already the thing I’m most ashamed of,” Eliott said. “I was a bad friend to you, and that hurts me more than anything else ever could. Marinette was right. Friends should never turn their backs on one another, and that’s why I’m never going to abandon you again.”

“LB.” Chat Noir placed a hand on her shoulder. “I’m here. What do you need?”

Eliott hadn’t abandoned Macy, and Chat Noir wasn’t abandoning her. Not all friendships were destined to fail. So long as she held onto her faith in the people she loved, everything would be alright.

Ladybug turned the slingshot over in her hands. If she combined it with Chat Noir’s staff… She loaded the slingshot and aimed for the pillar diagonally across from them. The staff ricocheted off the wall, soaring right into the mirror. The glass shattered, and a black butterfly fluttered out.

Chat Noir pulled her to her feet, and she captured the akuma with one swipe of her yoyo. She took a deep breath as Miraculous Ladybug returned everything to normal, the last traces of her insecurities fading. When Chat Noir offered her a fist, she stretched up to hug his neck instead—he didn’t complain.

As Hawkmoth’s magic faded, Macy collapsed forward into Eliott’s arms. “What happened?” she groaned.

“You were akumatized, but I’ve got you,” he said gently.

Students filed back into the cafeteria, cheering for another victory over Hawkmoth. Gabrielle stood at the back of the crowd, arms crossed over her chest, and Eliott eyed her with a frown.

“I know I should have stood up for you, but Gabrielle didn’t let me finish,” he said. “You’re not just a friend to me, Macy. You’re my family, so of course I’ve never thought of you that way.” When Gabrielle rolled her eyes, he continued, “I think this has shown us that we all have things about ourselves that we don’t like, and just because I’ve never seen you that way doesn’t mean I don’t think you’re really beautiful, Mace.”

Macy hugged his neck, prompting more cheers from their classmates. Ladybug and Chat Noir used the noise as cover to slip silently out the door.

♪♫♪ Stall Me ♪♫♪

The day was over when Adrien made it back to school. Most of the students had already gone home, and he believed Chloe had too until he rounded the corner to his locker. He was going to have to face her eventually, though he hoped to delay it a while longer.

She didn’t say anything, but he knew that look all too well. Arms crossed, hip cocked, lips pursed. It was the same look she gave her butler when he took too long to bring her sushi, and Adrien lowered his head like a puppy awaiting a scolding.

“Chloe, I-”

“Oh, now you want to speak.” She quirked a brow.

“I’m sorry!”

“What happened?” She demanded. “I needed your help, and you didn’t have my back. We could have exposed her!”

He averted his gaze. “I know.”

“Why didn’t you stick to the plan?”

“It just didn’t feel right. I panicked.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Next time I’ll do better. I promise.”

“Next time? No one in this school is going to believe anything we say about her now because you chickened out!” She jabbed his chest with her finger. “I hope your conscience is happy. You made me look ridiculous! Utterly ridiculous! Maybe I should leave like Dupain-Cheng.”

“Chloe-”

“No! No more excuses. If you really want to stop Lila, then call me when you’re actually ready to do something,” Chloe said. With a flip of her ponytail, she shoved past him.

Adrien leaned against his locker with a sigh, running a hand through his hair. Mirror-Mirror didn’t have to show him what he was ashamed of—he already knew. He was a coward, and now everything was ruined.

[kbandtrash]

SKZ Mafia Bullet Point

~Megan~

Masterlist

Word Count: 1.6k

Jisung!

Neither of you were actually part of the mafia

You were just two classmates who weren’t really familiar with each other at all

Until one fateful day when Changbin, a mafia boi, who had been flirting with you for ages, cornered you in an alley

He seemed a little confused

“You’re the one they’re after?” he said with a frown

“Who’s after me???”

He bit his lip, pulling out his gun slowly

“My family, can’t imagine why though.”

“Then why don’t you let me go?” you said, trying hard not to freak out

He shuffled his feet and checked his watch, then aimed the gun at your chest

He had an unsure little smile on his lips, almost apologetically

“C-come with me, and I won’t kill yo-”

“HEY!” Jisung yelled from down the alleyway

He was running toward you like a squirrel in a tree

His fluffy hair had butterfly clips and he looked anything but intimidating

Changbin sighed in relief

“Alright, I surrender, see you guys later!”

He yeeted out of there, throwing his gun down and grinning sheepishly

Jisung reached you and bent down, breathing hard

“Did he… hurt you?” he asked with a deep breath

You shook your head, smiling

“That was horrifying but at least you saved me?”

He grinned, honestly looking like a squirrel

A very handsome squirrel

“Glad to help.”

You composed yourself, checking that you were okay for real

“You seem familiar?” he said with a raised eyebrow

“Uh… I’m Lee Y/N, if that’s any help?”

He went red

“You’re Minho’s little sister?”

Basically Jisung is good friends with your brother but they’re boys so Minho never let you guys meet

But Jisung is in your class so all of Minho’s efforts are ruined

“Speaking of Minho… I should probably get home,” you said, pressing your lips together

Jisung nodded

“I’ll take you home, and maybe say hi to-”

“NO!” you shouted nervously. “I mean… uh, Minho would freak out if he saw us together, you know?”

Jisung nodded again, hanging his head

“I’ll follow you, then.”

You looked at him strangely

“You we’re just threatened with a gun, and you heard Changbin. His family is after you. They might be everywhere. I’ll just follow you at a fair distance…”

He met your eyes and swallowed

Your eyes were sparkling

“Thanks, then,” you said with a smile

“N-no problem.”

So you head home

Nothing happens

Then a few minutes after you get home a knock comes at the door

Minho yells from his room: “DON’T GET IT, IT’S MY- A GUY!”

You knew it was. It’s Jisung. You laughed and hurried to your room, closing the door, because Minho would kill you if you were outside where they would be

But that evening a knock came at your door

You slowly opened it, confused

Minho stood there with a big frown

“We were playing truth or dare.”

You laughed at him before he continued

“He dared me to invite you to hang with us, and if I don’t do it I have to tell him who I like, plus I won’t get my pringles back.”

You laughed even harder

But because you were nice and were kind of interested in the funny, nice squirrel, you went out and played video games with them

Jisung was HILARIOUS. And you learned that among friends he was known as a quokka. And you were even more interested in him

Hanging with him and Minho it felt like he was being himself

It made your heart flutter at how cool he was

The next time someone looked at a clock it was really late and dark outside

Jisung had walked over and Minho had his license so he drove the quokka home

(Jisung had declined the offer, but Minho refused to let him go outside where there might be dangerous gang activity)

You were home alone

A soft, quick knock came at your door

You almost missed it

Who could it be? you thought

You looked through the window and saw Changbin standing there with a few other guys

Your heart dropped

Another set of louder knocks came

You ran to your room, shutting the door

The first thing that came to your mind was you had to call the police

And then you would text Minho to let him know

The knocks turned into pounding

“Yes, hello, these guys are at my house, one of them threatened me with a gun earlier…”

After you called the police you sent this text:

There are bad guys outside right now, I called the police, so don’t come back and stay safe. I’ll be okay.

Then you heard the front door open.

In Minho’s car, he was on a slightly busy road (who knows why it was so busy so late at night)

When you texted him, he was too busy being a safe driver to look

Jisung looked at it

“Hyung, Y/N’s in trouble.”

Minho was stuck on a road where it would be difficult to head back home quickly

“Hyung, pull over.”

Minho was freaking out

Jisung was shaking, trying to reassure Minho

They both knew if either of them drove in the state of worry they were in, it wouldn’t be safe

So Jisung ran.

He ran like his life depended on it to your house

It felt like he would be too late

He arrived, hearing police sirens in the distance

“The dang station is too far away from here”

He did the dumbest thing he’s ever done and walked right into the house, where four guys with guns were shouting and pounding on doors

They hadn’t found your door yet

Changbin saw Jisung first

The quokka felt his heart drop when he saw a gun aimed at him

But he threw all fear for himself aside and ran right at Changbin, pushing him onto the ground

Changbin was crying, asking why in the world he had to be part of a mafia

Jisung took his gun from him, saying “I’m sorry, hyung, just please give up.”

Then he scampered away and slammed the edge of the gun on a guy’s head

The guy flopped to the floor, out cold

Who knew I could do that??? Jisung wondered

Then he spotted a frying pan

He laughed at himself but grabbed it anyway, heading toward the upstairs, where the other two guys and your room were

One of the guys was prepared, firing a bullet, but missing

Jisung used his adrenaline to smack him in the face before another bullet fired

When Jisung looked around again, he couldn’t find the fourth guy

But he could hear you screaming

“Y/N!”

He sprinted to your room and without thinking slammed open the door, unprepared

A bullet bit right across his shoulder, causing him to shout

He stumbled, beginning to shake at the sight of you

Jisung recognized the guy from somewhere

Then it hit him when the guy smirked

“Johnny Suh?” Jisung squeaked out

Johnny shrugged maliciously and turned back to you

You were on the floor, pushed up against the wall, looking sick and determined

The quiet police sirens were now much louder

Johnny, looking slightly rushed, pulled his knife on you

Jisung had dropped his frying pan but his other hand (uninjured) still held the gun he took earlier

He had no idea how to use it

But he couldn’t bear to just watch Johnny use his knife on you

You writhed in your place, whimpering

It looked like you had already been scratched once before

They weren’t deep cuts and they weren’t in vital places

But you were in pain

That’s what Johnny wanted

“Y/N, if you let me take you out of here without any more fighting back,” Johnny tried to say, but he was cut off

Jisung had thrown the gun - with his non-dominant hand - with a loud grunt

And it hit Johnny exactly on the back of his head

It hit the perfect spot to cause him to teeter and crash to the ground

Your eyes widened as you shakily held the cuts, glancing from Johnny to Jisung

“Jisung,” you cried, relieved

Jisung held in sobs as he ran toward you, collapsing next to you, unable to stay upright

“Y/N, the p-police are almost- almost here.”

You nodded slowly, pressing your lips together with tears spilling down your cheeks

“We’ll be okay.”

It felt like it would take forever before you two would leave the hospital, but it didn’t last long

The police had interviewed you both a little about the attack just for evidence

You heard from an officer that the Seo family was put behind bars but Changbin was still being inspected to see what would happen

When you and Jisung finally made it back to school your friends were freaking out

Well

They would be freaking out one second

But then they would suddenly say “Y/N and Jisung sitting in a tree-”

You didn’t appreciate it until Jisung finally got over himself and asked you out

So basically

You were dating Jisung

And then you realized you had to introduce him to Minho as your boyfriend

So one day Minho invited Jisung over and Jisung came inside and ran to you

“Y/N baby I missed you!!”

Big hug :)))

Minho’s jaw dropped and then he cleared his throat

“Thank goodness it’s someone we can trust to always take care of you.”

So big uwus

Anyway in the end Minho approved your relationship, Changbin got to come back to school after a few months, and through Changbin and Jisung your friend group got a whole lot bigger

The end :))

[izzabeean]

Chapter 10 : Restraint

SUMMARY

You’re very upset after Oikawa sustained injuries from his fight with Oikawa, it almost feels like it’s your fault at this point. You wonder if he blames you for it and hopes there’s a way you can make it up to him.

pairing : ushjima x f!reader / oikawa x f!reader / iwaizumi x f!reader

genre : angst + fluff

word count : 3,099

content : profanity, depiction of injuries

tags :  alternate universe - college/university, post-break up, friends to lovers, pining, slow burn

a/n : hello! sorry for the late chapter, I am moving my publish days to Sunday evenings PST time.

this chapter is a little slow but I am wanting to convey Oikawa's feelings/perspective a little more and hope it isn't too confusing in my writing. please enjoy and Chapter 11 should be up by next Sunday. thanks!!

masterlist

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Last night's misfortune only carried forward onto the next day. This immense guilt protruded through you making sitting in class much more unbearable. And having Oikawa sitting beside you didn’t make it any better as you eye his bruised knuckles in your peripheral; an unforgivable reminder that your ex-boyfriend caused his pain.

Yet, Oikawa still got plenty of attention from his admirers, in fact, you could say he got more. Girls were bombarding him more than usual to find out what transpired, but Oikawa didn’t spare anyone the dirty details and just redirected the conversation to distract them with a coy compliment or flirtatious gesture completely derailing the previous subject matter.

Of all the people in the universe, you never expected Oikawa to be the one to throw a punch at Ushijima. Frankly, you thought his hatred was all talk, another form of teasing to push you and get under your skin. You always brushed off his banter, figuring he didn’t really mean much by it, but after last night, you knew there was more as to why Oikawa didn’t like Ushijima.

You feel like an idiot for never asking, but also for ignoring his warnings. Perhaps this was some kind of punishment for not taking his opinion into account. If you didn’t date Ushijima, Oikawa wouldn’t have ever gotten hurt, you wouldn’t have to deal with a break-up, and you might’ve been in a happier healthier place.

In reality, you were scared asking would open more unresolved doors. And you didn’t know if you wanted to accept any more surprises about Ushijima. It’s terrifying to think that the man you once knew is not the man you knew at all.

The lights of the classroom dimmed as a clip projects at the front of the classroom in regards to today’s lesson, but god knows what it is about. You couldn't pay attention. This feeling of regret lodges in your throat from all the what if’s . But you know all you can do now is find a way to make it up to him…

Oikawa nudges you with his elbow and leans in closer to whisper, “You okay? You seem a bit out of it.”

The feeling of his breath tickles, raising the hairs on your arms. You release your clenched jaw and take a deep breath in, in an attempt to erase the brooding expression on your face then turn to Oikawa. It’s hard to look at him without a sense of anguish filling your chest. Perhaps, your thoughts are filling a narrative only you can imagine and Oikawa doesn’t think any of it is your fault.

“I’m fine,” you regress hoping that he drops it.

But ‘fine’ doesn’t actually mean the dictionary definition of fine. Oikawa knows that. He’s had his fair share of “fines” from girls when they say there are and obviously they’re not. And it wasn’t like he didn’t know what was bothering you. Your eyes would linger every time you looked at him focusing on his bandaged up cheek and for the majority of the class, he could see you staring at his hand. You weren’t very good at hiding your guilt.

With that, he does the only thing he can think of to cheer you up. He takes your pen.

Anticipating a big reaction from you, he waves it away sending you a smirk, but when you continue to sit there eyes illuminated by the faint light from the screen at the center of the room, he pauses. The same tension from last night takes him by surprise. He longs to make things right, to make you happier than you were before. But the image of your smile beaming at Iwaizumi reminds him that he can’t do that. No matter how hard he tries to make you happy, he can’t be Iwaizumi.

Class ends and you begin packing up your things. You still haven’t uttered a word as you keep your eyes locked onto your bag unable to look up at Oikawa.

“Oikawa,” a voice mumbles. A tall brunette girl stands in front of him clasping her hands on the hem of her shirt. “Can I talk to you about something?”

You recognize her. She’s normally seated near the front of the classroom and always has the front pieces of her hair tied back. You never spoke to her but knew she was more of the soft-spoken type that always eyed you and Oikawa entering the room.

“Sure,” he replies, as they walk away to the edge of the room out of earshot.

It becomes apparent at that moment when you watch the interaction between them that she's probably going to confess to him. You can see the nerves in her body language as she caves her chest in and darts her eyes away from Oikawa. Truthfully, you always waited for this day to come and wondered if Oikawa would give her a chance. She’s cute and seems like his type.

Now that you think about it, what is even Oikawa’s type? You’ve always envisioned him with someone well dressed and always put together with sharp features that accentuate her beauty. Someone kind-hearted and gentle, the exact opposite of him. Someone like… Her.

Oikawa stands with his hand on the sling of his bag with his back to you. You can’t see his expressions but can tell he’s instinctively listening as he nods his head. The girl's face grows flush after her rambling comes to a halt and you can tell she’s holding her breath waiting for the answer. You catch yourself doing the same thing as Oikawa speaks. But the girl's demeanor changes from hopeful excitement to stone-faced disappointment. Still, she forces a small smile while Oikawa gives her a small bow before turning to walk to you. She rushes out of the classroom as soon as Oikawa’s back faces her and your stomach drops.

You don’t know the girl, but can’t help but empathize. Not long ago were you on the receiving end of rejection.

“Let’s go,” he says, gesturing to you to hurry up.

You’re still paused in place from watching and close your bag to swing in onto your back following Oikawa out of the classroom. You look around to see if the girl is still in the vicinity but can be seen nowhere in plain sight.

“Why didn’t you say yes?” you ask, finally speaking up.

Oikawa hesitates, uncertain how to answer. He’s never really been interested in any of these girls that ask him out, they're always people he’s never talked to, only seen around.

“Didn’t really know her,” he answers.

“But I see her all the time in class. She literally gawks at you whenever you enter the room. Have you never noticed?”

He did notice but didn’t care enough to talk to her. Honestly, he was over the endless amounts of shallow conversations he had with girls from his high school days.

“Ah, is someone a little jealous,” he teases.

“Jealous? What is there to be jealous about, I’m with you all the time now. I’m kind of getting sick of you,” you grin.

“Ouch, hurtful!” he frowns.

“You didn’t even think she’s cute?” you pester.

He did, but he didn’t want to admit it.

Sure, it’s a great ego booster to have all these girls fawn over him and it never hurt anyone… But only in one encounter would he have probably said yes to someone he just met.

------

The temperature is cold and clammy, as the rain pours when Oikawa walks out of the university building. Hoisting up an umbrella, he prepares to step out into the storm but gets distracted when he sees you sitting off to the side.

You’re hunched over the steps with your backpack sitting next to you, looking out at the dreary weather. There’s no hood on your coat, no umbrella by your side and he can’t help but notice the pouty look on your lovely face. You looked annoyed. But in a cute way, he’s never seen before. As if you were just waiting for someone to save you.

“Someone a little stuck?” he asks.

You turn to look at him. It was almost unbearable how gorgeous you are. Suddenly a wave of nerves crashes through him before you speak.

“It should let up soon,” you reply, returning to watch the droplets plunking onto the concrete.

There’s no way in hell the rain was going to stop anytime soon with this miserable downpour. Plus it’s getting late and soon will be dark, he couldn’t let you stay alone.

He clears his throat, walks up closer to you, and puts the umbrella over you. “Is that some way to tell me you have a boyfriend?”

“Maybe it was just a way to get rid of you,” you smirk, voice laced in irritation. “Did it work?”

Oikawa raises his eyebrow and grins at you, slightly turned on by your hostile response, something he wasn’t used to hearing from girls.

“No,” he flirts, drinking you up with his eyes.

The pitter-patter of the rain fills up the silence and a warm comfort makes him feel that you will soon no longer be strangers.

------

He bites his lip reminding himself of the opportunity he lost, though he was very afraid to ruin your friendship and figured, in time, you would come around. Yet, it wasn’t to him, but to Ushijima. And once again, you’ve found someone of another caliber that wasn’t him. Maybe he needed to move on, but having you around living with him made things so much harder.

“Y/N, the kind of attention I get from the girls is because I’m single,” he continues. “If I get a girlfriend, it could ruin my image.”

You know he’s joking but roll your eyes anyway without sparing him a glance. He’s always been this way since you’ve known him. And even when you first met you could tell he was trouble. When you first met him, you could feel his presence by the shift in the air even before he announced himself. There was always something special about Oikawa. You just couldn’t put your finger on what it was exactly.

“You want to go to that coffee shop we always use to go to? We haven’t been there in ages,” you say, trying to change the subject. “It’s my treat.”

“Wow, are you asking me out?” Oikawa jokes cheekily while fixing his hair. “If I knew this was a date, I probably would’ve dressed more appropriately.”

“This isn’t a date Shittykawa! Just a thank you for…” you look down at his hand. “Plus you’re not my type.”

“What! I’m everyone’s type, Y/N. Just look at me.”

“Mmm, no,” you reply, taking one good look at him.

“So mean, Y/N-chan!

No, he couldn’t possibly destroy your friendship to confess his unrequited love. Everything seemed so much simpler this way.

------

It’s been a while since you last sat down at the coffee shop. Although it was within walking distance from campus, you stopped going as often as you used to when you started dating Ushijima. It had a more industrial feeling to it and less cozy than you remember.

Nonetheless, you order the drinks while Oikawa takes a seat at a table beside the large window looking out to the street. You send him a thumbs up while waiting by the bar and he sends you one back feeling extremely silly upon replicating it. But he doesn’t care because you giggle before turning back to collect the order.

With two drinks in hand, you set them down at the table.

“Hold on, I ordered another,” you interrupt before Oikawa can even utter thanks.

When you return, you sit down placing the third drink to the side of the table.

“Y/N, I’m flattered but you don’t need to buy--”

“Oh, it’s for Iwaizumi,” you cut in. “I told him to meet up with us.”

Oikawa pauses, crossing his arms. “You have his number?”

“Yeah, we exchanged it after that creep bothered me.”

Oikawa is quiet and furrows his eyebrows at you from across the table, trying to give you his best scowl despite the fact that you clearly know what he’s sour about.

“Don’t look at me like that,” you grumble.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replies.

“You’re making a big deal out of nothing,” you argue.

Your words feel harsh and Oikawa attempts to swallow his words but instead, they slip out through the tip of his tongue.

“He’s leaving soon…”

"What?" you rasp, a lump starts to form in your throat. Damn Oikawa. Of course, he’s a lot of things, but you didn’t think he’d take his teasing this far. "You’re joking, right?"

“I forgot to tell you… He’s only been here for a week, then he goes back to California soon.”

“Why California?”

If you hadn’t already practiced pushing down your feelings since the break-up, you were sure that you would’ve broken down at that moment. Enough surprises have surfaced to the point the devastating news didn’t circle you into this impending doom. No, all your hope in fate plummeted.

“He goes to school out there. So I wouldn’t get too close,” Oikawa mutters while taking a sip of his drink.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It’s obvious, you have a crush on him, I’m not stupid.”

You shudder at his words, recognizing that your crush on Iwaizumi is obvious to the point that Oikawa notices it. I mean, you did kiss the guy in front of him, but you thought at this point you were just dreaming since no one has brought it up.

“I don’t--”

“I mean, why else would you kiss him,” he interrupts. “To piss Ushijima off?"

Well duh, you think. That was basically what you were wanting to do. Make him realize you're better off without him and maybe deceive him a bit in regards to why life is just so much better.

However, you couldn't persuade yourself to actually say it. You already gave away too much and know if you say anything more it will just give Oikawa more ammunition to tease you.

"If you really wanted to piss him off, you would’ve kissed me,” he continues.

Suddenly your heart thumps and pupils constrict at the comment. The tension twists in the room and you swallow hard as the pressure to say something wells up in your chest.

Why did he just say that? Is this a joke?

And perhaps it was confusion mixed with fatigue from a long stressful day but you couldn't suppress the frustration that wells up inside. It wasn't funny to you. None of this was funny. You were serious.

“Not likely," you hiss. "Why don't you try being in the same room as your lying ex with their new partner and tell me, Oikawa, what would you do?"

He stiffens at the tone of your voice. He's not used to you calling him by his last name, it's only when you're really mad. Oikawa opens his mouth to say something but remains quiet. He doesn’t quite know what to say as you’re visibly upset. He fucked up.

He looks at you, you won’t make any eye contact with him as you look off to the side. Your fingers are wrapped around the hot cup of coffee, probably to warm your hands up because they’re always so cold. You’re wearing his favorite sweater, it’s his favorite because you always look so good in it-- not that you don’t always look good-- but when you wear this particular sweater it makes him happy.

“How’s your wrist?” he asks, casually to break the tension.

“It’s fine,” you reassure, still put off by him.

“Can I see it?”

Oikawa reaches out his hand to which you recoil pulling it away from your cup and onto your lap out of his sight.

“Please,” he pleads.

You blink at words as he gazes at you with his puppy-eyes. Surely he didn’t mean what he said and you were just being sensitive, and it was very, very hard for you to stay mad at him. But you still hesitate as you rest your hand on the table and roll up your sleeve enough to see the bruising. Oikawa analyzes it then gently grazes his fingertips over your wrist. Your heart pounds against your chest at his tender touch.

“Does that hurt?”

“No.”

You gulp quietly, surprised by the change in dynamic. Your anger suddenly dissipates and an unexplained warmth cascades through your body like a breath of fresh air. Your eyes frantically search for an answer to why you’re feeling this way, but before you can you’re interrupted.

“Yo--”

You both look up to see Iwaizumi loom over you both. You feel your cheeks burn up like you’re caught in the act of something scandalous and your guilt sinks in on you.

“Oh, hi Iwa,” you manage to mutter. Suddenly you don’t feel Oikawa’s touch anymore. You look back to see him pull back with a smile on his face gazing at Iwaizumi.

"Iwa-chan, Y/N got you a drink," Oikawa smirks, sliding the drink towards him.

Iwaizumi's eyes shift to you and suddenly goosebumps form on your arms. His stare is always so intense but not in a bad way, more like you want to melt into a puddle. And you almost do, when he thanks you for the drink.

In the midst of your one-sided moment, your phone rings. Excusing yourself, you walk outside to take the call to which it's your landlord announcing your apartment is almost fixed. Excitement fills your chest as you think about moving back in and having your own space again. But there's also this painful feeling from when Oikawa revealed that Iwaizumi is only temporarily here. It makes you sick to know what you thought was fate actually wasn't at all.

It makes your kiss ever more embarrassing as you know feelings can't be reciprocated at all. You wish you'd known sooner and don't understand why you didn't see this happening.

Walking back inside the cafe, you notice Iwaizumi sitting beside Oikawa. You sat down across from both of them and it almost felt you were on trial as they stared at you.

"Who called?" Oikawa asks.

"Oh, my landlord said my place is almost ready and that I can swing by to see it."

"When?" Oikawa

"I was thinking maybe some time tonight," you say.

"Want us to go with you?" Iwaizumi offers.

"Th-- that would be great.”

[ka-writes]

——————

Notes: READ WARNINGS!!

Please I really want you to be safe.. anyways, this is mainly a set up for the next chapter.. it has a shit ton of angst prepare yourself.

Also am very sorry it is late!! ‘‘Twas very hard for me to start writing it, btw I started another AU please go check it out, thank you <3

——————

Warning: Torture I go into detail, gore, cussing manipulation, characters lose sense of reality.

——————

In case you missed:

Chapter 1:

Chapter 6:

——————

Inspired by:

Humans are Space Velociraptors

By:FreshRoses_InMyGarden_NeedTheRain

Some kids come from storks, others come from crashed spaceships

By: mmmajora

Home Again, Home Again

By: teeth_eater

All works can be found on Ao3

——————

Ao3 link for this work:

And my other AU:

——————

Change 7: This is a dream… right?

——————

He was back where he started this whole thing.

In a cage.

One cage over from the door and now in the middle of the room. It felt empty and bare, yet full of an uncomfortable sense of dread and fear, though he would never admit that aloud.

This time there was only one other cage in sight. The room had changed as well. It was no longer covered in grime, or smelled of blood. Instead it was a sickly white and smelled of rubbing alcohol. Which caused his nose to burn with the overwhelming scent of the cleaning supplies, making the entirety of the room feel more and more like one of those horror stories in hospitals, the only difference being that this one was real.

The thing that replaced the other cages and humans was an operating table with vials and tools that Tommy couldn’t identify.

There were no lights currently, except for the same small door window, which was the only thing that really stayed the same.

It was cold, it felt empty. There was no description fit for the amount of dread Tommy felt. It was built up after laying in the dark for so long. It burned his gut and made his head swirl with thoughts of what would happen next.

He wouldn’t ever admit he was scared, but the situation kinda explained itself.

Without warning the door swung open. No squeaks like last time, just a smooth motion allowing the room to be basked in yellow light from the hall.

Then the lights turned on, immediately causing Tommy to shut his eyes. His head started throbbing and every fiber in his body screamed at him to run. The lights turned into blurry blinding blobs that lit everything in a white fire, making it apparent that the room was indeed scrubbed of any stains or blood. Once his eyes finally adjusted, his migraine caught up to him, making the entire thing unbearable.

“Hello there!” An alien stepped in the room. Their features were outlined in white and their skin wasn’t even recognized, simply because it looked like a shadow. They had claw-like hands and wore glasses over their white to red eyes. They had a black doctor’s coat and wore black pants with white knee high boots. They had a devilish tail along with devil horns and a floating white halo. Their fangs poked out from a blinding white mouth, which was curved into a practiced smile.

“My name is BadBoyHalo, but you will refer to me as Dr. Halo.” They finished with a sickly sweet tone and a side smile, “My pronouns are he/him, and I will be taking care of what happens while you’re here.. not that you will ever leave of course.”

His mind was racing. Everything told him this was real, but he couldn’t help but pray that it was all a sick dream.

“Now we will start off easy and move onto the harder stuff later! Please refrain from trying to run, we have a shock function attached to your translators.” This caught him off guard. Why was he using plural tenses?

He looked towards the other cage, that’s when he noticed the strange bee alien also wearing a petrified expression. His eyes didn’t wander to the other cage, only watching Dr. Halo.

“Now who do we start with?” The doctor asked, even though he clearly already knew. A twisted smile shone on his face letting the light catch the awfully amused glint in his eyes, “Let’s start with the droneling!”

——————

There was no explanation for where the two went.

They simply vanished. No traces to follow or reasons to run.

The only logical explanation was Dream catching them. Which meant Techno would have to ask around for where the ship was harboring. The only problem being, he was awful at talking to people.

“So what do you wanna know?” A tall Wollylock person asked, she was the only known person to know anything about Dream, being his mother and all.

“Er- information on the Dream Team Ship.” Techno stated rather awkwardly.

“Why?” The captain asked, impatience clearly visible with her expression.

“They took two starlings from my crew.” At that the captain practically fumed with furry.

“I will help. After all, that boy needs to learn some manners.” The captain stated, her determination was infectious. “What is your craft’s name?”

“The SBI Craft, piloted by captain Philza.” He said robotically.

“Course it has to be Phil. That man has what, four kids he claimed to his crew..”

“Technically, I am not a kid, neither is Wil- Er our scientist, so really he’s only harboring three kids, now one since two were taken..” Techno decided that was the best explanation he could come up with, though there was really no point.

The captain chuckled and brushed off the other’s attempts at defending the crew. “Just send me the ship’s cords and your captain’s contact and I will be in touch.” With that the captain slid a communicator over the table and walked out of the sketchy bar.

Techno made his way back to the ship and delivered his captain the news. He tried to ignore the gut feeling that everything was wrong…

——————

(The next section has graphics depictions of torture and gore, please skip this section if it could or will trigger you in any way, there is a summary at the end. Thank you <3)

The world moved unbearably slow. The cage opened ever so smoothly, making him want to throw up. It was the sign that everything was going to go to hell.

That’s what this has to be right? A hellish nightmare that wasn’t real..

No that wasn’t right..

Did it matter?

A hand yanked his wrist out of the cage and into the blinding white room, that felt like fire surrounding him as he stepped to the operating table.

Needles and scalpels were set neatly on a silver tray. The restraints were heavy and felt like they burned his wrists and ankles. He was pushed onto the table as the ‘doctor’ slapped on gloves. More restraints were clipped over his waist and thighs.

Then something pinched his leg. He felt the blood rushing it’s way down to the cut, as a scalpel carved out a rectangle. He could hear scissors cutting something, and distant screams… were they from him?

He didn’t know at this point. More agonizing cuts on his legs along with a couple of needle pin marks.. a couple snaps of an illusion disk and a bit of writing, on both his skin and paper..

He couldn’t really feel anything after the first one, only simply knowing that his body was reacting to the pain yet his brain hadn’t quite caught up with reality.

It was like he wasn’t exactly controlling his body, just simply existing in the dream-like state. Time didn’t exist there, neither did recognition of the pain. Emotions ran wild. Turning all of his thoughts sour as he attempted to remember what happened.

It wasn’t until the doctor un-clipped him and put him back into the cage that he noticed the other.

That’s who did this to him. That’s the person that pushed him through pain.

The human wore a terrified expression as the doctor took him out for his turn.

He couldn’t help but smile at the other’s pain. The other deserved it..

Right?

(If you skipped this, Tubbo got tortured and blamed Tommy for the situation.)

——————

“IT’S BEEN A FUCKING MONTH! And you still haven’t found your son’s damn ship?!” The man on the other line was furious, and rightfully so.

Puffy undoubtedly understood the anger the man had. I mean she had been in the situation before when her youngest was kidnapped by another crew of pirates. The only difference in this situation was she was fighting against her son, her duckling… when did her duckling turn sour?

“You’re right about that, Phil. I can assure you Niki is doing everything in her power to track them down, along with Jack.” Jack joined the team after Puffy met Niki.

She must admit that having someone working in the ISF had its perks. Though no one could fully trust him. For good reason of course.

“Ponk is ‘talking’ to Sam, he sure as hell ain’t cracking yet.” She finished bitterly, “Like I said Quakity is waiting for his monthly letter from his fiancé, which would hopefully give us a clue at where to look.”

“I am still trying to wrap my head around the fact that it’s been a month.. Wilbur said the humans barely last a full week if they aren’t treated..” The worry was lining his face and causing the bags under his eyes to look more like nasty black eyes. His face was sullen making it apparent the man hadn’t been eating properly. His wings ruffled at every noise and he seemed to be running purely on coffee. Puffy wanted nothing more than to return the man’s unofficial sons back to him.

——————

Everything was great!

The plan worked perfectly, and Sam hadn’t cracked yet.

Meaning he could easily start on the next faze. The only issue would be he’d have to gain both of the starling’s trust.

Even if the present was a bitter reality lined with things that would annoy him, the end result would be worth it.

Having a human and a nuke expert by his side would allow him to have everything he ever wanted.

Power.

Not just power, but all the things that came with it. He wouldn’t be questioned again, and everything and anything he said would be the final word.

It would be hell for those who crossed him, and even worse for those who abandoned him.

Wilbur, Sam, Ant, Quackity, Foolish, and even mother dearest, Puffy. They would all pay for their disloyalty. Once this is all over, they would never cross him again.

I mean he did give up everything to gain this life.

There was nothing to lose and everything to win, and he’d be damned if he didn’t win.

I mean he sold his soul for this!

It was all worth it.. right?

Of course it is. Stop doubting me child.

——————

28 days of torture, and now they were sitting with their captors playing house.

It was wrong. So utterly wrong.

“Eat your food Tommy.” The captain commanded.

Tommy complied not wanting to go back in the cage. Every day he woke up there, more things were shoved into him and more pain was given.

“You too Tubbo.” The command was given and the other complied, the same fear visibly shown.

“Reports.” Dream stated sternly, the rest of the crew compiled without hesitation.

It was a bunch of regular reports of how no one knew where they were, what supplies needed to be restocked, the current condition of the ship, and any developments with the news. A bunch of boring bullshit. He bit back any sarcastic remarks that threatened to spill, but refrained in fear of what they would do to him.

The crew was dismissed leaving Tubbo, Tommy, and Dream alone.

“I want both of you to listen.” Dream started his tone raising all hairs on the back of Tommy’s neck, “Phil and his crew led you to us. They didn’t comply the first time and poisoned your minds. We did the right thing, and fixed you. Now, there are some rules you have to follow. You may not wander the ship, only go anywhere with one of the crew members. You will both share a room and follow the same schedule. Anything you do that is not an order deserves a punishment, for it is proof of what the other crew poisoned you with. Now! Go to your room, it has a black door.” With that the man finished and the pair headed towards their room.

The speech sounded right, yet felt wrong. But everything was justified, therefore it was fine. Plus the worrying was just a problem for future Tommy, maybe that’s what Dream meant by the other crew poisoning him.

The other said nothing as they entered the room, only fixing Tommy with a bitter gaze which turned into something of confusion. Neither one slept, they couldn’t bring it in themselves to sleep, especially since Dream hadn’t told them to.

Instead both of them settled into a silence as they lay on their bed, only getting up when the man told them too. This was all they could really do as they faced their new reality. Slowly but surely their brains began to believe every word of the speech. Finally when the man asked to join him, a bubbly sickly joy gave them the grace to finally help their rescuer.

Six months after the initial capture, one month of torture and five months of vigorous training, consisting of fighting, weapon design, and hours of studying blueprints, they were finally able to go on their first mission with their rescuer, not questioning anything any of the crew said at this point. Sick months of training and they became living weapons ready for whatever the cruel world threw at them…

This is a dream.. right?

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Chapter 7- End

Words: 2221

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Notes:

Hahahaha I am in pain from writing this... please bare with me.. ;-;

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Dream is being a manipulative bastard... I mean the character. More specifically my take on Dream’s character in this situation... ahhhhh

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I hope you’re staying safe, don’t forget to take care of yourself!! <3 also likes are appreciated but reblogs are always better! <3

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[ggukcangetit]

please... love me | jjk x reader

title: please... love me

pairing: jungkook x reader

summary: emotions are difficult and intense. which you find out the hard way. but sometimes, they can lead to something beautiful.

rating: PG-13

word count: 1.6k

genre: fluff, slight angst

warnings: none i can really think of

a/n: idk where this came from. but here you go.

Jungkook hummed quietly while keeping an eye on the chicken cooking on the stove. The subtle fragrance of the spices wafted through the kitchen and made its way into the living room where you were sitting - knees pulled into yourself as you scrolled through your phone mindlessly. Normally, the sight of someone - especially Jungkook - cooking for you would be the best part of your day. But this time it was different. It hadn’t even been 24 hours since your fight with Jungkook, yet here he was, coming over like he did every time he found the special spicy chili paste at the market, and cooking that one particular chicken dish you adored but hated having to make. The soft melody he had been humming for the past few minutes was starting to annoy you. Really, it was only because you felt guilty and didn’t want to admit that you had been a particularly horrid person the day before. 

It had all been fine and dandy - you, Jimin, Jungkook, and Hoseok were watching a movie at the latter’s apartment, something that had happened after a long time because the four of you never seemed to be able to coordinate your schedules. It was while watching the movie that something strange happened to you. Jimin had been feeling slightly under the weather and Jungkook immediately volunteered to make some hot stew for him. Dropping everything, including the movie you all had been watching, he ran to the nearest grocery store, bought the ingredients for the stew, and proceeded to cook at half past 11 at night. While Hoseok joked about Jungkook’s eagerness to help everyone, a flicker of annoyance passed through you, building in intensity as the stew was brought out and Jimin sipped it gratefully. 

There was no real reason for your annoyance. Which made you all the more annoyed. Picking up your phone and wallet, you headed for the door.

“I’m heading home.” Your tone was stiff and the others looked at you in surprise.

“You don’t want to watch the rest of the movie?” Jungkook asked. 

“I don’t think anyone was really watching it anymore.” The words sounded awfully odd even to your ears.

“Come on,” Jungkook continued, giving you a sheepish grin. “I promise there won’t be any more distractions.”

“No. I’m going home. You guys can continue watching it if you want.”

“Y/n, come on, I’m sorry. Let’s watch the rest of the movie together.” 

“I’m going home. You guys can watch the movie together.”

Hoseok and Jimin looked around awkwardly, not sure of how to react. To be honest, neither did you. After a few moments of silence, Jungkook sighed and walked towards you.

“Okay, let me drive you home. You didn’t bring your car today.”

“No.”

Jungkook’s head shot up as his gaze caught yours. “No?”

“I can get back on my own.”

“I know you can. But I drove you here-” Jungkook ran a hand through his hair frustratedly - “It’s quite late, let me drive you back.”

“No.”

“Stop this, Y/n…”

“I’m not doing anything.” Your voice had risen considerably since announcing your departure. 

“Why’re you being so stubborn?!”

“I’m not! You’re the one who’s being stubborn!”

“What the hell happened anyway? Why are you so pissed off all of a sudden?! Because I wasn’t completely focused while watching the movie? What sort of childishness is this??” The exasperation in Jungkook’s voice was very apparent.

“Nothing happened.” Your tone was clipped once again. “I’m going home.” 

That was the last thing you had said to him before slamming shut the door to Hoseok’s apartment. After getting home, you muted every possible chat that Jungkook was part of - every part of you wanting to shut yourself off from him. But not a single part understanding why.

The clink of dishes brought you back to the present - Jungkook walked out of the kitchen with a couple of plates and placed one of them in front of you. The food was delicious as always, but nothing seemed to be going down your throat. A lump had settled there ever since you had returned from Hoseok’s place last night.

Even now, Jungkook said nothing, quietly eating the food and reading something on his phone. 

“Gguk?” He looked up from his phone, his doe eyes slightly unfocused.

“Hmm?” It was a soft sound, something you had heard countless times over the year and a half you had known him. There was never any aggression in his words, or his actions, or his intentions. He didn’t hold grudges. Nor did he stay angry purposefully, just to get back at you. You felt like an intruder in Jungkook’s world of soft emotions and beautiful thoughts - a complication amidst every ounce of sincerity that made up his being.

“Sorry about yesterday.” Your voice was low as you struggled to keep your emotions in check.

“It’s fine.” He gave you a small smile.

The lump was still present, your throat feeling choked as you gulped down some water. 

“Are you okay?” Concern laced his tone as he noticed the way your lips were quivering. “Are you feeling sick?”

He was beside you within seconds, rubbing your back soothingly and pouring you some more water.

“Why do you say that it’s okay?” You turned away from him, not knowing if you would have the courage to speak if you saw him staring at you with those horribly expressive doe eyes. “I behaved so horribly yesterday. Why didn’t you get angry? Why did you come and cook dinner?”

“I was angry. And frustrated.” He was now sitting next to you on the couch. “You didn’t even answer my messages. I was worried something might have happened to you. So I went to the market and looked for the spicy chili paste. At least then I’d have an excuse to come and see if you were okay.”

There was no way you could look at him now. Not without bursting into tears. 

“Are you okay? I’m sorry I came over like this. I was just so worried… I know you’re upset and I’m not really sure why. I’ll leave. But… let me know if you need anything.”

The way he said those words, as if he had done something wrong. That was what broke you. 

“Stop it.” Your voice was barely above a whisper. “Please... Please stop apologizing. Please get mad at me. Please tell me I’m horribly stubborn. Please ignore me when I’m being an asshole. Please make me stew when I’m feeling down. Please call me at odd hours. Please come over for no reason. Please notice me when I ignore your messages. Please get annoyed I do stupid things to get your attention. Please, Gguk, please… love me.”

Strong, warm arms wrapped around you as a single tear slid down your cheek. You closed your eyes shut as he guided your head onto his chest. You breathed in his scent - that soft, subtle smell of coffee mixed with his favorite fabric softener. It was so familiar and so comforting. One of his arms was still wrapped around you as the other pulled you closer towards him. You were basically sitting in his lap at this point, but the soft weight of his chin on top of your head prevented you from really focusing on anything. 

The two of you stayed like this for a while, just breathing deeply and embracing the moment. The gentle movement of his fingers in your hair was starting to make you feel sleepy and you looked up at him for the first time since apologizing for your behavior. His eyes held the same warm sincerity they always did, but there was something else there as well. 

“Feeling better?” The back of his fingers stroked your cheek softly, making you shiver slightly.

You didn’t answer. Regret had started bubbling inside you. You broke his gaze, focusing on the fabric of his t-shirt.

“Y/n? Please look at me.”

As soon as you looked up again, he brought his forehead closer and rested it against yours. Your noses were almost touching, and you closed your eyes because it was difficult to focus on him when he was so close. 

“I’m not good with words.” Every word felt like a soft kiss as his breath fell on your cheek and lips. “I never have been. But I hope you understand that a whole universe wouldn’t be enough to express how I feel about you.”

He rubbed his nose against yours and you struggled to stop yourself from leaning forward and brushing your lips with his. His free hand was now running soothing patterns along your back, and you clung to him in the hope that the proximity would somehow reduce unsettling need within you. 

“Y/n…” He was so close that the mention of your name made his lips brush against your own. “Can I kiss you?” His voice was so hoarse. You barely managed a nod before the feeling of his slightly chapped lips on yours took over. Soft at first, and slightly awkward, but soon it was as easy as breathing and as wonderful as the first rain after a long, dry summer. 

You relaxed into him as he kissed you in every way possible. The two of you slowly found a steady rhythm, relishing in the closeness of your bodies and the intimacies of your emotions. 

The lump in your throat was now gone. As was the last ounce of indecision keeping you away from the man you had fallen hopelessly in love with.

lemme know if you liked it 💕