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zara-renata · 2 months ago

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Even the rocks on the roadside in the N109 Zone could tell | ao3 | part 11 the Sylus series

Summary:

"How could you tell I was nervous?" -mc, phone call with Sylus "Remote Support" Sylus makes one final miscalculation. You wake up from a nightmare in a place you weren't ready to revisit. Sylus has to reckon with the inevitable consequences of how he treated you when you first met him, but you're paying the higher price.

Notes:

Sylus x gn reader, Sylus x mc, second person POV, some Kieran and Luke POV Slow burn, enemies-to-friends-to-lovers This story contains: grief, angst, a panic attack, self-destructive behavior, threatened violence (both real [against other characters] and imagined [against mc]), reference to in-game violence on Sylus's part, mc with PTSD, mc with self-esteem issues and negative self-talk, hurt/comfort, a shampoo epiphany This is probably the lowest point in their relationship, and has the least amount of comedy of the series. But Sylus's bullshit from their beginning needs to be addressed before true love can really take off.

You’re here again. You think you’ve always been here, and any other memory is the dream. You have always been here, in this echoing house, the worn floorboards under your feet, still polished, still perfect for sliding along on socked feet, competing to see who can careen down the hall and hit the door at the end first. You have gotten so many bruises from slamming into the door at the wrong angle, but every one was worth it, to collapse with Caleb into a fit of laughter at the end. Even when he lost, and hit you instead of the door, slamming your body back into the door a second time—doubling your chances of concussion, as your grandmother would scold afterwards. But you’re not wearing socks now, and no matter how far you walk, the door at the end never comes closer. The closed doors lining the hall approach and pass with your steady booted stride, landmarks that offer no guidance at all.

You look back on the fever dreams of what you thought was your real life until you found yourself here, in this place again. The first time you reached out and clasped Xavier’s hand in yours, pulling him to his feet, trying to help him brush off the dirt from his beautiful white battle gear. Being held in his arms as the shimmering starlight of his evol lifted you both into the air to safety. Offering him a bite of your snack, watching his normally placid face light up with pleasure at the taste.

The first time you startled Rafayel off of his stupid, unsafe ladder. Walking barefoot with him along a deserted beach, the warm water sweeping over your ankles. Picking up seashells, and asking him if this one would fit in with his jumbled collection of knick knacks contained in his chaotic studio? Coming upon an eel trapped in the sand at low tide, the only sign of life an occasional gasp for oxygen—watching him carefully dig it out of the sand and release it back into the water. It swam away energetically. He said it was a dumb little eel, and would just get stuck again with the next low tide. You told him that you’d both just have to come back often to ensure that wouldn’t happen.

The first time you saw Zayne again as an adult, crisp white lab coat over the broad shoulders of a man, so incongruous to your memory of the narrow shoulders of a little boy. His achingly gentle touch, when he listened to your heartbeat through the stethoscope, how he inexplicably held your wrist in his soft fingers to count your pulse instead of using the fingertip monitor. How he kept the flowers you gave him on the windowsill in his office and shook his head every time he had to stitch your wounds.

And … Sylus.

The first time he held you bound before him, the glow in his eye blinding as he ransacked your soul with all the care of a corrupt cop. How his rough palm wrapped around your throat, and the paralyzing strength with which he tightened his hold. The suffocation, and the hate, and the fear, crushing your breath. The first time he called you a disappointment. All of those things, and everything after—the soft caress of his hand in your hair, his warm body wrapped around yours. Those achingly gentle faux memories, not even dreams, probably. Just daydreams, fantasies born from the pathetic need to be held gently again, in the way you hope someone held you as a child before you lost your memories.

Because you’re here again. And it feels so timeless, and so real, compared to these other faded memories. You must have always been here. You hear someone cutting an apple, the dull thunk of the knife hitting the butcher block, the juices misting with each snick. You press your ear against every door you pass. He’s so close. You’re sure of it. You lift your steel-toed boot and slam the flat of your foot into the next door in this endless hallway. It doesn’t even rattle. You kick it, again, and again. You’re sweating. Your head is pounding. You’re losing your breath and you can’t feel your legs anymore. You kick again. And again. And again. With what little breath you have left, you start to scream, the tears and the snot running down your face. He’s right there. If you’re strong enough. If you’re persistent enough. You can get to him. You can break yourself out of this nightmare, if you’re just enough.

You scream, and you scream, and you kick, and you kick, until your throat gives out.

You wake up, and the scream from your dream is just a whimper in your throat. Your legs are asleep from how your body is folded in on itself, lying in what seems to be a bed.

You wake up in the dark.

You have no idea where you are.

Your heart is pounding in your chest, a jackhammer in the cracked cement of your body.

Your hair, your face, the pillow, the sheets on the bed you’re lying, what you’re wearing—wet. Sweat. Tears slipping from the corner of your eyes into the hair at your temples.

Where the fuck are you?

You sit up, wince at the tingling returning to your legs. Feel along the bed. Nothing. Your hand finally hits something smooth and hard. You pat around, find the base of what you hope is a lamp, let your hand drift up. You switch on the light.

Impossibly, your heart begins to beat even harder. No. No. You don’t want to be here. You aren’t ready to be here. As long as you see Sylus anywhere else—on the street, in a crowded club, in your apartment, even in your bed, you can keep the memories squashed deep, deep down with all the other things that frighten you, that cause you pain, and you can handle being near him. But you can’t reconcile your memories from this place with the memories of being swayed gently in his arms in a crowd, the tender touches on your couch, your bed, a glass of water held to soft lips, your head pillowed against a strong chest with a steadily beating heart as you fall asleep.

You can’t be here.

You crawl to the edge of the bed, land on bare feet on a plush rug over a cold marble floor. The room is empty. The bookshelves, the imposing desk in the corner, the chaise lounge at the foot of the bed, the black leather armchairs and marble topped coffee table. The dark walls, the record player. You recognize each and every object, although you have refused to return here in your mind since you were allowed to leave. You could walk through here blindfolded. You wish you were blindfolded.

The thin sweater you find yourself wearing is soaked through with sweat. You shiver in the air of Sylus’s silent bedroom. You swivel your head, searching for your own clothes. For your boots. Nothing. You don’t want to go deeper into his room, away from the door, an exit, toward the bathroom and his huge walk-in closet for your clothes, or even to borrow more of his. You want out. You can live without shoes. You can’t live if your heart explodes from the panic clawing its way up your throat.

You silently slip out of his bedroom into one of the echoing corridors of his base, with its deep maroon paneled walls and marble floors, the dense gloom of the N109 zone filtering through the huge windows lining this hallway. You remember every single detail. You hear nothing. Just the thundering of your heart. You stride through the labyrinthine halls, the high ceilings soaring above you along with the elaborate, savage designs of the chandeliers. You avoid going near the dining hall or the kitchen or the den or living room, sticking to the outer edges of the wing you know will lead you to the front door. To the way out of this place filling you with so much dread you could collapse under the weight if you falter for even a stuttered heartbeat.

Miraculously, you make it without seeing a single soul. You turn the gothic monstrosity of one of the double front door handles, fully expecting it to be locked from the inside, but it shifts easily in your hand. You open it only as far as necessary to squeeze your shivering body between the doors and let it close softly behind you.

The night is cold. It’s autumn now, after all. Since there are no natural trees in the N109 zone, the wind gusts unchecked against your already cold body. Sylus’s base sits on a cliff overlooking the valley of the N109 zone with its towering skyscrapers thrusting into the perpetual night like crystalline stalagmites in a vast cave. His house is accessible only by a long and winding road up the hillside. A proper villain’s lair. It’s going to be a long walk through the cold and dark if you don’t figure something else out.

You hate yourself, for your tendency to make assumptions. For not asking enough questions. For refusing to think about all the things that you should keep in the forefront of your mind every single second of every single day. Why had you assumed that Sylus was taking you to a hotel to wait for the evol linkage to dissipate? Why didn’t it occur to your stupid ass that he’d take you to his fortified base, where he is the safest, where it doesn’t cost him any money, where it is his home, since you were already in the N109 zone at Amnesia?

You just fell asleep in his big fucking tank like an idiot, without asking a damn thing.

You will deserve the walk ahead of you. Hopefully it will be what you need to never forget again that this man is using you for his own purposes, and probably every single thing he has done up to this point has been to further his goals involving his need for your resonance. After all, the shopkeeper made it plain from the very beginning: you can’t resonate with someone who frightens you. Someone you dislike. Someone who disgusts you. Sylus has never disgusted you. Quite the opposite, unfortunately. But fear and hate, individually, are probably sufficient to block whatever it is in you that allows you to connect to another in such an intimate way.

And what’s the best way to get someone to stop hating you? To stop being afraid of you? Determine what they need the most, and then give it to them.

Your insomnia. Your desperate loneliness, always there, under your skin, for as long as you can remember, but amplified in the aftermath of losing your family. Your craving for human touch and connection, the kind of touch and connection you can’t bring yourself to ask of your friends. That you can’t stand to seek in strangers anymore, after so many failures.

And of course, Sylus has known what you so desperately want, since the very first night you met him. Your mind drifts to your hand, wrapped securely in his. To him pulling you against him, and reading you bedtime stories about indemnification and allocation of risk and remedies in case of breach. To his soft kisses along your shoulder. How many times did he drop in at your place after he released you from his base? Three? It’s only taken three evenings to accomplish his plan that probably began with the deal about the brooch. Lull you into complacency, acquire your affection instead of your hate, and your willing help instead of your fear. Three evenings, to replace him choking you until you blacked out. To replace … everything that came after.

You look down at your bare feet and bare legs. You can survive this. You can survive anything.

You make an inventory of your current situation. You’re barefoot. Unarmed. Soaked in sweat, and the wind is gusting. You don’t have your phone. But you do have your Hunter’s watch. That’s enough. You’ll get far enough away from the base to avoid Sylus or his minions alerting to your absence and finding you outside, call for help, find some shelter, and wait for someone to come pick you up. You recall that the landscape along the winding road leading up to Sylus’s base is fairly isolated. You gamble that there won’t be anyone coming all the way up here at this time of night.

Once you’re home, you will be able to think straight. When your heart isn’t jackrabbiting in your chest. When this jittery feeling, like you can run a marathon without breaking a sweat, isn’t coursing through your pounding veins. When the lingering despair from the nightmare about your grandmother’s house has faded to the tolerable thrum of grief you’re used to these days. And you will uphold your end of the deal with Sylus. You meant it, when you let the coin decide. You can be as resolute in your decisions as he is. You will be his friend. Why, when you know that most of his behavior toward you is calculated, manufactured—a talented forgery? Because Sylus is very good at getting what he wants. He wanted your affection, and your willing help. And he has been successful in acquiring it, despite your best efforts to resist his charm. You’re honest enough to admit that to yourself. And what even is friendship, if you expect something in return? He may only be able to think of friendship in transactional, cost-benefit, return-on-investment terms, but you don’t want to live that way. Despite your best efforts, you like him so terribly much, and that’s the beginning and end of it.

You will help him with his love, for whatever your help is worth, and you’ll finally wipe the slate clean. You just need… you just need your heart to stop for a minute. That’s all. And that can’t happen here, in the place where Sylus treated you more honestly than he has ever treated you since you were allowed to leave.

You take a deep breath and begin to jog. You can survive this. You can survive anything.

***

After being thoroughly entertained at Amnesia by Sylus’s Hunter, Luke and Kieran finally managed to dump Noah with Linda after settling the terms of their bet regarding how long they think it will take their boss to successfully woo the object of his unhinged obsession.

The one rule: no interference that could tip the odds one way or the other. Luke, Kieran and Noah must act as neutral observers of the hilarious conundrum their boss finds himself in regarding the highly skilled, highly oblivious Hunter not being able to see what is obvious to anyone who has the unfortunate opportunity of being within a five kilometer radius of the two of them: that Sylus is head over heels, and so is the Hunter.

Each concerned party committed to upholding this sacred rule of non-intervention. Each of them lied through their teeth while making such a commitment. But Luke and Kieran can tell that countering whatever Noah will likely come up with to drag out this complicated courtship will require all of their combined talents to ensure the odds remain in their favor, and that Sylus will convince the Hunter to accept him sooner rather than later.

Luckily for them, this shitshow is a win-win situation. As long as Sylus is happy, Luke and Kieran are happy. And they can tell, the Hunter is already making Sylus happy. They can see it in how drastically his mood has improved ever since the protocore auction. He no longer vacillates between the few emotions he has shown in the years they’ve known him—rage, utter boredom, and the worst: an unsettling blankness. A cavalier attitude regarding whether he lives or dies, whether he wakes up in the morning or not, whether his heart is beating or at a standstill. He’ll sometimes make off-hand comments about the banality of just… surviving, of waking up to find that he’s still alive and being utterly indifferent to that fact. Every time he says shit like that, shivers run down Luke and Kieran’s spines. They’d much rather he punch holes in walls in a fit of rage or blow up buildings out of boredom than encounter him when he’s at his most… empty.

But ever since the auction, the twins have seen a veritable rainbow of emotions clear as a Linkon City’s sunny afternoon on their boss’s otherwise impassive face. Amusement. Worry. Fascination. Yearning. Pining. Longing. Craving.

“Luke, I’m truly proud of you for actually reading the thesaurus,” Kieran says from behind the steering wheel of their sleek, powerful muscle car. It was a present from Sylus. He claimed it was a bonus for their help in a particularly ugly business feud that ended up in more corpses than anticipated, but they both thought it was hilarious that the “bonus” arrived on the exact date of their latest birthday. Their boss really is the best.

“Thanks, man. It was like, really mind-blowing to learn how many words there are for Boss’s thirst for his pet.” Luke leans back in the sexy black leather bucket seat and enjoys the seat heating. Tonight is the coldest it’s been this fall. He fiddles with the sound system.

Kieran swats his hand away. “Driver’s choice. You know the rules.”

Luke pouts. “I’m not in the mood for Bach. Boring. I want Rachmaninov.”

“You don’t need to get wound up this close to home. It’ll take forever for you to settle down if you listen to Rachmaninov right now, and we really need to get some sleep. I have a feeling we’re about to get really busy with how distracted Boss is going to be with the Hunter.” He drums his fingers along the steering wheel. “He’s going to need all the help he can get.”

“Ugh, fiiine.” Luke hunches further into the comfy seat and stares out the windshield, watching as the bright headlamps slice through the dark gloom, lighting up a swath of the deserted road leading up to their home. Suddenly, he jolts in the seat.

“What the fuck—”

“Is that—?”

“The Hunter, yeah—”

“And, what the fuck—”

“Yeah, no shoes—”

“Call—”

“Boss. On it.”

Luke already has his phone clutched in his hand, and the ringing fills the car through the sophisticated sound system Sylus ensured the car had, along with the fastest, strongest engine for this model on the market.

Kieran watches the Hunter disappear in the rearview mirror, while simultaneously slowing the car as quickly as possible without making excessive noise that could spook the Hunter.

Sylus’s deep voice suddenly fills the car. “Speak.”

“Uh, Boss?”

“Who else, Luke?” Sylus says dryly. “Speak.”

“Do you know where your Hunter is?”

The line is silent for a beat. “I left Kitten in my bed, asleep, while I went to take care of some paperwork in the study.” He pauses. “Is there a reason you’re asking me this?” Anyone who didn’t know their boss like they do would think his tone of voice was indifferent. But all Luke and Kieran hear is a spike of worry.

“Uh, I’m pretty sure we just passed someone on the hillside road to base who looks, like, a scary amount like your Hunter. With no shoes on. Or coat.” Luke winces in anticipation of their boss’s response.

The line goes dead.

Kieran has slowed the car sufficiently to be able to pull a u-turn without tires screeching, and expertly swings the car around. He cuts the headlights, counting on the light from the blood-red moon to provide sufficient visibility. He then accelerates until he has the Hunter in view, and slowly follows the lonely figure, ready to provide protection until their boss can arrive and take the situation in hand. Luke and Kieran can tell that whatever you’re experiencing, this is not a situation that they are equipped to handle, and if they come up too quickly behind you, they’re worried you will bolt off-road and be even more difficult to collect again. They really, really hope you don’t notice their presence behind you until Sylus arrives.

***

Fuck. You’re being followed. And you haven’t found one damned area along the roadside that looks like it could serve as good cover since leaving Sylus’s long, convoluted driveway, because this region is a lifeless wasteland of bare dirt and rock and only small outcroppings of earth along the hill’s descent.

You didn’t remember it being so desolate. Probably because you were just so relieved to be escaping with your life, you were looking at the world through rose-colored glasses and failed to notice that the area leading up to Sylus’s base is as hospitable as the N109 zone’s red, red moon.

You had stiffened, almost pausing in your steady jog along the roadside as a sleek, sexy car that looked like it was built for racing came careening around a bend in the road, the two figures in it just silhouettes behind the blinding headlights as they roared past in a huge gust of wind and gravel. You had hoped, with all of your wildly out-of-control heart, that they were just business associates heading to the base for a meeting or something, and that whoever was in that vehicle wouldn’t recognize you or care about a lone nutcase going for a middle-of-the-night run in the middle of nowhere.

But you’re a highly trained Hunter, and you’ve gotten more sleep lately. Without turning around, you can tell that the same car is following behind you, which would be alarming enough, without the fact that whoever’s driving it is trying to be a sneaky shit with the headlights off. As if you can’t hear the purring of that sweet engine even over the strong wind. Idiots.

Your mind races. You have no weapon. You don’t even have shoes. Surprise is the only means of gaining an advantage. You half-turn, wrap your arms around your stomach and drop into a crouch, as if your stomach hurts and you can’t keep jogging because of the pain. Head down, you watch out of your peripheral as the car keeps slowly approaching in the dark. You let one arm drop from your waist on your side not in view from the car, and feel around on the ground until you find what you’re looking for. Then you wait.

When the car is only just a couple meters from you, you launch yourself from your crouched position and sprint directly at it. Its brakes screech as the driver is taken by surprise, but it’s too late. You’ve already vaulted from the hood onto the roof, and you’ve brought the heavy, dense rock clutched in your hand as hard as you can against the driver’s window. As it shatters, you reach through the now open space with your other hand and grab the driver by the throat, half pulling him out of the tinkling window frame. You hold the rock high above your head.

“Why the fuck are you following me,” you bite out through clenched teeth.

You hear the other car door open, but remain focused on the person you have by the throat.

“Don’t come any closer or I will make your friend unrecognizable for identification at the autopsy,” you snarl. You see the other person freeze in your peripheral vision.

You return your focus to the driver. Staring into his grimacing face, you see a young man, one you don’t recognize. He has a riot of floppy dark curls, shaved to a sharp fade on the sides and back of his head. His big dark eyes reflect the light of the red moon as they dart all over your face. He takes a deep breath.

“If I told you that you do not have anything to fear from me, or my brother, would you kindly put me down?” he asks in a voice that sounds alarmingly familiar. Your stomach cramps almost as painfully as your heart has been for the past hour. Without letting go of the driver’s throat, you turn and look at the man standing at the open passenger door, looking back at you with the same face as the man you have in your grip.

You let go, and Kieran sinks back into the car with a grunt. You scramble off the car roof and back away from it.

Just as you’re about to apologize, you see headlights cutting through the dark. You’re suddenly overcome with the wish that Sylus had killed you when you first met, because you can’t imagine how he’s going to react now, when he sees that you assaulted his employee and damaged his property with the rock that is now falling out of your nerveless hand.

You want to turn and run. You want to put this fucking night behind you. You hate that you’ve been thinking that so often lately. Every single time, you just want the night to be over. You’re so tired. Your heart won’t fucking stop doing that horrible thing in your chest, and you still feel like you need to run until you collapse to make it stop. But you’ve learned by now that there is no running from Sylus. Not in any way that matters. So you just stand there, waiting for the hammer to fall.

Thankfully, he doesn’t appear to enjoy toying with his prey tonight, because he quickly comes to a stop and parks the tank behind the twins’ car. He gracefully climbs down from the driver’s seat, slams the car door, and strides up to Kieran’s side, his black biker boots with the chains crunching on the broken glass. You wince with each footfall. He leans down and looks at Kieran. “You good?”

You can’t hear Kieran’s response, but you see Sylus nod and straighten. He gestures for Luke to get in the car, who obeys without comment. He then taps the roof firmly, twice, and strides toward you as Kieran pulls the car into the road, hangs an efficient u-turn, and disappears into the night.

You close your eyes and wait for Sylus to… you’re not sure? Hit you? Slam you with his evol? You brace yourself. Just because he’s been affectionate up until now, even through you throwing the duffel at him in front of an audience, doesn’t mean he’ll suffer you hurting his employees for no good reason. It doesn’t matter that this is the first time you've ever seen them without their masks on, and that it felt incredibly threatening as they followed you, for some unfathomable reason, with their damn headlights off.

Sure, you could fight back. Try to block his blow. But at this point, you feel like you fucking deserve it. You want to punch yourself in the face for hurting Kieran. You don’t know him, but he’s never been mean to you. The worst he’s ever done is give you a flare gun and pretend a pair of handcuffs could magically restrict Sylus’s evol. He didn’t deserve to be scared half to death and choked through a broken window because of his earlier prank. It occurs to you now that maybe stalking you with the headlights off was the twins’ idea of another prank? And you broke their car window and choked one of them. For fuck’s sake, at this point, you’ll welcome Sylus’s fist.

But instead of the hit you’re still bracing for, you jerk a little when you feel the heavy weight of a warm coat being draped around your shivering body.

You open your eyes. Sylus stands in front of you, wearing a thick cable knit sweater.

“If you wanted to go for a run, sweetheart, you could have just told me. We have a perfectly functional home gym, equipped with treadmills with big screens that make you feel like you’re running on a serene mountain path or along the beach. There’s no need to endure the desolation of the N109 zone’s ‘scenery’ when you’re here with me but want to work out.”

You just stare at him.

“What’s wrong? Crow’s got your tongue?” One corner of his mouth lifts as he taps the corner of your mouth gently with his index finger.

What the hell is happening? “Are you not mad at me?” you ask, completely at a loss.

“Why would I be mad at you?”

You gesture a little helplessly. “I hurt Kieran. I damaged your property. I interrupted whatever you were doing since you’re now out here instead of back at your home.”

“You didn’t damage my property. The car belongs to Luke and Kieran. Can I touch you?”

“What?” Your heart is a bloody, clenched fist, punching your body from the inside out. Sylus’s apparent calm in the face of all the mess that is you is making you feel like you’re insane.

“I said, can I touch you?” he repeats, as if he has all the patience in the world to repeat questions you clearly heard the first time.

“Like, can you hit me? Or strangle me? You want my permission to give me what I deserve?”

Sylus’ face changes. If you hadn’t been spending so much time recently watching videos on micro expressions and bluffing and acting, you might have missed it. He looks furious for a microsecond, and you want to take a step back. But you deserve whatever it is he’s feeling right now. You force yourself to stay still. You look up into his now neutral, lovely face.

He breathes in through his nostrils. “I will repeat this as many times as you need to hear it,” he says calmly, as the wind sweeps his silver hair across his forehead. Your heart is going to kill you, as you live through the eternity of the pause in this sentence. “I will never, ever hit you. And I will never think that you deserve to be hurt, for anything that you do, or don’t do.”

Okay. Okay, weird. He’ll strangle you, but he won’t hit you? He thought you deserved to be held captive for three days, denied food and water, forced to resonate, but he expects you to believe that he doesn’t want to punish you for fucking up as big as you did tonight? Where is the thin red line here? How can he say that he will never think you deserve to be hurt, when he hurt you so terribly during those first three days?

“Ask your question,” he says, but it’s not a command. It sounds more like a gentle invitation. What alternate reality have you stepped in tonight?

“I don’t understand how your mind works,” you say instead of obeying him.

“If you don’t ask, then you’ll continue not knowing how it works.” He still sounds infinitely patient. “As much as I’d like to, I can’t read your mind. Unless you ask, I won’t always know what you need from me.”

You shiver, even under the warmth of his heavy coat, but can’t bring yourself to answer. You close your eyes against the memory of his calloused hand around your throat. Of him tossing you in front of a huge mecha battlebot, sneering “You can handle it.” Of him telling you to survive the night, or else enjoy your last meal at his table. You open your eyes.

Sylus is watching your face, thumbs hooked in both trouser pockets. He shakes his head a little. “All right. I propose that we go back to the base, and you can pose all your questions there, no strings attached, without you standing out here freezing to death on your bare feet.”

This time you do take a step back, shaking your head. “No. No, nope, no thank you. If you could just dump me somewhere closer to the city, I can just get someone from the Association to pick me up. We can talk another time.”

He watches you closely, and you feel naked, with your heart a sledgehammer against the brittle framework of your ribs, and the sweat still soaking your hair. “Is there a particular reason you’re reluctant to go back home with me?” he finally asks.

You choke a little on a laugh. “You could say that,” you say dryly, with all the calm you can muster through the chaos in your chest.

“Care to share?”

You’re so tired. You’re so, so tired. None of it seems to matter anymore—whether he hits you, leaves you on the side of the road, or splatters you onto the gravel with his evol. “Do you really not know, Sylus? With all of your insight, do you really need your aether core to figure out why I wouldn’t want to go back to your criminal headquarters?”

“I thought you were getting used to the idea of the criminal aspect of my life,” he says slowly, as if that’s the important part.

“You’re right. I care less and less, every day, that you’re a wanted outlaw. But I really have no interest in reliving the days you spent choking me out and trying to brute force your way into resonating with me,” you murmur, because it’s so hard to say out loud, let alone think about it. You’re shaking. You’re shaking so hard, your bones hurt. Your teeth are chattering. None of these things have anything to do with how cold you are.

Sylus becomes very still, with the red, red moon above him, the wind still gusting through his hair, pulling at his sweater, and the dead earth stretching behind his tall figure.

“Can I touch you?” he asks again.

Can he touch you? Of course he can. All he has to do is what he has always done. He can just reach out and take what he thinks he deserves from you. As he has done since the first moment you met. But you don’t want to have to give him permission for it. You know you deserve it, but you still have enough of a sliver of self-preservation, or pride, or backbone—something in you refuses to give him this last bit of yourself by being complicit in whatever he wants to inflict on you right now.

“Can I touch you? Not to hit you. Not to choke you. Not to cause you any pain, in any way, whatsoever.”

You’re so confused. “Then why are you asking for permission, when you’ve never done that before?”

“Because I can see that bringing you to the base tonight, without talking to you about it, when you haven’t been back since our first few days together, was a mistake on my part. I may be many things, but stupid isn’t one of them. I do not intend to make the same mistake more than once.”

“I was stupid for not asking you where we were going,” you try to protest, although you don’t know why, through your clicking teeth.

“No, you weren’t. You trusted me to take you somewhere you would be comfortable. It was my fault for not considering that you would not feel safe in my home because of the way we began.” His voice sounds so resolute.

You just look down at your toes.

“Can I, please, touch you?” he asks, yet again, but this time he sounds a little strained.

Now that you know he’s not going to try to hurt you, you can finally nod. As soon as you start to bob your head, you feel yourself swept into the air, his strong arm under your knees, the other under your shoulders, and he holds you tightly, so that your face is tucked into his throat.

He carries you to the tank and manages to get the door open without letting you go, but instead of putting you on the passenger seat, he sets you on one of the bench seats further back in the vehicle, pulls the door shut behind himself, and sits next to you. He pauses, taking you in from head to toe, and then leans forward next to the driver’s seat and fiddles with something on the dash screen. He then sits back and pulls you onto his lap. Apparently, he hadn’t turned off the vehicle when he first arrived, because it’s so warm in here. He rests his hand, somehow still warm after standing out in the cold, against your heart.

“I know you want to go home right now. But it’s over an hour away. You need to get warmed up sooner rather than later. Do you trust me enough to allow me to take you back to base until you’re no longer shaking so hard it’s vibrating the whole armored vehicle?” he speaks, lips against your wet hair.

“It’s a tank, Sylus,” you protest, because even now you can't help yourself.

“Do you trust me enough to allow me to take you back to base until you’re no longer shaking so hard it’s vibrating the whole tank?” Sylus murmurs into your hair.

You don’t want to go back there. You just want to close your eyes, and be anywhere else but inside your body right now. Your mind drifts back to how thirsty you were in that house, the house he wants take you now. How thirsty you were, and no water was given. And when the terror would recede and exhaustion seeped into its place, the awareness of your hunger, and no food was given. How did you ever trust him to come near you again? How can he possibly ask you if you trust him enough to take you back there?

But being in his arms like this, despite everything he has done to you, his hand against your broken heart, is calming you in a way that makes trust and choice seem meaningless. You want to just stay right here, in this moment, where the past and the future are just fever dreams, and the only reality is Sylus’s hand, his lips, his chest against your shoulder and side. You want to carve your way into him, force him to carry you inside his skin so you’ll never be cold again. Even though he's the reason you're cold to begin with. You're so tired of this tangled, terrible bond with this terrible man.

And yet. Like always with him, when he's right here, holding you with such fierce tenderness, you find yourself surrendering to the temptation, to the seductive illusion that you’re safe with him, and you let him have whatever he wants.

You just nod, your cheek rubbing against the soft sweater over his clavicle. You feel his chest expand in what might be a relieved sigh, or just exasperation, and the vehicle begins to move. You startle, but he shushes you. “It’s in self-drive mode, we’ll be back in a few minutes.”

You relax again, and the way back is a blur. You don’t want to look, as he lifts you from the car and carries you through the underground garage beneath the base, into the elevator that lifts you to the floor on which his bedroom is located. The same expansive windows, soaring ceilings, subtle light in wall sconces stream by as he strides forward.

“I can walk,” you try to protest, but again, he softly shushes you.

“No, you can’t.”

“I’m cold, not paralyzed,” you counter, exhausted, amazed you still have the capacity to argue with him.

“Yes, yes, but you haven’t seen your feet. And I have.”

“What?” you lift your head, but he presses your face back into his chest.

“You ran five kilometers without shoes on a semi-paved road, kitten. I’m pretty sure you’re not accustomed to barefoot running, based on the state of your feet.”

You shudder even harder. You hadn’t even noticed the pain.

And then, you’re back in his bedroom. You feel him shift, toeing off his shoes at the threshold. He passes the lounge area, his hulking desk, the bookshelves and the bed, and takes you into the black marble cave of a bathroom you recall from your hunt for the brooch. He sets you on the padded bench thingy that probably has a fancy name that you imagine every rich person has even in their bathrooms and then goes to the walk-in shower and turns on the water. Almost immediately, steam begins to fill the expansive space. He returns and kneels at your feet.

“Your clothes need to come off,” he says softly, but loud enough that you can still hear him over the spray.

Since you’re back here, the place where you spent so long helpless and trapped, it’s easy to slide right back into that space, but this time you don’t have the energy to even try to help yourself—you just nod again, but don’t move.

Sylus pauses, but then slowly reaches out and slides his coat from your shoulders. Then, so, so gently, he lifts the lower hem of the sweater you’re wearing, knuckles drifting along the sensitive skin of your stomach, and gathers the material under your armpits. With his other hand, he lifts one of your arms and pulls it through and out of the sleeve, and gently rests it back at your side again. He repeats the movement on your other side, and lifts the sweater over your head. Then, with one arm, he scoops you from the bench, gently but efficiently peeling the sleep shorts from your hips and over your legs. You’re left in just your underwear.

He carries you to the shower, the steam warm on your skin, and lowers you on one of the marble benches built into the wall. The water streaming from the shower hits him full on, and his own clothes are soaked through almost immediately. He reaches behind himself and pulls the sweater and undershirt over his head and tosses them back into the bathroom. He then grabs his belt, unbuckling it in practiced moves. Unzips his trousers, slips out of them, tossing them behind him as well. Clad in only a black pair of boxer-briefs, wet hair tarnished silver, he sits next to you on the bench and pulls you onto his lap again, your back to his chest.

And then… the two of you just sit like that, floating together in a timeless space composed of water, skin, and the steady shush of the shower water. His arms around you are as tight as a straitjacket, securing you against him as if he thinks you’ll dissipate like the steam and drift away if he doesn’t anchor you to his own body. He doesn’t say anything at all. He doesn’t ask anything at all. He just holds you, his cheek resting in your hair, and doesn’t let go.

Slowly, so slowly, your heart slows in your chest. Your body-wracking shivering ebbs in violence, until, finally, you are completely still. Now that your muscles aren’t locked into defending against the convulsions from the cold, and… everything else, you melt into Sylus, head lolling on his chest, the spray of the water soothing everything that hurts, and his steady heartbeat at your back soothing everything else.

But of course, because you’re you, and this life is your life, this peaceful emptiness doesn’t last long. You slowly become aware of the most terrifying need welling up inside you, one you’ve managed to resist since… now that you think about it, since the last time you were in Sylus’s home. You need to fucking cry.

All of your efforts to avoid this feeling—the terrifying loss of control, the exposure of the weakest part of yourself to yourself, or to another—refusing to speak about the terror and the pain inside you, the terror and pain you carry through every minute of every day, to your friends, to your doctor—all in a desperate bid to keep the floodgates of your tears bolted shut, are crashing onto the shore of this ocean of need. The need to cry. You’ve tried so desperately to avoid it, because once you start, you’re afraid that you will never, ever stop.

But now, being held by this man, who is so deeply threaded into the source of this feeling, somehow triggers the switch in your brain that says safe, safe, you can release the flood behind the gates, and you will not drown, because he’ll hold your head above water, no matter the cost .

You have no idea why your brain thinks this. You can guess why your brain considers a gunshot the same as a bomb, or why your first instinct when approached from behind is threat threat threat, neutralize first, ask questions later . But you cannot fathom for the fucking life of you why your brain sees Sylus and whispers, Shelter. Sustenance. Safety.

You can’t help it. The first tears begin to gather at the edges of your eyes. Your breath quickens, your chest begins to heave with the effort of holding it in. Your face is hot. But despite all of your will focused on not. fucking. crying... the tears begin to fall. At first, silently, but then from deep inside your chest, the sobs clawing their way out of your lungs through your throat, and suddenly you’re howling.

It hurts. It hurts so much. You hate it. You hate that Sylus is here as silent witness to all the weakest parts of yourself. You twist in his arms, straddle his lap. You wrap your arms around his neck and bury your face in his throat, and then you weep. You wail, snot and spit and tears sliding down his chest, because you’re blocking the shower’s spray.

And Sylus? He keeps his arms wrapped around you, his cheek still in your hair, and doesn’t say a thing. After a while, you realize that he has started to shift on the bench, gently rocking you as you fall apart in his arms. One big hand, pressed flat on your back, runs firmly from the top of your spine to your lower back, and then back again. Still anchoring you to him. You feel a low vibration in your chest, under all the other sounds of the loud shower, and realize he’s humming very quietly. You have no idea if he’s humming something in particular. But the feeling in your chest is so soothing, eventually you realize that your sobs, and your tears, have slowed, just as the shivering of your body did while wrapped in his arms.

And then you’re done. You don’t have anything left—just the hollow relief of not being afraid, not shivering, not crying—the relief of not feeling much of anything at all. You try to hold on to it, grasp it in your fists. But like everything else, it slips through your fingers all the same, and you feel the shame come.

Miraculously, the shower water is still hot. It’s beating down on your back, your lowered head, still tucked under Sylus’s chin. You try to sit up, move away, but he just tightens his hold.

“Where do you think you’re going, sweetheart?” he asks, sounding like he has sounded since the end of the auction. Slightly amused. Curious. Infinitely tolerant.

You can’t say anything. You’re so embarrassed that he just witnessed all of… that. You just want to escape now.

“Hmm?” he murmurs into your hair, to emphasize his question in the face of your refusal to respond. And then, “Why are you always trying to leave me?”

You’re so surprised by the raw vulnerability in his question that you pull back to look into his face. He’s still holding you so tightly, your noses brush. His eyes are wet from the shower spray, droplets clinging in his dark lashes.

“What do you mean?”

“You leaving the base without saying a word is the second time in just one night that you were considering leaving me, without even telling me,” he says evenly, big hand still spread across your back. “Why?”

Suddenly, you’ve had enough. You are so tired of not understanding him, of trying to decipher clues from his inexplicable behavior, the incongruous way he touches you, treats you when you’re at your lowest, compared to how he treated you when you first met. “Why do you even care, Sylus? No amount of utility that I may have for you is worth you putting up with… this,” you gesture to yourself, face twisted in disgust.

“Utility?” he repeats, tilting his head. The hand on your back drifts upward until he has his big palm wrapped around the back of your neck, thumb along the side of your throat, fingers plunging into your hair.

“The dating advice… the resonance,” you remind him, though you don’t know why. You assume he knows exactly what you were referring to, that he’s just buying time to think of an answer that will make you stop asking inconvenient questions.

“You think I’m… ‘putting up’ with you, as you so charmingly phrase it, because I want your help with convincing my beloved that I’m sincere, and because I want you to resonate with me again? Is that what you’re saying?” he summarizes your thoughts.

“Why else would you go to all this trouble to spend so much time on me, when at every turn I end up doing something ridiculous? First, almost having a panic attack at the auction. Then, the very next time we’re out in public together, I make a scene during one of your business meetings. Then, the same night, because I’m just that awesome, I have another panic attack and almost kill one of your employees because I thought they were some human trafficker thinking he had an easy target tonight.”

“Why did you think they were human traffickers?” Sylus asks.

“He was following me with his fucking headlights off in the middle of the night on a deserted road in the N109 zone! What would you have assumed?” you demand, forgetting the whole point of this conversation.

He tilts his head, makes a little moue with his mouth. “Fair enough,” he acknowledges. “And that’s exactly why I’m not mad at you. I didn’t believe for a second that you would attack him for no reason. And, neither did he, by the way. Which is why you’re still in one piece.”

You eye him. “What do you mean?”

Sylus considers you for a moment, and then sighs. “Do you think you’re up to getting washed up before we unpack what you just said? I’ll make us something to eat and we can talk about everything once you’re clean and dry.”

You look down at your fingers, and see that their tips resemble raisins. You’ve made Sylus sit in this shower for at least an hour while you lost your shit. Despite the rich bastard being able to afford never-ending warm water, apparently, you can’t imagine this is how he wanted to spend his version of his evening. You nod.

“Finally, some sense from you,” he smiles slightly, lifting you in his arms. He sets you gently on the shower floor, and grabs a bottle from the built-in shelving containing a bunch of shower products. He kneels in front of you, his broad back blocking the spray from hitting your face. Despite the heat in the room, you shiver as he reaches toward you, as you feel his fingers slide from your calf to your ankle. Your brain stalls out and you can’t bring yourself to protest as he lifts your leg and gently foams some fragrance-free soap, and as delicately as possible washes the now-stinging sole of your foot. He gently lowers it back to the shower’s marble floor, and does the same with your other foot. When he’s done, he simply holds your foot in his palm, looking at it contemplatively, thumb running along the skin near your ankle.

After a few moments, he eyes your face, and then his gaze drifts to your hair.

“I probably suck at washing someone else’s hair. Can you teach me how to do yours?”

You start shaking your head. “I may have hurt my feet, but I’m still capable of washing my own hair. You really don’t have to do this for me,” you begin, but he shakes his head.

“Just indulge me. Please.” He looks steadily at you. Something about the way he says please, and the fact that it’s the second time tonight he’s asked you so earnestly for your permission to touch you, has you nodding, again.

He gently squeezes your foot, and then moves to get a few more bottles from the veritable drugstore he has stashed in the shower shelves. He then kneels back at your side and shows you, to your amazement, the same products that are sitting in your own shower back home. “Show me how you use these,” he says.

You stare at the bottles. Then you stare at his face. His eyes seem to gleam through the shower steam.

“Why—?” you ask, but he just shrugs.

“I was hoping you’d visit me,” he says nonchalantly, like it’s the most normal thing in the world for him to stock all of his friends’ personal hygiene products in his bedroom’s en suite bathroom.

Your mind drifts over all of the assumptions you’ve held about this man since you met him. All of the assumptions that have been utterly incorrect. You think about your assumption that he was dreaming about someone else, as he was biting your neck. You think about your assumption that the person he was describing in the Lethe lounge was someone else—anyone else, either one of your friends, a fellow Hunter, or someone you don’t even know. You think about the deal he made with you tonight—the help he says he needs in convincing someone that his feelings are sincere. Someone who refuses to consider that he doesn’t have an ulterior motive in treating them with kindness. In spending time with them. In devoting his precious free time to caring for them. Your gaze drifts between the bottles of the mid-range shampoo and conditioner he’s holding in his strong hands, because you can’t afford the really fancy shit you would really like to splurge on but you have too much pride to just buy the stuff from the grocery store.

You understand the nature of tools. You work with tools every day in your job. Your knives, your swords, your guns. You maintain your tools with a diligence that others may consider fanatical, but which you know will help you survive, in the end. A whet stone, to sharpen your blades. Gun brush and oil, to clean and ensure the weapon doesn’t jam when you need it the most. These things are essential in caring for your most useful possessions.

If you are a tool, the only things Sylus needs to maintain your utility are an absence of fear, your willingness to help him, the strength of your body in being well rested and well fed. Everything he has done up till now could be interpreted as serving the purpose of maintaining a tool he intends to use in the future. But a tool doesn’t have to be attractive. A tool doesn’t need clean, well-moisturized hair to function. The cosmetics of the thing are irrelevant, as long as it can efficiently serve its purpose. But you also know that Sylus likes shiny things. He likes the best, finest things. But if he wanted you to be as attractive as possible for aesthetic purposes, he could have bought the expensive, top-of-the shelf products that you’re sure he buys for himself if he was hoping you’d visit and inexplicably be showering in his bathroom. But no. He bought the products that you use. That you’re used to. That he knows you like because you had bought them for yourself. You cannot understand how the presence of your own shampoo and conditioner in his shower could serve any of the purposes of an owner maintaining the utility of a tool.

You look back up into his face, and he’s looking at you patiently, but also with an eagerness to get started on helping you with your hair. Aside from everything else—how you started, how he treated you in this house—you don’t dare believe that the assumptions you’ve been making up until now are wrong. You aren’t ready to handle the emotional devastation if you begin to hope that the person Sylus wants in his life is… not someone else, only to find out that such an assumption is also wrong. You can’t. You can’t, not yet.

So you just gesture at the shampoo. “I start with this.”

He sets the conditioner down. You proceed to tell him how you take care of your hair, and he follows your instructions silently, with a clumsy obedience that is incredibly endearing. His fingers along your scalp are so soothing, you melt into him as he washes your hair, your back to his chest. When he’s done, he takes the same care with the conditioner, touching you like you’re made of the most delicate blown glass instead of the scratched and scuffed stainless steel you imagine yourself to be.

When he’s done, he withdraws his hands from your hair and says next to your ear, “I’ll leave you to finish washing up. Towels and clothes will be on the bench. Call for me, and I’ll bandage your feet.”

And then you’re alone, with the water still beating down on your chest and shoulders. You peel off your underwear, and just sit there, knees drawn to your chest, letting the soothing heat stream down your back.

Your mind drifts. Again, you think of his calloused hand around your throat. You think of him sneering that you’re such a disappointment. You think of the thirst, and the hunger. You think about him dragging you across the floor with his evol, every time you tried to claw your way of the room where he forced you to resonate, over and over again.

You think about his embrace as you danced at the auction, your clasped hands as he let you decide when to detonate the bombs before you slipped into a panic attack. You think about the first time you fell asleep with him, on the back of his motorcycle. You think of a pot of poisonous flowers, wine the color of his eyes in a glass held to your mouth, his hands in your hair tonight.

You know that you can’t continue like this. Something has to give. You can’t be his friend, while being terrified of your memories of him. You need to do what he has asked and ask him questions, so that you can finally reconcile the man who just washed your feet so tenderly with the man who suggested cutting off your hand to break the linkage between you the first time the energy shackles bound you two together. The man who brings you wine, and more food than you could eat in a week, with the man who starved you for days.

You slowly get to your feet, wincing at the pain in your soles. You must have cut your feet up pretty bad, but you don’t want to look. You hobble to the shelves and let your hand drift over the array of neatly organized bottles. Your hair products are the only familiar products. Everything looks fancy as hell, with minimal branding, dark and masculine. You find body wash, and squeeze some onto your palm. The scent of citrus rises to your nose—you’ve finally found the source of oranges you sometimes detect on Sylus’s skin. You eagerly lather the soap between your hands and quickly cover your body with it.

When you’re done rinsing, you hobble out of the shower and find the towel and clothes stacked neatly just as Sylus had described. You even find the same type of towel you use specifically on your hair. You wrap it around your head, slip into the silky tank top, shorts and robe, and sit for a moment, elbows on your knees. You see yourself in one of the huge mirrors above the large sink and counter. You look so fucking tired. It’s time. You can’t keep shoving everything down, down deep. You need answers.

“Sylus,” you call. You wait. He appears in the doorway, leans his long body against door frame, shirtless with black silken pants hung low on his waist, warm looking slippers on his big feet.

"Yes, my dearest treasure?"

You laugh a little at the absurd endearment. Somehow, even when you're feeling at your worst, he always manages to make you laugh. It would be so easy, to close your eyes. To pretend that the way you began with him was the dream, that his gentle touch and silly endearments are the real Sylus. The only Sylus. But you're tired of lying to yourself. If you try to shove it all down, down deep, what happened tonight will only repeat itself, in possibly worse ways. You need to find a way forward, a way to realign the conflicting images of Sylus, to sift through them like mirages in the desert. You'd rather see him clearly, from his most malignant to his most tender selves, than continue to be lost between your horrific memories from those first three days and how he's looking at you right now. As if you're somehow precious to him. You take a deep breath.

“Can we talk?”

#love and deepspace #love and deepspace sylus #lads #lnds #lds #l&ds #sylus x reader #sylus x mc #love and deepspace fanfiction #i'm worried that this is too heavy #but i think how sylus treated mc at the beginning can't just be glossed over #my fanfic #i'm hoping to return to more shenanigans maybe halfway through the next part or the part after #hope some people still enjoy it #not to worry no twins were hurt in the making of this silly fic

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dannychai1617 · 10 months ago

Text

ao3 skin that i made!! (copy code under "keep reading")

it's a messy combination of pieces of code from other people's skins and my own changes

the header image is NOT MINE! it is "Pattern Galaxy Space Planets Vibrant Linear Universe" by Arncil on Redbubble, which i just used as an example for an image you could use!

here are some of the skins that i can remember using as part of this, but i've been building it for years so forgive me if i forget some:

Shortening long tag fields by Xparrot (on ao3)

Slim Shaded by AO3 (on ao3)

Lily Garden by tealtiam (on Tumblr)

AO3 Tag category coloring! by ao3css (on Tumblr)

come back here to my tips or leave a comment if you need some help customizing the code!

Background color: #26303C

Text color: #CBC6C3

Header color: #46626D

Accent color: #993F33

steps to create a new skin using this code:

log into ao3 account

go to dashboard >> skins

click "create site skin"

make sure TYPE is "site skin"

add a unique title

copy all code below

paste into field 'CSS'

click on "use wizard" at the top

copy and paste the four colors written above into their corresponding boxes

click SUBMIT

click USE

how to customize this skin:

FONT SIZE: at the very top of the code, change the "90%" to be bigger or smaller to change the font size within a fic

MAIN COLORS: to change the main colors, select "use wizard" when editing the skin and replace any of the four hex codes under "Background color:", "Text color:", "Header color:", and "Accent color:"

SECONDARY COLORS: find all hex codes within the code and change those numbers as you like! i changed all colors to match with the color palette of the header photo that i chose to make it feel cohesive

TAG COLORS: towards the end, the "relationship", "character", and "freeform" tags alternate three colors to make them easy to separate. in this skin they are all very similar, so you can change those to be whatever colors you like!

HEADER PHOTO: find the link towards the end of the code right before the warning tags and replace it with a link to any photo you like! it loops, so you don't have to worry about sizing or anything

FONT: i'm unsure how exactly to do this, but the in-fic font is currently set to Georgia Serif, so i suppose just go find that and replace it with your preferred font!

BORDER STYLES: wherever you see the code "border-style:", replace the word that comes after it with one of these options: none, solid, dashed, dotted, double, groove, ridge, inset, outset, or hidden

WARNING TAGS: at the very end of the code is a list of words or phrases that, when they appear in the tags of a fic, are highlighted in a contrasting color so that they are easy to avoid if necessary. you can add or remove those tags however you like, or change the warning color!

COPY AND PASTE ALL CODE BELOW

#workskin { font-size: 90%; } li.blurb .tags { max-height: 7.5em; overflow-y: auto; } #header { min-height: 0; } #header a, #header fieldset, #header ul.primary, #header ul.primary .current { border: 0; background: 0; } h1 a img { height: 50px; border: 0; } #header .landmark { clear: none; } #header ul.primary { background: rgba(0,0,0,0.65); border-bottom: 1px solid rgba(0,0,0,0.75); } #header ul.primary, #header ul.primary .current, ul.primary.actions a, #header ul.primary .current { color: #CBC6C3; } #header ul.primary .current, #header #search input, #header #search input:focus { background: rgba(0,0,0,0.25); color: #CBC6C3; box-shadow: inset 0 0 3px #131A2A; border-color: #131A2A; } .actions, .actions input { text-transform: lowercase; } blockquote.userstuff { font-family: "Mido", "AUdimat", "Ostrich Sans Rounded","Lucida Grande", sans-serif !important; position: relative; background: rgba(0,0,0,0.1); padding: 2%; border: 1px solid rgba(0,0,0,0.15); box-shadow: 0 0 2px rgba(0,0,0,0.4); } blockquote.userstuff:after { content: "\201D"; right: 0; top: auto; left: auto; } body, .userstuff { font-family: Mido, Georgia, serif; } .heading, .userstuff h3, .userstuff h4 { font-family: "CabinSketch", Georgia,serif; } #main .heading { color: #CBC6C3; } #inner .group, #inner .heading, fieldset, .verbose legend, table, table th, col.name, span.unread, span.replied { outline: none; background: transparent; border-color: #131A2A; border-style: double; box-shadow: none; border-radius: 2em; border-bottom-right-radius: 0; border-top-left-radius: 0; } #inner .group .group .group, col.name { border-style: double; border-color: #CBC6C3; box-shadow: 0 0 2px #000; } #inner .bookmark .user.module, #inner .wrapper { border: 0; border-radius: 0; border-top: 3px double #bbb; box-shadow: none; } .filters { font-size: 90%; } .toggled form, .dynamic form, .secondary, .dropdown { background: #fff url("/images/skins/textures/tiles/white-handmade-paper.jpg"); } a.tag, a.tag:visited, a.tag:link { display: inline-block; padding: 1px 3px; margin: 2px 0px; border: 2px solid #46626D; border-radius: 5px; } .commas li:after { content: ""; } h5.fandoms.heading { color: transparent; } .favorite a.tag { border: none; } .tags li.relationships:nth-of-type(3n+1) a.tag { background-color: #1d3954; } .tags li.relationships:nth-of-type(3n+2) a.tag { background-color: #264663; } .tags li.relationships:nth-of-type(3n+3) a.tag { background-color: #305475; } .tags li.characters:nth-of-type(3n+1) a.tag { background-color: #214154; } .tags li.characters:nth-of-type(3n+2) a.tag { background-color: #294c61; } .tags li.characters:nth-of-type(3n+3) a.tag { background-color: #31576e; } .tags li.freeforms:nth-of-type(3n+1) a.tag { background-color: #234e54; } .tags li.freeforms:nth-of-type(3n+2) a.tag { background-color: #2a585e; } .tags li.freeforms:nth-of-type(3n+3) a.tag { background-color: #316269; } .tags li.freeforms a.tag:hover, .tags li.characters a.tag:hover, .tags li.relationships a.tag:hover { background-color: #26303C; color: white; } #header .logo { display: none; } #header ul.primary { box-shadow: none; padding-top: 30px; padding-bottom: 30px; background: #FCC191 url(https://i.pinimg.com/564x/8c/bc/ae/8cbcae1760dc88ae8730566337a5d2eb.jpg); background-attachment: fixed; } li.blurb a.tag[href*="suicid"], [href*="suicide"], [href*="Suicide"], [href*="rape"], [href*="Rape"], [href*="consentual"], [href*="Consentual"], [href*="non-con"], [href*="consent issues"], [href*="Kidnapping"], [href*="kidnapping"], [href*="Canibalism"], [href*="cannibalism"], [href*="Cannibalism"], [href*="Dove"], [href*="dead dove do not eat"], [href*="murder"], [href*="Murder"], [href*="harm"], [href*="self harm"], [href*="Harm"], [href*="Torture"], [href*="abduction"], [href*="asphyxiation"], [href*="blood"], [href*="Blood"], [href*="death"], [href*="Death"], [href*="gore"], [href*="Gore"], [href*="incest"], [href*="Incest"], [href*="trauma"], [href*="Trauma"], [href*="torture"] { color: #000000; font-weight: bold; background-color: #993F33; }

#ao3 #ao3 stuff #archive of our own #ao3 skins #links #ao3 site skin #css

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strawberrygummiess · 3 months ago

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pink in the night.

malleus x gender neutral! reader 1k words cross posted on ao3 "At one point, Malleus believed he woke up to see the night sky. But now he was convinced he woke up to see you."

Malleus believes he wakes up to see the stars.

The night sky was truly a gift from Mother Nature herself. She throws a blanket of darkness over the scenery of Night Raven College, with speckles of starlight peeking through, almost like a homemade, crocheted quilt. She tucks in her children with chaste kisses of the night breeze and leaves a little moonlight to ease their fears of the unknown. It was a tranquil showcase of her love for the world and Malleus couldn’t help but mischievously sneak out of bed to see the beauty in her work.

"Ever the poet," Lilia would always remark. Malleus never really agreed. The poetry wrote itself; he only verbalized what he saw. He wasn’t the creative type, he decided. It wasn’t that he sought and found beauty in unconventional places, like a certain Pomefiore Vice Houswarden, it’s only that he recognized what was clearly in front of him. Although, the presence of the Ramshackle Prefect made him consider singing sonnets from the rooftops.

You had been a surprise for him on his nightly walks. He had come to expect the usual landmarks on campus, broken up by the occasional scurrying creature. But you- you were something completely unexpected. A new student, naively curious. Kind, warm, fearless. You were ignorant of who he was; being from another world (how lucky for him!) left him with endless possibilities. With you, he was no longer Malleus Draconia, the crown prince of Briar Valley, and one of the most powerful mages in the world. He was-

“Tsunotarou! Or Hornton. Your choice… never mind, I’ll just use both.”

Malleus replayed that night over and over. How could he not? This was it. A friend. He wasn’t being presumptuous, it was you who gave him a nickname (not that you had a choice of course, but you gave him two) you who joined him on his walks, you who listened to his rambles, you, you. Clearly, you wanted to befriend him. Who else would be this forward?

At one point, Malleus believed he woke up to see the night sky. But now he was convinced he woke up to see you.

This was the conclusion he came to after tonight’s walk with you. You led the conversation this time. You spoke about the adventures you were dragged into; your frustrations with your feline companion and Headmaster Crowley; and how much you enjoyed the night walks with him.

Wait, what?

“Tsunotarou? Hello?” You dragged out the “o” in an endearingly casual manner, stepping in front of him as you tried to ground him back into the moment.

“You in there? Were you listening to me?” You teased, crossing your arms and smiling. You tilted your head to the side as you tried to read his face. He felt entirely exposed; like you could hear his beating heart and see how enamored he was by you. You, however, wished he’d give you a clue about how he was feeling.

“Of course I was, Child of Man,” He responded calmly. He hoped his butterfly-filled stomach didn’t betray his voice. Your favorite part of the day was the walks with him. He’d never been so ecstatic. “I always listen to you,”

You don’t say anything. You continue smiling and narrow your eyes, still looking for something else. Your expression mirrors one Lilia would use before he scolded him. Were you truly mad at him? He could (and would, if you asked) recall everything you said in the past half hour. He would prove that he was listening, deserving of your presence, a good friend- more if you let him. Malleus would literally move mountains if you asked.

“Hey! You’re doing it again, Hornton. Get out of your head.”

Your touch is electrifying. It almost burns. He hears you exclaim about “how cold” his skin is, but only vaguely. What he did notice, was how your hand was holding his face. A concerned look replaced your teasing smile as you studied him. You mumbled again about how cold he was, and pressed your other hand to his forehead, brushing under his bangs.

“If you were sick, why did you walk over here? Now you’ve made it worse!” You scolded, bringing him closer to your height as you gently rubbed his cheeks, attempting to warm him up. “At this rate, you’ll freeze. I mean seriously, you’re as cold as ice!”

Malleus had half a mind to tell you that he was completely fine. He wasn’t sick at all, fae just ran a bit cold. Colder than what a human could stand. Yet he decided to entertain your doting, smiling slightly.

“I apologize, Child of Man. I didn’t want to ruin your favorite part of the day. Do forgive me,” It was his turn to tease. Just a little. It wouldn’t hurt to indulge in your attention. You click your tongue, before releasing his head and declaring the walk “over”. Pity. He was hoping you’d hold him for a bit longer. He usually wasn’t very tolerant of the heat, but he was happy to withstand it if it meant you held him longer.

“C’mon Tsunotarou,” You announce, walking back in the direction you came. “We gotta go back to my dorm. I’ll wrap you in a blanket burrito and feed you some tuna soup…” you cringe. “It tastes better than it sounds, promise.” You clarify, before decisively grabbing his hand and gently tugging him forward.

He listens to you explain different ways you’ve learned to transform canned tuna because of Grim, to varying success. You once again reassure him that the soup is one of the better creations, before continuing your rant about “missing regular meat,” and “tuna isn’t even the best fish!” but at this point, Malleus can only focus on the warm grip of your hand on his and the constant hammering of his heart.

Oh, the poems he’d write about you. They’d feature tales of fish and ice, comparisons to the peace of the night, and love letters from the starry sky. But really, he wouldn’t be doing much work. He only verbalized the beauty he saw, after all.

#twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #twst #twst x reader #malleus draconia #malleus x reader #disney twst #twst malleus #malleus draconia x reader

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themaclean · 8 months ago

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We Don't Have To Be Friends (1/2) Characters: Cooper Howard/Lucy MacLean. Summary: 3,507 words, Post Season One -- character study that was meant to be PWP, but then ended up being entirely plot. Part two will be smut or I will krill myself. Warnings: Nothing you wouldn't see in the show. ( Ao3 ) > Part One | Part Two | Part Three <

Cooper never thought much about Hollywood anymore.

He had no reason to and no time either— but the thoughts bubbled up when he saw how the gold thread of his shirt dulled and familiar street signs melted into slack arches. Sometimes, he’d catch sight of a tattered newspaper with names he recognized or faces of people long since dead.

But nothing made him think of Hollywood the way Lucy did.

It hit him one afternoon with a nasty churn, that flash of the old world that locked his knees mid-stride. It was pathetic, really, when he thought about it now.

It was the flash of Lucy's Vault-Tec-sponsored smile over her shoulder, her thin hand with a necrotized finger pointing ahead of them at some landmark she’d heard of. With her head turned at just the right angle, and the sun was low as it caught the edges of her cheeks and lashes…

She had the sort of face girls in the movies had: clear skin, big eyes, and neat hair. Pretty — beautiful, actually, but not as a matter of compliment. Beautiful in the way she’d make a good price at any given market if he was inclined to sell her. Beautiful in the way people loved to exploit.

That’s the lifeblood of Hollywood—that churning mass of young talent desperate to prove they had what it takes. They’d sweet talk whoever they needed to, go to the parties, and chat his ear off about how amazing he’d been in whatever movie had come out lately, about the sponsorships they’d been offered, and about the dresses they got sent. They’d slip him their number and hold his bicep too long like they’d been taught to by managers and mothers alike.

Dozens of pretty women rushed to audition for the role of arm candy. They’d audition to play the mayor's daughter, the farmer's daughter, or so-and-so’s daughter. They’d always been the damsel. Then, whatever cowboy he’d been hired to play would toss the pretty woman onto the back of Sugarfoot and ride off into the sunset. The sort of girl who'd be gone by the next movie or end up married to a director, so she'd quit acting.

And, much like all the girls in Hollywood Cooper had spent time with, Lucy had changed. She had the same optimism, but it’d dulled; her marketable face now held tired, empty eyes. It was like she finally caught onto the world’s current: no sunset and no next movie.

Cooper couldn’t fault her. It's a strange journey to discover what to do to survive.

“Hey Cooper — is that it?” Lucy asked, repeating herself. The sprawl of buildings ahead was dotted with torches and candles.

Cooper nodded, his hand firm on Dogmeat’s collar.

A short strip of buildings stood out against the expanse of desert and dry shrubs. Each building leaned towards another, with sheet metal fastened with unskilled welding. Several turrets puttered away, seeking whatever wasn’t humanoid enough. Strips of fabric and tin cans garlands peppered the buildings' front. The smaller buildings on either side were your standard fare: a repair shop, a medic, a trader with a little diner area.

But the one Cooper was after stood out for its neon sign—Hell’s Oasis.

Hell’s Oasis served its purpose—it was a decent place to get information, and the people minded their business. They weren’t too bothered with ghouls or mutants as long as you had caps. The place often served as a meeting ground for bounty hunters and their contractors. It was also one of the more upscale places, as they wouldn’t harvest organs unless you died of natural causes.

And, if you couldn’t fight or forage for survival, you could fuck for it.

(Not that Cooper ever wasted caps on the whores who took residence within Hell’s Oasis. He’d sooner pay people to fuck off than spend the night with him.)

Cooper grabbed Lucy by the nape of her neck to yank her close and keep her firmly by his side. Most people he brought here, he left here — call it a force of habit to handle her so roughly.

“I can walk, y’know,” Lucy hissed.

“Stick close,” Cooper clicked his tongue at her, and a slight hiss followed. His grip flexed to further the message that she’d do well to follow his guidance.

They made their way through the hotel lobby, the moldy carpet slick against the floor with dirt and grease from the world outside. A few people chattered away in the attached bar, laughing at jokes Cooper couldn’t make out. Casino chips clattered on the table as they played made-up card games.

Long dead plants clung to arid dirt, the sticks of old ferns wilting against one another. Metal crates were lashed together in each corner of the alcove where the front desk sat, providing a makeshift cage between the staff and the patrons. Several girls rushed past Cooper and Lucy, jeering and cackling as they approached the bar. They were clad in lacy nightgowns. He couldn’t tell if they knew they were lingerie rather than clothes or if they’d even care.

“It’s so lively here,” Lucy said, a pang of something in her face.

“It happens in pockets,” Cooper said with a shrug of his shoulder. Little uh… spots of life.”

“Must be why they call it an oasis.”

Cooper rolled his eyes as they reached the front desk. Magazines sat in thick stacks with information about local tours in the area and a guide to the national parks. An abandoned handbag was tucked against the desk, which Lucy eyed with curiosity.

Cooper slapped the front desk bell a few times, a gargling growl low in his throat.

They needed this break after a couple of weeks on the road together. Water was getting sparse, and he wanted to be ready to meet with whoever the fuck Hank had run off to. And in such an open desert, there’s no sense traveling at night, and all manner of dumb shit came up along the way.

It was always something. People needed help or some dumb cunt trying to pick a fight, resupplies, rest… He didn’t like helping people much, but Lucy argued with him whenever they tried to go on without at least trying. And whether the people lived or died, at least they tried. That was her argument.

But Lucy listened to him a little more now, and he was as patient as he could be with her.

Cooper rang the bell again. He wanted a room, and the chattering laughter in the bar was only making his aches worse.

Priscilla appeared from behind a moth-eaten velvet curtain. Her hairline was hidden beneath a thick headscarf with puffy blond curls bouncing beneath it. The last time he’d been here, her hair had begun to rot out of her skull. He guessed it’d only gotten worse. She’s still pretty, mirroring that old-world red lip with pin curls.

“Oh my God, is that you, Coop? I haven’t seen you in a long time,” Priscilla said in a slow, low voice. She had a rasp to it, always had, though he wasn’t sure if it was from the radiation or a smoking habit.

“Was underground,” Cooper said with a lazy smile. He wouldn’t mention that he’d been underground in a literal sense, trapped in a coffin.

“Well, it’s nice for you to come to see us and…” Priscilla’s gaze slid to Lucy, that usual surprise swelling up at the sight of a genuine Vault Dweller. They weren’t hard to spot. “Ah, you turning her in for a bounty?”

Lucy’s head snapped towards him, a mixture of shock and disgust.

“No,” Cooper shook his head, his grip firm on Lucy’s neck to turn her head away from him. His fingers tensed before they dropped away altogether, brushing across Lucy’s shoulder. “Tag-along. Helpin’ her uh…” He picked through the words that came to mind, cautious not to share too much. “Adjust to the surface.”

Priscilla’s jaw squared as she stared Lucy down.

“We’re just lookin’ for a room, some food,” Cooper said before she could pry further. “Usual fare.”

“Please,” Lucy said, like Cooper had forgotten, and it was important to say. “The usual fare, please.”

“She speaks,” Priscilla said in a purr.

Cooper had to give Lucy credit. She’d stayed quiet much longer than he’d expected.

“Oh, we’ll also need water,” Lucy said, looking up at Cooper. “For cleaning and drinking. I’m not sure if you separate it that way or if you reuse it unless you have showers.”

Priscilla narrowed her eyes. “Running water? We can get you a bucket of water, sweetness. That alright with you?”

“It works great for me. Big fan of buckets. They’re the backbone of agriculture and cleaning, really, if you think about it…” Lucy agreed, her smile as bright as the neon sign by the front window.

Priscilla looked at Cooper and then at Lucy, repeating the loop before she sauntered behind a moth-eaten velvet curtain strung up with zip ties. The distant hum of a generator underscored the silence as Cooper picked over the board of caricatures. Plenty of people were banned from the premises or with a bounty on their heads — no one stood out on the board, at least.

“She was giving us a weird look,” Lucy leaned closer to Cooper, feigning a swipe of her hand through her hair. The floor creaked as she shifted her weight closer to him. “Is it the bucket thing? I panicked.”

Cooper scoffed from the back of his throat.

“It is safe here, right? You trust her?”

“It’s safe,” Cooper bared his teeth at Lucy, begging her to return to the docile silence she’d thrived in.

“Then why — ”

Cooper hissed for her to shh through clenched teeth.

Priscilla pushed past the curtain. She gripped a little blue card with faded gold edges. A key with a golden ball chain was attached to the edge. It felt strangely archaic to be so formal about lodgings, but it was why he liked this place.

“I guess it makes sense,” Priscilla said as she slid the key to Cooper. She nodded to Lucy. “You wanting a girl who’s more… Old—world flavor. It reminds you of the golden years, hm?”

“Six, right?” Cooper ignored her question, his gaze fixed to the card.

“Six,” Priscilla repeated, her gaze on Lucy.

Cooper tossed a few caps onto the front desk, the clatter of metal their own punctuation. He notched his head towards the stairs, and Dogmeat and Lucy followed in stride. He was eager for the simple things — water, food, and a moment to let his bags rest.

“Wanting a girl…” Lucy smiled, mumbling more of Priscilla’s words under her breath.

After several flights of stairs and a few hours, Cooper felt all the better. He’d eaten his fill and enjoyed the peace of an enclosed room. He didn’t often allow himself such a luxury, as being in a settlement put a target on your back for any larger groups. But it’d been two weeks since they’d had proper rest out of the elements.

Tracking Hank wasn’t easy, either. That suit meant he could skip over all the pocked landscape and roaming threats. What would take him an hour to travel by air was a day for them sometimes, a fact that spurred Cooper on. But they couldn’t rush, as rushing would only get them killed.

One wrong step and you were deathclaw chow.

“God, more, please!”

And there went the silence. Cooper’s eye twitched; his lipless mouth sneered at the screeches.

Whoever had taken up residence in room five was making the most of their money — an hour straight of screams and moans, an hour straight of Lucy pretending to read. She’d picked up a holotape at the last outpost they’d stopped at; something about a sequel she’d always wanted to continue reading.

By the second hour, it wasn’t so much that room five stopped fucking. But they at least got a lot quieter about it. The occasional shriek or moan rattled through the air vents, but it was far and few between.

Lucy lay across the double bed, her boots discarded beside the door. Her vault suit hung from the defunct radiator. Her washing was all done, and she’d freshened up, the usual Lucy shit. She’d helped herself to the water and changed into some pajama set she’d pilfered from a house a few days back.

“I think it’s nice,” Lucy said into the open air of the hotel room.

Cooper looked up from his shotgun, teeth bared like he was trying to smile. “The quiet?”

“No,” Lucy smiled at the wall between them and room five. “That people can find love, even now.”

Cooper couldn’t stop himself from laughing at that. The cackles shook from low in his lungs and caught him so off-guard he hacked up some foul muck into his palm. He hissed through a wheezed breath as he fumbled with his RadAway puffer.

“I mean it! It’s not funny!”

“That ain’t love, Vaultie,” Cooper coughed out, his eyes narrowed as drool and tears mingled on his cheeks. He wiped his face, fine skin catching against the scarred, leathery mess. “That…” He pointed to the wall. “S’probably a whore and her John making the most of the caps.”

Lucy’s eyes darted as she picked apart what he’d said. “John..?”

“John’s a term for uh…” Cooper’s jaw strained against a smile, though it was far too cruel to be kind. “A guy who pays for sex.”

“Ah, wasteland slang,” she said with a solemn nod, as if it made sense she hadn’t caught on immediately.

“Old world slang,” Cooper corrected.

Lucy looked around the hotel room anew, like she’d finally caught on to what this place really was. She scooted to the edge of the bed, to sit with her legs angled towards him. “That woman at the front desk said you’d want a girl who’s old world — she thought I was a prostitute. ”

“Maybe.”

Lucy crossed her arms as if she had more to say on the matter. But then she remained quiet, uncharacteristically so.

“S’waste of caps.”

“Hiring me to have sex with you? Actually, I know all about sexual gratification, so I think it’d be a great use of money — caps.”

Cooper stared Lucy down as if he couldn’t parse what she’d just said. “Paying anyone money to fuck you is a waste.” Cooper tongued his lips apart. “Bullets. Meds. There’s shit worth paying for. Sex is — ”

“Important.”

“Sex ain’t worth much.”

“To you, maybe,” Lucy frowned. “It’s an act of love and intimacy, and… It’s how humanity continues, and it’s — fun if done well.”

“You wanna waste your caps on some cock?” Cooper snapped, his hand flapping at the door. “Be my guest.”

“No,” Lucy shook her head. “I don’t want to, but I’m saying that I… I think killing people is probably worse than sleeping with people for caps. If it’s to survive, I think it makes sense. Morally speaking.”

“Don’t,” Cooper snarled.

Cooper didn’t like how Lucy spoke to him most days, but this was a new, worse permutation. Her Vault-addled morality was sickening enough on its own, as she embodied whatever bullshit had been drip-fed to her by the company who’d bought her vault. Not that he was without sin, given the shit he’d done to survive this long.

But sex and love and all that shit was not front of mind. He needed to find his family and to know what happened to them. He didn’t need a two-cap blowjob from a stranger in the dim light of some bar. Though, in all honesty, his drug habit mixed with the amount of alcohol he’d drowned himself in, some nights got hazy.

There’s that animalistic, self-destructive part of him that won on his worst nights. The same part of him that kept him alive, the same part that let him do all the miserable shit he needed to do to survive.

But it’s certainly never been love. Not since Barb.

Never again, he’d wager.

"I had sex once," Lucy said this like it was a point of pride, now on her feet. She idled beside the bed, her gaze settled onto the empty space she’d been lying. "With my husband, but…" Her face twisted with this delayed amusement. She turned towards him, closing the gap between them.

Lucy’s eyes remained unfocused as she stared at the marked table between them, where his shotgun lay across a dirty cloth. "Does that make us both widows..? You said you have a family, right? So, you were probably married and had at least one kid. Not trying to presume, so tell me if I’m wrong, but… You said that in the observatory. That’s what you’re after."

Cooper parted his lips, a nasty tilt to his hairless brow.

Lucy gave a tight smile. "I was married. Only for a few hours, but… It was an arranged marriage, I didn’t meet him until the wedding. It turned out he was a raider from the surface posing as my match from Vault 32 and…" At this point, Lucy caught herself. “I feel for you, if you lost someone. That’s all.”

“You ain’t a widow.”

“Technically — ”

Cooper stood up, unable to stay seated. “You say you’re a widow like it’s a fact outta some book. The shit you went through — you’re an experiment gone wrong, not a damn widow,” Cooper said, his voice flat.

Lucy’s face twitched at his words as if she struggled to keep her smile. “Well, guess what? We’re all an experiment gone wrong, whether you’re in a vault or not.”

Cooper’s eyes twitched, narrowing in the dark of their hotel room. Room five was quiet, which made this moment all the worse. He didn’t like how she spoke about him, as if she knew what was happening in his mind. He wasn’t some wounded man looking for sympathy.

He wasn’t anything.

“Go back to your holotapes,” Cooper said with a jut of his chin. “You’ve been up here a few weeks, acting like you know how it is.”

“Well, I know we’ve all been screwed over by people hundreds of years ago, and I’m sorry if I’m not as beaten down by it as you, but — I’m just trying to share things with you, to…” Lucy struggled through her words, her arms crossed protectively over her chest. “We don’t have to be friends, but we have to be — something.”

The couple in room five screeched. Cooper tensed out of habit but relaxed again when he reasoned what the noise was. It didn’t solve the fierce look on Lucy’s face as she stared him down, her fists clenched by her pajama-clad thighs.

“I don’t want to fight with you,” Lucy said, shaking her damp hair out of her face. She stood idle by the table as if she had just realized she had stepped towards him in their argument. There was a bird-like shake to her chest, her heart and lungs quick beneath bone.

It was moments like this that made his nature crystalline to him — that thin line she couldn’t perceive of how easy it’d be to string her up by the ankles and bleed her dry. Of how easy it’d be to slide into that ache for warm flesh between his teeth and blood down his throat.

Ghouls aren’t welcome in most settlements for a reason, and Lucy is too damn optimistic to learn that lesson.

Cooper tongued the inside of his cheek, and his teeth gnashed at the frayed edge of his lip. “We have to be something, huh?”

Lucy’s brow twitched, and her jaw strained as she tried to stand taller. She nodded as something like hope softened her stern expression.

It wasn’t hard to close the gap. It was even easier to grab that ponytail she always wore and yank her head close, fist tight in her hair as he brought her close. Her hand scrabbled against the table, and nails dug into the wood as their eyes met.

“Don’t you ever talk about my family again,” Cooper said, his voice level. “We clear?”

Lucy’s breathing redoubled, but she nodded. Her nostrils flared as he let her go with a firm shove. There was a real sense of satisfaction as he felt her perception of him shift as if she’d forgotten she was dealing with a monster rather than a man. As if the rotted skin and exposed tensions, or the gaping hole where his nose had once been, weren’t enough warning.

Pretty girls in Hollywood were overlooked as much in his time — all in the name of survival in a race that no one really won. You took your part and played it until the work dried up. Then, you prayed for sponsorships, deals, and other things to spare you from the real world.

He watched it with co-stars, time and again. It wasn’t much different now, just less rhinestones and more rads.

#cooper howard #lucy maclean #fallout spoilers #fallout #vaultghoul #cooper x lucy #my writing

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stareaterau · 1 year ago

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Chapter 1 episode 1

←Previous episode

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Index

---

Let's start with a familiar face, shall we!

CW: violence And the mention of blood and injury

Read below↓

Or AO3

The heat is unbearable. Scar wakes, wheezing out a hot breath that circles in his sealed helmet, fogged by the last of his moisture. A building headache pulses behind his eyes. He reaches up to rub the soreness out, but his gloves clank uselessly against the visor. He blinks, squinting through the harsh light. His first instinct is to rip the helmet off for the relief of fresh air, but as his eyes adjust, he doubts it’ll make a difference.

He’s in a desert. The dusty and cracked ground stretches all the way to the horizon. Nothing about this place feels familiar, in fact, the bright orange gradients in the sand look alien. He has no way of telling if the air here is breathable, and though it’s tempting, testing it isn’t worth the risk. The sheer lack of life in the landscape certainly doesn’t bode well in that regard.

He tries to think back to how he got here, but there’s nothing. He doesn’t remember falling asleep outside. Definitely not here, and definitely not with his helmet still on.

Reflexively, he reaches for his communicator, but it’s not there. With rising anxiety, he pats down the rest of his person. His gun, enderchest and communicator are all gone. The only useful thing he still has left on him is the helmet on his head.

That’s concerning. He keeps those things on him at all times. It’s mandatory. As much as Scar would push the rules, he can’t deny the sense in keeping his gun, enderchest and communicator at all times. Even with his reputation, he wouldn’t just wander into the wilderness with none of his gear. He’s more competent than that at least, right?

There are no constructed landmarks nearby to use to figure out where he is, and he won’t be able to figure out the star system he’s in until the sun has set. At least whoever left him here had the decency to leave him with his helmet on. He can panic about being stranded, while puffing recycled air.

He thinks for a moment that maybe if he stays put the Vindicators will come looking for him, but that idea is quickly squashed by the realization that he’ll probably die of heatstroke before they realize he’s gone. His best bet is to walk until he finds some sign of intelligent life… or run out of oxygen in the process.

Not the most optimistic reality, but nevertheless Scar picks himself up, bushes the desert dust off his clothes, and scans the horizon for the most promising direction. Hoping, desperately, that he's not about to get himself even more lost than he already is.

With a sigh, he squints at the horizon with his hands on his hips. He finds cracks and grooves in the sand that open up beneath him to form long ravines. The gouges in front of him seem to open up into larger trenches that follow a relatively straight path, a much better scenario than splitting into maze-like passages. He nods approvingly. It’s his best bet to make his way down into the ravine. It’s depth is about double his height, which should still provide some shade from that glaring sun.

He spots a relatively safe way to get down— a sandy slope built up against the otherwise harsh stone. He walks tentatively towards it, but stops at the sound of a beep. Looking around for the cause of the noise, he sees a collection of rocks protruding from the sand, but no movement. He checks the soles of his boots too, in case he stepped on some kind of device hidden in the sand, or maybe a small creature, but he sees nothing there, either.

He’s probably just imagined it. Continuing on, he hurries down towards the slope, desperate to escape the heat. The sound of sand scrapes against his leg braces as he slides, and he keeps a hand pressed into the sand behind him to stay steady. He manages to avoid slipping as the sand shifts below his feet, but only barely.

The shade cuts the temperature in half, and Scar sags with relief. The ravine is just as lifeless and empty as the surface, albeit far more claustrophobic. The curving, orange walls hide the vastness of their expanse from view. Scar’s footfalls echo down the chasm. He’s not sure if he prefers the company of the extra sound or if it just makes him feel more exposed. Everything is so empty and open, and an almost perfect mirror to the clear sky. The entire atmosphere radiates with a yellow glow, as if the sun takes up the whole sky. Maybe it does. Out of the corner of his eye, Scar finally detects movement— a shadow across the dusty scenery, but he reacts too late, and looks up to see the shadow is gone, and the sun’s still bright.

He walks for at least five minutes before another beep is heard again, except this time it doesn’t stop there. Quickening, it takes about thirty seconds untill the next one, forcing Scar to accept he hadn’t imagined it.

He listens, face wrinkled with concentration. The beep isn’t coming from anywhere around him. It feels like it’s in the back of his head. Whatever it’s trying to tell him, he can’t figure it out.

He turns to his left, kicks a few stones, tests if the sound reacts. Maybe it’s something hidden in his jacket pocket. He rifles around in them, remembering they’re all empty, and goes back to struggling to understand the pattern of the beeps. It keeps slowing and quickening— even when Scar is walking in a straight direction, so it can’t possibly be leading him to a fixed place, and he tried waiting a few minutes after each beep, just for nothing to happen, so it can’t be warning him about anything.

Frustrated, Scar tunes it out eventually, and focuses instead on making his way through the desert. He'll be glad to find anything other than rocks, sand and the sourceless beeping at this point. At one point he sees movement again, another shadow darting across the ground. It looks almost like a bird, but Scar can’t be sure, the shape vanishing almost as soon as he notices it. It’s like it’s evading his view, like it’s trying to make him second guess himself.

Scar groans. It’s been a long trek through the winding canyon. The sweat drippin into his eyes taunts him— he wishes more than anything to be able to wipe it from his brow, but alas, Scar’s not quite desperate enough to risk removing the helmet.

Almost on autopilot, he trudges on, trying to think through the heat about what it could mean. He racks his melting brain for more things that might cause beeping in your head, or what it means. Scar’s so caught up in his thoughts that he almost misses the beeps getting faster, faster than they had gotten before. When he finally notices, he stops in his tracks, snapping to attention as it continues to speed up.

He doesn’t notice the winged figure swoop down until the impact pushes him to the ground.

Scar screams, head ringing as his visor smacks into the earth. He struggles, trying to roll over to face his assailant, but he’s immediately pinned to the ground by long, dark talons. The figure stares at him through their own helmet, like his except for the visor, which is split into two deep, dark, void-like eyes. They make no sound as their wings spread out, blocking out the sun with their feathers. A glowing blue knife held above their head.

"No wait- wait!"

The figure ignores his pleas, bringing the weapon down. Scar barely manages to deflect the stranger's aim, the knife sinking into his shoulder instead of his heart. Choking back a yell and instinctively shutting his eyes to the pain, he didn’t feel the blade being pulled out, nor see the figure grabbing their own shoulder in confusion.

"What?“ Head swiveling wildly, they balk. “Where?"

Scar shifts on reflex under the weight of the stranger, but this only brings the attacker’s attention back to him, their grip tightening. Without anything to defend himself with, his gun missing and this stanger holding a clear advantage, Scar scrambles for leverage.

He wasn't given time to collect himself as the stranger brings down the hilt of their weapon into his visor, shattering the thick glass.

Scar flinches back as the glass slashes into his cheek, but by some miracle misses his eye.

He pants, unable to catch his breath,helplessly expecting another hit— but the stranger stops. Scar is finally given a moment to reign in his panicking senses, and focuses on the vacant eyes of the stranger’s helmet. Thoughts swim in his slightly concussed mind, and he fishes one up at random.

"...Are we done fighting now?" Scar asks with a nervous laugh, trying to keep eye contact despite one eye now being exposed to the desert sun.

The stranger doesn’t answer.

They’re no longer putting all their weight on him, and eventually slides backwards to a stand, gaze still locked on Scar.

Grateful for the temporary relief, but still cautious, he shuffles slightly to check how the stranger will react. Once he’s sure he isn’t about to be whacked again, he shakily folds his legs under himself to stand, only slightly wobbly, wincing from his injured shoulder.

"So…” Scar tries again, “I think it’s fair to say the air is breathable here."

Scar coughs as he pulls off his helmet, doing his best to avoid the broken glass. The stranger, eerily quiet, considers Scar for a moment, then reaches to take off their own helmet, revealing eyes as deep and dark as their visor, with the same soulless look.

The person in front of Scar is painfully familiar, but he doesn’t skip formalities.

"Well, hello there!" He puts his hand out, but the stranger does not shake it. Their eyes remain locked onto his own, like they’re studying them.

Scar meets the gaze for a while, then his eyes wander to the blood on their face.

"Oh, your cheek-" he gasps, pointing towards it.

They do not move to check their face, pointing to Scar instead.

"Well, same." the stranger mumbles, their voice strained.

"Oh!- " Scar reaches for where the visor had cut him. He'd almost forgotten.

He looks back up at the stranger, to find him pulling a very uncomfortable face. And it clicks.

"Wait- I recognise you."

#stareater au #life series au #gtwscar #grian #cw violence #desert duo #cw blood #trafficblr

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leiascully · 3 months ago

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Fic: POANG (M, MSR)

4400 words; rated M for a lot of real and imaginary sex; the solve high hits Scully right in the libido and a trip to IKEA doesn't help. happy birthday, @laurencem (ao3)

There’s a novelty to working a case in a city. They’re usually in smaller towns, out on the edges of things where the fields blur into the woods and the monsters wear animal skins. Today’s monster is human, or something that resembles one. Scully doubts sometimes that it’s possible to be so brutal and retain humanity.

They’d been called in on this one on the suspicion of witchcraft. There had been a series of killings: bundles of herbs left at the scene, dead bees scattered about, cedar smoke lingering in the corners of the rooms, corpses ritually disfigured. The perpetrator turned out to be more ecofascist than druid. No caltrops for him, and no nice trip to the woods for her and Mulder. This killer has been cultivating poison plants, including the kind of mushrooms that reduced a person’s liver to a liquid. He raved as they put him in the car, something about the city being a hive and its denizens mere drones. Scully tuned it out.

Case closed by noon and they’re back at the hotel. It’s not a particularly nice one: no restaurant, no pool, no premium channels. They’re close to the airport, far from most of the amenities. The closest landmark is an IKEA looming blue and yellow by the highway. Scully regrets making them drop off the rental car early, but Skinner’s been making noises about expenses again. Frugality and a high solve rate are the better part of valor. There’s a free shuttle to the airport, but their flight isn’t until tomorrow morning.

“Where do you go to eat around here?” Mulder asks the college-age kid at the desk.

The kid shrugs. “IKEA.”

“To eat?” Mulder sounds skeptical. It’s music to Scully’s ears. She settles her hip against the wall and watches him.

“I mean it’s not where I would take a date, but they’ve got food,” the kid says, glancing between them.

Mulder turns to Scully. He lifts an eyebrow.

“IKEA it is,” she says.

It’s a short walk, at least. Scully’s used to the touristy part of DC, which this is decisively not. She’s used to walking next to Mulder in a suit and heels instead of jeans and flats. It feels different. She never feels small, walking next to Mulder. He makes space for her, even when they’re out on their own time, like this. She wonders if that makes it look like they're on a date, when they’re out of uniform.

She wonders, just a little, if they’re on a date.

The automatic door of the IKEA opens invitingly, a wide mouth to swallow them up. Mulder ushers her in, an ironic little twist to his lips that tells her he knows what she’s thinking. The maw of capitalism. An ecosystem where the consumer is the consumed. Clearcut forests shimmering with ancient insects.

Also, meatballs.

The end-of-case adrenaline is starting to hit her. All the emotion she locked down in the moment comes back, rerouted from fear to something more feral. She’s restless. She is, truth be told, a little horny. Some confluence of her cycle and the solve high has her wishing she’d stayed in the hotel room. The bathtub looked clean enough. She could have enjoyed herself. Instead she’s letting Mulder lead her through a labyrinth of simulated lives and enticingly arranged furniture. He stops to mosey into one of the staged spaces and beckons her over.

“Look at this, Scully.” He spreads his arms. He can almost touch both walls of the fake apartment. The grey t-shirt he’s wearing stretches in such an enticing way over his chest and shoulders. She gets a whiff of his deodorant and it makes her toes tingle. There’s something about the scent of artificial woods layered over just a hint of sweat that makes the feral part of her flex its claws. She’s always susceptible to the scent of Mulder, but this is something else. She could duck under his arm and sink her teeth into the bare skin of his bicep.

Some part of her is mortified to think of him in this way. Most days, that part gets the upper hand. Today, it’s been outvoted and overpowered. Want prowls back and forth in her belly. She steps closer.

“Can you imagine living here?” he asks. “Actually, you probably could. It’s about the size of a ship’s cabin.”

“Compact,” she says.

His eyes crinkle as he smiles at her. “Just like you.”

I’d compact you, she wants to say, even though it makes no sense. She wonders if her pupils are dilated as she gazes up at him. She wants to push him up against the wall, but there’s a cabinet in the way. He’d hit his head, and he’s had enough cranial trauma. She’s his doctor. She knows better.

He’s still smiling at her and for a moment, her wild desire recoils, rebuffed by doubt. How would he react if she lunged for him? Does he even think of her that way? There have been hints over the years, but Mulder’s mouth writes checks the rest of him isn’t willing to cash. In his mind, are they just on a nice little outing, two work colleagues grabbing dinner? Was he planning on going back to his hotel room to watch whatever film features a leggy brunette wearing the fewest clothes?

“Kidding,” he says, and she realizes she’s staring at him. “Scully. I’m kidding.”

“Right.” She takes a step back as he lets his arms fall to his sides.

“Are you all right?” He ducks his head. “You look a little flushed.”

“I’m fine,” she says automatically.

“I guess it’s been an exciting day.” He meanders out of the fake apartment onto the floor of the store. They seem to be in the seating section. Scully doesn’t need a sofa, and she doesn’t need to look at sofas and imagine on them herself cuddled into Mulder’s side. None of these options are as sexy as his leather couch anyway. Oh god, when did she start thinking his couch was sexy?

Mulder stops by a chair with a light wood frame. “POANG,” he reads off the tag. It’s got white cushions and a sort of modern look. “Oh hey, it’s a rocking chair.” He tips it with one finger and it obligingly rocks. “Maybe you need one of these for your living room.”

Scully is possessed by a vivid image of the chair as it might look in her living room. Mulder is sitting in it, jeans yanked open and shirt rucked up, and she’s straddling his lap and riding him until the runners squeak under them. The motion of the chair accentuates the motion of her hips and her tits swing until he captures them in his big warm hands and and and…

“Maybe,” she says. “But Mulder, we have an IKEA closer to home.”

He drops onto one of the sofas and stretches out. He’s obnoxiously long. His shirt rides up, revealing a wedge of golden skin. “You’d probably rather have something vintage anyway. You’ve got champagne tastes, Scully. You like your creature comforts.”

“Is there something wrong with that?” She crosses her arms.

“No.” His lip twitches in amusement. “Although I have to say, if I had your bed, I’d never get out of it.”

Please, she thinks, fervent as a prayer. “Is that why it took you so long to stop sleeping on the couch? Your inherent slothfulness?”

“What can I say.” He brushes his hand over his stomach, smoothing his shirt down. She bites her lip and looks away. “I’m a man of many vices.” His voice is low, almost a purr.

It’s exactly this kind of fucking behavior that feeds the poor confused wild thing inside her. Does he know that? She knows him better than anyone else in her life and she has never been able to decide if it’s real, not even the time they almost kissed. Her need for him gobbles up every scrap of plausibly deniable flirtation, simultaneously satiated and starving.

She looks away from him. The next section is more innocuous - lots of cute little baskets and boxes. “I thought you were hungry.” She can’t imagine a magazine holder stoking her libido.

“Right,” he says, rolling off the couch. “Date night.”

She rolls her eyes. “It’s lunchtime.”

“Who knows how long it’ll take us to get to the restaurant?” He shades his eyes with his hand, as if he’s peering over some dim horizon. “This place is engineered for maximum distraction. Think of all the lives we could live between here and there, Scully.”

She manages to haul him through the living room storage without too many detours, although she does have a wistful moment over another one of the staged living spaces, imagining the two of them sharing an apartment. She shoves the thought away. They spend so much time together she should be sick of him. She should fantasize about freedom, or solitude, or meeting a handsome stranger in a tiki bar on a tropical beach. But even when she loathes Mulder, she longs for him. Even the way he examines a Billy bookshelf gives her a rush of fond familiarity at the way he devotes his whole attention to it.

“Should we get you a desk?” he teases as they enter the next section.

Only if you’ll fuck me on it, she doesn’t say. Instead, she rolls her eyes and marches toward the shortcut, knowing he’s drifting in her wake. They skip the kitchen section, which is good; she doesn’t have to imagine herself with her hands braced on a countertop as Mulder presses against her from behind, one hand palming her tits and three fingers of the other inside her. They proceed through dining. In her head, she’s definitely not bent over this table as he takes her from behind, or sitting on that one as he has her for dinner, his lips moving eagerly over her thighs.

There’s something wrong with her. The heat deep in her belly keeps building. It’s Mulder’s damn grace and the way he smells and the fit of his jeans and the way the t-shirt strains when his arm flexes. It’s been too goddamn long since she had sex - years, and that was the once, and years before that - and something has awoken inside her, stirred out of sleep by the moon or the tides or who knows what the fuck. She’d go out on a limb for ancient prophecy at this point. That’s how primal her desire feels. It’s wild inside her, barely contained. And it’s so fucking stupid to feel all of this in the middle of an IKEA - a sanitized, flatpack world of sexless confused caricatures and beds that look too flimsy to fuck in.

Beds. So many beds. Acres of beds. And they do look flimsy, but she imagines fucking in them anyway. That one has a slatted headboard she could attach restraints too. That one has storage drawers for her collection of sex toys and Mulder’s collection of dirty magazines. She’d fuck him in a trundle bed at this point. Hell, she’d fuck him on the floor and let security drag them out and shove them into the cop car still coupled together, because there’s no way she’d let him go.

She somehow makes it through beds.

“You must be hungry,” he says at her shoulder. “Or else you took up competitive speedwalking.”

“That continental breakfast was a long time ago,” she says without looking back. She doesn’t need to look. She can sense him: his heat, his bulk. She could reach out for him and know exactly what she’d touch. That’s the problem with her fantasies. She knows him too intimately.

The wardrobe section doesn’t trouble her much, aside from a brief vision of dragging him into a small dark space and having her way with him. She doesn’t even flinch when they get to the children’s section, or at least not outwardly. Her eyes are on the prize and for once, it’s not Mulder’s ass. It’s the IKEA bistro at long last.

They dine. Mulder has meatballs. Scully has the salmon. The meatballs look suspiciously pale to her, but Mulder assures her they’re delicious. He holds out his fork for her, won’t take no for an answer. She relents and he feeds her a fragment of meatball dipped in the sharp sweetness of lingonberry jam. It’s better than she expected. She eats her salmon and wonders at her impulse toward the ascetic. Mulder is supposed to be the one who’s chosen a lonely, constrained life, but she’s the one denying herself mashed potatoes and a potential heaping helping of Mulder. If his flirting means anything, and that’s the if of her life at this point.

She sighs and puts her fork down on her plate. Mulder eats the last bite of her salmon, but only when it becomes clear she isn’t going to eat it. He smiles at her and her heart and her loins both throb. Fuck, she loves him so much.

They escape the IKEA without any further purchases. Fortunately, most of the rest of the store is small goods and packaged furniture, so the only thing to tempt her is the occasional surface that looks firm enough to support them both.

“Call me when you want dinner,” Mulder says when they get back to the hotel. She locks herself into her room and scans her notes on the case. She waits five minutes, fifteen, an hour. There’s no knock on her door. She starts to run a bath. Her whole body feels congested. She knows it’s not possible to die from metaphorical blue balls, unless it is and she’s about to be in the X-Files again. She wants him so much she feels like a teenager again. If they’d grown up together, he would have been her first kiss. She knows that. Four years would have made a difference until it didn’t. She would have waited for him to finally, finally see her.

She’s waiting for that now.

There’s a full length mirror near her door and she stands in front of it. There’s nothing wrong with her, surely. She’s not as buxom as some, not as curvy as others, but he’s dragged his eyes up and down her body a hundred thousand times. She’d know what that meant from anyone else. With Mulder, who knows? It could be sacred geometry. He could be comparing her to the women in the tapes he stashes under his tv. Maybe she’s just in his line of sight and he’s thinking about something else, sinusoidal curves or what inhabits the bleak depths of space, and it only looks like interest.

She squeezes her breasts, thumbs her nipples. Her own hands aren’t what she wants, but they’re familiar. She slides her palms over her body as the water thunders into the bathtub. If she closes her eyes as she tugs off her t-shirt and unbuttons her jeans, she can imagine it’s him. Fire follows her fingertips as she draws a topographical map of her body with his phantom hands. She’s down to her bra and panties when someone raps on the door.

“Just a minute,” she calls, and turns off the water. She peers through the peephole, wrapping a towel around herself. It’s Mulder. Of fucking course, it’s Mulder, interrupting her at exactly the moment she would want him to, so that he can tell her about fairy rings or the exciting properties of silicon instead of fucking her through the hotel bed.

She lets him in, rolling her eyes at herself.

“I went back to the IKEA,” he says. “In the vein of the heroes of old. I conquered the extremely domestic wilds of the main floor and I may have ordered you a POANG chair to be delivered. Also, I brought cake.” He puts two plastic boxes on her dresser. “But I didn’t know if you’d want chocolate or strawberry.”

“Why?”

“Why? We solved the case, Scully. I think a little celebration is in order. Or why the chair? I thought it would look good in your living room. I don’t have the space for one.” He looks her up and down all too briefly. What a gentleman. “Are you busy? I can come back later.”

“I’m not busy,” she says, just to see if he’ll accept it. For two people so passionately devoted to the truth, they lie to each other all the time. Maybe it’s plausible that she frequently sits around her room en déshabillé and he’s just missed it every time.

“Chocolate or strawberry?” He produces two forks. “Although I guess we can share.”

“Mulder, does it look like I want cake right now?”

He does the slow pan up and down her body this time. Heat rushes up her body, a sudden blaze that stokes the furnace in her belly to a roaring flame. She can feel the flush in her cheeks and down her chest.

“I admit, you don’t seemed dressed to dine,” he says at last.

She opens her hand, a gesture that invites him to follow his thoughts to their logical conclusion and leave.

“The cake was a ruse,” he says abruptly, ignoring her hint. “I wanted to check on you. You seemed a little off earlier.”

“Off?” She sits on the edge of the bed.

“Yeah, maybe frustrated or angry.” He drags the standard-issue chair over, sits with his knees almost brushing hers. “I wanted to make sure you were all right. It was a weird case.”

“I told you, I’m fine,” she says.

He stares at her. There’s a long, long moment, during which she thinks about kissing him. She can’t stop looking at his mouth. As if he senses her gaze, he licks his lips. “Okay.”

“Okay what?” she asks, still half-mesmerized.

He taps her knee with one finger. “You said you were fine. Okay. I’ll let you get back to whatever you were doing.” He gets up.

“What?” she says, flummoxed by his sudden pivot. “Mulder, the cake.”

“You can have it,” he says. He tosses the forks on the dresser by the cake. “Eat it in good health. I’ll be back later.”

“Where are you going?” she asks.

He paces back and forth. “I don’t know. It kind of feels like you don’t want me here.”

She opens and closes her mouth. “First of all, I’m in a state of undress.”

“I don’t care about that, Scully.”

“You don’t care?” She stands up. “What if I care?”

He makes a dismissive gesture. “I’ve seen you undressed, you’ve seen me undressed, it doesn’t have to be weird.”

“It doesn’t.” Her voice is flat with disbelief. “It doesn’t have to be weird.”

He shrugs. “Not unless you want it to be weird.”

“Fine.” She’s fed the fuck up. It’s been a long, weird, fairly excruciating day. She drops the towel.

This time Mulder really looks at her. She can feel the way his eyes drag over her skin, stopping to caress each rounded nipple, dipping toward the elastic of her panties.

“Not weird at all,” he says, but his voice is hoarse. He shifts, which makes the bulge of his erection more noticeable. Fuck it, Scully thinks. You don’t get to the moon if you never fire the rockets. She feels drunk. Mulder’s full attention has always been 100 proof.

“I wanted to fuck you in the POANG chair,” she says conversationally.

“Yeah.” He shifts again. “I wanted that too. Maybe that’s why I bought you one.”

“The way it rocks,” she says, and shivers a little, which makes him shiver too.

“I wanted to play house in those little apartments,” he tells her. “You and me, falling asleep watching tv, but in the same place for once. You and me, sharing a bed.”

“Yeah,” she says.

“Is that why you seemed mad?”

She nods. “Also I was hungry.”

“Where else did you want to fuck me?” he asks, stepping closer. His eyes have gone dark green. His pupils are wide.

“Everywhere,” she tells him.

“Wanna start with this bed and see how far we get?” His hands settle on her hips, so lightly, as if he’s afraid she’ll pull away. Instead, she drags his head down, breathes against his lips for a moment, and then kisses him.

The universe implodes. That’s what it feels like, anyway. But even if it were the end of all things, she couldn’t stop herself. He smells like pine and musk and his neck tastes like salt and she’s kissing him everywhere, everywhere. He lifts her and she wraps her legs around his waist and he has one arm around her waist and one hand under her ass and his fingers are stroking the outside of her thigh and she thinks if he’s not inside her in the next minute, she’ll just die.

He laughs and she realizes she said that out loud.

“I think so too,” he says. But he’s still dressed, he’s still wearing all his goddamn clothes, and she tugs at his shirt until he takes the hint and drags it over his head. She lets go and works on the button of his jeans. His jeans and his boxers come off together when they shove at them, and then he’s less dressed than she is. He kicks off his shoes and the tangle of denim and silk and she undoes her bra because she trusts his competence, but also she doesn’t. Need has made them so, so foolish.

“I want to,” he says, and swallows the rest of his sentence, but he hooks his thumbs into her panties and she lies back and lifts her hips. He skims the fabric down her legs. There’s hunger in his eyes. She lets him look, dropping her knees wide. He swallows hard and crawls up the bed to lie next to her.

“I wanted this to last,” he tells her.

“Me too,” she says. “I thought it would be different.” The light in his eyes dims slightly. He starts to turn his face away and she presses her palm to his cheek and turns it back. “Mulder, no. I wouldn’t change anything about this.”

“You sure?”

For answer, she kisses him, throwing her leg over his hip. Maybe it’s not what she expected. But she’s had years of self-denial, and she’s finished with that. There will be opportunities later for endless foreplay (as if every interaction since their handshake in the basement hasn’t been foreplay) and romance and slow indulgence, but she doesn’t have the patience for that. She’s already reaching for him, already wrapping her hand around his hand around his cock so they work together to guide him in. It’s such a relief that she almost cries, even though she aches as she stretches to accommodate him. And then he’s moving in her and it’s the rhythm of the universe, the pulse of existence. They’re not being safe and she doesn’t fucking care. He’s inside her, he’s touching her, he’s kissing her, and she’s wrapped around him like she can fuse their bodies together.

Every texture of him is a revelation: the hot satiny skin of his cock, the sleekness of his belly, the light fur on his chest. She knows them all and yet. And yet. It’s so different now. She feels the slickness of his lips and the rough friction of his tongue in her mouth and on her skin. It’s everything. Finally, she’s filled up, satisfied, satiated, maybe for the first time in her life. She wants more, oh God, she wants more of him. She wants to live under his ribs like that conjoined twin. She wants her bones jumbled with his. She wants him to fill her every way he can think of. She wants to buy a whole new range of sex toys and treat him just right. But for now, this is enough.

“More,” she says, and he pushes her onto her back without sliding out of her. She spreads her legs wider. He pins her, lacing his fingers into hers and stretching their arms over her head. His hips jolt as he shoves into her, harder and deeper, and she arches up to meet him. Every cell of her body feels like it’s filled with sparks of pleasure; she could map her nerves for him if she still had the power of speech. But he understands her incoherent cries. He always understands her.

She’s whimpering under him, helpless in the throes of her pleasure. The tingling starts in her extremities and washes through her, a tide rising higher and higher. She can feel his muscles tensing. His stomach is trembling. He’s holding back, wanting her to come first. One day, she thinks, she’ll indulge him, urge him to think of himself, but not tonight. She squeezes around him, taunting him. He groans and looks at her. She smirks at him and he growls in his throat. Now it’s a challenge: he has to make her come first, not just wish for it. He doesn’t let go of her, but drags their joined hands down her body. He rubs their fingers against her clit, tight circles that have her gasping. And then she’s coming, her body bucking under his, and he makes her ride it out before he’ll let go.

“Please,” she says, and he thrusts into her shivering body and she wraps her legs around him and holds him so tight as he buries his face in her shoulder and yells. He tries to roll off her right away but she won’t let go. She wants his weight, all of it, and after a moment he surrenders and lets her take it.

“We’re definitely going to fuck in that chair,” she whispers in his ear after a while.

He laughs into the curve of her neck. “We’re definitely going to fuck a lot of places.”

She kisses his ear and he turns his face so that his lips meet hers. “Making up for lost time.”

He shakes his head slowly, eyes sparkling. “We haven’t lost anything,” he says. “We’ll make our own time.”

For some reason, her eyes prickle with tears. She kisses him again, threads her hands through his hair. She believes him. Maybe they have a future full of flatpack furniture and charming antiques and lazy mornings in bed. Maybe they can celebrate all their cases like this.

“Let them eat cake,” she says, and he laughs again and holds her close.

#leiascully fic #my fic #msr fic #xfiles fic #the x-files fic

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aprocessionofthoughts · 25 days ago

Text

A Wayne or not a Wayne

whumptober24 day 24- radiation poisoning fandom- dp x dc tw- none summary- time to tour Wayne enterprises

masterlist ao3 part 3 of APvG

Danny sighed as they entered the last big business they’d be touring for the week. After this, it was a few more museums and landmarks and free time which they’d already decided was going to be spent exploring the major villains’ big bad hideouts like the Iceberg Lounge, Toxic Acres, and Ivy’s current hideout at the Botanical Gardens.

But first they had to make it through a boring building tour. Well, Tucker and Wes were excited, though for different reasons. Tucker thought he might want to work here since it was one of the places with the best tech and was also one of the more ethical big corporations. Wes was excited because he wanted to see if he could spot more proof about the connection between the Waynes and the Bats.

But everyone else was bored. Well, at least they were until they got to one of the upper floors where a bunch of people were working at desks, and the employees stared at Danny.

Danny fidgeted uncomfortably.

“Do I have something on my face?” He whispered to Sam.

“Just your usual dorkish expression.”

Danny pouted. The employees started whispering amongst themselves.

Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you looked at it, Danny could hear them clearly.

“They think I’m a new Wayne kid.” Danny muttered. Stupid, smelly henchman thinking he was a Wayne was one thing, but wasn’t everyone here supposed to be really smart? Not to say henchmen weren’t smart, Danny didn’t judge people’s intelligence by their job unless they were stupid Fruitloops (cough cough Vlad cough), but still. He thought the people working at Wayne enterprises were supposed to be geniuses. And they should know the Waynes! Why would they think Danny was one?

His classmates started snickering as the ones with enhanced hearing whispered to the others about what the employees were saying. Sometimes the fact that most Amity Parkers were liminal made Danny’s life much more miserable.

“Didn’t know you had a second secret identity, Mr. Wayne.” Wes whispered to him.

Danny scowled and subtly froze Wes’s sneakers to the ground.

He yelped as he fell forward and scowled at Danny who smirked back.

The tour guide continued on completely ignoring the class who had stopped to laugh and whisper amongst themselves. To be fair, they were completely ignoring the tour guide too.

“If you’ll follow me this way,” the guide said motioning to a set of elevators, “we’ve got one more stop to make before the end of the tour. And we’ve got a big surprise for you.” (This last part was said with all the enthusiasm one might show at their friend’s ant farm’s funeral when you were the one who accidentally knocked the thing over and then promptly accused the cat who’d been licking its own booty at the time. That is to say, the tour guide was not very excited and spoke in such a deadpan way that would make dead guys jealous.)

Before they could click the button to summon the elevator, the doors opened and out walked a sleep deprived, black haired individual holding a large ceramic coffee mug that looked like it could hold a gallon of the precious life juice.

“That’s Timothy Jackson Drake Wayne!” Tucker hissed excitedly, his inner tech geek coming through at the sight of his idol and secret rival. (Tucker prided himself in making all of Amity’s tech, since most normal technology wouldn’t work in Amity due to the ectoradiation, but a boy could still admire a fellow tech genius.)

“Wow. Danny really does look like a Wayne.” Paulina whispered to Star.

“Are you sure Danny’s not actually related?” Sam asked. “They both look like they get no sleep and drink enough coffee to kill a small country.”

“Sleep’s for–” Danny started.

“The dead.” the class chorused with an abundance of over exaggerated eye rolls.

Danny pouted.

In front of them, Tim Drake was staring at Danny. He squinted his eyes. Danny squinted back. Tim tilted his head to the side. Danny mirrored him at the exact same time. Tim blinked, so did Danny. Tim took a sip of his coffee. Danny took a sip of his pretend coffee. (He wished it was real but he wasn’t stupid enough to actually make a wish even this far from Amity. You never knew where Desiree was.)

Tim shook his head, muttering under his breath about needing more espresso shots before he walked away.

The class had frozen at the strange exchange, but promptly burst into laughter as the older teen left.

—

On one of the top floors, in a recently vacated office, an alert sounded on the computer.

RADIATION DETECTED

#whump writing #whumptober 2024 #whumptober2024 #whumptober24 #no.24 #radiation poisoning #ectoradiation #danny phantom #danny fenton #fanfic #batman #dp x dc #dc x dp #wes weston #Tim drake #crack #humor

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caplanbuckybarnes · 2 months ago

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Only His (howard stark)

Summary: you've only seen the best of Howard Stark.

Requested by @groovy-lady Hello! May I please request a drabble of what being married to Howard Stark would be like??

Warnings: Fluff

WC: 882

A/N: this probably isn't exactly what you'd wated, but i still hope that this is okay <3

Read on Ao3!

The sun peeked through the curtains of your luxurious Manhattan apartment, casting a warm glow across the room. You stretched, the soft sheets of your bed inviting you to linger just a little longer. But today was special. Today marked your anniversary with Howard Stark.

As you swung your legs over the side of the bed, you couldn’t help but smile. Life with Howard was never dull. You loved the way he challenged you, how he sparked your curiosity, and the way he made even the simplest moments feel extraordinary.

You padded into the kitchen, the scent of coffee wafting through the air. Howard was already there, fiddling with a small gadget at the counter, his tie askew as usual. He looked up, a playful grin spreading across his face.

“Morning, genius,” he said, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “I was just about to make breakfast, but I thought maybe I’d invent a new breakfast appliance instead.”

You laughed, leaning against the doorframe. “You know, pancakes are still a thing, right?”

He chuckled, stepping closer to you, the gadget still in his hand. “But wouldn’t it be great if we could just press a button and have them perfectly cooked every time?”

“Only you would find a way to overcomplicate breakfast, Howard,” you teased, taking the gadget from him and placing it on the counter. “How about we just stick to the classics for today?”

He sighed dramatically. “Fine, but only because it’s our anniversary. I’ll save my world-changing ideas for later.” His tone was playful, but you could see the underlying affection in his eyes.

After a leisurely breakfast filled with laughter and playful banter, you headed to the living room. The large windows offered a stunning view of the city, but your attention was drawn to the elegant display on the coffee table—an intricately wrapped box with a note attached.

“Howard, you didn’t have to—” you started, but he waved a hand, his smile broadening.

“Just open it,” he urged, excitement radiating from him.

You carefully unwrapped the box, revealing a stunning bracelet adorned with tiny gears and a small arc reactor charm. It was beautiful and so uniquely him.

“Howard, it’s perfect!” you exclaimed, slipping it onto your wrist. “I love it.”

“Just a little reminder that you’re the heart of my inventions,” he said, his voice low and sincere. “Without you, I’d just be a man with too many gadgets and not enough heart.”

Your heart swelled at his words. You stepped closer, wrapping your arms around him. “You know I love being a part of your world. It’s exhilarating.”

“Speaking of exhilarating,” he said, pulling back slightly, “how about a little field trip?”

Your eyes lit up. “Where to?”

“Just a surprise,” he said, winking. “I promise it’ll be worth it.”

Before you could question him further, he took your hand, leading you out of the apartment and into the bustling streets of Manhattan. The excitement in the air was palpable as you navigated the city together, laughing and teasing each other along the way.

Eventually, he led you to a rooftop helipad, where a sleek helicopter awaited. Your heart raced with anticipation.

“Howard, are you serious?” you gasped, looking at him wide-eyed.

“Only the best for my wife,” he replied, his voice filled with mischief.

The helicopter ride was a whirlwind of exhilaration, the city shrinking beneath you as you soared above the skyline. Howard pointed out various landmarks, his enthusiasm infectious as he talked about his latest projects and ideas.

When you landed on a picturesque hillside just outside the city, you were greeted with a breathtaking view of the horizon. A cozy picnic was set up, complete with your favorite foods and a bottle of champagne.

As you sat together, surrounded by the beauty of nature, you couldn’t help but feel grateful for the life you had built together. Howard poured you a glass, clinking it against his with a smirk.

“To us,” he said, his gaze steady and sincere.

“To us,” you echoed, warmth flooding your chest.

As the sun began to set, painting the sky with hues of orange and pink, you leaned against Howard, feeling the steady beat of his heart beside you. This was more than just an anniversary; it was a reminder of the partnership you had forged—a bond filled with love, laughter, and a little bit of chaos.

“Thank you for today,” you said softly, turning to face him. “You always know how to make everything feel special.”

He smiled, brushing a loose strand of hair behind your ear. “That’s my job, isn’t it? Besides, every day with you is special. You make me want to be better.”

You felt your heart swell at his words, and without thinking, you leaned in to kiss him. It was sweet and tender, a promise of all the adventures still to come.

As you pulled away, he grinned, a hint of mischief in his eyes. “Now, about that pancake machine…”

You rolled your eyes, laughter bubbling up again. “You’re impossible, Howard Stark.”

“Exactly,” he said, winking at you. “And you love it.”

With the sun setting behind you and the world at your feet, you knew that whatever challenges lay ahead, you’d face them together—partners in every sense of the word.

#howard stark x reader

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incorrectbatfam · 1 year ago

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What would the batfam livestream themselves doing?

Dick: photobombing Gotham's top 10 elite in 1 evening without anyone noticing

Jason: transforming an abandoned building into free housing in 2 weeks with only a pencil

Tim: taking pictures of famous landmarks from all 50 states in 50 days on a $50 budget

Damian: getting a blank piece of paper displayed in the Louvre in 12 hours

Duke: writing and publishing a New York Times bestselling novel in 30 days

Cullen: getting My Chemical Romance to perform at his party in 5 days via a game of telephone

Stephanie: getting invited backstage to a sold-out Taylor Swift concert through only 6 degrees of connection the day of the show

Cassandra: recruiting 25 strangers into a flash mob in 3 hours

Barbara: producing an album and getting 100 downloads in 3 days

Harper: building a full-sized driveable car from scratch in 4 days with only a $500 budget and a toy as the blueprint

Carrie: trying and rating every Gotham fair food in 8 hours without any food waste

Kate: spending 1 week in a foreign country with no money and only packing a water bottle

Alfred: turning the ingredients in Bernard's dorm mini fridge into a gourmet family meal in 6 hours

Selina: entering a cat into a dog show without anyone realizing

Bruce: making a blockbuster movie in 10 days with $10

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rinixo · 2 years ago

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sulfur and granite

Din Djarin/Reader | 2.7k | Rated E | afab reader, no y/n, Jealous Din Djarin, smut, piv sex, semi-intense consensual sex, aftercare.

On a short detour to Tattooine, you are introduced to the Marshal. Mando is definitely not jealous.

–

Non-linear oneshots featuring you, a university scholar from Naboo who is helping The Mandalorian seek out the Jedi.

a/n: I imagine Mando would not know how to comfortably express feelings of jealousy/possessiveness right away, but ultimately would be respectful towards his partner's desires.

read on ao3

You weren’t sure what planet you’d choose if you had to pick your favorite, but you were fairly certain that Tattooine wouldn’t even make your top ten. You had only been there a few times, and each time you had left with an uncomfortable amount of sand in an uncomfortable amount of places. The only redeeming quality in your eyes were the brilliant binary sunsets the arid rock offered, but even then there were hundreds of other places in the galaxy where you could see those.

When Mando charted course for Tattooine, you bit your tongue. He said he needed to talk to an ‘old friend’ in some tiny, middle-of-nowhere town, and seeing as you were along for the ride, you steeled yourself for another day of brushing sand out of all of your clothing.

Mando had not given you much information, which you didn’t particularly mind. This was mainly a detour on your journey through the galaxy – some kind of favor he needed to repay or something, you surmised. His ‘old friend’ was only described as ‘The Marshal’, and you wondered what kind of law enforcement a syndicated crime planet like Tattooine could even harbor.

Mando landed the Crest on the outskirts of the city one late afternoon. You, Grogu, and your armored patron walked the short distance into the town to where a man dressed in red was waiting for you.

“Good to see you,” the man called out, moving forward to grasp Mando’s arm in greeting. You hung back slightly, feeling a little out of your element when the man happened to glance past the bounty hunter and catch your gaze.

“Well, well, what do we have here?” The Marshal sauntered forward, an easy grin matching his easy gait. He was quite handsome, you decided. Nice peppery-gray hair, eyes lined with laughter. He reached out for your hand, which you gave with a quiet giggle as he brought it to his lips.

“Don’t tell me she’s one of your bounties, Mando.” The Marshal directed at the Mandalorian as he kissed the back of your hand flirtatiously. “Cause I might be tempted to play the hero and rescue her from your clutches-“

“She’s helping me on my journey,” Mando interrupted flatly. There was a wink of humor in the Marshal’s gaze as he released your hand, only to wrap one arm around your shoulder.

“Well, then, welcome,” he exclaimed. “Any friend of Mando’s is a friend of mine, er…?”

You shared your name, and the man began to walk you toward what you assumed was the local cantina. It was past midday, and it looked like the building was the gathering place for most of the locals as they ended the day. Several people greeted the Marshal as he pointed out different landmarks to you, indicating that he was just as popular among his people as you would have assumed based on his appearance and looks alone.

Mando trailed along just slightly behind the two of you, Grogu tucked in his sack at his side.

“Can I buy you a drink?” The Marshal asked, motioning to the bartender. Two glasses of blue liquor were poured, and the charming man held one out to you.

“Sure,” you smiled. It had been a while since you had let yourself indulge. Even on the rare occasions you and Mando stopped someplace with alcohol, it was mainly for information or to pick up supplies to take on the go. Not to mention the fact that Mando never took off his helmet.

The Marshal – who you later found out was named Cobb Vanth – clinked his glass against yours and the two of you took healthy swigs of the slightly sour drink. Wincing, you matched the handsome man’s grin as he leaned casually against the bar.

“So tell me,” he drawled, swirling his drink In his glass. “What’s a girl like you doing hanging around a Mandalorian bounty hunter?”

You vaguely registered Mando hovering off to the side. He did not ask for a drink, nor did you think he would accept if one was even offered. You glanced over at him, wondering if you should defer to him – he had wanted to come to Freetown to speak with the Marshal, who was currently more fixated on you. On the other hand…it had been a while since you had a chance to talk to someone who wasn’t a literal child.

Turning to focus your attention on Cobb, you explained your background and talked generally about what you were doing for Mando. You left out most of the details in the interest of protecting both his and Grogu’s safety but were secretly delighted that the man did not pry for answers. Instead, he asked questions about you – where you were from, your research, your favorite parts of the galaxy you had seen thus far. He had a charming way of speaking, and a quick wit, and you found yourself losing track of time as the conversation flowed steadily into the evening.

At some point, Cobb had procured a small table for the two of you, and you perched on the edge of your seat as he explained how he had come to meet the Mandalorian. He laughed at how your jaw dropped during the tale of how Mando had flown into the mouth of a krayt dragon to blow it up from the inside. You spared another glace towards the bounty hunter, who hadn’t moved since you had entered the cantina. His helmet was fixed on you, and though you couldn’t see his eyes something told you his gaze was fixed on you. The feeling sent a slight shiver up your spine.

Seeming to notice, Cobb reached out and placed a calloused hand over your own. “It has truly been a pleasure,” he smiled. “But I better go speak to Mando before he burns a hole through both our heads.” You returned his smile and stood – albeit a little wobbly from the several drinks you had consumed over the past hour or so.

The Marshal beckoned for someone to come over, and explained that they would show you to a room you could stay in for the night. As he did so, Mando walked over, his bulk just millimeters from your back. You opened your mouth to greet him, but he just handed you Grogu in his sack and asked that you take the now-sleeping baby with you.

“Of course,” you said, gently taking the child into your arms. “See you later?”

Mando did not answer you and instead took your seat across from Cobb. The Marshal wished you a good night, and you followed the young woman he had procured to show you to your room.

An hour later, you were freshly bathed and had changed into a clean set of clothes. The room was decently sized, if not a bit dusty from lack of use. It held one large bed along with several chairs and a small table and was attached to a small side room that had a smaller bed. You had tucked Grogu into the smaller bed in the side room, closing the door gently so that you could prepare for sleep without waking him up.

You laid against the pillows and were browsing your datapad when the sound of the door sliding open signaled the arrival of Mando. You watched him clunk into the room over the top of your datapad. He stood in the middle of the room for a moment, a tension in the atmosphere having followed him in. “Where’s the kid?” He asked, and you pointed to the side room. He walked over to the door and opened it slightly to peer inside. Satisfied, he gently closed it and continued to stand there in the middle of the room.

“Have a good chat?” You asked, breaking the frigid silence after it became clear he was not going to. Mando settled into a chair heavily, spreading his legs and resting his arms on those of the chair.

“Was gonna ask you the same thing,” he rasped in response, and you raised a brow in question.

“What do you mean?” You asked, tapping a nail against the side of your datapad. Mando raised one shoulder in a half-shrug.

“You two seemed to hit it off.”

“Who? Me and Cobb?” You set down your datapad and crossed your arms. “He was nice.”

You could hardly believe the scoff you heard from the man. “Sure. That’s one way to put it.”

“Are you jealous?”

“…No.”

“You are,” you expanded, uncrossing your arms and swinging your legs over to hang over the side of the bed. “You’re upset that he was flirting with me, aren’t you?”

Mando was silent, and you wondered if his jaw was clenched under that helmet. You looked at him expectantly, and he sighed.

“I’m not upset,” you tried to clarify. “I think that’s just how he is. It’s ok to be jealous, Mando.”

“I am not jealous,” he grit out, and you tried to hide a smirk. Standing, you swayed over to stand in front of him. You were wearing an old oversized tunic that came just above your knees, and not much else. You stepped in between his spread thighs, your bare legs bumping against his armor. Even sitting, his head was nearly level with your own. Were you pushing it, standing naked from the waist down in between the legs of a dangerous and definitely jealous man? Perhaps.

“Then why were you staring at us the whole time?” You teased. “Mad that your friend was talking to me and not you?”

“I was waiting for him to make a move,” Mando interrupted. “To touch you.”

“Yeah?” You queried, and in a burst of bravery, you sat lightly on one of his broad thighs. You felt him tense underneath you, even through the armor, and resettle his weight back In the chair to support you more firmly. “What was your plan if he had made a move?”

One of his gloved hands came to rest on your bare thigh, and he slowly pulled it towards him, forcing your legs to spread slightly. His hand rubbed soft circles into your flesh, and you shifted so that your back was supported against the side of the chair.

“Hauling you over my shoulder and back into my ship,” Mando husked, hand venturing further up your thigh, under the hem of the long tunic. Your breath hitched as his fingers brushed lightly over your bare cunt. “And reminding you.”

One of his fingers ran up and down your slit, and you shifted again, trying to get him to put more pressure where you wanted it. “Remind me of what?” You asked breathlessly. Mando’s other hand crept up your back to grip your neck, forcing you to arch in his lap. He stood, hauling you up against him with ease. He half-dragged you over to the bed, sitting down so that he could pull you up against his back into his lap.

“This,” he said simply, spreading your thighs wider and grinding his hips up into your backside. You could feel him, hot and hard under his flight suit, and you let out a low moan at the sensation. One hand roamed over your shaking thighs, playing with the slick gathering between your legs, while the other came up to cross against your chest, holding you tightly against him.

“I was thinking,” Mando continued, sounding almost casual in his tone and timbre, “Of how to show you what you’d be missing. How to show other men that you spend your nights in my bed.”

You licked your lips, feeling air-light as he rasped through the modulator into your ear. His fingers between your legs alternated from pinching your swollen clit to probing your entrance.

“That’s what I was thinking,” he said lowly. “What were you thinking, wicked girl?”

“I’m thinking you should just fuck me already,” you gasped out, and Mando laughed. It echoed through your blank mind like smoke, and your eyes fluttered closed as two of his thick fingers slid tightly inside of you, thumb pressing against your clit. Your hips bucked at the sensation, only to be held tight in his iron grip.

“Can you be quiet?” Mando asked throatily, and you could feel the rumble of it from his chest. “The kid is sleeping…and who knows who else might be listening?”

“I thought you wanted them to know,” you whimpered, and his grip on you loosened for a millisecond before he stood and flipped you face-first onto the bed. The back of your tunic was pushed up as he pushed your shoulders down to the mattress, and dragged your hips up toward where he stood behind you.

“Keep quiet,” he gruffed out, and you heard the familiar sound of his belt coming undone and felt his bare hips warm against your ass. “You only cry for me, understand?”

“Y-ye-“ you barely had a chance to respond before he shoved his throbbing cock into you, punching the air out of your lungs in one solid thrust. Keening, you let your head fall against your arms as Mando gripped your hips firmly and began a steady, brutal pace.

He spread your thighs as wide as they would go so that you could take all of him in with every thrust. Something about his hands on your hips and the way he moved you felt necessary – deep, intense thrusts that would resist anything except acceptance from him. The bed creaked from his weight against your body, along with the rich sound of his hips slapping against yours.

The superiority of this angle made you focus on the place where he filled you like it was the center of your universe. You bit into the flesh of your arm in an attempt to silence the keening cries that wanted to escape from your throat. Mando groaned above you, and his pace quickened.

“This what you wanted?” he husked lowly. “To come on my cock? Come on, wicked girl, come on-“

You choked out a wordless plea as his weight came down across your thighs, and his cock rammed as far as it could go. You knew you would feel the ache of him inside of you for days.

“M-mando-“ you keened again, and you felt his grip on your hips clench harder.

“Gotta be quiet,” he rasped. “Want them to hear how you’re spread open for my cock?” You could feel your orgasm approaching like a ship preparing to exit hyperspace. You were sure nothing in your life would ever feel as good, as full, as right as the heavy weight of his cock inside of you.

The frantic clutch of your cunt wrung from Mando his own release. He all but collapsed onto you, wrapping you up so that you disappeared into his embrace. You came with a muffled scream, your leg going numb from the release of tension and the weight of the man fucking his semen into you.

Not allowing you reprieve, Mando groaned and collapsed onto his side, rolling you so that you were pressed up against him. His iron-hard cock was still inside of you, throbbing its release, and his hand came down between your legs to tweak at your clit. “Again,” he demanded, and you threw your head back and hit it against his helmet. He shoved the fingers of his other hand into your mouth to silence your cries as you came again, obediently, at the clumsy push of his fingers against your sore cunt.

Your body jerked against him, twitching from the edge of overstimulation. His cock, still streaming cum, slid out of you, pulsing the last of his release over your flushed entrance. For a while, all that could be heard was the sound of your breaths easing back from near hyperventilation. Mando’s grip on you was still possessive, but he shushed you gently and murmured praise into the back of your neck, hands circling your skin to ground your consciousness back down to him.

After that, Mando gently slid from behind you and lifted you into his arms. Your legs still shook from the onslaught, and he carried you quietly to the refresher where he helped you wipe yourself clean.

“All right?” He murmured as he brought a soft cloth to your inner thighs. You smiled sleepily and leaned your head forward to lay against his chest, pressing a soft kiss to the cold metal.

“If that wasn’t you being jealous,” you whispered, “Maybe next time I should flirt back.”

#din djarin x reader #mando x reader #the mandalorian #the mandalorian x reader #din djarin smut #the mandalorian smut #din djarin #cobb vanth

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