#but i dont actually read words i just look at them and find the closest approximation to words i already know

[ther3allyra]

hii ^^ since you're taking Vanessa requests could you do Vanessa and reader who's really introverted and shy? like reader always tries to avoid eye contact and all 😭?

im sorry if that was a little hard to read but yeah feel free to ignore if you dont want to do it!

Please look at me.

Vanessa Shelly x Reader

Summary: Your extremely shy and have an obvious crush on the blonde police officer, maybe once she makes a move you’ll gain some confidence

Warnings: N/A

Word count: 918

A/N: HII lovely! Thank you for this request I absolutely loved writing this, apologise for this being later than I intended but school was busy, it’s also a little on the shorter side so I hope you don’t mind. Enjoy<3

You sat in the office bored, you longed for the time Vanessa would show up to spend time with you, not that you’d even be able to talk to her I mean the only words you e ever managed to speak to her was ‘Hi’ and ‘Y/N’. Most of the time it was a simple nod or a quick smile you’d give her before looking away shyly rubbing your arm. You longed for the moment you would be able to talk to her, hug her, kiss her. To say the least you had a HUGE crush on her, and you wanted to do something about it but couldn’t.

As you sat watching the monster screen you saw a car pull up just to the side, the vehicle almost staying out of view from the security camera hanging over the entrance door. Standing up quickly with such excitement that you flung open the office door and ran for the entrance, stopping suddenly in your tracks. The jingle of keys. Keys? Vanessa doesn’t have keys but you didn’t have much time to think before you had an Abby running straight for you.

‘Y/N!!!’ She squealed with delight, as you opened your arms bringing her in for a big hug. You look up to see your older brother Mike just closing the door, it must’ve been a double shift with him, had you forgotten?. You looked from Abby who was still giving you a big hug and giggling to Mike, back to Abby, and then back to Mike again mouthing the words ‘what is she doing here?’

Mike took a step forward as your little sister jumped out of your arms, saying something of ‘be right back’ and ‘saying hi to friends’. ‘I couldn’t find a babysitter, Max isn’t answering the phone’ Mike shrug at you, you honestly couldn’t feel to guilty as the night dragged on a little even though it was 3:46Am and you knew you couldn’t actually afford a proper babysitter, that’s why once you were old enough you started working here with your older brother.

As the night dragged itself along you longed wished Vanessa would turn up, maybe she would maybe she wouldn’t?, again it wasn’t as if you could talk to her which you so desperately wanted to do that it was obvious. Abby was busy trying to play a claw machine as Freddy and Mike stood next to her, to say the least it didn’t look as if the animatronic and your brother liked each other very much but both you and Abby hand gotten along great with all of them, you having the closest bond with Foxy. FOXY! You could ask his opinion on how you could talk to Vanessa, he couldn’t exactly speak but the amount you talk about her on the nights she usually calls he could tell you liked her very much. You looked around for the animatronic and once you saw him near the front door you ran for him.

‘Foxy!’ You called as you skidded to a halt near him, your breath catches in your throat as you realised Vanessa had actually turned up, she was most likely talking to the fox animatronic. You snuck a glance up at her and noticed both her and foxy staring at you so you stared down at the floor, your cheeks heating up a tad. You tried your best to avoid eye contact with her but you so desperately wanted to be with her. But now? You felt your heart race and you stood in your place.

‘Y/N?, are you ok?’ She questioned looking at you up and down in your spot, all you could do was nod and let out a simple ‘mhm’, not wanting to move, hoping the ground would open up and swallow you then and there to save you from the embarrassment.

The entire place was silent until Mike had popped up, he probably left Abby with the other animatronics. ‘Hey Ness!’ He smiled approaching you and Vanessa, the ground shook a little as Foxy had walked away. Mike ruffled the top of your hair as you glanced at him. You were so deep in thought you hadn’t noticed the conversation, and mikes watch beeping 6Am. It was 6Am and you hadn’t even spoken to Vanessa!!. Mike walked away to go and grab Abby as she’d most likely fallen asleep on one of the animatronics.

‘I have to go, but it was nice seeing you again Y/N!’ She smiled, but before she left she stepped forward embracing you in her arms. ‘Maybe next time you look at me, huh?’ She smiled and gave you a small kiss on the cheek, before stepping back giving you a smile and walking to her car.

She hugged you, SHE LITERALLY HUGGED YOU!! You got so excited, even the small kiss on the cheek there was some interaction between you and there was a glimmer of hope that you’d gain more confidence next time, and even more hope there was a chance she’d like you back. You followed Mike who was carrying Abby in his arms out to both of your guys car, you waved bye to Mike as he strapped Abby in, getting into your own car. You watched as Vanessa’s car drove by as she honked at you not long followed after Mike’s. You’d probably go grab some breakfast before going back to to Mike, and that’s what you decided to do, extremely happy with how the shift went.

[rhondafromhr]

More ideas/headcanons for the ‘Nerds Corruption AU’

Link to the original post for those who aren’t familiar: https://www.tumblr.com/rhondafromhr/738012368733356032/dont-get-me-wrong-i-love-max-redemption-arcs-in

-The LIB adopt their human forms after the first time Max, Steph and the nerds summon them and RELENTLESSLY make fun of their true/eldritch forms. “our real forms would melt your minds” yeah sure whatever you need to tell yourself Pokey

-Tinky tries to use having Ted in the bastard box as leverage against Pete, but he just doesn’t care because that’s not his brother, it’s some other Pete’s brother from another timeline so it’s not his problem.

-Once everyone in the group starts acting like an agressive bully the way Max does, Grace finds herself attracted to all of them and has a crisis over it.

-At some point Max tries to apologize for before (“sorry for bullying you guys all these years, you never deserved that, everyone we’re currently bullying does but you didn’t.”) Now that they’re all literal monsters too they just dismiss him like “don’t apologize, we get it now, the power trip is fucking awesome!“

-Max’s signature move of using anti-bullying slogans to justify and get away with bullying is their favorite. They always tell Max how smart he is for coming up with it.

-They decide Kyle can date Brenda now but plot twist! Brenda leaves him for Ruth. Ruth taunts him for this every chance she gets and purposely makes out with Brenda in locations where he’ll have to walk by. Cue Kyle sobbing in the bathroom while Jason comforts him, leading to one of very few sweet, wholesome scenes we get in this universe.

-Ruth is confident enough to perform now, which obviously means they need to sabotage the lead in The Barbecue Monologues so she can take the role. They either just straight up intimidate them into quitting or frame them for vandalizing the school and get them expelled.

-One day Pete randomly remembers the time Brad Callahan pantsed him and he and the rest of the crew just drop what they’re doing to go beat him up. When they get called into principal Blim’s office they tell him they did it because Brad was picking on Hannah Foster earlier (“what do you want us to do? Stand by and do nothing? Being a bystander is just as bad as bullying, we learned that at the anti-bullying assembly!”) Brad has been known to do that so he believes them and lets them off with a warning. When word gets around people actually do mess with Hannah a lot less.

- (already mentioned this in a separate post but I’ll put it here too) after graduation Max, Steph + the nerds run an anime/comic book store together and Richie’s the only one who knows or cares about any of it. He’s rude and condescending to customers, everyone else is not knowledgeable and completely unhelpful, Grace tells every customer they need to go read a bible instead. They have like 1.5 stars on yelp but stay in business because the next closest similar store is in Clivesdale so nobody’s going to go there

-At some point Linda Monroe comes in and sees the gang being rude to Becky Barnes, so of course she takes an instant liking to them. She becomes an investor in the store and sort of a mother figure to all of them. She encourages their bad behavior, giving them tips for manipulating people in a more sophisticated way. Max and Steph get especially attached to her (the three bond over their dad issues) and they go to her house once a week to drink wine and and hear all the hot gossip about Linda’s rich frienemies.

-When Roman finds out about Linda’s new investment he comes to check out the store and he’s as icy towards her as usual. True to form, Max, Steph and the nerds say the rudest, most out of pocket stuff to him (Richie goes after his appearance HARD, not realizing the irony that he looks pretty similar) and eventually he storms off. Linda’s touched that they stood up for her. She cries and tells them how proud she is. Max and Steph cry a little too because this is the first time a parental figure’s ever told them that. After this they become obsessed with impressing Linda so they can hear it again.

-Grace babysits Linda’s kids sometimes and Linda pays her an outrageous amount due to being so out of touch with regular babysitting rates (“it’s one banana, what could it cost, ten dollars?” energy). Grace refuses to babysit for Tom anymore because he can’t match these rates. One night he can’t find any other sitters, so he tries to cancel on Becky but she suggests they spend a night in with Tim instead, leading to some nice family bonding (okay there can be one more cute wholesome moment, I’ll allow it.)

-They’re rivals with Frank Pricely. They hate him because Toyzone cuts into their merch sales. He hates them back for stealing Linda, who used to drop thousands per week at his store. They always scheme to screw each other over. Black Friday doesn’t happen in this timeline solely because they pay Lex to destroy the entire shipment of wiggly dolls. This is also what gets them on the LIB’s radar, Wiggly is absolutely furious.

- (This one relates to the popular “Paul is Richie’s uncle” headcanon) At some point, Paul is at his wit’s end with Richie and makes him move out in the hopes it’ll force him to reevaluate his life and stop being so awful. He doesn’t just throw Richie out, he gives him a timeline and helps him find a place. But he’s not sure if he did the right thing. He mentions this to Ted at work and Ted says his parents did the same to him and he’s totally well-adjusted. Paul just gives him a look and says “Ted…no.” This is the catalyst for him getting involved with the group and eventually getting his own corruption arc.

-After moving out, Richie becomes roommates with Max and Ruth. Steph and Pete have a luxury apartment together downtown (Solomon pays for it because he can’t deal with her anymore and wants her out of his house). Grace has a two bedroom apartment to herself - she had a roommate at one point, but they got fed up and left. Luckily she can afford it with her cushy babysitting gig.

[headcansxfanfictions]

FANFICTION Its 1:30 am so i wrote this out of no where

PG-13: talk of sexual themes but no sexual acts

TW: character worries about SA

Plot: Asexual Illumi finds himself having a heat unexpectedly after taking suppressants for too long. The closest safe place is Hisoka’s penthouse. Illumi just makes it in time.

PART 1

Hisoka was alarmed when Illumi Zoldyck showed up at his penthouse in full heat.

“Hisoka Im sorry I needed somewhere safe.” Illumi pants holding on to the door frame and shaking from trying to not to collapse.

Hisoka isn’t alarmed easily but right know Illumi seems 10 times more vulnerable then he has ever seen the man.

Illumi stumbles forward and Hisoka catches him. Illumi’s scent is amazing and Hisoka has to mentally slap himself.

Hisoka half caries Illumi to his bedroom. “I almost didn’t make it here,” Illumi starts to cry.

The sobs send chills through Hisoka, Illumi never cries he hardly ever shows emotion. That being said he has never seen Illumi in heat before so maybe this is normal for him?

Illumi is laid down on the bed and Hisoka sits next to him waiting for Illumi to say more.

“I-I almost didn’t make it. I could have died or worse, raped and left pregnant. Hisoka I was so scared. I almost didn’t get away.“ Hisoka hears Illumi’s deep voice break for the first time.

“Illumi you did make it though, you just stay here. You’ll be safe.” Maybe its his alpha instincts but Hisoka has a sudden strong urge to protect Illumi at all cost while he is in heat.

Despite his reputation for being promiscuous and constantly horny, at the age of 26 Hisoka is actually able to control his alpha very well. Yes, Illumi’s heat is effecting him but he respects Illumi enough to push that aside as much as he can.

“Illumi, I’ll be back in a moment I just need to go get some things. Is there anything medicine you usually take?”

“I don’t know,” Illumi’s breathing is ragged, “haven’t had a heat in years… suppressants.”

“You’re on suppressants? Was this heat expected?”

“No,” Illumi writhes struggle for words.

“Never mind we can talk later let me go get you somethings. I’ll be back as fast as I can.” With that Hisoka leaves the bedroom and heads swiftly for the kitchen. He takes two pill bottles from the cabinet and takes a pill from the first one; a suppressant of his own. He doesn’t usually take them but has them for emergencies like this to prevent him from going into rut. Then he gets a glass of water and a thermometer and heads back to Illumi.

Illumi looks worse than when he left. He is read hot and writhing trying desperately to hold himself back and maintain some dignity.

“Illumi here, something for the pain.” Hisoka helps Illumi take the pain medicine and drink some water.

“Thank you,” Illumi whispers through his ragged breathing.

Hisoka then used the forehead thermometer to check Illumi, 101.3F, he’ll be okay, Hisoka will watch it.

“Do you need anything else?” Hisoka asks then hesitantly adds, “I can help you if you want me to… I’m an alpha you know.”

“No,“ Illumi whispers immediately. “I-I dont like doing that.” Illumi cries harder.

“Hisoka I hate this.” Illumi feels scared and small, like being 17 again locked in his room having his first heat. Illumi doesn’t like to talk about it but he hates the idea of sex or anything sexual. It disgusts him. Heats are the only time he ever has sexual feeling and it is hell for him. This is why he always takes suppressants. He has only had 3 heats prior to this; once that first time at 17 again at 19 and again at 21. He was supposed to let himself have one every other year but last year it had been too difficult to make himself do it so against the advice of his doctor he had stayed on the pill illegally. He had been fine up until a couple hours ago when it had hit him like a freight train and he found himself far from home unable to protect himself.

“Okay okay, it was just an offer.” Hisoka watches Illumi curly up on his side, slick is wetting throw his pants.

“Wanna put something more comfortable on? Im gonna go grab some towels to put under you so you can stay clean.” Its unlike Hisoka to be this serious, especially about something that could warrant many sex jokes however the vulnerability Illumi is showing is enough of a shock to make him grow up for the time being.

Illumi hums is appreciation as Hisoka lays the bed with fresh towels and helps illumi into a nightgown. He leaves Illumi’s underwear on not wanting to make him feel unsafe.

Illumi finally falls asleep and Hisoka takes this opportunity to braid the man’s long raven hair so that it won’t be tangled with all the writhing and thrashing that will occur once he wakes.

[kaeyapilled]

trying to put my (mostly) child kaeya headcanons in one spot. brace yourself this is gonna be so long

first i think he was around 8 years old when he was left in mondstadt.

before that he lived with his father always moving from place to place. or maybe... i dont know honestly. they didn't live in khaenri'ah (whatever's left of it) because i like the idea that kaeya is the last hope for a place he's only heard stories about. for people he has barely met. and he yearns for it all the same, enough to run away as a stowaway on a ship just for the slim chance he'll get to meet it, to return to a place he only knows through other people's memories... yeah it's a thought i like to entertain. so anyway i dont know where exactly kaeya lived before my headcanons for this are really vague lmao. im torn between making him be raised in some corner of teyvat, or somewhere very abyss touched, or... a secret third thing i dont yet know...

i think his mother died when he was so young he has barely any recollection of her and it haunts him a bit. he cant remember what she looked like. to have an idea he can just look in a mirror though. he's her spitting image.

unsure about siblings... i think he didnt have any

i dont think his father was abusive. neglectful maybe. he was really awful at the father job but mostly because of how emotionally distant he was. he never hit kaeya or went out of his way to be cruel to him, he was just very stern. kaeya was a child who didn't really know comfort. all his basic needs were met, but his father just wasn't the type to hug or say words of encouragement, to calm him down from nightmares, to soothe a fever beyond just bitter medicine and leaving kaeya laid down on the cot alone. i think the closest they ever got to that sort of connection was when he taught kaeya their clan's history, which we know he did from canon. that piece of paper where the handwriting shows an adult guiding a child's hand on the paper makes me. Feel Things. he was not a soft man or a good father by any means but. *gestures vaguely*

and you know what. i think he loved kaeya in his own way. which is to say that he loved kaeya more as a means to an end than as a son. or maybe not. maybe leaving kaeya was more difficult for him than i give him credit for. i cant really decide. either way 2/10 for effort his parenting sucked and left deep scars in this poor poor child BUT he was not a heartless asshole is what im trying to say

anyway kaeya has very bittersweet very mixed feelings about him. he left his own son all alone in an unfamiliar land for unclear reasons. placed a burden nobody should ever have to carry on the shoulders of a child. he never embraced him or told him he loved him. but at the same time we see kaeya in game trying to understand his father's motivations for abandoning him there. that maybe a happier life could have been a factor. his safety. assuming this is, like, true. i headcanon that it is. it's not the entire reason by far. but it could have been part of it. maybe that's called "wishful thinking". we'll find out one day i hope

i don't really know what to make of the entire "you're our last hope" thing. as in, what exactly does that entail. what did his father tell him. im just kinda waiting patiently for them to actually tell us what's up. i can tell you it was a ridiculous amount of pressure on kaeya though. he might have been mature for his age and forced to grow up faster than he should have but a lot of it was simply beyond his comprehension. like, that's an entire seven year old child. he shouldve been playing with toys. anyway. kaeya who has felt guilt as his standard everyday main emotion since he was little

i think kaeya's father taught him to speak, read and write in common, so kaeya could understand people pretty well when he was left in mondstadt and could read basic stuff

an extension of this headcanon: i think each region has their own language besides just common tongue, and that in general people can speak both, especially in the big cities, while in rural areas people will probably only speak the region's mother tongue. i read a mutual's headcanon like this once and it rewired my brain so i borrowed it. also common varies from place to place because there are different dialects from mixing with the nations' other languages. to make it fun!

so when kaeya gets to mondstadt he can't speak mondstadtian specifically but he can speak common and the ragnvindrs can all speak both. eventually as he stays there kaeya learns mondstadt's language and loses the accent (a very conscious effort from his part)

more on the accent: if you listen closely to him nowadays, some word or other still sounds odd, maybe too stiff, the way he rolls his tongue on certain letters- but it's very subtle

kaeya hasn't spoken his mother tongue in so long he inevitably has forgotten certain things, and he was so young when he stopped speaking it that there are things he simply never learned. i think this haunts kaeya sooo bad. he's someone who's always trying to keep little pieces of his past, of things that have a lot of emotional value for him; he's someone who values memories, in particular physical, tangible pieces of memories. and we see him do this with his roots, like adding khaenri'ahn symbols and motifs to his outfits, saving slips of paper written by his father about his family's story, etc..

so anyway the fact he's forgetting bits and pieces of his mother tongue makes him grasp desperately at whatever's still left of it in his memory. i wonder if he writes what he can om scraps of paper, or maybe an actual notebook; i wonder also if he did similar things as a child too? though it's something he'd have to keep insanely well hidden and the paranoia about someone finding it out would absolutely eat him alive

okay back to his childhood. when he's taken in by the ragnvindrs i think he's very quiet and only speaks when spoken to. he is so unfathomably scared and lonely and everything is terrifyingly unfamiliar but any genuine manifestation of fear and anxiety and homesickness is saved for the dead of night when everyone's asleep and won't see/hear him cry. he keeps to himself, acts very polite, doesn't bother anyone with asking for help or for anything beyond what he's already been offered.

diluc was very happy about having another kid his age living under the same roof and almost immediately saw him as a little brother and kaeya simply could not match the enthusiasm. they took it as him just being shy, and to an extent that was part of it, but also he simply did not want to be there at all. no matter how wonderfully kind those people were to him, kaeya missed his father and his mother and the homeland he didnt even know in person but that was his biggest responsibility. it was such an enormous change and he missed the familiarity so much it made him ill. like literally. i think he spent his first or second week with the ragnvindrs bedridden

im very fond of the hc that kaeya took ill easily as a child.

kaeya had nightmares often. i absolutely cannot see him asking for comfort in any direct way. most of the time he'd just hold his own hand through it. other times he'd slip out of bed and see there was still light coming from the study. he'd sit on an armchair next to crepus, who already knew kaeya would hardly ever speak about what was making him upset, and watch him work until he fell asleep again.

i think kaeya was a very scrawny kid who looked a bit younger than he actually was. next to diluc (who im always torn between making just seven months older than him, or a year and seven months older) he seemed even tinier. while diluc was the picture of a healthy boy, all full red cheeks and bright eyes, kaeya was too lean, eyes too tired, sometimes distant, like he's not entirely present, lost in thought. you could see a sadness in him sometimes that seemed deeper than anything a child his age should know. kaeya was quiet not just because he didn't speak a lot, but because he seemed to exist silently. if he disappeared to be alone for a while and didn't want you to find him, you would not find him.

and anyway. i like the idea of him slowly allowing himself to be louder as he becomes more comfortable with the ragnvindrs. and revealing his more sarcastic side lol. he's always been quick witted, he was just too timid at first

child kaeya who was such a weird kid. he spoke in a way that often lacked the childishness expected from someone who's yet to turn nine. said odd cryptic things with zero explanation. banned from sharing bedtime stories after scaring diluc with overly fucked up khaenri'ahn folk tales. normalest child alive. i think he bit into a crystalfly once

oh and kaeya absolutely came up with the whole "i come from a family of pirates" thing as a kid. i think he read about pirates in a book once and was completely enamored with the idea. and one side effect of being a secret agent pawn spy is the ability to spin wild tales on the spot. so anyway did he convince diluc he was toootally a pirate. yes. diluc believed him for way too long

no wonder he's so good at telling stories to kids nowadays. he's had practice

about the eyepatch: i can never settle on just one headcanon!! option one: his eye was fine as a kid and he only wore it sometimes for the pirate roleplay, then he started wearing it everyday after The Fight because diluc wounded him; option two: he always wore the eyepatch because there is something abyss/khaenri'ah related going on with his right eye (don't ask me what exactly. though im fond of the idea that it's connected to his father and it's basically what allows him to fulfill the spy role, in some nebulous way.) and during the fight diluc aimed for it on purpose; there's probably a secret third option im forgetting about. i lean more towards option one these days i think.

okay im out of headcanons for now. i bet that the moment i click post im gonna remember ten more. but its ok. i can make another post if needed. never forget that i can speak about kaeya for literal hours and that, if prompted, i will do so

[yearningaces]

Hi! (It got too long, sorry)

So um.. i had some time to think while I was trageling, and I didnt wanted my thoughts to get lost in the void so I wrote some things in my notes about Declan (its not entirely about him, mostly about just Hallewells). So if its okay then I would share it.

The first one is actually just a situation, or well.. so um, I temporarily forgot that he is in the medival times and I had a daydream about him in the modern age.

The thing is that I really love how devoted he is, but I also like how cold he is towards everyone else. And you said that he isnt a entirely a good person so I wanted to play with that thought, how he was acting before he met his heart. (I.. um... its about a car crash so um.. dont read it if it makes you uncomfortable, there is no blood or anything but someone does dies and someone got injured, sorry)

Its colorful because I just realized I can do that in my notes lel (and I was hyped from my own thoughts, how silly)

Next one is like.. um.. mostly an ask. Shortly its about what would be his first reaction when he first sees his heart.

The next one is about um.. shortly, when you cannot communicate what you feel or want, what would he do then?

I am really sorry if any of this is uncomfortable or hurtful for you and you do not need to answer and also sorry for how I wrote in my notes because I was in a hurry... and on a bus so if you see any mistakes in my english then please ignore it. And also ignore this ask if you dont want to answer. (Im just hyperfixating right now here.) Thank you if you answer!

Please NEVER apologize because this is all liquid word gold and nothing could have made me happier to read because you got him! You got him nailed down!! Let's run through this one by one!

Second scenario!

First of all the car crash is 100% in character for a Hallewell. He's done his job, he's moving on without a second glance. Maybe MAYBE if that Hallewell knew his heart already and the woman who was injured looked like his heart? He might toss the man's phone to her. That's really it, they are such an emotionally detached being, not good, but they're doing general good by hunting and murdering the bad in their own way (also please please I'm rotating the powerhouse of this scenario iny mind the next few days of a modern time Declan just... Appearing in the road like that on a dark stormy night to do his job. I need to figure out the best weapon he'd use if not in beast form.) because that's exactly it! To most folks unless the Hallewell has actually shifted, they only see an intimidating human. For the prey of the Hallewell, they see or at least in the back of their mind they feel just how inhumanly wrong this creature is. These aren't good creatures, their job is to hunt and kill foul hearted individuals but that doesn't really make a Hallewell GOOD you know? Very duty bound and almost nothing else is in their heads

It's something I didn't touch heavily on, but whatever decides when a Hallewell is born (be it the deity that drives them like Crom dubh to a Dullahan) or the fate that creates a Hallewell because remember they can't be born from another Hallewell, whatever decides that they're meant to be is what decides who they're fated to. One individual through their entire lifespan, and that's it.

If I could say one good thing about a Hallewell it's that they are viciously devout to their heart. That is their only person, all of the lacking emotions and care is poured into that one person that's why it's so extreme. It's not strictly romantic though, it could be a platonic bond where the Hallewell feels a driving need to be your closest companion. A familial one where in their eyes their heart is their only family, but more commonly a romantic one where they want to be the best partner you could hope for so you'll never want to leave them behind. Because that's it for them, they could never find another person to care for.

Though the way they find their heart is a little... Fitting for how scary they can be.

The reason their heart is called that is because that's how a Hallewell finds them. They hear your heartbeat. They follow it until they find you.

Have you ever been hunted down?

Even if you know you're completely safe, it's terrifying especially if you don't know that and if the Hallewell in question is too excited to consider that fact so it will be a heart attack but once said Hallewell catches up, like I said with Declan, he'll be on his knees as soon as he sees you, holding onto your hand as if in disbelief over your existence because he's spent centuries committed to his duty alone, he's a rarity among Hallewell of being older and only now finding his heart, but now he has, and he would do anything to convince to keep him around. It doesn't matter if his heart is the strongest burliest man around, or the tiniest, he will act with the same adoring worshipful actions. He'd try to go off of your reactions, because at any point a terrifying stranger pledging his lifelong fealty is unnerving at best. He'd offer his home, protection, always good food on the table- he'll cook for you if you'd like, books, gems, fine fabrics, entertainment, himself, anything and everything he has if you will only permit him your presence and should you decide anything more he would be most blessed but would never expect as such.

He's an intense dude... All Hallewell are really.

As for the third thing!

This is hell! A Hallewell unable to aid his heart, Declan would be close to tearing his ribs open to offer you his racing heart if it helps! It's a scenario where he can get very very overbearing but he wants so badly to help and is close to just finding the nearest person he knows you've expressed lacking fondness over to devour them.

Now this is a very dependent scenario, but if you were crying, breaking down good and proper, first and foremost he'd isolate the both of you. No crowds, no guest fuck off everyone he will grip a bitch and toss them halfway across town if he feels they're making the situation worse regardless of who it is. Once alone he'll try to hold you, be it both of you on the ground he wouldn't care, if you let him he'll hold you close and not say a word until you do even if it means staying there for hours until he's stuff and sore he wouldn't care.

If he can't hold you? Okay he won't try again but he's gonna pace around on high alert instinctually patrolling the area you're in to ensure nothing can come near you so you can have the space to breathe properly.

Eventually he'll gain enough sense to bring you water and something light to eat because crying is dehydrating and exhausting. If you let him he'd carry you to bed, tuck you in all nice and cozy and try to help you rest.

The issue comes in now, if you go to sleep and don't tell him what happened once he's positive you're sleeping he'll lock the house up so you're safely protected from any nosey folks, and he will hunt everyone he knows you've been connected to. Not to kill but it's not off the table. He needs to know who did what to upset you so much and he doesn't care if that means fighting everyone in your town. He'll drag folks out of alehouse and toss them into a ditch to interrogate, he's not above beating someone to near death if they know something and if they're the cause I'm sorry they're no doubt going to die

If you tell him to stay before falling asleep, or find a way to explain, he'll just stay beside you as motionless as stone, watching you breathe. Counting the moments, waiting, watching. When you wake if you can tell him what you want he'll do anything.

If you can't tell him what you want just try to tell him to stay close so he doesn't go on a rampage trying to figure it out himself

[pineappleciders]

Can you do sp main 4 with a reader who is trans mtf?? I really like your ftm one and since my sister is trans mtf she would love to read this x

sp main 4 finding out reader is trans mtf

A/N: i am so glad you liked it and i hope your sister likes this too!!!! i know this is really similar to the ftm one mainly because i dont think they'd react too differently! link to ftm vers here

also i wanted to add that i usually write with a fem reader differently than a g/n or masc reader!! mostly because they're like 4th graders and the whole girls vs boys thing. so i'm sorry if they're... colder??? idk how to describe it😭

stan marsh

he's just like "oh" in a surprised voice

doesn't really care but might ask a few,,, personal questions. he's genuinely curious and he doesn't mean harm. asks about what it means and why you transitioned

"how did you find out? like what does it feel like?"

he might encourage you to talk to wendy and the girls if you haven't become friends with them already! he says this because he knows it'd probably be nice for you to hang out with other girls so they can dress you up and help you feel like you fit in

also puts in a good word to wendy for you and u two become friends :)

again you coming out might make him question his own gender. he just gets really confused because he's never had the chance to explore himself and having a trans friend makes him more comfortable to do so!!

might ask you questions at first about how you found out, but other than that he just treats you like how he normally does; probably forgets that you're trans if anything

kyle broflovski

kyle never really hangs out with girls in the first place, the closest girl friends he has being you and sometimes wendy. he is very awkward around girls .

so you don't have to worry about him treating you like more of a bro after you come out, because he doesn't. if he were to treat you any differently he would treat you like more of a girl if anything if that makes sense

like he doesn't mean to exclude you but he figures it'd make you feel better to not be grouped with the boys??

"yeah, i get that. sometimes i feel like i was made to be a tall black man. it's really hard to play basketball as a 4'3" jewish white boy."

mostly, he doesn't really care, and he probably actually would prefer not to hear you talk about it. like i mean he prefers to not hear about 'assigned genders' because it makes him think of genitalia and honestly he does not like to think about that

so yeah, he's a little confused but he tries his best to understand, and he might be appreciative that you opened up about it, but for the most part he's just like "good for you" and moves on

eric cartman

similar to the ftm one, since he's known you as a girl all this time that no matter how hard he wants to misgender you he never truly sees you as anything other than a girl

he'll call you names and tease you for it but at the end of the day he still sees you as a cootie-ridden girl

he kicks you out of games because 'girls can't play games' and the others say you can play and he gets all pissy

he shoos you away at lunch not because you're trans but because you're a girl. he would rather be caught dead than hanging out with a chick. so in a way he's kind of accidentally an ally LOL

he gets uncomfortable when the topic gets brought up and would prefer not to think about it. he genuinely wants to stay out of it because he does NOT want to know what people have down under. absolutely hates thinking about it

"dude, i already live in a hot dog. i don't need to have any more wieners in my face."

kenny mccormick

he looks at you funny all confused.

"mph, nmph? mphph? (wait, what? really?)"

"mmphmph, mph mphph mmf mmphh.. (jesus, dude, i never would've guessed.)"

he's genuinely really confused because all the stereotypes of trans girls he's seen on tv and they all depict them looking super masculine and stuff. he's never really met a trans person so he's confused when you're just some normal kid

he's supportive, but he doesn't really care. he pats you on the back and says cool and then goes back to like. playing mario kart or whatever you guys were doing

he doesn't know anything about what it means so he might ask some questions about what dysphoria is and transitioning and all that. he will listen genuinely but he might fall asleep. he actually does care though!!!

thinks it's interesting but never brings it up again or talks about it and treats you like normal. honestly he would be very happy to play princesses with you as princess kenny

you have sleepovers and he acts all girly. like you do his hair and nails and dress him up and he kicks his feet having the time of his life

[tt-squid]

what i find really cool is that in the 'three stars each' texts, and expanded MUL.APIN (𒀯𒀳) tables, each constelation starts with 'mul' (𒀯) such as tarus (𒀯𒄞𒀭𒈾)*

but! more importantly for this discussion, the pleiades cluser (which is coincidently a part of the tarus constelation) is written simply as MUL.MUL, or: 𒀯𒀯

𒀯𒀯 has been translated to mean 'star cluster', 'many stars' or 'star of stars' depending on whose translating the text, a fact of which i could find absolutley no sources to very much to my immense annoyance but im going to keep trying at that

its also one of the closest star clusters to earth

and, just to get on the same page, the pleiades cluster, also called the seven sisters, and, for me at least, its one of the first things you learn to pick out in the night sky

just looking at it normally you can only tend to see six stars in the cluster, but on really clear nights you can even see the seventh brightesst star as well and its fucking beautiful

but anyway! back to the cuneiform!

𒀯𒀯 (MUL.MUL), or more specifically just the singular 𒀯 (MUL) is the determinative used when noting stars and planets (and star clusters) which is made up of the sign 𒀭 but just there three times

now, the sign 𒀭 is a sumerogram for either AN or DINGIR depending on your translation, but essentially equates to meaning a range of words from 'sky', to 'god/goddess'

an example of this is with Anu (𒀭𒀭) in Akkadian or Anum/An (𒀭) in Sumerian. Anu/Anum/An has a passive 'king of the gods' sort of role who is a divine representation of the sky (seeing the links?)

that example might be a biiiit too pointed actually hangon :,

Ki (𒀭𒆠) is a Sumerain goddess, sometimes depicted as a queen of 𒀭𒀭, sometimes as a sister idk it gets confusing with all the different translations. anyway 𒀭𒆠 also has the '𒀭' (DINGIR) character that preceedes her name like the other gods, which is followed by the sumerogram '𒆠' (KI) which is translated into meaning 'earth'/'land'/etc. which makes sense when you consider she is mostly translated into and described as being an 'earthly' goddess.

anyway, Ki (𒀭𒆠) ends up marying her oldest son Enil (𒀭𒂗𒆤), likened as a god of wind/air etc, who is an Anunnaki (𒀭𒀀𒉣𒈾)? but all this to say thats one of the stories of how plants and animals came about on earth

a bit less of a confusing example is probably 𒀭𒊹 (AN.ŠAR). His name contains the character 𒀭 as well as the character 𒊹 (ŠAR). 𒊹 looks a bit ominous cause its so big and just all consuming of the space which makes sense when translated to mean 'totality'

(𒊹 can also mean 3,600 - it all depends on the context though)

𒀭𒊹 is described as being a primordial god, and occupies the same role as 𒀭𒀭. sometimes 𒀭𒊹 is described/written/translated as 𒀭𒀭's father? sometimes not? idk tracking the relations of gods to eachother is hard to follow through all the different translations lol

but anyway when you have 𒀯𒀯 denoting a star cluster made up of 6 relatively easy to distinguish individual stars, you know some part of me doesnt exactly think thats a coincidence

and anyway i cant exactly remember where i was going with this whole bit of text but anyway the pleiades cluster is one of the most beautiful things in the sky (at least in the northern hemisphere, cause i cant lie, the coal sack nebula and magellanic clouds are sick as fuck but you guys dont get them up there)

*this is where i realised that tumblr is not going to let me do superscript rip x_x anyway u should go read the wikipage on babylonian star catalogues its a p good summary and has better translation lol

[a-court-of-moonlight-and-ire]

Some of you have probably noticed that I havent made a liveblog post in a while. Well, thats because I usually read on the bus and during my classes and then I come home and summarize my thoughts on the 2-5 chapters I read after theyve marinated in my head for a little while, but unfortunately i appear to be incapacited at the moment so I cant do that. But because its been weeks and I dont wanna forget anything and I would very much like to finish this series soon, I'll try to read at home sometimes from now on. Since my brain is still a lil mush Im gonna do what I did for my last post, which is write down what Im thinking as Im reading instead of summarizing all my thoughts retroactively, except this time I have my german copy on hand so if I want to quote something it'll be a translation

Anyway, with all that said, welcome to my twisted mind, please enjoy my thoughts on A Court of Mist and Fury Chapters 40

Chapter 40

Ive been wanting to say this for a while now but i kept forgetting, but they translated 'winnowing' as 'den Wind spalten' ['splitting the wind'] and that is objectively so much cooler, shoutout to my gal Alexandra Ernst for that

Feyre being like "ugh, its so pathetic how these human guards think they could stand a chance against even one of us" hurts me so much you guys what have they done to my girl

Once again, its apparently perfectly fine if Rhysand doesnt tell Feyre anything "because she never asked" but if Tamlin doesnt tell her anything when she never asked hes the devil

Also once again, Feyre is perfectly not-triggered at Mor wearing a scarlet dress

Idk how to explain this, but Rhysand saying that Feyre is wearing a golden crown because "she looks so good with it, how could he not give her one" is somehow the perfect encapsulation of the hollowness of her High Lady title

Oh, of course three of the queens only showed up to watch the other two talk, itd be too hard to write dialogue if they actually participated in this important conversation

hello???? Feyre referring to humans as "your kind" ??? wth is going on

"every side bears some blame" hey rhysand ive got a question for ya. which side enslaved the other again

everytime the oldest queen does anything the prose feels the need to remind me of how old and wrinkly she is and its like, i get it, shes OLD

The oldest queen is spitting so hard rn, Im not even gonna question how they heard of the night court when Feyre, who lived closest to Prythian for many years, didnt know anything aout the individual courts prior to getting there herself, Im just gonna put her whole little monologue here: "Oh? [...] The High Lord of the Night Court asks that we join him so that we can save lives together? Fight for peace? And what about the lives that you have taken during your long, despicable existance? What about the High Lord who shrouds himself in darkness and destroys the mind of those who stand in his way? [...] We have heard of you on the continent, Rhysand. We have heard of what the Court of Night is capable of, what you do to your enemies. Peace? I wouldn't have thought that you - a man who enslaves the minds of others and kills them out of pure enjoyment - even know that word."

Anyway, she was spitting absolute bars and Feyre gets super mad about it and almost commits arson but manages to reign herself in and its like girlie, why are you so upset? one of the first things we find out about the night court in this book is that they apparently indiscriminately kill (or atleast torture) anyone who crosses the night court border without permission like theyre the fucking us government, i think the bad reputation is justified

Forgive me if I sound callous, but I have absolutely no sympathy for Rhysand flinching at the mention of Amarantha when Feyre didnt even use her name and is also talking about how she fucking DIED AT HER HANDS

God, I feel like I have something to say about every single line this post is gonna be like 10 thousand words long by the time Im done

So lets take it from the top; Feyre tries to convince the mortal queens to give them the half of the book by recounting to them how much everyone suffered under Amarantha and how she was gruesomely beaten to death and then revived, which is not a compelling argument to me, who actually witnessed all of that, much less these queens who have barely any context for anything shes saying right now

The oldest queen is like "you dont know anything about anything" which is true what the fuck does Feyre know about whats going on in the human world or even the fae world at large, and then Rhysand growls "dont you dare talk down to her!!" because shes passionate and speaking from the heart or whatever and its like, okay, shes still not good at politicking or even just basic negatioation and shes talking to a seasoned politician who old as fuck

Like, if Feyre was actually smart, she wouldve long since realized that she couldnt convince these queens to protect this little slip of land right up to prythians border and been like "okay, you dont wanna protect the land, but can you atleast organize an evacuation so you can atleast save the people" Sure, they definitely still wouldnt have agreed to that because its a sjm book and theyre written to be comically evil, but it would atleast demonstrate Feyre being a little savvy, because right now all we're getting is her being stupid and stubborn in a situation where she really cant afford that

god, im just now noticing how pissed off I am, its been bleeding into my commentary and its not gonna stop, Im sorry. wait no, if youre reading this youre probably looking for negativity, so youre welcome, actually

Anyway, Rhys also says that Feyre is a kindhearted soul looking out for people who cant defend themselves even though she definitely thought that those human guards were pathetic for wanting to defend themselves when she and the other fae were soooooo much more powerful and he definitely knows that because the mental bond is fully open during this meeting and he chastises the queens for being selfish and cowardly when its like, my brother in christ you are doing the exact same bullshit, but atleast the queens are defending a wholeass continent while hes defending one (1) city. and iirc that city ends up getting attacked and destroyed anyway so good job my guy

Theres something so oddly biblical about the story Mor is telling about Miriam, down to her name being Miriam

That island thats removed from time is such bullshit istg

Is it just me or have these bozos not actually explained what they even need the other half of the book for. theyre just like "we need to stop this war and we'd like peace between humans and fae" and its like cool, hows the book gonna help with that though

im sorry, feyre wants to punch that old woman in the face????

the chapter ends with Elain being like "I hope they burn in hell" and i get that, they just straight up said that they want to abandon a whole bunch of people (them included) to die if a war breaks out, but you cant say that the night court girlies are not also at fault for being so fucking bad at politics

[beedlemania]

Davy lives for attention and thrives off it. If Davy wants attention, he's going to get it.

The guys will often find themselves waking up to Davy sitting on them because he wants them to play with him or read to him or cuddle with him.

Davy also gets jealous so easily. It gets to the point where if he's not getting the attention but someone else is, he'll pretend to be sick or hurt so that he gets the attention. Sometimes in his attempt to fake being hurt he accidentally does hurt himself.

Sometimes, Davy can get a little mean when jealous. Nothing too terrible, but if someone else is getting attention, he'll lightly shove them away or grumble "no" or just glare and pout trying to look angry.

He can also become possessive. Like, if he wants Mike to pay attention to him but Mike has the nerve to say something, even one word, to Peter or have a conversation with Micky, Davy will grab onto Mike and scream "Mine!" and glare at the other two or try to shove them away. Mike has to remind Davy that it's not nice to hit/hurt our friends.

Davy’s very used to having to share the attention of his parents, then only his father, between him and his three sisters so now that he’s regressing and reliving those years, he’s NOT good at sharing.

He’ll be off doing his own thing and then realise he hasn’t been getting attention and run off to annoy someone. He constantly presses himself up against the others and nuzzles their arm/chest with his face like a cat. He also makes a bunch of little noises (like his ‘Oop!’) and wait for someone to respond to it if its been too long without attention.

I think after sharing attention with his sisters, then coming to America all alone, Davy is very insecure about being alone or forgotten about and that’s where it stems from. Whenever Mike pays attention to someone else Davy sees it as Mike ignoring or forgetting about him. There’s plenty of times where he works himself up over this and will have meltdowns and start hyperventilating.

Hes a very affectionate person and at the beginning finds it very difficult to respect physical boundaries. He needs to be near the others all the time and its hard to wrap his head around the fact that the guys dont want a hug or to be touched right now. Which, in his regressed mind, he takes as rejection and gets very upset over it.

He hates when one of the others takes the attention off of him and does everything in his power to get it back, including like you said, pretending to be hurt or sick. Davy can be quite reckless sometimes without meaning to be so sometimes he’ll actually hurt himself for attention. He’ll throw himself down on the floor then tell the others he fell but it actually did really hurt so his tears aren’t fake.

Whenever they have group cuddles he’ll (gently) shove the others out of the way so that he gets to be closest to Mike. “Mine” is definitely his favourite word and he’s constantly scowling at whoever took Mikes attention. (The post man thinks Davy has beef with him). Davy can get quite bratty when he thinks he’s being left out of things. If two of the guys are laughing he’ll demand to know what happened or if he’s too short to see something he’ll demand someone lift him up.

It worries the others a lot and over time they find ways to help him and make him overcome this fear of being left behind. He does make progress and becomes less aggressive (to himself and others) and less possessive but he still is quite sensitive.

[krikeymate]

The diary of jane by breaking benjamin as a sam and tara song? Now, technically the diary of jane is about romantic unrequited love, but it could also easily be platonic (which is what im veiwing it as, a platonic sibling relationship, specifically sam and taras when it was strained)

Some examples!

- "if i had to, i would put myself right beside you, so let me ask would you like that? Would you like that?" Being tara wanting to put herself next to sam when sam was struggling after the diary, but sam not wanting her to (maybe? My thoughts on this one were really hard to put into words)

- "somethings getting in the way, somethings just about to break, i will try to find my place in the diary of jane" the 'somethings getting in the way' part would be the secret of sams father being billy getting in the way of sam and taras relationship, 'somethings just about to break' could be sam, after finding out, about to break from the stress,  and 'i will try to find my place in the diary of jane' being tara trying to refind her place in sams life after their relationship was ruined due to sam finding out about billy

- "try to find out, what makes you tick as i lie down" could instead be 'what made you tick' which would be tara trying to figure out what caused sam to break (after sam had hit her breaking point and started drinking, smoking, etc.)

- "as i burn another page, as i look the other way, i still try to find my place in the diary of jane" 'as i burn another page' could be used as a metaphor (or whatever its called) for as the years go by, and 'as i look the other way' could be tara, looking the other way on whats going on with sam because she thinks its what sam wants and knows sam wont tell her, and again, 'i still try to find my place in the diary of jane' is tara trying to find her new place in sams life

- "desperate i will crawl, waiting for so long, no love, theres no love" being the first attack, when amber was going after tara, 'desperate i will crawl' being tara being desperate to get away and trying to crawl, the 'waiting for so long, no love, theres no love' would be tara thinking back on how long she waited for sam to come back, before realizing that she wont and thinking its cause sam doesnt love her

- "die for anyone, what have i become?" Could be after they killed the ghostfaces, wondering what they've had to become to kill them so brutally (mainly after 7) and obviously, they would both risk their life to save eachother, which doesn't equal anyone, cause they dont veiw eachother as just anyone, but its the closest i could think of to that lyric

I dont know if songs relation to characters interests you, but if it does i have a whole document on it i could talk about lol (and im in the process of constructing a playlist on it)

Listen, I love reappropriating romantic things to be platonic, because platonic love is just as strong and worthy.

"if i had to, i would put myself right beside you, so let me ask would you like that? Would you like that?" - I would be there for you, do you want that, do you want me there? Tara wanted to be there for Sam while she was struggling, and in the end she does put herself right there beside her, during 6. She chooses to stay, to help her fight.

I really like what you've said here, you should definitely link your own playlist once you're done!! Traditionally I'm not actually all that into reading into music (I'm not that clever/observant tbh), but here I am with a fandom music tag now so, I guess I'm learning lol.

[emmacreatures]

STANDING HIS GROUND

I've been a little chaotic and posted some random ones inbetween, but this one follows up from the story HEALING WOUNDS (link up here) story! This story features Ka'am, Recom Quaritch and now a little more in the spotlight, Lyle Wainfleet! Sorry for the lil randomness as i'll try my best to show the follow ups on some stories! of course if you've already seen/read that one, enjoy this follow up💕 Again a story I'm actually REALLY happy about!) I have this AU with the fantastic @niku30 💕__________

As Ka'am tried to go back to his room after being so angry, he bumped into one of the friends of Quaritch, laughing "Watch where you're going monkey man." he said with a scoff as the others laughed that were around.. Making Ka'am glare in a way he hadnt shown before, his tail seemed to behave pissed too. "Oh no he seems angry, did I step on your tail on accident?" all the men started mocking.. Making Ka'am snap with the remainder anger he had already build up. "Back.. Up, or I'll be uneasy on you" Ka'am said in na'vi, not even wanting to speak english as they all laughed. "He said something about stepping back didnt he?" Lyle said, one of the closest friends of Quaritch, as the one who bumped into him laugh hummed, being a complete asshole. "oho... Does our native want to make it go this far that you want to get a taste of us marines? speak all you want kid.. you dont make a chance" He said as Ka'am's ears flattened. That was his last straw. "you know what.. Lets fight, lets see how far you come" he switched to english, making them all laugh. "Come and try then" Lyle said as he reached his arms out to the side to invite Ka'am to try and make the first hit..

"Not here.. You dont want this area to be broken do you. Would be a shame to pick you up in pieces" Ka'am said shamelessly, dangerous and threatening.. For the all laughed again. "I think here its just fine native. Lets see what you have in store, wouldnt want to hurt that face, or do I" the marine said as Ka'am smirked once before turning into the most threatening na'vi they'd seen so far. Ka'am with his bare hands started hitting the man firmly, to the point more than 3 others started to try and stop Ka'am, but they all got hit firmly, pushed into the metal, having to pick themselves up the ground, but they too knew how to fight and it wouldnt stop. From taking their weaponry and slamming them in the face, till at last getting a hold of his knife that he had stuck to his leg in case of emegencies, Ka'am threatened to hurt them all.. "im sick of being disrespected and looked at. degraded. So this is just a small taste of what that feels like" the man said in na'vi. His pupils were decreased, almost like a snake. it didnt take long before Quaritch heard anything happening, from the middle of the place they were staying, making him walk as fast as possible to see the mayhem in the middle of the hallway. "Oh i'm going to kill your ass kid" Lyle that started the whole fight said who was so furious, yet already hurt, bruises all over, for Ka'am hissed sharply "We're just getting started, alien" the man said as threatening as a na'vi could.. He had a nosebleed and some spots that hurt since these men and female knew how to fight, but he was far from done. Quaritch got inbetween, looking at both men as he held his hands out in a way to say stop. But as he looked at Ka'am who was ready to kill at this point, he noticed a look.. So familair upon Ka'am's face, which definitely put a cold chill down his spine.

In the act itself of getting inbetween them, he tried to sort it out "THATS enough" Quaritch said strong as he got inbetween the two for his voice echoed. "He BECAME FERAL Colonel-" "You lured that out Lyle" "Wh- WHAT?!" "Not a word-" "BUT COLONEL-" "I SAID ENOUGH" Quaritch said very rough almost, seeing Lyle while trying to find his balance stand back up and step backwards. Slowly moving away as everyone else did too. "And you.. you hand that to me right now." Quaritch slowly said, seeing this feral side of Ka'am still show. He stood there, like a python, ready to attack while he held his own knife in his hand.. But the look on his face, made things unsettling, and quaritch rememberd it oddly enough.. Ka'am was more calm compared to Neytiri when it came to being feral. He was more precise, for neytiri would become a real animal when being furious or scared.. Ka'am on the other hand, was like a posionous animal.. staring at you before he'd within the blink would kill. "Ka'am." It was the first time Quaritch said his name correct and somewhat respectful in na'vi.. Making the man almost hiss as his ears were back. "I'm gonna need you to give that to me, and slowly walk to my room to cool down" Quaritch said, for he kept looking the man right in the eyes. Not even a twitch was made on Ka'am's side, before adjusting the grip on his knife, almost unpredictable before throwing it right next to Lyle's head who was about to leave as an extra warning. Ka'am glared at everyone excluding the colonel, before he'd walk away to Quaritch's room.. his tail said enough, it was swooshing almost stressed, strict and pissed..

Quaritch looked at Lyle before pulling the knife out of the wall. He didnt even say anything to Lyle anymore, and slowly followed with heavy steps to where Quaritch told Ka'am to go.

Ka'am would stand in the room with his arms crossed, his back to the entrance where Quaritch would go through. The colonel entered and softly closed the door, letting the silence hit before he'd started their conversation.

"I feel like this became a bigger thing than it should be. The way you looked at Lyle.. Like a predator to prey, thats a lot of anger right there. You gave them quite the damn hits right there.. Care to elaborate?" Quaritch said, as in the back of his mind he finally figured the connection of that look Ka'am had.. It was near to his own worst enemy.. "i dont owe you an explanation" Ka'am said in na'vi.. Furious, as he didnt look Quaritch in the eyes. "there is something behind it. I could tell.. I've had people like you in my group, as they let their old sore wounds flow for too long, it drives them mad to the point they attack others who dont have anything to do with it" Quaritch explained, for he watched Ka'am who still did not look him in the eyes. "Listen.. I dont want to handle you as a prisoner" Quaritch said, making Ka'am finally look at him.. Less pleasant. "really? Thats the biggest lie i've heard so far. You come close to it" Ka'am kept talking in Na'vi, making Quaritch eventually try his best. "no mutual respect or appreciation for me actually putting time and effort into this all. I teach you all, and thats what I get in return" Ka'am said in na'vi, pointing at his wounds, it wasnt much.. but he meant the fact Lyle and the others did pick fights with him. Quaritch got the hint.. As he stood up. Walking close to Ka'am who had his head raised, his neck was tightened of being furious. Ka'am was expecting the worst or another big disrespectful approach as he looked away from the colonel.

But instead, Quaritch handed the man his knife back, with a specific look he hadnt seen before. Ka'am dared to thrn to him to finally look him in the eyes, seeing how he confidently wanted to hand the knife back, knowing he could use it. Aside that, he pulled off the tracker from the man's shoulder. Deactivating it. "Fine then.. I hear you. I will take your word once. But if you break your loyalty to me. I will have to make you a prisoner, with or without your approval" Quaritch said clear and even in na'vi. Showing some slight mutual appreciation to let Ka'am know he was heard. But quaritch was a man lf his words too. He'll give this chance once.. once broken.. It would be game over.

Ka'am looked at the man for awhile, before his posture and entire tensity changed the second he heard those words in Na'vi. He was taken serious for once, despite it was a huge risk with Quaritch, as the man was deadly. You never can tell his intentions.. He knew.. But yet, he couldnt describe what he felt. As his ears went from flat to more upwards, Ka'am slowly took the knife from Quaritch who held it out at all times. "So we're good?" Quaritch said a bit tricky, making Ka'am look at him with more respect too.. "Any new plans you need any help with" "In fact I do" Quaritch replied back in english, eager to get back to work with a big improvement it seemed.. Realizing this might be the biggest improvement so far.. And something tells him too, that there is a reason why Ka'am sticks around, despite he can become angry with the way he was handled until now. Sooner or later he'll figure it out, but for now, this was a plus for them.

[bornofchalk]

:3 greetings .. i am here for the fanfic writer ask game !! 3, 7, 9, 15

greetings kay !!!!!!!!!!! :3 <3 (questions from this ask game!)

3. What’s a fic idea that you have but haven’t written yet?

i have a few! but i think the one ive be thinking abt most recently is one that has been in my head and i have a single line down for ever since the "endless suffering" xiao trailer !

where xiao and reader are in an established relationship and reader wants to help him deal with the effects of his karmic debt somehow but how would they? and xiao doesn't let them anyway, and it's the one thing he refuses to risk. and when the lantern rite comes around and his karmic debt is at its worst and there is nothing they can do except sit in the doorway and-

(This is the closest he will allow before he vanishes. You learned this the hard way.)

7. What’s a trope you love to write?

ive never thought of my writing in terms of tropes before so! hm! i guess established relationship counts? turns out i dont know how to describe my writing in tropes oh my i am sorry :( i usually write relatively canon compliant things though!! i love exploring what i can with how things are in canon :D

9. What’s your favorite line(s) or scene(s) that you have written?

this is a hard one! i'll put a few down:

i think im proud of the ending of a yaksha's will and the lead up to it! it was one of the first things i thought of for the fic:

As he descends into the embrace of the void, Jinpeng reaches out in a final farewell to his lover.

there's also a bit of dialogue in the year's first dream where after i came up with it, i told myself i just had to write a fic with it:

"i called you because i want you to be the last thing i see this year," you murmur, "and the first thing i see in the next." you finally meet his eyes, and you find that, by some unseen force, you can no longer look away. "is that alright with you?"

im rly bad at deciding and im happy with a lot!!!!!! of what i write but i'll leave it at those since they were the first to come to mind!!

15. Are there words, phrases, mannerisms or scenes you tend to use a lot?

i had to read through all of my works to try to figure smth out! i noticed that i always use the word "lover" instead of changing it up. all of my works quite short and are at some sort of home setting with very very little actual description of the setting... i tend to have also have very sparse dialogue. i have also always been a user of em dashes and parentheses! i hope these count ;;

[palaceofpassion]

Say Ilia, have ever thought of starting a family with Jaune?

Ilia wasn't sure what color her skin was at the moment, but she knew it was telling. "I uh, I don't... I dont' think we're that far yet?"

Yet hadn't been the word she'd meant to use, but it had come out alright.

"Are you sure Ilia?"

Weiss quietly walked up to her, "You two do seem close, and as I've mentioned before, it is quite easy to mistake you two as a thing."

"I... I don't know? I still think I like girls but... well I also like Jaune. We haven't even done it yet."

"Darling, it's alright to say you haven't had sex yet. If you did no one would blame you. You two are quite close together, it is a little envious."

Ilia wanting to deflect the question chose to do exactly that. "What about you then!?"

"Me?"

"Have you thought about having children with Jaune.

"I have."

"Wait, you have?"

"I have. I don't know if it will happen, the two of us are only friends. And again, you and him are the closest pair so far. But since you asked, again, yes. I've thought about it, I would say we would have three children, one boy and two girls."

"isn't that a lot like well... you know?"

"My family? Yes it is, but things would be different. I know Jaune would be different than my father. We've both seen how he is with kids."

"Y...yeah..." She couldn't stop the blush, nor the coy look Weiss gave her when her spots changed a poisonous purple. "Shut up!"

"Well, I would imagine that things would be quite nice with Jaune on my side. Regardless, whomever he ends up with, I'm sure they'll be happy."

She paused for a moment, "And if they ever hurt him, well we'd have to speak with them, now wouldn't we?"

"Yes." Ilia spoke with certainty.

"It's not like anyone would be stupid enough to find someone they love, someone who makes them feel whole. Then cheat on them for something as stupid as sex, now would they?"  She paused her little rant for just a moment, “That’s just asking to be unhappy.  The villain would surely just use you, and when he was done the idiot would be left with nothing but an empty feeling.  Things like sex are fine and fun, but to give up someone that actually cares for you versus just using you?  That’s just plain... it’s really dumb.”

"You've been reading Blake's books haven't you?"

"Some of them are quite- well they aren't well thought out."

"Yep."

[no-droids]

Rumors, Freebies, and a Race for Last Place

Part Two of The Bet series

Pairing: Poe Dameron/Reader

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 22.5K DONT say shit alright just don’t

Warnings: Okay. There is degradation in this, some name calling and heated interactions. There is a LOT of smut, dirty talk and rough sex. If these things offend you, please do not continue reading.

***

It’s recommended to read part one first.

***

Getting into the x-wings is always fun.

It actually might be your favorite part.  Granted, alarm bells ringing and thousands of jumpsuits scrambling in all directions is never typically a good thing, but there’s also an inherent rush about it, a thrill in launching up the metal paneling as quick as you can and suiting up to provide aid.  It’s a side-effect of camaraderie, of being surrounded by like-minded individuals willing to do everything they can to help.  You never feel like you’re going to your death, even though that’s often the grim reality for at least one of you on a good day.  There’s always a roaring in your ears while you do it, adrenaline sharpening your senses and preparing yourself for conflict, not thinking anything beyond gogogogogo—

But getting out of the x-wing is… not great.  At least for you.  It’s sluggish.  Your body is always completely drained and you never come out of it feeling the same way you went in.  Even in times of victory, there’s a somberness inside you after battle.  As much as you tell yourself you’re fighting for good, for prosperity against an evil machine hellbent on enslaving the galaxy, there’s only so many explosions lighting up in front of your eyes and screams cutting out through your comms you can take before winning just doesn’t really feel like winning anymore.  Most pilots are able to handle it better than you are, but since you joined the Resistance, you’ve never truly felt the desire to celebrate.  Not even when you serve a massive, glaring defeat to the other side.  There’ll always be at least one missing x-wing, one empty seat at the table, one person not here to celebrate with you.

You came back in one piece this time.  Barely.

The whole mission went sideways—literally.  You’d purposefully stationed the tandem just outside the coordinates you were meant to be surveilling so that you’d be hidden from sight and dead to the scanners should the fleet arrive, but something must’ve happened.  You must’ve powered down a few seconds too early after he turned the thrusters off, because apparently the ship drifted in dead space for close to eight hours without either of you noticing, having no working computers to actively read your location and correct it.  You were sitting ducks right in the hyperspace drop zone by the time the First Order showed up, and by that point you had no choice but to engage.

“Gold-Ten,” a voice murmurs from behind you, and you blink, suddenly seeing the base landing platform stretching out long in front of you, hundreds of docking ships and boisterous pilots scrambling out of them to hug their comrades and congratulate them even as medics rush past with white coats and gurneys.  They’re never for the pilots, but they dispatch healers anyways whenever a convoy returns in case a straggler gets picked up.  There’s an unspoken understanding in space battle—pilots never get injured.  They either come back unharmed, or they don’t come back at all.

Dameron.

You turn around and watch him slowly approach you with an unreadable expression, his jumpsuit still bunched halfway down his torso.  The once bright white sleeveless undershirt is now greasy and damp with sweat,  his dark curls sticking to his forehead.  He winces with every bow-legged step—you know the feeling—before he’s standing directly in front of you and something is carefully being pulled out of your hands.  You didn’t even realize you were holding onto anything.

Your helmet.  You forgot to leave it in the x-wing, and you’ve been carrying it around under your arm aimlessly while mentally checking off the squadrons as they return, counting the numbers you lost today while everybody else hugs and whoops and claps each other on the back.

It’s not as bad as you were expecting it was going to be, not as bad as it seemed just an hour earlier when you were listening to Dameron bellow out evasive flight maneuvers a millisecond before he enacted them and you adjusted your firing at the TIEs accordingly.  You used to think you were quick with how rapidly you could suit up and fly out, drop in to assist and engage, but on the other side, it felt like your reinforcements lollygagged for ages before arriving.  You were left to defend against an entire fleet in one stupid ship, more lines of TIEs sinking like flies from launch decks every second.

“Gold-Ten,” you hear again, and you blink a few times, needing to focus your vision before you can find his gaze.

Dameron’s palm, previously hovering a few inches above your shoulder, suddenly drops to spread along the curve of it and you take a deep breath, almost wanting to shudder at the feeling of something touching you.  You channel all your focus into it, feel his fingers branch out strong along the tight muscles in your neck, giving you an anchor you automatically lean into.

You and him are no strangers to touching.  Before today it was mostly reserved to poking and prodding and flicking and light slapping in an effort to piss each other off, but now… you can’t even think about it right now, your body will just fucking glitch out on you.  After everything that just happened, you cannot think about where else that hand has been recently, not right now.

“You did… you did really fucking good today,” he tells you quietly, slowly trailing his hand down the length of your entire arm until he catches your wrist and a few of your fingers in his loose grip.  “Seriously.  That was… we were…”

His touch is so present, so reassuring.  Grounding, when all your mind wants is to just float away.  You glance down at where his fingers are gently tangled with yours and you feel your hand tighten just slightly, the smallest squeeze while he blinks down at you.

“We almost died, like… every single second,” you barely manage to croak, not really having the words to express it right now.  You always need at least an hour or two after missions like this to just sit in one place and regroup.  Usually you find yourself wandering back to your room to lay on the bed and stare up at the ceiling while you consider your own mortality, but Dameron interrupted you this time before you could process it by yourself.  “We…”  Your voice sounds absolutely shredded.  “W-We shouldn’t even be alive right now.”

“I know,” he nods in soft agreement, taking a small step closer to you.  “But we are alive.  Hey.”  He dips his head as soon as your gaze starts to drift, catching your eyes once more and drawing your attention back to the present with a squeeze of your hand.  “We’re alive, right?  Be alive with me.”

You take a big breath in and close your eyes, feeling the oxygen fill your lungs once more, but this time, it’s… restorative.  A wonderful, beautiful reminder of your existence.  You’re alive.  Usually the word just feels like a synonym for persevering.  Pushing onwards despite trials and tribulations, not looking back.  But the way he says it, especially with his hand in yours and a quiet invitation to tag along, it sounds… breathtaking.  Full of light, and hope.  It suddenly leaves the dim shadows and slides into a completely different category of feelings, feelings you’d never imagine being able to conjure so quickly after such a close brush with death.  Alive—it slots right in next to words like colorful, radiant, sunshine, and butterflies.  Enchanting words, ones you’d like to hear again and again.

Your eyes slowly open and there he is, the man you were sure was going to accompany you to the afterlife.  You were stuck with Poe Dameron in one of the closest calls you can remember, and strangely, his presence was nothing if not… a comfort.  For the first time in your life, you were grateful he was there.

You open your mouth, suddenly feeling the needy, unfounded urge to tell him that.  “I’m gla—”

“Dameron!”  You hear a series of voices call from somewhere to your left, and he immediately drops your hand to whip his body around and place himself directly between you and the approaching onlookers, using his large frame to hide you from their sight.

“What’s up, Briggs?”  Dameron projects to one pilot in particular that seems to be leading the group, his back oddly close to you in this position.  Your fingers still feel tingly from where he was holding onto them.

A chorus of congratulatory, “Nice flying, Captain!” and the like can be heard floating through the air from beyond his shoulders, before the leader speaks loudly over them.  “Hey—me, Seven, Six, and Twelve were gonna grab some drinks in the mess hall with a few of the Blue girls,” he tells Dameron, slowing to a stop as soon as he sees you standing awkwardly behind him.  “Oh hey, Goldie.”

You lift a hand and clear the remainder of the dissociation from your throat, not knowing him well enough beyond the squadron he and his group fly with.  “Greenies.”

“Anyways, I guess they wanted to know if you’d come too.  These idiots are convinced they’re never gonna give us the time of day unless you—”

“Uh—fine, whatever, just give me a few minutes alright?”  Dameron quickly assures him with a dismissive wave of his hand.  “I’ll meet up with you guys later.”

A few of them take turns giving him heavy claps on the shoulder and acclamatory words before the group eventually disperses, and he waits a few more seconds for their attention to fully scatter in another direction before turning back to you.

Shit, he’s standing really close.  Why is he so close to you?  You take a step back and blink up at him, the noises of the landing deck gradually amplifying back up to normal volume as you retreat back into your own space.  Since when did he have that effect on you?  You suddenly feel wide awake, and the chorus of happy chaos surrounding you is something you’re finally able to take in.  You knew it was happening before, but it was like it just existed outside of the creeping numbness.  Now, the knot of internal turmoil has untied itself a bit and you feel your surroundings start to fight for your direct attention.

Dameron continues to look at you the same exact way, though.  Like you’re still the only one here.

You look down at his half-suited figure and blink at the helmet loosely held in one of his hands.  Hey.  Hey, that’s yours—

“Give me that,” you hiss, suddenly snatching it from his fingertips.  “You have people waiting.”

The cutting words serve to snap him out of whatever spell he’s under.  Dameron quickly lifts his head and looks around a few times with sharp eyes, before hooking your elbow and twisting you into a complete 180 until your back faces most of the excitement.  You resist, immediately trying to push him off you and worried he’s going to confront you about… things, but he’s determined.

He doesn’t say anything to you at all, though.  His fingers quickly grasp the baggy fabric of your jumpsuit even as you sputter and start to ask what the fuck he thinks he’s doing, and you glance down just in time to see him yanking the gaping velcro closed at your crotch.

Your cheeks instantly start burning as he tugs and smooths the fabric down until it’s seamless once more, especially when his eyes flick up to yours without moving his head.  Fuck, you’re instantly hot with some wicked emotion, a mixture of embarrassment and outrage and… something else.  Maker, you almost wish you were numb and disoriented again, if only so you could avoid feeling whatever the fuck this is.

You quite suddenly shove your helmet back into his stomach with an infuriated sound even as he doubles over with a shocked whoosh of air, changing your mind about returning it to the ship yourself before storming off without another word.

*** 

Okay, so you’ve done some thinking, and.  Well.  Fuck him, that’s what you’ve decided.

No—not… fuck him.  But like, fuck him.  You know.  In the negative sense of the word.  The bad fuck.

There’s a full tray of food sitting in front of you but you’ve so far been unable to touch it.  Mostly you’re just wondering why the fuck you’re even here.  Well, you know why you’re here—you should eat, it’s dinnertime and this is the mess hall.  You’ve been known to skip out on meals after heavy missions, secluding yourself away and just wallowing for a bit, but you… strangely didn’t feel like doing that today.  You don’t want to self-isolate when you feel okay enough to avoid it, not again.  So you’re here, because the clock says your tummy should want food, but you can’t bring yourself to even look at it.

No, you’re looking at him.  Glaring, actually.

Across the mess hall and beyond the transparisteel divider that separates the cafeteria from the bar area, Dameron is all eyebrows and smiles and side nudges and winks right now.  You can’t hear him—the sound won’t travel this far, but you can see him situated in the middle of a rowdy group of pilots.  He laughs in that disgustingly charming way of his, where his stupidly cute nose scrunches up all cute and stupid and you want to just ask the Maker why he’s doing this shit to you.  What have you done to deserve this torture?  Sure, you may have willingly agreed to it, even… conceived and propositioned the idea, and sure, absolutely nothing is stopping you from forfeiting and walking away at this exact second, but does that make it okay?  No, you’ve decided.  It’s not okay.  He’s not allowed to… to make you feel like this, so fuck him.  In the bad way.

“Just fuck him already,” a voice suddenly grumbles as someone plops down into the seat to your right, plastic trays of food clattering loudly on the table and snapping you out of your reverie.  Gold-Sixteen blocks your view as he silently drops into the seat in front of you and wraps his green lekku around his neck a few times before immediately beginning to shovel food into his mouth, while Gold-Three opens her box of blue milk next to you and continues.  “The Blues never fucking shut up about it, it’s getting annoying.”

“Don’t listen to her, Dime,” Gold-Eleven tells you, quickly occupying the seat on your left and biting into a crunchy piece of fruit, talking loudly over the chatter even as he chomps.  “Rossi just knows her pool is up tomorrow, she doesn’t want to lose any of her precious credits.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Gold-Three immediately snaps, leaning forward and around you to point the prongs of her fork at Eleven threateningly.  “Zhang’s pool starts on Sunday.”

“Oh fuck off, you guys are betting on this now?”  You groan, shoving your plate away with a flick of your fingers now that you’re certain you’ve completely lost your appetite.  Sixteen immediately snatches up one of your bread rolls while Zhang swipes your juice and Rossi goes for a packet of glockaw sauce.

“You’re the one who announced it in front of everybody, we’re just being active spectators,” Rossi returns, ripping the packet and pouring the sauce on her vegetables with a shrug.  “How the fuck do you bet against fucking each other though, that’s my question?  It’s a paradox, wouldn’t you both just lose at the same time?”

“Dameron and I aren’t going to fuck,” you tell her very slowly and clearly, starting to get a headache.  Why is it impossible to avoid this conversation topic, even with an entire Resistance base to roam around in?  “Ever.  The bet never had anything to do with fucking each other, it’s about not fucking other people.”

“Literally what is the difference?”  You hear Rossi ask with her mouth full, but Zhang speaks over her.

“Somebody should probably tell Nine that, she’s the bookie,” he tosses out carelessly, dropping the core of his piece of fruit to his tray before wiping his hands on his jumpsuit.  You bury your face in your hands and let out a loud, exhausted sound into your palms, not knowing which response serves to aggravate your already emotionally overloaded ass even more.  Nine is the bookie, of fucking course she is.  “But hey, if it makes you feel any better, I don’t think any of it actually goes outside of Gold, so.”

“I’ve heard the Blues talking about it, but that’s it,” Rossi chimes in while chewing some of her veggies.  “Maybe some Reds.  Point is everybody else thinks it’s already happening, honestly.”

“What the fuck,” you whisper, using your knuckles to rub at the backs of your eyes until bright spots appear.  Where are stress headaches localized?  Are those the ones right under your brow bone?  Because stars, you feel it.  “Fucking… why?  Why do people think that me and Dameron are…?”

Nobody at the table immediately responds, and you drop your hands after a moment to look at each of their astounded faces in turn.

“You fucking serious, bitch?”  Rossi blurts first, her voice completely deadpan, and you growl in vexation.

“Have I not been vocal enough about my severe dislik—”

“And yet you kicked Nine out of your room to let him bunk with you,” Zhang immediately suggests.

“You request mission assignments together,” Rossi adds.

“Spend your off-days together,” Zhang continues.

“You’re both really weird about how long it takes the other person to shower,” Rossi tacks onto the list Zhang is now making on his fingers and you shake your head frantically.

“No—no, that’s so that we know neither one of us is cheating,” you try to explain, and you already know it sounds unconvincing without needing the two quick, lofty and sarcastic nods on either side of you.  “Showers and off-days are prime masturb—no, you know what?  No.  I’m tired of the assumptions, I don’t owe anyone shit.  This is super fucking uncool of you guys, you know that?  It’s insane that this is what counts as gossip in the Resistance nowada—”

“There’s only so much bad news people can take, Ten,” Gold-Sixteen grunts down at his almost finished plate, and all three of you snap your gazes across the table at him.  The forest-tinted twi’lek doesn’t speak much, it’s uncommon to hear his voice without distortion over the comms, but you blink as his sharp teeth continue to form words without looking at you.  “Quit being so sensitive.  Rather bet on this shit than which system is getting demolished next.”

And with that, Sixteen excuses himself with a silent nod, having gobbled down his full plate while you, Three, and Eleven were bickering.  You feel your cheeks flare with anger and shame—you didn’t deserve that, you immediately reassure yourself, but the hidden self-doubt the comment sows just further contributes to your upset.  You want to call out to his back that just because the First Order exists doesn’t mean you have to put up with your own fucking squadron turning you and your mortal enemy into glorified race fathiers, but he’s already leaving the mess hall while Rossi and Zhang have moved on to other topics, both of them continuing to grab more food from your tray as they talk.

You have a tough shell.  But today was… a lot.  You bite your lip down at the table against the sudden wave of emotion, blinking quickly to clear the weakness watering your vision.

See, this—this right here is why you use last names.  These people aren’t your friends.  Betting on who you fuck for laughs, using you as a source of entertainment without your consent just because they’re in the middle of a war, and then guilting you into feeling like you’re the one acting like a stuck up bitch about it?  You’re fighting in the same fucking war—you’re on the front lines just like everybody else and nobody gets to lecture you on the devastation of battle.  You almost died today.  You fought tooth and fucking nail to stay alive and by all accounts, you shouldn’t even be sitting here right now, much less dealing with this childish shit.  This is your squadron.  These people are supposed to be the ones closest to you out of everyone, the ones you’ve been flying into chaos in formation with for years, and yet not a single damn person has even mentioned your performance to you today, all anyone can ever seem to talk about is—ugh.

Unfortunately, your unobstructed view also allows you to look at the source of your bad mood once more, immediately noticing the way more people have crowded around him now, and the headache continues to throb painfully behind your eyeballs.  You were in the same ship, does nobody realize that?  You were gunning, he was flying—you were offense, he was defense—that’s the only fucking difference, and yet, it’s like that side of the mess hall is just completely lit up with hearty laughter and music playing from someone’s holopad and congratulatory drinks being passed around, while yours is… well.

You continue to fume inwardly, struggling somewhere between bitter and hurt, and you can see your reflection through the transparisteel giving him a death glare, wondering how many of the people surrounding him have made bets with Nine.  How many of his little entourage have their money wagered on Dameron getting in your pants by a specific dat—

You stop short while staring at his handsome face, an infuriating, horrifying thought suddenly striking you.  No… no, he wouldn’t…

“Does he know?”  You immediately interrupt the chitchat between Three and Eleven to ask with a deadly edge in your voice, tipping your forehead at pretty boy.  Ooh, you can already feel it burning.  It would be so fucking typical.  Oooooh, Maker, if he’s heard even a fucking whisper about this outside wagering going on amongst the pilots, you will fucking smother his ass in his sleep tonight.  How could he not know?  With as many friends as he has?  If you’re just being made aware of it, then it’s a given that somebody has to have told him by now, which just means that it’s all the more possible—shit, even more likely—that he’s… participating, too.  You do your best to keep your voice even, but you can hear the quiet fury shaking in it.  “The bet about when me and him are gonna fuck, does he know about it?”

“Who—Dameron?”  Zhang turns his head.  “No, I don’t think s—”

“Yeah,” Rossi says at the exact same time, and your blood instantly turns ice cold as Zhang leans around you to blink at her stupidly.

“No.  Yeah?  What?”  He says, sounding genuinely confused.

“Yeah, remember?”  Rossi confirms with a shrug.  “Nine was mad as all shit, came at me in the rec room a few weeks ag—fucking Maker, Eleven, you were there.”

“Oh,” Zhang suddenly exhales, “yeah, that’s right.  Oh, yeah, Dime, he knows.”

You’re—fuck, you’re about to rampage.  You’re burning a fucking hole through Dameron while he converses animatedly with his numerous buddies, waving an open hand and shaking his head at someone with a smile and then gesturing broadly to this side of the transparisteel.  His pool is probably up soon, you figure.  That’s why he came onto you so strong earlier today.  He was going to get two weeks of your pay, plus whatever he must’ve offered up to Nine that says he’d get it to happen within a certain amount of time.  Perfect, your old roomie and the arch nemesis you stupidly agreed to trade her for, two asshole peas in an asshole pod.

“—she thought I was the one who told him—”  You know Rossi is still talking but you’re not actually hearing any of it.  Nobody has any fucking idea.  Nobody has any idea what he did to you today, how unbelievably close you were to… to actually…  “—was all just for fun, but then he had a few choice words for her and told his squad that if any of them had made a—”  You don’t know why you’re so surprised honestly, you should’ve expected…

Wait.

“Wait,” you suddenly blurt, and while she shuts up immediately, your mind starts whirling even faster.  Dameron had some… what?  “Wait.  Explain.  You’re saying he didn’t…”  You slowly shake your head, furrowing your eyebrows and trying to piece it together.  “He didn’t… place a bet with her, or anything?”

“What?  No,” Rossi shakes her head a lot more forcefully than you, getting frustrated.  “No, fucking—didn’t you hear anything I just said, Ten?  He got all high and mighty for some stupid reason, totally reamed her ass out for it.”

“But…”  You blink, stunned.  “But… why?  Why would he…?”

Rossi shrugs.  “Fuck if I know.  All she said was that he ordered Black not to throw in, made her lose a fuckton of money from it.  Had no idea Dameron would be so touchy about his sex life, honestly.”

He… he isn’t.  He isn’t touchy about his sex life—you feel like he never shuts up about it.

Rossi continues talking, but you’re not listening again.  You stare stupidly at yourself in the clear transparisteel as Dameron’s voice comes back to you, repeating something you specifically remember him saying earlier today.  Something you thought was just a careless jab at the time, aimed blindly at one of your comrades with nothing more than the intent to piss you off.

…I swapped housing assignments with your shitty roommate and slept in the bunk below yours for a month and a half… 

You blink beyond your own reflection to focus on him once more, still lost in his own little world, not paying a single lick of attention to you while you’re essentially having a fucking crisis over here.  You didn’t think the insult had any real substance to it at all.  You just naturally assumed that was the result of him wanting to lash out at anything or anyone remotely close to you, if only to get a reaction, so you never gave him one or paid it any mind.  

This is why he said that about Nine?  Because he knew she had organized this fucked up betting pool behind your back?

Stars, you need to get out of here, all these rumors are fucking with your head.  Your assumptions and the hairpin turnarounds are giving you worse whiplash than Dameron’s… well, admittedly spectacular flying today.  You were wrong about wanting to avoid isolating—in fact, that suddenly sounds like a phenomenal idea.

So, you just get up and leave right in the middle of Rossi’s sentence, needing some time alone.  Neither of them call out to you as you quickly walk around the table and through the barrier towards the exit, thank the Maker, and you’re just about to retreat with no interruptions until suddenly two Greenies step in front of you and block your path.

You halt immediately, looking up at them with a furrowed brow.  “What now?”  You grunt, not having the patience to even wait for a response before attempting to squeeze around them.

“Hey, so you really saved our asses out there today, Goldie,” the one on the left quickly sidesteps in front of you and rushes to say, and you settle your weight back on your heels with a huff.

“What are you talking about?”  You glance back and forth between them, not recalling a time you’ve ever spoken to either one, before jerking your head to gesture over your shoulder.  “Go congratulate trophy boy over there, he was the one flying.”

“We did,” the one on the right tips sideways to look at Dameron behind your shoulder, likely still laughing and joking with someone about something, something super fucking dumb probably.  “Well, uh.  We tried.”

“What?”  You let out a heavy sigh and rub your temples.  “The fuck is that supposed to mean?  I don’t have the time.”

“He won’t take any credit, just keeps saying that all he did was steer you around,” the other one shrugs as his companion straightens and looks down at you once more.  “Wouldn’t accept any drinks we offer him, nothing.  So we thought we’d buy you one instead.  Unless you’re… leaving?”

It takes you a few seconds to process that, even as he allows the open invitation to hang in the air.  You can’t stop the way your torso automatically twists around to study your copilot from across the mess hall in baffled silence, suddenly realizing that they’re… they’re right.  Dameron has no congratulatory drinks sitting in front of him even though more and more people have made their way into the bar.  He’s just sitting there grinning and nodding along to something someone else is saying, completely and blissfully unaware of the extent to which he’s fucked with you in the past twenty minutes.  The past… whole day.  Month and a half.  Or… fuck, how long have you known him?  Two years?

But then Dameron’s gaze gradually drifts this way, before suddenly locking with yours.  His eyes flick behind you to look at the two Greenies blocking your exit, and then back to the way you’re staring at him, wide-eyed and startled.

He suddenly stands up and starts to take a few steps towards you, and the sheer abruptness of the movement causes you to react immediately.  You stumble your way backwards through the two pilots, feeling a few hands reach out to steady you through the awkward fumbling, but you slap them away and announce loud enough for Dameron to hear beyond them that you’re taking a shower, and you don’t give a fuck how long it’s gonna be this time.

***

The knob squeaks as you turn the water on.  Usually you’d step back and wait the grueling five minutes or longer it takes for it to heat up with your arms crossed over your naked chest, but this time you move directly under the freezing spray, hoping to use the ice cold to shock your system.

You're finally alone.

Technically solitude doesn’t really exist within this base.  You’ve heard of others that are a little nicer, having a little more room for the ranks, but not here.  Housing assignments, showers and restrooms, mess and recreation halls—they’re all communal.  Everyone is given rotating shifts, so while that means there’s never any true quiet to be found, it also means that showers are spread out well throughout the day and night.

But, at least for this moment, there’s nobody else around.  At least in here, in the tiled chamber with multiple shower heads stationed around you—you’re sure there are a few girls lingering in the locker room and the entry area beyond it, but for right now, you’re blissfully by yourself.

And yet, you can’t seem to enjoy it.

You know you should be basking in the isolation.  You should be thrilled at the rarity of only hearing your own flipflops slap against the floor as you turn around and drench your hair with the icy spray, but the lack of an immediate distraction for your focus allows it to wander to things you don’t want it to.

Explosions, mostly.  Lighting up like fireworks in front of your eyes even as they flutter closed and let water drip down them.  Constant, never-ending.  Some of them small—TIEs you shot down, allies drawing fire away from you and then subsequently getting overwhelmed, zipping through dense debris from deadly collisions so quick that you had trouble distinguishing friend from foe.  Some of them were massive—star destroyers splitting apart, warp drives overloading, enormous casualty counts.  You don’t know how many lives you took today, not directly.

The beginning was the worst—when you were still slightly disoriented, when you were panicked and screaming into the comms for assistance.  Then the closest stationed tandem showed up first—Red-Two and Eight, you think it was.  Doesn’t matter now.  They took some heat off you before the cavalry arrived, but you remember Dameron barking out your name the second their left thruster got nicked and they started spiraling, a ferociously deep, “With me!” cutting through the white noise.  It was enough to snap you back, forcing you to instantly flick your eyes away and focus dead ahead without witnessing their demise.

It wouldn’t have normally been necessary.  You’ve been flying with the Resistance for years, you’ve seen way too much bloodshed by now.  But you’ve never been the catalyst of it—you’ve always been able to confront threats accompanied by your squadron, right between Nine and Eleven, the flight controls rumbling steady under your palms.  You’ve never faced down an entire fleet in one single ship.  You’ve never had to rely so directly on the skills of another pilot in order to stay alive.

The water slowly heats to a lukewarm while you reach for the shampoo.

Surprisingly, for as much as the two of you clash in normal interactions, it was like everything eventually became… synchronized.  Spectacularly so.  Dameron started off the enemy confrontation by calling out his flight patterns to give you a chance to adjust your firing in real time, but then at some point, it just stopped being necessary.  There was a moment where you both were able to suddenly… get it.  Get each other.  He didn’t have to say anything after that—you could predict each other without second guessing, react instantaneously, and work your way through the littered battlefield accordingly.  You never thought it would be possible to collaborate so well with someone you’ve spent ages despising.  Sure, you’d both die if you didn’t—shit, you’d probably still both die regardless—but this kind of teamwork extended beyond the need to survive.  It doesn’t matter how much you want to stay alive when reading someone else’s mind is physically impossible, but for some reason…  You have no idea why, but it apparently came naturally between you.  It fell to pure instinct, pure reaction, and remarkably, his would somehow match yours perfectly, every single time.

You lather the shampoo in your hair, remembering how his voice changed over the course of the mission.  How it gradually shifted from panicked roars and barked orders into ecstatic cheers and genuine praise after landing a difficult shot, how he just couldn’t seem to stop whooping.  

You smile softly as the tepid water rinses away the dirt and sweat from your body, until the temperature is brought up to a gentle, comfortable warmth raining down you and echoing in the empty shower room.

And, your first name.  Dameron kept calling you that, the whole time.  The one you’re now absolutely certain you’ve never personally given to him.  The one he would’ve had to have listened for specifically.  Remembered, or at least asked the right person about.  But why?  It’s not… it makes no sense, he doesn’t give a shit.  He’s notorious for not giving a shit.  He can’t even be bothered to remember the names of the girls he’s actually with—so why did he go to the trouble to figure out yours?  You’ve been nothing but a thorn in his side the same way he is to you, right?

Right?

Your mind starts recollecting more recent events, trying to work through and process it by yourself.  He was… singing your praises today.  He was openly giving you credit for the win while you pouted in the corner and assumed the absolute worst of him.  As much as you’re frustrated that nobody else seemed to give voice to your contributions, you’re even more surprised that he was the one who did.

And then even earlier.  Gold-Nine, holding wagers with members of your squad (and others, apparently) about when you’re going to fuck him.  Dameron, tearing her a new one for it, forbidding Black Squadron from throwing in and not attempting to hide his disdain for her from you.  He… he defended you.  Stood up for you when your own squad was being a bunch of dicks behind your back.  And nobody ever fucking mentioned it to you.  What did Rossi say—a few weeks ago?  He’s known all this time and only today, only after you… openly showed more interest in him than you ever have, after you worked up enough nerve to try in your own little way to flirt back this time instead of responding to his casual comments with contempt and disgust, only today is when he decided to make a real move on you.

…Your mind is completely blank and yet you still feel yourself start to heat up just a bit at even alluding to the events that took place earlier.  The way his fingers felt—

Steam begins to fill the open concept chamber while you shake your head against the train of thought and reach for the soap, beginning to circle the bar along your arms and shoulders with a sigh.  This is already the longest shower you’ve taken in almost two months, and your body slowly relaxes under the mist and heat as you take forever cleaning yourself, slowly and hypnotically rubbing the soap along your skin.

The second you let your eyelids dip shut at the feeling, you immediately shiver at a flash of Dameron dragging his finger out of his mouth and blinking dark eyes at you through the transparisteel.

Fuck.  The soap slips from your hand and you quickly catch it against your body before it falls to the ground completely, suddenly feeling the need to breathe in the misty air a bit harder.  Shower, you’re in the shower.  Come on.

The dirt and grime is scrubbed from your face and you tilt your head to move the bar of soap across your neck.  As it lathers, you can’t help but remember the way his lips felt against the skin right there, the scratch of his beard.  You keep working the soap against that same spot for a while, not knowing if you’re trying to wash away the sensation or simulate it, until you gradually slow and make it lighter, softer—yes, that’s closer to how it felt, that’s—

Soon the water is boiling hot and you’re trying not to boil along with it, remembering everything he said against this spot, the filth he whispered to you here.  Your pussy starts to throb between your legs as the memories play out in your mind, how close he got you to shattering bliss without even really working for it.  If you put it all together collectively, you don’t think he actually touched you for more than a minute or two total today.  Mostly he just talked to you, but stars, he hit buttons you didn’t even think you had, had you a split second away from cumming harder than Maker knows while his finger rested just above your clit and provided no stimulation whatsoever.

Fuck, you enjoyed it.  You did, you’ll admit it when there’s no one else here but you.  You enjoyed the fuck out of it.  You wish he’d do it again.  Force you to lose, force you to cum so you can at least blame him for it, remove your responsibility from the equation and allow you to put just one more thing on his shoulders, to taste ecstacy instead of expecting you to bear the weight of pretending you don’t need it any longer.  He was doing you a favor, you realize that now.  Your body is staging a fucking coup and you wish you could’ve called mercy before it got to this agonizing point.  He turns you on, you fucking admit it.  He inspires violent emotions in you—jealousy, arousal, anger, temptation—thoughts you don’t want to have and consolidating it all into various forms of hatred makes the finer details easier to ignore.  Your perception of him has always been skewed by your iron will, but he all but took a fucking sledgehammer to it today, dented it beyond all recognition.  You want him, you want to him to take it all away, you want him to fuck you—in the… fuck, in the good way.

You don’t have a thought beyond that.  Your hand quickly falls down the length of your body to wash your private parts, biting your lip as your hips slowly start to rock into it.  You’re getting clean, you’re getting clean, this is how you clean yourself, this is… yes, as long as you keep the bar of soap pressed between your palm and the top of your curls like this, you’re cleaning yourself and you can just… ease your finger down just a little bit and—

Flipflops suddenly echo from the twisting hallway leading to the tiled freshers, and you immediately snatch your hand back up again, not needing to turn around to know another girl is walking into the room.  A knob somewhere to your right eventually makes a dull squeak as you quickly finish washing up and turn your showerhead off, grabbing your towel and wrapping it around yourself.

Maker, you feel like your pussy is plotting your demise.  Fuck, you can’t believe you almost cheated in the fucking showers just now where literally anyone could walk in, you thought you would’ve had more self-control than that.  You make your way into the changing rooms and grab your pajamas, starting to tug them on without fully drying your body and having only one thought in mind.  

Dameron will probably be celebrating late tonight.  You can tuck in early, scurry back to your room and cheat there.

Well, no, not cheating, because you clearly remember making a very compelling argument about wet dreams earlier today.  Maker, a freebie, the word has never sounded so enticing.  What you’d say amounts to a… bye-week orgasm basically, since you know he’s already lost at least one match against his own body and you’re meant to be competing on the same level.  It’s only fair to let you persevere through the toughest part of the challenge if he was allowed to throw a game early on and still stay in the competition.  Maybe he threw multiple games, you never got a straight answer concerning that, so it’s still under review.  He could’ve thrown… three games, even.  Or four.

You dress as quickly as possible and then nearly bolt through the entrance area to the restrooms with all the sinks and stalls.  The balled up dirty clothes and wet towel in your arms allow you to hide the way your nipples are stiff and tender against your thin pajamas, and you can’t wait to climb into your bunk and take everything off under the covers.  You’ll be able to cum, at least once.  It’ll relieve so much stress, get rid of this nightmare headache, rip through your body like lightning and paralyze it until you can start over from square one and think like yourself again.

And, you’re just about to power walk your ass back to your quarters when a body nearly slams into yours as soon as you step foot outside the door, your shoulder jerking back just in time to avoid a collision.

A mechanic, you think.  You’re not exactly sure, you don’t hang out with too many of them—he’s Chiss and his glowing red eyes don’t even land on you as you gasp and sidestep him at the last second, but it’s not him that catches the majority of your attention.  He just exited the men’s room at the same time you left the women’s, and the door takes a moment to swing shut behind him.

You freeze.  It can’t be more than a few seconds—but it feels like everything slows down and it lasts a fucking eternity.

Dameron is standing at a sink in the far corner of the room, naked except for a towel identical to the one in your arms wrapped loosely around his waist.  He cradles the base of his own throat with one hand and gently drags a razor down the smooth contour of it with the other, his chin tilted up high and regal while his eyelids dip low to concentrate on his movements.  He glances down and holds the foamy blade under the running faucet, tapping it twice against porcelain before the door slides him out of frame.

I can shave, a low, silky murmur slowly fills your ears, heat swelling low and hot in your tummy.  Tonight, I’ll shave it off.  Make it nice and smooth for you.

You feel like your body is just a collection of rigid knots all tied together, and the one between your legs is the tightest it’s ever been.  Stars, on another day you’d say it feels like a bad cramp, even though you know your injection makes your period rare and like clockwork.  Regardless, the split second image makes you shudder and clamp up painfully, and you just stand there and stare at the closed door for a second, trying not to shake.

Fuck, this is so fucking… presumptuous of him.

Realistically, you know it could have absolutely nothing to do with you.  It’s his face—you’re not self-centered enough to have completely lost your concept of autonomy.  He can do whatever he wants to his body, and that includes facial hair, full stop.  You also know that he’s not being… obvious about it, no matter how much it feels that way to you.  He’s using the sink and mirror at the very end of the room, not any of the ones nearest to the door—but even if he was, it’s not like he could’ve planned for you to walk out at the exact moment the metal hinge was angled wide open.  He couldn’t possibly have intended for this, for you to see him doing this.  He wasn’t making a show, didn’t even notice you standing there.  You blame literally everything on him, or at least you always try your absolute best to—but this one…

It sends a hard shudder down your spine and you clutch the fabric in your arms tighter, trying not to drop it.  Fuck.  This is torture.  Fuck him.  Good and bad—both ways, all the ways he can be fucked, fuck him.  Your head is spinning, you’re sweating fresh out of the shower, you need to cum.  Maybe if you hurry, you can get that precious orgasm before he’s finished, because if Dameron is able to intercept you before you can tend to this, you’re… you’re not sure how you’re going to say no to him.

You don’t even think you want to anymore.  

You feel like you’re just… holding onto it on principle now.  Too stubborn and hardheaded to want change.  Too stuck in your own ways to recognize how much everything already has changed.

Somehow, you end up making your way back to your room, but the whole thing is a blur.  Your flipflops plap against your heels as you navigate through hallways as quick as you can, emptier than you’ve seen them in months.  You know most of the pilots are probably out celebrating in either the mess hall or rec room, but the thought doesn’t really presently register.  Almost nothing registers besides your continuous forward motion and the way you feel yourself throb with every step, aching for something you are going to get tonight.  Fuck, you are so attached to this orgasm now, it’s not going anywhere and neither are you.  You deserve this, you deserve some relief.  Come hell or highwater, it’s happening tonight.

As soon as you step into your room and slap your hand blindly against the wall panel to close the door behind you, you’re carelessly dropping the bundle of fabric to the floor and then shrugging out of your pajamas in the cool pitch darkness, having exactly one mission in mind.  You don’t bother with lights, with brushing your hair, with literally anything besides clamoring up the ladder to your top bunk and wiggling under the thin bedsheet, making sure to pull it up to your chin before your legs butterfly open.  The tip of your finger wets itself on your tongue and then you’re dropping it down and sliding it against your poor clit, the pleasure arcing and flaring so sharp and sensitive even from your touch that you have to give it just a second.

…No, no you don’t.  You don’t have to give it fucking anything.  You keep moving your finger hard and quick even as your hips naturally want to jerk away from it, shoving yourself through the sensitivity with gritted teeth and a ferocious will.

Fuck, how long do you think you have?  Was Dameron shaving pre or post-shower?  You can’t remember, all you know is he had a towel around his waist.  And that thin gold chain hanging down his neck.  Was his hair wet?  Fuck, why can’t you remember?  His chin and jaw were smooth as silk, you know that much.  Post-shower, then.  Probably.  Probably?

His chin and jaw were smooth as silk.  You keep getting stuck on that no matter how chaotically your thoughts whirl; they fling out in different directions at different velocities but all somehow manage to go in a perfect circle and end up at the same place you started.  His chin, his jaw, his mouth, his neck, his chin, his mouth, his jaw, his mouth, his mouth, his mouth—

You feel yourself start to clamp down and you speed up, chasing it.  The pleasure starts burning deep inside you, the fire slowly licking down your thighs and rising up into your abdomen, and then—

And then a series of quiet beeps from the hallway practically blare like alarm bells to your frantic mind.

You immediately stop moving your finger, snapping your legs tight together and flat to the mattress as soon as the door to your room shifts open and fluorescent light spills inside, and you feel like you could actually fucking cry right now.

All this edging is just a form of self-flagellation at this point.  You lay there and try not to make a sound, try not to tremble hard enough to shake the whole bunk with it, but even your breathing feels like it’s going to give you away.  Dameron, shirtless with his towel draped over his shoulder, slowly steps into the room and then pauses almost immediately, making your heart stutter for a second at what so blatantly caught his attention.

One quick glance down towards his feet confirms the simultaneous hope and fear—you left everything on the floor.  The towel, the dirty clothes, and your pajamas are strewn about haphazardly right where he needs to walk.

You know what it must look like to him.  A trail of clothes leading directly to an occupied bed isn’t exactly subtle, even though you didn’t necessarily intend it that way.  Still, what can you say?  Your hand is shoved in between your legs right now and you’re in your birthday suit under this thin sheet, what the fuck can you say to him?  Sorry Dameron, got too caught up with how stupid wet you get me that I left those there on accident on my way to cheat, but totally not because I lowkey want your help doing it.  Convincing, that’ll go over great.

Dameron slowly lifts his head to look at you.  Or, at least you think he does—the light from the open door behind him casts his body in a dark silhouette, but you know your face is perfectly illuminated for him right now.  Blinking down at him from the top bunk with your brows pulled up in the middle, wide-eyed and desperate and caught red-handed.  Fuck, you don’t know if he can see the way your knees are clamped tight together and your hand rests perfectly still against your pussy like this from the angle he’s at, but you know it has to be super fucking obvious either way.  You’re breaking the rules, you’re touching yourself, and you both know it.  You can’t lie, you can’t even sit up without confirming his very valid suspicion.  He can call the game at any point, but…

You watch his head fall back down to study the mess you left for him once more.  Fuck, are you positive that was an accident?  Normally you wouldn’t second guess anything about your own understanding of the interactions that occur between you and him, but—you’ve never done that before.  You’ve lived with roommates on this base for years, you don’t just… get naked before getting into bed, that’s bad form.  How are you going to get up in the morning without having your pajamas shoved near your feet while you sleep?  Wrap this thin bedsheet around yourself and scamper down the ladder until you can snatch them up from the floor, and then what?  Climb all the way back up just to wiggle the clothes on underneath the blanket before going back down again?  Maker, you fucked up, your pussy is plotting your fucking demise.

But then everything inside you pulls taut as Dameron suddenly decides to move.  Slowly, he leans down to catch your orange jumpsuit closest to his feet with a few fingers, before he stands upright and carefully begins folding the fabric without saying a single word to you.  Electricity buzzes through you as he very obviously takes his time with it, using nearly his whole armspan to lengthen and fold the sleeves while his chest and chin meet for support.  When he’s eventually satisfied with it, he takes a few steps toward the empty desk on your side of the room and then sets the neat rectangle of fabric atop it where you usually keep it.

You bite your lip and you can’t help it—you start to move your finger as he goes back to sort the pajamas you wore for barely two seconds from your dirty clothes, folding and putting away whatever is clean and then tossing the rest into the shared laundry basket that gets collected every week.  Somehow it makes you feel even more naked, seeing all your clothes be returned to their proper places, realizing that this is your base state now, this is what you’re going to wear tonight.  Nothing.  You left everything on the floor and trapped yourself up here, he’s simply shifting a pawn forward two spaces in kind now that you’ve made your first move.

You can feel yourself pulse threateningly against your own fingertip while he collects your wet towel and drapes it over your closet door to dry, and your breath comes louder through your nose while you bite back the noises you want to make, the way your movements so desperately want to speed up.  Your hand working the way you want it to under the white sheets would be too much, too revealing, but you don’t know how much longer you’ll be able to care.

But then of course, the asshole has to go and put away his towel and clothes, and you endure through the whole thing while pressing back and forth against your clit so hard and slow that your toes curl and pull the sheet tucked under your chin taut.  After that’s done, he makes his way over to the portshade above his desk and slowly slides it open a few inches, the light of three moons outside gradually filling the room.  However, when Dameron goes back to press a button on the wall panel and close the door to the hallway, you immediately see how much softer it is in here, how the artificial fluorescents have thankfully disappeared and the room illuminates more than it blinds, glows more than it beams.  He presses one more button as the lock inside the paneling slides into place.

You bite your bottom lip and try your best to hide the pleasure you’re building for yourself while he makes his way back to his desk, quietly swiping the radio off it and lowering the volume knob completely before he flips it on.  The noise slowly amplifies until you’re able to catch two distinct voices conversing in Huttese—it’s the only lingua franca that still broadcasts on this old technology in this part of the galaxy, but he’s already flipping through the stations in search of something specific.

If you were thinking straight, you may have actually recognized this for what it is, but you’re having trouble even processing the details of your general surroundings right now, your mind is lagging and too slow at reading between the lines.  Dameron’s doing exactly what he said he would do.  He laid it all out earlier for you in the x-wing, telling you exactly what he wanted plain as day, and now he’s checking the whole list off one by one.  The shade is open and the room is lit just enough to make him out, the door is locked, and he’s finding something to listen to.  Something quiet, and easy.

If you were thinking straight, you’d realize that there’s a much more obvious reason why he shaved his beard—you never told him the truth about how much you liked it.  You never tell him the truth.  You allow—even encourage him to think the sharp things you say to him are exactly how you feel.  He did it because he believed you.

Oh, but you’re not thinking straight.  Your thoughts are scattered and the only thing they can agree upon is how good this feels, even as your breathing starts to grow heavier, grow louder underneath the sound of the radio.  The thought stays right beneath your consciousness, tugging at your preoccupied mind.  You work your finger with just a little more verve now that he’s flipping through the stations, knowing he’s distracted by spinning the dial through intermittent white noise while different voices and songs fill the room for just a second at a time.

Your bed, his voice suddenly echoes through your thoughts, originating from your subconscious but almost sounding like it’s coming from the radio in your delirious mind.  I want you comfortable.

Fuck, the understanding finally clicks the second he flips to a slower song and you start to burn at the thought of what’s next.  The silent promise that his actions allude to.  You have the realization way too late but at least it still comes at all with the state you’re in.  Your hand slows down immediately, not even needing to consciously consider the choice between achieving orgasm through your finger or his mouth.  Still, it’s hard to stop touching yourself completely when it feels so fucking good to your deprived body.

Fuck, it’s barely been a few seconds since your realization and yet you immediately bristle in distress at how fucking long he’s taking.

So you open your mouth.  You’re desperate and needy and on the verge of something, and it comes out without thought.  You don’t think it’s loud enough for him to hear, but his head immediately lifts and looks unseeingly at the wall in front of him for a second, as if he’s questioning if he imagined it.  A soft melody plays on a bluesy guitar while you hiccup and wait, but he doesn’t move.

And then you say it again, higher and tighter in your throat, pitched up to an impatient, girlish whine.  “Poe…”

The radio is tossed onto the bottom bunk as soon as he spins around and walks towards the ladder, but it’s like your finger has a mind of its own the moment he disappears underneath your line of sight.  Your legs spasm against the mattress and you bite your lip, not caring about the frantic way your hand begins moving under the sheet as his muted footsteps climb up the rungs.

Your eyes snap to his as soon as you can see him beyond the railing at your feet, heaving himself up until everything above his waist is above you, too.  His pauses there and his lashes quickly dip to the shameless movements between your legs as you work yourself towards that approaching bliss, and then flick back to the way you’re biting your lip and looking at him so torn, wanting so badly to wait for it but not being able to right now.

Slowly, he begins to move forward, crawling his way up the mattress and over your body, noticeably careful with where he places his limbs.  You’re not hard to dodge, though—you’re like a rigid stick of desperation under him, knees and ankles still clamped tight together and your arms streamlined as close to your body as possible with tension as you keep rubbing your clit.  Not to mention the sheet is thin and shows your figure almost perfectly with how tight you’ve hooked it under your chin, only leaving the finest details to the imagination.

But then there starts to be a little strain against the fabric, an unspoken question he’s still bothering to ask even though you could’ve told him to fuck off ages ago.  Poe could yank the sheet down and flip your shit over and destroy you right now if he wanted—fuck, like you want him to do—but his face slowly appears in front of yours instead and his dark eyes search your features for answers.  The length of his chain dangles from his muscular neck and glows against his golden skin, his whole upper body stretched long and bare over you.

From the gradually increasing tightness pulling on the fabric, you expect the sheet to rip down your body as soon as you lift your chin and let that resistance go, but instead… stars, it’s slow.  Why is he going so fucking slow??  The bedsheet barely flutters down to your collarbone before he’s able to stop tugging on it so hard, and then he just gently inches the hem down from that point on.

Fuck—your eyes drop to his lips as he eventually reveals your shoulders and sternum to the room, and then lower to your cleavage while you let out a hushed whimper, praying he understands the extent of how vulnerable you’re allowing yourself to be.  You don’t do this often—and you definitely don’t do it with someone like him.  He’s the one who said you needed this, isn't he?  So why the fuck is he dragging out the anticipation?  Pretending like he doesn’t see the way you’re begging for help in the middle of another warzone that’s breaking out for the second time today?

Poe’s head drops down to give the contour of your neck a long drag of his tongue, slow and hot and wet, the sheet eventually dropping beneath your nipples and exposing them to the cool air.  You bite your lip and keep working yourself under the fabric even as it’s led down the length of your tummy, and you just get wetter and wetter feeling him mouth at your skin as the radio continues to play soft from the bottom bunk.  He follows the skin as it’s revealed, licking down from your collarbone and working with the increasing rate of your breathing.  His lips never feel like they vary in pressure, even as your chest heaves up and down and your lungs work hard for air.

His open mouth slowly drags down the curve of your breast and it makes your blood burn fire through your veins.  You nearly choke when your nipple is enveloped in soft heat, his tongue quickly fluttering up under the stiff peak and giving it to you so gently, contrasting so light and vernal with how brilliant and neon bright the need between your legs is.  Your hand starts to work quicker, and fuck—you can hear it now, your desperate movements audible over the shallow breaths and the sound of one song gradually fading into another below you.  You’re just too fucking wet and your pussy is smushed with how tight your legs are pressed together—the noise is unavoidable, and Poe’s knees are planted too close to either side of your thighs to spread them really at all.

Fuck, you knock against the resistance regardless to let him know what you want, but he doesn’t budge and it makes you just about lose your damn mind.  Does he have to make everything so fucking difficult?  You couldn’t close your legs earlier and now you can’t open them, and it’s like he’s able to take perfect advantage of each opposing position to prolong your torture.

But then his tongue leaves you even as his jaw opens just slightly, and that’s the only warning you get before his teeth graze your nipple with a sudden arc of sensation and you flare up all at once.

It’s a miracle and a curse that you’re able to stop at the very last second, your hand jerking away from your pussy and flexing into a fucking death claw on your thigh at how close you were, and you don’t know why.  Why did the fuck did you stop?  There’s nothing standing in your way right now, you’ve consciously given yourself express permission to cum, but still.  It must just be learned instinct at this point—hammered into your muscle memory for weeks on end to not allow the pleasure no matter what, especially when you’re this fucking close to it.

Nonetheless you garble out nonsense and cinch inwards on yourself to fight it off now that you’ve apparently decided against it.  There’s nothing worse than a half-assed orgasm, and you have to quickly summon the conviction behind your split second reaction before it’s too late and your body takes the pleasure any way it can get it.

Poe’s mouth releases your nipple at the way your whole spine suddenly hunches in and he drops his forehead to your chest, breathing heavy down the slope of your breast as you tremble and grapple for your sanity.

“Did you just cum?”  Is the first thing he says to you, his voice is so ragged and stony it’s practically gravel crunching as he speaks.

“N-n-no,” you quickly stammer at the ceiling, trying to remember how to breathe correctly.  Inhale, exhale—fuck, which one is inhale again, which one comes first?  Maker, does he need to call a fucking medic?  “Huhhhhalmost?”

Poe takes a deep breath and slowly releases it with a bassy and warm mmmm rumbling against your skin, so coarse but pleased enough to sound like melted chocolate dripping down your body.  The noise sends a violent shudder through you and it’s almost enough to knock you back to that edge again, even without your fingers assisting it.  

His head dips and the sheet pulls down even more, just below your belly button now, and you let out a quiet gasp in anticipation, nearly on the verge of begging him to keep moving downwards.  But when Poe’s eyes close and his mouth suddenly moves back up to open over your other nipple instead, your patience snaps.  

Fuck him, bad way.  This is your orgasm, you’re done waiting.

“I’m gonna cum,” you snarl furiously down at him, shoving your hand between your legs even as Poe’s lips quirk against your skin.  It’s not a warning, it’s a threat.  If he’s gonna be like this, he doesn’t get to share it with you.  It’s your orgasm, you’ll give it to yourself if he doesn’t give a shit about it.  “Thought you wanted it, guess not.”

You immediately feel his teeth again in response to your admittedly slightly bitchy comment and this time he lets your nipple roll just a bit between them, making you jerk at the sensation and quickly find your clit again.  Oh, you’re soaking fucking wet, you’re wet everywhere.  Slick and swollen and burning, and it’s not going to take much at all.  The sheet sticks to your overheated body and you can’t tell the difference between your sweat, his saliva, or wetness from between your legs—it all just feels damp and slippery as you gradually lose your bearings under his mouth.

“Fuck this, I’m gonna cum,” you breathe once more, possibly nothing more than a mindless reiteration but most likely just one last veiled plea for him to give you what you both want.  As if he can tell, Poe quickly lifts his mouth and suddenly the sheet is ripped the rest of the way down your naked body completely, sharp and frustrated, and then his lips brush against your elbow as it twitches, nipping the sensitive skin there.

“Brat,” he growls quietly against your forearm as he keeps dragging his lips down further, following the path it makes along your tummy.  “Just likes making shit difficult.”

“You’re the one—” you hiccup, trying to sound angry but just melting into a puddle at the tip of his tongue slowly trailing down your frantically moving wrist, “—you’re the… the o-one who… who…?”

But you’re already sprinting towards that edge, feeling him drop even lower and his hot breath fan against your fingers, and at this point you’re too far gone.  Poe gently kisses at your closed thighs, in perfect position and ready for you, but you can’t stop yourself anymore unless he makes you stop, and the longer he waits down there without grabbing your hand to replace it with something better the more you don’t give a shit about whether or not it’s going to happen.  You can feel the orgasm rising, you can feel your toes flex and everything start to lock down for the approaching tsunami.  You’re going to get it this time, you’re going to cum, you’re going to—

“This is—” you rasp, “—this is a f-free, a fffff-ffreeeeb—”

His tongue softly grazes your knuckle as it works.

And then there’s a moment.  A suspended moment that seems to go on forever, where you’re launched directly over that cliff and yet you still seem to be gaining altitude.  Where’s the drop?  You’re already cumming—you can feel it, there’s absolutely no fucking going back now, but it’s like your sheer desperation has so much momentum that your body tricks itself into believing there’s nothing to land on, no gravity to immediately rip you straight down to your demise.

You choke out his name and your back arches with it and that must be the signal, because Poe finally pulls your hand away and lets his chin dip, and then his jaw falls open and allows you just enough time to catch the glimmer of his pink tongue before it slides wet and slow through your swollen folds.

Heat.  It sears through your whole body with a wracked shudder, the slick glide over your clit as his eyes flutter closed, and within the very first second of feeling his mouth on you, you’re instantly cumming inside it.

There.  There’s the drop.

The burning erupts into molten chaos, crumpling your whole body on impact like an accordion, but he sinks all his weight down on your legs and forces you to endure it with everything below your waist pinned to the mattress.  It’s fucking mayhem.  You feel like your voice actually rips itself in half with the ragged cry of blinding relief, so enormous and soul wrenching in power that you couldn’t even hope to muffle it.  You can’t move your hips through it, you can’t stutter up to ride it out—you have to experience the whole thing with your lower body completely still while his tongue takes slow, gentle licks at your throbbing clit, only able to sit your shoulders up and slam them back down and grab his head as you endure.

You cum hard.  Fucking hard.  It’s daunting and explosive and utterly devastating in the havoc it wreaks, and just when you think you’ve seen the worst of it, it’s just so slow.  Creeping along and obliterating everything in its path, taking an eternity to pass because of how fucking big it is.

When you’re finally able to float back down into your own body again, the first thing you notice is how tight his hold is.  Poe’s arms are wrapped around your thighs to keep them pressed tight together and you can feel the wetness all the way down to your fucking knees as they tremble against each other.  Stars, what did he do to you?  You feel like you actually wet yourself, there’s way too much dampness on the mattress underneath you to feel anywhere close to normal for you.

His mouth eventually leaves you but his head doesn’t move, nothing else moves.  Even his hot breath feels like rough stimulation to your throbbing pussy.

And then Poe shifts and adjusts his body just enough, catching the backs of your knees and slowly spreading your legs up and apart like you wanted to do ages ago.  They feel like jelly, wobbly and unsteady even as his thumbs hook right under your knees and easily support most of their weight.  Your pussy is soon exposed completely, and his shoulders move down just before his head drops to lick the collection of wetness right from your entrance.  Fuck, he couldn’t get it from the previous angle your legs were at, just your clit at the very top—but this is deep and personal and you know he’s probably getting mouthfuls of how hard he just made you cum, using the tip of his tongue to scoop your arousal up and swallowing it quietly before going back for more.

“Poe,” you whisper, and he rumbles low in his throat in response without stopping.  This isn’t for you, this isn’t for your benefit right now.  Your pleasure receptors aren’t concentrated right here, just the physical evidence of them being overloaded just a few moments ago, but he stays for longer than necessary.  He keeps his mouth here far longer than you need to push past the throbbing sensitivity and start to crave the sensation again, forcing you to bite your lip to stop yourself from telling him to move back up just a couple inches.

So you seek it out instead, the lower part of your body clearly not listening to a damn thing your mind tells it right now.  Your hips drop and his velvet tongue catches your clit at the apex of its repetitive motion, and you gasp and rock upwards again as Poe groans and immediately rises with you to chase it.  He attaches to the swollen flesh and sucks at it gently for you, following your lead, letting your wet fingers comb his hair back from his face and clutch a good fistful of it as you plant your feet and slowly grind up into his mouth.

Fuck.  He was right.  You needed this.  Everything about it is heaven—endorphins pour off you in waves as you roll your hips against his face, and he lets you do it.  He’s not just pliant, he’s willing.  His tongue works diligently, his eyes close and he moans into your pussy, allowing you to tug his hair and fit to his mouth exactly how you want.

Oh, everything burns.  Everything smolders and sparks, because he’s always been so withholding and now he’s just going for it.  He’s reading your mind better than he did during the battle today, not necessarily submissive in his approach but… servicing.  Accommodating.  Finally giving in and putting real effort into helping you chase after another shot of ecstasy without being so stingy about it like before.

As soon as you feel another familiar swell of something deep down, your mouth is suddenly dropping open.

“How many—” your ragged voice comes out without thinking, and it takes so fucking long to actually attach the train of thought to its conduit of translation.  You swallow thickly and flex your fingers in his hair, tugging at him to ground yourself, trying to anchor yourself to the very thing that’s about to fling you into oblivion again.  “—fuck, how many times did you… how many fr-freebies do I—do I…”

Poe eases his chin back just enough to respond, and the slick sound his tongue makes leaving your clit makes you shudder and miss the wretched words at first.  “Mm.  Just the one.”

And then his tongue is already sliding back through your pussy by the time your eyes pop open in immediate panic, and your clit is in his mouth again as soon as yours drops to frantically contest.

But the words aren’t coming, it feels too fucking amazing.  Your jaw goes slack and your fingers tighten in his hair.  Maker almighty, the orgasm swells up so sharp and quick that you have to fucking kick him at the very last second to get away from it.  Thankfully Poe’s mouth abruptly leaves you with his oof of shock at your audacity, lifting his head as you snap your legs together and grit your teeth through your miserable retreat from ecstasy.  You don’t even notice the way your knee almost knocks into his jaw with it—you just focus on shamefully easing your way back down again from the platform overlooking bliss like you’re too afraid of the high-dive.  After a second, you actually have to turn on your side and rock yourself like a child as Poe slowly sits up with a grimace, lifting his arm to rub at his ribcage where your heel slammed into him.

You peek an eye open to watch him do it and oh no, it’s not a good plan.  He’s so… fucking hot.  Fuck.  He’s unbelievably good-looking—his hair curls and frames such handsome features, his body is lovely and warm and seeing his chest bare and up close like this makes you want to reach out and slowly drag your hand down the smooth curve of his side.  But then your gaze catches on the dark sweatpants tented shamelessly between his legs and how he’s glistening with perspiration, too, and how he tugs at the fabric covering his crotch and sighs softly, blinking down at you slow and intoxicated with lust.

You have to close your eyes and bury your face into the pillow because your body is latching onto anything to keep you within inches of that edge.  The mere sight of him is enough to make you worry for yourself.  You take deep breaths and do your best to tune his existence out entirely.  Just you, just you in your bed, trying desperately not to cum without even touching yourself.  You’re naked and curled up and there's no one here to look down at you with deep brown eyes, no one else breathing and especially not equally as loud as you are.  Just you, just you.

And, just when you think you might finally get to the point where you’re not teetering anymore, where you’re at least mostly certain that moving around and looking at things and just existing in general isn’t going to make you completely unravel hands-free at any moment, he has to fucking… go and be himself.

You peek up to see him staring down at you, dark and intimate and devouring, before his hand gently brushes down the curve of your hip.  “Maker, you are so fucking hot right now.  Was that a close one, pretty baby?”

Your hand snaps out to grab his wrist with a whimper and you don’t know if your intent is to stop him or just hang on for dear life, but your grip is weak and you shake and Poe takes the opportunity to grab a handful of your ass while you do absolutely fuck all to stop him.

“Mmmm.  Open your legs,” he murmurs, releasing your flesh just to give it a soft smack.  “You’re only making it worse like this.”

“What?  W-What do you—” you stammer, but Poe drags his hand down your thigh to catch one of your knees and pull it up without waiting for your babbled reply.  Both knees go with him, your pelvis wound too tight and frozen to do anything but rotate your whole entire body on your tailbone.

“You’re just adding more pressure by keeping them closed,” he explains, wiggling his fingers in between your knees to try and get enough of a grip to pry them apart.  “C’mon—open your legs, let yourself breathe.”

“Nnnnnnstop talking,” you groan, trying to slap at him, but he’s strong enough to force the movement regardless, levering your knees apart and then pushing them tight to the mattress.  And, though he would normally be right about it, you’re fighting your mind to get away from the orgasm just as much as you are your body.  The sudden exposure and the positioning and the way he automatically drops his gaze down at your needy pussy with his cock still hidden in his pants like that only serves to displace the cause instead of eliminating the effect.  Closing the door and opening a window, shifting the stimulation somewhere else but allowing it to throb steady and aching regardless.

“Much better,” he sighs lowly, digging his fingers into the sore muscles inside your thighs and you just keep your hands loosely attached to his wrists as he works.  “Fuck me, baby’s got such a pretty pussy doesn’t she?”

“Poe,” you wheeze up at him, hearing him rumble at the sight of your cunt contracting around nothing, probably shining and glistening with your desperation for him.  By this point, you’re worrying again.  You have no doubt whatsoever that he could talk you into cumming just like this, with your hands trembling and clutching at his wrists.  If he keeps murmuring filth while holding your legs open and staring at your pussy like this, you have no doubt you’ll find a way to get there somehow.

Thankfully, he seems to understand.  He goes quiet and just keeps massaging your sore muscles while you try not to writhe underneath him.  Stars, it’s like he’s genuinely doing what he can to take it easy on you and you’re still all kinds of fucked up about it, still frantic and desperate while all he’s doing is just squeezing your legs.

“Calm down,” he gruffs, but you can’t.  “You’re working yourself up, don’t—”

“Stop talki—” your ragged growl is cut off by your own hiccup as you quickly find the strength to shove at his hands, knowing they’re at least mostly to blame for your prolonged tightrope walk.  You can’t fucking think when he’s touching you, you become too hyper-aware of your own body, it feels too good in a way that’s hard to describe and impossible to explain.  Poe’s palms immediately listen and raise in front of him in surrender, his back lifting to give you space while you hide your face from him with shaky hands and gasp.  It’s pathetic and your legs are still held wide open and your fingers tremble hard enough to resemble a malfunction.

You just.  You need a hard reset.  You need that thirty seconds of complete idle, of figuring shit out on your own without an electric current running through you before you can start working properly again.  It can’t be rushed, it’s necessary when most people just want to power down and then right back up again.  The wires connecting your parts are all criss-crossed and tangled and sparks are lighting up at the slightest stimulus, you just need to experience absolutely nothing for thir—

“I’m sorry,” Poe murmurs, still staying in his own space but the gravelly voice shooting a bolt of lightning down your spine.  Thirty seconds, of course he couldn’t give you thirty fucking seconds.  “Fuck, you’re so hot, I’m sorry—”

“Please stop talking,” you beg him, your fingers curling against your face, “Maker, I—I don’t want to cum—”

“Fuck, I know, it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever fucki—”

You go to kick him again and even though it collides wrong and does nothing more than get your message across, the jostle is enough to knock you back from the approaching oblivion just slightly.  It serves to wake you up way more than it remotely hurts him, the equivalent of someone just smacking a piece of machinery and fixing the problem temporarily.

You heave an enormous breath and blink your eyes open behind your fingers, immediately locking with his.  Poe’s teeth are digging into his bottom lip but he’s mercifully silent, even when you drop your shaky hands down to your spread thighs and stay equally silent another full minute while you make the effort to right yourself.  After awhile though, you realize he must be taking cues from you, waiting for you to speak.

Only, you suddenly don’t know what to say.  You’re at a complete loss, looking up at him through your eyelashes in uncertainty now.  Something you’ve never been around him, even as your pussy is wide open for him to look at.  He hasn’t recently, though, you don’t think.  He’s just keeping his eyes on your face, watching you bite your lip and blink up at him while your mind whirls, the only sound that can be heard is the radio continuing to lull from the bottom bunk.

You wish he’d say something.  How come he’s choosing right now to listen to what you tell him to do?  You don’t… you don’t know what to say to him.  Why can’t you figure out something?  You fidget but then suddenly feel your expression lose all its struggle and just look… innocent.  Needing his help.

“Do you want me to leave?”  Poe eventually asks after another moment, tentative of breaking the silence, and you frantically shake your head before he’s even finished speaking.  Fuck, something drops in your stomach at how desperate you’re probably coming off right now, but you’re so lost and you know that’s at least one question you know the immediate answer to.

Poe tilts his head thoughtfully, slowly reaching a hand towards your thigh without removing his eyes from yours.  “Want me to make you cum again?”

You shake your head again, wide-eyed and worried.  He immediately pulls his hand back and blinks slowly at you.

“You want to be edged more?”  He asks lowly, and you shake your head vehemently for the third time.  Poe sighs and sits back, planting his palms to his thighs and pulling at the fabric of his pants in budding frustration, clearly tired of playing twenty questions.  “Well what do you want, baby?  You wanna just hang out?  That’s fine, I don’t care, but you gotta tell me.”

Fuck, he’s right, what do you want?  The only thing that’s standing in your way of feeling better, you soon realize.

“Want you to cum first,” you mumble, cheeks warming at how childish you sound.

“Not a fucking chance,” Poe immediately scoffs, crossing his arms over his bare chest.  “And pouting at me isn’t gonna help.”

“Why not?”  You breathe, dipping your gaze down his body.  “I can use my mouth.”

“I don’t—” he stops short, suddenly registering what you said and switching gears.  “You can—?”  Poe narrows his eyebrows and looks suspicious.  “You’ll let me… cum in it?”

“Okay,” you whisper in breathless agreement, sitting up and reaching for him, but Poe groans and pushes you back down on the mattress with a flattened palm against your shoulder like you just aced a test he was hoping you’d fail.

“Fuck whoever’s idea this was,” he grits darkly to himself while you arch up against his hold, wanting him to grab your tits but knowing it’s not a good idea right now.  “Maker, I’m so fucking hard—fuck whoever’s idea this was, making me turn that down—”

“You said,” you pant, licking your dry lips and blinking up at the ceiling, trying to control yourself, “before, you said that you’re… you’re not doing this for a bet, right?  So why not?”  Your voice goes softer when you flutter your gaze back at him, even though the accusation feels like it should be sharper if anything, since it comes from a very real place of distrust.  “Were you just… lying to me about that?”

“Fuck, come on,” Poe groans, his voice starting to waver as he shakes his head and squints one eye at you, exasperated.  “You don’t get it.  You can’t think of a single fucking reason I don’t wanna blow my load just yet?  Really?”

The sentence coupled with his rock solid hold on you skitters a thrill through your body and you automatically reach up to run your hand along his forearm.  He looks down at the caress and then back to your face and fuck, even you feel like you’re sending mixed signals right now.

“You could… fuck me,” you whisper, and Poe’s dark eyebrows pull up as his gaze falls down your naked body, nodding and digging his teeth into his bottom lip.  An agreement backed by so much unspoken desire that it looks like it almost hurts him just to hear you say it out loud.  “And we can just… see who cums first.”

“Yeah?”  He croaks, his eyes pinned between your open legs.  “Just say fuck it all and race for last place?  Okay.”

Your heart pounds, having just enough wherewithal to preemptively establish a safety net for yourself.  “And—and we can’t finish at the same time or we both lose.”

“Fuck,” Poe groans, reaching down to catch the hem of his sweatpants with his thumb and lifting his hips until his cock is exposed to the dim room.  “We can’t stop once we start, then, we’ll have to see it through.”

Except you don’t catch any of the last part because, uh.  Well, to sum up.  May the Maker have mercy on you all.

Just like that, the only thought in your mind is… you get it.  Okay, you get it.  He told you before that girls were only interested in him for his cock, and it actually… stars, it makes so much fucking sense now, you totally get it.  You thought maybe he was just boasting as a form of overcompensation at first—or, to put it another way you’ve probably used in conversation with him before, talking big talk but walking small walk.  Only now, you’re… humbled.  By a fucking dick, you’re humbled.

You haven’t seen more than a few of them in this context, so you know you’re not necessarily qualified to give an informed opinion, but heavens it’s a sight.  It’s thick and swollen and just a shade darker than his complexion and everything inside you rockets to attention as soon as he wraps his hand around it.  It’s big.  It fills his whole palm without much room to spare.  Far larger than what you’re used to, and you know that no matter how he fucks you with it, you’re gonna feel it tomorrow.  Next weekend, probably.

Your eyes must betray you, because Poe suddenly loosens his grip and breathes your name softly, causing you to flick your eyes back up to his.  You didn’t realize you were staring so openly.

“I’ll go slow,” he reassures you quietly, voice gentle and knowing.  The complete lack of sarcasm or aggression in his tone is enough to snap you back to yourself, knowing that can’t possibly be right.  He’s talking to you like he did when you stumbled your ass out of the x-wing today, when you were barely responsive and lost in dumb shock.  He doesn’t have to… be nice to you right now, like you’re still only moments away from losing it.  It’s offensive.

“I can handle it,” you harumph, widening your legs while Poe immediately suppresses a grin.

“'Course you can,” he sighs with the slightest note of fondness creeping into his voice, dropping his hips as he lines up at your entrance.  “And I’ll go slow anyways.”

You open your mouth to respond but at the first push of his head inside, you inhale sharply and your palm immediately shoots out to press against his chest on complete instinct.  The stab of pain is impossible to mask from your features and Poe instantly stops with a shaky breath, watching how your jaw drops at the intrusion and your face contorts.

“Ahh.  Shit…” he whispers as his head tips down, dark eyes clamping shut and his hold on you tightening.  “What—shit, what the fuck…”

“Keep going,” you growl out, even though you know you’re just making it more difficult on yourself.  You can take Poe’s cock, you can take it, he has absolutely nothing to brag about, it’s completely normal-sized—

His hips inch forwards and you gasp at the excruciating arc of sensation, slapping at him harder.

“Keep going,” you babble while locking your elbows and shoving him back, “fuck, keep going, keep going—”

“Baby,” Poe groans, wrenching one of your hands from his chest and bringing your wrist up to his mouth to kiss and breathe hot air on it, “baby, you gotta let me—”

He moves a little more and you cry out, jerking your hand back from his lips and knocking it hard against his chest before you even realize it.  Oh shit, you can’t handle it, you haven’t been fucked in so long—

“I’m sorry,” you choke out, trying to be nicer by flattening your palm but then immediately digging your nails in, “fuck, I’m sorry, it’s just—it’s been awhile since I—”

“Shit, I can tell,” he pants brokenly, his fingers dropping back down to flex hard on your hip.  “Hoooolyfuck, I can te—ah, fuck, it’s alright, it’s alright, just—nnnnnnshit, okay, just relax, don’t tense up too muuuh… much—”

His cock pushes deeper even as he keeps rambling through it and you feel yourself being rearranged to make room for the slow movement, giving way to a rich pleasure even as the discomfort increases.

Poe stops once more when your hands shove up against him, somehow simultaneously shakier and firmer than all the other times put together and a little more than half of him inside you at this point.  You’re so slick and hot between your legs that there’s no resistance besides the stretch, nothing to stop him from slamming home besides your weak hands trembling at his collarbone, but everything about the way he stays completely frozen for ages says he’s controlled and patient.

Everything except his face, you soon realize.

When your body is finally able to come to terms with the sensation and you blink up at him, Poe isn’t looking at you anymore.  He’s staring directly over your head at the wall, tangible regret manifesting itself in seething frustration marring his expression.  His eyebrows furrow and he scowls but all of it is silent and directed at himself, as if he’s asking why the fuck he actually agreed to do this.  You know then that it must be really fucking wet.  You know then that you must be just blazing hot and tighter than sin and as if in rhythmic agreement, his cock jumps inside you with each pounding rush of blood through it.  You can see the sweat beading at his hairline as he continues to ignore you for the moment, choosing instead to silently lament at the wall like it did something to mortally betray him.

You could… make this a sprint, something devious suddenly whispers to you.  He’s struggling through the pleasure and you can outlast.  From the severity of that look alone, you can put an end to it before it even starts.

Admittedly, you don’t even let the devil finish his damn sentence before you decide to take your own initiative.  You clamp down around him as hard as you can and Poe whips his attention down to you and punches out a curse that sounds like you wrenched the word from his throat before he was anywhere near ready for it.  It comes from somewhere high and defenseless in register and then quickly falls down into a growly pit as his hips automatically lurch forwards the rest of the way inside, hard, smacking into yours as you squeeze wickedly around him.

You keep squeezing through the sudden upward shove of bliss, you keep tightening up even though you’re making agonizing noises and your eyes clamp shut and it hurts.  But stars, it feels good, why does it feel so good when it hurts so bad?  It makes your throat scrape and your face twist up, but you can hear his cursing getting louder and more desperate so you still don’t relax your viselike hold around him.

“Stop it—” he snarls down at you rabidly, “—oh fuck, stop or you’ll make us both cu—”

Shit, he’s right.  You know he’s never been more right about anything as soon as his hips stutter and kick up to a full blown gallop in the middle of his furious scolding, and the sudden build of ecstasy is so fast and intense that you sob his name, not being able to loosen your muscles anymore as soon as it overtakes you.  But it’s like a closed circuit, you’re both recycling the same pleasure without knowing how to shut it off.  The harder you bear down on him, the faster his hips work, the vicious cycle compounding and circling and manifesting in the perfect typhoon within just a few tumultuous seconds.

But then suddenly he rips himself out of you with a gasp and it’s not a moment too soon, because both of you have to scramble and grab onto things to brace yourselves through the worst of it.  You choose the mattress and he chooses the railing, and through the searing discomfort and settling of the chaos that’s becoming more and more familiar to you as this exhausting day passes, you know you fucked up.  You underestimate his self control, time and time again.  But, exactly like earlier today, you feel a thrill skitter up your spine at how he’s going to respond to your brazen treachery in the face of a newly established truce.

“Fuck,” he jerks his head to spit the obscenity at you, sounding more pissed off than you’ve ever heard him, the shredded anger in his voice starting to burn through you.  “Fuckfuckfuuuuck—you make me so mad.  You make me so mad.  I wish I could fuck you right now, on Maker, I’d ruin you.  I’d wreck your shit until you learn and you’d deserve every single fucking second of it, you—”

He stops short and growls jagged sharp in frustration, but you can’t help yourself.

“Say it,” you whimper on a dare, feeling your heart pound.  The words quiver with an inexplicable sort of excitement as you dig your fingers into the mattress, wanting to hear his voice snarl the mysterious profanity.  “Say it.  ‘You…’—what?  Say it.”

Shock suddenly paints his previously tense expression blank, even though his pupils blow out and his chest heaves.  Your voice is too breathless, it’s too needy to sound nearly as antagonistic as you want.  

And then Maker, it’s as if the sheer control he’s clinging to serves to spark his vexation even more.  Mad that you would ask for something so enticing at a moment like this.  Your heart thunders as Poe nearly flashes up close to you and points a threatening finger at you.

“You’re not going to get what you want from me,” he snaps, quiet and furious.  “Not tonight.  I don’t give a shit, I told you I’d slow fuck you and now I’m gonna do it until you act right.”

“You’re an asshole—” you move to lift up onto your elbows, but his hand suddenly plants against your clavicle and shoves you back down flat on the mattress.

“Not even ten minutes after I make you cum and you’ve already got a fucking attitude problem again,” he shoots back, positioning his cock at your entrance with his other hand once more, and Maker you’re drowning between your legs.  His sharp rebuttal and the firm hold on the upper part of your chest makes it that much wetter, knowing you can’t do much more than lift your legs the way you need when he eases his way back inside.  

“P-Poe—” you gasp breathlessly, but it's like he doesn’t hear you.

His expression tenses and he shudders out a low growl.  “Fuck.  Tight little baby.  Rude little baby, just wants everything her way but doesn’t know how to behave herself.”

You have to bite your lip hard to hold back a whine when he’s completely sheathed and his hips connect to yours, and… shit.  You already feel it.  You already feel that simmering starting to take hold deep down once more, that monstrous second orgasm you’ve been fighting now digging its claws into you and licking the base of your spine with fire.  And, as if he can tell, his demeanor instantly changes.

“Uh, oh,” Poe murmurs quietly, equal parts lilting and baiting, slowly dragging his cock out and then starting up the laziest pace you’ve ever experienced with his hand still planted high on your sternum right below your collarbone.  “Can you feel it coming?  Fuck, I can,” he shudders.  “Already.  Fuck, you’re so wet, you’re so wet—wish you had let me eat you out mor—”

“You can’t c—umm,” you hiccup, grasping his wrist and writhing through the building ecstasy, and you don’t know who you’re talking to at this point.  Your other palm slaps at his shoulder with increasing urgency—fuck, he’s been fucking you for barely ten seconds and you’re already struggling to hold everything back.  Only, his hand quickly grabs yours and pins it to the mattress, his face dropping closer as he rolls his hips achingly slow.  You feel his back working with the steady pace, you see his neck flex as his cock drags so thick inside you, and then your gaze starts to lose focus a bit.  It slides up his throat as lazily as he’s augmenting your pleasure, following the contour of his smooth skin until it reaches his face.

And mercy, Poe’s tongue comes out to wet his lips and a dark curl hangs down his forehead, concentrating hard on fucking you steadily without giving into the same creeping euphoria you’re feeling, and you have to turn away and bite back a whimper at the metal railing when the image starts to burn you alive.

“No,” Poe gruffs and his hand slides up a few inches to frame your jaw, twisting until you face him directly once more.  “Right here, you stay right here with me.”

Your eyebrows pull up weakly and your eyes flick across his stunning features, the way he’s so present, so focused and determined while you’re starting to drift.  His skin is so smooth, so golden when his jawline used to be dark, and—

“I—” you choke, starting to lose it, “—I-I…”

“What is it, baby?”  Poe growls, staring down at you with unwavering, intense concentration.  “Tell me.  You gonna cum?”

“I…” you whimper, blinking at him slowly, “I… liked your… b-beard…”

Poe’s eyes, previously hardened and steadfast, suddenly go a bit dumb, a bit dazed.  After a second, his eyebrows lose all strain, his gaze turns warmer and he rolls his hips deeper—

But the swell begins to become the only thing you can comprehend—that and the fact that you should be fighting it.  You should be revolting against it, but now he’s looking so softly down at you and you can’t remember what could possibly be so bad about letting him take away all this ache and desperation again.  Let him continue to take it away, over and over and over until it’s nowhere to be found at all.

And then Poe leans down and kisses you.  And it’s… nothing like you’d expect.

It’s gentle.  It’s tender.  It goes on forever while he rocks into your soaking wet cunt, easing his throbbing cock in and out of you with such a smooth, repetitive motion that sends sparks of ecstasy down your spine at the apex of each thrust.  

You handle it silently.  At first.  You don’t audibly react to any of it, you force your voice to at least keep quiet if you can’t hide the pleasure from your face or body, but then true to fucking form, he has to go and ruin it all.  Poe uses his knees to scoot up just the slightest bit, and then his moan breaks through the absence of the desperate sounds you’ve been holding back as his tongue slowly slides into your mouth.

Your pussy flares, contracting painfully around his cock as it hits a spot that makes your legs shake against his sides.  Your eyes roll back as his soft tongue dips into your mouth and everything just gets tighter, and tighter.  Poe moans again and his hips push a little bit harder into yours on the next thrust, and it’s almost like a domino effect, except that doesn’t do it justice.  It doesn’t topple one by one, it doesn’t take any time at all for the beginning to reach the finish—it’s a house of cards, the whole thing collapses and crashes down in on itself all at once.

You cum.

You lose.  Fair and square.

You make a long, anguished whine into his mouth as you just start spasming, clutching hard at his shoulders and drenching his cock with it, your eyes squeezing shut as you cum so slow and fucking helpless around him.  Oh Maker, it’s fucking devastating, it feels even more destructive and powerful than the first one.  You pull and shove and claw at him equally, mouth slack as Poe tightens his hold and keeps tasting your whimpering cries, fitting his hips snug to yours as he slowly pushes you down through the debilitating ecstasy.  You sob in euphoric defeat and a low, bone-shattering groan of satisfaction rumbles through his chest in response, grinding his cock into you and holding it deep as your pussy convulses.

All those weeks of holding out, just to lose.  You had a freebie, he gave you an orgasm already and it was like a massive dose of spice to your deprived system—all it did was make your body want it more.  Even worse, your orgasm doesn’t immediately inspire one in Poe like a part of you hoped it would, if only so you could reasonably contest the validity of the outcome.  He’s able to ride out every twitch and flex as you shudder your way through it, continuing to lazily slide his tongue into your mouth while it’s held open and slack.  He tastes like you.  He tastes hot and slick and everything about your body feels the same way, damp and unbearably warm from your nape to your elbows to your cunt to the backs of your knees.

You lay there for what feels like a lifetime afterwards, powerless to the way your thighs tremble violently against his hips and letting the tip of his tongue slowly trace the bottom edge of your teeth while he firmly keeps his cock buried inside you.  It pulses thickly and you know he wants to cum, you can feel the tension pulling at his shoulders as he keeps perfectly still.  But then Poe shuffles his arms up until they’re braced around your head, using himself to box you in completely without moving his lips from yours.  His teeth close on your bottom lip as he inches his hard cock out long and aching from your sensitive channel, and then groans and goes back to the same exact dragging pace from before.

Your expression furrows, even as he keeps kissing you and the movement lights up your oversensitive nerves.  Fuck, you want him to speed up, it’s all the more shattering and viseral when he takes his time.  What is he doing?  What is he waiting for?

“Fuck me,” you whine against his lips, demanding a quicker pace.  You don’t know why he isn’t just letting loose on you now, giving into his body’s need to cum.  He’s aching for it, still rock hard inside of you.  “Come on, I already l-lost, just fuck m—”

“Told you before,” Poe whispers back, refusing to speed up.  He keeps his pace dragging and steadfast, no matter how much you work to entice him.  “Never… fuck.  Never gave a fuck about that stupid bet.  Suffer though.”

The complete lack of harshness in his tone sears through your nerve endings even though what he said wasn’t exactly nice.  You never thought hearing him tell you to suck it up could be delivered in a way that inspires so much arousal in you, but then his tongue is in your mouth again as his hips work slow and easy, and your eyes roll back at how… overwhelming it feels.  So intimate.  You’re completely surrounded by him, his forearms propped next to your head and his mouth on yours, and… Maker, there it is again.  Your body is so deprived that it’s already gearing up to go again.  He’s being lazy and you can’t fucking stand how it’s breaking you down.  Gradually, with incredible stamina and a patience you never expected from him.  When you first feel that pull, part of you still wants to pick up the other end and start a tug-of-war with the sensation.  You’ve been fighting for so long that your body almost doesn’t know any different, its automatic reaction is to resist.

A distraction, that’s what you need.  That’s what guys do to stop themselves from cumming too soon, right?  Fuck, think of something, think of…

—Poe, you can't think of anything but Poe.  Fuck.  His cock sinking deep, the way he tastes, how his fingers thread into the damp hair at your crown so you can feel him that much more, how you can hook his biceps with both hands and swirl your tongue around his while he fucks you open.  Your hips roll up with the pace and almost immediately stutter back down again, not sure if you can handle the wicked shot of oversensitivity—but then Poe groans and shifts up until his thighs are under your ass and he can curl you in more, lift your feet a bit more and make you feel smaller.  And—stars, the next thrust in is enough to nearly make you bite him on complete accident, an unexpected sound ripped from your throat as he keeps that specific angle.

Poe keeps going.  He keeps kissing you, keeps rocking into you.  He lets you claw at him, lets you grapple helplessly while his cock shreds molten hot euphoria deep inside you, and then everything tightens up again.

“Ah, fuck,” Poe breaks away and curses a whole few seconds before you descend into mindless chaos once more, garbling out broken syllables with the absense of his mouth keeping yours occupied.  Your voice crescendos and breaks at the same time you do, the pleasure arcing through you over and over and wringing you out repeatedly around his throbbing cock.  Poe’s lips quickly move forward and give your whole cheek an open kiss while your expression crumples with it.  Teeth drag down your skin as he moans hot air across your skin, his hips slowing to a complete stop with an obscenely slick sound.

You throb and clench around him and his lips are suddenly on yours again, his tongue sinking deep and dominating.  Your mouth is slack and all you can do is squeeze him through the bliss, scrape your fingernails down his back and hope it leaves a mark.

Eventually the tremors pass and you’re dead in the aftermath, you don’t have energy.  Your body is starting to acclimate to the slow orgasms and just let them steamroll you flat, fully accepting now that you can cum but still putting everything you have into it like every single one might be your last for a while.  You come back to yourself enough to feel Poe’s cock solid and achingly hard inside you, and your bottom lip is being tugged between his teeth.

And then he eases out and goes back to fucking you.  Same speed, same control.  

Your eyes nearly fucking cross.  “P-Poe—”

He immediately makes a noise of disapproval with his mouth closed, a nuh-uh but kept tight in his throat.  He doesn’t want to hear it, he’s not even letting you finish your thought.

You can’t take it, though, you didn’t think he was capable of this.  This is torturous in an entirely different way, overstimulating and shattering you with every thrust.

So, you think back to the one thing that got him to nearly snap earlier, the one time you really got to see that fire you love playing with.  Only now, you need that fire, you need him to take everything out on you.  Your floor muscles clamp down without warning and squeeze him as tight as possible, squeeze squeeze squeeze until you feel his hips stutter to a halt once more.  Your breath catches—fuck, is this gonna work?—but then Poe breaks away from your lips to drop his head and sink his teeth into your neck.

You nearly squeal at how careless he is about it—an animal that bites you lazily even though it sends sharp agony rocketing through you.  Again, your attempt at sabotage backfires spectacularly as a subsequent flare of pleasure swells up, and oh, that’s what you want, you want him to be mean—

“Please,” you whimper, hooking your ankles behind his back and locking down hard enough to make your toes curl.  Poe groans as you grab a fistful of his hair and tug at the way your skin pinches between his teeth—you know you’re gonna have a bite mark for a few days and it thrills you.  “Fuck, please, Poe—please just fuck me, please, I want you to fuck me until it hurts, fuck me the way we both nee—”

“You and me almost died today,” Poe grits into your neck, cutting off your desperate whimpers with a short growl.  “Maker, it was so close, I don’t think anybody has any f-fucking…”  His hips pull out and then spear deep and you choke, tightening and tightening.  “But—shit, we didn’t, we lived and now—oh fuck, now baby’s finally letting me fuck her and I’m not cutting it short, no matter how pretty she sounds asking.”

His words sound slurred against your neck and you can’t tell if it’s his delivery or your perception that’s lagging.  But when you feel Poe inch his cock out and start to slowly fuck you through the tightness, you let out a weak little whine and feel yourself drifting… somewhere else.  

Things subtly lose their clarity, your eyelashes dip and you stop talking because words won’t come.  You can’t tell if you’re staring at the ceiling or your eyelids or the back of your head, but Poe’s voice abruptly breaking through the silence makes you realize you don’t have a concept for time anymore.  You couldn’t tell him how long you’ve been floating, but you almost don’t understand what he’s saying at all and it takes you a remarkable delay to fully comprehend.  But judging from what he says, it sounds like it hasn’t been long.

“Shit, are you cumming again?”  He suddenly gasps into the crook of your neck and grinds his hips achingly hard into yours,  “O-Oh—fuck yeah, you are—baby’s cumming again—”

“P-Poe?”  You stutter and smack your hand against something, him maybe, not knowing literally anything else.  Not knowing what he’s talking about, not knowing where you are, not knowing your own name, “Poe—oh m-my… God—”

“Whhh—W-What—?”  You hear him breathe a split second before everything compresses down tight, and then it all shoves forward at once.  All of the buildup makes itself known the very moment it becomes too much to control, like a flash flood but the downpour happened miles away.  You think you might actually squeak this time, helplessly cry out like it hurts because stars, it does.  It hurts so fucking good, it spiders pure plasma through your entire body with rhythmic jolts and wipes your mind completely vacant.  Your shoulders shoot you up and knock your chin into something and you think you might be crying?  You don’t know anymore.  Your spine comes back down to the mattress like the damp fitted sheet covering it is made of pure ice—your body is overheated and you keep tensing and jerking back up until Poe forcefully pins you tight against it, growling filth under his breath as he slow fucks you through it.

You feel his hand dropping down between your bodies and you sob pitifully at the ceiling when the tip of his calloused finger brushes your clit.

***

You lose count.

It’s just… constant, there isn’t a point in keeping track anymore even if there happened to be the ability—which, nope.  Not even close.

He ruins you slowly.  Meticulously, with nothing more than steady, unwavering determination.  Every structure you built, he takes apart by hand instead of bulldozing it the way you beg him to when you find the words.  You’re certain you find them—you must find them at some point, but they’re interspaced between babbled gibberish and breathy whispers of his name.

Even though it’s slow—Maker, it’s so slow—you’ve never been so fucking exhausted.  He makes you give him everything and then he drains the reserves, the hidden ones you weren’t even aware existed.  He never goes fast enough; in fact, you think he’s actually slowed down over the unknown amount of time it’s been since you first called out his name and asked for this.  If you were in a frame of mind to notice, you’d probably realize he’s trying harder and harder to not cum, but in your wild headspace, it just feels like a prolonged punishment for you.  It still feels like he’s depriving you for his own pleasure, even though he’s actually depriving himself for yours.  But you always do manage to find some way to read things wrong with him.

Eventually, he begins to waver.  He stops talking so much, stops chastising you when you plead with him.  He hasn’t looked at you since he first kissed you—he’s either hidden his face in your neck or closed his eyes as his soft tongue slides across your bottom lip before dipping inside.

But then there comes a point where even you realize he’s struggling not to let go now, and in your faded traces of sanity, you hear your broken voice cut through the sounds of the soft radio.

“Y-Y-You—” you gasp, trembling under him, “—youneedtocum.  You need to—”

“No,” Poe grits against your chin, sounding shaky and weak no matter how sharp he makes his consonants.  “Fuck, not yet, I—I-I don’t want to yet.”

“Oh no,” you wheeze out, feeling the swell begin again, the familiar flicker of warning you get as his cock slowly rocks into you.  Maker, the pleasure is getting raw and painful even as your pussy is drowning his cock with it, allowing him to glide slow and deep into your sensitive channel and letting the sheer tightness of it be the only resistance your body puts up.  You can feel the wetness on your cheeks though, the tears of frustration gathering as your body prepares itself for yet another wave of attack.  “Oh no, ohhhhhnononononono—”

“I don’t want—” Poe gasps, his hips stuttering just a bit and one of his hands coming down to smack the pillow next to your head as he chokes, “—don’t want this to… e-end yet, I—”

Your next orgasm suddenly slams through you and Poe immediately rips himself out of you before it’s too late.  He shushes you frantically while you sob in distress and writhe side to side through the contractions solo this time, having nothing to clamp down on, not even able to grind up into him because he keeps his leaking cock elevated far beyond your reach.

Oh, that’s it.  That is it.

“Fuck me!”  You wail up at him, water blurring your vision and tears streaming down your cheeks, “Stop fucking around and just fuck me, you asshole!  Fuck me and fuck me hard Dameron or I swear to every fucking star in the sk—”

You don’t get too far.  He’s immediately scrambling over top of you and a strong hand is clamping down tight over your mouth, muffling your high-pitched cries against his palm.  Your legs are shoved apart and one is caught under his arm and wedged back as far as it can go.  His head drops to your neck, and then he snarls a ragged, “Brat—“ under your ear before ramming his cock back inside you.

Stars.  Stars light up, it’s so much—the angle, the force, the speed, the sound his hips make as they start ruthlessly colliding with yours.  Your eyes screw shut and you dig your nails into the meat of his back, but he doesn’t slow down—he speeds up—

“Fuck, you still think that throwing your little fucking fits works on me?”  He hisses, drilling into your g-spot with such blinding hard precision that you can’t do anything more than just claw at his chest, gasping for air that just won’t come into your lungs.  “Huh?  Think you can just be a little bitch to me about it and it’s gonna change anything?  You still don’t have any fucking idea, do you?  Look at me—” he snarls, grabbing your face and shaking it to get you to respond, “—look at what you fucking do to me—”

But you can’t.  You already came countless times and he’s lurching you up the bed with every single rabid thrust into your blindingly sensitive cunt, fucking you into the railing and then the wall behind it.  You still feel his fingers grasping at your jaw, forcing you to address him, to look at him, and you can’t seem to focus your vision on his blurry features even when your eyes flutter open.  You’re too dumb with grinding pleasure to see anything besides blurs and stars, to say literally anything back to him.  But that’s not what he cares about.

“Oh fuck yes, there it is,” his voice whines, pitching up something vulnerable as his hips ram you into the corner hard and unyielding, “fuck, there’s those pretty eyes, that’s what I wanted, baby, that’s all I wanted—th-that’s—fuck, that’s—”

They must cross, or roll back, or something, because suddenly you can’t see him at all anymore.  You don’t know what happens—but you know it’s wet.  You know it bursts forth something fierce and you shriek his name with a hoarse and shredded voice like he steals the last part of your whole fucking soul with it.  Fuck, you’re not even there for most of it, you might actually black out.  

In your conscious moments, you can feel his whole body flexing over and over again on top of you.  He empties his load deep inside you and takes a fucking eternity doing it, so many breathless praises leaving his mouth so quickly that they slur together and you can’t understand any of it even if you could hear him.  All you can do is feel your cunt tighten and convulse in tandem with the throbbing of his cock, rhythmically working the cum out of him until Poe stops stuttering his hips, until he finally trails off into nothing but labored gasps and slumps down on top of you in exhaustion.

You both lay there for a while, dead weight breathing.

You want to hold him, your cum-struck mind quietly provides in the comedown.  You want to feel his body now that you can finally think straight and take a moment to enjoy this blissful relief.  He fucked you so good and you want to touch him, you want to run your fingers through his hair and massage the tight muscles at the base of his neck.

But then you just start giggling.

It’s stupid.  It’s so fucking stupid.  You smack your hand over your mouth but the garbled noise easily floats beyond it, completely elated and having absolutely no explanation at all.

Poe quickly pulls his head back to look at you and you try to twist sideways under him to hide it, but you can’t stop—like a complete loon, you snort and start to laugh harder at the ridiculous sound.  Oh, you don’t just float, you’re the air itself, so light with endorphins that you close your eyes and get lost in the fit until water wets the outside corners.

After a moment, a hand gently grasps your wrist and slowly pulls it down until he can see the way your mouth opens as you giggle, hear it unobstructed and let the sound bubble up at him and fill the room.  And you blink your eyes open just in time to see him slowly break into the most dazzling smile you’ve ever seen him bestow a person.

And… you’ve seen him grin a million times.  He’s almost always smiling, as long as you’re not right in front of him.  He smiles at his squadmates, he smiles at girls, he smiles at complete strangers, and you always thought it was pretty.  Always knew that he could light up a room with it, you always knew he could get anything he wanted with it, but this… this isn’t that kind of smile.  That one is practiced and alluring.  It wasn’t fake, necessarily, but that smile’s purpose always had more to do with making anyone who happens to witness it feel a certain way than it did about signifying his own emotional state.

This one is… goofy.  Amazed, and uncoordinated.  Thunderstruck in a way, except the clouds all part at the same time and let you see a rainbow.  It makes you feel… alive.  Colorful.  Radiant.  Sunshine.  Butterflies.

Poe quickly drops his lips to catch yours and you moan happily, sliding your tongue into his mouth this time.  You both adjust, you arch into him as he pushes your damp hair back and makes a deep noise of satisfaction, letting you explore while he wraps his arms around you and finds a way to make this atrocious position comfortable.  Every part of you is smushed up against him and there’s absolutely no space to be found, and you’ve never been happier.

“We made a mess,” he groans against your lips, rocking his hips into you with a disgustingly slick sound as if to illustrate, and his cock is soft but it’s still so thick that it stays buried inside your sloppy entrance.  “Shit, I—I think I might be bleeding.”

“What?”  You ask breathily, and he heaves himself up with his elbows just enough to reveal his chest.  You both tuck your chins unattractively to look and you don’t immediately see any blood, but your claw marks are clearly red and visible scraping down his pectorals.  “Oh.  Pfft.  You’re fine.”

He drops back down with a huff and your head is tilted at the perfect angle catch on the tiny droplets of blood decorating the marks criss-crossing his shoulder blades.  Oops.

But he’s already kissing up your neck and over the curve of your jaw and making out with you again like he can’t get enough of it, and you forget.  You forget everything.  You forget every disagreement, every gripe with him you’ve ever had.  It’s all wiped away and replaced with giddy, childish adoration.  Resetting completely and starting off on the rightest foot imaginable.

“Let’s go to my bed,” he murmurs, and you make a tight noise of disapproval.  No.  This is good, this is how you want to stay.  The railing is digging into your lower back and he’s heavy but you’re perfect like this, this is perfect.  “Baby,” Poe pants against your lips in exasperation when you quickly clutch the back of his neck and keep him glued to you, “mmph—you got everything all wet—”

This time you make a low hum of agreement and drag your hand down the bare curve of his spine to his ass to give it a squeeze.  A testament to how hard and raw he fucked you.  Poe shudders hard enough for you to feel his body tremble but you just kiss him harder, pulling him down onto you more.

“You’re gonna have to give me, just like—I don’t know, at least an hour or two,” he chuckles, grabbing your hands to make it easier to peel himself from your body and groaning when his cock finally slips out.  “Come on, let’s hang out in my bed.”

You’re so boneless when he pulls you to sit upright, you roll a little bit and Poe has to catch you, and you laugh again.  Maker, you’re a complete mess and absolutely delighted about it.  Your attempts at grumbling and complaining don’t hold any sway when you’re still trying not to giggle, and Poe is able to pull you to the top of the ladder and make his way down first.

As soon as he’s out of sight and calling up to you, you weakly slide into position with a groan and feel yourself leaking at the movement.  “Gah—look what you did.  I’m all… gooey.”

“I know, s’the hottest fucking thing,” he says under his breath from the floor, before beckoning you by tapping on the closest rung a few times.  “Come on, be careful.”

You do as he says, easing your naked body down one step at a time with wobbly legs.  It’s clumsy and you whine the whole way through, wordlessly grousing and mumbling.

“Oh, I just know it,” he comments on the sound, “nice clean sheets, I’ll get the violin.”

Normally, you probably would’ve snarked something back down at him, but you’re still so loopy and shaky-legged that you just start laughing again.  The fact that he’s absolutely right and you’re being ridiculous about something like moving beds suddenly strikes you as incredibly fucking funny for some reason.  You don’t realize his hands are hovering inches away from your hips until your legs buckle and Poe quickly supports your weight.

“Maker,” Poe chuckles before giving you a firm yank, and then catching you before you can tumble down the ladder in your naked, teary-eyed mania, “let’s go, giggles.”

He carries you a few steps to the mattress and plops you down on top of the comforter, letting you take up the whole bed while he sits on the end and puts your feet on his lap.  Poe grimaces for a second and then shuffles until the radio is pulled out from under him, and you can hear the soft sound of it playing once again.  You bury your face into his pillow, inhaling the warm scent lingering there while he tosses it carelessly to the side and rubs your shins for a little bit, watching you stretch out naked on his mattress.  

“I’m not giving you two weeks of pay,” you suddenly grunt, and he just grins down at you, not arguing.  Not saying anything.  Sitting in comfortable silence with you when you’re expecting him to bicker.  So you stay like that for a long time, breathing deep and relaxing, until Poe’s hands leave you for a second…

… to pull a bag of chips out.

Maker, at the first squeaky sound of the wrapping assaulting your eardrums, you want to roll your eyes.  You want to tease him about how fucking typical it is.  Like clockwork, you could probably set your watch to his middle of the night cravings.  You don’t know why you thought fucking him would change any of that.

You want to give him shit for it.  You even open your mouth, the snark on the very tip of your tongue.  But then your stomach growls as soon as he rips the thin plastic apart.

Poe’s eyes shoot to yours and neither one of you move, but apparently your tummy doesn’t get the memo.  It takes forever to trail off into silence again, and he blinks.  Fuck, you know you should’ve forced yourself to eat at least something earlier.  Warmth floods your cheeks and you scramble for something to say, but there’s no way to play it off.

“Would you like some chips?”  Poe suddenly asks with a boyish grin, raising his eyebrows and tipping the open bag freely in your direction.

The corners of your mouth pull downwards even as the inside of it waters.  You wouldn’t call it stubbornness necessarily as much as it is a… a desire to stick to consistency.  After the unbelievably hard time you always give him about midnight snacking, you’re hesitant to partake.

Though, the chips rustle against each other and sound absolutely fucking delicious as Poe shakes the bag and bounces his eyebrows, and you know what?  Fuck it.

You snatch it without thinking, cradling the precious food to your chest as you dig your whole hand in and shove a bunch into your mouth at once.  You catch him smiling again, but he doesn’t comment.

You both take turns, and by take turns you obviously mean you take turns stealing the bag from each other instead of just setting it equidistant between you and openly agreeing to share it, but it works for you.  It seems appropriate.  And then it’s quiet again, just munching and crinkling, except for the radio continuing to play from its place in his lap.  You have to work to listen over the loud crunching vibrating through your skull, but when you finally manage to stop chewing and catch a few bars, you suddenly find yourself trying not to smile again.  Fuck, it’s been years since you’ve heard this song, you love this s—

“Fuck, I love this song,” Poe promptly exclaims with his mouth full, licking the tips of his fingers before scrambling to pick the radio up and twist the volume knob without using his wet fingertips.  He starts humming over the melody, loud enough to almost drown it out completely, because of course he does.  The one damn time you actually want to listen to his radio and he still finds some way to mildly irritate you.

But this irritation is almost… fun.  You want to laugh just as much as you want to yell at him.

“Hey, who sings this song?”  You immediately ask over the sound of him clearly not knowing the lyrics, already ready with it.  Oh, the round is in the chamber, your finger is on the trigger, you are ready, and Poe’s eyes sparkle as he seems to stop and think about it.

“Mm, not sure,” he eventually shrugs, just before you rush, “Let’s keep it that—”

And then he’s slapping a hand on your leg and belting out the chorus while you scoff, giggling.  He ruined the punchline on purpose and is now getting chip dust all over you, but you know any complaint you make will be drowned out by his suspended notes and backing track, so you just roll your eyes and swipe the bag of chips from him while he continues to serenade you.

“My ears are bleeding,” you mutter under your breath.

He has a nice voice, you think.

[xreaderbooks]

Two sides (2)

Pair: ACOTAR Azriel x reader

Word Count: 3.6k

Warnings: Language, implied smut

Summary: Y/N has been in love with Cassian for centuries now, Just how Azriel has been with Mor. Both heartbroken by their unrequited love they fall into a routine of 'one-night stands', Not realizing their each others mate.

Masterlist - Part 1

A/N: So I dont know how accurate the mate information is, like I said before I haven’t read the ACOTAR series since 2019 so I probably got a couple things wrong or didn’t write the characters the way you would expect them to act. I chose to make them more how they would be in head canons if you get what I mean. Either way I really hope you enjoyed the 2nd and final part to Two sides :) Feel free to send requests for Azriel or any other Acotar characters. Thank you all for the support <3

"We need to talk."

"Okay," Azriel says skeptically, he walks over to sit on the chair across from you.

"I wanted to apologize for the other night," You shifted in your seat as you spoke, you were noticeably uncomfortable. That bothered Azriel, he wanted you to feel natural not forced, he didn't know where that desire came from but it was true. Even if this conversation was a bit awkward. "I never meant to make you feel used, I guess, I just needed a distraction."

"From seeing Cassian and Nesta together?" He asked. You bit your lip and nodded. "Y/N, I didn't feel used." He let out a small chuckle. "I enjoyed it, actually. And a bit flattered that you chose to-" He coughed awkwardly, "share that part of yourself with me." You grinned. You eased up a bit after knowing that Azriel didn't feel bad about what happened the other night, and even enjoyed it. It also warmed your heart at the fact that this was one of the rare moments that he felt comfortable enough to talk about how he was feeling. Despite it probably being out of sympathy or to defuse the tension.

"Oh," You chirped "well good. The last thing I wanted to do was fuck up our friendship."

He shook his head, "Y/N you've done a lot in the past few centuries that could've fucked up this friendship and we're still okay, better than okay considering. Besides Mor and I are still friends even after..." He tensed up, you went over to him and hesitantly put your hand on top of his.

"I know." You gave him a small smile. "I have an idea, I'll admit it's not my brightest but it will benefit the both of us."

His eyebrow quirked, "Your ideas are never the brightest, that's why you're just my second."

"Okay, wow." You blinked, removing your hand, and started pacing around the room. "First Rhys made me your second because I'm good at my job and you're just better cause of your shadows." He glared at you when you made the comment about his shadows. "Two, I've had a couple of good ideas in the past you just never go through with them."

"Maybe it's because all your ideas are reckless and we'd get caught if we did our job by using your so-called good ideas." He got up to meet you when you turned around to face the other way, you were met by his chest in your way.

You huffed when you looked up at him. "Whatever, I'm pretty sure you were going to like this one." He gave a nod to continue. "I- you know what I think it's better if I just show you."

He cocked his head to the side. You took this as an opportunity to grab him by the back of his neck and slammed your lips onto his. Immediately after he put his hands on your waist, pulling you closer. He started walking backward, leading you towards one of the bedrooms. Your foreheads pressed together but you paused from kissing him, catching your breath. You knew he could hear your heartbeat, beating quicker by the second, his heart was beating faster too. It gave you all the encouragement you needed to start taking off your clothes.

"So this was your bright idea," Azriel asked, while also hurriedly taking off his clothes.

"Mhm." Was your response before nodding and relocating your lips onto his.

The intensity of it made your heart stutter. You wanted him and at that moment he wanted you. He truly wanted you, you both felt it and took that feeling, using it to fuel the passion in that kiss. He moved down to your neck, nipping and biting at it. You moved your hand to slowly graze his wings, which made him freeze. Azriel gave you a look that made your body go on overdrive.

He picked you up, you wrapped your legs around his waist as he continued to "eat your neck" as Cassian had said all those days before. You rolled your eyes at the thought, but then they rolled back as Azriel bit at a sensitive area that intensified that already intoxicating feeling you got when you were with him.

And you wished it never ended.

~~~

"How do you feel about this?" You asked, hoping he'd be okay with it. So far he hadn't opposed.

"I don't want to hurt you." He confessed. You knew he meant physically, he could be a little rough sometimes. You were okay with that though, You rolled your eyes at his comment.

"I'm serious Y/N." He looked you in the eye. You were back at the training grounds of the Illyrian camp. You didn't specify any details, so you both didn't care about speaking in public.

"I'm a big girl, I think I can handle it." You began to walk ahead of him, He grabbed your forearm and pulled you back to face him, a hint of a smile on your face. "Only if you're sure."

Your smile faded once you saw that he was genuinely concerned. "Az, you wouldn't hurt me. I trust you."

He froze and let you go. He had a hard time letting people see how he was feeling but you could tell he was struggling with letting you in and his self-deprecation.

~~~

You had kept your secret "relationship" hidden from everyone else, as much as you could. It didn't take long. They were extremely nosy and it was difficult with Mor being your best friend. She always knew when you were lying and had insisted you were acting differently. You would always blow it off and say you had a good day, telling a random story you just thought of on the spot.

Cassian had continued to tease you about your secret lover-- which only intrigued Mor even further-- you avoided the truth most of the time. You and Azriel would be extra careful when doing what you did. Sometimes even going to Inns and you would both winnow to the location.

Going through all that trouble only for Amren to find out and threaten to tell the others. She tried to blackmail you into buying her a pure diamond bracelet. As if she couldn't afford it yourself. You talked to Azriel about it and you both decided you didn't care if anyone else knew, it's only a matter of time before they found out anyway. Plus you could use the money to buy a house somewhere private in Velaris. You enjoyed the privacy and lack of teasing for as long as it lasted.

Amren didn't tell but as you predicted, everyone did find out. Some already had suspicions like Mor, Rhys, and Feyre. Amren wouldn't have known if she hadn't caught you both and Cassian never would have thought. You'd be lying if you said you weren't disappointed at him not showing any sign of jealousy. You knew he wouldn't be, being caught up with Nesta and all but you still held hope. You considered yourself a fool and would try to fuck the feelings out of you with Azriel. And most of the time it worked.

~~~

Months went by as sleeping with your best friend became your new normal. You never would have thought that you'd be one of those mysterious girls that Azriel hooked up with, ever since that night, you were the only girl. You had to admit, you liked the idea; being Azriel's only girl. But you knew that although you would be the only girl in his bed, Mor will always be on his mind. Not that you blamed him, you were still somewhat hung up on Cassian. After you can't get rid of 500+ years of feelings.

As you laid next to Azriel, who now stayed nights instead of leaving right after, You admired his tattoos, the intricate designs, you fought the urge to trace them. You did anyways but only a centimeter away from his chest so you wouldn't wake him. In the morning light that slipped through a slight gap in your curtains, It shone right on him. He looked ethereal.

You always knew he was attractive most Illyrian men were, at least if they weren't assholes most of the time. You had time now, to actually take in his beauty. You could never understand how someone so beautiful and kind could be so broken. You guessed that's why you chose him to spend your nights with, instead of some random guy. You could help him and heal him and get him to appreciate himself more.

The shadows around him became more active, it made him tense up. He was awake. You lifted your hand up to up to move the stray hair that fell onto his face. At that moment, you felt your world shift an overwhelming sensation of love and adoration consumed your body and you snatched your hand away from him. You were in pure shock.

'Holy fuck' Was the only thing going through your head.

"What's wrong?"He questioned as if he could sense your distress. His voice hoarse from just waking up.

"Nothing." You said, immediately getting up and getting dressed in whatever you had closest to you. "You should, um, You should get going. I have a lot of reports to do, I've been holding them off but Rhys has been asking me for them for the longest so I should get on it."

Azriel sat up, the bed sheet covering one leg and another part. His perfectly sculpted body in your bed, the lighting, half of his leg uncovered by the blanket. You tried to compose yourself to figure out what you would do. Hoping that he didn't pick up on how different you were acting. It was no use he probably already expected something was up.

To try to ease the tension you sat next to him, brushing the hair out of his face, dragging your fingertips down to the side of his face, and kissed his cheek. You ignored the tingles you felt as his face nuzzled into your hand. Hesitantly, you remove your hand and got up from the bed, and sat at the desk you had in your room. You pretended to read through old letters from officials.

Azriel took that as his cue to leave. He got dressed and pressed a kiss to the back of your head before he left.

He definitely knew something, that's not how your mornings usually go. You would at least spend an hour or two together either talking or enjoying each other's presence before sending each other off to your respective duties. However due to your new discovery of Azriel being your mate. You panicked. What would you do now?

~~~

Hours had passed and you hadn't left your room, choosing to focus on the reports that you did in fact, have to do. Rhys just wasn't expecting them for another week or so. Mor then busted into your room. "Knock, knock bitch."

"Uh, hello gorgeous, didn't expect a lovely visit from you today." You said sarcastically, turning your chair to face her. She dropped the shopping bags onto your floor. You lifted a brow in question.

"We're going on a trip!"

"I'm busy." You turned back around to focus on what you were writing.

"It's a fun work one." You twisted your chair around again.

"How do you mean?"

"Day court gala, bonding with people, gaining trust, and all that." She waved it off as if you didn't need to know actual information. You decided you'd ask for details from Rhysand later.

"And you went shopping." You gestured to all of the bags. "like you don't have tons of outfits you could take."

"Well of course I do. These are for you." She grinned.

"W-what?"

"Just because you're supposed to be invisible and all that, doesn't mean you have to be like that all the time." She referred to your job description, being another spy for Rhysand, relying on you being a woman to get information from people Azriel couldn't. Kind of ridiculous considering Azriel's shadows allowed him to get all the information needed but it was an easy enough job. Unlike Az, you didn't have shadows to command so you stuck to your black outfits tunics, and suits that would help you move easily. You never really dressed up, unless it was for an occasion, but you enjoyed doing it when you could. Most of the time you would be on duty or something like it so you couldn't.

This Gala gave you the perfect excuse too. You were thankful to Mor for having bought you these dresses and accessories. You were pretty sure you had worn all the dresses you had in your closet already.

"Yeah, you're right." You gave her a half-smile. Part of you wondered what Azriel's reaction would be to you in one of these revealing dresses. You shook the thought from your head. You would dress for yourself not for some male, even if that male is your mate.

You debated whether to tell Mor or not. She might be able to help you with your internal battle. Part of you was hurt about Cassian not being your mate. Another part always knew that he wasn't, and another part of you wondered how Azriel would react. Did he feel the bond snap into place? Or was it a Feyre-Rhysand situation where the bond would snap into place at another moment? Would he reject you cause you weren't Mor?

You opted to tell Mor at the day court where you would have more space and privacy from the others.

~~~

Helion's words about uniting and bonding were very heartwarming and kind, but you couldn't get past the thoughts that swarmed your mind. You took advantage of this time with everyone listening to Helions welcoming speech and sneakily made your way over to where Mor was standing. You pretended to greet her with a kiss and whispered in her ear to meet you in the room you were staying at.

"Thank the cauldron you came along, Helion was droning on and was about to make me fall asleep." She joked as she sauntered into your room. She paused her amused tone as soon as she saw your face. "You were fine like two minutes ago."

"Glad to know, I'm good at hiding it." You forced a smile. She tilted her head as if to ask you 'what's wrong', so you told her. You told her that Azriel was your mate and how it happened. You told her of your fears of rejection and confusion with your love for Cassian. It was a different love now, you felt it. There was a shift in what you felt towards Cassian and more intense feelings for Azriel. You suspected the bond but you didn't mind it. You then opened up about your insecurity about him rejecting you for her. Which she shut down, though she knew what you meant.

"Mor, Azriel loves you, like I loved Cassian. What if his love for you is stronger and he refuses to let go. We all know the only reason he never went for you is his trouble with his self-worth." Those were harsh words, but they were true. "He could easily reject me for you, knowing you don't love him in that way."

"You don't know that Y/N. And you loved Cassian, probably as much as Azriel loved me. After all this time you spent together, you truly don't think he would have changed the way he feels for me?" She grabbed your hand in hers. "You and Azriel are like two sides of the same coin, he's all dark and brooding and you, well you're the same in some ways. But you bring out the light and you can cast out all of his darkness with a simple smile."

"I don't know." You whispered. You were scared. Your feelings for Azriel already began to grow, without the bond, with it in place now it was strengthened. Your feelings for Cassian was a background noise that would soon grow into a more familial type of love.

"What should I do Mor?" You whimpered, you put your face in your hands. "I feel like a girl with a crush. This is ridiculous."

She laughed and nodded. "Yes, yes it is. On the bright side, if he doesn't know about you being mates, you could still have fun with other people."

You gave her a look. "You forget that he's my designated person to 'have fun' with."

"I didn't know you had a conversation on exclusivity." She shrugged and walked over to the cart that had alcoholic drinks, at the corner of the room.

"Technically we did when we agreed to sleep with each other when we felt like it." You reasoned.

"Hm." She mused, sipping on her drink. "I still say enjoy tonight, dance with a few males, or females, and if you two end up having sex with him again just enjoy the time you have with him."

"Thanks for the talk, Mor."

"Of course darling, by the way, I highly doubt he'll reject you. If he does he's an idiot and I'll kill him." She sent a wink your way and left you in your room to think.

~~~

Azriel watched as you swayed your hips to the beat of the music. A man who he didn't know came up from behind you, keeping up with you. That was the first of many. He felt a twinge of jealousy in his gut. He attempted to force that emotion down. He couldn't understand where that was coming from.

He was keeping watch, even though he always made sure to keep a lookout for danger to his court. Mor and Cassian tried to get him to ease up, he didn't budge. Who would pry Cassian from more liquor when he's had enough to drink if Azriel wasn't sober? He used the excuse of being the only responsible one to keep an eye on her. Y/n, Azriel thought he knew what it was to love someone because of Mor but what Azriel felt for Y/N was different. It felt raw and real and whatever it was, was growing fast. She was easy to talk to, not that he did much of that but she listened, actually listened when he did, and she didn't pry or hover as much as the others. They tend to beat around the bush when wanting to know about what was going on with him. Unlike Y/N who would take her time to make sure he felt comfortable and if, he wasn't, she would change the topic and act normal.

Y/N was a calming presence that allowed him to just be. She brought out another side of him that he thought he could never be.

That's why when he felt a change in the way he saw her dancing with a new guy than the one she was with earlier, it all made sense. She was his mate. He saw red as he practically flew to where they were. The fae males' hands that were roaming your bonds were ripped away from you and he dragged him away. Azriel pinned the man against the wall. People began to stare and talk in hushed whispers, appalled at the sight.

"Never touch my mate, again." He growled. He dug his fingers into the guy's neck.

"I-I didn't know." The man choked out.

"Well, now you do." He muttered, letting the man slump to the ground. He went over to where you were standing, eyes wide. His eyes softened while looking at you. He slowed as he got to you. "Can we talk?"

You nodded your head and began to walk toward an empty hall.

"I'm sorry if I scared you." He kept his voice low but soft. He was afraid, you would want to run away.

"You didn't." You stood there staring at him. You tried to figure him out, to no avail. His face was always stoic. "I- I thought you'd reject me and now I don't know what to do." You confessed.

"You knew?" He tried to recall if you had acted any differently. His shadows had felt the change in your demeanor and set out in whispers when you were rushing him out. He brushed it off, he should've looked more into it. The last thing he wanted to do was to make you feel unwanted or rejected.

"Since yesterday morning." You confirmed. Your anxiety consumed you, you heard of the pain that came along with being rejected by your mate. Some have died from it. Little did you know Azriel was worrying about the same exact thing. Not thinking himself worthy enough of your affection. He allowed himself the pleasure of being in bed with you, assuming it was nothing more and he couldn't get hurt you or be hurt that way. It was a release from another pain you both had the displeasure of feeling.

"I want you to know it is an honor to have you as my mate." He took a step closer.

"Really? Honestly, I thought..." You shook your head. "Nevermind."

He looked confused but let it go, if you wanted to tell him you would. "Guess this means I have to go cook you something." You let out a laugh. He smiled an actual wide beautiful smile. Azriel grabbed your face and kissed you.

It was soon interrupted by a very drunk Mor who shouted, "Finally!"

Cassian was right behind her, "Mor! I forgot where the bathroom was, can y-" He paused looking between you and Azriel. "Oooh getting freaky in the hall, that's new. Hey Y/N if he isn't hitting it right, you know where to find me." He winked at you. Azriel gave him a murderous look, putting his arm in front of you. 'So he's gonna be one of those', you thought.

You couldn't wait till the second part of the mating process.

Tags: @wildchild2707​ ,@theworthlessqueen​ ,@ciciakai​ ,@rockinginneverland​