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no-droids · 4 years ago

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gif credit: @javier-pena

Part Eighteen of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 19.5K

Warnings: SMUT, religion kink (maybe?), squirting, consensual stalking/pursuing, canon-typical violence, mention of underage drinking, uhh I believe that’s it but as always, let me know if I’ve forgotten anything please!

A/N: Hey yall!!! So I know this chapter has been a long time coming and though I’m not completely satisfied with it, I hope it brings a little happiness to you for an hour or two while you read! School has been kicking my ass and I’ve been in a bit of an emotional slump recently, but I pulled a few all-nighters to post this on time and it’s finally finished! Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me and sent me encouraging words over the past month or so, I hope you enjoy the end of the Sanctuary arc💕

Also like last time, part 2 of my collaboration with @followwhereshegoes will be posted after the chapter!! As a reminder, sweet girl is a reader insert and every imagining of her will be different—this is Lisa’s interpretation of her and her artwork is absolutely gorgeous, so please go give her a follow!

Day 5–11:13am:

You zone out again in the early morning, but that happens a lot. Din always keeps you up so late, all the time, and without any caf here, the rising sun just makes your eyes droop instead of flutter brighter and wider. You helped a bunch of younglings find their way into their robes when it was still dark out, tying sashes and fitting masks while holding back your yawns. The walk into Nariss is close to three hours, probably more with all these tiny little legs, and you almost forget to change into your new digs before everyone grabs breakfast.

Even though your ragtag entourage leaves for Nariss just as soon as everyone finishes eating, you don’t reach the city until nearly lunchtime. Mostly because the kids walk about as fast as the elderly holy women chaperoning the trip. You and Naydee lag behind the group, forcing yourself to meander slow as fuck when you nearly sprinted this same exact path just a few days ago. On the way there, you listen to children of all sorts sing happily as they walk, chatter about their excitement for the parade, complain about wearing the fabric mask they made themselves, and more than once, somebody takes a tumble onto the ground and is left in teary sniffles and dirt stained clothes. Likely for this reason, the robes are designed to be two pieces—a long tunic with a hood and a separate pants portion to prevent tripping instead of a draping skirt, but the smallest ones are clumsy and find a way to fall anyways.

It’s a colorful bunch—a chaotic rainbow of babies running around, and you share easy conversation with your new friend about the plans for the day until she asks something that makes you nearly trip and join the dirty robe club.

“Sister Drya said your family is meeting you in the city,” she tells you, ignoring your immediate subtle toe stub and the awkward shuffle you have to do to make up for it. “There’s going to be lots of people downtown, I’m worried it might be hard for them to find you.”

Your heart thuds in your chest and you feel a bit short of breath at being abruptly confronted with the need to lie, but at the same time, you kind of love it. Having a secret, hiding the truth from others, and just the reminder that you’re almost guaranteed to see Din and the baby before midnight pours warmth and tingles through your tummy. Everything together is a hit of spice, filling you with a kind of excitement that used to be foreign to you. Having fun, experiencing new things isn’t quite over yet, but home is calling and you miss it with every fiber of your being.

“I don’t think so,” you eventually respond, hoping she can see your kind smile and the sentiment it carries even as light, shimmery fabric wraps right around your mouth. “If I disappear, you’ll know why.”

Naydee’s eyes crinkle in the corners to match yours. “Hopefully you’ll be able to see the fireworks first,” she nudges you, her skin glowing against the pale cream fabric she has wrapped around her own mouth and the hood laying delicately over her braids. “They start at eight.”

The fireworks, you almost forgot. You know what? Today is a good day. You hear yourself think the full sentence multiple times, and the words put a spring in your step after every single one. The road gradually becomes wider and filled with more travelers, and you feel safe in the back. Like some kind of sheepdog bringing up the rear of this migrating cluster of children, making sure none of them drift off by themselves and start eating grass or something.

Surprisingly, the kids manage to be relatively patient and well-behaved once they’re in line at the gates. The Sisters shuffle them along one by one as everyone moves up slowly, taking even longer to get into the city than it did a few days ago. The entrance is packed already—so many people visiting for the festival, and they’re all dressed in costumes or robes of sorts, or at least a mask. Most are beautifully crafted, but some manage to look slightly scary even with the soft springtime color schemes. It’s a completely different world, a different life for each person as you pass them by. Your stomach is starting to growl by the time you finally make it to the front, and luckily the guards just let the kids through without any ceremony. Just you and the rest of the caretakers in light robes need to hold still for the retinal scan, matching each other perfectly except for differing shades of fabric, skin, and eye color. Once the gates open for you and you step through, though… it’s… Maker.

Extravagant, magnificent are both words. Floral is another.

It’s like they hung up bouquets wherever they could think to fit them, and this is just the edge of the city. As the group moves through the streets and closer to downtown, it becomes more and more overwhelming. The air itself is a warm fragrance wafting all around you, sunshiney and breezy and perfect, flowers of all kinds lining the modern buildings and archways like they were planted there from the very beginning and it just took this long to bloom between the cracks in the concrete. You wish you had names for all of them so you could list them—the only thing you can offer is the color and vague descriptions of the ones that stick out to you. Tiny yellow ones that are so small, they need to be bunched all together in massive quantities to even resemble normal flowers. Up overhead, elaborate arrangements of enormous blue and purple and pink ones, wrapping around each other and hanging down from rooftops. Some don’t even have petals, it’s like they’re big green cups that are big enough to hold things inside them. You’re fascinated by every single one, wanting to stop and smell them all individually but needing to keep up with the large group and not allow any stragglers to be left behind, including yourself.

About an hour later, when you’re almost in the middle of the city and there are people everywhere, it’s time to eat lunch. There isn’t much to it because of how expensive it is, and you’d normally feel bad for accepting the small meal each one of the children gets, but you donated all of your credits to the Keja and left absolutely zero for yourself. Good intentions, terrible idea. Still, you pull your mask down and snack on some deliciously fried food, trying not to eye anyone else’s platter after you finish yours. It’s so good and it’s gone in an instant; you couldn’t even say what exactly it was besides which stall you got it at. Whether it’s just the brilliant atmosphere or if the food on this moon is really just that good, you’re not really sure, but you’re still slightly hungry afterwards with no extra money to sneak a snack.

Soon after, the kids all line up to get their faces painted, or whatever portion of their face is visible behind the cloth masks and hoods they’ve got on, and music blares from at least four different directions and none of the songs are even in the same language. Depending on the part of town, it seems like the celebrations are all different. It makes sense, considering most if not all of these individuals were victims of the Empire’s wrath, spread far and wide across the galaxy. Here, they’re free, and they want everyone to know it. Spring festivals of some sort are likely common for most cultures, at least those from planets with seasons, not like Arvala-7 where it was arid and hot year-round, and you’re assuming there are multiple things being celebrated today depending on which street you live on. There’s chanting in different tongues, dancing and drums, outfits and masks from different cultures every single time you look.

At some point, the children spot a crowded street with flowery rails set up all along them, and you stand behind the tiny heads while everyone waits for the parade to begin. You think your heart has just been beating slightly faster than normal all day today, but when you finally hear the sound of sirens blaring in the distance and cheers begin to pour out from the gathered crowd, it kicks up and you feel like you’re just as wide eyed at the spectacle as the waist-high babies all huddled together up against the railing.

A flurry of people and things pass in slow succession. First, New Republic officers with their blaring holobikes, bright orange as always. Then come large groups of people walking behind banners in languages you can’t read, some of them waving, some of them making different sounds and songs. Bands marching in formation, dancers in dresses and masks and gorgeous flowers in their hair like crowns, and then brilliant hovering vehicles decorated in bright colors and festive depictions. The craftsmanship and cultural significance is stunning to witness, it’s so insanely loud, there’s so much going on, and yet…

Through it all, you think of Din. No matter the faces, the sights you see. There’s someone juggling. There’s either a very tall man and woman walking together or they’re both on stilts. There are enormous balloons being led through the air, people are riding atop an assortment of animals you’ve never seen before, there are traditional costumes and spectacular stunts being performed. Stalls with games and prizes line the stretches of concrete on the cross streets, people are laughing and celebrating and drinking in equal parts, everything is so lively and festive and fun, and yet, though it all, you think of Din. Him and the baby, they’re always in the forefront of your mind, occupying your thoughts and making your tummy stir more and more as the time passes like the parade in front of you. You don’t think this environment would ever be his favorite, and in some far away galaxy, perhaps if you lived other lives together and called a beautiful moon exactly like this home, then you might have to drag him out to see all the with you and the kid every year. You’d have to bat your eyelashes and kiss his cheek and snuggle up to him all nice and pretty like, and he’d probably grumble and complain about it while wrapping his arms around you—all the people and the noise, sweet girl—but he’d go. For you, he’d go.

Your thoughts suddenly stop short and you blink for a second. Why… Why was that scene so vivid? So wistful? You used to preoccupy yourself with fantasies about Din all the time, back before you even knew him as Din. But in every single one, it was sexual and likely came from a place of boredom, a lack of external stimulation. Here you are amidst bustling surroundings, and you’re daydreaming about domesticity with him. Why? You want to travel the galaxy, right? You want to see things you’ve never seen before, right?

For some reason, you think of the floor, and you miss it.

***

Day 5—5:04pm:

It’s late afternoon at this point and nobody can find the teens.

More people have made their way into the city and it’s starting to get extremely fucking crowded, especially where you are downtown, and the handful of them must’ve slipped away with all the excitement happening and how difficult it is to keep the young ones together now that the parade is over. You don’t know how long they’ve been gone—one second they were walking around just slightly detached from the rest of you, you assumed because the boisterous younglings fucked with their cool vibe, and then the next Naydee is gasping out to you that they’re gone.

“Sister Drya is going to kill me,” she hisses, her dark eyebrows furrowed in self-admonishment and stress. So many fucking people here, you know her pain. “I was supposed to be chaperoning them, they were just here—”

She shakes her head under the loose, cream-colored hood, groaning and then speeding up her gait to catch up with the woman in charge, but you decide to grab her wrist before she can relay the bad news.

“I can go find them,” you offer, speaking as low as you can with the blaring noise surrounding you. “Before anyone knows they’re missing. Is there a way to convince everybody to stay in one spot for a little while? You won’t get in trouble, but I need to know how to find you again.”

Naydee’s eyes widen in surprise, and even though it’s likely a bit out of character for you, you have a feeling it’ll be a deceptively easy task. Even with the masses right now and how atrociously big this city is, you already have a general idea of where they’re likely to be. Besides, you’re not even sure your absence will be noticed if Naydee is the only one who figured out the teens were gone—the other Sisters can thrive without you while missing anyone else would be noticeable, and you owe your new friend a thousand favors for helping you out these past few days. The least you can do is save her from the scolding of one of the scariest old ladies you've ever met.

“Be as quick as you can,” she finally agrees. It’s a lot of trust to put into you, but you’ve had experience in reading the most unreadable man in the entire galaxy, some teenagers shouldn’t pose too much of a problem. “If you’re not back in thirty minutes or somebody notices, I’ll have to say something.”

You nod, silently breaking away from the group without another word. You think you can hear her announce to everyone that it might be best to eat dinner now to skip any long lines later—smart—but you’re out of their hearing range and line of sight almost immediately.

***

Day 5–5:17pm:

“Really?” You raise an eyebrow since they won’t be able to see the way your mouth is twisted up underneath your mask, crossing your arms and tapping your foot against the ground to further illustrate just how not fucking impressed you are.

Seven teenagers freeze, and slowly—depending on how much bravery they can individually muster—they turn around on their stools to face you. The atmosphere in the tavern is bustling and cheery, booze being passed around a large crowd that laughs and mingles, but your vibe is stone cold and quiet. The contrast doesn’t feel wrong on you like it normally would; the negative and disapproving energy you’re emitting makes you feel powerful, untouchable, armored and strong.

“How did you find us so fast?” One of the twin boys squeaks out behind a light blue robe, sounding worried.

“Had a hunch,” you grumble, glaring sternly at each of them in turn. Your tone is dry, your voice sits lower in your throat when you’re pissed off. All you had to do was look for the closest bar that doesn’t have any orange jumpsuits poking around waiting to card underage younglings, it wasn’t that difficult. “You’re not exactly unpredictable.”

“Are you gonna rat us out?” The other twin asks you, in a voice that’s oddly deep compared to his brother.

“I should,” you snap, quickly reaching out to push their drinks away. “I should let Sister Drya rain down her holy fury on your asses, got good people all twisted up over you for nothing and I’m missing dinn—”

You don’t know why, but you suddenly cut yourself off and jerk upright, spinning around.

The sounds of glasses clinking and boisterous voices fill the bar, but they seem to fade out for a second. Your eyes fly around the crowded space, your heart lodged in your throat and looking for anything reflective. Every flash you see is a false alarm—belt buckle, wristwatch, cocktail shaker—

He’s here… isn’t he?

Only, there’s nothing. Nothing is out of place, nothing jumps out at you the way you’re assuming it will. You’re braced taut and ready to bolt at the first sign of a chase, but it never comes.

It’s so… unexpected, this feeling. It’s not like you’re being hunted anymore, but instead, you’re the hunter. You’re feeling the weight of him from this far away and it’s like he’s calling for you to come find him, teasing the wild adrenaline rush you get from just feeling his presence, as if he absolutely knows it happens. Whispering soft in your ear and then vanishing the second you’re able to turn around, like he’s here but he’s not. Playing with you from so far away.

This… this is a taunt.

The whole thing at the inn was leagues below this, that was rudimentary. Teasing, getting even, having fun with each other, whatever you want to call that, that’s what it was. This is scarily sophisticated. Fluid and practiced and the best kind of frightening, stark and dangerous compared to the carefree and upbeat setting surrounding you. You’re not making it up, it’s not just you being paranoid. You know him with your eyes closed. You know he’s here somewhere watching you, just like you know the starlight that streaks across the pitch black horizon of hyperspace. Not because you can see it, not really, not directly. But because by it, even in the vastest and darkest and emptiest of voids, you’re suddenly able to see everything else.

“You okay, Nerida?”

The volume gradually comes back up and you blink, suddenly remembering where you are, who else is with you. The chatter becomes slightly louder than it seemed before.

“Yeah,” you eventually say, slightly airy while continuing to stare emptily at the crowded room. He’s not here, you don’t think, not anymore at least. But you’re not stupid, you know what this means. You’re already caught, there’s nothing you can conceivably do that will delay the reunion for the next—you look down and pull the loose sleeve up to check your communicator—seven fucking hours, there’s no way. He’ll pull back and follow you, keep up with you from a distance and then snatch you away right when you let your guard down. You at least need to get the kids back to their guardians before that can happen, though.

“Let’s go,” you quietly tell the group of foundlings, grabbing elbows and hauling them out of their stools. “Naydee was the only one who knew that you were gone when I left. Here’s to hoping she managed to keep it that way.”

***

Day 5–5:32pm:

Against all odds, you’re able to rally the wayward teens and successfully lead them through shoulders that are beginning to move closer together as the crowd grows and grows. You stay towards the back and don’t look behind you once—not only do you not want to give the younglings an unnecessary reason to become paranoid or to question your actions, but you can still feel Din lingering. Moving like a shadow, probably fitting in perfectly with the masked festival-goers, nothing drawing any attention to him with all the spectacular sights and noise occurring.

Soon you return to the same spot from before, and you and the teenagers seamlessly integrate yourselves back into the rest of the group without anyone noticing a thing is out of place. When you move to stand beside her, Naydee’s bone-deep sigh of relief is palpable even behind the concealing fabric; she squeezes your hand incredibly tight in a silent gesture of thanks, and then pulls something from the deep pockets of her robe and passes it to you sneakily. A purple fruit. She must’ve saved it for you.

Maker, fuck yes. It’s not much but it’s more dinner than any of the seven troublemakers get, but Naydee quietly assures you they’ll be able to eat something once they return to the Keja around midnight, just not the tasty expensive treats they’re selling at the vendors. As the sun goes down, you try not to stain your pretty fabric a deep maroon as you chomp and feel your lips start to curl upwards. It sounds so fucking stupid when you put it like this, but you keep going back to Din and revelling in knowing that he’s so close, like you’re just mentally checking in on him. You don’t get the sensation by thinking, though—more like you just focus really hard on your heart and feel him there just a second afterwards.

Is that how pure, stupid, shameless love feels when you’re completely entrenched in it? It’s not like it’s surrounding you, it’s not suffocating you or making you float. It’s just a thing. Like… a thing inside your chest, a physical thing you can search for and find, something you can point to on your body and say it’s right here, this is where my love for him lives. Right at the bottom of your heart, right where it curves and beats strong when other hearts meet flat at sharp angles. You do it over and over again, reconfirming its existence every single time. You don’t know what else you’d call it. Love is the only word. To love, to know. To hold in the heart.

Soon, you start to notice that people are slowly moving around your stationary group. You look up and watch the crowd begin to walk, some of them giving soft smiles to the cute children as they pass by, but all of them following the same unspoken direction.

“Where is everyone going?” You ask Naydee, standing on your tiptoes to watch the crowd migrate like a giant system, an organism or mechanism of thousands (or tens of thousands?) of smaller moving parts all traveling in tandem. It’s fascinating—you’ve been to crowded places, you know what it looks like when a lot of people are packed into one area, but you’ve never seen what it looks like when they all move together. They would normally be bumping into each other, slipping in between, fighting and never really getting anywhere, interacting individually and thinking separately. Now they’re progressing in one single direction, so many with the same mindset and understanding of what comes next. A second parade, almost, with New Republic officers directing the flow of pedestrians as they pass.

“The eastern part of the city!” Naydee yells over the noise and points, and beyond her extended finger, you can barely see the light of a dusky body of water in the distance beyond the buildings. “The fireworks are going to go off over the bay, but it takes awhile to get there!”

“Is…” You blink for a second, suddenly caught off guard, trying to think back to the holomap the concierge pulled up at the front desk of the inn. Surely you would’ve noticed it, but your sudden childlike hope makes you ask anyway. “Is it part of an ocean?”

Naydee shakes her head. “A really big lake!”

Your shoulders drop just the slightest bit in disappointment but still, you ache to see it. You can’t even imagine—the fireworks are likely going to reflect across the water, giving everyone double the view. And luckily, after all the children and caretakers are individually accounted for, you start to behind the slow-moving crowd towards the docks you know lie beyond.

Naydee scurries ahead to keep the kids together, ushering them forward and preventing any drunk passer-bys from accidentally stepping on them, and you quietly bring up the very rear of the entourage. You take the time to observe more than anything, walk in the back and experience instead of trailblaze. So many people, so many stories to be told, so many differences and diversity around you. Your face is partially concealed and you don’t move your head too much, just your eyes. They flick around to take in everything, the crowd thinning little by little as you make it out of the confined space downtown. You’re able to make out full bodies and outfits again instead of just heads and shoulders, allowing you to breathe just a bit easier under your mask.

And then at one point—and it’s almost a little startling because it happens all at once—the organizers must decide that the sun has officially gone down, because the lights come on. All of a sudden, paper lanterns and bulbs flicker into existence all around you and the world decides it wants to glow, glint and twinkle from the inside out. They’re everywhere, draping across rooftops and tangled around street signs and stuffed into the flower bouquets overhead, raining soft colors down on everything. You’re in complete awe, trying to keep walking but also needing to look at as much as fucking possible in the suddenly luminescent city. It’s so colorful, so vernal and warm and you feel like you’re… Like when you took a shower on the Crest for the first time and spent a few happy moments just playing with the water and soap for your own enjoyment, it’s as if all the brilliant rainbow of colors the bubbles would make under the fluorescent light decided to surround you at the same time. You’re inside stained glass, blinking at the flowers and wondering if Din can even smell the air or if it’s filtered, processed and reduced to nothing under the helmet.

And that’s when you see him.

But with the way your chest rapidly constricts and you can count your heart beats as they pound, blaring white noise through your ears and adrenaline through your veins, it’s like he's just allowing it to happen. You immediately understand that you don’t have fucking anything the second your eyes land on him; this isn’t a heads up that you caught wind of early, it’s not a gift or an advantage you’ve incidentally gained over him that you should be thankful for. Being able to see him directly like this, being able to make out all these fucking details from this far away… This just feels like you’re being informed of the endgame right before it comes. If you were anyone else, if you were a real bounty and this was a real hunt, his armor glinting and reflecting the lanterns overhead would feel like a knife you're about to be on the wrong side of.

You have a decision to make, very quickly. Either keep in this same direction, head straight towards him and just pretend like you are who you’re dressed as, a random caretaker for a bunch of rowdy foundlings during a spring festival on Nariss, or disappear. Drop back, move through the crowd and use the distance you have between you right now as your only hope of getting away in time. Neither one gives you a particular advantage—your chances of being caught have already skyrocketed exponentially just being able to see the reflection in his armor, the hovering shield at his side with big black eyes… staring directly at you.

You almost trip over your pantlegs, gasping. Baby. He beams at you and you think he calls out through the passing crowd, his tiny arms extending out, and your chest feels like you’re pulling organs as if they were muscles, cramping up and seizing with emotion. You want to run to them even though you’re meant to be running from them, call out over the noise and wave even though you’re not supposed to. You want to hold the kid again, squish his little forehead with kisses, walk around with Din’s hand pressed against your lower back and see the fireworks with him.

Your hands clutch at the draping fabric covering your chest, pulling and twisting it uncertainly. What do you do, what do you do?

No matter what, you know it’s over. Keep your head down and try to move past him, or break away from your group and try to escape—both are different paths that lead to the same result. What’s the point of running when he’s the one chasing you? The heart-pounding thrill is the only reason you’re even considering it, but his body stands so tall amongst the crowd, not moving while people ebb and flow like a river passing around him.

Except then you can hear his voice repeat the last thing he said to you in person as if he says it directly into the comm in your ear. When you do see me… try to outrun.

You should run—run, it’s better than just hoping he doesn’t see you when you already know he does.

Unless…

Out of a trillion different possibilities, you soon realize that there is exactly one situation in which this could turn out in your favor. You can immediately picture the scenario in your mind, but there’s just too many variables to conceivably rely on getting them all right. This maybe has a… two percent chance of working? Maybe? Everything would have to go perfectly, just fucking flawlessly, but what other choice do you have? Two percent is better than whatever odds you’re dealing with now.

You walk silently behind the group of foundlings as you approach closer and closer, keeping your head purposefully down as they skip and giggle and dance ahead. He knows you’re here—he has to know, you’re counting on him knowing. Walk right in front of him, pretend like you don’t see, make sure you keep left. Keep left, keep left, keep your head down, keep your head down—

A leather glove suddenly catches hold of your wrist hard enough to tug you backwards.

Your gasp is audible over the sound of the crowd and you spin around, jerking your head up to look at him in fear. Your heart slams as the beskar reflects your mask and hood back at you—you’re terrified and it shows, you can see it in your eyes.

You quickly try to yank your hand away, even as your index finger stretches up towards the communicator around his wrist.

“Miss Nerida?” A child’s voice cries, and then small hands grab at you from behind as you bury the urge to actually fight him. Your instincts are demanding you attack when his grip is this strong, but you just whine and struggle, slapping weakly at him with your free hand and feeling more of the younglings begin to pull at you, their high pitched voices calling more and more attention to the scene.

Your gaze flicks to the side, suddenly landing on a pair of New Republic officers helping direct the thousands of moving bodies from the closest street corner. They’re looking at you, pointing and beginning to speak into their own comm units. Din’s helmet snaps sideways to follow your gaze, and then he’s immediately dropping your wrist and stepping back, retreating as quickly as he caught you. Though you don’t want to—though you don’t want to give yourself away even more, you want to pretend fully that he was a complete stranger and the children were right to try to help you get away—your eyes fall to your son in the hovering crib by his side and you feel yourself crumble just a bit.

Just a few more hours, kid. A few more hours.

Children pull you away while your pursuers both disappear into the crowd, and you quickly turn to soothe the tiny babies instead of chasing after the one you miss so terribly.

“I’m alright,” you tell them, scooting them up and encouraging them to continue walking. Blend in, blend in, don’t let anybody think anything is wrong. “Come on, we’re fine, come on, we have to catch up.”

They take your lead as soon as one of the caretakers turns around and sees the small group crowding around you. You think she asks what happened, but you just tell her a man mistook you for someone else and nothing more comes of it. She’s able to settle the chaos better than you are, and by the time you’re continuing to travel forwards once more like nothing happened, the communicator suddenly flicks on in your ear.

“What did you do?” He breathes out, his footsteps moving fast through his voice. He’s traveling much quicker than you expected—is he still being followed? The officers are gone from your sight, they might be going after him right now, weaving between bodies and calling out to the perpetually vanishing glint of armor as he navigates his way out of danger.

You look down at the comm on your wrist and your heart nearly soars with victory. It worked. It worked. You just have to outlast a bit longer, don’t draw any extra attention to it—he’s preoccupied and he certainly doesn’t sound happy, but you hope that’ll be enough to make him slip. Use his frustration to your advantage, let him think the only thing you were successful at was momentarily escaping him.

“The cops weren’t part of the plan,” you admit quietly, keeping your head down as your loose hood billows in the twilight breeze. “Don’t get caught.”

There’s a few moments of just his breathing, his footsteps, and the noise floor humming through the comm, before he finally responds. “You look beautiful.”

You stare unseeingly down at the concrete under your feet, still feeling your hand tingle from where he caught you. The line abruptly mutes on his end and you just keep moving forward, onward, wanting to look back but knowing he’s already long gone.

***

Day 5–5:24pm:

Din is fucking furious.

He had you. You were right there, right in front of him, and even if he hadn’t been subtly trailing you all day, seeing the red footsteps get covered and flicker out of existence just a few moments after you make them, he would’ve recognized you anywhere. In black and white, in the fading light, with your face covered, children calling you by a different name and attaching themselves to you like they’ve known you forever—doesn’t matter, he would’ve known you. Your eyes have always given you away, always so expressive and starry and soft, but able to see right through solid steel whenever you look at him.

But then you slipped from his grasp, and then more guards pushed him further and further away from you. They must all be in constant communication, because every single jumpsuit he sees immediately spots him and starts following. It’s fucking exhausting, and he thinks of you the whole time.

He waits in a dark alley with the kid and taps the side of the helmet a few times to bring up the time on his comm, but then relaxes just slightly when he sees the hour. It’s earlier than he thought it was, he’ll be able to find you again.

Though, something tugs at him while he’s looking at the clock ticking away in front of his eyes, counting down each second that passes. There was… a moment. Back in the square, when he was holding onto you again, when you were looking directly into his once more—everything in his helmet—

No, he shakes his head while the kid looks up at him curiously, it can’t be. It was just a split second, it was gone so fast.

But he can’t get rid of it. Though there’s no explanation, he thinks the display screen flickered. The sky behind you looked different for a single frame, your footsteps weren’t bright red and visible anymore, your eyes weren’t grey and he stopped wondering what shade of fabric you and your friend decided to choose for you to wear. It was silvery, he’s almost certain. Like his armor, it only reflected the color of everything around it.

Color. Everywhere. Bursting for a blink of an eye, and then gone just as quick, before he could actually figure out what it really meant.

***

Day 5–6:59pm:

This water is quiet here, but it sparkles.

It doesn’t ever really get truly dark thanks to the enormous hanging moon and ringed gas giant dancing with Sanctuary II, constantly reflecting light back onto the surface and reacting with some of the trace chemicals up above the atmosphere, and you think the sky just might be the prettiest you’ve ever seen it. Must have something to do with the equinox, the glimmering angles of light being played with by celestial bodies in this stunning system, but it’s a dream. The Maker apparently couldn’t decide which colors he wanted tonight so he just splashed all of them together all at once, let them run and blend like ink in the gentle water below, like the various people who call this moon home.

That view in front of you, coupled with all the flowers and lanterns lining the streets behind you, and you’ve lost track of time the exact same way you hoped Din would. You think you’ve stood for about an hour or so in this one spot, half-listening to excited chatter from the babies, mostly just gazing across the stretch of water and being able to just barely spot the docks in the distance, but it feels like it’s only been minutes.

You check your watch—the fireworks should be starting any second now. You don’t know what to expect, just that in your experience, explosions tend to be loud. You've decided you’re not going to plug your ears, though. Tummy twisting with nerves and another inexplicable feeling you can’t quite put your finger on, you resolve to experience the unknown exactly the way it’s meant to be. Fully, without worry or fear.

Then, lacking any warning or ceremony whatsoever, a single flare launches silent and high from one of the small boats skimming the bay, and the crowd seems to hold its collective breath as the dim light disappears into thin air for a split second, before—

It’s… quite possibly the most dazzling thing you think you’ve ever seen. So shamelessly decorative just for the sake of it, not serving any other practical purpose besides celebration and visual spectacle, and you’ll probably never know another extravagance like it. You grew up with dust pelting against tired eyes, you never thought they’d get to reflect such gorgeous bursts of color back up at the sky, glassy and childlike amongst a group of equally wide-eyed children.

As expected, a deafening boom follows closely behind the singular display, but just witnessing it is incredible enough to make you forget to brace yourself for the sound and you jump almost violently in response. There comes a loud cheer from the people standing around you, a few delighted gasps and children who decide now is the best time to start crying, but then more flares begin to launch from the boats and the subsequent show will sear itself into your memory to replay over and over again.

Still, you think the endless sky and dark water below would have to light on fire to stop him from coming to mind.

Din.

You click the comm on, continuing to stare in stunned awe but wanting nothing more than to hear his voice right now, feel his hand rest on your lower back and the kid’s three fingers squeezing one of yours while the stars rain down from above. You’re only continuing to run from him because it’s expected of you, that’s the reason you’re here, but it’s becoming harder and harder to argue with yourself. “Do you always see in black and white?”

It takes him just a few seconds to respond, but he always does. “Only when I’m tracking someone.”

The loud booms can be heard over the earpiece, happening maybe a second after they crack and sparkle above you. You can’t tell if the latency is due to the electronics or if he’s just that far away from the source of the sound itself, but… you don’t think he is. He feels close again, like he could just walk up right next to you any second, or maybe that’s just how he always feels now.

“Does that mean you haven’t seen the sky here?” You ask after a moment. This whole time, everything has been grey for him?

“I saw it,” Din murmurs, and even though it’s quiet and explosions are thundering loud enough to deafen more sensitive ears, his quiet voice somehow breaks through it all. “When you left the Crest, I saw it behind you.”

For some reason, you suddenly feel like crying. Whether it’s the way he phrases it or the sentiment in the words, you’re close to tears without even knowing why, looking up at the sky illuminating spectacularly. He says it like he wasn’t the one who parked on this moon and told you to go on without him. “Can you… turn it off for just a second?”

He takes a second, before clarifying for you. “I turn it off and I lose your footprints.”

So that was the ultimatum. He doesn’t want to turn it off until you’re back with him again. Does he not understand? Does he not know what you know? Maybe you just happened to feel it first, this overwhelming physical sensation inside you whenever you think about him. It’s like the exact opposite of a hole in your chest. And it’s so odd, so counterintuitive. Being comforted in his absence, feeling him with you when he isn’t. Falling in love in the dark, knowing him without ever seeing him.

“You never needed them,” you say, reaching up to pull your mask down under your jaw and chin for a moment, wanting to freely breathe the freshwater and flowers while stars explode and fracture across the sky. It’s a truth you’re acknowledging, something you’ll carry with you, something you fundamentally own at this point. “You’d find me without the helmet. And I’d find you.”

The fireworks continue to bleed into the water beneath them, multicolor splashes rippling into existence and disappearing just as quick. You could’ve never imagined a more colorful, magnificent landscape—besides your waterfall on Naboo, of course. That was a pure product of nature though, a place hidden away and untouched by people, completely sacred. Light refracting against mist, natural glass that would shatter under your weight. This is a celebration of life and family. Loud in a different way, affecting you in a different way, but just as wonderful and touching. A cultivated paradise, designed to be beautiful and safe only because they wanted it to be.

“Think so?” He asks softly. He sounds so deep and warm, but… a little distant. You’re able to hear it in his words. You don’t know why, though. Doesn’t he believe you? Perhaps… perhaps this isn’t The Way. Perhaps this is part of a completely different oath, one where knowing and loving somebody isn’t the same thing as looking at their face, not at all. Where you can have them exist entirely separate from each other, because this is love. This is real, enduring, bone-deep love, and you haven’t ever seen his face, so how would he explain that? How would the Mandalorians reconcile that? You bear the mark of the mudhorn, you’ve moved through time and space with him, you’re a mother to his son, and you’ve never seen his face. It defies both the Mandalorian oath and traditional understandings of love, or it meets them right in the middle, depending on how you look at it.

“I know so.” For the first time, you think you might sound more confident and certain than he does. Maybe he doesn’t fully get it yet, but then you suppose he’ll just have to trust you. “Will you look at the sky?”

“I see it,” Din tells you, but you know he doesn’t. Not the way you want him to. And stars, you just want so many things for him, don’t you? The sky, fresh air, water, light, food, rest. You want him to see the galaxy the way you do—have a new appreciation for the gifts that are given just because you’re alive to experience them. All the physics and mathematics aligned perfectly for it to happen—all the chemistry, the systems, the dynamics that dictate the universe, they all got together and crafted a world where you, him, and the kid all exist together at the same time. You want him to know the significance of that.

“With color?” You ask, knowing his answer before he seems to.

“I…” Din wants to argue, or at least say it again. He can’t or he’ll lose you, he already told you he doesn’t want to turn the setting off. It’s such an unnecessary conflict, but you want to respect it so much that you’re willing to give up things of your own to make it happen.

“How do I fix it then?” You whisper, so desperately wanting this one thing for him, this one grandeur to behold. How do you fix this problem? How do you convince him to look with you? You’d offer to just go and find him instead of continuing to run away for the next few hours, but you know the show will be over soon and you don’t have much time left. “Do you want me to come look for you? It’ll be too late by then, you’re too far away. Look at the sky.”

It’s silent for a moment—truly silent, even though colorful bombs are going off above the bay. You don’t know why you’ve attached yourself to this so strongly, but it’s almost devastating when you don’t get a response. You look away from the spectacle for the first time in an eternity, gazing unseeingly into the crowd of onlookers with a sudden sadness taking hold of you. He won’t look, he’s too stubborn, he holds onto things too tightly.

But then, a flurry of flares start launching in rapid succession from the distant boats, screaming and crying on their way up and then igniting into showers of light, and the abrupt increase in activity manages to catch your attention once again. This must be the end, they saved the best for last. Every corner of the horizon flashes and sparks, and you’re mesmerized at how bright it is, how many colors they’ve managed to fit into one single frame.

“It’s beautiful,” comes his voice, and the smile that you break into feels just right for the brilliance of the view above you. Maker, it is, isn’t it? Now you can hear it—he sounds like he’s looking at it too, with color, in all its breathtaking glory, and you feel like you’re flying. Like he picked you up and let you watch up close, like you can feel his armor under your fingers right now as he carries you through the sky.

It swells up inside you, a rising wave similar to the ones you can see in the distance, and you know you probably shouldn’t say it because it’s not in your best interest to say it right now, but you have to say it anyways. It’s an unknowable compulsion, a need to connect and communicate directly with him but for your sake, not presently, not at this exact moment in time.

Luckily, you mute your comm just in time and simply give the words to him from very far away.

“Hurry up,” you say, sending the sentiment into the sky with all your love, and the conflicting hope that he won’t take the advice until a bit later on. “Come and find me.”

***

Day 5–7:37pm:

After the fireworks are over, people start to drift off in separate directions, clearing the traffic and congestion from the streets around you. Someone puts their hand on your shoulder and you blink a few times, spinning around and almost stepping on a bunch of tiny little feet by accident.

Stars, that’s a lot of children. They’re all crowded around Naydee, who pats a few heads and almost buckles under the younglings clinging to her leg.

“Figured you would be long gone by now,” she grins at you from behind her mask, and you’re reminded to pull yours up over your face just from looking at her. “It’s late—we’re going back to the Keja.”

“Oh, shit,” you breathe in surprise, but the noise of the gradually dispersing crowd manages to cover it up. At least from younger, more easily distracted ears, but you think Naydee hears you. Her dark eyes roll good-naturedly, looking happy but exhausted from the long day. You’re going to have to say goodbye now.

“What happened to your family?” She asks after a moment, and you think she’s being careful with the way she says it, likely because family is a difficult topic to navigate in general around some of the children hanging on her and begging for her attention. “Have you been in touch with them? If not, I’m sure you can come back with us. It’ll be late by the time we get there, but at least you’ll be safe.”

You open your mouth to automatically decline her offer, knowing Din is still in the crowded city looking for you and wanting to stay where there’s lots of people.

But then… well, he would expect you to do that, wouldn’t he?

There’s more people here. More danger, but better places to hide. It’s the obvious choice, it’s the one that makes the most logical sense. But you’d also be completely alone and you’re assuming the only reason he hasn’t snatched you up yet—which you know he could’ve done multiple times by now, is likely because you’re with a group of innocent foundlings, moody teenagers, and very stern older women. He probably doesn’t realize you’ve told them about him and the kid, though you were slightly vague on the details.

It’s also a little over three hours to get back, but you’re banking on it being closer to four with how whiney and tired some of the small voices sound, others sounding like they’re an enormous sugar rush contained into a tiny little capsule. Would he have the gall to try and get you right from under their noses? Will he even know you left the city, or will he assume you made the smartest decision possible and simply account for it ahead of time? No, you're overthinking it, just make a decision and stick with it.

“There’s also free food,” Naydee shrugs while you’re still considering, but… well, that settles that. Almost three days of friendship and she already knows exactly how to win you over in the end. Sustenance for your empty tummy, an escort the entire way there, and heavily guarded walls beyond. Din will have to get creative in response—you flaunted your imagination for days, coming up with dozens of evasion tactics to outlast him, but this one just seems… incredibly practical. Exploiting a weakness of his—isolating it, having it be reinforced by precedent, and then taking advantage of it. You bet he’ll catch on, but still, it’ll make it more difficult for him, and you’re grasping at straws to hang on just a little longer.

“I…” Quick, come up with something. You clear your throat. “The city is too crowded, I haven’t been able to find them. I could just… tell them where I’m headed and see if they can find me along the way?”

Naydee smiles and nods. “Sounds perfect.”

Yet, the entire walk back… you keep thinking you’re going to feel Din trailing behind you, waiting to feel the nerves twist in your tummy and your palms to sweat, but you don’t. You keep glancing over your shoulder and then down at your wrist, needing to talk yourself out of addressing him through the comm to let him know exactly what the plan is. You like maintaining a sense of secrecy from the new characters you’ve met on your adventures—Naydee, Karga, Peli—almost everyone you’ve been introduced to, you found a way to find a subtle enjoyment in hiding certain things from them. But with Din, you don’t have any walls. They crumbled nearly a full year ago when he silently pushed a cauterizer in your hand and took his armor off for you, and you’ve felt the inexplicable need to bare yourself to him in return ever since. It would be to your extreme detriment to do it now, but you still have to fight the urge.

Even if you don’t feel him following, you still find yourself acting like he is. Constantly turning back to double check the road behind you, drifting off in the middle of shallow, distant conversations with tiny foundlings who can’t tell the difference, keeping towards the middle of the pack this time to avoid being picked off towards the back. The belltower at the orphanage is loud and will ring for quite a distance, so your timing has to be utterly pristine for this to all work out. You eye your comm the entire way there, trying to stall just the right amount to avoid any realizations or fall into any traps he may be setting for you.

You eventually leave the city walls far behind you, and now you have no clue where he is. You lost him, and maybe that’s why you feel your heart beat insanely fast the whole time. He could be anywhere now. Behind you, adjacent, parallel—you can’t decide where to look, but it keeps you wide awake and focused while the group tiredly travels back to the temple.

***

Day 5–11:32pm:

You can see it in the distance, the brick buildings slowly coming into view. One might think your stress would have worked itself out by now, been brought back to a manageable level after four hours of walking, but you’ve been on red alert for the past hour or so. Any movement or rustle that doesn’t come from the sleepy children or exhausted caretakers, you’re on top of it, snapping your attention to the offending tree or animal and not being able to relax even after affirming it’s just nature, it’s not shiny metal bounding after you in the darkness, ready to take you down.

The infants are all likely snoozing away in the nursery, and the Sister who volunteered to stay behind and look after them comes to greet the group at the gate as you approach. Like always, two Brothers open the iron bars to allow you inside, and you feel the anxiety dig its claws into your tummy. If Din is going to get you, this is the very last moment to do it. These walls are guarded and you’re nervous for him, you’re nervous for yourself—you’re just fucking nervous. Jumpy and worried, not being able to pinpoint him anymore and feeling all the more anxious because of it.

It doesn’t feel right. Nothing feels right about this, but you can’t figure out specifically what’s wrong. This was the exact plan, this was a way for you to just survive these last few hours and yet, it doesn’t feel right that you actually succeeded in doing so. It doesn’t make sense that he’d allow you to return all the way here, especially when he was close enough to touch you earlier. Din has had so much time to snatch you up, so many opportunities to lure you away, confront you—anything to catch you, and he hasn’t done it yet. Why? Either you truly did escape and he has no idea where you are, which doesn’t feel right, or he’s choosing not to get you for whatever reason, which also doesn’t feel right. What’s he waiting for? You can’t have won. It was all too fucking easy, you’re expecting to see him around every single corner because he should be there, he shouldn’t have allowed this to happen.

When someone gently touches your elbow, you’re so on edge that you nearly whip around in surprise.

“Sorry!” Naydee immediately apologizes, taking her hand back to lift her hood and remove the mask covering her face. “Didn’t mean to scare you! I was just going to say that the commissary is still open,” she offers, and you watch the small group of hungry teenagers break off from the group to make their way there. “It’s going to take awhile to get the children ready for bed, so we’ll be in the dormitories if you need to sleep. Otherwise, I’m not sure I’ll see you again.”

You stare at her and blink a few times, trying to readjust your focus. She’s your new friend, she just said this was likely the last time you’ll see each other, but you can’t stop thinking about Din. Imagine he’s hours away in the city right now, still looking for you. You’re trying to evaluate your priorities here, but you truthfully never expected to get this far. Inside the gates, surrounded by brick buildings and silent guards. You know your way around here, you know hiding spots, you know how to outlast—it’s incredibly advantageous for you to be inside these walls. What is he doing?

Shaking your head to clear your thoughts, you give Naydee a quick hug and she happily accepts it. “I’m sure we’ll meet again at some point.”

She smiles and nods, pulling back and letting a couple grumpy foundlings catch her robes and yank on them impatiently. The loud group eventually disappears into the dorms, and the door shutting behind them cuts off the tired crying and chatty voices determined to stay awake, leaving you in silence that feels slightly unfamiliar after going without it for so long.

Fuck, you just need to breathe. As soon as the dead quiet grips the air around you, you realize you need to relax. You’re way too fucking wound up; you want to bolt at the smallest thing and the sudden silence of being alone multiplies it to the point where you have to remind yourself of its importance. Breathe. Focus. There’s about fifteen minutes before the bells ring, fifteen more minutes and the chase will be all over.

Can you eat? You thought you’d want to, but you think you’re too fucking antsy. You can’t stay here alone, that’s for sure, but you also don’t want to be around all the children right now. The commissary will have a handful of people wandering around, teens snacking and maybe a Brother or two standing guard. It’s the best place to wait the clock out, so you make your way there. The gentle breeze billows around your loose robes, your pantlegs swishing as you walk.

A few minutes later, you’ve got a plate of food in front of you but your mask is still up, and you’re just sitting there. Towards the back of the large room, sitting by yourself at one of the tables and staring down at your communicator. Five minutes. You have five fucking minutes left before he finds you. Can you feel him? Is he closing in?

You sit up a bit straighter, taking a deep breath. Focus on that feeling from earlier. The presence in your chest, the weight that didn’t used to be there months ago—focus on that feeling and branch it outwards. Can you feel him?

Something catches your eye.

Or no… it doesn’t, does it? Nothing is out of place here, nothing is visibly wrong or amiss. The only thing that’s changed from all the times before is how dark it is through the windows, and how there are only a few kids in here grabbing a midnight snack instead of being packed like usual. Nothing else.

But there’s… there’s an acolyte in the far corner, standing guard with his back to the wall. It’s not his presence that gives you pause—you expected him to be here, there’s always been at least one present whenever you’ve sat down to eat. He doesn’t look any different from the rest of the Brothers you’ve passed by this evening or the days before—tall, silent, dark brown robes, hooded and mysterious—so why do you suddenly feel yourself break out into a cold sweat as soon as your eyes land on him?

Bubbling laughter and chatter echoes through the large room from one of the tables near the entrance—seven teenagers stuffing their faces with food and sharing animated conversation with each other now that it’s late and they’re alone—but your stomach twists and your fingers start to tremble as you slowly rise from your seat in the back. You want to keep your head down and be casual but it’s impossible, you desperately need to keep looking at that silent guard in particular and your heart kicks up in your chest—

—and then it wrenches sideways when you’re carefully backing away from the table and the offending acolyte takes a single step forwards.

Run. Everything in you screams for you to run, and it’s rarely done that before, but you can’t. Not yet, you don’t want to draw attention, and the logical part of your mind rages against your gut instinct to haul ass. He’s here—of course he is, the thought screams through your veins as you try to weave quickly in between tables, feeling light on your toes and readying yourself to run as soon as you can. The dark figure seems to find a careful pace behind you, staying just far enough behind and walking in perfect silence, and you have so many fucking questions but you can’t even think a single thing beyond run away, run away. Where’s the kid? How did he get those robes? Did he actually take his helmet off just to get to you in a room where anyone could confront him?

Your feet propel you forward as soon as you make it out of the door, you break out into a sprint—just flat out bolting because you know how fucking fast he is and you need as big a headstart as you can get.

You race down the stairs and through the courtyard, the beautiful surroundings contrasting drastically with the way you’re running for your fucking life through them. It’s not beautiful to you right now; you feel clumsy and physically unable to move fast enough no matter how quick you go, your eyes are wide and every nerve is on fire and you can’t even tell if he’s behind you anymore with how silently he moves, but you just trust that he is and keep barreling forward. Your breath puffs against the clinging fabric of your mask as you keep sprinting, willing your legs to pump faster. Get to the belltower at least, get to where you have the smallest chance of being caught by the people who guard this place.

As soon as you allow yourself to even conceive the possibility, two Brothers in dark hooded robes suddenly turn the corner a little ways in front of you and your reaction time is perfect—you jerk to a halt and take a single step forward as soon as they spot you. Since your momentum already committed you to it, you just have to walk, keep your head down, move directly past them and hope Din disappeared from behind you in time.

Step, step, step—keep going, control your breathing, you’re okay, you’re allowed to be up late tonight and they shouldn’t stop you. Walk right by… Stars, you feel their silent stares as you casually pass, and it just feels so cold and analytical compared to the kind of danger Din is gives off when dressed in the exact same clothing. He’s hard and tangible and an unrelenting force, where they just feel like ghosts that haunt this place. The threat they present is impersonal and detached, but the terror currently chasing after you is so real that he can read your mind.

You wipe the sweat from your brow as soon as you turn the corner, and your feet are already starting to speed up on their own knowing you’re out of their sight. Run, get to the belltower before Din does, you can see it standing tall about a hundred feet away. The stairs leading to the door come closer and closer, but you hear something behind you and it propels you faster. It’s like you can feel him right at your heels even though you haven’t seen him, snapping at your ankles even though your footsteps are the only ones you can hear anymore.

You scramble up the stairs and close the door behind you, spinning around and facing it even as you slowly retreat backwards into the moonlit tower, trying to stay quiet. Breathing through your nose, eyes shifting around the enclosed space, continuing to back up and away from the door. Where is he? There are so many windows that allow you to look outside, but why can’t you spot his movement through them? Wasn’t he right behind you?

Behind you.

There’s no reason or logic at all to it; you just react. Spinning around and throwing a mean punch.

Din jerks back just in time to miss it, twisting and dodging at the very last second to avoid your next few hits—but… things seem to slow down, even if they’re happening so fast. The moonlight cascades through the dozens of windows lining the circular walls and it shines just enough to reveal small glimpses of him. With every aggressive strike from you, you see something else—you see a flash of his chin when you try to uppercut, you aim for his chest and you see a bit of his jaw. When you go for his jaw, he steps sideways and catches your wrist, and you see the bend of his nose catch the light this time.

But then it’s like he finally figures out that you’re actually fighting him, and now he’s coming for you. Trained and ruthless, not weighed down by any armor and lightning quick, launching perfectly aimed attacks that you’re only able to avoid from reaction and muscle memory alone. You block or move whenever he strikes, you attack whenever you see an opening, you sidestep at the same time he does—

Until you land a spin kick directly to the center of his chest and snap your leg to shove him back, your heel smashing into that soft spot right above his stomach with dead precision and brute force. He exhales sharply and takes a few more steps back to steady himself while you pause to catch your breath.

Din abruptly comes back and you fall into it with him again, keeping a sharp rhythm with each other that’s faster, harder, and way more real than any sparring match you’ve ever shared. The hours and days in hyperspace you spent practicing with him are but a fraction of what he’s throwing at you right now, the combinations so rapid and blurred that you just have to trust your knowledge of him and his movement through the dark.

But then, your downfall. Bells begin ringing an earsplittingly familiar melody above you, and it shatters your concentration—you falter just as he grabs you and sweeps your feet out, and though you know how to get out of that, you’re not quick enough on the jump nor counterswing to prevent it. He takes you to the ground, hard, and then your wrists are being pinned together above your head and your mask is being tugged down.

Din’s mouth on yours makes you want to cry.

The whole thing is like coming home. You spent a week surrounded by strangers and having them call you by a name not given to you, fending for yourself, and now here he is. Someone who knows who you really are, someone that wants to care for you. Tears come to your eyes even as they're pressed tightly shut, and Din kisses you like he’s never known anything else. His mouth fits to yours as if the Maker made your lips before ever considering the rest of you, his bare hand clutching your jaw and forcing you to open for him, letting him lick deep inside after going so many days without it. It might feel dominant and overwhelming if it happened to any other person, but through it, you can also taste his desperation and weakness, how soft he is even when he’s squeezing your jaw and squishing your wrists together too tightly.

Rigid steel that bends only for your touch.

He pulls back and your heart throbs at how moonlight continues to bathe just the smallest glimpses of him under the hood—never the full thing, never the whole face, but enough. The quiet light that brushes the arch of his nose, how it bathes the hard line of his jaw so that you can barely see his scruff when he turns his head the right way. His eyes are hidden in near darkness but there’s the faintest glimmer where they should be, and it’s the closest you’ve ever been to looking at him without the helmet. You can see him, you can see shadows of his chin, his neck—dear stars, his fucking neck. You’re pinned and paralyzed under him and the ringing bells, yet you feel like you just might float if he wasn’t holding you so tight to the floor.

“Where’s the baby?” You finally lift your chin and ask, needing to raise your voice over the melody clanging loud throughout the tower.

“Making friends,” Din pants back down at you, and… stars, then you just start giggling. Adrenaline turning into pure joy, imagining the kid wreaking havoc with all the other babies in the nursery right now. It feels more light and airy than anything your body should know.

“What are you so happy about?” He asks, swallowing and then continuing on with the same quick gasps. “You lost, I caught you in time.”

“Did you?” You drop your head to the brick floor and ask, biting your lip as he stares back down at you. Suddenly—

—Bong—

Din holds utterly still over you while you take a quick breath and wait for the next eleven bells…

…but then break into a slow grin up at him when nothing but utter silence follows.

There’s a moment. Just a single moment where the cogs turn rapidly under that shadowy hood, one where the faint reflection of light in his eyes flickers down to the communicator on your wrist that says midnight and back to you, one that solidifies the longer it takes for another bell to ring. It’s not going to.

One o’clock.

You think he puts it together. The one moment he was never able to figure you out—when you tried reprogramming the comms just a few days ago. The one trick up your sleeve that you resigned to throw away and almost forget about because the circumstances for pulling it off were never realistic. Fuck with the electronics and set the clock back just one hour—all you’d need to do is reset his communicator, the timecode is synced together. He told you before that it’s connected to his helmet, but all the buttons still work. Rapid, panicky thinking and a wild surge of bravery in the face of certain downfall is the only reason you were able to pull it off, and you’re perfectly willing to admit you just got lucky… especially when he’s still holding dead still over you.

But then Din moves so suddenly. You can’t account for it because there’s no build-up whatsoever—it’s so fast, you yelp while he grabs your knees and throws them both to one side. You flop over sideways and large hands reach up under the draping length of your tunic to yank your pants down over the curve of your ass, before he’s fitting his palm up between your legs and pushing two thick fingers inside you.

Your head thunks back against brick with how unexpected and merciless it is, but his other hand is grabbing your jaw and twisting, forcing you to look up, stare right into the dark shadow under the loose cowl. The whole thing is too overwhelming—you’re trying to keep quiet but your breathing feels like thunder crashing inside this tall, echoing chamber. He’s touched you so many times, he knows exactly how to do it by now, but it feels like so much more than that. Probably because you can see the way Din’s mouth silently falls open as he feels you, stretching his fingers up and hooking them tight inside. You can tell when he closes his eyes, the smallest glint slowly disappearing into nothingness while the hand around your jaw blindly moves up. It catches your chin and lips, and then two fingers push over the bottom edge of your teeth to slip into your mouth.

Your entire leg twitches and jerks while you lay sideways on the ground and open up for him, your neck twisted at a sharp angle to keep your eyes on him and his fingers in your mouth, giving you something to bite to stop making noise. Din makes room for himself inside you two different ways, and you just choke on his fingers and try to stay quiet, praying he’ll go deeper.

But then you’re not expecting his whole fucking arm to start moving the way it does—oh fuck, what is that? First you just feel jostled and displaced, but then suddenly a wicked, deep, burning pleasure starts to roar through you, radiating outwards from the rapid motion of just two fingers inside you. It’s not in and out, it’s up and down so hard and quick against your g-spot that your eyes cross and your hands go numb.

You think you grab at him, clutch onto his arm or chest and open your mouth to moan at the new and overwhelming sensation, but his hand pushes up against your chin and closes it for you, the bend of his fingers caught hard between your teeth but you don’t think he cares.

“Quiet,” Din hisses the word down at you while his arm continues to work, your toes starting to curl as the feeling overwhelms you. Fuck, what is happening, what is happening? It’s like he’s just shoving unfamiliar sensation at you so forcefully that you can’t even think straight anymore, not even ten seconds in. You can only feel the pleasure, fire blurring hot and shapeless through your entire body as your eyes clamp shut, his fingers isolating that perfect spot and stimulating it directly, relentlessly.

Something dull and white hot presses up tight against all the muscles you have down there and you’re almost afraid of how strong it is. You gasp and choke and he has to take his fingers out of your mouth and just clamp down around your entire jaw, sealing the whole thing shut with his large hand. And then Din’s fingers leave your pussy too—and stars, you should be embarrassed by how desperately it clamps around nothing for as long as it does. He’s not even inside you anymore but your body is on such a delay from the hot, twisting pleasure, and he doesn’t put them back in until your muscles are finished spasming.

Everything comes back full force as soon as he starts moving again. Noise starts to come from your throat, humming in your vocal cords to deal with the arcing, swirling build, and so Din just moves his hand there instead. He finds where it’s vibrating from your neck and he pushes up against it, trapping the sound right at the source. He’s fucking perfect at it for some reason… how many times must he have done this to know how to cut noise out without stopping airflow? You clutch at his wrist and silently mouth his name, feeling his arm work between your legs—faster, faster, harder, pushing you higher, higher—

Din pulls his fingers out again and this time, one of your thighs suddenly feels warm and wet while you spasm and you hear him growl out a ragged, “Fuck yes.” Everything is sparks zapping through you long after his touch is gone, you cry out but it’s all trapped under Din’s expert grip. His fingers soon push back inside you and you dig your nails into his forearm, your sounds muffled and quiet enough to hear his raspy groan.

“Let me see it again,” Din breathes, his arm starting to work up and down once more, and you don’t even know what he’s talking about anymore. What does he want to see? You losing your mind again? Being reduced to an utter mess in front of his shadowy but unobstructed gaze just because you managed to pull one over on him?

Fucking… apparently. It’s what happens, after all. You’ve never seen him like this before; whenever he’s worked up and taking it out on you, there was always something in it for him, too. He’d hammer into you and rock your world until his eventually shattered, and then you’d both lay exhausted afterwards, equally affected and satisfied. This isn’t like that—this is just cruel, targeted retribution on his behalf, coaxing the molten pleasure out of you with his fingers and keeping his other hand locked around your throat. You blink helplessly up at him, your vision starting to blur by the time he leans down to whisper to you.

“I missed you, sweet girl. Did you miss me?” It’s so soft and quiet compared to the strength and relentlessness of his movements. You can’t speak even if you wanted to, but when he finally pulls away to yank his hand out and you feel all your muscles automatically flex outwards and push against the sudden emptiness inside you, his voice groans long and satisfied while your thighs get wet again “Yeah you did,” he breathes, pushing your shaky legs to the brick with his hand and watching you struggle through the aftershocks.

Did you just cum? You don’t even know, that’s how fucked up you are right now. The whole thing felt like an orgasm from the very beginning, just a boiling hot tornado ripping through every single cell in your body, never really having a peak. If you didn’t cum, then why do you feel so weak? You feel heavy, your limbs don’t work properly, and you barely even register Din pulling at the fabric of his own robes until he fits himself up against your entrance.

When you do realize it, though… your body burns with it, wrecked already but wanting him to take what he wants from you.

“Oh, plea—” you gasp but you don’t even have enough time to get the full sentence out. He’s already pushing his hips forward, pressing you tight into the ground and opening you up after what feels like a fucking eternity without him. It’s the hottest, slickest welcome you could give him, you hear it in the whispered curse his lips brush up under your ear, the wet noises your body makes that get louder the longer you hold the moan in your throat and bury your head into his shoulder. He throbs thick and perfect inside your tight, spasming cunt, stretching you and smacking the rough ground near your head with how fucking good it is to be back, finally, finally—

Your hands grab uselessly at his chest while you try to acclimate, try to breathe while you’re blind with sensation. It’s so fitting for him, isn’t it? That your reunion should be just as physically debilitating as it is mentally. Din’s voice scrapes on a groan like he’s dragging it across the brick ground as quiet as he can, catching when you clamp down on him and shuddering when you clamp down harder. That’s just it—you don’t ever loosen, you just keep tightening and tightening around him, threatening to break and cum again.

This feels different from before, though. It’s deep, purposefully so. His hand reaches up to push the fabric of your hood back, lifting himself up over your body and wanting to start as deep as he can. You feel him in a place you’d never be able to reach and that’s just the beginning—that’s before he starts thrusting into you, hitting a dull sensation at the apex of each movement so hard that it becomes sharp. His hips don’t make practically any sound smacking into you because they don’t really smack, they just rock downwards and fuck you into the floor without needing to pull out really at all. You know he’s just trying to keep it as quiet as possible, but what he lacks in speed and agility he makes up in power.

You don’t even realize you’re making too much noise until a palm wraps tight around your mouth and the room gets a little emptier. Din keeps you all to himself on the floor, silencing as much as he’s working you up, smothering as much as he’s freeing you. There’s no easing up, no dragging it out, no gradual build or climb—it’s just there all of a sudden, pleasure and pain pummeling you all at once, engulfing you in flames.

You reach up to grab at the loose fabric of the hood over his face, catching a fistful of it before his hand suddenly snatches your shaky wrist and pins it back to the ground.

Maker, you forgot—oh, you completely forgot about how many people could find you right now if they ever decided to look in the right place. You’re not in hyperspace; your body is rocking against rough brick, you’re probably going to have a lump on the back of your head from how terrible you are at trying to map out heaven while holding still. He’s pinned down what he can with one hand; your fingers are the only things that can move besides how tight you can curl your toes, but you feel your moans turn into words against his palm. They garble indistinctly and you’re not really even sure what you’re saying, but Din decides it’s worth hearing.

“Shh,” he whispers, slowly lifting his hand from your mouth. “Shh, tell me—”

“W-wanna look,” you hear yourself whimper, trying your best to keep quiet but wanting to scream it while he fucks you hard and slow on the ground, “—I wanna see, I wanna look at you—”

“Fuck,” Din gasps, and though his grip tightens on your wrist and you know he can’t do it right this second, the words seem like they shatter something inside him, “Keep—oh fuck, please, k-keep saying…”

“I want to marry you,” you nearly whine for him, feeling his hips kick up rapidly and start hammering in and out, in and out, in and—“I want to see your face, I wanna be yours, I don’t want anyone else to know you the way I-I—”

You think he drops his head into your neck to muffle his own sounds. Though they start out rough and quiet and indiscernible, but they gradually become louder as he repeats himself over and over again, growling and fucking you rough. You only catch it on the peak, when he pulls his mouth away from your skin and gasps them raggedly one last time.

“—ve you—I l-love y—”

He kisses you to stop himself. But it’s not really a kiss, it’s more desperate than that. Though it’s beautiful, it’s beautiful in a different light. It’s not rejoicing at having you back with him once again; it’s a last prayer begging you to stay by his side forever. He loves you. He gives it everything—it feels even more concrete and simple than taking the hood off him and revealing his face would. You told you that you'd know him without ever seeing him, and you did. You picked him out and found him when absolutely nothing was giving him away, and this feels like a manifestation of that. Even if you’re not in a place where he can show you his face, his beautiful brown eyes, something still feels like it changes. He loves you. You gasp into his mouth and his tongue sinks deep into yours, tenacious and brave and unyielding.

When you finally cum, you almost bite him on accident.

Everything surges hot and molten while he pulls back and keeps fucking you through it, and you can’t tell where you’re touching him anymore, just that his skin is blazing hot under your hand and he feels like everything the armor isn’t. He loves you. You’re looking into his eyes right now. You can’t see any of the details, not really, but the moonlight flickers like silent stars moving through dark depths, staring right back at you and giving you an anchor for the euphoria rocketing through you. He loves you. Your nails dig in sharp and slowly drag downwards, scratching hard red lines into whatever thick muscle that is—

The back of his neck, making his hips stutter and when he cums for you, he does bite.

You lift your head just in time to feel his teeth catch your chin instead of your mouth, and his entire body shakes while you keep dragging your nails down the side of his neck and his throat. Din fucking lives for it, he releases you and arches into the pain and owns your marks like he wishes you made them deeper, stretching his neck and lifting his chin into the moonlight and—

Maker. You can see it, with direct light, you can see more of it than ever before. You can see his soft lips and white teeth gritting the sound of your name as quietly as he can, the dark facial hair dusting across the lower half of his face. A fucking gorgeous jawline and throat extended long over you, flexing hard with his cock pulsing inside you. You can just barely see the bottom of his nose from under the brown hood, the dark curls brushing up under his ears.

Stars, you still never see his eyes, the fabric of his hood acts like a blindfold draped over them, but you think you cum again. Even if it’s on accident, it’s mean—Din tries to keep from squishing you and his hand pushes down hard against your lower tummy while he shoves his hips deep one last time, and you cum while staring at half of his face in the moonlight. Completely lovestruck.

How can he be this beautiful when you’ve only seen fractions of him? You have everything but the eyes now, everything but the most mysterious thing about him, the reflection into his deepest self, but you feel like you’re hypnotized by every single feature you do see. His tongue coming out to wet his lips, the vein pulling under his sharp jaw—he’s gorgeous, he’s gorgeous, and your body agrees. It shakes and shudders under him and eventually, Din finishes and you keep looking as his chin slowly lowers, face disappearing into the shadow once more.

Stars. He’s so handsome and no one has ever told him, fucking dreamy and the biggest grump you’ve ever met. Without being able to see him, you already want to reach your hands out and touch him, drag your nails through his scruff and force him to extend outwards into the moonlight again for you. Whenever he does end up showing you his face, you know right fucking now that you’ll never be able to look away. For the rest of your life, you’ll be staring at him, apologizing blankly for your rudeness but not feeling sorry at all.

Din leans down and gives you a slow, gentle kiss, finally relaxing into a slouch and breathing hard with the effort it took to shatter you with pleasure.

“The kid is with the other foundlings,” he whispers against your lips. “You… you’ll have to go get him, I need to grab my armor.”

You squeeze around his cock, pulling at the fabric of his robes and ignoring him for just a second. He fucked you in robes belonging to one of the guards and nobody has mentioned it, you need to say something. “Where did you get this?”

“I found it,” he tells you after a moment, kissing up under your jaw. Oh fucking Maker, he feels so good and perfect inside you, shoulders so broad and crowding you on the floor, and his lips are plush and hot, brushing and fitting your skin like it’s just an extension of his own. “Some guy was wearing it.”

It takes you a second.

“Mando,” you suddenly gasp in quiet horror, pushing at his chest and trying your best to detach his mouth from your throat. It’s so much more difficult than it needs to be, but you eventually succeed. “What did you do to him? Where is he?”

He lifts his neck up just the tiniest bit, turning his face towards yours under the hood and holding still for way too fucking long. He’s too close to see the expression he’s making, but you know the tone of his silence. He’s in trouble and he knows it before you do.

“Ma—”

“They’re in a closet,” he admits at the very same time, completely monotone.

You don’t know which word to emphasize. A fucking closet? They’re? Plural? Instead of stressing any particular word, you decide not to do it at all and it ends up just coming out in the same exact blank tone as him. “They're in a closet.”

“Inside the Temple,” Din continues on when you lay still as a statue underneath him. His head slowly dips down once more, pushing his hips against you just the slightest bit to make you remember the cock still inside you instead. Your eyelashes flutter with it—fuck, focus—“I didn’t know there’d be more than two.” He kisses your neck so gently. “It was an accident.”

You don’t say anything at all, your mouth pinching down at the corners because it should but your heartbeat galloping with how… fucking sexy he is. You shouldn’t encourage this, this horrible behavior just to get close enough to catch you, but your curiosity overtakes you and you ask a question you’ve asked yourself before. “Did they put up a fight?”

“Mm,” he whispers noncommittally, rocking his hips down once more. “You did.” Your nails dig into his chest, making him falter just slightly before slowly kissing your neck again. “Did so good. Fought hard, outsmarted me. Pretty fucking girl.”

And then your eyes pop open as you feel it. His cock suddenly beginning to harden once again inside you, twitching and gradually gaining a thicker shape, and for a moment, you actually fucking consider it. He’s the only one in this galaxy that could not only ruin you on these sacred grounds, but then coax you into doing it more than once—stars, are you actually considering it?

“We can’t,” you automatically tell him, but it’s fucking pitiful. Zero effort, absolutely no umph behind it, leaving it entirely up to him and how much he wants it. Your logic reminds you that the kid is probably wreaking havoc in the nursery and there are tied up guards in the fucking temple that could be discovered any second. You shouldn’t have even let him fuck you here in the first place, but… “Mando, we can’t—”

His mouth opens against the crook of your neck and his tongue brushes velvet hot on your skin, tasting the glistening sweat there and not moving his broad figure a single inch over you besides getting closer, deeper. Your nails dig into his collarbone, aiming for reason one last time. It’s apparent that you’d be better off rephrasing, knowing the challenging streak in him and how much telling him what to do doesn't help.

“It’s not a good idea,” you attempt instead, breathless and trying not to move under his mouth and lazy hips. “Not smart. Bad idea to fuck again.”

Din’s body stops moving, even though he keeps getting harder. His jaw opens and then his teeth scrape softly against your flesh, making you tilt your neck back and gasp.

“Later,” he lifts his head to state aloud, committing it to truth now that it’s been spoken and heard by another person. “Later, I’ll fuck you on the ship, in our bed, when I can get you naked and have your taste in my mouth.”

Tingles rock through your body and you squeeze around his cock just as he pulls it out and tucks it back into his pants. Your lungs quiver when you inhale—it’s shaky, but it reminds you of how long it’s been since you’ve been able to breathe correctly.

“Later,” you finally agree, combing your fingers through your hair and glad you have this hood to cover your freshly fucked dishevelment. He came inside you and you don’t want to be leaking and getting your nice pretty robes all wet and stained, but then of course, without any prompting, Din quickly scoots back on his knees and drops his head down to take care of it for you.

***

Commotion.

After Din helped you clean up the way he sometimes likes and then disappeared to change back into his armor, you put your mask and hood back on and tried to look as casual as possible walking to the nursery. Your knees wobbled slightly and you couldn’t stop smiling under the mask the entire walk there, but when you arrived, you just saw a dim room with sleeping infants—not what you were expecting. Soon, however, you hear it: down the hall, distant and coming from the dormitories, you hear a loud commotion.

Fuck, you’re nearly wincing with every step you take now, and not because you’re sore. Well, you… are, a little bit, but in a great way. No, you’re just dreading the ridiculous shinanigans you already know are well underway, wondering if Din actually dropped the kid off in the dorms from the beginning or if he somehow migrated his way there to cause trouble.

When you walk inside, the first thing you see is a handful of crying and shouting toddlers, and while you can’t immediately spot your favorite floppy-eared monster, you don’t have to see him to know he’s probably standing tiny directly in the middle of this tense showdown. Automatically, you’re taking a few steps forward to rescue him, but then you stop as soon as you see what the other babies are so mad about. A large piece of chocolate leftover from the festival levitating just beyond their pitiful little reaches.

Hm. Who could possibly be responsible for using demon powers to steal snacks and hold them hostage from a sizeable group of hostile children. A mystery that may never be solved.

It makes you take a second. The sheer… the… stars, you can’t even think straight—how fucking typical it is just hits you right in the chest, sends your heart into orbit. Of course. Of course this is what he’s gotten himself into without immediate supervision, of course this is the shipwreck you’d walk into, and you’re holding back a chuckle before making a single move to intervene. In the midst of everything, you can hear adults approaching distantly from behind you.

“—don’t know where it came from, I was helping the younglings into bed when I heard the ruckus and I—”

The voices gradually grow louder, and you snatch the floating piece of candy out of thin air and whip around right before Sister Drya and Naydee walk in. Their hushed, concerned conversation is cut to an abrupt end, and you clear your throat as they take you in, standing in front of chaos central continuing to go off behind you. Do you… look as freshly disheveled as you are? You’re not supposed to be here, you know, but hopefully the only strange thing is your presence itself and not anything concerning your appearance.

“Nerida,” the older lady suddenly announces, the name alone holding so much expectation, and the younglings missing their candy have now turned their ire towards you and the crinkly food wrapper hidden in your fist. “What is the meaning of this?”

“Ah, yeah,” you stand up a little straighter, letting the chocolate casually fall out of your grip behind you, and a stampede of feet suddenly kick up to recover it. It’s fine, nobody will know, it’s fine. “It’s just…” Your head tips behind you to the cause of the uproar, feeling a bit sheepish yet so incredibly fond. “My… kid.”

Sister Drya stares at you for a few seconds, before tipping sideways and staring at the culprit. “That is your child?”

You turn around just in time to see him, now abandoned by the angry mob of children, finally notice you. All of a sudden, his pitch black eyes light up something bright and sunshiney, and you just start beaming in return. What an adorable little creature, apple of your eye and pain of your ass.

“Yep,” you sigh, dropping into a squat and watching him barrel towards you, catching him right before he can trip over his brown potato sack and scooping him up into your arms. “Hiya, bug,” you murmur with a grin, lifting back up and plopping him in his favorite spot in the universe—your left hip. “You making friends?”

He giggles and it’s like sparkles and bubbles fill the room instead, wrapping tiny arms around the largest surface area he can get and clinging. He laughs with a tiny open mouth, bless him, clearly not understanding the sarcasm, and suddenly your eyes feel just the slightest bit wet. No, you’re not crying, don’t be fucking ridiculous, but you missed him like hell and he’s just the cutest fucking thing—why do you feel like crying?

“Sorry about that,” you apologize to the two women while slowly turning around, brushing your thumb over one of his cheeks and smiling as it squishes. “He’s… uh. Not great at sharing. We’ll work on it.”

Takes after his dad, you purposefully leave out, just a different kind of sharing. Din hasn’t shown you his full face yet and the kid performs magic tricks to taunt a roomful of children a fraction of his age for a single piece of chocolate, completely different kind of sharing.

Sister Drya says something in response, but when you look up to address her, all you see is Din standing silently behind her and Naydee, slowly dropping his hand from his helmet to his side. They don’t seem to notice he’s there and you automatically try your best to pay attention to the Sister speaking to you, but your eyes get caught on the silver reflecting in the dim light beyond. Fuck, he’s a presence. An immediate distraction, taking all your focus with a single glimpse. Seeing him fully armored again, staring at you from the silent shadows behind everything… you melt a little bit, knowing that you’ve seen more of what’s underneath than anyone. Your shoulders settle and your entire body burns warm, wobbly like the air around a fire, and one of the kid’s hands leaves you to reach out towards his dad.

You watch the metallic helmet tilt sideways after a moment, saying everything without saying anything. Come on, make up an excuse, let’s get out of here.

Looking at him in the quiet shadows, you’re reminded once again about how much you love him, how much softness you have inside you for a man so hard, so guarded. And, for the first time, a voice in your head finishes a poem you didn’t realize you were writing, adding its own verse and bringing everything back around to the beginning. He loves you, too. How much he lets his guard down for you, the way he’s revealed more of his face to you than not. You love each other. You’re family.

So, all at once, you decide to mess with him, because that’s what family does best.

“Don’t be shy, come say hello,” you suddenly urge his silent figure, taking a step forward and speaking directly to him. “Sister Drya, Naydee, I’d like to introduce you to my—”

It’s remarkable, you see it happen in front of you. Like he has powers of his own, Din just literally fucking disappears. Like magic, he’s nowhere to be found within a blink of an eye. You know he’s capable of it; he’s done it plenty of times during the chase just to fuck with your head, but you’re staring straight at him when it happens this time and it might just be the funniest fucking thing you’ve ever seen him do.

Sister Drya and Naydee both turn around to an empty hallway bathed in shadows and you laugh. A deep, shameless, loud belly laugh. Where the fuck did he go so quick? You were staring straight at him and you have no fucking clue. He’s just out, and you’re left alone with his child and the unspoken understanding that he’ll just catch up with you later.

You’re giggling even as you shake your head and give the women your genuine thanks for keeping you and feeding you these past few days, grabbing your backpack with all your belongings and eventually using three green fingers to wave goodbye to them. The very first thing Din says when he seamlessly joins you outside the Keja later is, “That wasn’t funny,” which just makes you laugh harder.

***

About a half hour has passed, and you’re walking along a dirt road, cradling a very happy baby in your arms and giving the grown man next to you an incredibly hard time.

“You’re unbelievable,” you mutter, your back twinging slightly at the way you’re leaning about as sideways as you can get without falling over. You think you’re basically just the hypotenuse between the ground and Din, who easily supports almost your entire weight with your backpack slung around his far shoulder and readily allows you to rest against him.

“They’re fine,” he grumbles in response, squeezing you tight to his side. You just have to focus on moving your feet; it’s like he’s practically carrying your upper-half anyways. “I gave them the night off.”

“You stuffed them in a closet,” you hiss, feeling his shoulder shrug under your cheek.

“I gave them the robe back,” he says, not really defending himself and more just throwing it out there to see if it helps any. “I’m sure someone’s found them by now, they’re fine.”

Your eyes suddenly go wide, absolutely mortified at the thought. “Wait. What do you mean you gave the robe back?”

He shrugs once more, apparently not seeing the problem yet. “I borrowed it, so I gave it back after I put my armor back on.”

If you could plant your feet on the dirt road and screech to a halt, you would, but all your weight is already resting on him and you’re working solely off his forward movement. You just hope your tone holds the same amount of shocked disapproval your body language would’ve conveyed if you weren’t so completely attached to his hip like a parasite he adores.

“You fucked me wearing it, though.” Your voice is strangely flat, so fucking confused and horrified by the mental image of him just tossing the soiled garments haphazardly somewhere in the temple behind you, or even worse, leaving them somewhere respectful, and Din soon stops in the middle of the deserted road.

“Oh,” is all he says, emotionless and blank through the modulator. Did he not even consider this?

“I had to promise them I was a virgin just to sleep there, you know,” you admit, and you can tell that’s brand new information to him with how still he goes as you continue to lean against him. You’re getting the feeling that he probably knows a lot more about your experiences on this moon than you think he does, but can tell that this is brand new information to him. “And you locked three of their holy men in a closet, chased me across the temple grounds, fucked me in one of their robes, and then. You gave it. Back.”

Din stays perfectly silent for quite some time. You can never go back to that place, you know this for a fact. You’re banned forever now, it’s what you deserve.

Never one to be outdone but not actually having anything to say for himself, Din suddenly decides to just scoop you into his arms and boost up into the sky without a single word like an actual fucking maniac.

You squeal and damn near drop the baby because of it, but he cinches you tight to his chest and refuses to loosen with your struggle. Eventually, after you realize he’s completely locked you in and you won’t fall to your death with this poor innocent child in your arms, you glance over the shiny pauldron on his shoulder and watch the kid’s crib disappear by the abandoned road as Din takes you higher and higher.

The crib—he forgot the crib—

“D-Din,” you stammer out through the whistling air, stiff as a board. Stars, you have such a different sense of adventure than him; an explorer and a daredevil, one who gets a thrill from discovering the existence of the edge of a cliff and one who’ll take a running dive off of it without thinking twice. He’s hit with blaster fire some days, he faces down death completely fearless like it owes him one every single time, and you’re stiff as a fucking board while he carries you through the sky. It’s stunning up here, it’s exciting and wonderful, but you’re so scared that you can barely even look. He’s giving you the most fantastical view, everything your budding adventurous streak could ever ask for, and your terror is crushing. It would be different if you could hold on, but you’re responsible for not letting the baby slip through your arms and you just have to trust that he won’t let you slip through his.

You raise your voice. “Din?!”

“I won’t drop you,” he automatically reassures, and well you sure as fuck hope not, but there’s something else.

“What about the crib?” You call out over the wind whipping, tucking the baby tight to your chest and settling your hands over his ears to avoid them flapping and whacking you repeatedly in the chin.

“We’ll come back for it,” he responds, just as easily. Maker, you wish decision-making came that easy to you, that commitment and choice should be so simple as to just fly away from things on the ground and promise out loud to come back for them. You know he will, but still, his spontaneity shocks you after spending the past week thinking every decision through meticulously, and you’re taken aback by the casualness of it all while soaring through the sky, committing such spectacular feats without a single thought beyond it.

Soon—incredibly soon, which honestly kind of blows your mind—you spot Nariss glowing in the distance and then you’re flying overtop of the city, slowly dropping altitude in the middle of a quiet little side street.

Din carefully allows your feet to settle on the ground before letting go, but you still stumble a bit stupidly after flying so high without any sort of safety measure besides him, prioritizing the steadiness of the baby in your arms instead of your feet underneath you. His gloves catch at your clumsy body and pull you along with him without another word, leading you out of the quiet alley and into the middle of a beautiful, luminescent street.

What’s he doing? He seems slightly hurried, and you’re clueless but you go with it, clamoring along behind him to wherever he’s leading you.

Though, you suddenly remember one of the very last things you told him last night right before he steps up in front of a vendor.

“Caf,” Din grunts, sliding a few credits towards the man standing behind the counter. “The… biggest one you have.”

Okay, well. You could just about fucking cry.

“Y’sure?” The vendor asks skeptically, jerking his head at the large thermos behind him. He’s balding, wearing a white outfit with his eyes scrunched up and forehead sweaty, likely working all day. “It ain’t fresh. Closin’ up soon, was just about to trash it and go home.”

The helmet turns to gauge your response to the news, the sharp angles and contours looking so sleek and dangerous as they reflect the colorful lamplights, but just filling you with comfort beyond anything in the entire galaxy. He’ll take that armor off for you tonight and you’ll sleep next to him. He’ll call you by your given name, or the fond name he’s given you, and you’ll cuddle your baby on a metal floor in hyperspace with him, and all will be well. Even if he needs to leave again soon—even if you don’t get to go with him, you’ll always have these small eternities with each other, and that’s more enough for you now.

You’re completely zoned out while staring at him, and Din turns back to the vendor before you can even remember the conflict he was attempting to defer to you.

“Yeah, just empty the whole thing in there for her,” he mutters, and you want to marry him. It’s been a long week, and in your haze and delight of being with him in this gorgeous setting, your brain turns to cavewoman mush. Big man, makes me happy. Strong man, loves me, knows me. Provider, makes me feel good, protector, loves me.

Din hands you the large cup of steaming caffeine, clueless to your grunted inner monologue but knowing better than to reach out and grab the kid from your other arm. You’re just fine like this, hands full, the little frog snuggled up against your side and blinking up at your face instead of any of the shiny or glowing things around you. When you look down at him, you can see the world through his eyes—quite literally, they’re reflective and gigantic—and his father’s hand quickly finds its preferred spot on your lower back.

“Try to drink it quick,” Din advises you gruffly, pulling you snug into his side and sloshing the big cupful of piping hot liquid in your hand.

“It’s a thousand degrees,” you protest, trying to balance your three favorite things in the universe all begging for your direct attention at once. “It has to cool down.”

He gives a dismissive hm in response, and you frown even as your heart soars with how tightly he’s gripping you, how little leeway you have to even move without him. Part of you is so thrilled at being reunited with him that you consider snarking something back at him, excitement making you brave. He could probably chug boiling hot liquid in thirty seconds and doesn’t see the point in letting it sit any longer, and you could make some stupid joke about filtering it through his helmet or having a built in bendy straw but you decide to keep it to yourself.

So then you just stand there together, under stringed lights and flowers everywhere, and he waits. Holding you glued to his side, completely silent and clearly just waiting for your caf to stop steaming so threateningly in your hand so you can drink it. For some reason, the fact that he’s wanted by the New Republic doesn’t really register at this second—you’re not looking for cops, though he may be. You’re just lost in this beautiful, fancy city that’s on the edge of finally quieting down after a long day, and you’d like to see more of it with him next to you.

“Well, do you wanna just…” You ask, tilting your head around at all the vendors. “Shop around for a bit?”

“Shop… around,” Din repeats slowly, sounding the words out like they’re not common Basic. Admittedly, they do sit a bit awkward in his voice when put together like that, describing a phenomena he’s likely never even considered a thing before, but it’s so fucking pretty here and you’d like to show him something this time instead of the other way around.

“Yeah, like,” you shrug a shoulder, tipping your head in a random direction. Anywhere, you’ll go literally anywhere with him, the three of you can go explore. “Just wander around, and look at all the pretty things.”

From where you’re standing right now, you can already see glittering crystals and jewels being sold at the tent across the street, there’s a booth dedicated entirely to floral arrangements and crowns next to it, you can hear a distant quartet playing melodically in the distance and a couple is being painted by an artist on the corner. Bars are in full swing at this point, as if they weren’t all day, and even though the merchandise is all different, the multicolored tents look slightly similar when they’re underlit with multicolored lights. It’s less slightly lively than it was in the daytime, but also… more beautiful, in a sense. Muted, softer, more romantic.

“I don’t have any more credits,” Din admits casually, finally turning to look around at everything. You get the feeling that he’s just now seeing it, even after spending the entire day here. “That stale caf was the last of it.”

Money well fucking spent, you can assure him of that.

“It’s okay,” you tell him automatically, gently bumping your hip into his. “We don’t need credits, we can just look.”

So that’s what you do. Even though it’s completely not his fucking style, for the next hour or so, you just walk around downtown with him and sip your caf, looking at anything and everything new and experiencing it with him. At first, you think he’s just entertaining you, following you while you discover new streets and attractions, but then he points out different things and you know he's looking, too. There are large animals harnessed up and pulling carts for people to ride, there's an enormous spinning wheel set up in the distance, its colorful lights flickering out as soon as you ask what the fuck that is and why anyone would ever get inside one.

You eventually end up finishing your caf around the time he’s leading you back through a quiet, abandoned alleyway, and you hand him the empty cup to throw away in one of the trash cans on the corner. The conversation has faded to a comfortable quiet and you don’t really need to ask—you go willingly, not requiring anything beyond his hands on you and the baby dozing in your arms.

“Come on, sweet girl,” he murmurs, gently sweeping you up into his. You sigh, glad he’s giving you a moment to prepare yourself this time, holding the sleeping kid securely to your chest and resting your head on his shoulder. “Let’s go home.”

After you’re comfortable, Din rockets up from the ground and climbs high up into the canvas sky. He disappears with you and the baby into the pastel clouds above, making it back to the Razor Crest in probably about an hour, maybe less. You and the baby do nothing more than climb into the comfy floor blankets while Din starts up the engines, and you think you’re dozing off together by the time he makes the pit stop to collect the crib and the jump into hyperspace.

You think he might shower? You’re not sure—you just know he moves up behind you in bed at one point without any armor, burying his face in your hair while you cuddle the sleepy kid to your chest. It’s dark in the hull, Din’s palms are bare and warm as they slide around the front of your body and he breathes you in, and there isn’t a single place that can touch you here, not a single place you’d rather be.

Home.

***

@followwhereshegoes Thank you for the stunning artwork! 💕To anyone interested in possibly doing an art collab in the future, please message me!!

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian x you #the mandalorian x reader #din djarin #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #mando x reader #mando x you #smut #reader insert #fanfic #star wars #rough day #no-droids

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bitsandbobsofwriting · 4 years ago

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Merlin accidentally becomes Legolas/Katniss/Merida… you know the type;

He may be shitty at sword fighting, but Merlin begins to use a traditional bow and arrow and… actually becomes very good at it??

I imagine the first time he does it, it’s a complete fluke.

The five knights, The King, and Merlin are on their way back from yet another (frankly, ridiculous) quest.

They have been, of course, ambushed by a group of bandits, twenty to their six (six plus Merlin, though no one bar Lancelot knows about his magic, so he isn’t counted as a fighter). Though the knights outweigh them in skill, their sheer numbers makes it a… challenging, fight (meaning that they are winning, but far too slowly for their liking, and no one wants to admit it).

Now normally, Merlin hides behind a tree or in a ditch, and performs his spells quietly without being noticed, slowly helping and speeding up the fight. Except this time, the Gang was in the middle of a barren, open field, the bandits had disguised themselves with magic until the moment they attacked, and Merlin was right in the middle of all the action.

Everyone worried for his safety. There was nowhere for him to hide here, so they had to keep an eye on him, lest he get hurt (and Arthur sulked, or kicked off, depending on how badly he was hurt).

With nowhere to hide (and no branches to drop, or roots to trip people with), and one of the knights throwing a glance his way every ten seconds, he couldn’t use his magic.

He was currently on his hands and knees, Leon directly in front of him, Percival to his left, holding off four attackers between them (Merlin would marvel at how impressive that was if he weren’t otherwise preoccupied).

He keeps trying to get to Arthur, crawling between legs and over the groaning, injured bodies of bandits (he made a point to land sharp elbows and harsh knees into the more… sensitive areas), but with everyone moving around so rapidly, and the vicious swinging of swords and axes and maces inches above his head, he kept getting side-tracked and blocked and almost knocked out.

With a frustrated huff, he notices yet another bandit rounding on The King. Said huff turns into a pained gasp when he realises that Arthur hasn’t seen him yet.

The bandit raises his weapon in the air, seconds from bringing it down on Arthur’s back, but Leon is right there, and there are no branches to drop on him, and Arthur still hasn’t noticed!

The noise is too loud, grunts and yells and clashes of metal drowning out any sort of warning yell that Merlin could throw Arthur’s way, and he scrabbles around on the floor desperately; hands raking through sharp grass and over bloodied bodies as he stares in horror at the triumphant smirk on the future-King-killer’s face.

Time seems to slow (no magic, just adrenaline) as Merlin’s hands find purchase on a smooth, curved piece of wood. He picks it up without looking, at first intending to throw whatever it is as hard as he can in the bandits direction, before something (magic, instincts, periphery vision, who knows) tells him to look down.

He obeys, and widens his eyes as he sees the longbow gripped tightly in his right hand, and a stray arrow on the floor next to his left.

Merlin is no expert, only having actually hunted once or twice back home in Ealdor, when he was younger, but that was just enough knowledge for him to know roughly how to notch the arrow and fire. He pulls the two up quickly, a plan formulating in his head:

Step 1) Notch arrow.

Step 2) Close eyes.

Step 3) Magic? Hope?

Step 4) Come up with some sort of lie that explains how he managed to make the shot from sixty yards away, through a crowd.

Thankfully, it would appear that Merlin’s bad luck has given him a rest today; the first three steps go off without a hitch (the fourth will come a little later, when the battle is over), but he doesn’t have time to congratulate himself before he’s thrown into the fray, the bandits now obviously seeing him as some sort of threat.

Arthur finally defeats his own attackers, looking behind him in shock to see his unknown enemy lying on the floor, gurgling up blood and grasping weakly at the arrow through his neck. His head whips to the side, trying to find whoever had made the shot; his bewildered gaze meets Merlin’s for only a second before the servant is dragged to his feet, and promptly punched in the face.

He stumbles back and can just about hear Leon yell something from beside him but he pays it no mind, righting his balance once again and swinging his arm back, before bringing it down harshly on his newest attackers head. The resounding crack echoes over the field as the wood of the longbow splits in two on the bandit’s skull, and he drops like a sack of potatoes.

The fight doesn’t last much longer, each knight taking advantage of their enemies' fatigue, and Merlin using his now broken longbow to whack them in the shins or trip them up when they weren’t paying attention.

He was sad to see it broken, but two of his closest friends literally owned a blacksmith's, and he had easy access to the Castle’s armoury; he could get a hold of another one easily enough, as long as he survived the journey back home.

The battle finally came to a close. Everyone was exhausted, and each of them was sporting more than one hefty bruise, but they were all alive and there were no serious injuries, so they could be grateful for that. After Arthur had counted his men, and generally taken stock of things, he traipsed tiredly over to Merlin, who had abandoned his broken bow in favour of cleaning a still weeping cut on Elyan’s temple.

“Didn’t know you had it in you, Merlin.”

The servant ignores him at first, biting his lip in concentration as he carefully wipes the grime away from the wound. It was small, so an infection wouldn’t be too worrying, but it wouldn’t be comfortable and would make the scarring worse, so best to avoid it if at all possible. He hums in satisfaction as he leans back on his heels, Elyan gives him a grateful smile, and Merlin finally throws a glance Arthur’s way, before focusing back on threading the needle in his hands; it would only need two or three stitches, thankfully:

“Hmm. I'm not fond of hunting, but we had to for food back in Ealdor. Except we didn’t have fancy crossbows or hunting dogs, so we had to make do with hand-whittled longbows.”

Arthur nods, frowning slightly:

“Still, if I’d known you were that good, I would’ve demanded you had a bow of your own; that way us lot wouldn’t have to spend so much time making sure you don’t get yourself killed.”

Merlin smirked and quirked an eyebrow, but doesn’t look away from Elyan’s stitches, whispering an apology at the man’s wince before he speaks slowly, concentrating:

“Careful Sire, that almost sounded like a compliment.”

Elyan snorts out a laugh, but Merlin tuts and lightly slaps his leg disapprovingly, and he stills again. Arthur rolls his eyes with a huff:

“As if. Hurry up, I want to get moving as soon as possible.”

Arthur wasn’t the only one that noticed Merlin’s outstanding shot, and over the course of the next few day’s journey home, he received a multitude of compliments from the other knights.

Including an hour long excited infodump about the history and use of longbows from Leon, which Merlin eagerly hung onto every word of, a fond smile on his face (Leon was a noble, and had it practically beaten into him to not ramble, so Merlin always did his best not to discourage the man. That, and the fact that it was actually very interesting, and useful, if he were to keep up this charade that he was an expert marksman).

When Merlin finally had a moment alone with Lancelot, a few days after they had gotten back, he burst:

“Please please tell me you know how to use a longbow??”

Lancelot raises his eyebrow from where he was sat on the bed in Merlin’s room. Merlin was staring at him with unconcealed desperation, and the knight chuckled as he answered:

“Why? It’s not like you need any more training, that was a cracking shot.”

Merlin huffed loudly, running his hands through his hair as he looked back at the knight:

“I used magic!! I closed my eyes so no one would see and I guided the arrow with magic! Now everyone thinks I’m some master marksman! This is bad. What if next time I can’t use magic, or what if someone notices that I have my eyes closed when I fire?”

Lancelot clamps a hand over his mouth in a poor attempt to stop himself from giggling, but he gives up quickly, bursting into laughter at the younger man’s panic. Said younger man fumes, sputtering as he picks up one of the knight’s discarded boots and throws it at him:

“It’s not funny, Lance! I’m being serious, this is an actual issue!”

Lancelot calms himself, rubbing the mirth from his eyes as he takes a deep breath:

“Ok ok, sorry. Yes, I can teach you to use a longbow properly. Have you ever actually used one before, or was the hunting thing a cover?”

The red fades from Merlin’s face slightly as he realises the other man is intending to help him, his panic lessening:

“Sort of. Yeah, I went hunting with a bow a couple times, but not enough to be that good at it.”

Lancelot sighs fondly and nods his head:

“Well, that’s a start at least. Come on, I’ve not got patrol until after dinner, and Arthur thinks you’re busy helping Gaius, so we’ve got a few hours.”

So I imagine that’s how it goes for a while.

After their last big adventure, Arthur was reluctant to head out as a group again, wanting to give everyone time to recuperate and get back into the swing of things.

Merlin’s skills with a bow were bought up constantly by everyone, news had even reached Gwen (who gave him a proud smile and a cute little dance to congratulate him) and Gaius (who raised an eyebrow, and had much better skill than Lancelot at holding in his laughter).

Gwaine, Elyan, and even Percival were desperate to set up targets and watch him shoot shit (their words), Leon wanted to talk about the specifics of technique and crafting, and Arthur... well. Arthur sounded like he was taking the piss, but there was something else in his tone that Merlin couldn’t quite pinpoint.

Affection? Pride?

Probably not, probably jealousy and annoyance that Merlin is so effortlessly good at something that Arthur himself was average at at best.

Merlin manages to avoid it for a while, showing his “skills” off, but he and Lancelot are running out of excuses, and Arthur is starting to accuse him of being a fake who got lucky. Normally, things like that didn’t bother Merlin, and technically Arthur wasn’t wrong... he had got lucky, and cheated with magic, but that wasn’t the point. It was nice for Merlin, to be good at something, really good.

He was good at plenty of other things. Magic for starters, though not even Lancelot knew the full extent of his power in that area. But he cooked well (shown by the fact that the knights always scoffed the lot), he was a good physician (shown by the fact that the knights trusted him just as much as Gaius when it came to treating injuries and sickness), and he was a BRILLIANT servant, if he did say so himself.

But he never got any actual praise for that. Merlin hated to think badly of the knights, his friends, but they only complained when Merlin wasn’t there, never praised him when he was. Well, apart from Lancelot. And that had just started a bunch of rumours that they were... uh... boinking.

(False. Anyone with more than two braincells could see that Sir Lancelot was head over heals in love with the newly-promoted Housekeeper, Guinevere, and that The King’s Manservant had an affinity for certain a blond prat-King.)

ANYWAY

It was nice for Merlin to have a skill that others thought worth complimenting, and with Lancelot monitoring his practice sessions, correcting any mistakes and offering congratulations whenever he did well, he hoped it wouldn’t be too long before he no longer had to come up with excuses.

Luckily, Merlin picked it up very quickly.

Despite being clumsy by nature (though Lancelot is starting to suspect more and more that it’s all for show), the dark haired servant can consistently hit bullseyes from fifty yards within a month. The further away from the target he got, the less astounding his aim was, but that was to be expected, and another month later he could successfully hit a moving target from seventy feet.

A training session, around three months after he started properly practicing, he finally “gave in” to Gwaine’s begging. Lancelot helped him set up a bunch of targets, and fetched a bag of apples to throw.

Merlin put on quite the show, grinning at the uproarious applause he got from the knights when he hit every single bullseye, and every single thrown target. Thankfully the knowing, proud smiles between the servant and Sir Lancelot went unnoticed, and even Arthur gave him a clap on the back and an impressed nod.

The first time Merlin met the knights in the courtyard to find Leon holding a longbow and quiver of arrows out to him, he panicked slightly, but one reassuring smile from Lancelot boosted his confidence, and he took them with a quiet thank you.

(After the fifth time, Arthur huffed, and told him to just keep them. He was the only one that regularly signed them out of the armoury anyway, so it would just be easier if he just took possession of them.)

It settled everyone’s stomachs, knowing that not only did the group have a master marksmen, hiding in the trees and taking out enemies that they didn’t see coming, but that Merlin personally now had more than his frankly horrifying (or... horrifying as far as they were concerned) stealth skills to keep him safe.

And that (a master marksmen in the trees) is exactly what happened.

In the early days, it involved a lot of bruises; Merlin could fire well, but firing and balancing at the same time? Took some getting used to, and involved a lot of falling out of trees at inopportune times.

The knights, Gwaine and Arthur especially, laughed endlessly at that, but quickly stopped after a particularly tired and irate and bruised Merlin fired an arrow so close by Gwaine’s crotch, that it stuck his trousers fast into the tree just behind him.

At first, it was meant to be just as back-up; Merlin was no knight. He still refused to wear armour, and Arthur didn’t want his manservant to make himself a target... at least that was his excuse.

Really, it was because (as far as Arthur was aware) Merlin had never deliberately killed before. Even now, years into his Kingship, and even longer into his knighthood, Arthur hated killing; it made him sick, and took a lot of practice at compartmentalization before it no longer bothered him as much.

Merlin was his manservant, his (best) friend, the love of his life (secretly). He was not a warrior, he was not meant to kill, he was meant to be protected from that.

But alas, Merlin did not get the memo, and the first patrol he went on with his bow and quiver slung over his shoulder, he killed at least five bandits.

After the fight, it was Leon who approached him first, a concerned look on his face despite Merlin’s nonchalant expression as he checked over the string for wear and tear:

“Are you feeling alright, Merlin? You got a few good shots in there, you’re not feeling sick?”

Merlin looked up at the hand on his shoulder and the soft words, a confused look on his face:

“Why would being good make me feel sick?”

Leon tilts his head in sympathy, which just makes Merlin even more confused:

“The man you killed the other month was spur of the moment, protecting your King. But you... you killed a fair few men today, Merlin. I know that can be incredibly difficult at first, I just wanted to check in.”

The others had finally walked over to join them; Percival, Elyan, Gwaine, and Arthur looking equally concerned, whilst Lancelot hid his proud smile. Merlin just raised an eyebrow at them:

“You seem to be under the impression that I’ve never killed anyone before?”

Everyone (bar Lancelot) looks taken aback at that, and Arthur frowns whilst Leon drops his hand in shock. The King speaks slowly:

“Merlin, are you telling us you’ve killed people before?”

The manservant clenches his jaw at that and looks back down at his bow, resuming his checking of the string and its knots. He speaks lowly, and the knights can tell it’s not a topic he’s fond of:

“Hmm. It’s a tough world, Sire. I’ve done what I had to, to keep myself and the people I care about safe.”

At his dark reply, conversation stopped, and didn’t resume for the rest of the day as everyone contemplated Merlin’s words.

That is, until he was the first one to successfully catch dinner later that evening. At which he got an incredulous look from Arthur when he made it back to camp with his half of the patrol:

“I thought you despised hunting??”

Merlin didn’t look up from the hares he was skinning, and the rest of the knights tuned in, curious:

“No. I hate hunting for sport; it shows hubris and cruelty. Hunting for food is not only necessary and natural, but humbling, if you do it right and honour every part of the creature.”

Arthur, ever the eloquent one, stared at him blankly, and said, rather dumbly:

“...What?”

Merlin huffed, finally looking up:

“Going after helpless animals on horseback with crossbows and hunting dogs is like giving yourself a huge pat on the back for winning a tournament against an unarmoured, unarmed, unconscious opponent, and then calling yourself strong and brave for daring to fight in the first place. It’s an egotistical act of violence for no other reason than cruelty for the sake of cruelty.-”

The knights looks on him with shock, Percival and Leon at least having the decency to look a little ashamed. Merlin looks back down to the hares, and everyone notices the careful way he cuts at the fur:

“I’ve taken these lives to feed us as a necessity. The meat will be eaten, but that isn’t all. I’ll take the bones home for Gaius, the marrow is useful in a lot of medicine. The fur can be repurposed for winter gloves or socks. The organs and other bits that we won’t eat: I’ll take for the pigs in the farms, or the dogs up at the castle. In using every part of them we are... honouring them, in a way. As a thank-you for their... sacrifice.”

Arthur looks a little dumbfounded. As royalty, he of course had never really considered the waste that comes about with hunting, but Merlin, a farm-boy from a rural village who barely scraped by every winter? Of course he saw a deeper meaning in hunting. He would have to.

Elyan is the first to break the silence:

“You almost sound religious, Merlin.”

Merlin looks up at him, a strained smile on his face. As magic incarnate, he has a particularly strong, temperamental relationship with nature and her creatures, a bond that some might call faith. To be wasteful or cruel in any way hurts him in more ways than one:

“Not really, I just have respect for nature, is all.”

No one mentions the thinly-veiled insult, but everyone creeps closer, wanting to see the way he disassembles the creatures for future reference.

It’s been eight months since that first, perfect shot.

Merlin’s skills with a longbow had become a normal, expected part of The Gang’s experiences, but the knights never stopped praising and thanking him when he saved their lives (something that Merlin still hadn’t quite gotten used), and The King had apparently not stopped thinking about it for barely more than a second.

Yule was approaching quickly: Merlin, Gwen, and the Steward being constantly busy with preparations in the castle, the knights being run off their feet escorting emergency aid to the border villages for the harsh winter, and Arthur himself having every minute of the day taken up with speech writing, invite sending, and his other general King-during-Yule duties.

That however, was all to be expected, and of course did nothing to keep Arthur and Merlin from their annual traditions.

It wasn’t official, it wasn’t even spoken of, but the last evening of Yule, the night before the new year, the two of them always spent together.

The last feast of the year would finish, Arthur would stay to see his guests off, thank the staff for all of their hard work, and finally retire to his chambers, his tired manservant barely a hair’s breadth behind him. They would sit in front of the lit hearth (in comfy chairs that only they used), work their way through a jug or two of wine, exchange small gifts, and fall asleep in front of the fire. Their hands, dangling over the side of their chairs, seem to be creeping closer and closer with each passing year; though have yet to become entangled by morning.

This year was somehow no different, and very different, at the same time.

The King and his Manservant settled in their chairs, tired and already a little more than tipsy from the wine drunk during the feast. Arthur looked up at Merlin, the fond smile dropping from his face when he sees the other man’s features pulled into a contemplative frown:

“What’s on your mind, Merls? I don’t think I’ve seen you this serious since the start of the celebrations.”

Merlin looked up at him suddenly, his eyes wide, but he smiles and shakes his head:

“Nothing, nothing. Just thinking is all.”

Normally, Arthur would raise an eyebrow and let a scathing tease on the state of Merlin’s intelligence fall from his lips, but not tonight. This is the only night of the year that The King allows himself to entertain the idea that perhaps he and Merlin were more than friends, or at least could be. So instead he resumes his smiling, and looks back to the fire, taking another sip of his wine before responding softly:

“What about?”

Merlin hums, copying Arthur’s wine-sipping, before taking a deep breath:

“The future, mostly. You, me, Camelot. Secrets and truths, and when one might turn into the other. Soon, I think... yeah. Soon.”

Arthur huffs slightly in amusement. He knows that Merlin hides a great deal of himself, but he always becomes more cryptic after a few glasses of wine, like he desperately wants to say something and doesn’t have the power to stop himself from hinting at whatever it may be.

He asks his next question good-naturedly, a smile sweetened by wine gracing his face:

“The hell does that mean?”

Merlin lets out a short laugh, looking up at the other man:

“Oh, you know. Thinking about spilling all my deepest darkest secrets to you, at some point soon.”

Arthur snorts, saying, only for the sake of keeping up the charade they’ve built:

“You don’t have any secrets, Merlin. Certainly not any that are deep or dark.”

Once, Arthur would have believed that. Then, when he stopped believing it, he was angry about it, and now? Now, he finds he doesn’t mind so much. He is confident, he has faith, in both himself and in Merlin. He knows that those secrets are there, and Merlin knows that he knows, but that’s ok. Nothing either of them could reveal would tear them apart, at least not for long, so Arthur was happy to wait until Merlin was happy to share.

Merlin chuckled at Arthur’s response, shaking his head slightly before reaching down and picking up a small wrapped parcel that he’d stowed away before the feast:

“Come on, I’m a little nervous about your gift this year, so let’s get it over and done with.”

Arthur nodded, accepting the change in subject, and set his wine down so he could pick up the (much bigger) parcel by his own chair.

Merlin raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. After the first gift-exchange happened, Merlin had put his foot down and made Arthur swear to not go overboard on the expense side of things. Arthur may have been a prince, and now a King, but Merlin was still just a servant/physician; he could hardly afford anything worthy of a King.

He had a feeling that Arthur might’ve broken his word this year, but where Arthur had likely gone overboard with expense, Merlin had definitely gone overboard with sentimentality.

They swapped parcels, Merlin placing the large, heavy box carefully at his feet as he gestured Arthur to open his first. Arthur got to it, tearing the paper off without a second of hesitation, and Merlin allowed himself to smile fondly at the child-like excitement on the blonde’s face.

Arthur’s brow creased as he dropped the paper to the floor, stroking soft fingers over the worn leather of an old, well-loved book. Merlin took deep, fortifying breaths as Arthur carefully opened the first few pages, butterflies in his stomach as Arthur’s eyes wandered the yellowed paper in curiosity.

The King looked up at him, amused confusion on his face as he asked:

“Is this yours? I didn’t know you could draw, Merlin.”

Merlin gulped, and shook his head as memories of the exquisite sketches filled his mind; detail-perfect renditions of the castle, the town square, waterfalls and knights in action and people that Merlin didn’t recognise (for the most part. Arthur evidently hadn’t gotten to any of the pages with young Uther on them).

“No, not mine. This one requires a little explanation-”

Arthur nodded, carefully closing the book and holding it protectively in his lap as he gave Merlin his undivided attention:

“-I mentioned off-handedly to Leon a few months ago that I thought the lack of... of paintings of the late Queen in the castle was odd.-”

Arthur gulped at the mention of his mother, but nodded with a small smile when Merlin paused:

“-He said that when she passed, The King had everything to do with her moved to the vaults. He couldn’t force himself to destroy any of it, but looking at it, day in and day out, was too painful. We found the keys, with the help of Geoffrey, and went down to have a look, see what we could find. We didn’t tell you about it because we didn’t want to disappoint you, in case we couldn’t find anything.-”

Merlin once again looked a little nervous at this, and reached a hand out towards Arthur. When the man didn’t flinch away (if anything, he leaned into it), he moved to grip his shoulder blade, running his thumb over the exposed skin at the base of The King’s neck.

“-We found... a lot. Old clothes and paintings mainly, some jewellery. But then I found that;-”

He nodded at the book in Arthur’s lap, and tightened his grip on his shoulder. Merlin spoke his next words so quietly that Arthur almost doesn’t hear him, a soft smile on his face:

“-your mother was quite the artist, Arthur. I knew you had to have it.”

Arthur gasped softly, his eyes widening as he looked down at the book:

“You... you think my mother drew these?”

Merlin smiled at him, moving his hand to squeeze Arthur’s wrist slightly, before dropping it entirely:

“Check the back page.”

Arthur took a deep breath before doing what Merlin said, handling the book with even more care than he had before now that he knows who it belonged to. He turned to the very last page, to see an inscription written in beautiful cursive. Merlin recited it aloud, having memorised the words weeks ago:

“My dearest son, my silly sketches are able to hold only a fraction of our Kingdom’s beauty. I know one day that you will see what I see, treasure it just as much, and make it your own. You have my support, forever and always, your loving Mother.”

Arthur bites his lip harshly, lifting the book to press his forehead against the words as he shuts his eyes tightly, though that does nothing to stop the tears. Merlin replaces his hand on The King’s shoulder as the man shakes. He sniffles slightly, putting the book back in his lap, though keeping his hands wrapped around it securely, as he looks to Merlin:

“Merlin, I... I don’t even know what to say. This is... amazing. I... Thank you.”

Merlin smiles, shaking his head slightly:

“Technically, it wasn’t even mine to give, it’s always been yours. But I thought it might make a nice surprise. There’s plenty of other stuff down there, I’ll show you in the morning.”

Arthur nods his head, wiping his tears as he carefully places the book on his side table and gestures to the box at Merlin’s feet. He was itching to scour through the book, dedicating every single line to memory, but whilst Merlin had been nervous about Arthur’s gift, Arthur was buzzing about Merlin’s, and he was desperate to see the man’s reaction.

Merlin huffs out a laugh, but picks the box up, noting once again how heavy it is. He sets about removing the paper, much calmer and more methodical than Arthur had been, with his face pinched in concentration.

He frowns in curiosity as he sets eyes on the wooden box. It had a hinged lid, and a logo that he’s certain he recognises burned like a brand into the corner. He can feel Arthur bouncing in his chair slightly, and looks up at him in amusement, laughing once again when he nods excitedly back down at the box.

He lifts the lid, and takes in a shocked breath.

Inside was a beautifully crafted long bow; the wood smooth and varnished and carved, and a leather quiver. The patterns embossed in the leather and carved in to the metal at the base, match those carved into the wood of the bow, and Merlin traces soft fingers over the intricate swirls, stopping with a teary smile at the Pendragon crest, carved just next to a Merlin bird.

He lets out a breath he hadn’t even realised he’d been holding as he looks up at the excited King:

“Arthur this is beautiful. Gods I almost don’t want to touch it, I feel like it should be on display behind glass.”

Arthur lets out a laugh, obviously pleased with Merlin’s reaction:

“Nope. It will be going with you every time you leave the city, and considering how much trouble we always seem to attract, I have no doubt that it will see a lot of use.”

Merlin laughs, closing the lid carefully and setting the box back on the floor, before launching himself bodily at Arthur. The blonde laughs, wrapping his arms around Merlin’s middle with no hesitation as the other man mutters endless thank-yous in his ear.

The servant finally pulls back, settling in his own chair again, and the two of them hope that the other puts the flush on their face down to the wine, and nothing else. They look to each other with wide grins on their faces, and Arthur breaks the stare first, taking another gulp of his wine before laughing jovially and speaking:

“Well. Here’s to an amazing year, and hopefully an even better one, starting in a few minutes.”

Merlin nods, lifting his own goblet to tap it against Arthur’s:

“Here’s to the past, that guides us-”

He gestures to the book on Arthur’s table:

“-and the future, that calls to us.”

He gestures to his new bow, and they both finish their wine off, a healthy flush to their cheeks and fond smiles on their faces.

They fall asleep in their respective chairs, the same as every year.

In the morning, they wake with pounding headaches, a promise of a golden future, and hands intertwined.

THE END!!

We love a cutesy/hopeful ending😌

Like always lads, you wanna write it out in full, go for it, credit and tag me✌️

Head over to This List to see what I’m working on next, and cast your vote!

1K notes · View notes

junghelioseok · 4 years ago

Text

heart-on.

↳ your one-night stand definitely isn’t relationship material, but maybe—just maybe—your manager’s son is.

◇ hoseok x reader ◇ smut | strangers to lovers!au ◇ 10.1k [1/1]

❛❛ my boss is always telling me how perfect her son would be for me and she promises he’s coming to the next holiday party and don’t worry he’s heard all about me too and ALSO there’s this dude i slept with once a couple of months ago and sometimes he still sends me dick pics when i ask him to at 3 in the morning cause seriously dude’s got a good dick ❜❜

notes: welcome to the first installment of the serendipity series! we’re starting with hoseok, because, well, have you met me? 🤣 be warned, however, that this isn’t anywhere near as edited as i’d like so i’ll probably give it another read/edit tomorrow but for now!!! here it is!!!

⇢ series masterlist. | inspired by this post.

warnings: dirty talk bc hoseok’s got a bit of a mouth on him, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it, kids!), sexting. dick pics, obvi. brief mention of a dead pet goldfish :(

You’re refilling your mug when you hear it. Voices filter out from the kitchen, floating past the coffee station where you’re pouring yourself another drink and hanging in the open air of the hallway that leads back to the rest of the office. They’re familiar voices, too—voices that belong to the resident gossips of your workplace. Lottie’s pitchy, nasal tone melds with Hyejin’s higher one, their conversation interrupted every so often by an exaggerated exclamation or gasp from Sandra, the third and final member of their trio.

“Haven’t you heard? Carolyn’s divorce was finalized over the weekend, the poor thing.”

“I can’t even begin to imagine how she’s feeling. I mean, getting back into dating at her age? Goodness!”

“And now she’ll be all alone at the holiday party, too. How sad is that?”

“It’s tragic. Poor thing.”

Rolling your eyes, you grab a packet of sugar and tear it open, upending it over your mug and watching the crystalline granules fall into the dark liquid within. You know for a fact that Sandra and her husband can’t even stand to be in the same room for an extended period of time, considering how they’d spent most of last year’s holiday party talking to entirely different groups of people. You’d sat two tables away from them during dinner, and they hadn’t even made eye contact once. And as for Lottie and Hyejin, well, you’re certain that their relationships aren’t much better. All three of them are miserable people as far as you’re concerned, and you make a mental note to check in on Carolyn—a sweet woman in her thirties who always keeps chocolate bars in her purse—on your way back to your desk.

“Sheesh. Vultures, the lot of them. Don’t you think?”

You whirl at the sound of your manager’s voice. Kyunghee Jung is a dark-haired woman in her late fifties, and she laughs when she sees your startled expression, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “Easy! You’ll spill your coffee if you’re not careful.”

“I’ll probably have a heart attack first,” you reply, pressing a hand to your chest. “What was your job before this? Some kind of intelligence operative? Are you a super spy?”

Kyunghee laughs again and joins you at the counter. “Nothing even remotely as exciting as that,” she answers, plopping her mug down beside yours. It’s decorated with what looks like every color of the rainbow, a massive smiling sunflower taking up the majority of the surface, and the only remnant of the ceramic’s original color is on the very edge of the handle where there’s a lopsided little patch of white. The piece is clearly handmade, and a stark contrast to the simple mint green cup that houses your coffee. Looking at it, it’s impossible not to smile.

“I love that,” you remark, inclining your head at her mug. “Was it a present from one of your kids?”

“Hoseok,” she confirms, running a fingertip along the imperfect handle fondly. “I’ve told you about him before—he’s right around your age.”

You chuckle. “Right, I remember. That’s why he’s the perfect match for me, right?”

“Come now, there’s more to it than that,” Kyunghee defends, waving a hand. “But yes, to answer your question. He gave it to me as a birthday present when he was eight.”

“Well, you never told me he was an artist,” you tease. “Does he have an Etsy? Can I buy one of these off him? Does he do custom orders, maybe?”

Normally, your manager is more than happy to play along with your jokes, but today Kyunghee fixes you with an uncharacteristically serious look. “Why don’t you ask him yourself?” she asks. “He’s coming to the holiday party, after all. I figured you could finally meet.”

You blink. Kyunghee has been making offhand remarks about how well you would get on with her son, Hoseok, for over a year now, but you’ve never even come close to broaching the topic of meeting him. You don’t even know anything about the man beyond the fact that his name is Hoseok and that he works somewhere downtown. He also favors tall socks and yellow suspenders if the framed photograph on Kyunghee’s desk is any indication—or at least, he certainly did when he was still in diapers. Whether he still does, is anyone’s guess.

“Wow, I had no idea he was even interested in coming,” you manage when you’ve recovered from your surprise. “Did you bribe him?”

If Kyunghee notices that your voice is a few pitches higher than usual, she doesn’t remark on it. “Oh, you know. I just told him that this would be his last chance to score free booze on the company’s dime.” She laughs. “Three more months and it’s going to be all beaches and sunshine for me. I might even become a cruise person in my retirement.”

You gasp and slap a hand to your heart. “Kyunghee! Think of the environmental impact!”

“I said I might!” she retorts immediately. “Sheesh. Even in my old age, it’s hard to conveniently forget how shitty and unsustainable those damn boats are.”

You pick up your mug and raise it in a salute. “Well, the oceans thank you.”

“My husband doesn’t,” she answers with a sigh. “He’s been dying to book one of those trips that stop all along the Mediterrannean coastline, and I can’t exactly blame him.”

“That is tempting,” you admit. “You’ll have to send photos, if you do end up going.”

“You’ll be sick of me and my photos before the first day is even up,” she promises. Then she pauses, her eyes darting toward the kitchen where silence has fallen in the last few minutes. “Speaking of being sick—you think the vultures are still hovering around in there? I haven’t had lunch yet, and I need the microwave.”

Obligingly, you edge a little closer to the kitchen doorway and poke your head around the frame, scanning for Lottie and her sidekicks. “Coast is clear. Enjoy your lunch, Kyunghee.”

She nods and raises her mug at you, returning your salute. “I always do.”

///

As soon as the work day ends, you fall into your usual routine. Your commute home is easily walkable on nicer days, and though the winter weather is brisker than you’d like, you decide to walk for the sake of stopping at the convenience store on the corner of the block.

Once you arrive back at your apartment, you change into your comfiest sweats and a loose tee. You turn on some music while you throw together some dinner, and settle onto the couch half an hour later with a full plate and Netflix. Television is a welcome distraction from the events of the workday, and you manage to get through three full episodes of your current show before your pesky brain decides to revisit the events of today, replaying the conversations that you’d both had and overheard.

There’s no denying that you’ve been single for quite some time now, and for the most part, it’s been by choice. Ever since graduating from university, you’ve chosen to focus more on your career, and it’s paid off both in terms of the important position you hold in your company and your above average salary. And yet, you can’t help but think back to the gossip you’d overheard earlier—about the supposed tragedy of being single and attending the upcoming holiday party alone. Your mind wanders to Kyunghee’s son, Hoseok, and how he’ll be in attendance this year. You wonder what he’s like, and whether he really is perfect for you, as Kyunghee seems to be so fond of mentioning.

And then your mind goes to Jay.

You met Jay two months ago, on a well-deserved night out after a hellish workweek. The bar was crowded, and the music coming from the neon dancefloor in the back was just loud enough to drown out your inhibitions. That, combined with the alcohol swimming through your system, made you bold. You sashayed your way across the dancefloor, dodging inebriated bodies and swaying limbs as you fixed your attention on the head of pale lavender hair and deliciously broad shoulders that awaits you just behind the bar counter. The bartender is nothing short of gorgeous, and you’ve thrown all caution to the wind. Sure, several other women are eyeing him like he’s their next meal—several men are, too—but you need another drink. And while he prepares it, you plan to flirt.

A lot.

The bar counter is sticky with spilled liquor, but you don’t pay that any mind as you lean across it, the wood digging into the narrow strip of exposed skin left by your cropped top. “Hi!” you call, and the bartender looks up from where he’s just finished pouring a round of shots for a group of raucous young men.

“Hi yourself,” he says, his pillowy lips stretching into an easy smile. “What can I get you?”

You pretend not to notice the way his eyes flicker down to the dip of your cleavage and instead put on the sultriest smile you are capable of mustering. “Vodka soda,” you tell him, injecting a bit of purr into your voice. “A bit of lemon too, if you have it.”

“Trust me, I have it,” he assures, his smile growing as he reaches for a clean glass and a clear bottle. “Name’s Jin, by the way. I’m here all night, if you need anything e—”

A loud clatter and the sound of breaking glass interrupts the rest of his sentence, and all eyes at the bar go to the source of the disturbance. Conversations stutter to a halt, and even the thumping bass of the music seems to dull. Jin darts to the other end of the bar, where you can see that one of several barstools has fallen to the ground. There’s a man on the ground as well, surrounded by shattered glass and spilled dark liquor, and your eyes widen when you realize that you know him.

And arguably, a little too well.

“Fuck,” you mutter under your breath. People are starting to lose interest in the spectacle, turning back to their own conversations and continuing on as if nothing had happened at all. The man is beginning to clamber to his feet, and a few people lend a helping hand as Jin begins barking out orders for everyone to step back so he can sweep up the broken glass. You seize upon the opportunity, latching on to the nearest arm and pulling them close so you can hide behind them. Vaguely, you’re aware of them sputtering in surprise, but you only have eyes for the man who had fallen off his stool, watching him carefully as he brushes himself off and tries to play it cool despite the sizable patch of whiskey soaking his white shirt.

“Hey, uh…” Your human shield is speaking. “Are you okay? You’re squeezing me pretty tight.”

That draws you out of your daze. Abashed, you loosen your grip on his arm and look up into his face, your throat going dry when you realize how handsome he is. His black hair is parted over his forehead, a stray strand falling into warm brown eyes set above a straight nose and an inviting mouth. There’s a freckle above his top lip, just shy of the center, and your inebriated brain wonders just what it would be like to kiss it.

“I, um—” You clear your throat and try again. “Sorry about that. I just didn’t want him to see me.”

Your newfound companion raises an eyebrow and glances over his shoulder at the drunk man, who is now being ushered out of the bar by his buddies. “You know that guy?”

You nod, cringing. “Yeah, his name’s Trent. I… may or may not have dated him for a few months last year.”

The man laughs out loud. “You dated a Trent?”

“What, like you’ve never made a questionable life choice?” you challenge. “Besides, you shouldn’t judge someone based on the sins of their parents. It’s not his fault they gave him a terrible name.”

“Sure, but it is on him for going along with it,” he replies with a shrug. “I would’ve changed my name as soon as I could if my parents had named me Trent. But hey, that’s just one man’s opinion.”

You laugh. “Okay then, Not-Trent.” Relinquishing your grip on his arm, you let your fingers graze his hand before pulling away entirely. “What do you say we continue this conversation over a drink?”

The man, whose name is decidedly not Trent, catches your fingers in his and gives them a gentle squeeze. “Happily.”

One drink turns into two, and then three. By the end of the hour, you are feeling pleasantly warm, the alcohol spreading through your veins like molasses and turning your surroundings into a hazy blur. The music has grown even louder, pounding against your eardrums, and you grab onto Not-Trent’s wrist as he sets his now-empty glass back down onto the counter.

“Do you wanna get out of here?” you ask, raising your voice to be heard over the thumping bassline. “I can’t even hear myself think.”

“The parking lot’s out back,” he suggests. “Why don’t we get some air?”

You nod and stand up on wobbly legs, cursing your decision to wear heels when you stumble into your companion. He steadies you with a gentle but firm hand, and you don’t miss the way his touch lingers on your lower back, his palm warm through the material of your blouse.

Together, the two of you pick your way through the throng of swaying bodies on the dancefloor. The bassline thuds in your ears, dark and hypnotic, and you can feel the reverberations thrumming across the slats of your ribs and echoing in the cavern of your chest like a second heartbeat.

It’s almost a relief, then, when you step out into the cool night air. Your ears continue to ring for a few seconds, but it soon fades and leaves behind only the muted hum of traffic from the street and the faint sound of music from inside. At your side, Not-Trent releases a long breath and leans against the brick wall of the building, and you turn to take in the steep slopes of his side profile as he tilts his head up toward the velvety night sky.

He’s handsome. Dressed in ripped jeans and black leather, he’s a sight to behold, and you’d be lying if you said you hadn’t been craving a bit of intimacy for quite some time now. The alcohol swimming through your system makes you bolder than you normally would be, and you reach out to lay a hand on his arm. He turns toward you with a silent question glimmering in his irises, but you simply step closer, until you’re pinning him against the wall with your body and you’re breathing the same air.

“Hey,” you say, your voice an airy whisper. His eyes are near obsidian in the dimness of the parking lot, illuminated only by the orange glow of the streetlamps on either end, and your gaze flickers down to his mouth before roving to the freckle that sits upon his top lip. “Kiss me?”

Your companion’s eyes widen. His lips part, but no words come out, and you’re about to repeat your question when he finally finds his voice again.

“That’s really… that’s not a good idea.” Awkwardly, he clears his throat, but the hoarseness of his voice and the harsh bob of his Adam’s apple give away his true desires. “Look, you’ve been drinking. We both have, and—”

You cut him off, pushing up to your tiptoes and planting a messy kiss to the soft dip just beneath his bottom lip. “Don’t care,” you mumble against his skin. “I want you.”

Your companion laughs weakly. His hands find their way to your waist and pause there, as if he can’t decide whether to push you away or pull you closer. “You don’t even know me,” he murmurs.

“I don’t have to know you,” you reply. Your fingers drag down his chest, trailing along the delicate silver necklace that rests against the black of his shirt. From the chain hangs a round pendant, the surface engraved with the letter J. Slowly, you trace it with a fingertip, the metal shining even in the dim light, and satisfaction blooms in your heart when your companion’s throat bobs again. “I want you,” you breathe, soft but insistent. “Isn’t that enough?”

“I—” He clears his throat and tries again, and you wonder if he realizes that his hands have slid down to your hips, or that there’s a growing hardness against your lower stomach that’s becoming increasingly harder to ignore. “Look, I’m flattered—really, I am. And you’re… I mean, fuck, you’re gorgeous. But I don’t think we should do anything when you’re clearly not in the right frame of mind to be making this kind of decision, and—”

“And, nothing.” You wind your arms around his neck, pressing close and grinding subtly against the bulge in his pants. You smirk when he releases a low hiss from between his teeth, and hide it by laying a trail of kisses along the stretch of bare skin exposed by the dip of his collar. “Stop being such a gentleman,” you whisper. Your fingers trail down his chest, past the silver of his pendant and down to the faded denim of his jeans, teasing at the cool metal of his belt buckle. “I want this. But if you’re not interested, I can always go back in there and—”

The rest of your sentence dies in your throat. Your companion has tugged you flush against him in one smooth motion, and your gasp is cut off by the firm press of his mouth against yours. Immediately, you melt into the kiss, and a moan tears from your lips when he spins you around and pins you against the brick wall of the building.

“You’re a spoiled little thing, huh?” His breath fans hot against your cheeks, and you shiver when you meet his eyes and see the dark promise reflected there. “Used to getting what you want, huh, princess?”

Your breath hitches at the endearment—something your companion doesn’t miss. “Oh, you like that?” He chuckles hoarsely, and when he speaks again it’s in a rasp that sends heat straight to your core. “What else do you like, hmm? You want me to be rough with you, princess? Or should I be gentle and treat you like a queen?”

You reach up, raking your fingers through his hair and skimming across the soft strands of his undercut before finding purchase at his nape. “You talk too much,” you whisper.

And then you’re crushing your mouth back against his, whining when he immediately takes back control of the kiss. His grip slides downward, his fingertips digging into the skin just above the curve of your ass, and you squeak when he grabs the back of your thigh and hooks your leg around his waist.

“You feel that?” he rasps into your ear, nipping at the delicate shell and chortling when you keen. Your skirt has ridden up dangerously high on your spread thighs, and you let out a soft whimper when he grinds harshly against your center. The lace of your panties and the denim of his jeans are the last barricades between you, and you wonder, vaguely, whether your companion has a bit of an exhibitionist streak when he slides one of your sleeves down your shoulder and begins kissing a trail down to the swell of your cleavage. “You feel how hard you’ve gotten me?”

You lean down, kissing the soft spot where his jaw meets his ear before letting your teeth graze against his skin. “Why don’t you do something about it then?”

He hisses out a sharp breath, his hands tightening their hold on your hips. “You’ve got quite the mouth on you, huh? I can’t wait to make you eat your words.”

Any retort you may have had is interrupted by a sudden swell of music and the sound of a slamming door. Whirling to face the source of the noise, you immediately spot a familiar head of lavender hair atop broad shoulders encapsulated in the black uniform of the bar. Jin hasn’t noticed the two of you yet, his attention fixated on his cell phone screen, but he looks up when you let out a little squeak of surprise and shove your companion’s chest in an attempt to create some distance between you.

“Hey.” Jin raises a hand in greeting, a knowing smirk curling his lips. “This phone call shouldn’t be too long, so please. Don’t stop the party on my behalf.”

Heat floods to your cheeks. There isn’t much use protesting against his insinuation, considering the rather compromising position you’re in. Much to your relief, though, your companion simply huffs out a chuckle and waves Jin off. “Thanks, man, but we’ll get out of your hair.” Lowering his voice, he turns back to you. “Coming, princess?”

You nod. He offers you his hand, and you take it gratefully, adjusting your skirt so that it drapes properly over your hips and thighs again.

“Have a good night!” Jin calls after you, amusement lacing every word. You can’t work up the nerve to respond, and luckily, you don’t have to. Your companion leads you around the corner of the building, where several rows of cars are parked beneath an orange streetlamp. On this side, the exterior brick wall is painted with a mural, and you admire the colorful galaxies and nebulae swirling amidst silvery white stars and the word serendipity spray-painted in pale blue.

The last car in the row is parked just beneath the letter Y, and it’s here that your companion stops. The sleek black vehicle has an almost vintage feel to it, and you glance up when you hear the jingle of metal.

“I’m guessing this is yours?”

He nods, pulling a set of keys from the pocket of his leather jacket and inserting one into the lock. “Yeah. You like it?”

“It’s beautiful,” you tell him, tracing the edge of the passenger window “Makes my car look like a total piece of shit by comparison.”

Your companion chuckles, pulling open the driver’s side door, and you catch a glimpse of your reflection in the window as he presses a button to unlock the rest of the doors. Your hair’s a bit of a mess and your mascara has smudged beneath your right eye, and you hurriedly swipe at it as your companion turns his attention back to you.

“So,” he says. “Now what? I can give you a ride home, if you want.”

Deliberately, you let your gaze drop down to his crotch, where his bulge—albeit waning—is still visible. “Seriously? I thought you were going to… what was it again? Make me eat my words?”

And just like that, it’s as if a switch has flipped. His eyes darken to obsidian, his lips settling into a stern line, and you barely have time to draw in a breath before he’s caging you against the side of his car and molding his mouth to yours. Your lips part beneath the onslaught, and he wastes no time in dipping inside to explore, licking into you until you’re both breathless.

“Inside,” he breathes once you’ve broken apart, and you instantly obey. You wrench the door open and all but tumble into the backseat, and he isn’t far behind as he slots himself between your spread thighs. Your hands fly to his shoulders where you help him shuck off his leather jacket, tossing it carelessly to the front where it lands in a heap on the dashboard before focusing your attention on the hem of his black t-shirt. Your companion obliges you as you push it upward to expose his toned abdomen, grabbing it by the collar and pulling it off the rest of the way when your reach falls a little short in the cramped interior of the backseat.

“Your turn,” he whispers when you try to reach for his belt, his hands settling around your wrists. “It’s only fair, princess.”

Pouting, you let your hands fall limp in his grasp, and he chuckles as he leans down to pacify you with a kiss. Deft fingers find the hem of your blouse, pushing it up until you can twist out of the material. You throw it aside with no regard for where it lands on the ground, and lay back as your companion drinks you in, his dark gaze raking across the lacy black lingerie that decorates your curves and skims you like a second skin. “Fuck,” he breathes, his voice hoarse with a combination of amazement and disbelief. “You’re stunning.”

You smile, trailing a fingertip from the dip of his collarbone down to the silver necklace that sits prettily against his bare chest. “You’re not so bad yourself,” you tell him, tracing the letter engraved into his pendant. “Jay.”

Your companion—newly dubbed Jay—smiles back. “You’re something else, princess,” he murmurs, before leaning down to kiss you again. He explores your mouth thoroughly—languidly—before moving down to nip at your neck, and already, you can feel the beginnings of marks beginning to form, blossoming across your skin as irrefutable proof of your tryst.

It isn’t long before Jay frees you from your bra, watching with carnal fascination as your breasts spill out of the lacy material. You whine when he reaches out to cup one, his palm hot against your bare skin, and he smirks crookedly when a pinch to your nipple makes your back arch off the leather of the seat. “So pretty,” he rasps. “I can’t wait to see how you look stretched around my cock.”

“Stop waiting, then,” you tell him, trying again for his belt buckle. This time, he lets you fumble it open, leaning back to watch you work with hooded eyes and a lazy little smile. Emboldened, you push aside the denim of his jeans and free his cock from the confines of his underwear. He’s hard and hot and heavy in your palm, and your tongue darts out instinctively at the sight of the pearlescent precum beading the tip.

“Jay,” you murmur, thumbing across the head of his erection and smirking when he hisses in pleasure. “Fuck me.”

Jay seems to consider your demand, mischief flitting across his features before he manages to school his expression into something more neutral. “Where are your manners, princess?” he asks, pushing your hand away and giving himself a few long, slow strokes. “Say please, if you want it so bad.”

For a moment, you consider refusing. Jay seems to be the type of man who enjoys a good game, but between the state of his cock and the earlier interruption, you’re pretty sure he’s nearing his limit. And even if he isn’t, you are. And so, you shelve your pride for the time being, and trail a hand down the length of your bared body as you bat your lashes up at him. “Fuck me, Jay,” you repeat. “Please. Want your cock so bad.”

His answering smile is equal parts amusement and satisfaction, and altogether sinful. “That’s my girl,” he rasps, before shoving your panties aside. Lining the head of his cock up, he enters you in one smooth thrust, and you moan as your walls stretch to accommodate his girth. You’re more than wet enough to take him in his entirety, your eyes fluttering shut when he bottoms out, and he groans hoarsely as he takes a second to relish the feeling of your walls gripping him so tightly.

“Fuck. You’re so wet, princess.” Jay dips a thumb into your slick, spreading it across your clit and rubbing a few experimental circles around the sensitive nub. He groans when you clench around him, his hips stuttering, and you squeeze around him again just to hear him grit out another curse. “Shit. I’m not going to last long at this rate.”

“Don’t care,” you murmur, rocking against him and sighing when the motion sends him a little deeper into your core. “Just fuck me, Jay. Please.”

Jay leans in, a dark lock of hair falling across his forehead as he plants an indulgent kiss on your waiting mouth. “Anything for you, princess,” he breathes. Slowly, he pulls back until only the tip of his cock remains inside you. Then he’s slamming forward, and you can’t even find it in yourself to care about the obscene sound of skin slapping against skin or the way the car rocks. Jay’s thumbing across your clit in tight circles that he times perfectly with the rock of his hips, and you wonder whether the rapidly building pleasure in your belly is due to your dry spell or if he’s just that good. You can feel every inch of him as he fills you up repeatedly, his brows furrowed in concentration and his dark hair flopping as he drives deeper in search of the spot that will have you seeing stars.

You know he’s found it when the pleasure in your belly spikes, your back arching off the backseat. Your skin is sticky against the dark leather and you’re certain the sweat gathering at your temples has destroyed the last of your makeup, but Jay alleviates your concerns with a particularly well-timed thrust and a harsh nip to the soft spot at your clavicle. You keen out something unintelligible, and his lips stretch into a smirk against your skin.

“That’s it,” he encourages. “Cum for me, princess.”

That’s all it takes for the mounting pressure to snap. Your body collapses into a searing orgasm, the pleasure flaring out like a supernova and spreading through your veins like wildfire. “F-fuck, Jay—” you gasp, your fingers scrabbling at his back for purchase and no doubt leaving scratches in their wake. “Fuck, you feel so—”

The remainder of your words trail off into garbled nonsense, and Jay huffs out a strained chuckle as he begins chasing after his own orgasm, rutting against you in a way that both prolongs your pleasure and sustains his own. “Shit,” he groans, his eyes fluttering shut. “Fuck, that’s it. Look at you—taking my cock so well. So pretty and perfect and—”

Whatever he was going to say dissolves into a groan as he gives a few more erratic thrusts before his release overwhelms him. Creamy warmth floods through you, and you rub his back tiredly as his head drops onto your shoulder, his breath flaring hot against your skin as he rides out his orgasm.

It takes several long seconds for the pleasure to recede. Your legs are still shaky when Jay pulls away, straightening up and tucking himself back into his jeans. There’s an empty ache in your core now that you are no longer stuffed full of his cock, and already, you are missing the feeling. Still, you push that aside as you sit up, adjusting your panties and wincing at the wetness that soaks the material and sticks to your skin.

“So,” Jay says after a moment’s silence, and you glance over at him when he huffs out a short chuckle. “That was fun.”

“Not bad at all,” you agree weakly, an irrepressible smile tugging at your lips.

Jay grins. It’s a bright, infectious grin—and it’s one that you’ve already grown rather fond of in the short period of time you’ve known him. It’s a grin that showcases his perfect teeth and crinkles his eyes into crescents, and one that all but forces you to grin back.

“Here, give me your phone,” he says, and you watch as he punches in his number once you hand it over. “Just in case you ever wanna do this again,” he tells you, handing it back. “Don’t be a stranger, princess.”

You glance down at his contact information, saved under the moniker you’d given him and affixed with a short string of emojis. “I won’t,” you tell him, chuckling. “In fact, I just might take you up on the offer.”

The screen of your laptop has long since gone dark, and you stretch your arms overhead before waking it again. Rolling your shoulders, you navigate back to the main Netflix menu, hovering over the resume button and watching the trailer loop in the background.

You’d be lying if you said you didn’t think about Jay often. You’ve texted each other quite often since that night in his car—usually when you’re bored and alone and have had a few too many glasses of wine in the evenings. You’ve found yourself tapping on his name instinctively during those odd, ambiguous hours—when late night and early morning meld together and you’re aching for a bit of relief.

And as if he knows you’re thinking about him, your phone buzzes against the coffee table, the screen lighting up with a familiar name.

[11:22pm] Jay 😘🍆💦: thinkin about u, pretty girl 😘

It’s followed by an image, and your heart rate picks up, thudding loudly against your ribs as you open it.

Fuck.

Your memories of Jay’s face—made all the more hazy by the alcohol and the amount of time elapsed since your first and only meeting—truly don’t do him justice. Though the photograph cuts off just above his nose, you can still admire the sharp angle of his jaw and the fullness of his puckered lips. His skin is golden against the white of his t-shirt, and you lick your lips before thumbing across your screen to respond.

[11:23pm] You: yeah? what else are you thinking about, hmm?

His response is instantaneous.

[11:23pm] Jay 😘🍆💦: thinking about that pretty little pussy of yours

[11:23pm] Jay 😘🍆💦: how good it looked in that pic u sent me tuesday 👅

You barely even notice the way your hand begins trailing down your body, pushing aside the elastic waistband of your sweats. It’s as if you’re on autopilot, as your fingers find their way to the damp spot growing on your panties.

Yeah? you write back with your free hand, already teasing at your clothed folds with the other. Tell me more.

///

It’s an uncharacteristically warm Friday morning when you find yourself in the elevator with Jimin, a good friend of yours who works on one of the lower levels of your office building. “Morning,” he says as he steps in, a large iced coffee in hand despite the fact that it’s still very much the middle of winter. Then he squints, leaning a little closer. “Oh my god. You got laid!”

“Oh my god, not so loud!” you hiss, whacking him on the shoulder and jabbing the button to close the elevator doors. “And no, not exactly. I’ve just been texting Jay.”

“Texting, sure.” Jimin mimes air quotes around the word and rolls his eyes. “You’re sexting him, and we all know it. How many pictures of his dick do you have saved on your phone now?”

“Oh my—” You sigh, trailing off. “Can we not talk about this right now?”

“Right, of course.” Jimin takes a sip of his coffee and pretends to check his watch. “When would you like to talk about it then? Do you need to check your calendar? Can I book an appointment for later this afternoon?”

You stick your tongue out at him. “Shut up.”

Jimin just grins, his lips puckered around his straw. “So, how’s Jay? Have you asked for his real name yet?”

You shrug. “What’s the point? It’s not like we’re friends or anything. We’ve literally only met the one time.”

“Yeah, but that’s just because you’re a coward,” Jimin points out. “What’s stopping you from meeting up with him again? You have his number. You have at least one photo of his dick. Ask him out already!”

“It’s not that easy, though,” you sigh. The elevator doors open to let a few more people in, and you move to the side and lower your voice so that only Jimin can hear. “Jay—he’s not exactly boyfriend material. I mean, we fucked in his car the first night we met.”

“So?” Jimin frowns and takes another sip of his iced coffee. “You talk about things besides sex, don’t you? You definitely told him about your goldfish dying, at least. I mean, you told him before you even told me!”

“Yes I did, and he was appropriately sympathetic about Mustache’s passing, unlike some people,” you sniff. “Get over it already, won’t you?”

“Never,” Jimin replies, ignoring your pointed jab. “I’m sure you only told him because you knew you could get a sympathy sext out of it. How many dick pics did you get out of that night, anyway?”

“You’re gross,” you tell him, punching him in the arm. “Not to mention that’s exactly why Jay’s not boyfriend material. He’s perfectly happy with—whatever it is we’re doing. I can’t just ruin that by asking him to get dinner.” You frown, gnawing on your bottom lip. “I don’t want to make this into something that it’s not.”

Jimin hesitates. “Fine, okay. I guess I can understand that.”

“Yeah.”

There’s a pause, as the elevator makes a few more stops. You watch the numbers crawl higher, and know that you’ll soon have to part ways with your friend..

“Hey.” You nudge Jimin with your shoulder, just as the elevator doors close and you begin the ascent to his floor. “Wanna know something interesting?”

Jimin looks up from his phone, where he’s scrolling through Twitter. “Always.”

“My boss’ son is coming to the party tomorrow.”

Jimin’s eyebrows disappear into his ashy blond hair at your revelation. “Kyunghee’s son? Hoseok, or whatever?”

You chuckle. “The one and only. She’s found about a million ways to bring him up in conversation this past week. She thinks we’re a match made in heaven.”

“Wow.” Jimin releases a long breath. “I wonder what he’s like, then.”

You shrug, adjusting the strap of your work tote over your shoulder. “I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”

///

The morning of the party, you wake up to an empty refrigerator. Half stale cereal and the last dregs of milk from the carton become your breakfast, and you munch on that as you mull over the contents of your closet. You’re still in your pajamas, but you pull out your comfiest jeans and a sweater to change into after you finish eating. Then you turn to your collection of dresses, rifling through them and mentally debating the merits of each material and color.

You could go in one of two directions tonight. On the one hand, this is still a work party, and as such your attire should probably maintain a certain level of decorum. But on the other, you’re meeting Hoseok Jung for the first time tonight. You aren’t necessarily looking to start anything with the man, of course, but you do want to look good. With that in mind, you eventually settle on a deep red number that you pull out of the very back of your closet, made of a silky material that skims your curves and accentuates your best assets. Laying it on the bed, you begin your hunt for a pair of matching shoes. Twenty minutes of searching and another five of agonizing later, you step into the bathroom, intent on showering and getting on with the rest of your day.

Upon exiting the bathroom, you decide that tackling the state of your refrigerator takes top priority over your other weekend errands. Sitting down at the dining table, you take stock of what you have in your pantry, planning out your meals for the upcoming week and making a list of what you need to purchase in order to make them a reality. It’s just after one in the afternoon when you exit your apartment with a completed grocery list and your purse stuffed full of reusable canvas bags. The store is a short walk from where you live, and you decide to put in your earbuds as your feet navigate the familiar route. The temperature is surprisingly mild for winter, and the sun shines bright from its perch in the cloudless blue sky. It’s perfect weather for a walk, and the fresh air clears your mind and eases your heart.

At the grocery store, you forego the stack of baskets and instead grab a shopping cart. Weaving your way up and down the aisles, you check items off the list on your phone one by one. Eventually, you find yourself in the cereal section, grabbing a box of granola before turning to where your favorite cereal normally sits. It isn’t there, and you turn in a full circle, confused, until your gaze finally lands on the familiar box on the top shelf.

Great.

Sighing, you push up to your tiptoes, stretching your arm as far as it can reach. Your fingertips graze the shelf, but you can’t quite get a grip on the box itself. Glancing down, you scan the bottommost shelf and wonder if you can step on it to give yourself a boost.

“Need a hand?”

The voice comes from behind you, and a vague sense of familiarity sparks in your brain. Slowly, you turn around, and your entire body freezes when your gaze slides up to the speaker’s face.

“Jay.” The syllable escapes you in a near whisper. “H-hi.”

“Hey.”

Jay stands before you, looking like sin incarnate in a faded denim jacket, black sweatpants slung low on his hips, and not much else. At his throat, his silver necklace sparkles, the silver J pendant glinting beneath the fluorescent lights of the store, and you’re suddenly beyond grateful that you decided to put on a decent sweater before leaving.

“Here,” he says, stepping forward until he’s close enough that you can smell his cologne—sandalwood tinged with sweet citrus. “Let me help you with that.”

The sudden proximity has your breath hitching in your throat. Your heart thuds erratically against your ribs as he reaches around you, the denim flaps of his jacket gaping in a way that exposes even more of his bare chest. By the time he pulls back with your cereal box in hand, you feel almost faint, belatedly realizing that you’d been holding your breath.

“You wanted this, right?” Jay asks, and you aren’t sure if you’re imagining the innuendo underlying his words or the teasing inflection of the syllables.

“Y-yeah, that’s the one,” you manage, fighting to quell the uneven tempo of your heartbeat as you accept the box. “Thanks.”

“Happy to help,” he replies. Then he leans in, close enough that you can feel his warm breath fanning your cheek as he murmurs his next sentence into your ear. “Anything for you, princess. You know that.”

Heat floods across your cheeks. Your heart skips two full beats before taking off into a sprint, and it’s impossible to ignore the way your core begins to thrum, as if anticipating a repeat of that night you first met all those weeks ago. Almost instinctively, your eyes dart up to the ceiling where the security cameras are, and Jay follows the trajectory of your gaze with a low chuckle and a soft brush of your cheek with the pad of his thumb.

“Sorry, princess. As much as I’d love to get my hands on you, I’m kind of on a time crunch today.”

You can’t stop the wave of disappointment that washes over you, even if you’re in the exact same boat. “Rain check, then?”

“Rain check,” he agrees. Slowly, you reach up to touch the engraved silver pendant resting against his chest, rubbing it between your fingertips before tracing the curve of the J, and he catches your wandering fingers between his and presses a gentle kiss to your knuckles.

“You know how to reach me,” he murmurs with a mischievous wink. His gaze lingers even after he’s released your hand, and you clear your throat awkwardly before turning to deposit your cereal box into your shopping cart.

The two of you go your separate ways then, exchanging goodbyes. You finish the rest of your grocery shopping in a daze, idly going through the motions at checkout and letting muscle memory guide you back home. Your arms are aching by the time you step past the threshold of your apartment, and you heave your shopping bags up onto the kitchen counter with a relieved sigh before returning to the entryway to toe off your shoes. You throw together a sandwich as you unpack your groceries, taking a big bite as you walk back to your bedroom to look at the dress you’ve picked out. Pacing over to the closet, you double-check your shoe choice. Briefly, you debate whether or not to wear flats instead of heels.

There are still a few hours left before you have to start getting ready, so you take the last of your sandwich back to the kitchen and whip up a smoothie to go with it. You scroll through your phone as you eat, browsing through the latest news headlines and scrolling through your social media accounts. Just before six o’clock, as the sun starts setting beyond the horizon and casting long shadows across your living room, you start getting changed. You snap a photo in the mirror once you’re dressed, pulling up Jimin’s name in your phone and sending it to him.

[6:13pm] You: last chance to come tonight

Your phone buzzes with a response almost immediately.

[6:14pm] Jimin: nah. i’d hate to step on hoseok’s toes.

You laugh. Not so fast, you text back. We don’t even know anything about the guy yet. What if he’s boring? Or sexist?

[6:15pm] Jimin: if u think kyunghee raised a sexist you’re seriously deranged

[6:16pm] Jimin: now stop taking selfies and get your ass out the door! you’re gonna be late!!!!

///

Each year, the holiday party tends to be a little over the top, and this year is no exception. The company has bought out the entirety of a restaurant for the evening, and you glance around in amazement at the twinkling lights and lush evergreen boughs decorating the walls and strung up along the ceiling. An assortment of sparkling ornaments hangs from the massive tree in the far corner, interspersed between silver tinsel and more lights. Grabbing a champagne flute off a passing server’s tray, you head farther into the restaurant, skirting around tables draped in creamy linen and greeting your colleagues and friends.

“Is she alone?”

“Figures.”

The voices come from the direction of the open bar, and somehow, you just know that they’re talking about you. Lottie, Hyejin, and Sandra are clustered in the corner with glasses of wine in hand, casting glances around the restaurant and gossiping about anything and everything with a pulse. You’re sorely tempted to grab the nearest pitcher of water off a table and pour it over their heads, but you suppress the urge and instead head over with a saccharine smile. “So lovely to see you, {Name},” Lottie says as you approach.

“I love your dress,” Sandra adds. “Very slimming.”

“Thanks,” you reply, putting on your brightest, fakest smile. “Yours is great too. How are you and your husband enjoying the party so far?”

Sandra’s face sours, and you hide your smirk in your champagne flute. Maybe it’s petty to bring up her rocky relationship, but you’ve been subject to snide comments from Sandra and her friends for years now and it’s become increasingly hard for you to bite your tongue. A few tables away, you spot Sandra’s husband, Rodney, take an enormous gulp of his whiskey and wince as it burns down his throat.

“We’re all having a wonderful time, aren’t we, ladies?” Lottie cuts in when Sandra takes too long to answer. “Hyejin’s date is over there with Rodney, and my boyfriend is fetching himself a drink. You remember Dev, don’t you?”

You nod, even though it’s a lie. “Sure. Say hi to him for me.”

Lottie’s lips curve up into a smile, her head tilting to the side, and you’re suddenly reminded of a snake rearing its head back for the kill. “So, what about you? Have you brought someone tonight, or—?”

“Hi ladies!” Kyunghee materializes at your side, her lips painted a festive red shade to match her dress. She’s wearing the disingenuous smile that she reserves for the resident gossips of your office, and you try not to let your relief show on your face when Lottie’s attention refocuses on your manager.

“So good to see you, Kyunghee,” she simpers. “Have you been here long?”

“Not as long as you,” your manager replies, nodding at the near-empty wineglass in her hand. “I see we’re already making a dent in the wine supply, and you’re falling behind, {Name}. Why don’t we go remedy that, hmm?”

She doesn’t give you a chance to respond, grabbing your arm and leading you away. Kyunghee is surprisingly spry for a woman her age, and you follow after her with some difficulty as she marches through the throngs of conversing people, all the way to the line at the open bar.

“I’d like you to meet someone,” she says, gesturing at the man standing at the end of the line with his back to you. “{Name}, this is my son, Hoseok.”

The man turns around at the sound of his name, a warm, affable smile stretched across his face. “Hi, I’m H—” he begins, but he’s cut off by your sharp intake of breath. His eyes go wide, his smile fading as his mouth falls open, and you’re certain you’re wearing an even more dumbfounded expression. “It’s you,” he says, his voice hoarse.

“Wh-what… how…” You trail off, speechless. The words flounder and die in your throat as your brain struggles to process this development, and you practically feel the way the gears in your head churn to a stuttering halt.

Because this man standing before you, the one that Kyunghee has just introduced as her son, is none other than Jay. He looks completely and utterly devastating in a navy waistcoat and matching slacks, a green tie shaped like a Christmas tree knotted loosely around the white collar of his shirt. His dark hair is parted, his undercut exposed, and you can’t tear your gaze away from the loose strand that has fallen across his forehead.

“H-hi.”

Jay—Hoseok—swallows. “Hi.”

Kyunghee glances between the two of you, her brows furrowing. “I take it you two already know each other?”

Hoseok’s ears begin taking on a scarlet tinge, the color spreading to his cheeks as he struggles to find his vocabulary again. “I—yeah. Yeah, we’ve met.”

“Right. Do I even want to know how?” she asks dubiously, before shaking her head and huffing out a sigh. “No, forget I asked. I don’t want to know. I’ll just leave you two to… catch up.”

Waving goodbye, Kyunghee disappears back into the crowd of partygoers milling around. Hoseok turns back to you, sucking in a deep breath, and you fight the urge to stare down at your toes as his gaze roves across your face.

“I can’t believe this,” he says, breaking the silence that’s fallen between you at last. “My mom’s been talking about you for months, but I never imagined that it’d be you.”

“You’re telling me,” you reply, finally having recovered your voice. “Kyunghee brings you up all the time, but I never thought… I mean, we didn’t even know each other’s names, and now…” You shrug. “Here we both are.”

“It’s a pretty crazy coincidence, huh?”

“Definitely.”

A beat passes, and then two. You’re fully aware that you’re staring, but you don’t dare blink, afraid that he’ll disappear if you close your eyes. Of all the things that you thought might happen tonight, this particular meeting wasn’t even close to making the list. Never would you have thought that the man you only knew as Jay would turn out to be Kyunghee’s son. Never would you have connected Jay to the photographed little boy in yellow suspenders on Kyunghee’s desk, or realized that they were one and the same.

From behind you, someone loudly clears their throat. Another voice calls for you to get a move on, already, and both you and Hoseok belatedly realize that you are still standing in line for the open bar. Hoseok’s eyes go wide again, and you nearly tread on his toes when you both try to move forward. “After you,” he says with a chuckle, gesturing for you to go in front of him, and that’s enough to break the tension. You step ahead of him with a laugh, catching up to the line, and Hoseok doesn’t stray far as he follows your lead.

“So, what are you drinking?” he asks, a smile playing at the corner of his lips. “Vodka soda with a twist?”

“Actually, I think I’m going to stick with wine tonight,” you reply, peering at the bottles lined up on the counter. “What about you?”

“Hmm. Jack and coke, I think. Nothing else is really calling my name right now.”

Grabbing your drinks, the two of you begin searching for a place to sit. You spot Kyunghee at a table near the front, and she smiles knowingly and offers you a thumbs-up when she catches your eye. Eventually, you settle on a table near the Christmas tree, the lights glimmering off the glasses and reflecting off your knife as you pick it up to butter a slice of crusty bread from the basket in the center. Hoseok follows your lead, grabbing a piece for himself, and the two of you munch in silence for a few seconds before Hoseok breaks it.

“You know, my mom says you’re the perfect girl for me” he says with a dry little chuckle. “Think she’s right?”

“I don’t know,” you answer. “It’s funny, though—Kyunghee’s been telling me the same thing. She sings your praises all the time.”

Hoseok laughs and scratches the back of his neck. “Oh, jeez, that’s kind of embarrassing. I’m glad she’s saying good things, at least.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” you tell him, grinning. “She’s only shown us one photo album from your childhood.”

His face crumples. “Was it the Disneyland one?”

You nod, fighting back laughter, and watch as Hoseok groans and lets his forehead meet the linen-covered tabletop with a dull thunk.

“I don’t like rollercoasters,” he mumbles into the tablecloth, his voice muffled by the material. “They make me queasy.”

“Even now?” you ask, and he nods.

“Yep.”

The clinking of a fork against a wineglass—amplified and broadcast through an array of invisible speakers built into the restaurant’s walls—interrupts any further conversation. You twist in your seat to watch your company’s leadership give their opening remarks, listening as they congratulate everyone for a great year and wish you a happy holiday season. The servers begin going out with plates of food, and you thank them as they set yours down. Hoseok does the same before raising his glass in your direction, clearing his throat and offering you a crooked little smile.

“Here’s to second meetings.”

“Third, if you count the store earlier,” you correct, and he chuckles and nods in agreement before clinking his drink against yours.

You spend the entirety of dinner chatting with Hoseok, getting to know him beyond the few facts Kyunghee has mentioned and what little you’ve gleaned from texting him the last two months. He tells you all about his dance studio, Hope World, where he teaches both contemporary dance and the occasional Pilates class. You find out that in addition to rollercoasters, he also dislikes sour foods and raisins, but he loves mint chocolate and sweet and sour pork. He also has a very low tolerance for alcohol—something he tells you as he tilts the rest of his drink into his mouth. “Should I be worried?” you ask as he sets his glass back down, and he chuckles and shakes his head, sending the loose tendril of hair flopping across his forehead.

Dessert is served, and subsequently eaten. The music is turned up, and people slowly begin finding their way to the open space that serves as an impromptu dancefloor. Hoseok rises to his feet and extends a hand toward you, and you only hesitate for the briefest of seconds before accepting it. He leads you out amongst the other swaying couples, his hand finding its way to the curve of your waist, and you rest your hand on his shoulder as he begins guiding you in a slow, simple waltz.

“So?” Hoseok’s voice is a low murmur, soft and gentle against the shell of your ear. “What’s the verdict?”

You blink. “The verdict?”

Even without looking, you can tell that he’s smiling. You can hear it in the lilt of his voice, and imagine it in the curve of his lips. “About me,” he clarifies, carefully pulling back so you can spin in a circle beneath his outstretched arm. “About us. My mom will never let me hear the end of it if she turns out to be right, but I still wanna know. So what are you thinking?”

“Are you asking if I think we’re perfect for each other?” you ask, giggling. “I don’t know if I believe in all that, to be quite honest. Destiny and soulmates—I mean, doesn’t it seem a little too good to be true?”

Hoseok hums. “Maybe. But considering all that’s happened to us in the last couple of months, don’t you think there’s a chance that it's all more than simple coincidence?”

“Maybe,” you concede. “Still, I don’t know if I can give you a verdict just yet. We haven’t even gone on a date.”

“We did do things a little backwards,” Hoseok admits, tugging you close and winding his arm around your waist. “Let me make it up to you, then. Are you free tomorrow?”

“What if I am?” you challenge.

“Then, I’d like to take you out for breakfast,” he replies without missing a beat.

The prospect of a proper meal with Hoseok Jung does something funny to your insides. Still, something makes you hesitate, and you avert your gaze as you search for your next words. “I wasn’t expecting to end tonight with a date,” you admit slowly. “I honestly didn’t even think you were interested in… well, anything beyond sex, to be honest.”

Hoseok’s face creases into a frown, and you look up again when he murmurs your name. “I understand why you would think that,” he says. “Really, I do. But honestly? I had every intention of texting you and asking you out properly. I was going to play it cool and wait a few days, which was stupid in retrospect. And then you texted me first.”

“I texted y—” You trail off. “Oh, god.”

“It seemed like you’d been drinking,” Hoseok says with a shrug, and you press a finger to his lips before he can say anything more. You remember the night in question, and you remember the bottle of wine you’d consumed. And you definitely remember the photographs you’d sent of yourself, and the ones Hoseok had been kind enough to send in return.

“Wait, so you were going to ask me out? And then I… I sexted you?”

Hoseok nods, and you groan and bury your face into his chest.

“I can’t believe this,” you mutter, and you feel laughter rumble through his chest before a hand comes up to stroke along your back.

“Believe me, I’m not complaining,” he assures you. “But I’d still really like to take you out, so what do you say?”

His gaze doesn’t leave yours for a second as he awaits your answer, and your heart skips a beat when you look up to see the earnestness in his eyes and the hesitant smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “Breakfast sounds wonderful,” you whisper, and the smile that blossoms on your companion’s face is nothing short of radiant.

“Good,” he says. “Great. Breakfast tomorrow, then. Now, can I kiss you?”

You’re already pushing up to your tiptoes, your fingers fisting in the soft hair at his nape. “God, yes.”

///

“Hey, you made it!”

You beam. “Hi.”

You and Hoseok are about to commence your first date, having just sat down at a cozy little café for breakfast. Hoseok has pulled your chair out in true gentlemanly fashion, and you can’t help but smile over your menu at the few lingering snowflakes that have yet to melt into his dark hair.

“So, here we are,” you remark. “Our fourth meeting.”

Hoseok’s lips stretch into his signature grin, breathtakingly bright and infectious. “And hopefully many more.”

You grin at him. “Yeah? Too bad this is breakfast, because I’d drink to that.”

He leans forward, his grin widening. “Next time,” he says as his hand finds its way around yours, his fingers slotting comfortably into the spaces between your own. “We can do dinner, maybe. Or I can cook for you. But for now, I’m just happy that we’re finally doing this.”

You give his hand a soft squeeze. “Me too.”

“Just promise me one thing?”

The sudden seriousness of his tone has your brow furrowing in concern. “Sure, of course,” you reassure. “What is it?”

He winces. “Please don’t tell my mom about all the dick pics.”

#hoseok #hoseok smut #hoseok x reader #bts smut #bts scenarios #hoseok scenarios #jhope #jung hoseok #bts #bts fanfic #bts fanfiction #bts fic #kpop scenarios #hoseok x you #strangers to lovers!au #strangers to lovers #lia writes #gonna change that stupid summary if i can think of anything better LOL #my brain went all mushy on me idk what's happening

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babblydrabbly · 3 years ago

Text

Distracted (Peacemaker x Reader) Smut

Pairing(s): Peacemaker x F!Reader; Brief Javelin x Reader

Characters: Peacemaker/Christopher Smith, Amanda Waller, Javelin

Rating: M

Word Count: 3.5k+

Warning(s): Smut, language, mentions of blood/violence. Choking, cream pie, semi-rough sex.

Summary: Out on a Task Force X mission, Peacemaker notices you're acting... different. He generously offers to help with what's distracting you. Asshole.

A/N: What's this? Baby's first Peacemaker fic? Takes place before The Suicide Squad (2021). Metahuman!Reader has super strength/speed abilities. Also, what kind of vanilla name is Chris Smith.

---

"Again?"

Amanda Waller arched a brow at your perturbed expression.

"My apologies." She droned. "Am I not stimulating you with enough variety, [L/n]?"

You scoffed, folding your arms in deference. It wasn't about that— It was about the deliberately repeated pairings with Christopher Smith. The dynamic that was becoming a pattern. You never would have worked with someone like Peacemaker on the outside. As much as you appreciated the job always getting done with him, you still bumped heads with him too much on the way to the finish line. He was frustratingly serious and flippant at the same time.

You decided to shut your trap before Waller decided she didn't need you anymore.

"You've got one skillset useful to me, [L/n]. I suggest you get used to the prospect of being paired up with Smith on a regular basis— While you're still around."

You nodded when she dismissed you. You had gotten used to it. You were seeing so much of Peacekeeper you were practically partners.

So, you pointedly sat to next the one called Javelin on the helicopter out of Belle Reve, as far away from Smith as possible. You were about to spend over twelve hours with him— It didn't have to start right away. While Colonel Flag gave you all the spiel on the mission, you glanced over and saw Javelin toss you a nod.

"You're Team B," The thrower noted over the whir of the helicopter. "[L/n], yes?"

"Yeah," you said. Your eyes flitted over the muscular squad member. He looked more like a superhero in his light blue and yellow get-up than the rest of you. You personally kept the lower half of your face covered with a black hard shell mask— Your armor from before you were incarcerated (Yes, you've heard the 'Baby Bane' jokes from the others). Even if you had to get used to working with a bunch of weirdos, you could at least conceal your face from them while you did it.

"You move very swiftly." He complimented, and you didn’t know how you were supposed to take that.

"Thanks," You tried, "I like your... weapon of choice?"

Javelin held his namesake in his arms, his legs spread wide to accommodate it as he rested it against his inner thigh. The innuendo normally would have had you rolling your eyes, but today they lingered, and you wondered if he still looked as broad and muscular without the suit on.

You frowned. Without the suit on?

Were you still staring down at his thighs?

You supposed he was a goddamn Olympic athlete at one point. And prison didn't seem to stop him from his regimen. —There it was again. You blinked and looked away, thankful nobody seemed to notice. Javelin seemed content with the brief introduction, so you left it at that.

Okay, so maybe it had been awhile since you...

You reprimanded yourself. These were not recreational outings. As much as you liked feeling free every once in awhile, you were never in a position to consider doing something so stupid. The last few missions were some of the closest calls you had while on the task force, but now that your job today was more about recon, you could at least let your mind wander to the less... imperative things. You crossed your legs at the ankles in front of you and let mind drift for the rest of the trip.

But christ had prison been rough. And a little boring. You didn’t have to think about Javelin moving closer to you for long— Pressing up flush against you— Before you were imagining yourself against a wall— Hell, right here on this bench— hooking your legs around his waist as he thrusted into you. You pictured him going for two, three rounds, that stupid suit lying on the floor with your back on top of it. You pictured him going down on you too, a handful of his wavy blonde hair in your grasp as you pressed your thighs around his ears. You swallowed behind the mask, glad it was there to hide your face.

You get dropped off an isolated point a few klicks outside the target area, the rest of the team traveling further in to handle the bulk of the mission. You lug some extra equipment in a canvas bag— Guns, surveillance tech— already annoyed by the heat.

The heat of the jungle. Definitely not the heat you'd been feeling in the helicopter. You walked a half mile in total silence just trying to focus on the mission again.

"What's got your tactical suit in a twist?" Smith finally uttered as you got to your destination. You almost forgot he had dropped down the rope onto the ground after you. He stood out against the green around you in his obnoxious red shirt and white pants.

"Nothing." You lied, and you could tell from under his helmet that Peacemaker thought you were full of shit today. Great.

You set up inside a small building— An outpost long abandoned. Whatever organization you were taking down for Waller, they clearly had to downsize over the years. You kicked open the metal door, sending it flying off its hinges. Smith entered first, clearing all the rooms before you joined him. Upstairs, you begin setting up the equipment together. Peacemaker started with standing up a rifle by the window, aiming it at the road below.

You fiddled with a tablet; You went downstairs to put a sensor on the door frame and on the rusted gate blocking the road outside. They were supposed to warn you when any vehicles were approaching, but when you came back up, it lost signal. You did this twice; You batted at the little screen, vexed. There were probably signal jammers over at the main compound that could still reach all the way out here. You thought about how Team A was doing— So inevitably, your thoughts drifted back to the damn Javelin guy.

"Jesus!" You snapped. You were grateful when you didn't break the small screen in half with your strength.

"Okay. What the fuck is wrong." Came Peacemaker's voice from across the room. You stood there without turning around. You took a breath, tossed the tablet onto the bag at your feet.

"Nothing is wrong, Smith. Fuck off." You said. You reached up and unclipped your vest. Beneath it, you felt the cool air of the shelter hit your jumpsuit. You tossed the vest on the floor, then turned around. "When are they supposed to get here?"

He quirked a brow, as if proving his point. Since when didn't you remember the mission details? Rather than give him the satisfaction of thinking you were slipping you waved your own question away.

"God, never mind."

He scoffed. You watched him remove his helmet and gloves, setting them down carefully next to his own pack. He'd made his own area across the room from yours, another tablet showing him a view of the road propped up against the wall. Smith took a seat on the floor; The two of you were going to have to play the waiting game now.

In silence. The thought made you pinch the bridge of your nose right above where your mask stopped.

"You know, I've been at Belle Reve for four years now." You finally relented. You leaned back against your wall, folding your arms over your chest.

"Yeah? So?" Smith retorted. You rolled your eyes.

"So," God— You were really confiding in Christopher Smith. That's what it was coming down to. "I haven't had sex in four years. It's... not a big deal— Nothing's wrong. That's just what I was annoyed about earlier, you know? Consider me over it."

"That why you were ogling the Javelin in the copter today?"

Shit. Shit!

You dropped your arms. "You piece of garbage. You saw that?"

"I'm garbage? You're the one sexually harassing our fellow teammates with your eyes."

"I was not sexually— Nope. I'm done. You're ridiculous." You said. You reached down and went back to your tablet, busying yourself with it idly.

Peacemaker did the same. From the corner of your eye, you just knew he was doing it smugly.

"You know," He said after a few minutes, "If that's all you're bitching about, we can just get it over with."

"Excuse me?"

"You and me. Target's not coming in for another six hours, by the way. You don't need that much time do you, 'four-years-dry'?"

You stared at him from across the room. When you didn't reply, Peacemaker set his screen down so damn casually you consider just shooting yourself in the head.

"You're off your game. I'm not going to let you compromise our objective."

You threw your hands up. "There it is. You're like a broken record."

"What? Am I fucking wrong?"

"No, you're fucking crazy."

"Get over here." Smith instructed in a low voice.

The words shot up your spine, sending a very mixed signal to your brain. Directly across from you, Peacemaker was pinning you with an expectant look— One that was clearly a challenge. It pissed you off.

It was the look he used when he said you couldn't rip a guy's spine right out of his back— It dared you. And when you did succeed, you would shoot him an equally smug look in return. Your back and forths were always crass, always a test of who would back down.

You weren't normally so brutal when you worked alone, but something about Peacemaker brought it out of you. Whenever you were paired together, it was like your powers weren't something you had to hold back. They were something he was always prodding you to embrace. The jabs, the snark— It made you want to punch him in the face.

Standing up, you crossed the room. Smith didn't move as you stepped over his legs, as you leaned down to straddle his waiting lap. He simply watched you shift around until you're comfortably seated, your hands resting on his shoulders. He moved to place his own on your thighs but didn't do anything more.

"Well?" You said.

He shrugged, "Your call."

"What am I gonna do? Dry hump you?"

"Hey, if that's what it takes."

You sighed, running a hand through your hair. "Fuck."

Finally, you reached up, unclipping the back of your mask.

"Whoa, wait—" He started, finally reacting to this ridiculous situation, but you already had it off, in your hand.

"I—" He stared at you. You shifted, feeling nervous as you stared back. It occurred to you that you'd never seen him shocked before.

He blinked. "I've never seen your whole face before."

That wasn't true— was it? You tried to think. "What about in Cuba? We camped out for like three days. I had to take it off to eat at least."

"I didn't look."

"You didn't look."

"I don't fucking know! You wear that fucking thing everywhere. When you took it off to eat I assumed you didn't want me looking."

"Wow. How courteous."

"Fuck you."

"Well, isn't that what we're doing here?" You said, putting your hands on your hips stubbornly. Smith's were still resting on your splayed thighs.

"I can't wear this when we— How am I supposed to...?"

He snorted softly, "Don't tell me you're a romantic, [L/n]."

Nothing about this seemed romantic. Least of all with him. Still, if you were going to take the opportunity, you were going to do it your way. You looked him over.

He had a few tufts sticking out from wearing his damn helmet earlier. You reached up and brushed some of it back into place at his temple first. Smith blinked up at you, his brows pinching together.

"This okay?" You heard yourself asking him. He eventually nodded once, watching you as you placed your palm on the side of his face. Finally, you leaned down and caught his lips with yours in a long kiss. You squeezed your eyes shut, not wanting to know his reaction.

But you felt him return it. Slowly at first— Then he was kissing you back. You moaned somewhere in the back of your throat as he ran his large hands up and down your legs, his fingers folding to grip your ass tightly. You were already reacting, already so touched starved. His lips parted, and you felt him swipe his tongue across your bottom lip, over the front of your teeth. You opened for him, your tongue darting out to meet his hungrily.

You tugged at the front of his uniform. Without a word he reached down to pull it up over his head, the fabric dropping off somewhere beside you. You glanced down at his bare chest. You ran your hands over it, dragged your nails down his pecs experimentally. When you looked back up he was still watching you.

Your mouths crashed to meet again, this time with a fervor that threatened to split your bottom lip with every bruising kiss. You felt his hands on you again, pressing into your sides, your waist. He didn't move to take off your clothes, so you drew your hands to your own chest, pulled the zipper of your suit all the way down to your stomach.

He took the invitation, and you gasped when he roughly reaches in and cups a hand around your breast; He kneaded it, brushing his thumb over your nipple. His other hand worked at your shoulder, yanking the rest of your suit off of you. You reached back and tugged the sleeves off, finally exposing your upper body.

You felt the clasp at your back come undone, and Smith was tearing your bra off next. A muscular arm came around to scoop you up by the waist, bringing your chest closer to him. He leaned down, took one of your nipples into his mouth.

"Smith—" He bit you roughly, and it sent a shock of electricity up you. He palmed your other breast again, tweaked at your nipple until your back was arching into his touch. You squeezed your thighs around him.

Then he was back in your face again, bruising a kiss against your lips as you took a breath. Your eyes flew open when you felt the press of his fingers to your mouth. You shot a look at him, but didn't object when he pushed his index and middle fingers past your lips. You sucked them hungrily, your eyes fluttering shut again.

"Fuck," Peacemaker murmured, feeling your tongue swirl around the digits. You slurped sloppily until they were soaked, until he was pulling them back out with a light pop. He brought his hand down to the base of your suit, where the zipper stopped just above your pelvis. A pair of black panties peaked out from the V shape there, the same shade and material as your bra. You gasped when Smith finally pushed down past the layer of cotton, gripped his bare shoulders when you felt his wet fingers dip right into your cunt.

"Fuck," He said again, because you didn't need any help down there. "You're so fucking wet."

You expected to feel humiliation— To hear a joke about how it really had been while. But all you felt were his warm, thick fingers; He ran them up and down your slit, pressed them in small circles around the peak of you a few times. You cursed, your head falling back. Smith leaned up to kiss your throat, teeth dragging across the base of your collarbone. He bit you some more, daring to take your meta-human skin between his teeth. You cried out, your arm reaching to wrap around his head in pleasure.

Smith slid his fingers up into your pussy. He crooked them, scissoring them inside you. Your hips bucked, unable to resist meeting his short thrusts. You felt him grin against your neck. "Damn, baby."

"Shut up." You whispered, letting your hips rolling down to fuck yourself on his fingers some more. When he slipped in a third you moan loudly.

"Fuck! Fuck me." You demanded, yanking the short hair at the back of his head. A groan left Smith's lips, his head jerking back. Quickly, he removed his hand from your suit, pulling the rest of your clothes further down your waist. You lifted yourself off him, but Smith didn't wait. He picked you up and lifted you both off the floor. You grabbed at him as he laid you down on your back, his body between your legs. Then he was ripping off the last of your suit, tearing your boots off.

"Watch it," You snapped— If he fucking ripped anything you—

"Oh please." He huffed, and your thoughts stopped in their tracks as you watched him lean back on his knees above you, undoing his white pants. His cock sprang free from a pair of just as white underwear, his arousal already thick and ready. You stopped yourself from expressing how the sight of him made you even wetter.

He took a moment to drink in your face, a hint of that smug smirk forming. You growled, pulling him down by the neck again before he ruined the moment with speaking. Smith caught your lips again, his hand running down your naked body. He gripped one of your legs and nudges them apart, planting his knees between you.

Despite his earlier preparation, it was nothing compared to the feeling of his cock pushing inside you. You groaned as he entered you, your walls stretching around his length. Your back arched as you took him in, eyes rolling a little into the back of your head.

"Fuck— Chris—" You shuttered. His hands squeezed your thighs at the sound of his name leaving you. You heard his breath shake, his hips remaining utterly still as you got used to the size of him. Opening your eyes, you looked up to see him waiting for you; You nodded once, another moaning already escaping in anticipation.

It was like a brick wall knocking into you. Smith didn't hold back as he began fucking you— Knew you could take it— what with your powers and all. The idea seemed to drive him, and he began hammering into you, his hands moving to bracket your hips so he could fuck you better. Faster. Your legs wrapped around his waist.

Fuck— You couldn't think. You arched up off of the floor as you rolled your hips to meet Smith's. It felt like he could keep up this pace forever the way he wasn't stopping. Your breathing turned to panting, a high whine escaping you when he shifts just right— he picked you up again. You arched up into his arms, holding yourself up from around his neck as he fucked up into your soaking cunt. You bounced on his cock, a sheen of sweat blooming across your skin.

When you opened your eyes, Smith was still watching you intently— witnessing every little expression on your face while he fucked you. You could hardly discern what he was thinking. All you could focus on was him ramming you, the feeling of his cock hitting and stretching you out.

“Choke me.” He said, and you have just enough wherewithal to oblige. You wrapped your hand around his throat, pressing firmly on either side. You felt the tightness of his skin shifting under your touch. His pulse beat a fast rhythm in time with his rough thrusts. The strength of your grip was a little vice tipping Smith over the edge.

The look on his face, his eyes closed as he tried to control his breathing sends a jolt up you. You used your other hand to slip two fingers down between your folds. They found your clit, making quick work of bringing you to close to climaxing. You shuttered as you felt the tight coil of it building. Finally, with a cry you were coming, squeezing your legs around him as your hips rolling through every wave of it. Smith groaned, picking up the pace, fucking you through your orgasm until your walls were fluttering from the unrelenting stimulation.

“Going to—“ He warned, and you squeezed the hand around his throat harder, making his eyes roll up. You whimpered as you feel the hot spurt of him fill you, his hips finally locking as he pumped you with his cum.

You both took a moment to catch your breath, your hand releasing from Smith’s neck so he could take in a long gasp. His skin was reddened along his throat and chest. You saw the beginnings of your handprint bruising around his Adam's apple, your fingers a mark on his skin. You hung onto him like that, your arms back around his shoulders for balance.

“Fuck.” You finally said. Out of habit, you checked your watch to assess where you were on the mission. He took your chin in his hand, drawing your eyes back up to him. You saw that his hair had fallen back into his eyes, his face glistening with sweat.

“I’m not done with you.” He said. It sent a shiver through you. You felt your walls flutter again, some of his cum leaking out with his half-hard cock still firm inside you. You gasped as he pulled you off of him, guiding you down until you were turning around on all fours on the floor. You glanced over your shoulder, already craving the feeling of him filling you up with his cock again.

And fuck it, you two do take the whole six hours.

#peacemaker #peacemaker x reader #peacemaker x you #Christopher smith #dceu smut #dceu fanfiction #I don't know what happened; I had ideas for some dialogue between peacekeeper and reader and it turned into thiS #peacemaker smut #smut #mywords*

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newtonsheffield · 3 years ago

Text

Imagine if I just dropped a little teaser for From The First Old Fashioned

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, November 2021

“Kate, can we stop fucking around and get out of there please?”

Edwina’s voice was dry in the intercom, and Kate could almost see her sister’s eyes rolling from her position in the van, still three streets away.

Kate chuckled, backflipping over the final trip laser. “So I added maybe a few more flips than necessary, but I have to give my admirers at Interpol something to fuss over.”

“You didn’t have to go through there at all. You literally could’ve just walked round.” Sophie sighed, the keyboard clicking in Kate’s ear, loud from the office building on the other side of the street, “Yes, what would it be without your little signature?”

Kate hummed, as she took out the screw driver. “Have we got the heat sensors off?”

“Yep, they’ve been off for 15 minutes while you did your little acrobatics.” Sophie tutted while Edwina hummed.

No doubt watching her carefully carve her moniker into the wall beside the Degas “Why are you the way you are?”

Kate turned towards the security camera and did a little bow before she got to work, gently removing the screws holding the painting in place, her mind wandering, “Did I tell you guys What I got Anthony for his birthday?”

“If it’s more lingerie I really don’t want to know.” Sophie sighed.

Kate rolled her eyes, smirking a little at the look that always spread across her husband’s face when he saw his auxiliary birthday gifts, her body wrapped in tight lace, his voice excited. Off. Take them Off Mrs Bridgerton! “Other than that.”

She’d met Anthony five years ago, in Monaco of all places, his eyes burning across the hotel bar at her, sunglasses on, a handsome smile tossed her way while her stomach had burned, even as she chastised herself, slowly watching him make his way over. Don’t Kate, Don’t make this messy. You’ve done this job, you’ll get the money for Edwina to go to university and now you can get back to your real life.

“Hey, this is going to sound like a line: But I couldn’t help but notice you over there.” His voice was smooth, rich, deep, his hand running confidently through his dark wavy hair, but his eyes were kind when he slid his glasses up, and something about him had tugged at her.

“That’s your best line? I’m a little disappointed. You looked like your were thinking so hard about it when you came over.” She’d hummed, her legs crossed on the stool.

“So you noticed me too.” He’d caught her out, grinning a little too charmingly. “You wanna hear my best pick up line?” He’d leaned in conspiratorially.

“Of course I do, and if I like it, you’ll buy me an old fashioned and you can ask me what you really came over here to ask.”

He’d chuckled, the sound warm and thrilling, his hand snaking confidently around her waist, burning at the skin there. “How long did you lose your driver’s license for when you drove me crazy?”

And despite herself, despite the anxiety she’d felt in the pit of her stomach from the moment she’d taken this job, she’d thrown her head back and laughed. “Buy me a drink pretty boy.”

“Anthony, I’m Anthony.” The hand he’d held out towards her was warm, inviting and she couldn’t help herself.

“I’m Kate.”

She’d fallen into his bed a few hours later, and before she’d known what she was doing, she’d left her name and number neatly penned on his bedside table.

“Foul.” Edwina said distastefully, and then, “The same car’s driven by me three times, black sedan, I’m going round the block to follow.”

Kate hummed, not perturbed, “Anthony, appreciates my acrobatics.”

Sophie made a disgusted noise, and Kate could almost see her face, screwed up in distaste, staring at the monitor. “Anthony is an accountant. The sex cannot be that good.”

“Oh a Ballet Dancer Ben is so creative? Aha! Victory ladies!” Kate crowed as he tugged the painting from the wall, and then she heard it… a very faint click.

Panic whirled in her chest, her mind racing, “Fuck! Soph, there was a pressure sensor behind the painting.”

“Fuck!” Sophie hissed, tapping at the keyboard furiously, that wasn’t listed in the security brief, it must be new. Fuck!”

“Oh We have a bigger problem than that.” Edwina hissed, the engine revving in the back ground as Kate raced through the museum the same way she’d come in, boots skidding on the floor, fingers fumbling with the case as she locked the frame in, securing it to the pulley.

“How much bigger?” The adrenaline was pounding through her veins, sweat sinking into the knitted mask she wore, and still she couldn’t help but smirk when she looked back at the wall, Much Love,

Viscountess

Etched there.

“Fucking huge. That Car just pulled up outside, a man just got out in a fucking Interpol jac- Oh What the FUCK?!”

It was racing through her veins now, the adrenaline, the panic the fear, as she tugged on the rope sending the painting soaring up through the ceiling, flipping across the floor to avoid, the sensors, seeking her own exit.

“Painting’s out, Soph, get the drone, I’m nearly there.”

“Kate, just get out, just get out right now. Holy Fuck, Holy Fuck. It can’t be him.” Edwina’s voice, usually so calm, so carefully controlled was full of panic, as Kate made it to the stairwell, footsteps thundering behind her.

“Bring the car around, I’m about to descend.” Kate spat quickly, her legs burning as they carried her faster and faster up the stairs, lungs on fire. She’d made it, made it to the edge of the building, forgoing the climbing harness, wrapping the rope tightly around her arm, “Is the drone at the pick up?”

“Yep.” Sophie’s quick calm voice came.

“Kate-”

“Put your hands up or I’ll fucking shoot!”

Kate went cold, the wind knocked out of her as the voice she’d know anywhere rang across the rooftop, with more authority and venom than she’d ever heard it. It couldn’t- It couldn’t be him.

“Kate, It’s Anthony. The Interpol agent is Anthony.”

“I mean it. Fucking put them in the air.”

Kate slowly lifted her hands, her mind racing, confusion sweeping over her, her stomach churning. What the Fuck was-?

“Okay, not turn around and slowly, take off the mask.”

Kate turned, as slowly as she dared and there he was. Anthony Bridgerton. Her husband. The man who slept beside her every night, the man who made her eggs in the morning, and held her when she cried, the man who kissed her on the cheek every morning as they left for work. Anthony the accountant. Well. Apparently not.

He was dressed in a dark suit, a bulletproof vest with Interpol splashed across the front, his hair whipping in the breeze, that same crease between his brows that she’d run her fingers over so many many times, his eyes hard as he stared at her unblinkingly down the barrel of a gun. A .45 she thought. Not that it mattered. And what choice did she have?

Kate raised her hands slowly, and tugged her mask free, her own hair swirling around her for a moment as their eyes locked together.

Anthony’s mouth fell open in shock, his gun dropped to the ground, as she cleared her throat. “Well, I think dinner’s going to be a little late tonight, Honey.”

And without warning, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he dropped to the ground.

#from the first old fashioned #kathony #anthony x kate #kate sharma #kate sheffield #anthony bridgerton #kathony fic #bridgerton fic #coming soon #thief kate au

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technowoah · 3 years ago

Note

Wait imagine a fic where Jack and the reader are long distance or something and when Tubbo and Tommy are doing the man hunt irl the reader surprises Jack.

That would be cute I think 🤔

Just One Livestream

You surprise Jack with a spontaneous visit to the UK, little did you know that they were livestreaming.

- Jack Manifold x gen neutral!reader

- Anon Requested!

⚠︎ swearing, fluff!, not proofread

an// I hope yall enjoy! Much love! And sorry it came out so late I have no inspiration rn but imma get it done! Also I used the difference of American hours to London hours so sorry of

Navigation!

"Love, why are you up early?" Jack asked through the phone.

You two were facetiming eachother as he propped his phone up on his dashboard while he started to drive. It was around 1 am for you and 6 am for Jack. Sadly you two were in a long distance relationship. You had met Jack when you were on a college trip to London to study abroad for 3 weeks. You were sad that you had to leave your home country, but this was a opportunity you couldn't oppose.

During this trip you had found a cafe that you would go to often. The first time you sat at the cafe alone you always noticed it was only you and this other man in the cafe. He was always on his computer and sat by a window, he always came early too, even earlier than you. As the days went on you continued to see him around more and he seemed to notice you as well. You made a note to yourself to always try and show up a tad bit earlier to the cafe to stay around the same time as he did.

You two got to know eachother throughout the three weeks you had to stay in London. The small nods became hellos, and the hellos turned into full on conversation by the window. He had told you his name was Jack Manifold and was kind of surprised when you didn't immediately know who he was. To him it was refreshing not to be immediately noticed based on his appearance. You both had exchanged numbers one day and after each morning you two would text non stop even during your classes. Luckily trying to get to know Jack changed your sleep schedule and because of that you always made it to class on time.

Jack was such an amazing guy to you, but during the first week you had developed a small crush on the man, and he had developed a crush on you too. The second week you two had ventured out onto different territory than the cafe. Jack started to call those small outings after class, dates and you weren't opposed to the dates at all you loved them. The second and third week were mostly dates and the night before you left he asked to be your boyfriend and of course you accepted not knowing the pain of a long distance relationship.

You had to answer his question on why you were up so early. "Yeah- Um, Im up because of you." You chuckled. "You changed my sleep schedule ever since I met you."

"Well you're welcome, because before me I heard you were missing classes." Jack payed attention to the road but still talked to you.

"Because I told you! And I am grateful, but there is nothing to do at one am here." You sighed while you started to walk around your room as you lied to him.

Jack was talking to you while you did a clean sweep around your house to check if you had everything for your trip.

Two weeks ago you had decided to pack your bags and take a trip back to London. Right now your flight will be leaving early in the morning and that's why you are up so early.

You wanted to surprise Jack instead of straight up telling him that you will be in the country. You missed him dearly, and this will be a great way to spend time together instead of seeing eachother across a screen. One of you had to make that sacrafice and that would be you.

While Jack continued to talk you checked everywhere to make sure you arent leaving anything behind.

"What are you doing, darling?" Jack asked and that snapped you out of your trance. "Are you even listening to me? Im hurt." Jack faked being hurt.

You smiled at him and shook your head. "Im sorry I wasn't listening. What were you saying?"

"I was saying, when you were ignoring me, that I'm going to the cafe right now and that we should plan a trip soon. I miss you." Jack confessed and you awed.

"I miss you too Jack! I hopw we can see each other soon." You tried to contain your smile as you hid your surprise.

"Me too."

Your plane finally landed as you let out a sigh of relief. You had collected all of your shit fast so you could finally get off of that horrible plane. Every stereotypical airplane scene happened to you in the hours you were on that plane. You had a child crying behind you with a mother who couldn't keep that child calm, you were sat next to a man who snored the whole ride here and you just felt cramped.

Sadly you couldn't return any of Jack's messages or calls that you saw when you were in the airplane terminal. You tried calling him twice but they both went to voicemail while you rolled your bag through the huge building. Finding yourself outside you ordered an Uber and once you did that your phone began to ring showing Jack's name and picture of you two together on the screen.

You quickly answered the phone. "Hey!"

"Hi!" Jack chuckled. "I called like, 17 times!"

"I know! Im sorry. I was busy." You weren't lying getting a plane and basically leaving early in the morning and arriving in the afternoon in London. "So, what are you doing today?"

"I am hanging out with Tommy and Tubbo at the park! Im picking them up now!" Jack responded and you heard him close his car door.

"Which park?" You asked quickly as you saw your Uber arrive.

Jack started to laugh. "Uh I'll text you the park I guess. Why would you want to know?"

"No reason! I just want to make sure you are safe. Dont make me call 999." You tried to joke around and take the attention off of your question.

"I cant believe you still remember 999." Jack laughed.

"I still do!" You said as you got inside your Uber and gave the driver the directions to your hotel forgetting that Jack was on the other line.

"Wait hotel?" Jack questioned through the phone.

"Hotel? What are you talking about?" You acted oblivious.

"I- I thought you were talking about a hotel." Jack hesitated.

"No!" You tried to cover up your mistake.

"Well Im going to pick up Tommy soon. I'll talk to you later okay? Answer my calls this time!" Jack chuckled.

"I definitely will!"

You had recived the name of the park you were surprising Jack at. You began to walk around the parking lot after you got dropped off and noticed his car sitting there. There were tons of people at the park today and you didn't know where he would be. As you walked on the dirt trails of the park your thoughts took over, what if you made a mistake and should've told Jack that you were here in London and wanted to meet up at the cafe?

You looked at people as they passed by you ok the trail wishing that you had that energy that you had before, thinking that you would find Jack easily when in reality you were in a busy part of the park and he could be anywhere.

When you thought all hope was lost you heard some loud voices on the trail to your right. You were already walking aimlessly through the park and your first instinct was to go left and walk away from the loud voices, but then you heard something.

"Tommy this was a bad idea!"

"I dont think it was!"

You stood in the "intersection" of the dirt trails thinking that you heard those voices right. You rounded the corner and followed right to see Tommy and Jack doubled over, out of breath while Tubbo was still standing up breathing heavily. There were far away from you, but not far away that you couldn't see them clearly.

You began to call out to them. "Tommy! Jack! Tub-"

They quickly turned around and took off running. Confused on why they were doing that you took off running after them trying to tell them to stop. They were yelling and you were yelling and getting weird glances from stangers, and you dont blame them. You're chasing after your boyfriend and his two friends in a quiet public park. You continued to hear their groans of tiredness and their speed started to slow down.

"Jack! Tommy! Wait up!" You yelled out of breath as you slowed down as well.

"We give up! We give up!" Tubbo yelled and came to a complete stop while trying to catch his breath. He turned around to finally face you. "Y/N?!"

"Wait what?!"

"You're here?!" Jack ran up to you and gave you a bone crushing hug, rocking you two back and forth.

"I am! And Im our of breath thanks to you three." You said while still hugging Jack.

"M'sorry I thought you were a fan and I took off and they followed suit I guess." Tommy rubbed his forehead.

"A fan?" You questioned and Tommy and Tubbo lifted their phones up gesturing that they were recording.

"We're doing manhunt in real life, darling." Jack kissed your temple and wrapped his arn around your waist, holding you tight.

"Next time look before you run okay." You smiled still out of breath while kissing Jack's cheek.

"Enough with the PDA!" Tubbo yelled still recording you two.

"We havent even started!" Jack yelled back giving you a huge hug. Jack closed the distance between you two and gave you a passionate kiss on the lips while the two boys groaned in disgust.

"I think that's enough streaming for today boys." Tommy sighed.

"Sorry again, love. That won't happen again."

You and Jack walked hand in hand down the streets of London. People had to walk around you two because you were basically taking up the whole sidewalk and you weren't letting go of his hand anytime soon.

"It better not! I dont want to run after you again." You smiled as you bumped shoulders.

"And you wont have to!" He smiled back at you as you two continued to walk and people dodged the two of you.

"Have you ever thought of moving here?" Jack asked out of nowhere.

"I have actually! On the plane ride here I thought of leaving and moving to London." You thought about it constantly. It was nice being close to Jack and it was a major risk.

"Well wherever you're ready, I'll be here for you." Jack kissed your cheek. "And I wont run away when you come here!"

You two finally made it to your destination which was the cafe you two met at. It was busy at this time because it was the middle of the day and not the beginning. You two entered and took your seats by the window where you two usually sat.

"I love you. I missed this." Jack said.

"I love you too! And of course I missed this. Maybe you can show me more places around London and convince me to stay longer." You gave him a proposal.

"Longer than what?" Jack asked.

"Four weeks." You grinned.

Jack grabbed both of your hands and kissed the back of them. "Hell yeah. I get you for more than four weeks?!"

"That's if you show me places to stay longer." You teased.

"Okay babe. You like ferris wheels?"

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watchmegetobsessed · 4 years ago

Text

Never Have I Ever - Harry Styles (part 8)

a/n: oh my! we have finally reached the end of this story and I never thought it would turn out to be this long but im happy it did! thank you for reading and loving it, and now, enjoy the last part!

pairing: Harry x actress!reader

word count: 4k

warning: just pure fluff

SERIES MASTERPOST

masterlist

“Girl, even if you don’t win, you’ll surely take the title of the hottest woman on the red carpet tonight.”

Florence’s words make you chuckle, but you try not to move your lips too much as the makeup artist finishes up the last touches on them, using a nude shade.

“Stop, my head is big enough already,” you tell her, giving her a look through the mirror. She is standing a few feet behind you, already wearing her beautiful, golden Versace gown that hugs her perfectly. Her hair is up in a neat bun so her back can be on full display and the diamonds in her ears can also shine brightly. She looks amazing while she is the opposite of what you’ll look like tonight.

Rhonda, the makeup artist has an amazing notion about your look when you showed her the gown you’d be wearing tonight and since the dress is not the sparkly kind, like Florence’s, she went a little heavier with the glitter on your eyes, using mostly whitish-silver colors, creating rosy cheeks and topping it with nude, glossy lips. Your hair is in loose curls with a bunch of extension, creating the illusion that you might as well be Rapunzel herself tonight. But you are the most excited about the gown that’s already waiting for you to be finally put on.

“What time is it?” you ask Florence as you don’t have your phone on you, but she has hers in her hands already.

“We still have half an hour before we have to leave. Dude, I can’t believe you are an Oscar nominee and might turn into a winner tonight!” she sighs, eyes shining bright with excitement. She hasn’t come off of this high for days, so over the Moon that you get to walk the red carpet tonight as a nominee.

“Don’t jinx it, Flo,” you warn her.

There’s a knock on the door of the hotel suit you’ve occupied for the glamming and Florence is quick to rush to it answering, but you both know who it is. As she throws the door open Harry comes to your sight, looking as handsome as ever, wearing his custom made Gucci suit with a pink dress shirt underneath that matches your gown perfectly.

“Florence, you look wonderful!” his british accent fills the room, making you smile. Rhonda sets your makeup with some spray and you’re finally done. Standing up you move your legs around a bit as they went a little numb from all the sitting.

“Thank you! Pink suits you well, Harry,” your friend compliments your man and you watch them smiling.

When Harry’s eyes set on you, the light up, his smile widening from ear to ear. He looks spotless, freshly shaved, his hair recently cut and combed into place for a change. Not that you don’t like it when it’s all tousled and messy, especially when it’s because of your fingers.

“Angel, wow!” he breathes out as he walks up to you, taking your hands in his. You know he wants to kiss you, but doesn’t want to risk messing your lips up, so he is left with admiring you with only his eyes.

“Just wait until you see her in the dress!” Florence chimes in making you chuckle. You kept your dress a secret, wanting to surprise him with the first look. You gave out only the most necessary details for Lambert so the two of you could match.

“You’d be great like this too,” he teases, taking a look at your fluffy robe.

“I’m not going to the Oscars in a robe,” you tell him with a narrow-eyed look.

“I know, I’m just saying that you’d still be stunning,” he mumbles with a boyish smirk.

“Y/N? Time to choose a necklace!” Your stylist, Rupert appears from the room where your gown is hanging. He has a few jewelry boxes in his hands and he sets them all to the coffee table, opening up you are met with four breathtakingly beautiful diamond necklaces, each of them different yet so magical looking, you can’t decide which one you like the most.

“Harry, which one do you like the most?” you ask, kneeling down next to the table, mesmerized by the jewelries in front of you. Harry leans down and inspects them one by one before poking on the last one in the row. It has three rows of diamonds, not too big, the stones in the last row are shaped like water droplets, it’s such an elegant looking piece, it surely caught your eyes as well and you think it would be perfect with the dress.

“This one,” he tells you and you nod, shutting the other boxes, satisfied with the choice.

“Alright, time to get you into the gown, girl,” Rupert winks, gesturing at you to follow him into the room.

“I’ll be right back,” you tell Harry, risking a quick peck on his lips before you disappear in your temporary dressing room.

You fell in love with the gown on the first fitting when Rupert pulled it out, still in the finishing phase. It still has pins in it, but it already took your breath away. It has a massive A-line skirt and a tight upper part that hugs your body perfectly, a row of buttons running down the middle of it. The sleeves are puffy, but then end in a tight run from a little above your wrists, the same set of buttons appearing like on your chest. It’s giving out some Victorian style vibes in a more sophisticated and simpler way, but it’s by far your favorite dress you’ve ever worn to any event.

It surely needs the extra pair of hands from Rupert to put it on, but once you are secured in it, you feel like a princess straight out of a fairytale and surely, your prince is standing on the other side of the double doors.

“Alright! Everyone get ready for the big reveal!” Rupert announces, sneaking out the room so he can open the door for you. He waits a few moments as you hear everyone shuffle around outside, probably lining up to see you walk out in your finished state. “Okay, three! Two! One! Welcome our Oscar nominee!” he cheers, a round of applause is heard before you even appear, but it’s quickly replaced with gasps when Rupert pulls the doors open and they get the first glimpse of you in your gown.

“Holy fuck!” Florence gasps, mouth hanging open as she keeps raking your form up and down. Your eyes find Harry’s gaze and you see him in a state you haven’t often found him in the past almost two years you’ve been dating. He is completely speechless, eyes glued to you in awe as if he just saw an angel in real life.

“Y/N, I—wow,” he breathes out, still at a loss of words.

“You like it?” you ask with a shy smile.

“I fucking love it, baby. You look… You really are an angel,” he tells you, making you chuckle at his words.

“Would you please help me put on the necklace?” you ask him and he nods eagerly, carefully taking the jewelry out of its box and walking behind you, he brings it around your neck, his fingers delicately working on the clasp. Once it’s all set, you step to the floor to ceiling mirror, taking in the final look.

“There won’t be a straight woman left on Earth once you step on the red carpet,” Florence bluntly comments, making everyone in the room laugh.

“Let’s take some photos, I need to immortalize this masterpiece,” Rupert gestures around, already grabbing his camera.

The next ten minutes you take hundreds of photos, alone, with Florence and then with Harry. He still seems a little stunned by your look, feeling shy when he circles his arm around your waist, but it’s cute that you can still have such an effect on him after being together for almost two years.

Florence snaps some with your phone as well, your favorite is when he held your waist and leant you back, making you arch backwards as your noses touched since he couldn’t kiss you. You already know it’ll end up as your lockscreen, replacing the selfie the two of you took on your latest trip to Hawaii.

When it’s time to leave you grab your little purse with your phone and other necessities and the three of you pile up in a minivan, since your dress needs all the space so it doesn’t get wrinkled before you step out to the red carpet.

As you sit in the car and watch the buildings pass by, your nerves start to rise in you. When the nominations came out a month ago it seemed so far, you couldn’t imagine yourself actually attending the Academy Awards, but now here you are, on your way to find out if you’ve been good enough to be the best.

Your role in Sinful Heaven has brought a lot to your life aside from the nomination. The three months of filming was one of the hardest times in your life you’ve ever worked through and at some points, you didn’t even think you’d get through it. Working so closely with Levi took a toll on you while you were trying to prove in such a heavy and serious role. It was a mess especially at the beginning when you and Harry were still in this weird phase, but that eventually turned right when he literally punched Levi in the face and ten minutes later asked you to be his girlfriend. It’s a badass way to start a relationship and you wouldn’t trade it for anything, especially because it put Levi into place or at least scared him enough to get off your back for the rest of the filming.

When Harry left following that visit, you couldn’t see each other until filming wrapped and you flew straight to him and travelled with him for the next two weeks, hopping from one city to the other, watching him perform every other night and spending all your time with him.

When the movie premiered eight months later, you didn’t appear with Harry by your side, Maya was your date for the evening, but by that time everyone knew you and Harry are an official couple. Neither of you felt like hiding it or caring about what others would think and you were able to focus on each other and rely on the strong foundation you’ve built for your relationship.

He was there with you when the nominations came out and probably screamed louder when your name appeared in the list. With tearing eyes and choked out sobs you jumped into his arms as he mumbled into your ear.

“I’m so proud of you, Angel. So, so proud!”

And now you are on your way to the show, only hours away from finding out if your dreams will come true tonight. Harry squeezes your hand and you turn to face him, his soft eyes meeting yours.

“Nervous?” he asks with a small smile.

“Very,” you admit with an airy chuckle.

“Whatever happens tonight, I’m very proud of you. Don’t forget that.”

“Thank you,” you whisper, giving his hand a squeeze back.

Since it’s the first time you and Harry appear on the red carpet as a couple, once you set your feet out of the car, everyone goes nuts. He helps you out and even fixes your dress so it falls just perfectly around your frame before he offers his arm. You link your through it, taking a deep breath as the two of you start walking down the carpet, posing for the photographers.

You feel powerful and strong, like it’s the peak of your career, but you also feel that it wouldn’t be the same without Harry by your side even though he is making sure to let you shine tonight. At one point he even steps back for a moment so photographers can snap you alone and you think it’s such a caring move from him.

You feel a little dizzy from all the flashlights by the time you walk into the theater, Harry holding your hand tightly as he leads you to your seats.

You’ve been to plenty award shows and it’s not even your first Academy Awards appearance either, but for obvious reasons, it’s the most important. Sitting in your plush chair, you can barely stop yourself from continuously fidgeting as one category follows the other and it’s still not yours.

Then following a jaw-dropping performance from Dua Lipa, Chris Evans walks out with a golden statue and an envelope in his hands and your heart skips a beat, but not because of the man himself, but because you know he is the presenter of the Best Actress category.

Your hold on Harry’s hand on your lap tightens and you glue your eyes to the big screens behind Chris as he smiles around.

“Good evening. It’s a pleasure to be here and to present the award for Best Actress. The theater tonight is filled with exceptional talents, but let’s see the nominees,” he speaks into the microphone and then he starts listing the names.

Emma Stone, Anne Hathaway, Margot Robbie and Rooney Mara are called and a camera fixates on each of them when Chris says their names, all smiling brightly and waving around before your name is called at the end. Taking a deep breath you plaster your most wonderful smile across your face, waving around like the other nominees did before the big screen splits, showing the five of you simultaneously.

“We’ve seen some spectacular performances from these ladies and now let’s see who proved herself to be the best this year.”

Chris flips the envelope open and pulls the little paper out that has the winner’s name written on it and for a moment you’re convinced you’ll pass out. You’ve never felt this anxious before and you’re gripping Harry’s hand so tightly you’re surprised he hasn’t pulled it back, but he is patiently putting up with your nerves, his eyes glued to the man on the stage as well.

“And the Academy Award for Best Actress goes to…” Chris starts with a charming smile, holding a short pause before he finally says the name. “Y/N Y/L/N for her role as Marie Davidson in Sinful Heaven!”

Your mouth hangs open, ears ringing as you process that your name was called. Everyone around you jumps up, including Harry, who is screaming just like when the nominations came out, while you are completely blank. It takes you a couple of moments to realize that you in fact just won your first Oscar and everyone is waiting for you to go and get your little statue.

“Baby! Baby you won!” Harry cheers as he helps you up from your seat and you throw yourself into his arms as reality sets in. “I fucking love you, Angel. Go and get your Oscar!” he laughs, pride all over his face as he urges you to walk up to the stage.

“Walk me up, please!” you stammer, not trusting yourself with walking in this fragile state. He offers his hand without a second thought, walking you to the stage where Chris is politely waiting for you to help you up on the stairs.

“Thank you,” you breathe out once you’re finally up on the stage, every set of eyes on you as Chris hands you the little statue.

“Congratulations,” he smiles as the two of you exchange two kisses on the cheeks before he steps aside and lets you give a speech.

You thought about writing a few words beforehand, but you figured if you end up being the winner you’d forget the whole thing, so there would be no use and that’s the case. Your mind is still blank as you look down at the award in your hands, the crowd still cheering on you, giving you a few extra moments to figure out what to say.

“I uhh—I don’t even know what to say, this feels like a dream,” you admit talking into the microphone, the clapping dying down so that everyone can hear your words. “I want to thank to everyone who worked on Sinful Heaven, because I wouldn’t be here without them. To my wonderful director and amazing costars, it’s been such a wonderful journey with you all. Thank you to my friends and family who were there with me from the very start, believing in me when I was losing faith in myself, thank you for never giving up on me. To my parents who I assume are now crying in front of the TV,” you add chuckling softly, imagining your mom and dad in tears as they listen to your words. “This is a wonderful sign to me that I am where I need to be and that I’m on the right path, so thank you for giving me even more motivation to keep me going on my way.”

Your eyes roam around all the guests until they fall on one proud man staring at you in his Gucci suit and pink dress shirt, his green eyes looking glossy as he listens to your words.

“And last but not least, thank you to one special person, because I’m convinced I wouldn’t be here tonight without him. I have one thing to tell you.” Forgetting about everyone in the theater you hold up the Oscar in your hand as you finish your speech: “Never have I ever loved someone like I love you.”

The crowd starts cheering again as you step away from the microphone and Chris is quick to jog up to you and help you down the stairs, Harry rushing back to take your hand once Chris lets go of it.

You catch him wipe a tear off his cheek as the two of you walk back to your seats hand in hand. Once you are settled, you take a deep breath and turn to Harry who is already looking at you, the same proud smile you saw from the stage still on his handsome face.

“I have never,” he tells you as his answer to the last line of your speech and you chuckle as your free hand finds the back of his neck, pulling him close. The lipstick on your lips long forgotten as you finally kiss him for the first time tonight.

“I have never either,” you whisper against his lips before kissing him again and again.

***

Smiling around you wait for the audience to quiet down as you make yourself comfortable in the familiar armchair. It’s such a nostalgic feeling to sit here again.

“Y/N, it’s so nice to have you here again,” Ellen greets you once the clapping has stopped.

“Thank you for inviting me.”

“Of course. A lot has happened since the last time you were here, you won an Oscar just a few weeks ago, congratulations!”

The cheering starts again as a picture of you appears on the screen behind you, wearing your iconic pink gown, holding your Oscar in your hands.

“Thank you,” you shyly smile, still not entirely in peace with the fact that you are now an Oscar winning actress.

“Such a major thing, congrats.”

“Thank you, it is a huge thing, yes.”

“Do you already have a spot for the award? Does it have a designated place?”

“Well, for now it is in my study along with some more mementos, but I’m planning to have a little stand made in the living room,” you share your plans.

“Surely, I would want to show it off if I had an Oscar,” Ellen chuckles. “You have such a busy time behind you, have you been up to something new lately?”

“We finished filming the third season of The Umbrella Academy, so now I’m having a little break before I jump into anything new.”

“Sounds nice, you deserve all the relaxing. Anything planned while you’re on a break? A new book to read, or maybe a concert to go to?” she asks and you already know where this is heading.

“You know you can just ask if I’m planning to attend a Harry Styles concert,” you bluntly tell her, making the audience and Ellen laugh.

“Well, I was just asking around about your plans, but I’m happy you plan to visit Harry’s concert! It’s also good to know that the situation has changed since the last time you were here, you definitely have been to one of his concerts since then.”

“I have been, yes,” you admit smirking.

“And I assume the two of you are now very close, am I right?” she asks and suddenly a paparazzi photo of the two of you appears where you’re walking down the street hand in hand just a couple of weeks ago.

“You could say that,” you nod, biting into your bottom lip.

“Amazing, because he is going to join us now. Everyone, please welcome Harry Styles!” Ellen announces and turning around you spot Harry walking out from backstage, the audience screaming for him. He shyly waves around walking up to the center, greeting Ellen with a kiss on the cheek before he turns to you, pecking your lips shortly as he sits down next to you.

“Harry, so good to see you again,” Ellen smiles at him.

“Good t’ see you as well,” he nods.

“So, the last time you two were sitting here, you—it was the first time you ever met, right?”

“Right,” you nod with Harry.

“And now you are…” she gestures at the two of you, not finishing the sentence, but everyone knows what she meant by that.

“And now we are… not strangers anymore,” Harry says chuckling, making everyone in the studio laugh.

“Certainly,” Ellen nods. “Alright, I thought that we could play another game, just to bring back some nice memories,” she explains, reaching behind her armchair, grabbing the familiar board from her, flipping it in your hands with a nostalgic smile.

“Can we keep it PG rated though?” Harry asks, examining his board before looking up at Ellen.

“No,” she simply answers, reaching for her cards as the audience starts laughing. “Okay, you know how to play it, no need for explanation. Here is the first one: Never have I ever used my fame to get in somewhere.”

Ellen is quick to show the I HAVE side of her board and you slowly do the same while Harry thinks to himself.

“Oh come on, you surely have,” you elbow him playfully as he smirks in your way, holding up the same side as you and Ellen.

“We all have, it’s not a shame,” Ellen shrugs. “Next one. Never have I ever forgotten the name of someone right after they introduced themselves.”

Ellen holds up the I HAVE side and you do the same again while this time Harry flips it over to I HAVE NEVER confidently.

“Really?” Ellen asks him, surprised at his answer.

“I’m good with names,” he simply shrugs.

“That’s a good trait. Alright, let’s move on. Never have I ever punched someone in the face.”

It’s a sneaky and very shady statement. Just a few days after the incident with Levi, word got out that he was punched, a few blurry pictures floating around the internet of his bruise, then fans figured out it had to happen around the time Harry visited set and people were quick to put the picture together and assume that Harry was the one who hit Levi, but it was never confirmed.

Glancing at your boyfriend you are fighting your smile back, holding up the I HAVE NEVER side as he is looking back at you slyly, continuously flipping his board before it finally lands on I HAVE, the audience immediately rumbling at the partial confirmation and seemingly Ellen is also amazed by Harry’s honesty.

“Alright, interesting. Love that for you, Harry,” he comments making everyone laugh as you reach over and give Harry’s hand a squeeze. “Last one,” Ellen announces, reading the last statement from her cards. “Never have I ever fallen in love with someone I played never have I ever with.”

Ellen quickly shows her I HAVE NEVER side as you suck your lips into your mouth, glancing at Harry again. You share a look before you both slowly raise your boards, both reading the same sign on them: I HAVE.

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