#but just. that he lost so much & then left so abruptly. looking at the slave war. the glorious rev. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

a-small-batch-of-dragons · 4 years ago

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Come Now, Little Prince

Prompts: Hey uh... *brushed off dust from crashing in through the roof* Could you write something about Roman or Remus having Agoraphobia and them getting trapped somewhere? My brain just wants to relate. If not that’s fine! Love your writing! - anon

Might I suggest,,,, writing trope where the severely hurt person goes to their nemesis and says “sorry, I just didn’t have anywhere else to go” but it’s with Roman and Janus - 1namelessalien1

Ahh, yes, the inevitable. Honestly a lil surprised I haven't done this sooner but here we go! Finally...

Read on Ao3

Pairings: roceit, dukeceit, creativitwins. can be platonic or romantic you choose save for creativitwins. they brothers

Warnings: roman gets stabbed and has to get stitches, agoraphobia

Word Count: 7611

Cities are full of bright lights and shadows alike. Those that live in the light, the heroes, the 'good guys.' Those that live in the shadows, their grisly work only illuminated when the sun deigns to show its face again. Sometimes the shadows are too deep. Sometimes the spotlights are too much.

The Prince, Roman Prince, is the Golden Boy of the city. The newsreels, the cameras, the public adore him. But they don't see the winces when the bulbs go off right in his face, or whispers to be better, do better, perform better from the people that pull him aside after every daring adventure.

No one knows the name Janus, but they know his work. They don't shout, they whisper. They huddle together in the dark, searching for the light so as not to get caught in his coils.

But sometimes, when spotlights are too bright and shadows too flat, a little prince will make its way into the snake's den.

He didn’t mean to.

It just—his hand slipped and they fell and they—they—

He didn’t mean to drop them. They weren’t—they weren’t supposed to fall but the knife hurt too much and he flinched and he—he—

The choppers roar around the roof, battering his head with their noise, noise, noise. The wind whips up around the concrete railing, whistling, whining, wailing as the body falls down, down, down. The searchlights glint off the knife as they pull it down with them.

And then he is alone, in a crowd, on the top of a roof, king of the clouds.

The lights glare in his face as their body disappears. Then…then…

Then fear.

———————————

One of the best things about being seen as a ‘super villain,’ and how gauche is that term, is that no one wants to ask too many questions when you rent an apartment. There are really far too many landlords that want to get to know you, want to be your friend, while knowing full well that they participate in a system where there is no ethical consumption or behavior. Really, if he ever starts renting his own property, there will be no illusions on his end.

But hey, at least these ones know not to put their noses where they’ll get bitten off if they poke too far.

Janus sighs, opening the cupboard and taking the teacup down. The kettle whistles merrily on the stove as he reaches for the tea boxes.

Black, green, white, herbal…really, there are so many options. What to have for tonight, then? It is awfully late in the evening, there’s no real justification for consuming caffeine. Then again, he’ll do what he likes.

His phone buzzes. His real phone, not the one everyone sees him carry when he’s out and about. He rolls his eyes and takes the kettle off the heat as he spots the name on the text notification.

R. Sanders: 1 new notification

“What’ve you done now, Remus,” he mutters as he slides the message open, “and which one of your messes am I cleaning up now?”

The message opens to a report. Brief, as is the style of all the reports Janus demands, but the thing that gives him pause is just how brief.

Remus, as one can very well imagine, is…not exactly compliant when it comes to following the rules. And while that can be useful in its own special way, it does mean that Janus occasionally has to factor emojis out of Remus’s reports.

Well, more than occasionally.

But this time the report is two sentences. Janus pours the water into the teapot as he glances over the words.

R. Sanders: Slaughter down at 85th and Marilyn. The head of the beast is cut off.

Well, on paper, that should be a fantastic report. The rival infringing on Janus’s turf has been, ah, taken down a few notches.

That’s undermined considerably by the fact that this report lacks any of Remus’s enthusiasm.

Janus sighs as he settles on the loose-leaf blueberry mint tea, placing the cup aside to brew as he wanders toward the window. Perhaps Remus is simply tired from all this work today. It wouldn’t be the first time the man’s manic energy had been tempered by a good amount of strenuous activity. And cutting off the head of the beast was never going to be a simple job to begin with. True, it was always an issue with causing more collateral damage than Janus was personally comfortable with, but what’s done is done.

The city starts to slumber, the last of the pleasant natural light fading from the sky, giving way to the horrid stained brown of the light pollution. The skyscrapers barely flinch in the oncoming night, instead choosing to stand firm as the workers inside slave away. The smaller shops close their doors, the nighttime crowds vanishing into subway tunnels and bus stations. Janus leans against the window, the glass reflecting the elegant lines of his suit alongside the angles of the buildings.

If he were slightly less himself, he’d say it looks like he belongs here.

When the light fades further, he sighs, turning away and fetching his tea. He drops into his favorite chair next to the window and raises the cup to his mouth.

The head of the beast has been cut off. He has no appointments, no reports, no debriefings to attend. He has his cup of tea, Remus will handle anything that blows up on the networks. It is the perfect evening to be alone, secure in his apartment.

So of course, there has to be something that sends a prickle up the back of his neck.

Why is Remus’s report sitting with him like this? This should be fantastic news, he should be willing to open the bottle of champagne that’s sat in preparation for this moment. And yet, as he raises the cup to his mouth again, his teeth hit the rim and he jolts, spilling a little more than he meant to into his mouth. He swallows, thankful that there’s no one else here to see it, and sets the cup and saucer aside.

He folds his gloved hands behind his back and goes to the window again.

If there were something wrong, someone would tell him. He has eyes all over the city, ears everywhere, and those under his employ know better than to try and cross him. Remus is alive and well—clearly, given by the way the evening’s progressed so far—and wouldn’t hesitate to gleefully drag anyone he suspected into his rooms or an abandoned warehouse.

He spares a glance over his shoulder. The phone stays silent.

Fingers tap against his hand as he looks down. Not for the first time, he wonders what it must be like, down there, scurrying about, without the faintest idea of what it looks like from up here. Oh, he’s walked on the sidewalk outside his building, who hasn’t, that’s how he gets into the building in the first place, but…not like that.

The outside world is so…temperamental. So many people, so many things. There is no better place to be alone than a crowded city street, but there is no more dangerous a place to be yourself.

When he’s finished his cup of tea, and the prickle has not left the back of his neck alone, he stifles a curse and turns. Remus will listen to him. Or, more precisely, Remus will ramble and scheme and reassure him that nothing is wrong. He might get a strange look—because while everyone else can underestimate how much Remus sees at their own peril, Janus never has—but he will do it.

Janus opens the door, idly wondering if he needs to bring his coat, and abruptly stops walking.

There is someone on their knees right outside his door.

Well.

That would explain the feeling he’s had of something being wrong, how on earth his security system didn’t alert him to their presence is beyond him. He doesn’t bother to hide his sigh as he pulls his cane from the holder and tilts their chin up.

“I’m certain that you must be…”

Janus trails off as he tilts up a chin to reveal a bloodstained, agonized expression of someone who should not be here.

“I’m sorry,” Roman Prince says in the voice of a lost child, “I didn’t—I didn’t know where else to go.”

Janus’s fingers twitch on the cane as he watches the roll of Roman’s throat.

“Y-you said if I—if I—ever needed help one day to know better than to—to try and go back to th-them.”

Remus’s report is beginning to make more sense.

Janus remembers. Janus remembers this upstart pain in his ass getting in the way of many operations, from transports to exchanges to hostage negotiations. He remembers the crooked smile straight out of a movie as this little shit got in the way of everything, including his resolve to not get involved with any of the so-called heroes that ran around in this city in their spandex and naiveté.

He remembers shaking his head at this shiny new one and saying that when he realized the world was much, much grayer than he wanted to believe, Janus would be there to watch. He remembers a softer offer, after a rescue had resulted in a building—abandoned, but a building—blowing up and the poor thing looking like someone had kicked his puppy.

He remembers watching the rival’s henchmen carted off to jail as the hero of the hour was reprimanded for causing too much collateral damage by the people who supposedly adored him.

“You were right,” Roman continues in that lost, lost voice, “I’m—I’m sorry.”

It takes Roman reaching for him for Janus to remember what is going on and the cane jerks his head up higher, forcing him to stop. Janus narrows his eyes at the hero kneeling on the floor, takes in the blood on his face, his neck, his hands.

“Why are you here,” he asks, wrenching that chin just a little higher, “why did you come to me?”

“You said you would help,” comes the reply, “if I—if I didn’t want to do this anymore.”

Has the perfect prince killed someone for the first time? Is that what’s brought on this little display?

His eyes trail lower, looking for the weapon.

The light from his apartment shines on a tunic stained with blood, cut and torn, and a dark, ugly stain that is not getting any smaller.

Roman’s head lolls forward, almost nuzzling Janus’s thigh as it slips off the cane. His hair sticks to his face, too soaked with blood.

Janus’s eyes go wide.

Roman Prince is here, on his knees, bleeding out because he has nowhere else to go. He came to Janus, the person he should trust the least out of everyone in this city, and he’s here on his knees, pleading.

The hand not on the cane twitches, then slowly reaches forward to find the least bloody spot on Roman’s head. It runs gently through his hair and finds its way to his chin, lifting it up once more. Roman’s eyes, full of tears, stare back at him.

“Come inside, little prince,” Janus says, his voice far softer than he would normally allow, “you’re bleeding all over my carpet.”

There aren’t many places to go that aren’t carpeted inside Janus’s apartment, but they make it over the threshold before Roman’s state begins to truly worry him.

How did he even get here? By how much blood there is, surely he would’ve passed out by now? Roman seems oblivious to his inside questions, simply looks around for wherever Janus is leading him before he notices how much blood he’s leaving behind him.

“It’s alright,” Janus says, surprising the both of them, “I can have the floor cleaned.”

Roman just blinks at him. And oh, if it doesn’t hurt to see that innocence still in the eyes of the little lamb, even as the wolf goes to take his arm.

“The bathroom is through this way,” he says softly, “come now…”

It is an odd experience, surely, to have one’s own nemesis bloody, wounded, completely at his mercy, as he strips off his suit jacket and rolls up his sleeves, and want to do nothing but hunt down the people that made him this way.

Roman sits like a broken doll, he realizes as he watches the man ease himself down and wait as Janus pulls on a pair of plastic gloves. He is not uncooperative when Janus pushes his limbs to the side, snipping away at the fabric, trying to figure out what precisely is going on. He does not protest when Janus finds the stab wound and presses a cloth harshly on top, nor when Janus grabs his hand and bids him to hold it there, hard. He is not unfeeling, just very, very quiet as Janus begins to douse the pads in antiseptic.

He doesn’t flinch when Janus cleans the wound as best he can—he’s no doctor, after all—before muttering that it’s going to need stitches.

“Oh,” he mumbles instead, “okay.”

“Yes, so—hold still,” he barks, forcing Roman to sit back down, “where do you think you’re going?”

Roman blinks. “You said it needs stitches.”

“Yes, which is why you shouldn’t be moving.”

“I was going to go get the stitches.”

Now it’s Janus’s turn to blink. “I will stitch you up, Roman, now stay.”

And there’s that lamb-like innocence again as Roman tilts his head. “You will?”

“I may not be a doctor,” Janus mutters, twisting to grab the first aid kit, “but I do know how to suture a wound.”

He takes a few more wipes and cleans the blood he can, pointedly ignoring Roman’s attentive look.

“You could be a doctor,” comes the mumble, “you seem…good at it.”

Janus huffs. “Less a doctor, more a medic.”

Roman’s brows furrow. “What’s the difference?”

“A doctor fixes you, a medic makes dying more comfortable.”

There’s a moment of silence. Janus half-expects the poor thing to seize up in fear, tremble before him, or—god forbid—try and fight him, but he does none of that. Because that would make sense.

Instead, Roman just closes his eyes and lets his head fall to the side against the tiled wall.

“You don’t have to make it comfortable then.”

Janus’s hands falter for a moment. His eyes flick to Roman’s bloodstained face before refocusing on the wound in front of him.

“You’re not going to die here,” he says firmly, and if he starts to work a little more quickly, that’s his business, not yours.

“Oh.”

“I imagine you wouldn’t’ve come here with the intent to die on my doorstep, that’s quite rude, you know.”

“…no.”

Now, see, as the best liar in the city, Janus knows when he hears one.

The absurdity of the situation strikes him once again, fainter this time, but still there. Roman Prince is here, bloody, wounded—fatally so if Janus hadn’t started tending to him right when he did— forced to roll over and show his belly, Janus’s teeth at his throat, and yet Janus reaches up to turn that pretty face to his.

“Tell me what happened, little prince,” he commands softly.

Roman swallows. “I didn’t mean to.”

Janus simply raises an eyebrow and starts to stitch up the wound. Roman doesn’t flinch but accepts the silent chide.

“I-it was the building security guard,” he mumbles, “they called in that someone was firing shots in the upper stories and couldn’t—couldn’t get away in time. They were—they—the call wasn’t completed.”

They died while they were on the line, Roman doesn’t say, but Janus hears it.

“Wh-when I got there, there were—they must’ve thought there was a mole in the—on the inside and they started—they were—“

They were killing their own people, Janus realizes, hiding his disgust behind another tied-off suture. He’s starting to have an awful feeling about where Roman’s been tonight.

“Something went wrong in one of the labs. They made a toxin, and it—it—“ Roman swallows— “it drove them insane.”

It made them homicidal, they killed each other.

“I...I think they were going to flee from the roof.”

As Janus ties off the last suture, he freezes.

Oh.

Oh, no.

“I tried to stop them,” Roman whispers, “I was holding onto them, it was windy, they were going to fall, they ran too fast out of the door, I caught them, I—I had them, they—they were going to be safe but then they—they—“

Janus presses two fingers to the warm chest next to the wound. He can feel Roman’s heart jumping. He rubs in slow circles.

“They stabbed me,” Roman finishes, “and I—I—I—“

A small noise that sounds too much like a sob swallows the rest of his words.

Oh, this poor little prince…

Roman swallows another sob. “I’m sorry.”

Janus tilts his head. “What’re you apologizing to me for, little prince?”

“Well, I can’t imagine that this is how you imagined spending your evening.”

“No,” Janus says, folding his hands in front of him, “but I can’t imagine this is how you imagined spending yours either.”

The little prince bruises as easily as ever, only this time he doesn’t bother to hide behind his bravado.

“Off,” Janus says softly, tugging lightly at the remains of Roman’s costume, “the rest of you needs to be cleaned.”

He watches unashamed as Roman follows his instruction, eyes traveling over the scars littering the body revealed to him piece by piece. Too many scars. When he stands bare, Janus takes his hands and deliberately cleans them of the blood.

Roman doesn’t stop trembling until Janus has cleaned away every last bit.

The costume will need to be disposed of, there’s no saving it. The floor in the bathroom is littered with bits of blood and the carpet near the door will need to be cleaned quickly. Luckily the cleaner that Janus employs is well-accustomed to such a request. Instead, Janus walks back to the bedroom.

There the little prince sits, looking far too much like a lost child. Janus pauses at the door, tugging his normal gloves back on.

The little prince looks far too good wrapped in Janus’s colors.

“Why did you come to me, little prince,” he asks after a moment, “you had no way of knowing that I wouldn’t kill you.”

Roman lowers his head and the lie from the bathroom plays uncomfortably in his head. Janus tilts his head as Roman clears his throat.

“I thought—part of me thought you would.”

A harsh laugh tears out of his throat before he can stop it. “So what, I was to be your confessional? You would fall on your knees, repent, and I would put you out of your misery? Or put you down, like some misbehaved dog?”

Roman hunches his shoulders. Janus’s mirth disappears in a flash.

“…maybe.”

Roman Prince dragged himself from the roof of 85th and Marilyn, all the way across the city to Janus’s real apartment, disarmed his security, and did not once tend to the stab wound in his chest.

Roman Prince witnessed a slaughter, watched people be driven out of their minds, and dropped someone who did their very best to kill him off a roof by accident.

Roman Prince fell to his knees in front of the one man in this city who he knew would be capable of killing him without a second thought.

“…do you want me to kill you?”

There’s a softness in his voice again, one that slipped unbidden into the words to make the blow seem more like a caress.

“I would make it quick,” he murmurs, still leaning against the doorway, watching the little prince, “it wouldn’t hurt.”

Roman looks at him. The child is lost, so lost, and so, so tired. He opens his mouth.

“Don’t you want to?”

…well.

Does he? Certainly, the little prince has caused more than his fair share of mishaps, messes, and mistakes, and putting him out of the equation permanently benefits Janus in more ways than one. And it’s not like it would be difficult. No one knows Roman is here, let alone anyone who would care, and even fewer that wouldn’t expect him to never be seen alive again. Janus could kill him in half a dozen ways in the next minute that Roman couldn’t possibly fight against, a dozen more that would take scarcely any longer.

Unbidden, his mind begins to list off the possibilities. The gun in the cabinet, the knife tucked into his shirt, the poison stored in the bathroom, even snapping the little prince’s neck.

But he takes one more look at the little prince and all of them vanish in an instant.

“Why did you come here?” he murmurs again.

Roman lets out a long breath. His hand on the borrowed shirt tightens and loosens, tightens and loosens.

“You’re the only one I trust,” he tells him quietly, and it’s the saddest thing he could’ve possibly said.

Janus crosses the room and cups the back of the little prince’s neck. Roman just bows his head, the little lamb waiting for another hand to come up and twist. Janus bites back the snarl of rage at how resigned Roman is to dying tonight and brushes his thumb along the curve of his cheek.

Stroke by stroke, he coaxes the tears from the little prince’s eyes and wipes them away.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he murmurs, leaning his weight against the edge of the bed, “there’s nothing you could’ve done.”

“I could’ve held on.”

“You’d just been stabbed, flinching is a perfectly understandable reaction.”

“But I’ve been stabbed before.”

“It’s not like you build up an immunity to knives going into you.”

“But I—“ Roman cuts himself off, curling his fist tightly in his lap.

“What is it, little prince?”

He just shakes his head firmly, lips pressed tightly together, red blooming on his cheeks.

Well, at least there’s blood flowing properly again. “We’re well past the point of embarrassment, little prince,” Janus remarks gently, “and if you’re worried about sharing weaknesses with me now…”

“I got scared,” Roman blurts, sounding every bit the reprimanded child. Janus pets his hair absentmindedly, encouraging him to speak again. When he won’t, Janus hums quietly.

“You were stabbed,” he reminds again, “that’s understandable.”

“Not of being stabbed.”

Janus frowns. “What then, little prince?”

“I…”

“I won’t harm you, little prince,” Janus murmurs when he hesitates.

“…I got scared of being outside.”

Janus’s hand pauses in Roman’s hair before gently lifting his chin. “What do you mean, little prince, that you were scared of being outside?”

“There—there was nowhere to go, I couldn’t get out, I couldn’t escape, there were too many people, the choppers were so—so loud and I—I didn’t know what to do—“

Fucking hell, Janus realizes as he shushes the little prince tenderly, he’s agoraphobic.

Flashes of their fights and altercations start to make more sense now. Why Roman prefers fighting in dark, cramped warehouses, why losing the hero on public transportation was so easy, why he almost never confronted Janus in public in broad daylight even though he clearly knows where Janus lives.

The weight of the expectations on Roman…how difficult his chosen occupation must be…how little support he gets for something that makes it infinitely harder for him…

Janus doesn’t realize he’s cradling Roman’s head until he strokes his thumb down his cheek and feels the soft brush of hair against his forearm. He looks down and sees Roman’s eyes all but flutter shut, lulled by the gentle touch against his face.

Trapped under the spotlights of the world, laid bare, stripped by their merciless eyes, unable to look away, escape from what they would only see as a colossal failure…

No wonder Roman sought out a denizen of the shadows where he could be sure no one would look for him.

What should, by all rights, feel like a cage to Roman might just become a den.

The snake tightens its coils protectively around the little prince and leans down to whisper in Roman’s ear.

“You’re safe, now,” he soothes, “there is no one else here but me, and I will look after you. There are no expectations here, you cannot do something wrong. I’m here to help you.”

The snake hisses in contentment as the little prince slumps into the coils, letting it pick him up and deposit him gently in the mass of the den, leaving only for a brief moment before returning to his side.

“Shh, shh,” he soothes as Roman blinks about in confusion, “you need to rest, I’ll be right here.”

“Why—what—“ Roman’s head hits the pillow and Janus almost laughs at how quickly his eyes close— “why’re you…helping?”

“You came to me for help, little prince.”

“But you…care?”

And oh, if that doesn’t make the snake’s cold black heart beat warmly in its chest.

“You may be surprised, little prince,” it hisses, drawing the little prince closer and closer, “but you’re not that difficult to care for.”

No, Janus decides, resigning himself to a night of little sleep as he watches Roman’s breathing begin to even out, stroking a hand through his hair, the little prince isn’t so hard to care for after all.

The snake has never been one to spare those that wander carelessly into its den, but this little prince did not do it carelessly. And it is surprisingly easy for Janus to soothe the remaining prickle on the back of his neck by scratching his fingers lightly along the back of Roman’s, to gentle the furrow in Roman’s sleep with a murmured reassurance into the little prince’s ear. The night passes slowly as the little prince dozes under the snake’s coils.

Only later, when the sun has begun to rise, does he realize he’s left his phone on the counter. He sighs, extricating himself gingerly from the sleeping Roman and going back to the kitchen.

R. Sanders: 1 new notification

He glances toward the bedroom and opens the text.

R. Sanders: if you don’t get your security system back online yourself in the next 30 seconds I’m coming over

Well, considering this message is from two minutes ago, Janus simply sighs and opens the door.

“That,” Remus snarls as he stalks inside, “is not the point.”

“I was about to reboot the system, Remus, do calm yourself.”

“I’m not the one who spent the entire fucking night in an unsecured location!”

Janus raises an eyebrow. “By all means, Remus, do keep shouting about my security system at the top of your lungs while the door is still open.”

Remus mutters angrily to himself but has the decency—or perhaps, the self-preservation—to quiet down while Janus shuts the door and turns the security system back on.

“Now then,” he says easily, setting the kettle to boil again—blueberry mint really was the correct choice to make last night— “what would you like to drink?”

Remus regards his tea boxes like he regards the new bottles of bleach.

“You still don’t keep coffee in your house, do you?” At Janus’s look, he sighs. “Just hot water.”

“Splendid.”

Janus takes his time setting up his teapot. Looseleaf black tea, a new teacup, the honey laid out just so, all while Remus’s tapping gets more and more impatient. But Remus is a good dog, he’ll wait until he’d given leave to speak again.

“I imagine you must have a reason for infringing upon my privacy this morning,” Janus says as he stirs the honey into the tea, “if not just to turn my system back on so that a corpse could not be tampered with.”

“I didn’t know if you were fucking dead, Jan,” Remus snarls, and oh, the poor thing was worried. How touching.

“I’m fine, Remus,” Janus says, softening his voice just the barest amount, “and it certainly speaks to the faith you have in me.”

“Yeah, yeah, faith in your something.”

“Come now, dear, let’s not be crass.”

“You like me crass.”

Janus hides a smile behind the rim of his cup. There’s the Remus that was missing from the report. Though as he looks at the loyal minion sitting across from him, he sees that something is still bothering him.

“Well, if that’s all then?”

Remus takes the bait. “Wasn’t us.”

“Pardon?”

“The beast,” Remus mutters, still glancing around the apartment, “wasn’t us.”

Then he spots the blood.

In Remus’s defense, Janus did open the door right as he arrived and he was definitely given time to look around before Janus swept him into a conversation. Still, the fact that it took Remus this long to spot the blood is…well.

“Shit—“ Remus springs to his feet— “are you hurt? How many?”

“Keep your voice down,” Janus murmurs, “I’m not hurt.”

“Then explain to me why there’s blood everywhere—“

“Keep your voice down.”

“Why the fuck should I keep my voice down? Someone was here, there’s fucking blood—“

Both of them freeze as a rustle of covers comes from the other room. Remus’s eyes widen and his hand goes to the gun at his side. In two quick steps, he’s almost to the bedroom.

Janus catches him by the arm.

“Don’t.”

The steel in his tone finally gets Remus to settle, the man glancing at the door once before allowing himself to be held in place.

“What the hell is going on here,” he hisses, finally keeping his voice down, “what aren’t you telling me?”

“Stay out of that room,” Janus orders, even though it’s a redundancy at this point, “and tell me what else you know.”

Remus opens his mouth to protest but a look quells him. He glances at the door one more time before sighing.

“By the time we got there, everything was over. There were network choppers crawling over every inch of that place, swarming with civvies. We had to fence to get in. Janus, they—“

If Remus has to take a breath, what the hell happened?

“God, Janus, it’s like someone gave a neurotic thirteen-year-old a hallucinogenic and a sledgehammer and told ‘em the building was a giant whack-a-mole.” Remus shakes his head. “Heads bashed in, eyes gouged out, like they—they—“

“Like they did it to each other,” Janus finishes.

Remus nods, his face pale. He looks up at Janus and it’s the second time in the last twelve hours he’s been caught off guard by someone’s expression.

“Jan, it’s bad,” he says quietly, “if they—we’re lucky it only got into that building.”

“And you’re certain it’s contained?”

“Someone tripped the quarantine field. The building locked down. Only way out was the roof.” Remus shakes his head. “The head of the beast was splayed out on the street, spine snapped in half, bloody knife. Like he was pinned up like a butterfly.”

He quirks his brow.

“Gotta admire the craftsmanship.”

Janus nods. Remus notices his silence and steps a little closer.

“So who the fuck is in that room?”

As if on cue, there’s another muffled hiss.

“Don’t,” Janus says when Remus’s hand goes to his gun again, “you’ll scare him.”

Now Remus looks at him like he'd grown another head. “Who the fuck is in that room?”

Janus bites back a curse when there are more noises.

“The person who cut the head off.”

“If you think that’s gonna stop me from getting in there—“

“Remus.”

Remus subsides, looking at him carefully. Janus sighs. Remus knows better than to directly disobey an order, and if Janus pushes, Remus will leave.

And yes, part of the snake wants to wrap around its den and keep its precious charge safe from anything else.

A larger part of Janus knows that keeping this information completely under wraps will become a liability quickly.

“Watch the door,” Janus says, letting Remus go.

Remus hasn’t worked for him for this long without picking up some of his observational skills, so he goes without complaint. Janus opens the door to the bedroom and has to stop the fond smile on his face as he sees the little prince trying to feign sleep. As if it’s going to work.

He crosses the room and leans down.

“You can stop pretending now, little prince.”

Roman’s eyes open and the snake hisses gently, noticing the pressure the little prince’s position is putting on his stitches.

“By all means, ruin the work it took to suture you up,” he remarks dryly, chuckling as Roman quickly—and carefully—rolls onto his back, “better.”

“D-do—I can go now,” Roman mumbles, “if—if you—if you want. I can leave. You don’t have to see me again, I’ll—I’ll go.”

Janus quirks an eyebrow. “And let you leave without breakfast? How rude of me.”

Roman’s eyes widen. “N-no, I didn’t mean—you don’t—I—“

“Hush, little prince,” Janus murmurs, petting Roman’s hair again, “none of that now.”

Roman’s eyes keep darting around the room, from the closed door to Janus’s hands to his face and away again. Janus frowns.

“Oh, little prince, have you always been so afraid of me?”

“Yes.”

The honesty takes Janus by surprise. Roman Prince has never been afraid of him, at least not like this, like some creature constantly bracing for a blow. He’s responded brilliantly to whatever jibes Janus throws at him during one of their altercations, always ready with a quip on his tongue or a pretty blush to a flirtation. He’s not—he’s never been this.

Perhaps the little prince is a better actor than I gave him credit for.

There are not many people in this city capable of doing that.

Then there’s the sudden realization that the reassurances from the night will no longer work. Roman was safe because he was alone with Janus, there was nothing he could do wrong that would hurt him, there was an easy way to escape if need be. But now Remus is here, there’s another variable to worry about.

And Roman is no match for the both of them.

“Let me have a look, little prince,” he says instead, leaning down to gently tug the shirt up and out of the way. Despite the hero’s movement, there’s no blood, no popped stitches. The wound will still be tender for a while yet, but there’s nothing to worry about. Not at the moment. He says as much, ending with a soft: “sit up, let’s get you something to eat.”

Roman glances at the door again.

“Remus won’t hurt you,” Janus reassures, “not while I’m here.”

Roman’s head whips around so quickly he frets that the little prince will snap his own neck.

“R-Remus?”

Janus blinks. “Yes, Remus, he’s who’s here, he works for me.”

“Remus Sanders?”

He quirks a brow. “And here I thought you didn’t bother to learn my staff.”

“N-no, Remus Sanders, he’s—he’s not dead?”

Not dead?

Judging by the sudden silence in the other room, Janus has about three seconds to brace for it before Remus slams the door open.

Remus’s eyes are giant, his face almost drained of color. Three quick steps and he’s got a fist in Roman’s shirt, wrenching him away from Janus and slamming him up against a wall.

“Remus,” Janus barks, “put him down.”

It says something about Remus’s state of mind that he doesn’t even register Janus’s command. Instead, the man has a knife pressed to Roman’s throat, every muscle in his body bunched up like a clenched fist.

Roman hasn’t flinched. He’s just staring at Remus, his hands sliding and scrabbling uselessly at Remus’s shoulders.

“Y-you’re alive,” he keeps mumbling, “you’re not dead, you’re alive, you’re safe, you’re—you’re—“

Remus abruptly lets Roman go, shoves him further against the wall and yanks the shirt out of the way to see the stitches. The knife goes back in its holster as Roman keeps babbling about how Remus is alive.

“Was it him,” Remus asks in a soft, dangerous voice, cutting through Roman’s babble, “did that bastard stab you?”

Roman jerks his head up and down.

“…well, at least you finally learned how to stand up to your bullies.”

Ah.

Janus must be getting rusty.

“As much as I hate to interrupt the family reunion,” he says, startling the brothers, “I believe there is still business to attend to.”

Remus has the decency to look a little ashamed at directly disobeying several orders now, but the little prince is still staring at Remus like his life depends on it. Janus shakes his head, crossing the room to gently take his chin again.

“You need to eat, little prince,” he murmurs, “come now.”

He doesn’t have to ask Remus to help the little prince to the kitchen. By the time he’s followed them out—and made sure his tea isn’t ruined—Remus has Roman sitting on one of the bar stools, stood next to him, every bit the guard dog as Roman clutches Remus’s tactical vest. As Janus starts to get something together for Roman to eat, Remus doesn’t move once. Instead, he lets Roman cling onto him, mumble to himself, and absentmindedly rub his cheek against Remus’s chest.

Janus sets a plate of food in front of Roman and picks up his tea again, taking a sip and staring at them over the rim of the cup.

This could be a problem.

Remus’s loyalty is not easily won, nor is it easily lost. The man’s been dragged behind a truck by his fingernails and not squealed once. And yet as Remus lifts his head—finally—and looks at Janus, it’s the first time he’s seen that loyalty waver.

Janus stares back. Remus knows better than to try and cross him. Remus himself has been the blunt instrument that disposes of those who did. Remus knows the extent of Janus’s influence better than anyone else, aside from Janus himself.

And still, that loyalty wavers.

The little prince, oblivious to the staring match happening over his head, mumbles a small thanks as he starts to eat. His hands are still shaking. Remus steps closer, pressing Roman further into the counter and the little prince lets him. The message is clear.

This is the one thing of Remus’s that he won’t let Janus take.

Which would be a problem—or wouldn’t be, depending on how quickly Remus cooperates—if Janus weren’t currently dividing his attention between Remus and how his hands are itching to wipe the last speck of blood from the little prince’s hairline.

It takes barely a glance for Remus to understand that Janus would never.

“Little prince,” Janus murmurs, coming around to the other side of the counter once Roman finishes, “I need to have a talk with Remus, do you think you can sleep a little more?”

“I can try.”

“Let’s have you try.” Janus glances at Remus.

“C’mon, Ro-Bro,” Remus says quietly, one arm around Roman’s waist, “back to bed.”

“Re?”

“I gotcha, Roro, I’m right here.”

How adorable.

Remus closes the bedroom door and there’s a long pause.

“Fuck.��

“My thoughts exactly.” Janus takes another sip of his tea. “Does anyone else know what happened?”

“The networks have a hold of the main story, they won’t know what happened inside until the lockdown expires, but Jan—if he was there—“

“The choppers saw him.”

“Shit.”

“They saw him drop the beast’s head but him fleeing the scene won’t look good.”

“I’ve got the team scrambling the data, the location of the beast’s head won’t reach the airwaves.”

“Good.”

Another pause.

“…why’d he come here?”

Janus settles the cup back in its saucer. “…he said I was the only one he could trust.”

Remus snarls. “As if we needed more proof that they treat their people like shit.”

“Believe me, I’ve got quite the list of people I’d like to question.”

Remus bares his teeth. “Don’t do it without me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, dear.” He watches Remus stare at the door. “So…you have a brother?”

“Don’t act like you didn’t know that from the extensive background check you did.”

Janus accepts it, setting the teacup aside. “The famous Roman Prince…oh, how the mighty have fallen.”

Remus’s head flicks sharply around to stare at him. But Janus says it with none of his usual flare, dragging his gloved fingertips along the counter.

“Has he always been so…” He fumbles for the right word.

There isn’t one.

Thankfully, Remus understands what he’s trying to get at.

“It’s hard not to,” he mumbles, “even when I hated him—and I hated him, he was always…”

Remus trails off into silence too.

“There was never a moment where I didn’t know that he was still my fucking brother.”

This is dangerous.

The closest thing Janus has to a weakness, up until this point, has been Remus. And Remus is a loyal man, but even he knows Janus will watch him die and feel only the slightest bit of remorse that a useful tool will no longer be in use.

But not anymore.

“I think he wanted me to kill him,” Janus murmurs, noting the way that Remus jerks in surprise.

“Do you think that’s why he came?”

“He told me that I was right,” he says, “that I was—that he remembered I’d told him if he ever realized he couldn’t do it anymore, if he ever needed help, that he should know better than to go back to the people that pretend to care about him.”

“You basically told him you’d be his suicide gun?”

“I didn’t mean it like that, Remus,” Janus says lowly, looking up.

Remus regards him. “Would you have?”

“Killed him?”

“Yes.”

Could he have killed Roman Prince? Yes, easily.

Can he kill the little prince in the bedroom?

“My God,” Remus breathes, “you can’t do it, can you?”

Janus shakes his head. Like it or not, the snake can’t kill the little prince.

“So what now?”

Janus stands up straight. “The city isn’t just going to let Roman Prince disappear, not like that. They’re going to look for him. He’s going to have to make another public appearance.”

“And we have to clean up the rest of the mess.”

“That we’re used to,” Janus sighs, “that I’m not worried about.”

“You’re worried about Roman’s people trying to look for him.” Janus nods. “We’ve got feelers out, we can keep tabs on that.”

“Good.”

Remus spares another glance at the door. “Are you gonna keep him here until then?”

“Yes.”

He lets out a low whistle.

“Go. Get to work.”

“Aye aye, boss.” Remus fixes him with one last look before he disappears out the door.

Janus walks to the bedroom. This time the fond smile crawls across his face unhindered.

“You don’t have to pretend, little prince,” he says as he crosses the room, “if you can’t sleep, you can’t sleep.”

Roman blinks up at him as Janus sits on the edge of the bed. “Sorry.”

“No need for apologies.” He tilts his head to the side. “I never offered you painkillers, are you alright?”

Roman nods.

“Roman,” he asks softly, “why did you come here?”

There’s a pause.

“You said that you remembered me telling you that you could,” he continues, “and that you…trusted me, and yet you seemed surprised that I was—I am willing to help.”

“Still am.”

Remus’s words play in his head again. “You said you remembered what I said—and you be honest with me now,” he says, giving Roman a look, “did you want me to kill you?”

Roman swallows. “I don’t know what I want anymore.”

And oh, Janus has waited so long to hear those words from that pretty mouth but not like this.

He pulls a tissue from the side table and tilts Roman’s head just so to get that last speck of blood, pausing at the way Roman shudders under his touch.

“When was the last time someone touched you,” he asks gently, “before this?”

Roman just shakes his head.

“What is the point,” the snake hisses, “of people pretending to care about you when they don’t give you what you obviously need?”

“You were,” the little prince mumbles, still a beat behind, “I think you were the last person to…to touch me.”

“Before…?”

“Yeah. When we…when you…”

When he had the little prince tied up in the factory downtown, another attempt to persuade him to back off. When he cupped the little prince’s chin in his hand and chuckled as a pretty blush spread across those cheeks. When he let gloved fingers run through his hair and smirked at how easily the little prince lost track of the conversation.

Now, though, Janus cradles the little prince’s face in his hands and lowers himself onto the bed.

“You can have it,” he whispers, running his fingers through the little prince’s hair, “if touch is what you need, you can have it.”

Roman’s eyes flutter, lost on the sensation of Janus’s touch, all but floating on the bed. He starts to curl unconsciously towards him, pliant and still. Janus lets him, moving to wrap his arms around the little prince as he tucks himself under Janus’s chin.

“Why didn’t you tell me,” he asks gently, “that you were hurting so badly?”

He feels the roll of Roman’s throat. “Didn’t want you to think I was any weaker.”

Janus bites back a curse. “Well, I’m afraid you’re about to witness firsthand how weak I am.”

Before Roman can ask what he means, Janus cups the back of his neck and gently, gently kisses his forehead.

“If no one else will do what needs to be done,” he murmurs into Roman’s hair, “then I will.”

If no one else will take care of the little prince that sacrifices so much to protect this city, then the snake is happy to oblige.

General:@frxgprince @potereregina @reddstardust @gattonero17 @iamhereforthegayshit @thefingergunsgirl @awkwardandanxiousfander @creative-lampd-liberties @djpurple3 @winterswrandomness @sanders-sides-uncorrect-quotes @iminyourfandom @bullet-tothefeels @full-of-roman-angst-trash @ask-elsalvador @ramdomthingsfrommymind @demoniccheese83 @pattonsandershugs @el-does-photography @princeanxious @firefinch-ember @fandomssaremysoul @im-an-anxious-wreck @crazy-multifandomfangirl @punk-academian-witch @enby-ralsei @unicornssunflowersandstuff @wildhorsewolf @thetruthaboutthesun @stubbornness-and-spite @princedarkandstormv @your-local-fookin-deadmeme @angels-and-dreams @averykedavra @a-ghostlight-for-roman @treasurechestininterweb @cricketanne @aularei @queerly-fluid-fan @compactdiscdraws @cecil-but-gayer @i-am-overly-complicated @annytheseal @alias290 @tranquil-space-ninja @arxticandy @mychemically-imbalanced-romance @whyiask @crows-ace @emilythezeldafan @frida0043 @ieatspinalcords @snowyfires @cyanide-violence @oonagh2 @xxpanic-at-the-everywherexx @rabbitsartcorner @percy-07734 @triflingassailantofmyemotions @virgil-sanders-the-gay-emo @cerulean-watermelon @puffed-up-bees

If you want to be added/taken off the taglist, let me know!

#dragonbabbles #sanders sides #roman sanders #roman angst #janus sanders #deceit sanders #sympathetic deceit #remus sanders #sympathetic remus #agoraphobia #tw agoraphobia #fic

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southern-god1 · 3 years ago

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I just got picked up by two southern police officers. Apparently Jensen Ackles personally requested me as his next slave. I hope he’s a little more merciful than these officers. They just threw me in the footwell and put their massive boots on me.

I think the officer is definitely pushing down with all his weight.

Despite this I am thankful the officers are showing me place and taking me to my new life

The cop car pulled up alongside a beautiful black 1967 Impala. Leaning against the back, arms crossed, stood Jensen Ackles himself. He smirked as they hauled you out of the car. The officers seemed just as star-struck as you, but Jensen smiled warmly at them.

“Thanks guys. I appreciate y’all helping me with my lil project. I’ve sent the department some of my special beers and some other fun stuff to show my thanks. And here’s a lil something extra for y’all. Thank ya for your service.”

He also handed them both a check. The amount of money on each of them boggled your mind. How did he have that much money to freely give away? Clearly either Supernatural paid extremely well or the Captain Confederate and Southern Avengers movies did even better than you thought they did. The officers left, and the smile instantly faded from his face as he looked down at you, on your knees.

“Alright…let’s see here.”

He pulled out his phone and checked a few things, muttering to himself as he did so.

“AC…check, new pedals…check, radio…check, new speakers…check, new tires…”

As he went on, you looked around. You were kneeling before the 6’1” Texas God’s big boots, and most of what you could see was the long Impala he was leaning against. This was the same car from Supernatural, you realized. Jensen had taken it back to Texas with him before starting work on his various Captain Confederate films. His deep voice interrupted your thoughts.

“Alrighty lil Yankee, your processing form indicates your a fuckin doormat of a “man”. Well, lucky for you, I need the kind of pathetic Yankee runt who will let someone walk all over him and thank em for it. That’s you. See this beauty?”

He smiled and tapped the roof of the car.

“I’ve been so busy I ain’t had the time to modify this baby. But now I’m getting it ready for Texas. That’s where you come in, puny Yankee.”

Without warning, a viscous kick slammed into your chest, knocking you on your back. Before you could really react, Jensen’s huge boots were on top of your chest and face, his entire body weight pressing down on you. It hurt, but something about it felt so right.

“Good thing your already a doormat, cause I need some mats of a different kind. Your gonna serve me forever, puny Yankee. You should be fuckin honored.”

His eyes flashed red, white, and blue, and within seconds, you felt your body starting to elongate and flatten. Your clothes vanished. You didn’t bother trying to speak; since his boots was clamped firmly over your mouth anyway. Despite not opening your mouth, you tasted something rubbery.

From what little you could see of your body, it was adopting a black-grey hue, and you felt your skin becoming more elastic. Then, abruptly, you lost all feeling in your legs for a moment. It returned a few moments later, but they seemed somehow distant. Your arms did the same thing. Unbeknownst to you, one arm and leg each was being paired up, fused together. Jensen placed his boot under your chin, and, with a sharp kick…your head came rolling right off. It didn’t hurt though, and within a few seconds your head was back right-side up. Jensen’s form towered over your body, and he looked as godly as ever, his scruffy face smirking down at you, arms crossed over his chest, heavy boots pressing into your own chest.

Within seconds your field of vision started to fade, as your face became lower and lower. You couldn’t see anymore, but felt your head stretching out, along with all your other body parts.

Jensen smirked to himself as he watched the Yankee be transformed. It’s arms and legs had been paired up and each become a set of rear floor mats, it’s torso had become one for the passenger side floor, and the face of the pathetic Yankee was being turned into one for the drivers side, where it would get to serve his mighty boots forever. Jensen grinned and began to install the new floor mats.

“Floor mats…check.”

Hope ya like it lil Yankee. You seemed very comfy with boots on you and at the bottom of the car, so I felt you’d be great as floor mats.

#inanimate tf #ask

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padawanlost · 4 years ago

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Something I've noticed recently over the past few months is this trend where people have been diagnosing Anakin with narcissistic personality disorder instead of C-PTSD or BPD, the more commonly seen diagnoses. I personally disagree, but I wanted to hear your "two sense" on the matter if you will, you're one of the best meta-writers on this site.

It’s because people don’t like Anakin as presented on screen. They want Anakin to be as selfish and arrogant as possible so they can blame him from everything that happened. If it’s ALL about Anakin than everyone else can be left off the hook.

Anakin ‘I don’t want to be a problem’ Skywalker is clearly narcissistic. I mean, he fits all the signs:

Have a sense of entitlement and require constant, excessive admiration

“Ten years in this place, and still he was an object of interest. Of speculation. All their hopes and dreams hanging on him like decorations on a bantha skeleton at Boonta Eve. He hated it.” [Clone Wars: Wild space, Karen Miller]

Have an exaggerated sense of self-importance

“You would forgo your destiny for Padmé?” Anakin’s brows beetled in anger. “I never claimed to be the Chosen One. That was Qui-Gon. Even the Council doesn’t believe it anymore, so why should you?” [ James Luceno. Labyrinth of Evil]

Expect to be recognized as superior even without achievements that warrant it

Anakin bumped his hand against [Obi-wan]. “Wait. Just—wait.” Embarrassed, he took a deep breath. “Look. Don’t take this the wrong way. It’s just—it’s the mission, right? That’s what matters. So—” “Anakin.” Obi-Wan’s whisper sounded amused. “It’s fine. I was about to suggest it myself when the droids turned up.” “You were?” “Play to your strengths and minimize your weaknesses. That’s how a battle is won. That’s how we’ll win the war.” Anakin had to smile. I should’ve known he wouldn’t take it personally. “Yeah. So—once I’m up and over and nobody raises the alarm, give me a five-count then follow. I’ll give you the best Force boost I can. Not that you’ll need much. Your leap was only a meter and a half behind Master Windu’s. Remember?” Obi-Wan gave a breathy chuckle. “I remember I had nosebleeds for a week afterward. Don’t ever feel bad for being extraordinary, Anakin. Now off you go. We don’t have all night.” [Karen Miller. Star Wars: Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth]

Take advantage of others to get what they want

“He thought of how unflinchingly loyal Anakin was to anyone he considered a friend.” [Matthew Stover’s Revenge of the Sith]

Exaggerate achievements and talents

He was the Chosen One, they told him. He was supposed to bring balance to the Force. Anakin thought that some little extra support might go with being the Chosen One, a helping hand or at least some understanding from the Jedi Council, but instead he was passed around like an unwelcome burden, ending up with Qui-Gon Jinn and then Kenobi because nobody else would have him. His chosen status meant less than nothing; it felt more like a stigma. And they wondered why he was difficult at times. Maybe they didn’t want balance, whatever that was. Maybe nobody liked a Jedi who was that different. He felt like an embarrassment to them. I do everything you ask of me. I try so hard. When is it going to be enough? When are you going to say, “Okay, Anakin Skywalker, you’re good enough”? Karen Traviss’s The Clone Wars

Be preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate

Impatience. Concern. Relief. Loneliness. Weariness. And grief, not yet healed. Such a muddle of emotions. Such a weight on [Anakin]’s shoulders. Months of brutal battle had left [Ahsoka] drained and nearly numb, but it was worse for Anakin. He was a Jedi general with countless lives entrusted to his care, and every life damaged or lost he counted as a personal failure. For other people he found forgiveness; for himself there was none. For himself there was only anger at not meeting his own exacting standards. [Karen Miller’s Star Wars: Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth]

Believe they are superior and can only associate with equally special people

It’s not just Skywalker’s rank that makes us give him one hundred percent. It’s because he treats us with respect, and he puts himself on the line with us.” [The Clone Wars by Karen Traviss]

Monopolize conversations and belittle or look down on people they perceive as inferior

Having worked their way around the village, finding nothing to wake their uneasily sleeping sense of alarm, Obi-Wan and Anakin returned to the beaten-dirt square and the charter house. Its doors were open now and a woman who had to be Teeba Brandeh stood on the broad step, hands on her narrow hips, watching the children scatter across the square to play a proper game of kickball. Grinning, without bothering to ask if he might, or if it were wise, or if they had the time to spare, so independent these days, Anakin jogged to join them. After a moment’s amazed hesitation the children welcomed him with squeals of delight, rough-and-tumbled him into their midst and made him one of their own. Obi-Wan shook his head. “He’s nice,” said the girl with the bracelet and the ragged hair, wandering over to stand beside him. “Don’t be cross with him, Teeb Yavid.” Karen Miller. Star Wars: Clone Wars Gambit: Siege

“Oh, no,” said Anakin, grinning. “It was fun too.” May the Force give me strength. “And that business with the boy? Because when I said no heavy lifting I—” Anakin’s amusement vanished. “He wasn’t heavy. These younglings are skin and bone. I look at them and—” He clenched his jaw. ”Karen Miller. Star Wars: Clone Wars Gambit: Siege

Expect special favors and unquestioning compliance with their expectations

[Anakin] did not like the fact that he had won. It seemed wrong that he had stepped so far out of line, and yet had been retained as a Padawan. He did not like the unease this victory, if victory it was, produced in him. Above all weaknesses, arrogance was the most costly. They keep me here because I have potential they’ve never seen before. They keep me in training because they’re curious to see what I can do. I feel like a rich man who never knows whether his friends are true-or whether they just want his money. This was a particularly galling thought, and certainly neither true nor fair. Why do they put up with me, then? Why do I keep testing them? [Greg Bear’s Rogue Planet]

Have an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others

“I’m sorry. I’m not normally this stupid. I just—” And then she felt her face crumple and heard herself sob. Her knees buckled and she began to sink toward the floor. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she choked. “Don’t mind me. I’m fine.” [Anakin] caught her before she tumbled completely. Lifted her without effort and carried her to the sofa. Boneless and unprotesting, she let him. Let her face turn to his roughly shirted, dirty chest and howled her rage and shame against him. Dimly, she felt his hand warm and comforting on her back and heard his soft voice saying, over and over, “It’s all right. It’s all right. You’re safe now. It’s all right.” The crazy thing was that she did feel safe. For the first time since those Separatist blaster bolts seared the air and sand of Niriktavi Bay, since she saw her friends and colleagues slaughtered, she felt safe. Then, abruptly, she felt mortified. What was she doing? Weeping like a child all over a man young enough to be her son? Where was her pride? She shifted away from him, unable to meet his eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—I’m sorry.” “Don’t apologize,” he said gently. “You’ve got a right to be upset. Now, where’s that medkit?”Karen Miller. Star Wars: Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth

Be envious of others and believe others envy them

The Jedi Council didn’t want me, either. Being the Chosen One didn’t count for anything. Master Yoda wouldn’t train me, or Windu. Every member of the Jedi Council had had something more pressing to do than help him work out what this terrible, galaxy-changing power of his meant, and how he should live in its shadow. He still wasn’t sure. Anakin recalled standing there in that grand, polished Jedi Council Chamber, surrounded by what felt like fear, and disdain, and bewilderment—who were those Masters to feel bewildered, that the only person there who cared if he lived or died was Master Qui-Gon Jinn. [Karen Traviss. The Clone Wars]

[Anakin] had worried that Obi-Wan did not have room for him in his heart. But Shmi’s smile rose in Anakin’s mind. Hearts have infinite room, my son. JUDE WATSON’S THE TRAIL OF THE JEDI

Behave in an arrogant or haughty manner, coming across as conceited, boastful and pretentious

The fear and dread in her face eased, just a little. “You’re a very sweet young man, Anakin Skywalker.” [Karen Miller’s Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth]

[Anakin] humbles me, sometimes. He makes me feel small. He can’t see a broken thing without wanting to fix it. [Karen Miller’s Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth]

“I don’t know,” she said, floundering. “I can’t say I’ve ever given the Jedi much thought. I mean, not as individuals. I never expected to meet one—let alone two. I don’t tend to go places where your skills are needed. But—well—you’re gentle.” [Karen Miller’s Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth]

Insist on having the best of everything — for instance, the best car or office

“I’m not giving him to you,” [Anakin]’d told her. “He’s not even really mine to give; when I built him, I was a slave, and everything I did belonged to Watto. Cliegg Lars bought him along with my mother; Owen gave him back to me, but I’m a Jedi. I have renounced possessions. I guess that means he’s free now. What I’m really doing is asking you to look after him for me.” “Look after him?” “Yes. Maybe even give him a job. He’s a little fussy,” he’d admitted, “and maybe I shouldn’t have given him quite so much self-consciousness—he’s a worrier—but he’s very smart, and he might be a real help to a big-time diplomat … like, say, a Senator from Naboo?”Matthew Stover. Revenge of the Sith

#ask #anon #sw meta #meta: anakin #meta: fandom #txt

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chiwhorei · 4 years ago

Text

i was 𝖐𝖎𝖉𝖓𝖆𝖕𝖕𝖊𝖉 by the 𝖘𝖊𝖓𝖉𝖆𝖎 𝖋𝖗𝖔𝖌𝖘?!?!🥺

@undermattsun your server is a fever dream and i am terminal.

a/n (the first of many): this is the absolute worst thing i have ever seen and i will love and protect it for the rest of my life. check out the rest of this flaming piss fire here. i am completely, wholly sorry for anyone that reads this. no. one. perceive. me.

pairing: sendai frogs x the oc from a 5sos fanfic i wrote in 2013

word count: ~800 of the last words my brain cells will ever produce

tw? wattpad.

“Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend

Somewhere along in the bitterness

And I would have stayed up with you all night

Had I known how to save a life” - The Fray (a/n: sorry, i don’t listen to normal music like the other girls if you don’t like the fray gtfo-_-)

it’s funny how life works. one day, you’re just sitting on the bus, putting my long thick beautiful hair in to a messy bun (ugh i’m so ugly) and the next, i get thrown into a van.

“w-what are you doing?” i say, i bit my lip nervously because i’m quirky.

“were the sendai frogs. your ours now.”

Step one, you say, "We need to talk."

He walks, you say, "Sit down. It's just a talk."

He smiles politely back at you

You stare politely right on through

i guess i should introduce myself. my name is delilah ackerman but i prefer to go by my nickname esme dark-waters. yes i am from new york city but i HATE THE PLAIN WHITE T’s okay so don’t fucking say it.(a/n: i dont listin to normie bands like that ew) i have long curly hair and piercings green eyes and porcelain skin but i am so fucking ugly. all of the “pretty girls” at my college where north face jackets and leggings but i’m not like them. i wore band t-shirts from pierce the veil and twenty one pilots and beanies and leggings because i’m quirky.

i was sitting on the buss coming home from classes (i’m an english major and i love Shakespeare because i’m different and smart tehe ^.^) when i tall blonde man sits next to me. i tuck my long curly pink hair begind my ear, biting my lip i turn to him.

“hi” i say nervously, biting my lip.

“hi, delilah.” he chuckles darkly.

“wait,” i stuttered, “how do you know my name?” i ask worriedly.

“my name is kei tsukishima, your mob boss father hasn’t paid his debts so we’re going to kidnap you and keep you as are slave.” he darkly chuckled, grabbing my wrist. (a/n: hehe i love salty-shima sm he’s so fucking hawt)

Some sort of window to your right

As he goes left and you stay right

Between the lines of fear and blame

You begin to wonder why you came

After i was shoved into a car and driven to a bunker under a volleyball gym, i met the rest of the mob volleyball team that took me.

“poggers, my name is kanji koganegawa.” another large man stands up from where he was sitting down. he had long blonde hair spiked up and a black streak in the middle.

“hi esme, did you miss me?” you turn around abruptly at the sound of your ex boyfriend kyoutani kentarou. you gasp.

gasping, you turn to kyoutani. “w-what are y-you doing h-here?”

“what do you mean? i’m a volleyball player for this mob-slash-volleyball team. the sendai frogs.” he looks at me curiously, he runs his hand through his shaved hair in frustration.

“i don’t know anything about volleyball!” i say loudly, “i’m NOT like the OTHER GIRLS.”

the tallest man who you knew as tsukishima comes up and grabbed your arm, pulling you into his broad chest. you look up at him dreamily.

“i’ve been watching you for a while now delilah esme dark-waters ackerman. and i am in love with you. please forgive me.” you look up to kei with your giant emerald orbs, orbs filling with tears.

“you love me? but why? i’m so ugly?” i let tears roll down my freckled cheeks, biting my lip nervously.

“why do you think we kidnapped you? it’s because you’re beautiful.” kei pulls me into a passionate kiss and our tongues fight for dominance. fighting for dominance, our tongues dance is each other’s mouth and i moan loudly,

“hey asshole,” i hear kyoutani smirk behind me, “she’s in love with me. she’s mine.”

As he begins to raise his voice

You lower yours and grant him one last choice

Drive until you lose the road

Or break with the ones you've followed

a/n: omg thank u so much for reading! this is my first story i’ve written and i hope u luv it! note: NONE OF THE LYRICS ARE MINE THEY ALL BELONG TO THE FRAY. anyway, part two should be coming out soon! luv u all!!<3

last updated: 1/8/2012

do. not. perceive. me. dymphnasprose 2021©️

#tsukishima kei x reader #kanji koganegawa x reader #kyoutani kentarou x reader #haikyuu x reader #kidnapped by hq #whorehouse collab #tw: wattpad #tw: kidnapping

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crispyjenkins · 4 years ago

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fic with ahsoka as Obi-Wans Padawan? Maybe some angsty jangobi? (Used to be together but broke up and now they pine from afar™️)

(i’m devastated that i don’t get to write ahsoka much, especially as obi’s padawan, so that an anon would come into my inbox.... and request jangobi on top of it..... seriously, though, thank you! can’t say i wasn’t inspired by @autumnchild22’s Kenobi Tano AU, but this doesn’t share almost anything with their take of events (ノ*´◡`) i’m flattered y’all thought i could do something of theirs justice lmao

i have written entirely too much backstory for this one, i think my brainstorming ended up longer than the actual fic so like. rip.

support artists and writers by reblogging, message me for more info if this confuses you!)

It surprises everyone except Obi-Wan that not only does Jango join the clones on the front lines, but he does so as the ARC troopers’ medic. That the son of the Mand’alor murdered by the Jedi would allow his kid to be apprenticed by a lifetime Council member is already hard enough for the galaxy at large to swallow; believing that the man who had at once been the most feared bounty hunter in the Outer Rim wouldn’t even ask for a command position? Impossible.

Obi-Wan knows better. Just as Obi-Wan had picked up Soresu because he could not protect his master on Naboo, Jango had learned to put people back together because he could not save his buir on Korda 6.

Besides, Obi-Wan thinks Mace is a wonderful match for little Boba, even though he’s joining the Jedi older than even Anakin had been. Knowing Mace was among the Jedi to liberate the spice freighter Jango had been sold to, and that he had continued to check in on Jango for years after he got his armor back, Obi-Wan actually finds it rather silly that others on the Council had thought Jango would trust Boba to anyone else.

Which does leave Obi-Wan in quite the predicament, when less than a year after Anakin's knighting, Mace sends him a new padawan in the middle of a campaign.

Ahsoka smiles with all canines, and calls Anakin Skyguy, and has to be tricked into wearing more armor because, according to Cody, she is "not to take the General's lack of self-preservation as the status quo, nor as the basis for field safety." Which, rude, Obi-Wan wears plenty of armor when the situation calls for it; he simply doesn't find many situations where plasteel has kept his men or the Jedi from dying horribly.

Letting Ahsoka gallivant around a battlefield in a tube-top without even a cloak, however, is out of the question, and Obi-Wan thinks Waxer does a brilliant job in sizing down the armor to fit their collective padawan over the next few months. Force, had Anakin really been younger than she when he first started taking him on missions?

"Master?"

Obi-Wan blinks, and smiles down at Ahsoka standing next to him, his apprentice looking quite dashing in the orange paint of the 212th. "Sorry, my dear, what were you saying?"

She shrugs, eyeing him suspiciously. "'Was just asking if we would be working with the ARC troopers on Kiros; Captain Fordo said he would show me how to use a blaster rifle next time they were on the Negotiator."

The Kaminoans intended for a few ARC troopers to be sent with each battalion, but it had quickly become clear that Jango had not trained them that way. Instead, he had raised and created a strike team so efficient, it would have been a waste to separate them; Obi-Wan knows Jango had hand-picked them from cadets, had searched for a spark in them that the Kaminoans hadn't already snuffed out completely. Jango had been like that once, too.

"I would be surprised if we didn't," Obi-Wan decides on, turning back to observe the 212th loading into the Negotiator, and he would be, because the ARCs are often deployed with Obi-Wan’s men, have been since the Battle of Kamino. "But I have not heard anything from Master Shaak Ti, nor Captain Fordo as of yet."

Ahsoka scrunches up her face into a pout, an amusing show of her age that she usually does not allow. "We'll probably get halfway through the mission and they'll just show up."

Obi-Wan chuckles. “Hm, yes, probably,” he agrees, starting to make his way down to the hangar to join his men with Ahsoka trotting along behind, “but perhaps I can convince Captain Fordo not to surprise us too badly this time.”

When the ARC troopers finally storm the Kadavo Processing Facility with Anakin and the Jedi on their heels, the warden Agruss is already dead.

The sudden swell of Jedi presence is nearly blinding after a month of helplessness, but Obi-Wan can't tap out, not yet. Rex, satisfied and vindictive and relieved, sways dangerously and automatically reaches out to Obi-Wan to steady himself.

That Rex trusts him enough to not even think about rank before asking for help warms Obi-Wan in ways he doesn't yet have the words for — he wraps Rex's arm around his shoulders and takes half his weight happily.

"Thank you," Obi-Wan finds himself murmuring as he helps Rex towards the doors, and only smiles at the captain's bemused expression.

"Whatever for, General?" he asks, even as he looks back over their shoulders across the room, to Agruss impaled to his chair with the electrostaff still sparking. Then he returns Obi-Wan’s smile, shaking his head. "That's not very Jedi-like of you, sir."

"I'm afraid I haven't felt much a Jedi since Kiros, my dear." Which is perhaps too honest to allow himself before he's had a proper meal and a full night's rest, but if there is anyone who will understand, it is the man that lived it with him. "We could wait up here for Anakin to find us, but it will likely be a while before they can spare him to start looking; do you think you can keep your feet long enough for us to reach the ground floor?"

Rex snorts and gives a vague wave of his free hand towards the elevators. "Well, I'm certainly not going to wait up here like some damsel, sir, and General Skywalker would kill me if I let you wander around on your own."

"Well!" Obi-Wan laughs, for the first time in weeks, and hitches Rex up to get a better grip on his waist. "In that case, we really should not keep him waiting."

They somehow time it perfectly for what the 187th and the 501st to have just finished rounding up the slavers in the courtyard when he and Rex hobble out of a side door of the warden's tower. Lieutenant Law oversees the Togrutas' move to Mace’s flagship Solace, and Obi-Wan easily picks him and Boba out from the crowd, standing at the base of the loading ramp and speaking with the Kiros colony's governor. Anakin is nowhere to be seen, but Obi-Wan doesn't get the chance to keep looking before Kix spots them from his place by the medical frigate; a shout passes over the nearby clones like a wave, until Kix and an ARC trooper break away to (gently) manhandle both him and Rex to the frigate.

The 187th's medic, Oro, is already on board seeing to the Togrutas too injured to wait for triage on the Solace, snapping a distracted salute that Obi-Wan quickly waves off as he helps heft Rex onto a hoverbed. He fully intends to duck back out and check in with Mace, though things seem well in hand without him, but the ARC with Kix takes off his helmet and glares, until Obi-Wan meekly shuffles to the next hoverbed over.

He could never refuse Jango, after all.

"You repainted your armor," he says conversationally, as Jango pulls a scanner from the bandoleer around his chest and has Obi-Wan roll up his right sleeve.

"'Lost the last set to a sarlacc before our deployment to Kiros," Jango snorts, Concord Dawn accent stronger than any of his clones. "Though it looks like your mission had its fair share of excitement." Running the scanner over the electrical burns on Obi-Wan’s arm, Jango raises an eyebrow at the dried blood on the shoulder of his tunics; Obi-Wan honestly doesn't remember if it's his or not.

And he can only smile at Jango, because even with a decade and a war between them, the corner of Jango's mouth still twitches when he's stressed. "Well, it certainly wasn't boring, my dear," Obi-Wan says, opening the neck of his tunic enough for Jango to stick him with a hypospray that hopefully won't make him too high. "And I can't say I'm looking forward to what is surely going to be a long dip in the bacta tank."

He gets a laugh for that, and can't think of the last time they had done more than make eye contact from opposite sides of a ship. Perhaps it had been Kamino, when Taun We had first sent for the Jedi to meet the army created for them.

Obi-Wan had rather thought Jango dead until then, when he had disappeared from the galaxy abruptly as if he had never lived in it at all. For a time, Obi-Wan believed he had just gotten cold feet, that finally meeting Anakin made it all a little too personal too quickly, but then even Mace could not get a hold of him and no one had seen a Mandalorian bounty hunter in months.

Their... conversation, Jango's stilted explanations of his absence and of how little he actually knew about the purpose for the clones he helped create, left far too much unsaid, but then Obi-Wan had been sent to Geonosis and, well. It's been nearly two years now, and Obi-Wan isn't sure if he's even seen Jango without his helmet since then.

His eyes flick over Obi-Wan’s face, the left side of his lips twitching as if knowing exactly what Obi-Wan is thinking — and he might not put it past him.

"Where are Anakin and Ahsoka?" Obi-Wan hears himself ask, when the silence grows heavy with those unsaid words. And he really would like to check in with his padawan, he can't imagine her last month has been a picnic either.

Jango sticks him with another stim before answering, "Mace sent Skywalker to make sure no slave is missed, and no slaver isn't arrested. As for your new foundling..." That little smile comes back, as Jango nods out the back of the frigate to where someone is cutting a line through the clones guarding their new prisoners.

"Oh dear," Obi-Wan mumbles, barely having time to brace himself before Ahsoka is launching herself at him, and all he can think is how relieved he is to see her out of her slave disguise. Jango steps cleanly out of the way to let Ahsoka smother herself in Obi-Wan’s chest, though it doesn’t stop him from starting to prep bacta patches to tide him over until they can get to the Negotiator’s medbay.

“Hello, little one,” Obi-Wan murmurs, carefully loosening the tight net of his shields for the first time since Zygerria and letting Ahsoka’s presence flood his mind.

“It’s good to see you, Master ‘Nobi,” she says into his tunics, and her voice does not waver at all.

He manages a chuckle, though it does not hold nearly as well as Ahsoka’s, as he feels himself finally relax. Anakin, of course, senses the both of them immediately and prods at their minds, but neither Obi-Wan nor his padawan acknowledge him. “I take it the Queen is dead?”

Ahsoka sighs and pulls back enough to nod. “Count Dooku was there, Skyguy barely got us all out.”

“That was a week ago,” Jango adds, not looking up from the datapad he’s logging Obi-Wan’s injuries into. “Even with the Queen giving us the location of the Processing Facility, we had to wait for the 187th to catch up.”

Running his palm from the top of her head down her hind lek, Ahsoka melts back against him with a Togruta churr he rarely has the pleasure of hearing from her. “Hm, and I imagine Boba was thrilled to work with the ARC troopers.”

Jango snorts, because they both know Boba is thirteen and his rebellious stage where he wants nothing to do with his father for fear of losing his independence. “Originally, the 104th was the closest battalion, but were held up in their own campaign. ‘Honestly didn’t think we could keep Skywalker from rushing in anyways.”

And Obi-Wan has to wince at that, because no matter what he does, he can’t seem to find a way to teach Anakin about attachment in words he understands; truthfully, Obi-Wan wouldn’t have had him knighted until he had at least attempted to master that part of his mind, but, well, the War had different opinions.

“I’m actually just surprised he didn’t try to fight Dooku,” Ahsoka admits, finally releasing Obi-Wan only to hop up on the hoverbed next to him. Jango immediately pulls Obi-Wan’s bare arm back to himself to start slapping the bacta patches over the worst of his burns. “Master Windu had a talk with him, though, I think it was good for him.”

“I’d like to see that!” Jango barks, only half sarcastically: he knows better than most, the sorts of things Mace Windu can talk someone out of, and if it worked for one ex-slave, why shouldn’t it work on another?

Ah, perhaps that shared history should not have slipped Obi-Wan’s mind, not here with thousands of freed slaves needing aid for injuries Jango is intimately familiar with.

“And are you alright?” he asks before he can talk himself out of it, as Jango is cutting his sleeve further back. His brow ticks back up, clearly bewildered by what Obi-Wan could be referring to, but it’s Ahsoka that leans around Obi-Wan to sniff triumphantly up at Jango.

“I told you he still likes you,” she says, and Jango’s hand freezes on Obi-Wan’s wrist.

Obi-Wan sighs. “Ahsoka.”

But instead of denying that he might have actually had such a conversation with Obi-Wan’s padawan, Jango coughs on a laugh. “So you did, edee. To be fair, I did not think that was the issue.”

Ahsoka rolls her eyes, leaning back into Obi-Wan’s side as he automatically raises his arm to accommodate her. “He thinks he lost his chance, Master ‘Nobi,” she tells him. “Even Cody thinks he’s full of banthashit.”

Where Obi-Wan feels a little shell-shocked by the turn in conversation, Jango simply keeps that tiny smile — even if it looks bittersweet and self-deprecating now. “Your foundling has spent the last week talking me in circles about this, I almost think she’s as stubborn as you.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment, I think,” Obi-Wan returns, sarcasm an automatic, subconscious response.

“I wouldn’t need to talk you in circles if you two just talked to each other.”

Shaking his head in bemusement, Obi-Wan gently fixes Ahsoka’s slika beads to lay properly around her montrals. “I’m afraid there’s quite a lot of history there, little one; most of which I’m sure Jango did not actually share with you.”

She wrinkles her nose. “No, he refuses to tell me anything except that you met on a mission. And that he saved your ass from Jabba the Hutt.”

Obi-Wan snaps his eyes to Jango, who looks absolutely anywhere but at him. “Is that how you remember it going, my dear?”

“Could we do this later?”

“Because if I recall correctly, and I do, this is not the first time you’ve lost your armor to a sarlacc.”

Jango looks to the ceiling for patience.

Mando'a: buir — “parent”, gender neutral Mand’alor — “Sole ruler”, contended ruler of Mandalore. edee — “teeth”, “jaws”, used here as an affectionate name for Ahsoka. because she teeth.

#thinking about opening the ask box again but keeping anon off #i miss y’all ꒰๑·̥﹏·̥๑꒱#WHY DO I KEEP WRITING 3000 WORD PROMPT FILLS #well i mean it’s cause i don’t want it to seem slapdash or not thought out and i always have so much plot #but it’d still be nice to not put my chaptered fics on the backburner ‘cause i can’t multitask between them T0T #prompt fill #crispy writes #jangobi #jango fett #obi wan kenobi #ahsoka tano #captain rex #prequel trilogy #au #force sensitive boba #alternate events at and post galidraan #medic jango #clone oc #oro is mine (ノ*´▽`)#real talk tho #i’m super fucked up about everything happening with achievement hunter right now #it’s been a rough couple of days #i hope you’re all safe and healthy and taking care of each other #believe victims not abusers #hashtag crispy stop tagging so much

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tomicaleto · 4 years ago

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Hello! Could you do 13+35 for the two part drabble game please? With Obikin. I love your drabbles!

Yes! Here you are!

This is an AU were Obi-Wan fell at one point between the ending of Episode I and Episode II and is now fighting with the Separatists. He was never Anakin's master in this AU, but he was around during Anakin's training + Anakin remembers him from TPM

13 - Someone does something stupid and 35 - “You wanna bet?”

Anakin raised his lightsaber in front of himself, his chest heaving with effort and dried blood making it more difficult for him to focus on his enemy.

In front of him, the former Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi, now Dooku’s favourite lackey, stared at him with an almost amused expression. His own grip on his red lightsaber was lax, as if he didn’t consider Anakin a real threat.

And considering the state Anakin found himself in, he wouldn’t have considered one either.

This mission had not been his luckiest. The missing population on Kiros turned out to be slaved by the Zygerrians who were looking to rebuild their Slavery Empire with the help of the Separatists. Anakin had been forced to play the harmless fool as his padawan took care of the bombs placed all over the planet, which had left him sore and bloodied.

And to make matters worse, he had run into Kenobi and was now struggling to defend himself against the Sith.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. I don’t think you can find your way out of this one, my dear.” Obi-Wan teased. They always found themselves bantering during their fights, something that worried the Council, as Obi-Wan seemed to only show interest in Anakin from all the Jedi.

Ahsoka had accused Anakin of flirting with the enemy, something that had embarrassed and offended Anakin in equal measures. He didn’t flirt with Kenobi, but the same could not be said about the Sith.

But that was irrelevant, as Anakin was a Jedi Knight. He would never fall for the Sith’s treachery. The only reason he engaged in their banter was because he remembered how Obi-Wan used to feel like in the Force when he had been a Jedi. And Anakin was sure Obi-Wan wasn’t completely lost to the dark.

So he bickered and bantered, and if he enjoyed the Sith’s attention on him a bit too much, well, that was no one’s business but his own.

Anakin considered his options. There was no way he would manage to best Obi-Wan in combat in the state he was. And every minute wasted was another one the Kiros’s colonists were in danger.

His only hope was to distract the Sith enough to slip away. And he had a very stupid idea to do it. As Obi-Wan approached, Anakin squared his shoulders and pretended to be reading to attack.

“There is no use, darling,” Obi-Wan smirked, his golden eyes glinting with something Anakin couldn’t name. “You won’t get away this time.”

“You wanna bet?” Anakin shot back, waiting for the exact moment to make his move.

And as Obi-Wan stopped just a couple of steps away, Anakin moved. He sprinted forward, throwing his whole body at the Sith, but simultaneously switching his lightsaber off. Obi-Wan took a step backwards, about to raise his guard but Anakin was already too close.

But Anakin didn’t mean to actually attack, just shock the Sith enough that he could use his last reserves of energies to run away. And so, he kissed the Sith.

It wasn’t a good kiss, the force of Anakin’s movement making their teeth clash, but the noise of the Sith lightsaber hitting the ground was clue enough that Anakin’s plan had worked perfectly.

Without losing his momentum, Anakin pulled back abruptly, swiftly jumping far enough from the Sith. Obi-Wan was frozen in his place, his golden eyes wide and his Force presence a storm. But Anakin couldn’t afford to lose his advantage by trying to decipher which feelings could be found there, instead jumping further away from the Sith and shielding as hard as he could so he wouldn’t be followed.

This, he would not tell Ahsoka, not even if he found himself with a blaster pointing at his head.

Thanks for sending these, Anon, hope you enjoy! edit: I’m so happy you enjoy my drabbles ;;w;; please feel free to send more (I forgot to say this because it’s 6am woops, but I still appreciate it a lot!)

Two-part Drabble Game

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mandoalorian · 4 years ago

Text

Found Family [Din Djarin x Reader]

Word count: 2.1k

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: mention of anxiety, slight angst and feelings of guilt, general Star Wars lore.

Author's note: short and sweet because I'm super excited for the Mandalorian season two! Only five days away! Enjoy!

Translations:

Mesh'la - beautiful

Cyar'ika - darling/sweetheart

Aliit - family

MASTERLIST

You sunk into the co-pilot seat of the Crest, feeling a wash of anxiety flood over you. You awaited the Mandalorian to return to the cockpit— he was just checking on the child. The child was unconscious after mustering up all of that mysterious energy he whelmed to save your life. The child saved your life at the risk of losing his own. You couldn't understand it.

You crossed your arms over your chest and as you heard his footsteps near you, your heart rate increased speed. With every heavy footstep he took, the armoury hung on the walls clattered. Without a hitch or a noise, he slid into the pilot seat, setting destination back to Nevarro before flicking a few buttons and pulling a lever down. You felt the Crest bolt forward as it lifted from the ground and into the air.

For the first few minutes, you both sat in silence. Glancing down at Din’s vibroknife, pushed into his holster, you figured you could use it to cut the tension that hung in the air. You fumbled around with your fingers, trying to just focus on the journey ahead— but your mind was wandering. "Din…" your voice was merely above a whisper. "I'm sorry."

He didn't reply. You saw the dirt stained leather of his gloves tighten around his fingers as he flexed them over the nav system. You waited a moment, in desperate hope he’d say something. Anything. But not a single word came from his mouth. The guilt you were feeling was surreal. "Please…" you said softly, closing your eyes and sending a silent prayer to the Maker. In this moment, you had wished for an Imperial Star Destroyer to come out of lightspeed and blast you into a billion pieces. You wanted a black hole to swallow you up.

You had never seen Din so angry. Of course, you hadn't even seen him without his helmet before but— it was in his movements. The negative energy resonated with the way he walked, the lack of communication, his stiffness...

"I… I didn't mean it." You promised Din, finally earning a modulated grunt from him as he briefly shook his head in disbelief. He didn't move. He didn't turn to you. His eyes were still locked on the route ahead. "You were gone for so long."

It was hardly an excuse and you knew it, but you were just trying to swindle some kind of response from him. You couldn’t stand the silent treatment. Din had gone on a very important bounty three days ago. Sure, he told you to wait by the ship, but as time went on and the nights got colder… you felt an ache in your heart. Pent up worry. What if something had happened to him? You and Din had never discussed such contingency plans before. Did he just expect you to wait at the Crest for the rest of your life? On a planet as dangerous as Felucia? It wasn’t like you could pilot a ship as unique as the Razor Crest. You relied on Din and you had to know if he was okay.

It just so happened, as you left the Crest that afternoon, Din and the child were on their way back. And thank the Maker for that. Carrying the child in his satchel, Din raced through the vibrant floral forest - blaster in hand - shooting at the running bounty. You heard his blaster first, stopping abruptly in your footsteps, your boots crunching in the autumnal orange leaves that laid beneath you. You heard running, followed by further blaster bolts. Hurtling towards you was a fair skinned man dressed in what could only be described as ex-Imperial uniform, a crimson red cape loosely tied around his neck. You froze up as his cold eyes bore into you and no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t move. You were stuck. The man dived on top of you, pushing you backwards into the mud and slamming his hand over your mouth. You shuffled helplessly underneath him, trying to rid yourself from his grip - but it was no use. You wanted to cry.

Din hurried towards you, his heart sinking when he saw his bounty straddling you. Seeing the bounty reach in his pocket and grab a knife, he held it to your throat. Din dropped his blaster and scrambled to get his pulse rifle out of his pocket. The little green ears of the child poked out of Din’s satchel and engulfed the image of you being held hostage by the bounty. The child raised his hand and closed his eyes. It was that mysterious energy again. The bounty froze up, knife in hand, just inches away from your neck. It gave Din enough time to wield his pulse rifle and set it for stun. Instantaneously, Din shot him. As the man fell limp on your body, so did the child, falling back into the satchel - unconscious. Din ran towards you, hap-hazardly pushing the man off you and kneeling by your side. “Kriff, are you alright?” He asked, cupping your cheek with his hand. “What happened?”

Dazed, you tried to refocus your eyes on the Mandalorian who was kneeling before you. “H-had been gone for days,” you said, forcing yourself to sit up and dust the dried up mud off your clothes the best you can. “Was worried.”

“So you left the Crest and came looking for me? Are you out of your mind?” Din raised his voice and you began to feel the guilt pool up in your stomach. “Did you not, for one second, consider your own safety? Look at you,” Din scoped your body. “Didn’t even bring a weapon.”

With a heated sigh, Din stood up and began walking away from you. Confused and with a little wobble, you scrambled to your feet before chasing after the Mandalorian. “I- I didn’t plan on going far,” you told the bounty hunter. “I just had to see if you were nearby.”

The Mandalorian didn’t speak a word to you until you had both returned back to the Razor Crest later that night. The memory of what had happened earlier that day felt like a dagger in Din’s heart. He couldn’t stay mad at you for too long. You were foolish, yes, but he knew you didn’t have any bad intentions. Din contemplated for a moment before finally deciding to part his lips.

"And I gave you specific instructions to wait here for me." His voice was cold, but you breathed a sigh of relief. At least now he was talking to you.

"You had never been gone this long before," you informed him. You felt ashamed, embarrassed. Not only had you done a really silly thing, but you had done it against the will of one of the most esteemed bounty hunters in the parsec. "And the child…"

"You would've died," he deadpanned. "If it wasn't for me, you would've died." You couldn't count on it, but you were sure that you heard his voice break slightly as he spat out those words. And it was true. If Din hadn’t been on the tail of the bounty then who knows what would’ve happened to you.

"I know, Din." you couldn't find excuses. You knew it would just get you into more trouble.

More silence filled up the cockpit. "And what would I do if you had died?" He paused, realising he might be sounding only a touch selfish. "What about the kid? He needs you." You placed a hand on his thigh, rubbing small circles in a comforting manner. "I need you." he revealed, looking down at your fingers and letting his gaze follow up to your arm and to your face. You were still looking down at the ground when he removed his hand from the steering device and tilted your chin upwards. "Look at me, mesh'la." His voice was low and rasp.

You looked up at him, blinking a few times to try and rid yourself of the guilty tears threatening to spill from your eyes. "I'm sorry Din." you repeated, hoping he could find the genuine sorrow in your voice.

"He- he was an ex-Imperial warlord. A big name in the Empire," Din informed you, gesturing to the back of the ship at his bounty who had only recently been frozen in carbonite. "People like him… they're dangerous. Do you know what they would do if they got their hands on someone like you? Someone as beautiful as yourself?" Din cursed in Mando’a under his breath and you shuffled in your chair uncomfortably. "Yeah…" Din's voice said, sensing your discomfort. "Fuck, it would be bad."

"I know Din." you wiped a tear from your eye. You didn't know the Mandalorian cared for you this much. You supposed it was because neither of you had ever been faced with a situation quite like this before. It really put things into perspective.

"Stormtroopers are one thing," Din conceded. "I've been to places. Seen things. Warlords like him hide on outer-rim planets, hiding in palaces being worshipped by the low ranked ex-Imps. Oh, they'd love someone like you in the outer-rim. Such a pretty thing. They'd keep you as a slave, for sure."

You winced at the revelation. You had heard of such stories, and you could only imagine how worse it would’ve been under New Republic rule. Imperial hide outs had always been scattered around the outer-rim but now, after the Empire had fallen, the New Republic seemingly ignored everything that wasn’t in the core or deep core. That’s what made bounties so dangerous, especially this one to Felucia. Crime syndicates patrolled the planet and you should’ve known better. The Mandalorian had put his trust in you, but you had failed him. "Din…” your voice was small and meek, almost shying away from him. “None of that has happened to me. I'm safe. I'm here. With you."

Din sunk back into his pilot chair and breathed a sigh of relief at your words. You were right. You were safe, and that's all that mattered. And Din was more than happy to take rest on Nevarro for a day or so before getting back on the move. He knew the return of this warlord would earn him enough credits that he could justify a day off.

From such a young and tender age, Din had lost everything. He never spoke of his parents; only once, and the discussion was very brief. You didn’t think it was appropriate to ask questions although your curiosity always peaked when it came to Din and his past. Nevertheless, he knew he valued family and his Creed more than anything else in the world. And his love for the child was immeasurable. To serve as a reminder, and hopefully provide him comfort, you were struck with an idea.

You got out of your chair and sauntered back to the ship, picking up the sleeping child from his cot and cradling him in your arms. You brought him back to the cockpit and watched the foundling as he stirred slightly, opening and closing his mouth like a fish. Still asleep, he cooed quietly, and an air of satisfaction relished over you knowing that he wasn’t injured.

"What are you doing?" Din asked.

"What is that thing you always say?" you asked, cupping your hand gently around the child's face. "Aliit…"

"Aliit ori'shya tal'din," Din whispered, extending his arm and pulling you onto his lap. He draped his strong arms around your waist and peeked over your shoulder at the sleeping child. "Family is more than blood." he translated.

You rest your head in the crook of Din's neck, feeling a slight warmth radiate from under his beskar. You let your fingers trace the signet on his shoulder. "Clan of three." You smiled.

"Cyar'ika," Din hummed, taking in your scent and enjoying the close proximity of you sat on his lap holding his son. "Please, promise me you'll never do anything as stupid as that ever again."

"I promise Din." you shuffled around, just a little, but enough to be able to face Din.

The Mandalorian leaned his forehead against you, the coldness of his helmet making you shiver. He pressed a keldable kiss into your skin. "Clan of three." he confirmed, voice low and modulated. His grip on your back tightened and in that moment he swore that he would protect you and the child with his life.

#the mandalorian #din djarin #din djarin x reader #pedro pascal #pedro pascal x reader #the mandalorian season 2

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falcor-thee-luck-dragon · 4 years ago

Text

Of Monsters and Men

Chapter 10- Before A Fall

Summary: With your heart torn from the troublesome events on the mountain, your mind in swirling with mixed emotions for your Witcher and the violet eyed witch you’re bound to. Now where will you choose to go as a war begins brewing on the horizon?

Warning: some angst, more reader backstory

Masterlist

You had let yourself wallow in your sadness and anger for some time now upon another far off peak of the mountains. You couldn't look back, you couldn't even bare to turn around and fly yourself into the arms of Geralt after what he had done.

It hurt.

But you couldn't forgive so easily as you'd like to, he had made a promise almost fifty years ago to never let magic manipulate your lives in anyway. To never use dark powers against you, no spells, no enchantments, no sorcerers, nothing that could alter your reality or bend your will. Nothing to bind your very vessel to in any way, shape, or form.

He promised.

He knew your hate for how magic can ruin and destroy with simple words and rash actions. But alas, Geralt made his wish and now it can never be broken. Although you had to admit, the intended sentiment was heartfelt after all. His wish was to keep you bound to Yennefer for as long as you two are alive, his intentions were so that you'd never feel alone when he's gone and dead.

Considering you'll most likely outlive him, unless someone was to slice you open with silver and set your corpse on fire, or better yet. Get yourself mauled to death by a goddamn werewolf, what a way to go, either option not really settling well with you. But perhaps you'd never given it much thought, what would you do after Geralt left this world? You couldn't say, nor did you care to think about it, nor did you want to think about it.

But now, you're forever linked to Yennefer until the end of her days or maybe yours. You could almost laugh, how clever of destiny to bind your cares and concerns with a mage, and forever at that. She's half elf and you're a dhampir, neither of you are aging much anytime soon or even at all for that matter. You may have kept your time in Aretuza and your old friendship with Yennefer a thing of the past, but now you must accept your fate.

Maybe this is destiny?

Hate should not seep its inky talons into your soul, nor should lasting anger burn like dragon fire in your heart. You did once have a good friendship with the lavender eyed sorceress for many years, but your paths had gone separate ways when she was called to court and the mages of Aretuza began to drive you mad with their constant bickering and pettiness with one another.

Your time in the great academy transpired into a violent end when one bold admirer had attempted to charm you with his admittedly strong love potion, you had left those halls half naked and covered in his blood once you'd found the strength to break through the spell. Not one mage had dared make an effort to stop you, they understood their fellow enchanters deathly mistake and for that they let you leave without so much as a word.

You felt disgusted for letting yourself get sweet talked and manipulated by his charming aurora and false heartfelt words. You didn't even notice when he handed you a sweet smelling mystery liquid, it tasted fine going down and within seconds did you feel lust take over your body for the alluring man. But another part of you didn't want how you felt, it wasn't right, it didn't feel right. But he looked so good, and you wanted him, but did you?

In the end you had snapped out of it as half your clothing was littering the floor, he was smiling a triumphant grin from beneath your clothed legs as your fuzzy mind cleared, your heart fuming with rage as he kept oblivious to your realization. A second later did you enjoy hearing his screams of agony as you sunk your sharp pearly white fangs deep into his naked jugular, it all happened so fast. He scratched at your body as you pinned him down and ripped open his stomach, making certain to crush his prized jewels as your last final act of revenge, leaving him bruised and bleeding out upon his bed when you fled the room.

He had taken nothing but your pride. Yet he payed for it with his life.

You could hear his ragged final breaths as you flew down the enchanted hallways of Aretuza, collecting your belongings and fleeing the giant castle before you took it upon yourself to end anymore despicable lives residing in that academy.

You didn't bother telling Tissaia, she would figure it out eventually.

And as for Yennefer, she was living as a mage in luxury.

But as you stand upon this rocky ledge it all seems like a bad dream, perhaps it was just all constructed in a past life? Feels like it, but alas, it is far behind you and Yennefer was gone from the academy when it all happened. It was not her fault, you truly have no right to hate her.

So you won't. Is this still destiny?

Taking a deep breath you slowly let all your troubles and resentments out and into the dusty breeze as you stand high upon the jagged shelf of the mountainside. It's been three days since the taxing events after the dragon hunt, when all truths had been revealed and you had left Geralt in your rage. You'll find him again without a doubt in your mind, when the time is right and your infuriation has subsided. Then you will seek him out and make amends, but for now, as you brood into the sunset you can't help but feel torn to go and speak with Yennefer, you must.

Something just doesn't feel right in the air, you're pinning it on the grand mass of marching Nilfgaardian soldiers you had spotted to the west only yesterday. A great enemy of Cintra, and an impending threat to the innocent lives of nearby villagers. You close your eyes as a soft breeze caresses your face, you've made up your mind, it's time to find your old friend.

No more anger.

-meanwhile in the underkeeps of Cintra-

Geralt leans against a stone wall, listening for the footsteps of Mousesack, doing his best to keep you out of his thoughts for the time being so he can focus on the task at hand. He may not have you in his mind at the moment, but his heart has not stopped feeling dreary with heavy regret and anguish for how you had left him so suddenly.

It's been a week, still too long, he thinks.

He truly did not mean to upset you so, but when he made that wish, his mind was only concerned with keeping you happy for the next thousand years when he rots in the earth and your body flows with life. Though now he feels quite foolish for such a burdensome wish upon yourself, binding a part of your soul to Yennefer and hers with your own. So no matter wherever you two will travel, a strange call to one another will always remain in the back of your minds.

Like a shadow.

Geralt's ears prick with the sounds of rushed footfalls against the stony ground as the mage quickly approaches him from down the long shadowy hallway, "Out of nowhere, you send word to meet you. All this time, I thought you were dead." Exclaims Mousesack as Geralt turns to face him from around the corner.

"I told you last time I was in Cintra that I wasn't coming back."

Mousesack eyes him suspiciously, "Yet here you are." The Witcher hums in reply as Mousesack asks for an answer to Geralt's random appearance, a telling smirk upon his face as he walks closer, "You've come for your Child of Surprise, haven't you?"

"The opposite. I want you to tell me that he's safe and healthy so I can keep on riding."

Geralt turns from Mousesack and begins walking down the hallway as the mage smiles, "He....is a girl." Geralt abruptly turns around at the surprising news, "Princess Cirilla has been raised by Calanthe since her parents died."

"What?" Whispers Geralt, shocked by the news.

"Pavetta and Duny's ship was lost at sea. Have you been hiding your head in the sand?" The greying mage pauses for a moment, brow furrowing, "Why now? Why do you think she's not safe?"

"I saw an army making camp at the Amell Pass. A sea of black and gold." Replies Geralt.

Mousesack nods, "Nilfgaard is set on sweeping the Continent. But since that night at Pavetta's banquet, the Queen's done everything she can to keep her family safe from threats. Shut the walls. Fortified the gates." A shadow flashes against the walls as rushed footsteps befall upon the ground, grabbing Geralt's attention as he leans in closer to the mage, eyes dark.

"Sent assassins!" He growls.

"What?"

"Were you followed?"

"No." Answers Mousesack honestly.

Geralt sneers at the grey bearded man before turning and walking towards the sound of the hidden killers, Mousesack's brow furrows in confusion, "Why don't you just have your lady dhampir Y/N slay them for you and avoid such a wasteful chase? She can't be far now can she, never one to linger from your side for very long."

Geralt halts in his tracks, his mind reeling before he turns an eye to the wondering mage, "She was summoned back to her homeland. Something important, she couldn't say....so I didn't ask. I'm on my own." His voice is gravely as he lies, shifting his attention back to the opening entrance of another hallway to continue his hunt for the assassins. Mousesack left speculating if this tale has any truth to it or not, wisely deciding not to press the subject any further.

——

It hadn't been very difficult to find her, all you had to do was concentrate and let the magic given unto you by the djinn lead yourself into the direction of Yennefer like a compass. When you let it work, it seemed a rather simple task to begin your hunt for the notorious mage.

It took about a week or so to find her, you had decided to travel like a civilized person and ride to her whereabouts on the back of a silver steed. Your horse bringing you to a huge excavation site where a part of the Nilfgaard army is currently stationed, directing their workers and no doubt captured slaves to dig and scrape away at the rocky hillside for whatever the fuck type of obsidian looking rock. You could honestly care less for their troubles, the problems of these people of little concern to you.

After riding down a dirt covered road and past the tired faces of burnt-out workers you stopped by a wooden cart, tying your horse next to another. You finish the knot and step into the road, catching the scent of your friend who's aroma is still fresh, she's close, her trail leading into a nearby makeshift tavern.

"Where are you coming from, my lady?"

You stop in your tracks as a dirty faced Nilfgaardian soldier keeps you from your search, handing him a fake smile you catch his light brown eyes, "Nowhere too interesting I'm afraid."

He nods, thinking hard for a moment, his heartbeat picking up with nervousness, "W-well, if you're here to seek aid from a mage, the, uh...tavern is that way. Good day then." He stumbles quickly in reply, no doubt unnerved by your scarlet eyes and friendly sharp grin.

What a man he is.

And just like that he's gone, smiling contently with yourself and this odd bit of luck, you make for the titular gathering house with cheap ale or perhaps the tavern as it's called. Once you reach about ten feet from the opened wooden door do you stop, the familiar voices of Yennefer and Istredd, her first lover from Aretuza, fill your ears as they speak about their past dealings and Yenn's thirst for power over most things, including their relationship.

More things are said before he stands up to leave, but before he's able to catch you in his sights do you turn around and narrowly miss being found out, he'd definitely remember you. Istredd trudges past, oblivious as you listen to the whispered voice of a new man joining Yennefer at her table. He claims himself to be Vilgefortz of Roggeveen, another mage, of fucking course.

Folding your arms in annoyance you walk over to lean your back against the side of the tavern and listen as he tells Yennefer how Nilfgaard is seeking out mages for their conquests, quietly noting that they should return to Aretuza before any soldiers start asking for their assistance. She sounds doubtful until he lets known that Tissaia and himself need her nonetheless, apparently shits important, who would have thought. You can't help but roll your eyes as Vilgefortz practically sweet talks her, explaining that Tissaia said that Yennefer is the best student she's ever taught.

And that's it, Yennefer's sold.

You could never ignore getting yourself buttered up, huh Yenn.

The friendly mage abruptly stands up, telling Yennefer to meet him in half an hour by the north gate before he says his goodbyes and exits through the opened door, right past you. You watch in curiosity as he walks off before turning yourself towards the entrance and stepping into the doorway, you look down to your right. Making quick eye contact with Yennefer's violet irises, she immediately frowns as you sit across from her, though she is quite taken aback at your random intrusion.

A smirk plays at your lips, "Well aren't you just having the time of your life. Quite popular today aren't we now?"

Yennefer rolls her eyes in annoyance, "What the fuck are you doing here?" She says dryly, you lean back in your chair as a fangy grin breaks out upon your face.

"I could ask you the same thing but....I'm not an idiot. You came back to rekindle that old flame with Istredd, how sweet, honestly. Who would've thought."

"Oh fuck off Y/N."

A light chuckle escapes you, "Don't be so dramatic Yenn, I didn't leave Geralt's ass and travel all this way for nothing...."

"You left him?" She wonders, her brows furrowing, honestly quite surprised.

A telling sigh falls from your lips, "For the time being, I'm still pissed over the whole djinn and his last wish. So here I am, sitting in a shit tavern with an old acquaintance, also...I wanted to make sure you don't hate me. Believe it or not, I do care about you Yennefer, and that's not the magic speaking. So with that in mind, I've witnessed what Nilfgaard has been doing lately and it doesn't look good." You shrug, "Guess I wanted to make sure you where fine."

She glances down at her hands before finding your scarlet eyes, "I can't tell if that's the Aretuza Y/N, or the magic talking." Her voice almost playful.

"Maybe it's both? But can I not give a shit for once about anyone other than myself? I mean look around us." You glance at the tired out workers and Nilfgaardian soldiers before leaning in closer to Yennefer, "Things are changing, soon these valleys will be covered in blood, people fighting for survival, the land ablaze and destroyed from war. I've lived enough lifetimes to have seen it happen over and over again."

She nods slowly, taking in what you're saying, "Yes, so it seems. But last I'd remembered, you've never really cared much for the troubles of other kingdoms. Even your own for that matter."

"I don't." Your reply blunt and to the point, "But this is Nilfgaard, and though I could care less about the reasoning behind their conquests. I know who they seek to bring their wrath upon."

"Cintra." She whispers.

"Yes." You pause for a moment as three soldiers clad in black armor walk past your table and towards the bar, your wary eyes trail them before turning your attention back to Yennefer, "And I'd rather not have innocent lives taken by the hands of filthy soldiers, I could live without smelling blood in the air and the rotting of children's corpses." You let out a breath before leaning in and keeping your voice to that of a whisper, "Geralt's Child of Surprise resides in that kingdom, within the walls of Cintra. I do not care for the little shit in the slightest, but by law this child will be in our care soon enough. Whether I want to meet him or not."

She nods, understanding your concerns for the invading forces of Nilfgaard, "That's quite the predicament Y/N."

"Yes." You lean back once again, folding your arms as you tilt your head to the side, "Almost as intriguing as your own one." You add with a smirk.

"What did you hear?"

"The mage, Vilgefortz of Roggeveen seems to have caught you in his sights. And how interesting, it appears our old friend Tissaia is in need of you after all these long years." You study her face, her lavender eyes downcast as she thinks, "You're going aren't you?"

"I need answers Y/N." Her eyes are on yours once again, "It doesn't make much sense I'll admit, but it's been a long while and I have nothing keeping me here anyways." She confesses honestly, you tap the hilt of your dagger, thinking hard.

"Do as you wish, I will not stop you. Have fun with those self entitled idiots." You sneer, she simply smiles at your usual disgust for the mages of Aretuza. You stare at her, your face falling as you shake your head.

"Yennefer don't."

She leans herself closer to you, her eyes almost pleading, you haven't heard the words but just looking at her can you tell exactly what she's about to ask, "Y/N. Against my better judgment...I'm asking, I guess....would you join me. Please?"

Pursing your lips together you stare at the table before finding her gaze once more, every ounce of your entire vessel screaming for you to say no, though you can't help but feel drawn to follow, "God I hate magic." You mutter, shaking your head.

"You were the one who came to find me after all, remember? Make sure I'm fine and not dead." She muses with a mischievous spark in her eye.

"Well aren't you lucky that I have no solid plans for the next week but brood in the woods and think of all by problems." You deadpan before an apprehensive half smile pulls at the corners of your lips, "Why the fuck not? Lets pay Tissaia a visit shall we."

——

After the debacle of mysterious assassins in the underkeeps of the Cintran castle, Mousesack had saved Geralt from a possible demise when he teleported them elsewhere amongst the grounds. Now the Witcher follows him to find Queen Calanthe and hopefully greet this Child of Surprise he's been promised no matter how much he'd rather not be here. How he wishes you where by his side to lighten the mood, things would undoubtedly run smoother.

He passes under a stone archway leading into a courtyard where the Queen has her back turned to them, she's speaking to her loyal guardsmen while eyeing up the weaponry before her. She moves down the tabled lined with swords, "I want reports from the Amell Pass every hour.." Her head moves right at the sounds of Geralt and Mousesack approaching, her dark eyes lock with Geralt's golden ones. She looks stoic and loathsome to see him again, even after all these years.

Swords unsheathe behind her, "I warned you about coming back. I've been away 12 years and I planned on staying that way till you sent eight men to kill me."

She takes a couple threatening steps forward, "Well, I'm asking you now. Do not do this."

"If you treated me more as a friend then a threat...Do you know the difference anymore?" He pauses as she says nothing, "I'm here to protect the girl."

"Who I've raised as my own." Counters Calanthe, "Why would I give my only heir to someone who never cared enough to come back to her? Move along, Witcher. I'll pay whatever you want." She turns her back to leave.

"I cannot be bought." She trains her irritated gaze back to Geralt, "You should remember."

"Money can't undo the Law of Surprise." Says Mousesack, "Kings who've tried to outbid destiny end up on pikes."

"And if I win the war but lose Ciri, what victory is that?" Challenges the Queen as Geralt takes a step forward, her men showing their weapons as they stand ready to guard her.

"Maybe that army won't come, and if they do, maybe you'll be ready. But if you have any doubt in your mind that she's safe here, give her to me. Call it destiny, insecurity, what larger forces at work, I don't care. I will take her, protect her, and bring her back unharmed, I promise you that."

"Ciri is all I have left of my daughter." Whispers the Queen, eyes brimming with unshed tears.

"If Ciri survives, then Pavetta lives on too." Geralt leaves it at that, remaining silent as Calanthe's mind reels with what to do next. He can tell just how terrified she is to possibly lose Ciri, however she must make a choice. No matter how difficult it is to make.

"Law of Surprise has been called!" Announces the Queen to her guardsmen and subjects in the snow covered courtyard, voice more softer and solemn now as she faces Geralt, "I'll tell Cirilla myself."

With that said, Geralt was escorted to a separate section of the castle as he awaits the meeting between himself and princess Cirilla. He paces back and forth down the hallway for a good long while until a guard was sent for him. Now here he is, walking towards the door where the Child of Surprise awaits him with her Queen grandmother. Two armored men simultaneously open the large wooden door, Geralt walks into the cavernous room where Mousesack looks up at him while the doors close. They do not say a word to each other.

Calanthe sits, consoling a frightened Ciri who's back is turned to Geralt, she holds the girls hands, "I need you to be brave now, because who are you?"

"The Lion Cub of Cintra." Replies the blonde girl, voice small and fragile.

She then stands, turning around to finally face him. He walks further into the room, golden eyes studying the face of princess Cirilla. She is short and thin, eyes wide and fearful, face pale as a flushed nervousness pulls to the surface, "Pleased to meet you, Princess." Greets the Witcher.

She speaks not once to him, she then abruptly turns to face the Queen by her side, "Can I say goodbye to my friends now?"

"Of course." Nods Calanthe as Cirilla leaves with haste out the side door. Geralt remains quiet as she glares at him, "I'll summon you when she's ready."

Geralt exits through the same doors he came through, he walks down the hallway, pausing a moment as he thinks on the brief interaction. Something just doesn't sit right with him about that girl, she just didn't look how he'd imagined her to be. She can't be Pavetta's child, can she? He shakes off those thoughts and decides to wander down a long torch lit hallway leading out into an opened yard where people are wandering about.

Suddenly the princess runs into view, she races over to a gathering of market kids playing some kind of game, one boy jumps up and immediate pulls her into a hug. "Take care." He whispers as the princess releases him to face a young teen with a cap on their head. She then gifts a small bow, "Your Highness." Before turning around and racing off the same way she came in.

Now Geralt knows the truth.

He leaves the doorway in search of the lying Queen, it takes not long before he's found her walking past some large windows with her ladies by her side. "First, you try and kill me, then you lie to me. I'm just trying to keep Cirilla safe."

"Ciri is safe, with me, until the day she takes over my throne." Queen Calanthe takes a couple steps forward but is halted by Geralt who stands his ground in front of her.

"Listen to me." He advises, voice low and gravely.

"I did listen once." Says Calanthe unbothered, "Let a hedgehog into my court. It got me Pavetta dead. I won't lose Ciri too. So you and destiny can both fuck right off. Because if Nilfgaard comes, will destiny carry a banner into battle? No. We have an army, a navy...and me." Speaks the Queen slyly, starting to walk around Geralt who halts her with a hand to her arm.

"A dynasty can't survive on arrogance alone."

"Says a Witcher. She needs family. You no nothing about that. Your own mother cared so little, she discarded you." Smartly speaks the Queen, "Where is your vampiric lover, hm? She's not even here, gone to see her actual family so I've been told." Calanthe swaggers past Geralt who feels a pang of heartache in his chest for that low blow.

"You lecture me on a mother's love yet you offer up someone else's daughter."

Calanthe stops, "Queen to all of Cintra, grandmother to one." She looks at him over her shoulder, "I won't orphan that girl."

Geralt watches as she begins walking down the hallway towards another opened door, "You're sentencing her to death."

"What I miss?" Asks the intrigued face of Lord Eick.

"Nothing." Replies the Queen as she keeps walking, "Get him out of my sight."

Sir Eick walks down a small flight of stone steps with Geralt by his side, they follow a brick path leading down from the castle doors now behind them. Two guards stand at their posts to either side of the wooden entrance as the two men walk across the layed bricks. "I remember when you honored the Law of Surprise. What changed?"

"I had a granddaughter."

"So protect her. What if Calanthe's wrong? What if they come and Ciri is trapped?"

"I fight side by side with my Queen."

"You put too much faith in that woman."

Lord Eick stops walking to look at Geralt, "Well, you weren't there. After Pavetta died, Calanthe would wake up howling in the night. The Lioness, nearly broken. Someone who's able to pull themselves out of that, they'll have my confidence till my final day."

Geralt says not a word, he knows this Lord cannot be reasoned with so instead does the Witcher walk under a small keep, he stops when Lord Eick calls to him, "I need your promise you won't come back."

Geralt slowly turns around to face him, "If I hear Ciri's in danger, you know I can't do that." A second later does two iron cage slates fall into place, locking Geralt into his new little prison.

"I know." Replies the man, giving him one last glance before returning back to the main castle.

Now Geralt really wishes you where here with him.

——

With the aid of Yennefer's ever convenient ability to create portals going from one realm to the next, you, Vilgefortz, and herself made it into the enchanted halls of Aretuza in no time. Though to Yennefer's utter disappointment and your own unsurprised one. It turned out that Tissaia didn't actually ask for Yennefer after all, in fact she doesn't even know that you're both here.

In a fit of anger did Yennefer turn away in search of Tissaia before finding herself down one of the many hallways in this ginormous academy. "I can't fucking believe this. Of course this is how they get me here, I should have known."

"Too bad you can't see into the future, that could have saved us some time."

"Very funny, Y/N." Mutters Yennefer.

"Now come on, you're certainly not the only one between the two of us who'd rather not be here at all." She raises a brow at that.

"You didn't have to join me."

"No, but maybe my curiosity had taken the better of me, and anyways, this place does not hold all terrible memories for me to begin with. This was my home for some time even before you showed up, I did like it here once."

"Well you weren't bought and taken from your family one day without a choice, forced to live here as the lowest of the low. Ridiculed, spoken down upon, lied to."

"No I wasn't, that was saved for you and your magical sisters." She furrows her brows as you chuckle.

"You find humor in our misery?"

"I don't. I find your temperament about the ordeal a tad humorous yes."

"And why is that?"

"Because you had what you needed here to become someone great, and you've survived well by yourself, becoming a powerful mage at that." You add as her frown dissipates, "I remember the first time we met, granted you were unconscious and bleeding on the floor, but after that. When we actually met. I knew you were special then, as I know you are now."

"And how would you know that?"

You playfully bump into her shoulder, "I am a wise and very old woman, I know my looks are deceiving, however I can see through people better then most. I understand them, I can just tell."

"And how could you tell with me?"

"For one, your eyes are purple which is already a huge giveaway. Secondly, you had a prominent physical deformity paired with a rare talent for portal making. I could practically smell your elven blood coursing through those veins before I knew what you looked like. It wasn't hard to tell you were going to be someone."

She stops walking in the middle of the long hallway, a conflicted expression flashing across her features, "You really thought all that?"

"I always did. I always knew when certain mages would ascend, if I figured you weren't going to make it. I would have told you." Your eyes dart from the ground then back up to her again, "Maybe, and I say just maybe, I've always had a little soft spot for you. Contrary to what you may believe, there is someone who is proud of you...and that's still not the djinn's wish talking. I mean it."

Yennefer breaks out into a small smile, "You're such a sap."

"I can be when I want to." You state half defensibly, "I'm not all just a pretty face and two scary looking eyes."

"Clearly."

Your head turns to the sounds of giggling coming from one of the novice mage's sleeping quarters, "I think your old room is occupied. Hm, I can't say I really care much to meet them. I'm going to see if my old room is still covered in cobwebs or not, see you around."

She gives you a nod, "I'll let you know when I find Tissaia."

Leaving Yennefer to most likely scare the young mages, you begin wandering around the stony pathways until you reach your old room. Stopping at the door, you can hear the sounds of a thudding heartbeat, someone has made themselves a place here. You smile and walk elsewhere, glad that someone could find a nice room to call their own since your absence so long ago.

Finding your way near the room of ascension where many a mage has been turned into an eel to further fuel the place with magic. You can hear the stern voice of Tissaia and the whispering of the novice girls, soon the sounds of their rushed footsteps are heard racing up the steps towards the entranceway. You stand a short distance from the doorway, watching in curiosity as the three young mages meet your gaze while they file out of the hallway.

The pale one with reddish blonde hair halts abruptly in her tracks as her two friends do the same, blue eyes wide in nervous bewilderment at your figure in the room. Your clothing a vast contrast to their usual dark blue uniform, a dagger sheathed at your side, and eyes the color of shimmering rubies staring back at them. They smell of herbs, salt, and magic; heartbeats quickening the longer they stay frozen looking at you.

You gift them a fangy grin and a small bow of your head in greeting, "Are my two acquaintances down there?" You already know the answer, just something said to break their trance.

The one with the healed burns scarred on the side of her face swallows before speaking, "They are. Good day miss." She bows her head respectfully before leading her two friends down the hallway as quickly as they can without running. Apparently you still have that affect on young witches and wizards no matter how long you've been gone from here.

Knowing that the infamous mage had not seen you yet, you decide to keep hidden round the corner to elicit a childish plan that will be worth the trouble getting here. When her footsteps grew louder as she made haste up the steps does a telling smirk come to your lips. Once her red dress caught your eye did you pop out of the shadows, instantly frightening her in your mischievousness. She drew back against the closest wall. Her blue eyes wide as she stared at you in shock, Yennefer appearing in the doorway entrance piecing together what just took place.

Tissaia's heart thuds rapidly in her chest as you take a step forward, eyeing her like a wolf to its prey, "I never wanted to come back here, but just listening to the sweet rush of blood coursing through your veins has made this trip that much better."

Touching her chest she pulls herself from the wall as Yennefer's face breaks in amusement, "Y/N." Replies the heiress bluntly, not an ounce of emotion lacing her words. You simply smirk, tilting your head up as you study her stoic face, those are quite the cheek bones she has.

You feel a brush of air as Yennefer steps closer, "Believe me it wasn't our intention to come back here, most of all mine."

Her eyes of judgment turn to Yennefer, "Then you failed at that, too."

"Look at this place. It's a joke." Scoffs Yennefer.

You laugh, "Letting in girls that can't even do magic, I couldn't smell it all of them...And I already thought this place was pathetic enough. It's really gone down the gutter since I left."

Tissaia remains unfazed, "Sometimes, you have to compromise in order to survive."

"You say I never took responsibility for the way my life turned out. What about you?" Challenges Yennefer, her question left unanswered as multiple mages of all kinds begin walking from one opened doorway to the next, Tissaia abruptly turning around to look as you and Yennefer watch on in confusion.

The fuck?

"It's happening." Whispers Tissaia knowingly before quickly joining the assembly into the desired room, you both have no time to ask what is truly going on before Triss walks into view. Her shimmery peach colored dress flowing as she walks by.

"Triss!" Calls out Yennefer, the familiar mage halts her footing as she turns towards the two of you, a surprised expression crossing her features.

"Yennefer. I tried finding you for years. And Y/N, wow, this is quit a surprise."

"Why are you all here?" You wonder, getting straight to the point.

Her brows furrow in worry, "An emergency conclave of the Northern Mages. Nilfgaard took Marnadal."

"What?" Whispers Yennefer in disbelief.

Triss looks to you sadly, "They're attacking Cintra." Your heart practically catches in your throat, you hadn't expected the Nilfgaardian army to lay siege so soon. It has only been a couple weeks since last you've seen Geralt but your innermost feelings can sense that he's gone to the city to claim that damned Child of Surprise. You had talked about it before the dragon hunt and before you'd made plans to visit the ocean, now it appears like a far off memory when soldiers weren't marching across the land and things were fine.

That idiot better be alive.

Triss quickly departs to join the gathering mages, you can feel Yennefer's conflict within herself to either join them or abandon her duty. She turns to you, her face deep in thought, "Yenn just go. I'll be out here when all is over and done, I can't stand the smell of some of them, it's absolutely appalling."

"Alright then. I'll meet you by the east wing balcony when it's over."

She quickly turns and disappears behind the grand wooden doors, you stop for a moment in the large empty hallway before making your way to the balcony where you can get some fresh air away from all those mages and wizards, their enchanted auroras is almost suffocating at times.

You stand brooding in the light of the half moon as it sits contently from her place high up in the sky. It's been about thirty minutes since you'd left Yennefer to fend for herself among the liars, murders, and tricksters claiming themselves as noble mages of the court.

But you will not let your hate consume you, there are good hiding within their numbers and that may just be enough to keep you from slaughtering every single one of them if given the chance. Gods you have such mixed feelings for this place it's starting to give you a headache.

Drifting away from your more sinister and heavily conflicting thoughts, your ears prick up to the sound of approaching footsteps, Yennefer's no doubt. Leaning yourself against the stone wall, your face turned towards the shimmering ocean, she walks up to your side. Resting her hands atop the stony balcony as a frustrated sigh leaves her lips when she turns her head to you, "You're probably right."

"About what?"

"Coming here, to Aretuza. I should have told everyone to fuck off and then left for a more peaceful part of the Continent."

You chuckle, "You'd get bored, eventually."

An amused huff of air escapes from her nostrils, a small smile upon her tired face, "I hate you sometimes."

"Yeah." You sigh, "Me too."

She side eyes you for a moment, her sights set over the glistening waves, "Well, you're going to really laugh when you hear this."

You raise a brow, "Alright jester, tell me a joke."

"It would appear that Vilgefortz and Tissaia are going with a secret band of mages to fight against the forces of Nilfgaard." She freely lets slip, you turn your head to her when she quickly catches your intrigued gaze.

"Now that. Is hilarious, what are they going to do? Hmm? Create illusions of naked women in hopes that the soldiers will become distracted enough that they can, oh I don't know. Conjure an army of scarecrows to fight for them." You jest with a small chuckle, "These mages are not warriors, most of them have never even welded anything hard besides a kings fucking cock. They don't use fire magic and they find destructive sorcery to be something worth banishing and deeply frowned upon. Again, not much for fighters."

She slowly nods, "I know. That's why I'm asking, would you join us?"

"I have no reason to help them."

"Y/N." She pleads, "Think of what Nilfgaard has already done and what they will do. You even told me that you did, in fact, give a shit because of your tie with Cintra."

"Cintra's fucked."

"What about the Child of Surprise? Geralt even? You told me he's probably there right now. Do you not care for his safety?" Presses Yennefer much to your great annoyance, she's got you there.

"Of course I care that his heart is still beating, he's a fucking Witcher, he'll be fine." You pause for a moment, your crimson eyes glowing like two glistening rubies in the moonlight, "Queen Calanthe has brought this hellfire upon herself and the whole Continent due to her pride and arrogance. Cintra can and will fall in fire and blood, I've seen it all before and I'll watch it happen again."

Yennefer shakes her head, "Sometimes I forget that you're four-hundred something years old, but Y/N listen. I understand that you don't care much for royalty and the conflicts of kingdoms. But the Brotherhood must prevail..."

"That's Tissaia speaking. Why do you actually give enough of a shit to fight?" You challenge.

She looks out upon the vast ocean, a light salty breeze brushing past her face, "What else do I have in this world?" She whispers, her voice almost on the verge of breaking.

You suddenly feel a bit terrible, her words hanging over you heavily, "You want to save your only real home? Dare I ask why, but I don't need to, I already know the answer."

"Tissaia and you have been my only family, this place may be full of shit and lies, but it is a place for people like me who need guidance. And I'd rather not have it fall into the wrong hands, or be reduced to crumbling rocks and ash. Enough death was caused by it's construction already."

You rest your forearms against the smooth stone of the balcony, a huff leaving your lips, "When do we leave then?" Yennefer snaps her full attention over to your casual aurora, wholeheartedly surprised that you've decided to join her.

"Uh, tomorrow, at dawn. We'll travel for a day before boats take us across a bit of ocean. From the shore we'll walk by foot to the Elven keep at Sodden's Hill. Before Nilfgaard can claim it."

This is not how you'd intended to visit the sea shore.

"Right. That would be most unfortunate, well, can't wait to tear the throats out of some Nilfgaardian soldiers. I bet they taste divine." You add slyly, a tinge of playfulness surrounding your words.

"Thought blood wasn't part of your diet?" Retorts Yennefer, nudging your shoulder in a friendly manner.

"I can consume both food and blood to survive, you already know this, I just so happen to eat normal meals because it terrifies people if I were to just suck the life out of a beggar at the table. Tavern goers are not very fond of that behavior if you needed to know."

"Of course." She chuckles, "Well, if we're lucky Nilfgaard will ignore the pass and leave us all be. Though I doubt it will come to that, we're never that blessed."

"No. I guess not. But they will suffer as we have, I'll make sure of it, those unlucky bastards will pay for their kingdom's sins." You say defiantly, "We'll defend Aretuza and this part of the north with our lives...I guess..it's about time I should do something good in the world."

Tagged: @notahappytree @ashleyforeverareject @sokkasdarling @kmuir1@haleypearce @diegos-butt (@auds24 sorry idk why ur name won’t work) @a-girl-who-loves-disney

#the witcher #the witcher x reader #the witcher x you #geralt of rivia #geralt x reader #geralt x you #geralt of rivia x reader #geralt of rivia x you #of monsters and men fic #falcor the luck dragon stories

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miceenscene · 4 years ago

Text

Star-Crossed

din djarin/female oc | soulmate AU | pre-canon wc: 2.6k summary: The Way was not supposed to be a solitary one. People, house, clan. And when all else failed, your Match. “Fits like a Mandalorian Match” was the old saying. Though it wasn’t so long ago that it stopped making sense. But what's a lost Match to a man like Din Djarin? warnings: canon-typical violence an: first go at mandalorian fanfic. we'll see how this goes :D Masterpost | ao3

Chapter One: The Urge

Din Djarin has been alone for a very long time.

And somewhere along in being alone, he decided he liked it. He preferred it.

People were pushy. Demanding. Rude.

They took one look at his armor and assumed the man underneath.

At least that’s what he decided was the reason he preferred solitude.

There was an unacknowledged truth, however, that perhaps choosing to prefer loneliness dulled its edge ever so slightly. Just enough to be ignorable most nights.

But some nights, deep in the slip of hyperspace, when it was just him in his tiny bunk on The Razor Crest, it wasn’t ignorable. It sat high in his chest, occupying the space between his lungs, filling it with an emptiness so big it threatened to squeeze the breath out to make room.

On nights like that, the helmet usually went back on.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

The Way was not supposed to be a solitary one.

People, house, clan.

And when all else failed, your Match.

“Fits like a Mandalorian Match” was the old saying. Though it wasn’t so long ago that it stopped making sense.

So many lamentable things were lost in the Great Purge.

The beskar, their homeworld…

Lose enough people, break enough pairs, does it even matter if the Matches still exist?

Or don’t, as the case might be.

So much of what the Mandalorians once had is lost. What’s one more thing?

What’s a lost Match to a man like Din Djarin?

He knew his stars. The constellation that outlined the path of his life.

Every Mandalorian had one.

The elders had been very keen to identify his when he first was found. They did eventually.

Tal’onidir. Blood struggle.

Or ‘blood, sweat, and tears’ as the Alderaanians would have said.

Though in the time before the Purge, both halves of a Match’s stars would have been consulted for a clearer picture.

But all he had was his half. All most everyone had was their half.

Very few of the old myths still applied in a galaxy barely free of an Imperial yoke. But even Din had to admit that his stars felt more right than he wanted them to be.

Life was a constant struggle.

Struggle to survive, struggle to continue, struggle to carve out some semblance of contentment with his lot.

He felt he was doing as well as any could.

And then, out of the clear night sky, everything changed.

He was in his ship when he first noticed something off.

Four fresh pucks from Karga, plotting the most fuel-efficient map between his quarries and Nevarro. When he found himself putting in coordinates for Tatooine.

None of the quarries were on Tatooine this time. He stopped, shook his head, and punched in for Jakku.

Desert planets were bound to blur together.

He brushed it off, deciding to get as much sleep as he could in hyperspace.

It was a helmet-on kind of sleep, though.

It came up again as he was leaving Corellia.

He’d actually locked in the coordinates that time and was halfway through atmo before he noticed.

And then it was when he set foot back on Nevarro, four carbonite platters ready for delivery later, that he felt it again.

He didn’t want to be here.

But it was in the middle of Karga offering up new pucks when Din really damned himself.

“Do you have any on Tatooine?” slipped out before he could stop it.

Karga did. Just the one, and a risky venture at that. A Captain in one of the Hutts palaces.

Din took it. He wasn’t even sure why he took it, but it was too late. He was half-way to the ship when he realized he hadn’t taken any other bounties.

Still some part of him unclenched as he finally made the jump to hyperspace.

He’d thought that this odd urge would evaporate as he landed.

It didn’t.

That way it said, gesturing metaphorically for the Dune Sea.

Even if his quarry was technically that direction, this whole journey seemed foolish. And he might have given up if not for that old saying his Armorer was so fond of,

‘Instincts can be misled, but they never lie.’

Peli was her usual self--some combination of persnickety and jovial that landed right in charming. But she did lend a speeder bike.

Finally Din was off, racing through the searing sands.

It was less than a day’s journey, however, when he felt the urge again.

Stop.

He did, scoping all around him, trying to figure out how this gulley between dunes was different from all the others.

Pulling out his pocket scope, gave him a clue. The Hutt palace warbled in the far distance. Now just to figure out how to get inside, kill and/or remove one of the better trained guards without alerting the whole palace.

He watched the palace for the rest of the evening, noting guard rotations, possible alternate entrances.

After the suns set, things began to get a little tense

Dark was the obvious option for trying a covert entrance to the compound. But the urge was rather adamant.

Wait.

“Wait for what?” he asked an empty desert before immediately feeling foolish

His answer came a few hours before sunrise.

A small barge left the palace, floating just a hundred yards north of him. There weren’t many people on board. A few guards, perhaps a slave--

And his quarry.

Well. Rarely did events turn out so damn convenient.

Follow.

Even better.

Back on the speeder bike, he kept pace with the barge, keeping a few dunes between them. Trying to log as much information as he could before striking.

Four guards. One slave. One quarry. No one appeared to be below deck. This wouldn’t be too difficult.

Then the slave kicked one of the guards off the barge.

Another immediately fired a shot at the slave, only to be gruffly stopped by the quarry with the flat of an axe blade.

Din watched on thermal as the quarry pulled something out of his jacket, and then the slave dropped.

An armor piercing scream echoed through the desert, settling high in his chest and constricting.

Now.

Speeder bike surged forward, and one shot with his grappling cable, he managed to land feet first on the side of the barge.

It dipped under his added weight. One guard leaning over to inspect and getting a blaster shot between the eyes for his trouble.

Two more leaned over, but Din ran along the side to get momentum and swing himself up on deck.

The quarry bum-rushed him, axe out. Beskar took most of the brunt, and Din knocked him back, nearly off the side but he gripped the railing, sending a small device skittering to the deck floor.

The slave stopped screaming and that tightness in his chest immediately relaxed, though it didn't evaporate.

Danger.

Yes, obviously.

Din shot one guard as the slave, a human woman in some sort of flowy very impractical clothing, got to her feet and knocked another one off into the sand.

“Duck,” he yelled to her, before shooting the last guard behind her, as she dropped to the deck.

The quarry got back on deck and instead of going after Din, or the woman, he ran for the device near the front of the ship.

“NOOO–” the woman yelled as Din ran after the quarry. But the quarry arrived first, smashing the butt of his axe into the device and destroying it.

Her cry cut off abruptly, but Din focused on getting a single shot to the back of the quarry’s head first. He succeeded.

The post-battle quiet rushed in, cut only by the sound of the barge motor still going and his own breathing.

Save.

He turned back to examine The Woman, who was prone on the deck, not moving. The tightness returned.

Civilian casualties were… an unfortunate reality. He did his very best to avoid them whenever possible. But there had been instances before.

Though those times didn’t make his hands shake as he turned on thermal again.

The shake ebbed as he confirmed she was still alive. Just unconscious. A breath cut out of him.

Save, the urge repeated.

Well, he couldn’t fly a stolen Hutt barge as the way back to Mos Eisley. Hopefully the speeder bike was where he left it.

It was. Though it wasn’t meant to hold three people. The quarry was strapped to the back like so much cargo, and since The Woman didn’t seem to be waking anytime soon, he had no choice but to hold her.

It was more awkward than anything else, her head flopped on his pauldron and her perfume filling his nose

He didn’t know the scent, but it was rich and sweet, and lingered in the back of his throat

They arrived at Mos Eisley as the suns broke free of the horizon.

Peli gave him a strange look when he asked for bolt cutters, but even if the woman was unconscious, Din wasn’t going to leave that collar on her.

Though now came the most important question: what was he going to do with her?

She seemed stable, no wounds that he’d noticed at all. Though she still hadn’t regained consciousness.

It was probably a fairly safe bet that an escaped slave wouldn’t want to stay planetside.

And if she did, he’d bring her right back after getting paid.

He tucked her into the only bed on The Razor Crest –though bed was a generous definition– and found every blanket to drape on top of her. Space was cold and the fabric of her dress was nearly translucent.

Save.

“I’m trying,” he muttered, heading to the cockpit for take off.

The Woman didn’t wake up before Nevarro.

Two and a half full days unconscious was not a good sign. Even for someone like him.

Thermal said she wasn’t running a temperature. At the end of the second day, he gave her a bacta shot for good measure.

Nothing changed.

Fix.

For all the time he spent on Nevarro, Din realized very quickly that he actually knew precious little outside of the covert. Which left him with Karga as his only source of guidance.

“Is there a hospital here? Or a doctor?” he asked, as soon as money had changed hands.

“Are you hurt, Mando?” Karga gave him a once over, as if checking for missing limbs.

“Not for me.”

“Well, we do have a clinic. But it’s run by a healing droid.”

“No droids,” Din responded with a fervency usually reserved for his ship.

Karga held up his hands in surrender. “Then I’m afraid you’re out of luck.”

Fix.

Resisting the urge to sigh, Din asked, “Where’s the clinic?”

A Mandalorian carrying a blanketed bundle the size of a grown woman though the marketplace was bound to get a few strange looks.

Luckily, there wasn’t a line at the clinic.

Unluckily, the droid was still there.

The Woman looked concerningly pale on the table as the droid ran scan after scan. Her hair, dark and curly, didn’t shine like it had under the Tatooine double sun rise. It was limp and lifeless.

Like her.

Fix!

“How many more scans are you going to run??” Din snapped.

The droid was unfazed, finished its test before turning to face him.

“I have found the problem.” A projection appeared of The Woman’s head in profile. A small white square at the base of her skull. “She appears to have a chip implanted between her third and fourth cervical vertebrae.”

“Removing that will fix her?”

“All signs point to this being the root of the problem.”

“Can you remove it here?”

“Yes, but you cannot be present for the procedure.”

Though the idea of trusting her care into the hands of a droid made his palms itch, Din nodded.

He was allowed a moment to say good-bye, which felt both strange as he didn’t even know her name and yet not long enough all at the same time.

He touched a gloved hand to her shoulder, promising that this would fix it.

Though he wasn’t sure who he was promising that too.

A full hour crawled by as Din waited in the dingy clinic waiting room. The urge very insistent

Fix. Return. Fix. Return.

He was about ready to go ask what was taking so long again when the droid returned.

“The procedure was a success. She may be confused for a few days. But her mind will heal with time. Your wife is sleeping now, but can leave by the end of the day. ”

Side-stepping the presumption, he asked, “Do you have the chip?”

“Yes. Would you like to keep it?”

“Yes.” Mainly to find out where it came from in the first place. Implanted chips were rare and few, if any, were legal. Especially not ones capable of this sort of… control.

Given that The Woman was still sleeping, Din decided to take the chip to get some answers.

The urge was not happy.

Return. Return. Return.

But really, when she woke, the droid's face would be more expressive than his own.

From this side of the city, he took the southern entrance to the covert.

There was a tension shift as soon as he stepped down into the subterranean tunnels. The oddity of a Mandalorian was stripped away, thankfully.

At the heart of the covert was the armory and more importantly the Armorer. He sat before her forge and waited to be addressed.

“I see no defects in your armor,” she said, not stopping her smelting.

“I seek answers, not repairs.”

“Answers to what?”

He placed the chip down. She picked it up to examine it silently before setting it back down and returning to her work.

“Where did you find this?”

“Tatooine. Inside a slave from a Hutt palace.”

“Is the slave alive?”

“Yes.”

“They may provide more answers than I can.”

“She’s not conscious,” he explained, taking the chip back. “And–”

The Armorer waited for him to continue.

“I was… led to her.”

“How?”

He paused for a long moment, trying to find a way to explain. “Instinct.”

Danger, the urge suddenly said.

A slight commotion out in the hall behind him interrupted their conversation. Raised voices echoed down stone walls.

The Armorer’s comm link came to life. “Outsider at the southern entrance.”

Danger! Go.

Din was up on his feet before he made the choice to do so. And he was halfway down the hall by the time he’d realized he’d left.

A few other Mandalorians were also moving to the southern entrance, back up if there was an invading force.

Danger! Danger!

The urge pulled him into a sprint for the last corner.

Coming around it, something high in his chest resounded in fear.

The Woman was standing at the end of the hall, dressed in his dark shirt he’d pulled over her dress before taking her to the clinic, with at least six Mandalorian blasters pointed at her.

Save!

“STOP. WAIT.” Din ran down towards the stand off. “DON’T SHOOT.”

A few blasters turned his direction before their owners saw who he was. He could hear quite a few more Mandalorians also approaching from behind.

The Woman, however, did not seem bothered by the guns or the platoon of armored warriors surrounding her. She calmly walked forward, gaze focused somewhere ahead of her.

On him.

Return.

Her eyes were a soft grey, yet distant. Foggy.

Din drifted towards her. The urge now palpable under his skin.

Return.

However, it was only when she reached out and took one gloved hand in hers that it finally relaxed, disappeared.

“Outsiders are not permitted inside the covert,” one of the guards snapped.

“She’s not an outsider,” the Armorer replied.

Her voice seemed very far away to Din who felt it was more important to study this woman’s face than listen.

“She’s a Match.”

That cut through the gentle reverie of grey eyes.

A what?

Chapter Two: The Question

taglist: @kelenloth ; @keeper0fthestars ; @loversandantiheroes

#din djarin #The Mandalorian #din djarin x original character #pedro pascal #din djarin x ofc #The Mandalorian fanfic #Din Djarin fanfic #soulmate au #Star Crossed #i have no clue what the good tags are for this can you tell?#my writing

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purplesauris · 4 years ago

Text

Oasis of Green

He searches the coordinates, blinking rapidly to clear his vision, and hits one that looks familiar- somewhere that instinctively he knows will be safe.

In which Din searches for the comfort and safety he's missing.

Read on AO3 here!

There is agony in his blood, in his bones.

The world around him slides in and out of focus, going razor sharp and then wool soft, fuzzy and faded around the edges. Each breath is like ice in his lungs, pulling and scraping through his throat, scratching against the bruised parts of him. The bounty had many, many reinforcements. A whole platoon, basically- Din could only do so much, even with the Darksaber on his hip and a blaster in hand. He’d managed to get his mark, always, always did, and he sat, frozen in carbonite on Din’s ship as he hauled himself one handed up into the cockpit.

There was something wrong with his shoulder- he didn’t know if it was the exhaustion or the sharp, dragging pain whenever he tried to move his left shoulder, but his fingers tingle painfully with any movement and he isn’t going to test it. He can feel blood sticking the layers of his clothes to him, seeping down his side and under the seal of his helmet, and he’s woozy with it as he shakily gets the engines going. He can’t quite get his eyes or hands to work well enough to handle the ship himself, and he reaches for the autopilot, pain searing through him at the simple movement.

He searches the coordinates, blinking rapidly to clear his vision, and hits one that looks familiar- somewhere that instinctively he knows will be safe. The ship whines to life, and Din’s grip is death tight on the one yolk he can use- thank whatever is watching over him, because the ship has one handed capabilities. Perks of a bounty hunter’s ship, he supposes. His ascent out of the atmosphere and into open space is sloppy, half assed and just enough to keep his ship from ripping into pieces, but it does the job, and once Din is able to he flips over to autopilot, letting the ship jerk into hyperspace.

He tries to take stock of his injuries as best he can, but his eyes won’t focus anymore and each breath is like fighting to break the surface of the water. He floats, body screaming, and succumbs to the pull of unconsciousness.

His pain is a living thing, digging into his shoulder, his chest, his ribs, searing through his lungs and eating away at his heart. He fights with every breath to open his eyes, to keep the beating of his heart easy and steady, but any jostle of the ship in hyperspace jars him again and a fresh wave of pain sweeps him under. He fades in and out over and over, until the ship beeps in alarm, breaking through the atmosphere of whatever planet he’s piloted to. Din wakes up enough to sloppily land himself among the sandy dunes of a desert planet and stagger down to the ramp before his vision blanks out again.

He falls hard and fast, dropping away completely, and the only thing he remembers is a sea of sand and an oasis of green.

He isn’t expecting to see Din for another month at the least. After his ad’ikas capture and subsequent rescue and relinquishing, Din had taken to the jobs Boba could convince him to take like a fish took to water. With a co-dependence that would kill him eventually when he stopped and let himself settle. He knew that he would be back- Din seemed to gravitate to him in the same way that Boba longed to call out to him, to sit in silence, helmets heavy and breathing slow. To press themselves back to back in a fight, whistling birds dancing around them and Boba’s blood singing with adrenaline.

It hadn’t been something that they discussed when Din walked onto the Slave after capturing Gideon, saber heavy on his hip and shoulders slumped in hollow defeat. He hadn’t said anything when Din had flinched when Boba had reached to thumb at the dusty mark on Din’s helmet, the faint outline of a fist. He had only tilted his head, observing the quiet, resigned way that Din bowed his head and waited to be shamed.

“There’s a room in the hull of the ship.” Is all he had said, all he had offered. And when he found himself dropping off an angry Bo-Katan and resolute Dune, he hadn’t told Din to leave.

Din hadn’t left his side for long since.

Something in Boba liked that, in having Din close to him. Fennec was a partner, someone he found he could trust, could rely on to get the job done. Din was- different. A remnant of a culture his father had hardly ever spoken of, a reminder in the deadly efficient way that he fought what Boba lost when his father had died. What he gained when Din stayed, helped him take over the Hutt dynasty and stood resolutely near the entrance, ever vigilant as Boba took his place on the throne. Din had looked at him then, nodded in understanding, and Boba had felt the acknowledgement so deeply in his core that it still rocked him to this day.

So he knew that Din would be back, as surely as he knew what was happening in a small desert town halfway across Tatooine. When the Crest landed roughly in the sand, sending waves of it up into the air, Boba knew something was wrong- he had hardly watched on the camera for a moment before bounding up the steps as the roar of the engines grew louder and louder. The ramp was down by the time Boba made it outside, and Boba is halfway up, heart pounding against the durasteel of his armor as Din staggers out.

Boba has never seen his beskar so covered in blood. Oddly, it's the first thing Boba can think of when he sees Din, left arm tucked close to his stomach and whole body slumping to one side. He feels his lips form words, hears himself talking, but Din can't respond, knees giving out and hand shooting forward as Boba's arms come up to catch him around the abdomen. A sharp, agonized noise rattles from Din's throat as Boba hoists him up in his arms, the stench of blood and blaster bolts strong even through the filter of his helmet. He clicks over to Fennec's comm without a thought, voice strangled in his throat and whole body weak.

"Clear them out." The command is rough, sharp, but Boba hears Fennec begin yelling immediately, and relief floods him once again at having chanced upon someone he can actually rely on. It only takes a few moments for any lingering visitors to be ushered out of the entrance, and Boba sweeps down the stairs, Din held close to his chest as the unconscious man's head lolls, clinking gently against his chestpiece.

"Shit," Fennec says upon sight of him, standing abruptly a bit straighter.

"Bacta." Boba grinds out, arms straining with the weight of Din and all his armor. He can't stop, can't think past the strangely detached panic rushing every one of his movements. He brings Din to his room, mainly because of its privacy, but also because Boba can't bear the thought of him being further away than he needs to be. He doesn't care about the sheets when he lays Din out, working at the clasps of his armor with brutal efficiency.

There is something both intimate and betraying about working Din's armor off, peeling it away from his body and watching as more and more blood is revealed. Boba doesn't know how Din managed to make it back here, let alone land the ship and stagger out onto the ramp before finally succumbing. He's working at wrenching Din's jetpack and back plate off with one hand when his comm crackles, Fennec's voice low and only slightly breathless.

"Fett- there's no bacta. The stores are completely empty."

"It's a fucking crime syndicate, how is there not-"

"I can get some, but it'll take days." Fennec interrupts, voice quirking, and Boba heaves a deep breath, trying to clear his muddied thoughts.

"Fine. Bring water, bandages, whatever we do have."

The door to Boba's room pings softly a few minutes later, and while Boba eases Din back onto the bed, listening to the pained groan that earns him, the door slides open with the override of the lock. Fennec comes in, juggling a basket of what looks like all of their possible medical supplies, two huge jugs of water pinned under her arms. Boba takes the jugs, since there's blood on his hands and he doesn't want to ruin the linen yet. When Fennec's eyes linger on Din's unarmored form Boba finds himself shifting, obscuring her view, her dark eyes flicking up to his. "He needs more than we can give."

"He isn't leaving." Boba snaps, Fennec setting the basket on the bed and shaking her head.

"I'll get bacta, see if I can find a nurse droid."

"Do what you have to."

Fennec pauses, looking like she wants to say something, and then seems to think better of it. She gives him another curious, pitying look before leaving with the intent to get something to help Din. Boba in the meantime, locks the door again and washes his gloves off in the water before yanking them off and reaching up to remove his helmet. He isn’t going to be able to work properly with it in the way, even with its advanced optics, and he leaves it on the dresser as he begins stripping Din’s bloody clothes from him. He manages with the pants fine, keeping his eyes carefully averted, but the instant he lifts Din’s arm off his stomach to remove his shirt a hand comes up, clamping down so tight around his wrist that Boba feels the bones grind.

Din’s head moves, trying to lift, and Boba reaches to brace his head, allowing Din to look at him. Boba can see his chest rise, taking in a breath to speak, but all that comes out is a pained whimper and Boba shakes his head, shushing him quietly and gently lowering his head back down. “I had to remove it. Stay still.”

Din’s head turns again, searching, and Boba gestures toward Din’s armor, allowing him to look before urging him back down fully onto his back. Din finally drops his wrist, hand going limp, and Boba pulls out a knife, splitting the shirt straight up the front in lieu of trying to wiggle it off. It’s so saturated with blood anyway that it would have been hard to save, and Boba hisses at the sight of Din’s ruined torso. Bruises bloom across his side, so purple they’re nearly black, and when Boba presses in, searching, Din cries out, flinching away.

The sound breaks something in Boba, but he presses harder, feeling along the curvature of Din’s ribs and gritting his teeth when Din dips back into unconsciousness. Boba finds two ribs broken in his rough examination, and his eyes track further up Din’s chest, toward where he can very plainly see that Din’s collarbone has snapped. It hasn’t broken skin, but each ragged breath makes the skin shift, and Boba has only a cursory knowledge of how to set a collar bone.

He isn’t setting anything yet, though, not until he wipes away the blood staining Din’s skin, dabs at the cuts that managed to get into the small gaps of his armor. He’s careful about how much water he uses- he wants Din to be able to drink when he comes to, and he can’t do that if Boba douses him. So he uses it sparingly, just enough to get the blood to come away from his skin, to wipe him down until Boba can see the battered, bruised expanse of him in his entirety.

Din is still unconscious, blissfully unaware of what is about to happen as Boba grabs the bandages and carefully lifts him up. He slips behind Din’s limp form, bracing him against his chestplate, and begins to wrap. It's awkward, working with just himself, but he's bound ribs in worse conditions, and Din isn’t in any condition to fight against him. He’s careful not to wrap too tight- he needs the ribs to stay mostly in place, but Din still has to be able to breathe, and Boba watches his chest for each and every breath. His collarbone is another story: he doesn’t know if anything has been damaged, and without a nurse droid to scan or advise him Boba makes due.

He dips out momentarily to find something long and flat, coming back to the room with held breath. Din hasn’t moved from his prone position on the bed and Boba is grateful; whatever happened to him is over now, and he can only hope that Din was at least successful in getting his quarry. Because if not… There are many, many things that Boba will do to the target before the night is over.

Boba’s second worst part of the night starts- he gathers the bandages and his length of wood, setting a cloth between Din’s collarbone and the wood before abruptly pressing down in one movement. Din’s screams echo in his ears far after they’ve cut off, and Boba grits his teeth, wrapping around Din’s shoulder and over his chest to secure the makeshift splint in place. Din’s chest rises and falls with broken, grating breaths, and Boba uses a length of bandage to tie it around Din’s wrist and across his chest, pinning his left arm up onto his stomach to prevent him from moving his shoulder. He’ll fashion a more permanent sling when he can see properly, when he can blink the wetness from his eyes and keep the tears from falling onto Din’s bandages.

With Din’s most pressing injuries taken care of and his blood cleaned as best Boba can manage, he realizes he only has one thing left to do- check underneath Din’s helmet. The thought is horrifying, demeaning, and Boba’s skin crawls at the thought of being the one to shatter Din’s Creed further than it already is, but he- he can see blood, has cleaned blood from the undamaged slope of Din’s neck and he knows that it’s seeping from under his helmet.

Boba gathers all of what he’s going to need near him on the side of the bed, drawing in a deep breath and closing his eyes. He reaches forward, bumping lightly across the front of Din’s visor, following the t-shape down until his hands are around the back. Din’s seal lock is in the same spot, and Boba pops it with a gentle movement. He pauses there, breath held, and only lets it shudder out when Din doesn’t stir. He pulls back to brace his hands on either side of Din’s head, thumbs dipping into the hollow of the cheeks, and bows his head, eyes squeezed firmly shut. Forgive me.

He lifts Din’s helmet from his head in one smooth, gentle movement, using one hand to catch Din’s head before it can thump back. His brain shorts at the feeling of Din’s hair, soft and curling in his palm. A bit damp with either blood or sweat, but when Boba pulls his hand back, sniffing, he gets only the soft tang of sweat. No blood on the back of his head, at least. Boba sets Din’s helmet off to the side gently, not wanting it to go far, and then reaches out with both hands. His fingers bump over Din’s chin, scratching faintly against stubble, and Boba is surprised to say he never expected that. Boba traces the line of his jaw, following the bit of facial hair he has, and moving up slowly. Din’s breaths are shallow but warm when Boba’s fingers pause over his mouth, tracing his lips for any scabbed blood and finding none.

He continues his way up, checking to make sure Din’s nose is in the correct position, his cheekbones haven’t been broken in. He brushes over Din’s closed eyelids, feeling the way that Din’s eyes twitch madly underneath them, trapped in a dream or nightmare. He doesn’t find anything wrong until he gets up closer to Din’s hairline, and there he finds a long cut just below his hairline, already scabbed over. Now that Boba can feel where the wound is he grabs for a washcloth, gently dabbing at the cut and wiping the area around it. When he runs his fingers through Din’s hair they tug with the blood dried in his hair, and Boba freezes. He doesn’t want to cause more pain, but Din doesn’t wake up and Boba spends a few minutes trying to work the blood from his hair without being able to see.

The longer he touches Din’s hair the more he begins to admire the texture: it’s curly, though not in the tight, bunched curls that Boba remembers himself having. No, these are softer, easily brushed through, and Boba very suddenly misses his own hair- the care he’d taken, the way it had made him seem like Boba, not Jango, not a clone, but him. He realizes that he’s sitting here, playing with Din’s hair, prolonging his time helmetless, and shame so hot it scalds sweeps through him. Boba touches lightly at the cut again, relieved that it hasn’t opened with his cleaning, and fumbles for Din’s helmet.

Din can’t stand the pain- fingers are digging into his side, rending him, ribs shifting under his touch, and he grabs blindly for whoever has hurt him. Whoever continues to hurt him. Boba’s face comes into view when a hand cradles the back of his head, and his eyes are wide, near imploring as Din realizes with faint shame that he’s been stripped of his beskar. Boba says something, an excuse, but Din is distracted again by the pain, and his neck is too weak to support his head as he looks for his armor. His armor. Boba shows him it, disgustingly red but close, and when fingers stab back at his side Din careens back into unconsciousness.

The next time he wakes he can hardly breathe- each breath rattles in and out of him, made harder by the bandages crushing at his ribs. He breathes as deep as he can, but that only sends pain searing through his shoulder, and Din’s head lolls. The light in the room is all but gone, and Din searches with what strength he does have. His armor is gone from his side and a bolt of panic goes through Din, nearly overriding the pain keeping him bound to the bed. He shifts, neck aching, and stops when he sees Boba, hunched by the only lamp in the room, scrubbing resolutely at the front of Din’s chestplate with deliberate care. Din wants to reach out, to say something, but his mouth won’t work, and he sinks back into sleep.

He wakes again briefly to a hand brushing through his hair, heart rate spiking in panic and breaths coming fast and rough as he peels his eyes open. Each image before him is blurry at best, but he stares at Boba’s closed eyes, the ugly, resigned pinch to his brow as fingers find the throbbing cut on Din’s forehead. Din stares at him, stares and stares and wills himself to say something, but Boba is spraying something cold that smoothes the pain, and Din is sinking back into sleep before the helmet can even seal back around him.

The pain isn’t what wakes Din this time. It’s the absence of it, the utter lack of anything other than a faint uncomfortable stickiness. He shifts, turning his head, and finds Boba pacing the length of the room, armor left in a heap with Din’s and black clothes rumpled in a way that suggests Boba has been working. Din chokes on a breath trying to talk, and the other man’s head snaps toward him, watching as Din scrabbles at the back of his helmet with one hand.

“Gev, gev, Din, stop-”

“Can’t- breathe-” He chokes out, each word eeking out with harsh gasps. He watches as Boba lunges, grabbing at his wrist and forcing it into the bed as Din’s breaths come faster and faster. “Gaa’tayl.”

Help.

Boba’s hands are shaking as his eyes close and the helmet comes off, Din sucking in whatever greedy breaths he can manage. Boba holds the helmet close to his chest, as if cradling the anonymity that Din has always craved. Din’s heart cracks in his chest at the bitter, angry set of Boba’s lips- not at him, never- but at the way he’s broken Din’s creed, twice now that Din knows. It doesn't hurt to think about as much as he expects. Din reaches out with the one hand that isn’t strapped down to his body, taking his helmet from Boba’s hand and forcing words up from his chest.

“It’s already broken.”

“Not by me.”

“Boba.” Din says, and that word alone is what breaks the stubborn set of the other man’s shoulders, what causes his shoulders to shake as a weak, aching sob shudders through him. His moment of weakness is that- a moment before Boba reigns himself in, face evening out, but Din is reaching for him the same moment Boba’s hand slips under Din’s head, holding him steady as their foreheads press together.

He wants to marry him.

He wants to say the words and never take them back and hope to whatever god is listening to him that Din says them too. Somehow in Boba’s mind, in the dark, twisting and turning of his reality after the sarlacc, he forgets that Din isn’t invincible. That the saber heavy on Din’s hip is a reminder of his mortality, not a shining beacon of all that Din has become: all that he’s risen above, to be the man that he is now.

He has survived worse than Boba could ever imagine a normal man surviving, though with every breath that Din draws in he proves him wrong. It’s too much- the soft, pained rasp of Din’s breath, the slow rise and fall of his chest- the stark white of the bandages against his skin. The image of Din outside of beskar is one that Boba has longed to see, to touch, to taste, to feel, but seeing him now, none of that matters. Nothing about him matters, not his feelings, not the blood that he knows is Din’s that won’t scrub away from his nail beds. Not the sharp, stabbing ache in his wild beating heart that throbs with each and every breath that Din continues to pull in. Seeing Din breathe is all that Boba cares for- the longer he breathes, the easier he settles into bed, the better Boba can think.

He'd torn the Slave apart looking for the med kit he knew was on board, and used up his entire supply of bacta just to ease Din's pain for a little bit. Fennec was on her way to get and bring back more- objectively Boba knew this, but he also knew Din better than he sometimes knew himself. The mandalorian would stay down for all of two seconds before insisting on going back to do something else, to return to a hunt or head off to gods know where. Boba just had to figure out how to keep him here long enough to actually recover.

He's still thinking about it when Din groans behind him, legs shifting under the blanket that Boba had tossed over him once the suns set and the temperature had plummeted. It's probably the only part of him that Din can move without his body screaming in pain, and Boba turns to him, eyes carefully downcast. "Are you in pain?"

Din grunts, trying to use his right arm to shove himself up. Boba is careful, quick as he hoists Din further up to lay among the pillows piled at the head of the bed. There are dark smears of blood staining the sheets, but the last thing Boba cares about is sheets. "I'm fine." He mumbles, voice weak with the strain of moving.

Boba doesn't comment on the lie, instead moving to carefully sit at Din's side, close enough that he can brush his hands over the bandages, trying to feel for any spots where blood might have seeped through. The cuts and gashes on Din's exposed sides and arms are almost healed already with the generous helping of bacta that Boba had sprayed him down with. The bandages pressed to his skin are soaked with it as much as Boba could manage, and he has no clue if bacta will really do anything for bone breaks without them having a bacta tank, but he can hope.

"What happened?" It's probably one of the last questions that Boba wants to ask, but Din huffs, the sound turning into a wheeze as he slumps against the pillows completely.

"The bounty had friends."

"Are they alive?"

Din somehow forces out a laugh, and Boba jerks when warm fingers slip against his chin, lifting his head. His eyes flick up of their own accord, but he averts them before he even gets to Din's neck. "Do I take prisoners?"

"Lately?" Boba asks, voice teasing but chest constricting with the knowledge that he doesn't have anyone to punish. "How many?"

"Twenty, thirty maybe." This time Boba can't stop his reaction, and it feels as much a betrayal as anything he's ever done, but Din's eyes are hard and glittering and Boba feels like he's plummeting hundreds of feet back into the sarlacc pit. His skin burns with Din staring at him, and Boba keeps his eyes carefully on Din's, refusing to wander until Din says, voice quiet, "My Creed is my own."

"I know." He croaks, throat tightening. Din's eyes narrow slightly with what Boba assumes is a smile, corners crinkling, and he feels too hot, too smothered and yet too laid bare all at once.

"Look at me, Boba Fett." His full name, his last name shocks through him with such intensity that his eyes close before he can even think to keep them open. Din's hand touches his face again, draws him closer, and Boba fights the urge to grab a handful of Din's dark hair- because it's black, with white peppering his temples- from stress or age Boba doesn't know. His eyes are still dark, so brown they're near black, and Boba loses himself within their depths as Din's thumb sweeps along his cheekbone.

Having a hand so close to his eyes, his throat has Boba's body tensing on some unspoken, fear driven impulse, but Din's touch is featherlight, achingly gentle over a scar that twists along his cheek and up onto his temple. "I'm looking."

And he is. Gods, but he is.

He still doesn't think he should; Din's Creed is what he clings to, Boba knows this as surely as Boba clings to the fiery, burning pit of loss and rage and flames that fuel him. But it isn't his place to decide what Din should ask for- it's only his place to give Din what he asks for, if he's able. And this, Boba is able to give him a thousand times over.

Din is soft, with doe-like eyes, a scruffy beard and mustache that looks like he should have trimmed a few days ago, hair that stands on end from where Din had been sleeping on it. There are wrinkles at the corners of his eyes from smiling, a dimple that pops on his right cheek when Din grins, teeth flashing. Boba is struck by the urge to reach out and touch him, despite never having craved anyone's touch himself. He reaches up, hiding the shaking of his fingers, and pauses, waiting, until Din nods, closing his eyes when Boba's fingertips bump his cheek. The scratch of stubble is more familiar than it should be under Boba's fingers, and he slides them until they touch right behind Din's ear, palm pressed flat to Din's cheek as he leans heavily into the touch.

He doesn't know how much longer he can sit like this, lingering on some unseen edge, heart fluttering in his chest in a distinctly scared way. A way he's desperately tried not to feel since he was orphaned. Set adrift.

"I get to choose." Din whispers, soft enough that Boba hardly hears him.

"Choose me." He blurts out, before he can think better of it. It doesn't make sense, what he's said, but Din's lips quirk in a small, pained smile, and Boba falls silent when those soft, warm eyes open and lock onto him.

"Together." It isn't a question, isn't a request- it's a plea, a call to Boba that he rises to meet. That he runs to meet, lips forming the words in time with the more sinuous melody of Din's Mando'a.

“Mhi solus tome, mhi solus dar'tome, mhi me'dinui an, mhi ba'juri verde.”

Somehow Boba doesn't expect it to be different- and it isn't. But somehow nothing is ever going to be the same again, with Din bound to him and someone his equal waiting for him, no matter how far apart they are. He’s never fancied himself a romantic, even now with Din looking at him with that soft, curious look and tilt to his head that Boba knows is because he isn't used to being helmetless. This way, Boba tells himself, this way he can look at Din and not feel like he's intruding on something- Din is his now, just as Boba is Din's. He's somehow lost himself in thought long enough for Din to think he can try to move, and Boba's hand shoots out, palm heavy on Din's chest as he presses the other man back into the bed.

"Don't even think about it, Beroya."

"Unless you want me to ruin the sheets, I have to use the 'fresher."

"You already ruined the sheets." Boba points out, clenching his jaw to keep from smiling at the way Din's nose wrinkles in distaste. "With me, Beroya."

"I can-" Boba shoots him a look as he stands, moving to swing Din's legs out of bed. Din wheezes with the simple movement and Boba gives him another look, brow raised, causing the other man to glower. It takes another few minutes for Din to be able to support enough of his weight that he can walk, and Boba stays tucked resolutely under Din's right arm the entire way, glad for once, that his height allows Din to lean without straining him.

It takes a bit of awkward maneuvering and swearing from Din, but they manage, and Boba leaves Din sagging against the dresser while he strips away the bloody sheets and changes them out. No need to risk some kind of infection from the wounds Boba couldn’t slather in bacta. Din settles back into bed without much protest, skin pale and sweat dotting his brow.

“Thirsty?” Boba stoops to gather up the jug of water he’d saved for Din, holding it steady as Din’s hand braces against it, keeping it close as he drinks. “Alright, alright, don’t drown yourself.”

Din glares at him when he pulls the jug away, but there’s water dripping down his chin from how quickly he drank and Boba reaches to wipe it away without a thought. Din stills at the touch, shocked, but when Boba goes to pull back, lips pressed together Din catches his hand, leaning into his palm and closing his eyes. “Don’t. You’re allowed to.”

“Is that what you want?”

Din laughs, though the action of doing so causes a shudder to go through him, and his face pinches with pain. “I married you, Fett.”

“That doesn’t mean-”

“Just come over here.” He frowns at Din, thinking over what Din could want, and he inches slowly closer, careful of his side and arm. Din allows him this hesitance, this moment to puzzle him out before he holds out a hand, brushing his fingers over Boba’s cheek. “I’ve never seen you hesitate.”

“I don’t.”

“So stop doing it now. If I had a problem with you touching, or you looking, I’d have kicked you out.”

“It’s my room.” Boba points out, chuckling when Din raises a brow.

“Our room.” He knows that Din is half joking, but something warm and flimsy settles in his stomach and he can feel himself smiling without meaning to. There’s a question in his statement too, of whether or not Boba wants his own space, and he tips forward, bumping their foreheads together as gently as he can manage with Din’s hand goading him on. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

“You can stay until you piss me off.” Din barks out a laugh that turns abruptly into a groan, and Boba frowns, ready to chastise him.

“What if you piss me off?”

“I’m king.”

“So am I.” Din shoots back, though Boba knows he hardly cares to acknowledge that fact in owning the Darksaber.

“I’m king of this castle.” He fires back, just to watch the way that Din’s eyes crinkle when he smiles. “Though technically, you are as well, now.”

“Ugh.” Boba can’t help the low, pleased chuckle that comes from him at Din’s obvious distaste. “I don’t want a crown.”

“Trophy husband?”

Din rolls his eyes.

Boba has to physically restrain Din twice before he agrees to stay in bed. The first time Boba had just sat on his thighs, pinning him into the bed with his weight and waiting until Din tired from the pain in his side and lack of an arm to help shove Boba off. The second time was harder, because by then Fennec had brought droves of bacta, and Boba was near religious in smearing it along Din’s collarbone and rib in the hopes that it would help past healing the bruises.

The nurse droid that Fennec brings back is a great help as well, and gives Din a once over before Din shoves it away. It reports that the splint and wrapping is sufficient, and that there are no bleeds or tears in Din’s muscles or tendons. All it takes is time and a whole lot of rest. Rest that Din insists is unneeded, that he doesn’t want. The bacta helps with his pain, and that makes Din reckless with his arm and his side. It makes him reckless, and sometimes a little stupid when he really wants to get going, but Boba is nothing if not indulgent, and whatever Din asks for he’s given.

When Din asks him after a week to let him go outside, Boba straps him into his armor and walks his through the courtyard. When Din tires Boba tucks under his arm like there's nothing he'd rather do, allowing Din to sag his full weight against him and pant through the modulator of his helmet.

When Din demands that he be allowed to go return his bounty to claim his reward Boba goes with, leaving Fennec to watch over Tatooine while they're on Nevarro dropping off the carbonite encased Rodian. Boba refuses flat out to let Din look at bounty pucks, though, and Din gets one look in warning before Boba is dragging him out of Karga's office, ignoring the swears and protests that trail behind him.

When Din begs Boba to kiss him, Boba only denies him for the first two days. The last thing he wants is to hurt Din, and he knows himself and he knows Din too well to think that either of them will stop if they get going. So when Din demands instead of begging, grabbing Boba's collar with his good arm and yanking him close, he only laughs and finally, finally gives Din what he wants.

When Din crawls into his lap, regardless of the way his side twinges, Boba holds him by the hips and denies him what they both want. Boba may give Din whatever he wants, but in this he's firm, and no amount of sweet talking or noises or touches will bend Boba to Din's will. He tells Din to wait, to be patient, and kisses the protests from his lips until Din is once again leaning all his weight on Boba, good arm up around his shoulders and fingers idly tracing along the nape of Boba's neck.

Boba will continue this dance for as long as he needs to, until Din can walk and breathe without wheezing, and until Din can move his left arm and still have strength in his hand to grip.

He is swimming in frustration. He wants to move, to run and fight and stop laying around. But each breath is still a knife in his side, even four weeks later, and he's just beginning to work strength back into his left arm despite all of Boba's protesting. The feeling of wood, straight across his collarbone and hindering his movement has become something of a comfort, because sometimes when Din lifts something too heavy he feels like the bone is creaking inside of him, ready to snap at a moments notice, and the only thing keeping that from happening is the slat of wood pressing down into his skin.

He spends each night under Boba's careful attention, reeking of the mint-sharp smell of bacta as Boba sits on his thighs and smooths his hands over the yellowing on Din's side. Occasionally his fingers will dig in, just to check on his progress, and Din has to hold onto Boba's knee to keep from punching him in some automatic retaliation. But for all his protesting and prowling, Boba takes it all in stride, and Din's chest burns with the thought and sight of his husband- his husband caring for him.

Din watches him now, the broad slope of his shoulders, the careful way his brows flinch when he's concentrating on feeling the ribs that are nearly healed. Din slips his hand higher on Boba's knee, thumb tracing along the seam on the inside of Boba's thigh, and hopes his face won't betray him for once. Boba's attention doesn't stray, but his legs shift, spreading just so, as if the gesture is more unconscious than conscious. Din isn't sure Boba even knows that he does it. He's not going to point it out.

His eyes remain carefully on Boba's face when he slips his hand a bit higher, bolder, and he can tell the moment that Boba notices him. His body goes still, head twitching in a brief tilt, and his eyes flick up, lingering on his throat before finally glancing up to lock eyes. It's the quickest way that Boba seems to be able to convince himself that he's allowed to look, even after weeks of Din waking up to Boba leaning on one elbow, staring down at him like he's some buried treasure that Boba is still trying to uncover.

"I told you to be good."

"I am." Din says, not moving his hand another inch but continuing the slow sweep of his thumb. "Haven't even tried to hit you today."

Boba's eyes narrow, but Din can see the amusement that softens any hard edge, and he flashes what he hopes is a smarmy grin. It seems to have worked because Boba rolls his eyes, shaking his head and scooting a bit further to sit on Din's hips so he can reach his collarbone. Din makes an encouraging sound, tilting his head to the side and raising his brows. Boba snorts, pausing to squeeze more bacta onto his fingers before dipping to smooth it over Din's collarbone.

Din waits until that concentrated look crosses Boba's face again to move his hand, inching it further up. He feels Boba shudder, just a small quake in his thighs, and Din bites the inside of his lip to keep from grinning. Boba’s fingers are warm and gentle on his collarbone, smoothing over the faint bruises and working the bacta into Din’s skin as best he can without potentially shifting the bone. Din loses himself momentarily in the way that Boba traces along his collarbone and leans to grab at a washcloth he keeps nearby, wiping his fingers off and glancing down at Din with an appraising look.

He remembers his purpose suddenly with a roar through his veins at the sight of Boba above him, and his fingers dig into Boba’s thighs, thumb rubbing hard over the sensitive skin on the inside of his thigh. He delights in the small, pleased gasp that falls from Boba’s lips, but then Boba’s fingers wrap around his wrist, snatching his hand up while his dark eyes narrow. Din’s fingers twitch, arm straining as he tries to tug away, but Boba’s got him now, and his attention is firmly on Din, like a predator tracking prey.

“Your ribs are broken.”

“They’re healed.” Din protests, though they definitely aren’t fully healed yet.

Boba knows better, of course he does, because there’s no one that Boba bothers to pay attention to more than he does Din. It makes Din feel warm, flushed with want and love and everything else he doesn’t really have a name for.

“You’re being impatient.”

“I’ve been a saint.” He says, frowning with displeasure when Boba shifts his hips back a smidgeon. “We’re married, I think it’s normal to want-”

“Din.” Din’s teeth snap shut with an audible snap at the sound of his name on Boba’s lips, and he stares, entranced, as Boba lifts his hand. His breath catches in his throat, chest aching for an entirely different reason as Boba kisses at the soft inner skin of Din’s wrist, eyes warm and affectionate. Din, despite his protests, feels himself relaxing, sinking back into the sheets and watching as Boba places another kiss, humming quietly. “I’m not going to do anything yet.”

“But-” Boba’s teeth scraping lightly over the tendons of his wrist makes his brain short out, and Din’s vision goes blurry at the hot, aching twist in his stomach. His tongue flicks out to soothe the spot, as if in apology, and a rough, strained noise rattles from Din’s chest.

“Do not think,” Boba murmurs, “That this isn’t torture for me. To see, to touch, and not be able to do anything. I just happen to have better control.”

Din laughs- really he can’t help himself, and he tilts his head, ignoring the faint tug at his collarbone. “Are you saying I’m being needy?”

“Are you not?” Din laughs again, this time more in disbelief than anything else. Boba drops his hand, dipping down to touch their foreheads together, Din humming softly in contentment at having him close. “Wait until you can actually breathe.”

“I don’t want to.”

Boba’s lips quirk in a smile that’s too attractive for Din to ignore. “Tough shit, Princess.”

Boba is beginning to enjoy telling Din no. If only to watch the way his brows pinch in puzzled confusion, as if thinking over how best he can convince Boba otherwise. It’s a fun game, to see what Din will come up with for the bigger requests, and just how long Din will stare with wide, imploring eyes until Boba sighs and gives in for the smaller ones.

Like now.

Din has that look on full display, sitting shirtless on the edge of the bed while Boba straps his armor on. He has to go off planet for a problem with some trade routes, and Din has demanded he come too- much to Boba’s amusement and Din’s frustration.

“Why can’t Fennec stay?”

“She’s the only one the contact will talk to.”

“But-”

“I need you to stay here, Beroya. Please.” His voice softens at the end, and if Din thought he was good at begging, Boba can do so much worse when he puts his mind to it. Din’s pleading expression crumples into one of soft, resigned adoration, and Boba is near breathless at the sight.

“I want to come on the next one.” He says, as if bargaining.

“We’ll see.”

Din groans at that answer, clearly not pleased, and Boba rolls his eyes as Din flops back. His ribs have healed well with the bacta and time, and the only worry Boba has left is the tenderness in Din’s shoulder. The nurse droid assured them it would work out with therapy to strengthen the muscles around it, but Boba isn’t ready to push it yet.

“-the worst husband I could have gotten-”

“Hey.” Boba protests, striding over to frown down at him. Din continues his lament. Boba dips down and grabs a handful of his hair, holding him steady as Boba’s lips press to Din’s, cutting him off mid monologue. Din’s hand comes up to cup the side of Boba’s neck as a soft, pleased noise rumbles from him, and Boba nearly ruins the kiss by smiling at the sound. “I’m the best husband.”

“A good husband would let me come.” Din says, lips twitching in a smile when Boba groans.

“A good husband would stay here, to protect their home.”

Din hums, as if thinking that over before his smile grows into a grin. “You’re right.”

“Come again?”

“You’re right.” Din says again, “You can stay here- I’ll go with Fennec.”

“That isn’t what I meant, you little shit-” Din laughs, bright and open, and drags Boba down into another kiss, silencing the both of them.

#bobadin #boba fett #din djarin #hurt/comfort #graphic depictions of violence #whump #marriage proposals #in the way only two idiots could do

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animeyanderelover · 4 years ago

Note

Omg you write for the super underrated characters your blog is literal gold, anyways prompt 16 for Pokkle (please) cuz I see him saying that

I never imagined I would ever get a request about him🥺.

Warnings: Yandere themes, unhealthy mindset, unhealthy relationship, obsessiveness, blood, killing

Prompt 16: “You don’t understand! If you accept me now, I’ll be your slave!”

It was late evening when you heard the knocking on your door. It had already become dark outside and you wondered who was knocking that late at night on your door. You curiously put your mug of tea down and walked towards the door. But before you were about to open the door you froze. What if it was someone dangerous? After all it was suspicious that someone would knock on your door at such an hour. “Who’s there?”, you asked through the door. For a few seconds no one answered before you heard someone answering:”It’s me.” You recognized that voice instantly. It was the voice from the guy who hadn’t gave you any space to breathe the last few weeks. The guy who had sent you tons of gifts. But what was Pokkle doing here? Since when did he know where you lived? That was alarming. You stood for a while just unsure there, not knowing if you should let him in. He was creepy. His dedication for you was more than just worrying. He always told you that he would do everything for you. At first you hadn’t given that too much thought since pretty much everyone said this when declaring his or her love to the person they loved. But the scary thing about Pokkle was that he really meant it. He had proofed it to you more than once. This should actually be really sweet, but it wasn’t. It was terrifying. He didn’t even seem to care that he might bring himself in danger just to grant you your wish. He was of course a Hunter and possessed some power, but he wasn’t almighty.

“(y/n). Please...please let me in.”, you heard him begging. His voice sounded weak and worn out. He sounded exhausted. Now you started getting worried. It was getting darker and darker and you didn’t know which people might linger at such times out there. Letting him for a little while until he had collected his strength back wouldn’t hurt you, would it? You slowly turned the doorknob around and opened the door. “Hey Pokkle. What are you doing that late at-“ You stopped abruptly when you took his full appearance in. He was covered in a dark red and sticky liquid. It was splashed over his whole body. It looked terrifying alike to blood. That was very alarming. “W-what ha-happened here? W-were you attacked?”, you stuttered out, your hands having started to tremble. Pokkle glanced up to you. “Y-you’re worried about me?”, he asked with a small smile on his face. Was he happy that you had asked him this?!Shouldn’t he have other worries right now?! You stood frozen on your place there, your eyes searching for any wounds on his body. But frightened you needed to discover that he didn’t have any wounds. At least not any who seemed to be responsible for all the blood which covered him. It wouldn’t have been possible though. With the amount of blood covering him he should have already been died. But the question right now was when it wasn’t his which one’s was it then?

You snapped out of your trance when Pokkle suddenly groaned and clutched his left side. He looked like he was barely able to stand by now. So he was injured! You needed to help him! “C-come in.”, you stuttered. He smiled once again, but when he wanted to step in he nearly lost his balance. You quickly rushed to his side, wanting to help him. You hesitated for a short moment upon seeing all the blood from close up. But you swallowed all your fear temporarily down and put his arm around your shoulder, supporting his body on yours. You flinched when you felt the cooled down blood soaking your clothes and skin as well, but you tried your hardest to ignore it. You were busily thinking about where to lay him down. If you would bring him to the couch you would have to throw it away because you doubted you would be able to wash the blood out of the fabric. Your bed wasn’t an option either. What to do now? As if Pokkle knew what you were thinking he suddenly muttered out:”Bring me to your bathroom. I can lay down in the bathtub. Like this I won’t dirty any of your things too much.” You glanced worriedly at him. “C-can you walk in your current condition stairs?” He nodded weakly.

In the end it turned out to be a good idea to go to the bathroom. Not only had you your first aid set in there, you were also able to clean Pokkle and yourself a bit up. You felt like throwing up when you had seen how the water had darkened instantly as soon as it had made contact with Pokkle. But it seemed like you had been also right about that this wasn’t Pokkle’s blood. It had just been his clothes that had been stained with blood. But you also knew that he had suffered some damage from whatever he had done. But this...this surpassed your worries at the beginning. His whole left side was shining in black and purplish colors. You could only imagine with how extreme force he must have been hit. When you stretched your hand out to caress over his wound he hissed painfully when you traced your fingers over it. You were more than sure that he had broken his rips. He must had gotten into a fight to receive such a terrible wound. You suspected that a powerful punch had created this damage. But you also kind of knew what must have happened to the other guy judging by all the blood that had once covered Pokkle. He looked terribly pale, was sweating and his breath was shaking due to the pain it caused him to let his chest raise and fall with each breath. But he was still alive different from the guy he had fought. There was no way someone could have survived with that much blood loss.

“P-Pokkle?”, you asked him hesitantly. He glanced at your direction. “What is it my angel?” You would ignore that now. There were more important things to do. “What happened to you? You must have gotten into a very serious fight to suffer an such intense injury.” When you mentioned this he seemed to tense up suddenly. “I-I’m sorry.”, he murmured. “Sorry? For what are you sorry?”, you asked him worried. “For making you worry so much. If I would have been stronger this wouldn’t have happened. I failed you.” You were confused, not quite understanding what he was talking about. “I’m supposed to protect you. But look at me now. I couldn’t do anything against that guy to avoid his attacks. The next time I kill someone I have to plan more carefully and be able to react faster.” Kil...ling? You knew that he had killed whoever had caused him his broken rips, but you had until now thought that he had been attacked. But from what he had been saying it almost sounded like he had planned to kill the other person, meaning that the person had only defended themself when hitting him. But why would he kill someone and talk so openly about it in front of you.

“What did-did you do? Y-you killed someone?”, you asked terrified. He looked with an almost pleading look in his eyes at you. “I did it for you. This guy... He was danger to you. I needed to get rid of him in order to make sure that you would stay safe.” You stepped scared away from the bathtub. He killed someone who might have been danger for you? “B-but why not just telling the police about him? They could have solved this more peaceful and you wouldn’t have hurt yourself so badly!” Pokkle chuckled a bit, but quickly stopped because it hurt him too much. “I’ve informed myself about this guy. There would have been no way that he would have ever let himself get captured by the police. He was a criminal on the run who killed everyone who was a threat to him. He had been hiding in your district. And I was just scared that you might cross paths with him and he would kill you. I couldn’t let that happen so I decided to kill him. No one will miss him anyways.” There was no empathy in his voice when he spoke the last sentence. You didn’t know how to react to all of this. But you only knew that you felt highly frustrated. But why? Because this man was so careless about his own well-being when you were involved? If he would die someday then it would be all your fault. Then you would blame yourself for killing him.

“Please stop this all.” Your voice was quiet and shaking, but he still heard you. “W-what?” You angrily looked him in the eyes, tears pricking the corner of your eyes. “Stop doing that to yourself! Do you even think about what might happen to you if you’re being so reckless just to make me happy?! It doesn’t make me happy to see you suffering like this! What do you even want to achieve by doing this all?!” For a few seconds he looked shocked before he started shaking even more. “I want you to accept me! That’s all I ever wanted! And I won’t stop until you do so! Even if it kills me! You don’t like it to see me suffer?! Then just accept me so I won’t get hurt anymore! I suffer everyday because I feel like I’m not worthy as long as you don’t accept me!” His face twisted into a painful mask, but you didn’t know if it was because of the broken rips or because of his hurt feelings. Suddenly Pokkle grabbed your hand and clinched onto it like his life depended on it. “Please just accept me. I’ll do anything for you. I’ll become stronger so that something like this won’t happen again. Then you don’t have to worry about me anymore.”

You blinked once. Twice. Then you ripped your hand away from him, making him flinch visibly. “What is wrong with you? Why are you doing this to yourself? Have you lost your mind?” With each question you threw at him he seemed to make himself smaller and smaller. “...I’ll never accept you. Not if you keep doing this to yourself. We should probably also stop seeing each other.” Your voice sounded surprisingly cold. You didn’t know why you acted that way. Why were you so mean? Probably because you had been too nice to him. You had always complimented him when he had given you gifts and did everything for you. That had been your mistake. You had given him the feeling that you appreciated his gestures, causing him to slip farther and farther into his delusions. You needed to get stricter if you wanted this to end. “I’ll bring you some clothes which will fit you. You’ll clean yourself up. Then we’ll drive immediately to a hospital so that your wounds will be taken care of properly. And after that the both of us will go separate ways.” You tried your hardest to not lose your composure when you saw the incredibly hurt look on his face. “Try to hurry up.” With these words you turned around to leave him alone.

“You don’t understand! If you accept me now, I’ll be your slave!” In the next moment you saw from the corner of your eyes how he jumped out of the bathtub and raced towards you, grabbing your arm to turn you around so that you looked him directly in his face. He had barely the strength to stand and supported himself on your shoulders. “You...you can’t do this to me. What am I even supposed to do without you? I have no meaning in my life when you leave me. Please don’t do this to me.” You couldn’t even imagine in how much pain he was by now, physically and mentally. You stared with huge eyes at him. What were you supposed to do now? If you would continue to reject him you were afraid that he would do something stupid. Would it be better to just accept him so that you could contract his actions a bit better? What was the right choice?

#yandere hunter x hunter #yandere hxh #yandere pokkle

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thedinanshiral · 4 years ago

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My personal DA4 wishlist + thoughts

I’ve been teasing this post for a couple of weeks over at Twitter, i’m the worst! But anyway, since game journalism has decided to confirm, once again, that the next Dragon Age game will be set in Tevinter like that’s breaking news, now’s as good a time as ever to write all this down.

Locations: Tevinter, clearly. It’s been pretty much a given since the end of Trespasser in 2015, with that scene where the Inquisitor stabs a map on a table directly on Tevinter as they promise to go after Solas to stop him. But also concept art and several stories from Tevinter Nights heavily imply Antiva, Nevarra, the Anderfells, and maybe Rivain. For those of you who don’t know your Thedosian Geography 101, that’s basically Northern Thedas. And it makes sense, since so far for three games straight we’ve been first stuck in Ferelden, then the coast of the Free Marches, and later the rest of Southern Thedas. We’ve never been North, only heard of it. So in DA4 i’m sure we will finally be able to visit.

Characters: If we’re going to Tevinter, we must meet Dorian again, maybe meet Maevaris Tilani as well (previously only seen in comics), judging from the latest comics series, i’m hoping for Fenris too. And going by the latest teaser trailer, we might see Varric again. As for characters that so far we have no news of, i’d like to see Cole, the Iron Bull, and if by any chance BioWare feels like blessing us with a Hawke/Fenris reunion i might just die happy. I’d also very much like to see the Inquisitor, but more on that later.

Companions: considering concept art and the latest teaser trailer, plus Tevinter Nights stories and new characters, we have an interesting repertoire of new potential companions. A Tevinter mage, an ancient elf (like a temple guardian) or a dalish elf (like Strife), a Nevarran mortalitasi or spirit, Antivan Crows, Lords of Fortune (new faction, kind of like treasure hunters), Qunari lady, maybe an alchemist or shapeshifter, Grey Wardens (possibly a dwarf), a liberated or escaped slave, a Siccari (Tevinter spies/assassins)..even past agents of the Inquisition could return.

Plot: We know Solas wants to take down the Veil. We know there’s two archdemons left, and Grey Wardens are regaining some spotlight in concept art lately. We might have to fight on multiple fronts simultaneously and be strategic about it. Solas might even unleash a double Blight just to keep us distracted while he focus on his own goal, who knows. But many other things are happenig in the margins and all over the place. The Qunari Antaam is having a crisis with some of its members supposedly going rogue, the order they’re so proud of is breaking up, and the whole of Northern Thedas is facing an imminent threat of invasion. Tevinter is still dealing with remnants of the Venatori and might soon be dealing with a slaves rebellion and/or a political and social reform (Magisters Dorian and Maeveris have been working wirh the Lucerni, a group aiming to restore and redeem Tevinter). The Antivan Crows -the de facto rulers of Antiva - may be dealing with a succession crisis, as their First Talon, a powerful feared and respected but old lady, might not be around for much longer and seems her chosen heir has died before his time. Meanwhile in the Anderfells nobody’s heard anything from the Grey Wardens’ HQ at Weisshaupt since the end of Inquisition, and as told in the novel Last Flight, the sudden reappearance of griffons may have had something to do with that radio silence. So you see, get ready for another +100 hours long game because BW has plenty of stuff to keep us busy with. But in short, DA4 seems will be about primarily searching, finding, and dealing with Solas. Regardless of what you decided at the Exalted Council in Trespasser, the Inquisition or what’s left of it is most likely the group orchestrating that mission. As it was so clearly stated then, they need new people Solas doesn’t know so he can’t foresee their actions, so it’s possible the DA4 protagonist is a new agent or a third party hired to do what the Inner circle can’t due to their familiarity with Solas in the past. But at the same time -and this is assuming we get to find Solas in this game - i definitely think the Inquisitor could easily show up again. No, losing an arm doens’t mean they’ve retired forever, prosthetics do exist in Thedas, a world where you can combine dwarven craftmanship with enchantments, seriously, i don’t ever want to hear “but they lost an arm” ever again as an excuse to write them out. And no, marrying Cullen or joining the Red Jennys is no impediment to join the “Stop Solas” Squad; the end of Trespasser means something, mainly that this is personal. Be it they loved them as lovers, as friends or ended up hating his guts for using and betraying them, the Inquisitor’s relationship with Solas makes this very personal, and so having any other character do that face off would cheapen all of it, all that bittersweet angsty development and expectations of either revenge or closure. That moment should happen between those two. It adds a ton of motivation due to their past historyas well, something a new protagonist would lack entirely. My personal best hope is for a sort of dual protagonist thing, say we play new protagonist for most of the game but a selected missions or scenes where we play as the Inquisitor once again and take over for key and heart-wrenching dialogue options. My second best hope is for the Inquisitor to show up as playable for the moment we catch up with Solas. My third and final best hope is for the inquisitor to be a sort of advisor but more like new protagonist’s boss/employer to whom they report back to and get new missions from. The Inquisitor can be stuck in meetings for the most part of it, i just want to know they’re there, behind a door, super busy but there. A cameo like Hawke’s in Inquisition is the bare miminum i can take, anyhting less than that like a mention in a sidequest description or a footnote in a codex entry would be a total injustice.

Romances: I’m open for pretty much anything, as any good BW fan would be. But i’d like romances to feel more alive in the sense that they don’t abruptly get stuck once you exhaust all related quests and dialogue options. As much as my Adaar liked that spank from the Iron Bull, that it was the only thing they could share after their romance was locked was a bit..meh. I liked Dorian’s tho, because his gave one the option to talk a bit, go for a walk, gossip, and sure, it all happened off-screen, and there were limited possibilities, but it was nice and made their relationship feel a bit more real, like they had more to it than kissing and stuff. It happens in most games, once you secure a romanceable companion suddenly you run out of things to do and share with them, and you get stuck with the same 3 lines of dialogue over and over again. There should be a way of solving that.

Side quests: i’m ok with fetch quests initially as it is a good way of forcing the player to go out and explore huge maps, but i’d also like the fetching to have some meaning other than checking things off a list. I want to explore many ruins, and -can’t believe i’m actually saying this- i want a Fade quest. Wait! I know what you’re thinking but don’t kill me just yet, here’s my idea: what if we could visit the Fade at certain locations to witness memories or meet with spirits and recollect information on Solas, his past, his present? Both to understand him better (keep in mind we’ll most likely get a new protagonist who isn’t familiar with him like we are as players) and try to locate him or predict his next move. It would be i think i great way of having visions of Arlathan in its golden age, maybe seeing some of the other Evanuris, how they interacted with each other and with the elves in their service, what really happened ...i just want that sweet, sweet lore, i need it.

Technical stuff: ok, graphics will be amazing for sure, but i also would really really like: better, more varied and longer hairstyles, PLEASE. Body sliders, it’s damn time we get them. Mounts that actually make a difference! Let staves blades make damage in combat, I’M BEGGING HERE. Combined classes, MAGICAL ROGUES! A homebase we can fix up/build on/redecorate as fully as possible (Skyhold was great and i love it to pieces but why were those walls NEVER repaired????) . More casual outfit options, idk i love to dress up my characters, maybe some transmog? A day/night cycle and please i would love to see Thedas’ second moon, also weather variations depending on the region. Yes, i’m ambitious.

Gameplay: i’d like more AI options for companions, but not quite like in DAO, that was too much and i rarely used it. I’m curious how they’ll do combat this time but i know for sure i don’t want the kind of combat that has me going almost frame by frame pausing at every second, it’s annoying for me. I want large areas like in DAI but with a bit more stuff to see and do although one of my favourite maps is the Hissing Wastes so i won’t complain if we get a literal desert but i’d also like it to have secrets hidden around, make me work to find and solve them, i love exploring, i jump and click on EVERYTHING like i’m still a kid playing Monkey Island. A companion in concept art seems to be holding what looks like some form of rifle, so i’m curious how they’d incorporate that in the game. I know Tevinter has the magics and dwarves have the skill, a firearm is totally within the possibilities in-game without breaking any lore; also super curious what sort of skill trees Crows or Lords of Fortune could have, are they rogues, or warriors, or both??

So far, that’s what i got in my head.Well, most of it anyways, i may have missed something but this post has to end somewhere lol

What’s in your head? Feel free to share! Have you been thinking on how you’ll create your next protagonist? All i can think of is magical rogues and that glowing bow was all the hype i needed.

#Dragon Age #Dragon Age 4 #Tevinter #da4 wishlist #DA4

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msyuksanh · 5 years ago

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“The Brush” | Leona Kingscholar x Reader

Just a bit of a silly story set within the events of episode 3, so there are minor spoilers ahead if you’ve not reached that part of the game!

Summary Ruggie has some tasks for you and Grim to do. One of which involves braiding a certain irritable lion’s hair...

Rating: G Characters: Leona, Ruggie, Grim Location: Leona’s Room

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“Before we go for breakfast we need to do a couple of things first,” stated Ruggie standing before you with his hands on his hips.

You and Grim were dressed and ready for the day while Leona was just about coming into the land of the living. He lazily slipped on his orange waistcoat over his white shirt.

“We’re not your slaves.” retorted Grim.

You elbowed him gently to remind him they were doing you guys a favor letting you stay at the Savanaclaw Dorm, or more specifically Leona’s room. Also, not forgetting that in return for their kindness you guys were the new temporary servants.

“What would you like us to do?” you asked with a bright smile trying to make up for Grim’s remark.

“We just need to collect some clothes for laundry, and one of you will need to braid Leona’s hair.”

The was a short silence as you and Grim exchanged a look.

At this point Leona was still fixing his uniform and putting on accessories, seemingly completely oblivious to what was just said.

“As much as I would like to try not to rip out that guy’s hair I don’t have opposable thumbs so good luck,” Grim held up his paws and shrugged. He patted you on the shoulder before flying over to Ruggie who had been piling up Leona’s clothes in a weave basket.

An “Ah-” escaped you as your hand stretched out in Grim’s direction.

“Leona! Don’t go back to sleep!” Ruggie tutted and sighed, putting down the basket and pulling his prefect up into a sitting position. When did he go back to sleep!?

Leona growled. “What’s 5 more minutes? It’s not gonna kill anyone,” he grumbled, to which Ruggie rolled his eyes.

“We’ll be back in about 10 minutes. Come on Grim, I’ll show you the laundry room.” Ruggie strolled out with his hands clasped behind his head.

“Hey, you! Why am I the one carrying this heavy basket?!” yelled Grim as he struggled to keep afloat in the air while trying to follow Ruggie’s quickly disappearing form.

Now with them gone uncomfortable silence fell in the room. Leona sat on the edge of his bed, hunched over with his elbows on his knees and smartphone in hand.

You let out a quick sigh but found your energy after a deep breath.

“Okay, let’s get started shall we?” you said with another bright smile.

You walked towards Leona who strangely straightened up obediently and turned the screen off on his phone.

“So…is there a special style you have for your braids?” you inquired as you leant over him to inspect his luscious dark brown locks. His twitching ears sparked a curiosity in you. How you desired to just reach out and touch them!

“No.” he replied bluntly.

“Does Ruggie do anything special or-?”

“Hurry up and get on with it,” he growled out. The King of Beasts closed his eyes with what you assumed to be annoyance.

“Okay.” Your face and shoulders dropped indicating your motivation slowly leaving you.

You understood Leona wasn’t exactly in the mood for small talk. Then again, when ever was he?

You positioned yourself to his side, picked up a good amount of hair and tentatively dragged your fingers through it.

Leona was back on his phone endlessly scrolling from the fast motion of his thumb swiping up and down the screen.

“Hold on a minute,” you mumbled. You crawled on your knees onto his bed and appeared at height behind him bringing all his hair to the back. You tried combing through it all with your fingers again but found it difficult with the tangles and knots.

You got off the bed abruptly, now filled with a burst of excitement. After rummaging through your belongings you returned back to the bed with a hair brush in hand. Luckily you’d cleaned it!

“What’s taking so long!?” Leona only saw you bolt across the room and back from the corner of his eye. One thing he knew for sure was this was taking too long and he was going to murder someone if he didn’t get any food soon.

“I’ll be done in two minutes, don’t worry!” you exclaimed happily.

“Make it one,” was his irritated response.

Upon hearing his words you started brushing out the ends of his wavy hair quickly and gradually worked your way up. You got to the top of his head and made sure to be careful brushing around his ears. They twitched when the brush was near and Leona’s tail swished in a carefree manner, hitting your body and arms softly at times. How you wanted to touch that too!

Were your ears deceiving you? You swore you could have heard a small purr come from the Savanaclaw Dorm Leader.

Gasping at how smooth his hair had become you grinned seeing your fingers run so effortlessly through.

“Okay, braid time.” You left the hair brush on the edge of the bed and moved from behind him to his side with one foot planted on the floor and your other knee still on the bed. You stood tall so you had better height to do your work.

Slowly but surely you finished the first braid and felt proud of the end product. It didn’t turn out too bad between the nerves of touching a stranger’s hair and being so close to someone with such a strong personality.

All of a sudden you heard a clatter. Puzzled, you looked down to see Leona’s phone had fallen out of his hand. What?

As if in slow motion you saw him about to fall forward. Was he asleep!?

“No-n-no-no-!” You swung your arms around his wide shoulders in a panic and threw all your strength against him to stop him falling. Thank goodness your foot was on the floor otherwise you wouldn’t have been able to hold him back. And you knew he was more than likely going to fly into a blinding rage and kick you and Grim out if he had found himself woken up by faceplanting his own bedroom floor.

His head fell toward you and rested on your chest. His breathing was deep.

Oh, my goodness.

The panic set in wondering if Ruggie and Grim were to come back at any second. What would they say if they saw you both like this right now!?

“Hey, Leona, it’s time to wake up…!” You sang shakily, gently jostling him.

Nothing. You sighed forcibly. ‘Okay, let’s try something different.’

You sunk down onto your knee on the bed so you were at least able to see his face properly. In doing so Leona’s head fell into the crook of your neck.

Oh, my goodness(!)

Your eyes widened in shock. In that split second you felt his breath on your neck shivers ran up and down your back, but you swiftly shook your head to get rid of any strange thoughts.

“Leona! Hey!” You were confident he wasn’t going to fall forward anymore with his weight somewhat balanced by your arm around the back of him. You cautiously took your arm from across his chest and pulled his head away by cupping his jaw.

“Hello!? Please wake up(!)”

Nothing. You closed your eyes and pointed your face to the ceiling feeling everything you was doing was pointless.

Of course, the cruel hand of fate decided to deal you another card of misfortune right there and then, didn’t it? Of course your arm, the one essentially supporting his entire weight, gave out and you both fell backwards onto the bed.

Uh-oh.

As luck would have it you were stuck.

“Leona(!) Wake up! Why do you like sleeping so much!?” You questioned with exasperation in your voice.

You tried pulling your arm out from underneath his back but to no avail.

Feeling a mixture of annoyance, desperation and dread, you decided to just give in and wait for Ruggie to find you.

You facepalmed so hard you could cry. ’All I had was one job’

Why were things always happening to you? You couldn’t go one day, it seemed, without some kind of crazy event involving you and Grim. Not to mention this insane contract you believed you could fulfill to free Deuce, Ace and the other students trapped under Azul’s unique magic. But, how else were they going to get free? Who else was going to help them? Even if you had no magic, and you didn’t really know who you were or where you came from, you felt such a pull to help those in need.

Wow. Thinking about your friends really helped calm you down.

You turned your head to find Leona’s sleeping face in your direction. You paused. If it hadn’t have been for this pampered, arrogant lion-man and his straight-laced wolf and snarky hyena, you’d be god knows where. Your eyes roamed over his features taking them in slowly. You’d never seen him up close like this before.

Long eyelashes, sharp nose, lips always seemingly set in a frown, but luckily not right now. Your eyes wandered to his scar and you grew curious about its origins. His hair framed his face so well anyone would fall for him.

He was so stoic, so strong, ego the size of a galaxy, and yet in this very moment he was so gentle...

Leona’s eyes fluttered half-open and you held your breath. What would he think about this situation? How would he react!?

You couldn’t tell if his emerald eyes had focused enough to catch you staring back at him. Was he going to yell? Would he think you did something weird to him?

The answer was no. He went back to sleep.

You laughed suddenly finding the situation incredibly absurd yet hopelessly entertaining.

“What are you doing?” asked Ruggie from the door.

Relief washed over you and you’d never been happier to see the young hyena. “Oh, thank goodness you’re back!”

“What happened?” questioned Grim as he flew into the room. He gasped loudly.

“I’m stuck” You waved your free arm about to show the predicament you were in.

“How did this even happen?” Grim flew around checking you guys out. Ruggie laughed his signature snicker as he pulled his phone out to snap a million photos.

“The great Grim will get you out!” The furry demon grabbed your free arm and started pulling.

“No, Grim-wait-ow-ow-ow!” You cried in pain.

Ruggie lost himself to his laughter but never missed a beat with his photo-taking.

Grim gave up when he realized he couldn’t actually pull you out. You directed a death glare at him.

Ruggie’s laughter subsided and he wiped the tears out of his eyes. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from the Ramshackle Dorm even if I tried”.

“Can you just get him up, please?” You pleaded.

“Alright. Leona!! Wake up now!” Ruggie sighed, grabbed Leona’s wrists and pulled him up into a sitting position; the same move he’d made before.

Leona stretched his arms above his head and let out a long, hard yawn. “Why is everyone so loud!? You’d think I could get 5 more damned minutes of sleep”. He stood up and twisted at the waist working out the cracks in his back. You quickly followed suit getting up off the bed as you rubbed your slightly numb arm. Leona didn’t even seem to notice you were on his bed let alone him crushing a precious limb of yours.

“So, what happened? All you had to do was braid his hair... Was that too hard a task?” asked Ruggie condescendingly.

You ignored his patronising question.

“Well, I managed to get one braid done”, you professed kinda proudly, “but I decided to detangle his hair because, you know, I wouldn’t want to hurt him while braiding so I got my hair brush-“

Ruggie sharply inhaled.

At this moment Leona had wandered out onto the balcony, presumably, to get a moment of peace.

“A brush?” questioned the hyena. His eyes searched and fell upon the offending tool that laid abandoned beside the bed. He shook his head.

“What’s wrong with that?” Grim tilted his head in confusion.

“Look: when you brush a cat-“

“Lion” Leona interjected with a death stare. He’d come back to join the group and narrowed his eyes at Ruggie having heard him call him a ‘cat’.

“Fine. When you brush a…lion, they get comfortable. And when they get comfortable, they…” Ruggie gestured with his hands to coax the answer out of you.

“…fall asleep?” You questioned as you furrowed your brow wondering why he trailed off when he knew the answer.

Within a split second you gasped loudly; eyes widening once the realisation had dawned on you.

“Oh…” You looked over at Leona apologetically who only looked back with a bored stare.

“Yeah…” Ruggie agreed with a scrunched nose. He grinned making a mental reminder to show Jack the photos later. Oh, what juicy, juicy blackmail he now possessed.

“I don’t care what you’re talking about and I’m not standing around here waiting for you to finish.” The King of Beasts ‘hmphed’ and headed out of his room at warp speed.

“How are you not annoyed you only have one braid?” You heard Ruggie ask coming to the side of his prefect. He threw a cheeky grin back at you over his shoulder.

“I got to sleep more. I don’t care. It’s just hair,” answered Leona nonchalantly. The young hyena couldn’t really argue with that.

“I’ll put the other braid in later” said Ruggie. That poor boy probably knew Leona long enough that the lion would be bothered about the lack of braid eventually.

You let out a big sigh and let your body relax now that you were out of that situation. You followed behind the two Savanaclaw boys at a distance.

“Huh…” Grim flew beside you slowly with a paw rubbing his chin in thought.

“What’s wrong?” You asked.

“If all it takes is one brush to knock him out, we could steal A LOT of rich boy’s stuff,” pondered the small demon loudly with a nodding motion.

You laughed dryly. “Come on, don’t you get any funny ideas”

And with that, off you all went towards the school cafeteria, and towards what would be another crazy day at Night Raven College.

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(I’ve been watching cat videos lately on YT and the inspiration came to me! Our Leona is a big kitty after all!

I’ve not written in a long time so there are mistaaaakes, but thanks for reading!)

#disney's twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland #twst #leona kingscholar #leona kingscholar x reader

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