#coruscant night life

[ghostymarni]

-so I like to create things that I can’t find myself.

I repurpose milk bottles for reuse in the kitchen + had the idea to create vinyl stickers to relabel them in Star Wars/clone lifestyle. I love the coruscant night life + Star Wars prop aesthetic details. I wanted to share the progress on them. I do plan to mix and match the top row with the bottom row; the drinks read from left to right:

[Coruscant GAR, drink, rations, kamino rations, kaminoan emblem, 79’s logo]

[justapotatoesack]

Fox's revenge! (don't worry, everyone else got their turn too)

Also for those who don't know! Left is commander Fox, middle is commander Thire, and on the right is commander Thorn

[anakinsdove]

𝐘𝐞𝐬, 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 | 𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧 𝐬𝐤𝐲𝐰𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐞𝐫 «𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟐»

pairing: anakin skywalker x fem!padawan!reader

summary: Your master is horny and frustrated, he looks for release at a nasty gloryhole in coruscant... only to find out that that perfect pussy he's fucking belongs to his padawan.

c/w: gloryhole mentions, p in v, masturbation, power imbalance, blowjobs, good pounding (very nasty idgf im sorry im horny)

discord - twitter: anakinsdove. -PART 1-

𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧! ｡ﾟﾟ･｡･ﾟﾟ｡ ﾟ。Love you

𝘄/𝗰: 3,231

1 week ago

He does look lovely standing there, he’s talking to master mundi and master kenobi, broad shoulders and a serious expression on his face, but you know it’s all a facade, the minute you two are alone again he’ll go for a round of twister and maybe if you’re lucky pizza and movie night… he’s like no other Jedi, and you wouldn’t want it any other way, he’s unorthodox, impulsive and he can get under people’s skin easily.

He has a charm you haven’t seen anywhere else in the galaxy in your entire life, but you don’t know many things, he added a little bit of color in your life, he has thaught you things and to see life in a different way, he’s naturally good at everything he does… it’s insane.

“Whatcha thinking about?” You were so caught up in your own thoughts that you didn’t see him move next to you

“You” you say simply and he chuckles

“You’re still impressed by that move? I told you Y/N it all about the wrist” your eyes sparkle at the memory of him tearing droids apart in your previous mission, only a few hours ago

“No, not that-” “Be right back, I have to give the council a report of our mission” he ruffles your hair and leaves

Your eyes follow him until he dissapears in a crowd and you sigh, attachment is forbidden, but how can you not get attached to Anakin Skywalker? there are many rules you’d break for him, he’s your master and it’s wrong, but still… you can’t help but think of him late at night when you touch yourself, your fingers rub tight little circles on your clit as you try not to give in sleep and you can’t help but mutter “Anakin…”

You’d ruin everything for him, You’d give him everything you are, everything you have… and it kills yourself to think he might not want it.

But you’re wrong

Because Anakin Skywalker is utterly and obsessed with you, he wants nothing more than to bend you over and stuff you so good with his cock, that’s his ultimate fantasy, but he must not give into his instincts, Until…

Present day

His arms wrap around your waist in the darkness… you shouldn’t have done that, does he hate you now? Is he disappointed? Does he not love you anymore? That thought is unbearable.

“Calm down, I can feel the anxiety dripping from you” “I’m sorry….” “No, You’re not” And he’s right, why should you be sorry for? For him filling you up tonight? For giving him the best orgasm of his life… you, his padawan.

“I don’t want you to be sorry Y/n” you turn around and your pretty eyes look up at his silhouette, even his shadow is beautiful “Why not?”

His fingers squeeze your waist experimentally and you can’t help but sigh, his touch relives a deep ache in your heart and possibly between your legs.

“Was I the first man to fuck you tonight?” His voice is low and dangerous and you nod stupid “Because I saw you with your legs spread and in display for everyone, If I arrived 2 minutes later someone else would’ve ended up fucking you, didn’t you think of that when you chose to fuck up with my mind?”

You feel like crying and he sees your eyes water, you’ve humiliated yourself and he doesn’t want you, you have betrayed his trust…. “No master… p-please I’m sorry…” he wipes your tears away with his thumbs “I said I don’t want you to be sorry… I want to fuck you again and this time I want you to watch” your breathe heaves and he kisses your forehead reassuringly “I’m just surprised that’s all… I didn’t know you had it in you…” his fingers unbuttoned your shirt swiftly and he removes it, the sight of your cleave is doing more for him than it should “Can I fuck you? Can I do it again this time because I want to?” You nod desperately and he turns you around pushing you against your clothing drawer… he turns on your pretty table lamp and your eyes fixate on the picture over the drawer, it’s a picture from last summer, anakin and you smiling as he carries you… an innocent moment so far of what you’re doing right now.

He spreads your legs and pushes into your lower back signaling to arch your back deeper, you hear fabric breaking and you know your panties are gone forever “Holy shit…” you look over your shoulder to see his expression lust and hungriness written all over his face “My cum is still dripping out of you… it’s dripping down your thighs” you look down and confirm what he says, his cum has been dripping down your thighs since the walk back to the temple… he spits over his fingers and you scrunched your eyes shut when he wraps his arm over your front and rubs your clit deliciously “And so fucking wet” “Master!” You cry out louder than intended and you hear him smirk, his hips move with abandon against your ass, he grinds his painfully hard cock over you bare skin, you don’t understand why his pants are still on…

“All you needed to do was ask… I would’ve fucked you so long ago if I knew you wanted me as much as I wanted you” his fingers move faster and your brain turns off “What-“ “Fucking brat- you dont even want to know how many times I had to stroke my cock to the most unsatisfactory orgasm, when all I had to do was going to your quarters late at night and take you, don’t you want your master to feel good?” He moans against your ear, his confession fueling your desire as it drags you closer to the edge, you move your hips back against him and he growls, he wants to be the one in control.

“Fuck me please- fuck me I can’t take it anymore” you practically mewl when his fingers dip inside your creamy cunt, come hitter motion hitting your spongy spot deliciously, this is worth every consequence this could have in the future. “You’re going to take what I fucking give you, nothing less and nothing more my padawan, understand?” He says with a condescending tone and gives a kiss to your ear

Anakin underestimated his own arousal because he feels like cumming in his pants right now, his breathing is heavy and his eyes close… then he removes his fingers from your cunt leaving you empty.

“No!” You cry out and he has to shut you up, he dips his fingers inside your mouth making you taste yourself “I know it tastes heavenly love, I fucking know it” your eyes roll back into your head at his dirty words, you’re soaked by now.

He pulls away and sits on the edge of your bed pulling you into his lap, his fingers squeezing your breasts over your bra when he says “What do you know about sucking cock sweetheart?” Is he serious right now? He took your virginity only a couple hours ago! it also makes you giggle because of his vulgar words.

“Nothing” you say honestly and he nods “Good” already pushing you to the ground and on your knees, his fingers unzip his pants desperately tugging them down with his boxers too, his cock slapped against his lower stomach… it looks painfully hard and begging for your touch.. you practically zone out looking at it and you can’t help but be amazed that it even fitted inside you, this is your first time seeing it, ironically.

“I’ve dreamt about fucking this little mouth” he says breathlessly and his thumb traces your lower lip as you look at him with a pouty look… “I’ll guide you through it okay?” “Please…” he smirks at this, he knows how whiny you can be, so having you under control brings him satisfaction as your master.

“Spit on it- good good… now w-wrap your hand around my- Fuck!” He hissed as you stroke him inexpertly but still feels so good, it’s probably because it’s you, everything feels good with you, it makes him curl his toes “I thought you didn’t know anything about this.. Ah fuck…” he closes his eyes as he gives into the pleasure for a brief moment and opening them again when you mutter an unexpected confession “I gave a handjob once…” “To whom?!” He says offended but has to close his eyes again as you milk him his own precum and your spit making the nicest lube, you look at his cock with some sorry of fascination at the slimy sounds its making “L-“ “Don’t fucking tell me” he hisses and pushes your head down “Now suck on it sweetheart nice and slow…” you give the head a little kiss and kitten lick the shaft slowly… nice and slow and you can clearly see his abs constricting due the pleasure “It’s only right im the one who teaches you this” his voice is husky and it holds so much lust and you roll your eyes at his cockiness “Your master had to be the one to teach you how to blow someone Y/n… but most important I’m teaching you how to please me” his words are doing something to you and you can’t help yourself but to grind against his boot that he previously angled for you to rub yourself against it… you moan around him and he needs more.

“Just a little bit more sweetness, you kitten licking my tip feels amazing but your master needs you to take a little bit more okay?” You nod clumsily and his fingers tangle in your locks pushing you a little lower so you can take him deeper, your inexperience shows when you choke around his cock… if you only knew how good that felt, his breath heaved as he mutters a strangled “Good girl- good girl, you’re making your master feel so good” his praise sends shivers down your spine and he carefully thrusts up, hips moving up slowly as you furrow your eyebrows in concentration but you choke again “Ah.. fuck, nice and slow love… nice and slow take your time, I’m don’t going to hurt you”

He moans and groans as your lips wrap around him nice and tight, you’re mouth is warm and it feels perfect, just like everything about you, his thrusts speed only a little bit “Do- do you remember that time where I let you skip training because you wanted to go out to the mall?” You nod… that’s the only thing you can do when you’re this cock drunk… your eyes close and you let him move your head up and down as he pleases “I was a good master, I did a favor for you yeah?” Your eyes water as his cock hits the back of your throat “Now I need you to be a good padawan and let me fuck your mouth, okay?” You whimper around him and he groans… nodding desperately he smirks “tap my leg if it gets too much and breathe through your nose” he holds your hair in a ponytail and starts thrusting nice and hard up your mouth, his tip bruising the back of your throat, your whimpers and moans are muffled by his cock as it makes you choke, you look up at him and his eyes are closed mouth agape as he moans… your own desires can’t be ignored as you keep grinding against his boot… the best way to describe this feeling is euphoria, you can’t even hear your own thoughts because they’re overpowered by the pleasure sounds your master is making and the disgusting sounds your mouth is making… your bringing him close to ecstasy.

“Shit!” He cries out and you realize breathing is no longer important in this situation, you want to please him and that the only thing that matters, he holds your head down as your nose rubs against his pubes, your own eyes rolling back “Yes yes yes yes yes” anakin is too far gone in the pleasure, his eyes roll back as a bead of sweat falls from his forehead, he growls and pushes his boot harder onto you clit “I’m gonna- Fuck im sorry I can’t help it!” You want to protest but it’s too late, his hot cum is already filling your throat. “That’s a g-good g-good… f-fucking girl- ah! My padawan” he spasms and finally lets go of your head… his cock pulsates inside your mouth and your release him and you see him shake… his breathing is heavy and he sees the tears streaming down your cheeks… he smiles, like a genuine smile that shows love and appreciation

“Thank you Y/n… oh shit that was amazing” you beam at his praise as usual, he really knows how to push your buttons.

“Master I want to cum” you pout at him, he has been teasing you but not actually giving you what you need and crave “What have I taught you about patience?” “That is overrated” he curses himself and takes you into his arms laying you down on the bed. “Fine… I’m going to fuck you” he rolls his eyes as if it was annoyed to do such task and you tickle his ribs at his teasing… he laughs and loses strength as he falls on top of you… you look up at him, you’ve never been this close before, his eyes are piercing into your soul… Anakin closes the gap and for the first time he kisses you… he moans into the kiss, it feels so right and your lips don’t move for half a second… he holds your cheek delicately and you kiss him back with as much love and desire as him.

“I can’t believe it took me so long to do that” he whispers and you give him your brightest smile “alright ass up” you giggle and he bops your nose and slides a pillow under your hips for a better angle “How do you want it love? Nice and slow or… master I can’t walk I might need to skip training today?” He mocks your voice and you give him an unamused look, if he can tease you you can also tease him.

Your legs wrap around his waist and you pull him closer “alright I get it… spread your legs for me” you do as he says and he taps his cock over your clit repeatedly, you can’t help but throw your head back, it’s so sensitive by all his previous teasing it makes you whine “I know you want it sweetheart, its just, you look so good when you’re needy” “if I knew my master was this cruel if would’ve gone to master kenobi instead” his eyes widen and his brows furrows “No” you expected him to laugh but it angers him “You’re mine, no one else’s” he positions your legs over his shoulders and slides in… your soaked cunt is pulling him in and your tightness pushes him out.. he chuckles when you shudder under him “So- fucking big” your eyes furrow prettily and your eyes roll back as he fills you up for the second time tonight “Yeah? You’re so fucking tight” his hips moves against you nice and slow, you feel every bit of him, your gummy walls massage his tip, he moans and hides his face on the crook of your neck…

Your gasps and moans are music to his ears, the prettiest a sound in the galaxy, unfortunately his noises are muffled by your skin but you want to hear him cry out… maybe another time… he groans and nips at your skin sucking and marking you “You feel so good inside me master… you fill me up so good, no one could make me feel like you do” his eyes shut tight as your words struck a nerve, you feel his hips falter as he loses his rhythm… you giggle but soon his thrusts become forceful as he hits your g spot with precision

“Shit!” “language” he teases and chuckles against your skin, you pull his locks painfully tight as he hisses “You like it? You like how deep I’m inside you? This time I’m able to look at your pretty face” he kisses you once again, your legs hold him tightly not giving him much space to move and fuck you harder, it’s your fault he has to be harsher and manhandle you

Your velvety walls constrict around his cock and he pulsates and pulsates, he feels his balls tighten… his cock kisses you cervix again and you cry out as you attempt to push him away “I know it hurts… don’t worry I’m going to take care of you” your arms tangle over his neck as your nails dig into his back and scratch, leaving little moon shaped marks all over his skin, he changes the angle and pounds you deeper, you didn’t know it was possible… this time his pubes rub deliciously over your clit “you’re not fooling anyone love, you like it rough, you like it nasty and even dangerous, showing yourself to everyone in a nasty gloryhole in coruscant, why would you put yourself in that situation baby? Huh? You liked the smell of sex and everyone having sex around you? Is that it? You’re as much of a pervert as I am, because if you’d come to me sooner I would’ve fucked you in your comfy bed like the pillow princess you are”

“Master!” You near your release and he’s been holding his for about 5 minutes now, he trembles over you but he can’t stop, he needs to please you “You’re gonna cum sweetheart? I need you to cum, you been milking your master’s cock the entire night it’s only right I make you cum too”

Your cries fill the room and your eyes roll back, it’s a sight for sore eyes “Thank your master Y/n, thank your master for fucking this creamy pussy”

“Thankyouthankyou-“ you moan incoherently “I’m going to fill you up sweetheart- what a good little p-padawan” your climax hits the both of you like a bus… making you grind against each other tiredly as your moans die down eventually, only heavy breathing is heard…

When you both grow quiet and only the sounds of an average late night at coruscant fill the atmosphere you wrap your arms around him, you’ve never seen anakin this tired before, he always has enough energy for a battle but seems like pussy is his weakness, you clench around him involuntarily and he whimpers

“Thank your Y/n this was… fuck it was”

“Me? Thank you for being a pervert” you beam and kiss his forehead “it was truly amazing… thank you master” he chuckles

“Me? A pervert? You’re a nympho princess, after everything I’ve taught you in all these years the only thing it stuck you was my cock” you roll your eyes at his comment

“Now you know how Master Kenobi feels” but then you think a little bit more about your comparison and you cringe anakin laughs against your skin

“You’re lucky you’re beautiful”

You smile brightly at him “youre pretty”

“Only pretty? C’mon sweetheart I want to be beautiful”

“Fine.. you’re beautiful” he gives your neck a little kiss

“Can you sleep here tonight?” You nod “Great because you leaving means I’d have to pull out”

“Don’t mention it, you’re my best friend!” Anakin gives you an angry look even though he knows he’s joking, he wants to be more than that, and actually he already is… And with a kiss he shuts you up…

masterlist 𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗱𝗼𝘃𝗲 © --- all rights reserved. no reposting/translating/ copying will be tolerated.

dividers - @i92-93

(Hello! I want to credit @anakinsbbgirl for inspiring this stories, she’s insane and I love her)

[yeyinde]

third hour of the night

Baby Trap + Gaz x Fem!Reader | 24k

The latest brush with death opens a wound, a chasm on the underside of his ribs that hungers for something he can't discern. He eats and it’s still empty. Gorges himself tirelessly but the maw still growls for more.

(He thinks it might be a sense of homesickness. And his home has always been you.)

OR: Icarus tries a different approach to capture Apollo once and for all.

18+ | SMUT: dubcon. baby trapping, contraceptive tampering. emotional manipulation. brief violence, near death experiences. obsessive/possessive Gaz. jealousy. unsafe sex. breeding. implied stalking. trauma and the consequences of almost dying several times. reckless behaviour.

MASTERLIST | A03

The thing about dying is that it tends to put everything into perspective. 

Things like the fleeting, ephemeral blink of life itself. The fragility of human existence. How vulnerable this glasslike body of his really could be. 

In a matter of seconds, he would have been erased. A soot stain on the pavement where the metal frame of a small charter plane impacted the ground, bursting into flames almost instantly. Incinerating him. Melted skin, charred bone. Suffused with plastic and steel. Entombed in a crumpled husk of iron and pipedreams. 

The real cruelty, he finds, is how empty this brush with death leaves him. Gaping. A chasm. He sticks his fingers into the hole and feels nothing—

Nothing but hunger.

It happens in a blink. 

Eyes open, and he feels like Icarus. Wings of metal, feathers, and beeswax. He soars above the treeline in a seamless incline, gaining altitude over the ochreous dunes in the distance. The great pyramids that once took dominion in his field of vision were soon to be specks in his periphery. 

There's something about flying that makes him feel both endlessly invincible and damnably fragile at the same time. 

Man's hubris—

Eyes half-mast, squinting against the smoulders of the sun, he feels the heat on his skin as they grow nearer to its coruscating flames. The window is hot. He places his palm against it. Feels the tremble of the machine as it works against gravity to free itself from those stifling confines. 

Kyle’s eyes slip closed—

—and he's suddenly reminded of why hubris is defined as a defiance of the gods. 

(Nemesis rakes her nails down the metal flesh of the bird, unyielding its wiry skeleton underneath; where are your wings?—

—man, willful creatures with their desire to be within the stars; cosmogyral. and oh, she laughs—)

Like Icarus, the plane meets the sun in a hard, hateful kiss, sputtering out in a series of agonising whimpers. The cockpit screams. Howls, shrieks, warning them all of an impending doom—

(—apollo, apollo, apollo—)

And then he's falling. Weightless. Wingless. 

(too low, terrain, terrain; pull up, pull up—)

“Fuck!” The curse is garbled in his headset, nearly swallowed by the agonal hiccups of the plane nose-diving to the ground. “I don't know—I don't—” (—pull up, terrain, terrain; pull up, pull—); “we're stalling, we lost the engines, we're—”

In his periphery, he can still see the blurry blots of the pyramids smeared under the plunging freefall to the ground that Pharaohs have kissed with the soles of their feet. They flicker in and out of his line of sight, a taunting reminder that his kin don't belong in the skies. That they build from the ground up. 

Amid the chaos, Price shouts something—a warbled hiss, words stuck in the back of his throat, limping out of his pale lips in a wheeze; gravity wraps a mocking hand around his neck, giving a tight squeeze. Kyle can see the whites of his knuckles against the armrest, skin prickling with goosebumps as they're dragged back to the dirt. 

by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return

He folds suddenly, torso flopping down over his thighs, hands screwing themselves angrily against the nape of his neck. Protective embrace. Through the angular cut of Price’s bent arm, a blue eye gleams in the flickering dark—electricity cut; the only light source inside the cabin a devastating flash of sun each time the plane rolls—and the anger there, he knows, is pasted evenly across his face. 

Fuckin’ helicopters. We'll take a bird instead. 

Hubris, he thinks, just as Price barks out, get down, Sergeant!

Survival training ensures his movements are fluid. Unconscious. He tightens his body into a ball, hiding all his fleshly organs from spilling out across the aisleway. Scarred palms cupped over his head, his stem. 

Couched into the claustrophobic space between his knees and the hard plastic of the seat in front of him, he finds he can't breathe like this. That training hadn't prepared him for the way gravity feels when it's trying to crush something into dust—but he heaves through the hypoxia, blinking furiously against the phosphenes spooling like ink blots over his eyes. 

There's a whistle in his ear, a swooping nausea in the pit of his stomach. He tastes blood in his throat. Feels the fluttering winds of his trapped heart beating against his larynx with every swallow. 

His thoughts are tangled. Knotted. The edges fray, unravel. It slips through his fingers, translucid. Weaving through the gossamer fogging through his mind. A thick, impenetrable cloud of mutinous emotions. All frothing over the other, intangible. They're drowning each other in a desperate bid to stay afloat, and Kyle can't bring himself to reach for one over the other, opting instead to save none at all. 

There's a roar. Brontide. It echoes in his head as the pyramids once again fill the entirety of his vision. Close to the earth. Close to death—

Kyle doesn't pray. Doesn't beg for forgiveness, for salvation. 

His mum might. He thinks he ought to, but where he should find repentance, sorrow, fear, he instead feels anger. Uncovers it like a forgotten relic. A childhood toy. Holds it like a knife to his throat. 

It's vicious, this fury. This rage. Consumes him from the inside out, blisters through his veins. Chokes him—

In between the apoplectic bitterness, memories flicker by. Broken, fractured remnants of a youth wasted in his grim, spiteful anger. Ironic, now, since he tastes fury, bellicostic and wrathful, in the back of his throat, bubbling up, florentis. 

Bathed in the endless red fury of his mindseye, he thinks of his mum. Standing up in church, her fingers knotted tight against a rosary as she murmured along with the passages, his father sat beside her. His brothers, and sisters. The life he led up to this point, and then—

—you. 

Life in stages. Snippets. Him, you. It rushes by in a maelstrom of want, need, and anger. 

It's short. The distance between knowing you and now charted in a paltry decade; an infinitesimal amount of time that leaves him feeling bitter, and regretful. He barely had you, and now—

Reincarnated as Icarus. Cobbled together from clay and feathers, subsumed with the ghost of a wilful man. Haunted by fate. Tortured with the endless agony of a looping, meandering death to kiss the sun and fall from grace, wingless. Scorched. 

His life is a mere echo. Smoke from a snuffed flame. 

And you— You. You, you, you:

Kyle finds you when he's running after a man through the tangled, indifferent streets of London. 

Weaving, bobbing around the crowd gathered around—clusters of tourists standing still on the sidewalk, forcing the herd to mould around them; idle passersby meandering through the throng of a Saturday afternoon rush—the man he's chasing uses them all as an obstacle. A place to hide. 

It nearly works, too. And if anyone else had been pursuing him, Kyle knows he'd have been long gone already. Seamlessly swallowed up by the rabble. 

But Kyle's different. 

For the entirety of his career, Kyle has been told he's more instinct than man. Reactive. The sort of person that was undoubtedly reincarnated from a wolf, one who used to prowl the boreal forests for musk ox and caribou. 

When people run, he just—

Chases. 

It's innate. in his blood. Instinctual. 

And everyone knows better than to run from a predator. To trigger their prey (hunt, kill, consume) response. 

So, when the man slips from his partner’s grasp and flees down the crowded streets of London, Kyle doesn't think. Not for a second. He locks his eyes on the man's back and follows. 

He cuts a jagged path down the crowded streets, using the meandering passersby to his advantage. Thrown down to the pavement as obstacles in his pursuers' way, ones meant to trip Kyle up. To gain ground, put distance between them. 

It's a futile effort in the end. He loses momentum and speed with each person he shoves, and Kyle soon closes in on him, less than an arm's length away. So close Kyle can taste the pungent burn of his cologne in the back of his throat, fingers reaching, nails grazing over the polyester fabric of his jacket, and—

You're there. Suddenly. All at once. 

Thrown, roughly, into his chest. The only thing keeping you from breaking your nose on his kevlar being your fists touching his sternum before the rest of you followed. 

Eyes wide, wild with fear, shock, you gaped up at him, blinking fast. Your pretty mouth opening, closing. The broken words swallowed down, crushed under the weight of your confusion, your fear. 

With your chin tilted up, he could see the curve of your vulnerable neck, eyes drawn to the shadows under your jaw where your heart pulsed against your skin. Vein throbbing in tandem with your heartbeat. 

Reflectively, his hands jerked up. Arms locking around you, palms bracing you—one falling to the small of your back, the other cupped protectively against the nape of your neck. It brings you closer to him, pushes the endless softness of your body into his hard, unyielding armour. 

And—

Well. 

It's not often—if at all—that he loses sight of a mission. Let's himself become distracted, pulled away. And even now, he's not. Not really. He can still see man in his periphery, nothing more than a bobbing head of blond hair, and he knows that his partners are waiting for him by the entrance of an alley. Crested above the crown of your head, he sees one of them—Marcus, he thinks—jump out, tackling the man to the ground. Domhnall follows suit, gun cocked, and aimed at the struggling man's head, finger never having left the trigger once since he set off in pursuit. 

Kyle never had to give chase, anyway. But the man ran first, and—

A bad idea, really. 

The men he works with now often joke that he's more instinct than man. Chasing after moving targets like a wolf trying to run aground an elk. Under the perceived stupidity of the action lingers a honed strategy. One passed down for aeons. 

Chase, keep pace, until something gives. Something breaks. 

And it's never him. 

Until now. 

You just fit. Like you were made to be in his arms. 

Kyle knows, muted and distant; the thought all tangled up in the back of his head, that he should let go of you now. Gently nudge you on your way. Out of sight, out of mind. Go back to where the man is being wrangled into cuffs amid an agitated crowd murmuring to themselves, all trying to peek over the shoulders of the other officers, ones now congealing into an imperfect circle after spilling out of the blacked-out Tahoe parked near the curb. They'll need help to keep the crowd from fringing on their arrest. Kyle knows this. Knows, too, that he ought to join. 

But he doesn't. 

Can't. 

In the gloom of a midday drizzle, you burn. 

Bright. Ferocious. The coruscating gleam of your gaze is enough to render him to cinders at your feet. Burnt sage, sweetgrass. Bushels of charred barley. Ceremonial in this poignant unmaking; this chiseling down of his being into ash at your altar. He's swept up in it. The thick smog that congeals around you in a dense plumage of smouldering earth. Hallowed lands. 

It razes him. 

You: apollo—this devastating creature of pure light. 

He wants to bask in it. Burn his flesh on your ethereal glow. Leans in to feel the white-hot lick of flames dancing, cosmogyral, across his flesh. 

(Godlike, but you fit in his arms with an ease that belies your otherworldly splendour, that defies the partitioning between man and god—)

“Hi,” he says instead, the word chipped down to the marrow. Bare. Fractured. “You okay—?”

It's here, in this pardoning breath, where he finds the extent of your facile mortality. Beneath his hands, you're supple. Soft. Through the knitted cashmere of your sweater, he can feel the heat of your skin bleeding into his palms. His fingers clench, and he meets pillowed bone. 

You're fragile. Vulnerable. 

(a man threw you into him with an ease that prickles along his nape; chase hunt consume:

protect. shield. provide—)

Instinct, he thinks. More urge than man. Primal. Animalistic. 

Kyle can't remember the last time he felt like this way about anyone. This heavy, poignant drive to burrow his face into your neck, to breathe in the loamy scent of you, and bite down, claim. 

His teeth ache. He flexes his jaw to stem to throb under his canines. Wet, pulsing—like an infection (a heartbeat). 

As saliva floods his mouth, yours opens shallowly in a huff. 

“I'm fine,” you're saying. Dazed, windswept. “I'm—”

He clings to you harder. Knows that his grip is undoubtedly popping blood vessels under your skin like bubbles, but he needs this. Needs time. Needs you. 

A minute longer. Just a minute more—

If it hurts, you don't make any show of it. Impassive in your shock, you gaze at him. Flay him alive under the burning charcoal of your heavy stare. 

He thinks—

this is it. my apollo. 

—but someone is calling his name. Fingers pry apart his hold on you, shoving him back into the iron embrace of his peers. 

“I’ll take over, sir,” he hears through the clamour of noise. “I’ll take them to the paramedics to get checked over. You can let go now—”

“C’mon, Garrick, let go—”

The commotion heightens. Through the hands, the shoulders, the push and tug, your eyes never waver from its perch along his thundering jaw. The anxious, angry pulse of his ire blooming viciously in his veins. 

(how dare they—? how dare they touch you—)

Your mouth opens again. Soundless, but he hears it like a gunshot. 

“Go.” And then: “I'll be fine.” 

It breaks. His partner wrenches him back, stumbling under the sudden momentum as Kyle lets his fingers ease up, releasing you. You're dragged away, swallowed soon by the crowd, but like a hunting dog, he doesn't look away. Can scent you even when you're gone; a thick, earthy scent collars around your neck, and leads him back to you. 

He moves to follow it—

A hand lashes out, slams against his sternum. “Kyle! Come on, man, we got a fuckin’ criminal to detain—”

He blinks, wrenched from this reverie, this stupor. “Fuck,” he spits, tasting ash between his teeth. “Fuck—!”

“You never think,” is what his higher-ups often tell him after he sprints, full throttle, at a target within seconds of them making off. “Your performance is incredible, Garrick, but you just never think before you act—”

This isn't true. Kyle thinks a lot. All the time, really. Kyle's mind has the propensity to spin itself into exhaustion; to never cease. A constant loop. Endless spirals. 

He thinks about everything. Nothing. All of it shaded in both abstract ideas and concrete plans. 

Because the thing is: 

Kyle sees the world—or rather, situations—as a chessboard. Pieces, pawns, meant to be moved in a preordained sequence. 

But telling people who believe that the definition of subordination is waiting for the green light to trickle down from several floors above despite those men only having fragments of a puzzle is a lost cause. A battle he's never, ever won before. 

So, he relents. “Yes, sir.” 

Relents so much that his palms carry jagged crescent moons across his life and heart lines. Swallows down the fury, the rage, even though it blisters through his veins. A permanent, simmering agony burning him up from the inside out. 

Flashes a grim salute to hide the hissing vitriol as it claws up his throat, tearing tissue as it climbs, until all he tastes is blood flooding his mouth. 

“Good,” they simper. “Keep that up, and maybe one day, you'll be where I'm sitting.” 

His ambitions are worn on his skin. He feels something hot, sticky, congeal between his fingers, and knows that he'll soon be wearing a pastiche of ananke’s brode on his flesh. 

Ambition, he finds, feels like choking himself until his vision goes blurry around the edges. Until hypoxia bleeds in, dripping down his periphery in tarry black splatters. 

It feels like swallowing his tongue. Burying himself alive on his—

draw the line wherever you need to, Sergeant. 

—righteous fury. 

His palms itch,

like an infection. untreated. left to rot. gangrenous. septic. his blood is polluted. he feels the fever run, red-hot, through his veins, charring bone. 

marrow burns to ash. he finds a peculiar comfort in the fire. 

moth to a flame. maybe it's only natural, then, that he goes to find you.

The scent trail fades, erased under the stale tang of a restless crowd; admixing into the nauseating smells of London after dark. 

But where it began, he finds a flickering ember. Discovers your chevelure, and winds it around his aching palm until it hides his brode under starlight. 

Everything is murky grey, but he finds you in pure white. The cashmere sweater is a beacon, luring him in, and he hides his intentions under the guise of militaristic concern. Altruism. Crossing t’s and dotting i’s. Tells the paramedics hanging loosely around you that he has a few questions for you. Purely professional. 

They don't question him. Eagerly offer up your name, your date of birth, your address, your status. He doesn't even have to pull rank to get it. When he bites into the thought, it tastes of bittermelon. 

How easy could it have been for anyone to discover, then. To pick pieces of you between their fingers, plucking ripe cherry tomatoes off the stem. 

Kyle bites back a snarl, and offers then a wide, gleaming smile instead. Baring teeth. Says, “thanks, mate,” and weaves around them before they can see his fists shaking by his side. 

He finds you standing by the curb, curled fingers tucked tight against your temple as you survey the throng of lingering onlookers with an impassive, flat stare. Limned in hazy red and blue, you look almost like a picture. A painting. Something archaic. Special. He wants to hide you away from the prying eyes of the reporters congregating down the street, all rallying for the biggest headline on a new story. 

At the same time, though, he wants to stay aside. To watch. To let the rest of the world see you behind a thick sheet of plexiglass. Visible to their voyeuristic gazes but untouchable to all,

(bar him)

His heart thunders when you turn. Chin tipping, tucking against your pearled collar to peek over your shoulder. Even in the matte grey gloom of London, you burn. He blinks. Blinks again. 

You're turning now, brows drawing together as you struggle to piece together why he's lurking behind you like a shadow, but—

You brighten at the sight of him. Recognition chewing through megrim. Still curled into a loose fist, you lift your hand and give him a small, perfunctory wave. You must expect him to stop here, a modest, safe distance away. 

Your brows knot once more when he doesn't. When he steps, boldly, outside of the lines of societal propriety, and into your orbit. You wear this flummoxed uncertainty like a mask. Kyle finds it more endearing than he ought to. Finds, too, that he wants nothing more than to see you bare. 

“Hi,” he greets again, just shy of an arm's length away. Even with proximity, it feels too far. “You alright?” 

Breathless, you murmur: “yes,” and then, hurriedly, like you've just remembered yourself. “Thank you. For, um, catching me, I guess?” 

Catching you. The wording needles under his skin, an ugly, vicious itch he can't scratch. But he supposes that's what it looked like from the outside in. Stopping a fall. Protecting a civilian. 

You were pushed, shoved into him, and he caught you. Held you aloft as his partner took Kyle's place in the pursuit. 

So, he takes it. Smiles again, softer this time. All that rugged, boyish charm that his friends used to tease him over. 

Deadly that is, mate. Dunno how any bird can resist a smarmy fuckin’ grin like that. 

Model, ain't he? Pretty boy. Maybe you should change careers, eh? Bet Givenchy is frothing at the mouth for a looker like you. 

And it works. Of course, it does.

Hook, line—

“Had me worried there that he might have hurt your pretty face. Was proper ticked off, so I thought I'd come and check on you—”

At pretty, you duck your head shyly in response, lips warbling around a nervous smile. Eyes bright, gleaming, under the hazy smear of red and blue light. 

He makes a show of checking his phone, brows tightening at the time played in neon white. 

“Gettin’ late. You live close by? I, uh, I'd feel terrible sending you home by yourself at this hour,” there's an immediate protest on your lips. He nips it with his teeth. Gives a bashful grin. “And, ah, I like talking to you. Wouldn't mind continuing the conversation if you're interested?” 

You're burning. Grinning under a plume of demurred appeasement. Sweetened by his bold words, and the wide, boyish smile he wears. 

And—

—sinker. 

Dazedly, you offer him your hand, stammering as his thumb brushes delicately over your knuckles. Lips wet, glossy. He wants to lean down, lick across them, and taste you on his tongue. But Kyle refrains. Rocks back on his heel, reluctantly dragging himself away.

It's endearing, endlessly sweet when you unconsciously follow. Leaning forward, eyes wide and full of wonder. 

In the next beat, you give him your number. 

He takes that, too, and holds it. 

At the foot of your door, you thank him once again for catching you. The joke rolls off your loose tongue in a playful quip that he snatches up from the air, holds in the palm of his hand. 

“Anytime,” he says, softened under the pale moonlight. 

caught. catching you. 

he sees it much differently. 

to Kyle, you were a gift thrust into his unexpected hands. a pretty little box for him to unwrap, unravel. 

(his, and his alone—)

As he hits the ground, he thinks of you. 

As flames fold over his body, ripping through broken metal, he hears something crack. Hears it shatter. 

And he still thinks of you.

Kyle crawls from the burning wreckage with the bloodied, broken tips of his jagged nails digging into the scorched pavement. Emerges a phoenix. Rising from the smouldering husk of a plane mangled on the pavement with fawnlike legs and an ache in his jaw. 

Intact, he finds, but there's an echo in his head. The sound of breaking glass. Bones snapping like twigs. Something shatters. Something breaks. 

He holds his hand to his chest and knows, then, that it's not so much a fracturing of bone or tissue, but a cage. A prison. Something housing the things he'd rather not think about.

It's fine. It'll be fine. 

He crawls through the smoke to get to Price and doesn't think about the oil spill he left behind on the pavement.

Price says, “that was close,” in a tone so unbothered, so unconcerned, that Kyle has to take a moment to reacclimate himself to his trauma after being knocked so far off-kilter. Jerking back into flight or fight after that blase dismissal when the smouldering ash begins to clog the air, spewing noxious poison from the chemicals, the metals, now completely aflame.

He might think Price is numb to this, to falling from the sky like every parable of Icarus he's ever heard (if the ambitious god had metal blades instead of feathers for wings), but adrenaline makes his senses keener. Sharper. 

As the idea of his captain being an unrepentant sociopath (the jury, though, is still very much out on that one) starts to congeal from its incorporeal shadows, he catches the shake of his hands as he pats his beast pocket down for the stash of cigars he keeps on his person. 

Trembling, white-knuckled. Each pat feels much too heavy than it ought to be. Too forceful. 

He gets it, suddenly. Thinks he might understand Price in a way he didn't before. 

So, he says, “yeah.” And when it comes out far shakier than he intended, he clears the soot, the iron tang of adrenaline from the back of his throat, and adds: “a bit too close, mate.” 

In the end, they take him away on a gurney to a medical ward in a nearby city. 

Kyle isn't hurt—barring the contusions, the bone-deep bruises, the cuts, the lacerations—but they pay little attention to his protests when they poke him, prodding at his insides to find a phantom crack in the tender network of his body. 

Physically, he's fine. Nothing amiss at all. Everything is in good, working order—if a little scraped around the edges. 

They decide to keep him overnight for observation, though. The doctor's worrying about head trauma, concussions. Price, too, is forced to stay—not so much kicking and screaming, but certainly with a lot of complaining that echoes down the hall (bloody fuckin’ muppets—can’t you see I'm fine?)—and he takes a marginal amount of comfort in knowing that he's not the only one on mandatory best-rest. 

It all could be worse. 

He thinks, then, of Soap. Of the gaping wound in his head—blood spilling everywhere. Ghost leaning over him, sounding less like a human with each harrowing Johnny! that was ripped from his throat. 

The endless trawl of uncertainty as they carried him away, his hand falling from the gurney. Hanging there, pale and limp. Jostled with the movements of the medical team as they tried, desperately, to stabilise him. 

And then—

The aftermath, he supposes. 

Soap sitting up in a hospital bed, head wrapped up in stark white bandages. He smiled, laughed. Said he had too much to do to leave them now, but there was something wrong. Something—

Missing, almost. 

Gone. 

They don't speak about it, but he knows Price and Ghost feel it all the same. Must, of course, because Price is firm, unyielding, when he tells Soap to piss off somewhere for a while. Takes each excuse to the chin, stalwart in the face of Soap's pleading negotiations. 

It could be like that. Medical leave. Mandatory. Something was absent in Johnny's eyes. A hollow vacancy where hazel once burned bright in the gloom. 

Kyle places his bandaged hand on his chest, feels every brag of his heart through aching skin, and knows, somehow, that it's not the same. Not quite, but—

He thinks he might be missing something, too. He's just not sure what it is, and that—

That scares him. 

Because if he didn't feel the jagged glass digging into his flesh, he might not have known something broke free. Escaped. Fell, perhaps, to its death when the helicopter started to whine like an injured animal, barely able to limp through the sky. 

Standard procedure would dictate that he calls someone. Schedule a session with a licensed therapist the moment he gets back home, and let them determine if he's field-ready. 

But he doesn't. He thinks about Soap, and the anger in his eyes when Price told him that he was on leave, dismissing him with a simple flick of his wrist. 

“How long, cap’n?” He ground out between clenched teeth. “How long are ye sendin’ me away fer?”

And Price just levelled him with a flat look. “As long as it takes, Sergeant.” 

That was that. That was—

He's not what compels him to call you, but he does. Drags out his phone from his pocket, unlocks the (cracked, of course) screen with a shaking finger, and pulls you from his contact list. His nickname for you isn't anything special—can’t be, really, in this line of work—and it's boiled down to something so inconsequential, so mundane, that he feels a little bit untethered seeing it now. If he really did die, if he was seriously injured—

How would they know to call you when your name in his phone is simply: doves. A lingering remnant of your second meeting. 

Doves. A pretty pair perched on the curb when you met again after texting for a week, pecking idly at the scraps left behind. You surprised him, then, when you materialised out of the air, murmuring to yourself about the sorry state of them. 

Too pretty for crumbs, you lamented and reached into your pocket for a rolled-up bag of sunflower seeds. You barely paid him much mind at all, too busy scattering seeds for the birds, and watching as they scurried toward it.

It was the ease with which you moved through the world—seamless, untethered—that drew him in. The peaceful serenity that leaked from your pores, clouding around you, seemed to scour the anger that hung tight to his shoulders, hitching itself across his nape. Weighing him down. You picked the anchor up, letting him breathe for a moment through lungs that didn't feel as if they were being crushed under unfathomable pressure. All his rage accumulating right by his heart now cupped in the palms of your hands. 

You turned back to him, then, a defiant tilt to your chin as if begging him to say something about feeding pigeons on the street. Readying yourself for a fight despite the loose set to your shoulders, the flat, open palms dusted with powder from the seeds. 

Gone was the sheepish woman who tripped into his arms. In her demurring place stood a thunderclap. A lioness. 

He knew, without any sense of uncertainty, that he wanted to know more about you. Everything, if you'd let him. 

(And you had. Without any sense of hesitation or uncertainty, you—)

He stares down at your name for a moment, thoughts in tatters much too thin for him to pick out. But he feels. Too much, not enough. Arguably the worst in its abundance, in its raw, fractured ache somewhere deep in his chest. 

It's a want. A need. Desperation drapes itself over his shoulders in a way he's never felt before; all soot-stained, and foul. Rank. It smells like an infection: gangrenous and putrid, rotting tissue leaking puss. Skin sloughing off in blackened, festering clumps. The stench of it sits in his nose, clogged in the back of his throat. He can almost taste it. 

Despite its nauseating miasma, the horrid tang pooling between his teeth, there's an odd sort of comfort in it. A familiarity he can't place. 

He wonders if Soap felt this way after he woke up in the hospital with a hole gouged in his head from a bullet. Left wondering what piece of himself was torn out along with a bloodied, mangled mess of tissue, bone, brain, and grey matter that once filled the space. A vacuum the width of a thumb. A permanent pockmark on his forehead.

The thought shakes him, and drags his tender leg up to his chest, rests his forearms on his knee, ignoring the tremble in his hands, and he calls you. 

His face appears on the screen, stuffed into a box. He stares at it as the call connects, taking stock of the way he looks. 

In the gloam of an Egyptian sunset—swaths of ochre coruscating across dunes of gold; glinting off the desert sand as if the sun was trying to inch closer to this haven, the place it called home—the cuts on his face are limned, turning the colour of ripened pomegranates; crushed cherries. Highlighted under the mournful torpor of the sun, he looks worse for wear. Bruises under his eyes, framing them heavy kohl. Splotches of yellow—the same shade as a fresh bushel of wheat—halo around the worst of them, painting a striking picture of injury on the high arches of his cheekbones. 

He should angle the phone away. Sit back into the deep blue shadows and let the absence of light hide the worst of it all from your eyes. It's what he normally does. What he should do. 

But there's a hollowness on the underside of his ribs. A gaping maw that hungers for something he can't discern; rapacious. Unknowable. It wants. Yearns. 

(He thinks it might be a sense of homesickness. 

And his home has always been you.)

So, he calls. Waits for it to connect. And somewhere in the back of his head, he knows something isn't quite right.

But he doesn't fight it. 

Can't, really, even if he wanted to because your face appears on his screen, filled out in a perfect box. The smile is already there, blooming daffodils against dark indigo. The greeting on the tip of your tongue has a flash of pink and gleaming white splitting the tomato red of your lips apart, happiness draping itself heavily over you. 

But it falls, instantly, when he moves. Winces. You catch it, then, the unmistakable ugliness splattered across his face. Bruises framed in hazy, blood orange. Cuts illustrated by the last vestiges of a stubborn sun refusing to yield. 

Kyle dips his chin. The stitches on his forehead pull against the inflamed skin. It's the worst of it, he knows. It catches in the fading embers of an ethereal twilight, and the hitch in your breath echoes in the room. 

“What—?” The words are ashy whisper in your throat, falling over him. A rainfall of soot. 

The frown on your face is a dagger. It twists, turns. Scraps muscle from bone. Leaves a gaping hole between the milky bracket of his ribs. 

“Oh, Kyle—”

There are a multitude of things he ought to say. I'm fine, first and foremost. And it's the truth. He is. The cuts, the scraps, the bruises, all hurt less than the ache in his head, the throb in his muscles. The fallout from the adrenaline rush following the crash hurts more than anything else. 

He should calm your worry. Laugh about it in that paper-thin way he's wont to—like it doesn't bother him, doesn't hurt despite both of you knowing he'll be up all night long for the next several weeks, running along his own desire path carved between the living room and kitchen. Not thinking at all, and—

And thinking too much. 

The juxtaposition, a blatant oxymoron, will curdle in his chest, growing moss, leaking spores. He's good at pulling them out before they mushroom inside of him, burrowing deep and leaving gaping pockets behind. Scrapes them from flesh. Douses them with gasoline. Purification with fire. 

With your touch. You'll wake the next morning and find him dozing on the couch. Will rain kisses across his face, gentle and soft, before wandering away to make something for him to eat. Later, you'll drag him to the tub. Wash his body as he leans against your chest, the hollow spaces inside of him slowly filling with warm, lavender-scented water. 

He'll come back in pieces. Inchmeal. And then hold you as close as he can in bed as though he's trying to fuse your skin together. Crawl inside of you and stay in the brackets of your ribs. 

It's all—

Routine, maybe. Carved out from years of this. This slow crawl to the inevitable end, hand-in-hand. 

And yet. 

(and yet: he can't.)

Can't bring himself to reassure you when his heart is racing in his chest. A naughty child sneaking cookies off the counter when his mum isn't looking. 

“Almost died,” he offers, fractured and raw. “I—uh, shit. Sorry. I don't know. Just—needed to see you, is all.”

And it's the truth.

You feel it. You must. The urgency, the desperation. This time is not like the others. 

“No, no, Kyle. Don't—don’t apologise. Don't ever apologise, I—fuck. I'm glad you're okay, I'm—”

Pearlescent tears puddle in your lashes. You've never cried before. Not in front of him. Never. Preferring instead to bite your knuckles, to press your face into the pillow. Unwilling to let yourself ask for more than what you think you deserve.

(And it's never enough. Not to him. 

your plate is empty, you're starving. but you refuse to eat.)

And when they spill down your cheeks, he leans back with a huff. Satisfaction is whitehot in his veins and he doesn't know why. Doesn't understand how the sight of you crying over him like this almost makes him want to preen. To purr. 

Blames it on the fall. On the taste of burning metal still clogging the back of his throat. 

“I'll be fine,” is offered, scratched out of his throat with jagged nails. Birthed into the world on a whisper-soft scream. “You don't have to worry about me.” 

Your face falls. “Of course I’m going to worry about you.” 

“I promise I'm—” he chokes a bit. Tries to cover it up with a cough. The frown on your face grows, eclipsing all the prior happiness that once glowed when you first answered the phone. “I'm good. Just need some rest.”

“Yeah, that might be a good idea.”

The tension is thick. He feels it thrum against his jugular; this living, breathing thing. This heady, undeniable agitation. 

Your worry manifests itself in the deep canyon between your brows, heavy and all-encompassing despite your attempts to hide it from him. The weight makes your lip tremble, and Kyle wants to devour your sorrow, your grief, from the source. Taste your sadness. Feel it on his tongue. 

He leans against the knotted fingers pressed tight to his windpipe until phosphenes prickle across his vision. Midnight black against burning blood orange. 

Breathlessly, he quips: “and maybe to stay away from helicopters, too.” 

The laugh you let out sounds like it's underwater. Garbled, choking for air. It's drenched in hysteria, in misery. 

He wants to crush it between his teeth, but settles, instead, hanging his head low, shoulders shaking. From the angle, he knows you'd never be able to tell if he was laughing or crying. 

(It helps, he supposes, that he doesn't know, either—

Is just slowly being consumed by this vacuum of want, one that keeps tugging at his insides, flaying pieces of himself off and dropping it into the maw. 

He wonders, then, what'll happen after he eats himself whole. Will he disappear or will the masticated scraps of himself reassemble into a Frankensteinian lump of who he once was—)

You stay like that for a moment. Both of you pretend you're not falling into pieces for all the wrong reasons.

As he's saying goodbye, you add, nonchalant, unconcerned: 

“Oh, David's calling me. I was supposed to help him pick out an outfit for a wedding.”

“David?” His tone is flat. His fingers tighten around the phone. “Who's that?”

“My friend from work. You met him, I think. He was at that party we went to. In Kent.” 

“Huh. No, I, uh, don't remember.” 

“Oh. Well, I won't be long. And I'll have my phone on me, so if you need to talk, just call, okay?” 

You're unbothered. He can understand why. Neither of you have ever really had much reason for jealousy—Kyle trusts you. Implicitly. Both of you have friends of the opposite sex, and there's never been any sense of distrust in that friendship. 

But—

David. Something about it burns through his chest, twisting and ugly. And the awful thing is, he trusts you, he does. 

You have everything except a ring, and—

Well. 

Synergy is a knife sliding across bone. Understanding skirting on the edges of his periphery, within his grasp. Obtainable. He reaches for it, clawing with eager fingers—

It breaks against his knuckles in blooming anguish, dissolving into the same gaping unknown, unknowables, that sets his teeth on edge. 

In retaliation, he sinks his fist into the wall, and tries to remember the last time he felt so out of control—

Your conversations take on a strange tone. Jovial, blase, but the topics are endlessly lour. 

Things like perhaps the lease ought to just be in your name. And maybe he should update his emergency contact—just in case. 

Just in case. 

It hangs over you like a stormcloud. Just in case. He can see it in the tremble of your lip, your fingers, ones you desperately try to hide behind sips from your chamomile tea. Faux indifference to the garishness of it all. To the fact that this is a real, pragmatic conversation that's happening, that ought to happen. Because you never know. 

But you avoid these conversations by telling him about your day. And soon, your time is divided between pretending as if seeing him hurt like this doesn't make you cry yourself to sleep at night, feigning strength despite the darkening lines under your fatigued eyes in an effort to not become a simpering burden to him when this is just another hazard of his occupation, his chosen career; and helping David search for a suit. 

And then a tie. And then shoes. The perfect wedding gift—

Kyle, too, pretends. Acts indifferent. Unbothered. As if it it doesn't irritate him. It shouldn't. He knows it shouldn't. He trusts you. Gives you free reign to every part of himself you'd ever asked to see.

Your palms are the perfect plinth to his aching head. His shoulders broad enough to carry your burdens sat right along with his own. He knows you. Jokes, sometimes, that he could pick out your soul with his eyes closed. And you volley back that no matter where life leads you, you'd always find your way to him. 

“Every lifetime,” is whispered between kisses, folded in the brackets of his ribs. “All of them. It's always you—”

So why—

Why does he feel sick to his stomach when you talk about David, as if he'd gorged himself on too much of his rage? 

(why, why, why—)

This chasm inside of him grows. Gets bigger. Hungrier. 

Where he could normally shove inside a box, ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist, he instead finds fractured glass, fragmented and broken to a jagged point. He cuts his finger on a shard, and watches, hollow, as the blood puddles up, dripping down to his split knuckles. 

He gets it, then. 

The want, the greed, the hunger will consume him from the inside out. 

But what, exactly, it wants is still a mystery. 

(But he knows himself. Knows what he shoved into that awful, putrid chasm, and is sure that whatever it is, it can't be good—)

Egypt is a distant memory soon after. An aged polaroid of sunlight spilling over sand, watery and thick; an ocean of ochre, of burnt umber. He thinks, fondly, of the locals and their chatter as it fills the sun-dried streets, with the heat, an oppressive blanket of warmth, tucking against him. 

Winter nights are static with the buzz of life. Of distant echoes of temple prayers in harmonic songs; haggling patrons and hissing vendors just outside his window. 

Kyle thinks he'll miss this place for it could have been, not what it is. 

Because what it is ends up being a cockpit in distress. Wind shrieking in his ear. The crunch of metal slamming with all its might against the cobbled pavement. The hiss of gas. 

He didn't know fire could roar like a lion until then. Until it blooms, white-hot and wild, mere inches from his face. The snarling, drooling maws of a starving pride. 

Clawing from ash, soot. Metal raining down around him, liquified under the intense blaze of the fuselage on fire. His leg twisted up in the seatbelt. Unable to get free. To get out. 

Smoke in the air. In his eyes, his nose, filling his lungs. 

He'll die, he thought. Is dying. His fingers scrape over concrete, flesh gnashing against grainy sand. Unable to get a grip on the slick blood that puddles out, staining the pavement and his hands. 

He doesn't think of you, but he feels you there on the edge of his periphery. Lingering like a phantom, reaching for him. Get out, get out, get out—

In the bloom of gunmetal smoke that plumes around him like a sweltering cloud of heat and ash, a hand appears. Covered in grit, in grime. Blood. 

“—out! We've gotta get out, Kyle. Grab my—”

Pawing in the dark, nebulous cloud, he finds Price's rough hand and latches on, hauling himself to safety. But what emerges from the soot, the smoke, is a version of himself that feels raw, fractured. 

He's agitated. Leg bouncing, restless. 

Price notices it on the plane ride home, eyes slanting over to stare, pointedly, at the continuous bob of his knee. Up, down, up, down. Kyle should hide it. Bite the inside of his cheek until it bleeds instead, but he doesn't. 

It won't be enough to stem this urge to run, to flee. 

“Almost home,” Price huffs, shifting in his seat. He, too, seems to feel that same prickling sense of unease. Kyle lets it wash over him. Not quite a comfort, but something. “Get some rest, Sergeant.”

At that, he scoffs. “Feels like I've been doing nothing but resting, cap.”

“Mm, you're young. Take advantage of it while you can.” 

As Kyle rolls his eyes at that, Price makes an aborted move, hand jerking to his breast pocket as the plane rocks over a patch of clouds, turbulence shaking the frame. Searching for his cigars. Then angrily throws his hand down, fingers tight around the armrest, white-knuckled, when he remembers he can't smoke here. 

“Might be a good time to quit,” he quips, chin jutting toward his hand, fingertips turning pink with the grip he has on the plastic. 

Price follows his gaze, staring at his hand for a beat. And then he snorts, and pries his fingers loose. 

“Nah, ‘m too old for that nonsense—” Kyle’s brows buoy, but he swallows down the harsh retort on his tongue (aren't you only thirty-eight, mate?), letting Price continue, uninterrupted. “‘sides, will probably need it once we land.”

“Yeah? Why's that?”

He grunts, and settles into the seat. The look he fixes Kyle with feels like having a cold, metal blade pressed to his jugular. 

“Gonna have to make a report, Sergeant. Falling from a bird twice now? And what's this? Third time for you? They'll want a review. Full. Will probably make us talk to a doctor or somethin’.” He cocks his head to the side, presses his pink knuckles to his temple. “Make sure we're all right up here.” 

Kyle flinches. Tries to hide it with a cough when Price’s eyes tighten. 

He's not sure he wants to do any of that. Have someone crack his head open and rummage around looking for defects to toss in his face later on as an excuse to kick him out. Medical discharge. Honourable, they'll say. An early retirement. 

“And—” he swallows down the bitterness on his tongue. “And if we just didn't—”

“Can't do that, Sergeant.”

He struck for a moment. Anger quivers in his veins, rearing up like a viper ready to strike. He has to wonder if it was Ghost or Soap, would Price—

“Believe me,” he continues, eyes fixed on the open cockpit. Intense. “If it was just us, if it was one of our own, I'd have said piss on it. As long as none of you were seriously injured, why bother wasting time? But we have to be held accountable now.” 

If it was one of our own—

“Right,” he rasps, hollow. Anger scorches his insides. “Okay.” 

“Believe me, Sergeant. I want nothing more than to go home, and drink this whole bloody mess away, but—”

“I get it, cap.” 

And he does. He's just not sure he can really talk about it in a way that won't show the world the gaping hole in his chest, the hairline fractures that crisscross along him, all screaming the same thing—

Terrain, terrain, pull up. Pull up. Terrain, terrain—

“Gotta let it go, Kyle.” 

All he sees is fog. Fire crackling from within. 

“And if I can't, captain?”

“Then it's been a pleasure working with you.” Kyle swallows again, blinking furiously against the dense cloud of smoke in front of him. “I know the commander at Scotland Yard. Could put in a good word for you. Might be for the best.” 

Anger is a poison, he finds, but fear—

Fear is quicker. A knife to his heart. Left bleeding on the pavement before he knew what hit him. 

“Or…” Price drawls. “Hide it away. Nothing bad happened, did it? You're still alive.” 

Another hand appears from the midst of the fog. 

He reaches for it. 

“How?” 

“Lots of ways. Best one I find is to just give in to whatever it is you're feeling. Let it consume you. Then just bury it.”

“Right,” he whispers, paper-thin. But he gets it now. “Thanks, cap.”

“Anytime, Kyle.” 

He does as Price asks. Buries it deep inside of himself, and greets you when you come to pick him up at the airport with a wide grin, and a tight hug. Pulling you flush into his body, breathing in the scent of you until it stains his lungs. Sickeningly sweet. 

“I missed you,” you whisper into his neck, words humid against his skin. “So, so fucking much Kyle—”

“Yeah,” he rumbles, caught on the feeling your chest makes when it heaves against his. Little, breathless hiccups of relief, worry. Elation. Fear. It tastes good in the back of his throat when he steals another lungful of your scent. “I missed you, too. Fuck, dovie. Don't know how much I fuckin’ missed you.”

He clings just a little bit tighter to you, holds on a few moments longer than he normally would. Leeches the comfort your presence brings like he's starved for it. Kyle breathes in the scent of you—lemongrass and fennel; sweet and earthy—and feels that gaping wound inside of him close, just a little bit, when you fold him into a tight embrace, letting the vice of your grip speak the words he knows you'll never utter. 

Things like, please, don't ever do this to me again; and, don't go, Kyle. Please don't—

There's a multitude of things he wants to say to you. An endless bastion of sorrow and happiness and grief and elation all coalescing into this heavy anchor that hangs off his rib, pulling him down, down, down—

But he can't speak through the pulsing want in his throat. The urge to bite, to sink his teeth into you and never let go. 

So, he doesn't.

He holds you back instead, presses your soft cheek to where it aches the most, and buries his nose into your crown. 

Tries to satiate himself on the potency of your scent, the way it fills his lungs to bursting, and pretends the gnawing feeling in the pit of his chest is a purr and not a growl. 

The ravenous roar of a starving beast, hungering for something Kyle can't name. 

(He wonders if Soap felt this vacuum inside of himself, too.)

The comedown of the mission is spent with you tendering his wounds, and pressing trembling fingers to his pulse just to remind yourself that he's alive, that he's here with you. Present as warm flesh instead of a cold box full of ashes. 

In these soft, aching moments, he's forced to contend with the fact that he almost died. Again—

—(the word echoing in the recess of his mind, over and over; an accumulation of all those incredible near-misses)—

Almost left you alone in this world with nothing but broken, fragmented memories that would eventually fade. Fingerprints on a rusted handrail. Tangled in a gossamer of time, nearly forgotten as you grew older. Changed. He'd be the ex-boyfriend lost tragically. The one who died too soon. 

Someone else, he knows, would take his place when the grief took shape, becoming a corporeal feeling you could tuck away inside your pocket instead of a molten shadow burning you up from the inside out. Ever present. 

And that's the thought he gets stuck on. The one that cuts through him the most. 

You—his girl—belonging to someone else. Going on dates, kissing each other, laughing together. Falling in love. 

It's selfish to want you to stay single for the rest of your life should anything happen to him. Impractical, too. But it needles under his skin. An itch he can't scratch. A want he can't satiate. 

It won't even matter much when he's gone. He knows this. But it bothers him relentlessly. Souring his mood for days. Making him retreat, inward, to dismantle this unfathomable feeling taking root inside his chest. This bitterness, this anger. 

The thing about dying is that it tends to put things into perspective. 

Most common of all, he's told, is the fragility of the human existence, of life itself. Such a shallow thing, in retrospect. Barely a droplet in the unfathomable vastitude of time, and yet—

Something he never really thought about until it was unceremoniously thrown in his face. 

It's this, the sudden realisation that he's not as invincible as he's often tricked into thinking, that seems to shake the foundations of his life in ways that would be unthinkable to the him that lived weeks before his brush with death. But that man, that version of him, is swallowed whole by the unrelenting fear that pulses through him each time it passes through his mind. 

A fear of one thing:

Permanence. 

Or, rather, the lack thereof.

Memories will be all you have left of him, and, well—

That simply won't do. 

But the problem is this:

He doesn't know how to fix it. Doesn't know, really, how to stem this nauseating desire, this urge to own, possess, consume that roils through his chest each time he catches a glimpse of you unawares, tending to some mundane task. 

The idea of you floating through life without him is not a poison, but a fear. A whitehot agony that trickles down his spine. They're all thoughts that gut him, that make him agitated. Restless. He paces again, roaming from the foyer to the living room, feeling too much like a trapped animal. A snarling tiger in a zoo. He needs an out. An escape—

So he runs. 

And sometimes, you join him in the mornings before you have to go to work, setting out for a jog around the block in tandem. There's a quiet ambience to these outings, a comfort that makes him sigh—relieved, in parts, that the ache in his jaw, an unfamiliar urge to bite, abates in your presence. Your proximity is the balm to a hurt he didn't know he had. 

Most times, though, he's alone. Left with his thoughts and the taste of iron in his throat as he paces the streets of Birmingham with a lour twist to his lips and a tightness in his shoulders he tries to shake out by running his body to the ground. Replacing the ache in his stomach with one in his thighs, his hamstrings. His lungs. Breathes in the humid air of a midsummer morning until they feel like they might burst. 

It works. Marginally. Helps in the same way he's sure chamomile tea before bed does for an insomniac. But it's something. Something to suckle on until the quiver in his guts, the gnawing chasm in his belly, abates. Surrendering—albeit, mutinously—as the heavy taste of iron floods the back of his throat, and lactic acid leaves him groaning in the morning when he swings his sore, overworked muscles over the ledge of the bed. 

Kyle's in perfect health. Peak physical condition. The burn in his thighs, the tremble in his knees, is a sign of pushing himself too hard. Of edging to the very brink. 

But he can't stop. 

Not when his body hums like a livewire. Vitriol coursing through his veins, seeping into his tissue. Infecting him from within until he's irascible. Always on the edge. Always tense. Agitated. 

Everything feels like it's plunged underwater. As if he's staring down into the pool of an emerald lake, watching from above on dry land as the world goes on. 

(A place, now, where he doesn't belong.)

He knows all too well that this is just a duct tape solution to a bigger, more devastating problem, but opening the floodgates without a sluice will drown him under the crushing weight of what rushes out. 

It just makes sense, then, to bury it. 

The problem is: 

The tinderbox where these awful thoughts, this anger, went to moulder has been crushed, broken to pieces when he fell back to earth. 

He has nowhere to put them anymore. 

So he keeps them between his teeth, but being so close to you makes him want to bite—

(Bad dog. 

Let it go, drop it. Let it—)

Something has to give.

He calls Price. 

Hovers in the doorway between the kitchen and the hallway leading to the living room, and tries to pretend that this isn't a cry for help. 

Price picks up after the third ring, gruff and irritable. His surly tone balmed by the heavy inhale of his cigar. 

He calls Price. 

Hovers in the doorway between the kitchen and the hallway leading to the living room, and tries to pretend that this isn't a cry for help. 

Price picks up after the third ring, gruff and irritable. His surly tone was balmed by the heavy inhale of his cigar. 

“Better be important, Garrick. It's the weekend.”

“Crime doesn't work nine to five, captain. Thought you knew that better than anyone. Must be getting soft.”

“Soft,” he repeats with a derisive snort. In the background, he hears peals of laughter, the distant echo of, only thing soft about you is your midsection, honey. A grunt. A thwap. A squeal. 

This must be his wife, Kyle realises. The one he never speaks about directly, but can't stop bringing up in his own way. Home, he calls her. I’m going home. I'll be home for the weekend, don't bother me. Home is missing me, I reckon. Better pack it in, then, boys. 

They learned this only a few short weeks into knowing Price. Home, to him, is a person. Her. His wife. The echo, the silhouette; the one who lives in the brim of his hat, the end of his cigar. The scabs on his knuckles. 

The one he left at the door when had to beat a man, a father, for information. Picked up with bruised, shaking hands as soon as he was finished. Kept tight in his breast pocket. 

This little glimpse into his captain's life, heard through the tinny phone, makes Kyle swallow down his jealousy. The nausea. It's all so—

Sweet. Domestic. 

“Get outta here, this is a business call—” comes the brusque rasp, pulled away from the phone, and Kyle heaves out a breath. The voice comes back, gruffer than before. All tenderness shelved back in that box labelled only for her. “This better not be a business call, Garrick.”

“Been thinking about what you said,” he murmurs, and lets his head fall against the wood frame with a thud that rattles through his teeth. “About—lines, you know. And where to draw them.”

“Ah,” Price grouses, huffing. “So this is a work call, then.”

“Dunno, honestly, cap. Just—I don't know. I don't—”

“You bothered me on a Sunday, Garrick. Better know quickly—”

“How do you do it? Going out each time when you—with your—”

“Mm,” he steamrolls over Kyle's floundering question, humming deep in his chest. “I was wondering when this might come up.”

“Were you? Was that before or after the second helicopter crash?”

“Before, smartass—”

“Right. And? Any sage wisdom to impart on me, sir?”

He sucks in a breath. “What's botherin’ you, Gaz?”

Kyle blinks, caught off guard by the suddenness of the question. In retrospect, he supposes he should have expected it. Price is nothing if not brusque. 

“My girl,” he murmurs, quiet. Soft. As if it was meant to be a secret. “I just. I don't want to leave—leave her alone,” he thinks of David and has to fight back the dizzying anger that burns through his veins. “I know what this job entails, and I can do it, but—”

“So don't.” 

“Don't what? Don't die? That's a little unhelpful considering what we do, cap—”

“No. Don't leave her alone, Gaz. That's really all you can do.”

The thing is, he's sure Price means something sentimental, something metaphorical, like memories. Pictures, videos. Time spent together. 

But Kyle has never been much for abstracts in the past. Prefers, instead, the concretes. The tangible. The corporeal. Things he can touch. Feel. 

“My wife is expectin’. Has me running around the goddamn city for banh mi so unless there's anything else to add, sergeant—”

Expecting. He knew, of course. Despite Price saying very little at all about his wife, the silence has always been loud. Black and white ultrasound photos, phone calls. Dates scribbled down on the Staples calendar he has spread out on his desk in the office. He misses almost all of them—too busy running drills with new recruits, or on the field (or yelling—you did what, you fuckin’ Muppet?!—at Soap through the phone following his recovery leave somewhere that's need to know, according to Ghost)—but every time, Kyle catches him sneaking away, phone trapped in the crook of his shoulder and ear, muttering low, gravelly, into the receiver. 

Yeah, how'd it go? Everything good? Good. That's—

The silence, Kyle finds, is telling. 

His own, too, because this revelation seems to have knocked the air from his lungs. He can't—

Can't speak. Not yet. Not now. 

Expecting. It's—

A thought. Not particularly something he'd ever really considered much himself. He comes from a large, overbearing family. Functions, dinners. Holidays. All spent crammed into his grandma’s house in Pelham. The unequivocal centrefold. The matriarch of the family. 

Caught in the indivisible lines of oldest (between just his parents) and middle child (when including his two half-brothers on his father's side, and a half-sister on his mother's), he's no stranger to a big family. Something he's always wanted for himself, too. A little inkling in the back of his head that rears, purring in contentment whenever they all get together for Sunday dinners at Grandma's house and he's full of good food, lazing on the couch as his family bickers amongst each other over a game of monopoly (his older brother is always the banker, and always, always, cheats with his two younger sisters—twins, go figure). 

And his older sister, too, is expecting. Had poked your stomach three weeks ago, teasing, and when can we expect one from Gazzy?

He didn't think about it much—snapped at her for using his military callsign, kissed your temple as you sputtered at her cackling laughter, and then ducked into the kitchen to help his dad cut into the pie the twins, Lolly and Lucy, had made. 

(Made, though, as in popping into Tesco and making the decision to buy it.)

And now—

“No, uh…” He swallows. Swallows again. He tastes blood in the back of his throat. Realises, when his hands start to shake and his heart slams into the brackets of his ribs, that it's adrenaline. Excitement. 

“Sure,” he rasps out, words slick, tacky with his blood. “I'll, uh, give her just that, cap. And—enjoy your sandwiches.” 

“Oh,” he breathes out suddenly, sharp. Deep. “I will. Goodnight, Kyle.”

“Yeah, yeah. ‘Night, sir.”

He says, with all the casualness he can muster, “remember Price? John Price? Yeah, his, uh, his wife is expecting.” 

“Oh,” it rings like a gunshot. Your chopstick clangs against the tin of spicy mapo tofu. “That's—wow. A baby, huh? A whole—”

You swallow. Kids are not something either of you gave much thought to. Couldn't with his odd hours, gaping absences, and your school schedule. Nothing ever fit together back then; jagged edges of a puzzle. Lock and key forced to fit. 

But now. 

Now—

He folds a smile into the crease of his napkin. “Yeah. Price as a dad, huh? Reckon he'd be good at it.”

It makes you snort. “You think so?” 

“He's, uh, complicated. But—a good man.” Somewhat. Maybe. “Kids, though.” He lets the wistfulness in his tone carry the burden for him, content to simply exist in this moment with you. Let it saturate the air, perfumed in his longing. 

You breathe it in. This heavy, noxious miasma. 

“Must be great,” he adds, reaching for another piece of siumai. “Bein’ a dad an’ all. Lucky man.” 

Over a steaming plate of mapo tofu, he watches as your expression falls inward. Contemplative. 

You know him enough to understand that he's talking about it because it means something to him. That there's a hidden want tucked neatly inside the words he says, whispered echoes of the ones he doesn't. Won't. 

And he knows you well enough to know that you'll be ruminating on this tenfold. Replaying the conversation in your head like an old rerun. Over and over again. Needling away at the cadence, the words, until you find something worth digging into further.

(The conclusion, of course, has been laid out from the beginning. 

He just wishes he had the wherewithal to see it much earlier through the smoke.)

He licks his finger, and hums around the meaty oil smeared over his tongue. 

All pawns on a chessboard. In the gap, he inches his bishop forward. 

Slow. Steady. 

But you cut him off with your knight. 

“Kids are a big commitment,” you're mumbling in between bites of bittermelon drizzled with honey. “And considering the nature of your job—” the slipup forfeits your pawn. You pretend not to notice. “h–his. Uh, his job. I just—”

There's a piece of pale green rind between your teeth. It slips down your tooth when you speak, dropping down to your lip like a flake of fallen snow. 

You swallow. Lick your lips. The slide of your tongue drags away the fruit. Like it wasn't even there to begin with. 

When you speak, it's softer. Barely a whisper. He wishes you'd yell instead. Scream. It doesn't tremble past a few, gentle decibels. 

“—is that really for the best?”

(is it feasible for us?)

Kyle sucks in a breath between his teeth. He knows he has to tread carefully here. The ground beneath his feet was as fragile as eggshells. One misstep—

“Does it matter?” He volleys, paper-thin. “If it's something we—” he comes to a stop, a sudden halt. 

Manufacturing a Freudian slip is easier said than done but somehow he does it with ease. Bashful, then. Sheepish. Like he accidentally flashed you his hand. Revealed his secrets. He ducks his head—the vision of embarrassment, now—but it's multifaceted. The move serves to leave the impression of fractured vulnerability. Bares his soul, and all his broken, naked wants with it. But it also gives you a horrific glimpse at the ugly, marbled bruise still popcorned along his cheekbones, his jaw. The tear in his ear, scarred over into a black valley bracketed by red canyons. 

Raw, splintered, he adds: “if it's something they want, why does the rest matter?”

The silence that follows is long. Oppressive. It comes about with a swiftness he doesn't anticipate, and spends a considerable amount of time debating whether or not leaving it is the right choice. It's unlike him to be so uncertain. So hesitant. 

But this, he reasons, is different than getting a pretty girls number under dubious circumstances, or finessing your landlord into not renewing your lease. This is bigger than the games he played in the past. More is at stake here. 

So, he holds. 

Watches, quietly, as you fold under the pressure. “It's just—it's a big commitment, right?” 

He latches onto your uncertainty with his teeth. 

“If you're serious about it—like they are about each other—then what's the problem? I think they'll be fine,” he shrugs, blase. Indifferent. Winces when it pricks against the scab on his collarbone. “‘sides, it ain't like Price is gettin’ any younger. Man's been itchin’ for a family of his own for a long time. Might be the best time, too, considering the man's luck with—uh—”

He coughs into the top of his curled fist when you flinch at his callous implication. 

“—just… he's reckless, is all. Might mellow him out. Keep his head on straight if he knows what he has to come home to, and what he'd be leaving behind if he didn't.” Another shrug. “Could be a good thing for him in the long run.”

You take flight as soon as it steals away his piece. Fleeting. Retreating. 

You should know better than that. 

Kyle always chases the things that run—

It leads him to a pub downtown. 

David—fucking David—sits on the stool beside you, sipping on a flat draft, and laughing at something you're saying. 

It's innocuous, really. Nothing untoward. No immediate reason for his hackles to raise, hair standing on end like he's under threat. 

But he feels it in his bones. Gnarled fingers grazed over his flesh. A warning. Sirens wail in the back of his head, and his stomach drops like he's back in the airplane, the helicopter, all over again. Plummeting to earth. G-force flattening him against whining metal—

He's too close, is the problem. 

Curled over you like he's trying to keep you a secret from the rest of the world. Something Kyle knows well—intimately—because he does it, too. Tucks you into his side, barely letting anyone get a glimpse of you. To see you. They can imagine, sure. And sometimes he likes to pull back a little just to let a peak of you be seen only to swallow you back up under his bulk. A taunt, a tease. Waggishly waving his finger at the naughty person who dared look at his sun, his Apollo, without permission. 

To see it like this, from the outside looking in—a mere spectator when he's been teaching his hand up toward you for what feels like his entire life—is infuriating. It's voyeuristic, he finds, catching a glimpse of you from the triangular window of the man's arm—elbow on the table, cheek perched on his knuckles. All Kyle can do is squint into this little opening, catching the aftertaste of your smile. 

And the problem is, he's entirely too aware of every overprotective boyfriend clichè that exists. Knows, very well, when it stops being cute and becomes an issue. Borderline abusive. Gross. Restraining order worthy. 

You're allowed to smile at men who aren't him. To drink with them in fancy restaurants wearing a dress that he picked out. It's fine. He doesn't care. You do it often, honestly. There's something about you that draws people in. Like looking up at the warm sun after a long, dark winter. It's unavoidable. Expected, even. 

But—

Fucking David seems to be the exception to his patience. To his goodwill. 

Maybe it's the way he pushes your glass toward you, muttering drink up under his breath. Or the way he leans in when you move back. Following you despite the obvious signs not to. Pursuing you—

Even though he knows, very well, that you have a boyfriend. 

It's the arrogance, he thinks. 

(Or one predator sniffing out the stench of another; lions prowling around the same lioness—)

He doesn't realise he's sneering until you catch his gaze from between David's arm. Feels it then, when he has to let his muscles lax into a smile. Easy, effortless. Just like the one you give him in turn. 

Soft, tender around the edges. Melting into happiness within seconds. A rare treat you give no one but him—

A fact that makes David jerk in his seat slightly. Maybe elated by this new look, the simmering heat in your eyes is warm enough to make someone sweat.

Whatever happiness he feels is dashed, though, when he realises your eyes are focused over his shoulder, away from him. Quietly, David turns in his seat, craning his neck over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of what caught your attention so much, and—

It's real sweet, he finds, the way the haughty look on David's face falls, breaking on impact, the moment he locks eyes with Kyle. Shifting into shock, into unease. Flinching almost instinctively, driven to run out of fear. 

Like he knows. 

And Kyle grins. Gives that boyish smile you tell him, repeatedly, that you fell in love with—soft edges, dimples; lips stretched wide over his fangled canines—and watches the satisfaction drip down David's brow as you extricate yourself from his shadow, and are pulled, magnetic, to Kyle’s side. 

Where you belong. 

But more than that, where you choose to be. 

The weather outside is notably warmer this time of year than it should be, and it sticks, syrupy and warm, to his skin as he sips from his third bottle of San Miguel and picks at the leftovers of your shrimp scampi. 

Across from him, David nurses on a ginger and rye, and murmurs to you about something—a show, he thinks—that he isn't privy to. 

It's been like this for the last two hours they've sat out on the patio. Not quite an exclusion, not really. You do your best to keep him within this little cosm David is trying so hard to build, interrupting him quietly when he goes on long-winded tangents about something that Kyle isn't aware of, and filling in the blanks. 

(it's a reality TV show. we watched something similar, you remember? just like First Dates—)

But he's an outlier here. Gone too much to invest in a show with you like David is, a new addition to your usual friend group. It's never been something he's cared about before. Why stop you from enjoying a show when he's carted away to Mexico or Chicago on another mission, the end date undetermined. Until it's fuckin’ finished, Price used to gripe when he asked. Until we end it. 

It can't be helped. But his hands tighten around the bottle, warmed under his palm. Condescension bleeding in rivulets down the neck, drenching his skin. He's angry. Suddenly, viciously. Filled with a sense of irritation that drums up from deep within his chest as David plucks little inside jokes out of nothing, making you laugh, and laugh, and then turn to whisper in his ear about what they mean. 

It isn't your fault. It's a catalyst to dating a man halfway out the door on most days, but it itches. Prickles under his skin. Selfishly wanting you all to himself, to fawn over him, and laugh at these little jokes he makes, leaving David on the fringes instead. 

Childish. Or—

He'd think so if David didn't shift his gaze toward him each time it happened, lips quirking in a small, satisfied grin. Cats, he thinks. Little yellow canaries. Tries to pull some sense of normalcy from the frothing geysers that roil in his belly, anger sloshing over the basin, drenching everything in a molten ire. Anger. Blisteringly hot. 

It scalds him. Scorches his insides as David laughs, again, at a movie Kyle was too busy in Macedonia to see. 

When you explain that to David, he cuts a sudden grin at him. “Gone a lot, aren't you?” 

And a tension thickens in the air. Drapes around his shoulders, his brow. 

“Work, yeah,” it comes out as two, rough grunts. A warning. Stay back. 

But David curls his fingers over the rusting wrought iron, peering inside. “Work, hmm? Heard you were military—” his eyes flicker to you briefly, like this is something that might get you in trouble for divulging to a stranger, but they're back on Kyle before he can say anything about it. Something like, don't fucking look at her—

“David,” is what you say, low and soft, and tinged with exasperation like this is an old conversation that keeps popping up, an uninvited guest you can't seem to shake. 

The warning is ignored again. Coming from him, he almost understands. Could respect his contumaciousness, even, but you? It makes his hackles raise. A flare of anger pooling in the grizzle, the filament, that holds his knuckles together. 

He keeps himself composed. Somehow. Tempers down that urge to bite, to break things, even as David leans back, shrugging. 

“Military,” he says again, but this time his lip curls. “Can't imagine you're very well-liked anymore. Considering the state of the world and all.”

His fingers tighten against the bottle. “Yeah,” he bites, grins. Knows it's feral. Ugly. Lip curling over a single canine. “Can't really say I'm in it too much for how well-liked I am.” 

“Oh no? Not in it for the glory. The prestige. What do Americans like to say? Thank you for your service—”

“—David!” Your voice comes out sharp. A reprimand. Brows knotting tight together. “That's not—”

“What I do won't end up on the news,” he interjects, and brings his other hand down over your thigh. The sight makes David sniff, glancing away. Anger writ on his brow. Jealousy mouldering in his eyes. Kyle tries not to laugh. “And if it does, it's usually after the bad guy is in the ground, and you find out about it sitting at a desk, twiddling your thumbs all day.” 

The table falls silent. 

He brings the beer to his lips, taking a generous gulp. Something dark curls in his guts even as David's satisfied smile dwindles. 

He sends you home first, watching David move towards the washroom from the corner of his eye. 

“You'll be back tonight?” 

“Mmhm. Just gonna go for a quick run. Gotta stop and pick up some razors, too.” His hand comes up, fingers scratching at the stubble growing along his jaw. “Gettin’ a shadow.” 

“A run, huh?” You don't believe him, but he knows you. Knows you won't fight him too much on it—especially when you think David already left. “And I dunno. A beard might look good on you.”

“Might,” he scoffs before leaning down, pressing a quick kiss to your cupid's bow. “Might not, too.” 

“Think you'd look good in anything. Moustache. Beard. Bald. I'm not picky.”

“No, ‘course no,” he teases and holds the door open as you climb inside. “My unpicky girl.” 

“That's not a word.” 

“Sure it is. Word of the week for Oxford, wasn't it?” 

Your words are swallowed up when the taxi driver asks if you're ready to go. You give him a nod, and Kyle a smile. He watches, lingering by the curb until you're out of sight. 

And then his smile drops. His hands curl into fists. He cranes his head over his shoulder, eyes riveted to the washroom door. 

There's a choice here, he thinks. Get the shaving cream, the razor. Be the man you think he is. The one who runs after a heaping serving of tiramisu and the leftovers of your shrimp you couldn't finish. Maybe watch that show on Netflix that David was so keen on one-upping him on. Your head in his lap. Soft smiles, taunts. Continue this playful banter you started through until his face is buried in your cunt—victor’s choice, naturally; and you always win—and you end the night whimpering his name, not David's. 

That, in itself, is a victory. A win. 

But—

He grabs the ball cap from the rack near the door. It's cream-coloured. Team merchandise for ManU. A little red devil stands in the middle holding a pitchfork. Black, western lettering says WE'RE NEVER GONNA STOP. He snorts at it. Macabre. Fitting. And slips it over his head, letting it hang low on his brow. 

And then he follows after David. 

David stands with his back to the door, hands curled around the porcelain sink as he stares in the mirror, chin titled under the harsh flood of the dull, fluorescent light. 

His eyes flicker up when the door opens, widening slightly when Kyle emerges, liquid, in the reflection. But through the surprise, there's a touch of smug recognition that sets Kyle's teeth on edge when it drills into him. A sense of arrogance that makes his fingers itch. Trigger ready. 

“Oh, don't worry, mate,” he's saying, a smile curling up the corner of his mouth like smoke. “We've just gotten—” he pretends to think, gaze darting up to the bulbs hanging over his head, smarmy and oil-slick. He must think himself leonine. Victorious.

Kyle wants to wear his bloodied teeth around his neck. 

“Close,” he offers, and anger coils inside his guts like tar. “You know, since you've been away, and all. Nothin’ to worry about, though. We're just friends, mate. Promise.”

At that word, his smile turns sharp. Mocking. 

“Oh, yeah,” he hears himself saying, words fine powder on his tongue. “Close, huh?” 

“Well, she's been a bit lonely, you know. Big change, moving to a new city, an’ all alone. Needed, ah, some company.”

It burns. Blisters. The way this man speaks about you rips through him, bubbling away at his self-control like acid. Alone. As if he doesn't know. Lonely. Like he wasn't minutely aware of how much your dynamic has shifted since college, since he was some beat cop patrolling the streets with too much rage in his veins and no outlet for it, to now—when he's calling you from a medical ward (confidential, no you can't come see him) to let you know he was in (yet another) helicopter crash. Had another brush with death that pitches his mortality in the forefront of his mind like an omen. An obstacle. One that cracked open this sense of want, of urgency, hunger from the abyssal depths of his soul. 

But this—

It reminds him of when he'd get into fights in high school. Needling the kids he knew would take him up on his offer, who would meet him in sketchy alleys near council housing where the police were less likely to patrol and the neighbours more willing to ignore it. When he'd mock them, twisting his words, his anger, into a brutal knife until they took a swing at him. 

His hand curls into a fist. Muscle memory. It quivers through his joints—this insatiable urge to tear into something he knows will bleed. Will make him bleed. He needs it like a confessional. Therapeutic. 

Because the thing is:

Kyle likes the fights. Like the way his knuckles burn, and his muscles ache. The bruises. The scraps. The contusions. The pain feels good. Cathartic. Rapturous.

And really—

He needs to get this awful, terrible demon out of him before the saliva that floods its maw at the sight of you, held back only by sheer willpower and reruns of golden girls on the couch you found by the side of the road, spills over between jagged teeth. Before the leash snaps. 

David looks terrified. Scared. He turns around quickly, unwilling to let Kyle have at his vulnerable spine a moment longer. His skin catches on the porcelain rim of the sink as he swings around, the rubbery squeal loud in the sudden hush that falls between them. David winces. Pulls his hand off. 

“Look, man—”

Kyle takes a step forward. Another. It's not fun when they shrink, when they shake, trembling as he nears. He likes the idiots who linger outside of crowded pubs on Friday night harassing patrons. They are drunken slobs calling out to the women they see. They fight back when Kyle corners them. Fists swinging, legs jerking out in a poorly timed kick. Slurred words full of vitriol. 

At first, anyway. 

And then the whine of their polyester tracksuits rubbing across ashlar cut through the alley, and the haze of alcohol saturated their senses. It's around then when they realise just how badly they fucked up. 

But David is different.

Posh—even though the notion of the word itself rankles down his back, trickling like slick, hot oil. Pooling in the brackets of his spine. 

“You did this,” he says, watching the paper shell of the man crumble. “Shouldn't have fucked with my girl.” 

“I didn't mean anything—”

“You did.” He pushes his knuckles into his palm, listening to the satisfying crack of his joints. “But that's what you do, isn't it? Messin’ with things that don't belong to you.” 

“She—”

“C’mon,” he grunts, keyed up. Aching for something to hit. “Gonna throw a proper punch at me or am I just gonna have to kick your head in?” 

“Maybe she wanted it.” It prickles over his name. “Wants me. Begged me for it. Gonna hit me even though your girl is the one messing with me?”

The sour vindication on his face sets Kyle's teeth on edge. No way in hell. He knows this is what David's type does—losing in brawn, but trying to skew the game by getting in his head, making him lose his composure. Getting under his skin. Because that, in itself, is a victory, isn't it?

Bruises will heal, but this, these accusations, the idea that you want David in some way, went after him to slake something Kyle couldn't is gutting. 

And he gets it. Understands why David is saying this, but it doesn't make it any easier to stomach. To listen to. 

David sees his fist shake. Pales slightly. “What?” He asks, all false bravado. Broken confidence. Kyle can sniff the blood in the water. The fear in the air. “You gonna hit me, or somethin’, mate?”

And Kyle—

Kyle jerks his head to the side, letting the knot in his neck pop. The sound, ominous and poignant, fills the bathroom, eclipsing the static buzz of the dying bulbs over their heads. 

“Nah, mate,” his tone flatlines. “I’m gonna let you swing first. And then I’m gonna bash your face in. S’only proper, yeah?”

He staggers backwards from the crumpled heap of the man—still breathing, he notes with a huff, files it away for later; one less mess Price will have to clean up—and works his jaw. It aches. He tastes blood. Spits a glob of foamy pink onto the floor by his feet. No missing teeth, but his lip is split. 

Ah, well. 

Kyle feels fine. Drunk, though. Sluggish. Keyed up. Dazed off that post-adrenaline high of sinking his mangled fists into someone; into flesh, sinew, and bones. But—

Intact. Whole. 

He likes the sting in his knuckles. The tackiness of blood congealing around his fingers, staining his skin. 

Outside of the tangible, physical sensation—

Kyle isn't sure what he feels. 

A part of him was hopeful that this would abate the anger in his veins, and stave off some of the agony of an unrelenting, insatiable hunger. But all he feels is numb. Indifferent. 

Hitting David doesn't bring him the catharsis he desperately seeks even though it should. If anything, it's made him more anxious. Restless. 

He leaves. Needs to—to walk, to run, to escape the crime scene before they find an unconscious civilian in the washroom stall. Flexes his fists, his jaw, as he goes, pacing through the bar, the crowd of people he cares so little for. The cloying scent of alcohol, perfume, stale sweat, cigarettes is a thick, putrid miasma in his nose. He heaves through it, and cuts one of Ananke’s young to ground himself until he hits the door with the brunt of his weight, nearly tripping over himself to get out. 

The air outside is humid this time of year. Damp with the rain that's been drizzling down since mid-morning. He breathes in the balminess of it. Wishes, for a moment, that he was somewhere else. Anywhere else. Just not here. Not with that man's blood on his hands. Not with his words hissing ugliness and vitriol in Kyle's head—

He trusts you, is the thing. Knows, without any uncertainty or doubt, that you'd never cheat on him. But—

The thought is there. Not of your infidelity, your betrayal, but of you. You with another man. Someone who is not him. A stranger. 

Lonely. Kyle wants to scoff. Wants to scream. He wishes he killed him. Sunk his teeth into his jugular, gorged himself on his blood. Lonely. 

As if he didn't fucking know that already. 

There's smoke in his lungs. Ash in his throat. 

He digs into his pocket, wraps his aching, stiff fingers around his phone, and tugs it out. The blood on his hands leaves sticky smears across his screen. The touchpad barely registers the tremulous prompts he keys in. 

Still. Still. 

Kyle manages. Finds the contact he's looking for and hits CALL. 

He's not even sure if the number is in service, and doesn't put too much hope on it. It really doesn't matter if it connects or not. He's just—

He needs something. Someone. 

A clear path. A straight head. 

“—this is Johnny. Leave a message aft’r th’ tone, ‘nd ‘ah’ll—”

“Johnny. Fuck, man. I—shit—” Johnny's supposed to be dead. Laswell made them all swear on it. Wear a spiffy suit to his funeral, and dance the choreographed routine in front of everyone of a team in grief. “I don't know why I'm callin’. Just—my girl, my—” doves. apollo. “I don't know. Kinda feels like lately my heads all a mess. I'm hangin’ thread here, and I just—”

need to be told what he's doing is wrong. terrible. 

“—could use a friend, I suppose. Ah, shit. I don't know why I bothered—”

He hangs up. Drops his head. 

He feels fragile. Like something is going to break. 

Feet balancing on a spindle, the vertiginous drop below an instantaneous death, and Kyle—

He catches the moonrise on his way home. Thinks he can see Jupiter lingering in a flickering white light behind it. 

In his pocket, his phone buzzes once. Thrice. 

can' call right now. shite reception. in some park in canada. nahanni, ye ever heard of it? found a little doe injured in the wood. am takin’ good care’a it. plannin on bringin her home soon. once price sends a plane to pick me up. will introduce her to ya. pretty thing. 

anyway. got yer message. see, if it were me. if that were mah doe. id never leave em alone. ahd make em stay. 

think ye know what ta do, Gaz. 

see ye soon.

—Kyle steps off the spindle. 

You usher him in with a wounded noise in the back of your throat when you catch sight of the bruise under his chin, equal parts worried and questioning. He makes a show of shrugging, indifferent, when you take off his jacket, hanging it on the rack for him, and follows you inside when you move back. 

“It doesn't look like nothing,” you whisper, so sweet he feels the sugary grain of your words rubbing against his teeth. 

“It's just—” he's not sure where it comes from. In for a penny, he supposes, and lets the words flood between you, twisting and sour. “Your…friend, he, uh, caught me when I was about to leave, and—”

The worry splashed across your brow is wiped clean, replaced with disbelief, with shock, and then—

“Oh, that prick!” Anger. The tang of it is electric against his skin. 

“Who the hell does he think he is?” Your indignation is blistering. He basks in it. 

“It's fine,” he murmurs, soft and low. Quietly reassuring. “I'm fine. You don't have to worry about me.”

“Well, I do, anyway.” You volley back, words tight in your throat. 

You're so pretty like this. Illuminated softly in the cool, hazy glow of the television. It's a picture he wants to fold up, put it in his breast pocket for safekeeping, where it will stay warmed by the steady thud of his still-beating heart. 

Want pulses thickly in his sternum. The urge, the need, is there, simmering quietly in his periphery. Slowly taking up more and more space as it grows, too big for him to hold back. 

And so, he says, “I thought about this, you know. When I—” he stops, adds a small huff. A shallow shake of his head. “Nevermind.” 

If this were a movie, it would be a tender, heartbreaking beat. A moment filled with tension and a palpable, heady fear. 

You might say to him, please don't ever do that again, or even, please don't go; but he knows you just as much as he knows himself, and so it doesn't surprise him much at all when instead you swallow all of it down, letting it slowly metastasise inside of you, offering a small smile in response instead. 

A quiet, “yeah,” following along behind the brunt of your shielded misery. Buried for his benefit, because as much as these near misses might keep you up at night, you'll never tell him not to go. 

He adds, “been thinking a lot about what I'd miss out on, too, but—”

Kyle doesn't finish. Doesn't think he needs to. Not when he sees the gears turning in the back of your pretty, tear-filled eyes. 

Against the armrest of the couch you'd bought at an old antique store, his hand closes into a fist. 

Close, he thinks. But not close enough. 

It'd be easier to just flush your pills down the toilet. Poke holes in the condoms you keep in the drawer—just in case. Sabotage you through sugar pills; perfect replicas of the ones you clumsily take each morning, only ever half aware of what you were doing as you lean sleepily against the sink and listen to some podcast you've recently gotten into. 

So easy that he buys them without a second thought from some sketchy guy in the back alley of a Tesco Express. Pockets the package, and brings it home to you. Slips them inside the half-empty bottle where they fall to the bottom with a sharp clank. Clank, clank, clank—

The orange-tinted bottle sits on the countertop. Innocuous. Mocking. Everything he wants—you, you, you: forever, permanently—right there in front of him. Within reach. The smooth plastic surface is still warm to the touch from his aching hand—Ananke’s mangled brode on his palm has been itching furiously lately; he thinks he has an infection running jagged down his lifeline, the sink pickled and oozing pale yellow—and he holds it tight. Tighter still. Until the tumid scab on his hand cracks, pops open. Leaks blood and foul rot onto the container. Smears it soft pink with infection. 

Kyle knows right from wrong. 

His mum is a pillar of the community. A stalwart wall of firm, unyielding faith: the kind that brokers no arguments—do unto others as you would like done unto yourself, Kyle—and offers no retribution. Forgiveness stacks as high as karma. As goodness. As fairness. She wakes up every Sunday morning and goes to church. Spends all afternoon cooking meals for the homeless, the sick, and drags his father along with her as she drops them off at shelters, each with a handwritten passage about love and humility. 

He's not particularly religious, but she's never held it against him. Never forces belief when there is none. Content to let him grow into the man he wants to be. 

Though—while he shirked her belief, he stole away with her vicious sense of morality. Of justice. Right and wrong. 

Simply put: he knows better. Was raised better. 

And yet—

Somewhere down the line, his idea of good and bad evolved. Shifted. Cracked. He feels the remnants of it thrum in his veins; this foreign thing—this abrasive entity. It surges. Spumes; seeps in his bones. His marrow. Rewrites his foundation, his sense of self, until it's marbled with streaks of murk. Gangrenous. 

Good and bad. 

(the and an entire island of its own.)

He wonders if it started with Price—draw the line wherever you see fit—or if it was waiting, a hibernating beast, for someone like him to come along. A pantomime of a paradigm. Mockery of justice. Absolution in shades of self-interest. 

Either way, it doesn't matter much. Not anymore. Not when the cage, the iron shackles, housing that monstrous thing split open on the pavement outside of Giza, freeing this starving, angry animal. 

And really—

—he’d rather it quenched itself on you than anyone else.

Kyle places the bottle neatly back in the drawer. Slides it shut. It looks the same way it did when he arrived—pristine, innocuous, untouched. No one would know that he tampered with the seal, spilt the pills into the porcelain basin of the sink, ran hot water over them until they dissolved into sugary-white clumps, and washed them down the drain. Gone. Dissipated into a barely noticeable residue he scoops up with the tip of his index finger, bringing the specks closer to his face. It gleams in hazy sunlight dancing through the open curtain. 

Kyle brings it to his mouth. Licks it off. 

It tastes sweet. 

Ananke screams in agony when he grips a fistful of your hair, pushing your head down the length of his hardened cock, all the way down, down—

You sputter around the thick of him, eyes watering. Dripping rivers down to your hollowed cheeks. It pools there. A deep basin. A lagoon. He wants to drink it up—salt water cures everything, after all. 

The noises you make—quiet gags, wet chokes—have liquid pleasure trickling down his spine. An endless cacophony fills the bedroom. A soundscape he could get lost in forever—

“Yeah,” he rasps when your fingers dig moons into his thighs. “Such a good girl for me, aren't you?” 

The whimper that tumbles out vibrates through his cock, and he grunts with it, a deep groan that you answer by squeezing your thighs together, lashes fluttering. You like the noises he makes. The moans, the guttural grunts. The choked snarls. 

His good girl. 

“Takin’ me so well,” he's slurring his words, hips pushing with more insistence now. Desperate to spill down your throat. To watch you swallow him. “You always do, though. Don't you? Take whatever I give you, yeah? Gonna take it all now? All of it, yeah, pretty girl?”

He rambling. Words spilling out, breaking against his teeth. Ananke howls when he twists your hair, tugging you closer, closer, until the tip of your nose touches the thick bed of wry curls at the base, swallowed whole. You're crying now—choking. He grunts. It's liquid. Whitehot.

Your mouth is molten around him. He chases it, cock head nudging the back of your throat, bruising it. Ruining it. He wants to paint you in his cum; drench you in it. Mark, mar, your skin until all of the nobodies, the David’s, can smell him on you. Know, without any uncertainty, that you belong to Kyle—

His hips stutter—

“oh, fuck, oh fuck, fuck—”

—and he knows he's being too rough with you. Too demanding. Forceful. Taking his pleasure from your pliant flesh, cleaving pounds of you into his palm for him to keep. Scar tissue in the shape of his name—

His other hand drops, wraps around your throat, and—

Fuck. 

He can feel his cock through your skin. The bulge unmistakable through your neck, fattened with the thickness of him. 

This—and the hazy sight of you, angelic with your drenched face covered in spittle, pre-cum, and briny tears; eyes blown wide and preyish, full of desperate submission; and clumsy, needy way you hump against your fingers stuffed between your slick thighs, quivering under the unrepentant way he breaks you apart, takes you—pushes him over the edge. 

Equilibrium comes on a snarling grunt, wrenched out from the depths of his throat. So rasping, so gritty, guttural, that it hurts. Scrapes against his flesh until it's raw. Bruised. 

He feels the flex of your muscles as you swallow. The rasp of your tongue soothing the heavy pulse of the thick vein on the underside of his cock, greedy for every drop he has to give. 

It's perfect, he thinks. You're perfect. 

(and his. his, his his—)

He leaves later that evening. “Mission,” he offers, a wan grin pulling at the corners of his mouth. “Be back soon. Don't wait up.”

Worry chisels a ravine through your brow. “Is that—” you swallow. He hears the click in your throat. Tastes the anxiety rolling off of you; a sweet deluge. “I mean, you just got back. Are you—are you even cleared yet?”

“Ah, well. About that,” he scratches the back of his neck. Ananke shivers. “I have to do some recon. Nothing serious, but with—with, you know—”

Contrition tights his jaw. He sometimes forgets that officially Johnny MacTavish is dead. 

“Oh,” you try to murmur, but it comes out like a whimper. “Okay, well—”

You won't tell him not to go. It's not in you to weaponise your worry against his ambitions, his dreams. 

(It doesn't stop him from using this kindness against you.)

He times it well. 

Gone for thirty days in a wet, balmy jungle, snacking on nothing but bamboo shoots and moss. Ghost comes with him, shoulders set in a terse line—as usual—but there's a strange ease to his gait, a sudden liquidity to his hardened obsidian that catches Kyle's attention immediately. 

“Alright?” He asks, picking his teeth with a needle from a bush. “Seem in a good mood, Lieutenant. Not very typical for you, is it.” 

He lifts one massive shoulder in a lazy shrug. “S’nice weather.” 

It's humid. Hot. Steam billows up from the boiling first floor and congeals into a thick, dense cloud of heat. Kyle would hardly consider that to be nice weather. 

“Oh, yeah. The, uh, one hundred percent humidity is really good for the skin.”

Ghost, for his part, just shrugs again. Rumbles something about misbehaving pets, and obedience training, and seems content to let the conversation lapse into a comfortable silence. Kyle follows suit. 

It stays like that for most of the mission—save for the odd quips from Ghost, his humour a peculiar ester that sours, perchlorates, in the back of his throat. Team building, Price would probably say if he was here instead of back in Liverpool, looking at empty lots with his missus. 

(wants to build a fuckin' house so we have somethin’ to pass down to the kids—

He sounded angry about it, but Kyle found floor plans laid out across his desk, markings scratched into the margins as he argued with himself—and his wife—about sizing and layouts; the quips between thick, bolded letters (all uppercase) and boxy cursive filling him with a sense of envy so visceral, it made his stomach churn—)

It's almost boring compared to some of the things they'd done. Incident-free—something he knows Laswell and Price will enjoy; less paperwork. Or—

Almost, anyway. 

Kyle gets shot in the shoulder the last week of the mission—a surface wound, of course; but it leaves a mangled mess of scabs and torn, jagged tissue on his flesh. 

Ghost sees it. Eyes liquid black through the thick foliage, cutting a searing line to where Kyle sits, arm wrapped in gauze, casual despite the burning agony in his shoulder. 

“Coulda dodged,” he muses, head tilting to the side in what Kyle can describe as dogish. 

Kyle swallows. “Could’ve,” he agrees, and offers nothing else. 

“Looks like I’m not the only one training a new dog.” Ghost hums to himself, quietly amused by the puckered skin on Kyle's shoulder. “‘bout time you got a scar to match the big boys, Garrick.” 

“Big boys.” He snorts. “And where's Price’s?”

The man's eyes are liquid in the nightfall. Vantablack. He wonders what sort of dog a man like him has at home. What kind would stick around. 

Or if it's even a choice. 

“‘ave you seen his back? Old dog wrangled himself a little tiger.” 

An unknown number texts him later that evening. When he opens it, it's just a blurry picture of a figure bundled up in a tweed quilt, nothing but their shoulders and head visible, as they stare out the window. The room is lit in burnt umber. He catches the corner of what must be a wood stove—the only light source, perhaps. It baths them in a heavy swath of tenebrous on the opposite side of the stove. The other is highlighted in an ethereal, aged orange. 

When his eyes slowly adjust to the hazy sfumato, he makes out the distinct shape of a woman. Fingers tangled in the throw. Spilled oil, midnight gloam, against dark blue. What a picture they make. 

But why was it sent to him—?

His answer comes a moment later. 

think it's time ta come home. know anything about gettin’ a little doe thru customs? 

might know a thing or two about that, yeah. probs best to talk with Price. 

shite. he'll ‘ave mah ‘ead fer this one. 

In the quiet cabin of his airplane, Kyle places his phone on the empty seat, and grins. 

Your fingers thread through his, palm kissing Ananke with a gentleness that belies the fire in your eyes. The burning fever as you draw him in, drag him closer. 

There's an urgency in the way you reach for him. Touch him. Starved, almost. And he supposes it's only natural when the last time you've been intimate was a month ago—when he spread you out over the sheets and kept his face buried between your thighs for hours; uttering soft hymns, orisons, at the very apex of your altar—and so sparingly between. Too afraid to hurt him. Your worry is now a weapon used against you.

(“you crashed in an airplane, Kyle! there's no way nothing is wrong with you after that. something had to have broken, right?”

right. right. just the fragile walls holding himself together—)

His wince presses the blade taut to your neck. “Sorry, dovie. Hurts a bit—”

Digs it in. Draws blood. 

Your eyes drop to his shoulder, wide and wild. Feverish with your worry, your desperation. The wound is bandaged up in gauze—thick enough that it leaves a distinct shape under his shirt. Pokes out from beneath his collar. 

There's worry, of course. A bone-weary sort of sorrow that thickens around your eyes, pinches tight on the curve of your jaw. 

He wonders if you'll pull away again. Cushion the wound between you like a wall, and keep your distance until the unfounded belief that he's somehow too delicate to touch. 

“Sorry,” you murmur, and it's blistering. “I just—Kyle, I—”

You don't pull away. 

“I know, yeah? It's fine. I'm okay. Back in one piece this time.”

This time sours in the air. Putrid. Rotten. Your lip wobbles. Lashes puddle with pearling tears. 

He thinks you might cry. 

(hopes that you do.)

“I know,” is whispered, gritty and raw. “And how long until—until you have to leave again?”

Kyle huffs. “In the morning. ‘m’sorry, dovie,” he leans down, rests his forehead in the crook of your neck. “I tried to wiggle out of it, but we're short a man.”

“Is this even ethical? I mean—” your shoulders shake. He bites back a grin. Your worry so thick, so sweet, in his ear. “You just got shot, and they're sending you back out?”

“Technically, it's just recon—”

“This was just recon, too, and look what happened—”

“Love.” He silences your protests with a soft bark. The way you immediately quieten at his tone liquifies in the base of his spine. “I gotta. I have to go. This is what I signed up for, you know?”

“I know. I just—” your hand lifts to his head, gentle. Fingers stroking over the shaved hair on the nape of his neck. “I can't lose you. And lately, it's like everytime you leave, you get hurt. I can't help thinking, is this the last time I'll ever see him again? whenever you walk out the door. I hate it. I know that's your job, I know that. But, fuck, Kyle—”

“I know, love. I know.” He kisses the warm skin at the base of your neck. You shiver against him, nails biting slightly into his nape. “There's so much I still want to do. So much in life I want, especially with you, but—”

You don't let him finish. Your arms wrap around him, holding him gingerly to your quivering body. 

The way you cling to him feels like a victory in itself. 

Check—

There's an animalistic desperation in the way you drag him into the bedroom, eyes sparking in the dark. Smouldering embers. Clothes strewn somewhere in the hallway, forgotten. 

He worries his jaw to fight back a grin when you knock the condoms from his hand when he fishes them out of the drawer. 

“‘s’fine,” you slur, mouthing along his neck. Suckling intently at his skin. “‘m’on the pill. I'm—”

God. You're so sweet, aren't you? 

He buries his grin in your neck, biting down on soft skin until his canines catch. Split flesh. Blood wells, trapped under enamel. He tastes the iron as it pools up, thin and watery, and so distinctly you it makes him dizzy. Rust. Ore. A moan is dredged up from the back of his throat as he laves his tongue over the indents, the puncture wounds, he left behind. 

You shiver at the sounds he makes, small whimpers tumble past your lips—breathless; shallow and quick, matching tempo with your heartbeat. Tinged with the sting of his bite, the way he sucks around them, irritated flesh; sinks the tip of his tongue into each little split until he can't taste blood anymore. Just salt. Skin. You. 

This thing that lives inside of him is hungry. Starved. It growls low in his belly, a tightening heat that blooms with the blood he swallows down. Feeding it. Just a taste. A tease. Barely enough to sate the burn he feels flickering just behind his larynx, soldering through tissue, and tendon. Blackening bone. 

You say his name, low and sweet. Peppered out between soft lips. 

It's—

A lot. Not enough. 

Kyle pulls back, rocking on the balls of his feet just to reorient himself, and then leans down, catching your mouth in a frantic kiss that makes you shiver against him, gasping into it. His tongue delves in, and chases the sweetness of his name still lingering between your teeth. 

His hands glue to your skin, featherlight, as he slides his palm over your body. Feeling you. The heat. The goosebumps that break out at his touch. His other hand slips up your spine, curling over your nape. 

He doesn't say much else. With the taste of you tucked between his teeth, he finds he doesn't need much else. Just this. Just you. 

But you're tugging on him, pulling. Whining into the kiss. Peeling away with a gasp when he pushes you down onto the bed by your hips. 

You go down quietly in the dark, eyes wide in the pale blue moonlight; fixed on him as he follows after you—hunt, chase, consume—until he's balanced above you with his palms pressed into the mattress. Beneath him like this, you're a vision. A dream. His heart breaks free, soars. He feels the flutter of wings battering into the cradle of his ribs as he looks down at you.

He almost calls you Apollo. Sinks his teeth into his bottom lip instead. Can't trust himself like this. Not right now. 

So, he tries to grin, but it feels worn. Threadbare. “Fuck, you have no idea what you do to me.” 

“I have a pretty good idea,” you whisper, gaze dropping down to his hips where his cock juts out, hard. Weeping. Feebly tries to curve up to his stomach but the weight forces it down. 

Your legs spread, parting for him instantly. Hands reach, grabbing at his skin, pulling him closer. He goes with a groan, biting his lip when his cock brushes the soft skin of your slick, sticky inner thigh. Soaked, he finds. 

“All this for me?” He rumbles, fingers slipping on your skin when he drags his hand down, pushing your legs open further. Wide enough for him to fit. “Gonna give a guy a complex.”

“As if you need another one,” you volley, but it's breathless. Caught on the tail end of a whimper when his hips slot into yours, cock heavy and hard on your soft skin. 

“Sayin’ it's too big for you, then?” he teases on the jagged edge of a wide, sharp grin. 

The need that blooms in your eyes, the slight part of your kiss-bitten lips, pupils melting over the edges, a total eclipse, makes him want to sink inside of you. Carve a spot just for him over and over again. Make you take him, break apart on the thick split of his cock inside of you. And he only just manages to reign the urge to pry your folds apart, nudge his head into you. Barely holding himself together, fighting for every ounce of restraint he has because as he knows you'll let him—let him slide inside, fuck you into the mattress until you're sobbing—he can't. 

Too big, he thinks. Reaffirms. And it comes out as almost a pout. 

“Don't worry,” he huffs, bending down to nip along your jaw, fingers sliding over the slick, sticky skin of your inner thighs. “I’ll take care of you, yeah? Get you good and ready for my cock.” 

(and more, of course; a lifetime—

but the bite of Ananke’s young keeps him spilling these secrets onto the sheets.)

Kyle likes to think he has a keen sense of smell, and as he buries his face between your thighs, nose pressed tight against your clit, he imagines he can scent the chemical changes in your body. The natural musk of you, more potent now than ever, without the artificial blocks in the way. 

Taste, too—

He presses a kiss against your slit before letting his mouth part on a deep inhale, tongue rolling out, pressing between your folds. Parting them. The first touch makes your hips jerk, breath catching in your throat. 

You taste good. Earthy. 

It's been too long since he tasted your cunt. Feasted. He slips the flat arch of his tongue over you again in broad, heavy strokes from rim to the soft crease between your clit and mound. Drinking you in as the soft moans, the hiccupping gasps, cudgel his resolve. 

You babble his name as he presses your thighs flat to the mattress, head buried between them with a single-minded goal of making you fall to pieces with his tongue on you, lapping at your pussy. Tasting for himself the natural tang of you, his machinations seen through to the end. 

And you—obvious to it all—whine, eager for more of his touch, as he presses his nose into the soft skin of your navel, and breathes in again. 

He pulls you down on top of him after making you clench around him—tight, tied like a vice—three times with his mouth, tongue, his fingers kneading that soft spot just inside your cunt until your legs quivered around him. Until you gushed with your release, cumming on a choked scream. 

It made you all pliant and soft, putty in his hands that he can tug as much as he wants, however he wants. Shaping you over the tapered spread of his waist, cock nesting between your hot, sticky folds. Your hands on his chest, breath shallow. Please is whispered out of your bruised lips, sweet and lachrymal. He shivers and licks his lips. 

You have no idea what you're begging for. No idea what he plans on doing to you. And he thinks, maybe, he ought to feel some sense of shame for making you take what he gives you like this, making you ride him as he fucks you full. Traps you. 

There's a fire burning inside of him. Molten. He reaches down, grabbing his cock. You blink at him, tears clinging to your lashes, before you slowly, clumsily, lift yourself up for him with a soft, heated breath. Like you want it. These awful thoughts sutured between you like a fine, silk thread. He nearly unravels at the seams just thinking about it. 

Even playing pretend in his mind threatens to shatter his resolve,

—a golden fantasy filming over his gaze, dusted in starlight; the ethereal glow of ananke coruscating off of Jupiter's elves: you begging for him, pleading with him to sink as deep inside of you as he can get until no dog will be able to differentiate between your scent and his

break it into pieces. 

“Want it, don't you?” It comes out sun-scorched. Blistered. Raw. 

You whimper when the fat head of his cock catches on your sopping rim, stretching you open for him. He can't decide what he wants to look at more—the sight of himself disappearing into you, or the look on his face when he does—and his gaze swings wildly, a pendulum oscillating between both, greedy for all of it. Sears it into memory. Burns it behind his eyelids. 

Kyle reaches up, hands sliding across your body. Feeling the quiver in your flesh, your lungs pressing against your ribs, pushing it out. He wants to touch everything. All of you. Settles, instead, for sliding his palm up to your shaking breast, letting it fall into the cup of his hand. Pinching your hardened nipple between his middle and ring finger. Just. A tease. Barely any pressure. Rolling it between his second knuckles until you're arching into him, desperate for more. More friction, more pressure. 

He teases around your flesh until goosebumps prickle over the sensitive skin, bearing his teeth in a crooked grin when you whine, clumsily pawing at his chest and pushing your breasts into his hand. 

“Want somethin'?” 

Your response is a sharp huff. A half bitten whisper of his name. 

“No?” He taunts, shifting his hips under you. Feeling the way your cunt pulses, fluttering over his thick length. “Fine. Guess I'll—”

He goes to pull his hand away from your breast, lips curling into a taunting smirk, but a whine tumbles out. Your hips rock, pressing flat along his cock. The pressure, the pleasure, knocks the air from his lungs, and for a moment, he thinks they popped. Burst. He struggles to fill them when you shift above him, drenching his lower belly, groin, and inner thighs with the wetness that drips, molten, over him. It's good. Too good—

“Kyle,” you whisper, clit pressing taut to the weeping head of his cock. Trapped between your cunt and his stomach, the blunt pressure rockets through him, bringing him close to the edge. Dangerously close. “C’mon—”

He snorts derisively—the impromptu amalgamation of a choked laugh drenched in disbelief and sutured together with the delirium of pleasure rippling through his stomach scrapes over the soft tissue of his throat. Abrasive. Rough. 

The air that comes out of his nose, hacked up from the tatter of his lungs, hurts when he spits it out. 

“Fuck,” he rasps, rolling his hips into you. Desperate. Eager. It's airy. Loose. He clenches his jaw, grunts a rasping, ugly fuck from between the tight seam of his teeth. “Gonna make me cum, dove.”

It spurns you on. You babble above him—no, Kyle, no, don't cum, don't—but do nothing to stop the quick cants of your hips, fingers knotted into the matted hair on his chest. It's paper thin, barely a whisper when you breathe heavily through your nose and whimper, I want you to cum inside me—

And it's—

It's a thought. A dream. Nothing new to your voracious sex life, really; but the sweet-sour taste still lingers in the back of his teeth. The heady scent of you in his nose. 

A single pill placed in each slot—Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday—

His eyes roll. Hips stutter. 

There's a fever in his veins. An urgency. He groans his assent, hands falling to the expanse of your hips, holding tight as he stops the slow rolls you keep trying to make. He needs to be inside of you. Says as much when you pout at the loss of friction, watching understanding dawn over you. An eagerness that seems to keep pace with his own following quickly behind. 

“Yeah,” you say, and the word is obscene. Breathed out on a moan that makes his cock twitch. Then, yeah, yeah, Kyle, please—

He pulls you up, up, groaning when you slide your hand down his chest, pawing at his cock until it's gripped in your palm. The touch burning through him. Skin on skin. Fingers barely meeting around the thick of it. 

“Come on,” he rasps, swallowing down the words he can't say yet. Things like take me, all of me, every last drop—

He helps you lift higher. Keeps you steady as you line him up, the head pushing against your slick rim, catching when you sink down, thighs flexing. 

It's a slow drop as you adjust to the burn of taking him. Down, down—gasps, mewls, whines leaving your lips with each inch, devastating little ah, ah’s that spin around his head until he's dizzy. 

His name is a plea when you can't take anymore, when the thickness of him becomes too much. Eyes misting with unshed tears, bottom lip trapped between your teeth. The look you give him is so pitiful, he nearly whines—

“You can do it, baby.” 

It's a shuddered gasp, thin and reedy. He wants you to cry, to weep. To rain your fists down across his chest when the burn of him splitting you open becomes too much, nearly choking on how viciously you spit out his name. 

“C’mon,” he slurs, lifting his hips in shallow, lazy cants. Feeding you another half an inch. Another—

“Kyle, Kyle—” you gasp, and he knows. Should take pity on you for the sting, the burden of taking him so deeply, pretty pussy stretched tight around him. 

Should—

“Barely much left, dove—” he means to grunt, but it comes out on a growl. His knuckles ache. “You can do it for me, can't you? Take all of me. Been so long, dovie. Been so fuckin’ long—”

It's between missed this pretty pussy on my cock and need you, baby, need you so bad that you break. Trembling above him as another inch is forced into you. Keening when his hands tighten around your waist, fingers biting into your flesh, and he pulls, pulls, at the same time he thrusts up, cunt giving way, opening up for him so perfectly—

“That's it, dovie—”

The folds of your pussy swell around the fat base of his cock, pressed tight to the skin of his groin, and Kyle can't stop the rough moan that spills out, hips jerking at the raw sensation of having you wrapped around him. Silken walls. A slick, feverish heat. You pulse, flesh fluttering over the length of him, and it's somehow both euphoric and uttering damning—the pleasure so intense, it churns his stomach. Makes him nauseous with how badly he wants to stay inside of you like this forever until it's sacrosanct. 

You feel liquid around him. All heat and pulsing, flexing muscle. He ruts into it. Cants his hips up, up, little nudges that push the air from your lungs in short, choking gasps. 

He lets you take what you need from him first, hands steady on your hip. Palm moulding over your breast, pinching your nipple between his fingers. Leaning up to lave his tongue over the hardened peak you squirm on his lap, bouncing shallowly on his cock. Giving you everything, all of him, as you slowly bring yourself closer to the edge. Face pinched in bliss, eyes squeezing shut, rolling slightly as you work yourself over his cock, hips twitching. Flexing. Your pretty mouth drops open when you lean forward, hands bracing over the swell of his chest, finding the perfect angle for his cock to hit. 

His name is a whimper, a plea. A litany of sounds that blister through his chest. A white-hot knife buried in his groin because fucking you is always a sweet sort of agony, he finds; pleasure and pain effortlessly balancing on a razor blade. He breathes around the ache, feeling the threads of his control pull taut over the blade, snapping one by one—

It's a mindless drive for more of that electric pleasure, that blissful pain, when he plants the soles of his feet on the soft sheets, and bucks. His cock bludgeons through wet, hot heat, feeling the silken flutter of you clenching tight around him, and he can't stop the groan from jittering out between clenched teeth. 

He knows he won't last. Can feel it well up in his groin, hovering on the edge of a precipice. It's headier, more potent, than anything he'd ever felt. The elation, the urgency—it fills him up from the inside out, twisting in his veins, blotting along his hindbrain. Needing to cum, to fill you up—

Your nails dig into the smattering of hair on his chest, clinging to him as he squares his feet on the mattress, pistoning into you. Making you howl for him—deep, breathless moans rolling off your tongue, bitten out between his name, said like grace as it drips down your chin. 

There's nothing better than this, he thinks, arching his neck on the pillow, head thrown back as he thrusts up, meeting you in the middle. Working in tandem. Pleasure is hewn together, tethered until you can't hold yourself up anymore. Until the stretch him filling you up, sitting thick, fat, inside your abused, aching cunt is too much for you to take. 

The way you look above him—chin bowed, mouth open as a litany of moans spill out; brow furrowed, eyes listing shut in bliss—knocks the air from his lungs in a painful, agonising punch. You look ethereal, superlunary, as you babble above him, spine bowed in a pretty bow. Taking everything he has to give you—

His palms ache. Itch. Ananke grows restless as his thrusts become sloppy. Desperate. 

“Come for me,” he barks. Demands. Pleas. 

His hand squeezes tight before letting go, dropping down to your belly, over your mound. You’re slick, wet. His thumb softens over your clit, gentle strokes to bring you to the same summit he stands on, ready to jump. Hips jerking, thrusting into you from below. Fucking into you with steady, deep cants of his hips. Making you take him, all of him. 

Your cunt flutters around him, clenching tight. Pulsing little throbs that mirror the heavy brag of his heart slamming into his chest. Made for him, he thinks, eyes widening in feverish delirium as he tries to commit the way you look arched above him to memory. Burning it behind his eyelids. 

The pleasure on your face, the desperation, make him break. 

He lets go of your hips, slides his hand up your spine, feeling your warm, damp skin under his rough palm as he drags it to your nape. His fingers curl over the back of your neck, a gentle squeeze; a comforting weight—just enough to make melt in his arms, relax, before he pulls you down until you're chest to chest. He snakes his arm out from between your bellies, throwing it over your waist to anchor you down as he bucks up into you. Taking. Taking. 

The sounds made when he fucks into your like this, the squelch of your pussy, the slap of his balls on your ass, have his eyes rolling back into his head. Unbridled pleasure bloomed over his spine, spooling in his groin. 

He's right there. Right there—

“Oh, fuck, baby—” he gasps out, choking. “I'm gonna cum, I'm gonna—”

He feels his name purr from within your chest before you push back, squirming on his chest as you fuck yourself back onto his cock. Taking him deeper inside of you until he nudges your cervix and makes you whine—

He grasps to find that same thread of control he keeps wound tight around his wrist, an anchor line for him to cling to, but when he paws at the dark, he finds nothing there. Nothing but thick, syrupy pleasure. Bliss. He feels your slick run down the length of his cock, pooling in the tangled hair dusting over his sack. Drenching the sheets. 

His hand slides down your back, fingers stretching, reaching, grabbing a fistful of your asscheek in his hand. Squeezing it tight as he pulls you down over him again and again. It forces him deeper, until he's certain that there's no place inside of you that he hasn't touched. 

And it's this thought that unravels the knot. Becomes his undoing. His violent end. But it's you bending down, sweat-slick cheek pressing to his chest, murmuring:

Please. Please—

And then:

“Come on,” you moan, the words shuttered out of your chest with the force of his thrusts, head shaking. Rattling. “Cum inside me, Kyle—” 

It’s catching sunlight in the palm of his hands, feeling the skin burn, and blister. Apollo in his hands. 

“Fuck, gonna cum, love—” he grinds out on a moan, grinding his hips into you in choppy, desperate thrusts until the force it punches through his stomach, leaves him winded. 

You drop down on his lap, taking the full, thick length of his cock inside of you as he cums, vision blurring around the edges as he struggles to keep his eyes open, glued to the sight of you taking it all. Every drop—

Through the haze, he commits every blurred movement to memory: your quivering belly; your heaving breast, nipples pebbled and swollen from his mouth. The spread of your thighs over his hips, the way the coarse, thick hair on his groin flattens against your mound. Slick, wet from you. Milky, now, with the steady trickle of his cum leaking out even though he keeps you nice and plugged up. It makes him jerk beneath you, breath coming out in a heavy gust. 

his apollo—

His hands flatten along your collar bones, curling upward to shape around your neck. He feels each desperate breath, each swallow, against his searing palms. 

He wraps his hands around your neck, and it would be so easy to imagine a collar. 

And you lean into it. Your head drops back, eyes slipping closed as you bare more of your throat to him. He folds the tips of his fingers over each other, linking them on the nape of your neck, shivering when the sweet, peach-soft peal of his name slips past your lips—

Yeah, he thinks, fingers tightening on your skin once before he lets go. Drops them down to your belly. Curves over your waist. Holding tight. Tighter.

But not a collar wouldn't look nearly as pretty, wouldn't it? 

It's five in the morning when the text comes in. 

Sitting between an update from Price (this doctor's a fuckin' muppet—), one from Ghost (how's the shoulder), and something from his mother—a TikTok video he thumbs loosely at, sending a chain of laughing face emojis in response—is a foreign number. According to a quick Google search, the area code—867—is from Canada. The Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Nunavut, specifically. 

He opens it, glancing at the string of numbers on his phone, brows furrowing as he tries to make sense of it—

And then it clicks. 

Coordinates. Google says they're in Scotland. Remote. Knoydart. 

The grin splits across his lips, pulls tight at his cheeks. 

Welcome home, he writes. Any trouble with that doe of yours? Customs must've had a fit. 

A second later, a message appears. Adjustin nicely to the highlands. Nik did all the heavy liftin. Y’should come visit. See fer yerself. 

The bed shifts when you move, pulling yourself closer to him in the quiet dark of mid-dawn. Drawn to him even in the deep of sleep. He thinks of moths, flames, and curls his arm over your shoulders, pulling you closer. Presses a kiss to your crown, breathes you in. 

With the phone held in one hand, he swipes his thumb across the screen, typing out a quick reply. Taps SEND. Watches the notification flick from delivered to read before he drops it onto his lap, and lets his head fall back, the grin still tugging on his lips. 

Icarus couldn't get to Apollo with flimsy wings of borrowed feathers, and beeswax. The distance between Earth and the sun is too great to fly to. An uncrossable chasm. 

So, he brought Apollo to Earth instead. 

Just might. 

In the quiet bloom of a mid-morning dawn, you find him on the patio, gazing out at the streets below. Brows furrowed in a soft contemplation. It's not something you're used to seeing on his face—this sombre, solemn grey shading his features in a way that makes you feel almost as far away from him as Jupiter.

“What's wrong?” 

Kyle tilts his chin up toward you, mouth flattening as he shakes his head. Shrugs. 

“Nothin’.”

“Mmhm,” you tease, fingers threading over the hair behind his ears. His skin is warm. Sunkissed. You press your nails to his scalp, dragging them through the thick coils of his hair until you meet the soft dip at his temple. He leans into your touch, forehead resting on the soft bump of your belly. 

When he doesn't speak after a moment, you huff. Soft, coy. “Fine. Keep your secrets.” 

His nose rubs over the soft cashmere of your sweater. “Been thinkin’ is all.”

“About what?” 

He hums, breath warm on your skin. “Want to come to Scotland with me? Get away for the weekend?” 

“You think your mum and sisters are letting me go anywhere right now? Pretty sure I heard them plotting about wrapping me up in a mattress so I can't hurt myself or the baby—”

A snort bubbles up. “Mum likes you. Loves you. She's just overprotective. M’sure I can convince her.”

“You think so?” 

Kyle is quiet for a moment. A beat. Just long enough to mull over the probability of stealing you away from under his family's nose. Unlikely, of course. When the twins have your weekend booked up already—a movie marathon with nothing but pizza, snacks, and John Hughes. 

And NO Gazzy allowed!!!

“Nah, suppose not,” he huffs, placing his hands on your thighs. “If they're being too much, you can tell them to piss off—”

“They're fine,” you shrug. Overprotective, but—

It seems to run in the family. 

“I really don't mind.” 

He gives in with a shallow nod. “You gonna be okay if I go?”

“I think I'll manage on my own. It's—”

“Yeah.” 

Need to know, you remember the big, scary one saying when you met Kyle at the tarmac. His voice low over the whir of the engines in the distance, but robust. Brassy. The inflection is standoffish. Cold. But you saw how he turned back around when Kyle led you away, eerie gaze drilling into his injured shoulder for a moment before calling out to him that Bravo Seven-One was inbound. 

The difference between Kyle and the company he keeps always seems to jar you slightly. He's so normal in comparison. So human. Grounded in reality in a way that makes everyone else around him feel preternatural. 

“I’ll be fine,” you say at length, hand falling to the soft, barely noticeable bump he rests his head on. A happy accident. You wonder if it overwhelms him a little. Babies. Kids. None of it ever felt feasible before all of this. “Go have fun in the mountains.” 

It pulls another snort of him, and he turns his head, peppers a soft kiss to your navel, eyes flicking upward to stare at you. Dancing with mirth. A mordant sort of humour you can't begin to understand. 

Need to know, maybe. 

“Fun, huh?” It's muffled by your skin. “Think I'm bein’ led to my untimely death, actually.” 

“That so?” You hum, a smile curving over your lips. “At least make it look like an accident, yeah? We won't get the insurance payout otherwise.”

“No shit? Murder in the highlands isn't covered? What the hell am I paying nearly three hundred pounds for, then?” 

“Peace of mind.”

It makes him snort before he buries his face in your belly, scratching his nose on your cashmere in a small nuzzle. 

“Ain't much of a peace of mind, is it?”

“Better now,” you offer, fanning your fingers over the arch of his ear, soothing the tiny pout you can feel forming against your skin. 

“Yeah, well—”

His words taper off, lost to a kiss placed just above your belly button. It might be an apology. Sorry for almost dying—

Again. 

And as much as you hate that he has to, that he peppers kisses in place of it'll never happen again, or don't worry, I'm here now, you know what this is. You've known it from the beginning. Accepted it as is because with you or without you, Kyle was going to do what he does regardless. Begging him not to, to reconsider, is not a line of selfishness you're willing to cross—

Or, weren't, rather. 

Until this. Until now. 

This soft, barely noticeable curve seemed to overwrite the desire to let him fly as high as he wanted. To rearrange the stars until he fit amongst them; more dust than man. Selfish, maybe. Definitely. 

But the condition was less of an ultimatum and more of a plea. I don't want to be a single mum, Kyle. Perspective, you suppose, does that to people. Changes them. Shapes them into something different. 

You think maybe he felt the same way when he bowed his head over the table, staring down at the pregnancy test you laid down for him, and nodded. 

(“Yeah, yes. Uh, I'll—yeah. I'll—” he swallowed around the brine in his throat. Salt congealed over his airways until his voice was a rough scrape between his teeth, desiccated. “I'll talk to Price. No more helicopters—”)

There was more, of course. A hashing of everything. All of it spilt out over the table. He gave up as much as he could without sacrificing that insatiable desire to soar as high as he can, untethered to the earth. And you promised to anchor him down when need be. When he tries to fly too close to the sun.

A compromise. 

And—

“Bring some flowers for me,” you murmur at length, fingers grazing the shell of his ear. 

—an apology. 

He keeps his head bowed. “Supposed to be need to know.” 

“Call it a hunch, then.”

A snort. His shoulders shake. “Sure. Price’ll love that one. Intuition will sound good on the report.”

“Oh, no. Big, scary military men afraid of a little paperwork.”

“Oi—” His fingers dig into your sides. A playful pinch. You choke out a shallow laugh, raking your nails over his scalp in retaliation, but it just makes him shiver. Groan. 

Keep doin’ that and I'll give our neighbours a show—

“How long will you be gone for?”

His lips tug downward. “Just the weekend.”

“Don't have too much fun without me.” 

He slides his face over your belly until he's balanced on the tip of his chin. That sombre look is back again. Pensive. Quiet. He'll tell you the truth when he's ready, you're sure, and you brush your fingers over the divot in his brow, smoothing the wrinkle out. 

“We'll be fine.” You say, and he nods because he knows. You're safe here. But still—

He presses a kiss to your belly, staring up at you through the golden curve of his ashes. Sombre expression melting into something languid. Lax. Catlike, you think, huffing when his hands curl around the backs of your thighs, pads of fingers dipping into soft skin. 

Kyle catches it. Grins. Heat soaks into your flesh where his palms rest, nestled just below the curve of your ass. His intentions are clear, obvious, and you go willingly when he pulls you into his lap, thighs thrown over his. 

Your throne, he’d once joked in the early days of dating, when you were still discovering pieces of yourselves in each other’s naked flesh. A truism now because whenever he can manage it, Kyle seems to prefer you sitting on his lap, head tucked under his chin. Within reach. 

Always. 

His personal stress ball, perhaps. A weighted blanket. As you nuzzle close, his shoulders dip. The tension in his muscles bleeding out by the weight of you on him, the brush of your skin. You press in, leaching comfort from his sun-warmed flesh. Fingers trailing down the angled slope of his face until his jaw is held in the plinth of your palms. 

The ghost of a pout still lingers in the jut of his lower lip. You sweep your thumb over it, nail curving along the valley of his cupid’s bow to map the path you know better than your own sloping plains. A kiss to the ridge of his jaw chases away the saturnine shadows still falling across lush beds of gold; sun dusted colluvium. 

You taste salt on your tongue when you pepper a kiss just above the arched curve of his cheekbone, his lashes fluttering down, tickling your mouth when he blinks. 

It doesn’t get rid of all the Ttenebrae tucked tight inside the canyons of burnt umber, coruscating amber, but flecks of aurate gleam through the shade of eventide. A glimmering gem in a sea of moon white. 

The flickering embers of his unease melts with his huff. His thumb strokes along the curve of your ass, settling over your waist. Holding you close. You catch the way his eyes drop briefly down to your belly. The bloom of heat in his eyes. Liquid gold. Darkening as he stares, marbled with possessiveness. With the unfettered threads of satisfaction streaking through. 

The eyes of a big cat as he licks the blood from his jowls, his kill still cooling on his paws. 

“Better be.” 

“Overprotective already and they’re not even here yet,” you tease when he lifts his gaze. Honeyed with want; syrupy with desire. 

“Not just for them,” Kyle rasps, his hand sliding up your spine, cupping your nape in his palm. Dragging you closer to breathe his need over your lips. “You're both mine.”

“Kyle—”

“Say it.” 

“We’re yours,” you whisper, catching the stutter in his pulse when your hands slide down his jaw, cupping his neck. “Just yours—”

The rest of your words are devoured by his scorching mouth, eaten right from between your teeth. Kyle’s kisses have always edged into consumption, you think. Like he trying to eat you whole—nothing saved for later. No scrap spared. Wasted. 

It’s dizzying. Edges into too much, too intense. You can’t keep up with him no matter how hard you try. He’s always several paces ahead, drawing your tongue into his mouth. Letting the sharp edge of his canines graze your flesh, scraping the soft tissue. All you can do is cling to him. Hold on as he glues his mouth to yours and eats—

When he pulls away, giving you a moment to catch your breath, you think you hear him growl, never lettin’ either of you go—

But he drags you back into him a second later, mouth slipping over yours with an untempered hunger. The purr he lets out trembling over your tongue, shaking the thought right out of your head. 

Never, you’d say if he let you. If he gave you a moment to think. Peeled his tongue from between the seam of your teeth long enough to let you gasp the words out. 

He doesn’t. He won’t. 

He drags wet, sticky lips across your cheek, over your jaw, down your throat, before sinking his canines into the throb of your pulse beating under your skin instead. Steals the thoughts from your head as you gasp his name out, followed quickly by please and Kyle, more—

Kyle lifts his hand from your spine, fingers stretching out. Reaching. The sun glows between the spread of his fingers; scintillating like fine, golden mist over his fingers. Beautiful, he thinks when your breath hitches in a shallow gasp; held tight his arm, and—

(with it cradled in middle of his hand, he closes his fingers around the sun until it's swallowed up in his palm.)

—all his. 

[awkward-tension-art]

Clones as expectant fathers

I am an actual nero-cancer researcher. I have a job and a degree. And my ADHD brain saw sad military men and went “I want that one”

Clones: Rex, Wolffe, Fox, Cody and Fives

CW: pregnancy, the clones all have a ‘secret’ SO, They are expecting a baby, A little angsty with Fox, there's slight mentions of smut with Fives (if you squint), swearing, this is just supposed to be a good time, its not reader insert

Minors do not interact!

Rex

Terrified. Also overjoyed. But mostly terrified. 

He’s a soldier. Captain of the 501st, the most….adventurous of the GAR. His chances of dying on the battlefield and leaving his SO behind are higher than the average clone

And now he may leave behind his child? His kid may grow up without a father

He gets nervous. Anxious and antsy, and it's very VERY easy for Anakin to figure out Rex isn’t entire OK

Rex doesn’t even need to tell Anakin.

Skywalker takes one look at him and just KNOWS.

“Congrats, Rex.” “...on what, sir?” “If it's a boy, name him after me.” “WHAT!?”

Ahsoka needs to be told and she’s more excited than Rex when she finds out. 

“Come on Rex! Name them after me! The republic needs an Ahsoka jr!” “And if the baby is a boy?” “Don’t name them after skyguy, please!”

Most of the 501st don't know. Too many people knowing raises the chance of less accepting individuals knowing. And if that happens, Rex, his SO and his baby may be in danger.

It’s forbidden for the clones to have SO’s, not to mention babies. It could end with Rex being decommissioned or reconditioned if it was found out he had both

Rex will visit and help as much as he can every chance he gets. He feels terrible for leaving his SO for long stretches of time during the pregnancy. 

He WANTS to be there…he just can’t. Not while the war was going on

Despite his terror, Rex is…overjoyed

He didn’t think children were possible for him. He knew it could happen, but he didn’t think HE would ever know this happiness

The first time he feels his baby move in his SO, he’d get this sweetest smile on his face. He’ll kiss the baby bump and just murmur words of love in mando’a

He falls head-over-heels in love all over again

As the due date approaches, Anakin asks an important question

“Captain, I need to know when your baby might be born.” “...why, sir?” “Because I need to know when to take extended leave.”

Anakin tells Padme, and she is beyond sweet. Even visits Rex’s SO and the two have a wonderful friendship

All in all, Rex is both excited and anxious. But having so much support from Anakin, Ahsoka and Padme (and his other brothers who find out much later) helps him a lot

Wolffe

More relaxed. And by relaxed I mean he hides his anxiety better. And it doesn’t exactly hit him as hard

Partly because Plo Koon and the entire Wolfpack knows about his relationship already. 

So you bet your ass the pack celebrates when Wolffe tells them he's going to be a father

Plo Koon especially is excited

“How wonderful, new life being born during times of war” “I’m not naming my child after you, general Plo.” “Nonsense! The child will be a girl.”

During battle, Wolffe finds himself being protected by his brothers and General a tad more

At first he writes it off as a coincidence, but then Boost lets slip during a battle “You gotta get back to your little one!”

He gives his men a bit of a lecture. He’s not incapable of fighting or defending himself. He thinks the message gets across but Plo chimes in with, “Ah yes, the stern words of a father already!”

Wolffe would probably see his SO more frequently than Rex. Just because Plo would more than likely spend more time on Coruscant.

He’s definitely protective. As in, waking up in the middle of the night to check all the windows, protective. Keeping an arm around his SO, protective. Every symptom or sign of discomfort he calls a medical droid, protective.

He’s not stupid, he is well aware that by having an SO and a child on the way he's in violation of several rules. All of which, when broken, would have him decommissioned

But dammit, he's not letting that happen. Wolffe will be there for his SO and his baby, no matter what

Since he’s able to spend more time with his SO, he’s there to feel the first movements of his baby.

It sort of causes him to short-circuit for a second. It hits him that yes, this is a life that he and his SO both created. Out of love.

Wolffe makes a swear that he’s going to protect his baby at all costs

Grandpa Plo does as well, but the Wolfpack doesn’t know that

Fox (kinda angst)

First of all congratulations to the SO for actually managing to be Fox’s SO

They got to be something special for the head of Palpatine’s personal guard to break rules and regulations and find himself an SO

Speaking of Palpatine, congratulations to Fox! Your SO is now in even more danger!

No, seriously. Palpatine knows before Fox. No one knows how, but he knows.

And he absolutely will use Fox’s SO as leverage to keep him under control

And Fox knows this, so he behaves. More so than usual.

He’s not blind. Hes fiercely loyal to the republic, but one step out of line and the (very few) things he cares about will be killed

Which…is why Fox may come across as cold or uninterested when his SO informs him of their pregnancy

A part of him is terrified, he just won’t show it

He’s not going to be more affectionate or anything. He actually acts pretty normal. Which is standoffish.

Despite his…demeanor, he actually manages to be present for the entirety of the pregnancy. It helps being a Coruscant guard, which means he’s more present than all the other clones.

He’s not moving mountains or anything, but he’ll get snacks in the middle of the night in case of cravings

No one else knows about Fox and his SO. not even his own men. He refuses to tell anyone. 

Its for his SO’s protection

But Palpatine, the sick fuck, slips some words to get Fox’s nerves into overdrive

“This war is taking such a toll. So many dead children…so many grief stricken parents” “Sir?” “Oh nothing. Just stating the fact that the loss of an innocent life, such as…a baby, is always a tragedy. Wouldn’t you agree, commander?”

He found himself walking home a bit faster that day and hugs his SO a little tighter that night

Fox cares, in his own way. He’s just beyond stressed and anxious. But you wouldn’t know. He hides it behind a mask. 

It's actually Padme that finds out. And she feels somewhat bad for Fox. She thinks his anxiety comes from the fact that clones aren't allowed SO’s or children

Which, it is, but theres the added threat of fucking Palpatine.

She ends up getting him to tell her the truth and she swears to secrecy. Even offers to hire his SO as some sort of assistant, if only so Fox can be closer to his SO

Hear me out, he actually breaks down when he feels the baby move. He can’t fully handle it anymore and shuts down. 

This is a baby. His baby. They're alive and already so loved.

Something in him clicks and he accepts Padme’s help. 

His terror gets easier, ever so slightly. But he keeps his collected and calm front.

Cody

“General Kenobi-” “Ah! Commander Cody! Congratulations!”

goddamnit.exe

Cody is a tad more relaxed than Rex, but more tense than Wolffe

He knows Kenobi isn’t going to punish him or force him back to Kamino for decommissioning, he’s still a little on guard.

But, since Kenobi knows, Anakin does. So does Ahsoka. Which means Rex knows.

goddamnit2.exe

More people in the 501st know than in the 212th which gives him the biggest headache

Waxer knows though. Cody had to tell someone that wasn’t a sarcastic general

He does a good job hiding his worry though

Cody is able to spend about the same amount of time as Rex with his SO

He doesn’t feel as bad as Rex when it comes to the lack of presence he has during the pregnancy

It's war. It sucks and he’d prefer to be there for his SO, but he’d also prefer SO and child have freedom from the separatists

I will say, he is pretty attentive when he isn’t off in space.

Foot rubs, shoulders massages, helping with cravings

One thing Cody does is that he’ll wrap his arms under his SO’s baby bump and lift it slightly, giving his SO’s back some relief

He really loves to do this because his SO just melts

Hear me out, Cody gets giggly when he feels the baby move/kick the first time

His palm is on the bump and he feels that first little flutter against his hand

404 Commander Cody has his amygdala broken from joy. Reboot?

He’ll actually tell Kenobi about it because he’s so happy.

“That's wonderful Cody, but I still question one thing.” “What is it, sir?” “How you managed to get laid to begin with.”

Goddamnit3.exe

Fives

“Hey everyone! I’m gonna be a dad!”

Ecstatic is not a strong enough word

Also not subtle at all

There is a solid 3 hours until everyone in the 501st knows

He’s told Echo before the first hour. Rex knew within 2 hours.

Fives is BEYOND over the moon

He gets this small smile on his face that just doesn’t go away

Whenever he’s not with his SO, he definitely calls them every day. He wants updates on the little one

Also, seeing his SO with a baby bump? Unlocks something inside his brain.

Fives is incredibly horny when he’s with his SO. He’ll be rubbing their middle and getting a puppy dog look in his eye.

Only if his SO is in the mood of course! He’d never try and be forceful

He’s probably the clone that takes the distance the hardest. He debates taking a ship and making a run for Coruscant on more than one occasion.

In the end he settles to ask Anakin for extended leave.

Anakin is also extremely happy for Fives. Like with Rex, he makes a “name the baby after me” joke

Fives brings that up to his SO and nearly gets smacked. He also makes a “Fives jr.” joke and actually does get smacked.

When Fives feels the baby kick, he gets high on happiness. Actual mumbling incoherent words of love and affection in Mando’a

Lots and lots of “Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum”

He also gets very VERY affectionate with his SO

Kisses his SO’s face a lot. Even as a greeting, he’ll just start peppering their cheeks with pecks

Also probably the only one ballsy enough to ASK his general for extended leave

“Excuse me, general Skywalker? I’ll need to take leave at this date.” “Oh, yea sure. You know what? That seems like a good time for all the men to take a break. Thanks, Fives.”

He’s also probably the only one ballsy enough to actually take his new born baby onto a fucking battleship to introduce everyone.

“This is your uncle Rex. This is your uncle Echo and your uncle Tup. That's your auntie Ahsoka!” “Fives what the FUCK are you doing?!” “Introducing the family, captain.”

[lalunanymph]

i. PROLOGUE

as an arranged marriage to a woman he doesn’t want looms over him, gojo satoru resolves to seize control of his destiny by marrying the very first woman he sees—a disgraced aristocrat from an enemy family who happens to be mute. as political ties unravel, will this ruse succeed or ultimately cost him his life? 

warnings: mentions of injuries, war, captives, mentions of alcohol, o/ral s/ex, mentions of death, misogyny, forced marriage, p/rostitution, MDNI

masterlist 🧵 playlist

Gojo Satoru was a Lord not in need of a wife.

Arrogant and hubristic, he led life as a fool—simple, filled with pleasure and lacking no responsibility.

As such, brothels, handmaids and ruining aristocratic ladies were all his favorite pastimes. 

In this very moment, his vices were no different. 

The scion to the Gojo clan, a man with white hair and cerulean blue eyes the exact hue of the sea from which his family’s sustenance derives from, flickered them onto the woman poised between his thighs. 

She was a whore or some other, hired for pleasure and a respite from the thoughts whirling in his mind. He barely paid her lewd suckling and theatric moans any mind, sensing that it was done with the intent to gleam a bigger tip by the end of the night.

Rather, he sank back into the paltry futon, gaze towards the ceiling while she tongued his balls.

A question bubbled in the back of his mind, tiptoeing to the edge of his tongue where he exhales it with little fanfare. 

“Do you believe in true love?”

The woman paused, and he almost laughed at the glimmer of uncertainty coruscating in her gaze. “I beg your pardon, my Lord?”

He recognized that barely-there look on her face, that one sliver of determination mingling with the throes of forced lust she made herself believe she carried for him, if not to ease her suffering for one night.

“I asked if you believed in true love?”

A beat of silence that was louder than the schlicking of her mouth bobbing up and down his length. He discovers a second too late that she wasn’t as pretty as the lighting made her out to be and waves her away. Recognizing that she was being dismissed, the whore stands and tightens her obi, bowing low to him.

“Shall I anticipate you for next week as well, Master Gojo?”

Reverent and demure. He senses it was not due to his status but the clanking of coins in his pouch which caught her attention like the darting of silverfish in a foggy lake. He removes a golden piece and tosses it to her, narrowly missing her eye as she scrambles to catch it clumsily with both hands.

“Same time,” he drawls and stands up, making himself decent once more. The whore bows low and he pulls back the den’s curtain, making his way to the front. He does not have to wander far to encounter the stench of disapproval that mingles with the heady curls of opium smoke in the air.

Right at the door, wearing a frown that gleamed as brightly as his ebony robes, was his right-hand man.

Geto Suguru eyes him with open disdain and Satoru grins, raising his hands in mock surrender. “You found me, Sugu.” Not appreciating his tone or the abbreviation of his name, Suguru snorted and motioned towards the front door.

“This is the last time I am saving you behind from your councilmen, Satoru,” he starts on his churlish tirade, one that the young lord had heard many, many times. “The gathering is in full swing. What will people say when their great Lord is missing?”

Satoru’s snort pierced through a drizzle that clung to the tips of his brilliant white locks. “Now you sound exactly like General Nanami, Sugu.” At the mention of the stoic, aloof, and often unsmiling samurai who had retired from his life of serving the Gojo clan to live safely in the hills, Suguru physically bristled.

“At least Nanami was paid to handle your foolish ass.” Geto sighs, pinching his brow with his thumb and forefinger. “Come on. Let us go or else we will be late.”

Satoru strides to his great white steed, hauling himself over the stallion’s back. 

“Now, Sugu. You are being quite the downer tonight.”

Suguru sighs. “I cannot help it. Tonight is when the great Lord Kozume will sign over his district to be under the Gojo rule, is it not?” 

Despite his reckless approach to life, Satoru remains aware of his fief’s happenings, and this is an unprecedented event which marks a new chapter into his rule.

Kicking Mumu into a trot, Satoru sighs.

“Yes. And uncle will be there, too. No doubt trying to force my hand into taking a wife tonight.” 

At the mention of the great, stoic Michizane Gojo with his blustering white beard and piercing blue eyes trying to force his nephew to marry, Suguru chuckles.

“If there’s one thing your uncle is, it is consistent.”

“And annoying,” Satoru quips, already wishing he had not stopped that whore from making him cum. Maybe he would feel more relaxed by now. 

His mind drifts, and he recalls everything that has happened to make today one for the history annals.

A messenger stumbles in, covered head to toe in blood. 

He’s unannounced, and Gojo has his katana out, ready for the first sign of danger and betrayal from any man. 

But, the grisly older warrior does not flourish his sword; he sinks to his knees, holding his bleeding abdomen and a crumpled piece of paper in his trembling hand. 

“My Lord,” he gasps and flourishes the scroll for his liege to take it. 

Gojo immediately stands, any trace of his defensiveness melting off like frost when he unravels the scroll with shaky hands. His eyes widened. The enemy camps from beyond his threshold suddenly become like toys in his hands; easy to grasp and smash. 

“They have surrendered,” he breathes out. The messenger curls his forehead to the floor, nearly sobbing. 

“Long live your rule, Gojo-sama,” he tolls, loudly enough for his generals to come rushing into his war camp. Suguru is the first to grab the scroll from Satoru’s hand, and he too, is rendered silent from the sudden shift in their fates.

“Unbelievable,” the dark-haired general swears. 

His second peers over the Lord’s great shoulders and gasps. 

“Nagamachi has fallen,” Satoru announces through trembling lips. He turns to his men, his most loyal followers and who never once doubted his ability to expand the Gojo empire.

“We can all go home.”

Puddles of liquor and puke scatter on the tatami floors, and Satoru wrinkles his nose in disgust when he approaches the dais.

The men of his army could celebrate as well as they held a fight; brazenly crying out his name in exuberance and clinking their sake glasses together. 

To Satoru! They cried. May his reign be ever long and prosperous! 

Gojo takes his position on the dais, and reclines, accepting a cup of sake from one of his generals. 

The man wears a smile so big, Gojo wonders how it doesn’t split his face.

“Your uncle is not yet here,” Suguru informs, taking a seat next to him and picking up a cup of the sweet, fermented alcohol to sip on. The fumes burn his nose and he frowns, not liking the taste. 

Suguru has always been the more uptight between the two of them; where Satoru indulges, his friend restrains. Satoru reacts, Suguru observes. 

Tonight, Suguru is his eyes and ears, peeling his attention around the room. Though merry men were no threat, the danger has not yet subsided. 

These Nagamachi warriors could turn on them anytime; the frail peace treaty ending in blood. 

Satoru leans back, and pretends to look interested in this turn of events. However, the second he hears the drums announcing his uncle’s arrival, he straightens.

Michizane Gojo is a man with a love for theatrics. His torture methods insane, his court a fester of troublemakers and violent men. Though he disagrees with his uncle’s rule, he cannot overturn it—Michizane holds an army of men three times his own and could destroy his part of the fief with a flick of his finger.

Tall, and with an imposing air that would make the harshest samurai tremble, Michizane strides into the drawing room.  And he is not alone. 

Head down, hand in cuffs and trudging behind him, the leader of the Nagamachi warriors wears a blackened eye and bruised cheeks. The gathering is free of women and children, so the men could indulge in cruelty till the morning sun rose. However, a slighter figure behind the man catches his eye, and Gojo feels a curdling disgust rising inside of his chest.

Gojo understands that in this world of wars and conquering, one has to respect whoever is at the top. But, if it were not for the fact that this man was his uncle, Satoru would have ordered his men to drag him out, respect for the elderly be damned.

Because there is nothing respectable about what he sees right in front of him now. 

A young lady with her wrists bound follows behind the man, and unlike the other captive, her head is high, features turned obstinately to the light so every man could witness her disdain. She’s the sole woman here in this room, and the sight of her rouses every man—bloodhounds seeking to tear an injured bird apart.

Satoru stands and feels Geto stiffening beside him.

“Monster,” his friend whispers under his breath. Gojo has to agree.

The woman is shoved to her knees while the men remain standing. Her yukata, once a sign of her wealth and prosperity, is torn and with mud at the hem. If he looks closer, he can see her clenching her trembling hands, turning them to fists in front of her.

“Nephew,” Michizane stretches out his arms and Gojo reluctantly steps forward, receiving his uncle with a tight hug. “You are alive and have conquered the mountains. How proud I am of you.”

Gojo grits his teeth, finding the smell of opium and sake wafting off his uncle repulsive. 

Masking on a smile, he nods. “Thank you, uncle. Your support means everything to me under these circumstances.”

Standing at close to six feet, the old, wizened man was no different from his whorehound of a brother—Satoru’s father. Women of all ages were not exempted from his list of atrocious taste, lending to his fearsome reputation. 

Michizane bellows a laugh and gestures to the captives. “Why, I had a great time speaking to Lord Kozume. Or, shall I call him Kozume from now on.” Laughing at his own joke, the rest of the room chuckles, taking a leaf from his exuberance. Following suit, Gojo exhales a small laugh. 

“It seems you have done so, uncle.”

The great lord slaps a hand to his fat belly, chuckling to himself. “Well, what shall it be tonight? An execution? A wedding? A fight?” 

Always prepared for the worst, Gojo tries to steer the situation back into safer waters. There will be no more bloodshed for the foreseeable future; he was done smelling like the rusted tang for days on end. 

“Perhaps, a discussion,” he entreats. His uncle snorts, but indulges in his nephew’s whims, signalling for his men to cut through the ropes binding Lord Kozume and the woman. She curls into a ball the second her hands are free, forehead pressed to the floor, begging for mercy.

Kozume is far more prouder than her, and sits rigid, shaking his head when a cup is offered to him.

“No. I wish to be level-headed.” His voice is deep and low; commanding yet kind. The voice of a leader. 

Gojo blinks and remembers Suguru is beside him. He gestures to the girl and his general needs no more cues. Going to her side, Geto snaps his fingers for a cup of water and receives it from a servant; pushes it into her quivering hands. She straightens, and it disturbs him how red-rimmed her eyes are, and yet, she sheds no tears. 

Kozume does not wait for his cue. He continues. “The Nagamachi lands are yours. The fiefs are now part of the great Gojo house and I humbly ask you to spare the lives of my daughter and mine.” 

Satoru slides his gaze to the girl again. 

The old man winces, as if he’s in pain, and reaches for his daughter, grabbing her by the shoulders. This close, Gojo can see the fear in her eyes, how the corners of her lips tremble. 

By no means was he a naive man to the horrors of war, but he never had to witness an innocent’s expression up close. Satoru almost feels like the walls are closing in on him, and he tries to look away. But, something about her draws his attention back and back again—like a red splash of paint on a white cloth he cannot possibly ignore.

“Fine,” Michizane seats himself on the dais, looking down on the father and daughter. “Let us resume our discussion now with the eyes of every Gojo ancestor looking down upon us.”

At his words, the girl glances up, gazing upon the tapestries depicting the heroes of his boyhood, splashing across the ceiling as they continue on their bloody conquest to raise the emperor’s mark across the southern lands. She sees the blood, the mangled bodies, and drops her gaze; too close to the truth for comfort.

“My nephew, Satoru, as you know, is the head of the Gojo clan after his father’s death two years ago. He is in need of a wife and I have picked one out for him. The great Lady Ayako from a noble family under our flag.” Michizane glances at the girl. “Though you promised me your daughter is fair of face and from great blood, that blood now comes at a cost and I will not be at peace if she is under our roof. Hence, I have decided to wed her off to Lieutenant Luaya, who is one of the most fiercely loyal men I know.”

Gojo has to stop himself from physically recoiling. Luaya is a brute and a devil. He catches sight of the mentioned man puffing his chest out, looking pleased to be bestowed a blessing by the great Lord Michizane. She will never survive a night with him, Satoru thinks. In fact, none of his wives had ever survived for long.

His uncle was sending her right to her early grave. 

As if sensing the change in the room, the young woman raises her head, and sees Luaya who’s smiling at her; the glint of his canine teeth bouncing off the light from the sconces overhead reminds him of a wolf scenting fresh meat.

Satoru does not know what overcomes him—he is barely a kind or empathetic man. But, the punishment for Lord Kozume’s rebellion is far too much. 

He would have to watch by the sidelines as his daughter gets murdered in cold blood and that is no fair compensation for a man who readily surrendered to their forces. This inhumane treatment of their subjects had to come to a stop—Gojo would no longer stand for such cruelty his father and uncle perpetuated.

“Luaya will do no such thing.” Every eye in the room is on him as Satoru stands, crossing his arms right in front of him. The cup of sake hovering close to his uncle’s lips stops in mid-motion.

Whatever trick Michizane expects his nephew to pull, it was not this. 

“I shall wed her—Lord Kozume’s daughter.”

Those piercing blue eyes land right on your shocked face, unwavering and resolute. 

“We will be wed tonight.”

a/n: 👀 i hope u guys loved this new revamp of entangled !! it came to me as inspo from my recent trip to kyoto and i had to continue the bewitched universe for my sanity's sake lol

also if u didn't know, this series was previously discontinued due to low interaction and feedback, so if u want to see how gojo and y/n's story play out, please do consider dropping some feedback or a reblog to help keep the inspo going <3

©️lalunanymph. do not copy, repost or claim as your own. do not take elements from my story without prior permission.

[fhrlclln]

I don’t usually do ask but I DESPERATELY need a qimir au smut😭 idk about what but I just know I need it

in the darkness | qimir

SUMMARY -> abandoned by her own family and order due to her curse and having no husband, they leave her on a remote planet surrounded by water and grey clouds, as said in her cruel prophecy that her supposed betrothed awaits for her there to take her. but this husband of hers is no ordinary man as he always wears a mask.

qimir x fem! reader

masterlist

GENRE -> nsfw/smut

WARNINGS -> eros & psyche inspired au, unprotected p in v, mutual masturbation & sensory deprivation

WC -> 6.09k

a/n: hope this satisfies your req, anonzz!! sorry it took so long for me to write!!

likes, comments and reposts are greatly appreciated !! <3

enjoy !!

the waves thrash against the rocks as the harsh winds blow across your face.

you clutch your cream scarf tight around you, the grey clouds loom above you menacingly and you can smell a storm coming. you blink wetly, your chest feels heavy and you feel somewhat terrified and betrayed. your father had forced you to wait here, leaving you behind with only a few words of a sorrowful goodbye. you couldn't blame him really... you knew you were cursed, as said by the elders in your order your family is apart of.

"you would never know love with that darkness inside you."

you could not understand what that meant. you were a normal child growing up, always following your family's footsteps and obeying the order. what darkness shrouds inside you? that it would forbid you to love or be loved.

"but someone will want her darkness and they will be waiting for her in a place surrounded by endless water and shores filled with grey sand. her betrothed awaits there, that is her destiny."

you thought for a moment that your supposed prophecy was just a means to make your family usher you to find a husband, for in your age you were supposed to be married by now. all of your sisters were bethroted and you were the only one without any prospect. your mother had been disappointed that you being the eldest was unwedded and you were the shining beautiful daughter she prided in, putting a lot of expectations in you. yet, after the elders had announce your cruel oracle, none of the possible suitors wanted your hand anymore which made your mother's frown deepen.

and you, in-fact, were more displeased in yourself more than anything. you had wished that you were born different... born normal. alas, you couldn't change your life. and here you are, waiting by the grey rocky shores, standing by the waters crawling up to gently touch your sandaled toes. you breathe in the sea air, anxiousness clouding your mind.

who would want you?

or instead... what would want you for you and your darkness?

the anticipation lingers as you watch the sky slowly turn more greyer. was night falling? was that how long you have been waiting on this deserted planet? the hurt inside you grows, and you shiver at the coldness of the weather. your lips tremble, and you curse yourself for being this way instead of living a perfectly normal life in coruscant. you look to the horizon of endless oceans, you had to accept you were either going to die alone on this planet or suffer the loneliness if you will yourself to make this your new home. you now stand up, opting to walk by the shores before the night captures the dull grey sky.

"are you her?" a feminine voice suddenly asks from nowhere. you halt from where you stand at the sudden presence of another person. "are you the wife my master was promised to?"

you turn your head around to be met by a young woman dawning a dark purple cloak and a wool black and grey gown underneath. her hands are clasped in front of her, you look up to her face but you are only met with her eyes that were slightly covered by her hood and her braided hair. the half of her face down is concealed by a bandana similar in color to the clothes she wears. you blink, registering her question and throwing away the curiosity in your mind about how she managed to appear in thin air moments ago.

"...yes." you merely answer with a soft and slightly questioning tone. her eyes do the talking and she seems relieved. you wait, curious to know who is she and what she is to the supposed "betrothed" of yours that she calls her master.

"come, he's waiting for you." she gestures her head to the caves up the island's hills. your gaze follows there, and a chill runs up your spine when you see the dark opening of a cave. someone is watching you. you look back to the strange woman and nod. she walks first and you follow. the gravel is rough underneath your feet in each step you take. you stay quiet, not knowing what to ask of the mysterious woman.

the path to the cave opening was an easy one. You should have noticed a dirt path when you first walked around the shores, and you wonder why you hadn't turned your attention to the rocky hills then. You look beyond the mysterious woman's shoulder and see that you are almost nearing the cave. you let out a tiny sigh of nervousness, and your mind conjures scenarios of what may lie ahead when you meet your husband-to-be.

will he be kind?

would he hurt you?

would he be neglectful?

"my master awaits for you in here." the mysterious woman's voice snaps you back to reality. your breath hitches, and you nod as you look ahead to see only darkness in the cave. she steps aside for you to enter and you step forward. before she could leave you behind, you stop her for a moment.

"I didn't catch your name." you said, and she halted her departure.

"mae, you can call me mae." she answers, her tone light than before. you nod and offer a small smile in response.

"thank you, mae." she nods at you and leaves you alone to face the prophecy of what lies inside. you almost wished that you had asked mae to stay for a while until you entered the vast darkness in front of you.

enough stalling now. your mind scolds you, and you finally take a step in despite the pounding rhythm your heart is doing. The darkness envelops you for a moment, but as you take small steps forward towards the little light at the end, you are met with an unexpected sight of a well-furnished room. the interior walls were of the caves,' but the interior looked like what your home used to look like in coruscant. it felt... nostalgic in a sense. you stand in the middle of the supposed living and dining room, waiting as you look around.

"hello?' your voice echoes throughout the home. you wait for a response, but your eyes catch an unusual object on the wooden dining table. you walk towards it, feeling an unexplained sensation of something pulling you to it. your gaze is attached to the peculiar object and once you near it, your mind is curious to see a saber of all to catch your attention. the saber was like the elders' in your order, similar style, yet somehow this one had a gravitating and oddly weird aura. you lift your hand to touch it, yet a voice scares you.

"you are a curious thing, aren't you?" a deep modulated voice interrupts your curiosity. you jump at the sudden presence of another. you swiftly turn around, clutching your hand around your scarf. you were met with the sight of a masked stranger dressed in black robes. a poncho-like robe concealed most of his stature, but the peek of his arms made you feel relieved that he was human.

this is your betrothed, then.

strange he's wearing a mask.

"forgive m-me." you meekly say and step away from the table. you hear him walk towards you and your heart skips a beat.

"welcome, wife." he greets you, and you look up at him.

"thank you, husband." you nod and your eyes roamed to examine his mask. it was eerily scary seeing how it had multiple lashes, and the design made it seem that it had teeth. but... you can't help but feel more comfort than fear for this mysterious husband of yours. this was entirely different than what you were dreading when you were alone by the shores.

"are you hungry?" he asks, and you shake your head. your fingers fiddle with the hem of your scarf, feeling shy all of a sudden. despite his mask, you could feel a smile creep behind it. he takes a step to you, and you avert his gaze even if you can't see what lies behind the mask.

"do i frighten you?" he cocks his head to the side, curious about your reaction. you momentarily glance at his masked face, wanting to question why he doesn't let you see his face yet you look away, not wanting to offend him.

"no, j-just... nervous." you confessed.

"why?" he asks, and you shrug.

"not to you! i mean, i'm nervous about what lies ahead... about all of this. it's baffling to think i already have a husband that i haven't met or known yet." you sighed at yourself, fearing you have ruined your first impression towards him. "sorry."

"you don't need to apologize. i completely understand your reasons." he assures you, and your shoulders drop at the sudden relief.

"what about you? isn't this prophecy of mine baffle you? that you would want my..." you try not to say that word that has been thrown around on your face.

"it doesn't." he suddenly holds his hand out, and you glance down in curiosity. "i am looking forward to knowing you, wife. whatever the prophecy might say."

you don't have words for that. even though his voice is robotic and you can't tell if it's genuine, you know he speaks the truth, somehow. you slowly raise your hand and place it on his waiting palm, and sparks ignite when the rough callous of his hand touches yours. it felt warm inside that this mysterious person had accepted you despite what was said.

and you feel like this is the start of a life you always wanted now.

・゜゜・．

the days passed since you have been living on the remote planet with your husband. you have grown a tenderness for the mysterious man even though you both barely know each other. he was kind, that was given, caring in a way you never expected, yet he was secretive for the most part. he would always go out, but he would still remind you before he departs, yet he never tells you what he does. in the days that you have been adjusting in his home, there were unwritten rules, or rather what he implies, that you have followed as you got to know him. you two did slept in the same bed, but for the first few days, he gently told you that he'd let you sleep alone for comfort. once you had told him that you were fine and you two were technically married in a sense, he did agree yet he strictly had said the lights had to be turned off.

that was one rule. you never should turn the lights on once he lays with you. and the second was mostly obvious...

you aren't supposed to see his face.

you always wondered why and you did ask him this night as you two readied for bed.

the room was pitch black, you were snuggled in the shared blanket as you felt his body near yours. the sheets shuffled, and you bit your lip if you should ask him the question repeating in your mind. your heart thumps as you hear him let out a relaxed sigh; you wish to see him, yet you know better than to not respect his one wish.

"why do you wear a mask?" you asked, feeling nervous, but eager to hear his voice than the modulated one.

you hear him chuckle; it makes your chest feel tight and how deep and raspy it is. "many reasons."

"can you tell me one?" you ask again, feeling courageous. his voice was beautiful to hear the first time you heard it. and it made you even more curious to see his face that matched his voice.

"why do you ask? are you eager to see me?" he teases you and you pout. he chuckles again, and you wonder if he can see your reaction despite the darkness. you are about to turn your back to him, yet you are surprised when an arm wraps around you, pulling you close to his body. your hands instinctively go to where his chest is, and you are met with the touch of smooth, warm skin. you feel hot all of a sudden as you feel his chest rise.

"for your safety, you can't see me." he merely says, and you blink at that. "i don't wish to put you in any harm."

"why? are you... ashamed of your face?" he laughs at that, a heartful one, and you are pleased to hear it. his hand caresses the side of your waist, and you shiver at the feeling; your legs rub against each other, and you wish to see his smile. the warm feeling of his body against yours, with the shame you can't see his face, is starting to get to you.

"on the contrary, i am not ashamed of my face, wife." his raspy tone makes you squirm for a bit as his hand caresses down to your hip. his touch wasn't foreign to you this moment; he had been respectful the first night when you two slept together, opting for distance. but as the days passed, you two had grown to entangle with each other. you both are technically married, and you knew at some point that this would become normal. but you can't help but mourn the fact that this came with the obstruction of the pitch-black room, even though it brought you comfort still. you loved it, the feel of his body to yours.

"i understand." you say to him as you lay your head on his chest. you sometimes hope you'd catch a glimpse of him in the morning but he always woke up before you. you dismiss the other questions in your mind you want to ask him, you need to show him that you wholeheartedly understand his reasons, no matter how vague they are.

"what do you want to eat for supper tomorrow?" he casually asks and you nuzzle your face against his skin. "will you be cooking?"

"mhmm, can you pick up a couple of cooking herbs? I'm hoping to make a stew for you." you respond, eating times were also a big disappointment for you. you always would eat first, and he would eat after, but you still cook for him, knowing he loved your meals from how he would always if you would cook again.

"alright." you feel his face nuzzle against the top of your head. this affection you two had made was astounding to think that you both were already acting like a married couple in mere days. even if you barely know what he does, you do know small things about him. he often bathes in the lagoon, since he would always smell like the sea. he likes to walk along the shores, and sometimes you'd join; you know that he was like a teacher to mae, saying that she's a student of his. you also know that he apparently is a heavy drinker, judging by the bottles of alcohol you'd see by the counter. and that he's also been living alone on this planet for a long time, and he apparently hates the rain.

"good night, qimir." you yawned, saying his name sleepily. and you also knew his name. the name was unique, and somehow, you felt like you heard it before.

"good night." he whispers softly as sleep takes the both of you.

you wake up suddenly from a strange feeling that's poking against your bum. the darkness still is blinding your sleepy eyes but you squirm at the strange sensation. qimir's chest was pressed against your back, and his arm was lazily draped across your torso. his breath tickled the nape of your neck as you unconsciously push your hips back, wanting to get rid of the object poking your rear. did he forget to take off his belt? you thought as you sleepily sighed, still squirming in his hold.

an elicit groan from him fully awakens you and you freeze in place. qimir's arm tightens around you, his hips suddenly press against your rear, and the poking sensation makes you ponder for a moment if you should wake him up. you close your eyes, still wiggling your bum until a tingling sensation on your neck stops you.

"stop moving." he whispers in your ear, hoarse and... agitated? you're confused for a moment until he softly traces his lip on your neck again. your eyes widen at the realization of the moment, and you suddenly feel embarrassed.

"sorry." you whisper back as you lay your free hand on his arm. "h-have i awoken you?" you try to mask the quiver in your voice of how close he is and the thing of his poking your bum.

"no." he answers, but there's a beat. "...maybe."

you're about to apologize again, but his lips suddenly trace from the nape of your neck to the side wherein he hovers above a particularly sensitive spot.

"you've been moving in your sleep." he says. "bad dreams?"

"not really." you confessed, and he suddenly kissed the sensitive spot on your neck. "q-qimir!"

"do you want me to stop?" he hoarsely asks as his hand softly traces the plane of your stomach.

"no." you immediately answer without much thought than to feel more of his lips and his addicting touch. his hand moves downward to where your ache is, the ache that has been pestering you for the past few days since you had been living with him. your mysterious husband, one you desperately want to see his face than his mask. the one that you have been imagining day and night since he welcomed you into his home despite the cruel curse that has been placed upon you.

"i have been holding back from touching you like this out of respect... but it seems like i have deprived you, my wife." you gasped when his hand gripped your nightgown as he scrunched it up to your waist. your grip on his arm tightened as his hand delved down to the center of your thighs slowly. "i did, did i?"

you could only nod slightly as he nipped your soft flesh. "please..."

"you sing so sweetly for me." he groans as his fingers are met with your wetness. your legs open slightly and you could feel him grind his crotch slowly on your rear.

"husband..." you whined when he rubbed soft circles on your pulsing clit. you wondered how he managed to do this in complete darkness. you let go of his arm, wanting to do something for him. he continues his ministrations as his other hand moves to fully embrace you since you were still laid sideways from him. his hand gripped the soft flesh of your breast while the other pleasures your core. your back was flushed against his hard chest whilst he grinds his hard cock against your ass.

you let your one free hand touch him from behind, it was a little uncomfortable that you had to find the prize you were seeking, but once you felt the tent of his crotch touch your fingertips, accompanied by his low groan, you immediately palmed his clothed cock slowly. the darkness of the room was making your senses sharp. even though you mourn not seeing his mouth open in pleasure from the way he is breathily moaning against your ear due to your hand palming his cock, it did make everything feel more heightened. his scent envelops your senses with his warm body heat has you letting out more noise with the way he's rubbing circles on your clit.

"want you inside of me." you moan out as your hand massaging his prick searches for the hem of his wool pants. your hand glides down from his abdomen to be met by the warm flesh of his cock. you grip him, and he bucks his hips toward your hand with a breathy moan. qimir removes his hand from your dripping cunt while you pump his aching cock.

"open your legs." he suddenly says, and you squeal when he suddenly grips the underside of your thigh and lifts it up. you obey him as you spread your legs slightly for him. you remove your hand from his crotch when you feel him shift in his position to lower his pants down. your heart is beating loudly and the anticipation gnaws you. the act of marital duties wasn't unheard of you from your sisters, your mother would always put on a strict lesson for them of what to expect on the night after their marriage.

a prodding sensation touches your wet entrance and you brace yourself, not entirely sure what to expect. you almost expect qimir to fully take you, but you are surprised when he rubs his cock slowly, making you let out a pleasurable sigh.

"you smell so sweet, so pretty, so beautiful..." qimir huffs as he positions the tip of his cock to your entrance. "and all mine."

you let out a moan when you feel him enter you finally. he's gentle and slow in the process, ensuring you were comfortable. he wraps his arms around you tight, as if you were going to leave. you feel your breasts spill out of your top as the cool air hits the skin of your chest. he cups one and pinches your nipple as he fully sheathes in you. you grind back, feeling full. the darkness of the room is a pleasant sensory sensation, you thought you would be disappointed at the aspect of not seeing him. but he made it pleasurable, which makes your heart skip a beat for him.

he thrusts into you at an agonizingly slow pace that has you pushing your hips back to him. he alternates gentle bites and sweet kisses from your neck down to the slope of your shoulders. you close your eyes, wanting to feel all of him as your free hand finds its way to his hair. you want to touch him as well, and you feel satisfied when you interlock your fingers with his soft hair.

both of you don't know how much time has passed. you both were too into the heat of the moment, not wanting to rush things but to just feel each other. your walls clamp around him as qimir's thrust went from being slow to now setting a steady pace. your moans and his groans fill in the void of the room. you could feel his thumping heart from your back and he could feel your heartbeat under his hand.

your mouth hangs open in pleasure. you feel yourself nearing your high as his other hand dives down to rub your clit. you call out to him, and he calls out to you. he fastens his thrusts, cock hitting that spongy spot in you, and you soar high. he lets out a moan of your name when you squeeze him tight with your orgasm. he shakily thrusts into you, and with a loud groan, he follows through, fucking both of your orgasms into completion. his cum spills on your walls, painting you with his seed. your wetness coats his cock entirely and he halts his thrusts, feeling spent like you are.

a moment of silence transpires, heavy breaths are only heard. his cock is snuggled inside you, and you feel exhaustion and sleep taking over. he loosens his arms around you, still holding you close. you hadn't realized that a small smile graces your lips as you feel him kiss your neck, soothing the intense aftershock. you caress the side of his face, and his lips touch your fingertips. nothing else is said other than sweet caresses and kisses on the skin. sleep seems to take both of you as you let exhaustion null you to sleep.

・゜゜・．

you feel like a whole new person waking up after that night. you were only disappointed to see your husband not by your side when you had awoken. but the sweet soreness of your legs and the dampness of your core were enough to rectify your displeasure of him not being beside you in the morning after. you wobbly did your morning routine and dressed yourself in one of the dresses he had gifted you, a black dress that matched his clothes and your own jewelry, and draped your cream scarf around you since it was cold.

once you had properly dressed yourself, feeling a little giddy when you looked in the mirror to see marks on your neck from his doing. you went out of your shared bedroom and were surprised to see mae sitting by the dining table. qimir was by his workbench, wearing his mask as usual but dressed in clothes you knew he would be going somewhere.

"good morning, mae." you smiled at her, and she nodded at you in greeting. her scarf that concealed her face the first time you met her was gone. you could now see her truly, which made you happy. if only your husband would do the same.

"good morning."

"do you want something to eat?" you asked her, going straight to the kitchen to prepare something for yourself.

"no need. i already ate..." she says, yet there's a concern in her voice as she looks at you. "are you alright? you look tired."

your cheeks heat up all of a sudden. "y-yes, i'm alright. why do you ask?"

"you're walking funny." she points out, and you hear your husband let out a robotic chuckle. you feel embarrassed as you shoot a glare at qimir from his workbench. mae stays silent, a little confused, but you change the topic, noting that they both seem dressed for something.

"are you two heading out?' you ask, and mae nods.

"i'm preparing a lesson for mae in euda. it shouldn't take too long as she will need to learn it herself." qimir answers you as walks towards where you stand. you nod in understanding, finishing up your breakfast.

"will you be here before supper?" you ask him, since sometimes he'd be late.

"i will." he promises as he caresses the small of your back, knowing you ache below. mae watches the both of you with subtle curiosity, and qimir seems to sense this. "wait by the ship, mae. we'll leave soon."

mae nods. "yes, master." you wave goodbye to her as she heads out. only the two of you are alone at last. he presses himself against, and it makes your heart beat loudly at what he's doing. you tilt your head to see his masked face, but you can feel his tension.

"come back safely." you softly say to him as you turn around, and his hands drop to your hips. he squeezes them as your hands caress his chest.

"always." he assures you. the way he's touching you makes you want to kiss him. and you suddenly realize you still haven't kissed him yet. you already had him inside you and the thought of you two not sharing a kiss baffles you. before he could leave, you stop him.

"i want to kiss you..." you pout and his grip on your hips tightened. "for luck."

you see his chest rise and you smile at that. his other hand lifts his mask up slightly and you watch in anticipation to see a peek of what he looks like. he holds his mask up and you are met with the sight of his pink lips surrounded by facial hair. you thighs clench, knowing that those lips were the cause of the marks that are on your neck.

"are you just going to stare at me, my beautiful wife?" a grin spreads across his pink lips. you roll your eyes as you tiptoe up, wrapping your arms around his neck to finally kiss him. his lips are soft against yours. you let out a noise when his hand gripping your hips pulls you close, and he deepens the kiss. you moan, almost wanting to pull him inside the bedroom, but you let go, and he seems to chase after your lips, which makes you laugh.

"go, mae's waiting." you could see him pout before he adjusted his mask to cover his entire face. you feel a little disappointed he has to hide again. he lets go of you, and you watch him leave, feeling happy. but the gnawing curiosity of what he looks like still itches you now, even if everything is perfect.

・゜゜・．

in truth, you knew in yourself that the one forbidden rule he had said would come to you. you feel guilty that you are still thinking about it... but how could you not? you lay beside him in the darkness again, your head laid on his naked chest and your body pressed against his. you convinced yourself you can live like this with him, that you can learn to love him even if you would never see him for what he is until you die. qimir made everything perfect despite there being clear flaws. you can't sleep, you feel restless, and the desire to see him is strong, but something else bothered you.

"you would never know love with that darkness inside you."

those were the first words the elder had said to you when she prodded into your mind and future. you were terrified... would you know love with qimir? you haven't spoken to him about what your prophecy truly is. and it frightens you to think that maybe this would all fall apart because of you. your brows furrow and a dark feeling encapsulates your chest as something calls out to you.

you lift your head gently, feeling through the room, careful not to wake your sleeping husband. the strong hum of the force calls out to you, so familiar that you cannot place what it is, but you know where it is. you quietly detach yourself from qimir, trying your best to make as little noise as possible as you guide yourself to stand up and let the force guide you. your feet walk on its own and you are pulled to somewhere in the dark room.

your hand stretches out, and you feel cold sweat envelop your whole body when your hand grips a metal object. you let out a shaky breath, and your fingers grip it as your thumb presses against a button. your eyes widened as a red glow enveloped the pitch-black bedroom. you gasped, you were holding a saber. a lightsaber with its color that was forbidden in your order, for it tells a story of its connection to anger, hatred, vengeance, and all things that were forbidden. you freeze in place, seeing that the hilt of the saber is familiar. it was qimir's-

"my love?" you turn around quickly to hear your husband's voice, still holding the illuminating saber. you watch in horror as the red glow reveals his face.

he's beautiful. his face is chiseled, his skin is smooth, and his messy black hair matches everything. even if red illuminated his face, his dark brown eyes are a wonder to stare at.

and you recognize him.

"qimir-" you were cut off when the saber in your hand suddenly flew out and landed on his outstretched hand. his black hair is messy, and his eyes shine a pain of betrayal towards you. your heart stops, and guilt washes over you for what you have done. he switches the saber off, and the darkness meets you again.

"wait, qimir!" you call out to him as everything happens so fast. In the blink of an eye, the bedroom door opens with light, filling the dark room again. you watch your husband without his helmet leave hastily and the one thing you feared most comes to you.

he's going to leave you.

your eyes water as you rush to follow him. a sudden gush of harsh winds makes you falter when you see that the front door of the cave has been opened. you follow still, desperate to make this right for him. you huff, stepping out to see the blue hour of the day. your eyes scan down to see him walking hastily towards where the lagoon is- to where his ship might be. your chest feels heavy as you quickly ran to get to him before he leaves.

stupid, stupid girl. the cackling noise of one of the elder's taunts you in your mind. always playing with the darkness.

tears stream down your face. how could you do that to him? the one thing he asked for you not to do, and you completely disobeyed him. your feet ache as the gravel wounds your bare soles. you see his figure near your line of sight, you had to make this right. you love him-

"qimir! p-please! i'm sorry." you sob out. he suddenly halts in his steps, his grip on his saber tightens and you fear for the worst. will he kill you? now that you have seen him. you stop in your steps as your chest heaved with utter sadness and guilt.

"you can't see me. you're not supposed to see me- why did you..." the hurt in his voice pains you.

"i'm sorry." you bowed your head, ashamed.

"i-i..." you aren't sure if you should say something. you knew his face back in the order, one of elder vernestra's students in her stead. the one that disappeared one day without any trace. rumors that he went rogue on the order, communing with the dark side of the force. and rumors that the order threw him out. while you were by the sidelines, doing your duty as the eldest daughter, you had seen him around years ago in the temple in coruscant. he was a knight and you remembered when one of your sisters gushed about a handsome knight coming out of the temple. tall, black hair, a charming smile, and a skilled warrior. you never once dallied with your sisters' hushed talks about handsome men. but he made everyone stare at him when he entered a room. it's a shame you can't remember his name back then, but all is pieced together now.

"and now you know where i fleed. you must have a lot of questions." he sighs as he finally turns around to you. your heart still beats loudly, seeing his face now. you stay silent, unsure of what to ask him.

"i don't have any." you decided, and that surprised him. "i'm sorry i did that."

his brows furrow. "that doesn't matter now. don't you understand? i am the one the elders of your order who warned you all about-"

"i don't care. you're my husband." you cut him off as you step towards him. his chest rises when you near him as you shakily place your hand on his where he still grips his saber. "they don't matter anymore, qimir. i haven't been in contact with them since i've been here."

"really? did you know that they threw you away as well. haven't you wondered why they suddenly placed a prophecy upon you?" he asks, and you think about that momentarily. he was trying to let you see the seriousness of it.

"i know..." you nod, deep-down you knew why they carelessly threw you away. maybe your own insecurity had taken over when they had said that to you, and you believed them.

"when i heard about your ridiculous prophecy, i knew they were using you to find me." he confesses, and you frown at that. his other hand lifts up to caress the side of your face. there's a tenderness in his eyes, and you understood why he chose not to let you see his face.

"but it seems like i find myself not caring about that anymore."

he looks deep into your eyes and you feel the weight on your shoulders lighten. "i love you, my beautiful, beautiful wife."

"i love you too." you say to him as you pull him down for a kiss. the morning sun shines between you both, no need for hiding now. qimir happily reciprocates the kiss, dropping his saber to the ground as he scoops you up in his toned arms. the salty breeze of the planet is a nice touch to this tender moment, wherein all are finally coming to peace.

and you were right, this is the life you always wanted now.

[dontbelasagnax]

@codywanfirstkissbingo: kiss of life

It shouldn't be like this. He had plans. Dreams.

He'd thought of a gentle kiss shared one late night when the hum of companionship and longing looks spilled over. Lips tasting of herbal tea and ration bars.

Or, hidden away in a dark corner of Coruscant on a rare shore leave, they'd find comfort in giving into what they've both wanted for so long. Hands tangled in hair, remnants of their meal licked from blisteringly hot mouths, not a care in the world.

Perhaps they'd wait till after the war. Reach for one another amidst cheers and find joy and relief in their embrace and long awaited kiss.

Instead, he presses his lips to Obi-Wan's for the first time and does his best to breathe life into unresponsive lips and lungs. He can't ignore the acrid taste of blood and ash. There's nothing but terror and heartache lancing his chest.

'Not like this', he thinks, a hot tear running down his cheek. 'Please, stay with me.'

(bingo card under the cut)

[anakin-skywalker-always]

padawan/atoc era anakin x reader, they're in love with each other (both jedi) but obviously can't come forward. Anakin confides in Padmé, reader becomes convinced/jealous that anakin is with padme

(bonus points if you can make it angsty and fluffy)

As Easy As Breathing

Hi nonnie! Thank you so, so, so much for this rec! It’s my first one on this account and it’s really quite the christening. Hope its okay, I’m not the best at angst! 

Pairing: Padawan!Anakin Skywalker x Padawan!Reader (Star Wars) 

Requested: Yes | No

Warnings: none!! Should be all good, let me know if you caught anything I may have missed. Not beta read! 

Words: 1.8k

Author’s Notes: Anakin is canonically 19 in AOTC, reader is the same, maybe a year younger. Clone Wars have not yet started in this fic, I’m just assuming Padmé and Anakin stayed besties after the whole nonsense in Phantom Menace.

The warm sun filtering through the windows fell upon Anakin’s face, in a soft moment of solitude, the sounds of the Coruscant cityscape provided him with a brief reprieve to Padmé’s chastising. He often thought that his ability to talk to Padmé about anything was his strength, but in this moment he couldn’t help to think of it as a weakness. Anakin cringed as Padmé continued to berate him; On a rare afternoon off the nineteen-year-old padawan found himself lounging on the senator’s couch. 

“Seriously Anakin, you should just-” Padmé stilled, her slender hands finding her hips, huffing, she continued, “Are you even listening to me, Ani?” The forceful tone on his nickname got Anakin’s attention once again. 

“I am!” Anakin raised his eyebrows in addition to his hands, in mock surrender. “I swear Padmé!” 

The senator found it easy to roll her eyes at his antics, like always. But she could see the change in Anakin, could see how his emotions for his fellow padawan learner have caused conflict in him. Her friend wasn’t sleeping, he wasn’t eating. Padmé knew Anakin was an intense person, a strong personality, everyone knew that about him. But this, this was different. He seemed lost, like he was missing something he needed to operate. Padmé found her way to the couch, sitting beside Anakin, grabbing his tanned, calloused hands in her own. 

“Anakin, if you do truely care this strongly for her, you must tell her.” Anakin’s eyes found Padmé’s own. “It would be cruel, to withhold this love.” There was a time in Anakin’s life where this is all he wanted, being with Padmé and he knew his nine-year-old self would be so excited by innocent hand holding. But his nineteen-year-old self was happier to have such a strong, nonjudgemental friend. 

“How did you know that you loved Sabé?” Anakin asked gently, knowing how the senator safeguarded her relationship with her handmaiden fiercely. 

Anakin noted how Padmé seemed to glow at the mention of her lover. A warm smile graced her pink lips, eyes crinkling at the sides, a faraway glaze coated her sparkling eyes. Her signature in the force felt warm, it wrapped around Anakin’s brain, made him feel safe. Padmé’s love for Sabé was so tangible it extended outside herself, adjusting her force signature. 

“I realised I loved Sabé when being around her became a necessity, an honesty, a truth that I did not know I was constantly seeking out.” Padmé gushed, a light trail of pink lit itself over her high cheekbones and freckled nose. “I felt as if Sabé had breathed new life into me everytime I saw her, it was natural, it was right.” 

Anakin was quiet for a moment, Padmé became worried that she had overstepped somehow, projected to far onto Anakin’s feelings. 

“Loving y/n is as natural as breathing.” He replied. 

Anakin rolled over on his hard, standard issue, Jedi temple bed. A sleepless night was not uncommon for him, but this felt inherently different. Padmé’s words from earlier in the day rattled around his brain, demanding to be dealt with. Anakin never saw love as a weakness, never saw attachment as weakness. How could he? Love was the basis of the light, the well of Jedi power that Anakin drew from was a labour of love, was purity, was peace, was built with empathy and centered by knowing himself. His love for you did not make him a bad person. 

But he knew it would make him seem like a bad Jedi. 

Not knowing your stance on him, on the rule of attachment was slowly eating away at Anakin’s peace. 

Groaning aloud, Anakin ran his hands down his face. 

Your head whipped around, anxiously. You knew it was embarrassing that you always looked for him in a crowded room, but you could not help it, you felt as if the force was electric until he calmed it. His signature singlehandedly smothering anything else it came in contact with. Being around Anakin, to you, felt as natural as breathing. 

“Looking for young Skywalker, are you?” Your master, Mace Windu asks, a small smirk whispers across his face, lightly nudging you in the shoulder. The two of you stood in one of the reception rooms of the Republic building. The Senate was hosting a charity gala with the invite extending to the Jedi temple. So, there you stood, in your best robes, breaking your neck to catch a glimpse of The Chosen One. 

“No Master.” You said, quietly. Turning your head away from the powerful Jedi Master to not embarrass yourself further with the luxury of him catching your furious blush. Your master excused himself, laughing, finding Master Plo Kloon. 

So, you stood there, alone, foolishly searching the room for your fellow padawan, the one that consumed your mind and soul. 

It wasn’t completely unlikely, you reasoned with yourself. You and Anakin were friends, were very well matched, sparring partners. But, Anakin was a good Jedi. A strong Jedi. Following orders wasn’t Anakin’s strongest suit, you’d admit. Pondering whether he would disregard the rules of attachment for you, however, was different. 

Nonetheless, like a junkie craving death sticks, you craved Anakin’s presence, his force signature was all you needed to feel right. The anxiety of the gala was too much. Closing your eyes, tightly, you reached out into the force to find him. Anakin’s signature, golden like it always was flocked to your senses, like always. 

Opening your eyes, you began to weave through the bustling crowd as quickly as one could who was masquerading as casual. 

“I’m not going to say anything to her now, Padmé.” Anakin huffed, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms across his chest, defensively. “Not in front of all these people, you’ve got to be joking.” He scoffed. 

Sabé giggled quietly, the two women joined their arms at the elbow. Padmé just rolled her eyes at Anakin’s supposed insoclence. 

Your frame weaving through the crowd in his direction caught Anakin’s eye. He smiled, quikly raised a hand, and was delighted when your devastating smile echoed back. 

“Anakin.” You greeted him, with a small bow of the head. His name sounded heavenly whenever you deigned to let it fall from your lips. Anakin was convinced he could breathe easier with you around, like he had been purged of something suffocating him. 

“Y/N, this is Sen-” You quickly cut him off, not wanting to hear the name of your rival come from his beautiful mouth. Your jealousy that you held for Padmé reared its ugly head, and you couldn’t help to feel shame burn deep inside the space between ribs. 

“Senator Amidala, a pleasure it is to finally meet you,” You stuck your hand out, awkwardly hoping for a handshake. “Anakin has told me so much.” Cordial. It was a good tactic. You were a good person, a good jedi. You would not succumb to jealousy. Besides, Padmé had other qualities you were far more jealous of than just her nonexistent romantic relationship that you deludedly conjured up in your mind when you tried to sleep at night. 

“All good things I should hope.” She smiled, her soft hand finding your own, a small shake. You could empathise with Anakin for falling in love with someone like her. Someone so intelligent, powerful, beautiful. 

It was not lost on you, the way the senator’s hand quickly found the one of the woman she stood beside. 

“This is Sabé.” Anakin started, introducing Padmé’s guest. “Padmé’s hand-” For the second time tonight, but surely not the last, Anakin was cut off. 

“My partner.” Senitor Amidala said firmly, though her eyes twinkled with pride. Sabé’s own shock manifested itself into a wide smile. The two looked eachother in the eyes and you couldn’t help but feel silly. Of course. Of course. 

For whatever reason, the words you thought you had died swiftly in your mouth,  “Oh.” was all you managed to get out. “A pleasure to meet you too, Sabé.” You tried quickly to save the situation, to save embarrassment. But Padmé’s slight smile, Sabé’s coy smirk. You felt like the two Naboo women knew you, saw you. They somehow, in this embarrassing blunder of a meeting had already clocked that you harboured feelings for Anakin Skywalker. It made you feel foolish, moreso than what you already did. 

“If you’d excuse us, Jedi, we have futher business to attend to.” Sabé quipped strongly, leading her senator lover to the next group of politicians. The art of smalltalk was something else you could add to the list of Padmé’s items you were jealous of. 

Anakin turned to you, chuckling. His standard-issue Jedi robes moving effortlessly with his chest. Running a hand through his cropped hair, you felt his eyes scanning your face. You knew your blood would betray you, like it so often did around your friend, rising to the surface of your cheeks, splattering down your neck and chest. Embarrassment clung to you like a rash. 

“Don’t mind them, they like setting me up.” Anakin scoffed, shaking his head. 

“Setting you up for what?” You asked, eyeing him micheviously. Chatting with Anakin felt natural; He was quick witted and liked challenging you, he was a tease. 

And, more often than not, a flirt. 

This was different though, Anakin had an air of nervousness about him. You noticed as your fellow padawan’s large, veiny hands found the way to the back of his neck, rubbing sheepishly. 

“Oh you know…” He trailed off, looking everywhere except for your eyes, his own blue ones scanning the ornate ceiling of the reception room. “Setting us up to be alone together.” He admitted, squinting as if the words bought him some kind of physical pain. 

You quirked a brow, your arms quickly crossing your chest - a defensive stance. “Would that be so bad? Being alone together?” The words meant to be teasing, non-serious. But it was too late, the seed was planted in Anakin’s brain. 

To him, that felt like an admission of sorts, an admission that you wanted him as much as he wanted you. Well, if he squinted it seemed like that. 

In a tender moment, something rare for Anakin, he reached out. Tucking stray hairs behind your ear, gently following your padawan braid around the cusp of it. 

“You know, y/n, that I want nothing more,” He smiled. It was pure, and real. You felt the sincerity in the force, the truth within him. Moreso, you felt your ear burn from the brief contact, felt your heart swell in your chest at the mere thought of being alone in close quarters with him. “I want nothing more than to be alone with you.” 

He retracted his hand, but you still felt alight with his closeness. His force signature felt palpable, you were enraptured in his warmth. He was golden. Your golden boy. 

“Why don’t we go get lost then?” You whispered, scared anything too loud would betray your eagerness. Anakin’s smile split across his face, eyes crinkling and dimples showing. Smirking he placed a strategic hand at the low of your back. He was so incredibly tall, bending over you to whisper back, 

“After you, my lady.”

—--

AN: Hehe all done! Left it open for more if you wanted, but teasing enough to be left as it is! Hope it’s alright and I hope you could enjoy at least some of it <3 

P.S This is a side account, my main is @mayhemories, so I will be answering any comments with that account but rest assured it is still me :) <3

Much love, El. 

[gladiatorcunt]

- APOLLO REACHES FOR THE SEA | V.

under my skin’s an intrinsic shrine

cw: kinktober prompt (s) - scent & food play, canon typical obsessive behavior, anankin & reader are both 20, reader has a pussy, more suggestive, friends to lovers, drunk-ish sex, unprotected sex, implied angst of the series’s canon events, aotc!era but pre actual aotc events, dead dove do not eat

please do not repost, translate, or feed this work to ai

kinktober 2024

“Ani, watch out! You’re going to spill the plums!” You giggle, ushering him in the quarters you share with your Master Shaak Ti.

It’s late at night, a rare day without missions as you both get closer to knighthood. So Anakin had casually suggested swiping some food from the food stalls in the city and having a sleepover, just like old times. You’d known each other since he had come to the temple 12 years ago, and you can admit that you’ve been missing the hours you used to waste away laughing and dreaming of your futures as Jedi Masters. You had bonded over wanting to help people and become powerful enough to stop tragedy from happening, he’s whispered things to you that he fears Obi-Wan Kenobi would flay him alive for.

He’s the only one that knows anything about your family, what you ran to the Jedi Order from. You’re not allowed to have personal belongings from that time of your life, but you slipped a good luck charm in the folds of Anakin’s tunic on your 14th birthday and pecked his lips before darting off to your sparring session with your Master.

Perhaps it’s a panic response, clinging to these brief silver linings when you can sense his force signature darkening. Anakin does what you wish you could, deep down, how can you judge his heart when it’s other half aches in your chest?

“You think too little of me, Scyva.” Ani grins, balancing the tray in the crook of his arm as he follows you to your room.

Scyva, because that’s what an edgy prepubescent you had insisted on if he was going to call you a name derived from the Old Gods. In truth, it made you terribly shy that he wanted to call you Aivela, that he still does after he gives you the bare minimum of saying the name you wanted first.

“Well,” he had ‘hmph’ed back then, “Then I’ll be Izax, because that’s Scyva’s husband.”

So simple, so assured, like it was the most obvious declaration in the world to make. Playing house with forces beyond your understanding in their clothes.

Your cheeks warm as you recall the memory, you close your door hoping that Masters Shaak Ti and Obi-Wan will be delayed more than you thought.

Anakin had also managed to finesse a couple of cups of Jawa Juice from Dex’s Diner, “Master’s a good friend of his, but he won’t rat us out.”

Both of those cups are gone and empty within minutes, the pair of you doped up on the sizzling connection between you. This unbreakable bond that formed all those years ago, it’s like all your pains and troubles fade away when you’re near Anakin. He’s told you the same, with an imploring look in his doe eyes, begging you without words to understand what that must mean. Why you two are so clearly meant for each other.

He’s the chosen one, he teased you when you were 15 and had lost round after round to him in training, the force wouldn’t want it’s son to be without a chosen one of his own.

You were 16 and learning how to swim together, you had forgotten how but Anakin held you up in the water like he had been doing it all his life. You pecked his lips again then too, that’s all you ever did, the farthest you went. To do more would be to open up durasteel gates that would flood Coruscant in sparks and wet wires.

You shrug off the outer layers of your tunic, plopping down on your bed and sighing, “I could never think more of you if I tried, Ani.”

Give Anakin Skywalker a pearl and he’ll turn it into a Greater Krayt Dragon.

His seemingly stuck grin widens and he clamors onto the bed to lie right beside you, “Yeah? Typical of my biggest fan.”

Your arms brush together and a sudden jolt of fire burns down your throat.

You roll your eyes, picking up a plum and biting into it, ignoring the bob of Anakin’s adam’s apple and the flash of arousal in the force.

You don’t know why, but you make eye contact as you finish the piece of fruit, making an extra effort to lick some of the purplish-red juice off your bottom lip.

Anakin shuffles closer and reaches out to rub away what you missed with his thumb. Your breath hitches, the air in the room is shifting to something you can’t even say you didn’t anticipate or secretly wish for. Ani’s always so warm, every part of him, and the comfort his coarse finger tip brings to your often bitten lip lights a candle in your soul.

Neither of you say anything as he brings his other closer to your hip, his fingers ghosting along the curve like he’s afraid to touch you, that you’ll disappear if he lets himself buy into the delusion that he can have something so sacred. Anakin Skywalker doesn’t buy, he gets bought, but every teasing moment over the years does some serious damage to a 20 year old guy’s psyche. Maybe you should think of it like sparring, you can’t improve without throwing yourself into the fray.

The kiss he plants on you isn’t anywhere close to one of your previous “friendly” pecks, it’s ravenous. He’s enthusiastic, moving to sink his thumbs into the divots under your jaw so he can tilt your head up. He moans into it too, heady and smug with every caress of your lips and every wet pop signaling you pulling away to breathe or change your position.

“Fuck, you taste so good, Aivela.” Anakin hisses, eagerly yanking the rest of your robes off in between more kisses and briefly separating to toss them unceremoniously on the floor.

You moan, sliding your hands up his bare back and pulling at hair that’s not quite long enough to tug like you want to, “So do you, Ani, force-”

He cuts you off by snaking his tongue in your mouth, cleaning your teeth from the dark mess of the plum juice, which only stains you both even further. His arousal in the force grows and you can feel his dick twitch against your hip, the bond tells you that he loves being messy with you, that it feels right to be this real and uninhibited with each other. To be this raw.

“You ruin me, you know that? I’m trying so hard to be perfect. For you, for Obi-Wan, for the council, for my mom.”

It’s easy at this moment, with this boy, to be damningly honest. “ You’re already perfect to me, Ani, there’s nothing about you I would change.”

You’ll always love the 9 year old boy who became your first friend, and you became his, every version of him after that only fleshes him out and waters the underestimated sapling into a massive tree with nonflammable roots.

Anakin shudders when you say he’s perfect, the feeling of being indulged and complimented by a friend who he’s spent countless nights jerking off to, muffling his whines and groans into his pillow so Obi-Wan doesn’t suspect anything. But knowing his master, he probably already knows and is discussing it with your master right now.

You pick up on his train of thought, “You don’t have to be so paranoid, Ani. You don’t know for sure that anything bad is going to happen.”

He nods and shrugs it off, storing that opportunity to spiral away for later. You exclaim in surprise as he dives in to kiss you again. The kisses are hotter now, heavy and sloppy with intention. Anakin waves a hand around trying to find the tray of plums without breaking away from you, he eventually fumbles onto it and yanks it to push into your hip.

You pull back in confusion, but Anakin smiles and pushes you to fall on your back with his hand splayed out across your chest.

He takes a plum and bites off half of it, leaning down to share it with you as he crushes the other half above your body, honing in on the squelching sound and passing you bits of the plum from his tongue to yours.

“I’ve had dreams of a goddess of love on a lonely planet in the future, a god too, and they look just. like. you.” He draws back and punctuates each word with a swipe of his tongue through the plum juice on your ribs.

You hear more than see the sniff he takes of your skin, deep lung fulls of the fruity hints in your natural musk. He humps into the mattress and his cock twitches, your belly clenches when he flicks droplets of sweat off of you, the pink in his bunny tongue winking up at you in the low light.

You relax against your pillows and run a hand over his hair as he busies himself with drinking the plum juice off your body like body shots. You bask in his pulsing force signature and the tantalizing sight of your best friend Ani humping his gorgeous cock on the chub gathered on your lower stomach.

You feed him more plums, moaning as he slurps at your fingers and sucks them clean, wrapping his lips around them down to the knuckle. A bright yellow thank you rings out in the force. He’s messy on purpose, letting bits fall out of his mouth onto your tummy, just so he can take another hit off your skin and clean the juice up. He licks long flat stripes up your soft stomach, making sure you're watching as he moans and swallows down every drop.

Anakin’s pupils are twin black holes, and he actually smiles when the teasing gets to be too much to handle and you send out your desire for him to move downwards into the force. His teeth are almost sharp in this lightning, your breaths are shallow and he scrapes them over the top of your mound.

“Smells amazing.” He moans and tries to press a kiss to each little hair he finds. “ ‘s gonna be way better than some fuckin’ plums. Love you so much, Scyva, Nahut..”

Goddess of sorrow, you don’t know how you bring him to his knees.

God of apathy, hated by all but the other part of you, there’s something dark unfurling in you too.

Your half heart skips a beat. It’s probably just the Jawa Juice, you reason, even though Anakin jumps out of speeders more often than not and is so damn reckless he can handle a cup of fermented grains. You yourself feel buzzed, pleasantly tipsy in a way that only enhances the sensation of physical touch.

“You trust me?” Ani asks, long fingers poised to slip into your hole, he won’t give in until you learn to use your words.

No more beating around bush, instead more busting the fuck through that thing.

“You’re the only one I trust.”

The force flares around you, endlessly pleased.

He returns to sucking the juice off your skin as he dips two of his fingers inside at once. Sue him for being impatient, but he’s getting everything he’s ever wanted right now. By what the force is telling him, so are you. You gasp at the little sting, but you let your legs go lax against the sheets, spreading yourself wider for him.

Anakin takes a second to gawk in awe at the view, your wet hole clinging to his fingers as he slowly pumps them deeper into you. You’re both so glad he didn’t beg Dex for more Jawa Juice, there’s no way you can run from this memory forever. He picks up his dry humping, whimpering as his precum falls on your favorite blanket.

He tosses his head back to stare into your eyes and grinds against your tummy like his dick is where his fingers are. You’re nodding, making the cutest little hiccups and tensing your thighs, resisting the urge to squeeze them around his arm. Anakin chuckles as he feeds you the other two fingers, imagine how wide your entrance would stretch around his entire fist.

Your pussy flutters around his fingers and he hunches his back to be able to kiss your clit hello, taking a whiff of that too before suckling. You keen and he takes his mouth off of you, massaging your slick into his golden skin.

He moans and drives his tip further into your plush curves, circling his thumb on your clit until you both tumble over the edge. It’s not a mind shattering orgasm for either of you, too little stimulation and too pliant from the booze, but that’s okay. That won’t be the only time you’ll cum tonight, and this time it’ll feel so good the force rebuilds itself around the two of you, Anakin will do his very best to blame going in raw on intoxication.

That’s what you’ll blame for clawing at his ass and hooking your heels into his back to keep all of him inside of you, like the force itself won’t let him pull out to sleep. You’ll figure out what to do in the morning. But for now, Anakin is grabbing your hand and leading you into the fresher.

The plum tray clatters to the floor.

[ceilidho]

exit, no entry wound joe bear graves x reader; part 1 (3.8k)

-

Local time at destination: 0500 hours.

And then the world rushes back to him like the culmination of a terrible dream.

Bear wakes up in another rosebush outside the front steps of the local library worse for wear. Blinking out of sleep-crusted eyes, shapes diverging in blurry unfocus before slipping back into material objects. A bench. A door. The thorny stems of roses already on their way out, already depetalling, the ground below covered in a thin layer of them. One petal even sticking to his cheek when he pulls himself off the ground, wincing at the branches that crunch around him, that tug against his skin and clothes.

His clothes smell of cheap liquor. Gin. Bourbon. It hurts to open his eyes, to sit up. 

“Morning, sunshine,” someone says. He remembers hearing it in his dream too. 

He looks to the source of his awakening, blanching when he notices the man staring at him.

Rip sits on the other side of the bushes on his haunches, looking deeply unimpressed. Hair slicked back for a change. “This what you get up to when I’m gone?”

Bear doesn’t respond. He struggles to his feet instead, hangover only just creeping in. Still drunk, to an extent. His knees threaten to buckle under him, forcing him to lay a hand flat on the wall to keep himself upright. One foot in front of the other. The walk home feels endless in the hour before dawn, hardly any light to guide him. 

“Pretty pathetic shit, Bear,” the man says, trailing along behind him. Not quite mockingly, but bordering on it. “Getting piss drunk and passing out in a bush? Really? C’mon, man. You gotta be fuckin’ kidding me.”

There’s no sense in responding, Bear knows that now. No sense in even turning around to look. One foot in front of the other. Stumbling home alone under the cloak of night, dawn just around the corner; terrified that one day he’ll have to see it—the sun coming over the mountains, over the horizon. 

It’s been less than a year. He hasn’t yet made his amends with God. Forgiveness sits outside of him. Not quite the right time to let it in. Maybe that time passed a long time ago, a small aperture that shuttered closed at the approach of his eyes. He missed it sometime between killing a boy and losing his mind.

A man cannot hold himself up on the scaffolding of the world alone. There has to be something beneath him. There is no sense in repeating the horrors of the world back to him; he’s already lived them. He’s got something of a Midas touch for death. 

The months have been long since the divorce was finalised, since Lena left for good, since Buckley died, since Rip—since it all went down. If he thinks about it for too long, it seems like a nightmare that he woke up from still mad about; a nightmare he had no choice but to drink himself into a stupor over to escape. That’s the reality of the world. 

“You know, Bear, you’re not the one that’s fuckin’ dead,” Rip spits as he follows behind, matching Bear’s stumbling gait stride for stride. “So you can stop acting like it.”

There’s a truth in Rip’s words and it leaves him feeling nauseous. There’s also a kink in his neck and a headache threatening to split his forehead open. In the belly of him, he has a truth that says that the firmament of heaven is beyond his reach. When he looks up and the sky is void of coruscating light, the meagre stars like an exit with no entry wound, it doesn’t surprise him. Of course there wouldn’t be anything there.

On a good day, his heart feels like it’s weathered a siege. 

“So she left you! It’s time to fuckin’ move on. Go to a bar—I mean, you already are, so step one done—and pick someone up. Go on Christian Mingle or something. You keep living your life like this and you’re going to wind up killing yourself. And then the fuck good that’ll do?”

It takes everything in him to not turn around and do something rash. Only the nausea keeps him from making any sudden movements. Even if he were to turn around and do something, his knees would probably buckle under him. Probably throw up the contents of his stomach. Not much in there either. It rumbles when he thinks that, clenching at the thought of food. Then it twists, the nausea returning. 

One foot in front of the other. The walk home takes twice as long, his whole body aching.

“Heard you almost quit. Wouldn’t be the worst idea you ever had. Let Buddha take over—he’s earned it. Get yourself a nice piece of land in fuckin’…Montana or something. Couple cows, maybe some chicken—you could get a dog, Christ. You look like a guy who’d have a dog. Why don’t you have a dog, actually? You would’ve told me if you didn’t like dogs, so it’s not that.”

His forehead is greasy when he touches it to rub his head. Body secreting poison in his sleep. Oily. The corners of his lips crack when he yawns. It’s not like he’s never thought about a dog, about having something to care for, another living thing in his house. 

But—

(“Bear? …I don’t think we should have a child.”)

What he wants often falls to the wayside, slides off him like a glancing blow. 

Her old, familiar shape appears at the sudden loss of a dream: one where Lena’s gaze lingers on him long enough to burn; but then it is the sun.

Bear watches dawn break. Sunday morning. In a different life, he would’ve squinted into the light of a new day and closed his eyes against it, curling into the slighter body tucked into his chest for another hour of rest. Felt the rise and fall of her chest. Woken up to a hot mouth on his cock or fingers curling in his chest hair, petal lips seeking him out. Church after that, showering off the remnants of their morning, solemn in their pews with their chests still holding the laughter of an hour previous. Light as air, as a feather. 

He won’t go to church today; hasn’t in months. Not with the guilt of missing it the week before trailing after him, each missed week compounding month after month. The cracks in his faith webbing. Splintering out like stepping on the lake when it freezes over in the winter, crunching under his boot until he holds his place. Conscious that it could break under his feet.

“I grew up with a dog,” Bear finally responds, voice hoarse. First thing he’s said since last call at the bar. 

“Yeah. Figures. What kind?”

“Black lab. We called her Daisy.”

It’s another lifetime ago. Still living in his parent’s house, Daisy curled by his dad’s feet, her favourite spot to sleep. Television playing at a low volume, mom at the kitchen table doing her crossword, ink bleeding into the side of her hand. It’s been a long time since Bear buried all of them. He’s buried countless people since. 

“What—can’t get another? One and done? That’s how everything works for you?”

Teeth raze across his skin again. Trust Rip to always cut to the quick. Finally back in his neighbourhood at least, the street empty apart from the cars parked in their driveways or along the sidewalk. Bear’s stomach rumbles something fierce now, entreating him to eat. Worse than hunger is how he’d kill for a glass of water though. Anything to settle his head.

“Haven’t wanted a dog,” Bear grumbles, then clears his throat.

“Yeah, you have,” Rip scoffs. Bear hears him kick a rock, sending it skidding across the asphalt. 

“Fuck off.”

Heart silicified in his chest, composed of fossilised shells and rocks and bones. It feels heavy in his chest. 

He turns down the street leading to his house. 

“Gotta let someone else in, Bear. Girl, dog—whatever. You can’t keep this up forever or it’ll kill you.”

When he turns around at the door, fishing in his pocket for his keys, the sidewalk beyond his house is empty. 

(So a man lies down and rises not again; till the heavens are no more he will not awake or be roused out of his sleep.)

Every Friday like clockwork, Bear stops at the diner down the street for a coffee and a slice of cherry pie before heading to the bar. 

Today is like any other. He leaves the house with only his keys and wallet and walks the long twenty minutes to the diner. Every time he fights the urge to drive, but there has to be something holding him in place. A reason not to throw it all away. 

It’s never completely empty when he shows up, but it’s never full either. His seat at the back of the room is open as usual, like they put up a sign before he comes ambling down the street that says Reserved for Joe Graves and then pluck it away before he opens the door. It’d be nice if that were the case. Nice to have something just for him for a change. The thought comes with its accompanying pang of shame. Desire is a dangerous thing; anything he’s ever wanted has come at him with sharpened teeth, clamping down on his leg and ripping through the flesh. Bear trap for old Bear. 

He slides into the booth and waits for someone to notice him. Never bothers to flag someone down—if it’s ten minutes or even half an hour before he’s served, that’s fine by him. 

“Hiya,” a clear voice says to his right, pulling him away from staring through the blinds out the window. “Can I get you something to drink? Coffee, tea?”

The face Bear turns to meet is pleasant, smiling. Wide and untroubled. It’s not a face he recognizes though, despite months coming to this diner and becoming familiar with the staff. If he had to guess, he’d bet she only started a few days ago, maybe a week at most. She still has the sparkle of someone who hasn’t had the goodness beaten out of them yet. 

“Coffee,” he says, his own smile strained. “And a slice of pie.”

“Sure—we have key lime, blueberry, apple—”

“Cherry,” he interrupts, not letting her build steam. The wick in his chest burns too low for any conversation. The quick flicker of her brow makes the shame in his chest swell again. Forgive me sitting on his lips, unsaid. I’m sorry, I don’t know why I do this. 

She nods and scurries off to the back, skirt swishing with her movements. Bear notices only because his eyes get stuck there, somewhere between the curves of her hips and the roundness of her ass. When he realizes where he’s let his mind wander, he pulls it back, flattening his lips into a hard line. Any sort of indulgence feels wrong, a taking that shouldn’t be taken. He hasn’t even begun to pay penance for all the damage he’s wrought. 

It’s only on her way back that Bear notices the small bump protruding from under her apron. His mouth goes dry. When she reaches him again, he wordlessly accepts the cup of coffee and her reassurance that the pie will be out in just a minute. For a moment, he can hardly meet her gaze, eyes locked on the gentle curve of her belly, caught off guard in a way he hasn’t been in months. 

The first thought with any clarity is, what is she doing working here? A crummy diner on a Friday night. Down the street from an even sleazier pub. His second thought is to look outside at the poorly lit stretch of road and think that this is no place for a pregnant woman to be alone. He recognizes each car in the parking lot save one, likely hers. Drove herself here with the expectation of driving herself home at the end of the night.

If it had been Lena—well, he never would’ve let it be Lena, but if it had been, Bear can’t imagine letting his pregnant wife drive herself home in the middle of the night. Can hardly stomach the thought. 

She’s not Lena though, so he has no right. 

She’s gone before he has time to say anything else, skirt swishing behind her. It catches his eye again. When he tears his gaze away for a second time, he swallows back the metallic taste of self-loathing. It curdles in his mouth. It’s the sign telling him to stop coveting, stop looking out into the world and wondering what he can take. It’s his hamartia, his fatal flaw; thinking himself above the reproach of God. Thinking that he can kill, fuck, curse, and stray farther and farther from the light only to find his way back in the dark. 

The bell above the door rings when someone else comes in and Bear tenses. His shoulders only relax when two older women step in and head to a table. 

He watches as she picks up a plate from the pass-through window and heads back towards him. When she places it in front of him, he draws a deep breath in, trying to catch more than just the aroma of fresh baked cherries. 

“Here we go…one slice of cherry pie, straight out of the oven.”

“Thanks, honey,” Bear rumbles, smile finally meeting his eyes. 

“No trouble. The guys in the back said they make it special for you. Joe, right?”

That gets him to levy her with the full weight of his attention. The thought of her asking about him. “I go by Bear.”

“Oh. Alright, Bear.” She twists the word around in her mouth and seems to find it satisfying. “I think I’ve heard your name before. You were—I mean, you’re part of Pastor Adams’ parish, right?”

He clears his throat, cutting off the triangle point of his pie with the side of his fork. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Me too,” she confides, voice a low whisper. A secret between strangers. She doesn’t glance around though, doesn’t bother to draw out the ruse. “Or, I was, anyway. Haven’t been to service in awhile. I, um…I remember you. From a year or so back. You and your—um…you and your wife used to always sit up at the front.”

The fork scrapes against the plate. “Ex-wife.”

He catches her wince from the corner of his eye. “Oh. Sorry. You just—” She doesn’t have to say it. The slight dip of her eyes tells him all he has to know, and besides, it’s his own fault for still wearing the ring. Even with the paperwork signed and dated, even with Lena in another state now, starting a new life without him, the thought of taking it off makes him break out in a cold sweat. 

“It’s not—” Bear starts before giving up. He curls his fingers into a fist on the table. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s fine. Not a big deal.”

She fidgets in the silence. Bear can’t bring himself to break it or make the atmosphere less oppressive. He tenses under it, the ache in his low back worsening. These days, he always aches. Nerve damage, a disc on the verge of slipping, an old ankle injury that flares up whenever he goes running. A ghost that follows him from haunt to haunt. The ring on his finger is just another old ache. 

“So, uh—” he clears his throat, nodding to her belly. “Your first?” 

It’s inappropriate, hardly his place to ask. Incredibly intrusive for someone he’s met for the first time, a stranger just trying to do her job and serve him coffee and pie before he goes off to drink himself half to death again at the dive bar down the road. 

Still, he asks. 

Only the faintest wrinkle of her nose betrays any embarrassment. “Oh. Yeah. First one.”

“Congratulations.” It’s sincere. The envy in his gut is old, but it’s a manageable pain. 

“Thanks,” she says, with a small, private smile, hand resting absently under her belly. “I’m excited. I’m only a couple months along, but, uh…it’s been a journey. Just me and baby against the world, you know.”

That stops him in his tracks. Screws up the whole course of his evening because suddenly the sound of the bell over the door jingling doesn’t draw his attention away. It stays fixed on the smiling girl to his right that just opened her mouth and said something unacceptable. 

“Where’s the dad?” he asks, far too bluntly. 

She shrugs. “Somewhere. Didn’t stick around long enough to tell me where. It’s fine though—I’ve got my little peanut. That’s all that matters.”

“You told him and he left?” 

The pie sits cooling in front of Bear as a pit in his stomach opens up. It’s a terrible, empty hole that holds truths like the fallibility of the body and the good shouldering the burdens of the world.  

He only regrets being so direct when her lip quivers, a little motion that betrays her until she wrests control over her face again. “It’s not his fault. I don’t think he was—well…you know, it was a surprise.”

“That’s—” he struggles to find his words, “—that’s not right.”

Again, she shrugs. “That’s life.”

Bear feels his eyes go hard. A coldness settles under his skin. 

In the deep, dark gut of him, only anger lives. He spends his days questioning why God has allowed everything else in his life to fall apart, has allowed countless other people to die, but refuses, for reasons unbeknownst to him, to kill him. He’s given him enough opportunity and enough reason. 

The answer he circles back to time and again is the same. An eye for an eye. Divine wrath. The litany of his sins could be sung until the end of time and there’d still be more to sing. It’s only right that there would be consequences for him. 

The rage that simmers in his blood now is twofold. It begins with the sharp pang of injustice, of witnessing a punishment meted out to someone innocent. The girl standing by the booth he’s shoved himself into, almost too small for a man of his size, cannot be deserving of the same punishment that he’s brought upon himself. She has never killed. The babe in her belly has never killed. The two of them should never have to meet at the point of two paths converging with the likes of someone like Bear and proceed down the same road together. 

Then it sinks into a familiar territory. A place at the core of him where righteousness gives way to envy, as it always does. After what he's been through, the thought of someone having everything that he's always desperately wanted handed to them on a silver platter and then sending it back leaves him feeling a bit off-kilter. Not quite right. 

“Bear?” Her voice breaks the silence. When he blinks, concerned eyes stare down at him, brows furrowed. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” he rasps, dragging a hand down his face. Shaking it off. “Sorry, I—got lost in my head. Sorry.” 

“That’s alright,” she says, again gentle in her voice and smile. “Easy place to get lost in, isn’t it?”

He makes a sound in acknowledgment. Drags the silence out. Her mouth twists shy under his scrutiny. 

“Anyway, I have a few other tables to get to, if you don’t mind. Enjoy your pie. I’ll check on you in a bit.”

He eats his slice of pie in silence as she leaves, eyes following her to her next table. Rage still sizzles under his fingertips. It makes his hands shake, old nerve damage and anger problems. 

It’s like a gun punch to think of her all on her own. It’s not right. For someone like him, well, it’s—deserved, earned. Inevitable, even. Every step taking him further away from grace, from its light. No one who knows his story would think otherwise. 

She’s a pretty thing though, this new waitress. Too tired, the bags under her eyes testament to that, no matter how well she hides them with makeup. Slightly puffy anyway, maybe from a lack of sleep or too many tears. His stomach aches at the thought. It must have come as a shock, the bottom of her world dropping out from under her when the baby’s father took off. Dragged away from the church not through her own doing, but the fault of another. Not her shame to bear, and yet. 

He forces the pie down. Bites that taste like nothing, 

Bear hears the lilt of her voice from two tables over. “Refill on your coffee, hun?” 

A supplicant sits in his place as he sips his coffee. The hour slips by into the next and it starts to come together in his mind. Why he's been forced down this long road alone, why God hasn't struck him down yet despite every terrible thing he's done. His eyes follow her flit across the diner, the light seeming to bend around her like a halation. 

When Bear looks across the room at her, he thinks, Lord, do not think I am waiting patiently for your hands. Every part of me trembles with anxiety.

(O Lord, show me I can fall apart together again; but not just yet.)

He stays until the last customer has finally left, waiting for her to come back to his table with an apologetic smile. When she does, Bear hands her his empty plate, watching her take a step back when he scoots out of the booth, rising to his full height. He makes note of the way her eyes round as they follow him up. Taller than her, unsurprisingly. Surprising though, the way her bottom lip droops just the slightest bit. 

“Is it just you closing up?” he asks, voice a tad too gruff. He clears his throat again, looking around for anyone else. 

“Well, the chef’s cleaning up in the back, but, uh—” she looks around the diner, conspicuously empty apart from the two of them. “Yeah. Just me.”

Bear gestures with his chin towards the door. “I’ll wait ‘till you’re done, then walk you to your car.”

“Oh, Joe—”

“Bear,” he corrects.

“Bear,” she amends, fingers twisting together now. He relishes the sound of it on her lips. “You don’t have to. I’m used to it, honestly. I know I just started here, but I’ve done closes before, you know.”

“I’ll wait outside.” A statement now. Stubborn. He’s always been a bit mulish, hard to shake off. 

He can tell the second she relents, shoulders slumping. “Alright. I shouldn’t be too long…you can leave if you get bored though. Won’t blame you.” 

He fights the urge to tilt her head up by the chin to make her meet his eyes. Just barely restrains himself. 

Leaning against a tree out front, he twirls the ring around his finger as he watches her clean up. For the first time in a long time, he slips it off.

[sollis-occasum]

a night like this - anakin skywalker x fem!reader

summary: you kept saying that everything was over between the two of you but anakin kept coming back to you every time.

warnings: angst, no use of y/n, insecurity, jealousy, miscommunication, mention of blood and injury, quinlan vos beheads a bounty hunter (just one sentence and it's not in detail either), mention of a vomiting twi-lek, reader is working in a pub, no proofread

word count: 1.7k

a/n: i haven't decided yet but i may write a few more parts to this story. i hope you like it guys. please don't mind the english mistakes, i'm not a native speaker.

Being injured was not unusual for Anakin Skywalker, but he could never remember feeling so vulnerable before.

As he moved, his battle-weary body convulsed with a kind of pain he had never felt before, reopening wounds that had begun to close, filling his nostrils with the metallic scent of blood. If your delicate sighs had not mixed with his moans from his blood-soaked lips, the pain he was in would have caused him to lose all sense of time and space. But how could he have allowed this to happen as you gently ran your hands over his face, wiping away the sweat from his forehead? This was perhaps the last time you would welcome him into this house where you had created so many precious memories together, and Anakin wanted to engrave everything from that night deep in his mind. Every sound, every image, every detail...

You had tried to tell him hundreds, maybe thousands of times before that everything between you was over, that you belonged in two different worlds. Anakin Skywalker was a young Jedi fighting to ensure that the light side of the Force prevailed over the darkness in the galaxy. You were just an ordinary barmaid working in a seedy pub in a backstreet of Coruscant. Unlike Anakin, your life was not full of fearless warriors and nobles with endless wealth, but of hardened criminals, addicts, and bounty hunters. How could you trust him and open your heart to him when he had been trained to fight the people you considered your family for almost his entire life?

And your experiences were very different, too. Anakin had traveled to planets you had never even heard of before, and met people you could never even see on the HoloNet. Some nights when you couldn't sleep, you would ask him to talk, to tell you things, thinking that hearing his soft voice would help you drift off. He would tell you stories from his missions. Sometimes these stories took place on a mountain on Alderaan, sometimes in an underwater city on Naboo. Usually, the people who accompanied Anakin on these planets were just as interesting as the mission itself. Master Jedi, senators, stormtroopers, sometimes even Chancellor Palpatine himself...

These stories that you listened to with great excitement at first, started to create a thin ache in your heart that even you didn't want to accept. You knew that Anakin had no bad intentions, that he just wanted to share something with you, but no matter what you did you couldn't resist the jealousy that was trying to take over your soul. Knowing that there is another life somewhere outside of this swamp you were trapped in and that you could only hear about it from others was driving you crazy inside.

Sometimes Anakin would ask you questions about your life, but you would either ignore them or leave them unanswered. You had no intention of appearing mysterious or keeping secrets. You just didn't have stories that would interest someone like him who had seen the entire galaxy. What were you going to tell him? Do you know, Anakin, today a Jedi named Quinlan Vos came to our pub and cut off the head of a bounty hunter with his lightsaber. The man's head fell into the lap of one of the stripper Twi-leks and she started throwing up. I had to clean up the vomit along with the blood on the walls. What a beautiful day, isn't it?

No, no... You would rather remain silent for the rest of your life than endure Anakin's pitying gaze as he listened to these. At least that way you wouldn't have lost your self-respect.

You took a deep breath to clear your mind and turned your gaze to Anakin lying on your bed. He looked so innocent and defenseless with his wounded state that your heart ached for him. You wanted to protect him from all the evil in the universe by hiding him in your house, which was a temple of memories for you, but how could you do that when you didn't even have the strength to protect yourself? The only good thing you could do for him was to get out of his life before you could hurt him any further. You tucked a lock of hair that had fallen onto his forehead behind his ear and muttered in a voice you could barely hear, "You shouldn't have come here, Anakin." You tried to make your voice sound firm and determined, but you couldn't stop it from shaking.

The young Jedi tried to sit up in bed, but couldn’t. He winced in pain and slowly lowered himself onto the headboard. He pressed his mechanical hand to the wound on his abdomen, as if the coldness of the metal would ease the pain. You placed your hand over his and began to gently stroke the metal surface with your thumb. Even though he couldn’t feel your touch, the gesture always soothed him. When you realized that having a cybernetic hand embarrassed him, you started doing it to show him that you loved everything about him, and over time it had become a habit. To Anakin, this robotic hand might have been a symbol of his weakness but to you, it was just a part of the man you loved.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be a burden to you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Ani, you’re not a burden to me. You couldn’t be even if you wanted to.” You slowly removed his hand from his wound, as if you were afraid of hurting him, and kissed it. “What I was trying to say was that the Jedi at the temple could take better care of you. You know, with spells and all that.”

"Jedi don't do magic, they use the Force." He smiled for the first time since he had come to you. You shrugged, smiling. "They're all the same to me. I'm not sensitive to any of them anyway."

Your smiles and chuckles were not enough to break the serious air in the room. You had to stop for a few seconds and gather your courage to continue speaking. Your eyebrows were slightly furrowed in the meantime, and your lips were drawn into a thin line. A sadder expression than Anakin had ever seen appeared in his eyes, reflected by the moonlight. The wrinkles on your forehead made you look like you had aged a few years in a few seconds.

"But we can't keep doing this, Anakin. You know that too. You can't come to me every time. We've talked about this many times before."

Anakin tried to get closer to you, but the burns and wounds were hurting him so much that he couldn't. He leaned back once more, taking deep, raspy breaths, and unconsciously began to squeeze the old sheet. Despite the pained expression on his face, he neither blinked nor took his gaze away from yours. You knew that by looking directly into you eyes, he was trying to see something deep inside your soul. Maybe a trace of the affection you had only ever felt for him, or maybe a glimmer of hope that you would never give up on him... But he could see nothing but determination on your face, blurred by his misty eyes.

“Don’t do this to us,” he said in a pleading voice. The tears he had been trying to hold back had finally started to flow down his cheeks. With a quick movement, he pulled his mechanical hand from yours and wiped his face, hoping that you hadn’t seen them. He hated the power you had over him.

“Don’t give up on us like this.”

When you saw Anakin’s wet eyelashes, you felt an overwhelming desire in your heart to pull him close to you, to lay him on your chest, to caress the soft hair he had grown for your sake while he cried and tell him that everything would be okay, but you couldn’t do it. You knew that the moment you showed weakness, your ex-lover would draw strength from your hesitation and try to fight against your inevitable end. You did the only thing you could do and shook your head, hiding behind your cold expression. "I have no choice, Ani."

"I love you, does that mean nothing to you?" The sadness in his eyes was giving way to anger, but his voice was so weak that he could not convey his rebellion to you.

"Of course that means something." you said in a calm tone, almost mocking his anger. "I love you too, but I will not allow you to waste your life on a relationship that has no future. If you are so determined to go against the Jedi Code, you should at least do it for someone worthy. Senator Amidala, for example. She is a beautiful and noble woman, and it is clear that she has feelings for you. She can use her power and position to help you. I will only be a hindrance."

"Nonsense," Anakin snapped. "Padme is nothing more than a trusted friend to me. You are the only person I need to continue. I can fight the whole galaxy as long as you're by my side."

You sighed slightly and got out of bed. “We won’t have this conversation again, Anakin. My decision is final and there is nothing you can do to make me change my mind.”

You knew you were doing the right thing for both of you, but why did it hurt so much? Why did the right choice always require such sacrifices?

You bid Anakin a last farewell with an innocent kiss on the lips and started walking towards the old wooden door of the room. You could feel the salty taste of your lovers tears on your lips.

“Stay the night here and get some good rest. But I don’t want to see you here when I get home from work tomorrow.”

Those were the last words you said to Anakin before you left the room and his life forever. “This can’t be the end of us,” he muttered as he looked at your shrinking figure. He started to tangle his fingers in his hair that you had been gently stroking a few minutes ago and started to squeeze it. He shook his head violently from side to side as if denying the cruel words echoing in his mind.

"I swear I will find a way to fix everything and bring you back to me."

[saphronethaleph]

Pay up quickly.

Palpatine cackled, summoning Force Lightning to his hands once more, and Mace Windu no longer had a way to block the attack.

The Jedi Master was flung backwards, out the window, and vanished into the Coruscant night.

“Power!” Palpatine laughed. “Unlimited power!”

Anakin looked on in horror, staggering back.

“What have I done?” he asked.

“You are fulfilling your destiny, Anakin,” Palpatine said, slowly rising from where he’d been seated. “Become my apprentice. Learn to use the Dark Side of the Force.”

Anakin half-opened his mouth, then stopped. Trying to think, to focus.

“I will do whatever you ask,” he said. “Just-”

“Good,” Palpatine interrupted.

“Just help me save Padme’s life,” Anakin went on. “I can’t live without her. I won’t let her die. I want the power to stop death.”

Palpatine nodded.

“To cheat death is a power only one has achieved,” he said. “But if we work together, I know we can discover the secret.”

Anakin stabbed him.

“Wha-” Palpatine asked, sounding quite surprised, and looked down at the blue blade disappearing into his chest.

“You lied to me?” Anakin demanded, his voice hot and full of passion. “You tricked me – and – you can’t even do what you promised?”

“Anakin, you’ve killed me,” Palpatine said, but he was having a bit of trouble getting much volume with the serious damage to several organs.

“You said you had the power to save the one I love!” Anakin snapped, not really paying attention to what Palpatine was saying. “You said you were dying! I thought – I thought you were going to be put on trial, not electrocute Master Windu and throw him out the window!”

Then Anakin frowned. “Oh, uh, I guess… it’s going to be hard to put you on trial now… what have I done?”

Palpatine coughed.

“Oh, right, fulfilling my destiny, you said,” Anakin realized. “...hey, wait, isn’t Darth Sidious the guy in charge of the Separatists? And that’s you? That must mean the war’s over!”

He gestured with the hand holding his lightsaber. “Finally, I can retire! And – and Padme can get medical help without some really awkward questions that would get me expelled from the Jedi Order!”

Now bereft of the lightsaber holding him up and with a much larger hole, Palpatine hit the ground with a thud.

“...man, I am really having impulse control problems today,” Anakin muttered. “Maybe I should call Master Kenobi about that. And… uh, come up with an explanation for what just happened…”

He turned the events of the office over in his head.

“...I showed up late, just before Mace Windu lost his hand, then I killed Palpatine,” he decided. “Yeah, that should work.”

[frostbitebakery]

LOUD.

the mania is taking hold on us, sorry

“Okay,” Cody yields, “Kamino isn’t anything like this.”

Obi-Wan’s grin is blooming in the crinkles around his eyes and Cody is led away from the— the obstacle course that calls itself night market, Obi-Wan’s fingers warm where they’re wrapped around Cody’s hand.

Obi-Wan walks backwards, his free hand busy signing while he deftly avoids any of the, Cody guesstimates, trillion people out and about on a busy Coruscant night.

Cody can’t look away.

There are no harsh turns or stops. No almost crashes. It’s almost, almost eerie, that otherworldliness. Obi-Wan is not concerned with looking where he’s going, still backwards. No, he’s seemingly fully occupied with telling Cody about the time he first tried takolumi, a “boldly fascinating dish, culturally significant although they do not particularly care how you eat it as long as you know some form of self-defense”.

He leads them around the masses of people like a walk on the beach and Cody can’t stop looking away.

The takeaway bag is rather hefty at this point and Cody adjusts the paper straps digging into the creases of his fingers. There’s a healthy spot of grease growing dark on the bottom of the bag and yet it doesn’t rip. Somehow no one has yet bumped into him either which would probably rank higher in the miracle list than surviving an encounter with Grievous if Obi-Wan’s hand wouldn’t sprinkle in strange gestures now and then.

To Cody’s embarrassment it took him three flat palms and a sideways motion so seamlessly flowing with Obi-Wan’s silent voice to notice that the people, kids, bags, and carts about to encounter the durasteel wall that is a clone’s body didn’t make impact.

“Too much?”

The question catches him off guard. To Obi-Wan’s credit, he looks more curious than concerned, expecting and trusting Cody to speak up if anything makes him uncomfortable.

He quickly shakes his head. It’s… refreshing, to be honest. The brass and natborn personnel act and rule as if they can’t think for themselves, like they’re on the very base of AI. The public are torn between disdain, fascination, and pity, thinking they know what rights the clones truly deserve in their protests. In the darkest hours after a campaign Cody avoids the holo news like the plague, skin breaking out in hives at the hypocrisy of people wanting to heroically save the clones while wanting to settle them in the furthest, most unwanted parts of the Galaxy.

Cody is aware that their upbringing is anything but traditional, that it’s doused with instilling loyalty to the Republic and, relatedly, to the Jedi as their commanding officers. The real problem took root when they were finally introduced to the Jedi and got treated like people instead of soldiers.

Cody is glad to die for these people when his time comes. And he knows, watching Obi-Wan’s fingers and eyes speak shapes and stories, they do not hesitate to lay down their lives for them either.

He stops. Can’t not stop. Feet frozen to the ground as the realization truly hits its mark in him.

Surrounded by the center of the Galaxy, the mix of every people and culture in one place, the mundane life, shouts and laughter and yelling and music and more laughter, surrounded by Obi-Wan’s warmth, his stories, his… his everything standing for the Jedi…

They would die for each other without hesitation.

“Cody?”

He watches the people around them unconsciously giving them space, walking around them.

“One minute,” he signs back in battle sign, keeps staring at Obi-Wan who switches from growing concern to wide eyes to lowering his gaze sheepish and pleased and blushing.

Cody wants to save him and be saved by him. Wants to end the war just to know they’re both alive for another morning.

He tugs at Obi-Wan’s hand, pulls him closer like he is the one weaving a spell. He reaches up, swipes the hood from Obi-Wan’s head. Feels the soft strands of ginger hair curling around his fingers as he leans up.

Their foreheads gently touch, push together until it’s one warmth shared, one breath shared, and it’s more than the everything Cody hadn’t had known he could dream about before meeting the Jedi.

“I know,” is tapped against his bottom lip and Cody pushes that much closer into Obi-Wan’s space.

Obi-Wan leans back after a too short eternity, meeting Cody’s eyes without flinch or hesitation even if there’s a guardedness in them now he can’t hide fast enough from Cody’s training. “Come on. I want to show you how to best clog your arteries and I know just the place for that.”

“I’m not,” the words trip out of him before Obi-Wan can turn away from him. “I’m,” he doesn’t have the words to explain but he knows, instinctively, if he doesn’t say something now, Obi-Wan will pull away from him. Obi-Wan’s fingers still in Cody’s hand have already started slipping away like water and sand and air.

“Death, yet the Force,” Cody signs hurriedly, hands jerking after the movements he’s seen Obi-Wan do during his meditation.

Obi-Wan stills, expression neutral.

“I honor your Code,” he says. “I honor your voice,” he signs. Watches his own heart pound and Obi-Wan’s shoulders loosen. His hand is solid in Cody’s once more.

“Come on. I want to watch Dex fuss over you.”

[A few months later, a daring plan later with prices too high and yet. Obi-Wan will help Quinlan once he’s back on Coruscant. But for now he’s carried away by a rescue shuttle from an exploding Malvolence to hopefully be fetched out of space soon. Even if a satisfied like loth cat Cody is a sight to behold. All the confidence of a Commander knowing what he’s doing and reaping the victory.]

Cody is warm against his back when the Force cries out, lashes its despair into Obi-Wan’s mind like a whip.

The moment he startles awake from the light doze, Cody’s arms around him tighten into a vice.

“There you are,” Cody says, hisses like a satisfied snake and it’s his voice but not and Obi-Wan is too tired and exhausted after dealing with Grievous and wrapping the Malvolence like a gift for Mace and Cody, Cody, Cody—

“I am arresting you for treason against the Emperor,” Cody continues, empty and hollow now and what the kriffing stars is going on.

“Let go,” he taps against Cody’s thigh and is put on his front for the trouble, arms pulled behind his back roughly.

It clicks with the first handcuff that— Cody

Cody

Cody

Cody has betrayed him.

Before the second click, Obi-Wan bucks up, turns, and he’s got the length of the cuffs around Cody’s neck. Kicks into Cody’s knee and his weight into the make-shift garrote to put him to unconsciousness and buy Obi-Wan crucial time to think.

Mind churning, whirling, puzzling, how could Cody do this, who’s driving him to do this, how could Obi-Wan not see—

Cody falls back into him, grips Obi-Wan’s hand holding one cuff link, grips it hard, and hits against Obi-Wan’s other still cuffed arm.

The cuff’s chain breaks, so does Obi-Wan’s wrist, and playing nice is over.

It’s glimpses that follow, shimmering in the despair of Obi-Wan fighting for his life, for Cody’s life who’s fighting and moves against every self-sustaining instinct, not caring when Obi-Wan pleads with him, barely flinching when Obi-Wan dislocates his knee to get away.

Running up the hull of the rescue ship and he’s snatched out of the air by an arm around his waist, thrown down on his back and the air waves at him on the way out of his lungs.

Cody’s hand on the front of his coat, pulling him up up up and he’s hurled back into the floor with prejudice. Cody wants to exhaust his damaged airways and lungs, maybe break his back while he’s at it, and he’s doing an admittedly incredible job of it.

On the next pull up, Obi-Wan slings his legs around Cody’s arm, heels crossed over his shoulder, and with additional strength provided by the Force he throws Cody over his center point, lets him crash into the floor, hoping to afflict some kind of damage to the damned armor.

The armor.

It’s a beacon flaring in the dark. The realization, the knowledge that is being shoved away by the Darkness even as clarity fights to reunite with him.

The armor. The neural connector.

Where was it. Helmet or backplate? He can’t remember why can’t he remember—

He gets a boot to his shin, a kick to the face as he falls forward and his priorities realign.

He needs to immobilize Cody or at the very least bring them both to the same disadvantage so he can think in the Darkness launching itself at him from all sides.

[tennessoui]

prompt --- meeting in prison au (maybe Anakin is serving a few years for crossing the line in defense of his mom and Obi-Wan is a volunteer teacher/lawyer?)

[this is in response to a prompt game i reblogged a year ago, but hey! wanted some dark obi-wan this evening so i'm finally getting around to it!] [warnings for hints of non-con typical for a prison trope fic where one is a pretty boy, also for dub-con and power imbalance] [obi-wan is another prisoner here] [supposedly] [2k]

It’s not actually something one asks here, which comes as a surprise to Anakin. He’d thought—well, he’d always assumed that was just something you traded in prison, like deathsticks and dirty holos maybe. Information, what are you in for.

Anakin had been worried that first night in his cell, mind shuffling through a cascade of concerns and memories and landing on one that seemed inconsequential, stacked as it was against the other contents of his life, but gripped him with a fear he hadn’t felt since he was small. What would he say, when they asked him what he was in for? 

Massacre is what’s written on the record. It’s some variation of the truth as well, though Anakin can’t even remember his own crime. Just the sting of the sand, the heat of the dying day, the blood on his hands. Mostly true, though Anakin thinks of it still as justice. Vengeance. The reality of bartering on Tatooine. A life for a life. A village for a mother. 

He could say massacre. As far as crimes go, it’s one that carries weight, could earn him a certain amount of respect among his fellow criminals. 

But then they would ask him how he did it. He isn’t necessarily small, but he’s hardly a man. Nineteen years old and lanky with it. His master used to assure him that he would grow sturdier with age, grow into his frame. 

His master hadn’t even looked at him once during the trial. It had been the security guards on Coruscant who had cut his braid.

So his fellow criminals would ask how he did it, how he killed an entire village of Tuskens when he is nothing but a nineteen year old boy.

And he would have nothing to say. Because being a Jedi…even just a Jedi padawan, even just a failed, ex-Jedi…it would attract too much attention. Too much of the wrong sort of attention. After all, the Jedi Order was probably responsible for half the prison sentences of the criminals here, and Anakin doesn’t think that any criminal would be able to just set that aside. Even if Anakin had barely had a hand in any sort of galactic-wide justice.

Even if the Jedi Order and Anakin don’t exactly agree on what justice is.

So he’d been afraid, that first night in his cell. Afraid and made powerless by the Force suppression cuffs locked tight around each wrist. Afraid that they would ask, that others would find out that he used to be a Jedi and punish him for it. Beat him as if they could beat their captors through him.

But no one asked.

Apparently, information like that isn’t shared or bartered. No one actually seemed that interested. And no one asked that first day. Not that first week. Oh, Anakin was told sometimes what other people did, how they came to be here, the length of their sentence. But only by the criminal themselves. There were rumors he heard about others, sometimes. That was all.

It eases some of the fear he feels that first week, that no one calls him as a Jedi, that no one seems to care about his past.

And with that fear taken care of, he has room to realize something else.

He’s pretty—and those in his cellblock have taken to noticing.

It’s nothing much at first. Lingering stares on his face, his lips, during mealtime. Lingering stares during the communal sonics. Out in the rec rooms. In the yards. He has no cellmate, at least, an empty bunk on top of him at night.

Thank the Force for small mercies.

Lingering stares turn into loud whispers that make Anakin want to scream. Perhaps the Force suppression bracelets smother his connection with the Force, but they do little to dim his Force-gifted hearing. It’s indecent. It’s skin crawling, what they say.

It’s also incredibly useful. Surprisingly so.

“Don’t know why I gotta respect some sleemo’s claim,” he hears from across the yards as he bends down to put the weights he’d been using back on their rack. “Man’s not even in the block and the boy’s mouth’s made for it.”

“You don’t have to,” someone else says in response as Anakin forces himself to keep his shoulders relaxed and low. He feels like prey. A piece of meat, ready for the taking. “That’s your grave dug though. It’s not just any sleemo. It’s fucking Sol who’s got his name on him.” 

“Fucking Sol,” the guy repeats with angry passion. “Been here two months and he thinks he owns the place.”

Two months. Where was Anakin two months ago? On Coruscant. At the beginning of his trial. Realizing too late that he’d done something he would not be able to undo. 

“--cut off a guy’s arm with a sharpened piece of plastoid,” the other man is saying when Anakin tunes back in. “Cause he was fucking bored. He can own this shithole all he wants. I’m not getting on the wrong side of him. Even for a round at Skywalker’s ass.”

Anakin beats a hasty retreat from the yards after that, though he can’t help but turn the new information over in his head.

He’d been wondering when the heated stares from the other prisoners would turn into attempts to—touch him. It’d been growing as a fear in the back of his mind. Without the Force, his defenses were shot. He was strong and well-muscled, but some of his fellow prisoners could almost certainly hold him down.

But apparently—they won’t.

Because someone else—some mysterious prisoner, Sol—already has first dibs.

The thought makes Anakin shiver, and it keeps him up for half the night. 

“You’re up rather late,” a voice murmurs through the cell wall a few hours into his restless pacing. The sound jolts Anakin into sudden stillness. “Oh, no, please don’t stop on my account, darling,” the voice says.

Anakin blinks. That’s a Coruscanti accent, though the prison is located in the middle of nowhere on the edge of the mid-rim. “What do you want?” he snaps automatically, arms crossing as he stares at the wall in front of him. On edge. Prey. Powerless.

“To talk,” the man says. “Obviously.”

Anakin’s eyes narrow of their own accord and he steps closer. “No one’s been in that cell before,” he states. “You’re new.”

“Oh, well done, you,” the man replies in a tone Anakin can’t decide is grating or pleasing. “You’re an observant one, aren’t you, Anakin?”

“How did you know my name?”

“Darling, the whole prison knows your name, I’m sure,” the man says with a chuckle that makes Anakin’s skin dimple. Fear? “Though I would hazard to say I know a little bit more than they do.”

“What do you mean.”

“Your past, darling. Your Jedi roots.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Anakin snaps, even as his heart rate picks up. Jedi. He hasn’t heard that word in ages. He never wanted to hear it again. This man knows. This man knows.

Danger. Danger.

“I can hear your pulse from here, Anakin,” the man says, sounding calm. Sounding amused. Anakin blinks at the wall in front of him. Danger. Danger.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says again.

“Hm,” the man says. “You’re afraid, I take it. Of others finding out.”

Anakin pinches his lips together, quiet. Silent.

“No need for that though,” the man says, as if this is a conversation between two friends—not one of Anakin’s worst nightmares brought to life. “You are under my protection.”

The words make Anakin’s stomach drop. “Sol.”

“To some,” the man—Sol—agrees. “I’d rather like it if you called me Obi-Wan though. Obi-Wan Kenobi. For now at least.”

Anakin sneers though the other man can’t see it. His heart races even faster now. Sol—one of the most dangerous men in the prison, if not the most dangerous one. Sol—the man whose name carries enough weight that he was able to claim Anakin as his own—what, bitch? What, plaything?---even from another block of the prison.

Sol, who somehow managed to get transferred between blocks, to the cell right next to Anakin’s own.

Who wants Anakin. 

For what?

“What do you want from me?” Anakin whispers. He clears his throat, tries again, louder this time and more insistent. “What do you want from me?” “I do think that is for me to know, darling, and for you to find out,” Sol—Kenobi—replies, tone light. Amused still. “But we can start with the simplest thing. Tomorrow morning, during our recreational hour in the yard, I would like you to come to me.”

“No kriffing way—”

“So you would like them to know of your past, darling? I’m sure I could forget myself. I’m sure I could…renege my claim rather easily. If you would prefer a more…brutal touch. Touches.”

Anakin’s skin crawls. The meaning and the threat in Kenobi’s words is clear. Either Anakin does as he is told or the other man will take away the protection currently keeping Anakin unmolested. And he’ll tell the others that Anakin was a Jedi. How many would jump at the chance to fuck a Jedi?

It’s not an option. It’s not a future Anakin would survive. He knows this.

But can he really—submit himself to another man, to this man? This dangerous, cruel man?  

“I don’t know anything about you,” he says roughly. “I don’t…”

“You will learn,” Kenobi says, dark promise coloring his words. “I will be beneath the chromometer. Tomorrow in the yard. You will come to me then.”

“Do you wish for me to crawl?” Anakin snarls, anger and powerlessness raging through him. His fist hits the wall between him and his executioner. It changes nothing. 

“Did I ask you to?” Kenobi snaps back, voice sharp as a blade. A moment passes. Another. The man lets out a breath and then says, “I do not want a dog, Anakin.”

“Then what do you want?” Anakin asks again, voice breaking under the weight of it all. He has always hated traps. He has always hated being powerless. Imprisoned.

Kenobi is silent as he appears to mull over the question. “I want an apprentice.”

Anakin has no idea what to say to that, and so he says nothing. Kenobi too is quiet. He remains so for the rest of the night.

In the morning, when Anakin is released from his cell after a sleepless night, he looks automatically to his left, but the door to Kenobi’s cell stays shut with no indication that there’s anyone in there.

He comforts himself with the thought that perhaps he imagined the whole affair up until the moment he is led into the yards during the morning rec hour.

It is immediately and painfully obvious which of the prisoners is Obi-Wan Kenobi. Sol. Even without the instructions that he’d been given, Anakin thinks he would be able to pick out the other man, just from how the others treat him.

Sol stands alone, back against the far side’s prison wall, ankles crossed and a deathstick in his hand. No one gets within several meters of him, giving him a wide berth. Out of respect? Fear? Both?

Anakin swallows.

This is not the man he thought he’d be when he was younger. This is not who he wanted to become.

But somehow he is here. Somehow this is the man he has become. Somehow, after a decade of freedom, he has been found by a new master.

Sol’s eyes flash golden in the weak sunlight as he watches Anakin approach him slowly. He tilts his face to examine him, to look at Anakin examining him in turn. His beard is neat and well-kept, as red as his rather long coppery hair. His smile is crooked when Anakin stops in front of him. He’s shorter than Anakin. It feels like a hollow victory, especially when the man plucks his death stick from his mouth and places it between Anakin’s lips.

“Good boy,” Obi-Wan purrs and Anakin feels a roar of emotions roar up in him at the words. Sickness. Hatred. Anger. 

And strangely, out of place and unexpected, a thrill of excitement.

[vodika-vibes]

I'm Here Now

Summary: Your relationship with Rex was never supposed to be real. It was always meant to be just fun, a way for him, and you, to blow off some steam. And then he gets deployed and you miss your period, and life changes for you forever.

Pairing: Captain Rex x F!Reader

Word Count: 1358

Prompt: "You should have told me. We could have done this together."

Warnings: None

A/N: So, I tried typing this on my brand new tablet and I'm still working out the kinks, so if you see any typos, it's because of that.

Click HERE to be added to my taglist.

“Mama!” You smile at the little blonde boy standing at your feet, and then scoop him into your arms and pepper light kisses all across his face as he dissolves into delighted giggles.

You have been a single mother for three years, or close enough to three years that the actual timing doesn't really matter. Your son is handsome, healthy, and strong. 

He looks like his father, which is both a good thing since Rex is a very handsome man, and a bad thing, since Clones aren't allowed to have families. Your son's existence was enough to see Rex decommissioned, and you could never allow that to happen.

Which is why you finally accepted the transfer from Coruscant to Corellia. You gave up everything, and everyone, you've ever known simply to protect Rex, and your son.

You do feel bad about it. You didn't even get to tell Rex about Rin before you were on a ship heading to Corellia. Though, you did send him a message before you left Coruscant, apologizing for not telling him about your move in person. 

He must have been furious. He never contacted you again after you sent the message, after all.

“Are you ready to head home, little man?” You ask as you settle his weight on your hip.

“Wanna play more!” Rin announces as he grabs a handful of your shirt.

“More?” You ask, your voice light, “But if we go home, we can have cookies.”

Rin's brow furrows, and then he grins, “Cookies!”

You grin right back at him and turn to leave the park, happily listening to his story about something that happened at daycare earlier that day.

And, several hours later, after Rin is bathed and has had his bedtime story read to him, and is safely tucked into his bed, you allow yourself to fall onto the couch, exhausted. 

Being a single mom is hard.

Not having any support is hard.

But you wouldn't give up Rin for love or money.

You do wish that things could be a little different, Rin deserves to have a dad, but this is how the cookie crumbled and you have to make due with what you have.

You pull your hair out of the messy tail you've taken to wearing (you're so far removed from the party girl you used to be it isn't even funny), and sit up on the couch to pull your work laptop towards you.

You have some work you need to finish before you can wind down for the night. 

And then your doorbell rings. 

You release a heavy sigh, push your laptop to the side, and then head to the front door. 

Corellia is pretty safe, all things considered. Safe enough that you don't bother to check the door camera before you open the door.

The last person you expect to come face to face with is the man on the other side of the door.

Sure, you told Rex that you were moving to Corellia. And you even sent him your address, but in almost three years he never even reached out to you. So seeing him, of all people, standing in front of your door is a genuine shock.

“...Rex?”

The severe expression on his face melts into something soft and fond, a look that he only ever directed towards you, so far as you're aware, and it's like no time has passed at all.

“Hey, cyare. Can I come in?”

“Of course,” You move to the side, “Sorry. It's been a long day. And…I didn't think I'd ever see you again.” You admit while shrugging a single shoulder.

Rex steps into your home, and you see his gaze flicker to the children's shoes sitting, almost neatly, on the shoe rack. To the little boy's backpack sitting on the bench by the front door, and then settling on the child sized jackets hanging on a hook that sits at the perfect height for a child.

He doesn't say anything though. You watch as he removes his armor, sitting the different pieces on the floor, and then enters deeper into your home.

Rex pauses when he comes to a wall of pictures, pictures of you and Rin, mostly, though there are a few of Rin and some friends from daycare, and you watch as he lifts a recent picture of the pair of you off the wall.

And then a heavy sigh falls from Rex. “He's mine?”

You could lie. You could tell him that Rin belongs to someone else, anyone else. It would be the smart thing to do, the safe thing. 

But this is Rex.

“Yes.” You've never been able to lie to Rex, “His name is Rin. He loves dinosaurs and tookas and racecars.”

Rex hangs the picture back on the wall, and then turns to look at you, “Why didn't you tell me?”

“Clones aren't allowed to have families,” You say quietly, “If anyone found out about Rin, they would have killed you and taken him from me. I refused to let that happen.”

Rex looks pained for a moment, “You should have told me. We could have done this together.”

“I was going to. After he was born, after we were safe. But the more time I went without seeing you, the more risky it seemed.” You pause, “I'm sorry.”

“I understand why you did it.” Rex admits, “I'm not even mad about it. Disappointed, maybe. A little hurt, yeah. But I can't be mad about it. Not when you did all of this for our son.”

“I am sorry,” You repeat, “It was never my intention to cause you pain.”

Rex shakes his head, “How was the pregnancy? And the birth?”

You shrug, “Hard. Everything’s been really, really hard. Luckily, I got a raise when I transferred here, and it helped. He’s been in daycare since he was 6 months old.”

Rex turns to you and settles his hands on your shoulders, “But you’re healthy?”

“I am now, yeah. I was in the hospital for a bit after he was born, but time heals most wounds.” You flash a wry smile, “It’s not something I’ve been in a hurry to try again, though.”

His hands move from your shoulders to cup your face, and the softest sigh falls from you as you lean into his touch and your eyes flutter shut. How long has it been since someone touched you who wasn’t your own son? Years?

“You’ve had such a hard time, haven’t you?”

You open your eyes to meet his gaze. He looks so worried about you, you have to swallow the tears that threaten to choke you. “It was my choice.”

“That doesn’t mean it wasn’t hard.” Rex points out as he brushes the back of his fingers against your cheek. “You must be so tired.”

Slowly, you lean in and bump your forehead against his shoulder, “I’m so kriffing tired. All of the time.”

“Would you like some help?”

You pull back and stare at him, “I can’t ask you to stay.”

He smiles at you, soft and gentle, “I’m offering to stay. I want to get to know our son.”

“But—”

“You have to know that I was heartbroken when you left.” Rex interrupts, “This, us,” He moves his hands so that they’re resting at the base of your neck, “It was never just stress relief for me, and I know it’s the same for you.”

You feel your face heat, “How’d you know?”

He laughs and leans in to press his forehead against yours, “Do you think you can hide anything from me, cyare? You’re a terrible liar.” Slowly, as if giving you time to stop him, he leans in and brushes his lips against yours, “Can I stay?”

And, well, you’ve never been able to say no to him. “Of course.” You whisper, “For as long as you like.”

“Forever.” Rex murmurs, “I’m here now, and we can, finally, be a family. You don’t have to be alone anymore.”

For the first time in years, you think everything is going to be alright. You just hope that Rin likes Rex.

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