#even ezra's here for the show...

[elegant-equilibrium]

looks.

eyes nervously.

[better-call-mau1]

Lucasfilm: Literally every single romance or almost-romance we’ve ever written in the Star Wars universe has ended in tragedy.

Lucasfilm: Han/Leia? Split up after their son went off the deep end. They eventually died broken and alone.

Lucasfilm: Anidala? No match for Palpatine’s plotting, Anakin’s attachment issues, and Padmé’s Sadness.

Lucasfilm: Obitine? Jyn/Cassian? Reylo? Tragedy! Tragedy! Tragedy!

Lucasfilm: At least we gave you Kanera. Aren’t they just so sweet and devoted and —— oh, whoops! More tragedy!

Ezra: I’ve got a bad feeling about this.

Sabine, drawing her blasters: They can pry you from my cold, dead hands.

Ezra: Please don’t tempt them.

[skyward-floored]

Finally watched the first episode of Ahsoka and I'd really told myself I wasn't going to like it so I wouldn't be disapointed, but... it's actually not bad so far??

[autism-disco]

magical john drag king is exactly what alan moore meant about the ideaspace this absolutely existed in our collective consciousness as a human species

[inkedells]

pairing: old!logan x f!reader

Logan is sick and tired of you treating him like he's fragile. He'll ignore his relentless pain to show you what it's like to be taken apart, rough and slow, then fast and agonizing.

wc: 3.5k of pure smut

warnings: heavy smut, lap sitting, fingering, oral (f!receiving and m!receiving), dirty talk, facials, p in v, ruined orgasms, snowballing, kind of angsty, the claws come out, logan is angry with you, kinda toxic, definitely mean, but still kind of sweet, pwp basically, blood, but it's not bloodplay, it's just logan not caring if he's hurt, if i missed any let me know.

Logan comes home and throws himself back on that torn-up leather sofa, thumb flicking his lighter while the other holds a cigar. It’s less of a distraction from the ache in his bones, and more of a device to push you away. Because if you think he’s tired or angry or hurting, you won’t ask him to fuck you.

It’s not like he doesn’t want you. Of course he does. It’s the sympathy in your eyes when he gets tired from just a couple of minutes of thrusting that he hates. The whispered, “It’s okay. baby, I can ride you.” The gentle touches across his body and his neck and his face and his beard. It all reeks of pity. And if you were to sit him down one day and ask him why he hates being taken care of, he wouldn’t have an answer. He would push the voice in his head down into the void that all the strength he had left fell in, the voice shrinking until it’s nothing as it screams, because I’ve never been taken care of, and I would’ve loved it back when being taken care of wasn’t my only choice.

But it’s fine. You wouldn’t ever ask him that question because he knows for a fact that you don’t know. If you did, you wouldn’t be climbing onto his lap quietly, hands rubbing his sides as you press kisses to his neck.

“I missed you, Logan,” You whisper. Your hips aren’t moving; He knows he sat here like this to avoid fucking you, but he almost wishes you were seeking exactly that. Sex, as embarrassing as it would be for him, is better than your sick love. He doesn’t think you love in the way lovers do. It’s the kind of love meant for sick puppies, or the lonely old woman sitting on the bus with all her belongings in plastic bags.

He turns his head to take a drag of his cigar. Silence.

You hold his face, forcing him to look at you as you kiss him. Slow, chaste, no tongue. He feels scrutinized by your touches, and something nervous seats itself deep in his belly.

“How was your day?” You ask, your gaze snapping between his eyes.

Logan closes them. “I’m tired,” He says flatly.

“I know. It’s okay.”

There it is again. Pity.

He scoffs. It’s quiet. Barely there. He didn’t mean to. He watches your face fall the smallest bit. A year ago, he wouldn’t have noticed, and if he would’ve, he would blurt out an apology. Now, he does notice, but he secretly wants to watch it fall even further if it means you’ll realize how much you’ve been hurting him.

You swallow, your thumb rubbing his cheekbone. “I found an American poetry anthology in the basement today. 20th Century. My favorite poem was in it.”

He mumbles, “In a Station of the Metro. T.S. Elliot.” Remembering the poem you told him about months ago sounds too much like sorry. He wishes he’d pretended to forget.

“Ezra Pound,” You correct. Your smile tells him he’s forgiven for an apology he never offered. “If you can recite it I’ll be impressed.”

“I’m not reciting a goddamn poem.” He sounds sarcastic, and it relieves you, but then you kiss him and he’s wound tight again.

You sigh as you pull back. “What’s bothering you, baby?”

“Nothing’s bothering—”

“What’s bothering you?” You interject.

He shakes his head, clenching his jaw. He makes the decision to sacrifice his dignity for the sake of stopping this conversation. You never could resist an orgasm, especially one caused by him. “Enough of that.”

“What?”

But he’s putting out his cigar and lifting you off his lap with a suppressed grunt, then pushing you down on the couch.

“Logan,” You protest.

He continues undoing the drawstring of your pajamas, with a kind of slippery urgency that tells you he's trying to shut you up more than he's trying to satiate his own desire.

You sit up straight, swatting his hand away. “Stop.”

He withdraws immediately, breathing hard through his nose as he looks down at the floor. He was wrong, before, about you not knowing. You definitely know, because you don’t place a loving hand on his thigh and you don’t kiss his shoulder. He’s grateful.

Instead, you observe his profile, then the quiet tremor in his hand. The impossible stillness of the rest of him. He tends to do that when his nerves are on fire. Thinks being a statue is what people who aren’t in chronic pain do.

“Don’t do that,” He mumbles, feeling your eyes on him. “I don’t need you feeling sorry, or whatever—whatever the fuck else goes through your head when you’re around me.”

You say nothing. That’s the most he’s said about his feelings in a while. He knows it, so he forces himself to say nothing, too. It doesn’t last long.

“I’m not dying.” His voice cracks a little at the end and he fights the urge to squeeze his eyes shut.

“I know.” The words come out in a tumble, as if you’re rushing to participate in his lie.

“Then stop looking at me like I’m dying.”

“Okay.” Tears prickle your eyes but you blink them away.

“Okay,” He repeats.

You take a deep breath. “But it’s okay to be cared for, Logan.”

He laughs incredulously, and suddenly his volume is rising and his voice is firm. “Would you just—Would you just quit being my fuckin’ mommy? Would you?”

He only lets your silence marinate for a second before he rushes in to kiss you, ignoring the cramps in his muscles as he tugs your neck forward roughly. You squeak against his mouth, fighting his impossible grip on you, but you give up with a shaky exhale through your nose when your efforts prove useless.

“I can take care of you, too,” He grits out. It would sound sweet if it weren’t for the frustration in his tone. He pushes you onto the couch the same way he did moments before as he opens your legs by your knees and settles between them. He sucks a dark mark onto your neck, his fingers digging bruises in your ribs.

“I know you can,” You reassure him. You can see where this is going. “And I love when you do.” You gasp when he pulls your shirt up over the curve of your breasts.

“No. You don’t.” He pinches one of your nipples and sucks the other into his mouth for a brief second. “It’s okay. I’ll show you so you don’t forget again. You won’t want to get ruined any other way.”

“Logan,” You sigh.

He hums against the soft skin just underneath your breast as his hands ravage your body. He begins to unsheathe the adamantium claws in one of his hands so he can rip your top open. It’s slow and excruciating, so he closes his eyes, but the pain is over too soon and his suspicions are confirmed when he opens his eyes to see them stuck halfway.

You don’t expect him to lean back and individually tug each blade free. There’s blood, and now it’s dripping onto your belly, and he mumbles something that sounds like an apology as he wipes the dots of red away with his thumb.

But the hazel in his eyes is alive again. You hope it’s you that did that. Hope it’s not the pain or the sight of his own blood. You want to ask him, just to make sure. You don’t like hurting, right? You just really like me—

He slices through your shirt, careful not to graze your skin, and you try to ignore the fact that he’s never that cautious with himself, but you can’t.

“Logan, you’re bleeding.” Your voice is unstable.

“It’ll heal,” He says quickly, passively. He wipes his burning palm on his wifebeater.

“But that takes a long time now.”

He meets your eyes, his movements frozen. He’s angry and you’re not stupid. You’re pitying him again. He needs you to stop fucking pitying him. When he speaks, his voice is deep and rough and slow, and you would be scared if he wasn’t your Logan. “Are you done?”

You don’t know what to say, so you just close your eyes and nod. You hear his claws retract faster than when they came out, and almost simultaneously, he’s shoving that same hand under your waistband as two of his calloused fingers push themselves into your cunt.

You arch toward him involuntarily, a ragged moan falling from your lips as he tugs your pajamas off your legs and spits on your pussy to ease the slide of his fingers.

Each groan he pulls from your throat is a step toward dispelling the doubt from your body. Doubt of his capabilities, of his strength, of his devotion to you.

“Beg me to fuck you,” He demands, fingering you roughly.

Your mind is cloudy at this point, from sadness or arousal or both, but you give him what he wants. “Fuck me,” You whisper, your eyelids about to flutter shut as you shed a tear.

But then you catch Logan smiling.

He grabs your jaw with his free hand, and you look at him immediately. “You’re gonna let me use it, right? Get myself off?” You lazily trace his features with your gaze—His nose, his wrinkles, his beard—because you know if it were your fingers instead he’d mistake it for tenderness and get mad again.

You nod, but it’s weak with how hazy everything is.

“Good girl.” 

“Please,” You sigh, “I need you inside of me. I need to—I need it.”

“I know. I know what you’re feeling before you feel it.” He lets the pad of his thumb draw quick circles on your clit. “What? Thought I couldn’t hear you playing with yourself in the shower? If I can hear your heartbeat when I walk through the door, what makes you think I wouldn’t have heard you whining my name?”

“Logan,” You sigh, your hips lifting off the couch, coaxing his fingers deeper for as long as possible before he’s shoving you back down with the heel of his palm.

“I’m gonna play with you now. I’ll fuck you after, don’t worry your pretty head about it.”

“What do you mean, play with me?” You breathe, fighting to keep your eyes open as he finds your g-spot.

He grins dirtily, in a way that makes your head spin and your thighs clench around his hand. You’re barely processing his words as he bends down to mumble in your ear, “Right when you’re about to make a mess on my fingers, I’m gonna stop. Then I’m gonna go down on you. And I’m gonna lick your pretty pussy, maybe even fuck you with my tongue if you’re good. And guess what? Guess what I’m gonna do when you’re this close?”

“You’re gonna stop,” You whine.

“I’m gonna stop,” He nods, and it’s mocking, but it’s gentle, and he’s fucking killing you with the way he’s talking right now. “But I’m not mean. I’ll give you a break. You can calm down when my dick is in your mouth, okay?”

“Okay,” You breathe, your hips unabashedly grinding on his fingers. But you want to reassure him he is mean, and you especially want to tell him how much you love it. “Logan, I’m gonna—”

He withdraws his fingers from you so fast it almost burns. You clench around nothing, your lower half spasming as your orgasm barely approaches before falling away again. Only a hint of pleasure is able to make it through the cracks, and you cling onto it, hoping if you focus hard enough, the wave will come back. It doesn’t. You should regret warning Logan that you were about to finish, but all you feel is comfort now that he’s finally proud of you again.

Another tear streams down the side of your face, landing in your hair. Logan’s watching you as he pets your thigh, his lips parted when he leans down over you. He kisses your wet cheek softly, his beard rough on your skin. It’s unlike him to offer you affection this gracefully during sex. It’s always shaky limbs and suppressed groans and dirty kisses. Both of you know it. 

He moves down your body, until his face is hovering over your cunt. He doesn’t have his reading glasses on, so he has to pull his head back and squint as he spreads your folds with his thumbs, studying what you look like. He licks a stripe over you. A second, longer one, before he zeroes in on your clit. You can do nothing except lay there and take it as your hips twitch from overstimulation under his firm hands.

“Oh my god,” You whisper, your fingers twisting in his hair. “F-Fuck.”

He moans at that, pressed right up against you, the sound deep and delicious and vibrating. “Feel good?” He asks teasingly with a nip to your inner thigh.

“What do—What the fuck do you think?”

He breathes a laugh. It’s short and airy, not frustrated like before, and a warmth ignites itself in the back of your mind. It’s overpowering even the feeling of his mouth licking and sucking your most sensitive area; It’s the relief that he’s still hiding the Logan you fell in love with somewhere in there.

You wind your fingers in his hair and scratch his scalp. You try to do it lovingly, although it comes across as sexual and Logan’s breath hitches in pleasure against your pussy instead. So as you suppress a gasp from the pure skill of his tongue, you show your affection differently—you hold the wounded hand he has resting face-up beside your hip. The cuts embedded there are easy to avoid as your thumb rubs the lines of his palm, because even though you can’t see his hand, the puffiness surrounding each slash on his skin are your cues.

He doesn’t move his hand away, but his tongue falters for a fraction of a second before slowing down.

The kind of love you’re pressing into Logan’s skin with each gentle stroke is unrecognizable to him. It’s not the pitiful love he’s so used to. He thinks it might be the opposite. Admiration. Reverence.

“I’m so empty,” You whisper, bringing your hands to grope Logan’s biceps. They’re sweaty and hard and flexing under your touch, and you wonder if he would let you ride them one day.

When your climax starts to creep up on you, it’s thanks to the image of Logan forcing you to lick your arousal clean off his bicep. Indulgently swirling your tongue along his pronounced veins, savoring the taste of his sweat mixed with yourself. He’d probably say somthing like, fuckin’ filthy. Getting yourself off on my arm. Who does that? Are you that obsessed with me?

Logan feels you squeezing his tongue, harder than all the other times before, so he withdraws at the last moment, ruining your orgasm once again.

 You convulse silently, your breath coming out stuttered with your twitching jaw. As if he can read your mind, he unbuckles his belt and removes his pants and boxers. But he doesn’t strip himself of his wifebeater, stained with blood.

It’s the hottest thing in the world.

You blink, and suddenly Logan is hovering above you with his cock over your face. He rubs his leaking tip on your cheeks first, then your lips, and when you open your mouth to take him, he moves his cock away and nudges your jaw shut with his free hand, shaking his head.

“Not yet.”

A whine lodges itself in your throat as Logan spreads his pre-come over the plush of your lips. It escapes only when he lets go of his cock in favor of massaging his wetness across your lips and on your tongue with his thumb. His hard cock is bobbing above you, almost tantalizingly, the occasional drip of arousal landing itself somewhere near your eyes, then your hair, then your mouth, and you watch Logan’s brow furrow as you try to lick whatever you can.

His resolve snaps. A calloused hand squeezes at your cheeks until your jaw falls open. His cock is in your mouth before you can process it, thick and heavy and wet. So. Incredibly. Wet. You start to wonder how it’s even possible that he’s this hard at his age, but you know he wouldn’t want you to be wondering that, so you happily push the thought away.

You suck your cheeks in, swirling your tongue around his tip as you bob your head to meet the subtle, almost imperceivable thrust of his hips. You’re taking it well, you know you are. So you keep taking it, until Logan can no longer successfully suppress his moans and his hips are jerking out of rhythm.

He moves back until his cock slips out of your mouth. “I don’t wanna come like this. Wanna fuck you.”

“Yeah, yes. Fuck me. Please.”

He stands up and turns you on your front, your knees pressing into the soft couch cushions with your ass in the air.

“Logan,” You plead as you feel his tip pressing at your entrance.

“I’ve got you,” He says quietly, pushing in until half of his cock is comfortably squeezed by your cunt. Both your breathing is loud and labored, and there’s a specific kind of intimacy in knowing you’re both feeling this identical need. Overwhelming and hot and unquenchable by anything other than each other.

His first thrust is shallow, but it ruins you all the same. With how thick he is, it should feel like an intrusion, and it does. But all you can think about is how perfectly he fits inside of you, filling you extraordinarily with only a few inches.

“Fuck,” Logan breathes. “Look at that.” He traces around your entrance with his thumb. “Stretching so wide to take me.”

You moan, pressing your cheek against the sofa as you rock with his thrusts. He still hasn’t pressed all the way in yet, and you’re growing impatient. “Come on,” You urge, pushing yourself back to force more of his cock into you.

You expect him to chastise you for being so greedy, but he listens to you instead with a slow, full thrust. His tip nudges your cervix with how deep he is, and a ragged moan escapes you. “Yes,” You whine, “Oh god, yes.”

Logan’s breaths are coming out heavy through his nose, quick and occasionally intertwined with a grunt. His thrusts are getting quicker, and it’s starting to burn, but you welcome every sensation he has to offer you. He pulls out, spits on his cock, then shoves himself back inside, and this time you’re both unabashedly moaning the minute you’re joined again. 

His fingers dig in the plush of your ass as he observes himself disappearing into you. It hurts, but you love it. He knows you do, so he spanks you quickly before gripping you and rutting against you again.

“I love when you fuck me,” You whisper, feeling ashamed as soon as the confession leave you. “When you properly fuck me.”

He slows for a moment so he can watch his cock glisten with how wet you are. “I know.” He picks back up his punishing pace.

Your eyes begin to water, from pain or pleasure, you can’t tell. “I love you.”

“I know,” He repeats, this time breathier. His hips stutter. You can tell he’s close.

“I want it on my face,” You tell him quickly, his impending orgasm giving you no time to worry about being too forward.

He pulls out again, letting you turn onto your back as he shifts up your body. He jerks himself furiously, but you swat his hand away and take it upon yourself to stroke him.

“Come for me,” You tell him honestly, softly. His eyes squeeze shut and his lips part around a trembling exhale.

He groans as his release coats your face in long stripes. Some of it even lands in your hair, but you don’t care. Your own fingers work your clit as you stick your tongue out and taste him. Logan bends down to kiss you, chest heaving and hands shaky, and you rub yourself faster as you swap his release between the two of you with a hum. He pulls back to let you swallow, then he kisses your cheeks with his rough beard, uncaring about the mess on your face.

You don’t know you’re coming until it’s over and you’re breathless, and it’s almost excruciating with how much he’s ruined you, but you’re so exhausted you can’t find it in yourself to dwell on it a second longer.

You wrap your arms around his neck and tug him down for another kiss because you can hardly remember the one he just gave you.

“I’m sorry I had been treating you all wrong,” You say carefully.

“It doesn’t matter anymore.” His voice is rough.

You nod, your lips brushing his as you smooth sweaty strands of hair away from his forehead. These touches are hard for him. Any variation of your chaste affection is a reminder that he’s not really Logan anymore.

But the shame in it is gone. Replaced by the reassurance that he can still surround you with safety and firm hands and blatant desire;

And for a moment, he’s his old self again.

A/N: it's been so long since i've written anything, but logan has been consuming my brain for weeks so i had to get this out. i hope it's true to his character. <3 also, my asks are open, so feel free to request anything you want to read about.

[husband-steve-cortez]

Now I'm just going to gush about how much I love Steve's romance scene lol

I love how he makes his interest clear but also it's vague and he's sending signals and making it definitely clear he's open to something (eye candy in the crowd) but it's up to you to pick up what he's hinting at and go for it.

[semirofly]

Forgive me is a little long😅:

I'm sure after coming back home Ezra won't stay there that much knowing that:

-Thawn is back so even the Empire, with this Lothan may be attacked sooner or later and the Galaxy in general is in danger.

-Sabine,Ahsoka and Hyuang stayed behind, he would have preferred being blocked on Peridea with Thawn than this to happen,he wanted to come back ,but with Sabine. So he will come back to help her and co.

What if Ezra show up in Mandalorian S4 and meet Mando e Bo katan(she already knows him) and learn more things about Mandalorians and maybe forging him some beskar parts(he will be literally surrounded by them spamming "This is the way" at this point)?

Maybe he will go with chopper and jacen too because he will become his Padawan?? (Hera and Zeb may join them later.)

I had this through after rewatching Hyuan saying to Ezra about Sabine's family fate but now he may want to check it himself.

Mandalor is very important for the Empire so maybe Thawn may try to occupate it again with the help of the Great Mother's and others Empire cells?

So Ezra help Mando and Katan that understand the big problem that Thawn is for Mandalor and their people and decide to go with him.

It may connect everything for the film or whatever they are planning, with at the end Ezra and co leaving and finding Sabine and Ahsoka or meet them at half-way.

I need to elaborate this thoughts more.

I just can't wait for Ezra and Sabine to meet again and this time without separation, lets be patient like they have done till now.

Ezra a Jedi with Mandalorian knowledge and Sabine a Mandalorian with Jedi knowledge is the Strongest couple that I know in Star Wars😅.

I'm having many theories and thoughts after the end of Ahsoka that I may rewatching Mandalorian S3 and share them when I have time.

-

Sorry for not being much a talker but I really want you all to know that I appreciate the Sabezra community and all the positive people I have see here.

I'm really happy to have join it a month ago(I have been shipping them for 9 years but you know Im not much a talker🤣✌️).

I will be more active now and wait with you all the Sabezra reunion even if it may takes a while🔥.

Sincerely I waited 9 years for them to became canon and for all the hits the Ahsoka show gave us waiting a little more won't be a deal.

Sabine as a Jedi is clearly an attempt from her to be part of her future boyfriend's world. Naturally, Ezra should try to learn how to be a Mandalorian now.

If she has his lightsaber, then maybe he should have an armor with a Clan Wren pauldron.

[running-with-kn1ves]

Got me awe struck how you write so well kinda wish i had that skill too! Anyway, how about boyfriend praising reader(who felt insecure) starting from sweet then getting creepier. Like something in the lines of "praising their kindness, so lucky to have them" to "he knows , he will kill for them."

A/N: A/N: sacrificed my soul for this one and it didn't turn out as slayful as I wanted.. Anyway, I hope this is what you were thinking anon :D sorry for any mistakes and thank you!

Synopsis: Your boyfriend's compliment goes a little too far when he tries to cheer you up.

T/W: Mildly graphic threats of violence, forced kissing, manipulation, insecure reader, yandere themes/behaviors

WC:3000

You found yourself in a bathroom stall for the fifth time in one evening, sitting on the toilet with your head in your hands. You just wanted it all to go away: the people, the drinks, the music that boomed in your ears. You had already stained your sequined clothes with spilt champagne earlier that night, the stickiness of it on your chest beginning to mix with the thick sweat crawling down your neck. It was too damn hot in here, the buzz of the bathroom fan making you claw at your updone hair. 

The mass amounts of club goers here were far more accustomed to this lifestyle than you. Which was intimidating, to say the least. They all looked so perfectly dolled up-- not a smudge of makeup out of place, delicious scents of colognes and perfumes mixing together. Not to mention, they could hold their alcohol far better than you could. 

One bitter cocktail and you were already hazy-eyed, your face warm and balance a little loopy.  You were by no means drunk, but the contents of your drink had certainly offered a level of instability to your emotions and movements. 

The image of men in their chic dress shirts that showed hours of gym time and girls in their tight party dresses made you want to curl up in the corner and marinate in self-pity. It was hard not to compare yourself, not when you spent hours searching for the right clothes that would fit with your boyfriend’s stylish accents, constantly perfecting your concealer to hide the dark bags beneath your eyes. 

And yet, even with your hard work, you still felt out of place, still felt the pinch of hundreds of passing stares and biting grins of condescension as you stood next to your overly charismatic significant other. 

Through your pounding headache and shaky breaths, You could hear the winding creak of the bathroom door being pushed open. 

Narrow-footed shoes echoed on the white tile floor, slowly passing each bathroom stall and sink basin. 

“Sweetheart?” A voice questioned. “You in here?” 

You stayed silent, covering your mouth and lifting your feet from the floor. You didn’t want him to know you had spent the past 20 minutes in here wiping away stinging tears from your eyes, shoving paper towels down the front of your dazzling shirt to soak up champagne. You smelled like alcohol and whatever cleaner they used to permeate the bathroom with, and it certainly wouldn’t be a sight that you wanted your boyfriend to see. 

However, despite your attempts to make yourself disappear, you saw his clubbing shoes patiently make their way to the front of your stall. You looked within the separating crack of the door and the wall, seeing a blur of black clothes and sun-kissed skin. Your eyes focused and without warning you made eye contact with him, his face showing a worried, yet sly grin. He was waiting-- peering in on you sitting there in ruin. 

You jolted in surprise, your foot slipping from the toilet seat as you looked away. You hoped if you moved fast enough, that maybe he would think you were someone else.

“C’mon, let me in.” He pressed against the door, trying to open it from the outside. 

Well, seemed like tricking him didn’t work. 

“Don’t come in here Ezra! I--” You weren’t sure how to convince him to go away. “I don’t want you to see me.”

He went quiet, keeping his hand atop the door handle and watching the door.

“Why not?”

Panic rose in your chest again, forcing you to try to come up with a way to get him to leave you alone, atleast long enough to make yourself look presentable. 

“I-... I just--”

“C’mon, I promise I won’t make fun of you or anything, just open the door,” He raddled the handle, pressing his face against the crack of the door. 

“Don’t!” You shout, trying to cover the crack with your hands.

Your boyfriend let out a low grunt, annoyed at your stubbornness. 

He tried rattling the door once more, pulling hard enough to make the hinges creak. You feared that if he pulled any harder, he might rip the entire door off. 

“You’ve been in there for almost a half hour,” Ezra impatiently replied, putting his hand on the top of the stall door. “If you don’t open up, I’m going to force my way in there.”

He began to pull, jerking the door hard enough that the other stalls began to clatter. 

“No-- wait okay okay okay!” You panicked, trying to pry his hand away from the top of the door. 

Instantaneously he grabbed your wrist, pulling it upward to get a good handle on you. His fingers were warm, as if he had his hands clenched for a long period of time. 

“I’m not letting go until you do.” He said coldly, squeezing your hand. He was serious, holding your wrist securely enough to show he meant business: he’d stand there all night if that's what it took. Your several disappearances had worried him enough.

His thumb moved up to caress the dip in your palm, turning your hand to face outwards. Ezra’s face was still pressed up against the door crack, looking to provoke you further out. 

Stomping your foot, you wracked your brain for something-- anything, to deter him away. But the lingering threat of his hand left your mind to draw a blank. 

“....Fine.” You mutter, pulling the paper towels out of your chest. You try to wipe away any leftover tears, but you know it does little to lessen the redness of your eyes. 

With a shaky breath, you ask him to stand back, and slowly unlock the door. Purposely taking as long as possible, you keep your feet moving at an inchworm's pace, hardly stepping away from the stall. 

Your boyfriend tears open the stall door now that its unlocked, not yet releasing your arm. 

You see his figure in front of you but refuse to look up, instead turning away and allowing him to drag you out of the small confines of the stall. He pulls you to the large sink basins, reaching for your chin. You flinch a little as he turns your head, looking at your tear stricken face. You felt like a mess, but he didn’t seem to change expression as you stared back. 

 “Now, what’s been the matter sweetheart?” 

You feel the cold of his rings against your balmy cheeks, his thumb running over your wet eyelashes to brush away unfallen tears. 

“I just don’t feel good…” You say, relishing in the affection, even though it makes your stomach churn.

“What doesn't feel good?” He asks, letting go to inspect the rest of you. 

You relax against the low counter, feeling it hit your tailbone. 

“Did someone hurt you?” He searches your body for marks. “Are you feeling sick? Had too much to drink, baby?”

You shake your head, suddenly feeling like a child answering to their mother. 

“You’re going to have to tell me what it is, then. I can’t read your mind.” He lightly scolds.

There’s a gentleness in the deep vibrato of his voice as he bares the blunt words, looking at you with an expectant gaze.  

You fidget a tad, beginning to pace in a small two-step dance. 

“I just--” You turn away, fidgeting with your fingers. “I feel, ridiculous.” 

You move to grasp your forehead, avoiding your boyfriends gaze. 

“Dressed up in this stupid get up, surrounded by these people who-- who I don’t belong next to, who make me look like a fool for being here…!” 

You fold your arms over your chest defensively, turning away from the man. 

“Did you see the way everyone was looking at me? I looked so stupid, standing next to you! Or even next to them, as if I could convince them that I belong here, next to someone of their own.” You turned to stare at your reflection in the mirror, not recognizing the person who stared back. “I just.. I don’t belong here, with you… with these people… I feel absurd for even trying.” 

You hear your voice shake at the last few words, not realizing you were getting worked up enough to cry. But then there it was, that burning in your nose and the blurriness of tears in your eyes. You felt your face scrunch and tense up, the ugliness of your cries breaking out to make you feel even smaller.

Putting a hand to your mouth and turning away from the mirror, you hoped your boyfriend hadn’t seen or heard the way you appeared ready to sob. 

But a heavy, commanding hand pulled your shoulder back, turning you around with ease as you let your body fall to whatever whims he desired.

Your nose was shoved against Ezra’s chest as he pushed your head against him, wrapping his arms around you. He stroked your hair, pushing it off your sweaty skin. It was almost suffocating, the way he trapped you against him. But it made you feel secure, knowing that he couldn’t see your face full of tears and shame, that you didn’t have to continue to spill your heart out to him. 

“Baby….” He said. It was in such a soft, understanding tone that you didn’t think it came from his lips at first. “How could you ever, ever, compare yourself to these… strangers?” 

You sniffled against his dress shirt, hiding yourself in his chest and expensive cologne, a scent so familiar and potent that it put your body at ease. 

“I mean, you? Versus them? These half drunken idiots who can barely hold themselves up?” Your boyfriend chuckled, shaking slightly against you. “Darling why would you ever want to be like them?”

You wiped your eyes, trying to keep your emotions at bay.

“I thought thats what… you wanted. How else am I supposed show up when I meet your friends.” You mumbled. 

Your boyfriend pulls your chin, lifting you to face him.

“I brought you here to meet everyone because I wanted them to meet you, not whatever persona the rest of the assholes here portray.” 

You looked away, letting his words sink in. 

“Besides, they were only looking at you because you were the most captivating thing in that room,”  He ran his pointer finger over your bottom lip, the cold of his rings hitting the bitten skin. 

“The most,” He cut himself off with a kiss to your neck. “Stunning,” kiss, ” “kind,” another kiss, “and amazing thing in that room. They were just how awestruck I was when I first saw you.” 

He softened as he saw you squeeze your lips shut, preventing a smile from escaping. 

 “Though I won’t let them make the same moves on you like I did.” He joked, laughing as he saw you roll your eyes. 

Brushing his thumb on your cheek, Ezra took away the remnants of tears. A pit of shame grew in your stomach when you saw him frown at your saddened state. 

“But listen,” He bent closer to your face, shifting his warm hands to cup your cheeks. “You’re the best thing to happen to me, hands down. And I wouldn’t trade any of the bastards in here for you, so enough self-loathing.” 

Your cheeks squish as he pressed his palms against them, forcing your head to nod as you went limp. 

“Good.” He smiled, grinning at how you seemed to wait for his next response.

You let him let go, even though you wanted to stay in that position of safety for longer.

He ruffled your hair back in place, fixing the few scraggled strands that he could. Ezra talked while fetching a paper towel to clean the goo beneath your eyes, originally from your tears.

“I mean, honestly, do you think I wouldn’t kill the bastards in here if they tried to look at you wrong? Come on, no way I would let that slide.” 

You smiled at hearing that, thinking he was just being dramatic. 

Paper towel in hand, Ezra lifted you up from the ground slightly. He put you down on the sink counter, keeping his hands planted to the sides of your abdomen. 

Letting out a low laugh, he continues to wipe away at your eyes. His demeanor shifted to be quieter; something you aren't used to from your blab of a boyfriend. 

Dark hair covers to his eyelids, sticking to his skin as the heat from the bathroom has begun to her to him.

The humming of the bathroom fan is all that fills the room for a few moments, Ezra’s concentration on your eyes leaving you both quiet. Though, you could tell he still had something he wanted to say.

"I mean, you don't understand how many times I've had the urge to mutilate the men in this club for staring at you, just from tonight alone" he licked his lips, curling his unmoving hand beside you. He seemed to be… nervous. "I'd pull their teeth out first, working my way down. Tearing each fingernail off one by one, pulling the veins from their wrists… I'd remove anything they have to witness you with."

He looked back up at you, staring within your eyes as if he was lost in them, as if he was looking inside of you. Despite his tender look that seemed to crave your cooperation, that should have made you blush– your smile fell. The warmth once spreading in your chest was now going cold, sinking to your stomach. 

"You captivated the whole room, and I can't stand it…" he didn't seem to notice your fallen expression, or the shaking in your hands on the counter. "I hate the way they can hear your laugh, sit beside you and feel your warmth… how you can smile at them and let them make you feel as if you aren't the best thing to ever walk into this club. I hate it so fucking much."

Your boyfriend trailed his finger down the sequins on your clothes, trying to hold himself back from getting too close. 

You shifted uncomfortably as your he leaned up close to your mouth, just far away enough to where he couldn't indulge in how badly he wanted to kiss you. There was this suffocating desire inside his chest to paint his claim violently upon your body in this bathroom right now, to let you walk put of this club with everyone staring at the little pieces of him only, forcing them all to know who you really belong to. 

You didn't know what to say to his confession…. Should you thank him? Run away? Beg him to go to therapy? 

Instead you stayed quiet, searching for the right words to not tick him off, now that you knew what he was potentially…. Capable of. 

"They want to hurt you, to use you and then throw you away like some brainless sex doll. They only have bad intentions, baby."

Your boyfriend slid down to your knees, crouching down as you sat on the counter above him. He pulled your left leg toward him gently, kissing up from your ankle, to your shin, to your knee. 

"But i'll take care of you, I won't let you be tricked.."He looks up at you with fluttering lashes, raising your leg ever so slightly to press his lips against your inner thigh. 

"You know how much I adore you… right?"

 Your skimpy clothes gave him even more access than you felt comfortable with, seeing the adoration pulsate within his eyes and the desperation in his hands.

"Of course," you reply, hesitantly bringing a hand up to his cheek, hoping he wasn't thinking of murdering you too in this bathroom. 

 His warm, damp hands molded the flesh of your bare thighs in his fingers, pushing in between the tight layer of where your tiny shorts and your skin meet, trying to dig beneath them. He wanted to hold all of you, to keep you in his arms so you couldn't even think of leaving, of running to someone else.

"You know that I'd never hurt you… that I only want what's best for you… that I'd kill for you--…" he mumbles the last bit, pressing your hand deeper against his cheek as he looks up from below at you, giving a cheeky grin. 

You nod your head, hoping his homicidal thoughts were just that-- thoughts.

He was quick to fool you again with that sweet, lovely smile that seemed to bask in your presence, the smile that made you feel like the most desirable person in the world. No matter how many threats he gave out they never seemed to deter the fact that his soft, adoring expression made you feel like he'd choose you in a room full of thousands. 

Your small assurance gave him the confidence to press his head further between your legs, running kisses back up from your knee to your thigh. 

He trailed up your skin, kisses growing hungry. Pulling your sequined shorts, your boyfriend buried his head between your thighs– trying to get where he knows he'll have full control over you. 

"Not here," you said breathlessly and bewildered, trying to push away his head. "We can't do that here–!"

His hair was soft, even with the thin spread of gel that kept it in place as you ran your hands down to his neck. Tugging at tufts of his hair and using your legs to push him away, you found little to nothing dispirited him. 

"Just let me show how much I love you..."

Each time you tried to use your knee to push him, Ezra pushed it against the sink countertop with the heavy weight of his hand. He looked up at you with a sick grin that meant: “just try and beat me.” A part of you felt panicked, not just from the compromising position-- but from how insistent he was. Like he was trying to prove something to you.

It wasn't until the echo of the bathroom door swinging open and hitting the wall, did he lift his head. His eyes went wide, jaw clenching as he whipped around to look. The fearful expression would've been funny if you weren't just as scared. 

You quickly jumped off the counter and pulled your shorts back into position, watching to see someone peak around from the corner. But the sounds of drunken laughter faded away, and no one made themselves apparent.

You and Ezra sighed simultaneously, the heat from the stuffy bathroom showing to have been too much for the both of you. 

He reached for your hand, pulling you towards him. Ezra goes quiet, and you keep your gaze to the ground. He had shown sides of himself tonight that you weren’t exactly sure how to process. 

“Lets just go home, okay?” Ezra says after a few moments, whispering with a grin.“I wanna finish what we started.”

What were you to say? You stuttered, thinking to protest, to run away or maybe even admit how afraid you were. 

But with a kiss to your sweaty forehead, your boyfriend slung his arm over your shoulder and began leading you to the exit of the bathroom. 

Your feet had moved on your own, your mouth still lingering to form words. As Ezra opened the door, the stench of alcohol and cheap perfume hit you once again.

[kedsandtubesocks]

blood on your name

Cowboy!Ezra x F!Reader

summary: Texas 1885 - the town’s ranching competition brings in new souls out from the desert, one unfortunately happens to be a ghost haunting you & he’s still as handsome and dangerous as ever

warnings/tags: 18+ ONLY. MDNI, old Wild West AU, slight enemies to lovers, very morally!gray Ezra, fingering, oral (f receiving), pussy pronouns, one moment of spit kink, allusions to p in v, scoundrel but soft!Ezra, themes of violence & reader enacting violence on another, use of guns, blood & injury, morally!gray reader, time period views of marriage & shaming women (brief use of derogatory terms against reader), minor character deaths, light gender language usage, use of nicknames

word count: 7.2k

a/n: here’s to finally putting my 7th grade tx history lessons to some use plus I’ve been really missing west texas so here we are lol! Fun history fact - Pecos prides itself as the birth place of the rodeo so this competition is the inception of that! It took me a while to get here & this truly wouldn’t be here without @gasolinerainbowpuddles @julesonrecord & @perotovar i can’t thank you babes enough, and to you, if you decide to read this too, thank you so much ♡

The newcomers that blew into town stand around the edge of the fence.

Pecos had become famous for hosting this rope wrangling event, and you’re not surprised it’s brought others in to observe the spectacle. Just last week it seemed like more wagons wandered into the edge of town.

You’ve been living here among the desert’s harsh eyes with your aunt for a few years now. When your mother unleashed her wrath after she found you with an unmarried man who had drifted into town, you fled with the caravan heading out west. So far west it brought you to the Pecos River. You’re thankful your aunt welcomed you with open arms. The desert proved to be a harsh host. But you’ve managed.

The actual event in town wasn’t taking place until the end of the week. Except so many already want to see the cowboys proudly warming up, showing off.

It’s why you even stop on your way home from the tailor shop.

Duke Williams currently tries his hand at practicing. The handsome young star all the way from Austin shows promise while he maneuvers his threadbare rope with ease.

He lands a solid catch against one of the practice sheep running around, and the crowd claps already impressed.

His bright face, angelic almost, brightens when he smiles triumphantly. When he spots you among the on looks, he beams even wider. You smile back politely.

However, Martha, the mayor’s youngest daughter, nudges you.

“I don’t know why you haven’t let that man swoop you up yet?” She giggles with a slight tease however, her words sting.

Duke’s been pursuing you ever since he came into town last spring. He reminds you of a newly built chapel, lovely coated in pristine and full of holy hope.

Yet, you don’t care for him.

You understand you should be married by now. Especially at your age, you’re becoming a dusting antique on the shelf by the town’s whispers. You even understood your mothers anger after discovering the man she caught you with had simply scurried away without another word.

Everyone in town seems to see Duke almost as your god blessed savior on a white horse sent to rescue you from a desolate destitution.

But you don’t hold any sense of attraction towards Duke. Even as you watch how handsome and sturdy he looks, a fierce cowboy among the other competitors, you simply admire his skills. And that’s it.

You wonder if you’re simply destined to the life of a happily secluded cactus like creature.

Something tickles against your skin, a sensation of being hyper aware of being caught in another’s gaze. Living in the desert has brought you a heightened awareness to make sure no critters lurking among can strike you.

So your eyes flicker around and find the crowd still enthralled by the sight of the cowboys.

Until you find one man isn’t.

One of the newcomers.

Sun kissed skin, an absolutely striking hawkish nose, sparse facial hair and then, the deepest dark earth eyes you’ve ever seen stare straight at you. The dusty black cowboy hat he wears casts a strange shadow across his features, cloaking him almost sinister.

Your breath hitches fast like it’s stolen from you.

You know this stranger.

One of the other newcomers nudges against him drawing his attention away from you. But your face stays stuck on him.

The men discuss with each other low and close, clustered together like a pack of desert weeds sprouting fast.

Except after the mystery outsider relays something back to the group, his eyes flicker back to you.

There’s a simmered wildness to him.

The commotion of spurs clinking comes and so many giggle around you, drawing your attention away.

Duke moves towards you with a shining grin on his face.

A desire to scurry away tugs at you. So with a polite smile, you silently duck away and decide to head home.

“Hey! Why ya leaving so soon?” He calls out. “Did you see me?”

His voice is so bright but also, so slightly arrogant, as if he can maybe keep you from leaving.

“Yes, you were incredible.” You’re truthful in your words.

Thankfully the others all around begin greedily vying for his attention.

As you turn to head home, that strange itch crawls over you again. Someone’s watching you.

So glancing around you think it must be Duke, but his attention is preoccupied.

However, it’s the handsome black cowboy hat stranger who again blatantly stares so direct at you.

A moment passes of you simply staring back at him.

However you break the contact first, needing to head home. But the entire way you sense his eyes blazing a hole on your back.

By the time you hit the edge of town towards your aunt’s cabin, the day creeps into early evening.

Above, vultures circle around high. However… there isn’t any sign of decay nearby.

- ☾𖤓 -

Your walk towards the tailor shop passes by the large stretch of land where the cowboys practice. Duke cries out your name excited. Politely you turn to greet him good morning only to find he’s not alone.

Other cowboys of course have come to wrestle in their skills. One of them surprises you.

The man you saw a few days ago is here.

His deep midnight eyes flicker to you immediately. That handsome face of his stays entirely composed.

Duke rattles on about his day. Yet you pay no attention as the new cowboy has stolen all your focus. The black cowboy hat he wears is dusty, weathered, and for some reason, you feel as if it both does and doesn’t suit him.

Duke chirps out your name again. Apologizing, you blame your dazed attention on lack of sleep.

Your night has been restless

“Hope ol’ lady Julie isn’t working y’too hard at the tailor shop.” He grins boyish and charming.

“Oh, Duke.” A smooth twang of a voice floats out. Waltzing in besides the cowboy, the newcomer arrives.

“You didn’t tell me your bird was so lovely.” His voice is curled with a smile and his voice, a deep drawl, draws an acidic venom in your mouth.

“I’m not his bird.” You politely reply.

“Not yet.” Duke adds warm, shy. But that only causes your stomach to squirm even more.

“Name’s Ezra, dear honeysuckle.” The newcomer introduces himself with a tip of his hat.

You nod back quietly giving him your name.

“Ezra came for the competition, traveled all this way just to try his hand at it!” Duke, ever the competitor, explains excited for the new competition.

Your eyes unfortunately stay on the newcomer rider.

Compared to Duke, Ezra’s frame is lithe. Then again, Duke with his incredibly tall stature is built like a terrifying boulder. Ezra’s broad shoulders and his striking sleek build makes you think of a river, fluid yet quietly powerful.

As unfortunately handsome as he is, his frame does not seem like a cowboy’s build.

Instead he reminds you of the traveling con man you once knew.

Duke continues rattling on and on about how proud he is to show off the town and this event.

You however hate the way Ezra’s eyes still on you make your skin tighten.

Excusing yourself with a soft nod, wishing them both well, you return on your way to the seamstress. Your body burns the entire way.

The day goes by slowly at the shop. After working on a few ruined blouses, Julie, the elderly shop owner, keeps you busy with tidying up. When the sun starts setting, the door clings open, and you wonder who’s coming in so late.

Ezra saunters in, and your throat tightens.

“Welcome in, newcomer!” Julie greets with a grandmotherly grace. “What can we do for you, good sir?”

Ezra smiles with all the charm of a gilded cactus.

“Seems I am in need of a new stitch for these gloves of mine.” Ezra explains pulling out worn gloves.

Leather frayed along the straps speak of the weathered and worn attention they’ve been given. But they seem too big for his hands. You even swear you’ve seen them before on his old business partner. But you don’t want to think too much on it.

Good dear sweet Julie chatters with the man. You simply stay quiet, not even turning to greet or address him.

You don’t even work on his gloves, deciding to let Julie handle them.

You even hide out in the back room, not even listening to when Ezra leaves.

Julie ends up heading home, and you’re left to close up. The sun sets a dusty fading apricot against the shadow of the tailor shop.

As you pass by the alleyway, suddenly you’re handed into the dark shadows. You’re about to scream, maybe even yelp, until a hand goes flying across your face, silencing you.

“Now now, pidge, don’t need you making too much of a holler.” Ezra.

Anger seethes in you, boiling. Violently and with a harsh yank, you tear yourself away from his grasp. You’re almost tempted to storm away.

“Didn’t think I’d ever be graced by your beauty again. That mother of yours still got that shotgun she threatened me with?” He smoothly asks with the amount of dangerous charm a rattlesnake would carry.

“What? This your last attempt at selling that watered down snake oil you call elixirs and tonics?” You snap back razor sharp.

When you first met Ezra, which now feels like lifetimes ago, he was a smooth talking traveling salesman. A drifter, as your mother so harshly called him.

Instead of the cowboy hat he wears now, he looked more stately in his bowler type cap.

He charmed so many of the women in town, trying to sell them the secrets to youth, vitality, beauty, and anything else he could promise in his elixir vials. You however, were not interested, saw right through his ruse.

Though, you realize now you were just as foolish as the others in town rapidly buying his lies. Because you had been just as charmed and fooled as they were.

This man, who’s sharp wit intrigued you, who spoke to you as an equal, became so dangerous because you were willing to give him everything.

Your heart, your body - all of you should have been reserved for your husband. Instead you freely gave everything to this thief.

The swindler swore he would take you with him, make you his wife. But when your mother’s fury came, he fled like a petrified jackrabbit.

You suppose he is more coyote than jackrabbit, greedily stealing anything he can then sneakily moving on.

Ezra’s composed grin on his face flickers, like all the history resting between you and him resurfaces within him.

“Didn’t you hear, pidgeon? My elixirs were plundered. Even my poor partner, god rest his dear soul, was shot down in cold blood!” Ezra explains with sorrow.

You had heard about that. At the edge of town, on the dirt road leading out into the hills, one of the sheriff’s found the large carriage and Ezra’s associate dead. The carriage crashed, run off the road. The damage screamed of the work of bandits. However, Ezra was nowhere to be found.

“I’m just supposed to believe you miraculously made it out of there alive?” You narrow your eyes suspiciously.

You don’t want to say it, but your instincts twist dangerously in your stomach. You wonder if Ezra did the deed himself, killed his partner and took the valuables.

Ezra shrugs sheepishly.

“That’s the way the desert works, honeysuckle. It’s a harsh landscape that only protects those who can survive its wrath.”

You forgot how much he spoke like a preacher sometimes, so elevated and otherworldly. You hate how badly your heart races just being this close to him again, hearing his voice again.

“So you’re telling me you came all the way here just to try your hand at the competition? Never even seen you ride, much less thrown a rope. Can’t imagine a con-man like you being a cowboy.” You reply skeptical.

He barks a laugh. “You'd be surprised. I’m a man composed of many unrevealed talents.”

You knew that very well.

Cautiously, treading like he’s approaching a mountain lion, Ezra steps closer to you. Out of instinct you step backwards closer to the other shop beside the tailors.

“Now don’t tell me you’re pondering the idea of telling everyone about my past life, pidge?” His voice is low, calm but brewing like an approaching storm.

“Because it pains me just imagining the repercussions that could arise if ya did.” He mutters, and your throat gets tight.

There's an underlying threat below his words.

Fiercely, stubbornly, you glare at him, refusing to speak. But you know you won’t say anything. He must know it too. You’ve left your past far back at home. And you don’t want him reviving your ghosts either.

Suddenly the back of Ezra’s hand gingerly, barely touching your skin, grazes against your cheek. He whispers out your name.

“The years out here have made you bloom, like a beautiful desert petal.” He mumbles with hazed eyes.

Out of spite you snap your face away and scowl even harder at him.

“I have to get home.” You snap angrily, managing to finally remove yourself from him.

“The motel houses me for the time being,” he declares from behind in the shadows.

“Unless that blonde Galahad cowboy of yours is keeping your bed warm now?” Ezra adds almost amused.

Rage bursts a furious fire in you, and it consumes you in its heated path.

“Rot in hell.” You snarl whipping back to him.

“As long as you keep me company, beautiful.” Ezra replies coy.

You’re about to curse his soul when he stomps towards you, fast and steady. His hand flings to your face, pulls you back to the shadow of the tailor shop.

He kisses you with the fierce intensity of a sudden dust storm. It even shakes your soul, spins you around, as if you were caught in an actual twister.

He tastes like the faint hints of a cigar, but something still so deliciously sinful and him. Your knees want to buckle when he easily slips his tongue inside and immediately coaxes his against yours.

You whimper, don’t even realize he’s maneuvered you to the wall of the shop, until your back gently hits the cool wood building.

It’s like your body is imprinted to his, completely answering his call, willingly and wanting to be closer to him while your hands clutch at his broad shoulders.

His body pins you firm against the building, and already he grinds his hips into you.

Then the laughter nearby bursts the bubble, snaps your attention clear.

You scramble and rapidly shove Ezra away. You don’t say another word and simply walk away.

However your lips continue to sting, as if bitten by a bee. Your hands ache empty like they’re missing the presence of his body in their grasp.

You can’t fall for this trap again.

But by the time you arrive back home, greet your aunt warmly, the lie spills from your lips before you can stop it.

“Julie wants to start the inventory sooner. So I’ll be heading back and staying over at the shop.”

Your aunt doesn’t question you, simply grins sweet and wishes you a safe trip back to town.

The sun barely sets in for the night over the horizon. The sky is a dusty blue, the softest color before bleeding into a dark midnight. The desert at night is another creature entirely. Even as you walk into town, you try to stay aware and low from any curious eyes.

The motel approaches fast. The caretaker gives you a curious look but before he can, he’s called away.

Ezra already waits for you at the top of the stairs, hidden in the shadows but still so distinct among them.

He doesn’t tease you, doesn’t even greet you. His presence seems so different with how intense he stares at you. Simply moving to intertwine his hand with yours, he guides you to his room. Inside it’s like the world melts away. It’s only you and him.

He devours you, ravenous, like trying to both make up for lost time and also feel like not a day has passed. Your hands run through his hair, knock off his cowboy hat.

You hate how badly you’ve missed this, missed him. He’s the only man your body has known, and the nights you’ve ached for him your fingers never did him justice.

When you’re bare among his bed, and his fingers slide into your wet core, you whine against his lips.

“This cunt still mine, pretty girl?” He asks mutter.

You wearily nod then all thoughts shatter when he rubs against that certain spot you can never reach. Your body crashes in a climax so shakily fast you have to catch your breath against him.

Ezra kisses the top of your head over and over.

“That’s my sweet peach,” he says in awe.

You greedily now pull him towards you, aching even more for him to be inside.

But he’s not finished with you. Ezra greed swallows your sigh before his lips move down your bare body to your core and kisses you with reverent devotion.

Your body melts into the sheets feeling his tongue trace paths among your wet cunt.

Ezra firmly calls your name. It sounds like your soul is being brought back. Wearily you sit up to see him peering up at you between your legs. Slowly he lifts himself away from your cunt, his face glistening with your arousal.

Those obsidian eyes of his blazing in the candlelight lock you in their gaze. Keeping eye contact with you he suddenly spits down to your wet aching sex, and your mind spins.

It’s obscene, you should be disgusted and horrified. You even wonder if you’ve been transported to the brothel a few ways down the road. But it feels absolutely divine especially when he does it again.

“Oh she likes this.” Ezra coo’s then presses ever the softest kiss against your soaked throbbing pearl. “This pretty little cunt, my lovely lady, ache for me huh?”

You don’t argue with him. You don’t want to. He makes you come again and a creature raw and hungry awakens in you. You claw at him, now needing him inside.

It’s like a piece of yourself returns when Ezra slides into you. It’s hot, heavy, frantic but feels sacred.

Ezra must sense it too, because he doesn’t last long. When he spills over your tummy, his hands become claws and keep you caged in his grasp. Your con artist kisses every inch of you he can.

Sweaty and tangled in him, you still feel a tinge of sadness creep in.

“You left me.” You whimper against his lips.

“And it will haunt me until my dying breath.” Ezra sighs back, his voice weighing heavy. “I was planning to come back for you, my bird. But your mother…”

She had put a bounty out on your drifter, managed to get the sheriff on her side. You knew even in your anger at Ezra leaving, it was smart of him to escape.

His hand cradles your face, and his thumb strokes your cheekbone. Those endless eyes shimmer in the low light.

“But I’m here now, pidge.” Sincerity radiates from him.

You’re now able to bask in his beauty - his gorgeous jaw, his beautiful nose, the striking streak of blonde hair that has been hidden under his hat and you’ve been dying to see.

You nuzzle your face into his palm.

“What are you doing here? Truly?” You ask.

“I told you,” Ezra says, drawing your face towards him to kiss you tender again. “I’m here to try and prove myself victorious.”

You’re not sure you believe his words.

But you end up staying with him. Early morning, before the sun reaches over the desert, his fingers trace your face waking you up.

“Dawn bathes you in her glory.” He mutters. Embarrassed at his words you burrow your face into the pillow.

He doesn’t chase you, but instead lets his fingers draw aimless shapes against your shoulder.

“There wasn’t a day where you did not occupy my mind, even after all these years.” Ezra admits low, as if he didn’t realize those words escaped him.

Slowly you turn towards him and discover those deep eyes hazed over staring at you.

“I hate you.” You tell him without any malice. In fact an emotion something very opposite of hatred soaks your words.

“I know. I’d hate me too.” Ezra agrees muttering then leans down to kiss you gingerly.

You have to leave before the town wakes up, and to seal your alibi.

With a final kiss goodbye, you head to the tailor shop.

Julie finds you in the shop when she arrives and applauds you for your diligence and wanting to get a jump start on inventory. You’re thankful the lie worked out this way. You even manage to convince her to let you finish inventory the rest of the week. Of course she happily agrees.

Ezra drops by to pick up his riding gloves and winks at you shamelessly. You roll your eyes but hate how badly you fight against a grin.

The next few days are spent between the shop and the motel. You already brace your heart for Ezra’s departure approaching once the tournament is over, but you try not to face that.

“You’ve been in a rather good mood.” Your aunt notices when you stop by to drop off goods for her.

“Thought you hated inventory.” She comments.

“Guess not.” You reply with a shrug.

This blissful cloud you’re walking in however does cloud your mind. It makes you sloppy. Instead of taking the longer path to the motel, the one that kept you away from the views of the main road and town, you walk straight into town.

Running right into Duke Williams.

He says your name bright and clear. Dread dawns on you fast.

“Haven’t seen you ‘round. Heard Julie’s got ya working extra hard.” Duke smiles.

You hate this small town and the small whispers that spread like wildfire.

You reassure Duke you’re fine and are even glad you can help Julie.

All his friends, in their sleek cowboy hats, and dusty spurs, stand off to the side snicker. They crowd around each other like an ominous pack of wolves.

One of them even calls your name.

“Might wanna enjoy this freedom while it last!” He proclaims, and your stomach twists.

The other guys snickers, shushing him playfull, and even Duke turns around to reprimand him.

“What does he mean by that?” You cautiously question.

Duke simply waves the conversation off instead offering to walk you to the tailors.

You politely decline.

“Aw come on, sweet thing like you shouldn’t be walking alone at night.” Duke smiles but even with his sweet eyes you’re reminded of a crocodile now.

“Well gentleman, that’s why i’ll accompany this lovely bird to her destination.” Emerging from the shadows Ezra grins warm.

He must have come to find you after you hadn’t shown up at the motel.

The men including Duke go eerily silent. Ezra is older than Duke and the younger men. So he holds seniority now. But besides that, Duke now seems wary, and you don’t blame him. Ezra is a man that radiates a sort of unpredictable energy.

“You sure you don’t want me to walk ya back now?” You almost appreciate the slight genuine worry leaking into Duke’s voice. But shaking your head you move to walk with Ezra by your side.

You do hate how all eyes are on you, even walking away from Duke and his mindless followers.

“Just remain calm.” Ezra mutters.

You do especially with him by your side. By the time you open the tailors you thank Ezra, worried Duke and his men are still watching.

You whisper for him to meet you behind the shop, and he does. Your swindler willingly steps into the back room with you.

“Not my ideal choice for our evening, but I do love a good change of scenery.” Ezra comments amused browsing around the storage. Playfully, you throw a ball of yarn at him.

You’re surprised he even helps you with the small bit of inventory you do.

“That young buck…” until his voice comes out low. “He’s fond of you.”

“Unfortunately.” You reply back unamused.

“Earlier at the saloon…he was boasting.” Ezra continues with the same serious tone.

“About enjoying the last days of being an unmarried man.”

That causes you to pause.

“Must mean he’s gotten over me.” You sigh, thank goodness.

“No pidge…” Ezra stops to turn towards you. “He was proclaiming how you were to be his bride.”

Your stomach drops.

You think of the way the boys just now snickered almost knowingly, and that strange comment one of themselves said -

All of it makes your stomach sick, and you have to sit down.

No. There was just no way.

“I’d never accept his proposal.” You snap out hating how badly your body feels frantic, almost skittish like a cornered road runner.

Ezra kneels before you rubbing your hand with his, a strange solid comfort.

Eventually he gathers you into his arms and calms you with soothing soft words.

“We’ll figure out a solution.”

You still don’t know if you can trust his words. But that's all you have. Your drifter stays with you overnight in the tailor shop. You even feel sinful fucking him in the back room but it’s deliciously sinfull all the same.

Sitting and resting against the work desk you fade in and out of sleep. Tender fingers brush against your fingers, ghost like. Ezra is gone by the time you wake up and Julie’s entering the shop jolts you awake.

Her eyes are frazzled.

“Did you hear? Mister Johnston’s eldest son was shot down early this morning.”

You hadn’t heard. Dread fills you fast when you realize Johnston's boy was the one who had made the joking comment to you last night.

There’s talk about postponing the competition. But others in town, especially Duke, argue to continue the tradition in a way to honor the fallen young man.

An ominous terror looms in you.

Later that night, you return to the motel. Too many thoughts swarm in your head, and Ezra even seems distant. He even slides his duster jacket one before kissing you.

“I have some personal matters to attend to, pidge. Get some respite here.”

His boots echo down the hall and then down the stairs.

You can’t sleep. So you move to slide open the window and let some of the night air in.

The faint mutter of discussion very close outside in the alleyway floats into the room.

It’s muffled at first, but once you step closer and concentrate, you pick up the very familiar cadence of a certain drifter.

“No no, I have it covered. As long as you make sure to double the bets on me tomorrow.” Ezra explains in a hush.

The others with him explain the different amounts they’ve collected, and it hits you.

He’s gambling on the competition.

That’s why he’s here.

You knew the men at the saloon often bet, but this feels heavier.

A new clicking of spurs arrives.

“Y’know, you fellas look like a dangerous bunch all here hidden in the shadows.” Duke.

Panic prickles all over your body.

“Now young buck, we’re just here partaking in a fun and friendly wager.” Ezra with his smooth talking skills deflates the tension easily.

“Waggerin’ on what?” You’re surprised Duke immediately quickly jumps in to gamble.

Ezra and the other men begin conspiring on how to make sure Duke wins to favor the odds of their bets.

“I like the sound of that.” Duke grins.

He makes a hefty wager on himself to win, the price even makes someone whistle.

They offer to place their wagers on him as well and with Ezra even in the competition, he’s argued to be an even better reassurance that the outcome falls in their favor.

Ezra even swears by this.

They’re fixing the match, going to cheat. You don’t know how to feel about any of this.

They end their discussion, and you quietly slide back into bed. Before long Ezra returns, the smell of tobacco and the cold air lingers in the room.

His fingers dance against your shoulders while your back stays to him.

“You’re only here… to make money, and cheat.” You mutter hollow.

His fingers stop.

“You overheard.”

You don’t reply to him. Ezra sighs.

“Indeed I am. But I’m no different than the gentlemen that place simple wagers on a game of horseshoe.” He explains low, under the whisper of the candle flicker.

“But it’s like you’re wanting to play with a weighted or lighter horseshoe.” You argue back.

“Is it not in our best natures to make sure Lady Luck favors us by any means possible?”

You don’t know how to reply to him.

“…I’m doing this for you, for us.” He adds.

You turn to him, your face scrunching up in fury.

“Bullshit.” You tell him.

“Believe me a liar, but I’m honest in my endeavor.” His face becomes a firm steeled frown.

You can’t look at him anymore, turning your back again to Erza in bed.

“My hope was to gain enough funds to pay for the bounty your mother placed on me, return for your hand, and make our way into a new life together.” His voice is steady.

“Unless you wish to stay here and wed that Duke.” He offers.

You whip back to glare harsh at Ezra.

There’s a silence heavy and ancient like the desert that settles between you. But it doesn’t last long before Ezra leans down and sweeps in to capture your lips

The discussion dies immediately as passion burns in its place.

You don’t think of gambling cowboys, or of your mysterious drifter, only of the moment consuming you now, and you almost pray you never leave it.

- ☾𖤓 -

Late in the night, wearily half sleep, the bed shifting jolts you awake, and you even hear the door creak open. Before you can ask Ezra if he’s alright, your eyes so sleepy flutter close for a moment. Then he’s sliding back into the warmth pulling you close into his arms. You fall right back to your dreams.

In the early hours of the morning, Ezra kisses your jaw.

“My lucky charm, are you going to observe our tournament today?” He mutters.

The competition was today.

“You nervous?” You had never seen him ride much less try ranch hand work.

“Never.” He says smoothly.

Eventually he slides out of bed and lets you get ready. But soon Ezra walks over and places something in your hands.

The pistol weighs heavy, cold. And your eyes snap open wide now fully awake.

“Why-”

He cuts you off gently. “You know how to fire, yes?”

You nod weakly.

A small smirk tugs at his handsome lips. “Figured as much, after seeing your mother.”

It’s an attempt to tease, but too much terror bubbles in you.

“I just need to know you’re protected.” Ezra reveals, but with a croak you ask why.

“Cause unfortunate as it might be, it’s even more dangerous for a criminal like me to cherish something.”

Your eyes water. There are too many questions in your head, but the day will be starting soon. You need to leave before you’re spotted.

“Tell me you have another gun.” You snap at him.

Ezra simply taps the side of his head. “Don’t need another firearm when I have this weapon.”

You angrily throw the pistol down back to the bed, refusing to take it. That’s when he snaps your name, hard and serious.

You’ve never heard his voice raise like that.

“Take it.” He grabs the firearm and hands it back to you. His midnight eyes are ominously serious with no room for argument.

His hand grabs your face firm in his hand. Your eyes search his endless midnight lake eyes.

“I call you pidge, my little pigeon bird. But I’ve known right from the start you’re a fierce creature. Don’t ever forget that.”

Ezra’s words are beautiful but barbed. They rip up tracks in your heart. He kisses you quick, fierce and short. You hate how it feels like a goodbye.

With shaking hands and confusion, you slide the gun into your satchel. You walk back to your aunt's cabin in a daze. So much so that you barely notice she’s already awake when you sneak back in.

“You have fun at the motel again?” She asks, and fear freezes you.

“I wasn’t-”

“Mac, your uncle’s good friend, gave me the heads up.” She cuts you off softly.

Mac, the innkeeper. God damn this small town. Venom, anger, indignation, they all swirl violently in you.

“Whatever you’re doing there, you’re only gonna find danger.” She says somber, and you stay quiet.

Your aunt sighs.

“You’re lucky this hasn’t gotten out yet. What would young Duke say if he found out?”

Frustration bursts in you, and you snap furious about why would you even need to care about that man’s opinion of you.

“Because he plans on weddin’ you, and I plan on letting him.” Your aunt fires back and her words shoot right through you.

Your legs feel like they’re about to give out, even have to steady yourself against the nearby chair.

You thought your aunt understood. She’s been alone, a widow since she was around your age, longer than your mother had been a widow. You thought she’d never fall into the trap of forcing marriage.

“It’s for your own good.” She argues, watery urgent m. “You need protection, a home, a husband to provide for you.”

You rush out of the house even ignoring the screams from your aunt.

You’d have to think of a plan fast. Maybe leave with Ezra once the competition ends today. It’s all too much. You swallow back a sob and walk back into town.

The competition was today after all.

The day at the shop is very short. Julie doesn’t even notice your somber atmosphere as she’s completely caught up in the excitement of this day. So many more wagons stretch around the edge of town.

Pecos flutters alive with life.

But there’s already commotion, a dangerous kind that chokes the competition tense.

Duke yells loud and furious. The sheriff along with his deputies are nearby. Thankfully you spot Martha and quickly move to ask her what’s going on.

“Duke’s horse is missing.” She whispers.

From what Martha says, when Duke went to the stables this morning the gate was open and his horse was nowhere to be seen. His trusty companion, you even knew how serious an issue this is.

“Well young buck, if you’re that upset then maybe you shouldn’t partake in the festivities.” Ezra, out of thin air, offers.

He looks confident as he strolls up.

“Or you simply ride with another mare?” He proposes with a coy optimism.

“Fuck you!” Duke snaps at Ezra and even looks as if he’s going to lunge.

Your heart hammers hard in your chest. Thankfully the sheriff settles the commotion down.

Angered but stubborn, Duke declares he’s staying to compete and will simply use another horse. He is favored to win after all.

Other cowboys from out of town have blown in like packs of tumbleweed. So many of them are excited to participate and try their hand at showing off their rancher skills

Some are good.

But it is Ezra who proves to be the dark horse, the surprise underdog.

Watching him on his stallion, your throat goes dry seeing how effortless and strong he manages his horse. You never knew he could ride. The way he maneuvers and stays a quiet presence, he reminds you of an outlaw.

“Moves like a bandit.” Someone in the crowd even whispers.

His rope throwing skills however surprise everyone, including yourself. The calf he manages to wrangle takes you by shock. A dangerous lust slithers over your body watching him wrangle the animal with his strength and sturdy form.

But you realize -

This wasn’t what had been planned. From the discussion given last night, Ezra was meant to perform poorly to make sure Duke did better.

But this is exactly the opposite.

He’s the lead runner for champion of the competition.

And then Duke’s turn arrives. The crowd mummers curious, on edge waiting for the favored cowboy to make his move.

The horse he uses is not cooperative. Duke screams, unable to hide his frustration in wrangling the creature.

But once he stabilizes a manageable ride, he goes to lasso the calf. His rope lands and the crowd cheers. He’s already faster than Ezra.

Until the frayed rope snaps and the calf yanks itself free.

The crowd gasps.

It’s not an immediate disqualification, but it doesn’t look good. Duke argues that his rope was frayed and that someone must have slowly started cutting at it. However it’s a long shot argument. There’s no way to prove that and even the sheriff seems a little wary of the accusation.

“That’s just the way rope is son, you just gotta keep an eye on it.”

Duke screams in anguish canyon splitting anger. You’ve never once seen him like this. It’s like it’s a whole new man, or maybe, his true self being revealed.

He’s offered another rope, but it’s almost horrifying to watch that one as well snap. The crowd again gasps.

This wasn’t the outcome meant to happen.

“Duke’s cursed.” Someone mumbles.

The crowd is in disbelief, you even are. The last remaining competitors try their luck, but none can beat Ezra’s speed.

You can’t believe it. But he won.

And Duke is livid. The crowd tentatively applauds Ezra’s win because of the somber mood clashing.

“You bastard! You goddamn cheated!” Duke screams at Ezra while the deputies try settling him down.

“Poor boy,” Ezra says sympathetically before turning to find you in the crowd.

There’s a gleam of something proud shimmering in his dark eyes.

You don’t question it, don’t want to.

Ezra truly is a man of many facets, dangerous ones, like looking at a raw gemstone that could cut your fingers.

The competition spills into the nearby saloons, and the festivities only seem to intensify as the sun starts setting. You can’t even reach Ezra from the groups swirling around him and want to get as far away from Duke as possible.

So you return back to the tailor shop. Julie urges you to join her and the other women at the mayor’s large property, but you decline.

You simply sit in the store trying to muster up a plan. But in a blink, the night arrives and you have to find Ezra.

So after locking up the shop, you head to the motel.

Until the sound of Duke’s screaming and the rage of violence roars nearby.

You freeze, terrified.

Until someone wearily coughs. “That’s what ya get for gamblin’ with bandits, boy.”

Your swindler’s distinct twang drawls smug and now your body rushes to the secluded alleyway.

You swallow back a scream at the sight you stumble upon. Duke with blood fists has Ezra pinned against the wall, like a mythological creature, terrifying and large looking over with violence in his wake.

Ezra’s face is bloody and one of his arms even hangs limp.

“Pidge.” He coughs, and your heart aches.

Duke whips around to see you and barks for you to leave.

Shakily you snatch down to your bag, and whip out the gun to point it to him. Duke’s face falls a bit confused.

“Honey this man wronged me, I’m only enacting my justice.” He argues.

You snap at him to let Ezra go or else.

That’s when a sinister evil darkens Duke’s golden boy face.

“So, ya little god damn whore…you’re workin’ with this man aren’t ya? I knew I should’ve listened to all the rumors about a slut like you.” He spits with venom leaking from his voice.

“Don’t you touch her.” Ezra snarls, but Duke pays him no mind keeping his sinister eyes on you.

“What?” Duke slowly mutters. “Do ya really think you’re gonna shoot me?”

Tears fill your eyes. You don’t want to, but the way your heart races like a terrified Jack rabbit it screams at you to flee. But… you also wonder if your heart races because it’s urging you to attack, to bare your fangs.

Instead of releasing Ezra, Duke moves to grip his coat harder. He slams your drifter hard and fast against the wall. A painful crack-like smack comes, and you scream.

You fire the gun instantly.

Duke blinks, you even wonder if you landed a hit.

Until deep dark crimson, almost the color of dark sludge, leaks across Duke’s side. He crumbles like a fall leaf.

You cry scrambling to Ezra who thankfully is still standing. Duke wheezes out obscenities and even tries hollering for help. You’re however too worried about Ezra.

“M’fine,” your drifter reassures with a wheeze.

“Hand me the gun, dearest.” Ezra somberly mutters. When you do, without hesitation Ezra fires the gun point black down at Duke. And your eyes shut hearing the pistol strike. Duke goes quiet and stays silent.

“Come on, we gotta hurry.” Ezra urges.

Supporting his body, you manage to get him into the tailor shop to tend to his wounds.

Ezra coughs out your name. “M’dearest, I need to make my escape out of town once more.” His breathing his heaved, he needs to rest.

“Don’t leave me.” You cry sharp, unable to focus on anything now.

His hand slides to your face and he cradles you tenderly. You clutch at his wrist as you blink back tears starting at him now.

“It will not be a pleasant life, staying with a devil like me.” He mumbles.

Doesn't he realize, you’re just as tarnished as him now? Blood is on your hands. You simply turn to kiss the palm of his hand feeling more reassured than ever.

“I’d rather be with the devil than live without him.” You speak soft into his skin while tears dry on your cheeks.

He barks a hollow but watery thick laugh as he says your name. “You foolish bird, my lovely dangerous creature.”

The desert is unforgiving to those who do now learn to grow fangs or become just as fierce as its landscape. You wonder if that’s what has become of you. But you don’t question it. You simply gather all you can, steal one of the horses from the saloon and keep Ezra close to you on the saddle.

If Ezra is a devil, then you’re grateful he saved you from your hell. And for him, you will gladly stain your soul.

Under the eternal eyes of the desert, you wander into the night keeping your bandit close to you.

In the distance a lone coyote howls aching at the moon.

You don’t look back once.

[better-call-mau1]

“What the kriff is going on?! Stop that! Get away from me!”

“Ew, it’s so…colorful in here. Repulsively so. Well, it was either you or the paraplegic Zabrak, and I certainly didn’t want to see the scrambled mess sloshing around the inside of his skull.”

“Get out! Out! Out! Out! I don’t need your creepy voice in my head! Go possess a womp-rat and jump into a—”

“Silence, you blaster-toting bimbo! You decided to shoot at an undead spirit instead of run away! It’s your own fault that I’ve appropriated your corporeality!”

“What about me trying to kill you makes me a bimbo?! I was trying to protect my friend!”

“Whatever. Good thing I have no use for your brain anyway.”

“My brain is just fine! I’ll have you know that I made Commandant’s List every single semester as a student at the Imperial Acad—”

“Blah blah blah blah blah. Now…is there anything in your memories that’s remotely useful? Let’s see here…hmmmm…color palettes…paint blends…chemical formulas for explosive compounds…adolescent trauma…starship schematics…more explosives…plenty of mommy issues…oh…? Ooohhh…how curious! What do we have here?”

“Nope! Stop that! Get out! That’s very private! Don’t look in there!”

“Unresolved romantic tension? With the pretty Jedi boy? Splendid! You should have come to Dathomir sooner, Mandalorian wench!”

“I don’t have any romantic tension with Ezra! Zero tension! None whatsoever! We’re as tense as…uhhhh…a really loose cable…or something…? And I’m not a wench!!”

“If I flew through a canyon with a Jedi boy in such provocative and perverse fashion, Mother Talzin would have grounded me for an entire cycle. From your own memories, it all looks rather wenchy to me. Unless you do have feelings for him…”

“I don’t! What else was I supposed to do there? Drop him in the river?”

“And throw away such a majestic specimen of virile masculinity? Of course not! But you could have held him in any other position than the one you did. Fortunately for you, you were wearing your helmet and being shot at. Otherwise he would have seen how fiercely you were blushing. Or sensed your—”

“NOPE!”

“You’re quite amusing, I must admit. Feel free to offer commentary while you help me rebuild the great clan of the Nightsisters with the pretty Jedi boy!”

“Rebuild? With weird spirit magick, right?”

“…”

“REBUILD WITH WEIRD SPIRIT MAGICK, RIGHT?!”

“Fear not, Mandalorian wench. Your tension with the dashing Jedi will be resolved shortly.”

Rebels Rewatch: "Visions And Voices"

Maul returns to be a menace and freak both me and Ezra out.

Obligatory "I've already done a live reaction version of this episode" link.

From the very beginning, with just the washed out dingy lighting and the whooshing wind sound effect, this episode already feels unsettling. The atmospheric touches here with the storm and lightning and the camera movement and shot choice once things start happening evoke a horror movie.

The way they have Hera's voice fading out and going watery every time Maul calls to Ezra, the way Ezra keeps squinting and blinking and the tiny headshake he gives like he's trying to shake off some fatigue or jerk himself alert, make himself stop seeing things...

He looks so frightened. :(

COURSE I DON'T BLAME HIM WITH THE APPARITION OF MAUL LOOKING LIKE THIS.

Kanan and Zeb both trying to shake him awake after he faints. <3

I mentioned in my original liveblog but this episode gives me major Teen Titans 2003 "Haunted" vibes, with the plotline about a character being menaced by an imaginary villain only they can see. Rebels ultimately diverged from that parallel but my mental "If I had a nickel for every time" associations linger.

Something I loved about this episode was just how present everyone was for Ezra, how worried and concerned they were over him. Like here, all the members of the crew, even Chopper, are crowded in Kanan's room waiting for him to wake up.

Subtle animation appreciation moment: How Ezra touches the back of his neck like he's trying to rub out some stiffness or ache.

Oh hang on, did I just stumble across another Kanera-Sabezra mirror?

I DID! :D

Getting a little ahead of myself though, gotta appreciate this moment here with Ezra's fond little smile as Sabine bullies AP-5 about the munitions they're taking.

Also Sabine's "Can you believe this guy?" look lol.

Sabine immediately knows to send Chopper for Kanan. (Oh look, the two of them being the Most Important People in Ezra's life again. :D)

Sabine is very worried and alarmed this whole scene. She knows this isn't like him and oh ouch there are those Teen Titans "Haunted" feels come back to stab me again.

It's not actually clear what Maul was doing with this whole making-Ezra-see-him-everywhere trick--and you know it was deliberate, Ezra wasn't getting anything useful out of his end of the mind bond--but honestly the visions going unexplained are effectively creepy and unsettling enough. Personally I think it was one part to scare Ezra, make him doubt himself and his own mind, make him and everyone else think he was going crazy, and one part to manipulate him into doing something horrible he'd regret so that the Rebels would cast him out and drive him to Maul.

:((((

Hera understandably takes Ezra off the mission in light of events and heads it up herself. There's very soft worried mom energy radiating off her in this scene.

I'm kind of amazed Kanan and Sabine putting a tracker on Ezra without telling him didn't get any rancid takes complaining about how ~cLeArLy tOxIc~ it was. Maybe people actually remembered the part of Ezra's characterization where he tends to impulsively go off half-cocked to save people and figured, "Oh, Kanan's taking some obvious precautions in case he does that." Or maybe they decided given two previous kidnapping attempts Kanan was allowed a little paranoia over his kid.

Aaaaaaand this is the first we've heard Ezra's theme in a while.

(Note: Sabine has already painted one of Ezra's new Scout Trooper helmets, which he decides to wear to see Bendu. Even though the last time they rode the speeder into the Bendu's hollow he didn't bother wearing a helmet at all. Upgraded your comfort item/security blanket metaphor there, Ezra, eh?)

Full on horror strings here as we pan up to Maul just chilling like a creeper at the top of the hollow.

The way Ezra almost steps between Maul and Kanan. <3

Something I loved this episode was Ezra consistently rejecting Maul's attempts to touch him, smacking or shoving his hand off his shoulder, deliberately stepping away and keeping a distance.

Since a straightforward request was denied, Maul resorts to blackmail, threatening to broadcast the location of the base to the Empire and oof, Ezra's face.

Maul then dangles the "key to defeating the Sith" carrot in front of them, which activates Ezra's Hero Complex and hyper-responsibility and is what makes him agree to go. See, Maul is his responsibility, it's his fault Maul is even after them in the first place, so Ezra feels a sense of obligation to take care of him as a personal problem.

Love how Kanan says Phoenix Squadron will just wholecloth pack up and move to a new base in order to keep Ezra safe. I don't think it works like that Kanan, lol, but the spirit is appreciated.

Ezra's awfully confident that Maul won't hurt him and, ngl, that is not a risk I would have taken. But Kanan decides to trust Ezra and so the snippet of Ezra's theme that's been playing (marking his gesture of self-sacrifice) gives way to the same cue that played when Vader was descending on top of the TIE Advanced in "Twilight of the Apprentice", kind of an auditory callback to Malachor and the start of this whole arc.

Sabine's already getting the Phantom II prepped. <3

Dathomir looks appropriately hellish. Twisted gnarled trees, barren rocks, broken architecture, drenched in deep red with fog obscuring the horizon.

It's subtle at first and grows more obvious as the episode carries on but Maul is a little bit, ah... bipolar in his actions and displays of emotion here. He oscillates between speaking calmly, growling in frustration, outright snapping at Ezra sometimes, cackling to himself randomly, and of course dropping his voice down into that soft, vulnerable cadence that's his go-to whenever he wants to garner and play to Ezra's sympathies. Ezra takes his erratic behavior in stride, for the most part, doesn't flinch or comment on Maul's mood swings.

Really do love the environment work Rebels does. <3

Ezra flippantly dismissing Maul's murder hoard as "junk" lol.

"Fun" easter egg to note: The scrawled Mand'oa on the wall spells KENOBI.

Aaaaaaand our introduction of the plot device that is the darksaber, displayed prominently under a cubist painting of Satine, whose theme plays as Ezra examines the darksaber. This reference is pure fanservice for TCW fans. It basically means nothing to me emotionally, I was never a fan of Satine or her romance with Obi-Wan, so mostly I just feel offended and creeped out on her behalf that a painting of her got hauled to Maul's murder cave and defaced.

(Interesting to note that the slashes of... paint?... blood?... stuff crosses out Satine's eyes and cuts her throat. Is Maul reveling in his murder of her, trying to relive it by destroying her image? Did he stub out her eyes to stop her from "staring" at him? Who knows.)

Okay I lied, Ezra flinches precisely once, right after Maul yells at him not to touch the darksaber.

I like to think it was possibly calling out to him, the kyber crystal inside a natural siren song to Force wielders, and that's how Ezra knows it's some kind of lightsaber and not just a weird stick.

Love the drums in this music cue. It's got some exotic-sounding eastern instruments in it too, I think I might hear a bit of didgeridoo?

Subtle animation appreciation moment: How Ezra screws up his face in preparation to down the potion, it obviously doesn't smell or taste very good lol.

The music turns frantic and rushing when we cut the Sabine and Kanan landing out, like it's telling them to hurry. More exotic instruments, some kind of tinny percussion, cymbals maybe?

Right, so this episode was clearly another Halloween special right? Has all the perfect trappings of one lol.

Maul strays into Dangerously Genre Savvy here; he never intended to pay for using the Nightsisters' magick himself and his dialogue to Ezra seems to indicate he didn't intend to sacrifice Ezra to them either. So his plan was either to evade the spirit witches long enough to get away scott free, or he was counting on other members of the Spectres to come after Ezra trying to save him.

Either way, it leads to one of the creepiest scenes in the show.

Subtle animation appreciation moment: The bewildered way Kanan's head jerks around right before the Nightsister spirit possesses him, like he can tell that something freaky is there but he can't tell what or where.

The unnatural character movement the animators use for Possessed!Kanan and Possessed!Sabine is really good; they're limp like puppets for a bit before the spirits take full control, and even afterwards move in jerky, inhuman motions.

And thus a half-dozens angst!fics were written lol. (And still not nearly enough.)

Ngl, Maul technically does show Ezra how to save his friends buuuuut he gets no points for that since he clearly thought Ezra would just write them off and come with him.

I'm still amazed he didn't just kidnap him right there. Kenobi obsession too strong I guess.

Other people have already pointed out the irony of Maul screaming at Ezra to forget the past and his attachments while himself being obsessed with the past and clearly trying to use Ezra as a Replacement Goldfish for Savage but I'll mention that anyway.

You know, the Fridge Horror of this episode is really unsettling. I know at least one fanficcer and @better-call-mau1 have asked the question of how, exactly, does possessing Kanan and Sabine allow the Nightsisters to rebuild their clan? They're either going to use Kanan and Sabine to perform some kind of freaky necromancy ritual, use them to lure other Rebels in (seems like it'd have limited effectiveness, eventually Rebel Command would decide retrieval isn't worth it), or they would rebuild the clan using more... ah... conventional means.

Add that unsettling thought to how possessed Sabine seems to stalk Ezra, specifically, while the possessed Kanan returns to the altar and fkhkhffjhjhgggfgjjjj--

Yeah.

"That doesn't belong to you!" "Then take it from me, Jedi!" Are they talking about the darksaber or Sabine's body?

...Yes.

This music cue is amazing. Possessed Sabine scrabbling on the ground like a feral animal while Ezra just calmly Force Pushes her out of the threshold is excellently staged.

Well that's a heart eyes expression if I ever saw one lol.

Sometimes I like to listen to different language tracks for specific dramatic parts of shows or movies, to see how other actors do it, compare performance notes and kjsahfkajshfkajh one of the Chinese Nightsister-possessed Kanans was one of the most horrifying scary things I've ever heard.

This scene is just heartwrenching. A lot of this episode was spoiled in the trailers so this maybe didn't have as much dramatic impact as it should have had at the time but I still found it pretty gut-punching. A little short, maybe. That's about it.

This is one of Ezra's finer moments, frankly, outsmarting and defeating the Nightsister spirits. You really feel the care he has for Kanan. Love it. <3

From the moment Ezra said that the answer to destroying the Sith was "Obi-Wan Kenobi" I think I knew it was a false flag and what Maul had manipulated him to see. Because, obviously, they key is Luke.

Interesting how Ezra thinks if Obi-Wan doesn't, eventually, fight, that the Sith can't be stopped. He's pinning a lot of hopes on a man who doesn't, ultimately, wind up being the narrative Chosen One who accomplishes that task. Again, more on that later in "Twin Suns".

Ezra seems to pay Sabine a glance as he passes, aww.

*PORTENTS OF CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT*

This episode is one of my favorites, and the "Haunted" mental connections are only one of the reasons why. It's got great dialogue, creepy suspense, adorable subtle Sabezra moments, furthering of Maul's slow mental degradation and descent into full ruin, and Ezra gets to be amazingly self-sacrificing, brave, and awesome in it. What's not to love?

[icepoptroll]

@june-doe-2024 day 8: Uranium City

Hoooooo boy, this prompt has been by far the hardest one for me to come up with an idea for so far, but dang nab it this is June Doe and I’m going all out or my URL’s not icepoptroll gosh darn it!!!

But seeing as there’s a full month of prompts to do and my goal is to do them all, I have to be kind of efficient with these, so I wasn’t gonna go for a ton of complex town-building that would encompass the whole of Uranium. So instead when the phrase ‘Ghost town’ came to mind I went for zeroing in on a ghost choir AU angle.

Here the people of Uranium do believe that the kids from the choir are ghosts that haunt the town, and they’d be correct; the kids show signs wherever they can that they’re still here. Penny just wants to take Ezra and leave town so they can move on with their lives, away from a lot of people and places that come with painful memories. . . Ezra would go anywhere with Penny, even the end of the earth, but they have no money. They’re already on thin ice, so she doesn’t want Ezra having to sell drugs anymore. Instead, remembering Constance’s story, she looks for a job at the Blackwood Cafe, where Connie’s parents are happy to hire a friend of their late daughter. She works there, all the while still haunted by her former choir mates, and saves up enough to go rent a farmhouse with Ezra somewhere far away. Soon after she turns 18 she petitions for guardianship over Ezra, and buys two one-way bus tickets out of town.

When it’s time to go, and the ghosts of the rest of the choir are still with her, Penny learns something that the ghosts knew all along: it isn’t Uranium City that’s haunted, but Penny herself.

[antianakin]

I think I'm able to perhaps put a few words to why I really dislike that the Ahsoka show had her choose to come to the conclusion that Anakin was GOOD, that he was a good person and good teacher to her, rather than having her refuse to forgive him and just having to let go of him entirely.

Ahsoka is a character who has been, for her ENTIRE RUN on Star Wars, defined by Anakin and her relationship to him. She's never been able to escape that. She was created as an explanation for why Anakin "matured" over the three year gap between AOTC and ROTS, but her lack of existence in the films means she can have no greater impact on Anakin than that. She is wholly irrelevant to his character but she does not EXIST without him. In Rebels, she is only in one season where all of her appearances are fixated on her discovery of Anakin's betrayal and how that impacts her, leading up to their final confrontation where she appears to die fighting him. She comes back only so her relationship with Anakin can be used to help Ezra let go of Kanan. In TOTJ, she has an entire episode dedicated to explaining that the only reason she survived Order 66 was because of some kind of special training Anakin gave her that made her stronger, better, faster than any other Jedi. In The Mandalorian, her appearance was full of subtext about her trauma regarding Anakin and the way she reacts to other Jedi as a result of that. In The Book of Boba Fett appearance, that subtext is still there, primarily in her conversation with Luke where she even tells him how much he reminds her of Anakin. Which leaves us with the Ahsoka show itself and how it REVOLVES around that relationship, from Sabine being turned into Anakin 2.0 to everything in episode 5 to Ahsoka claiming she'll support Sabine in everything because this is what Anakin did for her to Anakin literally showing up in ghost form to Thrawn predicting everything Ahsoka will do because he has some familiarity with Anakin.

Ahsoka CANNOT escape this relationship, she cannot move out from this particular shadow and become her own person because her character seems to ONLY EXIST to be "Anakin's student." She can almost literally not stand on her own at this point. If her story doesn't revolve around Anakin in some way, it doesn't seem to really exist (please keep in mind here that I am mostly looking at HIGH CANON appearances for this because that's what I am familiar with; I'm sure that some comics have probably managed to move away from her relationship to Anakin a little bit sometimes but I haven't read any of them so they're not being counted in this analysis, especially since I don't think they're really impacting her higher canon characterization anyway).

It's even just visible in how other characters perceive her. She is constantly being COMPARED to Anakin, we keep hearing how like Anakin she is. The only time I can think of that she is compared to anyone OTHER than Anakin is when Trace and Rafa tell her that she acts like a Jedi even if she isn't currently calling herself one (bless their SOULS for this moment, they deserved so much better than the hate they got and one single appearance on fucking TBB). We never hear anyone say she reminds them of Obi-Wan, or Yoda, or Plo Koon. It's ALWAYS Anakin even though she's known Yoda and Plo Koon longer and she seems to spend almost as much time with Obi-Wan as she does Anakin.

By having Ahsoka decide to deal with her feelings about Anakin by just... setting aside all the bad shit he did and focusing ONLY on the good moments that he had and letting that define him, it makes it nearly impossible to separate her from him. If he's good, then it's a GOOD thing to compare her to him. If he's good, then his influence on her HAS to have been a good one. For me, it ruins ANY nuance that could have come from going the opposite direction and recognizing that while he had some good moments, he was in fact an overall bad person who was a terrible teacher to her. He betrayed her, he tried to kill her (and only failed because she was saved by someone else), he abandoned her. I don't care WHAT he did before this, this automatically makes him a BAD TEACHER.

And recognizing that Anakin was a bad teacher would force Ahsoka to look at HERSELF more critically, too, to recognize the places where she has made the same mistakes perhaps, where she's started leading herself down a similar path to his, and then choosing to NOT BE LIKE HIM. Anakin should be (like he is with Luke) the personification of her own darkness. Palpatine represented Anakin's greatest demons and personifications, Anakin can represent something similar for Ahsoka. He is an indisputable part of her now, but she doesn't HAVE to become him, she doesn't have to let that CONTROL her. And by making that choice, she frees herself from being defined by him for the rest of her life.

But now, the narrative has bound Ahsoka to Anakin forever. She'll never be anything more than Anakin's student because this has become what defines her as a person and a character. And it just... it sucks. Ahsoka deserved better than that.

[magpiepills]

Sagittarius

Rating: EXPLICIT 18+ MDNI

Pairing: Ezra x f reader

Word count: 2.4k

Summary: you and Ezra in your pod.

Warnings: SMUT! PIV, helmet riding, slight bondage? Idk what else.

A word from the author: has anyone done riding Ezra’s helmet yet? No matter. Here’s mine. With gratitude to the mutuals and the magic sluts.

Your meeting was an improbability on a largely deserted moon. He had talked so sweet, so flattering, so genteel. Like chloroform on a pretty handkerchief. Lorenzo fell for it, too. Lorenzo always was a sucker.

Ezra says he’s sorry.

Sorry he tried to rob you. Sorry he shot your husband dead. Even if Lorenzo did shoot first, you had really wanted to be the one to dispatch the conniving bastard, and he took that from you. The way he squirmed and huffed now, well, that’s his own doing.

If robbery and murder weren’t great enough offenses, he’d had the gall to track you all the way back to your rented pod and barge right in. He couldn’t just get away with that.

You’d heard him. He rattled the door, forced it open, metal creaking and groaning against rusted metal followed by heavy boots thudding against the corrugated metal floor. You’d already stripped down to your tank top and underwear, a futile attempt at staving off the humid heat of Bakhroma Green. There was no time to get dressed now. You held your thrower in both hands, finger itching at the trigger and your back against the brittle plastic of the pod walls. Fool as he was, he came in head first. When the butt of your Frontiersman didn’t quite connect with the required force, Ezra wheeled around and snatched your weapon away, flinging it clear across the pod.

Incensed, you charged at him. Grabbing him, wrenching his arm back and pulling until he hollered and fell forward. You let his weight drop onto the floor, he groaned and bared his teeth, writhing pathetically at your feet. Good. Serves him right. You watched him for a moment, hands on your hips and head cocked. There wasn’t time to consider the next step in dealing with your intruder. He was on the floor and you had the upper hand. You couldn’t let him get up, that was certain.

No sooner was your mind made than you threw yourself on him, doing your best to pin him down and get him into a headlock or something to incapacitate him long enough for you to toss him back out of the ship and leave him to die. Ezra grunted and panted, bucking and rolling, trying his best to throw you off of his back. You held your own as long as you could, but he was furious and strong. In a flash he grabbed your hair and flipped you both, knocking the wind from your lungs. The ensuing melee saw you tumbling and flailing about the pod, each of you trying hard to get the other to stay still. Panting, sweating, grunting, swearing. You aren’t sure how you end up on his back, holding him with his arms bent. Thankfully, he had no energy left to fight, because neither did you. You needed to tie him up.

It wasn’t ideal. None of this was, really. It was a shit show from the start and you’ve just had to accept that and somehow get through it. You did the only thing you could do under the circumstances and you tied him up with your panties. The fabric was probably cutting off his circulation and the knot may not hold long, but it was good enough. You did your best to put out of your mind the fact that you’re naked from the waist down now. It didn’t matter if he saw, you told yourself. As quickly as possible you were going to be shoving him out the hatch and leaving him far behind.

You flipped your captive onto his back, muzzle of your recovered thrower shoved into his chest. With your adversary bound, you relaxed for a moment, catching your breath before you had to haul him out.

You traced your fingertips over his visor. The glass is thick. Scratched and pitted and heavy over his head. Behind it he’s sweating. Small beads on his forehead, nose and cheeks that gathered together and slid down to his hair. It was your first good look at him. He was pretty. What a waste. With his big, round eyes, shiny, pitch-colored things; with his nose, soft aquiline curve, and lips, pouting open now, as he looked pitifully back at you.

He kept those clever eyes trained on yours as you shuffled up closer, knees on either side of his helmet. You rapped gently on the glass, smiling sweetly down at him. You ran your hands over the cool surface, but still he watched you. You lifted the hem of your sweatshirt, and brought it up, up, up over your bare tits, and tossed it aside. You watched with amusement, tilting your head sympathetically to the side as you squeezed and lifted your tits, letting them fall again before gently pinching your nipples. “Mmmm. Feels so good, Ezra. Touch me, please. I know you can make it even better.” You whined, teasing him. He closed his eyes, brows furrowed, muttering something you couldn’t hear under his helmet. “Oh, I forgot. You’re tied up. Well, I guess if you can’t take care of me I’ll have to just do it myself.” You sighed dramatically and rolled your hips, “I think there’s still a way you can help though. You do want to be good, don’t you, Ezra? You want to keep me happy, isn’t that right?” He wet his lips with his tongue and nodded shallowly, eyelids looking heavier. You circled your nipples with your fingertips, teasing them into firm points, caressing down your stomach and your thighs.

He squirmed below you and whined when you jutted your hips forward, pressing your bare pussy against the glass. Ezra stared, frozen as you repositioned, settling right over his line of sight so he could see exactly what you were about to do.

At first your movements were small and deliberate. Your puffy lips pressed lewdly, not quite wet enough, but enjoying the hard, smooth convex of the helmet between your thighs. You watched Ezra. He was entranced, focused intently on your cunt and the reality of how close you were, and the impossibility of his desires. He wanted to flatten and spread those lips with his lips and tongue and nose and chin. He would have had you thoroughly soaked by now if it was up to him, but you took your time.

One hand abandoned his helmet and came back up to pluck and twist at your nipples. You closed your eyes and thought of Ezra behaving himself well enough to deserve having his cock sucked. It was big, you could see that through his suit. It was immediately evident that all of that grappling had stirred something in him. His environmental suit was snug over his straining erection. The thick bulge curved up and across his hip, accentuated by the straps banded around his upper thighs. It was impressive in thickness and length. Shame that a nice cock is wasted on a bastard like him. You wondered if he was cut or if there’d be foreskin to slip back with your lips. You wondered if he would want to come in your mouth, or if he wanted to paint your face and chest with his spend. You thought of how it would taste. You thought of how good it feels to make a strong man so weak.

“Why can’t you be good?” You complained, breathy and unintentional. You didn’t even register that you’d spoken it aloud until another voice, deep and craggy spoke up. “I can be good. Let me.”

It was the first thing he had spoken that hadn’t been a shouted demand, or a threat. It aggravated you. “Shut up.” You snapped at him, he hitched his hips in protest, teeth bared as he watched your arousal slowly seep onto the glass, aiding your gliding movements. It made his mouth water.

Back and forth, a salacious drag right before his eyes, he watched you use his helmet for your pleasure. The delicate inner folds, the swollen bud of your clit, the tender flesh of your lips. Every quickening movement was like a wet, messy kiss, smearing your slick across the smooth plane. He licked his lips and imagined how he would drink you down. He thought of sucking your clit between his lips to feel it twitch.

He didn’t realize how destroyed he looked. Wet and pathetic and mewling. He couldn’t even feel the way your panties bite into his wrists anymore. He didn’t care. He wanted you to have him like this if you wanted.

You hitched closer and closer to your apex with every grind of your hips. The power alone was a potent aphrodisiac, having Ezra, big as he was, under your thumb made you so very wet. He was your plaything, now. Maybe you’d keep him. Use him how you wanted. You could come on his helmet, his thigh, his cock if you wanted to. He wouldn’t fight. Not with the way he looked now. His eyes were inky black and shining, his warm breath fogged the glass above his parted lips. You rode his helmet unashamedly, caring only for your own demented pleasure.

Your orgasm felt like a slow motion electric shock. His face was obscured by the wet mess you’d made. It bubbled and dripped obscenely.

Your panting breath matched the rise and fall of his chest below you. Slowly you began the return to reason, to the reality of your situation. Reality is changeable, though and yours took a turn before your eyes even adjusted from the post-orgasmic haze.

You were on your back in a flash. Ezra was caging you in and smiling bodefully down at you, triumphant. Your face was still flushed from your orgasm, but your joy quickly soured. Your panties lay in tatters beside your head.

“Have you had your fun now?” He mocked. Your release still clung to his helmet and you licked a defiant stripe through it, never dropping his dark gaze. Ezra chuckled and held both your wrists in one hand while he flung off his helmet and tore at the closures of his suit.

“What was your plan? You use me and then what? Leave me high and dry?” He shook his head, feigning disappointment in your carelessness, all the while fighting his way out of the dirty canvas suit, pulling at buttons and straps until one arm was free and his thin, sweat-damp undershirt clung to his broad chest.

You didn’t notice when you’d stopped struggling in his grip, but Ezra certainly did. He clocked the trail your eyes made from his lips to his neck, to his shoulders and down his torso to where the elastic band of his boxers peeked out. He loosened his grip, shook his other arm from its sleeve, and puffed out his chest. His suit sagged down his narrow hips, as he reached for the collar of his shirt and pulled it over his head in one swift motion. What a sight he was. Muscular but soft, rough but tender. The thick swell of his now turgid member pulled at his boxers.

He palmed over it, emphasizing the length with the slow drag of his hand.

He licked his lips. “Go on.” He challenged. “Tell me to be good again.”

The air inside the pod had become thick and heavy, your skin was warm and your joints all felt too loose. The snarl you had intended came out as a ragged plea of his name.

Ezra was gentler than you’d expected. He let go of your wrists with a pointed look meant to keep you from doing anything rash, and began to explore your body. He squeezed your hips, kneading the yielding flesh, then sliding his hands up your sides, letting his fingers follow the shape of your ribs. He caressed over your belly, circling your belly button with his thumb. He watched as your chest rose and fell. He slid his palms up, flat against your skin as he pushed your bare tits together.

You could feel his hips shifting against you, feel the weight of his bulge against your cunt while he dropped to his elbow to bring your nipple to his mouth. His touch was firm. You could feel the hunger and need in the way he licked and sucked at your pointed nipples. He was holding back.

“Tell me.” He repeated. His voice was deeper, gravelly.

Your eyes fluttered closed and for a moment you wondered what came next. You knew what he wanted from you in this moment, but after that? You didn’t have the strength to fight him again. You released the breath you had been holding and asked him once more: “Be good, Ezra.”

There was little resistance when he plunged into you. He watched your face as you took what he gave, the way your mouth fell open and your head tipped back as he buried himself deep in your wet heat.

He hooked his arms under your shoulders, keeping you beneath him, as if you’d dream of leaving now. He grunted with the force of his hips pounding down into you, each heavy stroke forcing breathy cries from you. “Ah! Ah! Ahh! Ezra!”

“Is this good enough?” He asked, slowing his pace and looking down into your unfocused eyes. He looked further, down the planes of your sweat-slick bodies to where he stretched you in his cock. He rolled his hips just so, catching your clit with the wet hair at the base of his cock. You came, and he could feel your pounding pulse through the thin skin of your neck where he nibbled and sucked. When your body settled he redoubled his thrusts, palming your breast and panting into your neck until the moment he pulled out and spilled across your cunt.

The pod was silent, save for your heavy breaths, and you watched Ezra with caution. He was looking around, taking in the blinking lights and muted beeping of the control panel. He looked curious. Maybe resigned. He rubbed your thigh and you lay beside him on the floor, too aware of how your initial plan of escape was now useless. Your brain too scrambled from the force of your orgasm to formulate a new one.

Perhaps fortunately, you didn’t need to. Ezra squeezed your knee and leaned over you. He kissed you slowly and tenderly. Then, quietly, he whispered against your lips “give me the starter.”

[aziraphales-library]

Hello! Thank you so much for all your hard work I've found so many great fics here! I have a recommendation/request. I recently read the WIP, Play for me the Music of your Heart (https://archiveofourown.org/works/40016034) by Leviosally468 which is fabulous. Do you know of other fics where one or both of them are classical musicians/conductors? I looked through the famouscrowley and famousaziraphale tags but didn't find anything. Thanks so much!!

Hi! Here are some fics in which one or both of them are involved with classical music (and one jazz, because it's really good)...

Opera Cakes and Second Takes by ThatWriterKid (T)

One week. Four pairs of students. The goal: write an opera and perform it in six days. Professors Ezra Fell and Anthony Crowley weren’t expecting to write an opera in a week, but tenure is rare and life throws you curveballs.

The Underlying Melody by Tossukka (E)

Crowley is the keyboardist and the main songwriter in a world-famous rock band, the Burning Rejects. When the band is asked to perform with a classical violinist in a charity concert, Crowley isn’t thrilled but tentatively agrees to do it for a good cause. Aziraphale, who performs under the stage name A.Z. Fell isn't any more excited to play his violin with a rock band but accepts the proposition for similar reasons. When Crowley and Aziraphale meet, they expect to have nothing in common. However, their working relationship quickly turns into close friendship and mutual attraction. Between rehearsals for the concert, they share lunches, enjoy nights of drunken conversations, and manage to have and resolve some artistic differences. When the performance approaches, both know their collaboration will soon be over, taking away their excuses for spending so much time together, but neither of them is quite ready yet to let each other go.

I Attempt from Love's Sickness to Fly (in Vain) by wyrmy (E)

“Goodness me,” said Aziraphale breathlessly, “this isn’t what one is supposed to do in a practice room.” Crowley, a vocal student at University, is assigned to collaborate with a student accompanist, Aziraphale, who has some very strange and dark secrets.

Love, Syncopation, and Other Key Elements of Jazz by feathereddino (T)

The jazz duo of A.J. and Fell are an unstoppable force well into their mid-twenties, but when Crowley's illness causes the pair to step back from the spotlight, an enterprising music manager scoops up Aziraphale's career. Dazzled, Aziraphale will abandon all of his former life to be Gabriel's perfect star but lose himself and his happiness along the way. It would take a very steady and forgiving heart for someone to love him through it all...

Intermezzo by FeralTuxedo (E)

Music critic Aziraphale Fell is trying to break into the world of television, when he is signed to make a documentary about former-rockstar-turned-composer Anthony Crowley. It’s been eleven years since Aziraphale’s disastrous review of Crowley’s debut opera nipped his classical music career in the bud. He can only hope that Crowley will get over his admittedly justified grudge to make the TV show a success. A classical music sex comedy. Yes, really.

Of Harpsichord and Falsetto by saretton (E)

"And that was the magic of it all: Aziraphale was at such a level in his mastery that he could tidy up all that apparent chaos. He made it seem so easy, so effortless, even though Crowley knew that, behind that polished façade, there were years of study, practice and daily sacrifices. In the days when they both attended the music school, Crowley used to sit outside the rehearsal classroom to listen to Albert as he practiced playing the piano almost every afternoon. Sometimes Crowley would even ditch other classes to do that." ----- A Good Omens Musicians AU.

And the one you mentioned...

Play for me the Music of your Heart by Leviosally468 (E) (WIP)

Anthony J. Crowley, a talented virtuoso violinist finally makes the move west to Nightingale Bay, Oregon after escaping a simultaneously promising yet toxic life at Elysian Conservatory of Music in New York City. Aziraphale Z. Fell is Eastern Gate University’s friendly and talented piano professor and symphony conductor. Let's see how that goes, shall we?

- Mod D

[xdaddysprincessxx]

Mine, All Mine

Uncle Ezra x virgin f reader

Warnings: Noncon! Unclecest (they are not blood related!) virginity loss, p in v, heavy use of the word kiddo (idk it was doing it for me), filming, uhhh yea I don’t want to say too much so it doesn’t get spoiled. I’d say this is more on the dark side of things so be cautious, you are in charge of your own self and what you read. If it bothers you, stop reading it(:

A/n: this one’s for my love, @bonezone44 ! This literally came from a post they made lol also go check out their Uncle Ezra! It’s the best! (Also if you do/have read hers, maybe you’ll notice a lil Easter egg in mine lol) Enjoy babes! Also Happy Valentine’s Day!😘😘😘

Word count: 4222

Not edited or beta’d (Rad had looked over like half the story so I guess kinda beta’d lol)

It’s the middle of summer and it’s already hotter than Satan’s balls outside. You’re off work today and doing your best to enjoy the day but you’ve found yourself melted to the couch with a fan blasting on high, wearing your shortest shorts and a tank top. Your dad left hours ago for work, he probably won’t be back until much later tonight giving you the whole house to yourself.

You’ve gotten lost in a marathon of Law and Order SVU when you hear a knock on the door. Scrunching your face, confused as to who could be at the door, you get up to go answer it.

Opening the door reveals your Uncle Ezra standing outside, wearing basketball shorts and an old tshirt with the sleeves cut off so his sides are showing, exposing hot, tanned skin.

“Hey kiddo your dad home? I hada to come by to grab a few things.”

You gulp nervously, he isn’t your actual uncle but he’s been your dads best friend since they were kids so he’s considered like an uncle to you. Except ever since you hit eighteen he’s been more touchy, saying extremely sexual things in your ear whenever he’s around. You know it’s wrong, you hate that he does it but a part of you can’t help but like it. You like the dirty things he says, like the way his hand brushes against your ass when he walks by. When you went off to college and moved out you never expected you’d have to move back in with your dad after graduating. Unfortunately life comes at you hard. And ever since you came back home, Ezra has been even more of a menace.

“N-no sorry he’s at work. Um you can come back later.” You say with a stutter as you try to shut the door.

Ezra’s hand shoots out stopping the door from shutting,

“That’s okay kiddo I can wait. Let your old uncle Ezra in sweetie.” He says back with a sly grin on his face, his eyes darkening with mischief.

“O-okay come in.”

“Come in what?”

“Come in uncle Ezra.” You reply with a dry throat.

“Ah there it is. Ya know I like it when you call me uncle Ezra sweetie. It’s good manners and all.”

He walks in through the door, closing it behind him as you turn to walk back to the couch and sit down with your legs under you, leaned against the side cushion. You shiver, now painfully aware of how little clothing you have on now that he’s here. Ezra plops down right next to you, his legs spread as he puts his arm behind you on the back of the couch. You try to swallow, blinking a few times in quick succession.

“Whatcha watching kiddo?”

“Um just law and order. It’s a marathon.” You respond.

Ezra lifts the arm that was behind you and brings it forward, slapping your thigh lightly before rubbing the spot he hit,

“You okay sweetie? Seem kinda off? Is it a boy? Huh? It’s okay talk to uncle Ez. This boy treating you right? Making you feel good?”

Your mouth starts to open and then close as you try to find your voice, “N-no boy uncle Ezra. I-I’m fine. I promise.”

Ezra smiles at you as his hand starts to go up higher on your thigh before stopping and rubbing his thumb back and forth at the top of your thigh.

“Ya know since your daddy ain’t home I’ve been wanting to have this chat with you. Now I know you’re all grown up on me but you should know about men and their needs. But also your own needs sweetie,” he leans in closer so his lips are close to your ear, “Pretty girls like you have pretty pussies and those pretty pussies get wet and needy. Gotta make sure she is properly cared for kiddo. Cant have ya out here dripping and desperate for just any cock. You needa real man.” His low voice sending shivers down your spine. Ezra rubs his nose up and down your neck, right behind your ear.

“S-stop please.”

Ezra pulls back, “Stop? Sweetie I’m just trying to help ya here. I only want the best for ya.” A look of confusion and hurt covers his face.

“I- I want you to stop Uncle Ezra. I know what your doing and I don’t like it. Please stop.”

Ezra sighs real loud, “Okay kiddo. Whatever you say. I’m just trying to look out for ya. I’ll back off.” He takes his hand off your thigh and puts both hands up as he sinks back into the couch, still sitting right next to you. His hands laying down on his open lap.

You swallow thickly before you find the courage to get up,

“I think I’m gonna go read in my room. Feel free to change the channel while you wait.” You announce before heading to the stairs to up to your room.

Once you close your bedroom door behind you, you let out a deep sigh. Taking another breath as though you’ve been holding your breath this entire time. You hate that he feels so comfortable acting so bold. You wished he’d just leave.

It’s been a couple of hours and you’ve been absolutely lost in your own world, reading a new book you’d just gotten. Laying on your bed with your leg propped up against your bent knee as you lay on your back, the perfect reading position. You’re almost to the end when you hear a soft knock on your door as it’s pushed open.

“Hey kiddo just wanted to come check on ya. Wanted ya to have some alone time you seemed a little off earlier.” Ezra says as he walks in and sits on your bed. You sit up straight with your legs criss cross applesauce already feeling a pit in your stomach.

“I- I’m fine uncle Ezra. You didn’t have to check on me.”

“Now I know I didn’t have too but I was worried. You’re like my little girl, you know how much I love ya.” He gives you a soft smile, you can tell he’s trying to put you at ease but all he’s done is make you even more uncomfortable.

Ezra’s eyes flicker over to your nightstand where he sees a sliver of bright pink,

“Well well well what do we have here?” His eyes narrowing in on the object as he reaches forward and pulls out your dildo.

Your cheeks flush, embarrassment washes over you as you grab his wrist that’s connected to the hand now holding your toy,

“Leave that alone! That’s mine!”

“Aht don’t tell me what to do little girl. Now do you mind explaining to me what the hell you’re doing with a plastic cock? I thought my little sweet pea was a virgin. Don’t look like a virgin with this.” He says as he shakes your girthy 7 inch bright pink dildo in your face.

“I am a virgin! And it’s none of your business! Gimmie!” Now you’re fed up, you lunge forward, grabbing at the toy once again only for Ezra to yank it away as his free hand grabs your face, pinching your cheeks between his thumb and forefinger.

“Cut the bullshit little girl, ain’t no way this cunt ain’t been touched if your shoving this fucking thing inside ya,” his eyes leave yours and look down at the toy and back at you, a sly smirk blooming on his face.

“Nah see what’s gonna happen now is I’m gonna see for myself how much of a dirty fucking whore you’ve become.”

He releases your face and immediately you drop your face into your chest, scared to look up at him, wanting nothing more than to curl into yourself and vanish.

“Please don’t. Just leave me alone. Please.” You beg him quietly, your voice barely louder than a whisper.

Ezra puts his hand on the back of your neck and squeezes, making you look up at him,

“Nuh uh. You wanna be a slut? Then you’re gonna take a real man’s fucking cock like the good girl you are and like it.” He says with a sneer.

Your eyes are big, filled with tears threatening to spill over. You’ve never been with anyone sexually before. You’ve never even used that dildo, you only have it because your friend gave it to you as a gag gift and now you fear your uncle Ezra is gonna be your first and you don’t get a say in it.

“Please uncle Ezra, I - I don’t want it. I - I’ve never had sex I swear.” Your lip quivering as you continue to beg him not to follow through on his word.

“Oh kiddo don’t be scared. It’s me, your uncle Ez,” he says condescendingly as he leans forward, so close your noses touch, “I’m gonna fuck this sweet virgin pussy. I’ll make it good for you baby. Make sure she creams all over my cock so much you’ll beg for more.”

Tears start falling down your face, a deep fear spreading through your body like a cancer. A fear your pussy seems immune too as you feel yourself clench around nothing in excitement.

“Now lay on back like a good girl baby. Go on.” Ezra urges you as he lets go of your neck and pushes your shoulder back gently. As scared as you are, you also know how much you do secretly enjoy the attention and the touches you get from him. You bite your lip nervously as your back hits the pillows behind you.

Ezra grabs your calf and uncrosses your legs as he bends forward. His face in between your legs, his nose brushes against your clothed slit as he takes in a deep breath.

“You smell so sweet kiddo.” He says looking up at you before glancing back down, “looks like someone’s excited to meet me.” He said with a smirk as he brings his hand up, taking his thumb and swiping up from the bottom of your slit up, landing on your little bundle of nerves. He slowly rubs a few circles on your clit, your body lights up from the electric feeling of someone touching you there. You quickly bite your bottom lip and squeeze your eyes closed, trying your hardest to hold back any sign that you like how it feels.

Not paying any attention to you, Ezra pulls your shorts to the side revealing your wet pussy. His brows scrunch as he purses his lips together and lets out a little “oooh”

“She’s even prettier than I imagined honey,” he says before laying a soft kiss on your slit, “seems real happy to meet me too.” He says with a little chuckle. Ezra dives right in, his tongue parting your lips as he licks up and down. Up and down. Swirling his tongue around your entrance before going up to swirl around your clit before he suctions his lips around the little bundle and gives it a few gentle sucks.

The feeling of his mouth on you has you teetering on edge already. You’ve never experienced someone licking you down there before. And it feels so good. A breath moan escapes through your lips before you realize it. Ezra looks up at you when he hears it only to see you with your eyes closed shut and sees you quickly clamp your mouth shut.

“Nu uh kiddo. Open your fucking eyes and watch me,” he says before reaching up and slapping you lightly on the face to get your attention, “fucking rude of ya to do that. Guess I gotta train ya to take cock and to be a good little whore huh?”

You open you eyes, looking down at him. You shake your head no, scared to open your mouth knowing you wouldn’t be able to speak normally.

Ezra looks back down at your pussy as he lowers his hand down. He takes his finger and gently prods your pussy. He pushes a little bit into you before pulling back out, only to push his finger in more and twist.

A whimper escapes your lips this time. His thick finger moving inside of you feels so good you just can’t help it.

“That’s it honey, feels good don’t it? Yea it does,” he slips his finger in all the way continuously moving in and out, twisting as he does so, “She’s opening up for me baby. I think she likes me.” He leans forward again and licks your clit. Looking up at you as he keeps licking and fingering, the sensation’s overwhelming your entire being. He starts sucking your bundle of nerves again, Your head tips back as you give up trying to fight how you feel. Letting out a moan as your hand comes up and grabs your breast and squeezes.

“That’s it baby take em out, play with your nipples for me, gonna feel even better,” he orders before diving back in to lick and suck on your bean.

Doing as he says, you pull your tank top up, revealing your breast as you take one in each hand. Letting yourself feel them, giving them squeezes before you take a nipple in between your fore finger and thumb, pinching the sensitive nub and rolling it between your fingers.

He’s right, you find yourself in ecstasy as you continue to play with yourself as he eats you out.

Ezra’s mouth leaves your heat as he sits up and grabs the dildo. Laying back down in between your legs, he takes the dildo and starts running it up and down gathering your slick on the pink phallus.

“I think she’s ready for more baby what d’ya think?”

Your hands stop what they’re doing as you look down at him with eyes wide with terror. Taking a large gulp you give him a tiny head shake, ‘no’ you mouth.

“Don’t worry baby she’s gonna like this. I’ll kiss it better after.”

He holds the base of the dildo and slowly pushes the top inside your dripping entrance. He manages to get just the tip in and stops pushing in. He slowly twists it side to side as he looks up at you to gauge any pain you might have. You tensed up at the intrusion, your mouth clamped shut with tears forming in your eyes. Ezra leans forward and kisses your sensitive clit, making your hips buck up, chasing his mouth for more. He ever so slightly pushes a little bit more in as he wraps his lips around your bundle of nerves and gives it a little suck. You’re not sure how to feel. The searing pain from the dildo entering you seems to subside and turns into overwhelming pleasure as Ezra continues his assault on your pussy. Soon he pushes the toy all the way in you, all you can do is lay there, writhing in ecstasy as he starts pumping it in and out, switching back and forth between licking and sucking on your stretched cunt.

“Ooohh nngh oh fuck oh fuck Un- Uncle Ezra please - I-I’m close oh fuck I’m gonna -“

White hot pleasure erupts all over, your legs shaking, your body starts to thrash and wiggle as your orgasm takes over. Your brain is on mute, no thoughts, you can barely even remember your own name.

“That’s its kiddo, oh fuck yea I told you she’d like this. Prettiest fucking pussy, got my face fucking soaked baby. Come here”

Ezra stands up, taking the dildo out of you and licking the flared bottom of it before crouching down in front of the mirror that’s next to your bed and sticking it on the mirror.

He stands back up and takes a step and is back at your side. He puts his hand behind your neck. You can feel his fingers work up the base of your skull and grab a handful of your hair. Once he has a good grip, he pulls you up by your hair,

“ Get on your knees baby it’s time you take a real man in those pretty holes of yours.”

Your legs are jelly, you can’t even manage to land on your feet when he pulls you. You roll out of bed and land on your knees on the floor. Your hands shooting out, landing on his leg as you try to keep yourself from face planting.

“Stick out your tongue baby.”

You immediately drop your jaw and stick your tongue all the way out. Your eyes wide looking up at him, without a single thought behind them. Your consumed with this want to do whatever he says, to swallow up any crumb he may leave you in hopes of feeling a smidge of the pure ecstatic pleasure he can give you again.

With his hand still tangled in your hair, his other hand pulls down his shorts. His thick cock springs out, the tip an angry shade of red with precum already leaking out. He is easily the biggest cock you’ve ever seen. Way bigger than the dildo you just took. No longer scared of any potential pain he may cause you, instead a pang of desire shoots through your body, you can feel your pussy get even wetter.

He takes himself in his hand and gives his cock a few pumps before guiding it into your open mouth. He isn’t so gentle this time. Instead he’s quick to push his cock down your throat, hitting the back of your throat making you gag on the first entry. Instantly you gag hard, tears fall from your eyes as spit starts to leak from your mouth around his cock. He pulls out and quickly shoves himself back in. Your hands go up, laying on his thighs as he pushes your head down on his cock as he pushes in. Giving you no respite, you quickly learn to breathe through your nose.

“Fuck yea always had a pretty little mouth on ya baby go on, give Uncle Ezra’s dick a good suck. Show me how good my dick tastes baby.”

You try real hard to suck on him as best you could. You cover your teeth with your lips and tighten your lips around him. Sucking on him, moving your tongue around, tracing a vein that went from the base almost up to the tip. Your nose buried in his curls as he holds you down on him.

“Oh kiddo, y’doing so good nngh this mouth is mine honey. Only Uncle Ezra fucks this pretty hole y’hear me? That tight little cunt is mine too.”

You moan around his dick, hearing him claim you as his.

Suddenly Ezra yanks on your hair, sending you back off his dick. He moves out of the way and pulls you forward, causing you to fall on your hands as he continues to pull making you crawl. Once he stops you realize your directly in front of your mirror. More specifically right in front of the dildo that is now sticking to it. He crouches down so his face in close to yours

“Suck on the fake dick now baby Uncle Ezra’s gonna be right behind you, opening up that tight little gash o’yours.”

Your eyes wide as spit trickles down your chin. Ezra leans forward shoving his tongue in your mouth, kissing you with feral enthusiasm, licking into your mouth before taking your tongue between his lips and sucking as he pulls back. A string of spit connects you too as he breaks the kiss he takes a few seconds and just admires how beautiful you are. Hair a mess, spit covered chin, a wild look in your eyes that says you love this. You look throughly wrecked and he’s just getting started. He yanks on your hair one last time and guides you to the dildo where you wrap your lips around it and begin to suck. You look into the mirror and see yourself on all fours, sucking the toy as Ezra stands up behind you and takes his clothes all the way off.

Once naked, Ezra gets back down on his knees behind you. His hands glide over the globes of your ass as he sits back on his legs and just takes in the most beautiful debauched scene in front of him. Taking himself in his hand, he gives himself a few pumps before spitting down onto his dick. He lines himself up and pushes in, he goes slow. Giving you barely just the tip and already he’s letting out this unabashed low groan as his eyes roll back.

“Oh fuck baby this is gonna be a tight fit,” he says in a deep lust filled voice, “Don’t worry kiddo Uncle Ezra’s gonna make her purr real nice.”

He reaches down, his fingers finding your clit with a quickness. Softly rubbing circles on your bundle of nerves, you feel yourself relax completely. Ezra pushes in a little bit more.

He might be immoral but he’s not a complete monster. He knows his pretty little niece is a pure virgin, he’s gonna make this unforgettable. He already knows she’ll come crawling back for more, he thinks to himself as a smirk crosses his face.

“Breathe baby, just breathe. Fuck you feel so good, tight little gash suckin me just right.” He coaches you as he finally pushes all the way in, waiting a few beats before he moves again letting you get used to the stretch.

You feel so full with his cock inside you and the dildo in your mouth. You can’t help but whine as you feel him throb inside of you. You pull off the toy,

“Uh-uncle Ez- Ezra please. Oh p-please move oh fuck I’m so full. . s’good.”

Hearing you moan and beg is all he needs as he starts to move and quickly finds a hard, fast pace.

Your mouth falls open into an O shape as the breath is completely knocked out of you as he starts to really fuck you. It’s too much but at the same time you want more. You’ve never felt euphoria quite like this. You go back to sucking on the toy so you can feel that exquisite full feeling again.

“ Ooh kiddo yea. Fucking hell that’s it baby oh fuck look at you. Got a cock finally inside this little virgin slit and you already need two dicks just to satisfy ya huh? Yea you do. Ho-hold on baby I gotta make sure I never forget this.”

His thrusts slow until he stills inside you as he reaches over to his shorts and pulls out his phone. Once he straightens back up behind you, he opens the camera on his phone and flips it so he sees the debauchery that’s in front of him on his phone.

“Yeaaa that’s it, show the camera how much of a nasty little slut you really are honey. Go on, show em how good your pretty little mouth sucks.”

You should feel shame. Embarrassment. You should beg him to not film you in this lewd act. But you can’t. And won’t. Something about him filming this makes you drip with even more want. Makes you want to do even more depraved, perverted acts with him. Maybe even after, the two of you watch your home movies as you lay in bed.

Ezra holds onto your hip with one hand as the other holds his phone as he drives his throbbing cock back in. He sets an unrelenting pace as he pounds into you.

You’re an absolute mess as you moan around the toy in your mouth.

He chuckles darkly, “Look at my sweet little niece. Letting her dirty old uncle pop her sweet cherry. Nngh oh fuck yea. Perfect fucking pussy squeezing me so tight. Look at my cock hungry little whore. I told you she’d like me baby, she’s so creamy, eating me right up.” His words abruptly ended by a moan he couldn’t help but let out.

“Ff-fuck yea that’s it, Uncle Ezra’s gonna cum in his cunt. It’s mine now baby she’s only gonna take my cock, my cum ya hear? Nnn oh fuck oh fuck let me feel you cum sweetheart, come on”

He reaches back down and quickly rubs circles on your clit and immediately your legs start shaking as you feel your orgasm crash over you. You let out a muffled cry, the toy in your mouth keeps you from yelling very loud.

“Fuck. Fuck. Oh fuck.”

Ezra chants and soon you feel him spurt hot cum deep inside you. He stills, cock still buried in your tight heat as he bends down over your back.

Ezra puts his phone down as he holds you for a moment, leaving soft kisses on your shoulder and down your back before he pulls himself out of you. You pull off the toy and slump to the side on the floor.

“Let’s get you cleaned up kiddo. How bout we go get some’ to eat? That sound good baby?”

You look up at him with a smile on your face, “Yea that sounds good.”

Ezra smiles back and with that he helps you up and takes you to the bathroom.

[kybercrystals94]

Veiled Threats and Bloody Knuckles

Read here on Ao3!

Whumptober 2024 - Day 16 - Prompts: Wound Cleaning // "No, I can't feel anything."

Rated: G | Words: 545

A/N: **throws fic into the World Wide Web abyss** All I can say is, at least I got something written today 😅

“Does it hurt?” Wrecker asks, watching Tech clean Hunter’s bloodied knuckles. 

Hunter grimaces, but he tries to pull it off as a grin. “No, I can’t even feel anything.”

Crosshair snorts. “You’re such a liar.” 

“If you truly did not feel anything, I would be concerned,” Tech puts in. When he sprays disinfectant over the broken skin, Hunter hisses and tries to pull his hand away, but Tech keeps a firm grip on Hunter’s wrist. “Please hold still.”

“I thought you couldn’t feel anything,” Crosshair mutters with a grin.

“Kriff off,” Hunter growls. 

“Which reg did you punch?” Wrecker asks. 

Hunter shrugs.

“Well, why’d you punch him?” 

“Not worth talking about,” Hunter says.

“Oh, so you just punched some random reg in the teeth for no reason,” Crosshair says, rolling his eyes. “If you’re going to keep lying, Hunter, at least make it convincing.” 

Hunter glares. “I’m not lying.” 

“Then tell us what happened.” 

“And then what?” Hunter asks, “You and Wrecker try to find these regs and pick a fight? No. Not happening.” 

Tech begins wrapping Hunter’s hand. “Perhaps we can come to a compromise. You tell us the circumstances, but not the parties involved.” 

“Why does it matter?” Hunter cries, “It doesn’t matter!” 

“Because whatever the issue was, it was worth being outnumbered and fighting back,” Tech replies simply, voice remaining level. “If it matters to you, it most certainly matters to us.”

Hunter takes a steadying breath. “I didn’t punch anyone. I punched a wall,” he bites out. “It was stupid.”

Shocked silence follows the confession, his brothers exchanging glances. 

Finally, Tech asks dryly, “And what did this wall do to offend you?” 

“It was because of the evaluation this morning,” Crosshair says. He leans forward. “What did those long necks say?” 

“What they always say,” Hunter mutters. “Veiled threats, letting me know without directly telling me that if we fail…there’s no point to us. We are experiments that can be thrown away as soon as we aren’t useful. I know they’re just trying to scare me into making sure I keep our records up, to make sure I push you guys in training and simulations. But I’m so kriffing tired of being objects to them.” 

“We might be objects to them,” Wrecker says, “but we know better.” 

“Wrecker is correct,” Tech says, adjusting his goggles. “Despite the Kaminoans best efforts, we are not exact copies of a desired product. We are individuals. It is a miraculous defect in what they perceived as a flawless design. Even the regs show variance. Whether they acknowledge it or not, it is a fact.” 

Hunter glares at the floor. “Facts don’t keep us from being decommissioned, Tech.” 

“No, but being the best does.” Crosshair stands up. “And we are the best, and we’ll keep being the best.” 

Wrecker laughs. “Yeah, we are! We’re the best squad Kamino has ever seen.” 

A grin tugs at the edge of Hunter’s lips. “Yeah, we are the best, aren’t we?” 

“That is also a fact,” Tech agrees. He takes Hunter’s injured hand, examining the white bandage already tinged pink with fresh blood. “Next time you forget that, may I recommend a punching bag as a viable alternative to a wall?” 

Hunter chuckles. “Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind.” 

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