#fellow bellows

[grumpydevilfellow]

I know this has like no chance of happening but I think when 3D animated cartoon gets cancelled indefinitely, their models should be made public use so that the fans can continue their legacy vs them being locked away forever never to be seen again. It's lost art and I hate that.

[fushitoru]

chapter 7: the rebound a bridgerton au

pairing ⸺ duke!satoru gojo x fem!reader

summary ⸺ dearest gentle reader, a new season is upon us as the ton gets ready for a season filled with drama, heartbreak, and passion. after being crowned diamond of the season, duke gojo⸺only looking to marry just to secure his inheritance⸺has his sights set on you, the easiest (and most obvious) option. later, when you catch his saying unsavory things about you on a terrace when he least suspected it, you swear to never marry gojo. as london's fashionable set goes through yet another wedding season, will there be hope for scandalous gossip, hate, and thinly veiled insults, or will we witness blooming love and passion?

warnings ⸺ nsfw, enemies to lovers, bridgerton au, angst, fluff, SUGGESTIVE, eventual smut, jealousy, misogyny, description of injury, concussion, blood, regency era au, gojo being infuriating, reader also being infuriating, both of them are clueless honestly

chapter summary ⸺ after the arrival of your dearest brother, you pursue a new angle to the season, one to prove that you, the diamond, will not be scorned. new opportunities with duke nanami arise and with it jealousy and bitterness fester in the ballroom. (6.8k)

prev. the house party | next. the lake

general masterlist | series masterlist

Once again, dear Reader, this humble Author finds herself vindicated. Country house parties, as ever, remain the fertile soil from which the most delicious scandals bloom. And today’s revelation is no exception.

Yes, indeed, you read it here first: the dashing and ever-elusive Lord Satoru Gojo will not be marrying Miss Itadori, this season’s most celebrated diamond. The murmurs have already begun spreading like wildfire, bringing sighs of relief from hopeful ladies and knowing smirks from their watchful chaperones. The eligible Duke-to-be’s sudden return to certified bachelorhood is, no doubt, a development many find most agreeable.

But what, pray, has caused this sudden turn of events? The dissolution of an arrangement so seemingly perfect? Alas, even this Author���a tireless seeker of truths—has found the particulars elusive. Was it a clash of personalities? A misstep at the ball? Or perhaps, a secret grievance unearthed during those long, candlelit evenings at the country estate?

What this Author can confirm is that the ballroom whispers point to Lord Gojo’s own doing, based upon the countenances and actions of the pair at the ball. Did the ever-charming lord tire of his diamond’s sparkle, or has he found a more alluring treasure elsewhere? The possibilities are endless, and so, it seems, is the intrigue surrounding the pair.

One thing remains certain: while Miss Itadori may have stumbled in this engagement, she remains a diamond among gems—brilliant, resilient, and admired. What paths now await her are anyone’s guess, but if this Author knows anything, it is that diamonds shine brightest under pressure.

As for Lord Gojo, the question lingers: will his rakish reputation survive this latest scandal unscathed? Or has he, at last, met a match too dazzling even for him to outshine? Rest assured, dear Reader, this Author will remain ever-vigilant, pen poised and ready to uncover the truth.

⸻ LADY WHISTLEDOWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS

You could have had a bit more tact when informing Sukuna of the events of the past few days, for the reaction you gained made you realize that you may have made a misstep.

“What?!” Sukuna roared, looking at the three of you with fury. Yuji jumped, while you and Choso grimaced.  “He did what?!”

“Now, now, brother,” Choso stood up nervously to pat his younger brother on the shoulder. “It is all good and well, for I have arranged for a better match for our dear sister��”

“A duel!” Sukuna bellowed, standing up from his seat on the couch to stomp his way to the door. “I will challenge that Gojo fellow to a duel—” It was only until Yuji ran and tackled him to the ground that he was waylaid to God knows what he was going to do to Lord Gojo. You and Choso could only watch the scene, too perforce to the strength of bulls that your brothers had to be able to interrupt. 

A few scratches and awfully purple looking bruises later, Sukuna and Yuji were seated on the couch once again, thanks to Choso’s plead for nonviolence. It was then that Choso started explaining what had occurred in the season so far. “Mother insisted,” he sighed, shaking his head. “She seemed to have struck a mutual…entente with the Duchess of Gojo. It was only a matter of time before Mother forced her ways. Now that it has not redound in her favor, I have even more rationale to have my…way with Sister’s matches. For God’s sake, Sukuna stop glaring at me Mother left me behind on the first ball—”

Sukuna did not stop glaring; in fact, he chose that moment to take a long slurp of his tea while staring fiercely at him while Choso shifted nervously. After a long bout of silence, he finally offered, “I understand Mother can be very pushy, and that you, Choso, are not fierce enough to withstand her.” Choso did not even protest, just offered a deadpan. “But I, however, will not be a feather to a simple blow of the wind that Mother is. It is time our dear sister lived up to her reputation, what she has prepared so hard for.” He looks upon you with a soft gaze—that is, a soft gaze for Sukuna. “No matter how tactless Gojo’s estrangement was, Sister will recover, so long as her morale has not lessened.  Sukuna’s head turned sharply to you, “It has not weakened, right Sister? He has not left you heartbroken?”

You could hear your heart as you looked at your brother, dumbfounded. His perceptive gaze disarmed you, but you blurted out a “Of course not” and turned to hastily grab a pastry from the table next to the loveseat you were seated at.. When you looked back at your brother, you jumped as his gaze lingered on you then nonetheless turned to glare at your brother when Yuji opened his mouth, undoubtedly ready to irritatedly remark on his denseness.

No matter, you think to yourself. Whatever you feel about Gojo is of no matter. The visit at the manor was only a delay and a small obstacle for your season. It was time to attend to the matter at hand: finding a husband. 

The dewy grass kissed the hem of your nightgown as you wandered to the old swing set on the far edge of the manor grounds—a relic of your childhood, weathered but enduring. The creak of the chains was a sound that had long since embedded itself in your memory, a reminder of simpler days when duty had yet to tighten its grip.

You had not been able to sleep.

The house was still, the hush of midnight settling over its grand halls and sprawling grounds. Yet sleep evaded you, your thoughts as restless as the autumn breeze that stirred the curtains of your chamber. In the quiet, the weight of your obligations pressed heavily upon you, a familiar but unwelcome companion. Deciding that solitude under the stars might grant clarity where the confines of your room could not, you slipped on a shawl and had ventured outside.

“Couldn’t sleep either?” Sukuna’s voice cut through the quiet, low and teasing. He was seated on a swing with his big frame illustrating a comical sight on the small seat. His silhouette was faintly illuminated by the dim glow of his cigarillo, and the faint ember cast fleeting shadows across his sharp features, making his smirk all the more pronounced.

The unexpected sight of him startled you for a moment, though you quickly masked your surprise. You drew your shawl tighter around your shoulders, the chill of the night settling into your skin, and stepped closer. “And here I thought I was the only one who sought refuge in our old playground at such an hour,” you replied lightly, though your voice carried the faint weight of sleeplessness. “What brings you here?”

He took a long, deliberate drag from the cigarillo before discarding it into the damp grass, the embers hissing softly as they extinguished. Straightening, he gestured to the empty swing beside him. “Thinking,” he said simply. “And you? Or do I even need to ask?”

You hesitated for only a moment before lowering yourself onto the swing, your fingers grazing the cold chains as you pushed back slightly. The seat creaked beneath your weight, swaying gently with your movements. The motion stirred a familiar ache of nostalgia—a reminder of days when life felt less complicated. “What else could it be but the endless circus of expectations Mother has so kindly bestowed upon me?”

The bitterness in your tone was impossible to conceal, and Sukuna chuckled darkly. He reached up to push a hand through his disheveled hair, his movements purposeful, almost theatrical. “Ah, yes,” he said mockingly. “The marriage parade. The grand auctioning of one’s life for the sake of the family name. What a fine role you’ve been cast in, dear sister. I don’t envy you.”

You gave a dry laugh, your voice quiet yet tinged with resolve. “Unfortunately, dear brother,” you began, staring into the star-dappled sky, “it is my duty to be wed.”

Sukuna turned to you sharply, his brow furrowing. “It is not your duty, least of all when it robs you of your freedom.”

A protest began to form on his lips, but you held up a hand, your expression soft yet resolute. “Let me finish,” you said, your tone firm but affectionate. Taking a deep breath, you continued, “If I were to grow old into a spinster, there would be no one to take care of me. You and Yuji would inherit our lands and manors, and Choso is the viscount; there would be no space for me except with some of our aunts.”

At the mention of your aunts, both of you shuddered involuntarily. The thought of their overbearing presence, their sharp tongues and endless criticisms, was enough to unite even the most quarrelsome of siblings.

“You cannot take care of me forever,” you said softly, your gaze dropping to the ground. The swing swayed faintly as you spoke, the motion as restless as your thoughts. “One day, you—or any of our brothers—might choose to start a family with someone you love. It would be intrusive of me to remain dependent on you all.”

Sukuna scoffed, his voice rising slightly with indignation. “You know better than anyone that I aim to travel the world. I cannot be chained to a family or a manor—not now, not ever.”

You turned to him, your eyes softening as you regarded his familiar fire, the same defiance that had always set him apart from the others. “Sukuna,” you said gently, your voice tinged with fondness, “you may do as you please, and I would never wish to impede you. But I cannot rely on you indefinitely. You deserve to live freely, to make your own choices without the burden of my future weighing on your conscience.”

Once again, silence enveloped you both, broken only by the faint creak of the swings and the rustle of the wind through the trees. Then, Sukuna eventually broke the quiet with a heavy sigh. “Then we must make sure to do well and find you a husband on your terms.”

You turned to him, brow arched in curiosity. “Whatever do you mean?”

“I mean,” he said, his lips curling into a mischievous smirk, “that you must stop playing the part Mother has assigned you. Demure and meek may be what she wants, but it’s hardly the truth of you. Besides,” he added, leaning closer as if to share a conspiracy, “do you think the kind of husband you’d want would fall for such a facade?”

His words caught you off guard, and you frowned slightly. “Are you implying I’m to frighten potential suitors away?”

“Not frighten,” Sukuna corrected, his tone amused. “But consider this: if a man is drawn to meekness, might that not suggest he wishes to dominate or control? Would you truly wish to tether yourself to such a person? Or would you rather find someone who can appreciate your independence, who will meet you as an equal?”

His reasoning gave you pause. The image of a husband who might respect your will, who might value the sharpness of your mind and the strength of your character, was tempting—if not entirely what you needed. “And how, pray tell, do you suggest I go about finding such a man?”

Sukuna’s grin widened. “Start by being yourself, unapologetically. Let them see the wit, the fire, the resolve that I know so well. Let them see you, and if they can’t handle it, then they aren’t worth your time.”

You smiled faintly, your heart lighter from his words. After all, this scheming was due on your part; you were only grateful this shift occurred with Sukuna as your humble advisor. “It’s a daring plan, brother. Let us hope it does not lead to my complete social ruin.”

Sukuna laughed, the sound rich and unrestrained. “If it does, then you shall travel the world with me. Who needs societal approval when there’s an entire world to explore?”

For a moment, the weight of your burdens felt a little easier to bear. Under the vast, starlit sky, you allowed yourself to hope that perhaps, just perhaps, there was a future where duty and happiness could coexist.

Despite the peace conversing with Sukuna had granted you, sleep evaded you still, leaving you to roll onto your side, the cool fabric of the pillow offering no solace. Your thoughts had been louder than ever these past weeks, and one name in particular echoed through your mind like a stubborn refrain: Gojo.

His face came unbidden, as vivid as if he were standing at the foot of your bed. That insufferable smirk, the casual way he tilted his head as if always in on some grand secret. He saw through you—that much was undeniable, no matter how much you abhorred it. It wasn’t just the way his piercing gaze seemed to cut through your defenses, stripping away the layers of pleasantries and propriety until you were left exposed. It was his words, too—sharp, direct, and unyielding. Unlike everyone else, he wasn’t content to let you be the demure and dutiful daughter your mother had so painstakingly sculpted.

You turned onto your back, staring up at the shadowed canopy above, the weight of his judgment pressing against your chest. “He wouldn’t want to marry me either,” you thought bitterly, biting your lip to suppress a laugh that was more self-deprecating than amused. Why would he? I am only but a pathological people-pleaser—a woman who smiles and nods and folds herself into whatever shape is required of her. It was a role you had perfected, a mask you wore so often that you sometimes forgot it wasn’t your face. And yet, he saw through it.

That was the part that unsettled you most—not his arrogance, not his sharp tongue, but his ability to cut through your defenses as though they were paper. He saw you, in all your contradictions and uncertainties, and somehow, you suspected that he pitied you for them. Or worse, respected you less for it.

Your stomach twisted at the thought, and you turned onto your other side, burying your face into the pillow. No wonder I’m still unmarried. The thought came unbidden, sharp and cruel. What man would want a wife who couldn’t even decide who she wanted to be?

But that wasn’t fair—not entirely. You had a plan, didn’t you? A bold, liberating plan that would take you far from the shadow of your mother’s expectations. You could already picture her face when you told her—calm, composed, and quietly furious, as though your refusal to obey were a personal affront. The thought brought the faintest flicker of satisfaction, but it was fleeting.

The plan wasn’t perfect, nor was it foolproof. It hinged on one pivotal point: finding a husband who could be an equal partner rather than a master. A man who could grant you the freedom to forge your own path in peace, without the constant weight of disapproval bearing down on you.

Your thoughts wandered to Duke Nanami. Equal in power to Gojo, fair-minded, and kind—a man with no appetite for games or artifice. If you manage to secure a match with him, the ton would not view your…blunder with Gojo with such amusement. Insofar your interactions this season, he had always treated you with quiet respect, never pressing you into conversations you didn’t wish to have or cornering you with expectations. He would be a good man to marry, you thought. A safe choice.

And yet, even as you considered him, Gojo’s face intruded once more, unwelcome and unavoidable. Duke Nanami was everything Gojo wasn’t—measured, steady, predictable. But it was Gojo who set your mind alight, who made you question things you had long accepted as unchangeable truths. He irritated you, challenged you, unnerved you in a way no one else did.

You sighed, turning again, the sheets tangling around your legs like restraints. The very fact that Gojo occupied your thoughts at all was infuriating. He had no place there, no right to linger in the quiet moments when you were supposed to find peace. And yet, here he was, as persistent in your mind as he was in person.

The plan. You needed to focus on the plan. Liberating yourself from your mother’s expectations wasn’t about Gojo or Duke Nanami or anyone else. It was about reclaiming yourself, about becoming a woman who didn’t need to twist herself into shapes for anyone—not your mother, not a potential husband, and certainly not Gojo.

And it would start at your wardrobe.

You give the most polite smile you can muster, but you do not need the mirror in front of you to know that your countenance is strained, the edges of your smile not reaching your eyes. “Lower it even further.”

A beat passes in the room as the modiste, your mother, and Sukuna stare at you in incredulity.  The bustline to your dress is low. Of course, it is not yet teetering on the edge of what is socially acceptable, and that is the position you want it to be. Hence, you gesture to Sukuna, prompting him to regain his senses and snap his head towards Momo. “Please attend to my sister’s request.”

You could smell what you mother was about to say, even if she had not yet done so. “My dear,” she began, “I hardly think that’s appro–” Sukuna’s glares reorients itself now to focus on your mother, and she purses her lips with what appears to be arduous effort, knowing a quarrel with Sukuna would escalate quite quickly, both immediate and unwise.  

Madame Momo, for the better, offers no protest as she lowers the deep, wine red fabric she was upholding against your body. If you were not wearing your regular clothes, you would know that quite a bit of the swell of your breasts would be framed by the dress. However, it wasn’t enough. “A bit lower.”

The modiste lets out a small sigh, her needle poised mid-air as she hesitates. “My lady, to lower it further would risk—” she pauses delicately, “—compromising the structural integrity of the gown.”

“I appreciate your insight, Madame, and know that you are quite skilled at your craft,” you flash her a semi-apologetic smile. After all, she is the one that has to attend to your…rebranding crisis and revamp a majority of your wardrobe. “However, I am afraid that I’d like to do something new this season. Something eye-catching.”

A faint chuckle escapes her lips, no doubt spurred on by the flattery. With a practiced hand, she adjusts the fabric once more, lowering it to the precise balance of scandalous and sophisticated. She steps back, her critical eye assessing her own handiwork. “Well, it will definitely be eye-catching.”

“Precisely.” You nod in approval, smoothing the line of the fabric with your fingers. “I believe Lady Whistledown,” you add, your voice tinged with knowing confidence, “will ensure that the modiste responsible for the diamond’s striking attire becomes the talk of the season.”

Momo’s lips twitch into a smile, and she dips her head in acknowledgment, already returning to her work with renewed purpose. Sukuna, standing to the side, folds his arms and smirks at the scene, clearly entertained by your audacity.

Your mother, meanwhile, remains silent, though her pursed lips betray her disapproval. Let her simmer, you think, satisfaction curling in your chest. This season is yours to command, and you will not be overlooked.

I cannot do this. I cannot I cannot I cannot I cann—

“Sister!” Sukuna called out. You regained your senses, snapping your head at once to look at him, who was holding out his hand. Swallowing, you grabbed it so he could assist you out of the carriage. What had you in a tizzy was the sheer amount of people. Yet again, you were attending your first party after the events in the countryside but this time without your mother and Yuuji. Not only had the people you were accompanied with changed, but also different attire. A red silk dress fell over your curves gracefully, the draping across your chest a bit lower than usual. It is the dress of your dreams—one that you would have worn if not for your mother and her beliefs regarding your image. Now, your clothing was still socially acceptable but nevertheless daring—exactly the image you wanted to present. 

However, it was safe to say that after the events of the house party, venturing out in another—with so much of your chest exposed—had you nervous. Oh God, perhaps this wasn’t the brightest of my ideas— (a/n she’s just a girl :( )

“Presenting Miss Itadori, Mister Itadori, and the Right Honorable The Viscount Itadori!” As you were announced to the room, with your brothers linking arms on either side of you, you smiled—trying not to let the nerves show. At the sound of your name, the buzz of conversation faltered, dozens of heads turning toward you. You felt the weight of their gazes—sharp, judgmental, curious. You were certain half of them were eager to witness the fallout of Whistledown’s latest scandal, while the other half seemed transfixed by the boldness of your attire.

Your eyes flitted over the sea of faces as you moved through the room. There were gasps, poorly veiled whispers, and even a few widened eyes aimed at Sukuna, but what truly set your nerves alight was the attention fixed squarely on you. You resisted the urge to fidget, to adjust the neckline of your gown, to shrink under their scrutiny.

Then, amid the crowd, your gaze locked onto a familiar figure with a piercing stare—Suguru Geto.

He was lounging by the far wall, a glass of wine in hand, his dark eyes gleaming with mirth. An amused smirk tugged at the corner of his lips as he shook his head, clearly entertained. Your heart stuttered, the heat rushing to your cheeks making your nerves spike further. Am I being mocked?

Before the thought could consume you, he raised his glass in a mock salute, a gesture of acknowledgment—perhaps even respect. He then nudged the man standing next to him, none other than Duke Nanami.

Your pulse quickened at the sight of the Duke, his composed demeanor a stark contrast to Geto’s casual amusement. The weight of Nanami’s steady, discerning gaze was one you weren’t prepared to meet—not tonight. In the periphery, you caught Geto slipping toward the courtyard, his laughter soft but audible as he disappeared into the night.

You tore your gaze away just in time, focusing straight ahead as you approached the Queen. Your shoulders stiffened, the intricate beading of your gown catching in the light. The murmurs grew fainter, the towering figure of Her Majesty now looming just ahead. With each step, your pulse thundered louder in your ears, but you kept your chin high, determined not to falter.

When you and your brothers reached the foot of the throne, you slipped your arms free from theirs and sank into the deepest curtsy you could manage. "Your Majesty," you murmured, lowering your head to avoid the weight of her gaze. The richness of the room—gold-trimmed drapes, towering portraits, and the hum of whispered conversations—did little to steady your nerves.

"Rise," the Queen commanded, her tone clipped and dismissive, the single word laced with impatience. You obeyed, your movements deliberate and slow, feeling the weight of every eye in the chamber on your shoulders. When you met her gaze, she was already appraising you, her sharp eyes scanning you from head to toe. Her scrutiny was clinical, and when she sighed audibly, it was clear her judgment was far from favorable.

“I have not been…pleased by the recent affairs, diamond,” the Queen began, her voice cold and detached, like a blade gliding through silk. A sniff punctuated her words, and the lump in your throat grew harder to swallow. “I fear this is a failure to the crown.”

The room seemed to tilt, your heartbeat quickening in your chest. The Queen’s disappointment carried a weight that could crush reputations, and yours was teetering precariously on the edge of her approval.

“However,” her tone shifted ever so slightly, and you found yourself snapping to attention, clinging to that single word like a lifeline. “Your recent change in…style is fitting.”

You blinked, unsure if you had heard her correctly. The Queen’s gaze lingered on the daring neckline of your gown, the rich red fabric catching the light in just the right way to emphasize its boldness. “You are not a simple and bland gem, Miss Itadori.” Her words were deliberate, measured, and the faintest hint of approval gleamed in her sharp eyes. “You are a diamond, and you must start to shine like it.”

For a moment, you were too stunned to respond. The Queen’s words were praise, yes, but they also carried an implicit warning: a diamond that failed to sparkle was of no use to anyone, least of all the crown.

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” you said, your voice steady but quiet, and you curtsied again, the fabric of your gown whispering against the marble floor. The Queen’s gaze swept over you once more before she turned her attention elsewhere, her dismissal unspoken but clear. As you rose again, Choso placed a reassuring hand on your elbow, a subtle anchor in the sea of your swirling thoughts.

A light, “You all are dismissed.”

The cool night air wrapped around Suguru Geto as he strolled into the courtyard, his boots crunching softly against the gravel path. The faint strains of the ballroom's orchestra followed him, muffled now by the grand walls of the manor. A slow, self-satisfied smile crept across his lips as he glanced up at the stars. The night felt ripe with possibility, though it was the scene he had just left that truly amused him.

He exhaled, letting the crisp air settle over him, before taking another measured step toward the fountain at the courtyard’s center. His fingers grazed the cool stone edge, the chill a welcome change from the warmth of the crowded ballroom. He savored the silence, only for it to be broken by the familiar sound of approaching footsteps.

“Geto,” a voice called out, casual but clipped.

Suguru turned slowly, almost lazily, as though he hadn’t already recognized the speaker. Gojo Satoru emerged from the shadows of the colonnade, his silver hair glowing faintly in the moonlight. He moved with his usual languid ease, though his sharp blue gaze belied his carefree demeanor.

“Well, well,” Suguru greeted, his tone light but edged with something sharp. “You’re out here. Don’t tell me you’ve finally tired of the fawning crowds?”

Gojo came to a stop a few paces away, crossing his arms as he leaned against one of the marble columns. “Needed some air. The room’s packed with too many people pretending to like each other.” His gaze flicked to Suguru, scrutinizing. “And you? Slipping out to avoid trouble, or cause it?”

Suguru chuckled, swirling the wine in his glass before taking a slow sip. “Oh, you wound me, Satoru. Can’t a man enjoy a moment of peace without being accused of scheming?”

“You?” Gojo raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Not a chance. So, what’s your angle this time?”

Suguru let the question hang, savoring the quiet tension between them. He set his glass down on the fountain’s edge, turning to fully face Gojo. His smirk widened as he finally spoke. “No angle. Just admiring the company tonight. Speaking of which…” He paused for dramatic effect, brushing an imaginary speck of dust from his sleeve. “Miss Itadori made quite the entrance.”

Gojo’s expression didn’t change immediately, but Suguru saw the faint flicker of something—irritation, maybe, or something more carefully hidden. Gojo’s mouth twitched into a scoff, though the sound was faint, almost perfunctory.

“What about her?” Gojo asked, his tone deliberately disinterested, but Suguru noted how his fingers flexed briefly before he shoved his hands into his pockets.

Suguru hummed thoughtfully, his gaze drifting toward the sky as if considering his next words carefully. “She looked… radiant tonight. Stunning, really. I can’t imagine half the room wasn’t staring. Though, I must say, some seemed more surprised than others.” His eyes darted back to Gojo, watching for a reaction.

Gojo rolled his eyes, though there was a tightness in his jaw that Suguru didn’t miss. “She’s just another debutante. Why would I care what she’s wearing?”

“Why indeed?” Suguru replied, his voice deceptively mild. He stepped closer, leaning against the fountain with an easy grace. “But it does make one wonder—what kind of man would care? Surely someone with a sharp eye for detail. Someone with… let’s say, a bustful interest.”

Gojo stiffened slightly, a flicker of irritation crossing his face. “You’re imagining things.”

“Am I?” Suguru tilted his head, studying Gojo with an intensity that bordered on playful. “Because I could swear you seemed a little distracted back there. And not by the Queen, mind you. Why did you leave as soon as the Itadoris were announced?”

“Drop it, Geto.” Gojo’s voice was sharper now, but there was an edge of unease beneath the command.

Suguru’s smirk deepened as he tried to fight the urge to snicker at his friend, but he let the moment linger, letting Gojo stew in his discomfort. He picked up his wine glass again, swirling the liquid idly before taking another slow sip. Finally, he straightened, his tone turning lighter, though no less pointed.

“Well, whatever it is—or isn’t—you’d better sort it out soon.” He started to walk past Gojo, his footsteps deliberately slow. Just as he passed, he paused, his voice dropping to a low murmur. “Because if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re in danger of losing your famously cool head.”

Gojo didn’t respond immediately, but Suguru didn’t need him to. The slight narrowing of his eyes, the subtle clench of his jaw—those were all the confirmation he needed for his plan.

Suguru chuckled softly, a sound more amused than mocking, and continued on his way, his voice drifting back over his shoulder. “Enjoy the rest of the night, Satoru. Something tells me it’s going to be… illuminating.”

Left alone, Gojo exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair as he glared at the retreating figure. “Bastard,” he muttered under his breath, though his voice lacked fervor. Still, Suguru’s words lingered, circling his mind like an itch he couldn’t quite scratch. He turned his gaze back toward the ballroom, his thoughts uncomfortably crowded with images of a certain young lady and the maddening smirk of a man who always seemed to know too much.

It appears that you and Duke Nanami have much in common, for you are able to hold a most pleasant conversation with him.

The din of the ballroom fades to a dull murmur as you stand near the refreshment table, your gaze politely fixed on the Duke. His presence is commanding yet unassuming—a rare quality that draws you in. Dressed in a deep navy coat that matches the intensity of his solemn eyes, he inclines his head slightly as he speaks, the weight of his words tempered by the gentleness in his tone.

The arrangement is perfect. You have successfully caught your target, much to the chagrin of ladies. After all, it was not all days that Duke Nanami took interest in a lady. You would have to credit Choso; he had researched that HIs Grace did not like overbearing mamas accompanying their girls—a most rational opinion. Posing fiery opinions without the presence of anyone except yourself, it seemed that you had hit the mark.

“I find, Miss Itadori,” he says, his voice smooth yet deliberate, “that many in our circles underestimate the joy of simple pursuits. They mistake extravagance for fulfillment.” He takes a measured sip from his glass, his gloved fingers resting lightly on its stem.

You nod, a genuine smile forming on your lips. “I could not agree more, Your Grace. There is a certain comfort in the unadorned pleasures of life. A good book, a quiet morning—these seem to me the most worthwhile indulgences.”

The corner of his mouth quirks up in what might pass as a rare smile. “Indeed. Though I daresay, quiet mornings are hard to come by when the season is in full swing.”

You let out a soft laugh, the sound almost swallowed by the music that swells across the room. “Quite so. I suppose we are all too busy chasing the next waltz or whispering about the latest Whistledown missive.”

At the mention of Whistledown, the Duke raises a brow, his expression a mixture of amusement and intrigue. “Ah, yes. Our ever-watchful chronicler. One wonders if she, too, finds time for quiet mornings.”

“I imagine she must,” you reply. “After all, how else would she craft such keen observations? A mind as sharp as hers surely requires moments of reflection.”

“Reflection, yes,” he murmurs, his gaze drifting briefly to the chandelier above, as if lost in thought. Then, returning his attention to you, he asks, “And what of you, Miss Itadori? Amidst the bustle, do you find moments to reflect?”

The question catches you off guard—not because it is intrusive, but because it is sincere. Few have ever asked you such things. You hesitate, then answer truthfully. “I try, Your Grace. Though I must admit, the season has left little room for it. It seems my every step is watched, my every word weighed. I sometimes wonder if I have forgotten how to simply be.”

His expression softens, and for a moment, you feel as though he truly sees you—not as the diamond of the season, not as the subject of idle gossip, but as a person. “That is a heavy burden to bear,” he says quietly. “Perhaps it is time you allowed yourself a reprieve. Even diamonds require care, lest they lose their brilliance.”

The words settle over you like a balm, and you find yourself holding his gaze longer than propriety might dictate. There is no judgment in his eyes, only understanding. It is both comforting and disarming. Before you can respond, a burst of laughter from a nearby group breaks the spell. You glance away, suddenly aware of your surroundings once more. “You are kind to say so, Your Grace,” you murmur, your voice steadier than you feel.

“I merely speak the truth, Miss Itadori,” he replies, bowing his head slightly.

A pause lingers between you, not uncomfortable but weighty with unspoken thoughts. Finally, he clears his throat, his tone lighter as he says, “Would you care to take a turn about the room? I find the air here grows rather stifling.”

You smile, grateful for the excuse to move. “I would like that very much.”

As he offers his arm, you place your hand lightly upon it, allowing him to guide you into the throng. The music swells once more, and though the room is as noisy and crowded as ever, the world feels a little quieter with Duke Nanami by your side. You can see it—early mornings with Nanami, enjoying gentle banter as he returned your thoughts without any ire, without snark or judgment. Quiet respect and gentle affection filling your days. A life free of chaos, where your worries dissipate into the steady calm of his demeanor. Perhaps this could be happiness. A steady, uncomplicated happiness.

But then you see him.

You abhor your traitorous heart for lurching ever so slightly at the sight of Gojo. He is standing near the edge of the ballroom, the golden light catching on his shock of silver hair as though it had been crafted to draw attention. His smile—always so bright, so effortless—makes the lady beside him laugh. She looks at him with a sultry, yet detached and amused expression, her fan flicking lazily as if to dismiss her own growing interest.

Your chest tightens. You know this scene well. It is one you have observed too many times, and yet you have never been able to steel yourself against the sting it brings. The way he leans ever so slightly toward the lady, as though she were the only person in the room. The way his laughter echoes, a sound full of mirth and mischief, as if he had no weight upon his shoulders.

You tell yourself it doesn’t matter. You tell yourself he doesn’t matter.

But then, as though he feels the weight of your gaze, Gojo turns his head. Your pulse quickens as his eyes widen, the usual lazy charm momentarily replaced by something sharper, something you can’t quite place.

First, his gaze lands on your face, his eyes sweeping over it with a quickness that feels like a jolt to your chest. Then, they drop lower, and you feel the heat of his scrutiny settle uncomfortably on your chest. A flicker of something crosses his expression—shock, perhaps, or something else entirely—but before you can decipher it, his gaze moves again, lower still, to where your hand rests upon the Duke’s arm.

It is subtle, the way his jaw tightens. The way his smile falters, only to return a moment later, forced and brittle. He shifts his weight, turning back toward the lady at his side, but not before you catch the way his fingers twitch at his side.

You force yourself to look away, to focus instead on Duke Nanami’s steady presence beside you. He has not noticed the exchange—or if he has, he is far too polite to show it.

And yet, the moment lingers. Gojo’s image burns in your mind like the fading glow of a candle, stubbornly refusing to extinguish. You loathe the way your heart betrays you, its treacherous rhythm quickened not by the Duke’s calm assurance, but by the mere sight of a man who has always been more trouble than he’s worth.

Nanami’s voice cuts through your tumultuous thoughts, soft and grounding. “You seem distracted, Miss Itadori,” he remarks, his gaze kind but curious.

You manage a small smile, tightening your grip on his arm as though it might anchor you. “Not at all, Your Grace. Perhaps just…overwhelmed by the crowd.”

He nods, accepting your answer without pressing further. “Understandable. These gatherings can be rather tiresome.”

“Yes,” you murmur, casting one last glance in Gojo’s direction before forcing your focus back to the Duke. “Tiresome indeed.”

But even as you walk beside Nanami, his presence a welcome reprieve from the chaos of the evening, you cannot help but feel the weight of Gojo’s lingering gaze, the memory of his startled expression etched into your thoughts like a brand. You cannot help but observe the situation. Tonight, you would be ending the night on Duke Nanami’s arm, and Gojo with another woman.

Is this not what you both wanted?

Today, it seems that the usual trio at White’s is only a duo. The blonde and raven head swirl their alcohol in their shimmering glasses while sharing a comfortable silence. That is, until one interrupts.

“How do we know we’re not simply toying with her?” The blonde man’s voice is steady but tinged with unease, his lips pressed into a thin line as he glances toward his companion. “It would not be honorable of me to pursue Miss Itadori under the pretense of riling Gojo, as you seem intent on doing—”

“Kento!” The raven-haired man—Lord Geto—throws his head back in laughter, the sound rich and unapologetically amused. He leans forward slightly, propping his elbow on the armrest, as his grin widens. “So confident in your lady-pleasing and romancing abilities, aren’t you?” Nanami’s frown deepens, but Geto merely waves him off, his laughter subsiding to a mischievous chuckle. “No, no—don’t worry. You misunderstand me. This isn’t about Miss Itadori falling for you, though,” he smirks, “I’m sure you’d manage well enough.” His tone is teasing, but his words lack any true malice.

“Then what is it about?” Nanami’s voice carries a note of exasperation, though he remains as composed as ever, swirling his drink in quiet contemplation.

Geto straightens, a glint of something sharper flashing in his dark eyes. “It’s about them. They’re idiots, Kento—idiots in love, the both of them. And it is our duty, as Satoru’s friends,” he pauses, meeting Nanami’s gaze with deliberate emphasis, “to help him realize what he truly desires.”

Nanami snorts, setting his glass down with a muted clink. “You just want to toy with them, to orchestrate the ton and its leading source of gossip.”

The corner of Geto’s mouth quirks upward in a sly smile, one that practically oozes self-satisfaction. “That, my dear friend,” he says, his voice low and conspiratorial, “I cannot deny.”

They lapse into silence once more, the kind that only years of friendship can create, as the firelight flickers and dances on the walls around them. Nanami tips his glass back, savoring the warmth of the whiskey as he contemplates Geto’s words—and the inevitable chaos that would follow in their wake.

prev. the house party | next. the lake

general masterlist | series masterlist

a/n HEYYY POOKIES IT'S HERE IT'S HERE WHAT DID WE THINK. also here is the bridgerton!gojo playlist if anyone is interested!!! i apologize it is 99% taylor swift but i will be adding more diverse songs

despite the miss itadori hate in recent times our girl is BOUNCING BACKK #mogged i cant wait for her to become even more of a diva in the next few chapterssss!!!! (not rn shes going through her sad girl era or wtvr)

suguru (left) and nanami (right) at this whole drama

also i hope none of you WHORESSSS simped for geto when we made eye contact with him (im looking at zaynesbathrobe anon and all those anons that are obsessed with bridgerton!geto). stay FOCUSED girls gays and theys

thank you for readinggggg. a hot new bombshell will be entering the villa in the next few chapters can we guess who he is??? hint he has huge tits and smelly balls

comment and reblog to let me know ur thots ;3

TAGLIST:

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@extremelyexh4usted @yoshisaurmuchakoopas @nixiepixee @generalstephkenobi @vernasce-blogs

@byhuenii @geniejunn @a-girl-with-thoughts @dazedin2d @chuuqxs

@megumiivs @anthastudios @arranacosmist @arishaxml @jingyuun

@undercooked-chaos-noodle @jaegersity @camzzn @bluelai @1sweetheart1

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@soobssedwithyourex @manyno @samkysnks @stefnarda @bbqsauceonmytitties2

[ervotica]

bartyyyy 33. hushed conversation in-between kisses in the hallway or something as reader tries to calm him down and stop him from murdering a fellow student for looking at her/saying something to her lols. maybe she fails and he still gets a little murdery

thanks for requesting my love! ✩ 600 words

You know Barty can rarely deny you anything.

Not when you coo in that honeyed voice, slipping an arm beneath his rumpled shirt to palm at his bare skin. Murmuring reassurances against his lips, smoothing out his jagged edges with sweetened promises.

You have Barty against the wall in the corridor as you nose at his cheek. You thread your fingers through the short hairs at his nape and scratch, your grin imprinting against the side of his face when he sags against you. The anger melts from his expression like softened butter.

He tips his head back against the wall and it thumps; to entice him closer, your lips push out into a pout you know he won't be able to resist kissing.

One kiss, two, three.

You pull back until your lips are just grazing his, and wedge your shoulder under his armpit, an arm slung lazily round his back. You start to murmur against his mouth.

"Ignore him, baby. You know I only want you."

McLaggen's been harassing you for a date for weeks. It's been harmless for the most part, but you know Barty, and you know he won't think twice before kicking the fucker's teeth out.

"That's not what I'm fucked off about, treasure," he says, smoothing a hand over the crown of your skull.

He gets you by the scruff of the neck, anchoring you back for another open mouthed kiss. You push closer and hum your appreciation. Your fingers splay wide at the dip of his spine, tickling until he squirms under your touch and drops his head to the crook of your shoulder.

You feel McLaggen's furious stare but pay it no mind, too busy doting on your lovely boyfriend to care who's watching. You don't so much as glance away until he knocks his elbow with yours as he breezes past with a faux arrogance you know is all for show.

"Fuck off, McLaggen," you spit, pushing further against Barty. You feel your boyfriend lunge outwards before you're pushing him back and putting yourself in front of him as a shield.

"Treasure, I love you more than life itself, but move," Barty hisses. You sigh.

"Please don't."

He smears a kiss over the top of your head in apology before you're being moved by means of those thick fingers round your waist, lifted until you're thrust against one poor, unsuspecting Regulus Black. You let out a terse breath, steadying yourself against Regulus' shoulder with a splayed hand.

"Sorry, darling," you mumble.

"You alright?"

You nod before your eyes snap to Barty once more. He has McLaggen by the collar, thick fingers squeezing his cheeks in an effort to force eye contact as he bellows down at the boy, loud enough to hurt your ears.

"You touch my girl again and I'll break your fucking jaw, you hear me? You so much as look at her and you're dead."

His eyes are wild and you know his pulse is thrumming something rotten now he's geared up for a fight.

"Barty!" you scold.

Regulus hooks an arm around your waist to keep you from darting off through the crowd that's formed. You harrumph in protest.

"Okay, you're done," you declare, dragging Regulus by the wrist through the crowd with you as McLaggen sags and collapses rather unceremoniously at Barty's feet.

Barty's features morph from triumphant to guilty in an instant. He simpers, eyes scrunching at the corners until his crows feet crinkle. You snort and turn to face him.

"You're lucky I love you."

His eyes blow wide and he looks utterly lovesick. Beautiful, albeit mildly pathetic.

His expression flares with a possessiveness you know all too well. He drags you up his chest for a searing kiss that makes your insides flip-flop. You're breathing hard when he pulls away, slick with spit and beaming like a madman.

"Come on, killer," you snort. "Let's go to your dorm."

[unconventional-lawnchair]

Little Lupin {Blurb}

James Potter x Lupin!Reader

Part 2 - Part 3

AN: I wrote this on my lunch break, so it's not proof read. Just needed it out of my head RIP.

WC: 1313

“Mate! We are bloody brilliant!” Sirius bellowed out, getting applause from a few of the other red-robes. “Mate! Mate?”

Sirius’s shouts slowly lowered and he looked at James curiously, who was simply staring across the grand hall with heart eyes.

The clatter and hum of students and professors fell on his deaf ears. News of one of the Marauders' newest pranks on Slytherin had sent the hall into a frenzy of giggles and explosive laughter. Watching as the poor Slytherin tried to hide their red hair, the Gryffindors were practically doubled over. Sirius brandishing their win socially while James remained in his own little world.

Eyes on {Y/N} Lupin, who stuck out like a sore thumb. You looked around at your fellow green-robed seatmates and made a playful jab at Dorcas, who then threw a bun at you. Ignoring the glares from Snape and Avery, who were even more pissed that you didn't fall victim to your brother’s trick, you always managed to find some humor in the situation.

Even Regulus Black had his hair dyed; not that he didn't use a potion to change it back instantly. His usual icy demeanor was barely ruffled, but he shot a glance towards you, a mix of curiosity and annoyance. It was no secret that being related to Remus Lupin put {Y/N} in a peculiar position within Slytherin House. Unlike Regulus, she refused to delve deeper than necessary into mediocrity.

"Honestly, you'd think they'd come up with something more original.” You quipped, your eyes twinkling with mischief as you deftly dodged another flying bun.

Dorcas laughed, "Maybe next time they'll get you too, Lupin."

Your shouts across the hall faded further out as Sirius hit James on the shoulder.

“James!” He laughed and James shot up with a loopy smile, glasses sloppy on his face.

“What?” He cheeked, sticking his tongue to his cheek and stealing a glance at you again.

“Oh dude, don't tell me.” Sirius smirked.

James's cheeks flushed slightly as he tried to play it cool, pushing his glasses up to sit properly on his nose. "What are you on about, Pads?" He smirked, a hint of defensiveness in his voice.

Sirius waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "You're gone, mate. Absolutely smitten with {Y/N}, aren't you?"

James's eyes widened, and he quickly looked around to make sure no one was listening in on their conversation. Wrapping his arm around Sirius and yanking him down so they were closer to the table. "Keep your voice down!" He scolded, though his tone was more embarrassed than angry. "It's not like that."

Sirius grinned, like he had just learned the secret of a lifetime. James knew he was screwed. "Sure, sure. You’ve been staring at her for the past ten minutes like she's the Snitch and you’re about to win the Quidditch Cup.”

James opened his mouth to retort, but the words died on his lips as he caught another glimpse of you, laughing and shoving Evan Rosier’s shoulder was he inspected your hair playfully. He couldn't help the small smile that tugged on his lips at your smile, he couldn't even bring himself to be jealous, he'd play with your hair too if you'd let him.

James glanced back at Sirius when he realized he had zoned out again, looking like a guilty puppy as he smiled up at him, talking far louder then he intended to. “You know, Remus’s sister.. she's fit, yeah?”

As if Merlin was having a laugh at their expense, two large hands grabbed their shoulders. Remus peaked his head between them with a chillingly sweet smile, tooth and all.

“I'll cut your eyes out, James.”

James's face went a shade paler as he felt Remus's grip tighten on his shoulders. He gulped audibly, trying to muster a nervous laugh, but it came out as more of a squeak.

"Moony! I-I didn't see you there," James stammered, his eyes wide with a bright nervous smile, trying to play it off.

Remus's smile didn't falter, but his eyes were steely. "Oh, I bet you didn't.” He said, his voice calm but hiding a threat. "Now, what was that about my sister being 'fit'?"

Sirius, deciding to abuse his power as boyfriend, leaned forward to smirk at Remus. “She is though, yeah? It's the Lupin genes. Glad I got mine when I did.”

Remus glared down at Sirius with a scandalized look.

"Sirius.” Remus practically growled through gritted teeth, "I can deal with you later. Right now, I'm more concerned about our dear James."

James looked pleadingly at Sirius, silently begging him to stop making the situation worse. Sirius, however, was having far too much fun to let it go.

"Oh I bet you will.” He smirked and looked Remus up and down before leaning back into his hand. “Come on, Moony.” Sirius chuckled with a playful grin. "It's not like Prongs is planning on asking her out. He's just… appropriating her beauty.”

“Sirius-” James hissed before they were all interrupted.

You had walked up, with a playful glare and a bright smile. “You boys are ridiculous. When I let you into the Slytherin commons I thought it would just be a handful of us. Everyone? You dyed everyone's hair? You laughed in disbelief.

Sirius smirked, crossing his arms. “No clue what you're on about, bird. Do you, Remus?”

“Not a clue.” Remus hummed, playing along with Sirius's game of plausible deniability. Still glaring at James.

“Do you, James?” Sirius then looked down at James who was giving that same love sick look, a million miles away. James snapped back to reality, his eyes widening as he realized you were standing right there. He stammered for a moment, the color returning to his face tenfold. “Uhm- nope,” His voice cracked and he looked like he wanted to die. Looking down at his plate absolutely ready to jump into the black lake.

You couldn't help but laugh at the sight of James looking so disjointed. "It's alright, James. Next time, maybe don't make me guilty by lack of evidence?” You laughed, gesturing to your hair with a teasing wink, though you had no idea just how much that affected him.

James's cheeks flushed even more, if that was possible, and he muttered, "Ya, yeah agreed, {Y/N}."

You curled your eyebrow at him and your smirk deepened. Instead of tease him further, you nodded and turned your attention to Remus. “Hey, Rem, can you help me with my transfiguration study today?”

“Why would I do that?” Remus smirked as you gave a helpless scoff.

“Well.. if you don't, I'll tell Sirius on you.” You challenged and Remus looked down at Sirius as he gave a dramatic gasp.

“Do as she says, Remus, we'd hate for that to happen.” Sirius chuckled and you smirked triumphantly.

“I'm still not done with you.” Remus grumbled to Sirius before he looked at James. “You either.”

“Thank you Rem!” You chirped as turned to leave, meeting up with Dorcas and Pandora at the entrance of the grand hall.

The second the grand doors closed behind you Sirius nearly lost it as he fell over laughing.

Remus covered his mouth and snickered as well as James flushed and hid his face in his hands.

“Merlin! You practically proposed to Lily Evans but you can't even look her in the eyes!?” Sirius fell back and Remus was quick to catch him, equally amused.

James groaned, his face still buried in his hands. "You're not helping, Pads.” He groaned, absolutely mortified, his voice muffled.

Remus shook his head, though he couldn't hide the amusement in his eyes. "I think what Sirius is trying to say, is you need to relax, James. {Y/N} isn't going to bite your head off."

“At least not with that attitude.” Sirius cheeked and earned a hard smack from Remus.

“I'll end you both.”

[trendywaifus]

you smack feixiao’s hand away from your cup of wine, casting your woman a quick glare before going back to talking to jing yuan. she pouts, resting her cheek against her palm, elbow propped up on her knee as she lazily tunes into the conversation about daily life between you and jingyuan.

“ i heard that yanqing and yunli has been getting along lately. is that true, jing’? “ you inquire, idly tapping a finger against the wooden surface of the low table. jing yuan chuckles, taking a sip of his wine.“ they’re getting there. it seems like their little “battles” are a form of kiddy dates. “ you let out a soft laugh, barely aware of feixiao’s hand sneakily reaching for your cup. noticing his fellow equal in title’s antics, the white, long-haired man shakes his head disapprovingly. she press a finger to her smirking lips as she slowly slides your cup towards her and—

“ you know i can see your hand from the corner of my eye, you sneaky vixen! “ you instinctively grabbed her fox ear and pulled at it.

she yelps, “ ow, ow! dearrestt, i was just kiddding��ouch! “

“ yeah right! what did i tell you about trying to drink liquor you know you can’t handle? this poor man told me you downed a whole thing of wine, destroyed his gazebo a few days ago, and passed out drunk! “

“ heh–ouch! i got a little carried away and i was thirsty—ouuuch! i was just visiting and wanted a—ouch, ouch, ouch!”

“ a visitor but not. a. guest! “ you hissed. jing yuan turns his head and stifles back a bellowing laugh at the comical sight of the merlin’s claw of the xianzhou yaoqing getting scolded by her lover. you finally let go of feixiao’s sore ear and sighed exasperatedly. “ you should of stayed with jiaoqiu at the tea house. there’s a reason why the loufu doesn’t sell alcohol when— “

feixiao stubbornly cuts you off, “ nonsense! to hell with it! “

she swiftly swipes your cup, brings it to her lips, and downs the strong, rich content. you and jing yuan’s jaw drop in astonishment as she gulps everything down.

“ fei—y-you didn’t— “

“ and i did! seee, mymostamazingbelovedmate?” she drunkenly slurs, slamming the cup back on the table. “ i can handle a little cup of wine jusst fine! your most fantastic lover can handle it! “ feixiao’s bright ocean eyes are already half-lidded and dazed as she clumsily stands up, nearly falling backwards trying to maintain her balance.

“ that’s not—feixiao! sit your stupid ass back down before you fall and hit your head! “

“ you should listen to your spouse. we wouldn’t want the lacking general to get a knot on her head after getting defeated by a mere cup of wine, hm? “ jing yuan advises casually before clearing his throat. he takes a long sip of his wine. you pinch the bridge of your nose because of his mocking comment.

“ haahhhh? “ feixiao glared angrily at the man before raising her foot, and slammed her heel down on the table, sending it flying in the air. did this man just purposely provoke feixiao? you can’t even call him petty at this point because she was the one who destroyed his property the last time he saw her.

“ let’s take this outside, jing yuan! just because my dear lover is here. . .doesn’t mean. . .i won’t. . “ feixiao trails off sleepily, losing her footing and falls sideways. luckily, her head lands safely on your lap, body stretched out perfectly on the tatami mat. you sighed in great relief, stroking her head as she sleeps soundly. “ you knew she’d do this which is why you made that comment earlier, huh? “

jing yuan simply smiles at you, the smug look evident in his golden hues.

“ not exactly. but i’ll say this, i forgive but i don’t forget. “

you roll your eyes at him.

[leahsgf]

LOSS - mcfoord

mcfoord x child!reader | ireland doesn’t qualify for the euros

little monster masterlist

the energy rippling through the aviva stadium could only be described as electric. the stands, filled almost to the brim by a wave of green, were almost shaking - the sheer noise of the fans bouncing off of every corner.

amongst the chaos and stress of the ireland fans, sat you, perched on caitlin’s lap in the designated ‘mccabe family’ box - a mini ireland scarf clutched in your grasp, and a flag painted on your cheek, now rosy with the sheer bitterness of the dublin air.

katie stood on the pitch metres below, proudly wearing the captain’s armband for her country, and doing what she does best - even if that meant making everyone watch whilst wincing as she teetered on the edge of a second yellow card within minutes.

even at two years old, you understood somewhat how important this game, and this team was to her. it was your entire life in fact - your mother’s bursting passion for her country was engrained in you, having been told one night as she tucked you into your ‘big girl bed’, in the softest voice, how much it meant to her to wear the green jersey, how her team’s hard work was slowly but surely paying off, and, how important it was that you pick ireland over australia, of course.

(the most katie mccabe bed time story imaginable)

and despite how much they both attempted to shield you from the pressure of football, and tonight in particular- you were very much sensing it.

“can you see your mammy down there? she’s doing amazing, like always” caitlin pulled your green (of course) ear defenders away from your head as she whispered in your ear, pointing down to the pitch - whilst rocking you softly, attempting to distract herself from the stress of the game as the minutes dragged on.

the match was only getting more and more intense, every single pass and tackle becoming a battle as ireland fought for a goal, for anything, and wales fought to hold them off. caitlin’s grip on you tightened as full time rapidly approached - leaning forward nervously, as if she could already feel the incoming devastation, as your little eyes darted around, watching every desperate throw in intensely (despite not having a clue what they were doing, you just thought it looked fun)

before long the final whistle blew, and the stadium fell into almost an eerie silence. even your family around you, who had been bellowing and singing the entire time - were completely mute, and that was something you’d never experienced before.

katie practically collapsed down onto her knees on the pitch as the reality sunk in - her face in her hands, sobbing - with many of her fellow players doing the same, their long awaited euros dream well and truly shattered. you simply couldn’t grasp why the cheers had stopped, or why they weren’t kicking the ball around any more.

“why mammy sad?” you turn in the australian’s arms, picking up instantly on her own saddened expression, your tiny voice sounding so loud amongst the quiet - almost piercing the tension with a knife.

caitlin’s heart ached, not only for her partner but also for you, breaking at the idea of explaining this to you when you’d been so excited for weeks about this - adoring absolutely everything that your mammy did, being her little double.

“she’s a bit upset because her team didn’t win.” she spoke gently, “she really wanted this, like she’s been telling you.”

you frowned, clutching your scarf tighter, whimpering slightly at the thought of her being sad without you with her to make it better.

“go there?” you point down to the pitch, shifting to try and climb down, leaning forward to grip the barrier in front of the seat - caitlin almost instantly pulling you back, earning a whine in response.

“let’s wait a little bit pudding, kay? she’s still on the field, we’ll go and find her soon, don’t worry” she stroked your hair softly, suddenly standing up with you balanced on her hip, taking you away from the seats and back inside, away from the chaos for just a moment, bouncing you lightly, knowing all too well that if you can see katie without being able to be with her for a second longer you’ll be quickly on your way to a meltdown.

-

after a short while, and the heartbroken ireland team slowly started to filter out of the locker room, not wanting to spend another minute drowning in the overwhelming sadness - katie remained planted in her seat. the sting of this defeat cut her particularly deep, not solely because of the loss, but also because of everything in her that she’d poured into this campaign, into being captain in general - the sacrifices, the hours of extra training, and the dreams of being the one to lead her country to something bigger, something they deserve - all of it.

sat on the bench with her head in her hands, her chest rose and fell unevenly, and tears continued to stream down her cheeks as every emotion under the sun swirled through her head.

the door swinging open broke her out of her train of thoughts - revealing a very concerned, almost tearful looking caitlin, with you bundled in her arms.

“katie?”

the irish woman’s head snapped up instantly, her red rimmed eyes meeting the piercingly blue ones of her girlfriend, getting lost in them like she always did. the mere sight of the pair of you - her family, of the little, now smeared ireland flag painted on your face, only made her tears flow faster, the remains of her resolve crumbling.

you wriggled in caitlin’s arms as katie stood up, collecting the remains of her stuff - not wanting to hang around anymore either, reaching out for her desperately.

her arms opened in an instant, allowing you to be passed over into them before even a slight whimper could leave your lips, burying her face into your tiny shoulder as she sobbed a little more, muffled by your warmth, holding you almost impossibly close to her chest.

“it’s okay mammy, no cry” you babble, your words accenting your wonderfully weirdly blended accent, patting her cheek softly, causing the woman to let out a shaky laugh through her tears. “you the best” your little brow furrowed as you continued, poking at the tears on her cheek, having not quite learned how to ‘wipe them away’ properly just yet.

“oh my sweet girl, thank you” she nuzzled her nose against your cheek, pressing a kiss to your forehead as the three of you made your way slowly towards the car, wanting nothing more than to just be away from all of this.

caitlin watched silently as katie buckled you into your car seat, tickling you softly and kissing your cheek, lingering for a second longer than usual, as if she was delaying the inevitable hard part, where she’ll have to process this without an innocent, clueless toddler to distract her.

“you’ve done so much, love, you’ve made them all so proud, you’ve made us proud. you’ve made that little girl so proud - all she’s talked about all day is you.” caitlin wrapped her arms around the irish woman almost immediately after she closed your car door, rubbing her back comfortingly.

“thank you baby, i needed that, thank you for being here. i know you’re probably exhausted.” she sniffled, knowing that her girlfriend flew straight from australia to dublin to be here for her - before moving around to the passenger side, an unfamiliar one to her - but she wasn’t in the headspace to be in charge of a vehicle, not right now.

the drive back to the hotel (that was more of a stopover before you all head back to london in the morning then anything) was an unfamiliarly quiet one, the mood that settled sombre in stark comparison to the constant loop of ‘baby shark’, a personal favourite of yours - that boomed out of the speakers in order to keep you content.

-

the evening drew in with a lot of tears and hugs from all three of you at different moments - curled up in the plush of the hotel bed, watching some disney movie you’d all seen a million times over - your parents trying to keep the mood fairly light for you, knowing the walls would come crashing down once you were asleep.

despite this, you could sense that your mammy was still sad. very sad. she usually was constantly playing with you, making you screech with giggles, even when you were meant to be getting ready to go to bed and calming down for the night, but tonight she was just quiet, barely saying a word as caitlin got you ready for bed.

“come on then sweetheart, sleep time for you, say goodnight to mammy” your mumma held you and your bottle in her arms, crouching down so katie can kiss and hug you softly.

“milk?” you ask, words muffled by the dummy between your lips as you hold out your bottle towards her, tilting your head - knowing that that was one thing that always made you feel better, and all you wanted to do was make her happy.

and with that, katie couldn’t help but smile, the loss sitting on her shoulder feeling just a little bit lighter.

“i love you, my beautiful little monster”

[abigailmoment]

It wasn't just bad luck that Staeve was targeted. It was a calculated attack. Halsin knew well enough how a caster could examine their enemies for tells. Halsin did it himself. Considered an opponent's tactics, and guessed at the places their mind would be most vulnerable.

You didn't have to be a gifted empath to watch how Staeve hurled himself into the thick of combat, right at the biggest bandit wielding the two-handed great sword, and think that the man might be vulnerable to a spell that exploited wisdom.

The fact that it took down Astarion too, well, perhaps that one was just bad luck.

It happened like this:

-

This is written about @velnna's Tav, Staeve. I was delighted to discover that they don't mind fan fiction being written about him.

I'm always cautious about writing for other people's OCs--getting voices right is so important to me. I have elegantly avoided that issue here.

-

Full text below.

Full Text On AO3

-

The fight was an incidental bit of banditry. Dangerous banditry, certainly. Bandits with  great swords, supported by wizards. Halsin hung back with Gale while the two rogues dashed forward to give truth to the old adage that the best defense was killing the other fellow extremely quickly. 

They cut down the man with the great sword and the woman with the mace and shield. Reinforcements were coming from around a rocky overhang. Halsin coaxed the earth to throw up entangling vines to slow them down. Gale drenched them with glimmering light that illuminated all their vulnerable points for Astarion and Staeve to shoot at.

Only the half-orc made it through the vines and the light. He was bloodied and wrathful. He was huge, but it was two against one, and the two were flanking with each other. It would have been an easy end to the combat, except that apparently there was a bandit wizard hidden somewhere in the trees who chose this moment to cast a spell. 

One second Staeve was a blood spattered half-drow sprinting full-tilt, sword out, towards a fighter twice his size. And then he was gone.

Some sort of teleportation? Banishment? Gale was saying something about trajectory and scanning the treeline. Halsin was yelling, he wasn't sure what, the concern was more important than the words. He started running forward. Because two rogues against a barbarian was fine, but one rogue against a barbarian was an extremely fast way for that rogue to die.

And Astarion knew that so he should be running away. But he wasn't running away. He was darting forward and ducking low and almost getting hit by a greataxe as he snatched something off of the ground. 

Then he was running, thank the Gods. There was something cradled in his arms, which meant he didn't have his rapier out as he scrambled back.

It was a cat. Halsin saw. They were ten feet away from each other when Halsin realized that Astarion was carrying a large, extremely upset tabby cat with grey-green fur.

That was when Astarion vanished. No. Not vanished. As the tabby tumbled to the ground, something small and white was already there, darting for cover. 

Then the half-orc arrived. Bellowing and huge, at least when compared to cats. Not quite as huge when compared to Halsin. 

Halsin decided to turn into a bear. It was amazing how many problems you could solve by turning into a bear. 

-

"I am feeling my oversight in not preparing dispel magic today," said Gale. "Or counterspell."

"This is not a situation we could have anticipated," Halsin said.

Staeve contributed to the conversation, but because of present circumstances, it came out as a meow.

He was large for a cat. His fur was pale brown, tabby-striped with green. His stripes crisscrossed in a way that reminded Halsin of his tattoos. His scar was a fur-less groove in his face. He had the same pale green eyes as always. That color was quite appropriate in a cat.

He meowed again, more insistently this time.

"We will," Halsin assured him. 

"You're speaking with him?" Gale asked. 

"Not magically," Halsin said. It had been a long day and he had barely anything left to cast with. "But I think I understand him."

"Do you?"

"Think a moment and I am confident that you too will guess what he wants from us."

It did only take a moment. Gale was an intelligent man, when prompted. And they'd all seen the small white cat vanish into the woods during the bear-orc fight.

"Ah. Of course." Gale addressed the cat, voice reassuring. "Astarion should be relatively safe though. Polymorph is temporary and even if something did happen to him in the interim, he would just revert to his natural form."

Staeve's whiskers went back and his ears went flat in a thoroughly unimpressed way. 

"I think it would be best to find him and make sure nothing happens," Halsin said with mellow diplomacy. 

"Of course." Gale paused, then said delicately: "Given my skill in woodland matters, or lack thereof, I may best serve this cause by getting out of the way."

Halsin smiled. "It is a wise man who knows his limitations."

"I'll meet you all back at camp then?" said Gale.

"Take a potion of invisibility for the trip," Halsin suggested. "There might still be bandits about."

Staeve had gotten impatient with them, and was padding off into the forest. Halsin handed Gale the potion and hastened to follow.

-

Staeve scampered about the forest like he was looting the place. No hole, hollow log, wasp nest, or brown recluse spider-web was left uninvestigated. The loss of seventy five percent of his gray matter had done the man's already flagging survival instincts no favors. Halsin spent half of his attention looking for signs of a small white cat, and half of his time making sure Staeve's efforts at tracking didn't get him killed.

After being only a hairsbreadth quick enough to pull Staeve away from the entrance to a dire-badger-burrow Halsin decided that his partner was now going to be carried. Staeve made a meowling, writhing objection. He was terribly invested in the search. A compromise was reached when he was offered a perch high on Halsin's broad shoulders. Staeve proceeded to clamber from shoulder to shoulder as Halsin walked, ears always forward and alert, eyes bright, head turning this way and that as he scanned the woods.

Small cats with stealth training were not easy things to track through dense forest. Halsin did end up using his last spell slot to cast speak with animals. The local mice and voles always noticed when predators passed, even small ones. Halsin spoke to them while keeping one hand on Staeve, who watched the tiny creatures with bright, newly interested eyes.

Halsin of course spoke with Staeve as well, but it wasn't quite the same. Talking to a person who had been transformed into an animal was not the same as talking to that person. Shape changed you. How you saw things. How you thought. The mind of a cat was a fraction of the size of that of an elf or half-elf. Thinking with it was different. The change was easiest for druids. It was hardest for the cursed, who did not choose the new shape. Who were surprised by it.

He spoke to Staeve and learned things he had already known from observation. He reassured Staeve that the mice had given useful guidance.

That guidance led them north, then west, and then to a long hollow log, moss covered and broken in two places. A good hiding spot, and the sort of shelter that had a lot of escape routes. Staeve jumped off of Halsin's shoulder as the druid knelt down and they both peered inside.

In the darkness, Halsin could just make out a pair of ruby-bright eyes staring warily back at him. 

Beside him, Halsin watched Staeve relax for the first time since becoming a cat. He wasn't actually as large as Halsin had first thought--it was just that his hackles had been up and his tail puffed out for the duration of the transformation.

It could be a painful thing indeed, to have one's heart so completely entwined with another's safety. A deeply worthwhile thing, but a painful thing, sometimes. 

Halsin made a deferring motion to Staeve, who nodded in a rather un-catlike like way. Halsin stepped back from the log, moving slowly so as not to startle anything. He shifted a few feet away and sat close enough to watch, but far away enough that his looming size wasn't an ominous thing.

Staeve didn't go inside the hollow log. He sat at the entrance. Lay down at the entrance, body long and casual, head up on the lip of the log so he could keep looking inside. Modeling relaxation.

He started to purr. Halsin could hear him purring even from a few feet away. A loud, constant, soothing rumble. It somehow did not surprise Halsin that Staeve had a loud purr.

And then Staeve waited. Patient as anything. Waiting and watching and purring in a low buzz, as steadily as a beehive.

Halsin could not see inside the log, but he could guess at when Astarion moved because Staeve's ears would flick. Staeve had a fine poker face, but everyone had tells. 

Something happened, or occurred to him, that made Staeve raise his head and sit up slightly from his sprawl on the ground. Then he stood up entirely. He gave Halsin a significant look, and trotted off into the underbrush. 

Conscious that he had just been assigned new responsibility, Halsin shifted so that he had a good view of the log's entrances and everything around it. There wasn't much danger, Halsin’s presence in general kept most predators away from this space. But still.

During his vigil, Halsin saw the glimmer of red cat-eyes once. And only briefly. 

Staeve came back soon. He had a dead vole in his mouth and he looked exceptionally pleased with himself. He dropped the vole at the mouth of the log, took a few pawpads back and watched expectantly.

It took another long minute, but after that minute a small white cat crept out of the darkness.

This should surprise no one, but Astarion was a beautiful cat. Slender and graceful with large eyes. His fur was pure, silvery white and just long enough to curl slightly. He moved with a cautious precision that Halsin recognized as his habit, and that deeply suited his new form. 

He sniffed at the vole. He shot Staeve a judgmental look, because Gods forbid the man accept any kindness without prevaricating about it in some way. He glanced at Halsin. And then he leaned down to slide exceptionally long canines into the corpse's chest.

Staeve flopped down about a foot away and watched him with an expression of pleased devotion that would honestly be a bit more appropriate on a dog.

Astarion ate fastidiously, and without getting even a blot of blood on his snow-white fur. When he finished he licked his teeth.

When Staeve was quite sure Astarion was done eating, he sidled up slantwise, sauntering around the vole corpse as if he just casually happened to be taking a stroll in this part of the forest for no particular reason. He stopped just short of Astarion. His ears were forward. His tail flicked lightly from side to side. 

Astarion regarded him levelly with his 'I know what you're doing and I know you think you're being clever about it but you're not' expression. Then, as if granting a boon, he deigned to rub his forehead gently against the underside of Staeve's chin.

Staeve took this as the invitation that it was and pressed back, much more enthusiastic and honest in his delight at the contact. Which in turn gave Astarion an excuse and space to do what he wanted and enjoy it.

They were always very dear to watch together. Whatever form they took. In about a minute they were curled over each other on the ground and Staeve was industriously grooming Astarion's head.

Halsin let this go on for as long as he could. But the shadows were lengthening, and they were very close to the Shadowlands, and he was out of spell slots, and the rogues were currently housecats.

"It is getting late, dear ones," he said softly. 

Astarion twitched at the interruption, and Staeve licked him three times along the neck and chest in a soothing way. Then they disentangled from each other and padded over to Halsin.

Halsin picked up Staeve, but he knelt down and laid his arm on the ground so that Astarion could climb up and find what perch he wanted by himself. They did both end up in his arms. Staeve was tired and quite ready to be carried, and Astarion didn't want to be out of contact with him.

As Halsin walked through the woods with an armfull of cat, Staeve started to purr again. It was really the most marvelous sound. A soothing distillation of satisfaction and care. Almost enough to tempt one away from being a bear.

Astarion did not purr. Some cats didn't. Or purred only very rarely. But Astarion did, at one point, look up at Halsin and blink his bright red eyes very slowly. 

And that was a precious thing.

****

Other stories like this.

****

[transformers-synergize]

Do you have any more stuff for Sunny & Sides? Your designs for them are some of the best I've seen, and I'd love to know more about your plans or headcanons for them!

No pressure ofc, I support you and your absolute galaxy brain :D

Sure, here is a bunch of random stuff about in no particular order, lot of this stuff was just pulled from my notes but whatever lol 

Sunstreaker is egotistical, he knows he is the best and makes sure everyone knows it too. He also has the skills, looks, and combat prowess to back it up. Sunstreaker only really cares about himself and Sideswipe, considering pretty much every bots below him or not worth his time. He often makes sly comments, belittling or cracking jokes about bots whom he deems lesser. His friends are either Sideswipes friends who can tolerate him or bots who think he's cool, which is usually due to factors outside his personality. He's always down for a good fight, being ruthless and downright merciless in combat while still somehow managing to get as little dirt, energon, or other various combat filth on himself as possible, sometimes being nearly spotless after a battle aside from the energon coating his blade. Sunny likes to keep himself in good condition, making sure his paint is perfect and his polish shines, it really helps accentuate how he's the best.

Sideswipe is the nicer of the two brothers. He's outgoing and usually pretty friendly. Sideswipes is always looking for a fight. He loves the thrill of combat. He often treats serious situations more like a game than the high-danger situations he often places in. Sideswipe often can't sit still and always need something to do, and if there is nothing fun to do then he will make his own fun, he is often sparring with his fellow Autobots, trying risky stunts, pulling pranks on other bots and generally just causing chaos. He's very impulsive, often doing the first thing that comes to mind because he thought it might be fun, never considering the consequences. He's kinda like a jock who treats war like a sport with an almost ruthless approach to combat. He often tenses and banter with other autobots, sometimes making jokes at their expense, but unlike Sunny, he usually knows when to stop or when he's gone too far.

info dump bellow↓↓↓

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker both emerged during the Autobot Decepticon war and never known peace times. They are the youngest of the crashed Autobots, both being around a thousand years old, which is very young when your species can live to their hundred thousands.

Twins are what happens when a shuttle-sized spark splits into two, so before Sideswipe and Sunstreaker split, their emerging was highly anticipated because shuttles are rare and extremely powerful, but their spark ended up splitting. When they finally emerged, it was a great disappointment.

they were mentored by Inferno and, to a lesser extent, his conjux Redalert (they are one of the many reasons for Redalerts anxiety). Sideswipe has a pretty good relationship with his mentors Sunny… not so much 

Sunny hates Earth, it's filthy it's wet it's squishy it's sticky it's too hot, at least compared to Cybertron's frigid temperatures, and its dominant species are nothing but a pain he hates he has to hide his existence from the stupid inferior fleshy creatures that rule this dirtball of a planet he hates how often on missions he has to have a fleshy human chaperone to perform basic task that he could easily do himself or wouldn't be a problem if humans just didn't exist. Whichever bot or bots are on a mission with Sunny where human help is required, the other bot will always be the one transporting the human because Sunny refuses to let a human inside of him.

Sideswipe likes Earth, there so much to see it his first time being anywhere without the war consent looming present of the great war, but having to hide all the time on Earth is frustrating, he's been able to seek out and do some street races without Prowl knowing, he likes quite a lot of human stuff human music is pretty good and he like some human tv shows and movies mostly the ones with a lot of actions and explosion, he like interacting with the humans he's allowed to interact with especially Carly and Raoul, thought Sideswipe often struggles to understand how fragile humans are and often can put them at risk without even knowing it. Sideswipe is still a little homesick for Cybertron, even if he's only ever known it as a war-torn mess.

their poses often mirror each other

Sunny tells Sideswipe to smile with his mouth closed because his split beak. 

Sunny is the decision-maker of the two, and though Sideswipe may make destinations for himself on his own as a pair, Sunny always has the final say. 

Sunstreaker hates Sideswipe stickers but gave up on trying to remove them because whenever he tried, he got his claws sticky. 

Sunstreaker and Tracks have a bit of a rivalry going on, though Tracks hates Sunstreaker more than Sunstreaker dislikes Tracks. Also, Sunny usually comes out as the victor of most of their little spats.

Sideswipe pulls pranks but doesn't dare prank Sunstreaker because he knows there will be hell to pay if he messes up his brother's paint job. 

sideswipe loves to cause chaos, Sunny often help

Sunny has some artistic talent, though he doesn't use it much

Sunstreaker always makes sure his frame is clean and in near-perfect condition. Sideswipe doesn't care as much but Sunny, make sure Sideswipe keeps up to a certain standard.

Sideswipe is very extroverted, loves interacting with other bots, and will talk to basically anyone. Sunny is more introverted and prefers to keep to himself and select bots. Sunny tries to encourage his brother not to hang out with bots he considers not good enough to be associated with them which is most bots.

-----------------

As for plans for them, I like keeping what I share plot-wise pretty vague. They appear pretty early on, and they both are pretty plot-important. I don't really care about spoiling characters who appear in the first seven chapters. After that, I'm a little more sneaky and vague about who will appear.

[kookieskookiejar]

Star Wars AU

Dark Lord Jungkook x Rebellion Rookie Jedi Reader

Synopsis:

When you're captured by The New Order, you were sure the end of your life would come sooner than later, and being a rebellion pandawan, you've accepted death long before it came knocking, and you knew it'd come any time, just not this soon. However, what you didn't expect was to learn how to live under the man everyone fears.

Warnings under the cut!

Warnings: Mild bloodshed, mild slowburn, inaccurate depictions of the star wars universe (I'm sorry, I tried my best 😅), low-key tsundere Jungkook, age gap but both consenting adults, fluff, smut, face sitting, unprotected s*x, ch*king, body worship, Jungkook is a whipped mess ngl.

A/N: DON'T LIKE DON'T READ, SCROLL AND MOVE ON.

The cold cell was almost unbearable, you were obviously not dressed for this, thinking you’d be in Tatooine for a few days for a mission with your master along with the other fellow padawans, and now here you are, surrounded by four concrete walls, not even with your force could you break yourself out, you’re no Luke Skywalker, not even a window in this goddamn cell, not even a water bowl, the paper cup they had given you now drained next to you, your throat parched even though you haven’t spoken a word.

You kick the paper cup out of anger, this wasn’t supposed to happen, if only your master took your advice and ran for it, it was obvious that all of you were outnumbered, especially with him in the equation, you shudder, recalling the chill that ran down your spine, the scene was everyone’s worst nightmare, seeing that red lightsaber glow in the dark, his cape bellowing whilst a sandstorm brews behind because of the engine of his ship.

Lord Jungkook is his name, and he’s the current leader of The New Order, and he’s as ruthless as they come, everyone who used to know him describes him as a cold blooded killer, that he strives to prove himself to be even more cruel than Darth Vader, that he wanted to exceed the image of what was deemed the best, or the worst, depending on your political stance.

You muster up a weak depreciating chuckle, all your life, abandoned by your parents, sacrificing your childhood for the never ending training, and for what? Just to die this fucking soon in a worn down cell.

Your life has no meaning, all that pain and all those sleepless nights for nothing, no one’s going to remember you, you’ll just be another statistic, if you’re lucky enough that is, so many jedis are killed and no one finds out until months later, and that’s if they found the body or someone heard the news through word of mouth.

Before you could spiral any further down, someone unlocks your cell, three stormtroopers march in, heaving you up to your feet.

“Walk, and don’t try anything funny,” the clone demanded, his blaster pointed right at the juncture of your neck.

You don’t know where they’re taking you, every hallway looks the same, the same stark white hallway with lights that are too bright for your eyes, now you know why everyone wears a goddamn helmet here, you’re getting a migraine just from walking these few minutes.

When you finally reach a lift to the top floor, you were surprised by the dark interior, and that’s when you feel it, the same chilling feeling running down your spine, your hairs standing on its ends, immediately scanning your surroundings, looking for a way out.

“Don’t even think about it, walk,” the guard next to you says while the other requests for entrance with the other guard that’s sitting at the reception, the one next to you, stiffens up when those doors slid open.

There, a figure stands with their front facing the windows that show the beautiful red planet at a distance, the planet looking so much smaller from this height.

Jungkook is so much taller from a closer distance, you can see the back of his head, his hair gelled neatly, his helmet perched on the windowsill.

When the troopers leave, he finally turns to look at you, and you stop breathing briefly, not because of his force, but because of how drop dead gorgeous he is, his big piercing eyes stare right into your soul, his face screwed into an emotionless expression, but one thing that you can just tell from his face is that he’s not someone who’d let someone off lightly if he gets pissed off.

“You’re the one who tried to throw that boulder at my face, you’re more powerful than the other padawans” he states, rounding his desk with slow strides, his eyes calculating every micro expression that you refuse to show.

“Why? Hurt your pride?” you asked, sarcasm dripping in your tone, might as well piss him off and have his lightsaber plunged in your abdomen, it’s better to make this death quick.

“No, in fact, you piqued my interest, you’re not like the others, you’re smart, more powerful, I bet you’re not your master’s favourite, you intimidate him too much, I bet, I can offer you so much more,” Jungkook offers, leaning back onto his desk as he watches you with a quirk of his lips, his first expression of the night.

“No thanks, training under you would be even worse than that old man, just kill me like how you probably had the rest of them killed,” you say after a heave of dry laughter, that’s all you could muster up right now.

“It’d be a waste to just kill you, it’d be wasting too much potential, and I promise I’ll reward you generously, I’ll appreciate you more than that old geezer,” Jungkook banters, as if he could just tell from your face that you were treated unfairly under your master, now you know why he’s at the top, when he can’t kill his way up, he sweet talks his way through.

“How do I know you’re not lying?” you ask, pulling the thin jacket closer to your body for warmth, is this guy numb to feeling cold even?

“I won’t, you have my word… isn’t this arrangement better than death?” Jungkook says with a quirk of his brow.

“I thought someone like you would understand that death is better than many things in life in a time like this,” you say, looking into the dark space, gaze faraway, suddenly lost in thought, death feels very welcoming now, after what you've been through, and how there seems to be nothing waiting for you in the future.

You got so used to the feeling of Jungkook’s presence that you didn’t even realise he was next to you until he draped his jacket over your shoulders.

“I see myself in you, I won’t be like your old master, you might be wondering why I’d choose to do this… let’s just say, I don’t want you to end up in worse hands,” Jungkook says with an amusing glimmer in his eyes.

“Aren’t you the worst of them all?” you ask, turning to him, the movement has his scent wafting up your nostrils, and boy doesn’t he smell refreshing against all the desensitised clones and their hard suits.

“To others maybe, but I’m willing to be better towards you, it’s always only been a matter of choice for me,” Jungkook’s nowhere near a good person, but hearing him say this, when his hands are stained with endless bloodshed of his victims; it’s as if he could sense what you’re thinking because he speaks up before you could.

“I only kill those who don’t surrender…half of the time at least,” Jungkook adds after checking the stats at the back of his head, he doesn’t enjoy sugarcoating.

“Fine, but I’m blasting myself out of space with no oxygen if you piss me off,” you don’t why you’re agreeing to his offer when pretty much lost any desire to continue living on this life, it’s a stretch to hope that being on the dark side would be any better, but you’re willing to try, you have nothing to lose afterall.

Training with Jungkook is hard, but you don’t feel as burnt out, maybe it’s also the fact that Jungkook is a busy man, hence training never goes beyond 3 hours, it could be also the fact that you are very well fed here, no more fearing for a lack of supplies or eating beyond your limit when you’re no longer a pandawan under your master who was always on the run with a bunch of other pandawans where everything was stretched thin.

Today is no different, other than the fact that you’re blind folded, you’ve done this before, but you’re definitely no match against the Lord of the dark side of all people.

“You have to focus on the force, don’t be intimidated by my presence, just act like I’m R9F7,” you hear Jungkook say before you hear the robot himself speak up.

“Master, Miss almost took off my entire arm the last time I trained with her!” The robot speaks up in panic.

“Well I’m not you, am I? It’ll take a lot more to take off my arm,” Jungkook says before he deflects the metal stick in your hand, “Good job, you’re doing much better,” Jungkook praises before you manage to catch him again, having managed to pinpoint his presence, a brief sword fight breaks out between the two of you before Jungkook calls for a stop, his nimble fingers taking off your blindfold.

“Good job, you’re dismissed for the day, join me for dinner later, I’ll send R9F7 to fetch you,” Jungkook says before he retreats to the other side of the training room where the gym equipments are at, starting his own training of the day, he never fails to keep his body in its best condition.

“Dinner, with who?” you ask, usually you just eat with everyone else in the canteen where everyone else goes to, there’s not many places to go to on this ship anyways, but you’ve never seen Jungkook go down to have dinner with anyone else, you assume he eats in his own quarters or something.

“Just me, why? I’m not enough for you now, is that it?” Jungkook asks, obviously joking, but you can't read his expression, given that he's currently doing pull ups, his arms and back slightly distracting to you, just the slightest, you tell yourself.

“No! It’s just that, I thought you needed to show up to some event and I needed to show up or something,” you say, thanking R9F7 for fetching you a glass of water.

“I don’t have an audience with anyone yet, maybe in a month’s time, this is just a casual dinner,” Jungkook tells you while he starts doing his archer pull ups, and you’re so glad that damn robot had gone to refill your glass of water, that damn metal head cannot know you’re gawking at the way Jungkook’s arms flex against his weight, muscles rippling while your mouth waters.

“Y-yeah, okay, is there anything else?” you ask after snapping yourself out of that trance that’s stronger than any force.

“No, you’re free to leave if you want to,” Jungkook says, “but you have lessons with Captain Yoongi right?” Jungkook, being the busy man he is, sure is very clear with your schedule.

“Yeah,” you confirm, preparing to take your leave.

“Don’t crash into anymore asteroids, we have limited fighter ships on this ship, when we’re back on base, you can start making more mistakes,” Jungkook reminds you, obviously poking fun at you, if the tone wasn’t obvious enough, the slight upturn of his lips is a giveaway when he drops himself down to face you, you’re slightly taken aback, this is definitely not what most people see when they interact with Jungkook.

“If I’m making more mistakes when we’re back to base then I’m a failure,” you say with a huff after gathering your bearings, recalling all the moments your old master called you that.

“In all of my years of experience, I’ve met many failures, and you’re definitely not one, being bad at something is nature, being bad at fying a ship isn’t the end of the world, I could always get you a droid to do it, you just need to know how to get yourself out of an emergency if the droid isn’t available, it’s not a big deal,” Jungkook says before he finishes his set, the joking tone in his voice gone.

“Don’t worry, I like flying ships, hopefully I won’t need a droid to fly me everywhere, I’ll take my leave, or Captain Yoongi is gonna throw a fit again,” you say before retreating to the door.

“See you tonight,” you hear Jungkook say before you parrot it back to him.

You thought it’d be awkward to have dinner with Jungkook, but it’s going better than you ever imagined. Right now, you’re talking about your day with Captain Yoongi.

“He was like, ‘Kid, I’m not used to teaching someone who I’m not allowed to get mad at, and the fact that I won’t be able to even if I want to, I don’t lash out at women, don’t want my mother to pop in my head and give me a scolding’, then he started cursing at how the force works,” you retell before he breaks into yet another fit of laughter.

“Why did he say that even? What did you do to the old man?” Jungkook asks before he continues cutting into his steak, patiently waiting for you to continue your story.

“I said if you keep sighing you should just let a droid teach me,” you say before Jungkook doubles over, his piece of sliced steak forgotten, and at that moment, you think Jungkook has a pretty smile.

Today, you’re having a bad day, you couldn’t sleep well last night, your insomnia is always worse at the tail end of your menstrual cycle, so you’re naturally feeling really moody today, the sleep deprivation and changing hormones are getting to you.

Unfortunately for you, today you’re starting a new form of training, and it’s said to be hard, Jungkook described this as a form of virtual projection, crazy how a pair of goggles could teleport the two of you to a realistic battle.

You groan when the words ‘defeat’ flash across your sight.

“You need to focus, if you can’t get through this stimulation, how can you survive out there?” Jungkook asks, he doesn’t sound mad, he just sounds…realistic, for a lack of better word.

“Spar me,” Jungkook says before he gets into position.

“We can just do this without the goggles,” you suggest, but get into position anyways, sighing as you do so, this is going to be a long day.

“The wooden sticks are all the way in the gym, come on, just a little bit longer,” Jungkook says, but he could see the way your shoulders drop.

“Start,” Jungkook says before he advances onto you, he knows you’d never make the first move, your fighting style is always more on the defense.

The small stick that’s supposed to imitate your lightsaber hums when it clashes with Jungkook’s in the game, It’s like your body awakens, your brain going into fight mode when you dodge Jungkook’s second attack, planning on striking your leg after he identified that he can’t continue advancing with the first move, and you use the force to propel yourself backwards, your master never likes it when you do that, says it’s a sign of cowardice, but you’re not like the others, you strive for survival, which is why you didn’t think twice before you used the force to throw a rock at Jungkook, which he quickly sliced apart with his lightsaber, a look of bewilderment on his face.

“I had no idea you could do that in here, must be why we need to wear these gloves and weird socks on our legs,” Jungkook says before you see the mischief in his eyes, and that’s when you see it, his hands grasping the air in a similar movement to yours before you see a wrecked ship being hurled towards you.

You did a quick backflip, using the force to lift you in the air higher, landing back on the ground on your two feet.

“Now you’re just showing off,” Jungkook says before he advances onto you again, you deflect his attacks, the red of the imitation weapon glows dangerously close to your body, you would’ve been able to feel the heat of it if the two of you were using real lightsabers.

“Come on, this can’t be the best you can give me,” Jungkook taunts before he reels back and does a quick turn, catching you off guard, and immediately you panic, taking one hand off the stick to summon the force to push him back, sending Jungkook backwards, skidding on one knee to balance himself, before you feel yourself naturally wielding the lightsaber towards Jungkook, and right before you would’ve stabbed him, not that he’d get hurt in the simulation, you stopped, recalling that this is merely training, and that you’re not in actual danger, that Jungkook wouldn’t hurt you.

“You knocked the wind out of me, I had my guard down, but that was good,” Jungkook says as he gets up from his kneeled position.

“Sorry, I lost myself just now,” you said, your hand fidgeting with the stick.

“Don’t worry about it, being immersed in a fight is a good thing,” Jungkook says before he takes the goggles off, “let’s stop here for today, get some rest, you look like you need it,” Jungkook says before he disappears from your view, and you do the same, the virtual warzone disappearing right in front of your eyes.

“Sorry, I didn’t sleep all that well last night, I’ll be better tomorrow,” you say as you pack up the equipment back to where it was.

“Don’t apologise, all of us have bad days, and if it’s too much, you could always let me know, get sufficient rest, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Jungkook says with a comforting smile before he leaves, probably rushing off to a meeting with the council or something.

The first rumble of the spaceship had you jerking awake from the comfort of your bed, bounding out of bed with unsteady footsteps, you hold onto the side of your cabinet to look out your window, and you catch sight of x-wings and their lasers hitting the ship, immediately you start to sway at your feet.

You get dressed as quick as possible before running down to the control centre where you know Jungkook will probably be at by now.

No one questions when you step into the room, and you’ve never seen Jungkook this serious ever since the day you first met him, brows furrowed and his jaw clenched, the situation must not be looking too ideal, but still he senses you when you’re near him, turning away from the panels to look at you briefly.

“Not hurt?” he asks, Captain Yoongi casts a curious glance at his boss, but he remains silent.

“No, the protective shields on my side held up,” you answer, it’s nothing, standard procedure to check if the ship is alright, why did Yoongi find it weird?

Jungkook nods before he turns back to Yoongi, taking note of the situation and how their fighters are doing.

“It’s not ideal, there’s quite a large amount of those fuckers, half of our lasers are down, and the shields are at 40%,” Yoongi informs.

“Tell them to prepare my ship, I’ll handle them myself,” Jungkook says before he turns, preparing to descend down to the flight deck, his cape bellowing at his quick movement, you never liked capes, but you guess it’s tradition for the supreme leaders on the dark side.

“Wait! Alone?” you ask, a sliver of worry blooming in your chest, Jungkook always seemed invincible in your eyes when you only knew him through all the rumours, disregarding him as a person, that he might die, but now that you know him personally, he doesn’t seem as invincible anymore when he's no longer a myth in your head.

“Is that an issue?” Jungkook asks, confusion clear as day on his face, but his tone authoritative, you don’t dare to question him, it’s not your place to do so, especially not in front of everyone, Jungkook lets you get away with a lot of things, but this is probably not one of them.

“No, not an issue,” you say before letting go of his arm, and when he walked out, you could immediately see the tension in the people’s shoulders drop.

“He’s gonna be fine, kid, he’s got a reputation after all, he earned that through all the blood on his hands,” Yoongi reminds you before he gets back to his job, typical of your other mentor, he’s never the type to communicate more than what’s enough.

You stand idle as you watch the chaos unfold, Jungkook’s ship easily distinguishable by the additional purple streaks he had them installed when he didn’t like how his ship isn’t all that different from the others.

It swerves and dodges the x-wings’ lasers, zooming past the slower ones that got distracted by the other tie-fighters with a blast from his blasters attached to his ship, the red lasers dashing past, making contact with the jets before it blows up.

Every time he flies too fast and close to the exploding ships, you fear his ship is the one getting blown up.

The tension in your own shoulders drops slightly when you could see that the empire is winning with the dwindling numbers of ships.

“Fuck,” Yoongi curses, but before you could ask why, you see it, a large rebel mothership emerges from a lightspeed portal, surrounded by more x-wings.

“We need more people out there! Deploy the remaining teams!” Yoongi shouts into the intercom system.

“How are the stakes looking now, Cap?”you ask as you watch, then you feel it, the tremor of the bond, the one that you thought would never be established between you and Jungkook, the ‘force’ bond that establishes between a master and a padawan, you can feel how stress he is, his anger sizzling through the air that only you can feel in this room.

“Not very good, it’s going to need a lot of our firepower to take out the mothership,” Yoongi tells you before he barks more orders at the people around him, directing them on how to take down the mothership with the bigger blasters attached to the ship.

Suddenly, a staff let out a gasp of alarm.

“Captain, one of main blasters are jammed, we were supposed to use it to blow out the mothership, at least to deter it before we decide to hyperspace jump if needed,” the man said, but he immediately clams up when he sees how dark Yoongi’s face had gotten significantly darker.

“And there’s no way to fix it?” Yoongi asks, his fists balled at his sides.

“The droid that is supposed to fix that section of the ship got damaged by a stray laser from the battle going on nearby,” the woman next to the man explains, you can sense the overwhelming amount of fear emitting from the two of them, the rest of the staff’s emotions peaking as well.

“I can defend myself out there, tell me how to fix it,” you ask the man, the poor guy not knowing how to respond at first, expecting the pandawan of Lord Jungkook to be just as brutal as the man himself, but before the man could answer to your demands, Yoongi speaks out immediately.

“No, if anything happens to you, Jungkook would have someone’s head,” Yoongi explains, arms crossed against his chest, his eyes stern.

“Well, if we die, he would have no heads to behead so…” you remind Yoongi, rocking on your heels, you know he’d budge, Yoongi is a man of logic, and he always says he isn’t paid enough to be this stressed out about this job.

“Fine, don’t you dare die,” Yoongi warns you before he delves right into the logistics of what went wrong and how to fix it.

“I’m serious kid, don’t you dare fucking die, kid,” Yoongi warns one last time as he helps you with the oxygen mask and oxygen tank.

“Make sure you don’t damage the hose from your tank, there’s a spare tank under hatches where the ship is marked red if you run out, a red flash would keep appearing if there’s a leak or if the oxygen levels start getting low,” Yoongi reminds you one last time.

“I know I know, Cap, you’ve told me so many times I’ve lost count on how many times you repeated this,” you joke as you try to cope with your nerves.

“Okay, I’ll be watching you from here, don’t get out of sight,” was the last thing Yoongi said before you stepped into the escape hatch area before the doors opened and the sight of the on-going battle greets you without any barriers, goosebumps rise on your skin when you take the first step into zero gravity.

Immediately your feet were jerked to stick to the surface of the ship, the magnetic shoes work at least, you think to yourself.

Following Yoongi’s directions, you quickly located the main blaster that was stuck.

However, before you could remove the debris that had the blaster stuck underneath its hatch, you caught the attention of a x-wing that had just took down a few tie fighters, and immediately it fires at your direction, the shield is still up, but you’re not part of the ship, you’d get strike down instantly, and so you did what your fight or flight response told you to do, and that was to roll away before your hand shoots out to jerk the ship away, but sadly, due to its weight, the ship barely moved, it was onto you again once you were back on your two feet.

The x-wing was coming onto you quick, diving down to where you stood, and you let the force guide you, doing a flip to get out of its way before your hand quickly retrieves your lightsaber that was strapped to your space suit to strike the wing of the x-wing, a huge chunk of the wing was chopped off and the ship goes skidding behind you before it comes crashing against the exterior of the control room, the ship blows up but the mothership is unscathed due to the shield barrier surrounding the ship.

A tremor goes through your body when you see Jungkook’s personal ship in your peripheral vision, you can feel the worry in the bond the both of you share, you don’t dwell on his reaction, quickly getting on your feet to fix the blaster as soon as possible, finally getting it unstuck.

Jungkook’s ship makes its way near you again, and you think he’s going to give you a quick ride back to the docking area, but before he could do so, you see a few ships tailing his, coming a little too close to comfort to where both you and Jungkook are situated, an ambush, a flurry of red and white chasing the lone black ship, the rebellion are really eyeing every opportunity to have Jungkook dead.

It was instinctual, you were raised to not have any fear, to die for the cause, even though you weren’t all that dedicated to any of the sides you have been on, but Jungkook is Jungkook, he’s not a side, and you don’t understand why you’re risking your life for him, but it just felt right when you harness all the force in your being to constrain the three ships together, the one in the middle exploding from the pressure while the other two begin to catch fire from the damage, the damage must’ve caught Jungkook’s attention, because before you felt all the energy fade from your body, you see his ship turn its back to you, flashes of red lasers are the last thing you see before your body slumps, your vision blacking out to fade into darkness.

Soft, to the point of being close to what you imagine sleeping on a cloud would feel like, is this how death feels like? So all the jedi afterlife world was complete bullshit? Not surprised, you always thought those jedis that claim to see their dead masters were all in such dire and desperate situations that they started having hallucinations.

But then you feel it, the receptors at the tips of your fingers, the smooth sheets under your palm, you’re alive, then you feel yourself jolting out of bed when your eyes pry themselves open in surprise, a gasp leaving your chest as you sit up.

“Miss is awake! I’ll fetch Lord Jungkook immediately!” you hear the voice of a droid say before the sound of the doors opening and closing reaches your ears.

Another droid dashes to tend to you, checking your pulse, your vision, and brain activity.

���Everything seems to be normal, miss, do you need me to fetch you anything?” the droid asks.

“You’re dismissed, I need to get ready for Jungkook’s arrival,” you say before you decide to power off the droid yourself, you're never too comfortable with droids anyways.

You quickly dash to your bathroom to wash up, change and comb your bird nest of hair, god forbid you let anyone see you like this.

When you come out of your bathroom, you spot Jungkook standing next to the droid, the droid rattling off your stats like it’s listing out a list of resources the ship needs when it lands for a refill.

“You shouldn’t have turned him off, what if you fainted in the bathroom?” Jungkook asks, turning to you after the droid was done with the updates.

“I was overexerted from using all that force, all that sleep got me feeling more refreshed than ever, he said I slept for two days straight,” you nod at the droid’s direction.

“Force exertion is the equivalent to getting a serious injury,” Jungkook says as his eyes scan your face for any signs of pain or discomfort, his hand reaches up to feel your forehead, if those doe eyes won’t be the death of you, that hand will be, you thought to yourself mindlessly before the rational part of your brain scolds you and tells those voices to shut up.

When Jungkook finally deemed you alright, the gentleness in his eyes disappeared.

“What were you thinking out there?! You could’ve gotten yourself killed!” Jungkook bursts out, the cold gaze he usually reserves for others now directed to you, but instead of cowering in fear in silence like others, you’re taken aback by that tone directed at you, never once has he ever reprimanded you this way, not even when you were first taken in as hostage, but you’re never the type to back down when a man raises his voice at you.

“Well, maybe I wanted to die! I was ready to die back when I first got here anyways!”

Jungkook is rarely ever speechless, this is the first time you’ve seen him flabbergasted, and in the worst way possible, you've never felt his wrath on you, the effect making your hairs stand on its ends.

“Did you still want to die? All this time? Even after being under my care?” Jungkook asks, his tone deadly, even if you were deaf, you’d be able to feel it through the force.

“I..” but before you could explain yourself out of the situation, or try to help him understand what you're uncertain you're even feeling yourself, you see the familiar bright sliver of his dagger, the one that you know he keeps by his side as a last means of defense, a weapon that is perfectly deadly in the hands of someone with the force.

You quickly dodge out of the way, summoning the force beneath your feet to elevate yourself, the dagger touching the tip of your feet, you're fast on your feet, on defense, but Jungkook has always been quick on offence, it's why the two of you work so well, the sound of a twang sounds behind you when the dagger etches into the wall, just the tip, before it lands on the metal floor.

“Stop defending yourself if you just want to die!” Jungkook bellows before he comes storming towards you, the blazing red glow of his lightsaber emitting off his sharp features.

At this moment, you don't want to die, you don't want to die seeing Jungkook angry, you don't want to die knowing that you had disappointed him, and so you draw your own lightsaber, quickly deflecting his own, the lasers deflecting sparks off each other, your lightsabers a contrast with one another, Jungkook’s being a shade of dark red, and yours being a faint shade of rogue, his eyes widen at the familiar colours, hesitation flickers across his face, and that's when you make your move, summoning force to your forefront to send Jungkook thumbling a few steps backwards while you catch your breath.

“I don't know how I want to live my life yet! I haven’t phased out from the life I led before you picked me up,” you say, your eyes downcast, you don’t know how to face him, in your defence, that’s the harsh truth, you were always wishing to leave, to get out, but you didn’t think that day would actually come until it did, and now you’re lost, all your life, you’ve been drifting aimlessly, a tree without roots, you don’t know your origins, you don’t know your future, and coming to terms to that in front of a person who probably has everything figured out is…shameful.

You finally look up from where your eyes were previously trained on the rough grip you had on the staff of your lightsaber, even though you could feel Jungkook’s hostility decreasing through the feel of the force, you know he isn’t entirely not angry, and your suspicions are confirmed when you’re greeted by the sight of his locked jaw and cold eyes, his lips still set in a thin line, but his lightsaber is switched off.

“I offered you the position of succeeding me, but you won’t take it, I was paving you a path, a way to live your life, you just have to say yes,” Jungkook looks at you, now with more warmth in his eyes, hopeful, but you can’t, you can’t promise him and yourself something that you’re so uncertain of.

“I’m not sure I have the capabilities to lead as well as you, and I’m not sure if that’s the life I want to live, I’m sorry, Jungkook,” you might as well be honest, it’s manipulative to lead him on just for the sake of the benefits of living here, under the protection of the new order and Jungkook, and if he wishes to end your life right here, then he has every right to.

“You disappoint me,” Jungkook mutters before he turns his back to leave the room, leaving you wondering if maybe you should’ve just said yes to appease him, or that maybe death is a better fate than disappointing the person who you actually sort of look up to.

Later in the day, you don’t see Jungkook, everyone’s busy with packing to get ready to return to base, a first for you, you didn’t even know where you would’ve been staying until a droid came over to tell you that it would be responsible for escorting you to your new quarters.

When you finally arrive, you’re greeted by the sight of a healthy green planet, you were quick to get off, with your limited belongings, the droid enthusiastically escorting you to your new quarters, which turns out to be a large unit within the base.

“Everything’s been modelled to suit the aesthetic you had picked prior, miss, the fridge is stocked, heating is available, running water is available, heated water as well, I was also advised to stock up your wardrobe, everything is according to the measurements you sent, and whatever daily necessities you may need, miss, when things run out, just type in what you need in the tablet available by your bedside, miss,” the droid explains with wide gestures and quick steps to show where everything is.

“Thank you, you’re dismissed, I won’t be needing anything else,” you say with a curt bow, to which the droid returns.

“Before I leave, here’s your keycard, miss, but you can use the facial recognition system which can be turned off in the settings panel as well, no one can come into your room without authorisation, so don’t worry about anyone barging into your room, miss, that is all, miss, have a good rest, miss,” the droid says before finally stepping out the door.

So this is where you’ll be staying when you’re not travelling, you look around with a huff, it is nice, but you’ve never lived in such a spacious place before, being on the run meant you had to sleep in tight places with someone in your personal space, maybe you’re a greedy bitch for wanting the luxuries that come with being Jungkook’s pandawan without accepting the duties that come with it, should you leave? Will he kill you if you do? With all the secrets you know, he probably will…this is a deadend for you.

A few days have passed since arriving to base and Jungkook and you have this cold war going on, you’ve only seen him in passing, he hasn’t scheduled a lesson ever since the confrontation, and maybe it’s a good thing, maybe he needs more time to think of what to do with you, in all honesty, you wouldn’t mind just being one of his fighters, at least you’ll get to stay.

There was a sudden fanfare today when you were out for lunch, you got to know what when the waitress sees you looking confused in your spot, watching the soldiers lining up outside a ship.

“You must be new here, that’s Lord and Lady Kim, they’re close friends with Lord Jungkook, dear, they’re the only few that know of this location and can freely travel in and out of base,” she explains before scurrying away when someone flags for her attention. You quickly finish up your food and return to the main building, it’s best to return in case you’re needed for whatever.

Celebrations were still ongoing when you got back, hopping off your hover car and quickly thanking the droid who works in the valet service.

You ask around to find out that the main celebrations are taking place in the grandhall, where major events are held and important announcements are made, which means the waitress was telling the truth about Lord and Lady Kim being very closely affiliated with Jungkook.

You’ve never seen the grandhall being decorated to the nines, so when the droids open the doors for you, you’re surprised by the grandeur decorations spanning the entire room, even the serving droids look freshly waxed, handing out food and champagne to everyone on shiny platters.

You spot Captain Yoongi a few feet away, nursing a glass of whiskey by himself.

“Hey, do you know them personally?” you ask when Yoongi sees you.

“Kind of yeah, but I’m not one of those kiss-assers,” Yoongi jokes with a jerk of his head to where the crowd is gathered, probably where Lord and Lady Kim are.

“You should say hi at least, be a good friend, cap,” you joke.

“The fact that I’m here is already a reach, I could be taking a nap right now and waited until the dinner to see them,” he retrots, finishing his glass before flagging down a droid for another glass, the two of you watching the people silently, if there’s anything the two of you can definitely get by, it’s people watching, or for Yoongi, people judging.

A few minutes later, the crowd finally parts, and everyone can see why, Jungkook has arrived and has gone straight for the couple, when the crowd parts, so does who you think is Lord Kim and Lady Kim, both of them tall in stature with kind smiles on their faces, you avert your gaze to the side and that's when you see him, Jungkook, saying something to Lord Kim, but when he feels your gaze on him, he diverts his attention to your direction, immediately his eyes harden at the sight of you.

“That's my cue to leave, cap,” you say before quickly downing the rest of your glass.

“Are you seriously going to avoid him forever?” Captain Yoongi asks with a scoff, “you and I both know he's never going to come around, so don't be the stubborn one, kid, he's way more stubborn,” he says, and you know what he means by that, Jungkook has an ego that comes with his reputation after all.

“I just need to figure some things out and so does he, I'm gonna go now, don't miss me too much,” you say before quickly sneaking away.

“Mind telling me who's the young lady that's got you so riled up yet you have no plans of killing her?” Namjoon asks his long time friend, Jungkook is like a younger brother to him at this point if he was being honest, so of course he's intrigued by Jungkook acting this way, a first in the many years he's known him since they were children.

“She's my pandawan, but she rejected my offer of having her lead the new order after me,” Jungkook mutters with disappointment before downing his glass, welcoming the burn of the alcohol down his throat.

“She's not that young though, do you plan on retiring early?” Namjoon asks with a shock, his wife, Sejin is intrigued as well, Jungkook isn't the type to hand over power so quickly based on their understanding of their dear friend.

“She's still many years younger than me, I could still take on another pandawan, or she could, was my initial plan, no one else had piqued my interest like she did, everyone else lacks in talent,” Jungkook explains.

“So you're mad she doesn't want to be your successor? Then you should just dismiss her as pandawan, you can always find a new one” Namjoon suggests with a dismissive wave of his hand, but Sejin could tell something was bothering him and that her husband's dismissive suggestion isn't something Jungkook wants to hear.

“Maybe you can keep her as your right hand woman, not everyone wants to be a leader, Jungkook,” she suggests, and from the way she could see you standing there in silence instead of socialising with the rest of the crowd, she could just tell you have no desire to lead an entire nation.

“Quite out of character for you to not kill her once she told you that,” Namjoon notes, which earns a swat on the arm by his wife, she doesn't want someone dying out of her husband's silly suggestion of all things, they did leave behind this life to lead a peaceful one, and that means as less bloodshed as possible, even indirectly.

“I wanted to, but I couldn't,” Jungkook says without further elaboration as he notes that you have already left the hall.

Namjoon and his wife share a look between themselves when they see the little bits of forlorn on his face that aren't obvious to others.

After a long day of training with R9F7 and practice flying a ship with Captain Yoongi, you felt tired and in dire need of a nap after a shower. When you had finally woken up, you thought of heading down the dining hall for dinner, but a small bouquet of flowers by your doorstep had you stopped in your tracks.

Miffed by the sight of it, you quickly look around to see who left it there, but noting that it's dinnertime now, chances of the person delivering the flowers having left long ago are quite high, so you bring it back in to read the note.

Written in what you presume is the florist’s handwriting, due to how neat it is, is an address, time, and a table reservation number for the restaurant listed.

You quickly change as you debate on whether you should go, whoever sent it is probably quite high in ranking to know which unit you stay, and is probably not someone that is against the order, since your living quarters have high security levels, so who sent those flowers?

Fuck it, you think to yourself, you're perfectly capable of protecting yourself, you reassure yourself as you pull on a dress and a brand new coat, you've never dressed up before, it was merely a fibble dream back then, to think you'd be able to live a stable life of riches and be adorned in the finest silks if you're willing to fight for a greater cause, you scoff at the thought of your old perceptions on life, no one would be able to afford such a life through justice, at least not anywhere in the near future, not as long as Jungkook exists.

Before you left your unit, you quickly strap your lightsaber on your thigh, just in case, you thought to yourself.

You summon R9F7 to drive your hover car, just in case you want to drink during or after the meal, depending on if the person you're meeting is someone you deem you should be weary of.

When you get to your destination, you quickly pat down your hair, maybe you should consider getting a hood installed on your hover car, you think to yourself as you tell R9F7 that he's free to walk around if he wants after he dropped you off.

Heading to the restaurant, you immediately walked up to the employee situated at the front of the property, noting that this place must be expensive if there's service right outside the restaurant and you also see two security droids in place.

“Reservations only, miss,” the waiter informs you without looking up from his tablet, seemingly uninterested in servicing you.

You state the reservation number for him and that's when he finally looks up.

“Please, right this way, miss,” he says as he gestures the droids to open the door, the gust of warm air providing a sense of comfort, until you see how fancy it is on the inside, velvet carpeting with intricate designs, customers dressed fancily, crystal chandeliers hanging from high ceilings, and cutlery that look more like fine jewellery in your eyes, but that's when you notice the stares and the whispers amongst the diners, they must've realised you're not a regular.

“That's the Dark Lord's pandawan, I saw her at the welcome ceremony of the Kims’ that day,” you catch someone saying, loud enough for someone with the force to hear.

You seriously hope no one recognises you in your seating area, you think to yourself before you finally come to a stop at a more secluded area, and the person waiting for you was none other than Lady Kim herself.

“It's nice to finally meet you, I'm not sure if you saw me that day during the welcoming ceremony, I'm Sejin, I've been friends with Jungkook for a long time, but my husband, Namjoon, is much closer to him. I thought I'd take this opportunity to get to know you, now that we're back for a visit, my husband is busy with catching up with his old friends, so I thought I'd take this chance to get to know you first, we're both women after all,” Lady Kim says as she stands up to shake your hand, gesturing you to take the seat in front of her.

“It's nice to meet you, Lady Kim, but I'm not sure why you would want to meet me of all people,” you say honestly, you would've understood if you met under formal circumstances, like being introduced by Jungkook as his pandawan, not in such a private situation, not even on base grounds.

“I wanted to meet you, you're Jungkook’s pandawan after all, being Jungkook’s close friend, I think it's normal to want to meet his pandawan,” she replies as she flags down a waiter to pour you a glass of wine identical to hers.

Gears turn in your head as you try to read the woman in front of you, after being under Jungkook, you've learned that people usually have the worst intentions and assumptions towards you, so you've grown to be cautious with strangers.

“I just thought we would've waited until our formal introduction with Lord Jungkook, but I have no qualms about meeting you for this dinner, Lady Kim,” you explained, not wanting to come off as hostile or reluctant to meet her, you don't want to offend her, especially given the fact that she seems almost like family to Jungkook.

“Please, just call me Sejin, Lady Kim makes me sound so old, and thank you so much for meeting me, sorry for not informing earlier, I was worried you wouldn't be willing to meet me if you had known,” she explains, her expression apologetic, but you understand where she's coming from, you don't like people knowing you're Jungkook’s pandawan either, they always have a bad perception of you.

“I wouldn't have minded, Lady Kim,” you quickly reply, still not forgoing the honorific, but she quickly amends you, chastising you in a lighthearted manner to not call her by her title.

“How old are you, darling? You look so young,” she remarks as the first two dishes are being laid on the table, you sure hope she didn't order too much, or anything too exotic, you weren't familiar with what people on the dark side eat until just a few months ago, there's still many things you've never tried.

“I'm 21,” you say before thanking Sejin for putting food on your table, even the ham looks fancier than usual in this restaurant.

“Oh my, you must've been so young when you were taken in by your first master,” Sejin exclaims, chopsticks hanging idly between her fingers when she registers what you said.

“I was trained under a jedi master before Jungkook,” you answer honestly, but albeit, hesitant, your loyalty lies with Jungkook, but you know the whispers of some of his men, how you're unworthy because you used to be under the rebellion.

“Darling, you don't have to be ashamed about your past, in fact, I was trained in a rebellion academy too,” Sejin says, which has your eyes going as wide as saucers.

“It wasn't the main rebellion base, just a small academy started by an old master who takes in orphaned kids who were blessed by the force but too old to be enrolled in the official academy, I was to be killed the day the dark forces found the base, but Namjoon pleaded his master, also Jungkook’s master at the time, to give me a chance to live and prove myself worthy, so that's how I met Namjoon and Jungkook, Jungkook was still so young at the time, time flew by so fast after we left, in a blink of an eye, he now has now his own pandawan,” Sejin says with a sigh, nostalgia heavy in her tone, but she seems happy about the way her life turned out too.

“Why did you and Namjoon leave?” you couldn't help but ask, sitting up straighter, engrossed in Sejin’s life story.

“I wanted a life beyond all this, I felt like growing up, from the moment I was abandoned at war, picked up by my old master and met Namjoon, I felt like all I did was training for something that I didn't feel passion for, Namjoon felt like he was doing it out of obligation as well, especially being the oldest one, he was expected to lead the New Order, but Jungkook took over instead when our old master died, he was always the one that's more passionate about leading the New Order, so Namjoon and I decided to leave, start a life for ourselves, to see the universe. So I understand if you have no desire to follow Jungkook’s footsteps, I've been at such a crossroad too, but I think he didn't receive the news all that well because maybe a part of him still feels like he was abandoned by Namjoon and I,” Sejin explained.

“I'm sorry you had to go through so much at such a young age,” you know how hard it is, having experienced it first hand, but you know she must've had it even harder, Jungkook treats you as an equal despite being his pandawan, but you're sure their old master, being someone of more traditional upbringing, couldn't have treated them as well.

“It's fine, it's been so long, I've moved on quite alright, but I just want to let you know, I'm here to offer you a chance to leave this all behind too, Namjoon and I never had any children, nor do we plan to, since we always move around in fear of being caught or killed, we talked and decided that if you ever want to live with us, we welcome you with open arms,” Sejin offers with sincerity in her eyes, you can see the moisture in them, and you know where she's coming from, she sees herself in your life story too.

“Thank you so much for giving me the chance to leave with you, but I can't leave Jungkook, my loyalties lie with him, he saved my life and I'll always be grateful to him, I can't imagine myself not being under his servitude,” you decline politely, if it wasn't Jungkook you would've taken up on her offer, but you don't have any aspirations other than protecting the one who saved you from your miserable life, even if he demands to have you killed, you wouldn't have any qualms.

“Jungkook saved my life, if he wants me to hand over my life for not following his footsteps, then that's a price I'm willing to pay,” you elaborate further before sighing, you've sealed your fate since the day you accepted his offer, and you always keep your word.

“Darling, he's not going to kill you for not taking over his place, if he wanted to kill you he would've done so long ago, I know I might be prying, but I feel like there's another reason for wanting to stay by his side, do you perhaps hold affection towards Jungkook?” Sejin asks with a knowing smile on her face, not a sliver of judgement, but you feel like you've been gobsmacked by the force in its entirety.

“I wouldn't even dare dream of such a thing, goodness,” you say with a weak chuckle, quickly distracting yourself with your drink, taking a quick sip, you would've downed the whole thing, but that would make you look ridiculous.

Thankfully the food has finally arrived, temporarily diverting both of your attention.

“I won't question you further, there are some things you need figuring out yourself,” she says before she plates some food onto your plate with a knowing smile on her face.

*I ran out of image limit so this is my new page break, sorry guys*

“I saw your pandawan leaving base all dressed up when I was on my way here,” Namjoon brings up midway through dinner at Jungkook’s chambers.

The man across from him immediately stops chewing on his steak, the force around them strumming in suspense, even without the force, they would've felt the hostility in the air even if they can't see the hardened expression on Jungkook’s face.

“Maybe it's just a friend,” Namjoon says offhandedly, and then Jungkook stiffens up, instantly he lets go of his hold on the force, but Namjoon is used to this sort of suffocation, he had to deal with teenage Jungkook after all.

“It doesn't matter,” Jungkook brushes off, resumes cutting his steak, but with a new sense of vigour, the knife scratching the surface of the plate.

“You can't lie to me, Jungkook, need I remind you we grew up together?” Namjoon teases, but he's still concerned, he's never seen his friend invested in something other than his work, “You need to tell her how you feel,” Namjoon advises, though he knows what Jungkook is thinking when he sees the clench of his jaw, and just as Namjoon predicted, Jungkook refutes immediately.

“That's my pandawan we’re talking about,” Jungkook deadpans, staring down at his long time friend.

“I know, just because I'm in my forties, doesn't mean I'm hard of hearing, and just because you're in your 30s, doesn't mean you're an old man, she's only in her 20s, that's not very far apart,” Namjoon explains, because he knows what Jungkook’s mindset is right now, he thinks he's too old for you.

“Don't be ridiculous, she's in her early twenties, she deserves someone her own age, not me,” Jungkook protests with an agitated sigh before he downs the rest of his whisky, the droid immediately refilling his glass, as dutiful as ever, but maybe out of fear too.

“Why are you so against the idea of being with your pandawan? She's an adult, what are you scared of? Definitely not what other people might say. Are you scared you might take advantage of her?” Namjoon retorts to elicit a reaction out of Jungkook, and it's instant.

“I would cut off my own arm before I would even think of doing anything without her permission,” Jungkook says with the force omitting from Jungkook’s body in waves, the droid at the side quietly scoots away from his previous spot closer to Jungkook.

“Then why are you so against the idea of being romantically involved with her?” Namjoon questions with a gentle tone, he's gotten his point across, he doesn't need to press further, Jungkook is in denial, but nowhere near dumb, he just wanted to know why his dear friend is torturing himself by denying his own feelings, but if he won't tell him now, he'll just have to try his best to pry later.

*page break*

The forest stands intimidating as the winds howl and the trees waver under its force, the sound of leaves rustling a familiar tune for Jungkook and Namjoon.

“Can't believe we didn't do this the last time you came back,” Jungkook says as he watches the scenery with a fond nostalgia.

“Didn't know you'd still fancy hunting this much, after so many years of being the Dark Lord,” Namjoon muses with a shake of his head, but he'd ought to know better, Jungkook always had a sense of childlike adventure and a hunger for a challenge, it's why he enjoys what he does.

“Hunting creatures sometimes trains my wits more than hunting people, people are getting more stupid by the day,” Jungkook says before he orders a trooper to open the weapon crate, “Weapon of choice? I'll let you pick since you're my hyung,” Jungkook says before he walks aside to let Namjoon take a look.

Namjoon digs around, uninterested, until he finds a rod shaped weapon, with a click of a button, it unfolds itself into a spear.

“Always have an eye for the unconventional ones,” Jungkook mutters but laments, picking up another spear from the crate.

“That's what makes things fun, Jungkook, gotta keep you on your toes, that's what I'm here for on this boring planet,” Namjoon says before he takes off into the forest, the familiar scent of the trees greeting him like a warm hug.

The sun is nowhere near setting, but in this forest, the rays are blocked by the thick trees overhead. However, Jungkook isn't worried about the darkness, he's trained to see through the force instead of his vision, the force to users as skilled as Jungkook, is like touching the fabric of existence, able to map out every obstacle around him like a physical map.

He hasn't gone hunting ever since the last time he did it with Namjoon, but the forest doesn't feel the same since then, it's too empty. Jungkook hasn't felt a creature other than some bugs for miles, which is an odd occurrence for a forest that he knows is abundant with wildlife.

Something feels terribly off, and he hates that feeling, especially when it's happening on home base.

Instead of trekking for animals, he's now feeling the force for Namjoons's whereabouts, but he must've walked further away from him to have a better chance of higher numbers, he isn't on Jungkook’s radar anymore, and communication doesn’t work in this forest, they did agree to meet back out in an hour's time, but his gut tells him to not dwell.

Suddenly, he feels footsteps, lots of them, then he registers it, a stampede, and it's coming his way.

Creatures he's all too familiar with, even the more ferocious ones, are chasing the tail of some small creatures, but not as predators, because Jungkook can sense the fear in all the creatures in the stampede.

Jungkook immediately summons the force to jump onto a high branch, perched on a higher ground to observe what's happening below, he still can't see nor feel the creature that caused this stampede, but he knows it must be ragesome for it to trigger a stampede in the forest, and he has a sinking feeling that it isn't native.

Then he feels it, a thrumming in the force, a disturbance, but a familiar strum has Jungkook on alert, Namjoon is close, but he's miffed by the fact that both the creature and Namjoons's presence are ascending his way simultaneously.

By now Jungkook doesn't need to use the force to keep track of the creature, the whole forest is shaking from the weight of its heavy footfalls.

Lo and behold, there he sees it, a green 10 feet tall reptile on all fours, huffing and shaking its head, clung onto his neck is no other than Namjoon himself, trying his hardest to hold on for his life while he tries to stab the creature with the spear that acts more like a sharp stick against this monster.

Jungkook has no idea where this creature came from or why his hyung is on its back, but he's damn sure he isn't going to let Namjoon die in the jaws of this monster.

“Joon! Get off its back!” Jungkook shouts from the top of his lungs, getting the attention of his hyung, thankfully, he heard him or felt his intentions through the force, and so he leaps off its back to the side, rolling to safety.

Jungkook descends from his spot from the branch, summoning the force to cease the creature in its tracks by exuding pressure in front of it, acting as a temporary barrier.

The creature’s weight has Jungkook skidding back a few steps, shaking its head, confused as to why there's something in its way despite not seeing any physical obstacle, but then its eyes zero in on Jungkook’s figure a few feet away, and with a mighty roar that showcases its sharp teeth, it decides to pounce on Jungkook, but Jungkook once again stops it with his force before he wields his lightsaber purely with the force, calling it from where he laid it out for safekeeping right outside the forest, thankfully they've moved closer to the forest clearing, Jungkook was planning on ending it once and for all by plunging the weapon into its throat, however, the creature had unfortunately caught sight of Jungkook’s lightsaber, and with a swish of its tail, albeit with a wail of pain from the burn of the saber, the lightsaber is smashed to pieces, distracted by his prized weapon destroyed right in front of his eyes, Jungkook was was nearly bitten by the creature if Namjoon hadn't used the force to pull him out of the way.

“Fuck, did you bring your lightsaber?” Jungkook asks.

“No, I didn't expect we'd come across anything that needed one,” Namjoon says before he advances onto the monster once again, with the spear in hand, he leaps onto the monster’s neck once more, angering it.

“Try to strike its eyes out!” Namjoon suggests, and with a sigh, Jungkook follows suit, trying his best to balance with the aid of the force, Jungkook tries to get the spear into its throat, but the reptile's strong scales wouldn't budge, protecting itself like an armour.

“The spear isn't strong enough to penetrate its scales, if we blind it, we might be able to find its weak spot on its underbelly,” Namjoon informs Jungkook, to which the latter nods, trying his best to weaken its sight, but things prove to be tough since the monster is trying its hardest to shake them off like they're merely pesky flies.

Jungkook hopes they'll get out of this alive.

*page break*

An insistent throbbing in the back of your head rouses you from your nap, immediately you can tell something’s wrong, and that something being Jungkook, you're not sure how it works, but having a force bond with someone is like an invisible string, and the throbbing at the back of your head is similar to a thread being yanked on, beckoning you for help, even if the person in danger didn't specifically asked for you.

You quickly get dressed and grab your hoverboard, you shouldn't be riding it in hallways, but the route from your unit to Jungkook’s unit is quite near, some staff did give you the side eye, but you needed to be quick.

“Droid, where's Lord Jungkook?” you ask the droid standing guard as you skid to a stop in front of Jungkook’s unit.

“Lord Jungkook has went hunting with Lord Kim in the forest, miss, would you like to schedule an appointment to meet with Lord Jungkook after he comes back?” the droid asks, but you have taken off in a haste once you knew of his location.

After zooming through the hallways with many apologies given, you finally reach the entrance of the forest, and gathered around an empty clearing are five storm troopers.

“Lord Jungkook is in danger, I need all of you to follow me into the forest,” you ordered, all of them scrambled to their feet, but the leader, the one with a red graphic print on their shoulder pad remains seated.

“With all due respect, miss, but we were ordered to await Lord Jungkook’s arrival back from the forest, and given Lord Jungkook’s capabilities, I doubt he is in any danger,” they dismissed.

“Are you questioning my authority and capability of wielding the power of the force?!” you question with a flick of your wrist, the trooper is being tossed high up into the air, screaming on top of their lungs before they begin apologising and pleading for your forgiveness.

“Miss, look, there's birds flying out in flocks from that direction,” another trooper informs you, so you quickly let the trooper down and hop on your hoverboard.

“I sent all of you my tracking so you can follow my lead, call backup as well,” you say before taking off into the direction of where the commotion was at.

You've been in the forest many times to train alone, but you've never delved into the thick of it like this before, where the trees are more dense from one another.

You try feeling your way through the forest as well as following Jungkook’s energy force like a beacon, but one thing for sure, there's definitely something that doesn't belong in the forest, you can sense its immense size sticking out like a sore thumb amongst the other creatures.

When you reach a clearing, you see the monster in its entirety, its eyes blazing, mad that Jungkook and Lord Kim are trying their best to deter it in its path by blocking its vision, though, you can tell they're trying their best to injure it.

“Jungkook get out of the way!” you shout from the top of your lungs as you summon your knives, the knives flying through the air with the power of your force, Jungkook dodges right before the knives are impaled into its left eye, roaring at the pain, and also distracted, you used this chance to take it down, your lightsaber alight before you took off, summoning the force to give you a boost to your jump, stabbing the lightsaber into its neck before you let the force of gravity do its thing, slicing its neck all the way down.

You jump back when the blood of the creature starts to spray out in jets, but in doing so, you miss the snap of its jaw, you feel a familiar hand reach out to grab you before the creature could have your life one last time, you were pushed away, a loud curse reaches your ear, you look back to see Jungkook throwing a spear with all his might into the monsters jaw, the creature whimpers at the unexpected pain, before it finally succumbs to its injuries, falling to the side lifelessly.

With a sigh of relief, you quickly turn to Jungkook, but your blood runs cold at the sight, his back has obvious scratch marks from the creature's teeth and his clothes are drenched in his blood.

“Jungkook!” you call with a wretched sob before the man before you sways, you quickly catch him before he falls, his whole weight crashing onto you.

Then you hear the troopers, most of them bought weapons but thankfully one of them thought of bringing a stretcher, better late than never at least, you thought with a sigh.

Lord Kim calls out your name before offering you help in manoeuvring Jungkook onto the stretcher.

“Jungkook’s going to be fine, he's seen worse, let's hurry back to get you checked out as well,” Lord Kim says as he checks you for any obvious injuries.

“Thank you, Lord Kim,” you say with a bow, but he quickly dismisses you and tells you to call him by his name as well, just like his wife.

You can’t help but worry when you watch the many different machines scanning him and tending to his wounds, you can’t help the pangs of aches in your heart when the sight of his old battle scars meets your eyes.

“You’ve been overlooking the droids for a long time now, darling, the next procedure’s going to be more invasive, how about we let the droids work in privacy?” Sejin says, and immediately the droids start undressing Jungkook more, so you quickly agree and make a turn to leave Jungkook’s room in a haste.

“You need to get some rest yourself, darling, you can visit him after the droids are done,” Sejin says, and you agree, you do feel tired after all that’s happened.

*page break*

A groan leaves Jungkook when he rouses, a slight ache settling into his body, nothing out of the ordinary, but what he didn’t expect was the weight that he feels on the area of his wrist, he cracks opens his eyes and he sees you, asleep, bent over with your arms folded as a makeshift pillow, then everything comes rushing over him, the beast, you swooping in to help him and Namjoon fight it off, and him getting hurt because of saving you.

Jungkook sighs to himself at the reminder of that memory, he can’t avoid you any longer, it’s not professional nor it is healthy for the two of you moving forward by putting a strain on your relationship this way, but he can’t help but be pissed that you almost got hurt again, but he knows he and Namjoon would’ve struggled to take down that monster by themselves.

Jungkook sees you stir just as the force bond tingles at the back of his neck.

You jolt awake at the sight of Jungkook awake and staring at you with those intense eyes of his, and so you did the thing you rarely ever do, bolting.

“I’m gonna go inform Lord and Lady Kim,” you mutter in one breath and leave before Jungkook could say anything to you.

Jungkook sighs before he hears a droid coming to him to rattle off his vitals, he begrudgingly leaves the comfort of his bed to wash up, and when he comes out, Namjoon and Sejin are seated on his living room sofa.

“Look who finally decided to wake up,” Namjoon teases before he engulfs his friend into a bone crushing hug, a hand patting his back a little too hard, but Jungkook’s used to it by now.

“How long was I out?” Jungkook asks when his friend finally pulls away.

“About two days, silly girl didn’t leave your side ever since you laid on that bed,” Namjoon informs, and that’s when Jungkook notices it.

His home is usually very neat, he’s what most people call a neat freak, but now there’s things scattered around, a practice stick laying on the ground, a book of his on the coffee table with a bookmark shoved in haphazardly, and some of his photo frames misplaced, and scarily enough, he doesn’t feel an ounce of irritation.

“Poor girl didn’t leave your bedside, worried to death,” Sejin pipes up with a glint in her eyes, she knows the topic about the two of you can’t be avoided at this point.

“You should’ve told her I was going to be fine and to get back to her own life,” Jungkook says with a sigh, thinking about how you were cooped up here for almost 3 days.

“You think we didn’t try telling her that? She didn’t listen, as stubborn as you are, unsurprisingly, but that’s what you saw in her isn’t it?” Namjoon teases and Jungkook turns away to his shelf, seemingly arranging his things, but he’s just looking at what you browsed according to the movement of his things.

“That’s what I saw in her as my pandawan,” Jungkook clarifies but he hears Sejin’s snicker.

Jungkook lifts up a snowglobe of some sort from his collection of random things from his endeavours before he abruptly slams it down when he hears both of his friends now blatantly laughing at him.

“Are the two of you here to inquire about my health or gossip about me in front of my face?” Jungkook questions, turning back to face his friends with a scorned expression, he’s not used to people blatantly going against him this way.

“Oh come on, Jungkook, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to get my lick back for all the years you teased me about Sejin,” Namjoon jokes.

Jungkook curses at his teenage self for not shutting up, with a roll of his eyes, he plops down on the couch with a huff, and suddenly, Jungkook looks so much like his younger self to the couple.

“Cut him some slack, love, I wasn’t your pandawan, so things do seem more complicated, but these are just surface things, Jungkook ah, if you have no bad intentions then what’s stopping you? If anything happens, you’ll regret having not been loved or have loved someone, trust me, Namjoon and I, we’ve been in tight situations before we left all this behind, and in that moment, I had no regrets because I had a fulfilled life loving and being loved by Namjoon, but I understand why you’re hesitant, since you’re all good and up on your feet, we’ll leave you to continue resting up, we’ll come by tomorrow again,” Sejin says, tugging a very confused Namjoon on his feet.

“Let the poor boy figure things out, he’s just woken up and now he’s clouded by all these emotions,” he hears Sejin say under her breath to Namjoon, but Jungkook doesn’t hear what Namjoon says, nor does he bother to correct Sejin that he’s no longer the boy that she used to watch over with Namjoon but in fact a grown man in his 30s.

After his friends’ departure, Jungkook sits in silence in his own unit, ‘are you not coming back to check up on him?’, he wonders with a displeased sigh.

When it gets late to the point where he knows you’re most probably asleep, he gives up waiting on you. Jungkook’s eyes land on a bracelet he’s never seen before when he heads to bed, sitting idly on his nightstand, ‘did his droids find this when they were cleaning his room during his brief coma?’ he wonders to himself, but he doesn’t remember any of his past conquests wearing anything of this sort, but to be fair, he doesn’t remember much about them, if anything arises his suspicions, he’ll just check the cameras in his home, he brushes the bracelet off, he’ll just drop it off lost and found tomorrow, he decides before letting sleep consume him once more.

But not long after he fell asleep, at least according to the clock on his bedside, he hears rustling coming from his living room, he immediately jerks awake at the realisation, summoning the force, the spare lightsaber he owns flying into his outstretched arm before he creeps into his own living room.

His eyes lock in on a familiar figure and now that he’s more awake, he can sense it’s you just by the bond.

“What are you doing here at this hour?” Jungkook questions while he lowers his weapon, letting his guard back down.

You turn around with a surprise gasp from your hunched position over his couch, seemingly searching for something before he caught you like a deer in headlights.

“I realised a bracelet of mine is missing, it was gifted to me by Lady Kim and I’m having breakfast with her tomorrow, so I had to come back to look for it or it’d seem rude to show up without it,” you explain in one frantic breath, standing a little too straight for comfort now.

“You could’ve come to get it earlier,” Jungkook deadpans, arms folded over his chest with a sigh.

“Well. I didn’t want to disturb you, and Lord and Lady Kim were over, so I didn’t want to intrude,” you say, but both of you know that’s not the main reason.

“The droids picked up your bracelet, it’s in my room,” Jungkook says, turning back to the direction of his bedroom, silently beckoning you to follow him, which you do.

Then you see the familiar glint of the beads on his nightstand that you had familiarised yourself with the past few days.

Jungkook takes a seat on his bed before he retrieves the bracelet from his nightstand, beckoning you over with a flick of his wrist, and so you move to stand before him, gently, he grasps your non-dominant hand in his before he slides the bracelet back onto your wrist.

“Take a seat, I’m not here to discipline you,” Jungkook says before patting the spot on the bed next to him.

“We need to have a talk about how you’re constantly putting yourself in danger for me, but in short, stop doing that, don’t risk your life for me,” Jungkook says curtly, keeping things straight to the point.

“Why are you acting like I’m the one who got hurt?” you retorted, but before Jungkook could remind you of what happened, you beat him to it, you have a fast mouth on you, that Jungkook acknowledges.

“I get it, you saved me, but if I wasn’t there, that monster might’ve hurt you or Lord Kim like really badly, just because you’re my master, doesn’t mean you’re invincible,” you reasoned, and Jungkook equally loves and hates this part of you, the way you stand up to him with little to no fear, he doesn’t have many equals in this position other than Namjoon and Sejin, but unfortunately for you, this is what keeps Jungkook on his toes and also the reason his temper fires up.

“I’m not invincible, but you’re not either!” Jungkook retrots, his voice booming in his spacious unit, his eyes ablaze, chest heaving. Jungkook rarely ever raises his voice, if he’s mad at someone for a failed task, he’d merely dispose of them, which is why he’s bad at controlling his emotions around you, he’s never needed to keep himself in check and this doesn’t help the fact that you’re a hot headed person yourself too.

“You don’t get it do you? I don’t want you to risk your life for me!” Jungkook’s so agitated to the point where he’s stood up now, a hand running through his hair.

“We’re all risking our lives for this cause anyway, what’s the difference between me and you?! Why are you ‘allowed’ to get hurt for this cause but I’m not?! Wh-

“Because I can’t stand to see you hurt!”

“What’s the difference between me and all the other millions of people under you?!”

Hearing your outburst, Jungkook walks away with a shake of his head, going to that planet and insisting on wiping out your old master and the rest of his pandawans turned his life over like a snowglobe, and he doesn’t know if it’s for the better when the snowstorm in his head is still raging.

“Don’t make me say it,” Jungkook mutters under his breath, defeated almost, something you’d never thought you’d ever describe Jungkook as.

“Cherishing someone isn’t a sign of weakness, Jungkook,” you lament with a sigh, if this was your bed you would’ve crashed onto it, reasoning with Jungkook is such a mental turmoil.

“It’s wrong if it goes beyond the limit,” Jungkook says, throwing his hands up, very much exasperated, and the sight of you seemingly so calm and collected just pisses him off more.

“What limit, Jungkook?! You’re backing yourself into this non-existent wall for no goddamn reason-

“Because I have feelings for you!” Jungkook bellows, his facial muscles strained to the point where you think he might actually self-combust, then in a flash, you’re being thrown backwards onto Jungkook’s bed, the wind knocked out of you, distantly you can hear Jungkook’s furniture and knick knacks in his room falling over in quick thumps and numerous shatters of glass.

“Fuck,” you hear Jungkook curse before he comes rushing over to you, his worried face coming into view.

“I’m fine, not hurt,” you say before Jungkook helps you sit up from his bed.

“I had no idea having feelings for me is such an agonising experience to the point where you’d have such an explosive reaction,” you mutter bitterly as you sit up from Jungkook’s bed.

“It’s agonising because it’s not right, not because of you,” Jungkook says in a disheartened tone, looking away from you, head hanging low in the glow of his lamp in the corner.

“You’re big bad Dark Lord and you’re scared about what people say behind your back?!” you question with full offence, head whipped to the direction of the pathetic man you’d looked up to for so long, he tenses up at your accusation, and he turns to face you in an instant, his venomous eyes piercing into yours.

“If someone even dares to speak ill of me or you, they’ll regret it in their last dying breath,” Jungkook warns with a slight growl, and to your dismay, it sends a chill down your spine.

“Then what’s your damn issue? Don’t tell me you suddenly have a moral high ground, you kill and torture, but you’re not willing to touch your pandawan?!” you shout in his face before you could register to filter that damn primal part of yourself.

“It’s because I’m so much older you, god damnit!” Jungkook retorts, hands flailing, you’ve never seen him so out of his damn mind, and it kind of feeds into your ego that you can make the most powerful man in the universe crumble this way.

“So what? I’m an adult, now and back when we met,” you say a little calmly for Jungkook’s liking, like he’s pathetic for having all these valid concerns.

“I could be your father at this age of mine,” Jungkook mutters dejectedly.

“Maybe boys my age are of no interest to me, have you thought about that?” you fire back, and Jungkook looks at you like you just said the most scandalised thing he’s ever said, you hate it when he babies you like a child, you have made no reckless decision ever since you came here, your most reckless being hurling a giant rock at Jungkook, not that it matters, it got his attention, and now you have him at your feet.

Suddenly, you feel yourself taken over by a crazy amount of confidence, something must’ve possessed you for you to have the courage to walk over to him, and grasp his face in your hands, the way your dainty fingers envelope his sharp features is a sight you won’t be able to forget, but it’s the way his doe eyes get lost in yours is what made your breath hitch, so you swallow the lump in your throat, the power exchange is borderline addictive, yes, Jungkook is slightly more vulnerable at this moment than you’ve ever seen him, but admitting your feelings to him, your heart on your sleeve for his taking in itself is a form of submission, especially for someone as headstrong as you, and you prove your assumptions true when suddenly his eyes sharpen, piercing into your soul like daggers.

“If you want this, I need to know that you’re mine and I’m yours alone,” he says, his voice tense, as if just the thought of you being with someone else sets off his temper.

“I’m yours for the taking,” you say before you finally seal your lips with his, along with your fate.

*page break*

Celebrations are in full swing after Jungkook led everyone to a victorious conquer of yet another galaxy, but that didn’t come easily, some troopers had sacrificed their lives, many injured, you didn’t get out without a few gashes and many bruises too, but what hurt the most were your ears after being lectured by Jungkook for getting hurt, which is ironic, because he had himself battered up too, you didn’t even bat an eye, just patching him up diligently every single time.

Though now, you hold no grudge against him for that, not when he’s having his big day now, which is why you’re dolled up for the night, well, it’s nothing considered too fancy as compared of the many flamboyant outfits you’ve seen the noblewomen adorn day in and out, but it is however, considered dressing up for you, in a glittery dress that shows off your silhouette.

Eyes trace your figure when you make your way through the hall where the celebratory dinner is held, all the way until Jungkook notices you, then the eyes on you, which were quickly diverted when they catch the scowl on his face, but it was quickly wiped off his face when he greets you.

“You look beautiful tonight,” Jungkook whispers to you when you take your seat next to him, eyes discreetly looking over at what he can see of your dress from this angle.

“You don’t look too bad yourself too,” you say instantly, holding your tongue on how you love it when he tight fitted formal attire like these, unfortunately, still black, but it’s almost impossible to convince the man to wear any other colour, but purple does make an appearance once in a while, he has almost ten purple shirts in his closet, and yes, you went through his closet just to see if everything was black to confirm your suspicions.

“Thank you, darling,” Jungkook drawls with one more greedy glance at your appearance before he goes back to people watching, observing who would most likely walk up to him next to talk now that you’re in his presence, everyone wants to know more about the apple of Jungkook’s eye, no one had expected Jungkook, with the temper he has going on, would ever be patient enough to teach someone, especially someone from enemy lines.

“Lord Jungkook, congratulations on the success of your last excursion, achieving great things alongside your pandawan I can see,” Lord Bautinite says, a didynon who’s older than the both of you combined says, but instead of addressing Jungkook properly, the old man is staring at you with his big bug eyes that Jungkook’s holding back the urge to poke out.

“Lord Jungkook did most of the heavy lifting, Lord Bautitine, but thank you for your confidence in my capabilities, I’m merely doing my best to support Lord Jungkook on the field,” you say, always humble, Jungkook lost count on the many times you watched his back for him and patched him up, he wouldn’t have successfully conquered that galaxy if you weren’t there.

“What a humble pandawan you got yourself, Jungkook, have you thought about who to arrange her marriage to?” Lord Bautitine asks with a hopeful glint in his eye that has your temper flaring up, but no one else would feel but Jungkook, due to the force bond between you and Jungkook that has gotten even stronger because your relationship with Jungkook exceeds the depth of a normal master-pandawan relationship, the two of you could feel every change and flicker of emotion no matter how brief and how far the two of you are physically. Jungkook doesn’t expect you to lash out though, you never do, you’re the opposite of Jungkook, Jungkook lets his anger be known by everyone, but you could be feeling even angrier than Jungkook about a situation but your face would give nothing away.

“My pandawan is a grown adult who’s capable of making her own decisions, I have no desire to arrange a marriage for her, she’s free to choose who she wants to be with or to stay single,” Jungkook answers without a second of hesitation, he knows this question would come up sooner or later.

“I have no desire for marriage in the near future, Lord Bautitine, for now my passion lies in serving The New Order only,” you reply with a smile plastered on your face while your temper continues to flare up the force, Jungkook doesn’t know how you do it.

“It’d be a pity to lose such a useful worker to marriage so soon, though I’m sure she will still dedicate a lot her time in her work, I might not be very lenient on her partner if they ever get in the way of her and her work though,” Jungkook says, an indirect warning that underlies the meaning of fuck off.

“Why yes, I hope you find someone who respects your boundaries one day,” Lord Bautitine says to you before he quickly excuses himself to speak to someone else passing by.

“It’s insane how well you manage to compose your anger,” Jungkook says with an amused shake of his head, he was trying so hard not to kill him, but he knows Lord Bautitine has influence in the local economy here, it’d be messy to kill him off.

“I’m surprised you’re getting better at managing your anger too,” you have to give tens where tens are due.

“If he had laid a hand on you he would be dead by now,” Jungkook says casually before taking a swig of his drink, smiling over the rim of his glass when he sees you laugh and your anger fizzling out, but soon, there’s more people to meet, only excusing yourself when the next course rolls out, you don’t mind socialising with Jungkook, but you would never compromise for food and Jungkook respects that.

Deeper into the night, you excuse yourself and leaving Jungkook to his own devices, Jungkook knows your social battery has a limit and he has no desire to drag you around talking to dickheads anyways, it’s normal for you to retire earlier when there’s events like these, and if anyone dares to question Jungkook about your loyalties and hard work, Jungkook allows his displeasure to be known in the most brutal way possible.

*page break*

When Jungkook finally retires to his own quarters, he breathes a sigh of relief when he takes in the comfort of his abode that once felt empty to him, most days you slept over, you practically live here, and so Jungkook’s home now has bright pops of colours, cute cushions from the market, your cup on the kitchen island, and the many jewellery you have lying around here and there that Jungkook bought many of, he reminds himself that this is what he’s doing for, staying in power means he has the means to keep you safe, Jungkook reminds himself as he quietly peels away his clothes to hop in the shower for a quick rinse before joining you in bed, a cute bundle between his sheets.

However, to his surprise, the cute bundle between his sheets is now laying on his bed, your smooth legs posed enticingly, kicking the air lightly while your bum takes the spotlight, the giant red bow sitting prettily at the dip of your back catching Jungkook’s attention instantly.

“What do we have here? Thought you were fast asleep,” Jungkook questions as he rounds his bed with quick strides, tossing his towel aside when he deems his hair dry enough.

“I was, but I heard you in the shower,” you’ve always been a light sleeper from years of being on the run, Jungkook sighs when he remembers that fact, he’s so glad he had that old man die a painful death for what he put you through.

“Aren’t you tired? You didn’t have to do all this for me, having the pleasure to hold you close is enough of a blessing,” Jungkook says as he slides into bed next to you, his nose immediately goes to the juncture of your neck, inhaling your scent mixed with his shower gel, tickling you in the process, his chest blooming at the sound of your sweet giggle.

“Missed you, you’ve been so busy, you deserve a reward too, for all your hard work in the order,” you say before you lead his face to yours, capturing his lips with yours, your hand tangling into his hair, your breath hitching when you feel Jungkook manoeuvre you atop of his lap, he wants you as close as possible after being apart for so long, it’s been only 4 hours max, but Jungkook is a fiend for your presence.

When Jungkook could tell you were getting lightheaded from the lack of oxygen, he pulled away, his eyes immediately trained on the way your eyes had glossed out, lost in the kiss the two of you shared.

“Gorgeous,” Jungkook praises under his breath as he brushes your hair back from your face, taking the sight of you in, he's the luckiest man in this universe, and it's not because of the empire he has, but because of you.

“You mentioned a reward just now, darling,” Jungkook reminds you, with his thumb holding your chin in place, he knows that such a simple gesture has your panties slicking up, always a menace in riling you up.

“Wanna make you feel good,” you emphasise with a roll of your hips, Jungkook’s length twitching at the action, impatient to be inside of you, “but first, how about dessert?” you ask before lightly pushing Jungkook to lay on his back, an amused huff leaving his lips.

“It's like you read my mind, sweetheart,” Jungkook says as he bunches up your nightgown, surprised but very much happy to find that you had forgone panties tonight, “don't hold back, I want your entire weight on my face,” Jungkook demands, knowing that you have the tendency to hover over his face instead of giving him the full meal.

You sigh at your lover’s insistence, so instead of replying him, you take your seat, successfully shutting up and satisfying him, obvious by the groan he emits once he gets the first taste of you, groaning into your core, the vibrations and his tongue have you gasping for air, quickly holding onto the headboard for your dear life.

Jungkook has always been straight to the point in all aspects of his life, which is why he immediately dives his tongue deep inside, the action messes your balance while you curse from the sudden shocks of pleasure, Jungkook, being the observant lover he is, immediately notices and stables you with a palm on one of your cheeks, taking the chance to grab a handful of you, making you squeak at the pinch of his fingers.

Jungkook smiles against your flesh, and to level up a notch, he then frees his other hand from where it was wrapped around your calf to where your bundle of nerves reside, drawing quick circles, timing them perfectly with the thrust of his tongue that has you gasping his name breathlessly between moans.

Jungkook could sense you were getting closer when you started grinding down to meet his tongue, he could sense the beating of your heart quickening, and lets you do as you please, eyes wide open as he takes in the beautiful, but slightly obstructed sight of you chasing your own pleasure with his face, you being rightfully in your place, Jungkook might as well be the king of this universe, but you are the queen of his world, and a queen deserves the rightful place of a throne, and what better throne than Jungkook himself?

When you finally reach your high, Jungkook rolls your hips for you, helping you ride out your orgasm while stabling you atop of him as you convulse, your knuckles whiten as you let yourself be overtaken by the pleasure coursing through your body, completely undone by Jungkook’s expert hand and mouth, you can feel that he's drinking you in, trying his best to collect your sweet nectar with his tongue, you had to remove yourself on your shaky legs in order for him to give up, chest heaving as your gather your bearings, laying on the bed next to Jungkook.

But soon the man has other plans than letting you rest, Jungkook having an almost wicked smile on his face.

“I can't feel my legs yet, how about I let you use my mouth as an interlude,” you joke, which gets a laugh out of Jungkook.

“It's fine, I can do the heavy lifting first,” Jungkook dismisses before he wraps your legs around his waist, moving you about like a doll before he bends down to place a short and sweet kiss on your lips, the gesture full of love in the midst of your throngs of passion, it never fails to bring a smile on your face when he does this.

Jungkook then leans back to focus on the task on hand, grasping himself, his cock almost painfully hard from enduring through hearing your pleasure, but Jungkook enjoys hearing the way you react to him without any distractions, he's a patient man when it comes to you, well to a certain degree, he thinks to himself as he pumps himself a few times before he finally positions himself at your slit, probing with his cockhead, teasing you, which earns him a few whines and a light thump of your leg on his back before he finally relents, sliding into your heat slowly, his brows furrowed as he focuses on the feeling of being engulfed by your warmth.

You tighten your legs around Jungkook’s waist when you feel the familiar addictive feeling of being filled up, nails digging into Jungkook’s arm.

“Doing so well for me, baby, always so wet for me,” you hear Jungkook say, whispering sweet nothings into your ear until he bottoms out, he hears you panting by his ear as he waits for you to adjust, and in the meantime he takes off your nightgown, letting his eyes wander, basking in on all your naked glory.

“We've been doing this for so many times, and yet you're still so entranced,” you comment as you watch the way his huge eyes trace every little bit of your skin.

“I'd never be bored of the sight of you, especially when you're on top of me,” Jungkook says as his hands join in on the mix, tracing every curve on your body, making you shiver from the featherlight touches.

“Thought I'd look best like this, under your mercy,” you joke, getting a chuckle out of Jungkook.

“You'll see why in a bit,” Jungkook comments before he gives an experimental thrust, your gasp of pleasure a telltale sign that you're ready for more.

Jungkook starts off with a mild pace before he hears you begging for him to go faster, your legs tightening around him as you fully immerse yourself in the pleasure you're receiving, your body tensing up with the overwhelming amount of pleasure running through your veins, especially when Jungkook lowered his head to capture one of your bosoms into his lips, sucking diligently as hips continue their unforgiving pace, never missing his target of the spot that has your head spinning.

“Close,” you gasp out when you feel the coil in your belly threatening to snap.

Jungkook ceases all movements before pulling out of you gently, he then manoeuvres you on top of him, taking your place on the bed.

“You wanted to know why I prefer the sight of you on top, this is why,” Jungkook says before tilting your head up to look at the mirror he had installed on his ceiling, and true to his words, the sight is a bewitching one, the way your body has a healthy glowy sheen from the exertion, and the way Jungkook is looking up at you, eyes trained on your reflection, the most powerful man in the universe, and his pleasure is at your mercy, and at that moment, you feel like you could strike even the most powerful entity down, Luke Skywalker be damned if he wasn't dead.

“Do you see what I see now? My queen, rightfully on her throne,” Jungkook says after he tips your head back down to stare into your eyes, he needs to get the idea in your head, it should be a crime that you had no idea of how powerful and mesmerising you look on top of him.

Instead of replying him with words, you smash your lips against his, pouring all your love out through it, you rarely initiate such an intense kiss, but soon you hand the reins over to Jungkook, even though you love having power over him, submitting to him is what you enjoy most in your love trysts.

A moan slips from your lips to his when he slips back inside you with a quick adjustment of his hand, the familiar fullness more than welcomed, and Jungkook then immediately sets a rigorous pace, thrusting in an upwards motion while his eyes look into yours, attention unfazed despite his hips working hard to tip the scales of your impending high.

Alas, at the end of the day, Jungkook is only a man, which is why he elicits a giggle out of you when you catch his eyes do a quick sweep of the bouncing motions of your breasts.

“You won't be laughing soon, my love,” Jungkook taunts before he lands a quick spank on one of your cheeks, the sweet tinge of pain nearly sending you over the edge, and seeing the damn smirk on Jungkook’s face, you know damn well he felt you clenching on him.

Jungkook then slows down his pace, switching to slower deeper thrusts that have you clawing his back with long thin marks that he would wear proudly for the days to come.

“I want you to cum, darling,” Jungkook breathes into your ear, sending a shudder running down your back, his voice quiet but still commanding, but what comes next is a surprise, something that merely agreed upon but Jungkook hadn't tested the waters until now.

Jungkook wraps a hand round your neck, not squeezing like you expected him to, but then you feel it, the way your throat constricts by the force lightly, cutting part of your airflow.

“Look up, sweetheart,” Jungkook demands, and you heed, staring at your own lust driven body, the light sheen of sweat making you shimmer under the artificial lights.

“Look at you, right where you belong, on your throne, is my cock treating you well, my Queen?” Jungkook taunts before he stops all airflow for a single second, and that's when you lose it, your orgasm hitting you like a ton of bricks, a curse stuck at the back of your throat because of Jungkook, but when he ceases control of your breathing, your mind blanks out from the all encompassing pleasure, your legs shake as you feel yourself cumming as if you can't stop, soiling the sheets as Jungkook whispers sweet nothings into your ear about how good you did, a hand slipped down to your clit to rub slow circles onto it to curb you to clench around him tighter before he spills into you with a groan. Jungkook then lays you down on the clean side of the bed, before he retrieves the box of tissues on his nightstand to clean you and himself up quickly, he doesn't want to make a mess on the way to the bathroom, he wants the droid to change the sheets then get out of his hair as soon as possible.

“Don't pull out yet,” you demand with a weakened grab of Jungkook’s arm to get his attention, just in case he can't hear you from how soft you are, Jungkook has you spent tonight if you're being honest.

“Anything for you, my love,” you hear Jungkook say with a kiss to your temple before you feel yourself succumb to sleep.

When you wake up from your much needed slumber, you let yourself some time to just feel and appreciate the fact that you're being held in the arms of the love of your life before extracting yourself from said arms, which is quite the feat when Jungkook is built with all muscles and almost zero fat percentage.

When you finally succeed in escaping his embrace, you sigh lovingly at how peaceful Jungkook looks in his sleep, none of that constant frown that he sports when he's awake and stressed about whatever task he needs to attend to, you think he even resembles a rabbit when he sleeps, all pouty lips and his nose twitching now and then, he's gonna throw a fit if he hears your thoughts now, he hates it when you call him cute, are you still going to do it? Absolutely, but for now, you're gonna let him rest up more.

You're still fresh from the bath Jungkook must've taken with you when you were asleep, so you quickly wash up and pad into the kitchen to get a warm cup of water for the both of you, settling Jungkook’s cup down on his side of the nightstand before you walk to the large floor to ceiling window of his bedroom that overlooks the beautiful garden within the base compound.

“You're gonna fall sick parading around naked in my home like this,” you hear Jungkook say before you turn your head to catch him just as bare as you before he retrieves a blanket from your reading nook armchair to drape around both of you, but you with the added layer of bulging muscles.

“This is considered warm for me, I've been through worse conditions, don't worry,” you say before Jungkook steals your cup out of your hands for a quick sip before putting it on the nearby bookshelf to wrap his arms around you once more.

“I'm sorry I didn't find you sooner,” Jungkook mutters as he snuggles his face into your neck, breathing you in, he loves it when you smell like his body wash.

“It's fine, I was just making a joke out of it, you know, no need to get all wound up over it for me,” you say as you reach back to brush through his hair gently.

“Still, I'm glad you're here, and that all those conditions didn't stop us from meeting. I love you so much,” Jungkook says while he wraps you round his arms even tighter than you thought possible, screw rabbit, he reminds you of one of those giant bone crushing serpents you dealt with in the past.

“I love you too, my love,” you say through staggered breath from how he's almost crushing you, but you let Jungkook enjoy this moment a little longer as you bask in his warmth embrace because all’s well that ends well to end up with Jungkook.

The End.

[zackprincebooks]

Hot Water

Lord Commander Guilliman has been expected to make a visit to your fortress-monastery, but his early arrival has sent everyone into a tizzy. At least you were able to clean the baths in time before he arrived. But the baths aren't the only mess you have to worry about, as you stumble across Roboute in the frigidarium and uncover the reason for his sudden detour... (Roboute Guilliman x Reader, explicit. 2nd person POV; reader is AFAB but not addressed with gendered pronouns.)

Want to read it on AO3? Click here!

Want to read my original fiction? Click here!

Inspired by @cosmic-cryptid-from-beyond's The Bellowing!

--------------------

The sight of the Primarch’s ship approaching the fortress-monastery sends all and sundry into a tizzy. Lord Guilliman wasn’t supposed to arrive for another three days, so they weren’t anywhere near prepared for him. Nothing is cleaned, food hasn’t been prepped, and the room reserved for him is unmade.

Along with your fellow serfs, you arm yourselves with mops, oils, and fresh towels and robes to attack the multiple levels of the baths: the caldarium, the frigidarium, and the tepidarium. They housed hot, cold, and warm water baths for the Lord Angels to bathe in, allowing them to relax their muscles after a long day. To prevent the growth of bacteria in the baths, they were cleaned regularly—but a “regular” cleaning would not be up to the exacting standards of a Lord Primarch.

The baths are drained, scrubbed, and refilled; normally you would have given them a few days to be treated with chemicals before refilling them, but Lord Guilliman will want a hot bath after he lands. It would be sacrilegious to force a Lord Primarch to wait days before he can take a bath!

Faucets and spigots are polished to a mirror shine, puddles are mopped, towels and robes are replaced, and bottles of oil and lotion are refilled. You have the honors of restarting the waterfall in the tepidarium and it cascades into the water with a satisfying splash. “We did that in record time,” the head bath mistress declares in satisfaction, wiping sweat from her brow. “I want someone on hand when the Lord Primarch is in the bath in case he has need of anything—food, drink, more towels; if he wants his paperwork, you will bring it to him.”

Everyone nods; their murmurs of agreement bouncing off the cavernous walls of the baths. You nod particularly vigorously. Lord Guilliman’s comfort is paramount. He is, unto you, a god among men that has blessed your fortress-monastery with his benevolent presence. You are not fit to serve him; not when you imagine his broad body sinking into the hot waters of the caldarium and his arm stretching out to you in offering…

The eyes of the head bath mistress land on your flaming face and the disapproval of her gaze eats a hole into your stomach. “Remember that the Lord Primarch is an esteemed guest of our monastery. He is to be treated with utmost respect and kindness. Am I understood?”

“Yes ma’am!” The chorus of your fellow serfs drowns out your muttered yes ma’am, and you disperse to your various tasks. You keep your head down as you pass her by, flinching as she squints at you.

The knot in your stomach lessens as you throw yourself into work, helping your friends ready the monastery for Lord Guilliman’s arrival. You dice garlic and onions in the kitchen, dress beds with clean sheets, and separate one of the tables in the mess hall for Lord Guilliman and his entourage to eat at.

You’re in the middle of sweeping when the docking of the ship is announced over a squealing intercom. Everything rumbles like the rousing of a sleeping giant from a long slumber as it docks, casting a long shadow over the fortress-monastery. Silence buries itself in everyone’s throats as the sound of marching Space Marines fills the air.

But there is no fanfare. No bombastic anthem. Everyone waits with bated breath to hear the long list of Primarch Guilliman’s titles, but nothing materializes. The excited silence gives way to concerned murmuring and some people leave the monastery to get a better look at the action—or lack thereof.

They’re immediately ushered back inside by a cadre of Space Marines, and the gossip ceases. Their broad shoulders block the doorway so no one can watch the proceedings beyond.

“The Lord Commander thanks you for your generous hospitality,” the centermost Space Marine intones, “but he requests privacy for the first three days while he settles in after such a long journey. We thank you for your understanding.”

Not giving anyone a chance to respond, the Space Marines march back out, leaving you and your fellow serfs in stunned silence, all sound sucked into the void left in the wake of the Space Marines.

What…just happened? ----------------------------------------------------------------

The rest of the day passes in strained whispers and surreptitious glances. Everyone is looking for hide or hair of the Lord Primarch around the fortress-monastery, but whenever they get close to his room on the pretense of bringing him food or documents, they’re immediately halted by the Custodes. The moment one of your fellows described how the Custodes’ very words pulled his heart out of his chest, you decided to give the Lord Primarch a wide berth, until he deigned to make his presence known. In fact, if not for the sheer number of Custodes and Ultramarines hanging around, you would never know that Lord Commander Guilliman had arrived.

At least your work does not go unappreciated by your guests, and you hear the chattering of Space Marines in the bath as you refill some of the towels. Their serfs have already aided them in undressing, so their personal effects are stored in the cubbies of the apodyterium, and there are robes waiting for them.

“We really hauled ass on the trip here; I’m glad that we made it in time.”

“Just barely. I was hanging on my seat for dear life. It’s damnably inconvenient!”

There’s the cracking sound of a damp towel whipped at Astartes speed and a high-pitched yelp. “Don’t you dare speak ill of our Lord Primarch!”

“I wasn’t! Merely expressing—”

“His Lordship’s medical condition is not a topic of gossip.” The ironclad voice of a Custodes rumbles through the bath, drowning out the rushing of the waterfall and making your stomach clench tightly. “It is fortuitous that we arrived in time that he may be treated properly.”

A murmur of agreement disperses throughout the Ultramarines as they continue their ablutions. There’s another towel crack and a yelp from the first Space Marine. “Hey!”

“Got you back!” A round of towel-snapping commences despite the protests of the Custodes, and you hightail out of the baths before they can find you. You’ll come back and clean the baths once they’re gone.

But their conversation makes you think: Lord Guilliman is ill? Or at the very least, suffering from some kind of medical condition. While that would explain the Ultramarines and Custodes being so cautious about serfs approaching his guest quarters, why wouldn’t they simply return to Macragge or Terra for treatment?

Your friends are clustered in a hallway up ahead and they wave you over. “Did you hear anything about the Primarch? They’re still not letting us near his room,” one of them sighs.

“No, I haven’t. They started a towel fight so I got out of there after I dropped off the towels,” you lie. A Primarch’s health is of utmost importance and secrecy, and no one else knows that you possess this knowledge. No one must know that you possess this knowledge; not even the Primarch himself.

Fortunately, no one questions you on your lie and they all nod sagely. You go to dinner with them and listen to their theories about why Primarch Guilliman would sequester himself on arrival.

It’s about an hour later, while you’re helping wash dishes in the kitchen, when you notice a group of Ultramarines and one ruffled Custodian coming down to dinner, their skin red and tender from the hot water—along with the towel whipping. It seems that the Custodes has rattled them back in line as she watches her sheepish comrades collect their dinner trays.

You finish with your rack of dishes and slip out of the kitchen. You pick up a bath bucket, mop, and some rags. Since the oils and lotions were refilled this morning, you decide to wait until you see how much has been used before you refill them.

Walking up to the bath, you feel…strange. There’s a ball of heat in your chest that suddenly drops into your stomach and hangs there heavily. Pausing to listen, you hear nothing. You take a risk to poke your head around the corner and you are greeted with the vision of twisted towels, wet robes, and large puddles—but no Ultramarines. No Custodes.

Grabbing your mop and bucket, you get to work, ignoring the feeling of a piercing gaze between your shoulderblades. ------------------------------------------------------

First, the apodyterium. While it’s mostly free of clutter, some towels didn’t make it into the hamper and there are puddles everywhere. You take out the laundry and replace the basket before mopping up the puddles until the blue and gray tiles shine. It’s clear that some of the Astartes played many eager games of rattail, as you fetch some particularly ragged and ratty towels from the laundry basket with a grimace.

You adored the Astartes, and the Ultramarines in particular. Even if their strength could be…inconvenient, sometimes.

But there was no structural damage to the bath, as could occasionally happen when the Astartes began rough-housing. They didn’t understand their own strength when it came to mosaic tiles and plaster, no matter how lovingly crafted.

You pause, admiring the mosaic on the floor. While most designs depict great battles, the bath is a paradise of marine wildlife that gradually gets deeper the further you enter. The apodyterium is a sandy beach with waves lapping at your toes, sea urchins hiding in tide pools, and crabs peeking out from tiled corners.

Dumping out the ratty towels into a trash receptacle, you move further into the baths.

Steam rises from the caldarium and you wave a towel to fan it away while you work. While the temperature of the caldarium can be adjusted, it appears the Ultramarines cranked it up for their bath. It’s so hot and humid in the caldarium that you use a towel to put your hair back and you shuck off your outer robe so you’re only wearing your undergarments.

It’s a daunting task to walk across the slippery caldarium to refill the soaps and lotions; one wrong step and you’ll either plunge into the boiling water or crack your skull on the tiles. You don’t relish the thought of Lord Guilliman finding your body when he goes to bathe.

The tiles in the caldarium are full of brilliant coral and bright fishes darting between anemones with sharks patrolling for prey. Once the soaps are refilled and the tiles mopped, you’re able to safely cross the caldarium and tick down the temperature. It continues putting out steam, but the water will cool down to a safe temperature.

“If the Ultramarines want it hotter, they’ll just have to deal with it,” you huff. Picking up your robes, you drape it loosely over your shoulders and approach the frigidarium—

And you stop.

The frigidarium is the coldest section of the baths; the Apothecary recommends dunking yourself in alternating baths of hot and cold, so the frigidarium and caldarium are connected together by a short hallway. You know that the frigidarium will be so cold that you’ll have to put your robe back on and you’ll likely need your sandals.

But there is steam coming from the frigidarium, at the same rate as the caldarium. And when you check the temperature of the bath, it’s at the coldest setting possible. The pipes for the different pools are all separate, so it’s not like one of the pools is pumping hot water into the frigidarium…

Taking your towel, you wave it in order to disperse the steam again. Once the steam is gone, you notice a uniform thrown haphazardly onto a wooden bench. You see the Ultramarines insignia, but when you lift the uniform jacket, it’s covered with medals and badges that you don’t recognize. A Custodes, perhaps? It would make sense. The uniform is much larger than what a Primaris would wear.

The steam has filled the room again, and it’s clearly rising from the bath. But surely, this uniform means someone is in the bath?

“Excuse me? Is anyone in here? I’m going to clean the baths!” You call out, but there’s no response. The steam has obscured your vision to the point where you need to wave your towel again. Though it dissipates, you can’t see anyone in the bath. The tiles surrounding the pool are of no help; it’s a dense kelp forest with sea turtles darting between the towering sea grass. You feel like one of those turtles as you clean, darting around and hoping no one sees you.

When you move to the front of the bath to refill the soaps and lotions, you hear a splash. “My Lord?” While your vision isn’t fully obscured by the steam, you can’t see the furthest end of the bath. “I’m almost done! I just need to mop!”

A bead of sweat trickles down the bridge of your nose as you wait for more noises, but you hear nothing. Refilling the soaps and lotions as quickly as possible, you speed-walk over to your mop.

There’s another splash, this time closer to you. The steam has fully obscured your vision, and you disperse it again.

A hand grips the edge of the bath and pulls, the tiles underneath cracking from the force. The surface of the water ripples as a second hand hits the tile and both pull, breaking the seal on the bath. You squeal meekly and back up against the wall as broad shoulders clear the water’s surface and Roboute Guilliman hauls himself out of the frigidarium in all of his wet, naked glory.

Though you quickly avert your eyes, you notice that Roboute is the source of the steam as it rolls off his body in waves. Is this what it means for a Primarch to be ill? “Lord, if you are sick, we have medicine—”

“No…need….” Roboute speaks slowly, as though every word is painful for him to say. “Just…hot…”

You fiddle with your broom. What do you say? What do you do in front of an angel, steam rolling off him as though he’s on fire? Especially when his heavy breathing sounds…erotic. “Did you need the frigidarium to cool down? I can bring you some cold water, or some ice…”

Roboute groans, and your thighs squeeze together. When he doesn’t say anything in response, you peek out at him in curiosity.

Oh, by the Throne of Terra…

He’s bigger than any Custodes, a powerful pillar of muscle and fat. His skin is bright red, especially around his shoulders, biceps, and pectorals. Despite the heat of the bath, his nipples are peaked and hard.

And his cock—

You try not to look at it. To do so feels obscene. But you can’t ignore the way it throbs and smears sticky precum against his chest, the sheath bunched up underneath his swollen knot. When he realizes you’re looking at it, his cock pulses even harder.

“My Lord,” you squeak, “are you, perhaps…in heat?”

The sound of Roboute’s guttural moan is enough of an answer. Suddenly, everything makes sense: the onset of Roboute’s heat would require him to stop immediately; going to Macragge or Terra for medical intervention would have only prolonged his suffering. He would need to ride it out until it faded naturally. The frigidarium was a futile attempt at easing his heat.

There was only one way that Roboute could ease his heat, and you were standing right in front of him with your robe open.

He moves towards you with frightening speed for his size. You try to dodge to the side, but you slip on a puddle and the only thing preventing you from eating tile is his hand wrapped around your waist. And he really wraps around your waist, from thumb to forefinger.

Roboute flips you over onto the tiles, looming over you. Your robe is peeled off with a wet slap and he pulls off your undergarments, leaving you exposed to him. The hunger of his gaze sparks both excitement and fear in your belly; something primal that you hadn’t felt before.

His cock slaps against your belly, the knot rubbing on your pussy. A low, growling noise fills the frigidarium from somewhere deep in Roboute’s chest, and when his knot rubs on you again, it comes away wet.

“Please,” you whimper, though you’re not sure what you’re asking for. Roboute seems to understand, however, and he moves off of you. For a moment, you believe that he’ll let you go, and you’re not sure why it fills you with disappointment.

But Roboute goes under you, throwing your legs over his broad shoulders and locking your thighs around his head. Your ankles can barely touch as they hang uselessly over his shoulders. “Lord--!” Your voice cracks as his fingers spread your pussy lips; though your thighs tremble on either side of his head, closing your legs is impossible. Roboute has you pinned against the hard tile of the frigidarium to do with as he wishes.

His tongue presses against your spread pussy, sending shockwaves up your spine. You moan, tangling your hands in his blond hair to keep him against your pussy. Not that you need to—Roboute devours your pussy like a man starved, nosing against your clit. Between the plinking water and your squealing sounds, you feel Roboute growl moreso than you hear it; the sound reverberates through your body from your pelvis to your toes.

Once he’s satisfied with how wet you are, Roboute moves to your clit and kisses it like the jewel of a ring. With both of your hands in his hair, you can’t muffle your squeal as Roboute laps the flat of his tongue against your clit. You only hope that no one else is in the baths, as the sound bounces around the tiled walls and echoes even as far as the apodyterium.

While you’re distracted by Roboute’s mouth on your clit, one of his fingers brushes the entrance of your pussy. His tongue circles your clit as his finger enters you, pumping slowly inside of you. Your thighs squeeze around his head and he grunts but does not let up on either of his ministrations. In fact, he doubles them. Roboute sucks down on your clit and adds a second finger to your pussy.

“My Lord!” You squeal aloud, pressing harder against his face. Pressure coils in your gut and you can barely breathe from all your moaning. “I can’t—”

You don’t finish your sentence, but Roboute doesn’t seem to need you to. He’d kept his eyes closed the entire time, as though he was savoring a delicious meal, but when he looks up at you, the intensity of his gaze pierces you.

It’s what you needed to careen over the edge, and you cry out as you gush against Roboute’s face. He groans, closing his eyes again as he fingers you through your orgasm until the overstimulation makes you whine and you push him off. He goes willingly, and the sight of your slick dappling his nose and chin is both arousing and embarrassing. You squirted on a Primarch.

“Oh, m-my Lord, I’m so sorry,” you hiccup, whimpering through the aftershocks. Roboute raises his eyebrows and wipes the juices from his face with one swipe of his arm. His other arm holds your legs over his shoulders and you realize—too late—that he’s folding them over your shoulders instead of his.

His knees bracket your body; each of his legs as long as you are tall. When his cock slaps against your belly again, it hasn’t reduced in size at all; if anything, the knot is thicker and his cock is redder and angrier than before. One of Roboute’s hands lines his cock up with your pussy while his other hand cradles your head to keep it from hitting the tiles. You can’t tell if your flushed face is from his burning skin, or your own arousal. His hand is big enough to crush your head with the twitch of his fingers.

The head of his cock breaches your pussy and your breath hitches. You could have done with another stretching and perhaps a second orgasm, but Roboute was patient enough to give you one. If his heat goes on for much longer, it could be dangerous for him—and for you.

Roboute huffs as he mounts you, sliding his cock deeper into your pussy. He takes it slowly, but the stretch is obscene. You wince with each inch that slides inside of you, closing your eyes so you don’t look at the way Roboute’s cock spreads you wide…and deep. Every time you think he’s done, Roboute fits another inch inside of you. 

You open your eyes just in time to watch Roboute bottom out inside of you, his knot resting comfortably on your swollen pussy lips. He growls in satisfaction, and the sound makes you clench around him.

For some reason, you have the brief sense that you’re in danger, right before Roboute pulls back and plows into you with what you can only describe as a howl. You swear on the Throne that you feel your belly distend with the thrusting of his cock, using you as a sleeve for his own pleasure. His knot wetly plaps against your pussy, adding to the overstimulation of your primal fucking.

White stars explode in your head, scrambling your thoughts. You can’t think of anything other than Roboute’s cock filling you, pounding you into the tile. Either your bones are creaking, or tiles are beginning to break underneath you from the sheer force.

A deep purr rumbles in Roboute’s chest and vibrates the whole of your body. His thumb strokes a glob of saliva away from your lips and caresses your cheek. When you turn your face to look at him, his brows are knitted together in exertion, but his lips are curled back in a facsimile of a smile, baring his teeth.

There’s a split second before Roboute drops himself onto you, and the force of his weight shoves his knot into you, spreading your pussy apart. You let out a garbled whine that results in another deep purr from Roboute, and his nose brushes almost tenderly against your cheek. The head of his cock is shoved against your womb and you feel it pulse with his oncoming climax. His hand tilts your head up to expose your neck to his hungry gaze and Roboute bites into your neck.

It’s only a few more thrusts before you feel his cock beginning to swell, and sticky cum is pumped inside you. It’s even hotter than his skin, and if not for Roboute’s knot, it would spill out of your womb. Though you can’t look down, you’re sure there’s a bulge from his cock and his cum.

Roboute pulls off your neck and nuzzles against the bite mark he’s no doubt left behind. He seems very proud of his work, purring and chuffing into your ear. “Lord,” you whisper, and he responds with another chuff.

But his cock hasn’t gone down, and you’re still stuck on his knot. Roboute stands and lifts you with ease until he’s standing and you’re pressed against his chest. He holds you with one hand while the other brushes something off your back and you hear the sound of ceramic clinking. He definitely broke some tiles under you.

Your hands struggle to link around his neck from where you’re pressed against his chest. There’s going to be a second ride and all you can do is hang on. Roboute’s knot is jammed inside of you and it won’t go down until he’s had his fill—and that might not be until the end of his heat.

The only thought you have before he starts thrusting is how long does a Primarch’s heat last?

Roboute bounces you on his knot, grinding more than thrusting. With this new position, your clit rubs on Roboute’s stomach, bringing even more stimulation to your aching pussy. Your fingers scrabble on his back as you crest your second orgasm and cry out, cumming against his torso.

When you come back to yourself, Roboute is holding you against his chest. His animalistic grunting and chuffing have turned into the deep moans of a man. They still vibrate your entire body, and his knot throbs. His heat is not over, but he’s at least conscious of more than his base urges.

His grinding resumes, his knot keeping you not only plugged, but spread open for the rest of his cock to fill you, to claim you and own you, wholly and fully.

Roboute’s second round does not last as long, though you are rewarded with a keening whine as he fires off more cum inside of your womb. His knot softens, not fully, but enough for him to pull out—and he does, letting his cum spill out of you.

He lifts you by your thighs so your sweaty cheek presses against his. “Thank you,” he murmurs.

And that’s the last thing you hear from Roboute before you pass out in his arms. -----------------------------------------------------

You drift in and out of consciousness over what seems like hours. At some point, you are aware of being cradled by two powerful arms and wrapped in soft fabric as a low voice buzzes in the broad chest you’re currently resting your head on.

“No, there is no cause for concern. I will take them to the Apothecary myself. Please consider them to be under my care. However, someone will need to clean and repair the frigidarium.”

There’s the sound of someone protesting, and a soft chuckle from the chest you’re resting on.

“No, I will not elaborate.”

The next time you wake up, you’re being laid into a soft bed. While the bed is unfamiliar, the sheets smell familiar. It’s vaguely herbal, with a hint of lemon…this is the same detergent you used to wash Lord Guilliman’s sheets this morning…

“Lord…?”

A soft pair of lips kiss your head, and you fall back into unconsciousness.

When you come back from your slumber, you’ve been tucked into Lord Guilliman’s guest bed. Instead of your regular robes, you are wrapped in a clean bathrobe that is slightly too large for you. The lights in the room have been turned off, but the door to the adjacent office has light spilling out from under it.

You try to sit up, but a powerful ache in your pelvis and shoulder force you back down into bed. “Oh, oh fuck, owww,” you whine, laying back down.

The door to the office suddenly opens up and the broad shoulders of Roboute Guilliman fill the doorway. He needs to stoop in order to enter the room, and he immediately kneels at your side, taking your hand. His hand absolutely dwarfs yours, and you’re reminded of how he cradled your head—

“Please, try to lay down. The Apothecary may have cleared you, but they also warned against strenuous physical activity for the next few days.” His eyebrows pinch together. “We are fortunate that I didn’t crack one of your ribs.”

He continues speaking, but his words fade in and out. The only thing you can focus on is a Primarch kneeling in front of you.

You feel like you’re going to pass out again. Roboute stops rambling somewhere between salt intake and calories when he notices the dazed look on your face. “Food is on its way if your blood sugar is running low. I have intervened on your behalf and acquired you the time to rest and recover, so there is no need for you to worry about returning your duties.”

“Th-thank you, my Lord.” You struggle to form sentences, and Roboute looking up at you with his pleading eyes is not helping. “Has your heat subsided?” Though not as noticeable as before, there is a pink tinge to his face.

Roboute goes silent, looking at your hand. “It has subsided, though it will return; likely in the next day or two. Please, do not worry yourself,” he rushes to add as you as you open your mouth, “I will be well. The onset was unexpected, but the first wave is always the strongest.”

He dips his head and his eyes lower. The hand holding yours slips. “I am…sorry that you had to encounter me in such a state. It must have been frightening to experience. I did not mean to hurt you, but I did.”

Your hands grab onto his and hold him tightly. “I was not afraid of you, my Lord. I knew you would never hurt me, even with your awesome strength, even in the middle of your heat’s first wave. You needed help, and I was happy to provide.”

Roboute thinks on this for a moment, though he still cannot bring himself to look at you. “You were happy? You enjoyed it?” His voice wavers, and your heart skips a beat.

“Very much so. You took good care of me.” Before you can stop yourself, you reach out to stroke Roboute’s cheek. Your train of thought to stop petting a Primarch doesn’t reach the station as Roboute leans into your hand.

“And you took care of me, as well. But I believe that your care could be…improved.” You hear the door open and the smell of food hits your nose. Your stomach grumbles; perhaps you should have listened to Roboute when he was talking about calories and salt intake. Taking care of a Primarch in heat was hungry work.

He kisses you softly. You hadn’t kissed when you were in the bath, so he seems to be making up for it with soft pecks on your lips and face. Roboute pulls back with one final kiss to your forehead.

“I will make no demands of you. But I would like it if you stayed with me for a while.” Though Roboute claims to make no demands, you catch the hopefulness in his voice.

“Of course.”

When he kisses you again, you feel him smile against your lips.

[grumpydevilfellow]

Star VS The Forces of Evil is a prime example of why you can't do anything complicated with an animated series because the nerd community is terrible at literary analysis and will always misunderstand the point of your writing.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Occupy the Democratic National Committee

Picks and Shovels is a new, standalone technothriller starring Marty Hench, my two-fisted, hard-fighting, tech-scam-busting forensic accountant. You can pre-order it on my latest Kickstarter, which features a brilliant audiobook read by Wil Wheaton.

Back in 2017, the Democratic National Committee's lawyers submitted a legal brief that didn't just say the quiet part out loud; they bellowed it: "[The DNC can] go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the [presidential] candidate that way":

https://observer.com/2017/05/dnc-lawsuit-presidential-primaries-bernie-sanders-supporters/

The brief was submitted in the lawsuit between Bernie Sanders and the DNC. Sanders sued over the DNC changing the rules midway through 2016 process in order to sideline him and give the nomination to Hillary Clinton. The DNC's response boiled down to, "Sure, we cheated. So what? We, the committee, are ultimately answerable only to ourselves, and we can choose anyone to lead the party into any election."

The DNC is a weak institution, in other words. There's a universe in which that would be OK. After all, there's a lot of overhead that comes with making strong institutions, all those checks and balances and oversight and transparency soak up resources that you could be using to do other stuff. In an ideal world, a badly run Democratic Party would be spurred to improve after it lost elections, which would result in the defenestration of bad party bosses and the ouster of bad candidates:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/30/weak-institutions/

But the US political system is not an ideal world. In the real world, it's possible for party bosses who pursue disastrous strategies that result in key electoral losses to remain in power. The Democratic Party still rakes in massive donations from people who hate Trump more than they hate the Democratic Party's incompetence. Candidates in gerrymandered safe seats can be wildly incompetent and still hold onto power for improbably long timescales, despite the manifest evidence of their total unfitness for office:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Lipinski

In the absence of real consequences for corruption, incompetence and utter moral turpitude, the Democratic National Committee needs some other form of discipline to get it into fighting form. We need to occupy the DNC, strengthen its institutional safeguards, and turn it into an election-winning, fascism-fighting, extinction-rebelling, worker-defending powerhouse.

Three weeks from now, the DNC will meet in National Harbor MD to elect its new president and officers. Who gets to vote on that? The 448 members of the party's national committee. Who are they? As Micah Sifry writes for The American Prospect, it's a secret, even to the committee members:

https://prospect.org/politics/2025-01-10-opening-dncs-black-box/

No, really. While nominally, members can request a list of their fellow members, the DNC stalls and stonewalls and does everything it can to prevent the committee from communicating in any way they can't control. This is incredible, but it's true. Which is why Sifry has published a leaked list of all 448 members:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bQKIP3W1NWChRjSbsE0O5k5s7OdgXrJi5-CMfFECIBU/edit?gid=0#gid=0

Looking at the spreadsheet of members, we get a rare glimpse inside the Democratic sausage factory. There's te 73 "at large" members who were voted on as a single block after being handpicked by outgoing president Jaime Harrison. These members are a mix of great people and terrible people, and that's by design: it meant that Sanders and Warren voters could only get their people onto the committee if they voted for some of the most disgusting corporate shills you can imagine.

The fact that the national committee's membership is secret and their communications must pass through a DNC chokepoint means that they get up to all kinds of shenanigans, like at the 2023 summer meeting where they voted themselves the power to throw out any bylaw amendments passed at a national party convention. The vote was whipped by paid DNC staff, creating an atmosphere so poisonous that Jessica Chambers (a rep from Wyoming) called the DNC "the least democratic organization that I’m involved with."

Sifry's breakdown is really useful: he identifies the minority of members who are elected by the party rank-and-file, calling them "the people most responsive to what the base of the party cares about." He also calls out the corporate shills who "buckrake as lobbists," like Donna Brazile, "a partner at “corporate reputation strategy firm.”

But even where state party organizations have elections for their committee members, some states keep the results of those elections a secret. Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania have 69 members, but the identities of all but 14 of them are a secret.

This is a rotten institution, and that's by design. If you want to know why we can't have nice things – or, you know, a world that's not on fire and haunted by creeping fascism – this is why. The takeover of the DNC won't be easy, but it can't start until we know who the DNC is.

Check out my Kickstarter to pre-order copies of my next novel, Picks and Shovels!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/10/smoke-filled-room-where-it-happens/#dinosaurs

[kiwi-on-ice]

Welcome to Tumblr!!

Would it be possible to request some Reinhardt x fem (nb) Reader where reader accidentally gives a drunken confession that they've had 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝔂 thoughts about him??

Reinhardt x fem!reader

Summary: Always being drawn to the older and chivalrous crusader, a celebratory party after a successful overwatch mission causes secrets to be spilled, and pleasures to be experienced.

Word count: 3.9k

Warnings: 18+ smut, reader dresses fem and has a pussy but no she/her pronouns used, reader is a combat medic for overwatch, age gap, size kink, fingering, creampie (no threat of pregnancy).

Notes: Hope you enjoy sweetheart! Kinda went all in on the size kink and age gap so sorry about that lmao.

Something about your commanding officer, Reinhardt Wilhelm, had always captured the attention of your mind and body.

Whether it was his hulking frame that could make anyone feel small, his thundering voice that could be heard across the battlefield, or the sweet and chivalrous personality that lay beneath the rugged exterior; something about him was a pull for you, a magnet that you couldn't help but be drawn to. He may be older than you, more reckless, more of a fighter...but it didn't matter.

You remember as clear as day the first time you had been assigned to be trained under him, a new recruit wanting to make a difference in the world. Since Dr Zielger was responsible for taking you under her wing for the medic side of your job, lieutenant Reinhardt was to ensure you could handle yourself in a fight. And in walks the most intimidating man you've ever seen, 7'4" of muscle, wielding a hammer practically the size of you and then some. But when a bellowing chuckle erupted from his mouth, the sense of intrigue uncurled it's way from your stomach. From then on, intrigued was an understatement. Your eyes followed him everywhere. The movements of his arms on the field, or in the practice range when he'd wear a tank top that extenuated every part of his body as he trained. But then he started to help you, carefully moving your arms to show you good positioning and blocking, the feel of his fingers and how they practically consumed your hips or arm with their sheer size.

Reinhardt was special, and oh so gentlemanly. Even when he'd walked in on you changing, shielding his eyes and saying 'I didn't see anything!" as he backed out. Most men you know would have tried to catch a glimpse, but not him. He was special. And god did you crave him so badly. Craved the experience of showing him just how depraved your thoughts for him were. But you knew deep down it was a bad idea.

Not only was he your lieutenant, but he was much older than you. You knew he would never pursue you, too honorable. He deserved a woman of his own age, and you'd seen the way Captain Amari would glance at him when she thought nobody was watching. These fantasies should stay just that. Fantasies. Nothing more.

So after a particularly successful mission carried out, you wanted nothing more than to drown the sorrows of your unrequited lust in the complimentary champagne being offered at the closing party. Still, you'd dressed for the occasion, your dress flattering your figure nicely as you practically clung to the walls, glass tight in your grip. The garment isn't overly revealing, but certainly gave people a taste of how ravishing your body truly is. You can't help but glance around, noticing the way fellow agents laugh and discuss plans. When your eyes find Reinhardt, discussing something with Captain Amari in a hushed whisper, you down the champagne in one and search for another.

After more than a few glasses, the familiar blanket of haze runs over your brain as you walk rather disorderly to the bar stool. Settling yourself, you tap your fingers against the dark wood as you let your mind drift.

"Ah, enjoying the free booze i see."

That familiar voice always sent a shiver up your spine, but with the effects of the alcohol you feel yourself practically jolt into an upright position as the object of your daydreams settles on to the stool next to you.

"I myself am enjoying the revelry, quite a nice break from crushing omnics skulls open." he exclaims with a grin, as you barely fight the blush rising to your cheeks.

"Yeah, you look great tonight."

Oh my god did you just say that? Without too much thought of your blurted out compliment, he laughs heartily and shakes his head.

"Ah this old thing? Only comes out for times like this." he says, brushing some fibres from his suit lapel. The way the fabric clings to his body has your thighs pressing together urgently. "But I assure you liebchen that you look radiant as ever."

His sweetness just serves to fluster you more, as you bathe in his tone and words, despite how friendly they seem to be. You smile, the alcohol messing with your inhibitions as you gently poke his arm.

"Seriously, how do your muscles fit in here?" You feel the stretched fabric of his suit jacket.

"Oh, well i-i did get this tailored." he admits, a little sheepish as his eyes are firmly on where you placed your hand. When you squeeze, he has to force himself not to react.

"It's so impressive, you're so big Reinhardt..." you mumble, and god the innuendo makes him feel like such a dirty old man for the way his breath catches.

"You flatter me." he says, a little quickly. "My muscles protect those closest to me, as well as the world. I suppose that means they are..."

"Big." you finish his sentence for him, squeezing your bicep again. The rational part of your brain is screaming at you to stop, to realise what you're doing. But you can't seem to care. You're touching him, feeling him.

"Dear I..." he trails off, not quite being used to being in this position. With how hard it's been since the omnic crisis started, he's rarely had time to enjoy the company of someone, much less someone of your age.

"I meant it..." you blurt out again, your mouth seemingly having a mind of its own... "That you look great tonight. You look great all the time though..."

"How much have you had to drink? Perhaps it might be time to go and get some rest."

"No...want to be here with you. Always want to be here with you."

Looking away, Reinhardt truly is lost for words; an occurrence that doesn't happen often. The feeling of your touch, your words, they create a symphony of lust and desire to swirl in his chest, the attention of such a pretty young thing as intoxicating as the whiskey in his glass. But he knows he can't...he shouldn't...

"You're just so...hot. Especially after you train, I um..."

Seemingly your brain kicks back into its senses as you stop yourself. Oh my god, you just called him hot. Before you can run and hide from your embarrassment, he turns to you.

"You, what?"

You shake your head quickly, trying to save yourself whatever shame you still had left. But he presses.

"No, I'd like you to finish that sentence. After I train, what do you do?" he asks, knowing he's playing with fire here. You know there's no real way of getting out of this, so you drink the last bit of liquid from your glass to pluck up the courage.

"I go back to my room and i fantasise about you."

This knocks the air out of Reinhardt's lungs. He holds onto the whiskey glass so tight, cracks form.

"Scheiße" he mutters under his breath, before looking you dead in the eyes. "You want me? Is that what you're saying?"

You can't help but nod, embarrassment and rules be dammed. His breathing becoming laboured only helps further embolden you, as you run a hand down his front slowly. "I want you...more than anything."

He finds himself shivering under your touch, before he catches your wrist. "We can't."

You let out a petulant whine at his dissmissal, leaning further into him. "Why not?"

"Look at you maus, you're practically half my age. It isn't right...it isn't the way it should be. You need a nice boy your age to look after you."

"You'd look after me." you interject. "I know you would...you're such a gentleman."

"Gentlemen don't want to fuck the pretty recruit they train." he says rather gruffly, shaking his head. "Besides, you're drunk. I'll take you to your room."

He left no room for argument as he pulls you along, taking you up to your room. Taking this as a hint, you rub at his arm again before you get to the door.

"Goodnight...please think this over. It isn't a good idea." he says, the words sounding strained in his throat as he opens the door for you.

The next morning, the sunlight streams through your blinds like tiny daggers as your head feels like it's splitting. You really shouldn't have drank so much, blinking softly as you sit up in your bed.

Oh no. The memories of last night hit you like a train, the way you came on to him...the way you felt him up. Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god, you're screwed. Scrambling to get in the shower and get presentable, you pace around the room to think about what you should do. Ignore it? Pretend you didn't do anything?

You can already feel the awkwardness that that would bring, so with reluctance you find yourself walking towards your lieutenant's door and knocking on it softly. Opening the door, you swear you almost feel yourself gasp as he stands there in a t-shirt that clings to his body like you're desperate to.

"Oh, good morning!" he says cheerily, which makes the pit in your stomach get deeper. The word vomit seemingly spits out before you can hope to restrain it.

"Reinhardt I am so sorry for my inappropriate behaviour last night, I don't know what came over me I had too much to drink i-"

A hand on your shoulder interrupts your train of thought. "Dear, why don't you come inside a moment."

That statement clearly takes you off guard, as he guides you inside and closes the door behind you. Shyly, you take a seat on the small sofa and glance at the minimal decor idly as he walks over. The seating clearly wasn't meant for someone his size, as your thigh is pressed against his own as he takes a seat next to you.

"You don't need to apologise...about the way you feel." he starts, and now your stomach is fluttering for a different reason. "And I'm not trying to be cruel, it's just....not right. You deserve-"

"Don't" you interject, "Don't say I deserve someone better, or my age..."

He sighs, low and heavy as his hand balls into a fist in his lap. "Liebling, I am trying to be a gentleman here."

You swallow, realising his need for you. It's addictive, knowing that his breath is heavy and his muscles are tight because he feels like he needs you. Needs you just like you need him. So you gently place your hand on his arm, squeezing.

"I know, and I want you to be a gentleman. I want you to take care of me Reinhardt." you whisper, words sweet like honey to his ears as he feels the heat in his crotch.

His sharp breath fuels you, as your hand traces over to his broad chest, the warmth radiating in waves. With a smile, you angle yourself fully towards him, feeling up and down his chest as you gaze up at him. Catching your wrist just like last night, your gasp sends tingles down his back as he pushes towards you.

"oh gott, I thought you wouldn't..." he starts, before seemingly his self control snaps and he pulls you into a kiss. It's deep and passionate and oh so perfect, everything you wanted from him as his hands practically dwarf your waist. Yours go up to his shoulders, grasping on for dear life as he lifts you and places you on his lap. Feeling the slight scratch of his beard against your face as his tongue gently traces your lip has your mind reeling, and your hips buck on instinct. This is met by a slight groan from the older man as he grips your waist tighter to keep you still.

"Not so fast, let me enjoy you." he mutters as he gently starts to kiss down your jaw to your neck. He worships your skin with kisses like you're holy, like bathing in your essence would grant him salvation. His teeth gently scrape your pulse point as his hands start to move smoothly up and down your waist and hips, memorising your every curve.

Fingers slip under your shirt, tracing your torso before tugging your shirt up and over your head. He lets out a groan at the sight, his eyes looking over your exposed body as his scarred hands run over everywhere he can. Not putting on a bra or undershirt this morning, your chest was now exposed to his gaze. He gently pinches at your nipples, chuckling at you gasp before fondling as a gentle apology.

"Look at you...don't know why you're interested in an old man like me." he laughs in a self deprecating way as he moves you so you're straddling his thigh. Getting the hint, you begin to grind over the muscle, your thin shorts doing nothing to dampen the delicious friction.

"You're so handsome." you seek to reassure him, causing his cheeks to warm as he chuckles again.

"You flatter me." he mumbles, kissing over your shoulders and collarbones as you grind over him, feeling your pussy dampen your flimsy shorts.

He tenses and relaxes his thigh, making you gasp and your hips stutter in pleasure. Huffing out a laugh at how eager you seem to be, he runs his hands back to your hips and controls your pace. You feel so small in his grip, chest to chest against the older crusader as you use his leg to get off.

"So lovely and pretty," he praises you, before snapping the waistband of your shorts, "Shall we take these off?"

"Only if you take this off too." you say, pulling at his shirt. As he pulls it over his head, you can't suppress the noise that escapes your throat as you greedily run your hands over his chest without any pesky material in the way. His muscles look strong and capable, cutting a stunningly strong shape. His scars, of which there are many, perfectly frame him as a warrior, a protector. It all causes you to grind harder against his thigh, your fingers tracing a particularly bug scar on his stomach.

He lifts you up with ease, gesturing for you to shimmy out of your shorts which you do...which is when he realises you didn't put any underwear on underneath. He groans, deep and guttural as you're now fully exposed to him.

"Oh look at you...how has no man already snapped you up liebchen?" he asks rhetorically, as he gently places you fully on his lap, his fingers dancing on your inner thigh. You whimper and go to take his shorts off too, but he tuts and stops you. "I am...a big man. I don't want to hurt you."

At your pout he chuckles and continues, "Please, let me open you up for me."

His finger brushes, against your core and you forget what you were even pouting about as the pleasure settles deep inside you. He teases your clit with his finger, rubbing firm circles to get you even more drenched than you already are. Your hips move a little before he grips one side with his free hand, keeping you nice and still for him as he touches you.

"So beautiful, I'm going to ease it in now, okay?" he asks, and with your nod he sinks his finger inside you. God, if this is the size of his finger, you don't know how you're going to take the real thing as he fills you up with just one digit. He pumps it slowly, getting you used to the stretch as noises fly out your mouth.

"Gripping my finger so tight, such a small maus i've got." he teases with a smile, rubbing your hip soothingly as he works you open. He gently eases another finger inside, stopping momentarily at your slightly pained noise. He coos at you, telling you how good you're doing for him as he slowly but surely gets two big fingers inside of you. He keeps a slow rhythm, curling them to brush against that spot inside you. It's clear that he's an experienced man, given his age and looks that hardly comes as a surprise to you, as he prioritises your comfort and pleasure as he fingers you gently.

After a while though, you get a little restless, trying to fuck yourself on his digits which causes his eyebrows to raise and a stuttering breath to release from him.

"Oh that's it, ride them. Show me what you want." he encourages, as you keep your hands firmly exploring his chest as your hips rock against his fingers, slightly lifting your hips and lowering them to get the most pressure on your g spot. With your moans, he start to moan too, so hard in his shorts it hurts. He can't remember the last time he's been this turned on, this desperate for someones touch as you writhe and squirm on his lap.

"Please, I'm ready." You tell him, eyes pleading with him before he nods, removing his fingers. He quickly places you at his side as he tugs his shorts and briefs down, and you feel your breath escape in a choked manner. He's huge...biggest you'e ever seen, let alone taken inside you. He smiles reassuringly as he places you back on his lap, his cock pressing against your stomach.

"Don't worry mein herz, we will take it as slow as you need."

You nod at his words, breathing deeply as you lift yourself up and position him underneath you. The head brushes against your aching clit and you whimper, rubbing it around your pussy a few times as Reinhardt gasps quietly. With it wet enough with your juices, you slowly sink down on him, getting about a third of the way down before moaning out. The stretch burned, but in a delicious way that had your head spinning and your hands grabbing his broad shoulders tightly. A deep groan escapes the older man as he keeps a firm hold on your hips, not moving you yet.

"So tight...So feucht." he grunts, it's taking all the willpower in the world not to just thrust up and bury himself deep inside your intoxicating cunt.

At his reactions, you sink down slowly, nearly taking all of him before moving up and slowly moving back down again. This slow rhythm has you both moaning, broken and desperate as the months of unspoken sexual tension comes to fruition. He guides your movements slowly, being able to support your weight as you move on him.

Nails gripping into the skin of his shoulder, your cunt feels impossibly full as you keep moving on him. You aren't sure how any other man is going to satisfy you now you've had a taste of the crusader, his cock reaching places you didn't even think possible. Your movements get a little faster as you ride him, still fairly slow but the more even pace has him groaning.

"You're doing so well, so good...so jung und süß" he breathes out, his voice deeper as his eyes close for a moment. However he realises he's no longer able to see your gorgeous body taking him so well, so he opens them to the sight of your chest rippling with every bounce. One hand reaches up to massage your nipple, callous fingers creating a beautiful friction as your back subconsciously arches into his touch.

You cry out at the sensations, your thighs shaking as you ride him faster now, addicted to the feeling of his cock filling you up completely and utterly. Nearly reaching the base now, Reinhardt can't resist bucking up, completely filling your pussy and causing another choked cry to escape you as the older man is completely inside you. He takes this as a positive, and holds you in place as he begins to thrust up in a steady pace. Knocking against your g spot with every thrust, it's like your breath is knocked out of you with every movement; all you can hope to do is hold on for dear life as you let him do as he pleases.

But you'd asked for this, you'd asked him to take care of him, your words rattling around in his mind as he grunts and fucks you with a passion he hasn't felt in years. He will, he'll take care of you, he'll give you what you need.

"Oh...oh it's so good." he moans, never one to be quiet in any situation, letting you know how good your pussy feels enveloped around him.

You nod eagerly, crescent marks being left on his shoulder as your nails really dig in. Not being able to move your body on him, you just moan and cry out as he pushes his cock up and up inside you. However he seemingly tires of this position, moving you underneath him gently so you're on your back with your pretty eyes on him. He holds your thighs apart before thrusting once more, moving a pillow beneath your hips to ensure he's hitting your g spot.

"Du bist schön, my pretty thing." he gasps out, his thumb reaching down to rub at your clit. Immediately your walls tighten around him, making him moan and double his efforts.

You're pretty sure you're in heaven, his thrusts deep and powerful but passionate, making you feel all of him. The added pressure on your clit causes the pleasure to build and build rapidly, scrambling to hold his arms.

"Reinhardt i'm close." you warn him, before he grunts.

"Oh please come for me, make a mess of me." he practically begs, his voice strained. "ich brauche dich"

It only takes another few deep thrusts before you're cumming on his cock, your back arched and your moans whiny and breathy. The older man's rhythm falters at your stunning display, cock throbbing as he feels dangerously close to bursting right at that moment. But ever the gentleman, he asks where you want him to finish.

"Inside...I-I take the birth control shot that Doctor Ziegler offers...I want to feel you inside of me please." you beg him hazily, barely conscious as you still feel so full yet so sensitive.

This causes Reinhardt to moan loudly, thrusting a little harder as he reaches his peak, reverting back to his mother tongue as he grunts out. "Ich komme...Ich komme gleich...oh gott..."

With a final push, he buries himself deep inside your cunt and cums, filling you up so completely you feel your eyes roll back. Both of your heavy breaths fill the air, coming down from the intensity of the experience before he pulls out slowly. His release seeps out of you, and he groans at the sight of it, of the idea of you being his in that way. Gently he wipes away some, before he moves off you with a slight grunt, his joints a little sore.

"Stay there, i'll clean you up." he promises, and he keeps it as he grabs his towel and cleans you up, before heaving you into his arms and taking you to his bed. You feel completely enveloped by his strong arms as you cuddle against him, fingers gently tracing warm skin. You know this moment of bliss won't last forever, that you'll have to face the difficult conversations of what this means for you both moving forward, but you try not to think about it too much. Instead you're content with closing your eyes and letting your breathing sync as you relax together.

[yannaryartside]

YOU KNOW WHAT? RICHIE WAS RIGHT

SYDNEY IS THE GOOD THING CARMY CANNOT ACCEPT.

Richie was right that Carmen could not accept a good thing that was happening in his life. But the good thing is not Claire, it is Sydney. And they made this clear to the audience in the scene right before. Here:

thank you to @thoughtfulchaos773 for making this gifs for me and the video below!

When Carmy starts talking about not being built for relationships (in other words, closing himself to be loved), Sydney is the first one to exit his vicinity, to leave the Bear, the space Carmy created to deal with his trauma, the place Sydney had repeatedly chosen to stay in in order to help him. She leaves first and promises to come back after having a moment. Claire is only the second one to leave. And that's important.

Long post bellow, very Sydcarmy and very anti claire bear warning

PART 1: WHAT CARMY DOESNT WANT TO SEE.

For the longest time, I did not understand wtf Carmy thinks he feels about Syd. He seems completely comfortable having her as an emotional anchor, even subconsciously, he definitely wants to impress her, and she is the base of his creativity, his muse.

But he would only be confronted by her impact on his mind and heart in the most enormous distress for him. And there have been plenty of them. Big ones and subtle ones.

when he texted her right before opening Michael suicide letter. this is for me the biggest one and they barely knew each other then.

when she calms him down of a panic attack (that was consistent of family and Claire flashbacks)

she calms him down from a panic attack again indoors, right after he tries to calm himself thinking about Claire and his sister.

when she made him laugh at the sauce he thought was dusty

when she made him laugh after confessing his brother was an alcoholic

when he needed her and screamed his name while stuck in the freezer

But besides that? he really doesn't seem to want to meditate too much on why this happens, why only she can affect him this way. After the panic attack in 2x09 he talks to Sydney about how "Claire is so great it scares the shit out of him" and the I thought...'so Claire is great that she gives you panic attacks. But Sydney can make you get out of the panic attacks?"

It definitely seems that subconsciously, there is an "ingredient" in Sydney that Claire doesn't have, but what if that is the ingredient Carmy is most afraid of?

PART 2; WHAT IS THE LOVE THAT SYD OFFERS, AND WHY CARMY CANNOT OPEN HIMSELF TO RECEIVE IT

This is not to discourage my fellow sydcarmies; quite the opposite. I want to present here my ultimate sydcarmy theory: Carmy is afraid of true love, a love that requires getting to know someone, the love that allows you to accept your flaws and feel supported to grow and get better. For someone to truly love you, they have to see you, and Carmy is terrified to be seen and even more terrified of being seen by someone he loves.

In other words, he cannot receive love from a person that truly knows him because he still believes that at his core, he is defective and unworthy of love as his true self.

And who installed that belief in him?

Claire's love does not require true understanding or connection; we have seen countless scenes of them interacting, and their relationship is still superficial at best. Claire is a 'noncharacter," and therefore, nothing but her profession is something the audience or Carmy ever learned about; if anything, it seems that what they most love is each other's company. Claire even encouraged Carmy to act like someone else in the frat party. There is even moments when Claire seems to guide Carmy to say things she wants to hear, indicating she really doesn't care about what he wants, or that she genuinely believes that at the end he will always want what she wants, which is very problematic on his own

I really believe that what Carmy likes about Claire's love is the fact that whenever he is with her he doesn't have to acknowledge all the things that don't work whitin him because she acts like anesthesia and distraction towards it, she makes him ignore how uncomfortable he feels around strangers by forcing him to go with her flow, she tells him to "never apologize" while also presenting herself as the solution for his trust issues "nothing is keeping track of shoes" followed by "I know" from her. She is also that validation to the insecure teen Carmy who had a crush on her.

in the book Whole Again: Healing Your Heart and Rediscovering Your True Self After Toxic Relationships and Emotional Abuse it reads

But there is something about Claire that still triggers Carmy's panic attacks, he even has a hight heart rate talking to her in 3x10 (I kinda love the double meaning that his heart rate is hight because he is "in love" while it is also related to his anxiety, wich is an indication of his brain that something is not right). But Carmy could never admit it, he could never recognize the ways Claire has manipulated him, because the reward of his complacency is feeling loved while also not being seen.

And then there is the love that Syd gives

I am loved even when I stumble. That's all s3 was for. For Sydney to love Carmy even when he stumbles, he probably will be able to see that eventually, but he will have to accept a love that can see who he is, the good, the bad, and the future. Someone who believes in him enough for him to do so too.

[wtf-scientific-papers]

[Knowing a fellow by their bellow: acoustic individuality in the bellows of the American alligator]

Jensen et al. (2024)

[disfrutalakia]

Arkanis Lore and where it stands at October 31! A quick rundown by me Kia disfrutalakia

Ok hi hello guys, so I'm assuming that you guys know me from qsmp times and I'm also assuming that most of you are not into Arkanis be it because of the language barrier or lack of time, but you still want to watch your favorite cc in the event tomorrow? Well, I'm here to help, under the cut will be a rundown of the main story (I won't get into characters individual lore, only if they tie into the main story which most do to be fair) plus links to some resources that you can use to understand Arkanis!

This is by no means perfect and was made from using stuff from my own memory, which is not the best, others can feel free to add onto it as they wish <3

1 - What is Arkanis?

Arkanis is a portuguese speaking server that started back in September, it's powered by twitch and was started by Boiss Studios and Ostra Content, it has a heavy focus on rp.

2- Who are the creators in Arkanis?

As of now we have 25 creators in the cast, this includes ex qsmp participants like Pac, Mike, Bagi and Felps as well as some faces you might recognize from purgatory like Guaxinim, Himaru, Gabepeixe. The complete list of creators is bellow:

Pac, Mike, Himaru, Febatista, Bagi, Matt, Felps, Yayah, Guaxinim, Cherry, JVNQ, Choke, MeiaUm, Guhzera, Gabepeixe, Quel, Coreano, Wuant, Maethe and FunBabe were the first batch of creators that we met.

Last week there was the addition of new members consisting of Moonkase, Malena, LBeatriz, NickLink, Al3xey and Kazzio.

Most of the members are brazilian except for Kazzio and Wuant who are portuguese.

3- What's the story of Arkanis?

The story takes place in the small city of Valigma, and it starts with with mayor Jota hiring people that are known to us as specialists to help the town.

Valigma used to be a beautiful town and very rich but recently things have been going wrong, with the water being poluted and the citizens wearing a strange kind of mask.

4- Rundown of what we have by now (this will contain spoilers skip to section 5 if you don't want them <3)

After the specialists arrived in town, we are quickly introduced to the mayor, Jota, who has been in power for 8 years now being in the end of his second term when we meet him, he appears to be a strange sort of character who hides many things although at the time the specialists weren't sure of what.

Apart from Jota we also have two other big characters Bia Raux and Araldo. Bia is a witch of sorts who was banished from the town due to the chaos she caused while Araldo is the owner of a factory that produces batteries in town.

A big part of the story focuses on arkanya, or what we would call magic in our world, a type of energy that lets the person who controls it cast sort of spells that can either be for something good or something bad, there is always a consequence to using it tho

One of the first big events in Valigma was the discovery of ghosts, small creatures that are consistent of pure arkanya and don't have any memories from before their deaths, they form a bond with the specialists calling them their parents even

Remember Araldo, the factory owner from earlier? Yeah he comes into play now, since the beginning he seemed like a suspicious kind of fellow, not showing up to speak with people and forming a sort of rivalry with Gabepeixe, there are cases of Araldo trying to dig into Gabe's lab and even trying to stop him from the creation of machines, not wanting the specialist to become more powerful than him.

You guys will have to forgive me here cause my memory is not the best, but there was an occasion where Araldo cast a illusion over the specialists where they got to see what would happen if they went against him, including robots who destroyed the town. This ilusion. due to needing certain power led to the death of Alice who was the mayor's secretary.

This occasion led to the discovery that Araldo was also capable of using arkanya just like Bia.

That event deeply effected most of the specialists making almost all of them distrust Araldo and even go directly against him by allying with others like Bia and Jota.

For the safety of not only the specialists but also the ghosts who they called children JVNQ made a truce with Araldo, he wouldn't attack them for 25 days and the specialists wouldn't go near the factory in return

Things seemed to be working out, that is until one night Bagi and Gabepeixe (two of the specialists who hate Araldo the most) decided to sort of challenge him or at least taunt him and broke into the factory (which remember, it was banned) and stole/destroyed a creative motor that was powering up the place, nothing happened at the moment but the next day all the specialists were called and Araldo did the most horrible thing, he killed Amora and Denix (two of the ghosts I will introduce them in the next point) draining all of their arkanya and making them dissapear.

This led to three important events, most of the specialists began to choose real sides it was either Bia or Araldo. Jv trying to get Denix back (his son) strikes a deal with Araldo and is taken for days while Choke strikes a deal with Bia to begin her training

Currently Araldo status is banished from the town and his factory is no longer part of Valigma, he remains a big threat tho.

Now what about Bia? Well, she is a witch and seems to have connections with the town from before it was made even, she is extremely powerful and even if when we met her she seems to be weaker than normal she is no less of a threat.

Bia has one objective, to destroy Valigma and she will do that doesn't matter who stands in her way.

She has recently been gaining the trust of many people in town, due to the act of bringing Denix and Amora back.

And what about Bad and Fit? Where do they fit into the lore? Well the truth is, we don't know. the character Bad seems to be playing (Mister X) had never been talked about before, so they are pretty much fresh and new, we don't know how their stuff connects yet

5- Ghosts

As I mentioned earlier, there are small entities in Valigma who are tiny ghosts that act as children for the specialsts, they include:

Denix - The first one to be found, his parents are Gabepeixe, Coreano, JVNW and Yayah

Gris - The second one to be found, her parents are Guaxinim, Quel, Maethe and Mike

Amora - third one to be found, her parents are Bagi, Felps, MeiaUm and Matt

Milo - the fourth one to be found, his parents are Pac, Himaru, Guhzera and Febatista

Tucupi - the last ghost, his parents are mostly Choke and Wuant

6- Links to help you with Arkanis:

First of all, the summaries made by Tayr (one of the founders) are essential and probably your best resource to understanding the story without having to watch all the stream: Link to his channel

Second the Arkanis wiki, it's not complete but can help with knowing the characters better a little bit: Link to the wiki

Now you guys won't like this but, their twitter or bluesky, it's where they post the schedules for the week and do important announcements, personally I try to post all they announce in here: Link to their twitter Link to their bluesky

Their youtube where they post all of the cutscenes that are shown in game: Link to their youtube

And of course the beautiful Arkanis tag here on tumblr <3 it's a small one but it's a good place to find art and some liveblogs!