#i guess I’m drawing him over and over again for the foreseeable future. if I have to

[cuttyflammm]

more scrappy hoshinas (¬ ¬ )

[lenafromthenordiccoven]

Finally working on that Bob x afab!reader x Hangman thingyyy and, uh, reader’s gonna be a bit of menace. Oops. Nevertheless: got a snippet! Let me know what you think :D

The moment you stepped over the threshold of the Hard Deck, you felt his eyes on you. The noise of the other patrons hit you, as soon as you entered the bar, but you didn’t mind the anonymity that came with it – this time, at least. It didn’t take you long to find him in the crowd, sitting at the back of the bar in a corner surrounded by what you assumed were his new squad mates. Bob was staring shamelessly at you, and even from across the room you could see the surprise on his face.

You smiled to yourself. Originally, the plan had been for you to arrive to California on Sunday. But you’d managed to book an earlier flight without telling Bob, wanting to surprise him – and, admittedly, get to spend a little more time with him. The surprise seemed to have worked, if you were to judge the way his eyebrows shot up as he watched you walk over to the bar.

Although you wanted nothing more than to run straight to him and throw your arms around him, you decided to draw out the greeting a bit. You weren’t sure how much Bob had told his coworkers and new friends about you. He’d hardly been able to tell you anything about the last detachment that had taken him back to Top Gun, and probably into more danger than he’d wanted to admit to you. Now, he was set on staying in California for the foreseeable future, had even bought a house.

You finally reached the bar and were greeted by an older woman and a warm smile. “Hi, what can I get ya?”

“Can I get a Whiskey and Ginger Ale?” you asked. The woman nodded and you thanked her, paid for your drink and then turned back to face the rest of the bar while you waited for your drink. Again, your eyes landed on Bob, who still hadn’t let you out of his sight, and you were reminded of the first time you had met.

Dicky, a friend of yours and pilot for the Royal Air Force, had invited you to join him at an air show in Austria – a rare occasion, since Dicky usually didn’t go to these. Just like now, you’d been standing at a bar and Bob had been staring at you from afar. That was until Dicky had introduced you two.  

‘It’s not often I meet a US naval aviator at these things. What, is there another war brewing in Europe that you need to save us from?’ you’d joked and had relished in the way Bob’s face had turned an embarrassed shade of crimson, before you’d apologized for the joke.

‘Oh no, no. Please, don’t apologize for that. It’s just... Don’t usually get called out like that,’ he’d replied. And the rest was history. You’d asked him out that same night and you’d developed a long-distance relationship that you had never thought, you’d agree to.

Somebody clearing their throat next to you pulled you from your memory. You turned your head and were met by a thousand-watt-smile in a handsome face. Green eyes were looking down at you. “Haven’t seen you here before, sweetheart. You’re not Navy are ya, I would have remembered a pretty face like yours.” The Texan drawl sent a shiver down your spine, while the blond man’s words made you roll your eyes.

“Let me guess,” you said and looked him up and down for a second, “you’re an aviator. Pilot by that grin. And you’re lonely, otherwise you wouldn’t be standing here and flirting with me? But you’re right, I’m not Navy and I’m not from here, either.”

The grin faltered for a second, before he turned up the wattage. “I like a woman with sharp eyes. And a brain. I’m Hangman.” He extended a hand towards you, and you took it, despite yourself. While you had to admit, he wasn’t bad looking, you weren’t interested in flirting with another cocky pilot. You got enough overblown male egos to deal with at home.

Still, you decided to play nice. “Y/N,” you replied. Then you took your drink and pushed away from the bar. “Just gotta say, uh, Hangnail: I’ve got a boyfriend. So, while this was … admittedly weird, I’m not interested in flirting with you. And I’m going to go find my boyfriend now, thank you very much.”

The grin turned into a smaller smile, but it didn’t lessen the sparkle in Hangman’s eyes. If anything, you felt like you’d just given him a challenge and he’d jumped at it. “It’s Hangman, sweetheart,” he corrected you, but didn’t step closer to you. A point for him.

“Whatever. I like Hangnail better; you can hang your big ego up on that callsign of yours.” You turned and finally made your way over to Bob, who’d watched the whole exchange quietly.

[jackrrabbit]

cooking at 3am /// Osamu x f!Reader

Request: Imagine cooking together with Osamu at 3am because neither of you could sleep (or because ‘Samu got the midnight munchies lol). You don’t have anything specific in mind; you’re just playing around and feeding each other little bits of what you make.

A/N: bruh you said munchies and my mind said [[ h i g h o s a m u ]] sorry this went in a kinda different direction? but still fun 3am cooking project vibes :P

Tag/warnings: fluff, light drug use (weed), you and Atsumu are lowkey Bros™️, Osamu's kinda baby 🤧

Osamu’s not good at smoking.

He doesn’t really know how to inhale—you know, hold it in his lungs so it can soak in or whatever—and when he does, he coughs. Except he tries to repress the coughs. Even if he wants to hide it, he’s always close enough to you that you can feel his chest moving from trying not to cough when he takes a hit.

And also, like every baby smoker, he can’t really tell when it’s kicking in until he’s off the deep end.

“Can you feel it yet?”

“No.”

You shoot Osamu a glance where he’s sitting on the ground in front of the couch, watching a nature documentary on Atsumu’s TV with a glazed-over look on his face. “You sure? Your eyes are super red.”

“I can’t feel it. Give it—“ He holds out his hand and honestly you’re pretty sure he’s had plenty, but it’s Atsumu’s vape so who cares. You hand it over and Osamu holds it up to his mouth and sucks, eyes fluttering closed as the light on the side of the Pax glows yellow.

God, he looks hot when he does that. Something about a hot guy smoking, yeah? Actually, no. Something about your hot boyfriend smoking.

Except 'Samu holds his breath a second too long and you can see the urge to cough hit him… Wait for it, you think to yourself, and a second later he hacks and wheezes the vapor out in a wispy cloud that reflects silver against the semi-dark. You coo in sympathy and pat his back. “Want some water?”

Osamu shakes his head, hand over his mouth to stop the coughing. On the tv, David Attenborough talks about penguin courtship rituals and Atsumu (who’s been draped on the couch next to you for the past few hours) gives a light little sigh in his sleep. You check the time. 3am. Bedtime. Too bad you and 'Samu are both too high to drive home…whoops. Guess you’re spending the night at Atsumu’s place.

Osamu rubs his bloodshot eyes like they’re itchy, which they probably are. “Hey, can we— uhh… Do we have pancakes.”

“Pancakes, babe? You mean the ones you made for breakfast?”

“Yeah, there’s leftovers…I made you extra and you didn’t want them.” He twists around and gives you an incredibly dirty look, like this is something you did on purpose to hurt his feelings. “If you don’t want them I’m going to eat them.”

“Wait, 'Samu—“ But Osamu's already getting up off the floor to wander over to the next room. You debate pausing the show—it’s a really good scene—but you leave it going for Atsumu's sake because you’re pretty sure the narration is the only thing keeping him asleep. He’s kinda drooling on your shoulder and you have to push him off to go follow your boyfriend to the kitchen.

“What is all this stuff? Ugh…” Osamu's pawing through the fridge. There’s a lot of crinkling, plastic sounds—you catch a glimpse inside and all of the shelves are stacked up with plastic bags and styrofoam containers.

You yawn and hop up to sit on the kitchen island. “Takeout? I don’t think he cooks.” Atsumu's going to get a lecture tomorrow for keeping 2-week-old Indian food in his fridge. God knows you heard it way too many times before you and Osamu moved in together. You don’t envy 'Tsumu.

Osamu sits down in front of the fridge, fumbles with a drawer, and pulls out a bag of moldy grapes. “Gross…who lives like this…”

You snicker into your hand.

“I can’t find the pancakes.” 'Samu's pulling the plastic drawers all the way out now, setting them down on the floor as he inspects the contents of the fridge.

“They’re not here.”

“You ate them?”

“No, I— Hey, put those back in,” you tell him helplessly as he shuts the door of the fridge, ignoring all the leftover food he took out. Yeah, half of it was probably off anyway, but Atsumu's gonna be pissed if he wakes up and there’s takeout going bad all over his kitchen floor.

“You threw away my pancakes?” Now the look on Osamu's face is utter betrayal. He stands up off the floor and glares sulkily at you. “I made those for you…”

“I didn’t throw them away, they’re—“ You hold back a laugh and wish you had your phone on you (where did it go?) so you could take a picture. He’s so cute when he smokes. “—they’re at home.”

“At home?”

“Yep, at home. The place where you and me live, remember?”

“Oh.” Osamu pauses, reaches out absently to grab the edge of your sleeve. You’re wearing one of his hoodies. “We’re not at home?”

“Nope. We’re at Atsumu's place,” you tell him through a giggle.

He plays with your sleeve, contemplating. “Why?”

“Because we’re out of weed and he said he’d smoke us out. And we like hanging out with him.”

“Oh. We do?”

“Yes.”

“…’Kay.” It takes Osamu a second to accept this, but then he nods seriously. “(Y/N), I'm hungry.”

“I know. What do you want to eat? You could probably have any of that stuff, I don’t think he’ll miss it.”

'Samu thinks about it for a moment, scanning the array of takeout containers spread out across the kitchen floor. “I want pancakes.”

“The pancakes are at home, remember?”

“Yeah…” Osamu flips over his grip on your sleeve and traces his thumb down the lines in your palm. “I could make some?”

More pancakes? “I don’t think 'Tsumu has eggs, babe. Or flour. Or…baking soda?” You’re not really sure what ingredients go into pancakes. Whatever cooking skills you possessed pre-Osamu have deteriorated significantly since you moved in together and he took over any and all food preparation for your household.

He pouts at this, and his hair is a little messed up, and he’s so pretty that you can’t stand how much you like him in that second. Mine mine mine, something in the back of your brain says. He’s mine.

You reach up and Osamu obediently ducks his head down so you can smooth his hair back into place and fix the bits that are flipping over his part. “Is there anything else you want to eat?”

“Onigiri.”

“Oh…” Well, at least Atsumu probably has rice. “Sure. Ok. That’s your specialty.”

“I want ya to make it for me.”

“What?” You frown and pull your hand out of his. “You know my cooking sucks.”

“No it doesn’t. (Y/N)’s food’s the best.”

“You own an onigiri shop, come on—“

“Please?”

One of his bangs falls back in his eyes and without thinking you reach up to put it in place. “Okay, fine. But you can’t complain about it if it’s not good.”

He smiles and you want to blush. “Yes! I promise.”

So you do it for him. Even though you’re high too. You measure some rice and water into the rice cooker (Osamu has to give you pointers on how much of each to put in) and you scrounge around Atsumu's depressingly bare kitchen for a few sheets of seaweed and some easy fillings. Osamu pulls a stool up to the island counter and rests his chin on his hands so he can watch you with a bleary look of adoration on his face.

It takes you…maybe half an hour to be done? It’s hard to gauge time when you’re high. You and 'Samu both jump when the rice cooker finishes and plays the little rice cooker song, which will remain stuck in your head for the foreseeable future. 'Samu hums it in a loop while you shape the rice into lopsided triangles and wrap the nori around it.

“Here,” you tell him when you set the plate down in front of him. He looks entirely too happy to be eating your mediocre food for someone who literally does this for a living, but who cares.

He picks one, takes a bite, swallows. And blinks.

“What do you think?” you ask in spite of yourself.

“Umm…salty,” Osamu says.

You grab one to try yourself and it’s salty. Like, ocean salty. Yuck. “I told you it would be bad,” you complain, trying to tug the plate away but Osamu grabs it and pulls it back.

“Noooo…it’s good,” he lies, although his face is giving him away. Still, he takes another bite and chews enthusiastically.

“Shut up.” You tug a little harder but Osamu doesn’t let go.

He swallows, pulls a face, and takes another one. “So good. I love it.”

“Shut up. You sound so fake. You’re going to get sick if you eat that.” You keep pulling, but he insists on pretending it’s edible so you admit defeat and help him finish the onigiri off. God, they’re awful. But he keeps eating and so you do too.

When you’re done, your mouth feels dry as fuck and you want to sleep almost as much as you want to drink about a gallon of water. “Is it bedtime yet?” 'Samu asks, wiping his mouth and then rubbing his eyes again.

The clock over the oven says it’s past 4. “Yes. It’s bedtime.”

“Wait—we’re…we’re not at home, right? We’re at 'Tsumu's?”

“Mhm.”

“I prolly drove here…I dunno if I can drive now,” Osamu tells you slowly, like he’s apologizing. “I think I'm kinda high.”

“Oh yeah?” You hold your laugh back and put your hands up on his cheeks. “How do you feel?”

“Dizzy. Blurry? Like…you’re in slow-motion.” His hands come up to layer over yours. “You’re pretty in slow-mo.”

“Prettier than usual?”

Osamu closes his eyes, scrunching them up to think and then looking over your face intently. “Same amount, just slower. So it’s easier to see.”

“That so?” You slip your hands around to drape over his shoulders and get up on your tiptoes to give him a little kiss on the cheek, because he’s earned it. “You know what, I think I'm kinda high too. I think we’re going to have to have a sleepover.”

“On the couch? S’not big enough for us both.”

“You can sleep with 'Tsumu in his bed…or I guess you could sleep on the ground?”

'Samu's mouth twists and his brows draw together. You can practically hear the gears in his mind turning while he considers alternatives. “Can we share the bed?”

“I think Atsumu's gonna want it. It’s his house.”

“But he’s already sleeping.”

True, you can hear Atsumu snoring lightly from the living room underneath David Attenborough’s description of endangered falcons in the Philippine rainforest. You should really wake him up—matter of fact, you should really clean up the kitchen because it’s a huge mess—but 'Samu's already pulling you away. And you’re so sleepy.

“He’s going to be pissed tomorrow,” you tell Osamu through a yawn, but you let him steer you in the direction of Atsumu's bedroom, holding your hand.

“Don’t care…I hate sleeping without you.”

“Yeah,” you say, and you squeeze his hand and he looks back at you like you’re the literal best thing in the entire universe—and you decide you should get him high more often. “Same.”

[duskandstarlight]

Embers & Light (Chapter 39, NSFW Nessian)

Notes: Well, over a year you've had to wait for these two to seal the deal... BUT NO LONGER. And because I'm thankful to you all for sticking with this story, I've granted you with over 16k of sinful naughtiness. I think it's safe to say this is NSFW but you guys have read my smut before, you know the drill.

Embers & Light has always very much been the alternative story to Habits, but I couldn’t help but write in some crossover moments here to highlight the differences in events--timeline is a fascinating thing! Lemme know if you spot the moments :)

Please let me know what you think :) Comment and kudos will make my day!

I won't be able to write much of August (wedding & mini-moon) but I'll be doing my best to get you guys something as soon as possible. Hopefully by the end of the month, anyways <3

Oh! And I got a bookstagram. Find me at bookships.and.fandoms (and bear with me, I cba to take pretty pics atm)

Chapter 39 Cassian POV

Cassian stared at the doorway and the staircase beyond it, his gaze fixed and unwavering. Nesta had slipped out of the living room to follow Feyre up the stairs over ten minutes ago and he was already consumed with the biting sort of worry that gnawed at your insides.

He wasn’t concerned about what Nesta might be discussing with Feyre—that was her business—but because he couldn’t help but fret when it came to Nesta’s wellbeing.

It was a myriad of concerns that trampled through his mind like a herd of cattle. Had she slept enough? Had she recovered from being caught in the crowds the day before? Was her conversation with Feyre going to have her take three steps back rather than one forward? Cassian had spied the book of fairytales she’d slipped into her bag. Had guessed what she’d intended to do with it.

And then there was the fact that Nesta had left the bed before he’d woken again. Cassian couldn’t help but feel disappointed that she’d not been there when he’d opened his eyes, especially after the night before.

But that was how it was with he and Nesta. When the sun dipped below the horizon, Cassian often felt as if they were on the right path; as if once the world shut its eyes, the pressure was off and their play could continue. But as soon as light bled back into the sky, things weren’t the same. They weren’t cold… but Cassian felt suspended in a limbo of flirtatious banter and respectful distance. Which was hard, when all Cassian wanted to do was be as close to her as possible: to hold her hand and wind a hand through her hair. To kiss her brow and mouth and sink his teeth into her neck—

Cassian’s jaw tightened. He wanted to do wicked things. He wanted to make her moan and shatter. Wanted to know how she felt wrapped around him. Wanted to see if she’d gasp awake as he pushed inside of her.

Their trip home was going to be a turning point. Or at the very least it would be a milestone—a hammered notch as they progressed towards something. Yet, Cassian wasn’t naive: he wasn’t expecting Nesta to fall into his arms and never leave. But he hoped that it might make Nesta see their connection—not the tie between them, but the chemistry that Cassian knew would forever exist even if the mating bond was severed.

From the very first moment his gaze had settled on the haughty, vicious sister Cassian had known. Had nearly been brought to his knees—the heart-stopping moment so powerful, it suspended time as he felt something turn inside of him, as if something that had lain dormant had finally snapped open an eye.

And because of that Cassian would willingly allow Nesta to forge the reigns when it came to whatever it was between them. He could go slow. He would take the chance that Nesta might grow to accept him, even as he was seized by the terror that she might grow bored and draw a line under things before he had the chance to prove that he was worthy.

Cassian took a deep, steadying breath that made his ribcage heave. Thought of the lullaby that sat in his room at the House. Used that to ground himself and banish the painful thoughts.

Nesta had cared enough to gift him a piece of his past that nobody else had ever gone to the effort to find for him. And that was… everything. It was everything to him.

“I can hear the worry grinding gears in your brain.”

Rhys was standing where Mor had been a few moments earlier, his hands tucked into the pockets of his trousers, his eyebrows raised. Cassian hadn’t noticed Mor slip away. Couldn’t even recall what she'd been saying to him. Had he ignored her? He didn’t know. Didn’t really care. They all knew he was head over heels when it came to Nesta anyway.

Cassian blinked. It took him a moment to process Rhys’s words, but his body finally caught up. An instinctive grin tugged at the corners of his mouth and he commanded his eyes to sparkle, even though it was all fake. “I was under the impression you didn’t think I had one.”

Rhys didn’t chuckle or retort with something dry. Sometimes his brother allowed him to indulge in his self-deprecating behaviour, but it didn’t seem like today was one of those days. Instead, he cut to the chase. “They’re fine.”

Cassian bristled. Didn’t bother to pretend his mind wasn't solely on what was happening upstairs. “Feyre’s speaking with you now?”

Nesta would hate that. Would know if her sister was communicating to her mate whilst they were talking.

His brother’s laugh was as smooth as velvet. “No, she locked me out. It’s a habit she’s started recently and it’s usually coupled with the mental finger.”

This time, Cassian’s smile was genuine, as was the chuckle that chased it. “Feisty.”

“You have no idea,” Rhys responded with a wink.

Mor, who had breezed back to Cassian’s side with a new cup of coffee, rolled her eyes. “We do actually, you two are like rabbits.”

“We’re mated,” Rhys replied with a wave of his hand. “It’s to be expected.”

Mor lifted her eyes to the ceiling. “Cauldron, I need to bed someone rather than hearing about my cousin’s exploits with my best friend.”

“Head to Rita’s and find yourself a pretty fae,” Cassian drawled, tugging Mor into a one armed hug.

“Mmm,” Mor hummed, but she chewed on her lip again. Glanced nervously at Azriel, who was in deep conversation with Elain. His shadows were tucked in neatly to his frame rather than trailing, ever-moving and loose around his body, but Cassian knew he could hear them.

Cassian dropped a friendly kiss to Mor’s head before he let her go. Tussled her hair, grinning mischievously when she squawked in disapproval.

As if sensing that his cousin wanted a change of subject, Rhys looked square at Cassian. “Azriel will come over later to update you on the latest movements.”

Cassian sobered as if someone had poured icy water down his back. “Not later,” Cassian corrected firmly.

Tomorrow. No the day after that. Cassian couldn’t guarantee that he’d be able to stop once he’d had his first proper taste of Nesta.

But of course they couldn’t do that—wouldn’t. The situation in Illyria was too dire for them to be so selfish as to lock themselves away for days.

It didn’t mean Cassian didn’t want to, though.

“You’ve got plans?” Rhys asked lightly and Mor froze.

You’ve got no idea, Cassian thought. But then realised his brother knew. Of course he did. Surely everyone in this room knew how desperate he was to get back to Illyria. To have Nesta in his bed again, writhing and moaning, their bodies slick with sweat as they moved in unison.

Clenching his jaw, Cassian grounded that desire between his teeth, until it was nothing but broken, delicious shards that scraped down his throat. His blood coiled. “Yes. Maybe.”

If she doesn’t change her mind.

“It has to be tomorrow, Cass.”

Biting back a sigh, Cassian nodded. “I know. Come at noon. I suppose I’ll be camped out in Illyria for the foreseeable future.” He cast a stern look at Mor. “Send me letters.”

“You have a housemate,” Rhys reminded him. “You’re not going to be entirely alone.”

Mor grinned slyly. “A very beautiful housemate.”

Cassian was more than aware of that.

He grunted and unable to stop himself, he voiced the fear that always niggled away at the back of his mind. “For now.”

But Rhys just loosed another manicured shrug, that was at odds with the ground-breaking revelation that followed it. “For a long while. Nesta has expressed her desire to remain in Illyria long-term despite the discontent. Assuming you don’t mind sharing your bungalow.”

It felt as if an iron band of hope was clamped around Cassian’s chest. He stared at his brother. Tried not to blink. Crossed his arms firmly over his chest, protecting his heart. “And you know this how?”

“Nesta spoke with me. We have arrived at a truce, of sorts.”

That must have been what they’d spoken about yesterday on the balcony. He wanted to know more—everything—but Cassian would not press Rhys. If Nesta wanted to tell him, she would. He had to respect that.

So, he bit back his curiosity and grumbled, “About time.”

Rhys clapped his hand on Cassian’s back, but there was something wary in his expression, as if there was something he wanted to say but wouldn’t. Finally, he said, “Patience is a virtue, brother.”

“I’m not the patient sort.”

“You are when it counts,” Rhys countered, and Cassian didn’t say anything because they both knew what he was referring to. Rhys had been the first to know. Had witnessed Cassian in a tangled web of despair and longing and unwanted visions. His brother had immediately put two and two together. Because he’d been there, too. Knew what it was to want someone you thought you couldn’t have. To hope that someone might finally grow to see you in colour rather than in black and white.

Cassian cast another look towards the empty doorway and the quiet hallway beyond it.

A shiver of anticipation ran through him. It was time for them to go home.

***

In the end, Cassian folded to his worry and had Elain fetch Nesta from upstairs. It was time to go, he’d insisted, even though there was no true reason as to why they needed to leave quite so quickly.

“No guesses required to identify why you want to head back to Illyria,” Mor muttered out the side of her mouth, as the creak of the stairs a few flights above heralded the sisters return. Cassian jabbed his elbow into his friend’s ribs and Mor yelped through her grin, even as she had to sidestep, the nudge throwing her off balance. “What? It’s all over your face. You think I can’t read you after five hundred years?”

“Don’t announce it to the room,” Cassian muttered darkly under his breath, “and you won’t find yourself torn to pieces.”

Mor briefly bumped against his arm, the jostle affectionate. Unfazed by his threat, she glanced sideways at him with rich chocolate eyes. “I won’t. We just want you to be happy, you know.”

Cassian’s mouth flattened into a thin line. “Now isn’t the time for a lecture about finding a more suitable mate.”

The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. He hadn’t meant for it to happen, hadn’t meant to voice what he’d kept inside for so long.

Mor’s eyes widened, but she wound her arms around his waist. Cassian allowed her to tuck herself under his arm. His friend scented of citrus and cinnamon. When she craned her neck to look up at him, her expression was glowing with sincerity and Cassian realised that she hadn’t been insinuating that Nesta wasn’t right for him at all. “We’re all cheering you on from the sidelines, Cass, I promise.”

The muscle in Cassian’s jaw flexed. He looked away from her, towards the doorway again, unable to help himself. “Don’t say anything.”

She tightened her grip on his waist. “I won’t. I promise.”

“She doesn’t want it.”

Mor untangled herself from him. Shook her head in disagreement. “She does. She just isn’t ready to admit it yet.”

They both fell quiet as Nesta walked through the door with Elain and Feyre. The first thing Cassian noticed was that she scented of water and salt—tears.

Heart pattering with concern, Cassian quickly scanned Nesta’s expression and body language, searching for clues. But Nesta remained close to her sisters rather than apart, her fingers snagged in Feyre’s, her expression not in tatters but smooth and calm, like still waters.

“Ready to go?” Mor chirped from beside him. “I can winnow you back when Sala arrives.”

Nesta’s grey-blue eyes slid to Mor. “I called her on my way down.”

“Then you have time to see the snowdrops you gave me before you leave,” Elain responded eagerly, tugging at Nesta’s arm. “The cuttings took well to the soil. I planted them beneath the shade of the birch trees near the river.”

Cassian watched Nesta disappear into the garden. Surveyed the way a strand of golden brown hair that had escaped her loose braid floated on the breeze, as if it was part of the element rather than separate, as Elain bent to show her the snowdrops.

Yet despite the clear ease to Nesta’s movements, Cassian couldn’t help but ask Feyre whether everything was okay when she came over to hug him goodbye.

“We’re fine,” Feyre assured him, as together they watched Mor tentatively sit beside Azriel on the couch. For once the Shadowsinger’s shadows didn’t lighten, but Azriel still turned to her, drawn by some magnetism as she began to speak with him.

Slim fingers closed around his. Squeezed. “Thank you for fetching the book of fairytales for Nesta.”

The strand of ebony hair that had wrangled free of Cassian’s hair tie tickled the side of his forehead as he inclined his head. That had been a long time ago, when Nesta was a viper that he dared to poke with a stick, just so he could get a reaction. “Of course.”

“You travelled all that way on barely healed wings just to fetch a book.”

It wasn’t just a book, but Cassian knew Feyre understood that, so he only grunted, “Az took me most of the way. He waited to winnow me back.”

But Feyre’s eyes were burnished, as she asked, “Is there anything you won’t do for my sister?”

“It depends,” Cassian replied honestly. Because although he’d rather die than see Nesta hurt, Cassian wouldn’t hesitate to stand up to her when her fire was ill-wrought. And that’s what he liked about the both of them: if he was an ass Nesta told him straight, and he did the same for her. A grin slashed across his face. “Your sister has claws and teeth when she’s angry.”

It wasn’t long before Sala landed on her four large paws in the garden, prompting goodbyes. Mor winnowed Nesta and Sala, whilst Az’s scarred hand closed around Cassian’s arm.

Together, Cassian and his brother passed through realms of shadows and light and raging wings. Then Illyria was taking shape before Cassian bit by bit: there was the sting of winter on his cheeks, the crunch of snow beneath his feet, the scent of pine and untamed air. It felt like that wonderful first heave of your lungs after being starved from air. It alerted Cassian senses—woke him up.

Not bothering to say goodbye for the second time, Azriel bled straight back into shadow, but Mor raised a hand in a parting wave from where she stood beside Nesta and Sala. Her long golden hair caught on the breeze. It tussled behind her like its own puff of wind, before she vanished into nothing.

When Cassian’s eyes snapped to Nesta, he found her standing with her eyes closed, breathing in the wilderness of their surroundings. After a few beats, Sala jumped onto her hind legs, climbing up Nesta’s body with her snow-crusted paws to knock her head impatiently against Nesta’s.

A breath of laughter clouded in front of her as Nesta ruffled Sala’s ears. She murmured something Cassian couldn't identify in the manticore’s ear, before Sala dropped onto all fours and padded through the snow in the direction of the main camp.

Cassian watched the manticore go. He suspected Sala was going to seek out the widows camp and check everything was in order. It was the kind of thing Nesta would fret about—that whilst she was warm and fed, others might not be extended the same courtesy.

Or, the dark part of his mind whispered, she wants Sala out of the house.

You can fuck me wherever you like in the bungalow, Cassian.

The many needles of thrill pierced through him just as Nesta met his stare from across the snow. Suddenly, Cassian didn’t know what to say. His tongue felt swollen and thick in his mouth, words suddenly as viscous as tar. The atmosphere had altered—the aura surrounding them despite the distance suddenly heavy with promise: a change that pointed to something new.

The siphons on the back of Cassian’s hands glowed in anticipation. Nesta merely raised an eyebrow at him. Turned. Walked towards the house just as he caught the thick scent of jasmine and vanilla on the wind.

Cassian’s nostrils flared as it wound around him; invisible ropes of arousal. And then he was moving, following Nesta’s footprints.

His friends had winnowed them to the back of the house, halfway between the small stone outhouse and the backdoor. They weren’t far from the bungalow, but it felt like miles as Cassian stomped noisily after Nesta, his boots compacting the snow as if they were grinding shards of glass into powder.

When Cassian drew up behind Nesta, she already had a hand half-raised towards the door. Even though he wasn’t touching her, she was a whirlpool of warmth. It sucked him in, begging him to line his torso against her back, so when she cursed, realising she hadn’t taken her gloves off, Cassian didn’t hesitate to reach over her shoulder and rest his palm against the wood, encasing her.

The touch of his bare skin—or Nesta’s—was the key to the magical lock. A thunk sounded as the bolt released but Cassian didn’t push open the door—was too preoccupied with the female before him—who had twisted to stare up at him.

As soon as their gazes snagged, history began to knit together in a rush of thread, until it was a tangible, living thing. Because this moment had been written in the stars as soon as Cassian had seen Nesta in her amethyst dress in the human realm; her hair wielded into a mighty crown, her expression haughty and defiant, yet burning with the potential of a life not yet lived. They’d denied that history, even as it waited patiently in the wings. It had watched as they danced around each other, fumbling and snarling their way to this very moment—

They moved in unison. Cassian’s head bowing just as Nesta reached upwards; her body bowing to his, her palms sliding across his jaw until they were around his neck. Their lips met with a force that rattled Cassian’s bones. This wasn't a brush of a kiss. This was immediate and awakening: Nesta tasted like life and breath, like destiny. And yet again, Cassian knew with startling clarity that they were meant for this, he and Nesta. They were meant for each other and nobody could tell him otherwise, including her.

A soft breath whooshed out of Nesta as her back hit the door, but then Cassian was pushing it open, guiding her inside in a whirlwind of noise and wreckage.

The scrape of wood on the flagstone tiles sounded as Nesta’s back knocked against the table before Cassian turned them, his wings grazing against cupboards and the cool walls. Items clattered and shattered, but Cassian used his wings to keep a check on his surroundings, the touch guiding him to the left-hand wall where he could press her against the wall and devour.

Because Cassian could not tear his mouth from Nesta’s. Couldn’t stop tasting her. Couldn’t stop craving the roll of her tongue and the sound of her guttural moans. It fuelled a fireball inside of him; it roared into life in the centre of his heart, before spreading throughout his limbs, rushing through his body until it settled deep in his groin, aching and burning—screaming for relief.

When they finally hit the wall, the thud of their bodies shook the cabinets and the porcelain within it. Without thinking, Cassian took the brunt of it, his hand flying to cup Nesta's lower back and head to purposefully shield her from the hurt.

Because he was coarse and rippling, galloping towards a primal sort of wilderness that Cassian wasn’t sure he could control.

If Nesta was ignorant to the fact or wholly aware Cassian didn’t know. All he knew was that her hands were scrabbling at his leather like dancing flames, tugging him closer.

When he pressed his body over hers, aligning every inch of her to every inch of him, she whined.

Cassian swallowed it. Slanted his mouth across hers. Tucked his wings in tight as every muscle in him tensed in anticipation.

Nesta tasted of chai and vanilla and embers with a destiny to roar.

Another strangled noise came from her throat as Cassian sank his hands deep into the hair at her scalp, coaxing strands free from her braid as his fingers threading through her hair, just as he had done the night prior when he’d coaxed her to sleep. But this wasn’t a soothing touch. This was a touch to startle every nerve ending to life.

Time began to bleed around them, but Cassian only registered the fluidity of the frantic dance they had not learnt. The way Nesta arched into him as his palm slid back to span her waist. The pant of her breath against his skin. His heaving chest. The way his wings began to spread again of their own volition, like a fan unfolding to reveal a secret pattern—as if they were controlled by nothing but the ache of his cock as it strained against the leather of his pants.

As if in acknowledgement that his body was no longer ruled by him, his hips slanted upwards of their own accord. It was a desperate bid to relieve the ache, and his throat vibrated with a thunderous growl as Nesta dug her nails deeper into the leather of his jacket, using it for leverage as she arched into him.

Something turned further inside of Cassian, like a lock beginning to grind as a key turned. And then it felt as if he were plunging beneath water; ducking into the depths and travelling beneath an invisible barrier before emerging on the other side buoyant and surging with power.

Ruby crashed through his veins, like the walls of a dam broken free and… singing light. Magic roared so loudly in Cassian’s ears that he no longer heard the galloping beat of his heart or the sawing of their breath.

Reeling, he tore his mouth from Nesta’s. Her eyes were just as wide, puddles of startled moonlight—endless mercury—and Cassian didn’t need to look down to know that her hands were wreathed in silver.

For a moment they stared at one another. Time slowed until it was sluggish around them and then the feeling receded, as if Cassian was being carried by a wave as it was dragged unwillingly from the shore on thundering feet.

Sound bled back into Cassian’s ears, like raindrops slowly blotting paper. A moan whispered on a wind carried through him, the words fleeting—her name three times, like always—before they dispersed into nothing and ragged breathing filled the hole.

Fuck, they needed to be careful. He needed to be careful if just kissing her led to some transcendental experience. Cassian knew Nesta became open during sex—had seen tumbled images of tangled limbs and heard her moans—and he couldn’t afford to lose her when she had finally let him in. Couldn’t let her down, even though he wanted nothing more than to finally be found worthy by someone.

That twisted rope between them couldn’t widen and strengthen. Couldn’t finally open and click into place with a consensual snap.

Because Cassian had heard stories of mates who had gone to bed. Who had fleetingly accepted what they wanted in their hearts but not in their minds. And after they had both finished and life had been breathed into that bond, only death could sever their Cauldron-blessed connection.

Cassian would not have a mate with regrets, but he didn’t have the will-power to deny himself of her any longer. Not when he could scent how much Nests wanted him. When he could feel it like an unquenchable ache in his bones—an ache which made him tremble and shake. His rocky warrior exterior ground to nothing but sand.

As if Nesta could read his thoughts she tipped her head back, baring the column of her neck.

A resounding guttural sound dragged from his throat. The noise was animalistic and unchained. A booming crack ricocheted around the walls, the muscles in Cassian’s back burning as his wings snapped outward.

Something toppled from somewhere and crashed to the floor, but Cassian didn’t bother to raise his head to look at what it was.

And then time seemed to both slow and drive into a frenzy. Cassian launched at Nesta’s neck at the same time he tugged at her hair, urging her head to fall back even farther.

His lips were against the column of her throat in the blink of an eye; his teeth scraping, his mouth sucking until her blood pounded in his ears. Nesta’s knees buckled but Cassian quickly pinned her body to the wall, holding her up, his knee sliding firmly between her legs…

And… nothing. There was no panic or sensation of being trapped—no sudden fire launching him back thirty feet—but Cassian still tore his mouth from Nesta’s neck. Had to know she wasn’t panicking. “Ok?” he rasped.

A frown burrowed Nesta’s brows. Her swollen lips parted in confusion. Somehow it made her look more beautiful.

Cassian raised a shaking hand to trace it away. “Nesta. Are you ok?”

Understanding dawned like millions of unfurling petals.

When Nesta spoke she was short of breath, the words an exhale. “Don’t hold back.”

Cassian practically arched into her at the words but he made himself remain still, even as his body vibrated with tension. His bones creaked but he held fast.

That stubborn, beautiful chin lifted and Nesta’s eyes glinted wicked yet pure. Always an oxymoron, his Nesta.

“Don’t hold back,” she repeated, her voice stronger this time. She pushed her hips against his thigh and the friction had her lips parting, a shaky breath tumbling from her lungs. “I can take it.”

The words were like slashing knives of pleasure, severing the leash on any control Cassian thought he had.

The subsequent rush of air Cassian loosed was akin to a snorting horse.

Then he was moving and their mouths were fused together again, their tongues a delicious push and pull of control and pleasure before he yanked away.

“Thank fuck,” he gasped. His hands flew to her hips, guiding her to ride his thigh. “Thank fuck, Nesta.”

The friction had Nesta moaning, her fingernails digging so hard into the leather of his jacket Cassian was sure she had dented the material. But he didn’t care. Didn’t care about anything but the living fervour that clawed at them.

His hands were everywhere at once. Tangled in her hair. Sliding over her cheek. Cupping her ass. Attacking the buttons at the back of her dress, until they popped and scattered. Until he could pull the material down her arms, exposing tantalising creamy skin.

At the first sight of her breasts, Cassian growled. He bowed his head to capture a nipple sharply between his teeth before he laved over it with his tongue, smoothing over the wound. He relished the way Nesta cried out. Arched into him. She began to tear at his jacket. It snagged on his wings but Cassian shrugged it off until it hit the floor with a thud.

The first slide of Nesta’s palms beneath his tunic was like oil sizzling in a pan. Cassian hissed as the callouses of her palms scraped deliciously over his skin and scars and ink. Snarled as she made quick work of the stays and fastenings. Tried to focus on her other breast as she inched her hand beneath the tight leather fabric and eased him free.

Fingers wrapped sinfully around him, causing Cassian to snarl around a peaked nipple—to buck sharply—pressing them more firmly against the wall.

“Don’t bother,” Nesta moaned as Cassian wrenched desperately at the fabric of her dress, trying to coax it further down her body. She ground down onto his thigh as it to emphasise her point—her need—and the heat of her burned.

It was all Cassian needed to hear. He fumbled desperately with her skirts until a hand was under the material and sliding up her thigh. Until fabric ripped and her underwear fell away in what Cassian imagined to be a ripple of lace.

In one swift movement, Cassian lifted Nesta’s body upwards, until her legs were gripped tightly around his hips and her back was flush against the wall. Her hands flew to find purchase, grappling at the back of his neck, and when she was steady she raked her hand purposefully through the hair which had come loose from his tie. Tugged at the leather until his hair fell over his face. Whined. Tangled her fingers through the ebony strands as if they were her reigns.

Cassian splayed the hand that wasn’t supporting her body against the cold wall. Tried to catch his breath, but the position evened out the height between them. Just a slight movement would allow him to capture her lips with his, and Cassian couldn’t deny that demanding tug that drove him to devour. Nesta seemed to feel the same way. Moaned in relief as Cassian tasted her as if he couldn’t get enough, gave back as good as she got. Over and over they moved, until they were nothing but an undulating wave of tongue and teeth and groans. The pleasure was a surging, roiling entity. It was all consuming. It overtook Cassian’s body, demanding that his hand drag from her ass straight to her core.

When his fingers slid through wetness, Cassian’s groan sounded like thunderous defeat. He dropped his head to Nesta’s collarbone. Gently pressed his lips to her clavicle. To her shoulder. Tried to ground himself as he slid straight to the spot that made her keen—as pleasure ignited down the bond like a crashing wave. Brushed over it again and again and again. Relishing in the noises he coaxed from her. At the curling fists of desire that clenched agonisingly inside of him.

Cassian had to see Nesta fall. Had to look into her eyes as she broke.

But he wanted to be inside of her when it happened.

Cassian was reaching for his cock at the same time that Nesta let out a broken moan. “Do it,” she breathed. There was no bite of authority in her voice, as if all of the energy she had directed in the pursuit of pleasure had smoothed over the serrated edge of her personality he loved so much, leaving a softer version in its wake. “Please. Just—”

A satisfied snarl ripped from Cassian as he felt her want. And in that moment, Cassian knew there would be nothing gentle about how this was going to play out. It was going to be rough and frantic, riding a wave of pleasure that had been building for too long. Knew afterwards that they would sink to the cold floor in a mass of tangled limbs and mingled breath.

And Cassian wanted that. Had never wanted release so badly in his life.

Something clambered in the back of his mind. Something he needed to remember, but his limbs were moving of their own volition. He didn’t even bother to pump his cock or squeeze it to relieve the tension. Only cared about finally being inside of her.

The heat and slickness of her was sinful and divine when he lined himself up at her entrance. The hand he had braced against the wall came to span her cheek. It relied on Nesta clamping on tightly to his waist with her legs and the press of his torso against hers, but they managed it.

Shaking, Cassian raked back the hair that had fallen free from her braid back from Nesta’s face, just as she tugged him in for a bruising kiss.

There was a moment when everything paused and trembled. As Nesta pulled away and stared at him, her eyes swimming silver—glowing with it—her pupils obscured.

His magic surged at the sight of it. Crashed against his skin as if it was trying to escape. His siphons burned bloody.

“Cassian,” Nesta panted. Despite the keen desperation, there was cushion to his name. Gently, Nesta bowed her head until her forehead rested against his. The gesture was surprisingly tender. It tugged at his heartstrings, triggered his hips into movement as they finally pushed forward.

The tight heat that wrapped around him like velvet was so immediate that Cassian swore. Sweat trickled down his back and seeped into the tunic Nesta hadn’t gotten round to discarding. He trembled as Nesta’s breath stuttered and he felt the burning pain mixed with pleasure as he sunk in an inch. Felt the stretch of Nesta’s body as it strained to fit around him.

Claws dug into his back—Nesta’s nails—biting into his skin, until the metallic tang of blood infused the air.

Cassian’s body stilled before he even had a second to register that he needed to stop. That instinct buried deep to make sure she never hurt.

And then a knock rapped at the front door.

“No,” Nesta moaned. She shifted her hips and Cassian sank a little deeper. That pain flared again through the pleasure and Cassian grip on her turned vice like.

Sense stumbled into his desire addled brain, like a fawn on gangly legs.

But then it righted itself.

Another sharp rap at the door cleared his head completely.

He bowed to bury his face in the crook of her neck but Nesta whined. Tilted her hips again, urging him deeper. “Nesta, stop.”

“No.” Her whimper was doused in frustration, but all Cassian could feel was that sharp needle of pain.

He tried to pull back, but Nesta clamped down around him with that incredible strength of hers. The strength that only seemed to appear at times of desperation or anger.

Cassian’s jaw flexed, his features hardening. “I’m hurting you.”

“You’re not,” Nesta countered, defiance colouring her expression.

“I am,” Cassian retorted, not allowing for a passing beat of their hearts to pass before he replied. “I’m hurting you. Don’t pretend that I’m not.”

I can feel it, Cassian wanted to explain, but didn’t. Knew somehow that if he did they might not end up joining at all.

Desire fogged Nesta’s mind and it fuelled the punch to her next words. “I don’t care.”

Ire punched through Cassian’s desire enough for him to see red. “Well, I do,” he snapped.

Nesta’s nostrils flared at his tone and her eyes burned silver. Cassian wondered how everything had gone southward so quickly—they were on a sinking ship and he needed to patch it up. Knew she felt rejected. So, he kissed her and pushed back that unquenchable ache he felt for her. Knew it hit home because she gasped softly into his mouth, her surprise tart on his tongue.

He pulled out. As soon as his cock fell free that pain throbbed and ebbed. But Nesta moaned all the same.

Moaned again as he drew his head back to stare at her.

She surprised him when her eyes remained open rather than closed off. There was no hard shield. Nothing but want and a vulnerability that made his heart squeeze.

It gave him the courage to do the right thing.

He kissed her again. Trailed a thumb across her swollen lips, ignoring the desire that roared as Nesta sucked it into her mouth, her tongue darting across the top before the bit down lightly.

“This is how things are going to go,” Cassian murmured lowly, pulling his thumb out of her mouth and across her jawline, trailing the wetness all the way to the sensitive spot behind her ear. Nesta shuddered.

“I’m going to get the door and send whoever it is away,” Cassian continued. He paused to let the words sink in. Lowered his head to trace a path with his nose, up the slope of her shoulder, all the way up her neck until his lips were grazing the shell of her ear. “You will go to your bedroom. When they’re gone, I’ll find you.”

Another shiver coursed through Nesta’s body. Her fingers tightened around his neck.

When Nesta next spoke, Cassian knew he’d piqued her interest. “What then?” she demanded.

“Then I’m going to make you come until you see stars.”

Nesta’s entire body froze. For a long moment, she didn’t so much as breathe, but Cassian felt the throb of her blood and magic as it pounded against her skin.

Then, Nesta’s hands worked between them, until her small palms were splayed across his chest. She pushed firmly, indicating that she wanted to get her down. Her body slithered to the floor, her lean legs falling away from his body.

The sudden distance between them felt like miles.

Nesta lifted her chin. “Hurry or I’ll start without you.”

A breath heaved at Cassian’s lungs and he felt his pupils contract, pushing out his irises until they were swallowed by black. The image of Nesta sprawled on the bed wearing nothing but skin, her legs open, a hand moving between her legs had that coil within him tightening to the point of pain.

A growl spiked through the air as another knock sounded at the door.

Nesta must have known she’d wrangled back control, because she arched a cool eyebrow at him.  “I thought you were going to answer the door?”

A dark chuckle forced its way out of his chest, but it was mechanical rather than true. Because there was nothing funny about resisting Nesta right now and his body seemed to know that.

Cassian reached for her before he knew what was happening. Rested his forehead against hers. Breathed once. Twice. “I need to calm down,” he confessed.

Nesta snickered, but the sound fell flat as her breath hitched upwards at the end. It betrayed the effect he had on her, even as she said silkily, “Did the image of me pleasuring myself get you hard?”

“I was already hard,” he growled. He pressed a lingering kiss to her mouth. “As you well know.”

A hand reached between them. Stroked over him—the touch feather light but tantalising enough that Cassian bucked into her touch.

And then cunning words, “Maybe I’ll let you watch.”

A string of swear words left Cassian’s mouth. He yanked back from Nesta, as if someone had tugged firmly on a leash. Tugged up his pants and jerked ruthlessly at the ties until they fastened, trapping his cock back into the leather.

With a growl, Cassian waved a hand towards the living room—to Nesta’s room to the right of it. “Leave before I fuck you against the wall, Nesta,” he barked.

Nesta’s sly laugh skittered over his skin, and without pulling her dress back up to cover herself, Nesta sashayed through the nearest arch and disappeared.

*** It had been Mas and Roksana at the door, laden with bags full of groceries and supplies from the market. With full access to the house, there was no reason why they shouldn’t have just come right in. Which meant Mas had suspected somehow, enough so that she had left the bags on the front step and remained standing with Roksana a few feet back.

“I am sorry Sinta, but the meat might spoil,” the housekeeper had apologised as soon as he’d opened the door, his hair a tangled mess from where Nesta had yanked it free of its tie. He hadn’t had the sense to recover it from the floor, but he had righted his tunic and fastened his pants.

And thank the Cauldron for that, because Roksana peeked up at Cassian with wide eyes from her position of safety behind Mas’s legs. He didn’t know when Lorrian had brought the youngling back to the camp, but Cassian guessed it hadn’t been easy on the two of them to take a little girl out of the warmth and back into the snow.

Cassian tried to soften the eyes that he knew were a little wild. He raked his hands through his hair and sent them his most disarming smile, but there was fuck all he could do about his scent. So he thanked her, trying to keep his voice light and conversational. Ordered her to take the rest of the day off.

To the housekeeper’s credit, she did not linger. Had merely nodded and rushed Roksana back into the snow, towards the main vein of the camp.

Yet, whilst the housekeeper’s interruption had been unwanted, it did grant Cassian some breathing space as he rammed perishables into the cool box. Because even though Cassian would allow Nesta to decide how this all played out, he needed to lay down a rule of his own: he could give her the space to decide what she wanted—for him to prove that he could be what she needed—but there was one thing he could not suffer through.

And if they had stormed ahead in a hurricane of lust; with Nesta’s back against the wall as Cassian pounded into her… Well, it would be too late for Cassian to lay down his one condition once they were sweaty and sated. Nesta was more likely to get up and walk away. To not look back.

Cassian found Nesta sitting at the dresser in her room re-braiding back her hair.

Leaning against the doorjamb, Cassian opened his mouth to explain who had been at the door, but an iron band closed fast around his chest, robbing him of breath.

“What are you wearing?” The words came out of him eventually, entirely uneven to the point of being choked.

Because Nesta was wearing his shirt. It was the same steel blue shirt she’d worn that first day in Illyria. The shirt that was an identical match to her eyes, purchased before Cassian had realising what his subconscious had done. A shirt he’d had to hide away in the spare room because Cassian hadn’t been able to bare seeing it in his closet—of being reminded that his mate was a ghost who had banished him away.

Go home, Cassian.

Nesta met Cassian's eyes in the mirror. Announced with cool simplicity, “You ripped my dress.”

“And this is your way of torturing me?”

An indifferent shrug. “Why wear my own clothing when I know what fate it will suffer?”

Cassian knew his nostrils billowed, but he remained propped up against the doorframe. Pretended he was stuck to it like glue because his body was trembling for him to launch across the distance and claim her mouth. Her neck. Her.

The silence seemed to unnerve Nesta. Cassian knew that from months of living with her. From months of studying her slight tells when her masks slipped.

Right on cue, Nesta reset her posture—a gesture that most people read as defiant. But Cassian knew it was also a sign of nerves. She shrugged with feigned indifference, even as her throat tightened and that damned pulse fluttered temptingly against her throat. “You liked it the last time I wore it.”

Cassian huffed a breath. He had liked it the last time she wore it, even if she’d been so gaunt that he’d worried she might wither away. But the shirt… it had put images in his mind that Cassian had long tried to store away, imprisoned in rock and flame: her in his clothing, not fucking other males but him, her lithe legs wrapping around his waist as he sank deep—

Which brought Cassian neatly to the point he needed to discuss with her…

Nesta’s eyes tracked Cassian in the mirror as he peeled himself out of the doorway and came to stand behind her. When their eyes locked into place, it felt as if someone had punched him in the chest. There was something deep in Nesta’s gaze that made it feel as if he was tumbling down a rabbit hole, that magnetism between them drawing him in like gravity.

When Cassian’s fingers brushed Nesta’s neck—ran down the braid she had draped over her shoulder—Nesta shivered. “You had your hair down then,” he rasped. Didn’t wait for her to protest, as he slowly coaxed the tie free from the end of her hair.

Nesta turned preternaturally still, watched him gently part her hair in the mirror until it fell free from her plait, his calloused fingers brushing over her skin as he coaxed her hair to fall down her back.

The pulse hammering at her throat and the warmth radiating from her skin were the only indications that Nesta was alive rather than stone.

Only when Cassian had finished and lifted his hands from her neck, did Nesta come back to life.

Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. But she cocked her head slightly to dissect him. “It’s a nuisance like this. It gets in the way.”

“It’s beautiful,” Cassian corrected, his voice rasping, like sand scraping against skin. He ran a hand through her hair as if to emphasise his point, his fingers running down, down, down until her waist.

When Nesta stood and turned into the warmth of him, Cassian scented what she wanted. But there was something else simmering in her expression—surprise. As if she’d caught the truth in his words and hadn’t expected someone to truly think her beautiful.

She stepped closer, until the lines of her torso ghosted his. Until Cassian’s heart pounded so hard he could hear the frantic tempo of it in his ears. Nesta tilted her head back so she could stare up at him and Cassian’s hand weaved through the mane of her hair before he could stop himself.

He was desperate to touch her again. Desperate.

But Cassian waited. Waited for Nesta to reach up on tiptoes and press her mouth to his.

The kiss was not like their bruised, desperate kisses from earlier. It was coaxing and unsure; the tentative beginning of something that was not merely fuelled by ardour. But it soon blossomed into something more, like a snowball rolling down a mountain blanketed white, gaining speed as it grew and grew—

Dragging his mouth away from hers, Cassian fought for breath. Battled to remember what he needed to do and say. But then Nesta was tugging his head back down again, her fingers tangled in his hair, the gesture indicative of an insistent need that Cassian knew would not go away.

As always, Nesta tasted divine. Addictive. He could taste the curl of her power on his tongue—silver and white, life and death—and he wondered if she could taste his. Knew his siphons were glowing scarlet—

“Nesta,” he murmured hoarsely, her name a caress against her lips. He couldn’t invoke a distance between them, couldn’t stop touching her. His nose brushed hers as her drew back an infinitesimal amount. Closed his eyes. Inhaled deeply, summoning courage. “You can dictate how this goes between us. But if we do this, I can’t—there’s no-one else. Just you and me.”

The subsequent pause was one of the worst of Cassian’s life. It was barely a breath. The blink of an eye. But it felt as if it was malleable and elastic, drawn out by the hands of fate as everything suspended in time.

He didn’t want to open his eyes, but in the end he managed it. Caught Nesta’s eyelashes flutter downwards, casting shadows on her skin. Her fists tightened in the fabric of his tunic, anchoring him to the moment.

She swallowed. Shook her head. Agreed with a conviction he had not been expecting, “No-one else.”

The relief that swooped through Cassian was so fierce it was painful. But he still didn’t dare to believe it.

He caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger so Nesta could not look away. So he could look into the deep waters of her irises and know she was telling him the truth.

But her gaze was steady and unwavering, as he demanded, “Say it again.”

His voice cracked but Nesta didn’t appear to notice. Her grip on him tightened. “No-one else,” she repeated on an outward breath.

A low, ravaged moan sounded from Cassian’s throat. “Diyosa,” he murmured, slipping into Illyrian. Goddess.

“Bruha,” Nesta corrected. She fumbled over the pronunciation but Cassian felt as if he had been an ember that had burst into flame. Witch.

He let out a rough bark of laughter. Then he swore in a long, drawn out moan. “No Illyrian,” he ordered roughly. Pressed his mouth firmly against hers, the kiss searing. “Otherwise this will be over far too quickly.” Another kiss. “And I want to take my time.”

The smile Nesta painted against Cassian’s lips was feline. “You’ve made a lot of promises, General. I hope you don’t disappoint.”

Cassian snarled. Spun her body until her back was cradled against his chest. “I have, haven’t I?” he mused lightly, even though the hammering of his heart must have beat a betraying rhythm against her shoulder blade.

In the mirror, Nesta’s expression grew less poised and controlled. Delight mixed with anticipation clung to her features at this game they played; this tussle for control. She did not try to wrangle free from his hold or shift uncomfortably in his arms at having her back enclosed against his.

It thrilled him—that trust. Enough so that when he met her eyes in the mirror, Cassian found that his irises had been swallowed by his pupils until they were only a ring of chocolate gold.

Slowly, Cassian brushed Nesta’s hair over to one shoulder with his left hand. Traced his fingers down the arc of her neck to her collarbone. Continued a path down the centre of her chest, to the pyrite which glittered between her breasts.

When his fingers met the first button of his shirt, Cassian toyed with it. Purposefully grazed his nose against the shell of her ear. “Shall I start here?” he murmured. “Undress you in front of the mirror whilst you watch?”

Nesta suppressed a shudder, but Cassian caught it. Could swear he felt her blood boiling beneath her skin as he slipped the button free of its hole. Then another. And another. Until there were no more buttons and the material hung free.

Leaning back into his body, Nesta rested her head against his chest. Curved her back slightly so her chest thrust upwards, silently instructing him where she wanted his hands.

And Cassian couldn’t deny her. He turned his palm so it was face up and curled into a loose fist. Brushed his knuckles down her sternum all the way to her bared naval, before bringing it back up. His fingers ran up the side of the material free of buttons, until he was at her collarbone—her shoulder—leaving a litter of goosebumps in his wake.

This time, Cassian snickered when she shivered. Dropped a slow and deliberate kiss to her bare shoulder as he slowly, slowly inched the material down, down, down over her arm. Repeated the motion on the other, until the shirt pooled onto the floor, exposing her bare body to the mirror: endless creamy skin, divine curves, the luscious full weight of her bare breasts, and… lower.

Nesta’s eyes, which had been tracking the fabric as it fell away, snapped to his as a feral growl ripped from him. And she moaned at the expression on his face. Grabbed at his hands, pulling them to her body.

“Touch me,” Nesta hissed, but it came out strangled. Almost pleading. Another crack in her armour as it broke and fell away.

The sight was enough to threaten Cassian to his knees. He guided her body backwards, his hands splaying firmly across her stomach despite her whine, until his legs hit the edge of the mattress

Neither of them broke eye contact in the mirror. Not when Cassian coaxed Nesta down to sit on the bed with him. Not when he pulled her between his legs, her back firmly against his chest. Not when he bowed his head to kiss the slope between her neck and shoulder.

When Cassian finally brushed a thumb over her nipple, Nesta back bowed so fiercely Cassian was thankful he had an arm strapped across her stomach.

The small noise she loosed fuelled his fire and Cassian held on to her. Stroked over that peaked nipple again as Nesta careened into his touch. Followed it with a firmer roll with his thumb and forefinger. Used the fingertips of his other hand to draw slow, tantalising circles across the silken skin of her lower stomach, before he moved southwards…

The air around them hushed when Cassian’s fingers stilled. Anticipation built and only when it vibrated with tension did Cassian slide his hands to cradle Nesta’s hips.

A snarl of frustration, but Cassian paid the sound no heed. Only grazed his thumbs over Nesta’s hipbones. Watched her expression in the mirror—the way her face contorted as she squirmed into his touch as if she was a puppet on strings. Ground back onto him, pressing into that building ache that was bordering on painful.

Fuck, Nesta.

Cassian wasn’t sure if he had spoken out loud or in his head, all he knew was the blessed, fleeting relief he felt as he bucked into the small of Nesta’s back on instinct. He was rock hard and thirsting to be touched, but the thickening scent of Nesta’s arousal pulled his focus.

A groan rumbled from Cassian’s throat as Nesta’s hand darted between her legs. He caught her wrist just in the nick of time. Kissed the heart of her palm. Rumbled into her ear, “Not yet, sweetheart.”

His voice was coarse enough that Nesta shivered, the goosebumps travelling down her skin like a cresting wave. She didn’t struggle against him, nor did she move to disobey him as he dropped her wrist. Instead, she waited, trembling and shaking at every pass of his thumbs over her skin.

Cassian buried his nose behind the shell of her ear. Breathed Nesta in, steadying the drum of his pulse.

Not once did he take his eyes off of hers in the mirror, especially as he murmured, “Shall we find out if you’re wet for me?”

Nesta squeezed her eyes tightly shut, as if the movement would steady her. Swallowed hard. It was so unlike her to take stock, to show any signs that she was rattled, that Cassian softened. He nuzzled at her neck, trailed a line of kisses instilled with promises. A hand flew up to tangle in Cassian’s hair, keeping him there.

“Yes.”

The word stuttered out of Nesta on several staccatos, but she forced her eyes open and met his gaze in the mirror. Watched as he pulled her tighter against him and hooked her legs over his thighs so she was spread wide. Slipped his hand across and down…

The first ghost of a touch had Nesta panting through her nose. The second had her gritting her teeth. The third had her moaning, her back bowing so sharply as he skimmed straight over the place she wanted him the most.

Her head hit the centre of his chest with a resounding thud that had his bones creaking, but she did not look away from him. Seemed to know the game they were playing without him having to express it.

When Cassian brought his fingers lower and discovered just how wet Nesta was, he had to force his wings in tight to his back to hide his surprise. Growled, “You’re soaked.”

Pleasure and embarrassment twisted in Cassian’s stomach, and Cassian wanted to tell her that it was not something to be ashamed of, that he wanted her just as much as she clearly wanted his fingers between her legs.

Her eyes glinted steel, her stare commanding. “Make me come—“ she ordered, but Cassian chose that moment to roll his finger over that spot at the apex of her thighs.

The command bottomed out of Nesta as she inhaled sharply. Satisfaction bloomed inside of Cassian; because he may have done this countless times before but barely enough with her. And nothing seemed to matter apart from him seeking out her satisfaction. Of learning about what made her body freeze with pleasure and what made her come undone. “There?” he murmured into her ear, repeating the movement, before he passed his fingers down further. Until they were at her entrance, playing gently before he drew upwards and circled.

This time, Nesta groaned. Her hips jerked sharply beneath him, tilting, guiding him to just the right place.

Picking up on the cue, Cassian increased the tempo and friction until Nesta’s hips were rolling in a punishing rhythm against the hard length of him.

And Cassian snarled in satisfaction, his fingers tightening around her hip in a plea for her to keep moving—to not stop pushing back on him—because it was blissfully good. The rapid tightening in his groin was almost painful, the cord so tight that Cassian thought it might snap. But he couldn’t stop Nesta, not when she looked so bewitching, the arousal so stark on her face as he stroked and circled and pressed.

Burning pleasure clambered to its peak and Nesta’s eyes grew so heavy they fluttered closed. Something unintelligible left her lips, her head tipping back into the heart of his chest.

When Nesta’s arms wound around his neck, her knuckles accidentally grazing the leather of his wings, Cassian part-snarled, part-roared. Swore. Held her even tighter as his wings snapped out high and mighty behind him. They wrapped around Nesta’s body before Cassian’s pleasure-fogged mind could stop them curling towards her, starved for her touch.

Fuck, he was unhinged. So desperate for relief—in the scent and feel of his mate—that his control was barely there. Enough so that he didn’t react when Nesta reached out her hand—

Sense knocked Cassian for six only when Nesta’s fingers were millimetres from touching the membrane. He drew back his wings so fast  the air around them stormed, but he swooped in before surprise could register on Nesta’s face. Dipped his chin and coaxed her head even further back so he could claim her mouth.

The taste of her lips was as vital as breathing, the scrape of her nails on his scalp grounding. He moaned into her mouth at the same time as she whimpered. His hand was still moving between her legs, interchanging the same three patterns over and over again, mixing things up as soon as Nesta’s moans grew too untamed: he wanted to draw out her pleasure, not sate it with a few choice strokes.

Pulling away, Cassian pressed a kiss to her forehead. Coaxed her to dip her chin until she was looking back at their reflection in the mirror: ebony and golden brown, tan and cream.

Nesta’s irises were wisps of silver, but when he traversed past that bundle of nerves so he could slip two fingers inside of her, they flickered into living flame.

That was indication enough that she liked what he was doing. Cassian had quickly learnt that Nesta became completely readable between the sheets, that mask slowly crumbling away until she broke completely.

Curving his fingers as much as he could, Cassian pressed upwards hard—again and again— revelling in the strangled sounds Nesta made. The way she writhed but tried her best to hold his gaze.

Cassian dropped a lingering kiss to the crown of Nesta’s head. Murmured into her hair, “Is that good, sweetheart?”

The only response Cassian received was a long moan which extended into a whine as he withdrew his fingers. Then a sharp cry as he swept them upwards, swirling them in a well-practiced motion that had Nesta’s lower half seizing in pleasure.

Cassian circled again. Again. Firmer. Faster. Nesta’s cries grew louder, her breathing became more laboured. A silver wreathed hand flew to his forearm—not to stop him, but to keep him there.

Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Don’t stop.

The bond between them creaked and cracked as it expanded.

Nesta panted his name.

“Are you going to come for me, sweetheart?” Cassian scratched out.

In vain, Nesta attempted to burrow her head into his shoulder, but Cassian’s voice dropped out of soft and into the role of general within the fraction of a heartbeat. “Eyes on the mirror, Nesta, or I’ll stop.”

It seemed to take all of Nesta’s energy to fight her leaded eyelids and meet his dark eyes in their reflection. When she did, Cassian’s magic roared and pounded beneath his skin, as if it was trying to break free and join Nesta’s. There was a pressure and power fuelling the sensation that was separate to him. It was like the magnetic force which rules the relentless ebb and flow of the tide—that desperate crash followed by a scrabbling, thundering retreat.

That twisted rope between them grew corporeal, tugging at their ribcages as if it was clambering to remind them both of its existence. Of the cost of this exchange.

Something deepened in both of their gazes, but if Nesta had felt what Cassian had, she gave no indication. She only arched her hips back into his, grinding backwards.

Cassian loosed a rough groan that skittered across the shell of her ear. Her gaze was purposeful but hooded, as if she was in a continual battle with the pleasure weighting her eyelids.

“Good girl,” he praised as Nesta’s eyelashes fluttered from the strain of maintaining eye contact. And then his fingers were everywhere at once and Nesta’s moans fell away to short gasps that rose in volume.

Nesta tightened her fingers around his neck, scrabbling for purchase, for some sort of tether as her pleasure launched high into the air. The hand that had been at her hip, steadying her, encouraging her to roll back on him moved to her breast; cupping and pinching and rolling as she stuttered pants and words that Cassian couldn’t make out.

When Cassian slid two fingers inside of her again and pressed down firmly on her clit with his palm, Nesta’s cry was wild.

“Look at me,” Cassian ordered as Nesta’s eyes flew shut. His voice was resonant—startling—even to him. It punched through the bubble that had encased them—their entwined scent—and Nesta’s eyes snapped open.

For a beat, time seemed to stand still around them. Their gaze fastened back into place and for a moment, Cassian could see a conflict of thoughts swirl in the magic of Nesta’s irises.

He froze just as anguish crashed down that bond, right into the heart of his chest.

It knocked the breath from him. Confusion rattled inside of his head but he came up empty of answers. Had he gone too far? Had he hurt her somehow?

“Sweetheart—“ he started, but stopped. Unsure of what to say because he could still smell how much she wanted this. Could feel how soaked she was. But perhaps that was what the mating bond did. Fooled reason with an overwhelming drive to pleasure and claim.

Cassian went to draw his hand away but Nesta’s hand whipped out, her fingers curling around his wrist. Desperation flooded her next words—the plea in them stark. “Don’t stop.”

As if to punctuate her point, she rolled her hips. His fingers slid over her of her own accord and she stumbled a moan. Light barrelled down the bond and Cassian’s blood spiked, thrilled as he felt the truth of her words, as she ground back into him again.

“Fuck that feels good,” Cassian grunted into her ear. His hips pushed into the small of her back, accentuating his point. It chased the delicious reprieve from the ache in his cock, even as he knew this moment wasn’t about him. As he pulled her back into the solid muscle of his chest, steadying her movements so he could pick up where he left off: so he could watch the pleasure whip away her conflicted expression until her eyes were once again blazing with the promise of flame.

Silver mist climbed from Nesta’s fingertips into the air. It crawled over the glowing ruby siphons across the backs of his hands, past the corded muscle of his forearm and the rolled up sleeves of his tunic, to his chest, his neck…

A sheen of metal shone in Cassian’s eyes, flickering across his irises so they appeared to turn a metallic gold. The lick of Nesta’s magic didn’t burn. It was a rush of heat—the tender caress of a lover’s kiss instilled into his skin over and over again, ascending Cassian to another realm of pleasure, as if he’d climbed a staircase to an entirely new place.

It felt like an extended method of foreplay Cassian had never been privy to before, lighting up every nerve ending until he was so hard he could cut stone.

Gritting his teeth through the pain-cloaked pleasure, Cassian focussed instead on Nesta’s bare skin.

The tempting fullness of her breasts. The way desire had completely rewritten her countenance. The way she whimpered and then cried out.

Cassian sped up his movements. Until his fingers were no longer teasing, but dancing over her with sure, quick movements designed to thrust her towards a crescendo.

Nesta’s magic swirled into flame, the heat of it a licking promise down Cassian’s limbs. He groaned, swore at the exquisite pain on her face as she hung at the precipice, ready to plummet into rapture.

Her climax became a tangible, living thing and Cassian wanted to see it play out for as long as he possible could. Wanted to see her break for him again and again and again.

So, he waited until she reached the summit and when she was there he slowed down his movements. Ordered through her whimpering, “Look at me Nesta.”

Metallic irises met his, and then Nesta was trembling and shaking in fits and bursts as her release ripped out of her like a taut cord cut loose. Cassian drew her orgasm out as best he could, suspending that pleasure until finally Nesta slumped against him, spineless.

She turned her head to bury it in his shoulder and Cassian let her. Stroked her hair. Pressed a kiss to her sweaty head. Murmured, “Good?”

Slowly, Nesta nodded, but for a long while, that was the only communication he received. But Cassian let her recover. Watched the way her ribcage moved as she heaved for breath. Relished the way her body was splayed out over him, her legs held wide open from where they were hooked over his thighs.

Unable to help himself, Cassian brushed over her sex. Delighted in the way Nesta shuddered rather than batted him away. Fresh desire reignited across her expression and Cassian played gently for a few minutes, revelling in the wetness that had gathered from her release.

Finally, Nesta lifted her head to meet his gaze again. “Did I burn you?”

“No,” Cassian replied hoarsely, his heart squeezing at the genuine fear in her words. He let out a rough laugh, passed his fingers lightly over the knot at the apex of her legs for the last time before he withdrew them.

Nesta moaned softly, even as her brow twisted into a small frown.

“It felt good,” Cassian elaborated. He kissed her shoulder at the same time that he pushed his hips into hers as if to demonstrate just how much he’d liked her magic. “I’m being strangled to death in these pants,” he confessed.

When Nesta cocked her head, her hair moved in a golden tangle. Then she smirked. Unravelled her limbs from him and turned.

Nesta slung her legs over his waist so she was straddling him just as Cassian’s hands caught in her hair. A booming sounded as his wings snapped out and fanned behind him, settling like falling fabric.

“We can’t have that,” Nesta remarked, her breath a whisper against his skin.

“No,” Cassian agreed roughly. “It’s your favourite part.”

Nesta snorted a laugh, but it was not derisive. “Egotistical bat,” she muttered.

A slow, smug smile was Cassian’s only reply. Because he was more focussed on her mouth. With the feel of her silken skin beneath his palms as he ran them up her legs and over her rounded ass. His touch was a promise as he tugged her into his body and ground up into her core, the seam of his trousers doing nothing to relieve the damning ache in his cock.

Together they gasped, and then, as always, they moved at the same time, their mouths slanting one another within a fraction of a second.

The heat of Nesta was liquid, the touch of her smoke—feverish and everywhere all at once. It was the same heat that had roared into existence when Cassian had pinned her against the wall earlier, yet… better somehow. Passionate and awake rather than fogged with lust. Life-giving.

A shuddered groan was pulled from Cassian’s chest as Nesta’s hands slid beneath his tunic and met his burning skin. And then the tunic was on the floor—the rest of his clothing was torn from him soon after. It all happened at such speed Cassian could barely keep up, but when Nesta reached for his bare, burning skin—the tattoos on his arms and the faint scar on his stomach—her fingers were gentle.

“Battle scar,” Cassian panted in explanation, as Nesta’s fingers lingered on the silvery tissue that wound over his lower abdomen: a permanent reminder of what had happened to him during the final battle with Hybern. “The trauma was too great for Madja to heal completely.”

“I remember,” Nesta replied shortly and she looked so fierce that Cassian reached for her. Cupped her cheek with his palm.

“Still breathing, Nes.”

Nesta nodded, but when she kissed him this time there was something fierce and desperate about it, her fingers burying deeper into the mane of his hair.

And then a hand was trailing down his skin and closing around his cock. The touch was sinful and a glimpse of the heavens. When he hissed into her mouth, Nesta gripped tighter—until pain laced the pleasure—just how he liked it.

His groan was that of rumbling thunder as she began to move her hand. It was everything Cassian needed, but it was too much, too good. He scrambled to hold on to some sense of control, because he’d never been this close to losing it from just a few touches.

Then Nesta stopped. Glanced downwards—

The realisation thumped through Cassian so loudly his heartbeat punched like a fist against his ribcage.

“Don’t you dare,” Cassian choked out.

Nesta’s eyes shot to his, but rather than looking startled she arched a challenging eyebrow.

“If you so much as try to put my cock in your mouth I’ll explode,” Cassian rasped.

Before she could protest, he was gathering her to him and had slipped a hand down between her legs.

Just the touch of his fingers had Cassian seizing back control. Nesta stilled at the sudden pleasure, as if she was trying to coax time into suspending the sensation.

“Still so wet,” Cassian purred against the tip of her ear.

Gliding his fingers over the centre of her, Cassian paused briefly at the apex of her legs, toying with her clit, before he ran them back down. When he drew his fingers back, rubbing them together and raising them to the faelight, they glittered.

Nesta’s nostrils flared as if she was an animal in heat. And Cassian knew before he spoke that his voice? would be what pushed them over the edge. But he said it anyway, his voice dropping impossibly low,  “Is this all for me?”

Nesta launched at him until their mouths collided, until they were nothing but a clash of teeth and tongues, their skin so flush they may as well have been fused together.

Burying her fingers deeper into the tangled mane of his hair, Nesta tugged sharply. Met his gaze head on. Demanded, “Fuck me.”

All it took was those two words. Cassian moved, flipping them so Nesta’s back was flush against the mattress. He covered her body with his and Nesta whined at the contact, her body bending and arching towards him as if she were a plant and he was sunlight.

Cassian ran a hand up her bare thigh to her ass, coaxing her leg to bend, but Nesta was too impatient. She broke free from the weight of his body, repositioning herself until legs were wrapped tightly around his hips.

An uneven laugh choked out of him. “So stubborn,” Cassian chided darkly, but he allowed his hips to fall into the cradle of hers. Hissed as he loosed his control and thrust so his cock could glide through her centre. “Fuck,” he grunted. “Nesta, fuck.”

Nesta’s breathy whine fuelled the sparks of pleasure that crackled through him like static energy. He kissed her hard. “There’s a high probability I won’t survive this.”

The snort Nesta loosed tried to sound unaffected, but her voice shook as she accused him, “Liar.”

But he wasn’t lying. And Nesta knew it. She had to know it because his walls were now shattered around them in splintered shards.

Yet, Cassian found himself assuring her. “Not lying," he grunted as he passed over her again. Pressed a lingering kiss to her mouth—a parting goodbye as he moved to kiss the underside of her jaw, down the column of her throat. Down further, to flick his tongue and scrape his teeth over both nipples.

He moaned when she moaned; their sounds a chorus of want until he couldn’t take it anymore. Cassian’s claws clipped around the metal of the bed frame at the same time that he pushed off of the palms that were framing her face, until he was on his knees before her.

Despite the desire coursing through him, Cassian’s head was nothing but clear as he slid his hands under Nesta’s ass and lifted her effortlessly, positioning her so that the undersides of her thighs were flush against his knees.

Nesta’s hair was tousled over the pillow, her lips swollen and parted as she surveyed him. When she tried to wrap her legs back around his hips, Cassian held firm. And despite the fact that Nesta listened to nobody, she allowed him to bend her knees and press his calloused palms to the insides of her thighs in silent instruction.

They fell open and a growl rumbled in Cassian’s throat. His hand was fisting his cock, lining it up to her entrance before he knew what was happening. But then he remembered the pain from before. And even though Nesta was more than ready for him, the thought of hurting her made him feel physically sick.

When he moved away, Nesta let out a strangled noise. A hand shot out, closing around his wrist. “You said you’d fuck me.”

Cassian wanted to explain, but that meant alluding to that tie between them, that instinct that couldn’t allow him to see her hurt. Cassian knew Nesta wasn’t ready for that. Knew that if he so much as breathed a word about it that this precious moment would fall away.

And Cassian was selfish. He had to see how this played out. Had to know if Nesta could grow to accept the bond between them—deem him worthy enough to accept something that was Cauldron blessed.

So, he only drawled, “Patience is a virtue, sweetheart.”

One swift movement had Cassian gathering Nesta into his arms. This time, he allowed Nesta’s legs to wind around him. She gripped him like a vice and Cassian knew it wasn’t from fear of him dropping her. When he sat back against the headboard and guided her onto his lap, Cassian expected her to bite out a comment about doing all of the work, but Nesta only let out a pleased sound. Weaved a hand back into his ebony hair. Wrapped a tight fist around his length, twisting once at the tip, before she guided him to her entrance.

Cassian hissed a curse as she closed around the head. Murmured her name into her mouth. Gripped tightly at her hips when she didn’t stop sinking down on him, as he felt that pain mixed with the sweetest pleasure.

“Nesta.” The way he said her name was firm and commanding, but he still had to dig his fingers hard enough into her skin that he was sure it would leave temporary bruises. The thought made him falter, but then that sharp pain flared again as she resisted against him, and he knew that the bruises were a necessary evil. “Nesta,” he barked, “Go slowly.”

Something creaked and cracked between them. A stretching, growing pain reached its fingers down that bond, the sensation strong rather than constricted as it fought to make its way down their usually thin tie.

Nails dug into Cassian’s neck. A whimper sounded in his ears as Nesta fell forwards, burying her face into his neck. “Please,” she whined in frustration. “Cassian—”

She broke off as she clamped down around him and Cassian felt an ebb of pleasure cut through the pain—that promise of something more.

“Don’t make me hurt you, sweetheart,” Cassian pleaded and the rawness in his voice stopped her resisting against him. He eased a hand between them, touched her right where she wanted him. Allowed her to tug his face upwards so she could kiss him. It was infused with desperation and Cassian eased his hold on her hip. Allowed her to lower herself downwards until she had slid another inch deeper. Continued to stroke her until Nesta began to shake.

“I’m going to—,” Nesta gasped against his mouth. Her body trembled and Cassian’s blood roared at bringing her to the edge again so soon, despite the pain. “Cassian—”

Abruptly, Cassian moved his hand away.

Nesta’s snarl whipped around the room, but Cassian smoothed the sound away by fusing his mouth on hers. She stopped shaking but the sharp bite of Nesta’s glare pierced its teeth through his flesh in a flash of silver.

“It will be better if you wait,” Cassian gritted out in explanation when they parted. Nesta’s breath gusted against his skin. “And I don’t think I can hold on if you come so soon. You feel so good, Nesta. So tight.”

As if on cue, Nesta contracted around him and Cassian ground his teeth together so hard that the muscle in his jaw worked. But he let Nesta slide down on him another inch. Then another. And another. Until their hips were finally flush with one another and that pain had bled away until it was nothing.

The moaned words that fell from Nesta were indistinguishable, but he felt her tremor. Felt that surge inside of him as Nesta repeated herself with a whine that indicated she was toppling over the ledge of control, like a glass teetering before it fell.

And then she was moving and Cassian let her. He was unable to think or breathe. Could only focus on the feel of her.

“Fuck,” Cassian groaned. His head thunked back hard against the headboard as she ground her hips into his, testing the feel of him. “This is better than I’d dreamed.”

No soft snicker, only an untamed whine. Then teeth scraping a sinful path down his neck to his pulse.

Cassian’s hips kicked up hard as her teeth nipped.

“Sorry,” he gasped, because even though Nesta had told him not to hold back, he was still concerned about hurting her. But Nesta’s fingernails bit into his skin and her body moulded to him—a delicious second skin—as she inhaled sharply. “Again,” she demanded with a fierceness that did not allow disobedience. “Do that again—”

It didn’t take a second command for Cassian to thrust up hard. And true to her word, Nesta took him all. Did not change her mind and ask him to hold back. Instead, Cassian knew that this was exactly what she wanted—no, needed. She needed this punishing rhythm just as much as he did.

And it felt… incredible. Beyond anything Cassian had ever felt before. The blood roaring in his ears intermingled with Nesta’s cries and the slap of his hips meeting hers, was the only thing he could hear, his senses narrowed down to the sensation of her wrapped around him, so tight …

It was too good. It threatened to break him, to take everything that he was and reform it entirely, as if he was going to shatter and be pieced back together as someone else entirely. The air around them became taut with pressure, tanning leather stretched too tight over a rack, as if their joining controlled one of the essential elements.

“Cassian.” That one word threatened to break him. Not bat or it or you, only his name falling from her lips as if it was their secret. “More.”

Exhaling a curse, Cassian planted his feet firmly on the mattress and thrust up with as much vigour as he could muster. The movement had them slipping from their upright position and Cassian’s claws absent-mindedly closed around the metal bed frame, strapping them in for the ride as his body coiled and tensed as he slammed into her over and over.

Nesta cried out. Grabbed fistfuls of his hair as they moved together as if they had been made for this moment, their wild gasps melded together until they were one.

Only when release teetered too close to the edge did Cassian drop the rhythm. Cupped the breasts he had dreamed of more times than he could count. The breasts he’d had the privilege of seeing bare and glorious only twice before.

Capturing a nipple between his teeth, Cassian scraped his teeth hard enough that Nesta stopped rocking and angled her hips until he was pressing impossibly deep inside her. She whimpered. Clenched and unclenched. Throbbed in a way that told him she was as close as he was—that if he wasn’t so close himself, he could drive her over the edge with a few well-timed thrusts.

The understanding had him letting out a jagged groan. “Are you close, sweetheart?”

A whine in response, but Cassian didn’t let it go. He raked back the hair from her sweaty forehead. Pressed his lips to her swollen ones in a lingering kiss. Watched the frown that knitted her brow as she was overtaken by the feel of them.

“What do you need, Nesta. Tell me and I’ll give it to you.”

Nesta wound her hands around his head, buried her face into his neck. Began swaying and circling her hips in a rhythm that was dictated purely by the chase of pleasure. “Just… this,” she panted. “I just need this.”

Then it was only the licking fire of her breath against his skin. The magic that curled around them like a heated blanket and the building anticipation of both of their releases, which pulled at him like a strange sort of magnetism, begging him to fall with her in unison.

“Cassian—” Nesta began in warning, but he had already felt her begin to quake, as if the ground was moving beneath their feet—the mountains trembling.

That pull became a driving force—a cresting wave of pleasure so profound that Cassian felt that twist inside of him—that signal that he was about to join her.

He groaned, jerking his head back so it collided with wood, the pain grounding him enough that he could say, “That’s it, sweetheart. Come for me.”

As soon as the words left his lips, Nesta broke, as if she’d been waiting for him to ask it of her. Her cry was muffled and Cassian wanted to tear her mouth from his neck—to hear her break for him—but then she was sinking her teeth into his skin right over his pulse.

Roaring, Cassian kicked his hips up hard on instinct as she marked him, but the shock distracted him. Clouded the desperate clamber of his release so he could hold himself back.

Cassian held tightly onto Nesta as she slumped against him. When she lifted her teeth from him, Nesta whined like an animal. Dragged her tongue over the dent she’d made in his neck—once, twice, three times.

He shuddered. Couldn’t help it. Turned his face into her hair. Breathed her in. The gesture was tender, like an animal tending to the wound of a significant other—its mate.

And wrapped in this moment, Cassian could almost believe that this was something more than sex for Nesta as her forehead came to rest on his collarbone. As she kissed the hollow of his throat. Then the knot. His lips.  

“Good?” Cassian asked softly. He lifted a hand to her face, ran a calloused thumb over her cheekbone.

Nesta made a rare, content sound that vibrated through him like a balm. She leant into his hand, her eyelashes swooping down.

When she finally pulled back to survey him, her eyes were still dark. She shifted her hips. Moaned quietly. Rasped, “You’re still hard.”

It was a miracle Cassian hadn’t followed. If it hadn’t been for her teeth in his neck, Cassian would have been wrestling with the embarrassment of finishing too soon.

“I was too preoccupied with your teeth in my neck.”

A flush crept its way up Nesta’s face, like vines reaching their wicked encroaching fingers up a wall. But she raised her chin. “You wanted me to do it.”

It was true, he had wanted her to. And he wanted to do the same to her—to mark her as his so everyone would know that she was off limits for the brief hours before her body healed.

“And what about you?”

The patter of Nesta’s heart broke into a sprint. It was the only thing that betrayed her feelings, her expression devoid of any reaction. “What do you mean?”

Cassian leant forward until their noses brushed. Lifted his eyebrows. “Do you want me to bite you, Nesta?”

Nesta’s nostrils flared. If she had wings, they’d have flung wide by now. Would have collided with furniture and cut through air.

That was answer enough.

In one movement, Cassian lifted himself up and over, until Nesta was on her back and he was pressing her body into the mattress. Breath gushed out of her lungs but it was not from fear, not as Nesta turned herself out bare and tilted her chin for him—for once not in defiance but as an act of vulnerability—of complete and utter trust.

Every instinct in Cassian clambered to the surface, but he closed a fist around it until its life fluttered against the cage of his palms and fingers: his to control, rather than the other way around.

Slowly, Cassian lowered his nose to the exposed skin and breathed her in: her scent and the life that pummelled beneath her skin, the roaring of her blood as it crashed through her veins. It took everything in him not to move inside of her, to thrust up hard and feel the way her breasts would move against his chest.

“I could do it right here,” Cassian murmured, his mouth ghosting over the pale column of her neck until he came across that pulse. He brushed a tongue across it.

The movement was a mirror of what he’d done before in the human realm and Nesta knew it. But this time she did not jerk back from him demanding what he’d done. Instead, her body drew up beneath him, exposing more of her neck, begging for more.

Cassian groaned, raking his teeth over that swell at the same time that he pushed in deep. Nesta’s groan was guttural and everything. His blood turned molten, so hot that he expected his skin to melt away until he was nothing but bones.

“Please,” Nesta panted, her fingers tightening around his back.

Another flick of his tongue over her pulse. “Do you want me to bite you or fuck you?”

“Both.”

That was enough to loosen the fist on Cassian’s control. He sat back on his knees, prying her hands from his neck, coaxing her fingers until they were above her head and clasped around the railings of the headboard. Nesta’s breasts rose with the movement, her peaked nipples so tempting he bent to take one into his mouth. Then the other. Suckled until she mewled and her nipples were no longer rosy but red from his attention.

Cassian lifted his head and surveyed Nesta. Warned her, “Hold on tight.”

And then there was no thinking, no worrying or desperation to hold back. It all came as easy as breathing, their tempo,the snap of his hips and the shift of the mattress as her body shouldered the impact. At some point, Cassian’s body fell over hers, needing to feel every inch of her against him. His wild, punishing rhythm dropped into a rough rocking that was intimate at the same time it was claiming.

Nesta didn’t seem to mind—let out a pleased moan of consent, her legs clamping tighter around his hips until they were flush with hers. When he next moved she whined, and Cassian felt that change inside of her—somehow—that twisting fist of pleasure that glimmered down the bond, pushing against the walls of that thread, pushing it wider and wider, like a heart expanding.

Silver-wreathed fingers tugged his head down until Nesta could claim his mouth, fusing them together so they were complete. Cassian shuddered as her fire cascaded from her fingertips and down his body. His magic, attracted to hers, began to suck out of his pores, but it didn’t leech him of power. Instead, it was like his magic was searching for its mate, desperate to be reunited.

Then that sensation again, as if Cassian had ducked beneath something and had come up for air somewhere else.

Ruby greeted silver like a long-lost lover, blending until their magic was a metallic sheen of scarlet—a fog that misted their bodies, rubbing tantalisingly against their skin as they rocked and moaned their way to release.

“Don’t stop,” Nesta begged desperately through stuttered breaths, and Cassian wondered how many times she’d reached this pinnacle with other males only for it to be taken from her.

Cassian’s hand found its way to her face, his thumb stroking over her cheek as that coiled release twisted across her devastatingly beautiful face. “Can’t,” he panted honestly, his other hand searching for hers across the mattress until he was clasping it—holding on for dear life. “I’m so close, sweetheart. You have no idea how good you feel.”

“Come with me then,” Nesta pleaded. Her eyelashes had fluttered downwards as she took in a sharp breath of pleasure, but now they opened. Stared deep into his soul. “Come with me—”

Then her body turned both loose and taut, clamping yet completely molten as her release ripped out of her.

“Fuck,” Cassian swore. Invisible hands clasped around his ass, tugging him deeper—deeper. Everything in him tightened as Nesta crashed around him, and that siren called to him, singing her name, over and over as pleasure clawed at him, desperate to whip out of him.

Nesta, Nesta, Nesta.

Cassian launched at her neck, his teeth sinking deep enough to claim as Nesta cried out, her body trembling as he continued to thrust into her, wringing out her release at the same time he desperately clambered towards his own.

He managed to pull out just in time, his teeth still deep in her neck, his release spilling hot onto her stomach in bursts of pleasure.

And even though Cassian had vowed to bite her and Nesta had already marked him, he found himself apologising at the red, angry dents in her skin. How was it that he couldn’t bare to hurt her but biting her neck was a completely different story?

“Sorry,” Cassian rasped. His mouth was as dry as a desert as he gingerly touched his fingers to the marks, but Nesta’s fingers clasped around his, halting him. Then she raised her other hand and brushed her knuckles over the identical marking on his. Reminding him that she’d done the same���had been the first to do it.

“I liked it,” Nesta admitted brazenly, but she didn’t stop him from dragging his tongue over the marks. Shivered instead. Held his head to her.

“That was intense,” Cassian rasped eventually against her ear, after the quiet had settled over them like a blanket. He nuzzled at her neck again, unable to help it—just one more precious moment like this until he had to pull away.

When Cassian pulled back to meet Nesta’s eyes, he found that the blue bled back into her irises. “It was always going to be intense,” she replied frankly.

Then Nesta looked down at her body, as if she’d only just remembered how he’d marked her in a different way. “You didn’t have to do that—pull out. I can take a tonic.”

Cassian hadn’t wanted to pull out at all—and neither had that tie which bound them together—but that wasn’t the point. “I’d rather be cautious,” he explained—a little too shortly, because Nesta bristled.

“Neither of us have had a tonic in a while,” Cassian elaborated when Nesta’s expression hardened.

He tried not to think about how his body had been desperate to spill inside of her. For him to press as deep as he possibly could until he was spent.

Climbing off of the bed, Cassian disappeared down the hallway and into the bathroom. When he returned, he was holding a wet towel.

“A while?” Nesta queried, picking up their conversation, as he began to clean her up.

Cassian cocked an eyebrow, but he didn’t dare meet her eyes lest she read him. His shoulders turned rigid at the thought. “Have you been sneaking people in and out of the bungalow that I’m not aware of?” he asked.

They both knew that Cassian would tear any male she brought back to the bungalow to pieces, but neither of them voiced it.

“You go back to Velaris,” Nesta accused. “You visit the other camps.”

For a moment, Cassian stared at her. Did she believe that he’d been fucking other fae? She had taunted him in Velaris the other day, but Cassian had thought that it was just their extended, agonising tussle of foreplay.

Perhaps you should go in search of some female company tonight.

Cassian managed to huff a breath, but it wasn’t one of amusement. He knew that his expression was steely as he said, “I told you that I don’t sleep with Illyrians. And I haven’t been fucking around in Velaris.”

From the way Nesta’s expression darkened, Cassian wasn't sure she believed him.

She opened her mouth to throw back a retort, but Cassian wanted the discussion to end. If she knew he’d barely touched another female since he’d met her, she’d run the other way. It was too intense a confession for someone who didn’t know what they wanted.

“It was self-inflicted,” Cassian supplied, his tone flinty enough to warn her that he wasn’t willing to discuss the subject any further.

Climbing off of the bed to further his point, Cassian extended a hand towards her. Banished any of the rigidity to his posture. “Come stand in the tub with me.”

There was a sinful promise behind the order. Already Cassian could envisage how he’d press Nesta against the tiles, his lips trailing open mouthed kisses as he kneeled before her—

Nesta must have thought similarly, because the pleasure that sparked in his stomach was not his own. But still she studied him, her head cocked as if she was trying to figure him out. Her hair was a muss of golden brown, her skin glistening with sweat that Cassian wanted to lick off.

Nesta parted her lips, taking stock, but Cassian didn’t allow her to speak. “I’ll make it worth your while,” he vowed. Meant it. Because already he was turning hard again, that desire to have her roaring.

He’d known this would happen. Knew that finally being inside of her wouldn’t sate him but stoke the embers into flames. But Cassian didn’t hide it—utterly unashamed of this need for her. From the way Nesta’s nostrils billowed, he knew she'd marked the change in his scent.

Nesta’s eyes flicked to his cock and the she-devil smirked, her lips curving in a way that had Cassian thinking about how they might wrap around him—how her tongue might feel, how warm she’d be…

In one supple movement, Nesta stood. Took his hand, her slim fingers threading around his large ones. Raised her chin and levelled him with a smoky blue gaze that promised wicked, wonderful things. “Then lead the way, general.”

Tags (let me know if you want to be added/removed): @arinbelle @superspiritfestival @sayosdreams @perseusannabeth @mylittlebigplanet @biggestwingspan-az @bellsqueen @ekaterinakostrova @bookstantrash @prophecyerised @rainbowcheetah512 @awesomelena555 @wannawriteyouabook @lovelynesta @melphss @darkshadowqueensrule @laylaameer01 @a-trifling-matter @grouchycritic7794 @thalia-2-rose @champanheandluxxury @swankii-art-teacher @princessconsuela02 @lavendergoomsltd @princessofmerchants-reads @jeakat @sjm-things @imwritingthesewords @nestable @inejbrekkxr @silvernesta @inyourmindeye @amelie775 @helen-the-weirdo @pizzaneverdisappoints @wishfulimaginings @trash-for-nessian @my-fan-side @sophilightwood @valkyriesupremacy @vidalinav @onceupona-chaos @inardour @thesunremembersyourface @teagoddess99 @ellies-iced-coffee @nehemikkele @misswonderflower

[atlas-of-a-human-soul]

Intertwining

Pairing: Sky x reader

Swallowing thickly, Y/N struggled to fight tears. Ever since she came to Alfea, she had felt incredibly lonely and inadequate. Everyone else seems to have figured out their fairy abilities, channeling powers with such ease and she still struggled controlling it. It's all fight or fight and it's so disappointingly primitive.

A power as strong as hers is bound to be difficult to control, Dowling said so. Very few fairies in the history could control water in all states - solid, liquid and gas, but she could and it had proven to be a problem when her parents grounding her ended up creating a tsunami.

That's the main issue, she's afraid of her power now. She can either generate enough power to level a city or none at all and it soon had other fairies distancing from her. Who’d want to be a friend to a girl who could accidentally kill them in a single flick of her wrist.

"Wanna talk about it?"

Rolling her eyes, Y/N turns to the male voice intruding on her private time. There is a reason she hides from everyone - she doesn't want to hurt them. When her mood is affected, those around her suffer.

"Leave me alone." She doesn't care about how handsome this guy is, nor of his sunshine colored hair falling to his deep, ocean blue eyes and she could care less of the way his breathless chuckle made her heart skip.

"I will if you tell me what's wrong." He steps closer, crossing his arms over his toned chest, a small smile upon his lips. When he speaks, his deep voice is magnetic to the core of who she is, as if he's able to resonate with all of her when others can barely achieve a fraction of it.

"None of your business", she presses her lips together, glaring at him as he lifts his hands up into mock surrender.

"I'm not trying to pick a fight. I just think a pretty girl like you deserves to cry from laughter not sadness."

Scoffing, Y/N can't help but laugh cynically, "Does that work on other girls?"

Wetting his lips, he shrugs, "I wouldn't know. I don't have much luck with girls."

"If that's how you flirt, I can see why."

Chuckling, he takes a seat beside her, "I'm Sky."

"A specialist?" She asks but it sounds more like a statement.

"What gave it away?" He glances at her, a little nervous as he realizes she's fixed her gaze on him. She’s studying him, carefully nitpicking at every detail and while he’s used to girls looking at him, no one truly looked at him the way she just did - like she’s trying to uncover the secrets he’s tried so hard to bury inside.

"Broad shoulders and bulging biceps", she shrugs as he chuckles again and this time Y/N might have cared about the way his chuckle made her lips twitch as if they wanted to smile.

"So presumptive, I'm guessing you're a fairy?" Sky raises his eyebrows, watching her lips turn down in a frown and her eyes fall to her fidgeting hands.

"A broken fairy, but yeah."

Reaching for her shaky hands, he captures both with his right one. "No matter how broken someone is, you can always build yourself up better than before."

Nodding, she musters a weak smile, "I almost killed thousands just because my parents pissed me off. Doesn't seem very promising."

"There's always hope, as long as you're willing to try." Bumping her shoulder with his, Sky smiles, "I have a feeling you're not a quitter." Raising an eyebrow, he looks into her curious eyes, "Even if I don't know your name, pretty girl."

Chuckling, she shakes her head, "Okay, that was a good line." Pursing her lips, Y/N sighs, "It's Y/N. Y/N of Dyamond." She didn’t know why she told him that, but Sky seems trustworthy. Besides, what difference does it make if she tells him where she’s from? 

Extending his hand for her to shake, Sky's smile never falters. "Lovely to meet you, Princess." 

She summoned enough courage to meet his gaze. Lips parting, Y/N's eyebrows furrow, "How did you know I'm a princess?"

Shrugging, he leans in, "I'm Sky of Eraklyon. I'm a prince and I'm very good at recognizing royals", he whispers. “I won’t tell anyone. Promise.”

Drawing in a breath, Y/N presses her lips together, "Thank you for not leaving when I asked you to." She’s going to have to trust him.

"I'm happy I stayed."

And while it was only the beginning, both Sky and Y/N knew their future were intertwining for the foreseeable future.

PART 2

[egyptsblackrose]

Dancing with Strangers

Ok so, theres a Playlist I’m loving right now on YouTube called “Dancing between Gojo and Kakashi but you can feel the sexual tension growing by the minute”, posted by itsharley. I made a short story post on the video and people liked it, so here’s the story that’s been living in my head rent free for the past week! This is a regular world AU btw

Warnings: a little suggestive behaviour later, spicy stuff wont be added till later... other than that enjoy!

Part 1-

Y/N L/N had a pretty normal life for the first few years of her life. Her parents were wonderful, kind people who were well respected and successful in their fields of work, both determined to give their precious daughter the best upbringing they could. Things only changed because both were offered a dream promotion. The catch? They had to move to Japan for the foreseeable future.

At first Y/N was devastated. She didn’t want to move away from her beloved grandparents and friends, she was just about to start primary school, and she didn’t know ANY Japanese! What if people were mean to her because she was different? However those worries soon melted away.

Their home was a stunning penthouse apartment in Hiroshima, close to Y/N’s new school, with beautiful views and amazing restaurants all around. There was even a private tutor to help Y/N learn Japanese faster so she wouldn’t be at a disadvantage from the other kids, but even though they were living in Japan, only their native language was spoken in their home. Her parents were adamant that she was smart enough to learn two languages at once, and they weren’t wrong.

In the beginning, Y/N was too shy to really try make friends, worried that she would say something wrong and people would laugh at her, or she’d pronounce something weird and people would mock her. Those fears soon disappeared also, however, when Y/N met Miku and Sakura. Both girls were very sweet, they thought her accent was cute and soon encouraged Y/N to speak more.

The 3 were inseparable, going to concerts together, cafes after school, watching movies and having sleepovers every weekend. It was more like having sisters! So when Y/N had to move back home when she was 15, the 3 were heartbroken. They shed many tears together, and at the airport the 3 and clutched at each other in a group hug, reluctant to separate.

But Y/N was a loyal soul, and the 3 talked over chat every day, and face timed each other every weekend night, watching movies and anime’s together, complaining about school, family and boys. It was painful for Y/N, she felt like she was away from home most of the time. But her friends were good people and never lost their bond.

Now finishing their final years at Uni, the 3 were face timing while finishing their papers, encouraging each other to finish and stay positive as they talked about their plans and ideas for their final year. That was when Y/N discovered the Japanese exchange program her Uni had in place.

Gojo and Kakasi had been friends for as long as they both could remember, meeting back in school, insisting on going to the same uni, and now working together in the police force as partners. The two were often mistaken as lovers, but they repeated many times that they were just very similar in personality, got along like brothers rather than friends, and were both very straight.

While the 2 were undeniably attractive it was Gojo who had the natural charisma out of them that many young women were charmed by, finding it easy to ignore his weird traits. He could never seem to keep a relationship going past a one night stand however, he was just too free willed and whimsical to be tied down. On the other hand- Kakashi- though dashing in his own right and was incredibly sweet to anyone who bothered to get to know him, seemed to fumble with his words a lot of the time, becoming embarrassed and flustered easily, backing out of any interaction that became too bold. The two were opposites, and they soon realised this as young men, observing how the other was strong where they had weaknesses.

It was Gojos idea (of course it was) to “team up” when it came to women. He was the hook, drawing beauties in and charming their pants off, and Kakashi was the sweetheart who convinced them to stay when they both approved of the woman. Sometimes for months, sometimes just for a few days of fun. Either way it was a win win for the men, Gojo received a proper taste of a real relationship (be it poly, as a 3) and Kakashi earned some much needed experience and confidence to help at least lesson his shyness.

But now they were not young men, they were MEN. Successful, powerful, admired men that had bright futures ahead of them and a brotherly bond stronger than ever. There was of course, something rather vital missing from their lives.

The two had been working stupid long shifts, with barely a day off to rest for far too long, and both males were pent up, and needed to drink and let off some steam.

Entering the club, Gojo immediately grinned at the low lights; pounding base of “Hotel Room” hitting his ears, the smell of perfume, sweat and booze. “The Ninja Shrine” was a regular hunting ground for the 2. Kakashi led the way to the bar by instinct at this point, determined to order something strong to continue their buzz from pre-drinks in their shared apartment. The two downed three shots of something dark and expensive with barely a pause for breath. After they were finished, two bottles of beer were purchased as they turned to scout through the crowd closely, leaning against the bar like they were at home.

Already some regulars recognised them- the women batting their eyes at the two, other men trying to seem like they were close and friendly with them so as to steal some of the female attention. Gojo and Kakashi already knew of, or had already slept with, a few of the women who were trying so hard to capture their attention as “Desire” played through the speakers.

They were put on the end of the list of possibilities. Gojo and Kakashi had agreed early on that they wouldn’t be ‘playing favourites’ with women, on and off relationships weren’t their thing. Kakashi would say its because he wouldn’t want to lead anyone on and build a girls hopes up, Gojo would say that once he’s had his fill, he’d get bored of the same thing again and again. Neither men were sure what they were looking for really when they went out scouting for some fun, and neither had found anyone who held their interest for the long term. But Kakashi was honestly more hopeful than Gojo and his whimsical personality.

As the remix finished its hypnotising beat and “Such a Whore” began, there was a refreshing breeze from the door opening. A group of young women, probably uni students or maybe a little older, came in loudly. They unintentionally drew attention to themselves through their happy laughter and rosy cheeks, clearly already been drinking for a while. And in the middle of the group, they saw HER.

Link to Part 2 here- https://egyptsblackrose.tumblr.com/post/648451271546781696/dancing-with-strangers-ok-heres-part-2-i-guess

[ninzied]

a kiss pressed to the top of the head.

Karen gets the call in the middle of their lunch hour.

She’s playfully tossing a fry in Foggy’s face, laughing at something he’s just said as she picks up her phone and looks down at her screen.

“It’s a Metro-General number,” she says, bemused. She looks up at Foggy and Matt. Both of them shrug. Anyone the hospital’s likely to be calling her about is already sitting right here in front of her.

“Hello?” she says into the phone. Confusion registers on her face first. And then she goes very, very quiet.

Foggy’s not able to make out what’s being said on the other line, but judging from Karen’s expression—Matt’s expression, too—it can’t be anything good.

“He what?” Karen puts a hand up to her mouth, and Foggy notices that her fingers are trembling a little. “Is he okay? Is—yes. Thank you. Yes, I’m going to head there now.” She hangs up, looking like she’s already a hundred miles away—or at least the three it will take to get to the hospital.

Matt puts a hand on Karen’s shoulder. “Foggy will drive you there,” he says.

“I will?” says Foggy. “I mean, yeah, of course I will, but what’s going on?”

Karen grabs her things, and Foggy rushes to follow suit, saying a hurried, “Thanks for lunch, I guess” to Matt, who waves them off and helps himself to one of Karen’s fries.

She’s silent in the passenger seat, gazing distractedly out the window as Foggy drives. He looks at her with growing worry, but every time he starts to speak, he’s less and less sure what to say. He’s never seen her so pale. He’s never seen her so determined to hold herself together.

There’s only one person he can think of that could get this kind of reaction from her.

The local station is on at low volume, and Foggy strains to hear anything newsworthy. But there’s nothing about shoot-outs, or robberies, or any other sort of public disturbance that could give him the information he’s looking for.

At one point, Karen reaches over and squeezes his hand. He squeezes back, and doesn’t let go until they’ve pulled into the emergency department entrance.

He ends up valet parking his car, wondering briefly to himself if he can charge it to the company card that they’d opened up last year. Considering what—or who—is waiting for them inside.

It wouldn’t be the first time, which is all he has to say about that.

A woman in scrubs looks up from her computer as they approach the front desk. “Can I help you?”

“Yes.” Karen clears her throat. “I’m here to see Pete Castiglione.”

“What’s your relation?” says the woman, searching his name on her computer screen.

Karen draws in a breath. “He, um—listed me as his emergency contact.”

The woman hands her a visitor’s badge, and then looks expectantly over at Foggy.

“I’m—his lawyer,” Foggy blurts out. He doesn’t know what’s landed Frank in here this time, but it doesn’t hurt to cover his bases. The woman raises an eyebrow, but thankfully doesn’t press him for any more details than that.

She gives them a room number and then points them through a set of double doors. They give an audible click before swinging wide open. The walk is short but tense, Karen visibly steeling herself once they’re just outside the room. It’s a sliding glass door, but the inside has been curtained shut.

“Do you want me to wait out here?” Foggy asks.

“No, it’s okay.” She gives him a wan smile. “Thank you. For coming.”

“Sure, of course,” says Foggy, attempting a small but comforting smile back.

Karen slides the door open and steps inside, drawing the curtain back behind her. Foggy follows her in, unable to keep from thinking about all the other times they’d walked into the Punisher’s hospital room together.

There are a few notable differences, this time around.

The first is that Frank Castle is not in handcuffs, nor is he strapped down to the bed. The only things attached to him are a few colored wires, snaking out from under his gown and winding up to plug into a monitor that’s beeping steadily above him.

The second is that there are no bruises on his face, when he turns toward the door and sees them there. He looks like he hasn’t gotten much sleep, but other than that, his face is clear—cleanly shaved, even. In fact, Foggy can discern no obvious injuries on him at all.

The only thing that hasn’t changed is Karen.

She walks straight up to his bed, past where the red tape would have been. Foggy sees her hand start to reach out for Frank’s, but then she’s pulling up a chair instead, taking a seat next to him.

“Hey.” Frank’s voice sounds a little rough around the edges, but that could also have something to do with the fact that he can’t seem to take his eyes off of Karen. “I didn’t—wasn’t sure I’d see you here.”

“Of course I’m here.” Karen has been making a similar assessment of his state, because the next thing she says is, “Where are you hurt? They wouldn’t give me anything specific over the phone.”

“’M fine,” he says, gesturing down at his leg. “Waiting on some x-ray reads. Didn’t even see the guy till it was too late. Wouldn’t’ve come in for this, but EMTs showed up fast, and I didn’t want to—you know. Make a scene by refusing.”

Foggy blinks, not sure if he’s just heard him right. Frank Castle. The Punisher. Didn’t want…to make a scene?

Karen is evidently thinking along the same lines as him. Her voice is carefully light as she asks, “Turning over a new leaf, Frank?”

“Something like that,” he says.

Frank’s watching her as she bites her lip and glances down at her hands for a moment.

“It’s, uh. It’s good to see you,” Frank says quietly.

Foggy can’t help but notice it’s the only thing Frank has to look away from her for. LIke he wouldn’t have been able to find the words if she’d been looking back.

“You clearly had my number,” Karen chides him, but gently. “You didn’t need to get hit by a car for an excuse to finally use it.”

The corner of Frank’s mouth turns up. “Figured you were more likely to pick up this way.”

She gives him a fondly exasperated look. “Seriously?”

“Nah.” Frank smiles sideways at her. “But this was as good a place as any to make the call. You know, for old times’ sake.”

She shakes her head at him, but her voice has gone soft when she speaks again. “And here I was about to say that we have to stop meeting like this.”

“Well, there were…” Frank swallows, looking back down at his hands. “There were some things I wanted to get right, this time.”

He looks like he wants to say more, but then his gaze shifts over to Foggy, still lingering awkwardly by the door.

“Are you, um.” Foggy holds out his hands, palms up. He finishes lamely, “In any trouble? Legally speaking?”

“Not that I know of,” says Frank. “Unless there’s something illegal about crossing the street when the light tells me to.” He squints up at Foggy, who laughs, and then immediately wonders if that was how he was supposed to react.

“Foggy was with me when they called,” Karen tells Frank. “He offered to give me a ride.”

Frank regards him a moment longer, then nods at him in a grave kind of way, which Foggy takes to mean thank you.

“It was nothing,” he says. It was Matt, actually, but Foggy doesn’t mention that part out loud. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

He goes on standing there, watching the way Frank and Karen keep not-quite making eye contact in the small glances they steal at each other. “Right,” says Foggy. “Coffee, anyone?”

As it turns out, coffee is not really a thing that the emergency department has on hand. After several uncomfortable inquiries, he winds up with a cup the size of his palm that’s filled with lukewarm water, which he sips on in the waiting room.

Matt calls when he’s halfway through a crossword puzzle, much to Foggy’s surprise.

“How is he?” asks Matt, before adding, unnecessarily, “Castle.”

“Alive and kicking,” Foggy reports. “Well—to be determined on the kicking part, he might have a broken leg. So not a lot of kicking in the foreseeable future.”

“That’s good,” comes Matt’s voice after a moment. “I mean, that he’s—you know what I mean.”

“I do,” says Foggy. “And I’ll send him your best.”

“I’m sure that would go over well.” Matt lets out an audible breath. “Send them to Karen, too, okay?”

“Of course,” says Foggy. He pauses, wondering how long Matt has known. After seeing them together today, Foggy realizes just how obvious it must have always been, and marvels that he hadn’t picked up on it sooner. “I’ll keep you posted. See you tomorrow?”

“You owe me lunch,” says Matt, and hangs up.

Foggy’s on his third crossword when the double doors open, and Karen walks out—then stops, turning around before taking another cautious step forward.

Frank comes limping out behind her, dressed in his street clothes. There’s no cast that Foggy can see, but Frank has a pair of crutches in one hand, face set in grim lines as he sinks his weight back onto his injured leg.

Karen frowns and says something to him, gesturing at the unused crutches. He starts to argue with her, but she holds out a hand, a command in every line of her body. Frank finally relinquishes one of the crutches to her, and she helps to steady him as he positions one underneath each arm.

He pulls a face, but she only smiles at him as she touches her hand to his chest.

“Better?” Foggy catches her asking.

Frank says something that makes her laugh, and the sound of it seems to catch them both by surprise. Karen lets her hands drop, folding them carefully together, and she glances down for a moment, looking almost uncertain.

Frank is gazing at her with such quiet intensity that Foggy almost slides down in his seat and raises his newspaper up to eye-level. He feels like he’s intruding. But he also feels like he can’t look away.

Frank leans in, until his cheek is resting just over Karen’s temple, on the side that Foggy can’t see. But then his mouth brushes against the top of her head as he’s ducking back, and better does not even begin to describe how they’re both looking right now.

Foggy grabs his valet ticket, and goes to have the car brought back around for them.

[thiswasinevitableid]

93. I hire your matchmaking services but all the people you set me up with are horrible and I’m demanding a refund and you’re asking me for one more chance??? what are you going to do? be my date?

Indruck, nsfw, please!

Here you go! I was inspired by @kriskukko's incredible art for the orc designs in this, and I highly recommend checking them out!

“Indrid? Some from Kepler House is here to speak with you.” Ned pokes his head into Indrid’s rooms.

“Drat” Indrid hisses, dressing gown whipping about him as he scrambles to put the apartment in order while also dragging his notes on the man in question to the forefront, “I didn’t forsee anyone coming by today, goodness, he had his first engagement with Lady Austens daughter last night, what on earth could they need to see me for?” He tosses his spare pens aside, landing them in his second set of house slippers.

“Well, dear boy, given the luck you’ve had with them lately-”

“It’s not luck, it’s simply very unlikely futures. Please just, just stall whoever it is a moment, Leo is usually patient and-”

“I’m afraid I cannot do that my friend.”

“Why not? I watched you once talk an entire flock of constables away from your door. Praytell, why can Ned “Silver Tongue” Chicane not get rid of a single attendant?”

“Because the attendant ain’t here this time.”

Indrid slams the drawer of his desk, looking up as an orc in a deep brown suit steps into the room, tossing his hat onto the table. He’s shorter than Indrid and Ned (stout and strong, according to the notes Indrid received), wavy black hair streaked with grey at the front. One eye is blue, the other brown, and both regard the harried matchmaker with casual annoyance.

“Mr. Newton, I, ah, I was not expecting you to visit me.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t expect to be on a date where she found me so damn dull she hailed a cab as soon as dinner was done. I was already in town on some business for Minerva, so I decided to come tell you I ain’t in need of your services anymore.”

“I beg your pardon? Your benefactor employed me to find you a suitable match and I intend to do just that. I know there have been missteps, but such things are to be expected when searching for one’s lifelong partner.”

“Uh huh. And the fact I’m Lady Minerva’s chosen heir, which means there are a bunch of folks waitin to mimic my style and choices, has got nothin to do with it.”

“I, ah, I can’t say that I’m ignorant of the potential repercussions of being the one assigned to locate a spouse for you.”

“Which is the long way of sayin you know damn well that if I decide to stop askin you for help, no one with money is ever gonna come to you again.”

There’s a determined set to his rounded jaw, and a glimpse at the future suggests Indrid will have better luck with a different tactic

“....were they really so awful?”

“Yes. They were rude, or thought I was rude, or thought I was dull, or we just had fuck-all in common.”

“Have you considered you might just be a tad more demanding than average?”

“It ain’t demandin to want the person I spend the rest of my life with to actually like me.” He sighs, “I’m sorry, Mr. Cold, but unless you got a real winner up your sleeve, I’m done.”

All responses, all timelines show Duck ending his time as Indrid’s client and walking out the door.

“You could try me!”

“Really?” Duck looks deeply unconvinced.

“I will admit it’s unorthodox, but I, I foresee us having a perfectly nice time together. It will let me prove that I am capable of choosing companions for you.”

The shorter orc looks him up and down more deliberately and Indrid fights not to draw his dressing gown tighter. He will not be intimidated by some newcomer from across the sea.

“Okay, I’ll make you a deal. I got to go to this concert tomorrow; someone from Kepler house is expected to show and Minerva is busy. You’re comin with me.” He holds Indrid’s gaze, daring him to renege on his offer.

Indrid summons his best, professional grin, “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

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

Indrid smooths his waistcoat and jacket as he steps from the cab, tucks a strand of his silver hair behind his ear. It’s his only concession to the nerves skittering up and down his spine.

Gatherings such as these are nothing new to him; he goes to them to gather new information and new clients, to remind the well-to-do families of London and beyond that he is the matchmaker extraordinaire. But there is always the moment between when they see him and when they recognize him, when every face in the room wonders why someone like him dares to enter their space.

Somewhere in Indrid’s ancestry is a love story between an orc and a goblin. His silver hair, very angular features, and complete lack of tusks or fangs is the proof. The red eyes don’t help--they unsettle everyone who sees them--but his mother insists they’re evidence of other orcs gifted with rare magic on her side of the family. He wears red spectacles over them just to be safe; he rather likes how the color stands out against his skin, and his glasses let him avoid prying questions.

Duck is waiting for him under the awning outside the music hall; he’s in a grey day suit this time, looking just as understatedly handsome as he did yesterday morning. Indrid must admit his desire to save his reputation is not the only reason he agreed to this; he cannot understand why Duck is having such trouble meeting his match. He’s good looking, moneyed, American--an exotic background in the eyes of the average, sheltered upper-class orc--but still has family history here in England. All Indrid’s matches showed a high probability of success. The point of failure must lie with the orc himself.

“Afternoon, Mr. Cold.” Duck smiles with everything but his eyes.

“Indrid is fine, given the reason for our meeting.”

Duck nods. Indrid wishes the ground would swallow one of them up. When the pavement fails to oblige, he offers his arm. The shorter orc takes it, both of them doffing their hats as they step inside.

“I, uh, like the earring.” Duck indicates the moth cuff on Indrid’s left ear, a stark contrast to the single gold hoop in his own.

“Thank you. A friend gave it to me. I, ah, I rather enjoy working moths into my wardrobe; I find them fascinating.”

“Y’know, back home we got moths that look like hummingbirds.”

“Really?” Indrid’s ear twitches, “how big?”

Duck holds up his hands to indicate the size. Indrid is about to demand details when they’re waylaid by their hostess and pulled into a cluster of families. Indrid breathes deep, feeling crowded in, and notices Duck routinely being cut off in conversation or given disapproving looks behind his back. Yes, Indrid supposes his manners are a bit rough, but there’s no harm in that. Too, everyone seems far more interested in the goings on at Kepler House and with Lady Minerva than with Duck himself. By the time they’re seated, their arms feel locked together from shared tension.

The violinists are quite good; Indrid enjoys strings, his recordings of them being his favorite music to listen to while drawing. But his mind is so consumed by futures and by thoughts about the orc beside him that he struggles to focus on the music. Duck is having a similar issue, though he hides it well; were they not side by side, Indrid would miss the way he fidgets with the knee of his trousers.

“Are you alright?” He whispers under the applause.

“N-ye-uh. Fuck. I, the musics real nice but I gotta say I’m gettin kinda bored. But I got no fuckin clue if leavin will piss everyone here off.”

“Intermission is soon. When it comes, keep quiet and follow my lead.”

When the guests rise to stretch their legs and fetch refreshments, Indrid guides Duck to their hostess.

“I’m so very sorry, but I’m afraid my stomach is rather angry with me and it’s best if I go home. Duck has agreed to accompany me so I do not pass out in the street. I’m sure you understand.”

She nods, and in a matter of moments they’re out on the street, each breathing deeply.

“Thanks for that.”

“My pleasure.”

“Guess I oughta just head back to the hotel.” Duck sighs.

“You could. But, ah, we’re not far from Kew Gardens and the weather isn’t miserably cold for once. If you’d like-”

“Hell yeah. Wait, fuck, sorry, tryin to swear less in public.”

“I don’t really mind.” Indrid starts them down the street.

“Lots of them do” Duck tips his head back towards the concert hall, “I mean, at least that rule is easier to figure out. It’s not that there aren’t weird rules and class stuff back home, but I grew up learnin them. Here I always feel like I’m one move away from makin an ass of myself. No one’ll say anything because of Minerva, but I know if it weren’t for her, none of ‘em would give me the time of day. It makes every interaction so goddamn stressful.”

Indrid twinges with sympathy, “When I first started in these circles, I wrote myself notecards and had Ned test me on them.”

Duck giggles, so absurd and loud it draws stares from passersby, “why? You seem to know your stuff.”

“I didn’t come from money, and I don’t always read social situations the way others expect. It was learn or live as a penniless artist for all my days.” As the gardens come into view he adds, “I know the basics of your life in America but if you weren’t here, what would you be doing there?”

“Workin in the Yosemite valley. I was a ranger there for a few years before Minerva called me here.”

“What was that like?”

Duck tells him as they wander the first stretches of the gardens. He’s midway through a tangent about bears when he stops.

“Holy fuck, you’re really still listenin.”

“Of course I am, this is fascinating.”

His companion smiles, “Glad you think so. But it ain’t polite for me to dominate the conversation like this. Now you gotta tell me what you do when you’re not gettin fancy folks together.”

“...You promise you will finish the story about the bear and the tent later.”

“You know it.”

Indrid knows that time passes more quickly with good company, but he’s still startled when the sun sets. The Savoy, where Duck is staying, is closer than his home, so their cab stops there first.

Duck pauses halfway out the door, “Meet me here for dinner tomorrow?”

Indrid grins, “I’d like nothing more.”

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

“I didn’t know the line even went this far.” Indrid watches the moors race by them out the window of the train.

“You and me both.” Duck rotates his map, glances at the letter he received a week ago, “okay, once we get off at Amnesty, we need someone to take us down Greenbank road. The house is at the end of it, somewhere around here.” He taps a patch of moor miles from anything else. Indrid studies his fingers and is glad that, of his more rugged habits, one he elected to keep was letting his nails stay claws rather than filing them down.

“My visions suggest that as long as we don’t ask anyone to drive us out after dark, we should have no trouble reaching it.”

Indrid tries not to be too giddy at the prospect of spending weeks and weeks more or less alone in the countryside with Duck. They’re going because an anonymous note informed him that he did indeed have a family estate and--once they determined that the house near Dartmoor did indeed legally belong to him--it was decided he would go to see how the old place was doing and perhaps take up residence.

He asked Indrid to come without even glancing up from the telegram from the solicitor. Indrid agreed without looking away from his drawing. If two months of semi-courtship in a crowded city got them close enough for that, Indrid dares to hope that being out here together will bring them closer still.

Amnesty is small, as they both expected, the air chilly and fog threatening to swallow whole buildings as they make their way to the Lodge where they’ve been told they can find a driver. When Duck asks the young woman working the counter for help getting to Greenbank Hall, she quirks her lips in a frown.

“I’m not sure there’s even a place called that around here….OH! Do you mean Beacon House?”

“Maybe?” Duck looks at Indrid, who quickly looks at the futures.

“Yes, it seems we do.”

“Okay. Since it's still light, I should be able to find someone to get you out there. If it comes down to it, I can, like, drive you out myself.”

They end up being driven by a friendly young man named Jake, who deposits them and their bags on the steps of the massive house with a friendly wave farewell.

“Agh” Indrid shivers as they step through the newly unlocked doors, “I think it’s actually warmer outside.”

“No kiddin. Damn fog means it’s already gettin too dark to see too. I’ll go get some kind of fire started, you see if you can find some lanterns or candles so we ain’t trippin all over ourselves.”

Indrid begins his search, comes to the kitchen and finds some matches and a candle. The solicitor arranged for food and other supplies to be brought in ahead of time, so in theory lanterns should be somewhere nearby. He’s just glad that the paltry light shows no signs of rodents getting into their food.

When he gets upstairs, he discovers two things; one, all the lamps are gas, so he’s able to light them easily. And two, a mother tortoiseshell cat is nesting with her kittens on a guest bed.

“Well, that explains the lack of mice.”

Footsteps behind him, “Got a fire goin in the sittin room, if you wanna pick a room for yourself I can light one th--awwwww” Duck moves past him towards the cat, who hisses at him, “now, there ain’t any need for that, missy. I ain’t gonna hurt you or your babies. But we oughta bring you somethin more’n mice to eat.”

“I saw some tinned food in the pantry.”

“Perfect, lemme go find a bowl.”

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

Beacon House has seen better days, but Indrid discovers the houses loss is his gain. Duck decides they can do many of the repairs themselves, and sets about ordering supplies from London or bringing them in from Amnesty. The few times they need help, the cook and several others from the Lodge come to assist in the project. These gatherings are far more pleasant than any Indrid had to attend for work (well, except for the ones where he was with Duck). And they always end before dusk.

Indrid occupies himself with figuring out why. There was no mention of this house when he first researched Duck, and even using the local name turns up very little. It’s not until he finds a diary belonging to one H. Newton in the library that he understands.

October the 15th, 1805

I fear the worst is upon me. I cannot leave the house, dare not even peer out the windows for fear of what I shall see. Lucy says it is my health, that we should travel to warmer regions so it will improve. But I know it is not so simple. Were we to flee, it would merely wait for our return. It may even waylay us before we reached town. I am cursed. We are cursed. We always will be.

Beneath the words is a hastily sketched image; yellow eyes and sharp fangs peering from between the bars of the front gate.

There are no more entries.

Indrid is unsure whether to raise the matter with Duck. On the one hand, he wishes him to know of any possible dangers. On the other, his friend is so very content these days, coming in from some project or other with grime on his skin and a smile on his face. Indrid’s own desire to stay with him here, in a house he can pretend is theirs, threatens to drown out all other reasons.

Eventually, his conscience shouts it down while he and Duck are on their evening walk.

“Oh yeah, Barclay told me about that a few days ago. Some ghost apparently wanders around the moor at night; got somethin to do with a murderous ancestor.”

“That does not alarm you.”

“You know I don’t believe in curses and destiny or anythin like that. People make up all kinds of stories when they’re alone in wild places.”

Indrid’s foresight guides his arm, gripping Duck and keeping him from moving forward.

“Does that look like a story?”

Directly ahead of them, a tor rises like a spike. Atop it, revealed by the rising moon, is a gigantic, fur-covered shape.

“See” Duck whispers, “were we back home, I’d say that was a bear.”

“And now?”

“Given there ain’t been bears in this part of the world in decades, I say we get the hell outta here.”

They take off back down the slope, the hall a collection of yellow squares of light in the darkening distance. A howl splits the air behind them and Indrid quickens his pace, keeps his eyes on the future in hopes of protecting them both.

This means he doesn’t see the burrow in the path until his ankle goes sideways in it.

“‘Drid!”

“Under no circumstances are you to try and help meAH!” He yelps as Duck swings him over his shoulder and continues his flight towards the house. As he’s bounced about, Indrid watches a glowing shape bounding closer.

“Thank fuck.” Duck crosses the gate, slams them closed, and lowers Indrid to his feet. Nothing glares at them from the path. But a growl creeps from the shadows and follows them until they shut the door.

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

“How’s the ankle?” Duck drops his coat on the chair opposite Indrid before tending to the fire.

“Better than yesterday. I should be up and moving tomorrow, if the futures are to be believed.”

“You know you don’t gotta rush. I’m happy to take care of you.”

Indrid picks at the ends of the blanket in his lap, “but I miss being able to aid you with work.”

“There’ll be lots of time for that. We got plenty to do to get the house to where we can live in it full time.”

“We?”

Duck goes completely still, then fails to put the fire poker back in place three separate times. When he finally meets Indrid’s eyes, he looks worried.

“‘Drid? What’s your endgame? With, uh, with me?”

“I…” Indrid grabs his teacup, intending to drink it to buy time and finds it empty, ‘I...I don’t know. I, I wanted to prove to you that I could find you a companion who made you happy, hoping you would give me another chance to locate your perfect match. But lately I, ah, I struggle to see that plan working. As I do not wish you to have any match but me.”

Duck moves across the rug, shadows on his face making it hard to read.

“I know that shows great selfishness on my part. If that is not something you wish to have in your life I, I…” he shrinks back as Duck leans down, certain this is the timeline where he accuses him of being a conniving monster.

“Funny you should say you’re bein selfish” Duck braces his arms on either side of the chair, “because I’ve been beatin myself thinkin’ I was selfish for keepin you out here so long.”

“Keep me here forever.” Indrid whispers. Duck smiles, closes the remaining space between them. His lips are still a bit chilly from working outside; Indrid does everything he can to warm them with his own.

The shorter orc straddles him and he whines so needily that Duck snickers in reply.

“What’s wrong darlin? Kissin too much for you?’

“On the contrary; it is far too little, but my injury means my ability to drag you to my bed and beg for more is greatly impeded.”

“Good thing we live alone.” Duck pulls the blanket from Indrid’s lap, nibbles his ear as the seer catches on and begins frantically undoing the buttons of Duck’s workshirt and shoving his suspenders. When at last he pushes it open he loses himself a moment, tipping forward to tongue at the golden ring in Duck’s left nipple.

“AHheh, gettin right to it. Good” Duck unbuttons his pants, “because I’ve been wantin to fuck you since before we even came out here.”

“Oh I see” Indrid purrs, “you lured me into the countryside to sully my virtue.”

Duck laughs, full throated, as his tusks catch in the firelight, “You forgettin the time we got drunk instead of goin to the opera and you told me you convinced two sailors to take you home?”

“Only if you’ve forgotten telling me about the young ranch-hand you gave several rides to” Indrid nibbles along his neck, his twitching oddly in their quest to grind against him without jostling his ankle.

“Not a chance. But I don’t care about reminiscin right now; right now, I got the best lookin fella in the world beggin for my dick.”

“I’m not begging.” Indrid tilts his head back to help Duck get his shirt open some.

“Not yet.” Duck grins, then shoves his hand down his trousers.

“Ohhhhhyes” Indrid reaches for him.

“Keep your hands on the armrests until I say you can move ‘em.”

“But, but” it’s hard to argue when he’s trying to stare a hole through Duck’s remaining clothes. His partner notices and makes a show of moaning louder.

“Only good boys get to watch the show. You gonna be good for me?”

“The best.”

Duck kisses the tip of his nose, then wiggles and kicks his pants and underwear off. Indrid can only watch, growing more envious by the moment, as he fucks himself open and rubs a thumb along his cock. Indrid tries bucking his hips, only to discover Duck is keeping himself out of reach.

“Cruel creature.” Indrid groans.

“Cruel? I’m giving you a seat to the best show in town.”

“I’d rather you take the best seat in town.”

Duck laughs, is still doing so when he bends to kiss him. Indrid whimpers, nails digging into the upholstery to keep his promise of good behavior. Duck notices.

“Good boy.”

“AHHHnnnthankyou, thankyouthankyouthankyou” Indrid moans as Duck drops his weight into his lap, grinding on his clothed cock with abandon. He flings Indrids hands up to his shoulders. The seer glides them up to his hair, burying them there where he’s now certain they’ve always belonged. Duck mirrors him, lips only leaving his to bite the tip of his ear.

“Fuck, Indrid, that’s it darlin, lemme ride you like the sleek little beast you are.”

He whines, loses his thoughts as Ducks hips quicken.

“I know ‘Drid, you like bein mine, like that I’ll bounce on this fuckin perfect dick as often as you want as long as you’re my good, sweet, ohsweetfuck, fuck, darlin’” Duck drops his forehead to Indrid’s shoulder with a groan as he cums, soaking the fabric of his pants. Before Indrid can think about stopping, Duck picks up again with as much force as before, growling in his ear to be a good little social climber and cum for his lord.

Indrid cums at that with a chirping sound he thought he’d stopped making long ago, legs spasming from the force of his climax. Unfortunately, this means his pleasure is chased by a burst of pain. He whimpers, flinches, and Duck spots the problem.

“Oh, oh darlin I’m sorry” He drops to the floor, rubbing Indrid’s thighs, “thought the position would keep you from hurtin.”

“Apparently not. I, I want you to know I don’t regret it in the slightest.”

Duck smiles, relieved, and rests his head on Indrid’s stomach, “Guess you did find me a match, huh?”

Indrid bends slowly, nuzzling his hair with a hum, “Yes, I believe so.”

[mymelodyheart]

All I Want For Christmas Is You Chapter 4 ~Revelations and Snogs~

Previously in A Christmas Request ...

"Claire?"

"Hmmm?" Her voice was like a breathless whisper, and he wasn't sure if he imagined the yearning look in her eyes. It took all his self-control to keep from kissing her right there and then. Instead, he locked down all his muscles and willed himself to think of animals that start with the letter D. And all his damn brain could summon was the word dragonfly.

"May I ask ye a favour?"

"I don't kiss on the first date," she said too quickly, but her words contradicted her manner as she stared at his lips.

"That wasn't what I was gonnae ask ye."

"Oh!" Her eyes flew to his, and she blushed profusely. "Oh, well, that depends on the favour then."

He swallowed hard and leaned forward, taking her hands in his. "Will ye spend the rest of yer holiday with me?" He cleared his throat. "What I'm trying to ask of ye is, will ye stay here until the Three Kings ...until it's time for ye to go back to London?"

She blinked thrice. 

"Alright."

"Alright?" A lungful of air whooshed out of him.

If you wish to read this on AO3, here is the link.

If you wish to read this from the beginning:

AO3 link

Tumblr link

   Alrighty Beauchamp, what have you just done?

Grabbed life by the balls? Isn't that the mantra?

Nope!

What do you mean nope?

Those are not your words. Not our words.

Yes, they are. You know, live in the moment and la-di-dah!?

Nope, definitely not.

Whose are they then?

Annalise's.

Ah, well ...

Claire mentally shrugged. 

"Sassenach?"

She snapped out of her tunnel vision, then looked at the big hands still holding hers. She was still trying to wrap her head around the idea of agreeing to spend the rest of her holiday with a total stranger. Who are you and what have you done with the ol' Beauchamp? "I'm sorry. I was thinking of Annalise. This is our holiday together, you see. I just agreed to spend the rest of my holiday here without consulting her." She shook her head and laughed despite the conflicting thoughts floating around her head. "I'm quite sure she'll be fine with it. She's the one who's always pushing me to be more spontaneous."

He squeezed her hands. "I'm flattered to be the reason for your spontaneity."

Her face heated. "I've never done this before ...just so you know."

He tried to catch her eye, and when she returned his gaze, he gave her a lop-sided smile. "Neither have I."

Oh, he's so good. Claire blew out a breath and stilled her heart. "That's comforting to know," she said, trying not to look too flustered. Knowing so little about him, she knew she should be wary, but for some reason, she felt safe. Everything about him was brand-new and familiar at the same time. It's as if there had been a melody playing in her head for her entire life, and he'd finally given it words.

"And Analise is welcome to stay too," Jamie quickly reassured her. "Ye said ye're booked at the Airbnb until Boxing day, but I dinnae think there'll be any guarantee ye'll be able to extend yer stay there with it being high season and all. But we have a family cottage that we rent out for the long term, and it was recently vacated. With all the Christmas fuss and work during the past few weeks, we never got around to letting it. Ye and Annalise are welcome to stay there for the rest of yer holiday." And then he grinned. "I'm quite certain my brother would be thrilled with the idea of yer friend staying too."

Claire laughed. "You're probably right. They seemed to have hit it off."

"Ye could say the same for us, don't ye agree?" he asked in a low voice.

She stared at him. How could he looked so calm and collected when she hadn't figured out how to articulate what she was feeling? On top of it all, it seemed he'd perfected the art of persuasion with finesse, so much so, she'd immediately jumped at his invitation to stay in Broch Mordha without a second thought, surprising herself. When it came to the dating game, she would have equated over-confidence to smugness which as a rule turned her immensely off. But there's a sincerity to Jamie's flirting that she found all too endearing and very charming.

She searched his face. Ready or not, she was curious to explore the unfamiliar emotions this beautiful man was drawing out of her. In her history of dating, no man had ever moved her to make her take the leap of faith. Deep down, something always seemed to be missing, and she'd simply put it down to her inability to know what she wanted. To say her hope of finding herself in a romantic relationship had taken a hit would be an understatement.

When her last date had ended in a blaze of abject embarrassment after she was accused of being a cock-tease, she'd decided she was done with men, at least for the foreseeable future. She had a concrete five-year plan, and getting involved with someone when her heart wasn't a hundred per cent into it, wasn't one of them. Annalise continued to hassle her to dive back in into the dating pool head first, but she'd been content to wade in the shallow end. It may have been frustrating to never take the plunge, but at least, there was a nil chance of her drowning in a sea of mistake. But now?

"Baby steps," she whispered.

"Sorry ...I didn't quite catch that."

She pulled her hands from his hold and drank the rest of her already cold Dutch coffee. When she finally placed the mug down, she looked up and smiled at him. "That rental cottage you were talking about, can I at least give you some money for it?"

He shook his head. "No way. In case ye've forgotten, I invited ye to stay."

"But you've been paying for everything all evening. Hardly seems fair."

"Spending my hard-earned quid for the pleasure of a gorgeous lass' company? Every penny spent is worth it if ye ask me." 

When he talked like that, she knew her blush wasn't going to fade anytime soon. "Annalise will disapprove, and I'm pretty sure she will want to have her say in the matter."

"And so will Willie."

"Are you always this stubborn?" she countered.

"Only if I want something badly."

They have a stare-off for a few heartbeats before Jamie tore his gaze away and cleared his throat. 

He glanced down at his watch. "So, the last horse carriage ride around the village is in about twenty minutes. We should probably get going." 

"Horse carriage ride?"

"Aye. Part of the Christmas night tour." He got up from his seat and gallantly offered her his arm. "Shall we?"

It's so old-fashioned and chivalrous, she laughed out loud. "Well, I guess we shall." As soon as she linked her hand into the crook of his elbow, he sucked in a quick breath. "Are you alright?"

He looked down at her hand on his arm and smiled. "Aye. I'm just concerned I might have trouble adhering to yer nae-kiss-on-first-date rule."

They headed out of the cafe and into the frosty air, and she was acutely aware of the low voltage electricity buzzing around them. "Would it help if I put my retainers on? I have them in my bag. I usually put them on at night."

"No, not really. I just have to remind myself of the promise I made to Annalise before we left the pub earlier."

"What promise was that?"

"I promised her I'd behave otherwise ..."

"Otherwise?"

"I have to face the consequences."

She laughed. She knew Annalise's threat so well and by heart as the same lines had been often used to warn her dates in the past. "Well, let me see ...did she say if you misbehave she's going to show you the end of the world up close. And she's going to let you see the kingdom come with your own eyes by sending you straight to the southern hemisphere and letting the ashes of death rain all over you."

He grinned at her. "Something like that. How she's going to achieve that, I have nae idea."

"Never mind how. If you keep on focusing on Annalise's threat, that should be deterrent enough."

He gave her a sceptical shrug. "If ye say so." And then he looked down at her and winked. "But then again, ye're worth tempting fate for."

..........

Claire found herself being hoisted into a festively decorated horse-drawn carriage with twinkling garlands, gold & white berries. To her amusement, even the shire horses were wearing faux antlers. As she sat down, she felt their buggy dipped low as Jamie followed and settled next to her, putting the gift bags on the floor and pulling the woollen blanket over them. As their transport rumbled and creaked into motion, he put an arm behind her, resting it the edge of their seat's backrest, leaving her no alternative but to lean against the curve of his body. His closeness and the motion of their carriage added another layer of tension to her already overworked adrenal glands.

"Comfy?" he whispered, leaning into her, his warm breath on her ear.

"Uh-huh," she managed, licking her lips that had gone suddenly dry. It was a challenging feat to ignore Jamie's presence when his sheer size encroached her space, his thigh brushing against hers and the motion of the ride, sinking her deeper under his arm.

She forced herself to focus on the sounds of the hooves and bells, and admire the trees wrapped in lights, wreaths adorning almost every window, and Santas or nutcrackers standing guard outside front doors. For once, Jamie didn't speak, and she allowed herself to relax, revelling the clean, crisp air of the Highlands. Although Broch Mordha was nothing like London, quieter and had a slower pace of life, the atmosphere in the village was electric. It was almost magical, more natural and everything seemed to make more sense, instead of the rat race that occurred daily and nightly in the big city.

Every year, at around Christmas time, she came back to the Highlands in search of some peace, and every time she returned to London, she always felt like a brand new person, invigorated, well-rested and ready to tackle the New Year. But there was something different about her visit in Broch Mordha compared to the other places she'd been to in the Highlands, and she had a feeling deep in her guts, she'd have trouble leaving this place once her holiday was over. 

"Ye dinnae look tired at all, Sassenach. Ye're used to staying up late?"

She glanced up at Jamie and smiled. "I sleep very little. I don't know, maybe I have insomnia."

"Really? Perhaps it's just a consequence of living in the city. I mean it's loud there, and I presume ye live in a flat where ye can hear the comings and goings of yer neighbours."

She sighed. "Yes, there's that. The flat Annalise and I live in is not really the most tranquil setting. It doesn't help that I am an overthinker."

"What do ye think mostly about when ye cannae sleep?"

"Mostly about work," she shrugged, glancing at the lights overhead that were hung above the streets. "Don't get me wrong. I'm happy, and I'm grateful for the good life I have. It's just that sometimes I think about the day when I would stop searching for ..."

Jamie waited for her to finish her sentence, but she couldn't find the words. "For what?" he finally asked, his hand squeezing her shoulder, urging her on.

"More," she replied candidly, surprising herself with the unguarded utterance that came from her very soul, ragged with honesty and desire for something she didn't have a name for. Yet. Suddenly, the empty place inside her reared up, seeking company. "How about you? What do you think most of at night?" She paused, trying to tamp down the sudden curiosity that flared up, but it was out before she could stop herself. "A certain lass perchance?"

To her astonishment, she felt him tensed beside her, and after a few seconds, he let out a sigh. "I have nightmares," he confided.

Her head jerked up, and she twisted in her seat to look into his eyes. He was probably waiting for her to ask a torrent of questions, but she remained silent, allowing him to set the pace of their conversation. She nodded her head to continue.

"I used to be with the SAS. It's a special force unit for the British army. The unit I was in was responsible for a number of roles including covert reconnaissance, counter-terrorism, direct action, and hostage rescue. My best friend, Simon MacKimmie, was captured while spying behind the enemies' lines. He was a valuable informant for both sides, and my team were under direct orders to get him out of there alive and as swiftly as possible." She watched as his throat worked as if he saw the scene replaying in his mind. "We found him quickly enough and thought we were out of the woods. But the enemy fire broke out just as we were about to board the helicopter. Simon and I were hit, but my wound was superficial, whereas my friend's injury was fatal. I promised him everything would be alright and would make sure he stayed alive for his family. Before he slipped away, he made me promise to take care of his wife, Laoghaire, if he didn't make it. She was pregnant at the time. I didn't hesitate and made a vow to keep that promise."

"Oh, Jamie ..."

He pressed his lips into a determined line. "Months later, I was discharged from the army after I was diagnosed with PTSD. I resigned myself to a quiet life as the flashbacks from the horrors of the war and friend's death worsened. Laoghaire and I became close, as we talked a lot about Simon and I helped her with the things she needed. That was when I found my purpose in life again, and even though I wasn't in love with her, I loved her like I loved Simon so I asked her to marry me so that I could take care of their child. It was a sacrifice, aye, but it was a small price to pay, considering I get to live, and my mate will never get to see his unborn child. So we planned to marry after the child was born. So while we were waiting for the big day, I bought a house for us, and my brother helped me restore it."

"But Laoghaire didnae want to live here. She wanted us to move to Liverpool because she couldnae stand the quiet and the remoteness even though she was born and bred here. I told her we would talk about it after the baby was born. But I was worried that living in the city would make my PTSD worse. Meanwhile, rumours were going around that Laoghaire has been seeing another man when Simon was still alive and that she would often disappear to Liverpool weeks at a time. I ignored it as I didnae care for idle gossips and dismissed it as such. Ye see, she lived and worked in Liverpool before she married Simon; hence, I thought, that was where the rumours had stemmed from. She's a very ambitious lass and has this dream of making it big one day. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I later found out from a reliable source that not only had she cheated on Simon, but she cheated on me while were engaged. I began to wonder if the child she was carrying was even Simon's. While I was building her a house and funding her trips to Liverpool, she was seeing the same man she'd been meeting up with when Simon was still alive. When I confronted her, she admitted to it. So the wedding was cancelled, and she went to Liverpool to give birth to her child and to be with the other man ." 

He shook his head at the memory. "She reminded me of someone I used to pursue. She'd rather be with a man wearing a five grand suit than be with a labourer like me. I guess it's the lure of the city. Sometimes I feel like I failed Simon and his family. I made him all sorts of promises that I couldnae keep and the memory of the glimmer of hope he had in his eyes turning to death, keep recurring in my dreams."

Claire knew the last things Jamie needed were apologies and pities. He seemed like a proud man who didn't shy away from responsibilities and was unapologetically himself. "I guess we both have demons that keep us up at night," she finally said.

Jamie shrugged and waved his hand. "Dinnae fash. I didnae take ye out so ye could watch me wallow. I've done enough of that myself."

She took a deep breath. "I'm not going to pretend I wholly understand everything you've been through, but one thing I know is that you being part of the SAS means you were trained with the elite. You were drilled to save lives, and with that comes, precision and no room for error. So when something goes wrong, and someone dies during your watch, it becomes your fault."

He looked at her as furrows deepened on his brows.

She placed a hand over his. "You tried to absolve your guilt of not being able to save your mate's life by taking care of Laoghaire, who was so undeserving of your kindness and generosity. God or a higher power or the universe, or whatever you wish to call it, is trying to show you something important. You don't get to choose, Jamie. At the end of the day, you can only do your best, but you can't save everyone. No one can. Right now you're learning to live with that, and all you can do now is make sure you get to the other side. You can't take responsibility for everyone's action but yours."

Something lit up in Jamie's eyes. Emboldened by the small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, she grinned at him. "No wonder you won at the caber toss and your team trashed the opponents at shinty today. You have so much pent up emotions dying to come out."

Jamie suddenly laughed out loud and pulled her against him. "I think I need to fire my therapist and hire ye, Sassenach. All this time, we'd circled around the realisation, always walking on eggshells. But ye ...ye just gave it to me straight. I think I'll need ye to stay longer past three kings."

She poked him on the ribs. "Be careful what you wish for!"

..........

A couple of hours and a glass of mulled cider each later, they walked in silence as Jamie guided her down the path that led to the bed and breakfast cottage. As it turned out, he lived three minutes walk away from where she and Annalise were staying.

After spending a whole night out with him, her body was still buzzing with so much energy. She'd never had such a powerful reaction to a man before. Nor enjoyed the company of one as much as she did tonight. She felt like she could uproot all the trees that stood on her path.

"I had a really grand time," he said.

"Me too. Thank you for a wonderful evening."

"And thank ye for the company."

As they neared bed and breakfast cottage, she realised they were exchanging lame small talk, but there's nothing lame about what's passing between them. Either way, she couldn't care less as she'd never laughed so hard in her life.

When they finally reached the small gate, she stopped and turned around to face him. "Well, here we are," she smiled, trying to conceal her reluctance to go.

He hooked the giftbags onto the wooden gate and nodded tensely, the tightness in his jaw quite evident. "Aye. Here we are at Mrs Fitz's place. I ken the ol' dear. She used to feed me and my brother jam piece and milk when we were bairns." He took a step forward and cleared his throat. "I ...um ...tonight was really special." 

"I think so too. Thank you again for everything."

He ran a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. "I'm no' tired yet, so I'm just going to take a walk some more until I'm ready for bed," he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.

"Yes, you do that. Fresh air is good for you. And I ...ah ... I'll talk to Annalise about extending our stay here. Ah well ... that's if she's still awake." She rolled her eyes and let out a nervous laugh. "Or if she's home. So ... I'll see you around?"

"Aye, I'm just down the road if ye need anything."

"Yes. Got it. Down the road. A hop, skip and jump away."

He stared for a few heartbeats, then ran his hand behind his neck and gave her a crooked smile. "I meant it, Sassenach. If ye cannae sleep, ye can drop by anytime. I'm a light sleeper. Apart from personalised packaged-tours, I also specialise in making a mean toddy to help ye sleep. And a wicked mushroom omelette if its breakfast ye want. Oh, aye, I'm good at foot massage as well."

She stifled a giggle threatening to burst as a ball of warmth bloomed in her belly. "I have no doubt you're good at those things. I'll bear what you said in mind if I need anything or if I have trouble sleeping. And if I have a sudden urge for a foot massage, I'll pop by."

He shook his head. "Ye're not just saying that to spare my feelings are ye?"

"No. Of course not. I enjoy your company. So ..." Claire took a deep breath. "...this is it. Good night, Jamie. And thank you again for everything." Oh, dear God, I keep saying thank you! She stood on her tiptoes to give him a peck on his cheek just as he offered his hand. Their sudden awkward movement made her lose her balance, bumping her nose on his jaw. They both took a step back and laughed. This time she held out her hand, and he shook it.

They continued to stand there and shake hands, neither of them letting go, their smile slowly ebbing away as they stared at each other.

Jamie was the first to speak. "Right, this is the part where I watch ye walk away."

"Yes. I'll go now. It's getting late." She smiled as she took a tentative step away from him, but he didn't let go of her hand.

Her bottom hit the wooden post behind her as Jamie took another step forward. His height and breadth blocked out the street light, and in the shadows, his expression looked almost pained. She'd had men looked at her with desire before, but nothing like the way Jamie was doing right now. The way his jaw and muscles tensed and his breathing shallowed, she knew it was taking him a lot of effort to hold himself back. Her eyes travelled down to his throat and watched his Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed.

"Sassenach." His voice cut through the haze, and her eyes flew to his as he leaned down and cupped her face. "Maybe ye could stay for just a wee while more."

Her heart began to thump wildly against her ribs as the air between them charged. "I really should get going," she whispered, the blood roaring through her ears almost deafening. She willed herself to move, but she remained fixed on the spot.

"Or perhaps ye can just stand here for a few minutes more and let me do this."

She stopped breathing and time stood still as he softly brushed his lips across hers. Then he pulled away for a brief second waiting for her to object, and when she didn't, he kissed her again.

Her brain seized, and her eyes automatically closed. She'd never felt lips so soft nor been kissed with such gentleness. She once read an Oscar Wilde quote, and it said, "A kiss may ruin a human life." It had puzzled her then because up until now, she'd always thought, although some kisses were sweet it was nothing more than two people putting their faces together and exchanging spit. But Jamie's kiss? She knew it had ruined her for any future kisses. This was the type of kiss she never even knew existed. It was the kind of kiss that inspired stars to climb into the sky and light up the world.

She waited with bated breaths for more, but nothing happened.

When she opened her eyes, he was staring at her. "I've wanted to kiss ye from the moment I laid my eyes on ye," he whispered and grazed her lips once more. "Ye've nae idea how beautiful ye are."

Oh, sweet Jesus! He'd barely touched her. It was merely a light brushing of their lips and the slightest sensation of his breath on her face. But it was enough to cause the static crackling between them to be ignited, and she was left wanting more.

Before she could reassemble her thoughts and make sense of her emotions, he stepped away from her and tunnelled his fingers through his hair. "May I please have yer phone, Sassenach?"

"Oh! Wot for?"

He smiled at her. "I'm giving ye my number." 

She reached into the back pocket of her jeans and handed her phone over. She watched him dial his own number on her screen, and after a few seconds later, his own phone rang. 

"There, now I have yers too." He pushed her phone into her back pocket and blew out a breath. "I'll see ye tomorrow?" 

"You want to see me again?" she teased, smiling.

"I dinnae even want to leave ye tonight."

She dropped her head down to hide the heat creeping up her face. "I'll see what's Annalise is up to and we'll take it from there. I'll either call you or send a message."

He placed a finger under her chin and tipped her face up. "Ye're not mad I kissed ye? I havenae forgotten yer rules about first dates."

Claire picked up the gift bags, stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. And then she smiled. "I'm starting to believe the rules don't apply to you. Good night, Jamie." And with that, she turned around and walked towards the cottage without looking back, knowing full well Jamie was still stood there waiting for her until she'd safely made it to the house.

Once inside, she allowed herself to slide down to the floor and relived the memory of their first kiss. And she sat there for a very long time.

Dear Readers,

Here's a little story about this chapter. I got stuck at the beginning of writing this one. So what did I do? I started writing from the middle, then the conclusion and finished the opening in the end. It's common to get stuck in writing, so I thought I'd share this wee tip with you. So just in case, the latest update lost some of its fluidity, you now know the reason why. 😀

Anyway, thank you for reading and your feedback from the previous chapter. It's something I truly appreciate. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I look forward to reading your thoughts. Meanwhile, sending you all best wishes and hope you're taking care of yourselves and your health. x

[forasecondtherewedwon]

Gladly Be a Fool

Fandom: A Discovery of Witches Pairing: Phoebe Taylor/Marcus Whitmore Rating: E Word Count: 2883

Summary: The missing scene after Phoebe and Marcus stumble into his bedroom in episode 4.

“Is this alright?” Marcus asks, despite feeling Phoebe’s calf wind around him like the heavy scroll on an antique gilt frame—the kind of thing they surely have in the vaults at her auction house.

“Completely,” she says against his throat before leaving a lingering kiss. “Does it seem like I think this isn’t alright?”

“Just checking.” He laughs at himself, scoffs with his eyes shut. “It was only that you looked a bit disoriented when we…”

“Flung ourselves onto your bed?”

Phoebe’s bold. He suspected, even with her backtracking after kissing him by the cab, and he enjoys it immensely.

“Yes. Forgive me. Occupational hazard.”

Smiling, he bends his head to her neck. She tilts her head to make space for him. The hum of blood beneath the surface of her skin is more intoxicating than the red wine, less than the creep of her fingers unbuttoning and spreading his shirt. He wishes he were wearing something smarter; blue plaid isn’t his go-to seduction look. However, he didn’t foresee this when he darted to Phoebe’s office earlier. That just toppled into dinner, from dinner into a lovely stroll while they discussed his taste in music to the soundtrack of her laugh, from playful conversation to the kiss that left him longing on the sidewalk, to her surprising call, to, finally, the supreme pleasure of holding her body in place with his and the prospect of imminently warming his cool sheets.

“Are you saying you’re trying to assess my health? In other words, play doctor with me?”

“I don’t think it’s playing doctor when I actually have the qualifications,” he argues between kisses, meandering up to her cheek, then her mouth.

“I suppose I have been acting out of character. Do you think that could be a symptom of anything?”

Phoebe pushes at his shirt and Marcus lifts one hand and then the other, slipping free of the sleeves so she can toss the garment aside. He lifts his head and cocks it.

“I’ll keep you overnight to make sure.”

He doesn’t think he’s offered her anything unusual, and yet she clasps the back of his neck and leads him through a kiss the flavour of gratitude and relief, intense desire welling just beneath. The last thing gets him harder than anything. He presses his groin to her thigh, wanting her, hating his jeans.

Reminding himself that he’s a thinking being, a centuries-old intellect, not just a creature of primal hungers like the one Domenico described, Marcus defers briefly to his brain. The verdict there is that Phoebe’s feeling reassured by his implication that he’d like her to stay the night. She’s inquisitive, attempting to decipher him since they met, holding back even more questions than she asked. Amid all her uncertainties where he’s concerned, his invitation is solid. A promise that predicts the next eight or so hours of her life. He decides he can appreciate that craving for a knowable future. By job and genetics, they’re perhaps both more comfortable with the past.

“I really can’t believe I called you,” Phoebe confesses, working on his belt. “I’m normally not—”

“Liar,” he teases. His hair’s in his eyes as he stares smugly down at her. “A woman who dresses entirely in red is definitely a woman who makes the first move.”

Now to get her out of all that red. Remembering his other guests, Marcus moves swiftly to his feet and closes the bedroom door. He jerks his thumb towards it and mumbles about a friend staying with him as he returns to Phoebe’s waiting arms. His heart doesn’t so much beat as somersault, watching her skate her dress up her legs—presumably, the better to wrap them around him. He feels flushed, imagining forgetting the clothes and just pounding into her.

“Technically,” she pants as his hand skims her inner thigh, fingers trailing along the lace hem of the slip beneath her dress, “the call was the second move.”

“Well, I’ve got to make one of the moves.”

“You really should. Unless it takes you a while to get going. Hamilton six times…”

Grinning, Marcus shakes his head at her and feels for the line of her underwear at her hip. He starts to tug, then wriggles his fingers under the band instead. As he slides his hand down to cup her, he fits his lips back over hers. Phoebe sighs shakily into his mouth as his fingertips glide through her arousal. He applies a gentle touch, tracing her with a surgeon’s finesse.

Before he can ask her which move this qualifies as, she’s opening his fly, her ring scratching against his zipper. The kiss opens up, growing harsher, teeth grabbing lips, her tongue pushing into his mouth then his into hers, until she’s gripping his cock and he’s sunk a finger inside her. He curls, she palms. Between their obscene sounds, he recalls the neat click of her typing as she brought up Lot 42 on her computer. It makes Marcus smile to himself. Then, he dives deeper into the kiss and into her, adding a finger, coaxing a broken moan from Phoebe that vibrates across his tongue.

He raises his head and her hand with it, fingers twined in his hair, because he’s honestly not sure she’s taking in enough oxygen. She might be breathing heavily, but her hand doesn’t quit, fingers encircling him as she pumps faster. Feeling his hips begin to rock as he seeks satisfaction, he realizes he’d better distract her.

“Hope my hands aren’t too cold.”

Phoebe laughs breathlessly and does stop dragging him to the edge for a moment, but then she reaches for his hips with both hands instead, pulling his jeans and underwear down.

“I think I’ve stopped noticing,” she says.

“Am I boring you?”

She rolls her eyes.

“Not like that,” Phoebe tells him. Then, “Yes. Yes, like that,” as he pulses his fingers shallowly and drags her clit in urgent circles beneath his thumb.

“You can have the first move,” he cedes. “I’m claiming credit for the first one of these.”

But he’s got to actually get her to orgasm before that claim’s really worth anything, so he continues what’s making her squirm. With his other arm, he drops from his palm to his elbow, freeing his hand to unbutton her dress from the top. Her chest is warm where he brushes his lips. He exposes more skin, then the lacy neckline of her slip. Being disappointed by too many clothes is a modern man’s insanity—what does it for Marcus are these layers, needing time to strip and reveal, this thick feeling of anticipation drawn out. He watches the dainty gold pendant bob against Phoebe’s throat as her breath hitches. Groaning, he leaves her buttons for now and grabs the hand not in his hair, interlocking their fingers and pressing the back of her hand into the mattress.

“Almost there,” he murmurs to himself, but Phoebe squeezes her eyes shut and nods rapidly in response as the nails of her other hand bite into his naked hip.

Her legs tangle around his and tense when she comes; the leverage pulls him in as her hips jerk up from the bed. He was trying not to grind his erection into the satiny fabric of her skirt, but it’s too late for that now. The contact has him kissing faster over her collarbone and up her neck, sucking where her pulse throbs until Phoebe moans, clamping even tighter around his fingers. Marcus clenches his jaw hard and rests his forehead on her neck, wondering if that was just a spike at the end of her orgasm or whether he compelled her into a second.

When her hand loosens against his, he draws back to look at her in the yellow light coming through his windows from the street.

“Not too cold,” she says, smile slack and easy from the wine and the release.

“Good.”

The word is no louder than the rustle of bedding as he withdraws his hand and braces himself over her again. He stares admiringly down at her. She just makes him feel… like he’s really glad he didn’t pawn the miniatures investigation off on Miriam.

Holding his eyes, Phoebe brings her hands to her chest. Her smile turns sly as she runs her fingers along the open front of her dress until they encounter the next fastened button. She undoes it. Marcus’s gaze leaps from her hands to her face and back. He grins, hanging his head, at her ability to do this to him. She knows too, because she doesn’t speed up. She takes her time all the way to the very last button. When she sits up to shrug out of her dress, he does as well, kneeling between her thighs as she does a little hop to whisk the skirt out from underneath her. She casts the dress aside.

Marcus takes a long breath through his nose, studying Phoebe in her short sheath of white silk. She’s wearing a bra under it—white, ribbed, unlined—but he can see her hardened nipples. While he stares, she unclasps her necklace and lowers it onto the closer of the two nightstands. The chain trickles through her fingers.

“Not the watch?” he asks with a grin when she’s touching him again, hands on his sides, moulded to his ribs.

Phoebe shrugs, barely glancing at her wrist.

“Didn’t think it was really in the way.”

He gives her a considering frown and kicks his legs out from under him, peeling his clothes off. She looks slightly shocked, mouth open in a scandalized smile as she does her best to keep her eyes on his face. Shame.

“Is that all?” he wonders.

“I guess I just like knowing what time it is.” She pauses. Goes on. “So much of the past is identified so indistinctly. Paintings or jewellery by year, some artifacts by decade with our appraisers’ best estimations. The possible timeframe only gets broader the farther back we go. Things travel through time… objects… but we lose details. Maybe it’s silly, but sometimes it amazes me that I can know the time down to the second. I think time is underappreciated.”

“Now that,” Marcus says, leaning in until their lips almost touch, “was a much more interesting answer.”

“Coming from you, I take that as a compliment.”

He’s not positive that was a compliment, but he kisses her anyway. Though he can feel her smile like she might say something else, his hopefully-charming insistence wins her over and her mouth seals to his with more certainty. He groans into it, cupping her cheek to angle her head as he deepens the kiss. He misses her hand wrapped around his cock and yanks expressively at the blanket to either side of her hips. Phoebe shifts back against his headboard, curving her legs out of the way. The second he has the covers whipped down, he catches her behind the knees and pulls her back to him, laughing. Marcus’s smile is broad as he settles between her legs. He traces the neckline of her slip, ignoring where the hem’s scrunched up above her hips, revealing her white underwear, for the moment.

“Did you think about me when you put this on this morning?” he inquires, fingering the lace.

“I didn’t know you’d be coming in. To the office,” she clarifies when he jauntily raises an eyebrow.

“Hmm. That’s not exactly what I asked.”

Marcus kisses her shoulder, heading towards her throat. He slips his hand under her ass to keep her in place as he grinds down with his hips.

“I take care in my appearance,” is all Phoebe seems willing to concede.

“And that appearance is very lovely.” He can feel her arousal through her underwear and rubs against her more precisely, dying to bury himself in her. “So very lovely,” he pants against her skin.

“You’re being very charming for someone who’s already got me half naked.”

“Oh, I never turn it off.” He flashes an enticing grin.

He can feel, and hear, her heartbeat, then his cock twitches eagerly and they’re in another scramble—the first was to make it to his bed, this is to get her out of her underwear and him inside her. She takes care of the former as he stretches to fish a condom from the drawer of the nightstand. If she asked, he would say truthfully that he was thinking about her this morning. The way he pleased and flustered her when they met by suggesting she should be the one in charge of the auction house was in his mind when he ventured to the shop, guiding his hand as he tossed the box of condoms into his basket alongside the coffee creamer and eggs he was bringing back to Sophie and Nate for breakfast. The thrill for the rest of them might have been the discovery of Matthew and Diana’s miniatures; the thrill for Marcus was doing everything he could to provoke a smile out of Phoebe Taylor.

Pressing inside her, he inches the white slip up her stomach with every gasp. Her fingers grip the back of his neck, her eyelids lowered, her parted lips bumping his as they share air. Marcus thrusts shallowly once he’s all the way in and Phoebe shifts her hips, widens her legs; they adapt to each other.

His hands caress her skin more insatiably the more of it he bares. He can feel the goosebumps under his fingertips, unable to count them because she’s rocking her hips with his, driving him deeper. Phoebe intervenes with the slip, stripping it off over her head, then her hands slap to his back and they kiss hard as he bucks into her. Marcus absorbs her high whimpers, refusing to break the kiss. Fuck, she’s incredibly slick around him and he badly wants this to be as good for her as it is for him. He hooks his arm beneath her thigh and folds it up. The moan that leaves Phoebe is almost enough to stand even his heavy, floppy hair on end.

He dips his head, tugging at her nipple through her thin bra. He can feel her wristwatch against the back of his neck as her fingers comb into his hair. Not everything’s been removed; so many pieces of her. She thinks he’s evasive and mysterious, but he’s sure he doesn’t know the half of it with her, and that excites him. Phoebe in his bed excites him. He lets her pull him back into a messy kiss and allows his eyelids to flutter open ever-so-slightly, stealing glimpses of her. This room is full of mirrors, but most are hung just a little too high on purpose because it isn’t really his reflection Marcus wants. He doesn’t need his own face looking back at him, he doesn’t need two nightstands for all his shit.

Breathing harshly through his nose, he catches the wine they drank downstairs, her gin at dinner. There’s the scent of night air and the faint hint of the perfume she must have put on this morning. He smelled it at her office earlier, but at the time it seemed a little too—as Phoebe defined their first kiss—forward to ask if that was for his benefit, like the later uncovered silk slip. She’s as irresistible when experienced through this sense as any other.

“F-faster,” she directs, bowing her body against his, and he is happy to oblige. He loves her sweat. He’d be perspiring himself, if he weren’t what he is.

The present rides him as he moves quickly in and out of her. This is fast, him and her, for something he thinks is more than a hookup. Two days to get them from his cold hands to her heat under and around him. One dinner, one walk, one call, a multitude of kisses. He is so, so into her.

His hand finds and grasps her hip, heaving her up to stroke inside her differently while pinning her thigh to her stomach. She cries out and he knows he’s got her.

“Good god, Phoebe,” Marcus breathes into her ear.

She shudders and shakes, clenching around his cock. He switches to long strokes as she climaxes, powering through them, trying to last if only to extend the present, here to play time’s own game. All of his seconds are Phoebe sighing and catching her breath and being so vibrantly human beneath him. He finally finishes with one of her hands kneading his shoulder, the other on his cheek. The orgasm ripples through him, muscles taut as his hips snap to hers and push until he’s empty.

He almost doesn’t want to pull away, but he’s being stupid. He swaggers unhurriedly over to the bin to chuck the condom, smirking back at Phoebe, who he’s caught watching his ass, as he thought she would be. She rolls her eyes with a certain fondness while she takes the liberty of rearranging the pillows that are propping her up.

“You know what would be great right now?” Marcus asks as he rejoins her.

“What’s that?”

He waits until she’s looking at him dead on before he grins.

“A little Duran Duran.”

[synnefo-nefeli]

Working on a WIP scene for Heard Your Heart Beating, my Klapollo friends to lovers post AA5, slow-burn fic

___

//Come fix your prosecutor// read Athena’s text. Apollo groaned wondering what Klavier could have done in the hour Klavier had spent at the WAA.

He adjusted his tie in the mirror of his locker, checked to make sure that he no longer looked sweaty from his ride over from court, and shoved his cycling outfit into his locker along with his helmet.

He could hear laughing on the other side of the office’s front door so that was a good sign, he hoped, as he swiped his keycard through the lock.

“Herr Forehead has finally arrived from his battle with the courts!” Klavier beamed at him with the smile that Apollo was now coming to call “on-stage-mode”. Klavier was sitting on the sofa next to Athena, coffee cups and tea biscuits between them on the table.

He could hear Mr. Wright bustling in the office kitchenette.

“I am back,” Apollo announced, “...and I survived Blackquill-“

“Oh, is that the reason you biked back? Simon didn’t offer to give you a lift?” Athena laughed, “how mean. He needs to learn to leave it in the courtroom.”

Apollo rolled his eyes, “Probably, but I am sure it has more to do with him needing to go down to the precinct and yell at the poor detective who sent him into court with an outdated autopsy report...also, what would I have done with my bike? I don’t want to ruin the guy’s new car by stashing it in the back seat.”

Mr. Wright arrived from the kitchen, fresh pot of coffee in hand, “Wow. A defense attorney having an updated report instead of the prosecution? Never thought I’d see the day...”

Apollo flopped on the couch opposite Athena and Klavier, “Hey. Miracles do happen...and considering all of our court win-streak, we shouldn’t be too surprised that they exist.”

“Here. Here.” Klavier said amiably into his coffee looking as if he was about to attempt to change the subject. Oh, Klavier wasn’t getting away from whatever occurred before Apollo arrived so easily,

“So... what’s this about me needing to fix ‘my prosecutor’?”

Klavier made an amused expression, “Ah, is that what I am called? Well I am honored to be Herr Justice’s”

Athena rolled her eyes, “Oh stop with the charm-“ she looked at Apollo, “he doesn’t want you to know that he’s never been to the Tragic Kingdom”

Apollo stared at Klavier, “Seriously?” which earned Klavier a playful elbow to the ribs from Athena, “Told you he would react like that”

Klavier sighed, “Is it really that big of a deal? Not going to a children’s amuse-“

“HOLD IT!” Apollo didn’t care that everyone about him flinched (“Indoor voice, Polly, jeeze”, Mr. Wright muttered”), “Disneyland is for everyone,” Apollo breathed, “you seriously haven’t gone? Ever? I mean...it’s only in Anaheim. That’s less than an hour without traffic from here-“

Mr. Wright handed Apollo a cup of coffee, “It’s been a while since ‘Mr. Disney Adult’’s shown his face at the office.”

“You say that as if you don’t have an annual pass too, Mr. Wright.”

Klavier appeared lost in the conversation; it was refreshing to see Mr. Tall, Blonde and Unflappable looking out of his depth, “Is it really a big deal that I haven’t?”

“Mm...not so much,” Mr. Wright said before Apollo could object, “well it wouldn’t be a big deal if you were hanging out with someone else, but I mean considering that you two have been spending a lot of time outside of court together, I think it’s more shocking that Apollo *hasn’t* dragged you down there already.

“You act like I go there all the time-“

“Says the person who has scheduled himself to come in late on days where there are morning annual passholder events,” Athena mused, “or how about the time you, Clay and Trucy, just decided to go to Disneyland after work because you wanted corndogs for dinner”

Across from him Klavier made a face, as if silently saying “Corndogs for dinner? Really? What are you, five?”.

Apollo met ‘his prosecutor’s’ eyes, “Those corndogs are legendary, and the only ones I’ll eat,” he rebutted, not caring that Klavier hadn’t actually said anything.

“He has a point there,” agreed Mr. Wright, “so I guess the big question is- how long before Klavier gets pulled into driving Apollo down to Anaheim?”

Klavier looked around the room at all of the other attorneys as if expecting for someone to tell him suddenly that this was all an act. Apollo meanwhile was mentally running through his calendar to figure out when he would have time to properly take Klavier to the park. There was so much to do at work-not to mention, he would have to prep Klavier for his first park visit.

“Do you like amusement parks?” Apollo asked Klavier.

The blonde man simply shrugged, “I’ve only been to a few in my life. Mein family wasn’t really into things like theme parks; didn’t see the value in them as entertainment. And when I moved here, I just didn’t go-“

“Not even grad-night?” Athena asked, “Junie told me that’s what the student council is setting up for the seniors. It’s tradition. Heck, every high school in Southern California does a school trip there at least once.”

Klavier shrugged, “I graduated early, remember? I guess I could have gone to the ceremony with the class that was graduating that year, but I wanted to get mein badge so I went home as soon as I could to pass the bar in Germany.”

“There’s one in France!”

Klavier sighed, “If I asked to do anything outside of museums and cultural experiences while we were in France, I would have been left in Germany.”

“Anyway,” Athena said, “If you’re going to hang with Polly, you’re going to have to go to the parks eventually-“

Apollo felt his cheeks heat, “I mean if that’s not what you like to do for fun, you don’t have to-“

“Oh please,” Mr. Wright interrupted, “I can confidently bet that you’ve been sitting here this entire time planning a trip for him.”

Apollo crossed his arms and sat back in defeat as Athena continued to regale Klavier with anecdotes of the WAA’s trips to the parks as well as Apollo’s impromptu visits,

“Has he shown you his pin collection yet?” Athena said in a tone that was too close to the tone she liked to use whenever she teased Apollo about his and Klavier relationship not being as platonic as Apollo made them seem.

//As if she doesn’t know the actual truth// Apollo grumbled, “Okay enough. Klavier already knows I am a nerd- he doesn’t need any more evidence about it”

“Ach you’re always cool, Herr Forehead,” Klavier smiled again in “on-stage mode”, which made Apollo decide that he needed to show Klavier what he was missing.

“When’s your birthday?” Apollo blurted.

Athena groaned, “Oh my god, Apollo, haven’t you heard of Wikipedia?”

“I like that Herr Forehead doesn’t feel the need to research me, it makes a rock god like me feel practically human,” Klavier teased and then with an amiable grin, “May 23rd.

However-I told you that on Valentine’s Day, don’t you remember?” He said a little too suggestively for Apollo’s comfort,

“I’m hurt that you don’t remember… and here I thought things that were shared during sleepovers were sacred,” he added a pout for good measure.

Out of the corner of his eye, Apollo saw Athena not-so-subtly pull out of her phone to text something, most certainly to Trucy.

Great, he was not going to know peace from either of them for the foreseeable future.

Although, Apollo appreciated that Athena had the grace to attempt to hide her grin.

Whether or not Klavier was aware of what was happening next to him, Klavier only sipped at his coffee.

“So in three weeks. Great, guess what we’re doing to celebrate your 26th birthday,” Apollo announced.

“It’s on a workday.”

“Take off.”

“Don’t you have to work?” Klavier asked

Apollo turned to Mr. Wright, “Mr. Wright, may I have the 23rd off?”

“Of course. Just put it on the calendar.”

Apollo, having won the debate, smiled smugly at Klavier, “Get ready, we have a lot to do before then.”

Klavier looked genuinely confused, “Like what?!”

He was about to ask what Klavier’s favorite Disney movie was, but then Athena’s phone buzzed, “Simon’s here- he needs help bringing up the food...and Trucy says she wants to also go to Disneyland for Klavier’s birthday, I think that’s a good idea; what do you think, boss?,”

Before Apollo could say anything about Athena or Trucy inviting themselves, Mr. Wright smiled and said,

“You know what- unless something pressing comes up and Trucy doesn’t have any projects or tests at school, I think the agency needs a mental health day. Maybe Miles and Prosecutor Blackquill need one too,” he remarked walking towards his office in order to most likely call his fiancé.

Finally alone- sort of. At least until Athena and Prosecutor Blackquill came upstairs with the food. But still, alone enough to enjoy Klavier silently trying to figure out what the hell just happened...or Apollo would have enjoyed Klavier’s genuinely flummoxed expression, except that he remembered how Klavier, despite his celebrity status, didn’t like to draw attention too himself unless it was in court or on stage- and especially not in public.

It was the reason Klavier hadn’t shown up to Clay’s funeral after all. He looked at Klavier feeling guilty for putting his friend on the spot,

“Sorry, if you don’t want to- we don’t have to-“

“Nein, nein,” Klavier said with his genuine smile, “you all are so passionate about it, now I have to experience it”

“Are you sure? I didn’t even ask if that’s how you wanted to spend your birthday-I just kinda got caught up in it.”

Klavier shrugged, “Honestly, considering that I usually spent the last few dragged to stuffy VIP lounges of clubs I wasn’t interested in, with people who, as it turned out, cared less about me- I think this may be a gut change of pace.”

Well that made him feel better...and a bit sad for Klavier, “I’ll make sure you have a good time and we won’t be overwhelmed. A lot of celebrities go to Disneyland, and they don’t get mobbed- people are pretty respectful of celebrities having their time in the parks.”

“You sound as if you are familiar.”

“Clay...worked there for a summer, celebrities would come all the time as park guests. And aside from maybe helping a celebrity escape a crowd, they don’t give anyone special treatment unless they’ve paid for a guided tour-“

“Oh- are we not doing that, Herr Forehead?”

Apollo snorted,“Hell no, you’re going to stand in line for Space Mountain like the rest of us plebes.” Also I’m not about to suggest we spend $800 an hour for a theme park tour...

Klavier’s laugh was enough to make Apollo feel better and better about commandeering Klavier’s birthday. He was going to look forward to these next few weeks in getting Klavier ready for his first time at the park. The thought of movie nights made Apollo feel a bit warm inside. Warm in a way that he hadn’t felt since Klavier had comforted him during his own birthday.

The office door opened, Athena holding it open so that Simon could come through with the large box that contained their takeout dinners. Apollo braced himself for any barbed words from Athena’s prosecutor; considering how the day’s court proceedings had gone, Apollo expected some amount of sour grapes. Instead Simon ignore Apollo and incredulously regarded his co-worker with,

“You’ve seriously never been to Disneyland, Gavin-dono?”

***

[goulets]

Heartland

Chapter: 1/8 Pairing: Jason Todd/Dick Grayson Additional Characters: Colin Wilkes, Damian Wayne, Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake, Alfred Pennyworth Rating: T (for now) Case Fic/Kid Fic a03 link

Jason looks down at the baby, at watery brown eyes and tiny hands, fingers stretching out without knowing what they're reaching for. She yawns and makes a sucking noise, turning her head into his chest.

Damn it.

“We'll do shifts,” he says to Dick, making his tone as businesslike as possible. “I still have shit to do; I can't sit around playing house with you all day.”

Dick doesn't smile, but Jason can see that he wants to. “That sounds reasonable.”

“This is temporary. Just until we find the fuckers that want to take her out.”

“Sure it is.” Dick's all doe-eyed now, watching the baby settle down to sleep. “Welcome home, Jaybird.”

(colin)

It's a quarter past five and the first streams of daylight are curling over the horizon when Colin finally makes it back to the orphanage. He's down to his normal size, brass knuckles heavy in his pockets and slowing his already exhausted steps. It'll be at least three hours before the younger kids wake up; time enough to get one REM cycle in before he's got all those mouths to feed. Damian taught him about monitoring his REM cycles, how it's sometimes better to get three hours than four, how to stay sharp even when he's running on no sleep at all.

Even better, Dick once told him he's welcome at the manor anytime he needs to rest undisturbed, or a hot meal, or a 'flying lesson', whatever that means. Damian had thrown a batarang at his head when he'd suggested it, so Colin assumes it's some kind of inside joke. Regardless, he hasn't been back at the manor to take Dick up on his offer. Batman's back – the real Batman – and Colin would be the worst kind of liar if he said he wasn't a little bit terrified to face him, considering the circumstances of their first meeting.

A motion in the alley next to the orphanage catches his eye, and he stills. Vagrants don't usually start coming around until the soup kitchen opens, and all the thugs he's used to dealing with tend to wait until the kids are up to start messing with them. That's why Colin likes the walk back from patrol, despite his tiredness, despite the chill that rolls off the ever-present fog. The city's glow is muted at this hour, its inhabitants either just starting to stir or just turning in. He's alone with the smog and the molten aura of the streetlights, and there's a quiet about it all that makes even the bloodstains on his knuckles feel pure, purposeful.

That said, he really does need to invest in some gloves.

The figure in the alley is still moving, clumsy and hurried, and all at once Colin realizes what it is they're fumbling with. There's a sort of house-shaped capsule outside St. Aden's, a narrow chute with a small door that doesn't have a lock, and a weathered sign on the front that depicts the outline of an infant. It's a Safe Surrender site, a place where people can legally abandon their newborns, and someone is using it for the first time since Colin's been at the orphanage.

He creeps closer, keeping to the shadows.

The figure spends about five more seconds fumbling with something on the ground, then wrenches open the door to the capsule and deposits something inside. Colin's stomach twists; the blue light above the capsule illuminates, and he can hear a faint alarm going off in the nuns' office. He wonders if they'll even know what it's for. The figure startles at the light, hastily grabs what looks like an empty bag off the ground, and bolts.

Colin wants to follow, but finds himself unable to walk past the capsule without checking it, and once he sees what's inside, he knows there's no chance of him giving chase. The baby is sleeping, definitely not a newborn, but not more than a few months old. Its tiny body is wrapped in a dirty blanket, wisps of black hair sticking out from an unprotected head. Colin supposes he wouldn't have needed to pursue whoever dropped it off; for all intents and purposes, they might think they're doing the right thing. St. Aden's won't turn the baby away, and it's a better option than leaving it in a gutter or a dumpster, which, in Gotham, is not a thing unheard of.

The baby stirs as a stiff breeze swirls through the alley, making Colin shiver. The nuns will be dressed and out in five minutes, give or take. They'll at least put a hat on the baby, Colin thinks. He doesn't know much about babies, but he knows they need hats. The orphanage has baby hats, and diapers, and blankets, albeit thin ones, most with holes. They might even have a spare teddy bear for when the baby has nightmares. No one comforts you when you have nightmares at St. Aden's. The nuns aren't big on hugs, even the babies they hold as little as possible.

Colin may not know a lot about babies, but he knows what happens when you don't hold them. The kids at the orphanage who've been there since infancy are a testament to that. Colin shivers again, thinking of vacant eyes and hunched shoulders. Pale skin and raw voices. Underdeveloped, broken bodies, floating in the river.

The light in the nuns' office comes on. Less than a minute now. Before he can fully process what he's doing or why he's doing it, Colin scoops the baby out of the capsule and cradles it carefully in his arms, walking briskly out of the alley the way that he came. The fog feels damper; it clings to him like it means to shield him from view. As an afterthought, Colin takes off his own hat and uses it to cover the baby's head.

***

“What is so urgent,” Damian snarls, swinging into the garage and making Colin jump and almost topple over, “that it couldn't wait at six in the fucking morning?”

Moving past his initial alarm, Colin feels relief wash over him at seeing his friend. Damian is decked out in his Robin costume and, all things considered, no grumpier than usual. “I'm so glad you're here,” he says in a rush. “I think – I think I screwed up, and I don't know what to do. Um.”

He decides not to draw it out, and instead steps aside, gesturing to the side compartment of his motorcycle. The baby is still sound asleep; he's wrapped his jacket around it as well. He won't die from the cold, but he worries that the baby might.

“What the – ” Damian blinks at the sleeping infant, then points to Colin without looking away. “Explain.”

Colin does. “And I thought if I called you, you might know what to...because you and Batman have handled this kind of stuff, right? You know who to, um.” He pauses, and realizes that he doesn't actually know why his first instinct was to call Damian, aside from the fact that he really has no one else to call. He wraps his arms around himself and lets out a short breath. “What do we do?”

“There's no 'we',” Damian says automatically, just like Colin knew he would. “You can't take care of a baby. You're ten. You have to put it back.”

Colin doesn't move. He knows Damian is probably right. “I just,” he starts to say, searching for the words. He's so tired he can barely think straight. “I guess I wanted it to have a chance. You know? Kids at the orphanage...kids like me, we don't get a lot of choices. Everyone ends up being a bad guy or a victim.” He swallows. “We don't need any more of either in this town.”

Damian scowls and rubs at his mask absently. “You're not either one of those things.”

Colin look at his fist and squeezes it, concentrating. Within a minute, his forearm is as big around as his leg. “No, I'm not,” he says. Damian has gone very still. Colin closes his eyes and feels his way back to his normal size, flexing his hand once it's shrunk back down. “Not anymore.”

“I – ” Damian cuts himself off, clenching his jaw. “Fine. We'll take it back to the manor. We have to go now, before they realize I'm gone.”

Colin bites back a grin and scoops the baby up, cradling its head carefully against his chest. The baby's face isn't cold anymore, which gives him an unexpected surge of elation, and he practically skips to Damian's side, earning a severely reproachful look from his friend.

“How did you get here?”

“I swiped Father's keys,” Damian says dryly, holding them out and pressing a button. Brilliant headlights illuminate the alley outside the garage, and Colin's jaw drops as a sleek, two-door Batmobile pulls up in front of them.

“How did – ”

“Remote autopilot. It drives itself.”

“Whoa.”

Damian rolls his eyes and presses another button, making the roof retract halfway. He swings in over the door and says, “Don't scratch the interior.”

Colin slides in beside him, awestruck. He's in the freaking Batmobile. If everything under the sun goes wrong with this sort-of kidnapping, even if he winds up in jail, it'll be so worth it.

***

(jason)

Jason's not having a particularly good day.

Scratch that, it's nine in the morning, and Jason's already not having a particularly good day.

“Where did you say you heard this?” Bruce asks, frowning at his computer screen. Translation: which parts of this are you lying about, Jason?

“Oh, you know,” Jason says, not caring to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “Me and some of my League buddies were doing tapas over at Ocho, and you know how they get when the wine starts pouring.” Bruce glares at him, and he glares right back. “All I know is Shiva's overseas for the foreseeable future. Just thought I'd share, since I heard you were looking. But whatever you want her for, I'm telling you, she probably didn't do it. This time.”

Bruce stares at him, cold and still as a statue. Jason wants to hit himself. Idiot move, coming here. Not like the Great Bat Detective needs his legwork anyhow.

He squares his shoulders and says, “Hey, take it or leave it. Which, speaking of, I'm gonna go ahead and leave now.”

Bruce's silence follows him out, and Jason practices the tried-and-true strategy of stirring up old resentments to mask the hurt. Not like he'd expected old Batsy to fall all over himself with excitement on account of a visit from his fallen son, but there's a cold reception, and there's the patented Bruce Wayne Freeze-Out. If Jason had imagined their shared history of returning from the dead would bring them closer together, he'd been sorely mistaken.

“Will you be joining us for breakfast, Master Jason?” Alfred asks, wiping his hands on a dish towel as Jason attempts to hustle past the kitchen. Habit has him pausing, because you just don't blow off Alfred, and that small hesitation is all it takes for the smells wafting out of the kitchen to hit him head-on. And oh, do they hit him. Pancakes, eggs, bacon – turkey bacon, Jason's favorite, of course Alfred remembers that stupid little detail. He probably also remembers that Jason is pathologically incapable of refusing food. Bastard.

“I'm not really – ” he starts to say hungry, but his stomach picks that exact moment to let loose a traitorous growl that echoes down the hallway and probably wakes up any still-asleep inhabitants of the manor.

Alfred, to his everlasting credit, doesn't even flinch. Jason heaves a sigh. “Yeah, all right. Just a bite, I guess.”

“I'll set a place for you.” Like the old man hasn't already.

Jason tugs off his gloves and makes his way to the sink to wash up. No telling what's living under his nails these days, but it's probably better not to ingest it.

“This is really good, Alfie,” he says through a thick bite of pancake. “Damn. I hope the new kid knows how good he's got it.”

“I'm afraid I haven't met anyone quite as enthusiastic about my cooking as you, Master Jason. Except, on occasion – Master Richard!”

“Hey, Alfie! Man it smells good, what's the occasion?” A shirtless, pajama-pants clad Dick Grayson bounds into the kitchen, more golden retriever than man, and stops on one foot with his face six inches above the bacon pan, breathing in. “Hey, is that turkey bacon?” He whirls around. “Jason!”

“Um.” Jason goes very stiff in his seat, teeth locked together around a forkful of eggs. Chew, swallow. He hadn't know Dick was here; hadn't figured any of the bat clan would even be awake at this charming daylight hour, except Bruce, who Jason's convinced deprogrammed the biological need to sleep out of his system years ago. “Hey.”

Dick looks pleased to see him, but confused. He's still on one foot. Jason represses the childish urge to throw something at him; knock him over like a big stupid bowling pin. “What are you doing here?”

“Just came by to drop off some intel,” he shrugs, fidgeting with his napkin. “You know how it is. Spend enough time cracking skulls, more than brain tissue leaks out.”

When Dick doesn't react beyond placing both feet on the ground and pursing his lips disapprovingly, Jason puts on his best shit-eating grin. Ah, ruining family meals. Just like old times.

“Thanks for the grub, Alfie,” he calls, swinging his legs over the side of his chair. “Think I've overstayed my welcome now, so I'm just be on my way.” He deliberates for a moment before snatching the last piece of turkey bacon off his plate, then walks briskly out of the kitchen and towards the front door.

“Jason – wait up a second.” Dick's voice behind him, close behind him, practically a whisper. Jason turns and takes a deliberate step backward, putting space between them. He's fairly sure he can take Dick hand-to-hand, but he wants to be as close to the exit as possible when he does.

“What?” he demands, more roughly than he needs to. He shifts his hip to feel the handle of his knife pressing into it; the exact shape he'll mold his palm to if he needs to draw it.

Dick crosses his arms and stares him down steadily. It's a mistake to make eye contact with him, because Dick's stare isn't like Bruce's, shrewd and penetrating, it's not a gaze that takes any effort to hold. Quite the contrary – Jason's always had trouble breaking eye contact with Dick. Bruce's stare goes through him, turns him inside out, but Dick's grips him, surrounds him, takes the full measure of him without pulling everything ugly to the surface. It's unnerving. He'd rather face Bruce any day.

“You don't have to leave just because I walked into the room.”

He shouldn't be able to project so much earnestness in nothing but faded Superman sleep pants, Jason thinks. It defies human nature.

“It was more of a sashay,” he smirks, still not blinking. “And it's not on your account, don't worry. I just have shit to do.”

“You should come by more often,” Dick presses.

It's all Jason can do not to throw his head back and laugh. “Right,” he says, narrowing his eyes. “That's gonna happen over Bruce's dead body.”

There's a flash of pain on Dick's face, and Jason thinks his phrasing was probably ill-advised. Too soon and all. Oh well.

“That's not true,” Dick shakes his head, shaggy hair falling in front of his eyes. Jason feels a bizarre and fleeting urge to brush it away, makes it an immediate priority to repress desires like that as far down as they can possibly go. “Look, I know it hasn't always been easy – ”

Jason scoffs. “Oh, sure.”

“ – but if you'd just give him some time, I know he wants you back, Jason. You're family. And I think you know it too, or you wouldn't even be here.”

Defiant rage stirs in Jason's stomach, but this isn't the time or the place for that kind of reaction. He settles instead on indifference. “That's an old tune, Dickie. Might be time to learn some new ones.”

Dick's expression softens. Damnit. This is why he can't stand around talking to Dick, making fucking chitchat and this perverse, endless eye contact. They observe each other in circles, it's nearly impossible to hide, and Dick doesn't hide anything, which means Jason's at an automatic disadvantage. Every goddamn time.

It's pointless to bare his teeth in a grin and offer a sardonic wave, but Jason does it anyways. “It's been real, Boy Wonder. I'll catch you la – ”

“Shh.” Dick puts up a finger, frowning. He looks up the stairs. “Do you hear that?”

If this is another strategy to try and stall him, Jason's gonna start throwing punches. “Hear what?” he demands. He's about to tell Dick to go fuck himself – which, he probably can, fucking acrobat – no, bad visual, stop thinking about Dick naked, Jesus fucking Christ – when he hears it too.

It sounds like – “Is that a baby?” He looks sideways at Dick. “Bruce have a second love child already?”

Dick says, “I'll see you later, Jason,” and starts climbing the stairs.

Well, obviously Jason can't leave now.

They follow the cries down one of the many upstairs hallways, which, from the portraits and weaponry lining the walls, Jason figures must lead to Damian's room. Dick pauses outside a closed door, pressing his ear to it, and, curiosity getting the better of him, Jason follows suit.

“You have to get it to shut up! The whole mansion's probably heard it by now!”

“I'm trying!” an unfamiliar voice hisses, and there's the sound of a hiccup from a third unfamiliar voice. Presumably something babylike. “Do you think it's hungry?”

“How the hell should I know? This was your moronic idea, Colin, don't you know anything about babies?”

“Maybe we should google it.”

“I'm going to kill you. Actually, when Father finds out we kidnapped a fucking baby, he'll kill us both. I can't believe I let you talk me into this mess.”

The crying starts again. Dick looks at Jason and mouths, one, two, three, before pushing the door open and revealing their presence.

It's quite a scene. Damian's in half his costume, mask, boots, and cape discarded on the floor, and he's grinding his teeth at another boy, a redhead kid in a dirty checkered sweatshirt who looks to be around his age. The redhead kid looks horrified to see them standing there, first going furiously red, then white as a sheet. But the thing that really grabs Jason's attention is the baby – yep, a flesh-and-blood human infant – cradled awkwardly in the redhead kid's arms, screaming its tiny head off.

Dick looks between them, his eyes enormous. “Damian? Colin? What is this?”

It's a question, not an accusation. Jason has to hand it to him; Bruce would've had them sizzling on the grill the second the word 'kidnapped' reached his ears.

Colin says, “It's not what it looks like!”

Dick glances sideways at Jason. “Okay, but. I'll be honest, I'm not even sure what it looks like.”

Jason shrugs. “You kids abduct any babies lately?”

“We didn't abduct it,” Damian snarls. “Colin found it. Abandoned. It was my mistake to bring it here.”

The baby cries louder. It's a miracle Alfred hasn't come running yet.

“Someone dropped it at St. Aden's,” Colin says quickly, between bouts of screaming. “I just – I couldn't just leave it there, you don't know what it's like, growing up that way.” He clutches the baby to him fiercely, bitterness etched all over his face. “You might as well hand him over to the gangs right now, because that's where he'll end up.”

Dick looks horribly conflicted. Jason laughs out loud.

“So, what was your plan?” he asks incredulously. “Two ten year olds, teaming up to raise a baby? Which one of you's the mom?”

Dick's arm blocks Damian's sharp kick to Jason's face. “Thank you, Jason, that was helpful,” he says. “But, uh, what was the plan, exactly?”

Everyone looks to Colin, who shrinks visibly under their combined gaze. “I don't know,” he says in a small voice, nearly indecipherable beneath the baby's cries. “I hadn't really thought that far ahead. I just – I thought Batman could save him.”

It takes everything in Jason's face-saving book not to respond to that, but he barely manages to keep his mouth shut. Dick shoots him a look of gratitude, and he rolls his eyes. Obviously there are more pressing issues at hand than his lingering manpain; Jason's not that self-involved.

“Okay,” Dick says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Here's how we solve this. He – she? – we'll figure it out, whatever, is probably hungry. And wet. Did you two change its diaper?”

Damian and Colin look at each other and shrug helplessly. “Right.” Dick points one hand behind him. “I'm going to go to the kitchen; I know Alfred keeps formula in there somewhere. And we should have diapers in one of the emergency supply closets. I'll get that stuff. Jason, take the baby for a minute, would you? Colin looks like he's about to drop.”

Jason backs against the wall, saying, “Oh no, I don't – that's not a – ” but then the screaming bundle is being precariously extended towards him, and instinct has him reaching out to take it.

“Jesus,” he mutters, feeling the fragile weight of the baby in his arms. Can't be much more than ten pounds. He has handguns with more substance than this thing. “Where're you keeping those lungs, little guy?”

Silence falls over the room, and it takes Jason a minute to realize that he didn't spontaneously go deaf, the baby stopped crying. Its tiny eyes – brown, dark and wet – are blinking up at him like he's the most interesting thing in the world.

Oh, no.

This is a disaster.

He doesn't hear Dick's intake of breath so much as he feels it, which might be because he's holding his breath too, because the baby is looking at him, and damnit, this is the last fucking thing he needs in his life. “Go,” he says to Dick, inserting as much venom into his voice as possible, wrenching his eyes away from the baby's. “It's probably just going into shock or something.”

The baby farts.

“Okay, or that.”

Dick bites his lip hard, and ten different emotions of various intensities flash through Jason's gut. Then he's gone, cartwheeling down the staircase, knowing him.

Colin says, “Wow, it really likes you.”

Damian smirks. “I guess we know who the mom is.”

“Don't think because I've got a ten pound handicap I won't kick your ass, kid,” Jason snaps. It's an empty threat, and they all know it. For now anyways. Once the baby situation's dealt with, all bets are off.

Dick's back within five minutes, armed to the teeth with things more frightening to Jason than any weapon he can imagine. Diapers, wipes, blankets, bottles, even a tiny blue hat that looks handmade. Jason's heart thuds unevenly in his chest, recognizing Alfred's handiwork in the stitching; indisputable evidence that Bruce Wayne, Batman, was once a baby just like this one. It'd be hilarious, if he could push a laugh past the lump in his throat.

“Here.” Dick hands him a diaper. It has Mickey Mouse on it.

Jason shakes his head. “Nuh-uh. I didn't sign up for this shit. And I mean that in the literal sense; I did not put 'clean up baby shit' in my day planner today.” He thrusts the diaper back at Dick.

“Fine,” Dick snaps, holding his arms out expectantly. “Give me the baby. Damian, shake up this formula, will you?”

Damian snatches the bottle out of his hand and shakes it with the aggression of a paint mixer. Well, hey, at least he's dedicated.

The baby starts to fuss as it's transferred from Jason's arms to Dick's, and the lump in Jason's throat gets bigger. “Hey, hey,” Dick croons, settling the baby down on the rug and starting to unwrap its blanket. “You're okay, little guy. We got you – oh, I'm sorry,” he grins, glancing up at Jason. “Little girl, I'm guessing.”

Jason peers over his shoulder and sees that under the blanket, the baby is wearing tiny pink pajamas with little white and green flowers. Like the blanket, the pajamas are dirty. He wonders when the baby last had a bath.

Not your problem. He needs to get the hell out of here.

“Ooh, someone's got a full diaper,” Dick goes on. Jason wants to kick him in the back of the head. “Let's fix that, huh? Oh, yeah. We'll get someone on that right away.”

Jason jumps backward when Dick extends the dirty diaper to him, and Dick rolls his eyes. “It's just pee. Get over yourself, honestly.”

“Fuck you,” Jason growls. “I'm not part of this.”

Colin walks over with dogged footsteps and takes the diaper from Dick, folding it over until it's a tight little pocket that fits in the palm of his hand. He turns to Damian. “Where's the garbage?”

Damian jerks his head in the direction of the bathroom, and Dick glares at Jason as he refastens the baby's pajamas.

The baby's fussing turns into loud wails again, and Dick picks her – no, it, can't think of it as a person, damnit – up, rocking his arms gently. The baby cries, rubs its face on Dick's chest, and then turns its head and look directly at Jason.

“Aw, Jay. Looks like she's got a crush.”

“Please.” Jason rolls his eyes and tries to ignore the vise that's squeezing in his chest. He really, really needs to leave. Like, yesterday.

But then Dick starts feeding the baby, and Jason finds himself utterly rooted to the spot.

It figures that parenting is something that would come naturally to Dick. It seems like most things come naturally to him, particularly the things that terrify normal people, like leaping off tall buildings, running into the line of fire, taking on twenty armed goons with nothing but his stupid fucking escrima sticks. Dick cradles the baby with arms that've put hundreds of criminals on their asses, arms that are scarred all over, just like Jason's. He gazes down at the baby as it eats, murmuring praise, shifting slowly from foot to foot, and that damn thing won't stop looking at Jason, even while it's sucking enthusiastically at the bottle.

Footfalls behind him; a distinct step he'd know anywhere. “I took the liberty of digging up some clothes for our young guest,” Alfred says, as though nothing is out of the ordinary. “They're a bit dated, but I believe they should still be suitable.”

“Can we all get out of my room now?” Damian asks. “I'd like to change, and I'd prefer to do it without the entire household watching.”

Alfred nods. “Certainly, Master Damian. Master Richard, perhaps it would be prudent to bring this matter to Master Bruce at this time.”

“Yeah, okay,” Dick says, heavily, shooting another look at Jason. Why does he keep doing that? “Let's just get her fed and changed really quick.”

“Of course.”

As soon as they're downstairs, the baby spits out the nipple and screws up its face like it's going to start howling again. Jason doesn't know what it is, some kind of long-buried impulse, a skill set he never thought he'd had to begin with, but he's stepping forward with his arms outstretched, palms open and flat, like he could do a damn thing to keep the baby quiet.

Dick pegs him with a curious look, and Jason freezes. “You wanna hold her?”

“What? No,” Jason says, shoving his arms down to his sides. “I just – I thought you were gonna drop it. Her.”

Dick doesn't say anything, and Jason feels a flush creeping up his neck. “You know what, it seems like you guys have this all handled. I'm just gonna...go.”

He turns, and the baby starts crying again.

Jesus Christ in a goddamn handbasket, this is bad.

“If you wouldn't mind,” Dick says, carefully, “We could use the help. Until we figure out what to do.”

“He can help,” Jason protests, pointing at Colin.

“I actually, um,” Colin looks vaguely terrified, glancing guiltily between them. “I have to go, my kids – there's kids at the orphanage, I have to be there. For them.”

Jason doesn't think about the time he spent on the streets, doesn't relive those fun childhood memories for any reason, but they're a scar on his psyche, forever etched in, and he can't exactly make them go away, either. He remembers the kids from the orphanages, how little and lost they were, better cared for but more unloved than any of the other street kids. He remembers standing up for them as much as he remembers knocking them over and stealing from them. No kids are worse equipped to protect themselves. Colin looks like he weighs eighty pounds soaking wet, but Jason reasons that he wouldn't be friends with Damian if he couldn't take a hit.

Colin probably takes a lot of hits on behalf of his kids. The thought turns Jason's stomach, and he knows he can't ask him to stay.

Dick frowns and starts to say, “I'm sure – ”

“Go,” Jason says quickly, giving Colin a short nod. “It's fine, whatever. My shit can wait a few hours.”

Everyone stares at him. The baby is still crying.

“Oh, for fuck's sake. Fine, give me the damn kid.” He sets his jaw and takes the baby from Dick, expressly avoiding Dick's eyes, or any part of his face, for that matter. The baby fusses for a minute, then seems to catch sight of Jason's face again, and settles down at once.

Shit, shit, shit.

***

“You're doing this completely wrong,” Jason tells the baby as they make their way down to the Batcave. “I'm sure as hell not taking you home with me, I'll tell you that much. No offense.”

The baby coughs, and Jason finds himself holding it a little tighter. It's all very unnerving, the way he's already used to the shape of its small form in his arms, the way its head fits snugly into the soft spot of flesh between his shoulder and his breastbone. Alfred threw out the ratty blanket it was wrapped in and gave them a new one, along with a pink cotton onesie with a stiff lace collar. Purchased forty odd years ago by Martha Wayne, on the off-chance that she was having a baby girl. A little piece of trivia that Jason is going to any lengths necessary not to think about.

“It fits with the intel I got last week,” Tim is saying, “Qurac is a big job; she wouldn't be doing it alone.”

“No,” Bruce agrees, hunched over in front of his massive screen. “Perhaps the League of Assassins isn't behind this at all.”

“So either someone's setting it up to look like they...” Tim trails off, catching sight of Jason, or more accurately, the wiggling bundle in his arms. “Is that a baby?”

Jason looks down and gasps. “Holy shit, how did that get there?”

Dick rolls his eyes. Tim says, “Wait, it's not – ”

“It's not mine, Replacement. Don't give yourself a stroke deducing over there.”

Bruce turns in his chair to face them, frowning deeply. His eyes take in Dick, Jason, and the baby. “Where's Damian?”

Dick steps forward. “He went with Alfred to take Colin ho – back to St. Aden's.”

“Ah.” Bruce nods. “So that's where he went this morning.” His gaze lands on the baby. “I take it the infant came from the orphanage as well.”

“She's really sweet, Bruce.” Dick adopts a pleading voice. “Colin thought he was doing the right thing.”

“Colin can look after her when she's returned to St. Aden's,” Bruce says firmly. “The Mansion is no place for a baby.” He stands and walks over to Jason. “May I?”

It takes Jason a moment to realize that Bruce is asking his permission to hold the baby. He doesn't know what's more surprising, the fact that Bruce is asking at all, or the fact that he wants to refuse, to take the baby and run as far away as possible, to an alternate universe where parents don't abandon their kids or sell them out, where they don't let psychopaths murder them, where they'd rather burn the world down than let any harm come to another child on their watch.

He thinks that Bruce can probably see his struggle painted on his face as he waits for his answer. And he is waiting, because the question wasn't a formality, it's a real uncertainty, and Bruce is asking Jason whether or not he trusts him to take this small life and protect it, even if it's just for a few moments.

Jason's reflexive answer is a harsh and unforgiving fuck no, but that's not the end of it. There's something deeper inside him, something that's been climbing toward the surface for a while now, no matter how hard he tries to bury it, that tells another story. A lot of other stories.

Rather than sift through them, he bites his tongue and hands the baby over. He tells himself he won't look at Bruce to see his reaction, but how often do you get to see Batman with a baby?

Jason will die again a hundred times before he ever admits it, but the vision of Bruce, half-suited up, broad and unyielding and Batman, folding his arms into a cradling position for the baby, is actually pretty fucking charming. He wouldn't've guessed that Bruce had a lot of experience with small children, but he doesn't look uncomfortable. The baby whines and stirs, little hands feebly reaching up to clutch at the bat symbol on his chest, and Jason thinks he actually sees Bruce's mouth quirk in a smile.

“I'm just going to scan her handprint,” he says, addressing Jason.

Jason shrugs. “Whatever.”

The whining stops as soon as he takes the baby over to the enormous computer screen, and Jason hopes that all the lights and flashing images don't fry the baby's brain. There are shots of crime scenes, bodies with blood spilled onto the street, rotating in the corner of the screen, and Jason hopes the baby's subconscious doesn't file those images away for night terrors down the road. Although, if it's going back to the orphanage, it'll see the real thing soon enough.

There's an uplifting thought.

“Danielle Leigh Torres,” Bruce says after a moment. “Born the sixteenth of January. Parents Linda Torres – deceased, and Mitchell Howard, also deceased.”

“Wait a minute.” Tim's gone still with his hand hovering over the keyboard. “Mitch Howard – that's Big Mouth Howard's real name.”

Big Mouth Howard. Jason's heard the name – some lowlife, maybe a bookie? He doesn't know why it'd be significant to any of them, but the way Tim and Bruce are looking at each other suggests that there's something fairly major he's missing. Jason glances at Dick, and is relieved to see that he looks just as out of the loop.

“You two wanna clue us in?” Jason demands, stepping closer to the screen. “Who the fuck is Big Mouth Howard?”

Bruce continues scowling unfathomably at the screen, and Tim lets out a long exhale. “There's been a lot of activity in the East End this past week,” he says. “You guys have probably noticed.”

“Yeah, bunch of dealers got capped,” Jason confirms, still not understanding why this should matter so much to Batman. “Turf wars. Big fucking deal.”

Tim shakes his head. “Not just dealers. Cy Reynolds was Intergang, they bought out the Dragons’ territory a few months ago and have been pulling in major product from Venezuela. His whole family was taken out, all his lieutenants, all their families.” He pulls up a mug shot of a sneering, overweight man with some serious dental issues. “Big Mouth was one of them.”

“So, you're thinking professional hits.”

“Reynolds had a lot of enemies. Guy dipped his pen in way too many wells. We thought Intergang might've taken him out themselves, because he was something of a liability, but why take out the lieutenants?”

“And the families,” Dick adds, frowning. “Someone wanted to send a message.”

“Exactly. He's gotten on the wrong side of the al Ghuls more than once, and this is their style,” Tim continues, pulling up more detailed shots of the bodies. “That one's Linda Torres. She wasn't even married to Big Mouth, but they still got her.”

“League's got bigger fish to fry,” Jason says dismissively. “They wouldn't bother.”

“Yeah, well, you would know,” Tim replies, raising an eyebrow. “Anyways, we're thinking it's a move against Intergang now, not just Reynolds. I have a couple hunches, but we need to examine the bodies more closely to know for sure.”

“Bruce,” Dick says, “if they're really sending a message, they're gonna be looking for Danielle.”

Tim opens his mouth and shuts it. No one speaks, and, as if on cue, the bundle in Bruce's arms starts wailing again.

Something is squeezing Jason's lungs, making it hard for him to breathe normally. Danielle. The baby has a name, it's a goddamn person and it's – she's – been in this world for three fucking months and she's already got a price on her head. God almighty, what a piece of shit world they live in.

Jason grinds his teeth. “No way she goes back to that orphanage.”

Everyone turns to look at him. He ignores them and steps forward, extending his arms towards Bruce, who slides Danielle over to him without protest.

“Jason – ”

“Forget it, Bruce. I don't know what paragraph of your moral code stipulates that you have to throw a fucking baby to the wolves instead of, oh, I don't know, protect her, but you can shove it up your ass. I'll fucking take her if it's that goddamn important to you. And if anyone comes for her, they die.”

“ – I was going to say, I think she should stay here. For the time being.”

Jason pauses. “Oh.”

“Provided, of course, that someone will be able to look after her. Other than Alfred.”

“I'll stay,” Dick volunteers. Of course he does. Fucking boy scout. “Jason?”

Jason looks down at Danielle, at watery brown eyes and tiny hands, fingers stretching out without knowing what they're reaching for. She yawns and makes a sucking noise, turning her head into his chest.

Damn it.

“We'll do shifts,” he says to Dick, making his tone as businesslike as possible. “I still have shit to do; I can't sit around playing house with you all day.”

Dick doesn't smile, but Jason can see that he wants to. “That sounds reasonable.”

“This is temporary. Just until we find the fuckers that want to take her out.”

“Sure it is.” Dick's all doe-eyed now, watching Danielle settle down to sleep. Idiot. “Welcome home, Jaybird.”

***

[marshmallow-phd]

The Anormic

Part of The Experiments Universe

Genre: Lucky One/Obsession AU

Pairing: Kris x Reader

Summary: You were everything he needed to feel human. But not even your presence could keep the nightmares away. The years had gone by and it seemed his dreams were all that was left of his trauma. When his past comes back and snatches you away, the human mask he’d worked so hard to create will be ripped away and he’ll stop at nothing to get you back.

Part: 1 I 2 I 3

**

You stumbled back, tripping over your feet and barely catching your balance before you could meet the floor. You felt like you’d been tossed in front of an eighteen-wheeler. To keep you steady, you placed your palm against the cold cinderblock wall. No. It couldn’t be the same Kris that he spoke about, not your Kris. Sure, he had a mysterious past, but you took it as easily explainable; a bad childhood or dysfunctional family he was trying to outrun, maybe even a criminal record that he deeply regretted. This was something else entirely.

You racked through your memory, trying to find any sort of sign or clue that this man was telling the truth. Kris couldn’t have any powers or extraordinary gifts. He was an average person who worked a laborious job, who came home to you in the evening, and lived an ordinary life. But the dots were there to connect: the ambiguous past that he rarely spoke of, the quick reflexes, and lifting of objects that should have taken more struggle. This Dr. Brandt had said he was like a dragon – a possible hint as to what else Kris was hiding from you?

“Quite a shock, isn’t it?” Dr. Brandt said, amused.

The words to snipe back were far out of reach. Part of you wanted to jump him like an overprotective cheetah, clawing his face with your fingernails until you drew blood. But the meeker part of you couldn’t find the strength to attack, barely able to keep your knees from buckling under.

“He was one of the subjects that progressed quickly. A shining example for the other eleven.”

Other eleven? Tao. Did that mean Kris’ friend Tao was among them? Were the other men you saw leave part of that group as well? Dr. Brandt’s smirk deepened, if that was possible. He seemingly enjoyed your confusion.

“So… you want to cage them all up again?” It was the only question you could push out onto the surface. There many more – more details of the experiments, what he meant by Kris jumping sides. A deep labyrinth lied before you. While you had no idea what sort of Minotaur waited in the middle and you were left without a string, you knew you would have to move forward to get to the truth.

“Actually, we’ve made progress without the original subjects,” he said. “Much more than could have ever hoped from the first trials. However, we’ve hit a bit of a wall. If we are to keep forging a new way, we need to glance back. We need Kris’ cooperation to do so.”

You swallowed thickly. At least he wasn’t trying to be the mysterious mad scientist in the tower. He came right down and had no issues explaining to you his evil plans. “So what do you need me for then? To make him help you?”

“Unfortunate collateral. We know that getting Kris here would be more trouble than it's worth. You were the easier target, so we brought you here. Eventually, Kris will come to us and be more than cooperative. Then, when we have all that we need, the two of you can go on your way.”

Great. You were bait. Like a worm on a hook. The tension in your jaw made the muscles under the skin ache. Even your teeth were whining from the pain. “So, I’m guessing you left him a little map on how to get here?”

“Oh, no!” Dr. Brandt laughed. “That’s not nearly as fun. But we did leave behind a clue to get him started. He’s an intelligent being. He’ll find us… eventually. Until then, enjoy the hospitality.” Like a dancer, he whirled on the balls of his feet and exited the room. The door slid closed behind him, the click finalizing the idea that this would be your prison for the foreseeable future.

You were battling yourself. You wanted Kris to come rescue you, but him getting pulled back into this mess of a place was horrifying image. It was hard to wrap around the thought of Kris living a life of experimentation, of tests and needles and torture. And for what? What was the purpose behind all of this? You almost shouted for the mad doctor to come to answer the questions, but you held your tongue. Now wasn’t the time to draw attention to yourself. While the doctors and guards might be aware of your presence, you needed to fade into the background of their minds. If you were going to get out of here, you needed to become almost invisible. So, instead of screaming into the abyss where your words would fall on uninterested ears, you lied down on the bed, eyes focused on the slick white ceiling. Kris would come for you, but in the meantime, you would create your plan. Because you would get out of here and you refused to let Kris be caged ever again. In order to that, you would have to find your own way.

**

It was hot. It was the kind of memorable hot where beads of sweat dotted the hairline in a way that was never ending and the sun shined up in the sky without any mercy from the clouds that had been dotting the sky for the past few days. Overnight they had either drifted off to another landscape or dissipated back into their individual water droplets. Despite the heat, it was still a beautiful day. The park was full of families and couples enjoying the fresh air, but it wasn’t overcrowded to the point of being suffocating. You took in the sights with a smile as you sat at one of the picnic tables by your lonesome. Textbook and pen at the ready, you were killing two birds with one stone by finally leaving the confining walls of your studio apartment while still getting plenty of studying done before your test next week.

After a few hours, your eyes were tiring from the glare the glossy paper gave off. The words were beginning to blur. You were no longer able to recite the previous sentence that you’d read. A break was certainly earned.

As your gaze wandered around the park it settled on a small food truck across the bike path. The signs all over the metal sides said their specialty was ice cream. Well, you’d worked hard for a treat, hadn’t you? Packing up your things, you threw your bag over your shoulder and made way to the truck expertly dodging children playing tag in the process. The line moved at a tolerable pace, giving you enough time to pick out a treat before approaching the front window. The woman inside the truck was friendly. She wrote down your order with a smile and, after handing your card back, pointed you off to the side where you could pick up your sundae. You were practically bouncing with anticipation as you watched from the opened back door; the employee scooped up the vanilla ice cream and torched the marshmallows until they were a perfect golden brown. The grin on your face was wide to the point of making your cheeks ache as you thanked the young man who handed the Styrofoam bowl to you. Not wasting time to find a spot to sit down, you walked down the bike path as you attempted to eat at a pace that was acceptable for the public.

All afternoon you had been hearing the typical noises of the park, most not bothering you in the slightest. You weren’t so easily distracted, but the blissful air you were currently in must have made you more susceptible. The chime of a bike bell caught your attention. You glanced over your shoulder to see a teenage boy peddling fast and laughing as he left his friends in the dust. But he wasn’t paying attention to where his bike was going, thinking that his bell was enough to clear the way as he stared behind him. Before he could collide with you, an arm wrapped around your shoulders. It pulled you out of the way in time but at the expense of your ice cream.

The bowl was cracked nearly in half. Chocolate syrup and melted mush covered both your shirt and the shirt of the wannabe hero.

“Well, that was nice while it lasted,” you murmured in disappointment.

“I’m so sorry,” a deep voice apologized.

You looked up and – as much as you hated to admit it – your irritation dissolved away, all because of the very handsome face that you were getting lost in. You waved his sorry away. “It’s okay. Better than being a bug squished on the cement.”

That made him laugh. “Let me replace it.”

“Oh, no, that’s alright. Thank you, though.”

“No, I insist.”

“Really, its-” You were completely ignored. The man – the very tall, handsome man – was already walking towards the food truck, wallet in hand. Nerves and butterflies took over your body as you stood there on the edge of the path, unable to walk away when you would have in any other situation. But there was something intriguing about this man. Not to mention, you were a sucker for chivalry.

The man came back with a new s’mores bowl balanced in one hand. Balanced wasn’t really the right word as what took two hands for you to carry rested nicely in his single palm. His other held onto a stack of napkins. The latter was handed out to you first.

“Thank you.” You took a few napkins shyly. Once you were cleaned up, you took the sundae. “Thanks.” You already said that. Clearing your throat, you tucked the used napkins under your arm and held out a free hand. “I’m (/y).”

He smiled broadly. “Kris.”

**

The building looked different. For over a year, the sight of the lit-up windows and the silhouette outline against the setting sun was a welcoming one – it loosened his tense shoulders, opened up his lungs. He felt stronger, even more so than he already was. A deep rest couldn’t do for him what seeing this place had. He always felt like he could live forever. Invincible, like Superman.

Now, though? Now it was simply a monument to his faults. Bricks and mortar that stood for nothing but loss. If he’d known that meeting you that day in the park would lead to this, he would have left the second he pulled you out of the way of the bike. He wouldn’t have smiled as you enjoyed the ice cream or even given you his name. Or, at least, he hoped that he would have gone the other way. As he walked up the stairs of the apartment building, he was bombarded with memories. The happy ones, most of all. But even the fights came pushing through. In those moments he’d been angry and frustrated, wanting to never have another scene like that again once you’d both calmed down and said sorry. In the present, though, he would give anything to have another fight with you. Back and forth he bounced, from wishing he’d never met you to praying he’d be able to hold you in his arms again. With unstable fingers he unlocked the front door and went inside.

The place was still a disaster. He hadn’t bothered cleaning up or even attempting to right any of the overturned furniture before he’d left. Dust was already starting to settle on every surface – something that would have driven you crazy. You couldn’t stand a dirty home. You wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything else until it was spotless, just the way you liked it. Although, Kris had always thought that you simply used that as an excuse to procrastinate your studying. If it was you who had made the mess with your homework, then it wasn’t a dire situation. He’d always laughed at your pitiful argument against his statement. The lights suddenly flickered on.

“Kris?”

Turning around, Kris felt immediate relief.

Standing in the doorway were four of his brothers. He hadn’t seen them in quite a while. The exact amount of time was lost to him. Years, maybe? They all lived on the military base that kept them safe. It had crossed his mind once or twice to take you there to live. It might have helped drive the worry and the nightmares away. But that would have meant telling you everything. That inevitability haunted him even more.

“Chanyeol.” He tried to swallow down the shakiness in his voice. Thankfully, the younger hybrid took the first step, not even acknowledging the way Kris was barely holding it together. He closed the space between them with long strides and hugged Kris for the first time in years. Kris sighed into the embrace, even patting Chanyeol on the back. When they parted, Kris said, “Thank you for coming. I know this is probably the last thing you want to get involved in.”

“Hence why there’s only four of us,” Baekhyun huffed. The haughty air was clearly fake given the smirk dancing in the corner of his mouth.

“Nice to see you, too, Baekhyun.”

“So, Chanyeol said that your… friend was taken.” Minseok crossed his arms and leaned up against the door after shutting it behind him.

“My girlfriend,” Kris correct.

“And you both lived here?” Yixing asked.

Kris nodded. “Yeah. I don’t know how they found us. The apartment is under her name.”

“Does she know about you?” Chanyeol ran a hand through his messy black hair. “Does she now about us?”

“No,” Kris admitted. “Well, at least she didn’t before. Now- now there’s no telling what she does and doesn’t know.”

Yixing walked deeper into the apartment until he reached the living room. Crouching down, he examined the shards of glass sprinkled all over the rug. He scooped up a hand full, not bothered at all by the tiny cuts the edges made on his fingers and palms; they healed just as quickly as they were formed. “How long ago did they take her?”

“Day and a half ago. Why?”

“Just wondering. I wasn’t sure if they tried to come back and get you as well. Or if this was caused by them coming back.”

“Nothing’s changed since I left.”

“Did you find anything on your original search?”

Kris cleared his throat. Yixing and he… well, they never really had the closest of relationships, even back before they were separated. As thankful as he was that the latter had volunteered to help, Kris still couldn’t help against feeling the slightest bit awkward. “I didn’t do a thorough search, but I did find this.” He walked over to where his duffel bag was sitting on the floor and unzipped the pocket that held the frayed badge.

Baekhyun narrowed his eyes at the symbol. “What is it?”

“It’s the symbol for Regeneration Science, camouflaged unit for EXO. Wang told me about it. She considerate it their back up plan. I never put too much thought into it. The way she talked about RS made it sound like that’s where they would move everything in case something were to happen.”

Minseok took the patch, examining it closer. “Is it possible that they had a copy of the files that you didn’t know about?”

Kris shook his head. “I wouldn’t have thought so. Wang was protective of her research. She didn’t like the idea of copies floating around. While I was still undercover, I tried to find all the copies that I could. They didn’t exist.”

“They obviously still have something on us,” Baekhyun chimed in. “Why else try to come after us again after all these years?”

“That’s a good point,” Yixing said as he straightened himself back up. “If you found that,” he pointed to the patch, “without looking, then maybe there’s something else here. I think we should dig a bit deeper, maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“Sounds like a good idea.”

So, the four of them started searching around the apartment, checking under the couch and in the different rooms for any other clue the enemy might have left behind. Kris headed towards the bedroom, but found himself frozen in the doorway. His brain, adding to the cruel torture he was already in, imagined you sitting on the bed, covers draped over your legs, smiling at him as if he’d just come back from a long day at work.

“You alright?” Minseok asked. His sudden appearance made Kris jump.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” Behind Minseok, he watched as Chanyeol picked up the bookcase and set it against the wall. On the floor were scattered papers and folders, creased from the pressure of the wood that had lied on top of them. “Excuse me.” Kris passed by Minseok to get to the living room.

“Is this yours?” Chanyeol asked.

Kris shook his head. “No, it was (y/n)’s. For one of her classes.”

Frowning, Yixing picked up several of the papers and skimmed their contents. “Are you sure about that?”

“Of course.” Why would you lie about something like that?

Yixing held up one of the papers for Kris to see. “I think this might have been how they found you.”

In a flash, Kris snatched the paper. His eyes flew over the words. Slowly, their meanings sank in. It was a list off all the previous places he’d lived, including the different aliases and variations he’d gone by. Only after meeting you had he gotten weak and used his real name. How did you find any of this? But more importantly….

Why were you looking for it in the first place?

[jessiebanethedragon]

Scuttle (3/?)

You don't remember passing out in the troopers arms, waking only when he sets you down, in front of the tree that's all too familiar to you. It’s raining  even more now and Crosshair feels particularly inadequate as he paces in front of you. What do you tell someone who’s just lost everything? 

“Crosshair…” Your voice is quiet as you say his name, he whips around at the sound, terrified someone had followed him into the forest. He waits for your next words, and it takes a moment but a small ‘thank you’ leaves your mouth. He nods and goes back to pacing in front of you. 

The crashing sound breaks both of you out of your perspective trances. Something is moving towards you, and quickly. In response, you haul yourself up off of the rainforest floor. Looking to the man in front of you for direction. 

“It’s fine.” He tells you, monotone. “Jus’ Wrecker.” You’re not sure what a Wrecker is, but quickly you discover a Wrecker happens to be Crosshair's older and much bigger brother. 

“Crosshair!” He booms, when he clears the undergrowth, clapping a rather large hand on  his shoulder, and you watch as the trooper takes a step backwards. ‘Not one for touchy-feels’ you think to yourself. 

“Ran into some trouble, bucket got chucked in a lake.” He explains. “Couldn't com in.” this ears him a boisterous laugh from Wrecker. 

“Accident prone as always.” He chuckles, before turning away to, presumably tell his comrades he's found Crosshair. You on the other hand, had backed up into the tree bark whilst watching this interaction. Crosshair is watching you watch Wrecker, and he wishes he could pick you up again, just to feel your heartbeat go from crazy to calm as you relaxed in his arms. It would be so much easier than talking or trying to talk,  to just scoop you up and  hide you from the world.  

“Tech and Hunter are only a few clicks out.” Wrecker says to Crosshair, subtle nudging him as if to say, ��stop staring bro, you’ll spook her.’  Before moving over to you, and bringing his hand out, watching as you recoil more into the branches. Wrecker takes the hint, and  takes his helmet off before trying to shake your hand again. This time you let him, offering a small ‘hello’ in return. 

“You must be Fairywren.” He says, and you confirm the guess with a nod. “Cool name, much cooler than Crosshair.” He smiles at you, and you immediately decide that his talent, even with all the muscle, is undying kindness and radiating happy energy. Crosshair scoffs at his brother. 

“I hate to disappoint but it's just a nickname.” You’re still smiling a little, your old self shining through for that brief moment. 

“Still” He assures you, “it’s way better than any of ours!” You decide to lose yourself in the moment of happiness. Firing back at him with a:

“Oh I don't know, Crosshair isn’t that bad.” Wrecker laughs again, and you see Crosshair pause as he lifts a toothpick to his mouth, a small smile in the shadow of his tall figure. 

“Wrecker” he draws out that voice, so different to any other clone. He gestures to the forest edge he’d been watching as the leaves and twigs break and moves as Tech and Hunter join the three of you. They exchange words, far enough away from you that you don't hear them. A few glances thrown your way. And Crosshair starts to look more and more unimpressed. Breaking from the group with a grumble, and heading over to you, opting to lean against the tree with you. 

“Tech’s the small one.” He whispers to you. “Sergeant Hunter has the ridiculous hair.” rolling the toothpick in his mouth, you look up at him. 

“Why are you telling me this?” you're not trying so rude, but you're genuinely curious.

“I’m telling you, because you’re going to be putting up with them for the foreseeable future.” He sounds a tad annoyed but you dont push further.  

“You named after the tattoo?” You ask without thinking. Tracing it with your eyes, giving them something to do other than tear up in panic. 

“Got it after.” He responds, and from that you can gather he’s not very social, but what you need right now is a distracted mind, so you decide to test your luck. 

“Why  Crosshair though? Like I get it's your name but like why?”  You want to curse at how stupid you sound, but, the adrenaline has totally warn off now and your brain feels like goo.  

“Sniper.” He says blankly, turning around so you see  the huge rifle strapped to his back. 

“Oh…” you say, finally connecting the dots. “Well i'm called Fairywren after-”

“The birds, I know.” Crosshair  interrupts, before moving away from you as the rest of the group breaks apart from what you’re guessing was a debrief? Taking small steps towards them, taking in how different they all are. 

“Sergeant Hunter, at your service.” The one with longer hair says, shaking your hand. You take note of his face tattoo as well and wonder if he got his with Crosshair. 

“Wren, thanks for the save.” You introduce yourself, not pausing to think where you’d be without them.

“No problem,” Hunter says, his voice is deeper than Crosshairs but no less gruff. “Shall we get off this kriffing rock?” Turning around to his group, taking in their nods, before scaling the tree. 

The Havoc Marauder isn't exactly what you expected, but then again you don't know what you expected it to be like.  Maybe a bit more cluttered than it actually is but you like it nevertheless. 

“How many species are on this planet?” The clone named Tech asks you, he's the only one that hasn't introduced himself to you, but you're guessing it's only because his brain is working a million parsecs a second. 

“I'm not actually sure,” You say, feeling guilty as his face drops. “There's a number of overall species and all but the variations are so unique it's hard to classify them.” You quickly add, watching his eyes light up.

“So why the Fairywren then?” He asks after a lengthy (and largely sided) conversation of evolution in rainforest species. You feel Crosshair's eyes on you, tuning back into the conversation off and on again as he took or lost interest. 

“My grandmother once told me that the Fairywrens kept guard on your heart.” You tell him, and you see Crosshair lean forward on his knees to hear better. “She said that every Fairywren watches over someone, they keep them safe. She said my Fairywren was the brightest one there ever was because of how much she loved me.” Tech stays silent taking in the story, and Crosshair seems to be frozen in place. You don't realize that he’s realizing how stunning you are and kicking himself for not seeing it sooner. Of course you're the Fairywren, bright blue and so beautiful it almost seems fake. 

“How do you know Krexx.” Hunter asks walking into the brig area where you had been sitting. And you freeze at the name, Crosshair glares at his sergeant for bringing him up, he hates the way your face falls at the mention of his name. 

“He took over when the separatists showed up, and he was put in charge of keeping everyone in line.” You snap.

“Hunter, maybe we should-” Crosshair starts but he gets interrupted. 

“How many Trandoshans were on your planet?” Hunter interrupts, and if you didn't think Crosshair could glare any harder than he was, you were very mistaken. 

“At least a hundred.” You tell him. “Less now.” 

“Why less now?” Tech jumps in, and his honest interest makes you smile a little. 

“I used to catalog plants when I was a kid, my dad kept journals, because he was a healer. So it was like a hobby of ours.” You explain, “Trandoshans don’t take too well to plant venom apparently.” 

“Genius” Tech breathes and you can't help but flush. 

“Any chance of a tail?” Hunter asks, and this time Crosshair interrupts. 

“No, checked the whole way back to the ship and then some.” His voice sounds taught, like he's about to snap. 

“Good, either way, I'll take the first watch, I don't want any missteps here. Get some rest.” He nods to you all, and even though it's nowhere near close to nighttime you don't argue. Wrecker passes by and ruffles your hair saying “g’night little bird.” Tech offers you a mock salute that makes you smile, before heading to where you assume the bunks are. 

“Extra bunk is down the hall. Door on the left.” Crosshair tells you standing up, and the air seems to shift, you feel lonely thinking about him leaving. So you follow him, hoping he’ll stay up just a little longer with you. He stops in front of what you guess is his door. And you thank every god  out there that it's across from the empty one. You see that there's no blankets in the empty bunk. 

“Need anything?” he asks, and he almost cringes by how rude it sounds. ‘Sure’ he thinks to himself. ‘Be rude to the sopping wet, traumatized girl in front of you, good one Cross.” You turn back to him. 

“No it's okay, i'll get blankets from Hunter or just snoop around until I find them.” You joke, Rubbing the back of your neck as the man in front of you sighs and rolls the toothpick in his mouth around. 

“Stay here.” He says, a little softer, disappearing into his room. In reality he wants nothing more to let you into his room, to drop that cold exterior he’s created. But he already knows he's no good for you. Crosshair slips out his door again with a blanket. 

“Wrecker will be passed out already, Hunter doesn't use blankets and Tech has what he calls the ‘mathematical epiphany of correct blanket weight, fluffiness and size’ to ensure a proper sleep. So the only extra one around is this.” He states, holding out a black fluffy blanket that looks so cozy you want to cry. You take it from him silently, subtly bury your face in it so you can tell if it feels the same way his shoulder does. It's softer but smells the same, and you can't wait to burrito yourself in it. Crosshair has turned away, going crazy as he sees you snuggle into something that's not him.    

“Crosshair,” you call as his door slides open again. “Thank you.” And before you can embarrass yourself you slide into the extra room. 

“You’re welcome.” He whispers even though he knows you won't hear it.

[mell-bell]

Fight so dirty (but your love so sweet) - Part V

The Mandalorian x Reader

Part 1 / Part 2  / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8

Words: 4543                 

Series Summary: You are sent to hunt down a Mandalorian, the odds aren’t exactly in your favor

Chapter: 5/8

Author’s notes: Once again THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU I LOVE YOU ALL!!! I hope you guys know I read each and every one of your messages/replies and you all kill me with kindness thank you. This chapter fought me tooth and nail which is why I got it up so late so I hope it’s alright because AHHHHHH but it’s setting up for an INSANE next chapter. Once again lemme know if you wanna be tagged! Hope you guys enjoy!!!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A gentle touch sweeping up and down your arm pulled you from sleep.

“If it’s before lunch I really don’t want to be awake.” You mumbled into the soft pillow your head laid on.

The pillow beneath you began to chuckle and your eyes shot open, freezing as you recognized the familiar body you were lying against.

“Oh. Oh, that wasn’t a dream?” You whispered softly.

“No, not a dream.”

You reached out, your fingers spreading out as you slid your hand across his stomach, feeling the softness of his body instead of the armor you were used to. You watched as his own hand reached out and smiled as his fingers threaded through yours.

You pushed yourself back a little so you could meet his eyes, which were still heavy with sleep. You released his hand and reached out tracing your fingers over his face, much like the night before. His features were clearer in the light of day. And you wanted to memorize every inch of him.

His mouth curled up into a smile and your breath caught as you saw his deep brown eyes sparkle from the sun streaming into the room. Your hand brushed over his dark hair, smirking at the unruly pieces sticking out all over the place.  

“You’re okay with this?” You said in wonder as your hand dropped scratching over his stubble, smiling at the feel of it under your fingers.

The man nodded, his eyes steadily holding your gaze.

“The Mandalorians rescued me and brought me into their family. All we had was our armor and each other. They were all I knew for years. But you showed me that family can also be two forlorn bounty hunters and a fifty-year-old child. I want to be that with you.” He cleared his throat.

You smiled widely as he looked away, his cheeks slightly reddening.

“As long as you’re comfortable, so am I. Though I’m not sure how he’s gonna feel.” You motioned behind him.

The Mandalorian turned over in the bed, watching as the small child waddled through the doorway into the bedroom. When the child’s gaze raised to the two of you and he met the Mandalorian’s eyes, he let out a little screech and quickly scurried out of the room.

“Well, that was heartbreaking.” You giggled burrowing your head in the man’s shoulder.

The man sighed.

You pressed a kiss to his cheek, “Don’t worry, I still like your face.”

“I guess that’s well and good.” He muttered.

You snuggled back down into the bed, “Now can I go back to sleep? I was up late last night.”

The man nodded, leaning in a pressing a gentle kiss to your lips, watching as you drifted off to sleep not a moment later. He carefully detangled himself from you, before sliding out of the bed.  Reaching down, he pulled the blanket over you. Gently he ran a hand over your face, watching as a smile pulled at the corner of your mouth in your sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You woke suddenly, your heart racing. You shot out of bed tripping over the blankets that had tangled between your legs as you tried to make it to the desk in the corner, where the stolen Imperial papers sat.

How had you forgotten?

With the papers once again in your hands, your heart dropped. It hadn’t been a dream. The plans laid everything out. Though you didn’t know what most of it meant, you knew that they were trying to make a new group of clone troopers with what they called “the force”.  

Before you could talk yourself out of it, you sent a message to Governor Gideon letting him know that you would be remaining on the planet for the foreseeable future.

Not wanting to lie to your Mandalorian, you left the ship in a hurry, yelling over your shoulder that you would be in town for the rest of the day.

As you walked through town, you could see the Imperial spies following you. You wanted to lose them but you knew that would draw attention to yourself. So you continued on your way pretending that you didn’t see them.

When you comm buzzed, you looked down. Seeing an invitation to join the Governor for lunch, you swallowed hard before starting in the direction of the address he had sent you.

It was a long walk and as time passed you began to hesitate. You glanced over your shoulder more than once. You shouldn’t have gone without backup. You had almost convinced yourself to leave when you caught sight of the large house at the end of the street. 

This was it. 

You stepped up to the door, your eyes wide. You were questioning if you had made the right choice. Raising your hand you went to knock but before you could the door opened.

A well-dressed man ushered you inside without a word. He refused to meet your eyes as you followed him into the house, his pace quickening as you entered the foyer.

You cleared your throat, “I’m here to see- wait!“ You yelled as he scurried off disappearing down the hall before you could finish your sentence.

“That can’t be good...”

And you were left alone in the golden foyer.

Taking a tentative step forward, you began to explore. You walked slowly down through the house, stopping to peer into each room. When you reached the end of the hall, you turned into what looked like a small library. Stepping up to the bookshelf, you pulled a book off flipping through curiously.

The hair on the back of your neck stood up as you placed it back on the shelf. Pretending to ignore the feeling, you moved further into the room, your hand reaching toward a knick-knack on the ledge of the fireplace.

“I wouldn’t touch that.” A sharp woman’s voice echoed through the room.

Snatching your hand back, you spun around, finding an immaculately well-dressed woman standing in front of you. Your brows furrowed as you turned toward the entrance, wondering how she entered the room without walking past you.

Shaking your head, you stepped up, an easy smile gracing your face, “I’m sorry I have a meeting with—"

She looked down at your hand in disgust and you pulled it back with a frown.

“I know who you are. I wanted to meet you first. See if we could trust you.” Her voice was deep as she began to circle you.  

“How will you know?”

She chuckled darkly, “I’m a good judge of character. Moff tends to get overzealous with his little pets and doesn’t properly assess them out. I make sure he stays safe.”

Before you could reply, a painful pressure pushed at your head and your brows pulled together in agony. You cleared your throat, trying to focus on the woman as she took another step toward you.

“That’s my secret.” She grinned.

Your teeth gritted as you tried to force the pressure from your head. The woman’s eyes narrowed and the pain grew even stronger.

“Enough, Mera.” The Governor stated as he walked in, pushing past the woman, greeting you with a smile.

The pressure vanished instantly from your head. You shook it once, before turning smiling at the man before you.

“Governor, how good to see you.”

“Ah, my new friend. I am so happy you are remaining on planet for a while. This is amazing news. My friends cannot stop singing your praises and I am sure you will fit right in during my meeting today. Before we continue I do want to apologize once more for our last parting and your interrogation.”

“Oh, no harm done. You did what had to be done. Did you ever find what you were looking for?”

He waved his hand in exasperation, “No, but we did execute a few people and I have some older backup papers that I can give to--.”

The woman following behind the two of you cleared her throat.

The Governor sighed, “Oh hush Mera, I can trust this one.”

You spoke up pressing for more information, “Give to who?”

“The Supreme Leader. The one who will eventually lead us to greatness.”

You nodded your heart beating. This was the man you would have to ultimately take down.  

“And is he or she here?”

The man let out a loud laugh, “Of course not. Come. Come, I want to introduce you to some more people.”

He led you into a room full of people, motioning for you to take a seat at the table. As you passed by you nodded to those you recognized from the party and quickly introduced yourself to those you didn’t.

The Governor stood at the head of the table, his arms spread wide, “My friends, The First Order is rising. We have funding. We have support. We have new friends. Our universe has fallen apart. We have people that need to be governed. I am here to create order in this lawless galaxy. And we will start anew.”

The applause and cheering that burst from the men and women echoed in your head for the next few hours.

Once the dinner began, your mind was swimming.

There were so many conversations happening you weren’t sure what to pay attention to. It wasn’t until the man next to you mentioned “the force” that your head snapped toward him.

“Ah, interested in that, are you. You must have heard about the Jedi of old?”

You nodded, you had heard stories, legends.

The man leaned in and whispered, “Well I heard the Supreme Leader has found a force-sensitive child to train. And that he is going to turn him to our side to use against the New Republic and their stupid rebellion.”

You didn’t pay attention to much after that. The man beside you was still rambling about something. You nodded every now and then appeasing him.

But when a familiar man walked past you, you froze.

The man from the market.

He stopped at the head of the table to talk to the Governor, a blinking fob in his hand.

His gaze raised and met yours and he smirked. He knew you.

Your heart was in your throat as the man left the room. Your hand inched to move to your comm but you knew you would be caught. You just had to rely on the fact that you knew the Mandalorian could take care of himself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When you were finally able to excuse yourself a few hours later, you rushed back to your ship, praying that the man with the fob hadn’t found them.

You stormed up the ramp, bursting into the storage room, startling the young child, who was sitting next to the Mandalorian.

You sighed in relief, breathing deeply trying to catch your breath.

“Where have you been?” He questioned. 

“Everything’s okay here?” You responded back with a question, your voice wavering.

The man nodded, but his brows were furrowed as your gaze swept the ship as if someone was going to jump out.

“Are you alright?” He stood, moving in front of you, trying to meet your eyes.

You waved him off, “What? Yeah, yeah I’m fine.”

“Where were you?” He repeated.

You froze, hesitating before meeting his eyes. They were filled with worry as he looked down at you, his hand reaching out to grasp your arm.

You sighed, “With Governor Gideon.”

He growled, his grip tightening on your arm unconsciously, “Why?”

“Last night, I found something in the papers. About cloning.” You gazed down at the child, smiling as he held out his ball to you.

“They want him for his powers.” The Mandalorian said.

“Yes. Moff has a woman like him.” Your brows furrowed as you rubbed a hand over your forehead, “She tried to read my mind I think.”

“You’re not safe there.”

You shrugged, “Maybe not. But I need to get more information.”

“Not if you’re in danger.”

You swallowed, “There was also a man with a fob there. I saw him last night in the market. I think he knows I know you.”

The Mandalorian stepped around you and you followed him out into the cargo-bay.

“What are you doing?”

“We’re leaving.” He stated.

Your eyes widened and you stepped in front of him. He was angry, his eyes were blazing as his gaze traveled down the ramp as if he was waiting for the hunter to appear.

You reached out, placing your hand on his chest, “Let’s not be hasty. Let’s eat and talk some more.”

The man nodded. He waited until you went back into the ship before sweeping around the outside to make sure everything was locked up tight.

When he made his way back inside, he found you on the ground in your bedroom, placing the little red cape you had bought the child on his back. 

The green child chirped happily as he walked around his little red cape floating behind him.

The Mandalorian watched as you laughed along with the child, but the joy didn’t reach your eyes. You were hiding something.

Later that night, you laid in bed, watching as the Mandalorian rid himself of his armor. He had convinced you to let him check the town for any sign of the bounty hunter. But when he found nothing, he had returned disappointed.

Staring off into space, you didn’t see him settle next to you in bed and startled slightly when he leaned down to press a kiss to your shoulder.

Brushing it off, you turned with a smile, you caught his lips with yours, in a gentle kiss.

Laying down, you motioned to the man and he turned burrowing his head against your stomach.  Your hands threaded through his hair gentling detangling the pieces, the man basically purring against you. His hand slipped under your shirt his bare hand stroking your skin lightly.  

“I have a plan.”

The man hummed.

“You have to leave me here.”

The man’s eyes popped open, “I have to what?” 

He sat up and so did you, your hands wringing together.

“If you’re here – if you’re both here, then they’re going to keep coming. You’re in danger. I need to stay. This might be what helps us take them down. Keep the little one safe.”

“No.”

You sighed, “It makes sense.”

“I am not leaving you here.” He growled.

You put your hand over his mouth, “It won’t be for long and I’ll be safe I promise. It’s just for gathering intel. I have a chance to make a real difference here.”

“But I won’t be here to help you.”

“But you’ll both be safe.” You whispered.

He shook his head, turning over placing his back toward you, “We’re not done discussing this.”

You nodded.

You laid down staring at his back. Slowly you reached out toward him but pulled your hand back with a sigh. Turning you placed your own back to him.

Not a minute later you felt him turn and pull you toward him tightly. You grabbed his hand in yours, squeezing it tight. He squeezed back. 

You both knew you had made up your mind and there was nothing he could do to stop you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One month later:

You watched as the whip came down hard on the young boy, slicing through his back. You bit down on your lip to stop yourself from screaming at the trooper to stop. The whip hit again and again and your hands began to tremble as the boy laid motionless on the cold stone ground.

As the blood began to bleed through the stones, you closed your eyes. A vision of a whip coming down at you and the stinging pain in your back causing you to suck in your breath in pain.

Your eyes shot open.

The whip came down again and again on the boy. You had lost count. But this was well past the normal amount of lashings. You went to take a step forward when the deep rumble of a man’s laugh startled you.

“I see you like watching as much as I do.”

You stiffened slightly as Moff Gideon strode up beside you, his eyes solely focused on the almost unconscious boy in front of you. A twisted grin graced his face as he watched the trooper’s arm raise and drop again and again.

You cleared your throat, “Shouldn’t they leave him alone so he can heal and get back to work?”

The Governor tsked, “No. We can just hire others.”

The man raised his hand and the trooper looked up before reaching for his gun. You closed your eyes just in time to hear the shot.

You turned. Your head hanging low, hiding your pained expression from those around you.

A familiar pressure pushed at your head and you grit your teeth as you lifted your gaze watching as the woman in white walked through the arch toward you.  She took a step forward, her heels clicking like daggers against the stones beneath her. Reaching out, she grabbed the Governor’s chin, her sharp nails cutting into his face as she pressed a kiss to his cheek; her eyes, however, focused solely on you.

You had never understood what people meant when they said someone had dead eyes. But this woman – sometimes you believed she wasn’t human. No emotion. No love. Just emptiness.

You met her gaze, keeping your face impassive, the normal prodding feeling intensifying against the wall you were projecting in your mind. 

After spending a month with this woman, you had spent hours training yourself on how to block her out of your mind. If you visualized a wall, she would hit a wall. You could only hope that it worked. 

Her brows furrowed before she released, her gaze dropping from you and turning toward the young girl beside her. She grabbed her face roughly forcing her gaze at the boy on the ground.

“This is what happens when you disobey. Do you understand?”

The girl stayed quiet, knowing if she opened her mouth she would be next.

“Excellent.” She smiled. Mera released her with a jerk, the young girl’s head snapping sharply to the side.

Fury built in your stomach, as your hand reached down for your blaster. But you stopped, your eyes following the young girl, her shoulder’s slumped as she moved away, backing herself against a wall. Reaching into your pocket instead, you pulled out the tiny amount of money you had left. As you passed by, you stepped up to the young girl, quickly pressing the credits into her hand. Her eyes widened. You nodded.

“Dinner is being served.” A voice echoed through the corridor.

The Governor called for you when he realized you weren’t behind him. And without another glance behind, you turned quickly hurrying across the cobblestone toward the man. As you shuffled along beside him, the people on the streets quickly scattered out of your way.

When had this nightmare become your life?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Mandalorian hit the heavy bag over and over again. He wasn’t sure how long he had been going. Right. Left. Right. Duck. His hands screamed as they continued to slam into the bag, his breathing unsteady under his helmet.

A hand grabbed onto his shoulder and he turned, immediately swinging out at the offender.

Cara ducked out of the way, grabbing his arm and twisting it behind his back.

“You’re getting sloppy.”

The man pulled away with a grunt and turned back to the heavy bag, preparing to begin again when Cara grabbed his arm once more, “Stop, this isn’t helping anything.”

“And?” He said yanking his arm away once more, refusing to meet her eyes, pretending to ignore the look of concern on her face.

It had been over a month since he left you behind.

And he hadn’t been able to get you out of his mind since. He hadn’t realized how much of a fixture you had become in his life. And it didn’t feel right without you.

He couldn’t sleep. Barely ate. When he wasn’t flying or training, he was staring blankly at a wall, wondering if you were still alive. 

The memory of you waving at him as he flew away was burned into his memory. Your sad smile the last thing he saw, almost broke him in half. As he had soared into the stars, his hand had dropped, ready to turn around.

If Cara hadn’t forced his hand, he would have.

You had asked Cara to go with him for that exact reason. To make sure that he stayed away until you called him back. You both knew that if he was left to his own devices he wouldn’t wait for you to call, he would be back in a heartbeat.

“You did the right thing. You both did.”

The Mandalorian remained silent for a moment.

“We did the right thing.” He droned on in monotone as if he had become so used to saying it.

Cara looked at him, not believing a word from his mouth, but nodding nevertheless.

Later that day, as the Mandalorian made his usual afternoon drink, he didn’t realize until too late that he had made a cup for you. When he realized you weren’t standing over his shoulder complaining about how he made it too sweet, he froze. His hands shook as it hovered over the cup. He let out a shout, sweeping it on the ground, before storming out of the room. 

The little green child had been taking it even worse than the warrior. The first few days he had spent aimlessly roaming the ship trying to find you. And now every morning, he had taken to standing in your bedroom, chirping sadly, his little red cape spread out behind him.

Every day with a heavy heart, the Mandalorian would pick him up, trying to distract him with his favorite ball. But when the child wasn’t looking the warrior would stare off into space, lost in his own thoughts, thinking that nobody was watching.

But Cara was. 

And as they continued to jump from planet to planet, waiting for the signal to go back, Cara watched as both the Mandalorian and child lost a bit of themselves without you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You had finally run out of luck.

You gripped your blaster tight as you circled the men in front of you, their own blasters aimed at you.

“You’re the Mandalorian’s little pet. I don’t know how I didn’t see it before.” The Governor spit.

You raised the blaster at the Governor, the Stormtroopers moving to stand in front of him as your finger began to squeeze the trigger, “You’ve failed. I have your plans. I know who’s working with you. We’re going to stop you. You won’t get away with this. ”

Over the month you had lived here, you had managed to gather generous amounts of information against this new First Order.

It was the bounty hunter that had finally turned you in. You weren’t sure what had taken him so long. Or why he had done it today. But you were done for. 

“Too bad you won’t be alive to share it.”

The Stormtroopers rushed at you and your eyes widened as you pulled the trigger desperately, but you were overrun and no sooner thrown into a cell, chained to the ground.

It wasn’t more than a few minutes later when your door opened. When you were met with just silence, you thought maybe you had imagined it. But when you felt someone pulling at your chains you looked up. It was the young girl that worked for Mera. You had never learned her name. But you had always made sure she had food, water, and something warm to wear. She couldn’t have been more than eleven.

The young girl did some motions with her hands and your brows furrowed. But when she did them again the same exact way, you sat up. She was communicating. You had seen the Mandalorian communicate the exact same way before. 

“You’re going to get me out of here?”

The girl’s face lit up and she nodded motioning down to your chains.

You pulled at them, the chains clattering loudly against the stone floor, “I can’t get out.”

She held up a finger and reached down into her pants pocket, pulling out a key. Your eyes widened as she held it out to you.

“Thank you.” You said reaching out and taking the key,  “I’m gonna get you out of here.”

The girl smiled sadly and shook her head, beginning to walk backward.

“No, wait where are you going!”

A loud explosion sounded outside the door and you threw yourself to the ground, covering your head as stones rained down around you. And when you looked back up, the girl was gone. But where she had once stood, was a hole blown through the wall of the cell.

Using your shaking hands, you quickly unchained the locks and stumbled to your feet. You clambered through the rubble, the stones cutting into your hands as you tried to steady yourself.

You took a deep breath and shot into the hall, grabbing a stray blaster from the ground. The wealthy men and women you had spent a month with were screaming and shoving each other right trying to escape the stones falling from the ceiling. You were pushed left and right and stumbled unsteadily into a smoky eerily quiet room.

You could hear the near-silent footfalls as they walked through the smoke. Moving with a predator’s ease that made you grip the blaster and aim it into the unknown.

“Stop!” You screamed, your voice echoing through the decimated room.  

You began to creep cautiously around the debris on the ground, circling wide trying to find the person hidden.

As a man emerged from the smoke you took an unsteady step back, stumbling over a piece of rubble.

With a shuddering breath, you stepped forward in a daze.

And then you were sprinting across the room, dropping the blaster to the ground as you slammed into the man in front of you.

He pulled you to him, his arms wrapping tightly around you.

“I thought you were dead.”  

“I’m alright.” You whispered.

For a moment, just a moment, you had thought he wasn’t here. But he was. You could touch him. He was solid. He was here. And you could feel his heart beating hard under your hand.

Your throat began to burn at the smoke in the room and he turned leading you out into the fresh air of the marketplace.

You turned around, shoving him back, “You weren’t supposed to return until I sent the signal. Why did you come back?”

The Mandalorian waited for a moment, watching as your chest heaved. And then he reached out. Cradling your face. His gloved hands stroked over your cheeks and he let out a heavy sigh.

“They took him.”

“What?” You whispered.

Pulling back the Mandalorian reached down before holding out a torn small red cape out to you. 

“They took him.”

You reached out, grasping the tiny cape, your fist tightening around it. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tagged: @sargesbestgirl @abysswhiskey11 @yourfavoritearchangel @pedro-pascal-online @x-wingwarriorbbpoe8 @damnittjim @trickei @countessren @fun-sized-widow-bites@thefandomzoneisdangerous @ichigomiluku @bakerstreethound@clonesdeservelovetoo@bananyaaa @loveleah @javert-delacour @zoogrl05 @live-the-beautiful-game @maryan028@ignimbritetcax @kaidad @kaimoar @yana-versio @peitromoximaff@alittleraincloud @fuckhead-writer @dottie-witch @nowheredreamer @pandalandalopalis@loveharrington @sw0rd-girlfriend@lex0h @piquantbarnes @go-commander-kim @finefangirl@lmao5sosimagines @bandofmarvels@nayploonthedoon @tchallaudakux @allthosepacheeks @i-think-of-dean-moriarty @otherthingsinhead @songofcosplay @cloudykooks @spooky-nob@takemebillyhargrove@flyingowls @funkygreensucculent @andromeda-sighs @audiblesmirk @out-worn @lessthancooljay@whtvrwhizzer @banana-batman @panic-monsters  @vamprlestat@clevervast @ghelp0 @just-another-fangirls-posts @jinthusiastsss @c1996 @maldo559@yelenasnatashas @chewymoustachio@heyo–its–mo @hexqueensupreme @ozzy-bozzy@spideydobrik  @t-rexmoreliket-flex @kaelyn-lobrutto24 @teenagememetonight @salted-barbed-wire@kitosauras @heyitsjaybird @turnaroundbeautiful @whosmorales @asstiel-barnes@vintagecaptainspidey @swagaliciouspupper @ghost-brocolli @jacobs-judge @cmburgos@lamnothome @no-goddamn-cilantro @chill-4-dayz @lafy-taffy @onaheroicmission @shade-vermillion @sacredburial @panic-monster @jinxedleo @taman-a @readsalot73 @aurorcarter @poemfreak306 @awhiteblanket  @and-i-swear-we-are-infinte​

[andinewton]

Mixer-ed Emotions - Jealous!GavinxMC

Finally!

I know, I’ve taken days over this!  But it ran into 12 pages and took all day for me to reread it just to make sure it made sense!  I’m going to dedicate this to @voltagesmutter​ for listening to me tease sentences and quotes from it as I fought my own body to get any damn work done!

Mixer-ed Emotions

Jealous!GavinxMC (Emci)

Summary:  When you agree to make up numbers at a mixer you don’t realise Gavin is doing the same.  With misunderstanding after misunderstanding and some irritating attendees, will Gavin get to ask you his question when another man shows a lot of interest?

Warnings:  Swearing, threats, violence.

‘C’mon, Willow, do I have to?’  You whined, dragging your feet much like a child being taken somewhere they didn’t want to go.

‘Yes, you do.  You agreed to help me out.’  Your colleague glanced back at you with a stern look.

‘When I said I’d do this to help you out I didn’t realise you meant it was tonight!’

‘I wouldn’t have needed your help if it wasn’t short notice.’  Willow turned and linked her arm with yours, pulling you along.  ‘And you know there’s no commitment involved, you’re just making up numbers.’

‘But a mixer?  Seriously?’

‘I know you hate the idea but it’s for one night, you are under no obligation to either attend another or decide maybe you like one of the guys tonight and go home with him…’

‘I won’t be going home with anyone!’  You gasped, wide eyed at her suggestion.

‘Sure, okay, you won’t be going home with anyone.’  She shrugged with a smirk.  ‘Anyway, we’re here, and you’ll know more than just me so relax, you’re among friends.’

‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’  You muttered as she opened the door to the bar, the noise hitting you like a solid wall immediately.  With a sigh, you entered, hoping this evening wouldn’t be a bad as you imagined it could be.

🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍

You had a large table at the back for the ten participants.  So far you knew Willow and Kiki, as well as two women from another company who you shared the office building with.  Three of the men were there and Willow assured you that the last two were only a block or two away, according to her phone waved at you when you pointed out you could leave as the numbers weren’t even.

‘Why would you want to go and leave now?  We just got here!’  The man seated opposite you was already a few drinks in and he showed no sign of letting up.  All you had established from his inane consistent drivel was that he was some hot shot in sales, had to turn down several women to make himself available for tonight, and that he loved himself almost as much as he loved the sound of his own voice.  You had so far nodded along with his stories but you really had hoped the other two guests having not arrived might be your chance to escape.

‘We did but if the numbers aren’t even it’s not exactly fair on the other girls, is it?  So if I leave then it’ll be one step closer to even.’

He leant in, breathing fumes all over you.  ‘Or we could both leave and visit this little hotel I know not far from here.’

‘Or we could not.’  You leant away from him as the door to the bar opened, showing Minor rushing through it and towards the table.

‘Sorry, Willow, my friend was running late.’  Minor grinned as he ran his fingers through is unkempt hair, his eyes meeting yours a moment later.  ‘Oh, hey, boss!  Didn’t know you’d be here!’

You narrowed your eyes, his words seeming to imply that perhaps he did, but what difference did that make?  You were knocked out of your pondering by the guy who loved himself tapping your arm.

‘So, are you actually the boss or is that some kind of honorary title because you’re bossy?’

‘Actually, I own the company.’  You gave him a deadpan stare.  ‘I am literally the boss to three people at this table.’

‘Ohhh, a ballbuster, huh?’  He nodded before taking another slug of his drink.  ‘Well, good luck to you, it’s a mans world out there and it’ll all be for nought once you get married and start popping out babies.  But I guess your husband could take over the business, probably make it more profitable too.’

‘We’re already profitable.’  You replied.  ‘And I have no plans to get married or have children in the foreseeable future!’

‘That all changes when you career women meet the right man.’  He laughed.  ‘Same story, every time.’

‘Sorry I’m late.’

Your open mouth full of some choice words snapped shut as you turned toward the new voice, seeing Gavin standing at the end of the table, looking sheepish and like he didn’t want to be there.  He didn’t seem to have noticed you yet and you wondered if it was too late for you to make a break for the bathroom and escape through a window.

‘Huh, new guy.’  The salesman slung his arm around the back of your seat territorially.  ‘Being late makes a bad impression.  Now, take me.  I was early, had a bottle of sake on the table ready for your arrival.  That’s husband material.’

‘Drinking half the bottle before anyone else gets here though, that’s not.’  You retorted but you were still side eyeing Gavin as he took his seat, one of the women from the other office shuffling closer to talk to him.

‘I’ll buy another.’  He snapped his fingers for the wait staff, finally leaning away from you and allowing you to take a breath of fresher air.

Your eyes were back on Gavin in seconds, like something drew you to him, and this time he was looking back at you, a mixture of surprise and horror on his face.  You guess you were the last person he was expecting to see here tonight.  The woman was talking to him animatedly but you could tell from the look on his face that he was only being polite, his eyes clouded over and his gaze just as dark.

‘Now we’re all here I’ll get our food brought out.’  Willow waved to the bar where the manager, apparently a friend of hers, acknowledged her with a smile and headed into the kitchen.  In minutes several platters of finger foods were delivered and arranged on the table within reach of everyone.  You were happy of the distraction and picked up a mozzarella stick, biting the end off while the guy continued to talk about himself.

Your mood had been bad enough before Gavin’s arrival but now it was worse, stolen glances his way showing the woman hand feeding him food from the platters.  Gavin wasn’t one for PDAs and he blushed easily, you could see the rose on his cheeks from here, but you were unsure whether or not it was from being embarrassed or because he was enjoying himself.  You huffed a sigh, just as you caught the last few words the man beside you.

‘Don’t you think?’

You looked at him while trying to hide your confusion, having no idea what you were supposed to be agreeing on.  ‘Will you excuse me for a moment?’  You got to your feet without another word and headed towards the bathrooms at the back.

‘Don’t be too long.’  He called after you and you rolled your eyes.  Never again, favour to a friend or not.

🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍

Just as you reached the door you noticed the outdoor seating area and decided to detour.  You didn’t actually need the bathroom just an escape from the inane conversation…and Gavin being so damn happy with another woman.  You took a deep breath in through your nose of the cool night air but it did little to clear your head or heart.  You knew this was a stupid idea, you just hadn’t known how stupid.  Which was very.

‘Hey.’

You jumped as the voice of the very man you were thinking of spoke from the door, turning to see Gavin strolling towards you with his hands in his pockets, head lowered, a sheepish expression on his face.  You turned back around immediately, swallowing hard as so many emotions ran through you.  You didn’t want to see him, you didn’t want to see anybody, and even now you were considering scaling the fence and escaping this entire event.

‘Can we talk?’

Oh you hated that phrase.  It was never the start of a fun conversation, it never ended well.  ‘I don’t see that we have anything to talk about.’

‘Then rather than talk, just answer me one thing.  This is what you blew me off for?  Some mixer with random guys who could be anyone?’

‘I didn’t blow you off.’  You argued as you sensed him stop behind you.  ‘Willow asked me to make up numbers a couple of hours before you asked me to dinner and I’m not one to go back on a promise to a friend, no matter how stupid.’  You muttered the last to yourself.  ‘And what about you?  I ask for a rain check and you start food play with the first woman who looks at you?’

‘That’s not what…’

‘I don’t even care any more.’  You interrupted him mid sentence.  ‘I’m done for the night.’  Heading back towards the restaurant you half expected him to try and stop you, and when he didn’t you weren’t sure if you were disappointed or relieved.  You went to the table, grabbed your bag and jacket, telling Willow you would see her at work before leaving to calls asking where you were going from at least three people, one you were sure was the chatty show off.

🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍

You pulled on your jacket as the first spots of rain fell from the sky, quickly turning into a deluge as you walked, wanting some distance between you and the restaurant, between you and Gavin and his little foodie friend.  You tried hailing a cab but they were all taken and that left you with no choice other than to walk to the nearest station.

You had almost made it when your arm was grabbed from behind and you spun, half ready for it to be a mugger, half ready for it to be Gavin, either way you were ready to swing your bag and cause as much damage as possible.  But it was neither one.  Yeah, of course it was that jerk from the mixer.

‘Where are you heading?’  He asked, drawing you to a halt as you stopped the progress of your bag swing.

‘Home.’  You stated firmly, proud that your voice held firm despite how churned up you felt inside.

‘I’m not going to say no to that offer.’  He grinned.  ‘I have a car parked not far from here.’

‘That’s not what’s happening here!’  You shook his hand off your arm.  ‘I am going home, alone, end of story.’

‘Don’t be a prude.’  He scoffed, catching your wrist with his hand in a firm grip you were unsure you could break.  ‘You’ve been coming on to me all evening and you aren’t leaving me with blue balls.’

‘Don’t flatter yourself!’  You swung your bag at him only to have your other wrist caught and wrenched behind your back with the other.  You suddenly found yourself very up close and personal with this douchebag with no way out.  ‘Get the fuck off me!’  You growled, but it only made his grin broaden, his eyes darken.

‘If I didn’t know better I’d think you’re getting a kick out of this.’  He closed the distance between you, his tongue protruding as he approached.

Your heart leapt in your mouth as fear dragged its cold fingers up your spine.  This wasn’t how you wanted tonight to go, none of it was, and you were beginning to wonder if you had been cursed from the minute you had to turn Gavin down.

‘If you want to keep that attached to your body you’d better rethink your entire position.’

You had never been so relieved to hear Gavin’s voice, the jerk before you freezing before looking back over his shoulder.  ‘This doesn’t concern you, pretty boy.  I’m just getting what I’m owed from this prick tease here.’

‘Emci is a lot of things,’ Gavin remarked casually as he slowly walked to stand parallel to the two of you, keeping his movements measured and cautious, ‘but that isn’t one of them.’

‘What do you know?’  He released one of your arms as he leant threateningly towards Gavin.

‘I know you have three seconds to get your damn meathooks off her before I make you.’

The man laughed, long and hard, as though this was the funniest thing he had ever heard, which gave you the opportunity to make eye contact with Gavin.  He nodded infinitesimally for you to side step away from the man as far as you could, and you were only too happy to oblige.

‘That’s your three seconds, junior, what are you going to…’

He didn’t get to finish.  A gust of concentrated wind hit him square in the chest, jarring his hand from your arm as he staggered back into a parked car.  You stumbled away from him and towards Gavin with his hand reaching towards you encouragingly.  The moment you reached him he had you close, his eyes never once leaving his target.

‘You okay?’

‘Been better.’  You nodded rapidly.  ‘But yeah, I’m okay.’

‘You son of a…!’  Your brief chatter was broken by the man dragging himself to his feet, drawing a knife as he did so.

‘You brought a knife to a mixer?!’  You yelled, not quite believing your eyes.  You could have been in a lot more trouble than you imagined.

‘That bitch is mine for the night and I’m not going to let a kid like you take her from me.’  He slashed out at nothing, almost a warning shot, Gavin backing you up a step to give you more distance.

‘See, that’s where we differ.’  Gavin replied.  ‘I don’t just want her for a night.’

‘Gavin, be careful.’  You warned him as he showed no signs of retreat.

‘I’ve got this.’  He assured you, keeping you one step behind him.

‘You’ve got nothing!’  The guy lunged forward the knife swinging through the rain, but his wrist was met by Gavin’s foot, the sound of the two meeting resonating loudly.  Whatever tough guy facade this guy had put on dissolved in an instant, the knife flying from his grip as he grasped his wrist, crying out loud like a wounded animal.

‘Okay, let’s get out of here.’

‘But what about him?’  You had been unable to take your eyes off the man until now, looking up at Gavin as he wrapped both arms around you.

‘I’ll get his details from Willow tomorrow.  He’s going to have to explain himself down at the station.’

‘But…’

‘No buts.’  Gavin interjected.  ‘I want you safe.’

You didn’t know how to argue with that and Gavin took your silence as permission, taking you both into the air on a wind that pushed the rain away from you.

🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍

Minutes later Gavin set you both down outside your apartment building, following you inside in silence to ensure you got in okay.  You put your key in the lock and opened the door before turning to Gavin.

‘You should come in a dry off a bit.’  And, without waiting for a reply, you went inside.  Kicking off your shoes you headed to the bathroom and grabbed two clean towels from the shelves, draping one over your own head before going back out to find Gavin standing just inside the closed door.  ‘Here.’  You passed him the towel and headed into your kitchen, planning on making yourself a coffee to help calm your nerves which were even now causing tremors to run through your body.

You were leaning heavily on the countertop waiting for the coffee to drip through when Gavin spoke from behind you.

‘Are you okay?’

You sighed long and loud before replying.  ‘I don’t even know.’

‘You’re not hurt though?’  He must have stepped closer.  His voice was still low but it was nearer now.

‘Not physically.’

‘I know being attacked can be traumatising, you don’t have to be hurt for it to affect you.’

‘You think this is about that dick with his overcompensatingly large knife?’  You looked over your shoulder at him.  ‘Do you want a coffee?’

‘If you don’t mind, but you seem kind of…on edge.  If you’d rather I go…’

‘And you know what else?’  You spun on him.  ‘Why would you let that woman finger fuck you with food?  I happen to know she’s known as the office bike!’

‘Office…bike?’  He looked thoroughly confused by your statement.

‘Yes, the office bike!  As in everyone has had a ride!’

‘A ride…oh.’  Gavin flushed pink all the way up to his ears.

‘If you hadn’t come after me chances were you were onto a good thing.’  You took two mugs out of the cabinet, fixing them automatically to how you both liked it.

‘I wouldn’t call that good.’  Gavin winced.  ‘And what about you?  Listening all doe eyed to a knife wielding maniac all night?’

‘Doe eyed?’  You glared at him.  ‘I was zoning out, he was so boring!’

‘Well, I was force fed so much food I almost gagged!  It’s not my idea of a good time!  I wanted to take you out to dinner tonight and ask you to be my girlfriend!’

‘Pass me the milk!’  You all but screamed it at him, not knowing how else to react to what he had just said other than to finish making the drinks.

‘Here!’  He slammed it down on the countertop beside the cups and for some reason that broke you.

You sputtered a laugh, bowing your head as you tried to keep it in, shoulders shaking with the effort.

‘Emci, I’m sorry.’  Gavin spoke rapidly.  ‘I didn’t mean to upset you, please don’t cry.’  His hand fell on your shoulder and you finally looked up at him, you face a barely kept grin.

‘We are such idiots, Gavin.  Stupid, stupid idiots.’  You shook your head.  ‘If I’d known you wanted to take me out I would never have agreed to stand in for Willow, and if I had known you were going to be there tonight I’d have paired off with you.’

‘Maybe then you could have hand fed me.’  He asked tentatively.

‘And I wouldn’t have an asshole draw a knife on me.’

‘But then he might have cornered some other girl.  At least this way he’s getting reported.’

‘That’s the bright side you’re getting out of this?’  You looked up at him in disbelief.  ‘I just told you I’d rather be with you, and you said you were going to ask me to be your girlfriend, and something about wanting me for more than just a night?’

Gavin flushed cutely as he rubbed the back of his neck nervously.  ‘I might have said something like that.’

‘Something like that or that exactly?’  You pushed.

‘That exactly.’  Gavin’s blush darkened a few shades.  ‘You aren’t making this easy, are you?’

‘And the whole asking me to be your girlfriend thing?’

‘After tonight I’m not as sure as I was that you’ll say yes.’

You stepped forward and brushed his wet bangs aside.  ‘Why don’t you try me?’

‘Now?’  His eyes went wide.

You shrugged.  ‘I’m all ears, if there’s something you want to ask.’

‘Right.’  He cleared his throat before taking both of your hands in his.  ‘I had this whole speech prepared for how to ask you but I have totally forgotten it, so, here goes: Emci, I’d really like it if you’d consider becoming my girlfriend.’

‘Huh.’  You nodded as he looked at you expectantly.  ‘To the point, sweet, very you.  Having considered it, as you suggest, I would have to say…’

‘Please, Emci, don’t leave me hanging.’  He begged.

‘Umm…yes!’

‘Yes?’  Gavin looked at you in disbelief, his face splitting into a grin when you nodded.  ‘That’s…amazing!  So great!  Can I…can I kiss you?’

You nodded happily and his hand came up to caress your cheek, thumb brushing over your cheekbone as his lips drew closer to yours.  Your heart raced, your pulse loud in your ear.  The butterflies in your stomach took flight as his lips…pressed softly to your cheek.

You looked up at him in surprise as he leant back again, his cheeks redder than you had ever seen them.

‘I don’t want to rush you.’  Was the noble sentiment that came out of his mouth, but that wasn’t what you wanted to hear.

‘Oh, Gavin.’  You sighed, before stepping into his personal space, wrapping your arms around his shoulders, and pulling him down for a long, slow kiss.  As you came away from one another you kept your eyes closed for a moment, savouring the tastes and sensations of Gavin’s lips, sighing contentedly as you opened them again.  ‘Totally worth almost getting stabbed for.’

‘Nothing is worth that, and I’m going to teach you some more self defence.  My girlfriend needs to be able to protect herself when I’m not around.’

‘Your girlfriend.’  You pondered it a moment.  ‘You know, I could definitely get used to that.’

Gavin pulled you closer once more, ducking his head for another kiss.  ‘Me too.’

🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍🏍

You were woken early the next morning by the text tone on your phone.  Reaching out you grabbed it and dragged it into the blankets with you, squinting at the bright screen.

Willow:  Well, you were right!  You didn’t leave with anyONE from last night, you left with two!

You still felt warm and fuzzy from Gavin’s goodnight kiss on your balcony and you couldn’t muster the anger you held last night.

MC:  Yeah, and one of those two ended up in jail.

Willow:  Wait, jail?  What happened?!

MC:  We’ll talk at work on Monday.

Willow: 😬

Checking the time, you nuzzled back into your pillow.  Gavin was meeting you for lunch, but until then, you could stay contentedly snug and relive the best parts of last night.