#i had A Scene™️ in my head and i just had to get it out
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Indianapolis Bones and the Very Annoyed God of Mischief
In this post I proposed the idea of a President Loki + Mobius variant based on Owen's Dr. Indianapolis Bones SNL skit, and then I couldn't stop thinking about it so here's a bit of flash fiction based on that. Enjoy!
ETA: There's now a 4+1 expanded version of this on AO3!
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“It’s such an honor to have you here, sir.”
Since Loki had walked in, the restaurant's manager had been practically falling over himself with praise. He'd nearly wept when Loki handed out "Vote Loki" pins for the staff to wear. The Midgardians were finally treating him as he deserved, even if he wasn't their king...yet.
A woman ran up to whisper something in the manager's ear and he brightened.
“Your table is ready, sir. Right this way.”
Loki followed the man deeper into the restaurant, smirking as every head in the place turned to watch him and his collection of black-suited bodyguards. He didn’t need their protection but it amused him to think of humans throwing themselves at other humans at his behest.
Loki caught the eye of one elegantly dressed woman and winked, causing her to flush prettily. Her date seemed entirely unamused at the “come hither” look she was sending Loki’s way. The only people who didn’t turn to watch Loki’s entrance were a group seated at a long table at the center of the room. They appeared to be in a heated discussion.
The manager paused by a small table next a window with what looked like a decent view of the river, even if Loki found Midgard’s scenery somewhat lacking compared to Asgard. Before Loki could sit, there was a clatter of dishware and both he and the restaurant's manager turned to see the source.
An extremely nervous-looking waiter had dropped the stack of dishes they were collecting onto a nearby table. Their attention was focused on a different waiter, or at least someone dressed as such, who stood at the far end of the long table, holding a gun. Loki raised an eyebrow. This was an interesting development.
The waiter with the gun was pointing it at an unassuming man seated at the end of the table. The man’s blonde hair was on the long side and, paired with his beard, gave him an unkempt look in Loki’s opinion. The horrible beige plaid blazer he wore wasn’t helping.
Loki blinked and suddenly everyone else at the table had a gun out, all pointed at the man, who only smiled in response. Everyone in the dining room seemed to be holding their breath as the man took a brown fedora out from under the table and settled it on his head.
"Now, now, let's not be too hasty." His voice had a pleasant drawl to it. He held his hands up as he stood slowly.
“Just give us the map!” snapped one of the women at the table.
“Sorry, can't do that,” the man replied and winked. He was either incredibly brave or very stupid given the circumstances.
When the man slowly lowered his hand to his hip, Loki felt a brief spike of excitement. Was he about to witness a bloodbath? Unexpectedly, the man freed a long whip. With two quick cracks, he took out the light on the table and the chandelier overhead, bringing it crashing down and plunging the room into darkness.
At least two of the guns went off after that, which made Loki roll his eyes. For how frail they were, Midgardians were always so reckless with their weapons.
“Sir! Get down!” That was one of his men. They knew better than to grab him and simply lunged past, likely intending to tackle and disarm the gun wielders. Loki heard the sound of scuffling and was about to fling up a light—waiting in the dark was tedious—when someone did bump into him.
“You look important and I'd hate for you to get hurt, so probably best to come along with me.” The easy drawl was recognizable, though the man with the whip sounded slightly winded now. Then he wrapped an arm around Loki's waist and hurried them both away from the sounds of fighting.
Loki was so stunned at the audacity of being manhandled, he was outside before he fully registered what had happened. He tried to shove the man off but he’d already stepped away. Inexplicably, the man now wore a leather jacket instead of the plaid blazer. Now able to get a better look at the man, Loki was dismayed to find the bright blue eyes and lopsided smile were annoyingly attractive.
“Hey, are those a family heirloom?” the man asked, gesturing to Loki’s golden horns. “They look pretty good for an antique.”
“I beg your pardon?” Loki snapped. “Do you have any idea who I am?!”
“Of course! How could I forget with the horns and all.” The man waved again and a long silence followed his words. Then a huge grin split his face. “Actually, I don't, but hopefully you won’t hold it against me. I’m Indy by the way, short for Indianapolis. My parents were kind of kooky.”
Before Loki had a chance to inform this ridiculous Midgardian that he didn't care what his name was, or what his parents were like, the back door of the restaurant slammed open.
“There he is!”
It was the diners who’d pulled guns in the restaurant.
“Oops, gotta go. See you around, friend!” The man—Indy, apparently—clapped a hand to his hat to keep it from flying off and ran into the night. Gunshots rang out in response and the bullets whizzed by Loki, close enough to further annoy him. He gestured at the gaggle of people spilling out of the restaurant and, with a flash of green light, they vanished. Seconds later, Loki's bodyguards came rushing out.
Loki wasn't impressed by their delay in finding him, but he had something more important to address.
He pointed at the fleeing man in the fedora. “Find that man—Indianapolis…something—and bring him to me.”
The people who’d been chasing Indy might have been able to answer his questions, but Loki had sent them elsewhere without giving much thought as to where. As half of the bodyguards took off in pursuit, Loki stalked back inside, followed by the rest. He would get his answers one way or another.
#president loki#mobius m mobius#lokius#lokius au#dr indianapolis bones#don't think too hard about this it was only meant to be fun#i had A Scene™️ in my head and i just had to get it out#maaaaybe i could expand on this someday?#but for now back to the OTHER president loki fic I was writing (lol)#i'd love to see anyone else's ideas for this au!#mobius#wanderingflame fic
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thinking about the possibility of eddie’s sexuality crisis coming after buddie canon like…
he and buck start dating and in eddie’s mind he’s justifying it like “i’m not really into men im just into buck” and buck is the supportive boyfriend bc obviously eddie’s the only one who knows himself, and eddie labeling himself doesn’t matter to buck bc all that matters is that they’re the happiest they’ve ever been together
but then they have sex for the first time (obviously we don’t see anything bc this is abc not hbo) but while buck is in this perfectly blissed out state, eddie is panicking bc holy shit… is that what sex is supposed to feel like? like i thought i enjoyed sex before because i got off and that was that but this was…. what the fuck?????
and we get this sort if spiral moment where eddie wonders if he’s been gay this whole time and has just been lying to himself and is wondering what that means for him and shannon? like yeah he moved on from her but… looking back did he ever really need to? were the feelings for his girlfriends just misplaced feelings for buck this whole time? has he always felt this way?
and it gets to a point where buck thinks eddie is pulling away from him, and he gets really in his head about it remembering when eddie said that sex just complicates things, and how eddie had that whole crisis over marisol, and then buck had broken up with temu and chris was in texas so both of them were in weird places mentally and oh my god did i force myself on him? is he miserable bc he realized im not actually what he wants? is he going to leave me like everyone else does?
and meanwhile eddie is in therapy telling frank that he’s never felt this way about anyone before and that he thought he was enjoying sex before but it had never been anything like what it was with buck- that before it had been a means to an end but with buck it just felt right… and then frank has a really deep conversation about sexuality and eddie’s catholic guilt and explains that only eddie can decide if labeling himself is important or not
then we get eddie making a choice to either label himself or to not label himself (bc all that matters is that bucn is who he wants to be with; im not picky bc i have always been a gay/demi eddie truther, but unlabeled eddie has so much playing room and they could explore so much with that but i also know that realistically they probably wouldn’t put that much thought into the actual label but i digress)
and then we get a Kitchen Scene™️ where they are both super quiet and eddie tells buck they need to talk; buck automatically assumes eddie’s breaking up with him and starts apologizing to eddie and telling him he will give eddie some time and space, telling eddie that he will move on eventually like he has from everyone else. eddie is like “what?” and buck is like “aren’t you breaking up with me?” and eddue is horrified bc oh my god have i really been that distant? has my crisis really pushed me away that much that i made him think i wouldn’t tilt the earth on its axis for him if he asked??? and eddie explains his side of things, ending his little speech by saying “i love you” for the first time, and buck gets teary eyed and says it back and they share a soft kiss and eddie is like “it’s never felt like that before” and buck admits “it’s never felt like that for me either… but i think that’s what being in love does” and the episode ends with a fade to black of eddie leading buck out of the kitchen and down the hallway
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Topic: Genshin impact.
au: Sagau.
idea: So what if you had the powers of every character you played as in every game you played and then get isekaid into genshin impact with imposter au. I imagine it goes smth like
Zhongli: “I will have order!”
reader, Who played Roblox as someone who lagged the game (explanation: I’m pretty sure ping is also how time works in games. If you can control the flow of ping you can control the flow of time in games.): “ZA WARUDO!”
Heyyy!! Thanks for waiting for the reply/response from my slow ass :0
So they did clarify what they meant/expand so imma just copy paste that here!
“k now I remember. So basically imma write it here since it’s easier: Basically you don’t have to (but you can) transform into the character that has those set of powers but if you do those powers are enhanced.”
Sun: Reader (”you”/they/them)
Orbit: Headcanons-ish, Light Imposter AU (as in, NOT Yandere/Dark), mild crossover elements bc Shapeshifter Shenanigans™️
Stars: bro idek
Comets & Meteors: Content Warnings: mild cussing, genshin typical mild violence, & Trigger Warnings: none known.
Please comment if I missed any. /gen
☆
so fair warning,, ive never seen jojo bizarre, but i appreciate i come off well-read/watched? LMAO
so im just gonna kinda,, guess? like just cycle thru diff. random media, and im hoping both me and you reading this will have a fun time (as this is a little challenge, but i like it so ill give it a shot, dont kno if its a good one but- 😅)
so to set the scene, of how u got to this point, ykno of running like ur life (maybe?) depends on u running around different teyvat countries,
u thought it was weird everyone knew a little too much about you?? (ofc theyve heard u during gaming, they know u the same way we all know Markiplier, get it?)
then a bunch of NPCs/Vision users/Archons?? were REALLY invested in talking to you, which freaked u out even more
and by the time you saw Zhongli, yknow, just the oldest god in game, making a fast-walk towards you, ykno the retired god who didnt move an inch when an old water god attacked Liyue for a test, is now hurrying to you???
ur logically get so fucking scared sm shits abt to go down, u just start running
it isnt until ur reaching for a ledge and some webbing shoots out of ur arm (from a glitchy little spot on ur arm, where it could be coming out of ur skin, but sometimes its a blue and red bracelet)
it latched onto the nearest building, and thats how u find out u can grapple ur way, literally Spiderman style, out of the harbor
and bro, idk if it would be fun, or confusing and stressful, or maybe both?? to just find out u can use any video game power from any game youve played before as you go running from countries bc for some freaky reason they know too much abt you/are pursuing you-
dUDE- they had small statues of you in like every little section of their cities
u head to Mondstadt and as Venti comes screaming and flying at you (in excitement, but ur freaked), u go to hold a hand up and suddenly ur holding a heavy stone tablet that unleashes some holographic yellow chains that freeze him in place-?? why is this familiar-
oh my god u have the sheikah slate from Breath of the Wild,
and as ur booking it out of there, u manage to get ahold of a sword, and u know exactly how to use it to knock back favonius knights trying to stop you (they are concerned for their god who is just unleashing random powers on ppl, pls let Grandmaster Jean just talk to you Your Majesty-!!)
by the time you teleport ur way to Inazuma, (bc u still have this worlds access to ur player/traveler’s powers), ur trying to find a nice place to stay for a little bit
at least in that sweet spot of the Raiden not noticing/finding you, while things cool down on the main continent, before moving on,
and u get some tools to help fashion just a little shelter, bc u dont have any money/mora rn, and ur able to literally build a house???
a mailbox pops up and thanks you for renting with Tom Nook???? As in Animal Crossing-
and rlly if the BOTW/slate thing didnt clue u into video game powers, then this definitely would tbh lmao
right as u see Yae Miko circling ur house, with an armful of books? ..is she planning to thru them at you??, u get the hell out of dodge before her favorite god can follow along
(she knows ur prefrences in books and got authors/trends to start so youd have plenty to read, and she was making sure it was ur house before politely dropping them off! how was she to know thatd spook their favorite God, Ei?!)
u get to Sumeru and think ur safe, hiding in an abandoned forest watcher outpost (1 person treehouse rlly) when Nahida shows up in ur dreams,
and u just,
walk out of the dream, into reality, and possess a nearby ruin guard so u can sleep in peace, bc she cant access a robot,
that one baffled u as you re-possessed ur own body before realizing-
Five Nights at Freddy’s. 💀
U cant do that forever, so u try Fontaine, hoping Neuvillette/Furina wont rlly give af abt you, plus theyre the latest region, so maybe they have the least exposure to whatever the other archons didnt like abt you??
u get there and are immediately summoned to court, and right as the mekas show up to escort you, jfc they have a mecha army
(meanwhile, theyre thinking, yknow. high profile guest/our god of gods. ofc we need state of the art mekas to escort them, its only polite-)
meanwhile ur cape has now become wings, and a mask covers ur face as you glide and fly ur way over the city in an attempt to get to where u assume Snezhnaya is
it doesnt occur to you the game until ur running out of stamnia and catch ur reflection in the waters of fontaine, Sky: Children of the Light
u hope the Tsaritsa’s dislike for other gods/Celestia doesnt extend to ur otherworldly presence so ur just hoping for the best atp tbh
tbh youd forget what all powers you have, and the absolute chaos ur causing urself as u try to desperately rememeber what games youve played thru ur entire life is NOT helping to reduce confusion when u randomly wake up with elf ears (legend of zelda/botw) or get dragged into another ruin machine when u fall asleep/faint/do smth u guess mimics death lmao- (fnaf) 💀
…
(meanwhile the Tsaritsa does get wind ur coming this way, and just, makes the people have a parade/festival to celebrate you coming,
she did also have to get Pierro/Captaino to physically restrain some of them from going ahead to meet/escort you to the palace, she’d heard how the others scared u off, and was, ironically, hoping the warm welcome would clear things up)
☆
well that was, something. 😃🫠
sorry lil car, that was such a fun idea idk if i did it justice!! i thought itd be too op to include every media youve consumed ever, so i kept it to video games, (which, could u cheat the system if youve played smash bros??)
i hope it was at least a decent read, and sorry im half asleep so i was not v funny this time around, but, again, hope u got smth out of it 😭
</3
on another note, im having my wisdom teeth surgery this friday, send whatever u got my way, prayers, blessings, good vibes, ill take anything im nervous 🙃
have a good week guys!
Safe Travels Lil Car,
💀♒
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♡the beloveds♡
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#genshin isekai#sagau#genshin sagau#genshin imagines#genshin impact#my asks#genshin impact sagau#genshin x reader#aqua asks#aqua chats#10/10 rlly fun idea#this was fun to juggle and even tho i feel like i kinda flopped it#it was still a fun idea for future sagau endeavors tbh#:) <3#no but srsly im getting wisdom teeth surgery pls send everything good u got my way im nervous#its just intimidating to be knocked out and drugged up what can i say#might even write some sagau angst abt it when im languishing my fate in bed afterwards
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—taken • Iguro. O
pairing; barista!Iguro x mean!gf!reader | modern au summary; people can be so blinded by love. so much so that they had paid not attention to the fact that the girl beside them was his darling girlfriend. warning; mean!reader, badly written.
“Look, he’s even more cute today,” the small group of girls sitting beside Y/n giggled. “Oh no! I think we just made eye-contact; I’m going to pass out!”
A mischievous smile adorned Y/n’s lip. She walked across the counter, taking the free tool beside them. “Hey~” she greeted with a cheery smile. “What are we planning? I’m a regular here, so maybe I can help,” she winked, instantly winning over the group.
The group squealed in joy. Making Y/n sit in the middle, they started. “The barista over there,” one of them pointed at Iguro Obanai. “We want to ask for his number.”
Y/n nodded in acknowledgment. She held her chin as if thinking hard for a way out. “We have frequented here everyday with that motive. However,” the girl trailed off. “He’s unapproachable?” Y/n finished for her. The girls shook their heads, looking at Y/n as if she was their saviour.
When Iguro came at last to deliver the group’s coffee, Y/n sat more poised, her back straight. “Um, excuse me?” She called out.
“Hmm?” The man replied. A grin crept onto her lips unable to hold it in. But she tried; she gave him the most normal face she could make at the moment and said, “You’re so cute. Can she get your number?” She pointed at one of the girls. The girl’s face was entirely red. Y/n almost felt bad for doing this.
Iguro gave Y/n a tired look. “I’m sorry. I’m taken.”
The girl wished she could just run and hide. Her friends consoled her saying something along the lines of “Don’t worry. You deserve better,” and “He’s not that pretty, too.”
Oh, but Iguro is very pretty. Y/n thought.
She turned to the group, a defeated look on her face. “I’m so sorry, guys. I thought I could help.” They just nodded, happy that Y/n took the initiative for them.
“Y/n your drink.”
Iguro called. As she was about to take the drink from his hand, Iguro snaked his arm around her waist and pulled her close, kissing the girl breathless. “Stop joking around,” the man said as he booped his girlfriend’s nose.
The group almost made a racket at the scene. “What? You’re his girlfriend? You took him?”
Y/n could only nod, sighing. “Then why did you do that?”
“Apparently, you guys did not witness me kissing him every day even though you came here everyday?,” she mocked, irritated. “Thought I’d teach you a lesson.”
“He’s mine.”
do not steal, copy or translate my work on any other site. all belong to yup-thats-me™️ on tumblr
pic's from pinterest, header by me!
#iguro obanai#demon slayer#iguro obanai x reader#iguro obanai x you#iguro obanai x y/n#iguro obanai x mean!gf!reader#iguro obanai imagine#demon slayer x reader#demon slayer x you#demon slayer x y/n#demon slayer imagine#kimetsu no yaiba#kimetsu no yaiba x reader#kimetsu no yaiba x you#kimetsu no yaiba x y/n#kimetsu no yaiba imagine#obanai x reader#obanai x you#obanai x y/n#obanai x mean!gf!reader#obanai imagine#🍒works#🍓masterlist
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Tim going absolutely feral in his attempts to get Mockingjay away from Hood.
Sure, all of the Bats want to rescue the kid, but they don't really get the danger the kid is in, they are still under the impression Hood cares about keeping the kid safe.
But Tim SAW what Hood is like at the Titans Tower, okay? Hood is freaking insane. Doesn't matter if he cares about the kid or not, he's going to end up hurting, maybe killing, the boy in one of his 'episodes'.
And Tim will do anything to get the kid to come away, to understand what Hood is doing.
He's not going to bother with kid gloves. He's fully willing to scar the kid for life if it means the kid will at least get to live, which he's convinced won't happen if he's left at Hood's mercy.
Tim to Mockingjay on a rooftop: Hi! How's the gang war your boss started coming along? Last one was so exciting. I watched my friend - not a vigilante friend, mind you, just this civilian kid - bleed out when one of the gangs decided to shoot up my school. About two dozen civilians died in the first couple of days. Wanna bet how many you and Hood will bag this time? Have fun!
Tim, tossing Mockingjay crime scene photos of a gang shooting, showing a headshot corpse : Hi! Thought you might like a keepsake! This is Danny, he was eighteen. Dad died, three kids at home, couldn't get any job that paid enough except with these guys. I hear his sister signed up with Penguin's pimps after she got the news. Someone's still gotta feed the kids, right? Have a good lunch!
Tim, waving to Mockingjay: Hi! Sorry I'm late! Had to stay with a kid who found his mom OD'd. You should really ask your boss to show you what an OD death looks like - you'll probably find it pretty cool, all a nice blue shade, with this bloody foam spilling from the mouth, maybe twisted up a bit if they had convulsions first. The kid was crying about how he's gonna get the bastards who sold the stuff, but of course, you and Hood have pretty nice security, right?
Tim waging absolutely ruthless psychological warfare.
Ooo yes Tim would definitely try to pull something like that. What he wouldn’t expect is Mockingjay to give as good as he gets.
After the first few times you can bet Bruce is Fed Up™️ and devises his own little counter attack.
The next time he greets Robin with a merry little “Hey Rob, guess what? Frank just got out of jail again! You know, the guy you locked up in Black Gate for killing his girlfriend? Guess what! He went back to murder her sister, too! Had her spread out all over the apartment with a kitchen knife. Have a nice patrol <3”
Mockingjay, crashing a bust: “Sorry we’re late to the party! Had to take out a pedophile you guys locked up last month but was set free on parole. Guess what? He had two new victims locked up in his basement!”
Mockingjay, cupping his ear: “Sorry, what was that? I can’t hear you over the sound of a two year old screaming because he just saw his dad get murdered in front of him. Because you guys ���Didn’t have enough evidence’ to get the guy who threatened him convicted. Should we tell Social Services to bill you the lifelong therapy bill or…?”
Mockingjay, throwing a file at Robin’s head: “Hey, Dickhead, remember Tiff? The street kid? Thanks to you sticking her in a “safe foster home” she was forced to go work street corners. Maybe you should tell your boss to do better research.”
Mockingjay is a menace, and if Tim thinks he can guilt trip/horrify the kid into condemning Jason’s work than he’s going to have a rude awakening hehe
#mockingjay is stubborn like all Bruce Waynes are#he’s not going to let ROBIN of all people pit him against Jason no way#jason todd#bruce wayne#tim drake#antithesis of magic
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Dont talk to me I'm trying to process the latest chapter it was a lot😭😭 everyone made me wanna cry. Jon so fiercely trying to protect his father (and brother), jon confronting the king, the rhea feels!! Him wanting to hate her but feeling guilty a part of him loves her and that redfort jon relished in her love bc he was so deprived of affection!! 😭😭😭 the cat and Robb parallels! Ghost feels!! The baelon and aemon shadow/ghosts were SO present this chapter. How jon is soooo much like daemon even in his internal thoughts 😭😭😭 jon noticing the similarities between viserys and daemon and how viserys probably took care of daemon when they were younger and they probably got it from THEIR dad! Uwah gonna cry. And then you've got daemon seeing rhaegar die in aemon's place and that mixing in with his canon death broooooo that's a lot. Daemon scaring and hurting rhaegar 😭😭😭😭 dude ik he's thinking about aerys rn😭😭😭😭😭 and poor caraxes something is messing with their rider and interfering with their bond but he cannot do anything about ittttt😭😭😭
There was so much cute moments at the start of the chap with jon and rhaegar playing detectives and debriefing and then rhaegar excitedly sharing his dragon discoveries with their dad and their dad reading to them in HV (and then translating after for jon cute) ik he was relishing being able to have a story time with his kids🥺🥺🥺
Anyways this chapter made me feel a lot. This is all so very convoluted I hope it makes sense rnwjsjw I just love it sm
This chapter sure was A Lot™️, wasn't it? I made sure to throw in the sweet moments at the start to offset (enhance?) some of those punches later.
The Rhea feels honestly caught me by surprise when I was writing the Jon+Viserys scene. They sort of just--bubbled up to the surface. Jon's been trying to suppress Jon Redfort's emotions/memories for a while now, and it's hard when so many frightening/painful/awful things have happened to both of them. And Jon is particularly attuned to a child being treated differently/poorly by a mother figure, except he's on the other end of it this time, so there's that added complexity of seeing himself in Raymar, both the loved and the unloved, that he has to deal with.
(Also my heart was breaking in two for little Raymar, who wanted so desperately to love and be loved by Rhea in return. It's not that she didn't, it's that it was much more difficult for her, and when you're a twin, that inequality is so incredibly obvious. It hurts and they had no Ned to give them at least one source of parental affection.)
And then the rest of the breakfast scene...I think Viserys kept going back and forth between seeing Baelon and Daemon in Jon, though more of Baelon in the end, with Jon laying it out so adamantly what his duty as a brother was. And of course we got the inevitable Viserys-Daemon friction in those moments when Jon most reminded him of Daemon. It's a shame that Jon's tough love isn't really what Viserys needs to mend things with Daemon, because the problem isn't that Viserys doesn't love Daemon (though him not protecting his own brother, especially where Otto's insinuations are concerned, is certainly a flaw), it's that he's shit at expressing it and reluctant to trust Daemon enough to explain things.
(It's hard to explain in narrative format where Jon was sitting/where Daemon always sits, but it's basically at the end/"head" of the table, while Viserys usually sits at the end of the side facing the window. And that detail killed me a little when I realized it, because that's where I've always written Daemon sitting in his scenes there with Viserys, and it's so obvious why. Viserys seats him in an inverted version of that during their supper the first night in King's Landing, with Viserys at the head and Daemon to his side. It's the closest Daemon can get to being his brother's Hand.)
...I'm realizing as I'm writing this that I should probably be throwing this in the DVD commentary, but oh well, I can copy-pasta it there later.
I've been calling the Daemon-trance scene a low-grade horror scene for Rhaegar, because imagine that from his POV, especially given his history with Aerys. He's operating at maximum Aerys-mode for a while, reading Daemon at speeds enviable by modern CPUs so that he can figure out how to defuse the situation / "fix" him before any (unintentional) harm is done. And the parallels with Aerys's paranoia is incredibly uncomfortable, even if he understands that Daemon is suffering under an outside influence.
Meanwhile, Caraxes is all: GET YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF HIM, wishing he could pick Daemon up and cuddle him until the sorcerer scent is completely gone. (He's had to deal with his own version of that before, of having his bond with Daemon tampered with, and it's even more upsetting from the other side!)
And you made perfect sense! There was just so much to process.
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How to remake Harry Potter:
(A step by step guide)
We’ve already had one god-awful adaptation that way too many people think is good. This is our one chance to have the book characters represented correctly, along with the plot they support.
I’ve put YEARS of thought into this. I’ve written scripts for episodes of a hypothetical tv show. I’ve drawn concept art. I’ve done shit. So I figured I’d share my thoughts.
1. Stick to the books*.
Stick to the books has a massive asterisk next to it because I mean the plot and characters. Some stuff (as you’ll see later) should be changed.
Nothing in this show should feel out of character. Harry should be closer with Ron than he is to Hermione. Snape should be a real d*ckhead. Hermione should be judgmental of those who don’t think like her, etc etc. The way these characters navigate their relationships is why the fandom is still relevant. It’s why canon-compliant fic is popular in the first place. We like their dynamics. SHOW THEM APPROPRIATELY.
Plot is a sticky thing because I’d say there’s wiggle room, but not too much. Certain characters have to die. Certain events must happen. You cant change that stuff.
2. Use the Medium.
You’re using film as a format to tell your story. Ideally you’d us animation, but I know Warner Bros has less creativity than Disney’s remake department, so I won’t even try and pitch that.
Use colour and saturation. It can help contextualize emotion. It can make us subconsciously recognize things. For instance, the scene growing more saturated when Ron walks into the room when Hermione is wearing the horcrux, or any multitude of other uses this could bring.
Bring in costume design that (actually fits the world) but also helps show how that character is feeling. What they’re thinking, their personality, their future, etc.
Make magic fun™️. The books sort of sidelined magic in 5-7. Don’t do that. Divert from the books. Magic should feel alive. Colour-code them so we as an audience can recognize spells and what they might do before we see it. Implement sound design to make each spell unique and vibrant. Make this world subtly bursting with magic like it was in the first few books. Have it weave around characters, wrap them up. Be creative with action scenes. Force transfiguration into battle scenes. Choreograph your duels. Show don’t tell us that a wizard/witch is powerful. Turn people into portraits. Lock them up as mice. USE MAGIC.
Your set design should reflect this. Everything should be bursting with personality. Don’t just use the shitty movie sets. Inject some colour, have the surroundings aid you in telling the story. Get weird with the camera. Use these tools to their fullest potential.
Actually fucking try.
3. Utilize Music.
Music is just… such a massive part of film. It’s frustrating how often even the best filmmakers overlook its use. Characters should have themes that mature and develop as the series goes on. Have action arrangements of the themes to play with heroic moments. As the series progresses, we grow attached to these themes. When they appear, the audience FEELS something. Don’t reuse great pieces to force emotion. (Dumbledore’s Farewell in The Prince’s Tale. Are you fucking kidding me?)
For example: Have a theme for Neville that starts out timid and uses very shy instrumentals, but we first hear a change when he stands up to the trio at the end of PS. Then it gains more instruments until OotP, when it grows again. Once we get to DH, it can be used in this heroic swell as he chops the head off the snake in front of Voldemort and everyone watching. The audience, consciously or not, will feel that moment even more.
Have a theme for Ron and Hermione that might not even be romantic until HBP when it gains that element. PLAY WITH MUSIC.
Themes for mystery, adventure, loss, love, friendship, LOCATION. Let them come back throughout the series to highlight various moments. See Lord of the Rings and The Hunger Games, as well as (surprisingly) the Fantastic Beasts films.
Let music affect the visuals. Magic can bend and swivel with the music. Use it to tell the story. Use it to show emotion. Use it to progress a character’s arc. USE CONSISTENT MUSIC.
4 . Be Bold.
This is the big one and it may seem like I’m contradicting myself but I’m not. Rowling’s work hasn’t aged crazily well to modern fiction standards. This is your chance to rectify that. Fill plot holes, actually think through the politics. Introduce world-building elements that enhance the story/characters. (The house system, and how Slytherin fits in. The logic behind avada kedavra???) Get creative with solutions. Contradict the original work when it comes to description of location. If it doesn’t work for the film format, don’t force it to work here.
Spend more time with characters we know are relevant, but maybe not to the plot. These are your Ginny Weasleys, your Seamus and Deans, Nevilles, etc. Really fill them in. Give them more scenes. Ginny has two phenomenal arcs that play completely off-screen, explore them. Show us her friendship with Hermione. Show us her insecurities and her faults. Give us more of her and Harry’s friendship. We know they get married, so maybe fix the whole “Rowling wrote the epilogue first, but didn’t realize she was waiting too long to introduce these characters until HBP”.
Add scenes. Add jokes. Add smiles and covert looks. You have more time, which means you have a chance to focus on friendships, and romance, and world building.
Tell multiple storylines. Give Remus and Tonks a cool spy/thriller subplot interjected with the main story in OotP. Show us more of Fleur staying in England. Give us more of Harry and Sirius bonding. All of this stuff can fit loosely into canon, and be welcome creative additions.
BE BOLD.
And finally,
5. This is your chance to not only retell the story, but to do it better.
RECOGNIZE THIS. Take advantage of this opportunity and enhance canon, don’t fight it.
Don’t add Hermione and Harry dancing because *YOU* don’t like where the romantic pairings went. Don’t add Draco sympathy because you want him to have a redemption arc. Don’t dumb Ron down because you don’t like the fact that he’s just like the teenage boys you dated in High School, and he was a bit immature.
Make changes, be bold, use music, stick to the books*, use the medium, but take this as the opportunity that it is to enhance what came before.
Thank you.
#harry potter#harry potter remake#j.k. rowling#ginny weasley#ron weasley#hermione granger#draco malfoy#neville longbottom#albus dumbledore#hire me#remus lupin#Sirius black#remadora#romione#hinny#marauders
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nice 'tea' meet you!
synopsis: had a teadious day? how 'bout a cup of tea to unwind? (submission for @i23kazu's café week event, prompt: accidentally taking each other's drinks!)
genre: crack(fluff)
characters: cyno x gn! reader
warnings: puns. punspunspunspuns– , reader has a bad day at the start, reader is unamused™️, reader referred to in 2nd person, i'm going by my personal headcanon that when cyno meets someone he likes he just says pun after pun
a/n: shadowban will not stop me from posting. likes, reblogs & comments highly appreciated!!
©2023 ryuryuryuyurboat. do not repost, translate, plagiarise, or modify in any way, shape or form.
masterlist
rainy afternoons, coupled with soured sentiments from earlier in the day, meant sitting down in a lonely little corner of a cosy little café with a warm little cup of hot tea.
“a hot hojicha for [name]!” the barista calls.
still wallowing in self-pity, you don’t register the barista calling out “hot medium roast for cyno!” as you drag your feet to the counter to claim your drink.
you shuffle back to your seat, fighting back the tears threatening to fall from your eyes as you sabotage yourself with the harsh reminder that your drink was the only one, in a world with a population of 8 billion people, that could bring you comfort in whatever this mess of a reality was.
“excuse me, is this seat taken?” you give a tiny shake of your head, still looking down at your drink. the stranger moves to sit opposite you as you bring the cup to your lips in the hopes of drowning out your sorrows–
“BLEURGH!” almost spitting out the mouthful you drank, you stare, appalled, at the brown liquid innocently swirling in the cup.
“quite the brew-tal reali-tea check you got, it seems.” the stranger raises an eyebrow, “your first coffee?”
“what? no, no, i–” you realise, then, that the colour of your tea seemed a little different. not the reddish-brown you were used to, but a darker, more chocolatey shade. looking at the other cup on your table, ah, you think, i took the wrong cup. and then: oh. i took the wrong cup. 2 seconds pass. OH MY GOODNESS I TOOK THE WRONG CUP–
“i’m sorry! i’m so sorry! i’ll get you a new one, i’m so so sorry–”
“hey, hey, don’t worry ‘bout it, it’s alright,” he reassures, reddish-orange eyes meeting yours, “kettle down before you make a scene.”
“did you… did you just pun?” you demand, incredulous.
he finally snickers. “what, were the jokes not your cup of tea? i thought they were qualitea.”
“i–”
the rain seems to have lightened.
“nice tea meet you, fair stranger. i’m cyno. i hope we get oolong.”
“...bye.”
taglist: @yinyinggie @lynyluvr @kazemiya (send ask to be added to taglist!)
if you liked this, do consider dropping me a follow for more :>
#astronetwrk#・ nouveau livre ˎˊ˗#cafe week; an i23kazu event#genshin impact x reader#genshin x reader#cyno x reader#genshin fluff#cyno#cyno fluff#cyno crack#genshin crack#༄the vessel’s voyages#scrolls of yore✒️ᝰ
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i've been doing my xfiles rewatch, but i've also been watching twin peaks for the first time with my partner (v weird that i haven't seen it before bc it's very much My Type of show, but w/e), and silence of the lambs was already my favorite movie. so since my personal aesthetic is apparently very specifically honed in on creepy and weird early 90s entertainment centered around fbi agents, here's a collection of random crossover thoughts i've had while watching these things, in no particular order:
-twin peaks, xfiles, silence of the lambs, except all the characters are shifted one plot to the left, so you have mulder and scully trying to figure out the death of laura palmer, clarice assigned to the xfiles division, and dale cooper having to make a rapport with dr. hannibal lecter
-separate thought: if mulder and scully met dale cooper, mulder would be absolutely delighted, and scully would want to put his head on a slab. this would just make mulder more delighted
cooper would be very pleasant to them both, but would find mulder's lack of self-care unsettling. mulder would be trying to talk about the case when cooper would interrupt him to tell him to try the mulberry pie and take a moment to savor it
he would also be able to follow scully's reasonings and would know all the references to scientific studies she makes, and would be like, "very clever! you're very intelligent!" not in a facetious way, he'd mean it genuinely, but then he'd still insist that his dream will lead them to the killer and she'd want to rip her hair out
-cooper to m&s, apropos of nothing: so how long have the two of you been in love?
-scully would not enjoy twin peaks. too rustic, too weird, too many affairs to keep track of
-mulder would love it for all the reasons she hates it
-if clarice and scully met they would get to know each other carnally, obviously. msr can still exist, but mulder has to be ok with being cuckolded by special agent clarice starling
he can watch sometimes, if wants ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
-agent crawford would have one (1) conversation with mulder and would immediately write him off as insane and never talk to him again
-crawford and scully would get along fine
-clarice and cooper would be buds, bc even tho cooper is fucking weird, he would be very enthusiastic about how clever she is, and would talk her up constantly, and clarice would appreciate the validation and kindness (besides, she's pseudo friends with hannibal lecter, cooper's idiosyncrasies are nothing in comparison)
-hannibal lecter wouldn't be able to manipulate mulder, but he wouldn't be that impressed by him either. it would be a mutual disdain. they could potentially have a hannibal/will graham-esque relationship but eh
-as badly as a "quid pro quo" scene between scully and hannibal would slap, i can't imagine scully giving hannibal anything to work with. she wouldn't stick around to play games; she doesn't have time for it and would never be able to regard him as anything besides a monster
mulder would agree to take on the puzzles, and hannibal might give them to him, but he'd taunt him and send him on wild goose chases more than he does with clarice, bc mulder doesn't have anything he particularly wants, but he is vaguely curious to see if he can figure it out. (mulder WOULD figure it out, but only with the addition of scully's analysis and theories, not hannibal's direction alone)
-hannibal would not talk to cooper lol. cooper would figure out who buffalo bill is anyway, tho
-nobody at the fbi in the xfiles universe would know how to handle dale cooper. skinner especially would be very -squints- about it, bc he'd get results, but would just be so fucking Weird™️ about it, but in such a different way than mulder is weird
-the lone gunmen would be very sweet and protective over clarice. they would be very confused and vaguely unsettled by cooper
-clarice would be skinner's dream agent bc she would listen to him and value his input and rarely punch him in the face or hold him at gunpoint
-while i can picture clarice getting the hang of the xfiles, i have trouble picturing her in twin peaks (tho, do note that i haven't seen all of it so mb that would change)
-this isn't a headcanon so much as a v obvious observation, but they are all so fucking hot, what the fuck??
-final thought: dale cooper, clarice starling, dana scully, and fox mulder = dream blunt rotation
anyway those are some of the things i think about in my spare time
the end
#i am p gay so i obviously want clarice and scully carnally#but i've never been physically attracted to mulder#like ik he's attractive but just not my type#the weird thing tho?#i want dale cooper more than any of them#why???#he's not remotely the hottest one#i mean gillian anderson and jodie foster are there that goes without saying#but idk man dale cooper can hit it#anyway i like twin peaks so far#dale cooper#clarice starling#fox mulder#dana scully#twin peaks#silence of the lambs#txf#the xfiles#diz spouts conspiracies
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Some House of Wax/Sinclair Brothers Headcanons I’ve had in my head that I’ve already shared w the server but… The rest of the world deserves to know.
Related to gif, Vincent is the ‘medical expert’ of the house solely because he’s the one who knows the human body/first aid the best. I mean, in the movie we see him stitching up those wounds on what’s-his-face pretty neatly, right? This is also part of the reason why he automatically reaches for Bo during this scene.
Given his birth date was sniffed out by fans before me (1970) and this man looks like he’s a cosplayer sometimes, I truly believe Bo idolised Elvis Presley as a kid, and maybe a bit as an adult as well. He still enjoys listening to rock n’ roll from that era when he’s in a good mood. When he’s in a bad mood, or doing his business™️ in his sex dungeon/basement, that’s when the Marilyn Manson comes on.
All of them have had an alt phase of some sort. For Vincent it was goth, for Bo it was rivethead/industrial rock and for Lester it was grunge.
Les is also down bad fucking horrendous for alt people in general. Yes, he has magazines stuffed down his sofa, yes, they used to be Bo’s.
Bo is allergic to nuts. He also gets really nasty hay fever. I also think possibly him having sensory issues/picky eater could’ve led to meltdowns as we see in the opening. And really, it’s the 1970s/80s do you expect his parents to understand or sympathise?
In contrast, Lester has the constitution of a Greek god somehow and has probably eaten some absolutely vile shit as a kid.
I know most people interpret Vince as sweet and shy but… While I do think he’s more measured and withdrawn compared to Bo, I also think being the ‘favourite’ in terms of being Trudy’s little art prodigy contributed to a sort of spoilt brattiness esp as a kid. (Exhibit A: The ‘Bo Sux’ fridge art in the opening) As an adult, there’s still a sense of entitlement to him. What I’m saying is that he’s an insufferable art nerd lol. He definitely isn’t toothless and his arguments with Bo aren’t necessarily one-sided, he’s just capable of ignoring him when he wants to; he’s used to his twin, after all. While I do think he’s capable of being soft, don’t forget this man killed a woman in cold blood and recorded it. I also think he can get snippy enough during arguments to combat Bo’s generally sharp tongue.
Speaking of which, everyone in the (surviving) family knows ASL. It’s necessary when communicating with Vincent.
Again with how prolific a killer Vincent is, I suspect he may be the one who does the most murder out of all of them. Bo is the handsome ‘face’ of Ambrose, and Vincent is right under the seedy underbelly with a knife, ready to spill guts (and then sew it up again once he’s got them in the workshop). Lester is similar to Bo in that he mostly just guides people toward the town, but I do think he gets his own notions sometimes.
From a more x reader perspective, Bo strikes me as a man who’s most charming when he’s not trying to be. Of course he can put on an act for victims/tourists, but those are just empty words, y’know? Also, has a kinda cheesy side.
I know everyone has Jonesy as Lester’s dog but… I think she’s really Vincent’s. In the movie, she’s always seen with Vin or in the house of wax itself, it’s only when he dies that she goes to Lester. I actually think Les is a cat person (tell me he wouldn’t actually encourage their hunting habits for his own personal collection…) while Vin is a dog person. Also, hot take I think Bo loves snakes and reptiles.
Given that the House of Wax and Ambrose itself is a big ol’ art project, and we’ve seen the state of the church (permanently in the middle of dead ass crusty Trudy’s funeral) I think there may be a sort of difficulty letting go of their past in the brothers, maybe some hoarding as well (I mean we haven’t even seen some of the other houses in Ambrose but this is just speculation). We get the sense that Ambrose is a place where time stands still, forever, until its conservationists finally die. Idk I’m talking out my ass here
#feel free to agree disagree criticise hate love flip flop#I’d honestly love to hear other people’s thoughts and headcanons too#I was talking in the server about this but I love how this fandom has just sustained itself on tumblr it’s really beautiful#Vincent Sinclair#Bo Sinclair#Lester Sinclair#House of Wax#House of Wax headcanons#headcanons#my writing
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Back To You (Din x Reader) - Part 19
A/N: Well, it’s here. You all voted, and it’s one monolithic chapter. I can’t believe we’re here. 😭 We still have so much coming up for these guys, but this first part is done and it’s been a year and I have EMOTIONS!!!! 😮💨🥺 Thank you all for everything. It’s been an honor to go on this journey with all of you, and I can’t wait for all the rest of the stories this little clan has coming up! We just have nostalgia in this one, throwbacks, badassery, lots of feelings and fun…. It’s a good time for all. I’ve had this final scene written since almost day one. I’m so excited it’s finally here. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did writing it! There will still be an epilogue for this story, too, so we’re not totally done, yet. (Also, once again, there is some lore in this that @writerlyhabits wrote in a fantastic short, and I loved it so much, I asked if I could use it.)
(This takes place right where the other one left off and goes to the end of episode 2x8/16, The Rescue.)
I do not own Star Wars or it’s characters. Sadly. But I carry them in my heart. Does that count for something? My soul says yes.
Warnings: Tooth rotting fluff, Grogu being the cutest thing you ever did see, and Din is once again a warning in and of himself in this one. Typical show violence. Swearing. Space swearing. Grogu is a menace. Arguing? Mando’a. Show dialogue, so spoilers? (But if you’re here, you know how this works.) Lots of angst. Tears. Brief mention of injury. Reader is having a Tough Time™️ mentally, but it’s discussed and processed. The F-word but it’s in Mando’a so does it really count?
Word count: 21,386 (I said what I said.)
As always, thanks to @grippingbeskar for encouraging me, looking over this for me, and being the one to introduce me to Din fanfiction in the first place, getting me hooked. You are fantastic and I always love our chats.
And for @fordo-kixed-rex, you deserve so much more than a shoutout for reading all 75 million iterations of this massive chapter from start to finish, and helping me in between. You’re a real one, friend. This series would not have gotten this far without you.
And @deceiver-of-gods for helping me with the Mando’a!
Previous | Series Masterlist | Next
Xxx
You woke to the ship swinging wildly side to side, the sound of blaster fire filling every space of the vacant cargo hold. Din was no longer behind you, just the cold lonely steel of Boba’s ship, but there was something wadded up underneath your head as a makeshift pillow. It was soft, and smelled of your Mandalorian. Lifting your head, blinking blearily against the soft lights of the deck, you looked around, catching the fabric of Din’s cowl as it fell from behind your head and down into your lap.
“What’s going on?”
Fennec helped you to your feet, both of you stumbling slightly to the left as the ship tilted at a precarious angle, her hand holding on to you even after you were up to help both of you maintain your balance. Din’s cowl was still clutched tightly in your other hand.
“Found Doctor Pershing. He’s on an Imperial transport, we’re attempting to enter negotiations for his release.” She smiled wryly. “They aren’t going so well.”
The ship turned sharply to the right, causing you and Fennec to release one another. She gripped the bottom of a nearby seat to avoid flying across the deck, but your hands were full with the cowl, and you went sliding across the deck on your side from the steep angle.
Cara attempted to grab you as you slid by where she too was gripping a nearby seat, grabbing on to the fabric of the cowl for a brief second before it slipped through her fingers. “It’s just as elusive as the man who wears it,” she grumbled, making you grin despite the situation.
The ship finally started to even out slightly, enough that you weren’t sliding, but your feet still propelled you forward from the dangerous angle. “The old man flies like a-”
Din caught your hand before you could go any further, pulling you into him where he was against the wall, hanging on to a cargo net.
You looked up at him, breathing heavily after stumbling for your life across the deck. “Well, he flies like you.”
Din grunted at the slight, making you grin. “Thanks, shiny.”
He only nodded once, his grip on your upper arm adjusting slightly.
“Oh!” Reaching up, you attached his cowl back around his shoulders. “And thanks for that, too.”
He nodded again. “You always complain about needing your Mandalorian pillow, so I figured it was the next best thing.”
Fennec snorted in amusement at the same time Cara moaned an, “Ew, guys!”
The ship entered a roll, all of you clinging to something and muttering curses. Once it leveled back out, you glared at the hatch that led to the cockpit. “I’ll be right back.”
“What are you doing? Mesh’la?” Din tried to reach after you, but you ignored him, climbing the ladder and stepping into the cockpit once the doors slid open.
“Hey. Flyboy.”
“I’m busy, ad’ika,” Boba said through gritted teeth, his modulator making the words sound even thinner as he pulled the trigger yet again, the shots whizzing past the transport in front of him.
“You missed.”
If he was a clone, and they were the troopers…. Who were always dismal shots…. You grinned.
“So is that just something in the clone/trooper genetics? Missing things by a mile?”
“It was a warning shot,” he grumbled, turning his visor your way ever so slightly before turning back to the viewport. “And troopers aren’t clones anymore. If they were, we’d all be in trouble.”
The grin pulled higher up the side of your face. “I see.” Arms crossing over your chest, you took a step closer to him. “Well warn them faster, grandpa, you’re nearly murdering your crew with these maneuvers. You didn’t give us any warning.”
“Have to strap you all down like ade,” he mumbled, chuckling softly as he shook his head, probably picturing it. (“Children.”)
Reaching forward, you flipped a switch on the console, sending a blast from his ion cannons right into the rear of the transport, making it go dead on impact.
Leaning down so your head was beside the bounty hunter’s, you smirked. “That was my warning shot.”
Grumbling something unintelligible under his breath, Boba leaned in and pressed the button for comms. “Lower your shields, disengage all transponders, prepare for boarding.”
The ship rose slowly in front of the transport, the pilot, copilot, and Doctor Pershing all watching it rise through the viewport with a gradual tilt of their heads further and further back until they were out of sight.
Boba hovered over the hatch, pressing a few buttons on the console as he mumbled, “Easy as….” A loud thud accompanied by a violent jerk caused you to stumble through the cockpit, grabbing the back of his chair for stability.
With a huff, you turned your head to glare at the side of his visor. “You were saying?”
“I never finished the sentence. Maybe I was going to say it was something complicated.”
“Osi'kyr,” you grumbled, pushing off of his chair. “Would be easier to pet a nexu.” (Strong exclamation of dismay.)
“I’ve actually pet a nexu once,” Boba mused, flicking a switch before leaning back in his chair.
“Of course you have.” You didn’t bother turning back to face him as you left the cockpit to rejoin the others. A small smile turned up your features at the sound of his laugh behind you.
Xxx
Sitting on the deck of Boba’s ship, your mind began to wander. Staying upbeat and engaged was easy…. For a time. Until you really let your thoughts go down the roads they wanted to, with memories of the kid playing on a loop, especially the one of him being taken from practically right out of your hands.
Within just a few steps, from the bottom of the ladder to the cockpit to the seat you were perched on in the middle of the deck, a dark cloud had taken over your mind, and you didn’t feel like fighting it right now.
You hung back while Din and Cara boarded the Imperial transport to get Doctor Pershing. The whole thing took less than two minutes, but from your seat, you could hear the entire exchange. Fennec watched you closely from her seat across the aisle from you.
“What?” You asked her after a moment of loaded staring.
“Nothing,” she shook her head with a shrug. “You’ve just been quiet the last few days is all.”
“Compared to what? I only met you a few days ago.”
A blaster shot fired, and a body thudded to the floor, causing both you and Fennec to lean slightly to peer through the opening to see what was going on. She leaned forward while you leaned back. But a quick glance at the opening showed both of your friends still standing firmly with their weapons drawn, so you assumed it was one of the Imps turning on the other.
Cowards.
Both of you sitting back how you had been, you turned your attention back on one another as if nothing had happened.
Fennec went on as if simply talking about the weather. “True. But before everything with the kid went down, you seemed….”
Brows knit, one arching in question, you bobbed your head at her to continue. “Go on….”
“Better.”
You huffed, shaking your head as you looked at the ground. “I’m fine.”
“Alright.”
Shrugging your shoulders, you looked up at her again, peering up through your lashes. It felt safer than looking straight at her. “I’m on a strange ship with strangers and everything is-”
“Strange?”
Lifting your head to look at her straight on, your face fell flat. “Different.” You glared. “A member of my clan was taken. It’s not the same as missing someone, it’s more like a piece of yourself is gone.”
“I understand,” she offered softly. “I just don’t want you to slip away in the process.”
“Slip away?”
She sighed, looking down at the floor. “Sometimes….” Her gaze pulled back up to meet yours confidently, something softening once your eyes met again. “Sometimes when we let something consume us - grief, loss, a goal - it’s easy to get buried in all the things you let slide along the way.”
You felt the clouds begin to break, a ray of sunshine beginning to shine through. “What…. What have I let slide?”
She looked off to the side, as if the words she needed were hidden somewhere in the cargo hold. “Honestly?” She met your eyes. “Yourself.”
“It was my fault-”
“It happened.” Leaning forward, she left no room for question as she put a hand on your upper arm. “All that matters now is how you fix it.”
Suddenly a blaster shot fired, another body thudded to the ground, and a man started yelping in pain. Turning toward the opening where the ship was docked to the transport, you stood up and took a few steps closer, nearly running into Cara as she stomped past you.
“That was my warning shot,” she mumbled, stuffing her blaster into its holster on her hip.
Looking back at the opening, you saw Din staring after her in concern, his shoulders rising and falling in a heavy sigh as he watched his friends fall a little further apart.
Rushing into the transport, you put your hands on the shoulders of the man, startling him.
He tried to back away from you, looking up with wide eyes, but you held him in place firmly.
“Shhhh, it’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you. You’re Doctor Pershing, right?”
He nodded, wincing at the motion and cradling his right ear.
“Mind if I take a look?”
Slowly lowering his hand, he gently shook his head, turning slightly to offer you a better angle. “Your angry friend shot my captor- something I’m grateful for, don’t get me wrong- just…. It was a bit close to my ear.”
“It ruptured your eardrum, didn’t it?”
He nodded hesitantly. “Some bacta should help. If we get to it soon.”
You smiled. “I have something better than bacta.”
“Wha-”
Reaching out, you placed your hand over his ear, making him wince and try to pull away from you. Holding him in place with your other hand on his shoulder, you took a deep breath, doing what you had done for Din back on Morak, and mending his injury. “Sorry about my friend. She can get a little hot headed. I’m sure she’ll apologize in a little bit, but for now….” You pulled your hand away, lowering your voice since he could now hear again out of that side, “I’ll just have to do. There. All better.”
His mouth opened and closed a few times, an attempt at words but only a croak coming out in disbelief. Finally he was able to mutter, “How?”
You’d almost expected him to ask why, but as he asked how instead, you understood. He may have studied the workings of the Force, and understood it on a molecular level, but that didn’t mean he truly knew its capabilities. Plus, he’d only ever been exposed to a truly dark and twisted side of things, one that was selfish and manipulative. That side would never reach out and heal just for the sake of it. They’d reach out a hand just to strike you further down. Or make sure you stayed there.
“Friends take care of each other. I’d call us friends, wouldn’t you?” He nodded hesitantly, eyes darting to the Mandalorian hovering behind you before coming back to you. “And you’re going to help us find the kid, aren’t you?” He nodded again, making you smile a bit broader. “That’s it then. We help you, you help us.”
You got to your feet, standing beside Din, and helping Pershing to his feet. Once he was standing, though, you didn’t let go of his hand, making sure he met your gaze as you held his hand a bit too tight. “But if anything goes wrong…. I can’t make any promises about my friend out there. As you’ve already seen, she’s a bit of a loose canon. Can’t really tell what she’ll do if she gets upset.”
Eyes wide, Pershing nodded in understanding, eyes flitting between you and Din rapidly, then darted where Cara had disappeared before landing back on you. “Understood.”
Xxx
Fennec’s talk had caused the clouds to break, but your mind was still overcast and dreary; thoughts dark and dismal pulling you into another spiral you were fighting hard to stay on the edge of, and not get sucked down under. So far you’d kept your head above water, but with every kick to tread and stay up, you were getting more and more tired.
Staring out one of the side viewports of Boba’s ship, you watched the stars crawl lazily by, as your arms crossed over your chest held you tight. The soft clink of beskar clad steps came up behind you, the looming hover of the cool metal just out of reach as he stood a mere breath away brought a soothing wash over your skin.
“You’re not going to say anything?” You mumbled after a long moment of silence.
“Mmm-mmm,” he hummed, the gentle shake of his head causing the fabric of his cowl to brush the back of your head.
“Thank you.” A deep breath. “Why not?”
“Do you want me to?”
You shrugged. “Not particularly.” You smirked at his huff of laughter. “Everyone else has, though. Including you. Just figured we’d come full circle and it was your turn again.”
He shrugged this time, the motion jostling him a bit closer, just enough that he was barely touching you. “You’re going to feel what you feel. I can’t change that by telling you over and over that I think it's wrong.”
“But you do?”
He sighed. “Mesh’la….” He closed the last breath of distance between you, pressing his chest along your spine. “I’ve said my piece. You know how I feel, what I think. Me beating you over the head with it like Peli adjusting something on the Crest isn’t gonna change anything.” His modulator lowered down beside your ear. “All I can do is stay here and keep fighting alongside you, hopefully beating whatever is winning in that head of yours…. Because it’s wrong. And I hate what it’s doing to you.”
You smiled to yourself. “It’s just me up here.”
“That’s not the full you. That’s the broken you. I know because….” He sighed. “Because I’m a little bit broken, too.”
The silence sat comfortably between you for a long moment. When you finally spoke again, your voice was soft, but felt harsh in the new quiet you’d found.
“How are you not falling apart?”
“Who says I’m not?” He didn’t miss a beat.
You let out a snort, a sardonic chuckle chasing after it as you shook your head gently. “That’s not fair, you have armor to hold you together.”
“It’s not the armor.” His voice was quiet, but he spoke with a conviction that made your breath catch in your chest.
Your conversation from back on Coruscant came back to you.
“I’m sorry I scared you, years ago.”
“What do you-”
“You’re right. You do wear armor. And I can only imagine how it felt to have something break past those defenses.”
It was nearly silent as you studied his visor, your reflection staring back at you in the low light. The only sounds were Grogu’s snoring, the muted drone of traffic several levels up, the quiet lull of street noises from below, and both of your quiet breaths.
“I hope you know you don’t have to keep wearing it for me.” Your eyes flitted between his, despite the visor. Somehow you knew. “If you want to, that’s okay. I understand. That’s part of who you are. But….” You took a surprisingly shaky breath, and his hand came to rest on your hip, his thumb tracing soothing patterns while he waited for you to finish. You had to screw your eyes shut to focus on the last few words. “But I just wanted you to know. I’d be your armor if you needed- wanted me to.”
You couldn’t bring yourself to open your eyes, the darkness so much easier to hide in. How ironic, since you had just offered him a way out of something similar.
The next thing you knew, the cool touch of beskar against your forehead for the third time tonight made you take in a shuddering breath.
“I’d like that,” you heard him rumble lowly, making you smile.
A long moment passed with just the two of you and shared space before you finally opened your eyes. “What’s going on in there, Tin Can?”
Din huffed out a soft laugh as he gave your hip a gentle squeeze. “I can’t decide which is prettier armor. You or beskar.”
Your arched brows of curiosity fell flat along with your tone. “Really?”
“You asked.” You could hear the smile in his voice.
“Okay. Moment’s over.” You pushed away from him, your hands already resting on his chest pressing him onto his back in the process.
“Mesh’la, come on. I was only teasing,” Din protested over a laugh, reaching a hand after you as you got under the covers.
You looked up at him, unimpressed. “If you say, ‘we both know it’s the beskar’, joke or not, so help me, a bad bed roll will be the least of your back pain worries.”
His hand recoiled slightly as if you had burned him. “Okay, that’s fair.”
You smirked. “I thought so.”
Turning, arms still cradling your upper half, you tilted your head back to look at him straight on. Staring into his visor, your reflection the only thing looking back at you, it took everything you had to fight the sinking feeling in your gut. “Din, I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”
He crowded further into your space, making your head tilt back even more. “Do what?”
“Keep going. I know I have to, and I will for the kid, for you, but…. I feel like I’m about to break.”
“Then break.” His arms slowly came around your waist.
“What?” Brows knit in confusion, you blinked up at his visor.
“Go ahead and fall. I’ll catch you.”
“Din-”
“Remember on Tatooine when you decided to use the Force to shoot the packets?” You nodded. “It zapped you so fast you couldn’t hardly stand up, but I stood right there behind you, and kept you up, until it was too much. Then-”
“You let me fall.” Smiling softly, you leaned your face into his cowl taking a much needed deep breath, what felt like the first in a while. He smelled like plasma, and smoke, faintly of Morak, something simply him, and….. home.
Suddenly the air didn’t feel so oppressive, gravity wasn’t pushing you down so hard. Unwinding your arms from around yourself, they found their way around Din, holding him tight. They found their way home, knowing exactly where to go.
“Mmm-hmm,” he hummed into your hair, his grip around you cinching tighter. “I let you fall back into me, then I made sure you were safe until you were ready to try again.”
“How did I end up with someone like you in my life?” You mumbled the words lazily into his cowl, the corners of your mouth curving further up.
The smile on his face was evident in his tone. “You’re a really great bartender.”
Xxx
Din was able to track Bo-Katan and Koska down on some backwater planet you didn’t even know the name of. At this point it didn’t really matter, they were all bleeding together. You just wanted to get a team together and get the kid. And if that included killing or maiming a Moff in the process…. Well that was just fine with you. Anyone who would steal and torture a child deserved the absolute worst punishment. Especially if that child was Grogu. Was yours.
Walking into the local cantina, you hovered behind Din and Boba, all three of you standing tall as the patrons started to notice you one by one. Conversations went silent, laughter dying out as they realized who exactly had darkened their doorway. They began to flee the building, some of them being sly about it, others just blatantly running past, but no one wanted to linger when two more bodies in beskar walked through the door.
One or two pointed to the saber on your hip, and a sense of pride swelled in your chest. Let them see. You may not have a suit of beskar, but a saber carried just as much infamy. Hopefully it kept more of the Gideon’s of the galaxy away from you and yours.
The cantina slowly emptied until it was just Bo-Katan and Koska eating at a table on the far end and your little party of three. A handful of patrons had waited until the bounty hunters had walked all the way through the establishment before they bolted, jostling you where you stood, still by the door.
Leaning against the frame, arms across your chest, you sighed as a Rodian inched past you cautiously, and you swore a wary smile was tugging up one side of his face but you knew that was impossible.
“I need your help.” Din’s voice was gruff.
Bo-Katan sighed. “Not all Mandalorians are bounty hunters.” She wasn’t wearing her helmet, and neither was Koska, so nothing was there to hide the annoyance on her face as she turned toward your little party of three. Her eyes flicked up and down Boba before landing back on Din’s visor. “Some of us serve a higher purpose.”
“They took the child,” Din explained in a heavy tone, the hesitance in his words slowing them down to something almost broken. Reluctant.
That got her attention. “Who?” To her credit, her features melted into genuine concern, the wheels in her head already turning to plot a rescue.
Din answered without a moment's hesitation, his voice once again the low, confident growl you were used to. “Moff Gideon.”
You made your way further into the cantina, leaning on your right shoulder against the pillar beside Din, nodding once to Bo-Katan when she met your eyes.
She returned the gesture before her gaze fell down to the knife on your belt and a fond smile briefly turned up her features before it melted away just as fast. “You’ll never find him.” She turned back toward her plate of food, Koska doing the same beside her.
Boba turned to look at you, his head tilting to the side in explanation instead of speaking, then lifted his visor toward Din. “We don’t need these two. Let’s get outta here.”
Bo-Katan’s attention immediately snapped toward the green set of beskar, her body angling toward him as she spoke. “You are not a Mandalorian.”
“Never said I was.” Boba only turned his head to peer at her across his shoulder. The movement was almost lazy, and it made you want to snicker. His voice was somewhat bored, and you leaned your head back into the pillar, settling in for the show.
“I didn’t know sidekicks were allowed to talk,” Koska finally piped up, directing her sarcastic comment toward Boba.
This made you push off the pillar, your arms coming to rest on your hips near your belt laden with weapons. Keeping your eyes on the other Mandalorian, you stayed back when Boba subtly held his arm out to stop you. This was his fight.
Sidling up to their table, he chuckled dryly. “Well if that isn’t the Quacta calling the Stifling slimy.” He pulled up short when Koska got to her feet and stood right in his face. “Easy there, little one.”
Stepping closer the minuscule amount left between them, her nose practically brushing against his visor, she issued further threats as her head bobbed side to side for emphasis. “You’ll be talking through the window of a bacta tank.”
Your hand slowly lowered to your blaster hanging in the holster on your belt.
Bo-Katan held out her hand toward the two Mandalorians, her tone exasperated. “All right, easy. Save it for the Imps.”
Lowering your hand off of your blaster, you straightened your spine as Koska sat back down in her seat, and let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding.
Din thankfully moved the subject along. “We have his coordinates.”
The look of surprise on Bo-Katan’s face was priceless. “You can bring me to Moff Gideon?”
“The Moff has a light cruiser. It could be helpful in your effort to regain Mandalore.”
“You gotta be kidding me. Mandalore?” Boba turned to Din. Taking the few steps back toward the shiny Mandalorian, his voice had taken on disbelief. “The Empire turned that planet to glass.”
Bo-Katan was seething. “You are a disgrace to your armor.”
At that point you tuned out. Anything else was just going to upset you. Boba was your friend, and Bo-Katan was needed to get to Gideon. You’d pick a fight if you kept listening to her hurling insults about him being a clone, but you took a page out of Boba’s book, and let it roll off your back.
All sound faded out for a moment, the silence so loud it was distracting. You stared blankly at the wall behind everyone.
Din settled into the pillar beside you, leaning against his left shoulder, and drawing you out of your trance. Smiling softly at the tilt of his head and heavy sigh that followed, you arched a brow at him in question.
His shoulders rose and fell with another sigh, the words coming out on the exasperated breath. “Might as well get comfy.”
Your brow tilted further up into your hairline, the corner of your mouth trying to match it. “Why? What’s happening?”
Koska was thrown into a nearby table by Boba, the stone shattering under the impact, sending dust and rubble skittering across the floor.
“Mandalorian argument,” Din grunted.
“Doesn’t an argument usually involve words?” You asked, settling your spine against the pillar, watching as Koska and Boba exchanged blows.
Leaning his head to his left toward you, you tilted yours to the right to meet him in the middle. “This is a special dialect of Mando’a,” Din teased.
Both of you split apart almost lazily as Koska’s feet flew into the pillar, ran across its surface while her jet pack ignited and sent her head over heels in a flip, Boba’s head locked in her grip the whole way.
You came back together as if nothing had happened, resuming your previous positions as the green beskar landed on the ground with a thud, popping up just as fast and two opposing flamethrowers ignited, meeting in the middle in a shower of flames.
“Enough! Both of you!” Bo-Katan barked in annoyance.
When the fires didn’t go out, you rolled your eyes, pushing off the pillar and flipping over the wall of heat, igniting your saber and making it zing off your vambrace.
Their flames sputtered to a halt as sparks flew from your armor. Bo-Katan bowed her head to you once in thanks, her eyes wide. You returned it, a tight smile on your face as you disengaged the blade.
Bo-Katan continued pointedly, eyes flicking between the two Mandalorians. “If we had shown half that spine to the Empire we would’ve never lost our planet.” She turned to Din. “We will help you. In exchange, we will keep that ship to retake Mandalore. If you should manage to finish your quest, I would have you reconsider joining our efforts. Mandalorians have been in exile from our home world for far too long.”
“Fair enough.” You could tell Din was just saying what she wanted to hear. He had no intentions of joining her cause. It made you smile softly. Ever the diplomat…. Give or take some aggressive negotiations.
“One more thing. Gideon has a weapon that once belonged to me. It is an ancient weapon that can cut through anything.” Her eyes fell to the hilt of your saber now hung back on your belt as you made your way back to Din’s side.
“Almost anything.” Koska looked at you pointedly before turning her gaze to Bo-Katan.
“It cannot cut through pure beskar.” Bo-Katan held Koska’s stare, then her eyes fell to your vambraces before they returned to Din. “But then your riduur already gave us an example of that.” Before you could say anything she continued. “I will kill the Moff and retake what is rightfully mine. With the Darksaber restored to me, Mandalore will finally be within reach.” (“Partner.”)
Your head began to swim again. So much rested on one man. Kriffing Moff Gideon. The restoration of Mandalore, the reunion of a clan, the mending of your heart…. It was all becoming a bit overwhelming. All it took was one little thing going wrong, and…. Just one thing….
Din peered down at her, his voice stable and calm. “Help me rescue the child and you can have whatever you want. He is my only priority.”
That shouldn’t hurt like it did. You knew he meant it only in the sense of her eagerness to fight Moff Gideon, but you couldn’t help but take it personally. It burrowed down under your skin and stung more than a prick from your training remote.
What did you expect?
It was always the kid.
You knew that.
You were always second.
Suck it up and move on.
The voices in your head made you angry, and what’s worse, sounded a lot like you. There was no kyber to blame, no unseen force pulling at strings…. It was just your messed up brain.
You had to get out of there. Din would understand. He probably saw you as a liability already anyway.
A shuddering breath filled your lungs as you took a step backwards towards the door. That last thought made you sad.
If there was one thing you never wanted, it was to be a burden for him. But looking back, that’s all you’d ever been. He’d had to teach you, feed you, house you…. There’s not a moment where he wasn’t devoting his time to keeping an eye on you. He gave the kid more freedom than you.
Turning, you strode out of the cantina, ignoring Din’s calls at your back.
“Mesh’la!”
Finally a gloved hand wrapped around your elbow, pulling you to a stop, but not before you ripped your arm out of his hold.
Rounding on him, you turned to stare at his visor with a flat expression and took a step backward. “What?”
He slowed to a stop about a foot away from you. “I should be asking you the same thing!”
“So much is riding on this one man. Everything…. If just one thing goes wrong…. And I don’t…. I don’t know what I would do if….” Arms crossed over your chest, you held his gaze. “I just finally put it together, Din. He’s your only priority, you said it yourself. I’m nothing but a burden here. I can’t teach the kid, you have to teach me everything, from flying the ship to fixing it to defending myself…. You never let me out of your sight! It’s like…. I finally got it. I’m a liability, so I’ll just go.”
Turning, you didn’t even make it a step before you froze again at the sound of his voice.
“Mesh’la….” When you wouldn’t turn around, he continued. “I don’t let you out of my sight because I can’t.” You scoffed. “I don’t want to. You’re the first thing I want to see each morning and the last thing before I fall asleep.” His voice got closer. “In fact, that’s one of the reasons I don’t want to sleep, because I don’t want to miss a second.” He drew closer still. “Yeah, I’d call you a liability, but for the first time, I’m willing to have a target on my back if that means I get you in my life. You’re a liability because if you left, I don’t know what I would do.”
You huffed. “What, you can’t find someone else to watch the kid?”
“I can’t find someone else to make me laugh.” Din didn’t miss a beat. He continued down his list as if it was ready made on the tip of his tongue. “To put all the blasters in the weapons locker backwards because they know it annoys me. I can’t find someone else who’s had me in a chokehold from the moment I saw them. I don’t like people, you know that. But I really, really-”
“Tolerate me?”
You didn’t have to turn around to know his weight had shifted to one leg, his head tilted to the side in disbelief. “Yeah. That’s it. I tolerate you. I tolerate you bad.”
You couldn’t help the chuckle as you rolled your eyes.
His voice was closer when he spoke again, the gravel of the planet crunching underfoot as he drifted slowly nearer to you. “I tolerate you a lot. All the time. You walk in the cockpit and it’s just like the first time I saw you all over again. You make me act like an idiot.”
You huffed out a laugh. “Well, at least we can agree on that.”
“My brain stops. I forget what I’m doing.” His chest was pressed along your spine now, his hands on your upper arms, modulator by your ear as he went on. “It’s dangerous. So yeah, you’re a liability.” His grip on your arms tightened. “Good thing I’m in indestructible armor.”
The snort of laughter fell out before you could stop it, more coming out to meet it as soft chuckles buzzed out of his chest and along your skin as he closed his arms around your upper body, pulling you tightly to him.
“Gar cuyi ner aliit. Ni kar'tayli darasuum gar. Gar cuyi ner mir'sheb bal gar utreekov kar'tayli darasuum gar, cyar’ika.” His voice was low and quiet, but happy. (“You are my family. I love you. You are my smartass, and your idiot loves you, darling.”)
Lifting your hands up to rest on his still around you, you couldn’t fight the grin crawling up your face. “Bal gar mir'sheb kar'tayli darasuum gar.” (“And your smartass loves you.”)
His helmet pressed into the crook of your neck, the buzz of his modulator tickling your skin. “I’m sorry I made you feel that way. I should have phrased what I said to Bo differently.” He groaned softly. “Ni cuyi gar utreekov, partayli?” (“I am your idiot, remember?”)
You turned in his hold, pressing your forehead to his. “Ni kar'tayli. Ni kar'tayli gar. Gar cuyi ner kar'ta, partayli?” You sighed, closing your eyes. “I’m sorry I overreacted. I’m just so on edge since everything with the kid, and I…. Thank you for understanding. And thank you for fighting for me, Tin Can. Even though it’s not much of a risk with that indestructible armor.” Your eyes flew open, looking at the T of his visor through your lashes and cocking one eyebrow skeptically. (“I know. I know you. You are my heart, remember?”)
“Shi par gar,” he whispered, his voice tight with an obvious smile. (“Only for you.”)
Xxx
Once everyone boarded Boba’s ship, a plan started to form. Before the group huddled around the holotable, you noticed Koska quietly complimenting some of the weapons stowed in a cluttered corner of the deck. You smiled softly as she and Boba fell into a brief amicable conversation about how he acquired the items, their scuffle back in the cantina long forgotten.
With a roll of your eyes you continued toward the rest of the party. Mandalorians.
Din stood at the back of the group as usual, hands tightly gripping his belt as he watched the others set up the display. The leather of his gloves creaked in protest with every flex of his hands against the thick strip of material around his waist.
Leaning into his side, you pretended to adjust his bandolier, speaking softly so only he could hear. “You okay?”
His visor turned down toward you in question, so you silently slid your hand down toward the hand closest to you, prying it from his hip and slipping your fingers through his with a gentle squeeze.
He let out a sigh, his shoulders relaxing slightly. “Yeah. Sorry. Just…. We’re almost there.”
You turned your head so you were facing the wall behind you, keeping the conversation completely private. “Din Djarin nervous?” Your eyes flicked up to meet the T of his visor, along with a smirk. “Well that’s a first.”
“And that’s a lie,” Din grumbled. “You do all kinds of things that make me nervous.”
“Aw,” blinking your eyes an absurd number of times, you rested your free hand on his chest. “That’s sweet.”
“It wasn’t a compliment,” he groused. “I meant things like cooking and fighting. Just normal, everyday things.”
Patting his chest plate a few times, a tight smile pulled up your features. “I know.” With one last squeeze of his hand, you leaned in and whispered, “We’ll talk about it later.”
Din swallowed roughly. “See? Things like that.”
A holo of a massive ship spun in front of Bo-Katan’s face, painting her features in a soft blue glow. “This is Moff Gideon’s Imperial light cruiser. In the old days it would carry a crew of several hundred. Now it operates with a tiny fraction of that.” She smiled smugly as she watched the hologram spin.
“Your assessment is misleading.” All eyes turned to the soft voice of Doctor Pershing where he sat perched in a seat right in front of you. He may be soft spoken, but he wasn’t afraid to speak up, and you admired that.
Placing your free hand on his shoulder, you smiled down at him reassuringly when he glanced up your way, nodding once to encourage him to go on.
“Oh, great. An objective opinion.”
Cutting your eyes Cara’s way, you made sure to shoot her a look through narrowed eyes and furrowed brows. She only shrugged in return, sending your eyes rolling.
“This isn’t subterfuge. I assure you.”
“Let him speak.” Bo-Katan’s interest surprised you, but the more you thought about it, it really didn’t. If the information he had was true, it affected every aspect of her plan.
Pershing let out a sigh. Relief washed over his face, his shoulders rounding forward as he let out the breath. “There’s a garrison of dark troopers on board. They’re the ones who abducted the child.”
That seemed to get Din’s attention. “How many troopers do they have armed in those suits?”
Now that he was back under the scrutiny of a beskar gaze, Pershing sat up a little straighter, hesitating slightly, his eyes fixed on the floor. You didn’t blame him. Those visors were intimidating. “These are third-generation design. They are no longer suits. The human inside was the final weakness to be solved. They’re droids.”
“Where are they bivouacked?” Fennec’s voice was uncharacteristically soft, making you tilt your head at her curiously.
Pershing got to his feet, shooting you a glance, his face pulled into a tight expression before he focused solely on the holo, pressing a short series of buttons. “They’re held in cold storage in this cargo bay. They draw too much power to be kept at ready.”
“How long to power up?”
“A few minutes, perhaps.” Pershing’s tone never flustered. You half expected him to crack after a few minutes, but he truly was just a soft, kind, well intentioned man stuck in the middle of a horrible situation.
He didn’t even crack when Din asked him another question.
“Where is the child being held?”
He just pushed another button, the holo filtering through layouts until it settled on the one he wanted, and he began to explain. “This is the brig. He’s being held here under armed guard.”
Pershing turned back to look at you once again, and you nodded, offering him a smile which he was quick to return before settling back into his seat.
Bo-Katan wasted no time. “Very well. We split into two parties.”
“We go alone,” Din was quick to interject, his hand gently squeezing yours.
“Fine,” she said after a moment, shifting her weight, then launching into the rest of the plan.
You didn’t pay any attention. You probably should have but you couldn’t.
Turning your head toward the wall once again, you stood on your tiptoes to get closer to Din’s ear. He tilted his head slightly to meet you halfway. You opened your mouth to say something snarky, a joke of some sort, but your breath caught in your throat, making you swallow instead.
Din turned his head to look at you, and it was all you could do to hold the gaze of his visor.
Letting out a quiet huff of air, you whispered a “Thank you,” before your voice stopped working altogether, the emotions lodged in your throat a formidable foe.
The cold touch of his beskar came to rest on your forehead for only a moment before he was turning back to continue listening to the plan. I guess it’s good one of us was, you thought with a snort.
His voice pulled you back into the conversation. “And us?”
Bo-Katan turned to face him, in full planning mode. “We’ll be misdirection. Once we draw a crowd, you slip through the shadows, get the kid.”
“Those dark troopers? They’re gonna be a real skank in the scud pie.”
“Oh, Cara. Ever the optimist,” you sighed, walking over to a seat next to Pershing and plopping down beside him.
“It’s not my fault the Imps are using super droids now!”
“Didn’t say it was….” You massaged the bridge of your nose, eyes screwed shut.
“So what do you suggest? We just wave you at them and they go flyin’?”
Your hand fell to your lap with a slap. “That’s not how the Force works, and you know it.” A smirk started up your face. “But I could throw you at them, knock a few over….”
Cara tilted her head at you, features pulled tight in annoyance.
“Can you two do this later?” Fennec sighed.
“Oh, so it’s okay for two Mandalorians to destroy the inside of a building on a whim, but I can’t insult my friend with a verbal jab when I want?”
“Basically…. Yeah.”
Both you and Cara gave Fennec the look.
“Their bay is on the way to the brig.” Bo-Katan changed the subject pointedly, her gaze flicking between the three of you before finally landing on Pershing. “Can they make it there before they deploy?”
He seemed to mull it over for a moment. “It’s possible.”
“Here.” Fennec pulled something off of the side of Pershing’s uniform and offered it to Din. “Take his code cylinder and seal off their holding bay. Anyone else, we can handle.”
You tilted your head back to look up at Din where he stood behind you, a mischievous smirk crawling up your features. “They ask for a face to scan this time, let me handle it…. Brown eyes.”
He shook his head at you before turning back to the group. “We’ll meet at the bridge.”
Xxx
The ship bumped gently through hyperspace, blue and silver streaks casting everyone in dancing shadows. It was unusually silent in the cockpit of the stolen Imperial shuttle, everyone’s mind on their tasks ahead.
When Bo-Katan finally spoke, though her tone was quiet, the sound of a voice made you jump. Din snorted in amusement where he stood beside you, the laughter only growing when you reached out to shove his shoulder in annoyance.
“I can’t believe you,” you mumbled. “Don’t laugh at me.”
“Don’t be funny, then,” he countered dryly, turning his visor down toward you.
Glaring up at him, you couldn’t help the quick twitch upward of your lips, opting instead to try and hide it with a roll of your eyes as you focused back on what Bo-Katan was saying.
“Moff Gideon is mine. Got it?”
“Not if he’s mine first,” you mumbled.
Cara stopped cleaning her rifle, and that was how you knew she meant business. “He’s ex-ISB. He’s got a lot of information.” She set the rifle in her lap. Your eyes went wide. She was serious. “I need him alive.”
Bo-Katan sighed, shifting her weight in her seat as she pressed a few buttons on the controls. “I don’t care what happens to him as long as he surrenders to me.”
“Prepare to exit jump space.” Boba’s voice over the comms made you smile. He was on his ship with doctor Pershing.
“We could freeze him,” Boba offered when the question of what to do with Pershing came up.
You leaned in close to him, ignoring his skeptical expression from his seat opposite your own. “Your carbonite chamber is broken, remember?” Tilting your head, you narrowed your eyes. “Or are you just getting that old, old man?”
Boba turned to you with wide eyes. “He doesn’t know that,” he hissed, jerking his head subtly toward Pershing.
The man was sitting just a few feet away, trying to give the impression of not listening in to a conversation about his fate.
“For what it’s worth,” he finally chimed in, holding up one finger and swallowing roughly before going on. “I-I d-d-don’t think c-carbonite is n-necessary.”
Boba sighed as Pershing turned to look at the two of you. After a long pause, Boba gestured with one hand for the man to go on. “And why is that?”
“Um.”
“Very compelling.” Boba looked at you pointedly.
The snort of laughter that escaped you in a huff caught you off guard, but the snickering that followed it didn’t. Leaning forward in your chair, you put your hand on Boba’s shoulder, ignoring the way he arched a brow and looked at it like it was a broken hyperdrive. “Come on, friend. It won’t be a problem. Because like you and I, he is also a friend. And friends help each other, don’t they?” Boba slowly lifted his head to hold your gaze once again, simply staring at you, his brows flat and unamused. You gave his shoulder a little shake, and your voice a slight edge. “Don’t they.”
He sighed.
You smiled, releasing your vice-like grip on his pauldron back to something more forgiving. “They at least don’t freeze each other in carbonite.”
Boba hummed in thought, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest. “You’ve never met some of my friends.”
As your hand fell into your lap, you stared at him, smile stuck on your face in disbelief. You blinked once, twice. “What?”
“Copy that.” Bo-Katan smiled softly. “Get the hell out of there as soon as they clear us to dock. And your shots have to look convincing.”
Boba huffed out a laugh. “Power up those shields, princess. I’ll put on a good show.”
“Watch out for those deck cannons.”
Looking at Bo-Katan with wide eyes, your eyebrows narrowed in confusion before you looked up into Din’s visor, one brow rising into your hairline. “Well. That bridge was mended fast,” you muttered under your breath.
Din simply shrugged one shoulder in response, his head shaking slightly as if to say, “Don’t look at me, I’m just as confused as you are.”
Probably more, you thought with a grin as you turned back toward the viewport.
Boba muttered something under his breath. Then his voice softened, an undercurrent of something almost concerned painting his tone. “Don’t worry about me. Just be careful in there.”
“You be careful out here, old man.” Your words whispered for only yourself to hear, a tight smile pulled up your face when Fennec snorted out a soft laugh to your left. Her eyes met yours, a gentle shake of her head her only response before she focused back out the viewport.
Silence settled once again throughout the cabin, this one a bit more tense than the first. It was time. On the other side of this jump lay uncertainty and conflict…. But it also held your heart. You were one stop away from healing. And for some reason that made you grip the handle by your head tighter.
Koska’s soft countdown pulled you back into the moment at hand. “Exiting hyperspace in three, two, one…”
The ship lurched, sending you stumbling forward slightly as the streams of hyperspace slid into streaks of silver stars. Gideon’s light cruiser loomed through the viewport, filling the space from end to end and growing as the ship approached it rapidly.
Boba shot at the shuttle in bursts, both ships weaving back and forth as the bolts narrowly missed the hull.
You could almost hear Boba’s voice in your head. “That was my warning shot.”
Bo-Katan called out a fake mayday, asking for help from the cruiser, but everyone exchanged a nervous look when a response came back to clear the way for TIE support.
As she tried to call the bluff, heading straight for the landing bay as planned while yelling something else into the comms, you shifted your weight to avoid falling as she took a particularly aggressive turn to the right. The quick upward motion of the ship that followed knocked the wind out of you with a huff.
“I hope she fights better than she flys,” you leaned toward Din, grumbling about Bo-Katan and groaning as she swerved again, sending you stumbling into his chest.
His arms wrapped around your waist, one of them reaching up to grab onto the handle for stabilization as he peered down at you with a slight tilt of his head. “This feels familiar.”
A snort of laughter had you tucking your face into his cowl with another groan. “Yeah, it’s almost like we need to make better friends, or at least some who fly with some sense of survival.”
“We haven’t died yet.”
“Yet is the key word there.”
Streaks of green from TIE fighter blasts shot past the viewport, illuminating the cabin on their way past.
Closing your eyes, you focused on the nearest enemy ship, reaching out through the Force in an attempt to send it spiraling through space when a hand on your shoulder stopped you short. Blinking your eyes open, you turned down toward the grip to find a gloved hand holding you tight.
“Uh-uh,” Din’s voice was low, similar to the way he admonished the child. “Don’t even think about it.”
“I was just….”
“You were just nothing. Nope. I don’t wanna hear it, mesh’la.”
Arms crossed over your chest as you faced forward, you cut your eyes to the side to glare at him. “You’re no fun.”
He nodded once in agreement, not even bothering to look your way. “I’m the absolute worst.”
Before you could respond, the ship lurched again, the mechanical whirr of the wings folding in for landing vibrating the floor under your feet.
“Hang on!” Fennec yelled, holding on to the bottom of her seat as if bracing for impact.
A quick glance through the viewport showed sparks beginning to fly as the transport touched down inside the cruiser with a massive jolt.
Din held you close with one arm, the handle overhead with the other. You gripped his cowl with both hands as if your life depended on it.
Reaching out with the Force one more time, you searched for the other half of this elaborate plot to get onboard the cruiser, feeling him just on the edge of your awareness before he blipped out altogether. “Boba’s clear,” you breathed on a sigh.
The ship came to a shuddering halt, the screech of metal on metal filling the air along with a thick smoke that obscured most everything.
“Leave some for us,” you mumbled to Bo-Katan as she passed by you toward the lowering ramp, blasters drawn and ready.
You couldn’t see her face because of her helmet, but you could tell from her tone that she was smirking. “I’m not making any promises.”
The first wave waited for as many of the enemy to surround the downed transport before they stormed the hangar, the bay a storm of blaster bolts raining down and jet packs sounding off.
The sounds of troopers screaming and issuing hollow threats grew further and further away, until they reached the other end of the hangar, finally coming to an abrupt end with a single shot. It was over almost faster than it had begun, silence filling the hangar after a matter of moments.
Both you and Din hung back in the cockpit, watching the whole thing on a display until the party disappeared through a door on the other side of the hangar.
“We’re clear,” Bo-Katan’s voice filled the transport from the comm on your hip. “Give us two minutes then go.”
Din pushed a button on the side of his helmet to reply. “Copy that.” He began to follow you toward the ramp. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
Bo-Katan snorted. “This is the Way.”
Xxx
Din POV
Din chuckled as he came to a stop a few feet behind you, simply watching in silence. The thick smoke almost concealed you even just the short distance in front of him, but it was just thin enough that it swirled around you in some sort of eerie embrace that kept you still in his sights.
If he was being honest, that’s how things had felt lately since the kid had gone - hazy and unclear. But there was always you somewhere in the middle of all the muddle to grab his hand and pull him through.
If he was being brutally honest…. That was how things had always been with you. Not just lately. Not just sometimes. From the time he met you, everything else seemed to slip into a fog and if it wasn’t for your guiding hand, he’d truly be lost.
It wasn’t that he quit finding joy in other things in life.
But those things meant nothing now if he couldn’t share them with you. Somehow. If he couldn’t find a way to bring them, or himself, back to you.
Din smiled and sighed quietly to himself, walking the last few steps silently.
There was time for all of this later, right now…. He had to get the kid.
You both had to get the kid.
This clan of three had been a clan of two for too long.
Xxx
Normal POV
Standing at the top of the ramp, arms crossed, a smirk crawled up your face.
“What are you doing?” Din’s voice behind you didn’t startle you for once, making the turn of your lips grow.
Trilling the fingers of your right hand, you watched the smoke tendrils near the bottom of the ramp curl and unfurl as you manipulated them slowly; the smile on your face going nowhere anytime soon.
“Having fun.” Tilting your head back to look at him with a broad grin, your fingers still moving in slow swirls, you chuckled softly at his amused sigh and gentle shake of his head. “What? Is there something else I’m meant to be doing?”
“Scoping out the hang-”
“It’s clear.” The smirk returned as you straightened your head to scan the docking bay. “Not a single life form left after our first wave went through. Well, aside from one.”
“Where?” Din drew his blaster, head instantly on a swivel as he surveyed the hangar.
“Right…. Here.” You sent the smoke swirling around him, making him swat at it, batting it away with an annoyed groan as you laughed. “Then again, could be a false reading. Been told bounty hunters are heartless.”
Din grunted, holstering his blaster as he closed the distance between you. “Oh, I’ve gotta heart. Want me to prove it?”
You laughed as your back hit the frame of the opening at the top of the ramp, Din crowding into your space. “I know you do, I know you do. I was only teasing. Kriff, you’re so easy to mess with sometimes.”
Hands on his chest, you tried to push him off. Grunting in frustration when he didn’t move, you arched a brow and peered up into his visor, a soft laugh tumbling out despite yourself. “Hey. Shiny. Let me go. We have work to do. Little green kid. This big?” You held up your hands between you for reference. “Eats everything in sight? Cute as can be and stubborn as a tooka under threat of a bath?”
Din just kept staring down at you, his head tilted slightly to the right. You pushed on his chest again with another grin. “Remember him? Hey!”
“There she is.”
You huffed out a breath in confusion as you stared up into his visor. “What?”
“You’re laughing again. Smiling. You should do that more often.”
Staring over his shoulder absently, you realized you felt content for the first time in a while. “Yeah, I guess I am.” Meeting the T of his visor, you felt a smile climb your face like it was the most natural thing. “I guess it’s because the kid is so much closer for the first time since he was taken. I can feel him, Din. It’s like a part of me that was missing is whole again.”
“You can sense him?” He sounded breathless.
You nodded.
“Is he alright?” He was almost hesitant, but hopeful nonetheless.
Reaching out to wrap yourself around the familiar aura, you felt your soul begin to mend its broken parts. A soft laugh tumbled out as you felt a streak of mischief you knew all too well, followed by hunger, then love.
“He’s going to be okay.”
Xxx
Moving around the cruiser was easy, the team that went ahead of you drawing most of the attention of the crew that remained.
You and Din slinked through the hallways like shadows, evading the few troopers you came across without issue.
An abandoned blaster in one lone hallway caught your attention; without thinking, you went to step out into the corridor to get it, stopping short when the neckline of your shirt cinched tight around your neck. Sputtering, you were jerked back into a beskar wall by a lone, gloved finger in the back of your collar.
“What the hell, Din?!” You hissed as you reached up to tear your top out of his tight grip.
His other hand came up to cover your mouth as two troopers walked by at the end of the hall. The hand in your shirt slipped down around your waist to pull you both further back into the shadows.
“You could have just said something,” you mumbled against his palm, rolling your eyes at his world weary sigh. With a flick of your wrist, you summoned the blaster to you from its spot on a lone crate across the corridor. Turning it over in your hands as you examined it, you hummed softly in thought. “Can you let me go now please?” His hand was still over your mouth so the words were completely jumbled.
“Will you stop trying to cross the street like a drunken baby wookie?”
You sighed into his hand, eyes staring up at the ceiling. “It’s a hallway, not a street, Din.”
“You’re not helping your case, mesh’la.”
You flipped the blaster to stun. “Does that help my case?”
Din heaved another sigh, lowering his hand and nudging you forward out of the alcove. “Let’s go. We’re almost there.”
As a smirk crawled up your face, you followed after him.
“Why have you become so violent?” He mumbled.
“I’ve learned from the best,” smirk melting into a grin, you jammed the blaster into the back of your pants.
Din turned down a hall on the left, then the right, before going straight down another long corridor. Every surface was shiny and reflective. Sterile. You wanted out of here as fast as possible.
Din groaned quietly. “Why do I feel you’re not talking about me?”
Both of you answered his question in unison. “Cara.” You nodded while his head tilted to the side before straightening.
Another left turn.
“Now see,” he mused, stopping to check the layout on the nav in his helmet. “I was going to say Fennec.”
Straight.
Your face twisted in thought. “I could see that…. She-”
He pulled you into a little alcove just as another two troopers walked by, causing you to collide with his chest with a soft thud. The troopers stopped at the sound, peering down the hall you were tucked just out of sight in, making the two of you press further into the wall and by extension, one another. Holding a finger up to your lips, you waited for Din to nod in acknowledgment before staring blankly at the wall next to his shoulder, deep in focus.
After a moment, both troopers jumped slightly, looking behind them, then ambled off in search of the phantom sound you’d caused down the hall.
“I can’t believe you jumped,” one said.
“You did, too!” The other protested.
“Did not. I was just trying to turn around before you did.”
“Sure,” his friend said sarcastically.
“You know what,” the first one started. “If you don’t stop coming after me, I’m going to tell the Moff about the time you….”
Their voices faded around the corner, soft sounds of bickering trailing to nothing after a few moments.
Din chuckled, looking down at you, but made no effort to move. “You’re very handy to have around.”
You smirked. “Thank you.”
Xxx
A short while later, after just a few twists and turns, you came around a corner that had Din pressing a button on the side of his helmet to pull up his nav, his blaster drawn in the other hand.
“This is it,” he mumbled, reaching down and pulling out the code cylinder from his belt. Glancing at a panel on the wall a short ways down the hall by a set of doors, his steps picked up as he hurried toward the controls, breaking into a sprint with a sudden, “No. No!” when the doors began to hiss open.
He clicked it in just in time, sending the doors the opposite way, but not quite fast enough for his liking. In a split second he had shifted his weight and began to fire his blaster through the small crack still left open between the two doors.
You thought it all was over until two hands, two mechanical hands, the same hands you'd seen wrapped around the child on Tython, slipped through the remaining sliver left between the doors and pried them open.
Despite Din’s relentless open fire, the droid continued forward, pulling one arm back and punching Din square in the front of his helmet which sent him flying back into the wall. The droid then opened the doors enough to slip through before they slammed shut behind it.
Menacing red eyes stared lifelessly as it stalked closer to Din.
“Hey, bolt brain!”
The droid turned its head to look at you with a mechanical whirr, and you wasted no time. Charging toward your opponent, you did the attack that was second nature now. It was instinct.
“Not today, grease breath,” you mumbled as you leapt into the air, wrapping your legs around the neck of the droid in an attempt to take it down.
But instead of both of you going down in a pile of limbs, the droid reached up, grabbed your thigh in its inhumanly tight grip, pulled you from its shoulders, and flung you to the floor as if you weighed nothing.
The hallway sped by in streaks of dull shine, your skin screeching across the floor until you finally came to a stop several yards away. Nothing was really processing in your mind at that point past, “Well, that didn’t work.”
Suddenly it was like fire was shooting up your leg. Looking down at your thigh near where the droid had grabbed you, there was a tear in your pants, and underneath that a deep, angry gash that looked almost like a burn.
Din had kept firing at the droid while you made your attack, and it seemed a blaster bolt had ricocheted off of the monster and nicked your leg. The more you thought about it, the more it began to hurt. Pain radiated into your lower back and down into your foot, a hiss of discomfort passing through your tightly drawn lips. Biting back a moan, your jaw ticked to the side as you ground your teeth through another wave of agony.
But you didn’t have time to dwell on any of this, even though it had all occurred in just a matter of seconds.
The droid had already set its sights back on Din and had lifted him up against the wall by his throat, holding him in place as it released punch after punch into his visor.
Your only comfort was that his beskar was sure to hold up.
“Din!” You cried out, pushing up onto your palms, the movement causing a new wave of pain to shoot through your leg. Grimacing as you looked down at the wound, your attention was pulled over your shoulder as the platoon of dark troopers left in the bay began to pound on the doors to try and get through.
Turning back toward Din, you reached out as much focus you could offer right now, the wound tugging at the edges of your consciousness and making the lights in the corridor go blurry. The wall behind his head collapsed and a gas line began to fill the hallway with a cloud of the noxious fumes. He was suddenly sending energy down toward his flamethrower, so you withdrew from your mind and engaged your vambrace as well.
The two pillars of flame met in the middle, dousing the droid in fire and sparks, but it didn’t even seem to slow it down at all. It just looked down at its body as the mechanics moaned and groaned under the heat, then lifted its head back up to look at Din before throwing him down the hall as the droid’s body somehow put out the flames.
“Din!” You cried out again, anger boiling in your stomach as you watched him slide across the floor and could do nothing to help him. “Dank farrik!”
He was right under the panel and reached up to pull the handle to eject the rest of the dark troopers, but just as his fingers touched the metal, the droid grabbed his leg and tugged him back to the other side of the hall. It took a few steps toward him, then leaned back on one leg and kicked Din in the chest, sending him sliding further down the corridor.
As the droid opened fire at the beskar clad warrior, and Din returned the favor with his whistling birds, you took the opportunity to crawl and get your back up against the wall next to the panel. Relaxing into the durasteel for just a breath, you focused and reached out with the Force, flipping the lever with an unseen hand.
It struggled at first, flickering against the wall as if it didn’t want to move despite your clear intentions for it to just go. The transparisteel at the top of the door between you and the dark troopers cracked from top to bottom. One more hit and they were coming through. As one of the droids reared back to deliver a final punch, the handle flipped, sounding an alarm and opening the bay doors at the back of the area, sucking them all out into space.
Smirk on your face, you looked up and watched as the dark troopers were pulled away from the small window at the top of the door. “Bye, you sons of-”
You were cut off by the sound of beskar through metal. Turning your head, you looked to find the droid crumbling into a pile of sparks and broken parts at Din’s feet, the beskar spear firmly in his hands. Reattaching the spear to his back, he let out a breath, his shoulders rising and falling with the effort before he turned his head and saw you perched on the floor.
He was quick to rush over to you, crumbling himself to land on his knees at your side, his hands a contradiction as they trembled, moving slowly toward the wound on your thigh. “Did I?”
“Ricochet,” you corrected him quickly. “When I jumped the droid. Got me good. Just…. Just help me up.”
His shoulder went under your arm immediately as he got you to your feet. “You should head to the bridge. I’ll find the brig, get the kid, and-”
“No.” He met your eyes with his visor, and you held his gaze, eyebrows raised in challenge as you tilted your head to the side. “Din, no. He’s part of my clan, too. I’m coming with you.”
He sighed. “Mesh’la….”
Standing up straighter, trying to take more weight on your bad leg, you stumbled a few steps away from him, or at least attempted to. He didn't let you get but a few inches away before his arm was back around your torso again in support. “At least I didn’t shoot you!”
“I didn’t shoot you,” he grumbled, adjusting your weight against his side.
Staring at the side of his helmet in a deadpan, you couldn’t help but notice there wasn’t even a scuff mark from where the droid had unleashed its fury. That settled you a bit. But not enough to calm your annoyance. “You shot me.”
He rolled his head in exasperation. “It bounced off the death droid.” Turning as a unit, you both began down the hall toward the brig, Din carrying the brunt of your weight on his shoulder.
You snorted a laugh. “According to you, all droids are death droids.”
“Not the point- Don’t change the subject!”
Now you were snickering. “I didn’t.” Clutching his cowl in your hand thrown around his neck, you gave him a gentle, playful shake. “You shot me, he’s my family, too, so I’m coming. End of story. Now let's go.” You tried to walk a little faster, but with a Mandalorian literally strapped to your hip, it didn’t work very well.
After a few steps down the hall, Din spoke softly. “Bolt brain?”
Turning your head, you found his visor studying your face. “Well I couldn’t exactly call it Tin Can, that’s already taken, isn’t it?”
He nodded before you both continued down the corridor, walking in silence.
“I’m sorry I used your name.” The sigh was second nature now. Just part of being friends with the Mandalorian.
He looked at you. “I’m glad you did.”
“Really?” Your eyes flicked over his visor, every curve and angle spectacularly unaffected from the fight.
Din’s head tilted to the side affectionately, his voice soft. “Yeah.” Coming to a stop, he held your gaze for a quiet moment. “You…. I want…. Use it from now on.”
All you could do was nod.
The two of you turned your focus back forward to once again hobble towards the brig.
It was another minute or so before he spoke again. “I liked grease breath.”
“Really?”
He was obviously smiling. “Yeah.”
Xxx
It took a bit longer because of your injury, but you eventually made it to the brig, only one cell indicating a life form.
You could sense him, and it brought a smile to your face, but you could also sense a…. The smile began to melt just as Din waved his hand over the panel to open the door. “Wait,” you tried, but it was too late.
Pushing off of his side, you stood on your own despite the pain. Din looked to you in question before turning toward the cell once the door was open, his shoulders tensed in understanding.
On the bench in the cell sat Grogu waiting patiently in tiny little binders. Standing beside the kid was a man you could only assume was Gideon, a saber drawn and held precariously close over Grogu’s head. You’d seen enough Imperial officials on Coruscant to be able to read the rank on his uniform.
Din had his blaster drawn in an instant, taking aim the only words needed as he held the gaze of the Moff.
“Ah ah ah,” Gideon chided with a smug smirk, waving the saber over the kid’s head. Any closer and the little hairs on his head would begin to singe. It made your blood boil. If he hurt a hair on his head…. “Drop the blaster. Slowly.” Once Din had done what he’d asked, he gestured to you. “And the one you stole back in the hallway.”
You froze, hands inches from gripping the new blaster tucked into the back of your pants. How did he know? Tossing it aggressively onto the floor next to Din’s with a sneer, you cocked your hip to the side and crossed your arms over your chest, fingernails digging into your biceps to distract you from the pain in your leg.
“Now kick them over to me.” Din held his arm out to keep you in place, knowing you’d probably try to lob them at the Moff with a well placed kick. He nudged them gently across the floor toward the man. “Very nice.”
“Give me the kid.” Din’s voice was gruff and down to business, no room for messing around.
“The kid is just fine where he is.” Angling the saber back and forth, admiring it as he waved it slightly over the kid’s head again, a small smile climbed Gideon’s face. He met your eyes. “Mesmerizing, isn’t it? Used to belong to Bo-Katan.” His gaze flicked to Din, noticing how he shifted his weight just slightly. “Yes. I know you’ve been traveling with Bo-Katan. A friendly piece of advice, assume that I know everything. Like the fact that your wrist launcher has fired its one and only salvo.”
With a flick of your left wrist, your vambrace whirred to life. “I haven’t used mine.”
Din held out his arm again to hold you back. “Where is this going?”
You reluctantly disengaged the vambrace, studying the saber as the Moff spoke. It was like nothing you’d ever seen. The blade was black with brilliant white energy crackling along the edges, almost giving it the appearance of lightning on a dark night. It hummed at a different frequency than other sabers, you noticed, and the blade had a different shape than you’d ever seen, almost coming to a point at the end. It was truly beautiful, and you could see why it would be something to war over.
But it didn’t hold your interest nearly as much as the tiny little green face that sat just beside it. The giant eyes blinking slowly up at you in love and trust despite the situation. Not a hint of fear coming off of him. How did you deserve a love like that? How had that come into your life?
“Almost done, ad’ika,” you sent to him through your mind.
His ears perked up at the sound of your voice in his head, but then his features twisted up in concern, eyes falling down to your wound before coming back up to meet your gaze.
“I’ll be okay. Let’s just get out of here first, okay?”
Grogu grunted softly, unamused, but turned his attention back to the Moff, and you did, too.
“You keep it. I just want the kid,” Din was saying, indicating the saber. You think.
You really needed to pay more attention, you groaned to yourself.
Gideon nodded. “Very well. I’ve already got what I want from him. His blood.” His what? “All I wanted was to study his blood.” A bad feeling ran down your spine. “This child is extremely gifted…. and has been blessed with rare properties that have the potential to bring order back to the galaxy.” He really thought this was an okay thing to be doing…. “I see your bond with him.” That was abrupt. “Take him, but you will leave my ship immediately and we will go our separate ways.” This didn’t feel right, but nothing on this ship did.
Arms crossed over your chest, you scoffed. “Gladly.”
Din turned to you, his voice low. “Go to the bridge.”
Your head snapped to the side to look at him. “What?” Did you just hear him right? Surely he didn’t…. There’s no way….
He took the smallest step toward you, his hand coming out to rest lightly on your elbow. “You’re injured, we’re almost done here….” His grip tightened, your wide eyes falling down to study his steady touch before quickly pulling back up to his visor. “Go to the bridge and tell them to get the ship ready. We have a deal to honor.” His thumb traced your upper arm once before his touch fell away, the ghost of his fingers trailing down to take your hand in his. “Once I have the kid, I’ll meet you all back on the transport and we’ll go home.”
Words weren’t working in your head. Nothing was working right now. Say something. “But-”
“Mesh’la.” For some reason, you felt if you could see his eyes, they would be pleading. “Go. Now. Please.” Din’s hand released yours, the heat from his fingers wrapped around your own evaporating almost instantly in the cold, lifeless interior of the cruiser, haunting you with its memory.
Taking a few steps backwards, ignoring the pain shooting through your leg, you stepped into the hallway, pausing for a moment to stare at Grogu, then Din before turning and starting toward the bridge. You were tempted to glare at the Moff, but he wasn’t worth your time.
You were just about to round the corner when you heard the zing of kyber on beskar.
Without hesitation you turned and ran back toward the room, your wound forgotten as you charged for the door. “Din!”
The Mandalorian backed out of the doorway blocking blow after blow from the Darksaber, the Moff unrelenting in his attacks.
Din finally gained some ground and got his feet under him, gaining some distance between himself and Gideon, enough to right himself and pull his beskar spear as he slowly circled the Moff.
Stop.
A voice you didn’t recognize echoed through your head, ringing as if it were a hammer striking steel.
Stop. No.
It echoed like it was in a cavern and not on a cruiser.
This is the Way.
As you skidded to a stop in the middle of the hall, you called out his name again. “Din!” You were behind him, but he didn’t turn to look at you, the only indication he heard you his shoulders tensing at the sound of your voice.
Ad. (“Daughter.”)
What was that voice?! And now it was speaking Mando’a?
“Go,” Din ordered gruffly.
Slanar. (“Go.”)
You wanted to roll your eyes as the voice agreed with your Mandalorian. Of course it did.
“No.”
Ib’tuur jatne tuur ash’ad kyr’amur. (“Today is a good day for someone else to die.”)
If you didn’t know any better, you’d say the Darksaber was talking to you…. Before you could really focus on the blade in the Moff’s hand, Din was moving again.
“Go,” he yelled again, raising the spear to strike at Gideon, sparks flying on impact. “Now!” He blocked a few more blows from the saber before they leaned into each other, the heat from the kyber causing the spear to turn red hot.
Ret’urcye mhi. (“Maybe we’ll meet again.”)
Okay, mysterious voice. You win this round. You and the Tin Can.
Grunting in frustration, you turned on your heel and ran as fast as you could to the bridge. As you charged through the doors, you held up your hands as at least four blasters were aimed at you. “It’s me, it’s me. Only me.”
“Where’s-”
“Back there,” you grimaced, gesturing over your shoulder with your thumb before you collapsed to the floor clutching your leg.
Cara and Fennec were quick to help you over to a chair, propping your injured leg up on a seat across from you, while Koska sealed the doors and Bo-Katan checked surveillance in the halls.
“I don’t see them,” she said, filtering through several feeds.
“What happened?” Cara asked.
“Blaster ricocheted and got me. We found Gideon and the kid, they made a deal.”
“A deal?”
You nodded to Fennec, grimacing as you clutched the wound on your leg tight.
“He wants us off the ship in exchange for the kid. Mando- Din told me to leave and come here, let you all know we’ll meet back on the transport. Then next thing I know I hear Gideon going at him with the Darksaber-”
“And you didn’t help him?”
You glared at Cara. “Of course I kriffing tried to. Dank farrik, Cara, What else do you think I would do, just sit and watch? Run back here faster? Some other third option?” She rolled her eyes at you, leaning against the console at her back. You sighed, relaxing in your seat, head lolling back and hand coming up to cover your eyes. “He told me to go. Again.” Letting your hand fall down to your lap with a plop, you looked between your two friends. “So I did.” You shrugged. “What else was I supposed to do?”
“He knows what he’s doing,” Fennec offered softly. “He’s only trying to keep you and the kid safe.”
“Yeah, well I am pretty good at that myself,” you grumbled. Before anyone could say anything, you screwed up your face like you’d eaten something sour. “I know, I know.” Arms coming to cross over your chest, you pouted like a petulant child. “It’s not the same.”
“At the end of the day, what matters is that you’re both able to come home. Does it matter how that happens? Who does the saving?”
All three of you turned your heads over to look at Bo-Katan in unison.
She wouldn’t hold your gazes for long, her eyes falling back to the screen with the surveillance feed. “He’s here at the door…. With the Moff.” She looked at you pointedly, her voice softer and a smile tugging up her face. “And the kid.”
You sat up straight, turning toward the entrance as you waited for the doors to hiss open. Koska punched the button, stepping to the side to give you an unobstructed view, and you could have sworn a soft huff of laughter passed through her modulator.
As soon as Din came through the doors, the kid in one arm, the Darksaber ignited and extended down to the side in the other, the atmosphere in the room shifted. It was like all the air was sucked out. You almost had to glance around and make sure a stray blaster bolt hadn't pierced the viewport and caused a slow leak.
Power radiated off of him as his grip tightened around the hilt of the weapon, his gloves creaking in protest against the pressure while he followed behind Gideon who’s wrists were bound with binders at his front.
The Moff’s eyes were downcast, but they landed on you briefly, sending a shiver crawling down your spine. Sitting up a bit straighter, not wanting to let him win any satisfaction, you grunted in pain slightly when the stretch pulled on the wound on your thigh. Letting a short breath out through your nose to cover the pain, you suddenly forgot all about it when the corner of Gideon’s mouth quirked up in amusement at your suffering.
“The droids miss far less than the troopers,” he mumbled as he passed by you, letting out an annoyed huff as Din nudged him forward toward the rest of the party with a push that was a little more forceful than necessary.
Din turned his attention toward you, his helmet doing a quick once over from your head down to the floor and back up again. When he saw your leg propped up on the seat in front of where you sat, he disengaged the saber and hurried over to you, kneeling at your side and ignoring your protests.
“I’m fine. Din, I’m fine.” You sighed as he set the saber down on the floor, gently placing Grogu in your lap and inspecting the wound up close. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not,” he grumbled, reaching for a medkit tucked under one of the stations next to you.
“No, stop it,” you tried to push his hands away as he went to set the kit on your uninjured thigh beside the kid. “Ma- Din, no.”
“Mesh’la,” he sighed, flipping the top of the kit open, groaning in annoyance when you flipped it back shut with an unseen force.
He kept opening it, a total of two more times, only for you to slam it shut again, this time applying a little extra pressure to keep him from being able to open it again.
“I’m fine.”
His forehead came to rest on your knee where he knelt in front of you, a heavy sigh rounding his shoulders.
“Mesh’la….”
“Will you just look at it, you overgrown Tin Can?” You couldn’t help the amusement coloring your tone.
Din lifted his head to look up at you. “I did. It’s-” Turning his gaze down to the small tear in your pants from the blaster bolt, he realized the wound was no longer red and angry, no longer open, but neatly mended skin, fresh and healed. “….gone. It’s gone.” Pulling his visor back up toward your face, tilted slightly in question, you shook your head in answer before looking down at Grogu, smile widening slightly.
Looking between the two of you, Grogu let out an unimpressed grunt before he climbed up onto the control panel at your side, scrambling over your lap and arm of your chair in the process.
Whispers began to circle you, faint and indecisive. You looked down to the hilt of your saber accusingly, but it sat quiet, contentedly on your hip almost as if the kyber was sleeping. The voices surged, making you inhale sharply through your nose to try and not draw attention to yourself, when you realized they were coming from the saber in Din’s hand.
Standing near the front of the bridge, Din gave one of his signature sighs as he turned his attention from the Moff, extending the saber with one hand. He was offering it to Bo-Katan. “And now it belongs to her.”
We belong to no one, the voices surged again, clear as the smirk on Moff Gideon’s face as he watched the exchange between beskar warriors.
Unlike back in the hallway, it wasn’t just a singular voice, it was many. It was different. But there wasn’t time to sit and dwell on the variances between the voices in your head. Shaking your head gently, you focused back on the whispers currently curling into your mind.
They weren’t modulated, but you felt as if the voices belonged to those of Mandalorians past, as if the blade spoke for Mandalore. And in a way, you guess it did. If it had chosen the Mandalorian people, that kyber spoke for a nation. Suddenly it made the taunting voice of your own blade seem small. Insignificant.
Your kyber didn’t like that, didn’t like being pushed to the side, being made to feel small, and started to hum, the vibrations filling your mind with an annoying frequency you couldn’t shake.
It spoke for Mandalorians.
So why was it speaking to you?
Before you fully registered what you were doing, you found your feet had carried you closer to the Moff, something in his demeanor not sitting quite right in the back of your mind. This was too easy.
The pull of the Darksaber drew you further in, its gentle ebb and flow of energy washing softly over you like cresting waves. It was every bit like Mandalorians, at least the ones you knew. Rough around the edges, intimidating and brilliant. But its aura was also soft, and somewhat inviting if you knew where to look. Underneath the rough exterior and harsh lines it offered a warmth unlike any other…. Like a certain beskar clad bounty hunter you knew.
No voices came anymore, but the hum morphed into a steady pulse, almost like a heartbeat, the higher pitch of your purple kyber beating in tandem with the low thrum of the dark blade.
The hum faded slightly to the background as an alarm started blaring at one of the stations, pulling all eyes over toward the sound.
“The ray shields have been breached. We’re being boarded,” Fennec said, going over to the console and disengaging the alarm, her eyes wide on the screen.
“How many life forms?” Bo-Katan asked, walking toward the station.
No matter how far you reached out, you didn’t feel any life forms beyond this ship. And that thought made your gut sink. “None,” you mumbled to yourself.
Fennec turned to the group, swallowing roughly. “None.”
Everyone sprung into action, the slap of footsteps on the deck echoing in your head. The hollow thud thud thud of each boot fall ricocheting in your ears made it seem like the space was spinning slowly.
Din picked up Grogu and set him on the floor by the nearest console, leaning up against its side. “Don’t worry, kid. We’re gonna get you out of here.”
The air was tense as everyone stood in silence once they’d reached their positions. It sounded strange when Fennec called out an order. “Seal the blast doors.” Her voice a stark contrast to the low drone of the ship.
All eyes were on the door once you pressed the button and the extra layer slipped between you and the dark troopers. It was only a matter of time before-
Then Koska said what you’d all been dreading. “They’re here.” Glancing at the small screen, she turned back toward the door, lifting her blaster higher.
It was odd to know an enemy awaited you so closely and yet you could sense nothing. Not a flicker, or a spark, or a-
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
The metal door moaned under the pressure, and began to crumple in the center from the repeated strikes of the dark troopers’ fists.
Blow after blow, the durasteel bent further, nearly separating in the center to reveal your enemy on the other side.
Every pair of feet shifted nervously, trigger fingers twitched with each thud.
You saw Cara toss her head to the side slightly, her eyes fluttering shut for just a moment before they flew back open as she rolled her shoulders back.
Bo-Katan held two blasters up at the ready, and for all accounts seemed steady. But you saw the shallow breaths she was taking. You knew how to read the body beneath the beskar.
No one in here thought they were walking out.
At least, not all of you.
There has to be a way, you thought, turning toward Gideon.
He was grinning.
“Make them stop,” you ordered gruffly, never lowering your blaster from its aim at the door.
As Gideon began to laugh, you made a split second decision and turned your blaster on him, switching it to stun mode. But he didn’t know that, you just wanted him to hear the whir of the mechanics as it came to life, a very clear threat to make him sweat.
The Moff surveyed the team surrounding himself and the Mandalorian, all weapons besides your own drawn and pointed at the doors as the constant thud thud thud of the dark troopers banged against the durasteel. But he only smiled wider as he looked at the crumpling steel, then at Din pointedly, completely ignoring you. “You have an impressive fire team protecting you. But I think we all know, after a valiant stand, everyone in this room will be dead…. but me…. and the child.” His eyes landed on you again, and it seemed like something went unsaid, but you didn’t get the chance to press him on it.
Rolling your eyes, you glared at him. “Can someone please shut him up?”
An alarm began to beep from one of the consoles, a ship through the viewport catching your eye.
Koska went over to turn off the alert. “An X-wing.”
Letting out a huff, Cara adjusted the rifle braced on her shoulder. “One X-wing? Great. We’re saved.”
After closing the distance between herself and another console, Bo-Katan pressed a button and spoke into the built in comm. “Incoming craft, identify yourself.”
Grogu had perked up the moment the ship had flown by, and it had made your spine straighten, too. When his tiny eyes met yours across the room, you smiled softly, lowering your blaster before switching it to safety and holstering it once again.
Nodding to the child, you both tilted your head almost as if you heard something and smiled a bit more broadly. “I feel it, too, kid.”
Fennec spoke quietly, her voice a mixture of hope, but also wariness. “Why did they stop?”
That’s when you realized the steady thump thump thump of the dark troopers had gone silent. A glance at the screen on one of the consoles showed they all stood facing away from the door. They were ready. Waiting.
Din looked at you, hands on your hips easily as you held the kids' gaze, then at Grogu, his large eyes blinking slowly but wide and alert as he looked up at you, and Din realized you both were completely at ease. Then he turned to Gideon, holstering his own blaster.
Seeing the Mandalorian put down his weapons after a cue from a bartender and a baby, you couldn’t help the grin on your face as you looked down at the Moff, your voice quiet. “It’s over.”
Gideon scoffed. “It’s one X-wing.”
Taking a step closer, you shook your head, your voice a tad firmer. “It’s done.”
Bo-Katan lowered her blasters as she went to the console with the screen. She watched in silence as a lone figure emerged from the X-wing, ignited a saber and began to clear out the dark troopers. “A Jedi?”
The smugness melted off of Gideon’s face, and it made something in your chest pull tight in satisfaction. “What’s the plan now, Moff? Didn’t plan for a laser sword?”
Gideon hummed in thought. “Didn't account for two….”
Turning your attention back on the now silent door, everything seemed to stretch out. Time elongated, a second was like a minute, the space in front of you once only feet suddenly looked like miles. Nothing looked right, everything felt off, and you realized you heard absolutely nothing at all. No chatter, no alarms, no calming breaths as one of your friends stabilized their blasters.
Something was about to happen.
The voices and the hum surged once again, tumbling back into your consciousness along with every other sound from the deck. They began to spread out, time almost seeming to slow further with them, and a low thrum filled the space in between.
The hairs on the back of your neck stood on end, and everything in your body told you to turn back around and face Gideon.
Turning as fast as you could, but what seemed so slowly, like you were moving through water, you saw the Moff pull a blaster and fire off a few shots at Bo-Katan, bolts of light ricocheting off her beskar left and right before she fell to the ground.
Reaching out, you sensed she wasn’t injured, so you kept eyes on the Moff, everything slowing down further as he turned to take aim at Grogu.
But this time it was different. While everything else slowed, it was like you were moving incredibly fast.
You could sense the intent of the others before they acted, so you knew Din was going to dive in front of the kid to block the bolts with his armor, Cara was going to disarm him, and Fennec would make sure he didn’t move with the end of her blaster aimed strategically at him.
The scene resumed normal speed to your mind, everyone playing their part to a T. Din slid in front of the kid, shots bouncing off his armor, and every set of eyes on the deck was aimed at the Moff as he froze, blaster still pointed toward Din.
“Drop it!” Fennec barked, her rifle whirring to life as she took aim, Koska and Cara following suit.
After a quick glance around, Gideon pushed the barrel of the blaster up under his chin.
“Oh no you don’t,” you muttered, starting forward.
But before he could pull the trigger, Cara had knocked it out of his hands with the butt of her rifle, then whacked him in the face for good measure.
Moving faster than the air around you, you were at his side, towering over him with your saber drawn. Tip of the blade at his throat in seconds, you let out a long breath as all the voices and hums silenced themselves at once.
“Did you account for three?”
As soon as you ignited the blade, all the chitter and humming stopped. The quiet drone of the ship flying through space and the beep of consoles sounded so much louder than before as you focused on the tight expression of the Moff.
Gideon glanced at you down the length of the blade, fear in his eyes, but also something cocky. “Just as I thought,” he mumbled.
Before you could ask what in the hell he meant, the kid cooed near the screen displaying the rogue Jedi clearing out the ship, pulling your attention away for just a moment. It was such a relief to have him back in your line of sight again, you almost forgot about the villain at your feet. Almost.
Gideon continued to stare at you, the smirk on his face crawling ever higher, while the amusement in his eyes unnerved you.
“What?” You muttered lowly, trying not to draw the attention of everyone in the party to what felt like a private conversation.
The smirk melted into a broad grin, which in turn pulled your brows further together in question.
“Nothing. I’ve just had a realization, is all,” the Moff mused. “When all of this is over, and the dark troopers have left me the only one standing…. Perhaps I can be convinced to include you in the deal, as well.”
Your eyes narrowed to slits, the end of your saber getting just enough closer to his skin that any facial hairs would shrivel away from the heat. It followed him up as Gideon got back to his feet with a groan, Din stepping in to make sure the binders around his wrists were fastened extra tight.
“You still think this is going to go your way?” Grip adjusting on the hilt of your saber, fingers stretching then tightening into a sturdier hold, you grinned as the Moff glanced down at the purple blade and swallowed tightly. Letting out a huff of air, you held his gaze once it pulled back up to yours. “Fine. I’ll play. And why would I want that?”
Despite his nerves, his grin took a wicked turn. “You seem the type to be on the winning side.”
In a matter of moments you’d disengaged your saber, and closed the few steps left between you. A quick jab of your elbow to his chest knocked the wind out of him, then you flipped it in your hand to jam the butt of the hilt against Gideon’s temple, knocking him to the ground; the toe of your boot landed a swift kick near his spine, squarely to his left kidney to keep him down as he tried to scramble back up.
“You’re right,” you said plainly, looking down at him as the rest of the deck looked on in silence. “I am on the winning side.” Leaning down closer toward his face, you enjoyed how he shrunk away slightly. “It’s just not yours.”
“Don’t be so sure about that,” he grumbled, trying to get back upright. Struggling with his bound hands, his cape twisted over his shoulder obstructed his view, which only got worse as he tried to bat it away with his joined palms. The press of Fennec’s rifle into his spine made him still, his eyes fluttering shut as he let out a defeated huff through his nose.
You stayed close to his face, a smug smile turning up your features. “Jokes on you, Moff. I’m not sure of anything.”
Din sighed heavily off to your left, and you could just make out his head shaking in your peripherals, hand cradling his forehead as it continued to rock back and forth.
“Well I am,” Cara said calmly. “And we’re all gonna die if we don’t come up with a plan to fight these walking gear boxes.”
“We don’t need a plan, Cara. It’s being taken care of.” You pointed to the screen.
“One X-wing?” She scoffed. “You’ll forgive me if I have trouble believing that.” Her weight shifted to one side. “We need any ideas to beat these-”
“You can’t,” Gideon laughed. He turned to the side and spit out a mouthful of blood from when Cara had bashed him with her rifle. When he smiled, his teeth were covered in streaks of red, making his threat all the more menacing. He turned to look at Din pointedly. “You had your hands full with one…. Let’s see how you do against a platoon.”
You’d never seen Mandalorians look uneasy, but as you glanced around the deck, every set of beskar was shifting their weight side to side uncomfortably, sharing looks you didn’t like the sound of.
Turning back toward the screen, a sneer started up your face. “Sorry to burst your bubble, Moff, but it looks like you’re a few droids short of a platoon.”
Gideon was suddenly at your ear, but still on the floor at your feet. His words mumbled into his shoulder somehow reached you as if he was right next to you. “I’m trying not to take this personally, girl, but you need to make a choice. All of your friends are about to die. You can either join them, or join me. The kid and yourself would be safe…. Well looked after. I’d just…. Need a small donation of blood from time to time.”
Your eyes widened as you looked down at him. Meeting his gaze, he smirked.
“In the scheme of things, it’s a small price to pay.”
You jerked him up with an unseen force, holding him nearly nose to nose as you gripped your hands in the front of his cape to pull him down to your eye level. Every blaster in the room whirled to aim at the two of you, the whirr of charging mechanics filling the bridge. “The only price I’m willing to pay, Moff, is you at the end of a rope.”
The man only blinked at you. You saw red.
Your hands clenched his cape so tightly you were surprised you didn’t hear the sound of stitches ripping under the pressure. Tugging him further down, you made him meet you eye to eye. “Now leave my friends and my family alone, you ass.” With a good shove, you pushed him backwards into Cara’s waiting grasp. “Usen'ye, shabuir.” (“Go away, fucker.”)
“The Mando’a language always fascinated me,” he mused, holding your gaze as he taunted. “So many words for such a stoic people. Too bad it’s dying out just like its speakers….”
You were closing the distance between you in an instant. “Ib'tuur jatne tuur gar kyr'amur.” (“Today is a good day for you to die.”)
Din stepped forward, catching your arm with his hand and stopped you short.
Gideon was grinning like a fool. “That’s not a good way to treat someone offering you an out….”
“You’re not offering me an out. You’re offering me a prison.”
“I’m offering you a way to walk off of this ship.”
Wrestling your arm free from Din’s hold - it wasn’t hard, he didn’t put up much resistance - you closed the final step between Gideon and yourself, toe to toe with him in an instant. Without hesitation you dropped to your haunches, extending one leg and spun. Swiping your leg under his, you dropped him back down to the floor with a thump.
Back on your feet faster than anyone could blink, you stared down at the floundering Imperial. “Sorry. Can’t offer you the same courtesy.” You shrugged. “Ni'duraa.” (“I look down on you.”)
Gideon huffed through his nose in annoyance, glaring up at you, but his voice remained calm, and somehow that was worse. “There was a time there was honor among Jedi.” He rolled from his side onto his back, propped up on his elbows.
“I am no Jedi.”
He nodded once, eyes staring across the bridge in thought. “And what of the Mandalorian Creed, where is your honor from that?” Gideons eyes landed back on yours, something in them sparking like he thought he’d won. Like a tooka with a scurrier.
“I am not Mandalorian.”
The Moff’s face crumpled in frustration, and he let out a huff. “Then what-”
You’d had enough. Taking a step closer so the tips of your boots touched the soles of his, you straightened your spine as you glowered down at him. You felt all the other bodies in the room shifting closer to you, whether for support or back up, you didn’t know, but it was appreciated all the same. Closest on your left was Din, the glint of beskar coming into your peripheral and causing the side of your mouth to twitch up. He was just close enough that his upper arm brushed yours. And you knew it was his way of saying “I’m here” without having to say a word.
“No matter what I am, you do not deserve my honor, Gideon. You deserve less than my absolute worst. You tried to destroy my home. You tried to tear apart my family and took my son. You’ve had a bounty on my head for months, and tried to get me killed time and time again. Not to mention whatever sick and twisted things happened in that base back on Nevarro…. I could go on, but you’re not worth the air it’d take to say it all. You deserve less. Less than the least I can give.”
Gideon smirked. “Passionate words for someone proclaiming to care so little.”
This time you smirked, and it made his falter. “That’s the problem. I care too much. But you don’t deserve any of it. I won’t let you. You’ve stolen enough from me. That ends now.”
“And she’s a bartender,” Fennec leaned in to say. “That above all is what matters most in my book.”
Turning your gaze up to look at your friend, brows arched as you shook your head good naturedly, you let your weight shift to one side. “You just want that drink I owe you.”
She shrugged, a smirk working its way up her face now. It seemed to be contagious. “Wouldn’t say no….”
Grogu cooed, resting his hand on the screen as the Jedi waded through the dark troopers as if they were nothing. Quietly moving to stand behind him, you placed your hand on his back gently, rubbing it in soothing circles as you lowered to your haunches to be on his level. “Yeah. I know. I feel it too, kid.”
Din was perched on one knee in front of the console, just to your left. When he spoke, his voice was low, almost sad. “Is it….”
You nodded, eyes never leaving the child. “One of the good ones, Din.”
He hesitated, his head tilting to the side as he looked at his ward. “So Grogu would be safe?”
The quiet warble in his voice pulled your gaze to his visor briefly, but just like always, the hard steel gave nothing away he didn’t want it to.
You looked back at the kid, hand coming up to rub the back of his tiny head. “He’d be with his own kind.” Bringing your hand back down to rest on his small back, you resumed the soothing circles before you stilled, staring at the screen.
You were looking at the one who would take the kid away from you. After everything you’d just done to get him back. He was here. In your hands, your clan was complete and now it was about to be…. He was going to….
After your thumb traced absent patterns against his tiny, scratchy robes, you let your hand fall back to your lap, clutched tightly in your other.
Din’s visor turned back to you. “That’s not what I asked.” He sounded like he understood, but he also sounded confused, which made you smile softly. That was normal for this subject matter.
Keeping your eyes on Grogu, you nodded once again, your voice every bit as soft as Din’s had been. “He’d finally get the training he needs. That he deserves.”
Din sighed heavily, his weight shifting slightly. “Mesh’la….” The one leg came up, and he rocked back on his heels so he was crouched beside you.
You continued. “Green sabers are consulars. They are wise. Think things through. This one should make a fine teacher if they adhere to any of the old ways-”
Din’s hand came to rest on yours still clutched tightly in your lap, his voice low in understanding. “Mesh’la, that’s not what I asked.”
Lifting your eyes from where they fell to study his hand on yours, you looked at Din as a sad smile twisted up the side of your face. “I know.” Swallowing roughly, you blinked back tears as you turned back to Grogu. The child was easier to face, yet your heart broke a little bit more each time you saw him. When you spoke again, your voice was barely more than a whisper. “But that’s the only answer I have to give.”
The Jedi was at the door now, taking out the last of the droids, while you and Din shared a long, loaded look over the top of Grogu’s head.
Once everything fell silent, Din turned his gaze down onto the child for a moment, his shoulders rising and falling with heavy breaths.
Din got to his feet, scooping up the kid, and turned toward the front of the bridge. “Open the doors.”
When no one moved, he strode calmly toward the entrance, setting Grogu down on the console you’d been sitting in front of when he’d come in. “I said, open the doors.”
Fennec slightly rolled her head in disbelief. “Are you crazy?”
Din pushed the proper button on the console, and the doors hissed open, revealing a shadowy figure in a cloud of smoke that had a green tint and the soft hum of a saber.
My dream…. You blinked rapidly as flashes of your dream on Boba’s ship replaced the scene in front of you, and they were so close it was hard to distinguish one from the other. It hadn’t been a dream. It was a vision. But then if…. The fight outside the cantina. That meant…. What else had you seen? As the saber disengaged you remembered in a flash reaching for the shadow of the child and he had turned to smoke through your fingers. Gone.
Turning to look at Grogu, you knew where this was going, and your gut sank down to the lower decks below your feet. You knew from the moment you saw the X-wing, if you were being honest, had felt it like the kid had, but…. You could hope, couldn’t you?
The figure emerged from the smoke, tossing their hood back, and suddenly having a form instead of a shadow made this all too real.
You’d just gotten him back.
And now he was about to leave again.
This wasn’t fair.
The hood now pulled back, you saw a young man about your age, blonde somewhat unkempt hair, and kind eyes that seemed to see right through you. It was hard to tell, but the longer you stared, it seemed like he had scars on his face, and curiosity from your days behind the bar nearly got the better of you to ask where they came from. His entire aura was kind and peaceful, a good match for Grogu, but something underneath hinted at something…. haunted. He was plagued by something bigger than him, something he could never shake…. But it seemed to have made him stronger.
Din stepped forward. “Are you a Jedi?” You couldn’t blame him. He’d defaulted into protective father mode. He was just making sure the child would be safe.
“I am.” The Jedi extended a hand toward Grogu as he peeked around the chair in front of the console Din had set him on. “Come, little one.”
Din hesitated. “He doesn’t want to go with you.” He almost sounded hopeful, and that was nearly as heartbreaking as what you knew was coming.
“He wants your permission,” the Jedi corrected softly. “He is strong with the Force, but talent without training is nothing. I will give my life to protect the child…. but he will not be safe until he masters his abilities.”
Din turned to look at you over his shoulder, and it was all you could do to nod in confirmation. He turned back toward Grogu and went to get him out of the chair.
While Din stooped to pick up the child, suddenly a voice filled your mind. “And what about you, young one? Are you not coming, too?” Lifting your eyes to meet the Jedi’s you saw him focusing on the man in beskar and his tiny ward, only shooting you a fleeting glance before looking away yet again. “I sensed another. I know it’s you. You’re strong with the ways of the Force, like your little friend here. But I also sense much fear, much turmoil in you…. Without training, that will only fester and grow into something I fear you will not be able to contain.”
Shaking your head almost imperceptibly, you reached out into his mind, smiling softly in satisfaction when his eyes met yours briefly in surprise. “Thank you for your concern, Master, but I’ve made it this far on my own. The Force hasn’t abandoned me yet.”
Making your way over to stand at Din’s side, one hand resting on his pauldron to stabilize yourself, you smiled down at Grogu softly. Glancing at the Jedi out of the corner of your eye, you saw him looking at you.
The Jedi returned the smile. “Call me Luke. And it isn’t fear of abandonment that concerns me. It’s the opposite, actually. I fear it will overwhelm you, twist you into something you hardly recognize.”
Din held Grogu in front of him so that they were able to look at one another. His voice was soft and heavily affected, but you could tell he was trying to be strong. “Hey, go on. That’s who you belong with. He’s one of your kind.”
Glancing up at Din, you smiled softly before it quickly melted back towards a frown, your eyes falling back onto the child.
“I’ll see you again.” His voice was broken. “I promise.”
The kid reached up, placing his hand on the right side of Din’s helmet as he blinked his big eyes slowly. You had to look down at the ground to collect yourself. It was easy to forget Grogu was actually older than everyone on this ship until he did something like this, and let a little bit of that wisdom of his years shine through in his eyes. He may not be able to speak yet, but his eyes spoke volumes.
As he looked at Din, words surrounded you.
I see you. I know you. I love you. Thank you. I’m going to be okay. You’re going to be okay. Take care of each other. And something along the lines of Don’t forget to tell Peli I’ll miss her.
You opened your mouth to tell Din everything the kid was saying, but Grogu must have done you one better and passed it on to you both, because after a moment of stuttered breathing, Din reached up and removed his helmet.
Mouth snapping shut, your eyes immediately fell to his chest plate, wide before you blinked back tears. Then they returned to Grogu, a sense of calm washing over you once again.
You kept your eyes on the kid, not daring to look up at Din’s face, his cape clutched tightly in your right hand as your left cradled Grogu’s back. “As long as I have this, I’m not too worried about that.”
“That’s what worries me.” Your eyes pulled to Luke’s in question. “Things change.”
Eyes back on the child, you smiled as he peered up at you with a soft coo. “Some don’t.”
Grogu reached out toward the Mandalorian once again, his small hand touching the side of his cheek that no longer bore a helmet.
While you wouldn’t pull your eyes up to see the look on Din’s face, you felt everything you needed to. The room surged with love and calm, peace…. But also a great deal of sadness and longing. The mix was coming from both of them.
This was exactly what the kid needed, but that didn’t mean it hurt any less. Din called him his son around you once or twice, as did you, but you knew deep down he struggled with the technicalities of that relationship. Their bond was something deeper, more than just father and son, and he knew that. But Din was nowhere close to admitting that yet, and you couldn’t tell if it was that that hurt him more, or the impending absence of the child.
Either way, it swelled low in his gut, simmering in the background as he put on a brave face for his tiny ward.
“All right, pal. It’s time to go.” Grogu whined softly, his ears drooping down toward his shoulders as he peered up at Din. “Don’t be afraid.”
You felt Din’s eyes land on you, the child’s following shortly after. As you peered down into his big wide eyes, tears began to brim in your own. Reaching out and tracing the line of his ear with your finger, pinching the end lightly when you got there, you brought your finger to his small clawed hand, smiling and letting out a breath when he grasped it tightly. With a shaky inhale, you repeated the words you’d said when you thought he was staying with Ahsoka, your voice barely more than a whisper. “I would run for my life a thousand times over if it meant I got to know you again.”
Din lowered to his haunches, setting Grogu on the floor before rising back to his full height. You half expected to see him jerk his head toward the Jedi to motion the kid across, but he just looked at Luke, then down at Grogu, his head tilting slightly as the child clung to his boot and gazed up at him.
It was a wonder you saw anything as he moved in your peripherals, tears blurring your vision as you stared down at the kid.
Grogu’s soft babbles filled the cabin, making your heart hurt just as much as the Mandalorian’s responding silence.
The beeps of an astromech droid came from behind the Jedi, pulling Grogu’s attention away from his caretaker, and you let out a soft breath in relief. Din’s hand found its way into your left hand, clutching it tightly while your right still grasped at his cape to keep you upright.
“Last chance, young one,” Luke’s voice drifted into your mind once again. Looking at him, he didn’t even look at you, he watched Grogu and the droid, nodding to the Mandalorian after a moment. Once Grogu ambled over toward the Droid who bleeped and blooped at him, Luke stooped down to pick up the child, lifting back to his full height. Finally, he met your gaze.
“My answer is the same.” You squeezed Din’s hand.
Standing beside him, just slightly behind, you clutched his cape tightly in your hand to ground yourself. His hair in your peripherals was dark, curly, a mess atop his head you wanted to reach up and shuffle into submission.
You kept your eyes straight ahead on the kid in the arms of the Jedi, not allowing yourself to be the reason he broke his Creed. Technically he’d already broken it, removing his helmet for Grogu, but that didn’t mean anyone else could just walk up and stare. No matter how badly you wanted to.
He turned his head just slightly and you saw the dusting of facial hair out of the corner of your eye, grays mixed in with the dark. It suited him.
“Be careful, then.” Your eyes flicked back up to meet Luke’s as he continued. “Be mindful. I fear for the turmoil I see twisting away in you….”
With a small nod of his head, Luke held Din’s gaze once again. “May the Force be with you.” The Jedi’s eyes fell to yours briefly before landing back on the child. “Beware your attachments, young one. They can be your downfall. Even the best Jedi have fallen because of them.”
“You sound like a friend of mine….”
He turned to walk away with Grogu, but not before you caught the smirk starting up his face. “They sound wise.”
“She is. A Jedi herself, actually. Or used to be. Ahsoka Tano, taught me how to jump-” You shook your head. “It’s not important.” You huffed, shaking your head again when you saw Din turn to look at you out of the corner of your eye. “I meant she talks in riddles.”
“Every great Jedi does.”
“So I’m learning.” You grinned. Looking into Grogu’s eyes one more time as you waited for the door to close, you winked at him, a soft grin pulling up your face. “Goodbye, kid. Don’t eat all the frogs.” He blinked at you with a gentle huff. “Be good.”
You could swear he smiled gently as he tilted his head to the side. He knew what you meant. Be good, yes, don’t cause trouble, but also be good, do your best. Show them what you’ve got.
Images of that first dream the two of you shared flashed through your mind. In the Temple where you covered him, your shadow giving him hope in a dark time, the vision giving you hope on your own difficult days.
“Kar'taylir darasuum. I’ll always love you. I have since before we met, ad’ika.” (“To know in the heart forever.”)
Din lifted his chin in acknowledgment toward the child, the motion blurring in your peripherals through unshed tears right before the elevator slid closed.
You hesitated, taking in a sharp breath before whispering one last word through the Force. “Goodbye.”
As the elevator at the end of the hallway closed, shutting off the last chapter of his story, Din let out a sigh.
Repeating your words from earlier when you first sensed Grogu on the cruiser, they now felt hollow somewhere deep in your chest as you sensed him drifting further away. “He’s going to be okay.” Silence hung heavy in the air, filling the void in your heart with cold, vacant fingers that gripped it tight. “We’re going to be okay.”
Din nodded once, the motion stilted in your peripherals, his voice quiet. “I know.”
Darting your eyes down to his helmet on the floor, you bent down and picked it up, gripping the cool beskar tightly as you stared down at it, careful to not look at his reflection on its shiny surface as he turned toward you.
The rest of the party shuffled out of the bridge, Cara dragging a mumbling Gideon with her. You tried to look at him, but Din’s hand on your chin pulled you back toward him before you could. Swallowing roughly, you stared at his chest piece, blinking once, twice before Bo-Katan’s voice made you let go of a breath you didn’t realize you were holding.
“I’ve programmed the ship to land on- Well, that’s not important. Our temporary base of operations until we take back Mandalore. Things are about to change now that you have the Darksaber. We….” She sighed. “We should talk.” After a moment of silence, she started walking out of the room. “We’ll be back on the transport. Meet us there when you’re ready to head…. Wherever it is you’re headed.”
The door slid closed after her, leaving the two of you alone in the bridge, surrounded by silence, aside from a few beeping panels as the ship slipped through space.
You could feel Din’s eyes on you, his hand still gently under your chin as he tried to tip your head back to look up at him.
Shutting your eyes quickly as he angled your head back, you kept them closed tightly, extending his helmet toward him. “Here.”
The weight of the helmet was removed from your hands wordlessly, before you heard the thud of it resting on the floor again, your eyebrow cocking in question.
Your breath caught in your chest when his own warm breaths fanned across your face, dangerously close to where you’d thought about him being too many times. Out of instinct your hands wound up into his cowl to pull him the last few inches closer until you were basically one being, every bit of him a part of every bit of you.
Continuing up around his neck, your hands tentatively curled up into his hair, threading through the mess and earning a heavy sigh against your face, his forehead falling against yours softly.
Unable to help yourself, your hands continued exploring, pulling forward onto his face, mapping his features under your fingertips. Holding his cheeks in your hands, you smiled, a soft laugh of relief breaking through before suddenly the distance disappeared and his lips were on yours.
It was tentative and chaste, every bit what a first kiss usually is, but conveyed so much more than you expected, making your breath stop altogether.
Pulling apart tentatively, lips still ghosting over one another’s, something passed in the silence, an unspoken understanding, before you both surged forward into a deeper kiss, letting it say everything that needed to be said. Everything that was being felt, every burden and elation. The sadness and relief. The complete and utter peace. It was consuming and yet not enough all at once.
Separating just enough to keep your foreheads joined, you took a deep, shaking breath, swallowing roughly as you kept your eyes closed tight, a smile beginning to twist its way back up your face. Still cradling his cheeks, his hands on your hips kept you held close, his thumbs tracing lazily back and forth.
He speaks, and your world stops. Your breathing turns rapid, your heart is about to climb out of your chest, and your stomach twists in some weightless way.
“Open your eyes, mesh’la.”
You’d heard his voice unmodulated many times, but for some reason, this time it caught you off guard, and you couldn’t find the words to respond.
You pulled away just a bit, mouth opening and closing but nothing came out. Your eyebrows narrowed in confusion, eyes still tightly closed.
Din reached up and put his gloved hands over yours on his face gently, pressing them down, threading his fingers through yours and clutching them tightly, the leather of his gloves creaking as he did. He spoke quietly, his voice nearly a whisper as he said it again, almost pleadingly.
“Open your eyes.”
Xxx
Tags to come!
#din x reader#din djarin x reader#din djarin fanfiction#star wars imagine#star wars reader insert#mando x reader#mando x you#mando x y/n#din x you#din x y/n#din djarin x you#din djarin x y/n#star wars x reader#star wars x you#star wars x y/n#din imagine#din djarin imagine#mando reader insert#the mandalorian#star wars#din djarin#mando#grogu#grogu x reader#the mandalorian reader insert#the mandalorian imagine#the mandalorian x reader#the mandalorian x you#the mandalorian x y/n
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Matching Set Masterlist
college!AU
popular!jeongin x introvert!reader
summary: Y/N and Jeongin had been together since birth. Seriously since birth– their mothers were best friends and while hanging out to complain about their never ending pregnancy, bam. Rumor has it that Y/N took a little while to cry, blinking around for a couple of minutes until the gentlest of screams came out of her tiny body. Only later, when the parents got together to congratulate each other, did the mothers found out that Jeongin had been born five minutes before Y/N, and it seemed that her quietness had been her own early way to wait for who would later be her best friend. And as if sharing a birthday wasn’t enough, these two had to share everything else; from their lunch at school to the bed they slept on. Thankfully, as next door neighbors, the trip was minimal.
It continued like this for decades to come, through middle school, high school, and finally, college. Their applications were sent together and their letters came in the same day. Miraculously, they chose different degrees, and for an entire night, Y/N cried to her mom about losing her best friend. Maybe this will be a good experience for you two, she laughed, petting her daughter’s head. But Y/N just couldn’t see a positive side to being without her Innie. Later, they would make a pact– one that vowed to always be there for each other. And he looked so earnest and honest that Y/N just couldn’t understand where that nagging doubt tugging on her heart was coming from…
What happens when these two experience freedom like nothing they’ve ever seen? And what will be of the matching set when they are put apart? Can the lifelong friendship survive the ultimate test of time– college?
update schedule: Every Sunday :D
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🌚 chapter one: hyung I’m suing you
🌝 chapter two: fellow clowns
🌚 chapter three: what bothers you, my little freeloader?
🌝 chapter four: forgiven but not forgotten
🌚 chapter five: she doesn’t need me anymore
🌝 chapter six: Mandatory Movie Marathon™️
🌚 chapter seven: delayed reactions
🌝 chapter eight: no turning back
🌚 chapter nine: things are about to change
🌝 chapter ten: another case of innie being innie
🌚 chapter eleven: see you then
🌝 chapter twelve: it’s a date
🌚 chapter thirteen: we need to talk about yesterday
🌝 chapter fourteen
🌚 chapter fifteen
🌝 chapter sixteen
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hi lovelies! I know I have been a bit gone from the fake text scene, but I’ve been working on this for a bit now, and I am really, really excited to share this new story with you all! Han’s story will be going into HIATUS as I’m trying to sort the overall plot and details and will be reworking it after I get my muse back fro Rhythm & Rhyme. Also: there are timeline plot-holes and for that I apologize! Because it’s been a while since I wrote these, there was a mixup with the timeline of all the following stories, so truly, I am sorry-- I’ll do my best to keep everything together neat and tight! Thank you for your love and constant support!
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO GET TAGGED FOR THE RELEASE OF MATCHING SET PLEASE LET ME KNOW AND I’LL START A TAGLIST!
#matching set series#dalamjisung#stray kids#stray kids yang jeongin#stray kids jeongin#stray kids in#stray kids innie#jeongin stray kids#yang jeongin stray kids#stray kids smau#stray kids x reader#stray kids social media#stray kids social media au#stray kids fake text#stray kids fake texts#skz jeongin#skz in#skz yang jeongin#yang jeongin skz#jeongin skz#in skz#skz x reader#skz social media au#skz social media#skz fake texts#skz fake text#skz social au#skz social#skz imagine#skz imagines
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I'm a day late and a dollar short but what's new?!
We have GOT to talk about the REST of the Thrill Ride O' Love scene. Especially the animatics along the walls telling Hephaestus's story. Because as jarring of a song as What Is Love? was in that scene if fucking fit so well!
First we get the Shadow Hera! Larger than life. Big regal gown, tall adorning crown, Mother of the Gods of Olympus, Goddess of Marriage.
And we get her getting pregnant with Hephaestus! All the way down to his little baby blacksmithing tools :3
And then we see her throw Hephaestus off Mount. Olympus. As is told in his story.
But there's a thing that really caught my attention here. Because in the rest of the story we see him leave out not a single important character to his story! So where is his father? The big guy himself Zeus?
Unless! They're going with the versions of Hephaestus's story where Hera miraculously convinced Hephaestus. Because we've seen Rick switch up the Medusa story. And wow do we love him for it!
But that's not my only point! Circling back to the song and then later on to the story about how Hephaestus trapped Hera, his own fucking mother btw in case that flew over anyone's head like it did mine the first few times I watched ep. 5, and so the gods offered him Aphrodite's hand in marriage in exchange for Hera's freedom.
The whole rest of the time Hephaestus has painted himself the tragic dude in the story. Not necessarily the hero but definitely the victim. We see him get rejected by his mother. By Aphrodite for Ares, from the fucking BEGINGING, and then so on.
But what really fucking gets me is not only did he do this ride exactly like this as a trap for his wife and her lover BUT that he had no fucking clue they were there! He was willing to force Ares to sacrifice Aphrodite, his OWN FUCKING WIFE, over a shield and not think twice of it. He wouldn't have fucking known they were there because as we can clearly see by this counter
He clearly wasn't alerted to the presence of his wife and her love affair! Meaning they just fucking materialized in his amusement park, like gods do.
And the words of the song. Oh the words. "Baby don't hurt me no more?" How about you're the only one who has caused any harm since your mother tossed you off Olympus? And NO I AM NOT EXCUSING WHAT HERA DID! Don't even go there. That's for another time.
You repeatedly got rejected and bro I get it. That shit hurts. As a fellow Black Sheep of the Family™️ I fucking understand my dude. And I also completely understand how much gods don't fucking understand humans. And so it wasn't even a concept in his mind to do anything other than what his family had already done to him. Backstab, betray and barter.
But to have the audacity to beg the woman who didn't want anything to do with you, still doesn't, and was forced to wed you to save her mother, YOUR MOTHER, not to hurt YOU anymore! Sickening.
But he gets it. Now anyway. Or he's starting to. Because of Annabeth. Because she found a friend who is giving her unconditional love. Who isn't making her earn it despite having told her he would earn hers! And she's doing the same. She's falling apart and building herself back up all with this one (1) boy's help. And neither of them know it yet. But ohohohohoho they will soon.
And these few moments Hephaestus spent with Annabeth gave him the biggest vibe check of his fucking immortal life. "Maybe some of us don't want to be that way anymore either?"
Like Sir are you realizing that you TOO took things too far? Not even this time like you said Athena did, which btw she's always taken it too far just throwing this in here, but really? Are you getting it now? Did the twelve year olds fighting to sacrifice themselves despite everything fucking shake your world? Rock you to your very atoms? GOOD! You victim mentality, hero complex asshole.
#percy jackson#percy jackon and the olympians#pjo tv show#pjo spoilers#pjo tv spoilers#pjo hephaestus#hephaestus#vid rants#pjo season 1#pjo gif#pjo series#pjo fandom#pjo hoo toa#pjo#flashing gif#gifset#my gifs#gif
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bookinit’s byler fic recs
happy new years! to celebrate, i’m posting a list of some of my favorite fics of this year, sorted by word count. i tried not to include a bunch of super well-known, commonly-recced fics, and of course, there are SO many more that i didn’t include just because there isn’t enough time in the world. but i really wanted to lift up some amazing authors, my friends included, as well as some more underground fics. happy reading!!🥳
my top byler fics of 2022
1 - 10k
- it’s a choice (getting swept away) by @wiseatom. i just skimmed this again to see if i wanted to include it, and even just SKIMMING, i was having goddamn heart palpitations. there is something so special about healthy communication and resolving misunderstandings with emotional intelligence and kindness instead of anger. don’t get me wrong, big dramatic blowups are lots of fun to read, but this one stands out for how quiet it is. how gentle. not only is the willel done FANTASTICALLY, but byler here is so soft and tentative, and i was eating up every minute of it. as always, with thea, a phenomenal read. (categories: post s4, mileven breakup, painting conversation, getting together, willel)
- the body is a blade by inblue. this author is severely underrated—incredible prose, such unique fics, and so much genuine emotion in such a short space. i sincerely recommend all of their works!! phenomenal, and despite their short length, they’ve stuck with me since i read them—this one in particular. (categories: poetic, unique, character study, will byers needs a hug)
10 - 20k
- i’m caught up in you by @wiseatom. the first half of this is genuinely novel-worthy—beautifully written & crafted, to the point where i couldn’t stop writing down sentences as inspiration. the second half kicks you into an apocalyptic adventure, filled with byler banter, miscommunication, wound tending, a Painting Debacle™️, and literally everything you could want out of byler in the upside down. thea’s byler is SO much fun to read—they absolutely are best friends, and they don’t let you forget it! the banter is so realistic and snarky and fun, and i’ve read this a million times over at this point. infinite kudos always💗💗 (categories: byler in the upside down, miscommunication, angst & fluff, tension, wound tending, will has a gun)
- i hate accidents (except when we went from friends to this) by blackdeathmamba. a classic, and for a good reason. great tension & pining, super butterfly-inducing, with a twist at the end that simultaneously had me yelling and giggling into my pillow. ADORABLE. so, so wonderful. (categories: pining, miscommunication, college byler, roommates, fluff)
- running up that road by @smoosnoom. i had a really hard time trying to figure out which of moon’s fics to rec bc i feel like all of them, in general, defined my 2022. and of course, everyone and their mother has recced tearing you asunder! but going back over the fics, i think this one truly had the biggest impact on me. first of all, it was the first fic i ever read while listening to the accompanying playlist, and that experience literally changed my life. it is so hard for me to read without listening to music now😭 but seriously reading this w/ moon’s song choices felt like watching a movie. second of all, i really got inside mike’s head here. his character was great, and the fic displayed some of his more unpleasant qualities that some people might shy away from, like anger or resentment. this was just a very real portrayal of byler, and of mike in general. and a lot of the scenes in here—specifically the beginning and end—have stuck with me since i read them. overall, incredible experience, and i’d read it again in a heartbeat. (categories: post s4, character study, mike centric)
20 - 30k
- the gaps and the silence by delusionaltogether (whyyyyy) aka @parkitaco. i read this last night and cried my heart out—not big dramatic sobs, but more of a silent & continuous cry that would pop back up without warning. this was just so exquisitely written—the best of parker’s work that i’ve seen, which is such an impressive feat because i love absolutely everything they publish. the resolving of miscommunication, the healing of byler’s fractured relationship, the responsibility taken on both sides, and the love that still persists through all of it—this is a masterpiece. it is a triumph of human emotion, and a truly excellent mark of good writing. cannot recommend enough—along with absolutely all of parker’s other works. (categories: angst, miscommunication, reunion, college byler, first dates, mutual pining)
- mike wheeler’s guide to falling in love with a superhero by @smoosnoom. this was my first introduction to spiderwill, and i loved every minute of it. this is fun, fast-paced, a little crazy, and just SUCH an enjoyable read. plus, i get a cameo as bagel girl, which in my opinion, is the best part!! but fr this was honestly so well done and even as i’m writing this, i’m getting the urge to read it again. loved, loved, LOVED. (categories: spiderwill, fluff, light-hearted, energetic)
30 - 40k
- you can hear it in the silence by @astrobei. there is truly not enough praise in the world for suni’s fics, or her writing in general, but this one was really something special. mike in this fic is one of my favorite mikes ever, and i think about his big conversation with robin at least once a day. this is truly just a magical coming of age romance. it is so soft & tender & real, and i genuinely could read it every single day and never get bored. also, as someone who worked in food service, i appreciated the accurate portrayal🫡 but also. never again. customers can suck my dick. getting off track here :) (categories: coming of age, friends to lovers, mutual pining, soft)
- i know, i know, i know by aude_sapere. season 4 rewrite!! the writing of this is incredible, the plot is fantastic, and it was one of my first really notable reads in this fandom. really gives will his main character moment, as he deserves!! (categories, s4 rewrite, main character will, pining, action)
40 - 50k
- i’ve come home, i’m so cold by @astrobei. this one is just. ohhhhh my god where do i even start?? this is my ideal college byler fic. it’s literally so perfect, start to finish. will’s narration is incredible, and additionally the plot is just so, SO interesting?! there’s something about suni’s writing that i just can’t get enough of. she writes exactly the way i think and it results in prose that flows effortlessly and is so much fun to read!! i am just chomping all of her fics up one by one and i am still hungry☹️ i think suni needs to write just for me forever & always actually. (categories: college byler, mystery, pining, best friends to lovers, roommates)
- boys don’t cry series by @padmedala. this series is so special to me, specifically the first installment. it was one of the first works i really read that focused on will’s queerness in other terms than his relationship with mike! there was so much queer joy & healing & growing up in this series, and it was really beautifully explored in a way that left me crying, but still unable to put my phone down. really, really wonderful, and criminally underrated. (categories: coming of age, season 4-5, queer joy, healing, romance, pining)
50 - 100k
- chiron in gemini by babydraygen. this was one of the first season 5 fics that i read, and i still think this is a REALLY interesting take on it. eddie’s alive, mike is kind of a dick, and the apocalypse is in hawkins, but everyone’s pretty chill about it. i think the characters here were so complex and interesting, and i was honestly hooked the whole time. (categories: season 5, coming of age, angst, getting together)
- there is a season by ghostlin. yet another s5 fix-it, mike-centric this time. really well written, great character development, and truly so much fun to read. to quote my original bookmark: this is, without a doubt, one of the best fics i’ve ever read. writing is impeccable, everything (EVERYTHING) is perfect, and i cherished every single word. this is my season 5. if you are reading this right now, stop and read this fic. yes, me too. read it again. (categories: s5, character development, slow burn, apocalypse, drama)
- i’ll find a new place to be from by @andiwriteordie . clearly i have a thing for s5 fics, but this was honestly so amazing!! i think about it a lot, and am definitely pulling inspo for my own eventual s5 fic (hopefully coming next year!) andi has written so many (and i mean SO. MANY) wonderful fics for this fandom, which is a gift in itself. but there’s nothing that i think about more than this one. (categories: s5, drama, will byers has powers, getting together)
100k +
- you are the heart by touchthesky. i spent months reading this one, chapter by chapter, as it uploaded, and i don’t regret it one bit. this was such an interesting, complex, and well-done take on season 5. there were some really shocking plot twists, gripping moments of turmoil, and satisfyingly resolved arcs for every single character. the action sequences are god-tier, the internal dialogue is fascinating, the worldbuilding is INCREDIBLE, and i honestly just cannot say enough good things about this fic. will probably be giving it another read soon! (categories: s5, angst, the full package, slow burn, will pov, intense worldbuilding, main character death)
again, there are SO many more—and yall are always welcome to search my bookmarks on ao3—but those are the ones i was thinking about today. here’s to more great fics in 2023!!🥳🥳
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Humor me for minute here, I need to scream and cry about the ballroom scene in Enchanted.
So.
For starters, Giselle and Robert are completely matching. His shirt and her dress are basically the same shade of purple, and his jacket and the cloak she wore when she walked in are the same velvet-y navy blue. They didn’t plan it. (I’m screaming.)
Side note: you know who may have planned it? Morgan. That’s right, she went shopping with Giselle, and her dad had probably shown her his fairytale-worthy fit earlier. Morgan already adored Giselle, and she could see her dad falling head over heels for the almost-princess despite his best efforts. So I’d be willing to bet good money the little shit (affectionate) did her best to influence Giselle’s choices and squealed as soon as Robert closed the door and went to the ball.
Anyway, Giselle and Edward get there, and Robert just stops. (I’m swooning.) We already know that Giselle had had a dream about Robert in that blue jacket, but do you think that he had a dream about her? Do you think that he had a dream about this fairytale princess in purple? That he woke up one morning and shook it off like it was nothing? That when he stopped and his jaw dropped at the sight of her, he suddenly remembered that beautiful dream? Because I think yes. NYC got dropped into a fairytale for a week, of course Mr. Just-Some-Guy-in-the-Real-World Robert had a dream about the love of his life.
And then that choreography. (Ugh my heart.) So beautiful, so intimate, so happy, so loving. Like every step they took they just fell deeper and deeper in love. Holy shit, that eye contact. Everyone else moving to the edges of the dance floor to give them space to just pop off. Robert whispering the lyrics of a song that was written just for the movie. “now you’re beside me and look how far we’ve come. so far, we are so close.” He had no reason to know those lyrics, just like everyone singing “That’s How You Know” had no reason to know that song and leave him constantly making a wtf face. But now the man is leaning into the fairytale. Because he loves her. (Someone just kill me already.)
Another side note: poor Nancy and Edward omg. They are witnessing what is quite possibly the most romantic ballroom dance of all time, and they were both planning to marry one of these idiots (affectionate). The matching “respectfully what the fuck” faces they both make will never not be hilarious to me, even though I feel for them.
And then there’s the quiet misery when they walk away from each other. (Cut my heart out with a rusty old spoon, why don’t you? It’ll hurt less.) Giselle and Robert are resigned to the lives they had previously chosen but no longer want. The look on her face when Narissa is handing her the apple is just gut wrenching. She would rather forget the love of her life than live without him and know he’s out there.
Last but not least, true love’s kiss. (I’m bawling.) Robert was Losing It™️ seeing Giselle inches from death, and then this idiot has the audacity to deny being her true love. But of course it’s him. “Please don’t leave me.” and “I knew it was you.” are just so so beautiful, tender, and intimate. Like that was for them and them alone, we are intruding. That kiss was so gentle and heartfelt. Then she pulls him even closer for a hug, and he cradles the back of her head. They are so relieved, they love each other so much.
Don’t even get me started on Robert’s “over my dead body,” Giselle going after the dragon, and that rooftop kiss in the rain. My poor heart just can’t take it right now.
#oof that’s a long one#what can i say? i’m a hopeless romantic#and these two just make me Feel Things#GIVE ME MORE ROMANCES LIKE THIS DISNEY *shakes fist*#disenchanted did robert so dirty and i will stay mad#disney#enchanted#giselle x robert#where tf is the robert to my giselle. SEND HELP
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This is going to be long and sort of a bummer, so if you’re enjoying this season of Ted Lasso and are satisfied with Ted and Rebecca’s individual and joint storylines don’t let me ruin it, just scroll past.
Right out the gate I’ll say, this references up to 3x09, maybe the last 3 eps will turn everything around and it’ll all be wonderful once more, I sure hope it, I just gotta to get my right now feelings out of my chest, okay?
So, I’ve been unsatisfied with this season in general for a while, but this is just going to be about Ted and T/R: for the past couple days I’ve been chatting with people a lot trying to figure out what the actual problem with them is, because it’s not just that I haven’t been enjoying it on the show, it’s that I haven’t been able to access them in my own head, not even to daydream, and yesterday I think I finally got it.
At first I thought the problem was the distance, you know, no scenes together, nothing to jolt the imagination, and that’s definitely part of it, but I realized that, at the moment, it’s not just that. The problem, the real problem, is Ted. I just don’t really like him right now, and I know that sounds harsh, but I don’t know what else to say!!
My favorite thing about Ted was the fact that he was nurturing. I know we all say he is such a Dad™️ (and he is), but for real, what he actually is, is motherly. I know that sounds nuts, but even if nobody consciously thinks this, that is how he is interpreted; it’s in the fic, it’s in the art, it’s in the meta, but I’m not gonna get into explaining my reasoning there, cause my point is just that I love that about him!
Straight male characters can be providers and protectors (and Ted is that too, to an extent), but only very rarely are they nurturers, very rarely are they primarily home and hearth (right now the only other popular example I can think of is Peeta Mellark, and sooo many people did not like him for exactly those traits!), so it was interesting and exciting to me that Ted had these characteristics! And I say had because we haven’t seen that from him, as in, we haven’t seen him take care of others in a significant way, in forever.
Mind you, he was isolated for most of s2 as well, but we had a very clear reason for it then, but now? He’s had a couple good coaching moments this season, one good speech, he’s still a leader and a point of reference, but he hasn’t been nurturing (not even with his actual literal son lately).
This’s been the problem with him to me. I feel like this Ted lacks the very thing that made me love him, and who (I thought) he was, was an essential part of me shipping him and Rebecca, because the thing she needed most was that care.
The fact that I thought that he was so hungry to give, while she was so starved is the very thing that was appealing about them, but he hasn’t cared for her since I couldn’t even say when (funeral?), and what’s worse, it’s not just her, it’s everyone. He’s been completely on his own, so I haven’t even been able to imagine him that way anymore, which means I have no recent point of reference to extrapolate from in order to make up my silly little scenarios, so you can see how frustrated I am! (Feels important at this stage to say, to those who don’t know me, that I’m quite attached to canon, I need a foothold to picture things).
The other thing that makes this worse is that Rebecca has remained consistent. She still cares about him. She checks in, she worries, she asks after him, she’s eager to help him and does. She is still pulling her weight, but Ted is nearly a blank. He said “Our run-ins” and then all he did was criticize her about the Rupert stuff, and don’t get me wrong!! I’m not stupid, I know he was right and that her resentment and obsession would only bring her down, I’m glad he held her accountable in that way, but I wish he would’ve also had her back at the same time instead of just offering the moral lesson.
Also, I ship them, obviously, but none of this is even inherently romantic, I just wish they were important to each other again, which I’m sure even people who believe they’re only friends and platonic soulmates would agree with. And if I can’t have that, I’d at least like to have Ted feel like himself.
Anyway, I hope this makes sense, pleeeease don’t be mean to me, and again, maybe the last 3 will make me change my mind completely, I definitely would like to enjoy the final stretch.
#ted x rebecca#tedbecca#Feeling a deep seated sense of dread as i hit post on this#ted lasso spoilers#ish#ted lasso#tl ramblings
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