#i wanted one past life where rise had bright yellow eyes

[coccineum-vocatorem]

Minuinne

[aphrogeneias]

i just don't know what to do with myself — one-shot

pairing: rockstar!eddie munson x assistant!reader

summary: you and eddie got into a fight for the first time since you started... whatever it is there is between you. it's a lot to process, but he can't stay away from you for too long.

word count: 2.1k

warnings: angst with a happy ending. drinking and driving (don't do that, kids). jealous!reader. smut (+18) with feelings. possibly dubcon (one of them is slightly intoxicated). eddie munson's puppy dog eyes.

author's note: it's been a long time coming... thank you to all those who waited <3

The street around him was busy, the rows of bars all over the block bursting with people. The yellow light from the lampposts and the neon red sign from the bar he'd parked right under lit his car from the outside in, a sickly kaleidoscope of the night life he was trying to run from, but Eddie made no move to leave.

He didn't want to.

It was a way to torture himself — unconsciously, maybe. Life went on around him, loud and bright, but inside, everything was dead still.

Eddie thought about you as he took another sip from the bottle of Jack Daniels sitting on the middle console. You were supposed to go home from the shoot with him. Did you take a ride with someone else? Did you take the subway home? If he knocked on your door now, would you answer it?

Had he crossed a line? No, scratch that. He'd crossed several lines the day he led you into his bed, and several other ones before that. That wasn't the question he should be asking, but Eddie couldn't help the thoughts that lingered like a cloud of smoke over his weary mind.

He'd left the photo studio that day a mess, your words ringing in his ears like bells. “I don't want to talk to you right now”, you'd said. Did you mean it? Should he not have insisted, then? Did he make everything worse?

He didn't even know what exactly he did wrong. You'd said it was your mistake, actually, and the more he thought about it, the more it broke his own heart.

Was being with him a mistake? Letting him in, that was your mistake?

Oddly enough, if that was the case, he understood. After all, he was the one who twisted the nature of your relationship, and you let him. It was selfish, but from the moment he saw you, he had to have you. The girl in the background who took his entire attention.

You still had it, it was irrevocably yours. Eddie thought of you every day since then.

And, perhaps, he thought, the worst thing about being away from you was the fact that he'd always believed you had the power to make everything right.

Whether it was your unwavering presence, a rock in the middle of the storm that seemed to be his life, or just your way of coming up with the most logical, practical decision to his most out-there problems — and even when you didn't, you were there. Just there, with a hand to hold, with a lap to lay his head on, with lips to kiss him and tell him everything was going to be alright.

Now that you'd turned your back on him, he didn't know what to do with himself.

The radio was long forgotten, but still on. Through the static, Dusty Springfield's voice came through, the orchestral track rising and rising behind it. He recognized it from one of his mom’s old records, and chuckled to himself, humorlessly.

In one moment, he hung his head over the steering wheel, hitting it with his forehead. In the other, it was like the car gained a life of its own.

Dusty’s voice carried on with the wind.

That small apartment building hadn't always been your home.

It was one of Rick’s apartments, where he'd let you live in — insisted on it, really — because your old one was falling apart and he didn't want you getting in another fight with your landlord. If Rick hadn't, then Eddie was ready to ask you to live with him.

Wouldn't be such a smart decision, looking back at it.

He walked up the stairs feeling less determined, more defeated than in the past few days. Lethargy sat on his bones, and he didn't know if it was the alcohol, the lack of sleep, or his brain that refused to shut down.

He just needed to see you.

Time stood still as he waited for you to open the door.

In those few, but long, moments, Eddie decided he would be fine if you shut the door on him the second you saw who was waiting for you on the other side. At least he would be able to see your face again.

Any other day, he'd laugh at the pity party he's throwing himself, but his heart ached too much to have any sort of self-awareness — see, he had never felt this way before.

When the lock moved, the key turned, and your sweet, confused face appeared through the doorway, something squeezed and bled inside his chest. He couldn't speak, but you did.

“Eddie?” You frowned. “What happened?”

“Hi.” He said, almost breathless, and suddenly, he doesn't feel as tired.

You were on your sleep clothes, a button down pajama set he'd sure seen before. A sight for sore eyes, with your sleepy face furrowed in confusion. If he touched you, Eddie mused, you'd be warm all over. It filled him with a longing greater than he thought he could handle.

“Hi,” you responded, opening the door a little wider, silently letting him in. He noticed you had almost let a pet name slip, “what's wrong?”

“Are you seriously asking me that?”

He stood in the middle of your living room, hands on hips, ready to wage war. It was frustration, not only due to what you'd said, but also to being in the same room as you and not being able to touch you. It raged inside of him, making his hands itch.

Eddie watched as you sat on the armrest of your couch, and struggled to find your words. “I'm sorry I haven't reached out. But to be fair, neither has you.”

“I thought you didn't want to hear from me.”

“Oh, Eddie. No! I'm…” You sighed, pinching your nose between delicate fingers, and your shoulders fell. “I'm embarrassed.”

“Embarrassed of what?” He asked, slowly. Crossing his arms, bracing himself.

“Of everything I said to you! I overreacted. I saw you with that model and all these insecurities came through. I couldn't keep it in so threw it all on you, and I couldn't take it back anymore. I feel ridiculous now.”

His eyebrows furrowed deep as he listened to you explain yourself, a whine coming through your lips as you got close to finishing. He tried to understand, his resolve slipping through his fingers.

“You could have talked to me instead of walking out.”

“I know!” You finally looked him in the eyes. “Like I said, I got embarrassed, and I thought you were mad at me…”

“I am. Still am, for the record.”

“And you have every right to be.” You looked defeated. Eddie wished he could change that. “I'm sorry. I should have talked to you. Actually talked.”

“It's just…” Eddie turned on his axis, flailing his arms around. “What were you thinking? What was that?”

“I saw you with that model and just couldn't help but think of all the better options you have out there. All the women surrounding you just seem like a more obvious option than me. Sometimes I can't help but wonder why you brother with this complicated thing we have when you could have anyone you want. Easily.”

He crumbled, then. “Oh, sweet girl…”

His feet moved first, towards you, and his knees followed, bending to your level. You looked down at him, eyes wide, as he splayed his cold hands over your bare thighs, making you flinch, but not move away.

“I don't want anyone else. You're the only one I see. All those other people… they don't exist to me. You have to know that.”

Tentatively, you reached out, twirling a lock of his hair around your finger. “Forgive me for doubting you?”

It was his turn to sight then, resting his head on your knee. He stood again, this time taking you with him. “C’mere.” He said, pulling you in.

Those same cold hands frame your face, pull you to his lips with fervor. He kissed you like he never did before. Hungry, ready to devour. Bumping your body back into the couch behind you, careless in his eagerness. Hands gripped you tight, pressed you close to his body. Begging silently, don't go.

“Ed,” you pulled back slightly, resting your forehead on his. “How much did you have to drink, honey?”

You must have felt it in his breath. He felt ashamed too, just as you did a mere minutes ago, but didn't have it in him to argue.

“Baby, please.” He said, running his nose over your heated cheek. “Not much, not nearly enough. Jus’ need to feel you. Please.”

“Are you sure?” Your breathing trembled as he ran his hands over your waist, down to the hem of your sleep shirt and under it, feeling your skin under his fingertips.

It felt like redemption.

He didn't take time to answer you, instead kissing you again. Tasting you on his tongue, drinking from you. Eddie kissed with his whole body, entangling himself on you, surrounding you on him. He needed to be the only thing on your mind. Bruising your lips with his, sucking your tongue as you mewled against him.

It didn't take long until you were clumsily walking back into your room, bumping into the walls along the way. He'd walked you back into the wall in the small corridor, kissing down your neck, unbuttoning your shirt with unusual dexterity for someone who had way too much bourbon in one night. Your pajamas fell into the floor before you even reached your bed.

Eddie whispered sweet nothings as he took in your body, never leaving you without his touch. He took the time to remember you — because a few days were enough for him to miss you to the point of forgetfulness.

To remember the way you liked to pull on his hair when he was between your thighs, covering your pussy with his mouth. He sighed with reverence against your swollen clit, pulling it between his lips, revelling in the sounds he pulled from you.

He let you grind against his mouth, fucking you with his tongue.

“Baby, baby, baby.” You whined. “Don't stop.”

He let his body answer for him, pulling you closer by the thighs, letting them close around his head. Letting you use his tongue, he let you ride out your high, but just barely enough until he was crawling over your spent body, still trembling under him, peppering kisses all over your torso.

“Missed you so fucking much.” He mumbled into your skin, “Don't do this to me again.”

You shook your head into your pillow, “I won't. I won't.”

Still keeping your legs open, grip hard enough to leave bruises, he positioned himself in your entrance. He couldn't stop touching you — face pressed into your face, taking in your scent, running the reddened head of his cock over your sensitive cunt.

“Don't want you away from me ever again. Promise me, baby.”

“I promise.”

It was no more than a broken moan as he entered you, filling you up to the brim, barely giving you time to adjust. You squirmed under him, grasping for purchase on his back, nails scratching down his skin.

“Fuck, baby.” He breathed. He knew he sounded frenzied, desperate for you. It wasn't like he had it in him to care, not when you felt like velvet around him. “That's it. That's it.”

He kept a slow but steady rhythm, fucking into you with purpose, heavy balls hitting your ass with each long stroke. His head hung in your neck as he heard your moans grow louder and louder, the wet sounds of your sex filling the room.

“Yeah? I know. I know, sweetheart.” Eddie kissed the junction between your neck and shoulder, feeling your skin rise. “You missed me too, didn't you?”

“S’much.” You whimpered, clenching around him harder.

Without warning, he picked up the pace, feeling you were close. One of your legs lifted to his shoulder as he pistoned into you, hellbent on making you cum. He thrusted again and again and again, like a mantra. Like a plead.

As you shook underneath him, he kept going. Going and going and going.

He hoped that was enough to make your thoughts stop running from him. You could talk in the morning.

[demelzathemer]

My Heart Is a Haunted House

𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘈𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦, 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘴 𝘨𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘱𝘴𝘦𝘴, 𝘗𝘢𝘺𝘯𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥 + 𝘗𝘢𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘢𝘬𝘪, 𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘛

@dbdpromptober Day 11 (words: 1091)

The corpse bride AU continues!

First Previous Next

Charles woke up on the cold forest floor. His head was swimming when he tried to get up, but it was nothing, he’d had worse. Around him, mist clung onto tree trunks and leafless branches; it all looked less scary in the soft light of early dawn.

How long had he been out? Charles remembered wandering into the trees in the dead of night, in the light of his lantern- which was nowhere to be seen. Neither was his backpack.

He ran his hands over his head, releasing a tense sigh. Something wasn’t right. Something he had forgotten.

“Charles?”

Edwin’s voice yanked him back to the moment and slammed all the missing memories back into his head with the force of a runaway train.

“A little help, maybe?”

Charles stared, slack-jawed, at the hand reaching out from a hole in the ground. A hand with a pristine white glove.

“On it, mate,” he said and scrambled onto his feet.

He crouched down to grab Edwin’s hand and then leaned back, lifting him up. Edwin was quite light, more so than he looked. Seeing him rising from the ground gave Charles vivid flashbacks of the scare he’d suffered about the same scene. Here, in the crisp air of pre-dawn, Edwin’s frail body didn’t evoke much terror.

Now that Charles had seen him smile, and dance, and pout and clasp his hands in nervousness, all he saw was Edwin. The dried blood and all, every last bit.

But here, out in the corporeal, human, regular world, he looked somehow more real, too. His bones had more of a yellow hue in the veiled sunlight, and the pale, lifeless tone of his skin more striking.

Edwin was standing on his feet now, dusting off his jacket, and dread was filling up the pit of Charles’ stomach.

This was a mistake. He’d mucked it up, massively.

Down in his dream, or what he now knew was the Underworld, he hadn’t cared about what Edwin was. Down there Edwin was at home, where he belonged. But here, in Charles’ life?

He looked like a doll hastily put together, like a gust of wind could knock him to pieces. Edwin was testing his legs and from the sound his walking made, Charles suspected one or both of his legs were also skeletons under the suit trousers.

There was no way he could make it here, not even the day that Tragic Mick said the time limit was.

It wasn’t bright, but Edwin was shielding his eyes when he looked up at the sky. It was the gray color of cloudy weather, condensation forming on every surface.

“It’s chilly,” Edwin said, quiet awe in his voice. “And it smells… fresh. Is that? Is that the wind?”

The blood sticking on the side of his face appeared wet and Charles felt sick, even when Edwin was smiling.

“I haven’t felt the wind for so long,” he sighed. He lifted his hands like he wanted to touch it, to grab it so he could keep it close.

Charles let Edwin lead them back onto the trail and towards the treeline. Edwin was looking at everything, the sky, crows asleep on the trees, dewdrops shining on a spiderweb, like he’d never seen them before. He stopped to touch a patch of icy leftover snow, marveling at the sensation on his fingers.

Charles thought and thought the whole time, but he didn’t know what to say. What was he going to do? If anyone saw Edwin, there’s no telling what could happen.

It didn’t matter that Charles could see past the disrepair of his body, the kind and marvelous boy he was. Other people would certainly be caught off guard, just like he’d been at first.

There was a heavy feeling in Charles’ chest, one he identified as fear. But it wasn’t just that. It was fear for Edwin’s sake, mixed with a fierce need to protect him.

When they could see the scenery behind the last rows of trees, Charles took Edwin’s hand, his fingers sliding perfectly between his bony ones.

“Wait a tick, mate. I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to walk out there in the open,” he said with what he hoped was a casual note and not betraying the deep worry that threatened to choke him.

“Whatever do you mean? I’m perfectly capable of conducting myself appropriately,” Edwin said.

“It’s not that. Maybe - maybe I should talk to my Maa before you meet her, yeah? Prepare her a little. You know,” Charles gestured vaguely, ”it’s a big change. For her. And for me.”

Edwin gazed towards the open fields, where the trail crossed a bridge, the silhouette of the Payne mansion standing like a gravestone in the distance, veiled in the mist.

“I understand,” he said slowly. “Shall I wait here, then?”

“If that’s fine with you, then it’s fine with me.” Charles tried a smile. “I’ll be right back, won’t I? I promise.”

Edwin took his hand back and clasped them in front of him.

“Very well. I trust you, Charles,” he said.

He found a fallen tree trunk, inspected it for a moment and deemed it clean enough to sit on. It was a strange sight, the white of his suit matching the snow and the birch trees. Charles found him so, so beautiful.

“Go on, then. I’ll be fine,” Edwin reassured him.

He’d waited before, Charles realized. He’d waited for decades. What was an hour or so more?

Suddenly it was so much harder to leave. Charles’ felt his feet had firmly rooted in place and he had to tug them free one by one.

Everything in him told him not to go, but another voice at the back of his head screamed him to run. If he ever wanted to go back to his life, he had to run now.

The faster you run, the sooner all this mess is solved.

Reluctantly, Charles gave a small wave and sprinted down the trail. The mist felt like rain on his face, the burning in his lungs reminded him that he was alive, alive, alive. Out from the shade of the branches, the sky was vast and limitless, high above his head. Charles wouldn’t trade this feeling, of breathing and freedom and living, for the world.

He didn’t dare to glance back. He jogged over the bridge, into the road. Home was right in front of him, but Charles made a sharp turn and ran as fast as he could the other direction.

[vanseerra]

Home - An Elucien One-Shot

The Winter Solstice should be a time for joy and celebrations, so why is Elain awake so late and why does the house feel so dark and cold? Lucien should not be awake either, and yet, there is something in his chest compelling him to listen and follow to its cause.

G Rating | 3.5k Words

Elain

The evening was finally winding down. A still air has crept over the townhouse, bringing with it the deep chill of the winter night. Gone were the comforting thrills of a room full of laughter and excitement from only hours before. The winter solstice was always a big event here. With the festivities as well as Feyre’s birthday, everyone could be assured a day filled with joy. Nyx’s arrival had added an extra layer of warmth- watching his bright eyes light at the sight of every new toy and gift didn’t fail to spread smiles across everyone’s faces.

Seeing her sisters, Nesta especially, leaning into the celebrations and letting go of that past that seemed oh so close was a sense of peace for Elain. A bud of light was ripe in her chest as she played her role as a quiet and respectful observer with pride. It was in those moments that the newly turned fae believed she could adjust to this life, where she could hope for the ease that her family bore these days. That optimism clung to her with desperation but as the night inevitably drew nearer, when the sun began to descend behind its sunken veil, she fell with it.

The fire before her hummed with life. With drifting eyes, she stared into the flames. They bounced and danced around each other, their flicks of yellows darting skywards. To watch so closely caused her lids to sting but there was little she could do to look away. How could she deny this final chance of warmth? How could she turn from this tiny kindle of comfort while her siblings lay sleeping, huddled against their partners, their families.

With a sorrowful dip, the well in her chest widened, its darkness wrapping her ribs with weights. It was not an unusual feeling to her now and had stopped being a stranger to her a long time ago- before this house, this place, these lands. She wondered when they had become so acquainted but to bring up these memories now… she could not bear it.

Elain sighed, deeply and purposefully, arms curling around her knees on the sofa as she held the flames gaze. In her transfixed state, she did not hear the small creak of the oak door, nor heard the two hesitant footsteps that entered the main sitting room. The visitor paused, seemingly awaiting a moment to speak when she groaned loudly in pure frustration, flailing her head backwards. Deep golden eyes met her upside ones. With a gasp, she straightened her body back up.

“Gosh Lucien, don’t you know how to knock?” She exclaimed, a small pink tinting her cheeks.

“…To enter the living room?”

Elain was stunted. Truly, she hasn’t known why his sudden appearance had shaken her so visciously. She turned her body to face him, noting instantly the casualness of his attire: the way his linen shirt hung from his body, showing the slightest hint of muscle and the loose red braid that hung over his shoulder. She swallowed. No words could rise to her lips.

“I…”

“It’s late, I’m surprised to see you up.” Lucien's voice was crisp, warm and smooth, a delicate ember. His brows were knitted together in concern, the gentle pupils of his eyes examining her carefully as she sat before him. “Is something wrong?”

“I was just about to retire.” She answered simply.

It wasn’t a lie per-say, more of a non-truth. How could she explain what had been going through her mind moments before? Would she even want to? Seeing Lucien before her like this though, without all of the awkward formalities she swore to upkeep around her family and friends, was new but not unwelcome. She wondered what was going through his mind.

“May I sit for a moment?” He gestured to the couch she was perched upon. “I couldn’t sleep.” He grimaced.

She gave a gentle nod. He made his way over and slowly sat himself beside her, their bodies angled slightly away from each other. Her heart lurched in her chest. Had she ever been this close to him before? She’d certainly never picked up on his scent, the woody depth of cedarwood mixed in with something of slight sweetness. Cinnamon. Her instincts cried to her, begging for her to indulge, to sweep her arms around him and breathe in that cosy warmth. She dug her nails into her legs.

Lucien

Lucien's day had never really ended. He’d excused himself from the festivities relatively early, hoping to get a long rest before his return the following day. However, tucked up in the sheets of the guest room, his mind turned and turned. A pressure sat on his chest, similar to the shame he held some days but was somehow different.

The feeling was an ache. It dug deep into his chest and seemed to pull at his lungs, at his heart, searching for a response. It was a hollowed darkness. The weight called to him, echoed a sense of loneliness, of emptiness, of pain. A pang of recognition hit him suddenly, causing him to bolt upright. The pain was not his.

He had found her huddled on a couch before the fireplace. Even with her body turned from him, his breath paused at her beauty. The dim light of the lit fire flowed around her, illuminating the delicate outline of her pink dress. Sat there like that, she looked like a goddess. It wasn’t uncommon for him to be struck by her presence- sometimes just being in the same room as her would render him frozen. Never before though had he witnessed this side of her, performing no acts of properness, no walls guarding her. A need to protect her rung through his bones.

Beside her, he carefully examined the delicacies of her face. The softness of her features, the light rosiness that brushed her cheeks, the subtle curve of her long lashes. Breathtaking yet… her eyes ached, her jaw tightened, her brows twitched. It was clear how many words were turning in her head, how many thoughts she wanted to spill and clear from her.

“You can talk to me, you know…” His invitation was weak and he silently cursed himself for it. “I’m good at keeping secrets.”

His attempt at humour had not struck true. Elains brows further burrowed, a finger gently rubbing her knee. Self-soothing.

“I barely know you.” Her voice was but a whisper.

He supposed she was right. The two of them were barely more than strangers. For a couple of years now, he had done all he could to respect her and her boundaries. He kept his visits brief, words short, only coming and going when he was needed. There was nothing that caused him greater pain, but he had done it and done it well. The fact that the two of them were talking, albeit awkwardly and with tension, was more than could be said about the last few years. He was eternally grateful regardless.

“You could know me.” His offer was bold yet sincere. Gently, his heart thumped behind his ribs and he knew she could hear it. Elain turned to face him and he almost cried. The softness of her brown hair fell over her shoulder as she moved her head. It was angelic. He watched with eagerness as her eyes flickered through many thoughts and he silently prayed for an invitation. Please his mind willed. Her eyes turned back to the flames as she spoke.

“This house is so quiet at night…” She started.

“When the sun sets its like… it becomes a new place. The silence is so loud, it’s weird. With so many people here you’d never think it could be like this. To be awake at this time of night it…”

Hesitantly, she held a hand before the flame, letting it heat her palm. He noted the soft curves of her nails, the blushed skin of her fingers, and wondered how it would feel on his own.

“I know I should be grateful. Feyre has been so good to me, too good to me. She’s done everything she can to help me adjust, despite everything. But still…”

A small tear bubbled at the corner of her eye and he could not resist the hand that leaned to wipe it. She did not resist.

Elain

She was speaking before she could even comprehend what was happening. Somehow and for some reason, the words fell from her with ease, her heart opening in a way it hadn’t for so long. Perhaps it was because he was an outsider? Not a part of Rhys and his Inner Circle who had tried so insistently to ease her into their group. No it wasn’t that, it was… When she turned to look at him, she saw herself in the reflection of those gentle eyes and wanted to weep instantly. His gaze held such care, a sense of longing bubbling beneath its surface.

The matter of the mating bond had been so tricky for her for so long, and for good reason. Everything had been taken from her against her will and she was expected to just accept it? After everything she had lost? After every sacrifice she had made? Here was a man, handed to her and expected to be a companion to her. How could she ever be okay with that?

Lucien was not the fae she thought he would be, however. The fact she had little to do with him was proof of that. Where she had expected him to be forthcoming and insistent on their bond, he has been the opposite- out of the picture and respectfully so. Their distance had been a physical strain, one she knew to be purely biological but he had listened and demanded nothing from her.

Gazing at him now, she could see him for who he was. Feyre’s friend. Loyal, caring, dependable. Before her like this, he asked nothing of her, only offered an open ear, one she needed so desperately. Maybe it was because of that, because of his quiet acceptance and patience that she continued speaking, honestly and with a heavy heart.

“This isn’t my home. I don’t know if it can ever be. I don’t even think I know what the word means anymore.” Gods did that truth ache.

A flash of understanding passed through Lucien's expression and he appeared to think over his response for a second before speaking.

“What do you want home to mean?”

Elain was struck. What did she want home to mean? The heaviness of the question was unexpected and yet, it pulled on a cord so deep she couldn’t help but tug, searching for her answer. Home. Home should mean a place, should mean family, friends. The words that came up surprised her.

“Warmth.”

Now that she thought about it, when was the last time she had felt it authentically? Sitting here, before this fire, was different. Her chest didn’t hold the heat like it used to, surrounded by her two sisters and her Father, back before everything here. That was a past she could never return, no matter how much it ached; perhaps that’s why it had all been… so hard.

Lucien

Lucien held his breath as she spoke, every word quaint yet charged, filled with feelings so deeply personal he wondered why he had been privy to hear them. Not that he was complaining about it. The truth of it was, everything she was saying resonated so strongly with his own beliefs- the conflicts he had faced and continued to each day.

He should be satisfied with his life. He was safe, protected, surrounded by people who accepted him for who he was and yet… There was always that final piece missing, that yearning he felt to live rather than just exist. As a little boy, he had felt that same gap, even more so in his family home. His brothers were in name only, the weight of his outcast nature isolating him from the warmth he saw between his Father and siblings. Why was he so different? Why did they not love him in the same way? These questions had plagued him for a lifetime.

Feyre had been good to him also. His role in the Night Court was not something he turned his nose up at. It was a stable job that allowed him to do what he did best. He also took deep joy in celebrating with them all over the holidays, laughing alongside new friends and old but, it was never the sense of completeness that he was constantly longing for.

Warmth. There was a great irony in how deeply he related to her truth. Lucien was warmth personified. His upbringing had been surrounded by ‘warmth’ in the Autumn Court and yet, it was more like fire- something that burnt and stung those that fell victim to it. He supposed ‘warmth’ was nothing like that at all. His powers were different, they were innately him, his nature. At times, he felt shame at his abilities: they reflected his heritage in ways he never wanted to be entangled with. But, at its core, there was no element he knew better.

He could provide Elain with what she wanted. He could warm her with his powers, with his words, with his affection. What a painful thing it was to be on the brink of something so great and to withhold it like a forbidden truth. Clenching his teeth to stop the words from dropping from his throat, he watched her carefully. What would Elain want to hear right now?

“I think that’s beautiful…” He started, watching Elains interest slip with slow disappointment. She faced the dwindling flame, her head resting upon her knees.

“Yes…”

It struck him. She did not need to hear approving words, didn’t need someone to be agreeable and offer her no solutions. She had probably had a lifetime of it. He straightened his back, glancing to the ceiling as he recalled a memory.

“When I was a boy, we had this massive oak tree in our back garden.” He started and noted her eyes sliding to watch him.

“Its leaves were every hue of orange and red you could imagine. And its canopy looked like the tip of a mushroom. When I’d hold my hand up towards the sky…” he demonstrated for her, raising her palm upwards as he spoke.

“It wouldn’t even cover half of it- it was that large. It was my favourite tree by far, so grand and majestic and I would spend hours and hours in its shade.”

“What would you do beneath it?” She asked inquisitively.

“Oh, everything. Some days I would draw, read, sometimes even sleep under its cover. The best day I had was when I owned this little paper sword. I would swing it back and forth around it, pretending to fend off monsters from its trunk.” He scoffed at the memory, shaking his head.

“Did they win?”

“Did they win!” He chuckled, eyebrow raising at her sly sense of humour. “Now that is just cruel Elain. I think even I could fend off pretend monsters.”

The small painted smile on her face was all he could ever wish for.

“Anyhow, the tree was planted beside a big window into our home. It was always wide open to allow in the breeze and so, when I was beneath it, I could often… hear the comings and goings of the house.” His grin slipped.

“It was from that place, resting against that great oak that I overheard many things. Hushed talks of diplomacies, debates and arguments, dinner conversation and most poignantly…. celebrations.”

Elains brows sunk at this revelation, the confusion and hurt on her face evident. She went to speak but he continued.

“I was never not invited to those moments but… to say that things were different when I was around would be an understatement. I was just a kid and still, my family, my brothers especially resented me so strongly. It made me so confused.” The tears were caught at the back of his throat and he fought his resolve, trying to keep them from falling. He could not look towards her, in fear of his restraint slipping and the pain becoming too evident.

Elain

Elain could not believe what she was hearing. To know Lucien had suffered so much in his earlier life, had been so alone… her heart sunk for all that he had endured at such a young age. Her own life had not been so perfect as a child, but to be so isolated, in a family that large, she could not imagine the toll it would’ve taken. It was clear from the pained expression that overtook his features just how low the memory was.

A part of her had been relieved when he’d first started the story, grateful that he wasn’t just going to nod and move on from the openness of her confession. Gods knew she was sick to death of being coddled and agreed to. “Yes Elain.” “That sounds nice Elain” “What a good idea Elain”- she was sick of it. However, this was a different type of pain, one she felt within her own bones and chest. She could not help the hand that reached over to grasp his, tentatively and sheepishly.

His eyes were instantly upon hers, his body going deathly still. He did not move away however, only considered her in his gaze. A grateful smile tugged on his lips and it was so bright and warm that Elain was equally as frozen. How could such a small movement have such an effect on her?

“That means to say…” he carried on, “that on some levels and in some ways, I believe I understand. To be without warmth in your home, that is a scar that does not so easily heal and admittedly, makes it hard to find the right, true step forwards.”

“Yes.” Her reply was a little breathless, hardly believing someone else understood it as she did. The words were direct echoes of her own thoughts.

“Where do you go when you don’t know where to look or what to do?” It was a question she aimed less at him and more at herself. A question she had spent the last few years turning and turning in her mind.

“I’ll admit, I don’t have the answer for myself but I think you have to start somewhere.” He gestured to the room before them with his spare hand, signalling to the space.

“If this isn’t making you happy then, despite what feels right, what feels like the acceptable thing to do” he clarified, “then you should explore the alternatives. This world is a lot bigger than the Night Court, regardless of what your sister and the others like to believe.”

“I can’t just… up and leave.” There was a deep sadness to her tone.

“Says who?“

“Says… everyone. I think Nesta would have a heart attack.”

“This is your life Elain, not hers.”

“Then how do you suggest I go… where do I even start?”

Lucien

Lucien was determined. Elains true thoughts and feelings had been blown open wide to him and the doubt that plagued her so closely was fuelled by so many things that he knew to be untrue. She was not stuck here in the Night Court. Not on the level she thought to be. There would be some resistance from others, of course, but when wasn’t there in life? And if it was making her so unwell to be in this place…

A thought hit him. It was wild and childish and completely nonsensical, especially considering this was the most the both of them had spoken in all of those years but, when if not now would be the perfect chance to try? With a newfound determination, the red haired fae placed his free hand upon their joined ones, leaning towards her slightly.

“Come with me.”

“Lucien…”

“Not for long, for a single trip if that’s what you wish. I’m leaving in the morning for another court, relaying some messages and that is all. I could have you back here within the day.”

A small ember of light shone behind the woman’s pupils, it was hopeful and sparked with a sense of hope that he had not seen from her before. It was a stunning sight.

“But Feyre… Nesta…”

“Will be fine. I will even get on my knees and beg before Rhysand if you’ll accept.”

She scoffed, rolling her eyes at his playful nature but the small tug on her lips told him what she would say before she spoke.

“Fine.”

“Fine?” He had to be sure.

“Yes. Yes I will go with you. One trip.” She emphasised, holding her finger up with importance.

“You’d better pack your bags then, lady.”

Lucien grinned, ear to ear, the song in his chest ringing and ringing and ringing.

A/N: I wanted to say thank you for my support on my other fics and to ask for your patience while I figure out Tumblrs formatting- things like this really make me feel my age haha. AO3 will be my next big hurdle. Elucien is a ship I hold so dear and getting to write for them brings me a lot of joy. In the future, I hope to continue pre-existing fics and perhaps open to suggestions for one-shots! All the best :)

[anodyne-sunflower]

Love me like you do (Chapter 31 END)-Balem series

A/N: Guys...guys, I actually did it. 4 and a half years later but I fucking did it lmao listen, this was always the ending I had in mind, but a little shorter than intended, but it is what it is and I am just happy to have finished it for anyone still interested lol fucking hell...even if no one reads it, I'm proud I even came back to finish. Not beta read because I'm too worked up to care about grammar.

Mood Music: my own cheers and tears

***

Blades of grass thread between your toes, cold and smooth, dotted by the dew of morning that provides a sense of relief to the heat around you. You spread your arms in the warmth of the atmosphere, eyes closed and head tilted back to let your very being breathe in the day.

Your chest rises and falls with every hardened breath, inhales just as strong as the exhale to take in the sunrise. And oh, is it one with earth. The view brings a smile to your face, feet taking one, two, three steps until the field is open, long stalks of various plants tickling your skin, over your bare feet and ankles, the tallest reaching your shoulders that peek over the red cloth of your dress.

It’s Summer, you think. Must be. For the heat is grand and the sunrise is wanting.

It’s big, orange, burning yellow and bright along the horizon of where you stand. You take the view in, lips quirking into a grin, reminiscing of Summer’s past, where earth has given you joy as a child.

This is much the same. A grand sun, backdropped to orange and yellow hues, signaling the day’s start. But in contrast, there is snow. Falling from above, in delicate flakes, hitting your bare shoulders, melting over collarbones and you hold your hand out, collecting them into your palm.

Snow in summer....not of earth, and it makes you smile. “Just like home...”

***

“I don’t know what to say...”

His forehead came to rest on yours, eyes closed as he urged you to say what you both wanted. “You do.”

You do....

The very idea of that made you laugh, inwardly of course, because you were more than aware a certain Primary would frown upon that reaction. “I don’t, Balem. I don’t even know where to begin...”

His eyes pierce into you, steady, eerily calm but you’ve known him long enough to gauge the swirl of fear in them, tinged with an urgency that begs you to choose him. To desire him like you once did—still did. “You come here, expecting—expecting what? That I allow myself to be yours again? That I turn a blind eye to the world you literally create for yourself? You’re asking me to live with the fact you...you...”

“I am what I am, little bird. And I’ve never claimed to be more. I have given you my very existence, earth be damned...” His eyes flicker down your features, lingering on your lips, hand raised by his side to touch but he doesn’t dare to do more than merely hover there, waiting, pleading for your acceptance. “I don’t want it, I don’t yearn for it, there is little here I care for and I’m currently in its presence.” Balem’s gaze softens, that sheen of hesitance there, so unlike his usual self that makes you question so much. “I have promised you. I will never take from this planet, there is no bargain here. I ask nothing in return, but if I must,” and it’s then you hold your breath, solid in your chest as he begins to kneel.

The very sight is unimaginable, a man with so much to his name, his worth so grand you’re of very little consequence to him in the grand scheme of life...yet, he kneels. Before you.

The hand he had stretched out now moves forward, gripping yours in a tight hold, fingers threading through your own. His palms are cold, you notice, and all at once, you wish to warm them.

“If I must yield to you,” and he squeezes, so softly, but the touch burns all the same. “Know that I do so with every intent of my...” a breath. “My heart.”

“Balem—“

“Come back with me—to me, Y/N.”

His words pierce you, throughout your entire soul, so strong they make you squeeze his hands back in response. You’d be foolish to deny the way your heart seeks him, willingly beating in earnest of a love you hold. There is no consequence to your emotions, that much you’re plainly aware of, but it is morality that whispers in your ear. Softly kissing the idea that he can never change into your mind. That he can gift your worlds and still hold many more in his grasp.

Then again, has he ever asked more from you than your love? Such a simple notion in reality, to give yourself to someone so fully but to him...to him that must be the only concept that eludes him in life. In all his centuries of living, he’s never once flirted with its grasp.

Until now.

Until you...

Enough to gift you the entirety of earth. To ask nothing in return, to kneel...if you had the presence of mind, you’d have smiled at the action, because you’re more than aware he’s never kneeled for a single person in his long life.

Morality speaks of truth, and in that you find one thing; you do love him. No matter the actions of his life, his business, his past indiscretions, you still loved him. You knew deep down the profound nature of your feelings towards him would never change, and your time back on earth had proven that. How often can a person admit such things? How often can anyone say they’ve been faced with this decision, it’s unlikely, that’s for certain.

However, seeing him before you, kneeling, lips brushing over your knuckles as he closes his eyes in preparation of your answer...you realize one inevitable fact; yes or no...you love him.

And what more should matter?

***

Gentle footsteps sound behind you, and with little more than a turn of your head, you see Mr. Night by the entryway.

"Are you ready?"

Have you ever been? You'd be lying if you said some small part of you never hesitated...

***

Your eyes move to the deed in your hands, the tablet smooth, so small yet holding a power far beyond your own importance. I have Earth, you think softly to yourself, and what do I do now?

"Come back with me..."

Balem's urgent whispers bring you back to the moment. You glance up to see him standing closer, his hand outstretched, shaking so slightly you'd almost miss it.

"I beg you."

You swallow, pained--grateful, in a very wrong way, but that warmth sweeps you in its grasp. Come back with me, he keeps asking, but your hands remain tucked at your sides, one tightening around the tablet...

***

"I am." You say it so matter-of-factly, pulling the corners of your gown up to pack yourself to the entryway. Your bare feet feel content with the grounds of the garden, always your favorite place amongst this monstrosity of a palace, and it's only when you near the golden doors you slip them back into your heels, a stark, vibrant red. They glitter against the fading sunlight, and you take one look back at the vast gardens. "I am..."

***

"Okay..." It's so soft when you say it. So soft Balem seems taken aback, a line drawn between his brows as he nears you, frightened in his own right.

"Say it again..."

You look to him, somewhat moved by his own surprise. Perhaps he truly did not come with expectations, "Okay..." Only a desire to see you off in a way that would honor his old promises, honor his own feelings for you. It settles a confidence in your heart, one that makes it a little easier to know deep down... you've made the right decision. "I'll go back with you." The affirmation feels like a heat radiating through your being, waking your muscles as you slowly reach for his hand that remains ever so pleading to you. "I'll go back." You say more pointedly, threading your fingers through his pale ones, his cold palms soothing to you. It's a memory of a softer time... when you could pretend the ethics behind all of this didn't matter.

When you could pretend, just for a moment, you were both normal human beings...with nothing more than love between you.

Balem's fingers tighten around yours, fearing you'd let go at any moment. As if you'd change your mind, and he'd be left just as heartbroken as before. His eyes glow with adulation, but wary of how far his own feelings could take him.

"Little bird..."

***

Snow still falls around you, and only when you reach your palm out do you realize it's ash. You stare towards the refinery in the distance, smoothing your thumb across the flake and watching it dust your fingertips.

There is beauty in the world around you, gardens elongating down the pathways, the windows, the arches...and then there is darkness. It's never too far, is it?

But a smile still comes to your face. Perhaps guilty, perhaps content. In the end, you pay it all no mind. You knew...you knew not everything in this universe can be saved. Maybe not even yourself...

"Little bird."

But what is happiness, if not a selfish thing.

"I'm coming."

You slip through the doorway, fingers finding Balem's as he gracefully smiles at you, pulling you closer and pressing his lips to yours in a subdued kiss. You feel his desire in it, feel the urgency to move all of this along.

To find that end that catered to both your hearts.

"In here, my lord." Mr. Night pushes the doors to the throneroom open, Balem's white and gold cap sliding effortlessly across the tiles. A man resides on the high steps, dresses in robes, and beckoning you both forth.

"Would your majesty place his hand forth, signifying the bond."

Your eyes drift to the machine floating before you both, Balem moving his hand with no hesitation towards it. You watch in awe as a light shines from it, a mechanism arching over his finger as it burns an elaborate ring across it. His eyes never stray from yours, a pride glowing in them as he lifts his hand to show the imprint of his devotion.

"Your turn, little bird." It's said gently, almost humorously, so unlike him that it actually makes you laugh. Maybe he still thinks you'll turn heel and run, or maybe he's so engrossed in a moment he can't believe is actually occurring.

But you know this is what you want--what you asked for.

A devotion dressed in chaos, in uncertainty, yet...in perpetuity.

You lay your palm across the machine, watching as the glow of the ring etches into your skin. There is no turning back, and you remember the words, the vows, you both whispered to each other this morning while lying in bed. They were meant for this moment, but Balem had asked you to only repeat them to him and only him.

For anyone else's ear need not know what you mean to each other.

So even when darkness takes over the day, when your rings shine in each other's tangled hands, do you dare to say them to him again.

"I, Y/N, take Balem Abrasax," his lips pepper down your neck, one hand slipping under the end of your gown to lift it up, "to be my husband..." your breath hitches in your throat, "I enter into this union," his lips slide to your chin, halting there before he brings them to your own, "being of sound mind..."

"My beautiful little bird." His achingly devoted words get kissed into your lips, and you moan softly from the urgency of it all. The vows sing inside your head and you wonder, very briefly, how your heart could change you so much.

All for one man...

"Of my..." But in the very end, your illusion of what perfection was, what being good was...seemed so irrelevant in his arms, "own volition."

***

A/N: holy fuck I actually ended this series....fuck me, thank you, all of you, for ever having read this at all lol like...what?! It's so cheesy but fun to write and share and I realize many of you probably aren't around anymore but to those who ever stuck around and wished or hoped for an end, I hope this is something.

Thank you. Truly.

[fruchtfleisch-art]

microfic prompt: blood :D

Blood :D

Kirashino microfic #1/?: Blood

On Thursdays, Shinobu dresses up, takes the train into town, and meets a serial killer for lunch.

It sounds dramatic boiled down to base facts, like she’s his accomplice, or a future victim. It’s not hard to imagine the police report. Mrs. Kawajiri met the suspect at 1317 hours at his place of work. The suspect lured her to a secondary location, where he then…

Well, she’s not exactly sure how he does it. Or why. Would it be better or worse, knowing all the grisly details?

Today, their secondary location is a gravel trail running parallel to the beach, the sky above them achingly bright and blue. Breakers pound against the coastline and recede with a hiss, water sluicing through sand and pebbles, leaving skeins of foam in a yellow-white tangle on the shore.

They hold hands as they walk, companionably silent. Kira’s wearing a new cologne, a smoky jasmine scent. Shinobu tries to remember what Kosaku used to smell like and finds herself unable to muster more than a passing interest, as insubstantial as seafoam. What does it matter? Her husband is gone now, spirited away by the same power that let the killer at her side take his face and his fingerprints and his wife. Good riddance.

Kira seems content with Kosaku’s appearance, his job, his role in their family, but he’s sloughed the rest like snakeskin. He hums when he’s happy, talks to himself when he thinks he’s alone. He obsesses over details and gets irritable when the world fails to conform to his perilously high standards. He has expensive, occasionally unorthodox tastes. When they get lunch, he always finds something interesting for dessert. Peach and ginger galette. Lemon cake with pistachio and cardamom. Vanilla ice cream dusted with espresso powder, speckled with black pepper, drizzled with balsamic vinegar.

“I’ve come to appreciate a little novelty in my life,” he’d said when she asked, the underlying message clear as a bell and substantially sweeter.

That’s something the police report would definitely leave out. His sweetness.

Today they’re having strawberry and basil jamupan, one each. Kira catches a dribble of jam before it can fall into her lap.

“Careful, dear,” he says. “We don’t want to make a mess, do we?”

An image rises in Shinobu’s mind as she brings her hand to her mouth and licks syrupy, savory filling off her fingers, Kira’s eyes on her like a physical weight. She remembers waking up from a hazy nightmare, stumbling downstairs still half-asleep. Opening the fridge for a bottle of water, acrid yellow light snapping on as the door swings wide. A severed human hand on the top shelf, next to a box of takeout.

A severed human hand. Thick, jellied clots of blood drooling from the stump, oozing past crushed shards of carpal bones and strips of muscle. Darker bits of blood flecking the shelf and interior wall, drying to scab consistency. The fingers stiffly curled, the nails immaculately groomed but bearing the bruise-purple pallor of death. A hand in her fridge.

It was gone in the morning, almost like she had dreamed it. Kira had come home from work with flowers and kisses and Shinobu had ignored the bulge in his suit jacket pocket, turned the tv off when a news bulletin started about a new missing person case.

“No,” she tells Kira, “I don’t.”

Better or worse? Hard to say.

[dogurrls]

1995. Dog Tooth.

I.

No one comes down to visit Farcrest Harbor during the off-season. There’s no reason to. During the summer, when the air is warm and a gentle breeze rises in the wind—when the ocean glistens under the grasp of the sun, the sand is yellow and hot to touch, and the gulls stretch their wings and rise from their nests—brotherly love drifts down south to indulge in carousels and funnel cake. The first summer Carrie can remember was this exactly. Bright neon signs, laughter, colored flashing lights, fireworks, warm and salty air. Then, as September came around everything settled. She realized that the sand was cold and so was the water, that suddenly everything had passed her by before she could understand it. A sense of dread soon followed as she looked out past the sea. September simply hung over her, October soon to follow, and the sun was no longer warm. Until next Memorial Day, Farcrest would be nothing but a ghost. All hollowed out and empty with nowhere to go. The Pinelands rise taller than before over the bare coast of Our Lady’s Bay, and festering within their branches something beckons Bethany Kauffman to her death.

Far away, deep in the pine barrens of Farcrest Harbor, something waits. Hiding in the marsh beneath the seagrass, peeking up through the worn planks of the pier, flying with the gulls along Our Lady’s Bay. Oscillating back and forth, between here and nowhere. In the seafoam and in the clouds, close but not too close, one step away from wrapping its arms around Carrie completely. Waiting for its next meal—too smart to bare its teeth, it knows better than to just circle in on its prey. Rather, it slinks in slowly, creeping up from the cracks in the floorboards, out of the brush with a sunken, wound-like smile stretched cheek to cheek. A smile that is gaping, inviting, with teeth caving inward, merciful and carnivorous.

Somewhere along the way, Carrie Kauffman must have told her sister I love you for the very last time. Before she was swept up by the waves and dragged deep down to her death, before she washed up on the bay with seaweed tangled in her hair and bloodied, bruised skin. There must have been a moment where her eyes met Beth’s for the last time—before the mangled skin slouched off her face and her eyes had been turned to rot and pecked out by the gulls.

Carrie knew that if she stayed in Farcrest, she would die. Whether it be the same way as her sister, lured out deep into the pines and tugged down under the currents of the Atlantic. Or if, at some point, she would find the courage to just get it all over with herself. The fact of the matter stood still, unwavering, staring her down—she was going to die in Farcrest. The same as her sister, her father, and everyone that came before her. She was going to take one last look up at the sky, with the waves crashing down on her, and that was going to be it. She was sure of it. This town was going to be her beginning and her end. Mother Nature was going to rip her open and pick her apart, rib by rib, down to the very tissue of her heart. A thick blanket of desperation would fall over her, she would feel sick until she remembered that this is what she wanted all along, then her heart would speed up before it finally burst. Maybe she would be brought back to life for just a second, hear the rustle of the wind in the trees one last time, train horn in the distance, someone calling her name, before she closed her eyes for good.

[rcignxs]

[ paul rudd | he/him ] A new face takes refuge under Dark Skies. CONNOR LABONAIR, an 55 year old WEREWOLF, is one of those from the PAST learning to navigate this changed world. People say behind their back that they’re OVERLY PROTECTIVE but the truth is that they’re really FATHERLY. Their style can best be described as BRIGHT YELLOW EYES GLOWING IN THE DARK, and we’ll see how that helps them fit in.

BASICS

full name : connor labonair

nicknames : alpha, con

age : 55 ( 73 physically )

birthday/zodiac : june 18th / gemini

gender/pronouns : cis man / he/him

sexual orientation : straight

species : werewolf (resurrected)

occupation : owner of a local carpenter shop

family : ______ labonair (wife), hayley marshall-kenner andreia labonair (daughter), labonair family (family)

languages : english, asl, french (creole)

PERSONALITY

bad habits … . overly protecting those he cares about, overthinking things

hobbies … . tinkering with things, building

fears … . having his daughter hate him

alignment : true good

BEHIND THE MASK

face claim … . paul rudd

height … . 5'10"

hair color … . dark brown

eye color … . greenish-blue

scars … . one where he was killed, multiple little scars from when he used to do woodworking

ABOUT

Born as the alpha of the Crescent Wolf Pack he was known to be a fair and kind alpha, listening to those and helping whenever and wherever he could. And he managed to find love and have a child - the best thing that ever happened to him. And luckily for him, his wife's choice of name was way better than his and he couldn't even be mad at it

Though that happiness was quickly short lived when his life was taken and he was stripped away from his daughter. He wasn't sure how long it was, but when he saw his daughter on the other side his heart shattered - knowing that she had met the same fate as he had.

Though, by some twist of fate, he was given a second chance alongside his daughter and what was supposed to be a happy reunion as two living individuals quickly turned to hell.

The military causing the deaths of a good amount of people he cared for, a rising to power with those who just wanted to see his kind dead and/or suffering. It was better for him if he had just stayed dead. But he wasn't going to give up - not for his daughter, his wife, or his pack

Though, another twist was thrown his way and he was sent to 2029. He's basically been in a state of 'what's going on' to 'oh my god there's peace for a bit?' to 'maybe i can retire'. That's him, folks

[alecthewreck]

Chasing Sunlight

The sun was shining in pieces through the window, dancing past delicate shifts of curtain. It shone pink on her cheeks and a bright orange on her pale breasts. A sliver of it glared a crimson drip in the corner of my eyes, making me squint down at her. Rough, calloused fingertips chased the shifting rays across her bare skin. Glancing up, her green eyes followed the twisting trail my fingers were making. They continued their path downward to her pouchy stomach.

Chubby, she called it. I liked it. It was soft, a slight bump of sweetly swollen flesh that was smooth and yielding beneath my hard fingers. I made wide circles now, starting beneath her breasts, chasing a yellow splash of sun down her side, tumbling with golds over the thick bone of her hip. I took my time over her lower stomach, below the navel where tiny dark hairs were starting to spring again a couple of days post-shave. Her skin here was warm and cast in shadow where the morning sun couldn't reach it.

Moving back into the red light on her other hip, I circled up to the orange sun that played on her chest. Here, beneath the collarbone on the flat expanse before the swell of her breasts, one sharp yellow ray of sunlight caught the edges of the soft, blonde hairs that lay close to her skin. While normally I couldn’t see the fine hairs, with the light shining now, she looked to be made of gold. The little peach fuzz made her silken to the touch after a night of sweat.

I found her eyes again, half-closed against the sunrise pouring over them. They were as green as candied apples and looked like glass with the sun in them. Possessed, my fingers danced towards them, abandoning their happy circles around her soft body.

They paused as they spread over her pointed chin. It was small, most of her facial features following this lead. She had a crease, arched horizontally that made her bottom lip pout out over her dainty chin. I had taken those lips with mine countless times, yet as I looked at them now, I felt I had never seen them before in my life. Each crack, crease, and wetly glistening slip of skin was something new to explore.

Her eyes started to stay closed longer and longer, sleep finding its way in after a night of breathlessness. The sun was rising past the window now; golds, yellows, reds, and oranges leaving her pale skin for the mere light of the mundane day. Even then, she's a work of art beneath my touch. I let my fingertips come to rest on the freckled cheeks that were now being cast in shadow from my looming above her.

We hadn't spoken a word for hours. We didn't need to, or want to. Never had I experienced so perfect a silence. As her breathing came to a steady rest, I laid a palm flat to her soft tummy and curled about her, allowing my own eyes to fade and my breathing to slowly match hers.

7/31/23

[no-droids]

Home

gif credit: @javier-pena

Part Eighteen of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 19.5K

Warnings: SMUT, religion kink (maybe?), squirting, consensual stalking/pursuing, canon-typical violence, mention of underage drinking, uhh I believe that’s it but as always, let me know if I’ve forgotten anything please!

A/N: Hey yall!!!  So I know this chapter has been a long time coming and though I’m not completely satisfied with it, I hope it brings a little happiness to you for an hour or two while you read!  School has been kicking my ass and I’ve been in a bit of an emotional slump recently, but I pulled a few all-nighters to post this on time and it’s finally finished!  Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me and sent me encouraging words over the past month or so, I hope you enjoy the end of the Sanctuary arc💕

Also like last time, part 2 of my collaboration with @followwhereshegoes will be posted after the chapter!!  As a reminder, sweet girl is a reader insert and every imagining of her will be different—this is Lisa’s interpretation of her and her artwork is absolutely gorgeous, so please go give her a follow!

Day 5–11:13am:

You zone out again in the early morning, but that happens a lot.  Din always keeps you up so late, all the time, and without any caf here, the rising sun just makes your eyes droop instead of flutter brighter and wider.  You helped a bunch of younglings find their way into their robes when it was still dark out, tying sashes and fitting masks while holding back your yawns.  The walk into Nariss is close to three hours, probably more with all these tiny little legs, and you almost forget to change into your new digs before everyone grabs breakfast.

Even though your ragtag entourage leaves for Nariss just as soon as everyone finishes eating, you don’t reach the city until nearly lunchtime.  Mostly because the kids walk about as fast as the elderly holy women chaperoning the trip.  You and Naydee lag behind the group, forcing yourself to meander slow as fuck when you nearly sprinted this same exact path just a few days ago.  On the way there, you listen to children of all sorts sing happily as they walk, chatter about their excitement for the parade, complain about wearing the fabric mask they made themselves, and more than once, somebody takes a tumble onto the ground and is left in teary sniffles and dirt stained clothes.  Likely for this reason, the robes are designed to be two pieces—a long tunic with a hood and a separate pants portion to prevent tripping instead of a draping skirt, but the smallest ones are clumsy and find a way to fall anyways.

It’s a colorful bunch—a chaotic rainbow of babies running around, and you share easy conversation with your new friend about the plans for the day until she asks something that makes you nearly trip and join the dirty robe club.

“Sister Drya said your family is meeting you in the city,” she tells you, ignoring your immediate subtle toe stub and the awkward shuffle you have to do to make up for it.  “There’s going to be lots of people downtown, I’m worried it might be hard for them to find you.”

Your heart thuds in your chest and you feel a bit short of breath at being abruptly confronted with the need to lie, but at the same time, you kind of love it.  Having a secret, hiding the truth from others, and just the reminder that you’re almost guaranteed to see Din and the baby before midnight pours warmth and tingles through your tummy.  Everything together is a hit of spice, filling you with a kind of excitement that used to be foreign to you.  Having fun, experiencing new things isn’t quite over yet, but home is calling and you miss it with every fiber of your being.

“I don’t think so,” you eventually respond, hoping she can see your kind smile and the sentiment it carries even as light, shimmery fabric wraps right around your mouth.  “If I disappear, you’ll know why.”

Naydee’s eyes crinkle in the corners to match yours.  “Hopefully you’ll be able to see the fireworks first,” she nudges you, her skin glowing against the pale cream fabric she has wrapped around her own mouth and the hood laying delicately over her braids.  “They start at eight.”

The fireworks, you almost forgot.  You know what?  Today is a good day.  You hear yourself think the full sentence multiple times, and the words put a spring in your step after every single one.  The road gradually becomes wider and filled with more travelers, and you feel safe in the back.  Like some kind of sheepdog bringing up the rear of this migrating cluster of children, making sure none of them drift off by themselves and start eating grass or something.

Surprisingly, the kids manage to be relatively patient and well-behaved once they’re in line at the gates.  The Sisters shuffle them along one by one as everyone moves up slowly, taking even longer to get into the city than it did a few days ago.  The entrance is packed already—so many people visiting for the festival, and they’re all dressed in costumes or robes of sorts, or at least a mask.  Most are beautifully crafted, but some manage to look slightly scary even with the soft springtime color schemes.  It’s a completely different world, a different life for each person as you pass them by.  Your stomach is starting to growl by the time you finally make it to the front, and luckily the guards just let the kids through without any ceremony.  Just you and the rest of the caretakers in light robes need to hold still for the retinal scan, matching each other perfectly except for differing shades of fabric, skin, and eye color.  Once the gates open for you and you step through, though… it’s… Maker.

Extravagant, magnificent are both words.  Floral is another.

It’s like they hung up bouquets wherever they could think to fit them, and this is just the edge of the city.  As the group moves through the streets and closer to downtown, it becomes more and more overwhelming.  The air itself is a warm fragrance wafting all around you, sunshiney and breezy and perfect, flowers of all kinds lining the modern buildings and archways like they were planted there from the very beginning and it just took this long to bloom between the cracks in the concrete.  You wish you had names for all of them so you could list them—the only thing you can offer is the color and vague descriptions of the ones that stick out to you.  Tiny yellow ones that are so small, they need to be bunched all together in massive quantities to even resemble normal flowers.  Up overhead, elaborate arrangements of enormous blue and purple and pink ones, wrapping around each other and hanging down from rooftops.  Some don’t even have petals, it’s like they’re big green cups that are big enough to hold things inside them.  You’re fascinated by every single one, wanting to stop and smell them all individually but needing to keep up with the large group and not allow any stragglers to be left behind, including yourself.

About an hour later, when you’re almost in the middle of the city and there are people everywhere, it’s time to eat lunch.  There isn’t much to it because of how expensive it is, and you’d normally feel bad for accepting the small meal each one of the children gets, but you donated all of your credits to the Keja and left absolutely zero for yourself.  Good intentions, terrible idea.  Still, you pull your mask down and snack on some deliciously fried food, trying not to eye anyone else’s platter after you finish yours.  It’s so good and it’s gone in an instant; you couldn’t even say what exactly it was besides which stall you got it at.  Whether it’s just the brilliant atmosphere or if the food on this moon is really just that good, you’re not really sure, but you’re still slightly hungry afterwards with no extra money to sneak a snack.

Soon after, the kids all line up to get their faces painted, or whatever portion of their face is visible behind the cloth masks and hoods they’ve got on, and music blares from at least four different directions and none of the songs are even in the same language.  Depending on the part of town, it seems like the celebrations are all different.  It makes sense, considering most if not all of these individuals were victims of the Empire’s wrath, spread far and wide across the galaxy.  Here, they’re free, and they want everyone to know it.  Spring festivals of some sort are likely common for most cultures, at least those from planets with seasons, not like Arvala-7 where it was arid and hot year-round, and you’re assuming there are multiple things being celebrated today depending on which street you live on.  There’s chanting in different tongues, dancing and drums, outfits and masks from different cultures every single time you look.

At some point, the children spot a crowded street with flowery rails set up all along them, and you stand behind the tiny heads while everyone waits for the parade to begin.  You think your heart has just been beating slightly faster than normal all day today, but when you finally hear the sound of sirens blaring in the distance and cheers begin to pour out from the gathered crowd, it kicks up and you feel like you’re just as wide eyed at the spectacle as the waist-high babies all huddled together up against the railing.

A flurry of people and things pass in slow succession.  First, New Republic officers with their blaring holobikes, bright orange as always.  Then come large groups of people walking behind banners in languages you can’t read, some of them waving, some of them making different sounds and songs.  Bands marching in formation, dancers in dresses and masks and gorgeous flowers in their hair like crowns, and then brilliant hovering vehicles decorated in bright colors and festive depictions.  The craftsmanship and cultural significance is stunning to witness, it’s so insanely loud, there’s so much going on, and yet…

Through it all, you think of Din.  No matter the faces, the sights you see.  There’s someone juggling.  There’s either a very tall man and woman walking together or they’re both on stilts.  There are enormous balloons being led through the air, people are riding atop an assortment of animals you’ve never seen before, there are traditional costumes and spectacular stunts being performed.  Stalls with games and prizes line the stretches of concrete on the cross streets, people are laughing and celebrating and drinking in equal parts, everything is so lively and festive and fun, and yet, though it all, you think of Din.  Him and the baby, they’re always in the forefront of your mind, occupying your thoughts and making your tummy stir more and more as the time passes like the parade in front of you.  You don’t think this environment would ever be his favorite, and in some far away galaxy, perhaps if you lived other lives together and called a beautiful moon exactly like this home, then you might have to drag him out to see all the with you and the kid every year.  You’d have to bat your eyelashes and kiss his cheek and snuggle up to him all nice and pretty like, and he’d probably grumble and complain about it while wrapping his arms around you—all the people and the noise, sweet girl—but he’d go.  For you, he’d go.

Your thoughts suddenly stop short and you blink for a second.  Why… Why was that scene so vivid?  So wistful?  You used to preoccupy yourself with fantasies about Din all the time, back before you even knew him as Din.  But in every single one, it was sexual and likely came from a place of boredom, a lack of external stimulation.  Here you are amidst bustling surroundings, and you’re daydreaming about domesticity with him.  Why?  You want to travel the galaxy, right?  You want to see things you’ve never seen before, right?

For some reason, you think of the floor, and you miss it.

***

Day 5—5:04pm:

It’s late afternoon at this point and nobody can find the teens.

More people have made their way into the city and it’s starting to get extremely fucking crowded, especially where you are downtown, and the handful of them must’ve slipped away with all the excitement happening and how difficult it is to keep the young ones together now that the parade is over.  You don’t know how long they’ve been gone—one second they were walking around just slightly detached from the rest of you, you assumed because the boisterous younglings fucked with their cool vibe, and then the next Naydee is gasping out to you that they’re gone.

“Sister Drya is going to kill me,” she hisses, her dark eyebrows furrowed in self-admonishment and stress.  So many fucking people here, you know her pain.  “I was supposed to be chaperoning them, they were just here—”

She shakes her head under the loose, cream-colored hood, groaning and then speeding up her gait to catch up with the woman in charge, but you decide to grab her wrist before she can relay the bad news.  

“I can go find them,” you offer, speaking as low as you can with the blaring noise surrounding you.  “Before anyone knows they’re missing.  Is there a way to convince everybody to stay in one spot for a little while?  You won’t get in trouble, but I need to know how to find you again.”

Naydee’s eyes widen in surprise, and even though it’s likely a bit out of character for you, you have a feeling it’ll be a deceptively easy task.  Even with the masses right now and how atrociously big this city is, you already have a general idea of where they’re likely to be.  Besides, you’re not even sure your absence will be noticed if Naydee is the only one who figured out the teens were gone—the other Sisters can thrive without you while missing anyone else would be noticeable, and you owe your new friend a thousand favors for helping you out these past few days.  The least you can do is save her from the scolding of one of the scariest old ladies you've ever met.

“Be as quick as you can,” she finally agrees.  It’s a lot of trust to put into you, but you’ve had experience in reading the most unreadable man in the entire galaxy, some teenagers shouldn’t pose too much of a problem.  “If you’re not back in thirty minutes or somebody notices, I’ll have to say something.”

You nod, silently breaking away from the group without another word.  You think you can hear her announce to everyone that it might be best to eat dinner now to skip any long lines later—smart—but you’re out of their hearing range and line of sight almost immediately.

***

Day 5–5:17pm:

“Really?”  You raise an eyebrow since they won’t be able to see the way your mouth is twisted up underneath your mask, crossing your arms and tapping your foot against the ground to further illustrate just how not fucking impressed you are.

Seven teenagers freeze, and slowly—depending on how much bravery they can individually muster—they turn around on their stools to face you.  The atmosphere in the tavern is bustling and cheery, booze being passed around a large crowd that laughs and mingles, but your vibe is stone cold and quiet.  The contrast doesn’t feel wrong on you like it normally would; the negative and disapproving energy you’re emitting makes you feel powerful, untouchable, armored and strong.

“How did you find us so fast?”  One of the twin boys squeaks out behind a light blue robe, sounding worried.

“Had a hunch,” you grumble, glaring sternly at each of them in turn.  Your tone is dry, your voice sits lower in your throat when you’re pissed off.  All you had to do was look for the closest bar that doesn’t have any orange jumpsuits poking around waiting to card underage younglings, it wasn’t that difficult.  “You’re not exactly unpredictable.”

“Are you gonna rat us out?”  The other twin asks you, in a voice that’s oddly deep compared to his brother.

“I should,” you snap, quickly reaching out to push their drinks away.  “I should let Sister Drya rain down her holy fury on your asses, got good people all twisted up over you for nothing and I’m missing dinn—”

You don’t know why, but you suddenly cut yourself off and jerk upright, spinning around.

The sounds of glasses clinking and boisterous voices fill the bar, but they seem to fade out for a second.  Your eyes fly around the crowded space, your heart lodged in your throat and looking for anything reflective.  Every flash you see is a false alarm—belt buckle, wristwatch, cocktail shaker—

He’s here… isn’t he?

Only, there’s nothing.  Nothing is out of place, nothing jumps out at you the way you’re assuming it will.  You’re braced taut and ready to bolt at the first sign of a chase, but it never comes.

It’s so… unexpected, this feeling.  It’s not like you’re being hunted anymore, but instead, you’re the hunter.  You’re feeling the weight of him from this far away and it’s like he’s calling for you to come find him, teasing the wild adrenaline rush you get from just feeling his presence, as if he absolutely knows it happens.  Whispering soft in your ear and then vanishing the second you’re able to turn around, like he’s here but he’s not.  Playing with you from so far away.

This… this is a taunt.  

The whole thing at the inn was leagues below this, that was rudimentary.  Teasing, getting even, having fun with each other, whatever you want to call that, that’s what it was.  This is scarily sophisticated.  Fluid and practiced and the best kind of frightening, stark and dangerous compared to the carefree and upbeat setting surrounding you.  You’re not making it up, it’s not just you being paranoid.  You know him with your eyes closed.  You know he’s here somewhere watching you, just like you know the starlight that streaks across the pitch black horizon of hyperspace.  Not because you can see it, not really, not directly.  But because by it, even in the vastest and darkest and emptiest of voids, you’re suddenly able to see everything else.

“You okay, Nerida?”

The volume gradually comes back up and you blink, suddenly remembering where you are, who else is with you.  The chatter becomes slightly louder than it seemed before.

“Yeah,” you eventually say, slightly airy while continuing to stare emptily at the crowded room.  He’s not here, you don’t think, not anymore at least.  But you’re not stupid, you know what this means.  You’re already caught, there’s nothing you can conceivably do that will delay the reunion for the next—you look down and pull the loose sleeve up to check your communicator—seven fucking hours, there’s no way.  He’ll pull back and follow you, keep up with you from a distance and then snatch you away right when you let your guard down.  You at least need to get the kids back to their guardians before that can happen, though.

“Let’s go,” you quietly tell the group of foundlings, grabbing elbows and hauling them out of their stools.  “Naydee was the only one who knew that you were gone when I left.  Here’s to hoping she managed to keep it that way.”

***

Day 5–5:32pm:

Against all odds, you’re able to rally the wayward teens and successfully lead them through shoulders that are beginning to move closer together as the crowd grows and grows.  You stay towards the back and don’t look behind you once—not only do you not want to give the younglings an unnecessary reason to become paranoid or to question your actions, but you can still feel Din lingering.  Moving like a shadow, probably fitting in perfectly with the masked festival-goers, nothing drawing any attention to him with all the spectacular sights and noise occurring.

Soon you return to the same spot from before, and you and the teenagers seamlessly integrate yourselves back into the rest of the group without anyone noticing a thing is out of place.  When you move to stand beside her, Naydee’s bone-deep sigh of relief is palpable even behind the concealing fabric; she squeezes your hand incredibly tight in a silent gesture of thanks, and then pulls something from the deep pockets of her robe and passes it to you sneakily.  A purple fruit.  She must’ve saved it for you.

Maker, fuck yes.  It’s not much but it’s more dinner than any of the seven troublemakers get, but Naydee quietly assures you they’ll be able to eat something once they return to the Keja around midnight, just not the tasty expensive treats they’re selling at the vendors.  As the sun goes down, you try not to stain your pretty fabric a deep maroon as you chomp and feel your lips start to curl upwards.  It sounds so fucking stupid when you put it like this, but you keep going back to Din and revelling in knowing that he’s so close, like you’re just mentally checking in on him.  You don’t get the sensation by thinking, though—more like you just focus really hard on your heart and feel him there just a second afterwards.

Is that how pure, stupid, shameless love feels when you’re completely entrenched in it?  It’s not like it’s surrounding you, it’s not suffocating you or making you float.  It’s just a thing.  Like… a thing inside your chest, a physical thing you can search for and find, something you can point to on your body and say it’s right here, this is where my love for him lives.  Right at the bottom of your heart, right where it curves and beats strong when other hearts meet flat at sharp angles.  You do it over and over again, reconfirming its existence every single time.  You don’t know what else you’d call it.  Love is the only word.  To love, to know.  To hold in the heart.

Soon, you start to notice that people are slowly moving around your stationary group.  You look up and watch the crowd begin to walk, some of them giving soft smiles to the cute children as they pass by, but all of them following the same unspoken direction.

“Where is everyone going?”  You ask Naydee, standing on your tiptoes to watch the crowd migrate like a giant system, an organism or mechanism of thousands (or tens of thousands?) of smaller moving parts all traveling in tandem.  It’s fascinating—you’ve been to crowded places, you know what it looks like when a lot of people are packed into one area, but you’ve never seen what it looks like when they all move together.  They would normally be bumping into each other, slipping in between, fighting and never really getting anywhere, interacting individually and thinking separately.  Now they’re progressing in one single direction, so many with the same mindset and understanding of what comes next.  A second parade, almost, with New Republic officers directing the flow of pedestrians as they pass.

“The eastern part of the city!”  Naydee yells over the noise and points, and beyond her extended finger, you can barely see the light of a dusky body of water in the distance beyond the buildings.  “The fireworks are going to go off over the bay, but it takes awhile to get there!”

“Is…”  You blink for a second, suddenly caught off guard, trying to think back to the holomap the concierge pulled up at the front desk of the inn.  Surely you would’ve noticed it, but your sudden childlike hope makes you ask anyway.  “Is it part of an ocean?”

Naydee shakes her head.  “A really big lake!”

Your shoulders drop just the slightest bit in disappointment but still, you ache to see it.  You can’t even imagine—the fireworks are likely going to reflect across the water, giving everyone double the view.  And luckily, after all the children and caretakers are individually accounted for, you start to behind the slow-moving crowd towards the docks you know lie beyond.  

Naydee scurries ahead to keep the kids together, ushering them forward and preventing any drunk passer-bys from accidentally stepping on them, and you quietly bring up the very rear of the entourage.  You take the time to observe more than anything, walk in the back and experience instead of trailblaze.  So many people, so many stories to be told, so many differences and diversity around you.  Your face is partially concealed and you don’t move your head too much, just your eyes.  They flick around to take in everything, the crowd thinning little by little as you make it out of the confined space downtown.  You’re able to make out full bodies and outfits again instead of just heads and shoulders, allowing you to breathe just a bit easier under your mask.

And then at one point—and it’s almost a little startling because it happens all at once—the organizers must decide that the sun has officially gone down, because the lights come on.  All of a sudden, paper lanterns and bulbs flicker into existence all around you and the world decides it wants to glow, glint and twinkle from the inside out.  They’re everywhere, draping across rooftops and tangled around street signs and stuffed into the flower bouquets overhead, raining soft colors down on everything.  You’re in complete awe, trying to keep walking but also needing to look at as much as fucking possible in the suddenly luminescent city.  It’s so colorful, so vernal and warm and you feel like you’re… Like when you took a shower on the Crest for the first time and spent a few happy moments just playing with the water and soap for your own enjoyment, it’s as if all the brilliant rainbow of colors the bubbles would make under the fluorescent light decided to surround you at the same time.  You’re inside stained glass, blinking at the flowers and wondering if Din can even smell the air or if it’s filtered, processed and reduced to nothing under the helmet.

And that’s when you see him.

But with the way your chest rapidly constricts and you can count your heart beats as they pound, blaring white noise through your ears and adrenaline through your veins, it’s like he's just allowing it to happen.  You immediately understand that you don’t have fucking anything the second your eyes land on him; this isn’t a heads up that you caught wind of early, it’s not a gift or an advantage you’ve incidentally gained over him that you should be thankful for.  Being able to see him directly like this, being able to make out all these fucking details from this far away…  This just feels like you’re being informed of the endgame right before it comes.  If you were anyone else, if you were a real bounty and this was a real hunt, his armor glinting and reflecting the lanterns overhead would feel like a knife you're about to be on the wrong side of.

You have a decision to make, very quickly.  Either keep in this same direction, head straight towards him and just pretend like you are who you’re dressed as, a random caretaker for a bunch of rowdy foundlings during a spring festival on Nariss, or disappear.  Drop back, move through the crowd and use the distance you have between you right now as your only hope of getting away in time.  Neither one gives you a particular advantage—your chances of being caught have already skyrocketed exponentially just being able to see the reflection in his armor, the hovering shield at his side with big black eyes… staring directly at you.

You almost trip over your pantlegs, gasping.  Baby.  He beams at you and you think he calls out through the passing crowd, his tiny arms extending out, and your chest feels like you’re pulling organs as if they were muscles, cramping up and seizing with emotion.  You want to run to them even though you’re meant to be running from them, call out over the noise and wave even though you’re not supposed to.  You want to hold the kid again, squish his little forehead with kisses, walk around with Din’s hand pressed against your lower back and see the fireworks with him.

Your hands clutch at the draping fabric covering your chest, pulling and twisting it uncertainly.  What do you do, what do you do?

No matter what, you know it’s over.  Keep your head down and try to move past him, or break away from your group and try to escape—both are different paths that lead to the same result.  What’s the point of running when he’s the one chasing you?  The heart-pounding thrill is the only reason you’re even considering it, but his body stands so tall amongst the crowd, not moving while people ebb and flow like a river passing around him.

Except then you can hear his voice repeat the last thing he said to you in person as if he says it directly into the comm in your ear.  When you do see me… try to outrun.

You should run—run, it’s better than just hoping he doesn’t see you when you already know he does.

Unless…

Out of a trillion different possibilities, you soon realize that there is exactly one situation in which this could turn out in your favor.  You can immediately picture the scenario in your mind, but there’s just too many variables to conceivably rely on getting them all right.  This maybe has a… two percent chance of working?  Maybe?  Everything would have to go perfectly, just fucking flawlessly, but what other choice do you have?  Two percent is better than whatever odds you’re dealing with now.

You walk silently behind the group of foundlings as you approach closer and closer, keeping your head purposefully down as they skip and giggle and dance ahead.  He knows you’re here—he has to know, you’re counting on him knowing.  Walk right in front of him, pretend like you don’t see, make sure you keep left.  Keep left, keep left, keep your head down, keep your head down—

A leather glove suddenly catches hold of your wrist hard enough to tug you backwards.

Your gasp is audible over the sound of the crowd and you spin around, jerking your head up to look at him in fear.  Your heart slams as the beskar reflects your mask and hood back at you—you’re terrified and it shows, you can see it in your eyes.

You quickly try to yank your hand away, even as your index finger stretches up towards the communicator around his wrist.

“Miss Nerida?”  A child’s voice cries, and then small hands grab at you from behind as you bury the urge to actually fight him.  Your instincts are demanding you attack when his grip is this strong, but you just whine and struggle, slapping weakly at him with your free hand and feeling more of the younglings begin to pull at you, their high pitched voices calling more and more attention to the scene.

Your gaze flicks to the side, suddenly landing on a pair of New Republic officers helping direct the thousands of moving bodies from the closest street corner.  They’re looking at you, pointing and beginning to speak into their own comm units.  Din’s helmet snaps sideways to follow your gaze, and then he’s immediately dropping your wrist and stepping back, retreating as quickly as he caught you.  Though you don’t want to—though you don’t want to give yourself away even more, you want to pretend fully that he was a complete stranger and the children were right to try to help you get away—your eyes fall to your son in the hovering crib by his side and you feel yourself crumble just a bit.

Just a few more hours, kid.  A few more hours.

Children pull you away while your pursuers both disappear into the crowd, and you quickly turn to soothe the tiny babies instead of chasing after the one you miss so terribly.

“I’m alright,” you tell them, scooting them up and encouraging them to continue walking.  Blend in, blend in, don’t let anybody think anything is wrong.  “Come on, we’re fine, come on, we have to catch up.”

They take your lead as soon as one of the caretakers turns around and sees the small group crowding around you.  You think she asks what happened, but you just tell her a man mistook you for someone else and nothing more comes of it.  She’s able to settle the chaos better than you are, and by the time you’re continuing to travel forwards once more like nothing happened, the communicator suddenly flicks on in your ear.

“What did you do?”  He breathes out, his footsteps moving fast through his voice.  He’s traveling much quicker than you expected—is he still being followed?  The officers are gone from your sight, they might be going after him right now, weaving between bodies and calling out to the perpetually vanishing glint of armor as he navigates his way out of danger.

You look down at the comm on your wrist and your heart nearly soars with victory.  It worked.  It worked.  You just have to outlast a bit longer, don’t draw any extra attention to it—he’s preoccupied and he certainly doesn’t sound happy, but you hope that’ll be enough to make him slip.  Use his frustration to your advantage, let him think the only thing you were successful at was momentarily escaping him.

“The cops weren’t part of the plan,” you admit quietly, keeping your head down as your loose hood billows in the twilight breeze.  “Don’t get caught.”

There’s a few moments of just his breathing, his footsteps, and the noise floor humming through the comm, before he finally responds.  “You look beautiful.”

You stare unseeingly down at the concrete under your feet, still feeling your hand tingle from where he caught you.  The line abruptly mutes on his end and you just keep moving forward, onward, wanting to look back but knowing he’s already long gone.

***

Day 5–5:24pm:

Din is fucking furious.

He had you.  You were right there, right in front of him, and even if he hadn’t been subtly trailing you all day, seeing the red footsteps get covered and flicker out of existence just a few moments after you make them, he would’ve recognized you anywhere.  In black and white, in the fading light, with your face covered, children calling you by a different name and attaching themselves to you like they’ve known you forever—doesn’t matter, he would’ve known you.  Your eyes have always given you away, always so expressive and starry and soft, but able to see right through solid steel whenever you look at him.

But then you slipped from his grasp, and then more guards pushed him further and further away from you.  They must all be in constant communication, because every single jumpsuit he sees immediately spots him and starts following.  It’s fucking exhausting, and he thinks of you the whole time.

He waits in a dark alley with the kid and taps the side of the helmet a few times to bring up the time on his comm, but then relaxes just slightly when he sees the hour.  It’s earlier than he thought it was, he’ll be able to find you again.

Though, something tugs at him while he’s looking at the clock ticking away in front of his eyes, counting down each second that passes.  There was… a moment.  Back in the square, when he was holding onto you again, when you were looking directly into his once more—everything in his helmet— 

No, he shakes his head while the kid looks up at him curiously, it can’t be.  It was just a split second, it was gone so fast.

But he can’t get rid of it.  Though there’s no explanation, he thinks the display screen flickered.  The sky behind you looked different for a single frame, your footsteps weren’t bright red and visible anymore, your eyes weren’t grey and he stopped wondering what shade of fabric you and your friend decided to choose for you to wear.  It was silvery, he’s almost certain.  Like his armor, it only reflected the color of everything around it.

Color.  Everywhere.  Bursting for a blink of an eye, and then gone just as quick, before he could actually figure out what it really meant.

***

Day 5–6:59pm:

This water is quiet here, but it sparkles.

It doesn’t ever really get truly dark thanks to the enormous hanging moon and ringed gas giant dancing with Sanctuary II, constantly reflecting light back onto the surface and reacting with some of the trace chemicals up above the atmosphere, and you think the sky just might be the prettiest you’ve ever seen it.  Must have something to do with the equinox, the glimmering angles of light being played with by celestial bodies in this stunning system, but it’s a dream.  The Maker apparently couldn’t decide which colors he wanted tonight so he just splashed all of them together all at once, let them run and blend like ink in the gentle water below, like the various people who call this moon home.

That view in front of you, coupled with all the flowers and lanterns lining the streets behind you, and you’ve lost track of time the exact same way you hoped Din would.  You think you’ve stood for about an hour or so in this one spot, half-listening to excited chatter from the babies, mostly just gazing across the stretch of water and being able to just barely spot the docks in the distance, but it feels like it’s only been minutes.

You check your watch—the fireworks should be starting any second now.  You don’t know what to expect, just that in your experience, explosions tend to be loud.  You've decided you’re not going to plug your ears, though.  Tummy twisting with nerves and another inexplicable feeling you can’t quite put your finger on, you resolve to experience the unknown exactly the way it’s meant to be.  Fully, without worry or fear.

Then, lacking any warning or ceremony whatsoever, a single flare launches silent and high from one of the small boats skimming the bay, and the crowd seems to hold its collective breath as the dim light disappears into thin air for a split second, before—

It’s… quite possibly the most dazzling thing you think you’ve ever seen.  So shamelessly decorative just for the sake of it, not serving any other practical purpose besides celebration and visual spectacle, and you’ll probably never know another extravagance like it.  You grew up with dust pelting against tired eyes, you never thought they’d get to reflect such gorgeous bursts of color back up at the sky, glassy and childlike amongst a group of equally wide-eyed children.

As expected, a deafening boom follows closely behind the singular display, but just witnessing it is incredible enough to make you forget to brace yourself for the sound and you jump almost violently in response.  There comes a loud cheer from the people standing around you, a few delighted gasps and children who decide now is the best time to start crying, but then more flares begin to launch from the boats and the subsequent show will sear itself into your memory to replay over and over again.

Still, you think the endless sky and dark water below would have to light on fire to stop him from coming to mind.

Din.

You click the comm on, continuing to stare in stunned awe but wanting nothing more than to hear his voice right now, feel his hand rest on your lower back and the kid’s three fingers squeezing one of yours while the stars rain down from above.  You’re only continuing to run from him because it’s expected of you, that’s the reason you’re here, but it’s becoming harder and harder to argue with yourself.  “Do you always see in black and white?”

It takes him just a few seconds to respond, but he always does.  “Only when I’m tracking someone.”

The loud booms can be heard over the earpiece, happening maybe a second after they crack and sparkle above you.  You can’t tell if the latency is due to the electronics or if he’s just that far away from the source of the sound itself, but… you don’t think he is.  He feels close again, like he could just walk up right next to you any second, or maybe that’s just how he always feels now.

“Does that mean you haven’t seen the sky here?”  You ask after a moment.  This whole time, everything has been grey for him?

“I saw it,” Din murmurs, and even though it’s quiet and explosions are thundering loud enough to deafen more sensitive ears, his quiet voice somehow breaks through it all.  “When you left the Crest, I saw it behind you.”

For some reason, you suddenly feel like crying.  Whether it’s the way he phrases it or the sentiment in the words, you’re close to tears without even knowing why, looking up at the sky illuminating spectacularly.  He says it like he wasn’t the one who parked on this moon and told you to go on without him.  “Can you… turn it off for just a second?”

He takes a second, before clarifying for you.  “I turn it off and I lose your footprints.”

So that was the ultimatum.  He doesn’t want to turn it off until you’re back with him again.  Does he not understand?  Does he not know what you know?  Maybe you just happened to feel it first, this overwhelming physical sensation inside you whenever you think about him.  It’s like the exact opposite of a hole in your chest.  And it’s so odd, so counterintuitive.  Being comforted in his absence, feeling him with you when he isn’t.  Falling in love in the dark, knowing him without ever seeing him.

“You never needed them,” you say, reaching up to pull your mask down under your jaw and chin for a moment, wanting to freely breathe the freshwater and flowers while stars explode and fracture across the sky.  It’s a truth you’re acknowledging, something you’ll carry with you, something you fundamentally own at this point.  “You’d find me without the helmet.  And I’d find you.”

The fireworks continue to bleed into the water beneath them, multicolor splashes rippling into existence and disappearing just as quick.  You could’ve never imagined a more colorful, magnificent landscape—besides your waterfall on Naboo, of course.  That was a pure product of nature though, a place hidden away and untouched by people, completely sacred.  Light refracting against mist, natural glass that would shatter under your weight.  This is a celebration of life and family.  Loud in a different way, affecting you in a different way, but just as wonderful and touching.  A cultivated paradise, designed to be beautiful and safe only because they wanted it to be.

“Think so?”  He asks softly.  He sounds so deep and warm, but… a little distant.  You’re able to hear it in his words.  You don’t know why, though.  Doesn’t he believe you?  Perhaps… perhaps this isn’t The Way.  Perhaps this is part of a completely different oath, one where knowing and loving somebody isn’t the same thing as looking at their face, not at all.  Where you can have them exist entirely separate from each other, because this is love.  This is real, enduring, bone-deep love, and you haven’t ever seen his face, so how would he explain that?  How would the Mandalorians reconcile that?  You bear the mark of the mudhorn, you’ve moved through time and space with him, you’re a mother to his son, and you’ve never seen his face.  It defies both the Mandalorian oath and traditional understandings of love, or it meets them right in the middle, depending on how you look at it.

“I know so.”  For the first time, you think you might sound more confident and certain than he does.  Maybe he doesn’t fully get it yet, but then you suppose he’ll just have to trust you.  “Will you look at the sky?”

“I see it,” Din tells you, but you know he doesn’t.  Not the way you want him to.  And stars, you just want so many things for him, don’t you?  The sky, fresh air, water, light, food, rest.  You want him to see the galaxy the way you do—have a new appreciation for the gifts that are given just because you’re alive to experience them.  All the physics and mathematics aligned perfectly for it to happen—all the chemistry, the systems, the dynamics that dictate the universe, they all got together and crafted a world where you, him, and the kid all exist together at the same time.  You want him to know the significance of that.

“With color?”  You ask, knowing his answer before he seems to.

“I…”  Din wants to argue, or at least say it again.  He can’t or he’ll lose you, he already told you he doesn’t want to turn the setting off.  It’s such an unnecessary conflict, but you want to respect it so much that you’re willing to give up things of your own to make it happen.

“How do I fix it then?”  You whisper, so desperately wanting this one thing for him, this one grandeur to behold.  How do you fix this problem?  How do you convince him to look with you?  You’d offer to just go and find him instead of continuing to run away for the next few hours, but you know the show will be over soon and you don’t have much time left.  “Do you want me to come look for you?  It’ll be too late by then, you’re too far away.  Look at the sky.”

It’s silent for a moment—truly silent, even though colorful bombs are going off above the bay.  You don’t know why you’ve attached yourself to this so strongly, but it’s almost devastating when you don’t get a response.  You look away from the spectacle for the first time in an eternity, gazing unseeingly into the crowd of onlookers with a sudden sadness taking hold of you.  He won’t look, he’s too stubborn, he holds onto things too tightly.

But then, a flurry of flares start launching in rapid succession from the distant boats, screaming and crying on their way up and then igniting into showers of light, and the abrupt increase in activity manages to catch your attention once again.  This must be the end, they saved the best for last.  Every corner of the horizon flashes and sparks, and you’re mesmerized at how bright it is, how many colors they’ve managed to fit into one single frame.

“It’s beautiful,” comes his voice, and the smile that you break into feels just right for the brilliance of the view above you.  Maker, it is, isn’t it?  Now you can hear it—he sounds like he’s looking at it too, with color, in all its breathtaking glory, and you feel like you’re flying.  Like he picked you up and let you watch up close, like you can feel his armor under your fingers right now as he carries you through the sky.

It swells up inside you, a rising wave similar to the ones you can see in the distance, and you know you probably shouldn’t say it because it’s not in your best interest to say it right now, but you have to say it anyways.  It’s an unknowable compulsion, a need to connect and communicate directly with him but for your sake, not presently, not at this exact moment in time.

Luckily, you mute your comm just in time and simply give the words to him from very far away.

“Hurry up,” you say, sending the sentiment into the sky with all your love, and the conflicting hope that he won’t take the advice until a bit later on.  “Come and find me.”

***

Day 5–7:37pm:

After the fireworks are over, people start to drift off in separate directions, clearing the traffic and congestion from the streets around you.  Someone puts their hand on your shoulder and you blink a few times, spinning around and almost stepping on a bunch of tiny little feet by accident.

Stars, that’s a lot of children.  They’re all crowded around Naydee, who pats a few heads and almost buckles under the younglings clinging to her leg.

“Figured you would be long gone by now,” she grins at you from behind her mask, and you’re reminded to pull yours up over your face just from looking at her.  “It’s late—we’re going back to the Keja.”

“Oh, shit,” you breathe in surprise, but the noise of the gradually dispersing crowd manages to cover it up.  At least from younger, more easily distracted ears, but you think Naydee hears you.  Her dark eyes roll good-naturedly, looking happy but exhausted from the long day.  You’re going to have to say goodbye now.

“What happened to your family?”  She asks after a moment, and you think she’s being careful with the way she says it, likely because family is a difficult topic to navigate in general around some of the children hanging on her and begging for her attention.  “Have you been in touch with them?  If not, I’m sure you can come back with us.  It’ll be late by the time we get there, but at least you’ll be safe.”

You open your mouth to automatically decline her offer, knowing Din is still in the crowded city looking for you and wanting to stay where there’s lots of people.

But then… well, he would expect you to do that, wouldn’t he?

There’s more people here.  More danger, but better places to hide.  It’s the obvious choice, it’s the one that makes the most logical sense.  But you’d also be completely alone and you’re assuming the only reason he hasn’t snatched you up yet—which you know he could’ve done multiple times by now, is likely because you’re with a group of innocent foundlings, moody teenagers, and very stern older women.  He probably doesn’t realize you’ve told them about him and the kid, though you were slightly vague on the details.

It’s also a little over three hours to get back, but you’re banking on it being closer to four with how whiney and tired some of the small voices sound, others sounding like they’re an enormous sugar rush contained into a tiny little capsule.  Would he have the gall to try and get you right from under their noses?  Will he even know you left the city, or will he assume you made the smartest decision possible and simply account for it ahead of time?  No, you're overthinking it, just make a decision and stick with it.

“There’s also free food,” Naydee shrugs while you’re still considering, but… well, that settles that.  Almost three days of friendship and she already knows exactly how to win you over in the end.  Sustenance for your empty tummy, an escort the entire way there, and heavily guarded walls beyond.  Din will have to get creative in response—you flaunted your imagination for days, coming up with dozens of evasion tactics to outlast him, but this one just seems… incredibly practical.  Exploiting a weakness of his—isolating it, having it be reinforced by precedent, and then taking advantage of it.  You bet he’ll catch on, but still, it’ll make it more difficult for him, and you’re grasping at straws to hang on just a little longer.

“I…”  Quick, come up with something.  You clear your throat.  “The city is too crowded, I haven’t been able to find them.  I could just… tell them where I’m headed and see if they can find me along the way?”

Naydee smiles and nods.  “Sounds perfect.”

Yet, the entire walk back… you keep thinking you’re going to feel Din trailing behind you, waiting to feel the nerves twist in your tummy and your palms to sweat, but you don’t.  You keep glancing over your shoulder and then down at your wrist, needing to talk yourself out of addressing him through the comm to let him know exactly what the plan is.  You like maintaining a sense of secrecy from the new characters you’ve met on your adventures—Naydee, Karga, Peli—almost everyone you’ve been introduced to, you found a way to find a subtle enjoyment in hiding certain things from them.  But with Din, you don’t have any walls.  They crumbled nearly a full year ago when he silently pushed a cauterizer in your hand and took his armor off for you, and you’ve felt the inexplicable need to bare yourself to him in return ever since.  It would be to your extreme detriment to do it now, but you still have to fight the urge.

Even if you don’t feel him following, you still find yourself acting like he is.  Constantly turning back to double check the road behind you, drifting off in the middle of shallow, distant conversations with tiny foundlings who can’t tell the difference, keeping towards the middle of the pack this time to avoid being picked off towards the back.  The belltower at the orphanage is loud and will ring for quite a distance, so your timing has to be utterly pristine for this to all work out.  You eye your comm the entire way there, trying to stall just the right amount to avoid any realizations or fall into any traps he may be setting for you.

You eventually leave the city walls far behind you, and now you have no clue where he is.  You lost him, and maybe that’s why you feel your heart beat insanely fast the whole time.  He could be anywhere now.  Behind you, adjacent, parallel—you can’t decide where to look, but it keeps you wide awake and focused while the group tiredly travels back to the temple.

***

Day 5–11:32pm:

You can see it in the distance, the brick buildings slowly coming into view.  One might think your stress would have worked itself out by now, been brought back to a manageable level after four hours of walking, but you’ve been on red alert for the past hour or so.  Any movement or rustle that doesn’t come from the sleepy children or exhausted caretakers, you’re on top of it, snapping your attention to the offending tree or animal and not being able to relax even after affirming it’s just nature, it’s not shiny metal bounding after you in the darkness, ready to take you down.

The infants are all likely snoozing away in the nursery, and the Sister who volunteered to stay behind and look after them comes to greet the group at the gate as you approach.  Like always, two Brothers open the iron bars to allow you inside, and you feel the anxiety dig its claws into your tummy.  If Din is going to get you, this is the very last moment to do it.  These walls are guarded and you’re nervous for him, you’re nervous for yourself—you’re just fucking nervous.  Jumpy and worried, not being able to pinpoint him anymore and feeling all the more anxious because of it.

It doesn’t feel right.  Nothing feels right about this, but you can’t figure out specifically what’s wrong.  This was the exact plan, this was a way for you to just survive these last few hours and yet, it doesn’t feel right that you actually succeeded in doing so.  It doesn’t make sense that he’d allow you to return all the way here, especially when he was close enough to touch you earlier.  Din has had so much time to snatch you up, so many opportunities to lure you away, confront you—anything to catch you, and he hasn’t done it yet.  Why?  Either you truly did escape and he has no idea where you are, which doesn’t feel right, or he’s choosing not to get you for whatever reason, which also doesn’t feel right.  What’s he waiting for?  You can’t have won.  It was all too fucking easy, you’re expecting to see him around every single corner because he should be there, he shouldn’t have allowed this to happen.

When someone gently touches your elbow, you’re so on edge that you nearly whip around in surprise.

“Sorry!”  Naydee immediately apologizes, taking her hand back to lift her hood and remove the mask covering her face.  “Didn’t mean to scare you!  I was just going to say that the commissary is still open,” she offers, and you watch the small group of hungry teenagers break off from the group to make their way there.  “It’s going to take awhile to get the children ready for bed, so we’ll be in the dormitories if you need to sleep.  Otherwise, I’m not sure I’ll see you again.”

You stare at her and blink a few times, trying to readjust your focus.  She’s your new friend, she just said this was likely the last time you’ll see each other, but you can’t stop thinking about Din.  Imagine he’s hours away in the city right now, still looking for you.  You’re trying to evaluate your priorities here, but you truthfully never expected to get this far.  Inside the gates, surrounded by brick buildings and silent guards.  You know your way around here, you know hiding spots, you know how to outlast—it’s incredibly advantageous for you to be inside these walls.  What is he doing?

Shaking your head to clear your thoughts, you give Naydee a quick hug and she happily accepts it.  “I’m sure we’ll meet again at some point.”

She smiles and nods, pulling back and letting a couple grumpy foundlings catch her robes and yank on them impatiently.  The loud group eventually disappears into the dorms, and the door shutting behind them cuts off the tired crying and chatty voices determined to stay awake, leaving you in silence that feels slightly unfamiliar after going without it for so long.

Fuck, you just need to breathe.  As soon as the dead quiet grips the air around you, you realize you need to relax.  You’re way too fucking wound up; you want to bolt at the smallest thing and the sudden silence of being alone multiplies it to the point where you have to remind yourself of its importance.  Breathe.  Focus.  There’s about fifteen minutes before the bells ring, fifteen more minutes and the chase will be all over.

Can you eat?  You thought you’d want to, but you think you’re too fucking antsy.  You can’t stay here alone, that’s for sure, but you also don’t want to be around all the children right now.  The commissary will have a handful of people wandering around, teens snacking and maybe a Brother or two standing guard.  It’s the best place to wait the clock out, so you make your way there.  The gentle breeze billows around your loose robes, your pantlegs swishing as you walk.

A few minutes later, you’ve got a plate of food in front of you but your mask is still up, and you’re just sitting there.  Towards the back of the large room, sitting by yourself at one of the tables and staring down at your communicator.  Five minutes.  You have five fucking minutes left before he finds you.  Can you feel him?  Is he closing in?

You sit up a bit straighter, taking a deep breath.  Focus on that feeling from earlier.  The presence in your chest, the weight that didn’t used to be there months ago—focus on that feeling and branch it outwards.  Can you feel him?

Something catches your eye.

Or no… it doesn’t, does it?  Nothing is out of place here, nothing is visibly wrong or amiss.  The only thing that’s changed from all the times before is how dark it is through the windows, and how there are only a few kids in here grabbing a midnight snack instead of being packed like usual.  Nothing else.

But there’s… there’s an acolyte in the far corner, standing guard with his back to the wall.  It’s not his presence that gives you pause—you expected him to be here, there’s always been at least one present whenever you’ve sat down to eat.  He doesn’t look any different from the rest of the Brothers you’ve passed by this evening or the days before—tall, silent, dark brown robes, hooded and mysterious—so why do you suddenly feel yourself break out into a cold sweat as soon as your eyes land on him?

Bubbling laughter and chatter echoes through the large room from one of the tables near the entrance—seven teenagers stuffing their faces with food and sharing animated conversation with each other now that it’s late and they’re alone—but your stomach twists and your fingers start to tremble as you slowly rise from your seat in the back.  You want to keep your head down and be casual but it’s impossible, you desperately need to keep looking at that silent guard in particular and your heart kicks up in your chest—

—and then it wrenches sideways when you’re carefully backing away from the table and the offending acolyte takes a single step forwards.

Run.  Everything in you screams for you to run, and it’s rarely done that before, but you can’t.  Not yet, you don’t want to draw attention, and the logical part of your mind rages against your gut instinct to haul ass.  He’s here—of course he is, the thought screams through your veins as you try to weave quickly in between tables, feeling light on your toes and readying yourself to run as soon as you can.  The dark figure seems to find a careful pace behind you, staying just far enough behind and walking in perfect silence, and you have so many fucking questions but you can’t even think a single thing beyond run away, run away.  Where’s the kid?  How did he get those robes?  Did he actually take his helmet off just to get to you in a room where anyone could confront him?

Your feet propel you forward as soon as you make it out of the door, you break out into a sprint—just flat out bolting because you know how fucking fast he is and you need as big a headstart as you can get.

You race down the stairs and through the courtyard, the beautiful surroundings contrasting drastically with the way you’re running for your fucking life through them.  It’s not beautiful to you right now; you feel clumsy and physically unable to move fast enough no matter how quick you go, your eyes are wide and every nerve is on fire and you can’t even tell if he’s behind you anymore with how silently he moves, but you just trust that he is and keep barreling forward.  Your breath puffs against the clinging fabric of your mask as you keep sprinting, willing your legs to pump faster.  Get to the belltower at least, get to where you have the smallest chance of being caught by the people who guard this place.

As soon as you allow yourself to even conceive the possibility, two Brothers in dark hooded robes suddenly turn the corner a little ways in front of you and your reaction time is perfect—you jerk to a halt and take a single step forward as soon as they spot you.  Since your momentum already committed you to it, you just have to walk, keep your head down, move directly past them and hope Din disappeared from behind you in time.

Step, step, step—keep going, control your breathing, you’re okay, you’re allowed to be up late tonight and they shouldn’t stop you.  Walk right by…  Stars, you feel their silent stares as you casually pass, and it just feels so cold and analytical compared to the kind of danger Din is gives off when dressed in the exact same clothing.  He’s hard and tangible and an unrelenting force, where they just feel like ghosts that haunt this place.  The threat they present is impersonal and detached, but the terror currently chasing after you is so real that he can read your mind.

You wipe the sweat from your brow as soon as you turn the corner, and your feet are already starting to speed up on their own knowing you’re out of their sight.  Run, get to the belltower before Din does, you can see it standing tall about a hundred feet away.  The stairs leading to the door come closer and closer, but you hear something behind you and it propels you faster.  It’s like you can feel him right at your heels even though you haven’t seen him, snapping at your ankles even though your footsteps are the only ones you can hear anymore.

You scramble up the stairs and close the door behind you, spinning around and facing it even as you slowly retreat backwards into the moonlit tower, trying to stay quiet.  Breathing through your nose, eyes shifting around the enclosed space, continuing to back up and away from the door.  Where is he?  There are so many windows that allow you to look outside, but why can’t you spot his movement through them?  Wasn’t he right behind you?

Behind you.

There’s no reason or logic at all to it; you just react.  Spinning around and throwing a mean punch.

Din jerks back just in time to miss it, twisting and dodging at the very last second to avoid your next few hits—but… things seem to slow down, even if they’re happening so fast.  The moonlight cascades through the dozens of windows lining the circular walls and it shines just enough to reveal small glimpses of him.  With every aggressive strike from you, you see something else—you see a flash of his chin when you try to uppercut, you aim for his chest and you see a bit of his jaw.  When you go for his jaw, he steps sideways and catches your wrist, and you see the bend of his nose catch the light this time.

But then it’s like he finally figures out that you’re actually fighting him, and now he’s coming for you.  Trained and ruthless, not weighed down by any armor and lightning quick, launching perfectly aimed attacks that you’re only able to avoid from reaction and muscle memory alone.  You block or move whenever he strikes, you attack whenever you see an opening, you sidestep at the same time he does—

Until you land a spin kick directly to the center of his chest and snap your leg to shove him back, your heel smashing into that soft spot right above his stomach with dead precision and brute force.  He exhales sharply and takes a few more steps back to steady himself while you pause to catch your breath.

Din abruptly comes back and you fall into it with him again, keeping a sharp rhythm with each other that’s faster, harder, and way more real than any sparring match you’ve ever shared.  The hours and days in hyperspace you spent practicing with him are but a fraction of what he’s throwing at you right now, the combinations so rapid and blurred that you just have to trust your knowledge of him and his movement through the dark.

But then, your downfall.  Bells begin ringing an earsplittingly familiar melody above you, and it shatters your concentration—you falter just as he grabs you and sweeps your feet out, and though you know how to get out of that, you’re not quick enough on the jump nor counterswing to prevent it.  He takes you to the ground, hard, and then your wrists are being pinned together above your head and your mask is being tugged down.

Din’s mouth on yours makes you want to cry.

The whole thing is like coming home.  You spent a week surrounded by strangers and having them call you by a name not given to you, fending for yourself, and now here he is.  Someone who knows who you really are, someone that wants to care for you.  Tears come to your eyes even as they're pressed tightly shut, and Din kisses you like he’s never known anything else.  His mouth fits to yours as if the Maker made your lips before ever considering the rest of you, his bare hand clutching your jaw and forcing you to open for him, letting him lick deep inside after going so many days without it.  It might feel dominant and overwhelming if it happened to any other person, but through it, you can also taste his desperation and weakness, how soft he is even when he’s squeezing your jaw and squishing your wrists together too tightly.

Rigid steel that bends only for your touch.

He pulls back and your heart throbs at how moonlight continues to bathe just the smallest glimpses of him under the hood—never the full thing, never the whole face, but enough.  The quiet light that brushes the arch of his nose, how it bathes the hard line of his jaw so that you can barely see his scruff when he turns his head the right way.  His eyes are hidden in near darkness but there’s the faintest glimmer where they should be, and it’s the closest you’ve ever been to looking at him without the helmet.  You can see him, you can see shadows of his chin, his neck—dear stars, his fucking neck.  You’re pinned and paralyzed under him and the ringing bells, yet you feel like you just might float if he wasn’t holding you so tight to the floor.

“Where’s the baby?”  You finally lift your chin and ask, needing to raise your voice over the melody clanging loud throughout the tower.

“Making friends,” Din pants back down at you, and… stars, then you just start giggling.  Adrenaline turning into pure joy, imagining the kid wreaking havoc with all the other babies in the nursery right now.  It feels more light and airy than anything your body should know.

“What are you so happy about?” He asks, swallowing and then continuing on with the same quick gasps.  “You lost, I caught you in time.”

“Did you?”  You drop your head to the brick floor and ask, biting your lip as he stares back down at you.  Suddenly—

—Bong—

Din holds utterly still over you while you take a quick breath and wait for the next eleven bells… 

…but then break into a slow grin up at him when nothing but utter silence follows.

There’s a moment.  Just a single moment where the cogs turn rapidly under that shadowy hood, one where the faint reflection of light in his eyes flickers down to the communicator on your wrist that says midnight and back to you, one that solidifies the longer it takes for another bell to ring.  It’s not going to.

One o’clock.

You think he puts it together.  The one moment he was never able to figure you out—when you tried reprogramming the comms just a few days ago.  The one trick up your sleeve that you resigned to throw away and almost forget about because the circumstances for pulling it off were never realistic.  Fuck with the electronics and set the clock back just one hour—all you’d need to do is reset his communicator, the timecode is synced together.  He told you before that it’s connected to his helmet, but all the buttons still work.  Rapid, panicky thinking and a wild surge of bravery in the face of certain downfall is the only reason you were able to pull it off, and you’re perfectly willing to admit you just got lucky… especially when he’s still holding dead still over you.

But then Din moves so suddenly.  You can’t account for it because there’s no build-up whatsoever—it’s so fast, you yelp while he grabs your knees and throws them both to one side.  You flop over sideways and large hands reach up under the draping length of your tunic to yank your pants down over the curve of your ass, before he’s fitting his palm up between your legs and pushing two thick fingers inside you.

Your head thunks back against brick with how unexpected and merciless it is, but his other hand is grabbing your jaw and twisting, forcing you to look up, stare right into the dark shadow under the loose cowl.  The whole thing is too overwhelming—you’re trying to keep quiet but your breathing feels like thunder crashing inside this tall, echoing chamber.  He’s touched you so many times, he knows exactly how to do it by now, but it feels like so much more than that.  Probably because you can see the way Din’s mouth silently falls open as he feels you, stretching his fingers up and hooking them tight inside.  You can tell when he closes his eyes, the smallest glint slowly disappearing into nothingness while the hand around your jaw blindly moves up.  It catches your chin and lips, and then two fingers push over the bottom edge of your teeth to slip into your mouth.

Your entire leg twitches and jerks while you lay sideways on the ground and open up for him, your neck twisted at a sharp angle to keep your eyes on him and his fingers in your mouth, giving you something to bite to stop making noise.  Din makes room for himself inside you two different ways, and you just choke on his fingers and try to stay quiet, praying he’ll go deeper.

But then you’re not expecting his whole fucking arm to start moving the way it does—oh fuck, what is that?  First you just feel jostled and displaced, but then suddenly a wicked, deep, burning pleasure starts to roar through you, radiating outwards from the rapid motion of just two fingers inside you.  It’s not in and out, it’s up and down so hard and quick against your g-spot that your eyes cross and your hands go numb.

You think you grab at him, clutch onto his arm or chest and open your mouth to moan at the new and overwhelming sensation, but his hand pushes up against your chin and closes it for you, the bend of his fingers caught hard between your teeth but you don’t think he cares.

“Quiet,” Din hisses the word down at you while his arm continues to work, your toes starting to curl as the feeling overwhelms you.  Fuck, what is happening, what is happening?  It’s like he’s just shoving unfamiliar sensation at you so forcefully that you can’t even think straight anymore, not even ten seconds in.  You can only feel the pleasure, fire blurring hot and shapeless through your entire body as your eyes clamp shut, his fingers isolating that perfect spot and stimulating it directly, relentlessly.

Something dull and white hot presses up tight against all the muscles you have down there and you’re almost afraid of how strong it is.  You gasp and choke and he has to take his fingers out of your mouth and just clamp down around your entire jaw, sealing the whole thing shut with his large hand.  And then Din’s fingers leave your pussy too—and stars, you should be embarrassed by how desperately it clamps around nothing for as long as it does.  He’s not even inside you anymore but your body is on such a delay from the hot, twisting pleasure, and he doesn’t put them back in until your muscles are finished spasming.

Everything comes back full force as soon as he starts moving again.  Noise starts to come from your throat, humming in your vocal cords to deal with the arcing, swirling build, and so Din just moves his hand there instead.  He finds where it’s vibrating from your neck and he pushes up against it, trapping the sound right at the source.  He’s fucking perfect at it for some reason… how many times must he have done this to know how to cut noise out without stopping airflow?  You clutch at his wrist and silently mouth his name, feeling his arm work between your legs—faster, faster, harder, pushing you higher, higher—

Din pulls his fingers out again and this time, one of your thighs suddenly feels warm and wet while you spasm and you hear him growl out a ragged, “Fuck yes.”  Everything is sparks zapping through you long after his touch is gone, you cry out but it’s all trapped under Din’s expert grip.  His fingers soon push back inside you and you dig your nails into his forearm, your sounds muffled and quiet enough to hear his raspy groan.  

“Let me see it again,” Din breathes, his arm starting to work up and down once more, and you don’t even know what he’s talking about anymore.  What does he want to see?  You losing your mind again?  Being reduced to an utter mess in front of his shadowy but unobstructed gaze just because you managed to pull one over on him?

Fucking… apparently.  It’s what happens, after all.  You’ve never seen him like this before; whenever he’s worked up and taking it out on you, there was always something in it for him, too.  He’d hammer into you and rock your world until his eventually shattered, and then you’d both lay exhausted afterwards, equally affected and satisfied.  This isn’t like that—this is just cruel, targeted retribution on his behalf, coaxing the molten pleasure out of you with his fingers and keeping his other hand locked around your throat.  You blink helplessly up at him, your vision starting to blur by the time he leans down to whisper to you.

“I missed you, sweet girl.  Did you miss me?”  It’s so soft and quiet compared to the strength and relentlessness of his movements.  You can’t speak even if you wanted to, but when he finally pulls away to yank his hand out and you feel all your muscles automatically flex outwards and push against the sudden emptiness inside you, his voice groans long and satisfied while your thighs get wet again  “Yeah you did,” he breathes, pushing your shaky legs to the brick with his hand and watching you struggle through the aftershocks.

Did you just cum?  You don’t even know, that’s how fucked up you are right now.  The whole thing felt like an orgasm from the very beginning, just a boiling hot tornado ripping through every single cell in your body, never really having a peak.  If you didn’t cum, then why do you feel so weak?  You feel heavy, your limbs don’t work properly, and you barely even register Din pulling at the fabric of his own robes until he fits himself up against your entrance.

When you do realize it, though… your body burns with it, wrecked already but wanting him to take what he wants from you.

“Oh, plea—” you gasp but you don’t even have enough time to get the full sentence out.  He’s already pushing his hips forward, pressing you tight into the ground and opening you up after what feels like a fucking eternity without him.  It’s the hottest, slickest welcome you could give him, you hear it in the whispered curse his lips brush up under your ear, the wet noises your body makes that get louder the longer you hold the moan in your throat and bury your head into his shoulder.  He throbs thick and perfect inside your tight, spasming cunt, stretching you and smacking the rough ground near your head with how fucking good it is to be back, finally, finally—

Your hands grab uselessly at his chest while you try to acclimate, try to breathe while you’re blind with sensation.  It’s so fitting for him, isn’t it?  That your reunion should be just as physically debilitating as it is mentally.  Din’s voice scrapes on a groan like he’s dragging it across the brick ground as quiet as he can, catching when you clamp down on him and shuddering when you clamp down harder.  That’s just it—you don’t ever loosen, you just keep tightening and tightening around him, threatening to break and cum again.

This feels different from before, though.  It’s deep, purposefully so.  His hand reaches up to push the fabric of your hood back, lifting himself up over your body and wanting to start as deep as he can.  You feel him in a place you’d never be able to reach and that’s just the beginning—that’s before he starts thrusting into you, hitting a dull sensation at the apex of each movement so hard that it becomes sharp.  His hips don’t make practically any sound smacking into you because they don’t really smack, they just rock downwards and fuck you into the floor without needing to pull out really at all.  You know he’s just trying to keep it as quiet as possible, but what he lacks in speed and agility he makes up in power.

You don’t even realize you’re making too much noise until a palm wraps tight around your mouth and the room gets a little emptier.  Din keeps you all to himself on the floor, silencing as much as he’s working you up, smothering as much as he’s freeing you.  There’s no easing up, no dragging it out, no gradual build or climb—it’s just there all of a sudden, pleasure and pain pummeling you all at once, engulfing you in flames.

You reach up to grab at the loose fabric of the hood over his face, catching a fistful of it before his hand suddenly snatches your shaky wrist and pins it back to the ground.

Maker, you forgot—oh, you completely forgot about how many people could find you right now if they ever decided to look in the right place.  You’re not in hyperspace; your body is rocking against rough brick, you’re probably going to have a lump on the back of your head from how terrible you are at trying to map out heaven while holding still.  He’s pinned down what he can with one hand; your fingers are the only things that can move besides how tight you can curl your toes, but you feel your moans turn into words against his palm.  They garble indistinctly and you’re not really even sure what you’re saying, but Din decides it’s worth hearing.

“Shh,” he whispers, slowly lifting his hand from your mouth.  “Shh, tell me—”

“W-wanna look,” you hear yourself whimper, trying your best to keep quiet but wanting to scream it while he fucks you hard and slow on the ground, “—I wanna see, I wanna look at you—”

“Fuck,” Din gasps, and though his grip tightens on your wrist and you know he can’t do it right this second, the words seem like they shatter something inside him, “Keep—oh fuck, please, k-keep saying…”

“I want to marry you,” you nearly whine for him, feeling his hips kick up rapidly and start hammering in and out, in and out, in and—“I want to see your face, I wanna be yours, I don’t want anyone else to know you the way I-I—”

You think he drops his head into your neck to muffle his own sounds.  Though they start out rough and quiet and indiscernible, but they gradually become louder as he repeats himself over and over again, growling and fucking you rough.  You only catch it on the peak, when he pulls his mouth away from your skin and gasps them raggedly one last time.

“—ve you—I l-love y—”

He kisses you to stop himself.  But it’s not really a kiss, it’s more desperate than that.  Though it’s beautiful, it’s beautiful in a different light.  It’s not rejoicing at having you back with him once again; it’s a last prayer begging you to stay by his side forever.  He loves you.  He gives it everything—it feels even more concrete and simple than taking the hood off him and revealing his face would.  You told you that you'd know him without ever seeing him, and you did.  You picked him out and found him when absolutely nothing was giving him away, and this feels like a manifestation of that.  Even if you’re not in a place where he can show you his face, his beautiful brown eyes, something still feels like it changes.  He loves you.  You gasp into his mouth and his tongue sinks deep into yours, tenacious and brave and unyielding.  

When you finally cum, you almost bite him on accident.  

Everything surges hot and molten while he pulls back and keeps fucking you through it, and you can’t tell where you’re touching him anymore, just that his skin is blazing hot under your hand and he feels like everything the armor isn’t.  He loves you.  You’re looking into his eyes right now.  You can’t see any of the details, not really, but the moonlight flickers like silent stars moving through dark depths, staring right back at you and giving you an anchor for the euphoria rocketing through you.  He loves you.  Your nails dig in sharp and slowly drag downwards, scratching hard red lines into whatever thick muscle that is—

The back of his neck, making his hips stutter and when he cums for you, he does bite.

You lift your head just in time to feel his teeth catch your chin instead of your mouth, and his entire body shakes while you keep dragging your nails down the side of his neck and his throat.  Din fucking lives for it, he releases you and arches into the pain and owns your marks like he wishes you made them deeper, stretching his neck and lifting his chin into the moonlight and—

Maker.  You can see it, with direct light, you can see more of it than ever before.  You can see his soft lips and white teeth gritting the sound of your name as quietly as he can, the dark facial hair dusting across the lower half of his face.  A fucking gorgeous jawline and throat extended long over you, flexing hard with his cock pulsing inside you.  You can just barely see the bottom of his nose from under the brown hood, the dark curls brushing up under his ears.

Stars, you still never see his eyes, the fabric of his hood acts like a blindfold draped over them, but you think you cum again.  Even if it’s on accident, it’s mean—Din tries to keep from squishing you and his hand pushes down hard against your lower tummy while he shoves his hips deep one last time, and you cum while staring at half of his face in the moonlight.  Completely lovestruck.

How can he be this beautiful when you’ve only seen fractions of him?  You have everything but the eyes now, everything but the most mysterious thing about him, the reflection into his deepest self, but you feel like you’re hypnotized by every single feature you do see.  His tongue coming out to wet his lips, the vein pulling under his sharp jaw—he’s gorgeous, he’s gorgeous, and your body agrees.  It shakes and shudders under him and eventually, Din finishes and you keep looking as his chin slowly lowers, face disappearing into the shadow once more.

Stars.  He’s so handsome and no one has ever told him, fucking dreamy and the biggest grump you’ve ever met.  Without being able to see him, you already want to reach your hands out and touch him, drag your nails through his scruff and force him to extend outwards into the moonlight again for you.  Whenever he does end up showing you his face, you know right fucking now that you’ll never be able to look away.  For the rest of your life, you’ll be staring at him, apologizing blankly for your rudeness but not feeling sorry at all.

Din leans down and gives you a slow, gentle kiss, finally relaxing into a slouch and breathing hard with the effort it took to shatter you with pleasure.

“The kid is with the other foundlings,” he whispers against your lips.  “You… you’ll have to go get him, I need to grab my armor.”

You squeeze around his cock, pulling at the fabric of his robes and ignoring him for just a second.  He fucked you in robes belonging to one of the guards and nobody has mentioned it, you need to say something.  “Where did you get this?”

“I found it,” he tells you after a moment, kissing up under your jaw.  Oh fucking Maker, he feels so good and perfect inside you, shoulders so broad and crowding you on the floor, and his lips are plush and hot, brushing and fitting your skin like it’s just an extension of his own.  “Some guy was wearing it.”

It takes you a second.

“Mando,” you suddenly gasp in quiet horror, pushing at his chest and trying your best to detach his mouth from your throat.  It’s so much more difficult than it needs to be, but you eventually succeed.  “What did you do to him?  Where is he?”

He lifts his neck up just the tiniest bit, turning his face towards yours under the hood and holding still for way too fucking long.  He’s too close to see the expression he’s making, but you know the tone of his silence.  He’s in trouble and he knows it before you do.

“Ma—”

“They’re in a closet,” he admits at the very same time, completely monotone.

You don’t know which word to emphasize.  A fucking closet?  They’re?  Plural?  Instead of stressing any particular word, you decide not to do it at all and it ends up just coming out in the same exact blank tone as him.  “They're in a closet.”

“Inside the Temple,” Din continues on when you lay still as a statue underneath him.  His head slowly dips down once more, pushing his hips against you just the slightest bit to make you remember the cock still inside you instead.  Your eyelashes flutter with it—fuck, focus—“I didn’t know there’d be more than two.”  He kisses your neck so gently.  “It was an accident.”

You don’t say anything at all, your mouth pinching down at the corners because it should but your heartbeat galloping with how… fucking sexy he is.  You shouldn’t encourage this, this horrible behavior just to get close enough to catch you, but your curiosity overtakes you and you ask a question you’ve asked yourself before.  “Did they put up a fight?”

“Mm,” he whispers noncommittally, rocking his hips down once more.  “You did.”  Your nails dig into his chest, making him falter just slightly before slowly kissing your neck again.  “Did so good.  Fought hard, outsmarted me.  Pretty fucking girl.”

And then your eyes pop open as you feel it.  His cock suddenly beginning to harden once again inside you, twitching and gradually gaining a thicker shape, and for a moment, you actually fucking consider it.  He’s the only one in this galaxy that could not only ruin you on these sacred grounds, but then coax you into doing it more than once—stars, are you actually considering it?

“We can’t,” you automatically tell him, but it’s fucking pitiful.  Zero effort, absolutely no umph behind it, leaving it entirely up to him and how much he wants it.  Your logic reminds you that the kid is probably wreaking havoc in the nursery and there are tied up guards in the fucking temple that could be discovered any second.  You shouldn’t have even let him fuck you here in the first place, but…  “Mando, we can’t—”

His mouth opens against the crook of your neck and his tongue brushes velvet hot on your skin, tasting the glistening sweat there and not moving his broad figure a single inch over you besides getting closer, deeper.  Your nails dig into his collarbone, aiming for reason one last time.  It’s apparent that you’d be better off rephrasing, knowing the challenging streak in him and how much telling him what to do doesn't help.

“It’s not a good idea,” you attempt instead, breathless and trying not to move under his mouth and lazy hips.  “Not smart.  Bad idea to fuck again.”

Din’s body stops moving, even though he keeps getting harder.  His jaw opens and then his teeth scrape softly against your flesh, making you tilt your neck back and gasp.

“Later,” he lifts his head to state aloud, committing it to truth now that it’s been spoken and heard by another person.  “Later, I’ll fuck you on the ship, in our bed, when I can get you naked and have your taste in my mouth.”

Tingles rock through your body and you squeeze around his cock just as he pulls it out and tucks it back into his pants.  Your lungs quiver when you inhale—it’s shaky, but it reminds you of how long it’s been since you’ve been able to breathe correctly.

“Later,” you finally agree, combing your fingers through your hair and glad you have this hood to cover your freshly fucked dishevelment.  He came inside you and you don’t want to be leaking and getting your nice pretty robes all wet and stained, but then of course, without any prompting, Din quickly scoots back on his knees and drops his head down to take care of it for you.

***

Commotion.

After Din helped you clean up the way he sometimes likes and then disappeared to change back into his armor, you put your mask and hood back on and tried to look as casual as possible walking to the nursery.  Your knees wobbled slightly and you couldn’t stop smiling under the mask the entire walk there, but when you arrived, you just saw a dim room with sleeping infants—not what you were expecting.  Soon, however, you hear it: down the hall, distant and coming from the dormitories, you hear a loud commotion.

Fuck, you’re nearly wincing with every step you take now, and not because you’re sore.  Well, you… are, a little bit, but in a great way.  No, you’re just dreading the ridiculous shinanigans you already know are well underway, wondering if Din actually dropped the kid off in the dorms from the beginning or if he somehow migrated his way there to cause trouble.

When you walk inside, the first thing you see is a handful of crying and shouting toddlers, and while you can’t immediately spot your favorite floppy-eared monster, you don’t have to see him to know he’s probably standing tiny directly in the middle of this tense showdown.  Automatically, you’re taking a few steps forward to rescue him, but then you stop as soon as you see what the other babies are so mad about.  A large piece of chocolate leftover from the festival levitating just beyond their pitiful little reaches.

Hm.  Who could possibly be responsible for using demon powers to steal snacks and hold them hostage from a sizeable group of hostile children.  A mystery that may never be solved.

It makes you take a second.  The sheer… the… stars, you can’t even think straight—how fucking typical it is just hits you right in the chest, sends your heart into orbit.  Of course.  Of course this is what he’s gotten himself into without immediate supervision, of course this is the shipwreck you’d walk into, and you’re holding back a chuckle before making a single move to intervene.  In the midst of everything, you can hear adults approaching distantly from behind you.

“—don’t know where it came from, I was helping the younglings into bed when I heard the ruckus and I—”

The voices gradually grow louder, and you snatch the floating piece of candy out of thin air and whip around right before Sister Drya and Naydee walk in.  Their hushed, concerned conversation is cut to an abrupt end, and you clear your throat as they take you in, standing in front of chaos central continuing to go off behind you.  Do you… look as freshly disheveled as you are?  You’re not supposed to be here, you know, but hopefully the only strange thing is your presence itself and not anything concerning your appearance.

“Nerida,” the older lady suddenly announces, the name alone holding so much expectation, and the younglings missing their candy have now turned their ire towards you and the crinkly food wrapper hidden in your fist.  “What is the meaning of this?”

“Ah, yeah,” you stand up a little straighter, letting the chocolate casually fall out of your grip behind you, and a stampede of feet suddenly kick up to recover it.  It’s fine, nobody will know, it’s fine.  “It’s just…”  Your head tips behind you to the cause of the uproar, feeling a bit sheepish yet so incredibly fond.  “My… kid.”

Sister Drya stares at you for a few seconds, before tipping sideways and staring at the culprit.  “That is your child?”

You turn around just in time to see him, now abandoned by the angry mob of children, finally notice you.  All of a sudden, his pitch black eyes light up something bright and sunshiney, and you just start beaming in return.  What an adorable little creature, apple of your eye and pain of your ass.

“Yep,” you sigh, dropping into a squat and watching him barrel towards you, catching him right before he can trip over his brown potato sack and scooping him up into your arms.  “Hiya, bug,” you murmur with a grin, lifting back up and plopping him in his favorite spot in the universe—your left hip.  “You making friends?”

He giggles and it’s like sparkles and bubbles fill the room instead, wrapping tiny arms around the largest surface area he can get and clinging.  He laughs with a tiny open mouth, bless him, clearly not understanding the sarcasm, and suddenly your eyes feel just the slightest bit wet.  No, you’re not crying, don’t be fucking ridiculous, but you missed him like hell and he’s just the cutest fucking thing—why do you feel like crying?

“Sorry about that,” you apologize to the two women while slowly turning around, brushing your thumb over one of his cheeks and smiling as it squishes.  “He’s… uh.  Not great at sharing.  We’ll work on it.”

Takes after his dad, you purposefully leave out, just a different kind of sharing.  Din hasn’t shown you his full face yet and the kid performs magic tricks to taunt a roomful of children a fraction of his age for a single piece of chocolate, completely different kind of sharing.

Sister Drya says something in response, but when you look up to address her, all you see is Din standing silently behind her and Naydee, slowly dropping his hand from his helmet to his side.  They don’t seem to notice he’s there and you automatically try your best to pay attention to the Sister speaking to you, but your eyes get caught on the silver reflecting in the dim light beyond.  Fuck, he’s a presence.  An immediate distraction, taking all your focus with a single glimpse.  Seeing him fully armored again, staring at you from the silent shadows behind everything… you melt a little bit, knowing that you’ve seen more of what’s underneath than anyone.  Your shoulders settle and your entire body burns warm, wobbly like the air around a fire, and one of the kid’s hands leaves you to reach out towards his dad.

You watch the metallic helmet tilt sideways after a moment, saying everything without saying anything.  Come on, make up an excuse, let’s get out of here.

Looking at him in the quiet shadows, you’re reminded once again about how much you love him, how much softness you have inside you for a man so hard, so guarded.  And, for the first time, a voice in your head finishes a poem you didn’t realize you were writing, adding its own verse and bringing everything back around to the beginning.  He loves you, too.  How much he lets his guard down for you, the way he’s revealed more of his face to you than not.  You love each other.  You’re family.

So, all at once, you decide to mess with him, because that’s what family does best.

“Don’t be shy, come say hello,” you suddenly urge his silent figure, taking a step forward and speaking directly to him.  “Sister Drya, Naydee, I’d like to introduce you to my—”

It’s remarkable, you see it happen in front of you.  Like he has powers of his own, Din just literally fucking disappears.  Like magic, he’s nowhere to be found within a blink of an eye.  You know he’s capable of it; he’s done it plenty of times during the chase just to fuck with your head, but you’re staring straight at him when it happens this time and it might just be the funniest fucking thing you’ve ever seen him do.

Sister Drya and Naydee both turn around to an empty hallway bathed in shadows and you laugh.  A deep, shameless, loud belly laugh.  Where the fuck did he go so quick?  You were staring straight at him and you have no fucking clue.  He’s just out, and you’re left alone with his child and the unspoken understanding that he’ll just catch up with you later.

You’re giggling even as you shake your head and give the women your genuine thanks for keeping you and feeding you these past few days, grabbing your backpack with all your belongings and eventually using three green fingers to wave goodbye to them.  The very first thing Din says when he seamlessly joins you outside the Keja later is, “That wasn’t funny,” which just makes you laugh harder.

***

About a half hour has passed, and you’re walking along a dirt road, cradling a very happy baby in your arms and giving the grown man next to you an incredibly hard time.

“You’re unbelievable,” you mutter, your back twinging slightly at the way you’re leaning about as sideways as you can get without falling over.  You think you’re basically just the hypotenuse between the ground and Din, who easily supports almost your entire weight with your backpack slung around his far shoulder and readily allows you to rest against him.

“They’re fine,” he grumbles in response, squeezing you tight to his side.  You just have to focus on moving your feet; it’s like he’s practically carrying your upper-half anyways.  “I gave them the night off.”

“You stuffed them in a closet,” you hiss, feeling his shoulder shrug under your cheek.

“I gave them the robe back,” he says, not really defending himself and more just throwing it out there to see if it helps any.  “I’m sure someone’s found them by now, they’re fine.”

Your eyes suddenly go wide, absolutely mortified at the thought.  “Wait.  What do you mean you gave the robe back?”

He shrugs once more, apparently not seeing the problem yet.  “I borrowed it, so I gave it back after I put my armor back on.”

If you could plant your feet on the dirt road and screech to a halt, you would, but all your weight is already resting on him and you’re working solely off his forward movement.  You just hope your tone holds the same amount of shocked disapproval your body language would’ve conveyed if you weren’t so completely attached to his hip like a parasite he adores.

“You fucked me wearing it, though.”  Your voice is strangely flat, so fucking confused and horrified by the mental image of him just tossing the soiled garments haphazardly somewhere in the temple behind you, or even worse, leaving them somewhere respectful, and Din soon stops in the middle of the deserted road.

“Oh,” is all he says, emotionless and blank through the modulator.  Did he not even consider this?

“I had to promise them I was a virgin just to sleep there, you know,” you admit, and you can tell that’s brand new information to him with how still he goes as you continue to lean against him.  You’re getting the feeling that he probably knows a lot more about your experiences on this moon than you think he does, but can tell that this is brand new information to him.  “And you locked three of their holy men in a closet, chased me across the temple grounds, fucked me in one of their robes, and then.  You gave it.  Back.”

Din stays perfectly silent for quite some time.  You can never go back to that place, you know this for a fact.  You’re banned forever now, it’s what you deserve.

Never one to be outdone but not actually having anything to say for himself, Din suddenly decides to just scoop you into his arms and boost up into the sky without a single word like an actual fucking maniac.

You squeal and damn near drop the baby because of it, but he cinches you tight to his chest and refuses to loosen with your struggle.  Eventually, after you realize he’s completely locked you in and you won’t fall to your death with this poor innocent child in your arms, you glance over the shiny pauldron on his shoulder and watch the kid’s crib disappear by the abandoned road as Din takes you higher and higher.

The crib—he forgot the crib—

“D-Din,” you stammer out through the whistling air, stiff as a board.  Stars, you have such a different sense of adventure than him; an explorer and a daredevil, one who gets a thrill from discovering the existence of the edge of a cliff and one who’ll take a running dive off of it without thinking twice.  He’s hit with blaster fire some days, he faces down death completely fearless like it owes him one every single time, and you’re stiff as a fucking board while he carries you through the sky.  It’s stunning up here, it’s exciting and wonderful, but you’re so scared that you can barely even look.  He’s giving you the most fantastical view, everything your budding adventurous streak could ever ask for, and your terror is crushing.  It would be different if you could hold on, but you’re responsible for not letting the baby slip through your arms and you just have to trust that he won’t let you slip through his.

You raise your voice.  “Din?!”

“I won’t drop you,” he automatically reassures, and well you sure as fuck hope not, but there’s something else.

“What about the crib?”  You call out over the wind whipping, tucking the baby tight to your chest and settling your hands over his ears to avoid them flapping and whacking you repeatedly in the chin.

“We’ll come back for it,” he responds, just as easily.  Maker, you wish decision-making came that easy to you, that commitment and choice should be so simple as to just fly away from things on the ground and promise out loud to come back for them.  You know he will, but still, his spontaneity shocks you after spending the past week thinking every decision through meticulously, and you’re taken aback by the casualness of it all while soaring through the sky, committing such spectacular feats without a single thought beyond it.

Soon—incredibly soon, which honestly kind of blows your mind—you spot Nariss glowing in the distance and then you’re flying overtop of the city, slowly dropping altitude in the middle of a quiet little side street.

Din carefully allows your feet to settle on the ground before letting go, but you still stumble a bit stupidly after flying so high without any sort of safety measure besides him, prioritizing the steadiness of the baby in your arms instead of your feet underneath you.  His gloves catch at your clumsy body and pull you along with him without another word, leading you out of the quiet alley and into the middle of a beautiful, luminescent street.

What’s he doing?  He seems slightly hurried, and you’re clueless but you go with it, clamoring along behind him to wherever he’s leading you.

Though, you suddenly remember one of the very last things you told him last night right before he steps up in front of a vendor.

“Caf,” Din grunts, sliding a few credits towards the man standing behind the counter. “The… biggest one you have.”

Okay, well.  You could just about fucking cry.

“Y’sure?” The vendor asks skeptically, jerking his head at the large thermos behind him.  He’s balding, wearing a white outfit with his eyes scrunched up and forehead sweaty, likely working all day.  “It ain’t fresh.  Closin’ up soon, was just about to trash it and go home.”

The helmet turns to gauge your response to the news, the sharp angles and contours looking so sleek and dangerous as they reflect the colorful lamplights, but just filling you with comfort beyond anything in the entire galaxy.  He’ll take that armor off for you tonight and you’ll sleep next to him.  He’ll call you by your given name, or the fond name he’s given you, and you’ll cuddle your baby on a metal floor in hyperspace with him, and all will be well.  Even if he needs to leave again soon—even if you don’t get to go with him, you’ll always have these small eternities with each other, and that’s more enough for you now.

You’re completely zoned out while staring at him, and Din turns back to the vendor before you can even remember the conflict he was attempting to defer to you.

“Yeah, just empty the whole thing in there for her,” he mutters, and you want to marry him.  It’s been a long week, and in your haze and delight of being with him in this gorgeous setting, your brain turns to cavewoman mush.  Big man, makes me happy.  Strong man, loves me, knows me.  Provider, makes me feel good, protector, loves me.

Din hands you the large cup of steaming caffeine, clueless to your grunted inner monologue but knowing better than to reach out and grab the kid from your other arm.  You’re just fine like this, hands full, the little frog snuggled up against your side and blinking up at your face instead of any of the shiny or glowing things around you.  When you look down at him, you can see the world through his eyes—quite literally, they’re reflective and gigantic—and his father’s hand quickly finds its preferred spot on your lower back.

“Try to drink it quick,” Din advises you gruffly, pulling you snug into his side and sloshing the big cupful of piping hot liquid in your hand.

“It’s a thousand degrees,” you protest, trying to balance your three favorite things in the universe all begging for your direct attention at once.  “It has to cool down.”

He gives a dismissive hm in response, and you frown even as your heart soars with how tightly he’s gripping you, how little leeway you have to even move without him.  Part of you is so thrilled at being reunited with him that you consider snarking something back at him, excitement making you brave.  He could probably chug boiling hot liquid in thirty seconds and doesn’t see the point in letting it sit any longer, and you could make some stupid joke about filtering it through his helmet or having a built in bendy straw but you decide to keep it to yourself.

So then you just stand there together, under stringed lights and flowers everywhere, and he waits.  Holding you glued to his side, completely silent and clearly just waiting for your caf to stop steaming so threateningly in your hand so you can drink it.  For some reason, the fact that he’s wanted by the New Republic doesn’t really register at this second—you’re not looking for cops, though he may be.  You’re just lost in this beautiful, fancy city that’s on the edge of finally quieting down after a long day, and you’d like to see more of it with him next to you.

“Well, do you wanna just…”  You ask, tilting your head around at all the vendors.  “Shop around for a bit?”

“Shop… around,” Din repeats slowly, sounding the words out like they’re not common Basic.  Admittedly, they do sit a bit awkward in his voice when put together like that, describing a phenomena he’s likely never even considered a thing before, but it’s so fucking pretty here and you’d like to show him something this time instead of the other way around.

“Yeah, like,” you shrug a shoulder, tipping your head in a random direction.  Anywhere, you’ll go literally anywhere with him, the three of you can go explore.  “Just wander around, and look at all the pretty things.”

From where you’re standing right now, you can already see glittering crystals and jewels being sold at the tent across the street, there’s a booth dedicated entirely to floral arrangements and crowns next to it, you can hear a distant quartet playing melodically in the distance and a couple is being painted by an artist on the corner.  Bars are in full swing at this point, as if they weren’t all day, and even though the merchandise is all different, the multicolored tents look slightly similar when they’re underlit with multicolored lights.  It’s less slightly lively than it was in the daytime, but also… more beautiful, in a sense.  Muted, softer, more romantic.

“I don’t have any more credits,” Din admits casually, finally turning to look around at everything.  You get the feeling that he’s just now seeing it, even after spending the entire day here.  “That stale caf was the last of it.”

Money well fucking spent, you can assure him of that.

“It’s okay,” you tell him automatically, gently bumping your hip into his.  “We don’t need credits, we can just look.”

So that’s what you do.  Even though it’s completely not his fucking style, for the next hour or so, you just walk around downtown with him and sip your caf, looking at anything and everything new and experiencing it with him.  At first, you think he’s just entertaining you, following you while you discover new streets and attractions, but then he points out different things and you know he's looking, too.  There are large animals harnessed up and pulling carts for people to ride, there's an enormous spinning wheel set up in the distance, its colorful lights flickering out as soon as you ask what the fuck that is and why anyone would ever get inside one.

You eventually end up finishing your caf around the time he’s leading you back through a quiet, abandoned alleyway, and you hand him the empty cup to throw away in one of the trash cans on the corner.  The conversation has faded to a comfortable quiet and you don’t really need to ask—you go willingly, not requiring anything beyond his hands on you and the baby dozing in your arms.

“Come on, sweet girl,” he murmurs, gently sweeping you up into his.  You sigh, glad he’s giving you a moment to prepare yourself this time, holding the sleeping kid securely to your chest and resting your head on his shoulder.  “Let’s go home.”

After you’re comfortable, Din rockets up from the ground and climbs high up into the canvas sky.  He disappears with you and the baby into the pastel clouds above, making it back to the Razor Crest in probably about an hour, maybe less.  You and the baby do nothing more than climb into the comfy floor blankets while Din starts up the engines, and you think you’re dozing off together by the time he makes the pit stop to collect the crib and the jump into hyperspace.

You think he might shower?  You’re not sure—you just know he moves up behind you in bed at one point without any armor, burying his face in your hair while you cuddle the sleepy kid to your chest.  It’s dark in the hull, Din’s palms are bare and warm as they slide around the front of your body and he breathes you in, and there isn’t a single place that can touch you here, not a single place you’d rather be.

Home.

***

@followwhereshegoes​ Thank you for the stunning artwork! 💕To anyone interested in possibly doing an art collab in the future, please message me!!

[loud-mouth-loser]

in the alps: chapter two

summary: you never expected to meet anyone this far in the middle of the alps, especially not a sleep deprived gift-shoppist

pairing: [eventual] steven grant x reader, marc spector x reader, jake lockley x reader

rating: general

warnings: a bit of blood (but not explicit depiction of wound)

wc: ~1.1k

a/n: we meet steven :3

Steven’s POV:

He’s hesitant to peek an eye open; not wanting to break the spell and wake up, not yet.  A gentle breeze caresses his cheek as he lays in a soft patch of grass, simply content to exist as his skin soaks up the sun's warmth.

Steven’s chest dips and rises steadily, drinking in the meadow’s fresh air. This has to be the most peaceful dream he’s had in a while.

He finally relents, eyes fluttering open against the bright sky, trying to acclimate his senses to his surroundings. Green. That’s all he can see for miles around him. He sits up, hands supporting his sudden rise. Not a building, house, or person in sight.

He reaches down to pinch his thigh, waiting for the satisfaction of waking up in his bed with a heavily beating heart. But it never comes. He tries again, worrying his skin until it protests sorely.

“Fu-”

—

It’s not that bad, he tells himself. 

Steven has been walking aimlessly for a couple of hours, desperately searching for a modicum of human life. 

I could be stuck treading water or walking along sandy dunes under intense heat right now. 

Instead, I’m in a nice field with a comfortable breeze blowing through my hair!

He wipes his sweaty palms along the front of his pants, trying to calm himself down. Based on past experiences, a mental break will only slow him down. 

His body objects as he gracelessly clambers up the side of a steep hill, hands held in front of him, ready to assist when his legs decide to give out. 

Just a little more, then a break. He’s been saying that for the last hour, but this time, with stuttered breaths and shaking legs, he means it. 

He’s ready to collapse onto the ground when he reaches the tip of the grassy mound, his breaths huffing out in exhaustion. But before his knees could hit the soft greenery below, he finally sees what is hidden on the other side. The green fields dotted with pretty yellow flowers surround a single small cottage. Finally, something.

Steven repeats a mantra in his head as he prepares himself to keep going: Just a little more.

He squints, trying to distinguish what he’s seeing. There’s a general shape of a person walking out to the front porch, carrying a cup in one hand and a gray pillow-like item under the other arm. 

A person.

Steven inhales deeply, revving up the last of his energy to call out, “Hello?!” 

Even when he screams, his British accent is quite pronounced. Hopefully, this person understands English. 

He sees the cottage owner hesitate with their motions, head turning as their eyes scour the fields for his voice. “Hello!!” He almost trips over his feet as he hurriedly approaches the cottage, arms waving madly around his body.

The woman’s eyes widened when she finally spots him, completely frozen in place as the cat struggles against her hip, obviously wanting to hop down. He takes a moment to huff out a few breaths when he gets in front of the porch, relief pouring over him like cold water. 

“I-uh, hello. I’m Steven.” He tries to flash a smile, struggling to calm his rapidly rising chest. “With a V.” She wordlessly nods, evidently stunned by his presence. The cat joins the interaction and curiously stares at him, taking in his rumpled clothes. 

After a few silent moments of staring and cat-judgment, Steven awkwardly clears his throat. “Do you happen to know where I am?–well you live here, so, of course you would–know, that is–but I don’t. I mean, obviously, that’s why I’m asking, innit? so–uh, where am I- we-?”

“We’re right outside of Latveria.” Her voice is quiet, cautious. She gently sets down the cat in front of her, unworried by the way it scurries out into the fields. 

She takes a light sip from her mug, holding the cup with two hands as she considers the man in front of her. “Uh-and that is…?”

“The closest village.” 

“Wait, where are we regionally?”

Her eyebrows furrow in confusion, “The Transylvanian Alps?” 

He blinks slowly, taking in the information. “The…Alps.”

“Yes–hold on, how did you even get here? There isn’t a town or village around for hundreds of miles over that way.” He turns to look behind him, where she’s pointing. 

“I…don’t know.” He looks around at the grass, trees, and mountains surrounding the cottage. It feels so isolating. Does she live here alone?

“You. Don’t know.” She repeats, looking down into her cup. “You can’t really accidentally end up in the Alps, you know.”

“Well, I kinda have a habit of accidentally ending up in places I shouldn’t be in…” He anxiously brushes his fingers through his curly locks, pulling at the ends as thousands of thoughts run through his mind. “I just woke up. In a random field.” She stares at him like he’s insane. “I-uh, sleepwalk.” 

“You slept walk–to the fucking Alps?!” He messily removes his jacket, suddenly warm from the chaotic energy buzzing in the air. 

—

Your POV:

You don’t mean to watch his undressing, but you’re glad you did. 

The absence of his ill-fitting jacket reveals a dark grey t-shirt that sticks nicely to his physique from the sweat he accumulated from his hike. You never expected that body from the frazzled man in front of you. 

But what’s more interesting–or fucking alarming– is the dark red blood stain that blooms from the top of his right rib, effectively soaking the fabric in maroon. He seems unaffected as he drops his jacket to the ground with a sigh of relief. 

When he looks back, he finds your horrified face staring right back, looking at him like he’s crazy. “Look, I know it sounds crazy-”

“You’re bleeding!” His eyes follow your gaze to his side, hands cupping over his rib. An intense stinging shocks his system as he presses down. 

“Whot-” His hand comes back red, sticky with his own blood. “WHAT” His breaths shutter as he tries to process what he’s seeing. How did he not notice this before?

You notice him start to stumble, losing his balance as he stares at his hand. Shit. “Hey,” You hold up your hands, slowly walking toward him. “Steven, you need to breathe.” He looks up at your approaching figure, pain spiking through his body. 

“H-how–When–” You grab him by the wrist, pulling him toward the house, leaving his jacket on the ground behind you.

“We need to clean this up before it gets worse.” You try to keep your breaths at bay as thoughts swarm through your mind. You don’t know shit about patching up wounds, what the hell are you going to do? You take long, quick strides to the small bathroom on the first floor, nudging him toward the bathtub. “Get in.” He clumsily slides into the porcelain tub, hand firmly pressed against his wound. 

[friendlyneighborhoodcapricorn]

MCU!Peter Parker x Fem!Reader

NO WAY HOME SPOILERS

Request: after the events of no way home, reader is left feeling like something is missing. Reader spirals further and further until someone by the name of Peter Parker offers his help. Unfortunately, this doesn’t go easily.

AN: This turned into something completely different than intended, I'm sorry lol. I might try and write a continuation on this that does follow the request more closely, but that depends on whether or not my mind would like to cooperate.

If you want something to listen to while reading, I had Shadow by Chromatics on repeat while I wrote this. It's also what the title is taken from :)

Find part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5.

Warnings: general mental health issues, it’s pretty sad but I ended it on a happy note because that movie wrecked me lmao

A Stranger's Dream

Every morning for the past two months, you had woken up feeling like something was missing.

No, no, wait, that didn't do it justice.

You felt like something had been violently ripped away from you. And you couldn't for the life of you remember what. Whenever you tried to think about it, really think it through, your head started to feel like it would explain. Those migraines lasted for days on end.

That had been bad enough already, but then you started hearing a voice. In your head. Which, generally speaking, wasn't a good sign. The voice was lighter than a summer's breeze, and full of sorrow as it said your name. Only your name. Never more, but never less either.

It felt like you were going crazy, and that scared you. The fear of going insane was, ironically, driving you insane.

As you stood in the dairy aisle of the local cornerstore, you heard the voice again. But it was louder this time, almost as if whoever it belonged to was standing right behind you. On instinct, you spun around.

There was no one there. Not right behind you, not in the entire aisle. It was nearing three in the morning: of course there was nobody.

You suppressed the sob that was rising in your throat, grabbed what you came for, and went to pay. By some miracle, you kept it together until you stepped back out into the chilly night.

The cold reminded you that it was almost Christmas, but the though of spending the holidays feeling like this was too much. Hot tears stung against your cold cheeks as you blindly followed the way home.

You were barely paying attention to where you were walking, blinded by tears and relying on muscle memory to get you home. What you failed to remember, however, was the intersection you needed to cross to get home.

You didn't notice the blinding headlights and icessant blaring of a horn until someone grabbed your arm and yanked you back. You tripped over the curb, but as the yellow blur of a cab raced by, you realized you'd gotten lucky.

Breathing hard, you stared at the spot where you had just been standing as tires of mulit-colored cars flashed over it. You had been inches away from your own death, and yetn there you were.

When you turned to look at your mysterious savior, you thought your heart stopped beating for a moment.

The boy in front of you was a stranger with messy hair, looking around as if he was about the same age as you. But that wasn't what caught your attention.

No, the reason time seemed to have slowed down was because of his eyes. They were a bright shade of hazel, and wide open with a mixture of concern and pain.

That boy looked as if he was looking at a ghost, and you felt like you were doing the same thing.

"Are you okay, miss?" he asked then.

Anything you had wanted to say caught in your throat. That voice. That was the voice you'd been hearing in your head for almost a month now. And it sounded exactly like it did when he said your name. So very hurt.

"Have we met before?" you blurted, instead of answering his question.

There was a flash of something in his eyes, almost like grief, before he blinked it away. "No, we haven't."

"Are you sure? Because I could've sworn..."

You studied him for a few seconds. The feeling of having seen a ghost faded as you did. Your shoulders sagged as you realized this was just another trick of your mind. He had saved your life, of course you were going to think this meant more than it actually did.

"Yeah?" the boy prompted softly. You knew you were imagining the hope in his voice.

Shaking your head, you offered him a weak smile. "Never mind. Long day, is all. Thanks for not letting me become roadkill."

"It's no problem," he replied, still with that haunted look in his eyes.

You looked at him for another moment before clearing your throat. "Right. I'm gonna head home now. Thanks again."

This time, you made sure to look both ways before trying to cross the street. Right as you reached the other side, however, the boy called out: "Wait! Can I walk you home?"

Your mouth acted before your brain could catch up. "Sure."

Then you wondered why you had said that. Just because he saved your life, didn't mean you could trust this guy. But still you waited until he reached your side of the street.

"I don't usually agree to let strangers walk me home," you said, feeling a little awkward about it.

"I don't usually offer to walk strangers home," the boy joked, "so there's that."

"Huh. That seemed exactly like your sort of thing."

His joking tone became a nervous chuckle. "You have no idea. But if it makes you feel better: my name's- it's Peter. Parker."

That name. It stirred something inside the deepest, darkest parts of your mind. The ones that had been driving you to the edge for weeks now. It wasn't something bad, though. It felt like some great weight had just been lifted off your shoulders.

"Hi, Peter Parker," you giggled, giddy that maybe this would all be over now. "I'm (Y/N) (L/N)."

He cast a quick, sideways glance at you. "It's nice to meet you, (Y/N)."

There was definitely more to his wistful tone than you could understand, but you weren't about to ask him. After all, he had been kind enough not to ask why you looked like hell incarnated.

When you came to a halt in front of your house, Peter looked as if he didn't want to go. You stood on the front steps, hesitating between doing the smart thing, and doing what your heart wanted.

"Thanks again," you said, stalling as you tried to make up your mind. "I'd probably be a pancake if you hadn't been there."

"It's fine," he assured you for the fifth time in twenty minutes. "I, uh- I was wondering if maybe... Could we-"

You watched him stumble over his words for a bit. "Yes?"

"Could I get your number?" he then blurted out, so quickly you had trouble understanding.

Huh. Seems like he feels the same as me, you thought as you bouned back down the steps towards him. You wouldn't usually have done this, but you had felt better in that twenty minute walk with Peter than you had in the past two months. "Sure. Give me your phone."

As you saved your number, you noticed there were no other contacts listed. Strange. You didn't comment on it as you handed his phone back to him.

"Text me when you get home," you told him.

"I will," he promised. "And maybe next time, we'll both be a little less of a mess." He grinned to himself. "Hey, that rhymed."

He was haunted and you were a mess, but as you looked at that grin, you felt like it might be okay.

[notlycheesden]

Rearview Mirror

Heyyo ✌🏻 this is my first written piece for Endeavor , as a gift for my friend @kogo for the evil exchange. so I hope you like it my dude 👍🏻. A piece I will def be coming back to write more for sure.

⤍ Endeavour x reader

⤍ 3.6k

⤍ TW.incest, TW.dubcon, TW.father/daughter

⤍ Summary:

Enji was trying to be a better father, a better man.

And you never lied to him.

Guess it was a time for a lot of firsts.

Everything was always red between the both of you.

It's past four when his phone rings.

He was awake. even on his day off -those becoming more frequent now- years of routine were still strong. His body alert and aware way before the break of dawn for hours of training before patrol, and later to go to his own agency, the literal empire that wouldn't run itself.

He was pretending to be asleep, unmovable laying on his stomach, face buried on his pillow. Deep breaths in and out in a rhythmic pattern. His massive frame takes most of his king-size bed that for more than a decade he slept right in the middle, no reason to let the right side of it unoccupied.

It was almost meditation-like. There in the quiet and calm of his bedroom between his sheets, he could organize -or at least try- his thoughts. A time in his day where he gets lost in self-reflection. The things he would have to do that day, what work in his agency he would have to supervise, and even stubbornly he would do a little steaming out, analyzing his “actions and emotions”, passing commentary from the resident agency therapist threw his way.

“A strict but good man, if not for some, mishaps, from your intense and fiery nature.” was his professional opinion about Endeavor. The man really lived to throw things his way.

It used to help calm his turbulent mind. But lately there was nothing in his head but turmoil.

It was something he would do until 6 AM, when he couldn't take any longer and had to get up, body and muscles aching from staying in bed for too long, the sun already rising on the horizon, painting the sky with yellows, pinks, and reds.

The silence of his room is broken by the ring of his phone. Instead of the familiar tone of the morning alarm, it was his normal ringtone. When he opens his eyes, the room was not bright as he expects, still shrouded by darkness. Endeavor sits on his bed at once, alert.

Getting it from the bedside table quickly, his posture falls when he catches the time and the already saved contact of who was calling him: Natsuo.

Enji picks up, but before he could question the call, the time, or even say hello, Natsuo speaks, voice grave and serious.

“You need to pick up your daughter right now.”

It’s a punch to the gut. One that makes all the air from his lungs escape at once. In a second, he feels like he is thrown into a rollercoaster.

The only thing he can muster in his shock is a guttural and deep bark of incredulity “What?”

Natsuo cuts Enji off immediately. His tone triggering him into snapping, memories hushing in -not the time for this- “She just called. She was a crying mess, begged me to come for her but I live two hours away-Shouto is on patrol and not picking up and Fuyumi is with her fiance's family at the onsen-”

Enji inhales sharply. Dread takes hold of him while he can't even see straight with the sudden rush of adrenaline, sirens blasting off in his head.

“She was supposed to be with fuyumi at the onsen.” His voice echoes back at him in his bedroom walls, he doesn't realize he is shouting.

“Look, this is really not the time. She has no money and her phone’s dead. I was able to get her to tell me an address before the call dropped. she's all alone there. Are you gonna pick her up?”

Natsuo calms his own breaths now after snapping and shouting back, and he can hear shuffling noises on his father’s side of the line. The older man was up in a second, not really seeing anything, rushing through his stuff picking his keys and wallet. He hates the way his father could make him snap so easily.

Enji was completely distraught.“She said she was going to be with fuyumi…” He mutters under his breath while running through the corridors, even forgetting the phone by his ear, his son still on the line.

But Natsuo hates even more the blatant difference in the way his father treated all of them and you in comparison. Always. Like he could fix his mistakes. Hide his sins.

“Well. Think your little princess lied to you old man.”

Enji didn't even register the venom in his son's words, nor when he hangs up on him.

He’s out of the house in a blink. He tries not to rip the door out of its hinges on his way out.

——

He drives fast, almost no other car in the streets making it easier to speed up in his nervous state. The GPS voice droning about the directions, a forty-minute drive that he would make in twenty.

you said you were going to spend the weekend with your sister.

You lied to him.

Enji’s heart hammers in his chest and his flames burst multiple times on his face out of control. His grip on the wheel tightens to ground his shaking hands, his jaw set with such force that he could feel a headache already forming.

Thoughts were flying through his mind a mile a second. Where are you? What happened to you? Who were you with? Were you safe? Why were you crying?

Why did you lie to him?

It was like his heart was being squeezed by dread and being broken at the same time.

You were his youngest. After he realized what he did to his children as a father, he tried his best to do better; connect, communicate, but he was emotionally and socially stunted -Thanks doc.- and by the time he tried to reach out, it was just a little too late.

Fuyumi was the pillar of the household, replacing their mother too much young and having to fit in a mould not meant to be hers, barely holding the treads of the family and house together. Natsuo was out of the front door as soon as he finished high school and got into med school, choosing to live in the dorms and work part-time rather than stay at the manor. Shoto was another history in itself.

And there was you, a couple of years younger than your now up-in-the-ranks pro hero brother, at the time just a pipsqueak. Too young to remember Rei, remember the worst of Endeavor.

And when he tried to connect, you were there. As if just waiting. Wanting your father to look at you. Frail and innocent and just in want of care, of attention, of love. You welcomed him into your life with open arms and heart.

Enji did try to make it right by you. And for some time things were progressing, even his other children were starting to turn their heads around his direction.

Until Touya’s incident.

The media cracked down on him and his family with a vengeance, almost nothing was left unturned or whole.

Natsuo was the first to cut ties. Shouto threw himself into his hero work, completely closing himself off. Even Fuyumi decided that she was done, took the next step, and went to live with her now fiance, completely ignoring whatever Enji tried to shout about costumes or honor.

Then it was just the two of you.

He tried to be a good father.

He was a quiet man in his private life, strict and with a violent nature, but he reached out for outside help to make it right. An older and trustworthy housekeeper to not chain his daughter down at the manor, guidance from therapist to help him become a better father, a better man, anything to do right this time.

Call it atonement, call it his redemption, call it hypocrisy, he didn't care.

He only cares that at the end of the day, you were there at his side, happy.

This morning he saw the note on the fridge.

Going to onee-san family trip,

Be back on Sunday.

You never had lied to him before.

Guess it was a time for a lot of firsts.

——-

The music blasting through the night tipped him off even before his car's GPS tells him he arrived at the destined location.

He parks way down the street and assesses the place inside the darkness of his car.

Enji’s way out of the city now and inside the industrial district, the building seems old and falling to pieces, people are lingering all around the street, but it’s thicker there. At surface level the building was empty, but the music was definitely coming from there.

He dreads the worst.

Getting out of the car still in his sleeping sweatpants and tee, he throws the hood of his workout jacket over his hair to conceal himself. He’s going for discretion, get you and get out, no need to make this a public affair. Not with this, not with you, not right now.

He searches around but still can't find you. Half an hour has passed since Natsuo called. He's in a frenzy. Endeavor forces himself to calm down and think.

His son didn't mention music. He looks far into the street and he can see the entrance of an alleyway, he hushes there.

His stomach tied in knots when he sees in the dark your small figure crouched down beside a dumpster. your shoulders ate shaking with silent sobs holding your dead phone for dear life, trying to make yourself smaller than you already were, head down.

Enji barks your name and your head snaps to the entrance of the alleyway in shock, your body trembling and fat tears running down your smudged makeup.

“Daddy!”

In a second you were up and running, throwing your body against him and hugging his middle. He doesn't know what to do first, but he opts for following his instincts. Enji hugs your shaking form, shushing you lightly while petting your head. He doesn't know if it's him or you who's shaking more.

He doesn't remember how, but he manages to walk both of you to his car without being seen, his hulking form covering your smaller one.

He's shaking. When Enji puts you in the passenger seat and the car lights momentarily shine everything in an amber glow, rage fills his chest. You are in a dress he has never seen before, he knows it was not yours. He would never allow a thing like that or let you use it in public. Your makeup that before being ruined by your smudging and crying, was heavy and meant to seduce.

He closes your door and gets in the car.

He's shaking.

——

Enji can only control himself enough to not rip the wheel or step on the gas right through the flooring for only three blocks. and thank the gods again for the hour, because he could not quite see the streets in front of him. If they weren't deserted while he drives double the velocity permitted, it would be likely that the fears of his family being again under the cruel and ravenous judgment of the public eye would become reality, although for a completely different reason from the ones he has been dreading until this point.

When he reaches the fourth block, he makes a sudden stop, turning and parking harshly with the front of the car almost all the way over the curb, the tires skidding loudly into the quiet of the night and scaring you out of your still shell shock state. your small sniffles stop when you let out a muted yelp of surprise.

Enji quickly pries his hands that have a death grip on the wheel and smash the roof of the car to turn the lights on in such a way that later he’s impressed he didn't send the entire ceiling flying. As fast as he did that and the darkness of the car is now cast in warm gold, his hands are on your small frame like a striking snake, a big calloused one gripping your face between meaty fingers, squeezing your wet cheeks and the other one in your far shoulder, turning you in his direction with a barely controlled yank. Enji wasn't sure if the shaking was coming from your body or his.

He's frantic, hectic, eyes going up and down your body trying to find anything, something. “Are you hurt? tell me,” His voice is harsh, too loud into the small space. You jump startled, but his grip locks you in place, he doesn't notice.

Why did you come to a party? Why are you dressed like this? Why did you do this?

“Are you?? Someone did something? Gave you something, touched you?” He barks again louder, bending and twisting to be in your face now, eyes scanning all over your body. But again and again, they would be drawn to the too short hem of your dress, from your ruined tearstained makeup and down again to your soft and creamy thighs, trying to find a mark, a scratch, a stain. Anything, something.

“Fucking answer me!”

“Dad please!”

Enji lets you go as if you just slap him in the face. He blinks.

You are shaking. Looking at him in fear, silent tears running down your cheeks. Your jaw is set as you try to hold your whimpers back, his fingers make red marks bloom on your face and arm under his digits.

Memories come back rushing. Phantoms scourging in blue flames.

He releases you as if you burn him.

His hands hover in place, and he doesn't dare to move, still crowding you. Both of you staring at each other in fear and confusion as if something would break.

He slowly backs away, and you keep still. He turns the light off and stares at the road.

Enji couldn't take more things between both of you breaking.

He takes a deep breath. Starts the car again to drive back home.

——

Friday nights are your nights.

Enji doesn't really remember when it started. But he knows it wasn't something that was spoken of or agreed beforehand. It happened once, then twice, then his job got in the way, then thrice, and when he noticed, it was a routine between him and his daughter.

Like most things between both of you, it just… fell into place. And it just felt right.

Endeavor would arrange his schedule in a way so that his Fridays would be empty, any emergency at the agency could be easily solved that way, patrols and hero work set on the weekends so he could come home at a sensible hour, just by dinnertime.

He would be just taking his blazer and shoes off at the entrance when Enji would hear your running steps from the kitchen, your pinky apron-clad figure hushing to meet him with a bright smile, eyes shining.

you would get a hold of his tie and gently tug down for him to bend at the waist to your level, your arms were thrown in a warm hug on his neck and a sweet and lengthy kiss on his cheek after he steps through the threshold. you would giggle against his face from the tickles you got from his stubble while warmly welcoming him, the food still hot on the table.

It was one of your multiple habits together, just the two of you. And it felt right.

It was routine. And it felt so domestic, warm and right.

Friday nights are your nights. After he gets home, you guys have dinner, something you cooked by yourself, sending the older housemaid away earlier.

Sometimes it is a new recipe, sometimes something you already tried before. But it's always good, and when Enji compliments your cooking skills and how much he enjoys it, your cheeks blush red. You daintly try to hide your smile as you thank him, bashful behavior so alluring even when he knows is just a little act, playing coy. There's warmth in his chest.

The lights in the dining room cast everything in this whimsical warm glow and maybe it's the beer, but Enji thinks it reflects lovely on you and the color of your blouse today. He says so.

“Looking so pretty tonight, princess.”

The red on your cheeks grow stronger. From across the table, he hides his smirk behind his can at seeing how you fidget in place, trying to contain your coquettish smile while biting your plush bottom lip. The warmth spreads lower.

Only later it dawns on him. Enji was flirting with his own daughter. And it was a habit.

It was routine.

Enji is sprawled on the big sofa comfortably, already showered and in his sleeping clothes after dinner, the second movie of the night halfway through.

It was a period drama and he tries to pay attention to the main points for your quiz about it the next day, but he was mostly checked out, lulled by the comfy dark of the living room, the buzz of the beers he drank, sleep and your warm body draped over his.

He doesn't really remember when it started, but he knows it was gradually. One day in your Friday movie nights, he notices you were glued on his side, and on the next one you had an arm draped over his torso while both of you were laying on the reclining couch, and since then, you were always over him, arms and thighs and breasts glued to his body, but most of the time cutely laying on his chest.

That night was no different. You are laying on his broad chest, using your arm as leverage to look down and back at the tv in front of the sofa, and for you to not slip he has one big palm over your waist and the other in a secure hook on the slope of your knee, propping your bent leg higher across his stomach. Your breathing matches his, and if not by your little grunts and noises of surprise, the redhead would have thought you had fallen asleep on him. It would not be the first time.

The clothes you are using are small and had hiked up a long time ago, a loose tank top and booty shorts, both of them old and worn out, sleep clothes.

From where he was, he could see all your body over his. From the crown of your head to the slope of your waist as it dipped under his scarred hand. His gaze follows the curve of your thigh draped over his waist to the fat of your ass pointing high. He muses in a daze that he could see the inside of your tank top, the soft swell of a breast making an appearance. He leers.

You move a little, and this time, he can make out the shade of a nipple. It’s pert and small and pretty, and blood rushes to his clothed cock, but is late, and he's tired and buzzed out. It doesn’t connect in his mind.

You move. you are getting yourself higher on his chest. Enji feels small hands wandering under his shirt. Presses of lips on his neck. Wet kisses on the stubble on his jaw.

The soft touches pull him deeper. There's a young and wanton body over his. It’s been so long since he truly touched another, let himself be touched. Smooth lips and an uncertain tongue were kissing him, and he wants to devour them. It’s hot and burns and makes his insides coil, his cock hard and heavy inside his pants. A warm slit humping it.

Could have been the tiredness, the beer, the comfort of the situation, anything really.

Enji kisses you like a man starved. Head moving and ravaging your much smaller mouth with his tongue. His hand yanks your tank top down exposing your breasts, and now he’s pulling and pinching the sweet nipples in a way that makes you moan against his tongue with a voice he couldn't recognize.

His other hand was down at your ass, guiding your movements back and forth on his erection with vigor, the friction against your slit makes you weak, but he keeps you moving, his calloused hand encompassing most of your behind. At each needy thrust his fingers would slide down between the cleft of your ass more and more.

His meaty fingers push the bottons of your shorts aside with a flick of his wrist, and now he's touching directly your puffy lips that are messy and wet all over. Enji growls in your mouth as you moan louder when he starts playing with your pussy, a pitched whine as he flicks your clit up and down, a strong hold on your breast.

A loud bang from the TV is what snaps him back to reality.

It was his daughter.

His daughter was over him. It was his daughter that was humping his cock, that he was sucking her small tongue and tweaking her nipples until he made her squeal.

He jumps to his feet and throws you across the couch.

Different from him, you look wide awake. Flushed face and startled eyes stares up at him, exposed breasts still heaving. Nipples rosy and hard. Between your legs, a glistening trail of where his fingers dragged when he ripped them off of you. Your shorts are drenched.

There's a moment of silence.

Enji snaps. He sprints to his bedroom, leaving you alone in the living room.

He locks his door, drops to the floor, and whips his hard and heavy cock out. in three pumps, thick ropes of cum cover his hand and clothed middle.

Taking big gulps of air trying to calm his breathing, his eyes glancing everywhere in a panic state, he looks down, and spot the wet patch on his clothed thigh. Yours juices that leaked on him. Its still in his other hand, fingers wet.

Enji wants to cry.

He tried to be a good father.

He ruined it again.

[highqueenofelfhame]

rowaelin month day ten

rowaelin month day ten -- single parents. masterlist // buy me a ko-fi // redbubble  

The morning truly couldn’t have been going worse. Aelin had woken up to the nanny telling her she’d come down with the stomach flu. Aelin wasn’t cruel enough to tell the poor girl she had to work through it; instead encouraging her to drink as much water as she could and get some much-needed rest. Evangeline had apologized profusely, but Aelin was having none of it. She reassured her that she could figure it out.

It turned out she couldn’t. Her mother and father both worked sixty hours a week. Aelin knew that her mother would take a day if Aelin called, but she couldn’t bring herself to make the call and disrupt her week. Evie’s father had died in a car crash before she was even born. Everyone who was a viable option worked full-time jobs, leaving her three-year-old in her hands. She could call out, but she had a mountain of a workload that she’d left last night, reassuring herself she would get it done today. Everything she needed was at her office, so working from home was out of the question. All signs were pointing to an impromptu “bring your child to work” day. 

The CEO of the company was a good friend of hers, and Aelin knew that Dorian wouldn’t mind seeing his goddaughter toddling around the office. In fact, she knew that he would eventually steal her away for a snack time at some point so Aelin could get some work done. It would likely be a snack that wasn’t mommy approved, but she would give him a free pass today.

It would be okay, she reassured herself as she struggled to get Evie to cooperate with getting her tiny arms through her yellow long-sleeved shirt. She was mumbling in an indecipherable language as Aelin nodded along, chiming in here and there like she understood every word. The reality was that she only understood a handful of words. One of them was juice, so Aelin made a mental note to make her a full cup of juice for the car ride to the office to keep her happy. 

It didn’t take long to brush her hair into the tiniest pigtails to exist, with two little orange bows holding them in place. By the time she was fully dressed in her fall garb, complete with a tiny gray vest so cute that Aelin wanted to cry, she looked like a baby Gap model. Without a doubt, everyone at the office would be cooing over how precious she looked the second they walked through the door. 

“Where going?” Evie inquired, her little head tilting to the side as Aelin packed her go-bag full of snacks and an outfit change just in case. 

“Momma’s gotta go to work today, baby. You get to come, too. Do you want to see Uncle Dorian?” At the mention of Dorian, Evie’s eyes lit up as a broad smile pushed her chubby cheeks up until her eyes squinted closed. Aelin grinned and kissed her cheeks until she giggled wildly. Thank the gods that Evie was in a good mood today. Some mornings she woke up on the wrong side of the bed, fussy as all get out while Aelin tried to push along their morning. Thankfully today, she was full of smiles and giggles. It would make everything much easier if she cooperated.

After grabbing a sippy cup full of apple juice and shoving the bottle in her bag, making yet another note to put it in the fridge in the break room when she arrived at the office, she swooped Evie into her arms, and they were on their way. 

Upon arriving at the office, Aelin was right. The two receptionists immediately fell in love with Evie’s tiny pigtails and her outfit. They cooed over her bright eyes, twins to Aelin’s own. It took longer than usual to make it to the elevator, where even several men commented on how adorable she was. It brought a smile to her face, but it dropped when she thought of her office neighbor. 

Rowan Whitethorn was the hardass of the office. She was pretty positive that he hated her, and there was nothing she could do to change his mind. They spent their days arguing back and forth about anything and everything. Some days she was sure that he only did it to get a rise out of her. 

Aelin had never seen him smile-- he only scowled. His assistant was constantly rushing around, losing his damn mind trying to meet all of Rowan’s demands in a day. More than once, she’d caught tidbits of his conversations with Aelin’s own assistant, the poor boy begging to swap just for a single day. Aelin could only imagine what Rowan would say about Evie being such a workplace distraction. She was positive there would be complaints about her squeals and giggles that he would hear through the wall. 

There was truly nothing she could do, though. Too much needed to be done at work to take a personal day, and Evie was typically well behaved enough to be occupied until her mom got off work and could pick her up. 

As she made her way down the hall, everyone oohed and ahhed over Evie. Aelin thanked everyone for their compliments, her heart spilling over with joy. Until she saw Rowan in the kitchen while she put away the juice. He was making coffee and, upon noticing Evie in her arms, an emotion she couldn’t quite place flickered over his face. 

“I didn’t know you had a daughter,” he said, eyes going from her pigtails down to the boots on her tiny feet. 

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” She closed the fridge door and left the kitchen, gone as quickly as she had come. When she arrived in her office, she shut the door and put Evie down, watching as she ran straight for the couch and flopped over the side with a giggle bubbling out of her lips. 

The single mother took a few minutes to take Evie’s toys out of her bag, even laying a few puffy snacks out on the table for her to snack on while she played. She went straight for them as quickly as Aelin sprinkled them out of the container. Aelin chuckled as she watched her for a moment, hands on her hips while she decided she was okay to sit at her desk and begin her work. 

Evie was surprisingly self-sufficient while Aelin started her daily tasks. She played with the toys her mother provided and munched on her treats. Aelin heard a lot of babbling and a slew of giggles, a loud squeal pulling her from her work as her door opened. 

Dorian leaned in the doorway, giving her a running start until he followed, darting across the room to scoop Evie into his arms. He spun her in circles with her legs flying behind her. She was laughing in a way that she only did with Dorian. Aelin seldom got that sound to come out of her daughter, but somehow, she wouldn’t change it for anything.

“I heard tales of a little princess fighting dragons in my office,” he said to no one in particular, but Evie seemed to understand that she was the princess. If there was anything that she liked in this world, it was being called a princess. She understood that word more than anything because Aelin read her fairy tales of princesses every night. Tangled was constantly on their TV, only to be replaced by Beauty and the Beast. They utterly enchanted her, and everyone in her life was constantly calling her a princess. She loved it. 

The giggling continued while he tickled her sides and blew raspberries on her belly until the shrieking got so intense he made a face at Aelin and merely brought her into a tight hug as he said, “Sorry. Nanny out today?”

“She’s got a stomach bug. I had no other options; I’m really sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize. You know I love any chance I get to see her. I’m not going to penalize you for being a mother, Aelin.” Evie was chomping her teeth near Dorian’s face, causing her best friend to laugh and hold her at arm’s length. “I’ll even take her across the hall for a bit so you can get more done.”

“You’re a lifesaver,” she replied, sighing and leaning back in her seat. Aelin really did have so much to do, to the point that she couldn’t even bring herself to tell him he didn’t have to do that. She would take whatever help she could get.

Her door was left open as he took Evie out into the hall, Aelin noticing that they weren’t going in the direction of his office but rather toward the kitchen. Her eyes rolled as she swiveled in her chair to face her computer and really dive into her work, leaning forward and exhaling a deep breath, willing herself to focus. 

Quite a bit of time passed, and she was able to get a considerable amount of work completed. All of her emails had been caught up when Dorian edged into her office and cleared his throat. Aelin looked up, half expecting Evie’s outfit to be ruined by chocolate, but her little ray of sunshine was nowhere to be seen.

“Where is she?” 

“I… may have taken a phone call and looked away for two minutes, and she vanished.”

“What?” Aelin was on her feet in an instant, rushing across her office and out into the hall. “What the fuck do you mean? How long has it been?” 

“Since I lost her and started looking for her? Half an hour. I was scared to tell you.” 

“My daughter has been missing for half an hour, and you’re only just now telling me? What the fuck, Dorian?” She hit his chest rather abrasively as she shoved past him, eyes scanning every room while she ran down the hall. How she was able to do it without toppling over in her heels, she wasn’t sure. All she could feel was the panic from her heart pounding in her chest to the shaking of her hands. The roaring in her ears made everything else sound muffled and distant, like she was standing at the edge of white water rapids. Even with her hands in fists so tight she could feel them shake, nausea building up in her chest. 

“Evie?” She called out, a tremor rising in her throat that caused her voice to sound shaky and weak. Tears were pricking in her ears as she turned to run back to her office. She would call down to security to see if they could scan the cameras, and call reception to see if anyone had carried her out. From there, she would--

Her heart stopped beating when she glanced into Rowan’s office. It was the office directly next to hers, and behind his desk, Rowan held a snoozing Evie. Her little fist was gripping the lapels of his suit jacket, and he seemed relaxed while he flipped through papers with one hand. 

“What are you doing with my daughter?” Aelin asked, stepping into the door. A few tears of relief slipped down her cheeks, and she was quick to wipe them, lest he make an asshole comment about it.

“I told that little shit to let you know I had her,” he murmured, barely glancing up from his papers. “I think that’s the final straw. He genuinely can’t do the most basic of tasks, I--” 

Rowan paused when he looked up from his work. Something soft flashed in his eyes for a split second before he continued, “She was laying on the couch by the kitchen when I found her. She babbled something about Dorian, I think, and when I looked in his office, he was on the phone arguing with someone. You looked busy, and I know you have a lot to do, and when I picked her up, she let out the biggest yawn I’ve ever seen. By the time I’d walked back to my office, she was asleep. I told my assistant to let you know. I’m sorry that he didn’t, and I’m sorry that I didn’t follow up with an e-mail or a phone call. You just seem like you could use the help so you could get work done. I’m sorry.” 

Not only was it the most that Rowan had ever said to her in a single conversation, but it was the kindest she’d seen him be to anyone. He wasn’t complaining about the little bit of drool coming out of the side of Evie’s mouth and soaking into his jacket. He was just holding her like he was so at ease with the situation and truly didn’t mind. 

“You don’t wear a ring, and I’ve never heard you mention a significant other. Divorced?”

“Widowed,” she replied, sitting in one of the leather chairs in front of his desk. Again, his face softened as he looked down at Evie. 

“She looks just like you. She’s beautiful.” Ignoring the implications of that comment, Aelin smiled softly.

“Thank you. She is… everything to me.”

“I… I have a daughter, too. Briar. My wife died two years after we were married. Briar is six now, but Evie is… so much less temperamental than B was.” Aelin tried not to let the shock show on her face. Shock that Rowan Whitethorn was a father and shock that they shared a sad history. The curiosity to ask how she had died was strong, but she wouldn’t ask. Sometimes she hated it when people asked how Sam died. It was like opening a wound all over again. 

“Oh, she has her days. Don’t let this fool you,” she laughed, dragging her fingers through her hair. “I didn’t know you had a daughter, either.”

Rowan flipped his computer screen so she could see it, and she was welcomed by a smiling little girl with stunning green eyes and brown ringlet curls. Her heart squeezed at the image, Rowan holding her in his lap and grinning so wide he had dimples. Rowan Whitethorn had dimples. 

“She’s absolutely adorable.”

“She is.” Aelin smiled again, looking down at her hands and twisting the ring on her left finger that her parents had given her when Evie was born. It was her birthstone. 

“You can keep working if you want to. I’ve got her.”

“She’s not bothering you?” There was hesitation evident in her voice as Rowan looked down at the sleeping girl in his arms. He smiled, brushing a few wild strands of hair back against her head.

“Nope,” he said firmly, looking back at Aelin. “Really. You must have a lot to do if you didn’t just call in a personal day. She’s sleeping. It’s okay. I’ll bring her back when she wakes up.”

“I-- okay. If you’re sure.”

“I’m positive.” Aelin chewed on her fingernail for a moment before she nodded and stood, walking across his office and toward her own. Aelin paused in the door, looking over her shoulder at the man with such a harsh reputation around the workplace. This man seemed entirely different, a man that was brushing his thumb against her daughter's side while she slept with his shirt in her tiny fist. He seemed so utterly relaxed while he adjusted their position in his chair to keep working. It was almost out of character, his offer. But she wasn’t going to complain. 

Rowan Whitethorn may have been the hardass of the office, but maybe he had a soft spot after all. @rowaelinscourt​

[eremiie]

hbd cornelius springer <3

❥ nsfw | 3.2k words | connie x fem!reader

❥ content - blowjob

❥ the birthday boy deserves some birthday head!!!

happy birthday connie springer, and happy belated birthday @arlerted ily both a whole lot <3... i started this at like 4am so pls bare with this

"you enjoying your birthday?"

connie turns around at the sound of your voice, soda can in hand while he closes the fridge door.

the way his face lights up when he connects your voice to your face makes you beam. his eyes get wide, eyebrows rise up, and a crooked smile graces his features as you walk forth, your hand trailing against the kitchen counter.

it makes you smile, the ways he's immediately stoked to see you. it's endearing if anything and your heart flutters at the excitement that twinkles in his eyes at your appearance.

"duh... yeah of course i like it."

"duh... yeah of course i like it."

"duh... yeah of course i like it."

his stupid smile shifts into a small smirk and he picks up his drink to take another sip. "what're you lookin' at?"

seriously? were you that obvious?

he leans back against the corner of the kitchen counter, twirling the soda can in his hand to shake his drink up while steadying himself with his elbows. you can tell the question was one he was genuinely waiting on an answer for— it was to just rile you up and one for him to shrug off with a 'just messin'.

you roll your eyes. there was no reason to give him an ego. "your ugly party hat." your tone is snarky, and a breathy laugh leaves connie's throat as he shakes his head at you. he beckons with two slender fingers.

"come 'ere."

your stomach turns at the gesture— no at the sentence and you curse the slight stubbornness that keeps you standing where you stood with your arms crossed. "what?"

connie holds your gaze easily, and instead of giving you an answer his hand reaches out to pull you towards him by your forearm.

you stumble forward until you were situated between his feet, a strong hand encasing your wrists and his breath fanning across your face from the proximity of you and connie.

his eyes look more hazel up close, green and yellow dancing like a fiery bright fire. you can feel the denim of his jeans rub against the fat flesh of your thighs from where you stand, and connie makes no effort to move back.

it's a clear invasion of your space but neither you or him seem to mind— and you hope connie didn't take the way your heart jumps in your chest and your suddenly uneven breathing as a sign that you did mind. no, it was the exact opposite of that if anything.

"are you enjoying the party?" his voice comes out a little too smooth for your liking. where was the slight cracks in his voice as he spoke or the lilts in his tone as he tried his best to be a flirt?

the way he looks at you doesn't help. his eyes are low lying, having trouble staying focused on only just yours. you notice them flit a little lower every now and then before popping back up to match your gaze.

you hoped you came off as unbothered— stable and unfazed by his sudden demeanor. if it wasn't obvious by now your slight attraction to connie was something that you couldn't seem to let go of ever since you had first met him.

you hated how goofy he was and how the lame jokes he'd crack would always make you laugh regardless of how stupid. you hated how  somehow he'd always coerce you to do the handy work when it came to class projects because he was too lazy to get up off his own ass and help you. you hated how even through all these little silly quirks of his if he really wanted to with a few slip ups here and there he could make the hairs on your arms stand and have you stop breathing just from a slick look and slick sentence.

you hated all these things because they all made you feel gushy inside no matter how dumb it was. they made your body warm and gave you this comforting feeling that you couldn't get from anyone else.

so when connie repeats another "hm?" catching you off guard for the second time, that warm feeling returns because this time the pads of his fingers drum against your shoulder, a little to close to the junction near your neck.

"as long as ymir and sash keep me entertained, then yeah. this little 'party' isn't that bad." your quick with your response this time once he sets you back on track and you calm a bit.

"so ymir 'n sash are the life of the party for ya?" he pouts, and you scrunch your nose up when he leans in a little more, a mock pitiful expression on his face. "damn, 'n i'm supposed to be the birthday boy... that's crazy."

you can tell he's a little under the influence. despite it being his birthday he was actual one out of a few to keep their drinking at a light tonight. you couldn't say the same for armin who was currently passed out and curled up at the safety of mikasa's side on the large sofa, or for reiner who was last crying to ymir before she managed to 'shut the fuck up jockey' him as you walked pass.

you liked it like this though, liked to know that the interactions between you and connie weren't entirely the alcohol talking.

but it wasn't like it was ever really anything but him talking when he got more than comfortable with you.

light touches up the soft skin of your thighs, moving you around by placing his hands on your waist (where you must say they fit like a puzzle), or attacking you in tickles when he decided to crash at you and sasha's place and you wouldn't pass up the remote.

those were all connie, but it was nice to know that the person in front of you was mostly connie as well.

"you are... you just haven't been keeping me company as you should have." you lift up a hand right in front of his face and pretend to inspect your nails before dropping four fingers down to your palm and turning your nails to you once again.

connie let's out a low laugh at the gesture before using his own palm to cup the top of your hand. you expect him to push it down and let go but he only holds it in his grip with that same dumb smile plastered on his face as he doesn't fail to keep eye contact with you.

"ha-ha, so funny. you act like we didn't dance together," you recall the memory of connie hoisting you up from the couch and spinning you around until your backside was pressed against him, asking you to 'dance'. if anything that encounter is probably what encouraged the tingle between your legs and pushed you to follow connie into the kitchen. "sit together for like a good ass while, and play cards together— cheating together i might add."

you giggle, "did eren not realize that practically half the deck was under my ass and in your pockets?" connie reciprocates your giggle in his cheery tone and he raises the soda can to his lips again to empty it out inside his mouth.

"nah, but for real, what more company do you need?"

in the back of your head you had a solid idea of the kind of company you needed from connie, but you weren't even sure if your mind was quick enough to formulate it into a sentence that sounded appealing to the ears, enticing even.

a dramatic sigh leaves your lips and your hands come up to connie's head, one index plucking at the thin string below his chin and the other one holding the loud party hat until you were pulling it off and fiddling with it in your hand.

connie's hand automatically comes to rub at the short grey strands with a small frown at the absence of his hat. he stands up straight so he's peering down at you and his arm swings over your shoulder as he begins walking the two of you towards the exit to the kitchen abandoning his empty can of soda. "what?"

you slow down your pace so that he slows down and pull his arm from around you just as quickly as he placed it there massaging his knuckles in the process.

the eagerness to stay alone with him and not go back out where the chatters of all your friends would become tenfold is what makes you more bold, is what makes you back connie up towards the kitchen island until your practically leaning on him with doe eyes, fluttering your lashes and saying, "just wanna be alone with you for a minute..." you hesitate for a moment before beginning to speak again, "i gotta present for you, but we gotta go upstairs."

it's like your words alone manage to somewhat crack the demeanor he had going on. how his mouth slightly parts and how his body tenses up slightly tells you. you're thankful for the small adrenaline rush a measly walk to the archway gave you.

"shit, what's upstairs?" you relish in how he feeds into your words instead of stuttering under pressure and his hand moves to the small of your back pulling you even closer.

it's noticeable that he likes to feel your skin on his, and his hands are warm against the skin of your hip, practically singeing it with just his touch. it sends a hot feeling throughout your body and you indulge in him some more, fully enveloping your hand with his free one and giving a nice smile.

"if you come with me then it'll be me and you," and he lets you pull him along like a dog on a leash, sticking as close to its owner as possible as he's so close behind you that you can feel him up against your back as you begin to nonchalantly walk past your group of friends conversing in the living room.

for you it's easy to ignore their remarks and looks of 'finally'. after all, you knew they were coming. but connie couldn't, shooting silly faces to his audience as he lets you pull him along.

"they're finally fucking."

"go, birthday boy!"

"gettin' some birthday pussy!"

"_______, bite his dick off for me!"

the only phrase to elicit some sort of reaction from you is the mumbly one from sasha from whatever was in her mouth as she encouraged you to injure connie.

all the phrases seem to get one out of connie, from him pretending to fuck you from behind causing you to pinch the tan skin of his wrist to him making kissy faces at jean, eren, and even to ymir who further encouraged you to take a chomp out of his little friend.

you lead him through his bedroom door, immediately locking it because you know he'll forget and then turning to face him again.

when you turn back around connie's still looming over you, his hands lankily at his sides and it's as if he doesn't know what to do with them.

it makes you titter, and you take a step towards him pulling at his wrists place his hands back on your hips. "so what's my present?"

your hands come up to come his face and his skin is soft under your touch. he's warm and his breathing is unsteady as you lean forward to press your lips onto his.

he quickly returns the kiss, more fervently than you if anything. connie immediately groans as if the feeling of your lips on his was something he was craving.

connie pushes you against the door, a small thud eliciting from the way your back hits it and he lets go of your hips to cup your face and bring you deeper into the kiss.

the way he presses up so close against you makes you part your lips slightly giving him enough time to slip his tongue into your mouth until it's slotted alongside yours.

his knee parts your legs and bump against your crotch making you moan and let go of his face, holding onto his shoulders instead.

you pull back to breathe for a brief moment— and connie's eyes are overcast with lust. he doesn't have that twinkle from earlier and his grip on your hips is tighter than it was a few seconds ago.

he breathes heavily and rests his forehead against yours then dropping his knee. "that wasn't all i get for my birthday, right?"

with another roll of your eyes you shake your head. "it'd be a little rude of me to leave you like this, yeah?"

you slide down the wall until your knees hit the carpet and sit back on your shins. your delicate hands slide down connie's chest until the tips of your fingers are brushing over the buckle of his belt.

"yeah," connie's eyes flutter shut and he places a hand on the door to once again steady himself. "'d be real fuckin' rude of you."

your hands make work of his belt, unclasping the loop, unzipping the zipper and unbuttoning his pants to begin shrugging down the denim.

you had barely even started doing anything yet connie's mouth was slightly parted in anticipation. it was amusing how even the slightest touch from you could elicit a reaction out of him.

you pride yourself in this, and you take your time letting your fingertips massage the length of connie's clothed cock beneath his boxers. his body stutters overtop of you for a quick second and you move your hands to the hem of his boxers to begin pulling them down.

he's pretty; a slightly flushed tip that complimented the tan color of his skin. he's clearly already hard and you swear when your hand wraps around him his dick twitches in your touch. "god," he mumbles.

his dick is heavy in your hand, and he's thick to the touch. with a few test pumps you prop yourself up on your knees once more and place a hand over his thigh. "c'mon," his tone is encouraging yet hurrying, needy.

you click your tongue at him before using it to kitten lip his tip, like you were just trying to get a taste. connie hisses above you and drops his hand down to the top of your head.

"c'mon, we can't take too long with everyone still down there."

you know he's only saying so because he wants to feel your mouth around him. he's only being needy because it's something he'd been craving over the course of a few months. you are something he had been craving and now that you were under him he wanted all of you, starting with what you were willing to give which happened to be your pretty throat.

nevertheless, he's the birthday boy and you want to help pleasure him, making him feel a euphoric feeling that you know he's longed for.

you stick your tongue out and slap his tip against the flat of your tongue, and connie lets out another short groan, his fingers scrunching your hair.

connie shudders from above you and you almost feel bad for teasing him. you let the warmth of your mouth consume him completely— well, as far as you can while your hand works at the remainder.

"yeah, yeah..." he hums and he opens his eyes  again to look down at you.

your mouth around him felt heavenly, and the image of you sucking him off was even better; cheeks hollowed out and hand pumping his length.

you were so pretty.

connie brings the hand in your hand down to your cheek to feel himself through the skin, his tip pressed up against the inside of your cheek as he slightly rolls his hips forward to fuck in your mouth gently.

you pull off of him, pushing spit to the front of your mouth and letting your saliva drip onto his cock.

"fuck, you can't do that," he whines and rubs his tip against your lips until you open up again for him and his hand returns to your hair. "stick your tongue out."

you obey. using the leverage he has on your locks, he pushes deeper into your mouth, bobbing your head as he thrusts forward. small moans leave connie's lips. he's infatuated with the way your tongue slides against his underside as you try your best to relax your throat to let him in.

he loves it, loves how your mouth is so wet and sloppy around him, how it feels so good to be inside you— and he wants to feel every part of you, not stopping at your mouth.

saliva drips from the corner of your mouth and you try to suppress the gags that try to come up. you whimper from underneath connie, and he pulls out to give you a minute to breath.

it's funny how he's breathing harder then you his chest heaving. "that fuckin' mouth,"

you give a slight smile at the compliment, pleased to know you were pleasing him.

"i need it s'more."

what kind of person would you be if you didn't give the birthday boy what he wanted?

so you give him more, using connie's thighs to keep yourself steady, relaxing yourself and breathing through your nose as you let connie fuck your mouth.

he becomes erratic, the grip he has on your hair is slightly painful but you know he's too caught up in his lust, too caught up in the haven that was your throat.

he's so lost in the pleasure that he doesn't warn you when he's about to cum and you only know by the way his cum spills down your throat making you cough and pull off of him.

what you could only assume was a "sorry" comes from him as he calms down, pulling up his boxers and jeans but forgetting to buckle his belt. his hand reached out for you to grab it.

you take it and he pulls you up until you're almost at his height again, that same dumb smile on his face. "did you like your present?" you hum after you clear your throat.

"duh..." his thumb comes up to wipe at the saliva around your mouth before pushing the digit between your lips. you waste no time entertaining him, sucking your spit up and popping off of his thumb. "you thinkin' you could gimme something else though?"

you snort, "what happened to we couldn't take too long cause everyone's downstairs?"

"i'm still hard, it's my birthday, i really don't give a fuck who's downstairs." his words contradict his earlier statement but you brush it off, pulling him by the string of his jacket and pressing another peck to his lips.

"get in the bed birthday boy."

[wkemeup]

Sunrise (2)

summary: After an explosion takes his arm and his only sense of belonging, Bucky is content to live out the rest of his days in the hollow comfort of the dark. This is, until Sam drags him down to the local VA and he meets you. (Modern AU) pairings: bucky x reader chapter word count: 3.5k warnings: heavy focus on Bucky’s PTSD/anxiety, hella nervous!bucky, dangerously sweet!y/n  🧡 series masterlist / series playlist

“What the hell do you mean ‘you’re not going’?”

Bucky shrugged, taking a bite of the bagel Steve picked up on his way to the apartment. He flinched as Steve flung open the curtains, expelling a cloud of dust as the sunlight invaded the living room, illuminating over months of untouched mail on the coffee table and crumbs in the carpet.  

Sam kept his eyes burning on Bucky from the other end of the table. “You can’t back out now, Barnes. She’s expecting you!”

“What’s this about again?” Steve asked as he slid into the chair beside Bucky.  

“Book club. Y/n. Barnes is being a coward again,” Sam explained a little too nonchalantly for Bucky's taste.  

“I’m not being a coward,” Bucky grumbled, avoiding Sam’s eyes and very much proving his friend’s point. “I’ve just— I’ve got better things to do.”

He regretted it the moment it left his lips because both Sam and Steve exchanged a less than subtle, irritatingly familiar glance.  

“Yeah, like what?” Steve scoffed. He extended his arms out to gesture to the empty apartment. “You got tons of plans this week? Think you might see sunlight again or did someone hang garlic in the hallway?”

“Shut up,” Bucky warned, rolling his eyes. It had been a few days since he’d ventured out to the VA for the first time and it was more than he’d done in weeks. It should have been enough for these two, but it never was. They always wanted more out of him. They couldn’t just leave him to rot in his apartment, could they?

“It’s Sunday, you know,” Sam said, devilish smirk rising on his face.  

Bucky gritted his teeth. “Yeah, I’m well aware.”  

“Come on, man!” Sam groaned, slamming his hand on the table enough to cause a ripple in the coffee mugs. “I saw the way you were looking at her. You can’t tell me seeing her again isn’t a good enough reason to go...”

Bucky’s cheeks flushed red. They burned hot on his skin and it only seemed to make it worse. He’d never been like this before he was discharged – flustered and easily embarrassed. He supposed before he came home with one less limb and baggage the size of his living room, he didn’t have much to be embarrassed about. He was a flirt, a bit shameless about it, too. He’d had girlfriends and hookups and never thought much about it.  

But now? The vague idea of even presuming to be interested in a woman was borderline laughable. What chance could he possibly have? He was washed up and broken, missing a few pieces, and half off his rocker. There wasn’t a chance in hell you’d go for a guy like him. It was easier to just pretend like he didn’t care, give into the empty void he believed his heart to be, and waste away.  

“Seeing her again isn’t a good enough reason to go,” Bucky said flatly, much to Sam’s annoyance. It was a bold-faced lie, one all three of them were well aware of, but it didn’t mean Bucky needed to give them the satisfaction of admitting it.  

He thought of you in that sunset red sweater, holding a book tight to your chest with that sort of bright starlight look in your eyes as you listened intently to a retired vet go on and on about his personal connection to some corny book. He’d only met you for maybe a span of a few minutes, and still, he could somehow still picture your smile. He wanted to see it again.  

But there was a sharp pain in his left arm; it burned, enough for Bucky to reach across his chest and try to put pressure on it, only to slip through thin air and land against his ribs. The pain remained, like an extension of himself, on an arm that was no longer apart of him. There and not there all at once. He groaned.  

“It’s not a good enough reason, Sam,” Bucky repeated. “I’m not going. She probably won’t even notice.”

Another lie.  

Sam shook his head, the smile quickly leaving his face in favor of one Bucky knew all too well. Disappointment. Frustration. The thing was, it didn’t hurt as much when Bucky was purposeful in creating it.  

“I thought you liked her?” Steve asked cautiously, eyes catching Sam’s for only a moment before he turned back to Bucky. They��d been talking about him. He hated when they did that.  

“I don’t even know her, Steve,” Bucky shot back. He shouldn’t be getting angry with them. They were only trying to help. And yet here he was – pushing away the only two people left in his life that still managed to tolerate him. He rubbed at the stubble on his jaw, trying to push past it. “She’s nice, okay? She’s pretty. Is that what you want me to say?”

Steve sat back in his chair, exhausted. “I want you to be happy, Buck.”

Bucky scoffed. “Yeah, well, shoulda thought of that before I got myself blown up.”

“Bucky--”

“Let it go, man,” Sam sighed, setting a hand on Steve’s shoulder.  

Bucky felt like he could sink straight into his chair. Why did he always do this?

“I hope you change your mind,” Sam said simply, gathering up his things as he and Steve started to make their way to the door. “It could be good for you.”

Bucky knew what he meant by that, the underlaying message hidden just beneath the surface: she could be good for you.  

Right on cue, the pain started up again in his arm that was both there and not there, and Bucky tried to grit his teeth through it, though Sam could spot the tells almost immediately: his right-hand gripping to the arm rest, the flinch in his jaw, the short tense breaths.  

Sam sighed, pausing in the door frame. “We’ll be back in a few days. Try to clean up the place, will you? It’s a shithole in here.”

“Ma said she’d bake you cobbler if you promise to eat it,” Steve offered, too hopeful for his own good. It had been Bucky’s favorite once; the sort of dessert he talked about on desert nights when the mess hall served day old meatloaf and bland potatoes. He didn’t have much of an appetite these days.  

Bucky forced out a smile for his friend’s sake and nodded.  

A familiar silence swept over the apartment as the door closed behind them. It had been a comfort once; a darkness that swept around his shoulders like a blanket. It kept him isolated and suffocated and still, safe.  

Now, it mocked him.

He stared at the knob on the door, tapping his fingers against the edge of the table. He’d done this about a dozen times before, trying to convince himself to do something more with his days than waste away in an expensive one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn.  

Steve was right. What the hell else was he going to do today? Stare at the wall for a few hours? Pretend to watch TV and not catch a single word of dialogue? Make a meal he wouldn’t eat?

He thought of you again. How you might scan the room in search of him and a frown might pull at the corner of your lips to not find him amongst the crowd. He wondered if you’d be dressed in yellow or orange or if you’d resemble a cloudless sky as the sun touched over the peaks of the city in soft pinks and purples.

He wanted to know so badly it was killing him.  

“Fuck.”  

He dragged his feet to the bedroom to find something half decent to wear.  

***

It had been a less than ideal start to your day.  

The children’s reading presentation at the library got a little out of hand when the speaker – a local theater student – got caught up in the voices and scared half of the toddlers to tears as he took some interesting liberties with The Cat in the Hat.

Then, a rather unpleasant woman yelled at you for twenty minutes about a man sleeping on the bench outside the near the entrance as if it were a personal affront that this man, a little down on his luck, dared to catch a few minutes of sleep in a public place.  

The internet was shotty all day, leaving a few college students red in the face and with fat tears matching those of the toddlers in the next room over when hours' worth of work had suddenly disappeared in front of their eyes.  

And of course – the teenagers. A band of four boys who hid under the brim of baseball caps with skateboards tucked under their arms, who found it rather amusing to stalk out the adult section and flip through the sorts of novels with bare chested men on the cover until their snickering could be heard from the floor below.  

It warranted a coffee, at least.  

The only solace was that it was Sunday. Your favorite day of the week. It meant a few hours at the VA and catching up with the guys. You hadn’t seen Natasha in a while and you were hoping to see how her new job at the security firm had gone. She was exceptionally qualified and you were almost certain you had her interview answers memorized by the time you’d finished practicing together.  

But there was something different about this Sunday, something that left a few butterflies in your stomach where an easy contentment usually belonged. You were nervous, but there was an excitement, too.  

There’d be a new face in attendance.  

A beautiful face.  

A face that you imagined required a double take were you to see it for the first time on a busy street.  

“You’re smiling again there, darling.”

You looked up to find Mrs. Jefferson keeping a careful eye on you from over the top of her reading glasses. She wore a smile upon her face, one that blended into the laugh lines by her eyes. Her hand trembled with a familiar quiver as she reached up and slid the glasses off her nose. They rested comfortably on a purple beaded chain as they hung around her neck.  

“You always have so much going on inside that head of yours,” she quipped, chuckling to herself. She was a slow mover as she turned to the computer to begin typing in her code. “Have you checked out the books for the VA yet?”

“Already done,” you confirmed, your mind still a little in the clouds. Coffee would definitely need to be a requirement before you stepped foot in the VA.  

“Get a move on then,” Mrs. Jefferson said, gesturing to the door with a trembling hand. “I know you like to get donuts for the kids.”

You still had a few minutes left on shift, but Mrs. Jefferson was always so understanding. She had a son who was in the military once who saw about four tours. Always had a habit of going back, she’d said, like he was testing his luck. You weren’t sure how he’d died, but you knew he didn’t have the chance to go back for a fifth.  

She was a part of a group no one wanted to be in: those who have lost someone to war. Membership cost was steep and there was no going back once it was paid. It was a lonely group, one far too many people occupied. Your own membership card was heavy in your pocket.  

You glanced toward the door. The sun was shining bright on the pavement. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”

She smiled. “Yes, of course, dear. Tell the boys I said hello.”

“Yes, ma’am!” you called as you gathered your things and the shoulder bag stuffed with books and quickly scurried out the door before another disaster could reel you back inside.  

The sun was warm on your skin and you took a minute to savor it before shoulders started to bump into you, forcing you off balance. You could see your breath in the autumn air, and still, the sun touched your cheeks and left behind a comfort there. Smile on your face, heavy bag draped over your shoulder, you resided to grab coffee and donuts at a café close to the VA before book club started.  

It was one you visited a few times before, right across the street from a painfully busy Starbucks. The quaint coffee shop was often empty inside, save for a few college students with headphones in, typing away at their laptops, and a regular you often saw nursing a black coffee by the front windows, watching the people as they walked by.  

It smelled of coffee beans as you stepped inside. Fresh. Aromatic. You took in a deep breath.  

“Ah, Y/n!” a voice called from the back in a thick Colombian accent. “It’s good to see you again!”

“Hi, Luciana,” you laughed as the woman who owned the shop rounded the corner behind the counter and ran out to give you a hug. She was a tiny woman, short and shout, but her hugs could render even a giant of a man to a puddle.  

“Donuts for your friends down at the VA again?” she asked, releasing you from her embrace, though she still managed to pinch your cheek on the way out.  

“Yes, please!”

“And coffee for yourself?”  

She knew you too well.  

“I could use a bit of a pick-me-up,” you admitted. She knew your order by heart.  

“You should see if that Sam wants to have some good coffee for a change at his next event instead of the bean water he serves our veterans now,” Luciana inquired as she pulled on a pair of gloves and began to stack your box with assorted donuts. She had that smile on her face you recognized well. She asked about Sam a lot.  

“I’ll be sure to get his thoughts,” you replied, trying to stifled a smile.  

“Have him come by,” she offered rather smoothly. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen his pretty face and I could use a little pick-me-up myself.”

She winked at you and set the box of donuts on the counter. Then, your coffee; lid pressed on top, cardboard around the edges to protect from heat. You reached for your wallet but she snuck her hand over the counter and grabbed your wrist.  

“No, no, not today, my dear. My treat.”

You parted your lips to protest but she shook her again.  

“Tell those kids to come visit me every once in a while, okay? I’ve got a discount for ‘em,” she offered, bright smile over painted red lips. She waved you off and you knew there was no arguing with her.  

“That’s very kind of you, Luciana. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.”  

“So will my business, dear.” There was that wink again.  

You laughed, heading for the door. “I’ll see you next week!”

The bell rang on your way out.  

The VA wasn’t more than a few blocks from Luciana’s, but the bag piled high with books was starting to weigh on your shoulder. It didn’t help that you had to weave expertly between the pedestrians to balance your coffee and the donut box, too; tourists walking about 10 mph too slow and locals stuck in their path with no qualms of shoving you out of their way if you managed to jump in their trajectory.  

As you approached the VA, the crowd began to disperse. There weren’t too many people who frequented this street as there was little more than the VA building itself to occupy the tourists. You were surprised to find a man standing in front of the doors, staring up at the building as if it offended him in some way.  

Dark brown hair tucked under a baseball cap, just barely peeking out at the nape of his neck. Right hand tucked deep into his pocket, rigid in his stance as he stared down the double doors. He was talking to himself, you realized, judging by the soft clouds of chilled air by his mouth.  

James Barnes.

Bucky.

A smile suddenly took over your face, enough that you had to bite down on the edge of your lip in an effort to suppress it. You’d hoped he would come, but Sam had talked about his friend Bucky long before you met him in the empty library of the VA a few days prior. He didn’t say ‘yes’ to much of anything and he seemed to be the sort of soldier that got left behind by the system when he returned home.  

But he was sweet. You could tell that just from the small interaction you’d had. Quiet. A little flustered. Maybe reserved. But he had beautiful eyes; blue, like they could capture even the faintest colors in the sky and the sweep of a current in the Mediterranean. He’d only barely lifted the corner of his lips to a smile that day and it left you wondering how lovely he was when it touched his eyes.  

“Bucky!” you called, moving a little quicker now as you approached, but he didn’t seem to hear you. Still focused on his staring match with the building, it seemed. For a moment, it seemed as though he might be turning to leave and your stomach twisted.  

You were nearly at his side, a little out of breath when you called his name again and it registered this time. Only, it must have startled him because an arm jutted out in your direction, knocking the coffee from your hands. You were too stunned to do much of anything about it as they coffee flung itself to the pavement, the contents spilling to the ground and over your sneakers. You clutched the box of donuts tight to your chest.  

Bucky froze, almost as still as a statue, his eyes focused on the coffee spilled on the sidewalk. His jaw clenched so tight you could see the muscle twitch and slowly, his eyes drew up to meet yours. He stared at you for a moment, mouth falling agape. His ears were burning red.  

Then, he seemed to come back to reality as he blinked a few times, his eyes darting from the shock on your face to the coffee on the sidewalk.  

“Y/n! Shit—fuck! I am—so sorry,” he started to ramble, his hand reaching out, though he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. “I didn’t realize you were-- fuck—”

“It’s alright, Bucky,” you tried to ease him, a laugh in your voice. “Don’t worry about it. Probably didn’t need the caffeine anyway.”  

“I should, um,” he looked around desperately, scanning the street for the nearest coffee shop, his hand clenching and releasing at his side in a repetitive squeeze. It was really sort of sweet. “Let me buy you a new one.”

You smiled at him and he softened a bit. “That’s really not necessary.”  

He gritted his teeth as you bent down to pick up the empty cup and shook the excess coffee off your shoes. They were old sneakers anyway and you were looking for a halfway decent excuse to get new ones. Then came a shy ex-soldier barreling in from the sky with a strong aversion to your coffee.  

“I knew this was a bad idea...”  

He was talking to himself, grumbling under his breath, and you realized why he was staring at the building for so long. You took a step closer to him, studying the way his chewed on the inside of his cheek and shoved his right hand into his pocket.  

“Is it?” you asked.

Blue eyes flickered to yours, brows furrowed. He didn’t think you’d heard him. “Sorry?”

You just smiled at him, shaking your head. You’d been working at the VA long enough to recognize the man behind the soldier; one who’d been beaten and bruised and left to waste the second he was dropped back on American soil. Constantly beating himself up, constantly wondering if he was doing the wrong thing and struggling to be the version of himself he was before the war.

“So, James Barnes,” you grinned, “you decide if you’re coming in or not? It’s a little chilly out here. Don’t want you catching a cold.”  

Bucky stared back at you, unsure. But you could see the tension easing off his shoulders. His right hand was hanging back at his side again as his eyes flickered up to the doors again.  

“Come on.” You smiled at him again and you noticed pretty quickly that he softened when you did that. It made your stomach flutter. You took a step forward, hoping he’d follow behind. “There’s shitty coffee inside we can share before book club starts.”  

“I don’t even know what you’re reading,” he admitted, that sweet nervousness taking over again.  

“You don’t need to,” you shrugged and his brow scrunched up again, confused. You glanced back at the doors. “Well, I’m going inside. I hope I see you there.”

With that, you turned and shouldered your way through the doors, donut box clutched tight to your chest. You waited by the entrance until you heard the soft grumble of a graveled voice outside, and then, footsteps as they approached the door.

You smiled.