#i’d say i hope you don’t think im weird and strange after this but weird and strange is such a wonderful thing to be so instead i hope you

[flowerxguts]

Hi I just wanted to say I loooveee your ocs so much 😭😭😭 they’re actually so cool and silly and awesome and im honestly going crazy 😭😭😭 your writing is really amazing !!! I’d love to hear more

i hope you know you literally just became my best friend with this ask.

THANK YOU SO SO MUCHHH AAAAHHHHHHHHH i’ve never had anyone who wasn’t already my friend comment about my ocs so this is so so special to me literally thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to read my fic + send me this it means so much to me AAHHH you just made me week <33333

my entire page is dedicated to my ocs so if you’re interested you can always scroll!! i post metas + snippets of fics/ ficlets + and a lottt of art. i’m always open to asks and explaining things because i’m well aware i don’t have a big explanation post with all my ocs and their universe (i’m working on that trust) honestly i’m open to any asks ever you can request anything you want and there’s a 99% chance i’ll do it

here’s an older fic of mine i never planned on posting (it takes place a few years before What Are We Gonna Do Now? which acts as a parallel of their relationship in this fic) in appreciation of your ask <33

——————— ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ OC FIC ☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙ ————————

“Eleanor?”

Dion can hear Damiens voice coming from behind him, the sound of footsteps accompanying. He doesn’t move from his hunched position over the roofs railing, not even to glance an acknowledgment to his friend.

In all honesty, Dion had heard him when he was climbing up the fire escape, but chose to blatantly ignore it, avoiding the inevitable emotional probing questions for as long as possible.

And Damien was, in fact, asking one of those questions. He was asking “what’s wrong?” or “what are you thinking about?” in a round-about way where he asked if the obvious answer to the question was right.

Usually, it would annoy Dion a bit, but tonight he is almost grateful that he doesn’t have to say her name himself.

Damien comes to stand next to him, leaning against the railing of the roof just as Dion is. He is looking at his friend expectantly, waiting for a direct answer. Dion just grunts in response, flicking the end of his lit cigarette.

Damien seems unphased by this, still determined to be there for him.

“She was your kid, man.”

Something within Dion aches, a heart string snaps. Eleanor wasn’t his daughter, not in her eyes.

He grimaces, an ugly feeling washing over him “She wasn’t my kid; She was my sister.”

Was.

He can feel the look Damien is giving him before he even looks over. Dion is lying. Anybody who ever met him would know this. After little delay he dares to dart a glance to his left and is immediately met with a pitiful look, raw with emotion.

He can’t find it within himself to argue, so he lowers his head in grief, resigning whatever rebuttal he had at the ready.

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

“You raised her.” Damien states, still attempting to back up his claim. He reaches over Dion, grabbing the cigarette for a moment.

Dion snorts, staring down to the sidewalk in front of their home, the gate is locked because no one else is coming home. Everyone who lives here is present. He scrunches his nose in disappointment, “Clearly not with enough common sense.”

Damien frowns. “You’re being hard on her, Dee.”

Neither say anything for a moment. Dion doesn’t want to talk, not really, but Damien’s here now to do just that, so he might as well not fight it. He’s too exhausted to anyways. And at least Damien had the decency to leave him alone for a few hours beforehand.

Dion’s ears twitch at the sound of a heavy sigh after about a minute or two of silence. The cigarette is returned to his hand and he’s grateful.

“…I’m not saying I agree with her, but…”

Damien pauses, looking at Dion as if though to test the waters. Dion is looking at him, open to hearing what he has to say, but now it seems as if he can’t get the words out.

Damien bows his head, voice much quieter than before, “I mean, if Elizabeth was right and our mom was… not how I remember,” he swallows, afraid at the very notion that he had twisted his own memory. Hesitant to admit the possibility that his sister could’ve had some justification for what she had done.

“…and she came back to me after all those years, saying she’s changed and wants another chance…” Damien looks up at Dion before continuing, pursuing eye contact. Dion can’t help but notice that his eye bags appear more prominent in the nights ambient lighting. He looks younger, smaller.

Desperate, his mind supplies, he needs you to understand this.

“I’d still fall for it.”

Dion’s aware of how his face changes, how he furrows his brows and his jaw hangs open in shock.

The declaration took him by surprise.

The truth is he doesn’t know the full extent of what Elizabeth had claimed about her and Damien’s mother, but to say that even if Elizabeth’s alleged justifications for killing their mother were true, that Damien would still risk it for a chance, was no less than horrifying. Dion’s thoughts run rampant, trying to fully digest the information and apply it to his sisters own situation.

Even after all the horrible things their mom had done, a childhood of nothing but neglect and drug use, choosing to ignore the way all her convict boyfriends would look at her daughter, barely even glancing in their direction, Eleanor had been hanging onto hope that she could have a mother. She wanted someone, older. To hold her, soothe her, teach her how to get by in the world. Someone who would love her unconditionally.

He had done all those things. He had raised her. There’s no reason she needs to run to anyone else for those things, he wants to scream.

Dion feels a surge of energy, but before he could shake his head and begin arguing, Damien cuts him off, turning his head away to hide his face.

“Fuck, man. What kid wouldn’t do anything to see their mom again? What person wouldn’t?”

“Me.” Dion spits, anger boiling to the surface. “I wish I’d gone the rest of my life without ever seeing her.”

Damien sighs, hands curling into fists. He is still not looking at his friend, head still turned off to the side. Something in his tone is pleading.

“Dion you knew your mom. Know her. Eleanor doesn’t. You protected her from it. And now she’s old enough to make the choice herself to stay. How old was she when you left with her?”

“Eight… maybe nine.” He responds thoughtfully.

When he looks to his left his eyes meet Damien’s.

Something within him clicks.

Damien had been in Eleanor’s situation in a way.

Dion had made the choice for Eleanor at the time. To take her away. When she was younger she didn’t want to leave, but she had listened to her older brother, because what else could she do? She trusted him, even if he hadn’t given her a reason at the time. She never really knew the reality of what their situation was because Dion wouldn’t let her. He did not regret that. Not in the slightest. But he can’t lie and claim that he’s denied his little sister the right to know their mother.

Damien’s older sister had taken their mother away, stealing the chance to know her entirely.

Damien understands Eleanor even better than he does in this circumstance, and it stings. While Damien and Eleanor’s situations weren’t the same, they bore similarities in one key factor: their older siblings hadn’t let them know their mother.

He wants to say that seeing the pain on Damien’s face now twists something in him. That the reminiscent plea in his eyes, the begging to be understood, reminding him so much of a younger version of Eleanor, makes him regret taking her. He stares, trying to change his own mind to no avail. He was right in what he had done. He knows that. He had to be right.

His eyes start to water, a new memory fizzling to the surface of his mind.

“The last thing I said to her was that she can’t come back.”

Damien gives a sympathetic smile, his tone is warm when his responds, “You didn’t mean that though, did you?”

“No, I didn’t. Not anymore.” He states. He had said it out of a place of childish anger.

“Well, she’ll come running back and when you see her you’ll hold her in your arms and it’ll all be forgotten.” The words are kind, spoken so softly they make the hair on the boys arms prick up.

“No.” Dion shakes his head, eyes downcast to the ground. He can’t forget this. Because he knows the voice in his head that keeps begging, after everything I sacrificed to save you, please stay, even after Eleanor has gone, will never go away. “I’ll take her in my arms but i’m not going to forget this.”

Damien isn’t smiling now, but the look in his eyes is still kind, “That’s enough.” he replies earnestly.

Dion doesn’t look at his friend. He stays silent, stuck in his head. His last interaction with his sister hadn’t been kind. And if somehow their mother was able to stay clean for her, would that be it? Would that be how it all ended between them?

“Hey,” Damien’s voice is so gentle you’d think he was talking to a wounded animal. He reaches out, warm palm pressing against the nape of his friends neck. His fingers wrap lightly around the base, thumb running over the shaved portion of his hair.

The physical connection pulls Dion from his spiral.

“You did everything you could for her. You protected her, but some things you just have to learn on your own. It’s out of your hands.”

After a moment his friends touch retracts and a long-forgotten cigarette is plucked from his hand.

“…I’d take the bitch to court if I could.”

It’s the truth. If he could have custody, have the legal justification to tell his mother that she has no right to the child he raised, he would. In a heartbeat. Even if it meant his life would never be his again.

It’s not like it ever was in the first place, a voice in his head muses.

He swallows, feeling guilty, because he knows he didn’t mind that. He’d give up his childhood a millions times, relive it all, if it meant Eleanor was safe, here, with him and not with her.

Damien barks a laugh, clearly not as emotionally preoccupied as Dion. He quickly slaps a hand over his mouth, then continues in a lighter tone.

“Yeah, the day we have enough money for a lawyer and aren’t living paycheck to paycheck.”

“Paycheck.” The statement is more than laughable to Dion, pulling him from his contemplative state, and causing his lips to curl into a disbelieving smile. “You’re a fucking dealer.”

“Okay,” Damien all but scoffs, though there’s a humored twinge he can’t seem to separate from his voice. When Dion glances Damien’s way he can see that he’s fighting a smile, trying his best to look dead serious. He fails, miserably so, breaking out into a full-toothed grin. It’s infectious. He meets Dions eyes, continuing, “well then, when my small business takes off, don’t expect me to pitch in.”

The two boys break out in a fit of laughter from the shear ridiculousness of the claim. Damien shushes him, clapping his arm and looking back towards the fire escape. The cigarette they’d been passing back and fourth rested between Dion’s fingers, burnt close to nothing. The low embers heat creeped up to the older boys fingers, though he didn’t stub it out. He sighed deeply, relishing in the pain a moment, breathing in and out. In and out. It grounded him, cleared his head.

The quiet drags on, and the air settles heavy around them, all previous joy having been fleeting.

In the distance what is likely a prostitute can be heard calling out to men, attempting to entice them with crude language. There’s loud laughter from nearby bars, as well as yelling, bar fights likely. Sirens, though relatively quiet, can be heard ringing from somewhere farther North.

For a moment, Dion almost thinks maybe it’s for the best she got out of here, and it hurts.

“I thought you promised Morgan you’d stop dealing.”

There’s a beat of silence, then two. Damien seems hesitant to answer. There’s a huff, not quite a laugh, but an exhale with some form of humor.

“I promised her I wasn’t going to be ‘fucking stupid’.” The way Damien says the words, there’s evident affection, but also very evident quotation. Hell, Dion can practically hear Morgan saying it. “Money is good right now. It’s getting us by comfortably.”

Dion doesn’t respond. Silence falls between the two once more.

The mood shifts gradually, an unspoken agreement of the conversations conclusion is reached.

Neither move for a minute or so, soaking in the others presence, the cold February breeze biting at their skin.

Dion continued looking out mindlessly at the town, his eyes having long blurred. He was too stuck in his own thoughts to care to refocus them. A million thoughts all following the general consensus of Eleanor was really all he could think.

While his conversation with Damien may have concluded, it didn’t mean he was able to stop thinking about it.

He’s pulled from his thoughts as his friend reaches over, wincing slightly as he grabs the burnt-to-nothing cigarette, stubbing it out on the rusted railing.

“Alright, I’m going to head in. Gotta get back before Morgan completely takes over my side, that is, if she hasn’t already.” Damien states with some degree of casualty.

Dion wants to smile. He does. He wants to give a knowing look to his friend, hell, make fun of him for how domesticated he is. But he doesn’t. He stays staring out at the illuminated town. One his sister was not in.

He registers the sound of receding footsteps, but still doesn’t make an effort to move. Mulling over the conversation, a thought suddenly rushes forefront to his mind.

“Damien.” he hears his voice before he can even think.

“Yeah?”

The brunette stops and turns around, curious.

“Are you using?”

They both understand wordlessly what he means: Are you shooting up? Because honestly Dion could care less about his friend getting high.

He turns his head back, eyebrows knit together. He chews on the inside of his cheek, fear bubbling inside him.

Damien’s face is straight. It’s rare to see him with an expression completely devoid of humor, or at least of a softer emotion. The air between the two is tight and all of a sudden it seems twenty degrees colder. Dion knows these words are heavier than a ton of bricks. He wishes he didn’t have to ask the question at all. He trusts him, but not enough to be sure he can help himself. Because if he is dealing again, who’s to say?

“No. I’m not.”

“Good.” Dion says, because there’s nothing else he can say.

He’ll take the words at face value. The last thing he can deal with right now is Damien losing his shit. If he was able to think before her spoke, maybe he wouldn’t have asked. But he asked. He wouldn’t have been able to sleep if he didn’t ask.

“Do I need to worry about that?” Damien asks, curtly nodding towards the stubbed out cigarette.

Dion follows his eyes, feeling his teeth automatically clamp down harder on his cheek, blood festering.

Of course he would notice.

There’s still no trace of emotion on his friends face, only an earnest look that reaches his eyes in a way that makes Dion feel sick. He wishes he could say that Damien was just saying this out of a place of anger, that he was only insulting him because he was the first to ask are you still an addict. He wishes he could say no.

“I wouldn’t dwell on it.”

Damien clicks his tongue, eyes roaming over Dion skeptically.

For a moment Dion is worried that he isn’t going to get out of this. That instead of grieving alone Damien wouldn’t leave, looking over his shoulder the whole night. Waiting. Maybe in silence, maybe with mundane conversation. Staring at the inside of his bicep when he thought Dion wasn’t looking, like any minute the scars would magically revert back to fresh wounds, start bleeding again.

“Well, you know where to find me.” Damien sighs, defeated.

“Yup.” The response is automatic, mindless. He feels relieved for a moment. He wants to care more, to appreciate his friends concern, but he can’t find it within himself right now.

“I’m serious, Dee. You wake my ass up if you need me.”

Dion pushes himself up a bit, no longer leaning his full weight on the railing. He hopes the action will mean something to Damien, that standing on his own two feet will somehow prove that he doesn’t need a crutch right now.

One hand remains on the bar of the railing.

“I promise.”

He’s finally looking at Damien head on, eyes fully taking in the worried look on his face. His friends lips are taut and lines have formed between his eyebrows. Damien’s shoulders are slouched in a defeated manner Dion can’t stand. Guilt washes over him, he looks down, unable to meet brown eyes. For a moment he considers, a million different options run through his head. He settles on one after a fair few seconds of deliberation.

Dion gives his softest smile back. He means it.

Damien nods, the smallest bit of relief finally tainting his lips.

He disappears to the side of the old building without another word, swinging himself over the edge and climbing down the fire escape.

Dion waits to hear his friend’s shoes hit the cold concrete of the buildings floors with a familiar thud, but no such sound comes. His eyebrows knit together after a moment of unpredicted silence. He didn’t hear a splat, meaning his friend thankfully hadn’t fallen off the side of the building, but why was he so quiet? It takes him a moment to piece together the logic, exhaustion slowing him down, but he exhales in amusement as he realizes: Morgan was sleeping.

It makes sense now. The hand over his mouth at his own abrupt laughter, shushing Dion’s, his overall hushed tone. Damien didn’t want to wake her up.

He really is in it bad.

Once he confirms his friend has safely made it inside, Dion rubs his eyes, the full weight exhaustion coming over him. He yawns, looking out at the town again, resuming his position.

The I love you is unspoken.

[zzencat]

Tarot Mini Reading Request

My initials: SR, Sabrina Rocha

17.06.2004

Sun-Moon-Mercury-Venus-Lilith Gemini ♊️

His Initials: RP, Rico P.

29.11.1991

Coworker at gastro, leader/shift supervisor 2nd in-command. Charismatic, hard to get to know personally. Problem-solver, strategic and professional. Great at teamwork. Gym rat. No hobbies. No faith in love or trust, but seems to be devoted to God (wears cross), always has his doppio espresso. Speaks Spanish and likes Shisha bars.

Green eyes, tall and very fit, beautiful smile. Blueish-greenish grey aura/vibes.

Sort of became a little more softie towards me. Caring when I don’t make him book food for my dinner (one of his tasks for the team), sometimes double-asking. Defending me from a disrespectful coworker on some occasions. Seemingly being closer to me at times. Or like that time he stared almost intensely at my eyes….and I tried to hold the stare until I looked down and away…shy as hell.

Last time we worked together, I gifted him a letter. Sort of love letter confessing that I like him more than just a coworker and inviting him to a coffee date. Also reassuring him I respect him a lot as a person and hope nothing will change after this if he feels uncomfortable or can’t reciprocate the feelings back. At the end telling a little more about me via a self-made quote and songs. A few drawings and scents (coffee, vanilla and lemongrass) on the letter and envelope.

What will the answer be or rely to be most likely? Positive, negative. Any other cards telling more, as it’s a short reading?

I’d be willing to expand on that through paying a little extra amount for more card pulls and energy-reading.

Thank you so much already!

sabrina sorry but does his surname happen to be…puerto?? nah nah im kidding 😂😂😂 my own lil jokes haha im playin

rico’s energy?

ok so…he kinda has a weird energy to him? it’s kinda strange. it’s like he’s putting on some sort of act or something or maybe he has to but yeah you’re right about him being hard to open up. he’s getting there yes, also correct.. but there’s something that’s going to be revealed and it will change everything. it was probably your little confession, but he’s taking everything into account. it’s also strange that i got deception like 3 times in the reading already. not in a bad way but like…hiding his true feelings? ik this is a little late so idk if he’s answered you yet, but in his mind he’ll try to keep things as peaceful and harmonious, at least at work. i will say that whatever the outcome is, you’ll try to keep yourself balanced and logical. it’s gonna be hard at work but you’ll try really, realllllly hard. you might hold back feelings or suppress some emotions. also i pulled some advice for you. again, whatever the outcome, make sure you don’t change yourself. love will come to you naturally. ALSO!!!! be very careful materially. don’t be sharing finances out so easily, NO MATTER WHO THEY ARE!!!!!!! very important. be careful of theft as well. be careful who you let in easily. if you’re already guarded and are an alert person, that’s going to do you some good for now. i think you’re a fair person or at least you want to act fairly. you might have some moments where you feel like you have to overcompensate or prove yourself and your worth, especially at this job. be careful that you don’t become greedy materially. AND if people know you’re a hardworker and they happen to know how much you make, even if it’s more than them maybe, be careful with that as well. i want you to be super cautious money wise. you’ll feel down at times and to deal with it, you could put that energy into work or other things, so make sure you rest yourself and give yourself time to sit down and process emotions sometimes ok? i don’t think you give up easily either so good on you! you’re just getting started hahah. and you are worthy alright? don’t ever doubt it.

i think there’s possibility for there to be a love connection (in the future)! it just probably won’t happen super soon bc of financial reasons. he could feel pretty stuck and unsure how to really move on from now. whatever the outcome, he doesn’t want there to be drama between you two or work. he’d like to keep everything civil. if he’s a little avoidant, it’s probably bc you’re taking steps to pursue him. not that he thinks it’s bad! he’s just kind of in that…uncertain period, esp emotionally. it’s not you tho! not your fault or anything. the good thing is that he’ll try to be nice about everything. maybe it won’t happen so soon, but there is definitely a chance for you in the future with this guy. it could also be an age thing, so maybe he’s waiting for you to be more financially stable or just ready in general. he could also be in that energy where if he pursues this relationship, he’s thinking about *everything* that could change in his life.

that’s all i have for you sabrina!! thank you for joining the game :)

[elderdragonblu]

Spoilers for the first two episodes of the new Life is a strange game so if you don’t want to see this then please scroll past to the bottom for my note :)

Sorry if it’s ranty I’m passionate

I absolutely hate how they took the game. In most parts.

My opinion of it is that the game and environment are so cool. Like the characters are cool and like the people and the college are interesting, but they shouldn’t have used max Caulfield for their main character. It’s what the original developers wanted and to have he in this new environment in a way that makes it feel unnatural to her character

Speaking of which. Her and Chloe’s breakup is entirely out of character for both, but Chloe especially. Chloe sending a letter and saying Max needs to stop living in the past and that she hopes she’ll live in the future with someone else?? GIRL. After we kill the whole town for you?? That’s not a trauma that takes a day to heal she probably didn’t have therapy road-tripping and how can she? Shes time traveling, what the fuck is she even supposed to say? Not to mention Chloe was stuck in the past when Max got to her with her father. Not that she can’t grieve for her dead dad, but jfc make the breakup believable. Chloe out of everyone should be able to understand MAX’S POSITION.

The texts messages are also weird? Like Chloe is a mix between immature and mature and tbf I haven’t seen much of them, but they’re just so weird. I won’t speak further, but it feels like… idk, the writers are fighting to figure out what they want with her. (Sidenote the desert picture got of her green hair and I personally fucked with it so).

Also people claiming that Victoria and Chloe are flirting are a jumping a little overboard. I’ve seen it only once and honestly like, maybe it is flirting, but I think it could also just as much be a hangout. Don’t take my word for it, tho. I’m not the most qualified to be talking so.

That’s partially why I think choosing Chloe’s death is just the easier option. Because they butchered her character so bad post-bae ending that I’d rather have Chloe dead and go date some other chick bc fuck that. I’d rather have an in character Max mourning the lost love of her life and what she had to give up then out of character Chloe breaking things off with Max.

Speaking of the new love interest, the only positive thing I’ll say on that and most of the game is that I actually really like Amanda. She seems really sweet. I like the characters, I like how they talk with Max. I wasn’t a huge fan of them earlier, but I think my issues were mostly that they felt like replacements of the old cast, which in some parts are true. I do like the dynamic, tho, and I do enjoy that Max is secretive abt her past and herself. Especially the trauma, it feels in character in some aspects.

I haven’t gotten far into the game, only most of chistes 1. So I won’t speak on the story much, but I have seen some characters that parallel Nathan and Jefferson so that’s making me worried. I just don’t want them to, and they’re already doing it, to just put life is strange 1 in front of us in a different font and that’s more expensive.

The close and style of Max have grown a little. I personally liked what they were building in the game and the comics. It’s not a huge deal to me, but I thought those styles helped stand out as a main character. Then again she’s essentially thirty I think in the game so maybe I’ll cut her some slack.

SPOILER END

As always, tho, please don’t harass anyone over the game. If they like it, that’s awesome!! Lis1 was a shit show in story too at times, im not saying the games are cinematic masterpieces. My problem is when creators take beloved characters and butcher their entire characters. Max and Chloe were fine before they were messed with. They were never meant to have a game after the storm for a reason. I wish they would’ve respected that.

However, I’ll be following the development of the game and probably write fix it fics again 💀

[simpjaes]

Hello 🥹 odd question but I’d really like to know your stance on this!

I worked for one Korean entertainment company where I interacted with some kpop artists including the boy group I was a big fan of back then multiple times (had professional and casual conversations with them, etc).

That being said, I did say ‘was’ meaning I don’t stan them anymore ;; And that’s not on them being bad or anything but after talking to them and just seeing them joking around with each member and like, just scrolling their phone during break time - just being normal (which is completely valid because idols are human!!) I just didn’t feel (?) the spark of wanting to stan them anymore or maybe I just felt weird that I was a fan of my co-workers (?) 🥹🥹🥹

I know I’m rambling but idk :’) If in the future, I was given a chance to work with enhypen, I don’t know if I would take it in case the emotions/feelings I get as a fan of enhypen would change or idk just dissipate like they did my previous group ;; I think if I were to only get to work with them once - it’d be okay because I don’t think they’ll remember after only meeting once 🥹 it’s another story if it were to happen a lot of times 😭

If you were put in that situation, would you take the chance to work with the boys? I’m genuinely curious! 🥺

Anyway! I really can’t wait for your sunghoon fic 🥹🩸Rest well and hope you feel better soon 🥺🤍

Ah, that's interesting.

I think it's pretty normal to work around celebrities and idols and realize that most of what fans see is a façade. After all, they are just people who do normal people things. I really don't think it's strange for the rose-colored glasses to come off upon seeing them in their own safe spaces.

I mean, i've met bands before (not k-pop mind you) and it made me completely stop listening to their music or looking at the members in any sort of way for various reasons. It's always a sad feeling to see who a person really is, but this is regarding weird behavior not normal behavior.

Scrolling phones and just being normal isn't necessarily something that would shatter my fantasies ngl. then again, i think it's good that you're not a super-stan working with these dudes. this is how we end up with malicious actions and the selling and stealing of personal items/information.

i'd actually advise against companies hiring stans of groups simply because there are a lot of things that can come of that. but if you're like me and able to be a casual stan upon being around said group (as in, not acting like a fucking weirdo towards them) then it would be fine ig?? if I ever got the chance to work with a band like enhypen, or any of my other fave groups, i think my feelings would change. i'd probably listen to them differently and view them differently due to a work relationship with them but I wouldn't necessarily stop enjoying them as a band. i'd probably stop writing fics tho because there's a huge difference between writing a character based on someone you've never met and writing about someone you'd come to know on a more personal level yknow? It would be too real at that point.

ofc, i would take any chance to meet the bands i love. i wouldn't go into it as a huge fan though. It would be a work thing, and the stanning would be secondary to how I speak with them.

im rambling a little bit but the point is, yes i believe my level of stannery would change after working with a band i love. but i don't think it would make me unstan. It would likely just have to happen for professional purposes.

After all, no one wants to work with someone that appears to be fucking obsessed with you, yknow? most people would be like "YES!!! THIS IS MY CHANCE TO FUCK [INSERT MEMBER HERE]" but my thought process would be more career driven i think??? like "omg this is gonna get my work out there!!!!!!! FINALLY!!!!!!!!! RECOGNITION!!! THANKS HOT GUYS WHO I HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT IN DETAIL!!!"

no fr, id delete every fic of enhypen i've ever written. the embarrassment would be next level.

BUT YEAH

:D

[taehyungfirst]

MAN i’ve been pretty on the fence about taehyung and jennie being real since the rumour originally started, mostly because it isn’t my business who he dates, and i just want him to be happy (also i’m a graphic designer/photo editor, and the original leaked photos had certain qualities that stood out as editing mistakes to me). i’ll be honest though, apart of me was relieved.. after he went to that possibly lgbt club in paris last summer, and all those photos he took with models came out, i noticed the speculation on his sexuality was at an all time high, and i was genuinely worried about him going to the military with those rumours surrounding him.. (to be clear, im lgbt myself, and would fully support him regardless of his sexuality, i just want him safe more than anything). but i feel like with every dating “update,” things become more and more WEIRD? we KNOW taehyung (and all the tannies) are extremely private regarding their personal lives, and they know HOW to be private. but it just seems like there is a steady influx of this dating content, and it somehow always coincides with blackpink’s activities (their comeback, the idol release, disbandment rumours..) and quite frankly, if jennie were posting the recent instagram photos as “confirmation,” i would think she and taehyung would’ve discussed it beforehand.. and i really don’t think taehyung would be okay with jennie posting those photos a day before jungkook’s first solo release, because i really doubt he would want his own dating life to be a distraction from his band mate’s accomplishment.. like we KNOW how important the rest of the tannies are to him.. this whole thing is just. really weird. i’d be more convinced they were dating if we hadn’t heard a peep since the first photo “leaks,” tbh. every time something new happens, i become less and less convinced this is a legitimate relationship.. and i’m not any kind of shipper haha, i am not actively looking for evidence to disprove this relationship. this whole thing is just… weird.

idk man. i’m not convinced either way, and it’s not my business who tae is dating (and i say this as someone who’s always liked blackpink and jennie, and wouldn’t have an issue with them actually dating). but the way this whole thing continues happening is just so, so strange, and i just worry about taehyung. i just hope he’s doing okay, regardless of what’s really going on. like. this is one HUNDRED percent me projecting also, and i’m aware of that, but in the celine photos that dropped right after the “hand holding pap walk,” he just… he looked like he was dealing with a lot. i just hope he’s okay.

venting here because i know you care about him and want him happy and safe too, so i thought you’d understand! thanks for letting me vent, haha.

wanna add to this that the articles abt yg, disbandment, and l//isa’s dating rumor disappeared and an article about tae and jennie just dropped straight to #1 trending… are we even surprised?

i agree with everything you said, all i want is him to be free from stalkers and from crazy narratives, i dont want his privacy invaded anymore and him being involved in companies tricks. all i care about is his safety his happiness and his artistry, thank you for sharing your thoughts anon! :)

[m1ckeyb3rry]

Oooooh icic! That definitely makes sense now that you mention it too I’m even more curious…if you got a request for a character that was really obscure or say you had 0 interest in would you reject it? Or would you just like grit your teeth and try to write something LOL I know before you said that both your Rin and Sae fics were requests (I think apologies if I remembered wrong) and you also had some Hiori requests too and iirc those characters were all kinda uhh “new” (for lack of a better term) to your usually characters..? And esp with the itoshi “hate” neutrality since they aren’t usually characters you’d write of your own volition, like imagine if someone requested igaguri or like ego what would happen? LMAO

I’m no fic writer but I remember when I had to write essays I’d slap out the first like two paragraphs keep writing and in the end I’d always go back to rewrite the first two because the flow of my writing established itself in the latter parts LOL yeah I think beginning parts are usually less refined on the first draft. At least for me, the inspiration ends up flowing midway through when I finally have a solid idea of what I’m going for HAHA

I’m genuinely hoping we get a lot more spinoff content generally….I know some series make more spinoff content after their series ends so I hope we continue getting more bllkverse expansion soon!!! I seriously wanna know what happened in the other stratums in NEL and the first selections too

Yeahhh it’s wild I think actually there’s a French version of the Bible??? Which is why I’m like what’s the English team doing LMAO Reo getting voted for all the good ones was hilarious like even everyone in bllk is like yup bros got it all (Isagi’s comment was FOUL LMFAOOO) and igaguri being last in everything HAHAHAHA

FR!!! Im just sitting here waiting for a Karasu awakening like PLEASE man has been sitting there busting his ass carrying the team please give him a chance!!!!

Also speaking of Karasu…..ok this is gonna be kinda really random but I actually stumbled upon one of @/i-am-not-strange’s posts but FOR THE LIFE OF ME I can’t press on their profile??? Either my fingers are broken and I’m pressing on something wrong or Tumblr is just flipping out but do you have my idea what art they’re referring to in their recent post about like Karasu and Hiori swapping bodies…? I’m sure it’s not canon but I can’t lie and say I’m not intrigued LOL I would go ask them myself but whenever I try to go to their profile it either a) does nothing b) crashes??? I’ve never had this happen before (like I’m on your profile just fine) but???? Anyways…sorry for having to ask you here LMAO and no worries in advance if you don’t know it just caught my eye LOL

-Karasu anon

honestly i feel like i always cook 10x more with characters i don’t like/am unfamiliar with…maybe because it pushes me out of my comfort zone so i’m more willing to experiment?? like i think the instrument and white butterfly were probably my fav things that i wrote for my event (and honorary mention to seabird because it’s so cutesy) and both were for characters i was unfamiliar with!! lowkey i think i could go crazy with an igaguri or ego fic LMAOAO imagine an ego fic where you know him at his peak as a soccer player and watch his downfall (bonus points if you’re friends with noel noa/connected to that weird ass dynamic somehow) OR an igaguri fic that plays into his weird religious trauma of being forced to be a monk if he can’t play soccer?? mostly it’s treated as a joke but what if it was taken seriously…PLSSSS i need to STFU why did i just genuinely come up with plots for EGO and IGAGURI 😭 suffice to say i would literally write for any character no matter how obscure/how little i personally care abt them 🤩 i try not to let my biases show in my writing either and hopefully i’m successful in that!! like my itoshi neutrality doesn’t rlly manifest in the fics i’ve written for them i think!! so even if someone requested for one of my opps i wouldn’t let my distaste impact how i write/how seriously i take the story

omg that ALWAYS happens to me whenever i do essays too!! that’s why i hated high school writing when our teachers made us write our thesis first…like yes i can write a thesis for you but i can guarantee that i won’t follow it and it’ll be entirely different by the time i submit it so it follows the contents of what i actually wrote vs what i INTEND to write!!

blue lock has SUCH an expansive cast and it’s also sooo popular as a manga so just from a business/financial standpoint it would make 0 sense not to do spin-off stuff!! like i’d even read a sae spin-off of him in spain if they don’t want to go through the bllk program again and want to focus on one of the itoshis…we’ve followed rin pretty closely and know his mentality pretty well so idt he needs a spin-off but depending on how in depth the main manga goes on sae i think a spin-off of him could be fun!! or like shidou or smth…OR AN EGO ORIGIN STORY SPINOFF OMG I’D DIE FOR THAT ACTUALLY like him and young noel noa and their rivalry?? i don’t even like ego that much but i think it would be cool to see his backstory be explored like that!! also an episode anri but we know we’re never getting that sadly

FRRR why is there a french version but not english?? maybe it’s because bllk isn’t as popular here yet?? hoping that changes with season 2 though…i’m not saying jjk fanbase levels of popular because that’s when you get the crazies but def bigger than what it is rn

THEY GAVE HIORI AN AWAKENING THEY CAN GIVE KARASU ONE TOO!! especially because he was so crucial to hiori’s awakening…like come on now kaneshiro be a good author and put some parallels between mr talented but doesn’t care and mr mediocre but works hard 😒

HAHA THAT’S SO WEIRD tumblr stays tweaking 😭 i was able to go on her profile fine so maybe there’s smth going on with your app?? honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a tumblr issue because for how old this app is it’s surprisingly unusable at times 🫣 maybe it’s working for me because she’s one of my mutuals?? idk 😰 also i know the post you’re referencing but do not know what art she was talking abt…i can send her an ask abt it and then link her response in the next ask of yours i answer and hopefully that works!! if not i could also add a screenshot into my answer LMAO

[holdinbacksecrets]

well, things have been weird... I think depression and anxiety has been hitting me hard this past week to the point of like chest pain, i think I'm very familiar with heartache lmao. I'm a senior now, finally made it to year 6 in med school, and currently in my first rotation, i don't know how to feel about that other than fear of my own incompetence and failure to compensate for it because I'm just so exhausted..

As for writing, i haven't done any for like close to at least 1 year, nothing, even poetry has been sparse, maybe max of 3 this whole year. It's like slow torture... it's like the first death described in black swan. I've been trying to plan a novel, but all i have is Pinterest boards for characters and a main idea of a plot and it doesn't seem that this year I'll be able to give it time because it's hectic and important and i also have my damn research on thalassemia patient's quality of life and whatnot.

Loneliness is suffocating as well, I don't know what to do with it, i blame it on adulthood and maturity, hell im 23 yet i feel like i have the loneliness of a vampire watching every loved one fade. there's not much to do about it. everyone's busy and i hate human connection as much as i crave it.

I thought by now you'd have relocated btw because it's been a while that you've been talking about it, also didn't you go back for masters or is my timeline of events wrong cuz trust me I don't even remember my name these days

hi friend 🤍

i’m sorry about the anxiety and depression. i certainly understand how hard both are to deal with. anything you can do to get even a little bit of relief? is therapy an option for you?

congratulations on making it to your senior year! that’s a wonderful accomplishment! i watch a few med student youtubers, and i’m so impressed by everything that you all do. it’s a fuck ton of work. is school a major catalyst for the anxiety and depression for you or more so other things you mentioned like human connection/loneliness? everything?

even if your plans for the book aren’t as far along as you were hoping they’d be, i still think it’s really cool that there are ideas dancing around in your head. they won’t just disappear either, so you can always dive back in when it feels right and the writing is coming. you’ll have to keep me updated on this. i feel you on the writing thing. i’ve finally been able to do some writing again after months of shitty work, but the longer it’s missing, the crazier us writers feel. i hope it comes back to you sooner rather than later. a year is a long time. idk if i’d ever write without music. it’s such a huge source of inspiration for me.

oh god… the loneliness. i’m so touch starved that i don’t know what to do with myself. a huge part of me wishes i could erase my dating experience last year bc absences following what that little supernova gave me are apparent as hell. i feel like my isolation from covid never really ended, and i’m still trying to move out of it and form friendships in closer proximity. hating human connection and craving it at the same time—felt. i consistently feel like i have to be a better version of myself first, but will i ever meet a version i’m satisfied with? there are always mental hurdles to navigate. do you have any friends in your med school program?

your last paragraph pierced my heart a little bit bc i too thought i’d be in a different city by now. i lasted in my grad program for three months. it was horrible. i took a class last summer, and i knew pretty early on that it was the wrong choice, but i still started the fall semester. i wanted to give it a sincere shot and not make a rash decision (i convinced myself it was rash but it was really my gut saying important things lol). maybe in the future i’ll go back to school and do something completely different. i kind of want to get an english degree, but the idea of doing another bachelor’s feels strange. i wanted to double major originally but didn’t. for now, i’m working a remote job i hate and constantly job searching for something else. i’m passionate about community engagement work and environmental justice, hoping i’ll find something. i still want to move to chicago. i’ll be there in september, and i’m hoping my time there will solidify feelings and desires about relocating.

[transientwordsmith]

Went to my room at 8, told myself i'd write for a bit, its now nearly 11 and im not done, nearly 3000 words later, a billion uquizzes later confirming that i am jon himself; i am absolutely vibrating

Self indulgent TMA self insert told in the style of recording. I also have no idea what the dates in the show are but this is supposed to take place after Jon was in that coma where he made a deal with death or whatever.

Jonathan "Archivist" "Jon" Sims, You (or whoever you want "you" to be) | ~3000 words

*recording begins*

*door creaking open, creaking shut*

[Receptionist]: Hi there, can I help you?

[You]: Hi, I need to speak with the archivist here?

[Receptionist]: I’m sorry, you’ll need to be more specific than that. We have quite a few archivists here at the Institute.

[You]: The best one, then.

[Receptionist]: Hmm…(they consider this for a moment.) Alright, I’ll fetch him for you. You can take a seat in there if you like.

*rustling of fabric*

*a chair is drawn out, scraping the floor loudly in an otherwise quiet room*

*crinkle of paper*

[Archivist]: (distant) …didn’t even ask who they were--ah. Hello.

[Receptionist]: (to you) This is the head archivist at the institute.

*boots click as they walk away*

[You]: (to the Archivist) Hello.

[Archivist]: Uh…what brings you to the Institute?

[You]: (chuckling to yourself) It’s kind of a long story. And a weird one, at that. If you’ll indulge me for a little while, I’ll leave here and never return at your request.

[Archivist]: Sure.

*another chair is drawn out loudly against the quiet room*

*more rustling fabric*

*something rigid is placed on the table*

[Archivist]: I hope you don’t mind if I record whatever it is you have to say. We get our fair share of…strange stories that I’d rather be able to recall than not.

[You]: That’s fine by me. I was already sort of aware of the Institutes association with the paranormal and such.

*tape recorder clicks*

[Archivist]: Statement of…

[You]: Y/n.

[Archivist]: regarding…

[You]: Strange experiences involving the idea of the Magnus Institute.

[Archivist]: Original statement recorded live from subject on the ninth of March, two thousand and nineteen. (To you) Whenever you’re ready.

[You]: (hesitant) I don’t really know where to begin with this. Well, I guess I do. (sigh) I guess I should just say it. This whole ordeal started this past summer, in the beginning of June. I was fine one day, and then the next day, something felt different. I had always felt satisfaction in knowing all there was to know about something I was interested in, but after that date, it felt more like satiation rather than satisfaction. And I can say that in confidence because I spent many a sleepless night thinking about it.

In addition to the newfound satiation from learning, I also began to see…eyes. Everywhere. I was never that put off by eyes in general, I mean, hell, I have two of them, but it felt like an explosion of eyes. I thought at first it might have been Baader-Meinhof syndrome, but then I realized eyes weren’t new to me.

Another thing was that I started seeing the word Magnus pop up everywhere. This one was especially creepy to me. I had read the Magnus Chase series some years back and had the books on my shelf. The more I tried to ignore all of the eyes and the Magnus bullshit, the more likely I was to trip on one of those damn books in the middle of the night. It felt like Magnus Chase himself was out to get me. It actually worked in my favor, though. That’s how I found your Institute. But more on that later.

The last thing to start happening, and the strangest by far was all of the recording. My phone would just start recording sometimes. It would start and stop like it was being operated by someone. I choose to treat this ghost operator like a friend.

[Archivist]: Is it on now?

[You]: Yup.

*rustle of fabric*

*rigid item being placed on a flat surface*

[Archivist]: When did all this start?

*the tape recording begins to get staticky*

*the phone recording begins to have lots of snow and glitching voices*

[You]: I said. Last June.

[Archivist]: But when? What date?

[You]: Um…The 5th or 6th, I suppose. I’m not quite sure the exact date.

*static and glitches end*

[You]: Should I continue? (pause) Great. As I said, the appearance of the word Magnus everywhere was not limited to anything. Every guy named Magnus was commenting on my online posts. Any organization with Magnus in the name was coming up in my feed. Hell, even my top recommended artists on Spotify were people named Magnus.

Anyway, one day I opened my web browser and there was an article on the front page about paranormal activity. It mentioned some American media like Buzzfeed Unsolved, but also Ghost Hunt UK, and finally it mentioned the Magnus Institute at the end of the article as the UK hub for all things paranormal and creepy. They also mentioned that all of the employees were quite elusive and not likely to allow the general pubic to read their files. I see they’re somewhat right about all that.

That night, though, I had a strange dream. I often have dreams that make no sense, but this one felt like a warning or a call. I remember, in the dream, I flew to London. Then, I came here and spoke to someone who, now that I think about it, looked remarkably like you. And then the eyes started to show up and before I knew it everything was covered in eyes. That’s really all that matters anyway from that dream.

[Archivist]: There’s more?

[You]: The rest of the dream entails a strange sort of grocery-store police chase and then everyone ended up jumping off the side of a boat.

[Archivist]: …Interesting. Ever tried dream interpretation?

[You]: I don’t want to know what the rest of that dream means. The most important part was clear enough to me: something was telling me to meet you in London. So I made the arrangements, and I came to the Institute. And now I’m here.

[Archivist]: (bemused) I was expecting that story to be a bit…

[You]: More exciting?

[Archivist]: I suppose. Maybe a bit gorier as well.

[You]: Apologies. I could add some gore if you’d like?

[Archivist]: No! No, that’s…it’s fine as it is. I do have a few questions though, that may seem a bit…strange.

[You]: You think I care about some strange questions after seeing eyes everywhere for months?

[Archivist]: Touche’. (inhale) Have you ever experienced the ability to draw any sort of information out of someone, no matter how cagey they may be?

[You]: (heh) I guess you were right, that is certainly an interesting question. Uh, I can’t think that I’ve ever done that on purpose, though I like to think of myself as the type of person that people wouldn’t ever keep secrets from for no reason.

[Archivist]: Hmm…Have you ever experienced just…knowing things that you would not usually be able to know? Sort of like clairvoyance, in a way?

[You]: (scoffing) Clairvoyance is not real. I’m sorry, but as invested as I am in this institute and its paranormality, I do not believe in clairvoyance. No, I have never experienced that. Anyone who tells you that someone can see the future is probably too dumb to realize that the person is just really adept at reading body language and such.

[Archivist]: The pot calling the kettle black, don’t you think?

[You]: How do you mean?

[Archivist]: You just told me a story of books throwing themselves off shelves and how you arranged to meet me in London because of a dream.

*deep sigh*

[You]: I’m sorry.

[Archivist]: It’s alright. I was skeptical at first as well.

[You]: How does someone become the head archivist here being skeptical?

*static and glitches begin again*

[Archivist]: I was an an archival assistant to the archivist before me. After she passed, my boss, who really runs this place, appointed me to the position. Sometimes I feel like someone else might have been a better choice but I’m in too deep to have thoughts like that…

*static and glitches end*

[Archivist]: (sharp inhale) How did you do that?

[You]: Do what?

[Archivist]: You just compelled me!

[You]: Compelled you to do what?

[Archivist]: To answer your question. You drew the answer out of me.

[You]: I didn’t do anything. You answered on your own volition.

[Archivist]: (chuckling confusedly) No, I didn’t. You asked me a question, and I had to answer. I need to test something. Will you excuse me for a moment?

*a pause before the chair squeals against the floor*

*shoes slap against the archive floor*

[You]: (to no one) I don’t need two recordings of this…

*phone recording ends*

*phone recording begins*

[You]: I guess I do need two recordings of this.

*footsteps approach*

*papers rustle*

*rigid item is placed on the table*

[Archivist]: This isn’t usually something we do here at all, but I need to test something.

*paper slides*

[Archivist]: I’d like to ask you to read this statement on recording.

[You]:(weirded out) …Alright.

[Archivist]: Great. Let me just turn this off…

*tape recorder clicks off*

[Archivist]: If you could turn off your phone recording as well, please.

[You]: I’ll try--

*phone recording ends*

*tape recorder clicks on*

[Archivist]: Just as I said it.

[You]: I don’t remember how you said it.

[Archivist]: Just read it, then.

[You]: Fine. Statement of Amaya Reynolds regarding the disappearance of the Davidson Family. Original statement given on September twenty-third, two thousand and nine. Audio Recording by y/n, guest.

*pause*

[Archivist]: (whispers) Statement begins…

[You]: Oh--statement begins:

*tape recorder clicks on*

*phone recording begins*

[You]: Woah…

[Archivist]: That’s strange…continue on anyway. I’ll protect you if anything dangerous happens.

[You]: I can hold my own, but thank you. Uh, statement really begins, I guess.

When I met the Davidson’s, they were a completely normal family. They were right up until the week they disappeared. I had put up an classified advert for babysitting, and they were one of the first ones to call. They had a lovely little boy--Max was his name. I played all sorts of games with Max, and the parents seemed to like me well enough. I only saw him on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, but we were still pretty close. The strange part began about a week before they disappeared. I was playing with Max indoors that day because it was pretty wet outside. We were about to round the corner when he suddenly came to a stop and shushed me. I remember it vividly. This little boy, no older than eight was checking around the corner as if there was someone with a semi-automatic on the other side. I asked him why we had stopped. “She’s coming,” he had said. I asked him if he meant his mum, but he shook his head. I began to speculate if maybe his mother was pregnant, but I didn’t ask Max about that. I asked him after a minute or so if “she” was gone, but he said no, and that he would tell me. We ended up waiting at the corner for nearly ten whole minutes. Then, Max turned to me, and he seemed a completely different boy when he asked me “Amaya, what are we waiting for?” Needless to say, I was thoroughly spooked. I asked Max the next day (which was a Wednesday) if he remembered hiding behind the corner. He said no. I was pretty sure he was being honest and not contrary, but you can never tell. The important thing I remember about that day was around dinner time. I was preparing a place at the table for Max, since the table was fairly cluttered, and I remember clearing away some papers detailing the purchase of a house somewhere in Sussex by Mr. and Mrs. Davidson. They didn’t seem to be packing up their house, though. That Thursday was fairly normal. But I remember asking Mrs. Davidson if they were planning on moving soon. She told me no, and asked me why. I told her I just had a feeling. Max did feel a bit off that day, though. Usually, at the end of each day, especially a Thursday, he’d give me a big hug and tell me he would miss me. That day, though, he hid behind his parent’s legs and just gave me a shy wave. I brushed it off and figured I would ask him about it on Tuesday. Only when I knocked on the Davidson’s door on Tuesday, no one answered. I peeked in the window and the house looked completely empty. No furniture, no nothing. I looked on the lawn to see if there was a sign or anything but there was absolutely nothing. I decided to knock on the neighbor’s door and ask about it, but both neighboring houses said the same thing: There hadn’t been a family living in that house for years, and there were no Davidsons. I seemed to be the only one who remembered them. Even my own friends and family didn’t remember the Davidsons. I talked about Max endlessly to them because to me, he was the cutest little boy ever. But they said they’d never heard of this family. I guess I just pushed down my anxiety about it until recently because it never seemed to bother me all that much. A friend suggested I come here after I told him the story.

Um…statement ends.

[Archivist]: The archival assistants followed up on that one, and it seems that the Davidson’s truly did disappear. They were on the most recent census before then, and then never showed up again, at least in England. And that house that they bought doesn’t seem to exist anymore either. No Davidsons matching the description of this family own any property in Sussex.

*heavy breathing*

[Archivist]: How do you feel?

[You]: Like I took a shot of the strongest shit there is…

[Archivist]: That’s what I thought. Recording End.

*tape recorder clicks off*

[Archivist]: I have something to tell you. At the moment it’s basically a theory, but I’m very inclined to believe it.

[You]: Alright.

[Archivist]: To make a very, very, very long story short: in the world there are entities that draw power from primordial fears such as darkness or falling. The fear of being watched or of being known is one of them. That is the one that the head archivist here is usually the patron of. Unlike the other entities, though, there is usually only one patron to the Watcher at a time. One takes over when the previous one dies and all that. Other than one exception, this is how it has been, and how I assume it will be. However, I had a…run in with death as one might say in the early hours of June 6th this past year. Clinically, I died for a few minutes and was in a coma for months afterward. The Watcher might have chosen a new patron during the time I was dead, not anticipating that I would pull through.

[You]: Like Buffy and Faith.

[Archivist]: What?

[You]: From Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Usually there’s only one slayer, Buffy, but she dies once and then comes back to life, and while she was dead, a new slayer appeared even though she was only dead for like 30 seconds.

[Archivist]: Uh…sure, then. Like Buffy and Faith.

[You]: Oh…but that makes me Faith. Sorry about that. I’ll try to not be evil and everything.

[Archivist]: Thanks. (he inhales to start a sentence, but stops himself; then starts again) Is that a CV?

[You]: This? Oh…yeah.

*paper rustling*

[Archivist]: Were you going to apply for a job here?

[You]: Yeah…but it was really on a whim…I guess that’s kind of obvious though seeing as it’s handwritten…

[Archivist]: Well, I mean with all the present information out in the open, I’d be willing to look this over and present it to my boss who is the real hiring manager…

[You]: Really?

[Archivist]: Well…if this were a normal job I would of course, but I should warn you if you are serious about this.

[You]: Excuse my bluntness, but you just told me essentially that magic of sorts is real. And that anything paranormal could have a legitimate explanation in a domain I didn’t even know about until a minute ago. And you also just told me you almost died and that’s why I’m here. And also no one is talking in here. Or if they are, it’s really quiet. That is not the sound of a lively, fun work environment.

*pause*

[You]: I have the feeling that you’re about to tell me that taking a job here is a death sentence. And I’m not suicidal, but reading that file felt amazing. I would love to learn everything there is to know about these primordial fear entities just for the sake of knowing, and maybe as a little side-quest, try to organize this place. It does not look organized at all.

[Archivist]: It’s not, but it’s better that way. (pause) It really is, I promise.

[You]: Right. Anyway, where do I sign?

[Archivist]: I think you might want to take back that bit about not being suicidal.

*tape recorder clicks off*

*phone recording ends*

[iamfabiloz]

hi hello I’ve finished my blossomdove fic wooo!! It’s pretty long and I put lots of love (hehe) into it and I hope u enjoy it :)!! If you do read it please leave a comment or rb and tell me wat u think! :} specific comments rlly help my motivation and make me happy bc im like omg u read my thing!!

This story takes place after bramblestars storm, in the inbetween time before the apprentices quest. There might be inconsistencies but I do hope u like it anyways lol! Also in this thing, bumblestripe and Dovewing never courted or anything I threw that out the window lmao

Also I did make all the thoughts italic when I was writing this in the notes app but sadly it did not stay italic when i copy pasted that here so just be aware KWKW non quotation mark stuff blossomfall says is her thoughts oki got that, good!

Without further ado, I hope u enjoy!

Blossomfall felt the warm glow of greenleaf sunlight on her pelt as it filtered through the den entrance. Is it morning already? It must be if it’s reaching me all the way over here. She turned over in her nest with a grunt. Her whole body ached but she blinked rapidly anyways.

Might as well be up when Squirrelflight assigns patrols for the day.

Hmmph, I hope I don’t get sent out on a border patrol. I don’t really feel like seeing those WindClan furballs. I’d rather catch a squirrel.

Making a mental checklist in her head, Blossomfall reviewed what she had to do today.

Briarlight said she wanted to try a robin, I’ll have to go hunting today to get one for her. Bramblestar said Molewhisker and Cherryfall scented a fox near ShadowClan, so no way I’m going near there. Bumblestripe said he wanted to catch a rabbit. I’ll have to be there to drag him away, before the stupid mouse-brain starts a war with WindClan. Rosepetal asked me if I wanted to go check out an abandoned badger den, the scatter-brained idiot. She says she wants to be deputy but then pulls kit stuff like that! If I have to cover her tail one more time…

I wonder if she’ll settle for a normal hunting session. Oh and I have to collect moss for Briar and Bumble’s nests and check it over for thorns.

Feeling satisfied with today’s activities, Blossomfall was about to get up to stretch when she felt a furry bundle brush her side. Confused, she turned to looked at what or who was next to her.

Oh.

Blossomfall’s denmate, Dovewing was curled up next to Blossomfall, her pelt brushing the tortoiseshell’s frame. Dovewing’s paws were twitching slightly and her fluffy tail was bristling. Her brow was furrowed, as if upset. She looks kind of cute, Blossomfall thought but than immediately took it back. Shut up, she growled in her mind. Don’t be weird. She’s just laying there.

The gray she-cat lay on the ground, no nest beneath her. Did she just pick herself up in the middle of the night and settle here? Blossomfall queried. She had never really known what to label Dovewing as. Friend? Sister of a friend? Cr-Clanmate? She always seemed kind of distant in a way, like she wasn’t fully there. She was a brilliant warrior though. One of the best hunters Blossomfall knew. Her sharp ears and nose could pick out a mouse in a blizzard. Blossomfall admired that greatly. Yet something about the she-cat was off. Is it me? Dovewing was a perfectly good cat, with her soft gray fur and pretty green eyes and her amazing hunting skills. She and Blossomfall had always gotten along, at least Blossomfall thought so. It was a clan-matey sort of relationship but Blossomfall felt like … something else. Maybe Blossomfall was feeling at her wrong. Some unknown emotion tossed about in her belly, light-hearted and strange. I want to get to know her better, she finally decided.

Feeling awkward, Blossomfall sat deathly still, afraid to move and wake up her sleeping denmate. Come on, stop being a kit about this, you bug-brain.

Feeling too warm beneath her pelt, Blossomfall tried to shift away but Dovewing let out a tiny hiss. Blossomfall blinked in surprise. Was that directed at me? Have I woken her up? Blossomfall wondered. But as she looked closer, Dovewing’s eyes were still closed, but her claws were out. She’s having a bad dream, Blossomfall realized.

Gently, Blossomfall laid her tail on Dovewing’s spine. She stroked it softly, trying to murmur something comforting like Millie would do when she was a kit.

“It’s alright. It’s only a dream.” Blossomfall mumbled, quite unconvincingly.

Blossomfall felt Dovewing relax under her touch. Dovewing’s claws sheathed and her face softened. A tiny spark of emotion clawed at the former Dark Forest trainee’s belly. Blossomfall wanted to get up and shove her way out of the den but she didn’t for some reason. Instead, to the dismay of her screeching mind, Blossomfall stayed. Blossomfall felt her paws go numb after several minutes, but she didn’t care.

Why do I want this?

Blossomfall stayed like that for what seemed like at least an hour. Dovewing’s warm pelt pressed against hers, and her frame twitched from time to time. Blossomfall felt trapped, yet she didn’t want to leave. Not yet, her terrified mind hissed. This is nice.

No it’s not! Blossomfall tried to protest, but

she also didn’t budge and didn’t make any attempt to leave.

Blossomfall twitched her burning ears. She could hear the sound of paw steps getting closer and closer. Feeling very glad she was at the back of the den, Blossomfall hovered her tail protectively over Dovewing’s back.

Squirrelflight’s ginger head popped into the den. Blossomfall felt her tail bush and curl over Dovewing’s side. Frozen, Blossomfall stared with wide eyes and wondered if she wished hard enough, she could melt into the floor and disappear forever. What is wrong with me?

Squirrelflight looked around at the snoozing cats in the den and let out a small purr.

“Sleepyheads.” She murmured and left. Blossomfall felt a tiny stab of indignation but didn’t move. She didn’t see us- me. Dovewing turned over, and Blossomfall inched over a smidge so that they were comfortably resting against each other again. Dovewing’s eyes were still shut, and her flank rose up and down as she slept.

Blossomfall slowly sank her head down onto her paws, trying not to tremble. My brain has turned to thistlefluff! I’m sappier than a maple tree. I should be up and tending to my duties. But her head began to feel heavy again and her eyelids drooped. I woke up too early.

Blossomfall’s checklist forgotten, she tucked her paws in and let herself drift off to sleep. A couple more minutes can’t hurt…

Blossomfall awoke with the feeling of falling but never hitting the ground. She stretched her front paws out, her body adjusting to suddenly being awake. The warm weight of Dovewing was gone from her side, and Blossomfall repressed the stab of sadness she felt afterwards. Shut up, stop it, she told herself angrily. You’re being sad over nothing.

Blinking blearily, her eyes focused at last. Most of the cats around her were gone, probably out patrolling or hunting. Ack, how long was I out? She turned to leave, but then stiffened. Dovewing was sitting only a few pawsteps away. She was bent down, grooming her ruffled flank. She looked up at Blossomfall and smiled. Blossomfall wondered if the other she-cat could hear her heart explode.

“Oh hi Blossomfall!” Dovewing meowed cheerily, waving her tail. “I slept near your nest last night because rain was dripping onto my head in my usual spot. There was a hole in the roof above me. I hope I didn’t bother you. Ivypool says I fidget in my sleep.” Dovewing’s green eyes glowed in the dimly lit den. They’re leaf green, Blossomfall noted, and very sparkly.

Blossomfall almost gagged at herself. What am I, a feather-headed sparrow?

Dovewing shifted her paws.

Oh fox-dung she’s waiting for me to say something! Blossomfall realized in terror, her belly lurching.

“I-uh, your good.” Blossomfall mumbled, feeling her stomach twist into a knot.

“I slept fine, I didn’t even notice.”

Dovewing brightened. “Oh great! Uhm, could I sleep here for a few nights? Brackenfur is busy patching up the elder’s den and he’s probably too busy right now to fix a little thing like this.” Blossomfall flicked her ears foward, feeling her heart lift a little.

“I-yeah sure. That’s fine with me.” Blossomfall dipped her head, clamping her jaws shut before she could say something else mouse-brained.

Dovewing purred and leaned over to touch her muzzle to Blossomfall’s shoulder. Blossomfall’s mind screeched and whirled, but Blossomfall forced her body to stand still.

STOP IT, STOP IT. FOR STARCLAN’S SAKE, ACT LIKE A NORMAL CAT, she yelled at herself in her treacherous head, but her brain continued to spin in circles, trying desperately to process the event. It’s just a clan-mate thing to do that’s all, stop finding meaning in everything.

“Thanks Blossomfall, that means a lot.” Dovewing’s gentle voice broke Blossomfall out of her mind’s internal melt-down.

“Mmhm yeah, no problem,” she managed to choke out, trying desperately to keep her neck fur from trembling.

Dovewing pulled away, and Blossomfall found herself less angry at the flicker of sadness that stabbed her again.

Dovewing stared at her for second, seemingly analyzing something, before she licked her paw and drew it over her ear. She stuck out her tongue slightly, and shook out her thick gray fur. Cute, Blossomfall thought before she could stop herself.

I should get out of here before my brain completely turns to mush, she thought but didn’t turn to leave. Instead, she decided to groom her own pelt. I probably look like I was dragged through thorns backwards!

Blossomfall bent down and smoothed the stuck up fur on her side, seeing Dovewing do the same out of the corner of her eye. Hm, that’s kinda funny.

As she finished licking the front of her pelt, she twisted her head around and saw she still had messy fur on her spine and flank. Hrm, I’m not as flexible as Dovewing is. Usually, Bumblestripe helps smooth down my fur. He says I need it, she recalled, snorting internally. Bumble’s always saying my face is like a Twoleg mood ring and that my fur should reflect that! Cheeky fur for brains! As if his use of Twoleg vocabulary didn’t make him insufferable enough! Poor Stormcloud, he must have been exhausted after all Bumble’s questioning. I don’t see why he didn’t just ask Millie, she used to be a kittypet too. I saw Briar bring Stormcloud a mouse after Bumblestripe left, and Storm looked like HE was the one who got pulled through a thorn barrier. I’m sure Millie would have taken Bumble’s question session better. Though she grumbled internally about her brother, she looked around fondly, searching for any signs of his gray and black pelt. Most of the nests were empty, including Bumblestripe’s.

Off to start fights early, eh? I guess I’ll just be walking around today with the fur on my butt looking like I sat on a bramble. Typical. I really need someone to help me reel in Bumblestripe or he’s going to be the death of me someday.

“Need help?” Dovewing asked, making Blossomfall’s heart jump.

It took Blossomfall a dreadfully slow heartbeat to realize she meant with grooming her fur and not with sticking Bumblestripe into an badger hole.

“Uh sure, thanks.” She responded, nervously padding over to stand close to the gray she-cat. Dovewing mrrowed in amusement.

“Did you sit on thicket or something?” she joked, pressing her nose to Blossomfall’s side.

Blossomfall felt her pelt burn madly and she let out a half-hearted purr.

“My fur seems to have a mind of its own. I can never keep it smoothed down for a whole day. Stupid thing thinks it’s the boss of me!”

Dovewing chortled, bringing her paw to her muzzle as she laughed.

Blossomfall felt like she had caught the biggest squirrel in the forest. Relaxing, she pressed closer to Dovewing, letting herself breathe out softly.

“Bumblestripe usually helps me groom my fur,” she meowed. “But today it looks like he left to get himself put on tick duty for the next six moons.”

Dovewing let out a overdramatic gasp. “What is he doing this time?” She purred.

“The cheeky furball wants to catch a rabbit and he’s probably going to get the whole of WindClan chasing after him by midday.” Blossomfall replied, raising her tail.

Dovewing snorted and smiled. She looked wistful, but then her eyes gleamed mischievously.

“I bet you a mouse he comes home wailing, without so much as a sniff of a rabbit.” she teased, resting her head on Blossomfall’s back. Emotion surged though Blossomfall’s chest, nearly knocking her off her paws. Blossomfall purred, louder than she intended, but she didn’t even mind at this point.

“I bet you a dove he comes home with a rabbit and a patrol from WindClan.” she meowed back, hardly even believing herself as she rested her tail on Dovewing’s side.

“Real original,” Dovewing mewed heartily, her eyes gleaming with amusement.

Blossomfall dared to bump Dovewing’s shoulder teasingly with her nose.

“I believe you said you were going to help me with my fur?” Blossomfall meowed, silently hoping she had said it in a joking manner.

“Oh yeah oops! Sorry I got distracted.” Dovewing replied, suddenly looking shy.

Blossomfall simply nodded and stood still, letting Dovewing lick at the fur on her spine. It was kind of … soothing. She stood there, as still as a tree, as Dovewing groomed her dappled tortoiseshell fur. The smoky gray she-cat smoothed down the last of Blossomfall’s tufty fur and nudged her shoulder with her muzzle again to let Blossomfall know she was done.

“Er, thanks Dovewing.” Blossomfall meowed quietly, feeling her pelt heat up again. That seemed to be a common occurrence today.

“Don’t mention it.” Dovewing mewed, brushing her cheek against Blossomfall’s side.

She turned to the den entrance and flicked her tail, beckoning for the other cat to follow. Before Blossomfall could fully process the motion, she felt her paws pad after her. They stepped out of the den, and Blossomfall squinted as the dazzling sunlight hit her face.

“Wanna go talk to Squirrelflight? Might as well get our duties out of the way.” Dovewing asked, tipping her head to one side.

Blossomfall nodded in agreement.

“Good idea. I wanna get some stuff done after patrols.”

Dovewing’s purring made Blossomfall’s chest glow and the tortoiseshell and white she-cat raised her head, feeling pleased.

Maybe I should ask her if she wants to join me on any patrols I get assigned. Blossomfall thought hopefully. Huh, what? She suddenly snapped at herself. Suddenly aware of the haze she was in, a tiny knot of nervousness began to tighten in her belly. Blossomfall’s whole pelt felt off and not hers, and her paws felt strangely light. I feel good-weird, she huffed in her head.

I want to stay like this.

Feeling puzzled at her own thoughts, Blossomfall suddenly realized Dovewing was meowing something in the background.

“Helloo, Earth to Blossomfall?” Dovewing said, her tone teasing but slightly concerned.

“Oh hm? Sorry I was just thinking about something.” Blossomfall said, licking her chest fur in embarrassment.

“It’s alright, I get it.” Dovewing meowed, padding over to rest her tail tip on Blossomfall’s shoulder. It sent Blossomfall’s heart spinning, and she struggled to keep an automatic purr from rising in her throat.

If you keep melting at everything she does to you, she’s going to notice eventually.

Well I don’t care, Blossomfall snapped at herself. Yeesh, what’s gotten into me? Well whatever, I need to pay attention to her now anyways.

“I was asking if you wanted to join me on any patrols Squirrelflight puts me on,” Dovewing was saying, her green eyes gleaming.

“If that’s alright with you of course, if it’s not that’s ok I can go find Ivy-“

“NO!” Blossomfall blurted, cutting off Dovewing, surprising herself and presumably the gray she-cat.

“I-I mean no it’s fine, I’d like to be with -go with you.” Blossomfall replied, stumbling over her words like a newborn kit. Great StarClan what have I done?! Blossomfall bemoaned in her head. Dovewing probably thinks I’m the weirdest thing since Twolegs. And she’s right. She’s totally right. I’m literally fine with everyone else, why am I being a feather-head with her? Though she lamented the reason in her mind, she struggled to say it out loud even in her own thoughts. Shut up, stop getting lost in your head, focus on her, she ordered herself.

Blossomfall hoped Dovewing didn’t see her staring into space every five seconds.

Shaking her head around, she tuned back into Dovewing’s words.

Dovewing was purring again and Blossomfall felt her stupid heart lift once more. Stop doing that, she groaned inwardly, but didn’t mean it, not really.

“Okay great! I’d be happy to hunt with you too!” Dovewing meowed a bit too loudly, her posture straightening considerably.

Realizing her volume, Dovewing shyly scuffled her paws and continued in a smaller voice.

“I-thanks Blossomfall.” she said again, a hint of another purr in her voice. She purrs a lot, that’s cute. SHUSH, AUGH WHAT IS IT WITH ME AND ‘CUTE’ TODAY. I could at least think of a slightly different word or something. How unoriginal of me, me.

“Uhm, yeah no problem!” Blossomfall replied, trying to grin in a friendly way but she probably just ended up looking like she really wanted to get out of the conversation. Which I do, I think? She thought for a second. No, not really, she quietly admitted to herself.

“You’re gonna owe me a dove by the end of the day remember?” Dovewing said, her brow raised teasingly. Blossomfall’s paws felt light all over again and she dared to mrrow in mock offense.

“Excuse you, I have some faith in my brother; which I will show by giving him that mouse YOU will owe me by the end of today!” Blossomfall hissed playfully, tossing her head back dramatically. Oh thistle and weeds, I hope I don’t look weird!

Dovewing laughed, a shrill lovely noise that made Blossomfall instantly forget about her worries.

“Well, we’ll see about that! Come on!”Dovewing turned her head, heading straight for Squirrelflight. Woah, I didn’t even see her over there, Blossomfall thought admiringly, her paws already moving to match Dovewing’s. She’s really observant.

The pair passed by Lionblaze and Cinderheart sharing a mouse, Ivypool chatting with Mousewhisker and Thornclaw, and Briarlight basking in the sun with a snoozing Jayfeather. Blossomfall’s other clan-mates were milling about camp, some leaving for patrols, others basking in the sun like Briar and Jay, and others standing around gossiping.

Dovewing waved her tail at her sister and quickly darted over to say hello, before returning to Blossomfall and continuing their trek.

Blossomfall dipped her head in greeting as she passed her friends and quickly padded over to nudge Briarlight affectionately. Briarlight purred and Jayfeather grumbled something angrily about being awoken. I’m going to get her that robin! Blossomfall licked her littermate’s ear before mouthing, ‘gotta go’ and stepping back. Briar beamed mischievously at her, confusing Blossomfall. What? She turned to look at her friends.

Ivypool was grinning mysteriously and Mousewhisker’s eyes gleamed in a certain way that Blossomfall knew was because he had thought of something he found particularly hilarious. Thornclaw simply mouthed ‘nice’.

What the hell are these idiots doing? Blossomfall wondered in annoyance. She glared at the trio and Mousewhisker doubled over instantly. Blossomfall felt worried for split second before she realized he was trying hard not to laugh. Little hysterical wheezing noises were coming out out of his parted jaws. Hay-brained fool! Blossomfall thought furiously. Ivypool was patting his back with a paw, her face contorted strangely, presumably also trying not to burst into a fit of laughter. Thornclaw eyed the pair with disdain, but he was no better. Blossomfall could see his lips slightly twitching upward and his tail tip flicked back and forth.

What in StarClan’s name was that? Did I miss an inside joke or something? Feeling perturbed, she turned her attention back to Dovewing again. They finally reached the spot where Squirrelflight was hunched over.

The dark ginger deputy was at the fresh-kill pile, her eyes flicking over the prey and making indentations in the dirt. Probably making notes about the number of prey in the group and the patrols she’s sent out, Blossomfall mused approvingly.

Squirrelflight looked up, her paw still clawing into the ground.

“Oh hi Dovewing and … Blossomfall!” The deputy meowed, one of her green eyes twitching madly. Squirrelflight’s voice sounded husky and Blossomfall could see the dark circles under her eyes. Did she pull another all nighter? Blossomfall thought worriedly. I did see her pass by the den before, how long has she been up? Squirrelflight had the habit of staying up and finishing work for days on end, like the dedicated mouse-brain she was. She should really get Rosepetal to help more often, I know she wouldn’t mind it a bit.

“Hi Squirrelflight!” Dovewing meowed, breaking Blossomfall’s flow of thoughts. The gray warrior opened her maw to speak again, but then paused and was silent for a moment.

“Are you alright? Not to overstep your boundaries, but you look like you could use a good sleep.” Dovewing eyed the ginger she-cat worriedly.

“Hm, what? Oh I’m fine, just kinda-.” Squirrelflight was cut off by her jaws stretching wide in a huge yawn.

Right, and hedgehogs fly!

Blossomfall stepped towards Squirrelflight before Dovewing could meow comfortingly again.

“You should go rest, seriously.You clearly need it. A half dead deputy is no good for the clan.” And no good for yourself, you fur-brain.

“I’m fine.” the deputy grunted again, quite unconvincingly.

“I just need to … get these patrols sorted and count how much prey we’ll need for the next season. I have to take into account any kits that will be born or cats that will move into the elders den, multiply by two then-“ Squirrelflight was cut off by another yawn. She frowned and then narrowed her eyes, as if daring one of the younger cats to chastise her for it.

“Your working so hard already, why don’t you let someone else take care of it? Once you’ve had a good sleep than you can go back to your duties. If you keep up like this you’ll die!” Dovewing mewed, her voice rising with worry.

Squirrelflight raised an eyebrow. “I appreciate your concern Dovewing, but I believe you’re exaggerating. I am simply trying to be responsible.”

Dovewing looked at her for a moment and her lip quivered, but Blossomfall spoke first again. Oh StarClan, sorry!

“Squirrelflight, if you keep stretching yourself thin you’ll just end up getting less work done. Once your fully rested and recovered, you’ll be able to work more efficiently. Plus, the more tired you are the more like Rosepetal is going to be circling your position like a snake before a strike, and we both know how persistent that cat can be.”

They both turned to look at Rosepetal who was trailing after a terrified looking Bramblestar. The ThunderClan leader kept trying to quickly slip into his den but the dark cream warrior blocked him, her eyes pleading. She’s totally asking for more duties she could take on! What a leader’s pet! Blossomfall though, twitching her whiskers in amusement at her friend’s antics. She turned back to Squirrelflight and raised an eyebrow.

Squirrelflight looked thoughtful and slightly entertained, but still appeared like she wanted to keep arguing. Before Blossomfall could list another set of reasons why the deputy should get some damn sleep, Dovewing stepped foward blinked at Squirrelflight pleadingly.

If she looked at me like that I’d do anything she wanted, Blossomfall thought despite herself. Squirrelflight held her ground for a heartbeat, but then let out a defeated sign

“Hmph, well alright. I did promise Leafpool I’d hang out with her for a while in the medicine den. I’ll tell Bramblestar I’m talking a couple hours off.” Squirrelflight murmured, almost to herself. “If you see anyone heading out, tell them to report to Rosepetal. She’ll look over my list and write down when any cats come back with prey. She knows what to do.”

Rosepetal sure does! Blossomfall thought with a sniff. Glancing over at her friend again, the dark cream warrior was calling out for Bramblestar who had barricaded himself in his den with his nest. She could hear his faint, muffled cries for her to go away, but Rosepetal kept babbling on.

Tail-chaser! Blossomfall thought fondly. Rosepetal sure was … a cat. She was always eager to help her former mentor with her duties, much to to Squirrelflight’s chagrin. But Blossomfall knew that the ginger she-cat must appreciate her former apprentice’s help if she trusted her enough to tend to her checklist. Rosepetal seemed like the cat most likely to become deputy after Bramblestar kicked the bucket, which probably wasn’t for a long, long time. But it didn’t stop Rosepetal from fantasizing, Blossomfall knew, flashbacking to the several hundred times Rosepetal had stared longingly at the High Ledge or doodled in the dirt with a claw, drawings of ‘Rosestar The Most Epic and Wonderful Leader of ThunderClan.’

Blossomfall snapped back to reality just as the real grumpy deputy turned to leave, but then Squirrelflight swiveled her head back towards them.

“Did you need anything else? I don’t suppose you just wanted to check up on little old me?” she meowed dryly.

Blossomfall opened her jaws to speak but then turned to Dovewing. I cut her off before.

Dovewing blinked gratefully at her and turned back towards the deputy.

“Me and Blossomfall wanted to ask if we could go on a hunting patrol together.” Dovewing mewed softly. Blossomfall subconsciously leaned closer to the she-cat.

Squirrelflight twitched her whiskers for a second and then turned to stare directly into Blossomfall’s eyes making her jump in surprise.

What?

Squirrelflight had this funny look on her face, and she seemed more attentive than she had been just a moment ago.

Finally, she nodded and sniffed.

“Yeah sure, go ahead.”

She got up to her paws, and with one last sidelong glance at Blossomfall she turned and trotted in the direction of the leader’s den.

“Hey! Hey! Rosepetal! Leave Bramblestar alone; I’ve got a job for you.”

Blossomfall watched as Rosepetal dropped the stick she was using to break apart Bramblestar’s barricade. Rosepetal bounced excitedly on her paws as Squirrelflight began to talk, her grumpy meows too far away to be heard.

Blossomfall was still feeling quite disturbed at the interaction that had just taken place.

First my friends and sister, now the deputy? Weird!! What did I even do? Dovewing did you see that?

Blossomfall turned to look at Dovewing and stopped before she could say anything. The soft-furred she-cat was watching the deputy talk to Rosepetal. Her ears were angled towards them and her green eyes shimmered. It took all of Blossomfall’s will power to not think “ooo sparkly” again.

Dovewing then turned and smiled sweetly at Blossomfall, catching her off guard. Blossomfall’s face flushed and she sheepishly looked away.

Dovewing’s didn’t seem to mind, and she bumped against Blossomfall’s side happily.

“We did it! We got Squirrelflight to do the impossible and go to sleep! Well, partly but still!! Plus, we get to hunt alone together!” Alone. Together. “Or well, together I guess! No border patrols for us today!” Dovewing chirped.

“Come on, where do you want to go? I was thinking near the abandoned Twoleg nest or The Sky Oak. Though probably the Twoleg place would be better, I saw a nest of squirrels near there a few days ago.”

Blossomfall nodded along, trying to form cohesive, understandable thoughts, but her brain just felt like mouse dust.

The Twoleg nest. Let’s go there, I’ll be able to get some moss for Briarlight and on the way home maybe we’ll catch Bumblestripe running away after setting fire to half of WindClan for a bony rabbit. Also why did Squirrelflight give me that look? Was I supposed to do something? My friends and Briar too. What thing am I doing that they think is hysterical? Ah, I guess I’ll ask them all when we get back later. Cats can’t give me weird looks then not explain themselves, hmmph!

Finally feeling like she wasn’t a stumbling kit, Blossomfall spoke.

“I think we should go to the Twoleg nest. I’m in the mood for chasing squirrels, plus then I can get some moss for Briar. And maybe then we can go to the Sky Oak! We’ll get a good view to watch Bumblestripe run from all of WindClan.” she joked.

Dovewing nodded and giggled.

“I’d like to see that! Well kinda, except for the WindClan gets mad at us part.”

Blossomfall chortled and rolled her eyes. Should I have done that? Ack I cannot figure anything out, Blossomfall fussed.

But Dovewing’s eyes still shone and she tilted her head towards the camp exit. Blossomfall followed her through the bramble tunnel, very aware of the small space between their pelts. The light dimmed as they passed through. Before Blossomfall was completely inside the tunnel, she caught a glimpse of Thornclaw murmuring something in Birchfall’s ear. Both cats looked extremely amused and Blossomfall could see Ivypool and Mousewhisker standing next to them. Toad-heads and thistle thorns, have they all gotten bees in their brains?

Blossomfall was extremely tempted to stomp right up to them and ask what in StarClan’s name was going on, but she felt Dovewing’s tail brush her side, and she fell back. I guess I still have the end of the day to yell at them. Blossomfall turned her back and retreated into the tunnel.

All Blossomfall could hear was her own heavy pawsteps and Dovewing’s graceful ones. Feeling heated all of a sudden, Blossomfall quickened her pace. She burst out of the dark tunnel and Blossomfall took in a deep breath. Cool forest air swarmed her lungs and she sighed.

Dovewing raised her head, just as a gust of wind blew, ruffling her fur and causing her to sneeze.

“Just my luck!” Dovewing mrrowed, her gray fur now slightly ruffled. She still looks perfect- OKAY STOP. Blossomfall reprimanded herself. Where are these thoughts even coming from? Hello? Blossomfall thought helplessly.

“I can uh-help you groom your fur after we hunt if you want,” Blossomfall heard herself say, much to her horror. Go back, stop! Blossomfall hissed in her head.

But you want that don’t you? A voice whispered in the back of her mind. That’s why you’re offering.

Dovewing’s eyes softened and Blossomfall felt her venomous thoughts wash away like rain. “I’d like that.” She murmured softly, her green eyes meeting Blossomfall’s own. Blossomfall felt rooted in place, suddenly aware of her heart pounding madly in her chest. After a few heartbeats, Dovewing licked her chest fur and motioned for her to follow.

Blossomfall followed, feeling light-headed.

Did she just agree? She wants me to help groom her fur! Well, I guess that’s not so special, anyone could do that but… Whatever, it’s fine, it’s fine.

But her mind kept buzzing with thoughts, even as the pair reached the abandoned Twoleg nest. The soft grass under her paws was joined by weeds and twigs, becoming higher in quantity as she got closer and closer to the nest.

The place looked almost weirdly beautiful, with its chunks of claw marked wood scattered about and some sort of hard red material outlining the outside, forming it into a sort of square shape. Blossomfall and Dovewing stood at its entrance. Blossomfall could see her eyes darting around, taking in the sights. Abandoned rows of clumpy moss lay inside the frame, signs that there had once been cats staying there many moons ago. A tiny tree with drooping branches sat at the far back of the den, it seemed to be hundreds of years old, probably even older than Purdy! Okay, you did not have to call him out like that!

Some tiny yellow and red flowers were growing around the protruding roots of the tree, though they looked shriveled and malnourished. Despite that, a small patch of vital catmint was growing a few pawsteps away, tiny green shoots peeking shyly out of the stretch of rich dirt. It had been grown after the first outbreak of sickness in ThunderClan. It had happened when Blossomfall was only a tiny kit. Blossomfall had only faint memories of her mother and sister, Millie and Briarlight, being taken away to stay here after they had caught green-cough. Firestar had isolated all the sick cats, including himself, in this place. Twolegs had abandoned it many seasons ago for unknown reasons. Creepy, though I’d rather live here than in those cramped housefolk nests kittypets call home.

Pausing to sniff the air, Dovewing looked around.

“I smell the squirrels!” She whispered excitedly. Blossomfall nodded, starting to feel the rush of prey hunting thrum through her. We should flush them out before they eat the catmint!

Dovewing tilted her head towards the drooping tree. Two brown shapes were scuttling about at the base of the trunk. The two squirrels had their bushy tails kinked over their backs and were sniffing about, presumably looking for acorns. The two she-cats instinctively got into a hunting crouch, lowering themselves to the forest floor. Dovewing angled her ears, signaling for Blossomfall to go around the right side of the nest.

“I‘ll go around the left.” Dovewing whispered, quietly padding towards the other edge. Blossomfall nodded and focused her attention back to the squeaking rodents. We’re going to attack them from both sides! Blossomfall thought enthusiastically. Like a team!

Slowly, Blossomfall crept around the right side of the nest, careful not to step on crunchy twigs and strange Twoleg debris. Finally, she came into view of the squirrels. They were still chattering and picking at the ground, unaware of the two warriors creeping up on them. Blossomfall spotted Dovewing across from her, the she-cat

was ducking behind a splintered log. The warrior was bent low, so close to the ground that her belly fur brushed it. Dovewing’s eyes met her’s. She twitched her tail tip ever so slightly, now aware of Blossomfall’s presence. Blossomfall flicked her tail in response, energy fizzing through her pelt.

Dovewing beamed and then let out a hiss. She bounded foward and snatched one of the squirrels right off the ground. She clamped her jaws around its neck with a tiny crack. The other squirrel shrieked in alarm and headed for the tree, but the route was blocked by Dovewing. It turned and fled in the direction of Blossomfall’s waiting claws. She sprung, rolling the squirrel beneath her paws and nipping it’s neck swiftly. It fell limp, and she picked it up proudly.

Thought the hunt was over, Blossomfall felt a thrill run through her and she bounced on her paws like an overeager kit. Dovewing padded over her, the squirrel in her jaws slightly muffling her purr of amusement.

“I see yourf pleased wif our cathches?” Dovewing meowed, her mouth full of squirrel fur.

“Yes I am pleased wif it!” Blossomfall replied, her confidence boosted by their successful hunt.

Dovewing purred again, dropping her squirrel to the floor. Blossomfall did the same, nudging their catches together to be inspected. The squirrels were plump from eating well all greenleaf, their pelts smooth and well groomed. Even a squirrel can keep itself tidier than me, Blossomfall’s mind grumped, bitterly amused. Whatever, squirrels don’t have Dove-Bumblestripe to help them. She pushed the thought away. They were lucky to find such well-fed prey, soon it would be leaf-fall and pickings would start to get slim.

“Squirrelflight will be pleased!” Dovewing meowed, her eyes glowing warmly. “I bet she’s never seen a juicier squirrel than these two!” Blossomfall purred and nodded.

“We make quite the team. That leap you did was incredible! You scooped up that squirrel before it could even squeak!” Blossomfall complimented, blinking fondly at the gray she-cat. Oh, I hope I don’t sound too suck up-ish.

Dovewing shuffled her paws, looking bashful.

“Thanks Blossomfall, that means a lot. I really liked your catch too! That roll and nip move you did was really cool, you should show it to me sometime!” Dovewing mewed, raising her tail to rest it on Blossomfall’s shoulder.

Blossomfall felt herself grin and she nodded.

“I’d be happy to teach you.” Blossomfall meowed, ducking her head. Dovewing mrrowed and bumped Blossomfall’s shoulder with her muzzle again. Blossomfall felt a rush of fondness for the smoky gray cat, but she quickly regained her composure.

“I’d love that! Maybe in a few sunrises?” Dovewing asked peering at her hopefully. Blossomfall brightened and dipped her head.

“Sure, I’ll be prepared then.”

Dovewing’s chortled happily and turned to sniff at their prey again.

“Now let’s bury these squirrels and catch something else, ooo maybe a chaffinch! Or a jay! I told Jayfeather I’d bring him one.”

“A chaffinch?” Blossomfall pretended to not know what she meant.

“No, a jay, you feather-head!” Dovewing purred, playing along. She scraped a pawful of dirt and leaves over top their squirrels, and Blossomfall quickly followed suit.

“A jay for Jayfeather, how original.” Blossomfall meowed teasingly, wrinkling her nose.

“Birds and bird names are very cool!” Dovewing protested with a purr. “I am an unbiased source.” The smoky gray she-cat puffed out her chest and kinked her tail over her back.

Blossomfall rolled her eyes and sniffed.

“Yeah right!”

Dovewing purred as they finished burying their kills in the dirt. Blossomfall patted the top, making sure their catches were snug in the ground. Dovewing flicked her tail and Blossomfall followed. The pair continued their walk in comfortable silence.

Blossomfall gently rolled her two robins and mouse into the hole she had dug. Dovewing nudged her vole and blackbird into the ground as well.

“These are a good haul!” Blossomfall purred, pride warming her belly. Dovewing nodded in agreement. “Squirrelflight and the others will be impressed! Seven whole pieces of prey, and it’s just the two of us!” Dovewing’s tail twitched with excitement.

“No jay for Jayfeather though, oh the humanity!” Dovewing sighed dramatically. Blossomfall stifled a purr.

“You can just give him your squirrel! I bet he won’t be complaining when he’s eating that juicy bit!”

Dovewing grinned. “I guess your right! No one can resist a squirrel, not even Mr. I Hate Everything!”

Blossomfall watched her bounce on her paws, feeling warm despite the sunlight being blocked by the tree branches they were under. Who could resist that face?

They were sitting at the base of the Sky Oak, its wooden limbs looming over their heads like giant claws.

“Come on Dovewing, I said we would watch Bumblestripe’s demise from up here remember?”

“Oh yea!” Dovewing’s eyes shone with amusement.

Blossomfall turned towards the tree. She crouched and then gave a mighty leap. Landing with a thud on one of the low hanging branches she turned to look at Dovewing.

“Come on little legs!” Blossomfall teased with a wave of her tail.

Dovewing was watching, her eyes sparkling and own fluffy gray tail quivering. Blossomfall looked behind herself. Do I have a leaf on my face or something? Maybe she’s looking at me, a tiny hopeful voice in her brain purred. Do I look at her like that?

Before Blossomfall dwelled on the thought for too long, Dovewing jumped up the bark to stand next to her.

“Let’s go!” She whispered, whisking her tail away as she leapt to another branch above. Blossomfall scrambled to her paws and charged up after her.

They leapt from branch to branch, Dovewing’s leaps swift and graceful while Blossomfall’s paws thwacked painfully against the tree. Ow, OW OW. Blasted tree! Blossomfall felt very much like Jayfeather in temperament right now. Normally I’m fine at climbing trees, but... Blossomfall’s grumping trailed off as she glanced over at Dovewing. The she-cat was perched on a very large, sturdy branch a few bounds away. It wasn’t the highest branch, but it would provide a good vantage point to look out at the forest.

Blossomfall scratched at the bark again. I swear, how have I not ripped out all my claws by now? Dovewing must have heard her scuffling, because she looked down at Blossomfall with concern. The tortoiseshell felt her fury melt. She clambered up the last few branches and settled beside her companion, panting from all the effort. Dovewing’s gazed softened and she gently rested her tail on Blossomfall’s flank. Blossomfall was about to gasp a ‘thanks’, but Dovewing spoke first.

“I see you’ve gotten quite the workout out of this!” Dovewing trilled, her voice full of amusement. “I thought I was the little legs here!”

Blossomfall hissed but there was no malice in her tone. She crouched down on the wood beneath her, gasping for breath. After a heartbeat, she recovered and retorted.

“You might have little legs but your head is the size of a boulder!” Blossomfall wheezed, thumping her chest with a paw.

Dovewing giggled and leaned over to help prop her up. When Blossomfall was sitting upright again, Dovewing stepped back, satisfied.

“I don’t see what you mean, I am the perfect specimen!” Dovewing said in mock offense, curling her tail up like a squirrel’s.

“You sure are.”

Blossomfall’s heart stopped as she realized she had said the words out loud and not just in her head.

WHAT HAVE I DONE.

Dovewing turned to look at her, her eyes not longer playful but… something else.

Blossomfall felt like she was going to faint. Climbing up the tree felt like nothing compared to how much anger at herself she felt right now.

“I-Uhm I’m kidding haha!” Blossomfall meowed, trying to sound playful but deep down knew she knew Dovewing wouldn’t buy it.

Foxdung eating, toad-spawned ,mouse-hearted, rotten crow-food licking, slippery, fish-furred fool! Blossomfall swore nonsensically in her mind, trying to think of all the cuss words she knew. This wasn’t really helping, but it gave her something to think about other than this currently embarrassing encounter.

“Do you have something to say to me Blossomfall?” Dovewing asked, her eyes shining mysteriously.

Blossomfall’s mouth tried to say something in response but nothing came out.

Dovewing suddenly let out a long sigh. “Oh Blossomfall, really? Do I have to do this myself?”

Blossomfall’s belly flipped over as she tried to process Dovewing’s words.

“What are you talking about?” Blossomfall asked, desperately trying to keep the rising panic out of her voice. Have I upset her? the tortoiseshell wondered, all her hopes being crushed like dried up leaves.

Dovewing turned to her, her green gaze searching. She didn’t break eye contact as she stepped towards her. Blossomfall urged her paws to move out of the way, but she stayed frozen in place, as if her paws were a part of the branch itself. Dovewing stopped, her muzzle only a whisker away from Blossomfall’s own. Blossomfall’s mind was doing flips and somersaults as Blossomfall’s facade began to implode.

“Blossomfall, you know you don’t hide your facial expressions very well right?” Dovewing meowed, her voice cutting through Blossomfall’s terror like a razor sharp claw. Blossomfall’s mind went blank, completely silent, no panicky thoughts, no snappy inner monologue to be had. Without warning, it suddenly screeched to life again, Blossomfall’s head the equivalent of claws scraping on a boulder.

“I-Wh-What?” was all Blossomfall’s managed to hiss out, barely being able to string together two words.

Dovewing stared at her for a heart beat and then finally touched her nose to Blossomfall’s. Blossomfall was having some sort of system error, her mouth agape and her brain failing to recover.

“You want this. You want me.” Dovewing meowed finally, her eyes lighting up.

Blossomfall still hadn’t managed to slam her mouth shut, her trembling body didn’t seem to be responding to her frantic messages to turn tail and run.

“I want you too.” Dovewing’s gentle mew filled Blossomfall’s mind, seeming to clear it for a split second.

She does like you, she does want you, your were right, you were right, you were right! a voice in the back of her mind trilled, ringing in her head like a bell.

“Hey! Blossomfall! Stop freaking out, look at me.” Dovewing snapped suddenly. “Don’t get lost in your head. Come back to me.”

Blossomfall forced herself to look at Dovewing, the world seeming to blur around them.

Dovewing smiled, leaning into Blossomfall even more to place a paw on her shoulder. She put the other under Blossomfall’s chin to tip her head slightly. She was now sitting on her haunches, her small frame brushing Blossomfall’s bigger one.

Blossomfall wondered if it was possible to drop dead in shock. Every hair on Blossomfall’s pelt burned, very aware of Dovewing’s paws brushing her head and shoulder.

Say it back, say it! You want her don’t you?

Blossomfall growled at her own hesistance. You’ve been pining for the whole day and now you can’t even say three little words? Instead of answering herself, Blossomfall glanced to the side. She could just run away. She could slide down the trunk and rip out all her claws, and pick up their catches, and then run all the way back to camp. It wouldn’t take much to nudge Dovewing off and scramble down and out of here forever. She could even go back to sleep or go find Bumblestripe, or yell at her friends until she was blue, or find Rosepetal and explore that badger den and pretend like nothing ever happened. She could turn tail and run, away from Dovewing, away from her scrambled brain and inner turmoil. She would never have to face the intimacy she so craved but was also terrified of. It would be easy. But, then there would be no Dovewing. No Dovewing.

I want Dovewing.

That weird- no, sentimental thought was the thing that tipped Blossomfall’s brain over, finally making her open her maw to speak.

“Blossomfall?”

Blossomfall felt Dovewing stroke her shoulder. Blossomfall’s belly did a flip flop but she didn’t mind. If Dovewing wants me like I want her, I must be doing something right. I’m good enough.

“Hey.” Blossomfall murmured quietly. Dovewing looked worried.

“Are you alright?, You got trapped inside your mind aga-“

Dovewing’s mew was cut off as Blossomfall wrapped her paws around her shoulders, squeezing her tightly into a hug. Dovewing jerked in surprise for a second, but then she leaned into the embrace, her purrs ringing in Blossomfall’s ears.

“I love you.” Blossomfall meowed curtly, burying her face into Dovewing’s soft fur. Dovewing’s tail curled around her back, as she purred even louder.

“Who are you and what have you done with Blossomfall?” she teased.

Blossomfall mumbled something incoherent and moved her tail to twine it with Dovewing’s.

Dovewing rubbed her cheek against Blossomfall’s face with a mew.

“I love you too, you feather-head.” She murmured and Blossomfall felt warm, fuzzy feelings blossom (yeah I know!) in her chest.

Blossomfall purred, loud and strong, squeezing Dovewing- Dove, even tighter. Dovewing snorted and gently batted at her ears.

“If you keep crushing me there’s not gonna be a me left for you to crush in the future!”

Blossomfall chuffed and released her grip. She rubbed her head alongside Dovewing’s chin, relishing as she heard Dovewing purr once more.

This must be why my friends were dying as we left camp! They could tell how we felt about each other! Those idiots! Briarlight too! But she felt no real anger towards them, just warmth and slight amusement. I guess Squirrelflight could see it as well. And I here I thought she was half-dead! Those mouse-brains!

Blossomfall felt her face get warm as Dovewing licked her cheek, snapping her once again back to reality. Ok, gotta stop get lost in my head, Focus on her.

“Would you mind if I moved my nest permanently next to yours?” Dovewing meowed suddenly shy, even after confronting Blossomfall head on.

Blossomfall purred and nodded, brushing her muzzle against one of Dovewing’s fluffy ears.

“I’d be honored.”

Blossomfall snugly rested her head on top of Dovewing’s own soft gray one and the pair continued to twine their tails. They looked on, Bumblestripe forgotten, as the sun began to dip beneath the trees, turning the sky a tiny smidge of pink.

———————————————————————

*explodes into one million pieces and dies* I hope you stayed until The end and if you did thank you I love you 😭💖 here’s a cookie I’m sorry you had to suffer though that/lh 🍪 anyways I hope u liked it!! I tried to characterize everyone in an enjoyable way and make it funny and a silly happy lovey dovey read!! Some guys might be ooc and the timeline might be weird and there’s probably a million other mistakes but i hope u liked it anyways bc I poured my heart into this thing 💔(ALSO WHEN BLOSSOMFALL SAYS INTIMACY SHE MEANS CLOSENESS LIKE A CLOSE RELATIONSHIP NOT THE OTHER THING OK THERES TWO DEFS OF THE WORD KWJKWW SHAKING CRYING)

I haven’t finished a fic in so long so it might read weird but yea woo I got my brainrot in a perceivable form </3

Would you read more stuff like this Idk, tell me what u think!! Specific comments on my stuff help fuel my motivation �� oki bye I am gonna sleep for a whole day HAHA just kidding why would I take a break why would I-

[no-droids]

Beginner’s Luck

Part Twelve of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 14.6K

Warnings: 👀👀👀 SMUT.  Oral sex (male receiving), cockwarming, sexual acts in public, the use of blasters and other canon-typical weaponry

A/N: Twas the night before Mando season 2, and all through the house—NO IM JUST KIDDING SDKSFKSVS anyways I am so sorry for not being here for basically all of last month but I could not miss this incredibly momentous occasion for anything. Merry season 2 my lovely baby yoditos

***

“Well,” a modulated voice gruffs expectantly from behind you, clearly tired of waiting.  “Turn around, let me see.”

“No.  I look ridiculous,” you sulk from the corner of the hull, refusing to do as he says.  You thought this was stupid from the very beginning and openly told him so, but you’re also a complete pushover for him with just enough backbone to be frustrated when you inevitably give in.  “And don’t you ‘sweet girl’ me, it’s not gonna work this time.”

“Sweet girl,” Din’s deep voice lulls through the helmet, raspy and soft.

Fucking fine, if he’s gonna twist your arm about it.  You spin around with a deep frown and a chrome visor stares back at you as you waddle forwards, and you don’t even need to look at the kid cradled in his forearm to know he’s smiling toothily as you clunk and rattle.  Once you’re standing directly in front of them both, you blow the stray hair out of your eyes and plant your hands on your hips, just waiting for the inevitable response.

Only, you don’t get practically any response at all from him.  He stays perfectly still and says absolutely nothing, and though the baby’s mouth falls open with happiness and he reaches for you, he doesn’t make a sound either.

“I told you,” you grumble after a few moments of pained silence.  “I look ridiculous.”

Still, nothing.  You purse your lips, shifting from side to side uncomfortably, and eventually your suspicion grows and festers until it finally bursts forth.  Oh for the love of Maker—

“I know you’re laughing under there,” you accuse with a growl.  He doesn’t move a single muscle but you don’t buy it, not for a single fucking second.

Then suddenly the helmet glances away from you and stares purposefully at the wall of the hull as the kid starts giggling, and you knew it.  You fucking knew he was laughing.

“You look great,” comes tightly through the modulator after a moment, and you pull your lip up into a snarl, vindicated in your findings but not happy about it.

“Is that how this is supposed to protect me?”  You wave your arms, hearing them squeak and clank like you’re a droid that hasn’t been maintenanced in centuries.  The rough metal jerks up and smacks your chin with the shoulder movement and you grimace.  “Make the bad guys laugh themselves to death?”

“It's bad,” Din finally turns back to you and admits with zero shame, and your cheeks burn at how stupid you must look right now.  “Way too big.”

“Too big?”  You blink at him.  “That’s your criticism?”

When he presented it to you, your first impression was some sort of brown paint—but no.  It’s fucking… rust.  It’s damaged and scraped up and it looks like it’s been through the ringer and back, and not in a way that gives it character.  There’s almost a literal hole in the fucking chestpiece and it’s dented so much that it actually creates more than enough space for your breasts, what the fuck happened—?

“You’re telling me you went from this—”  You ask pointedly, knocking your knuckles against the ill-fitting piece of metal and feeling it wobble against your chest, “—to that—” you tap the pristine, gleaming armor strapped to his body that easily costs more than probably quadruple your entire life, “—without any go-betweens?  It’s missing one of the shoulders, Din.”

He ignores you, flipping the chestpiece over your head with his free hand and letting the metallic clatter of it meeting the floor behind you ring out through the hull.  “I’d hoped at least something would fit,” comes his filtered sigh.  “This planet isn’t nice.”

That sobers you up a bit, and you feel your heart thump painfully.  “Are we on Corellia?”  You ask without thinking.

“No,” he tells you immediately, quelling your panic while pulling off your one singular pauldron.  “Tatooine.”

You’ve never heard of it, but from the grave undertone of his voice, you know the drill.  Different setting, same kind of people.  Smugglers, rogues, criminals—the type he’s used to being around and knows exactly what to expect out of them.  You always feel safe when he’s with you, but when he leaves?

“Oh,” you say, because you don’t really have anything else.  It’s quiet for a little bit, but then he continues on before you can come up with something to fill the sudden uncertainty on your end.

“I know someone here,” Din murmurs, bending his knees and sinking down to start undoing and pulling the shoddy thigh braces off your legs.  “Someone… nice.  It’ll be safe as long as nobody sees me leaving or coming back, and the kid would be happy to see her.”

Your eyebrows pull inwards, something… unfamiliar settling inside you.  Din doesn’t have friends, he’s made it clear that he doesn’t really like anyone that he knows well enough to introduce you to.  Even when he’s lowered himself in front of you and is technically undressing you, you feel a spark of… no, not jealousy, that’s crazy.  But for real, who is he talking about?

“Why can’t me and the baby just lay low somewhere remote like normal?”  You ask instead, but he shakes his head.

“No such thing,” he grunts, pulling off the other thigh brace.  “Tuskans or Jawas will find you even in the middle of the Dune Sea.”

“I like Jawas,” you blurt, having had many positive experiences trading with the little creatures on Arvala-7, but his helmet immediately tilts up to pin you in place and you shut up, feeling the tangible unamusement radiating from the thin blade of the visor even when the kid starts giggling again.  “I mean I… don’t like Jawas?”

Din sighs and rises back up to his full height, finally handing the baby over to you now that you’re not weighed down by that ridiculous getup anymore.  “You can either stay with her while I get the quarry or run the risk of pirates finding you drifting above the atmosphere,” he reasons bluntly, not mincing words.  “But it’s not a good idea to be stuck on the surface without protection, someone will find you.”

You bite your lip, hugging the kid closer to your chest for a second.  “Okay, that’s fine,” you murmur quietly after a moment.  “We can stay with your… friend.”  

You clear your throat and move to let him pass by to get to the cockpit, except Din doesn’t take a single step.  You blink up at him and after what feels like an eternity of no response, the helmet slowly tilts sideways at you and… oops.

Was that not subtle?  You didn’t know what to call her, genuinely, that’s why you hesitated.  You didn’t want to use the word acquaintance, it felt too detached for the fact that he said the kid would be happy to see her again.  That’s what’s called a friend, right?  

Maker, why are you being so weird about this?

Thankfully, you end up getting away with it.  After a few painful seconds of looking at every single thing in the hull besides him and humming a song you make up on the spot, Din slowly walks past and disappears up into the cockpit.  You take a deep breath and gently rub the baby’s ears between your fingers as the Crest powers up with a ferocious rumble beneath your feet.

***

It’s bright.  Fuck, it’s so bright here.  You hold the kid to your chest with one hand and shield your eyes with the other as the ramp slowly descends, dust immediately kicking up around it.  Din’s palm is resting against your lower back and his thumb gently brushes back and forth, but your heart decides to drop the very moment his hand does, and as soon as the ramp clanks against the landing platform, he’s striding down into the blazing hot desert sun without you.

Something in your chest squeezes and whispers to you that he probably doesn’t want to touch you when he’s about to see an old friend again, so you wait a few seconds of space before descending down the ramp behind him, not really knowing how you feel right now.  But you’ve barely taken a single step to follow when a woman’s voice screeches out from across a vast distance.  “Oh no, no no no—don’t you even think about it!”

Din slows to a halt at the end of the ramp and gives whoever it is a small nod, nothing beyond it, and if you weren’t purposefully looking at him for cues right now, you’d probably miss the greeting entirely.  You stand on your tippy-toes from behind his cape as a fiery little middle-aged lady in a mechanic’s jumpsuit marches up to him with an attitude that more than makes up for the height difference.

“You’re not allowed here anymore,” she pokes his chestplate brazenly with one hand and props the other on her hip, clearly not excited to see him.  “Not after the ruckus you caused last time, no sir, not on my watch.”

“That won’t happen again,” he gruffs shortly, not providing a single thing beyond it, and you blink.  What… what happened last time?

“It sure won’t!”  The strange woman agrees shrilly, crossing her arms and widening her eyes until she looks a bit like she’s been out in the suns too long.  “I’m still recovering, Mando!”

“I compensated you,” he reminds her, a quiet edge of frustration beginning to creep into his voice.

She suddenly narrows her expression at him, going from manic desert lady to sharp and discerning skeptic within a split second.  “How much do you think my life is worth?”

Din takes forever to respond, seeming to either be choosing his words very carefully or grinding his teeth under the beskar in frustration.  Probably both.  “I brought my ki—”

“You bring trouble!”  She bursts out, stomping her foot on the dusty landing platform and holding her ground.  “I don’t care how cute your little one is, go park your ship on some other poor soul’s hangar bay!”

He doesn’t say anything back, staying completely silent while you stand there awkwardly and wait for his response, and it’s almost like you… forgot.  How quiet Din can be, how unnervingly little he can choose to offer to conversations until he deems the information absolutely necessary to provide.  He allows you to forget that reserved nature of his.  He talks to you.  He never used to at the beginning, but somewhere along the way it just became increasingly common to hear his voice, both with a high-pass filter and blissfully without.  Now though, there’s just too long of a weirdly tense pause in the reunion for you to handle without doing something about it.

So you step out from behind him with the child in your arms, giving her an apologetic smile with as much friendliness as you can possibly put into an expression.

“Hello,” you greet her gently, musically, lifting the baby’s hand to give her a companionable three-fingered wave from the both of you while he coos.  “I promise I’m not trouble, but he did bring me along this time.”

Din and the woman simultaneously turn to look at you; her like you’re just as strange and jarring of a sight to see on this planet as the tiny unnamed boy in your arms and him like your voice by itself is enough to loosen his shoulders.  Though neither one of them ultimately respond to you, you can tell by the way his fists unclench that you’ve at least helped him relax, even if the frizzy-haired lazy otherwise ignores your introduction entirely.

“Now just what in Maker’s name are you doing with a poor little stowaway like that?”  She faces him and pokes his armor again.  “You runnin’ a charity out of that battered piece of junk you call a ship?”

“Three hundred credits to let them stay with you for a week,” he turns back to tell her, cutting directly to the chase.  Alright, so you don’t really understand their relationship at all at this point.  He said she was nice?  And yet he’s already bribing her that handsomely?

“Five hundred,” she immediately shoots back, and your heart sinks.  Fuck, there’s no way.  There’s no way he would spend that much, you’re going to have to find somewhere else to stay.

But… he doesn’t respond.  Which you now remember with a jolt of surprise, means confirmation.  Not wasting words agreeing, he’d say something back to her if he had an issue.  Maker, five hundred credits.  You’re starting to wonder if he’s really able to make any money at all doing this, or if the job is just… fitting for him, so he continues to do it.  He’s spending more and more credits on you every single time you turn around, and while you don’t feel great about it, you know Din well enough to know he’s stable and independent enough to make the decisions he wants to make.

So you just stand there and hold the baby to your chest, unsure of your place, while Din eventually turns around to face you.

Sometimes, if you’re being honest, you almost find yourself wanting to… do soft things with him that you know you shouldn’t while other people are around.  Granted, he’s never told you not to, but the last thing you want to do is undermine his reputation by unintentionally revealing his gentler side.  You want to give him a hug and maybe hand him the baby to say goodbye, but you don’t know if that’s how he wants to present himself to company right now.  Unfortunately, that ends up translating into you just looking at him and awkwardly waiting to see what he does.  Your feelings won’t be hurt if he just takes off without another word now that you know that that’s his intent—you promise, they weren’t hurt the first fifty or so times he’s done it.  You understand him, it’s alright, he doesn’t need to—

But then he leans in and lowers his voice until only you can hear it.

“I’ll be back soon,” he tells you, and you feel warmth creep into your chest.

You understand him.  Which is why you feel like you could almost burst with how much he didn’t have to say that but chose to do so anyway.  You already have a solid time frame—a week—which is more information than you usually get, and it’s such a small thing.  It’s insane; if you made a list, you’d have 1) talking to you, 2) knowing his first name, and 3) seeing a glimpse of his forehead as your top reasons why he might care just as much about you as you care for him.  That’s insane.

He takes a second to reach a glove out and rub the baby’s ear as he makes his adorable little baby noises up at him, before the helmet tilts back up just slightly to look at you.  

“Be safe,” he waits for you to whisper back.

And you think now is finally the time to go, right?  Except he waits just a few precious seconds more, just holding there, silently.  Maker, you don’t want to miss him, why is he doing this to you?  You’re trying to play it cool, see-you-later’s have been commonplace between you for nearing a full year now, so why does it feel like now is the first time he truly doesn’t want to go?

You hold the kid with one hand and start to reach for him the split second he turns to walk away, and you quickly drop it as the dry wind snaps through his cape.  He leaves and doesn’t look back.

Still, you watch him disappear, until eventually you’re reminded of your host’s presence with the tap of a wrench against your shoulder.

“Hope you know your way around a hyperdrive,” the woman says with a smirk.  Maker, Din didn’t even give you her name, you’re going to have to ask.  “Gotta repair at least two of ‘em by sundown.”

You catch the hefty tool with your free hand and turn to her.  “Pre-Imperial or post?  Never done a restoration, but I’m a quick learner.”

She blinks at you like that was probably the last thing she expected you to say, but you give her the same friendly smile from before and look towards the entrance of the hangar for the ships needing maintenance.

***

So Peli is… a character.

She’s quick and entertaining and whip-smart, but you worry that if she had a whip, she might actually use it.  She’s nice—she is, but she damn near works you to the bone once you prove yourself capable.  You don’t think she expected the extent of your practical knowledge of mechanics, she went into it assuming you were going to be useless and did a hard U-turn that very first night.  You both worked together to fix two malfunctioning hyperdrives by sundown, just like she told you she needed, but then she looked vaguely surprised and nobody showed to pick up until two days later.

The second day is more hectic, and the third day is worse.  You cradle the kid on your hip while you work one-handed, smudged grease all over your forehead and sweat sticking your hair to your neck.  Using Peli’s sonic shower never leaves you feeling clean no matter how many times a day you find yourself wanting to wash the dust and grime from your body, the same way yours used to back on Arvala-7, and you immediately get why her dark hair seems so frizzy and dry whenever you step out of the stall and catch sight of the similar rat’s nest on your head in the small mirror.  Hypersonic waves dry it out more than the blazing hot suns on this planet—you look the same exact way you’ve looked for decades and while you don’t mind hard work, you can’t stand the complete lack of water on this forsaken rock.

Din was right, though.  She is nice, but in a way that she never wants anybody else to find out about.  She cooks you food every night but expects you to clean the whole kitchen after, she lets you have free reign over the caf maker as long as you remember to make enough for her, and she allows you and the kid to pass out on the beat-up sofa in one of the secluded back rooms for the time being.  On more than one occasion, when she assigns you chores that require two hands and a steady focus to complete, you overhear her babytalk behind the control panel as she bounces the kid in one arm and plays with his ears.  It fills your chest with a quiet, subtle kind of warmth, and you understand why Din trusts her with him.

At least you stay busy—which, understatement.  She works you so hard that eventually she starts handing you tasks that don’t really seem… pressing.  Replacing the spherical joints on her three pit droids, hand-scrubbing the grime off the pots and pans she uses to cook the same two meals everyday, polishing the dusty windows overlooking the landing platform even though they’re caked over with dirt not even an hour later.  You realize soon enough that she doesn’t have nearly the workload here as she claims, periodically catching her playing cards with the droids while you’re busting your ass doing chores once all the real work has clearly been accomplished, but you’re not upset.  You like being busy, it’s how you’ve lived most of your life.  However, at some point, you actually end up running out of things to do.  After that, it’s like she has to actively look for tasks she still needs completed.

One morning you find her in the parked Crest, ripping open the guidance systems paneling and talking to herself.  You sip your caf and watch silently from the landing bay, hair pulled up in a messy bun and the baby on your hip as the suns rise on your shoulders and she mutters, whole sheets of metal being tossed out from the insides of the Razor Crest.

You've also learned she responds incredibly well to the prospect of credits, so you don’t spend too much time wondering what her goal is—find something in the ship for you to fix and then charge Mando extra for the materials whenever he comes back.

Hilarious though, as if there’s anything in your ship that actually needs fixing.

You spin around with a sigh and walk back into the hangar, knowing today will probably be the first slow day in awhile.

***

A few hours later, you’re invited to play a game of Sabacc for the first time in your life.

There are so many rules—so many suits and names to keep track of, so many values to memorize, only to be forced to choose one card after every round to keep just in case the rest of them happen to shuffle at random, which occurs at least once or twice every game.  There’s too much luck involved to figure out any sort of strategy; you feel like sometimes you’re hopelessly lost and end up winning anyways or you wager nearly your entire stack of bolts on a perfect hand and then you lose the entire thing regardless.

It’s an unpredictable nightmare.  But it’s something to do, and you’ve learned that playing just as stupidly as you bet allows you to easily stay in the game.  The baby sits in your lap and plays with one of your rusty metal gambling pieces while your leg bounces, and Peli grumbles under her breath once it appears you get ahead of her in winnings.

“Beginner’s luck,” she tells her favorite pit droid quietly, who focuses its singular eye at you in a way that somehow feels unfriendly and nods on a brand new swivel, courtesy of yours truly.

You don’t argue, because there’s no point.  The whole fucking thing is luck, but there’s no point.  You know enough about this game to know that you might give something away if you speak, so you keep your mouth shut and let her fill the void.  You know how to stay silent, you’ve learned from the best.  Wordlessly drawing a card from the deck and tucking it in between two others of the same value, you decide to trade one of your other cards at complete random and hope it all just works out.

“Ship looks like it’s brand spankin’ new on the inside,” Peli mutters into her mug out of nowhere, and you pause for a moment, before silently nodding at the offhanded comment and trying not to show how pleased you are by it.  “Was falling apart the last time I saw it.”

You keep bouncing the kid on your knee and fan out the cards in front of you, hoping his big black eyes aren’t reflective enough to reveal your hand.  “I have a lot of free time.”

“I can tell,” she acknowledges, crossing her legs and leaning back into her chair.  Peli sets the mug down and sighs.  “You’re a good mechanic.  I’d offer you a job here, but something tells me you wouldn’t even consider it.”

Now, you do smile.  But it’s a hidden one.  A fond one.  One you find impossible to fight when you’re reminded of him.  You miss him and ache for him and all those collectively angsty things, yes—but mostly you’re just… able to find a bone-deep solace in even thinking about him.  Your heart tightens, but it’s far less constricting than it is a comfort, a firm embrace.  It surrounds you in its safety; Din’s mere existence is your protection, wrapping around you the same way the beskar protects him.  Nothing can touch you.  You’re safe, from all the things you used to fear and all the new things you’ve learned to fear.

No, you’d never consider it.  This planet is too much like Arvala-7, just slightly more populated and dangerous.  You love the baby.  You love him.  You’d never consider it.

“Don’t you get bored?”  She asks you with a raised eyebrow, and your smile admittedly drops the slightest bit.  “Just waiting around for him to come back?”

You don’t have to think about your answer.  Of course you do.  If you’re being honest, it does feel a bit like your life is split between worlds—one with him, and one without.  Whenever he’s not here, you’re thinking about how much you want him to come back, and whenever he is here, you’re thinking about how much you don’t want him to go.  You’ve never experienced anything like that before.  There were a few local farmers scattered far across the arid landscape of the place you used to call home, and three of your neighbors all had kids around your age.  So you experimented when you were younger, since you never had much else to do in your spare time, but you never loved any of them.  You’d always go back home and continue to do chores, continue to look up at the sky and wonder what you were missing.

“Yes,” you admit quietly.

But what you don’t tell her is that in exchange, you get to see the galaxy.  You get to have experiences you’ve only dreamed about, take care of the cutest little baby you’ve ever seen and become part of a family.  You don’t know of anything you could want more.  Adventure, companionship, pleasure, and fulfillment.  Sure, you get restless, and sure, you don’t necessarily feel good about the fact that Din seems to be your driving force even when he’s away, but you know independence.  You know what it means to live for yourself.  You’ve done it long enough that you’ll never forget how to, you’ve experienced it more than enough to know you’re happy about throwing yourself off the cliff and falling into something different.  As much as it’s new and terrifying, it’s better.  Now you have other people to live for, too.  

You marvel at the change—not just from a year ago, but from a handful of months ago.  He used to terrify you.  You used to keep your mouth purposefully shut around him because you were scared of overstaying your welcome and being dropped off somewhere equally as remote as the place you grew up.  Never could you have imagined that the fiercest guardian the galaxy has ever seen would decide you’re also worth protecting.

No, you figure, you just need to… find something in addition.  Something else to also commit to, give yourself something to do.  You can practice the new self-defense maneuvers he taught you, that’s a good idea.  But maybe you can also…

You eventually decide to prompt Peli in a change in conversation.  “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“What do you want now?”  She takes another sip of her caf as if you’ve been bothering her about this all day long, and… well, it’s times like these that you wish you had a helmet, too, if only so you could roll your eyes.

“I’ve got a few pieces of rusted metal in the Crest,” you eventually tell her, careful with your phrasing and not sure how much you want to reveal.  “They’re in bad shape, but I want to keep them.  Could I use some of your tools here to hammer out some of the dents, dissolve whatever crud is on the surface?  I saw you have a forge back there that’s barely been used, just need the metal hot enough to be pliable without sacrificing its integrity.”

She furrows her eyebrows at you.  “But I still need your help with…”

You wait, but she’s got nothing and you both know it.  Still, you keep a pointed silence and wait for it, wondering if this’ll actually work.  This is what Din does, right?  Just refuse to say anything and make the other person crumble under the crushing quiet?  Miraculously, it proves to be successful—you watch her flounder for a response, her will wavering the longer you sit there and stare expectantly at her.

“Fine,” Peli finally acquiesces, and you grin.  “But only if you win this round.  What d’you got?”

You set down your cards to reveal your hand.  A perfect twenty-three if you’ve been counting right, unbeatable unless she or any of the droids managed to get the same, and you know it didn’t happen as soon as she takes a few seconds for mental math and then scoffs.

“Beginner’s luck,” you tell her kindly, pushing all your winnings back over to her side of the table with one hand and scooping the kid up with the other, before turning around and heading towards the Crest in search of Din’s old armor.

***

It’s late afternoon on day five and you’re on your back on a creeper seat, sweat dripping down your neck as you reach up to fiddle with the engine of a T-16, a Skyhopper similar to one you built yourself on Arvala-7.  They're not space-faring vehicles, they’re only capable of reaching the upper troposphere, but owning one allowed you to develop solid flight skills without ever truly being able to leave.  Honestly, you don’t think you’ve ever despised a ship more.

You know you’ve got engine grease all over and you feel like you’re boiling in your own sweat, but you’re almost done.  After this, you’ll be able to go back to working on your side project.

As soon as you’d been granted Peli’s direct permission to do so, you mixed the chemicals necessary to eat away at everything besides the basic structure underneath, and then spent all day yesterday manipulating the metal to better fit someone your size and shape.  You slaved over the wickedly hot forge and developed a whole new muscle in your arm from hammering and reheating, hammering and reheating.  You had to repair the way the chestpiece was tapered into a concave point by folding the thin metal back in on itself multiple times, strengthening it without flattening it back into its original shape too much, and then you ended up melting down some of the extra material from the needlessly large shoulder and thigh pieces to fill in the gaps.

Granted, you still have a ways to go on replacing the crushed magnetics box that was falling off the chestpiece and filing down the rough scrapes and sharp edges, but you’re now left with almost a full set of armor that’s a uniform dull silver in color and molds way better to your general figure than before.  You’re not a blacksmith or armorer by any stretch of the imagination, but you’re good with your hands and did what you could in the time allotted.  It looks better than you ever thought it would, and without access to Peli’s enormous collection of tools and machinery, you know it would’ve been better off in the trash.

Still, you have to finish this engine first before you can rip apart the control unit wiring on the armor to see how the whole set fits together and what else needs to be repaired.  You’ve been working on it for a few hours before you hear the door to the hangar open.  Yet, when you don’t immediately hear Peli’s voice calling out to you, or anyone else’s voice for that matter, your heart thuds in your chest with sudden excitement.

“You’re back early,” you tell the engine suspended over your head, knowing he must’ve already thrown the quarry into the Crest parked outside before coming to see you.  Right on time, footsteps approach and then a boot carefully catches the flat platform between your legs, slowly rolling your seat out from under the ship until the rest of the sunlit hangar is revealed to you.

You know you must look a hot mess right now.  Your hair is a disaster and there’s not a clean spot to be found on your body—sweat glistens and pools along every curve you have and you’re probably drenching the spare jumpsuit Peli let you borrow, but Maker, there he is.  Every time you see him is like the first time all over again, except this time the Mandalorian is looming like a giant over you, the helmet tilted down and silently taking you in.

Instead of settling you, his daunting presence gets you hotter than dual suns in the sky ever could.  Fuck, he hasn’t said a word to greet you, and yet you’re already wondering if you can entice him to shove you back under here and join you.

You slowly push yourself upright and he steps back just enough to allow it, but not an inch more than that.  You have to crane your neck up to keep looking at him, and he stands close enough over you that you wouldn’t have to reach far at all if you wanted to touch him.

And it’s crazy to think that… you absolutely could touch him, if you wanted.  He radiates danger, he hunts and tracks for his continued survival, he’s probably got fresh blood staining the dark fabric of his cape and he’s so fucking intimidating—and if you wanted to, you could touch him.  

Maybe you can partially blame your sore muscles as to why you immediately drop your head back down, but mostly you just want to stare at a part of his body that happens to align perfectly at eye level.  And fuck, nothing stops you from looking.  He doesn’t help you up, but he also doesn’t move so you can haul yourself to your feet, either.  He just holds perfectly still with his body standing tall over yours, content to stay exactly like this while your hand slowly reaches out to wrap around one of his ankles.

He’s so warm, his muscles flex strong under your palm as you let it drift upwards, biting your lip as you flick your gaze back up to the chrome visor and then down again to the apex of his thighs.  Your other hand comes up to scale the beskar strapped to his leg and you roll yourself forward slightly, wondering if he’d let you…

The black fabric stretching over his crotch just barely touches your fingertips before his hand is suddenly whipping out and grabbing hold of your wrist.

You gasp and jerk your head up to look at him, somehow equally hoping that you’re both in trouble and not in it at the same time.  Din’s abruptly chest raises with a large, labored inhale, as if he wasn’t breathing at all that entire time, as if he just now remembered the setting, the fact that he’s not alone on the Crest with you right now.  Peli and the kid have to be somewhere in the hangar, you know that, but…

“We’re leaving tonight,” he breathes out through the modulator, and you have absolutely no fucking problem with that at all.  “But… shit, but…”

“But…?”  You prompt, wanting nothing more than to let your hands reach back up to his pants again, but you settle for slowly dragging one palm up his forearm as his grip on your wrist tightens.

“Fuck, I wanted to take you somewhere first,” he groans like your feather-soft touch is actually hurting him, his hands suddenly dropping yours and pushing you away to clench into fists at his sides.  “Maker—why do you always f-fucking do this to me…”

You raise an eyebrow at him this time, the curiosity starting to mix with the heat simmering down low, the kind that you'd feel even on a frozen wasteland of a planet as long as you were with him.  All at once, you decide to channel him and his trademarked silence, enthralled by the incredibly slim chance that it will work equally as well on its creator.

“…Distract me,” he finally growls out an answer to the question you never asked him, sounding frustrated with you for reasons you still haven’t figured out, and your mouth is drier than the desert outside.  Oh stars, you feel… fucking powerful.  “From everything,” he goes on, talking honestly and openly, more words given to you in thirty seconds than he’s probably offered to anyone all week long.  “Fuck, I feel like I can barely do fucking anything anymore, I’m losing my fucking mind.”

Your heart slams in your chest, wondering if he possibly feels the exact same way about you as you feel about him.  Missing you whenever he’s gone, dreading the moment he needs to leave again whenever he’s with you.  The thought alone is enough to set off fireworks through your veins, pumping hope and excitement from your fingers to your toes.

“I’m sorry,” you breathe out, biting your lip in a way that doesn’t look or feel sorry at all.

“No, you’re not,” Din grunts, before reaching out and hauling you to your feet, and even if there wasn’t a flat seat under you with wheels, it’d still be awkward and uncoordinated as fuck.  “Shit.  I… I need to clean up.  Grab your things, go tell…”

Din trails off after a second, suddenly sounding at a complete loss.  You catch your footing and stare at him as he falters.  “Uh.  Go tell…”  He gestures with a sense of finality to the control room, as if he’s actually successfully communicating with you by doing so.  “Her.  That we’re leaving tonight.”

“What?”  You ask him, thoroughly fucking confused.  “What are you saying right now?”

“The woman,” he clarifies, clearing his throat.  “The mechanic, with the… droids.  Tell her I’ll pay her before we leave, but we’re g—”

“Peli?”  You blurt, completely flabbergasted at this point.  “Did you forget her name, Mando?”

“I…” he shakes his head slightly at you, like you should already know him better than that.  “Never asked.”

“But you—?”  You blink at him.  “But you said she was your friend?”

“You said she was my friend,” he immediately points out, with—oh Maker, just biting accuracy.  It wasn’t necessarily a jab or anything, but you still feel dizzy with how fucking spot on he is about it.  Yikes, you absolutely did say that.  You forgot.

“Oh…” you mumble, at a stunning loss for a response.  “Ha.  Oh.  Yeah, huh.”

There’s too many beats of awkward silence after that, probably because he’s just so blown away by your way with words that he’s just attempting to analyze the wisdom.  Stars, you’re making a complete fool of yourself in front of him, aren’t you?

“Were you jealous?”  He suddenly asks, and you jerk upright, your heart kicking up to a gallop in your chest at the question.

“I’ll go tell Peli we’re leaving soon,” you quickly agree and go to scurry away in abrupt panic, but he catches your wrist and hauls you back before you can get far.  You run into him with a gasp and immediately start to repeat your explanation for why you very suddenly need to depart, but the tips of Din’s fingers catch your chin and force you to look up at him.

“Hey,” he cuts your rambling short with a hushed murmur and the pad of his thumb brushes down your jaw.  “Tell me the truth.”

You don’t have an answer that won’t be incriminating, and you don’t think you can get the delivery right on a lie, not to him and especially not when he’s got you so cornered.  So you just keep completely silent and look up at him like a scolded child would.  Innocent, wide-eyed and scared shitless about the unknown consequences of your actions.

His helmet slowly tilts as he studies you, watching you look up at him for help.  His fingers gradually spread out across your jaw, flattening under the curve of your throat but so gentle, so careful that you’re almost worried he actually is mad.

“I’m sorry,” you immediately offer before he can say anything, your eyebrows pulling up in the middle.  “I’m so sorry, it’s just—I just…”

His thumb carefully stretches up to brush your bottom lip, and you…  Mind blank, no thoughts.  Stars, you’ve got fucking nothing.

“I’ve got nothing,” you admit, giving up before you can even try.  “There’s no reason.  I was jealous.  It’s stupid and I wasn’t going to say anything because I know it’s stupid, and I shouldn’t feel possessive over you but I do, and it’s stupid.  I don’t want anyone else to know you the way I know you, and I’m really sorry if that makes you feel weird, I don’t want you to feel like you can’t have—”

Your chin lifts slightly with the gentlest movement of his hand and the subtle pressure is enough to cut your mindless oversharing off.  Din’s voice lowers until it’s throaty and quiet.

“See that wall?”  He asks, keeping the visor pinned to you while carefully turning his hand to the right, and your whole head easily follows the movement as he guides it.  You have to blink your eyes into focus a few times, but then you immediately see what he’s talking about.  It’s a partition separating the welding room from the rest of the hangar.  He waits until you nod in the cradle of his palm, before leaning in and murmuring to you.  “If we were alone, I’d take you around behind it and show you exactly how that makes me feel.”

You pull back from him with a startled gasp just as a voice calls out from the entrance of the hangar.  “Well, look who finally decided to come back!”

Din slowly drops his arms and stares at you for just long enough to make you seriously worry that he’s going to say fuck it all and do it anyways, before finally turning around and greeting Peli with another silent nod.

She plants one hand on her hip once she’s standing right in front of him, cradling the kid on with her other arm, and you have to take a second to collect yourself now that you’re not at the direct center of his attention anymore.  “Sure did take you long enough, didn’t it?”

“I’m two days early,” he grunts in his immediate defense, but it’s like she doesn’t hear him.

“You’re leaving soon I hope,” she drawls while handing the baby over to him, who makes an adorable little happy squeak at seeing his dad again.  “You owe me five hundred credits.”

“It was five hundred for the full week,” he reminds her, and… he has a point.  Though it was never part of the agreement, you wonder if she’ll be willing to accept less compensation for having the burden of your company be lifted early.

“Five days count as a full week, far as I’m concerned,” she shoots back, and your heart suddenly sinks when Din’s shoulders tighten and he doesn’t respond.

“Peli…” you sigh from behind him before you even realize you’ve spoken aloud.

Your host quickly sidesteps your bodyguard to eye you dubiously, and at the same time, you also jolt and wonder what your goal is here exactly.  You’re ultimately just attempting to diffuse any tension sparking between them, you figure, knowing you’re probably the best mediator here.  She looks at you up and down for a long time, hard and judging, before the baby babbles something wordlessly and she sighs.

“I suppose we can just call it even,” she finally huffs, turning back to him.  “You’re lucky your girlfriend earned her keep, Mando.”

And then your jaw drops.  Holy shit, is she serious?  You assumed Peli valued credits above almost anything else, you never expected her to just… turn down the entire offer like that, so willingly.  Clearly Din didn’t either, because you both just stand there for a moment in front of her in a baffled silence.

Also… girlfriend?

Is that what you are to him?  Admittedly you haven’t talked to him about what to call your relationship, but then again, you’re a practical person and you never really saw a specific need to do so.  You care about him, he cares about you—what else is important?  You don’t need a title to recognize your value to him, and for some odd reason, calling yourself his “girlfriend” just feels like you’re a teenager again.  If you were actually looking for a different word to use instead, you wouldn’t be able to find it, but you know that one just feels… not enough.  Not old enough, not encompassing enough, not complex enough.  It’s an elementary school version of what this is.  And to refer to someone like Din as your boyfriend?  Maker, just saying it aloud would probably make his eye twitch.

“Uh.”  He stands there awkwardly, and you’re so blown away by both the sentiment and specific verbiage she used that you’re practically useless at this point.  Shit, what’s beyond girlfriend, you wonder?  Lover?  No, not good enough.  Partner?  No.  No, not wife, definitely fucking not—  “Thank you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Peli waves him away and spins around to leave, but not before throwing one final thing over her shoulder.  “That ain’t an open invitation to come back, by the way.”

All of a sudden, you just can’t stop yourself from breaking out into a wide grin, tucking your chin in hopes that she won’t see it with her back turned and decide to pounce on the display of weakness.  The three of you watch her stride out of the room and immediately bark an order at one of her droids to get back to work, who starts looking around in desperate search of something to do, and Din’s palm finds its usual place on your lower back as she disappears.

“What a nice lady,” you offer to him, and he gives you a wordless grumble in response.

***

So it’s a couple hours later and you think the kid might actually have the right idea this time.

You find yourself wishing you had a little hover pod of your own that followed Din around, one you could close the lid on and hide in while blaster fire whistles through the air around you like the baby is currently doing.  You’re trying to listen to instructions—you’re trying, but there’s a lot going on here.  Voices chatting, guns firing, targets being pinged, a lively little band playing in the cantina next door.  

When Din first led you through Mos Eisley and inside this specific adobe hut, if you’re being completely honest, you had hoped for food.  A comparatively large restaurant, perhaps?  Peli didn’t starve you by any stretch of the imagination, but her dinners were the exact same every single night, and you’ve learned to thrive on new things.  While you didn’t necessarily think he was going to take you on a… a date, or anything, you certainly didn’t expect him to take you to a shooting range.

Well.  Now that you think about it, this might actually be a date.

Luckily you’re hidden away in the furthest firing partition from the door, but even without the near-constant barrage of gunfire to your left, the distractions are still plentiful.  The kid actually reached down and pressed the button to close his crib himself as soon as the bright beams of plasma started zooming past and reflecting in his large black eyes, and oh how you wish that were you.  You don’t necessarily feel like you’re in danger or anything, but you’ve also never seen so many guns in one place before and you’re worried you’re accidentally going to hurt someone else.

So far Din has taught you the fundamentals for any firearm—always keep the safety on until you’re ready to fire, never point at anything unless you’re a hundred percent willing to shoot it, yada yada yada—and also the safety fundamentals for blasters specifically.  So, making sure there’s no leaks in the gas cylinder when you first load it, never letting a strong magnet get near the power pack, checking the surface of your target for deflection curves if you want to prevent a ricochet, or maybe in his case, inspire one.  He’s taught you your stance, he’s taught you how to read your sights, now all that’s left is just to… shoot.

Your arms raise up in front of you and the metal feels too heavy and awkward in your hands, and you have to hold the handle in your left and creep your right index finger all the up the side of the barrel until you feel the indented safety switch.  It clicks and you reset your grip to slowly ease your finger onto the trigger, staring down the sight, right at the bullseye.  Din is standing directly behind you next to the kid’s tightly closed hovering pod, arms crossed and just waiting for you to pull it.

Come on beginner’s luck, come on beginner’s luck—

You fire, and… well.  You don’t think you’ve ever seen a shot miss its target that spectacularly in your entire life.  You’re almost surprised the beam of plasma didn’t somehow ricochet back into the booth you’re both standing in, that’s how spectacularly you missed.

“Try again.”

There’s no amusement in his voice, nothing mocking about it.  Pure monotone under the helmet, as if he was just naturally expecting that to happen.  

No, you think in frustration.  You want to surprise him again, impress him with how quickly you can pick things up, turn him on like last time.  You just fucking know that would get to him—seeing you easily hit the target dead center with his own blaster, you know that would get to him.

You adjust your aim and fire a few more times.  Miss, miss, wild miss, miss.  Fuck, so many distractions, plasma flying in the corner of your vision and an increasingly heavy gaze from behind you.  Another miss, a miss, yeesh that’s a miss—

Alright, so you're just embarrassing yourself at this point.

“I think it’s broken,” you shrug in defeat, taking a second to find the safety switch and toggle it before going to set the gun down on the raised adobe platform separating the line of booths from the targets—but then Din suddenly snatches the blaster from your grip and extends his arm over your shoulder, firing off six rounds in rapid succession so wickedly fast that you jump backwards into his rock solid chest in surprise.  He doesn’t give an inch under the collision and even wraps his forearm tight around your tummy as he hits the bullseye with such deadly accurate precision that even the char marks and the line of smoke left wafting from the target’s center are razor-thin.

“Works just fine,” he grunts, setting the weapon back down again before urging you forward a bit.  “Go ahead, give it another shot.”

But you’re on a remarkable delay, just trying to process his sheer speed, how fluid and seamless the entire fucking motion was.  Fucking Maker, blink and you’d miss the whole thing.  He waited to grab the gun from you until you turned the safety on, but then… then how did he fire it so insanely fucking fast?  That’s like five different things he had to do with one single hand within a split second…?

“I turned the safety on,” you blink down at the blaster, clearly just trying to process.

“Yeah,” he agrees blankly, as if he’s unsure as to what specifically you’re so stuck on right now.

“So how did you toggle so fas—?”

He picks it from the shelf gracefully and lightning quick—as if he just can’t help but go that speed around his weapon—and then he twists it on its side, flexing his wrist back until the barrel is pointed upwards and you can clearly see his index finger extend all the way up to the safety switch, flipping it up and down while his middle finger rests over the trigger guard.

“How in the f…?”  You mutter, lifting your hand up next to his and positioning your fingers in the exact same L shape, only the tip of your index finger barely stretches an inch shy of the switch.  “Psh,” you huff, dropping your arm back down again.  “Design flaw.”

“For you,” he acknowledges, using the trigger guard to flip it back to its proper position in his hand like fucking spinning it like that is just the easiest and most natural way to handle the deadly weapon.  “This gun was made for me, it’s a feature.  Yours would be smaller and lighter, have the safety towards the back of the chamber instead of along the barrel.”

The words and the casual display of ability cause a rush of stirring excitement to burst forth inside you, suddenly giddy at the very thought.

“Wait,” you draw the word out with a grin, leaning back into him and gently nudging him with your elbow to make sure he knows you’re only mostly joking.  “You gonna buy me a blaster, Mando?  I did earn my keep this week, didn’t I?”

“Have to find one that fits a big enough sight first,” he mutters while setting the gun down on the table, and you scoff at him as his hands come to rest on your hips.  They squeeze and try to guide you forwards once again.  “Prove that you can at least hit the target with mine and we’ll see.”

“You only get to make fun of me if you give me a real answer,” you rule, planting your feet and refusing to budge.

“Okay, but we both know I’ll make fun of you anyways,” he sighs, and you have to dig your heels in and push back into him to keep yourself rooted to the spot.

“You’re not being a very encouraging teacher,” you accuse without trying to hide your grin.  “In fact I feel very discouraged right now and I think that y—”

But then Din suddenly tips his helmet closer to your ear and lowers his voice, cutting you off.  “Did you know that gifting someone a weapon is considered a proposal of marriage on Mandalore?”

Your smile quickly drops and you gasp, wholly startled at the implication and immediately trying to spin around to look at him.  “Holy shit, are you serious?”

“No,” comes his modulated grunt, tightening his hold and keeping you firmly facing forwards.  “Of course not.  Pick up the gun.”

Okay.

Okay, so that one gets you.

You immediately start giggling, painfully aware that this isn’t the time or place for it, but that one actually fucking got you.  Din easily guides and parks your gullible ass in front of the window carved out of dried mud before picking up the blaster himself and forcing you to hold it with your loose hands, grumbling under his breath.

Shit, okay, focus.  Focus, you can do this.  You clear the laughter from your throat and suddenly get deadly serious, staring your target down like it’s personally gone out of its way to ruin your entire life.  The blaster feels cold in your palms but not when Din’s hands wrap warm and tight around the back of yours, letting you hold the gun how it’s most comfortable for you before gently settling his fingers down over yours.  His chestpiece presses tight against your shoulder blades when he guides the gun up and out, and his arms are long enough to extend yours fully even though he’s behind you and still has some bend to his elbows.  He uses his feet to kick your ankles apart until they’re shoulder-width and then you both carefully find the trigger together.

He’s quiet and slow about it and the whole thing is one giant fucking turn-on.  Maker, chill out.  Chill out, he’s teaching you how to shoot.  This is important stuff, there are people around, chill out…

Din takes a moment to aim the barrel and his hold is so fucking steady, so unwavering and strong.  You wonder if it’d be too obvious if you pushed your hips back a little, you might be able to feel his—

“Fire,” Din murmurs next to your ear, and you pull the trigger without a second thought.

The bright red plasma beam launches from the end of the blaster and hits the target dead center.  You gasp, pulling the trigger again, and unsurprisingly, it’s another perfect shot.

He suddenly lets go of your arms and takes a small step back, but the second he removes his body from yours, the rounds start bouncing wildly off the edges of the target.  Your eyebrows furrow and you try to emulate how you think the angle felt before, but you can’t find it anymore and you’re just failing spectacularly.

When you decide to pause for a second, Din steps up close behind you and wraps his arms around you once more.  You can feel the exact moment he’s locked in his aim, and you fire wordlessly as soon as you know it’s going to hit.  Bullseye, right on the nose.

This time, he lifts just his hands away from yours, staying perfectly still otherwise and you swear you don’t move a single fucking muscle in your entire body before pulling the trigger, but it still hits the far corner of the target.

“It’s broken,” you shrug once again, and Din drops his helmet to your shoulder with a sigh.  “This gun was made for you, which means there’s obviously some mod you have installed that reads biometrics and ruins the shot no matter how good it—”

“Not even close, but that’s not a bad idea,” he tells you, watching you click the safety on and set the uncooperative blaster down.  “I can’t figure out what you’re doing wrong.   Are you just distracted?”

Uh, fuck yeah you are.  So much is going on and more than that, he’s here and he’s just… fuck, you know what he meant when he said he felt like he was losing his mind.  He’s your biggest distraction, all the time.  He’s still standing so close to you and the baby is still isolated and tucked away in his hovering sphere, and you take a moment to think about it.  

Yes, it’s… it’s possible that you may learn better by example than anything else.

“Can I watch you do it?”  You ask him, and Din shrugs before reaching around you and quickly grabbing the blaster from its mud shelf.  “Wait—” you tell him while he raises and extends his arm over your shoulder, and then you wiggle sideways as much as possible in the small booth to squeeze around behind him.  He doesn’t say anything as you swap places with him and scoot up behind him, but you can tell by his body language that he’s confused.  You wonder if he liked that position and watching you shoot his gun, even if you’re complete shit at it.

He stands in front of you for a second and you give him an encouraging, “Okay,” to let him know you’re ready, but then the helmet turns back to look at the target like he’s still unsure as to what you want specifically.  You keep your mouth shut and let him figure it out.  You meant what you said—you want to watch him shoot.  You want to watch him where he’s infamous, watch him do what he’s best at and let completely loose in front of you.

As if it finally clicks for him, Din turns to face the target and suddenly throws the blaster into his left hand while reaching down and pushing a button hidden under the hollow platform with his right.  You have to lean around his broad shoulders to watch the target slide backwards on its track easily triple the distance before squeaking and slamming to a stop.  Din stretches his non-dominant hand out and subtly tilts his helmet before firing six times, easily hitting the bullseye with just as much accuracy as before, and you frown when you notice the only shots that have actually hit the target so far have all been dead center.

He sets the gun down and stands there for a second, staring across the range like it’s nothing at all to him and it’s… remarkable.  Not that he’s a wicked shot, you’ve known that the second you laid eyes on his armor all those months ago.  No, it’s just… you would think this is where he’d thrive, if anywhere.  The entire place is full of smugglers, raiders, scavengers, mercenaries—occupations that define themselves by their grit.  They’re talking as much as they’re shooting, conversing in languages you’ve never heard but suspect Din easily understands.  But instead of fitting in, he’s just… there.  He doesn’t look comfortable, but he also doesn’t look uncomfortable, either.  He doesn’t look like he’s having any fun at all.

None of this is considered a hobby to him, you suddenly realize.  It’s not fun because he’s too good at it.  This is life.  This is going back to school for the most basic fundamentals of a job he’s excelled at for decades—it’s not interesting, he’s gaining absolutely nothing from practicing.

You try to think of the last time you’ve seen him truly in his element.  You think back on all the different settings—he looked out of place on Canto Bight, got into fights on Corellia, hated Coruscant, seemed stressed on Nevarro, and even on Naboo, even in the middle of paradise, he looked unsure if he actually deserved to be there with you.  Now here on Tatooine, where he has real people that he trusts, where he’s surrounded by like-minded individuals shooting his favorite things in the world, it’s like he’s still not able to fully let go.

Is it just you, you wonder?  Does he stand out more just because you’re the one looking?

No, you think.  No.  You have seen him relax.  You’ve seen him laugh before, you’ve seen him be himself with you.  

But… only with you.  A hardened bounty hunter that much prefers the company of a young woman and an infant to literally anyone else in the galaxy.

Fuck.  Why does that turn you on so fucking much?  It’s the display of prowess, the sheer skill he’s developed, how fucking deadly he is—and how you’ve felt him use that trigger finger to trace slow circles around your clit.  The Mandalorian standing with his blaster raised has probably been the last thing too many people have ever seen in their lifetimes, and yet watching from this angle just makes you feel protected, guarded, and… so fucking horny for him.

“Do it again,” you eventually murmur, touching both your palms to his back this time just to feel it.  You want to feel him shoot, you want to feel his muscles move with it.  You want to touch how mechanically he’s able to aim, you want to know if he’s loose or tense when he fires, you just want to… feel it.

Din grabs the gun and as he extends his arms out, you slide your hands up his back to rest under his shoulders.  He’s so broad, he feels so warm and strong, and his trigger releases are so steady that nothing above his wrists move.

Shit, before he’s even finished setting the blaster back down again, you’re already scooting up behind him as close as possible and carefully slithering your arms around his waist, hugging your body tight to his back.  Din stays completely still while your mouth presses against the fabric of his cape and your hands begin to slowly slide down his stomach.

He doesn’t say a damn thing, which makes it even hotter for some reason.  There’s no warning he gives you, no low growl of your name or sweet girl being dragged through the modulator.  He stays completely silent and holds there while blasters continue to fire from stalls to your left, and it gives you the thrill of your lifetime.  Big strong man holding perfectly still for you to touch in the middle of a crowded room.

Your hand slips under his waistband and sink down low until you can trail your fingertips along his cock, hidden from sight beneath the edge of the clay shelf.  The small sound you make at feeling it already firm and at attention for you gets lost in the noise of the shooting range, but you wrap your palm around it and give it a good, slow pull upwards, feeling Din’s back expand with a breath from the sensation.

“Do it again,” you whisper into his shoulder blade, slowly playing with his cock in his pants with one hand while keeping the other wrapped tight around his abdomen.

Din immediately snatches the blaster off the platform and fires it the very moment he takes aim, and you can feel his cock pulse in your palm as he lets off the shots.  Dead center, as always, but he clunks the metal back down with a bit more force this time and then lingers his fingertips at the sloped edge of it for a second, as if he’s considering whether or not he should hold onto it.  

You’re already wet between your legs, but it gets worse the longer he allows you to keep doing this.  His skin is furnace-hot and he throbs for you, and you trail your thumb up to check—oh, Maker, he’s leaking for you, too.  You drag the pad of your thumb over the tip and gently rub the wetness along the curve of his head, before easing back down to give the shaft another slow pull.

A quiet puff of air comes through the vocal filter, but that’s all you audibly get out of him.  Still, it’s more than enough to fill you with a wicked heat and a desperate desire for more.  So you bite your lip and glance around just to double-check that nobody else has wandered over behind you and the kid is still tucked away in his crib, probably passed out in the secluded darkness at this point.  And then you barely take a split-second to consider it before your knees are bending and you’re slowly sinking down the length of his body.

Din is a fucking statue.  He doesn’t do anything to allow your wiggling underneath the raised platform anymore than he widens his stance to prevent it.  Once you’re on your knees in front of him in the dim isolation of your hiding spot though, he takes a single step forward and pins his waist to the hardened clay above your head, and a thrill skitters through you at being completely walled in on all four sides.

You reach up to hook your fingertips in his hem of his trousers and begin pulling them down, so tight and achy between your legs that you want to shove your hand down between them already.  You don’t though, not yet, because you need two hands to be extra careful in getting his cock out.  You don’t even want the fabric of his pants to touch it, you want your mouth to be the only sensation he knows here.

At the very last second, you decide to pull the waistband down far enough to let his balls rest outside the confining clothing, getting increasingly hotter at the thought that this isn’t going to be sneaky and dirty, even if you’re in public.  Din’s wide stance and the floor-length cape hide you perfectly from any prying eyes behind his back, so it’s going to be soft and it’s going to be slow and he’s going to be comfortable while you go down on him.

Your mouth is already watering, so you bend down just slightly and lift your chin to gently drag your tongue along the smooth skin of his balls before anything else.  Honestly—you don’t think he’s expecting you to go there first, because his whole body suddenly jerks at the velvet soft sensation between his legs and you let out a low hum in response.  He can’t reach you down here unless he tries to, so you scoot your knees up a little bit and just decide to go for it.  This way he won’t be able to get it confused, he won’t pull you out from under here halfway through when you suck on his balls before anything else.  This is what you want from him, what’s right here in your mouth.

You switch to the other one and Din twitches with a filtered breath, the skin already tightening up and responding gorgeously under your tongue.  His hand hovers somewhere near the raised platform above your head, fingers curling in his leather gloves and caught right between stopping you and letting you continue.  While he allows it, you ease your way up and make it just tantalizing enough to make him ache without providing any real stimulation, slowly trailing your tongue up the length of his cock and pressing plush lips to the flared head.

Din exhales a shakily while you take your time, tasting the precum as his body produces it, just kissing and licking and purposefully refusing to touch him with anything besides your mouth.  Without being able to see the rest of him from this angle, you're left to your own devices—you’re so gentle and soft about the pleasure that you start to separate the man from the throbbing erection you’re currently playing with.  You begin to enjoy yourself without thinking too much about the struggle he must be withstanding right now, you moan softly against his heated skin even though you know you’re being a tease at the worst possible moment, but no matter how you decide to take your time with it, Din continues to allow it.  He endures.  Silent, perfectly still, until you eventually decide to wrap your lips around the head of his cock and flutter your tongue up underneath it.

But then he jumps and your eyes open when a deep, unkind voice from the stall to your left calls out, “Hey, Mando!  Gonna fuckin’ shoot or just stand there, huh?”

You can hear his immediate frustration in the blaster scraping against the shelf over your head, and you moan softly around his cock the second you feel him tense and start firing.  The smooth skin pulses on your tongue and you slide your fingers around the backs of his knees, opening your throat and slowly taking him deeper.  

And, for a man that has repeatedly fired six perfect shots every single time he picks up his gun, he falters after just three this time.

The heat of your mouth must be too overwhelming.  Too fucking good, too detrimental to his focus and composure to even perform the most basic tasks he typically excels at.  Like a seasoned mathematician that suddenly struggles to count to ten, a renowned author that can’t recite their ABC’s—Mando can’t even fire a weapon right now and it’s all because of you.  

He has to keep trying though, he has to make an actual effort now that you both know someone nearby is paying at least some sort of attention to his performance.  The sound of more plasma arcing through the air over your head slowly disappears into the background in a way that it never could while you were the one firing—you’re completely hidden and safe down here, you can moan low in your throat while keeping your hands around his knees and begin to bob your head without another thought or worry whatsoever.  Handling it is all on him.  He just needs to stay quiet, be still, and shoot his gun.  It should be the simplest thing in the galaxy for him, right?

Wrong.  So wrong.  You hear the way the bolts are pinging off the sides of the target now, you listen to him grunt and let off a few more shots that also sound like they miss.  Your soft palate lifts and you’re practically drenching yourself at how wide he stretches your throat while you take him down as far as you can, and there’s a moment where you’re holding there and you think about doing something about the dull ache throbbing between your legs.  But once you pull off him for air and automatically touch your drooling tongue to your palm, you decide this is what you want more.

Your slick hand wraps around his cock and starts to slowly jerk him off while your mouth moves down to attach to his balls once more, your touch gliding strong and wet along his entire length.  Din almost doubles over into the platform, his hips stuttering up for the first time at the hard stimulation you’re finally giving him.  His skin swells and tightens in your mouth—you can feel the tension locking his thighs down, you can hear the shots above you start to decrease in frequency, and you know he’s already close.

So you move back up to suck on the head of his cock again and slowly swirl your tongue around it, continuing to use your hand to pull steady and firm on the rest of his shaft, and you just close your eyes and wait for him to give you what you want.  His firing soon stops altogether and you squeeze your finger between your thighs and press hard against your clit, just needing to relieve some of the ache.  You keep doing that, you keep drawing circles with your tongue while slowly jerking the rest of him off into your mouth, and at some point, it all just becomes too much for him.

“Shit,” Din gasps, along with the sudden sound of metal skittering against the clay above you, and your eyes pop open in surprise.  “Ah, sh—shhhhh—”

Maker, did he just drop his fucking gun?

You start to pull back, but then suddenly a trembling hand shoots down and clutches tight under your throat, hooking hard behind your jaw to make sure you stay right there.

His cock starts throbbing and he shudders, slamming his other palm on the shelf and cumming hard in your mouth.  You’re already swallowing before he even gives you anything but Maker, you’re fucking desperate for it that your hand moves to curl your fingers against the exposed skin at his hips as if that’ll somehow help you get it sooner.  The first taste of him comes as soon as you dig in and drag your nails down his flesh, and Din is helpless to do anything else besides clutch your jaw tight and gasp raggedly while emptying himself down your throat.

He shakes and shudders and you don’t spill a single drop, clutching his hips and pulling him close to keep him in your mouth, and as he slowly comes down from that plateau, you lick every inch of him clean.  His fingers gradually lose their rigidity around your jaw and eventually, his fingers drop down to press gently against your throat while his hips pull back.

He slips from your mouth and you wipe the wetness from your chin, staring up at his cock wistfully and almost wanting to keep going.  Is that fucked up, you wonder?  What would he think?

He hasn’t moved yet, why isn’t he moving?  Your job is clearly finished here, no matter what kind of way you may feel about that.  The coast must not be clear, you have to assume.  Perhaps someone is wandering around behind him, maybe he’s still being cautious about the nosy person next door—all you know is that you can tell he wants to move but he isn’t, which likely means he can’t.  You know his cock must be so unbelievably sensitive right now, but he’s not easing his body back far enough away from the shelf to tuck it into his pants.  He’s keeping it right in front of your face and expecting you to stay there until he deems it appropriate for you to get up.

The longer you wait for him to step back and let you out from under here, the more your need sparks and grows.  What would he think?  That you’re so desperate for his cock that you still want it in your mouth even when it’s soft and spent?  Maker, he’d be fucking right on the money.

At some point, you can’t stop yourself.  You lean back up to slowly take his soft cock back in your mouth, and Din nearly spasms while you slip your hand under your waistband and widen your knees.

You don’t do anything spectacular to it—you’re not that cruel—but you do hold him on the heat of your tongue and keep him there, fluttering your eyes closed as your finger finally touches your clit.  Air puffs shakily through your nostrils and you think Din is actually shaking harder than you are, his body fighting oversensitivity while yours starts the race towards bliss.  He doesn’t stop you but it also feels like he’s purposefully trying not to, like everything in him is rebelling against the wet heat of your mouth but knowing you’re only doing this because you’re so painfully turned on.  You’re doing this because you need it, in spite of the electric shocks of wicked sensation it seems to be inspiring in him.

Your finger speeds up and you start gently sucking on the warm, giving flesh, and his hand trembles as it grabs at your hair.  Fuck, you don’t care if he thinks you’re desperate—you want him to recognize it, you want him to know exactly how much you love his cock—

That thought sends a dark thrill down your spine and pleasure burns bright and needy where you’re still rubbing your clit, dropping your hips and rolling them forwards against your hand.  And oh, your only lament is that you wish he was the one doing this.  You wish Din was building your pleasure instead of letting you use his body in search of your own, you wish it was his hand working between your legs and about to shove you over that ledge, but then again.  Something about this whole fucking scene is just so… undignified.  Debased.  And you’re getting off on it, quicker than you ever thought possible.

When you cum, you’re good and you don’t make a single sound when you cum.  You squeeze your eyes shut and your entire body jolts with every single shattering wave of ecstasy, and Din tugs a handful of your hair and slowly rocks his hips once, twice, fucking your mouth while you endure wildfire burning through your veins.  By the time you finish convulsing on the fucking floor of a Tatooinian gun range, you know you can go for another and probably get it equally as quick as that one, but Din is already pulling his cock out of your mouth and shoving it back into his pants.  You’re like jelly as your elbow is immediately caught in his arm and you’re hauled up from your hiding spot, dazed and disoriented.

The chrome visor stares you down and you want to shrink in on yourself, thinking he’s going to take your happy ass back to the Crest.  You should be in trouble, you know you should be in trouble.  Leaving the recesses of your dark cubby and coming face to face with your surroundings brings a brand new clarity to light—you totally should not have done any of that.  He was trying to teach you, for Maker’s sake.  He was taking the time to show you the valuable knowledge he’s gained regarding weaponry and self-defense.  Fuck, you even told him on Naboo that you wanted to shoot a gun, and he brought you here to do just that.

Except then he just spins you around and picks up the blaster from the adobe ledge in front of you, placing it firmly in your hands.

“Okay,” he pants quietly next to your ear, breathing hard and shallow through the helmet.  “Now you should be able to focus, right?”

Fuck…  Fuck, is he serious?  You can barely hold the damn thing, you’re shaking so hard.  How does this work again?  What does this do?

“Wh-What?”  You croak—fuck, your voice is gone.  “I… I can’t—”

“Try,” he encourages, helping your comparatively tiny hands flip off the safety but other than that, stepping back and leaving you to it.  Completely and hopelessly lost, you weakly twist around to watch him stand next to the kid’s closed metallic shield.  “Hit the target,” Din reiterates with a nod, trying to catch his breath.  “You can do it.”

You look back out with unfocused eyes to see it still all the way on the far end of its track, and there’s just absolutely no fucking way.  “I… can’t.”

“Hit the target and we can go home,” he tells you, and while you don’t exactly know what home is anymore, something tells you it’s somewhere in hyperspace.  A resting baby, a metal floor, a pitch black hull, and your cheek pressed against a warm chest.

It sounds… wonderful.

Inspiring a newfound kind of desire in you, you lift your arms as best you can and work so, so hard to keep them steady.  The target is in your sights and you do your absolute best—fuck, you really do, but you pull the trigger and the shot sadly bounces off the edge.

You drop your hands, already defeated and drained.  “I can’t.”

“Hit the target and I’ll buy you a blaster,” he ups the ante, and you instantly lift your dead arms again.  Fuck, come on, come on, you can do this.

You shoot.  Nope.  So you shoot again.  And then you shoot again, and again, minutely adjusting your wrists purely based on where the bright red plasma is landing and ignoring the scope entirely.

“A nice one,” he continues over the pew pew pew of you just continuing to fucking miss, fucking miserably, over and over again.  “Expensive.  Hand-crafted, one of a kind…”

Miss, miss, miss, and—no.  Just, no.  There’s only so much glaring failure you can take before you snap.  You finally stop shooting and growl in frustration, going to slam the metal down on its resting place.  “Mando, I ca—”

“Hit the target and I’ll marry you,” he says quietly, and you freeze just before impact.

… What?  N… No…

Miraculously, you somehow manage to calmly switch the safety on and set the blaster down before turning back to see the helmet staring at you, unmoving.

You… you know it must just be a joke, right?  Just a stupid extension to the one he made earlier, it must be.  You blink dumbly at him and flick your gaze between the visor and two large black eyes staring at you from the crib, wondering if you glitched or if you’re just hallucinating.

“Uh…” you hear yourself say, even though you’ve got absolutely nothing, but Din doesn’t offer anything else to fill in the gaps of your startled misunderstanding.  If you didn’t have such a wild fucking reaction to the words, you'd probably wonder if he actually said them or not—that’s how much he gives away.  Silent, so unbelievably silent when you’re begging him to give you at least something.  Is he messing with you again?  Is he just that confident that you’re going to fail?

It takes forever for you to turn back around and face the target, but you eventually do when he refuses to elaborate.  Your heart slams in your chest and you wonder what you’re doing even attempting this.

The moment you lift your trembling arms is the moment you know your heart is pounding too fast—your finger twitches with the wild rush of blood flow and you end up pulling the trigger way before you’re ready.  You fire before you’ve checked your sights, you fire before you’ve taken any sort of aim whatsoever, you fire spontaneously enough to surprise even yourself and it—

—it hits dead center.

Your stomach drops and a jolt of some rabid feeling punches through you, you have no idea what it is.  You whip around so fast that you get dizzy, seeing him standing there, completely still.

“That was just beginner’s luck,” you quickly reassure him, suddenly feeling faint.  Holy shit, holy shit, what the fuck just happened?  “Listen—hey, no, listen, I can’t get it again,” you explain shrilly to the utterly dead silence from him.  “Look, watch this, double or nothing.”

You spin back around, well aware that absolutely nothing about what you just said or what just happened made any fucking sense at all.  Beginner’s luck when you’ve been consistently awful at this, telling him repeatedly to listen when you’re very, very fucking aware he hasn’t said anything, double or nothing on a literal proposal as if double marriage is something that actually exists?

No.  Shut up.  Don’t even think that word, don’t think about fucking anything.  Fire, fire without thinking, just lift the gun and pull the trigger—

You do, and oh.  Oh, no.

“Uh?!”  Your voice comes out on a squeak, now in a complete fucking panic.  What the fuck?  No fucking way.  Perfect, perfect, the odds are fucking astronomical—another deadly accurate shot.  “Ah, um, okay, scratch everything I said—th-third time’s a charm?”

Wide-eyed and having absolutely no clue what you’re doing at this point, you fail to see Din slowly turn his helmet down and to the right as he stands behind you.  You go to lift your arms and pull the trigger, but then he suddenly reaches out lightning-quick and bumps your elbow upwards at the very last second.  

The abrupt push causes your shot to be angled off course spectacularly and you can’t do anything but look up and gasp in horror, worried it’s going to ricochet off the ceiling and land somewhere this building isn’t architecturally designed to absorb.  There’s just enough time to wildly wonder why the fuck he did that—

—but then, like pure magic before your eyes… the beam of plasma adjusts itself in midair.  

It fucking bends.  Across the length of your entire firing lane, it curves in a downward trajectory and hits the target with absolutely impossible physics.

Your jaw fucking drops and you whip your body around in dumb shock to see Din staring hard at the closed shield next to him.

… that’s not closed.

The baby tilts his head at you and coos happily, one ear tipping up while the other tips down, and you’re completely blown away.  Not only at the entirely unexpected demon-power display, but what specifically he was hoping to get out of it.  You’re still stuck, blinking down at the adorable little goof with abilities you’ll never understand.

Only, a hand suddenly grabs yours and drags you back to yourself.

“We need to leave,” Din says quietly, switching the lid shut on the hovering crib and pushing it towards the booth’s exit while tugging you along behind him.  “I don’t know how many people saw that, we need to leave.”

Sure enough, voices in the next partition over start picking up, likely the only ones in here who had a good enough angle to watch the physically unthinkable shot somehow meet its target, and your adrenaline quickly begins pumping while you keep your head down and power-walk your ass to the door.  You don’t know the kind of consequences that could potentially arise from others witnessing the kid’s literal sorcery, but you know you’d rather not take the chance.  The voices start growing louder as you three make your quick escape, beginning to ask others around them if they just saw that, but you’re already out of the rectangular adobe structure and long gone by the time anybody steps out of their panels to hear the uproarious accusations of cheating beginning to fly.

***

Stay tuned for the next part!

[katyasrussianaccent]

you’re so golden (corpse x reader)

Summary: You’re a faceless youtuber that sings cover songs. What happens when a certain faceless streamer slides into your DMs after you cover one of his songs?

Authors note: Part 3 whoop! I havent written fic in 3 years so Im hoping this is okay. Its about 4000 words, super long, sorry. I also dont play Among Us, but hopefully its not too obvious. Lemme know what you think!

You're nervous, though you aren’t quite sure why. The kind of nervousness that spreads to your feet, causing you to tap your toes against the side of your sofa.

Call you in 15. 

You look at the message again, staring at it till the screen goes blurry. Rubbing your eyes you exhale into the emptiness of your apartment; a feeble attempt at calming yourself down.

Logically it’s stupid to be nervous over a phone call. Logically you know that in the grand scheme of the universe, there are bigger things at hand. But you’re not a logical person, never have been. You’re all heart and emotion, both a blessing and a curse. There’s something intimate about a phone call, to have nothing but someone’s voice on the other end of the phone, talking to you and only you. It was a little scary; to think your purely online friendship with Corpse was going to be taken to a different level. You’re excited to think what that could mean.

“Fucking get it together,” you mutter to no-one as you exhale again, because there’s nothing else to do other than to wait and try to breath. There’s this frantic energy about you; like when you eat fizzy sweets, the flavour buzzing on your tongue. Your ancestors used to hunt wolves and here you were nervous over a single phone call.

The silence in your apartment’s too much now; too noisy. You grab your TV remote, clicking onto Spotify to find something. You’re scrolling so much, none of the artists feeling quite right for the moment before settling on Sufjan Stevens.

The dulcet tones fill the space, and for a brief second, you feel fine. You’re feeling relaxed and then your phone lights up.

Incoming Facetime Audio

“Fuckfuckfuckfuck” you say. Your face feels warm, your heart quickens in your chest. You could just ignore it, say you’re not feeling too good and that would be that, you wouldn’t have to do this. But it’s Corpse, you like Corpse and you’re kind of friends.

You swipe to accept the call, and press the button for speaker. 

“Hey,” you say, cringing at the meek tone your voice has taken on.

“Hey,” Corpse’s deep voice rumbles through your tiny speaker, distorting slightly and you press the volume button to turn it down a little.

There’s a beat of silence, a beat too long, and you already hate how awkward this is. You’re not great at social stuff, the concept of being a social butterfly is almost foreign to you. And it’s not because you dislike people, it’s just you hate this; the small talk, the awkwardness before you get comfortable and can hold an actual conversation.

You suddenly remember a tip from your customer service days. “How are you?” you ask, plastering on a grin so wide that it must look borderline demented. Thank god you’re single. 

“I’m okay thanks, how are you?” he asks.

You lounge back against the soft cushions of the sofa, lifting the phone up to your mouth as you do so. “I’m good, excited to be taught by the Among Us master.”

He snorts in disdain. “Hardly a master.” 

You chew your lip before you speak again, “I dunno, people on the internet think you’re pretty good.”

He snorts again, and you smile at the sound. It’s not something you’ve heard from him before, through your hours of watching his streams, you’ve become accustomed to his voice and the noises he makes. But this one seems to be new. And maybe it’s the weird, selfish part of you that likes to think he’s only ever made that sound for you. You shake the thought out of your head, because really? Getting happy over a snort is really such a ridiculous thing to do. 

“People on the internet say a lot of things.”

“True, but sometimes they speak the truth,” you reply, moving to get more comfortable; tucking your feet under your thighs. You wonder what he’s doing right now as he talks to you, is he sitting down? Or is he lying on his bed; his head propped up with pillows? There’s a brief flash of yearning, of wanting to be there in the same room as him, but it disappears as quickly as it appeared so you ignore it.

“Hm. We’ll agree to disagree.”

“Okay, you’re the boss Mr Husband.”

He chuckles softly, and again, you smile. You can feel yourself getting annoyed with yourself; you’re acting like a child with a crush; smiling at the phone. All you needed now was a notebook that had Mrs YN Husband written all over it.

“You know if you keep calling me that, we’re gonna have to get married,” he says, his voice a little lower than it was before. You blink and cock your head to the side, looking at an imaginary camera like you’re in The Office. Did you say that out loud? Is he...flirting with you? Sure, you’re flirty over Twitter, but it’s Twitter, Twitter isn’t real. There’s a fluttery feeling in your stomach at the mere prospect that he might actually be flirting with you.

“I’d be the best wife you could ever get,” you shoot back. There’s a brief second of silence before he answers, and you can hear shuffling on the other end. You want to ask what he’s doing, but you know it would break the conversation, and you’re curious to see where this goes.

“Oh really? And why’s that?” he asks, and you can picture the smirk in his voice. You have no idea what he looks like, no real care about it either, but you bet he’s got a beautiful smile. You bite your tongue before it tells him this, for once your brain actually works and stops you from making a fool out of yourself. It’s incredibly strange, how quickly he puts you at ease without a try, he’s just so naturally comforting. He’s not this flashy persona, he’s just a guy who likes to play video games and happens to be kinda good at them. And also has a voice that is literally like chocolate. Not just chocolate; dark chocolate. If dark chocolate could talk, it would sound like Corpse.

“Cos your girl can cook,” you say proudly, puffing out your chest a little. And that’s not a lie, you can cook. Okay, you’re not a Michelin starred chef, but you feel quite confident in the fact that Gordon Ramsey could eat your food, and probably (hopefully) wouldn’t scream that it was “fucking raw”. 

“And what would you cook for me?” he asks. 

You hum in thought for a second. “You’ll have to marry me first to find that out.”

He laughs, a proper laugh that settles in your stomach, spreading warmth through your chest. “I’ll think about it. I can hear music, what are you listening to?”

You straighten up a little, the question catching you off guard. You bite the inside of your cheek as you look at the song that’s playing. It’s not his type of music, you’re almost positive about that. You almost don’t want to tell him out of embarrassment. You’re not sure why you feel embarrassed; you know Corpse isn’t an asshole, he wouldn’t make fun of you. But music is so personal to you, so personal, it’s like baring a piece of your soul; which sounds so fucking cliche, but it’s true.

“Uhhh...It’s called Make out in My Car by Sufjan Stevens,” you reply.

He hums in affirmation. “It sounds nice; from what I can hear.”

“I can turn it up?” you ask, leaning forward to grab the remote off the coffee table.

“You could always sing some for me,” he offers. 

You laugh a little, scrunching up your nose. “And why would I do that?”

“I thought you wanted to get married. You have to woo me,” he replies.

“Woo you?” you ask, your tone incredulous. This isn’t how you pictured the conversation going.

“Yeah. Woo me, yn.” he says, dragging out the “o” causing you to laugh again.

You sigh dramatically. “I haven’t warmed up or anything, it’s gonna sound so bad” you warn as you put the song to the beginning.

“I’m sure you sound great. Go ahead, woo me.” 

You shake your head as you softly sing. “I'm not trying to go to bed with you, I just wanna make out in my car. And though I'm dying to fall in love with you, I just wanna make out in my car”. You stop and you’re suddenly very aware that you have essentially just serenaded him. Good going, brain.

It’s silent for a beat too long, and the smile that graced your lips starts to fade as the embarrassment starts to set in. 

“Well now we definitely have to get married,” he affirms. And there’s that fluttery feeling again.

You swallow, moving the conversation swiftly onto Among Us. You grab your laptop that was next to you, humming in acknowledgement as he walks you through downloading it. 

“So there’s a few of us joining us tonight, it should be really fun.”

“Oh. It’s not just us two?” you ask. You focus on the download, watching the number increase. You’re nervous at the prospect of playing with other people, strangers, for the first time. 

“No, it’s a 4 player minimum. We’re going to stream as well.”

“Corpse…” you start. You begin to pick at the skin around your nails, a habit you do whenever you get really anxious. This was meant to just be a cute moment where you learnt how to play a game, not a big event where people would be actually watching you, judging your every move.

“We’re going to do a few games off stream with you, you don’t need to be there for the stream after if you don’t want to,” he interrupts. 

“Okay,” you trail off, your teeth biting down on your bottom lip. You feel a little better, but not by much. You didn’t know who the other people were, what if they hated you? You ask this out loud.

“I’ll be there. You know Rae and Sykkuno. Felix, Sean and Toast will be there but they’re super nice, I promise.” His voice is sincere, and it soothes you. You don’t know him, not really know him, but you trust Corpse. You know he has his own struggles, and you believe his promise; he wouldn’t screw you over or put you in a situation you were uncomfortable with.

The rest of the call is him taking you through how to play and how to set up something called Proximity Chat so everyone can talk to each other in the game. He says it’s easier once you actually play, and it doesn’t sound particularly hard quite honestly, you just hope you don’t get imposter on the first try because you’re not the greatest liar. 

The game screen pops up, and you type in the code that Corpse gives you. You say goodbye to Corpse, who tells you to text him if you need any help. You drop into the game lobby, and you look at the little astronaut. There’s no time to dwell as a cacophony of voices hits you.

“YN!” Rae screeches and you chuckle at her enthusiasm. You’ve known Rae for a few years now, you met at college and had become fast friends. Though you had many different interests - gaming for one, you considered her your best friend. Rae was the type of friend where you didn’t need to talk every single day, you could message her a week later and it would be like no time had passed at all. And you loved that, sometimes you just didn’t want to talk to anyone. Sometimes your mood wasn’t the best, and you needed a little time to recharge. And she understood that, something that you were eternally grateful for. 

“Raebies!” you screech back, using your “pet” name for her.

“I’ve been trying to get you to play forever. But Mr Smooth Operator over there slides into your DMs and suddenly you’re a gamer now?”

“It sounds so sordid when you say it like that,” you reply.

“Hi yn! Glad to see you playing with us,” Sykkuno says. You greet him and the others, making sure to say hi to everyone in the game. You didn’t want to start off by being accidentally rude. You listen as everyone talks amongst each other, and you talk when spoken to, but you aren’t interjecting. It wasn’t anything against the other players, it was just a little overwhelming, and you were figuring out what everyone was like.

“Hello,” Corpse’s voice interrupts your train of thought and you greet him along with everyone else. 

“Aw, I wanted purple,” you say, frowning at Corpse’s name above the astronaut.

“We can switch,” he replies.

“No it’s o -” you start to speak before you realise he’s already switched to white. “Thank you, you didn’t have to.” You smile as you switch to purple, and you decide to add a flower for a little pizzazz.

“It’s your first game, I’ll kill you if I get imposter so it’ll even out,” he jokes and everyone laughs. The countdown begins and you puff your cheeks out, exhaling as it gets to 1. You’re nervous again, a seemingly common theme of the night. Your shoulders relax as the word CREWMATE flashes across the screen.

You watch as everyone but Corpse disperses from the cafeteria with haste, and you look at the keyboard to press the buttons to move.

“You ever see an old person text? That’s how I’m picturing you right now,” Corpse says as you walk together to Weapons.

“Shut up Sonny,” you reply in your best old woman voice, getting a laugh. You open up the task, shooting the Asteroids with ease. “Yay, I completed a task!”

“Good job,” Corpse replies, and you beam at the praise. You move down to o2, doing your task while Corpse does his.

“Wait, you could be imposter right? How would I know?” you ask as you walk together to Navigation.

“You wouldn’t, you just have to trust me,” he says, his voice full of charm.

You scowl. “Well that just makes me not want to trust you.” 

Before he replies, there’s a blaring alarm. DEAD BODY REPORTED. You blink at the suddenness; you were really enjoying the relaxing pace of the game. You look at the screen;  Felix has been killed.

“Who found the body?” Corpse asks.

“I did,” Rae answers. “I was in admin, and was going to lower engine and it was there in storage.”

“If you were in admin, why didn’t you go up through Cafeteria?” Toast asks.

“Because it’s quicker to go through storage,” Rae replies. They argue between themselves, and you listen intently and silently. It’s a lot of information, you can’t tell whose lying, but you guess that’s what makes a good player.

“Where were you yn?” Sean quizzes, and it takes you a second to realise you’re being spoken to.

“Oh. I was in um o2?”

“You don’t sound too sure there, pretty sus,” he says. Your face heats up a little, you’re not the imposter, but it feels like you are.

“She was in o2 and then we went to Navigation,” Corpse answers, and you breathe out as he takes on the interrogation.

“Oh you were together?” Rae asks, and you know that tone she’s got. It’s the tone that says she’ll be messaging you right away.

“Well yeah, it’s her first game, I’m not gonna leave her alone,” he says and you smile at that. 

“Yeah we’ve been together the whole time,” you add and it’s left at that. No-one votes anyone out, since no-ones really too suspicious. You carry on the game, and you find yourself really enjoying it, though the questioning part is kind of stressful. You can see why Corpse likes it so much, it’s really fun. You’re in electrical, humming as you do your task when Rae comes next to you. 

“Hey,” you greet her.

“I’m sorry, nothing personal,” she replies. Before you have a chance to say a word, she kills you and you look on in shock as your ghost floats above your body.  You listen into the meeting as Rae continues to lie and plead her case. She’s good, but Corpse knows better.

“Wait, you said you found her in electrical and you were where?” 

“I was in Upper Engine, and then I went to electrical to do my task,” Rae answers, her voice even and calm.

“I was in Lower Engine, and I didn’t see you,” Corpse says, and you grin at the fact Rae’s been found out. That’s what she gets for killing you.

“You were doing your task, I passed right by you,” Rae starts. She pleads her case, but it’s too late and she’s voted out.

“That was so much fun!” you declare. “I can see why you guys play it all the time.”

“Yes! We have converted another!” Felix shouts in victory.

“And all it took was Corpse,” Rae mutters sarcastically.

“Don’t get bitter Rachel, just get better,” you reply, causing the group to laugh.

You get the hang of it after a few games, and find yourself agreeing to stay while the others stream, though you decide against it yourself. You’ve only streamed once by yourself, and it was a very casual affair and you don’t want to feel too much pressure while you enjoy yourself. You know that Corpse gets nervous when he streams and he’s been doing it for so much longer, so you can only imagine how nervous you would be.

You tap your fingernails against the keyboard as the lobby counts down, any previous nerves have been replaced with excitement. 

IMPOSTER flashes across. You’re the only one, your astronaut looks lonely on the screen by itself, and the red letters almost taunt you. 

“Shit,” you mutter as your brain goes into overdrive. What was it Corpse had said before? Not to be too obvious. You don’t kill immediately, instead going at your previous pace to not look too suspicious. You were still fairly new to the game, and you were going to use that to your advantage.

You fake your task in Cafeteria before venting over to Navigation where Toast was.

“Hi Toast!” you greet, coming to stand next to him as you pretend you’re doing the task. 

“Oh hey yn,” he says. It doesn’t seem like he suspects you, and you’re not quite sure when to click the Kill button. You do it anyway before running out and going down and into shields. There’s adrenaline running through you as the dead body’s reported and you crack your knuckles before putting on your game face. You were going to play dumb, play the confused newbie - because to them, that’s what you were. 

“YN, where were you?” Corpse asks. Fuck. Maybe you weren’t going to get away with this.

You twiddle your hair as you draw out your words, playing the role perfectly. “Uhm I was in...shields? I think that’s what it’s called. I was in the cafeteria before that though.”

“Wait, you couldn’t have, I was in weapons. I would have seen you,” Sykkuno says.

You open your mouth to talk. “She could have vented,” Felix comments, and the rest of the group starts to agree.

“Guys, I don’t even know what venting is. I literally just started playing,” you point out, giggling.

“That’s true,” Rae agrees and you knew there was a reason you loved her.

“Bullshit! She’s playing you with her “oh I don’t know how to play” schtick,” Felix proclaims.

“Aw, that’s kind of rude, Felix. I’m just enjoying the game, doing the tasks,” you say, pouting a little. He’s the next on your list. 

Everyone skips the vote and you lean over your laptop, ready for the next round. You were going to win this. You kill Rae and Toast next, and yet again, manage to worm your way out of any suspicion. You can sense that Corpse and Felix are starting to get suspicious of you, and you know you need to bring out the big guns to throw them off.

You catch Sykkuno in Med Bay after checking the cams in Security.

“Hi yn!” he greets, and you almost feel guilty as you kill him. He’s so sweet and innocent, but unfortunately, casualties are a given. You pass Felix as he comes out of reactor and it’s only a matter of time before you’ll have to talk your way out of this one again.

“I passed yn as I came out of reactor,” Felix shouts with a hint of glee.

You roll your eyes; this is going to be tough. “Yeah I came from Upper Engine, I was finishing part 2 of a task.”

“I was in Electrical, where was the body?” Corpse asks.

“Med Bay. And the only one that could’ve been there was yn,” Felix starts.

“Well no, you could have passed me and killed Sykkuno then self reported,” you reply. “I think you can do that right?” 

Corpse hums in agreement. “Oh come on! She’s being really sus,” Felix argues.

“You are being a little sus yn,” Corpse comments.

“Corpse. You don’t really think it’s me do you?” You decide to lower your voice a little, your tone sweet but sultry. “You only taught me like an hour ago, there’s no way I’d be able to fool everybody so quickly.” You get close to the mic so it’s like you’re speaking only to Corpse. “Remember what I said? You’re a master at this.” You’re laying it on thick, and for a brief second you think you’ve been too over the top.

“This is difficult,” Corpse says, and you see the seconds count down, your heartbeat starts to quicken.

“Corpse, stop being a fucking simp and vote her out!” Felix demands.

“Corpsie baby,” you drawl out and you smile in success as you hear him sigh, almost shakily. You’ve got this in the bag. The victory screen flashes up and you cheer.

“Fuck yeah!” you shout, patting yourself on the back. You laugh as you exhale the breath you didn’t know you were holding.

“Good game yn!” Sykkuno comments, the others agreeing.

“Not fair, you used your womanly wiles against Corpse,” Felix says.

“Gotta use them for something. Not my fault Corpse knows where his allegiance lies,” you reply laughing a little.

You stretch, your back crying out in pain from being hunched over so long. You let out a long, loud moan of relief as you straighten your spine, your shoulders relaxing as you move from side to side.

“Your mic’s not muted” Corpse points out, clearing his throat. You feel your stomach drop and your face instantly becomes hot. Shit. 

“Oh. Uh. I totally forgot about that,” you say, forcing out a chuckle. You screw your eyes shut, any happiness has been now replaced by red hot shame. “So this was fun, uh, really fun, but um, I’m gonna, I’m gonna go. So...yeah. Bye guys, have fun!” 

You click to exit without giving anyone a chance to say a word, and drop your head into your hands. 

“Can’t wait to see what they say on Twitter about this,” you mutter into your hands.

TAGLIST (if youre bold, it wont let me tag): @teenageguitarist @fanworrior  @cherry-piee @mirahg  @clara-bee @cookinglovingalien @vir-tual @clubfairy @youretheonlyonewhomakesme @more-like-reyna @boiled-onionrings @moneybagmgk @brendalopez99 @delicateavenuenacho @dreamsofficialwife @hydrate-tion @little-red02 

[marauderundercover]

Taking Chances Ch. 18: Girl’s Night (Heroes/Villains)

AO3

Prev

First

Teleporting back into her room in Gotham, Marinette flops onto her bed. Passing Kaalki sugar cubes and Tikki a cookie, she suppresses the urge to scream into her pillow. She was sick and tired of Hawkmoth. Sick and tired of being the one who has to fix everything. She just wanted one week with no Hawkmoth, no akuma attacks. But no. Of course not. Of course he just had to send out a stupid akuma every single day. Because why not. How’re people supposed to know he’s still being the main villain of Paris if he takes a freaking day off? Once she finds out who he is, she’s going to punch him in his stupid face. A knock on her door pulls her from her plotting ways to get back at Hawkmoth. 

“Come in.” She sighs, sitting up and forcing a tired smile on her face. 

“Marinette, your father wanted-” Selina starts, pausing as she looks her over. “Come on kitten, we’re having a girls day.” She says. Marinette raises an eyebrow. Sure she’d met Selina before, but they hadn’t really hung out yet. 

“What?” She asks. 

“You look exhausted and angry, sweetheart. Spending too much time with these boys isn’t going to help. So you’re gonna grab anything you need for an overnight trip and we’re going to go watch movies and eat junk food til we’re sick.” Selina instructs. Marinette grins, jumping up and shoving stuff into her backpack. She puts Kaalki’s glasses into her purse and lets her and Tikki fly in before she turns to Selina. 

“Ready!” She says, practically bouncing up and down in excitement. It’d been ages since she’d had a girls day with anyone. She was so ready to just take a break and be silly. 

“Well come on then. Harley and Ivy are going to adore you.” Selina says, slinging her arm around Marinette’s shoulders. Somehow, they manage to not see anyone on the way to Selina’s car. Which is weird, but it is a weekday so everyone probably had something to do besides sit around the manor. Pulling away from the manor, Selina flips on the radio, the new Jagged Stone song blasting full volume.

“Nice taste in music.” Marinette says with a wide grin. Selina smirks. 

“I have to like the man at least a little, his designer is one of my kids after all.” She says. Marinette smiles, a warm feeling flooding through her. Selina didn’t have to accept her with open arms, she didn’t have to treat her like she was her own daughter. But she did, and Marinette was so thankful for that. Thankful that even so far away from her Maman, she still had a Mom there for her. The two nod along to the music, scream singing the chorus together as the car pulls to a stop in front of an apartment building. Marinette glances at the building, suddenly nervous. Would Harley and Ivy like her? Or would they just tolerate her for Selina. 

“Don’t make yourself nervous, sweetheart. Harley and Ivy are two of the sweetest people I know. They’re gonna love you.” Selina says reassuringly, reaching over and squeezing Marinette’s shoulder. Marinette lets out a breath before nodding. 

“Okay, let’s go.” She says, grabbing her bag and jumping out of the car. She follows closely behind Selina, not wanting to give anyone the chance to get between them. You could never be too careful in Gotham. They walk into the building and go straight into the elevator, Selina pushing the button and leaning up against the wall while they wait. Marinette bounces on the balls of her feet, excitement and nerves bundling together. The second the elevator stops, Marinette’s out, following Selina down the hall. She pulls out a key, winking at Marinette before turning and unlocking the door. 

“Honey, I’m home!” She calls, and Marinette’s jaw drops. The apartment was quite literally covered in plants and vines. They were beautiful. She grins as one of the vines near her leans towards her, a small flower blooming at the end of it. 

“And who did you bring with you?” A tall woman with red hair asks, walking into the room. The designer inside of Marinette instantly has a million questions about the woman’s outfit. It seemed to be made entirely of plants, but she could also tell that they were still alive. She had no idea how the woman had managed that, but she guessed that it was something that couldn’t be replicated for someone else. 

“I’m Marinette. Nice to meet you!” She says with a wide smile. The woman, who Marinette assumes is Ivy, grins back. 

“Nice to meet you, Flower. I see you’ve already made a friend.” She says, gesturing to the vine which was now wrapped around Marinette’s wrist. Marinette giggles. 

“Well, I was hoping they liked me and that’s what this was. I have a garden back in Paris, and I’d hate to find out plants actually hate me.” She says. Ivy shakes her head. 

“No worries there. They adore you, it’s a little odd if I’m honest.” Ivy says, dodging Selina who tries to flick her. 

“Did I hear Selina?” Another voice asks, a short blonde woman walking into the room. Her hair was short and choppy, the small pigtails at the top of her head dyed pink. Marinette grinned at the woman’s outfit- a Gotham Amusement Pier t-shirt, Batman pajama pants, and hot pink fuzzy socks. She wondered if her dad knows that Harley Quinn has Batman pj pants….probably not. 

“Yes, with a guest.” Selina says, plopping onto the couch and gesturing over to Marinette, who was still standing by her new vine friend. 

“Hi! I’m Marinette, it’s nice to meet you.” She says, smiling and waving with her free hand. Ivy whispers something and the vine squeezes a bit before letting go, letting her move away from the door. 

“Well aren’t ya just the cutest!” Harley squeals, running forward and giving her a big hug. “Didjya finally join your boytoy’s adopting habits?” Harley adds, still clutching onto Marinette. Selina snorts. 

“No, he beat me to her. But she’s definitely mine, too.” She says, making Marinette’s face turn red. Harley coos at her, ruffling her hair before stepping back. 

“So what brings ya here? Get annoyed with Bats already?” Harley asks. Marinette blinks in shock. Harley knows? She thinks about it for a minute, and realizes it just makes sense. They’d been fighting long enough and then he started his relationship with Selina, who was one of Harley’s best friends. It just made sense that Harley (who was extremely smart) would put two and two together. 

“No, just thought that Mari could use a girl’s day. She’s been stuck with just the boys for over a week.” Selina explains. Harley gasps. 

“The horror!” She says, making Marinette giggle. “Come on pumpkin, I’ve got the comfiest jammies ever. Oooo, and we can paint our nails! Ivy, find the movies, Selina, you’re on snacks. This is gonna be so much fun!” Harley orders, grabbing Marinette’s hand and tugging her along to one of the bedrooms, Selina’s laugh echoing throughout the apartment. 

“I did bring pjs, ma’am.” Marinette says, once Harley stops tugging her and starts searching through a drawer. 

“Bet that can’t be comfier than the ones I’ve got for ya! And call me Harley kiddo, or Auntie Harley if ya wanna.” She says, looking up from the drawer to smile widely. She looks back and cheers in victory, pulling out a pair of bright red pajama pants. Marinette snorts when she notices the logo all over the pants. 

“Really?” She asks, giggling. Harley smirks. 

“We’ll have to take a picture of us and send it to your old man. Really get ‘im riled up.” She says. Marinette nods excitedly, taking the Robin pants from Harley. This was gonna be awesome. 

---

Bruce sighs, looking at the news report from Paris from earlier. The damned butterflies were hard to track. He was used to figuring out problems quickly, and this one was taking too long for comfort. It wouldn’t bother him as much if it was anywhere else, but it was directly impacting his daughter. She was being hurt daily, and she’d even died and now she was plagued with nightmares. All because of a man with some magic jewelry. God, he hated magic. A knock on the study door stirs him from his thoughts. 

“Come in.” He says.

“Hey B, have you seen Mari? I was gonna ask her if she wanted to go get ice cream with me and Little D.” Dick asks, leaning against the door frame, Damian standing next to him with his arms crossed.

“Not since breakfast. There was another akuma attack earlier, but it wasn’t a bad one. She wasn’t injured.” He says, remembering the completely strange battle from earlier. It was some man with pigeons, and apparently this was the 34th time the man had been akumatized over pigeons. 

“Did you not check her room after the battle?” Damian asks, eyebrow quirked. Bruce sighs. 

“It was the pigeon one again. I assumed that she’d want to take a nap, if anything. She still hasn’t been sleeping well. Tim said she’s awake every morning when he comes up for coffee, whether it’s three or five, she’s up.” Bruce explains, frowning at the thought of his youngest daughter’s sleep habits. He certainly didn’t need another sleep deprived coffee addict like Tim. It wasn’t healthy. 

“Well I already checked her room. She wasn’t there.” Dick says, and Bruce frowns, pulling out his phone to send a text to Tim and call Jason. One of them had to have seen her. She never left the house without telling one of the family, unless it was for a battle. 

“What.” Jason says gruffly, Bruce is just grateful he answered. Up until a couple of months ago, Jason would have rather thrown his phone in the river than answer one of Bruce’s calls. 

“Have you seen Marinette?” He asks, getting straight to the point.

“No? Why? What’s wrong?” Jason asks, and Bruce hears shuffling as Jason rushes around wherever it is he is. 

“Nothing. I’ll call you back.” He says, hanging up. He glances down at his texts and notices Tim hasn’t seen her either. He frowns, but doesn’t panic yet. Pulling out his computer, he pulls up the tracker that was on each of his children’s phones. He scans the map, frowning when he sees that her phone is still in the manor. In her room. He stands and swiftly moves past his sons to get to his daughter’s room. He knocks, waiting for an answer. None. 

“Marinette?” He calls, knocking again. “I’m opening the door.” He warns, pushing it open. He frowns at the empty room, nothing appearing out of place. 

“Do you think she had to pop back to Paris for something?” Dick asks, coming up behind him. Bruce shakes his head. 

“No, she would have told us. Suit up, she has to be somewhere in-” He stops as his phone chimes. He looks at it and feels all of the tension leave his shoulders. 

Took our youngest daughter for a girl’s day, back tomorrow XO. Of course Selina had her. 

“She’s with the Sirens. She’ll be back tomorrow.” Bruce says, suppressing a smile at the annoyed look on his youngest’s face. She was safe, and that’s what matters. Even if he was certain he’d have to listen to Damian complain for the entirety of patrol. 

---

“Make all the boy moose go WAAAAAAAAA!” Harley says with the movie, laughing loudly. Marinette chuckles, passing Tikki a cookie in her purse before sticking another spoonful of ice cream in her mouth. 

“I still like the first one more.” Selina says, taking a sip of her wine. Harley sticks her tongue out at her before turning her attention back to the movie. 

“Do you think Mia is secretly a superhero?” Marinette asks, frowning in thought. 

“What on earth are you talking about?” Ivy asks, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Even Harley pauses the movie to turn and stare at her. 

“Stan Lee.” Marinette says with a shrug. 

“Is that s’posed to mean something to me, kid? Cause I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.” Harley says, obviously confused. Marinette huffs. 

“Stan Lee makes a cameo in this movie. And Stan Lee is the creator of Marvel, right? He’s made a cameo in like, every single Marvel movie. So is Mia secretly a superhero? Is that why he’s in the movie?” Marinette rambles, almost flinging ice cream at Selina as she gestures crazily. 

“Sweetie, how much sleep have you had in the past three days?” Selina asks after a few moments of silence. 

“Not important. Is Amelia Mignonette Thermopolis Renaldi, Princess of Genovia, also a superhero? Does she secretly work for SHIELD? Or is she more like Iron Man, like a freelance superhero? Was she a hero in San Francisco too? Or did she take over a hero's mantle when she moved to Genovia? Cause she was really clumsy in the first movie and also super awkward, but now she’s less clumsy and she seems to be more put together, but are heroes really put together? I don’t think so. I think sometimes heroes pretend that they’re put together to make everyone else feel better when in all reality they’re seconds away from a breakdown themselves. Is Stan Lee coming to recruit her for SHIELD? Is that why he’s in Genovia? Does SHIELD have any jurisdiction there? Is there a Genovian branch of SHIELD?” Marinette rambles, suddenly stuck on the topic. Seriously, why is Stan Lee in Princess Diaries 2 if Mia isn’t a hero? Why would he-

“Kitten, take a breath.” Selina says, her hands on Marinette’s shoulders helping her to ground herself. Marinette takes in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. She blinks a few times, instantly feeling bad. 

“I’m so sorry.” She says, frowning. 

“What for?” Harley asks, looking confused. 

“For ruining girl’s night.” She says quietly. Selina pulls her into a tight hug and Marinette sinks into it. 

“Sweetheart, you didn’t ruin anything. I don’t know everything that’s going on. But what I do know, is that you rambling out a conspiracy theory about the movie we’re watching is not ruining girl’s night. Trust me. One time, we invited your brother Dick, and he ate all of the cookies by himself.” Selina says, Marinette snorts. Of course he did. “Now that’s a way to ruin girl’s night.” She adds, squeezing her once more before leaning back.

“Let's watch something that we can just get lost in and not have to think at all.” Ivy suggests, looking through the stack of dvd’s. Marinette glances over, eyes instantly catching one of her favorite movies. 

“Legally Blonde?” She suggests, Harley squeals. 

“That’s it, you’re officially ours. Brucie can fight me.” She says, putting in the dvd. Marinette laughs, laying her head on Selina’s shoulder, grabbing a handful of popcorn. She could get used to nights like these.

Next Chapter

Bonus chapter: Harley Vs Bruce

Drawing of Harley and Mari’s pajamas

Tag list: @maribat-bdbwm @vixen-uchiha @stainedglassm @liquid-luck-00 @jayjayspixiepop @jjmjjktth @mizzy-pop @trippingovermyfeet @queenz-z @thepaceperson @iloontjeboontje @waiting247 @laurcad123 @toodaloo-kangaroo @ritacrow-blog @deathssilentapproach-blog @kittenmywaythrulife @nerd-nowandforever @tazanna-blythe @jaybird-and-co @jumpingjoy82 

[worstloki]

Top Forty Thor-Being-Thor Moments from Thor 1

just absolute dumb*ssery that this 7yr old kid’s life goal is to “hunt down the monsters and slay them all”. I’ll go easy on him here and let the Thor/Loki expressions do the talking because of “...just like you did Father” but seriously can his hands even fit around a sword handle??? this kid isn’t even punching the air right??? if there was a sword in his hand he would’ve cut his head with the way he’s moving???? pure tiny-himbo energy here just look at that >:o face he’s making. contrasts very nicely with Loki’s ‘,:|. 10/10. such a baby idiot.

“the jotuns must pay for what they have done! they broke into the weapons vault! if the frost giants had stolen even one of these relics!” thor. thor please. can you even name one of these relics. thor. hey thor. thor. shut up. “well, what would you do about this?” odin asks him. “march into jotunheim! like you once did! break their spirits! so they’ll never try anything like this again!” wow okay so we’ve fast-forwarded by like a thousand years and thor is still going on about genocide. huh. that’s funny, i thought loki was the genocidal one. hmm. i also just realized that the loki exclusive clip gives loki the same hairstyle thor has here so do what you will with that information.

0/10. horrible. terrible. i dont care how angy thor is about not getting to kill some jotuns or become king today this very instant, that is a tremendous waste of food. an absolute fool. how can he just remorselessly throw the bread to the floor. if loki stabbed him when he was 7 he would deserve it for this table flip alone. what a privileged white *ssh*le.

loki came skulking around a corner and suggested not to go to jotunheim and not only did thor not suspect anything but he also then went on to decide to go to jotunheim. 10/10 himbo material. 

if tumblr didn’t have a picture limit i would put every instance of thor smiling in this list because look at that stupid smile. he’s such an idiot. 11/10. this is the thor content i’m here for.

“I have no plans to die today” thor says with the stupidest open-mouthed smirking smile ever captured on film. right after he also told heimdall not to tell anyone they’re gone. he’s literally planned to strand them on jotunheim. thor’s grand plan was to strange themselves on jotunheim and also start a fight. i repeat: thor’s plan was to successfully slay all the frost giants and not need to return until they’re all gone. what an absolute d*mb*ss. this is getting ridiculous. this was originally a top-ten-thor moments list but i’m not even twenty minutes in so i’ll have to extend the list. thor. thor are you listening? thor, you’re such an idiot.

“HOW DID YOUR PEOPLE GET INTO ASGARD?!” thor you sweet sweet summer idiot, please, i am beggin,g you,, learn to rea,d , a room,, literally everyone else who came with you is regretting it, there is complete silence and only the rumble of the opposing king is meeting your “I AM THOR, SON OF ODIN”s, please, please take some notes from Loki, or, you know, literally anyone else in the room, since everyone is asking you to get out of this realm while you still can,

thor’s stupid smile makes an appearance after he gets called a princess and decides to fight a whole realm over it. you know what? thor is a princess. he’s the prettiest princess in all the lands. what’s thor gonna do about it? is he going to fight me too? I hope he does the stupid grin first. minus 15 points for the sexism. thor is a complete and utter sadistic fool who needs to get a hobby. seriously, he’s 1500 years old and still going on and on about slaying all the frost giants. boi, i hate to break it to you, but your dad is not the best or only example of greatness out there. i don’t think your dad even qualifies as an example of that. 

“THEN. GO!” 🥰 ahh yes, just thor thingz 🥰🥰 like when one friend has had his arm burnt 🥰 and another friend has been impaled and needs medical attention, 🥰🥰 and all the rest of your friends are yelling for you, 🥰 and your brother is telling you they must go, 🥰 and you decide to buy everyone time by laughing maniacally and killing more frosties because you care for them and dont find joy in destruction like a loon 🥰🥰🥰 

THIS is the iconic Thor moment that makes my day whenever I think about it. Just Thor, an absolute bumbering 6′6′’ giant boodlusting dummy sees Odin and just decides to yell “FATHAA!! WE’LL FINISH THEM TOGETHAAA!” as if the last thing Odin told him wasn’t “no, thor, we’re not going to do anything to the frost giants, do not go after them and try to kill them all.” 11/10 d*mb*assery right here folks, I couldn’t ask for Thor to be more of a fool. This is PEAK Thor energy. Look at that face. I feel like Thor spends half this movie with his nostrils flared. I love it.

okay i gotta give thor credit for rightfully calling odin “an old man and a fool” but also there was not even 1 frame of the scene where Thor had a decent face so now all i see is >:O >:| >:o >:[ when i watch that scene. yelling at odin was great, not yelling at odin after he HUAERGHed at loki was less great, but to be fair it’s thor and he is the definition of Peak D*mb*ss. 

thor literally GROWLS and starts yelling “HAMMAA?? HAMMER??” over and over. He was hit by a van, he fainted, he woke up and started growling. I don’t know what else there is to say about this.

“you dare threaten me? puny human?”. so. uhh. basically. Thor knew she was threatening him? He KNEW she had a weapon? instead he made a face and started yelling as he tried to walk his way closer????? thor you complete and utter dum dum. you frickin hairball-for-brains. im not even surprised darcy tasered him. with that kind of face, i’d taser him too.

when you wake up in an unknown place to a person smiling at you without a stupid smile, the first step is always to attack first and ask questions later 😌😌😌 (but seriously thor you imbecile why didn’t you ask where you were instead of throwing multiple people around the room and getting your butt needled. you clueless buffoon. you’ll remain a clueless buffoon if you don’t listen to anyone.)

just a quick recap but thor was knocked unconscious by a van and these people kidnapped him aboard and the next scene we see him in he’s checking himself out in  mirror after presumably changing right there in the open?????? these are the things that make thor thor. any other character and i’d question it so much, but this is thor, and i truly believe this is in-character for him. just change in the open because why not? thor is a beefcake and that’s his only redeeming quality and he knows it. 10/10 thor moment. 

I am now convinced that Thor saw Jane and “5k van-hitter to lover slow-burn height-difference himbo-scientist trope” flashed through his mind.

“but no more smashing!” Jane says, and then Thor proceeds to check her out and smile unlike an idiot and like a douche. was this his version of flirting???? i’m not one to decide, but yes, yes it was. He threw a cup to the ground and broke it, and she’s getting mad at him and berating him about it, and he’s liking it. y’all i’m sorry to break it to you like this, but thor has a canon fetish. i am so, so sorry.

im DYING. THAT ISN’T EVEN A KISS, HIS MOUTH IS OPEN. he SMUSHES his mouth around her knuckle???? WHY. I can’t keep noticing things like this. send help. please. Jane’s response makes so much more sense now; she’s laughs for a solid 3 seconds and shakes her head and is like “uhh, thank you? ahaha,” and then she keeps looking back longingly when walking away. they are doing this in PLAIN sight of EVERYONE. Darcy and Erik are standing RIGHT THERE, and Thor is doing weird things to her with his mouth. I’m out. I am done here. goodbye. 

return of the stupid smile AND the douche smile in quick succession through the entire trip. their entire dialogue is peppered with innuendo. “I’ve never done anything like this before. have you ever done anything like this before?” “many times, but you are brave to do it.” “I have nothing else to lose.” “ah but you are clever, far more clever than anyone else on this realm.” “realm? rEaLm?” “you think me strange?” “yes” “good strange or bad strange?” “I haven’t decided yet.” I AM DYING OVER THIS. plus, we get Return Of The Himbo with Jane asking after Einstein Rosen bridges and Thor is like “uh, actually, more like a rainbow bridge 😜🤪” i feel so sorry for jane here, didn’t know how much of a d*mb*ss Thor was when signing up for this van-trip and knuckle-sucking 😭😭😭 i also no longer have questions about how the trip that SHOULD HAVE BEEN A HALF-HOUR ONE turned into one that LASTED TILL THE SUN WENT FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE SKY TO SETTING by the time they arrived. I have no questions. please. I don’t want to know what they were doing in that van. please no. don’t make me think about it.

thor’s plan had 3 steps and they were 1. give jane his jacket 2. walk in and get his hammer 3. fly out. that was literally his plan. he had the first “I have a plan. attack.” moment in the MCU. pure concentrated 0-brain-cells energy right here. how can you not stan this king of d*mb*ssery. look at him, flaunting his big boy muscles. he’s about get his hammer and fly out, like he just told jane with a trademark stupid-smile.

crop-top hair-mop thor is my favourite thor. the way the entire fight scene parallels a hamster in a maze only exemplifies the thor vibes for some inexplicable reason.

“you’re big. fought bigger.” + Thor douche-smile + subtext from earlier + rolling around passionately in the mud = not a happy me. 

I swear i’m not making up this romantic subtext but it’s barely even subtext. the entire scene leading up to Thor’s attempt at lifting the hammer is actually filmed erotically. I’m not kidding. First there’s a shot where Thor pulls aside a hamster-cage-wall blind which mirrors a shower-curtain, and THEN he walks around the hammer while smiling douche-ly at it, we get a few close-ups to his face which are shot from angles slightly lower than himself, giving him an aire of superiority, plus the music adds to this, he reaches out for the hammer’s handle with a mud-covered arm in the rain, in non-slow-motion slow-motion, and he wraps his arm around it, like, he fully twists his arm, unecessarily sexually, around it as he grabs the hammer. This is not okay. On the plus side, it makes the movie much more entertaining,, on the down side,,.

im not going to call Thor dumb for not knowing he’s not worthy. im not going to. because odin literally whispered the enchantment to mjolnir after he’d thrown thor to midgard. it is very funny watching thor grunt in frustration though. he starts yelling because he couldn’t lift the hammer and just lets himself get caught. like, dude, get a life, go buy a new weapon from the store, seriously. he mourns for the hammer on-screen longer than he does for loki. he also looks like he’s in far more pain here. he becomes catatonic and unresponsive after this, but when loki dies he’s already feasting the same afternoon. 10/10 dum dum thor material. never change thor, never change. (that’s code for please change, thor, please,)

thor trying to establish dominance wherever he goes is the funniest thing because at this point he’s being a complete asgardian *ss about it and it’s reaching points of pettiness never seen before. side note: he is possibly flirting with selvig too. maybe. i’m not saying anything happened, but Thor’s openning lines when bringing him home carried over his shoulder are “he’s fine, not injured at all,” followed with an apology to selvig, and an explanation to jane which consisted only of “we drank, we fought, he made his ancestors proud,” and then he puts the man to bed and before he falls asleep erik says “i still don’t believe you’re the g*d of th*nder, but you ought to be,” so... your choice, i guess...

thor’s got his trademark stupid smile and stupidly takes jane’s life’s work notebook and starts doodling in it about trees. the last time his father told him this story about Yggdrasil was when he was 5 and he clearly hasn’t payed attention to any lesson about anything since and it shows so so much. thank you thor. very insightful knowledge you’re passing on hear. ‘i come from a world where [science and magic] are one and the same,’ ok great, now elaborate on that please. oh, right, you can’t because you’re thor, my bad, 20/10 thor behaviour. he couldn’t even doodle nicely. all his lines are wobbly. epic art fail. i wouldn’t trust him near my sketchbook with a 2B pencil.

THIS is thor’s realization face. in case anyone was interested in what ‘dawning truth’ looked like on him. 😰😪 THIS is the face of a thinker, of a man betrayed by his own beloved brother for unprecedented reasons. look at the nuance in his expression. 😩😩😩 so many emotions, I can’t even count them all 😩💯😪

stupid smile and “do not worry my friends, i have a plan,” he says, “i’ll just try and abuse the fact that Loki’s super selfless and kind and has no self worth to my benefit as i have countless times before which is exactly what he’s rightfully angry about this time,” he doesn’t think to himself because that is NOT the smile of someone who is thinking... like, at all. +10000 points to gryffinthor. the d*mb*ssery really jumps out.

“im sorry bro for whatever i did and whatever you’re blaming me for as an excuse to do this, im sorry bro, but you’re disturbing innocents that i don’t really care about but you’re the one making a scene in front of them so why don’t you admit you won’t kill me and are just having a temper tantrum and we move on? hmm?” and then he proceeds to get slam dunked in the face with a metal arm like yEAAAA BOI that’s what you GET for going up against the SENTIENT LAVA-SPEWING metal-man ya absolute dunderhead clod. thunderhead clod? yeah, that. he’s just so dumb, your honour, please, you must understand, the victim pleads guilty on all charges of d*mb*ss and d*mb*ss alone.

I can NOT describe the emotions I feel knowing that Thor is suck-kissing Jane’s knuckles. Like, his mouth is literally jelly-ing it up against her hand. There is suction there and it shows when he is placing and removing his mouth. I promise that’s what is happening. I’m not any happier than you about this. I regret everything. This is why Loki should be what is focused on and not Thor; Thor’s going around trying to frick frack everything in sight even if it’s just Jane’s hand. He’s maintaining eye contact with Jane while he licks her fingers. Why did I decide to rewatch this movie. 

i’m only adding this in as a thor moment because of how desperately and badly they kiss. seriously. 2/10 kiss. im not surprised jane broke up with him. they look like two actual seals fighting over an actual grape. while i’m here i’m going to criticize every fic ever that decided thor is an experienced gentle lover. what were y’all on when watching this movie. thor can and will f*ck literally everything in sight and he won’t even do it well because he is the peakest of peak d*m d*m. look at this man. look at his face. that is the face of an absolute himbo idiot, and it’s the face of an absolute himbo idiot who knows it. he’s been stranded on earth for 2 days, max, and his flirt-count is at 69 people because his name is one letter away from thot. i bet his terrible use of a pen from early means he writes his ‘r’s like ‘t’s and he doesn’t even care. 1000/10 thor moment. doesn’t get much more romance-thor than two individuals smooshing their faces together after some finger sucking. that finger sucking is gonna leave jane simping for years. and that’s true love babey. <3

“I’ll handle my Brother!” Thor says, as if Loki didn’t send a metal-murder-bot that quite virtually killed him less than ten minutes ago asdfhkhsdgsdjf Thor, you horrific himbo you, Loki’s weapon of choice is literally throwing knives he will literally kill you before you enter the room if he’s on his game and wants you dead which he just proved he would do and you’re just gonna???????????? jog on over to him????? Thor??????????? bruH???????????? buddy??????? pal???????? you really wanna go 1v1 the brother you very clearly underestimate and know nothing about????????????????? im loving the confidence, but, no.

Loki: “you literally can’t stop this from here.” Thor, immediately: “i’m going to hit it with the hammer and see if that works” and then it does in fact work later... technically speaking, even if it ends up causing chaos destruction and death and loki falling off the bifrost 😔😔😔 but Big Brain Thor is the Biggest Brained Thor!!! The plan worked!! in a messy-Thor-ish way, but it did!!!

“you can’t kill an entire race!!!!” Thor yells, teeth gritted, as he faces his brother, his coward pacifist brother, who has suddenly decided he wants to join the age-old family tradition of realm-destroying, when this is supposed to be Thor’s dream, Thor’s, not Loki’s. How dare he, Thor thinks to himself, fist clenched around Mjolnir in anger, the pain of the handle pressing against his palm perhaps the only thing preventing him from lashing out at this thought, that’s my planet of monsters to slay, he should go get his own! Loki hits Thor across the face with the back-end of his spear. “Now fight me,” Loki says, but Thor, well, Thor cannot fight, as he remains stunned that of all things Loki would dare steal his life’s ambition, and he is sent sprawling backwards across the observatory, slowly but surely sliding to a stop despite his catatonic, very symbolic silence.

the elegance, the poise, i see your time on earth has made you no less graceful, Thor. the simple magnitude of this sprawl. the spread of the arms. the turn of the feet. this is not a dude, this is a man.

sometimes your brother starts vehemently talking about he’s gonna kill the race of monsters and about how he’s only ever wanted to be your equal and about how he’s not your brother and never was and sometimes you just have to say “this is madness” instead of addressing the issues or asking for any of the  deets 🔥 👊💯😩

Loki is whipping Thor’s butt. Both literally, and metaphorically, Loki is whooping Thor’s d*mb*ss. Earlier he knicked Thor’s face, now he’s just pushing Thor around, he uses the spear as a pole and later kicks Thor’s face by kicking vertically up, and Thor, bless him in all his blond golden muscled glory, doesn’t think anything is up with this, gosh he’s such an absolute utter idiot

sometimes your brother laughs way too much and also cries too much in a fight and there are also too many of him so you just need to blast lightning so you get a shot at all of them 😌😌😌 and then put your magical infinitely-heavy hammer on his chest 😌😌😌 but it’s okay because Thor left holes in Loki’s container 😌😌😌

now THIS is the meat to Thor’s funny bone, just the pure unadulterated humour that is Thor saying that there will never be a “wiser king” or a “better father” than Odin, it cracks me up every single time without fail, just the way he says it with a straight face and— what do you mean he wasn’t joking

look at Thor’s stupid smile as he asks Heimdall to spy on jane every single day while conveniently never asking after Loki ever. This is Thor’s face in mourning after he attended a feast after everyone was celebrating after Loki’s death. Look at his stupid smile. I love him your honour. He’s just,, he’s just so frickin stewpeed, just Thor being Thor, just the purest of d*mbest of *sses. 

[youngjustus]

IT'S ME ROUND ROBIN ANON AGAIN (im start calling me rr anon at this point)

I actually didnt know that Dark Crisis:YJ was releasing today??? I thought it was supposed to be released on the 27? But my life has been rough the last week so I guess I got confused.

I have seen people talking negative about it tho, it has like two continuity errors, bad characterization and fanon things...? (there is like a panel of tim saying he needs coffe). I haven't read it yet and I want to know, was it really that bad or was it mid-bad?. Like was this writed on the dev*n gr*yson jon pride story way (horrible) or was it T*m T*ylor SOKE (very mid-bad) way?

Ngl I feel bad for a friend who pre-ordered the 3 DC:YJ numbers (I pre-order the #2 cuz of the kon cover), we arent from the U.S.A and normally getting recent comics from comicbook shops here its really dificult (they will get here like 1 or 3 years later) so most of the time we pre-order and then pray to jesus that the comic is gonna be good lol

I hope that the rest of the book isnt really this bad tho, especially for the fact that she is the writter for Tim solo.

no, i don’t think i’d call this bad in the way that a lot of taylor and grayson’s work is. my problems come from me thinking that this issue made a lot of characters feel almost mean spirited which i’m not sure if that was the intention or not. i almost don’t feel like the core four and cissie are even friends. i also really think an editor should’ve double or triple checked over a number of past events that were brought up as there's two big, glaring continuity errors - which is strange coming from an issue that seems to pat itself on the back for referencing older material from the 90's.

this got long as it usually does with me so under the cut it goes

there's a super basic and obvious mistake in cassie referring to clark, bruce, and barry collectively as the boys' dads. its flash lore 101 that barry is bart's grandfather, and clark and conner have repeatedly referred to each other as brothers for decades now. in bendis's young justice vol. 3, he made a similar mistake of having bart refer to wally as his uncle when they are cousins and it’s jeven ognats who is bart’s uncle. only bruce can be considered tim's father.

but the big two ‘how-did-this-happen’ continuity errors in the issue come back to back about a third of the way in.

one is in reference to the kiss between tim and cassie back in teen titans vol. 3 after conner’s death - something that was clearly meant to be two friends very poorly grieving together. they dated (if you can call it that) for a hot second because they were kind of the only one the other had left, until cassie realized this wasn’t good for them and broke it off. dark crisis: young justice explicitly says that conner never knew about this relationship between them, and that cassie doesn’t want conner to know.

(dark crisis: young justice #1, 2022)

which is......... not how it happened. at all.

(adventure comics vol. 2 #3, 2009)

“she already told me. about you and her. what happened.”

shortly after that is an extremely weird exchange about super heroes’ funerals.

“they didn’t the last time we died, bart.”

except they did.

(fifty two #51, 2007)

(countdown #43, 2007)

they were mourned by their family, friends, and the community. clark took a year off from being superman after conner died. tim and cassie both changed their costumes in honour of him. wally fought inertia for being responsible for bart’s death. they both had very public funerals and memorial sites. i don’t know what the point is to basically lie and make it seem as if barely anyone cared about them. that just seems very cruel to me in an issue that already is pretty dismissive of them.

moving into the nostalgia bait sequence with revisiting the events of first issue of young justice: we’re not sure exactly what’s going on yet (time travel? alternate dimension? simulation?), so whatever this is could potentially explain away these errors, and they also aren’t as important as the two above, but i feel the need to point them out anyways:

the team doesn’t get the name young justice until issue #1 (“no, we’re young, but just us.” “oh, okay! young justice!”), so alfred and dubbilex telling tim and conner they have young justice alert doesn’t make sense.

conner doesn’t receive the name kon-el until an issue of superboy vol. 4 that was published in 1999. young justice vol. 1 #1 was published in 1998, so dubbilex would just refer to conner as ‘kid’ or ‘SB’ as he and every other character did for a bulk of the 90′s.

cassie at the beginning of young justice vol. 1 still had her black wig and goggles costume.

however, tim not being able to find anything past superman’s death and funeral from 1993 is actually interesting. conner would still be in a test tube at cadmus, bart would still be in the future, cassie wouldn’t have met diana or zeus, and tim would still be more or less a solo act with the young justice team not having been formed at this point.

with that clue, i’m willing to move past the snags in continuity from that part of the issue for now. the others from before regarding the tim and cassie kiss and the bart and conner memorials i’m less willing to forgive. those are major events in these characters’ histories and part of huge runs that tie into important events, not a small detail found in one off random issue from 30 years ago.

i’m not crazy about fitzmartin’s work so far, but i think dc is just really lacking right now across the board. which is a shame because i do love this world and these characters and i want to keep up with their stories. but this issue was a big miss for me, and i gotta say this specific bit really made me cringe and roll my eyes.

if i do decide to read her new solo tim, i feel like i can expect more of this same quality.

[peachscribe]

peach’s summer book list

i had a lot of fun compiling the list of books i read during the 20-21 winter, so i decided i would do a summer one as well! i still have a lot of books i own but haven’t read, so im definitely not lacking in material

if you didn’t see my winter list, how my book list works is basically like this: i read a book that i own but have not previously read, write a short summary immediately after finishing the book, write down my thoughts on the book, and then provide a rating for the book. i also might include background info on why i read this particular book/feelings about the author, but that depends on the book. that’s how each entry works

without further ado, let’s get started!

1. Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith

okay so i absolutely adore another book by andrew smith (written after grasshopper jungle) called the alex crow. it’s one of my favorite books of all time, so naturally i wanted to see if grasshopper jungle would make me feel similarly. just like the alex crow, grasshopper jungle’s plot is. so fucking weird. it stars austin szerba, a teenage polish kid who lives in ealing, iowa, and is often sexually confused regarding his girlfriend shann and his best friend robby. and in ealing, iowa, austin and robby accidentally and unknowingly unleash an unstoppable army of huge six-foot-tall praying mantis bugs that only want to do two things: fuck and eat. and i just have to say: andrew smith’s got an absolutely dynamo writing style. alex crow is similar, where it’s a book about kind of everything all at once, framed in a moment centering around teenage boys. it’s fantastic, and it’s more than a little gross, and i love it. this book made me feel so many things, and i thought austin was such an amazing narrator and main character to identify with. this book has it all: shitty teenage boy humor, fucked up science experiments, and poetic imagery that will make you want to cry. and explicit lgbt characters.

412/10 andrew smith what do you put in your water i just want to know

2. Burn by Patrick Ness

patrick ness has written a plethora of some of my favorite books (such as a monster calls, the chaos walking trilogy, and the rest of us just live here) so when i saw this one in the store i knew it would be a great one. burn is an alternate history fantasy that takes place in 1957 frome, washington, during the height of the cold war, and it begins with a girl named sarah and her father hiring a dragon to help out on their farm. but there’s not just dragons, farm living, and cold war tensions; there’s also a really shitty small town cop, a cult of dragon worshippers and their deadly teenage assassin, a pair of fbi agents, and a prophecy that sarah’s newly hired dragon claims she’s a part of. i think eoin colfer’s highfire was on my winter list, which also featured a story that included dragons and shitty cops, so when i first began burn i thought it was funny to have two books that had both things. you know, if you had a nickel etc etc. but that’s really where the similarities end because burn is entirely it’s own monster (dragon). burn is entirely invested in its world, and its fascinating. not only that, i had no clue where the book would take me next. there were so many surprises and amazing twists that honestly just blew me away. this book also includes beautifully written complicated discussions on family, race, and love - it features interracial and queer romances as the two most prominent romance plots which was such a nice surprise from a book i wasn’t expecting to have that kind of representation. this book is witty, fast-paced, and a very heartening read - i absolutely adored it.

9/10 dragons and becoming motivated by the power of love and friendship are so fucking cool

3. As Meat Loves Salt by Maria McCann

i hate this book! as meat loves salt is a historical fiction novel which takes place in seventeenth century england, which is going through a grisly civil war. the protagonist, jacob cullen, is a servant for a wealthy household and is engaged to another servant in the house. but due to certain events that are almost entirely jacob’s fault, he flees the house and is separated from his wife. from there, he joins the royal army and meets a kind soldier, ferris, and the two become fast friends. jacob and ferris’s relationship begins to bridge past friendly, and jacob struggles with his homoerotic feelings as well as the growing obsession and violence inside him. also, they try to start a colony. listen, i don’t know how to describe the book because so much happens, but it basically just follows jacob and all the terrible decisions he makes because he is, truly, a terrible person. ferris is kind and good, and jacob is scum of the earth. he sucks so bad. the entire time i was reading this book (which took absolutely so long), all i wanted was for jacob to just get his ass handed to him. i wanted to see him suffer. and it’s not like i just personally don’t like him - i believe the book purposefully depicts him as unsympathetic even though he is the narrator. i did enjoy the very in depth and accurate portrayal of what life would’ve been like in seventeenth century england, and i think it was interesting to read a character that is just the absolute worst person you’ve ever encountered and see him try and justify his actions, so if you enjoy that kind of thorough writing, then this book would be perfect for you. however, i did not see that bitch ass motherfucker jacob cullen suffer enough. i’d kill him with my bare hands.

2/10 diversity win! the worst man on earth is mlm!

4. This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab

i know ive had a friend tell me how great one of schwab’s other book series is, but truthfully i bought this book because the cover is sick as hell and it was on a table in the store that advertised for buy two get one free, i think. something like that. anyway, this savage song takes place in a future in which monsters, for whatever reason, suddenly became real and out for blood in a mysterious event nicknamed the phenomenon. august flynn is one of these monsters, but he takes no pride in that fact and only wants to feel human. kate harker is the daughter of a ruthless man and is trying her hardest to be ruthless, too, but deep down she knows it’s just an act. their city, verity, stands divided, and kate and august stand on either side - but when august is sent on a mission to befriend kate in the hopes of stopping an all out war, the lines begin to blur. this book rules. august and kate are such interesting and dynamic characters, and the narrative is familiar while still being capable of twisting the story around and taking the feet out from under you in really compelling ways. this savage song is part of the monsters of verity duology, and i can’t wait to dive into how the story continues and finishes.

11/10 sometimes you can judge a book by it’s cover

4a. Our Dark Duet by Victorian Schwab

this is the sequel and finale for this savage song and i’d figure i’d update everyone: fantastic ending, beautiful, showstopping, painful.

12/10 loved it and will definitely be keeping an eye out for schwab’s other books

5. White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi

oh boy. okay. white is for witching is about a house, and it is about the women who have lived inside of it. when her mother dies abroad, miranda silver begins to act strangely, and there’s nothing her father or her twin brother seem to be able to do about it. she develops an eating disorder and begins to hear voices in the silver family house, converted to a bed and breakfast by miranda’s dad; and she begins to lose herself in the house and the persistent presence of her family legacy. white is for witching switches perspective dizzingly and disorientingly between miranda, her twin eliot, miranda’s friend from school named ore, and the house itself. this story is a horror story as much as it as a tragedy as much as it is a romance as much as it is a bunch of other things. oyeyemi brings race, sexuality, nationality, and family into this story and forces you not to look away. this book is poetry.

(like i mentioned briefly, this book heavily deals with topics of race and closely follows miranda’s eating disorder. read responsibly, and take care of yourselves)

15/10 this book consumed me and i think i’ll have to read it another 10 more times to feel it properly

6. These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong

okay. okay. strap in for a ride. these violent delights is a romeo and juliet style story, taking place in glittering 1920’s shanghai. the city stands divided - not only between the foreign powers encroaching on chinese land, but also between the scarlet gang and the white flowers, who are at the height of a generations-long blood feud. juliette cai, heir to the scarlets, has recently returned from four years abroad and is determined to prove herself ruthless enough to lead. roma montagov, heir to the white flowers, is standing strenuously on his place as next in line due to a slip up four years prior and is desperate to keep hold of his title. and in the midst of juliette and roma’s burning history with each other threatening to combust, an unnatural monster lurks in the waters of shanghai, loosing a madness on scarlets and white flowers alike. this book has it all - scorned ex lovers, political intrigue, deadly monsters, and all set on a glamorous backdrop of the roaring twenties. i absolutely was enraptured by this book and the way it plays around the story of romeo and juliet so well that it easily became it’s own monster, but with the punches and embraces of something classically shakespearan. gong does just an absolutely breathtaking job of fitting this fantastical story amid the larger world of shanghai and the real life historical events that had shaken the city to its core. completely immersive and outstandingly heart racing.

17/10 i was chewing on my fingernails for the last thirty pages and will continue to do so until the sequel is released (our violent ends, 16 nov 21)

7. The Antiques by Kris D’Agostino

you ever heard of the american dysfunctional family story? this is most definitely that. at the same time george westfall’s cancer takes a turn for the worse, a hurricane hits the east coast, and suddenly all at once the issues of his health, the hurricane, and all three of his children’s achingly dysfunctional adult lives are crashing into each other. reunited by george’s death, the westfall siblings have to face their grief, each other, and the problems in their own lives they attempted to put on hold while planning their father’s memorial. this is a nice story about grief and loss and love and somehow finding the humor amidst it all.

(this book does include a depiction of an autistic child who does experience several pretty bad meltdowns due to ignorant people around him not understanding how to cater to his needs. im not an authority on what depictions are or are not harmful, but i do believe this depiction is ultimately loving and well-intended.)

7/10 it made me laugh and cry and was generally one of those books that somehow hit you close to home

8. Fierce Fairytales by Nikita Gill

fierce fairytales is a poetry anthology that reimagines classic fairytales from a modern, feminist viewpoint, acknowledging that the line between hero and villain, monster and damsel, are not as clear cut as the classics try to make you believe. this book also includes illustrations done by the author herself, which i think is really cool. my personal favorite story reimagining was the story of peter pan and captain hook, called ‘boy lost’ which looked at how peter and hook’s relationship began and rotted. all in all, i think this collection of stories had a lot of important things to say and said them in frank, easy to understand poetry and prose.

7/10 beautiful message and pretty prose, but at times a little cliche

and that’s all from the summer! my fall semester starts tomorrow, and overall i feel very good about all the reading i did this summer. i even read four other books not on this list for work! so i definitely feel like i made the most out of my time, and im really glad i was able to read so many stories that made me feel a variety of different things

thanks so much for reading this list, and let me know if you read or have read any of these books and tell me what you think of them!

happy reading<3

[zaikaglow]

Betrayal

For @mikaberries 4k Celebration Collab

Pairing: Bertholdt Hoover x Reader

Content Warnings: Unprotected sex, dacryphilia, abandonment 

Summary: You feel your relationship has run its course but youre unable to get out and you feel trapped leaving you with only one option, but can you bring yourself to do it?

“You're really sure about this y/n”? Hitch asks, sitting in the driver's seat of her Subaru palms just grazing the wheel as she drums on it with her pink fingernails. Sitting in the passenger's seat you pull your knees to your chest and look out at the Starbucks parking lot. Your face is starting to heat up at the shame of what you just told her. “I just really don’t know how else to do it” you mutter, wishing that maybe you had just kept your little plan to yourself that you didn’t get your best friend Hitch involved. She turns to you this time before she speaks “I just really can’t believe you wanna do that to him, just leave totally ghost the poor guy after what? 4 years? Come on y/n be an adult”. 

You can tell she’s scowling at you now “Hitch what would you do if Marlo asked you to marry him?” she laughs “well I’d tell him no, I’m not ready for that and not just pack up all my shit in the middle of the night and ask my best friend to be my getaway driver”. You were trying to choke back tears of frustration when you weakly mutter “that wouldn't work on Bertholdt”. “Come on y/n you're being ridiculous what do you mean that wouldn't work” her eyebrows knit together as she looks at you with more concern than contempt now. “Remember when I told you I was going to break up with him last year”?

“Yeah but then you two went to dinner and talked it out and you decided to stay together”

“That’s not exactly what happened. I started trying to breakup with him but he started crying and saying how he didn’t even think he could imagine life without me and everyone started staring and I just told him we could work it out”

“Okay so just don’t do it in a public place again” she takes a sip of her iced coffee

“God dammit Hitch! I’m an adult don’t you think I thought of that? Every time I’ve tried to break up with him he just starts either smothering me telling me how much he loves me or starts crying and going on about how he doesn’t know how to go on living.” Getting more exasperated at trying to make her understand you place your head into your palms “I swear that's the whole reason he asked me to marry him”

Hitch sighs “Do you still love him?”

“I don't know anymore Hitch”

“Okay how about you make an actual attempt to end it tonight, I’ll still drive you and you can stay with me until you get stuff figured out but please don’t just disappear on him”

“Fine i'll make a last attempt but if it doesn’t work will you still come get me?”

“Sure what else are friends for y/n” 

It’s later in the evening when you make it back to your shared apartment and your heart is beating in your chest. You're going to do it, you're actually going to be an adult and tell Bertholdt that you're breaking up. You're not getting married and you don’t care about how much he’s crying or the way he wraps his big arms around your body and pulls you close and whispers “stay” over and over. But then you walk in and he’s there and the way his eyes light up when he sees you makes your heart swell and you start to wonder if you can really go through with this “y/n! I’m glad your home I made dinner it’s your favorite” he walks over to you and places his hands on your shoulder “Don’t worry i'm not trying to sway you, I told you that you can take your time to think about my proposal” he smiles “unless you want to say yes right now I’d be okay with that”. Oh god the swelling in your heart is gone and is now replaced with the feeling of being drowned by him, even his touch no longer feels like that of a lover but of a weird stranger. “Uh actually I think” you're interrupted by a kiss, as his hands slide up from your shoulders up the back of your neck into your hair. His lips move to your neck “I’m only joking baby, take your time”. God this is what he did. You could tell he knew what you were trying to do and he was going to try to seduce you into staying with him. His lips lose contact with your neck as he reaches down to pick you up and place you on the counter. He brushes the hair out of your face with one hand, the other resting on your cheek “you know I love you y/n”. You place your hand over his “I love you too” it wasn’t entirely a lie. You truly do think that you still love him in a way which is why what you were going to do was going to hurt. “Let’s go to the bedroom” at which he grins and picks you up again carrying you to the shared bedroom. And you hope to god he doesn’t see the suitcase stored under the bed.

His hips press into the space between your thighs right where he fits perfectly, as you two would joke. His hands go to start toying with the hemline of your shirt, when you look up into his soft blue eyes and push his bangs out of his face “hey, how about we try something” you practically whisper he ruts his cholted cock against you as he kisses that sensitive spot behind your ear reply “yeah what do you want to try” . You grab him by both sides of his jaw bringing him back up to meet your gaze “how about you fuck me like its the last time?” his lustful look is replaced with a mix of concern and a smile trying to hide it “I don’t know if I like that game y/n”. Moving your thumb in small circles against his cheek you smile “I mean just like as passionate as if this were our last time together” you can see his gaze soften at your reassurance. “Okay” ending his reply with a kiss. Large but soft hands run down your neck thumbs tracing your pulse point as he moves towards your breasts giving them a gentle squeeze before moving back to that hemline pushing it up so he can start planting kisses by your belly button making his was up your torso moving the shirt up along with his head until it reaches the bottom of your rib cage where you take the hem in your hand and remove the shirt and bra yourself. Bertholdt pinches your nipple between his top teeth and his bottom lip rolling it into his mouth and soothing the sting of his teeth with his tongue, as his other hand grips your other breast rolling the nipple with his thumb. Legs wrapped around him tightening as the overwhelming stimulation in your tits is causing you to start grinding against his hardened dick in his pants desperate for friction. He pulls away sitting up to pull off his own shirt “hey slow down if this is the last time im fucking you I’d rather make it last” he says with a small chuckle before going to work at your own pants as he slides them down your legs and then lays himself down between your legs. He starts with a wet kiss to the side of your right thigh before making his way down to your core fingers running over your clothed slit before grabbing the waist band and pulling them down. “That's my good girl” he sighs as you spread your legs further apart and grips the sheets at the sensation of his hot breath fanning over your now exposed cunt. A feather light kiss greats your clit before he starts to use the flat of his tongue to lick circles around it as he dips his long delicate fingers into your core and all you can do is grip his locks of dark hair. His fingers dragging against your swollen walls bringing you closer and closer until he switches to suctioning on your swollen bud pushing you over the edge. You squirm under his grip around your thighs as he keeps licking to help you ride out your high. You pull his head off of you, feeling his resistance and attempting to make contact with you again. His jeans already have a wet spot from the way he was rutting his hips into the mattress, so excited at the pleasure he was giving you. He takes off his jeans before sliding back over you, his weeping cock laying on your stomach. You pull his head down into a kiss as he takes his cock and rubs the wet head against your clit before sliding it into you. His hip movements are rhythmic, dragging out slowly and thrusting back in faster and you cant help but to blurt out “I love you, I love you, I love you” over and over at his thrusts; it's almost like a prayer, no, an absolution. The building of guilt at the betrayal to this man's love that you were about to perform, and when he says it back you can't help it and you feel tears start to streak down your face. Bertholdt shifts up and grabs your legs throwing them over his shoulder, head ever so slightly turning to the left to kiss your ankle “it’s okay sweetheart I’ve got you” he says before continuing his thrusting. The tears are still streaming down your face as your head throws back into the pillow at the new deeper angle. Legs still over his shoulder he brings his forehead down to meet yours and he’s so deep you can feel him start to brush against your cervix hurting in the best sort of way. His hips begin to stutter as you feel the warmth of his release into you, and you can feel it start to drip down your thighs as he pulls out of you and wraps you in his arms. “I love you y/n, I really do”

It’s been about 2 hours since you’ve settled down for bed, you're pretty sure he’s sound asleep by the strange way his body is contorted, and you think about how you’ll never wake up hitting the floor because your boyfriend accidentally pushed you out of bed with his crazy sleeping positions again and your chest hurts. “Berty, Berty are you up?” you mutter sweetly but the tall man just continues to slumber. You pull your suitcase out from under the bed, it's packed with all the essentials and you’d probably have to convince Hitch to come and collect the rest of your things for you, no way you could stand to face him after what you were about to do. God you felt like such a bitch you couldn’t have one hard conversation? You had to do it this way? It was so hard because you did love Bertholdt. You weren't lying earlier, you really did love him! But you know this won’t work so you'll continue to feel like something isn't quite right, not exactly whole. So this is the only way you can do it, the only way you can escape from this relationship without the love you feel for him pulling you back in.

You sit in the foyer of the apartment building on your stuffed suitcase and pull out your phone and call her “Hey Hitch” choking back a sob causes a cracking in your voice “can you come get me now”

“Of course, I’m sorry your talk must have been hard”

“We’ll we didn't have the talk per say”

“What do you mean?”

“Well we had sex and I just couldn’t do it Hitch it just has to be this way”

There's a long pause from the other end of the line

“You know y/n, I love you but right now I really don't like you”

You start to sob “I’m sorry I don’t know why I couldn’t, but I left a note”

Hitch sighs before replying “It’s okay we’ll talk more later, i'll be there in 15”