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notasiren21 · 3 years ago

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26 for Lukanette WIPs please. :)

26. Party Crasher!Luka

I FUCKED UP AND JUST WROTE IT I GUESS???

Party Crasher

-Lukanette oneshot

“You mean to tell me Agreste ditched you? After all that pleading to let him take you to the party for your successful launch line for next season, he’s ditched you?”

“Kagami, don’t kill him.”

“Fine, remind me why I can’t though? This is such an ass move of his if he’s trying to prove he’s the one for you.”

“Because,” Marinette grits out, faking a toothy smile to a work couple that waves from passing, “I want to castrate and kill him myself.”

Kagami laughs roughly in surprise, “Why the castration?”

“So I can fit his small ass into the tightest pair of skinny jeans we have for our tall teenage girls.” The not so stoic girl sips on her wine, pleased with her friend’s rage. “I told him I haven’t been interested since we were 14, but him thinking I’ll forgive him if I even had a silver of interest in dating him? Fuck him.”

“Or,” Kagami drawls, long nails tapping the stem of her glass as she leans to peer over her friend’s shoulder, “You could fuck him instead?”

Mari gasps in offense, “I am NOT trying for a one night stand, no matter what you guys say.”

“No, you little mouse,” she admonishes, fully heartedly agreeing with the sentiment, “I just mean your big and handsome protective snake is here to save the day.”

Marinette’s mind took a second longer to click the pieces together, trying to make sense of Kagami’s nicknames for her friend group, before her heart thudded and she slowly turned.

There, passing by the models who had walked in Marinette’s designs and batted their false lashes at the rockstar, was Luka Couffaine.

Dressed to the nines in a very punk like and sophisticated way that revealed he very much wanted to impress her and did in fact listen to her fashion advice. Black skinny jeans only he could pull off, high top converse and a white button up with a black vest to overlay it. The cheeky and handsome bastard forgoing the tie to leave one too many buttons undone and his sleeves rolled up to reveal his tattoos.

Oh, on the life of his cat Sass was she proud of him.

And maybe drooling just a little?

He approached her, a sly smile working its way to his lips as he eyed her up and down, eyes shining bright at her black low cocktail that she paired with navy blue heels.

So maybe she sometimes used Luka as a whole for inspiration.

He raised a hand, finger wrapping around a loose curled tendril out of an elegantly messy low bun, “I thought it was the models you were supposed to make the stars of the show.”

“Had I known you were gonna show up, I would’ve worn one of my bests here.”

His hand froze, “This isn’t your best? You tease,” he broke out in a grin. His hand moved further, thumbing at the collection of piercings in her ear he accompanied her with to get years ago. “God, you’re so fucking beautiful.”

“Well, I’m suddenly glad I can only acknowledge this as awkward and not feel it.” Kagami noted into her class. Her phone buzzed, electing a sigh from her as she began turning. “Have fun, my mother decided to remind me why this wine was a good idea to have before she came.”

She watched her friend walk away, her other -her best friend and other half, remained taking her in and stroking the soft spot under her ear he once claimed with a mark-

The one time they admitted their crushes and strong attraction towards the other the night before he left for tour years ago.

It was the only time Luka had indulged himself in his wants and desires, the only time he had asked to and still provided her with an out. And now he still remains far off in her memories, even as he stands in front of her with that look on his face years later.

“How did you,” she swallows when his soft gaze flicks back up to her eyes with his full attention. “How did you get in? It’s a ticket only event.”

He shrugged, turning to offer her an arm and walk around. “I may or may not have seen Adrien’s post about his mom and dad going to a gala event and him going to see his cousin there. Seems like that took precedence I guess.”

Marinette huffed low, “Félix has been in town for three weeks. Adrien and I had lunch with him the other day.”

Luka stilled as a busboy stopped in front of them, offering them glasses of champagne. Luka’s nose twitched, then his lip as he turned away with a polite smile. Marinette shook her head in turn as well.

“You know you don’t have to pass just because of me, right?”

“Hey, we do this ‘young 20 some year olds unable to drink alcohol’ in solidarity together.” He cracked a smile at that, “Soda is my alcohol.”

“Alright, you can be an honorary member of the alcohol intolerance club.” Luka laughed when she hummed gleefully. “Dork.”

“Nerd.”

“So, back on topic, Adrien just really had no excuse then?”

“Ha, no, even his dad stopped by an hour ago to congratulate me and get press photos done to promote the line. All his son did for me was send a text with a sad face attached to his cancellation.”

“... I can kick his ass, you know?”

“I know, I’m just saving for a rainy day.” She laughed, stepping closer to his side and wrapping both arms around his. “So, the ticket, you party crasher.”

“Right, yeah, I may or may not have called your assistant earlier today to swipe it. I took a guess that she held onto it for safe keeping so-,”

“She’s new, I’m not surprised she just gave it up that easily.” She let Luka guide her into a dance. One hand with painted black holding hers to his chest, the other gently tugging to hold his shoulder before he held her waist.

“Oh, that, that explains a lot now.”

“What?”

He flinched, a nervous glint flashing across his features. “I may or may not have lied about who exactly I was since she didn’t know my name-,”

“Doesn’t listen to your music, already told her the sin she was committing.”

“And who I was to you, specifically-,”

Marinette tilted her head back in a laugh, Luka’s arm tightening to brace her weight, “You said you were my husband, didn’t you?”

He flushes at a memory of once getting a creep off her back a year ago by claiming that very title to her.

“Erm, no, I said I was your boyfriend and may have sold it by saying some pet name and swooning over you just a little,” he watched her eyes go wide then soft, a smile twitching to show. He stepped closer, almost pulling her flush to him, “But if that’s what you want, I can go out and get some marriage certificate?”

She flushed, lips parting and a rush of air passing them.

“Maybe call Jagged up and fly us to Vegas? I mean, we’re both looking good right now, you more so.” Her face went a shade or two deeper. She jumped in surprise when he let go of her hand to play with a tendril again on the right side, tilting her face to press a kiss to her left cheek. “God, you’re such a pretty little thing.”

She squeaked.

“What, what was the pet name?”

“Hm?” He lazily met her gaze, a dream like haze filter over them as he moved her body to sway with his. “Oh, that.”

“What was it?”

Baby, babygirl, beautiful, gorgeous- he may have said more than one.

He gave a slow and wicked grin, twirling her out and back into his chest in a swift and stunning movement as he nudged his nose to hers.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He teased, smile spreading wider and radiant as she forgot to breathe for a second.

What. A fucking. Tease.

The need for him to make good on his words and looks hit through her hard and reminded her of their one night together that they both never forgotten. And how much she wished that was every night, as long as it ended up with them curled right around each other and love and happiness coaxing them to sleep instead of stress and loneliness.

He watched her steel her gaze, her jaw tightened. He swallowed when her height, now of five feet thanks to heels, straightened and forced him to pull up. A violent shiver rocked through him when both hands held along the back of his neck, one slipping under the collar of his shirt to scratch along the nape.

“Marinette-,” he choked.

“I’m only asking so I can show my reciprocation.” She leaned closer, kicking her shoes off into some corner and standing on his converse that every elder of theirs had eyed in question during the night. He supported her actions fully, of course. Still stepping them around in dance within a fluid motion. “Not gonna tell me, hun?”

He coughed, loudly and looked away from her to catch his breath. Watching adults cheat on spouses everywhere or everyone else minding their own business to stare at models or the shrimp on the tables.

He almost tripped when she wined in protest, her hand gripping his chin lightly and turning it to face her. His eyes were flickering between admiration, lust and love, growing three shades of deeper blue than was possible.

“C’mon, baby, tell me.”

“Baby?” He stammered out in surprise. Teenage Luka was having a fucking field day with this. “Marinette, I was only joking earlier and-,”

“Were you really though?”

“No,” his response was fast and instant, a wince playing at the corner of his eyes and his button nose scrunching in loss of control.

“Hey handsome,” he preened under the nickname passing her lips, even if close to millions called him the same thing, it paid more effect when it was Marinette calling him it. “Tell me why you came tonight.”

His neck was aching from staring down to meet her eyes now that the heels were gone but he let himself down lower to press his forehead to hers. “Because you deserve better than what he gives you.”

The girl stilled, expecting an awkward or a flirtatious remark. “What?”

The rockstar looked away sheepishly, a little ashamed. “I know you’re considering getting with him, but when I heard he was canceling on you I let my jealousy win out and I just wanted to be there for you.” He bit his lip when he felt her tugging his face back in her direction, choosing to resist the pressure. “You have to believe me when I say I came with no ulterior motives other than protecting you from going stag to your own party tonight.”

“You, you came to protect me?”

He shrugged, another small shiver racking through him when her hands moved along and glided across his neck. “And make sure you had a good night. I even asked your mom what you were wearing tonight just so I could make sure my outfit complimented yours to cheer you up.”

She was silent for a minute or so, and he waited, patiently as ever and guiding her to rest her head against his chest as he swayed them.

Luka, doing all the work. Luka, taking matters into his own hands when someone fails her. Luka, going the extra mile to make sure she has a happy memory.

Fuck giving second chances to other people. Luka is the only one to have shown her he’s the most earning of the concept and notion.

She pulls away, feeling the slight reluctance in his arms on her waist before they drop to his side, “Grab my heels.”

He raises a black brow but complies, turning to find them and hooking his fingers in the backs. He eyes them, used to seeing her shoes laying around the Liberty when she comes over or even at her own place, but he always has to remark that, “You have small feet.”

“You’ve also called them cute,” she huffs, tugging on his hand and pulling him near the entrance.

He follows, like they always do for one another. “Because they are- where are we going?” He stops them as they round an empty corridor, away from the hotel’s event room where the party is still very much happening. The heel of his palm grips tight to archway, pressing against it, the small shoes still dangling in his hold.

“Home, your place or mine. Actually, mine’s closer.”

He laughs brightly, “You can’t ditch your own party for another movie night, Mari.”

The petite girl turns to him, a fierce expression in his eyes that makes him swallow harshly. “No, but I can ditch to celebrate in getting what I really want. For finally getting what I want.”

“The Chinese takeout place is closed this time of ni-,”

“You.”

“What?” Luka wheezes, he blinks stupidly at her. Prettily and stupidly. He straightens, freehand tugging at his collar a little like he needs room to breathe. “Come again?”

“I’m going home. I’m taking you with me. And we’re gonna celebrate that I finally got off my ass and got what I wanted.”

He hums, nervously and a bounce starting in his hand, a shake in one hand, his dark brows furrow, “And you want?”

“You.”

“You- you want,” he sucks in a sharp breath, pain flashing across his features as he clears his throat. “You want me?”

Her eyes soften, a smile showing as she steps closer to him and takes his face into her hands, pulling him down to be eye level with her as he braces his weight on the wall next to them with a hand.

“Yes,” he looks awestruck as she giggles. “I want you... can you let me keep you?”

He laughs nervously, “I’ll fucking sell myself to you if that’s what you really want, fuck.”

She’s smiling, leaning up on tiptoes to alleviate the strain in his neck and pressing a kiss to his lips, muffling the undignified noise of surprise that escapes him. She lets him get used to her for a second, kissing him slowly and purposely as starts to eventually overcome the shock and kiss her back in reverence.

He pulls away suddenly, a guilted expression on his face.

“Wait, wait. What about Adrien?”

“What about him?”

Luka fidgets, a quick glimpse of insecurities and jealousy showing to her before he regains a semblance of control after having his walls knocked down. “He’s been trying to go out with you, win you affections.”

He only knows of the situation, but never presses her to talk about it. It’s natural for it to come up in conversation everyday when he asks her about work knowing the stress of being twenty-two in a high end fashion company could be a bit more than overwhelming. He wanted to be a safe place to her since the beginning.

“There’s nothing about him. I’ve shut him down an handful of times and now it’s just a matter of letting him indulge himself in what he thinks are romantic gestures when me saying no doesn’t cut it. There’s nothing going on between him and I, just his belief that my crush from years ago accounts for something today.”

Luka still looks wary and isn’t touching her, most likely his conscious trying to be the better person between him and Adrien by not going out with the girl his friend is pining after.

Even if said girl is Luka’s legitimate best friend and the very same girl he’s been in love with since he was a kid.

Marinette feels like it’s a dirty tactic as she gets closer to him, trying to gauge where it’s jealousy and where it’s insecurity in regards to Adrien.

She presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth. Luka’s head turns minutely at the attention, tilting less than a centimeter to catch her lips before he catches himself. He struggles when her next kiss falls to his lips and is soft and slow, how he always wants to kiss her.

“Remember our first kiss?” She whispers, wounding arms around his waist and pressing close to him.

He matches her volume, an adoring look winning for a split second, “Of course I remember.”

“Remember our first date?”

“At the ice cream parlor, you wore a pink skirt that kept twirling when you did.” She feels his resolve break a little, his own right to be selfish with her slipping out a little.

His arms slip around her, and he presses a gentle kiss to her temple. “Remember our goodbye at the airport?” His arms tightening around her speak more volumes than his strained, “Yes,” does.

She’s just a little closer to convincing him to stop being so sacrificial with his own wants or needs. She just has to push more.

“Remember waking up in one another’s arms that morning?”

He’s silent for a few seconds, thinking of what he can say in response to that. Wondering how honest to be, “... every day, I think of that morning every day.”

She still hears the clipped apprehension in his voice. That tone she knows so well that’s gonna lead into him giving her advice to rethink this whole decision and talk to him when she’s absolutely sure. How she shouldn’t think on impulse and lunge at what she wants unless she knows she does wanna keep with it.

But, he has to know she always thinks back on moments with him and that she longs to have jumped on impulse if it meant being with him.

Every time he’s showed up with takeout at her place. When he smiles so freely at her. When he bandages her cuts and blisters from working all night long.

When he showed up tonight looking like he had been her dare to begin with. How her heart felt when he admitted to lying to her secretary. The way he looked carrying her high heels that were much too small for his hands but he didn’t care because she asked him to.

How he crashed her own party to make sure she’d have fun tonight.

She’s sure she wants this, him.

All those nicknames they could call each other. All the benefits of dating the other and having a date to everything the other needs to attend. Having her best friend be her boyfriend meaning there’s no holding back from anything.

She’ll cringe about it in the morning, but it’s gotta work to break his long instilled fear of being a bad friend or person. Of being unselfish.

“Do you still remember that night?”

She’s sure he’s stopped breaking by the way his entire body seems to shut down, but then it reboots and he’s shaking against her and can’t seem to breathe correctly, his eyes avoiding hers as he swallows again and looking like he’s willing to risk going into an allergic reaction for the sake of one drink.

“That- that’s not something you forget, Marinette.” His hands are twitching on her waist, grip tightening just a little and a vein is jumping in his arm to do something to prove he remembers alright.

One more push, “Do you still remember how I tasted that night?”

He seizes her waist, lunging to kiss her desperately like he did that night and when he left, a growl passing his lips onto hers. He’s cupping the back of her neck, fingers threading through her hair, breathing her in and shaking against her as his resolves breaks completely and the selfish side comes out. The one that’s nowhere near as selfish as the average person, but enough to take in the matter of his own needs and wants. He pulls back, letting her watch his eyes darken, the pupils expanding until the blues are next to near mere ridges of color. He’s watching hers do the same before he nudges her nose and kisses her slowly, more loving and affectionate. His control slipping back into place and resulting in the Luka she so loves regaining the handles of his own mind.

He’s careful in the way he tugs her lip with his teeth, how he coaxes her to let him kiss her fully before pull back and panting against her lips.

“Yes, I remember,” his voice is rough and he has to glance away from her and straighten. She watches him take a few meditative breaths before he looks back at her.

“Does that really help?” She gestures to his chest and mouth, “the breathing?”

He laughs hollowly, “No, not really, but it bought me time to create some distance in this,” he glances around, “Not your apartment place.”

She laughs at the suddenly horrified look that crosses his face, the image of them making out and the threat of almost being caught in public instantly dawning on him. He glares playfully at her.

“You did that all on purpose.”

“Had to, you were just about to give me up for the sake of being a good friend to me and Adrien.” She pauses, a wicked idea forming to prove her point, “Unless, you want Adrien to know what that all is like?”

A dark look crosses Luka’s face; unrestrained bouts of suppressed jealousy, possessiveness and territoriality. “No,” he growls out, eyes squeezing shut and having to clear his throat. “I’d rather not let him know any of that personally.”

“Not even how I taste?”

“Marinette,” he warned, the growl resurfacing. She cooed, wrapping him up in a hug and pressing a kiss to his jaw as an apology. He whined, “It’s not funny when you do that.”

“No, but everything you feel is alright to feel. Don’t hold back for the sake of not being selfish. You can be selfish with me, you’re a reasonable guy and know boundaries.” She sighed, nuzzling further into his warm embrace. “I don’t like Adrien the way he wants me to, and lately, it’s hard to even be his friend. He needs to move on from me. Hell, I’m better friends with Félix now than him.”

“Just hope they don’t switch up on you again.”

She huffed in amusement. “God no, I’d kill them.”

“It’s adorable how how your less than five feet body resorts to violence and death threats.”

“Mm, except you, I’m quite fond of you.” She looks up at him, chin pressed to his chest and smiling when he looks at her softly and presses a kiss to her nose. “This, us, is not an impulse. Just a restrained want I’ve had for awhile.”

“Okay, I understand now.”

She grins cheekily at him, “Or need, if that makes you all possessive hot yet secretly adorable rockstar boyfriend mode again.”

“Boyfriend?” He smiled slowly, radiant as always and heart stopping. “If teenage me could hear you, he’d probably shut down from being overwhelmed.”

“Nineteen year old you certainly didn’t that night,” she mumbles, grinning at the loud bark of laughter that surprises the both of them when Luka throws his head back.

“Yeah, thanks for reminding me what age I lost it at, totally rockstar of me, right?” The blush that’s coating his neck and ears is adorable, a shy smile quirking at her briefly.

“I think it’s sweet, cute even.”

“Yeah, because you’re the one I lost it to.” He deadpanned without conviction. “But, I guess I’ll take being sweet and cute.”

“It’s okay though, I mean, I did the cliché of losing my virginity to someone I was in love with.” Luka does in fact shut down in her embrace hearing that. Hands jittering against her and fingers tapping like he’s trying to speak through notes against her skin.

He takes another minute, before pressing a kiss to her hair. “If this is you confessing your love to me -and believe me, it’s killing me to stop you right now, I’d rather you do it in regards to another topic and not the fact that we were one another’s first time.” He avoids the dangerous smirk aimed his way, or the sharp angle of her cocked, black brow above breathtaking blues. “C’mon, let’s go dance some more and celebrate your success before we leave, maybe find your assistant to introduce me as your boyfriend to.”

She pours at him when he tugs on her hand in the direction of the party. “But-,”

He breathed out shakily, a waning patient look in his eyes and a false smirk aimed at her. “Can I sleep over tonight?”

“Do you want to?”

“Yes,” he breathed. “I’m very close to just following you home at this point, trust me. I don’t care how the night ends, just as long as it’s you and me tonight.”

She’s letting him make them dance again, feeling as the nerves leave his body as he gets them to fall in step with the tempo. He doesn’t care that he has to bend a little ways down to rest his cheek on her hair, not when she’s letting him pull her up against his chest when she typically only reaches the bottom of his rib cage.

They work well together, they fit perfectly together because they’re more than used to the instinctive adapting to one another.

Her hands cup his cheeks, kissing him carefully without reservation and the anxiety, “It was only an impulse at times because I love you and have for awhile.”

Luka deepens the kiss just a little, thankful she’s the type of girlfriend to let him indulge in her as he smiles, “I get it, I’ve had my share of impulsive thoughts for as long as I’ve been in love with you since we were young. I love you, Mari.”

“Enough to crash a party for me, apparently,” she whispered, a little moved by the thought that they were finally together. He thumbed her tears away.

“Enough to kill Adrien or Félix if you ask me to,” he replied in a loving tone, soothing her gasps for air when she broke apart in giggles against his chest in reaction.

He didn’t leave after that night. And he went to every party as her date too.

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doorsclosingslowly · 4 years ago

Text

There’s someone waiting out there with a mouthful of surprises

The Jedi recovered the bisected Sith apprentice from Naboo and imprisoned him underneath the Jedi Temple. A young Anakin finds the way down to his cell.

Anakin is twelve when he declines one of Chancellor Palpatine’s invitations for the first time. The resulting devastation looks wrong on his kindly old face, and Anakin wants to take it back—besides, it’s just an opera and a glass of bubbly, where could be the harm?—but he remembers golden eyes pleading up at him and then a skull-patterned face scrunched up into a splotch with how hard it’s trying to hide utter desperation, and he repeats his invented excuse.

It doesn’t matter that this one-sided rivalry for Anakin’s attention that has developed between the mutilated imprisoned murderer Sith (slave) he has befriended and the Chancellor of the Republic is honestly deeply stupid, from Anakin’s point of view. It’s not like he couldn’t spent time with them both: his missions with Master Obi-Wan have increased in number recently, but still, he’s been talking to Palpatine once a month and he’s also managed to fit in the regular trips down below to the high security carcer. It’s ridiculous.

But Anakin understands loneliness—and fear and attachment and jealousy and all the other disturbances of the peace he shouldn’t feel—he didn’t have friends for years in the Temple, after all, and it makes sense, at least a little, that Maul is scared he’ll be forgotten down there when Anakin has any other option. Not a lot of sense, because really what he’s saying is that he thinks Anakin so disloyal he’ll just ditch the only real friend he made on Coruscant, and Anakin would get back at him for the insult if it wasn’t for an energy gate perpetually between them and the fact that it’s a just a little bit unfair to tussle with a guy crawling on the floor because he doesn’t have legs… The jealousy is still kriffing stupid, but if anyone knows stupid fears it’s Anakin.

So he declines, and he keeps declining, and two years later the invitations stop.

Anakin is eleven when he starts smuggling droid parts down into the top security oubliette underneath the oldest parts of the Jedi Temple. The first time is, in retrospect, a terrifying accident. He’s built a tiny moving starfighter that Master Obi-Wan just glanced at and said, “Well done,” nothing more, like Anakin didn’t need to use pincers to weld the tiniest engine parts together, like he didn’t cast the alloy all by himself. He sulks in his room, the ship buzzing at his head, and then remembers that there’s at least two more people who might like to see. Palpatine is probably busy, and that leaves…

The Sith prisoner is a far more appreciative audience than Anakin’s Master. His eyes glint and widen when he sees the presence next to Anakin’s head, and he even pulls himself off his berth: pulls himself off the edge and tumbles down head-first, and then panting and with his nails dug into the duracrete he drags his torso over to the energy trellis that separates him from Anakin.

He looks up at the droid in childlike wonder.

There’s a tenderness to his questions that he hasn’t shown Anakin up until now, and it’s not just the hoarse panting of exertion that takes away the last dregs of his usual intimidating mien. He wants to know everything, from the full-size model of the ship it was based on to the assembly process to details of every single one of Anakin’s new projects.

“I can—I could feel the movement of the droids I built, in the force,” the prisoner whispers reverently. “They were a constant presence when I was young.”

“Right? Right?” Anakin is excited. The Jedi have been trying to tell him that droids don’t have force presences, and he’s almost believed them by now, but if he’s not alone in feeling it then he was right. Master Obi-Wan was wrong. He knew it.

He brings down the next droid he builds—yes, two days after the first trip he did realize he brought something easily used as a weapon to the dangerous Sith prisoner, but all he did was talk mechanics with Anakin so clearly it’s harmless—and the next and next. He watches the prisoner drag himself across the floor. He sees the abrasions covering the prisoner head to abdomen—covering him on every inch of the body he still possesses—the injuries that he must be sustaining from his only mode of movement. He feels the shame radiate out from the prisoner down on the floor, painful, cloying. He watches him try to play it all down.

One day, Anakin brings down a ship that he designed himself to meet the exact dimensions and functionality of a short humanoid’s prosthetic thigh. He pushes it against the barrier. It moves through.

Anakin is almost ten years old, and he knows that down in the bowels of the Jedi Temple there lives a monster. The Sith is caged so deep below that no-one can hear his growls and mutters, his whimpers, his pleas, or so Master Obi-Wan promised Anakin yesterday when he’d worked up the courage to ask about the sounds he keeps hearing whenever he closes his eyes. He’s locked down so deep that the shivering of his despair and the gall of his hatred must be a hallucination. He’s been caged for months, first interrogated daily, then found useless and forgotten. But not by Anakin.

(He saw the monstrous enemy of the Jedi for the first time when he’d just turned nine. It pulled its black hood off its bright head and panicked Master Qui-Gon and Master Obi-Wan, and Anakin was sent away for safety that quickly turned into cosmic warfare. Before that moment, he knows, on Tatooine it tried to run Anakin over with its bike. After that moment, he’d seen the monster—or what remained of it—being carried out of the Naboo palace on Master Obi-Wan’s back, moaning and delirious with pain, but dangerous nonetheless. It had bitten Obi-Wan so hard he’d flung it reflexively to the ground.

Down there, it had begged. “Honor,” it had rasped. “Give me honor. Give me death.”

Master Obi-Wan had picked it up by its arm, and it had whimpered in protest, “I fought with honor!”

Obi-Wan had ignored it. Anakin would have, too; this thing had killed Master Qui-Gon, and whether it had done so with honor or not didn’t matter when Master Qui-Gon was dead. It had killed the Jedi who’d won him, who chose to train Anakin, who was the only guarantor of his future safety, and he didn’t know what would happen now, and he hated it.

It had grown more frantic then, terrified. “Kill me, Jedi, please, when my Master—”

And Anakin had swallowed a cry of shocked recognition.)

Anakin will be ten in two months, and today he’s gonna see the monster again. It’s not the force that calls him down staircase after staircase to the oubliette below the oldest parts of the Jedi Temple. He’d be able to explain if it was the force, if he got caught, he thinks, but that’s not what’s going on. It’s just homesickness, and loneliness, and it is that word.

The way he said it.

Anakin has met more Masters in the last year of his life than ever before, has uttered the word more often than on Tatooine, and he’s doing pretty well, he thinks. He doesn’t flinch with his body when he says it and not with his face either, and even the highest Masters—there it is again—they can’t feel the acid in his force presence anymore.

He greets Master Obi-Wan in the morning and he bows to Grandmaster Yoda whenever they meet.

He doesn’t talk about his childhood. He doesn’t talk much, nowadays, to anyone but Master Obi-Wan or his teachers. He knows he’s weird. He wasn’t on Tatooine, but here… He doesn’t know the things the other padawans do, and his reflexive associations, his interests, his memories shock them. There’s no point, Anakin has learned, in expecting people who can say Master without galling—who don’t need to pretend enjoy it—to listen to him. They’ll never wake up in cold sweat and feel for the bomb that was cut out of their neck, that was injected into it while they were awake and their mother cried, that had so often almost gone off. They don’t cry for their Mom. They’ll only shush him when he talks of his past.

When he talks of his fears.

Of himself.

They’ll never understand him. No-one will. No-one will let him be the Anakin he really is, without fussing over him and muttering and looking like he should know better by now. No-one wants anything beyond the parts of himself he can salvage that are untainted by his past. The parts that don’t remember his mother.

The only person who listens to all of him is Palpatine, and even he often doesn’t know what to say.

No-one will understand, possibly, but…

The monster that lives down below the Jedi Temple had forced out Master like the word tastes of fire and dread.

Like it heralds pain.

The monster is a fellow slave, Anakin is sure. He’s the only being on Coruscant who might understand; the only person who will let him be whole. He’s killed Master Qui-Gon, yes, but he didn’t have a choice, just like Anakin wasn’t allowed to disobey his Master and neither was Mom or Kitster or Beru or anybody else back home.

It was so obvious, the moment he said it.

The monster’s a slave.

Point: Anakin is so tired of having to pretend he never was a slave.

Point also: He just found a map of all the layers of the temple in a garbage chute, wedged in a decommissioned droid’s dataslit. A map that shows the oubliette for ancient evils.

Point also also: Master Obi-Wan’s fast asleep, and Anakin can’t get his thoughts to stop racing.

The monster’s a fellow slave.

Ergo: it’s time to sneak down and make a friend.

What must be hundreds of meters below the current Jedi Temple, at the bottom of the bottom-most staircase, smells faintly of sweat and boredom and despair. The only illumination Anakin can make out is a set of force trellises, and if the schematics he found were right then that’s exactly the spot that he’s looking for.

Pulling his hood down deeper just because it’s chilly and definitely not because he’s nervous and needs something to fidget, he sneaks closer.

Victory!

The Sith’s inside the cell. He looks just like the attacker Anakin remembers, with a red-and-black face and some horns and a scowl. He looks completely different, too: he’s naked, or at least his torso is. The lower half of his body is just missing. Did the Jedi—but no, Anakin can dimly remember Master Obi-Wan mention the way he beat him. That he’s still without prosthetics, even though his scars are well-healed… Anakin knew a woman who’d survived a bomb blowing off her leg, on Tatooine. She lived off of fellow slaves’ charity, for a few months. Her head wasn’t all there anymore from the pain, Mom told Anakin, and her Master had just let her leave. Why invest in a prosthetic when you’re not getting any use from its recipient?

The Sith is doing better than her, at least, even if he’s missing way more flesh. He’s doing pull-ups off the head piece of his callow berth. His yellow eyes gleam in the soft light of the force trellis when he looks over. When he notices Anakin. For a long moment, he looks stunned, and only then he remembers to snarl.

“Hi,” Anakin says.

The prisoner puffs up his defined arm muscles, as well as he can when he’s still hanging off the frame of his bed. He must have decided that dropping down onto his torso—and probably his face—would be even less dignified, though, because he stays put, sweaty and glowering out at Anakin from under his armpit, like he’s desperately trying to look threatening and tough in an unfamiliar situation where the other person has all the power.

It’s a scene Anakin has known intimately for most of his life.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” Anakin says.

A beat.

Right.

“The Jedi didn’t send me,” because in his situation that’s what Anakin would most like to know. The Jedi are not this guy’s slave masters, but they do have all the power over him right now.

“I was a slave too, before they took me here. You can trust me,” and at least that gets a reaction: the prisoner looks absolutely apoplectic and even opens his mouth. Finally! He’s angry, which isn’t ideal—Anakin should have remembered that some slaves don’t want to admit they are—but they’re talking!

But the Sith just closes his mouth again.

He keeps his sullen silence for what feels like hours while Anakin tries one conversational gambit after the other. He just can’t have blown his one chance at talking to someone whose mouth makes the right shape for Master. Anakin refuses to accept that.

But it grows later and later, and Master Obi-Wan will wake up at some point, and he doesn’t have to concede defeat for forever, after all, but maybe for today…

“Fine.” Anakin puffs out his chest. He should say something soothing that’ll buy him a foot in the door next time, but he’s been pleading and pleading, and it hurts. “I don’t even care if you don’t want to talk. I’ve got plenty of friends. Chancellor Palpatine asked me to come over for tea just yesterday!”

The voice is so threadbare that he almost misses it, but it’s there. The Sith clears his throat. He sounds more sure and velvety when he repeats his plea to Anakin. His golden eyes are so wide it looks painful.

“Wait! Repeat what you just said!”

Anakin is nineteen when he climbs down into the bowels of the Temple for the last time. He hasn’t slept for two days, barely even closed his eyes, because on the insides of his lids is his mother, writhing, pleading.

No-one up in the Temple can give him any help. All they have to offer is platitudes about Uncertain the future is and Let go of attachment you must, but it’s his Mom, and she’s being tortured! She’s dying! She can’t be dying! She’s Anakin’s Mom!

He’s pleaded to be sent to Tatooine on a mission, but Senator Amidala’s protection detail is more important Master Obi-Wan said, and he can’t just go against the will of his… He can’t go. His Mom’s dying every moment he closes his eyes and he can’t go.

Maul is his last hope.

No-one will even notice that Maul’s gone. He’s been locked up for a decade now, and only the meal droids and Anakin still climb down to his level. Anakin’s friends with the meal droids, too, and he can definitely talk them into keeping silent about the Sith prisoner’s disappearance.

Maul’s a fighter, and he was able to find them on Tatooine and follow them to Naboo so he must be able to find Anakin’s Mom, too, wherever she’s been dragged off to. He’ll be able to save her.

He’ll—

Anakin has already sliced the force trellis control panel and turned it off when the fear grabs him. He’s spilled all his nightmares of his mother’s death, has shared the only plan for her survival. He’s received the assent he was sure to get. Now, he’s helping Maul put on the smuggled prosthetics that have been hidden in the stuffing of Maul’s prison berth, kneeling down before him.

And suddenly, all he tastes in the air is raw hatred.

He flinches. The trellis must have functioned as a shield from Maul’s presence before, keeping Anakin from realizing the true depth of Maul’s anger, the extent of his strength.

He could kill Anakin right now. He could attack the temple, and it would all be Anakin’s fault.

The frailty and humiliations of the prisoner’s mutilated body have lulled Anakin into reacting with kindness. He’s seen a man who is weak, helpless, and of course he offered help.

The cadence of Maul’s voice has made him sound like a friend.

But he’s the Sith who slaughtered Master Qui-Gon.

He’s filled to the brim with hatred and jealousy and pain, the force around them screams, will never release them to meditation like Anakin has tried and tried to do; he’s everything the Jedi Council saw in Anakin that day a decade ago and that he’s tried so hard to bury. He’s a Sith.

He’s warm.

It’s not just the hand he rests on Anakin’s shoulder but the very air he expels. Anakin expected the dark side of the force to be frigid, the way his own loathing and terror have kept him shivering and cold, but this is a hearth: protection, purification, an almost magnetic pull. It wraps around them. He shudders again.

“Do not be afraid,” Maul says, and from the soft look in his eyes he has misunderstood completely. “I shall find your mother, apprentice. You will do admirably while I’m gone. Just remember everything I taught you.”

And then, the darkness curls around Anakin again, hot and possessive. “While I’m gone, don’t talk to Palpatine.”

Anakin is twenty-three when he decides to brutally murder the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic. His wife is laying in the delivery room, holding the boy twin—holding their baby boy!—while he strokes her hair reverently, and there is his Mom beside him, holding the girl twin—holding their baby girl!—and next to the door, scowling, stands Maul.

“Do you want to hold her?” Mom asks Maul gently. She knows him best now, and if she decides Maul’s standoffishness towards the twins—his twins!—is shyness rather than dislike, then Anakin will forgive him for not cooing over the babies—his kids! His and Padmé’s kids!—like any rational person would.

“Even His patience runs out one day,” Maul whispers.

Anakin’s hairs curl in shocked recognition, and he doesn’t even need to hear the word, but—

“I told you, Shmi, he started talking to Anakin as soon as he arrived. Somehow I managed to keep them apart, to interfere with the attempts at molding him, but the very fact He showed interest must warn us… As soon as he learns of this birth, and His spies are everywhere…” Maul turns back towards the door, palms laid across it as if he could keep the gate shut. The force burns with shielding hatred. “My Master will come for your children. Soon. Palpatine likes them young.”

#anakin skywalker #darth maul #dimtraces makes things

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himbodjarin · 4 years ago

Text

LUNAR; CH14

18+ EXPLICIT Content: Gore, general violence, Din/Third person POV. MANDO'A TRANSLATIONS AT THE BOTTOM Word count: 16,019 Pairing: Din Djarin/F!Reader - no y/n

The Mandalorian is a driven warrior — traversing the galaxy in search of the ancient Jedi — but everyone has their weaknesses, and he’s no different. The Bounty Hunter possessed three in fact. One he’s discovered—The Child. The remaining two, though, he wasn’t aware of their existence. At least, not until he meets a valorous Sharpshooter underneath a moonless night sky; then he’s plummeting down a dark mission of self-discovery, questioning his morals and his Creed while the moon taunts him, the phases of the satellite corresponding to his personal revelations. However, the Girl has a dark past that may come to inflict hardships on the Mandalorian and the Child; it's up to the Bounty Hunter to decide her fate. Read on AO3 / Series Masterlist / Playlist

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: THIS IS THE WAY

The Sun stands off to Din’s side, silent in a comforting way, a placidness he’s unable to recover within himself, and he savours the company with a gloved hand roosting on a curve. She twists to face him, bestowing a grand smile of rays that encapsulate inside and furnaces his figure until he’s blanketed in a toasty buzz, a swelling in his internal organs that he’ll just never become accustomed to. Din reacts to the sensations the only way he knows how and drags her into his side, a hand slithering to her hip to steady her there; little engagements that he’d never considered partaking in before the Girl.

Hands carved of dormant radiation fuss with the makeshift strap slung across her shoulder; one of the more unfortunate after-effects of her victory. Din had to utilise his craftsmanship to gift her with a lash capable of taking the weight of the disruptor rifle—the harness he relied on was built into his bandolier with a small metal clasp. He cares for the Girl but she is no charity case; the rifle against her back is plenty more than he would’ve ever thought of parting with.

The meddling persists, tinking the steel of the barrel against his vambrace.

“What’s the matter?”

Her head shakes and sinks to indolently survey the turf beneath their feet.

He glances at her hand. “I thought you wanted it?”

She buckles into submission from his queries, not that it took much effort on his part, and drags a hand down the front of her face. “I did - I do but it doesn’t feel right. It’s not mine… With your religion and all this feels awry. I shouldn’t have this.”

“I want you to have it.”

It’s the truth. He wants to be endowed with the ability to watch her manipulate something that’s been with him for so long. He wants to bookmark how it frames her body—he doesn’t know how but it does and he’s eternally grateful for that—but most of all, he wants a part of him to be forever touching her.

Nonetheless, it still doesn’t satisfy her scepticism and she scratches into the leather strap until it weathers and flakes.

“It’s just—”

“What?”

A relieving puff of stale carbon dioxide dispels from her slim parted lips. “I don’t want you to think I’m using you for your rifles, for your protection.”

Helmet inclines enough for the tip of his T to connect with her eyes; a small shake of his head as if to enquire what she’s talking about. She’s more than capable of protecting herself. She’s demonstrated it time and time again and Din is the last person who’d assume such things from her.

“I mean it’s the only reason I hitched a ride from you in the first place. I felt like I deserved compensation for my rifle and I needed a way off that damned planet.” She stiffly eases her eyes to the ground and scrunches a stone beneath the toes of her boot. “I never could’ve anticipated all of what’s happened...happening to—to happen…”

Jumbled and stuttering as if she’d downed six flasks of spotchka is a new look on her. It spawns a bounce in his lungs but he stifles the deep chuckle in the interest of not distressing her more than she obviously already is.

Serrated seams etch into the ridges of her eyebrows laced with insecurity, as though peering through a distorted mirror; one concerned expression switching with the other.

She elaborates, with such a hushed volume he almost activates his sonic detectors to register the mumbling, “It just feels as though if this is in my possession there’s no need for me to stick around. You’ve cleared your debt. I’m of no use to a reinforced Mandalorian like yourself. I appreciate the offer, I do, but…”

“What about…” he suggests, two fingers tilting her chin upwards, “you just keep it warm for me.”

It’ll technically remain hers—radioactive fingers having tagged the trigger with her insignia, the rifle imprinting its framework into the soft flesh of her back whereas it never could nestle into his beskar—even if Din is the only one who believes so. His proposal appears to hit the nail on the head of her insecurities and she allows that pesky hand to cease its unjustified carnage on the strap once and for all.

He’s entrusted with a significant smile that he cradles in his palms gently, nurturing it to ensure its growth and progression—a curve of her lips he’s not worthy of possessing but she donates it nonetheless.

“I can do that.”

It’s a witless justification to continue this worldless pact they’ve got going on and they couldn’t give a damn whether it was a phony excuse or not. She’s deciding to stay as opposed to leaving the parsec with pieces of himself attached to her back and around her neck; she wants to stay. Peradventure, it’ll only be for a little while—Din wasn’t accommodating enough for people’s liking and they’d always leave eventually—but maybe she’ll outride his past acquaintances and remain.

Din silently sighs and glances down the path they’re idled along. Caben and Stoke should’ve returned by now, though he suspects they did and that they might have been accidentally exposed to his fixation on the Girl. They weren’t exactly being quiet in the Crest after all.

Still, it provokes an irresistible grin; she’s his and only he could arouse those sounds from deep in her stomach.

“Sweet girl.” His finger pets the peak of her cheekbone. “I think we’re going to have to walk back.”

She groans. “So much for an easy-going day.”

With their intended excursion back to the settlement coming up empty-handed, the two set out from the Crest and follow the path they’d been adhered to for the past hour.

It’s nearing dusk; vibrant blues and greens numbing to darkened blends of orange and purples. The Eclipse formally so highly spoken of from their taxi service approaches as the moon makes its tiresome journey above.

“D’you think we’ll get to see it?” The Girl’s questioning disrupts the flow of crunching gravel underneath their synchronized feet.

The sky is victimised by a leering tinted slit of transparisteel, analysing the steadiness of thick clouds rolling across the surface of the dual spheres. It scales inwards to observe the shadows of craters beneath the puffs. Sorgan’s secondary moon, much smaller in size or perhaps simply further away, is smothered in the overcast and lags behind its twin, silent and colourless.

“Clouds are moving fast. It should be okay.”

She nods. “Never had the pleasure of seeing one before. Heard they’re real pretty, though. What about you?”

“No. I don’t frequent a planet long enough.”

There’s a fork in the road, diverging off into three different paths but he’s got it all memorised in the back of his mind and continues onwards without a falter in his steps, the Girl to his side with a bounce in her step as she mulls over his candour approach.

“That’s too bad. Not one for settling down, huh?”

It’s a rhetorical question but Din doesn’t want to leave her hanging regardless, “No.”

“Yet here you are—” She prods a finger at his unarmoured side prompting a light swat to her hand. “—settling.”

“...I’m not settling.”

“No?”

His shoulders broaden and he hooks a thumb in the front of his belt. “No.”

She chuckles at him but mercifully leaves it at that, well aware what he says isn’t true but she’s none the wiser to what he’s settling down for—and it’s not Sorgan.

Leather clings to her hip for dear life, refusing to surrender its residency even when they drift from one another to avoid a dip in the path; fingers merely burrow into the cloth and drag the warmth straight back once they’ve passed. Din exploits the absence of inquisitive glances and looming queries to dedicate cloying touches and he’s not afraid to demonstrate it. Where, even a week ago, he couldn’t express these emotions without the adrenaline coursing through his veins, the arousal pulsing in his core, but circumstances have changed—evolved into something fresh.

Something untouched that he wants to corrupt with his obscene hands.

It’s short-lived. Snooping eyes return.

Lanterns emitting orange hues reflect off the waters of the emerging krill ponds, softly rounded fluorescents mirroring against his polished beskar as he sweeps through the troughs. The majority of the inhabitants surround the central campfire, its flames a worthy competitor to the lanterns mellow gingers. They lick and lick and lick at the sky, the scorching embers puffing into the fading purples upwards; laughter and the tinking of spotchka-filled flasks circling the bonfire.

Leather collapses resembling the Crest plummeting through the atmosphere. Heavy, fast, and everything in slow motion while he processes he’s losing traction, a small hitch in his chest upon striking his own thigh. She’s right beside him, an inch away from brushing elbows, yet she’s still too far.

It’s not in his nature to act so possessively in front of people—out in the open for whoever to gauge thoughts, to probe his emotions—and he won’t start parading around now, in spite of the fact she’s accumulated fresh bruises that haven’t been fortunate enough to receive time to heal; or even grant the red inking to mollify into something a little less salient.

They’re the one factor he can pardon from his public displays of affection regulation. It’s simple and clean. An honest indication of what’s between them without needing to flaunt it, simply a demonstration to not infringe on their relations.

Din is accustomed to the turned heads, the watchful gazes as they make way to the midpoint, but the Girl still finds it intolerant; the exposure too confining and she slinks back a few steps. He continues onwards not wanting to draw further attention to her and they pass the spectators, eyes stooping and communication commencing after they’ve had a gander of their guests—their clothes and the Girl’s dishevelled hair evidence enough.

They’re really not as discreet as they pass themselves off to be.

Omera interrupts his motion with a sidestep onto their path. She offers a courteous smile. “Did you have an eventful day?”

“Yes.”

“Can we expect your participation tonight? It should only be a few more hours before the eclipse commences.”

Din nods, somewhat reluctant to agree. Social settings weren’t in his favour but there’s a persistent woman on the heels of his boots who longs to see the phenomenon, and whatever she wishes he will grant with a simple please Din.

Omera gleams at his accepted invitation and gestures past the campfire to a stationed bench compiled of dishes and brimming glasses of various liquids. “Help yourself to our delicacies. It’s all traditional for the celebration.”

He softly sighs, not enough for anybody to hear him over the uproar but it’s sufficient in getting his unimpressed thoughts regarding the taunting dishes—at least, the Girl notices. His helmet pans to the heft on his pauldron, caf-coloured eyes trailing along the limb and jumping to its partner gesturing in the direction of the hut.

“I’ll get you something to eat, all right?”

She doesn’t entitle him the opportunity to oppose her proposition before bounding through the crowd to collect a platter of high-grade Sorgan nourishments. He scouts for a moment, considering her with a slender tilt of his helmet; riveting, how enthusiastic and adaptable she is to the liability of his Creed.

The Way had forcibly distanced him from so many potentials, pulverised them before his very visor, and here she was, dirtying her faultless hands with the soot of his decisions simply to cater to him.

It wasn’t all that long ago he’d be seated up in the Crest’s cockpit, a helmet on his lap, a bowl of nutrients in his hands, a deadpan expression etched into his face as the stars skim past the viewport. Silence, he so often told himself he favours, accompanying him like a prodding rod at the back of his ears; loud and exhausting despite its very name.

It has been quite a while since he’s succumbed to the silence with the Child and all. While he wished the kid would actually comply with his requests, Din has a preference for the cooing and squealing of a baby than the hum and buzz of his haven.

Perhaps it won’t last long—the Child will be returned to wherever he originated and the Girl will journey on after some time—but at least he can savour the atmosphere until then; anything ranging from the snarky remarks to the comfortable quiet in contrast to the loud, resonating one he’s been inflicted by all these years.

“I’ll leave you to eat,” Omera announces, “I’m sure your boy would like to see you when you’re done.”

Another nod on behalf of him, another burden on his pauldron from her; a fleeting touch of her hand but it’s cold and sharp and Din yearns for the Girl’s radiation to cleanse him of the hypothermia.

He sighs and makes his way to their hut.

Their quarters are overfamiliar. The littered blankets untouched, the way Din liked it, lasting evidence of what occurred. The flimsy dress she despised neglected and long forgotten, though it resurges the crisp memories regarding Din’s Honour; how he nonchalantly stripped himself of what he’s constructed himself around simply to feel a smidge of liberation with the Girl—to highlight their connections in the cracks of their implicit relationship.

To show he’s more than just a rusting Creed.

Din exhales through his filters and sinks to the cot’s mattress. It’s not nearly as comfortable with all the beskar on but it’s not as though he’ll be inside long.

“Oh yeah, you just relax there why don’t you?” The Girl grumbles from the doorway, balancing an assortment of bowls and plates in either hand and the crooks of her elbows—she would’ve made for a poor waitress in another life.

He makes no attempt to aid her. “That’s too much.”

“It’s not all for you. Other people eat, too, you know.”

Oh, he knows all too well. The sugary goodness of a thick syrup running down her fingers and onto his tongue never strays far from his mind.

She tries for a bend of her knees to ease the dishes onto a surface but they more or less topple out of her grip, scattering pieces of fried foods across the burnished wood. “Shit...ah, it’s just yours.”

“Funny.”

“I like to think so,” she cracks.

Din strains from his position to observe the variety of consumables she’d pinched from the community; bone broth, assorted krill, an unidentified pastry of some sort—Din crosses it off his list, far too dry looking for his taste—among snacking foods.

They’re not worthy of the title ‘appetising’ but Din’s acquainted with tasteless stock; he only ever eats it for the nutrients anyways.

She hoards a bowl of bone broth to her chest. “I’ll be outside. If you want seconds just call me, yeah?”

Leather wraps around her wrist before he properly registers her words. “No—you can stay. It’s not like I haven’t taken this off around you before.”

“I thought you might’ve wanted to eat in peace.”

Din exhales a laugh out of his nose. “A girl of your build should be smarter than that, no?”

It rises a simper out of her, a roll of her eyes and a shake of her head. Din retrieves the extended plate of krill prepared in a vast abundance of methods—fried, broiled, roasted, sauteed—he unenthusiastically considers a crustacean between two gloved digits.

Vibrant cobalt had grown to a dim grey underneath the golden breading, a fine sheet of oil coating leather skin and a drop of grease slipping down the curve of his thumb. Reluctance and dissatisfaction are apparent in his mannerisms and vocoder, emitting an exhaust laden sigh that crackles into the quiet lodge.

The mattress dips with her weight, the press of her back against his beskar. “Not one for krill?”

“I think I’ve had my fair dose,” Din broods.

“Still pent up about getting a little bit of water in your circuits?”

Another cheesy droid joke that pushes his eyes into the back of his skull but he lets it slide. Din’s famished. It’d been a while since he ate; well, not exactly but the Girl wasn’t much of a meal more than a treat. If he could draw out sustenance from her he’d never have to endure another stale dessert or salty meats from who knows where.

Their backs are pressed firmly together, practically leaning on each other for support, and Din doesn’t need to verify whether she’s looking away for him to unlatch his helmet. Its casual hiss signals for her to keep her eyes trained forwards and he lays the steel to rest beside him.

It’s the first time her eyes are open while the helmet is detached. Well, maybe not the first—he had lifted it the slightest back on Tatooine, in the cockpit while she busied herself with his Crest’s maintenance. The circumstances don’t much differ from now; both scenarios involve food of some sort and resolute trust.

Cobalt of the sweet dessert transferred to a chewy crustacean that’s comparable to grinding tar in his mouth, tough and fudgy but in all the worst ways. Din isn’t a selective person; he can consume the coarse flavourless product without a second’s worth of hesitance but he’s had the best of the best—jatnese be te jatnese, he’d said so himself—a gluttonous intake of the Girl’s taste and nothing will ever equate to that.

The mound of unchewable meat slips down his pipes, buttery and peppery but overall bland. Nutritional enough. He crams another cluster of the crescents into his gullet to appease his appetite.

The Girl sips on the pale cream broth behind him, head tilted against his as the liquid leaks from the carved bowl and between her lips. Din can’t imagine the taste is much better than the krill with the colours being so dull—as though they were eating the incarnation of unstimulating hues of greys and blacks.

“Do you want to try some?” she asks, extending the half-empty bowl to their side.

Din retrieves the grub with a low hum in his throat, uncertain, but ultimately decides it can’t hurt to give it a try. It’s obviously edible if it’s a Sorgan delicacy—how wrong he was. It’s saltier than the oceans with chunks in it; he doesn’t even want to think what they could be. He refrains from spitting the soup back into the bowl or onto the cot and feebly swallows the lukewarm puddle, a nubby leather wrist wiping the residue from his lips with disgust.

She bellows at his reaction, the back of her shoulders bouncing against his pauldrons as she struggles to contain herself.

The base of the bowl knocks against the closest surface available, a flimsy stool that accompanies the table, and he scowls with his arms crossed against the hump of his chest. “You’re wicked.”

“Seemed like you wanted a taste with the way you were looking at me.” Din’s head slightly tilts as he watches from the corner of the visor. “I can feel your eyes. Not sure how you ever catch bounties when all you do is stare.”

Bounties are intimidated by my staring, they’re smart, he wants to retort but saying bounties and smart in the same sentence is comical.

Appetite long gone, by consequence of broth that would serve a better purpose as blurrg feed, Din clips the rim of his beskar between two fingers and considers it among his lap. There’s no intent to lift it up and over his face. No intent to distance himself from the Girl just yet. It gawks at him; captivating in its own methods but still so ransacked of life. The black void of his false eyes darker than that of Space’s vacuum.

Din’s eyes ricochet from the slit to the back of the Girl’s head like a blaster bolt within a room of reflective duralloy and nowhere to go; pondering the morals of his very character as he aligns the crown of her head with the vacancy in his clutch.

She noticeably stiffens as his helmet envelopes her, the rim slack around her neck with nothing to latch onto. Fingers dismiss the fried krill she’s been feasting on and orbits the surface; Din amicably smacks them away and lays his hands on her shoulders to loosen the knots.

“Greasy,” he simply explains his reaction.

One would think such a valuable material as beskar could be cleaned with a small wipe of a damp cloth. One would be wrong. It’s a nuisance to maintain its condition and he’d been lagging behind with its upkeep as of recent—he couldn’t afford greasy fingerprints.

Soft vocals are replaced with a crunchy crackle, an unnatural graininess as if she digested a bucket’s worth of Arvala-7 terrain; sand and grit forming lumps in her ducts and spluttering into the internals of beskar, “What are you doing?”

His fingers rub into the base of her neck, the deepness of his unaffected tone eliciting a hum within the helm. “The rifle won’t be used to its full potential without the helmet.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Don’t worry, I’m not giving you the helmet. I just want to show you what it can do.”

“Is this...allowed?” She goes to scratch the back of her head but knocks against the steel and limply drops her hand. “It doesn’t feel like this is allowed. I’m sure there’s a rule in that big ol’ Manual for Mandalorians you’ve got hiding around.”

He scoffs. “Do you want to see it or not?”

It dips to a dainty nod.

“Gods, this is heavy. Don’t you get a sore neck?”

Din neglects her questioning and extends his vambrace before her, his other arm reaching around to point at the buttons—effectively sandwiching her between his gauntlets—and his finger focuses on one in particular. It’s a small circular button, a clone to all the others, but more weathered from the abrasive leather. “Click this,” he instructs.

She complies, her digit dainty beside the stocky hide, helmet perking up once the thermal activates and submerging her vision in cool hues of blues. Her curiosity matches that of the Child’s as she twists and turns her head side to side, surely discovering the warm tones of candlelight and heat signals radiating from their hands before her.

“Wait a damn minute—” The Girl aims to toss a suspectful glare in his direction but quickly dismisses the desire, his exposure never far from the forefront of her mind, “you cheating-”

“I told you, Cyar’ika,” Din coos against the side of the helmet. “Not a gentleman.”

“I...I demand a rematch.”

Din chuckles into her, the leaps of his laughter ricocheting against her back but he pays her decree no attention. There’s no way she’d reign successfully in a no holds barred condition, not when his visor contributes half of the rifle's potential of force. Then again, if things were to pan out the same way it did earlier perhaps he’ll take her up on it—just for fun.

“Good for calculating how many threats there are--”

“Yeah, that, or being a little-”

“Next,” he navigates her hand to a second preset.

The thermal deactivates with one push and the sonic detectors engage with another.

It must be disorienting for her to focus on all the surrounding sounds of the settlement, the steel swallowing her senses, Din remembers the first time he donned a helmet—one much smaller and lighter than his current but all the same in terms of abilities and desensitising him from the outside world. Pair that with the power to be able to hear a whisper from over a hundred metres away, it can turn situations sticky and muddled if not appropriately centred.

“What do you hear?”

She’s mute and motionless, suspended in the limbo of space and time.

Din presses a kiss to the nape of her neck in an attempt to declutter her mind but it does very little; sharp claws of concern grasping at the back of his head and scampering upwards until the pressure against his temples is unbearable and it finally conquers him.

He shouldn’t have imposed this on her. He of all people should’ve known better. It takes years of getting accustomed to it.

“Hey. Hey, okay, no more.”

It’s eased up halfway before she interrupts and pulls it back down. “I’m fine. Just trying to focus. There are too many conversations, it’s distracting.” She chuckles. “Good thing I didn’t have it this morning. You snore, you know. Would’ve rendered me deaf.”

Din grumbles beneath his breath—something even the detectors can’t distinguish with the crackles in his vocal cords—and sharply flicks the back of the steel with his forefinger, grinning when she compresses a hand against the side where her ear resides.

“Ow,” she whines. “Okay, okay, turn it off. I’m sick of hearing you breathe down my neck.”

It disables with a final push of his vambrace.

The Girl explores the surface of the beskar with either hand and Din subconsciously annotates how dilatory she is with it—her fingers dipping from the cheek ridges to the face and around the ear caps before resting against the sealed cooling vents at the back—solely dedicating the time to recognise the only face she can put a name to but from his perspective.

Combine that with being endowed with the pleasure of seeing her in his shirt and helmet provokes Din’s heart to stammer against the bones, his jaw to tighten and he seizes the beskar by the edge and twists it to face him. He enables virtually no time for her to comprehend what he’s planning and it’s undetermined whether she managed to shut her eyes before his face is frontwards, but he trusts they are.

It’s outlandish to gaze into the cold dark visor when there’s another lifeform beneath it. Sure, he’s encountered incalculable Mandalorians in his lifetime but never has anybody worn his helmet—it’s a fragment of his Creed, of Him, and he’d rather fall victim to a sarlacc and endure the agony of being digested for millennia than to witness another being wield his persona.

Omitting the Girl from the equation, naturally.

She could carve out his heart with his vibro-knife and he wouldn’t complain one bit. It’s incomprehensible what she does to him. Just a touch of her finger on his face and he’s primed to brandish a blaster and confront her greatest enemy even if he’s incapable of victory.

Nonetheless, it astonishes him how she can gaze into the nullity of a slit and not request—demand—for more. She’s more than deserving of it and yet she doesn’t wish for it.

Perhaps she sees a mirrored image of what’s before him. Not a slab of shiny steel nor a devout Creed but merely the living tissue, the pumping blood, beneath it.

Din trails a digit along the steel jawline and lifts as he reaches the transparisteel visor connecting to the curve at the bottom. It lifts only a little, just enough for her lips and the point of her nose to peek beneath. The soft hills separate instinctively and he wastes no time slotting his own in their place, cupping the back of her neck with his free hand to drag her in close.

Those damned words. They utterly refuse to vacate his mind—duplicating by the dozen and submerging his thoughts and sensations with foreign statements. It links together into a lengthy chain made of high-grade alloy, fortified greater than freshly smelted beskar, and packages his consciousness into overburdened disarray.

Ni kar’tayl gar darasuum.

Ni kar’tayl gar darasuum. Ni kar’tayl gar darasuum.

Din needs her to know; needs her to hear those words tumble out of his vocal cords.

He needs to enunciate them—to listen to himself admit the feelings hidden within him aren't pseudo.

But he can’t; his lips cease their endeavours against hers yet he still can’t discover the courage to say three little fucking words. Thank the stars he disabled the sonic detectors because he wouldn’t be able to take the speculative questioning upon hearing the thumping in his chest, deep and muffled pulses of his heart struggling to compete with his nerves.

“Din,” she whispers. “You’re overthinking again, aren’t you?”

“No…”

“Come on, you need to get some fresh air. Let’s go see the kid.”

No, not yet, he thinks. Please, just a little while longer.

She hoists the beskar from her head slowly, inches of her impeccable face unmasking at a time. He cups her jaw and tilts her head to peck at her chin, her cheeks, and forehead as the helmet is relieved from each section.

Din records the movement of flesh underneath his lips as she smiles against his intimacy and it urges something intense and unexplored in his centre, his core, and the helmet bounces off the cot and crashes to the floor below with a small push of his three fingers; his lips refusing to curb their hunger for cushiony skin and his weight slowly applies against her until she inclines onto her back with him above.

“Din.”

“Mmm,” he hums, leathers stroking the strands of hair out of her face before reconnecting his lips to her cheekbones.

“We—we can’t. The kid is waiting for you.” Her actions overpower her words; a hand slides down his cape feebly, her fingers catching on the folds to thrust him closer.

“You’re addictive.”

“Not so bad yourself.”

Din emits a gravelly groan and slides a knee between her legs, the edge of his cuisse brushing against the peak of her groin. “Can I have a taste, Cyar—sweetheart, please?”

They don’t have the privilege of time on their side, Din’s more than aware of this fact and yet he can’t stop the glove from slithering down her neck and the curve of her chest to idle at the hem of her pants.

“You’re insatiable,” she says, fingers firmly rooted within the scratchy cloak.

She’s hitting the nail on the head with that proclamation; he’s utterly unsated and deprived of her sweetness. Din requires it like sustenance—like medicine.

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”

“Never.”

The aftertaste of her slick is on his tongue and he needs more. He wants to binge on her for eternity and, maybe, then he’ll finally be content; a belly full of her translucent flavours, the gums of his throat and mouth coated in the thickness to the brink of suffocation.

Din’s fingers toy with her buckle loosely, queuing for approval.

“Can’t,” she whines pitifully. “We’ve already made our presence known. They’ll be expecting us out there. Besides, you should spend time with the kid. I’m not going anywhere.”

“No?”

She grins. “Well—maybe back to the Crest. Has that offer got an expiry date?”

“Offer?”

“Already forgotten, huh? If I remember correctly, you said you’ll fuck me in your bunk whenever I want.” She mimics his words, “Name the time.”

Shit—it wasn’t just pillow-talk.

“Why didn’t you mention it while we were there?”

“Oh no, Din.” He’s dragged inwards, his lips brushing the tip of her ear as she diabolically whispers into his, “I got something special planned for that.”

A chill runs beneath his beskar, brandishing his flesh with a bumpiness the dunes of Tatooine would envy. There are endless possibilities for what she’s got in mind but Din’s been excluded from her brainstorming. It doesn’t cease his imagination to run wild with disgusting thoughts of deviancy; ones involving her bent over on that shitty cot of his, the familiar manacles capturing her wrists, shameful noises slipping past those beautiful lips as he takes her night long and into the rise of the sun.

It had to be bigger than that. Don’t get him wrong, he wants to give her all of that, badly, but she could’ve done it earlier. They would’ve had the equipment on hand, no preparation necessary. No, she’s suggesting something else. Something bigger.

But she won’t indicate anything further, won’t give him a little taste of what’s to come, and cruelly urges him back onto his feet to recollect his helmet with a heavy hand.

She observes him upon hearing the click of his locking system inside the helm, either hand on his hip with an inclined head that just reads don’t leave me hanging.

“Suspense makes it all that much better,” she sweetly says.

He’s beginning to realise that sweetness is all exterior, a disguise for all the hot and heaviness she possesses within. A decoy that he’s fallen victim to. He’s like that of a fish foolishly nipping at a too good to be true enticement, the Girl laying in wait for him to latch on and reel him into his doom.

But she’s inexperienced. Unsuspecting of his abilities. Oblivious to his attachment to her lure.

She’s sweet but she’s also sour.

Salty in the heat of the moment.

Bitter in times of hurt.

Saliva constructed of pure savoury goodness.

She’s got all the nourishments he requires and there’s an endless supply; flavours he can taste straight from the source.

So, one can assume the agony, the clenched fists in his gloves, as they saunter through the chatty crowd, her hips swaying ahead of him a little too provocatively. She knows what she does to him, he’s demonstrated his need in various positions, and she’ll go above and beyond to find one way or another to fuck with him—to poke and prod to test his self-control before he drags her behind a hut and fucks her against the walls, whether it was outside or not he couldn’t care.

To fuse her fingers with the puppet strings attached to his pauldrons.

“This should be quiet enough,” she announces and throws herself onto the handcrafted bench, tossing a leg over the other and patting the empty space beside her. “I know you like quiet.”

Din plops down with the Child on his lap, a slothful hand massaging the green wrinkles at the summit of his head. There’s a handful of farmers in their own respective groups scattered around them, producing enough noise that allows thoughts to wander without concerning themselves with maintaining a conversation.

Sorgan’s moons are at their pinnacles, puffy grey plumes illuminated into off-whites from their luminescence. One sphere perches in the vast black, performing as a repellent to the swarms of haze, while the other is blinded by the thickness of the clouds; a circular radiance perceived through the fluffiness the only indication the planet possessed more than one.

A vague shadow surmounts the moon’s edge, the dawdling process of the eclipse having commenced but it’ll be quite some time before anything worthwhile transpires—Din sullenly groans at the missed opportunity to give her his tongue back on the cot. It’s not as though they were missing out on anything. It would’ve only taken him a couple of minutes to work her up to the brink, a couple more to—

“I never asked,” she says. “What’s the deal with you and the kid?”

“What do you mean?”

She shifts in search of a comfortable position among the splinters. “He’s a bounty and you’re a bounty hunter; please don’t make me explain further.”

Din sighs and swipes a finger across the leafy brim of his ear, provoking a gentle burble into the Crest’s gear knob. “I handed him over but they were doing experiments on him and I couldn’t leave him there. Things didn’t go to plan--”

“Because you don’t plan.”

“--and there was a shootout with the Guild.”

“So,” She ponders, “you’ve got a bounty of your own now.”

He scoffs. “Don’t get any ideas.”

“Too late.”

Din entertains her amusement with a quiet huff of air through his filters, soft enough for her to register it’s not an annoyance. The subject of the Guild raises some questions he’s not wanting to voice—they’ll only ruin the mood and he doesn’t want to admit defeat—but he’s to play the hand he’s been dealt.

“We need to discuss where we’re heading next,” he says.

“So soon? It’s only been two days.”

“Should consider ourselves lucky we’ve managed to survive this long here. There could be hunters stationed from the last time I was here.”

“Right—and the Crest would’ve got their attention,” she agrees. “Okay. Where are you thinking?”

Somewhere reclusive. An isolated backwater planet much like Sorgan but one where nobody knows their names or reputation. Although discovering a planet with the aforementioned qualities is easier said than done, especially with the threats of audacious bounty hunters on their thrusters. Idling in space until they stumble across a safe-enough planet—or if pirates picked them off—was always an option.

Din sighs.

The Girl was right; he doesn’t plan. He’d just been traversing from parsec to parsec all his life, picking up commissions for fuel and a bite to eat, partaking in activities that simply aided his survival. Now with the Child, he’s expected to have a procedure—to shield him from the dangers Din automatically puts him in upon rescuing him from the client. But he doesn’t have the scheme to save their lives, literally.

“I don’t know,” he admits.

“Nothing wrong with not knowing. With my skills behind a rifle and your—uh… Point is, we’ll figure it out. Lighten up a little, you’ll wrinkle that pretty face of yours.”

With a roll of his eyes behind the visor, he settles for her words of reassurance and heeds her suggestion to relax his forehead.

“Mandalorian—Mando,” Omera’s abrupt panic-stricken tone is plenty for both of them to straighten their posture and bury the quips. Din twists his helmet to where she stands behind him, noting the fumbling hands before her lap, the twitch in her eyebrow ridges.

Din deposits the Child into the Girl’s arms and stands. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“Caben and Stoke...they—they weren’t with you?”

“No, they never returned for us.”

The Girl interjects, “We assumed they headed back before us.”

“No, no. Nobody has seen them.”

Shit—he should’ve realised something was wrong when they failed to show up. Raiders? There was no sign of them on that trail—but Din wasn’t exactly in the right mindset, being too haunted by the Girl’s temptations.

“I’m sorry to ask this of you...at an unfortunate time, no less, but-”

“I’ll go trace their route and see if I pick anything up,” Din says.

“Thank you, thank you.” Omera clasps his hands in gratitude, her thumbs brushing along the stitching.

“It’s not a problem. If I don’t come across them on the trail, I’ll question the neighbouring settlement. They should have some information.”

“I’m coming with you,” the Girl pipes up.

“No. Stay with the kid here.”

She shoots him a curved eyebrow and places a hand on her hip, her other cradling the Child into her side. “I hardly think watching the moon is of importance right now. I won’t let you go out there alone and it’ll be quicker if there’s two of us looking.”

“I don’t want-”

“Don’t want, what, to drag me into this? I think we’re far past all that, no?”

Din sighs. “Fine.”

No use arguing with someone so cocksure like her. Besides, when push comes to shove she’ll be resourceful with the rifle.

The Child isn’t happy at the circumstances, to say the least. He finally finds serenity wrapped in cold beskar edges and has been stripped away so soon—he glares at his guardian in the warmth of poncho-clad arms while Din and the Girl retreat into the woods once more. He’ll make it up to the kid when he gets back; Din’s certain he’ll face the wrath of a foot-long baby if he doesn’t.

“I think you should take the rifle. Just in case.”

“No. You need something to protect yourself.” Din brushes her suggestion off and activates the thermals on his vambrace.

“I’ve got my blaster.”

“That’s not enough. Here, hold it up. Press that. Be careful with the bayonet.”

She glances at him with questioning eyes and rests the rifle against her hip. “What’d you do?”

“It’ll administer electricity to anybody who touches it. There're only so many cartridges—” Din presents a cluster of steel cylinders in his glove and she shoves them in a pocket in her pants, “Pair your blaster with the bayonet and use the ammunition sparingly.”

“You think we’ll need them?”

“Just be prepared.”

They fall into a sharply cold silence, Din utilising his sonic detectors as they trudge through the bush to discern any commotion that may be of use. The Girl retains a pace a few steps behind his own, purposefully slotting her boots into his prints to avoid a stray twig snap here or a tumble there. It’s wordlessly recognised if there are raiders in these parts it’s best not to disclose their presence, especially not when there’s two of them. It supplies them with a lead on their opponent, at least until they identify how many there are.

The thermals are nothing but counterproductive. If they had passed through recently the track would surely be lit in fire-orange but it’s all blues and greys; Din thumbs the button to restore his vision, relieving the burden of having to focus on where he steps and clicks another for his sonic detectors. His vambrace was really getting put to the test today.

“Where——or….hurt you.”

Din freezes, the Girl sharp in his guide, and adjusts his helmet to pinpoint the muffling in his sensors. It’s quiet. Shallow. It could be flooded with a singular flask of water.

“Does….Child,” It’s speech tears.

East, about ninety metres out. The forest is thickened around these parts—too dense to trace any campfires or shadows—but there’s somebody there and they’re referencing a child; there’s not a doubt in his mind it’s The Child.

They’re not raiders. They’re not people who’ll go down without a fight.

“Guild members,” Din slips.

“Any clue how many?”

He hones in on the vocals, isolating each individual muffle or change of tone that could indicate there’s more than just the one. Even if he’s wrong, it’s best to be over-prepared. “Two. No, wait...three. I think.” She quietly mulls the possibility over, the strap of the rifle flinging over her shoulder as she makes way inwards. Din seizes her wrist and suspends her movements. “What are you doing?”

“I’ll get the high ground and see if I can spot Caben and Stoke. There’s no point starting something if they’re not there.”

“High ground?” Din questions.

She grins and breaks his grasp. “How’d you think I got those targets up in the trees?”

The Girl cracks her knuckles, the clicks and pops of joints puncturing his eardrums through the detectors like a bubble underneath a needlepoint. Either of her hands sprawls on the sides of a trunk, fingers dig into the bark for traction, and she hoists her feet up—she’s like the Crest in its ascent, agile and coordinated as she frog-kicks herself up into the branches.

Din’s eyebrows raise in dismay; he didn’t know what he was expecting but it wasn’t that.

The potential one possesses outside a suit of steel is still an astonishing concept to Din even after all these years of branding himself to the insides of his helmet. There’s an endless list of skills he’ll never be able to master—untapped aptitudes that have greyed into a colourless nothing.

Steel platings obstruct his movements, the helmet an obstacle to his sensations; his birthrights.

Brittle tree arms creak and whine above him, the leaves rustling as she navigates the long-arm’s lens to her sight. He’ll be left in amazement if she can distinguish the bodies from the swaying of blunted foliage. The land is too compact with trunks reaching the clouds, even with the magnified scope it’ll be near impossible to identify how many there are or whether the missing duo is being held captive.

His thermals would come in handy right about now for her; with her height advantage and his helmet, she’d assuredly recognise their precise positioning. Hell, she’d be an unstoppable force—a marksman even the greatest of bounty hunters would shake in their armour witnessing.

The Girl’s low tone sails through the treetops, gliding with the bitter night edge, and into his sonic detectors, “I see them—they’ve got them in the middle of the camp. Minimum six hostiles. All equipped with blasters. I can take two of them out from here.”

Well, he’s definitely left in amazement.

That’ll leave him with the remaining four, so long as there’s not more concealed within the shadows.

A lack of communication between them serves as nothing but an impediment, but time isn’t on their side and Din can’t waste any more of it to collect the comm units from the Crest. Weapons locker, second drawer, to the left.

If only he had thought of it earlier.

Din’s helmet inclines skywards, his visor scaling in and outlining her frame.

They’ve got each other's credibility and that, strictly, is sufficient for Din to jump into action; cutting through the undergrowth and stealthing between pillars of wood, each succeeding stride premeditated.

His scanners crackle against his ears, a gruff voice laced with croaks and coughs slipping through the beskar, “Where is he? Look at me! You’ll tell me where he is, boy, otherwise I’ll gut you right here. Perhaps watching you die will encourage your friend to speak, yeah?”

Caben and Stoke quake ahead of the lambent light illuminating their features; previously happy expressions replaced with terror, identical to when the AT-ST had broken through a dozen sturdy trees to gaze upon its victims with hollow eyes.

A burly Weequay paces before them, twin thumbs hooked on the hoops of his trousers in an attempt to appear stockier.

Fuckin’ Weequays.

Din’s blaster will come up short in a confrontation with that layered flesh of his and, with the lack of communication between them, he can’t depend on the Girl on being able to snipe him—he may not be one of the two she can manage. Another Guild member sits off to the side of the farmers, intimidatingly polishing a small vibro-knife in his fist. The remaining four she spoke of patrol their encampment; all either human or made with skin he can puncture.

It won’t be easy and the Weequay has the advantage; Din will need to take him out first and foremost.

He’ll put his faith in the Girl’s abilities that she can ward off the other’s long enough.

Din shovels a cluster of rocks into his hand and hurls them overhead and into the copse recesses, the rustling effectively tearing the hunters’ focus from their posts—Din springs to action and leaps from behind the greenery boscage, blaster pistol in his dominant hand and vibro-knife in the other.

The Weequay’s back faces Din and he exploits the factor, pouncing like a predatory loth-cat onto him and slicing a gash into the leathery hide of his neck. It does minimal damage, a small notch for a dribble of blood to meet with the neck of his shirt. He’s thrown off of the hunter and stumbles backwards into a tree, grunting and raising his blaster outwards; the trigger snaps against the alloy hold, a burning beam of cherry drilling into a fleshy build. It drops to the dirt, blaster bouncing astray.

“Mandalorian!” Caben exclaims into his detectors.

Din doesn’t reply nor impart his eyes to analyse their condition - they’re alive and that’s all that mattered while in the midst of battle.

The Weequay restores his attention to his surroundings, scowling at the Mandalorian before him and dipping calloused fingers into the wound of his neck. He snarls at the amassed blood on his tips. “You’ll pay for that, Mando, just as soon as you tell me where the bounty is.”

Child--bounty.

Any doubt that he had about them being after the kid is shattered, obliterated entirely.

Din’s vibro-knife pulses in his fist, his finger planted against the trigger in his other. The four scrawnier minions gather around his position against the tree, brandishing arrogant smirks as they languidly handle their blasters.

“I said-” The Weequay spits between his boots. “-tell me where the bounty is. You may have taken one of us but there are plenty more. There’s only one of you—your friends here aren’t much fighters.”

One. He scoffs.

A henchman, typically made of flesh and bones and blood, pops beside the Weequay; organic matter dissolving to flaky dust onto the forest floor. It leaves nothing behind that proves it was once a humanoid, barring the hunter’s blaster which plummets to the soil and knocks against the boot of his partner.

“What the pfassk!” One of them cries.

His detectors pick up the familiar whistle of a rifle pellet.

The Weequay raids his surroundings, concluding Din’s ally to be the in the only place that’d see them from this distance: “In the trees! Go!”

The hunters follow their orders but abruptly stop; a second member obliterating the moment his boot sole leaves the ground. Particles scatter with the breeze through the leafy canopies. They lie in wait, suspecting of another incoming granule but Din knows it won’t come—they’re well out of her sight.

But he can’t let them head in her direction; Din flicks the point of his blade between two fingers and slings the knife through the air and into the Weequay’s gullet once more—deeper and thrumming out splotches of plasma, an unnerving outcome of the intensity the knife is throbbing.

He staggers backwards in shock but Din focuses on the others, administering two perfectly aligned bolts into either of their unsuspecting chests; they nosedive into snapped twigs and gravel where sticky liquid accumulates underneath their bodies.

One to go.

Din didn’t act in accordance with his plan—the Weequay winding up as the last he’s to tend to—but this works, too.

The blade is ripped from his gullet, a spurt of hot blood following its dislodging, and the Weequay balefully boasts the dagger in his clutch. “Come now, Mandalorian. It’s going to take more than that,” he snarls.

He scoffs to himself in response and edges closer to one of the hunters drift melee weapons, footsteps precariously slow to ensure he doesn’t allude to his intentions—the bushes swish, a deep crack of a stick, and they freeze as one.

Visor and darkened pools of black sharpen against the lightless forest, apparently having forgotten about each other’s threat to concentrate on their snooping bystander.

The Girl steps out from the dusk, amban rifle hoisted forehead level with the Weequay. She stands stout on her feet, the wooden stock butting into her shoulder, eyes perfectly trained on her target before her. She doesn’t shoot, she won’t without his expressed permission.

The hunter recognises defeat and tosses the Mandalorian’s vibro-knife before his boots.

Din decompresses somewhat, allowing a sigh to flee from his filters and swoops up the knife and creeps past the defeated frame to shred through the rope bindings around Caben and Stoke’s wrists. “Thank—thank you,” Caben hisses and rubs the rash they’ve left in their wake.

Stoke imparts a gratified nod and smoothes out his clothing. “We’re sorry. They ambushed us on our way back---wanted to use us as leverage to draw you out. We’re just glad they didn’t track us back to the settlement.”

“Are you okay?” Din asks and quickly glances over their appearance. Some creased clothing and maturing bruises but for the most part untouched - no blood, no wounds.

They nod their heads in unison.

“He’s--” Caben glares at his captor warily. “He’s after the kid—your kid.”

Din suspected as much. “We’ll deal with him. Where’s the speeder?”

“Destroyed!”

He sighs and contemplates his options as if he had any. No speeder, no ride. “Follow the trail back to the village. We’ll be right behind you.”

They share a concerned look between each other but heed Din’s instructions, slipping past the growling figure and bounding through the bushland towards their escape route without glancing back.

“Quit wasting moonlight, boy. Get your hands dirty,” the Weequay sneers.

Judging by the bravado performance he puts on, he reckons he won’t suffer at the hands of an irritated Mandalorian tonight—he couldn’t be more incorrect even if he were to claim Din was of another species underneath his armour. A nettlesome Gungan. A hard-headed Klatoonian. An emotionless droid. He’s heard it all and they’re all closer to being more correct than he assumes of his safety.

There could be a message to send; violate every bone in his body to signify not to challenge the wrath of a well-equipped storm.

He’ll be in pain, Din’s sure of it, only, it’s undecided to what extent.

The Weequay grins, a sharp menacing clenched-teeth smile that puts Din back in his place, a guffaw that transmits a surge of electricity down the bumps of his spine; sounds of self-assuredness he shouldn’t possess in his perspective, unless...

No—he’s laughing at their idiocy. He’s pending for the upper hand.

Din spins on the heels of his boots, blaster pistol scanning the thicket. There’s more. There’s fucking more of the bastards and they’re smart about it; they laid in wait and let Din kill their teammates, let Din think he had the advantage, and only to fucking swoop in once they’ve noted all of his abilities—his sonic detectors. They’re too quiet for him to sense.

He thumbs his vambrace to activate his thermal but he doesn’t get the opportunity before he’s kicked in the back, staggering a few steps before crashing to the ground in a heap of steel. Grunting and groaning, he surveys behind him for the abruptness. The Girl is preoccupied in a feud of her own with three ambushers, applying his previously described strategy of paralysing with the bayonet before finishing them with her pistol.

She’s tossed around a bit; slammed into the trunks of trees and thrown onto the ground but she recovers and snaps the trigger of her sidearm with such ease. She’s capable, she’ll be fine.

Din needs to focus on this fucker—he needs to kill the scumbag.

Who knows how many of these guys there are. They literally came out of the fucking woodworks; the Girl wasn’t the only one who thought of taking the high ground and with it being so dark out Din hadn’t even thought to assess the treetops.

But they still didn’t know the extent of his capabilities. The hidden gems implanted in his vambraces. They weren’t just for show, after all.

The lurkers are dismissed for the time being—they’re distant, patient until he makes a miscalculation, and he can work with that—his attention focuses on the leathery neck oozing taunting blood. Din’s fingers curl around the vibrating hilt of his blade and lunges while the Weequay is empty-handed, delivering another slash across an arm this time.

It’s too protective, too tough for him to pierce and really leave some damage.

If Din can get one good stab in his throat, he could fucking skin him alive.

But he’s being surrounded. Hunters making their debut from behind bushes and circling him as if he were a fire in the midst of a snowstorm. It just doesn’t end; this was supposed to be a calming few days away from combat and here they were. Din anticipated this happening—tranquillity scarcely presenting itself to him—but he didn’t expect it so soon. The last he was on this planet, he’d been endowed with a few weeks at the least.

A shrill scream erupts, resonating through the forest and waking the creatures dormant in their hides, but it’s so much louder within his helmet on the account of his detectors. His ears pulse with frigid blood. His windpipe snaps closed, lungs thumping against his ribs.

He doesn’t want to look, he doesn’t. But he needs to - needs to reassure himself that it wasn't the shriek of a girl who’d just obtained something severe, something that makes her screams force time to fall dead.

It’s blurry and hazy, his cloddish eyes simply refusing to cooperate, like observing the scene unfold through a brimming glass of steaming caf. Din manages to discern a pillar, mobile with a rifle in its arms, but it’s not the Girl. Din’s learnt her figure greater than the Creed he wears. He’s felt all of its curves and bumps underneath his callouses. He’s dedicated the inches of his tongue to its sweat.

Din could sculpt her physique out of a slab of concrete with nothing but his fingernails.

That pillar isn’t the Girl—so why does it have her rifle?

Eyes stoop lower, the haze clearing and the Girl becoming so clear-cut it aches his retinas. She’s on the ground—the dirty fucking ground—being suppressed with a boot on her midsection; her hands claw at what little shin she can reach but her efforts are depleted, slowed and weak.

The knife thrums intensively and numbs the tips of his fingers, complementing the tingling billowing through his veins, his organs, wrapping around his bones and urging his legs towards her but a hunter steps before him to block his view.

His heart stutters inside his ribs. Stopping and starting. Leaping and dropping.

Pull your head in and kill these assholes, Din demands himself the willpower to snap his scrutiny around the four hunters caging him in a circle. He’s not in the mood to entertain their wishes for a brawl and triggers the flamethrower in his gauntlet, swirling on his feet to enkindle them with orange heat that’ll leave a mark if not end them.

Clothes of two of them ignite, hastily engulfing their frames and biting its brand into their flesh.

Din relishes in their screams, their desperate tries to distinguish the unforgiving flames, and, in his foolish stupor, he’s forced onto the ground—two thickset weights on either of his arms, the front of his helmet slamming against the dirt and knocking against his nose with a vengeance.

He struggles underneath their grip but hardly moves an inch.

The Girl whimpers, faint but oh-so lively with his detectors. Din’s helmet scrapes across the ground as he cranes his neck to peer at her—the hand that’d been working at a shin now flat against the ground, her writhing the only indication she’s still conscious.

Din wants to look away, wants to shut off his sonic detectors and close his eyes.

It hurts to look at her; that pain he’d receive the day after a tussle with a high-end bounty but intensified by a dozen and stripping away at his internal organs as opposed to muscle tissue.

She’s being brutalised. A boot on her abdominals milking her of pained mewling.

“You’re impudent, Mandalorian,” the Weequay gurgles. “Should teach you some manners. Oi, bring her ‘ere.”

Din’s muscles tense. No armour can conceal the visible discomfort those words bring to him but he tries for his voice anyways, “What is it you want? To take me back to the Guild? I’ll go--leave her alone, she’s not a part of this.”

“She killed my men.” Leather-face huffs a breath. “Bring her ‘ere.”

The lackey complies, rugged gloves tearing into her skin and thrusting her in their general direction. Din scans her body for injuries, the spotlight of his eyes staring at the dark vermillion patch seeping through the black of his shirt at her belly. He struggles for a breath. Struggles to swallow the rising liquids that burn the back of his throat. Struggles to not implode with cusses that’ll only edge their retaliation over the brink.

Fucking vermillion.

A colour that looked fantastic on his foes but so fucking unsettling on His Girl.

Her competitor wears the same colour as her, a circular bolt wound in his shoulder and it doesn’t take a genius to piece them together. She must’ve been fooled. She must’ve been attacked with the knife in his hand while tending to the other hunters that now lay dead among the bark.

She can’t stand upright without the arm fisting her shirt and she drops to her knees and successively her stomach before him. They’re both a quivering mess, though for wholly different circumstances, and Din can’t fucking take the look she gives him. So painful. So devoid of that sweetness.

“Sorry, Me’suum’ika,” she whispers.

She feels as though she failed him—that somehow her getting injured resulted in him immobile, anchored to the forest floors and staring at his companion face-to-face while she bleeds out unattended to. Not the fact he can’t control the emotions that overwhelm him. Not the fact that it’s his own incompetence.

“No—pretty girl, look at me. Look at me.” Din trashes his weight against their hold but the position is awkward and his legs are unable to administer any power into his core. He’s as hopeless as captured krill, simply flailing about in hopes it’ll get him somewhere.

The Weequay wipes blood from his neck and nudges a foot into her side, squirming it underneath her stomach and flipping her onto her back to expose that hellish colour tainting her midsection. It melts through the shirt and adheres the fabric against the invisible wound beneath; Din’s eyes refuse to cut away.

It’s painful. Identical to those atrocious holodramas that’d screen late at night in the sketchy areas of town—it’s a shootout of a mess and he just can’t look away.

“She’s dying,” the Weequay announces. “There ain’t no medicine out in these parts. She’ll be gone before you can even lift her off the ground.”

Din’s stunned into silence. What’s he to do? His Girl is an arms-length away from him, bleeding out and moaning in pain, and he can’t do so much as stroke the hair out of her face and reassure her that she’ll be okay.

The Weequay snatches her rifle from his men, twisting the framework in his arms and hovering the prongs directly over her forehead—barely an inch of space between beautiful soft skin and a fatally paralysing influx of electricity.

“Don’t,” Din warns, tone more emotional than he wants to display. “Touch her and I will never stop looking for you.”

“I can end it all for her right now. Turn her to dust. Take mercy on her. Look at her, she’s in agony.”

The Girl’s mouth opens and closes rhythmically, an arm strewn across her front to stop the gush of blood—it’s fucking bad. It worsens when she looks at him, the angle causing tension to find a path along her neck and down to her belly but she shuns the idea of glancing away. Din’s throat tightens.

“All you need to do is point me in the direction of the bounty.”

The fucking choobies on this guy.

“Get her assistance and we’ll talk,” he bluffs.

They’re not impressed by his demands, a singular knee from either of the hunters digging into his forearm. The vambraces support a majority of the weight but it’s still hefty, still——

Vambraces. He’s exhausted what little fuel remains for his flamethrowers but there are still a few tricks in wait up there—techniques that they’ll never anticipate.

Din strains his arm beneath the hunter, flicking his fist as best as he can manage for specks of bright blue to ignite within the cavities of his wrist. A handful of the explosive tips dispense into the still air above him. The birds sing their tune as they coordinate their attacks, dedicating themselves to targeting each individual quarry. One dives into the side of a hunter to Din’s left followed by another to his right, the muscles pinning him down becoming limp, the third impact into the chest of the Girl’s half-defeated foe.

They lay lifeless among the forest; scorch marks where they’d been touched with his beskar sparrows.

Two birds remain circling overhead.

Two?

One dips through the air targeting the Weequay like a missile with his name written on it but Din conducts a staredown with the last, his eyes swiftly tracing the projectile. It makes its move—identifying the bleeding woman coiled on the floor as a threat to his safety, but Din matches its tempo and hurtles himself atop of her body.

His weight stimulates a displeased groan from her throat.

“Sorry. I’m sorry,” he says.

Din cages her head in with his arms and tucks her face into his cowl before caving in on himself, a poor attempt to cover every inch of soft flesh with reverberating beskar and it works.

He feels the menacing tink through his spine as it bounces off the steel and into a tree.

He peels himself from her, cherry liquid having been smeared across his beskar platings, and examines her condition—the shirt drags up and tracks the blood to her ribs, a wide three-inch chamber in her stomach that convulses with each unsteady exhale.

She grunts incoherently and latches her fingers onto the perimeter of his vambraces, beseeching eyes demolishing the resolve within him. “We’ll get you fixed up, all right?” Din examines the incision with trained eyes, plush grey-purple tissue beneath all the vermillion causing his heart to drop.

It’s not that she was trying to stop the bleeding; she’s trying to prevent her fucking intestines from spilling out.

They’re still tucked away inside, where they belong, but if she moves too much they’ll slip out with ease.

His glove compresses around the fabric, wringing out the garment of her insides. His helmet sharply tosses in the direction of a small explosion by his final whistling bird. Weequay remains upright. Din’s insides boil.

This fucker. This son of a bitch.

This is his fault.

His Girl lays beneath the stars, her essence draining from her disoriented body, all because a handful of good for nothing guild members needed to get their hands dirty for a lousy couple thousand credits.

Din’s knees crack as he raises to his feet, his shoulders contracting and fingers crunching around a blade’s hilt. She sputters for a breath, her lungs failing to cooperate with her demands; the distressing audio flourishes the growing rage within him and he scowls under his visor.

He wishes it wasn’t there—wishes he could pluck the damned steel from around his face to burn the Weequay’s leather hide with stewing caf; a tribute of his ire. To permit the one who attributed so much agony on his beloved to gaze into his eyes as he snips his vocal cords through the wound in his gullet; darkened eyes that haven’t touched daylight in decades to swallow him whole in their shadows.

Like a hibernating beast longing for its first meal upon awakening.

Din cocks his vambrace controls and fires out his grappling cord, cleanly winding it around the maimed throat of his opponent, jerking forwards and concurrently rushing into his physique so they tumble to the turf and fend off each other’s clamouring.

That message he had been planning on distributing for the galaxy’s eyes is burnt to ash, much like that of the Weequay’s comrades. Din simply wants to murder the bastard—murder. An act far worse than killing. Killing somebody had always implied his survival, a requirement to take matters into his own hands so that he returns to the Crest with a beating heart.

This wasn’t survival.

This is harsh tidal waves crashing against the foundations of a lighthouse.

This is the crack of lightning in the sky in an unstoppable catastrophe.

This is a whole new side to Din that he’s never witnessed before. Anger that drowns him from the inside out. A bitterness that prods his taste buds. Overheating caf scorching holes through the visor.

Din registers the whipcord and how his fingers hook around the thread.

Din registers the dire clawing at his helmet, the Weequay’s desperation urging him on.

But what Din can’t register is anything in between; his consciousness, usually so clouded with his own grievances, is utterly blank as if he were a wiped droid. All circuitry and no sentiments.

“Ash’amur,” Din spits and applies every pound in his build.

The whipcord is constructed of refined shivs that slice through the thick neck and into Din’s gloves, drawing blood from his palms and fingertips.

It’s the gurgling that does it for him. That vile bubbling of blood and saliva in his pipes as it rises upwards and leaks from clenched teeth down his frilled jowls. It’s too horrendous to sustain—Din cringes and seizes his vibro-knife, only to be punched in the side of his neck the moment he removes a hand from that rubbery fucking throat.

Din groans and slams the cord-entangled hand into his jaw, roughhousing his cranium into the dirt and presenting the vulnerable wound like the perfect target to practice his precision. The blade dips through the seams and excavates deeper through the muscles, intensifying his suffering and crackled spluttering. Coriaceous hands fumble at slippery beskar, mouth belching and spraying ruby drops across the surface of his Creed.

He digs his knee into the fleshy stomach beneath him, extracts his knife and plunges it directly through the crevice once more.

The appendages slink down his torso and thighs, accumulating in a motionless mound atop of twigs and stones—dull eyes rolling into the back of his skull.

That filthy noise pollution continues—fluids frothing and popping in the oceanic limbo of fucking somewhere. Din’s mouth reshapes into a sneer and he impales the blade through the muscle again and again, but the ruckus persists; striking his eardrums with more zeal than his efforts to numb it.

It’s too loud, too distracting, his senses simmering down to solely auditory perception as it spikes in volume. It needs to be stopped, he needs to vanquish it.

Din white-knuckles the rubber hilt and repeatedly thrusts the blade in and out of the wound with rigid movements, his chest heaving with floundering breaths as he falls into a mania of knife-plungings.

The Weequay is long-lifeless but its body rocks with each frantic stab, the blood squelching within the open wound, and Din doesn’t realise the chilling mass beneath him isn’t the cause of the carnage on his sonic detectors until it’s splintered and calling his name between cracks and coughs.

He visibly recoils.

That agonised suffocating on blood wasn’t him at all.

The Girl coughs again, liquid gargling in the deep of her throat.

Vibro-knife rips through the skin as he withdraws the blade and reverts back to the Girl’s aid, flipping her onto her side and smoothing out the hair. “Spit it up, Sweetheart,” he instructs. Vermillion amasses into a puddle beneath her mouth and floods the forest floors. “That’s it, keep going.”

She mewls, incapable of urging up the last swish of metallic liquid—Din intervenes and slips his hand free of his glove to wedge two fingers into her mouth, sweeping out the remainder of accrued blood and clearing her airways.

“Breathe in, there we go, and out.”

She exhales and nods to her wound. “Didn’t—didn’t see the knife in time. Thought I-I killed him.”

“It’s okay. You’re going to be okay, all right?”

There’s disbelief written on her face, her eyebrows and teeth tense as she chews on soft gums, but she gives him the faintest of smiles and a nod that’s more to reassure him than it is her.

She’s lost too much blood and the volume is only ballooning with time. Din acts fast and slashes a load of his cloak with his knife, again, the woollen trimmings serving as a tourniquet around her midsection; it’s a shitty solution and functions more to irritate the wound than anything—the fibres of the garment eating away at the uncovered pulsing muscle—but it’s all he’s got. They’ve got nothing going for them here and the Crest had to be a decent twenty minute trek outwards on a good day which this is fucking not, maybe thirty with her condition.

It has to last until then. It needs to.

If he can make it to the Crest in time and without dumping her guts out she has a chance—a chance, not a high one, but a fucking chance—of survival but he needs to go now.

“I’m gonna pick you up, okay?”

She’s light. All that weight sitting on his shoulders mere hours ago is replaced with a floatiness that makes her feel non-existent, like a figment of his imagination. She compresses against the beskar while he zips through the forest like the pellets she’d administered to the hunters; agile, coordinated, but his concentration bounces from his path to her face every few leaps.

“Hey! Hey. Open your eyes. Show me your pretty eyes, sweet girl...there they are. Keep them open for me.”

She strains, “Sorry.”

The syrupy goodness of her tone he starved for—binged on—has boiled over to a sticky mess that only drags him in closer at the touch of his heart. It coats the organ like tar and hardens until it struggles to continue beating, slinking downwards and catching along the walls of his lungs to harass his breathing.

Din chews on his lower lip, his teeth burrowing into the pillows with each step of his boots and shredding them with his enamel until he tastes his blood at the back of his tongue.

She hums and allows her head to roll into the soft bicep beside it, situating her lips against the flight suit to commit a forceless kiss onto the only part of him that she can reach.

“Guess - guess I won’t be taking you up on that offer.” She smiles and exhales a breath—a laugh but she’s too weak to give anything more.

“Don’t… Stop acting like you’re--”

“Dying?” She scoffs. “Well, I-I am, aren’t I?”

No, you can’t Din thinks, you can’t fucking leave me here.

The urge to vomit creeps upon him; disguises itself among the churning of his stomach and the soreness in his throat. Perhaps he would empty his stomach right here and now, discount the concealing of his identity before the Girl just to have the opportunity to bend over and heave until there’s nothing but saliva expelling, but he doesn’t have the luxury of slowing down. In fact, he needs to pick up his pace.

He does just that—albeit not by much but every difference counts.

Din risks another glimpse at her; skin all pale and face scrunched to not let the pain escape from her throat or eyes. She struggles to restrain herself from allowing her eyelids to snap close, to let that twinge in her retinas finally rest—because Din asked to see those pretty eyes and what Din asks, Din receives.

She takes notice of his lack of reassuring words, the shortage of comforting glances, the cold absence of her Mandalorian as he distances himself from his emotions.

“Me’suum’ika.”

He regrets teaching her that word. It sounds so pleasing coming from her vocals, all soft and bouncy like a mattress he wishes to rest on, but currently, it’s pained. It’s croaky and poorly pronounced. It sounds dreadful—tainting the beautiful memory of exchanging nicknames.

She tries for his attention again, “Me’suum’ika…”

No. No, no. Don’t say it. Do not fucking say it.

“Din.”

Their motion suspends as fast as a string snaps. Boots kick pebbles ahead of their path. They’re in a wide clearing, the firs having been repelled at least a twenty-metre radius around them. Quiet. Open. Peaceful.

Forearms quiver with her maturing weight, mysteriously so fucking heavy like he was supporting a thruster of his Crest. The helmet is inert on his shoulders, staring off into the distance where the path narrows between rows of evergreen. Fingers on her waist and the underside of her thigh tunnels into the flesh, his one ungloved hand perceiving her dwindling warmth.

Despair overcomes him like an explosion. No ticking to warn him, no preparation. Just one big fucking detonation that blasts against his calves, staggering his stance and plugging his lungs and helmet with clotted smoke particles that stings his eyes and throat. His tongue liquefies and slips down his pipe where he gags on his own muscle.

“Put me down.”

“No,” he chokes. “I can do it, we can make it. I just—”

His vocals fissure. They crack and pop and it’s not on the account of his vocoder.

The hook underneath the rim of his helmet drags it downwards and every bone in his body tenses at the sight. The sight of His Girl so emptied of expression that she can barely hold eye contact with his black slit. The colour deficiency in her face leaves a sharp taste of salt on his lips, streaks on his cheeks.

Din she says softly, no—not softly but so devoid of strength that it comes out oh-so weak and quiet, put me down Din.

His knees buckle. His arms quake. He sinks to the gravel brutally.

The stones poke and prod against his caps, sharp edges cutting through his garment but he’s completely numb except for his hands and face—enduring the physical touch of a falling star versus the tides that roll beneath the steel.

He doesn’t want to drop her.

He doesn’t want to let her touch the planet's crust because he knows she won’t get back up.

“Me’suum’ika.” She wipes at his armoured chest with her sleeve. “You’re all bloody.”

Din shakes, scrambling not to cave into the overwhelming itch in his forearms—to not permit her perfect figure to be tainted with more grime than it already has been subjected to—except she’s made of duracrete, weighing him down like an anchor on a flimsy rowboat and he can’t come out victorious.

It’s a sluggish descent, all slowed to record each millimetre until she’s flat on the ground. A vermillion reservoir spawns beneath her and trails to seep into his flight suit, his ungloved hand gently laying rest on her concealed wound—the cloak lumpy and outlining something soft, squishy.

He retracts his hand as if it were in the mouth of a rancor.

There’s an unspoken statement that floats above them, circles them and weighs their shoulders down.

She’s dying.

Din knows it. He can see it. He can see her life vacuuming out of a three-inch slit in her abdominals and there’s nothing he can do to delay the inevitable. There’s nothing he can do to save her life. He’s never felt more incompetent but there’s a flicker of hope that she’ll make it. That she’ll just reabsorb the sticky liquid and suture her tissue back together—denial. He’s in utter fucking denial.

“Come here,” she breathes, fingertips stroking the scruff of his jaw underneath his cowl.

His teeth clench. “No, Cyar’ika. Sweetheart, please. I can make it. Just hold on for a little longer.”

“I can’t.”

Eyelids pinch together behind the tint but it doesn’t stop the nipping at his retinas. Gloved hand remains at the rear of her skull, cushioning it from stray rubble but he clenches around air when she hoists herself onto her elbows—approaching him since he’s too shaken to go to her—and knocks against the front of his helmet.

Din forces his eyelids to peel back and it’s a huge mistake.

All he can see is the bottom of her chin, the curve of her jaw, but he’s clever enough to string the clues together; the diminishing heat of her breath warming him on the inside.

The gentle press of her lips against the summit of beskar.

She doesn’t allow him to think, to speak, she does it all for him. But they’re not words he wishes to hear. They’re not I’ll be okay or let’s go home.

“Look.” She nods upwards. “Me’suum’ika.”

She’s not referring to him, but the real moon; its silver-white glow snuffed out and overtaken with oranges as warm as the sunrises that’d rebound off his beskar as he strides back to the Crest, a bounty in hand and dark crescents forming underneath his eyes. Reds as deep as the blood besmirching her gorgeous soft skin.

“Pretty, ain’t it?”

Pretty?

It’s obscene. It’s nauseating. It’s not fucking pretty.

It’s mocking them—mirroring the scene laid underneath it reminding Din of his foolish missteps; she’s all red and bloody because of you; she looks like me because you allowed her to tag along.

Din wants to pilot his Crest all the way up there and put an end to the disrespectful satellite.

How dare it look so full, so complete, while he’s disintegrating before it.

The Girl said he was one and the same with the moon—she fucking said that—so how can it be so unaffected by the loss of life beneath it?

The loss of their Girl.

Din isn’t the moon. He’s the abyssal milky ways that attract eyes at first impression only to exploit that and drag unsuspecting victims into the black holes in the galactic centre of his chest—he’s destruction and chaos and unrelenting, his gravitational pull too great for escape and it only ever ends one way.

“Don’t...don’t look like that.”

“Like what?” he snaps.

It’s unintentional. An overload of emotions that’s been festering for too long and shows its ugly face in the form of a pitch curated with venom and tears.

“You can’t even see me.”

He’s going about it all wrong except he’s right—she can’t see him nor can she feel his warmth but that never intimidated her. She’d found ways to adapt; ways to read his mannerisms and speech rather than facial expressions.

Din has the opportunity to seize that from her; to show rather than tell.

Explosion smoke splutters from his lungs and his fingertips ache as they fumble for the switch beneath the rim, the Girl’s blood soiling his clothed throat and the insides of his Creed. It unclasps, detectors maximizing its violent hiss. He has it maybe below his lips before she pulls and pins it down.

“You’re not ready.”

Din’s heart fractures; the beskar steel of his organ—that’s made to withstand a lightsaber—cracking and creaking at her words.

“No! No, no. You told me you weren’t going anywhere—you said that. You said you would look if I wanted you to see and, Mesh’la, I want you to fucking see.” Din’s fingers tremble against the back of her hands. “Sweetheart, please look at me. Let me do this...I don’t have anything else to offer.”

“Din…no.”

“Let me,” he demands but all the authority is suppressed with a heartache that chews him up and spits him back out.

There’s an attempt to conceal the groans and hisses—an attempt—as she breathes in deep, gathering as much fresh oxygen in her lungs as possible.

Din tries for his helmet again, employing her hands beneath the rim to lift, but she overexerts herself to stop him; tight fingers latched on the insides, knuckles brushing against a sharp jawline and collecting the wetness that streams directly into her grasp.

“This is the Way,” she says it as a reminder and a reassurance that she’s content with never seeing his face because This is the Way, but it only frustrates him; boils the tears on his face until they convert into vapour that attacks his visor, leaving only the crust of salt residue on his cheeks.

You’re dying in my fucking arms he thinks the least I can do is desecrate my Creed.

It wouldn’t even be a desecration, not really. That would imply a disrespectful act was to occur and this was anything but. It’d be an honour, a homage of an unspoken pledge uttered in the dead of the Crest that outweighs the one he took among tinted visors and enkindled torches.

Din’s taut. Rigid muscle constructed of resolute alloy.

It’s not comfortable to rest among sharp edges that prod into her sore skin but rather than peel away—rather than let her breathe without the weight of steel to her side—Din cradles her against his chest, transferring the most minuscule amount of body heat that slips through his seams into her.

His hand is glazed with sticky deep vermillion that oozes from his fingertips, the gravity magnetising droplets onto the beautiful cheek it hovers above. Din wants to touch her, wants to feel the sun warm his flesh and blood, but he’s scared that if he touches her he’ll ruin her iconic softness with coarse fingers.

Blood smears onto her face and fills her sinuses with metallic scents to match those flavours in her mouth, her cheek gluing itself to his hand for him. She offers him a weak smile and entitles herself to a moment to browse his solid face, following the edges of his cheeks and swiping a thumb across the chin’s rim.

“Kiss me,” Din requests. “Just—just once.”

“Just once?”

He nods. “Just once. Do—can you manage one?”

The Girl chuffs out a laugh but cringes at the disturbance in her core. “I might have one in the bank for you.”

She elevates the beskar to the dip in his nose, scenic eyes securely held shut to preserve the Creed he’s already decided he would renounce for her if she would just let him. She deserves to see him, to gaze into his simmering caf. His thoughts range from disloyal alternatives that scour against the sincerity of his mind, wiping him clean of the trust he’s built around himself, all the way to options where he doesn’t go against her words—thoughts where the beskar lifts no higher than his mouth.

He condemns both of the options; either tricking her into seeing him for his own greediness or listening to her pleas despite how much it fucking hurts.

It’s not fair.

Din’s lips hurtle themselves into her; hungry and distraught, a false hope that if he engorges on her taste alone it’ll dispel those macabre thoughts from his consciousness. All he can fucking taste is salt and metal that’s been left in the rain. Her zest, her sweetness, the flavours that taste of her, is gone.

It doesn’t stop him.

He compiles it in the back of his throat simply to have something of her inside him. He’s indulged in her tasteless saliva, the saltiness of her sweat, the syrup of her slick, and now the rancid warmth of her blood.

He can’t hear. He can’t see. He can only feel and touch.

She’s hardly lukewarm, the sun’s rays disappearing over her horizon.

“Ni kar’tayl gar darasuum.” Din brushes the hair out of her face. “Not a minute passes where you’re not in the forefront of my mind, Sweetheart. I’ve never encountered somebody so...extraordinary as you. I just need you to know before—before…”

“Din…” Her voice pops, tears of her own brewing.

“I love you,” he confesses, wet beads plummeting from his jawline to her neck. “You taught me how to love; you are my love and that will never change. I love you, ner Cyare—my beloved.”

Din recoils like he’s poked in the chest. The snuffling and mewling that erupts from her vocal cords upon his confession burn him—singe his lungs until they’re tender with each inhale. Nothing could have prepared him for this reaction; the unmasked sobs and vulnerability she’s never shown, not to this extent.

Fingers that dig into his flight suit feel like minuscule vibro-knifes in his biceps. Statements that gush out of her mouth and landslide his heart into submission—I love you, Din. I love you. I love you.

A star and a satellite falling in love; it’s an implausible outcome bound for disaster.

The sun manipulates its flames that allows colourful flowers to bloom or for lively forests to ignite. The moon pushes and pulls the tides fit for a gentle roll across a beach or to capsize rigs with a single flick.

The Sun and the Moon.

Fire and Water.

They’re polar opposites and, despite everything in the universe working against them, they’ve merged as one. Two equally fractured vases exchanging their missing pieces for compensation; a bright orange that’s warm to the touch in Din’s heart and within her lies a sparkly silver shard, a piece of his beskar residing within her to ward off onslaught.

He’s trawled inwards, naked cheek against naked cheek; scruff pricking against the bone of her jaw. Their tears fuse as one and wedge between their pressed flesh. She sobs against him, the hand on his helmet dipping underneath the silver to tangle her fingers within his knotty locks.

I’m fucking scared Din she breaks, I don’t want to go.

Din’s lip trembles. He can’t paralyse the pain that brings forth the donning of a brave face when confronted—that crinkle in her brow isn’t fooling anybody—but, perhaps, he can distract her. Draw her attention away from the gnawing of her intestines against scratchy wool.

“I know, Darling, I know.” Voice so soft and comforting it encourages her fraught muscles to slack and abandon her awareness. “Focus on me, okay?”

Her lips part when he nudges against them, accepting the tongue that requests entrance. It’s one final deliverance on both sides; a diversion for the Girl and a concluding act of love for Din—something to burn into his lips for decades to come, something to remind him he’s deserving of love.

He takes it slow for her sake, concerned that his usual greed would be too overstimulating. They’re lackadaisical; movements so weakened they’re hardly moving, simply holding each other as they quietly sob into the others mouth.

His scalp is heavy with her fingers and he synchronises his own to the nape of her neck, dirtying her pretty hair with sticky plasma. Pretty hair he’ll never be able to touch again—he’ll never be able to feel the strands between his knuckles as he tilts her head back and deepens their devout kisses. Kisses he’ll never be blessed with again.

Fuck.

He can’t stomach it, can’t bear the thought that he’s going to be abandoned all over again.

First, his parents and now his beloved girl—everybody he cared for is slipping through the gaps of his fingers.

It’s not even a gradual process; there’s not enough time for him to tell her how much he loves her, how he’ll never love another lifeform a fraction as much as he does her.

It’s as rapid as a waterfall, a suffocating surge that’s stern against his protests; his silent pleas of please don’t take her away from me.

Din feels the pulsing in her tongue fade; acknowledges how her fingers lax against his scalp, registers how he’s been deserted despite their tongues intertwined. Beskar slips down the slope of his dewy face as he recedes within himself.

The Girl is static, still, silent.

She’s not got a fingernail’s worth of oxygen in her lungs, not a twitch in her eyebrows.

Din’s beloved Girl is gone.

The sun’s solace warmth has been wiped from the face of the galaxy, leaving residual liquid flames that paste in thick layers to his armour. Only an odious sphere of blended carmines remains perched in the celestials—a blood-red lunar eclipse that penetrates through the solid of his heartplate and devours his internal organs.

Din remains idle for what feels like a century, his consciousness paralysed with a stab of her amban rifle’s bayonet. Deprived of sensation—drained of emotion and thoughts—the tears have stopped and left behind an ache beneath his eyes.

When he does eventually move it’s wearisome. The momentum of a dawdling crawl; a by-product of the corpse in his arms and bedrock in his boots.

It takes him longer than it should to reach the Crest.

It takes him longer than it should to lay her body to rest atop the hold’s crates.

Din tries to tell himself she looks peaceful, that she’s somewhere better, that's what people said to others in times of grief, but what could be better than roosting between his arms in the comfort of a secure body of beskar?

The Razor Crest’s lethargic humdrum probes his sockets, the absence of a thumping heartbeat so fucking apparent that it’s harrowing and Din can’t tolerate it for another second. His Creed rips from his head and hurtles through the air to slam into the duralloy walls of his supposed sanctuary, denting a dome where the summit of beskar impacts but it’ll never be enough to damage that fucking helmet.

His trademark steely stoic persona is substituted for tan mien; his inability to conceal his expressions from years of never needing to palpable at the faintest indication of an eyebrow twinge.

Din presses his lips against her forehead, a frigid and stiffness that transfers to his mouth. He luxuriates on her, delivering docile pecks across her face that burns his lips. Din surrenders the last of his breath to her but he’ll never receive any equivalent ever again.

Memories are all that remains—reminiscences that tug on his lungs. They obscure his mind's eye with dull images of the individual circumstances he’d separated the man from the religion.

He wasn’t to ever remove his helmet. His heart sinks. Din had never contemplated the impact of the decree—the implicit statement that it included whether one’s eyes were shut or not.

His heart’s arteries melt into the muscle and flood it until it capsizes within itself.

Din had been subconsciously unearthing methods and plot holes to eliminate beskar from the equation to indulge in the Girl’s temptations—to permit him the opportunity of a lifetime and experience affairs that scarcely presented themselves to him—but it had backfired.

The helmet was removed, whether her eyes were shut or not it didn’t matter.

His Creed was tarnished the moment he even thought about being with the Girl and it only continued downhill from then on—a terminal illness that burrows its relentless claws into his core and carefully conquers each inch of his body without ever drawing attention to itself.

“Cyare.” His vocals crack and pop. “Open your eyes.”

Look at me. I’ve dishonoured my vows for you. Open your eyes and look into mine—savour the caf you were so curious about. You have to look at me. You need to. Please don’t let my sacrilege go undervalued.

They’d been wasting precious moments this entire fucking time. Din’s Honour was non-existent and he could’ve bestowed her with the knowledge of how his eyes brightened whenever she glanced his way, how indentations of shallow dimples formed in his cheeks when he’d smile at her snarky remarks.

His fist slams against the crate beside her. “Stubborn girl.”

Why couldn’t she be like the no-good schemers that yearned to see beneath the steel?

Why did she have to be so protective of his oath?

She died never knowing what the man who loved her looked like.

A sparkle beneath her shirt catches his eyes, solid alloy beckoning his hands. Beskar is still warm to the touch from her sternum. Din rubs the face of the pendant's skull raw, dried blood flaking off onto the steel, his thumb heating with the friction. It’s not much, hardly anything actually, but it’s something that she claimed ownership of—something physical that he can touch and hold that was once pressed against the beat of her heart. With nothing else in her possession of her own, it’s all Din’s got.

It’s knotted around his neck, the thread weighing like a bantha and the pendant torching a permanent mark into his chest. He welcomes it, remains stoic and unflinching as it intensifies and scars over—he wasn’t afraid of being burnt, after all.

Din wipes away the scarlet meadow of clumped hair adhered to her cheek and sets the hem of her shirt as low as it'll reach, concealing the hump of soaked wool. He believed himself to be incapable of shedding more salty liquid from his ducts but tonight is full of surprises. Their foreheads pin against each other, wetness streaming down the curve of his cheekbones and into her hair.

He’s uncertain where he stands with his Creed—it’s not of importance right now—but he was raised on their culture, their words so beautiful that it only felt right to say a final remembrance.

My Sun, Ni su’cuyi, gar kyr’adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum.

----

jatnese be te jatnese - the best of the best ni kar'tayl gar darasuum - i love you me'suum'ika - moon choobies - testicles ash'amur - die ner cyare - my beloved ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum - i'm still alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal.

A/N: i'm so sorry. there might be an epilogue if you guys are interested in that.

taglist: @ohhersheybars, @greatcircle79, @northernpunk, @tanzthompson, @djarrex, @omgreally, @spideysimpossiblegirl

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plus-size-reader · 4 years ago

Text

Tired

Ron Anderson x Plus size!reader

Word Count: 1785 words

Warnings: none

Summary: Rick’s daughter saving Ron’s life when the wolves attack

——————————————————————————————————

You didn't want to save Ron.

Really, you thought that he was a waste of space and that he wasn't going to ever do anything to help anyone but himself but as he and that guy neared the house, you knew that you didn't have a choice.

Carl shot the guy, taking care of one of your problems but in true Ron fashion, he refused to come inside where he would be safe. You and Carl shared a single glance before you took off after him, and he went inside.

Between the two of you and Ron, both you and your brother had a better chance of surviving this, even separated. Your dad had already taught both of you to defend yourselves, but most of them didn't know how.

They would be pigs to the slaughter out there alone and Ron was no exception.

If anything else, he was less prepared to survive than anyone else since he'd been so against listening to your dad in the first place.

"Hey stupid, you're going to die running around like that" you scoffed, yanking the scrawny male to the side of one of the houses, catching him off guard even more than before. You had went behind the houses, in the cover of the fence, while he was running down the middle of the street.

He was in plain sight, and clearly unarmed, if you were a bad guy, he would be your first target. In fact, you briefly considered just leaving him to his own devices before anything else, if that was what he wanted so bad.

"What are you doing?" he yelled, he had some nerve yelling at you like that, when you were trying to save his life. He obviously didn't understand what was really going down here, and you really couldn't blame him.

Ron had never known any better, sheltered here behind the walls like the rest of them. It wasn't right, but that didn't mean they deserved to die. Even he didn't deserve to die, as much as he hated you and your entire family.

"Just shut up and stay close to me, I'm tired of burying people" you ordered, hoping he would just keep his mouth shut and listen to you this once. Once you were sure that he wasn't going to die, you didn't ever have to speak again.

You didn't care.

There had been so many people you cared about that had died, that you'd lost but they had all died for something. If Ron got killed out here, pouting like a child, he wasn't dying for anything that mattered.

If he died out here, he was dying for nothing and you just couldn't have that. Even the worst people in existence didn't deserve that.

"You need to leave me alone, I can take care of myself" He bit, walking away from where you were keeping him against the siding. This time when he spoke, you let him walk a few feet, just to prove your point.

In those few feet, he was spotted by a pretty big guy with an axe, but lucky for him, it didn't matter how big a guy was when you had a gun. You put him down pretty easily, nailing a headshot through the middle of his forehead.

The noise made Ron jumped, and he turned toward you quickly, trying to come to terms with whatever it was that just happened. All you did was wave, holding your gun up to show him that whether he liked it or not, you were more prepared than him.

"Let's go princess, I told you once...I'm tired of burying people" you called and thankfully, this time, he listened. Ron was a lot of things, and while stupid was obviously one of them, at least he had some tact.

He asked a lot of questions though, and in your experience, that didn't work out too well for anyone.

"You should have just listened to Carl at the house" you argued, reaching back to grab his hand in your own free one that wasn't cradling the gun. You didn't have a great idea of what you were doing either, but it was enough.

It had to be enough because losing after all this time, and all the things you'd lost, just wasn't an option.

"No"

At this point, it was the only semblance of an argument he had but he was holding on to it pretty strong. Frankly, his attitude was too much for you to handle and you weren't about to deal with it.

Not right now.

Luckily for you, there was a bunker not too far from here, where the leftover resources were kept for building and things like that. It was attached to one of the houses but nobody used it for much anymore.

There was a good chance that no one else would even give it a second look, which made it the perfect place for you two to hide away from whoever it was that was out there killing these people.

If nothing else, it would keep you from being out in the open for too much longer.

Once you had slipped inside, Ron followed suit and you closed it up tight. As far as you could tell, it was the safest place you could be and for now, it would due. If someone did happen to find it, you would deal with that then.

Now, it was pretty cramped and dark in the bunker with the added lumber and steel that you were standing on but you managed to just sit down on it with enough room for you both, although you were closer to one another than you wanted to be.

The one thing the close quarters did provide was time for the two of you to talk out whatever it was he'd had up his ass lately. You knew that it was hard for him to lose his dad, but he had to have understood why he had to die.

His dad was an asshole and you would have killed him yourself if given the chance.

"Can I ask you a question?" you started, knowing that there wasn't really much of a choice on his part. You had no idea how he was going to react, but after what you'd just done for him, you weren't really in the mood to hear his excuses.

Still, you were even less willing to sit in complete and total silence all this time. As much as Ron was exhausting when he spoke, it was even worse to just have to sit this close to him with just dead air between you.

"I get why you don't like my dad, but what is your problem with my brother? Are you jealous?" you asked, when you were met with silence. Whether he wanted to answer it or not, you were going to ask. It wasn't going to hurt anything to try and have somewhat of a conversation. Neither of you liked one another, but you were here.

It was like you said before, after this, you never had to talk to each other again for all you cared.

You had paid attention well enough to know that Ron had a pretty big crush on Enid, and it was also obvious that she had an affinity for your brother. That was the only real reason you could think of that he would have cared.

He couldn't really blame you and Carl for his dad's death, that would be as pointless as blaming Judith. It didn't make any sense at all, not that you had ever really understood anything that Ron said or did.

"Why would I be jealous? Your brother is a loser" he scoffed, shuffling every so slightly away from you in an attempt to put some space between your two bodies but all he found was the wall. You were right up against one another, and space wasn't really in the cards to begin with.

If there was somewhere to go did he really think you'd still be sitting this close to him?

"Yeah? And you're not? Last time I checked, you didn't have any friends either" you countered, rolling your eyes at his attitude. It didn't matter what you said or did, he just wasn't going to let it go.

You just couldn't help but wonder why.

No one was that stubborn for nothing.

"You all just pretend to know everything when you're really just screwing it up. Life was fine here before you all came" That time there was a realness to his voice, something that told you that he wasn't just saying words to get you to shut up.

Ron actually believed that.

"How many times did he put you in the hospital?" you asked finally, there was no malice in your voice. You weren't angry or trying to hurt him, you just wanted to know. Since his death, Ron had developed some kind of affinity for his dad that you just didn't understand.

Jesse had told you the stories, just a few, of what Pete had done to both her and her boys and you weren't having it. This hero complex Ron had developed toward his father was just an excuse for his anger.

"What?" he spit back, he heard you right of course, he just couldn't believe that you actually had the guts to say that to his face. It didn't make any sense, that you would approach him like this when the two of you didn't even really talk before now.

It was ridiculous.

"Your dad. How many times did he put you in the hospital? Or did you forget about that part?" you repeated, "I know that losing people you care about is hard, but hating us isn't going to make it hurt any less, I know that too" you allowed, hoping that would soften the blow of what you were making him realize.

It was too much, more than he would ever want to realize on his own, but you didn't care. At a certain point, Ron was going to have to realize that in this world, people either lived or they died and sometimes people died.

Nothing was going to keep that from happening.

"I am sorry about how it happened, but being angry isn't going to make it any better" you hummed, deciding finally that you needed to get out of here. For you, it didn't matter if they were still out there or not.

All you knew was that you had to get out of there. You were too tired to be having this conversation with him when you knew that he wasn't listening.

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itsadamcole · 4 years ago

Text

family gathering

fem!reader x kyle o’reilly

reader and Kyle tease at other and look at each other while at a family party for Christmas

word count: 2.1k+

warnings: teasing and touching, nsfw, eventually smut, fluff at the end :)

— day 14. let’s gooo —

masterlist || request an imagine here

~ 18+ content below - read at your own risk ~

It was the outfit you picked that started the whole thing before you even left the house with your husband.

The party called for formal attire, which meant suits and ties for the men and full length gowns for the ladies. You chose a silver dress. It's mermaid style, which means the dress hugs your body until it gets down to your knees, where the skirt flares out. The dress is sparkly and has a plunging v-neck with an open back. The plunging v-neck reveals a decent amount of your chest. The dress has a slight train to it. You wear silver heels and jewelry to complete the look.

Kyle steals glances at you while at the party. You're talking to a few of your cousins while he talks to some of his friends that he invited. You drink champagne as you speak with your cousins.

You steal glances at Kyle occasionally. His butt looks good in the dress pants he wears with his suit. The suit is black and white but the tie is silver to match you. The pants are a little tight on him but it's okay. They hug all the right areas.

"Excuse me," you say to your eldest cousin. "I have to get a refill on my champagne. I'll be right back."

She nods and you walk off to the minibar, asking for some champagne.

As it's being poured, Kyle approaches you and stands beside you. You look over at your husband and he says, "I can see you looking at my ass, Y/N. Stop making it so painfully obvious that you're staring at my ass."

"Have you been doing extra squats and didn't tell me?" you ask.

Kyle laughs as you're both handed your filled glasses of champagne. "If we're gonna talk about whose ass looks better right now, you're gonna win," Kyle says. "You chose the right dress, my love. It's hard not to keep my eyes off of you."

You stand close to your husband and fix his crooked tie a bit as you say, "I knew I chose the right dress when I walked downstairs and your eyes almost bugged out of your head. Don't think I didn't see you staring at my boobs either, Mr. O'Reilly. I always know when you're staring at my boobs."

Your husband smirks a bit and traces the neck of your dress, his fingers touching the exposed part of your breasts. "The whole dress is a tease and I'm not sure if I love it or hate it," Kyle admits.

Smiling, you say, "You'll love it by the end of the night. Wanna know why? Because you and I both know you won't be able to control yourself anymore and we both know what will happen as soon as we get home." You pause, taking a sip of champagne. "Now, if you excuse me, my cousins are waiting for me."

You walk away, swaying your hips a bit as you walk. You're teasing Kyle to the max. It's the outfit. It started it all.

A few minutes pass as you continue your conversation with your cousins.

Kyle has to keep his distance from you before he decides to rip the dress of you where you stand. He does everything he can. He talks to your family and his friends. He does everything he can to stay away from you so he can keep his hands off of you.

It doesn't work, because you and Kyle find your way to each other as you speak to your aunt and uncle.

"How's married life?" your aunt asks. "Any talks of babies?"

Kyle smiles as you reply with, "We've talked about it. It's definitely on the table, but Kyle travels so much for work and we both want him to be here for the baby. There's time. I'm only 26."

You married Kyle when you were 24 and when he was 31. You married in February 2018. Valentine's Day two years ago. It was just as cliche as it gets.

Your uncle says, "Don't rush into it. Have kids when you're both ready."

"Exactly," your aunt says. "Don't be io upset if it doesn't happen right away either. Things like this may take time and happen unexpectedly."

You smile and nod to what your aunt and uncle say, but you know Kyle's eyes are on you the whole time.

A slow Christmas song comes on and you drag Kyle out to the dance floor for a dance. Other couples have made their way out.

Kyle holds you in his arms. Your arms are wrapped around his neck and his are wrapped around your waist. His hands rest on your lower back. They're dangerously close to your butt. You press your head against Kyle's chest. He's only six foot but he towers over your five foot four frame, and that's with two inch heels on.

"You know," you say, beginning an important conversation. "I've been thinking about us and having kids a lot recently."

Kyle looks down at you and says, "Oh? What about us and having kids?"

You look up, meeting Kyle's eyes. You say, "I've been wanting to start a family recently. I wouldn't mind if we tried to start having kids soon."

Your husband smiles and says, "It's your body, Y/N. I've been waiting for you to tell me when you wanted to start having kids."

Happy and overjoyed by how this conversation is going, you say, "Let's start a family, Kyle. All I've wanted is to start a family with you."

Kyle smiles and leans down, kissing you softly. You kiss him back, your eyes fluttering closed. Your hands slide to cup his face. That's when you feel Kyle's hands dip to your butt. You giggle against Kyle's lips, pulling back. "You just had to find a way to get your hands to my ass, didn't you?" you say, smiling.

"What can I say, Y/N?" Kyle says, smiling cutely at you. "It's my favorite part of you. Well, one of my favorite parts of you."

You laugh and say, "You're crazy, but I love you."

Your husband says, "I love you too, Y/N."

The two of you share another kiss. This one is more passionate than the last.

As you stand there and kiss your husband on the dance floor, you think about a family with him. Kids running around and laughing as you and Kyle chase them, having fun. Family movie nights when Kyle's home, cuddles with Kyle and your kids, family dinners, birthdays. Everything.

A smile forms on your lips and Kyle pulls back. "What's going on in that pretty head of yours that has you all smiley?" he asks.

"Just thinking," you say. "About what our family would look like."

Kyle smiles and asks, "You want to start trying tonight?"

You giggle, "I thought you'd never ask. Let's get out of here."

***

The two of you make it home in record time. As soon as the door shuts to your two floored house, your lips are on Kyle's. You smile against his lips as the kiss becomes more passionate almost immediately after your lips connect.

Kyle sheds his jacket and his shoes before he takes your hand, leading you upstairs. You kick off your heels, leaving then by the door as you follow your husband up the stairs.

As soon as you've crossed over the threshold of your shared bedroom, you bring your lips to Kyle's again. You quickly untie his silver tie, throwing it somewhere in the room. You untuck and unbutton Kyle's white button up shirt. His fingers are on the zipper of your dress, pulling it down.

The dress falls off your body, pooling at your feel. You pull off Kyle's button up as you step out of the dress, only in your panties at this point.

You pull off Kyle's tight dress pants as he pushes you gently down onto your back on the bed. Your legs hang off the end of the bed as Kyle leans down and leaves kisses trailing up your stomach and between your breasts. He continues to kiss up your chest and over your collarbone to your neck. You smile and run your fingers through Kyle's hair as he lays himself between your legs.

You leave kisses on Kyle's temple as he kisses up to your jawline.

Kyle's erect member is straining to get out of his boxers as he presses against your clothed core as his lips meet yours. You buck your hips up, grinding against Kyle a bit. A soft moan leaves both your lips as he begins to grind against you softly.

His lips leave yours after a second before attaching to your neck. You tilt your head to the side, giving him more access. You watch the snow fall outside for a second as you feel a wave of bliss come over you. You smile and close your eyes as Kyle rids you of your panties and himself of his boxers. You smile as you feel his tip run through your folds.

You didn't notice that you were wet for him. It's not surprising considering the words you've exchanged today and the thoughts you have been thinking today.

"Kyle," you sigh. "Please."

He looks down at you as he hovers above you. He says, "I need to know you're one hundred percent sure that you want to start having kids tonight."

You nod and say, "Let's start tonight, Kyle." A smile forms on his lips and yours as he leans down, kissing you softly as he positions himself at your entrance. You wait in anticipation.

Kyle slowly slides himself into you, his length filling you up. You sigh softly as he moves slowly. Your eyes flutter closed as he starts to thrust his hips after a moment.

His movements are slow, making sure that you're adjusted to him. Your nails dig into his sides a bit as he moves. Your soft sighs turn to moans as he speeds up.

"Oh, Kyle," you moan softly as he picks up speed. "Oh!"

Kyle smirks as his lips attach to your neck. You smile and his thrusts get faster and his member moves deeper into you. Your moans get louder.

He brings his lips back to yours and he kisses you hard. You wrap your legs around his waist and Kyle moves himself so he can move faster and rougher into you.

The tip of his length hits your g-spot and you cry out, "Kyle! Right there, oh my God."

He smirks and moves harder and harder into that spot. You're a moaning mess beneath Kyle as you moan a mixture of his name and a few different profanities.

Kyle begins to rub your very sensitive clit as he continues thrusting his hips.

"Kyle, baby," you sigh. "I'm about to come."

He says, "Me too. Come with me."

And you do. A few seconds later, you both release at the same time. You release around Kyle and he releases inside of you.

Gasping for breath, Kyle pulls out and rolls off of you. Both of you crawl under the covers and lay tied up with each other.

"How's your blood sugar level?" you ask. "Are you feeling okay?"

You wipe a few sweat droplets away from his forehead and he nods. "I feel great. Euphoric, even," he says.

A smile forms on your lips as you lay cuddles up to Kyle. Your legs are intertwined together and his arms are around your shoulders. Your arm is lazily thrown across his waist. Your chest is pressed against his side.

After a few moments of silence, Kyle says, "If we have a boy one day, I wanna name him after one of the Undisputed Era guys. They're like my brothers."

"Of course," you say. "I wouldn't have it any other way. If we a girl, I want her to have Marie as her middle name. It's my great-grandmother's middle name, my grandmother's middle name, my mom's middle name, and my middle name."

Kyle smiles and kisses your temple. "That's okay with me," Kyle says. "God, I can't wait to have a little one of us running around."

You smile and say, "We better get some sleep now because we won't be getting much after we have kids."

Your husband laughs and says, "I can agree to that. Goodnight, Y/N. I love you, and Merry Christmas."

"Goodnight, Kyle," you say, yawning. "I love you too, and Merry Christmas to you."

#kyle o’reilly imagine #kyle o’reilly fluff #kyle o’reilly smut #kyle o’reilly x reader #wrestling imagine #wrestling smut #wrestling fluff #wwe imagine #wwe fluff #wwe smut #nxt imagine #nxt smut #nxt fluff #nswf imagine #smut #imagines #imagine #smut imagine

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bakubabes-tatakae · 4 years ago

Note

Hello darling. Can I have prompt 367 from choice five with Dabi please? Thank you!

Hello lovely. You’re so welcome. I’m ALWAYS happy to write for my lord and savior daddy Dabi. 🤤❤

Those Words || {NSFW} Dabi x Reader

Warnings: fluff, dirty talk, 18+ content, unprotected sex, Dabi’s daddy kink

Word Count: 1.4k

Your phone buzzed on the table beside you and the name that popped up on your screen sent those butterflies through your stomach. You had been staying with the League of Villains for a couple of months now and their resident bad boy had stolen your heart. You could never tell him this tho, Dabi had never been the dating type. He was the hit it and quit it type, you were lucky enough to be the one that he “hit” over and over again.

As you looked at the phone you smiled.

Dabi 💕9:27 pm

Attached Image

We’re just leaving the hideout now, we’ll be back in two hours. I expect you’ll be waiting for me? I need to take out some stress.

As you opened the picture you could feel yourself salivating. His erection stood before you as he sat on the bed of his hotel room.

9:28 pm

I’ll be waiting. Text me when you’re close. I’ve got a surprise for you.

Two hours. You had two hours to get ready for him to show up. You stood from the table and clutched the phone in your hand. Toga looked over at you as you walked away. “Heading to bed already? It’s still early.”

You gave her a sweet smile. “I’m pretty tired. I’m gonna call it a night early today.” She waved to you and blew you a kiss. But as you approached the entrance of the hallway she stopped you again.

“Hey Y/n.” You turned to her and tried not to look so confused. “Have you heard from the Vanguard at all? It really sucks that Shiggy wouldn’t let me go with them on this mission.”

“I’m sure they’ll be back soon.” You knew how much Toga loved being a part of the Vanguard and seeing her not get to go with them was heartbreaking. “Don’t worry so much about them. Dabi is an amazing leader, he’ll bring them home safe.”

You turned and walked toward your bedroom, slowly opening the door with thoughts of Dabi flooding your head. As you closed it behind you you caught a glimpse of the surprise that you had for Dabi sitting on your dresser. You walked over and ran your hand over the lace of the pieces that sat upon it. Just the thought of putting them on had your heart beating out of your chest.

You remembered his message. Two hours. Enough time to lay down for a little while, by the sounds of Dabi’s message you weren’t going to get much sleep tonight. You grabbed the lingerie off the dresser and slowly pulled off your leggings and tank top before pulling the skimpy outfit onto yourself.

When your head hit the pillow you could feel the exhaustion from the day taking over, turning your vision black as you fell asleep.

The familiar, raspy voice entered your ear, drawing you out of your sleep. “Y/n.” You felt his hand running down your body. “Is this what your surprise for me was?” As you opened your eyes you caught his smirk as his eyes wandered your entire body. “I text you when I was close, but now I see why you hadn’t answered.”

His touch had awoken you almost instantly. He slowly climbed onto the bed, already slipping his pants and underwear off before doing so. As he sat down beside you he pulled his white t-shirt over his head. Another smirk pulled at his lips as he patted his lap. “If you want to go around wearing things like that then this is officially on you.”

It was rare that Dabi would let you be the one to take control when you were in bed. You were hesitant, making sure that he didn’t change his mind and take over again. But he grasped his length in his hand and tugged a couple of times before looking back over at you. “Don’t keep me waiting. You know my patience level.”

You slowly climbed onto his lap, placing your hands on the sides of his face. “I wouldn’t want to piss you off, now would I?”

He roughly placed his lips to yours and grasped your hips, his length pressing against your thigh as you leaned over him. His fingers dug into the soft skin on your hips and you winced a little. The staples that riddled his body cool to the touch as they touched your exposed skin. He lifted your hips and pushed your panties to the side, lining you up with his cock.

As he helped you lower yourself onto it you let your head drop back, a loud whine coming from your lips. A smirk tugged at his mouth as a growl sounded from the back of his throat. “God, you’re so tight dollface.”

As you moved up and down his length he couldn’t help the noises coming from him. He had forgotten how much he had loved having someone ride his cock and not have to do any of the work. He had gotten so used to the one night stands that he wanted to finish quickly with and get out of his room that he had forgotten how much he had loved someone else being the one to bring him to his high.

The closer your body came to his the more his fingers dug into your skin. The closer the contact the more grunts came from him. His hips rutted against yours in an attempt to get himself further into you. Your head dropped forward and he placed his forehead to yours. “God dollface,” He placed a kiss to your lips. “If you keep fucking me this good then I’ll have to marry you.”

Your movements stopped at his words. “What’d you say?”

Dabi moved his hands from your hips to your face and placed another soft kiss to your lips. “I like you Y/n.”

You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. The big, bad Dabi had just confessed that he liked you. Something you had never heard of him doing before. Something that you were sure he would never have done. “Are you serious?”

Dabi rubbed your cheek with his thumb. “I’m one hundred percent serious.” His hands down up your sides as he prepared to flip you over onto you back. “Let me show you just how much I like you.”

As you felt his strong arms tip you over and his cock thrust back into you you could barely contain yourself. His pace was unrelenting as he chased his orgasm, knowing very well that you were getting close to yours. Your walls closed around his cock as he slowed his pace, knowing that you were close.

You could feel the pleasure coursing through you as you near your climax. You wrapped your arms around Dabi, your fingers sinking into the skin of his back, digging into him as you let a loud moan escape your lips. Dabi smirked and spoke softly into your ear, not even flinching at the feeling of your nails. “Tell daddy who you belong to.”

“You.” Your words were quiet as you placed your forehead against his shoulder. Your cunt clenched around his cock and you threw your head back. The feeling of your walls suffocating his length caused him to empty himself inside of you.

Dabi collapsed beside you and you couldn’t help but smile. Dabi had actually told you that he liked you, something that he so rarely ever did with people. You rolled to your side and watched him, usually now was the time where he was getting dressed again and leaving, but instead, he wrapped you into his arms and pulled you as close to him as he could get you.

He placed a kiss to your temple and smiled. “I meant what I said Y/n.” You said nothing back to him, just stared at him. “I like you… If I didn’t I wouldn’t have been with you this many times. It’s just an excuse for me to spend time with you.”

“You can spend all the time with me that you want Dabi.” You sat up and straddled him, placing another soft kiss to his nose. “If you’ll have me I’ll always be here.”

“Of course I’ll have you.” He pushed your hair behind your ear and smiled. “Let me call you mine from this point on.”

“I’m yours Dabi.” You leaned down and let him wrap himself around you. “Now and forever.”

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foreverfangirl2011 · 4 years ago

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Jack Avery Blurb

Hey lovelies,

So this is a Jack blurb I wrote a while ago. I've had it for a while and I just felt like sharing now so let me know what you think. Fair warning it is NSFW. But I hope you enjoy it and if you have any requests for more please feel free to let me know.

Hands to Myself: A Jack Avery Blurb

We hadn’t been dating long, just about 3 months, but we were still very much in the honeymoon phase. Sometimes I wondered if it would ever end, not that I was complaining. When we were together it was border line dysfunctional how we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. It was a look we gave each other, a mischievous glint in his eye that said I want you now, I need you now. He’d make some excuse to run off and the next thing I knew we were groping each other in the janitor’s closet. We’d been getting away with it so far, but the more intoxicated we grew for each other the less cautious we got. One day I was at soundcheck with the boys. I had never seen Jack perform with his guitar. I mean he played for me, but I never saw him perform with it and damn was it something to watch. My jaw was on the ground and I’m pretty sure I was drooling. Luckily, I snapped out of it before anyone noticed. When they took a break, I nearly jumped him right there. Without even saying a word I took his hand and led him to one of the dressing rooms. Once we’re inside I push him against the door and crash my lips onto his. He melts into me instantly, his fingers finding my belt loops and pulling my body closer to him. He steps forward and I step back into the room. His hands find their way to my bum and his grip tightens, a signal for me to jump. I jump and wrap my legs around his waist. He carries me to the table and sets me down. I rip his shirt open and litter his chest with kisses. His hands dig into my hips and he almost falls on to me. He kisses my neck leaving purple marks in his wake. He pushes my shirt up and places a chaste kiss on my stomach.

“I wish I could kiss every part of you, take my time and enjoy every perfect curve…” he starts running his hands down my sides. “But we don’t have time for that right now.” he says unzipping my jeans. I lift myself up so he can pull them down along with my panties. His own bottoms are removed and then its finally happening. It’s hard and fast, my legs wrap tightly around his waist keeping him as close to me as possible. I’m biting my lip to keep quiet and digging my nails into his shoulder. I don’t even care if I leave a mark, at this point it’s his own fault for being so god damn irresistible! I feel my stomach tightening as his movements get sloppier. I couldn’t help but let out a scream as I reach my high. One final thrust and the room disappears into a cloud of white as we finish together. His head rests on my shoulder and I run my fingers through his hair as we catch our breaths.

“Hm, babe you have got to perform with that guitar more often…”

“That’s what got you going?”

“Well duh! I mean I was practically drooling you’re like a freakin Adonis with that thing!”

“Huh, good to know. I think I’m going to be performing with it more often.”

“Good, I’ll make sure I’m there watching…”

“And I’ll provide the after-show entertainment…” he starts to lean in for a kiss when there’s a knock on the door.

“Hey uh, if you guys are done, we’re gonna order some food- “

“Yeah, ok Jonah, we’ll be right there!” Jack says pulling away from me and hurriedly get redressed. I hop off the table and quickly pull my jeans back on.

“Ok then, see you in a few. By the way you guys are totally shameless and totally not as quiet as you think.” He replies before walking away.

“Oh my god!” I exclaim with my hand over my mouth.

“Jeez, they’re never gonna let me live this one down.”

“Whatever, it was way worth it.” I say connecting my lips to his in a sweet kiss. With our lips still attached I slip my panties into his front pants pocket.

“Babe- “

“Hold on to those for me ok, it’ll give you a reason to come find me later on tonight.” I say winking at him before leaving the room. Now it was his turn to drop his jaw to floor…

#why don't we #jack avery #why don't we imagine #jack avery imagines

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ly-canthropewrites · 5 years ago

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Love Languages; Henry Cavill Drabble

Pairing: Henry Cavill x Reader

Word Count: 1214

A/N: For my darling @yespolkadotkitty. Please excuse formatting/errors as it was quickly written on my phone. As well as, any translation errors.

Henry loves coming home. It’s the mixed combination of finally resting and recovering after months of strict working, of having some privacy and a space of his own, and also, because he gets to come home to you.

You are a piece of his life that he keeps quiet and hidden, a selfish slice of paradise that he greedily indulges in when he is not working. It is easier to keep you out of the spotlight, away from the harassment and gossip, and it makes him, and you, truly appreciate the sanctuary that your relationship has built.

He had been gone four long months filming for The Witcher, a storyline that he adores and has been engrossed in long before his casting. You had supported him when he pushed for the part, lovingly smiling from a distance as he got accepted to live out his fantasy dream. You had been with Henry long enough to know the woes of an actor and the distance was just a small compromise you had to make. He had kept in contact during his months away; calling you nightly, unable to go more than a day without hearing your voice or seeing your face on a fuzzy FaceTime. Although, you were apart, you weren’t forgotten.

It’s late when Henry arrives in Wales, time ticking closer to midnight when his hand meets the front door of your flat and he tries to remain silent as he enters. It’s near impossible when he is wrestling his luggage and a big bear of a dog that is called Kal, and the silent approach is not needed because you are still up anyway. At least, it seems that you are. The television in the lounge room fills the apartment with background noise and the corner lamp casts a warm light around the room. It’s cozy, homely, and just what Henry has been yearning for.

However, there are some changes from his last time at home. Brightly coloured post-it notes are attached to most items that he can see and he is amused as he ventures further into the living space, thick fingers flicking the one on the television.

Fernsehen, it reads.

The yellow note on your favourite framed print that hangs proudly on the wall, is noted as, Kunstwerk.

The words are unfamiliar to him and they dot most of the belongings and decor in the room, and Henry smiles. It looks like you’ve been busy.

It is Kal that finds you first, wet nose picking up your scent and he trots past Henry and into the kitchen, nails clipping across the floorboards.

“Wie geht es dir? es ist eine weile her, seit ich dich gesehen habe - oh!” You get startled out of your recite by a mass of black and white, an unexpected visitor nosing his way into your lap.

“Kal!” you exclaim, a mix of confusion and excitement evident as you exchange the shock for happiness.

You look up to the doorway of the kitchen to see Henry leaning against it, ruffled curls sitting on top of his pretty face and you beam.

“This is a pleasant surprise, I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow,” you say, eyes never leaving your fiancee’s whilst your hands scratch at Kal’s favourite spots, appeasing the large dog who is just as happy to see you.

“I didn’t want to stay away any longer than I had to,” he states simply, ocean eyes drinking up your appearance. It has been far too long since he has seen you mere metres from him.

You share the sentiment, suddenly pushing away Kal and abandoning your book on the table, and in quick strides, you walk into his outstretched arms. The feeling of his body against yours is heaven and you melt in his embrace, nuzzling your face into the crook of his neck as you hold onto him tightly. Strong arms wrap around your body, cradling you close and Henry rests his chin on top of your head.

“I’ve missed you dearly,” you confess.

“I’ve missed you more,” Henry bites back, quickly pressing a kiss to the crown of your head before a hand tilts your face up.

He kisses you slowly. Gentle lips mould against yours, the faintest touch of his tongue brushing against your bottom lip, and you sigh, curling your fingers into the fabric of his sweater as you attempt you hold onto the last of your sanity. Henry’s kisses have always made you feel weak, the blend of his taste and touch your biggest weakness and something he loves to exploit. A large hand brushes lightly along the sharpness of your jaw before cupping the nape of your neck, holding you prisoner as he takes what he has missed. He kisses you until you are breathless and panting against his lips, mouth red and swollen, eyes sparkling and dancing.

“Hey baby,” he greets you properly now, love glowing in his eyes as he gazes at you adoringly.

You chuckle, taking in a deep breath to sate the burning in your lungs, before smiling up at him.

“Hey handsome,”.

He is still holding you in his grasp, one thick arm around your waist whilst the other thumbs lightly along the juncture of your shoulders and neck.

“It looks like you’ve been preoccupied while I’ve been away,” Henry comments, a single eyebrow raised and you know that he is referring to the plethora of sticky notes littering the house. You have the audacity to blush bashfully, gnawing down on your lip as your cheeks glow red, although for reasons unknown.

“I’ve been bored whilst you have been gone, so I have started to teach myself German. I’m trying to immerse myself,” you say simply, meeting his eyes again to find pride and admiration shining.

“You are too smart for your own good, woman,” he teases, leaning down to press a firm kiss to your forehead, lingering for a moment as he savours the feeling of having you back in his arms. “I am one lucky man. I get to marry a beautiful and intelligent woman,” he praises.

“And you, Mr Cavill, are too smooth for your own good,” you retort, placing a kiss of your own to the hollow of his throat before stepping out of his embrace.

He doesn’t let you go far, his hand encircling your wrist and you glance up at him, unspoken question written across your face.

“Say something to me. In German,” Henry asks.

“Ich liebe dich,”.

Henry guesses what those words mean by the expression on your face and the way you speak the words tenderly, but he asks you to repeat it in English nonetheless.

“I love you” you recite softly, lifting his hand from your wrist and guiding it to your face and you kiss his palm, your eyes never leaving his.

He swallows thickly and Henry swears he was given an angel to love, almost in disbelief at how he gets to love such a strong and amazing woman like you.

“I love you too,” he murmurs, voice wavering with a sudden kaleidoscope of emotions. Fuck, he loves you. More than words will ever be able to describe.

#henry cavill #henry cavill x reader #henry x reader #henry cavill imagine #henry cavill imagines #henry cavill x you #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill fanfiction #henry cavill/reader #henry cavill/you #geralt #geralt of rivia #ly canthropewrites

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cosmicbug379 · 5 years ago

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Best Pilot

HAPPY STAR WARS DAY NERDS!!!!! Here have some semi medium okay decent Poe Dameron smut in celebration!!! This is unedited because if I have to go back and read it I guarantee you it will not get posted because I am Insecure™ and the smut I have posted before was barely smut and this is a little more. It’s not super long, so I hope it doesn’t feel too rushed or anything. I hope everyone enjoys it! Also I am but a simple woman who has not had sex and the idea of a blow job kind of grosses me out, so that particular scene in this is real short, I hope that doesn’t disappoint anyone. Gods below, I’m gonna be known for having the longest author’s notes ever, aren’t I?

Pairing: Poe Dameron x reader

Fandom: Star Wars

Words: 1633

Rating: Explicit (18+ ONLY)

Warnings: oral (m and f receiving), unprotected sex (be safe my dudes), teasing? (is that something I should mention? idk what I’m doing guys)

You jumped out of the cockpit of your X-Wing with a smile on your face. For once the mission didn’t get screwed up. For once there were no casualties. Well, Snap’s astrodroid would have to be replaced, but no living, breathing casualties. Everyone was okay this time around.

Turning at the sound of your name, you found Poe Dameron racing towards you. You ran to him and he caught you in a tight hug.

“We did it, beautiful,” he whispered in your ear.

“Yeah we did!”

He hugged you a little longer before you both went with the rest of the squadron to give Leia the mission report.

Later that night, you’re sitting with Poe around a fire with the rest of Black Squadron. You celebrated whenever you could, especially since lately you hadn’t had much to celebrate. The other members of the Resistance danced and cheered all around you. It was nice to relax a little and have fun.

Poe has an arm around your shoulder and you’re smiling and leaning into him, taking a sip of the drink in your hand. You’re all talking about the most exciting parts of the mission and finally Poe grinned and spread his arms wide.

“I’m the best pilot in the galaxy!” he bragged and you elbowed him in the side lightly.

“I think you missed the word second in there somewhere,” you said with a laugh.

Everyone else joined in and Poe looked almost offended. You wink at him and then get close so you can whisper in his ear.

“You’re the best at other things though. Maybe we can practice some more tonight.”

Poe’s eyes widened and he looked excited, almost giddy. Like a kid who just got told he could have ice cream for dinner.

“If you’ll excuse us,” he said, pulling you up from your seat and dragging you towards your quarters.

You laughed as you followed him and half waved at everyone as you left. He was basically running now and you pulled on his hand.

“Poe! I was having fun!” you said.

“Yeah but we’re gonna have way more fun without everyone else,” he grinned at you.

Rolling your eyes, you moved a little faster and ran with him. Poe wasted no time when you got to your quarters, pushing you against the door as soon as it slid closed and kissing you passionately. You smiled into the kiss and stopped only long enough to pull his shirt over his head. You kissed your way down his neck to his collarbone and bit him, smiling when you heard Poe let out a tiny gasp.

He grabbed your shirt and pulled it off, almost ripping it in the process, before attacking your own collarbone and breasts. You tangled your fingers in his curls and closed your eyes, letting out a moan when he attached his mouth to your nipple, biting gently.

“That’s it, beautiful. Let me hear you,” he whispered against your skin.

You moaned his name and pulled his face to yours so you could kiss him again.

“I could kiss you forever,” you said, pushing him towards the bed. “But let’s get to the fun stuff.”

Poe laughed a little and kissed you again. He turned and laid you on the bed, then moved to pull your pants and underwear down your legs, kissing every inch of skin revealed to him. You watched him with a gentle smile on your face, you could not get enough of him.

He kissed his way but up your legs and you sighed when you felt his breath against your core. You were practically dripping, he had taken his time getting you worked up.

“Is all this for me, sweetheart?” he asked with a smirk.

Poe slipped one finger inside you and even that was enough to make you moan for him.

“Fuck Poe,” you whimpered. “Don’t tease me.”

“But teasing you is the fun part, baby,” he said. “Plus I have to get you back for that ‘second best pilot’ comment you made earlier.”

You rolled your eyes and sighed in frustration when he removed his finger, but moaned again when you watched him bring that same finger to his mouth and suck on it slowly.

“You taste heavenly,” he said, trailing his fingers over your thighs.

Your skin was already flushed, but you felt your cheeks burn a little more. Poe was good at making you blush when you were alone like this. You watched him as he lifted one of your legs gently, bringing it to his mouth so he could kiss and bite your skin, leaving little marks as he went. When he felt that thigh had been given enough attention, he moved to the other, getting ever closer to the place you wanted him most, but never close enough.

“Come on, Poe,” you moaned, tugging on his hair.

“You gotta be patient, princess,” he said, biting your thigh a little harder. “We’ll get there eventually. It’s way too much fun to tease you like this, especially when you make such pretty noises for me.”

You glared at him playfully and then gasped in surprise when he licked you all the way up to your clit, taking the bud in his mouth and sucking gently. You moaned louder, lifting your hips to get closer to him. Poe was unreasonably good at this, it really wasn’t fair. You could barely think when he was between your legs, and forget trying to say anything even remotely coherent.

Your moans increased in volume and pitch as Poe brought you closer and closer to your peak. You felt him slip two fingers into you and curl them slightly, like he was trying to summon your orgasm from inside you. It didn’t take long for you to fall apart in his arms, chanting his name over and over as he eased you back down from your high.

He crawled back up your body and kissed you deeply. You could taste yourself on his lips and you moaned into his mouth before pulling away so you could help him get his pants off. There Poe was, completely naked in front of you and you couldn’t stop yourself from staring as usual. You licked your lips and then smiled and pushed him to lay back on the bed. It was your turn to tease him.

Starting at his neck, you trailed your fingers slowly over him and your lips followed. Every few inches you sucked a mark into his skin, good thing his flight suit would cover most of them. Except the ones on his neck, especially since he always had his shirt hanging half open; but you didn’t much care about people seeing them.

Poe’s moans spurred you on, and you trailed kisses down lower, slowing down. You pulled away and ran your nails up and down his thighs lightly, teasing him just like he had done to you.

“Come on, sweetheart…” he whimpered.

You smirked at him, running your hands up his sides barely touching him.

“It’s only fair, handsome,” you said, biting his hip.

You sucked another love bite into the skin there, enjoying the way he writhed and tried to keep himself from grabbing you.

“Now Poe, who’s the best pilot in the resistance?” you asked.

“Fuck! You are, sweetheart,” he moaned.

“Damn right I am.”

You grinned at him before finally taking him in your mouth. It didn’t take long before he was a moaning mess beneath you. You swirled your tongue around the tip of his member and then took him deeper into your mouth. You loved the sounds he made when you did this.

“You gotta stop baby,” Poe said, pulling you away. “I need to be inside you.”

You released him with a pop, and then crawled your way back up his body to kiss him. Poe grabbed your hips and you felt his cock at your entrance before you sank down onto him slowly, savoring the way he filled you. Letting out a breathy moan, you rocked your hips back, allowing him to sink in even deeper.

“You feel amazing, sweetheart,” Poe moaned, biting your shoulder. “You feel like fucking heaven.”

“So do you,” you whispered, rocking your hips against him.

The two of you moved together, finding your rhythm. You grabbed Poe’s hand tightly, interlacing your fingers and leaning down to kiss him. Poe thrust up into you, trying to control himself as you placed kisses along his collarbone and neck.

“I’m not gonna last much longer, beautiful,” he whispered into your hair.

You agreed with him and then you felt him let go of your hands. He placed one hand on your hip and the other moved in between your bodies to rub your clit in quick circles. You let out a gasp and placed a hand on Poe’s chest to steady yourself.

“That’s it,” he encouraged. “Are you gonna come for me again?”

You moaned and nodded quickly, closing your eyes. You were so close.

“Come for me, baby girl,” he whispered in your ear.

That did it. You came with a shout of his name, your walls clenching tightly around him. Poe wasn’t far behind, spilling himself inside you. Almost collapsing against him, the two of you stayed like that, tangled together.

“Fuck,” he whispered. “You are always amazing, sweetheart.”

You laughed quietly and kissed his neck gently, “So are you, flyboy.”

Poe held you like that for a long time, neither one of you needing to fill the silence. It was nice to just be together, and to let yourself enjoy each other’s company. You started to drift off to sleep and you almost missed it when he started talking again.

“I still think I’m the best pilot in the resistance.”

Tags: @rzrcrst @longitud-de-onda @hdlynnslibrary @opheliaelysia @beskars @landlockedmermaid77 @princessbatears @pascalisthepunkest

I wasn’t 100% sure who would want to be tagged in this, so if you don’t want to be tagged in the future, let me know, if you do want to be tagged also let me know and I will gladly tag you!

#poe dameron #star wars #poe dameron x reader #poe dameron fanfiction #poe dameron smut #star wars fanfiction #star wars smut #smut #oscar isaac #oscar isaac x reader #oscar isaac fanfiction

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goldengypsy7 · 4 years ago

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One Drink Away

Summary- Jubal says to OA there is no such thing as a recovered alcoholic – all it takes is one bad day. Well here is one bad day that leads Jubal to a bar but somehow Jubal gets roped into a Speed Dating event instead. One of the women may even catch his eye. Some angst Jubal with him almost breaking his sobriety.

It looked so harmless in the glass, the clear liquid gently fizzing away in his hand, tantalisingly harmless. The tonic water bubbles rise, pushing the ice from side to side gently in the tumbler and coating the slice of lime with tiny balls as it bobs on the surface. Jubal’s hand closes around the glass, not raising it from the bar but just cradling it in his hand, watching the bubbles. It could be sparkling water. It could be lemonade. He wished it was either; that he had that kind of self-control. He knew what he should do – put the glass down and walk out of the bar. The little voice in the back of his head was screaming at him to just let go of the glass; he had already lost his wife, his kids. It pleaded with him to not risk his career too – he had barely hung on to that last time around. Without the sobriety, he didn’t get to be a Fed, it reasoned. Did he want to be though, came the small hiss from his shoulder – it brought forth the images. Images he had tried so hard to remove from his mind, but had decorated his computer screen and the JOC all day – battered and bruised women, their lifeless and hollow eyes gapping out of the screens. The families sorrow and anger as they sat defeated in their conference room; their sobbing and wails still echoed through the recesses of his mind even now – hours later. His hand tightened on the glass and the cold edge of the glass touched his lips. Tiny specks of the liquid dotted the top of his nose and upper lip as the tonic fizzed, the ice clinking against the glasses rim. One sip and all of the cries and lifeless broken bodies would go away – it would blissfully silent. His resolve breaks and just as the cool liquid collides with his dry lips and threatens to spill into his mouth, a hand settles on his arm.

Startling, he jumps, vodka tonic sloshing sideways over the side of the glass and over his hand and chin, dripping on to the bar below. Grabbing the damp napkin his drink had been on, he presses this to his face, wiping away the droplets from his beard and lips as he turns.

“Oh my god. I’m so sorry for startling you!”

The young man looks mortified as he hovers behind Jubal slightly to his left. His eyes dart to the man’s hand still attached to Jubal’s arm and the hand is quickly removed. Before Jubal can turn away or say anything the young man continues to speak rapidly, words tripping over each other in his haste,

“I thought maybe you were here for our group…”

He gestures an arm behind him at a small group gathered by the double doors leading to the restaurant seating of the bar. As two scantily-clad women moved from bending over a table just to the left of the doors and moved arm in arm giggling through the doors. Jubal’s eyes focused on the sign by the table that they had been obscuring and reading it, his eyebrows raised.

“…I thought I would come and check but its so loud in here and I thought I would just tap your arm and then you moved and… and I’ve spilt your drink everywhere. Oh god! I’m so sorry, I’m such a clutz! Here… let me…”

Another napkin was shoved at Jubal’s hand, knocking his glass again, causing the ice cubes to rattle against the side in protest at the jolting.

“It’s okay.”

Jubal tries to placate the man, pushing the glass across the bar towards the barman and pressing the napkins to the pool of vodka left in a ring on the bar in front of him. A small flicker of relief fills him as he realises in all of the commotion, not a drop of vodka had passed his lips – just run down his chin and hand.

“It’s just… well two of the men haven’t shown up and it’s going to throw all of the numbers out. We barely have enough men signing up as it is and we’ve had no walk-ins tonight either. I was kinda hoping you were one of the two missing ones and I’m still talking… Todd get a grip”

The last part of the sentence was quieter as the man berated himself.

“Wouldn’t I be too old – isn’t there an age limit to these things?”

The words came out of Jubal’s mouth before he had a chance to stop them. Sudden hope flickered in to the man’s eyes as he recognised a person on the verge of joining.

“Not at all – there is no age limit. You would be amazed how many of the women like an older man – more experienced you know! It would be completely free – of course there is usually a charge but seeing as how we are two short and I’ve chucked your drink everywhere…”

Between Todd’s quick rambling and his insistent hand on Jubal’s arm, Jubal found himself swept across the room and filling in his details on the form pushed in front of him. Excuses pushed to the tip of his tongue, yet Todd was barely stopping for breath as he continued to talk,

“It’s super easy, all of the women are seated at a table the whole time. You sit across from them and you have 8 minutes with each woman. On the bell you move clockwise around the room – that’s to your right each time. The women don’t move at all. When you’ve been all the way around, the whole thing ends. You will have a sort of tick sheet – tick which women you would like to talk with again and give it into us at the end. If you and her sheets match, then we will pass you her phone number and you can contact each other – that simple. Most of them will hang around at the end, get a drink at the bar etc. Obviously, any rude or pervy behaviour and you are out.”

A sheet of paper and a pencil is pushed into Jubal’s hand as he is guided to a table and pushed into the chair. He turns but Todd is gone again, moving across the room to help another woman discreetly remove a table and two chairs from the circle. Turning away from Todd’s disappearing back, he faces the woman sitting across from him. The first thing that he notices is that she’s young however this is quickly replaced by the small bemused smile that she is trying to hide behind her hair, which is swinging loose around her face and down her back.

Jubal jumps slightly as a bell sounds from one end of the room and the woman’s smile grows into a giggle as his pencil almost rolls off the table with his jolt. It is stopped by a slim hand that darts across the table to grab it before it tumbles to the floor. Voices around them start, the volume growing and growing as seconds pass; odd nervous laughter dotting through.

“Do you want to…?”

Jubal’s eyes dart from the pencil clasped firmly in his fingers to the woman opposite as her soft New York accent filtered through the surrounding cacophony of noise. Of course, she was expecting him to speak, his mouth opened and his voice engaged and he started to talk well before he thought of what to say,

“I… uh.. well I’m divorced, got two kids – a boy and a girl. I’m a federal agent and …um a recovering alcoholic. Been sober almost 4 years and almost broke that about 20 minutes ago if uh… Todd hadn’t literally bumped into me and somehow got me to agree to this and… and that’s… that’s more than you needed to know.”

Jubal’s usually confident voice had been reduced to stutters and stumbling over the words spewing from his mouth suddenly. He trailed off as his brain caught up with him and ducked his head away from the women to look at the label of the bottled water on the table in front of him instead.

“That was honest – don’t get a lot of that with these things usually. Mostly posers or men with only one thing on their mind. Well, in the spirit of being honest, I’m single. My last boyfriend cheated on me with most of lower Manhattan – well the ones in skirts anyway and I have a very big weakness for shoes – I buy far too many of them!”

As she talked, Jubal moved his attention from the bottle in front of him up to her face. As she realises she has his attention and made eye contact with him, she smiled. It lights up her face, making her green eyes sparkle and dimples appear in her cheeks. Jubal felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth in return as she continues to speak,

“For the record – I’m pretty sure Todd has bamboozled all of us into one of these things at one time or another. I know most of the girls – there is no need to be nervous, none of us bite. Well… Tanya at table 4 might but she does have a thing for guys with beards so maybe keep the table between you and her.”

For the last part she leaned towards him across the table, nodding towards a woman two tables down from them with her head. Bleach blonde, her black dress was so low cut her cleavage was almost falling out of the top and her red nails looks so long they could be claws. Turning his attention away from Tanya, he darted his gaze back to the woman in front of him. She winks conspiratorially before sitting back in her chair again, settling backwards to tip her head to the side to gaze at him,

“How long have you been divorced? This the first time dating after?”

Jubal clears his throat, twirling the pencil around his fingers once before answering,

“Uh… 4 years now. And yeah I suppose this is the first time – work usually gets in the way which is a complete excuse now I’m saying it out loud…”

“Its always tough getting back out there. Tough to realise everything is over and you need to move on – gotta be harder when you have two kids.”

Jubal huffs a small laugh as he moves to rub his thumb along his top lip, nodding in agreement.

“Enough about me – what about you. How long have you and your ex been broken up?”

She tilts her head, green eyes flitting over his face and he has the distinct impression that he is being read. The look reminds him of Maggie and Dana when they are trying to figure a perp out. Just as the feeling starts, she flicks a smile and inclines her head – letting him change the subject away from him.

“Two years. Moved in with my sister for a bit while we sold our apartment – would not recommend moving in with siblings again after living on your own – absolute nightmare. Uh… not real excuse for not dating again after only that trusting someone is hard – ya know.”

Jubal had just enough time to murmur an agreement when the bell clanged, jerking them out of their little bubble and back into the room. Around them chairs scrapped as the men got ready to move round. Blinking at the sudden stopping, Jubal moves to pick up his piece of paper and pencil as the man to this left starts to move towards their table, his shadow falling over them. Fumbling, Jubal gets a few steps away before her voice stops him, making him turn back,

“Hey – I never got your name.”

Turning he gazes at her for a second, before realising that she was right. They hadn’t exchanged names.

“Huh sorry, Jubal”

Her smile again lights up her features as he moves back towards her reaching out his hand in an automatic movement. He was so used to immediately shaking people’s hands at the Bureau as they exchanged names, that he had started to do the exact same thing. Before, he could over analyse however, a soft warm hand had slid into his.

“Alice”

Her voice answered his as their joined hands squeezed for a second palm to palm before a small cough from the man currently seated at Alice’s table caused them to break apart. Alice raised her eyebrows with a small eyeroll as if to say, ‘see – poser or player’ before turning to sit back down again.

Jubal turned to sit at the next table – facing a young black woman who appeared to be young enough to be his daughter at least. Sighing inwardly, he pushed a smile on to his face as Scarlett introduced herself. This time, he reined himself in with the commentary however, Scarlett didn’t seem to need much help with the conversation, filling most of the 8 minutes with words such as ‘Tik-Tok’, ‘Instagram’ and claimed herself to be an ‘Influencer’ whatever one of those was. Scarlett had seemed to think this was impressive, Jubal wasn’t sure what one was or how this could “change her life”. Jubal just hoped the confusion hadn’t shown on his face too much throughout the conversation. The bell could not come fast enough.

The next few tables did not get any better – Elsie decided to tell him all about Ginseng Tea and its wonders of helping with erectile dysfunction. Jubal wasn’t sure why Elsie decided to tell him all about this and was starting to get a small complex about his age until Jenna at the next table told him Elsie was telling all of the men this and spent her 8 minutes apologising for Elsie – apparently, they were roommates and good friends. Maria divulged the best way to rear a Labradoodle. This would have been helpful or at least interesting if Jubal knew anything about dogs – he had had a fish growing up for all of a week before it died and was flushed down the toilet. Maria then tried to sell him a Labradoodle and was very insistent even after a very glad Jubal told her his building would not allow pets – yes even very well-behaved ones.

Then came the dreaded woman – Tanya. Jubal was not one to judge, especially on appearances. But he was beyond definitely sure that that level of plastic could not be healthy in Tanya’s face… or her chest either. Tanya’s hand gripped down on his arm, her talons… sorry nails dug into his skin for the entire time as she pushed her chest into his face and answered all of his polite questions with thinly veiled innuendos and cackling at her own puns. Jubal had never willed a work call to interrupt his night so much since he had joined the Bureau. Thankfully the 8 minutes ended quickly and he was round to the last women – Sheena. Sheena managed to hold a conversation with Jubal for the whole 8 minutes without making him feel old or making him want to run away and hide.

With that people finished filling in their sheets of paper and stood, handing them to Todd and his female minion as some filtered out of the door and the rest moved to order a drink at the bar. He remained seated as Sheena moved away to the bar, staring at his seat of paper. He could safely say no to 6 of the women immediately – yet his pencil hovered over Alice’s name. Looking up, he scanned the crowd and found her, standing hip to the bar as she laughed along with something Sheena was miming out beside her. Her brown hair fell down her back, her jeans were tight to her curves but her shirt was looser, draped over her body – hiding her figure. Shaking his head, he turned away muttering to himself ‘silly old fool’ his pencil moved and marked Alice’s section too. What would a beautiful woman like that want with him? Passing his paper to Todd with a nod, he walked out of the bar and into the cool night air, pulling his coat on he turned and headed towards the subway.

Sitting in the subway car however, he pulled out his phone and looked at the screen. No messages, no calls. Shoving the phone back into its holster on his hip, he thought back to the yes tick he had put on Alice’s line of his paper. Divorced, alcoholic, bumbling fool - she was probably just being nice and putting him at ease, he thought shaking his head. Idiot he berated himself. Yet, as he walked up the steps and out on to the street again, he thought back to her smile, her sparkling eyes, the way her hand had felt in his.

As he exited his bathroom, his bedroom was bathed in the white light from his phone. Frowning, he moved across the room to where his phone sat on his night stand. Pushing the home button to get the phone to light up again, he saw a message from an unknown number on his screen,

Its Alice. Glad we matched – maybe talk again some time?

Sinking down on to his bed, he stared at the words on his screen and tried to ignore the fluttering in his stomach that the words had created. Maybe not so bumbling after all.

#fbi #jubal valentine #Jubal Valentine/OC #Speed Dating #Jubal Angst #Almost Falling off the wagon #Mentions of alcohol

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grilledcheeseandguavajelly · 4 years ago

Note

Paulson’s AHS characters ranked by..... favorite?? GO! 👏🏻👏🏻

Alskdfasldkfj I love the “by.... favorite??” because now I’m just thinking of all the other ways to rank them xD Thank you for the ask, lovely!! This was surprisingly more difficult than I anticipated, but SO MUCH FUN!!! Alright here we go:

11. Sexy Sadie

We love a batshit queen. Especially one with pretty fingers and a way with a knife. But poor Sadie is only in AHS for like five seconds, so she gets ranked last by default.

10. Dot Tattler

I’m going to be honest. I wasn’t a huge fan of Dot at the beginning of Freakshow. But the second she had that moment with Bette in the barn, and wiped at her tears and covered her mouth so that Bette wouldn’t hear her crying??? GOODBYE THERE GOES MY HEART. And fuck me, when she confesses her love to Jimmy and that little hopeful smile on her face with the tears in her eyes?? This poor baby just wants LOVE, COME ON.

9. Ally Mayfair-Richards

Ohhh Ally. Don’t get me wrong, I love her to bits. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again -- PROTECT HER AT ALL COSTS. And her transformation is phenomenal. Gosh see even as I’m typing this I’m regretting ranking her so low. I have issues because I get WAY too emotionally attached to vulnerable or “weak” characters. Especially when they're running around screaming and hurting like poor baby Ally. I just want to tuck her away in my heart and keep her safe forever please and thank you.

8. Shelby Miller

Hair. I mean, need I say more? I know that I ranked her low, but here’s the problem: I always brush her off until I rewatch Roanoke. And then I can’t shut up about how perfect she is and how much I love her. So she’ll stay here at 8, but just know that occasionally she plows down pretty much everyone else and sits up at 3 or 4. (Also please see above about falling too hard in love with characters who spend their entire time on-screen running and crying and hurting and scared.)

7. Bette Tattler

Oh Bette. Little baby Bette. Let’s call her PROTECT AT ALL COSTS 2.0 and give her all of the uwus. I love her, nose to toes, and I would absolutely pull down the moon just to see her smile. (Note: this may be my favorite shot from Freakshow, so thank you to whoever giffed this face and absolutely made my day xx)

6. Lana Winters

Okay don’t @ me for ranking her so low. She’s another one that I always forget that I like. But then there are days/weeks where she runs my life and I absolutely lose my mind over her. And I think by now we all know how much I adore Ponytail Lana and her tiny little baby smile and her jacket and the way she pours her tea. Excuse me while I go cry forever.

5. Audrey Tindall

BEAUTIFUL BUTTERFLY BABY ANGEL. I realized the other day that under this dress she is wearing little pink knee socks all scrunched down around her ankles. And to say I was not okay would be a large understatement. She is an actual bean, and such a perfectly radiant little angel. I mean, is there anyone who exudes sunshine like she does? But so sassy, and confident, and sexy, and cocky. And then she burns so hot to protect the people she loves. I will never not scream when she spits in Mama Polk’s face. And that’s that on that.

4. Billie Dean Howard

Favorite gif of my favorite line of my favorite outfit of my favorite lady. But goodness, the amount of lust love that I have for a proper, grown up Southern lady with perfect nails and pearls and a smoking habit that just doesn’t quit? Unparalleled. And if you know me personally, you know what this woman really means to me.

3. Sally McKenna

Should I be insanely attracted to an emotionally wrecked, dependent, dead drug addict? No. Am I? Fuck yes. It’s honestly a problem, and I should probably be worried about it . But look at that little smile. The tear-stained cheeks. Her frizzy-whiz hair. Tell me she’s not the most insanely beautiful, fragile little thing that you’ve ever seen. And tell me that she doesn’t seep into every piece of your heart and make you ache because you can’t wipe her tears away and kiss her until she forgets what it feels like to be abandoned. (Bonus: Victorian chokers)

2. Cordelia Goode

The Supreme, The Love of My Life, The Queen of My Heart, pick a title. She has all of them. Honestly, I would rank her second just for the sheer power of her hair and brows this season. But baby Delia also has my whole heart, and the evolution from timid angel to “your daughter calls me daddy, too” is just... Well. When she walked out of that haze to “She’s a Rainbow”, something inside of me changed forever and a part of me will always be hers. Also, can we just talk about how she becomes her mother in the most beautiful way? She takes the best parts of Fiona and the best parts of herself and weaves them into a Supreme that is so powerful and has such a huge heart. Absolute perfection personified. Long may she reign.

1. Wilhemina Venable

Are we surprised that I ranked her first? NO, OF COURSE NOT. Wilhemina Venable has owned my ass from that second tap of her cane, before I even saw her. And I think it’s safe to assume that she always will. JUST LOOK AT HER-- I don’t know what it is. My gut reaction is to say it’s her vulnerability, but I was head-over-heels for her long before we knew about any of that. There’s just something about her vibe, her aesthetic, her piercing gaze. She owns me, body and soul, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

***Please note that 1-4 will shift around on any given day, depending on my mood, and I had too hard of a time trying to set them in an actual order***

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levinneheart · 4 years ago

Text

Trouble Ahead

Prologue

A collab w/ @old-me-is-gone

➳ Description: This is a story between enemies; a middle school friend turned salty, a high school partner turned full debate sessions, and an unfortunate girl stuck in the middle… it seems there is going to be trouble ahead.

➳ Pairing: Tsukishima Kei x Feisty!F!Photographer!Reader x Akaashi Keiji

➳ Prompt: Frenemies, Enemies to Lovers, Love Triangle, Shy Confessions

➳ Genre: FLUFF, ANGST

➳ Word Count: 4,010

➳ Written by: @old-me-is-gone and co-edited by (banner also by): @levinneheart

➳ Disclaimer: Pictures used are not ours and are all credited to their owners. Haikyuu characters are owned by Haruichi Furudate.

Routes: Wit’s End || Partner in Crime

Middle school is meant to be a time where kids can develop and find themselves. In [Y/N]’s case, middle school was the time she garnered a skill and adept talent for photography while also meeting her first friend after moving from Tokyo.

Standing by the counter where she was waiting for her recent photos to be developed while she picked at her nails. The darkroom had become a place of solace for her. Moving from Tokyo to the middle of nowhere, a place also known as Miyagi, hadn’t been easy and starting middle school without any friends was even harder. Since no one made an effort to at least try and befriend her within the first month, [Y/N] had decided that she didn’t need anyone else. So being in the darkroom seemed to be the only valid option for her.

When her mom asked her about her day, she would ramble on and on about the fake experiences she had at school. In her fake world, she was popular and had a lot of friends. In reality, she was just the weird loner girl who took photos of trashcans around the cafeteria. [Y/N] had the darkroom all to herself as she was the only member of the photography club. Although, sometimes other clubs would use her clubroom to store excess club materials and such.

Leaving her to have a single counter for her photos. To make it an actual working darkroom, she used a red tissue paper that she had attached to the hanging ceiling light with a rubber band and blacked out the windows with random cardboard from the kitchens. The other two walls that she didn’t use were reserved for the volleyball club to shove extra netting and brooms into.

She really should have printed out a single paper that wrote: ‘Please Knock, Photos in Developing Stage’, that’s at least what she learned from the hindsight when the door opened again for the nth time and she was greeted with a single sliver of light. [Y/N]’s eye went wide as she stopped picking at her nails. “Wait! Don’t-”

The door slide completely open and [Y/N] squinted at all the sudden light. When she realized what had happened, she rushed to the tins of developing liquid and tried to cover them with her hands so her photos wouldn’t be exposed to light.

“Damn it.” She groaned. She tugged at her hair as her photos went streaky and the coloring blended in together from the light. [Y/N] felt a pang of sadness hit her heart as she whipped around to chastise the person who opened the door.

Standing in the doorway was an oddly tall blond boy. His hair seemed to glow from all the light streaming in. After rubbing her eyes slightly, [Y/N] could make out the glasses on his face and recognized him from the volleyball club. Tsukishima Kei.

Always pleasant visitor. She thought sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

“What the hell are you doing just hanging out in a darkroom?” Tsukishima walked in and inspected the shelves, looking for some equipment.

“Hey! Wait a minute! You should have knocked! Because of you, all my photos are ruined!” She exclaimed, huffing and stomping her foot as she brought Tsukishima’s attention to her by acting tough.

Tsukishima tilted his head before rolling his eyes and grabbing an air pump. Tossing it into the air before catching it again. “Because of me, your photos are ruined?” He scoffed at her, his tone was condescending and sarcastic.

[Y/N] stretched her hands out and gave a quick ‘duh’ in response. Tsukishima gave her a wicked smirk that begged to be punched off of his face. [Y/N] didn’t care if she was a lot shorter than him, she just wanted him to apologize for ruining her photos.

When Tsukishima started to walk towards the exit, [Y/N] ran to block the entrance while holding her hand out on either side of the frame and looking up at him as she sneered, “You need to apologize.” Tsukishima fake lunged at her, causing [Y/N] to flinch and bring her arms to her body while he grabbed hold of her shoulder and moved her away from the door with ease.

“I don’t apologize to entitled brats like you.”

“Entitled brat my ass,” She mumbled before chasing after him. “Get back here you tall excuse for a human!” When [Y/N] realized she wasn’t going to be able to stop him with force so she swallowed her pride and jumped on his back, wrapping her legs around his waist and holding onto his neck with her arms.

“What the fu-” Tsukishima turned around, before trying to pry her off.

“Not until you apologize!” [Y/N] argued.

“I’m sorry. Now, get off of me!”

“It doesn’t sound sincere enough.”

Tsukishima thought back to all the times he had jumped on Akiteru’s back, and how his brother had managed to get him to hop off all on his own. So, remembering what Akiteru did, Tsukishima dropped the air pump and started pretending he was being chocked.

[Y/N] immediately hopped off and ran in front of Tsukishima and held onto his shoulders. “Holy hell. Are you alright?”

Tsukishima held back a smirk as he faked being upset. “No. You really hurt me.”

“What can I do to make it up to you. Hell, I'm really sorry. Like really sorry.” [Y/N] rubbed her elbow and shuffled her feet. [Y/N] rubbed her elbow and shuffled her feet in guilt.

“I’ll think of something.” Tsukishima would never admit it but in the short period of time that he had known the strange (h/c) haired girl, he wanted to be around her more. Nobody had ever had the courage, or sheer idiocy to even try and stand up to him before.

[Y/N] threw her hands up into the air and glared at Tsukishima. “Great, you asshole! Now, I feel indebted to you for some emotional reason.” She picked up the air pump and started walking down the steps towards the gym when Tsukishima called out to her.

“What are you doing?” He walked down to her with a few short strides in his step.

“Helping you. I can work off this icky guilt by helping you. Okay? Let's go.”

Months went by after that. Tsukishima and [Y/N] most definitely didn’t become friends. They just sat together at lunch and hung out at the park. [Y/N] went to all of Tsukishima’s volleyball games whilst Tsukishima went to all of [Y/N]’s art shows. So no, they weren’t friends. They were, merely, people who shared a common experience and decided to continue building upon that shared experience.

Then, news of [Y/N] moving back to Tokyo happened during their third year in middle school. Someone heard [Y/N] talking to her dad on the phone about it, and eventually it spread like wildfire. Some people were pretty upset, after having gotten to know [Y/N]. Other people just honestly didn’t care, but instead wanted in on the drama.

The drama was that apparently since Tsukishima still didn’t know that [Y/N] was moving. And the entire school wanted to see him explode when he finally found out. Which meant that hordes of people hovered around Yamaguchi, Tsukishima, and [Y/N] as they went about their days.

“Do people just actively look for ways to piss me off.” Tsukishima grumbled as he took another spoonful of his chicken noodle soup. Tsukishima felt the eyes of the people hiding to the side of the wall right behind him.

“Tsukki, I honestly doubt it's that!” Yamaguchi comforted. [Y/N] was busy snapping photos of the trees far off while Tsukishima let his eyes and mind wander as he stared at her trying to find the right angle to take a picture. His Adam's apple bobbed when she stood up and stretched her back out. She knelt back down to take a photo but lost balance and fell on her butt, she laughed lightly at herself before getting back up. Tsukishima could feel his heart pound in his chest and his face heat up.

“Are you alright? You're looking a little red there Tsukki?’ Yamaguchi took a bite of the cookie his mom packed for him, talking with his mouth full.

“I'm fine. But, hey, why have so many people been like, extra nice to L/n? A whole bunch of guys from the volleyball club pitched in and bought her a polaroid camera.” Tsukishima wished that the group of underclassmen would have asked him to help pitch in to buy the yellow camera that she adores so much. She never left it alone, keeping it tucked away in its case amongst her school bag.

“Oh? [Y/N]’s moving to Tokyo. Remember?”

Tsukishima dropped his soup, the contents spilling all over the courtyard as he tightens his fists. “What?” He growls out while Yamaguchi slaps his hand over his mouth.

Mumbling his apologizes profusely, “[Y/N] said not to say anything, Tsukki please don’t hate [Y/N], she was just doing what she thought was best- “Tsukki, where are you going?” Tsukishima slams his hands against the table and pushes off, storming to where [Y/N] was standing.

“[Y/N]!” Tsukishima never yelled at her. So, she whips her head around to see a red-faced Tsukishima. [Y/N] thought she saw smoke coming out of his ears. “Were you going to tell me you were moving, or am I just an afterthought?” [Y/N] almost drops her camera from shock. She holds it tight to her chest, cradling it as she cowers away from the raging boy in front of her.

“I was gonna tell you.”

“No, you weren’t.” He spat. He gripped her forearm to pull her closer but when he did, [Y/N] dropped her yellow polaroid camera and it shattered, glass and parts of the camera flew around the concrete courtyard while her eyes glazed over with tears.

“You jerk! Don’t try talking to me, until you're ready to apologize for being such an asshole!” Tears fell from her eyes and spilling over her face before swinging her satchel over her shoulder as she marched to the school building. Tsukishima’s hands ran to his hair, pulling it tightly as he let out a short scream that sounded like a grunt. Yamaguchi walked into the school building and he knew, there wasn’t going to be a way to comfort Tsukishima’s mood when he got like this.

[Y/N] packed up and got ready to move. Putting all of her belongings into suitcases and duffle bags. When she was putting her pictures into her collection of shoeboxes, she glanced at the ones of her and Tsukishima. Her favorite picture was one she had originally given to Tsukishima for his birthday, but she liked it so much she had her mom scan it and print out another copy that [Y/N] laminated.

In the photo, [Y/N] had rubbed birthday cake all over Tsukishima’s face. Giving him a frosting mustache and his hair mixed in with chocolate cake. She pulled him in close, and Tsukishima rested his arm over his shoulders, he gave a side smile while rolling his eyes. Then she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, getting a photo of her giggling as Tsukishima turned to face her with a blushing face and cake all over him, his eyebrows shot up into his forehead.

Then [Y/N] remembered back at how he had grabbed her arm and made her drop her Polaroid camera. In a fury, she ripped up the photo, sliding down her bed and staring at the now empty wall that was once full of pictures of friends and family.

The next day, while saying goodbye to Yamaguchi, when her mom asked where Tsukishima was, [Y/N] simply said, “We aren’t talking at the moment.”

“Are you sure? I can always call his mom, and we can wait for him to come over so he can say goodbye?” Her mom waited outside the car, but [Y/N] got into the backseat and buckled her seatbelt, refusing to say more on the matter while Yamaguchi waved goodbye to her car that had begun driving off. He hoped that Tsukishima had gotten his text message. And he did, as of right now, he was begging his mom to drive him to [Y/N]’s house.

Tsukishima ran after her parents’ car, hopping out of his mom’s car and tried chasing after [Y/N]. Before realizing, she had already driven too far that his yells for her to come back fell to deaf ears. Tsukishima fell to the ground and stayed silent as he rubbed his thumb of the package of a yellow Polaroid camera that had a simple ‘I’m sorry’ written on a green sticky note.

When his chest began to heave, and his heart felt weighed down while watching her car got out of view. Because, for the first time, he longed for someone who was now gone. Someone who was really gone. And every day over the entire summer, he beat himself up more and more for not apologizing. Because not apologizing had meant that he lost the person he had grown closest to.

[Y/N] was used to going to new schools and moving around a lot in primary school, she had to adjust to all of the changes. But high school was a big jump. A bigger jump than any other jump she had ever taken. Luckily, Fukurodani had accepted her based on both her grades and her talent in photography, saying that such a talent must be nurtured with the right tutelage and proper education. Which [Y/N] thought was just a bunch of pretentious bullshit in order to try and use her grades on their average grade scale.

Needless to say, [Y/N] started her first day. Her dad had bought her a brand-new blue polaroid to make up for what had begun to be known around the L/n household as the ‘Tsukishima Incident’. Armed with a positive attitude and her blue camera, [Y/N] took the first step out of her house and into her high school career.

Trains move fast. And the train system was just so complex and so utterly beautiful. People rush around without a second thought. [Y/N] just had to capture that. Taking photos as she stepped onto the Fukurodani train though, probably wasn’t a good idea though. Because she bumped into someone and dropped her camera. When she heard the plastic crack she cringed and she turned around to face who she had run into.

A boy. A cute boy at that. One with dark blue eyes, with green floating around them. His black hair seemed to be slightly curly, or at the very least slightly wavy. [Y/N] opens her mouth slightly to try and say something but, no words come out as the boy stares to the side of her, not meeting her eyes. [Y/N]’s first thoughts were: wow okay, he’s hot and he’s intimidating.

Akaashi sighed before muttering, “Please pay attention, you could hurt someone.” He didn’t want to stare at her, so he opted for not meeting her eyes. Taking a mental note of her broken camera, and the way she didn’t wear the school skirt but chose to wear the pants instead. Not that he would admit that he was starting at her hips, or her legs for that matter.

“Sorry!”

“It's fine. Just don’t go bumping into people again okay?” Akaashi got off the train, the girl hopping off as well.

“Yeah of course.” [Y/N] paused, wondering if this could be the amplest time to make a friend at her new school, but when she looked back to him, he was gone.

Finally arriving to class, [Y/N] slipped into her new seat, and she bounced her leg up and down. Being in a mixed class with first and second years was going to be pretty exciting. She thought about all the people she could learn from and all the interesting things she would learn throughout the year. When the pretty boy walked in. [Y/N] stopped bouncing her leg in favor of just staying frozen.

Embarrassment flooded her senses. Akaashi sits down and makes conversation with the fellow second year next to him. [Y/N] slides down her seat and tries to cover her face with her long sleeve beige sweater. When the teacher walks in and brings the class to attention, [Y/N] clears her throat lightly and sits back up. Hoping that the boy doesn’t notice her sitting in the back row.

“For the rest of the year, I’m going to assign you partners.” Students immediately turn to look at each other and whisper about being partners. “Partners that I will personally assign.” Disgruntled cries erupt for a second before the teacher shoots a quick glare onto their pupils.

The teacher lists of names, and students shuffle around to sit next to each other. With every passing pair, [Y/N] feels her heart race.

“Akaashi Keiji and L/n [Y/N].” [Y/N] looks around for a moment, wondering about this ‘Akaashi’ guy before her throat goes dry. Sitting down next to her is the same guy she bumped into on the train. Akaashi recognizes [Y/N] from the train.

For the first week the two don’t talk. Merely passing homework between themselves to correct or when [Y/N] forgot a pencil that one time so Akaashi lent one of his to her. They were resigned to this emotional withdrawal from each other. Until they were assigned a project.

“I think it should be on the history of the modern developing process for film and such.” [Y/N] throws out. Tapping her pen against her notebook, accidentally causing ink spots to freckle across the page. Akaashi takes the pen away from her, in order to stop the incessant tapping sound that was beginning to distract him from coming up with an idea for the project.

“Well, the project should be something simple and straightforward. So, how about the history of volleyball? It can be traced back clearly through the Olympics and all of the data is already there.” Akaashi titles her page with VOLLEYBALL HISTORY. [Y/N] rolls her eyes before crossing it out and writing Camera Film Development History. Akaashi pulls out another piece of paper and titles it with the volleyball one. To which [Y/N] wrinkles her nose, before crossing it out and putting her idea down on the paper.

“Stop it.” Akaashi grumbles.

“Never.” [Y/N] writes her idea down and rushes up to the teacher. Akaashi shoots up and grabs her by the hand, pulling her into his chest.

Akaashi promised he would never use the trick Bokuto taught him, but considering the dire situation he was in, he decided that he had no choice. Leaning his head close to hers, [Y/N]’s eyes widened as she moved her head. “Let’s use my idea, Princess.”

[Y/N] fake a gag before slipping out of his grasp. “Ew, no. Never do that again.” When she tries to go to the teacher again, Akaashi groans before pulling her away again. “Let go of me!” She states, trying not to raise her voice.

“Never.” Akaashi mimics her tone from earlier. And [Y/N] turns her face into an image of disgust.

“I said to let go of me!” [Y/N] kicks Akaashi’s shin, making him yelp out in pain. The teacher, having been aware of their argument from the beginning, just sighs and sends them off to the principal’s office.

Akaashi isn’t angry, he’s just upset. But because of a wild and reckless first year, he is the one being punished. Even though [Y/N] is also going to the office, he feels like he’s the one being criticized. He wants to protest and say that she was the one who kicked him, and she was the one who refused to do a compromise with him.

[Y/N] bites down on her tongue as she sits outside the Principal’s office. It's only the second Monday of the year and she is already in trouble, so much for making a good impression on others.

Regardless, through the months that pass, Akaashi and [Y/N] still argue. They don’t physically fight; they just bicker incessantly. The seats in front of them and behind them were vacated once the students had realized their fighting wasn’t going to stop.

[Y/N] tried her best to fit in. But when she was informed that there wasn’t going to be a Photography club, she felt deflated. But when a pair of girls stood around the entrance of the school trying to hand out fliers, [Y/N] too the opportunity to say hi.

The girls, that [Y/N] was now informed of as Yukie and Kaori, asked her if she would be willing to be a manager for the volleyball team which [Y/N] happened to be familiar with, so she agreed. The two girls invited [Y/N] to start training as a manager during a training camp, to which [Y/N] happily agreed to as well.

The training camp had started off well enough. All the third years had started off introducing themselves and had politely begun to ask about [Y/N] and her likes as well as her dislikes. Akaashi spotted her before she spotted him. He groaned and pulled Bokuto aside. “You have got to be messing with me, right?” Akaashi ran a hand through his hair before toying with his hands.

“What do you mean Akaashi?” Bokuto folded his arms while he tilted his head to the side.

“She’s insufferable.” Akaashi stated, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I dunno, [L/n]-kun seems really nice.” Bokuto tapped his chin while shrugging.

“I had to go to the principal's office because of her, remember.” Akaashi leaves out the finer details of the reason why he went to the office though, figuring that Bokuto didn’t need to know all of the information.

Bokuto walks back towards [Y/N] before calling out Akaashi, “She might be different outside of school, you never know ‘Kaashi.”

Akaashi leans his back against the brick wall. Exhaling deeply and closing his eyes. He doesn’t even notice when [Y/N] walks up to him and inspects his jersey. When she taps his shoulder, Akaashi flinched a bit before sighing deeply to calm his nerves. He tries to walk away and [Y/N] immediately grabbed hold of his hand.

“I'm sorry it feels like I'm invading on your life. But the third years are all really nice to me.” [Y/N] holds her hands behind her back as she digs the tip of her shoe into the ground. “And I was wondering if we could actually have a civil conversation about our project. I'm willing to compromise now, if you are.” She looks at him with puppy dog eyes.

How can Akaashi have it in his heart to deny her? When her tone got ever so soft when she talked about the third years being kind to her? Akaashi doesn’t like the way his heart bubbles up at her actions.

“[Y/N]?”

Tsukishima drops his duffel bag, his arms going limp at the sight of her with a second year from Fukurodani and wearing its uniform. And he didn’t like the sight of her smiling since the last memories of her he had were of her with wet eyes and rage. Tsukishima rushes to pick up his bag. Yamaguchi, who had seen the whole scene unfurl, ran after Tsukishima.

Once Tsukishima had stopped, now hiding in the bus, Yamaguchi had finally caught up with his friend. Yamaguchi grew tired of the way he could dance around the topic of [Y/N]. She was their friend, the three of them grew up together. “Tsukishima. What are your feelings for [Y/N]? Tell me the truth.” Yamaguchi crossed his arms and Tsukishima looked up at him with a blank stare, his mouth opening and closing like a fish.

[Y/N] only saw Tsukishima for a moment before he rushed away. She looked back to Akaashi, whose face was slightly red but he still had a blank look plastered on. She had a choice to make. Go after her broken friendship with a childhood friend, or stay with the new and intriguing project partner.

Either way, she knew that there would be trouble ahead.

Routes: Wit’s End || Partner in Crime

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