#look I need it filtered through someone else's critical eye. I need to feel like I'm watching it with an adult

[c-rowlesdraws]

man if we're talking about hyenas. they were Baby's First Villain Fave for me (alongside the changelings from MLP FIM, who were also just trying to eat the abundance of food the heroes didn't want to share for some reason). i just remember being like wait. these people wouldnt have followed scar if they just. had enough food? seems like a very easy solution to me

MLP started airing when I was in college (insert gif of timelapse rapid-aging Matt Damon from Saving Private Ryan here), so I didn't really watch it and I'm not familiar with the changelings, but yeah like... watching TLK even as a little kid I was like, wait, these characters just want food? They're agreeing to follow the villain because they're hungry? That's not evil, that's just being desperate and not seeing a better way out of a bad situation. Like, dang. If my people were starving and a guy showed up promising he'd turn things around if we helped install him as king in place of the guy who beats us up every time we try to hunt on his land, I might go along with it too.

Apparently the live-action movie (which I probably won't watch) tries to "fix" this by making it clear the hyenas live in a barren wasteland because they overhunted, so really it's their own fault they're hungry, which is... a choice. In his review of the movie, Big Joel said something like (paraphrased because it's been a minute), "so they're evil because they're... bad at being animals?" which is a good way of phrasing it. It's one of those choices Disney has been consistently making in these live-action remakes where they try to fix a "problem" in the original movie by over-explaining it and just making things worse and dumber.

[katy-l1988]

Chapter III: Addicted

As the days turned into weeks and then into months, Carmilla delved deeper into the world of business. Carmine Industries had become a renowned industry, producing high-quality weapons sold throughout hell. Important figures like Asmodeus himself had shown great interest in her innovations, personally designed by the Lady of the house. However, business success did not come without its price. Darkness slowly crept through Carmilla's veins, corrupting her body and mind. Each workday left Carmilla shattered, exhausted by the weight of her responsibilities and consumed by the madness that overtook her. Constant confrontations with startled demons and the political intrigues dominating the realm plunged her into a constant state of paranoia.

Physically, she experienced alarming changes. She felt as if her bones stretched and rearranged within her skin, making her feel as though every part of her body was on the brink of breaking. Her skin burned with an internal fever that seemed endless, while her once bright and lively eyes now clouded with unsettling darkness. There were moments when she feared she would go blind. Luckily, there was someone who accompanied her in her struggle. Zestial became her faithful companion, sent by Lucifer to care for her. Although initially his presence was simply by order of the King, over time, the demon developed his own motivation to stay by Carmilla's side. Whenever she found herself on the verge of collapse, Zestial was there to support her, easing her physical pain and providing comfort in the darkest moments.

Like the time he entered her office, expecting to find her hard at work, accompanied by the sound of her pencil dancing on paper. Reality couldn't be more different, an odd stillness hung between those four walls, interrupted only by the distant murmur of the city. Frowning, he approached Carmilla's desk and leaned down to look underneath. There, in the dim light, lay Carmilla, with a bottle of alcohol in hand. The dim light filtering through the room barely illuminated her figure, but Zestial could clearly discern the lost gleam in her eyes and the tension in her shoulders.

"What are you doing down there, little one?" he asked softly, trying not to sound too surprised or critical.

"It's nothing, Zestial," she murmured, trying to find the right words as she struggled to emerge from her hiding spot. "Do you need something?"

"No, dear, I was just passing by the neighborhood and wanted to see how you were."

"Oh, I'm fine…thank you," Carmilla replied after a few seconds, waiting to see if he would say or do anything else, but Zestial didn't think beyond the formalities.

"Well, now that I know you're okay, I'll leave."

With a farewell bow, Zestial walked away towards the door, leaving Carmilla in her office with her thoughts. In those moments, her feelings were still a mystery, she was such an admirable woman, and so unattainable. She was just a girl, the culmination of thousands of years of refinement, perfected into a delicate silhouette. What was she thinking? She was God's daughter, his favorite after Lucifer, and he considered himself unworthy of something he considered so pure. Despite the murky nature of the business Carmilla handled, she had never indiscriminately killed or hurt those she believed innocent. She remained as just as when they were above, and he knew she would never change.

As his thoughts fluttered in his mind, he stepped into the elevator to press the button for the first floor, but just as the doors closed, someone descended from the continuous elevator and passed in front of him. Their eyes met for a brief moment, and Zestial felt a shiver run down his spine as the other man gave him an enigmatic smile. A whisper escaped his lips, "Araziel." What would that infamous man want with Carmilla? The mere idea deeply unsettled him.

As the elevator descended, Zestial couldn't help but look up, to the top floor of the building. He imagined Araziel in Carmilla's office, wondering what kind of shady business they could be conducting. Although he had no concrete evidence, his instinct told him that Araziel's presence boded ill. After all, he was never interested in supporting Lucifer, but in saving his own neck from Michael's sword. Finally, the elevator reached the first floor, and Zestial stepped out with firm steps. Although his mind was filled with doubts and worries, he knew he had to keep his composure and move forward. If Araziel posed a threat to Carmilla, he would be there to protect her, no matter the consequences.

Zestial observed the increasingly frequent visits of Araziel to the building, bringing sweets, flowers, clothes, gestures that he deemed too empty. Worried about what he might be doing, he decided to address the issue directly with Carmilla. He approached her one day while she worked at her desk and noticed some fresh flowers placed in a nearby vase.

"Are these from Araziel?" Zestial asked, pointing to the bouquet with curiosity.

Carmilla looked up, surprised by his question.

"Have you been spying on me?" Zestial frowned, offended.

"No, of course not," Carmilla raised an eyebrow, she couldn't lie. "Maybe. But it's hard not to notice when a man sends you flowers so frequently."

Carmilla became defensive, crossing her arms over her chest.

"And what if he sends me flowers? It's none of your business, Zestial."

"I know, but…" he tried to explain, but Carmilla cut him off abruptly.

"I don't need your opinion on my personal life, understood?" she said, her voice rising with each word. "So I would appreciate it if you stopped sticking your nose where it doesn't belong."

Zestial felt hurt by the acrimony in Carmilla's words, but he knew he couldn't back down.

"I'm sorry if I've offended you, Carmilla, but I'm just worried about you. Araziel is not to be trusted, and…"

"And what? Are you now the guardian of my morality?" she interrupted him again, with a flash of anger in her eyes. "I don't need anyone to tell me who I can or cannot associate with."

"Yes. You're right. You're an adult woman and can make decisions on your own."

With a resigned sigh, Zestial walked away, leaving Carmilla alone. He couldn't help but feel a profound anguish for her. He knew Araziel was a danger to anyone, especially after disappearing from their lives, but he also understood that he couldn't force Carmilla to see the truth if she wasn't ready to accept it. Meanwhile, in the office, the seraphim slumped heavily into the back of her chair, feeling the weight of the argument, an unusual event. Part of her was uneasy about Zestial's warnings, and the other was desperate to feel loved again. The sound of the phone interrupted her thoughts, and as she answered, she couldn't help but wonder about the spider's reasons for spying on her. But for now, she decided to ignore her doubts and move forward with her own plans.

The phone call was from Araziel, who invited her out that night. Wanting to distract her mind from work, she eagerly accepted the invitation. Shortly after, the fallen angel arrived to pick her up, and together they headed to a nightclub. The atmosphere was charged with energy and excitement, and Carmilla was swept away by the music and flashing lights. Throughout the night, they shared laughter and conversation, and for a moment, Carmilla was able to forget her worries and enjoy the moment.

Carmilla was carried away by the intoxication and seduction of Araziel, unable to resist his charms in her vulnerable state. Her senses clouded by alcohol led her into a whirlwind of confusing sensations as she found herself enveloped in the arms of one who, until recently, was just a memory in her mind.

In a moment of fleeting lucidity, Carmilla realized that something was terribly wrong. Her mind struggled to break through the veil of drunkenness, reminding her that her tolerance for alcohol was considerable and that she shouldn't be so out of control. But before she could react, it was already too late. Araziel had her cornered against the wall, his seductive words echoing in her ears as she fought to find a way out. Fear gripped Carmilla as she realized the trap she had fallen into. She tried to fight against Araziel's grip, but her efforts were in vain, much like what happened with Adam. Carmilla deeply regretted having fought with Zestial, praying that even after the argument, he would still be spying on her. But at that moment, she was completely alone, at the mercy of one who had once been her downfall and now revealed himself as her worst nightmare.

"What's the matter, pajarito?" Araziel whispered with a mocking smile, his hot breath brushing against Carmilla's ear as he held her pinned. "I thought you'd like to fly again."

Carmilla swallowed hard, feeling disgust and anger mixed within her. Araziel's words made her feel small, defenseless, as if she were prey in the hands of a cunning and ruthless predator. On one hand, she hated herself for being so vulnerable, for allowing herself to fall once again into the clutches of someone like him. She berated herself in her mind, wondering how she could be so foolish, so weak, how she could allow herself to be used again. As her lips met Araziel's in a kiss filled with desperation, tears welled up in her closed eyes. She felt as though she were betraying every promise she had made to herself, every ideal she had fervently defended. But at the same time, there was a part of her that was swept away by the intoxicating sensation of the moment, a part of her that desperately longed to feel desired and loved, even if it was by someone as despicable as Araziel.

Although she knew she was playing with fire, it was as if an irresistible force propelled her forward, as if she were trapped in an endless cycle of self-destruction from which she could not escape. And amidst that emotional whirlwind, there was something unsettling about the way Araziel held her, something that made her doubt her own perceptions, her ability to distinguish between right and wrong. Was there a part of her that desired this, that enjoyed that depravity as much as he did?

Then, she woke up, with a heavy heart and a mind clouded by a pain she had not experienced before. On the nightstand, a note written in elegant cursive accompanied a tray with tea and cookies. With trembling hands, she picked it up and began to read the words printed on the paper. The letter, though brief, was filled with sweet words and compliments, promises of future encounters and gestures of affection. For a moment, Carmilla allowed herself to be carried away by the illusion that maybe, just maybe, she could find comfort in Araziel's arms.

"Carmilla? Are you there?" Zestial's voice echoed through the intercom, full of concern. "Hey, I wanted to apologize. I know I had no right to spy on you, but you must know that I thought I was doing the right thing."

Carmilla struggled to get up from the floor, stopping in front of her friend's image on the screen.

"After all, it's what guardian angels do." He chuckled to himself, awaiting her response. "Milla, are you there?"

The woman's finger hovered a few millimeters away from pressing the button to answer; she knew exactly what he would say upon seeing her in that state, and the last thing she wanted was to face the possible humiliation of admitting her weakness to him. Pride was her greatest sin, just like her brother's. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes as she wrestled with her own conflicting emotions, wondering if she would be able to face the look of disappointment in Zestial's eyes if she showed him her true, vulnerable, and fractured self.

With a resigned sigh, Carmilla finally made a decision, accepting that she wasn't ready to confront Zestial's words at that moment. She watched in silence as her friend's image disappeared from the intercom, feeling a weight of guilt mixed with relief in her heart. Once she was sure she was free from interruptions, she sat down on the bed, feeling the mattress embrace her tired body. Her eyes landed on the tray. With trembling hands, she picked up the tray, and as she savored the breakfast Araziel had prepared, she allowed herself to indulge in a brief moment of indulgence, setting aside her worries and fears for just a moment to simply enjoy the comforting taste of the food. If this was her hell, she would find a way to make the most of it.

Thus, the relationship between Carmilla and Araziel became a decades-long dance, a power game in which both had a role to play. Carmilla, accustomed to being in charge of everything, found a perverse pleasure in relinquishing control to Araziel, allowing him to take the lead in her bed and in her life. Araziel, on the other hand, was like a insatiable wolf, always hungry for more, for power, for dominance. His presence was intoxicating, his touch a drug that left Carmilla craving more, even knowing that each encounter dragged her deeper into the darkness of her own damnation. She became addicted to that toxicity, finding a strange satisfaction in the sensation of danger and abandon that accompanied each encounter with Araziel. Although her rational mind knew it was a dangerous game, her heart longed for the whirlwind of emotions he provided, clinging to it desperately, even when reason told her she should flee.

The routine repeated itself over and over again, each encounter hotter and wilder than the last, each dawn bringing with it a mixture of pleasure and guilt that threatened to consume her completely. Deep down, Carmilla knew she was trapped in a cycle from which she could not escape, that her fate was inexorably linked to Araziel's, and a ring was just a way of letting him see.

"Then you got married," Carmilla had gone with Rosie to ask her for a new dress, since the ones she had were a bit tight.

"I guess it was only a matter of time," she said, looking at herself in the mirror. She had given a part of herself to Araziel, a pact that went beyond the physical and delved into the depths of their souls.

"Are you happy with that?" Rosie was one of the few born in hell in whom Carmilla fully trusted, from the first moment she was very attentive to her. Now, as she adjusted a tape measure around Carmilla's waist, she smiled.

"Happy?"

Carmilla let out a bitter laugh, more a sigh of resignation than a gesture of genuine joy. Rosie's words made her reflect on the nature of her relationship with Araziel, a union marked by passion and intensity, but also by darkness and manipulation.

"I don't know if 'happy' is the right word," Carmilla finally replied, her voice laden with ambiguity. "It's complicated, you know? Sometimes I feel like I'm drowning, like I'm trapped and can't escape. But other times… Well, there are moments when I feel alive in a way I've never experienced before."

Rosie nodded understandingly, her eyes reflecting empathy for Carmilla's situation.

"I understand what you mean. Relationships, especially in hell, are rarely simple."

Carmilla noticed Rosie's understanding gaze, a spark of surprise flickering in her eyes. Although she had always admired Rosie's strength and confidence, she had never imagined that she, too, faced her own personal battles.

"Forgive me. I spoke as if I were the only one with problems," Carmilla asked curiously, feeling an unexpected connection with her friend. "It's just… you always seem to be okay."

Rosie let out an ironic laugh, adjusting the tape measure around Carmilla's waist with a mechanical gesture.

"You can never know the reality behind a smile, dear," Her voice had a somber tone, laden with past experiences. "My ex-husband was a jerk, often crossing my boundaries, and he ended up tangling with someone much worse in the end."

"And why were you with him for so many years?"

"For the same reason you married the jerk Araziel," Carmilla was momentarily speechless, surprised by Rosie's frankness. "Sometimes, it's easier to cling to what we know, even if it hurts us."

Rosie continued to take measurements as she changed the subject, trying to lighten the mood with a touch of humor.

"By the way, it looks like someone has been eating too many chocolates," she joked as she took notes in her agenda.

Carmilla let out a nervous giggle, aware of her oversight. Rosie gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder, softening the tone of her words.

"Don't worry about it, darling. With everything you've been going through, it's completely understandable! Besides, your breasts have grown quite a bit, which is good since before you looked like a board."

Carmilla blushed intensely at Rosie's comment, feeling uncomfortable and embarrassed by the direct observation about her body. Instinctively, she covered herself with her hands, trying to hide her body as her face burned with shame. Though she struggled to keep a straight face, she pushed her friend away to make her stop.

"Oh, I'm sorry, honey!" Rosie exclaimed, laughing, as she tried to contain her joy. "I couldn't help it. But seriously, don't worry so much about a few extra pounds. You look beautiful anyway!"

Later, Carmilla bid farewell to Rosie with a warm hug and a forced smile, trying to hide the growing anxiety within her. She appreciated her friend's company, but a sense of unease persisted in her mind as she walked through the dark streets of the city. Nervously playing with the ring on her hand, she tried to clear her mind, but worries continued to haunt her like shadows in the night. Every step she took echoed in the silence of the night, increasing her sense of loneliness and vulnerability. She forced herself to take deep breaths to calm the nausea that was beginning to rise, fighting against the wave of discomfort that threatened to overwhelm her.

Carmilla had barely walked a block when she felt someone following her. Her heart began to pound in her chest, and a shiver ran down her spine as she nervously looked around, searching for any sign of danger in the shadows of the infernal night. Then, suddenly, Araziel appeared at her side, his sudden presence causing Carmilla to come to a sudden stop, her nerves on edge.

"Araziel!" exclaimed Carmilla, feeling a mixture of relief and anxiety at recognizing her husband. "Did you follow me here?" she inquired, her tone reflecting her irritation and distrust.

"I just missed you so much, mi parito," Araziel said, as if it were the most natural explanation in the world, as they continued walking towards the elevator terminal. "Come on, I made a reservation at Ozzie's."

The name of the place made Carmilla shudder slightly. Ozzie's, Asmodeus's house, a venue known for its atmosphere charged with eroticism and lust. It was not exactly where she wanted to be at that moment, she knew exactly what they were going for. Asmodeus was known for his arrogant and boastful attitude, especially when it came to his reputation as the embodiment of lust. There was no doubt that he would seize the opportunity to humiliate her, as he did with other demons. The idea of being exhibited as Araziel's property filled her with disgust, but for the time being, she decided to play his game, even though her heart beat with a mixture of anxiety and disgust.

Araziel didn't let go of Carmilla at any moment as they walked to the terminal, one only accessible to demons born in hell, or like them, born in heaven. His grip was firm, almost possessive, as if he wanted to make sure she didn't escape.

Once inside Ozzie's, it was as if the atmosphere itself was imbued with palpable sensuality. Neon lights blinked in vibrant hues, illuminating the place with an almost hypnotic intensity. The loud music resonated in their ears, mingling with the whispers and laughter of those present. It was a place where the darkest and most sinful desires mingled freely in the air. Asmodeus observed from his position behind the scenes the two fallen angels, as they sat at a table near the stage. The way Araziel ordered on behalf of Carmilla did not go unnoticed by him. He knew that in that relationship, Araziel exerted dominant control, relegating Carmilla to a secondary role.

But the sight of the two wasn't the only thing that caught Asmodeus's attention. He also saw Zestial in the distance, who had spent the last few years wandering in the Ring of Greed. A malicious smile formed on his lips as he plotted a way to play with them. He knew beforehand that Zestial had some kind of interest in the Duchess of Hell, as she was often called in those days, given that the title of "princess" had been occupied by Lucifer's daughter. Asmodeus decided it would be entertaining to play with the dynamics between the three of them. He planned to take advantage of the situation to test Zestial's limits and provoke a bit of chaos in the process. He was a master at manipulating the emotions and desires of others, and this situation promised to be a deliciously twisted game for him. With a mischievous look, he prepared to enter the scene and start his little game of seduction and manipulation.

"Carmilla, my Lady! What a surprise to see you here!" exclaimed Asmodeus theatrically, bowing slightly like a courtier of hell.

"Asmodeus, it will always be a pleasure to see you," Carmilla responded, trying to maintain her composure despite the discomfort she felt in his presence.

"And what brings you to these sinful lands?" he inquired with genuine interest.

"It's our anniversary," Araziel replied with a proud smile, gripping Carmilla's hand tightly.

"Oh, really! How many years has it been?" Asmodeus asked, raising an eyebrow with genuine interest.

"Too many to count," Carmilla replied with a forced laugh, trying to divert attention from the uncomfortable question.

"Don't be modest, dear! For us demons, a century is just a few minutes of our vast existence," insisted Asmodeus, with a playful smile that revealed his enjoyment of putting her in a tight spot.

Carmilla exchanged a quick glance with Araziel before responding cautiously, "A millennium."

Asmodeus put a hand on Carmilla's waist with a familiarity that made her tense slightly. His playful smile widened as he gave Araziel a mocking look.

"A thousand years, you say!" he exclaimed with a tone of feigned disbelief. "It must have been quite a challenge to keep her satisfied for so long, Araziel! Or do you have some tricks to share with us? I would love to hear them."

Carmilla looked away, trying to ignore the intense gaze of the demon. Asmodeus, having set up his play, headed towards where Zestial was. He ordered with a simple gesture to the imps in charge of lighting to turn on a spotlight on Zestial, highlighting his figure amidst the darkness of the venue. The woman, seeing Zestial shining under the spotlights, felt a mixture of emotions that hit her hard. For years, she had wished to see him again, but she could never reach him. Unable to contain herself, Carmilla jumped to her feet, her heart pounding in her chest as she stared fixedly at Zestial, as if time had stopped around her.

[nahoney22]

His Little Armourer

Tech X F!Reader

word count: 3.4k

When Tech sends his and his teammates helmets away to be repaired, he becomes very intrigued as to who’s markings are now engraved into his helmet. After hearing high praise, he makes it his mission to go meet this armourer.

warnings: none, safe for work. Strangers to friends to lovers. Reader is confident and a little hostile at first. Tech develops a crush, reader is female. This is mainly Tech’s POV but towards the end drifts to readers POV.

Authors note: this was a request sent in by @krisyona1994 - sorry for the wait but I hope you enjoy.

Masterlist

My Ko-Fi

The Marauder was shrouded in a stillness that was only ever broken by the hum of Tech's clanking as he busied himself at his workbench. But his concentration was abruptly shattered by a throat-clearing noise that made him look up to see Hunter sauntering in, his helmet in hand and a satisfied smirk on his face.

"Tech, where did you send our helmets to get fixed?" Hunter queried, his eyes flickering with curiosity.

Tech swiveled around in his chair to face his sergeant, his eyes narrowing slightly as he considered the question. "I received a lead from one of Cid's associates about a workshop that specialises in gear repairs," he replied. "Why do you ask? Is everything satisfactory with your helmet?"

Hunter's face broke into a grin as he examined his helmet closely. "Yeah, they did a decent job. My filters are clearer, and my senses aren't going haywire anymore," he said, his eyes bright with appreciation. "In fact, I think they did a better job than you," he added teasingly.

Tech bristled slightly at Hunter's comment, but he quickly waved it off with a dismissive gesture. "My expertise lies in data and technology, not armor repairs," he retorted.

Hunter chuckled and clapped Tech on the shoulder, his expression friendly. "Relax, Tech, I'm just messing with you. But seriously, you should get your helmet fixed too. The others are all raving about how much better theirs are. Why not give it a shot?" he suggested.

Tech considered Hunter's words carefully, feeling a slight twinge of pride at the thought of someone else tampering with his valuable gear. But as he looked around at the other members of his team, he realised that it could be worth it if it meant getting their constant nagging off his back. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to have a professional take a look," he conceded, his voice tinged with reluctance.

After Hunter departed, Tech turned his attention back to his workbench, his gaze falling upon his helmet, which was still in dire need of repair. He examined the rough edges and malfunctioning visor with a critical eye, knowing that as a Clone who should be a master in this field, he knew he was more than capable of fixing it himself. Yet with the overwhelming positive feedback from his brothers being hard to ignore, he reluctantly sent his helmet off to the unknown workshop.

As he waited for his helmet to be returned, Tech found himself struggling to focus on his work, his mind constantly preoccupied with thoughts of the potential outcomes. He worried that someone might ruin one of the few things he knew like the back of his hand. But after just two days, his helmet was returned to him, its functionality and craftsmanship vastly improved.

Upon his return to the team, Tech was met with eager faces all waiting for his report. He examined his helmet with care, running his fingers over the gear. "I'll have to go on a mission to give a more accurate report," he said with a hint of satisfaction. "But I have to admit, I'm thoroughly impressed so far."

The team erupted in cheers, with Wrecker slapping Tech on the back so hard it nearly sent him through the windshield. Tech couldn't help but grin quietly to himself at their enthusiasm.

Obviously Tech had always been fascinated by the intricacies of his gear, but never truly appreciated the craftsmanship behind it all. So, when an upcoming mission was put on them after his helmet repairs, he was pleasantly surprised.

At first, Tech had been skeptical. The notion that someone or anybody could rival the expertise of what was the Galactic Republic's own technicians as well as his own brain seemed almost ludicrous to him. However, his doubts were quickly quelled after seeing the results firsthand. The repairs, just as the others had said, were flawless. The attention to detail unparalleled, and the improvements made to his helmet alone were worth the effort.

As he inspected the sleek new design, Tech couldn't help but feel a sense of awe. The visor was crystal clear, the readings precise, and the jagged edges smoothed out to perfection. It was as if he was seeing the world through new eyes.

In the days that followed, Tech found himself sending other parts of his gear off for repairs. He had initially thought it might have been a fluke, a one-time success, but after seeing the improvements to Hunter's sensitivity to texture and Wrecker's comfortability in his helmet which was usually too tight, he knew it was something special.

But naturally, Tech's curiosity wasn't quenched just yet. He wanted to know who was behind the magic, who was the mastermind behind the flawless repairs. So one night when the others were sleeping to the gentle hum of the ship as it traveled through hyperspace, he inspected the others' helmets one by one when he noticed something peculiar - a small mark etched into each one. It was the same mark on each helmet, a symbol he couldn't quite place.

Without hesitation, Tech grabbed one of his many devices and began scanning the mark inside Echo's helmet, then his own and the others. He was determined to get to the bottom of this mystery, to uncover the identity of the skilled worker behind the helmets.

After just a few minutes of analysing the data, Tech had his answer. The mark led him to a small workshop on a remote planet in the outer rim, a planet that had been inhabited for ages. Clearly those who once served the Republic, if the worker had even worked for them in the first place, now had to seek refuge in the far reaches of the galaxy.

When the others said they wanted to take a break from missions, Tech knew this was his opportunity to meet the person behind all the repairs. From helmets to pauldrons, everything they received back had been perfect. He had already sent off his helmet for yet another ‘repair’ and so he took off with the ship. He had given his brothers a vague answer when they asked where he was headed, he punched in the coordinates he managed to trace and zoomed off to the outer rim.

Once landed, he sensed a mixture of intrigue and excitement as his eyes scanned the barren landscape. The workshop itself was modest and unassuming, but as Tech stepped inside he was immediately struck by the level of craftsmanship and attention to detail on display. Every tool and piece of machinery was in its proper place, and the air was thick with the smell of oil and metal. Though, it was very quiet.

As Tech approaches the man behind the counter that he didn’t even notice at first, he can't help but notice the thick boots propped up on the desk and the man's head tilted back with eyes closed, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. It's a strange sight, considering how desolate and quiet the environment is. One would expect for someone to be upright and attentive - obviously not.

Tech clears his throat and gently strums his fingers over the surface to grab the man's attention. "Excuse me?"

The man opens his eyes slowly, emitting a heavy sigh from his lips. "Yes?" he replies uninterestedly, giving off an air of nonchalance that leaves Tech feeling somewhat disconcerted.

"I'm here in regards to an order," Tech says simply, his tone clipped and business-like. The man grunts and sits up properly, casting a bored look at Tech before glancing over his shoulder to the workshop in the far back.

"HEY!"

The shout startles Tech, the suddenness of it breaking the previously subdued quietness of the place. There's a brief pause before the man bellows out again, his voice booming and echoing through the workshop.

"I SAID ‘HEY’!"

"Kriff sake! What?" a female voice calls back, her tone irritated and impatient. The sound of clattering tools and metal hitting the desk and floor follows her words, suggesting that she's in the middle of something.

"A guy is here about an order," the man replies, his voice bored once more. When the voice from the back of the workshop asks who it's for and Tech recites the order number, a scoff of laughter is returned.

"Already? I've only just started!"

Tech peeks over the man's shoulder to see a figure hunched over a workbench, their face obscured by the project they're working on. Upon closer inspection, it's his helmet - the one he sent for repairs - and it becomes clear that this must be the person responsible for all the repairs.

Against all expectations, the guard seemed indifferent to Tech's request and granted him access after he asked. As Tech entered the back of the workshop where you were, he couldn't help but notice how immaculate everything looked. Most of the tools lay either untouched or had been meticulously cleaned, leading him to wonder if the you was a perfectionist or if it was merely a symptom of the barren planet. Or maybe he was just a messy worker…

When his eyes land on you properly, he’s a little taken aback. And he’s not too sure as to why.

You were dressed in oil-stained overalls, donning goggles that looked almost identical to his, except for the dark blue panes that adorned them. Every movement you made was calculated, precise, and deliberate. You manipulated the tools with such grace and dexterity that it was clear to him you may have had years of experience. It’s rare Tech finds himself in awe but in this moment, he definitely was.

“You shouldn’t be back here, sir.” Your voice brings him out of his trance, his heart skipping a beat at the sound of your voice addressing him.

“I apologise,” he replies, trying to ignore that inexplicable feeling of his chest tightening as he approaches you cautiously, “he just let me in.”

“Of course he did,” you grunt, sparks flying in front of your face as you do some minor welding that you seem completely unfazed by. As you sit back and inspect your work, you then look up to the man who wandered into the back of your shop. You push the helmet to the side briefly, and wipe your forehead with a rag and lean back on your stool with your arms crossed. “Are you here to make a complaint? If so, you can fill one out and I’ll pretend to care as I pretend to read it before throwing it in the trash.”

Tech pauses, sensing your hostility with ease. Clearly you were not someone to be trifled with which is exactly what he didn’t want to do. “I was actually just passing through.”

You raise a brow at him and study him intently. Though, Tech could get the gist that you could see right through him. “Hm, is that so?”

“Indeed.” Tech says, almost breathlessly as he tries to hood your strong and powerful gaze.

You strum your fingers over your thigh, as if thinking whilst you chew on the inside of your cheek as you try to suppress a smile. It didn’t take a genius to recognise that this helmet obviously belonged to him which left you ever more curious as to why he decided to come and see you. After all, you were in the middle of nowhere. You’re ever intrigued to know how he found you.

You look down and across to his helmet, fingers tracing over the white markings. “Your helmet is one I’ve enjoyed working on the most.”

Tech slowly creeps forward until he is standing beside you, looking at his helmet also. “I have to say I was apprehensive about handing over my gear to someone I do not know. More so because this is not exactly a business with many patrons.”

You breathe out a short laugh but nod your head understandingly. “May not have much, but I am one of the best.”

“Then why the hostility in regards to complaints?”

“Because my work has nothing to ever be complained about. I am confident in my craft. Also,” you start with a small smirk, “you came to find me.”

Tech couldn't help but feel a flutter in his chest at the sight of your smirk. There was something about the way you carried yourself, with an air of confidence and a hint of playfulness, that kept drawing him in. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he was certain that he wanted to know more about you.

“Granted I did analyse the mark you left in my helmet along with my brothers too. We… are very pleased with your work.”

“And only you came to see me? Or were you just ‘passing through’, like you said?” The smirk returns, causing Tech's breath to catch in his throat.

“You may have caught me out about that,” he says sheepishly, “but I was curious to see how you work and what else you could improve my helmet with.”

"Well," you smile, clinking your tools on the workbench and pulling the helmet closer to you, "I was thinking of fixing the antennas, rewiring the circuits, and even adding a larger boost. But since you're here sir, what would you like me to do?"

He’s is gawping at you, quite adorably, enamored and enjoying the sound of you talking. “Tech will do just fine.”

“Pleasure.” You stick your hand out, slipping your glove of and attaching it to his own whilst responding with your own name.

From then on, the pair of you sat together and for a job that should have only taken an hour, nightfall soon fell on you both. Turns out the pair of you had lots in common including running from the Empire which is why you ended up where you were.

From that point on, the two of you work together. However, what should have only taken an hour extends into the nightfall as the pair of you chat about your shared past of running from the Empire. You had originally been stationed on Coruscant, but when the Empire discovered your talents, you fled to a remote planet where you could continue your work without any Imperial interference. Only your employees knew of your whereabouts and were careful with whom they shared that information.

“Would you not consider moving to a more hospitable planet at some point? I can not imagine that you have much fun in a place like this? Plus an armorer is surely more required in times like this.” Tech questions, pushing his goggles up his nose meanwhile yours are placed on the top of your head.

You thought about his question before shrugging. “Maybe. But at times I like the solace… I like doing my own thing without having someone breathe down my neck. Also, I still get nervous at the thought of the Empire finding me and forcing me to make stuff for them.” You shudder at the thought, the new Empire never sitting right with you.

Tech understands your reservations - though - was hoping you would consider the latter. After all, he and his brothers as well as Omega can’t come to a place like this. There’s no means of work or anywhere by the looks of it… however it did seem a good place to lay low for a while too if they were to ever get into trouble. Before he could say anything, his comm starts to beep followed by Hunter asking that they need him back for a mission.

As Tech turned to leave, you couldn't help but feel a twinge of disappointment at the sudden end to your time together. You masked it with a smile and reached up to pat the top of his helmet. "Good job it's all finished and good to go, Tech," you said, your voice light but your heart heavy.

Standing up, you watched as Tech did the same. As you handed him his helmet, your hands accidentally touched, sending a jolt of electricity through both of your bodies. The palpable energy that passed between you was undeniable, though you both tried to ignore it.

Your eyes met, and you knew that a silent conversation was taking place. You felt a warmth rising in your cheeks, a feeling you hadn't experienced in a long time. As you let go of his helmet, you apologised softly, trying to hide your emotions.

Tech seemed flustered as well, but he said nothing. "I am sure I will be sending some more gear to you soon. If you would like to work on our stuff again?" His voice was quiet but he was also trying to break the tension.

Your heart skipped a beat. Of course, you wanted to work on his gear again. But you found yourself wanting something more. Maybe it’s because you’ve been alone for so long and never had a real connection with anyone but him before. So, you took a daring step closer to him, feeling the energy between you intensify. "Yeah, I'll work on your stuff," you said quietly, "if you'll come back and pick them up yourself again?"

Tech's hands clenched at your proposal, and he looked down at you, studying your very pretty eyes. You held your breath, waiting for his response. Finally, he spoke. "Of course," he said, and you felt your heart flutter with excitement.

You watch him walk away, feeling a pang of something you can't quite put your finger on. But you push it aside and get back to work, grateful for the distraction.

The next few weeks pass by in a blur of work, with occasional visits from Tech to drop off more gear for you to work on. You find yourself looking forward to his visits, enjoying the company as well as the conversation. Even if he does have a lot to say.

One day, as you're in the middle of repairing a chest plate, you hear the workshop door swoosh open. Glancing up you find yourself grinning upon seeing Tech standing there, holding a datapad.

"Hey," you greet him, setting the workload down. "What brings you here today?" You question him with a playful smile which he beautifully matched.

"I was hoping you could help me with something," he says, holding out the datapad. "It's not exactly armor-related, but I know you're good with technology."

You take the datapad and scan through the information, nodding as you go. "Yeah, I can definitely help with this. Shouldn't take too long either."

"Great," Tech says with a smile. "I'll leave you to it then.”

Tech stands by somewhat awkwardly, his fingers absently strumming against the side of his legs as he looked as though he was plucking up the courage to say something. You thought it was odd anyway that Tech would ask you to look at his datapad as he was definitely better suited for that area of expertise rather than yourself but as you glance his way, seeing the nervous expression on your face you had to ask what he was thinking.

“I was wondering if you wanted to grab a drink later? I know there is not much here but when you finish I would be happy to escort you to a place not too far from here on my ship.” He holds his breath.

You feel your heart race at the invitation, surprised but pleased. Very pleased. "Yeah, I'd like that."

The rest of the night is a blur when you meet up with Tech after work. One full of laughter, drinks, and good conversation. Both of you find yourselves enjoying Tech's company more and more with each passing minute, feeling a connection that was impossible to lose.

As the night comes to an end, Tech flies you back to your designated planet and walks you back to your workshop, one you slept upstairs in.

Both of you came to a stop outside the door, a soft wind surrounding you both. "I had a really great time tonight," he says, looking at you with an intensity that sends shivers down your spine.

"Me too," you say, feeling the warm air between you charged with something you can't quite place. "Thank you for inviting me out. It’s been a long time since I’ve done anything like this.”

Tech steps closer, his hand reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear in quite a suave manner for someone like him.

"Can I kiss you?" he asks softly, his eyes searching yours for any sign of hesitation.

You don't hesitate, leaning up to meet his lips in a kiss that sets your body on fire. How lucky you were to know someone as smart as him to track you down and win your heart by your maker's mark.

Tags: @nunanuggets @andyoufollowyourheart @littlefeatherr @kaitou2417 @eyecandyeoz @captxin-rex @jesseeka @ashotofspotchka a @oohyesplease @megafrost4 @theroguesully @equalityforcats @mustluvecho @misogirl828 @ladykatakuri @jambolska-grozdova @chxpsi @arctrooper69 @padawancat97 @rain-on-kamino @either-madness-or-brilliance @staycalmandhugaclone @ko-neko-san @echos-girlfriend @fiveshelmet @dangraccoon @plushymiku-blog @chrissywakingup @kixs-husband @tech-aficionado @grizabellasolo @therealnekomari @tech-depression-inventory @brynhildrmimi @greaser-wolf @tinyreadersmur @seriowan @agenteliix @kaminocasey @marvel-starwars-nerd @ladytano420 @imalovernotahater @swiftiexstarwarssimp @the-good-shittt @whore4rex @imperialclaw801 @temple-elder @erellenora @photogirl894

[roo-bastmoon]

BTS Tutorial: YOUTUBE

Streaming on YouTube (on your phone or web browser) helps BTS members’ songs chart on Billboard and for other awards. It’s actually hugely important and one of our most useful tools, since we don’t get radio play.

You need to follow some simple guidelines to make sure your streams here count.

First, get in the habit of always signing in to your YouTube profile.

If you can sign up for a Premium account free trial, your streams count three times as much!

Next, save the official BTS channels, artists, songs, and playlists you like to your Library.

Please try to play the latest songs as least once a day, then work on milestone goals for the group when you can.

Here’s a great example of a playlist to bookmark and run in the background of your day:

Now, when it comes time to stream FACE, be sure to like <3 and subscribe to the OFFICIAL RELEASE.

The first 24 hours are the most critical, followed by the first week.

UPDATE: Billboard only counts the first 50 times you play a song in a 24-hour period. For a whole album plus filler songs, that might be doable. To chart a single, you’ll need to make more than one premium free trial account. You must be logged in for your streams to count.

This will be true for the title track prerelease on March 17th and for the entire album release on March 24th.

Do not click on lyrics videos, reaction videos, or anything except the OFFICIAL RELEASE from the OFFICIAL SOURCE.

Sometimes clout chasers will make their channels and videos look very similar to the real deal; don’t give away your streams!

So you’re going to want to sign in and turn off Autoplay and Shuffle settings.

Then click on the official music video(es).

Plug in some headphones if you like, but keep volume in YouTube and on your device at 51%. They say they don’t track device settings but I think it’s just better to be safe than sorry.

Play the entire song. All of it. Wait for it to be fully done. Even if you are on a free account and must endure ads. Even if the ads are at the end.

Once the song(s) finishes, click on something else. Another BTS video is great. Let that play for at least 30 seconds, up to 60 seconds to be safe.

Then this is important: go to the search bar. Search the official name of the song or album. Find the official music video from the search bar. Click it. Play it all the way through.

Yes, this is manual labor, but it’s the safest and fastest way to make sure your stream isn’t filtered so we can get the best numbers in the first 24 hours of a release.

Please try to do it this way starting the moment FACE drops and keep doing it for as long as you can.

If you have a friend in another time zone, maybe tag-team each other so someone is always streaming hard.

After that first day, you can rely on playlists. Good ones will have FACE songs often, in order of original track list, sprinkled with other BTS songs near milestones throughout.

The more you can keep an eye on your YouTube streams and get through about 30 seconds of another song, then back over to official FACE videos, the faster you will help it climb the chart.

If you just simply do not have the time and cannot interact, that’s okay. Being an ARMY involves some work, but it shouldn’t cause panic attacks. Maybe set a goal for yourself to play FACE song(s) as much as you can the first 24 hours. Try to at least play the title track 10 times that first day.

If you’re celebrating Ramadan and are forbidden at this time to play music, many people are planning to mute and stream silently. If you’re comfortable only using headphones and not playing aloud, also great. There’s a good chance it might not get filtered, so try it if you can and feel comfortable. Please always put your conscience first—Jimin would want you to honor yourself.

For those who can play on a device those first 24 hours:

Do NOT loop. Do NOT engage Autoplay. Do NOT partially play the song(s). Do NOT play any version but the official versions from BTS.

The goal in the first 24 hours is to have nice, clean streams (especially of the title track but also of all official FACE content), then click around a little bit for 30+ seconds or so, and go right back to official FACE content. If you can keep up that energy the first week, awesome. But if not, playlists are your friend.

I like to stream YouTube on my desktop and Spotify (the app itself or in a Stationhead streaming party linked to my Spotify) on my cell phone so I can have both going at once.

As far as I know, you don’t have to keep swapping out YouTube accounts because there isn’t a limit of the first 20 plays or something like that. You can just park yourself on that platform, sign into your premium trial account, play FACE, play something else for 30 seconds, and get back to FACE for as long as your endurance allows.

For more info, follow these helpful accounts on Twitter:

PJM Streaming

Jimin Charts PH

Here’s some good playlists to practice with until FACE drops:

There are some useful tips summarized here, if you want to bookmark it for future reference:

Please feel free to share this post to help spread the word. Any updated information is always most welcome!

DISCLAIMER:

I am a Dope Old Person and have been ARMY since January 2022. So I still have a lot to learn.

I’m making mini-tutorials for people like me who are comfy with technology but totally new to voting, streaming, and buying Kpop stuff.

If you know of better, more up-to-date information, please comment or DM me so I can make sure I’m not spreading misinfo. Please be polite about it, though—we are on the same team!

Feel free to apply whatever you learn here to other BTS members and other artists; I’m Jimin-biased so I am focused on helping Jimin at this moment in time, but I’m OT7 so rest assured I’ll put my shoulder to the wheel for all our members!

[somatheking]

The Genie.

In which Soma and Chishiya have a talk about the future of Hatter's cartel.

At 7:30AM the sun begins to filter in through the blinds of Soma's apartment, casting a light over the activities he'd been engaging in the previous night. It bounces off the bottles of glass that are strewn across the floor, bending and breaking off in several directions, occasionally meeting a few coloured drops of spirits still inside (brown, mostly, because Soma favours rum and whiskey, but there are a few bottles dripping in fancy shades of green, which might be absinthe, and blue, which is either blue curaçao or something else Chishiya has no clue about). The floor is a kaleidoscopic mess of colours, refracted light and stains that stick to his soles if he steps on them, though the rest of his apartment is squeaky clean. The white of the walls is unperturbed and the cushions of the sofa are plump and symmetrically disposed on the two armrests. 

It's a strange scene to walk into at 7:30AM. Soma barely owns anything and his apartment looks more like a hotel room than a place someone's lived in for over six years, plus the dissonance between the debauchery the floor suggests and the normalcy of the rest of the apartment makes it feel like Chishiya just walked into a movie set, where the director might suddenly walk in shouting 'action!', they'll take their places, and the scene will start. It's a pretty badly organised movie set, one critics would shred to pieces for the obvious falseness of it all, but he knows Soma's cleaning lady only stops by once a week and it's a pain in the ass for a blind person to clean walls and sofas, so he'll let it slide. 

Soma is, surprisingly, taking into account his constant need for attention, not in the middle of the mess. He's with his side pressed against the wall, a bottle propped below his neck and another being cradled in his arms. Given how he took the time to painstakingly place all the other bottles across the floor, it feels like the one he's carefully holding might not have been a random choice on his behalf, though Chishiya can't see the label because it's turned to face Soma's chest. What he can see, however, is how his long palmar muscle is taut, the tendon bulging against the skin of his wrist. He's awake, then. The long palmar is a muscle not every person has, but Chishiya long noticed Soma did from the hours they spent together inside a lab, watching how it flickered between tense and loose as he picked up tubes and flasks and then put them down, hypnotic and rhythmic. He's making an effort to hold the bottle. He's awake.

"Are you dead?" asks Chishiya amiably, with his hands shoved inside his pockets and standing at a prudent distance from the man. 

Soma doesn't answer. Not straight away at least. He puts on the farce of groaning with deep, gravelly voice as if to simulate a hangover, and his mouth contorts in protest before opening to drawl out the following words: "Who is this?"

Chishiya snorts. He's pushing it, over-acting. "I thought blind people were supposed to have sharper senses to make up for the lack of eyesight."

"Yes, well," replies Soma with a half-smile, propping himself up on his elbows. Even though it doesn't make much difference, his eyes open and a sliver of light shines on his left one, as if it's a scar splitting his eye in two. "Drugs fucked up the other four senses. Some more than others."

Some more than others indeed.

Soma could and should be used as part of a drug prevention program. When he scrambles up, uncoordinated and pitiful, patting the floor to search for a walking stick that is nowhere near him and all the way across the room, Chishiya thinks of how one look at him would send most people running away, speeding to make it to the nearest rehab centre. Everyone who's ever snorted a few lines of coke knows they're probably not going to end the year with their nasal septum intact, some might know there's a chance they get to see the inside of an ER from having a stroke, but only a very select few are aware that side effects are not limited to things you only see in a doctor’s notes but won’t come face to face in a mirror. They can claim whichever parts of the body they want. 

In Soma's case, they had claimed everything. There's purple patches of skin on his nose, ears and cheeks, and though clothes are currently covering the rest of his body, his thighs, lower abdomen and chest are also affected. The correct clinical term is purpura, elevated purplish lesions that whiten and hurt like a bitch when they're pressed but don't seem to bother Soma much. It's as if his body is a beggar's cloak and he keeps patching it up to the point of discoloration, or as if he's Frankenstein's monster and the foreign limbs are starting to reject him and decay. 

The incorrect term, but what it actually looks like, is rot. He looks like he’s rotting from the inside out. 

"Alright, then," says Soma, who’s finally managed to stand up. "Beach?"

Chishiya doesn't question this, even if his reason for visiting Soma is by far not going to the beach like they're friends, and he just nods. 

"Get dressed. Or rather, undressed. In any case, there's swimming trunks in the second drawer of the black wardrobe, and you already know where the bathroom is, if you don't wanna get naked in front of a blind man."

"Sure. I need to go to the bathroom anyways," replies Chishiya, grabbing a pair of swimming trunks with blue palm trees and a greenish white colour from the discoloration of pool chemicals. If only to make things quicker, Chishiya hands him an orange one and his walking stick, which Soma acknowledges with a nod. 

"I'll just change here," he mumbles, already shimmying down his trousers without caring much about Chishiya still being there. The latter, before he can see more of Soma's body than he wants to, disappears inside the bathroom, but not before catching a quick glimpse of the bottle he’d been holding in his theatrical arrangement. 

And once he sees it, he understands.

—--

“A Captain Morgan,” says Chishiya, once they’ve trudged down the ramp that leads to the beach in front of the apartment complex Soma lives in and walked into the sea until water covered their knees. “I’m surprised you remembered.” Soma had so comfortably settled into his position as consigliere that it was strange to recall the days where he simply worked as a cocaine producer for Hatter. He’d changed so radically too (cut ties with all his friends, became blind, got levamisole poisoning and a reckless and flippant attitude that never died down) and left behind so many things that it was hard to believe he hadn’t also left behind his memories of that time. But there it was, clear as day, the Captain Morgan bottle being the one cradled in his arms, when back in the day when Soma half-pretended, half-began to dip his toes into alcoholism, they’d planted a Captain Morgan bottle in the lab whenever one of them noticed a bug. 

Soma scoffs in response, kicking his leg in response to an algae getting tangled in his foot. “Give me a bit of credit here, I’m still good at what I do, even if it’s a pain in the ass these days. And it’s the only way I could think of to prevent you from blabbing anything in my place. You’ve been so persistent in trying to find me for the past week that I was afraid you’d just blurt everything out the moment you saw me.”

If Chishiya’s annoyed by this horrible judge of character, it doesn’t show. All business, sadly, no time to catch up with an old friend and trade some barbs for the sake of old times. “How long has your apartment been bugged?”

“Hard to say,” he replies with a shrug. “Lately, it feels like any idiot with half a brain decides to plant a bug in my house just for kicks. They aren’t subtle about it, either; one day someone’s gonna get the brilliant idea to plant one up my ass or something. Got me inventing a whole new code out of fucking alcohol bottles out of all things so I can communicate with my usual associates.”

“And as a result, you get drunk.”

“Hey, I'm overworked," protests Soma, albeit jokingly. "I have to make some time for my hobbies, no?" 

"Sure."

Silence falls between them. Despite how talkative Soma is, for some reason, that had never applied to Chishiya. The once extroverted, amiable man had soon understood they'd get along far better if Chishiya was left to his own devices, and now, devious and cunning, he respected him enough to not try to wrangle information out of him, and the result of it was this. Silence, only broken by the cawing of seagulls and the waves crashing against their legs. 

“Do you know about Hatter’s latest request?” suddenly asks Chishiya, as he hears the rasping sound of a lighter and turns to look at Soma, who’s produced a cigarette out of nowhere and is in the process of lighting it up. Occupied as he is, he nods at Chishiya to continue, a cloud of smoke billowing out of his lips. “He wants me to borrow, or steal, two Andean cats from the zoo.”

“Well, shit,” says Soma, with a laugh and another cloud of smoke. “He’s really lost it.”

“You don’t sound concerned.”

“Not really. If he’s commanded you to do it, I’m sure you’ll find a way around it. And, hell, it’s not the craziest thing he’s currently up to.”

Again, if Chishiya is surprised by the half compliment, it doesn’t show. “I haven’t caught wind of anything crazier than kidnapping endangered animals for the sake of putting on a show for the Chief of Police, who’s coming over for lunch.”

A sly smile stretches the edges of Soma’s lips. “Like I said, I’m still good at what I do.”

It’s not like Chishiya knows, and he’s made sure it definitely doesn’t show, but for the past few months he’s been running around like a headless chicken, playing an incessant game of Whack-a-mole. One mole pops up, Soma hits him in the head with the hammer. As soon as that one goes away, another one appears, and then another one, and another one. Too many moles, both in the figurative and the literal sense; more and more people seemed to have switched sides to either another drug cartel or to the government’s witness protection plan, and paranoia was spreading. There’s only so many moles he can take care of, so much water he can bail out of a sinking ship.

“Look, as much as I’m sure the views from here are beautiful, I’d appreciate it if you just told me what you’re here for. There’s a lot of agua viva here in summer, and I don’t want to find out what a jellyfish sting would do to the parts of my body with purpura. I might be blind, but I’m not blind, you know. If you’re here, that means you want action. You’d have gone to that kid Jordyn if all you wanted was information.”

“I think it’s time for Hatter to retire.”

It’s hard to say which is stranger, how bluntly those words came out of Chishiya’s mouth, or how despite the fact that this couldn’t be taken as anything other than treason, Soma is nonplussed. Soma, who owed his entire life to Hatter, who picked him up when his father died and found a new position for him after he became blind. Who had given him a room of his own in his mansion for whenever he needed to stay over because of business matters. Hell, Soma had been nicknamed The Genie, el genio de la lámpara, he who made Hatter’s wishes come true. Not his right-hand man, but the one who got his hands dirty so Hatter didn’t have to. 

“Yeah,” he replies, his tone as steady and nonchalant as if Chishiya had announced tomorrow was going to be hot. “I think you’re right.”

[no-droids]

Beginner’s Luck

Part Twelve of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 14.6K

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maker, why are you being so weird about this?

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

So Peli is… a character.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes,” you admit quietly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Also… girlfriend?

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Try again.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“So how did you toggle so fas—?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Okay.

Okay, so that one gets you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maker, did he just drop his fucking gun?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It sounds… wonderful.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

… What?  N… No…

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

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

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

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

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

—it hits dead center.

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

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

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

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

You do, and oh.  Oh, no.

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

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

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

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

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

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

… that’s not closed.

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

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

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

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

***

Stay tuned for the next part!

[1kook]

ZOOM CALL

⇢ meeting one

jeon jungkook x (f) reader

⇢ series masterlist

summary: In a sea of black screens and faceless names, there’s one smiley boy that beams back at you through the dimly lit screen of your laptop, a tiny Jeon Jungkook (he/him) tacked to the corner of his window. genre: fluff, slice of life, smut (tags tba) warnings: jk is a ditzy lil nerdy sweetheart, college crushes, social distancing -_-, use of the zoom app, 1kook Builds a Healthy Relationship (Version 2.0) ratings: M (18+) wc: 3.2k

notes: well. here we are. as always i have to thank common sense (coincidentally named rumu @kigurumu​ ) for reading this over and pointing out little details <3 after much deliberation, i have decided to post our beloved zoom jk (see origin story here) in the form of short ‘drabbles’ depicting diff zoom calls with this being The Beginning™️ so please... bare with me </3 ty to all the nice ppl who have been excited for this, luv u very much 🥺

There are times in human history where words captivate their audience; times when single words or phrases wrap around the listener, melt into their bones and radiate warmth from within. But rarely does one word manage such an impact, rarely is it as revered and as cherished as the word cancelled is to most college students. 

Class is cancelled, group meetings are cancelled, the stupidly big semester final project was cancelled. You could cancel nearly anything, and in most cases, it would be beautiful. Cancelled meant more time to sleep in the morning, an afternoon free of pesky project partners, a pleasant reprieve from having to socialize with anyone. It was a glorious word with heavenly connotations that brought tears of joy to your eyes whenever you saw it appear in an email preview.

Except this one.

Spring Semester 2021: On-Campus Classes CANCELLED — Social Distance Measures as per State Regula…

Your last semester as a student in university… online? You couldn’t believe it. All these years of studying rigorously, cramming for exams, attaining a near perfect GPA— just to sit in your bedroom and stare at your computer screen for the last 15 weeks of classes? Had your friends not been there to mope with you, you’re certain a part of you would have gone on a rampage and cursed every bacteria known to mankind for doing this to you.

It was your last year, you whined in private (never in public; your friends had always considered you the mature one, the studious friend who kept everyone in order), yet here you were, setting up your desk for your last ever first day of classes with quite possibly the biggest pout on your face.

Zoom, your school had raved in an email a few weeks into the break, the desktop application that will keep us united in these trying times! As if, you huffed, giving the stupid application permission to connect to your computer’s camera and audio systems. What even was proper Zoom etiquette? Did you have to enter the meeting and greet every student cheerfully? You had always said hi to your classmates before, but something about saying it over a computer mic felt awkward.

The feeling doubled when you finally entered the meeting, only to be met with a sea of black screens save for your professor, who seemed to be clicking around his computer in a rather confused fashion. This was going to suck, you thought bitterly.

You had entered the room ten minutes earlier because, well, you always showed up to class a few minutes earlier than the scheduled meeting time. But was there any point to doing that here? Usually, the time before class was spent making small talk with said classmates, discussing the readings or the assignments, talking mindlessly about whatever came to mind. But something in your gut said it would be weird to do that now.

So you sit in silence for the next ten minutes, nervously tapping your pen against your desk as you wait for the professor to launch into whatever introductory monologue he had planned. You toy with your phone, scrolling through your twitter feed only to see a brigade of tweets from students all over the nation suffering the same fate as you. It was a trending topic.

Two minutes before the class starts, you hear the tell-tale ping of someone entering the meeting. You wave it off just like you have your other 41 classmates thus far, but then there’s the clearing of a throat, and a sweet, “good morning” filtering through your speakers. Lifting your head from the hunched over position you had assumed while glancing at your phone, you’re startled by the sudden handsome face that appears before you.

In a sea of black screens and faceless names, there’s one smiley boy that beams back at you through the dimly lit screen of your laptop, a tiny Jeon Jungkook (he/him) tacked to the corner of his window.

He’s nothing short of a dreamboat, soft and doughy cheeks that catch the hue of the screen light, highlighting his cheekbones in a faint blue color. Imploring doe eyes blinking widely at the screen as he clicks around, narrating his confusion in a low mumble (mic still on, how cute). Dark hair— was it brown? black? the pixelated screen made it hard to tell —messily pushed away from his face.

And his voice, oh his voice. It matches his gentle appearance perfectly. A soft snort. “Am I the only one here?” he says, thin lips pulled to the side in a bashful grin.

The professor laughs with him. “No, but you are the only one with your camera on,” he responds.

You’re not sure if it’s the professor’s teasing jab at literally everyone else or the need to support the cutie who smiles softly at screen, but suddenly, a handful of windows come to life. Your classmates fill up the screen, dressed in an array of styles with bedrooms (and, on the rare occasion, dorm rooms) to match. You nibble at your bottom lip, finger hovering over the button that will expose your appearance to the rest of your classmates

Eventually, the wordless peer pressure, the need to be a good student, and the supportive face of Jeon Jungkook (he/him) have you inhaling sharply before dutifully clicking the camera on. Your face appears on screen, nearly lost in the now overwhelming sea of faces. You’re one of the last ones to turn your camera on, both pages of your zoom meeting participant windows filled with the contrasting images of your classmates joining from their bedrooms. The professor claps in delight, and finally dives into the mandatory first day of classes spiel.

Syllabuses, group work, asynchronous lectures. You’ve heard these words all before, have practically memorized this class’s syllabus like the back of your hand. The pros of being an overachiever. The cons are, however, that you think every question your classmates ask is stupid. Read the syllabus, you want to scream. But it’s the first day of class. You don’t even know who your assigned study group partners (as mentioned in the syllabus) are and you certainly don’t want them to dislike you so soon. They can do that after the third meeting, but not today.

You’re not entirely surprised when your attention drifts away from the professor and the endless sea of stupid questions he’s left to answer. Even when you realize you’ve stopped paying attention, you don’t bother forcing yourself to tune back in. No, instead your focus drifts across the windows of faces.

Some of your classmates are as bored as you, glaring at the screen with disinterest, or glancing off to the side probably at their phones. So you start looking at their rooms, analyzing their decorations and posters as if you’re a professional critic on some house design show.

Jeon Jungkook (he/him) is in a rather plain dorm room. Plain light gray walls— or maybe it’s white —free of decoration. He’s sitting at the provided desk, just like you. The only reason you focus on that is because there’s a multitude of your classmates lazily sprawled across their beds, slumped over a couch. Hardly anyone is sitting at attention like you. Well, except for Jeon Jungkook (he/him). He’s practically exposing the entirety of his living accommodation with the way his camera is set up.

Above eye level, reaching just below his chest, with the room all laid out before you. A neat twin bed, sheets meticulously made. It almost looks like the decorative set at a furniture store with the way the comforter and variety of pillows are placed. He doesn’t seem to be in the crappy dorms you remember, which leaves you wondering where exactly he’s been assigned. You know certain sports clubs get fancier dormitories. Anyway, there’s a door off the side of the bed, a black guitar standing in the corner just behind it. You wonder what’s behind the camera, if maybe his desk is as organized as the rest of his room. Maybe his closet is his weakness, you muse, imagining poor Jeon Jungkook (he/him) with a tornado of a closet. But the thought doesn’t make that much sense, so you discard it quickly.

Anyway, his dorm room. It’s neat and orderly, makes you tilt your head curiously as he swivels from side to side before you. As for himself, he’s dressed in a plain white sweater, hoodie strings perfectly even. His hair has long since fallen over his forehead, but he’s pushed it over this time in a fluffy side part. He was adorably soft.

He’s paying attention to the professor like he genuinely treasures every word that comes off his tongue, nodding along understandingly. He’s even got a pencil in hand, leaning forward every few seconds to scribble something down hurriedly. Not like this is all on the syllabus or anything, you think.

But as soon as the thought crosses your mind, it’s dispelled just as fast. He’s only trying to be a good student, you scold yourself, feeling oddly mean for wanting to make fun of this sweet boy. Especially when he raises his hand a second later and asks the first good question of the day. Something about the grading scale for group projects and how much is determined by the group members themselves. You’re not too sure, the words get a little fuzzy when he starts speaking and his pink lips pull down into an endearing pout.

A couple minutes later and your professor finally wraps up the questions, telling everyone to email him if any other questions arise throughout the semester. Just as you’re sighing in relief, he utters those dreaded words: “Ice-breakers!” he exclaims, and the whole class grimaces, much to his amusement. He says something about feeling the excitement through the screen, but then changes gears. “Since it’s a little hard to talk to your neighbor, I’m going to test out the Breakout Rooms and see how that works, okay guys?”

You frown. Breakout Rooms? What on earth was that? Like most of your classmates, this is pretty much your first rodeo with the Zoom application. He was sending you all into small groups, where? The answer presents itself a few seconds later, a message box appearing on your screen.

The host is inviting you to join a Breakout Room: Group 4

Your professor is still chattering in the background when you nervously accept the invitation, his voice suddenly cut off as your computer jumps to a new loading screen. It takes a while before you’re suddenly dumped into a new room. And then you’re staring at your own face, blown up on your own screen in a rather uncomfortable way. Jeez, did you really look like this?

As soon as you get to picking at your appearance, your mirrored reflection jumps to the side, once, then twice more to fit the three new guests in your room. Silence fills your bedroom as you and your classmates all stare at each other nervously for a couple seconds, unsure of what to say. This was, after all, your first meeting.

Just as you’ve gathered all your courage to click your microphone on, the screen jumps around once more and suddenly Jeon Jungkook (he/him) is in your Breakout Room. Immediately, his surprised face melts into the most reassuring grin you’ve ever seen, and he’s practically jumping forward to turn his mic on.

“Good morning, everyone,” he says, smooth and low. It’s like the awkward tension melts away under the pressure of his pretty smile, your classmates responding back with polite hellos and good mornings to him. You barely get yours in before Jeon Jungkook (he/him) starts talking again. “So… how are you guys?”

His words, sweet and caring as they are, send the five of you into a rather mindless conversation. Talking about nothing really, just whatever comes to mind about the class, about the semester, about the remote learning. Then Jungkook— “just Jungkook is fine!” he tells the other four of you with that same too pure look on his face after someone refers to him by his whole name —starts talking about some movie he had seen on Netflix the other day, something his friend recommended to him. Truthfully, you have zero interest in the type of plot he is describing, and you can tell some of the other people in your group don’t either. But he’s absorbed in his storytelling, features lit up as he details every last plot point of the film like his life depends on it. There’s a wordless agreement to let him ramble on.

By the time Jungkook has finished his novella recapture of whatever movie he was talking about, a green message bubble appears at the top of your screen. It’s a message from your professor, who is telling you the small group meeting will end in a few more minutes.

“Aw, that sucks,” Jungkook laughs, rubbing at the back of his neck sheepishly. And then, “oh! We haven’t answered our icebreaker question yet!”

Ah, yes. The reason for this small group was to get to know each other, not for Jungkook to recount an entire two hour movie for you all. “Oh, right,” you agree, probably the first words you’ve said in the past five minutes. You navigate to the chat box, where your professor had hastily dumped the question before sending you all off. “What’s one thing you miss most about being on campus?” you read aloud, glancing back at the screen.

Your group mates are all in various states of blissful comfort, the gaps of their nervousness smoothed over by Jungkook’s bubbly personality, and the hesitation they’d shown at the beginning is practically gone. Someone steps forward and says something about the campus dining hall. Jungkook laughs, loud and airy, claps his hands all cute too. Someone else says the library because it was a good place to study. There’s a lull and you jump in quickly. “I think I’ll miss the couches by the gym in the student center the most,” you confess, though you doubt anyone knows which ones you mean. They were a set of brightly colored couches tucked into a cranny behind the Starbucks just outside the campus gym, avidly avoided by the gym rats who were determined to ignore the sugary drinks and snacks.

Apparently, the hiding spot isn’t as secretive as you thought. “Oh, the ones by the Starbucks?” Jungkook exclaims, excitedly looking at his screen. You have this fluttery feeling that he’s looking at you for the first time. You nod, and he quite positively beams. “I love those!”

“Yeah, I spend a lot of time there,” you say, though it’s a little stilted because you’re not exactly sure how you’re supposed to react to Jungkook’s enthusiasm. Though his outgoing personality cloaks you in comfort, his pretty smile has your heartbeat acting a little funny.

Jungkook’s got these huge eyes, blinking owlishly at you. “Really? So do I!” And then you both seem to have the same realization. His head tilts to the side cutely, an amused smile on his face, “I’ve never seen you there.”

“I’ve never seen you there,” you shoot back, a little snarkier than necessary, but Jungkook doesn’t seem to notice. His smile turns goofy.

“Woah,” he says in a rather dreamy tone, “isn’t that so cool? We spent so much time in the same place, but never crossed paths before,” he babbles. He’s stopped looking at his computer, leaning back in a sort of dazed manner with this sparkly look to his eyes, much to everyone’s amusement. Except yours, because frankly, it sounds a little bit like he’s describing— “fate!” he says suddenly, like it’s truly an aha! moment. He pauses, taps his finger against his chin. “Or anti-fate? I’m not sure. But it’s like— we could’ve met so many times before and we didn’t.” Doe eyes return to the screen, flickering around until they presumably land on you again. “What do you think, __?”

And he’s just so cute, makes the rigid shield around your chest soften for the slightest moment as you nod meekly. “Uhh, yeah. Fate,” you agree, and then get to hear him laugh and giggle for about three seconds before you’re suddenly thrown back into the larger Zoom meeting.

Weirdly flustered, you hurriedly click your microphone back off, and nearly contemplate the camera too. But then the professor is asking you all to share what you talked about and you’re resigning yourself to a few more minutes of screen time while the class wraps up. By the looks of it, not everyone had as an enjoyable time as you did. Part of you is thankful you didn’t get stuck in an awkward small group. The other part recognizes wholeheartedly that it’s all thanks to one smiley boy at the bottom of your screen.

“And group 4?” the professor asks, and you blink yourself back into attention. Before you can unmute yourself and answer for your group, Jungkook is beating you to it.

“We talked about a lot of things,” Jungkook answers cheerfully. From your view, you get a front row seat to the sheer power of Jungkook’s magnetic personality, watching as all your listless classmates suddenly snap back from their daydreams to zero in on whatever Jungkook is saying. He fills in the professor about what you talked about, from the movies to the couches, and you feel weirdly mushy when his eyes flicker across the screen before settling with a soft smile.

He can’t possibly be looking at me, you tell yourself. Your hand jerks forward to turn the camera off, but in your haste, end up knocking down the water bottle on your desk. You scramble to straighten it, thanking the universe for the fact you actually remembered to screw on the cap. You glance back at the screen, and nearly die when you catch sight of a giggly Jungkook, smile hidden behind an adorable sweater paw as he laughs at something on screen. Oh no, was he looking at me? you panic.

“Alright, everyone,” your professor says in that “I’m about to wrap this class up” voice. Too close to the screen, voice a little too loud. “Good meeting today, I’ll see you all again on Wednesday. Stay safe.”

“Bye!” Jungkook sings sweetly, and everyone else follows as they all bid adieu to the professor. Still a little frazzled from the possibility that Jungkook may have watched you flail around like a total loser, you take a second longer to turn your mic on. Your classmates quickly leave the meeting, leaving only a few stragglers until the very end.

Surprisingly, Jungkook is here too, brown eyes focused on the screen. You unmute yourself. “Um,” you stammer, eyes unwillingly flickering over to Jungkook who smiles at the sound of your voice. “Goodbye. Thank you,” you rush out, and then quickly leave the meeting as well.

With the meeting over, you’re left staring at the home page of the Zoom app, heart beating a little too fast to be normal. Your face feels warm, and your fingers tremble from some unfamiliar, giddy feeling in your chest. You exhale slowly, hand coming up to rub at your chin as if that will somehow explain the weird excitement from your Zoom meeting. Maybe it was just adrenaline, or nervousness, you try to convince yourself. After all, the first day of classes is always nerve-wracking.

Except when you navigate to your class page and begin to mindlessly scroll through the class roster, there’s a weird stutter to your heartbeat when you catch sight of that Jeon Jungkook (he/him) that appears halfway down the list.

Copyright © 2020, 1kook on tumblr. absolutely NO reposts allowed.

[coldsandfluff]

Y/ounger Sickfic (F, Liza/Charles)

So I figured I should start migrating all of my fics over here in case the forum never comes back. Hopefully some of you haven't read them yet and will enjoy them!

This one is a Y/ounger fic set in the first season, when Liza is just starting her job as Diana's assistant. She comes down with a cold, and Charles notices. I basically wrote it because Charles gave me HUGE care-taking vibes after he went to the hospital to check on Liza when she hurt her leg, and there's nothing hotter to me than a boss in a suit caring for someone with a cold 🔥

Editorial Weakness

“Liza… LIZA!”

Diana’s voice wormed its way through the thick fog of Liza’s daydreaming—or rather daynightmaring. Liza snapped back to reality, realizing that her name had probably been called quite a few times in an increasingly exasperated way. One look at her boss confirmed it: Diana’s face was flushed beyond her heavy-handed blush application, her signature red lips transformed into a straight, annoyed line.

And of course, everyone else in the conference room was staring at her. Including Charles Brooks, handsome CEO of Empirical Press. Literate, piercing blue-eyed gentlemen, always dressed to the nines. Also known as Liza’s boss’s boss.

Liza sat up straighter, tempting a friendly smile towards Diana. “Yes?”

Try as she might, she could not replay the last five minutes of the discussion in her head as she usually could, a trick she’d learned long ago as a mother. The ability to temporarily filter out the incessant babbling of her daughter when she was younger had been critical for Liza’s mental health, but she had always been able to count on her brain to rewind when the child would suddenly say something odd. For context, of course. Because when your six-year-old asks “what’s a cock,” it’s important to know that she was just watching a documentary about chickens. And don’t ask why she was watching a documentary about chickens.

“If you would stop gallivanting about at frat parties every night, maybe you would have enough energy during the day to pay attention during meetings, Liza.” Diana shot a knowing look towards Charles, as if to say “kids these days,” but Charles didn’t notice. He was looking at Liza with a slight frown.

Liza stared at her notebook on the table, pressing her lips together. She was still getting used to the condescending “millenials” remarks from Diana. While she no longer felt the need to shout “I’M 40 YEARS OLD” in protest every time, it still made her feel guilty for the lie she was living. She’d forget about it for a few hours, and then something like this would happen, and guilt would rear its ugly head all over again. When Liza had faked being 26 years old to get hired at Empirical, she had never expected it to become such a big deal in her day-to-day life. It was a lesson in humility. Age mattered more than people believed.

And now, not only was she lying to all of them, she also wasn’t paying attention during a meeting where she was tasked to take notes. In front of Charles himself, no less. A true employee of the year.

“College students go to frat parties, Diana,” Kelsey said, her annoyance veiled in politeness. “Not working adults.” As a true representative of the millennials, Kelsey never missed an opportunity to correct Diana. Even though it was a lost cause.

“Yes, well,” Diana flicked her manicured hands in the air, heavy bracelets jangling on her wrists, “this is not the point. I’m expecting you to pay attention when I’m talking, Liza. That is what we’re paying you to do. Now, would you please tell us how many submissions we’ve received this month?”

Liza nodded and nervously looked through her notebook. “Of course, let me just…” She flipped through the pages, her eyes scanning the words but not absorbing the information. Her nose had started tingling, an itch that felt like the light stroke of a goose feather deep within her sinuses. She wiggled her nose, trying to keep a brewing sneeze at bay. All eyes were on her still; this was not the moment to…

“Hh—Ihh’tsshh” Liza turned to her right in time, covering her nose and mouth with her elbow. “Excuse me, I… Ihh’TSSHH!” She registered the few bless you’s her colleagues mumbled, nodding her thanks as she straightened up. Liza knew her face was bright red. She could feel the flush burning her cheeks.

She cleared her throat and squeaked a nervous laugh. “Sorry about that!”

Diana rolled her eyes. “Are we ever going to get those numbers, or do we need to send a request through Snapbook, Liza?”

“Snapchat,” muttered Kelsey.

Liza sniffled. “No, no need, I’ve got them right here.” She paged through the notebook and finally found what she needed. “We’ve gotten less than usual but I haven’t had a chance to log all the submissions this week yet.” She lifted her eyes to meet Diana’s annoyed stare. “With the two ad campaigns and the issues with One Day We’ll Be, I didn’t…”

“Just get it done by tomorrow morning,” Diana cut her off with a steely smile.

For the rest of the meeting, Liza focused her attention on Diana and took overly detailed notes, hoping to redeem herself for her misstep. She wasn’t the kind of woman to take her obligations lightly, and she seldom had moments of distraction like this. Truth be told, she wasn’t feeling the best. She’d woken up exhausted in spite of a full night's sleep, and her head throbbed just a smidge behind her eyes. She could tell that she was coming down with something, but hopefully she’d be able to make it to the weekend before it hit her full force.

When the meeting ended and everyone filed out of the room, Liza walked passed Charles on her way to the door.

“Liza?” His voice sent a shiver down Liza’s spine.

She turned around, hugging her notebook to her chest. “Yes?”

“Everything alright?” His eyes locked with hers in the way they always did. Charles had the type of gaze that seemed able to search one’s soul for the answers to his questions. It was in the way he focused all his attention on the person he was talking to, creating a bubble around them that separated them from the rest of the world.

Liza nodded. She mustered an overenthusiastic “yep!” before turning around and leaving the room.

If there was ever a man that made her feel 26 instead of 40, it was Charles Brooks.

---

Liza pushed the heavy door of her office building, spilling out into New York’s freezing autumn air. She followed a crowd of office workers making their way out for lunch, a chill running through her skin. In the scuffle, someone bumped into her and knocked her purse down, spilling some of its content on the pavement.

“Excuse you…” Liza mumbled, crouching down to retrieve her belongings. She suddenly missed Brooklyn and its quieter streets, friendlier neighbors and actual trees. Time Square was nice for a night out on the town or if you were visiting the city for a few days, but working in the district wasn’t always a thrill. However, she wasn’t here for the New York experience—she was here for the job. Books were her absolute passion, and if getting a career in publishing meant that she’d have to partake in a few elbow brawls on the streets to get it, she was ready to fight.

“Liza.”

Liza looked up, her lipstick in hand, balancing on her heels in a crouched position. She recognized the tie before she even saw his face. Navy silk, polka dotted. Once her eyes reached Charles’s face, Liza was already smiling. “Hey!”

“Here, let me help.” He crouched down to her level, helping her corral her stuff. Liza quickly shoved the used tissues in her pockets, hoping Charles hadn’t noticed them. Gross.

“There’s ‘rush hour,’ and then there’s ‘lunch hour,’” Liza said with a scoff. “I guess even walking is a hazard here.”

Charles smiled, picking up the novel she was currently reading that now laid on the sidewalk. “Murakami,” he said approvingly. “This one isn’t a favorite of the critics. What do you think of it so far?”

Liza’s eyes lit up instantly. “I know the pacing is a bit slow and the story can be repetitive, but there’s something about Murakami’s prose that keeps me coming back. It’s like taking a long, warm bath in the middle of winter, but on the moon. He always manages to create this sense of familiarity and warmth in an unfamiliar world and—“ Liza caught herself babbling away, the words tumbling out at high speeds. “Sorry, you must have somewhere to be! Don’t let me hold you back.”

Charles chuckled, his eyes wrinkling at the corner. His laughed matched his well-mannered behavior, a controlled but sexy huff with just enough sincerity to send sparkles through Liza’s stomach. He stood up, then offered his hand to help Liza up. She took it, noticing the warmth of it against her freezing hand.

The wind picked up, slipping through Liza’s open coat. She shivered, adjusting her purse on her shoulder and crossing her arms over her chest. Charles’s smile faltered. “You should bundle up, it’s getting colder every day.” He glanced back towards the street. “My taxi is here. Why don’t you share it with me. We can drop you off wherever you need to go.”

“Oh no, thank you, but I could use the walk. The cold will help wake me up.” She smiled. “Better than caffeine!” It wasn’t exactly a lie. She did need to wake up, but she wasn’t particularly happy to be in the cold right now. Her entire body seemed to revolt against the temperature change. However, her nose had started to run and tickle, and she did not want to blow it in front of Charles in the back of a taxi. The sheer idea of it was mortifying.

“You sure?” Charles asked, raising an eyebrow. She was doing a poor job of keeping her body from shaking.

“Yep! I just need to start walking to warm up.” She gave him a dismissive wave. “I’ll be fine.”

“Alright then.” Charles nodded. “Take care of yourself.”

Liza watched him walk to his taxi, his trench coat and gray scarf flapping in the wind. A sudden, sharp prickle caused her to gasp and pitch her head forward into her hands. “Hh—Iiih’TSSHH!” She fished around her purse for a new tissue and dabbed at her nose, groaning. The virus had definitely taken hold.

At least Charles hadn’t been there to witness it.

---

Liza moved to the back of the elevator, balancing a tray of drinks and a paper bag containing her lunch. She’d picked up Diana’s green juice and green smoothie, as requested. “Everyone is spreading their disgusting little germs everywhere in this office,” Diana had told Liza with a repulsed moue. “I don’t have time to get sick. Get me my green juices, double shots.” Ironic, since Liza herself was sick, although Diana didn’t know yet. And Liza intended on keeping it that way. She didn’t want to be sent home and look like an unreliable assistant who keeled over at the first sign of a sniffle. She’d been through much worse than this. Back in the days, she’d be taking care of the kid, cleaning the house, making dinner, setting up doctor appointments and taking care of her sick husband—now ex-husband—while battling her own raging fever.

Liza looked at the third drink in the cup tray—her own. She would have preferred a simple cup of chamomile tea with honey, the remedy she could always count on when sick, but the line at the juice bar had been so long that she’d run out of time. The cashier had recommended a "Detox Elixir" for her cold. Apple cider vinegar, ginger, lemon and cayenne pepper. The dirty yellow muddied drink didn’t look (or smell) appetizing whatsoever. Liza hoped that the sandwich she’d also picked up would help wash the drink down, but she wasn’t holding her breath. She’d watched the employee make it. It was 90% alfalfa sprouts, 5% avocado and 5% dry toasted bread made entirely of nuts. Good thing she wasn’t too hungry anyway.

Walking in the cold had made Liza’s nose even more runny, but she couldn’t wipe it since both of her hands were occupied. She sniffled quietly, trying to ignore people glancing at her when she did so. Every time the elevator stopped at a floor, people squeezed towards the back, forcing Liza into the wall. It was starting to get hot and uncomfortable in there.

And of course, that was when a tickle decided to blossom. Liza scrunched up her nose, hiding behind the to-go cups, but it didn’t even slow down the progression of the itch. It spread all the way down to the tip of her nose, until she could no longer fight it. She promptly shoved the paper bag in her mouth to free her hand and fetch a tissue, but there was no time. With her hand stuck in her purse and her other hand holding the drinks, she bit down hard on the paper bag and turned towards the wall, stifling her sneeze as much as possible.

“Hh—Ihh’Hnxch!... Hh’Hnxch!”

A few people blessed her, and the guy standing next to her chuckled when he saw her struggling with the bag in her mouth. “Cold season, uh?” he said with a compassionate tone. Meanwhile, there was an evident shift in the crowd as people tried to distance themselves from Liza.

Liza managed to get a tissue and wipe her nose, then grabbed the bag out of her mouth. “You’d think I have Ebola,” she mumbled to the man, nodding towards people now a few steps away from her. Some of them turned to glare at her. Oops.

When the elevator finally dinged on her floor, Liza made her way out, welcoming open spaces, fresh air and a little breeze on her sweaty skin. She dropped off her coat at her desk, checking to see if Diana was busy. The elegant woman sat in her glass office, concentrating on her computer monitor. She hadn’t yet noticed Liza.

Liza quickly grabbed a compact mirror from her purse to see how bad she looked. Her nose was bright red and her cheeks were flushed, but she could blame it on the cold wind. She sniffled a bit, testing her sinuses. No sneezes were brewing. It was now or never.

She knocked on the door frame. “I’ve got your juices right here,” Liza said, placing the cups on Diana’s desk.

“About time,” Diana replied without looking up. “I can almost feel the germs floating all around me.” She grabbed the green smoothie and took a sip. Liza started backing up to take her leave, but Diana added: “I need you to find a space for the launch party of Bright & Wonderful. I’m thinking something young and bright, something…” She wriggled her fingers in the air, looking for another adjective.

“Wonderful?” proposed Liza with a smirk.

Diana raised an eyebrow. “That’s right. Very funny. Just reserve something 'hip.' I’m sure you can do that.”

Liza nodded emphatically, feeling the relentless tickle wake up again in her increasingly congested sinuses. Eager to get out before a sneeze manifested, she started walking out, but Diana interrupted her once again.

“I also need you to contact Mrs. McLure and find out if they’re done drawing the contract. We haven’t heard back from them and we need to lock down the budget for the campaign as soon as possible.”

Liza nodded again, her eyes watering.

“This is top priority, Liza.” Diana glanced at her. “Got it?”

“Mmhmm!”

Diana held Liza’s gaze for a moment, cocking her head. “Is something wrong?”

“No, n-nothing is wrong.” Liza could feel her breath itching, her face scrunching slightly. She had to leave. Now. “Oh, umm…” she gestured towards her desk. “I t—think the phooo…eh… phone is ringing.”

She rushed out, feeling Diana’s eyes on her as she ran straight to the restroom. Once she was safely inside, she grabbed some toilet paper from the roll and let the sneezes overcome her. “Ehh… Hh—Iiih’TSSHH… Hh—Ih’tsshhew… Ahh…Hhh! Hh—Iihh’TSSHH!” Tears were streaming down her face from holding the sneezes back for so long. She blew her nose and washed her hands, sighing.

The door whipped open. “You look like hell,” said Kelsey, stopping next to Liza in front of the mirror to reapply lipstick. “Rough night?”

Liza wiped some of the mascara that had run under her eyes. “I think I’m coming down with a cold.”

Kelsey’s eyes widened. “Oh no, you can’t let Diana know! She’s such a germophobe. You won’t hear the end of it.”

“How am I supposed to hide this from her?” Liza pointed at her face. “I work three feet from her. She’s always calling me in her office. I can’t run to the bathroom every time I have to sneeze or cough.” Although she was seriously considering it.

“I got you fam,” Kelsey said with a conniving smile, slipping her lipstick back in her purse and leaving the restroom.

“Wait!” Liza cried, following her. “Fam?” she whispered to herself, wondering what the hell that even meant. Every day a new slang or app or “meme” popped up. Keeping up with it was beyond overwhelming at times.

Kelsey walked straight to Diana’s office and popped her head in. “Hey, is it OK if I borrow Liza for a while? I need help with invitations.”

Diana waved her hand at her without looking up. “Sure.”

Kelsey turned and gave two thumbs up to Liza. “Follow me!” They both walked to Kelsey’s office further down the corridor. Two large boxes sat open in the middle of the room. “I was going to have the intern do this, but she’s busy with something else.”

Liza looked at Kelsey, dumbfounded. “Wait, you actually need my help? I thought this was a ploy to get me away from Diana’s germophobia?”

Kelsey put a hand on Liza’s shoulder. “Come on Liza. All you have to do is stuff an invitation and a bookmark in each envelope. It’ll be relaxing! Please? Pretty, pretty please?”

Liza sighed. “Fine. But you’ll catch my cold if I hang out here all afternoon. I’ll bring these in a conference room somewhere.” Liza bent down to grab a box, but Kelsey stopped her.

“Don’t be silly. I’ll be fine. Just take the couch over there. Relax.” She walked to her desk and grabbed a box of Dayquil from her drawer. “Here, help yourself.”

Liza popped two of the orange pills out of the packet. “If I had known you were the drug pusher in the office, I’d have come to you sooner.”

Kelsey laughed. “You bet. This is the good stuff, too. The one you need an ID for.”

“Impressive!” Liza swallowed the pills, then sat on the couch, assessing the task.

“By the way, we’re going to this new bar that opened up in Chelsea. You should come! All the food they serve comes in edible plates, and you eat with edible cutlery. Sounds terrible, but Lauren really wants to check it out.”

Liza scoffed and pointed at her nose. “With this? No thanks.”

Kelsey rolled her eyes. “It’s just a cold, Liza.” She leaned on her desk. “You’ll be fine. Nothing a little alcohol can’t fix,” she added with a conspiring smile.

Liza tried to remember a time in her twenties when she’d gone out with a cold, but couldn’t. Truth be told, she’d always been a bit of a baby when it came to illnesses, at least before she had a kid. She always favored lying on her couch with a heavy blanket and tea. It was a great opportunity to rest and let the world run without her for a few days. Cozy up in the quiet corners of life for a bit.

“Thank you, but I really—“ a tickle interrupted her. She lifted a finger, her eyes fluttering. Kelsey was already on it, handing her a box of tissues. Liza grabbed one and muffled her sneezes in it. “Hh… Iihh'mpphhff! Eh'mppff!”

“Bless you!”

“Thanks. I really wish I could come out tonight, but I’m going to have to stay late and work on the submission logs anyway.”

“Oooh that’s right. Diana was not happy about it this morning. Do you need help?”

“That’s so sweet of you, but no. You should go out. Enjoy eating… dinnerware. Or whatever.”

Kelsey grimaced. “Hopefully it tastes better than Diana’s green juice.”

Liza’s eyes brightened, remembering her sandwich and apple cider vinegar juice that she’d left on her desk. “Actually, I’ve got the perfect juice for you to try if you want to prepare your palate…”

Later, after everyone had gone—including Diana—, Liza went back to her desk to work on the submissions. She’d been working in the darkened office for a few hours, thankful for the quiet, but wishing she could be home in bed. Her cold had progressively worsened. Her throat felt like sandpaper and she’d started coughing a little to clear the irritation. Her eyes were burning the way they do when a fever is creeping up. She’d put on her coat to keep the chills at bay, but her bones still felt cold in spite of the warmth of her skin.

And her nose... The tickle had taken up permanent residence deep within her sinuses. She was constantly sneezing and blowing her nose, reducing her to a proverbial mess. Her bin was overflowing with used tissues.

“Liza?”

Liza froze, her heart stopping for a second. She turned around to see none other than Charles walking down the hallway from his office.

“Charles! You’re still here?”

He chuckled, stopping next to her desk. “So are you. I thought I heard something. I didn’t know I wasn’t alone. Working late?”

“You gotta do what you gotta do,” Liza said, or rather croaked. She plastered a smile on her face and subtly cleared her throat.

“Are you feeling alright? You look a little pale.” He examined her, a look of concern in his kind eyes. Liza almost melted.

“Yep, I’m great. Just a bit tired, you know.” With her foot, she pushed the bin overflowing with tissues underneath her desk, away from Charles's view. “Heading out?” She sniffed. A sneeze was definitely incoming. Of course. She slowed her breathing, praying for it to go away.

“Not yet, I still have—“ Charles stopped in the middle of his sentence, looking curiously at Liza as the woman scrunched up her nose.

“I’m so—sorry— Ehh… Iihh’TSSHH.”

“Bless you.”

“Hh’TSSHHHeew!”

“Bless you again.” Charles produced a white handkerchief from the inner pocket of his jacket and offered it to Liza. “Are you sure you’re feeling OK?”

Liza accepted the handkerchief. “Thank you. It’s just…” she shrugged. “Allergies, you know?”

“Hmm. Alright, I’ll let you get back to it, but don’t stay too late.”

“Right back at ya!” As soon as she said it, Liza kicked herself internally. Why did she always sound so lame when Charles was around? He gave her a small wave and walked back to his office.

Liza groaned and let her head fall on her keyboard the minute he was out of sight.

“Why me,” she whined.

---

Another hour later, after many stifled, exhausted sneezes and careful wiping of her nose, afraid to make any noise, Liza’s head rested in her hand, leaning over her desk. Her eyes felt heavy, her nose on fire. Her progress had slowed considerably, fatigue taking over her cold-ridden body. She still had quite a few submissions to process, but didn’t know if she could pull through. She considered getting up to get coffee when suddenly, a steaming cup of tea appeared next to her.

She jumped, finding Charles standing over her.

“Ready to admit you’re under the weather?” he asked with a smirk.

Liza’s nose scrunched up, and she buried her face in the handkerchief. “Hh—Ihh’TSSHH”

“Bless you. I’ll take that as a yes,” he said. “You should get some rest.”

“I’m almost done,” Liza lied. “Thank you though. What is it?” She pointed at the mug.

“Oh, it’s just chamomile tea with a bit of honey. It always works for me when my throat is bothering me.”

Liza smiled. “That sounds perfect.” She took a sip, but her nose protested as soon as the steam hit her sensitive nostrils. “Hh… Hhh! Ihh’TSSHH! Ehh—TSSHhhhew!”

Charles frowned. “Bless you, Liza. You’re sounding worse and worse. I really think you should go home.” He looked at her coat, as if just noticing that she was wearing it indoors. “Do you feel feverish?”

“Oh no, it’s not that bad, I just—“

Charles didn’t wait for her to finish and placed his hand on her forehead. His palm felt cool and protective, tender. Liza closed her eyes briefly, his touch shooting a delicious electric buzz through her body.

“You're definitely running a fever,” he murmured. “Come on, I’m sending you home.” He took out his phone and tapped away. “I’m calling you an Uber. And that’s an order, by the way.” He said it with a hint of humor and tenderness, his voice as calm and poised as always. Liza just nodded, unable to say anything after his forehead feel.

She gathered her belongings and let Charles help her up. “Wait!” Liza’s head cleared up, and she remembered Diana’s request. “I have to finish the submissions by—Ehh… Ihh’TSShhh” Charles tightened his grip on her shoulders as Liza pitched forward with the sneeze.

“Bless you,” he said, frowning again, as if worried she would collapse from exhaustion. “I’ll deal with Diana tomorrow morning. Your only job right now is to get into bed and stay there as long as you need. Alright?”

Liza nodded. They made their way down to the lobby of the building.

“Oh, I almost forgot.” Charles took off the scarf he’d worn at lunch, slung over his shoulder. “I noticed you weren’t wearing a scarf earlier today and thought you could use it to keep warm.” He slid it around Liza’s neck a few times, covering her bare skin. “There. That’s better.” He then pushed open the door and held it for her.

The cold air felt like an assault on Liza's feverish body, but she didn't care. Even through her congestion, she could smell Charles’s scarf around her neck. A mix of winter pines, soap and worn books. Charles opened the Uber's door, holding Liza's hand as she slid in.

“Thank you, Charles." Liza said from her seat, looking up at him. He glowed under the street light. "I really appreciate your kindness.”

“Of course, Liza.” Charles locked eyes with her, dimming out the rest of the world around them. “I hope you feel better soon.”

“Thank you.”

Charles wished her good night and close the door. As the car drove off, Liza closed her eyes.

She knew the dreams to come would be the best fevered dreams she'd ever had.

THE END

[icollectyoursins]

Jotaro Relationship Head Canons SFW

Because I’m a self indulgent little shit and just love to ignore all of the work I have to do, have some Jotaro head canons. I am but a humble simp, and love this man. So much.

Update as of writing this. Somehow, it got very angsty, so... yeah. Sad man vibes. Also rambly. I just kinda kept going.

Wanna know what I’m willing to write? Rules here!

Have a character, but no idea? Prompt list here!

Looking for more? Master post here!

WARNINGS: None, just angst, but nothing too serious.

Word Count: 2,985

Jotaro’s type is... I mean, it depends, like most people. I don’t think he’s super picky over appearances or things like that, it’s more whether or not he gets along with you and how long he can put up with you.  He’s polite (well, as polite as he can be) and courteous, but probably a little more apathetic when you’ve first met. Once you’ve been around for a while he’s more relaxed and almost a little more critical. Mostly because you’re his friend now and he expects more from his friends.

While I was writing this I sort of realized that he could be aromantic. Maybe it’s just my own aro tendencies coming through, but I thought it sort of lined up with his personality. Or at least from my experience with romantic attraction.

Eventually, though, he’ll admit he cares about you a little more than he cares about others. It comes through in little almost compliments. “You did good. Keep it up” or “good job, dealing with this” are common phrases that sound nice on the surface, but it almost feels like he’s trying to pressure you to do more, which is far from the truth.  

If it’s not awkward compliments like that, it’s awkward gifts. Always something you had briefly mentioned wanting or stared at a minute longer than you usually do, wrapped in a paper that’s your favourite colour or pattern. Sometimes, though, it’s something you’ve never mentioned that he somehow guessed would be something you wanted.

At the same time, though, he’s oblivious or at least acts like he is. There may be times when he goes home after you said something exceptionally sweet to him or that just means so much and he’ll just take a moment sitting at his desk to mull over what you said.

    With a grunt, Jotaro rolled back into the armchair with a cup of tea in one hand and today’s newspaper in the other, since he didn’t get to read it this morning. It’s late with the sun almost completely set, giving his room an orange hue. He tries reading the first column, something about a cat being saved from a sewer grate, but after about a minute, he catches himself drifting away, sort of staring blankly at the paper.

    He blinks hard, taking a long sip from his coffee. He must be tired. Another attempt is made at reading, this time the comics. They’re not his favourite thing, but short enough that he can focus on them. Or so he thought.

    He zones out again, face suddenly feeling very hot.

    He was thinking about you. Or, rather what you said.

    It was something so simple, so mundane.

    You had been talking about family together, exchanging drama, if you will, and he had brought up how his father had left his mother when he was very young. It didn’t bother him, he had said, after all, it was years ago and if he was being honest, he didn’t really need a father. Then, you gave him this look. It wasn’t pity or something like that. You put your hand on his knee, staring deep into his eyes.

    “Jotaro,” you said, voice soft and sweet. You struggled to say the next words, opening your mouth, sighing, then finally: “I’m not leaving you.”

    “Why would you be leaving?” He said, confused, taking it literally. Or, he pretended to be confused. It had made his heart warm with affection.

    What Jotaro hadn’t noticed at that moment was that his eyes seemed to gloss over with wet tears while talking about his father. He wasn’t over it, you understood that. How could he be? He was so young then, he probably didn’t understand what was happening or why and now that he’s a father himself, there had to be so much guilt about being the same way. It was only now that he was realizing how much you had an effect on him.

    It didn’t make him sad, by any means but... loved. He’ll say thank you tomorrow with a gift or some flowers. He hadn’t planned on meeting you for the rest of the week because he was busy, but work could wait, right? Yeah. Tomorrow.

God, it would take so long for him to get you to move in together. He’s so used to living on his own that I think he’s a little self-conscious about it. He’s not a slob by any means, but certainly a bachelor. I mean, he lived (assumedly) on his own from probably around or earlier than DiU right up until Stone Free, so it’s been a while and he’s certainly comfortable with his mess of clothes lying on the floor in the corner, but you won’t be. He cleans up before people come over, obviously, but how many times did he actually invite someone in?

When you start staying around more, he starts cleaning more, which makes him a little frustrated both coming to terms with liking someone enough that he’s actively cleaning for them once a week and also discovering that he’s a lot more gross than he thought. You would not believe how stained the counter was from coffee or how gross the filter was on the coffee maker. He takes his coffee very seriously. You begin to notice how clean everything is, well, how consistently clean everything is and it even starts to smell nicer, more floral and fresh. He bought a lavender air freshener. “It’s supposed to be calming,” he’ll say with a hint of annoyance. It’s not a bad smell to him, better than vanilla air fresheners, but it does give him a headache when he first sprays his place. You seem to like it though, so he’s willing to put up with it.

I honestly believe this man can cook, but nervous when cooking for other people. His food when he was a bachelor was good enough for him and I’m sure Holly would have shown him a lot too, but it’s not the best food. He definitely steps up his game when you’re over and even more so when you move in. He’s better with dishes that have pasta or noodles because it’s easy, but he’s not too bad behind the grill either.

When you guys finally live together, he tries to keep the cooking even, with you cooking some days and him doing the rest, but I honestly feel like unless you are a hazard in the kitchen, you would do most of it.

Jotaro would be like that with most things around the house partly because he doesn’t want you to do all the work if you don’t want to but he enjoys having a little more time to himself to either do work or... yeah, it’s just work. There are a few things that he’ll never make you do because it’s either too hard or he’s built up a routine of doing that thing a certain way and he’s convinced no one else will do it right. Like his laundry. He won’t let anyone else clean his clothes. He tried once and nothing dried right, he swears that his jacket is still damp to this day. You can fold his stuff or hang it up, but he’s running the washing machine and dryer. Also picky about how his office is cleaned.

If you asked and gave a legitimate reason for not doing a certain chore, he’ll do it, but be prepared with an excuse as to why you can’t wash the dishes or fold the laundry. He’s especially resistant if he’s working whether that be gathering information for the Speedwagon Foundation or editing his latest Marine Biology book.

Actually, can we just talk about how much this man hates folding laundry? It’s so pointless to him. Why fold it and put it into neat little piles when you’re just gonna rummage through the drawer and mess everything up? Sure, it looks nice, I guess, but not for long. He was for sure a floordrobe kind of guy, especially in his early years. He knows which ones are clean, it’s fine, just leave it. Of course, he would get better the longer you’re at his place, but still. It’s not that he’s lazy, he’s just busy and putting clothes away takes way too fucking long. (which, honestly, agreed.)

Date nights with Jotaro are... rare. I mean, you live with him, why would he want to go out and pay for something when he could do the same thing at home? They’re nice, of course, but it’s more common for him to take you out to dinner while you guys are on vacation or in a location other than home, because he doesn’t feel like cooking and it’s more special when you’re supposed to go out. Eventually, it clicks in that you are supposed to make each other feel special and will surprise you with an expensive dinner or a short cruise. If you suggest the aquarium he’ll think you’re just saying that because he’s into aquatic wildlife, but honestly doesn’t put up much of a fight and will answer any questions you or anyone else has about the fish.

He does enjoy a good relaxing movie (or documentary) night at home, though. It’s so nice to finally be finished work, settle into your super comfy couch and just chill until he gets tired. Even better when you’re lying on top of him with your head just under his chin. There’s something so soothing about smelling your perfume, shampoo, conditioner, cologne, etc. To just smell you so close to him and feel your weight. Aaah. So nice.

    The microwave beeps faintly from the kitchen signalling that popcorn was done. You trailed out soon after, tossing the bowl to mix around the butter. You smile sweetly at him, leaning down to plant a gentle kiss on Jotaro’s lips before settling into his lap, nestling your head just under his while stretching out your legs. His arm instinctively moves from the back of the couch to drape over your back, rubbing circles into it with his thumb.

    He sighs; relaxed, finally. He allows himself to kiss your forehead, closing his eyes for a moment, just basking in your comfort. When he opens his eyes, he pulls you closer to him, feeling your heart beat almost in time with his. It was moments like these that eased his panic of losing you. You were here in his arms, safe and sound and vice versa. He was safe in yours.

Yeah, he’s a little angsty. But, can you blame him? He’s getting better, though. With help, of course. With you being around so often (and being very adamant that you’re not going anywhere) he’s able to let go a little. He’s not perfect, by a long shot and progress is slow, but it’s the little things like these that makes you proud of how far he’s come.

PDA is common, but a little restricted. When you’re out together, Jotaro’ll always have his hand on your back or shoulder. Hand-holding isn’t really a thing for him, but he will make sure you know he’s there. He’ll kiss you in public, but it’s not nearly as intimate or special as when you’re at home. Still, it’s a sweet reminder that he loves you, seeing as words of affection aren’t really his thing.

I mean, he can express himself just fine, but he still gets a little nervous saying things like ‘I love you.’ It’s more along the lines of ‘I care about you.’ Or, well. “of course, I care about you. You wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.” Which... thanks. I think.

Kissing him is so nice, so you’re not too mad about him doing that instead of words. When Jotaro kisses you it’s full of a mix of emotions. Mostly caring, but on his rough days, there’s something else there. It could be worry or whatever the emotional equivalent of never letting you go is. You can always tell that he wants it to last a little bit longer. There’s something in the sad look in his eyes when he or you has to pull away. Sometimes he’s overly gentle like he’ll break you somehow, especially if you’re not a stand user or fighting-inclined (whether physical or otherwise). It’s not patronizing, or at least he tries not to be patronizing, he just prefers you safe.

    It started out simple enough. You and Jotaro were just sitting at the table, eating dinner when he got this... sinking sort of feeling. There was something in the silence between you that just sent his mind spiralling. Thoughts of you someday dying too soon for whatever reason or leaving him because he’s not there enough, stand users, car crashes, divorce. They all started to flood into his mind, fabricating that you would somehow be taken away from him.

    “Jotaro? Are you okay?” Your voice rings through; a bright light breaking the storm. He’s been staring at his plate for a while now, his eyes are dry and itchy. He looks at you and tries to say something, but the words don’t come. Is he okay?

    You stand up and walk over to him, cupping his face gently. You rub the dark circles under his eyes while kissing his forehead. Jotaro slowly wraps his arms around you, letting his face fall into your hands. You’re pulled into his lap after a few minutes, running your fingers through his hair next. Finally, he sighs, burying his face in the crook of your neck.

    “Thank you,” he mumbles and though you’re not quite sure why, you still say a quiet you’re welcome, silently soothing him through whatever happened.

If you couldn’t tell, he needs a lot of reassurance. Not so much words, but actions like the snippet above. I mean, he can be as strong as he wants but we all know he’s got some baggage and while he’s able to put it aside, for the most part, I think when you’re at home he’s just a little more vulnerable.

Now, onto happier things! If you like coffee or tea, he will always make you a cup in the morning. Jotaro is a very early riser except on the weekends, so he usually gets that done while reading or watching the news and when you come down, he’ll ask if you want breakfast then make it for you seeing as he’s more awake.

He loves coffee. So much. He might have a caffeine addiction, honestly. At all times of every day, you can see him with a black coffee in hand and a book or phone in the other. He will switch to decaf at some point, but you might have to switch it for him. He’s forgetful when he gets busy.

Sleeping in on the weekends is like heaven for him. The two nights (or more on holidays) that he gets a full nights rest, breakfast in bed and a warm soul to cuddle into. He’s usually big spoon with a hand just resting on your side, but please, for the love of god make him the little spoon once a week. Will never admit it or vocalize wanting it. He just grabs your hand and drapes it over him with a “good night” and then promptly passes out.

He’s a heavy sleeper but doesn’t sleep often. Once he’s out, there is nothing that could wake him up except the fire alarm or something like that. It just takes a while. Not because of trauma, but more just internal clock is delayed.

Not a bath guy, strictly showers ‘cause they’re quicker. Most of the time he’s in and out before you can invite him into yours. When you do he’s “reluctant” but showers with you are a favourite of his. He gets his hair washed for him (if he bends down), he can wash you. It’s great.

I don’t think he would want more kids. He’s getting older, busier and just doesn’t think he has the time to care for a baby, even with help. Plus, if they were anything like Joylne or god forbid him when he was younger, he might start greying sooner than he thought. Joylne is a great kid, but... she’s definitely got some of his defiance in him. One kid is fine.

He doesn’t really like pets either, hates when there’s fur on all the furniture. But, if you came home with a stray cat or two, he’s not gonna put up a fight if you say they’re not going to the pound. “Just as long as you take care of them yourself.”

You got him a betta fish once because Jotaro. Fish. Makes sense. He thought it was a little pointless at first. You can’t pet them or play fetch (not like he does those things anyway). All a fish does is sit there and look pretty. You were a little disappointed, but whatever, you’ll take care of it. Then he comes home one day with a 30-gallon tank, freshwater plants and fancy lighting to help them grow which he quietly sets up in the living room. He spent at least a half-hour deciding on where to put it.

A week later, after he’s pleased with how it looks and the tank has been cycled he puts in an order for more fish then lets your betta acclimate to the tank. “There, he’ll be happier in here. The idea of bettas not enjoying or panicking in larger tanks is a myth. He won’t be alone for long anyway. He also won’t kill everything in the tank.” Well, he hopes he won’t, each fish is different. Thankfully, the small school of tetras get along with your betta just fine. From then on, he’s in there once a week, cleaning everything, trimming the overgrowth. It is officially his tank.

[bittersweetmorality]

Relationship HC’s: Satoru Gojo ! <3 [x gender neutral reader]

A/N: hello :> the final part coming at you. we have god himself, in the flesh, gojo satoru. yes. the songs i included for him are all over the place, just like him oopz. you get, sexy, chaotic, and just pure romantic songs (just like you would when you’re dating him :>) enjoy bbs!

Warnings: swearing, very very slight suggestive themes

W/C: approx. 1,400

Satoru Gojo

(song: Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High by Arctic Monkeys , Man on the Moon by Zella Day , Dance with Me by beabadoobee , Filter by Jimin of BTS , Un Anno D’Amore by Mina)

- this mf

- now, a relationship with itadori is just being in love and enjoying life because he’s just so fun

- and with megumi it’s passionate and deep love, right?

- mr. gojo satoru is just a TEASE

- he knows he’s an ethereal being, and while he doesn’t throw it in your face, he... he knows

- basically he knows he can tease you all he wants and you’ll remain putty in his hands

- but obviously, not in a bad way!! it’s all in good fun

- with him, it’s 70% teasing, 15% serious romantic aspects, 10% pure CHAOS

- let’s go through the details shall we

- he’s the type to kiss you everywhere but where you really want it

- like kiss you on the nose, cheeks, eyes, everywhere but your lips

- no matter how much you huff about it

- he’ll kiss you on the lips when he wants to

- heehee

- but when he does it’s clear how much he cares about you, even if he’s in a playful mood

- his hand can always be found guiding you from your chin or resting on the back of your head

- he’d place a single finger under your chin, pulling your gaze up to meet his before kissing you

- if you grab him with two hands and pull him in to kiss you by the cheeks he’ll malfunction

- seriously, he’ll melt on the spot

- but, anyway your moments with him are... extreme (if that’s the right word to use)

- let me explain

- if he’s teasing, gosh he’s really going at it

- if he’s romantic you’ll feel like you’re on the moon (hint hint wink wink the song)

- and when it’s chaos.... yeah you definitely broke some laws

- speaking of breaking laws

- he does not know how to drive 😀

- he tells you every time “i have enough outside experience to figure out how to operate a fucking car, okay?”

- no he does not

- he never crashes or hurts anyone inside the vehicle, but man you cannot say the same to the property OUTSIDE the car

- whether or not he caused millions of dollars in city repairs, you’ll always end up at a fast food drive-thru for your midnight snack dates

- but please someone tell him that he will hurt someone unless he fully gets his license

- and before you ask him, yeah he’s gotten multiple tickets

- he didn’t even get out of them, he’s sure that if he ever gets stopped by the police again they’d definitely recognize him

- BUT ANYWAY !

- back to the dates

- dates with gojo are so spontaneous, you hardly plan any

- you’ve probably planned only one, and it was an anniversary

- but it’s not like it went according to plan anyway

- sometimes you and him stay up all night on accident, both of you thrumming with energy the entire evening when you realized the light of the early sun poking from the curtain

- “oh shit, it’s morning? what time is it?”

- “5:54 am”

- “holy shit... do you wanna go watch the sunrise?”

- “hell yeah”

- just as he can go from 0 to 10000, he goes from 10000 to 0 real quick on very rare occasions though

- only when he’s super tired, like drop dead

- he’ll just burn out, falling face first into the covers of your bed before adjusting himself into a comfortable position, extending his arms and giving you the “grabby hands” gesture

- this ALWAYS means he wants to cuddle

- speaking of cuddling

- gojo said BIG SPOON !

- we all know he’s amazing at literally everything on god’s green earth but

- damn... when he cuddles....

- .......damn..........

- just like in any aspect of your relationship, your cuddles can be chaotic, teasing or just purely romantic and loving

- during chaotic cuddles he just laughs at EVERYTHING

- seriously, you could say “doodoo fart ass” and he snorts for the first time in front of you

- literally just an idiot with no more than two braincells in his head

- now, teasing cuddles usually lead to.... 😐😐........ yeah

- i mean, what else are you supposed to do when his lips linger too far?

- when it comes to romantic cuddles, he’s either talking your ear off about how amazing and perfect you are, or it’s just complete silence

- simply enjoying that fact the he gets to hold you

- he could honestly die like this

- honestly, although he’s a ball of pure energy, he loves dates at home with you

- but i feel like i should mention that one date y’all had

- you two were at the mall, and suddenly he dragged you into Victoria’s Secret, claiming he just needed to show you this one pair of lingerie that would look stunning on you

- jokes on you because he tricked you, only to pick up the ugliest, lime-green granny panties and said the loudest he possibly could,

- “babe, i feel like these would suit you really well for tonight, yaknow, our special night~”

- good thing he lets you beat him up sometimes

- anyway back to lazy dates

- he says a lot of things when he’s lazily nuzzled into you; sweet nothings

- “yaknow, you looked really pretty during that one date we had that one time.”

- “which one are you talking about?”

- “yeah, that one.”

- you practically feel the smirk on his face after he said that

- he also tells you how much he loves you during these times

- and how could you not believe him when his bright blue eyes are staring into yours as he says it

- it’s just very obvious how sincere he’s being

- but anyway

- he LOOOVES movie dates

- but, in-home movie dates

- because he’s the type of guy to pause the movie, his hand smacked over his mouth in disbelief commenting about what just happened

- “DID Y- DID YOU SEE THAT? HOLY SHIT!”

- “gojo i’m sitting right next to you.”

- “YEAH BUT HE JU-“

- he’s actively commentating throughout the entire thing, i hope you’re ready

- but of course, how could i not mention the way sweets play into y’all’s relationship

- surprisingly but unsurprisingly, it’s very easy to bribe him

- threaten to take away his sweets and, oh lord he is on his knees for you

- also he frequently shares lollipops with you, i take no criticism on this one

- but anyway, basically everything with him is just constant fun, and he’s the only guy who actually knows what to do in a relationship

- it’s never awkward with him, never a dull moment

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~♡~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“gojo!!! hurry up i wanna press play!” you whined from the couch.

“hold ooooooon, i’m coming i’m coming, just grabbing the snacks.” he called back, even in this context, somehow having a teasing lilt to his tone.

you see him waddle back over in the corner of your eye, arms filled to the brim with candies and snacks. he fumbles slightly as he lets all of the bags cascade out of his grasp.

“damn.” was all you could think of saying in the moment, staring at the ginormous pile in front of you.

“‘damn’ is absolutely right. now i’m ready to watch.” he smiles, settling into the couch with a lollipop in his mouth and extending his arms to do the grabby-hands motion.

you understood his invitation, and gladly took it as you pressed play. his arms wrapped around your torso, wiggling his body slightly in attempt to nestle you as deep as he could into his chest.

the movie began to play, several minutes passing before gojo let out a contented sigh.

“what if we stayed like this forever? d’you think you’d ever get sick of me?” he asks. his gaze averted away from the screen, something a bit unusual for him.

you tsked in mock annoyance. “honey, gojo, i’m already sick and tired of you.”

your sarcastic remark was followed by a kiss on the back of his hand. obviously you didn’t mean it; he knew that. he didn’t need the reassurance, but he never complained, as he planted a kiss on the top of your head.

[yeojaa]

ANGELS & AIRWAVES (w. jjk)

He's never met you but you know how he sounds when he wakes up from a nap and his greatest fears.  You know the way he sings after a shower and that he could be mistaken for a dying seal when he's laughing too hard.  The best part?  You don't judge him for any of it - including the fact he's a filthy Widow main.  He might just love you.

alt summary.  Jeon Jungkook has a big fat crush on a girl he's never met.

pairing.  jeon jungkook

genre + rating.  fluffy crack. general, for now.

warning / tags.  long-distance relationship, crushes, canon compliant (ish),  eventual happy ending, gaming, gamer!jungkook, strangers to lovers, friends to lovers, overwatch.  tags are hard.  :( 

reading.   n/a.  a three part one-shot.

word count.  ~3400

part i.

JUNGKOOK’S ROOM Sunday, 10 November, 2019.  2:13 AM.

It’s 2:13 AM when Jeon Jungkook finally finds a match, the familiar in-game sound dragging his attention away from the illuminated screen of his iPhone to the monitor before him.  He studies the SR - 3779 and 3761, respectively - and skims burning eyes across the members on each team.  Four rocks, including himself, and two Masters.

One of them has a strange name - BIGMELON - that he stares at until he's zoning out, trying to make sense of it.  Was his teammate a pervert or just hilarious?

"Good luck and have fun, everyone!"  

Your cheer filters through his headphones crystal clear but he's somehow still surprised, head tilting curiously to the side.  He hadn't expected a girl to be playing Overwatch at quarter past two in the morning.

When there's no response - he notices no one else is in the voice chat, an oddity for such a high ranking game - he takes it upon himself to keep you company.  His username lights up as his finger glides across the ALT key, sleep-worn words breaking the silence.

"Thanks, you too."

Nothing follows until BIGMELON appears once again in the upper left-hand corner of his screen.  You have a nice voice, he thinks.  "Are you sticking with Widow?"

Jungkook takes in the team comp:  Sigma, Hog, Genji, and Lucio.  A little unconventional but not wholly un-doable.  They're on King's Row, too, which is one of his favourite maps.  Balanced enough that people aren't too salty when they get headshot but with enough coverage that he can get clear picks.  

"Should I?"

"If you want."  A pause and your hero slot is filled with Mercy's portrait.  "I can damage boost."

He thinks he can hear the teasing.  It's soft and sweet and a little rough - like you'd just woken up.  

"Who says I need it?"  Comes his immediate response, question chased out of his mouth by a laugh he can't help.  It echoes, filling the quiet of his bedroom.  He hopes you don't take it the wrong way.

"O—kay, Widow main.  We'll see if you get anything from me."

It's an empty threat because you're giggling along with him.  It's distracting in the strangest way.  The sound bounces around in his ears and he can't help but focus on it, realizing belatedly that he's still sitting in spawn as the timer runs down for setting up defence.  

"Are you going to join us?"  You quip, emoting right beside his stationary sniper.  "I didn't queue just to have someone go AFK."  

Mischief colours your words and he laughs again, snorting as he finally presses W.  Two sets of footsteps echo in game and he presses SHIFT once he's hit point - and with just a few seconds left to spare - launching Widowmaker's body onto the balcony overwatching it.  Mercy follows, Guardian Angel carrying her into the air to alight behind the blue-skinned hero.  

As the timer hits 0:01, Jungkook right-clicks, scoping in on the second-floor spawn door.

BOOM.

The kill feed reads DDEOKKOOKI x STRIKER007.

"I guess you didn't need the damage boost."  

He can't help the sound he makes - a marriage between a witch's shriek and a pig's snort.  It leaps out of his mouth, louder than he intends, and he feels equally bad for you and his hyungs.  He's definitely going to get an earful in the morning - or any minute now, when one of them bursts into his room to berate him for being so loud.  "I told you."

"Yeah, yeah."  The way you speak has him grinning from ear to ear, nose scrunching in amusement.  Mercy is flying across the map, healing stream trained on Genji as the cyborg ninja just narrowly misses an errant Hanzo arrow and dashes back to point.  "I'm gonna take care of the rest of our team.  Let me know if you need anything, O' Headshot God."

You're clowning him hard but he knows it's all in good fun.  Still, he likes the nickname and decides to keep it, effectively picking off the attacking team's stealthily half-hidden Junkrat and Ana right after. 

"Show-off!"   

Then he's dinked in the head - health dropping to 30 from the partially-charged shot.  He needs heals like yesterday.

Unfortunately, Lucio is up at choke with the tanks, skating circles around the base of the statue as they hold point.  Jungkook doesn't see you immediately - he’s scanning his screen for your witch skin (of course) - only realizing you've appeared at his side when his health bar begins to climb.  "Try to stay alive, yeah?"

"My bad,"  he drawls, scoping in the same instant the kill feed announces two more enemy deaths. 

There are only a critical Reinhardt and protected Zarya left.  The former falls the moment he drops shield and her bubble doesn't reset in time;  the Russian tank dies in the next instant, his charged shot firing the moment it hits 100%.  

"Thanks for the damage boost."

"Any time."

Then you're gone, off to support the rest of your team again while he grapples onto a different ledge and continues his oppressive gameplay.  He feels a little bad when the opposing team goes double shield tank and swaps their Junkrat for a Pharah.  He feels less so when he's slept out of nowhere. Four seconds feels like an eternity when he’s out in the open - vulnerable as a baby lamb in a den of lions.

"Looks like you're really making them mad."  You'd been relatively quiet when not tending to him - likely because it was only the two of you in voice chat - and he startles when your comment breaks the quiet lofi he has going in the background. 

"I don't know why.  I'm just having fun."  He's lying.  You're laughing.  

"Too much fun, I think."  

"Maybe they should be better."  Jungkook says this like he's commenting on the weather or the colour of the sky - offhand and nonchalant.  It makes your giggles come harder.  He can hear the scratch of your mic as if you've doubled over and it's now pressed into cotton clothing.  He can't help but pat himself on the back.

"Please don't tell me you're going to 'gg ez' them when we're done."

Now he's feigned offense, gasping at the mere thought.  "Of course not.  I'm not that rude!"

"Well, you never know."  You're right.  People could be the worst when it came to online gaming, spewing vitriol and hurling insults the moment their egos were bruised (or inflated). 

"I promise I'm not an asshole."  He's not really sure why he feels the need to make this abundantly clear.  After all, he'd probably never play with you again.  Korea's density of players was just too great - you were just one in hundreds, thousands, millions. 

Still, he smiles when you reassure him you don't think he is.  "I'm just teasing.  You seem nice."

"I am nice."  Spoken in the same instance he lands two consecutive headshots - one on the bouncing, wall-riding enemy Lucio and the other on the momentarily grounded Pharah.  You must see that, because you're mocking him in that dulcet tone of yours, caramel coating words and turning them soft like toffee. 

"Not according to them."  And not that you mind, it seems, because you're damage boosting him as he catches their out-of-position Rein in his sight.  He whoops in triumph, eliciting another bemused sound from you. 

"You know they're going to do everything to counter you when we go on attack."  Which was in sub-one minute, the timer counting down the last thirty seconds of your team's defense. 

"Who says I'm going Widow again?"  

You're scandalized.  "You mean you're not just a filthy Widow main?"

For a moment, Jungkook wonders if this is how his older members feel when he (and Jimin and Taehyung) mercilessly rib them.  He thinks it must be and oh, how the tables have turned.  He decides he doesn't really mind, though.  It's all innocent fun and it's keeping him awake, aided by the cold brew he'd chugged at midnight. 

"Woah - says the Mercy player?"

"Mercy is a respectable support, okay!"

"Sure, e-girl."  

"Take that back!"  How the words explode out of his headphones makes him momentarily worry he might've overstepped but by the way your laughter chases it forward, he knows he hasn't.  You can take it just as well as you can dish it.  

"Okay, okay.  You're a not bad healer."  Because he hasn't died yet and last he checked, neither had your tanks.  Genji had once or twice - to be expected, given his playstyle - and you had, but that was still pretty respectable.

He can practically hear you rolling your eyes.  "Oh, thanks."  

"Any time, BigMelon."  

"That's ‘daebak’ to you, pal."  Had he heard you wrong?

"What'd you say?"  

There's a long pause - he's not sure whether it's for comedic purpose or something else.  You sound muffled on the other end, as if you're repressing sound.  "Because watermelon?  Su-bak?  So big melon is dae-bak?"  Whatever you had stifled earlier disappears, torn away by the pride that shines bright yellow and boisterous in your peals of laughter.

It's such a bad joke that Jungkook feels like he's about to have an aneurysm.  Were you Jin moonlighting as a Master support player? 

"You're kidding me."  He wonders if you hear him above your own glee, giggles making it hard for him to hear himself think.  "What're you - a dad?"

You scoff now, parroting his words back to him.  "What're you - the pun police?"  

Another one?

He briefly considers ALT + F4-ing his way out of this match and away from your corniness.  Considers it but ultimately decides against it, instead remaining stoically silent and choosing McCree when the hero selection screen slides into place.  His silence will surely speak volumes.  

"You know that was funny!"  By the way he can practically hear your pout - it's endearing, much to his chagrin - he thinks you know where he stands.  

"Not the word I'd use."

"You just have bad taste, McCree."  You say it scathingly yet full of mirth, a sniff punctuating the end of your rebuttal. 

"Do not!"  He returns, just as quickly.  

"Prove it.  Laugh at my joke!"  You're shameless, confident, reassured - it makes him chuckle.  

You take it as his surrender though, your own laughter blending seamlessly with his.  It goes on for longer than is strictly speaking necessary, crowding like cotton balls in his ears as you leave sprays of your hero - Ana this time - across the spawn walls.  He wrecks every one of yours with his own, BAMF displayed in 1440p. 

"Hey - stop that!"  It doesn't matter that the round is about to start - you're spamming your melee button into him.  He immediately does it back, toggling between that and his voice line. 

The rest of your team is probably wondering what the hell you're both doing.  

"Stop distracting me!"  He barks into his mic, deep dimples on full display, nose scrunched adorably.  He doesn't really mind - it's clear by his hyena cackles that follow - and he likes when your chorus of shut up's pitch and leap with your giggling. 

As he navigates McCree out behind your tanks, he can't help but wish - maybe a little selfishly - that they'll lose this round and go into a best of three.  When the opposing team's healers both die - one to Ashe's dynamite and the other to Zarya's high-charged beam - he knows that's not going to happen.  Your team's going to cap point and then you're going to be gone - off to the next game and never to be matched with again.

"We did it, McCree."  You sound deeply pleased as the last of the defenders fall, leaving point uncontested.  The Lucio on your team lingers by the choke, ready to boop any last minute hoodlums;  Echo hovers just above the enemy’s spawn, dealing damage the moment any hero comes in view.  One of your tanks is already emoting.

VICTORY flashes across his screen.  

"We sure did, BigMelon."

The cards come next - they're all for your team, though he isn't surprised.  You'd gotten 37 defensive assists whereas he had 27% Infra-Sight uptime.  He's sure you both vote for each other, the remaining four going to your other support's Sound Barrier casts.  

"Thanks for the carry."  He doesn't mean it facetiously.  This is some of the most fun he's had in-game in ages.

"You're welcome,"  you chirp.  He thinks you'll leave right after.

Instead, you both sit in voice chat in silence, watching the timer in the upper right-hand corner. 

"Do you want to duo?"  You ask in the same instance he does, breaking the both of you into a fit of laughter.  It's more distracting than he realizes, the FINDING MATCH countdown replacing the end game statistics while you’re both still cackling.

Luckily, you invite him to a group right as he removes himself from queue.

JUNGKOOK’S ROOM Tuesday, 24 December, 2019.  11 PM.

It’s six weeks and a good three dozen games later - a feat for him, considering how much of his time is eaten up by literally every other obligation he has - when he asks for your name, not realizing the consequences of his action.  

“Most people call me Jinny.”  He thinks it fits you, bright and pretty and punchy.  “What’s your name?”

Jungkook's unprepared for the question, though he shouldn’t be.  Of course you’d want to know.  Anyone would, if they’d already given their own answer.

He's silent for the longest time, quiet stretching on and on over group voice chat.  He applauds you for your patience, how you don't press him on it when the hesitation has descended from appropriate to downright awkward.

"Uh."  The word drops like a weight, crashing through the tentative friendship you've built over the past weeks.  

"You don't have to tell me,"  you supply as softly as he's ever heard you.  It's the first time you've seemed uncertain - and it bothers him that he's the reason.  "I get that we haven't known each other that long."  

As if that's actually the issue.  He would've told you the night you spent four hours together, taking wins left and right, filling the time in between matches with silly banter that had his jaw aching from laughter.  He would’ve told you on that random Thursday, when you’d listened to him talk about his busy day, effortlessly keeping him occupied - and amused - while your SR nearly descended below 3500.  He would’ve even told you yesterday, when you’d said you were going to bed, only to be roped into another six games by Jungkook’s eagerness.

It has absolutely nothing to do with time - or the lack thereof.

But he can't say that - can't tell you who he really is - so he improvises as best he can.  "My friends call me Jay."

"Jay, huh?"  You turn the sound over on your tongue, like you're tasting it for the first time, trying to decide whether you love it or hate it.  He hopes you don’t hate it.  "Then I guess we're the best J-duo to ever exist."

"Woah, we?"  He's only doing it to rile you up, finding it cute when you huff and puff and threaten to let him die in-game.  You never make good on the threat anyway;  you just like to see him sweat, watching as his health bar drops to measly single digits.  "I don't think I agreed to that."  

It's your turn to mock him, that same edge turning your words into sour candy.  "Fine.  You can find yourself a new healer.  We'll see how your SR likes that, Bronzie boy!"  

Neither of you really take the game that seriously but he gasps like he's been shot.  

"No!  Don't leave me with them!"  The way he howls the plea is enough to return you both to your rightful place - one filled with boisterous laughter and things he never thought would see the light of day.

Because somehow, he's found somewhere he feels safe - a place he feels like himself, with no pretenses or expectations.  It’s where he can rant and rave, bouncing from topic to topic like an energizer bunny with no end in sight.  It’s, oddly enough, with you.  

Connected through voice chat and built by an endless stream of communication - sometimes productive, other times not - the space you’ve carved out together has come to feel like a third home.  It isn’t quite what he has with his family or his members but it’s just as nice.

Different, but nice.

"Fine.  You're forgiven."  You sniff in that peculiar way of yours and he snickers loudly.  "How was your day?"

And this is why it is - because it's ordinary.  It’s where Jungkook can rest his head and drift for a while without worry of what’s over the horizon, ready to swallow him whole the moment he takes his eyes off the calm blue sea.  He's not raised on a pedestal with you, all the weight of his choices resting on his shoulders.  He's just a normal guy playing games.  

It might not make up for all the years of normalcy he's missed out on - the movies after school, the street markets on weekends, the holiday parties with classmates - but it's enough.  

He eats it up like he's been starved of it.

"Busy.  Really busy.  I had dance practice all afternoon and forgot to eat so I'm dying now."  There'd been a time - about three weeks in - when he'd chosen his words more carefully.  He'd been worried he might let something slip but he's found what feels like the sweet spot now, where he can tell you about his day without thinking he’ll suddenly shatter the image you have of him.

It's not always easy - he has to remember to never mention names or intimate details - but it's better than nothing.  He can finally tell someone about his day like he wants - all of the good and the bad, too.

"You should make something to eat!"

He's used to your reprimands but he still laughs, crossing his long legs beneath him as he readjusts in his computer chair.  "But we're in queue."

"Jay!"  It comes out devoid of static, clear as the waning sunshine that filters through his blinds and reflects particles of dust that drift lazily through his bedroom.

"I'll make something after we win."  He knows what you're thinking - that he's gone and jinxed your whole night.  You’re weirdly superstitious, something he's learned only recently.

As if right on cue:  "Shut up!"  

Your words sweep his expression up with glee and giddiness, like a kid on Christmas morning;  lines dig themselves into the bridge of his nose and the delicate skin beneath his eyes.  Jungkook tells himself it’s the usual pre-game jitters but he knows it’s more than that.  

It’s you and that infectious giggle that careens through his headphones, making him see everything in a pretty haze of warmth.

He’s not sure when you’d started having this particular effect on him - maybe since the beginning? - but he feels it now, clearer than ever.  Every tinkling laugh makes his heart speed up, thump around his chest like a baseball missing its mark.  The sight of you logging in elicits the biggest, possibly dorkiest smile, all slightly too-big front teeth and deep dimples.  You have him rushing through his post-practice showers and devouring dinner in half the time he usually would just to get online a minute more quickly.  

There's just something about you. 

And sure - a part of him wonders whether it's all in his head (as if it could be anywhere else).  Wonders if he's seeing you through rose-tinted glasses, doing to you what so many do to him.  Was he in over his head, praying to a deity that didn't even know he existed?  

Sometimes it felt that way - a little out of reach, like childhood crushes and summer love and wishing upon a star.  Certainly far too much for a blossoming friendship of just a month and a half.  

But then you laugh and it's Pop Rocks fizzling in his stomach and he knows that no - it's there and it's real.

Jeon Jungkook has a big fat crush on a girl he's never met. 

notes.  i love overwatch and i love jeon jeongguk.  what more can i say?  :)

[fromthehellmouth]

Red, Hot Skin

Word Count: 4.8k

A/N: mentions of a hot-water burn, fluff, a bit of minor tension

Drawing by me inspired by scenes from the story. I hope you enjoy! Feedback is greatly appreciated!

Overview: 

Tension ensues after you and Tom Riddle both attempt to retain your dignity following foolish mistakes. Tom risks breaking curfew to make up for a painful mistake of his.

Tom Riddle stood next to me at the workspace counter in the dim light of the potions classroom. His large pale hands planted firmly on the black counter, his sleeves rolled up below the elbow to reveal his toned forearms twisting slightly as I added the next ingredient to my simmering brew. It was part one of a group test where professor Slughorn would choose one student of a pair to perform the completion of a potion in front of the class. It was a way to test one’s ability to trust their partner, and would assure that both students equally understood the directions of the potion if they happened to be the one called to demonstrate. Professor Slughorn watched intently with a clipboard as I sprinkled the fine dust from my cupped palm into the cauldron. Reaching for the last of the peppermint sprigs, I extended my arm over the bubbling mixture when suddenly, Riddle aggressively grabbed my wrist.

“No!” he exclaimed, but it was too late, the thin leaf had fallen from my grasp into the boiling pot below. Slughorn jotted something on his parchment and looked at me, worry sinking into the lines of his face.

“Now you’ve done it.” Riddle all but growled next to me, taking a step back from the table in dismay. The mixture erupted and thick, red, oozing sludge sprayed from the cauldron, spilling over the pewter rims and onto the work table below. In my embarrassment I stood completely frozen, unable to scoop up the mixture with my hands because of the burns I would face as a result of touching the corrosive slime. So, I just stood helplessly, my eyes fixed on the mess before me.

“Oh dear,” Slughorn muttered, waving his wand and collecting the crimson sludge in a suspended bubble, eventually letting it plop back into the confines of the abused bowl. Slughorn scratched something else on the parchment in his hands and turned sympathetically to me with a soft expression. To my right I felt Riddle’s gaze boring into my face. I could sense the vast disappointment emanating from his glare and I had to force my attention on Slughorn to keep myself from glancing at his clenched fists.

As the students began to trickle from the classroom, I took my time in order to leave a comment with professor Slughorn about my performance for the day. I felt Riddle’s eyes on the back of my neck as he left the room and I was soon alone with Slughorn.

“I’m so sorry professor, I don’t know how the process could have slipped my mind.”

“The potion could have been botched by any student, but for next time I suggest you focus more on the ‘claims and cautions’ portion of the lessons, alright?”

I knew the words held little weight. It was a brew I should have mastered, and demonstrating my incompetence to the class was quite the blow to my psyche.

“Alright, thank you for the advice professor.” He nodded, and we exited the room together. Slughorn turned around, “I will see you next lesson--Oh, and Mr. Riddle, you as well.” Slughorn walked away and I turned around to see Riddle waiting outside the classroom, his eyes in shadow under his defined brows. “Why are you still--” but I was cut off, Riddle cornered me into the wall, glaring at me with piercing eyes. Startled, I felt hot under his gaze, my cheeks blushing bright pink, and my breathing faltered as I felt the pressure radiating from his eyes.  “No one spoils my reputation like that, do you hear me?” I nodded, looking at the floor. “Now, go study for the next demonstration.”

***

The next morning I was determined to memorize the next brew by heart, and I decided to get up early and visit the library before breakfast. The hazy purple dawn glowed through the beautiful gothic windows of the library, and streams of sparkling rays danced on the crimson-carpeted floor. There were rarely students in the library so early in the morning, and I was able to swiftly collect the edition of “Deadly Draughts and Elixirs” Slughorn no longer provided in his classroom. Swiping to the chapter on “Uses for Peppermint,” I pulled out my crisp parchment paper and began taking notes on Slughorn’s suggested reading.  

***

As students began to slowly appear at nearby study tables I quickly checked the clock, realizing I had completely skipped breakfast and charms was to start in 5 minutes. My heart racing, I quickly gathered my notes and my textbook, all but shoving them into my suddenly-very-small bookbag, and practically running out of the library. Professor Flitwick’s classroom being located on the third floor meant it took at least 7-8 minutes to reach--considering the staircases cooperated and no dreadfully slow first-years were infuriatingly placed in front of me at every turn. Practically sprinting, I exited the library’s massive entrance only to feel a sudden whoosh of air and a loud thud as I slammed into a tall firm body, and steaming hot tea splashed all over my chest. I let out a shriek of pain as the boiling liquid seared into my skin. I felt my eyes automatically welling with panicking tears--my breath coming out in shallow pants, and every nerve in my body tightened. The tears overcoming my stiff face and trickled down my hot cheeks, I pathetically glanced up to see who had collided with me. 

Tom Riddle stood before me, mouth gaping, aquamarine eyes timidly glowing with fear and confusion. Immediately thrusting his hand into my shirt, he pulled the stained fabric sticking to my skin toward himself, allowing for a brief moment of alleviated pain as the cool air filtered through my blouse. 

“I--” A single syllable escaped his lips before Madam Pince rushed from her desk to tend to my abrupt scream just moments before.

“What in Merlin’s name!” Pince cried out, gaping at my shell shocked expression, and noticing my frozen exterior she wrapped her arm around my shoulder, tightly gripping to my arm, and swinging me from the view of the boy who had spilled his morning tea into my tender skin. 

“We’re getting you to Poppy right this minute, Salazar!” The last part she whispered under her breath as she firmly guided me to the hospital wing where Pince exchanged my paralyzed body to Madam Pomfrey’s care. Submitting to the matron’s grasp, I realized I would be missing my charms lecture entirely. 

***

After the incident Madam Pomfrey guided me to a private bed where she told me to unbutton my top and drink a glass which she handed to me filled with a sloshing green liquid. She then applied a deep vermilion healing paste to my tender skin, her soft aged hands gently spread the cooling cream across my chest. Handing me a little black jar with the same red paste, she smiled gently.

“Apply this thickly every night, and whenever you feel the skin is unusually hot. Come back and see me in two days, alright dearie? If it starts to hurt badly you may most definitely see me sooner.”

I nodded, gently clutching the black jar in my hands as the paste slowly absorped into my skin revealing the red and irritated burn underneath.

“Now off to your next class.”

My bookbag hung heavy on my shoulder as I walked toward the exit of the hospital wing. I swung my bag in front of me to place the small black jar inside, and as I stepped outside I was met with the tall statuesque figure of Tom. His pristine uniform tailored perfectly to his broad shoulders, his shoes sleek black leather, his tie lay cleanly against his fitted white top. His hands were in his pockets, and he looked down at me with his eyes, not his face, so I could see the underside of his chin and the base of his defined jaw.

“I’m sorry, what business do you have by the hospital wing?” I muttered, looking away from his penetrating gaze.

“I have been waiting for you.” Emotionless. Smooth. Thick like the paste Pomfrey spread across my chest.

“And what is it that I can help you with, Riddle?” My voice was stern, my eye darting to meet his, my tongue running along the inside of my lips to keep my voice from exposing my irritation.

“I would like to offer my assistance for Slughorn’s partnered test.”

“We’re not allowed to help one another during the test, you know this.”

“Not during, before.” He finally lowered his face finally, so there could be a line connecting the angles of our jaws.

“You want to study with me?” My eyes narrowed. Yesterday the boy harshly told me to study by myself in the hopes of preserving is already pristine reputation. 

“You need my help, and...” 

“And what.”

“And I may owe you a new blouse.” He said smoothly, gazing at my brown-stained top where his cup had collided below my collarbone and above my breasts. I realized the top button was unhinged, partially exposing my sensitive pink skin. Quickly buttoning the little ivory disk and returning the eye contact, we were silent for a moment, and he took a step closer to me. 

“You will accept my offer.” 

“No I will not.” My lips pursed, and I crossed my arms, his sea-green eyes flickered with defiance, his eyebrows slightly furrowing to my nonchalant response. 

“I don’t think you understand the situation.”

“I understand the situation perfectly, Riddle. I don’t need your assistance for the test. I... I have someone else.”

“You have someone else.” He repeated coldly.

“That’s correct, I have someone else helping me study, but thank you for such a kind offer.” A small patronizing smile fluttered across my features before I could stop myself, and in an instant, I felt my heart sink. I saw his expression flash with aggression in a blink of unrestraint before quickly resuming to his normal critical glare. It felt almost powerful to have effected such a narcissistic little--

“Very well then,” he turned his head to the side, revealing the muscular tendons in his pale neck, where almost translucent skin lay atop cool blue veins. “I look forward to your... performance.” He cocked a brow and swiftly turned around, briskly leaving me at the entrance of the hospital wing. 

***

I had been planning on seeking out the help of professor Slughorn since the disastrous malfunction of my brew on the first day of the test, but after confessing to Riddle of my non-existent study partner, I decided to make my way to the dungeons to ask for his help. Down the stone staircases, the air seemed to dramatically drop in temperature, and the damp chilled corridor made my still-wet shirt stick to my skin with icy closeness. Knocking on the stone doorway to the potions classroom I cleared my throat. 

“Excuse me professor?” 

“Ah yes? What can I do for you?” Slughorn removed his glasses after placing a small golden stem of some kind into a minuscule vial with a pair of tiny tweezers. He smiled and I approached his desk. 

“I was wondering if I could ask for help before the test tomorrow.” I let my eyes stray to the numerous bottles, jars, bowls, and flasks filled with colorful liquids of differing viscosity that scattered the table. 

He hummed briefly. “I’m afraid I cannot help with that, it would be unfair to the other students if I offered help before a test to only one group, don’t you think?” 

“That’s ok professor, I just thought it couldn’t hurt to ask.” 

“Of course. Well, if there’s nothing else you need, at the moment I’m in the middle of quite a time-sensitive brew--”

“I understand, I’ll see you Friday professor.”

 I stepped out of the classroom, greeted with that all-too-familiar figure I had come to expect outside of doorways.

“Do you follow me, Riddle?” I made no effort to catch his eye as I began to walk back to the Slytherin common room. The heels of my shoes clicked with the sway of my hips as the sound echoed through the stone walls of the dungeons.

 “I wanted to see who your previously mentioned partner would be.” A small smile creeped onto his crystalline features slowly and unnaturally as if the sculptor forming his marble face was forcing emotions onto his art-like exterior. 

“And you got what you wanted, did you?” 

“My offer still stands.” Stopping a moment, I turned to face him. The light from a yellowing lantern glowed out from behind his tall shoulders, creating a blurry halo contrasting with his all-black clothing. The light conformed to the grooves in his face, appearing to drip down his hollowed cheeks and peek from behind his muscular neck. His eyebrows raised in anticipation. I said nothing and stood still when his hand stretched out to grasp the handle of my bookbag, relieving my shoulders of the stress they carried. He silently guided me to the common room, whispering the password and stepping in together, my eyes were met with the familiar glow of the Black Lake glittering in from the skylights above. Still holding my bag, we crossed the near-empty common room to the diverging staircases leading to his dorms and mine. He began up the stairs, looking down at me from an even higher advantage point than his normal towering height. He beckoned me with his eyes to follow. 

I am not going with Tom Riddle to his room, now, am I?

My legs obeyed and he led me to his four-poster bed, curtains draped. With a wave of his wand the thick velvety fabric cinched, revealing his bed, perfectly made, textbooks and parchment sat carefully in the center. The room was considerably darker than the common room, which was illuminated by softly glowing emerald lamps and light refractions glinting from the water above us in the Black Lake. The only light from the room came from the slanted skylights leading to the depths of the Lake above, the room coated in a thick pale green haze. It was as if he had been smoking an intoxicating musk, smelling of fresh sea foam and teakwood. He beckoned me to sit on his bed, and unpacking the books inside, he placed them next to his own materials on the cushiony mattress. He pulled up a chair from his desk and told me to pull out my parchment as we would be taking notes. There was something about being so close to him, silently obeying his requests that seemed strange. I felt as if my mind had been blurred, masked, like perhaps the intoxicating aroma wasn’t really a smell but an aura of attachment, and in that moment there was nothing more I wanted to do than to follow his every word. 

“What aspect of the test frightens you the most?” His words seemed to spill from his lips like warm sap dripping from the rough bark of a tree, I felt myself sticking to it, caught in its sweet trap, inescapable and cruel. Deadly. 

“Perhaps the timing of when to stir after the specific steps--and also how much of each ingredient... and maybe the order of when to stir versus when to add?” I felt my face growing hot.

“You need help with the entire potion, then.” His voice was icy, hinting at superiority and criticism. 

“No, just those few parts.”

“You just described the art of potion making in its entirety.” A small half-smile slithered across his cold features. I said nothing, looking down at the spread of studying materials, feeling overwhelmed and perhaps a bit ashamed that I had gone completely against my conscience and followed the boy to his room and sat atop his bed and--

“Firstly, I’d like to give you this,” he pulled from his pocket a small red square of paper, placing it in my hand. “It’s enchanted to find me once you write on it. If ever you have a question or need anything, I’ll know.”

I stared at the unassuming gift in my hands, wordless.

“It can’t be used during the test, or that would be cheating.” He added slyly, and I let out a small puff of air in response.

“Thank you.”

“Well then, back to the business at hand. Is there somewhere you would prefer to start?” He resumed his unnaturally rigid gaze, and gripped the sides of his chair firmly, he lifted and pulled the chair closer to my position on his bed, which caused the muscles in his toned arms to twist and pull and expose the sapphire veins which coiled across them like serpents. Transfixed still on the tiny red paper, I didn’t answer. In my silence he reached out, and touched my chin, cupping my jaw slightly in his hand. He slowly pulled my face up to his view. 

“No getting distracted, do I make myself clear?” His lips barely moved, but I felt weak to my stomach. My eyes fluttered shut, and I pulled my face from his touch. 

“Don’t do that.” I focused my gaze on his nightstand, forcing my attention on his little reading lamp which had rusted embellishments of snakes resembling vines curling along the base of the lamp. 

“Why not?” 

“It’s distracting.” 

Silence. 

“Lets start with the ingredients.” 

I wordlessly nodded, fumbling with the books until I found the one I had begun to take notes on before I left the library this morning. I handed him my notes, which he gracefully pulled from my hand, and eyed quickly. 

1. Shrivelfig

2. Porcupine quills, (as many as needed)

3. Peppermint sprig

“Your first mistake was when you added the peppermint sprig too early. This step comes after you stir four times counter-clockwise,” he looked down at my notes again. “I see you corrected this by noting that the mixture usually must be prepped before the leaves are added, very good.” I forced back a smile. “The peppermint is quite important to this particular brew, can you tell me why?” Lowering the notes, he stared at my nervous expression. 

“They balance out the intense feelings of...” I stopped dead in my tracks. 

“Euphoria.” 

“...which are induced as the wizard drinks the potion.” I finished, my breathing was shaky, and I felt uncontrollably nervous as he slowly shifted in his seat, leaning closer to me, I felt his hot breath on my neck as he silently exhaled. 

Pulling away from his intimate stance, I stepped off the bed. 

“Tom, I don’t think...” He mimicked my movements, also standing from the chair, his bed now lying between us, he put his knee and hands on the bed, and looked up at me from his lowered position. 

“What is the matter?” 

“I shouldn’t be here...” I walked backwards, finding the door with my hands, and hurriedly making my way down the stairs, completely ignoring all my books still on his bed as I rushed through the common room and out into the cool dungeons outside. My heart beat a thousand times a minute, and my breathing was coarse and shaky, I stood with my back to the icy dungeon wall, my hands traveled to my chest in an attempt to force my erratic breathing to slow. Feeling the hot flesh below my touch, the slight pain flowing back into my consciousness, I remembered I needed to apply my burn cream. Realizing I had utterly missed supper, I decided it would be best to have Madam Pomfrey take a look at my skin.

***

There was no chance I would be back in the common room tonight after what had just happened. I thought, as I swiftly walked up the dungeon staircase to the main floor where I would find the hospital wing of the castle. Following supper, the castle was quiet. Most students had gone up to their house’s tower or down to the dungeons if you belonged to Slytherin or Hufflepuff. The corridors were nearly silent except for a few students quietly walking up the grand staircase or whispering respectfully due to the general understanding that students shouldn’t loiter in the corridors approaching curfew. Still, I silently walked to the hospital wing, hoping Pomfrey would allow me to rest there for the night if there was room for me. Nearing the door, I caught her eye, and she motioned for me to come into the room. To my relief, the lines of beds flanking the central walkway were nearly empty, and Pomfrey led me to a private bed toward the back where a privacy guard had been placed to shelter the injured student.

“How are you healing dear?” She smiled softly and my hand went to feel the hot skin, causing me to squint with a twinge of pain.

“Still painful I see...” her eyes wandered, looking at the floor near me, and suddenly it occurred to me what she was looking for

“My bag! I completely forgot to bring it!” My hand flew to my face, a wave of worry overcame me as I wondered if I would need to go back to his room to get my jar.

Madam Pomfrey’s expression was calm, and as the soft clicking of footsteps drew nearer, the both of us averted our eyes to the figure who approached the guarded stall.

Tom stood at the foot of my bed, and smiled weakly as he pulled the familiar black jar from his pocket. His sea-green eyes glittered faintly in the dimness of the hospital wing. 

“I thought you might need this.” He handed me the jar, and underneath the glass bottom I felt something soft and crisp, looking down I saw the little red paper fall from the jar and into my lap, slipping it into the pocket of my uniform, our eyes connected and he opened his mouth as if to inquire something, but ultimately made no sound and exited the hospital wing. I was now alone with the matron, who noted at how lucky I was to have such an intuitive friend as she watched me apply the paste, critiquing my techniques, and explaining I should always go thicker if I’d like to be safe. 

“Do you plan on making your way back to the dormitories or were you planning on spending the night here since it’s already...” she checked the clock “Well it’s already 10:10, but if you’d like to hurry back to your dorm I can inform Mr. Filch you’ll be--”

“If you don’t mind Miss, I’d like to stay here if that’s okay.” 

“That’s certainly fine with me. I’ll be out, but if there’s anything you need, just ring and I’ll be back as quickly as possible. Sleep well, dear.” I watched her figure leave the hospital wing, and the dim lights overhead faded off, leaving only the faint glow of the moon filtering through the windows above the beds to shine geometrical patterns on the stone floor. I removed my shoes and socks, resting them at the foot of my bed, and undid my hair, feeling it coil around my shoulders. I placed the red parchment on the stand next to my bed, and slid my legs under the covers of the blankets. 

***

As I lied curled up, I watched the minutes pass, my body far from sleep. 10:40, 11:15, 11:50... My eyes were wide open, gazing at the ceiling far above me. No one stirred in the hospital wing, and hidden away at the back of the linear room behind the stiff curtain, I sat up, turning my eyes to that small paper Riddle gave me a few hours earlier. Playing with the soft red paper I felt the curiosity bubbling up inside me. I searched for a writing utensil and scratched a quick message neatly into the paper. As I finished the paper thrust itself from my hands and fluttered through the hospital wing like a butterfly, and out the door it went. Now my excitement was nearing the brim as I sat awaiting a response. 

15 minutes no answer. 

Could he be asleep? I thought as I pulled my legs up to an angle, causing my blankets to tent with the movement. 

15 more minutes. 

I began to assume he had gone to sleep for the night, and just as I lowered my legs and began to relax my position I heard the faintest sound of someone walking the corridors outside the open door to the hospital wing. My eyes flew open and I felt my heat pounding in my chest. 

Was he coming in person?! 

The steps became slightly louder, but still effortlessly soft and steady. Soon a shadowy figure met me at the foot of my bed. Stepping into the light, I felt my heart nearly throwing itself from my chest. The soft light of the moon that filtered through the windows above my bed seemed to veil him with its glow. His composure resembled that of a statue of an angel covered with ivy and carved from sparkling ivory that would sit untouched in an overgrown garden. It was delicate and somehow firm. 

“You’re lucky I am a prefect.” His whisper was barely audible, and as he again stepped closer to my bed he found his way to the chair next to me, and I could more clearly see his still pristine uniform was on, almost as if he had gotten ready to see me. I said nothing, and my eyes could not leave his face. 

“Is your skin feeling any better?” His words were soft and silky, and as he neared my seated position on my bed I realized we had unconsciously copied our exact position when I rushed from his room. “I realize I never apologized for spilling on you... that must have been very painful. I’m sorry.” 

“It still hurts...” I didn’t mean it as a way to force guilt into him, I just felt so strange by our hushed and intimate conversation I didn’t know what else to say to him. 

“May I help you with it?” Reaching for the black jar I did nothing to stop him, my mind swirled with anticipation and emotion. He delicately unscrewed the cap, his long fingers clutching the jar harshly, and the whites of his knuckles stood like snow-peaked mountaintops on his smooth pale hands. 

“Unbutton your blouse.” He softly commanded, and slowly my hands undid the highest three buttons of my top, fully exposing the reddened flesh below my collarbone. He was unexplainably addictive and enticing, and there was no natural reasoning behind the complete trust my body freely gave him. Dipping two fingers deep within the jar, and pulling them out, they were covered in the thick red paste. In a moment of searing eye contact he carefully placed his fingers onto my hot, waiting skin. I let out a soft wince as a spread the mixture across the affected area, a few times submerging back in for more of the wet cream. It was calming and yet exciting to feel him touch me so carefully and full of purpose. 

“Your heart is beating so quickly,” he whispered. “Are you nervous?” 

“Can I ask you something?” I attempted to dodge his question, but to no avail.

“Answer me first.” 

“Yes, very.” 

“Go ahead. What did you want to ask me?” I noticed the ghost of a smirk flash across his lips. 

“Why did you pull my blouse from my skin when the tea spilled onto me?” I watched his eyes stray and I felt like I could almost see him retracing his steps and accessing the memory. 

“I learned if someone has been exposed to a poison spill or a hot liquid the best thing to do is remove the item that the spill happened on. Fabric retains liquid by soaking it up, which would just allow the toxin to sit on your skin...” He caught my eyes. “But since I could not remove your blouse, it seemed the next best thing to get it away from your skin in any other way possible.” I nodded slowly, realizing that his quick thinking saved me from a potentially worse burn. “I learned it from personal experience,” he looked away.

“Someone burned you?” 

“No, I spilled a corrosive potion on myself a few years back.” I let out a muffled laugh. 

“Then what did you do? take your top off?” 

“Is that what you’re thinking about?” 

“No! just that you could have done something wrong in potions class...” I let slip a shy smile. 

“There are many things you don’t know about me.” A tiny but genuine smile danced on his face for a moment, before he returned his hands to my chest, carefully spreading the soft cream and blowing cool air to speed its absorption. The breath made a small chill run down my spine, and turning my eyes back on his face, I couldn’t help but fixing my gaze on his red lips. Red like my simmering potion, red like his crisp parchment square, and red like the paste he gently danced across my tender, red hot skin. 

tags: @tmr-simp-pride​

[aceghosts]

For Rooney and Thane:

not really paying attention, both doing something else, but still holding hands

Thank you for sending this in! I apologize for taking so long.

[Prompt List]

Summary: Jack feels like a third wheel on a mission with Rooney and Thane.

Words: 782 words.

Warnings: No major warnings.

Author's Note: This is my first time writing from Jack's perspective. I hope I captured her voice well.

Fuck, Vakarian was going to be insufferable, especially since Jack was going to have to fork over some credits on this bet. Smug Turian bastard. Jack hated this, being the goddamn third wheel on a mission with Shepard and Krios. When Jack first met Shepard, she thought Shepard was too much like that Cerberus Cheerleader. They were much, much worse than that. Shepard was a boy scout through and through, the insufferable do-gooder unable to keep their nose out of other peoples’ business. Sure, it made for fun fights, but Jack was less than thrilled to have Shepard give a speech about fucking everything.

When Jack made the bet with Vakarian, she thought there was no way Shepard could be interested in someone. Jack thought Shepard was one of those people who lived for their job. Wake up. Save the goddamn galaxy like the good little boy scout they were. Rescue some kittens from some trees. Help old ladies cross the street. Thinking about the kind of person who would go for someone as boring and moralistic as Shepard, Jack could only conclude (1) that they must have been more boring than Shepard, and (2) the other person would have to make the first move. Earlier, in a truly embarrassing display of flirting, Jack watched as Shepard awkwardly patted Krios on the shoulder, only to awkwardly compliment, “Nice Shot”. Shepard needed help desperately. She shook her head.

“Jack!” Shepard barked, jerking Jack from her thoughts.

“What, Shepard? Gonna lecture me on something?” She snapped harshly. Krios frowned, and Jack resisted the urge to give him the middle finger. He always looked like someone’s disappointed dad when he frowned. Jack thought he was boring for an assassin; He should have been more fun. He should have been running around snapping necks, showing off those killer instincts. Krios should have been bragging about his kills; instead, he would deflect and ask about something else. BORING! No wonder Shepard was fucking into him. They made the most boring couple alive.

Raising an eyebrow, Shepard asked, “We need to move on. Are you focused?”

“Why? You gonna give me some lecture on gun safety? Real rich coming from you.”

Shepard tilted their head, clearly confused. “Jack, if you have criticisms about my leadership, you should tell me. You shouldn’t be afraid to voice your concerns. I don’t want my teammates to feel they don’t have any input on our mission.”

Fuck, Shepard should have snapped back. Instead, they responded with that soft feely-feely crap. Motioning to Krios, Jack said, “Can you focus with him around? Hate for you to get distracted by Krios, and I’d have to come save your ass.”

Shepard’s mouth dropped as Krios’ eyes widened. Before either of them could say something, someone shouted, “THERE ARE THE INTRUDERS.”

Unholstering their pistol, Shepard whipped around. They frowned, as the Blue Suns started to filter into the room, guns ready. Jack unholstered her weapon as did Krios. Finally, the fun was starting. Jack had been looking for a fight all day. About fucking time.

“Thane.” Shepard called, taking his hand. They yanked him behind cover quickly, dodging bullets from the mercenaries. Jack dived behind the other cover, throwing one of the guys into the air. Well, at least, Jack could take her frustration about being the third wheel on someone else.

--

Eventually, the fight ended, far too quickly for Jack’s liking. Where were the Blue Suns recruiting from? A fucking preschool? “What a bunch of pussies.” She said, getting up and looking over. Shepard and Krios stood up from behind the cover, Shepard asking, “Did you get hurt, Jack?” Of fucking course, they asked if Jack was alright. They always asked after every fucking-

Wait. Was Shepard holding Krios’ hand? Was Shepard holding his hand the whole time? She broke into a smile, trying to hold back her laughter. “Didn’t know you needed Krios to hold your hand to hit your fucking targets, Shepard.”

Shepard looked down in confusion before their eyes widened with surprise. They turned bright red, releasing Thane’s hand. “I’m sorry, Thane. I could have-“

He shook his head. “Do not apologize, Shepard,’ with a teasing smirk, he said to Jack, ‘You have it wrong. I needed Shepard’s hand to shoot well.”

Shepard looked surprised as Jack let out another laugh. “Didn’t know you had it in you to make a joke, Krios.”

“I’m a man of many talents,” He replied, his eyes flashing over to Shepard.

Groaning, Shepard shook their head. “Enough, you two comedians. Back to the mission.” They commanded, looking slightly flustered. Oh, this was going to be fun, especially if Krios was this good at winding Shepard up.

[soulmate-game]

Okay, I’m not sure if what I was trying to say in my last post was said very well.

I completely understand the tagging situation from the First Wave with the DC fans. That’s discourse that is mostly solved and we can’t do anything about those who are forever gonna be bitter or lazy. I’m not talking about that stuff.

The stuff I want to prevent/limit is the hate that comes after our fandom deliberately. And yes, I know I can’t stop it. None of us can stop bitter, antagonistic people from being bitter and antagonistic. None of us can stop people who just want to be angry.

I’m not talking about stopping them, though.

I’m talking about what we can do to protect ourselves as creators and consumers in this fandom. As people who love and appreciate what the creations and people in this fandom have to offer. In simplistic form, I’m saying we need to learn how to shield ourselves from bullies. And there are methods we can use to make ourselves less of a target to the people who go after us, and methods to cut their attacks off short. None of these methods are fool-proof, but they will work to filter out a good majority of the shit we would otherwise be showered by, like a big umbrella against Assholery. Sure, the wind might still blow some in our face and we might splash in a puddle or two by accident, but at least we aren’t soaked.

So let me list the various things that can help you shield yourself from hate/harassment/antis who might just be out to get you.

1) leave the fandom.

The most effective, but least attractive method possible. This is limited to being a last ditch effort, if things have just gotten too hard to handle. I’m covering it first though, because we have to acknowledge that it is a viable method. If you feel trapped, hated, bullied, I’m sure all of us in this fandom would prefer you take a break and leave us for a while in the sake of your own health and safety then stay where you are miserable. This is less of a problem for us though, because mostly this option is gonna be for fandoms where the discourse and attacks are internal. Maribat is largely a peaceful and supportive/healthy environment once you’re inside our little bubble, the main discourse comes from outside in. So let’s focus on the main point of this post— how to keep our bubble from popping.

2) Make it apparent right away that you are Unapologetic.

Whenever you post content or are approached by someone about the topic of your fandom, don’t you DARE ever apologize for liking what you like or posting unproblematic content. You need to make it clear right off the bat that you are not gonna be swayed, bullied, or shamed out of your fandom. Stand with pride and make it clear, but don’t be verbose about it. A simple “Don’t like, don’t read” is classic but sometimes if you’re posting/talking during a more confrontational period of the fandom, you need to up your game to reflect that. The funny thing is, people can easily be intimidated by swearing if it isn’t directed at them or clearly antagonistic. If you’re swearing in a joking, casual or even in a manner that shows you’re not taking yourself too seriously, people will usually avoid picking fights with you. For this, my favorite lines to use on my work include;

“Don’t like, I don’t fucking care. I fell down the rabbit hole.”

“Don’t bother reading if you’re not into this, this shit bitch-slapped me and dragged me along on it’s adventure.”

“I’m addicted to this fandom, don’t bother trying to save me. If it bothers you, I don’t give a fuck. Save yourselves.”

3) Don’t approach or interact

Unless someone comes at you first, never try to persuade someone away from hating us. That just makes you a target in an empty field, for the vultures to surround and gang up on. If someone approaches you with provocative but not overly insulting or intelligent language— I.e; trying to start a fight, vague insults not always relating to the fandom itself, trying to insult your character/judgement— do not respond. Delete the message, block the account, and surround yourself with fluffy good stuff to forget the wanna-be harasser. These people are often not brave enough to outright start a fight, and want you to get defensive first so they know the weak points in your armor to exploit. Defensive statements declare your own insecurities, don’t get defensive. It gives them a way to win without having to defend themselves or feel vulnerable— it’s like exploiting type differences in Pokémon. You wait for an unfamiliar Pokémon to expose it’s type, then snipe it with the moves it’s weak to. Then, you have a near sure-fire win even with under leveled Pokémon on your team.

Don’t be a proud Infernape that gets sniped by a weak-ass level 5 Piplup. We’re strong, don’t show them the chinks in our armor.

4) Have a support network. Even if they don’t know they are your support network.

The fandom as a whole serves this purpose, and this is mostly gonna be a tactic you use when the discourse is inside the fandom, but there can be uses for this in discourse from outside the fandom as well. If someone tries to act like they like your story/art “but...” they passive aggressively state things they “would prefer” or they try to make it sound like you made stupid mistakes (a tactic to make you insecure about yourself) instead of kindly pointing out errors or offering constructive criticism (ex: “you know you put your trigger list somewhere where it’s useless right? Love your story though.)—THESE ARE ALL PROVOCATIONS. They are trying to make you insecure so that you change things about yourself, your work, or jump through hoops to try to “make it up” to them when you did nothing wrong and there are no problems to fix. Do not fall for it! Instead, politely as possible, bring the issue into a public space where you feel safe/trust the people in that space to keep the bullshit from escalating. For me, I straight up explain my reasoning for the placement of my trigger list as if I’m advertising a particularly boring but important product that I’m selling, then offer places for them to bring the issue into a discussion with others. I send them to a discoed group or right here to my tumblr, and I immediately make the issue into a big discussion (do YOU think there is anything to change? Let’s ALL talk about it) so that I am no longer isolated and easy for them to harass. They might refuse to join the discussion and further try to pressure you, but do not cave. Merely say that a public discussion has been started, and if they are actually, legitimately concerned about the way you do things then they can debate it in a public setting. This way, you have back up. 9/10 people who try to target you this way will back off and never enter the conversation you started.

5) Do not fight back.

This sounds counterintuitive, but a lot of the time once discourse gets this bad, arguing/defending/ trying to prove your point only fuels their rage more. I have found that people hate very little in this world more than they hate being wrong. And people who hate being wrong will fight to the bitter death about their opinions, no matter how invalid or hurtful they are, in the favor of their blissful ignorance. Remove yourself from harmful discussions or those that seem to be going in circles as soon as possible, and try to surround yourself in your support group. Never let people make you feel stupid, your opinions illegitimate, or your likes/dislikes invalid or evil.

6) Try to learn how to recognize bullies in disguise

It’s too much for me to try to cover here, but you need to PLEASE look into how to spot gaslighting. Tactics of gaslighting are often used to attack others and try to make them feel like their own opinions are invalid or their mindset untrustworthy. People will often approach you in the guise of friendship/support/ “I am not into this, but...” and while this is not always a red flag, we have to keep our eyes open for any signs of this person or their approach being rooted in anything other than legitimate curiosity or kindness. Not all suggestions that say they are out of concern actually ARE. Keep an eye out for warning signs, and cut off interaction once things seem like they may lead to an argument or you being in a vulnerable position if you continue interacting.

(Brief mention of s**cide and threats in the section below)

7) If all else fails, BLOCK THEM.

No hesitation, we don’t need this shit. They make a second account? Block that too. Don’t respond, only take screenshots or reblog if it is directly harmful information that can/should be documented (words that encourage suicide, threats, insults that seem a little too specific for comfort) and give the evidence to someone you trust to look out for you. A therapist, a family member, or even the authorities if you deem that necessary. Just don’t handle it alone.

We are not responsible for other people’s actions, opinions, or anger. Take the steps to protect yourself instead of trying to reconcile. Sometimes, reconciliation isn’t an option. Both parties have to be willing to reconcile, and it is clear they have nothing in mind but hurting us. So raise your shields and protect yourself and your friends, we’re not gonna lose a war to petty jerks.

[btsslowburnfic]

Argument with Jin part 2

Part one found HERE

TW: infertility. Lots of people struggle with it, talking about it can help and I'm here if anyone needs an ear :) This is sooo much longer than a reaction but whatever. Enjoy this angsty/fluffy thing

Summary of part 1: Jin’s refusal to even go to the fertility specialist with you after 18 months of trying for a baby leads you,his wife, to walk out on him. ----------------

Jin sat on the couch stunned; crying on and off for the rest of the afternoon. He didn't want to call anyone because he didn't want his friends to know the two of you were fighting. Jin always kept up a cheerful front for the other members as the oldest member. He decided to try and get some sleep. Surely you would come back home after you felt better. He couldn’t bear to go back into the empty bedroom where the two of you had fought so he curled his long body up on the couch.

He woke up around 11 pm to a pitch black apartment. He resisted the urge to instantly start crying again.He took out his phone and texted you.

J: I’m so sorry. please come home.

He sat the phone down and went to get a drink. Mostly just to busy himself. He came back. Nothing.

J: Just let me know you're OK.

J: Please I love you. You don’t have to speak to me just let me know you’re safe or I won’t be able to stop thinking you’re dead in a ditch somewhere. Y/N: I'm fine. I got to where I'm staying. J: I love you.

He didn't receive any more messages from you the rest of the night. He tried to play League of Legends but he just kept finding tears coming down his face again.

He finally fell asleep for around two hours. He threw on some jeans, a shirt, a mask, and a cap and headed into the BigHit building. “Hyung, are you ok? You look sick,” Jimin said as soon as Jin walked in the door.

“I just didn’t sleep well. I’m fine,” he replied. Jimin wasn’t convinced but decided not to press the issue.

The men all started to filter into the studio for choreography practice.

Jimin walked over to Yoongi upon his arrival, “Is everything ok with Jin?”

“I think so. Why?” Yoongi responded as he sipped an iced coffee.

“Just go look at him.” Jimin replied.

Yoongi walked over to where Jin was sitting on the floor half-assed stretching.

“There’s fresh coffee in the lounge if you want some,” he said as he squatted down next to

Jin. Jin looked up at Yoongi, and his puffy and bloodshot eyes were a dead giveaway. “Rough night?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Jin replied quietly.

“Fine fine. But remember, we’re here for you.” he patted Jin’s thigh and stood back up. He walked across the practice room and over to Jimin.“Yeah. he’s not fine. "

“What can we do?” Jimin said, always the sensitive friend.

“Nothing right now. He doesn’t want to talk about it so we shouldn't force him to. Text your girlfriend though. Sometimes girls talk about this stuff.”

Jimin raised his eyebrows.”good idea!” he pulled his phone out and sent a quick message.

Jimin: Hey...have you heard from [y/n]? We think Jin is sick but he’s still at work this morning. SexyCutie: Oh no :( I’ll text [y/n].

SexyCutie:hey [y/n]. Is Jin sick? He showed up to work and the other guys are worried.

You looked at your phone. Goddammit. You should have known. Your group of friends, the other group members and their significant others all talked to each other. It was only a matter of time before someone knew something was going on. You tried to decide if you wanted to be diplomatic or not. Sitting in your sweatpants, bloated from your period, and still very much pissed off, you declined taking the high road.

[Y/N]: he’s not sick. We’re fighting. He was being a dick. I left the apartment.

Jimin heard a chirp on his phone a few minutes later. He opened his mouth in surprise at the message.

SexyCutie: He’s not sick. He and [Y/N] got into a big fight and she walked out. Sorry ;-;

Jimin showed his phone to Yoongi who nodded his head in understanding. He was very familiar with these feelings, having argued with his wife about their insane work schedule all the time. He’d spent several nights on the couch and in the studio. However, Jin and [Y/N] had been dating and married for years. He didn’t even know the two of you to argue, let alone have the type of fight where you would just walk out.

The choreographer walked in, signaling that it was time to begin practice. Not surprisingly, Jin half-assed his choreography. His movement was slow, his arms all over the place.

“Jin, hyung, what is going on? We need you here.” Hoseok, ever the strict one with choreography, chided him.

“Yeah. Sorry. I’ll get it,” Jin responded.

They continued a few more times, and Jin only got worse.

Jungkook walked over and tried to make a joke with him about how he looked like a windmill on crack, but Jin just stood there, not laughing.

Hobi was about ready to rip into him when Yoongi walked over to him and whispered, “[Y/N] walked out on him.”

The color drained on his face. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah, so just. You know. Let’s just get through today.” Yoongi said, asking for understanding.

“Yeah, ok. Let’s run it again,” he said, sparing Jin the criticism.

They ran through it again, this time with Namjoon getting ready to say something to Jin about his shitty performance. “Namjoon, can you help me with something?” Jimin asked.

Namjoon took his sights off Jin and walked over to Jimin, “Sure what’s up?”

Jimin caught Joon up on the situation as well. “Oh man. That’s Bad. Like real bad. She’s usually so nice and chill.” he put his hands on his hips and turned around to face the rest of the room. “Alright guys, let’s go ahead and break for lunch.”

The staff members and five of the guys head out to the cafeteria. Yoongi stayed behind with Jin, shutting the door. “You’re fighting with [Y/N]?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Jin replied, sliding down with his back against the wall to a sitting position.

“Do you know where she went?” Yoongi asked, pressing the issue slightly.

Jin looked up at him, his annoyance clear in his eyes. “It’s no one else’s business.”

Yoongi let out a sigh. “I know you try and keep all of this to yourself because you feel like you have to be the happy and strong one. And I respect you a lot for that. But you can’t always keep stuff like this inside. If you don’t want to talk to me about it, it’s fine. But you should talk to somebody about it.”

“She won’t even text me back,” Jin said quietly, his voice beginning to crack.

Yoongi puffed out his cheeks. “So she’s really upset. Should she be?”

Jin tipped his head back up and looked at the ceiling. His silence said as much as his words could.

“I assume you apologized already?” More silence. “Give her a few days. She’s probably at your brother’s. She’ll come around eventually. You two love each other. It will work out.”

“No. I fucked up really bad this time.” Jin squeaked out, tears falling down his face.

‘It’s nothing the two of you can’t talk about.” Yoongi held out his arm, “Come on, you need to

eat. You have to take care of yourself.” Jin took his hand and got up, still not speaking.

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

You ignored the rest of the messages from Jimin’s girlfriend. You didn’t want to blast your marital troubles out there more than you already had. You sat there, snuggled under the covers in bed at Jin’s parents house. When you left you had planned on going to Namjoon and his wife’s house but then decided you couldn't handle being around their baby; too painful. It was the same with Taehyung’s very pregnant wife. And just last week Jimin’s girlfriend had confided in you that she was expecting. Ugh. You were very happy for all of your friends, but it was just too much right now. And so, you found yourself a mere 2 minute walk away from your own apartment. Fortunately for you Jin’s mom hadn’t asked you what the problem was when you showed up carrying your bags and tears in your eyes, she just hugged you and took your things to the guest bedroom saying something about how “marriage is hard work sometimes.”

You snuggled up to your fluffy baby RJ pillow. You missed Jin but you were just still so angry. You kept replaying the shitty thing he said to you, “Maybe you could get pregnant if you weren't so sad all the time.” Jin was hardly ever mean to anybody; but never you. Even when he was tired or stressed out, he never took it out on you. You had no idea what your end game was. You wanted a baby. But not without Jin. But if he wasn’t willing to go to the doctor with you then what were you supposed to do? It seemed like such a small thing to ask especially after the 18 months you had been through. You sighed and walked out to get yourself a drink of water.

----------

The rest of practice went well enough with all the guys’ knowing well enough to leave Jin alone.

The guys all started saying their goodbyes. Namjoon walked over to Jin. “You going home?”

“No. I’m staying at the dorm tonight. I just can’t.” Jin’s voice cracked. “If she’s still not home, I can’t...” he couldn’t finish as he started sobbing again. While he was at work he was able to push his thoughts to the side but now that he had to deal with the fact that he should be going home to you, and instead had nothing to go home to, he found himself unable to cope.

“Hey man. Seriously. Just talk to her when she’s ready. Whatever happened between the two of you, think about why it happened and what you can do to keep it from happening again.”

“She won’t even answer me,” Jin cried.

“Did you apologize for what you specifically did? When I’m mad, people just saying “I’m sorry” seems like a fast way out, like a way to bandage something rather than actually fixing the problem. Maybe start there and see what happens.”

Jin sniffled as Namjoon handed him some tissue. “Ok, yeah. I’ll try that. I’m sorry I was worse than normal today. You even danced better than me,” he tried to joke. Namjoon rolled his eyes and smiled, “Good luck, hyung. A good marriage takes effort.” Jin nodded and pulled out his phone.

Jin: I can’t go home knowing you’re not there. I’m staying in the dorms. I love you. I’m sorry I said it was your fault we can’t get pregnant. If I could take it back I would. But I can’t. Please know it’s not your fault. Truthfully,I’m afraid it’s my fault we can’t have a baby and it’s my pride keeping me from wanting to go to the doctor. That doesn’t excuse anything. I would like to talk to you about this more in person.

You looked over at your phone. Jin’s mom had coaxed you out onto the coach by baking cookies and the two of you were watching an older K-Drama. You picked it up and read the message. Fresh tears stung your eyes. You pinched them shut and the tears rolled down.

“Is that Jin?” she asked.

“‘Yeah.”

“I don’t know what he did. I’m sure it was bad if you left though. But, I know my son and I know he loves you more than anything. I also know sometimes his mouth moves faster than his brain.”

“I know.” you answered quietly. You sighed and took out your phone.

[Y/N]: I appreciate the apology. I can talk tomorrow after work. I’ll see you at the apartment.

[Jin]: Thank you Jagiya. I love you so much.

You put your phone back down and settled into the couch once more. His mom thankfully didn’t try to ask you anything about it. You had definitely lucked out in the in-law department.

Jin slept slightly better that night knowing he was going to see you tomorrow. But he still didn’t know exactly what to say or what he should do to make it better.

He heard the door to the dorm open and shut and then the coffee grinder. Jin put a robe on and wandered out.

“Yoongi-ah what are you doing here? It’s 2 in the morning.” Jin asked, his eyes adjusting to the lights.

“Couldn’t sleep. My wife is out of town. Might as well be here,” he shrugged and poured the coffee grounds into the machine. “What about you?”

“[Y/N] is still gone, but she agreed to see me tomorrow.” Jin responded, feeling more like sharing now that he knew he was going to see you again.

“Good, good. How are you planning on fixing it?”

“I don’t really know how. I was just so scared of her leaving me.” Jin admitted.

“Well, I hope you have more to say before you meet her tomorrow. Coffee?” Yoongi offered.

Jin shook his head. How on earth could Yoongi be drinking coffee at 2 am? “Yeah. I know. Ok. I’ll tell you what happened. But don’t tell anyone else.”

Yoongi blinked slowly, still not 100% awake. He wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. “Yeah, ok.” Yoongi sat down at the kitchen island as Jin told him everything. How you had been trying for a baby for 18 months, how each month you bawled your eyes out, how you wanted to see a specialist, and how he had completely shut it down.

Yoongi sat his cup down. “Make the damn doctor’s appointment.”

“What?”

“Go get your shit looked at so you guys can have kids. It’s not a big deal. Joon and his wife had IUI. You might not even need to do anything like that. Just go and get tested.”

Jin’s eyes bugged out slightly, “Really?”

Yoongi shrugged, “Yeah. Like you said, it’s no one’s business, but if it helps you get over this weirdness you have about it I’m sure you could ask him about it.”

“I just don’t want them to stick a tube all up in there,” Jin gestured to his lap area.

Yoongi laughed, “That’s a vasectomy you idiot. That’s like the opposite: when you don’t want kids”

Jin’s face grew red. “I knew that...I was talking about…nevermind.”

“Look, I’ll text Joon and find out the doctor’s name. Make the appointment, show [y/n] you’re serious about it. And even if they wanted to stick a damn needle up there, your wife has to give birth. Man up.” Yoongi clapped him on the shoulder and heard towards the studios, “I’ll text Namjoon and get back with you.”

Jin was still red with embarrassment, “Thanks Yoongi-ah.”

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

You walked a block over to your apartment, wondering if Jin was already there or if you would be the first to arrive. Your eyes had bags under them and part of you was so excited to see jin. It had always been like that; ever since you first started dating him. Every time he came home from practice, from the tours, or even from the corner store, you were so excited to see his face. You pressed your fob to the door and walked in, seeing Jin’s shoes by the door. You put your purse down and removed your shoes, quietly walking into the living room. Jin was sitting on the couch with a laptop and notepad sitting out, which was very un-Jin like. You hadn’t seen him look remotely studious since he finished his Master’s degree.

His eyes looked up at you and his face softened, “Jagiya.” He walked over and wrapped his arms around you. You allowed yourself to relax into them. “I’m so sorry,” you heard him say as his lips pressed against the top of your head.

You let yourself stay there for another minute. “We need to talk about this.”

“Absolutely, come have a seat,” ge gestured to the couch. Jin was being so mature and grown-up, it really surprised you. You were afraid he was just going to hug you and point out his handsome face and try to get you to laugh, but he was actually taking this seriously.

You walked over to the sofa and sat down, trying hard not to snoop at what was written down on the paper.

He sat down beside you and took your hands in his. “I was a total idiot the other day. What I said to you was mean and unforgivable. I meant what I texted yesterday. It was my pride that has kept me from wanting to see a doctor because it makes me feel less manly to think that you know...that there’s something wrong…” he fidgets uncomfortably.

“With your sperm?” you continue.

He nods his head. This whole topic is clearly very uncomfortable for him. His entire face is red and he can’t look at you.

“But. If we want children. And I do. I want children with you [Y/N]. A little you and me running around here. I know that I need to just suck it up. I’m sorry that things had to come to this for me to make that realization.”

You had started to cry a little bit. Jin made eye contact with you for a second and gently wiped your tears away.

“I love you so much. And I was afraid you were going to leave me. And I’m nothing without you [Y/N]. You’re my home. Everything I do is meaningless if you’re not around to share it with me. So please, forgive me and try to forget that I ever blamed you for anything. You have been nothing but kind and patient with me.” he brings your hands up and kisses them.

“I love you too,” you whispered back, afraid that if you talk louder you'll start sobbing and won’t be able to stop.

“So, I’ve talked to a few people and this here is supposed to be one of the top fertility specialists in Seoul. I thought about just making the appointment but I didn’t want to do that without getting your opinion since it’s such an important thing.”

You couldn’t believe what you are hearing, you are so happy. You started crying for a different reason, “Are you serious?” you ask.

“Rarely. But today, right now, with you, about having a baby. Yes. Now this Dr. Helped Namjoon and his wife out as well and he has a lot of extra certifications and….” Jin went on and on about this doctor and you gently slid up next to him, grabbed his face and turned it towards yours for a kiss.

“Thank you so much Jin.”

“I should have done this 6 months ago when you first asked me,” he shook his head.

“Better late than never,” you said as you snuggled into his side. The two of you started writing down questions to ask the office; finally on the same page about the next step in this chapter of your lives.

[eyeofthedrgn]

A Heavy Battle Symphony Chapter 8

Catch up here >> AHBS Masterlist

TW: language, mental abuse, verbal abuse, physical abuse, violence, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, self harm, self-esteem issues, sexual abuse (only alluded to briefly in future chapters), drinking (comes up late in the story) just a lot of trauma, angst, smut - lots of lovely gay smut

Word count: 1739

Notes: This chapter is slightly graphic on the physical abuse. It's only like two lines, but I wanted to make it known.

Chapter 8 - Sorry for Now

After a while you may forget

But just in case the memories cross your mind

You couldn't know this when I left

Under the fire of your angry eyes

I never wanted to say goodbye

Four months, thirteen days, and ten hours, not that he was counting, since he left. Since the dark haired boy had walked away, leaving Rowan standing on the sidewalk. Since his mind spiraled out of control, and it felt like part of him died.

Rowan had been seeing a therapist for the last three months. It had helped, somewhat. At least he could function as a relatively normal human being again, when he was around people anyway. Most of the time. He almost didn't graduate. Thankfully, his mom, his friend group, and his therapist had helped him get through it.

But all in all, Rowan felt empty. Somehow his heart was broken. He hadn't realized someone could get so attached to someone so fast even though they never really talked or hung out. Maybe it was because they shared such vulnerabilities with each other that day in the park or there really was such a thing as a soulmate and his just left him. Either way, he was broken inside. Yet, he still went to parties with his friends, hung out, but he wasn't always present. Everyone noticed the vacant stares, but they usually left it alone. They all knew the general gist of what happened that day, but they could never understand the emotional gravity well that that day had caused. No one knew that Rowan had fallen for the other boy.

Except the ever observant Elide. She noticed everything. The way Rowan spoke about Lorcan, the way his eyes lit up when he saw the other boy walking down the hall, and the small looks they both shared on cast signing day.

But nobody had seen Lorcan after he had walked away. He never came back to school. No one knew what to think. Most assumed they moved again and they left it at that. Rowan assumed the worst after seeing Lorcan's bruises and him basically saying this was a usual occurrence.

Rowan was brought back to the present when a beach ball hit him in the head. He was sitting on the edge of Aelin's pool, sulking, feet dangling in the water. Aelin was throwing one of her parties, it was nearly the end of summer and soon most of them would head off to college. The noises from his friends finally filtering back into his head, it was suddenly too loud, too bright, and too hot. He ran a hand down his face.

Fenrys had been the beach ball throwing culprit, Rowan just glared at him.

"Come on, Ro. Try and have some fun?" Fen had swam over to Rowan and crossed his arms over the edge of the pool. The roguish blond just wanted him to be happy.

“I’m sorry.” He said that a lot now. Fenrys just raised an eyebrow at the boy… man.

He was eighteen now and he wasn't that scrawny, nerdy looking boy anymore. Rowan supposed that was one good thing that came out of Lorcan leaving, he got addicted to working out. There was a punching bag set up in the garage with some weights. He was fit now, muscles defined, but not bulky.

Elide walked up and mussed up his hair. "Come help me get some drinks." She didn't leave any room for argument.

In the kitchen, Elide just leaned forward on the island and looked at Rowan.

"I thought we were getting drinks."

"Yeah, we will. But-"

"But what?" He really didn't mean to say that with such an attitude, but he was hot and emotionally exhausted. Honestly, he just wanted to go home.

Elide was on her phone, waiting for him to chill. Taking a deep breath he said, "I'm sorry. What did you want to talk about?" Rowan was trying, he really was. She just slid her phone over the counter towards him. He furrowed his brows as he looked at the article on the screen.

Consultants for Erawan Enterprises arrested on counts of fraud, child abuse, human trafficking, and other illicit activities

"What's this?" He had no idea what this was about. Why would he care about Erawan Enterprises?

He picked up the phone and kept reading since Elide clearly wasn’t going to answer. It was short and there was a photo of a devastatingly beautiful woman with dark as night hair, that reminded him of Lorcan, and alabaster skin in handcuffs being pushed into a cop car and a very angry man shoved against the hood of the same car.

Maeve Valgerian and James Perrington were arrested Wednesday night. After some anonymous tips to the Morath Police.

"Who are these people?" Rowan didn't understand.

"Pretty sure she's Lorcan's aunt."

Oh.

Rowan had searched for Lorcan online after he disappeared, but there was literally nothing. Absolutely zero results. It was like he was a ghost.

They were consultants for Erawan Enterprises and moved all over the world for the very powerful man. Erawan Enterprises is under investigation for fraud, money laundering, and human trafficking.

After Valgerian and Perrington were arrested, MPD searched their residence and found incriminating evidence against them.

There was also a teenager held captive in the basement. They were taken to the nearest hospital with severely critical injuries. The name and gender of this individual will not be released for their safety.

The article was published nearly two months ago.

Human trafficking…

Held captive...

Severely critical injuries...

"Please, don't break my phone." He was squeezing the device and didn't realize it. Quickly handing it back to her, his hand went straight to his hair.

“Are you sure this is his aunt?”

“Well, not 100%, but they have physical similarities and their hair…” she trailed off. “And Lorcan had mentioned his aunt’s boyfriend living with them one day in class.”

"Fuck!" He felt like he wanted to rip his hair out.

"Ro." Elide's voice was quiet.

"FUCK!"

After a couple deep breaths, he ran his hands down his face, and then turned to face his friend. "Is he dead?" His voice cracked.

"I don't know. All of the other articles I could find are just about them and Erawan Enterprises. No mentions of Lorcan. Anywhere. It's like he doesn't exist."

Elide pulled him into a hug and he broke.

---

Lorcan had been through shit show after shit show since he left the Whitethorn house. As soon as he returned to the apartment, it was packed up into a moving van and they were gone.

They were in Fenharrow for a couple months. Maeve didn't enroll him in school. He was locked in the basement of the small house they rented, it felt like he had gone crazy. He hadn't seen the sun until they moved again. His skin turned a sickly gray. By the time they moved again, he could feel every one of his ribs, and his hips stuck out, his fingers overlapping when wrapped around his wrist.

Next move was to Morath. Lorcan didn't know if he would survive. He didn’t have a good feeling about this place. The basement became his home yet again. It was filthy. There were thick iron hooks in opposite walls and chains hanging from them. This was where he was going to die. He closed his eyes as Perrington latched the shackles around his wrists.

---

One day, Lorcan heard sirens intermittently. He kept passing out. He wasn't even sure he was hearing sirens or if it was just a ringing in his ears. They were always ringing nowadays. A punch to his face made his vision flicker. Blood and saliva leaked from his mouth as his head rolled down to his chest.

The ringing in his ears got louder. There definitely weren't sirens. No one was going to save him. He was going to die here. He knew it. It was what he deserved. The bastard born half-breed that no one cared about, left to die in his own filth in a disgusting basement. The world slowly faded to black.

---

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

He was in Hel. He had to be.

Beep.

The incessant beeping was there to drive him insane. And the smell of bleach was there to make him sick.

Beep.

---

Lorcan startled awake. How could he be awake? He was supposed to be dead. Right?

The nightmare he was having felt so real. Probably because he had lived it before. He assumed that was just what Hel was supposed to be, reliving the worst parts of your life.

But instead, he was in a bed, a hospital bed. Why did they save him? Lorcan wasn't worth saving. Yet, here he was covered in wires, tubes, a needle stuck in his hand, a device on his finger. It was dark outside and the lights were dim in the room.

Deciding he wasn’t actually dead, he took stock of his body, he was certain he had some broken ribs, but nothing else seemed to be broken which was surprising. He was definitely sore and stiff. And exhausted. So exhausted.

---

After… Lorcan didn't know how long he was discharged. He had put on some weight, though not a lot. The staff made sure he ate. They were all nice and cared for him. But now, he stood outside the main entrance of the hospital in some scrubs they gave him. Now, he had nothing. Nobody. He may as well have been lost at sea.

Why had they saved him? He still couldn’t figure that out.

Somehow, he managed to find the small house that he had been stuck in for who knows how long. There was police tape over the door. The door was open.

He pushed through the tape. The house was a mess. It seemed the cops had ransacked the place. But he finally found his things, they were strewn about the floor. Thank Hellas, his journal was still there. After changing, he packed up his books and journal, some clothes, and a few other other necessities.

He needed money or something he could sell. Maeve's jewelry would help. He could pawn it.

Lorcan asked the pawnshop owner for directions to the bus station, and then he set out to see if there was still one person who cared about him. Hopefully this wasn’t a bad idea.

____

Thanks for reading. Things will get better, I promise! Let me know if you'd like to be tagged.

Edit- oops! I forgot to actually put in tags... My bad. Sorry!

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