#personally I don’t think he wants to leave his creed behind

[vvitchering]

I think maybe everyone should cool it with the “weird cult” comments regarding the covert, honestly. It wasn’t that funny to begin with but now that it’s the popular describer it’s starting to become a little uncomfy. No one is forced to join, no one is forced to stay. There’s a ton of parallels between them and real world cultures and religions and I just think MAYBE we need to be a little more aware of what message we’re sending when we say “haha that group of people who are in hiding because their lives were/are at stake and who practice anonymity to survive and follow certain rules that I don’t personally understand or like are a weird cult”.

[ssuperficialspacecadett]

One Condition

Chapter Eighteen of The One Condition Series

Rating: Mature

Word Count: 8k

Summary: Pretty thing, Din, and the child are all heading back to Navarro. Will the clan of two have room for one more?

Notes: Welcome to the last chapter of this series ! Typing this is so bitter sweet. Thank you to everyone who has liked, commented, reblogged, or even just read it. I have loved doing this and knowing that people love it to makes it all worth it. I hope everyone enjoys and I will be back to write more in the future (; Happy reading <3

 — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

With The Crest’s nav set to Navarro, all three of you were off. You weren’t sure how long it would take to get there from Daiyu, but you didn’t dare ask. You wanted to live out the remainder of your time, in this untouchable bubble created by hyperspace, in ignorant bliss. You didn’t want to wake up every morning with a number looming over your head dictating how many days you had left. Your plans allow you to live each of your days to the fullest. Well, as full as you can live your days in the small confines of a ship. 

You had tried giving Din the bag of credits a couple more times since leaving Daiyu, but he refused to take them. Each time he would come up with a different excuse. 

“Why don’t you hold onto them? You’re better at keeping track of things than me.”

His job is quite literally to track people down. You don’t think that there is a person in the whole galaxy that is better at keeping track of things.

“I don’t have anywhere to keep them right now.”

He has plenty of drawers in his room. While you haven’t opened them all, you know for a fact that one of them only houses the silver bell you gifted him. The bag of credits wouldn’t even take up half of the free space in there. 

“Wait until we reach Navarro.”

What’s the difference between you giving him the credits now versus when you get to Navarro? Whatever. Fine. You’ll wait if that's what he wants to do. 

While Din was actively pushing the credits away, he was doing quite the opposite to you. You found him more touchy feely than usual. Not that you minded in the least, but it was something you took note of. The first time you noticed it was after you had just put the child down for a nap. You busied yourself by cleaning up the remains of his lunch. You were surprised that he was even full after eating since he managed to spill half of his bowls contents on the ground. You hummed to yourself while you mopped up his mess and then moved on to reorganizing the pantry. It wasn’t until you felt strong hands wrap around your waist that your humming ceased. You broke into a smile and rested the back of your head on his chest plate. When humming started emanating from above you, your heart seemed to skip a beat. That warm, chocolatey, baritone voice came out unobstructed. He wasn’t wearing his helmet. Your whole body felt like it was made of fractured glass and if you moved, you would finally shatter. Shaky breaths came from you as the unmasked man continued your lost tune. 

He had never done that before. He had never just walked around, without telling you, helmetless. You were filled with a whirlwind of emotions as his arms held you close and he started to sway behind you. You wanted him to feel comfortable on his own ship obviously, but there were risks. If he had just told you that he wanted to do that, you would have gladly taken a nap alongside the child or even taken an extra long shower. You didn’t want to accidentally see him and cause irreparable damage to his creed. As much as you truly wanted to see him, his creed came first. The longer you sway lightly with him, the longer your mind spends concocting a forbidden scenario. A scenario in which he wanted to be helmetless with you around. Your eyes drifted closed and you wrapped your arms around his. You felt a puff of air blow through your hair as he relaxed into your touch. 

You don’t know how long the two of you held each other before you felt him place those coveted lips on your neck. He whispered that he’ll be back and not to turn around. You did as you were told, but stayed in an almost comatose like state until he returned to you. When he did, he helped you with the last of your cleaning. Conversation was easy and natural, but neither one of you mentioned his helmetless escapades. 

The next time you noticed the change in his behavior was when the two of you were in bed together. He seemed to caress your skin with a different kind of softness, he moved inside you tenderly, and he never seemed satisfied with how many times he praised you. The word ‘safe’ couldn’t even properly convey how secure you felt in his arms. The two of you have had sex countless times, but why did this time feel so different? Calling it sex didn’t even feel right to you because it felt like so much more. 

Maybe he was thinking the same way you were. Maybe he didn’t want to be alone in the cockpit just watching The Crest drift closer to its destination. 

The one thing you know for sure: ignorance with Din is bliss.

 — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Your stomach hasn’t hurt this much from laughing in years. You haven’t been able to catch your breath in what feels like five minutes and your burning lungs are evidence to the contrary.

“So you-you want me to say what?” You manage to choke out between fits of laughter. 

You and Din had been talking over breakfast about shopping in Navarro for supplies when he remembered Karga. Or more specifically what Karga had called you.

“I want you to tell him that if he wants to call you those fucking names, he can say it to the end of your blaster.” He says matter-of-factly. 

“Din,” you put your hand up to signal that you’re catching your breath. “There are two issues with that. Number one: I don’t have a blaster.”

You see him roll his head back in realization as you continue. 

“Number two: even if I had a blaster…isn’t he like your boss or something? I don’t think I should go around holding up people that give you your jobs.”

“I don’t care about that,” he groans. “I just hate that he calls you those names. Those are for me.” He trails off at the end of his sentence. 

You sit up straight and wipe the tears from your eyes. The baby squeaks as your body's adjustment jostles him in your lap. 

“While you’re correct and those names are just for you, I can’t go around holding people at gunpoint. It would look weird and unnatural. You can get away with it because you look really good.” 

“I look really good…when I hold people at gunpoint?”

You flick your wrist in the air at him. “Yeah. It’s one of the things you do that's not inherently sexual, but it,” you cover the kids ears. “Turns me on.”

Din leans back on his hands as he takes in what you just told him. 

“Oh come on. Don’t you have a little list like that? Random things that just do it for you, but you can’t explain it?” 

“Actually I do.”

“Now you have to share. At least one. It’s only fair.”

“Alright…when you tie your hair up before you do something.”

“Really?”

“You have a sort of soft expression on your face when you do it. As if you’re thinking about something and I always find myself wondering what that is. Tell me another one of yours.” 

“Whenever you fix something on The Crest. I could watch you work for hours.” 

“That explains why you’re always daydreaming when you’re helping me.” 

“Guilty. Now you.” 

“Whenever you’re taking care of the kid.”

“Din…I take care of him all the time.”

“I know!” He throws his hands up in exasperation. “You’re just so good with him.”

You cock your head to the side and give him a toothy grin. “Maybe I’ll use him to stop Karga. I’ll tell him to use his little baby magic.”

“I would like to see that.”

“I’m kidding! I’ll just talk to him like an adult.”

“Now who’s no fun.”

You roll your eyes at him playfully, situate the child on your hip and stand up. “Well, we don’t have to worry about that interaction for a while.” 

“Actually, we arrive tomorrow.” He sounds somber as he says this. 

When you turn back around to look down at him, his body language shows the exact same emotion that his voice carries. His shoulders seem deflated and his helmet is looking down into his lap. 

“Maker, this ship travels fast.” you say almost breathlessly. 

“Only when I don’t want it to.”

“Hey, hey.” You kneel down next to him, child still at your side. “I still haven’t paid you.”

“Not for lack of trying.” He says looking up at you.

You can’t help but feel a twinge of sadness at his comment. “As I was saying: I still haven’t paid you. So technically, we still aren’t done. Would you care to hang out with me a little longer?”

“If that’s what my employer wants I think I can allow it.” His voice sounds a bit happier behind his beskar.

“Smart man.”

He wants to hang out with you for a lot longer. As soon as he told you when all three of you would arrive on Navarro he immediately regretted it. He noticed you never asked which was strange because you always did. Everytime Navarro came up in the conversation he would come close to telling you how far out you all were. He always stopped himself because right when he was about to do it, you would switch the topic. It was a bit freaky if he's being honest. It was as if you could sense what was coming and preemptively took action.

Now that it was out in the open he felt sick. He watched your shoulders tense up when his words registered in your head. He was selfishly grateful that he couldn’t see your face. He didn’t want to watch the smile that was just on it drop. He didn’t want to know he was the reason it happened. As your body turned back around, he dropped his gaze into his lap. He knew it was cowardly. Then he heard your sweet voice coming closer to comfort him. He should have been the one comforting you after torpedoing your happiness. Yet here you are in all your beauty and goodness.  

You place a kiss on his pauldron. The beskar quickly cools your lips as they make contact. A sigh of contentment quietly seeps out from behind the modulator. 

“How are you always so good to me?” He says earnestly.

“It’s easy to be good to someone you like and I just so happen to like you.”

“What did I do to deserve that?”

“You saved me when I thought I wasn’t salvageable.”

“Oh, Cyar’ika. I think it was the other way around.”

 — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

As you hop out of the shower and wrap your dripping body in a towel, you go over your mental checklist. Baby fed and asleep? Check. You fed and showered? Check. Grocery list for The Crest? Check. Grocery list for Din’s special dinner? Double check. 

Shopping for the ingredients you need for Tiingilar is the sole reason you have any excitement regarding arriving on Navarro. You have never been so excited to cook something in your entire life. With all of the food stalls that help make up the market, you were confident that you would find everything you need. Or at least things close enough to what you need. Maker, you hope you don’t mess it up. You remember how excited Din got while he talked about the dish. You want to make it correctly for him.

You dry your body off while you continue down the rabbit hole that is your mind. You didn’t want to look for another place to live. The Razor Crest and all of the inhabitants that come with it are your home. You had to figure out a way to let Din know that. To let him know that you wanted to stay. To stay with him. But when would you do it? It couldn’t just be something you causally brought up. You wanted it to be special just like he was. 

“Dank Ferrik! The stew!” 

You heard a muffled voice ask if you were alright through the fresher door. 

“All good! I’ll be out in a second.”

You would tell him what you wanted when you gave him the stew. It was perfect. You would tell him that you wanted both him and his son. They were a package deal after all. Your clan of two.

With your towel wrapped tightly around your body, you exit the fresher. The cool air of the hull causes bumps to form on your slightly damp skin. 

“Well, don’t you look cozy.” 

You approach Din’s bed with the intention of stealing one of his shirts, but your mind goes blank when you see him lounging on his bed with one of his hands behind his helmet. The rest of his body is hugged deliciously tight by his black pants and shirt. 

“It would be better if you joined me.” 

“All good things to those who wait.” 

You keep eye contact with his visor as you kneel down to reach his clothing drawer. You pull it open and locate a shirt by touch alone. As you go to stand, you release your grip on your towel. A sense of deja vu runs through your veins as the cloth falls to the ground below you. Din’s chest has started to rise and fall more quickly now. You have yet to get rid of the bumps covering your skin. The black, long-sleeve shirt in your hand is the only thing shielding your body from his eyes. 

“I would wait for you for a million years.” He says quietly. 

Your cheeks burn under his words and you slip his shirt over your body. With the break in eye contact, you feel as if you’re able to breathe correctly again. The dark fabric that used to feel coarse on your skin has now become its source of comfort. You walk to the edge of his bed and smile softly at him.

“You always did look better in my clothes than I did.” 

“Hey Din, do you think that…” You trail off. 

“What is it, Mesh’la?” He props himself up on the bed.

“Do you think that you could just hold me tonight?” 

“You don’t even have to ask. I’ll do anything you want.”

He pulls the covers down beside him and motions for you to climb in. You feel silly for asking, but right now you just need to be held by him. When he cradles you, it's as if no person or thing alive can harm you. The feeling of being wrapped in his arms is one that you will never tire of. It’s a feeling of safety that was stolen from you in childhood. A feeling that has finally returned to you and you have no intention of letting it go. As amazing as him fucking you is, sometimes you just need innocent intimacy. You feel the butterflies in your stomach flutter when he so readily gives it to you. How sad that the bare minimum does so much for your fragile heart. 

He truly knew you inside and out. You didn’t know it, but he wanted you so desperately he would do anything. If you could see his eyes under the visor, the pure need in them would have blinded you. He wanted you in the morning, in the afternoon, and in the evening. He wanted you when you were angry, sad, and happy. He wanted you even if you told him you never wanted to have sex again. He wanted you breath, body, and soul. You lit up his worlds. If holding you was what you wanted, then he would do that until the universe burned out. 

You shimmy your body down under the covers and are immediately pulled into his embrace. His smell circles you just as much as his arms do. Your sigh of relief is cut short by the bottom of his helmet brushing against the top of your head. 

“I think I left my band on the sink in the fresher. Let me go grab it so you can take this off.”

When you make a move to get up, you feel his arms snake around you tighter. You let out a small laugh as he pokes at your side. 

“But I like you here.” 

“And I like being here with you too, but you need to get some fresh air. Let me just go get my band. I promise I’ll be quick.”

“Are you afraid you’ll turn to stone if you look at me?”

You are pretending to struggle against his arms when he says this. As soon as his words settle, your body goes slack. He pokes at your side again, but you don't move. 

“It’s not me that I’m afraid for.” 

“If I’m not worried about me, then you shouldn’t be.”

“I could wake up in the night and accidently open my eyes or I could get up before you in the morning or I-”

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“Then trust yourself. I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t trust you. The lights will still be off so everything will be dark like normal. The only difference is that I’ll be … unrestricted.” 

“Unrestricted, huh? That’s what you’re gonna call it?” 

“If that takes away some of the anxiety you feel, then yes. We practiced in the shower a little bit ago, remember?” 

Now it’s your turn to poke him in the side. “I don’t think I could forget.” 

“I like that I have that effect on you.”

The two of you sit in silence for a few more seconds before Din makes a move to sit up. You mirror him and hug your knees into your body. You watch him reach for the light switch. He turns to look at you and then everything goes dark. You swear you can still see the outline of him etched into the blackness, but then it fades away. 

“Can I take it off you?”

He doesn’t say anything, but you feel rough hands connect with the tops of your knees. They slide their way down until they reach your own hands. You allow him to pull them upward until you get your answer. He has brought you to his helmet. 

You shift your body forward so you are now resting on your knees instead of your ass. You never once let go of him in the process. As if he would melt into the darkness if you did. The two of you feel roughly the same height; you on your knees and him sitting on the bed. You breathe out slowly before you start to lift the beskar. You hear him take a modulated breath in, you lift, then an unmodulated breath out. The exhale tickles your wrists.

“There’s that fresh air you were talking about.” He whispers.

The gravel in his voice makes your stomach flip.

You continue moving the helmet up until you feel his hair brush against the insides of your arms. As you are bringing it down in between the two of you, he takes it from your hands. The cot creeks as he leans over and sets it down outside the room haphazardly. When you feel him return to his original position, you reach out into the inky blackness. You connect with his chest, hard and muscular, first. His heartbeat is strong as you travel back up to his face. You smile when your thumb glides across his plump lips. Using that as your guide, you bring your own lips to meet his. You tilt your head to the side as you deepen the kiss. His hand comes up to rest on your left thigh.

“That was for taking a chance on a girl you didn’t know.”

You move your lips higher and place them on the curve of his nose. 

“What was that one for?”

“That was for showing me that family isn’t always blood.”

Again you climb higher and your lips come to rest in the center of his forehead.

“And that one?”

“It’s a secret…for now.”

You fall asleep before him. He notices that you always pass out quicker when your head is tucked into his chest. His heartbeat acts as your perfect white noise machine. While it is tempting to drift off with you, he loves moments like this. When time stops and the only thing that exists is you in his arms. He likes to count how many times you breathe each minute. It's repetitive, it’s methodical, it’s you. Your scent also changes at night. Your natural smell becomes deeper and richer. Din smiles because he knows that evidence of your slumber will be left in the morning in ways only he can decipher. 

He pulls you closer and offers up desperate prayers to The Maker that tonight isn’t the last night he gets to hold you like you’re his. 

 — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

“Baby, where are you? Please come out.”

Din just told you that the ship would be dropping out of hyperspace soon and to collect the kid. Coincidentally, the child chose this exact moment to play hide and seek without informing you. 

“Your dad is gonna kill us if we aren’t in our seats and strapped in.” 

You growl under your breath as you check under all of your bed’s covers, in the fresher, and Din’s bedroom. There are only so many places on this ship. Where the fuck could he be? Just as you are walking to the back of the hull to inspect it, you hear a small noise. You stop in your tracks and hold your breath. It only takes a few seconds for the sweet sound to faintly ring out again. You had only heard it a couple of times months ago, but you had committed it to memory. 

“Gotcha, you gremlin.”

You make a beeline back to Din’s bedroom. You hadn’t checked the drawers on his bedroom wall because you never imagined that the baby would get in there. You push the button to make the door slide open and crawl onto the bed. Words laced with discipline formulate on your tongue as you pull open the drawer. However, as soon as you lay your eyes on him, all that is forgotten. He is lying comfortably on his back with the bell you made for Din in his hand. He beams up at you and waves which causes the bell to jingle in his tight grip. Hard as you try, you can’t keep your composure. Any and all annoyance at him for avoiding you has melted away.

“I’m not sure how the hell you got in there, but I know how you’re going to get out.”

You scoop up the babe and make your way out of the bedroom. Each step you take is narrated by the bells candied twinkling. 

“There you two are. I thought I was going to have to send a search party.”

You give Din a dry laugh as you make your way through the cockpit doors and take your seat.

“Hey! I was ready when you said to be! It was your son that decided to dick around.” 

“Blaming a child on your tardiness?” you hear him sarcastically click his tongue. “How irresponsible.”

“Fine,” you bounce the baby in your lap so the bell's tune can be heard throughout the small room. “I was going to reprimand him for taking your things, but that would be something a responsible person would do. And that’s not me according to you, is it?”

He had his chair facing you as soon as the sound rang out. A wicked smile crept its way across your face when you got his undivided attention. You could feel him trying not to laugh from behind his helmet. 

“What? I thought you wanted to teach him how to share. This is a great way to start.” Your words are soaked in fake innocence. 

“He can learn to share with something else.”

“What’s wrong with the bell?”

“You gave it to me.” He leans forward in his chair. 

“I remember.”

“So think of it as an extension of yourself. I don’t want to share any part of you with anyone else.” 

For the second time today you lose your composure. Try as you might, your smile turns from one of playfulness to one of sincerity. The only two individuals in the universe that could break you this quickly were on this ship.

“You can’t say things like that. It’s not fair.”

“How is anything that I just said ‘not fair’?” You can hear him finally cave in and laugh as he leans back in his seat.

“It gets me all flustered and then I lose my train of thought.”

“Well then, mission accomplished.”

You go to roll your eyes at him, but they catch on a lever on the control panel. You motion with your chin to the silver ball that's screwed onto the top of it. Din looks where you gestured and nods in agreement. He twists off the ball and clears his throat. The child looks up at his father and coos sweetly. 

“You want this? You want the ball?”

The creature in your lap holds both of his hands up and screeches happily at the sight of his favorite toy. With the hand that isn’t occupied by the bell, he reaches for what his dad is holding. 

“Ah ah ah,” you chide. “You have to give up your dad’s bell.”

The child looks up at you with pleading eyes, but you shake your head at him and repeat what you already said. He conveys his emotions by shaking the bell angrily. 

“Come on.” Din offers. “It would make me really happy to have that back.”

Unable to withstand his fathers gentle words, he holds out what you gifted Din so long ago. You kiss his green head while Din praises him and hands him the toy. Din holds the bell in his hand and rolls it around. 

“It’s still the best gift I’ve ever gotten.”

“I thought you said no one had ever gotten you a gift before?”

“I wasn’t lying, but that doesn’t mean that anything else could ever top this.” 

Everyone is strapped in and all items have been returned to their rightful owners. You don’t even get nauseous anymore when The Crest drops out of hyperspace. You sit snugly in your seat as Din pilots the ship down towards the planet's surface. His biceps flex underneath his black shirt as he maneuvers the steering. A much more amusing sight to see than the barren lands that Nararro has to offer. He chose to land the ship in its usual spot: right outside the city’s arch. 

Everyone makes their descent into the hull to get ready to depart for the meeting in the cantina. While you are making sure the child is snug in his crib, a hand palms your ass. You turn around with a smirk to see the perpetrator heading to the armory. 

“I’ll get you back for that, Tin Man.”

“That’s a sweet thought,” He says nonchalantly as he opens the double doors. “Too bad nothing gets past me.” 

“We’ll see about that.” 

The confidence in your voice must have made him think twice about his last statement because he pokes his helmet out from behind the doors. You hold back a laugh and throw him a wink before walking away to grab your tote. 

You quietly count your separate stash of spending credits while you wait for Din to be ready to leave. You didn’t want to ask him to borrow money for food since this was going to be something special for him. You would do the rest of the food shopping for The Crest tomorrow. There seems to be enough credits to get all of your ingredients, but now to think of a ruse. You will need to slip out of the cantina while Din was talking business with Karga. Unfortunately, there is some truth to what he had said earlier. Nothing really gets past him. Looks like you are going to have to recruit some help from a little green creature. After tucking the money away, you head back over to the youngling that's patiently playing with his silver ball in his pram. 

“I need your help.” You whisper to him.

His ears perk up and his eyes lock on you. “I need you to cry in the cantina so I can take you outside and we can go shopping for a special dinner for your dad. I’ll make sure I sit out on the outside of the booth and tap on my thigh. That will be your signal to start crying, okay? Do you think you can do that, little one?”

Your accomplice nods firmly and waves his toy around. Maker, you hope the two of you can pull this off. 

“Ready, Mesh'la?”

Oh the way that name still made you feel. 

“Yes.” You hum as you watch him close the armory and make his way to the ramp. 

The baby coos out as if to say he was ready too. You swing your tote over your arm and walk over to him. He tilts his head at you when he sees that you have your bag, but doesn’t say anything. Instead he hits a button on his arm plate and ushers the child towards the two of you. You take it upon yourself to open the ramp. Before it has a chance to reach the ground you stand on your tip toes and kiss the cheek of Din’s helmet. 

“Are you going to tell me what that third kiss was for now?”

You almost cave and tell him when he turns to look down at you. “I think I’ll keep it a secret for a little while longer.”

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

“Ahh! Long time no see, friends!” 

You couldn’t help but feel appreciated at Kargas' boisterous welcome. You gave him an enthusiastic wave which juxtaposed the nothingness that Din awarded him with. As you approach the table, a hand finds its home on your lower back. 

“I do hope you don’t have a headache this time, my dear. I still haven’t forgotten about that drink you owe me.” 

“I wouldn’t expect you to.” The sarcasm in your voice goes undetected by the man already sitting down. 

“Join me, please.” Karga waves his hand to the seats opposite of him.

This time you motion to Din to sit down first. For the second time today, he gives you a slight head tilt, but doesn’t say a word. He just slips off his rifle and props it up next to him inside the booth. You wink at the baby as you sit next to Din; your plan is falling into place. 

“I’ll take a drink with you, but you have to do something for me.”

“Anything for you, sweet.” Karga has already started pouring you a shot. 

“I don’t mean any disrespect, but I would love it if you called me by my name.”

He places the drink in front of you and sets the bottle down revealing his already full shot glass. 

“You? Disrespectful? Never.”

“I’m glad you think so. So do we have a deal?”

“A deal?” He holds the shot in his hand, but raises his eyebrow.

You follow his lead and grab your glass. “Yes. I will take a drink with you if you will call me by my name from now on.”

“Your companion has gotten quite good at negotiations, Mando.”

Out of the corner of your eye you see Din nod at Karga and then turn his gaze to you. You know he would have much rather you use a blaster to make your point, but he trusts you to handle the situation in the way you deem fit. 

“I learned from the best.” You nod at Karga. “So…do we have a deal?”

“You drive a hard bargain. I accept, my dear- I mean…” He corrects himself and uses your name this time. “Don’t you love when a woman knows what she wants, Mando?”

The two of you clink your glasses on the table and down your drinks. Thankfully Din had the sense to place his hand on your thigh after you swallowed your beverage. If he hadn’t…poor Karga would have been drenched in blue liquor. Maybe it's the leather wrapped hand on you or the alcohol blazing its path down your throat, but your body feels warm. If you didn’t have something to do, you would have allowed yourself to slip into this feeling and just bask. Before the urge to stay gets too strong, you pat on the thigh that's unoccupied by Din’s hand. 

The baby, thank The Maker, cries right on cue. Karga and Din just started to discuss the matter of pucks, but stop when they hear the wails. Since you are sitting on the edge of the booth, you quickly hop up and whisk him into your arms. 

“Oh sweetie,” you croon. “What’s the matter?” 

True to his part, the child keeps on sobbing. 

“Are you hungry?” 

He shakes his small head while you continue to cradle him in your arms.

You lift your head up when Din calls your name. “I can hold him for you. Maybe he just feels left out?” 

“It’s alright, really. You’re talking business. Why don’t I just take him for a walk around the city? He’s probably just tired from being cooped up.”

“I don’t think I want the two of you out alone-”

“Nonsense, Mando! This city has never been safer! You should know that since you were one of the ones that helped me start the clean up process.” You can feel the pride that Karga has radiating off him. 

“See? We’ll be fine. I promise that we’ll walk for a little while and then head back to The Crest to wait for you. Does that make you feel better?” 

“A little.”

You can sense the uneasiness in him from where you are standing. Without thinking you lean over and place your hand on his shoulder. It’s a small act of affection, but you know it will be enough to help calm him. 

“I think everyone around here knows that that kid and I are with you. Nobody in their right mind would mess with us unless they want a blaster hole through their head.” 

“Promise you will go back to the ship after you are done walking?” 

“We promise.” 

 — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

“We have the bone broth, the spices, the vegetables, the grains, and now the meat!” You tell the baby as you tuck the wrapped cold cut into your tote. “I’m actually surprised we found nerf meat here. I guess that's for the best since I know for a fact I can cook this stuff.” 

On one hand you felt kinda shitty leaving Din to fend for himself against Karga, but he did that before you came along right? What’s one more time? On the other hand, one on one time with the child outside the setting of the ship has been refreshing. Not that he was fussy to begin with, but all the sights and sounds of the market kept him content. A few people had actually come up to you while you were shopping to compliment him.

“He is just adorable!”

“My, my he is such a well mannered young thing!”

“Your son has such beautiful eyes.”

You took each complement with a grain of salt, but that last one did you in. Your son. You didn’t have the heart to correct the old woman that gave the compliment. The strange part was that it didn’t feel wrong either. He truly felt like your son. You woke him up in the mornings, you clothed him, fed him, played with him, bathed him, put him to bed, and most of all you loved him. You didn’t think there was a maternal bone in your body until you met him. But when you did…everything just clicked. 

“Let’s head back to The Crest.” you say looking down at the kid in his floating pram. “I’m so excited to get started on this for him!”

 — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

You don’t think you have prepared for a meal so fast in your life. The market took a bit longer than you expected, so you knew that you were on borrowed time. All you could do was pray that Karga was in a chatty mood and that Din was in the mood to put up with him. 

“Maker, Din.” You sigh in exasperation. “Why the fuck do you have to be such a damn minimalist?” 

You have every bowl, cup, plate, and utensil laid out in front of you. In total you had three bowls, three cups, three plates, three forks, and two spoons. You suspect that the child got a hold of the last spoon a while ago. In each of the three bowls you separated the cut up vegetables, the grains, and the broth. On the first plate went your deadly blend of spices. On the second plate held the chopped up Nerf meat. You figured that you could use it as a makeshift frying pan when you placed it on the hotplate. The third plate would be where you would set the meat once it finished cooking. Your body felt tired, but there was no time for caf. Your only thought was him. 

The baby plays next to you happily while you flip the chunks of steak. Every so often you sprinkle a bit of your spice blend onto it. You really were in the dark with the exact measurements and ratios, but you definitely remember him saying that it should be hot enough to singe some nose hair off. So, you hold your breath and dump the rest of the seasoning onto the meat. In an instant the hull is filled with the smell of the concoction. Your eyes are watering and your lungs burn from inhalation. Through tears you can see the little one beside you trying to rub his own eyes. 

“F-fuck,” you cough. “I should have left the ramp down!”

You grab the child, both of you coughing, and head to the ramp. When it opens the two of you stumble out into the clean air. You kneel on the lava rock ground and set him down in front of you. You ache to alleviate the stinging in your own eyes, but tend to the youngling first. Taking the hem of your shirt, you reach out and rub those big, round eyes of his. 

“I’m so sorry, my love. I didn’t realize that was going to happen. Are you alright?”

He nods his head, but scratches at his nose with his little claw. 

“I think I got everything out of your eyes, but let's stay out here for just a few more seconds.” 

You close your own to help with the pain. As you do this, you can hear the kid laugh. It soothes the worried feeling that once had its grip on you. 

“What are you two doing out here? Wait. What happened?!”

Din must have seen the kids' bloodshot eyes over your shoulder. You can hear him quicken his pace to reach where you landed after your little cooking accident. 

“We’re fine, Din.” You look up at him. “We just got something in our eyes and came outside for some fresh air.”

“You are not fine. Your eyes are red and watering. What happened?” 

You can hear compassion and concern behind his stern tone. As you open your mouth to reassure him again, he kneels beside you and takes your face in his hands. The soft leather of his glove wipes away the wetness on your face. 

“Now, please. Tell me what happened, Mesh'la.”

“How can you call me that when I look like this, huh?”

“You’re still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Even when you look like this.”

You feel your face get hot and this time it wasn’t because of the spices.

“Fine. I was cooking and I- Oh Maker! I was cooking! The food!”

You bolt from his grip and duck back inside The Crest. Thankfully the open ramp allowed for the contaminated air to be swept out. The meat is still cooking on your homemade skillet. It looks a little charred, but fortunately nothing you can’t scrape off. You quickly move it to the other plate so it can cool. 

“I leave the two of you alone for an hour and the ship almost blows up because of what you’re cooking?”

“Wait, Din!” You can hear him coming up the ramp so you position your body in between him and the food. “Please. I know this is going to be annoying, but can you wait outside for a little while?”

He stops before he steps inside the hull. You can feel the curiosity radiating off of him. The child holds one of his fathers fingers as he gets swaddled in his arms. 

“How long?” He tilts his head to the side in an attempt to see what you’re trying to conceal. 

“I’ll go as fast as I can. Would you be more patient if I told you that I’m working on something for you?” 

“For me?”

There it is again. His voice is airy with disbelief. 

“Yes,” you never want him to have doubts. Especially about you and your intentions with him. “It’s something for you. Now will you please wait outside?” 

He finally caves and heads back outside still carrying the child. You breathe a sigh of relief and turn to face your barely made meal. 

“Okay, no biggie. I just have to warm the broth, cook the grains, boil the veggies in the broth, and add the meat.” Fuck.

 — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

The sun has begun to set on Navarro and with the loss of its warmth, the air becomes crisp and cool. He prepared for that. The child sits in between his legs as he pokes at the growing fire he erected. When he finishes with the stick, he tosses it in the flames to be consumed like its brothers and sisters. Embers float up and around and the baby coos in excitement as he watches them dance. Din peers down at the little creature nestled so closely to him. One of his claws rests on the top of his boot. He wiggles his foot a little making the babe laugh and hold on tighter. A quiet laugh escapes his modulator into the night air. 

“So, were you in on the little stunt she's pulling in there?”

Brown eyes look up and peer into his visor. Din thinks he can see the slightest grin on his kids face. 

“That’s what I thought.”

Din turns his gaze to the multicolored sky. It reminds him of you. At first you were as foreign to him as sun sets were. He wasn’t comfortable with the pinks, oranges, and purples that they created. They only served to remind him that he wasn't in space tracking a quarry. You were just a stranger living on his ship that was fueled by the anger her past brought her. But then as time went on, and the sun finally set, you transformed into a shimmering display of stars. A display that he knew very well. You became something he knew better than himself at times. You were a woman living on his ship that was stronger than the anger and the pain her past brought her. 

Your humming floats out from the open ramp to his ears. You were definitely working hard on something in there. He just had no idea what it could be. If you served him a bowl of mud he would eat it with a genuine smile plastered on his face. 

“Hey! That’s a really nice fire guys!” You walk up and place your hands on Din’s shoulders. “The surprise is ready. I hope the two of you are hungry!”

You stand back as Din picks up the child and rises up himself. Try as you might, you can’t fight the butterflies in your stomach when he turns to face you. He seems to linger on your hair or more accurately what you did to your hair. The chaos of cooking caused you to pull your hair into a ponytail because once again it can never seem to stay behind your ears. 

“Ready?” You ask excitedly.

“Ready.” 

You take his free hand and guide him up the ramp. Your body is buzzing with anticipation. You had already set out cups of water and spoons, but you opted to hide the tiingilar until everyone was seated. 

“Okay, Din you sit on the floor here,” you point to the ground. “A you, the greatest little helper a woman could ask for, sit here.” 

The two of them obey your seating chart and you scurry to go collect the bowls of freshly made tiingilar. You realized that the baby definitely wouldn't be able to handle the level of spice in the stew, so you made sure to set a bowl aside before you added the spice coated meat. Balancing three bowls in your hands, you slowly walk back. 

“Alright so I want you to know that I tried my best to make it as accurate as possible. I didn’t have very much information to go on so…”

You kneel down in front of them and set the food down. You give the child his bowl first and then give Din his. As soon as he sees what it is, the air inside his lungs evaporates. 

“Y-you made…”

“Tiingilar.” you quietly offer. “Or at least I tried too.” 

“Cyar’ika, I can’t believe you did this.” 

He hasn’t stopped staring at his food since you placed it down in front of him. 

“I wanted to do something special for you. You have done me a service that I know I can never truly repay, but I wanted to find a way to say thank you. I heard the way your voice lit up when you were telling me about it and I just…I just wanted to give you some of your home back.” 

Your name falls from his mouth in a whisper. You reach out and place your hand on his knee and rub your thumb softly. You glance over at the child who is too wrapped up in eating his meal to pay either of you any mind. When a gloved hand finds its way on top of yours, you turn your attention back to Din. 

“My home became wherever you were the moment you walked onto my ship whether I knew it or not.” 

Your eyes well with tears at his statement. His grip tightens around your hand and he pulls you onto him. He must not have known his own strength because the force with which he pulled you had him flat on his back and you on his chest. His arms lock around your body and pull you flush with his. Beskar or no beskar, you would take a hug from him like this anyday. The pure, unbridled happiness you feel in this moment causes a sob to rip through you. 

“What’s wrong, pretty thing? Did I hurt you?”

“N-no,” you wipe your slick face. “I’m a lot tougher than I look.” 

“That’s my girl.”

The smile you are wearing could put the brightest sun in the galaxy to shame.

“I want to stay, Din. I want to stay here with you. I want to stay here with the child. I want to stay here on this blasted ship even if that means I have to learn how to rewire the whole damn thing myself.” You prop yourself up on his chest. “You’re my home.” 

You lean down and kiss the forehead of his helmet. Before he even speaks you hold your right hand up to stop him.

“Yes. Now I will tell you what that third kiss was for. It was for teaching me that it was safe to let someone in again. That it was safe to…love someone.” 

Your confession makes him sit up and causes you to slide into a straddling position.

“Are you saying you love me?”

“Until the universe burns out.” 

“Breath, body, and soul.”

You throw your arms around his neck and bury your head in the fabric of his cape. You did it. You told him how you feel and he not only accepted it, but said it back in his own little way. Only The Maker knew the depth of your bliss in this moment.

“I have something I need to tell you.” 

“Hmm.”

“Let me look at you. I want to see your face, Mesh'la.”

You pull back and take his helmet in your hands. You nod to let him know you are ready and listening. 

“I got four new pucks from Karga.”

“Okay.”

“I need to take care of them, but…”

“But what, Din?” You laugh.

“One condition: you go with me.”

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

and thats all she wrote...for now <3

[shoyastars]

Ok need to clarify something real quick

Red: is marked as bad person/ or negative influence upon a character at a time. (Creed pressured in trust or betrayal,Mistin causing them to ultimately have a panic attack Creed doesn’t know what Mistin gone through nor do they know what’s currently going on. They’re girlfriend or ex fiancé fun fact! 👀 was always a negative influence she only cared what benefits herself, and used Mistin to help out they’re villainous schemes. Double will have the red color.)

Blue: is marked as importance. (such as an important person in someone’s life or important in general like Mistin, they’re important to both Ray and how the world may or may not continue. Even Audrey’s mother was an important person in Audrey’s story as you all read or at least I think you read it. Sorry it’s so long… 🥲 AHEM! But anyways the. Blue ultimately is gonna mark important characters in the story other than the main 3.)

Why is Audrey pink then?

Clear answer is that she is a character that is also considered important but however not important enough? Audrey is a character who cares too much about the people around them, they push themself to grow stronger to protect the people around them and who they find important! Of course by caring for Ray like a worried little sister causes her to be a little easy to manipulate if not careful. Though they’re familiar about such manipulation tactics they sometimes fall victim to some due to the fact they want to help people. Even the the Hero behind the mask, otherwise known as Ray, and when she finds out how important Mistin is to him she’ll ultimately become protective of them as well and try to gain a better understanding as why Mist is important to him. (I imagine them becoming friends after the events of binary star hero. :v)

What is Creeds color then?

Creed is planned to be on Haley’s route, but is actually known to worry for Mistin because they also were a villain that took part in the villain world because he didn’t wanna sit around and do nothing, despite their parents objections in saying so. So if you guys haven’t read the first fanfic I made upon introducing Mistin called stuck in the moment you can see Creed’s color is pink! But in another one he ultimately makes a bad decision in pressuring Mistin into opening up with that he was labeled as red in that moment. Creed doesn’t know the struggles Mistin went through for him to actually leave the villain world due to their older brother fully turning into a super villain. (You guys don’t know this but they’re parents actually play an important role more than you guys actually think. That’s right! I made the parents important to the Malice siblings! >:D)

Will you get a fanfic of Creed in the future before the finale?

Yes! Creed is a character i put in not as a throw away character but as a character that is still labeled important in the story! (I have a few ideas on the fire scene tho. Despite Mistin and Creed living separately from each other. ☕️👀)

Who is Doubles love interest in the end?

…..um…. No one….

Mistin is still his main focus. If you haven’t played the game he’s practically tracking the mc down like tiger stalking his prey.

Do you ever get tired of writing about the fandom?

[wqintraining]

NEW X-MEN: THE ANIMATED SERIES - SEASON 1, EPISODE 8

We open on the training squad being run through personal drills in the Danger Room. Noriko is running through an obstacle course while having to charge a satchel full of batteries without blowing them up. Julian and Sofia are working together, and working on strengthening the force behind their powers, by keeping themselves from being crushed by enclosing spiked walls. Cessily and Sooraya’s maneuverability and body shifting are tested as they’re pitted against a group of drones. Fitting with what she said about having had her powers for a long time, Sooraya fairs far better. Brian, with his non-offensive power, is stuck using a boxing machine that punches back to improve his hand-to-hand capabilities. 

As they’re all exerting themselves, Emma is criticizing them and telling them everything they’re doing wrong, while their new co-mentor Danielle Moonstar highlights what they’re doing right and encourages them. Here, we learn that along with Wind Dancer, Surge, and Hellion, Cessily, Sooraya, and Brian have taken on the names Mercury, Dust, and Tag, respectively. As Dani and Emma argue over what the kids need to be hearing right now (Dani clearly still unhappy about having to work with the untrustworthy former villain who she used to fight when she was a student), Laura, still acting as a TA, is in the booth with them, looking down into the Danger Room with a small, pleased look on her face as she watches Sofia sweat. 

After the kids one by one pass their tests, the exhausted squad is assembled by and met at the Danger Room entrance by Emma, Dani, and Laura. Dani is impressed with how far they've all come in two months. She hates to admit it, but Emma's done a good job with them.  Emma meanwhile cuts them down, making sure they understand they still have a long, long way to go. 

EMMA: "The moment you're satisfied with where you are, you'll cease improving."

Between being the most improved, and being one of both Emma and and Dani's favorites, and Laura's crush, Sofia is the only one who gets praise heaped on her by all three. 

EMMA: "You're certainly going places, Wind Dancer."

All her friends are happy for her, but she looks awkward and nervous. 

Julian meanwhile boasts about how he won't stop training until he's the strongest Mutant alive, Noriko is just glad she didn't blow up any of the batteries, and Dust admits she doesn't particularly care about getting stronger.

SOORAYA: "I don't plan on getting into fights like the rest of you."

The squad plus Laura are told to go, Dani hoping they have fun at the Halloween party that night, and reminding them to not eat too much candy; it could cause bad dreams. 

As they exit, Cessily is so excited to be able to party again, while Brian laughs that he's never been to a party at all. 

Once they're gone, Dani makes clear to Emma that she can try her luck with Julian, but she's got another thing coming if she thinks she's going to make Sofia into a little her. 

DANI: "You'll fail with her just like you always failed with Kitty. If I have to, I'll even be the one to stop you again."

EMMA: "Please, Danielle. You never stopped anything."

They stare each other down, before Dani leaves. Emma continues to glare as she runs off. She starts mouthing off a catty one-liner, but she's cut off as she's teleported away. 

Throughout the school, the kids enjoy their Halloween party. Noriko is a zombie, but her attempts to scare people are ruined by her gauntlets making it clear it's her. Brian is Apollo Creed and stuffing as much candy as he can from the bowls into his bag. Cessily, dressed as a sexy angel, is a party animal, dancing the night away as she's watched with leering eyes by a girl made of purple diamond. Julian and Sofia, dressed as an OG Hellion, and a witch, respectively, are livestreaming, showing off how Mutants party, with a crowd of people wanting to get in on this, and Sooraya and Laura, not in any costumes, are in Sooraya'a room, quietly reading together.

Surrounded by darkness, Emma wakes up on the ground. As she comes to her senses and stands up, so do Storm, Kitty, Sunspot, and Warpath, everyone feeling sore. 

KITTY: “Okay, is this a Halloween thing, or a supervillain thing?” 

Extremely loud, nasally maniacal laughter blasts in their ears. 

KITTY: “Supervillain thing. Got it.” 

One of the pitch black walls around the team is revealed to be a screen, displaying a middle-aged ginger man in a white suit and bowtie. He greets the X-Men, welcoming them to his newest game, with a wide grin on his face. With the reveal of who’s captured them, everyone except Emma sighs with annoyance. 

EMMA: “I don’t appreciate being the only one not in the know about something. Who is this buffoon, and why does he make Kitty seem fashionable?” 

The man scoffs and introduces himself as Arcade, genius assassin, engineer, and game master. 

Kitty, James, and Robero laugh at him, pissing him off, but they just can’t take him seriously. This guy’s been hired to kill the X-Men so many times, and never succeeded once. No matter how deadly he makes his “Murderworlds”, they never work. Really, they’re surprised anyone would still hire him. 

KITTY: “DID anyone even hire you or is this, like, a midlife crisis?” 

Arcade momentarily loses his temper, shouting that no one has hired him in years because of them ruining his reputation, but that’s going to change. Recomposing himself, he explains that he had little robot mosquitos put devices inside each of them which let him bring them all here, and after they’re all killed today, he’ll be back on top. Storm says to get on with it then so they can end this like they always do, but does question why he didn’t take Cyclops and Jean. Arcade explains that he’s streaming tonight’s game to a variety of potential clients, but he only got this opportunity because many of them have worked with Emma before, including one Sebastian Shaw, and are none too happy with her new allegiance. Thus, they wanted to see her be the one to lead all her new friends to their deaths. 

KITTY: “You mean Emma’s the reason I’m missing out on Halloween? Thanks a lot.” 

EMMA: “You still celebrate the ridiculous holiday? Don't you think you’re a little old for all of that?” 

KITTY: “Literally never.” 

Arcade says that Kitty’s in luck. In a way they will be celebrating Halloween. The darkness around the X-Men disappears, and they now find themselves surrounded by an orange, black, and purple lit Halloween-themed city. Arcade welcomes them to Trickworld. 

Back in the school, we see Julian and Brian walking back to their room, the latter sick to his stomach. Julian laughs at him, saying he shouldn’t have eaten so much candy. Brian thinks he might barf, but when Julian doesn’t respond, he turns his head and sees he’s gone. He calls out to him, but there’s no response. 

Brian panics and runs back to the party, calling out for any of the squad to come help, but he can’t find any of them. Breathing heavily as he tries to figure out what’s going on, James comes up to him, asking what’s wrong. He explains that Julian disappeared and now he can’t find any of his friends, which makes James laugh. Didn’t anyone tell him? His friends were all so fed up with how annoying Brian is, they all left school. 

BRIAN: “W…what?” 

JAMES: “Yeah. Dani and Emma even quit so they wouldn’t have to deal with you. I mean, I get it, but I’m sorry.” 

Brian’s eyes water as he says “No” over and over again, and runs off, James calling out to him to please not talk to anyone else; that’ll just make them leave too. 

We cut to Julian and Brian’s room, lights off, where we see Brian is just having a nightmare. 

In Trickworld, Emma questions the others how this is all supposed to work. Arcade didn’t exactly explain what’s going on. 

JAMES: “Probably felt he didn’t need to when most of us have spent our lives fighting *against* people like him.” 

Emma sighs. 

EMMA: “Sunspot? If you’d please?” 

ROBERTO: “Only if you promise you don’t think I’m your friend on this team or anything. My reputation would be in ruins.” 

Roberto explains that they’re surrounded by death traps. They need to get through each one to reach the exit, and no, she and Storm can’t just blast their way out, because the nanites inside them are rigged to explode, and will only be defused by winning the game correctly. 

Emma’s irritated, she has a hair appointment in the morning and it doesn’t seem like they’ll be getting much sleep by the time they’re done here, but nonetheless takes point and asks the others to open up their minds to her so she can see all their past experiences with Arcade, to allow her to best lead them through whatever they’re up against. 

James says that’s not happening, but when Emma tells him not to be petty about this, Kitty clarifies that he isn’t talking about reading their minds; he’s talking about her leading them. 

KITTY: “You outranking all of us when it comes to running a school? Makes perfect sense. You leading the X-Men? Not in your dreams.” 

Kitty, James, and Roberto all rally around Storm as the leader here, Emma indignant about them undermining her authority. Storm gets in Emma’s face. 

STORM: “You have no authority, Emma. You were only allowed back because two of our students are loyal to you, and we don’t want them alone with you. How long till they realize you’ll fail them like all your other students?” 

Emma loses her cool and is about to attack Storm, but Kitty gets between them.

KITTY: “Storm shouldn’t have said that, at least not here, but if the rest of us are all agreed, there’s no point in fighting us on it, right? Unless you want to tell me you don’t trust Storm?” 

Emma sneers, but agrees to follow Ororo. Storm shoots her a smug look as she puts her arm around Kitty’s shoulders, turns them around, and leads the team forward. 

We cut to a sunny morning, with bright light shining into a mostly pink bedroom decorated with stuffed animals, candles, cheerleading trophies, and photos of a group of friends, in and out of cheerleading uniforms. 

An alarm clock goes off, and a groggy Cessily emerges from under the covers to turn it off. Only, when she does, Cessily appears completely normal. 

As she gets up, she sees herself in the mirror and begins freaking out. She’s human again! And she’s in her old house? It was all just a nightmare! 

Cessily excitedly runs downstairs, calling out to her parents that it was all just a dream. She isn’t a Mutant! 

She finds her parents in the kitchen, who look at her with disdain, and ask what she thinks she’s doing here. Cessily’s confused. Everything was just a nightmare. She still lives here, right?

CESSILY’S DAD: “Of course not. We simply promised Cyclops we’d allow you to finish mutating here.” 

Cessily’s confused, but, between shots, she’s back to looking like her normal self. She then proceeds to start melting into a puddle on the floor. She calls out for her parents to help, but they just sip their coffee as they watch this happen. Cessily screams until she’s just a face in a puddle, before the last of her disappears too. 

In her real bedroom, Cessily tosses and turns. 

As the X-Men walk through the city, Kitty notices Emma staring at her, and asks what she wants. Emma tells her it’s just so sad to see Kitty having ended up where she is. Almost old enough to drink and still in tights, still at the same old school, and still following Storm around like a lost puppy. She wouldn’t have let this happen if she’d stayed in her class. 

KITTY: “You mean the first time you kidnapped me or the second time you kidnapped me?” 

Kitty laughs. She’s plenty happy where she is right now, and really doesn’t care what Emma thinks. Besides, did Scott not tell her why she’s actually here? She’s gonna lead this team one day. Emma mocks both the idea of leading the X-Men being something to strive for, and the idea that Kitty will even ever be ready for that if she’s so satisfied with how things are now. 

Before this can go on, the sound of an ominous rendition of “Trick or Treat, Smell My Feet” echoes through the city. Animatronic children in costumes run out of the buildings and start tossing “candy” at the X-Men. Storm instinctively blows it all away, the candy revealed to be powerful explosives as they go off in the air. 

As the X-Men run further in the direction they were heading, the animatronics chase after them, more and more of them rushing out of buildings. Storm has Kitty take hold of Warpath and Sunspot so they can safely disable the machines at close range, while she flies up and blasts the rest away. Emma mentions that she’s forgotten someone. 

STORM: “No. I have not.” 

The plan is put into action, an annoyed Emma aiding them with psionic blasts, but while it goes well initially, Arcade in his control room takes action, lowering the forcefield around Trickworld and shocking Storm with it. Storm falls to the ground, and with Kitty momentarily panicked, she stops phasing Roberto and James for just a second, James instinctively realizes what’s happened and knocks Sunspot away so only he takes the brunt of an incoming explosion.  

Noriko dances around her bedroom, bouncing all around as she listens to j-pop on her headphones. She stops for a second and smirks, lighting herself up, turning up the speed of the music, and starts bouncing around the whole school at super speed. She passes by Julian and Sofia flirting by the lockers, gags, and gives Julian an electric wet-willy, she finds Laura training in the gym and knocks her down, cheering that she finally got her, and continues to dance by Kitty and Dani, high-fiving the two. 

As she continues to run around the school, her electric aura grows larger and larger, and she moves faster and faster, her music becoming illegible, and, while her eyes are closed and she isn’t paying attention, her gauntlets break apart, they blow up, and take the entire school with them. 

Nori wakes up in bed, launching up and panting with terror in her eyes. She looks down at her gauntlets with disdain and tosses them off, before burying her face in her pillow. 

While Kitty checks on James and Ororo, Emma and Sunspot finish off the remaining animatronics. Ororo gets back up, not too worse for wear, but James is badly injured. Not close to death at all, but likely more of a liability through the other deathtraps. 

JAMES: “Of course I am…” 

Roberto thanks him and tells him not to worry about it. He isn’t as durable as Warpath, and that would have been a lot nastier on him. He says to just leave the rest to them. Kitty meanwhile apologizes to James; she shouldn’t have lost focus like that. 

Emma echoes that, no, she really shouldn’t have. Storm tells her not to start, that this was her own fault, but Emma just agrees with that too. If they’d ALL just held onto Kitty, Storm would have been able to take them all out easily and without any danger. 

EMMA: “You prioritized teamwork over practicality.” 

Kitty is prepared to have to get between them again, but this time Storm holds herself back. Like she already said, she made a mistake. It won’t be repeated. 

As she begins walking off, she tells Emma to stay behind and protect Warpath. They’ll come and collect them once they’ve gotten through the Murderworld and dealt with Arcade. Emma thinks she can’t be serious, but Kitty and Sunspot are already following her. 

James gets a good laugh out of Emma’s humiliation. 

At the institute’s basketball court, Julian and Brian are playing against Noriko and Cessily, Sofia cheering Julian on from the sides. Julian’s doing well, but when Noriko is about to score, he tries to stop the ball with his TK, and it doesn’t work. He tries again and again to use his powers, but nothing happens. Nori laughs and asks what he’s doing. He says his powers aren’t working but…

NORIKO: “Powers? Keller, did you forget you’re the only one at this school WITHOUT powers?” 

Sofia comes over to him as he freaks out, wrapping her arms out. She tells him not to worry. They don’t care that he’s a Flatscan. 

Julian pulls away angrily insisting he’s not. 

SOFIA: “You are. But you’re still one of us. You do need to do something about those zits though.” 

JULIAN: “HUH?!” 

Julian looks at himself with his phone and sees his face covered in zits. He drops his phone in horror. 

Brian and Cessily pat his back, and tell him it’s okay. Most teens have acne and no powers. He’s just normal. 

Julian is paralyzed. 

In bed, Julian, still asleep, repeats, “I’m not normal” over and over again. 

Storm, Kitty, and Roberto montage their way through a variety of Arcade’s death traps, dealing with zombies, flying masks with laser eyes, and adorable animals in costumes which proceed to mutate into monstrous abominations. While their first conflict was a mess, here the three function as a well-oiled machine, not getting a scratch on them as they work together. 

In his control room, a group of suits look very much displeased with a nervous Arcade. He tells them there’s only one trap left, but it’s the deadliest of all. They’ll never make it through. 

Stryker steps out of the shadows. For Arcade’s sake, he should certainly hope so. 

We cut to Caracas, Venezuela, as classical music plays. Sofia dances through an open field under a bright orange sky to the rhythm of the non-diegetic music, dressed in loose, baggy, and plain clothes with the happiest smile on her face, using her winds to get more air-time. She dances right into her mother’s arms. She’s hugged by her, before she crumbles to ash, dropping a horrified Sofia not to the ground, but into a limo in New York, the music continuing to play. In the limo with her is a cold man in a suit who looks at her with disapproval and shakes his head at her. A fearful Sofia nods. 

The door to the car opens on its own, and Sofia is blown out, landing in a private school where she’s now dressed in a uniform. Sofia, much more awkwardly, dances through the crowd of other girls, but she’s repeatedly bumped into as the winds make sure she hears everything the (mostly white) girls are saying about the weird new girl. Sofia spins uncontrollably as tears flow down her face. 

The music stops as we see Sofia’s first Instagram post. She looks happy and as put together as can be, with the text reading: “First Day at my New School. Couldn’t be happier!” 

Zooming in on the photo, we transition to a grocery store, Sofia dancing through it, now in the preppy style we know her for, as photos on the store-brand products show it belongs to her father. Sofia tenses herself,  before exploding with her winds, the music becoming more intense as she blows away everything around her as she now dances through the air. 

A gunshot rings out and we transition to her in a jail cell. Her father looks down at her with disdain, before walking away. The door to the cell, to her shock, is then opened by Danielle Moonstar, who offers her a hand. 

The tempo of the music picks up as she dances through the school with all her new friends, and continues to dance even as they battle against Spiral, Mystique, and Shaw. Her dancing leads her to a podium, where she’s graduating as Valedictorian and everyone cheers her on. 

But then everything goes dark. The music slows down. Sofia tiptoes around as she looks around, unsure what’s happening. 

The world returns, but now Sofia is in a suit, and in her father’s office, a picture of himself being taken down and replaced with one of her. 

Sofia dances over to the desk like a puppet whose strings are being pulled, until she’s seated. 

She glares at the camera with the same dead look in her eyes her dad always gave her. 

In her bed, Sofia hums the music from the start of her dream.

Storm, Kitty, and Sunspot step through a door into a room with no light. Kitty asks Ororo and Roberto if they can illuminate things before they walk into a pit of acid or anything, but as they try to use their gifts, they hear the sound of metal clanging, and the lights turn on. 

Arcade cackles over his intercom. He’s had enough of these Mutants breaking his toys, so he just strapped anklets around each of them to turn off their annoying powers. 

The door they came through crumbles behind them. The three find themselves standing on a wide, circular platform, surrounded by stands, with forcefields between them, where Arcade and his employers are watching intently as the platform slowly descends into the shark infested waters which make up the floor. 

The heroes continue to try to use their powers, and to get the anklets off, but nothing works. 

ROBERTO: “Ladies…any ideas?” 

Neither Ororo nor Kitty have an answer. 

We cut to a small, humble home in Kandahar, Afghanistan. A younger Sooraya is in the kitchen, helping her mother cook, visibly at peace as she does so. The peace doesn’t last long, however, as before either knows what’s happening, white men armed with machine guns burst in, assault the two as they slam them against the floor, and handcuff them. 

Sooraya screams and cries as she and her mother are dragged outside, while Sooraya’s mother tries to tell her it’s going to be okay. Sooraya’s screams only get louder as she’s separated from her mother, and they’re thrown into different trucks. Everyone else on Sooraya’s truck are clearly also young girls. 

As one of the men shoves her into her seat and shouts at her to shut up, all she can do is scream and scream and scream. 

Sooraya wakes up in bed, still screaming in horror. This wakes up Laura, who’d fallen asleep right next to her, and Cessily in her own bed. While Cessily panics, not sure what’s wrong with Soo, Laura holds her and shouts that they need help in here. 

In the deathtrap, Storm, Kitty, and Roberto continue to inch closer to the shark infested water. They each take note of a part of their surroundings, looking for a way out, but without their powers, it seems like there’s nothing they can do. 

ROBERTO: “You two are skilled enough fighters to deal with some sharks, right?” 

Back with Emma and James, the former telepathically connects with the others and sees that they’re in danger. 

Emma starts rushing toward their location, but James is hesitant to follow, both because he doesn't trust her, and because he agrees with the others' assessment that he's a liability right now. Emma points out that if they do nothing, they're sure to be eaten alive, she has no intention of letting that happen to Kitty or Beto, and…

EMMA: "Nice as it would be to have Storm out of my presently-tragic hair, just letting her die wouldn't be a good look."

She knows James has every reason not to trust her, and right now he doesn't even trust himself, but he doesn't have a choice. 

In the deathtrap, the three X-Men have almost reached the water. 

Arcade excitedly gestures to Stryker that it's time for what he's been waiting for. 

STRYKER: "I'm glad you made your final trap unrelated from the sinful holiday you based the rest of this ridiculousness off of."

ARCADE: "What are you talking about? Depowering them and putting them in a no-win scenario? That's the ultimate trick!"

As Arcade nasally laughs and the platform reaches the water, Emma flies in, telekinetically carrying Warpath behind her. While Kitty and Storm do their best to fist fight the sharks, who they quickly realize are actually robots, Arcade mocks Emma that there’s nothing she can do; the forefield protecting him and his guests blocks telepathy, and if his shark-bots are destroyed, the whole Murderworld will be flooded, not just with water, but with melted chocolate. 

Stryker groans. Arcade thinks he needs to lighten up. 

Emma and Warpath exchange nods. Emma telekinetically lifts the X-Men and the sharks out of the water. Floating James over to them, though it strains him greatly, he’s able to break the anklets off of his three friends with his incredible strength. 

As Stryker, Shaw, and others all glare at a finally panicking Arcade, he says there’s nothing to worry about. In the worst case scenario, he can always blow them up using the nanites inside them. 

Unfortunately for him, Storm just got her powers back, and with him now in her sights, there’s nothing to protect him as she calls down a bolt of lightning from the sky, crashing it  through the roof, and striking him with his, charring him and knocking him out. 

As everyone flees or, in Shaw’s case, calmly makes his way out, Stryker turns his glare to the X-Men. 

STYKER: “It’s clear to me now that no form of science can best you demons. Only his holy light will be able to cleanse this world of your evil.” 

As he leaves, Emma fires off a blast of psychic lightning to create another hole in the roof. Flying in one and back down the other, the team finds the kill switch on Arcade and take it. 

KITTY: “We’re all gonna have to get surgery from Beast to get these things out for good, aren’t we?” 

EMMA: “Nothing to worry about. It sounds like it’ll be far from the most delicate surgery I’ve ever had.” 

In Sooraya’s bedroom, Dani, Noriko, and Sofia have joined her, Cessily, and Laura. Dani and Laura both hold Soo as she continues to shake. The day those slavers came for her and her mother was the most terrifying experience of her life. Cyclops and Wolverine were able to save her, but her mom is still out there. Still going through that Hell every day.  

Dani promises her they’ll never let anything like that happen to her again, that they can get her someone to talk to if she wants, and that, no matter how long it takes, they will find her mom. 

Sofia laments that her nightmare was bad, but nothing like this. She’s so sorry for what Soo’s been through. 

Noriko and Cessily’s eyes widen. Did they ALL have nightmares?

Their eyes turn to Laura. 

LAURA: “I have nightmares every night. But I did check in with Julian. He and Brian had the same experience.” 

Dani hums with concern. This sounds like something more was going on than just too much candy. She’ll tell the X-Men about this. For now, does anyone else wanna talk about what they dreamed? 

No one answers. 

DANI: “OK then. You’ve all been through a lot. It’s no surprise you have fears like these. But if you don’t want to talk about them, we don’t have to. Now then, why don’t we go dig into the candy stash in the teacher’s lounge? We saved the best stuff for ourselves.” 

The next morning at dawn, the five captured X-Men arrive back at the institute. Sunspot asks Warpath if making a play with Emma made him feel dirty. James says a little, but it was also a little nostalgic; that made him feel even dirtier. Roberto laughs, and then thanks him for saving them. James says he didn’t do anything Roberto couldn’t have done. As Roberto pats him on the back and walks ahead, James’ face falls. 

Kitty hates to admit it, but Emma saved their butts back there. When exactly did she get telekinesis and psychic lightning though? Emma tells her that just like with her morals and with her body, she’s never been satisfied with her level of power, and so she’s continued to grow. 

EMMA: “It’s not too late for you. If you set your mind to it, Katherine, there’s no doubt you could grow even more than myself in all these ways.” 

KITTY: “Hmm. Maybe.” Emma’s face lights up. “But I won’t be doing any of that with you.” 

Emma’s face falls as Kitty walks up to Storm, hooking her arm around hers. 

KITTY: “Think next year we can just go trick or treating?” 

Ororo laughs. 

In a dark void, small squares containing each of the training squad’s nightmares fill the screen. 

We transition to Jean’s eyes opening in bed. She smiles. 

Scott says good morning to her, holding her, and asks how she slept. Jean says she didn’t sleep much. She was thinking about Emma and Dani’s squad, how they could break Julian and Sofia’s loyalty to Emma, and generally help the others. Really thought about what makes them tick. And she thinks she has some ideas. 

Scott kisses her. They can always count on her. 

[tokiro07]

Undead Unluck ch.150 thoughts

[I Said ‘War’, huh, Good God, Y’all]

So last week I said that I figured Billy was going to be the next threat, but in retrospect that was pretty dumb of me: Creed’s CO literally just showed up to tell him he was leaving his men to die, and I didn’t even try to think of any justification for why he’d be there?? Well, I did, but my best guess at the time was that he killed the previous Undecrease to force the ability onto Creed and justify abandoning him, but the truth is far worse and much more entertaining - he’s not abandoning him, he’s PERSONALLY LEADING THE CHARGE TO KILL CREED AND HIS MEN

As it turns out, Creed’s squad was basically just a scouting team that was always meant to be killed because of their knowledge of Disc, as presumably the circle is meant to be kept small and whatever team is being allowed to retrieve it and live is more valuable I suppose

This also makes Creed’s tragedy a bit clearer: it wasn’t just that his men were abandoned, it’s that he was explicitly betrayed last time around. I figured being left behind meant that Creed lost to Billy, but Billy’s employers betrayed him too and both of their squads got wiped out, leaving only Billy, Creed and Tella alive to team up and seek revenge. The only question now is how Billy’s Unfair activated and how it made this already terrible situation any worse. My guess is that Billy and Creed got into a shootout with undecreasing ammo then ended up taking out their employers together

Either that or Billy took Disc in that moment and fought them off himself, with Unfair being a separate issue. Whatever happened, I’m getting the feeling that the reason the Union ended up with Disc in Loop 100 is because Billy personally gave it to Juiz as a show of good faith, as clearly neither Creed’s country nor Billy’s employers got it in the end

Creed’s recruitment was also a bit faster than I expected, but while Tozuka only ever really tells the story one event at a time, there’s usually smaller interlocking parts, and this is no exception: showing Creed that his men are safe while his country betrays him gives him ample reason to justify his recruitment while also transitioning perfectly into him fighting back against his country

Come to think of it, Rip once told us that Creed’s goal is to establish his own country. Obviously we don’t know what that would entail, but being betrayed by your homeland seems like the perfect inspiration for an idea like that. I wonder if the idea is to create something like Outer Heaven from Metal Gear, where soldiers’ lives are valued. That said, Creed seems to explicitly want to decrease the number of wars in the world (he’d really enjoy Cipher Academy, I think), so unlike Big Boss who wants to keep the world at war so that soldiers are always needed and appreciated, Creed would probably aim for something more ambitious: becoming such an overwhelming military power that no one would dare oppose him or engage in petty squabbles...Actually, I guess that makes him Ozymandias from Watchmen more than Big Boss, huh? Though I’m just putting words in his mouth right now, so let’s not jump to any conclusions right now

[Note: Whoopsie, misremembered Rip’s dialogue, thank you to @wickedsick for pointing it out: Creed’s goal wasn’t to establish a country, it was to “take control of nations.” This implies that he wanted to take over the world, which still makes sense contextually; if he’s running the show, he doesn’t have to worry about higher-ups stabbing him in the back. The end goal is likely still to stop wars, just now instead of being a deterrent like I thought, he’d literally be the one in control of whether or not conflicts can even happen at all]

It also doesn’t seem like he’s going to go down that path in this loop anyway, now that he’s working for Fuuko and not Billy; remember, Under’s structure was upheld exclusively by mutual interest rather than a unified goal, and Billy’s goal of defeating God necessitated putting together a strong military force, which of course interested Creed. Here, though, Creed’s men have been momentarily saved and he has the ability to put an end to the fight that threatens them, and once that’s over he likely won’t have a home to return to, so he’ll join Fuuko who wants to make a home for him. Just like Void and Sean, Creed is going to learn to actually consider Fuuko his friend and feel loyalty for her cause, and this time his squad will be with him to back him up

Symbolically, the first step for differentiating between Creed 100 and Creed 101 is the belt of rubber bullets that Fuuko designed for him: he’s gone from being a ruthless killing machine who would even kill children for his goals to a hero in the war on God who won’t kill needlessly. Sure, rubber bullets deal a ton of damage in the real world, often bad enough that they make you wish you were dead, but A) they’re fighting soldiers who are trying to kill them so this is definitely more merciful, and B) it’s fiction, they might be special rubber bullets with different properties than real ones, so everyone will be fine anyway. The real world implications of rubber bullets is not relevant, the point is that Creed is no longer killing anyone

Also I love that Isshin 12 is holding Creed up on his shoulders, which I suppose might also be a symbol of how Creed is no longer a lone soldier working for someone else out of convenience, but rather a team member who relies on the help of others. “If you’re gonna master your ability, you oughta complete the process on your own. Gettin’ weak help from a weak Negator ain’t gonna be enough...” That’s what Creed said to Top and Chikara in the Spring battle, but not only was he beaten by Fuuko with the help of Sean, likely the weakest Negator in the entire series, but now he’s getting help from Isshin, a strictly supportive Negator. Sure, he’s also getting help from Yusai, who can KNOCK DOWN TREES WITH THE AIR PRESSURE OF HER SHEATHED SWORD (what a woman), and the enemies are being pinned by Void’s Unavoidable, but if anything that just strengthens my point: Creed is now officially a part of a team, and he’s better off for it

Moving back in time a little, Billy finds Tella still panicking, his cheeks most definitely torn and bleeding from his futile attempts to scream. Billy calms him down and is able to overcome Untell by listening to Tella’s heartbeat and feeling the changes in his body temperature, which is just about the gayest god damn thing I’ve ever seen. Can you imagine being a human lie detector but the method requires you get all up ons the other person? And the relief Tella clearly feels hearing Billy’s voice and knowing that Billy will understand him even if he can’t talk. That’s romance if I’ve ever seen it, and we’re on chapter 150 of Undead Unluck, the schmaltziest Jump manga I’ve ever read. You can’t tell me they’ve never explored each other’s bodies 

The main issue I have with Billy already determining that the Union are the good guys in this scenario is that it means there are no Negators for him to use Unfair with, unless he pulls the same thing he did on Top and Chikara during Ragnarok and starts talking shit to everyone else to get their powers, but I’m not sure he’d even know to do that. Creed seems like an easy one since they’re already enemies, and Sean’s enough of a wimp that he wouldn’t take much convincing, but the rest are a little tougher. “Billy shot Haruka in the last Loop” would certainly work on Isshin 12, but to what end? Unbreakable is only good for builders and crafters, not really for a soldier. Unseen would be really cool for Billy to have, though, since he’s blind and literally wouldn’t be affected by Unseen’s drawback, though I guess the question is whether he’d be able to turn it off; is the activation “closing one’s eyes” or “not being able to see”? I expect we’ll find out

Also it just occurred to me that this is a new Billy, not Billy 100; either Billy did not retain Unruin long enough to survive Ragnarok, or Ruin’s an idiot and Unruin doesn’t actually allow one to make it to the next loop as he thought. Billy did imply that might be the case when he noted that the Union had never faced Ruin in a previous loop, but it’s also possible that Ruin just got himself killed in other interesting ways previously. We still don’t know the mechanics of Unruin, so there’s lots of ways it could go, but unless there are two Billy’s running around now, I think it’s safe to say that Billy 100 did in fact die

A few small notes to round off the chapter:

CONTINUITY ERROR IN THE CHAT!!! Ch.147, we see Tella’s back multiple times and he doesn’t have a ponytail, but he VERY CLEARLY has a ponytail in this chapter, which we also saw briefly in ch.145. During 147, I thought maybe I’d misseen something in 145, but this chapter confirms that Tella does, in fact, have a ponytail. Phew, puts my mind at rest

Once again, Ichico’s soul just pops out of her body when she sees Disc, so I guess that’s just her thing now; her soul leaves her body whenever she’s shocked. That said, the expression on her body and on her soul are completely different, but I think we can take the soul’s expression to be how she really feels: she and Nico are both super excited about this rad flying saucer

Yusai stopped to take a drink after her attack succeeded, and now that she’s seeing Disc, she’s trying to take her gourd out of her mouth, but because of Undraw, it’s stuck and she’s just pulling on her lips, which is honestly just a really funny image

Sean is cowering with Yusai, which makes me wonder if he had already gone to her side earlier. I hope they’ll have some kind of dynamic going forward, but I also don’t want them to be TopxIsshin 2.0 since Yusai already got married and had kids in Loop 100 and I don’t want whoever that guy is to get cucked and lose his kids, that just seems cruel

The paneling for the Union here is just really good: Void, Yusai and Sean are standing atop the Unbreakable shields, so they’re positioned highest in the panels; Creed is slightly lower, sitting on the very tall Isshin 12′s shoulders, so they’re a bit lower than Void and positioned below Yusai, but still higher than Ichico and Nico, who are standing on the ground in the third panel. It’s subtle, but it helps you understand where everyone is in the space, and I always appreciate that kind of thing

It looks like the entrance to Disc is under a little temple on top of it, though I wonder if that’s the cockpit or just the door; I kind of wish we could have seen Fuuko and Gina enter it and explore a little, but that doesn’t seem too important right now. Hopefully we’ll get to see more of it later, but I could also see it being relegated to an omake. Actually, I’d like to see the schematics of the Union’s base at some point too now that I think of it

It’s pretty fitting that Gina is helping Fuuko pilot Disc since they were introduced together in the previous loop, though I’m not sure she’s totally relevant to it aside from that. Aside from Gina keeping Fuuko safe from gunfire on the way, I wonder if there’s any greater significance to Gina being present for this particular event?

We just made a big show about Creed using nonlethals against enemy soldiers, how the hell is Fuuko going to use Disc without KILLING EVERYONE??? I get the feeling she’s not just going to be able to scare the military off with recon lasers

As always, this was a great chapter, and I’m so excited to see what’s coming. Disc had a great showing in the fight with Gina, but it was so short, and definitely could have been used in the Season battles, so I’m glad it’s getting an opportunity to shine again! That said, I’m kind of expecting this to be a bad news situation; things have been going really well for the Union so far, I don’t think there’s been a single hiccup so far, so I won’t be surprised if there’s a drop coming

Whether it happens next week with Billy or Ruin or someone stealing Disc from under Fuuko’s feet or a few chapters from now in the interim while we’re waiting for the 2010s Negators to awaken, I’ll continue waiting for the next installment with bated breath! And rumor has it that we might be getting some news about the anime on the 25th, so keep an eye out for that too~

[wubbybubbly]

idk if this is considered a Hot Take (*gasp*) but this exchange is…kinda disappointing? the ending of aa2 was so powerful and it sucks that nothing has really changed between these two since then. I think this scene robs franziska of a moment where she actually understands and respects edgeworth’s autonomy. BECAUSE THAT WOULD MEAN SHE FINALLY RESPECTS HER OWN.

like, I think there’s a huge missed opportunity to show franziska’s growth here. I would have loved to see her be comfortable enough in her own skin to not be as concerned with what edgeworth does with his life. she knows who she is, knows what she wants, and if edgeworth changes his mind, that’s not going to affect her anymore. she’s done chasing after him. I know she’s technically still in “battle” with edgeworth, but I think it would be interesting if she merely shifted her approach to it. whatever happens between them, it will still propel her forward, because she refuses to be anything but his equal.

I also don’t know why franziska is hung up on the von karma creed here—didn’t she say that legends are a thing of the past? she has no reason to tether edgeworth to a path that she herself is no longer walking. I truly don’t believe that franziska, at this point in her development, would perceive edgeworth quitting prosecution as an act of leaving her behind. after all, the very thing that caused their rift in the first place was that edgeworth kept abandoning her to further his own career as a disciple of von karma. with every step forward he took, franziska felt more and more isolated in her struggle to uphold a legacy that was forced onto her by blood. for years, edgeworth never realized that she was drowning.

during their conversation in aa2, she learned that not only does edgeworth look out for her (albeit in a flawed way), but also that she is capable of change; that she does have a choice in shaping her own life. she has no obligation to be the lawyer her father was. she can reclaim her identity as “franziska von karma”, and reject being seen as “manfred von karma’s daughter.” she does not have to be burdened with contorting herself to fit the von karma family creed anymore. so, she chooses to fight for her own sake.

I don’t think edgeworth and franziska’s problems need to be 100% resolved or anything, I mean franziska’s abandonment issues aren’t going to disappear overnight, but it’s a bit of a letdown to see the same conflict repeated here. I’d be less harsh if I felt like they were actually going to do something interesting with the fact that she still feels this way, but I don’t think that’s the case here. it seems like they didn’t know what to do with franziska, so they just had her say this.

it’s fine if other people don’t mind this writing choice, but I personally find it kinda cheap…I’m sorry for being an opinionated bitch sometimes I can’t help it

[chlerc]

times it mattered ; charles leclerc

— summary; 5 times where Charles showed you what it’s like to be on the receiving end of love with his actions and words.

pairing — charles leclerc x art-student!f. reader ( third person story )

word count — 1899.

content — 5 times you realised that being in an arranged marriage with Charles Leclerc wasn’t that bad. Actions speak louder than words, but what if he has a mix of both?

NAVIGATION + author’s note: i awfully love this one because i’m soooo an acts of service girl and this is exactly what i want in life but no one gets what they want.

— I.

THE SOUND OF THE television drains out with her head in her hands, the table with an array of paint and colour pencils. The sketch, she thought wasn’t good enough, had been staring at her for the past twenty minutes. Under the sky of midnight velvet, she had been in this very exact position since the morning blues.

It was only when the sound of the door slammed shut that broke her out of her trance, she didn’t need to turn to know that it was Charles. “Hey, bella.” He greets, sitting on the couch behind her and she turns to give him a small smile. He knew that smile even though she had hardly smiled at him, the same exact smile when she can’t get a sketch right.

“I bought you these, it was on the way home.” Charles holds out the bouquet of baby breaths in front of her, scratching at his nape and a small grin on his face that displays his dimples. “Thanks, you didn’t have to though.” Her eyes creased into crescents, taking in the sight of the bouquet. “I know I don’t have to but I wanted to, let me do my thing as your husband yeah?”

Husband on paper but not really her husband though, doesn’t matter as long as things are working out and thank god it’s going well between them. It was an occasional thing where Charles would always arrive home with a bouquet of flowers in his hands, saying it’s on the way home and that it would be a waste if the florist didn’t sell them out.

The smile on her face probably said everything there was left unsaid and god it left Charles weak in his knees. “I’ll go and take a shower, long day today and I probably smell bad. The sketch is looking good, hope your projects are going well.” He ruffled her hair before jogging away into the master bedroom but the smell of his Creed perfume remains behind.

— II.

Mornings had never been her favourite thing, not when she knew lectures were awaiting her the whole day or projects piling up on her load. Golden rays of the morning sun came as invitations to the day, yet she only felt dread in leaving the duvet that kept her warm and acted as a protective layer from the world beyond.

The house is empty and quiet as always, leaving her to savour the hours of mornings in freedom and solitude, not that Charles had ever been bothersome to her morning routine. The only sign of Charles that was left behind was the scent of his Dior Sauvage cologne that she had gotten him, adding to his growing collections of perfumes.

Her door left ajar when she finally untangled herself from the comfort of her sheets, dragging herself towards the kitchen where she would always find an avocado bowl and a cup of tea ready for her. There’d always be a message on her phone accompanying Charles’ gesture although she thinks of it as bothersome for him to prepare breakfast for her if he never has some of it.

It started off as a one time thing where it subsequently happened everyday after she bought him a belt in return for his actions. Everything then just happened naturally as it became a habit for her to buy him things and he’d prepare her breakfast. She’d like to think that Charles liked her taste in whatever she bought him, perfumes, jeans and dress shirts.

That one time where she caught Charles pouring a cup of tea only and putting the kettle back in place, then she only realised he never drank tea. He’d always say “It’s okay I drink some of it too so I made more and we can share.” but he never drank some of it, all of it was for her because he had a cup of cappuccino daily.

— III.

“Bella today’s my day off, let’s go somewhere should we?” Charles pokes his head around the corner of the living room as she glances up from her sketch to catch his small grin. “I have 2 more sketches to complete but we can go. Where are we going, have you thought of it?” There had rarely been days where they ever went out together, their schedules not complying with each other.

There’s excitement in his eyes as they glint in the light, a deep happiness in the well of his dimples where she found home within, a spark that would always lead her to thrive once more. “Of course, I planned it beforehand and even if you were going to disagree, I would have come up with some other plan to drag you out.”

A giggle left her lips as Charles walked forward, hands outstretched for her to hold onto when standing up. “There’s a desk in your room, why do you always wanna make your back suffer by sitting on the floor with nothing to lean against and hunching over the coffee table.” His voice laced with concern knowing how often she had complained of a backache from the long hours sitting down.

“I just like it there, you can’t stop me because you’re not home mostly.” It wasn’t supposed to hurt but it had been like a jab towards him that made him realised his tight schedule. The least he could do to make up for the time loss was bringing her out when he was home, preparing her breakfast, tucking her into the duvets before he left or came home.

Truthfully they both knew that they never wanted to end up in an arranged marriage but what could he do except to make the most out of it? Especially when someone as gorgeous and beautiful as her, he wasn’t letting the chance slip through. “Where are we going?” She pivots on her heels to face him, her brows cocked up while looking at him. “Art Museum.”

“But you said you didn’t understand art and paintings the last time we went.” Charles only shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly before walking to his bedroom. “You’re there, you can explain everything to me. My art student for a reason, aren’t you?

— IV.

Leaving everything on the coffee table was something she always did with her colour pencils, brushes and paints all over the table. Charles had been used to that though, that’s why he had always been the one cleaning after her mess. “Leave it, I'll clear it up later.” Yet she’d always return to an organised coffee table, the packed dinner he brought back or those he cooked when he was free were already on the table.

“I’m home with dinner, go wash your hands and we can eat together.” The shuffling of Charles’ footsteps can be heard from the living room while she makes her way towards the bathroom, washing her hands of different colours and doodles. The rustling of plastic bags were heard, the sound of her colour pencils being kept away.

Yet when she rounded the corner of the living room, Charles sat there with her sketchbook in hand, flipping through where his eyes were enlarged at every sketch he flipped through. “Charles, are you snooping through my sketches?” Her eyebrows cocked up with her lips slightly lifted at the ends.

“Nooo, not at all. I was just, what do you call that? Interested but openly looking, not snooping.” He shuts the sketchbook close at her voice, pushing it to the far end of the couch and raising his hands in surrender. “Leave it there, we can look through it and I’ll explain it to you later. The projects, the drawings and everything else.”

He had eyes that spoke of all things newborn in the spring, glimmering with the small hint of excitement that hid behind the windows of a soul. “Really? You’d tell me all about it? Everything in between too?” Her smile grows of its own accord and she can either let him see what he ignited or hide it, either way, he's the most fun and adorable thing in her world.

“I would if you finish your dinner first and take a shower after, then we can go through everything you said and everything in between.” The glasses that sat on the arch of his nose only worsened the palpitations within her heart, every nook and crevice filled with adoration for him. “Then what are you waiting for? Come here, have a seat and start digging in!”

— V.

Nothing on earth beats the atmosphere of a concert, aside from a race where Charles wins, nothing comes as close to this feeling. The crowd has a life of its own, the vibrant clothes shine in the track lights and the people move like enchanting shoals of fish.

Charles stood by her side, hands on the small of her back where he occasionally tugged her closer from the crowd. Being here, at The 1975 concert, with Charles was definitely not something she had expected since they ever got married. The back of her heels hurt from the bite of her shoes she had horribly chosen.

“You okay? I’ll get us out of here soon, my car’s parked far though, it might be quite a bit of a walk.” Charles peers down at her, oblivious to her pain and watches her face scrunch with her eyes wincing while nodding in response to him. “Are you sure you’re okay, are you tired?” And he only gets a meek smile in return, not quite like the same person he had been with during the concert. “Your feet hurts, don't they?”

She acts like it’s nothing she couldn’t handle, shrugging her shoulders nonchalantly when they walked out of the concert venue. He stops his tracks along as she does by the bench nearby, then bending over to remove his Jordans and pushing her gently to sit on the bench. “What are you doing, Charles?”

He whistled to the song he had heard in the concert earlier instead of replying, kneeling by her to slip off her shoes and fit them in with his Jordan’s instead. He then turns around, patting his back as a signal for her to hop on. “C’mon, let’s go and it’s late.” But she only stared at him with her jaws hung open, processing what he had just done. “Hey come on, I don’t have all the time in the world.”

And when she finally relaxed herself onto his back and the comfort within her arms around his neck, his left hand carried her shoes whilst continuing his whistle and walking towards the car with only his socks. “Why are you doing this Charles, doesn’t your foot hurt with only the socks?”

“Doesn’t really matter as long as you’re okay, besides the walk to the car isn’t that far so I can handle it.” Her fingers meddled with the necklaces he wore, mostly from his sponsored brand. “Sleep with me tonight.” His abrupt remark had caused a gasp to leave her mouth, throwing him a soft punch on the shoulder.

“Isn’t that a little too straightforward?” Charles shook his head and chuckled, swaying her from side to side. “I meant together in my room, like moving into the master bedroom.” She only hummed in reply, teasing him with her short and unclear response which left him desperate. “Sure.”

[theconfusedartist]

I was gonna respond to the reblogs with the tags on the post, but I wanted this reblog to be the one I use going forward bc. The meta. Juicy. Didn’t wanna leave it behind, it’s soooo good. The William drag, how his terrible legacy is continued in the further games, how even with thinking about his situation his actions have altered Desmond in a way that can’t be forgiven (not that he actually gives a sincere apology). Ideas on how the assassins operate. Just. Mwah!

Sooooo tags!

@leonspardas​

#yeah he didn’t like waste his life. he was living the life he wanted to live#which was a normal one

 @benewhorian

#yeah!!#and ok. but isnt his totally neutral outfit the perfect costume.#as well as hiding in nyc among millioms of people. being a bartender. a profession as far from being an#adsassin ad possible 

@the-babbling-brook​

#I love Desmond#bro deserved sm better#assassin’s creed#desmond miles#reblog 

@mandrake-does-art​

#THIS#ppl need to appreciate Desmond more#i miss the present day assassins 

@desmondmilesdefensesquad​

#EXACTLY#meta#desmond 

@kingbob2-0​

#desmond miles#asscreed#william miles#bill is an ASS  #Poor Desmond#Bill was most certainly not a good dad

@teecupangel​

#all of this#yeeesss  #yes he is

@fanworldbuildingfun​

#Assassin's Creed#Desmond Miles#Yeah#Even the game (cough Shaun cough) treats Desmond like he just...#Let his training waste for who knows how long?#Except no - he clearly made use of it#honestly with wjat little we know about hia life between Farm and being caught#I would almost say that Desmond just... Used his talents as a dai/informant would? 

@beepbeepwhatdoyouthink​

#the lack of understanding and acknowledgement of these facts breaks my heart like#desmond is good#both a good person and a good assassin before the animus#and i get game mechanic reasons like it has to make sense for the player to learn alongside the pc#but desmond is so so much more than his ancestor's memories and think it's very ironic#that we as fans do this to him just like the narrative does#assassins creed 

@thedragonqueen1998​

#all of this#yeeesss#<previous tags#yes indeed#and this will be meta#but theres nothing wrong with wanting a normal life#not becoming a superstar#or an astrophysicist#or a doctor#doesnt make a person “lazy” or “dumb”

@princesslikesfanfics​

In conclusion, BAMF Desmond is truly canon  (not a tag but I wanted it to be here too)

@sparrow-in-boots​

#I HAVEN BEEN FUCKING SAYING!!!!!#screaming off the rooftops even!!#assassin's creed 

@alex-mercer

#POINTING AT THIS#he's smart and skilled as hell!!! william is just a dick#assassin's creed#desmond miles 

@mirrorthoughts​

#I really really don’t like Bill#I’d like to punch his teeth in for how he treated Desmond#Assassin‘s Creed#Desmond Mile 

@raett97​

#yeah i have. problems with Bills character#kinda. my take is capital C complicated#but also my frame of reference is only up to AC3#but like. he was a bad mentor and worse father#i could do my own break down analysis interpretation but thats too much effort rn#it boils down to the fact he prioritise the shit out of the Assassin's as a Brotherhood#and the Assassin's as a cause#and not the Assassin's as people#and Desmond suffered most from that mentality bc while other Assassin's would have had family to turn to#Des was left with nothing#no support at all#and like. i get it#Bill. the world was literally going to end#but you can multitask. you dont have to be a complete dickhead to get things done#i could go on. but i wont. (please do)

@acelike​

#assassin's creed#he succeeded at escaping master assassins at 16#desmond defence squad 

Ok, to all the people talking about how shit Bill was YESSSSS fuck that guy! That’s why he dies in the rewrite! I’m sorry but why did the game open up with Desmond telling his own story in the Ezio trilogy after all the time we spent with him in game only for Bill to basically open up AC3 shit talking Desmond? Like? It was already kinda weird how the game downplayed the shit out of Desmond (their MAIN CHARACTER) but then?? They go the extra mile and show that Bill, the man that Desmond talks about having a bad experience with, not only shit talking him but then treating him like shit in game, physically and verbally abusing him and no one else ever addressing it. Not the game, not the characters, not the narrative, no one ever says shit about the fact that Desmond is actually being abused and it just. Gets brushed under the rug.

And then! Desmond saves Bill and this still doesn’t change anything! Not how Bill treats him, how the game should’ve been forced to acknowledge that Desmond is a master assassin (even if they wanted to invalidate him, they should’ve put some respect on his name and skills but no), or the fact that the Templars that once were stringing him along and Desmond feared being captured for the Templars to be getting cut down. So much goes on, in the actual game, to prove that Desmond is a BAMF but instead of it having a turning point in the story where the narrative is forced to acknowledge his skills, they just keep on going. Then Desmond dies and it’s Bill that carries the story.

....Bill. Really? Shaun and Rebecca are in the later games but then in Mirage it’s looking like he’ll be the one in animus? What has changed for Bill as a character or the assassins? Nothing. NOTHING! I don’t like that man or what he does to the Assassin Order, I’m just. Hm. He can be the one that doesn’t return to the series.

Also, as other people have mentioned, wanting to be a normal person isn’t wasting your life away. I mean! Ezio’s whole story accumulated to the point where he laid down his blades because he was tired of bloodshed, Altair traps himself in the library hoping that someone would eventually track down all the keys, finally getting to rest. These are the two best assassins in the history of assassins and they chose to either rest or live a normal life. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to get away from bloodshed. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to live around people normally, and the fact that Desmond literally escaped from a compound that survived the Purge with master assassins is just never brought up. But when it’s phrased like ‘Desmond escaped a top secret, high security assassin base with Master assassins and the Mentor of the Assassin Order at 16 years old and managed to escape and evade the Templars and Assassins for nearly 10 years’, suddenly it doesn’t sound like some flight of fancy that the game tries to make it seem.

It’s an act of conviction and determination to choose how he wants to live his life (which is also why I write that Desmond takes care of Elijah bc wtf Ubisoft, Desmond would never leave behind a child that would possibly be vulnerable to the Assassins and Templars, fuck off with that) and he made sure that he stayed free! He stayed out of their clutches until Abstergo used their incredibly vast resources to track him down, and even then, they sent in their best agent Daniel Cross because they knew to send the best to bring him in.

This is stuff that I didn’t make up, this is just in the game text, but the game just???? Refuses to show that it’s impressive and does it’s damndest to make it seem like Desmond is whiny (because he wanted breaks from a machine literally destroying his sanity and wanted to be treated with respect) naive (because how dare he choose his own life, when that is literally the most important things that Assassins fight for), and only being worth something once he got into the animus (which is fucked up that Desmond losing his mind and being used as a tool is ‘better’ than fighting to make his own choices about his life). The game narrative paints Desmond with a less than impressive brush when they have an incredibly interesting character that was also so selfless that he chose to die in order to save the world, and even then! He’s shown to the audience getting cut the fuck open like his story didn’t fucking matter! Like he didn’t matter! AGH!

Sorry, that particular thing about the autopsy is great when I incorporate it into the ProtoCreed rewrite, but in canon they left Desmond behind without burying him or anything to be scavenged and have his body disrespected by Templars that then use his DNA for video games. Like that is so fucked up to do to your main character and then never mention him until a literal decade later, like what the actual fuck. Glad he’s back as the Reader, because it gave me hope for Desmond’s story and fueled me to start writing the ProtoCreed AU but like holy shit bro.

Anyways, I love everyone’s tags and it always made me smile when I saw this post getting y’alls opinions in the tags and reblogs. Thank y’all!

y'know something that annoys me about assassins creed?

they always make it seem like desmond wasted his life away after he left the farm to become a bartender, that he wasn't fit to be an assassin until he was training in the animus, and that he didn't have any ambition (as said by William in the AC3 remastered opening)

but like. none of that is true. at all

I mean I was just looking at the wiki to see Desmonds accomplishments and bio and apparently it was Daniel Cross that brought him into Abstergo. which. kinda puts Desmond skills in perspective

Daniel Cross was considered the most successful Templar member and, before Desmond, had a really great track record with his missions. Save for the ones that involved PoEs

they had to send him in to get Desmond

also Desmond managed to stay hidden from the assassins AND templars for 9 going on 10 years, since he was kidnapped on like August 30 brought in for the animus September 1, and the only reason he got taken in was due to them getting his fingerprints from the DMV

like. That sounds stupid but think about it. If he was going to the DMV he had to have an entire false identity in order to use a license, bc you need proof of birth, SSN, and multiple legal documents

he just. had that made on the run. Like that actually takes skill or connections or both to be able to effectively be in the system without being found with fake legal papers

And he DID have ambition: he wanted to live normally. Yeah its not some big dream or anything but he managed to stay hidden from two secret shadowy organizations that is all over the world in order to make it happen. that's determination and he only got caught due to his fingerprints being matched

and he easily fights off the abstergo agents in the opening of the first game. I'm not saying that Desmond was near as good as Ezio or Altaïr or Connor at this point, but he can clearly defend himself very well. at the end of AC2 he has no qualms with killing, he just does so with the hidden blade.

look, all I'm saying is, at the very least Desmond had to he quite skilled even before he started using the animus

[gaiuswrites]

Original Sin | Darksaber!Din

Pairing: Dark!Din x fem!Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ older for the love of all things holy)

Word count: 3.4k~

Summary: Things change after Grogu leaves. People change. No one is exempt.

Warnings/tags: DUB CON?¿, masturbation (m and f), inappopriate use of darksaber, sex toy (...), Dark!Din, Dom!Din, sacrilegious references, really dark shit, i am so sorry

Update: This should go without saying, but as it turns out, it’s in need of being said: every word written in this fic is my own; any likeness to any other work is coincidence, regardless of how bizarre. I don’t mean to offend anyone or raise suspicion, as I am certainly not a plagiarist (literally couldn’t be even if I tried: I am equal parts too incompetent, too busy, and too lazy to steal from someone else. Fellow writers can attest, I’m an absolute garbage reader and fall behind on almost everyone’s work. There’s an embarrassing amount I haven’t read.) Please reach out to me personally if you have any concerns. I respect everyone here like you wouldn’t believe. Sending love to you all. Be well. ✨

Notes: When I go to hell (it really is only a matter of timing, and not so much a question of if anymore), this fic will rank number one on the list of reasons why I’m sent to my eternal timeout. This... I'm twisted. I have issues. God help us. Seriously, this is basically a horror show. I bow down to the Darksaber!Din content creators who came before me, and the original artwork that inspired me to write this— thank you for lighting this (descending, dirty) path. I HAVE TAGGED A FEW PEOPLE HERE WHO MAY OR MAY NOT BE INTERESTED but really— REALLY— there’s absolutely no pressure. Cheers friends x ( gif credit: @skyshipper )

Masterlist | Read it on Ao3!

The days stretch long like morning yawns—hours passing on creaky bones, slow and congealed inside the metal womb of the Crest.

It wasn’t always this way.

They used to be filled with pitter pattering— with wily antics and vanishing acts that could baffle even the most veteran of illusionists— with prying frogs from tiny, green hands and giggling as blocks and baubles floated through the hull. Laughter. There used to be laughter here.

But that was then. The child is gone now. The Razor Crest is quiet.

Time fills itself like this; there’s little for you to do now but wait. Wait for the dusk to blur into the dawn. Wait for your food to cook. Wait for the shower to warm. Wait for the parts you ordered to arrive at the port. Wait for Din to come back—to come home.

Home. You used to be so certain—you’d bite the head off anyone who questioned otherwise— but you’re not so sure this is home anymore. Its not that anything has changed. No, the galley, the carbonite pods, the cockpit, the deck—it’s all still here. The scuffed walls, the durasteel, the littered crates and packed arsenal. But—

It’s different. It feels different. Something is...

off.

You can’t quite put your finger on it. Its intangible, but it’s everywhere—like gas. Invisible to the naked eye, but encircling you all the same. Choking you.

Killing you.

There’s no good explanation for it. You feel eyes on you when there are none. You find yourself glancing over your shoulder, knowing full well you are alone. Something keeps snagging you, pulling at an unseen thread. The corners of your peripherals tugging at you. Beckoning.

Was that a shadow? No.

Is someone there? It’s just you.

There is a tickle at your ear - a constant - dancing along the shell of it. Wherever you go, it follows.

Home home home. It only feels like home when Din is there, safe and sound at your side. But even then, even Din—in all of his plated exterior—even Din has succumbed. Even Din has

changed.

The truth is, Grogu left and a part of Din left with him. There’s less of him now— more, too: there’s less where it matters, and there’s more where there shouldn’t be.

You don’t remember when it started—when he first disappeared. When the spark in him died, and he was reignited anew.

When this Other became.

On multiple occasions you’ve caught him murmuring into the bellied dark of the Crest with a bent spine, hunched over himself as if he’s shrinking—enveloping in in in as far as the beskar along his chest will allow him to cave. You can never pick up what he mutters, but you catch the sounds of his teeth and lips brushing together, hissing. It’s not Basic; you’d recognize it if it were. You don’t think its Mando’a either. It’s too sharp— too vile. There’s none of his language’s elegance in it.

“Did you say something?” You asked once, poking your head around the doorway, eyes resting on the shine of his helmet.

A beat—and slowly, he unfurled, rearing to his full height and like a sentinel he swiveled, pivoting to face you.

“No.”

Your throat bobbed. “Oh, I-I thought I heard-”

“Come here, mesh’la.”

And you did. You always do.

The darksaber appeared on his belt one day, shortly after the child went away. It came, only once, and there it stays. Indistinguishable - inseparable - there is no dismembering the two. It accompanies him in all things; when he pilots, when he hunts, when he eats. It sleeps by him.

By you, too.

Din has always been stoic—of scant words and physical timing—but now he is a golem. A silent, shrouded figure. His Creed is broken, and you wonder maybe - briefly - if Din is broken as well. He is never unkind to you. He is never threatening. But he is never him. His eyes— the oaky comfort you once found in them— have blackened. He is a pit.

Din Djarin is a pit of a man.

And within that pit he has born rage. Immaculately, it has sprung from him as woman did by Adam’s rib. Like mold growing upon stale fruit does he have this—this wrath. It crept through him. It stalked along his soft flesh— his tawny hide—and it waited; patient, there in the shadows, it waited for him. Waited for him to turn his back, to close his eyes and drop his guard— leeway, an entrance— as to slip in undetected.

To inhabit.

The virtue and love that once thrummed within the heart of him has burned away. Charred. Only this of him remains; this insatiable lust— for blood sport, for the promise of split knuckles and fractured bone, for you.

For all of you.

Now, Din goes out on bounties like he needs it—like it’s oxygen. He lives off it. He’s sustained by the rush, by the adrenaline laced chemicals pumping through his arteries. He’s gone for days and weeks on end and when he returns, he fucks you like he’s been starved. Out in the wilderness without a morsel to eat, he devours you. He’s ravenous as he tears his way across your body—all too pliant for him, all too willing—letting him feast on the nectar dripping from your heat.

You can feel it in his foot steps as he storms the ship, the bassy echo of it. You can see it in the pitch of his visor. You can feel it in his cock as he slams into you, night after night after night—ceaselessly. Tirelessly. Unnaturally. The number of orgasms he wrings out of you is countless—his need so incurable, you have to fight to stay above it all; you have to war against your urge to slip away completely.

Din is one grey choice - one hair trigger - from coming undone.

And you should be scared. You should be terrified—he should terrify you. Like scalding water, you should flinch away at the mere sight of him—at the warning steam that rises from his pauldrons. This predator, unhinged and off his leash—a great, crushing beast at which you are at the mercy of.

But— you aren’t.

You couldn’t place it at first: the gnawing. The gnawing at your insides like maggots festering upon a grizzled carcass hanging limp at a wet market. You couldn’t name the tremor in your gut. You gave it epithets as best you could, you gave it placeholders - fear, worry, intrigue - all until one day it spilled. One day it seeped past the tremble of your stomach and sank lower, lower,

lower.

It settled in your cunt—the gnawing. And you named it Want.

You want him. You want this—you’re addicted to it. This sin like led-lined velvet, you want to roll in it until it poisons you, until you’re smothered with it, just like it’s smothering you now— blanketing you as you mewl naked in your bed, knees knocked together. Your eyes roll back into your skull as you frantically work circles into your clit with the all consuming thought of him: his teeth at your shoulders, his hand around your windpipe.

You’re nearing your finish, the promise of that tight coil unraveling there - there - right before you. You’re so enrapt in it—in this dizzying, wanton act—you don’t register the ramp lowering. You don’t hear the carbonite chamber whir, his quarry freezing over, or his foot falls sounding their way to your bunk.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

You gasp, frightened eyelids wrenching open as his baritone timbre crackles through the hull. The Mandalorian stands there, backlit by the glow from the galley and he looms—expressionless. Haunting. You blink at him rapidly, batting away the desire that’s glazed over your eyes.

“Y-You’re back,” you stutter lamely. You try to smile. You try to distract him. “I uhm, I didn’t hear you come in. I thought you wouldn’t be back until, u-until..."

Your excuses fade, mouth parched dry. The film of his visor gives you nothing. He is unknowable, but you feel it - sense it - that energy—unbridled and rippling off of him in sick, suffocating waves.

“I’ll ask you again,” Din starts.

“What-" he steps towards you, darksaber hanging heavy at his hip, “do you think-" you shimmy up your cot, shoulder blades digging into the steel sidings, “you’re doing?”

Your heart thunders against your chest, beating until you’re sure it’ll burst.

“I’m-"

I’m sorry you almost say, and you have to force yourself to gulp down the apology. You know he doesn’t want it, and he knows you wouldn’t mean it even if you offered it to him.

Your brow wavers. “I-"

He rips away the sheet you had drawn up over you and reflexively you jerk back, revealing the gloss on your fingers and the patch of hair above your mound, shimmering shamefully—exposing you, mocking you under the dim lights.

“What’s this?” he asks, and fuck he’s patronizing you. He’s smirking—you don’t have to see it, you can hear it in the curving lilt of his voice as he drinks in the sight of your very obvious indiscretion, laid bare before him. You can’t bring yourself to answer him—you can hardly look at him—and you bristle, hair on your arm prickling up.

“You fuck yourself speechless, little one?”

Your cunt throbs, burning and contracting around the orgasm that was snatched away from you and fuck, you’re drowning in him. Din is tar—he’s an oil slick, and you’re plummeting through it—gasping for air, for the surface, for sunlight. He’s everywhere—his broad frame, his voice, his scent like copper and smoke. You can barely breathe through the thick of him.

“Answer me,” he growls, leather croaking at the clench of his fist.

“Yes—yes,” you utter, proceeding with honesty, no matter how pathetic. “I missed you,” you squeak out.

Din cocks his head, a smug look scowled onto his visor. “You missed me?” he purrs through a sneer and you nod, precious and small, worrying the inside of your lip.

He sinks one leg and then the other onto your bedroll, just between your parted feet, kneeling before you. The flimsy spring mattress squeals under his weight—all of that armor, all of that boiling soot trapped within him.

“How much?”

For a moment, you must look confused. Puzzled. Your eyebrows furrow as Din unclips the saber from his belt, rolling it over in his hand. You rake your gaze up from it, dilated pupils landing on the unforgiving black panel there.

“You claim you missed me. Prove it.”

Your cunt bottoms out.

He crouches over you, tracing along your inner thighs with it's steel shaft and you bury your fists into the cot. You don't know which to look at: Din or the rod in his hand. “Tell me you want this. Tell me you trust me.”

Fuck, it feels like you’re going to rattle apart. There isn’t an inch of you that isn’t humming—isn’t seizing up wild. “I-I trust you,” you mouth softly. And you do, whether you should or not—you trust him with your life, to make or ruin.

“Fuck, you’re wet mesh'la,” he appraises darkly, leaning in to run a leathered digit through your seam, parting your curls. Your legs twitch, heels of your feet digging into the bed. “So ready for me. So eager."

Your eyes dance frenetically down to the handle and back up to him as he aligns the saber with your pussy. The blunt end of it touches your lips and you shudder, instinctually fidgeting away from it. Din splays his hand on your knee, anchoring you in place. “Shh,” he coos, rubbing a thumb soothingly into your skin. It doesn’t feel sweet. It feels sickly, cloying— like arsenic.

You don’t dare breathe as he prods the shaft into you, inch by terrible inch. It doesn’t matter how slicked and wet you are from touching yourself, your walls strangle the foreign intrusion. Your body resists.

“Fuck,” you sob. Your throat, your pussy, all of it— it’s all compacted. It feels so fucking tight, both words and air fighting to get out and in all at once—everything inside you constricting.

“Show me,” he grits through clenched teeth. “Show me how much you missed me.” He drags his gloved digit over your clit, pressing down onto it until you see stars, fizzing in front of your vision. “I know you can take it, sweet girl. Be good and show me.”

Be good. Be good for him. Be his only vice.

He continues to swirl at your bundle of nerves and you’re nearly thrashing with it— with all of this— hair fanned and mussed against the pillow as you writhe, swallowing his saber to the hilt. Fuck, you’re so full. Maker, you’re stuffed with it; with the cold, uneven edges, the ridges woven into the grip of it— and he slowly - tortuously - delves the handle in and out of you, hitting against your cervix with every thrust.

You can only mumble. Your lips have gone slack, your mind is cavernous. All you can do is quiver and beg— beg for release. Beg for it to end.

Beg for more.

“Oh gods, oh g- Maker, please—”

Your bleary eyes shoot open as you’re silenced by the grip of his gloved hand.

“No.” Din pinches your jaw in the web of his palm, fingertips dimpling your cheeks. “No, your God isn’t here,” he seethes, low and deadly, graphite venom dripping from his lips. “Pray to me.”

Fuck.

Trembling, your lips pucker ugly and sloppy as you babble uselessly in his stony grasp, chin crinkling with a whimper. “D-Din.”

He inhales sharply, mouth snaking into a wicked grin behind his helm. “That’s it. That’s my good girl.”

He’s deboning you as he would a fish. Practiced, he plucks you into messy pieces—gutting you through your open maw. His ministrations are crawled. They’re slothed and carnal with arrogance and pride and it’s not enough—its all together too much, but still—it’s not enough. You’re hungry. You paw at him, scraping over his breastplate.

“Din, please—more," you gasp feverishly, eyes blown wide.

A blip of static huffs through his modulator. “You want more, you filthy little thing?” He gives you another squeeze, indenting scorch marks into your face.

You nod—you try to, his grasp is too firm, rooting your neck to still. “Yes.”

Din groans, all but obliging you as he begins to fuck you harder, pistoning through you as he thumbs your nub with his rough pad.

“Din-”

You’re whining now, tinny and depraved. It’s wrong. Every part, every second of this, is wrong. Immoral. But you can’t stop the way your body convulses at his every touch—you can’t stop the heat roiling in your core.

“Din, Din baby- fuck fuck fuck-”

It’s like he’s trying to split you in two—all of you. Your pussy, your mind, your soul—he’s bisecting you. Divvying you up to bits of nothing. It’s only then that horrid realization occurs to you, winding through your addled haze as he fucks you deep and splintering: you’ll never be whole again.

And scarier still—you don’t think you want to be.

No, you want to be these loathsome shards. You want to be broken glass. You want to draw blood.

You want to be possessed by him.

“Fuck yourself,” he pants, his cock straining violently against his trousers, begging for relief. “Be good and fuck yourself. Let me watch.”

Be good be good be good

He leaves your clit and you whimper at the loss. Your face is stained with tears. The salty trails cascade down to mingle into your hair, into the sheets. You’re vibrating, but you do as he says and you reach down, recoiling when you touch the chilled metal tip. Tentatively, you pad along it, settling on the end that’s peeking out from you.

A pained sound rumbles through Din as you wrap your fist around the saber, and your eyes flit up to meet his, hidden somewhere behind his helm. Hurriedly he unbuttons his pants in a flourish and removes himself from his constraints. He’s pulsing and proud, flexing up against his stomach, the veins choked to bulge along the angry, silken shaft of him.

Finally, you begin to move the hilt—finding an aching, undulating rhythm and he can’t fucking take it. He rips his helmet off, letting it clatter to the floor.

“Din,” your pray, “Din, I think I’m going to-”

You’re wrecked – fried like a livewire– as you look for him, as you search and search—for that warmth, for a trace of him left there. The Din you knew, the Din you agreed to fly with all those months ago, the Din you love. You think you see it sometimes—in the slant of his mouth, the bridge of his nose— but here, now, he is gone.

He is a pit.

Din Djarin is a pit of a man, and you want nothing more than to fall. Standing on the ledge of him, staring down into the abyss—you want this. You want to fall. You want to jump.

“Tell me you’re mine. Tell me, sweet girl— tell me.” He’s fucking his fist raw, humping into his palm as desperate as an animal.

“I’m yours,” you mewl. Furiously rubbing your clit with one hand and spearing yourself on the rod of his saber with the other, your hips buck and spasm. You snap. A blinding light sears through you, ricocheting off every scrap of muscle and tendon sewed up in your body. “Just for you,” you cry, “I’m yours I’m yours I’m yours—”

Your ragged sobs mix with the lewd slaps of skin as Din pumps himself, hot ropes of his release spitting onto you— painting your pussy, the divot of your navel, coating along the slope of your tummy.

“Look at you—fucking, look at you,” he moans throatily, easing through his rough strokes as he softens.

Your chest is heaving and you feel dumb, empty—like a puppet, arms and legs moving on phantom strings. Din removes the handle from you with a wet squelch; a viscous strand of your juices clings on, obscenely connecting your pussy to the base of it, and you rasp—the wind punched out of you with its gaping absence. You gush. It dribbles out the slit of you, leaking past your abused hole and soaking into the bedroll.

When he unsheathed the saber from your scabbard, he took a part of you with it. You’re so fucked out—you’re practically a parsec away— it went unnoticed.

Undetected.

It brushed past you. You didn’t feel it—you didn’t recognize the whisper that has slithered in in it’s place, nestling within your swollen folds.

Breeding there.

“Beautiful,” Din murmurs, placing it on the mattress beside your head, the chrome of it gleaming with your slick. He bows his head to lick a path up your cunt, laving you clean as he climbs higher and higher, tonguing off his seed from your stippled skin. “Fucking beautiful, mesh’la,” he growls. “Mine—all fucking mine.”

You’ve gone heavy. You’re too heavy to keep your eyes open—you’ve been hollowed out and you’ve got nothing keeping you tethered here. You start slipping under in slow motion—intervals between languid blinks lasting longer and longer. You’re spooled in a knot of tangled limbs with Din’s mouth, fervent and needy, flaying you open as he sees fit— with his hot mouth and teeth, suckling your breasts, biting at your nipples and bruising your pretty neck.

It’s not long before you hear it again, as you have before— as you always do: the faint caressing of speech, of lips forming language you cannot understand—made indecipherable in your strung out high.

“D’you say something?” you mumble, half conscious—half dreaming.

Din laps a long stripe up your throat, his stubble sanding your skin. “No.”

You sigh, breathy and girlish, as his fingers find your mound, dipping into you once again. He makes you cum twice more that evening. You barely have the strength to watch him do it.

/

Finally, when he’s satisfied—when he’s spent with driving you mad, making you rile— he grants you respite. He permits it – generous, charitable - and you sleep like the dead, soundly through the night until—

until you don’t.

Eyes. You feel them somewhere— there are eyes on you. You stir, stuttering in your sleep to squirm in the dark. You don’t know what you’re listening to at first. It’s a sound of some kind, a noise. There is a hiss—

A frigid hand seizes around the bloody organ pulsing in your ribcage.

No, not a hiss—it’s a voice. It’s— no-

You pat around for Din beside you but he’s gone—he’s long gone and his vacant spot has grown cold without him—and your nails dig into the sheets, desperately clawing into the fabric.

Inside you.

The voice, the sharp hush of it—it’s inside you. It speaks from inside your own mind, its forked tongue fluttering against your ear.

‘Wake up, sweet girl.’

/

Tags (IM SO SORRY): @djarinsbeskar @pedros-mustache @krissology @keeper0fthestars @read-and-rec

[ddarker-dreams]

Yan Diluc, Childe, Kaeya & Zhongli / Darling Saying “I hate you.”

Warnings: Suggestive themes and typical unhealthy yandere behavior. Note: sometimes in life we just gotta suffer,

Diluc had told himself that this was for your own good.

That’s what gave him the ability to rest at night -- while holding the knowledge of all the freedoms he’s taken from you -- that you are safe. There’s air in your lungs, healthy color to your cheeks, and life shining brightly in your eyes. It’d be selfish to ask for anything more, he would reason. This is good enough, is what he’d think, not fully sure if he believed the creed himself. 

Now he knows those words were but a lie to cover a gaping wound in his heart.

He gazes at you now, his hand reaching out, only to stop when you flinch away. The reality that he tried so desperately to push down has risen to the surface, your turmoil not easily ignored. Diluc needs to remain steadfast as he considers hesitation an insult. Certainly, he is low for holding you here against your will, but it’d be that much worse if he started questioning himself. 

“I know,” is the strained answer he arrives at. You hear the pain in his voice, how the words were all but pried from him. “I’ve always known.” 

“Then why?” You plead, exasperation pushing you past the limit. His head is hung low for once, unable to meet your scrutinizing gaze, instead taking an acute interest in the wooden floorboard beneath his feet. 

It brings him back to his childhood, like a kid being scolded for an illogical grievance against their sibling. Your question strikes deep and close to the heart. His answer comes fast, almost robotic, as if he’s practiced it in the mirror countless times.

“For your safety.”

And so you won’t leave like everyone else has.

Exchanging thinly veiled antagonism behind the guise of banter has always thrilled Childe. This game the two of you play, he wouldn’t change it for the world, deriving too much satisfaction in your flustered reactions. Every day is spent thinking about when he’ll get to see you next, what words might bring out the cutest expressions. 

The manner you deliver the line is frigid and he can’t help but be reminded of  Snezhnaya’s climate. For a fleeting moment, it stings, like snowflakes against bare skin. If there’s anything Childe excels at, it’s warding off the cold. He laughs, once, twice, face illuminated with uncanny elation. 

You watch in disbelief as he treats your honest admission as nothing but a joke. There’s nothing you can think to say to describe the frustration that grows in the depths of your soul, Childe’s response encapsulating exactly why you said it in the first place. Half of you considers leaving him where he stands, but you know better, he’d follow after you relentlessly. A Fatui Harbinger’s ability to spot and track their prey cannot be understated.

When his laughter starts to settle down, he speaks. “So the truth comes out, hm?” 

Childe stalks towards you, sporting a wolf-like grin that sends shivers down your spine, every step you take back not enough to increase the space between you two. Eventually, your back hits the wall. Childe takes advantage of your lack of escape, taking your chin in his hand and placing his arm by your head. At that moment, it’s impossible to ignore the looming height difference, though he leans down to look at you closer.

“Hate me all you want,” he hums, his voice dipping lower with each syllable. “But I’m not going anywhere, ever, so keep that in mind. And who knows?”

Childe winks at you.

“Maybe I have a thing for being degraded.”

To be looked at with suspicion is nothing new to Kaeya. Everyone has their own reasons for doing so, whether it be to his cunning nature creating suspicion, or his country of origin. Though, he admits, your reasoning is far more personal than that. After all, his schemes have sent you into a whirlwind of misfortune. 

Kaeya moves back, observing how your chest rises and falls with each labored breath, the way you refuse to look him in the eye. He’s quietly grateful that your former entangled position didn’t grant you the ability to see his face, as shock undoubtedly must’ve crossed over it. Moment’s later, he’s collected, in control of every twitch and crease of his expression. 

“Hm, while I never excelled in my linguistics tutoring, I think I’m familiar enough with the word hate to draw a different conclusion,” Kaeya nods to your discarded clothes on the floor, to which you flush even brighter than before. “Is that what you’d call this? You were throwing yourself at me just a few seconds ago, y’know.” 

He’s getting under your skin on purpose. You know this, seeing the trap he’s laid out without even trying to hide it, yet still fall for it to defend yourself.

“Where else am I supposed to go, when no one even looks me in the eye anymore?” You challenge, wiping the saliva from your lips with the back of your hand. Kaeya hums, considering your inquiry, fingers rubbing circles into your skin as he does so. The contact makes your mind hazy, being deprived of physical contact having done a toll on you. To come to him for comfort is a blow to your pride.

“Your hand could’ve always helped with that, but you still chose mine.” Kaeya smiles, ducking down to press open-mouthed kisses against your neck. You decide not to honor him with any further response. It feeds into his ego and that’s the last thing you want, so you close your eyes and sigh. 

He pauses for a brief moment, not willing to let it go. “Not that I’m complaining, of course. I’ll always find a way to make time for you.” 

Zhongli places his cup of tea down onto the table, outward reaction schooled and giving nothing away. It’s a pathetic, last-ditch attempt to earn an emotional response, even you know this. From how he whispers archaic prose into your ear about his love and adoration for you, you were expecting at least... something. A frown, furrowed eyebrows, pain in his amber eyes. Anything. 

His visage remains unchanging. You drum your fingers against the table, narrowing your eyes and jutting your bottom lip out. It took you weeks to work up the courage to tell him this! Indignation and embarrassment blossom inside your chest, threatening to suffocate you. Any other time he’s talkative, but for some reason, he’s decided to take some vow of silence now. 

You perk up expectantly when he clears his throat. 

“It was never in the terms of our contract for you to have positive feelings towards me,” Zhongli decides, raising the cup to his lips and blowing. “Though, if I might add, I would personally like it if you did.” 

Maybe it would’ve been better if he stayed silent after all. There’s no validation to be found in his taciturn response, no substance to appease your burning frustration. The word contract sticks out like a sore thumb. Petty as it might be to continue this exchange, you feel vindicated enough to do just that.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the correct term would be marriage, not contract.”

“Are the two not one and the same? You’ve pledged yourself eternally to be my significant other, in the same way a contract binds two parties together.” Zhongli watches how you slide down into your seat dejectedly. Attempting to start an argument with Zhongli was akin to yelling at a brick wall, you decide.

“Don’t act so proud of yourself for swindling my parents into believing you’re an upstanding person.” 

His lips quirk up for the briefest of moments.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the term would be negotiating, not swindling.” 

You leave him to eat his breakfast alone. 

[omgreally]

Shelter

Din Djarin/F!Reader Almost E, I Swear, Eventually Warnings: Speaking of swearing - some, idiots who should bang already not doing the thing, slow-burn-mutual-pining-friends-to-lovers-with-angst,  probably as manyof my favourite tropes as I can think of to throw in there too! smut to follow.

Summary: What is a Mandalorian without a ship, a clan, or a Creed? Lost, that's what. Untethered. A torn cloak tossed by the wind. So he goes to the only place - the only person - he can think of: You. A smuggler with less scruples than friends, and somehow, you ended up with the Mandalorian as one of them. As for what's next, neither of you know. It's up to you to muddle it out - together.

Part One Here / Read on AO3

Part Two

Mando is wearing the helmet when he joins you for breakfast.

You shouldn’t be surprised, but it’s the fact that he’s still here more than anything else that makes you do a double-take.

There’s something subdued about him as he slinks into the kitchen like a wounded cat, late enough that you’ve already finished eating.

You woke early this morning, expecting to find him gone as if he was never there. Gone to leave you wondering if you imagined the time a helmetless Mando turned up in the middle of a rainy night and kriffing upended everything you thought you knew about him.

As you half-expect, he doesn’t say anything to you while you fix him a plate of food. He just sits silently at the counter - the very counter he had you shoved up against last night.

You try not to think about it as you place the plate in front of him along with a mug of steaming kaf, all without meeting his mirrored gaze. You’re not sure why, but you really, really don’t want to talk about it, despite promising him you would.

Instead, you clear your throat and say, “Sleep okay?”

Mando pauses his swirling of the mug, and the familiar angle of his visor tips towards you. “Fine. Thank you.”

His voice is stiff - oddly formal - sounds slightly muffled on the sibilant consonants through the vocabulator. You like his voice, but you decide you like it better unfiltered.

A way, you remind yourself, that you never should have heard.

You don’t ask him about the helmet. It’s just the unspoken rule between you: You don’t ask, and he doesn’t mention it.

Like last night. You won’t ask, and he doesn’t mention it.

You’re not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed.

“You can relax,” you tell him. “This place is small, but off the grid. Safe,” you summarize, leaning against the cabinet behind you.

“Nobody seems to visit this planet,” he agrees with you, painfully neutral. You snort derisively.

“Yeah, no shit. That’s why I chose it.”

The helmet bobs in a nod, and you picture a pair of dark, sad eyes. You look away and sip your kaf and there’s silence between you, more awkward than usual.

Eventually, the silence is broken by a soft hiss ing sound, and you glance back at Mando and watch as he lifts his helm with a thumb to drink from his own mug. You know the shape of the lips that press against the ceramic rim, more intimately than you ever expected to. Again, you look away.

Fuck. You’re too old for this, approaching middle-age. And you only got this far because you’re tough . Looking at the Mandalorian right now, you don’t feel tough at all.

“You got a plan? Where you’re gonna go after...this?” you wonder aloud, unable to take the tension any longer. The helmet lowers back into place, and you purse your lips in a frown.

“I think I’m supposed to reclaim Mandalore.”

“Huh?” Your brow wrinkles, your whole face now screwed up in confusion. Mando sighs, the great shoulders heaving in a shrug, and he shakes his silver head.

“Never mind.”

“Right.” You both sip your caffeinated cups quietly for a moment. “Nice spear, by the way.” 

You hadn’t had time to comment on it, rising prickly from over Mando’s shoulder like a flagless mast of warning. He glances back at it as if he forgot about it, then shrugs again. 

“Beskar, right?” Again, something you’ve never really talked about. You’re a weapons smuggler and he is a walking weapon. Somehow, by ignoring that fact, you were able to form a close business relationship. But the one thing you don’t do is talk about the Beskar. 

You didn’t do a lot of things until last night. 

“Yes.” He sounds cautious, shifting into a wary stance without seeming conscious of it. You sigh aloud. 

“Relax, Mando. I’m not gonna try to steal the armour off your back. Yeah, yeah- ‘try it and I’ll kill you’, I know,” you intercept before he can say it, and he leans back as if in contemplation, just… staring at you. 

“I know,” he says at last, and then he lifts the helmet to sip at his kaf. Without looking away. 

“You put it back on,” you say, breaking another rule as you take a seat next to him. 

“Yes.”

“Why?”

The helm tilts down. “Habit,” he says. Almost sadly. 

You reach out before you even mean to and touch his wrist, the space in between his glove and his sleeve you didn’t even realize was exposed. He withdraws like a tortoise, retreating back into his silver shell.

“You can stay as long as you like,” you say, pulling back as well and spinning away in the same movement. “I have a job tonight, but I trust you not to burn the place down.”

All Din hears is ‘I trust you’, and he’s suddenly, impossibly glad he chose to don the helm today. You turn away, and he blinks so quickly his gaze blurs before he frowns and looks down, at his hands - clenched into fists.

“Thank you,” he croaks, woodenly, at your back. You twitch as if the words are blaster bolts missing you by a hair’s breadth, and nod without turning. Then you’re just...gone.

Din doesn’t know why he came here. He’s not even sure if he’s glad he did or not. But it just seemed to make sense , it was the one place he hadn’t been yet, the one he knew he could rely on to be there .

Ironic, considering the fact you’re a criminal.

He hasn’t known you that long, not in standard years, but it feels like longer; he doesn’t even remember where you first met, or how. Your circles intersected with his somehow without being diametrically opposed, and that’s how it went on for years, a not-quite arrangement whenever the two of you fell into eachother's orbid. So Mando became a good customer, - when he had credits, and an absent one when he wasn’t. And that seemed to suit you, too.

Aside from that (and your foul mouth), you’re a bit of a cypher. You told him about this place while dead-sober, looking him straight in the visor and saying ‘ If you ever need a place to go, remember these coordinates. You’ll know when you’ll need it .’  And you were right: He did.

Mando looks into his mug, at the lukewarm kaf cooling dark in its depths. He sets it down and pushes himself to his feet. He hesitates before he reaches up to tug the helmet off and, gingerly, he tucks it under his arm as he sets out to find you.

He finds you in the office. It’s really more of an armory; the walls are lined with weapon racks and arms of all description are stacked on the desks around a console. He examines a suspiciously moist -looking vibroblade before forcing himself to meet your gaze, and you cross your arms, your jaw set. 

Din remembers the feel of that jaw under his mouth - the shape of your lips - the heat of your skin, and he finds his hands curling into fists again of their own volition, the leather of his gloves creaking. 

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to repay you,” he says. It’s a woeful summary of everything he almost wants to say to you. You tilt your head, and your expression softens.

“Mando, don’t be ridiculous. You know you’ve always got an open line of credit with me.” 

It’s true - he has. But he’s never had to use it much up until now. A few thousand credits here and there, and you knew he was good for it; Mando always paid up, with interest when he had the currency. The life of the bounty hunter was tough, occasionally work was irregular, and you understood that. Your business ebbed and flowed in much the same way.

You know this is different, though. You know that because of his face. A face he’s letting you see, for a second time.

A dark, perverse little part of you wonders if he’s going to kiss you again.

You still haven't talked about it, and that suits you fine. What would you say? Probably some bullshit like it was because of the alcohol, or head trauma, or something. It doesn’t matter. If he’s going to pretend it didn’t happen, you have no choice but to play along. 

“Din,” he says, and you’re struck by the hollowness of his voice. “My name’s Din.”

He tosses the helmet onto the desk in front of you. It lands with a clang and rolls onto its side facing you, and you stare at the vacant gaze of the sideways visor in half-horror, half-amazement.

“I hope that covers it,” Mando intones. You reach out as the impossibly smooth surface of pure Beskar shimmers up at you. It’s smooth and cool beneath your fingers and strangely personal, like it’s got some kind of weight you can’t understand as you lift it from the bench.

You turn to Mando and press the helmet back into his hands. “This doesn’t belong to me,” you tell him as you look up, up into his dark, dark eyes. He’s close enough to touch - close enough to just lean up and brush your mouth against his jaw, his chin, the tense surface of his lips- 

But you don’t.

Instead you give him a nod, a firm pat on the shoulder, and try not to inhale as you brush past and slip from the room.

Again.

You only hope he doesn’t follow you until you can get your expression under control - and your breathing.

[jedijesi]

Luminary Love

Prince!Din Djarin x F!Princess!Reader

🤍Masterlist🤍

Warnings: Angst, Fluff, Smut (F receiving, PiV, Breeding kink)

Summary: Tonight is your (unwanted) wedding to the soon-to-be King of Mandalore, but is there more to him than meets the eye?

Word Count: 3,100+

A/N: I’ve had this idea for several days now and I just needed to write it. Don’t worry tho bc the next ch. of biblichor will b out soon. Enjoy some Din content!🤍

All night long, you received congratulations and cheers. Thousands, billions of people would kill to be in your position, but you dreaded this more than anything. You never wanted to marry the soon-to-be king of Mandalore, but the Royal administration never gave you an option. Throughout the fantastical wedding, you repeatedly reminded yourself it was for your people - they are the ones who will prosper from this. Thankfully, his creed forbade him from removing his helmet in front of others, therefore you weren’t allowed to kiss him. The only time you had to touch him during the ceremony was when you held hands. Even then, his mastiff-leather gloves create a barrier from any real contact.

After the ceremony, you avoided your new husband as best you could. When it was time to put on a show, you had forced yourself to put on the royal smile you had been practicing. When eating, you sat as far away as possible from him but not far enough to worry the royal administrations that watched you two tentatively. The times you were called to waltz, you performed what you had been learning for months but never made eye contact with him. After a few dances, the royals watching had joined in and forgotten about you, giving you the perfect chance to escape.

You spent your time talking with other royalty, expressing your worries and concerns to Princess Mary of Ryloth. Unlike you, she was happily married, but it was her 3rd time. The first two suitors weren’t ‘good enough’ for her, so she became the royal’s biggest scandal and ignored her administration to marry for love. Luckily her experience with terrible lovers led to wonderful tips and tricks that she gladly gave you for your wedding night. You knew she was telling you these things to help, but in reality, it only made you feel worse about your new life.

“Djarin, my oldest friend, how are you enjoying your wedding?” General Paz said with a heavy pat to Din’s pauldron.

“It’s… grand.” Din sounded unconvinced by his own words.

“Grand? Is that all you have to say?”

“Well, everything appears wonderful, but my wife won’t speak nor look at me.”

“Have you attempted to talk to her?”

“Of course!” Din and Paz turn to watch you talk to Princess Mary. “She never responds, though.”

The uncomfortable feeling of Din’s stare props you to turn around. The blue and silver beskar statues jump when you catch them and quickly turn back to avoid any further embarrassment.

“I haven’t seen her in years, but she has grown to be quite beautiful, you must admit.” Paz shrugs.

“I know, it’s one of the many reasons I married her. I just… wish she’d give me a chance.”

“Well, she better. I overheard that the administration is already seething that you two haven’t gone back to your honeymoon suite.”

Din rolls his eyes under his helmet. “I don’t care about them. They shouldn’t have a say in my marriage.”

“Good luck arguing that. You know they expect an heir to be conceived tonight.”

“I already have Grogu. Is he not enough?”

“Nothing is enough for them, my friend.” Paz pats Din’s back reassuringly. “Just be kind to the poor girl. I’m sure she isn’t pleased with all of this.” He gestures to the grand chandeliers and dramatic towers of cake and food.

Din sighs as he fiddles with the edge of his cape. “Alright. I should probably go fetch her before the Administration creates any more drama.”

“Good luck, your majesty.” Paz bows as Din walks your way.

Din let’s go of his cape before wiping his armor of any lingering bits of dust and dirt, wanting to be as presentable as possible for you. When Din arrives behind you, he clears his throat and bows.

“My Princess, it is time for us to leave for the Honeymoon Suite.”

Without a word, you give him a nod and take his arm. The guests cheer and whisper as you and your husband make your way out of the ballroom. You could hear Royal Administers whisper their concerns regarding your fertility or your performance in bed. It was dehumanizing, to say the least. You fought for justice and equality on Naboo, but this was not the way on Mandalore. Your new role would be diminished to a supporting queen who would raise the future heirs. Meanwhile, the other women of Mandalore were busy serving valiantly in wars. This was the way. Mandalore was born out of extremists, and you had to embrace the consequences.

Din hated the whispers. If he were king, he would have lashed out long ago, but the coronation isn’t for another few days. You didn’t deserve to be treated as an object. Din saw you to be the goddess that would help lead his people into prosperity and the gorgeous woman who may one day graciously birth his children. Such slander against someone so perfect made Din rage under his helmet. A few more days. Din would remind himself.

.

The Suite reflected Mandalore: grand and majestic. Silver swirls of beskar outlined the stained glass windows that watched over Mandalore. The bed was larger than any other you had seen before. It looked cozy; a complete contrast to the large and uncomfortable dress you’ve been wearing all day. You walked over to touch the silk-like blankets and sighed at its softness.

Din watched you with interest - mesmerized by the way the roaring fireplace creates a golden glow on your features. “Wife?”

“Hmm?”

“Why don’t you look at me?” The flicker of sadness in his voice took you by surprise. You weren’t sure if Mandalorians could feel emotions underneath the layers of cold beskar. “Do I… scare you?”

You turn to look at him, your nerves shining through by the twiddling of your thumbs. “I… I don't know.”

“What is wrong, my dear princess? I want to fix this. I don't want to start our marriage off on the wrong foot.” You sit down on the luxurious bed, your eyes now watching as you fiddle with your dress. Din walks towards you, taking a knee to be at eye level with you. “I understand this isn't what you wanted. I heard whispers that it took the maids an hour to get you off your ship. That you fought off any guard that laid a hand on you.” Din chuckled at the image he had created in his head. “But then the fighting stopped… why?” You couldn't find it within yourself to respond. “Won’t you please entertain my curiosity?”

You sighed and looked up into the dark visor. “I realized I was being selfish. I had forgotten that marriage among the royals was for the people… not for love.”

“You do not love me?”

“We barely know each other, your majesty.”

“What are you speaking of? We used to be best friends.”

You scoffed at Din. “We were children, your majesty. You were just a servant boy in the palace back then, but times have changed, haven't they, your majesty.”

“Please refrain from calling me ‘your majesty.’ I thought we were beyond that.” Din groaned, annoyed by the ridiculous title.

“Din, you're to become the Mandalore - the king - in a few days' time. I understand the rules - I understand why you had to marry me.”

“What? So that I could officially hold the title as king? I don't care about a stupid title - the administration does.”

“Then why marry me? There are millions of royals lined up to marry the Mandalore, but why choose me, Din? Why?” You started getting hysterical at it all. Your life's work had come to a halt just so that Din could be crowned king. It was disgusting and unfair.

“As an orphan-servant boy, the days your family visited were the best days of my life. Your parents always treated me like their own - the complete opposite of how the Kryze family did. I meant it when I said you were my best friend. You were the only person who could beat Paz and me in a fight. The only person who would sneak out of the palace to play in the garden at night with me. When your parents… passed and you stopped visiting me… It crushed me. I never stopped thinking about you, my princess.”

You could hear the build-up of tears in Din’s throat, but he wasn't the only one. You too had tears in your eyes, remembering the once pure and innocent life you had. You bring your hand up to din's helmet, holding where his cheek would be.

“Do you remember that last night?”

“Of course I do. It was a cold night in the rose garden. I gave you my coat since you had insisted you didn't need your shall.” Din smiled and chuckled at the memory.

“I... I never saw your lips, but I had never felt such pure joy than the moment they molded against mine.”

Din leans his head forward to rest your foreheads together. Underneath, he continued to beam. It had been so long since he had felt such love - such love that could only be created by you.

“My princess, I never stopped loving you. Even as we grew up and apart, I would watch the holovids that spoke about you, and all the wonderful things you were doing for your people. It was the only thing that kept me going through those torturous years apart from you. I love you.”

Din’s arms wrapped around your waist, pulling you into a tight hug. You reciprocated by wrapping your arms around his shoulders and burying your head in the crook of his neck. “I love you too, Din.”

“My wife?”

“Yes, my husband?”

“Will you take this ridiculous helmet off of me so that I may kiss you and make love to you?”

Your glowing smile melts Din’s heart. Your hand reaches up to slowly slide off the silver beskar helmet that covered those features you dreamt of. An audible gasp escapes past your lips when Din’s lips appear. It took everything in you to not pounce on him and cover him in kisses, but you maintain your composure. His nose was strong and beautiful, and his cheeks… oh, how you wanted to leave lipstick stains on them. Then were his perfect eyes. Those chocolate eyes that expressed an amount of love you'd never completely fathom in your life.

“You're stunning, Din.” Din’s heart flutters at your words. The only compliment he's ever received was about his combat skills and valor. He's never been complimented on his looks before.

“I’d never compare to my gorgeous wife.”

Din takes your face into his palms and slowly pulls you in for a kiss. The moment your lips touch, you feel fireworks exploding all around you. The glowing lights flash behind your eyelids as you mold your lips together. The tickle of his mustache causes you to giggle into the kiss, which Din finds to be enchanting. One of Din's hands leaves your face to grip your torso, massaging and kneading your skin.

“I love you.” He murmurs into the kiss. “I love you more than the moons and stars.”

As the kisses become more intense, so does your lust for one another. Din’s hands undo the strings of your wedding dress as you shed his armor off - lips never leaving each other. Once you two were completely naked, Din had you crawl to the center of the bed.

“Now, lay back, my love. I want to show you how much I love and miss you.” You follow his instructions and rest your head on the large cloud-like pillows.

Din crawls between your legs, taking one into his hand. Starting from your ankle, he works his way down, leaving a trail of sloppy yet delicate kisses. He takes his time at your inner thigh, sucking and licking at your skin to make you emit whimpers.

“D-Din, please don't tease me.”

“Hush, now. Let me take my time loving you.” And he does. He spends his time worshiping your body - kissing and sucking the skin around your lips while his hand massages your breasts. Suddenly, Din dives into your sopping wet cunt, immediately sucking and licking your swollen clit. You let out a loud gasp followed by a moan, making Din’s cock bounce up in excitement.

Your noises sound like music - the most angelic music he's ever heard in his life. Each moan and whimper you let out only addicted him more. Din wraps his hands around your waist and sits back, lifting your hips from the bed and to his mouth. You grip the blankets with a scream as Din explores further into your pussy. The animalistic grunts and growls he lets out only make you wetter.

“Come on, Princess. Cum. Cum all over my face. I need it.” And just like that, you let out a scream as you convulse around his tongue. Din slowly lowers you back onto the bed as he licks up your dripping cum. “You're sweeter than a meiloorun, darling. I've never tasted anything so divine. I’d love to stay between your legs forever and drink your cum until the day I die, but I wanna put a baby in you too badly to do so.” You let out a whimper at his filthy words. “Can I, darling? Will you let me fuck a baby into you?”

“Wait, we're not done?” You ask through pants.

“Not done? We’ll be done when the sun wakes up. Even then, I'm not sure if we'll ever be done. Why?”

“The other princesses said it would only be a minute of discomfort, and it’ll be over.

Din tsks and shakes his head, pressing a few kisses to your clit. “Oh, my darling. I'm not like those other royals. I care about my wife’s pleasure, and you…” Din presses more kisses to your overstimulated heat. “Are nowhere near done with your, please. So, I'll ask you again. Are you ready for me to fuck a baby into you with my thick, hard cock?”

“Stars, yes! Please, Din!” You hated how completely and utterly desperate you sounded, but you were completely and utterly desperate for Din to fuck you.

Din crawls up to meet your half-lidded eyes, drooping with lust. He places soft kisses on your cheeks before pressing one to your lips. “Are you ready for me, Princess?”

“Yes, my husband.”

Din grabs his cock, lining it up with your entrance. With a loud moan, he enters your sopping wet pussy.

“Oh, you're so wet! Ungh… Stars, you're so tight too!” Din’s thrusts speed up to a steady pace, your moans echoing through the room along with the lewd, wet sounds of your bodies pounding together. “From this day forward, y-your. Pussy. Belongs. To. Me.” Din emphasizes his words with his cock hitting against your g-spot.

“O-Only i-if your cock b-belongs - Oh yes, Din - To me.”

Din chuckles through his labored breaths. “Of course, my love. My cock is forever yours to do what you please with. I don't care what time- ugnh- or what p-place. It's yours.” You lean up to capture din’s parted lips, swallowing his beautiful moans. The knot in your stomach starts to tighten. Desperate for your release, you buck your hips back into Din. “Yes, take my cock. It's yours. All yours.” Din takes your legs, pushing them to your chest. Both of you let out a series of loud moans at the deeper feeling.

“Oh, Din! I'm going to cum if you keep doing that!”

“Ugh, I can see the galaxy when I'm inside you! Can you feel that, my love?”

“Yes, I-I can feel your throbbing cock!” You throw your head back at the euphoric feeling. Your exposed neck allows Din to swoop down and suck marks onto it.

“Th-That's me, claiming what's mine. You're all mine, my princess.” Din’s thrusts speed up, desperate and ready for you to cum. Each thrust was accompanied by a loud grunt that made you clench even tighter. “I'm gonna cum. I'm going to give you a baby - our baby. Are you ready?”

“Yes, Din! I love y-you!” You scream out a slew of ‘i love yous’ and clench tightly around Din’s swollen cock. Your orgasm and words of love cause Din to cum, sending spurts of his cum into your womb, where your future child would soon grow.

Din collapses on you which you gladly accept. You wrap your arms around his neck and place kisses on the crown of his head. Both of you stay like that for a while, basking in pure love. Once your breaths are back to normal, Din slowly pulls out of you to lay on the bed beside you. He pulls you closer to him so that no space lingered and adjusted the blankets to create a cocoon of comfort around you two.

You smile as you listen to his heartbeat against his chest. Din’s index finger presses to the underside of your chin, adjusting your eyes to look into his.

“Are you okay, my love?”

You nod lazily, completely worn out. “You know, having a husband isn't so bad after all.” Din lets out a hearty laugh before leaning down to kiss you.

“Yeah, having a wife isn't so bad either.” Din smirks at you, causing you to shy away in embarrassment and return your attention to his chest. Your fingers trace shapes and words onto his chest until you stop. A mark on Din’s torso prompts you to inspect it. “What are your curious fingers doing, my love?”

“What is this?” You ask as your finger traces the mark.

“It’s just a scar, dearest.”

“A scar?” You look back at Din with worry in your eyes.

“Oh, don't worry, my love. I've collected so many over the years, I've become immune to them. That one was either from when I fought Bo-Katan or when I fought a mudhorn to save my son.”

“Goodness.... I've missed so much of your life.” Your face droops with sadness, but Din is quick to relieve your worries.

“Now, it's nothing to be upset over. Yes, we've missed a lot, but that means we can spend the rest of our lives catching up and making new memories. Plus, you can meet my son tomorrow.”

You smile and press a chaste kiss to Din’s lips. “I’d love that.” You pressed another kiss to his lips, but this one wasn't so innocent.

“Did I not satisfy you, my love?” Din chuckles into the kiss. You climb on top of him and shake your head. “Oh, does my princess want more?”

You give Din a mischievous grin and shrug.

Din smirks before leaning in to kiss you. “Well, who am I to deny my wife of her wishes?”

A/N: Idk who from my Javier Peña taglist wants to be on this one, but those who are interested in being added to a Din Djarin taglist or a perminante taglist, please let me know.🤍 Can’t wait to hear what you all think!

[aghostpost]

The Hard-J (Victor Creed x Reader)

A/N: I know I said it would be ready by the weekend but... it wasn’t! Excuses only work for those that make them, so I won’t bother lmao~ This one is for @queengiuliettafirstlady and everyone else that loves a little Victor Creed intensity. ♥

“Can we not do this today, please?”

“What the hell was that about?” He slammed the door after him as I went to my kitchen to put groceries away. 

“He saw me walking back from the store, that’s it.”

“That’s it, huh? What did I say about hangin’ out with him?”

“We weren’t hanging out! I told you, he saw me walking and he was helping me carry a few things. That. Is it.”

“You see how he talks to me? How he’s always talked to me-“

“-I see two brothers who, for whatever reason, can’t seem to hack it.”

“We aren’t brothers.”

I rolled my eyes, shoving my peanut butter and fudge swirl ice cream into the freezer. “Brothers in arms.”

“Because there’s no damn respect! Always lookin’ down at me like he’s some kinda fuckin’ superior.”

“Vic…”

“I don’t want you around him. You hear me?”

I let out an exasperated sigh as I rolled my eyes. “It’s too hot to argue about this shit.”

“You’re the one arguing instead of just agreeing, Y/N.”

“Your relationship with Logan is just that: yours. I have no problem with the guy.”

“If I see you two together again-“

“- Do not end that sentence with a threat, Victor-“

“- I’ll do you one better and end it with a guaran-fucking-tee!”

“We live in the same city, I’m bound to run into him sometimes!”

“Y/N look at me… Hey!” He shouted, making me jump out of my skin as I gave him my undivided attention. Clearly he was serious, which he tended to be. But this time, more serious than normal.

He was always so very dead serious whenever we talked about Logan.

“I don’t care if you’re next door neighbors with him. If I see you two with each other again, it will not end well.”

“For him? Or for me?”

“Both o’ you.”

I stared him down and watched him do the same, his face cold hard steel, not even a muscle flexing as he spoke to me. “What the hell happened between you two, anyway?” I asked. “What did he do that’s so damn bad you’re forbidding me to even say hi? He kill your cat or somethin’?”

He smirked and let out a huff of a chuckle, his left fang peeking from behind his lips. “You think I’m kiddin’?”

I rolled my eyes and pushed him away from me to continue putting the food away. “Yeah, sure. Whatever. I’ll stay away from him, Victor. Whatever the hell makes-” I couldn’t finish my sentence before I heard the loud crash of glass breaking. I whipped around and saw a wet puddle dripping on my wall, the floor beneath it decorated with broken glass and what was a very nice bouquet of assorted flowers. “Are you shitting me?!”

“Oh, I got your attention now?”

“You had it! You’re throwing a temper tantrum, breaking my shit, all because you’re jealous of someone I’m not even interested in?”

“Jealous?” he questioned as he slowly stalked towards me, like a predator carefully eyeing its prey. I was no stranger to Victor's temper; under the right circumstances, he could go from settled to up in flames with the snap of a finger. Maybe it’s because he was never really at ease, always ready to pounce at any moment’s notice if necessary. Yeah, I know he has little patience and is kinda trigger happy to get into a fight, his own source of entertainment. But that was with other people, strangers. With me, he exercised a lot more restraint. We’d have arguments, he’d yell, maybe hurt a wall and then storm off.

But whenever Logan was involved, it was a different story...

“You need to relax,” I warned as I slowly backed away from him, ready to defend myself if necessary, even if I knew it was a losing battle. 

“Did you just say I was jealous of him?”

“Are you?”

“What reason do I have to be jealous?”

“You tell me. What is it, Vic? You think I’m gonna run off with him into the sunset? You come over here one day to see me, all my shit is packed up and I leave a note behind? I doubt he’d throw my shit around like you just did.”

“I bought you those damn flowers,” he growled.

“You gonna buy the replacements too?” I asked playfully, trying to diffuse the tension but failing. It was painfully obvious, literally, he wasn’t in the mood to play when I felt his fist grip me like a boa constrictor. He forced my head against the kitchen cabinet behind me and got close to my face. If he moved any closer he’d be able to taste the chive cream cheese bagel I had on the way over here. 

“Now that all depends…”

“Victor, let go of me. Now.”

“What’s the matter, hm? I thought you liked it rough?” he spoke with a tone of warning before a lecherous grin spread across his face. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t release a flutter deep in my belly, my incessant desire for him threatening to surface. It was embarrassing and admittedly disgusting to me, how even in moments as such, there was always going to be some shred of me that could neither ignore nor deny my constant thirst for him to satisfy me in ways only Victor knew how.

“You’ve made your point.” I tried to remain calm while fighting for air. I was willing to bet money that he could feel my pulse quickening beneath his grip. If even one of his claws came out I’d be bleeding out all over the linoleum.

“Have I?”

“You have five seconds to get the fuck off of me... or I walk.” He stared me in the eye only a few seconds longer before relinquishing his grip. If there was anything I caught on to in the seven months we’ve been seeing each other, if that’s even what you wanna call him dropping by for food, sex and quality conversation with a solid night’s rest, it’s that he actually greatly enjoyed having me in his life. He would never admit it, of course, being the poster boy for hypermasculinity; no way he’d display the level of emotion required to confess he liked me. But I picked up on it in subtle ways he probably doesn’t even notice. The way he throws his arm over me in his sleep, subconsciously keeping me in place with him. The way he came over and pretended it was just for sex, when we wouldn’t wind up having sex at all. The flowers he bought me, before throwing them to the wall in a rage. Most importantly, the way he wouldn’t stay gone long after a fight and would come back with his tail tucked in ready to apologize, afraid that would be the fight that finally scared me off and into the arms of someone else. I wasn’t using that to my advantage here, but I was letting him know what we both knew but never spoke of:

He wanted me around. He liked me.

I took a moment to allow oxygen to return to my lungs before I addressed him. “I pushed a button o’ yours with that little J-word?”

“What on Earth gave you that idea?” he asked sarcastically.

I nodded. “Fine. Noted. But I promise you, next time you use your words, because if you ever think about putting your hands on me again-”

“-Now you’re ending sentences with threats?”

“Guarantees, right?” I stalked to the corner of the kitchen and grabbed the broom that was wedged between the wall and my fridge then slammed it into his chest. “Dust pan behind the fridge,” was all I said before making my way to the bedroom.

“We’re not done-”

“-I am.” The moment I turned the corner out of the kitchen he was following me, the broom loudly clapping against the kitchen floor. The same hand that was just wrapped tightly around my throat was now finding its way around my waist along with his other one, pressing me to the wall. “Victor-“

“-I’ll getcha new flowers.”

“Fuck the flowers and fuck you.” He wasn’t hearing any of it. He grabbed my wrists and began making his way to the couch, my legs clumsily bumping into any and everything I walked towards. 

“I’m not gonna pour my heart out an’ tell you all the fucked up things about me, if that’s what you’re waitin’ for me to do.”

“Mutant in human world. It’s not hard to figure out.”

“And I’m not tellin’ you the textbook of reasons I’m not holdin’ hands with him either.”

“And I’m not agreeing to stay away from him for your reasons and personal grudges unknown.”

“So maybe I didn’t make myself as clear as I thought.” Before I was aware the back of my legs bumped into the arm of my couch. I was desperate to create some sort of distance between us, so I fell backwards and wiggled away to the far opposite end of the couch. He stood at my feet and without breaking eye contact, lifted the loose black henley from his chest. He was possibly the only person I knew that could wear black and long sleeves in the peak of a summer in the city without breaking a sweat. But now wasn’t the time to be impressed by minor things.

“It’s too hot for this, too.”

“You tellin’ me no?”

“Yes!”

“Why?” he asked as he continued advancing in my direction, fumbling with the belt on his jeans as he kicked his shoes off.

“Because I don’t feel like it. You’re not about to makeup sex your way out of putting your hands on me, dick.”

He shrugged to himself. “You never turned it down before.”

“Well, you know what they say the definition of insanity is, right…”

“Doin’ the same shit, expecting different results.”

“And I want different results, Victor.”

“Fine. So let’s try somethin’ different.” Without a word or warning he bent down and scooped me up, a hand firmly resting under each of my thighs, my legs snaked around his waist. I thought he was headed towards the bedroom, but he took a surprising left turn to the apartment balcony, gripping me tightly before using a hand to open the sliding glass door. The humidity instantly smothered me, my glasses fogging from the shock of being exposed to the summer heat after leaving my air conditioned living room. He sat in one of the wicker seats of my patio set and placed me in his lap, lifting my sundress so I could straddle him free of obstruction. He placed me directly onto his cock and was not gentle about it; my head instantly fell back as a rush of air escaped my chest, my hands finding his neck. 

“Fuck,” I whispered.

“Exactly.”

“Shut the hell up.” There was no time for playful banter. The sun had only just started to set, meaning there was still plenty daylight for us to be seen; this had to be quick. And quiet. Quiet would be the hard part without a doubt. With his help, I lifted my body up and down, his fingertips digging into my hips as he held tightly to my waist. “Holy shit, Vic.”

“Still think I’m jealous?”

I grinned to myself. “I dunno; you’re fuckin’ me like you got somethin’ to prove,” I teased. Clearly there was jealousy but I knew better than to answer him with a yes. But if jealousy is this good a sexual motivator, I’d be happy with this silver lining to our fight. He lifted my dress up more, enough for him to expose my tits and seize my right one with his mouth. My head fell back, a cry escaping me when I felt the sharp stab of his teeth on the mound of flesh. “Fuck!” He growled, his mouth vibrating slightly around my nipple. 

“Ya still gonna run away and leave a note?” he asked, the heat from his mouth making toes curl.

“Never.” Unless he pushed me to it, of course. 

I felt the pads of his fingertips press my scalp, my hair tightly intertwined in his digits as he pulled my head back and forced me to make eye contact. “Don’t threaten to walk again.”

I rolled my eyes. “Or else?” I mocked.

He shook his head, his pelvis ceasing, the rapid rise and fall of our chests the only movement remaining between us. “No. Just don’t.”

I stared at him a moment longer and simply nodded before standing and turning around, lifting my dress over my head, then taking the rusty balcony rail in my hands to steady myself. I turned to look at him; to my surprise he was already stroking himself in the absence of something else warm wrapped around his cock. “Whatcha waitin’ for?”

“Can’t enjoy the view?”

“Enjoy it any longer and I’m gonna melt.”

“Someone other than me hungry for it?” he said with a hard slap to my right cheek before roughly re-entering from behind, making me jerk forward into the hot metal rail. I grunted at the pain in effort not to be too loud and settled comfortably on him, my body fitting him like a glove. He was in no way gentle as he thrust himself in and out of me, primal grunts escaping his chest every time his hips rammed into my ass. My tits would surely be bruised the way I was uncomfortably pressed into the railing. I stared at the rusted and flaking metal coating of the bars beneath my arms and fought to keep my legs from collapsing beneath me, every bone in my limbs turning to apple sauce, my muscles sore and aching. If only this kind of workout kept me in shape and was doctor recommended. And quiet as I was, there was nothing I could do to muffle the loud smack that echoed in the air when Victor got slap happy, or the sound that came from my mouth as a result. The funny thing was, the more I tried to shush him, the more intensely he fucked me, and the more sound we both ended up making. 

“Sss, holy fuck! Fuck fuck fuck, Vic! Shit!” I cried out, the restraint I had for my volume loosening. On a slower day I would have had a bit more self control, but I never lasted long, or quietly, when he was in a more animalistic mood.

“Mm, that’s right,” he grunted, digging his fingers into my hip bones. “Lemme have it, baby.” And before I knew it I did exactly that. My legs gave out beneath me and I fell to my knees, failing to hold myself up on the balcony railing any longer as I came. My moans were beyond stifling, and I felt nothing else, not even the pools of sweat pouring out of me. For just a moment I’d fallen into a deep well of ecstasy, my head throbbing from the mix of summer heat and pleasure, before I regained some composure to return the favor. 

I grabbed the thin cushion from my patio chair and placed it at his feet and knelt before him, taking him into my mouth as deep as I could. As hungrily as I could. Without hesitation his hands flew to my head, cradling the back of my skull and maneuvering me to a pace of his pleasure. “Atta girl,” he encouraged. He knew I was a sucker for praise, and after being a complete asshole I was expecting him to lay it on with the ass kissing for the rest of the evening. Now he had me working like I was the jealous one, when really I was only in competition with myself; I wanted to see if I could make him cum quicker than any of the other times I did this. I worked my head in a swivel and both of my hands in opposing twisting motion, pulling him into me as far as I could without biting off more than I could chew. It was useless, however, since Victor was determined to push my head down way past my limits. His hips undulated as he thrust his dick deeper and deeper into my throat. He’d momentarily pause and hold his place before pulling out to allow me to draw air, all before repeating the process. “Look at me,” he demanded, which was all he needed to say for me to know what time it was. I stared upwards at him with his cock still in my mouth, my eyes glassy with tears, and he pushed himself deep into my throat one final time and pumped the tip of his dick at the back of my throat. He held eye contact for as long as he could before his head fell backwards, eyes slamming shut as I felt the muscles of his thighs tighten. He grunted a low, beastlike growl before I felt him release all he had to offer in my throat, the sensation slightly tickling. I slowly jerked his dick off for good measure to ensure I got him for every drop before swallowing the thick, sticky fluid, swirling my tongue around his tip before he removed himself from my mouth. 

“Ah, Jesus fuck,” he sighed, his chest rising and falling as he tried to recover.

“I think I missed that Sunday school lesson.” He rolled his eyes and looked down at me, head still resting in his lap, before rising and extending a hand. I grabbed and he pulled me up, coming face to face with him and the wild grin plastered on his face. “Back inside before my ass gets covered in bug bites.”

“I could scratch it for ya,” he offered, running a claw harmlessly up my spine. I shivered and pushed away from him before round two threatened to begin, sliding the balcony door open, relieved once the ice cold air conditioning hit my chest.

“No thanks. But you absolutely can buy me another bouquet of flowers. And a vase, while you’re at it.”

[wandsandwheezes]

Assassini | G.W

Warnings // 3.5k // SMUT 18+, Sex, knife play, assassins, murder, attempted assassination??, contracts, ownership, breath play, begging.

A/N // Hi I am literally obsessed with assassins creed that is the only thing that prompted me to want to write this. this is not by any means my best work i just couldnt get the idea out of my head. that is all. thank you @gcdric​ for helping me as historically accurate as possible. 

Your chest heaved as you stepped through the opening double doors and into a stunning reception area; rolling stone walls and a beautiful glass ceiling that showcased the fantastic hues of the Florentine sunset. You knew what you had to do, after all you would have never taken on the task if it didn’t fall within your capabilities. You rubbed your hands together before smoothing out your dress, you felt a fool coming to a high-class party on your own, knowing that the image of a stunning and well presented lady such as yourself standing on her own was sure to cause a scene among men, but with such an important target you couldn’t afford to be chasing around or keeping a date in tow; there was simply too much to lose. 

Feeling the cool metal of the dagger sheathed against your thigh brought you back down to reality, your mind had begun to wonder of a life away from the horrors that came with the trade, what it was like to be a trophy wife on the arm of a wealthy man. That was not the life you had been blessed with, instead you spent your days between contracts, taking out whoever you needed to to get the pay, taking your prize gracefully before you were onto the next. People feared your ability to be able to take a life without remorse and without question, that was the reality of who you were; a cold blooded assassin. 

The latest contract had been practically shoved down your throat, only just finishing up business before you were being shipped off to track the next target. No rest for the wicked. You were on your way to the grandest bash of your career, it would be packed with every wealthy man you could think of, every bachelor prancing around trying to find a wife but your eyes were dead set on finding one man - George Weasley. A very wealthy man, but ruthless, known well for the money of his family name but known better by the blood money that kept him feared by many. It was a contract that only a fool would take, failure ended in torture. You were no fool and you would not fail. 

You knew the person who had last attempted the Weasley Contract - not the brightest man but someone who was notorious for getting the job done, it all came as a surprise at the order when the news of his death spread through the halls like wildfire. His tactics were good; sneak past the guards and get him dead in the night, his downfall was that George knew he was coming, waited for him even. You were glad however, that despite taking on the failed contract, you had the element of surprise on your side, nobody suspects a woman, not even George. 

You caught sight of him standing with his hands pressed against the railing as he leaned over the balcony, eyes surveying the room as he spoke to someone standing beside him. George was tall, that much was obvious from the way he towered above most people standing around him, he had a chiselled jaw, dark striking eyes and long messy orange hair. He looked like a god, a pedestal he had placed himself on, and you knew that you had to get closer to him, better yet get him alone. 

You had never once whored yourself out for the sake of a job, your years upon years of training gave you a sharp enough edge that you wouldn't ever need to rely on a feminine touch but tonight was different, the way his eyes scoured the crowd, you knew he was hungry for some female attention and if you had to give in to anyone for the sake of the job, it would be him. 

You wore a beautifully detailed red gown, the corset pulled tight around your waist emphasised your ample breasts, threatening to spill at any moment and left not much to the imagination. Your plan was to catch his eye and you knew this was the dress that would do that. You followed his gaze and placed yourself directly in his line of vision, careful not to make yourself too obvious as to not attract unwanted gazes. When he caught sight of you he swore he could have stopped breathing, you truly were a vision of God. 

He couldn't take his eyes off of you from that moment on and you had to admit that having a lingering male gaze did make your cheeks flush, suddenly feeling stuffy under the many layers of dress. George instructed one of his men, rather curtly, to bring you to him, a task that was handled quickly and with hurry as one of his aides approached you. “Mr Weasley has requested your company.” 

Perfect, everything was going exactly to plan. As you were led up a grand staircase and past the guards that hadn’t even given you a second look. Now that you were on the private balcony, surrounded by members of the Weasley family and their company who were all schmoozing without any care in the world for the hundreds of guests below them, each one hoping they would be lucky enough to get that special invitation. Standing just behind George you were able to see with your own eyes just how much he truly did tower over you. Something inside of you bubbled and you refused to believe that it was anything but pure happiness for your plan going as well as it had. 

“What’s a pretty Lady like you doing here on her own?” He asked smoothly, eyes not falling away from the gaze they held over the bustling crowd. As you looked over the balcony you could see that the room was packed, spotting the way the men flirted with any and every woman they could lay their eyes on, couples falling to the edges of the room in passionate lip locks, uncaring for the vast group of people around them. 

“What makes you think I’m alone?” You quipped back, watching as a smile fell over his lips, finally pulling his eyes away from the crowd to face you. The moment your eyes locked again, this time inches away from him you felt that same bubbling feeling in the pit of your stomach. 

“No respectable partner would let their Lady come to a party with her breasts heaving like that, well… not unless the Lady wants to be seen.” His eyes scanned over your upper body before meeting your eyes once again. You weren’t sure why you were holding your breath but the second his knuckle was grazing over your exposed collarbone, brushing your hair over your shoulder, you finally let out a slow, shaky breath. 

“And to think I was just wearing a nice dress.” You sighed comically, turning back to lean your hands against the railing, taking a moment to compose yourself without having to stare into his eyes. Never in George’s life had a woman thought of talking back to him, so having you quip back at him with a tongue as sharp as his own, practically running circles around him in conversation made him even more determined to have you. 

“You’re a quick one, smart I assume, probably raised by men, or at the very least a strong minded woman. A fighter too, you have the shoulders for it, money doesn’t matter to you much from your lack of jewellery- Stop me If I’m wrong.” With every assumption that spilled from his lips, you realised that you had blown your cover, fear immediately building in the pit of your stomach until it reached your eyes. “So what brings you here, If not for a man, what for?”

“Who said I didn’t want a man?” You finally looked back at him, a teasing smile on your lips. You watched his face ease, taking a brave step closer to him as you realised that he truly didn’t have a clue.  You were brave for doing this, letting him see a vulnerable side to you, one that could leave you easily exposed. 

“I’m sure you know who I am, don’t you sweetheart? Yet I haven’t a clue who you are.” He was smooth, able to pull your name from your lips without even a second thought. Perhaps it was a bad idea to lead this way, fearing that a part of you would grow attached to his smile or addicted to his perfect laugh.

“Well, count yourself lucky that you’re up here then, all you’ll find is boys down there.” You weren’t surprised that George was the cocky sort of man, part of you found it endearing that he obviously had some sort of saviour complex about him, figuring that he would selfishly have you to himself and ‘save’ you from being surrounded by the inferior. 

“I’d be luckier alone with you.” You leaned in, whispering just low enough for him to hear. You were feeling brave enough to get suggestive with him, hoping that he would catch your tone and give you some time alone. You felt his hand pressing against the small of your back as he pulled you in closer, your mind wondering as soon as you could breathe in his scent, a part of you forgot why you were truly here as it became drunker off of the male attention. 

All it took was one look from him to his aide and you were being led by him, past his friends and family up another set of stairs. You heard the sounds of chatter, laughter and clinking glasses fade away as you were ushered into a private room, the doors swinging shut behind the two of you, finally realising that you were alone with him. 

“Are you going to tell me why you’re really here?” He sighed, pulling at your wrist to tug you into his chest, his hot breath fanning in your neck as you stood pressed against each other, uncaring for the huge amounts of space that the room had to offer. Being so close him made you lose all of your inhibitions and suddenly the contract no longer mattered to you, the one thing that did however, was bedding the man who had you in a trance. In all your years of working contracts, nobody came above the job but now as your lips were inches away from his, George Weasley was more important. 

"I'm here for you." You muttered, hand snaking up to tangle in his long, messy hair, giving the locks a gentle tug that made his eyes darken. Feeling him guide you backwards, taking small steps with him until your back hit a wall. His strong hand travelled its way up your leg, hoping to hitch it up to hook around his hip as he pushed every layer of fabric up so he could get a good look at the gorgeous thighs he wanted wrapped around his head. Your breath caught in your throat when you felt his fingers stop over your dagger, pulling it free from where it was held. 

As his eyes surveyed over the intricate detailing of the handle, you couldn't help but avoid his gaze, startled only by the chuckle that fell from his lips. "A mark of the brotherhood… They send you to bed me and leave me vulnerable?" 

You shook your head, watching as he pressed the dull side of the blade against your throat, his commanding eyes forcing you to look at him as he pressed himself closer to you. "They sent you to kill me?" 

He pulled the dagger from your throat, shoving it into your hand as he laughed, pulling away from you, letting the skirt fall back in its place as he turned around to walk away from you and deeper into the room. It was obvious that he wasn't afraid by you, certainly less the prospect of you being able to kill him. You didn't like being underestimated, much less by someone who would be easy for you to kill. You pushed yourself away from the wall coming up behind the man and tackling him to the floor, hips straddled directly over his as you pressed the knife against his throat, watching the way his eyes lit up with surprise, his hands finding your hips to grip onto tightly. 

"I like you, you've got a lot of nerve, probably one of the most gorgeous women I've ever laid my eyes on so tell me what's the contact worth?" He chuckled, hands tugging to grind your hips against his tentatively, watching as you fumbled to keep your thoughts straight. Composing yourself as you ignored the pleasurable feeling of your hips rocking against his, instead pressing the dagger closer to his throat. You were about to respond to his question when he cut you off quickly. 

"Whatever it is I'll double it, hell I'd even triple it under two conditions." He spluttered quickly, hands stilling as he realised that you weren't to be messed with. You cocked your head to the side, pulling the blade from his throat as you considered what he had to say, dragging the tip of your dagger gently over his jawline and down his chest with a sickly sweet smile, the alluring confusion evident in your tone of voice "Conditions?" 

"Condition one, Work for me and I'll pay better than any contract ever could and two, you're mine to have." He suggested, his tone coming across as commanding making it seem like you truly had no choice in the matter but you knew better. 

"I don't belong to anyone, Weasley, especially not someone I work for." You bit back, watching as he laughed softly, hand gripping at your waist as he flipped you over, the dagger clattering against the floor as he pinned your hands down, back pressed firmly against the cold surface, feeling him press his lips to your exposed neck. "You belong to me now, seems a waste of such perfect breasts for you not to be."

"Were you going to whore yourself out for me? That's precious." His lips travelled down, peppering wet kisses along your collarbone as his hands still gripped onto your waist. Any semblance of fight in you disappeared the minute his lips were on your skin, a sick part of you adored how he wanted you but an even sicker part wanted him to take you. 

"Where's the confidence, darling? Not ready to submit to me already, are you?" His voice was thick with arousal, hands finding their way to your hips again as he slowly ground his hips into yours, teasing you ever so slightly as he pushed himself closer to you. Somehow George had managed to shock you into silence, your head filled with nothing but the the image of him fucking you into the morning, not even room to think of a quick remark or retorting comment to quip back at him.

“You’re insufferable.” You breathed out, letting his strong arms pull you off of the floor, hoisting you up on his hips to trap you between the wall and his chest once again, his hand this time was quickly up your skirt once again, feeling the wetness that pooled between your legs that confirmed you wanted him just as much as he wanted you. “And yet you spread your legs for me with ease.”

He didn’t dare tease you any longer, pulling himself free and sinking into you like there was no time to lose. Just when you thought you were full, he had more to give and you were feeling stretched out beyond belief. Your nails dug into his shoulders as he pulled loud moans from you with every deep and slow thrust, the pleasure coursing through you had you rolling your head back which he only took as an invitation for him to wrap his hand around your throat, groaning lowly as his eyes flicked over the way your face contorted with overwhelming pleasure,  “You’re so fucking tight.” 

“George, please.” He hummed at the way your voice came out with the strained begging, feeling pleasure build in the pit of your stomach as you realised the churning movement you had been feeling throughout the evening had been butterflies, the building want and desire for the man who was now fucking you loudly into the wall. 

“I like hearing you beg, what do you need, sweetheart?” He hummed, pressing his lips to your exposed neck, right over where your vocal chords were, feeling the vibrations of your moans flow through his lips, pushing him over the edge to pick up his pace, focused intently on making you cum as he found himself growing addicted to the way you squeezed around him.

“I need to- George, It feels so good.” He shook his head, pulling completely from you, letting your feet drop to the floor as he spun you around so that your chest was pressed to the wall, whines still falling from your lips as his hands were back up your skirt, pulling your hips into the right position to push himself inside you again, this time his hands pulled at the strings of your corset, tightening it to a point where it only added to the pleasure he was making you feel.

“You only get to cum when you ask for it.” With every thrust, it felt as if he was tugging your corset that little bit tighter. Pushing you closer and closer to the release you craved, so desperate for it that the only word that fell from your lips was ‘please’. Not what he wanted to hear. One of his strong hands pulled your hair into his fist, pulling your head back to rest on his shoulder, a smirk evident on his lips through the tone he used, “Please, what?”

“Please, I need to cum, George” You whined, hand coming up to wrap around his forearm, nails digging into his skin as his pace picked up finally, the hand still attached to the strings of your corset giving a final tug as you released around him, becoming a mess of spluttering moans for him as he pulled out of you, spinning you around once again to thread his fingers into your hair and pull you into a passionate kiss. 

Something about the way his lips tasted made you never want to pull away, finding yourself chasing his lips as he pulled away to gaze over your features, a smile on his lips as he took in just how beautiful you were, feeling like for a moment he may have truly met his match, watching as your chest heaved while you slowly drank in the high he had given you. “Next time I hope to see these beautiful breasts in all their glory,” 

“Next time? Thought you knew I have to kill you now.” You laughed as his fingers tucked your hair behind your ear, an action that sent a shiver down your spine. You watched as his tongue darted out to wet his lips, head shaking slightly to sway the hair out of his eyes, an action that made you melt at the knees.

“Very funny, now about your first contract.” He spoke quickly, tucking himself away and making himself presentable before pulling you deeper inside of the room, standing you by a large painting, tilting your chin up to avert your gaze to a particular individual, “Know who that man is, angel?” 

You swallowed thickly, eyes gazing over the large, pristine painting, well aware of who he was. The man that had set the contract over George’s head. You nodded at his question, his arm slinking around your waist as he leaned down to press a chaste kiss to your ear. “Good, I want information; You tell him I’m dead and find out what his next move is, if you get me that, I’ll know you’re loyal, just for that I’ll pay you more than you’ve ever seen.” 

“George, he’s the one that requested this cont-” You spoke quietly, his hand tugging you closer to his body, a deep sigh falling past his lips, leaving you in silence for a few moments until his warm toned voice spoke up once again.

“I know, and you’re going to find out why, understand?” He sounded genuinely upset, the man who had ordered the hit on him was a close family friend, but yet someone who craved the power that George had. Part of you knew that it wasn’t just Cedric Diggory that wanted him dead but he was the only one with enough money to make the bounty worth it, and yet you had found yourself wound up on his side. “Good girl.” 

Your chest was still heaving as you stepped through the opening double doors, this time hand in hand with the man who you had come here to kill, something had changed in your time alone and you knew that you would be the last person to hurt him. You were running off the high of belonging to someone, a new contract and the willingness to submit. You were George’s new personal weapon, a force that even he didn’t know the true extent of. Better to have you on his side than against him, as good as you felt against him after all. 

taglist //  @starlightweasley​​ @slytherinsunrise​​  @gcdric​​​ @theweasleysredhair​​​ @whiz-bangs78​​​ @pansydaisy​​ @vogueweasley​​​ @vivianweasley​​​​ @feetoffthetablee​​ @thisismynerdyself​​​ @witch-and-a-half​​ @loony-loopy-lupinn​​ @rip-us​​ @hopemalfoyweasley​​ @pigwidgexn​​

[certifiedskywalker]

Breaking Oaths and Following Orders - Din Djarin

thebounty said: Hey!! I was wondering if I could ask for a request for a Mandalorian x Jedi!reader? It’s inspired by this song (Jenny- Studio Killers) which is basically about friends turned into lovers.

AN: Ah, yes, the TikTok song...I hope I did your idea justice! (I cut the rest of your request out on this official post because I didn’t want to totally spoil what happens!)

You were familiar with the carbon stink of blaster bolts and the excited tension of battle. Limited stints in combat during the Clone Wars, when you were barely old enough to be a padawan, had introduced you to the harsh adrenaline and smells of war. A gunfight in some alley on some Outer Rim world was nothing compared to what you had seen. Though, now, you knew all of what was at stake; you loved all that was at stake.

“I don’t think they’re Jedi,” Din observed as he ducked down behind the thick stone wall you were using as cover. You shot the helmeted man an incredulous look.

“Really? What gave you that idea? The fact they’re not using laser swords or that they’re shooting at us?” Din didn’t respond to your sarcasm and instead popped up above the wall to let a few bolts fly. Based on the yelps of pain, they hit their marks.

“We need to get out of here,” he said once he ducked back down. You nodded and glanced at the Child, still tucked away in his cradle. His big eyes were glued to you, as they often were in the heat of battle. Expectant, waiting for you to make your, the, move.

“Yeah, we do,” you agreed, before you pressed the button on the Child’s cradle that closed the little creature within. The last thing you wanted was more pressure. 

“They have us pinned,” Din said and tipped his head back towards the wall behind you. “And there’s at least five,” the Mandalorian popped up from behind the wall again and nearly missed a blaster bolt to the head, “six up front.”

“Can’t you jet us out of here?”

Wordlessly, Din reached around to his back and rapped his gloved knuckles against the fuel tank of his jet pack. An empty, metallic clang echoed the knocking of his hand. No fuel. 

“Karabast,” you cursed as you turned your attention to the enemies firing luring shots at the relative safety of the wall. There were too many. A step beyond the stone would mean certain death. So did staying put. Direness set in, loomed like a storm cloud in your mind. You glanced back at Din and the Child’s cradle only to have a lump form in your throat. 

As if on cue, the cradle covers opened and revealed the watchful eyes of the Child. He was still focused on you. As you took a moment to study him in return, you neither heard a coo of worry nor did you see flinch of fear. He was calm, eerily so; as if he knew what you were thinking, what you knew you had to do. You moved your gaze to Din and watched as he let a few shots go towards your attackers. A stray blaster bolt from the enemy knocked against the beskar plate on his chest, right above his heart. Too close to where his armor ended and his clothing began. Too close for comfort. You couldn't lose him. 

Adrenaline, pure and vile rushed through you. Before you could move against your instincts, your hand reached out and pulled Din back down behind the stone wall. The dark visor of his helmet met your gaze. You could feel the question on his lips, despite having never seen them. You had spent enough time imagining them; how they looked and how they might feel against your own.

“Grab the kid and run on my word,” you said with a tone of seriousness to break yourself from your wonderings. “Got it?”

Din was still for a moment and you realized that your hand lingered on his arm. Warmth spread through your fingers, up your arm, and to your face. Quickly, you let go, and the Mandalorian seemed to have recovered. He nodded wordlessly and reached out towards the cradle. When the pod was tucked under his arm, you moved to face the stone wall you all were hidden behind. 

“What are you planning, Y/N?” 

Din’s tone was cold, laced with concern. After all the cycles you and the man had worked and lived together, you had noticed he only said your name when you were about to do something dangerous. You had wished he said it more, in different contexts, like one of affection. Though, you had reasoned long ago that Din’s concern was his affection. Like the Jedi, it seemed that Mandalorian of Din’s Creed forewent too-personal, entangling attachments. It was the first principle of the Code that you had wished you had broken long ago. In a sense, you had. The care you held, the love, for Din and the Child...you were a Jedi no longer.

But that didn’t mean you couldn’t pretend.

“You can ask me questions later.”

Before Din could attempt to stop you, you reached down to each of your hips and pulled the two metal, somewhat cylindrical pieces of your lightsaber from your belt. In a practiced motion, you latched the two segments together and pressed the ignite switch. As soon as the blade ignited, you focused your mind on the small, stone wall that sheltered you. Once you pictured it clear in your mind, you threw your hands up and pushed forward. When you opened your eyes, the stone wall hurtled towards your attackers and drove some down into the dirt. You glanced at Din.

“Now!”

At your word, Din rushed towards the now dwindling group of criminals that had been shooting at you. Due to the laser sword in your hands, most of their fire was focused on you. With an ease that surprised you, you twirled your saber in the air and deflected the shots. Most landed in the chests of those had taken aim, giving each a swift death. You gave an extra flourish to redirect a blaster bolt towards one of the attackers that was more interested in Din and cradle.

The man fell quickly and a surge of confidence rushed through you. You still had it, even after all this time of hiding! Only a few criminals remained and you drew closer and closer. As you moved, their aim grew more and more precise. One even dared to charge at you. With you busied dispatching him, another shot off his rifle. White-hot and searing hurt ripped through your lower leg, then your shoulder. A yelp of pain escaped your lips. Overcome by heated rage and long ago lessons forgotten, you tilted forward and struck him down.

Then there was silence. Only your haggard breath filled your ears. The pain in your leg and shoulder overwhelmed your senses. It had been a long time since you had taken a hit. An even longer time since you had used the weapon of your dead Master.

You fell to your knees, tried to focus on forcing your breathing steady. When you hit the ground, your thumb instinctively struck the power switch. With a hiss, the blade closed and you found enough strength to lift your gaze. Your eyes locked with Din’s darkened visor.

“Y/N.”

There was that concern again. It was the last thing you heard before you fell back, let your body rest against the dirt of the alleyway and splatters of blood.

You woke with a start. The wild beating of your heart propelled you, so you sat up straight in the sleeping nook. Your head nearly slammed against the ceiling. When you recognized the interior of the Razor Crest, you allowed yourself to catch your breath.

“Hey, hey, hey” Din appeared in the entrance of the sleeping nook with his hands raised towards you. He looked as if he were approaching a wounded animal. “You’re safe. You’re home.”

You nodded but your head did not clear. On your skin still clung the stink of the alley, the carbon of blaster fire, and, against your hand, you felt the cold hilt of the lightsaber. The moment your eyes landed on the weapon, you felt your breath get caught in your throat once more. Memories of the fight rushed back and your heart still thundered in your chest. You focused on Din’s helmet, studied his now straightened posture, and swallowed hard.

“The Child, is he-”

“He’s fine,” Din replied before the question could leave your lips. You shook your head.

“No, did he see...did he see me?”

“It was hard not to see you,” Din said softly.  

Tension filled the silence that trailed after his words. It was heavier than the pressure of battle. Din always had a way of making it difficult for you to breath. But this was like trying to wade through the muck of a full trash compactor. The air between you was thick, weighed down by everything you both wanted to say to the other.

You shifted in the sleeping nook in an effort to find a more comfortable position. As you moved, your shoulder knocked against the wall and you hissed in pain. Din lurched forwards and towards you. You felt heated skin against your arms and, when you looked down, you found that he had not donned his signature gloves.

“Here. I’ll help you step out.”

Din was careful as he eased you out of the sleeping nook while you tired not to be lost in tender touch of his bare hands against your skin. A wave of affection washed over you when you noted the bandages on your lower leg and shoulder. He had taken his gloves off to take care of you. You wished you could have been conscious to remember it.

“Thanks,” you said once you were on your feet.

Though, Din didn’t let go. Instead, he helped you over to the crates you both used as makeshift seats during meal time. Only when you were both sat down did his hands slip from your arms. The silence seemed to have followed you both over as it settles back between you. 

Your mind swirled with worry and doubt, every word you wanted to say. Betrayal was the word that came back most often. You had betrayed the year of trust you had built with Din by not telling him about your past. You had betrayed the Child by not using the Force to forge a deeper connection with him or hear his story. You had betrayed yourself, the oath you swore long ago to never use the teachings of the Jedi. The thought made your stomach twist.

“Is it yours?”

Din’s question broke you from your down spiral. You met the dark gaze of his visor and shook your head. “No. It’s my old Master’s. I lost mine in battle and took his when he…fell.”

“Master? So, you’re a Jedi?”

“No, I never finished the Tri-”

“You can’t do that.” You cocked your head at his interruption. “You can’t keep saying ‘no’ and then give a reason that implies ‘yes’. Are you or are you not a Jedi?”

You swallowed hard, the truth, as Din knew it, balanced on the tip of your tongue. “Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” There was an edge of anger in his voice but as heated as you had expected. “Why didn’t you tell me when we were sent to look for Jedi, for him?”

“Like I was saying, I didn’t finished my training or the Trials. I don’t know the mysteries the Council kept hidden or where any others are.” Din stood up at your reasoning and stared down at you. Even masked behind the helmet, you still felt the intensity of his eyes on you. 

“You should have told me.” He said, the heat a little higher in his voice. “Do you not trust me enough to keep you safe?”

Stoked by the flames of his voice, you stood from your seat. Din’s visor remained trained on you, waiting for your next move. There was only a step’s worth of space between you now and it was either the close proximity or the pain of your wounds that made your face flush. You weren’t entirely sure as to which but you did know your own truth.

“No, I trust you, Din, with my life,” his name left your lips without a thought. Between thoughts, you realized it was the first time you said his name aloud after learning on Nevarro; but you couldn’t stop now. “The Jedi’s way is old, just as old as the Mandalore, and we have our customs. Following orders is one of them and I was given an order to stay quiet, to stay hidden. I will not apologize for following that order, even if I am a Jedi no longer.”

All of the sudden, the fight and anger left you. You thought of your Master, how he would be disappointed in your outburst. Overwhelmed by the feeling, you sat back down on your crate while Din stayed standing. Heavy, you head fell into your hands. In the dark behind your eyelids, you found little solace or comfort.

Just as you were about to admit defeat and retire back to the sleeping nook, hands gripped your wrists. Gently, Din pulled your hands away from your face and, in response, you looked into his visor. For a moment, you swore that you could see his eyes shining beneath his helmet, his own order and oath manifested in beskar. Before you could ask what he was doing, his hands fell from your wrists and tucked up under the bottom of his helmet.

“Din,” you said, the same concern that swaddled your name in his voice now held his own. “Don’t do this, not like this.”

“I trust you, Y/N, with my life.” His words echoed your own only softer and you were too caught off guard by that tenderness to try to stop his hands as they pushed up. 

You saw the first slivers of tanned skin. Then a scruff covered chin and slope of his jawline. Lips were next on the tour of Din’s features; the very lips you had tried to imagine hundreds of times before. They were pinker than you thought, a little chapped too, but you still longed for them. Then the tip and bridge of his curved nose. A pair of dark brown eyes.

You held Din’s eyes with yours as he finished removing the helmet. He set it on the floor of the Razor Crest with a dull thud, his eyes never leaving yours. Strands of brown hair were set against his forehead, tantalizing enough for you to touch. You fought the urge so you could take in his features a little longer. Despite knowing, based on his voice, that Din was handsome, it was another thing to see it confirmed. 

Unable to hold back anymore, you reached a careful hand out. Din recoiled, flinched away from your reach and you pulled back. Just as you were about to apologize, Din recovered and lifted his own hand. Warm, he guided your hand with his until your fingertips brushed against his temple. When he let go of your wrist, you brushed the hair off from his forehead.

At your touch, Din sucked in a shakey, sharp breath. Scared for a moment that he wouldn’t exhale, you traced your hand down from his forehead to the side of his face. Once you had cupped his cheek, Din closed his eyes and let the breath go. His head tilted, leaned into your touch.

“We’re both oath breakers now, huh?”

Din’s eyes opened at your question. Dark and knowing, his eyes met yours before they flickered down to your lips. You trailed your hand along his jaw until you held his chin between two of your fingers. His breath hitched at the suggestive touch.

“Tell me to stop if you don’t want this,” you murmured, the pain of your wounds long forgotten. “Din?”

Wordlessly, from where he kneeled before, Din rushed up and towards you. Messily, his lips found yours and his hands gripped at your waist. Quickly, he pulled you against his chest where the cold kiss of beskar greeted your skin. Not that you minded. You were too caught up in Din’s lips against yours, how you had waited a year for this. You weren’t about to let that go.

Not for any order.

[whenimaunicorn]

“Fight Me” - Ragnar the Younger x Eivor Wolf-Kissed (female)

Content Warnings: Explicit smut, fighting as foreplay, to the point where it resembles consensual noncon roleplay. Face slapping/striking, rough sex, exhibitionism, negotiating on the fly. Don’t like, don’t read, and I’m not interested in hearing if you think Eivor is OOC to your headcanons. These are mine.

Notes: I am maybe halfway through my playthrough of Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, and I haven’t found anyone I want to ship my female Eivor with yet. So, I did a thing with my favorite Last Kingdom hunk. You can easily imagine that one of her missions was to get involved with the Danes’ gathering in Young Ragnar’s stronghold (season 3) since the setting and time period is exactly the same in both game and show! I suppose Brida doesn’t exist in this fic; I didn’t find a useful way to write her in or out of this scene (although I’m sure Eivor would love to take her to bed too!)

Ragnar the Younger finishes a long pull of ale and sets his cup down with a flourish. Then he eyes the woman beside him. “Fight me.”

Eivor merely cocks a brow, regarding him over the rim of her own mug. “You have offered me no insult, Earl Ragnar. Why would I fight you?”

The big blonde leans in, his eyes swimming with mischief even as they seem to cut through to the core of her. “You are restless, Eivor Wolf-Kissed. I see a need in you, to feel your blood sing.” His charming gaze lingers on her an extra moment before he continues to speak. “You grow frustrated with the delay, how long I want to wait before marching on the Saxons.”

Her lip twists. “It is too late to talk strategy tonight. Let’s not ruin the merriment.” The talks had lasted for days; to Eivor they had seemed endless. But tonight the ale had been just as endless, and most of the Danes are now passed out around Ragnar’s hall. Or retreated in pairs to the darker corners, for more private diversions.

“No more talk,” Ragnar agrees. “Let me give you a bit of what you are craving.” He stands, wide and imposing. “Fight me. Just a friendly brawl.”

Eivor grins and kicks her chair back as she rises.

Only a few of Ragnar’s warriors, as well as a handful of others from the gathered forces of Northmen, show any interest, though they do clear a space for them. Although they are famous warriors, the two combatants are not exactly the center of attention in the hall; it’s late enough that most of the revelers are too far gone to notice what is happening.

Ragnar lifts the axe from its place at his belt and tosses it on the table. Eivor follows suit, although it takes her considerably longer to unstrap the blade at her wrist and the other sharp edges she keeps at the ready, hidden all around her person. Ragnar’s brows climb as he watches her produce them all, and she thinks he might be impressed.

She’s only recently met the young Earl, but Eivor has the impression of a good-hearted man who will be an absolute bear in a fight. Perhaps too good-hearted to lead a bloodthirsty people, given his reluctance to turn on his Saxon neighbors, but there is steel within his bones. Eivor admits that she would love to test it.

They enter their makeshift square, and contrary to her expectation Ragnar is upon her immediately. He grasps her at shoulder and waist, hooking her leg for a takedown which she is only barely able to twist away from. Straight to grappling, then. She doesn’t really mind. Eivor has never been afraid to take a punch, but Ragnar the Younger is a whole head taller than her with the muscle mass to match, and if they started this bout by trading blows she’d likely have been black and blue all over in the morning.

While she evades his attempt to trip her, she can’t quite dislodge herself from his arms, and so she’s down to twisting and turning inside his grip, trying to gain the advantage. Her muscles heat, jaw clenching into a ferocious smile as she thrills in the effort and the challenge. Ragnar was right; this was exactly what she has been craving.

And it’s not just about the combat, although she lives to best those warriors that dare to underestimate her. She shifts her hips, letting her center of balance slip just enough to lead Ragnar to believe that he’s gaining the upper hand. When he pushes her into a takedown she turns his leverage against him and rides him to the floor.

Cheers and jeers of the drunks watching them with varying levels of interest ring in her ears as Eivor clenches her thighs around Ragnar’s broad waist. He’s a handsome one, and she likes them big and not too stupid. But it’s hard for Eivor to find someone she truly wants to take to bed. She is a consummate warrior, skilled enough to best just about any challenger, and yet she only feels aroused by a man that she cannot beat.

Will Ragnar turn out to be that man? He’s grinning up at her from the floor, looking as ferocious as she feels, and when she loses grip on one of his hands he cuffs her across the face.

She reels from it, more than she should. It’s not that he hit her so hard—it’s the way her body reacts. Heat of an entirely different sort burns between her thighs, ignited by the adrenaline, and the coiled power of his arm. The disorientation of her animal reaction gives him the opening he needs to drive himself up and force her to the ground beneath him.

She doesn’t go without a fight, of course, but the heat of the struggle is only feeding her awakened lust now. That she-beast within her does not want to make it easy for him, but she’s craving his victory too, wants to feel her strength repelled and her thighs forced apart by his knees.

She arches her back beneath him. She considers hiding her feelings, given that at least some of the men are still watching, and it burns her pride to think that anyone would know that Earl Ragnar had won her in this way. But even that potential humiliation twists her insides with some undeniable appeal of its own. She won’t stop herself on account of the watchers.

She knows the heat has entered her eyes by the way that Ragnar’s darken, as he looms above her and holds her arms down at either side of her head. “Is there, perhaps, another craving I can satisfy for you tonight, Eivor?” he croons.

She lets a wolf-smile grace her lips. “I am considering it.”

He releases her hands, leaning in to kiss her, perhaps, but this isn’t how Eivor wants it to happen and so she uses the opening to push him off her and regain the upper hand. She strikes him and Ragnar’s eyes burn and she can see now how much he wants her too. “What will sway your decision?” he asks, breathless with their struggle.

Eivor leans down, and purrs into his ear: “Whether you can take it from me.”

They struggle like their very lives depend on it, after that. Ragnar crushes his weight against her but now he’s trying to achieve something much more difficult than a simple pin. He has to get one of his hands free to loosen her clothing, or his own, and every time he gets both her arms pinned at once he can’t keep her there for more than a few seconds. He growls his frustration, and she bites his neck in some primal combination of denial and encouragement.

With his shoulder pressed into her chest, grinding her to the floor below his considerable weight, he manages to get one hand shoved inside her pants. The greedy press of his seeking fingers should be uncomfortable in such a sensitive place, but he finds her so wet that he slides easily there, until two of his fingers are buried inside her.

She cries out between clenched teeth and arcs her body to the angle that makes those fingers feel most satisfying. But as soon as he shifts to an angle that’s not completely holding her down, she slips away.

Pulse pounding, she stares at him, eyes wild as she catches her breath. Her entire core is burning for him, but she won’t give up this game.

Ragnar’s gaze thickens with satisfaction. “I won’t do this to you in front of my men,” he says, “but I will finish this, exactly how you want it, if you come to my bedchamber, Eivor.”

“Better catch me,” she snarls with glee, and springs to her feet to sprint in that direction.

He overtakes her at the door. She gets only the vague impression of a big bed covered in furs before his body hits her from behind and she’s thrown on top of it. He holds her down with her face in a bearskin as he tears at her waistband, pulling it down over the curve of her ass.

There’s not much struggling she can do from this position; he doesn’t have to control her arms at all if he can keep her chest pinned down tight. He does so first with his arm, then with his chest as she feels him struggling with his own belt. She throws her hips up savagely, not to win anymore, but simply to feel herself fighting in the face of the inevitable. Her entire body is burning for this, to be bested, to be fucked only by the fittest and the strongest of warriors.

His grunting changes, and she knows he’s gotten his cock loose. She wonders what the shape of it is, if she’ll spend time exploring it with hand and tongue some time after this. She’s not opposed to gentler lovemaking after a partner has proven himself, like Ragnar is doing now.

She writhes beneath him, ready for him to get on with it. She feels the cool air on her ass and she’s aching for him. His fingers swipe her roughly, leaving a trail of spit to make sure he’ll go in easy. She’s about to growl a protest; she’s not fragile, and she likes the pain, but then the blunt head of him is pressing against her entrance and she knows why he’s in that habit.

His cock is wide. The pressure is intense as he centers his weight and pushes his way inside. Eivor keens at the perfect mix of pleasure and pain she feels as he makes his claim. Inch by inch, he stretches her, taking what he wants just as she bid him, and when he bottoms out he groans low in her ear.

“Are you still going to fight me?” he challenges, and in response she throws her hips back up against him. He hits her cervix and she squeals between her teeth but she does it again, then Ragnar is roaring and driving himself into her as hard as he wants. He stops crushing her against the bed in favor of gripping her hips with both hands, and Eivor rises up for better leverage to meet his savage thrusts.

He’s impossibly deep. They sweat and grunt together and Ragnar is relentless, hollowing her out with the massive force of his need. She feels her body clench and shimmer around him, and Eivor’s eyes widen. No man has ever brought her to the brink like this so fast . . . but rarely has a man met her passion with such confidence, and endurance, either. She drops her face to the furs, overwhelmed by the rushing pleasure flooding her core, the steady stroking of his cock spurring her on to a shuddering, bellowing release that she tries to muffle in the bedding.

He slows down when she stops screaming. Although his cock has stretched her, she feels more loss than relief when he pulls himself out and releases his grip. She’s panting, balanced on her knees and elbows, and turns as she hears Ragnar pulling off the rest of his clothes behind her. Aside from breeches pushed down to her knees, Eivor herself is still fully clothed.

Her eyes land on the gorgeous cock sticking proudly up into the air, a massive, glistening thing weeping with a thicker milkiness at the tip. “You didn’t—” she asks dumbly.

Ragnar smiles, a thick, arrogant thing. “Wouldn’t want this to be over too quickly.” He strokes a big hand idly over himself. “Thought I’d give you a moment to catch your breath. And I’m hoping that took some of the fight out of you. I want my woman to fall to pieces more than once before I take my pleasure, and I need you to hold still for the next few things I want to do.”

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