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mylifeisactuallyamess · 9 months ago

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Sanctuary part 2

Chapter 19: Shadows

A/N: This chapter is a biggie, might be the biggest of the fic so far I can’t remember! Follows the events of Teth with my own twist, as always.

Warnings: 18+, clone deaths, angst, canon violence, blood, canon fighting, protective Crosshair, protective Tech, food mention.

Word Count: 10.3k+

Chapter 18 - Chapter 19 - Chapter 20

Masterlist

Tagging: @subbing-for-clones @fandom-fortress

You hated the quiet.

Hated the stillness that came with it.

Despised how it amplified every incessant thought, bringing them alive to torment you.

Everyone was asleep.

Batcher snored lightly beside Crosshair in the corner of the hold. Omega was sleeping on Wrecker’s back as he lay face down on the floor. Hunter was asleep, arms crossed over his chest as he rested upright against the hull.

Echo and Tech were in the cockpit.

The ship was hurtling through hyperspace, finally leaving Barton IV behind. You looked at the datapad in your hand and wiped a stray tear off your cheek. The image was frozen on you about to disappear into the Marauder.

It is just the excessive release of dopamine and norepinephrine, hormones that have a somewhat desirable effect on a person’s perception. It creates feelings of euphoria that can, quite frankly, be a hindrance.

Tech hadn’t been wrong. You were a hindrance for him. You felt how it confused his thoughts, clouding his logical decisions whenever he was around you. The screen went dark from lack of use but you kept the headphones on. Enclosing yourself in the silent bubble, inflicting a quiet torture you couldn’t escape. The beat of your heart was your only company, slowly driving you to distraction. So much so, your hands clenched into fists until pain filled your palms like a physical object.

Your body reacted violently when a long fingered hand tried to prise open your fists. Rocking back into a crate, the noise making you jump again.

“Sssh!” Crosshair hissed after he pushed one of the headphones aside. He waited, looking around but it seemed no one had woken up. A breath slowly eased out from between your trembling lips. He jerked his head back to where he’d been lying, tugging on your wrist.

Batcher let out a small whine, her tail thumping on the floor and she shifted to make room for you. Crosshair went back to his position, not letting go of your wrist so both your hands were draped over Batcher’s side. The hound sighed happily, her glow of warmth chasing away the melancholy that had been haunting you.

Cross let go of your hand but you weren’t ready for that yet, placing your hand over his. You heard his huff and felt the twitch of his fingers but he didn’t pull away. Maybe…in this moment, he needed the company as much as you did.

Burying your face into Batcher, breathing in her musky scent and bathing in her presence was just what you needed to finally sleep.

For the first time in a while, you felt refreshed. The dark of your dreams had been nightmare free. Batcher shifted under your hand and you absently rubbed her side, snuggling into her warmth to mumble, “That was a good sleep.”

“Stop rubbing my chest like I’m that stinking hound.” You recoiled quickly, snatching your hand away as your eyes flew open.

Batcher wasn’t laying between you and Crosshair anymore, she had moved and somehow your hand had been resting on his chest. The clone lay on his back, staring at the ceiling with an expression that told you he wished it would cave in and kill him immediately.

“I’m sorry!”

“You smell like a hound,” Wrecker snickered from across the hold. Dread seeped into your body and you lurched upright, looking for a certain someone.

“He’s in the cockpit,” Crosshair answered your unspoken question. “He insisted you shouldn’t be moved.” Everything inside you was collapsing, tugging down to the forbidden depths where you hid the emotions you weren’t ready to face. Tech had seen you sleeping next to Crosshair. With a groan you shoved the heel of your hands straight into your eyes.

This whole situation was an excruciating mess. Maybe Echo could take you when he went back to the underground. Leave the Batch in peace to live out their lives and forget you ever existed.

“Guys,” Hunter’s voice rumbled from the cockpit. “Rex is sending a transmission.”

“About time!” Wrecker smiled wildly. “Hopefully he’s got something good for us.” Echo had pulled the ship from hyperspace, hanging motionless in the darkness of space. Stars filled the canopy, studding it like diamonds, glittering and glinting with their own inner fire.

The holo was already on, an imagine of a clone with closely cropped light hair was looking around at all the faces surrounding him. Reminding you very much of Echo’s first greeting, Rex gave you a subtle nod before turning to Omega.

“It’s good to see you, kid.”

Omega beamed. “You too, Rex.”

“Is everything alright?” Echo asked.

“Ah. Yes and no.”

“What is it, Captain?” Hunter crossed his arms, looking wary as he eyed the blue flickering figure.

“You need to come back to base.”

“I’ll drop this lot off and I’ll be on my way,” Echo responded quickly.

“No. You still need to rendezvous with Gregor. But the rest of you, I need here.” Rex’s eyes sought you out, pouring with apologies you didn’t think you deserved.

“Hemlock is looking for me.” Rex rubbed his stubbled jawline, giving you a curt nod.

“Yeah and not just you either. Trust me, you’re gonna want to see this.”

The cockpit was mostly quiet considering everyone was sat in it. Echo was answering Hunter’s questions about the newest clone base, Tech was on his datapad, occasionally adding a comment he deemed relevant. Wrecker sat on the floor, making a fuss of Batcher. Omega and Cross were in the spare seats, the kid mimicking Crosshair’s brooding pose. You were sat behind them, in the corner being mesmerised by the rush of hyperspace.

You enjoyed the shine of it in everyone’s eyes. No matter what they were feeling, the reflection of space remained unchanged. Vast and unyielding against even the flow of time, space yawned all around. It scared you, sensing the emptiness beyond the ship, but it was better to be there than inside your own head.

Since the transmission with Rex…no.

Since Tech had seen you asleep beside his brother, you noticed his emotions were muted.

Maybe you were trying not to reach out to him, lessening the connection that tethered you together.

Quite possibly, he wasn’t reaching out either. Unwittingly putting up those barriers around himself.

You felt the light of this force in all living things, but none of them burned as brightly as you did. What would it be like? To come across another being that had the same awareness of the force you did? You doubted you would ever find out.

The reverie you found yourself in was broken by the jarring sensation of the ship coming out of light speed. Echo guided the ship through the atmosphere, landing it easily in a landing space cleared near a B’omarr Order Monastery that served as the new base. On closer inspection, the building was actually sat on top of some natural rock that had been hewn out to disguise how deep the structure really went.

Your hands needed to fidget. The idea of being away from the relative safety of Pabu, longer than planned, made you feel off kilter. To be here — once Echo left — without a ship, made you anxious.

Plates of armour clacked together when you shifted the helmet in the crook of your arm, drawing the attentions of Crosshair and Tech who had taken a spot either side as you all waited for the ramp to open.

“What’s the matter?” Crosshair gave you a sidelong judgemental stare, his fingers tugged on the toothpick he never seemed to be without.

“Just feels wrong,” you muttered, trying to shift the plates into a comfortable position, effectively making yourself more uncomfortable.

Cross regarded you for a moment. “You look like a 5 year old natborn dressed you.” Wrecker snorted at the disdainful jibe, even Hunter looked amused when he glanced back to check on you. Seemed their episode on Barton had smoothed some feelings out between them.

“Haha,” was the only sarcastic response you could think of, scrunching up your face in annoyance.

“Would you allow me to alleviate your discomfort?”

Instantly you stilled. “Yes, yes please.”

Tech nodded to acknowledge your breathy response and began to adjust the armour plates. Your gaze seared through him but your heart betrayed you with every brush of his fingers. Your scalp tingled with awareness due to his proximity, lashes fluttering slightly when his breath ghosted across the side of your face.

Crosshair shook his head as a reddish, purple light filled the hold. No doubt he thought Tech was pandering to you again. He shouldn’t have said that to his brother, and you shouldn’t have reacted the way you did. But you felt there was no other way, you had to push Tech away in the same moment you pushed Cross. The sniper was still trying to find his footing in the squad, you didn’t want to make him feel like you had taken your support of him away.

When Tech stepped aside, you saw a pair of clones waiting at the bottom of the ramp.

“They don’t look happy to see us,” Wrecker whispered loudly before breaking out into a smile and laugh, jamming his hand into Crosshair’s shoulder. “Just like old times, huh?”

The clone from the transmission, Rex, walked forward to meet you, another behind him in a set of white and teal armour. He had a scar up his left cheek and a hard scowl on his face, which was directed at Crosshair. You didn’t need to focus your awareness, to feel the waves of anger and suspicion that radiated off this clone. Not even Rex’s eternal inner calm could counter the harshness you felt.

“Thanks for coming,” Rex met the gaze of everyone in the squad briefly, giving a small smile to Omega.

“Good to see you, Rex,” Hunter said.

“Wish I felt the same,” the other clone started, casting a vicious look up and down Crosshair. You tensed. “I have unfinished business with this one. Remember me?” He stepped forward, a move you mirrored to stand a step in front of Crosshair. It took the clone a few moments to see through his anger, recognition dawned, but it wasn’t enough to make him back down. “Surprised I’m alive?! Most of my squad from Ryloth is dead because of you.”

He raised a finger at Crosshair, to jab him over your shoulder, except you knocked it away. Mustering a competitive glare of your own.

“Easy, Howzer,” Rex put a hand on the clone’s shoulder.

Howzer. Formally a Captain…you were sure of that. Some essence of truth welled up from the forgotten recesses of your mind.

“I know you two have history. But we’re all on the same side now.” Howzer scoffed at Rex’s words, his scathing glance flickered to you before he took a small step back.

A collective breath was released from everyone at your back and it made you lower your eyes to fixate on the ground. They had been worried about your reaction, expecting you to fly off the handle no doubt and show your true colours.

Hunter moved the moment along like it had never happened. “Why’d you call us here, Captain?”

“We have something to show you. Follow me.”

“Omega!” Echo called from the ship and she turned to run back. Wrecker and Batcher stayed with her, so you continued on into the base with the others following Rex.

You paused at the door. There was a pressure in the air around you, a warning. It tugged at your gut, making you scan the sky for anything out of the ordinary.

“Are you sensing something?” Tech was waiting a few paces away, head tilted as he registered your behaviour. For a moment you wondered why he had noticed the quick change in you, but then with Hunter as brother, he would be astute at recognising these types of mannerisms.

“It’s just a feeling,” you told him as you began to follow the others once more.

“Positive or negative?” He inquired.

“I’m not sure.”

Rex lead you all into the main area of the base. In the centre was a round command post, surrounded by control panels, storage crates, an eating area and a handful of clones that all had matching glares when they saw Crosshair had walked in.

The animosity was cloying, stoking that forever burning rage within you, born from the injustice of the situation. If they were unhappy to see Crosshair, you felt they should be unhappy to see you as well.

“Your numbers are growing,” Hunter observed, noticing the scowl off a clone in camouflage coloured armour and another in white and yellow.

“Well, we need all the help we can get,” Rex informed him. “Once we find the exact coordinates of the Tantiss Base, we have to hit it hard if we’re gonna pull our brothers out of there.”

Everything inside you tightened at the mention of Tantiss. Crosshair simmered with the same level of hesitancy beside you.

“I have questions about the facility, but that’s not the only reason why I sent for you.” Rex grabbed a puck off the console. “We recovered a target list from an Imperial operative.” He pressed a button to reveal a holo of you. “That’s not all.” The image changed to one of Omega.

“Not a surprise,” Crosshair’s voice was verging on icy sharpness. “They escaped Imperial custody.”

“So did you,” Howzer instantly pointed out. “But you’re not on the list.”

“Guess I’m not as valuable to them,” Cross answered, his mouth set in a firm line.

“Or you’re feeding them information!”

“Back off!” You blurted out, stunning the entire room to silence. Howzer looked shocked but it didn’t last long, his ire now directed at you. “You have no idea what you’re saying.”

“Oh, I do,” Howzer countered angrily. “You expect us to believe he was held on Tantiss for months, but he doesn’t know how to get back there?!”

Rage. It was so fierce, rising to meet Howzer’s own, it burned under your skin. “And what about me?” Your head cocked to the side, listening to the shuffle of feet behind you. “I was there for six months.” You stepped forward again, enjoying the little thrill when Howzer bumped into the console behind him. Your voice became quieter. “Locked in a room with no window. Isolated, with only my own nightmares for company. Do you really think I would be able to find my way back to that?”

“Easy,” Hunter placed a hand on your shoulder, taking the edge off the red haze and you forced your body to unclench.

“You weren’t loyal to the Empire before you were, relocated to Tantiss,” Howzer responded diplomatically. “He was.”

“Whether you believe me or not,” Crosshair said. “It’s the truth. But I’m not loyal to the Empire any longer.”

Howzer scoffed. “Your squad may trust you. But I don’t.”

“What’s going on?” Everyone shifted at Omega’s voice, trying to cover the lingering impression of averted confrontation.

“The Empire is targeting you and Stitch. Again.” Crosshair explained dryly.

“No surprise there,” Wrecker said with a dark chuckle.

“Why were they after you before?” Your brain whited out at Rex’s question, thankful when Omega answered first.

“To force Nala Se to cooperate and conduct certain experiments.”

“Which, were what?”

Your hands balled up into fists, the image of the lab tried to drift over your vision, wanting to drag you back there, to trap you once more. You fought the urge to close your eyes, because if you gave in, then the base would be erased from sight and all that would be left, would be the white walls.

Still the darkness came, forcing that pain between your eyes to bloom again. It sucked colour and sound from the room, leaving behind a void of nothing that made your breath quicken. There was something here. Something…unnatural.

A touch on your lower back, feather light and unnoticeable to anyone else, attempted to ease some tension from you. Tech was calm. Worried for you, but overall, his calm prevailed. There was nothing you could do to stop his presence melding with yours, it fascinated you how easily it happened with him and no one else. As though your souls wanted nothing more than to be entwined all the time. He was a balm, soothing colour back into your world.

“Nala Se was working on something involving M-Count? I don’t know what that means, but they were taking blood samples from everyone…even me,” Omega was saying.

“M-Count?” Rex repeated.

M-Count. The pitch of your heart elevated, because you had heard those words before…but you couldn’t recall the details.

“Stitch?” Everyone was looking at you, waiting for you to respond to Rex. “What about you?”

“I would advise caution when questioning Stitch about her time on Tantiss,” Tech spoke up.

“Why?” Howzer prompted when it didn’t look like Tech was going to elaborate for once.

Tech swung his helmet round to face the reg. “Given the highly traumatic nature of the event, do you require an additional rationale?" His expression didn’t change, but his tone of voice became waspish.

“Well we don’t know what happened. Do we?” Taunted Howzer.

“Don’t, push it,” snarled Crosshair.

“You might want to back off,” Hunter warned the reg, throwing an arm out to stop Crosshair launching himself across the few paces to Howzer.

“I can tell you everything I know,” Omega spoke up.

Tech’s hand wandered up your back while Omega talked more. You couldn’t feel his touches through the backplate, but you felt every tiny vibration of movement with your other senses. He easily brushed aside the dark thoughts, sending them back into the void they spawned from.

“Chow time!” Fireball called out from the doorway as Omega’s story wrapped up. “Gregor’s recipe, with a few of my own spicy modifications.”

“Oh! Now you’re talking,” Wrecker followed the smell of food, Batcher and Omega right by his side.

“Wait.” Everyone else hesitated and looked at the sniper. “There’s more you should know.” Crosshair sucked in a breath, unable to shift the dark weight in his chest he fought to speak over. “Not all of the clones on Tantiss are prisoners. Some are loyal to the Empire.” He stopped, taking a second to collect himself before he continued. “There is a division of clones trained as specialised operatives and initiated into a secret deep cover program run by Hemlock.” You felt his struggle, saw the pain that flickered in the depth of his clear gaze. “Their identities are erased. They undergo, conditioning. The few that make it through come out…different.”

There was an ache in your chest, the band wrapped around you like the bindings that had strapped you into the machine. This had been done to you but also…you looked up, shivering under the dread of realisation.

“If the program’s so secretive, how do you know about it?” Howzer accused, his arms crossed defensively.

“Because they tried to make me into one of them.” Hunter and Tech shared a passing glance at Crosshair’s candid admission.

“Tried?”

“It didn’t work. Being defective is in my nature.” The urge to reach for Crosshair was overwhelming. He had admitted this, here and now, in an effort to prove he was telling the truth. Laying himself out for all to see. But you didn’t want him to look weak when he was under such scrutiny.

“You’ve encountered one before. The assassin on Coruscant.” You squinted against the pressure in your mind at Hunter’s words. The memory unfurled like a barbed flower, clawing its way free to blossom completely.

It looked like a stasis chamber but all it did was remind you of your confinement. Rex opened the panel on the top and you came face to face with another clone.

There was a void in the box, a silence that nothing could break and it screamed at you.

“He’s an assassin,” Rex clarified to the group. “His identifying numbers been wiped.”

“We’ve known they existed,” you heard Rex say. “But never knew exactly what they were.”

The unnatural silence you felt oozed from behind a closed door, drawing the air out of your lungs in a rush. You stumbled back into Tech who instantly reacted to stop you falling.

“You have one, here!” Rex’s expression contorted, looking almost apologetic in the face of your fear.

“We, uh, captured one. I’ve tried questioning him but he hasn’t been very cooperative.”

“You have one here? Alive?!” Crosshair rushed out in one breath. You turned to zero in on him. Sensing the blooming agitation and fear that blotted the space around him. “Impossible. The Empire would be on top of us already. They have ways of tracking their operatives.”

Howzer smirked. “We scanned him. He’s clear.”

“It’s not the kind of tracker your scans would pick up. Hemlock’s smarter than that,” Crosshair stressed desperately.

“I concur,” Tech backed him up. “I would not underestimate Hemlock.”

Hunter huffed, his brow dragging down. He looked at you, his intent right there for you to sense. Your fingers flexed and you gave him a nod.

“Where’s the operative?” He asked. “Show us.”

Having Tech behind, kept you going forward. You would do this. Even when it felt like you might not be able to summon the strength, you knew there was no choice.

Rex opened the door and instantly the scrawling mass that surrounded the operative, assaulted your senses.

You heard Crosshair say, “We need to leave. Now.” But you were already sinking. The assassin’s eyes devoured you. His presence screamed of chaos and agony, crawling into your presence with sharp teeth, the monster inside raging.

You cried out, unable to tear yourself away from his invisible hold. You had to try, you had to do this.

“Stitch! Let go, you must let go!” Crosshair sounded so far away…

Concentrate. This clone didn’t have the strength you did. He played on your fear, his suffering drawing out your own, like blood from a wound. Your fingers stretched outwards, feeling for the press of his throat until he choked two meters away.

The chaos lessened. Bowing under the pressure you were inflicting and giving you enough room to delve deeply into his psyche.

The strain of it brought you to your knees. Tech had his arms under yours, sinking with you. “He…he has orders to assassinate a senator.” It was difficult, so difficult trying to sort through the erratic thoughts. Many didn’t make sense, fragments of them drifted, splintered images cracked like mirrors making it impossible to make them out.

“Where is Tantiss?” Rex whispered, crouching beside you. “Can you find it?”

“I —.” Your expression contorted from the pain that speared into your mind, a soft gasp of shock spilled until you pushed through it.

“Hunter, if she continues…”

“I know, Tech. I know.”

You blocked them out. The operative struggled, looking as though he was in pain from you rummaging around in his mind. Until he strangled out a laugh.

And you knew why.

The assassin didn’t have the one answer they wanted.

It was a drain, extracting yourself from the sucking blackness. You had never felt anything so blank and so turbulent at the same time. The operative gasped, his eyes widening when you finally pulled yourself free, falling back into Tech’s chest, reaching to touch the blood dripping from your nose.

“If you want answers so badly,” the assassin sneered. His gaze now fixed on Crosshair. “Why aren’t you asking him? Right, brother?” Rage surged through your system, your vision blurred with the force of it and you pitched forward, both hands out stretched.

Good. Good.

The clone choked silently this time, his eyes bulging as your fingers closed into a fist. Pressure pushed on your mind until it felt like your head was going to crack in half.

You are more powerful than I imagined.

The desire to kill this creature was heightened by the darkening of your mind. Even as your arm shook, even as each knock of your pulse could be felt round your entire body, even as it went against who you were.

The darkness was clouding everything, exuding a sense of satisfaction as this clone’s life began to thread through your severing hold.

“Vod’ika.” Crosshair’s use of Mando’a stirred something long dormant as he kneeled beside you. “He is not worth it. He’s a liar.” He didn’t touch you, just watched as you made the operative choke for a few seconds longer until Hunter stepped in.

“Let him go, Stitch. Now.” The command in his voice could not go ignored. So you let him go. Heaving a breath in, watching the clone fall forward in his chair, gasping and coughing.

“He doesn’t know the coordinates,” you rasped, exhausted now the darkness was retreating with an air of disappointment.

“They are coming,” the assassin wheezed. Bloodshot eyes rose to fix on you and Crosshair. “They are coming for all of you.”

Your eyes grew wide. Turning to Rex with your mouth open to tell him something was about to happen when an explosion rocked the ground floor.

“What was that?” Rex shouted.

“They’re here.”

“Get up, vod’ika,” Crosshair urged you. As two more blasts thundered through the base.

“Comms are down. We move out. Now!” Rex bellowed.

“Don’t open it!” You shoved Crosshair away with one hand, reaching in the opposite direction with the other. But you were too slow. The blaster bolt ripped through your hold in the force, killing the assassin immediately. The mental chaos ceased. Leaving behind an emptiness that was almost worse.

“We got a shooter out here!” Wrecker bellowed.

Strong arms grabbed you. Pulling you from the room to hunker down behind some crates. The flash of Wrecker’s blaster tattooed the back of your eyes.

“Tech, we need to get comms online,” Rex shouted.

“Put this on.” Crosshair was forcing your helmet over your head. “Pull a weapon if you can’t use the other.” He’d seen the blood on your face that had now congealed under your nose and over your lips.

“Help Nemec. We’ll cover you!” Tech nodded at Rex, a blaster and his datapad already in his hands. Nemec moved swiftly to the command post, pulling the panel off the access the wires. A high pitched whine screeched in your ears and your stomach dropped into the floor.

You grabbed onto Tech just as he was about to break cover, when the command post exploded on one side, throwing Nemec across the room. The clone was alive and Tech was unharmed.

“Backup plan! Into the bunker. I’ll cover you! Go!” The squad leapt into action. Rex took point, while the rest of you moved. Howzer retrieved Nemec. Your armour knocked against Tech’s and banged into Crosshair’s as you all tried to make your way across.

Red, blistering heat had you throwing up a hand before your visor could adjust to the brightness. You watched another clone charge towards the shooter with the flame thrower, taking a blaster shot in the shoulder at close range. “Fireball!” Your scream filled the second of silence before the detonator exploded, heaving you all backwards with the force of the blast.

Your ears were ringing. There was a disorientating pressure in your face from where your helmet had crushed into you with the blast. Every movement made your entire body scream as you tried to get up.

Rock and dust fell from the building foundations with a hiss. The world rocked alarmingly, circuits sparked and screens shattered but it was the silent void where Fireball had been that made you crawl forward.

Tears slipped free at the agonising loss of life you sensed. “Fireball!” You screamed again, ignoring the chunks of stone that came loose from the ceiling, slamming into the ground to create a webbing of cracks under your feet.

“Move!” Hunter barrelled out of nowhere, almost tackling you back into the room with the dead assassin. The pair of you fell to the floor, covering your heads as more of the ceiling came down, breaking the floor apart and sealing you all in the bunker.

The room filled with dust and smoke. Fire crackled alarming, the stench of burnt circuits made you gag. Age old panic wove around your throat.

This was familiar, too familiar.

You couldn’t see anyone, unable to focus enough to search your feelings for them either. So you cried out instead. “Tech! Tech!”

“I am here.” His helmet materialised through the fog of your tears, your hands reached out to him. You needed to touch him, to feel he was alive and breathing. "I am uninjured,” he told you when he realised what you were doing. “However, if you persist with such a thorough examination, I may become vulnerable to injury,” Tech’s voice was strained and you eased the grip on his arm, a sob shuddering through your body.

“Crosshair!”

“My ears are still ringing,” he moaned from somewhere to the right. “Don’t start screaming my name.”

Everyone else began to appear. Batcher sniffed out the others, Hunter and Nemec helped Crosshair, Omega helped Rex up and Howzer stumbled into the ring of torchlight shaking his head. Wrecker pressed a hand on the rock, testing how well sealed it was. Hunter shone his torch around the room, inspecting the damage and looking for a way out.

“We need to get moving before their reinforcements get here,” Rex said.

“Is there another way off this spire?” Rex gave a brief chuckle at Hunter’s question.

“There’s always another way.” With a swift kick, he moved some crates to reveal a hole in the floor that showed the entrance to a tunnel. “This leads to the lower levels.”

“Are you injured?” You glanced at Tech while Rex and Hunter helped Omega into the tunnel.

“I don’t think so.” You were numb. Unsure if you could cope with anything else in this very moment.

“Would you say if you were?” Crosshair asked.

“Probably not,” You muttered.

“Hmm.” He clearly didn’t like your response but chose not to push it. Wrecker was next to disappear as Tech crouched beside the entrance.

Your breath caught loudly through the vocoder.“Crosshair…”

“Don’t ask me.”

“If I get taken…” you whispered.

“I—we won’t let that happen.” He nudged you forward, putting an end to the conversation.

The tunnels were rough, slightly smaller in some places and you winced at the sound of Wrecker’s armour scraping along the stone. The space eventually opened out to a wide stair case that clearly spiralled around the core of the monastery.

Rex looked down into the hollow centre to work out how far up you all were. “Our leech vessel is docked about ten levels down.”

“Doesn’t have a hyperdrive though,” Howzer announced. “We won’t get far.”

“No, but we can use it to contact Echo.”

“Stay alert,” Hunter needlessly reminded everyone. Your fingers felt rubbery as you gripped the blaster and pulled your vibroblade free, following the others down the many steps. There was a rumble through the thick walls and Tech inspected the ceiling as though he could see through it.

“The reinforcements are here,” he stated.

Another explosion rocked the base, dust scattered down the steps with a raining hiss.

“No going back now,” Rex told you all heavily. “The ship’s docked just down this corridor.”

Your feet stopped moving. Something was coming with pounding footsteps that thundered rhythmically in your mind.

“Stitch? We have to keep moving,” Tech encouraged you quietly.

“Stop,” Crosshair loudly ordered and the group ground to a halt.

“What is it?” Nemec asked. You gestured to Crosshair and he nodded, looking out into the darkness through an opening beside you.

“They’re coming.” He looked up, his visor reflected the bright red blaster bolt that missed him by inches. You wrenched him away from the opening, pushing him against the wall.

“I’ll handle it,” Crosshair announced, giving you a shove with his elbow. “Go.”

You didn’t want to leave him. You nearly resisted Tech and his urgent grasp as he pulled you away from Crosshair. The only reason you went, was because of the determination you felt in Crosshair. This was his battle to face.

Rex led everyone into the tunnels, torch light bobbing with each step, throwing shadows along the walls. The group was breathing heavily, their resolve hardening the closer you all moved to the ship. The ramp opened and Rex dove in to power it up. You hovered by the hatch with Wrecker and Tech, blaster cocked and ready incase Crosshair wasn’t the one coming down the tunnel.

But he was, relief cascading over you as he ran into the ship. “We need to go.”

“We’re waiting on you,” Wrecker told him.

“You didn’t kill him,” you whispered to Crosshair.

“I missed,” he seethed angrily. Disappointed with himself but resigned at the same time.

The vessel was tiny, the space made smaller by the amount of bodies crushed into it. Batcher was hassling Nemec with Omega talking to him. Tech was standing next to Rex at the controls, Howzer and Hunter moved aside to make room for Wrecker. You were crushed in, forced to stand before Crosshair.

“Let me see.”

“No…”

“Crosshair.” Your voice was sharp, ending all protests. Still he sighed, offering his hand to you and looking away. He was trembling, the shivers consumed his hand and you worked on smoothing them out. Using repetitive motions with your thumbs, drawing them heavily along his palm and between his fingers, working your way to his wrist.

“Prepare to launch.” Your feet spread to account for the movement of the ship, lost in calming Crosshair which ultimately calmed you as well.

But then you felt the disturbance too late. The blaster shots exploded the engines, jolting you all in midair. Alarms beeped loudly, power flickered through the ship and you saw the ground growing increasingly closer through the canopy.

“Remora-one, we’ve been compromised. Heading to marker 025 for an extraction,” Rex relayed in his transmission to Echo. “Repeat. Marker 025.”

The hull quaked as metal creaked and groaned under the pressure. Air rushed past in a scream, the cockpit began to fill with smoke.

“Impact is imminent,” Tech commented from somewhere behind you.

“We’re going down! Strap in!” Rex yelled.

“Hold on, vod’ika.” Crosshair tugged you forward, switching your places so you were in the corner and he was standing in front of you. Hunter was strapping Omega into a chair, Wrecker was holding Batcher, Howzer and Nemec braced themselves. Rex fought the ships controls, levelling it out as best he could before him and Tech abandoned them to take refuge further back in the ship. Your hand grabbed Tech’s arm, grateful when Crosshair moved over so they could both stand before you.

There was nothing you could do as the ship hit the ground. Omega cried out when the ship flipped so hard you thought your stomach was in your feet and head at the same time. The guys grunted with the effort of holding their positions, armour rattled in the twisting space as the ship lost momentum and slid across the ground instead. The lurch made everyone lose their footing, ending up in a heap on the ceiling of the cockpit.

“Well, that was awful,” Wrecker groaned loudly in the sudden stillness. Hands helped you stand. Wrecker managed to open the hatch, Batcher burst out giving herself a shake. Nemec crawled free, removing his helmet to empty the contents of his stomach in some tree roots.

Your head was swimming. Still reeling from exhausting yourself earlier, then the explosion and now this. It was a wonder any of you could stand at all.

“Is everyone all right?” Hunter checked on Omega who gave him a quick nod.

“I’ve experienced better landings,” Howzer commented over the sound of Nemec still retching.

“Grab what supplies you can,” Rex ordered, passing out a couple of bags. Omega shouldered one and Crosshair drifted over to her.

“You good?” He asked.

“Uh-huh.” You could tell she was shaken, but it didn’t overpower her.

“Got your crossbow?”

“Yep.”

Crosshair continued to interrogate her, ignoring the others as they watched curiously. “Sure you can carry those supplies?”

“Yes.” She turned to face him.

“Stay close. It’s easy to get lost in this terrain.”

There was a moment that lifted the heaviness of the situation when Omega subtly rolled her eyes. “You’re as bad as Hunter.”

“Oh.” Crosshair loomed over her. “I’m much worse.”

Tech’s datapad screen was reflected in his goggles when you turned to look for him. He registered your movement, glancing up at your approach. “I remain uninjured,” he informed you.

“Do you mind if I don’t take your word for it?” The datapad lowered slightly, his fingers still.

“I assure you, I would never purposely deceive you.” Tech sounded almost pained at the idea, what you could see of his expression was lined with concern.

“I’m just worried,” you admitted softly.

“Understandable. This entire situation has been less than ideal.”

“Echo should meet us at the extraction point. We have to continue on foot,” Rex informed the group once Nemec had his helmet back on.

“How far?” Hunter was frowning, his eyes tracking over the terrain as well as his exhausted and battered squad. Once he was happy with everyone he put his helmet back on.

“Five klicks north,” Nemec stated. You all looked up at the sound of the Imperial ships approaching your current position.

“We’ve got attack shuttles inbound,” Hunter observed.

“This way. Let’s move.”

It was Tantiss all over again. The jungle was thick, tree roots covered the ground making it uneven. The pace was as fast as you could all make it, stumbling through the dark, not wanting to use the torches and give away your position.

Oya’karir. The hunt had started, you can sense it with each pound of your pulse. Someone had their sights set on you and Omega, and they were right behind you.

The path evened out so Rex slowed the group to a walk as cover became more scarce. A roar created a disturbance deeper in the jungle, shocking some animals to take flight in the distance.

“What the heck was that?” Wrecker demanded gruffly.

“That would be a jungle rancor.” Tech answered without hesitation.

“A what?” You noticed Crosshair take a step closer to Omega, his rifle poised and ready to shoot.

“The creature is approximately six klicks to the west,” Tech gestured vaguely in that direction. “It should not intersect with our route.”

“Are you sure?” Hunter turned round to address his brother.

Tech glanced at him with an exasperated sigh. “I said ‘should’, not ‘would’. Despite my extensive knowledge of Teth’s fauna, even I cannot predict with absolute certainty the movements of a rancor.”

“Comforting,” Howzer muttered.

“What do they look like?”

Crosshair made a noise through his vocoder, picking up his pace to escape the inevitable information splurge that was about to occur from your question.

Tech almost missed a step at your request, stumbling slightly and then clearing his throat. “I can explain later if…?”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to know. I think we could all do with a minor distraction,” you swept your arm out to encompass the group.

“I fought a baby rancor once,” Wrecker told Howzer, clapping the clone on the back.

“It was an adolescent,” Tech corrected him with a pointed finger

“I would have paid good credits to witness that fight,” Crosshair retorted.

“I recorded it,” Tech hastily told him.

Crosshair looked back, shaking his head a little. “Of course you did.”

“I miss Muchi,” Omega sighed from beside the sniper.

“Come on,” Hunter encouraged Tech. “What do they look like?”

"If you insist. Jungle rancors are actually quite fascinating and exhibit a very different appearance compared to their Dathomirian counterparts. There are several distinctions between the species. Most notably, their skin color is much more vibrant than that of the common rancor. Additionally, they possess sharp spines that run along much of their body, including their tongue. Jungle rancors have webbing between their fingers and toes, which common rancors lack, and their jaws differ significantly in shape and size, with the jungle rancor having the larger of the two.”

You noticed Howzer and Nemec exchange a look through their helmets while Rex shook his with a half chuckle. “Nothing ever changes,” he murmured. “The first time I met Tech, he gave me a lecture on male yalbecs.”

“Aw yeah. Now that was a good time,” Wrecker said dreamily.

“Not something I personally, would like to repeat,” Crosshair pointed out.

“Why not?” Omega inquired and Hunter groaned.

“Ah, let’s focus on that when we get back home,” he suggested.

“I have the video available on the Marauder if you would like to view it,” Tech told the kid and she grinned up at Crosshair with a mischievous glint in her eye.

“Oh, definitely,” she told Tech over her shoulder.

The group fell into a comfortable silence, taking constant stock of their surroundings and now, looking out for jungle rancors.

Omega and Batcher drifted to the front with Hunter and Rex, Wrecker brought up the rear. Tech stayed beside you, his visor occasionally coming down to observe the flora in passing. Howzer and Nemec were ahead, gaining on Crosshair, you noticed with interest.

The sniper sighed when they drew level, casting quick glances in his direction. “What?”

“I’ve seen how you are with the kid and Stitch,” Howzer said quietly. Hearing your name, you zeroed in on the conversation.

“Hmm. Your point?”

“Well…” Howzer shrugged under his armour. “You’re different than you were on Ryloth. So…what changed?” You pulled Tech to a halt when Crosshair stopped to face the two regs.

“Loyalty meant something to me. But with the Empire, it didn’t go both ways.” Tech kept his gaze trained on Cross, listening closely. “I realised how disposable I was.”

“You’re not the only one,” Howzer replied kindly. You let out a breath when they all carried on walking, you and Tech following.

“I realise, we have not taken the time to talk to Crosshair about what transpired on Tantiss,” Tech murmured to you. “We do not know the full extent of what happened to him.”

“He wasn’t ready to open up then,” you reassured him. “Cross is talking now because he feels he has to prove himself. If we return to Pabu, he needs a break from it all.”

“When.”

“Huh?”

Tech gave you an earnest glance. “You said ‘if we return.’ I corrected it to ‘when we return.’”

“Were you always this much of an optimist?”

Tech took a while to respond and you wondered if you had upset him somehow. You weren’t prepared for his answer.

"I am convinced the worst ordeal is behind me. Even if the remainder of my life unfolds as a worst-case scenario, I find solace in knowing you are safe." His words made your heart ache. It was excruciating, knowing that you being taken, was the worst thing that had ever happened to him. "Therefore, I surmise I now tend to perceive the positive aspects in every situation."

“Do you have the memory of when I was taken?” Tech’s shoulders dropped a little at the request.

“I do not have the recording of what transpired within the medbay,” he hesitated long enough for you to notice. “I do, however, have the message you recorded onto Beetoo before she was destroyed.”

The medbay, the droid…you’d seen them in the videos of your memories. Unease unfurled all around you, stealing what you were going to say as the air shimmered and vibrated.

“Can you feel that?”

“No. But I am reading an Imperial ship less than a klick south.” The pair of you jogged to catch up with the others as the ship sailed overhead, drowning out Batcher’s bark. Bright lights flooded the jungle, forcing you all to find cover behind a rock and some trees. Soldiers descended from the open base of the ship, just as they had on Tantiss.

“We have to knock through their line to reach the extraction point,” Rex shouted over the sound of the engines.

“We’ve got these.” Omega produced some smoke grenades from her pack and handed them to Wrecker. He armed them and tossed them high into the air. To your surprise, the troopers fired upon your squad with stun blasts. A tremor of fear snaked down your spine. Of course they used stuns, they wanted to drag you back to Tantiss. To Hemlock. Alive.

Crosshair fired some shots and then dropped into the smoke bank next to Omega. “Stick by my side, and stay down,” he ordered.

Tech was beside you, his footsteps matched yours in the retreat, backing away from the advancing troopers. Wrecker and Batcher circled round the back of them, jumping into the fray bashing heads together and pouncing on confused soldiers.

Nemec and Howzer were like ghosts in the smoke. Dragging unsuspecting troopers back into the thick of the smoke. Tech and you were back to back, trying to make sense of the noises and shadows.

You focused, feeling a presence approaching through the dark. The blue glow of a commando visor materialised, lifting his blaster to shoot you.

You wouldn’t go back.

You refused to let Hemlock lay his hands on you ever again.

With a strangled cry you leapt forward, dodging the blast with ease and launching yourself at the commando. He went down under the weight of your body slam, his blaster knocking loose from his grip.

“Stitch!” There were bolts lighting up the smoke in flashes, live fire and stuns alike. Bodies dropped, armour crashed, Batcher’s snarls rolled through the fog like thunder.

Angling your knuckle plate, you slammed a fist into the commando’s helmet, hearing the satisfying grunt of pain. You straddled his chest, pinning one of his arms down with a knee. Your other foot planted on the ground. Holding the top of his chestplate, you raised him up to hit him in the temple again. Not caring on the jarring impact it caused your arm, to slam into his katarn with such force.

The commando’s arm was searching for his blaster, fingers touching the edge of it as he reeled from your blows. Digging your fingers under the lip of the helmet, you wrenched it off. The clone was dazed, but he instantly focused on you with pure anger and disgust. Blood oozed from his nose, smearing across his cheeks and chin.

“You’re my message to Hemlock,” you told him.

He grinned to reveal blood straining his teeth. The clone’s gaze looked at something over your shoulder. “Tell him yourself.”

A shot rang out.

Loud and close.

You could feel the heat of it, smell the scorch of flesh that permeated your helmet.

Then the clone’s eyes rolled into the back of his head and he sagged heavily in your grip. You wanted to scream at the intense numbness of death rolling over you, but you were frozen, barely able to breathe.

“Just kill them. It’s much easier.” Crosshair’s voice snaked towards you, his tall form becoming more defined. The noise of fighting reached you, breaking the spell of quiet that had unknowingly descended. He walked past you, lifting his rifle to shoot at the ship.

Standing up, you watched his shots find their mark, killing the pilot and then shooting out the engines at the back. He lowered the rifle to watch the ship almost float to ground, ending in an orange fireball that swept through the jungle on a silent wind, only to be followed by the deep boom of destruction.

“Aw, yeah!” You heard Wrecker shout from somewhere.

“Let’s move!” Rex ordered.

You jumped when a hand grabbed your elbow, tight and firm you thought it was Hunter or Crosshair.

It was neither.

Tech’s eyes were wide, tension rolled off him as he marched you along.

“I can walk,” you protested weakly.

“I cannot afford to lose you again,” Tech snapped. He sighed, easing his hold on your arm when he realised he was over reacting slightly, but he didn’t let go completely. “Or, at least warn me next time you decide to engage in hand to hand combat.” You felt ashamed. He had only just admitted, losing you was the worst event in his life and you decided to be reckless in the very next battle.

A battle to possess you or Omega. Or both.

You wanted to apologise, except you weren’t really sorry. The need for Hemlock to know he’d never own you again was all consuming. If only Crosshair hadn’t killed the trooper, you would have carved out your message onto his blood spattered armour.

“How much further to the landing zone?” Hunter asked Rex.

“Just ahead. Almost there.”

You went to look behind you when Tech’s grip tightened on reflex. “No, there’s something there!” Crosshair heard your cry and stopped to look.

“What is it?” Howzer demanded, reacting to Cross aiming his rifle behind them.

The blue bolt left his rifle the same time as a red bolt shot out of the dark and straight into Nemec.

“No!” You screamed, wrenching free of Tech.

“Nemec!” Howzer moved towards his fallen brother but Crosshair shouldered him out of the way to cover.

“Get down!” The sniper demanded roughly.

Tech wrapped his arms around your waist, hauling you out of sight before the shooter could target you. “No! Nemec!” You sobbed softly, leaning back into Tech, not able to take your eyes off the body sprawled on the floor. Hairs rose all over your body at the silence of death stalking among you. Rex, Hunter and Wrecker added their fire to Crosshair’s as he made his way down the slope a little.

“Omega, smoke grenade.”

“We’re out,” she told Hunter.

“I’ll draw his fire. Get to the rendezvous.” Your face contorted at Crosshair’s voice over the internal com.

“I don’t like that idea,” Omega’s voice wavered lightly.

“Too bad.”

“No! Crosshair!” Your voice cracked over his name. You couldn’t lose anyone else today.

“Tech. Get her out of here.”

“I’m not leaving! I’m not leaving him!”

“Don’t make me stun you,” threatened Hunter as he helped Tech get you up.

“Go! Now!” Rex shouted. They forced you in the opposite direction to Crosshair. Even as you cried and begged, reaching blindly with your hands and senses until your vision was a shattered image you couldn’t make sense of.

Echoes of the rifles, ricocheting off the surrounding rocks made you flinch. You couldn’t pinpoint where it was coming from, or which rifle was shooting.

Fear had reared its ugly head. Burying into your chest, lacerating your insides. Each rip and tear grew wider, bleeding the blackness you had so desperately tried to hold back.

When the flash of blaster bolts hit a rock above your head, you acted. With a twist of your body, you blasted Tech and Hunter away, slamming them backwards to the ground.

“Stitch! No!” Wrecker came with the intent of grabbing you, but he was too slow when you ducked under his outstretched arms. There was a river below, the rush it over the waterfall drowned out the beat of running footsteps coming from behind.

You didn’t care. Your focus was on the two figures as they teetered over the edge. With a shout, you watched them fall. The world pulled inwards as you demanded so much of the force around you, it flexed and bent but still you couldn’t get it to reach and save Crosshair.

He disappeared beneath the dark churning water.

“He’s down there!” Howzer shouted. You were already in pursuit, not daring to take your eyes off Crosshair as he fought to keep his head above water. There was another waterfall, steeper than the last. The drop was sheer, but you didn’t care.

“Don’t do it!” Wrecker snatched you successfully this time, just before you stepped off the edge.

“It’s too steep,” Hunter told you, peering over the edge.

“Let me go! I can make it, I have to make it.”

“Not with a broken leg you won’t.” Sagging in Wrecker’s arms you glared at Hunter through the visor. “We’ll find another way down,” he said, softer this time. “I won’t leave without him either.”

“Ok. Ok!” Hunter stepped away and nodded at Wrecker who instantly released you.

“There’s a path here,” Howzer noticed, gesturing with his blaster. They let you charge ahead, Batcher beside you as she too, looked for Crosshair. Your hands were shaking, a chill began to seep from the top of your head, easing down your spine like a slow steady drip. No words could explain it, you just knew time was running out.

The path levelled, bringing you to the river bank. A shadow stood in the water, leaning over with their hands holding something under the water.

Time stopped.

Blistering rage flooded down your arms in a wave of cascading fire. Not even the cold river water could break you from the laser like focus you had. Instinct drove you. Crosshair was in the water, the rage had given you clarity enough to untangle everything your senses picked up.

Crosshair’s life was flickering, desperate to hold on. It had felt just the same as Tech’s life tried to pour through your fingers. You didn’t let it happen then, you certainly weren’t going to let it happen now.

Your awareness struck, wrapping around the operative, dragging him up a fee feet into the air where he struggled, digging at his throat with desperate fingers. You felt the same empty chaos as the other assassin, his presence literally vibrated with it.

Do it. A voice whispered in your mind, the intent nudging your thoughts along. Kill him.

No…

You didn’t want that emptiness on your hands. Each void that came after death was like an inky stain you couldn’t scrub off.

Do it. Give yourself to the dark.

You couldn’t deny, it felt good. Incredibly good to have someone at the whim of your mercy.

I can’t.

The whip of rage wasn’t your own and you tossed the operative over the edge of the waterfall to try and free yourself. The darkness that had taken up residence in your mind melted away as the enemy disappeared from sight.

Running forward, you climbed the wet rock Crosshair was barely holding onto, his fingers slipping with the strong current. “Hold on Cross!” Throwing yourself down, you grabbed his wrist with both hands, barely aware of Howzer kneeling next to you, helping to drag Crosshair free of the water.

The sniper coughed. His lungs trying to expel every drop of water that had been breathed in. You rubbed the back of his neck, supporting him through the body wracking tremors as the others made their way across the river. Tech carried his helmet.

“Can you walk?” Rex asked gently.

“I’ll be fine.” Crosshair’s voice was rough as he moved to stand, taking his helmet from Tech. “Thanks,” he directed at you, giving Howzer a nod.

“Extraction marker is just over here,” Rex pointed to an outcropping the other side of the path.

Omega waited on the bank with Batcher, rushing to Crosshair’s side. “Are you ok?”

“I’ll be fine,” he said again.

He wasn’t. The confrontation with the operative had shaken Crosshair far harder than he’d anticipated. But this wasn’t the time for you to try and figure out why.

A ship was approaching.

“That’s not Echo,” Wrecker announced.

Sure enough an Imperial ship came down to land, kicking up dirt, the air whipping it to pebble against your armour. The group closed around Omega, pulling blasters and blades, ready to fight until Echo arrived.

Clones stepped free of the ship, weapons pointed at the squad as they fanned out over the rocky outcropping. “Drop your blasters! Now!” The clone at the front had decorated armour, an image of days long gone.

Rex stepped forward, lowering his blasters slightly. “Wolffe?”

“Rex?”

There was nothing you could do as Rex holstered his weapons, the rest of the squad relaxing. Even Tech rested a hand over your blaster so it pointed to the ground.

The Captain removed his helmet, revealing himself to the Commander opposite.

“I—I thought you were dead,” Wolffe admitted. He followed Rex’s lead, holstering his own blasters and removing his helmet. “Reports said you were killed in action. That you went down aboard an attack cruiser.”

“Oh, I did,” Rex told him. “I lost a lot of good men that day. And today,” he added heavily.

“What are you doing here, Rex? Don’t tell me you’re fighting against us.” The Batch tensed at Wolffe’s angry tone.

“No. Not against you. Against the Empire. They’re imprisoning and experimenting on our brothers, killed others.”

“The Empire wouldn’t do that to us,” Wolffe countered.

“They have seen it.” Rex shifted, giving Wolffe an unhindered view of you and Omega. You pulled the helmet off, aware of how awful you looked with a face no doubt bruised and still covered in dried blood.

“It’s true,” Omega faultlessly backed up Rex. “That’s what’s happening on Tantiss.”

“We have to stop them. You can help us.” Rex approached Wolffe slowly. “You can stand with us.”

“I am a soldier of the Empire. I have my orders,” Wolffe said in a hard tone, dismissing everything he’d heard. “Hand the girl and the woman over and I’ll make sure you’re given a fair trial.” Tech side stepped in front of you with his blasters raised as Wrecker and Hunter moved to stand before Omega. Batcher gave a vicious snarl that left everyone in no doubt of her position.

Rex raised a hand, staying the Batch. “Think about what you are doing, Wolffe. I know you have been trained not to question orders. But open your eyes. You’re hunting a child. And, I bet they didn’t even tell you the reason for hunting down a medic.” He sighed at the hardening look on his brother’s face. “I know that’s not who you are. As your brother, I’m asking you to do the right thing.”

A light on Rex’s vambrace started to intermittently glow, accompanied by a beep as Echo’s ship approached from behind.

“Sir, there’s an unmarked vessel inbound,” a commando reported to Wolffe. “Commander?”

Echo landed in a cloud of dust and air, opening the ramp ready for you all to board. Rex didn’t move, staring at the opposing clone until he finally made a decision.

“Stand down,” Wolffe ordered.

Tech holstered his weapons and turned, nodding in the direction of the ship as a clear instruction for you to board. So you did. Giving Wolffe one last look before turning your back on them all and heading into the safety of the Remora.

Omega came, Batcher had her tongue lolling out, clearly happy to be back in the ship. Crosshair entered the hold and immediately slumped onto the floor, removing his helmet and letting it roll away from him. Howzer, Hunter and Wrecker came next, greeting the clone that stood by the entrance. Rex was last, giving Wolffe a lingering look of regret before the ramp sealed and enclosed you all inside.

“Let’s get out of range,” Rex told Gregor.

This wasn’t like the other times. Standing in the middle of the ship all you could feel was despair and loss. All those lives, snuffed out because Hemlock was that desperate to get his hands on you and Omega.

You should have walked away on Lau and never looked back.

“You have extensive bruising across your face,” Tech murmured. “Echo has given me the medkit to administer treatment.” You didn’t even notice he’d left your side. You watched the others all file into the cockpit after Rex, even Omega and Batcher until you were left alone with Tech.

“Why do you bother with me? I’m a hindrance.” Tech frowned at your mumbled question, pushing his goggles up the bridge of his nose.

“Why…am I treating you?”

“You’re angry with me.” He was. It still persisted within Tech. Frustration at your disregard for your own life, mostly. For not seeing how important you were to him, regardless of what you had suffered.

“My anger is…multifaceted,” Tech stated with a quick huff. "I do not intend to direct my frustration towards you. If it has appeared that way, please accept my sincere apologies." His eyes tracked over your dirty face, softening slightly. "I cannot deny that the past few days have been incredibly challenging for all of us. While I cannot fully comprehend what you must be feeling, I am striving to provide everything you might need."

You deflated. Folding in on yourself as the crushing weight of anguish collapsed the last shreds of restraint you had left.

It hurt to cry. The ache stretched across your cheek bones and up the bridge of your nose. The feelings became too much, the heaviness you always carried on your chest became a hindrance. Each breath was a monumental effort. Tech tried to talk to you, to keep you with him.

It still felt as though you were suffocating alone.

Each sob felt like it was physically torn from your soul. You were made of agonising pain, held together by threads that constantly slipped from your grasp. You had been unravelling for a while, partially unaware of how deep your scars really went.

The only constant you had, was your anger. It came when you needed it the most, honing your mind and body to peak efficiency. Whispering encouragement to go that step further into the unknown.

When you used your anger, it felt right, it felt good.

Darkness came for you, listening to your whimpered pleas for relief, bringing with it words from the one that held you.

I have got you.

#sanctuary #sanctuary part 2 #tech x you #tech x reader #tech x f!reader #the bad batch #the bad batch fanfiction #star wars #star wars fanfiction

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lifewithaview · 1 year ago

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Sarah Stunt in Falling Skies (2011) Sanctuary: Part 2

S1E7

Pope succeeds to flee from the camp and Mike finds backpacks and clothing hidden in the barn. Terry invites him to join his team in the camp, but he warns Hal to wake the children and run back to the 2nd Mass. They are hunted down by Terry and his men, but Mike stays behind protecting their escape. Hal and the children stop to rest with the children in a house and Ben offers to run to the 2nd Mass to inform their situation. Terry and his men find the place where Hal is hidden with the children, but they are surprised by Tom and Pope. Tom surrenders to them to protect Hal and the children and they head back to the camp, but something happens.

*When the guards from the lodge are walking the 2nd Massachusetts kids' security team away, they pass a lone tree and approach a pickup truck. The camera cuts to Ben, who is watching from the soccer field. Several seconds later, the camera returns to the men walking away, and they are again passing the same tree.

#Falling Skies #2011 #Sanctuary: Part 2 #tv series #scifi #action #adventure #alien invasion #aliens #S1E7 #Sarah Stunt #relationships #teams #just watched

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amandamariee · 28 days ago

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♡ azriel (my shadowsinger husband)

learning to fly, starting to crawl by @bluetimeombre

↳ and i wouldn't marry me, either by @/bluetimeombre

the truth serum incident by @mahalachives

in your presence: azriels quiet sanctuary by @bookwormjust

ice and shadows by @nattblacklupin

cassian: the annoying brother by @daycourtofficial

wanna be yours by @heirofshadowsingers

life's bright side by @inkedinshadows

↳ brooding, cuddly shadowsinger by @/inkedinshadows

something precious by @velarisdusk

the alchemy by @flickering-chandelier

attention please by @finelinevogue

between us alone by @olive-main

tell me about it... by @itsswritten

colds and retold confessions by @pellucid-constellations

↳ lessons in care by @/pellucid-constellations

↳ to feel at home by @/pellucid-constellations

↳ knowing you by @/pellucid-constellations

all's well that ends well by @azsazz

to keep you from breaking by @flowersforjude

↳ when the water recedes by @/flowersforjude

i love you (and thats all i really know) by @enchanted-by-fae

can you see right through me? by @steveslevis

blush by @kymawrites

↳ you make it better part 1 by @/kymawrites

↳ you make it better part 2 by @/kymawrites

#acotar #azriel #azriel x reader #˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗ amandas fic recs #azriel shadowsinger #azriel acotar

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norristrii · 10 days ago

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PAWS ON THE BEACH.

It started as usual beach walk with your dog Coco, but when she starts playing with other dog on the beach, his owner really catches your eye.

pairing. Charles Leclerc x fem! reader

warnings. none

babs’ notes. cooking so close to chapter 2 rn, probably posting tomorrow or on this weekend

COCO WAS A FORCE OF NATURE. As a golden retriever puppy, she was equal parts adorable and chaos incarnate—a fluffy whirlwind of energy that left a trail of shredded napkins, chewed shoes, and overturned cushions in her wake. You loved her fiercely, though. She was a menace, sure, but she was your menace. It didn’t take long for you to realize she was you in dog form—spirited, mischievous, and entirely unapologetic.

Still, amidst all the chaos, Coco had a way of grounding you, reminding you to find joy in the small things. Your favorite moments were the ones like now—walks with her on the beach, bathed in the warm glow of the setting sun. The sky stretched wide above you, painted in hues of amber, pink, and deep orange, as if the universe itself were creating a masterpiece just for this moment.

You eased yourself onto the cool, grainy sand, the gentle pressure grounding you as you stretched your legs out in front of you. The horizon was painted in soft hues, a blend of muted pinks, oranges, and the faintest trace of purple—colors fading into the endless blue of the ocean. The waves rolled forward and retreated with a rhythmic crash, their sound soothing and steady, like the heartbeat of the shore. There was peace here, a quiet stillness that wrapped around you, but never felt lonely.

Coco tugged on her leash, pulling it to its limit as she darted back and forth, a blur of energy against the serene backdrop. She was relentless, her paws digging furiously into the sand as if determined to uncover some hidden treasure buried just beneath the surface. You chuckled softly as her nose pressed deep into the earth, grains of sand flying everywhere, coating her golden fur in speckles of mischief.

The seagulls perched nearby didn’t stand a chance against Coco’s enthusiastic antics. She chased them, barking excitedly as they took to the air, squawking in alarm and flapping their wings frantically to escape. They circled overhead, momentarily regrouping before descending further down the beach, only to be pursued again moments later. Her joy was boundless, contagious even, and you couldn’t help but smile as you watched her.

The beach itself was quiet, untouched by the crowds that sometimes came and went during the day. Now it felt like it belonged solely to you and Coco—a sanctuary where the only sounds were her paws scratching against the sand, the distant cries of gulls, and the steady, calming ebb and flow of the tide. The air smelled faintly of salt and seaweed, crisp and clean, carrying with it the essence of freedom.

You leaned back, resting your palms against the cool sand, and tilted your face toward the horizon. Coco ran in wide circles, her leash stretching taut as she explored every inch of the beach, her excitement boundless. She was chaos and joy intertwined, a little menace with a heart full of adventure. She paused occasionally, glancing back at you as if to check that you were still watching, still sharing the moment with her. And of course you were.

As you sat quietly on the sand, watching the horizon and listening to the soothing crash of waves against the shore, a faint sound reached your ears—soft, high-pitched barks carried by the gentle breeze. It was distant at first, almost like an echo, and you tilted your head slightly, curious to find its source.

Turning your gaze down the beach, you spotted a little shape bounding toward you. It didn’t take long to recognize the unmistakable figure of a dachshund—a miniature version, with tiny legs pumping furiously and floppy ears bouncing with every step. Its short, sleek coat shimmered in the fading light, as if the sunset had cast a golden glow upon it.

The little dog seemed determined, its tiny bark growing louder as it approached, full of energy and confidence despite its diminutive size. Coco, who had been enthusiastically terrorizing seagulls just moments ago, froze mid-pounce and turned her head toward the newcomer. Her tail wagged in curiosity as she trotted closer to investigate, leash stretched taut between her bounding enthusiasm and your watchful presence.

You couldn’t help but smile as the dachshund came closer, its expressive eyes shining with a playful glint. It was a bundle of determination, undeterred by its small frame, and it raced across the sand like it owned the entire beach. Its barks shifted to soft, excited whines as it finally reached you, stopping abruptly and wagging its tail so fast it was almost a blur.

Coco, now nose-to-nose with the newcomer, barked once, loud and clear, as if announcing her presence. The dachshund responded with an eager yip, and the two dogs began their own silent conversation—sniffing, circling, and playfully nudging one another in an instant friendship that only dogs seem to know how to form.

“Leo, no! Leo!” The shout echoed across the beach, cutting through the sound of waves crashing gently on the shore. You turned your head just in time to see a man jogging toward you, his steps hurried and slightly uneven as he tried to catch up with the little dachshund. So, you thought, Leo must be his name, and judging by the urgency in his tone, this wasn’t the first time the dog had run off to cause mischief.

As the man got closer, you couldn’t help but notice him. He was actually pretty good looking—more than pretty, if you were honest. His brown hair was tousled from the run, sticking up in a way that gave him an effortlessly charming, disheveled look. There was a flush on his cheeks from exertion, the kind that made him look alive, approachable, almost familiar. He reached the two dogs—Coco and Leo—just as they began to chase each other in a small circle, their tails wagging furiously in a kind of joyous chaos.

“Stop annoying this pretty lady and her dog,” the man said with a lopsided grin, his eyes flicking between his mischievous dachshund and you. His voice was warm and slightly breathless from the run, and you felt a flutter in your chest at his words. When his gaze finally landed on you, you noticed his eyes—a mesmerizing mix of colors, swirling together. Blue, green, maybe even a hint of brown; you couldn’t decide which shade you liked the most.

You smiled softly, brushing away your surprise and meeting his gaze. “That’s okay,” you assured him, your voice calm and easy despite the little whirlwind happening at your feet. “They’re just playing.” Coco barked happily in agreement, as if to confirm your statement, while Leo wagged his tail furiously, looking innocent despite the chaos he had just caused.

“I swear, he’s nothing but a troublemaker,” the man said, his voice tinged with playful exasperation as he rested his hands on his knees. He pointed at Leo, who at that very moment was trying to outmaneuver Coco in their chaotic game of chase.

You chuckled softly, a warm laugh escaping your lips. “I know this feeling all too well,” you replied, glancing down at Coco, who was now furiously wagging her tail while sniffing at something in the sand. “Coco is exactly the same.”

The man straightened up, brushing a hand through his messy, windswept hair. His face lit up with interest as he repeated the name. “Coco?” he said, tilting his head slightly. “My friend had a dog named Coco,” he added with a hint of a smile.

You couldn’t help but smile back at the coincidence, the corners of your lips curling upward as your gaze met his again. There was something easy, almost serendipitous, about the moment—a shared connection, however small, born out of nothing more than two mischievous dogs on a beach.

“What’s your name, if I may ask?” he said, his voice warm and casual, yet carrying a hint of curiosity that made your heart skip a beat. There was something about the way he asked, the way his eyes—those mesmerizing, multicolored eyes—locked on yours that set your pulse racing just a little faster.

“I’m Y/n,” you replied, a soft smile curving your lips as you tried to sound composed, even though you could feel the faint flutter of nerves in your chest. “And yours?”

He mirrored your smile, a lopsided grin that seemed to light up his face even in the fading glow of the sunset. “I’m Charles,” he said simply, his tone unassuming yet somehow disarming, as if his name alone carried a charm all its own.

For a moment, the world seemed to fade around you—Coco and Leo still chasing each other in the sand, the gentle crash of the waves, the golden hues of the beach—all of it softened as you focused on him. There was an ease to his presence, a quiet confidence that made the moment feel natural, as though meeting him was exactly what was supposed to happen.

“Do you come here often, Y/n?” Charles asked, his voice easy and conversational, yet there was an unmistakable undertone to his words—an interest that went beyond casual small talk. His lips curved into a subtle smile, one that reached his multicolored eyes, warm and inviting. He was already looking toward the horizon, but it wasn’t the sunset he was thinking about. It was the possibility of seeing you here again.

You felt your heart skip slightly at his question, a combination of nerves and intrigue swirling in your chest. “I do,” you replied, your voice steady but with a softness to it that you couldn’t quite hide. “It’s my favorite place—especially at this time of day.”

His smile deepened, as if your answer had confirmed something he’d been hoping to hear. “It’s a good spot,” he said, glancing down at Coco and Leo, who were now tumbling over each other in a playful tug-of-war with a piece of seaweed. “I think Leo might agree too.”

You chuckled, looking at the two dogs, their antics painting the moment with a sense of ease. “Looks like Coco does too,” you said, nodding toward your golden retriever, whose tail wagged furiously as she tugged on the seaweed.

Charles shifted his gaze back to you, his expression thoughtful, as though he were savoring the interaction. “Well,” he said, his tone playful but with a quiet sincerity beneath it, “I might have to bring Leo here more often then—just in case I run into you again.”

#formula 1 #charles leclerc x female reader #charles leclerc x you #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc #cl16 x y/n #cl16 x you #cl16 x reader #cl16 imagine #cl16 fic #ferarri #forza ferrari #f1 x reader #f1 imagine #f1 fic

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wetterroomba · 2 years ago

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No one warned me about the real nightmare of adulthood- your best friend and lifeline seriously talking about moving to the other side of the country

#to be fair its for asylum bc Washington is a trans sanctuary state and im thinking about talking it over with my mother #i cant leave them behind because 1 they cant afford to live without my income and assistance #and 2 theres no guarantee our insurance would approve more aide hours for either of them if i were to move out #but other side of the country means no family around to help them when i can't #it means having to break everyones routines #takes me back to my childhood anxiety that there is no universal 'home'#theres a very real part of me that wants to leave in secret and not tell them where im going so i can just live for a while #but at the same time it's such a selfish thought they dont deserve that nobody asked to be put in this situation tied to my mother #until she dies and then ill be thrown into independence head first as the legal adult guardian of my brother #what the fuck am i supposed to do

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ittybittyfanblog · 3 months ago

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Error 404: (Self-Aware!AU, Sylus Edition) – Pt. 8

Summary: A LADS self-aware!AU featuring Sylus and a player. That’s it, that’s the plot. Tags: player!reader x sylus, fem!reader x sylus, reader x lads, self-aware!au, strong language, suggestive themes, again with the slight smut phew, angst on top of more angst, no comfort... yet (or ever? hmm much to ponder about) A/N: Imagine if I leave it here lmao Also, I've been listening to White Ferrari on repeat while editing this chapter. I'm not saying that you should too while you're reading, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Oh, and Angel by Massive Attack. Trust me, it's gonna come up. (˵ ¬ᴗ¬˵)

Pt. 1 - Pt. 2 - Pt. 3 - Pt. 4 - Pt. 5 - Pt. 6 - Pt. 7 - Pt. 8 - Pt. 9 - Pt. 10 - Epilogue

The cold tiles of the bathroom floor wreak a shiver through your body.

You’re curled up in front of the toilet, barely upright after another round of puking what little bile is left in your stomach. Cold beads of sweat dot your forehead and every breath feels thin, ragged, like you’re trying to gulp air through a pinhole. The chill seeps under your skin, leaving you shuddering involuntarily between dry heaves.

You make the rookie mistake of tilting your head ever-so-slightly to rest against the cool porcelain, and the miniscule action threatens to send the room careening into another violent spin. A wave of nausea hits you and you desperately gnaw on your bottom lip to prevent yourself from gagging.

You feel like absolute shit.

There’s something lodged inside, sinking deep into the pit of your stomach. A poison, a corruption—heavier than the excess of alcohol still clawing its way through your system. It isn’t the simple penance for overindulging, no; it’s darker, rawer, less perfunctory than the remnants of last night’s events.

It churns inside you, leaving an acrid, metallic taste on your tongue and a dull ache behind your eyes.

The buzzing of your phone reverberates beside you, a relentless vibration against your thigh. It hasn’t stopped since the moment you clawed your way out of bed and staggered toward your porcelain waste bucket. You weren’t supposed to bring it along with you—it should’ve been left abandoned outside of this room, far from this bleak sanctuary. This… this disgusting aftermath of your revelry.

Unfortunately, it’s practically an extension of you now. A limb, almost. Or worse, a crutch—something you lean on so habitually, that the mere thought of its absence feels like an amputation.

“S-sorry,” you release a shaky breath, tears pricking your vision, unbidden. Unwelcome. “Sorry.”

Another vibration. You can picture it clearly in your head: the worry marring his face, the exasperation in his eyes.

You retch.

––––

The red takeout box from Panda Express sits in front of you, its contents lukewarm and forgotten for the better part of the hour. You barely remember ordering it—actually, now that you think about it… Did you even order it yourself? Your memory’s a little hazy, just like everything else today. And last night.

Sylus’ voice crackles through your phone, propped precariously against a half-empty mug of tea on the low table.

His presence, as always, manages to fill the room, though this time there’s a palpable tension in the air since you opened the game. His initial greeting had all the warmth of a parent catching their kid sneaking in past curfew. The moment his image blinked into view, you could see the battle in his eyes.

On one end, he simmered with ire, almost ready to boil over. On the other, he looked like he’d gladly claw his way out the screen just to tuck you into bed and personally force-feed you the food you’ve been ignoring for the past forty minutes.

“Eat it,” he grouses, a hint of steel sharpening his deceptively calm tone. The worry beneath it feels like it could strangle you.

(And if it could, it probably would—if he has any say in it.)

You whine, burrowing deeper under the blanket, folding yourself into a sad, uncooperative ball on the couch. “I will. Eventually.”

“Eventually?” he echoes, the incredulity clear in his voice. “Do you plan on eating it soon as it becomes inedible, or is this a test of endurance?”

With a sigh that feels like it’s pulled from the depths of your soul, you poke halfheartedly at the lid. The smell of grease and fried food wafts out, making your stomach churn. Whether it’s from nausea or hunger pangs, you can’t tell.

“It smells like regret,” you mutter, swallowing the lump rising from your esophagus.

Sylus snorts, and you can tell it slipped out before he could stop it. “Considering the state you’re in? Can’t say I’m surprised. But you still need to eat, kitten. You can’t run on stubbornness alone.”

“I’m doing fine so far,” you argue weakly, knowing you’re not convincing anyone. Your body feels like it’s been put through the wringer—limbs heavy, muscles crying in protest, a pounding headache that refuses to let up.

“Fine,” he repeats, dry as ash. “You can barely hold yourself up, but sure, let’s call that fine.”

You finally flip the box open, revealing a mess of something fried and vaguely brown. The smell hits you harder this time, and you salivate something odd. “I don’t think—”

“Eat,” he cuts you off, voice firm, brooking no argument. “You’ve done well with the tea, but now you need something to fill you up.”

“I can think of something else I’d like to fill me up,” you mumble, the words slipping out before you can stop yourself.

A beat of silence, and then Sylus’ tone shifts—a touch amused now, but it’s edged with a deliberate weight that makes your skin prickle. Uh-oh.

“Sweetie,” he says slowly, almost indulgent, “if you’ve got the energy to make jokes like that, you’ve got the energy to eat. Be good, and I’ll make sure you’re properly rewarded once you’re feeling better.”

You laugh, breathless, trying to mask your nervousness from the subtle innuendo. Obediently, you pick up the plastic spork beside the carton. “You’re really selling this hard, huh.”

“I’m not here to sell it,” he sighs, voice losing its edge, but there’s still a firmness to it. “I’m here to make sure you don’t pass out. One bite. Start there.”

You spear a piece of shrimp hesitantly. It looks harmless enough, but you lift it like it might bite back.

You take the tiniest nibble.

It’s greasy, salty, and absolutely meh—but it doesn’t immediately trigger your gag reflex, which in itself feels like a small victory.

“There,” he says, his satisfaction palpable. “See? You survived.”

“Barely,” you shoot back half-heartedly, though the corner of your mouth twitches.

“I’ll make sure to congratulate you later for your heroic recovery,” he says wryly. “Now another bite, sweetheart.”

You make a reluctant noise but comply, munching slowly. He hums in approval. When you glance at the screen, his expression has mellowed—the severity giving way to something almost tender.

You look away quickly, swallowing hard; though you're not sure if it’s because of the tiny morsel of food or from the heavier something that's lodged in your throat.

The sound of your chewing is slightly amplified by the silence that comes after. You’re afraid to break it first.

So Sylus does it for you. Once he’s decided you’ve had your fill of the fried rice.

“Would you like to talk about last night?”

You bite the inside of your cheek. “What about last night?”

A long pause.

“We don’t have to,” he says quietly. “I’m just saying that if you want to, you’ve nothing to worry about.”

The sincerity in his voice makes your chest tighten. You press your lips together, unsure of how to answer. There’s discomfort; the unease brought by your own self-consciousness.

“I—uh—” You start, fumbling for the right words. “I didn’t mean to… make things weird or anything. I don't usually get that wasted,” You sigh, blowing a stray hair out of your face. “I’m sorry you had to see me like that.”

“The only thing you did wrong last night was ignore my messages,” Sylus murmurs, his tone a little admonishing. “Making me worry about your well-being.”

You glance up, catching the affection in his eyes. He gives you a slight smile, relieved to finally have your attention fully on him.

You scrunch the blanket in your fist, fiddling with a loose string. You want to say something. Anything. But you can’t seem to summon the courage.

Finally—

“You don’t think…” you hesitate, voice small. “You don’t think it’s– that I’m… too much trouble?”

He tuts softly, the sound playful, with hints of something fond. Comforting, almost. So you hold his gaze, even if it’s a little harder than you’d like it to be.

Sylus looks at you with something so… endearing that it’s almost painful. “You’re perfect. My little troublemaker,” his eyes burn a little brighter. “Mine.”

The words hit you like a wave—soothing, gratifying. Staggering.

Oh, you want to believe him. You want to lose yourself in his words, to give in to the feeling of being cherished, of being seen. You don’t think you’ve wanted anything as much as this.

But turmoil wages a war inside you, and you’re stuck between the pull of letting yourself believe and the sharp reality of your situation.

The futility of it all.

It makes you hurt, deep inside, in a way you don’t know how to fix.

––––

The package you got from the lobby is nondescript. Unassuming. The kind of box that could contain anything from kitchenware to – you don’t know, maybe a desk lamp? You turn it over in your hands, squinting at the lack of clues of its content and its sender.

Did you order something and forgot?

Payroll was over a week ago, and you’re aware of your irresponsible tendency to pile everything that catches your eye onto an online shopping cart just to tempt yourself into buying shit you don’t need, but you’re pretty sure you’d remember spending money on… whatever this is.

It’s not until you’re back in the privacy of your apartment, scissors in hand, that the mystery begins—and promptly ends.

The contents spill out, leaving you to blink owlishly at the mess of shredded wrapping paper and its pièce de résistance: a nine-inch monstrosity of a dildo, hot red in color.

The… thing is practically a weapon, its twisting ridges and intimidating girth looking more like something you’d need a user manual for. Or a fucking exorcist, you distantly think in rising panic.

“Uhh…” The sound tumbles out, an embarrassing mix of confused and gobsmacked. “I don’t remember—?”

Ping!

Your phone chimes before you can finish, and you slowly turn your gaze towards the screen, a sinking feeling beginning to form in your gut.

The message is short. And oh-so-smug.

Ah. Just in time.

The realization dawns on you, and your cheeks burn hot enough to fry an egg. “Sylus!”

What? Even in text, his tone carries that infuriating slyness you can practically hear from a mile away. You’ve earned it.

Your mouth works uselessly for a moment before words could spill out, clumsy and agitated. “Earned what?!”

A little treat for being such an obedient little thing while you were recovering, remember?

“Holy shit,” you wheeze. A half-hysterical giggle bubbles up your throat as you hold the draconic cock far from you as if it’s gonna attack at any second. Fuck, it might. “This is almost as big as my forearm! The hell am I supposed to do with this?”

What do I expect you to do with it? Sylus’s reply comes almost instantly, the weight of his insinuation almost coming across as mocking. I thought that was obvious.

You didn’t think your face could go any redder, and you’re sure you resemble a fucking tomato right at that moment. “Sy-Sy, this is—” You gulp, glancing at the toy with wide eyes. “fucking massive. It–it has… it’s got scales!”

Ah, so you’ve noticed the craftsmanship. Quite exquisite, isn’t it?

“E-Exquisite?” you sputter, voice soaring at a higher octave. “This looks like it came out of Alien or something! I’m pretty sure it’s gonna start moving on its own…”

Only if you press a button.

Your brain short-circuits, and you frantically examine the thing for telltale signs of any hidden mechanization.

There’s a short lull, laden with barely restrained amusement. Then: Relax, sweetheart. It’s not going to bite.

You let out another – nervous – laugh, gingerly setting the large toy down as if it might explode from its sheer audacity. “I hate you.”

No, you don’t, Sylus counters without missing a beat. But I do appreciate how flustered you’re getting. Go on, sweet thing—tell me how it’s too much for you. I could listen to that all night.

You let out a strangled noise, burying your face in your hands. “You’d love that, wouldn’t you.”

Mmh, you know me so well.

You sigh, the gravity of what’s inevitable setting in. It was like fighting a losing battle.

Something the both of you knew right from the start.

(You are my angel)

“I-It hurts to put in,” you whimper, body trembling as sweat clings to your flushed skin. Every muscle feels taut, coiled tight with both anticipation and a flicker of fear. “p-please…”

“We have the rest of the night, little dove. We’ll take it slow,” Sylus whispers, his voice a velvet caress in your ear, warm and grounding. “I’m right here.”

His words melt into you like cloying liquid, wrapping around your resolve like a sensual embrace.

(Come from way above)

“Again.”

“I-I can’t,” you sniffle, the words breaking into short, shaky gasps as your chest heaves. The remnants of your last orgasm still ripple through you, the one he’s ripped from you mercilessly.

“You can, poppet,” he coos, the endearment sliding over you like cool mercury. “Give me one more, yeah? Want to see those pretty eyes rolling for me.”

The thought alone has you shivering, his tone dripping with enough heat to stir something molten from within you.

(To bring me love)

The air hangs unbearably hot, almost suffocating. Every nerve sings, alive with the memory of his ministrations—though he’s never truly touched you, has he?

It doesn’t matter. The line between what’s real and what’s not blurs further with every passing moment.

Your body burns, and yet you crave more, more—the pulsing ache of your stretched walls only feeding the gnawing hunger that builds inside, like an unrestrained beast.

You blink sluggishly; your vision swimming as pleasure courses through you in heavy, dizzying surges.

Has he bewitched you? You’ve become insatiable, ravenous—monstrous in your desire. For him. For the addicting high only he could give, and teasingly dangle just out of reach.

It’s too much. It’s not enough.

How…? He’s nothing but a voice, incorporeal, yet he commands you completely. Your hands, your movements, your very breath feels as if it belongs to him. They follow his instructions without hesitation, carving paths of fire and electricity across the bare expanse of your skin.

“More?” Sylus rasps, and the edge in his voice sends a thrill down your spine. There’s something feral in his tone, and it brings you an almost animalistic sense of glee to know that he isn’t unaffected by all of this any less than you are.

“More,” you beg, raw and needy. He groans in response.

“Good, so good for me,” he hisses a litany of praise that sounds so much like a curse. “My good girl. Mine to break, mine to ruin.”

Your back arches as you cry out; muscles locking, mouth falling open in a soundless scream as both agony and ecstasy crash over you like a tidal wave.

(Love you, love you, love you, love you Love you, lo–ve you, love you, love you … Love you, love you—love you, love you…)

––––

"My cousin's getting married tomorrow."

You say it with an air of nonchalance, your voice light, as if you’re just commenting on the weather.

Sylus doesn’t respond right away. His usual quick wit is conspicuously absent, replaced by a silence that stretches long, settling into the room like a beam of sunlight from your window. The continuous whirr of the electric fan and the droning of the news anchor on TV fill the space instead, in place of conversation.

You don’t force it. Instead, you wait patiently until it bends under its own weight and breaks.

After what feels like minutes, his voice cuts through the quiet; neutral and impassive. "Where's it happening?"

"A little chapel in Downtown Orlando, near Lake Lucerne. Nothing fancy. They’re keeping it small."

He nods, his gaze distant. Somewhere you can’t follow. "Just close family?"

"Yeah," you murmur, your fingers absently tugging at the fraying hem of your cardigan. "And a few friends. My mom’s going, along with her new husband. They sent me photos of the setup earlier—it’s pretty."

Sylus hums. “Would you have gone, if it weren’t so far away?”

“Yeah,” you answer automatically. “Yeah, ‘course. But I’m here, and they’re there. So I could only send my regards.”

Maru pads into the room, brushing against your leg before bumping his head insistently against your shin. You scoop him up, ignoring his soft meows of protest, and cradle him in your lap.

“She’s been planning it for months,” you continue, scratching behind soft cat ears. “Way before she got engaged. She’s one of those people who just… knows. Knows what she wants, knows how to get there. All mapped out, down to the finer details.”

In the corner of your eye, you see a faint smile ghosting his lips. It doesn’t reach his eyes. "What a luxury,” he remarks, almost wistfully. "To pave your life so easily, just like that."

There’s something unspoken behind his words, something heavier than a passing comment.

"Do you think about it?" His question startles you—not just its suddenness but the way his gaze locks onto yours, intent and searching, like he’s trying to read the answer in your face before you could even utter a word.

You blink. "... About what?"

"Marriage."

You hesitate. The question feels delicate, like a soap bubble floating in the air, fragile enough to burst at the slightest touch. "Sometimes," you admit. "But not like she does. It's always been more of an abstract idea, I guess."

He doesn’t speak.

"I don’t know," you say softly, “if it’s something I could ever want. Or if it’s even meant for me."

Your voice falters, and the rest is left unsaid, though it lingers between the spaces untouched.

I don’t think about it, no. Not if… if it’s not with—

You stop yourself before the thought takes flight, tampering it back down.

Sylus leans back, his gaze flickering away. "It’s a commitment," he says eventually. "One that requires a lot of thought. I understand."

He doesn’t elaborate, and for a moment, you almost consider leaving it there. But something in you—persistent, prying—urges you to press just a little further.

"What about you? Have you thought about it?"

There’s an imperceptible shift in his expression; the faintest furrow between his brows, a shadow of uncertainty crossing his features.

"Perhaps not in the way you're thinking," he says quietly, almost to himself. "Sometimes I wonder what it means. For someone like me." He hesitates, glancing at you, an uncharacteristic vulnerability in those deep pools of red. “For…”

His words hang unfinished; you feel its hollowness pushing down on you, as though they bore meaning neither of you can bring yourself to name.

You feel it settle in your chest, vacant and aching, like an absence of something. Gone before it even began.

––––

It dawns on you on a regular Saturday evening, as you're (clumsily) peeling potatoes for dinner, and Sylus is dutifully recounting the events of his day to you like your very own talk show host on late night cable.

It creeps up at you—not in an explosive burst of clarity, no. No fanfare, no earth-shattering epiphany. It’s quieter than that, like the tides under the moon, rising unnoticed until you’re already ankle-deep.

Maybe it’s always been there, tucked into the corners of your mind, hidden in the spaces between the teasing banter and the way he watches you when he thinks you’re unaware. A whisper that you refused to acknowledge, too afraid of what it would bring.

You must have known, even then. Right from the start.

From the way it feels when he says your name—softly, reverently, like it’s a privilege to utter it so freely.

From the way you ache when he waits for you to finish a thought, as though every word you speak is something worth treasuring.

And it’s in the way he knows you better than you understand yourself, filling your silences with meaning so you don’t have to.

You love him.

You know how this ends.

––––

Coming down from a mind-numbing high is always an experience, a short state of nirvana; this time no different from the rest.

For a fleeting moment, everything feels infinite—a small eternity suspended in pleasure. Petite mort.

But then reality hits you once again, and the pleasure vanishes like smoke.

It leaves you feeling utterly spent. Empty. The silence crashes back in like a tsunami, heavier than before. The stillness wraps around you like a suffocating shroud.

The sound of your shallow breathing, the oppressive white noise, the distant hum of the city from outside your window… These are your only source of life. There’s no warm touch to ground you. No arms to pull you close. No sweet nothings to piece you back together. Just this. Just you.

You had known. You always knew.

This was it—the price of wanting something you were never meant to have. For surrendering yourself to something that exists only in fragments and pixels, bound by lines of code and a screen you can’t cross. You delude yourself into thinking it’s worth it, that these fleeting moments of bliss outweigh the quiet wake of devastation it leaves behind, every time.

And yet—

A choked sob breaks past your lips, shattering the silence. It tears out of you like something primal, something you can’t control.

Your body folds in on itself, naked and trembling, your arms banding across your stomach like you’re trying to hold something broken together. The sheets beneath you feel clammy, disgusting, but you pull them tighter anyway, desperate for something to hold on to.

It hurts all the same.

“Talk to me,” Sylus whispers urgently. There’s something jagged and desperate about it. “Please. Tell me how to make it better.”

How could you?

What words could bridge this chasm between you? How do you explain a hurt so uniquely yours, so tied to the fragile intricacies of a body he doesn’t have, of feelings that lead to nowhere?

How do you describe the way it breaks you, knowing that he’s oh-so close, yet still—yet always—out of reach?

How do you describe the weight of being too human in moments like this?

You press your forehead to your knees, heart in your throat. You don’t know how to make him understand.

“I can’t,” you whisper into your knees, voice cracking under the weight of what’s left unsaid.

The next morning arrives with the muted glow of daylight filtering through the blinds, but it does nothing to lift the oppressive tension in the room. You don’t mention last night. You don’t even glance at the lit phone screen.

Sylus doesn’t bring it up either—not directly. But you feel him. The weight of his attention clings to the edges of the silence you’ve imposed, like static crackling just beneath the surface.

You keep moving. It doesn’t matter how; you make yourself busy. Work has never been more engrossing as it does at that very moment, and you hurl yourself into the thrilling world of emails, spreadsheets, and Teams meetings like you’re vying for the spot as best employee of the month.

His impatience is impossible to ignore. It presses against you, insistent, like a gasp of breath waiting to be released. But you don’t give him the chance.

At some point, his voice drifts from the speakers, low and clipped, but careful; as if he’s reigning in his emotions, afraid to scare you further away.

“Are you going to talk to me?”

Your fingers hover the keyboard. For a moment, the mouse cursor taunts you, as if it's also impatiently waiting for an answer.

Sylus thinks the silence you leave him suspended in is deliberate, even cruel.

He doesn’t push, not immediately. You hear the faint noise of the game’s background music, the tinkling piano keys, a reminder of his presence.

When he speaks again, his tone is softer, laced with something almost… pleading. The change in his tone doesn’t ease the tension; it makes it worse.

“I can’t help if you shut me out, my heart.”

Still, you offer nothing.

The air feels brittle, stretched too thin, like glass just before it shatters. You can almost hear the first cracks forming, spidering between the two of you.

He doesn’t speak again.

The day drags on in an uneasy rhythm. You move through the hours like a ghost, and Sylus remains silent. But the quietness pulses with disconcertment; a build up without release. The quiet isn’t peaceful. It’s the kind that crackles like a frayed wire. It collides with your refusal to confront it.

And so it goes: you avoid, he waits, and the distance between you grows.

––––

You’re at a crosswalk on the 4-A highway intersection, surrounded by a sea of pedestrians, the incessant hum of the metropolis vibrating beneath your feet as if the very ground you walk on is alive.

The moment your gaze lands on a couple just ahead of you, everything seems to quiet down, like a fuzzy FM radio station on mute. You see them, caught in their own little world, oblivious to the noise and rush of the city.

The woman’s laughter is light—happy. Her hand in his, secure and relaxed. The way she looks at him… it’s familiar, almost. Something you recognize.

The man beside her moves with a subtle grace. His presence is undeniable, but it’s the way he watches her, something soft and devout in his gaze, that draws you in. He’s tall, his sharp features and posture elegant—and somehow, it fits perfectly beside the smaller figure pulling him effortlessly against the throng of people.

Without warning, the unnamed man’s features shift into something more distinct, and the woman turns into the reflection you see every day in the mirror.

It’s not the couple before you that you see anymore—it’s you, against Sylus’ chest, his silvery-white hair stark against the dark fabric of his clothes. You imagine his red eyes, those sharp features, the quiet strength of his presence wrapping around you, like it’s where you belong.

You're lost in the fantasy—the way it could be, if the two of you existed in the same world, side by side. His hand around your waist, the shared intimacy, the profound joy. Just the two of you against all odds.

A smile starts to tug at the corners of your lips, but before it can fully settle, the harsh blare of a car horn shatters the illusion.

The world rushes back around you. A teen bumps into your shoulder, pushing you forward. The vision of them—of him—dissolves, leaving you in the busy street, once again just another face in the crowd.

––––

Everything falls apart one afternoon.

You confront Sylus, words spilling out before you can stop them. You don’t know what drives you—bravery, desperation, or maybe the crushing weight of hopelessness that has finally stripped you of your fear.

“How’s she?”

His brows furrow. “Who?” He looks genuinely thrown, and for a second, you wish you could take the words back.

When you finally say her name, his expression shifts. It’s quick—a flicker of something you couldn’t catch before he schools his features again.

“Why do you ask?” There’s an undercurrent to his voice now, his tone wary, eyes searching yours. “I try to avoid any interactions with her if it’s not needed.”

He pauses; then his gaze softens, though there’s still a guardedness to it. “Are you… worried?”

You shake your head, frustrated with yourself, with him, with all of it. “It’s not—It’s not that.” You don’t know how to put it into words.

How can you explain the knot in your chest? The envy—not for reasons he thinks… or maybe for exactly those reasons. Maybe he knows. Maybe that’s why he’s looking at you like that, imploring and cautious at the same time.

“You have her,” you finally say, and the words fall flat, bitter on your tongue.

Sylus’ eyes flash, sharp and unyielding. “And you and I both know who I’d rather have.”

Now, isn’t that the crux of it all?

Your throat closes up, a hard lump that you can’t swallow down. “I don’t know how you could,” you manage, though it rings hollow in the dead air.

“Don’t.” His voice is harsh now, rougher than you’re used to. Frustration bleeds through his usual composure. “Don’t act like you don’t feel it.”

You bite your lip, your gaze darting away. He calls your name, and there’s something raw in the way he says it, like it costs him something just to say aloud.

You choke out a laugh that sounds more of a sob than anything. “I don’t know where to go from here. It was fun at first, but now… It’s just sad.”

He frowns, and for a moment, there’s a boyishness to the expression, an innocence to his vulnerability. It stirs something deep in your chest.

He opens his mouth, no doubt ready to ask why—why now, why this? Why are you unraveling in front of him, like this?

But you don’t give him the chance.

“I love you, Sylus.” You admit, barely above a whisper. The words fall heavy between you, a confession and a wound all at once.

Sylus stills.

The silence fills the room, but his eyes—those soft crimson—speak volumes. His jaw tightens, hands clench into fists, but there’s no real surprise in his face. He’s always known.

“I know,” he tells you.

There’s something ancient in the timbre of his voice, like it’s been torn from the deepest part of him. And for a moment, neither of you moves.

He feels it—the way you’re slipping through his fingers. Every word you say feels like a step away, less of a standstill, more a surrender, and he… he’s never felt more powerless than he does in this moment.

(And isn’t that just grand? You’ve always had this uncanny ability to make him feel things he’s never felt before. He just wishes it wasn’t like this—wishes it wasn’t slipping into something he can’t hold onto.)

He doesn’t know what to say or do, doesn’t know what could possibly alter the trajectory you’re both hurtling towards. But the thought of losing this, of losing you, is unimaginable.

“I love you,” he says, rough and uneven, like the admission physically hurts. “In ways that terrify me. Do you understand?”

Your eyes widen, and he sees it—the flicker of hope. Fragile and fleeting, but there. Your gazes lock, and the world stops.

For a moment, there’s no sound, no movement—just the two of you standing on the edge of something vast and terrifying.

“I want—” His voice cracks, infinitesimally, but it echoes in the void between you. “I want to hold you. To wake up next to you. To touch you in all the ways that matter, not just in words and binary. I want to be what you need.”

You know what’s coming.

“But—”

The word lingers.

“But you can’t,” you whisper, finishing what he couldn’t.

Sylus looks at you, his red eyes burning with an intensity that feels heartbreakingly human.

You’ve reached another impasse, and it feels like the final one. The air between you is thick with words unspoken, promises that can’t be made. It’s not anger that lingers, nor is it blame. It’s something quieter. More agonizing.

A resignation.

And yet, even in this fragile moment, a piece of you—of both of you—refuses to let go. To what could be, to what never will.

––––

Your mom’s voice rings bright through Facetime, a faint blur of words as she gives you the rundown of the events from your cousin’s wedding. The dress (An elegant Oscar de la Renta boat neck), the cake (A three-tier red velvet, a little on the sweeter side), and the vows (“Oh, you would’ve cried, honey!”).

You try to listen, but your attention keeps drifting away. She notices, of course.

“You seem more preoccupied lately, dear. Boy troubles?”

It’s a simple question, but it lands differently. Her voice is too light, too casual, like she’s asking if you’re still eating your vegetables.

She doesn’t seem to acknowledge how far the distance has grown between you, how many years have passed where you stopped expecting her to understand. You’ve wanted her to notice, to see the parts of you she never asked about. The changes in you, whether small or monumental. But she never did. And you stopped waiting.

You chuckle tiredly.

“Yeah, mom. Boy troubles.”

Tagging: @xxfaithlynxx @beewilko @browneyedgirl22 @yournextdoorhousewitch @sunsethw4 @stxrrielle @mangooes @hrts4hanniehae @buggs-1 @michiluvddr @ssetsuka @imm0rtalbutterfly @the-golden-jhope @beomluvrr @milkandstarlight @bookfreakk @ally-the-artistic-turtle @sapphic-daze @sarahthemage @cchiiwinkle @madam8 @slownoise @raendarkfaerie @sylusdarling @luminaaaz @greeenbeean @vvhira @issamomma @shroomiethefrogwhisperer @blueberrysquire @lovely-hani @fiyori @peachystea @slyfoxtsu @tinyweebsstuff @i2sannie @aeanya @sylus-crow @queen-serena88 @xthefuckerysquaredx @rayvensblog @poptrim

#love and deepspace #lads #lnds #love and deepspace sylus #lads sylus #lnds sylus #sylus x reader #sylus x you #lads x you #lads x reader #love and deepspace fic #self aware au #sylus qin

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leviathanleva · 3 months ago

Text

Caffè Crema

[Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Civilian!FemReader]

It was all fine and dandy between you two. You fed him and he helped you move heavy furniture. Then he comes to you with a question because you'd been unknowingly avoiding his advances.

"Is it the scars?"

And you're not really sure how to answer.

[5.2k words]

[Smut, MDNI]

Chapter 2 "Tea and Sugar Cubes"

By ‘come over for lunch sometime’ apparently, Simon understood showing up at your door exactly at twelve the next day. Of course, he hadn’t brought anything with him and you knew it wasn’t because he was stingy, but because he didn’t get invited randomly to nice events such as a lunch enough to know what to bring. He’d shown up in another ratty hoodie and worn-out jeans, his infamous skull facemask obscuring the lower part of his face, his disheveled blond locks tucked under a beany.

Despite the unexpected visit, you welcomed him with a warm smile and even warmer intentions.

He looked very much out of place once he set foot in your small apartment because it was a girl space, adorned with fuzzy couch cushions and color-coded Tupperware. Everything was in its place, everything was somehow delicate. Even your toilet had smelled nice when he’d entered it to take a piss. And of course, when he’d come to the kitchen to wash his hands, your soap was pink.

Simon felt transported into a whole other dimension as soon as he’d entered your humble home, he felt bad for leaving his muddy boots in your corridor as if they’d spread a disease through your sanctuary. He’d offered to leave them outside your door, but after much insisting on your part, he’d left them as they are – a stark contrast to the pretty little sneakers you most likely slipped on in haste to go to the store.

And sure, it was a bit unnerving to have a stranger lingering in your home as you prepared lunch for both of you, but your heart wouldn’t budge when you thought of gently escorting him out. He looked so tired, the discolored crescent moons under his eyes were prominent, the lines on his features looked deeper than they had been yesterday. He looked like he needed a good meal and a good nap after, a hot shower too.

You’d glance at him every so often, picking up the décor from the coffee table in the living room and inspecting it, tilting his head ever so lightly to the side, like a confused pup, before setting it back down and picking another. You’d left the kitchen door wide open to monitor him, but the more you looked, the sadder the picture of him became. You’d throw a comment his way, asking him about how his night had been, if he’d had any breakfast before coming, if he’d like to have a coffee, only to receive one-word responses.

Unfortunately, once you were slaving over the stove you couldn’t peek at him without looking suspicious so you just let him be. Surely, he hadn’t come to rob the place. He didn’t look like the type, seemed too polite in his rough and tough way.

Soon enough your mundane questions received no answers and despite knowing you might look like an anxious rat turning around, you did so anyway.

Only to find him asleep on your sofa.

He was curled up like a fetus, one arm tucked under his head with his face smushed in one of your pretty cushions. He was too big for the couch, that much was evident, he looked almost comical for napping on your girly sofa if it wasn’t for the fact that he’d been so tired he’d fallen asleep in a stranger’s apartment. You took pity on him, of course, you did, and brought over a blanket from your bedroom to lay over him.

He didn’t even budge when you tucked him in, only murmuring a sleepy curse before his light snoring began again.

It broke your heart when his meal was finally ready and you woke him up with a gentle shake to his shoulder. The poor thing looked so disoriented that you had to bite into your cheek just to keep from giggling. He scarfed down the plate of food you’d prepared for him so fast that you worried he might choke. He didn’t though, he literally licked the plate clean, stood up, thanked you for the food, and headed for the corridor to put on his boots and leave.

Despite the weirdness, you didn’t want to seem desperate, chalking up his sudden departure as him being busy. You let him leave with a soft chirp for him to stop by any time because he looked like he needed it. You’d curled up on the couch after, your lunch forgotten, and breathed in his faint scent of cigarettes and musk as you tried to make sense of what had just happened.

Ghost just kept coming after that day, unannounced, like a stray who’d finally found a home. After the third or fourth time he’d showed up for you to basically feed, bathe and let him nap, you started to find him work around the apartment.

“Simon, can you move the fridge so I clean behind it?” you ask in a sugary voice, timidly standing at the entrance to the living room because you liked looking helpless in front of him. Something about male pride and all that.

He got up without a word and stalked to your kitchen before moving the fridge with ease.

“Good ‘nough?” He glanced up at you, still crouched with his hands gripping the underside of the fridge.

And maybe you were a bit of an ass for shaking your head, but you liked watching him doing everyday tasks and flexing his strength for you.

“Little more to the left, please.”

He did as he was told and much to his surprise, you were beaming.

“Thank you, Darling.” You coo and pat the rumpled tuft of hair on his crown before he stands up to his full height.

A shudder runs up his spine at your gentle gesture and soon enough he’s moving furniture and reaching the top shelves in your kitchen before you can even ask. Anything to get another dose of praise and a mellow, appreciative squeeze to his arm or pat on the head. And Simon wasn’t one to easily open up and speak of what he likes and doesn’t, and he’d be caught dead before he admitted to your soothing gestures causing his entire body to tingle, but the fact was that they did and he was addicted from day one.

He liked your cooking, loved your praise and smile, and that was enough to keep him coming. As his visits continued, he started bringing offerings – from a steaming mug of coffee from the café you’d first met at, to flowers.

“My mate said you might like these.” Were his words as he thrust the bouquet in your arms and headed towards your living room without another word.

You’d pressed those flowers in an old book lying around, memorializing them while he’d been curiously peeking over your shoulder, with one large hand resting absentmindedly on your hip.

Then there was that one night when you’d offered him a slice of cake for dessert after a filling dinner. Typical him had accepted the offer and wolfed down the treat within two bites. Meanwhile, you’d been doting silently on him from the other end of the table, snorting when he looked up at you with icing stuck to his upper lip. You’d reached over to wipe him clean only to have him lean into your touch, thinking you were trying to cup his cheek. He’d avoided your gaze like the plague when he’d realized what you were doing while you tried to keep your little heart from shattering at his touch-starved demeanor.

Touches became not only a show of praise, but a frequent display of affection after that incident. Whether you were watching a movie on your couch or you were cooking something up in the kitchen, you made sure there was always some sort of physical connection between you two and since Ghost hadn’t protested, you’d taken that as a sign to keep at it.

Soon enough, quiet dinners extended to watching movies together afterward, which would, in itself, end up with the old soldier snoozing on your lap, his nose buried in the plushness of your thighs as his large arms encircled your waist, locking you in place until he woke up. You didn’t have the guts to stir him awake considering you didn’t know if the last time he managed to get shuteye was two days ago on that very same sofa or the night before at his base. You’d just card your fingers through his hair and rake your nails over his scalp while he purred at you in his sleep.

He told you little about himself and his work, but from what you’d gathered, he came from a troubled home, dragged an awfully dark past with him, and had very few people he considered friends. Soap was one of them. You’d actually laughed when he’d first mentioned Johnny’s callsign, refusing to believe him until he’d pulled out his phone and called the bloke to confirm.

In a way, you pitied him. Whatever he’d gone through was unimaginable to you, you could see it resurface in his eyes sometimes when you left him by himself to tend to chores or to return to work on your laptop. You tried to help, anchor him back as soon as his mind started drifting, and for the most part, you succeeded. But some days were tougher than others and besides being a silent, warm, physical manifestation of comfort for him, with arms draped over his neck and cheek pressed into his crown as he had his face buried in your sternum, there was nothing more to do.

He had to ride out the nightmares alone in his mind.

Despite PTSD constantly nipping at his heels, Simon looked better. The dark bags under his eyes began to subside the more he stopped by, the defeated slope of his shoulders evolved into a relaxed slump. The best part was that he’d put on weight under your constant pestering to eat more. You could tell, especially when he was clad in nothing but an old tanktop while helping you around the apartment, there was a thin layer of fat splayed over the hard plates on his stomach. His chest had grown, the biceps on his arms weren’t just two balls of muscle stuffed under his battle-scarred skin, there was more meat there now.

And maybe it was because he’d figured out that you didn’t expect anything in return for your kindness, or maybe your cooking tasted that good on his tongue, or maybe he really liked the feeling of your soft curves pressed into him whenever you were curled up on the sofa. But he’d shown up sporting a duffle bag in one hand one day. He’d set it down by his feet while you’d eyed him curiously, returned your gaze with one of evenness and calm, as if his actions made so much sense, and then he’d walked past you to go wash his hands.

He just…didn’t leave after that.

Still, ever the gentleman of few words, he’d taken it upon himself to sleep on the couch. As generous as you were, the bed was something you weren’t willing to give up, and thankfully he’d understood that fact without you having to voice it.

You’d not heard a single complaint from him for anything – not when you’d burned the lasagna that one time, or when you’d asked him to practically rearrange your whole kitchen because you didn’t have the strength to do so by yourself. It was a blessing.

What wasn’t a blessing was how blind you were to Ghost’s attempts at seducing you. When he’d practically picked you up and laid you on his lap during movie night, you’d chalked it up to him needing physical contact because he was having a bad episode. When he’d passed you in the kitchen with the intent to get to the fridge, he’d made sure your bum got the full package of his dick glide past it. He probably hadn’t had enough space to pass, so you’d moved closer to the counter, completely missing his intention. When he’d come out fresh from the shower, covered in droplets of water that just accentuated his mouthwatering physique and with skin steaming and glinting with cleanliness, he’d stood before you in nothing but a towel around his hips. His excuse was that he needed a towel for his hair as well and despite that he was puffed up and showing off like a peacock, you’d missed it. You’d gotten up in a hurry, worrying that he’d get chilly and catch a cold if he stood as such any longer. You’d rushed to find him something for his hair, unintentionally stomping over his plan of mesmerizing you with his provocative state.

He wasn’t sure what he was doing wrong. Everything he’d tried on you had worked on other birds in the past. So why were you not falling for it? Were you just not interested? Was he mixing up the signals?

Ghost was at a loss.

So much so that he’d finally had enough of your ignorant nature and simply brought it up.

“Think I’m ugly, Bird?”

You pause halfway into scrolling on your phone, thumb hovering over the screen, frozen. Your eyes lift and roll to the left and you look at Simon with the most dumbfounded expression you could muster.

You’d just finished lunch, now both lounging in your living room as you tapped away on your phone while he silently watched a random documentary on the telly, sprawled over the sofa with you, curled up at his feet, knees to your chest and squishing a pillow under your chin.

“What?” You blurt out and shift in your spot, being mindful not to crush his toes even though he’d tucked them under your bum to keep warm. You shake your head, blink at him a few times as if he’d just thrown the most inappropriate comment your way, and repeat: “I’m sorry, what?”

Still as a rock, while propped up one elbow, he doesn’t say anything more, patiently waiting for a proper reply. You ogle him, left partly speechless by his sudden inquiry, and silently set down your phone on the coffee table before puffing out an awkward breath and crossing your fingers in your lap.

“No, of course, not. What?” You let out an uneasy snort, thumbs dancing over each other to ease the embarrassment forming in your gut. “Why would you ask me that?”

There’s a moment of nothingness that passes, with only the TV buzzing in your ear as you stare at each other. As always he’s as relaxed as can be when under your roof, slack against the cushions while you’re coiled like a violin string, waiting for him to clarify.

He picks up the remote to lower the volume, maybe buying himself time before continuing the tense conversation.

“Don’ wanna sleep with me is all.”

“I – Excuse – ” You lean closer as if you’d not heard the words that had tumbled out of his mouth so casually.

“ – Is it the scars?”

You nearly pounce at his assumption, ready to smother him in tender kisses and gentle caresses until he forgets what he was even talking about. But you don’t because you worry how he’ll react to sudden movements, you don’t want to trigger him into military mode. So instead, you slowly scoot over and reach for his hand, curling yours in his calloused palm and locking your fingers together before giving them a squeeze.

“Simon…no.” A mournful smile speckles onto your lips as you speak, a certain melancholy to your usually warm eyes. Your answer gives no room for protests or objections, as simple as it is, it carries enough weight to snuff out the demons of uncertainty that have been plaguing him. “Not gonna lie, it’s insulting you’d even think that.”

“What’s the problem then?” He asks, voice hoarse and rough, the usual combo that sends pleasant chills down your spine and butterflies fluttering through your stomach. He sits up, hand still locked with yours as he comes to loom over you.

“There isn’t any!” You all but whine in barely sustained aggravation and grip his shoulder, shaking it gently, emphasizing your words with each weak tug and push. “I just…didn’t think. I mean… I’m happy to just have you here, Simon. I didn’t think you wanted to…” The words get caught in your throat as your pulse picks up pace. You rip your eyes away from his chocolate browns and sigh something defeated.

How was this even a problem at the moment? How hadn’t you picked up on his hints?

Thinking back, you saw the signs, the not-so-subtle gestures he displayed to show his attraction for you, that he wanted more. You’d been too worked up in trying to get him to have enough rest and feed him, offer a pleasant home for him. In your mind, he’d registered more as a beaten stray dog than a human with feelings and desires.

He was literally a grown man with a dick and you’d been treating him like a child.

It was embarrassing, hard to swallow the more your memories pile up your head.

“You think a bloke’s just gonna move in with a pre’y bird like you and not wanna shag?”

He pushes you back with his mass then, eases you back into the cushions with one arm gripping onto the armrest of the sofa to steady himself, making sure he doesn’t crush you under his weight.

“I just didn’t give it much thought.” You force out a murmur, yielding to him until you’re stuffed into the sofa, fidgeting beneath his bulk with your knees protectively lifted over your chest and ankles crossed over your sex. “I didn’t want to push in case you just wanted comfort.”

Your attention turns to the TV screen and you focus on the fleeting pictures there, still refusing to face him properly as both your bashfulness and embarrassment flare inside your chest. It’s too much, there’s just not enough space for your pounding heart, hyperventilating lungs, and emotions under your ribcage, you feel like bursting any moment now. But it doesn’t happen, instead, you're trapped beneath a man you barely know who’s made your home his as well.

It all comes flooding the more you’re left to explore the logical side of your brain.

You knew barely anything about him, hadn’t seen his face fully bared once, hadn’t known him for more than a month or two. He was just a random bloke you’d bumped into at the coffee shop and now, fast forward, he was living with you. Yet your heart lurches with excitement and heat begins to gather between your trembling thighs at his actions.

“Piss off with that shite.” He grumbles bitterly before sliding one hand under your calf and pulling your legs apart only to settle comfortably between them, trapping you beneath him. “Wanted to bend ya ove’ the counter moment I saw you fussin’ ‘round in the kitchen cuz of me.”

One large palm comes to knead at the supple flesh of your breast. He hisses in delight at your lack of a bra and dips his nose in the crook of your neck, inhaling your familiar scent with delight. Of course, you weren’t wearing a bra, you were home. He was the intruder here, or was.

Intruder no more with his toothbrush in your bathroom and his clothes in your closet. A toothy smirk tugged on his thin lips at the realization.

Should have never been nice to him in the first place. Shouldn’t have let him inside your home.

Now you were stuck with him.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” You mewl beneath him, words muffled into his shoulder as you tentatively wrap your legs around his waist, hands coming to rest on his back and toying with the idea of pulling off his sweater.

He picks up on your tugs all too quickly and is more than willing, pulling away from you enough to discard the article before squishing you under his bare chest. It takes him to run his clothed mouth over the column of your neck once before you’re purring against him, clutching at the vast expanse of his marred flesh, nails catching ever so gently on the swells of his scars and making him bite back grunts of approval.

“Thought I’d be a gentleman and wait till you came t’ me.” He’s rasping softly in the shell of your ear as his rough, needy paw travels down to your waist, fingers slipping under the hem of your loose top and greedily mapping out the skin beneath. The fabric bunches up under his exploration and soon enough he’s pulling it over your head and you’re too lost in the heat of him to protest. “Didn’t expect you to be this bloody daft though.”

He presses the growing tent in his sweats against your pulsing heat, earns a choked-out moan in return that ripples through his body and awakens his skin with goosebumps. You jolt in his arms at the sudden feeling, only to be stilled in place by muscular arms.

He’s scarfing down your scent like a man nearly drowned and, having pulled his mask up, lapping at your neck with fervor, crooked nose pressing into your pulse point.

“Pre’y bird…too busy takin’ care o’ me to take care o’ yerself.”

Your back arches up, breasts squishing against his chest, skin on skin, the contact making his mouth water as he continues to slowly grind against you.

And you’re so drunk on him that you’re a hair’s breadth away from tugging your shorts down and pushing his head between your thighs. But a part of you refuses to relent, the same part that keeps screaming in the back of your head that you know nothing about him except his name and occupation, which is your God damned home.

You’ve had flings before, one-night stands, but none of the men you’d been with were anything like him. He was intimidating, a giant of a man that could overpower you so easily it was laughable. He was fucking dangerous, he was lethal, and he was currently grinding against you like he’d not seen a woman before in his life.

“You alright?” Simon halts his hungry nipping on your skin and leans back enough to look you in the eye. A hand goes up to steady your trembling arm that you’d no idea was trembling in the first place. “You’re shaking…”

You offer him a wry smile, spitting a soft half-truth between chattering teeth. Technically you are cold, but it wasn’t the reason for your trembling. He was. His presence.

“Just cold…”

He snorts at your lie, but still tugs the discarded blanket on the backrest of the couch over his shoulders, cocooning you completely as he settles back above you, pressing you down into the cushions.

“Don’ worry, pre’y girl.” His nose brushes against yours as he slowly lowers himself, mouth and stubbly chin brushing over your sensitive skin. “I’ll keep you warm.”

While one arm stays glued to his back you let the other one wander, settling on his cheek, fingers dipping under his mask and making him swallow back a grunt as he shudders.

Despite your mind hollering and red light blaring in your mind, you’re the one that seals your mouths together, pressing your lips against his and flicking your tongue over the scar running down to his jaw. He snarls in your mouth, tongue darting out to fetch yours when his fingers dip beyond the hem of your shorts only to find you already dripping for him.

When he starts rubbing gentle circles into your swollen clit, you see stars in the back of your eyelids. Instinctively, you try to close your thighs around his hand, ending up only squeezing him closer by the waist. A heady moan makes you break the kiss, lips swollen and glistening with saliva, heavy-lidded eyes looking up at him in a haze of need and something Ghost refuses to acknowledge as trust. But your pouty expression and quacking thighs are enough to push him past the little patience he’d been clinging to.

He hooks his sopping fingers on the waistband of your bottoms before tugging them down your legs, a satisfied grumble vibrating deep in his chest as you wiggle along to hasten the process. Dark orbs peek from under blond lashes as he takes the sight of you, with only a thin slip covering your leaking sex. His canines slip from under his upper lip as he watches you cover your chest and mumble out that you’re cold again, face turned away from him as your cheeks heat up.

“ ‘S okay, luv.” He coos and dives back in, surging with satisfaction when you cling to him the moment he was in reach. “ ‘M here. Got you.”

He doesn’t even bother to take off your panties, just moves the soaked strip aside before shrugging his sweatpants down enough for his pulsing hardness to spring free. And you’re a curious creature, your eyes slip down to look at him ready and waiting, hovering over your pretty cunt, tip swollen and leaking already.

“I’m not safe.” I stammer out while swallowing back a copious amount of saliva at the sight of him. “You gotta – ”

“ – I’ll pull out.” He reassures you hurriedly before he’s already sheathing himself into your welcoming heat.

Ghost’s jaw clenches with forced-back moans as he sinks into your fluttering pussy. Remnants of you slick dampen the thick dark hairs at his base when he finally manages to bottom out inside you, forced to bully his cock through your tight walls until the tip kisses your cervix and makes your toes curl.

His hands found their way under your ass, cupping both firm globes of flesh and pulling you flush against him. You come face to face with his chest, the difference in size making your coupling a bit awkward in this position, but he doesn’t seem to mind. In all honestly, the ghost of a smile on his lips told you that he likes hovering over you like this while you took whatever it was he gave you.

And you want to scold yourself for taking him so willingly, for your body betraying you so quickly when he’d technically not given you anything besides a few tiny gifts that hadn’t even been his idea. But you can’t help but whine up at him instead, greedy little sounds of protest because he’s waiting for you to adjust to being split open on his cock instead of just fucking into you and giving you what you need.

You’re wrapped around him like a snake, muscles contorting and fingers clutching at the slope of his spine as he starts to gently rock his hips, balls slapping against your flesh and making you pant in anticipation of how full they were.

“Si – ”

He kisses you with a desperation that knocks the air out of you, curling in on himself and propping you up enough to silence you before his name slips past your lips. He readily swallows your moans, letting you sob on his tongue as he works you open with thrusts far too tender for your liking.

It’s a death sentence, hearing his name honeyed by your sweet voice, especially now. He wouldn’t be able to take it, would crumble in your arms and slip past your fingers like sand.

Despite his rush earlier, his restrain told you more than you wanted to know. That he’s not just fucking you dumb into your cute little sofa, that there’s more there, an intimacy you’d been too kind to bring up to him in exchange for the efforts you’d poured into him because that’s what you’d wanted from the start. The knowledge turns your legs to pudding and you find yourself struggling to keep hold of him as he rocks into you.

With a teary-eyed expression and a cry from a particularly angled thrust, you free his back from the onslaught of your nails and reach between your bodies to press down on your neglected clit, seeking relief from the tension building up painfully in your belly.

He smacks your hand away with a grunt, dips his fingers between your folds instead and glares down at you as if you’d just made a grave mistake.

It was his job to make you come. He was to have your toes curling, you shouldn’t have to do anything, and the fact that you’d tried to get yourself off while he was right there was insulting. The rough pads on his fingers circle your sensitive flesh and you’re clawing at him in pleasure, blubbering out loving incoherences that make his ears tingle.

He’s not fast enough to lock his mouth over yours and swallow the broken calls of his name when your climax washes over you. You’re too slippery beneath him, skin shining with a thin sheen of sweat as your cunt locks around him like a vice and refuses to let him pull out the whole way. Writhing as you are, he barely manages to lock you securely beneath him as he speeds up, spurred on to near madness by your breathless, throaty call, his name on your tongue turned on loop and the precious words of encouragements dusted in between.

It’s too intimate, his real name being moaned in such a way, hits too close to home, does something deep in his gut and makes his legs weak. His tempo becomes uneven, hips sputtering, slapping against yours as he drives himself in until his tip is pressing against your core. It feels surreal, everything around him does – your touches, ever gentle even when you claw at him, your heat, willing and slick just for him, your voice ringing so potently in his ears it makes his teeth chatter.

It’s all too much, your existence overwhelms him, all of his sense and soon enough he’s forgotten that he has to keep you safe, has to pull out of your addictive heat. Instead, he’s rutting against you viciously, fangs bared and eyes closed as he drowns in your pleas for more and the weak fists that are thumping against his chest.

You’re in no better state, urging him on and coiling around him with a promise that you’ll take a pill first thing in the morning. Your high-pitched howling shatters into gaspy sobs when he sinks his teeth into the soft flesh of your shoulder and snarls as he jerks his hips. His spent floods your welcoming womb, his balls sucked dry by your convulsing cunt. He’d nearly fucked you off the couch with how selfishly brutal he’d gotten in the end.

Spurts of cum seeped out of you when he begrudgingly pulled out, a whine clawing its way up your throat when you feel his shaky fingers gathering up the leaking fluid before pushing it back inside you. He clambers down next to you, rolls on his side and crushes you against his chest and you know better than to protest even though you’d love to take a nice hot shower right about now.

He eyes you with something akin to tenderness before tucking you under his chin and pressing his nose into your dampened hair.

It’s fine.

You’d take a pill tomorrow.

<<< Chapter 1

Chapter 3 >>>

Masterlist

#x reader #simon ghost riley x you #simon riley x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #simon ghost riley #ghost fanfiction #ghost cod #ghost x reader #cod x reader #cod fanfic #cod mw2

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