#so I can stop fucking thinking about it without directly making it anyone else’s problem

[binx0r]

Legit question: would it be weird to tell someone

“It makes me happy to know you exist”

Bc like… that’s a sentiment I feel a lot esp when I don’t have the ability to interact as much as I’d like to with people but I see them living their lives and it gives me deeply good feelings

Like regardless of whether we cross paths I know you well enough to appreciate you’re part of the universe and that fact brings me joy

Like is that inappropriate in any way?

[zerokrox-blog]

@steddieas-shegoes @newgrangespirals  

I hope this is too your liking! I tried to make it more angry but I don’t think I quite got it. But anyway, I tried to make it as good as I could. (I literally rewrote this like 5-6 times and it still feels..not angry enough) Based on this post  The silence around the table was deafening as Murray finished talking. The man looked so proud of himself, telling all and sundry about how he had gotten Nancy and Jonathan together. Nobody could move and no one breathed. Nancy and Jonathan had gone pale, and she kept looking at Steve who had gone so still and silent, hand outstretched for the mashed potatoes in front of him. His face had a weird look as if mentally calculating something and suddenly it changed to one of furious understanding and anguish that made her sit still. 

Then in the silence, seemingly not realizing the can of worms he had just opened, Murray turned to Steve and Eddie, “and you know you two are cute. But the pining is getting annoying, like you could take us all out of the misery by dating or even just something! Just ask-” “How fucking dare you?” Steve’s voice was cold and low with barely suppressed rage. He straightened up glaring at Murray who finally took in the faces around him. Jonathan and Nancy’s white faces, the pure shock on Joyce and Hopper’s faces. Robin, and the kids looking uncomfortable. Eddie looked terrified. Wayne was stiff and furious. 

“C’mon man, you can’t be serious?” Murray was shocked. “There is nothing wrong with me trying to get you together man! Listen, I helped get Jonathan and Nancy together as well as Hopper and Joyce. They are thriving-” 

Steve held up his hand voice hardening further, “what is your problem? I was with Nancy at that time which you knew about and you facilitated her cheating on me and you think I should be happy? You think I should be grateful? Now to make matters worse you are so casual about telling people about Eddie and I without knowing if these people are safe? Are you crazy? What is your problem?”

 Steve stood up, anger pouring off of him. Before Murray could say another word, Steve continued to rant, “you come here acting like some god, thinking that we all owe you shit when you barely know the people here and continue to treat us like little lab rats to get your fix! Stop trying to get people together, you're not a matchmaker! Nor are you in a relationship yourself! You barely know anything aside from cooking and maybe a few conspiracies! And you definitely don't know anyone here aside from Hop and Joyce! That isn’t enough people to be making the assumptions you’ve made. Most importantly, you are sitting here proudly, PROUDLY telling people that you helped Nancy and Jonathan get together KNOWING she was together with me! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!?” Steve started to walk away, but he paused just past Murray, he turned back and looked directly at him, “you don’t know me nor do you know Eddie. You don’t know him, who gave the right to demand he dance to your tune like a monkey? What if he isn’t gay? What if he actually hated me? What if he is dating someone else? Who are you to come here and force him to come out like that with no warning? Who are you to make him feel unsafe around the only people who understand him and what he went through over spring break? WHO ARE YOU TO TELL HIM IT’S OK TO CHEAT JUST BECAUSE YOU GET OFF ON HURTING TEENAGERS YOU BARELY KNOW? You disgust me.” Steve glared at Murray and snorted when the man didn’t say anything, seemingly finally realizing what he had done. “Yeah that is what I thought. I hope you know that I will not forgive you for endorsing Nancy cheating on me. I don’t forgive you for taking away my voice in trying to set Eddie and I up and telling people that he is gay without his permission. Fuck you Murray, go to hell.” He started walking away, and when Nancy reached out for him he jerked himself away. “You stay away from me. You and Jonathan stay the fuck away from me. I trusted you both and I shouldn’t have. I never told anyone half of the shit you both did to me. Stay away from me.”

Nancy retracted her hand feeling hurt. 

Eddie stood up, after the shock wore off and looked coldly at Murray, he said, “Aside from literally telling everyone to give you a pat on the back for helping Nancy cheat on Steve, and making me very uncomfortable by outing me like that, I hope you will not do that to anyone else, do you understand me? He waited until he got a nod from Murray, he looked at all of the people around the table, his eyes landed squarely back on Murray and stated firmly, “I don’t care one way or the other at this point, but Steve and I have been together for several months now. We don’t and never will need you to put us together. If you have any problems with that, take it up with someone who cares.” 

Murray looked pleased, “see? You two-”

Eddie gave him a sharp look. He moved after Steve who had left, tears in his eyes that nobody could see as he had entirely turned away from the table. 

Eddie left the Hopper-Byers backyard and went back to the Munson’s new house. Steve beat Eddie there by several minutes and when Eddie saw him his heart cracked. 

Steve was curled up on his bed, face buried in their pillows, soft sobs escaping him. 

“Oh sweetheart, I am here baby.” Eddie cooed softly, slipping out of his clothes before crawling into the bed and curling around Steve. 

Steve cried softly into the pillows not moving closer to Eddie the way he normally would. Eddie just held him and hummed softly into his hair, fingers slowly moving up and down his sides. 

It took Steve some time to calm down, and when he did he shifted around in Eddie’s arms and caught the look on his face. “Am I bad? Am I not enough for anyone? Is that why everyone leaves or hurts me? Am I not worthy of love and a healthy relationship?” he whispered, and Eddie squeezed him closer. 

“No babylove. You are worthy of love and gentleness, you are enough honey boy.” he kept his tone warm and soft, gently stroking Steve’s hair. 

Steve sucked in a deep breath, and once he calmed down entirely, he mumbled, “I don’t want to see Nancy or Jonathan for a while. I am so angry at them. And I don’t quite know what to make of this situation. Nancy knew how I felt about cheating because I told her about my parents. And she fucking cheated on me!” 

Eddie nodded and waited, Steve finally looked at him, and gave him a small smile. “I am sorry we were outed like that. I really-” 

“Baby boy, I promise you it’s not your fault, ok? You don’t owe me an apology. It’s not your fault and you don’t apologize for something that someone else’s shitty behavior ok? We can stay away from Nancy and Jonathan until you feel comfortable seeing them again, OK?” 

Steve nodded, feeling safe and secure here in Eddie’s arms. Here he was safe, he could be himself around Eddie, especially in his arms.

[xiii-e]

for Xie i hop u have a good day

for Lio...

i read wut you said. im gald i dint make things worse. sometimes i do that by accident

i didnt know i could hate HA anymore than i already did. i know its how hard it is for a regular person to get through there stupid bullshit program first hand, so i can only imagine how hard it is when they bake that shit into ur jeans or whatever.

HA made me a monster. they trained me and they changed me 2 be 1. i talked about what an enkidu does to u last night on another post... they filled me up with so many stims i could barely think most of the time, and they yelled at me wen i did anything other than kill for them.

im still the monster they turned me into. my BATTLERAGE never left. when i go too long without TEARING shit apart with SLAG KITTY i start to lose it. the stinging in my head starts again and it gets itchy and angry in my head. i MAUL because i have to and its a part of waht i am.

but that isnt all i am anymore. since the fuckers left me 2 die better people helped me learn to be a person again. I hav friends now and i liek exploring places and i think grils r like really really really pretty... im a whole person and im not just the part me they made.

I think Xie will always be a medic. their instinct to help people and make them stop hurting is baked in. but ive seen other parts of them too and theyre parts i really like. i think those parts will grow. specially once you manage to get them out of ther. i know you already know this, but i think itll maybe help to know that some1 else knows it 2

[ECHO.EXE RUNNING]

◂▸ Hey Sally- Xie's doing better than they were, having some quiet time in their room. They had a rough dream over their nap, head's giving them trouble, but! They're doing better now. They say hi :]

◂▸ ... yeah, you're not wrong there kiddo. Programming and conditioning can fuck with anyones head, but part of why they do these high-control Projects with us flashclones in the first place is because it's just- easier. No outside experiences to influence your subject, no family or history just... whatever you designed, floating in a tube. It's more expensive to custom-build a soldier than to just use fascimiles or vulnerable citizenship, but the payoff is the control. 'Specially if you bake in some behavioural quirks that back up what you wanna do. A predisposition toward anxiety, for instance. Uncontrolled empathy. Aggression, in some of the earlier models.

◂▸ Remove the ability to play god and fuck with someones genes directly and- yeah, stims. That horror show the Enkidu puts you through. I'm sorry they did that to you kiddo, they had no fucking right to- you already know that too but, likewise. Someone else knows that too. I don't think you're a monster, I think you're dealing the best you can with a problem you never should have been forced to deal with. They made it so the only positive association you got for years, was with violence. Course that's gonna be near impossible to kick entirely.

◂▸ ... makes me real happy to hear you talk about the parts of yourself you found after you got out, kiddo. Sounds like you understand stuff better than a lot of folk out there, and that- that probably comes from experience. You happy out there? You mention people helped you learn to be a person, after HA abandoned you in the field, mention you have friends now. That's real good to hear about. People who get it make everything managable, I think. You're a good person to know, Sally- I'm real glad you and Xie got talking. I know they're happy bout it too.

◂▸ I- I really hope I can get them out of here, one day. That's the first challenge, isn't it? Hope I can be there to see who they find within themself, once the job isn't bleeding them dry. Hope you'll be there to see it too. They'll always be the kind of person to put their own needs last, always be succeptable to that guilt they've been wired with... but I think that'll be managable. Once they've got people who don't want to see them hurt. People who can actually do something about it.

◂▸ Thanks kiddo. Just let me know if you ever wanna talk, yeah? I've got some experience helping folk deal with the quirks conditioning can leave you with. You have anything along the lines of a chewtoy? Can help with minor aggression impulses sometimes, having something to tear at.

[ Helios-8 ]

//

[crossdressingdeath]

Thinking about the disappointing ending to Durge's personal quest and how they either go full villain or lose most of what makes them unique as a character and basically just become Tav, and like... since Durge's death and immediate resurrection adds nothing to the plot (and what with things like the companions not responding to it, there being no clear reason why Durge is able to do something that Withers specifically says breaks cosmology and Withers apparently being unable to resurrect Durge if they kill themself to defy Bhaal at the very end of the game for no apparent reason it actually causes a surprising number of problems in the writing), why couldn't the good ending just involve finding a way to stop Bhaal from interfering in their life rather than Bhaal killing them?

Here's one potential solution, just off the top of my head. All the other origins' personal quests have trade-offs, right? Durge is the only one with this perfect "you get everything you want with no downsides" sort of ending. So what if instead of Bhaal killing them and them immediately getting brought back, they had to make a deal with him? He sets them free, and in exchange they do something for him. I can't think of what the exact terms would be, maybe something like... I don't know, "You'll uphold the usual 'murder once a tenday' tenets of the Bhaalists and if you stop you're mine again" that wouldn't really do anything in the game itself but would become an issue afterwards (like Astarion losing the ability to walk in sunlight if he remains a spawn and Wyll losing his warlock powers if he breaks his contract)? But whatever the terms are the upshot is that Bhaal removes the Urge as a show of good faith and the party is allowed to leave freely. Maybe also add in something like Shar still harassing Shadowheart if she spares her parents, like... maybe Bhaal removing the Urge and agreeing not to force Durge into their apocalyptic destiny doesn't mean he can't try to convince them to do it of their own will, so he occasionally pops into their head and tries to push them in a more murdery direction in a less aggressive version of the Urge that can't directly take over them? Or possibly just. hurts them out of spite because as long as he doesn't do anything permanent or force them to harm anyone else he's remaining within the bounds of their agreement. And that way they remain a piece of Bhaal's divine gore with everything that entails, they're just not on Bhaal's leash anymore. And they've also agreed to do something pretty fucked up of their own (coerced) will in exchange for their freedom, so they don't retain the annoyingly spotless moral high ground of the canon end of redemption Durge's story where they selflessly die rather than become Bhaal's apocalypse-triggering Chosen again.

You could even keep that "I'd rather die than serve you" energy without actually pulling the trigger: since Durge is actually a part of Bhaal rather than just his child like other Bhaalspawn, maybe they'd have ammunition for forcing Bhaal to bargain with them that regular Bhaalspawn don't. Like, say... maybe since they're a part of Bhaal them being destroyed utterly would do a fair amount of damage to him (which may have something to do with why they can be resurrected despite that usually being impossible for Bhaalspawn), and—to keep Withers's involvement in the quest, since that's actually really fun and given his distaste for Bhaal makes sense—the death god they're palling around can help make that complete destruction happen. Under those circumstances it would be better for Bhaal to lose them as his Chosen and mess up that particular plan for total victory rather than continue to try to force them and weaken himself permanently! I think if nothing else all that wouldn't make less sense than the canon ending.

[pancakeke]

does anyone have experience confronting their employer about your responsibilities getting wildly out of sync with your job title? my title is supply chain analyst but more than 50% of my work is not supply chain related at all anymore. I'm being treated mostly as a data analyst. data analyst salaries are 10% higher than supply chain analysts salaries in my area plus there are many more job opportunities for data analysts. I want a title change.

also does anyone have experience writing a resume when your responsibilities are not related to your title? should I just say I'm a data analyst because that's the work I'm doing or is there some special section I can add noting secondary work as an unofficial data analyst. there is other shit I do very often too that is barely related to either role.

anyone who has been following me for a while is gonna think I'm sooo late to this realization but it's getting pretty clear to me that my workplace is not going to stop pushing me into roles that I'm not appropriately compensated for, and because these roles are not official I will never receive any support, even when I explicitly request it. I have already been denied support multiple times.

this isn't just random people asking me to do one-time odd jobs either. our COO, CFO, and multiple directors ask me directly to do shit like investigate errors in our website and its tools to uncover what is causing data to display incorrectly. this is to shift labor off our web dev team and onto me, why us paid way less than a developer. I do NOT know ANY programming, I just know the database. this has happened five or six times now.

I also manage customer issues directly with the customers because our sales team does not appropriately train anyone in their department. I create orders for them too because they can not be trusted to enter them (not because they're untrained, but because they were not entering these intentionally). I provide records and reporting for accounting audits. I build weird calculators and generators in Excel for every department except two (IT and web dev) because those two can't justify devoting time to those projects and integrating them into our site. I create extremely weird queries to trace information that out database does not track appropriately (and this will never be fixed).

there are zero docs for anything I do except the ones I personally wrote, and only very limited notes scattered around. I was never trained and only picked sql and stuff up cause when I was a buyer digging into data helped me solve problems more efficiently. I have been begging web dev to tell me when they update anything because they keep breaking extremely serious tools but they have been ghosting me entirely. literally all they have to do is CC me on update emails but they won't do it.

also there isn't anyone else in the company who is proficient in sql and stuff (outside dev, and they're miles above me) to back me up so if I'm overloaded or need other help I'm shit out of luck. this makes taking PTO a fucking nightmare too because I'm always in the middle of helping someone out of a fucking fire and everyone does that shit where they say I can take PTO any time I want without worrying but then constantly assign me with critical tasks and demand results asap.

It is beyond time for me to be realistic about this job and what I want to do with myself 40 hours a week until I die, so I need to start working toward either making my current situation more tolerable or going elsewhere.

[sakurachan7734]

They are Talking to themselfs now cause no one‘s home

One off story



This might be one of my really sad stories just so you know and the title is based off one of the lyrics to probably my favorite bad religion song, “two babies in the dark” 

Aristotle pov

I might as well be home alone at this point I mean I know father is down the basement working and he doesn’t want me bothering him but he never comes upstairs until dad gets home and dad comes home at about 12 normally he comes home at 10 but his drive for perfection blinds him sometimes and I just got out of rehab and my parents are letting me stay home a week so I can try getting better mentally but this is just making me want to use again it’s so goddamn lonely in this castle and I feel like I’m being dramatic because I know my father is home I know they love me but I feel like I can’t tell them I how I am mentally because they’re always busy and they don’t want me disturbing them my sister is still at school 

Aristotle: I guess I could just talk to myself for a while

Aristotles imaginary friend then appears in front of them Aristotle has not thought about this in a really long time so they forgot what they had created which was a vampire Jackalope named jasper

Jasper: it’s so good to see you again!

Aristotle: I don’t wanna play I just wanna talk.

Jasper: about what?

Aristotle: I just want someone to vent to 

Jasper: ok go on

Aristotle: I feel like I can’t tell anyone how I am feeling mentally because I will get called dramatic or pushed away because on the outside I have the perfect fucking life and every teen girls dream job but my job is telling me I can’t eat a certain amount of calories or I’m gonna be put on diet pills and I don’t want to get fired so I have to listen to them

Jasper: oh that’s bad Is your boss making you do that?

Aristotle: yes but I think he is retiring soon so hopefully my next boss won’t do this to me but it’s the modeling industry so that might happen again

Jasper: well why don’t you switch modeling buildings? One that won’t treat you the way they control how you eat

Aristotle: I can’t because it took me forever to get that job

Jasper: well why don’t you tell your parents?

Aristotle: well I might get punished away or they won’t believe me

Jasper: why don’t you tell your boyfriends?

Aristotle: well I don’t want to bother them with my problems because Jackson and Charlie don’t know how to handle human emotions

Jasper: so you feel like you have nobody to talk to?

Aristotle: kinda yea

Jasper: are your parents putting you for therapy?

Aristotle: yes but I feel like it’s not working I kind of wanna start using drugs again 

Jasper: you know that’s a terrible idea right?

Aristotle: I know but…. I feel like nothing else is working and I don’t wanna bother my parents by getting me a better therapist….

Jasper: how was your ballet instruction towards you?

Aristotle: she is a bit nicer to me but she’s the one who suggested I go on diet pills because and I quote “nobody wants to look at a fat freak of nature” i’m already super skinny I don’t know where she got that from

Jasper: you do ballet professionally?

Aristotle: yes well it started a hobby but then I got to a point where I turn it into a career 

Jasper: ok well how is the public treating you about being a child of a world famous celebrity?

Aristotle: I both hate it and love it I hate it because I’m constantly swarmed by paparazzi and other fans and I’ve gotten a few creepy ones that touched me everywhere and I have to put on a fake face for the media because if I yell at them to stop taking pictures I will be called the bad guy I feel like I’m being told how to feel how to act how to dress without directly being told and I feel like I’m just seen as public property to them instead of a person

Jasper: it sounds like you’re feeling like you can’t come out about your feelings because you’re under a bunch of pressure

Aristotle: yeah probably but like I said, I don’t know how to come out about it because I have a feeling I’ll be pushed away or just ignored….

Jasper: well…. Judging on The fact of whatever you just told me you might need to take another week off of school and you might need to call out of work for a little bit

Aristotle: I can’t my parents said I could stay out for about a week or two until I feel better but my work won’t let me stay out more than one week.

Jasper: will you could call in sick

Aristotle: I tried but they still said I can only be gone for one week

Jasper: well what is something that calms you down?

Aristotle: well alone quiet stroll on the beach or woods just by myself no music, no conversations no nothing….hmm you know what yeah I’m gonna go take a walk

Jasper: all right thanks for sharing

Jasper then disappears Aristotle leaves a note on the fridge saying “went for a walk I will be back in about two hours” 

Aristotle pov

This…..This is nice this may be what I need but not the same time because I’m complaining about feeling lonely but I’m doing stuff all by myself but I don’t wanna worry everybody with my problems because I don’t know how to handle them and I don’t want them to worry about me I feel almost pathetic for being like this, wanting people by me, but yet pushing them away at the same time maybe I should just convince my parents to let me see better therapist or get back to the drugs maybe both only time will tell.

End





[cannibalisticdespair]

kodaka

🔥

Frankly? Don't hate him like much as the rest of the fandom seems to. Sure, he's imperfect. He's human. But like... I'm one of the only people who's sat down and done the math to figure out that Hope's Peak is a Unit 731 + Japan being in the Axis Powers reference. We have three numbered classes, one from one year and two from the other. The numbers are in order, and the extra class is marked with a B. Class 78, Class 77 and Class 77b. Which means class numbers are in order of since the school was founded and additional classes in one year do not increase the number.

Which means we can MATH! Class 78 is admitted in 2010, so we just get a simple subtraction problem out of this. 1932! Hope's Peak was founded in 1932 to foster and promote people who are naturally superior to everyone else and create the perfect human who is over all others. The Ubermensch. In 1932. Using fucked up evil science. In Imperial Japan. And they've always been government-backed for this reason. He stealthed that past all the censors. Japan really doesn't like to talk about shit like Unit 731 and he directly made a plot which is "Yeah, the Japanese government was doing evil eugenics science with human experimentation during World War 2 and never stopped, it's directly tied to the culture of talent and superiority in Japan, and that's evil." Like, literally, "our culture never actually moved on from the atrocities and the government is still fuckin evil". That's the core of Danganronpa!

And then, the social media landscape makes people go "I don't like this character as a person" = "This is a bad character", which is fucking stupid moron behavior. Wheatley ass motherfuckers. Haiji Towa. Oh, you mean to tell me that the billionaires funded both sides of the war and were complicit in genocide in order to keep and amass power, and are also child molesters? Wow, where have I fucking heard that before?! Like literally, "the world ended not just because of Junko, but because the predatory rich and powerful would rather commit genocide than lose power and wealth". Go fucking off!

Are there other things that are problematic? Sure. But like... the main one people get mad about is from 2010. I don't know how to say this without ripping off the bandaid. 1996 was 14 years before 2010. 2010 was 14 years ago. Sometimes, shit ages poorly. It was 14 years ago. You're judging 1996 writing by 2010 standards and expecting it to be to 2024 standards. I'm sorry, but that's unreasonable.

And also? I have some friends who know Japanese. Y'all ain't blaming NIS America enough. Japanese gendered pronouns are a bit different from English ones, and you know what nobody does in Japanese? Use masculine terms for Chihiro. NIS America are fucking hacks, y'all. "Genocide Jill" anyone? Gonta?! Yeah, the whole caveman speak? NIS AMERICA, THEY DID THAT. Also, they censored Komaeda's aborted love confession in SDR2. In the Japanese, that whole "I am truly in love with the hope that sleeps inside you"? Yeah he explicitly starts a love confession, USING FUCKING AISHITERU LIKE A FUCKIN MADMAN, and then chickens out at the last second from anxiety. Here's a literally decade old post translating it. Did I mention how goddamn old these games are? NIS. FUCKING. AMERICA. I could go on about hating them, but I think that if everyone knew they pulled that censoring gayness shit, y'all would start hunting them for sport by default.

As for V3... listen, Japan didn't even fucking know about the antis until a year ago. People tying it to that are just centering their own culture. What you actually have to do is know about Kamaitachi no Yoru, one of the popularizing works of the entire Visual Novel genre. In 1994. Well, technically you need to know about the sequel and some rerelease stuff.

See, the first game is a standard murder mystery VN. Nothing too remarkable there. The second game? The actors who played the characters in the based-on-a-true-story (in-universe) work of fiction of the previous game are invited to an island and events heavily mirroring the plot of the original murder mystery happen. Did I mention Chunsoft published this? Later they'd merge with the company Spike, forming Spike Chunsoft. Hmmmmmm.

Oh, but that's not what you need to know. WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW IS THE EASTER EGG WEIRD SHIT IN KnY2 YOU GET FOR 100% COMPLETION! YEAH, IT'S THAT SORT OF SHIT! What is it? A lot of weird weird shit, but there's one really really really important part.

The Easter Egg takes the form of a secret message placed in the game by the writer of the games. It states that the franchise contains secret brainwashing programs to make people worship and venerate Chunsoft so that Chunsoft can take over the world But wait, there's more! It also claims, get this, that the fictional characters are actually somehow alive and suffering through the entire plot of the games, which is needed to make this brainwashing program, and the murder mystery games are created by just inflicting the plot on these living fictional characters.

Team Danganronpa is literally Spike Chunsoft. Danganronpa V3 is a sequel to a 100% completion easter egg from a different franchise that was extremely massive in the 90s and early 2000s in Japan and completely unknown in the west. YEAH. What. The. Fuck. It has nothing to do with fanpol, it has to do with a mindfuck horror story. Oh, and fun fact: that easter egg? Also the first known instance of a horror story involving the fictional characters coming out of the horrifying cursed video game and killing a person irl. V3 is a sequel to the very first gaming creepypasta, which was written and included in the very game it is about. Isn't that fucking insane?!

Oh, and the blue silhouettes from UDG and DR3 also come from KnY. And the boat scene at the end of DR3 is a reference to KnY2. Like, they end the same way. And of course, the brainwashing program stuff should sound familiar.

[climaxbattles]

vent dont read (unless the curiousity consumes you i guess. if you know me personally it might suck)

i havent been able to leave the house since may and it seems like every day i get worse and worse

i just cant deal with anything i dont know why

i dont go outside, i cant be alone, i cant even eat too fast/slow or i just like completely freak out

i started therapy and this is the first time ive ever been hopeful about interacting with a therapist but i still kind of dread it every week. im not even sure its helping like maybe shorter sessions would be better but i use so much energy just getting through the day i cant communicate until its too late

i dont even understand what made this happen my only guess is that one of the medications i tried really messed me up (or i have a brain tumor or thyroid problem or something) because a few of them had really really terrible side effects and i almost had to go back to the hospital for the 3rd time in a year, but i dont get why im not getting better when i dont do anything and im not on those meds anymore.

and if it is physical i cant leave the house without panicking like. i dont know how else i would go anywhere to get it checked out unless it got so bad i had to call an ambulance again so they could lie me down and give me oxygen and turn all the lights off and hold my hand again but that also was like very traumatic so im afraid i would just completely break

my friend is over visiting and i havent seen her in forever bc she moved 4 hours away and i cant even bring myself to hang out with her because she brought her boyfriend and i already have problems talking to anyone but her even though i fucking live with her family and leech off them. so im just hiding in my room

i dont really talk to anyone much anymore and i dont even know if its Because i want to be left alone or if its something making me lonely/im upset about. it also kind of seems like people r moving on from me but that could be like entirely self inflicted bc one on one conversation terrified me even before and now i like have panic attacks if a breathe wrong let alone attempt something thats always scared me

i think like some of them maybe also have a seperate discord server i wasnt invited to. this happened literally months ago where i accidentally found out and its not really my business i guess. and i dont even rly know if its true or even used anymore

it just feels bad because i lost a friend of like 7 years and a friend i really related to but didnt know long because i took their side in multiple arguments and i dont regret the 2nd one but the first one kind of still sucks. the people i lost had a lot of their own problems that made them unpleasant but idk. the first person was kind of always open to talking to me even though we r both fucked up and wouldnt ignore me even when i sometimes would bc of my own problems

and then if there Is a second server thats kind of why the second person lost their shit. so its like Maybe they were right in a small way (they were completely fucked though they would like suicidebait randomly and ive never had any other friend do that so its still for the best i think)

it seems like i keep losing or pushing away good friends kind of. or maybe im bad at all friends idk. ive never enjoyed socializing so it seems like my fault probably

i honestly just wish i could get on food stamps and/or disability on top of medicaid but i think people are still insisting i can go back to the way i was before. idk if thats possible. i just want to be able to stop taking As much Directly from other people and maybe like. buy legos or a 3d printer or something. i dont have much to do in the house 24/7 and my computer is getting old. and i think the internet is making this all worse but thats like my only activity

im so tired

[queervegancryptid]

Venting. If anyone has any advice or even words of encouragement, I really would appreciate something like that. Because I am straight-up at my limit.

I'm so tired of having to pretend to be okay. Humor has been a coping mechanism for me for a long time, but even that's getting old and forced. At this point, I'm just giving a few people a few chuckles to disguise how miserable and awful I feel.

Gaining weight because I'm in recovery? I'll make a joke about medication compliance and ask the nurse if they can give me something that will either make me not gain weight or make me stop hating myself. "Is there a pill where you stop hating yourself? Can I just get a really high dose of that injected directly into my jugular please?"

Lying on a table with my top basically off while dudes put electrodes on me and take an ABSURDLY LONG TIME because it's basically one of their first times doing an ECG? I undercut HIS tension by saying, "Don't worry, guys. This is NOT the worst time I've ever had with my top off."

I make my doctors and the office staff smile and laugh a lot. I have that effect on a lot of people. But it takes a fucking toll. And I'm honestly not sure why I do it, because I'm starting to really hate it.

No one worries about how I might be feeling. Even though I'm literally shaking and sweating on the table.

No one even thinks it might be really hard for me to keep up the act. But the fact is, every fucking moment is a struggle.

I just want to know how I'm supposed to endure this. Because if it goes on too much longer, I honestly don't know if I can. Or if I even want to.

I've been hurt in ways I never thought I'd be hurt, and then no one tried to help or even acknowledged it much. It's happened a lot in my life, and now it's happening again. Because I literally can't even talk about it. To anyone. Ever.

I just never expected it, I guess. Not like this. Every fucking moment is a scream, and I just want out.

It's partially my own fucking fault, though. Not being able to talk about most of this without leaning on humor means people think it's chill to laugh and just forget about it, because it can't be THAT serious if I'm making fun of myself, right? So when something really does hurt me, I feel like I have to act like it doesn't. And now that something's happened that I just can't share with anyone at all, really, no one notices because I just got that good at masking, I guess.

Really, it feels just like when I was a kid. All over again. No one wants to deal with me having big, complex feelings. Then as now.

One of the worst parts is, this weekend is the 10-year anniversary of my name change, and I kinda wanted to treat it like a birthday. My actual 10th birthday sucked ass. Lots of death and destruction and drama that whole year. So I kinda wanted to make it a do-over.

Yeah. I don't think that's gonna happen, y'all. I barely know where my next meal is coming from these days. Then as now, it feels like I don't matter much at all to most people in my life, at least to the extent that it involves actually helping me. If I have a breakdown or can't eat, people notice, sometimes. But they don't want to deal with it and won't be super duper compassionate for long.

And the real issue isn't that they don't care; it's that there's so much else going on. Once again, then as now.

I get it; I have emotional exhaustion going on all the time lately. But why is it always me? Why do I always feel like I have to shove my needs aside and pretend to be okay with things when I'm very much NOT okay with them, sometimes very visibly so?

It's not that I don't understand that other things are going on or that I even need a ton of attention. But I feel like there's a pattern for me of just never being the most important thing in the room to anyone. And part of the reason why is ableism and a general lack of understanding of my problems and needs, and that goes for my literal entire life since birth. Another part of it is that I feel like I have to use humor or downplay things; that's been going on basically my whole life, too, halfway because I learned early on not to expect to be anyone's priority. If I wanted a space for myself, I've always had to carve it out and fight for it until my knuckles are raw and bloody, and even when I only took half as much as what I felt like I needed, people made me feel like it was too much.

There's never been any room for me. Literally or otherwise.

I feel so much like my mom that sometimes I wonder if she's haunting me. Literally haunting me. Because some of the crap that's happened would be entirely on brand for her paranoid, vindictive, and sometimes very petty self.

Before she died, she made me promise to keep my dad and brother from basically either killing each other or walking away from each other. So a few months ago, I basically had to mitigate and be on call about it when my brother was going absolutely insane and I was literally worried for my dad's life.

But see, to her, that would mean I broke my promise by not staying there in the first place. As if I could have fixed the problems they have at all. As if that house were ever going to be a place that would really feel like a safe, comforting home to me.

The thing is, she had a sense of humor, too. Freed from the shackles of her body and all its issues, there's no way she wouldn't haunt my ass in ironic af ways if she could, and I'm not sure it's impossible.

All I really know for sure is that I need to find some help. I have to make so many phone calls. I wish there was a service that would help people who are disabled or who just don't do well at this sort of thing because of anxiety or whatever, where it's all HIPAA compliant and shit, and you can just have someone else schedule appointments for you.

If that's a thing, it's probably not anything my insurance covers and not anything I can afford. But it definitely should be a thing.

[ancientglades]

trying to talk about AI art discourse is so frustrating because i feel like i need to add like 30 addendums so that people don't think i'm the actual devil because of all the misinformation and fearmongering out there. i feel like i'm pretty neutral on the subject but i'm still scared of people getting mad at meeeee... i'm gonna try to say my thoughts about it anyways though...

all of the problems that everyone has with AI aren't actually problems with AI itself, they're problems with capitalism. so then its suuuuper frustrating to see these same people insinuate that their art styles themselves are basically intellectual property and that generative AI is infringing on that like WOAHHH where did that come from? were we just kidding about communism? do you want art styles to be copy-written? do you realize that takes like this are just pro-capitalist? obviously it sucks if your art is being directly copied and sold for money without your permission but that's the fault of the person doing that. anyone can physically trace your art, it's not specifically a generative AI problem.

even a genuine concern about AI, artists that work for companies being fired and replaced by generative AI, is solely because of capitalist greed. and that fucking sucks! the amount of energy and water that generative AI consumes is extremely negligible compared to any major company or millionaire ever. and that fucking sucks too!

"artistic integrity" or "value" is not being taken from you by generative AI. John AI making big boobie anime women on deviantart is not destroying the value you place upon your own art nor anyone else's. and no one Has to feel any "artistic value" towards their art. sometimes it's just work. but the people who want to purchase handmade art will purchase handmade art. if you're a commission artist you are not being replaced by AI. the people who are buying or making AI art were probably never going to buy your art regardless.

there are genuine concerns about gen AI but its super frustrating seeing some of the posts i see.... no one would give a fuck about AI if we didn't live in a capitalist society because it wouldn't even be an issue. i'm also not trying to say anyone is stupid for being scared or mad about AI or just wanting nothing to do with it... there are valid reasons for that. i will, however, always encourage discussion, learning, and changing your mind. i have. not everything is black and white. many people have to realize that this has happened with so many different new technologies in the past and that your problem isn't with AI itself, but rather capitalism as a whole.

at the end of the day i don't personally use gen AI or chatgpt or whatever and i don't know if i will but i also don't think anyone who does is a horrible person. i don't think that if you disagree with this then you're a horrible person either, i just want everyone to stop and think for a minute about who your enemy is here. banning AI is not going to magically make artists richer or make art more valuable to society or whatever else. AI has existed in many of the art tools we've been using for a while and many of them are genuinely very helpful for artists and that's a good thing. i don't knowwwwwwww. my overall stance -> I want to see the end of capitalism.

[resmarted]

haven't been on psych meds all week due to liver failure and emergency intervention to reverse the effects of the damage from trying to replace covid meds with tylenol (even those also give you liver damage apparently and my tylenol levels didn't even appear to be that high in the end? tf?)

have already been on the brink of tears a few times, namely when chris didn't pull my show and said he knew my ability to bounce back in time. i can't even talk about it i will start sobbing it's like the most moving thing anyone has said to me in so long.

was also considering going down on these meds already and wanted to taper off to see how i manage. i have been on a steady combo of anxiety and depression meds since i was 22. i was very exhausted from being the funny girl in every setting to the point where every coworker at whole foods would want to know what was wrong the second i stopped smiling or goofing off. the expectation of me and the sad jester complex that came along with it for years got to be too much. i also felt like i had turned it into a full time job making everyone else around me comfortable which somehow evolved into being an emotional dumping ground for everyone to lay their own issues out onto, whether we knew each other or not. i genuinely care for people but there is a fine line between being nonconsensually assigned at random to become someone's free therapist and being this hardened bitch for setting boundaries and not engaging in the people-pleasing techniques of culturally fetishized support group mentality. or something idk how to explain it but i decided at some point it was much safer to just be seen as a bitch than a free vent box for other people who refuse to get on their own meds or proper treatment plans with licensed professionals etc. people tend to see that you have been through a lot and therefore you have all the answers to get them through their stuff, but it took a lot or work and therapy and is an ongoing process. it's actually really insulting and extremely lacking in self-awareness to make your problems everyone else's around you and being the only somewhat healed person in a room makes you a magnet to people who want to feel better too without doing the work. people don't deserve to be victim to your emotional outbursts or of your vampiric tendencies.

that being said, not to be anye-kay but i was a much more prolific writer and a lot of my best art has been created from the depths of hellish experiences and times in my life. suppressing my feelings about the world and not pouring it into my art is not very cash money of me. also tho the best art is made during the winter and the worst time to go off meds is also during this time, generally for the same reasons. also i think it's generally a lame excuse to say you can't make art with or without drugs. it may be easier one way or the other, but it's likely a discipline or skill issue. like maybe you're just a shitty artist and drugs is an easy way to avoid taking that accountability.

the mental health system is so fucked the regular health system is so fucked the living wage is fucked all of our money is being funneled directly into war and genocide and i just feel like numbing myself any further in this moment of revolutionary history is not the way to exist right now.

THAT being said i fucking HATE how people act off their meds, how they unleash their shit onto you with such audacious entitlement, and ultimately this world is designed to make you feel crazy, so if you can control your emotions in an act of survival then why wouldn't you? but also i am an artist, doggg.

i know how i get when i go off them for too long, how unsavory comments become, even when they are people i know disguising themselves as randos, and fortunately i have had enough experience to know how cruel and demented people get in groups on line (or in general) and have learned to genuinely not go looking for it after years or exposure tharapy alone. the second i get the slightest inkling we are not on the same team, you're out. no questions asked. like i could truly give a fuck what your excuse for your behavior you will or won't admit to, i have enough weirdo fucking stalkers online as it is and have for decades now. if you even have one of those people within six degrees or your social circle you're already on thin ice to begin with. i did not spend nearly forty years surviving this insane fucking life to go backwards. i don't attach myself to people with shitty karma, even if it's just by proxy of their friends of friends. if you want to survive cut-throat environments, you have to be willing to be called the bitch and the crazy one and whatever else will be thrown at you for refusing to adhere to a mold of low vibe mediocrity. you have to treat your social circle like an ongoing audition process that is never fully locked into place and be totally fine with whether or not people will get it (they won't, esp as a woman you will get thrown all those demonic labels and then some) it feels weird in the early days but eventually living in truth and integrity becomes second nature, and the revolving door of people who do and do not make it back for the following seasons of both your community environment of choice or your life in its most personal form always speaks for itself.

people play with fire expecting not to get burnt, play stupid games to win stupid prizes, despite how it ends the same each time etc etc etc.

say it with me: slow and steady wins the race. that falls on deaf ears attached to people trying to be the loudest in the room, but people only like fast food for so long and everyone agrees what quality is at the end of the day. you don't just get that overnight through overexertion and speed racing your way into a burnout. not everyone is meant to play this game according to the arbitrary set of rules on a constantly evolving and everchanging landscape.

this post was mostly for me btw. everything i do in this world is generally just for me. another great example of gaining a following by going against all the made up rules to a made up game that we are all just making up as we go along. [fiona apple 1997 vma voice] this world is bullshit just go with yourself

[engagedtobefree]

I’m bitter and angry and I’ve been this way for months.

I can’t bring myself to fully face what I’m feeling, so I mask it with anger and resentment. If I really allowed myself to pause, to feel everything, would the tears ever stop? Would the pain be too much for me to handle? 

I don’t sleep, and even when I try, I can’t. I am so chronically exhausted that sometimes throughout my day I feel like I could faint. On the worst days, my heart is a racehorse that doesn’t know it’s already passed the finish line. I try to give my body permission to slow down, I try to give that permission to myself, but if I ignore anyone the most, it’s me.

Where do I begin? The crippling ADD, maybe. The diagnosis I got at age 24 that I sought to bury in the back of my mind due to the abusive mother who took my meds away and told me I didn’t have a problem, just inherent flaws I was too lazy to fix. And now at 31, I don’t know how to even process the grief from realizing I could’ve been medicated for the past 7 years and that it was just another thing my mother took away from me. And now that I am actually trying to do something about it, I have to play the waiting game with my psychiatrist, not knowing when or if they will medicate me, and if they do, if I will need to play musical chairs with medications until I find one that suits me comfortably.

Then there’s losing Jewel. I didn’t get to see her much these past two years because I tried to avoid going over my mom’s as much as possible. When she was here visiting me the day before we took her to get euthanized, I didn’t even spend a lot of time with her. I could’ve put her up on the sofa with me, could’ve had her lay on my chest and purr until she faceplanted from pure trust and comfort, but I didn’t. And now she’s gone and I will never get that opportunity again.

Then there’s my job, which I don’t like, but I need to work because I need to survive, and I am at risk of getting fired because I cannot function because I cannot sleep and I am not in a good mental state to handle my life. And then there’s yoga which I feel like I have been so detached from, so how can I ever begin to build a career with it?

Then there’s Scott. He just up and walked out of my life without even any explanation. I waited for him, I was patient, I didn’t rush him, I was understanding, I would wait up for his calls even though I never knew when or if he’d call me. And he didn’t even have the consideration to tell me why he was walking out of my life. He was nothing but shallow and selfish, only ever thinking of himself and what he needed from me, and never the other way around. He hurt me over and over again with his words and his actions, and I still waited around for him. I still stupidly had hope that this man would care about someone else for once in his life. So isn’t it my own fault that I was let down? Even with his daughter, stories he told me about how he was just teaching her about life, but it ended up hurting her. I didn’t have the words in those moments, because I was trying to be compassionate and non-judgmental toward him, and not being a parent myself, I have to tread carefully with my advice I think. I also know in those moments he was being vulnerable with me and that he seemed to feel bad, and I know parenting is a hard job and every parent pretty much learns as they go. But now, I feel so angry. I just want to say, “Do you really give people what they need, or only what you think they need?”. He is always like that, only seeing things from his limited point of view. 

Even when I finally got some vague response from him about him leaving, he just fucking couldn’t even directly respond to me and tell me why, only saying he was fucked up and that I shouldn’t have to deal with him. And his apologies of blaming me and saying he’s fucked up, what absolutely bullshit. It makes me wonder if his apology when he came back into my life was real or just rehearsed. And when I said I was going through a hard time, his response was pretty much equivalent to a shrug of the shoulders. I want to yell at him and cry and ask if he ever even cared about me at all. I want to tell him how terrible he is and how much he’s hurt me. I want to tell him that he never deserved my kindness. I want to tell him I hate him. But of course, that wouldn’t be true. If I hated him, I wouldn’t be hurting this much, and I wouldn’t currently be the embodiment of pure, utter chaos right now.

My last texts to Scott was an apology for flipping out on him (even though it was well-deserved and I still to date have not received any sort of apology from him) and that I was still there if he needed me. His response was that it’s all good and that he was there if I needed him too. My final message of “Thanks, I do” remains marked unread.

I can’t remember the last time I felt this alone and it hurts. 

[workofheart]

extra help | gojo satoru

what’s a teacher to do when his student is building up so much cursed energy? help her get it under control, of course.

pairing: gojo satoru x f!reader

wc: 4.7k

warnings: smut, 18+ (minors dni), teacher/student relations (reader is of age), fingering, oral (f receiving), dirty talk, sir kink, unprotected sex (do not do this), lowkey corruption, squirting, exhibitionism (?), creampie, gojo refers to himself as “teacher” because i said so

note: barely edited, something to ease the brainrot. gojo satoru hollow me challenge. 

“Can you maybe, I don’t know, shut the fuck up?”

The jab spews out of your mouth before you can stop it. Your filter is long gone, the thoughts that pop into your head forming into verbal words without the chance to even process them. Once you hear it, you mentally slap yourself. Now you just look like an asshole.

“Jeez, no need to be a bitch about it,” mutters Nobara. She rests on the concrete steps on her elbows, appearing utterly disinterested with her head tossed back and eyes closed, soaking in the fresh air.

“I’m not being a bitch.”

“Yes, you are.”

“I’m not!”

“You kind of are,” Megumi says quietly, shrugging slightly when your incredulous expression finds his to be stoic and unmoving. He leans down to scratch behind one of his dog’s ears. His nonchalance boils your blood even further, effectively working you up past your melting point. A bitter laugh leaves your mouth.

“...You motherfucker-”

“Good morning, everybody!”

You sigh, lips hanging open with the rest of your insult frozen where it was interrupted. From over the small hill behind you, Gojo Satoru greets everyone with a bright energy you aren’t capable of returning this early in the day. 

You try your best to shake it off. The other students wave back happily as you sulk, aimlessly stretching your arms over your head in an attempt to push out the thousand things running through your mind, not one of which you’re capable of dealing with.

And maybe it is a good morning - the sun is out, the air is cool, there’s not a breeze passing by to mess up your hair. It’s a lovely day to be training. Megumi has been walking his dogs around the field, Yuuji has been racing himself from one end to the other, meanwhile the others take turns sparring. The springtime weather is rewarding, which is why it’s such a shame you can’t enjoy it.

Gojo reaches up a hand to lift one side of his blindfold. Though he’s standing all the way over on the steps, you can see his eyes clearly, crystalline blue and staring with scrutiny. The man leans forward into his gaze, and the way he’s inspecting you soon irritates you further.

“What’s with all the cursed energy?” he asks, letting his blindfold fall over his eye again. 

Yuuji perks up at the comment from where he’s been sitting after his run, pulling out blades of grass between his fingertips. “So it’s not just me?” he pipes up, pushing himself up to his feet. He seems relieved, turning his attention to you. “I thought maybe you just had a bad day but it seems like it’s seeping off you all the time now.”

Your lips press into a thin line as your eyelids droop in annoyance, trying to think up a reasonable answer quick. Unfortunately, you don’t get the time to do so.

“I don’t need to see it to feel it,” Maki adds. She finishes tying up her laces, objectivity unmoving with the deadpan spreading across your features. Your jaw tenses. “Didn’t want to say anything in case it would make you angrier.”

“Too late!” you snap, huffing as you place your arms over your chest. The number of eyes on you has your cheeks burning, and paired with your current vexation, makes you feel even worse.

“Well, what are you angry about?” Yuuji asks. 

“I’m not angry about anything.”

“That sounds a little defensive,” Gojo comments.

“You seem frustrated, that’s all.” Yuuji looks at you with a genuine curiosity that makes it hard to be mad at him. His doe eyes couldn’t possibly imagine what the real issue at hand is.

“Yeah, she’s frustrated all right,”  Nobara juts in. Her tone is whiney and annoyed, and you hope the glare you send her will shut her up, but she acts as if she doesn’t see it, only looking down at her nails in distaste. Then comes the zinger. “It’s because she hasn’t gotten laid in months.”

“That is not true!” you yell, but the obvious rage bubbling out of you gives it away. 

“Cursed energy can build from that?”

“It would explain a lot.”

“That sounds definitely defensive.”

“Shut up!” you shout, throwing your hands over your face to hide your cheeks burning in embarrassment. Then you’re sitting back on the field, hanging your head low over your knees. Quietly, you mutter, “You promised you wouldn’t say anything.”

☆☆☆

“You wanted to see me, sir?”

The walk here had been nerve wracking enough. Your heart had been stuck in your throat since the track this morning, if not from the sheer embarrassment of Nobara telling everyone you were sexually frustrated, then surely from the way Gojo had asked you to meet with him later in an old classroom rather seriously before walking off.

It scared you half to death upon hearing it, and just thinking about it scared the other half, so you’re hanging on by the thinnest of threads. The others comments hadn’t helped either, teasing about the frightening methods he’d use to dispel the energy, or how he’d berate you for being so stupid, or whatever else the maniac of a man had to offer.

Gojo leans back lazily in his chair, long legs thrown over the desk for his comfort and leisure. He stretches, letting out a satisfied groan with his arms straightened behind his head as you close the door behind you. 

“About time you got here. Been waiting forever.”

The lights are off, but evening sun pours in through the wall of windows that look out over the courtyard to brighten the room. He tosses a small apple plush above him with a smooth flick of his wrist, catching it on its down arc with ease. It looks like a marble with how it sits in his massive palms.

“Well, this wing is on the other side of campus,” you swallow, fiddling with your fingers absentmindedly. That reminds you...“Why are we this far, anyway?”

He sighs, placing the toy back down at the top of his desk and resting his chin on his palm. You can feel his eyes on you through his blindfold. “To solve your problem, of course.”

“My… my problem? No, I don’t have any problems,” you say with a shake of your head as genuine as you can muster, a nervous smile flashing across your expression as he stands. His hand trails along the desk as he moves around it. When you get the feeling he doesn’t believe you, you start again, “If it’s about what Nobara said, it’s really no big deal-” 

“While you’re a talented sorcerer, you’re not a very good liar.” He comes to a stop in front of you, towering over your small frame. His head is turned down toward you but you refrain from making eye contact. Trying to maintain your composure, you look straight into his chest and then avert your eyes to the sid, looking anywhere else in the room but him - the chalkboard, the windows, the posters on the wall - that is, until he takes your chin in his hand and tugs your face up to look at him directly.

He’s taken off his blindfold, the black cloth crumpled in his palm and already tossed to the floor.

The way you’re staring at him, that desire that lies just below the fear, has his dick tenting in his pants. When he focuses, he can see the cursed energy radiating from your body, dark and cloudy as it surrounds you. “Yuuji’s right, it’s practically seeping from you,” he coos, eyebrows drawn together in concern.

He drinks in your apprehension with a sadistic sort of delight, and you don’t miss the feel of his eyes as they trace down your body. “My student is struggling,” he says tenderly, tapping his index finger along your cheek lightly. “What kind of teacher would I be if I didn’t help?” 

He eats up the way you look at him, swept away and hazy, your brain turning to mush at the sound of his voice. Heat pools in your panties, and the subtle manner in which your thighs shift against each other is not lost on him.

The tension in the air is electrifying. Leaning down to your ear, he says what’s been on his mind for weeks. “Don’t think I can’t hear you at night, touching yourself, trying so hard to make it go away on your own.”

His words leave your throat dry and stomach churning. Your face burns, thinking of him listening to your pitiful attempts to get off. Clearly, the sleepless nights of trying to cum, letting slip the small whimpers you couldn’t care to hold back, hands buried in your panties and writhing in your bed sheets, were no secret to anyone but you.

You’re almost mortified. You would be, if it wasn’t for your hot teacher standing in front of you, smiling as he remembers how pretty you sounded, offering to fuck the shit out of you to sate your frustration.

And god, just how pretty you sound. He’d never admit it sober, but the times he’s taken “random” late night walks around the buildings that have ended up at the outside of your bedroom door are far too many to count. Palming himself through his trousers, panting as he pictures you just through the slab of wood exactly how he plans on having you now.

“I...I don’t know if we should be doing this,” you mumble in a moment of clarity, gaze flickering to the window in the door that lets you see into the empty hallway just outside. Swallowing hard, scenarios of your classmates walking by, peering through, clouds your head. “What if someone…”

“They’re on the other side of campus, remember?” he teases. His fingers slide back along your jaw, brushing your hair from your forehead before settling to cup the side of your face. “You can make all the noise you want out here.”

Heat spreads through your core and inner thighs accompanied by a visible shiver, a pleased grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. The proximity alone is making you wet. His presence is overwhelming with the unimaginable power he holds over you.

His neck tilts down to reach you, hovering with his lips not a breath away from yours. Gojo waits. Tentative, you press your mouth to his and your eyes flutter shut, feeling him smile as his hands make contact with your hips. He’s gentle and slow, his lips pillowy and soft against yours, moving carefully as if not to scare you away.

He muffles a timid whimper with his mouth and takes the lead, kissing you harder and pulling you into a firm lip lock before spinning you around and walking you backwards toward the desk. Hesitant hands reach up to his shoulders, something Gojo senses immediately, shy hands working up the confidence to splay over his broad shoulders. He knows you so well by now - there’s a reason you’re his favorite student.

“Let me help, princess,” he insists, breaking away to quell your uncertainty. “You know I’m the only one who can.” Gojo’s voice is hypnotizing, his promises filling your head with a desiring haze.

Your tiny, timid fingers hanging around his neck, crawling up his nape as if searching for safety, have him reeling. He might just devour you, so cute and innocent and willing in front of him.

You’re melting into his touch as his hands squeeze your hips, rubbing up your sides until they lay a firm grasp on your hips, sitting you fully on the desk. His touch is teasing and featherlight as he drags it up your calves, hiking up your skirt to get where he wants to be, situated right between your thighs.

“None of the other guys fuck you the way you need to be fucked, right?”

He may be cocky, but it’s for good reason.

Gojo Satoru is older, he’s experienced, he knows what he’s doing. He knows you, in fact, more than you think. Don’t be fooled - he sees you sneaking off campus, sees the texts you send to the boys in the nearest town, overhears how you talk to them over the phone when you think no one is listening. He also sees how disappointed you look every time you return from one of your escapades. 

You’re mature for your age, but no one is willing to fuck you like it. Except him, of course.

A large hand cradles the back of your head to keep kissing you. His mouth is ravishing, absolutely eating up the feeble mewls that escape you. Deft fingers unbutton your uniform with ease and slip it down your shoulders to reveal your chest as if he’s done it a thousand times.

He moves to unclasp your bra, but is surprised to meet your bare skin. He pulls back from your mouth to meet your eyes, and you already know what he’s thinking with the way he looks down at you, head tilted back with a dark mirth.

“No bra?” he inquires, rolling your perky buds between his fingers, and your lack of verbal response, that guilt in the slight raise of your eyebrows, tells him everything he needs to know. “Naughty girl. Makes me think you were expecting this.” He makes you purr like a kitten, free hand kneading at your chest, coaxing out sweet little noises that make his dick throb in his pants. 

You inhale sharply at a particular tweak of your nipple that has your body tingling, arching into him. “Sir, I-” 

His mouth is on your neck, sucking on that sensitive spot below your ear, just next to your jaw. The feel of his teeth gently scraping down sends chills through your shoulders and down your back, subconsciously tilting your head to the side and exposing more to him, inviting him to your body even further.

“It’s okay, you can tell me how bad you need my cock,” he says against your skin.

Your body flushes hot beneath him. A hand cups your clothed core. The friction has your hips lifting in desperate motions for more, pushing against his fingers for some kind of relief.

“Poor thing, too horny for your own good,” he says, peering down at you. He tugs at the tiny, delicate bow sewn into the lace band of your panties, a smug expression passing over his features. “But don’t worry, teacher’s here to make you feel better.”

He hooks his pointer finger underneath the center of your panties and pulls it up, forcing the fabric taught against your slit between your folds, urging a cry to fall from your lips. You’re absolutely aching for more, pussy desperate for contact as your hips buck. His opposite thumb goes straight to your swollen clit where it bulges through the thin cotton, reducing you to whines as he applies light pressure. 

“So sensitive,” he says with a teasing lilt in his tone, caught between looking at your pussy and your dazed expression. “You want my fingers?”

He knows he’s supposed to be helping you, but he can’t stop himself with how cute you look like this. He’s already thinking of just how far he can push you, just what he can get you to admit to him.

“Yes, please,” you’re begging, pulling your lips under your teeth, and how can he say no? He has no other choice but to indulge you.

He pulls your panties to the side and finally, his long, thick fingers sink inside you without warning, pushing a lewd moan from your throat.

He groans at the way you pulse around his digits. Your walls suck him right in. “Fuck, look at your pretty little cunt. Feels good, huh?”

Your mouth falls open as you nod, staring at him through half-mast, glassy eyes. Light amusement covers his face as he works your walls diligently, curling up and massaging that spongy spot he knows you like from the sounds you’re making.

“Yeah, I know it does. Need it so bad, don’t you?”

“Yes, ah, need it so much,” you whine. At this point, you’d follow his every command, answer his every question, if it means he’ll keep doing what he’s doing. He connects his lips to yours again, swallowing up the noises that leave your throat, before moving down. He trails his mouth over your sensitive, flushed skin, burning to the touch as he leaves harsh, bruising marks behind. He’s kneeling down and throwing your legs over his shoulders without hesitation.

He has you desperate and shameless with how he’s making you feel. It doesn’t matter that he’s your teacher, it doesn’t matter that you’ll have to face him in class after the fact, all that matters is how hot and aching your core is, how bad you need him there to fix it. “More, sir, p-please.”

He groans at the name you’ve given him, that you’re addressing him by so earnestly. He never even asked you to, so when it spills out of your mouth so submissively, he can’t help the way it goes straight to his cock. “So polite, aren’t you? Let me hear you, be specific.” 

His fingers leave you clenching around nothing as he pulls them out of you, watching the string of slick stretch until it breaks. He slips them right into his mouth, licking your arousal off of his fingers, humming in delight. 

You’re fixated on his glossy, wet lips, entranced by the slight smile to his words. “Please, your mouth,” you plead breathlessly through a gulp. 

He presses a chaste kiss to the plush of your thigh, eyes flicking up to meet yours. His lips ghost over the tops of your knee socks and nip at the slight pudge that squeezes out.

“Since you asked so nicely,” he murmurs. Then, he’s diving in, latching his warm, wet mouth onto your pussy. You feel yourself gush under his lips as his tongue laves harsh strokes against your entrance. He has you quivering, your hips moving on their own accord over his face.

You squirm under his relentless tongue, swiping through your slick and spreading it all over your inner thighs. He laps at your fluttering hole before suckling your clit into his mouth, hot tongue flicking over it before releasing with a playful pop.

He thrives off of the whimpers leaving your mouth. A loud moan tears from you as his fingers plunge into you again, hands shooting to his snowy locks to ground yourself. You’re throwing your head back, keening in the firm grip he has pushing back your leg, his tongue swiping at you expertly while the pads of his fingers curl up into the spot you need him at, keeping his head pressed tight to your drooling cunt.

Pointed flicks of his tongue target your clit, puffy and sensitive, and you can’t help the way your hips buck up for more, babbling nonsense. His firm muscle prods at your hole before flattening and licking wide and short strokes up your folds.

“Aw, you wanna cum, don’t you? Gonna cum for me like a good girl?”

You only have the strength to nod, eyes squeezing shut and your lips parted in choked breaths.

“Look at me,” he commands sternly, and your lids are prying open immediately, struggling to keep your gaze on him with the pleasure he’s relentlessly forcing on your body. His plump lips are lustrous with your arousal. “Go ahead. Cum.”

His eyes bore into you as your face contorts, body tensing all over as you tip over the edge. That coil in your stomach which Gojo has so masterfully built snaps like a rubber band, shattering your mind as pleasure ripples through your body. You’re still as your release surges through you, making him moan against your pussy.

“That’s it, there you go,” he says with a growl as you take your first breath after the inhibiting pleasure fades, eyes darkening as he watches you, keeping pressure on your nub with his thumb, smooth strokes working you through your high. 

He carefully helps you drop to your feet, rubbing soothing circles into your hips, planting kisses to your temples before spinning you around to face the desk. You’re wobbly, but it’s nothing he can’t compensate for with his natural strength.

“Gonna take such good care of you,” he mumbles, large hands exploring the expanse of your back. He pushes you down, gentle fingers trailing up your spine until they find their hold on your hips like they were meant to be, loving how pliant you are beneath him.

The anticipation has you dripping, heart pounding as he flips up your skirt again, pussy aching to be filled. You hear the tugging of his trousers down to the floor, and a hefty exhale as he gives himself a few strokes in his palm.

His cock, hot and heavy and hard, presses into you slowly. You feel his girth immediately, cunt stretching deliciously to accommodate his size. It’s instant relief, finally the pleasure you’ve been desperate for, a drug you have to be careful of or you might just get addicted.

“Fuck,” he groans lowly, “So fuckin’ tight for me.”

You’re stuffed to the brim, focusing on how full you are, his fingers massaging the flesh of your ass as he gives you a moment to adjust. He feels his self-restraint thinning as you squeeze him. He’s gonna make you drool for him, make his cute innocent student into his little whore, make sure teacher’s the only one who touches you like this.

At first, his pace is slow and steady, sensual pumps that expertly drag against your gummy walls. You can feel his tip spreading you open, every burning curve and vein and ridge of his head as your pussy molds to him. But once your legs start shifting back for more, he speeds up the rocking of his hips, fucking you brainless on his cock. 

“How we feeling, princess?” he pants. He’s the only thing you can think about, mind scrambled from the white hot feel of being fucked so well.

He doesn’t have to ask to know - the string of heedless whimpers that you make are evidence enough, on top of the obscene squelches that echo every time he pounds into your sopping cunt. He pulls your wrists back from where they cling to the desk, white knuckled, to your sides. A strong arm snakes around your front, pinning your arms and waist close to his chest, caging you in while the other seeks purchase on your breast.

“F-Fuck, I- ah - so good, sir,” you sob, feeling your brain blank with the way his grip moves up to your neck, expertly pushing into the sides to cut off your blood flow. It’s dizzying, your pussy tightening around him for more.

And then he stops.

You’re about to whine, your walls fluttering around him, begging him to move, when his hand reaches to cover your mouth. He shushes you gently, snapping quietly towards the door. 

Someone is calling your name outside. “Hellooo? Hey Y/N, you over here?” It’s Yuuji, pacing the upper floor, walking straight down the hall and soon to pass the very door.

Your heart jolts in panic - why would he come looking for you? Why would anyone? The whole point of being out here was so that no one would come, right?

“Sorry to go back on my word, princess,” Gojo whispers. A wave of his hand creates a small masking barrier in front of the window, but it does nothing to hide the sound. “Gonna have to keep quiet for me. Can you do that?”

You nod your head, wiggling back against his hips pressed hard and unmoving to your ass. He pulls out slow and thrusts back, mindful of the noise of contact. It takes all your focus to bite back your moans.

“Don’t want your classmates seeing how slutty you are for a good fuck, do you? What if they walked in, saw you like this on your teacher’s cock?”

The thought has your hole constricting his length. You can already envision Yuuji’s shocked expression as he stares you down, his respected senior, nothing more than a babbling mess as Gojo Satoru fucks you raw in an empty classroom. The man behind you holds back a laugh.

The footsteps pass without the hint of something much filthier than extra help transpiring beyond the thin walls. You think you might have even seen a tuft of pink hair whizz by in the corner of your vision - whatever the matter, he’s gone, and you can finally catch your breath.

“Dirty girl,” Gojo rasps from behind you, slamming into you roughly, a sinister smile tugging at the corners of his lips while his fingers force themselves into your mouth, “you - hah - you fucking love it.” 

That spring in the base of your tummy starts to coil taut, rising faster than ever. “Love it,” you choke, stimulated tears forming at your lash line, “love it so much!”

His pace is relentless, your slick gushing all around him. He’s building you up just to break you down, the only one who can help you take the edge off.

“Tell me what you want,” he says through gritted teeth, “I’ll give it to you.”

Holding you tight to his chest with locked arms, he completely covers your body with his tall stature, inescapable and confining.

“Fuck, wanna - wanna cum so bad, so bad, sir.”

His large hand trails its way over your waist, soft fingers moving down, down, until they slip right over that little sensitive bundle at your front, cool and wet, that has your breath catching audibly in your throat. 

Gojo places his mouth just behind your ear, tone soft and sultry. The pad of his index finger rubs firm circles over your swollen, aching clit. It elicits a filthy sound from you that makes his cock twitch inside you. “Right there, huh?” He feels you clench as your legs tremble beneath him.

Your climax crashes over you in hot, unforgiving waves, tightening your walls and creaming all over every inch of his length. “Come on, give it all to teacher,” he encourages through heavy pants, making your skin prickle, and it’s just what you need. A chorus of loud, high pitched, breathless moans tumbles from your mouth as you ride it out. 

You’re drenching his fingers, making a mess as your squirt drips down and coats his cock, making him growl into your hair. He coaches you through it, stringing out his praises, “Just like that, mhm, good girl.”

His eyes fall shut as your cunt suffocates his cock, feeling his hips stutter as you suck him in. With a guttural, hungry groan, he’s burying his load in your waiting hole. He snaps against you once, twice more, hard and quick as he starts to come down.

A moment passes to catch your breaths, heartbeats beginning to slow in tandem. Gojo nuzzles his face into the back of your neck and sighs before placing an affectionate kiss there. 

Your legs are jelly beneath you so he’s careful when he releases his grasp, slowly turning you around to face him and sit back on the desk. 

“You alright?” he asks, wiping away the wetness under your eyes.

It’s safe to say that you’re relieved, in more ways than one. Your shoulders feel lighter and as does your chest, like everything you’ve been shackled to has been lifted off with a good fuck.

“Yeah, much better.” There’s a tired grin to your words.

He wipes away the sheen of sweat that has collected on his hairline and reaches over you to grab a few tissues off the desk. He’s gentle as he cleans you up, dabbing up sweat and cum from where it drips down your thighs. 

“You should get some rest. I’ll get you out of class tomorrow morning if you need it. Make up an excuse or something.” He pulls up his own trousers and helps you button up your top again, then lowering you back to the floor so you can be on your way.

“Let me know if you ever need any more assistance,” he winks, patting the top of your head. He smooths down a few stray hairs, putting you back together in at least a somewhat presentable way. “My help is always available to students that need it.”

Because while all that cursed energy may be under control, your relations are far from over. 

[buckyownsmylife]

You and I - Henry Cavill smut

The one where Henry comes over to fix your computer

Warnings: reader is a henry fan, pandemic theme, lockdown and quarentine-ing, little bit of second-hand embarrassment?, heatwave, henry is feeling deprived in this one, oral sex (f), masturbation (f), dirty talk, brief hairpulling, the name of God in vain, Henry’s monster dick,  laughing and teasing while fucking, hand over throat but no actual choking, orgasm control, p in v, unprotected sex

Word count: over 3k, ‘cause I got no chill

A/N: this was inspired by a tik tok someone requested me to write a fic about it. Obviously I took it in a different direction because can I ever follow guidelines? No. I do love this fic, though. Thank you to @lokiscollar​ for giving this a read for me!

Y/N’s P.O.V

Driving to a secluded location to spend lockdown in felt like a wonderful idea. There was a working wi-fi connection, so I could work remotely from the seashore cabin without any problem whatsoever, and the view was obviously to die for.

I did not expect someone else to have the same idea as me. The cabin next door had been occupied on the same day that I arrived, and much to my surprise, I recognized my new neighbor as someone I never expected I’d come to meet in my entire life: an actor. An actor I actually had a crush on.

Thankfully, the situation didn’t exactly call for mingling. I ran off to hide inside my cottage as soon as I realized who he was, occupying myself with fixing everything for the next day instead of daydreaming about the man next-door.

There would be time for that later, once I got in bed. But weirdly enough, that was the only time I really thought about him during those first weeks of quarantine. Every once in a while I’d get the random wave of curiosity about what he was doing - what did Henry Cavill get up to while spending lockdown by himself? But that was pretty much it.

I woke up every day, had breakfast, worked and then went to bed. Sometimes I’d sit by the balcony and watch the birds fly, taking in the scenery and breathing in the salty water. Even as a kid, I’d always loved the sea. It was comforting, so it made sense for me to turn to it in such a stressful time.

Sometimes I’d hear a bark or two, reminding me of the man who was staying in the other cabin, and it made me smile. I always did like his dog, whenever I saw pictures of him.

I hoped they were alright and that the absence of any human contact wasn’t getting to them, even though it was getting to me. I could feel my own social abilities - which weren’t exactly stellar before - slowly becoming decrepit, and I was scared to think of what my first human interaction would be like once lockdown was over.

I just hadn’t anticipated it would be come so soon.

The morning began as it usually would. I took my shower, I had my breakfast, and I sat in front of the computer with my coffee in hands, ready to start working for the day.

Only the computer wasn’t ready for it, too.

“What?” I talked to myself - something that had become more usual the longer lockdown went on. “Oh, no, no, no…” The situation was looking drearier the longer I stared at my lifeless screen.

Looking up at the clock, I considered my options. Even supposing I could get someone to come to this middle of nowhere to fix it, there was no way I’d be able to get it done before work started.

Sighing, I pushed away from my designated desk to call my boss. Thankfully, he understood and I was left to repair the damn thing and come up with a solution for the next day.

My heart ached at the prospect of having to abandon my refuge because of an electronic malfunction. And that is, if there even was anyone willing to fix the damn thing, considering the pandemic and the rules of social distancing. That’s when suddenly, an idea popped up.

I remembered all the fuss a few months back over a video of Henry assembling a computer all by himself. There was no way someone with that much hardware prowess couldn’t at least know enough to fix this simple laptop.

With that thought in mind, I gathered all of my courage to leave my little shack and make my way to the neighboring cabin. I took a deep breath before knocking on the door, and after a few seconds of silence - he was probably surprised and certainly not expecting anyone - a voice sounded from within.

“Who is it?” Now, I had thought this through. If this man came as far as I had come to this damn forgotten town, it was because 1) he wanted peace and quiet and 2) he was as terrified of the virus as I was. So I knew what I needed to say - what I would like to hear if the roles were reversed.

“It’s your neighbor. My name’s Y/N. I’m so sorry to disturb, but my computer broke and I need it to work and you’re the only person I’m 100% sure has been socially distancing for long enough not to put my life in risk.” After all, I would have seen if someone had come to visit him. I didn’t need to say this because both of us knew it. “Would you pretty pretty please come and check it out?”

Silence followed my question and I sighed, rubbing my sweaty forehead as I knew this was a long-shot. “I understand if you’re unable or uncomfortable doing so, I just figured I’d ask. Thanks anyway!”

I had already turned my back to his front door when I heard it swinging open, the pitter patter of paws following close behind. My eyes took in the man in front of me for only a second before looking down at the dog at his feet, head tilted in interest as he analyzed me.

Immediately, my eyes lit up. “Kal!” I exclaimed, kneeling down to let the animal sniff me so I could pet it. My heart stopped working for a second when I realized what I’d done, though.

“Sorry!” I looked up at him from my kneeling position, trying to ignore how awkward it was, considering what I was close to. “I-I do know who you are, I’m not gonna lie about that.”

I straightened up as he kept looking at me in a way I couldn’t quite define. Neither could I determine how it made me feel, just that it made me avert my gaze so I’d stare at my feet.

“So… Are you gonna help me?” He chuckled at my question, closing the door behind him and taking a step in my direction, making me fumble as I instinctively stepped back.

“Sure.” It was the first thing he spoke to me, but we walked back to my own place in silence. He had his hands in his pockets as Kal followed us closely, his tongue hanging outside his mouth as he happily explored the outside for this little while. “Come on in.”

The way the cottage was set up left little space for him to wonder where he should be helping me. The desk in which I had prepared my set-up stood right by the wall to our left, and there he went without me having to point it out.

I watched a drop of sweat roll down the nape of his neck and fall under his tank top, distracting me as I licked my lips at the sight of it. Then his head turned to look at me and I realized that he was waiting for an answer to a question I hadn’t heard.

“Yeah, huh?” He chuckled again, making my face feel warm - an not (only) because of the overwhelming heat.

“Is it okay if I disconnect the wi-fi?” I wave my hand dismissively, shrugging.

“As long as you’re able to fix this, you can do whatever the hell you want.” I got the impression that I amused him, but he didn’t say anything else as he got to work on my (seemingly) dead computer.

Minutes went by of complete silence, safe from the sounds of typing and metal as Henry worked on the machine and I tried not to bite my nails. Finally, he pulled away from the screen and put his hands on his hips as if assuming some sort of decided stance - but if it was a good or bad thing, I couldn’t tell.

“Tell me, doctor.” I asked, pushing myself away from the sofa to approach him. The smell of a man’s sweat really had no right to be this arousing. “Is it life or death?” Henry turned to stare at me with a quirked eyebrow, and in the seconds it took for him to answer, I was once again distracted by just how hot he was.

“Sorry, what?” I asked when he became silent and I realized he’d asked me something I hadn’t heard once more. His smile said he was annoyed and entertained at the same time. “Sorry, you’re hot, it’s hot, and I can’t think straight,” I sighed, brushing the hair away from my eyes as I pressed my palms against them, trying to pull myself together.

“I swear to God, I’m not crazy.” I tried to look him directly as I said that, but was surprised at what I saw when our gazes met. There was a peculiar sense of yearning that he exuded, something I couldn’t quite place but that took my breath away all the same, especially when he took my silence as an invitation to invade my personal space.

“If you want me so badly, all you have to do is ask.” Silence fell heavily and I was out of breath just from his words - not a good sign. My throat felt dry, too dry, so I swiped my tongue over my bottom lip as I struggled to say something.

“W-why, though?” He tilted his head to the side, eyes inscrutable while he judged my question, trying to understand where it came from just like I was trying to understand his interest in me, when he suddenly smiled.

“I figured it’s a nice way for you to pay me back.” It took me a second to understand what he was referring to, and then my eyes darted from the computer to him, my mouth falling open in offense until he started chuckling. “I’m joking!” But even so, the question remained…

“Sweetheart…” He spoke, voice low and velvety as two strong hands suddenly enveloped my hips. “You’re seriously underestimating how hot you are.” I didn’t know what to say, so I had to make sure I’d hear him right.

“M-me?” A predatory smirk took over his face, slowly. I gulped under its intensity, feeling much like prey as he started to back me against the couch. I fell on top of it with a gasp, and another one escaped me when he used my ankles to pull me closer.

“I wanna eat you out.” It was all I got as an answer, but I can’t say that I minded it. As he dropped to his knees before me, pulling down my underwear before spreading my legs for his eyes to take in, it felt like I got a response from the gesture in itself.

“Do you know how long it’s been since I ate pussy?” The unexpected question made me choke on my own saliva, as he chuckled darkly in amusement at my bashfulness. I could only breathe through my mouth when he leaned down to run his tongue on the edge of my lips, slowly acquainting himself with my taste, making me moan softly.

“I-I definitely and decidedly don’t.” He seemed to like this answer, understand that it delimited exactly the type of fan that I was: the kind that knew what he was and what he liked - his dog, his computer - but not someone who was obsessed with his entire dating history, eager to know his every secret.

The longer Henry ate me out, the clearer it became just how long it’d been since he’d done this. It was obviously something he liked - the way he buried his face against my cunt and engulfed it entirely with his open mouth showed so. And the fact that he licked me and sucked me like he was a starved man? This was a man denied of a pleasure he genuinely enjoyed, that much I was certain of.

“Do you like this?” He asked once he inserted one of his thick fingers inside of me, already stretching me beyond what I could do with my own hand.

“How could I not?” I managed to moan a response, making him chuckle.

“Show me how to find it,” he instructed, eyes sparkling with determination. “I want to find your sweet spot.” I’d never had someone I was with so interested in giving me pleasure before.

Hypnotized, my fingers circled his wrist as best as I could, slowly moving him to run his digits over the top of my channel. He knew when he found it because I cried out for him, closing my eyes momentarily.

“Cum for me,” he ordered, and how could I deny him that, especially when he was looking at me with those darkened eyes? He milked my orgasm until my pussy had stopped clenching around him, but the second that it was done, he growled, getting up to his knees. “Gonna fuck you now.”

He pulled me by my hair, making me moan out loud as he slowly inserted his monster cock inside of me. “Oh, God!” His groan had me panting, cunt clenching around his thickness. I couldn’t understand how I was able to take it, but I was glad that was the case. “So… tight…”

Through his grip on my hair, he pulled me to deposit quick kisses down my jaw. “You take me so well, darling.” It was a compliment I was proud to receive, even though I wasn’t too sure how I managed to earn it in the first place.

“I honestly don’t know how,” I admitted, gasping when he slowly dragged his cock out to slam it in me, but I instinctively pulled my hips away, earning an amused chuckle from him.

“Come back here,” he ordered, already pulling me back to spear me with his painfully hard length. I’d have to be inhuman not to cry out at the feeling of his bulbous head bumping against my cervix. “Are you scared?” He joked as I bit on my bottom lip not to give in and laugh. “You think I’m too big?”

“You’re more than enough, I’ll tell you that.” Now, that had his own laugh escaping his chest, making my body tremble underneath his, inadvertently getting some friction between the both of us. It earned me a moaned out, “Yes…” that got his attention back to where I hoped it would be, and as his eyes settled on me, I briefly wondered if I was prepared for what was to come.

“But now that you got all of me inside of you, do you really want to go?” The whispered question made me shiver. I never expected him to be the type to talk dirty, but then again, I never expected I’d be fucked by him, either.

“No.” It was all the permission he needed.

“Then let me fuck you hard.” And hard he did fuck me. He was hard inside of me, it probably would have been painful for him if he wasn’t so desperately trying to alleviate it by frantically fucking me against the couch.

It was the most deliciously torturous experience I’d ever gone through. I had to bite my lip while I held onto his shoulders for dear life, trying to stop my moans from escaping because I was sure that for once, I’d become a screamer.

Unfortunately, it seemed like Henry didn’t appreciate my efforts to keep his ears from deafening. “What’s wrong?” He questioned, fingers tightening on my hips. “I thought you wanted this.”

Confused, all I could think to say was, “I-I do.”

“Then let me hear you,” he insisted. “You know you can scream all you want. We’re all alone up here on the coast.” Well, he wasn’t wrong. And with that reassurance, I allowed my head to fall back and my mouth to fall open, my moans flowing freely from my body as Henry kept fucking me.

“This is so much better than touching myself in search of a release,” he mumbled at some point, like he was talking to himself. “I was so damn lonely and you have such a tight little pussy.”

Being fucked by him felt like a religious experience. Henry somehow knew the map to my pleasure, easily bringing me to the brink of bliss before I had even managed to wrap my head around this turn of events.

My moans grew louder as I climbed higher and higher, but before I could fully tip over his hand curled around my throat, not constricting any air, just calling my attention.

“Ask for permission, baby.” Just the order had me clenching around him, prompting him to release a moan of his own. All the while, I was groaning in frustration, trying to control myself or say what he wanted me to say, but all that came out of me was, “Goddamn! You can’t say stuff like that.” Henry’s laughter flowed freely once more, making my heart skip a beat. “Why not?”

“Because you’re a fucking movie star and I am not up to fall in love with you.” That had his eyebrows raising in surprise, the smile disappearing from his face before it came back as a teasing smirk.

“Oh, so this is a one-time thing.” The taunting manner in which he said it surprised me in turn, so I hesitated before nodding. I mean, of course it was, right? He didn’t even know me. This was strictly sexual and physical, I would not be fooled by my own hormones. “My cock is not enough for you to want to get to know me some is that it?” … Was he testing me?

“Yes.” His smirk only grew at the word. “This is a one-time thing.”

“We’ll see about that.” His fingers ran down my body to graze over my clit. I sucked in a breath, trying to keep it in, knowing I was going to lose. Eventually, as my thighs began to tremble, I gave in altogether.

“Please, let me cum, please.” His eyes softened at my broken and desperate plea, hand gripping my cheeks as he finally nodded.

“Keep staring at me as you cum,” he commanded, still just as bossy. “Show me how pretty you look when you cream all over my dick.” That was all I needed to succumb to the pleasure he was subjecting me to.

I felt his cock, still hard as it pumped rope after rope of cum inside of me, and by the time I was able to open my eyes again, he was panting over me, sweat dripping from his forehead onto my face.

I didn’t have the time to think about what I should do - push him away, try to pretend this didn’t happen - because the second I began to adjust on the couch, he pulled me to rest against his chest.

“Let’s stay here for a little while,” he quietly asked me. “Then we’ll figure out if there’s enough room for me to take you in your bed.”

[sergeanthatredbignaturals]

Vro don’t get me started in Vander (it’s too late, the reason this response took as long as it did is bc i was literally writing out an essay about him)

I put my whole B in English Literature into this

Point one

“When people look up to you, you don’t get to be selfish”

“But whatever happens, it’s on you”

Would you stop projecting your guilt onto this kid for like five seconds oml 😭

Stop making your guilt bet problem dawg, she isn’t you, stop projecting like she is

An’ before y’all bring up Silco’s projection onto Jinx, yeah, I’m aware. My point is y’all rant and rave about Silco, and ignore that Vander does the same shit with Vi, I’m not ignoring it, im just pointing out Vander does it too

Point two

Also, can we talk about Vander’s clear favouritism real quick? He does the whole tough love thing, tells the rest of them to clear off, and then treats Vi’s wounds, and reassures her before leaving to nab one of Mylo’s things, and get Claggor to haul ass over to Benzo’s without saying anything like he did to Vi, and leaving them to patch themselves up, leaving it entirely up to Vi.

Point three

“That path, this, it’s not gonna solve your problems, it just makes more of them”

“Oh, you did put that idiot on his ass though, right?”

Telling Vi that violence doesn’t solve anything, and then minutes later making sure she beat someone’s ass. Does that not read as hypocritical to anyone else? Wtf is that gonna teach her? Violence is a-ok as long as it’s not directed at your oppressor? Obviously that’s a tad hyperbolic, but y’all see my point here, right?

Point four

“How could she be so stupid?”

“Yeah, and Vi’s one of them. Throws herself at trouble wherever she can find some”

Girl stfu, you were the exact same at her age, fuck you were the same a decade ago, don’t act like you don’t know where this is coming from. Bro is such a fuckinf hypocrite, projecting onto Vi and then having the nerve to be confused when she ends up acting like you? You’re actually taking the piss

Point five

“I’m protecting our people”

And how are you doing that? By allowing enforcers to ransack the place? By letting your people suffer further by the hands of enforcers? By doing nothing as your people are quite literally tossed around by them? Sorry, i don’t remember any part of that falling under “protection”. That’s you turning a blind eye to matters that don’t impact you directly. That’s you looking out for those close to you, and no one else. We have no idea how long this would have gone on for. The enforcers were told “Do whatever it takes. Turn the Undercity upside down if you have to. Just find them.” In all of that, the people of Zaun, your people, would be subjected to ever increasing violence by the hands of enforcers. How many more would have to die by the hands of an enforcer for you to actually step up, and actually protect your people. Your aren’t protecting your people, you’re protecting those close to you, and staying willfully ignorant to the fates that befall those you don’t know. You’re allowing this cycle of violence to continue because you’re too afraid to do what needs to be done. You don’t have the ability to do what Zaun needs anymore, and your people are starting to realise that.

Point six

“If i hadn’t, your parents would still be alive”

He clearly blames himself heavily for every that happened that day, and i cant blame him for it. I get it, i really do, but if you are so blindsided by your own trauma that you cannot do what needs to be done for the betterment of your people, then you are not fit to lead them.

Say what you will about Silco, but he was willing to do damn near anything for his peoples freedom from Piltover.

Point seven

“Without you down here, it all falls apart” -Grayson

And she’s right. These people are itching for about her chance against Piltover, you didn’t think they’ll not take you getting shoved in Stillwater for fuck knows how long incentive enough? You took away what’s basically their leader, it’s hardly a stretch to say that would be taken as an act of war. I bet he did t have a whole lot of choices, but he really didn’t think that through at all.

Overall, I put my whole autism diagnosis into this, and ended up writing three A4 pages in making this, which is more than i wrote for more English Lit essays i had to do 💀

P.S. i will have distinctly more to say when the inevitable flashbacks happen in s2

P.P.S. Go read this, it greatly inspired a hell of a lot of the points i made in this

I'm genuinely so sick of the silco hate. Yes he's a bad guy. Yes he's committed very serious crimes and is a violent person and a murder. Those are all very valid reasons to dislike a fictional character. But there are just some things people like to shit on silco for that truly aren't his fault.

Imagine if YOU were a single dad to a mentally ill teenager and at the same we're trying to manage a business, gain independence for your country, AND deal with other bullshit nonsensical problems. I'd be pissed too, I'd be stressed the fuck out too. People can't seem to push past the bad and see the truth; because all of this shit IS NOT hidden in the show it's at the forefront. Silco has a lot of shit on his plate and he has to deal with everything at the same fucking time ALONE. This guy's life is hell on the average day but during arcane? Nah my man was fighting for his life literally and figuratively.

Jinx's entire behavior can NOT be blamed on silco it genuinely cannot and it's silly to even think such a thing. I'm so sick of people trying to make him the scapegoat when it comes to her situation. "He didn't try to heal her" in the city where we know that canonically, there are no doctors? Tell me, oh wise one, where the hell silco, of all men, was going to find a therapist for his daughter and medicine for her psychosis? Like BITCH PLEASE! PLEASE! That's ridiculous.

Silco himself IS MENTALLY ILL, OF COURSE HE'S GOING TO TRY TO GIVE HER THE SAME SHITTY COPING SKILLS HE USES FOR HIMSELF! AND GENUINELY, IS HE WRONG FOR THAT? I don't believe so.

"oh he's the reason jinx was tortured-" you mean when silco held his DYING daughter in his arms and tried to save her? When he, at his old fucking age, ran all the way from the bridge to singed SINGLEHANDEDLY to get her the ONLY MEDICAL ATTENTION the undercity has? Did you truly forget that singed knocks silco out during this scene. If so, rest assured, because has silco been MENTALLY PRESENT in that scene, he would have never allowed that shit to happen. The moment he wakes up and sees that she's fucking gone and the table is bloody, he IMMEDIATELY threatens singed and asks what the fuck he did. Don't put that shit on him he had no idea.

Yes this man is a piece of shit but he's a man none the less can we cut him a fucking break PLEASE!

[no-droids]

Out of a Trillion

gif credit: @bestintheparsec​

Part Fifteen of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 12.6K

Warnings: uhhhh so there is a bit of SMUT in this one, not too much and I imagine if you’ve made it this far then that won’t be too big of a deal LMFAOOO uh some ANGST and my attempt at HURT/COMFORT and also violence/blood/injury description, so look out for that!

A/N: I started writing this before the season finale aired and I know we all want a bit of goodness and softness after it, but hopefully this will be okay!  I’ll start working on the next part tonight

***

Everything changes and yet somehow nothing does.  

From that point on, it’s like… like you’re both just suspended in this perpetual state of wondering, waiting for the other shoe to drop.  You know he said it’s up to you, but what the fuck?  Look whenever you want?  That’s way too much fucking pressure, he’s out of his mind.  You’re not equipped to handle that, who does he think you are?  Someone that can just… decide things?

And it’s not like you’re afraid of the commitment, or that you don’t want to look.  You do, but every single time a moment comes, it just never… feels right.  You don’t know what you’re waiting for, what feeling or meaning you’re expecting to magically present itself to you, but you can’t shake the idea that there should be more to it than just randomly deciding to open your eyes at some point, shouldn’t there?  Din said there was no ceremony, nothing fancy, and he gave you permission to look because he said he’s not allowed to ask outright, whatever that means.  It’s a standing offer because you guess he isn’t allowed to prompt it for some reason, but unfortunately, that leaves you in just about the shittiest position possible.  Now everything falls to you—initiation, execution, and consequence—and Maker knows you’ve never been that great making decisions under pressure.

But you do want to look.  Sort of.

Sort of.  Because… well, this probably won’t make that much sense, but you’re afraid.  Mostly for him.  What if he’s making a mistake?  It sounds stupid, but you’re afraid of what this means for him, the sheer perpetuity of this decision he’s now expecting you to make for the both of you.  This isn’t your creed, not yet, and you feel like there’s still so much to learn.  Not only about the Mandalorians and his culture, but about him.  To know is to love, and so you’ve taken to asking any nonsensical question you can think of whenever he’s around.  Though you weren’t expecting it at first, you’ve learned that he’ll always give you some sort of an answer.  Some of the highlights include:

“How old are you?”  (“I don’t know.  Probably mid-forties, but there’s no way to tell anymore.”)

“You don’t know your birthday?”  (No, I… think it was in the winter.”)

“What’s your last name?”  (“Djarin.”)

“Do you have any freckles?  Or moles, or birthmarks?”  (“No, none that I’ve ever noticed.”)

“Do you cut your own hair?”  (“Yes, but it’s been awhile.”)

“Do you have dimples?”  (“I don’t smile in mirrors.”)

“Are your earlobes attached or detached?”  (“What kind of question is that?”)

And so forth.

He also gives you so many fucking opportunities to look.  One right after the other.  You used to think Din was incredibly trusting with how often and voluntarily he decided to take his helmet off around you—he didn’t wait a single day once he first felt your hands on his skin to take it off in your presence.  You remember being blown away by his unexpected willingness to part with it after hearing so many tales of the Mandalorians from Kuill; stunned by the ever-present ability to just open your eyes at any moment and that’s all it would ever take.  One simple movement—life-altering, and so easy.

Now you find it nearly impossible, muscle memory just won’t allow it to happen naturally.  And yet somehow, avoiding it is like stepping around land mines.  He doesn’t trick you—he doesn’t set it up, he doesn’t surprise you or anything, but he’s… less careful.  When the kid is awake, Din acts normal—he walks around fully armored, he goes on hunts and returns a few days later with a quarry, teaches you more self-defense techniques in the cleared out hull while the kid watches and giggles at your pain from the safety of his floating crib.  But when the baby goes to sleep, he’s taken to lounging with the helmet off.  He only used to remove it to eat, sleep, or… do other things with you, but he never used to take it off just… because.  Now he does.  Now he’s less careful about darkness, less strict about how much light he allows to touch him.

Now he shares every single meal he can with you, sitting just off to the side so you’ll never see him on accident but providing the free exercise thereof should you ever decide to seek it out purposefully.  Now he interrupts you in the middle of your complaining about the bruises on your knuckles just to lift the rim of his helmet the slightest bit, lean down and give you a quick kiss, and then lower it back into position again before you can even catch a glimpse of the lips you only recognize by touch.  Now he keeps the light on when he goes to take a shower, he leaves the door cracked.

It’s starting to give you heart palpitations, you swear.  At one point, he lets you to see the entire back of his head and it nearly launches you into a fucking crisis.

It’s the middle of the night and he just got up from bed to use the restroom.  He’s quiet enough not to wake you on the way over, but then across the hull and with his back to you, Din flicks the light on in the small bathroom without closing the door.  Immediately rousing you after being so accustomed to the pitch blackness, you lift your head from the warmth of your shared pillow just enough to blearily make out the sight of him leaning a hand up against the wall and dropping his head down, and it takes you a second to realize that it’s actually him.

Soft, dark brown locks ending at his collar but somehow looking longer than you ever imagined when you’ve run your fingers through them.  Cascading in shaggy, natural curls—tall, broad shouldered and trim waisted, naked as the day he was born.  Your heart starts to squeeze in your chest and it just never stops, and for the second time in your life, you feel like he woke you up in the middle of the night just to show you one of the most beautiful things the universe ever decided to hide.  There are trillions of people in this galaxy and how many of them have ever seen a sight that would compare?  He’s just a man, you don’t think a single person would bat an eye.  But to you, he’s… his own monument.  Constructed in honor of everything dazzling that happens to lie just underneath something else.  A breathtaking view, even from this angle, that could only ever mean something to you.

Would you ever be able to know him?  No, that’s not phrased right.  What you mean is that… over the course of all your time together, you remember thinking that if he ever took his helmet off, he could walk right by you and you’d never be able to tell the difference.  He could be anybody.  There are trillions of people in this galaxy and how many of them have the same features?  Brown hair, brown eyes, sunkissed skin that only one person is allowed to kiss, not even the sun.  Would you ever be able to know him?

Staring at his back in the blissful silence of hyperspace and feeling like the Maker himself is letting you in on one of his proudest secrets, some wild thought suddenly occurs to you that… you think you would.  Somehow.

You can’t explain it and you’d never be able to prove it, but you feel like if you lined up every single person in this galaxy shoulder to shoulder, all however many trillions of them there are, then you could walk the entire length of it and somehow come to a stop right where he’s standing.  Every single time.  You feel like you could do it in the pitch black.  You could do it with your eyes closed.

And, he must just be so gorgeous.  Maybe not in a traditional sense (or maybe in one, you’d have no way of knowing), but mostly in just… the rawest sense imaginable.  Not like how symmetry and straight lines are gorgeous, but how a mountain is gorgeous.  Rocky, dangerous, steep, the product of constant conflict between two immovable sides.  He’s got scars littering his body, one of which you remember giving him yourself with a cauterizer on his lower back.  He holds himself like his shoulders could tell their own story if anyone ever asked them; built to endure, weighed down and made strong with a collection of burdens he chooses to strap to them, steel or otherwise.

You don’t want to close your eyes once Din slowly turns around to look at you, but it happens anyways and you’ve never been so disappointed in your own cowardice.

But then, in a way, it could just be your own self-preservation instincts taking over.  No matter how stunning and life changing the spectacle would be, why would anyone ever stare directly at a supernova?  For so long, you’ve told yourself that his face is something you shouldn’t ever see on principle, but in a way, you suppose it’s fair he put this decision on you because he always has, even from the very beginning.  He trusted you to keep your eyes closed for months on end and you never had a problem with it, so why is it so hard to open them now that he’s given you permission?

A couple weeks of that, and you start to worry that you’re unintentionally rejecting him.

It’s the last fucking thing you want, but how can you avoid it?  Din is… different, he notices.  He’s made a living off of finding things that inherently don’t want to be found—he knows all too well what secrecy looks and sounds like, he’s quick and observant and you don’t stand a single fucking chance against him in all the years of his practice.

But strangely, for as often as you feel like you can figure out what he’s thinking without ever seeing his face—realizing what his intentions are ahead of time and not feeling slighted when he phrases things a certain way or just chooses not to speak at all—you never truly realized how much that extended back to you.

He knows you, too.  He told you so.

For some reason, you didn’t even consider the possibility of it working just as well the other way around.  That you could choose to stay silent, and he’d know why.  You feel like the mystery of him just eclipses you in every single way that you don’t consider even yourself much of anything, much less something else to be contemplated and understood.  While you wouldn’t necessarily qualify the conflict as not being ready to commit, he seems more than willing to respect it regardless and nothing about the way he treats you or interacts with you changes.  Normally you’d say it’s like he forgot the whole thing ever happened, but it’s almost the exact opposite.  Like he was just naturally expecting it from you.

Are you truly so predictable, you wonder?  He said you’d say no.  Was he right?  You’re not saying no, you just… can’t remember the word for yes right now.  It’s right there on the tip of your tongue and the harder you work for it, the more frustrated you become with your own inability to find it.

But, instead of waiting, you think Din just decides to continue the conversation with the promise to come back to you when you finally figure it out.

Sometimes, especially when he’s gone, you find yourself thinking about what moment you’d choose, if you could.  Since you can never seem to find the right one naturally, how would it all go if you could construct everything yourself?  Where would it be?  Naboo?  No, that’s too cheesy.  One thing you and Din both have in common is your practicality, your respective propensities for wanting to tackle one thing at a time and not needing frills attached to something in order to find a deep connection to it, a personal value to it.  You weren’t even bothered when he didn’t claim you as a girlfriend to Peli, that’s how reasonable you used to be about labels.  Now you’re your own antithesis, trying to conjure meaning where there isn’t any just so you don’t feel like you’re the one who’s ripping it away.  You want this decision to feel as permanent as it is.  You want it to be a happy thing, something that happens when you’re both so in love that you can’t bear to have metal separating you any longer.

You think… you’ll just know it when the time comes.

***

“I have to leave,” comes Din’s hushed voice through the darkness, and even though it’s the first thing either of you have said in hours, it sounds frustrated.  Like it’s been bothering him for awhile and he’s just now finally telling you.  “I… fuck, I can’t stay here, I should’ve left a long time ago.”

You whine softly into the pitch black, turning your head into the pillow and curling your fingers into his hair.  “But it’s still so early…”

“It’s mid-afternoon,” he groans back, dropping his forehead down against your skin and breathing hot air along it.  “We’ve been parked here for hours, I don’t know how you can sleep so long.”

“I’m not sleeping,” you pout, before gently dragging your nails down his scalp and feeling his whole body shudder with it.  “Earlier I was.”

“Mhm,” he murmurs, leaning down to give you one last long, slow kiss.  You sigh when his tongue comes out and glides soft and hot against your lips, tightening your grip on his hair.

But soon he pulls away, lifting the covers from over his head and pushing up from between your spread legs.  “This one shouldn’t take long,” he gruffs, planting both palms next to your head and kissing you once more in the darkness, dipping his tongue into your mouth this time.  You moan softly and taste yourself on him, moving to wrap your arms around his broad shoulders, but he breaks the kiss and leans back before you can, preemptively avoiding the possibility of getting lost in it.  “I’ll be back around dawn.”

You’ve known it was coming for hours now, so you’re able to play it off way better this time around.  “Okay,” you breathe softly, dragging your palms up his bare chest as he lifts himself tall over your body.  The slight disappointment underneath is so masterfully hidden, you’re almost positive you’re going to get away with it.  “Be safe.  Please.”

But then… well.  Bounty hunter.

Din pauses for a moment like that in between your open legs, letting you slowly slide your hands down his ribs and over the lines of his stomach.  You wait for him to move, find his clothes so you can get around and make some food, wake the kid up from his nap in an hour or so.  Can’t stay in bed all day, no matter how much you wish you could.

Only, he still hasn’t moved and you start to become concerned.  “Din?”

But then he suddenly groans like he just can’t help it, grabbing both of your spread legs and easily lifting them up.  You make a sound of confusion as he maneuvers them until they’re pressed together and draped over one of his shoulders, and then his hips drop and push forward to slide himself thick and perfect into your blazing hot cunt.

Still drenched and swollen from cumming in his mouth so many times earlier, you gasp and he just groans louder, a ragged thing scraping out of his throat while you struggle through blind and unexpected euphoria to reach him.  But you can’t—Din hugs your legs tight to his chest and settles in just like this, turning his head to drag soft lips and a hot tongue over your ankle before he starts fucking you.  Right up against your g-spot, with your whole lower body in the way and preventing you from slowing him down.

You just have to clap both hands over your mouth just to keep quiet since you can’t reach him.  You feel his teeth sink into the meat of your calf, hips pistoning far beyond your reach and it feels so fucking good that you almost don’t hear his gritted words against your skin.

“I have to go,” he groans, repeating it over and over until his voice begins to pull tight and it just sounds like a plea.  “I have to go, I have to go, I h—have to… h-have to go, I have to, I have to, I have…”

*** 

When Din finally steps foot out of the ship, fumbling with his rifle and cursing quietly through the modulator, it’s the middle of the night some twelve hours later.

***

Steady…

Steady………

Fire.

—and… you blink as bark splinters.

Did you…?  You look down at the blaster in your hand and then back to the ginormous charred tree trunk for a few seconds, wondering if you’re just seeing shit.

No, it’s real.  You actually fucking did it.  You…

… hit the target.

All of a sudden, your ecstatic giggle echoes loudly throughout the foresty autumn wonderland around you, reds and oranges and yellows crunching under your feet while you start to dance.

“Hey!  See that, bug!?”  You call out, shoving the blaster into your waistband and shimmying up to your enthralled audience of one, who just so happens to be smiling as wide as you are as he’s scooped up into your arms.  “I hit the target, I hit the target,” you sing, beginning to sway the baby back and forth as he squeals, laughing while you bounce him.  “No demon powers necessary, little man!  I figured it out, I just have to use one hand instead of two.  You can retire now, you’re the right age for—”

A twig snaps in the distance somewhere to your left, and you quickly spin around while reaching for the blaster behind your back.

Except all you see is a blue Twi’lek standing out amongst all the fall foliage, his hands cuffed behind his back and stumbling a few steps at a time while a considerably taller suit of beskar shoves him forward.  You relax and immediately turn to look down at the ground, trying to bite your lip so you don’t smile too hard while they both approach.  You did it—finally, you did it, you’re on top of the fucking universe right now.

You wait for them to pass by and move up the open metal ramp to the carbonite chamber, but then Din apparently decides to pause when he’s directly behind you, yanking the quarry to a sudden halt.  

You know you should probably turn around to address them, but you can’t hide the happiness from your expression, it’s way too obvious.  Though, after a moment, you decide to shyly turn to face the two men while continuing to bounce the baby in your arms, hoping that his and your matching expressions of excitement aren’t too terribly inappropriate right now.

Din looks from you to the splintered bark on the tree, and then back to you again, before slowly tilting the helmet up in a way that feels… proud of you.

“Congratulations,” he finally says, and you can hear the genuine smile hidden in the modulated drawl.

“Thank you,” you beam up at him, feeling the blood rush to your cheeks.  “Was pretty awesome.”

“I’m sorry I missed it,” he tells you, and you don’t know why, but the tone of his voice makes you go so warm.  It’s not like he’s openly flirting with you, but coupled with your giddiness and sounding like that in front of a bounty he caught in record time, it just makes your heart fucking throb for him.

“It’s alright,” you murmur, shuffling your feet through the crunchy leaves below and trying to play it as cool as possible.  You have company.  “I’ll be able to do it again.”

“Let’s see it, then.”  He tips the helmet over at the tree, and you look between him and the unfamiliar quarry for a second, not used to Din just… ignoring their existence entirely for you.  It’s not like the Twi’lek has said anything or inserted himself into the situation at all, but still.  Din has one hand latched onto the cuffs behind his back to prevent him from booking it, but other than that, it’s like he’s pretending he’s not even there.

“Uh…”  You immediately feel yourself get nervous.  “I can… try.”

He nods one single time in silent encouragement, and you slowly turn to face the tree once more.  The kid stays cradled in your arm while you reach for the blaster in your waistband, removing it and using your longest finger to flick the safety off with a practiced fluidity.  Then, extending it out in front of you and taking advantage of your newfound strategy of only firing with one hand, you line up the sight and pull the trigger.

You wish you could say it hits.  It would be so fucking cool and impressive if you hit the target like that, wouldn’t it?  But it doesn’t hit.  It misses, like usual.  Miserably.  And then an amused snort comes from behind you.

“Right stormtrooper, you are—” you hear an unfamiliar accent begin to snark, but the rest of it turns into a garbled howl the second Din jerks his elbow back to slam it in his face.

You whip around just in time to see a cascade of blood pouring down blue lips and sharp teeth—holy fuck.  You gasp and take a step backwards with the kid, not horrified by the sudden display of violence (not after Din spent an hour teaching you how to do that, too) but not quite expecting it at that moment, either.  But then, well… that’s the second time he broke a quarry’s nose for addressing you with disrespect.  There was that other one he choked, you’re pretty sure—though you can’t remember exactly what initiated that.

Din yanks the bounty up the ramp without another word, leaving both you and the kid there to process while he shoves him through the hull and towards the carbonite chamber none too kindly.  However, by the time he seals the quarry to his fate and eventually makes his way back to you, you just… 

Fuck, you feel so stupid.

You shouldn’t even bother, what’s the point?  All that practice and nothing to show for it.  If you can’t even hit a stationary target with the pressure of others watching, what makes you think you’ll have any hope at all in a situation where you actually need to shoot?  Are they gonna stand still for you?  Are they gonna be as wide as a fucking treetrunk?  You’re horribly embarrassed, so downtrodden in the face of a cruel taunt that you don’t even want to look at Din when he steps in front of you.

“Hey, just try it again,” he says without delay, but the damage has already been done.  It’s not his fault, you’re just… not the kind of person who is meant to shoot a blaster, maybe.  

“Ah… it’s alright,” you look out and smile sadly at the line of trees surrounding you, wondering how it’s possible that you only managed to hit one of them this whole time.  You don’t see it, but Din quickly touches the tips of his fingers to the side of his helmet twice before you look back at him.  “I hit it earlier.  I did, I promise.  You can see the mark if you look.”

His glove reaches out to brush your hair back, so unbelievably gentle after using the same arm to shatter bone just a few minutes ago.  “I know you did.  It was a perfect shot, you hit dead center.  I see it.”

“I did it with one hand, that’s why I tried the thing,” you mumble stupidly, looking down at your feet.  Dumb.  Dumb.

A strand of your hair is tucked behind your ear.  “Wish I was here.”

You glance over at him, feeling your expression suddenly go soft with a wave of affection.  It stops all the harsh criticisms, halting your negativity in its tracks and replacing it with just… soft, abstract things.  Mostly just warm, nonsensical fluff, but one clear and resounding thought breaking through.  You wish he was here, too.

“Maybe I’ll get good at it eventually,” you sigh, slowly handing him the blaster with the barrel pointed down and away from both of you.  Din carefully takes it from you, tucking it away somewhere on his utility belt while you gaze out at the designated target and victorious char mark decorating it.  “Or hopefully just okay at it at some point.  I guess I just need to practice more, right?”

“That’s right,” he tells you warmly, catching your free wrist.  “Try using this one when you do.”  And then a lightweight piece of metal is gently pushed into your empty hand.

Your expression furrows while you quickly look down at it, and—

You go utterly still at the gift, not even knowing what to think.

The first thing that you notice is the craftsmanship.  Brilliant, structurally flawless, the perfect size to fit your hand.  You don’t recognize the specific kind of metal that was used—definitely not beskar—but you think it might be constructed from the same material as Din’s old armor.  Dull silver, but with reflective chrome filigree accents around the handle, trigger, and safety.  It’s uniquely constructed and unlike any weapon you’ve ever seen before—no hard lines or edges, just a soft fluidity to the design that’s so aesthetically pleasing, it doesn’t really even resemble a blaster at all.

You can feel the visor silently studying your reaction while you continue marveling, noticing something new every time you look.  The safety is towards the back of the chamber, just like he said it’d be.  The sight is electronic, and you examine the way it’s built directly into the barrel.

Are those extra magnets on the inside?  Is this able to micro-adjust the plasma release for the best shot?  Holy stars, it must have cost a fortune.

“Din, this is…” you can’t decide where you want to look—the gorgeous crafting, the custom design, or him.  Standing so close to you, not saying a word while you search for the right ones.  “It’s so beautiful, I…”

“Was made for you,” he murmurs.  “Had to be.”

You look back down at the blaster to stop your eyes from tearing up.  He didn’t have to do this.  This is so… sweet, such a lovely thing to do.  Don’t cry, don’t cry—

“What is this?” You ask breathlessly instead, rotating the gun until he can see the symbol branded on the handle.  You recognize that it’s his signet, but you never bothered to ask him what it’s called, you never saw it as your place.  It’s an animal of some sort, one with a giant spike attached to its skull, and you’re glad you’ve never come face to face with one.

“It’s a mudhorn,” he answers quietly.  “They’re… dangerous animals.  Fiercely protective, preferring solitude.  The kid saved me from one a few days after I met him.  It’s… the mark of my clan.”

How fitting, you think, and an honor.  Perfect for him, and a bone-deep reminder of your two favorite people in the galaxy on your hip wherever you go.

“Thank you,” you tell him, hoping the sincerity in your voice sounds anywhere close to how you feel.  You haven’t even had it in your hand for longer than a minute and it’s already your prized position, the most important thing you’ve ever called yours.

Din nods and takes a small step back.  “Now hit the target.”

Feeling invigorated and renewed in every single way, you keep the kid tucked firmly in one arm while raising your blaster with the other.  The safety clicks off and your back straightens, chin lifting until something about the angle feels… right.  The trigger moves easily under your fingertip, and there’s almost no kickback considering how light the weapon is.  What you’re not expecting is the pure white beam of plasma shooting out of the barrel—unlike any blaster you’ve ever seen before—but then the immediate sight of it hitting the tree dead center sends a roar of triumph through your ears.  Fuck yes.

“Look at that!”  Din calls out over the kid’s happy squeal, and there’s nothing you can do to stop your loud whoop of victory.  Even though you know it only hit with the addition of those extra magnets to correct your terrible aim, that still feels so good—you feel so fucking powerful and dangerous.  You glance over to Din with a wide smile, but then his arm extends out towards the trunk directly next to the one with charred bark.  “Hit that one.”

You automatically swing the blaster in that direction and shoot.  A few pieces of wood split on impact and send sharp bits flying as soon as the bright white beam collides with it.

“That one,” Din tells you, and then bark splinters a half second later.  “That one.”  Bark splinters.  “That one, that one, that one—” hit, hit, hit, white plasma flying through the air and bark splintering in rapid succession.

He stops and spins around, pointing to a tree at the very edge of the clearing.  “That one?”

It’s furthest away but the trunk’s diameter is enormous.  As you lift the blaster, you know you’re likely to get it easily with this sophisticated weapon, even across the considerable distance.  So instead, feeling like nothing at all can touch you right now and wanting to see how smart the aim mechanism is, you raise up a few degrees higher before pulling the trigger.  Pale plasma launches from the barrel, and then one of the tree’s most prominent branches comes creaking and crashing to the ground right where you split it.

You’re beaming by the time Din turns back to you, the most excited you’ve ever been with your own progress.  He holds there for a moment while you lower your blaster and wait for him to speak, both of you looking at each other and not moving, until suddenly you hear his voice coming back to you.

Hit the target and I’ll marry you.

One of Din’s hands slowly comes up to the edge of his helmet, but before you can even process the implication behind the gesture, you’re immediately looking down at the crunchy leaves under your feet and clearing your throat.

There’s a beat of silence where you stare down at the dead foliage and wonder why the fuck you just did that.  Right in front of him, right to his face, too startled at how quickly you were being confronted with the possibility that you responded in an equally startled way.  It was instinctual, automatic and entirely out of your control, but that doesn’t mean you don’t want to take it back.

But… you can’t take it back.  That’s the way things are, and after a few moments, you hear his boots begin to cross the distance to you.

“Come on,” Din murmurs gently through the modulator, carefully taking the blaster from your hand and clicking the safety back on again.  “We have to get going.  The fifth quarry is far.  Three day trip through hyperspace.”

He doesn’t sound upset or disappointed by your unintentional rejection, thank the Maker.  You want to explain yourself somehow, but it appears it isn’t necessary in the slightest.  His arm wraps around your lower back and he leads both you and the baby back up the open ramp of the Crest, squeezing you close enough to his side that you have to learn how to walk in a different way to stop yourself from tripping over his boots.

The helmet turns and presses to the top of your head while you focus on moving straight.  “Proud of you,” Din murmurs quietly, and your chest fills with enough air that you’d be worried about floating away if he wasn’t latched onto you so tightly.

He eventually releases you and walks over to the armory, pressing a button to unlock the doors while you hold the kid and watch him start to remove the multitude of weapons strapped to his body.

Maybe… maybe this isn’t the right time, but something brave surges up inside you.  After receiving the most precious gift imaginable from him, hitting all those targets and hearing him say that he’s proud of you, you’re buzzing with just enough energy that for better or worse, it makes you open your mouth and ask.

“Could I… come with you this time?”

Din nearly jerks upright and looks over at you immediately, but he takes a while in responding.  You hope he sees it in your eyes.  You hope he sees just how much you don’t want to be stuck here again when this is possibly the one time you’d be able to tag along.  It’s a bullshit quarry, one he could do in his sleep, and you’ve been getting increasingly restless while stuck on this ship.

When Din eventually does respond… well, judging from his shift in tone, you’re assuming he was just shocked at the question and didn’t take any of that time to actually consider his answer.

“No.”  Short.  Unfeeling, and not sorry about it in the slightest, before turning back to return the blasters you were using previously to the armory as if you said nothing at all.

Okay…  Um.  Not great, not what you wanted to hear, but maybe if you explain yourself better, he’ll listen.

“I just… I’m the only reason you have to get this quarry in the first place.”  Your voice is quiet, trying to let go of some of the concerns you’ve kept to yourself over the past two weeks.  Your fingers fiddle idly with the kid’s little woolen sack as he hangs out in your arms, wanting to plead your case but feeling slightly nervous now.  “You were out having a crazy expensive blaster made for me while I shook hands with Karga and agreed that you’d take more work for less pay.  I hate that I did that.”

“You had no choice,” Din mutters, turning around and striding past you while pressing a button on his vambrace to close the Crest’s ramp.  “My fault for being late.”  And… for as warm and comforting as his voice sounded earlier, it now just sounds… dismissive.  Aloof.  Half-listening, not really wanting to talk but forcing himself to.

“Well this time, I thought maybe… I might be able to help?  Maybe?”  Maker, you feel yourself going quieter the more he walks around the hull and ignores you.  “Karga said it was just a missing person, not even a criminal…”

“Karga says a lot of things,” he grunts with his back to you, voice completely monotone through the modulator.

Come on, speak up.  You’ve lacked a backbone for so long, you’ll never get what you want unless you say it out loud and let it be known.  You take a deep breath and straighten your shoulders, trying to put a little bit of spine into it.  “I can be useful.  I can fight now, I’ve been working on my—” 

“You think I’m telling you no because I don’t think you’re capable?”  He suddenly whips around, voice ringing sharp and challenging throughout the hull while you freeze.  You don’t move but everything about you suddenly feels like it shrinks.

“I-I didn’t—” But he cuts you off, taking a step forward.

“I know you can fight, a Mandalorian taught you how.  I know you’re useful, I know it’s just a missing person, and I know you hate it when I leave.”  He pins you with his eyes through the visor, his tone harder than you think you’ve ever heard it before.  “No.  Your job is to stay here, on this ship, with my son, where it is safe, and my job is to go get the quarry.  Quit asking.  I’m not telling you again.”

The baby makes a tiny little distressed sound in your arms and you blink a few times up at the cold metal, feeling all the good feelings from before just… drain out of you.

Okay, that’s fine.  Uh.  You… the cockpit is behind you, you’ll go up there and fly then.  No reason, just… he should get going.

“Okay, yeah,” you nod and tell the wall over his shoulder brace in immediate agreement, before abruptly spinning around and grabbing the ladder.  Din doesn’t move a single fucking muscle while you try to find your way up to the cockpit with the baby held to your chest and a dead stone sitting heavy inside of it, hoping your face doesn’t show the vulnerability you feel wanting to take over as you retreat.  Get to the cockpit first, get to the cockpit first, get to the—

“Sweet girl, I…” you barely hear murmured through the helmet from the floor, soft enough to sound slightly shocked, but you scramble into the cockpit and shut the door behind you before he can say anything else.

***

Silence didn't used to feel like this.

At first it was eerie, unnatural and stifling when you spent years in a wide open desert, wind swirling and dust pelting.  It suffocated you the first few times you jumped into hyperspace, a phenomena you read all about and considered mathematically fascinating before ever experiencing for yourself.  It was… foreign and strange, but you began to value it more and more as time passed.

Then, you started to get to know him and silence just became comforting.  Something you could bask in, knowing it was a comfort to him.  A choice he made because it just fit him best.  You felt safe in it, you felt like you didn’t have to be anything else but you.  You never had to break it just to avoid awkwardness, you became… closer to it, until you learned to fall in love with it.

But only when he was with you and it was his silence.  Not… everything else’s.  Now it’s haunting again.  Now the sheer lack of sound through hyperspace is a stranger to you, and the distortion of light surrounding the cockpit feels less about the sheer magnificence of manipulating space time and more about the fundamental disconnect it causes.  Gorgeous, but at its core, a severance.  Ripping the fabric of the universe apart, tearing a wound in it.

It’s been a few hours and nothing exceptional has happened since your conversation in the hull.  

You’ll admit that you’re a sensitive person, and because of that, you’ve always had a problem knowing if you were right or wrong when someone comes at you with a hard enough will.  You second-guess yourself, it’s one of your worst traits, and you feel like trying to squash that tendency without knowing the limit is partially to blame for why you’re holed up in this cockpit with the kid.  You’re quiet but in a different way from Din.  When he doesn’t speak, it’s because most of the time, he’s sure of himself and doesn’t need to.  When you don’t speak, it’s because most of the time, you’re insecure and don’t want to.

After being left alone with your thoughts for this long, you’re starting to realize that… he was right.  What were you thinking, wanting to tag along?  Wanting to hang out while he risks his life for this occupation, you probably sounded so fucking ignorant.  Maybe… maybe he didn’t have to say it like that, but his point is still very valid and you’re not sure if you’re really justified in hiding like this anymore.

The way he said… your job, though.  That still stings a bit.  This hasn’t felt like an actual job in a very long time.  Was that just an expression, or did he mean it literally?  You’re stuck on it, you’ve just been going over this for hours in your head, trying to figure out if you should be the one to apologize or not—or if this is just you overreacting from the start and no apologies will be necessary at all.

“Sorry you got stuck with me, kid,” you mutter sadly to the baby, watching him fiddle with his favorite metal ball in your lap.  He makes a little gurgle, purring in that weirdly adorable little way of his and it somehow feels like a reassurance directed to you that he’s just fine the way he is.

Maker, you haven’t heard anything from the hull in a fucking eternity; it’s like Din turned into a ghost, hasn’t even made a single footstep that you could hear since you last left him standing there.  You remember performing a quick flight check as soon as you got up here, lifting off as fast as you could and hoping the thrusters would rumble loud enough to cover your series of pitifully shallow sniffles at being yelled at unexpectedly by a very large and intimidating man, not really crying but not really able to breathe normal either.  The little monster was able to wiggle himself around in your lap as you were trying to punch in the correct coordinates for the fifth quarry with rapidly blinking, watery eyes, and then proceeded to give your belly the smallest hug you think you’ve ever been given and pretty much break your heart with it.

Lovely little boy, so sweet when he wants to be.  He’s sat with you this whole time, he even tried giving you his metal ball to play with but ultimately decided to keep it to himself when he realized you aren’t nearly as fascinated by it as he is.  You know it’s probably getting late for him, and you’ve been weighing the idea of handing him over to his father so he can at least get a good night’s sleep somewhere that isn’t your arms.  There’s no blankets in here, just your lap.

“I think I gotta go take you to your dad soon, tiny.  He’s probably missing you,” you tell him, trying to keep quiet enough that you won’t disturb Din in the hull.  There’s a good chance he’s already asleep.  “I think… he might still be mad at me.  Maybe you can give him the big eyes, soften him up a little?”

Right on cue, his enormous eyes start to droop closed, and you let out a tired sigh of exasperation.  That’s not gonna work, come on.  They gotta be open, booger.

You watch him slowly drift to sleep, his ears relaxing until they too start to droop, but when you try to take the ball from him and set it down on the console, his eyes immediately pop back open and the toy slips from your fingertips.  It levitates right back into his tiny hands as you watch, and then he closes his eyes once more while tightly cuddling the thing he loves most to his body.

Unbelievable.

He’s a child, and yet he’s…

“How are you so strong?”  You ask him, unable to even fathom.  “You’re the smallest, most helpless little thing I’ve ever seen and you’ve got such… strength.  You defy the universe for a piece of metal.”

He doesn’t hear you, you think he’s asleep again.  It’s just as well, you figure.  He needs to go sleep in his crib, it’s time.  You scoop him up and make sure the little ball stays tucked snugly in his arms, before finally standing up and stumbling over to the door on numb legs.

Only, when it slides open, you quickly stop short.

Because there, sitting on the floor and resting his helmet against the corner of this small little platform leading to the ladder, is the Mandalorian.

So much closer than you expected him to be.  So big, crammed into such a tiny place.  You didn’t hear his footsteps climbing the ladder, and you would’ve noticed it during the hours you’ve spent in the suffocatingly muted quiet of hyperspace.  He can be silent but not when absolutely nothing else exists and he’s got a thousand fucking pounds of steel weighing him down at any moment in time.  You took off almost immediately once you barricaded yourself inside the cockpit, so has he… did he follow you up in those last few seconds, right after you shut the door?  The ones when you were sniffling like a child and trying desperately to turn the thrusters on before you let the tears come?

His head lifts and his back straightens as you’re looking down at him with his sleeping son cradled in your arms, your eyes slightly redder than they should be.  You’re a mess and… he’s been here this whole time?

“Could you hear me in there?”  You whisper in sudden mortification, but Din just keeps gazing up at you through the impenetrable metal visor.  A complete mystery again.  Unreadable—he could be anyone.

When he doesn’t answer you, your heart twists with the possibility that he’s still upset with you, and you quickly turn to the ladder to figure out the best way to get down without jostling the baby.

“I’m sorry.”  His voice stops you dead in your tracks.  It’s so soft, nearly flipping in and out of the modulator from the lack of volume, the most cautious sounding thing you’ve ever heard coming through the filter.  “I… hurt your feelings.  I’m sorry.”

And…  Maker, if anybody else had said it.  If literally anybody else had said it, you know it would’ve sounded like the most sarcastic, dickish remark in such a delicate moment.  But, you also remember him telling you once that you were tenderhearted.  That the galaxy would never be as kind to you as you are to it.  This… comes out sounding like he’s trying to change that.

It comes out sounding like he’s trying to use his voice to hold you because he doesn’t think you want to be touched right now.  Like… like he’s doing everything he can to be as careful as possible here because you think he might be attempting to do something he’s never done before.  Apologize for saying something he didn’t mean.

“You don’t have to,” you quickly tell him.  He’s not good with words and apologies are difficult enough to phrase for normal people, you don’t want him to fret over it if that’s what this is.  “It’s okay, I know you’re not… you don’t have to.  It was stupid of me to ask.”

“It wasn’t,” he instantly counters, his voice finally seeming to find the floor when it was just hovering before.  Not loud—still gentle, still making sure the kid doesn’t wake up and you’re not frightened away, but a bit more grounded this time.  “It wasn’t… what I wanted to hear, and I didn’t take it well.  Not stupid.”

“It was stupid,” you return amicably, looking down at your feet.  “That’s not my… job, like you said.”

Din suddenly hangs his helmet down to his chest, pressing his gloves to the part that curves over his forehead and rubbing it.  “Shit.  I didn’t mean—”

“You were right,” you acknowledge, having spent the past few hours coming to the understanding that it’s the hard truth and he just phrased it poorly.  “I’m not… built for it, I’d only get in your way.  I barely just managed to shoot stationary targets with a blaster today, and that’s only with that aim corrector built into the barrel.  I’m here to be helpful, not—”

“What are you saying?”  He suddenly lifts the beskar to study you, sounding genuinely confused.  “What aim corrector?”

That… makes you pause.

“The, uh…”  Now you’re confused.  “The one that adjusts the plasma release on the gun you gave me.”

He doesn’t move an inch or say a single thing to you in response and you awkwardly shuffle your feet for a second, everything so quiet that you can hear every little snore that goes in and out of the kid’s tiny button nose.

You blink at him after way too long of that, not knowing why he still hasn’t said anything.  “There’s an electronic sight and like a bazillion extra magnets packed into the barrel, Din, what else could—”

“Sweet girl, that’s… that’s for the Philithiorium,” Din breathes out, like he’s absolutely blown away by you right now.  “That gas is less stable than normal canisters, it takes more magnets to focus the white beam without overheating the metal.”

You stare at him, not truly processing.  He’s saying that… you made all those shots today without any help at all?  By yourself?

Your eyebrows furrow and you blink a few times, but then his slow, heavy sigh echoes throughout the metal walls with disappointment… and you don’t think it’s directed towards you.

“You’re just… always so unsure of yourself.”  He sounds genuinely distraught as his helmet tips down to look at the ground.  “I made that worse today.”

“It doesn’t matter,” you quickly shake your head, your chest already beginning to loosen slightly by just being around him, hearing his voice, seeing the metal glint under the fluorescent light overhead when he’s in such a vulnerable position on the floor.  “It’s okay, let’s just… pretend neither of us said anything at all, okay?”

“Is that what you really want?”  He asks you after a moment of quiet, and for some reason, you hear something in your mind tell you that his arms look so nice right now, don’t they?  You could fit right there, perfect and safe again.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” you smile at him, feeling a bit of the ache trapped inside you continue to work itself out little by little.  You’ll be back to normal soon, it’s fine.

“No, I mean… do you really want to come with me?”  Din asks you, the words sounding cautious.  Confused, like he truly never expected the proposition from you at all.  “Or… do you just not want me to go?”

Oof, what a fucking question.

Why would he ask this?  It’s not pointed; it’s the softest, gentlest inquiry you’ve ever been posed.  Maybe in other circumstances, you’d say that him leaving doesn’t have anything to do with it, but… you’re certain that internally, it absolutely does have at least something to do with it and he was just able to know it before you did.  Which is probably why his sharp words seemed all the more cutting earlier.  It hurt because he said the truth first, verbalized a very deep insecurity you’ve been trying to hide from him and threw it right in your face when shutting you down.

Though, if it worked differently and you were the one who had to be away while he stayed here, you’d like to think you’d handle it way better than how it is now.  At least you’d have a real mission to focus on, new things to see and experiences to have.  You just feel… confined sometimes.

You take a deep breath and figure you’ll use sitting down as an excuse to think for a second.  There’s practically no room but you find it in the back of the cockpit near the doorframe anyways, doing your best to keep the kid level while you slowly lower yourself to the ground near him.  Not touching him, but close.

“I just… I lived my whole life stuck in one spot, wanting to see the galaxy,” you finally admit to him, staring at his chestplate but seeing the helmet tilt slightly in your peripheral.  “Sometimes it’s just… hard to see the galaxy and still be stuck in one spot, I guess.”

“…You want an adventure,” Din proposes quietly, and though there’s not a single hint of mockery in his voice, you suddenly feel like it’s really fucking dumb when he phrases it like that.  What are you, an eight year old?  Wanting to go on an adventure, see things you’ve never seen without any concept for real life?  Credits?  Time?  Resources?

You shrug a shoulder to make it seem like it’s no big deal.  Why is he even entertaining this right now?  “It’s stupid, I kn—”

“Like on Naboo,” he goes on, ignoring your harsh self-criticism, not allowing you the ability to even get it out once he heard the first couple words.  “Going through the forest, seeing that waterfall.  Someplace to find for yourself.  Explore.  Experience.”

You… you want it so badly that you think your eyes might tear up just hearing the words coming out of his mouth when he says them like that.  Like he… just inherently understands.  He knows.

He knows you.  He’s not good with words and yet he found the single most succinct way to put what you thought was a complex yearning without even trying.  You can’t even answer him, he hit the target dead on and you’re left with nothing to say that wouldn’t just be a miserable lie.

“Okay,” Din says after a moment, giving you a small nod.

You’re lost now.  “…Okay?”

“You’re never going on a hunt with me,” he tells you very seriously, no room for arguing.  “Ever.  And not because you can’t handle it, understand?”  He inhales, quickly adding on to his response before you’re able to analyze it the way you want to.  “But if you want an adventure, then… I can try and find a way to give you one.”

Stars.  He’s… too kind.  You somehow feel like it’s more than you deserve.  You were honestly hoping to just shadow him on a hunt, watch him work and stay well out of the way when he needs you to.  Helping if you think you’d be of any help; an extra set of eyes and hands.  You would’ve been fine even if he didn’t apologize for raising his voice at you, he doesn’t have to do this for you.

“Thank you,” you say for the third time today, feeling like each one has somehow multiplied in sincerity.

“It can’t be right now,” he quickly tells you, apologetic but earnest about it.  “I have to find the quarry, and I’m supposed to meet with Karga again in a week.”

You never did let him know about the other part of the deal you made with Karga, you admit.  Four pucks, no hassling, no hard time constraints.  That’s what you shook on, but you just never found a way to bring it up to Din.  Especially since you’ve been so preoccupied with hiding your growing disappointment from him whenever he has to go.

“If…” you pause, wondering the best way to phrase this.  Yikes, this is a toughie.  “Um.  If Karga… I don’t know, hypothetically, if Karga decided to loosen the time constraints back to the way they were before the Corellian bounty, would you… still need to meet with him again in a week?”

You don’t think he even bothers shuffling through all those words.  “Say what you mean.  Please.”

“That was part of the deal I struck with him,” you quickly explain.  “You can hunt on your own timetable again and he’ll keep giving you four pucks like before, no more or less after this one extra quarry.  It’s like a… replacement of sorts, for the one I kept you from getting the time before.  If credits aren’t an issue, you can take more than a week.  But only if you want to, you don’t have to.  It’s just there and you should know, that’s all.”

He takes his time responding, lifting his helmet just the slightest bit in… surprise?  Maybe?

“You never told me you did that,” Din finally murmurs.

“Ah.  Well.”  You look down at the sleeping kid in your arms.  “I didn’t want you to think I was trying to… keep you here.”

It genuinely is a struggle for you, and you think he’s just now realizing that.  As much as you know he gets frustrated with you for always wanting him to be here when he physically can’t be, you think it’s only now that he’s truly realizing the lengths you go to in order to stomp that part of you down whenever you feel it threatening to come up.  You allowed him to leave every single time without telling him he could stay, knowing that all that was left for you was babysitting and target practice for days on end.

“Will you come over here?”  Din finally asks, and the tone of his voice just punches you in the chest.  So soft, so distressed from having you so close yet so far from him and just… full of a quiet hope, like he’s fully expecting you to say no.

“Will we fit?”  You whisper after a moment, even quieter.

He doesn’t answer, he just reaches for you.  You do your best to scoot over to him without waking the kid, and then Din pulls you the rest of the way once he has a grip.  You go right into his arms, laying sideways across his lap and supported by his steel embrace.

Oh, it’s not comfortable but you’ve also never been more fucking comfortable.  One of his knees lifts and allows you to rest your back against it without worrying about falling over sideways and down the ladder to the hull, thank the Maker.  The beskar pauldron over his shoulder digs into your cheek, but Din immediately pushes an arm up to nudge his helmet off and make it better for both of you.  Your face automatically fits into the crook of his neck while he sets the beskar on the bend of his knee, and then he silently cradles you while you do the same to his little boy… who does the same to his favorite metal ball.

“Ni tar’tayl su,” he murmurs into your hair, the one phrase in Mando’a you do recognize, especially with how beautiful and elegant it sounds rolling off his tongue.  “Forgive me.  Ni ceta.”

You sigh your contentment and melt into him, well aware that you’d still be more comfortable in bed.  But when you’re pressed hard against his chest like this and the baby is fast asleep in your arms, you get to feel both of them breathing.  Din’s right lung is probably bigger than the kid’s whole entire body, but you like the radically different cycles they go through.  You think you count six full breaths coming from the brown sack in your palms for every one of Din’s and two of yours.  It creates the most beautiful little symphony that sometimes gets a little off track, but always finds its way back around again.

“How do you say…”  You ask, feeling his hand slowly move down the curve of your spine, mindless and hypnotic.  It catches the edge of your shirt and goes underneath, and even though it’s not his bare hand and there’s no skin to skin, it still feels so good.  Not sexual or sensual even, just… a comfort to you.  “In Mando’a, how do you say… out of a trillion?”

Din’s breaths pause for just a second, his portion of the synchronized rhythm faltering.  Soon it starts back up, and his head turns to press his lips against your hair.

“I don’t think there’s a word for it,” he admits, gently brushing a thumb across the baby’s forehead while he snoozes.  “There could be, but I don’t know it.  I’d use… out of a million million millions.  Dayn alanyc bal alanyc bal alanyci.”

Your eyes begin to drift closed, exhausted from keeping them open after shedding a few tears earlier.  Your first fight and you’re already completely in love with him again after a handful of hours of sulking and one conversation.  How is that possible?  You’re normally a very forgiving person and it wouldn’t have taken much to make you feel better, you just never expected him to… actually want it from you that badly, care enough about it to get on the floor and ask.

Din doesn’t move the entire night through.  You assumed he’d make everyone get up at some point and move to the hull, but he doesn’t.  You fall asleep against his chest, comforted by the silence once again.

***

The next morning, Din quietly climbs into the cockpit while you’re humming in the shower.  You’re too busy basking in the indoor rainfall to feel the ship pull out of hyperspace, and then jump back into it a few moments after.

***

“How long do you think you’ll be this time?”  You ask two days later, sitting on the extended flattop of Din’s old cot and swinging your legs back and forth.  The baby is currently sitting on your lap and trying to roll the metal ball down your knee so you’ll kick it in the air, you think, because he keeps dropping it at different moments and forcing you to stop moving your legs to prevent accidentally denting a wall.  Every time the ball clatters to the floor, he makes a sad sound and it immediately lifts back up into his tiny hands for another try.

Heavy boots clang against the metal floor as Din drops down from the ladder, having just landed the Crest on the surface of whatever planet you’re on.  “I’m not leaving yet.”

“Oh…”  You blink, surprised.  “Okay.”

“I wanted to do some more training with you first, if that’s okay.  You can say no if you want, but maybe not,” Din drawls, striding over to the armory and opening it.  He carefully removes your blaster from the front shelf, speaking with his back to you.  “You’re going to run.”

“Um.”  You take a moment to glance around the enclosed hull, before turning to look back at him with your eyebrows raised.  “What, like… in place?”

Din sighs and closes the armory before leaning back against the doors, rubbing the face of the helmet in exasperation.  “From me, sweet girl.”

Your legs stop swinging, and the baby grumbles and slaps three fingers against your knee.  “What?”

“We’re on Sanctuary II,” he explains, turning to grab his black bag from one of the storage shelves.  He unzips it and reaches back into one of the larger pockets on his utility belt, before grabbing a handful of credits and stuffing them inside.  “It’s a moon, the New Republic occupied it years ago and made it a safe world for refugees and orphans of the Empire.  You’ll have your blaster, some credits, a communicator, and a day head start.  You’re going to run from me.  Show me how much you’ve learned.”

Is… he for real?

Right now?  You don’t even know how to respond, you’re too surprised.  Even when Din approaches and carefully trades the kid for your blaster, setting the bag down next to you on the metal bed, you still haven’t answered him.

“If you want?”  He asks after a moment, and you quickly jerk your head into a nod and jump off the raised platform, almost knocking into him with your sudden excitement.

“Okay!  Fuck yeah,” you grin, but Din shakes his head.

“Rules,” he says seriously, and you quickly do your best to frown, trying to compose your thrilled expression to match his tone.  “One.  This is a safe world, but things can always happen.  You have a blaster now, but it’s for emergencies only.  Do not shoot me with it.  Do you understand?”  You nod, but Din reaches forward to grab your elbow.  “Out loud, please.  For me.”

“I will not shoot you with this blaster,” you vow obediently, carefully cradling the precious firearm in your hands.

“Do not shoot me,” he repeats while pointing a leather finger at you.  “Do not… shoot at me.  Near me.  Around me.  No, just—don’t shoot.  Unless I am… very far away.  Okay?”

Well, he didn’t have to phrase it like that.  You frown, but acquiesce regardless.  “I will only resort to blastering if it’s an emergency and you are not around.”

He nods a thank you for putting it into better words.  “Second rule.  Since you don’t have a ship, I won’t either.  We’re on foot.  I don’t doubt you can hotwire a piece of junk to do what you need it to do, but I’d prefer it if you didn’t.  Good?”

Entirely accurate and entirely fair.  “Good.”

“Three,” he says.  “I’ll have the kid with me, which is both good and bad news for you.  Good news is he’ll slow me down, bad news is I can’t promise he won’t also try to intervene at some point if you’re serious about putting up a decent fight.  What I can promise is that I won’t encourage it.”

“Reassuring,” you nod.  “Also not really a rule.  Please continue.”

“Four.”  He pauses for a second.  “I think I’m wanted by the New Republic.”

You nearly jerk back.  “What?”

“I can’t confirm it and I’m not proud of it,” Din quickly tells you, probably the vaguest possible explanation he could provide.  “I’m only telling you so that you’ll know your advantage and find a way to exploit it.  I can’t be seen by any officers, or they might arrest me.”

Is he fucking serious?  “I don’t want you to be arrested, Din, I—”

“I won’t be,” he assures you.  “They owe me one, I just don’t want to cash in yet.  Trust me.”

You… do.  Insanely, and against every logical thought flittering through your head, you do.  If you were ever going to bet money that someone would be able to navigate a safe world on foot without being caught by the numerous officers scattered across the surface, then you’d put all your credits on Din Djarin.  It… also shouldn’t really surprise you at all that the people seeking his incarceration also owe him a favor, should it?  It actually sounds right on par for him.  “Okay.”

“Fifth, and this one is important, so listen up,” he continues gruffly.  “You check in with me tonight over the e-comm, alright?  I don’t care where you are or how safe this planet is, if you don’t check in, I’ll come find you before the sun rises.  Say you understand me.”

“I understand you,” you tell him, your heart beginning to pound in your chest at the reality of this actually happening.  “I’ll check in tonight.”

“And if,” he goes on, “by some miracle, you manage to make it more than a full day, you check in with me tomorrow night, too.  Say it.”

“I will check in with you every single night for the full five days it’ll take you to find me,” you assert, the adrenaline starting to make you brash and giddy.  

Din tilts his helmet at you sternly.  It is a very, very stern tilt.  “Okay.  New plan, forget everything I just said.”

Your expression furrows.  “What’s the new plan?”

“That is the new plan,” he says, dead serious.  “Us.  Not doing this.”

“Oh, come on,” you grin cheekily up at him, poking his chestplate.  “I’m just giving you some motivation to find me quicker, that’s all.”

Din stares down at you, and… yeesh.  Tough crowd.

“Tell you what,” he finally grunts, sounding incredibly unamused with your jesting.  “If you can last that long with only a day head start, I’ll let you come with me to collect the fifth quarry.  You can even cuff the bastard yourself.”

You know it’s just because he’s rightly confident in his own deadly skill, but hearing him propose the possibility still shoots a thrill down your spine.  “Oh ho, you are gonna regret saying that, shiny,” you beam up at him, starting to hop back and forth on each foot with excitement.

“But if I’m able to find you, you can’t ask me ever again,” he finishes shortly, and you immediately go still in front of him.

“What?”

“If I’m able to find you in five days, I don’t want to hear about you coming with me on a hunt and you can’t ever ask me not to go on one,” Din tells you, his voice rough and gravelly through the modulator.  Not mean or harsh, but firm.  “From now on, it’ll be off-limits.”

You… take a moment, not knowing if you should feel scolded or not.  When you don’t immediately say anything in response, he sighs and turns the helmet away from you.

“Leaving is hard enough as it is,” he mutters, looking at the ground.  “Hearing you ask… makes it impossible.”

You slowly lower your gaze to the floor as well, feeling your heart constrict tight in your chest.  There’s a real pull under his voice, telling you that information even though it sounds like he doesn’t really want to admit it out loud.  It… really is a struggle for him too, then.  You understand.

“Okay,” you nod.  There’s not a single part of you that actually thinks you’ll be able to stay hidden from him for five days while stuck on foot, so this is essentially a given.  You’re not thrilled about the idea, but you’re going to do your best to respect it nonetheless, especially if he cares enough to put off hunting and allow you this experience for yourself.  It’s a better compromise than you ever imagined, and you’ll do everything you can to hold up your side of the bargain.

Din clears his throat and straightens his spine, turning the visor until it faces you head on once more.  “Final rule.  I reserve the right to break any rule we just agreed to, or any fucking rule in this galaxy to keep you safe.  Good?”

Your cheeks flush with heat, your stomach suddenly filling with butterflies.  He doesn’t do that.  Din says what he says or he doesn’t say anything at all, there’s no… taking things back, he’s already breaking his own code.

“What happened to The Way says no take-backs?”  You ask quietly.

“This is my way,” he answers you.  Quick, not even taking a moment to think about it, before pulling out a fancy looking wristwatch thing and clipping it on you himself.  “This is your communicator.  It takes more power than the one you have now but it’ll reach a further distance.  I have one just like it, they’re locked into the same frequency and timesynced together, and the batteries need to be charged every three days.  If you make it that long, I’ll remind you.”  Din grabs the bag while you slide your arm into it, helping you hook it around your shoulder with one hand while he cradles the kid in his other.  Your heart is pounding now, pumping with adrenaline as he pulls you towards the middle of the hull and then wraps an arm around you.

“Hey,” he murmurs, pulling you tight to him and pressing the helmet to the crown of your head.  His voice is barely a whisper through the modulator.  “Gar darasuum.”  For an eternity.

You find some way to wrap your arms around him, even with your blaster in your hand and the kid hanging out in his dad’s other arm.

“Dayn alanyc, bal alanyc, bal alanyci,” you murmur dutifully against the beskar chestplate, knowing your accent is probably butchering the words but hoping they still carry the same sentiment.

And then you’re squeeeeeezed hard enough to get a little air out of you, before you’re let go and he turns around, pressing a button on his vambrace so the ramp begins to lower.

It’s bright outside but not too bright, and everything is warm and gentle and breezy, right in the middle of a lush plain.  You inhale the fresh air into your lungs, looking out across the wide open field, having no fucking clue this is where your day would be leading when you woke up this morning.  Oh Maker, it’s gorgeous here.  Not like Naboo, where every single thing is picturesque and fit for an e-card, but in a soft, understated kind of way.  The sky is a canvas of swirling pastel clouds, pale pinks and yellows and blues, and the communicator on your wrist lets you know that it’s just after noon here.

You take one single step down the ramp, before immediately stopping and turning around to bite your lip at him.

“How am I… how am I supposed to outrun you?”  You ask, already clueless.  “You’re too good, better than me at everything.”

“That’s not true,” Din reminds you sternly, grabbing your hand at your side.  “You already know who’s after you, that’s an advantage nobody else has ever had against me.  You know how I think.  I don’t know how, but sometimes it’s like you can…”  He slowly shakes his head.  “See me.  Through the metal.”

“But… but that works both ways,” you point out, breathless at hearing him say that but needing to focus right now.  “You know me, too—you’ll know exactly where I—”

He shakes his head again, but quickly this time.  “Remember what I told you a long time ago?  What your best weapon is?”

You… do not.  He told you so many things, and you’re assuming every single one of them is going to come into play during this endeavor if you want to outlast.  You’re going to have to think back and remember all of them individually, find the time to figure out your best plan of action based on the remarkably little you know about how he hunts.

“You’re smart, remember?”  Din murmurs, squeezing your fingers.  “Your mind works differently, it sees things in ways I’ll never be able to, not even with this helmet.  So…”  He shrugs a shoulder like it’s the simplest thing in the galaxy.  “Don’t try to outrun, okay?  Just try to outsmart.”

You give him a nod after a moment, still not really sure about it, before giving his hand one last squeeze in return and eventually letting go.  

Outsmart.  Outsmart him, use what you know about him to be the most elusive quarry he’s ever hunted down.

As you make your way down the ramp, you’re already thinking.  His helmet tracks footprints, that’s a thing you know.  You’ll have to find someone to trade shoes with, then—yours aren’t too beat up, maybe you can find a local who’d appreciate a better pair.  Are you going to a city?  Would there be one in walking distance?  The wilderness won’t work, you’ll be too exposed and it would make you an easy target for either him or wild animals.  The weather seems clear here though, and you don’t think you’ll need to worry about rain or snow, but if—

“Oh—but when you do see me,” Din decides to add when your feet finally touch the grass, and you pause once more to turn around and look at him.  He stays quiet for a second, studying you through the helmet for too long.  Like the anticipation is getting to him already.

You bite your lip back at him and adjust the bag on your shoulder, tummy swirling with nerves and excitement.  He tilts the visor up, gazing down at you from the hull with the kid tucked in his arms.

“Try to outrun,” he says gruffly, before turning back into the ship and letting the ramp slowly close behind him.