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apocalypticwafflekitten · 26 days ago

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Moonlight Psychopomp

Vampire!Perpetua x Reader

A/N: I was listening to Abstract (Psychopomp) by Hozier when this thought came into my head. This was supposed to be a little blurb idea I was gonna throw into @papathe5th’s askbox but it became a full fic of its own, so here we go! Also! The lovely divider is by @wrathofrats!

Original Imagine/Summary Thingy: Imagine being there when Perpetua gets turned and sort of ushering him into his “afterlife”.

Warnings: Major Character Death-ish. It’s nothing too detailed, but he technically does die. Very Mild Gore - mild descriptions of blood, nothing super detailed. Originally written with she/her pronouns, but changes to be gender-neutral, so let me know if I’ve missed anything!

Word Count: 2k

I don’t have any other works for Perpetua at the moment, but if you like my writing, you can check out my Masterlist!

You liked to walk through the woods that backed up to the Monastery. The old abbey was such a secretive place - all mystery and compelling quietness. You liked to nose around the grounds, catch sight of the men who lived there, listen to the tones from the abbey’s organ.

You almost didn’t come tonight. The smattering of snow falling should have convinced you to stay home next to your heater and fireplace. Really, it shouldn’t have been snowing at all, but Spring seemed to come late this year. Even in mid-April the winter chill had yet to leave your hometown.

But you wanted to listen to the brothers sing. You wouldn’t be able to hear much, but if you got close enough, you could make out the melodies and harmonies drifting through the windows during the Easter vigil mass.

But as you creep closer to the tree line, out of the densest parts of the forest, you see a dark, lumpy shape laying on the forest floor.

A smarter person might have changed course and avoided whatever consequences might come from investigating a dark, lumpy shape laying on the forest floor. But you were curious. It was that curiosity that led you to spy on the Monastery to begin with - that curiosity that led you here tonight. So of course you listened to that before you ever listened to the rational part of your mind.

As you draw closer to the shape, you try to make out what exactly it is. Granted, it’s dark. The sun set ages ago, so you can’t see well to begin with. But you still try.

However, it’s not the shape of the thing that finally tells you what it is. It’s what you step in.

You don’t hear it at first, but after a few steps, you notice a squelch beneath your shoes that isn’t made by crushing snow. Looking down, you can’t quite make out what exactly is different about the forest floor - only that there’s some liquid or goo shining in the dim moonlight. You bend down to investigate, but before you can kneel, you’re overcome by the metallic smell. Blood.

A thick trail of blood leads up to and puddles beside the shape. And as you look down at what appears to be shredded fabric, you catch a glimpse of what is laying beneath that fabric. Your heart plummets when you realize what - or, rather who - you had stumbled upon.

He’s one of the brothers of the monastery. Even without the robes, you’d know. You had seen him around the grounds during previous visits, often catching him hiding in the open courtyard or wandering close to the forest while scribbling something in a notebook. He was your favorite to watch. Not just because he was handsome, which was nice, but really, it was because he seemed so out of place - like the pious life grated hard against him - like something about him being there just…wasn’t right. And yet there he was.

But as he lays here, he looks nothing like the man you’ve watched before. His robes are torn to shreds. His skin an ill pallor that’s beginning to sink in upon itself. Most of all, he just looks…wrong - like he’s lost something about himself. Something fundamental that no one would ever choose to lose.

You kneel beside him, pull his body into your lap and let the weight of his upper body rest on your legs. And only then do you notice where the puddle of blood beside him comes from.

Blood still trickles from the wounds and though you try not to jump to conclusions, the two punctures on his neck tell you enough to guess what happened to him.

“You poor thing,” You whisper, adjusting his body so his head can rest in the crook of your elbow, “What happened to you?”

You nearly jump out of your skin when his eyes creak open just the smallest bit. You’re not even sure he actually did open his eyes. It could have been a muscle twitch or something. But you force your arms to still, to continue holding him against your rapid heartbeat.

But he knows. The second he heard your voice his body jolted alive, fighting to hang on just a little longer. Just enough to finally see you.

You were really here - the one who kept coming back to spy on the monastery. He could finally see more of you than the brief glimpses he had caught before. He could finally connect the dots on the rough sketches he’d been scribbling in his notebook. He could finally meet you.

But everything is hazy. And his whole body hurts. He doesn’t even know where he is anymore or how he got here. But he can hear your voice like a beacon of clarity that pulls him back down to earth.

As you speak, the moonlight streaming through the trees bathes you in a silver halo, so much so that it seems the moonlight comes from you. You are the most beautiful thing he has ever seen and he wonders for a moment if he’s even worthy of looking at you.

“I don’t know if you can hear me, or if you’re still here with me. But I’m sorry it happened like this. I’m sorry you were alone.”

“I’m not” he yearns to say. The words push up against the back of his tongue, but his throat is dry and he can’t make his lips move. So he looks into your eyes, hoping you can see the little flicker of his soul behind his eyes - hoping he can somehow tell you with his eyes that he knows you’re there.

Fuck, he knows. Moments before this, when he lay alone in the snow he had been afraid - shivering and shuddering, feeling the cold sting against his skin where that thing had ripped his robes (he wonders briefly how much of his body you can see). But then you found him and pulled him against your body and let him feel warmth again.

And as he looks into your eyes now, all of that fear is quelled. All the blood, all the cold, all the pain - it melts away and is replaced by something warm and comforting within his chest. Your eyes hold everything good in the world just above him. Just looking at you is enough to soothe his every ache.

He takes a final moment to memorize your face, a final deep breath - willing his chest to move one last time, then goes entirely limp.

Your arms jolt out to carry all the weight of him once more. And for a moment, you just sit there, holding his still body in silence.

You don’t know what to do. You’re certain a man just died in your arms. A man you hardly know in a dark forest backed up to an old Monastery in the middle of a vigil mass.

As you look down at his blank face, trying to think of what to do, you’re overcome with pity for him. To die almost alone on a cold night is not the death this man deserved. You can feel tears for him welling in your eyes and as they fall, you pull his body to your chest, hugging close the remnants of this poor man before setting him on the forest floor.

You can’t bury him. You don’t have a shovel, nor do you have the strength to dig a grave for him. But something tells you that even if you could, you still wouldn’t bury him. There’s no explaining it, but something about him just doesn’t feel…done yet. It’s absurd. There is no breath. No pulse. Even the blood trickling from his wounds has stopped. And yet, you know you wouldn’t bury his body.

So you do what you can. You pull the collar of his robes up against the wind and prop his body against a tree, well guarded in a dark corner of the forest. You slip your coat off and lay it over him - hoping that if you’re correct and he’s not quite done yet, that the coat will keep him warm.

Just before you stand to leave, you cup his cold cheek in your hand, cradling hope and comfort against his hollow skin. And into his ear you softly whisper: “Whatever comes for you now, poor one, I hope you find happiness, whatever that means for you.”

And then you were gone.

The ministry is still a little overwhelming. Especially today.

The ministry halls - normally quiet and calm - are bustling with veteran Siblings racing to welcome new initiates. He’s supposed to come meet them this evening too. It’s one of his first official acts as Papa. And yet, he finds himself scared - worried, even, that he will somehow fail even this simple task.

He turns his eye to the corner of his desk. There’s a framed sketch there. A sketch of you. The one he’d viciously scribbled moments after he woke up, perched against a tree. It was one of the only things he remembered when he woke in that cold forest.

He’d ripped his notebook and pen from the pocket of his shredded robes and finished the sketches of you he had started weeks ago.

And now he keeps this one with him - framed and close no matter where he goes.

He often looks to you when he needs strength. Even if it‘s just a sketch of you, it’s enough to help him through anything. You’d saved him once before and so many times after that, though you’d never know it.

He dreams about that night often. Every week at least. Flashes of the initial attack have come back slowly over the years. That, he’s not entirely grateful for. But he remembers some things that are good enough to balance out the nightmares. He remembers that he was doing a last check of the grounds before the vigil mass when he was attacked. He remembers hoping to see you in the trees and thinking that if he saw you again he might invite you inside - just for mass. Just to meet you. And most of all, he remembers you and how the moonlight shone from you and how you’d guided him into his afterlife with your kind, comforting voice.

He’s been looking for you. Ever since that night he’s looked for you. Honestly, at this point he’s not even sure you’re real. Maybe you had been an angel. Or a demon. Or some figment of his imagination. But that’s never stopped him from looking for you. And if there was one benefit of his sudden promotion, it was that he had some level of power to look for you. He would be going on tour soon and in every venue, in every city, he’ll be looking for you - hoping, praying to Satan that you’re real.

As he looks at the sketch of you, he feels that same warmth he felt the night you saved him - the one that melted over him when he looked into your eyes. It’s reassurance enough that even if he’s scared, he can survive - he will survive.

And later that night, when he steps into the sanctuary to meet the new initiates, his breath catches in his throat and time stops altogether.

You’re here. You’re actually here. You’re not some figment of his imagination. Even obscured by the formal habit for the ceremony, he knows it’s you. You may have aged in the fifteen years it’s been since you held him, but he knows you. He would know your eyes, your voice, even in death or whatever comes for him now. You’re here. You’re real. And you’re just as beautiful as his hazy memory recalls. The moonlight shining upon you through the stained glass windows gives you the same silhouette as that night; the same silver halo. A message from God or Satan or something beyond either of them. One that says “Look at them. I’ve brought them to you.”

And in that moment, he is filled with the most radiant, blinding happiness he’s ever known.

He finally gets to meet you.

#this came to me like a fever dream #I haven’t written a fic this quickly in sooooooo long #what can I say?#I’m inspired by the Purple Creature Man #papa v #papa v perpetua #papa v x reader #papa v perpetua x reader #vampire perpetua #vampire perpetua x reader #vampetua #vampetua x reader

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maggstar · 2 years ago

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𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞: 𝐔𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐚𝐲 𝐈 𝐃𝐢𝐞

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𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠: 18+, mni DNI!

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: when Y/N is moving to a new place, she asks for some help. To her luck, the handsome officer living nearby picks up her call to lend her a "hand".

𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: smut, sappy asf, cop!Hee, confession, kissing (tongue action yall know it), mutual touching, oral (f. and m.), 69.

𝐖𝐂: 3.2k

𝐀/𝐍: Hello my lovelies, I'm back (not for long). I have been promising a cop!Hee fic for so long that I've decided to feed yall with a prologue at least. Hope you like it!

Please leave any sort of feedback: reblogging and commenting is the best for me, so let me know!! ───────────────────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹────────────────────

Summer 2022

"Oh, come on now, we're not even halfway there!" the lilting tone emancipated from afar, shifting through the rooms of the empty apartment to place the piles of carton boxes in their assigned spot.

They were all different sizes, some possessing parts of old furniture or newly bought ones, decorations, and daily-life equipment, carefully packed and branded. It seemed as if the amount kept growing with each placement, countlessly checking the truck.

Moving shouldn't have been such a demanding process, yet Heeseung found himself sighing every minute, constantly puffing after successfully delivering a package. The sweat on his forehead kept amassing, bringing his gaze to the flaming orange star. As if the hot weather wasn't enough, the lack of clouds deprived him of cooling down a little.

He regretted dressing up for the occasion because he only wanted to rip the beige Hawaiian shirt off him. It went well with the iceberg-pleated shorts, but he would have been better without it. At least the brown aviator sunglasses were somewhat helpful, giving off the cool vibe he dearly lacked. It was all an attempt at impressing the female whom he decided to help, postponing everything on his calendar.

With a dramatic sigh, he looked back at the mentioned one, hopping from one leg to another, hips swinging to the sides at each jump.

There was a dazzling smile glowing amidst those moves, radiating bright energy, swaying her head from left to right. The wavy hair created a breathtaking shot in that lavender-colored jumpsuit, soaked in its splashy floral pattern. It all added to the sweet image, complemented by a charming personality.

Heeseung didn't know what about her turned his insides upside down. There were too many factors about that breathtaking beauty to pinpoint one. From her looks to her brains, she was a flawless 10 out of 10. A woman every man could only dream of.

He was one of those men, dreaming about her every night after hitting bed. At this rate, it was turning into a habit. His head would automatically wander to her curvy shape once he shut his eyelids. Her long and slender shoulders were a sight to see, and he imagined running his fingers on them. Sometimes he visualized her powerful thighs, hungering to feel them in his hands. His ultimate wish was to reach her back and squeeze her buttocks as much as possible. He was a pervert for fantasizing about her in such inappropriate ways. However, he couldn't help it.

She was incredibly attractive, and even if he tried to look away, his vision still ended on her. It was unavoidable. She was gorgeous.

"Lee Heeseung! Stop being a baby and help me!" the bundle of joy reprimanded, looking back with knitted eyebrows.

Nothing appeared better right then, content with the outcome of her decisions. It almost made the volunteer forget about the awaiting unboxing. He could sense the exhaustion steadily approaching from the corner, taunting the weary with its impact.

She crouched down to organize the pieces in the corner, not anticipating a figure approaching from behind.

"Oh, you did not just say that," he called out, hands stretching to the sides of her torso, ignoring the loud no's as he came closer to the desired location. At that moment, the secret weapon was released. The victim fought for air, their laughter overconsuming it all, hands trying to stop the intolerable torture.

"Yah! Stop!" they yelled, slapping the boy's arms, squirming in his imprisonment. The imbalance in the position caused them to fall over, bringing the perpetrator with them and landing on the floor together.

Heeseung stopped once his eyes locked with hers, staring into those beaming green orbs, casting rays of bliss.

It was as if he was looking at pure euphoria, smearing its gilt palms on him, like a warm blanket on a cold day, whispering sweet nonsenses. He couldn't cease admiring the view, the corner of his mouth lifting unknowingly. It was immaculate, its face round as an apple, light brown dots etched around its Grecian nose, forsaking their presence at the plump upper lip, overshadowing the bottom half, completing the perfection.

He hoped this moment could last forever, with her beside herself with joy, grinning and holding onto him, pledging its eternity. It didn't have to be authentic, just the thought calming his anxious soul, questioning the length of this point before disintegrating in his grasp.

Yet, staring into her almond-shaped eyes reassured the worried. His fingers ran through her silky hair, body slightly freezing in surprise, gasping at the unexpected gesture. The change in her breathing didn't miss his sight, caressing her head overfilled in worries and pang, hoping to divest them.

If only he could sweep away all of the trouble from her system and hold her close eternally to provide the oughted warmth and comfort. He appealed to the universe to provide her with the needed healing. To replace the bandages and plasters on her crushed soul with long-lasting stitches and disallow the wounds from ever opening up again.

The universe found it amusing that he kept asking for something already there from the beginning, fulfilling all his requests without his knowledge. It was as snug as a bug in a rug, watching over the little one and protecting her in its embrace. It was all there, slanting over her with doe eyes, creating temporary crow's feet.

"You won't go, right?" she asked, swallowing the sudden change of emotions, the numbness and fear heckling to emerge. The despair on her brows drew in, transmitting through as her jaw pulled in.

He shook his head, soothing away the dread with a peck on the rosy cheek, "No. I'll stay with you."

"Promise?" she held onto his collar, pulling him closer till their foreheads kissed. Oh, how much she wanted their lips to be the ones who connected and chafed against each other, devouring one another in ardor. She was foolishly hoping for the upcoming redness to evaporate, not embarrass her in front of the mighty male she so broadly adored.

Was it the bambi eyes blanketing her in love or the warm palm holding her petite hand that made the girl swoon? She couldn't ignore the effects of this fine man in front of her. Her true intentions have been bottled up for so long that they began opposing. They wanted to shout and express the overgrowing desire evolving into a blooming garden of affection.

"Promise," was all she needed to hear to pull him closer and make her dream come true without hesitating. To her surprise, nor did he.

It was like they'd both waited for this spectacular moment to happen, not getting enough of it. Their hands roamed on each others' backs, attempting to draw in the other as much as possible. They practically crushed their noses while doing so, forgetting about breathing for the upcoming seconds. The only thing they could focus on was the bliss it provided.

The ravenous act of love was so passionate that it almost made the woman collapse, holding on to Heeseung's T-shirt. He was in his world, experiencing the most pleasing kissing.

No previous connection could match the intensity and perfection of this moment. It was such an anticipated fantasy that he struggled to fathom her soft lips brushing against his. The way they collided with his was sensational, relinquishing every thought in his brain.

There was only this tingly feeling leading from his chest in between his legs. He was all over the place, but so was Y/N.

In her 21 years of living, she had never been French kissed before, and this was the first time she allowed someone to try it. Despite her strong resentment against the act due to finding it unhygienic, she let the man she dreamed of having for so long play with her tongue. For once, she ignored picturing bacteria transmitting through saliva and wrapped her arms around his neck.

And Heeseung made sure she wouldn't regret it.

As soon as he gained access, he tenderly slipped inside her mouth with his warm and wet tongue. He painted her walls in adore, cupping her cheeks to bring them in. That way, he could also pull her closer and deepen the kiss.

They both found the sounds of wet smacks bouncing off the empty room stimulating, letting out a few whimpers.

"Heeseung, I want you," she started sucking on his bottom lip, voicing her frustration by occasionally biting. It didn't hurt, but it was enough to bring him back from the dazed state she left him in.

"I want you too," his fingers lightly slid down her arms, sensing the change in her heartbeat. It continued grazing over lower, barely touching her skin.

The teasing threw her over the edge. She just wanted him to tear off her clothing and wander his veiny hands all over her chest. To squeeze her breasts and pinch her nipples until she couldn't handle it. She wanted to become an utter mess underneath him.

"Please, love me," She felt like an animal in heat, unable to think of anything else than the longing desire in her system. It repeatedly screamed his name in the most alluring way, gluing onto his mouth like it was the last time.

The combination of his lustful gaze and comforting smile was an unbeatable experience. His eyes were the key to his soul, expressing love and appreciation with one beguiling look.

"Can I?" he asked in her ear while playing with her earring, hooking onto the hems of the jumpsuit.

"Yes, quick," she appealed, the urge intensifying each minute. Without having to ask, she began unbuttoning his cotton T-shirt, having a compulsion to rip it apart.

His tongue was back trekking in her mouth, concealing her aching lips in the warmth of his saliva. Y/N couldn't properly focus on the cursed buttons when he delicately declared his delight in the kiss. It was impossible to do anything with him quietly moaning, stumbling over her consciousness.

"Fuck. Are all police officers this hot?" She exhaled at the mouthwatering view ahead. Her eyes rolled when her palms slid against his naked skin, the coldness causing them to flex. She knew about his exquisite physique before but never had the chance to see it up this close.

His muscles had always been visible through any piece of clothing, and Y/N found herself staring at every opportunity. Her hands couldn't stop touching his delicate skin, desperate to kiss and mark every spot. Just picturing him in purple love bites did wonders to her woman parts.

At this point, she was openly drooling over him.

"You should look at yourself," He blushed at the compliment, pulling the piece of clothing off her. His leg pressed against her core right after, adding a log into the fireplace. She closed her mouth to conceal her needs, shutting her eyelids when his knee rubbed her clit. Was she too blatant with her thigh squeezing? Fuck.

"You're fucking gorgeous," he leaned over, tracing her chest and torso with his nose. Seeing her in her undergarments and face scrunched in pleasure spurred his aching shaft even more. The addicting scent of shea butter absorbed every part of her, placing him under a spell with her features.

He placed delightful pecks on her stomach to ensure her comfort and safety, a feeling of happiness and contentment in his presence.

"You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen," his moans wiped down her thighs, licking and kissing everywhere. Her insides began burning, and she found herself desperately gripping his hair. The compliment he just dropped on her head blasted through her ears, flushing her cheeks in a rosy pigment.

He had to have a lot of adorers in his past, and she didn't doubt it was the same in the present. His visuals were better than the models on magazines, a mixture of soft masculinity. Looking at him made her gasp consistently, habitually admiring his breathtaking assets. He was a work of art, and she couldn't stop admiring it.

"Heeseung," her breath lingered, staring at the savory growth behind his sweatpants. The outline, which appeared immensely luscious, provoked her intrusive thoughts to yearn for it. To lick and suck on it like candy until reaching a sugar crash.

"Please let me put it in my mouth," the desperation transferred, sitting up to flip sides. He stared at her in shock from the floor with hands above his head, having hers wrapped around his wrists. Her sudden revelation caught him off guard, sensing his friend wholly waking up at the lewd confession.

If it wasn't obvious how much he wanted her to have him her way, he wasn't sure about anything anymore. His heart was merely beating for her, picking up speed in pumping blood around his body. It was inevitable, particularly when she circled her tongue around his teats.

He would lie if he said he had experienced such a dirty act before, twitching and squirming from the kitten licks. He wasn't sure if it being his first time caused such a mercurial reaction or her being the one suckling on them.

Either way, Heeseung wasn't complaining one bit. He permitted her to play with them as she desired.

"You're all I've ever dreamt of," her breath skimmed lower and lower until it recoiled up on his crotch. Both sighed at the highly-awaited instant as if they had been waiting for it to happen forever.

Y/N took in the paradise and rested her face on it, massaging her cheek against it. She was roaming in a daze, omitting everything around and focusing on the growing element beside her.

All these lascivious acts made Heeseung think Y/N was an expert, not having a second to figure out his methods. They were thrown out the window the moment she pulled down his shorts and Calvin Klein boxers in one go, uncovering his nudity all to herself. He goggled at her from the uncatchable pace, leaning against his elbows for balance.

"God, Hee," she wrapped her hand around the leaking material, leisurely smearing the pre-cum on the head.

"Y/N," he hissed, watching his thick cock twitch in her small hand, throwing his head back. Once her thumb circled his tip, his testicles drove in. They uncontrollably pulsated with each hoop, losing control over their equipoise.

Her sparkly orbs, gazing at him from below while gingerly kissing the base, pushed the filthiest groans out of him. He could cum from her lips polishing his member, the delicate touch reminding him of a feather.

"No more teasing, please," his hips raised, pressing his thick cock against her rosy cheek. He couldn't hold his desire any longer, practically begging her to suck him dry.

"Oh? So what do you want me to do then?" her lips entangled around his tip, turning into a feisty smirk.

"Put your tongue on it," he pleaded, his knees turning numb from the ecstasy.

"Like this?" her eyes looked up at him between his legs, sticking out her tongue to draw perfect lines across his treasure. For an answer, she received a loud groan alongside a light thump into the ground. She was playing a dangerous game, but it was too amusing to miss.

"Look at how your cock twitches when I do this," she snickered, licking him from the top to all the way down to his balls. They were also in need of attention, and Y/N didn't forget to engage them in her playtime.

"Or barely lick your head," she demonstrated the act, causing Heeseung to shiver in her grasp.

"It makes me wonder how it'll react if I decide to put it in my mouth," her last word got nearly swallowed as she answered her question, leaving Heeseung in utter disarray. His brain resigned, incapable of handling the sheer amount of pleasure. If it stayed any longer, it would go insane.

"It's so soft," she furrowed her eyebrows upwards, her hands coming back to wander on his buttery skin.

"So tasty."

"So beautiful."

"So perfect."

It hit the back of her throat, face entirely buried into his crotch, satisfied blusters opposing as a reaction. She found it adorable how he desperately held onto her hair, trying to shove himself even deeper. It was so incredible that he struggled to contain his growing lust, prompting him to unravel his aggression.

He wanted to grab her silky hair into a ponytail and mercilessly guide his dick deep down her throat. To watch the lump in it growing and disappearing with each pulse while her eyes looked straight into his.

He couldn't hold it anymore.

He had to taste her.

"Turn around and sit on my face," he conveyed, seductively running his tongue over his lips.

"What?" the shyness transferred to the opposite side, goggling at the depicted request.

"Come on, don't be shy and sit on my face, princess."

Y/N hesitantly looked at the stripped man, who was calmly lying with his arms behind his head, lustfully eyeing her up.

"Ride it until you come down my throat," the nasty invite slipped out his mouth carelessly, putting on a smirk to secure its impact.

"You know I'll lick it all up."

The woman's jaw dropped at the proposition, heavily floundering with her senses. Her interiors thawed at his sensual words, screaming at her to turn around and do as he demanded.

"I don't want you to suffocate, dumbass," she lightly punched his arm, trying to dissipate the butterflies piling in her stomach. She didn't want to seem like a nuisance with her subtle shots at the getaway. However, her confidence wasn't the biggest one out there.

Being on top wasn't the issue, but being that exposed to Heeseung. She always found it uncomfortable to have guys looking at all of her. Relaxing in someone else's arms was a problematic obstacle.

Heeseung wasn't an ignorant person not to notice the modest hints, settling to act rather than unroll the tangle of unnecessary insecurities.

With that determination, he lifted her and placed her on his face without warning to get her raw reaction.

At the same time, he found it foolish to waste a minute arguing.

Instead, he could use it to eat her out and show her immortal magnificence.

"You have no idea how good you look from here," both ended up facing each other's genitals, admiring the glorious piece of art. She stared at him covered in her saliva mixed with precum, its size managing to develop more with each touch.

Heeseung was playfully running his finger around her slick hole. The amount she had produced was more than he could imagine, the sticky material creating squelching sounds. His index traveled upwards, smearing the juices on her swollen clit.

"I could just play with you all day without ever getting bored," his finger disappeared inside her, unweaving a beautiful whimper.

"Just run my finger up and down your pussy until you can't handle it," he smoothly pushed another in, her fluids substituting lube.

"So warm and tight. All just for me," his nose hit her clit, soaking up her scent in an instant.

"Heeseung," she sighed, holding onto his legs for support.

"I love you, Y/N."

"I love you more, Hee."

...to be continued...

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Taglist: @end-hyphen, @hee-pster, @jakeswifeyy, @gegeetime, @heerated, @jayked, @forjongseong, @enhastolemyheart

𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧! ^^

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@maggstar

#minors: dni #enhypen smut #enhypen hard hours #heeseung smut #enhypen headcanons #enhypen imagines

268 notes · View notes

softguarnere · 2 years ago

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I've been staring at your ask box for about 20 minutes now because i'm speechless, your writing is so fucking good!!! I've even sent it to my friend (she is not into hbowar) and she was like woow, specially at Ares and Athena, sooo I was wondering if you could write more stuff like that? it's not like I've been shaking, crying, screaming at my screen while reading over and over again BUT PLEASE WRITE MORE SPEIRS X READER

Evaded by Hypnos

Ron Speirs x reader

A/N: Omg hi anon! Thank you so much 💖 This ask absolutely made my day when I got it! Ares and Athena is one of my favorite fics that I've written, so I'm super glad you and your friend liked it as well! This is a prequel based off an off-handed line at the end of the fic about how Ron and the reader met. I really hope you like it! (and tagging @ronsparky since you wanted to read it 😁) As always, this is written for the fictional depictions from the show - no disrespect to the real life veterans! Warnings: language

The night sky hangs still overhead. Somewhere in the distance, machine gun fire pops in bursts, shattering any stillness that might have been about to settle over everyone. Some people can sleep through just about any conditions. Good for them. They’re probably the only ones managing to catch some shuteye. Meanwhile, everyone else is awake and in varying degrees of alertness, and all for different reasons. Some are too scared to attempt sleep, afraid that it might be the last time that they ever shut their eyes. But for Ron and those like him, staying alert is the only thing to do when sleep remains elusive.

D-Day has been hectic, to say the least. Scattered men have been trying to rejoin their companies. They’ve all been on the move, living one order to the next, one objective to the next. The frustration of the night has turned to exhaustion for many, as Fox Company remains elusive. Ron never would have guessed that their biggest challenge once they got to Europe would be trying to keep the companies in line as they moved. Which seems funny, in a sort of pitiful way, now that he’s alone and there’s time to think about it.

Lots of time to think about it. Hours stretch before him in the dark night. Now that they’ve got Talbert from Easy Company taken care of, Ron leans back in his foxhole, waiting for something else to happen, or for sleep to take him first.

You’re so quiet that he doesn’t notice you until you speak. “Lieutenant Speirs?”

Ron looks up. Through the darkness, he can just make out the shape of someone standing above his foxhole, staring down at him. Her voice is quiet, but firm. Ron sits up straight to get a better look. “Yes?”

You gesture down, indicating the foxhole, him, the room he has. “Mind if I join you?”

“Not at all,” he replies, already moving over to create more space.

“Thanks,” you say when you hop in and land beside him with a soft thump! Now that you’re closer, he recognizes you. Lieutenant (Y/L/N), from Easy Company. One of the women in the female paratrooper program – and one of the only women to become an officer so far. Maybe it’s the poor lighting, but it looks like you smile at him. “Went to make sure they had Talbert handled, and then came back to find that some of the guys had taken my foxhole.”

“You didn’t make them move?” Ron isn’t sure if it comes out as more of a question or a statement. Obviously you either didn’t make them move, or they chose not to listen to your order – a problem with some of the men when it comes to the gender of whoever is giving them a command.

You shake your head. “I’ve fought enough battles today.”

That doesn’t seem fair. Ron doesn’t know you personally – has never even spoken to you one on one before now – but he’s heard about you. And the popular consensus seems to be that you’re a good officer. The upper echelon seem to think so, and so do the men and women of Easy company. Good officers are hard to come by. They shouldn’t be left in the dark looking for a foxhole to spend the night in.

“Well, if you ever need a place to stay, my foxhole is always open.” The words are out of Ron’s mouth before he’s fully had time to realize how cheesy and awful they sound. Thank God for the darkness, because he grimaces, and when he hears you emit a small laugh, his cheeks feel a little warm.

“Thank you, Lieutenant. That’s very kind.”

“You can call me Ron,” he offers.

A pause. Great, he’s said the wrong thing again.

Or maybe not. “Okay,” you agree. “Thank you . . . Ron.” You don’t say it reluctantly, just slowly, like maybe it’s some sort of trick, or like you’re taking your time trying it out. “You can call me (Y/N).”

“(Y/N),” he repeats. It’s beautiful. It suits you.

There’s the clinking sound of metal on metal as you unscrew your canteen and take a sip of water. You sigh through your nose. “So, Ron. Why are you awake on such an exciting night?”

He starts to make something up, then thinks better of it. He’s only just properly met you, and yet, he feels that he can tell you the truth, even though most people probably wouldn’t believe him. It must be something about being under the cover of night; it’s a shroud that makes sharing secrets easier, somehow.

“To tell you the truth, (Y/N) . . .” He allows the words to hang there for a second to create suspense. “I just can’t sleep.”

In the darkness, he hears you replace the lid of your canteen. “Is tonight special? Or is this an ongoing issue?”

Ron blinks. No one has ever asked him that before. Back in training, everyone seemed to think that his lack of sleep was some sort of vigilance, like staying up late was a way to assert dominance over everyone, proving that he was fearless in the face of the night, like some sort of watch dog. Really, the simple answer was that he just couldn’t sleep. There wasn’t more to it then, and there’s not really more to it now.

“The latter,” he replies.

You hum. “Me, too.”

“Really?”

“Yep. Chalk it up to the war being so damn exciting, or something, but I haven’t slept well since Toccoa.”

“I don’t know about the excitement. Those horrible mattresses, maybe.” Ron grins, forgetting that you probably won’t be able to see it in the dark. You let out a short laugh, though, and he knows that for the first time since he joined up, one of his jokes has actually been taken as a joke instead of being misconstrued.

“Well, they were better than a foxhole,” you muse. He can hear metal on metal again as you open your canteen once more. “Sorry if I’m keeping you up, though.”

“You aren’t,” Ron promises. “In fact, it’s kind of nice having someone else with the same issue. Good to have company.”

“I agree.” For a moment, the two of you fall into a lull. Ron swears that he can feel you looking at him from the corner of your eye, like you’re sizing him up. He decides to make the first move.

“So, (Y/N),” he begins. “Where are you from?”

And that is the beginning – how Ares met Athena. All because Hypnos evades both, and the Fates tied them together because of it.

#band of brothers fanfic #ron speirs #ron speirs x reader #band of brothers x reader #band of brothers imagine #band of brothers #my writing

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bridgetlynn · 1 month ago

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So since Friday I've basically been working on two things - 1) plotting a (potentially) long(ish) fic that isn't remotely ready for public consumption (if ever) and 2) writing something that has slowly formed into essentially the fic equivalent of ripping open an anxiety attack and dropping a pretty blue eyed tangled ball of mental health issues into it right after The Fight (capitals being necessary).

It's also been about six years since I've written anything for any fandom. And that was a random one-shot that I got prodded into doing by a friend. Before that we're edging into a decade (and in no way shape or form will those see the light of day here) of not writing anything that isn't original or technical for work. So, as a bit of a tester - I'm gonna throw a few blurbs from the "anxiety attack" fic - this is still untitled, unedited and not even close to done. These little blurbs may disappear or change order or any sorts of things. But this way I can see at least see if I've even got the voice in the same vicinity as being correct. And not totally off-putting.

I'll be sure to share my AO3 once I'm ready to actually post anything in full.

Do keep in mind, for those of you who can't seem to understand how this disease works, that this is the brain of someone who just watched his entire life implode around him - no matter whose fault it may actually be in the long run.

/// It wouldn’t be the first time someone had questioned Robby’s mental health since Langdon had met him. Friends included.

A quick pat down of his pockets reassured Frank that he hadn’t dropped his phone or keys during the insanity of the last few hours; he had left everything else in his car when he came back after receiving the text that went out to all staff. He walked a few feet back to where the triage staging hadn’t been cleaned up yet and dropped his ID badge on a table with the left over equipment.

It felt disconcertingly like he had simultaneously dropped a thousand pound weight off his shoulders and put his head in a guillotine.

This job will fսck you up if you let it. You let it.

“Probably,” he agreed, sarcasm heavily lacing the words, still feeling like those words were lingering in the air around him and turned, walking away from the hospital without another glance back leaving unsaid that Robby had done so first. He knew he was running - from accusations, accountability and consequences. He just couldn’t really care at the moment. \\\ /// Because no matter what he had shouted at Robby. No matter how much he tried a Hail Mary style bargain at that moment. Tried to get him to change his mind, push it aside, even just simply forgive him.

Frank knew it. He was fucked.

He had always been a terrible liar so he tried not to do it; especially to himself. Instead, uncomfortable, bordering on rude, blunt truth had always been his defense weapon of choice.

No matter what the truth actually was - Robby believed Frank Langdon to be an addict.

So yes, he was fucked.

He thought he’d have been able to keep all his balls in the air for a little while longer. He just needed a few more months and he’d be back to normal. A few more months and he’d be done. \\\

/// But, despite that, despite Frank keeping everything in his life to appear exactly as it should be on the outside, there had to be a reason Robby believed an intern on her first day. An intern who had already fucked up more times then Frank can remember someone doing on their first shift - at least not since his own.

Because for Robby to believe her; he had to have been considering something already... ...And if that was true; if Robby had been suspicious from the start, then what he said in the ambulance bay was bullshit too.

“You could have come to me” played through his head against “But what am I?…You’re my best resident. Big difference.”

“Big difference,” Frank whispered, still staring out the windshield into the dark September night. “Guess he was right this morning; we are definitely not friends.” \\\

#the pitt #fanfiction #frank langdon

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garfinkelstingle · 2 years ago

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magic and maybes | draco malfoy

pairing: draco malfoy x fem!reader (implied slytherin!reader but only once i think)

warnings: swearing; implied mentions of verbal abuse; this is not in chronological order, but i do think it makes sense this way (especially if you've listened to the song); angst

word count: 5,2k

summary: based on “wendy” by maisie peters; loving draco is like something out of a fairytale. but not all of those always end with happily ever after, do they?

a/n: oh my!! hi!!! my first full-length fic in over a year!!!! so exciting!!!! this came to me while listening to wendy (which you should defo listen to if you haven't yet; the whole album is too good!!) and i just sort of rolled with it. i will never understand why i keep coming back to draco, but i just do. i have never written anything like this, and i certainly have never written draco like this, but the song called for it!! and also, let's be honest, this really matches draco better than it would most other characters. oh and i put it in the warning, but please beware that this is not written in chronological order. it's supposed to showcase the rollercoaster of relationship that reader and draco share, and i thought this was the best way to do it! let me know if you like it, it would really mean a lot <3 happy reading babes

masterlist

rolling like a stone / laughing like a kid

She had never seen him like this before.

Correction: She had never seen him like this before in front of people that weren't just her. Because this is the only way she had ever seen him, really seen him. She knew the charade he kept up, could see right through it better than anyone else. And if you took all of that faux meanness and excruciating ass-ness away, this is what you would be left with, what she's been left with all these years that she's known him. A silly kid, rolling around in the grass, holding his stomach laughing, eyes glistening with tears and shining brighter than any star ever could.

This is how she saw him, always, and how she hoped she would get to see him forever. This, and nothing else.

calling like the future / closed up like a fist

It was always the same. He always did this, and she swore that one of these days she would hex him into oblivion for it.

"What do you mean I can't come with you? We've been planning this for months; I told my parents to make plans without me and they have. What am I supposed to do now?" They had been at it for close to an hour now, going back and forth, nowhere close to having this argument reach its conclusion.

Usually, she didn't mind backing off. He was stubborn; she knew that. This wasn't something she had discovered only recently. She had known him for longer than she hadn't, so she was acutely aware of this quality of his. It didn't surprise her, but that didn't mean it didn't annoy her, either. So she'd just let it slide and move on—one of them had to.

This time, however? She wasn't going anywhere.

"I'm not responsible for you and how you spend your time," he provocatively stated, his eyes ablaze with fury that nearly matched hers. How dare he? As if this was in any way, shape, or form her fault.

"You have got to be kidding me! You were the one who invited me to spend Christmas break at your house! You were the one who wanted me to meet your parents! You were the one who made all these grand plans, and now you just blow me off the day break starts and talk about responsibility?" She couldn't believe him. She really, truly, couldn't.

Except that, maybe, she should. This wasn't the first time Draco blew off their plans. In fact, it wasn't even the second or the third. But he usually had a not-so-terrible reason for it, and the worst thing he had ever cancelled before was a Saturday in Hogsmeade or a picnic by the lake. This, however? This was huge, a plan that had been set into motion during the summer, when they had sent their owls into a frenzy, corresponding through multiple letters a day and vowing not to spend another break apart. She had told her parents before she boarded the train to take her back for another year at Hogwarts, that she would spend the Christmas break with her boyfriend and that they should take that trip to the sea they've been dreaming of forever. And since they did just that, and she didn't feel like ruining their holidays as well, she would now have to spend hers at the dingy castle, with people she barely knew and couldn't care less about.

She didn't even need him to change his mind at this point. While the reason he was giving her sucked, she was sure the real reason didn't—even if he wasn't planning on telling her. What bothered her so much was his refusal to just simply apologize for screwing up and leaving her hanging. If he would just say that he was sorry, she'd let this go. But she knew him well enough by now to know that the chances of that happening were non-existent at best.

"I will not apologize for your lack of a backup plan," he said, with a voice so cold that she could feel actual shivers run down her back. "I will see you after break is over. Merry Christmas." And with that, he turned around and made his way back to the castle, without even sparing her a backward glance.

And all she could do was stare after him, seemingly frozen in place, with tears flowing down her cheeks freely, and wonder if this was what loving someone was supposed to feel like.

lost my page when you kissed me

She hadn't meant to fall in love with him. They had been friends, or at least something very close to it. Draco believed that only people who had nothing else to their name cared about having friends, and she somewhat agreed with him. Friends were feeble; people came and went. There was no use getting attached to them, not when you couldn't ever be a hundred percent certain that they wouldn't just up and leave one day.

But he—he was something else. They had known each other for years, attending the same balls thrown by both their parents and their associates, riding in the same train compartment on their first trip to Hogwarts, reading the same books side-by-side on their common room's couch. They were put in each other’s orbits due to their inescapable proximity, yes, but they were welded together by baked goods that they would steal from the kitchen and share in some dark corner of the too-big houses they would be dragged to, shy smiles and squeezing of hands followed by it's okay, you're not alone's, two a.m. conversations in front of the fireplace in which they discussed whatever books they just finished reading and, sometimes, maybe even more. That's what made her the first person he would say "good morning" to at the breakfast table, and what made him her preferred potions partner. Nothing more and nothing less. They weren't friends, but they were each other's person. Whatever that meant.

It made sense, and it worked, and neither of them needed more. Or so she thought. Because when Draco kissed her after one of those infamous two a.m. conversations and told her „You just looked too pretty not to kiss", after she asked him why he would do something so ridiculous, she came to realize that maybe they were wrong. Maybe getting attached to someone wasn't the worst thing there was. It couldn't be. Right?

i know the girl you want / it scares me

He was scared. He was scared, but so was she. The future was uncertain and terrifying. It didn't make sense on a good day and was simply revolting on a bad one. So much could go wrong at any given moment in time, and not knowing when or what could happen made it sometimes feel like, maybe, life just wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

And when you add love to that equation? You're pretty much just signing off on a death sentence. Draco knew that, and so did she, but unlike him, she believed it to be worth it. Love was never something she saw herself needing, or even wanting, but now that she had it, she was certain it was worth all the heartbreak it might possibly entail. Draco, however? He still didn't trust her enough to let his walls down completely, to give her the power to destroy him and believe her when she said that she would never, ever do that.

She loved him, and she was certain that he loved her, too, but she also knew that he might never be able to let her know that himself. And she knew that he expected that to be enough, that her own knowledge would suffice her and that she would survive without his confirmation, and maybe she could. She just wasn't sure if she wanted to. Spending your time with someone who was emotionally closed off to everyone around you and made them feel like they were replaceable was one thing, but spending your life with someone who was emotionally closed off toward you and too proud to tell you that the one person he could never replace was you? She wasn't sure if she was strong enough for that. She doubted she ever would be. And that terrified her more than anything else ever had before.

pretty like a girl / vicious like a man

He was beautiful. She had always found him inexplicably beautiful; his was the kind of beauty poems were about, a beauty that ran so deep and was so intricate that she sometimes wondered if he wasn't put on this world solely to be admired and stared at.

Even now, when his face was laced with fury and his knuckles white from how tightly he was gripping his desk, he was still beautiful.

She wasn't even sure what they were fighting about now, stopped paying actual attention to the ugly words leaving his mouth. Instead, she was questioning her judgment. She had always found him beautiful on the outside, just as everyone else did, but unlike them, she had also always considered his soul to be beautiful, too. And yet here she was, target to his livid shouts and insults, wondering if maybe that was just another thing that she had been terribly, terribly wrong about.

give up like a ghost / leaving halfway through

It was moronic at best, really. They had spent a fortune on these tickets and had been excited for this game for months now. So, the fact that they were now letting it all go to waste? It was pure idiocy.

Especially when you looked at the why. He was being a child, a petulant little toddler who got upset at the idea of giving his girlfriend of nearly four years a kiss in public.

And the worst thing is that she hadn’t even been upset because it hadn’t surprised her in the slightest. She knew Draco, knew that he liked keeping their PDA to an absolute minimum, and she didn’t mind it in the slightest. Or, well, not enough to be actively affected by it. So, when the kiss-cam panned to their faces, she blew it a kiss and winked for good measure and went back to talking to Draco about how pathetic Potter and his friends looked standing there on the very far side of the stadium, most likely not even able to see the scoreboard. She had moved on, and so had the camera, but for whatever reason, Draco didn't.

Instead, he started huffing and puffing about Salazar knows what, getting upset at her for what, exactly? For respecting his need for privacy? For not pushing him to do something she knew he wouldn’t be comfortable with doing, even though she really wanted to? For, once again, putting him first and foremost? Is that what he was trying to punish her for? Because he certainly didn’t seem to be able to put it into words, storming off like an actual imbecile instead, leaving halfway through the match.

And of course, she had to follow him like the ever-loyal girlfriend that she was, trying to catch up with him and calm him down, even though she was seconds away from losing her bloody mind herself. She was sick and tired of his juvenile behaviour, was just so exhausted with having to put up with his shit instead of just enjoying herself, and yet it seemed as if some invisible string kept on pulling her in his direction, not allowing her to choose her own needs and herself, ever.

She wondered if he would ever grow tired of this pretence of his, or if this was what being with Draco Malfoy would entail, forever. She didn’t want to believe it, but it became harder and harder with each passing day. Maybe this is who he was, who he always would be.

But maybe it was just a matter of time before he would finally give it all up and be who she has blindly believed him to be all this time. All she could do, it seemed, was to hope that she wouldn’t be the one to give up, first.

if i'm not careful we'll be married

"Do you ever think about the future?" His voice broke through the quiet reverie they had both found themselves in. She was used to him being the first one to speak up after a long beat of silence; he didn't find it quite as peaceful and tranquilizing as she did. Not that she minded, though. She liked his voice, and she liked talking to him even more. To say that the question surprised her, though, would be an understatement.

Putting the book she was currently reading to the side, she snuggled further into him. The fireplace was providing a fair amount of heat, but the chill seemed to be inescapable in the Slytherin common room. It was also just very nice to be able to have him hold her close like this, even if the only reason he did so was because it was far past midnight and everyone else was already fast asleep.

"Sometimes, yeah," she said. "Do you?"

"Yeah." She didn't expect him to elaborate, so it stunned her when he did. "I see us. You and me, together. Married. But not like them. Like us. Does that make sense?" It did. She knew exactly what he meant. Not like them. Not like his parents, who didn't love each other in the slightest and could barely stand each other most days. And not like her parents, either, who cared deeply about one another, at least as much as you could care about someone you didn't choose to marry. They found a way to be friendly and cordial, mainly because they didn't want their daughter to grow up with parents who were constantly at each other's throats, but it was still far away from the real deal.

Were they the real deal? That's what Draco was implying, wasn't it? That if they would get married, it'd be because they loved each other. He's never even said it, she thought. And he hadn't. But he's said this now, hadn't he? And that should be worth more than any stupid three words ever could be, right? Because he wanted to marry her, really marry her, not because he had to, but because he wanted to. It rarely happened for people of their status, so she should be beyond delighted that it was happening to her. Plus, she loved him, too, and unlike him, she hadn't been afraid to say those three words. Marrying Draco was what she was supposed to want; finding out that he wanted to marry her, too, was supposed to be the greatest news she's ever heard. So why was there some nagging part of her brain that knew that saying yes would be the worst thing she could possibly do?

"I know what you mean," she said. She had never lied to him before.

you want me / you're sure

Blaise Zabini was flirting with her. Then again, Blaise Zabini flirted with everything that had legs and a mouth he could kiss, so it did nothing to impress her. It did, however, do its damage by making Draco furiously jealous. After all this time together, she prided herself in being able to read him like a book. Him storming off like a petulant child made her think that, in this instance at least, even a visually impaired person would be able to deduct the fact that he was (unreasonably) upset.

Sighing, she made out to follow him, annoyed that she had to make yet another excuse for her friends. It shouldn't be her job to smooth things over every time his tantrums killed the mood at a get-together, and yet it seemed like part of the "Dating-Draco-Malfoy" package.

She found him at the lake, the same way she always did. She wondered if there was any specific reason he chose this place to run off to , but she doubted he would tell her even if there was. Some secrets just weren't worth the effort of trying to figure out.

She expected him to be upset with her, to accuse her of leading Zabini on and whoring herself out to him—Salazar knew it wouldn't be the first time. It used to upset her beyond measure. There would be a good amount of crying and screaming on her part; calling him a pretentious douche, telling him to screw off if he really thought so little of her. It always ended the same: he would storm off, eventually, and disappear for a good few hours. Then, he'd come back, without something even remotely close to an apology, and tell her he wasn't mad anymore. She knew what he really meant when he said it: I expect you not to be mad anymore, either. And even when she was, she was usually too exhausted to keep on fighting. After a while, she decided there wasn't even any point in being upset in the first place. Draco was who he was; she knew what she was getting into. Or so she kept telling herself.

This time, however, seemed different. She was sure he could hear her approach him—he always did. So why wasn't he turning around? Why wasn't he yelling at her and making her feel as if the affection of others was her fault?

He stayed quiet until she finally reached him and made to stand next to him. "I don't like it when others try to make a pass at you," he said. She waited a beat, wondering if he was going to add anything else. He did. "I know I have no right to be upset with you." This was new. It surprised her. So much so that she wondered if she might've misheard. "It's not your fault Zabini has no respect for boundaries, or anyone else, for that matter. I just... it's paralyzing, sometimes. Realizing that you could leave me for someone else at any given moment, and there's nothing I could do about it. I want to be with you. I know I'm not always good at voicing it, but I do. I'm certain. That's why I get upset. Because it terrifies me."

She took his hand in hers and gave the back of it a soft kiss. This was possibly the most vulnerable he had been with her, ever. She understood him; of course she did. Didn't he know that she was just as terrified? That a life without him in it didn't seem to make any sense whatsoever to her? She loved him, and now she was sure that he loved her, too.

Nothing else mattered.

lose the world that you live in / pretend that it's what you wanted

“This isn’t okay, and you know it.” Maybe she did. Maybe she knew that this wasn’t right, that this wasn’t how it was supposed to feel like. But it’s all she’s ever known, and sometimes it felt as if this was all she’d ever want to know. Because when it was good it was great. It was all she could ever want and then some, and she honestly didn’t think she would ever find anything better than it.

Draco wasn’t perfect, but neither was she. She had her flaws just like anyone else, so to expect him to be something she herself couldn’t be? That seemed unfair and illogical at best.

“Look, you don’t get it, alright?” And she didn’t. None of them did. Not her mother or her father, not her friends or his. They were complicated and messy, but they were right. Right for each other, right in all the ways that mattered. She loved him, and he loved her. If there was anything in life she was sure of, then it was that.

“You can’t let him treat you like that.” That’s what it always boiled down to. Every fight she ever had about him—and there were probably too many to count—always came to the same conclusion: She shouldn’t let him treat her like that. But what did that even mean? No one would ever treat her the way he did. No one would ever look at her as if she was the reason they got up in the morning, as if she hung the moon and the stars in the night sky. No one would ever be able to make her feel like she was the thing they lived for, someone they’d die and kill for in the same breath.

So, what if he’d yell at her and insult her and make her question her worth sometimes? He’d never allow her to question herself out loud to him; he’d make sure to show her how important she was to him. And Salazar forbid someone else dared to say the wrong thing when it came to her—he’d made sure it’s the last thing they’d ever say.

Maybe she knew it wasn’t okay, what they were doing. There were a million words to describe their relationship, with toxic and unhealthy being the prime examples. But no relationship was perfect. Why should theirs be?

it's a life i could have, i know

They were invited to someone's birthday. She didn't even know whose, just knew to wear "that green dress that makes you look like actual royalty". There also had been a promise by a certain someone that the dress would later be carefully taken off, and that there would be some... not so careful actions afterwards. It was the prospect of that that kept her from making up some excuse as to why she suddenly had to leave this awful and hollow house and curl up with a book and one of Draco's sweaters in her bed.

The party in itself wasn't awful; on the contrary, it was lovely. The music was played by a live orchestra, and the entire house was decorated in different shades of blue and silver. There were white roses everywhere, and the food was exceptional, too. But she didn't know anyone here except for Draco; she didn't even know the birthday girl. She was a couple years older than the two of them, and from what she understood she was the wife of a son of a business partner of Draco's father. Or something like that.

She was currently standing in a corner all by herself, with a champagne flute in hand, trying to find Draco in the crowd. He had snuck off some time ago, claiming that he had to make the rounds or else "my father is going to chew my ear off about it", convincing her that it wasn't necessary for her to introduce herself tediously to every single person he would have to shake hands with. He wasn't wrong, but somehow standing in her lonely corner appeared to be an even worse fate.

Eventually, she locked eyes with Draco and gave him a small smile. She knew it was pointless to beckon him to her; he'd just shrug her off. Instead, he sent a quick wink her way, before turning back around to speak to whatever important person he was speaking to right now.

This could be my life, she thought. Going places with Draco, having him wink at her from across the room, promising to take her dress off at the end of the night and make it all worth it. This could be the rest of her life. She could see it, could see herself be one of the important men’s wives, gossiping away in some lonely corner just like hers, on their fifth or sixth flute of champagne already, trying to hide the hollow look in their eyes. This could be it. It was nothing like the life that she had wanted for herself all this time, and yet it didn’t seem to bother her nearly as much as it should.

throw your rocks / scream that you hate me

She didn’t even know how long it’s been. All she knew was that her mother had been up twice to tell her that she was this close to hexing him away from their property, and that she had begged her just as often not to.

“He has every right to be upset,” she had said, and could feel the bile rise in her throat at the bitter taste of the lie. Because no matter how often she told herself just that, it didn’t sound any more truthful to her ears than it did the time before. Yes, maybe Draco was allowed to be upset. She certainly was. But standing below her window, completely wasted, and throwing rocks at it, whilst yelling profanities at her? No one should have the right to do that.

And it wasn’t as if it was her fault, either. She had given him a choice; she shouldn't have had to do that. She hadn’t even meant to. It was supposed to be clean cut. She was supposed to tell him that it was over, that it should have been over a long time ago. If he still couldn’t tell her that he loved her after five years together, chances were that he never would. And she was just so tired of not hearing those words.

But she had looked him in the eyes and something—something made her believe that maybe, just maybe, he would realize that she was worth so much more to him than his pride and that being with her was worth more than being whoever he kept on pretending to be.

She should have known that her stupid, childish hope would be the death of her.

So here he was now, screaming that he hated her, that he wished that he had never met her, that being with her had been the greatest mistake of his life. And what if he wasn’t wrong? Would things had been different had she been different? Would he have been able to tell her how he felt if she had been more like Daphne? Would she have been able to leave him sooner and protect her own heart had she been more like Pansy?

It was driving her mad, the never-ending question of “what if?”, and yet her silly mind didn’t seem to be able to put an end to it. Because no matter how awful being (or in this case not being) with Draco may have been, it was still the most magical time in her life so far. And she didn’t even doubt for one second that the rest of her life might have been just as magical, too. Except that there was only so long a person could survive on magic and maybe’s, before eventually having to put an end to the madness and realize that the whimsical dreams weren’t anything other than nightmares hiding behind a pretty façade.

She loved Draco, loved him with her entire being, loved him more than she could ever imagine loving or even wanting to love anyone else. But, somehow, along the way, she had come to realize that just because she couldn’t see ever loving herself even half as much as she loved him, it was still enough to realize that leaving him was the only way she could ensure that she wouldn’t lose herself completely.

So, when her mother came up for the third time, this time with her father in tow, she didn’t fight them when they suggested to call the authorities to remove the Malfoy boy from their property. After all, just because Peter never wanted to grow up, didn't mean Wendy couldn’t.

i could love you / wait 'til you're ready

It was the little things more than it would ever be the big ones. She knew Draco, knew that the only way she could expect big romantic gestures from him was if someone were to put him under a spell, which is why she came to appreciate the small gestures and hold them as close and dear to her heart as she possibly could.

It was the little enchanted paper cranes that would hold little love notes of “your hair looks pretty today” and “how lucky I am to be dating the smartest witch in this castle”.

It was how he would lend her his robe without a second thought when he would see her rub her hands together in a fruitless attempt of warding off the cold, even though he had adamantly tried to convince her to wear a jumper underneath.

It was how he would press a kiss on her temple first thing in the morning, without fail, every single day, no matter if they had fought the previous evening or not, letting her know that he wasn’t going anywhere.

It was how he would rub her feet at the end of a long day in Hogsmeade, knowing that her boots were a size too small but that she loved them too much not to suck up the pain and go out with them anyways.

She loved him, and whilst she had no problem with telling him just that, he had no problem with showing her, either. And maybe he wasn’t lying when he told her that he just needed time, that she ought to just be patient, that sooner rather than later he would feel ready enough to say it, too.

The question wasn’t whether she could wait or not; she knew she could. The question was whether she loved herself enough to know that she shouldn't have to.

forever 20

Twenty.

That’s how often she had said it, and how often he had stayed quiet. And every time he hated himself just a little bit more because he knew that with every time that she would say it without hearing a reply, he would get closer to hearing it for the last time.

And now here he was, stuck at twenty, forever, because he knew her well enough to know that it was over, really, truly over, with no one to blame but himself.

The worst thing was that for every time she said it, he had wanted to say it tenfold, had wanted to shower her with those words until she grew sick and tired of them. Had, on the worst days, wanted to just grip her by the shoulders and shake, shake, shake her and tell her, over and over, that he loved her, that he had loved her all this time and would love her for all the time to come.

But he never did, and now she was gone beyond his reach and as much as he hated it, he couldn’t stop himself from thinking that, maybe, this was the best thing that had ever happened to her. The best thing he had ever done for her. And that had to count for something, right?

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redhoodinternaldialectical · 10 months ago

Note

30 for the writing ask?

30: describe a fic that almost happened, but then didn't.

Whilst away from my computer and therefore all my WIPs, I started a little one shot titled "Who the Hill?" and actually the premise is easier to explain by just giving you what I wrote for the fic before I abandoned it lol!

The bass thud of the club rattles Jason's sternum and thrums through his organs pleasantly as he surveys the rest of the room from his spot in the corner. He's not really looking for anything in particular, just too in the habit of counting exits and tracking glasses to stop even when he's just here to be around other people having fun.

Then he sees Tim - or well maybe that isn't Tim - or no that is absolutely, definitely Tim - but probably Tim's not the right name for the spike and chain adorned person leaned against the bar with the dark, expressive makeup, the short, black skirt, and the high heel boots.

Then he's caught staring and (Not?) Tim's eyes go wide in what looks like fear and ah shit, there's no way he she was ready to come out to him, but hey, he can be cool, he can roll with this and make sure she knows he's not gonna be a prick about it.

Tim watches Jason approach with absolute dread, because he never, EVER wanted to have to explain the whole 'hi, I'm bi and I love the way my ass looks in a mini-skirt' thing to the most depressingly unavailable straight guy he's ever met. He braces for simply the most awkward 'so is this a sex thing?' conversation ever held between two vigilantes.

Instead though, Jason surprises him, "Sorry for putting you on the spot like this, but can I ask for your name?"

Tim blinks and realizes that between the makeup and the breast forms there's a very good chance Jason has no idea who he is! In fact he probably only intended to chat up some cute goth girl, and if he can manage to play along right he might get out of this with his secret intact!

He pitches his voice up a bit and hopes to god that feminine cadence and the loud music carries him, "Carolina, but you can call me Carol if you like."

"Cool! I dig the spikes by the way," Jason smiles like Carolina's name is some beautiful treasure he's been allowed to glimpse and the dread comes right back up as Tim realizes that he's somehow going to have to find it in himself to turn Jason down.

He ought to do it right now. He ought to tell Jason he's an awfully polite guy but she's already late to go home and dropped her phone in the harbor and is currently walking out the door-

[That paragraph's phrasing was inspired by this song hehehe]

But right now Tim is a weak, weak man, who chooses to pluck at Jason's jacket flirtily, "Thanks, I dig the leather and the white streak! You dye it like that?"

Jason gives him the most adorable deer-in-headlights expression back, "Uh, it's um, it's actually a cold brand? You can kinda see the scar around it if you look close."

"Wait like, liquid nitrogen and metal- deliberately?"

"I mean I dyed it the once, but then uh..." He trails awkwardly with a shrug, "I like it. Nice not to have to do anything more to keep it there. Kinda annoying it doesn't keep any other colors, but, ya'know." Another awkward shrug.

"Huh," He'd always assumed Jason just came back with it, but it being an injury instead actually makes a lot of sense? Was it really deliberate though or was he just saying that? "That's pretty fuckin hardcore."

Jason smiles again, feeling warm at all the compliments, and then internally panics.

Tim Carol is flirting with him probably?! That was not- did he say something weird? How did he come off like... And even if he did how the fuck is he supposed to handle this??

She's a girl, and he's very gay.

It feels sort of awful and cruel to think that he might fall out of love with her just because she changed a few words and her shape. Are human hearts really so fickle that the same person in a different cloth cannot be loved the same way?

At the same time though, Jason has historically been a solid six on the kinsey scale and he's sadly gotta admit the boobs are really not doing it for him. But maybe the above the belt feelings will stay? Is that how this works?? Or maybe he can just kinda... Coach himself through moving to a kinsey five???

He nervously fidgets with his hands and tries looking at her legs. He usually really likes Carol's legs and wants to do all kinds of things with them, and legs are things most people have regardless of gender... He attempts to force himself to focus on all the same features he usually likes, but it's just not the same with the heels and the skirt. The spark is gone.

This is so fucking stupid. He's stupid. This isn't how anything works and he should know it, and maybe he even does know it...

He just can't bring himself to give up on this, though. He's never had a crush reciprocate anything before, and now the world demands that he breaks both their hearts over basically nothing?!

He can't and he won't and he fucking refuses!

[Lots more awkward and not so awkward flirting flipping between their perspectives. Tim enjoying the power trip of turning Jason into a nervous mess just by being fem, thinking it's newly realized attraction that Jason can't normally feel towards him, and Jason panicking about whether or not he can be attracted to her at all. This goes on until they leave so Tim/Carol can catch his/her taxi]

Tim glances out at the road, and prepares to rip his own heart out by giving him a fake number, "Hey, um, I kinda ordered a taxi like before I even went out, so... text me?"

"Yeah sure, I've still got your number, and I'll see you back at the cave tomorrow anyways."

Tim, half turned away, goes rigid, "When the fuck did you figure out who I am?"

"What? Who the fuck else would I think you were?"

"A woman!"

"But like, you are a woman though??"

Tim stares at him, baffled, until the taxi driver leans on the horn and he decides to have this conversation on the way home. He grabs Jason by the wrist and hauls him into the car.

Jason hiss-whispers, "Wait are you in disguise right now? Did you just fucking use me for a case?!"

"No!" Tim hisses back while slamming the door shut behind him, "No, it's unfortunately infinitely more stupid and embarrassing for me!"

"Then...?" Jason gives him a confused gesture to spit it out already.

"I'm a crossdresser. My name's not any different. I'm not a woman. I'm sorry, I swear I didn't mean to lead you on, I just didn't know what the fuck to do when you came up to me asking for my fucking name."

And that's as far as I got before I abandoned it!

The problem I had with it and the reason I'm never gonna finish it is because there's not really a way to resolve the core tension/conflict that would be satisfactory to me. I need to emphasize here that I don't care about trying to find some kind of """"morally correct"""" way to end it, I just mean personally satisfying for me; any of the possible ways to end it would be morally fine, they just also all make me feel bad lmao

So like obviously the original resolution to the miscommunication was that Tim was a cis dude who just happened to be into dressing up in girly clothes and enjoying men's attention that way. That part on its own would be good, but it does mean that the moment of resolution from Jason's perspective comes out to being "Oh thank goodness you're not trans/not a woman/not a trans woman" and I don't feel great about that. Again, not a morals thing, it'd just leave a bad taste in my mouth.

My second idea was to have Tim realize he might be non-binary/a woman via Jason treating him like a woman and being so accepting of her. As a gay trans man who likes to cross dress in order to enjoy men's attention, this would give me bone dissolving levels of dysphoria!

There was also the problem of how to resolve Jason's sexuality.

As a gay man who spent many, many years of my life attempting to convince myself I was bisexual, any version of making Jason bisexual would give me bone dissolving levels of dysphoria! But like sexuality dysphoria instead of gender dysphoria. It would also eliminate an important source of narrative tension and character motivation.

The traditional version of keeping him gay would mean that Jason turns Carolina/Tim down altogether, which would break Jason's heart, and break Carolina's heart, and break my heart, and also turn the reveal into "it's a tragedy that you're trans/a woman/a trans woman". Infinite pain for zero gain!

I'd actually love to have Jason simply want to try being sexually intimate with an enby/woman Tim and have him decide he likes it even though he's still gay and still not attracted to Carolina/Tim at all. The experiences of sex having ace folks and people who have sex with people they aren't attracted to are really interesting to me and I'd love to explore that - if there was a bit more room to explore it right. This is a tiny one shot. I don't feel like I could properly convey that without putting in way more time and effort than I have to spare on this side project.

I MIGHT someday be convinced to finish this for a few different reasons, but for the forseeable future it won't be worked on. I have SO MANY PROJECTS that are better, more interesting, less awkward to handle, and already half published, like I got better things to do lol, so for now this is the one that got away.

In the meantime though: Please steal this!! If you find the premise interesting, especially if any of the versions that would give me bone dissolving dysphoria appeal to you, please take my words and write more onto them! I'd love to see some version of this finished someday, and I don't mind if someone (or several someones!) end up doing it instead of me, just lemme know if you do and throw a lil bit of credit my way and it's all good :3

#jaytim #jason todd #tim drake #carolina hill #...I think I've been spelling that wrong the whole time lmao surely it's not the same as the state??#damian's tomfoolery #thank you for the ask anon :3

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lordofthenerds97 · 13 days ago

Text

The Force of Evolution

Chapter 1: The One Where Fives Meets His New Best Friend

Summary: There’s not a lot worse than walking back into battle in a shiny’s armor. That’s where Trooper comes in. She’s got an attitude a mile high, a knack for plastoid and paint, and an aspiration to be the best medic the GAR’s ever had. Along the way she’ll make friends and enemies alike, see more of the galaxy than she ever thought existed, and find the kind of family most Coruscanti-born orphans like her only dream of. Many will stand in her way, and few will succeed for long, because nothing’s going to stop her from saving as many of her brothers as she can.

Pairing: Commander Cody x OC (Trooper)

Warnings: 18+, MDNI. Eventual smut, Canon Typical Violence, Medical Descriptions of Gore, More to be added

Words: 9,027

A/N: I’m literally crying rn. I was asked to co-author this fic by @milkshaketheboybringer after a discussion about revamping my tumblr blog 😂 and this fic has evolved into a novel length, 80+ chapter happily ever after ending AU with canon divergence and middle fingers given to Lucasfilm because we need a happy ending. So proud of her for creating this masterpiece and I’m so happy to be able to be a part of it 😭❤️

READ ON AO3

There’s really nothing quite like the way gravity falls away when you leave orbit. The solid press of force against your body, the way you and everything you carry feels heavier, and then the abrupt freedom of leaving the atmosphere.

Watching the bright surface of the planet below fade away into the blackness of space, Fives has to wonder how many other drop ships have come up with wounded already. Probably not too many, if they’re sending walking wounded like himself up. He’s packed into the back of the drop ship’s cargo area, his bulk helping to brace two stretchers carrying his brothers who are in worse shape. When they enter the Resolute’s shuttle bay and artificial gravity, he stands with a groan and puts his bucket under one arm, watching as a short, sharp sounding woman sorts his injured brothers, flicking through triage notes and tags stuck to the men’s armor.

Under her direction, the ship is quickly emptied, the most critically injured men rushed off to surgery and medbots. When only Fives remains, the woman beckons to him, walking off at a brisk pace towards the Medbay. When they arrive, she indicates a seat near the General Station, in the center of the area. Behind the desk, technicians and medics yell orders, tap at data pads, and analyze scans, all at top volume in the chaotic space.

“Wait here, please. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Before he even sits down in the offered chair, she’s gone, and he’s left with a whiff of antiseptic and fresh paint, and an amused grin at just how short the medic is. He nods in acknowledgement to his vod Kix, who’s elbow deep in paperwork and chaos and spares him only the briefest of nods.

Fives leans back in his chair, sighing and gritting his teeth as he moves his injured arm, balancing his bucket on his knee to keep it from hitting the ground. The medic who’d sat him here has yet to reappear…not that he’ll be able to find her easily. Short little thing, he muses, remembering how he could see clear over her head, and how she barely came up to his shoulder.

“Hey, soldier. Give me your pauldron.” A woman’s voice draws him out of his reverie, bright and clear, with a tone that expects immediate compliance.

He blinks, confused, and looks up- barely, she really is short- at the medic. Her hands are full of his brother’s armor pieces, each one tagged with a series of numbers, or a name, each one bloodstained or blaster scored, scratched, dented, chipped, some even with holes in them.

“What? Why?” He’s confused; he’d just finished painting that pauldron, and he really didn’t want any shiny armor.

“It’s not safe to wear. The plastoid is compromised, with that massive fucking hole in it. And your paint job’s ruined. Give it here.”

Reluctantly, and at Kix’s insistent glare, he strips off the pauldron, and hands it over to the small woman. She quickly squints at the numbers scrawled inside the shoulder piece, and smiles.

“You’ve got a lucky number. What’s your name?”

“Fives.” He’s rewarded with a laugh from her, a bright sound that he decides he likes right away, and will strive to hear more. She quickly writes ‘Fives’ on his pauldron, and adds it to her armful before turning to disappear.

Before she has a chance to ask her name, she’s gone, and he bemusedly stares after her. Kix wanders over after a few minutes, quickly slapping a bacta patch over the blaster wound in his shoulder and briskly checking Fives over to look for more injuries.

“Hey, Kix. Who’s that?” Fives tips his chin towards the direction the gold-skinned woman had gone in, earning himself a smack as Kix motions for him to stay still.

“Who, the shiny?”

“Yeah, the short one. She seems like a tiny little terror.”

Kix snorts. “She’s a pain in my ass, is what she is.” he says affectionately. “But she’s a miracle worker with paint and plastoid, and I’ve never ran out of supplies since she got assigned to my medbay. Staff sergeant…something. I can’t remember her name. I feel bad calling her Sarge all the time, but I can’t keep asking her name over and over again.” He has an indulgent smile on his face, even as he attempts to position a butterfly bandage over a cut on Fives’ eyebrow he didn’t even know he had.

”How is someone that small a pain in the ass?” he asks. “She’s barely tall enough to reach anyone’s ass.” Fives sighs again, the soothing sting of bacta starting to work its magic on his wounded shoulder. If he had to guess, he’d say he’d probably be fit for duty again by the day after tomorrow.

“It’s because she’s so small. Every time I turn around, she’s right karking there. Practically underfoot. But, she’s always right underfoot with whatever I happen to need, which makes her invaluable. She’s got what it takes to be a credible medic, I think. Good with the men, quick on her feet, doesn’t panic.” Kix explains. “She’s in Logistics, but she’s a quick learner. And she pays attention. I’m gonna talk to the General about having her in Medical full time, not just pushing papers or refilling supplies.”

The comm on Kix’s belt buzzes and he glances down. When he sees the words spilling across the screen, a colorful string of curses leave his mouth, making Fives raise an eyebrow.

“Shit. Stay here. I have to go.” Abruptly he’s not the teasing, snarky brother he was before, but a serious man who suddenly has to shoulder responsibility. Fives watches him go, sending a silent prayer behind him for whatever poor man needed Kix’s attention that badly.

Taking the opportunity to look around the busy Medbay, it becomes quickly apparent that someone with a knack for organization has been hard at work there. Every cabinet is carefully labeled, and a small custom display on larger cabinet doors seems to keep a fairly accurate tally of what supplies are inside.

Just as one cabinet, which appears to contain large bacta patches, seems to be dangerously low, the short medic whizzes into sight, hefting a fresh box of patches into the cabinet and tapping the screen. She bends to pick up a small crate, and to his surprise it contains armor pieces, but these look to be in much better shape than the damaged armful she had before.

Despite the activity in the room, he finds himself getting even more tired, leaning his head back against the wall to rest his eyes for a moment. Just for a moment, he muses. I’ll just rest my eyes for a moment.

The next time he opens his eyes, he feels remarkably well rested for someone who spent the day getting shot at in an active war zone. Looking around for a chrono, he’s startled to see just how much time has actually passed.

“Oh good, you’re awake.” Kix is sitting next to him, sipping a mug of fragrant Caf and relaxing for a moment. “You’re just in time to watch the shiny work her magic.”

“Work her magic? What does that even mean?” But he sits up anyway, groaning and stretching his neck from side to side to work the stiffness out.

As if summoned by his words, the Shiny appears out of a storage closet with a cart loaded with boxes and crates. Quickly and efficiently, she moves from room to room, and cabinet to cabinet, restocking equipment and medicine with a practiced ease. Oddly enough, it looks like she wears gloves the whole time, even when she’s no longer handling new supplies and switches to resetting all of the data screens on the cabinets. In comparison to most of the civilians he’s seen on board, she doesn’t roll her sleeves up, but keeps them long, covering her arms fully.

“She does that really quick." he murmurs, not wanting to startle the shiny. “Looks like she can do it with her eyes closed.”

“She does. She’ll do little restock runs in the middle of rushes, but she saves the vast majority for when we have a moment to breathe like this. I wish she’d take the moment to rest herself, but she seems like she has a lot to prove, and I know how that feels. So I do my best to make sure she eats something solid at least once a shift, and supply her with all the caf she desires.”

“So she likes caf, then?” Fives asks.

Kix snorts and nods. “Drains the stuff like it’s water. I swear, if I were to run a blood sample on her, it would be 70% caf. You should see her office, I sometimes can't tell what mugs have caf in them and which ones are paint water.”

“Paint water?” He looks over at his brother, confused.

“She doesn’t just repair all the armor of wounded clones. She fixes the paint jobs too, so none of us have to go back out in a shiny’s brand new armor. She’s really good at it, too. Has an eye for detail and color matching, though given how organized she is with our supplies I’d expect nothing less.”

Fives is stunned for just a minute, shocked by what he’s hearing. This person, this natborn, she does all of this…for them?

“Why?” He finds himself asking the question softly, as if he doesn’t want her to hear and send a sharp eyed glare his way.

“She respects the hell out of us. That’s one thing I always notice, every time she speaks to me. There’s teasing, yes, and banter, but below it all is respect. She doesn’t see us the way other natborns do, like tube creatures that don’t count as people. But don’t tell her you’ve seen her soft spot, or she’ll turn those sharp gold eyes on you.” Kix is only half teasing, sipping at his caf again with a contented sigh.

“Well I’ll be damned. Say, how does she like her caf?” He grins at Kix, who looks at him funny as Fives gets to his feet with a small groan.

“Sweet. I don’t know how sweet, though, because I always seem to make it wrong. She’ll probably be at this for another twenty minutes or so, though, if you’re going for caf.”

“Good to know. Here, watch my bucket for me?” He sets his helmet on the chair he just vacated, and ambles off towards the mess hall.

~*~*~*~

Staff Sergeant Andali Johntra was exhausted. She could feel it seeping into every part of her being. Any remaining energy that she might have had was slowly sapped away as she carefully patched each piece of armor on her desk. Her hands trembled slightly as she tried to keep her brush steady, not wanting to smear the paint into an uneven line. The corners of her mouth were turned down into a frown while she concentrated, and it took so much effort to keep the muscles in her fingers from spasming.

“Shit!” she cursed, dropping the brush to the side and carefully setting the helmet onto her desk. There was no way she was going to be able to paint it straight.

Andali groaned and dropped her head into her hands, her fingers digging into her scalp and slowly massaging away the headache she felt beginning to form from the tightness of her GAR regulation bun.

She heard a knock on the doorframe and did her best to hold back an exasperated sigh, squeezing her eyes shut. “Yes?” she called, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice.

“Hey…Kix said you’d probably still be up.”

She looked up then, her golden eyes falling on the ARC trooper from earlier. She was pretty sure his name was Fives…yeah, he had the lucky number. A quick once over told her that the bacta patch was still in place on his shoulder and the butterfly bandage on his eyebrow hadn’t come loose.

“What can I help you with, soldier?” she asked, folding her arms on her desktop and offering him a tired smile. “Was there something Kix and I missed in your assessment?”

He shook his head, stepping inside her cramped office and holding out a large cup. She blinked slowly, staring at it, her mind trying to play catch up with what was happening. “You seem like the type to keep going even when you run out of juice.” he explained with a shrug. “I thought I’d come check on you, see how you were doing. From the looks of it, you’re about to keel over from exhaustion.”

She sighed and scrubbed one hand down her face while accepting the offered cup with the other. “Thanks,” she said softly, her fingers closing around the warm mug.

“Kix said you liked your caf sweet, I hope I made it right.”

If she didn’t know better, she’d think he sounded a little nervous.

She took an experimental sniff, noting that she didn’t smell the bitter twang of the roasted beans she normally did when Kix brought her caf early in the morning. That was a good sign. She blew on the steaming liquid and took a small sip. Her eyes practically rolled back and she let out a small whine, her other hand coming up to wrap around the cup.

“Fives,” she said, opening her eyes and giving him the most heartstopping, wide-eyed look he’d ever seen in his life. “I think I love you.”

He surprised her by barking out a laugh. “Oh, Force, shiny!” he exclaimed after a moment, having to compose himself and wipe a tear from his eye. “That’s the closest thing to a marriage proposal I’ve ever heard.”

She rolled her eyes and took another long drink, letting the warm liquid flow down her throat in waves before she turned her attention back to Fives. “I appreciate it,” she said. “Really. Thank you.”

He hummed and crossed his arms, leaning against the doorframe. “No problem.” He looked around the small office, realizing Kix was right. It was a damn supply closet. But she made it work. There was a rack of shelves behind her that stored several cans of paint, some aerosol paints, an airbrush kit, tools, and a smattering of other miscellaneous items. To the left were a few armor stands, each containing multiple pieces of freshly repaired armor that just needed paint. Pauldrons, helmets, and vambraces were scattered across the desktop, along with multiple cups of various colored liquids containing what he assumed were paint brushes.

“So shiny,” he started.

She glowered at him over the rim of her cup, making him falter. The odd, golden eyes that had just been warm and friendly a moment ago were sharp with anger, her dark brows furrowed unhappily.

“...what?”

“I’m not a shiny.” she said indignantly. “I’ve been a part of the GAR for over two years. I know what I’m doing.”

He pursed his lips. “Trooper, then.”

She cocked her head at him, raising an eyebrow. “I have a name, you know.”

He shrugged. “And I have a number. We find more meaning in the names we give ourselves, Trooper.” he said with a small grin.

She hummed, taking another sip of her caf, before nodding. “Okay then.”

“As I was saying, have you had dinner?”

Trooper frowned, glancing at the chrono she’d hung above the door. “...which day?”

Fives sighed and stepped farther into the cramped room, pulling out the only chair on the opposite side of her desk and plopping down into it. “How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”

“Um. I had lunch. On…Centaxdaaaay?” she drawled, trying to trace back her steps and make sure that was right.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Trooper.”

“...yeah?”

“It’s 0300 on Zhellday.”

“...yeah.”

“Which means the last time you ate was almost forty hours ago.”

“...yeah.”

Fives let out a long breath, trying to keep his composure. “Finish your caf and get your tiny little ass up.”

“Why?!”

He gave her a deadpan look. “I’m taking you to the mess to get some fucking food, that’s why!” he exclaimed. “You’re a medic! You know damn well what’s gonna happen if you have a sugar crash. I’ve had Kix lecture me enough about those, I don’t need to actually see one happen. Wait, no, don’t finish the caf, give it here.” he said, leaning over the mass of armor on her desk and snatching the caf mug out of her hands.

“Hey!” she squealed, trying to grab it back.

“No! Here, drink some water.” he said, grabbing his canteen from one of his pouches and sliding it across to her. “When you finish eating, I’ll let you have the caf back.”

She crossed her arms and scowled at him, and then the canteen, but it was more of a pout than anything. “You’re not my commander.” she muttered.

Fives raised an eyebrow. “No, but Kix is. And, he’s head medic. You want me to have him order you to the mess?”

Trooper rolled her eyes. “He wouldn’t do that.”

“Honey, I’ve seen Kix tie Rex to an exam table because the man was trying to run back to back ops with three hours of sleep. I have no doubt he can and will find some way to make you go eat.” he sassed back, crossing his own arms and staring her down.

The two of them continued to stare unblinkingly at each other, trying to see who would break first. Fives scowled at her, working his jaw as he tried to decipher what was going on in that head of hers. Trooper narrowed her eyes and tilted her head to the side, trying to read his expression.

The silence was only broken by a loud grumble, which so happened to be her stomach complaining of the lack of food.

He smirked and she huffed in annoyance. “Fine. Fine! I’ll drink the fucking water.” Trooper reached out and snatched up the canteen, glaring at him the entire time. She unscrewed the lid and downed the contents, still refusing to break eye contact. Fives watched, smug satisfaction only growing as he leaned back into his chair. “There,” she hissed, her sharp canines flashing. “Happy?”

“Almost.” he said. “Come on.”

She groaned, dramatically throwing herself back into her chair. “Do I have to?” she whined.

Fives raised his eyebrows, slightly amused at how quickly she was shifting between attitudes. Though he supposed he shouldn’t be too surprised. She’d been awake for Force knew how long, and at this point was running on caf and pure spite. “Yes.”

She groaned again, long and drawn out, and even stomped her foot a couple times. But then she sighed, tossing her head to the side and looking at him. “Can I at least change into something that’s not covered in plastagel, paint, and all types of medical fluids?”

He pursed his lips. “I suppose.” he acquiesced.

“Thank the Gods.” She stood and stretched, several loud pops coming from her back as she did. “Let’s go, I guess.” she mumbled.

She led the way out of the tiny, cramped office, and into the brightly lit hallway. She squinted as her eyes adjusted to the light, blinking a few times and scowling as she stalked down the empty hall. The sounds of the ship had long died down, save for the rhythmic thumping of boots on the floor as different soldiers did their rounds. She was pretty sure Kix had called it a night, leaving the general checkups and vital rounds to the assistants.

Trooper scrubbed a hand down her face as she followed the winding corridor to the lift. She smashed the button and waited for the doors to ding open. Fives didn’t say anything, just stood silently beside her, watching her with an amused expression.

“What’s so funny?” she asked, pressing the button a second and then a third time in blatant irritation.

“Nothing.” he responded, his grin widening as they stepped inside the now open lift.

She sighed and swiped her badge, tapping the screen for the officer quarters and inputting her access code. The panel lit up green and the lift took off quickly. “Did Kix put you up to this?” she asked eventually, crossing her arms and looking at him out of the corner of her eye.

Fives frowned. “What? Making sure you had dinner?”

She shrugged. “Yeah. And…whatever else you’re doing.”

He tilted his head. “No.”

“Then…why’re you doing it?”

He had to think about it for a moment. He worked his jaw as he thought. In all honesty, he saw a lot of his brothers in this woman. She was determined, stubborn, and had an iron will. But he could also tell she genuinely cared. She made that clear in every effort she made to take care of the men, whether medically or materially. She was kind and compassionate, and would go out of her way to make sure his brothers had anything they needed. That was evident in the little things. From what Kix had said earlier, she’d been on her feet for the last 36 hours trying to keep up with the wounded.

And then it dawned on him.

Despite what she said, she was a shiny with no preservation or survival skills.

So, he was going to make it his mission to watch out for her.

“You remind me of my brothers.” he said, smiling at her. “And I’d badger one of them just as much.”

She hummed. “I’ll take that as a compliment, I guess?”

He snorted. “Probably best.”

The doors hissed open, and Trooper nodded for him to follow. She followed the corridor until they came to a T, when she turned left. “Ranking officers are down there,” she said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder towards the opposite direction. “The Admiral, the General, Padawan Tano, Captain Rex, all the important people. There’s a few guest quarters for when we’ve got diplomats or General Kenobi is tagging along. I got lucky somehow. General Skywalker thought it would be better if I had my own quarters instead of bunking in the general barracks.” she explained.

Fives frowned. “But you’re a Sergeant, aren’t you?”

She shrugged. “Not an important one. I just work Logistics, Fives.”

He scoffed. “From what Kix says, you’re a damn good medic. How come you aren’t in Medical full time?”

“Oh, don’t you know?” she asked, rolling her eyes.

“Know what?”

“I’m an evil Hutt spy, and I’m going to tear apart the GAR piece by tiny logistical piece.” She mimes picking at something with her fingertips, lips twisted in an angry smirk as she jabs her fingers pointedly.

He blinked at her, stopping a couple paces behind when she swiped her access card at a door. “You’re…kidding…right?” he asked.

Trooper let out a bitter laugh and began pulling pens and paintbrushes from her hair as she stepped inside her quarters, depositing them in yet another caf mug that already held several other paintbrushes, pens, and even a scalpel. Fives followed, a deep frown on his face. “Trooper?”

She hummed and took off her jacket, tossing it into a bin next to what he assumed was a ‘fresher. The area they walked into was a small sitting room, containing a couch and a coffee table. Off to the right was a kitchenette, and to the left was the ‘fresher and her bedroom. “Hold on,” she said, beginning to pull her shirt over her head. “These smell like blood and chemicals.” He caught a glimpse of more ink spanning her lower back, the lower jaw of some kind of beast.

Fives cleared his throat and turned toward the kitchen, shifting his weight awkwardly.

Evil Hutt spy? he thought. He heard her shuffling into the bedroom, the doors hissing open for her as she walked inside. He worked his jaw as he thought about it.

There was no way. Spies didn’t just outright tell someone they were a spy.

…did they?

But the way she said it was sarcastic, and she’d sounded really bitter. So that had to mean something, right?

Fives worked it over, his thoughts racing a hundred miles an hour.

The Republic vetted all their enlistees, including Clones. There was no way that she would have made it this far if she really had anything to do with the Hutts.

“You okay, tough guy?”

He practically jumped out of his skin at the sound of her voice. He whirled around to face her, his heart thundering in his chest. “Kark,” he cursed. “You’re so damn quiet!”

Trooper grinned at him, flashing her sharp teeth again. “No, you were just so absorbed in your own head that you didn’t hear me.”

He huffed and rolled his shoulders, trying to fight the unease that was now rising in his chest. She went into the kitchen, standing on her tiptoes to reach the cabinet as she grabbed a glass and filled it with water. “Yes, I was joking.” she said.

He frowned.

“About the Hutt thing.”

He didn’t say anything, just watched as she finished her water and set the glass in the sink, crossing her arms over her chest and turning to face him. It was then that he realized…she was wearing pajamas. His eyebrows rose as he took in the bright pink, fuzzy material. The pants were longer than her legs, covering the grey slippers she wore. The matching tank top was cropped at her abdomen.

And printed all over…were tookas.

He pressed his lips together, trying to contain the sudden laughter that threatened to bubble over. She stared at him, straight faced, with a raised eyebrow.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

With the deadpan tone, Fives couldn’t take it. He broke his composure, barking out a laugh. His face split into a huge grin and he had to put a hand on the counter beside him to steady himself as he continued laughing. It was such a deep, genuine sound, that Trooper couldn’t stop the smile that tugged at her own lips.

“You,” he tried, breaking into another fit of laughter when he tried to speak. Trooper waited patiently as he wiped the tears from his eyes. “You’re wearing Tooka pajamas,” he said.

“And? They’re comfortable. And warm.”

He laughed again, having to wrap his arm around his ribs. He winced at the pain and she immediately pushed away from the counter. Her tattooed hands were on him in an instant, one on his shoulder and the other on his chest as she forced him into an upright position. He’d stripped off his upper armor (part of which was still sitting on her desk waiting for a fresh coat of paint), leaving him in his blacks. He hissed when she prodded gently at his ribs.

“Careful,” she said. “I know you just have a few surface injuries, but I’m pretty sure you probably bruised some ribs too.”

Fives grunted, irritated at the now throbbing pain, but also still trying to keep from laughing.

Trooper couldn’t have been taller than five feet, maybe five foot two if he was being generous. She was covered in badass ink, and here she was, in bright pink pjs, fussing over an injury he didn’t even know he had.

“I know I’m hilarious and an absolute delight to be around, but you’re gonna need to take it easy for a couple days. Unless you just pulled a muscle laughing, in which case your ribs are gonna hurt like a bitch.”

He shied away from her as she continued poking and prodding, trying to find exactly which rib it was that was bothering him. “Right,” he said. “No laughing. Got it. I just don’t know if I can take you seriously while you’re wearing that.” He gestured to her outfit of choice, clearing his throat and having to rearrange his smile into a carefully schooled partial grin.

Trooper snorted and rolled her eyes. “That’s the point. You managed to drag me out of there, so I’m officially off the clock. I don’t want to be taken seriously.”

“Oh, so I can just ignore everything you just said about the ribs, then?”

“Sure! If you want to be back in medbay in twenty four hours with a fractured rib instead of a bruised one!”

Fives sucked in a breath, closing his eyes as he tried to maintain what Rex called ‘professional composure’.

Keep it together, don’t laugh, don’t laugh, don’t laugh goddammit.

When he opened his eyes again, Trooper had crossed her arms and was staring up at him with a wide grin. “Well, I don’t know about you,” she said, walking past him and heading for the door once again. “But now that I’m not completely focused on what I’m doing work wise, I’m absolutely starving.”

He snorted and shook his head. “Come on, let’s see what the mess has. If nothing else, I know where Chip keeps the leftover meal rations. I’m sure we can find you something.”

She glanced over her shoulder, grinning at him. She snagged a satin scrunchie from the coffee table and put it on her wrist before heading back into the hall, shoving her hands into the pockets of her fluffy pants with such nonchalance that Fives had to stop and simply watch her for a moment as she walked to the elevator.

“You coming or not?” she called.

He quickly shook himself out of his thoughts and took a few long strides to catch up with her. “So, you gonna tell me what all that was about?”

“Hmm? Oh. The Hutt comments?”

He nodded. “That’s not something people normally joke about. At least, not around here.”

Trooper sighed and looked up at him before running both heavily inked hands through her honey colored waves. Her fingertips massaged her scalp for a few moments while they waited for the lift, and she was quiet for a moment as she tried to figure out how to best explain the situation. She mindlessly twisted her hair into a messy bun, bits and pieces of stray layers falling out to frame her face and lay against the back of her neck. The hair made an odd contrast to the complicated circuitry that looked like it was plugged into her spine, but oddly enough it worked well for her. It had to be a relief not having to be pulled so tightly against her skull as the regulation bun called for.

Finally, she huffed out a little breath when the doors opened and she stepped inside. “How much do you know about Coruscant’s lower levels?” she asked.

“Not much,” Fives admitted. “That’s…more the Guard’s territory.”

She nodded. “I bet you don’t get a lot lower than the Entertainment Sector, do you?”

“I’ve never been lower than where 79’s is.”

“That’s reasonable. Well…the slums aren’t pretty.” she explained. “Most people are barely surviving. Working several rotations to earn half a day's wage and are then expected to pay twice as much for rations.”

He frowned. He’d heard things were bad. But he hadn’t realized how bad. “I’m guessing you came from one of those families?”

“I did.” she said softly. “It wasn’t easy. I don’t remember my mom very much. I get glimpses of her in my dreams once in a while. I remember her singing…there was always this one lullaby she would sing to me and Lukan whenever the nights got really bad.”

Fives noticed the faraway look in her eyes and his expression softened.

“I hadn’t even turned three yet when she died.”

He blinked, startled at the confession. “What?”

Trooper shrugged. “Like I said. The Slums aren’t pretty. And they aren’t easy.”

“You said another name. Lukan?”

She nodded. “My brother. He was eleven.”

“You were just children! How did he manage to take care of a toddler by himself?” Fives was surprised by the sudden wave of emotions crashing into him.

Trooper just gave him a sad smile. “He took whatever jobs he could from whoever would pay him any credits.” she explained. “And it worked. For a while at least. It wasn’t a lavish lifestyle, by any means. But more than anything, I remember that he loved me. So much. And he took care of what I needed. Always what I needed.”

She could feel her throat closing up.

It was a long time ago, she reminded herself. It’s okay.

Trooper took a deep breath and closed her eyes as they reached the right floor. Fives didn’t say anything as they stood there for a few moments, enveloped by the silence. Her heart thundered in her ears, pulsing in her skull with every beat, threatening to overwhelm her.

You can talk about it. You probably should, actually. It’s been a long time since you opened up to anyone.

The logical side of her brain kicked in, reminding her that she’d just met Fives, and her sarcastic joke about the Hutts had already set him on edge. She didn’t need to go making him any more nervous than she already had.

“Hey,” he said gently, setting his hand on her bare shoulder.

Her eyes shot open and she looked up at him, the question in her expression.

“You don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to.” he said. “I can tell it’s not easy.”

She shrugged. “It’s not. But…maybe that’s the point.” They stepped into the hallway and Fives nodded for her to go first as they began making their way to the Mess. “When I was six, my brother got a job on a loading dock moving a shipment from one cargo freighter to another. He was just supposed to be changing crates.”

He listened as he led her through the empty and dimly lit mess and into the galley. The only sound was a quiet hum from the overhead lights. It was almost surreal. He’d been in the mess in the wee hours of the morning before, true. When he was coming off a long shift and needed something to hold him over until breakfast the next morning, or if Echo dragged him in for a cup of scalding hot caf before heading to bed. But seeming to be the only two people in a world of silence was a much different experience.

“Come to find out, he was actually moving a shipment of Spice for the Hutts.”

Fives’ blood ran cold. Dealing in Spice was a nasty business. Dealing with the Hutts was even nastier. Combine the two? He couldn’t imagine.

She took a deep breath and shook her head. “The Pykes were watching. The entire thing was a trap from the start. I got my hands on some old CSF reports, and it turns out that the Pykes had been trying to get back at Jabba for a hit for a while. They’d been tracking his Spice shipments, his cargo runs, everything. This specific run happened to be one of the larger ones. And they made their move.”

He stopped moving, tentatively setting a hand on her shoulder. The tension seemed to just drain out of her at the contact, so he squeezed a little harder. She leaned into the touch and reached up to wipe away the tears that threatened to fall.

She cleared her throat and shrugged, trying to play it off. “There was a whole shootout. But the Pykes left some of them alive, to try and get some information. Lukan was one of them.”

Fives shook his head. “Spice is a nasty business.”

“You’re telling me,” she deadpanned. “I watched, hidden behind some cargo crates, as they flayed my brother alive, just for him to keep telling them he was there to unload boxes.” A shudder ran down Trooper’s spine as Fives led her into the galley, activating the yellow motion lights overhead. The flickering of the bulbs briefly sent her back to that night, the flash of Lukan’s dying expression smoldering in her memory.

She swallowed hard.

“Wait, you were there?!” he demanded, whirling around and leaving the cooler door open.

Trooper inhaled slowly, trying to calm the rising panic. It clawed at her chest, tearing its way into her throat and trying to take control of her mind. She clenched her jaw, grinding her teeth together as she tried to remind herself where she was. She stares down at her hands, which shake in the light, reminding herself they aren’t covered in blood; she’s not there; what’s in her mind has already come to pass.

“Yeah,” she said after a moment. Her golden eyes locked onto Fives’ deep timber ones, years of pain and anger and spite bubbling over as she crossed her arms. It was clear to him she still had a score to settle. “He used his last breath to tell me he loved me. And then they slit his throat.”

“Fuck,” he breathed. “Trooper, I’m-”

She shook her head, pressing her lips together. “Don’t,” she said after a moment. “Please. They tried to kill me too that night. If the CSF hadn’t gotten there when they did, I would’ve died. It was then I decided I was going to do something that mattered. And now with the GAR, I can. But this whole ‘Hutt spy’ shit is hanging over my head and I can’t really do much about it.”

Fives worked his jaw for a moment before nodding firmly. “Right. Well, if you’re going to get much farther than logistics, you’re going to want some friends.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You offering?”

He smirked. “Maybe.”

A soft smile slowly spread across her face. “Then I’d be happy to accept.”

Fives clapped his hands together. “Now that that’s all cleared up, what’re you hungry for?”

She shrugged and hugged her arms around her middle, fighting the chill that ran down her spine. Her skin was beginning to prickle with goosebumps, and he raised an eyebrow at her, noticing the small tremor in her shoulders.

“Right. Something warm.” he said. He turned back to the cooler box, a small frown tugging at his mouth as he scanned the contents. His eyes would flicker back to Trooper every so often and he would hum, rubbing his chin before reaching in and grabbing a container.

Trooper watched, albeit a little uncomfortable, as he rifled through the refrigerator and mumbled to himself. “You sure this is okay?” she asked, eyeballing the stack of prep containers that was beginning to pile up onto the counter. Because of her size and the fact that she was a woman, she was always given considerably smaller portions at meal times.

The fact that her stomach chose that moment to rumble loudly was no one’s business but her own.

Fives tsked and continued his exploration of the cooler, not even sparing a glance at her. “Have you looked in the mirror lately, Trooper?” he asked.

She frowned. “What?”

“Not trying to be an ass or anything-”

“Great way to start.”

“-but you’re practically skin and bone. I can see the hollow in your cheeks and I don’t like it. I’m going to assume they give you less than standard rations because you’re so small?”

She stuttered, her cheeks going red in both embarrassment and indignation.

“Thought so. Look, Chip owes me a few favors. So he won’t say anything if you’re getting a little bit extra every now and then. Besides, you’re hungry. You should be getting as much as the rest of us.” he carried on. When he was satisfied with the variety of dishes that had been pulled from their neatly organized places, he set them out in front of her. “What would you like?”

Trooper blinked in surprise. “All this from the last couple days?”

Fives shrugged “You have missed a few meals, sweetheart.” he drawled. “Now. Pick your poison.”

She rolled her eyes. “When you put it like that, everything sounds so fucking appetizing.” she deadpanned. But when she began scanning the different options, she couldn’t deny how good they actually looked. And the smells she was catching were even better.

She looked back up at Fives, and the apprehension was still clearly written on her face, because he let out an exasperated sigh. “Kid, you’re starving to death. Wasting away to nothing in front of my eyes. Wilting like a Millaflower in Coruscant’s Under City.” he teased, leaning down and dramatically shoving all of the containers toward her.

She felt a flare of panic as one got a little too close to the edge and she snatched it up, the liquid sloshing around inside as she carefully added it back to the stack.

“Not sure which planet Chip got that one from, but it’s fucking fantastic,” Fives said, nodding to the container in her hands. The broth had a reddish tinge, but she could plainly see the large chunks of meat and vegetables. “There’s some Five Blossom Bread he modified to go with it. Force, Trooper, you’ve gotta try that one, at least.”

She chuckled as he grabbed the dish and ladled some of the contents into a bowl before adding the bread to the tray beside it.

“What else?”

“Uh…I like meat. And fruits.”

A thoughtful look came across his face. “Not much for veggies?”

She shrugged. “If they’re in something, I can tolerate it. But I prefer high protein. I feel a lot better when I eat more of it, at least. And I won’t complain if there’s extra fat in it either.”

He hummed. “I can work with that. There might be some Shaak Roast…ah, there it is!” He beamed as he pulled a dish smaller than the rest from the stack. “It’s got some rootmash noodles, too. At least, I think that’s what they’re called?”

Saliva pooled in Trooper’s mouth and she did her best not to drool all over the counter. Her stomach rumbled again and Fives snorted, smirking at her as he added the roast and noodles to her tray. She swallowed and tried not to look like a starved animal as she watched his movements carefully. “I think that’s more than enough…” she said, eyeing the portions. They were considerably larger than what she was used to getting, and she didn’t want Fives in any trouble for sneaking her extra.

He stared at her. “No.” he said flatly, his voice firm and tone commanding.

Shit.

She blinked rapidly, feeling that need to shrink in on herself and make herself as small as possible. Her shoulders hunched to her ears and a dark blush began to tinge her tanned skin, while she dug her nails into her arms. She bit her lip and looked away, feeling like a scolded child. “Sorry.”

He sighed. “No, that’s my bad, Trooper.” he said. “I didn’t mean to snap at you like that.”

Trooper didn’t miss the way his eyes roamed her frame, the concerned frown on his face, or the thoughtful tilt to his head. “Actually, does Kix know you’re not getting enough to eat?”

“Who says I’m not getting enough?” she mumbles. “I certainly didn’t.”

Fives gives her a pointed look as he goes to reheat the tray of food. “You didn’t have to.” he said. “You not saying anything said plenty.”

Trooper huffed.

“I’m serious. Does he know?”

She’s quiet for a long moment before shaking her head. “No. I haven’t said anything.”

“That’s why you’re running on caf and protein bars all the time?”

“Yeah.”

He shakes his head. “You want me to talk to Chip? If not, then you need to. Or if you won’t, then at least mention something to Kix. That man will go absolutely feral if he finds out one of his people isn’t being taken care of properly.”

Trooper snorts, a fond smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “You’re not wrong.” she said. She’d seen Kix in full medic mode more times than she could count, and she was always impressed with how much he cared about his brothers.

If she was being honest, it inspired her.

Fives continued talking as he heated up her dinner, but her mind was elsewhere. She remembered the first time she saw Kix in action.

Somehow, by the grace of the Force, she’d managed to get herself on the transport to Geonosis during that first battle. She was just a shiny Private at the time, no higher ranking than a Cadet with a blaster, but she was there. She was just supposed to be there to hand out weapons, if anyone was to believe that. Expendable. No one thought she would outlast that battle.

Kix probably wasn’t any more than a shiny himself, not even trained as a medic yet. But she picked him out easily by the way he dragged his wounded brothers out of the line of fire.

And she knew from that moment on, that was the kind of person she wanted to be.

Kind, compassionate, selfless.

“Hey, Coruscant to Trooper!”

She blinked a couple times, seeing Fives waving his hand in front of her face. “Yeah, yeah, I’m here.” she said, chuckling.

“You were lost in your own little world there for a minute,” he said. “Whatcha thinking about?”

She hummed. “Kix.”

He raised an eyebrow, a sly smile spreading across his lips. “Oh?”

Trooper rolled her eyes and shoved his shoulder. “Not like that, you Bloggin!” she says with a laugh.

He wiggles his eyebrows, dodging out of the way of a playful punch, going to grab her food. “You do seem eager to make him happy!” he teases.

“Because he’s my commanding officer!” Trooper exclaims.

Fives laughs. “That’s all?”

“Yes, you bastard!” she says with a giggle. She follows him out of the galley and into the sparsely lit mess. He set the tray down on the table and gestured for her to take a seat.

“Okay so if you don’t have the hots for him, why are you thinking about your CO at 0330?”

Trooper dropped onto the bench, smiling to herself. “I was thinking about what you said, how he’d react to his people not getting taken care of. It reminded me of the first time I saw him.”

“Oh yeah?” Fives asked, taking a sip of caf. “Where was that?”

“Geonosis.”

“Oh, shit. You were there for that?” he asked, his eyes going wide.

“Yeah. I saw him dragging his brothers out of the line of fire. I only know it was him because I heard someone yell his name.” she replied, picking up her spoon and starting to dig into the stew. “This smells kriffing, amazing, by the way.”

He waited quietly while she blew on the hot food before taking a bite. The sound that left her lips was downright sinful, and she closed her eyes in bliss. “Oh my fucking god,” she said. “That’s so good.”

Fives grinned at her. “Right?”

Trooper quickly shoveled another spoonful into her mouth, letting the broth and vegetables linger on her tongue as she savored the flavor. “Hold on, you said you knew where Chip kept the leftover rations…what happened to Cruz?”

Fives snorted and rolled his eyes. “Please. You’ve had his cooking. I can’t believe they kept him in the Galley as long as they did. Between you and me, I’m pretty sure more than a handful of us ended up with food poisoning more than once.”

She grinned, covering her mouth while she chewed. “That’s fair.” she said after a moment. She eyed the canteen of water that he’d set in front of her with a scowl. “Thought you said you would give me my caf back?” she grumbled.

“After you had something to eat. Drink some more water while you eat. I’m surprised you’re not wasting away with how tiny you are.”

Trooper rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

Fives watched with satisfaction as she drew her legs up onto the bench, tucking them up under herself to get comfortable. She reached for the canteen, flicking the lid at him, and took several large swallows before returning it to the table. “So. You know my tragic backstory now. What about you? How’d you end up as an ARC?”

He grinned, happy to see that she was getting comfortable and starting to eat with more gusto. “You remember the Battle of Kamino?”

Trooper nodded, bringing the spoon to her mouth and taking another bite of the stew. “I’d just finished my Basic Training. I was still on Coruscant at the time, but I heard about the battle.”

Fives hummed, folding his arms and leaning on the table. “Well, it was after that. Echo and I didn’t think it was anything spectacular, but I guess Rex thought otherwise. He recommended us for ARC training, and requested us in the 501st immediately after we graduated.”

She grinned at him, bringing the steaming bowl closer to her face and letting the warmth radiate towards her. “I’m sure there’s got to be more to the story than that.” Her expression sobered considerably. “This might be a bit insensitive…but…what happened to the rest of your squad? I always hear about the ARC Domino Twins, but never anything about any other Dominos.”

Fives let out a long sigh and ran a hand through his hair. “Damn. Haven’t thought about that in a long time.” he said softly.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she added quickly, setting her bowl back on her tray and reaching for his hand. She squeezed it gently, and he gave her a small smile.

“It’s alright,” he said. “It was a long time ago.” He cleared his throat and adjusted his seat, a smirk toying with the corners of his mouth. “There were five of us. Me, Echo, Droidbait, Cutup, and Hevy.”

“Should I ask?” she teased with a grin.

Fives snorted. “I have the lucky number. Echo was always repeating orders we received on comms because he didn’t think we were paying attention. Droidbait was just that…nine times out of ten, he played the distraction. Cutup was always making jokes. The man barely had a serious bone in his body. And Hevy…his favorite weapon was a blaster cannon. Heavy weapons were his specialty, and he was so damn trigger happy, he’d blow the entire fucking battalion up if we’d let him.” he said, laughing.

Trooper smiled over the rim of her bowl, happily bringing it to her lips and slurping some of the broth. “They sound like good men.”

Fives hummed. “They were great,” he agreed softly. “We were stationed on the Rishi Moon outpost after completing our basic training. We were out there probably about six months before the Seppie attack. Our first official deployment was at the end of 21, so it would’ve been the middle of 20.” he explained.

She listened intently as he told the story, not missing the sadness in his expression as he recounted the deaths of his original squad. She empathized with him, feeling her heart clench as when his voice caught on their names. Trooper quietly finished her stew, spurred on by him nudging her every so often when she set it back onto her tray.

“Hevy sacrificed himself so we could get out.” he finished, running a hand through his curls. “That officially made Echo and I the last of the Domino Squad.”

She reached over the metal table, her small hand settling atop his. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know it’s not the same…but I know what it’s like to lose the family you care about.”

A tired, sad smile tugged at his lips and he leaned forward again, patting her hand. “It’s not all doom and gloom, Trooper.” he said after a moment. “After all, it’s not every day I get to meet crazy little fuckers like you.”

She snorted and rolled her eyes, but the smile she gave him spoke volumes for the growing affection that was wiggling its way into her heart.

“You aren’t so bad yourself, tough guy.” she teased.

“Oooooh,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows. “She thinks I’m tough!”

Trooper laughed and pulled her hand away, smacking his when he tried to grab her back. He chuckled and leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. She grinned before practically launching herself over the table at him to snatch the cup of caf he’d hidden on the bench beside him.

“Force’s sake, woman!” he shrieked, scrabbling to try and keep it from her. But she was too quick. She grabbed the cup and was back on her side of the table before Fives could move, grinning like a loth wolf the whole time. He scowled at her while she stuffed the still hot liquid in satisfaction. “Am I gonna have to put you on a water to caf ratio diet?”

She huffed dramatically. “Kix says I’m more caf than human at this point.”

“Pretty sure I believe it.” he teased. “You’ve got a problem, Trooper.”

She shrugged. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

He snorted. “You’re barely standing as it is,” he said. “Exactly how long would you have been holed up in that tiny little storage closet if I hadn't come to find you?”

Silence.

“Exactly. Now. Finish your food and I might get you some pudding.”

Trooper raised an eyebrow. “Pudding? Really? That’s what you’re bribing me with?”

“You’re saying you haven’t had Chip’s pudding?”

“…apparently not, if it’s bribe worthy.”

As the two of them continued their banter, wrapped up in the laughter and ease of each other’s company, they didn’t catch the presence of the slack jawed shiny that was hidden in the shadows just outside the door in the hall. He scrambled for the holoimage feature on his HUD, knowing no one would believe him without proof.

The famous mouthy ARC trooper, and the quiet Staff Sergeant from Medical.

Tags: @jetii @area-fiftyone

#the clone wars #star wars #commander cody #arc trooper fives #clone medic kix #clone trooper jesse #inside jokes galore #this is so much fun to write #co author #commander cody x oc

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allmoshnobrain · 2 years ago

Text

𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐫

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

part 17 of ? | masterpost

word count: 3117 | ao3 link | fic's playlist

We kicked back and enjoyed our breakfast, talking and laughing while the music played softly from the record player. I smiled, soaking in the scene, letting it stick in my memory: the morning sun streaming in, sneaking through the window, hitting Dave's ginger hair and lighting up his face. His hands deftly cutting the fruits, the juice from the strawberries he held dribbling down the knife blade as he chatted with me, the sound of his voice filling up the room. It was calm. Like pure happiness.

✦ summary: Amidst their new shared life, Dave and Nore create a memorable celebration for Nore's 19th birthday, with a surprise date and unexpected gifts.

✦ on this chapter: dave mustaine x female!oc, oc is cliff's cousin, +18, language, slice of life, romance, fluff

✦ a/n: Hello! I think this is one of the longest chapters in the story so far, but I wanted to keep it all in one part since it's a special for Nore's 19th birthday! Plus, I wanted to give them a cute moment before the angst makes a comeback, hehe. By the way, in case any of you were curious, Nore was born on June 20. Yep, she's a Gemini! In my mind, that makes a lot of sense lol Hope you enjoyed it, and comments and feedback are totally welcome! ❤

✧ when I’m sad, she comes to me / with a thousand smiles / she gives to me free / it’s alright, she said / it’s alright / take anything you want from me / you can take anything, anything ✧

Dave and I were happy living together, at least for the following weeks. Those were the days when we were more in love than ever; Dave’s love for me burned as bright as the anger he felt towards the world and his past. He was like fire, intense and desperate, and I remember knowing, even back then, that I would never be the same again after being loved like that.

Our routine was calm, even though we had our fair share of hurdles, especially when it came to money. Dave worked at a car wash for a few weeks, but then he went back to just selling his drugs. He said it was just easier this way, plus it gave him time to focus on his music. He’d spend his days jamming, practicing, and creating, perfecting old solos, sketching lyrics for his songs.

I ended up going back to my old drawing hobby; it wasn’t too long before I found myself sketching all sorts of portraits of him, trying to capture the way his forehead would scrunch up a bit when he was too focused, the curve of his jaw, the shape of his lips. Our days were filled with art and each other's presence. And, for a while, that was enough.

As the days rolled by after being kicked out of the band, Dave's low spirits started to ease up, being replaced bit by bit with a fierce determination. Dave was still kind and sweet to me, but to the rest of the world, he seemed even more rebellious and angry than before. He was getting into fights even more often than usual, and he was having a real hard time getting a new band together, as many of his friends just didn't want to deal with his more and more common bursts of anger.

I watched these events unfold with a heavy heart, trying my best to help him. I knew he was putting on this front because he was hurting. He never let himself cry in front of me, but his sleep was restless, and many times I would wake up in the middle of the night because of how tormented he was by his nightmares. He'd hold onto me real tight, like he was scared I'd just vanish, and only then could we both finally go back to sleep.

In the middle of all the chaos, he loved me like he’d never loved before, and I knew that most of my days would end with me wrapped in his arms, surrendering to his touch as he undressed me, kissed me, and loved me. And there, with him, I felt alive.

Sometime down the road, I scored a new job at a neighborhood’s record store. The owner had a daughter around my age named Patricia, and even though the store got pretty busy, things there had a pretty chill pace. We'd spend our days talking and reading all the music magazine articles in the store. Turns out we had quite the same taste when it came to music, and it didn't take long for us to become friends.

Time flew by quickly, and before I knew it, my birthday had arrived. I stretched with a sigh as I woke up, soaking in the sunlight sneaking in through the curtain. I sat up in bed, surprised that Dave wasn't there; he usually snoozed in later than me. I got up, heading to the living room still in my pajamas, and caught a nice smell of cooking in the air.

"Hey there," I yawned when I spotted Dave, looking very focused while cooking something.

"Morning, birthday girl. Happy birthday," Dave looked up and flashed me a grin. I leaned on the doorframe, watching with a smile as he turned off the stove and plated the scrambled eggs he was whipping up. "Was gonna bring you breakfast in bed, but you beat me to it."

"I can totally go back to bed if you want," I teased. He chuckled, coming closer, and put his hands on my hips before planting a little kiss on my forehead.

"Don't sweat it. Go get changed, I'll set the table."

I went through my usual morning routine and changed up before heading back to the living room. Stepped into the room, and there was Dave, all set up at the table with various foods: he'd chopped up some fruit, whipped up scrambled eggs, poured orange juice, and there were even some pancakes. A Fleetwood Mac song was coming softly from the record player, which made me smile because they were one of my favorite bands.

"Not claiming to be a master chef here, but I hope you like it," he said, flashing a smile as he took his spot at the table. I poured some juice for myself.

"I loved it, Dave," I grinned right back at him. "Thanks."

"So, you got work today or what? 'Cause I've got a few things lined up for us," he asked.

"Nope, not today. Boss gave me the day off," I said, tilting my head, kinda curious. "What's the plan?"

"Ah, now that's a surprise," he grinned, and I playfully rolled my eyes, giving a little chuckle.

It was calm.

Like pure happiness.

Our moment got thrown off by a sudden knock on the door. Dave furrowed his brow, looking annoyed at the door before he got up to answer it. I watched, curious, as he swung the door open and headed outside to talk to someone who looked like a delivery person. He was taking way longer than I thought, and I was about to go check things out, but it wasn't needed. I jumped when Dave came rushing in, looking more excited than I had seen him in weeks.

"You've gotta check this out," he said, grabbing my hand. "Come on."

"What?" I laughed, trailing behind him as we ran down the stairs of the building, making a beeline for the garage. But he just chuckled low and kept tugging me along. "Dave. What's going on?" I let out this little shriek that turned into laughter when he came to a sudden stop, almost causing me to crash into him if he hadn't steadied me, holding me close. I took a step back, a bit out of breath and kinda baffled, a little smile creeping up on my lips. "Alright, tell me."

“You tell me,” he said, handing over an envelope. I furrowed my brow, puzzled. "This one's for you."

"You brought me down to the garage for an envelope?" I joked.

"Nope," he laughed, nodding towards our apartment's parking spot. "Check that out."

My mouth opened in amazement as I glanced over at the parking spot. Right next to Dave's old Mazda was the most jaw-dropping motorcycle I'd ever seen, shiny and new with an electric blue paint that almost seemed to glow.

"Dave, what the fuck?" I turned to him, totally incredulous, and he laughed. "Did you buy this thing?"

"I wish. That envelope came along. Maybe you should open it."

I popped the envelope open quickly, excited to crack this case, and my eyebrows shot up when I yanked out the motorcycle keys and a letter, with a handwriting I instantly recognized as my mother’s.

"Dear Eleanore,

I hope you know that despite recent events, your dad and I care deeply about you. And of course, we couldn't forget your birthday!

I must admit, I was a bit surprised to hear that you're living in Los Angeles instead of staying with your cousin. You know Long Beach is right around the corner, so your dad suggested that a decent ride would be an ideal birthday gift.

Consider it a vote of trust after what happened last year.

Enjoy your day!

Love,

Clémence Burton

p.s.: We heard you're living with your boyfriend. We hope to meet him soon."

"Check this out," I said, handing him the letter while I scooted over to get a closer look at my gift. Dave skimmed through the text in the letter, raising an eyebrow.

"You're a spoiled little rich kid," he laughed, flicking the letter back at me. I caught it and rolled my eyes with a grin. "Your mom sounds kinda scary."

"That's just how she is. But don't stress over it," I replied.

"It's kinda hard not to think about it all," he said, gazing at the motorcycle with a sort of longing look. "Damn, Nore. I knew your family had money, but..."

"Yeah, they're loaded. But I'm not," I said, playfully. Dave rolled his eyes but smirked.

"If my mom was packing cash, I'd be hittin' her up for way more than your basic allowance every month. You've got any clue how many drugs you could score with the price of this bike?"

I scoffed, my face getting a bit warm. It was sweet to get a gift like that, no doubt, but even though my parents had money, I wasn't too keen on relying on it. I learned early on that taking their money meant taking their rules, and that wasn't something I wanted anymore.

"Let's go back inside," I changed the subject, grabbing Dave's hand. He laced his fingers with mine, the warmth of his skin helping to shake off some of the frustration that talking about my parents always stirred up. We went back up the stairs to our apartment.

"Can I get a killer bike like that for my birthday?" he blurted out, and I laughed.

"Isn't your birthday kinda far off?" I quipped as we reentered the apartment. I watched as he grabbed his leather jacket and house keys. “You headed out?“

"Yeah, but I won't be gone long," he grinned and planted a small kiss on my forehead. "Got some deliveries to make. Be ready for your surprise when I'm back, cool? We're going out at five."

“Do I need to wear something specific?” I tried to squeeze a hint about his scheme out of him, but he just grinned back, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.

"Nah, just look stunning. I mean, that's a given with you, anyway," he cupped my face in his hands, planting a bunch of small kisses on my lips and making me giggle. "See you in a bit."

"Later, Dave."

Dave left, and I focused on clearing the breakfast table, nibbling on the leftover fruits as I stored the food and tidied up the dishes. Then I focused on picking the outfit I would wear to celebrate my birthday. I was on the hunt for my Motörhead tee in the pile of shirts at the end of the bed when I heard the phone ring and rushed to answer it.

"Hello."

"Hey, Nore."

"Cliff?? " I asked, stunned, a mixed bag of feelings flooding in as I heard his voice. I missed him, because we hadn't been talking for weeks. I was angry, too, because there was one very obvious reason why we weren't talking; I hadn't exactly worked through the sting of Dave being kicked out yet. And even if I wasn't ready to admit it, I was stoked to hear Cliff's voice again. To know he was there. "How'd you even know my number?" I finally managed to ask. He let out a sigh.

"It ain't rocket science when you've given your address to my mom... I can't believe you're living with Dave."

My cheeks warmed up.

"Yeah, he asked and I... I didn't think it would be a problem."

“Your mom’s pissed, you know?”

“Yeah. I figured. But you know I don't care.”

He let out a soft chuckle.

"Happy birthday, by the way," he said.

"Oh, thanks,"

"Do you want to chat with Lars and James? They wanted to wish you a happy birthday too."

I paused. The way Cliff spoke, it was almost like the past few weeks of silence because of Dave hadn't happened. I could never hold a grudge against him for too long, but being upset with Lars and James was a new experience for me. It was kind of confusing, especially after that call from James a few weeks back. I admit I tried not to dwell on it — the desire and longing I had heard in his voice that night, the way he seemed genuinely distressed not to have me around.

I definitely wasn't ready to deal with that.

"I think I'll pass for now," I said quickly. "It's just that..."

"You’re still pissed off at us?" Cliff's tone carried a tinge of disappointment.

"It's not exactly that. It's just... complicated. But please tell them I appreciate it."

"Alright. Will you be around when I'm back?"

I hesitated, but who was I kidding? Despite all the trouble with Dave and the guys, I couldn't really stay away from Cliff.

"Yeah, sure," I said, a small smile involuntarily creeping onto my lips.

"See you then."

"Later, Cliff."

Dave showed up right at five to pick me up for the birthday surprise. I was in the middle of fixing my outfit when the jingle of keys at the door hit my ears. Soon enough, he showed up, casually leaning against the bathroom door frame.

"Hey, babe. You look hot," he said, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

"Hi," I finished fixing my hair and turned to face him with a smile. "I'm all set. So, are you gonna spill the beans on where we're headed?"

"Patience, my dear. You'll know soon enough. Ready to roll?"

I followed him to the car, sneakily studying his expression for any clues about what was in store, but he just shot me a knowing smile as we cruised out of the apartment parking lot.

"Why are you staring at me?" he smirked.

"Just curious. You gonna let me in on the secret plan?"

"Guess patience isn't your strongest suit, huh?" he chuckled, and I playfully rolled my eyes.

At last, we pulled up to a spot where a line of cars had already formed for parking. I looked at the scene curiously, letting out a soft chuckle when Dave used one hand to cover my eyes.

"Dave, what's the deal?"

"Just keep 'em shut, alright? Trust me, it's gonna be worth it."

I followed his lead, even though my curiosity was on the brink. I waited, a smirk tugging at my lips, while he kept driving and then deftly maneuvered the car. Finally, he parked, and I heard a rustling sound as he grabbed something from the back seat. I fought the urge to sneak a peek.

"Alright, eyes open," he announced, and I obeyed, taking in the scene unfolding around me with a grin that just kept growing; we were in an open field, the sun dipping toward the horizon as cars settled around us. And right in front of us, a big screen stood, still turned off.

"A drive-in theater?" I exclaimed, my excitement evident. I looked over at Dave and noticed he had a bunch of snack packs and soda cans in his hands.

"Well, you're a movie fan, right? Figured it'd be a cool idea," he handed me a bag of chips and a can of cola.

"I love it," I grinned, reaching for his hand. "What's on the movie list?"

"Indiana Jones. I know it's not exactly the most romantic choice, but it was the only flick playing today..."

"Dave, you brought me to a drive-in on my birthday. That's pretty romantic in my book," I quipped with a soft laugh, and he smiled, pulling me a bit closer and planting a gentle kiss on my lips. "Plus, I like Indiana Jones," I added, and he chuckled.

As the sun dipped below the horizon, stars started to twinkle in the night sky, and the movie began. I tried my best to follow the storyline and enjoy the chips and soda Dave had considerately gotten, but I couldn't resist exchanging glances and grins with him. Before long, those glances turned into his hand finding my waist and pulling me close as I surrendered to his kisses, the movie almost entirely forgotten as we basked in each other's warmth.

I let myself stay in his embrace as the movie wrapped up and the credits rolled, a smile gracing my lips as I absentmindedly played with his hair, feeling a light flush in my cheeks as he gazed back at me.

"So, did you enjoy your day?" he asked softly.

"It was amazing. Thanks, Dave," I smiled.

"Hey, it's not over yet," he teased, and I let out a soft chuckle. Leaning over, he popped open the car compartment and retrieved a small package, handing it to me. My eyes fixed on the little box, and then I glanced up at him, intrigued. "Couldn't let the day go by without a little something."

I opened the box, a warm feeling spreading through me as I caught sight of its contents: a silver necklace with a delicate blue stone pendant. Dave gently took the box from my hands, sweeping my hair aside to clasp the necklace around my neck. His fingers traced the curve of the chain, cradling the tiny stone in his palm before he looked at me with that familiar smile.

"Reminded me of you when I saw it. Thought it'd suit you," he shared, and I chuckled softly. "Even if it's not quite as grand as that motorcycle..."

"Shut up, Dave," I whispered, drawing him into a tender kiss. His laughter brushed against my lips, the kiss as easy and familiar as always. Pulling back, I met his gaze, my eyes locked with his as his hand cupped my chin. "I love it. Thank you."

A soft smile curved his lips as his hand found mine, our fingers intertwining while I rested my head against his shoulder. I allowed myself to linger there, embracing the happiness I felt, the solace and comfort his presence brought, and how things had certainly changed for the better since the disaster of my last birthday.

I didn't know what the next year held for me, but I hoped it would be just like that day: brimming with happiness and peace, despite everything.

And with the boy I loved by my side.

#hello hello hello it's heartbreaker day!!#ada writes fanfiction #heartbreaker fanfic #metallica #megadeth #james hetfield #dave mustaine #cliff burton #lars ulrich #metallica fanfiction #dave mustaine x oc #dave mustaine fanfiction #nore burton (oc)#dave mustaine x reader #james hetfield x oc #james hetfield x reader

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the-valiant-valkyrie · 6 months ago

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your reblog reminds me!! i read your fic about betterment jeremy and didn't leave a comment cuz i don't have a proper ao3 acc and i forgor! and!! i realised that i didn't read the last chapter so i reread the whole fic in full so i can properly gush about it in your inbox right now!! so behold. semi coherent thoughts about your beloved creation.

chapter one! i like the way the story begins so close to canon in shape and mood, set pretty much right after the epilogue but how you expand further and further from it in shape and form that canon in its media restriction cannot show.

in the first two chapters you see the story through jenny's eyes, you really get to sympathise with her feelings - the longing for normality, for everything advance has stripped from her. and since she can't get everything back she needs to get her friend back from them. it's all good intentions, really. jenny just wants to help him. she just wants him to heal. but she is running out of patience (understandably so, but still not proper treatment of someone who's severely traumatized)

as i was rereading chapter 2 and particularly jeremy's breaking point i realised something i haven't quite caught on the first reading. back then i thought he mainly cut himself off so suddenly from the strain and shock of this sudden break in general - the mind catching up with his mouth and nerves at last, the sudden realisation and fear at loss of control and the consequences that may bring. on my second reading, i realised that he specifically cut himself off when it came to his experience at betterment, and with the headache that follows that was more specifically a response to suddenly recalling repressed traumatic memories from betterment. which is even worse.

so, chapter three. i should note, torture and brainwashing in the context described in the fic and as implied in canon is a topic i often find really triggering. i think this is why i didn't read the third chapter when i was reading the fic the first time around - i was worried it was going to get really uncomfortable for me. but i am glad i returned to it, i didn't regret it in the slightest. you struck a good balance for Me Specifically and so i ended up with most thoughts for this chapter

so we get a peek at jeremy's mind and how fractured it is, which is really poignant at this point:

"From then on, Jeremy had always been acutely aware of death. He felt it again the night Disrupt attacked, abducting him, forcing him into hiding. And again, when he snuck his way on set, determined to break the news to the world about-

… about nothing. Nothing that would promote any sort of good in the world. That’s what The Nightly Show was for… Unity, community, sharing the country as a Team. And he nearly ruined all of it, for what? For a few extra seconds in the spotlight? He lost the rights to that when he first lost control of himself."

the breaking point. the before and after. and yet what we see is that he wasn't doing mentally well "before" either. the state of mind that jenny wants him to return to is not a healthy one - something she isn't aware of.

but it gets worse!

the ENDING,,,,, my god the ENDING....... i looooove the ambiguity of it. the underlying dread of possible scenarios this may lead to. i like how ultimately jenny fails (falls, one might say. the third chapter mirrors the song so muchhhh)

it's a very interesting twist on jenny's character and their overall dynamic. i was hoping for a happy ending, i do love my whump, but it's so much better to have the expectations subverted. because of course. of course they both have been hurt and poisoned by the system too much to go back and call it "healing". both of them can't help themselves and they can't help each other. ultimately jenny can't accept jeremy as himself anymore, she doesn't see pre- and post-betterment jeremy as himself anymore. it destroys jenny to see jeremy in such a state and she destroys him in turn.

i might've forgotten something so forgive me if this isn't fully coherent or a bit jagged.

i love your mind.

printing this whole ask out so i can cut it out and put it on the fridge and then take it off the fridge and then eat it and then print out a second one and then cut that one out and then leave it on the fridge this time.

ABJ is the only thing i have left in this stupid baka world and i am SO GLAD that people have been having so much fun with my better jeremy fic. i noticed that there was hardly any content and i wanted to fill the niche, but i had no idea how much positive reception i would get from this simple (i say simple, it's three whole chapters) fic!!! i still do think it's one of my better fics i've ever written and published, just in regards to pacing and nuance.

speaking of nuance, just for you, as a little treat, here are some things that were either invisibly implied in my work, or was stuff that i was going to add that i decided against. just for you. because i'm feeling whimsical and pretentious:

though with time they'll heal, originally i was going to make a point to bring up that jeremy still had a few bruises from his time at betterment. jenny was going to help him take off his shirt- since he was sweating through it- only to see the blemishes, as well as how much weight he's lost. i ended up cutting it for time, but jeremy's canon weight loss is something that's super important to me and it drives me crazy

though it wasn't (originally) intentional during his treatment, betterment found that a good way to control jeremy's thought process was to convince himself that everything bad in his life could be pinned on him. he's a very cynical person, and naturally is picking at the cracks and finding the bad in every silver lining. it's just in his nature. advance found that, if they turned this methodology back onto himself, it makes him way more receptive to external ideas when he feels like he can't trust or listen to himself

this has grown into a bit of a streak of self hatred, which wasn't the intention, but it was utilitarian, so they kind of left it as is. i think my favorite example of this is this quote right here, where he doesn't consider his actions as being a threat to himself despite the fact he was pointing a gun at his own fucking head

when jeremy initially loses his temper in chapter two, you're right to observe that what snaps him back to his bettered self is the thought of his treatment at betterment. but also, i made a point of implying that jenny's reactions also really fucking gutted him.

the two worst memories of his life were during the heatwave, and during his second abduction (any other worst memories surrounding betterment specifically are probably repressed). in both of those instances, one of the most mortifying things was seeing jenny frightened. even when he tried his best to be gentle with her during the heatwave hostage situation... he hurt her. scared her. he never let himself live that down. and scaring her again ricochets him back to that moment with such a painful clarity that it knocks the wind straight out of him.

if i had written this after i had gotten the inevitable advancements ending, i for sure would have found a way to rewrite the ending of the nightly show portion so that jeremy sings the national anthem. i also definitely think listening to it was a part of his advance exposure therapy. he knows the words by heart.

speaking of his time at betterment, jeremy spent a lot of time just. on his own, i feel like... not around other people, not being enriched in any meaningful way... when deprived of any sort of enrichment, he's more susceptible to any little scraps he can get his hands on, even if its propaganda. this is another reason why he's so infatuated with the tv, i think. it's popcorn entertainment, sure, but it's also a little luxury for him... and now he can have it whenever he wants...

#ask #fav #saving this forever and ever and ever THANK YOU!!!!!!!!1 RAAAAAAGH!!!!! TEN BILLION SMILES AND SPINNING ATTACK FOREVER!!!!!!!#bro i WISH i fucking WIIISH there was more abj content dude. i am SO deprived.#where IS HEEEE WHERE IS THAT LITTLE FREAK. WHERE'S MY LITTLE BRAINWASHED BOY #WHERE'S MY LITTLE WHITEBOY #not for broadcast

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anotherbluesunday · 11 months ago

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Fic Update-In Technicolor, Ch. 7+8: Jupiter In Retrograde Pt.I and Pt.II (Cheryl)

CHAPTER 7 (Pt.I)

Midway through our "warm up" that consisted of speed running through our terminology flashcards and the ones with molecular formulas on one side and the name on the other, the food Lee had ordered came with the delivery driver looking as confused as could be as he navigated his way through the vacant campus. Putting our studies on pause as he divvied up the breakfast croissants while promising me these were better than any of the fancy junk I could get at Erewhon, I laughed as I took a bite. Felt my hunger vanish as I chewed on the buttery pastry and fluffy egg with way too much cheese and hash browns to be considered healthy. There was avocado and salsa on it too which he knew I would have wanted so he added both without asking.

Sipping on his iced Americano, Lee grabbed a random flashcard we hadn't gone over and slapped it down onto the tabletop. "Yes, a physics one. Okay, the question is this. You have two waves of equal frequency and wavelength that meet at a nexus. Will this result in constructive interference or destructive interference? Explain your reasoning."

Finishing chewing on my food then swallowing it, I washed it down with some water before I answered. "It'd be constructive."

"Why?"

Looking at Lee as he stared back at me with his intense dark gaze giving nothing away, I didn't let him influence my response. "It's constructive because the waves are matched in wavelength and frequency which means that they would sync up in a creative force and join together to make one solitary point of increased light, in optics, where the wave signal is stronger than it is where the waves are mismatched which would cause a dimming to occur."

Lips slowly curling into a smile, he flipped the card over. "Nerd."

“And you aren’t?” I teased back. Smiled more when he did. "Ask me something that’s actually hard."

"Okay, what's the root of two?"

"Lee..."

"What's the square root of two?"

"There is no square root of two, dingus."

"Okay, but what about negative five?"

Throwing the wadded up paper cover for my drink straw at him, I laughed as it bounced off his forehead when Lee didn't bother trying to dodge it. "My turn?"

"Your turn."

"Do you want a chem question or a physics question?"

"Surprise me," Lee smiled. Added a subtle wink that was so quick I almost missed it. "Do your worst, reina."

CHAPTER 8 (Pt.II)

“So what are you feeling up to doing?” he asked, flipping around in front of me. Walking backwards with a goofy cat-like grin as the light glinted off his glasses and I ate my pineapple Dole Whip adjacent froyo.

Shrugging, I looked away from him. “Don’t know.”

Clicking his tongue, Lee rolled his eyes. “She doesn’t know.”

“Yeah, I don’t know.”

“Is that so?” he asked in a dumb sort of mocking manner that had zero bite to it. “I’ve got a couple ideas but it all depends on how anti-social you wanna be.”

Snorting a laugh, I looked at him.

“What?”

“That’s the scale you’re using for measurement?”

“It’s a good scale.”

“Uh huh,” I rolled my eyes, licking at my frozen treat before biting the point I had shaped the peak into. “So what are the choices?”

“First tell me how social you want to be.”

“Well then tell me the choices.”

“Oh my god, Cher…”

“What?!”

Slipping into his habit of grumbling obscenities in Spanish when he was feeling pissy, I mustered up from memory what I had learned on my own and said “Deja de actuer como un bebé.” Broke out into a riot of laughter when Pugsley stopped dead in his tracks–slack jawed and gawking–then smiled like the family cat that ate the canary when he said “She speaks Spanish now? Ay nena. Sigue hablando.”

The way his reaction inflated my ego, making me grin with a playfulness sparking inside me. How devilish yet boyish he looked with the ocean breeze tousling his black curls, slightly obscuring Lee’s eyes hidden behind his glasses. Hands shoved in the front pockets of his jeans with his hoodie tied around his waist and faded Dodgers blue baseball cap on backwards, he leaned forward. Tilted his head and tried to look me in the eye as I leaned back to avoid him.

I laughed awkwardly. Asked him why he was being creepy.

Lee said nothing.

Just smiled at me–the glaring surreal gold daylight painting his features bronze and bright before I was shot with another lightning fast wink. Clipped like a hit and run as he straightened out with the same cheeky grin. Saying he knew where we were going, Lee put his hand on top of my head to spin me around. I swatted at it. Told him to stop touching my hair and he cackled like the ghoul he was. Asshole. Tolerable–likable even–but still an asshole.

Tugging at the small gold huggie earring hanging from his ear as my act of revenge, I yelped when he pulled at my braids calling me “pip” again then said "dale."

The one remnant of my former self that lingered on. And apart from Lee, no one else knew of its existence. Not Betty or Veronica. Jason definitely couldn’t know and neither could mother or father.

No one knew.

No one except for him.

“You cold?” Lee whispered when he caught me shivering as the show started.

Shaking my head, I lied. Told him I was fine. I should have brought my denim jacket before leaving the car. True, I didn’t know we’d be seeing a planetarium show but when going to an observatory, one should be wise enough to prepare for the unexpected. So this lapse in judgment was on me. Besides, I had been in colder weather wearing less. I had once competed in forty-six degree chilled soup in London for the junior championship wearing just a tennis skirt and a half-zip long sleeve that was as thin as paper.

“Cher, your teeth are literally chattering,” Lee chuckled, his voice hushed low and rich in timber as he leaned forward to take off his jacket.

I put my hand up to stop him when he tried draping it over me. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Lee…”

“Cheryl.” Staring at me hard as we were both quietly shushed, he arched a brow in the dim light.

Sighing hard through my nose, I told him I was fine but there wasn’t any talking to him. No stopping him from doing whatever he wanted–Pugsley’s stubbornness bordering on legend as storied as Greek myth, it was that unreal. Conceding myself to accepting his jacket as a blanket, I went stiff when he lifted the armrest between us, scooted in closer, and used the dense cotton hoodie as a throw for us both. Quietly he said he was cold too so if he was shivering he knew I’d be full of shit.

But I was too self-aware and self-conscious to muster up any witty comebacks. Was currently focused on rebooting the software in my mind that had performed an unauthorized shutdown. So for a minute or two, all communications pathways and response networks were offline and I was running on emergency power.

Caught in this haze of starlight, supernova explosions, and chemistry speak I knew but could not decipher at the moment–gun to my head or otherwise–I descended into the cloud. Let the gentle warmth of that moment envelope me as I sank in closer to Lee. Felt the welcoming heat radiating from him like the sun reaching down to the frozen Earth’s surface. Resting my head on his shoulder as we shared our box of candy while our chai tea latte’s went cold from neglect, it were as if I had traveled through space and time and found home waiting for me on the other side. That innocence I thought I had lost and hopefulness now settled in me, fully renewed. It was frightening, slightly. As a child I had been able to turn my back on it more easily because I did not understand what I was giving up.

But now that I knew what life was like without wonder and passion, could I do it again? Could I do as I was told? Pursue something I hated. Do something I despised even more. Run my body into the ground the way my father had, marry someone I could not care less about, and watch the cycle of generational indifference and disappointment repeat itself.

Could I do that as a conscious being fully aware of what the future would hold if I let go of this a second time?

“Whoa,” Lee gasped quietly with the light from the dizzying dazzling spiral arms of the Andromeda galaxy reflecting off his glasses.

Looking from him to the almost too real projection, I smiled. Watched it. Drank it in letting the arresting beauty fill up my eyes and burn itself into the backs of my eyelids. But my attention faltered and brought me right back to him. To Lee. The only person on this rock hurtling through space that I could connect with on this. The one person out of the billions alive who would resonate with me on this frequency that had happened to be plopped directly into my ecosystem.

It was humorous and humbling. Funny in an ironic sort of way that the boy I had purposefully harangued and harassed would turn out to be the friend I needed at the very moment I needed them most. And while I could wonder what would have been the outcome had I been more cruel and he more delicate in his resolve and spite, I chose not to. Didn’t look the gift horse in the mouth because I’d done that far too many times and wanted, for once, to be grateful and move on from there.

So I allowed myself this moment. This friendship.

*I want to take a moment to also address a misunderstanding that seems to be a common theme amongst the readers that click onto my story then dip. This fic is an omnibus story meaning that it is told from multiple characters pov's. It isn't just about Wednesday and Tyler or Cheryl and Pugsley/Lee or Wynn and Pubert/Bertie. It's about all of them. This story is a coming-of-age high school story that discusses the highs and lows of growing up in this mess of a modern world and trying to find meaning, make lasting friendships, and find oneself. It isn't just about one pairing or one fandom. It's a through and through crossover with an original storyline that does not tie into the canon for either Riverdale or Wednesday (2022). You do not need to know about either of the shows or their lore in order to enjoy the story. If you are waiting to read until the story is complete, don't. If you are waiting to comment until your favorite pairing/character shows up, don't. Not only is that discouraging to the writer (me) and ruins all the built in cliffhangers that have been planned in advance, but it also means you will be waiting for a long time because 1.) this story is going to be very VERY long and 2.) if your favorite pairing is Wednesday x Tyler or Reggie x Archie, you will be waiting until chapter 20 at the earliest because they aren't planned to be the focus until the second half of the story.

So do both yourself and me a favor and just start reading. Don't hold out on writers because readership and reader engagement is literally the fine line that either keeps the story going or leads the writer to dropping it/abandoning it because they see a lack of interest which makes them think what they're doing isn't worth it. So please, just start reading. Read, comment, be active. It doesn't matter to any writer if English or whichever language the story's in is your first language or if your comments are awkward or long or short. What matters is that you're showing us that you care and that our stories mean something to you. So please, stop ghosting your writers or waiting to binge read because engagement--for me at least--encourages me to keep writing and not abandon a story and makes me want to do better each time because I see that people are excited for the next chapter.

Just like and comment. It's not hard. And if it's hard at first, I promise as someone who was/is socially awkward in the comment section it gets easier.

XoXoXo

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pebblysand · 2 years ago

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Omggg pebbles! That mia pov fic🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 I'm so in love with how you've portrayed her. She's heart broken but she's gonna get better, I hope she does. It's so sad that she was so hurt because of harry especially when harry didn't mean to do so at any point. I wonder if harry actually thinks about her and regrets their relationship for actually hurting her. Also pebbles, how do you think ginny feels about mia at this point? Are ginny and harry sorry that they kissed when harry was in a relationship with mia?

Also at some point do you think harry and miss could ever be in touch? And what about her father? Will that dickhead ever come back to his senses and treat his gem of a daughter the way she deserves? Will they ever be in touch?

Istg i have soooo many questions about mia. Thanks for writing about her, I see so much of myself in her and i can't help but root for her ❤❤❤

aww thanks ❤️. you have a lot of questions about mia? that's good - i have a lot of thoughts, lol 😆 (for reference and for anyone who hasn't read it - Mia fic is here)

it's funny, i recently had a similar discussion with folks on discord about mia getting to her own version of the epilogue. i think people generally want me to say that she's okay in the same way that people want(ed) JKR (obv. pre-JKR becoming awful) to tell them that george was "okay." this sort of comfort of: we know they've been through a lot but they're okay, please-tell-me-they're-okay, you know? and i remember JKR was always a bit like "😬 is he, though?" realistically speaking? i think that's how i feel about mia too.

on discord, about her epilogue, i said:

i think her epilogue in my head is maybe a bit more… bittersweet than other people's epilogues. cause i think (and this is totally my headcanon, you can see it differently), she has a lot of good things coming out of this. she’s able to establish boundaries with her parents in a much healthier way, she learns to trust herself and stops being such a people pleaser, she learns that she doesn’t have to do everything alone, she has an amazing career - all those things made possible by her character evolution while she was with harry. but there’s this bittersweet aspect of: i think to her, he is and will always be the one that got away. and the kind of love story they had, at the age she was (20/21), those are the things that just stick with you, you know? and i don’t think she regrets anything she did/decisions she made, but there’s this aspect of: he’s the one she fell in love with, and he’ll probably always be the one she will compare other people she dates to. and that’s just… it, you know? and i don’t think she’s sad forever, i think she has fun and has a good life and maybe even finds another partner if she wants to, but harry is the one she's always going be talking to her therapist about. again, that’s okay, and i feel for her So Much, but i think it does sort of have this impact on her that never truly goes away.

i think to me, when it came to shaping mia's character, it was very important for her to have her own arc, too. of course, she existed in reaction to harry's storyline, and was going to help him realise some things about himself, but i also wanted her to be a person, and to grow in her own way.

at her core, mia is someone who is very lonely. when we meet her, she's in her last year of uni. she's away from home, in an environment that is not her own, and basically has no one who really cares about her. her mother is having a new family (new husband, new baby) and while she loves her, she's also replacing her. this is a detail in chapter 13 but mia doesn't even have a bed in their new house. her father is an absolute arsehole who tries to control her life after being absent for 17 years, and she doesn't really have friends. harry always says she has a lot of people around her, but they're school friends, acquaintances, going-out friends, not people she'd ever actually confide in. when she's starving herself trying to survive, no one notices. she says so herself in chapter 14:

‘You know no one else [cares], right?’ she says, then. Looks up to cross his gaze and takes his breath away. ‘Not my dad, not my mum, not my friends in school where I’m like,’ she speaks quick, rolling her eyes, ‘the token black girl with the funny accent from up North when their parents all know people - bloody Vivienne Westwood or something,’ she sighs. Her voice breaks. For the first time that morning, he hears tears in her words. ‘And, I don’t even hold it against them. They’ve all got objectively more important things than me to worry about. It’s just so fucking lonely sometimes.’

i think when i was building her character, i kept thinking about how lonely i felt during my first years in uni. mia isn't a self-insert in the way that i think we're very different people (god, i would have dumped his arse so much quicker), but that's definitely something i wanted to address in castles. in popular culture, we tend to romanticise our early twenties and uni years as the "best time of our lives," but the more i think back, and the more i talk to my friends now, as a grown-up, the more i realise that many of us have this very similar experience of deep loneliness and this feeling of being "lost" in the wild world of early adulthood. it's not just about mia's family, or her friends, or her doomed romantic relationship with harry. what makes her relatable, i think, is this general feeling of loneliness and inadequacy that we've all felt at some point in that time period of our lives. you're in uni, you're sitting there stressing about finding a job, a partner, what life is going to be like once you graduate. add to that that this period of your life is often where you get your first real relationships and heartbreaks, and it makes for a very hard time. and, it's terribly lonely because it's so romanticised that you can't even say it's hard, or that you're lonely, because This Is The Best Time of Your Life and #yolo.

and, with mia, you add to that the fact that she's broke af. like: she doesn't have money for food. in an environment where everyone around her has money. so, she doesn't want to admit how broke she is, doesn't want to ask for help because there is literally no one who would help her, but the financial stress is killing her. and, i think it's very important to consider that the money harry gives her isn't much to him, but to her - she later owes him her life and her career. the thing about financial precarity is, you can tell people to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" all you want, the staple of financial precarity is that you're one major expense away from a catastrophe. people are maintained in poverty because what is a small expense to someone with financial security (say: having to fix the lights on your car for instance) can throw someone else in a cycle of debt that they'll never get out of. the money harry gives her is just enough that she's able to get her head above water, and while he always says it's not about the money - to her, that makes a huge difference. because, she's not only one major expense away from a catastrophe, she's also one minor donation away from being able to live the life she dreams of. she - quite literally - owes him paris. she owes her career to him choosing to believe in her in that moment when it mattered. could she have done it without it? maybe. but there is a high chance that if he hadn't given her the money, she'd probably have drowned, given up and gone back to manchester and had a shit job she hated for the rest of her life. that is terribly important. she'll always be grateful to him for helping her out when no one else did.

and, i think the loneliness is also why she and harry connect on such a deep level, because when they meet, he is incredibly lonely too. not in the same relatable, muggle uni ways but: ginny's left, the "buzz" and the elation of the first couple of post-war months have lifted, the press is saying he's gone insane, it's winter, it's dark, wet. he says it himself when they first sleep together in chapter 5:

Mia dances close; Harry mostly watches, but at around three in the morning, they share another taxi home. The fact that they live in the same building could have been a good excuse, Harry thinks, except that by that point, they don’t really need one. He’s already kissed her, trailed his fingers up her thighs in the club (loud music, smoke; he managed to just smile and not think) so it’s not exactly a surprise when he follows her down the stairs to her flat instead of going up to his. He kind of hates himself for the thought but to be honest, it’s been over two months since he’s last had sex and well, she’s offering.

it's kind of tragic but being "there" and "offering" is most of her appeal, at that point in time. and, it's in reaction to those who aren't there and offering. and so, in those months, they bring each other so much. and of course, it grows into something that is much more than loneliness-bonding. again, to mia, harry is the one who shows her her father is an arsehole. he's the one who believes in her when no one else does. he shows her she can trust people. i think the fact that he insists he cares about her, and will always care about her, even when they're not together, means the world to her. she's never had anyone like that in her life. and, in a strange way, by being an - objectively - shitty boyfriend, he teaches her to stand up for herself. because, not only is she terribly lonely, she's also such a people-pleaser that she never pulls anyone up on their shitty behaviour. she doesn't resent her friends (see above), or her dad, or her mum. when harry says this in chapter 15, it really matters:

‘You’re brilliant,’ he just said, instead. His voice cracked and he felt tears clouding his vision, closed his eyes for a moment. ‘You deserve so much better than this.’ She looked down to her lap, then back up to him. ‘Better than him or better than you?’

the question is rhetorical here and they both know it. harry is important to her development as a character because at the end, he allows her to be like: yeah, i fucking deserve better than you people. for her, that's huge.

but then, in a strange way, i do think she's rather nostalgic about it. because i think she really did love him and just wishes things had gone differently. because again, he's the one person who cared about her when no one else did and that's hard to let go of. i think she - again - has very conflicted feelings about it, which do filter through in the paris fic.

that said, to answer your question (I wonder if harry actually thinks about her and regrets their relationship for actually hurting her): yes, he does. i think that's part of his character evolution too. he knows he Fucked Up and it sucks. he feels very guilty about it. that's why he agrees to be the 'bad guy' in the end, when she basically asks him to break up with her because she can't, and then does it in the most godawful way. he takes responsibility for his behaviour, which is also very important to his character arc. it's very hard to navigate your late teens/early twenties without hurting someone without meaning to. what matters is how you react and own up to it. he struggles, acts like a complete douchebag, but in the end, he owns it. he gives her the story she needs to move on and be like: yes, he cared about me, but he was also an arsehole. he gives her that:

She met a boy who slept with her on and off for eight months and broke her heart, dumped her after sex and punched her father in the face. It's not a lie.

in a very strange way, that's an act of love and care too. it might not be enough for her to completely get over him or forget him, but it does allow her to have mixed feelings and hang onto the fact that she deserves better, which is already a lot.

but yeah, of course he feels guilty. he even says so himself in 15 & 16:

(xv) They talk about Mia, that night. Not that he brings it up, but in light of what Gwenog Jones said, he actually asks if she regrets the dating and the going out. There is no judgement in his voice, he’s just curious, and she says: ‘I don’t know, it’s complicated.’ She asks if he regrets Mia and he wants to laugh - same, yeah. He wonders if perhaps, these were the mistakes they needed to make.

(xvi) It’s a fair question, of course. How he feels about Mia. A couple months have passed. Water, bridges and all that. ‘Still a bit guilty, I think,’ he admits. Winces. ‘You?’ ‘Still a bit jealous, I think.’

so, yeah, regarding how ginny feels: of course, she feels a bit jealous. because she knows that he loved mia and cared about her. and, ginny herself slept around, sure, but love wasn't part of the equation. if you remember, she tried to date someone (early on - from october to january of '98) who she did like (but not yet love) and even told harry about, but then that blew up in her face so spectacularly that feelings never really crystallised. (sidenote: i actually think the matt incident probably had even more of an impact on her than sleeping around because this was the first person she ever put her trust in that wasn't harry (post-amycus) and he dumped her in an extraordinarily dickish way (blamed her for the press, which she couldn't control) and that is also what triggered her to be like: fuck this, they say i'm a slut, might as well be one sort of attitude --- but i digress).

it was really important for me that they both have pasts and insecurities about their respective pasts because -- well, that's part of any relationship, isn't it? like, you should never let it eat you up, but it's normal to feel a bit awkward and insecure about your partner's past at the start of the relationship. and, also about yourself. you really want this to work and not fuck it up. so, like: harry feels shitty about treating mia like shit because he didn't mean to. he feels a bit insecure about the fact that ginny's been with a lot of people before him, and doesn't want to admit it. he feels insecure about whether or not she loves him because she's dumped him once before and, well. she feels insecure because everyone thinks she's a slut and she worries he does too. she feels insecure about the fact that he used to love someone else.

but, the important part is: they talk about it. and, that's how they grow and act adult, and that is what matters. the insecurities are obviously there, but they chat and reassure each other and that's what grown-ups do. it even comes up during the sex in 16 and i love how they deal with it:

‘Merlin, that was -’ she laughs. He laughs, too. ‘Much better than last summer,’ she adds. He’s got this stupid, self-satisfied, Cheshire cat smile across his face when she finally turns to look at him, so large it’s probably rather obscene, and a stupid (stupidstupid) thought suddenly hits his brain: I’ve had time to practice. He doesn’t say it, but she must bloody read it in his eyes because suddenly, a flash of recognition washes over and he wants to say something - anything - to take back that cringey, gauche thing he hasn’t even fucking said, and he wants to disappear deep - far - into the ground. He thinks back to their conversation at the restaurant, and: ‘Still a bit jealous, I think,’ - it makes his skin crawl. Now, though, Ginny laughs. At him, mostly. ‘Harry,’ she says. ‘Harry, look at me.’ Reluctantly, he does. ‘It’s fine,’ she whispers. ‘Just kiss me.’

there's acceptance there, and love, and trust, and that's what matters.

to anwer your other question: Are ginny and harry sorry that they kissed when harry was in a relationship with mia?

honestly, no, i don't think so, though. i think the kiss is the least of it. it's not about one kiss. it's about Everything Else, really.

regarding mia herself, she might make a cameo at a later date. not saying more. but i don't think she'll come back regularly. she needs to be away from him. she says so herself but this isn't the kind of break up where they can stay friends. it would kill her.

lastly, regarding her father (And what about her father? Will that dickhead ever come back to his senses and treat his gem of a daughter the way she deserves?): i headcanon she goes no-contact with him. you can of course hc different things but imo, that's one toxic relationship she lets go of. she knows harry was right there, and i think she's thankful to him for showing that to her, too.

so, in sum: i think mia moves on. i think she has a great life. i also think her love story and harry are always somewhere in her mind. like everything in castles, it's complicated.

#castles #asked and answered #this turned into a massive meta about mia i'm sorry lol

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