#stupid dirty scanner

[themodernage2001]

Untitled by emily kendall Via Flickr: may 1st the strokes concert +5 explored september 14th, #331

[jji-lee]

mark had no idea what had gotten into him. he had already been walking towards the library as he typed out a quick thank you to haechan, maybe he should’ve asked where he got head, to avoid that area, but he had other priorities in mind. he didn’t even realize he was speed walking until he got into the elevator and felt how fast his heart was beating, was he that out of shape?

as he walked up to the library doors he stopped to take a deep breath, fixing his hair, not like he was gonna go up to you anyways.

“um excuse me are you going in?”

he turned to eye the shorter male recognizing him from somewhere,

“oh uh yeah my bad.”

he ducked his head opening the door for the familiar stranger. he entered after him stopping to look around the library. it was exactly how he had imagined it, nerds everywhere. but he had to try his best to fit in, again ruffling his hair a bit and evening out the string on his hoodie. all he had to do was pretend to be interested in books and look around, hopefully catching a glimpse at the check out desk. but somehow he found a way to look as unnatural as possible.

he had been in the library for a total of 5 minutes and he had already dropped 3 books and disturbed at least 6 studying students. he bowed, apologizing for making noise. after all the ruckus, he somehow found his way to the drama-tragedy section, haechan would’ve loved this and- oh there’s the check out desk, he peeked through the shelves trying to see if someone was at the register,

“mark? what are you doing here?”

he quickly got off his tippy toes, trying to make it seem like he wasn’t just trying to spy on someone, of course dropping a book along the way.

you picked the book up handing it to him. mark lee at the library, now you had really seen everything. he threw you a dirty glance once he recognized you, snatching the book from your hand,

“this is a library, i’m obviously just looking for a book y/n, this is the one actually!”

he held up and shook the book in his hand. you let out a laugh,

“romeo and juliet? really?”

he raised his eyebrows looking at the title of the book he held, clearing his throat,

“yes, actually, maybe if you read something like this you’d actually, you know, understand the depth of romance.”

you grabbed the book from him,

“from the sound of it next door you don’t even, you know, understand the depth of romance. so if you’re done being a dumbass i can check you out so we don’t have to keep talking to each other.”

he smirked at you,

“you wanna check me out? didn’t know you were so straight forward. i knew you were dirty when i found out you liked to listen to me fuck through the walls.”

you scrunched your nose at him in disgust,

“who said i liked to listen, you’re just fucking loud, the whole floor can hear you but i’m the only one with the balls to tell you to shut up.”

he smirked again, obviously about to make another stupid remark, but you beat him to it holding the book up and pointing at it.

“before you embarrass yourself more, i meant check you out as in check out the book so you can take it home.”

your free hand reached for the scanner in your back pocket, aiming the red scanning light at his face. a soft beep sound filling the air as you pressed on the button.

no fucking way mark felt his stomach tighten at your words no fucking way you were the mystery girl working here at the library. he licked his lips trying his best to keep his cool,

“uh i’d prefer to be checked out by someone with a little more respect for their customers, is there anyone else that can help me?”

he pretended to look around for another worker. you rolled your eyes at him,

“i’m the only one on shift today, so suck it up markie.”

no fucking way, he knew he’d done a lot of bad shit in his life but he still went to church on sundays sometimes and even donated to cute kitten foundations again sometimes, so how could something this bad be happening to him! there was no way that you could be his sweet juliet.

he followed you as you strolled to the check out desk, getting behind the register before scanning his book. there was no way you could be his juliet, haechan must’ve given him the directions to another library, maybe his juliet was lying about working at the library and telling a little lie just like he was, but then wouldn’t that make her a-

“hellooo? earth to mark i know i’m a pretty sight but i really don’t want to spend any more time with you, give me your ID so i can scan it.”

oh right his id, he dug into his pockets, where did he put that damn ID. you stood behind the desk hand on your hip as you waited, he dug into his jean pockets and into his hoodie pocket, nothing, of course he left his wallet in his dorm. he laughed nervously,

“uh actually on second thought, i don’t really wanna check this book out.”

you raised an eyebrow, confused at his sudden change in demeanor.

“i’m gonna uh, go now, thanks for the help or whatever.”

he quickly shuffled away, looking back at you every few steps, what was wrong with him? you heard a loud slap against the desk table making you flinch,

“romeo and juliet huh, who knew mark lee was a romantic.”

you held up your hand towards the short brunette, eyes focusing back on mark.

“renjun you need to stop sneaking up on me.”

he hummed in response also turning to watch mark awkwardly leave the library.

“you should’ve seen him at the library entrance he was fixing his hair and hyping himself up to enter.”

now you turned to look at renjun, curiosity in your eyes,

“do you think he might have a crush on someone?”

renjun laughed at your question,

“that is literally impossible-”

but then he stopped himself, turning to point at you and nod,

“maybe you’re right! that explains the sudden silence next door!”

you couldn’t believe it. could mark lee have a crush?

you looked down at the book he had left, mind abandoning all thoughts of your neighbor's mystery crush. romeo and juliet huh? wonder what my romeo is doing right now...

𖦹 .ᐣ.ᐟ₊ ⊹ cryptic crush — [13] 10/10

previous — masterlist — next

notes : we all know y/n is hawt, so what will mark now do with this information ououououououou.....

taglist : @sunghoonsgfreal , @dalsosapple , @nanaxwi , @neverbeurs , @miichellehciim , @h-aechanie , @hizhu , @mystverse , @wonwootakemyheart , @ppeachyttae , @jae-n0 , @onlyhyunjin , @alethea-moon , @onyourmark-99 , @sunnystarred , @p-d1ddy , @hisrkive , @flwrs4marklee , @haechskiss , @rutheaflowers , @busy-daydreaming02 , @byeonwooseokabs , @bunniin , @odxrilove , @candied-czennie , @injunnie-lemon , @sunflowerhae , @nosungluv , @222brainrot , @vklve , @aerivrs , @slayhaechan , @aek1ra , @honeynanamin , @roseangelxfuma , @starfilledgaze , @meowtella , @grassbutneo , @hyuck-me

[sehtoast]

With Love to You, Thirty Years Later (Homelander x OC)

4k | time travel, angst, little homelander, adult homelander, graphic violence, hurt/comfort, spidersona oc | Fic Directory

benjamin would give the present if it meant soothing homelander's past

Benjamin didn’t expect to have to stick a landing, much less clench his eyes shut and hold back the contents of his stomach from making a surprise reappearance.  

Fucking jackass, Ben groans inwardly.  She didn’t warn him about anything more than the time limit. 

Vought had a dirty little secret. Deep in the vaults, in a facility outside of the city, they kept a supe far more dangerous than anyone knew what to do with.  A real bonafide time traveler able to send both herself and others to any time at all, even to specific locations.  All she needed was a little information and a visual, and… well…

That’s how the web-head ended up face down in the grass outside of the most haunting part of his lover’s life.  See, he couldn’t take it anymore.  For every night Homelander woke up in fits of panic, eyes glowing red and blankets torn to escape tortures long buried in the past, stories of agony and torture, humiliation and pain, Benjamin just… couldn’t. 

Especially after he found out about the woman in the vaults.  But, then again, who wouldn’t damn their own future to spare their greatest love from agony?

He brushes away grass clippings before heading inside.  Security was so lax.  He needed only to snatch a badge from an incapacitated guard to have full run of the place.  Once clipped upon the white lab coat he’d snagged from his own time, he looked perfectly the part.

Every nerve in his body feels wrong.  Even his sixth sense tingles in the strangest of ways. Whether it was because he was in danger or for having hopped back to the nineties was a mystery, but something was terribly wrong. 

Three hours. 

That’s all the time he has to find Homelander and break him free. With any luck he’ll get him somewhere safe, somewhere that Vought can’t find him before his time runs out.  If not…

He’d rather not think about it.  Entertaining the idea of failure isn't on the table– hell, it’s not even on the floor.  He has to save John.  

Every grainy scrap of footage he’d ever found of his love’s upbringing flashes in his mind as he descends the first elevator.  It’s enough to make him see red, and his skin crawls beneath his clothes and spider-suit. Recollections of every sobbed or dissociated detail his Johnny has ever told him… 

It’s all too much.  To know he’s going to walk in and see it in person is– it’s not–

It’s terrifying. 

It’s terrifying, and Homelander lived it.  He lived it every day for sixteen years only for it to adapt and change to consume his life in different ways.

The hair at the nape of his neck stands at attention when the elevator door dings and slides open, but he’s met with an empty room.  Concrete walls and abandoned folding tables.

But that doesn’t seem right to him.  Of course it’d be hidden, right?  That only makes sense.  Can’t have the state inspector showing up to check for mold and finding a little boy locked in an incinerator, right?

Vought would never shit where they eat.  

And he knows their tricks all too well at this point.  Ben pats his bare hands over the cold, hard walls.  There isn’t much to the room. There’s dust all over the furniture, and the floor checks out, so it must be the walls.  Something stupid– like a push mechanism or a scanner or something.

He pats around for some time until one slab of concrete feels just a little too warm under his palms.  He embeds the setae of his fingerpads into it and gives a hard tug, making it lurch.  He follows with a heavy push and the sounds of latches and mechanisms clicking slowly shifts the stone to the side, revealing another elevator.

This descent is even worse.  When the door opens, he’s met with a gun in his face and a room of men and women gawking as though they’d expected the feds to be raiding the place.

With a tap of his badge, the gun lowers and the bug enters.

“Hi, everyone,” he greets.  “I’m the new–”

A quivering cry jars him immediately, and Ben’s head rips over to the right to find the red glow of the incinerator burning bright through the glass window on the door.  His body moves faster than his mind can will it and he slaps the big red emergency shutoff button so hard it crushes into the wall.

An alarm blares, but the clicking of that firearm is clear as day.  The bug vaults backward before the first shot is fired, narrowly avoiding its ricocheted path through the cramped room.  A sweep to the guard's legs drops him to the ground and Ben pins him by the wrists, teeth bared.  It takes everything Benjamin has not to move his hold to the throat and squeeze the fucking life out of him.

He webs him to the floor, much to the horror of the onlookers and their frenzied whispers of him being a supe.  He disassembles the gun and chucks the slide and magazine to random ends of the room.  “Nobody fuckin’ moves,” he orders with a pointed finger.  The vitriol in his voice is not unlike Homelander’s.  So much hate and rage behind his commands.

It isn't undeserved. 

Ben makes a beeline to the incinerator door and all but tears it off its hinges.  He blinks through the waves of dispersing heat.

Out stumbles a boy, naked and almost entirely unrecognizable with his long blonde hair and baby-face to the man Ben knows in his own time.  The bug kneels down and shuffles his lab coat off within seconds to wrap it around John’s shoulders. He crosses it at the front to shield him from every sick bastard in the room who’s ever denied him such a bare minimum of dignity.

He’s still weeping from the pain.

“Hey, shh– it’s okay now.” Ben coos, tears welling in his own eyes.  “I’ve got ‘ya.” 

Seeing him is so much worse.  It’s real now.  It always has been, but now it’s… it's worse. That tortured little boy is sobbing in his arms and clutching the coat to his body. He's more than a memory now.  

Ben pets softly over John’s hair, grimacing at the presence of knots and the building layer of grime.  “M’gonna lift you up now, okay?  Hang on to that coat.”  

He waits for John to nod his consent before hoisting him up to his hip, supporting the boy’s weight with one arm while the other points around at the others to keep their distance.  As he looks at them, he fails to find any familiar faces.  In particular, Vogelbaum’s. 

“Who do you think you are?”  Asks one of the men.  A quick glance to his badge reveals his name is Frank.  “Do you have any idea–”

“Consider me your new boss.”  Ben snaps.  “Now go get him some clothes.”

“What–”

“Did I stutter?”

A quiet giggle next to his ear is about the only thing in the moment that brings about any lightheartedness.  He wonders when the last time was that John laughed in here at all. When anything was even just… nice.

“Hey, when was the last time you ate, huh?  You’re pretty light.”  Ben questions with that signature soft smile of his.

It’s like a lightning bolt of agony and joy to see him reciprocate it.  John shrugs.  “I… think this morning?”

“That’s no good, is it?”

John shakes his head.

“We gotta fix that then, right?” Ben puts his hand out to the crowd.  “Car keys.”  When none offer anything more than silent panic at the idea of their precious subject escaping, Ben singles out a woman– badge says Deborah–  and once again puts his hand out.  “Keys, Debbie.  Don’t be stupid.”

Benjamin smiles at her as she digs them from her pocket and shakily places them in his palm. The bug then turns toward the red door.  He feels John tense and the boy’s arm around his neck tightens.  

“S’okay.  Gonna web the door open.”

And he does.  He layers it with so much goo that the normal two hour dissolution was likely closer to six.  By the time the last layer crumbles, they should be long gone.

Ben sits beside John on his springy, awful excuse of a bed, elbows resting on his knees.  

God, what was he doing?  If he does this, Homelander stops existing.  The John he knows– his Johnny– may never be.  Ryan may never be. But wasn’t this the right thing to do?  Everything in Benjamin’s gut screamed to save the boy, but his heart shattered with every step closer to liberating him.

His and Homelander’s lives will be upended entirely.

But he can’t fucking take it anymore, knowing how his love suffered.

“Who are you?”  

His voice is so tiny. He's so little.  To think he was in that incinerator just moments ago…

The bug turns to face him.  “Ben.”  He answers, putting that soft reassuring smile back on his face.  “My name’s Ben.”

“What’s that?”  John asks, pointing to the red webbed sleeve coming out from the sleeves of Ben’s t-shirt.  

Inquisitive little guy.  Would probably love that twenty questions game.

“Part of my costume.”  He explains.  “I’m a superhero where I come from.”

John’s face lights up like a Christmas tree.  “You mean like Soldier Boy?”

Not the best comparison, but…

“Like Soldier Boy,” Ben hums.  He's nothing like Soldier Boy. “I’m–”

A knock at the wall interrupts them.  One of the scientists enters, a heavier man– sweat glistening on his receding hairline.  Ben glares at him as he approaches John, failing to catch how the boy looks down and away from him. That tingle in his head whispers its warnings.  No good.

Something’s wrong.

Something’s very wrong.

“These are f-for you. From Frank,” the man says, voice shaking.  “Here you go, Squirt.”

The bug's eyes widen. 

Squirt.

Squirt.

Benjamin knows this man even without checking the badge.  Knows the story.  Knows the foul meaning behind that fucking nickname.  The dread and shame it causes. 

That it caused. 

A glance over and he sees John avoiding eye contact, gaze locked on the floor.  The boy pulls the lab coat tighter around his body.

Something snaps.

“Get on your knees, Marty.”

He remembers every night he ever held Homelander.  Every time the humiliation came back to haunt his love.

He looks at Benjamin with knit brows and a polite, confused smile.  “I– I’m sorry?”

“On your knees.”  Ben says.  It’s like something has ahold of his body.  His rage is… different than ever before.  It’s workable. Calm.

Precise.

Would the bug have done this years ago?  Would he have done anything like this before he met Homelander?

He doesn’t know anymore.

He doesn't care anymore. 

Sometimes what’s right is right no matter how ugly it is.

Benjamin walks behind Marty, grabs his forearms, and places his right foot between his shoulders.

“Johnny?” He calls. 

The boy’s barely able to cast his gaze in the man’s direction.  The shame and discomfort is all over his face, and that pit of white-hot fury in Ben's gut swirls like never before. 

“Apologize.”  Ben commands, pressing his foot forward and giving the slightest tug against his arms– barely anything to the bug, but raw pain for the man who deserves nothing less.

Below, Marty yowls and begs.  Suddenly, John has no problem looking up.

“I'm sorry!  Oh fuck– oh god!”

But it's not enough. He has no goddamn idea what he's even apologizing for. He just wants it to end. 

“For what?” Ben tugs harder, keeping the tension.  “What’dya do, Marty?  Spit it out!” 

“I don't– I can't– oh Jesus, please!” 

“Harder.” Comes a small, still whisper.  

Ben looks up to find John fixated on the sight, blue eyes sparkling under the fluorescent lights. The bug does as he says and gives a sharp tug to Marty's arms, the resounding scream bouncing loudly between the cramped walls. 

“Think it’s funny to humiliate a kid like that?”  Benjamin grits.  “Rubbin’ his nose in it every day for just being normal– tell him you’re fucking sorry!”

“I’m sah–hahr…hah…” Those pathetic sobs taper off and his body goes limp.

Even the look on John’s face dims at the anticlimactic end.

“You kidding me?”  Ben groans.  This was supposed to be a lesson in not being a fucking creep and he faints?  “Whatever, just– just get dressed.  Let me know when you’re ready, okay?”  The bug instructs, dragging Marty out by the collar of his shirt.  He tosses him forward, letting him skid across the floor to the feet of his horrified colleagues.  Ben's sure the sounds of what little corrective actions he got to take were convincing enough that none of them would dare try anything stupid.

It takes a moment before John calls him back inside.  The boy sits on the bed, staring down at the ground, dressed now in all white.  He holds the lab coat on his lap, fiddling with the buttons.  Just as Ben kneels down before him, words on his own on his tongue, John speaks.

“How’d you know about… that?”

The shame is written clear as day on his face.  

Fuck, Ben thinks to himself.  Didn’t consider that… 

“I…”  The bug ponders a good way to say it.  He breathes a laugh through his nose, shaking his head with a smile on his face.  Homelander would hate it if he was lied to, and that was the one thing Ben always promised he would never do.  “You told me about it.”

The confusion is clear as day.

“Listen, I’ll explain everything when we’re outta here, okay?”  Benjamin says, pulling the car keys from his pocket and jingling them with a devious smile and raised brows.  

“We’re leaving?”

“Mhm,” he hums.  “We’ll make a stop at Vought-a-Buger and get you a milkshake, and then–”

Bang!

A flash of white steals his sight and Benjamin drops everything to shield his ears. The screech that follows is deafening– unlike anything he’s ever heard before.  It hurts, everything hurts, like it’s rattling his fucking skeleton and–

His body is heavy.

“Joh…n…” He tries, but his tongue feels like lead.  Run, he calls, but it doesn’t come out.  Run, Johnny!

There’s nothing.

It’s cold.

Heavy…

It’s all so heavy.

The bug’s first breaths feel labored and wheezy.  Chest is tight.  Head throbs.

There’s a commotion nearby. Canisters on the floor– one kicked by brown flats, rattling across the floor.  Words are blurry save for a few.

Disappoint me…

Like they’re all under water.  Garbled and muted.  Little whimpering cries.

Ashamed of you…

He fights to chase them, to protect that little voice from whatever’s going on, but his eyelids drop with a weight far greater than Benjamin can fend off.

Even in the blackness, his resolve urges him to wake.

Get up.

His sixth sense stirs.

Get. Up.

He can’t just leave John to suffer his fate.

You have to.

His leg twitches.  He fights to take back control.  Like waking up after surgery.  

Wiggle your toes.

His limbs tingle. 

Fingers next. C'mon… 

Fight it off. 

It’s time to wake up!

His violent gasp for breath burns like nothing else, but it shocks his system enough to pry him from the void.  Benjamin’s head rips back and forth, taking in the surroundings.

Still in the bad room.  Door’s shut.

“Johnny?”  He slurs, tongue still heavy in his maw.  The bug shuffles onto his knees.  In the corner sits the boy, hugging his knees to his chest with tears streaming down his cheeks.

Shit.

He takes in the sight of gas canisters and spent flash grenades.

A glance to his watch timer breaks the harrowing news.

Twenty minutes.

“No!”  Ben wails.  “No, no, no. no!”

He’s up in a flash, stumbling to beat on the door.  Every loud bang does little more than dent it.  The haze fades, overpowered by adrenaline and the desperation to do fucking anything. 

I came here to fucking save you!

“Help me!”  He calls to John. “Help me help you!”

“I don’t think so,” calls a strange voice.  The crackle of it rings from a speaker in the ceiling.  A woman’s voice.  Proper and collected.  Eerily calm.

Ben drives his bloodied fists into the door harder and harder, whimpering with each scream of his bones to cease his efforts.  He stumbles backward, panting heavily.  

He could never make it past that door. It was made to withstand someone far more powerful that he'll ever be. 

Ben spins around, staring into the lense of every fucking camera he can find.  

Why didn’t he fucking web them!?  Stupid, stupid– too busy beating on that sad sack of shit for calling John that goddamn name!

“Fuck you, and fuck this place!”  He roars, heartbeat pounding in his ears almost as hard as the throbbing in his skull.  “Torturing a fucking kid like a bunch of sick fucking freaks!”

“Where did you come from?”  She asks, unbothered by the outburst.

“From fucking Craigslist you bitch!”

“It would behoove you to cooperate, young man.”  The satisfaction is all too audible in her tone.  “John.  Subdue him.”

Wh–

Within a mere flash, Ben’s forearm is in a vice grip more painful than anything he’s ever felt.  He can practically feel his bones crunching under the sheer brutality of force, threatening to give at any moment.

“–clearly a Vought asset.  Why are you here?” 

Ben crumbles to his knees.

“Johnny, don’t!”  His pleas fall in sobs, tears clouding his vision.  “I just wanna help you– please let me help you!” 

The faintest flash of doubt and a loud ripping sound precedes the release of the bug’s limb.  His torn sleeve reveals a bruise already forming in the shape of a child’s hand.  The tattered, webbed scrap of fabric is clenched in the boy’s iron grip.

“How do you know of this place?”

It’s like this is just a minor fucking inconvenience to her!  

“Johnny, listen–”

“Restrain him now.  Do not disappoint us, John.”

Ben’s back hits the concrete wall and he sputters against the hand wrapped around his throat.  He squints to meet crimson eyes whose heat emanates painfully hot near his face.  “Jo–”

His feet leave the floor, flailing for purchase against the wall– anything to offset the weight of himself compounding with that vice grip.  John floats higher and higher, stopping just below the ceiling. 

“Not–” the bug chokes through clenched teeth, voice barely more than a hoarse pushing of air through a collapsing throat.  “Not your… fault.  S’okay– forgive’ou–”

The hiss of sizzling tears is only just audible over the woman’s instructions to end it all.  The hand at his throat loosens just enough for the bug to barely draw a breath. 

The five minute warning from his watch beep barely reaches his ears.

Ben wishes John would say anything.  Instead he’s a silent attack dog, obedient to his commands until that small moment of hesitation.

“Good kid–” Ben hisses, fingers prying to loosen the hold just a little more.  

At this rate, he just needs to survive.  Just make it through the five minutes and lick his wounds at home.  Pray he hadn’t fucked up the future too much.

“You’re good– a good kid, Johnny�� don’t–” 

John lurches with a violent sob, descending slowly, eyes dimming to watery blues.

The woman’s voice commands him to finish the job.

Fuck– fuck that works!

“A sweet boy!”  Benjamin sobs, gasping for air as the hold relaxes all but totally.  “It’s okay, pumpkin– you’re okay. Doin’ amazing– S'okay.  Everything's– it's all okay…”

Ben lets go with his right hand and rests it on John’s head, stroking softly over those blonde locks just like he did when he pulled him from the incinerator.

His arm is aglow, particles of his being preparing to return from whence they came.

Their time together is almost up.

“What are you doing John?”

Their knees hit the ground with loud thuds.  Ben scoops the boy in a hug.

“I’m sorry,” the bug weeps.  “I’m so fucking sorry!”

He failed.  All of the pain and suffering this boy will face from here on is his fault.

Benjamin pulls back, swallowing his cries to deliver the bad news.

It’s time to go.

“No!!”  John wails, grabbing Ben by the wrists to keep him in the only way he knows how.  “No! You can’t leave me!  You can’t!”

The glow emanating from Ben’s body starts to creep brighter through the room.

“No choice,” he whispers through the tightness of his throat.  “I have no choice, buddy…”

The sound of the woman demanding the door be opened rings through the room.

“M’from the future,” Ben sniffles, chuckling at the boy’s widened eyes. He deserves the clarification. “That's how I know you…”

 That same bursting feeling from right before he was sent back is building and building, ready to snap at any moment.

“But I–”

“You’re gonna have to come find me.”  Ben takes a deep breath.  “Be good, pumpkin–”

And, just like that, he bursts into nothing. He's hurtling through the fabric of time once more, nausea building in the pit of his gut as he screams and sobs through the echoes of history.

He failed.

He failed John.  

He failed his Johnny. He failed Homelander.

And now he didn’t even know if he had his Johnny to go home to.

The bug doesn’t even bother to stick the landing.  It felt almost good to land face down and lay there before The Traveler, body screaming with the pains of his injuries. It's no less than he deserves. 

She regards him with blank white eyes.

“Have you learned your lesson, Benjamin?”

Lesson?

Lesson!?

Through his defeated tears, he shifts just enough to meet her gaze.

“What is shall always be.”  She says calmly, the perfect counter to the hurricane of emotion brewing within the bug.  “Time and fate will always protect one another.”

“Then what the fuck is the point, Cryptic Carl?” he whispers. He means for it to be snarky. Just a little something to salvage his decimated pride and offset some of his own hurt. It's more pathetic than anything.  “If it’s all fuckin’... just like that.”

Her answer does nothing to soothe him.  He thinks of it the entire way home, ignoring how frightened the VUber driver was at his condition and exposed suit.  He ponders it with every access panel that accepts his information and prints, and even as he ascends to the penthouse in the elevator.

It’s all he can think of when he limps through the hall of mirrors and into the arms of his frazzled love.

The point is what you make of it.

One look and he can see the puzzle pieces connect in Homelander’s mind.

The shredded shirt, the torn sleeve of his suit, the handprints on his throat and forearm, the proximity burns on his face… 

Memories fade in with every second he spends in John’s arms– some new, but mostly old and unchanged.  The hostility of their first meeting.  The rapid development of their friendship after joining the team.  The night after he killed Stillwell.  Their first kiss.  Shared rooftop ice creams and dances amongst the clouds.  Washing the blood from his love every time some fool dared cross him or the world became too much.  Every confession of trauma, every admission of love… The good, the bad, the lovely.  All of it.

And then something… new.

Lifting the latch to that odd little dresser full of keepsakes early in their relationship.  The scrap of his suit, tattered and faded from more than thirty years of keeping.  Homelander finding him inspecting it, explaining nothing and everything.

I never stopped looking for you.

He sobs in Homelander’s arms, apologizing through the pain of his damaged throat until he’s a hiccuping wreck.  

He failed.

Benjamin failed and John had to continue living in that hell hole.

He wishes more than anything that his Johnny would punish him for it.  Finish the job and take out all those years he had to suffer on him– because that’s what the bug deserved for fucking up so goddamn badly.

Instead he receives kisses peppered over every inch of his face and Homelander’s tears mingle with his own.  Benjamin doesn’t know what he expects to hear when his love’s lips part.  He deserves the worst.  Names, insults– anything. Even fucking lasers to the face.

What comes is more than he can handle.

More than he’ll ever know what to do with.

But… it makes it all worth it.  Rips his heart clean from his chest and breathes life into each shattered piece, willing it all back together again.

It’s more than he deserves.

“You were the first person to ever give me hope.”

But it is what he makes of it. 

[allykatsart]

pls i’m so feral about your deer boi oc tell me more i wanna know how the whole everyone notices he’s terrified of alastor thing goes

Who is Peccantum?

HO BOY YOU ASKED FOR IT-

Husk, of course, is the first to notice.

He's a gambler, bartender, and is far more attentive than other sinners give him credit for. Of course he notices Peccantum is treading on eggshells everywhere, and not just for comedic effect. The young buck is genuinely terrified of Alastor.

However, Husk isn't one to act on that information. Not only is it none of his business, Husk is also kind of in the same boat as Peccantum. Honestly, the bartender thinks Peccantum's fear is warranted. He does soften over time, but what can he do, really?

Angel Dust is the first to help.

It would be post episode 4, when Angel really starts to connect with others at the hotel. Angel just kinda always assumed Peccantum was a panicky, on edge weirdo. As they get to know each other a little more, Angel realizes that's not actually the case. Peccantum is usually a sarcastic, passionate, clever guy! So the way the bellhop acts around Alastor... It reminds Angel a touch too much of his situation with Val

(Not in romance or assault, but in the 'Im going to fuck with you for my own amusement' way)

So, Angel starts doing little things. He doesn't want to piss off the strawberry pimp, so no direct confrontation, but he can still help Peccantum not get jump scared. Angel greets Alastor out loud when Alastor enters a room quietly. He lingers in rooms where Peccantum would be alone otherwise. Small things that prepare Peccantum beforehand.

In return, Peccantum makes Angel warm drinks when Angel comes back from a long day. He learns recipes that Angel likes and cooks dinner. He gives Angel a book called "A hundred and one dirty jokes for the wickedly perverted." Small things.

They don't talk about it, and it's not a foolproof strategy, but it helps.

Sir Pentious, the best friend, takes it very seriously.

Sir Pentious doesn't pick up on it like Husk and Angel do, so it takes an actual conversation with Peccantum about it for him to realize it's serious. Pentious and Peccantum are Science Buddies™️ so it doesn't take long before Pentious starts coming up with inventions that might help! Magic seeking goggles, ocular augmentations, even a scanner to help identify Alastor before he appears! They have a little fun with it.

In the end, though, Pentious keeps it simple. He and Peccantum develop a secret hand signal for if Peccantum needs someone to distract Alastor. That way Peccantum can slip away and calm himself down if he's spiraling!

They also develop a secret handshake but that's beside the point.

Charlie....

Despite what everyone thinks, Charlie isn't stupid. She's observant and empathetic, and quickly picks up that Peccantum is nervous around Alastor. She can understand that, Hell, sometimes the Radio Demon makes her nervous! She's also a fixer, so would try to resolve the issue with diplomacy and setting boundaries. Sure, Alastor probably doesn't care about Peccantum, but Alastor does listen to her!

But she doesn't have the context.

I don't think Peccantum would tell her anything, and may actively try to keep his thoughts about Alastor private from her. I also think Alastor has made it clear that if Peccantum tries to hide behind Charlie, he's in for a lot worse than just some scares. Alastor defers to Charlie out of obligation and opportunity, but he refuses to have others use her to manipulate himself. Especially not a soul he owns.

Peccantum, of course, complies. He has to convincingly lie to Charlie, which makes his stomach squirm with guilt, but it's fine. He's overreacting anyways. It's fine. It's the price he chose to pay for power.

As long as he has magic, he shouldn't care what Alastor decides to do with him.

It's fine.

(No, it's not)

[nep-nomer]

Sorry for not updating on the sentiscream fanfic- got very sidetracked. Anyway, here's kinda the first page because i don't wanna leave y'all hanging

Colored text so you know who's who

Out of all of the Mechs that could've been picked for this mission, why did it have to be him? This whole thing was supposed to be beneath him, taken care of by the more incompetent bots, yet sentinel was the one that had to do this dirty work? It annoyed him how this seemed all so common for him.

Letting out a scoff, sentinel continued on his mission, scanning the area for any nearby decepticons or any suspicious activity. "This is so stupid! Why do I gotta go out here and be bait for the decepticons when Optimus is obviously a better option!"

In a small fit of rage, he tossed the scanner to the side, walking forwards with his arms crossed. "Sometimes I think that-" Another voice interrupted. "-Their processors are malfunctioning!"

"Yeah... Yeah that's right! Their obviously having some sort of technical glitch and... Wait- hold on..." Sentinel looked around before running behind a rock, hiding behind it in case he did something bad. After some silence, the voice came through again, but it sounded familiar.

"I swear, it's like they don't even have a processor in their heads! They think they can just tell me, the great starscream, what to do?" Starscreams voice sounded grouchy, putting more emphasis' on his h's and e's as if he was hissing.

Sentinel poked his head over the rock for a quick peek, scanning the area until his optics landed on starscreams frame. He wanted to see what the decepticon was doing here.

Starscream let out a growl as he ran at a rock, reeling his leg back and punting the rock across the area. "Maybe if I'm lucky enough, that rock will land on megatrons head and terminate him."

Sentinel quickly ducked back behind the rock after witnessing that, looking across his own frame before stopping in realization... He had left his weapons in the ship. "... Oh slag..." Sentinel knew that he had to get out of here, and fast, before he was spotted by starscream.

Sentinel took in a deep breath before peeking at starscream again, just to keep track of where he was. Before he knew it, a servo came down and rested on the rock. "Maybe I'll just stay here for a bit and hope some autobot will terminate megatron for me..."

Sentinel quickly ducked back behind the rock, covering his mouth with both of his servos. That was close... Too close... Starscream had nearly touched his chin... But at least he wasn't facing sentinel, that would've been bad.

Sentinel took a deep breath before begining to sneak away, heading towards another nearby rock to hide behind. As he walked over he took one last look at starscream, getting a good look at his frame.

Of course starscream was huge, most decepticons were hulking in size, but sentinel hadn't expected starscream to have some small details. He was just noticing that starscream had sharper digits on his servos and a longer chin... He wondered how starscream could keep it so nicely polished.

But it wasn't long before sentinel began sneaking away, slowly crawling back to the ship so that he wouldn't be spotted by the seeker and be targeted. He kept his eyes on starscream, which proved to be a bad idea as he tripped right over another rock.

Sentinel let out a yelp as he landed on his face, getting caught up in a ditch. "Oww... What idiot left this uncovered!?" He moved his legs, trying to pivot them so that he could get up easier, but that was when something grabbed them.

Sentinel let out a scream as he was lifted up, immediately throwing punches in the air to attack whatever had picked him up. "Put me down right now or I'll turn you into scrap!" "You and what weapons?" Sentinel froze, immediately looking up to see that starscream was holding him by his legs.

"You know... For a prime, I expected you to be a little bit of a challenge, but this? This is ridiculous." And to sentinels surprise, he was immediately dropped onto the ground, this time landing on his chest. He was about to get up before he felt two small hard objects hit his helm.

"Here. Take this and get yourself some ammo. Come back to me when you're an actual challenge." Starscream said before walking off, leaving sentinel behind and covered in dust.

Sentinel couldn't believe it... Starscream had just... Insulted him! He immediately got up, Dusting himself off as he began walking after starscream. "Hey! You don't just get to do that! Do you have any idea who I am!?"

Starscream turned around to look at sentinel, raising a eyebrow. "Yeah, I do. That's why I called you a prime... Are you not a prime?" Starscream said in a teasing manner, crossing his arms as sentinel stomped towards him, trying to square up.

"Of course I am! I am one of the best, ultra Magnus said so!" Starscream chuckled at sentinels statement. "Oh really? You are? Why don't you prove it?" Sentinel was taken aback by starscreams request... True, he did have proof that he was a prime, but he wasn't allowed to show it to the decepticons...

Sentinel backed up, looking at starscream and then glancing towards the ship, trying to weigh his options... After a few seconds he let out a short grumble, getting out the small little trinket he got from ultra Magnus as proof that he was a prime.

He held it up for starscream to see, placing a servo on his own hip as a smug smile found its way onto sentinel's face. "See? I am a prime." Starscream looked down at the little trinket, a little surprised that there was actual physical proof that someone was a prime.

But before starscream could do anything, sentinel immediately pulled it away and put it back on his body, just to make sure starscream didn't snatch it away. "Now, I think I deserve a apology."

"A apology? I don't need to apologize to a autobot." Starscream said, standing up straight. "You guys think you deserve everything." Sentinel growled, standing on his toes to seem a bit more menacing.

"Says you! You guys fly around, acting like you own everything!" Starscream leaned his face down closer to sentinel, almost getting into his face. "maybe because we do! You autobots always get what you want!"

Sentinel then got into starscreams face, practically shaking in anger. "It's because I deserve the things I want, you flying oaf! I am a prime and you will show me some respect!"

Starscream then tackled sentinel, begining to wrestle with him. "insolent fool!" As the two wrestled, they barely noticed that the allspark shard in starscreams head was begining to glow.

As sentinel and starscream began going at each other's throats, pushing each other into rocks and ditches, they barely noticed how they were scanned, a barely visible blue light glowing around various parts of their bodies.

It wasn't until starscream had sentinel pinned under him that things took a turn. "I bet megatron will see me differently if I brought him a prime!" "In your dreams, decepti-creep!" Sentinel yelled before his eyes caught the familiar blue glow.

He looked up, his eyes widening in surprise. Starscream took note of this and squinted a bit. "What? What are you gawking at!?" "Y-your shard is glowing." Sentinel said, his voice being a bit meek. "What." Starscream dropped his guard, being very confused.

In a instant a giant blue light flashed in between them, causing both of them to flinch. Starscream yelled as he closed his eyes. "What the scrap is happening!?" Sentinel made a small worried groan as he put his hands over his face. "I-i don't know! It's Your allspark shard!"

As the two tried covering their eyes, they began to feel weird. The familiar sound and feeling of transformation, yet they weren't transforming into their alt modes. Starscream looked down at his foot and gasped. "Get your foot out of me!!" Sentinel yelped in surprise as he looked down. "Ew! Ewewew! Get your foot out of me!!"

Then they were suddenly pulled into the light, a bright and huge explosion erupting from the area, throwing dust and rock everywhere...

There was a small ringing tone playing in their audials... Everything hurt and they felt dizzy. Slowly, they opened their eyes, looking out into the sky. They slowly and carefully got up, their body aching all over. "Ow... That hurt... Wait... Huh?" They looked at their hands, a unfamiliar purple filling their vision.

They then looked at their body and began feeling around, touching their Nosecone, wheels, shield and wings before putting their hands on their face. "Wh... What??" As they stood there they carefully looked around until they found a particularly shiny surface, probably made during the explosion.

Carefully, they went over, looking at their reflection in the surface. "my... My face... My body...! What did you do!?" They got up onto their feet, stumbling as they tried to regain balance. "Me!? What did I do!? You're the one who had the shard!"

They stumbled around, looking at their hands in disgust. "Well obviously you have some sort of... Prime power that interfered with it, and I demand that you-" they stopped once they saw their full reflection.

Sure, they were pretty purple, but the orange highlights on some parts of their bodies clashed in a oddly pleasing way. They even saw their own pupils which was a bit strange for some reason. They soon noticed how their body looked, carefully tracing their body with their hands.

"Oh... Well... Maybe I underestimated you... Or rather, us?" They soon turned their face away, blushing profusely. "Why are you looking at it like that!? Stop!"

[loressa]

Burgertime

----

Salt, fat, sizzle, sear - the components are basic and mandatory. The burger is the star and never let anyone tell you otherwise...even if that someone is a stupid bullshit Goodwill microwave because *someone* (Brenda in HR) is too fucking cheapass to upgrade.

I dont have time for this - Timmons needs a submit by noon for a merge by five because Perkins is absolutely horrible at his job - but fuck Perkins. I want a burger, specifically MY deliciously seared burger from last night, so it's time to settle in and wait. Triple beep on that idiot machine (fuck you, Brenda) and the microwave power's at 50% for that slow, deep reheat.

Some TV while we wait - Pedro seems to be really doing it dirty to Janessa Maria. Would NOT be surprised if he ends up stabbed with all those side chicas he's had going for weeks.

Annoyingly, the lunchroom TV cuts from daytime telenovelas to grainy cellphone zooms of movie monsters spilling out of weird machines. I check on my burger - ten minutes left and still rotating nicely, despite all expectations - and then focus back on the news again.

Invasion. Aliens. Doom. This channel sucks. Flip through a few, but it's all the same broadcast - burger doing great - and that's when I realized what's happening.

This bullshit castoff Oliver of a microwave is all please-maam-may-I-have-moreing my burger into a dry, shitty crumble. Fuck you, Brenda. Power down even lower, might help, has to help. I still hate Brenda.

Back to ten minutes and what is this bullshit on the TV. Timmons' task floats into my head and I kick myself - I didn't drop those completed components into code review. By the time I get back from that, we're at eight minutes, the burger is lightly sizzling and I've realized the entire office is empty.

Fucking corporate yoga. I can even hear them upstairs - graceful, my ass, they sound like elephants tap dancing. Seven minutes to heaven, though, so who gives a shit. I think I'll add some BBQ sauce, just to be heathenous.

I hear a crash from the area near Perkins' desk, but who cares. The guy is a mess. Six minutes. Looking juicy. Another crash. Did they have a lunch out? Perkins *likes* to drink, why do you think he's useless after lunchtime?

Flip channels for a bit, but it's all the same stupid YouTube alien movie promo crap - five minutes, die in a fire, Brenda - so I browse Reddit looking at food pics. Another crash and now it's starting to seem a bit weird. I glance at the microwave, mouth almost aching - four minutes - and sigh. Gotta help Perkins.

Aaaand, nope, that's an alien. That's totally, completely, absolutely, how the fuck is that an alien. He's... she's? It's tall, scaly, oozy, slimy, totally not human, pure nightmare factory, and appears to be baffled by a stapler. Why does Perkins even have a stapler?

You how know under pressure our brains turn into trapped rats trying to find the easiest way out and we think and do amazing shit? So yeah, three minutes left and burger is looking good.

I thank my Brenda-esque brain for absolutely nothing and dart back into the lunchroom, which has apparently become my safe house against an alien invasion. Yay, I always wanted to fight for my life surrounded by old egg salad and leftover pasta.

Right about now is when I realize my problem. See, the microwave has been going with an ambient hum since Sumeria was the shit, so any changes are going to be instantly noticed...and we're at two minutes left. Also the burger is looking amazi-

Right, yeah, pull it together girl. Fuck you, Brenda. With a REAL microwave, I would have been out of here alr-

Well, hold on now. I creep back to the door. The alien's apparently given up on staplers and is kinda scanning the room. Like, literally, scanning. There's old 90s style movie graphics sprouting out of his/her/its eyes.

One minute left - hi burger, you're beautiful - and I'm fumbling with my phone. This whole situation is stupid enough, might as well try....

And there we are. WiFi scanner is picking up something absolutely weird and confusing, clearly some sort of network we can't identify. The alien's got some tech - or biology? - emitting a signal.

I groan. I know the answer. I hate the answer. I sigh. I curse fucking Brenda. 10 seconds left. I back away and close my eyes. Everyone sacrifices in trying times.

3, 2, 1 - the rotation stops and the stupid little defunct microwave gives a happy chirp of a ding. Done! Aren't you proud of me? Never, Brenda-spawn.

A claw appears around the door. Oh fuuuuck, yep, this is happening. I duck down behind a table and reach up to fumble at the microwave door. Hopefully aliens aren't vegan. I manage to jab it open and suddenly the delicious, intoxicating smell of the perfect burger floods the lunchroom, rich and redolent.

Apparently demons like burgers, but I was counting on this. Everyone likes burgers unless they are useless bitches named Brenda. S/he/it leaps for the microwave and I slide sideways - this is a horrible idea - putting myself closer to her as my arms fumble at the countertop. Oh, god, it stinks like childhood trauma and ozone. Too late now and here we go - the creature realizes I'm here far too late, flailing and turning with way too many arms writhing about. His head is at the same level of the counter top, body coiled to strike.

My lunging fall nearly fails, apparently my aim is terrible, but I trip on a chair and surge upwards again, hands finally wrapping around the microwave.

"You like to transmit shit about Earth?????!" I want to scream but instead I just kinda squeak as I grab the horrible microwave with its beautiful payload and slide the entire thing over the creature's head.

"Farrady cage?" I whisper hopefully, quickly backing away, because that - and my burger - was really all I had. For a second, the alien is still, simply standing there with his/her/its head crammed in a microwave, before its head gives a sudden, anticlimactic plop and sinks to the ground, ooze puddling out on his/her/its shoulders.

As the creature falls, his/her/it's body gives a shake, some final death throe, and, with a rattle, a little brown disc comes soaring out of the microwave. It's a beautiful, heartwarming moment. The alien's dead, Berlin is playing take my breath away and I've been reunited with my hamburger.

The rest of earth can wait a few more minutes for me to save it. This shit is finally hot and ready and it's lunchtime for momma.

[transgenderfivepebbles]

Unparalleled innocence for the bingo thing (bonus: come up with a stupid nickname for me)

thanks for the ask, benchpreß!

“done dirty by the creators” is question marked because there is NOTHING about them except The Funny

fans absolutely did do them dirty with that little information though… theres so much angst potential in the motives behind the one thing they did… what if they didnt just hate pebs for no reason

there is so much wrong with this computer (derogatory (affectionate)). i am putting them in a ct scanner and observing every layer

[heroine-fanfic]

Chapter 1: The Kidnapping in Sin City

The night draped over Sin City like a dark veil, the neon lights buzzing and flickering, casting long shadows across the damp streets. Crime was the city's pulse, never sleeping, always lurking. Power Girl hovered above, her keen eyes scanning the urban labyrinth below. The city's desperation called to her—a beacon of hope in the pervasive darkness.

Suddenly, a crackle of static buzzed through her communicator—a police scanner frequency picked up a desperate call. "All units, we have a 10-79, possible kidnapping situation at the docks. Mayor Meyer is unaccounted for, suspected abduction by unknown forces." Power Girl tensed, her instincts on high alert. Despite the risks, the potential trap laid by her enemies, her resolve hardened. A life was at stake.

-o-O-o-

Guided by her unerring moral compass, Power Girl descended swiftly toward the docks. The air grew thick with the salty stench of the sea mixed with the acrid smell of industrial waste. As she approached, her senses tingled with anticipation and dread.

Landing softly, she surveyed the area. Warehouses loomed like silent sentinels, their windows dark, the vast spaces deserted—or so it seemed. She moved silently, her every sense alert for any sign of the mayor or his captors.

But as she rounded a corner, the trap was sprung. Figures emerged from the shadows, not just one or two, but a dozen, encircling her with malicious intent. "Welcome, Power Girl," a voice sneered from the darkness, dripping with venomous pleasure. "We've been expecting you."

"Just a few of you guys?" Power Girl taunted, confident that her night of crimefighting would be over in minutes. "You creeps are nothing to me. Where is Amos!"

"He is not here, you bitch! And he won't be here until we beat you down dirty!" said one of the hencemen from the Hands of Man.

"You really think so?" Power Girl rolled her eyes, her confidence overcame her. "Men, your ego and your arrogance is brutish and stupid! Let's get this done and over with!"

-o-O-o-

As soon as the first henceman stormed toward Power Girl with a first punch, Power Girl launched into action, her fists a blur of motion. She knocked out the first attacker with a swift uppercut, then spun to land a powerful kick on another. For a moment, it seemed she might overcome the ambush through sheer strength and speed.

But as more assailants joined the fray, her situation grew increasingly dire. A strange sensation washed over her, a creeping doubt, as if her usual luck had suddenly deserted her. Her punches missed their marks, and her movements felt oddly sluggish. The realization hit her—something was amiss, more than just a physical trap.

As the chapter closes, Power Girl finds herself grappling not only with her physical foes but with an unnerving sense of her own powers faltering at critical moments. The shadows of the dockyard seem to close in around her, her breath visible in the cold night air, her confidence shaken as she faces the unknown threat.

-o-O-o-

What would Power Girl do next as fatigue was filling her up and her opponents were closing in on her on all sides?

The next chapter... coming soon!

[mistermaxwellboucherdieasilived]

That AITA bag post is so stupid do people not realize how dirty our hands are. If ur worried about a tiny spot of mouth germs on ur plastic bag you should DEFINITELY be worried about the days/weeks worth of hand germs going from the scanner to your new belongings

[king-plutos-typewriter]

I finished the comic!! Here's a small snippet from the book as well!

"The Vanishing Island" Draft

Chapter One: The Jack-O-Forums

He flipped out his cellphone, rubbing the cracked and dirty screen with his sleeve before pressing the power button. It took a good ten seconds before the screen begrudgingly flickered to life. The fingerprint scanner didn’t work anymore, so Jude made quick work of typing in his code.

The chatroom of the Jack-O-Forums popped up on screen, showing over 99+ messages since he last checked. Ignoring those, he tapped on one name - Tulpα.

This is so stupid. The thought came out of nowhere, as if someone was whispering it to him over the wind, as if it had fallen from the sky with the rain. Jude adjusted his hoodie over his head, covering more of his face as he stared down at the cracks in his brother’s old cellphone.

It felt really stupid. It had felt wrong all week, everything had felt awful all week. He snapped at Mr Kane once in class two days ago. Jude internally shuddered at that memory. Mr Kane was just a teacher, but he was as imposing as a mountain gorilla, size and muscle mass included. He towered over the tallest students, could shut anyone up with one green-eyed stare.

Part of him, Jude realised, wanted Mr Kane to walk out that Planetarium and drag him back in. There was, after all, no other way Jude would walk away from this otherwise.

[no-droids]

Rumors, Freebies, and a Race for Last Place

Part Two of The Bet series

Pairing: Poe Dameron/Reader

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 22.5K DONT say shit alright just don’t

Warnings: Okay. There is degradation in this, some name calling and heated interactions. There is a LOT of smut, dirty talk and rough sex. If these things offend you, please do not continue reading.

***

It’s recommended to read part one first.

***

Getting into the x-wings is always fun.

It actually might be your favorite part.  Granted, alarm bells ringing and thousands of jumpsuits scrambling in all directions is never typically a good thing, but there’s also an inherent rush about it, a thrill in launching up the metal paneling as quick as you can and suiting up to provide aid.  It’s a side-effect of camaraderie, of being surrounded by like-minded individuals willing to do everything they can to help.  You never feel like you’re going to your death, even though that’s often the grim reality for at least one of you on a good day.  There’s always a roaring in your ears while you do it, adrenaline sharpening your senses and preparing yourself for conflict, not thinking anything beyond gogogogogo—

But getting out of the x-wing is… not great.  At least for you.  It’s sluggish.  Your body is always completely drained and you never come out of it feeling the same way you went in.  Even in times of victory, there’s a somberness inside you after battle.  As much as you tell yourself you’re fighting for good, for prosperity against an evil machine hellbent on enslaving the galaxy, there’s only so many explosions lighting up in front of your eyes and screams cutting out through your comms you can take before winning just doesn’t really feel like winning anymore.  Most pilots are able to handle it better than you are, but since you joined the Resistance, you’ve never truly felt the desire to celebrate.  Not even when you serve a massive, glaring defeat to the other side.  There’ll always be at least one missing x-wing, one empty seat at the table, one person not here to celebrate with you.

You came back in one piece this time.  Barely.

The whole mission went sideways—literally.  You’d purposefully stationed the tandem just outside the coordinates you were meant to be surveilling so that you’d be hidden from sight and dead to the scanners should the fleet arrive, but something must’ve happened.  You must’ve powered down a few seconds too early after he turned the thrusters off, because apparently the ship drifted in dead space for close to eight hours without either of you noticing, having no working computers to actively read your location and correct it.  You were sitting ducks right in the hyperspace drop zone by the time the First Order showed up, and by that point you had no choice but to engage.

“Gold-Ten,” a voice murmurs from behind you, and you blink, suddenly seeing the base landing platform stretching out long in front of you, hundreds of docking ships and boisterous pilots scrambling out of them to hug their comrades and congratulate them even as medics rush past with white coats and gurneys.  They’re never for the pilots, but they dispatch healers anyways whenever a convoy returns in case a straggler gets picked up.  There’s an unspoken understanding in space battle—pilots never get injured.  They either come back unharmed, or they don’t come back at all.

Dameron.

You turn around and watch him slowly approach you with an unreadable expression, his jumpsuit still bunched halfway down his torso.  The once bright white sleeveless undershirt is now greasy and damp with sweat,  his dark curls sticking to his forehead.  He winces with every bow-legged step—you know the feeling—before he’s standing directly in front of you and something is carefully being pulled out of your hands.  You didn’t even realize you were holding onto anything.

Your helmet.  You forgot to leave it in the x-wing, and you’ve been carrying it around under your arm aimlessly while mentally checking off the squadrons as they return, counting the numbers you lost today while everybody else hugs and whoops and claps each other on the back.

It’s not as bad as you were expecting it was going to be, not as bad as it seemed just an hour earlier when you were listening to Dameron bellow out evasive flight maneuvers a millisecond before he enacted them and you adjusted your firing at the TIEs accordingly.  You used to think you were quick with how rapidly you could suit up and fly out, drop in to assist and engage, but on the other side, it felt like your reinforcements lollygagged for ages before arriving.  You were left to defend against an entire fleet in one stupid ship, more lines of TIEs sinking like flies from launch decks every second.

“Gold-Ten,” you hear again, and you blink a few times, needing to focus your vision before you can find his gaze.

Dameron’s palm, previously hovering a few inches above your shoulder, suddenly drops to spread along the curve of it and you take a deep breath, almost wanting to shudder at the feeling of something touching you.  You channel all your focus into it, feel his fingers branch out strong along the tight muscles in your neck, giving you an anchor you automatically lean into.

You and him are no strangers to touching.  Before today it was mostly reserved to poking and prodding and flicking and light slapping in an effort to piss each other off, but now… you can’t even think about it right now, your body will just fucking glitch out on you.  After everything that just happened, you cannot think about where else that hand has been recently, not right now.

“You did… you did really fucking good today,” he tells you quietly, slowly trailing his hand down the length of your entire arm until he catches your wrist and a few of your fingers in his loose grip.  “Seriously.  That was… we were…”

His touch is so present, so reassuring.  Grounding, when all your mind wants is to just float away.  You glance down at where his fingers are gently tangled with yours and you feel your hand tighten just slightly, the smallest squeeze while he blinks down at you.

“We almost died, like… every single second,” you barely manage to croak, not really having the words to express it right now.  You always need at least an hour or two after missions like this to just sit in one place and regroup.  Usually you find yourself wandering back to your room to lay on the bed and stare up at the ceiling while you consider your own mortality, but Dameron interrupted you this time before you could process it by yourself.  “We…”  Your voice sounds absolutely shredded.  “W-We shouldn’t even be alive right now.”

“I know,” he nods in soft agreement, taking a small step closer to you.  “But we are alive.  Hey.”  He dips his head as soon as your gaze starts to drift, catching your eyes once more and drawing your attention back to the present with a squeeze of your hand.  “We’re alive, right?  Be alive with me.”

You take a big breath in and close your eyes, feeling the oxygen fill your lungs once more, but this time, it’s… restorative.  A wonderful, beautiful reminder of your existence.  You’re alive.  Usually the word just feels like a synonym for persevering.  Pushing onwards despite trials and tribulations, not looking back.  But the way he says it, especially with his hand in yours and a quiet invitation to tag along, it sounds… breathtaking.  Full of light, and hope.  It suddenly leaves the dim shadows and slides into a completely different category of feelings, feelings you’d never imagine being able to conjure so quickly after such a close brush with death.  Alive—it slots right in next to words like colorful, radiant, sunshine, and butterflies.  Enchanting words, ones you’d like to hear again and again.

Your eyes slowly open and there he is, the man you were sure was going to accompany you to the afterlife.  You were stuck with Poe Dameron in one of the closest calls you can remember, and strangely, his presence was nothing if not… a comfort.  For the first time in your life, you were grateful he was there.

You open your mouth, suddenly feeling the needy, unfounded urge to tell him that.  “I’m gla—”

“Dameron!”  You hear a series of voices call from somewhere to your left, and he immediately drops your hand to whip his body around and place himself directly between you and the approaching onlookers, using his large frame to hide you from their sight.

“What’s up, Briggs?”  Dameron projects to one pilot in particular that seems to be leading the group, his back oddly close to you in this position.  Your fingers still feel tingly from where he was holding onto them.

A chorus of congratulatory, “Nice flying, Captain!” and the like can be heard floating through the air from beyond his shoulders, before the leader speaks loudly over them.  “Hey—me, Seven, Six, and Twelve were gonna grab some drinks in the mess hall with a few of the Blue girls,” he tells Dameron, slowing to a stop as soon as he sees you standing awkwardly behind him.  “Oh hey, Goldie.”

You lift a hand and clear the remainder of the dissociation from your throat, not knowing him well enough beyond the squadron he and his group fly with.  “Greenies.”

“Anyways, I guess they wanted to know if you’d come too.  These idiots are convinced they’re never gonna give us the time of day unless you—”

“Uh—fine, whatever, just give me a few minutes alright?”  Dameron quickly assures him with a dismissive wave of his hand.  “I’ll meet up with you guys later.”

A few of them take turns giving him heavy claps on the shoulder and acclamatory words before the group eventually disperses, and he waits a few more seconds for their attention to fully scatter in another direction before turning back to you.

Shit, he’s standing really close.  Why is he so close to you?  You take a step back and blink up at him, the noises of the landing deck gradually amplifying back up to normal volume as you retreat back into your own space.  Since when did he have that effect on you?  You suddenly feel wide awake, and the chorus of happy chaos surrounding you is something you’re finally able to take in.  You knew it was happening before, but it was like it just existed outside of the creeping numbness.  Now, the knot of internal turmoil has untied itself a bit and you feel your surroundings start to fight for your direct attention.

Dameron continues to look at you the same exact way, though.  Like you’re still the only one here.

You look down at his half-suited figure and blink at the helmet loosely held in one of his hands.  Hey.  Hey, that’s yours—

“Give me that,” you hiss, suddenly snatching it from his fingertips.  “You have people waiting.”

The cutting words serve to snap him out of whatever spell he’s under.  Dameron quickly lifts his head and looks around a few times with sharp eyes, before hooking your elbow and twisting you into a complete 180 until your back faces most of the excitement.  You resist, immediately trying to push him off you and worried he’s going to confront you about… things, but he’s determined.

He doesn’t say anything to you at all, though.  His fingers quickly grasp the baggy fabric of your jumpsuit even as you sputter and start to ask what the fuck he thinks he’s doing, and you glance down just in time to see him yanking the gaping velcro closed at your crotch.

Your cheeks instantly start burning as he tugs and smooths the fabric down until it’s seamless once more, especially when his eyes flick up to yours without moving his head.  Fuck, you’re instantly hot with some wicked emotion, a mixture of embarrassment and outrage and… something else.  Maker, you almost wish you were numb and disoriented again, if only so you could avoid feeling whatever the fuck this is.

You quite suddenly shove your helmet back into his stomach with an infuriated sound even as he doubles over with a shocked whoosh of air, changing your mind about returning it to the ship yourself before storming off without another word.

*** 

Okay, so you’ve done some thinking, and.  Well.  Fuck him, that’s what you’ve decided.

No—not… fuck him.  But like, fuck him.  You know.  In the negative sense of the word.  The bad fuck.

There’s a full tray of food sitting in front of you but you’ve so far been unable to touch it.  Mostly you’re just wondering why the fuck you’re even here.  Well, you know why you’re here—you should eat, it’s dinnertime and this is the mess hall.  You’ve been known to skip out on meals after heavy missions, secluding yourself away and just wallowing for a bit, but you… strangely didn’t feel like doing that today.  You don’t want to self-isolate when you feel okay enough to avoid it, not again.  So you’re here, because the clock says your tummy should want food, but you can’t bring yourself to even look at it.

No, you’re looking at him.  Glaring, actually.

Across the mess hall and beyond the transparisteel divider that separates the cafeteria from the bar area, Dameron is all eyebrows and smiles and side nudges and winks right now.  You can’t hear him—the sound won’t travel this far, but you can see him situated in the middle of a rowdy group of pilots.  He laughs in that disgustingly charming way of his, where his stupidly cute nose scrunches up all cute and stupid and you want to just ask the Maker why he’s doing this shit to you.  What have you done to deserve this torture?  Sure, you may have willingly agreed to it, even… conceived and propositioned the idea, and sure, absolutely nothing is stopping you from forfeiting and walking away at this exact second, but does that make it okay?  No, you’ve decided.  It’s not okay.  He’s not allowed to… to make you feel like this, so fuck him.  In the bad way.

“Just fuck him already,” a voice suddenly grumbles as someone plops down into the seat to your right, plastic trays of food clattering loudly on the table and snapping you out of your reverie.  Gold-Sixteen blocks your view as he silently drops into the seat in front of you and wraps his green lekku around his neck a few times before immediately beginning to shovel food into his mouth, while Gold-Three opens her box of blue milk next to you and continues.  “The Blues never fucking shut up about it, it’s getting annoying.”

“Don’t listen to her, Dime,” Gold-Eleven tells you, quickly occupying the seat on your left and biting into a crunchy piece of fruit, talking loudly over the chatter even as he chomps.  “Rossi just knows her pool is up tomorrow, she doesn’t want to lose any of her precious credits.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Gold-Three immediately snaps, leaning forward and around you to point the prongs of her fork at Eleven threateningly.  “Zhang’s pool starts on Sunday.”

“Oh fuck off, you guys are betting on this now?”  You groan, shoving your plate away with a flick of your fingers now that you’re certain you’ve completely lost your appetite.  Sixteen immediately snatches up one of your bread rolls while Zhang swipes your juice and Rossi goes for a packet of glockaw sauce.

“You’re the one who announced it in front of everybody, we’re just being active spectators,” Rossi returns, ripping the packet and pouring the sauce on her vegetables with a shrug.  “How the fuck do you bet against fucking each other though, that’s my question?  It’s a paradox, wouldn’t you both just lose at the same time?”

“Dameron and I aren’t going to fuck,” you tell her very slowly and clearly, starting to get a headache.  Why is it impossible to avoid this conversation topic, even with an entire Resistance base to roam around in?  “Ever.  The bet never had anything to do with fucking each other, it’s about not fucking other people.”

“Literally what is the difference?”  You hear Rossi ask with her mouth full, but Zhang speaks over her.

“Somebody should probably tell Nine that, she’s the bookie,” he tosses out carelessly, dropping the core of his piece of fruit to his tray before wiping his hands on his jumpsuit.  You bury your face in your hands and let out a loud, exhausted sound into your palms, not knowing which response serves to aggravate your already emotionally overloaded ass even more.  Nine is the bookie, of fucking course she is.  “But hey, if it makes you feel any better, I don’t think any of it actually goes outside of Gold, so.”

“I’ve heard the Blues talking about it, but that’s it,” Rossi chimes in while chewing some of her veggies.  “Maybe some Reds.  Point is everybody else thinks it’s already happening, honestly.”

“What the fuck,” you whisper, using your knuckles to rub at the backs of your eyes until bright spots appear.  Where are stress headaches localized?  Are those the ones right under your brow bone?  Because stars, you feel it.  “Fucking… why?  Why do people think that me and Dameron are…?”

Nobody at the table immediately responds, and you drop your hands after a moment to look at each of their astounded faces in turn.

“You fucking serious, bitch?”  Rossi blurts first, her voice completely deadpan, and you growl in vexation.

“Have I not been vocal enough about my severe dislik—”

“And yet you kicked Nine out of your room to let him bunk with you,” Zhang immediately suggests.

“You request mission assignments together,” Rossi adds.

“Spend your off-days together,” Zhang continues.

“You’re both really weird about how long it takes the other person to shower,” Rossi tacks onto the list Zhang is now making on his fingers and you shake your head frantically.

“No—no, that’s so that we know neither one of us is cheating,” you try to explain, and you already know it sounds unconvincing without needing the two quick, lofty and sarcastic nods on either side of you.  “Showers and off-days are prime masturb—no, you know what?  No.  I’m tired of the assumptions, I don’t owe anyone shit.  This is super fucking uncool of you guys, you know that?  It’s insane that this is what counts as gossip in the Resistance nowada—”

“There’s only so much bad news people can take, Ten,” Gold-Sixteen grunts down at his almost finished plate, and all three of you snap your gazes across the table at him.  The forest-tinted twi’lek doesn’t speak much, it’s uncommon to hear his voice without distortion over the comms, but you blink as his sharp teeth continue to form words without looking at you.  “Quit being so sensitive.  Rather bet on this shit than which system is getting demolished next.”

And with that, Sixteen excuses himself with a silent nod, having gobbled down his full plate while you, Three, and Eleven were bickering.  You feel your cheeks flare with anger and shame—you didn’t deserve that, you immediately reassure yourself, but the hidden self-doubt the comment sows just further contributes to your upset.  You want to call out to his back that just because the First Order exists doesn’t mean you have to put up with your own fucking squadron turning you and your mortal enemy into glorified race fathiers, but he’s already leaving the mess hall while Rossi and Zhang have moved on to other topics, both of them continuing to grab more food from your tray as they talk.

You have a tough shell.  But today was… a lot.  You bite your lip down at the table against the sudden wave of emotion, blinking quickly to clear the weakness watering your vision.

See, this—this right here is why you use last names.  These people aren’t your friends.  Betting on who you fuck for laughs, using you as a source of entertainment without your consent just because they’re in the middle of a war, and then guilting you into feeling like you’re the one acting like a stuck up bitch about it?  You’re fighting in the same fucking war—you’re on the front lines just like everybody else and nobody gets to lecture you on the devastation of battle.  You almost died today.  You fought tooth and fucking nail to stay alive and by all accounts, you shouldn’t even be sitting here right now, much less dealing with this childish shit.  This is your squadron.  These people are supposed to be the ones closest to you out of everyone, the ones you’ve been flying into chaos in formation with for years, and yet not a single damn person has even mentioned your performance to you today, all anyone can ever seem to talk about is—ugh.

Unfortunately, your unobstructed view also allows you to look at the source of your bad mood once more, immediately noticing the way more people have crowded around him now, and the headache continues to throb painfully behind your eyeballs.  You were in the same ship, does nobody realize that?  You were gunning, he was flying—you were offense, he was defense—that’s the only fucking difference, and yet, it’s like that side of the mess hall is just completely lit up with hearty laughter and music playing from someone’s holopad and congratulatory drinks being passed around, while yours is… well.

You continue to fume inwardly, struggling somewhere between bitter and hurt, and you can see your reflection through the transparisteel giving him a death glare, wondering how many of the people surrounding him have made bets with Nine.  How many of his little entourage have their money wagered on Dameron getting in your pants by a specific dat—

You stop short while staring at his handsome face, an infuriating, horrifying thought suddenly striking you.  No… no, he wouldn’t…

“Does he know?”  You immediately interrupt the chitchat between Three and Eleven to ask with a deadly edge in your voice, tipping your forehead at pretty boy.  Ooh, you can already feel it burning.  It would be so fucking typical.  Oooooh, Maker, if he’s heard even a fucking whisper about this outside wagering going on amongst the pilots, you will fucking smother his ass in his sleep tonight.  How could he not know?  With as many friends as he has?  If you’re just being made aware of it, then it’s a given that somebody has to have told him by now, which just means that it’s all the more possible—shit, even more likely—that he’s… participating, too.  You do your best to keep your voice even, but you can hear the quiet fury shaking in it.  “The bet about when me and him are gonna fuck, does he know about it?”

“Who—Dameron?”  Zhang turns his head.  “No, I don’t think s—”

“Yeah,” Rossi says at the exact same time, and your blood instantly turns ice cold as Zhang leans around you to blink at her stupidly.

“No.  Yeah?  What?”  He says, sounding genuinely confused.

“Yeah, remember?”  Rossi confirms with a shrug.  “Nine was mad as all shit, came at me in the rec room a few weeks ag—fucking Maker, Eleven, you were there.”

“Oh,” Zhang suddenly exhales, “yeah, that’s right.  Oh, yeah, Dime, he knows.”

You’re—fuck, you’re about to rampage.  You’re burning a fucking hole through Dameron while he converses animatedly with his numerous buddies, waving an open hand and shaking his head at someone with a smile and then gesturing broadly to this side of the transparisteel.  His pool is probably up soon, you figure.  That’s why he came onto you so strong earlier today.  He was going to get two weeks of your pay, plus whatever he must’ve offered up to Nine that says he’d get it to happen within a certain amount of time.  Perfect, your old roomie and the arch nemesis you stupidly agreed to trade her for, two asshole peas in an asshole pod.

“—she thought I was the one who told him—”  You know Rossi is still talking but you’re not actually hearing any of it.  Nobody has any fucking idea.  Nobody has any idea what he did to you today, how unbelievably close you were to… to actually…  “—was all just for fun, but then he had a few choice words for her and told his squad that if any of them had made a—”  You don’t know why you’re so surprised honestly, you should’ve expected…

Wait.

“Wait,” you suddenly blurt, and while she shuts up immediately, your mind starts whirling even faster.  Dameron had some… what?  “Wait.  Explain.  You’re saying he didn’t…”  You slowly shake your head, furrowing your eyebrows and trying to piece it together.  “He didn’t… place a bet with her, or anything?”

“What?  No,” Rossi shakes her head a lot more forcefully than you, getting frustrated.  “No, fucking—didn’t you hear anything I just said, Ten?  He got all high and mighty for some stupid reason, totally reamed her ass out for it.”

“But…”  You blink, stunned.  “But… why?  Why would he…?”

Rossi shrugs.  “Fuck if I know.  All she said was that he ordered Black not to throw in, made her lose a fuckton of money from it.  Had no idea Dameron would be so touchy about his sex life, honestly.”

He… he isn’t.  He isn’t touchy about his sex life—you feel like he never shuts up about it.

Rossi continues talking, but you’re not listening again.  You stare stupidly at yourself in the clear transparisteel as Dameron’s voice comes back to you, repeating something you specifically remember him saying earlier today.  Something you thought was just a careless jab at the time, aimed blindly at one of your comrades with nothing more than the intent to piss you off.

…I swapped housing assignments with your shitty roommate and slept in the bunk below yours for a month and a half… 

You blink beyond your own reflection to focus on him once more, still lost in his own little world, not paying a single lick of attention to you while you’re essentially having a fucking crisis over here.  You didn’t think the insult had any real substance to it at all.  You just naturally assumed that was the result of him wanting to lash out at anything or anyone remotely close to you, if only to get a reaction, so you never gave him one or paid it any mind.  

This is why he said that about Nine?  Because he knew she had organized this fucked up betting pool behind your back?

Stars, you need to get out of here, all these rumors are fucking with your head.  Your assumptions and the hairpin turnarounds are giving you worse whiplash than Dameron’s… well, admittedly spectacular flying today.  You were wrong about wanting to avoid isolating—in fact, that suddenly sounds like a phenomenal idea.

So, you just get up and leave right in the middle of Rossi’s sentence, needing some time alone.  Neither of them call out to you as you quickly walk around the table and through the barrier towards the exit, thank the Maker, and you’re just about to retreat with no interruptions until suddenly two Greenies step in front of you and block your path.

You halt immediately, looking up at them with a furrowed brow.  “What now?”  You grunt, not having the patience to even wait for a response before attempting to squeeze around them.

“Hey, so you really saved our asses out there today, Goldie,” the one on the left quickly sidesteps in front of you and rushes to say, and you settle your weight back on your heels with a huff.

“What are you talking about?”  You glance back and forth between them, not recalling a time you’ve ever spoken to either one, before jerking your head to gesture over your shoulder.  “Go congratulate trophy boy over there, he was the one flying.”

“We did,” the one on the right tips sideways to look at Dameron behind your shoulder, likely still laughing and joking with someone about something, something super fucking dumb probably.  “Well, uh.  We tried.”

“What?”  You let out a heavy sigh and rub your temples.  “The fuck is that supposed to mean?  I don’t have the time.”

“He won’t take any credit, just keeps saying that all he did was steer you around,” the other one shrugs as his companion straightens and looks down at you once more.  “Wouldn’t accept any drinks we offer him, nothing.  So we thought we’d buy you one instead.  Unless you’re… leaving?”

It takes you a few seconds to process that, even as he allows the open invitation to hang in the air.  You can’t stop the way your torso automatically twists around to study your copilot from across the mess hall in baffled silence, suddenly realizing that they’re… they’re right.  Dameron has no congratulatory drinks sitting in front of him even though more and more people have made their way into the bar.  He’s just sitting there grinning and nodding along to something someone else is saying, completely and blissfully unaware of the extent to which he’s fucked with you in the past twenty minutes.  The past… whole day.  Month and a half.  Or… fuck, how long have you known him?  Two years?

But then Dameron’s gaze gradually drifts this way, before suddenly locking with yours.  His eyes flick behind you to look at the two Greenies blocking your exit, and then back to the way you’re staring at him, wide-eyed and startled.

He suddenly stands up and starts to take a few steps towards you, and the sheer abruptness of the movement causes you to react immediately.  You stumble your way backwards through the two pilots, feeling a few hands reach out to steady you through the awkward fumbling, but you slap them away and announce loud enough for Dameron to hear beyond them that you’re taking a shower, and you don’t give a fuck how long it’s gonna be this time.

***

The knob squeaks as you turn the water on.  Usually you’d step back and wait the grueling five minutes or longer it takes for it to heat up with your arms crossed over your naked chest, but this time you move directly under the freezing spray, hoping to use the ice cold to shock your system.

You're finally alone.

Technically solitude doesn’t really exist within this base.  You’ve heard of others that are a little nicer, having a little more room for the ranks, but not here.  Housing assignments, showers and restrooms, mess and recreation halls—they’re all communal.  Everyone is given rotating shifts, so while that means there’s never any true quiet to be found, it also means that showers are spread out well throughout the day and night.

But, at least for this moment, there’s nobody else around.  At least in here, in the tiled chamber with multiple shower heads stationed around you—you’re sure there are a few girls lingering in the locker room and the entry area beyond it, but for right now, you’re blissfully by yourself.

And yet, you can’t seem to enjoy it.

You know you should be basking in the isolation.  You should be thrilled at the rarity of only hearing your own flipflops slap against the floor as you turn around and drench your hair with the icy spray, but the lack of an immediate distraction for your focus allows it to wander to things you don’t want it to.

Explosions, mostly.  Lighting up like fireworks in front of your eyes even as they flutter closed and let water drip down them.  Constant, never-ending.  Some of them small—TIEs you shot down, allies drawing fire away from you and then subsequently getting overwhelmed, zipping through dense debris from deadly collisions so quick that you had trouble distinguishing friend from foe.  Some of them were massive—star destroyers splitting apart, warp drives overloading, enormous casualty counts.  You don’t know how many lives you took today, not directly.

The beginning was the worst—when you were still slightly disoriented, when you were panicked and screaming into the comms for assistance.  Then the closest stationed tandem showed up first—Red-Two and Eight, you think it was.  Doesn’t matter now.  They took some heat off you before the cavalry arrived, but you remember Dameron barking out your name the second their left thruster got nicked and they started spiraling, a ferociously deep, “With me!” cutting through the white noise.  It was enough to snap you back, forcing you to instantly flick your eyes away and focus dead ahead without witnessing their demise.

It wouldn’t have normally been necessary.  You’ve been flying with the Resistance for years, you’ve seen way too much bloodshed by now.  But you’ve never been the catalyst of it—you’ve always been able to confront threats accompanied by your squadron, right between Nine and Eleven, the flight controls rumbling steady under your palms.  You’ve never faced down an entire fleet in one single ship.  You’ve never had to rely so directly on the skills of another pilot in order to stay alive.

The water slowly heats to a lukewarm while you reach for the shampoo.

Surprisingly, for as much as the two of you clash in normal interactions, it was like everything eventually became… synchronized.  Spectacularly so.  Dameron started off the enemy confrontation by calling out his flight patterns to give you a chance to adjust your firing in real time, but then at some point, it just stopped being necessary.  There was a moment where you both were able to suddenly… get it.  Get each other.  He didn’t have to say anything after that—you could predict each other without second guessing, react instantaneously, and work your way through the littered battlefield accordingly.  You never thought it would be possible to collaborate so well with someone you’ve spent ages despising.  Sure, you’d both die if you didn’t—shit, you’d probably still both die regardless—but this kind of teamwork extended beyond the need to survive.  It doesn’t matter how much you want to stay alive when reading someone else’s mind is physically impossible, but for some reason…  You have no idea why, but it apparently came naturally between you.  It fell to pure instinct, pure reaction, and remarkably, his would somehow match yours perfectly, every single time.

You lather the shampoo in your hair, remembering how his voice changed over the course of the mission.  How it gradually shifted from panicked roars and barked orders into ecstatic cheers and genuine praise after landing a difficult shot, how he just couldn’t seem to stop whooping.  

You smile softly as the tepid water rinses away the dirt and sweat from your body, until the temperature is brought up to a gentle, comfortable warmth raining down you and echoing in the empty shower room.

And, your first name.  Dameron kept calling you that, the whole time.  The one you’re now absolutely certain you’ve never personally given to him.  The one he would’ve had to have listened for specifically.  Remembered, or at least asked the right person about.  But why?  It’s not… it makes no sense, he doesn’t give a shit.  He’s notorious for not giving a shit.  He can’t even be bothered to remember the names of the girls he’s actually with—so why did he go to the trouble to figure out yours?  You’ve been nothing but a thorn in his side the same way he is to you, right?

Right?

Your mind starts recollecting more recent events, trying to work through and process it by yourself.  He was… singing your praises today.  He was openly giving you credit for the win while you pouted in the corner and assumed the absolute worst of him.  As much as you’re frustrated that nobody else seemed to give voice to your contributions, you’re even more surprised that he was the one who did.

And then even earlier.  Gold-Nine, holding wagers with members of your squad (and others, apparently) about when you’re going to fuck him.  Dameron, tearing her a new one for it, forbidding Black Squadron from throwing in and not attempting to hide his disdain for her from you.  He… he defended you.  Stood up for you when your own squad was being a bunch of dicks behind your back.  And nobody ever fucking mentioned it to you.  What did Rossi say—a few weeks ago?  He’s known all this time and only today, only after you… openly showed more interest in him than you ever have, after you worked up enough nerve to try in your own little way to flirt back this time instead of responding to his casual comments with contempt and disgust, only today is when he decided to make a real move on you.

…Your mind is completely blank and yet you still feel yourself start to heat up just a bit at even alluding to the events that took place earlier.  The way his fingers felt—

Steam begins to fill the open concept chamber while you shake your head against the train of thought and reach for the soap, beginning to circle the bar along your arms and shoulders with a sigh.  This is already the longest shower you’ve taken in almost two months, and your body slowly relaxes under the mist and heat as you take forever cleaning yourself, slowly and hypnotically rubbing the soap along your skin.

The second you let your eyelids dip shut at the feeling, you immediately shiver at a flash of Dameron dragging his finger out of his mouth and blinking dark eyes at you through the transparisteel.

Fuck.  The soap slips from your hand and you quickly catch it against your body before it falls to the ground completely, suddenly feeling the need to breathe in the misty air a bit harder.  Shower, you’re in the shower.  Come on.

The dirt and grime is scrubbed from your face and you tilt your head to move the bar of soap across your neck.  As it lathers, you can’t help but remember the way his lips felt against the skin right there, the scratch of his beard.  You keep working the soap against that same spot for a while, not knowing if you’re trying to wash away the sensation or simulate it, until you gradually slow and make it lighter, softer—yes, that’s closer to how it felt, that’s—

Soon the water is boiling hot and you’re trying not to boil along with it, remembering everything he said against this spot, the filth he whispered to you here.  Your pussy starts to throb between your legs as the memories play out in your mind, how close he got you to shattering bliss without even really working for it.  If you put it all together collectively, you don’t think he actually touched you for more than a minute or two total today.  Mostly he just talked to you, but stars, he hit buttons you didn’t even think you had, had you a split second away from cumming harder than Maker knows while his finger rested just above your clit and provided no stimulation whatsoever.

Fuck, you enjoyed it.  You did, you’ll admit it when there’s no one else here but you.  You enjoyed the fuck out of it.  You wish he’d do it again.  Force you to lose, force you to cum so you can at least blame him for it, remove your responsibility from the equation and allow you to put just one more thing on his shoulders, to taste ecstacy instead of expecting you to bear the weight of pretending you don’t need it any longer.  He was doing you a favor, you realize that now.  Your body is staging a fucking coup and you wish you could’ve called mercy before it got to this agonizing point.  He turns you on, you fucking admit it.  He inspires violent emotions in you—jealousy, arousal, anger, temptation—thoughts you don’t want to have and consolidating it all into various forms of hatred makes the finer details easier to ignore.  Your perception of him has always been skewed by your iron will, but he all but took a fucking sledgehammer to it today, dented it beyond all recognition.  You want him, you want to him to take it all away, you want him to fuck you—in the… fuck, in the good way.

You don’t have a thought beyond that.  Your hand quickly falls down the length of your body to wash your private parts, biting your lip as your hips slowly start to rock into it.  You’re getting clean, you’re getting clean, this is how you clean yourself, this is… yes, as long as you keep the bar of soap pressed between your palm and the top of your curls like this, you’re cleaning yourself and you can just… ease your finger down just a little bit and—

Flipflops suddenly echo from the twisting hallway leading to the tiled freshers, and you immediately snatch your hand back up again, not needing to turn around to know another girl is walking into the room.  A knob somewhere to your right eventually makes a dull squeak as you quickly finish washing up and turn your showerhead off, grabbing your towel and wrapping it around yourself.

Maker, you feel like your pussy is plotting your demise.  Fuck, you can’t believe you almost cheated in the fucking showers just now where literally anyone could walk in, you thought you would’ve had more self-control than that.  You make your way into the changing rooms and grab your pajamas, starting to tug them on without fully drying your body and having only one thought in mind.  

Dameron will probably be celebrating late tonight.  You can tuck in early, scurry back to your room and cheat there.

Well, no, not cheating, because you clearly remember making a very compelling argument about wet dreams earlier today.  Maker, a freebie, the word has never sounded so enticing.  What you’d say amounts to a… bye-week orgasm basically, since you know he’s already lost at least one match against his own body and you’re meant to be competing on the same level.  It’s only fair to let you persevere through the toughest part of the challenge if he was allowed to throw a game early on and still stay in the competition.  Maybe he threw multiple games, you never got a straight answer concerning that, so it’s still under review.  He could’ve thrown… three games, even.  Or four.

You dress as quickly as possible and then nearly bolt through the entrance area to the restrooms with all the sinks and stalls.  The balled up dirty clothes and wet towel in your arms allow you to hide the way your nipples are stiff and tender against your thin pajamas, and you can’t wait to climb into your bunk and take everything off under the covers.  You’ll be able to cum, at least once.  It’ll relieve so much stress, get rid of this nightmare headache, rip through your body like lightning and paralyze it until you can start over from square one and think like yourself again.

And, you’re just about to power walk your ass back to your quarters when a body nearly slams into yours as soon as you step foot outside the door, your shoulder jerking back just in time to avoid a collision.

A mechanic, you think.  You’re not exactly sure, you don’t hang out with too many of them—he’s Chiss and his glowing red eyes don’t even land on you as you gasp and sidestep him at the last second, but it’s not him that catches the majority of your attention.  He just exited the men’s room at the same time you left the women’s, and the door takes a moment to swing shut behind him.

You freeze.  It can’t be more than a few seconds—but it feels like everything slows down and it lasts a fucking eternity.

Dameron is standing at a sink in the far corner of the room, naked except for a towel identical to the one in your arms wrapped loosely around his waist.  He cradles the base of his own throat with one hand and gently drags a razor down the smooth contour of it with the other, his chin tilted up high and regal while his eyelids dip low to concentrate on his movements.  He glances down and holds the foamy blade under the running faucet, tapping it twice against porcelain before the door slides him out of frame.

I can shave, a low, silky murmur slowly fills your ears, heat swelling low and hot in your tummy.  Tonight, I’ll shave it off.  Make it nice and smooth for you.

You feel like your body is just a collection of rigid knots all tied together, and the one between your legs is the tightest it’s ever been.  Stars, on another day you’d say it feels like a bad cramp, even though you know your injection makes your period rare and like clockwork.  Regardless, the split second image makes you shudder and clamp up painfully, and you just stand there and stare at the closed door for a second, trying not to shake.

Fuck, this is so fucking… presumptuous of him.

Realistically, you know it could have absolutely nothing to do with you.  It’s his face—you’re not self-centered enough to have completely lost your concept of autonomy.  He can do whatever he wants to his body, and that includes facial hair, full stop.  You also know that he’s not being… obvious about it, no matter how much it feels that way to you.  He’s using the sink and mirror at the very end of the room, not any of the ones nearest to the door—but even if he was, it’s not like he could’ve planned for you to walk out at the exact moment the metal hinge was angled wide open.  He couldn’t possibly have intended for this, for you to see him doing this.  He wasn’t making a show, didn’t even notice you standing there.  You blame literally everything on him, or at least you always try your absolute best to—but this one…

It sends a hard shudder down your spine and you clutch the fabric in your arms tighter, trying not to drop it.  Fuck.  This is torture.  Fuck him.  Good and bad—both ways, all the ways he can be fucked, fuck him.  Your head is spinning, you’re sweating fresh out of the shower, you need to cum.  Maybe if you hurry, you can get that precious orgasm before he’s finished, because if Dameron is able to intercept you before you can tend to this, you’re… you’re not sure how you’re going to say no to him.

You don’t even think you want to anymore.  

You feel like you’re just… holding onto it on principle now.  Too stubborn and hardheaded to want change.  Too stuck in your own ways to recognize how much everything already has changed.

Somehow, you end up making your way back to your room, but the whole thing is a blur.  Your flipflops plap against your heels as you navigate through hallways as quick as you can, emptier than you’ve seen them in months.  You know most of the pilots are probably out celebrating in either the mess hall or rec room, but the thought doesn’t really presently register.  Almost nothing registers besides your continuous forward motion and the way you feel yourself throb with every step, aching for something you are going to get tonight.  Fuck, you are so attached to this orgasm now, it’s not going anywhere and neither are you.  You deserve this, you deserve some relief.  Come hell or highwater, it’s happening tonight.

As soon as you step into your room and slap your hand blindly against the wall panel to close the door behind you, you’re carelessly dropping the bundle of fabric to the floor and then shrugging out of your pajamas in the cool pitch darkness, having exactly one mission in mind.  You don’t bother with lights, with brushing your hair, with literally anything besides clamoring up the ladder to your top bunk and wiggling under the thin bedsheet, making sure to pull it up to your chin before your legs butterfly open.  The tip of your finger wets itself on your tongue and then you’re dropping it down and sliding it against your poor clit, the pleasure arcing and flaring so sharp and sensitive even from your touch that you have to give it just a second.

…No, no you don’t.  You don’t have to give it fucking anything.  You keep moving your finger hard and quick even as your hips naturally want to jerk away from it, shoving yourself through the sensitivity with gritted teeth and a ferocious will.

Fuck, how long do you think you have?  Was Dameron shaving pre or post-shower?  You can’t remember, all you know is he had a towel around his waist.  And that thin gold chain hanging down his neck.  Was his hair wet?  Fuck, why can’t you remember?  His chin and jaw were smooth as silk, you know that much.  Post-shower, then.  Probably.  Probably?

His chin and jaw were smooth as silk.  You keep getting stuck on that no matter how chaotically your thoughts whirl; they fling out in different directions at different velocities but all somehow manage to go in a perfect circle and end up at the same place you started.  His chin, his jaw, his mouth, his neck, his chin, his mouth, his jaw, his mouth, his mouth, his mouth—

You feel yourself start to clamp down and you speed up, chasing it.  The pleasure starts burning deep inside you, the fire slowly licking down your thighs and rising up into your abdomen, and then—

And then a series of quiet beeps from the hallway practically blare like alarm bells to your frantic mind.

You immediately stop moving your finger, snapping your legs tight together and flat to the mattress as soon as the door to your room shifts open and fluorescent light spills inside, and you feel like you could actually fucking cry right now.

All this edging is just a form of self-flagellation at this point.  You lay there and try not to make a sound, try not to tremble hard enough to shake the whole bunk with it, but even your breathing feels like it’s going to give you away.  Dameron, shirtless with his towel draped over his shoulder, slowly steps into the room and then pauses almost immediately, making your heart stutter for a second at what so blatantly caught his attention.

One quick glance down towards his feet confirms the simultaneous hope and fear—you left everything on the floor.  The towel, the dirty clothes, and your pajamas are strewn about haphazardly right where he needs to walk.

You know what it must look like to him.  A trail of clothes leading directly to an occupied bed isn’t exactly subtle, even though you didn’t necessarily intend it that way.  Still, what can you say?  Your hand is shoved in between your legs right now and you’re in your birthday suit under this thin sheet, what the fuck can you say to him?  Sorry Dameron, got too caught up with how stupid wet you get me that I left those there on accident on my way to cheat, but totally not because I lowkey want your help doing it.  Convincing, that’ll go over great.

Dameron slowly lifts his head to look at you.  Or, at least you think he does—the light from the open door behind him casts his body in a dark silhouette, but you know your face is perfectly illuminated for him right now.  Blinking down at him from the top bunk with your brows pulled up in the middle, wide-eyed and desperate and caught red-handed.  Fuck, you don’t know if he can see the way your knees are clamped tight together and your hand rests perfectly still against your pussy like this from the angle he’s at, but you know it has to be super fucking obvious either way.  You’re breaking the rules, you’re touching yourself, and you both know it.  You can’t lie, you can’t even sit up without confirming his very valid suspicion.  He can call the game at any point, but…

You watch his head fall back down to study the mess you left for him once more.  Fuck, are you positive that was an accident?  Normally you wouldn’t second guess anything about your own understanding of the interactions that occur between you and him, but—you’ve never done that before.  You’ve lived with roommates on this base for years, you don’t just… get naked before getting into bed, that’s bad form.  How are you going to get up in the morning without having your pajamas shoved near your feet while you sleep?  Wrap this thin bedsheet around yourself and scamper down the ladder until you can snatch them up from the floor, and then what?  Climb all the way back up just to wiggle the clothes on underneath the blanket before going back down again?  Maker, you fucked up, your pussy is plotting your fucking demise.

But then everything inside you pulls taut as Dameron suddenly decides to move.  Slowly, he leans down to catch your orange jumpsuit closest to his feet with a few fingers, before he stands upright and carefully begins folding the fabric without saying a single word to you.  Electricity buzzes through you as he very obviously takes his time with it, using nearly his whole armspan to lengthen and fold the sleeves while his chest and chin meet for support.  When he’s eventually satisfied with it, he takes a few steps toward the empty desk on your side of the room and then sets the neat rectangle of fabric atop it where you usually keep it.

You bite your lip and you can’t help it—you start to move your finger as he goes back to sort the pajamas you wore for barely two seconds from your dirty clothes, folding and putting away whatever is clean and then tossing the rest into the shared laundry basket that gets collected every week.  Somehow it makes you feel even more naked, seeing all your clothes be returned to their proper places, realizing that this is your base state now, this is what you’re going to wear tonight.  Nothing.  You left everything on the floor and trapped yourself up here, he’s simply shifting a pawn forward two spaces in kind now that you’ve made your first move.

You can feel yourself pulse threateningly against your own fingertip while he collects your wet towel and drapes it over your closet door to dry, and your breath comes louder through your nose while you bite back the noises you want to make, the way your movements so desperately want to speed up.  Your hand working the way you want it to under the white sheets would be too much, too revealing, but you don’t know how much longer you’ll be able to care.

But then of course, the asshole has to go and put away his towel and clothes, and you endure through the whole thing while pressing back and forth against your clit so hard and slow that your toes curl and pull the sheet tucked under your chin taut.  After that’s done, he makes his way over to the portshade above his desk and slowly slides it open a few inches, the light of three moons outside gradually filling the room.  However, when Dameron goes back to press a button on the wall panel and close the door to the hallway, you immediately see how much softer it is in here, how the artificial fluorescents have thankfully disappeared and the room illuminates more than it blinds, glows more than it beams.  He presses one more button as the lock inside the paneling slides into place.

You bite your bottom lip and try your best to hide the pleasure you’re building for yourself while he makes his way back to his desk, quietly swiping the radio off it and lowering the volume knob completely before he flips it on.  The noise slowly amplifies until you’re able to catch two distinct voices conversing in Huttese—it’s the only lingua franca that still broadcasts on this old technology in this part of the galaxy, but he’s already flipping through the stations in search of something specific.

If you were thinking straight, you may have actually recognized this for what it is, but you’re having trouble even processing the details of your general surroundings right now, your mind is lagging and too slow at reading between the lines.  Dameron’s doing exactly what he said he would do.  He laid it all out earlier for you in the x-wing, telling you exactly what he wanted plain as day, and now he’s checking the whole list off one by one.  The shade is open and the room is lit just enough to make him out, the door is locked, and he’s finding something to listen to.  Something quiet, and easy.

If you were thinking straight, you’d realize that there’s a much more obvious reason why he shaved his beard—you never told him the truth about how much you liked it.  You never tell him the truth.  You allow—even encourage him to think the sharp things you say to him are exactly how you feel.  He did it because he believed you.

Oh, but you’re not thinking straight.  Your thoughts are scattered and the only thing they can agree upon is how good this feels, even as your breathing starts to grow heavier, grow louder underneath the sound of the radio.  The thought stays right beneath your consciousness, tugging at your preoccupied mind.  You work your finger with just a little more verve now that he’s flipping through the stations, knowing he’s distracted by spinning the dial through intermittent white noise while different voices and songs fill the room for just a second at a time.

Your bed, his voice suddenly echoes through your thoughts, originating from your subconscious but almost sounding like it’s coming from the radio in your delirious mind.  I want you comfortable.

Fuck, the understanding finally clicks the second he flips to a slower song and you start to burn at the thought of what’s next.  The silent promise that his actions allude to.  You have the realization way too late but at least it still comes at all with the state you’re in.  Your hand slows down immediately, not even needing to consciously consider the choice between achieving orgasm through your finger or his mouth.  Still, it’s hard to stop touching yourself completely when it feels so fucking good to your deprived body.

Fuck, it’s barely been a few seconds since your realization and yet you immediately bristle in distress at how fucking long he’s taking.

So you open your mouth.  You’re desperate and needy and on the verge of something, and it comes out without thought.  You don’t think it’s loud enough for him to hear, but his head immediately lifts and looks unseeingly at the wall in front of him for a second, as if he’s questioning if he imagined it.  A soft melody plays on a bluesy guitar while you hiccup and wait, but he doesn’t move.

And then you say it again, higher and tighter in your throat, pitched up to an impatient, girlish whine.  “Poe…”

The radio is tossed onto the bottom bunk as soon as he spins around and walks towards the ladder, but it’s like your finger has a mind of its own the moment he disappears underneath your line of sight.  Your legs spasm against the mattress and you bite your lip, not caring about the frantic way your hand begins moving under the sheet as his muted footsteps climb up the rungs.

Your eyes snap to his as soon as you can see him beyond the railing at your feet, heaving himself up until everything above his waist is above you, too.  His pauses there and his lashes quickly dip to the shameless movements between your legs as you work yourself towards that approaching bliss, and then flick back to the way you’re biting your lip and looking at him so torn, wanting so badly to wait for it but not being able to right now.

Slowly, he begins to move forward, crawling his way up the mattress and over your body, noticeably careful with where he places his limbs.  You’re not hard to dodge, though—you’re like a rigid stick of desperation under him, knees and ankles still clamped tight together and your arms streamlined as close to your body as possible with tension as you keep rubbing your clit.  Not to mention the sheet is thin and shows your figure almost perfectly with how tight you’ve hooked it under your chin, only leaving the finest details to the imagination.

But then there starts to be a little strain against the fabric, an unspoken question he’s still bothering to ask even though you could’ve told him to fuck off ages ago.  Poe could yank the sheet down and flip your shit over and destroy you right now if he wanted—fuck, like you want him to do—but his face slowly appears in front of yours instead and his dark eyes search your features for answers.  The length of his chain dangles from his muscular neck and glows against his golden skin, his whole upper body stretched long and bare over you.

From the gradually increasing tightness pulling on the fabric, you expect the sheet to rip down your body as soon as you lift your chin and let that resistance go, but instead… stars, it’s slow.  Why is he going so fucking slow??  The bedsheet barely flutters down to your collarbone before he’s able to stop tugging on it so hard, and then he just gently inches the hem down from that point on.

Fuck—your eyes drop to his lips as he eventually reveals your shoulders and sternum to the room, and then lower to your cleavage while you let out a hushed whimper, praying he understands the extent of how vulnerable you’re allowing yourself to be.  You don’t do this often—and you definitely don’t do it with someone like him.  He’s the one who said you needed this, isn't he?  So why the fuck is he dragging out the anticipation?  Pretending like he doesn’t see the way you’re begging for help in the middle of another warzone that’s breaking out for the second time today?

Poe’s head drops down to give the contour of your neck a long drag of his tongue, slow and hot and wet, the sheet eventually dropping beneath your nipples and exposing them to the cool air.  You bite your lip and keep working yourself under the fabric even as it’s led down the length of your tummy, and you just get wetter and wetter feeling him mouth at your skin as the radio continues to play soft from the bottom bunk.  He follows the skin as it’s revealed, licking down from your collarbone and working with the increasing rate of your breathing.  His lips never feel like they vary in pressure, even as your chest heaves up and down and your lungs work hard for air.

His open mouth slowly drags down the curve of your breast and it makes your blood burn fire through your veins.  You nearly choke when your nipple is enveloped in soft heat, his tongue quickly fluttering up under the stiff peak and giving it to you so gently, contrasting so light and vernal with how brilliant and neon bright the need between your legs is.  Your hand starts to work quicker, and fuck—you can hear it now, your desperate movements audible over the shallow breaths and the sound of one song gradually fading into another below you.  You’re just too fucking wet and your pussy is smushed with how tight your legs are pressed together—the noise is unavoidable, and Poe’s knees are planted too close to either side of your thighs to spread them really at all.

Fuck, you knock against the resistance regardless to let him know what you want, but he doesn’t budge and it makes you just about lose your damn mind.  Does he have to make everything so fucking difficult?  You couldn’t close your legs earlier and now you can’t open them, and it’s like he’s able to take perfect advantage of each opposing position to prolong your torture.

But then his tongue leaves you even as his jaw opens just slightly, and that’s the only warning you get before his teeth graze your nipple with a sudden arc of sensation and you flare up all at once.

It’s a miracle and a curse that you’re able to stop at the very last second, your hand jerking away from your pussy and flexing into a fucking death claw on your thigh at how close you were, and you don’t know why.  Why did the fuck did you stop?  There’s nothing standing in your way right now, you’ve consciously given yourself express permission to cum, but still.  It must just be learned instinct at this point—hammered into your muscle memory for weeks on end to not allow the pleasure no matter what, especially when you’re this fucking close to it.

Nonetheless you garble out nonsense and cinch inwards on yourself to fight it off now that you’ve apparently decided against it.  There’s nothing worse than a half-assed orgasm, and you have to quickly summon the conviction behind your split second reaction before it’s too late and your body takes the pleasure any way it can get it.

Poe’s mouth releases your nipple at the way your whole spine suddenly hunches in and he drops his forehead to your chest, breathing heavy down the slope of your breast as you tremble and grapple for your sanity.

“Did you just cum?”  Is the first thing he says to you, his voice is so ragged and stony it’s practically gravel crunching as he speaks.

“N-n-no,” you quickly stammer at the ceiling, trying to remember how to breathe correctly.  Inhale, exhale—fuck, which one is inhale again, which one comes first?  Maker, does he need to call a fucking medic?  “Huhhhhalmost?”

Poe takes a deep breath and slowly releases it with a bassy and warm mmmm rumbling against your skin, so coarse but pleased enough to sound like melted chocolate dripping down your body.  The noise sends a violent shudder through you and it’s almost enough to knock you back to that edge again, even without your fingers assisting it.  

His head dips and the sheet pulls down even more, just below your belly button now, and you let out a quiet gasp in anticipation, nearly on the verge of begging him to keep moving downwards.  But when Poe’s eyes close and his mouth suddenly moves back up to open over your other nipple instead, your patience snaps.  

Fuck him, bad way.  This is your orgasm, you’re done waiting.

“I’m gonna cum,” you snarl furiously down at him, shoving your hand between your legs even as Poe’s lips quirk against your skin.  It’s not a warning, it’s a threat.  If he’s gonna be like this, he doesn’t get to share it with you.  It’s your orgasm, you’ll give it to yourself if he doesn’t give a shit about it.  “Thought you wanted it, guess not.”

You immediately feel his teeth again in response to your admittedly slightly bitchy comment and this time he lets your nipple roll just a bit between them, making you jerk at the sensation and quickly find your clit again.  Oh, you’re soaking fucking wet, you’re wet everywhere.  Slick and swollen and burning, and it’s not going to take much at all.  The sheet sticks to your overheated body and you can’t tell the difference between your sweat, his saliva, or wetness from between your legs—it all just feels damp and slippery as you gradually lose your bearings under his mouth.

“Fuck this, I’m gonna cum,” you breathe once more, possibly nothing more than a mindless reiteration but most likely just one last veiled plea for him to give you what you both want.  As if he can tell, Poe quickly lifts his mouth and suddenly the sheet is ripped the rest of the way down your naked body completely, sharp and frustrated, and then his lips brush against your elbow as it twitches, nipping the sensitive skin there.

“Brat,” he growls quietly against your forearm as he keeps dragging his lips down further, following the path it makes along your tummy.  “Just likes making shit difficult.”

“You’re the one—” you hiccup, trying to sound angry but just melting into a puddle at the tip of his tongue slowly trailing down your frantically moving wrist, “—you’re the… the o-one who… who…?”

But you’re already sprinting towards that edge, feeling him drop even lower and his hot breath fan against your fingers, and at this point you’re too far gone.  Poe gently kisses at your closed thighs, in perfect position and ready for you, but you can’t stop yourself anymore unless he makes you stop, and the longer he waits down there without grabbing your hand to replace it with something better the more you don’t give a shit about whether or not it’s going to happen.  You can feel the orgasm rising, you can feel your toes flex and everything start to lock down for the approaching tsunami.  You’re going to get it this time, you’re going to cum, you’re going to—

“This is—” you rasp, “—this is a f-free, a fffff-ffreeeeb—”

His tongue softly grazes your knuckle as it works.

And then there’s a moment.  A suspended moment that seems to go on forever, where you’re launched directly over that cliff and yet you still seem to be gaining altitude.  Where’s the drop?  You’re already cumming—you can feel it, there’s absolutely no fucking going back now, but it’s like your sheer desperation has so much momentum that your body tricks itself into believing there’s nothing to land on, no gravity to immediately rip you straight down to your demise.

You choke out his name and your back arches with it and that must be the signal, because Poe finally pulls your hand away and lets his chin dip, and then his jaw falls open and allows you just enough time to catch the glimmer of his pink tongue before it slides wet and slow through your swollen folds.

Heat.  It sears through your whole body with a wracked shudder, the slick glide over your clit as his eyes flutter closed, and within the very first second of feeling his mouth on you, you’re instantly cumming inside it.

There.  There’s the drop.

The burning erupts into molten chaos, crumpling your whole body on impact like an accordion, but he sinks all his weight down on your legs and forces you to endure it with everything below your waist pinned to the mattress.  It’s fucking mayhem.  You feel like your voice actually rips itself in half with the ragged cry of blinding relief, so enormous and soul wrenching in power that you couldn’t even hope to muffle it.  You can’t move your hips through it, you can’t stutter up to ride it out—you have to experience the whole thing with your lower body completely still while his tongue takes slow, gentle licks at your throbbing clit, only able to sit your shoulders up and slam them back down and grab his head as you endure.

You cum hard.  Fucking hard.  It’s daunting and explosive and utterly devastating in the havoc it wreaks, and just when you think you’ve seen the worst of it, it’s just so slow.  Creeping along and obliterating everything in its path, taking an eternity to pass because of how fucking big it is.

When you’re finally able to float back down into your own body again, the first thing you notice is how tight his hold is.  Poe’s arms are wrapped around your thighs to keep them pressed tight together and you can feel the wetness all the way down to your fucking knees as they tremble against each other.  Stars, what did he do to you?  You feel like you actually wet yourself, there’s way too much dampness on the mattress underneath you to feel anywhere close to normal for you.

His mouth eventually leaves you but his head doesn’t move, nothing else moves.  Even his hot breath feels like rough stimulation to your throbbing pussy.

And then Poe shifts and adjusts his body just enough, catching the backs of your knees and slowly spreading your legs up and apart like you wanted to do ages ago.  They feel like jelly, wobbly and unsteady even as his thumbs hook right under your knees and easily support most of their weight.  Your pussy is soon exposed completely, and his shoulders move down just before his head drops to lick the collection of wetness right from your entrance.  Fuck, he couldn’t get it from the previous angle your legs were at, just your clit at the very top—but this is deep and personal and you know he’s probably getting mouthfuls of how hard he just made you cum, using the tip of his tongue to scoop your arousal up and swallowing it quietly before going back for more.

“Poe,” you whisper, and he rumbles low in his throat in response without stopping.  This isn’t for you, this isn’t for your benefit right now.  Your pleasure receptors aren’t concentrated right here, just the physical evidence of them being overloaded just a few moments ago, but he stays for longer than necessary.  He keeps his mouth here far longer than you need to push past the throbbing sensitivity and start to crave the sensation again, forcing you to bite your lip to stop yourself from telling him to move back up just a couple inches.

So you seek it out instead, the lower part of your body clearly not listening to a damn thing your mind tells it right now.  Your hips drop and his velvet tongue catches your clit at the apex of its repetitive motion, and you gasp and rock upwards again as Poe groans and immediately rises with you to chase it.  He attaches to the swollen flesh and sucks at it gently for you, following your lead, letting your wet fingers comb his hair back from his face and clutch a good fistful of it as you plant your feet and slowly grind up into his mouth.

Fuck.  He was right.  You needed this.  Everything about it is heaven—endorphins pour off you in waves as you roll your hips against his face, and he lets you do it.  He’s not just pliant, he’s willing.  His tongue works diligently, his eyes close and he moans into your pussy, allowing you to tug his hair and fit to his mouth exactly how you want.

Oh, everything burns.  Everything smolders and sparks, because he’s always been so withholding and now he’s just going for it.  He’s reading your mind better than he did during the battle today, not necessarily submissive in his approach but… servicing.  Accommodating.  Finally giving in and putting real effort into helping you chase after another shot of ecstasy without being so stingy about it like before.

As soon as you feel another familiar swell of something deep down, your mouth is suddenly dropping open.

“How many—” your ragged voice comes out without thinking, and it takes so fucking long to actually attach the train of thought to its conduit of translation.  You swallow thickly and flex your fingers in his hair, tugging at him to ground yourself, trying to anchor yourself to the very thing that’s about to fling you into oblivion again.  “—fuck, how many times did you… how many fr-freebies do I—do I…”

Poe eases his chin back just enough to respond, and the slick sound his tongue makes leaving your clit makes you shudder and miss the wretched words at first.  “Mm.  Just the one.”

And then his tongue is already sliding back through your pussy by the time your eyes pop open in immediate panic, and your clit is in his mouth again as soon as yours drops to frantically contest.

But the words aren’t coming, it feels too fucking amazing.  Your jaw goes slack and your fingers tighten in his hair.  Maker almighty, the orgasm swells up so sharp and quick that you have to fucking kick him at the very last second to get away from it.  Thankfully Poe’s mouth abruptly leaves you with his oof of shock at your audacity, lifting his head as you snap your legs together and grit your teeth through your miserable retreat from ecstasy.  You don’t even notice the way your knee almost knocks into his jaw with it—you just focus on shamefully easing your way back down again from the platform overlooking bliss like you’re too afraid of the high-dive.  After a second, you actually have to turn on your side and rock yourself like a child as Poe slowly sits up with a grimace, lifting his arm to rub at his ribcage where your heel slammed into him.

You peek an eye open to watch him do it and oh no, it’s not a good plan.  He’s so… fucking hot.  Fuck.  He’s unbelievably good-looking—his hair curls and frames such handsome features, his body is lovely and warm and seeing his chest bare and up close like this makes you want to reach out and slowly drag your hand down the smooth curve of his side.  But then your gaze catches on the dark sweatpants tented shamelessly between his legs and how he’s glistening with perspiration, too, and how he tugs at the fabric covering his crotch and sighs softly, blinking down at you slow and intoxicated with lust.

You have to close your eyes and bury your face into the pillow because your body is latching onto anything to keep you within inches of that edge.  The mere sight of him is enough to make you worry for yourself.  You take deep breaths and do your best to tune his existence out entirely.  Just you, just you in your bed, trying desperately not to cum without even touching yourself.  You’re naked and curled up and there's no one here to look down at you with deep brown eyes, no one else breathing and especially not equally as loud as you are.  Just you, just you.

And, just when you think you might finally get to the point where you’re not teetering anymore, where you’re at least mostly certain that moving around and looking at things and just existing in general isn’t going to make you completely unravel hands-free at any moment, he has to fucking… go and be himself.

You peek up to see him staring down at you, dark and intimate and devouring, before his hand gently brushes down the curve of your hip.  “Maker, you are so fucking hot right now.  Was that a close one, pretty baby?”

Your hand snaps out to grab his wrist with a whimper and you don’t know if your intent is to stop him or just hang on for dear life, but your grip is weak and you shake and Poe takes the opportunity to grab a handful of your ass while you do absolutely fuck all to stop him.

“Mmmm.  Open your legs,” he murmurs, releasing your flesh just to give it a soft smack.  “You’re only making it worse like this.”

“What?  W-What do you—” you stammer, but Poe drags his hand down your thigh to catch one of your knees and pull it up without waiting for your babbled reply.  Both knees go with him, your pelvis wound too tight and frozen to do anything but rotate your whole entire body on your tailbone.

“You’re just adding more pressure by keeping them closed,” he explains, wiggling his fingers in between your knees to try and get enough of a grip to pry them apart.  “C’mon—open your legs, let yourself breathe.”

“Nnnnnnstop talking,” you groan, trying to slap at him, but he’s strong enough to force the movement regardless, levering your knees apart and then pushing them tight to the mattress.  And, though he would normally be right about it, you’re fighting your mind to get away from the orgasm just as much as you are your body.  The sudden exposure and the positioning and the way he automatically drops his gaze down at your needy pussy with his cock still hidden in his pants like that only serves to displace the cause instead of eliminating the effect.  Closing the door and opening a window, shifting the stimulation somewhere else but allowing it to throb steady and aching regardless.

“Much better,” he sighs lowly, digging his fingers into the sore muscles inside your thighs and you just keep your hands loosely attached to his wrists as he works.  “Fuck me, baby’s got such a pretty pussy doesn’t she?”

“Poe,” you wheeze up at him, hearing him rumble at the sight of your cunt contracting around nothing, probably shining and glistening with your desperation for him.  By this point, you’re worrying again.  You have no doubt whatsoever that he could talk you into cumming just like this, with your hands trembling and clutching at his wrists.  If he keeps murmuring filth while holding your legs open and staring at your pussy like this, you have no doubt you’ll find a way to get there somehow.

Thankfully, he seems to understand.  He goes quiet and just keeps massaging your sore muscles while you try not to writhe underneath him.  Stars, it’s like he’s genuinely doing what he can to take it easy on you and you’re still all kinds of fucked up about it, still frantic and desperate while all he’s doing is just squeezing your legs.

“Calm down,” he gruffs, but you can’t.  “You’re working yourself up, don’t—”

“Stop talki—” your ragged growl is cut off by your own hiccup as you quickly find the strength to shove at his hands, knowing they’re at least mostly to blame for your prolonged tightrope walk.  You can’t fucking think when he’s touching you, you become too hyper-aware of your own body, it feels too good in a way that’s hard to describe and impossible to explain.  Poe’s palms immediately listen and raise in front of him in surrender, his back lifting to give you space while you hide your face from him with shaky hands and gasp.  It’s pathetic and your legs are still held wide open and your fingers tremble hard enough to resemble a malfunction.

You just.  You need a hard reset.  You need that thirty seconds of complete idle, of figuring shit out on your own without an electric current running through you before you can start working properly again.  It can’t be rushed, it’s necessary when most people just want to power down and then right back up again.  The wires connecting your parts are all criss-crossed and tangled and sparks are lighting up at the slightest stimulus, you just need to experience absolutely nothing for thir—

“I’m sorry,” Poe murmurs, still staying in his own space but the gravelly voice shooting a bolt of lightning down your spine.  Thirty seconds, of course he couldn’t give you thirty fucking seconds.  “Fuck, you’re so hot, I’m sorry—”

“Please stop talking,” you beg him, your fingers curling against your face, “Maker, I—I don’t want to cum—”

“Fuck, I know, it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever fucki—”

You go to kick him again and even though it collides wrong and does nothing more than get your message across, the jostle is enough to knock you back from the approaching oblivion just slightly.  It serves to wake you up way more than it remotely hurts him, the equivalent of someone just smacking a piece of machinery and fixing the problem temporarily.

You heave an enormous breath and blink your eyes open behind your fingers, immediately locking with his.  Poe’s teeth are digging into his bottom lip but he’s mercifully silent, even when you drop your shaky hands down to your spread thighs and stay equally silent another full minute while you make the effort to right yourself.  After awhile though, you realize he must be taking cues from you, waiting for you to speak.

Only, you suddenly don’t know what to say.  You’re at a complete loss, looking up at him through your eyelashes in uncertainty now.  Something you’ve never been around him, even as your pussy is wide open for him to look at.  He hasn’t recently, though, you don’t think.  He’s just keeping his eyes on your face, watching you bite your lip and blink up at him while your mind whirls, the only sound that can be heard is the radio continuing to lull from the bottom bunk.

You wish he’d say something.  How come he’s choosing right now to listen to what you tell him to do?  You don’t… you don’t know what to say to him.  Why can’t you figure out something?  You fidget but then suddenly feel your expression lose all its struggle and just look… innocent.  Needing his help.

“Do you want me to leave?”  Poe eventually asks after another moment, tentative of breaking the silence, and you frantically shake your head before he’s even finished speaking.  Fuck, something drops in your stomach at how desperate you’re probably coming off right now, but you’re so lost and you know that’s at least one question you know the immediate answer to.

Poe tilts his head thoughtfully, slowly reaching a hand towards your thigh without removing his eyes from yours.  “Want me to make you cum again?”

You shake your head again, wide-eyed and worried.  He immediately pulls his hand back and blinks slowly at you.

“You want to be edged more?”  He asks lowly, and you shake your head vehemently for the third time.  Poe sighs and sits back, planting his palms to his thighs and pulling at the fabric of his pants in budding frustration, clearly tired of playing twenty questions.  “Well what do you want, baby?  You wanna just hang out?  That’s fine, I don’t care, but you gotta tell me.”

Fuck, he’s right, what do you want?  The only thing that’s standing in your way of feeling better, you soon realize.

“Want you to cum first,” you mumble, cheeks warming at how childish you sound.

“Not a fucking chance,” Poe immediately scoffs, crossing his arms over his bare chest.  “And pouting at me isn’t gonna help.”

“Why not?”  You breathe, dipping your gaze down his body.  “I can use my mouth.”

“I don’t—” he stops short, suddenly registering what you said and switching gears.  “You can—?”  Poe narrows his eyebrows and looks suspicious.  “You’ll let me… cum in it?”

“Okay,” you whisper in breathless agreement, sitting up and reaching for him, but Poe groans and pushes you back down on the mattress with a flattened palm against your shoulder like you just aced a test he was hoping you’d fail.

“Fuck whoever’s idea this was,” he grits darkly to himself while you arch up against his hold, wanting him to grab your tits but knowing it’s not a good idea right now.  “Maker, I’m so fucking hard—fuck whoever’s idea this was, making me turn that down—”

“You said,” you pant, licking your dry lips and blinking up at the ceiling, trying to control yourself, “before, you said that you’re… you’re not doing this for a bet, right?  So why not?”  Your voice goes softer when you flutter your gaze back at him, even though the accusation feels like it should be sharper if anything, since it comes from a very real place of distrust.  “Were you just… lying to me about that?”

“Fuck, come on,” Poe groans, his voice starting to waver as he shakes his head and squints one eye at you, exasperated.  “You don’t get it.  You can’t think of a single fucking reason I don’t wanna blow my load just yet?  Really?”

The sentence coupled with his rock solid hold on you skitters a thrill through your body and you automatically reach up to run your hand along his forearm.  He looks down at the caress and then back to your face and fuck, even you feel like you’re sending mixed signals right now.

“You could… fuck me,” you whisper, and Poe’s dark eyebrows pull up as his gaze falls down your naked body, nodding and digging his teeth into his bottom lip.  An agreement backed by so much unspoken desire that it looks like it almost hurts him just to hear you say it out loud.  “And we can just… see who cums first.”

“Yeah?”  He croaks, his eyes pinned between your open legs.  “Just say fuck it all and race for last place?  Okay.”

Your heart pounds, having just enough wherewithal to preemptively establish a safety net for yourself.  “And—and we can’t finish at the same time or we both lose.”

“Fuck,” Poe groans, reaching down to catch the hem of his sweatpants with his thumb and lifting his hips until his cock is exposed to the dim room.  “We can’t stop once we start, then, we’ll have to see it through.”

Except you don’t catch any of the last part because, uh.  Well, to sum up.  May the Maker have mercy on you all.

Just like that, the only thought in your mind is… you get it.  Okay, you get it.  He told you before that girls were only interested in him for his cock, and it actually… stars, it makes so much fucking sense now, you totally get it.  You thought maybe he was just boasting as a form of overcompensation at first—or, to put it another way you’ve probably used in conversation with him before, talking big talk but walking small walk.  Only now, you’re… humbled.  By a fucking dick, you’re humbled.

You haven’t seen more than a few of them in this context, so you know you’re not necessarily qualified to give an informed opinion, but heavens it’s a sight.  It’s thick and swollen and just a shade darker than his complexion and everything inside you rockets to attention as soon as he wraps his hand around it.  It’s big.  It fills his whole palm without much room to spare.  Far larger than what you’re used to, and you know that no matter how he fucks you with it, you’re gonna feel it tomorrow.  Next weekend, probably.

Your eyes must betray you, because Poe suddenly loosens his grip and breathes your name softly, causing you to flick your eyes back up to his.  You didn’t realize you were staring so openly.

“I’ll go slow,” he reassures you quietly, voice gentle and knowing.  The complete lack of sarcasm or aggression in his tone is enough to snap you back to yourself, knowing that can’t possibly be right.  He’s talking to you like he did when you stumbled your ass out of the x-wing today, when you were barely responsive and lost in dumb shock.  He doesn’t have to… be nice to you right now, like you’re still only moments away from losing it.  It’s offensive.

“I can handle it,” you harumph, widening your legs while Poe immediately suppresses a grin.

“'Course you can,” he sighs with the slightest note of fondness creeping into his voice, dropping his hips as he lines up at your entrance.  “And I’ll go slow anyways.”

You open your mouth to respond but at the first push of his head inside, you inhale sharply and your palm immediately shoots out to press against his chest on complete instinct.  The stab of pain is impossible to mask from your features and Poe instantly stops with a shaky breath, watching how your jaw drops at the intrusion and your face contorts.

“Ahh.  Shit…” he whispers as his head tips down, dark eyes clamping shut and his hold on you tightening.  “What—shit, what the fuck…”

“Keep going,” you growl out, even though you know you’re just making it more difficult on yourself.  You can take Poe’s cock, you can take it, he has absolutely nothing to brag about, it’s completely normal-sized—

His hips inch forwards and you gasp at the excruciating arc of sensation, slapping at him harder.

“Keep going,” you babble while locking your elbows and shoving him back, “fuck, keep going, keep going—”

“Baby,” Poe groans, wrenching one of your hands from his chest and bringing your wrist up to his mouth to kiss and breathe hot air on it, “baby, you gotta let me—”

He moves a little more and you cry out, jerking your hand back from his lips and knocking it hard against his chest before you even realize it.  Oh shit, you can’t handle it, you haven’t been fucked in so long—

“I’m sorry,” you choke out, trying to be nicer by flattening your palm but then immediately digging your nails in, “fuck, I’m sorry, it’s just—it’s been awhile since I—”

“Shit, I can tell,” he pants brokenly, his fingers dropping back down to flex hard on your hip.  “Hoooolyfuck, I can te—ah, fuck, it’s alright, it’s alright, just—nnnnnnshit, okay, just relax, don’t tense up too muuuh… much—”

His cock pushes deeper even as he keeps rambling through it and you feel yourself being rearranged to make room for the slow movement, giving way to a rich pleasure even as the discomfort increases.

Poe stops once more when your hands shove up against him, somehow simultaneously shakier and firmer than all the other times put together and a little more than half of him inside you at this point.  You’re so slick and hot between your legs that there’s no resistance besides the stretch, nothing to stop him from slamming home besides your weak hands trembling at his collarbone, but everything about the way he stays completely frozen for ages says he’s controlled and patient.

Everything except his face, you soon realize.

When your body is finally able to come to terms with the sensation and you blink up at him, Poe isn’t looking at you anymore.  He’s staring directly over your head at the wall, tangible regret manifesting itself in seething frustration marring his expression.  His eyebrows furrow and he scowls but all of it is silent and directed at himself, as if he’s asking why the fuck he actually agreed to do this.  You know then that it must be really fucking wet.  You know then that you must be just blazing hot and tighter than sin and as if in rhythmic agreement, his cock jumps inside you with each pounding rush of blood through it.  You can see the sweat beading at his hairline as he continues to ignore you for the moment, choosing instead to silently lament at the wall like it did something to mortally betray him.

You could… make this a sprint, something devious suddenly whispers to you.  He’s struggling through the pleasure and you can outlast.  From the severity of that look alone, you can put an end to it before it even starts.

Admittedly, you don’t even let the devil finish his damn sentence before you decide to take your own initiative.  You clamp down around him as hard as you can and Poe whips his attention down to you and punches out a curse that sounds like you wrenched the word from his throat before he was anywhere near ready for it.  It comes from somewhere high and defenseless in register and then quickly falls down into a growly pit as his hips automatically lurch forwards the rest of the way inside, hard, smacking into yours as you squeeze wickedly around him.

You keep squeezing through the sudden upward shove of bliss, you keep tightening up even though you’re making agonizing noises and your eyes clamp shut and it hurts.  But stars, it feels good, why does it feel so good when it hurts so bad?  It makes your throat scrape and your face twist up, but you can hear his cursing getting louder and more desperate so you still don’t relax your viselike hold around him.

“Stop it—” he snarls down at you rabidly, “—oh fuck, stop or you’ll make us both cu—”

Shit, he’s right.  You know he’s never been more right about anything as soon as his hips stutter and kick up to a full blown gallop in the middle of his furious scolding, and the sudden build of ecstasy is so fast and intense that you sob his name, not being able to loosen your muscles anymore as soon as it overtakes you.  But it’s like a closed circuit, you’re both recycling the same pleasure without knowing how to shut it off.  The harder you bear down on him, the faster his hips work, the vicious cycle compounding and circling and manifesting in the perfect typhoon within just a few tumultuous seconds.

But then suddenly he rips himself out of you with a gasp and it’s not a moment too soon, because both of you have to scramble and grab onto things to brace yourselves through the worst of it.  You choose the mattress and he chooses the railing, and through the searing discomfort and settling of the chaos that’s becoming more and more familiar to you as this exhausting day passes, you know you fucked up.  You underestimate his self control, time and time again.  But, exactly like earlier today, you feel a thrill skitter up your spine at how he’s going to respond to your brazen treachery in the face of a newly established truce.

“Fuck,” he jerks his head to spit the obscenity at you, sounding more pissed off than you’ve ever heard him, the shredded anger in his voice starting to burn through you.  “Fuckfuckfuuuuck—you make me so mad.  You make me so mad.  I wish I could fuck you right now, on Maker, I’d ruin you.  I’d wreck your shit until you learn and you’d deserve every single fucking second of it, you—”

He stops short and growls jagged sharp in frustration, but you can’t help yourself.

“Say it,” you whimper on a dare, feeling your heart pound.  The words quiver with an inexplicable sort of excitement as you dig your fingers into the mattress, wanting to hear his voice snarl the mysterious profanity.  “Say it.  ‘You…’—what?  Say it.”

Shock suddenly paints his previously tense expression blank, even though his pupils blow out and his chest heaves.  Your voice is too breathless, it’s too needy to sound nearly as antagonistic as you want.  

And then Maker, it’s as if the sheer control he’s clinging to serves to spark his vexation even more.  Mad that you would ask for something so enticing at a moment like this.  Your heart thunders as Poe nearly flashes up close to you and points a threatening finger at you.

“You’re not going to get what you want from me,” he snaps, quiet and furious.  “Not tonight.  I don’t give a shit, I told you I’d slow fuck you and now I’m gonna do it until you act right.”

“You’re an asshole—” you move to lift up onto your elbows, but his hand suddenly plants against your clavicle and shoves you back down flat on the mattress.

“Not even ten minutes after I make you cum and you’ve already got a fucking attitude problem again,” he shoots back, positioning his cock at your entrance with his other hand once more, and Maker you’re drowning between your legs.  His sharp rebuttal and the firm hold on the upper part of your chest makes it that much wetter, knowing you can’t do much more than lift your legs the way you need when he eases his way back inside.  

“P-Poe—” you gasp breathlessly, but it's like he doesn’t hear you.

His expression tenses and he shudders out a low growl.  “Fuck.  Tight little baby.  Rude little baby, just wants everything her way but doesn’t know how to behave herself.”

You have to bite your lip hard to hold back a whine when he’s completely sheathed and his hips connect to yours, and… shit.  You already feel it.  You already feel that simmering starting to take hold deep down once more, that monstrous second orgasm you’ve been fighting now digging its claws into you and licking the base of your spine with fire.  And, as if he can tell, his demeanor instantly changes.

“Uh, oh,” Poe murmurs quietly, equal parts lilting and baiting, slowly dragging his cock out and then starting up the laziest pace you’ve ever experienced with his hand still planted high on your sternum right below your collarbone.  “Can you feel it coming?  Fuck, I can,” he shudders.  “Already.  Fuck, you’re so wet, you’re so wet—wish you had let me eat you out mor—”

“You can’t c—umm,” you hiccup, grasping his wrist and writhing through the building ecstasy, and you don’t know who you’re talking to at this point.  Your other palm slaps at his shoulder with increasing urgency—fuck, he’s been fucking you for barely ten seconds and you’re already struggling to hold everything back.  Only, his hand quickly grabs yours and pins it to the mattress, his face dropping closer as he rolls his hips achingly slow.  You feel his back working with the steady pace, you see his neck flex as his cock drags so thick inside you, and then your gaze starts to lose focus a bit.  It slides up his throat as lazily as he’s augmenting your pleasure, following the contour of his smooth skin until it reaches his face.

And mercy, Poe’s tongue comes out to wet his lips and a dark curl hangs down his forehead, concentrating hard on fucking you steadily without giving into the same creeping euphoria you’re feeling, and you have to turn away and bite back a whimper at the metal railing when the image starts to burn you alive.

“No,” Poe gruffs and his hand slides up a few inches to frame your jaw, twisting until you face him directly once more.  “Right here, you stay right here with me.”

Your eyebrows pull up weakly and your eyes flick across his stunning features, the way he’s so present, so focused and determined while you’re starting to drift.  His skin is so smooth, so golden when his jawline used to be dark, and—

“I—” you choke, starting to lose it, “—I-I…”

“What is it, baby?”  Poe growls, staring down at you with unwavering, intense concentration.  “Tell me.  You gonna cum?”

“I…” you whimper, blinking at him slowly, “I… liked your… b-beard…”

Poe’s eyes, previously hardened and steadfast, suddenly go a bit dumb, a bit dazed.  After a second, his eyebrows lose all strain, his gaze turns warmer and he rolls his hips deeper—

But the swell begins to become the only thing you can comprehend—that and the fact that you should be fighting it.  You should be revolting against it, but now he’s looking so softly down at you and you can’t remember what could possibly be so bad about letting him take away all this ache and desperation again.  Let him continue to take it away, over and over and over until it’s nowhere to be found at all.

And then Poe leans down and kisses you.  And it’s… nothing like you’d expect.

It’s gentle.  It’s tender.  It goes on forever while he rocks into your soaking wet cunt, easing his throbbing cock in and out of you with such a smooth, repetitive motion that sends sparks of ecstasy down your spine at the apex of each thrust.  

You handle it silently.  At first.  You don’t audibly react to any of it, you force your voice to at least keep quiet if you can’t hide the pleasure from your face or body, but then true to fucking form, he has to go and ruin it all.  Poe uses his knees to scoot up just the slightest bit, and then his moan breaks through the absence of the desperate sounds you’ve been holding back as his tongue slowly slides into your mouth.

Your pussy flares, contracting painfully around his cock as it hits a spot that makes your legs shake against his sides.  Your eyes roll back as his soft tongue dips into your mouth and everything just gets tighter, and tighter.  Poe moans again and his hips push a little bit harder into yours on the next thrust, and it’s almost like a domino effect, except that doesn’t do it justice.  It doesn’t topple one by one, it doesn’t take any time at all for the beginning to reach the finish—it’s a house of cards, the whole thing collapses and crashes down in on itself all at once.

You cum.

You lose.  Fair and square.

You make a long, anguished whine into his mouth as you just start spasming, clutching hard at his shoulders and drenching his cock with it, your eyes squeezing shut as you cum so slow and fucking helpless around him.  Oh Maker, it’s fucking devastating, it feels even more destructive and powerful than the first one.  You pull and shove and claw at him equally, mouth slack as Poe tightens his hold and keeps tasting your whimpering cries, fitting his hips snug to yours as he slowly pushes you down through the debilitating ecstasy.  You sob in euphoric defeat and a low, bone-shattering groan of satisfaction rumbles through his chest in response, grinding his cock into you and holding it deep as your pussy convulses.

All those weeks of holding out, just to lose.  You had a freebie, he gave you an orgasm already and it was like a massive dose of spice to your deprived system—all it did was make your body want it more.  Even worse, your orgasm doesn’t immediately inspire one in Poe like a part of you hoped it would, if only so you could reasonably contest the validity of the outcome.  He’s able to ride out every twitch and flex as you shudder your way through it, continuing to lazily slide his tongue into your mouth while it’s held open and slack.  He tastes like you.  He tastes hot and slick and everything about your body feels the same way, damp and unbearably warm from your nape to your elbows to your cunt to the backs of your knees.

You lay there for what feels like a lifetime afterwards, powerless to the way your thighs tremble violently against his hips and letting the tip of his tongue slowly trace the bottom edge of your teeth while he firmly keeps his cock buried inside you.  It pulses thickly and you know he wants to cum, you can feel the tension pulling at his shoulders as he keeps perfectly still.  But then Poe shuffles his arms up until they’re braced around your head, using himself to box you in completely without moving his lips from yours.  His teeth close on your bottom lip as he inches his hard cock out long and aching from your sensitive channel, and then groans and goes back to the same exact dragging pace from before.

Your expression furrows, even as he keeps kissing you and the movement lights up your oversensitive nerves.  Fuck, you want him to speed up, it’s all the more shattering and viseral when he takes his time.  What is he doing?  What is he waiting for?

“Fuck me,” you whine against his lips, demanding a quicker pace.  You don’t know why he isn’t just letting loose on you now, giving into his body’s need to cum.  He’s aching for it, still rock hard inside of you.  “Come on, I already l-lost, just fuck m—”

“Told you before,” Poe whispers back, refusing to speed up.  He keeps his pace dragging and steadfast, no matter how much you work to entice him.  “Never… fuck.  Never gave a fuck about that stupid bet.  Suffer though.”

The complete lack of harshness in his tone sears through your nerve endings even though what he said wasn’t exactly nice.  You never thought hearing him tell you to suck it up could be delivered in a way that inspires so much arousal in you, but then his tongue is in your mouth again as his hips work slow and easy, and your eyes roll back at how… overwhelming it feels.  So intimate.  You’re completely surrounded by him, his forearms propped next to your head and his mouth on yours, and… Maker, there it is again.  Your body is so deprived that it’s already gearing up to go again.  He’s being lazy and you can’t fucking stand how it’s breaking you down.  Gradually, with incredible stamina and a patience you never expected from him.  When you first feel that pull, part of you still wants to pick up the other end and start a tug-of-war with the sensation.  You’ve been fighting for so long that your body almost doesn’t know any different, its automatic reaction is to resist.

A distraction, that’s what you need.  That’s what guys do to stop themselves from cumming too soon, right?  Fuck, think of something, think of…

—Poe, you can't think of anything but Poe.  Fuck.  His cock sinking deep, the way he tastes, how his fingers thread into the damp hair at your crown so you can feel him that much more, how you can hook his biceps with both hands and swirl your tongue around his while he fucks you open.  Your hips roll up with the pace and almost immediately stutter back down again, not sure if you can handle the wicked shot of oversensitivity—but then Poe groans and shifts up until his thighs are under your ass and he can curl you in more, lift your feet a bit more and make you feel smaller.  And—stars, the next thrust in is enough to nearly make you bite him on complete accident, an unexpected sound ripped from your throat as he keeps that specific angle.

Poe keeps going.  He keeps kissing you, keeps rocking into you.  He lets you claw at him, lets you grapple helplessly while his cock shreds molten hot euphoria deep inside you, and then everything tightens up again.

“Ah, fuck,” Poe breaks away and curses a whole few seconds before you descend into mindless chaos once more, garbling out broken syllables with the absense of his mouth keeping yours occupied.  Your voice crescendos and breaks at the same time you do, the pleasure arcing through you over and over and wringing you out repeatedly around his throbbing cock.  Poe’s lips quickly move forward and give your whole cheek an open kiss while your expression crumples with it.  Teeth drag down your skin as he moans hot air across your skin, his hips slowing to a complete stop with an obscenely slick sound.

You throb and clench around him and his lips are suddenly on yours again, his tongue sinking deep and dominating.  Your mouth is slack and all you can do is squeeze him through the bliss, scrape your fingernails down his back and hope it leaves a mark.

Eventually the tremors pass and you’re dead in the aftermath, you don’t have energy.  Your body is starting to acclimate to the slow orgasms and just let them steamroll you flat, fully accepting now that you can cum but still putting everything you have into it like every single one might be your last for a while.  You come back to yourself enough to feel Poe’s cock solid and achingly hard inside you, and your bottom lip is being tugged between his teeth.

And then he eases out and goes back to fucking you.  Same speed, same control.  

Your eyes nearly fucking cross.  “P-Poe—”

He immediately makes a noise of disapproval with his mouth closed, a nuh-uh but kept tight in his throat.  He doesn’t want to hear it, he’s not even letting you finish your thought.

You can’t take it, though, you didn’t think he was capable of this.  This is torturous in an entirely different way, overstimulating and shattering you with every thrust.

So, you think back to the one thing that got him to nearly snap earlier, the one time you really got to see that fire you love playing with.  Only now, you need that fire, you need him to take everything out on you.  Your floor muscles clamp down without warning and squeeze him as tight as possible, squeeze squeeze squeeze until you feel his hips stutter to a halt once more.  Your breath catches—fuck, is this gonna work?—but then Poe breaks away from your lips to drop his head and sink his teeth into your neck.

You nearly squeal at how careless he is about it—an animal that bites you lazily even though it sends sharp agony rocketing through you.  Again, your attempt at sabotage backfires spectacularly as a subsequent flare of pleasure swells up, and oh, that’s what you want, you want him to be mean—

“Please,” you whimper, hooking your ankles behind his back and locking down hard enough to make your toes curl.  Poe groans as you grab a fistful of his hair and tug at the way your skin pinches between his teeth—you know you’re gonna have a bite mark for a few days and it thrills you.  “Fuck, please, Poe—please just fuck me, please, I want you to fuck me until it hurts, fuck me the way we both nee—”

“You and me almost died today,” Poe grits into your neck, cutting off your desperate whimpers with a short growl.  “Maker, it was so close, I don’t think anybody has any f-fucking…”  His hips pull out and then spear deep and you choke, tightening and tightening.  “But—shit, we didn’t, we lived and now—oh fuck, now baby’s finally letting me fuck her and I’m not cutting it short, no matter how pretty she sounds asking.”

His words sound slurred against your neck and you can’t tell if it’s his delivery or your perception that’s lagging.  But when you feel Poe inch his cock out and start to slowly fuck you through the tightness, you let out a weak little whine and feel yourself drifting… somewhere else.  

Things subtly lose their clarity, your eyelashes dip and you stop talking because words won’t come.  You can’t tell if you’re staring at the ceiling or your eyelids or the back of your head, but Poe’s voice abruptly breaking through the silence makes you realize you don’t have a concept for time anymore.  You couldn’t tell him how long you’ve been floating, but you almost don’t understand what he’s saying at all and it takes you a remarkable delay to fully comprehend.  But judging from what he says, it sounds like it hasn’t been long.

“Shit, are you cumming again?”  He suddenly gasps into the crook of your neck and grinds his hips achingly hard into yours,  “O-Oh—fuck yeah, you are—baby’s cumming again—”

“P-Poe?”  You stutter and smack your hand against something, him maybe, not knowing literally anything else.  Not knowing what he’s talking about, not knowing where you are, not knowing your own name, “Poe—oh m-my… God—”

“Whhh—W-What—?”  You hear him breathe a split second before everything compresses down tight, and then it all shoves forward at once.  All of the buildup makes itself known the very moment it becomes too much to control, like a flash flood but the downpour happened miles away.  You think you might actually squeak this time, helplessly cry out like it hurts because stars, it does.  It hurts so fucking good, it spiders pure plasma through your entire body with rhythmic jolts and wipes your mind completely vacant.  Your shoulders shoot you up and knock your chin into something and you think you might be crying?  You don’t know anymore.  Your spine comes back down to the mattress like the damp fitted sheet covering it is made of pure ice—your body is overheated and you keep tensing and jerking back up until Poe forcefully pins you tight against it, growling filth under his breath as he slow fucks you through it.

You feel his hand dropping down between your bodies and you sob pitifully at the ceiling when the tip of his calloused finger brushes your clit.

***

You lose count.

It’s just… constant, there isn’t a point in keeping track anymore even if there happened to be the ability—which, nope.  Not even close.

He ruins you slowly.  Meticulously, with nothing more than steady, unwavering determination.  Every structure you built, he takes apart by hand instead of bulldozing it the way you beg him to when you find the words.  You’re certain you find them—you must find them at some point, but they’re interspaced between babbled gibberish and breathy whispers of his name.

Even though it’s slow—Maker, it’s so slow—you’ve never been so fucking exhausted.  He makes you give him everything and then he drains the reserves, the hidden ones you weren’t even aware existed.  He never goes fast enough; in fact, you think he’s actually slowed down over the unknown amount of time it’s been since you first called out his name and asked for this.  If you were in a frame of mind to notice, you’d probably realize he’s trying harder and harder to not cum, but in your wild headspace, it just feels like a prolonged punishment for you.  It still feels like he’s depriving you for his own pleasure, even though he’s actually depriving himself for yours.  But you always do manage to find some way to read things wrong with him.

Eventually, he begins to waver.  He stops talking so much, stops chastising you when you plead with him.  He hasn’t looked at you since he first kissed you—he’s either hidden his face in your neck or closed his eyes as his soft tongue slides across your bottom lip before dipping inside.

But then there comes a point where even you realize he’s struggling not to let go now, and in your faded traces of sanity, you hear your broken voice cut through the sounds of the soft radio.

“Y-Y-You—” you gasp, trembling under him, “—youneedtocum.  You need to—”

“No,” Poe grits against your chin, sounding shaky and weak no matter how sharp he makes his consonants.  “Fuck, not yet, I—I-I don’t want to yet.”

“Oh no,” you wheeze out, feeling the swell begin again, the familiar flicker of warning you get as his cock slowly rocks into you.  Maker, the pleasure is getting raw and painful even as your pussy is drowning his cock with it, allowing him to glide slow and deep into your sensitive channel and letting the sheer tightness of it be the only resistance your body puts up.  You can feel the wetness on your cheeks though, the tears of frustration gathering as your body prepares itself for yet another wave of attack.  “Oh no, ohhhhhnononononono—”

“I don’t want—” Poe gasps, his hips stuttering just a bit and one of his hands coming down to smack the pillow next to your head as he chokes, “—don’t want this to… e-end yet, I—”

Your next orgasm suddenly slams through you and Poe immediately rips himself out of you before it’s too late.  He shushes you frantically while you sob in distress and writhe side to side through the contractions solo this time, having nothing to clamp down on, not even able to grind up into him because he keeps his leaking cock elevated far beyond your reach.

Oh, that’s it.  That is it.

“Fuck me!”  You wail up at him, water blurring your vision and tears streaming down your cheeks, “Stop fucking around and just fuck me, you asshole!  Fuck me and fuck me hard Dameron or I swear to every fucking star in the sk—”

You don’t get too far.  He’s immediately scrambling over top of you and a strong hand is clamping down tight over your mouth, muffling your high-pitched cries against his palm.  Your legs are shoved apart and one is caught under his arm and wedged back as far as it can go.  His head drops to your neck, and then he snarls a ragged, “Brat—“ under your ear before ramming his cock back inside you.

Stars.  Stars light up, it’s so much—the angle, the force, the speed, the sound his hips make as they start ruthlessly colliding with yours.  Your eyes screw shut and you dig your nails into the meat of his back, but he doesn’t slow down—he speeds up—

“Fuck, you still think that throwing your little fucking fits works on me?”  He hisses, drilling into your g-spot with such blinding hard precision that you can’t do anything more than just claw at his chest, gasping for air that just won’t come into your lungs.  “Huh?  Think you can just be a little bitch to me about it and it’s gonna change anything?  You still don’t have any fucking idea, do you?  Look at me—” he snarls, grabbing your face and shaking it to get you to respond, “—look at what you fucking do to me—”

But you can’t.  You already came countless times and he’s lurching you up the bed with every single rabid thrust into your blindingly sensitive cunt, fucking you into the railing and then the wall behind it.  You still feel his fingers grasping at your jaw, forcing you to address him, to look at him, and you can’t seem to focus your vision on his blurry features even when your eyes flutter open.  You’re too dumb with grinding pleasure to see anything besides blurs and stars, to say literally anything back to him.  But that’s not what he cares about.

“Oh fuck yes, there it is,” his voice whines, pitching up something vulnerable as his hips ram you into the corner hard and unyielding, “fuck, there’s those pretty eyes, that’s what I wanted, baby, that’s all I wanted—th-that’s—fuck, that’s—”

They must cross, or roll back, or something, because suddenly you can’t see him at all anymore.  You don’t know what happens—but you know it’s wet.  You know it bursts forth something fierce and you shriek his name with a hoarse and shredded voice like he steals the last part of your whole fucking soul with it.  Fuck, you’re not even there for most of it, you might actually black out.  

In your conscious moments, you can feel his whole body flexing over and over again on top of you.  He empties his load deep inside you and takes a fucking eternity doing it, so many breathless praises leaving his mouth so quickly that they slur together and you can’t understand any of it even if you could hear him.  All you can do is feel your cunt tighten and convulse in tandem with the throbbing of his cock, rhythmically working the cum out of him until Poe stops stuttering his hips, until he finally trails off into nothing but labored gasps and slumps down on top of you in exhaustion.

You both lay there for a while, dead weight breathing.

You want to hold him, your cum-struck mind quietly provides in the comedown.  You want to feel his body now that you can finally think straight and take a moment to enjoy this blissful relief.  He fucked you so good and you want to touch him, you want to run your fingers through his hair and massage the tight muscles at the base of his neck.

But then you just start giggling.

It’s stupid.  It’s so fucking stupid.  You smack your hand over your mouth but the garbled noise easily floats beyond it, completely elated and having absolutely no explanation at all.

Poe quickly pulls his head back to look at you and you try to twist sideways under him to hide it, but you can’t stop—like a complete loon, you snort and start to laugh harder at the ridiculous sound.  Oh, you don’t just float, you’re the air itself, so light with endorphins that you close your eyes and get lost in the fit until water wets the outside corners.

After a moment, a hand gently grasps your wrist and slowly pulls it down until he can see the way your mouth opens as you giggle, hear it unobstructed and let the sound bubble up at him and fill the room.  And you blink your eyes open just in time to see him slowly break into the most dazzling smile you’ve ever seen him bestow a person.

And… you’ve seen him grin a million times.  He’s almost always smiling, as long as you’re not right in front of him.  He smiles at his squadmates, he smiles at girls, he smiles at complete strangers, and you always thought it was pretty.  Always knew that he could light up a room with it, you always knew he could get anything he wanted with it, but this… this isn’t that kind of smile.  That one is practiced and alluring.  It wasn’t fake, necessarily, but that smile’s purpose always had more to do with making anyone who happens to witness it feel a certain way than it did about signifying his own emotional state.

This one is… goofy.  Amazed, and uncoordinated.  Thunderstruck in a way, except the clouds all part at the same time and let you see a rainbow.  It makes you feel… alive.  Colorful.  Radiant.  Sunshine.  Butterflies.

Poe quickly drops his lips to catch yours and you moan happily, sliding your tongue into his mouth this time.  You both adjust, you arch into him as he pushes your damp hair back and makes a deep noise of satisfaction, letting you explore while he wraps his arms around you and finds a way to make this atrocious position comfortable.  Every part of you is smushed up against him and there’s absolutely no space to be found, and you’ve never been happier.

“We made a mess,” he groans against your lips, rocking his hips into you with a disgustingly slick sound as if to illustrate, and his cock is soft but it’s still so thick that it stays buried inside your sloppy entrance.  “Shit, I—I think I might be bleeding.”

“What?”  You ask breathily, and he heaves himself up with his elbows just enough to reveal his chest.  You both tuck your chins unattractively to look and you don’t immediately see any blood, but your claw marks are clearly red and visible scraping down his pectorals.  “Oh.  Pfft.  You’re fine.”

He drops back down with a huff and your head is tilted at the perfect angle catch on the tiny droplets of blood decorating the marks criss-crossing his shoulder blades.  Oops.

But he’s already kissing up your neck and over the curve of your jaw and making out with you again like he can’t get enough of it, and you forget.  You forget everything.  You forget every disagreement, every gripe with him you’ve ever had.  It’s all wiped away and replaced with giddy, childish adoration.  Resetting completely and starting off on the rightest foot imaginable.

“Let’s go to my bed,” he murmurs, and you make a tight noise of disapproval.  No.  This is good, this is how you want to stay.  The railing is digging into your lower back and he’s heavy but you’re perfect like this, this is perfect.  “Baby,” Poe pants against your lips in exasperation when you quickly clutch the back of his neck and keep him glued to you, “mmph—you got everything all wet—”

This time you make a low hum of agreement and drag your hand down the bare curve of his spine to his ass to give it a squeeze.  A testament to how hard and raw he fucked you.  Poe shudders hard enough for you to feel his body tremble but you just kiss him harder, pulling him down onto you more.

“You’re gonna have to give me, just like—I don’t know, at least an hour or two,” he chuckles, grabbing your hands to make it easier to peel himself from your body and groaning when his cock finally slips out.  “Come on, let’s hang out in my bed.”

You’re so boneless when he pulls you to sit upright, you roll a little bit and Poe has to catch you, and you laugh again.  Maker, you’re a complete mess and absolutely delighted about it.  Your attempts at grumbling and complaining don’t hold any sway when you’re still trying not to giggle, and Poe is able to pull you to the top of the ladder and make his way down first.

As soon as he’s out of sight and calling up to you, you weakly slide into position with a groan and feel yourself leaking at the movement.  “Gah—look what you did.  I’m all… gooey.”

“I know, s’the hottest fucking thing,” he says under his breath from the floor, before beckoning you by tapping on the closest rung a few times.  “Come on, be careful.”

You do as he says, easing your naked body down one step at a time with wobbly legs.  It’s clumsy and you whine the whole way through, wordlessly grousing and mumbling.

“Oh, I just know it,” he comments on the sound, “nice clean sheets, I’ll get the violin.”

Normally, you probably would’ve snarked something back down at him, but you’re still so loopy and shaky-legged that you just start laughing again.  The fact that he’s absolutely right and you’re being ridiculous about something like moving beds suddenly strikes you as incredibly fucking funny for some reason.  You don’t realize his hands are hovering inches away from your hips until your legs buckle and Poe quickly supports your weight.

“Maker,” Poe chuckles before giving you a firm yank, and then catching you before you can tumble down the ladder in your naked, teary-eyed mania, “let’s go, giggles.”

He carries you a few steps to the mattress and plops you down on top of the comforter, letting you take up the whole bed while he sits on the end and puts your feet on his lap.  Poe grimaces for a second and then shuffles until the radio is pulled out from under him, and you can hear the soft sound of it playing once again.  You bury your face into his pillow, inhaling the warm scent lingering there while he tosses it carelessly to the side and rubs your shins for a little bit, watching you stretch out naked on his mattress.  

“I’m not giving you two weeks of pay,” you suddenly grunt, and he just grins down at you, not arguing.  Not saying anything.  Sitting in comfortable silence with you when you’re expecting him to bicker.  So you stay like that for a long time, breathing deep and relaxing, until Poe’s hands leave you for a second…

… to pull a bag of chips out.

Maker, at the first squeaky sound of the wrapping assaulting your eardrums, you want to roll your eyes.  You want to tease him about how fucking typical it is.  Like clockwork, you could probably set your watch to his middle of the night cravings.  You don’t know why you thought fucking him would change any of that.

You want to give him shit for it.  You even open your mouth, the snark on the very tip of your tongue.  But then your stomach growls as soon as he rips the thin plastic apart.

Poe’s eyes shoot to yours and neither one of you move, but apparently your tummy doesn’t get the memo.  It takes forever to trail off into silence again, and he blinks.  Fuck, you know you should’ve forced yourself to eat at least something earlier.  Warmth floods your cheeks and you scramble for something to say, but there’s no way to play it off.

“Would you like some chips?”  Poe suddenly asks with a boyish grin, raising his eyebrows and tipping the open bag freely in your direction.

The corners of your mouth pull downwards even as the inside of it waters.  You wouldn’t call it stubbornness necessarily as much as it is a… a desire to stick to consistency.  After the unbelievably hard time you always give him about midnight snacking, you’re hesitant to partake.

Though, the chips rustle against each other and sound absolutely fucking delicious as Poe shakes the bag and bounces his eyebrows, and you know what?  Fuck it.

You snatch it without thinking, cradling the precious food to your chest as you dig your whole hand in and shove a bunch into your mouth at once.  You catch him smiling again, but he doesn’t comment.

You both take turns, and by take turns you obviously mean you take turns stealing the bag from each other instead of just setting it equidistant between you and openly agreeing to share it, but it works for you.  It seems appropriate.  And then it’s quiet again, just munching and crinkling, except for the radio continuing to play from its place in his lap.  You have to work to listen over the loud crunching vibrating through your skull, but when you finally manage to stop chewing and catch a few bars, you suddenly find yourself trying not to smile again.  Fuck, it’s been years since you’ve heard this song, you love this s—

“Fuck, I love this song,” Poe promptly exclaims with his mouth full, licking the tips of his fingers before scrambling to pick the radio up and twist the volume knob without using his wet fingertips.  He starts humming over the melody, loud enough to almost drown it out completely, because of course he does.  The one damn time you actually want to listen to his radio and he still finds some way to mildly irritate you.

But this irritation is almost… fun.  You want to laugh just as much as you want to yell at him.

“Hey, who sings this song?”  You immediately ask over the sound of him clearly not knowing the lyrics, already ready with it.  Oh, the round is in the chamber, your finger is on the trigger, you are ready, and Poe’s eyes sparkle as he seems to stop and think about it.

“Mm, not sure,” he eventually shrugs, just before you rush, “Let’s keep it that—”

And then he’s slapping a hand on your leg and belting out the chorus while you scoff, giggling.  He ruined the punchline on purpose and is now getting chip dust all over you, but you know any complaint you make will be drowned out by his suspended notes and backing track, so you just roll your eyes and swipe the bag of chips from him while he continues to serenade you.

“My ears are bleeding,” you mutter under your breath.

He has a nice voice, you think.

[the-fiction-witch]

To Kings Cross

REAL LIFE COUPLE TBS X READER RATING: SWEET

The vast green and yellow fields rushed past the scratched plastic window stretching across the horizon for miles, the slight blur on the horizon from trees and powerlines so far away it seems impossible that you'd even see them. the little stickers on every single surface

'No smoking' 'No vaping' 'no stereo music' 'emergency exits'

I returned my focus to the front of the bus seeing the floor and walls this dark burgundy colour scratched and dirty from years of people coming back and forth the bright yellow poles well worn so much the yellow was gone in many places.

I filmed a little bit of it out the window mostly just for B roll god knows I will have enough slow-moving landscaper shots by the end of this.

Soon enough the creaky old bus pulled into the station of glass and steel. I grabbed my stuff and hurried off thanking the driver as I went past. I hurried along the old scuffed floor following the faded signs for the station it was a long-winded way, up this escalator, down this corridor, across this bridge, over this thing, down this lift, I had to get my phone out to film given just how stupid this route was. and once I arrived at the train station...

"Why didn't I just walk around? the bus is there. for fuck sake." I sighed "let's go board a chu chu"

I went in and had a little bit of a struggle given the scanners they have are for tickets not so much for phones, it worked after like four attempts. so I went through the station going to sit on my platform with my stuff I grabbed my phone and texted him I got to the station and what time the train was meant to get here. Luckily it wasn't took long so I got on and luckily found a fairly empty carriage I took a seat and put my headphones in blasting music as loudly as I could as I didn't need to hear any announcements about the stations we would pass through. after a while the train headed off down the tracks, the swishing sound of the fast movement along the tracks. the hum of the little lights above my head. The little red letter screen told me all I needed to know about where we were going. I set my phone up on my stand on the table and let it time-lapse through the various sights. the vast fields I knew so well slowly shifting with every so often a station or town with a house or two breaking the nothingness, slowly but surely with each station we passed the fields with sweet sunshine turned grey, turned metallic, buildings and weeds rather than plants and tree's, thousands and millions of crossing wires and buildings the sunshine remained but it somehow felt much further away. at last, the train stopped reaching the very end of the line I waited for a few others to get off before gathering my things and my phone and heading out onto the stone platform, I followed along the various tracks of barriers before at last seeing shops, and cafes that lined the inner station along with the bustling of people.

I got my phone and began to film "I have arrived. In London. the capital. Londondinium. well I mean technically I'm in kings cross station, I think... I want coffee like a large coffee. let's see if we can find ourselves some coffee." I giggled "Ooohh.... look what I found" I giggled as I spotted him on my camera "It's a wild Sangster"

he was standing having a coffee in his fluffy aviator's jacket, his black jeans and usual shoes, his light blue button-down on, he seemed to barely be awake sipping his coffee like it gave him life and sustenance to survive.

"Here is the Thomas, in his natural habitat. sipping his coffee in order to live." I giggled as I filmed him

"Hello" He chuckled as he spotted me filming him

"Hello, whatcha doing?"

"Ohh you know waiting for the orgy to start"

"Oh good I'm not late"

"what do you think I'm doing waiting for you"

I shut my phone off and jumped into his arms

"Awww hello" he smiled hugging me tightly too

"I missed you"

"I missed you too" He smiled kissing my head "I got you a coffee," he says offering the other coffee cup he had with him

"oooooohh thank you" I giggled happily taking it from him and having a sip "Ummmmm thank you"

"your welcome,"

"Can we go get sushi?"

"course we can darling"

"can we go on the underground?"

"well... we sort of have to"

"can we go and snuggle?"

"defiantly, come on let's get to mine and we'll go out for dinner later okay?"

"Okay" I smiled

[purrincess-chat]

Marinette Dupain-Cheng’s Spite Playlist: Remix CH17

The queen has arrived ;)

Previous     First    Next     AO3

----------------------------

Chapter 17: Kings and Queens

“Look out!” Chloe shoved Marinette out of the way of a red beam of light. Her knees buckled, and Marinette scrambled to catch her.

“What a shame. I missed.” Black boots climbed long legs, kissing the hems of a ripped dress at the top. A dark tiara crowned flowing red curls, framing the dark green eyes glaring at them from behind a black mask.

“Gabrielle?” Marinette gasped.

“I go by Heiress now, but don’t worry, Marinette, your stupidity has bought you a free pass. I just wanted to make sure my powers were working, and it looks like they do.” She nodded to the girl coming to in Marinette’s arms before strutting off.

Chloe sat up with a groan, rubbing her head. “Ugh, what was that?”

“Chloe, your-” Marinette clamped a hand over her mouth.

Her once shiny hair hung dull and stringy at her shoulders, now resembling straw more than soft silk. Perfectly manicured nails had shriveled into dirty stubs, and her Gabriel-original dress was replaced with a knock-off.

“What?” Chloe’s shoulders heaved, escalating until a shrill scream echoed through the hall.

“You saved me—I think.” Marinette winced. “It looks like Heiress’s power made you-”

“Poor!” Chloe screeched. “Oh, Ladybug better get here soon and fix this! If I see that akuma, I’ll teach her to put me in off-brands!”

“Wait, you saved me. You saved me!” Marinette realized. “Aw, you do miss me.”

“No, I don’t!” Chloe’s cheeks flushed. “I didn’t even know what was happening. I just reacted, okay?”

“Please, you don’t have a selfless bone in your body. You saved me because you miss me,” Marinette said.

“Do not.”

“Do too.”

“Do not!”  At Marinette’s smug grin, Chloe folded her arms over her chest with a huff. “Whatever. I’m going after that akuma to give her a piece of my mind. You can go get help or… go buy some shoes that aren’t awful!”

“I don’t think you’re one to talk about awful shoes right now.” Marinette pointed to the ratty sneakers on Chloe’s feet.

“Just go,” Chloe said through clenched teeth.

Marinette raced up the hall, a smile tugging the corners of her lips. She hated to admit it, but in a weird way, she did miss Chloe Bourgeois. Wow. She never thought she’d say that.

“You’re changing a lot of mean girls today.” Tikki remarked when Marinette ducked into a closet. “I think that was Chloe’s way of protecting you.”

“I’m not holding my breath. She probably had too much wine,” Marinette said. “But never mind that. Transform me!”

Ladybug sprinted back up the hall, palming her yoyo in one hand. She should have known Gabrielle would get akumatized once her secret got out, but now wasn’t the time to play blame games. There was an akuma to catch.

Rounding the corner, she collided with another person, scrambling to catch their hand before they both fell backward. “Sorry!” she gasped, but when gorgeous green eyes locked with hers, her heart took off into a sprint.

“Ladybug?” Adrien blinked in surprise. “What’s going on?”

Why did she have to find him now? Even if she defeated the akuma quickly, she needed to be there for Gabrielle. Lisette would have to help her look cute for him another time.

“There’s an akuma on the loose. You should find somewhere to hide,” she said.

“Right.” He flicked his gaze down to their hands, still twined.

Ladybug let go, cheeks burning. “Um, stay safe, okay?”

“Good luck, Ladybug,” he said before running the other way up the hall.

She watched him go with a longing sigh. What she wouldn’t give to be a normal girl right now. Then they could snuggle up and hide together, and maybe he’d finally kiss her. They could get married, buy a house, and-

She patted her cheeks to snap herself out of her trance. There was no time for that now. Akuma first, then Gabrielle, Adrien later.

Terrified shrieks signaled that Heiress had found the rest of the party. Thomas was the one who outed her, so he was likely Heiress’s first target. Ladybug needed to get to him first, even if he was one of the skeeviest people she’d ever met. It wasn’t her job to pick who needed saving. Why did she have to be such a good person?

Bursting into the dining room, she skidded to a stop as Heiress zapped Thomas before she could even draw her yoyo.

“No!”

The tall boy transformed in front of her. Perfectly combed brown hair shriveled into shaggy clumps, and a once flawless complexion broke out in angry, red zits. Stylish clothes turned to tattered rags as Thomas became a shell of his former glory. He scurried away from Heiress with a squeal, and she turned to Ladybug with a triumphant smirk.

“Too slow,” Heiress said, “but don’t worry. Now I have plenty of time for you.”

Ladybug dodged the red beam. She might have been too late to save Thomas, but there was still time to save Gabrielle. This battle was far from over. She just needed to focus.

“I know you think there isn’t a way out of your situation, but teaming up with Hawkmoth isn’t the answer!” Ladybug pleaded.

“Please, I’ve lived among these people long enough to know that they don’t appreciate what they have. I know I didn’t…” Heiress lowered her gaze, jaw clenched. “My family lost everything, but now I can take it all back!”

Ladybug flipped out of the way of several blasts, taking the time to examine her opponent closely. The barcode scanner shot red beams of light that stripped its victims of their fancy clothes, jewelry, devices—anything expensive. Gabrielle wanted everyone to feel the pain of losing everything, so she was taking all of their wealth for herself.

A metal baton struck Heiress’s hand, skewing her next shot, and a black-clad feline cast his partner a smirk. “Having a party without me? I’m insulted.”

“Your invitation must have gotten lost in the mail,” Ladybug said. “You and I both know it’s not a party without your sweet dance moves, kitty. Care to show us how it’s done?”

“It would be my pleasure, LB.” Chat Noir winked.

Heiress pointed her scanner at him. “I wonder how much that cat suit is worth.”

Chat Noir dodged her attack easily. “This cat’s style is one-of-a-kind. All the money in the world can’t buy this swagger.”

“We’ll see about that,” Heiress growled.

The heroes took turns charging in, dodging and weaving around beams from her scanner. Ladybug hooked her yoyo around Heiress’s legs, swinging her around into the China hutch. Realizing she was outmatched, Heiress retreated to the living room where more party guests were hiding, but Ladybug and Chat Noir were hot on her trail.

“Run!” Ladybug ordered, and terrified teens scattered.

Heiress ducked out of the way of Chat’s baton, scanning anyone who passed her between blows. Lisette’s older brother raced from behind the couch, and Heiress wasted no time scanning him before he reached the door. She caught Chat Noir’s staff on the next swing, a grin curling on her lips.

“Looks like someone’s watch was worth a lot. I wonder how much this costs?” She scanned Chat Noir’s baton, leaving him with a plastic copy.

“Hey!” Chat Noir gasped.

Ladybug snagged her yoyo around Heiress’s wrist before she could scan him, but Heiress kicked him through the large window with one long leg instead. Before Ladybug could react, Heiress gripped the string of the yoyo and spun her out after him.

Chat Noir braced as she landed on top of him in the bush, her yoyo bouncing onto the grass beside them. They rolled over with groans, untangling their limbs, and Ladybug grasped for her yoyo.  

“Everything she scans makes her stronger depending on its worth. We need to think of a plan,” she said.

“I’m all ears, Bug.” Ladybug eyed him. “What?”

“You haven’t called me m’lady or Bugaboo all evening. I think it’s a new record for you.” She flicked his bell with a smirk.

“Well, I- you hate it when I call you that,” he said pointedly, cheeks flushed.

“That’s never stopped you before. Has another lady finally stolen your heart?” she giggled.

“I-”

“Ladybug!” Chloe shouted. “What are you two doing out here? The akuma is turning more people into dried up peasants. Have you seen what she did to my hair? Bring me my Miraculous, so I can beat some sense into her!”

“Chloe, this isn’t the time for revenge.” Ladybug sighed.

“I’m not out for revenge,” Chloe said matter-of-factly. “The faster we defeat the akuma, the faster I go back to looking fabulous. So bring me my Miraculous, and let me help you, please?” Chloe pressed her palms together, and Ladybug pursed her lips.

Chloe was right. They needed to defeat the akuma quickly and save Gabrielle, but did she really want to give Chloe her Miraculous back? With her identity blown, Chloe was in even more danger every time she became Queen Bee. Not to mention trusting Chloe in general was risky, but after she sacrificed herself for Marinette earlier…

Something was different about Chloe. Sure was still the same bratty, primadonna, but her blue eyes were steadfast and sincere. Ladybug once believed that giving Chloe a Miraculous would help her be better, and part of her still believed that.

There was only one way to settle this.

“Lucky Charm!” Ladybug caught the record as it manifested and turned it over in her hands.

“Now isn’t the time to practice your DJing.” Chloe scoffed.

Ladybug glanced between Chat Noir, Chloe, the plants surrounding them, but nothing stood out. A record. What was she supposed to do with a record? Unless…

“I have to go. Chat Noir, keep an eye on Heiress until I get back, but be careful. I don’t want you getting scanned. We don’t know what will happen to our powers if she scans one of us,” Ladybug said.

“Got it.”

“Are you going to bring me my Miraculous?” Chloe perked up.

“Do you promise not to do anything reckless while I’m gone?” Ladybug asked.

“Oh, yes, yes, yes! I promise, Ladybug.” Chloe bounced excitedly, then cocking a hip added, “But hurry up! These shoes make me physically ill.”

Ladybug rolled her eyes and dashed up the lawn, leaping through the very same garden she and Adrien had walked through an hour before. The mansion was far from Master Fu’s apartment, but her yoyo made short work of the trip. Her mentor was enjoying his bedtime tea when she entered, sitting cross-legged on the mat with Wayzz on his shoulder.

“Master, there’s an akuma, and I think my lucky charm wanted me to come here.” Marinette flicked her gaze to the phonograph resting on the chest in the back.

“Then there is no time to waste,” Master Fu said. He set his tea aside and retrieved the Miracle Box from its hiding place. “Who do you have in mind?”

Marinette surveyed her options with pursed lips, then resigned herself and reached for the bee. Chloe was different tonight, and if they were going to stop Heiress, they needed an ally they could count on. Never in her life did she picture that to be Chloe, but given the present circumstances, she didn’t have any other options.

“Are you sure, Marinette? Choosing her is risky.” Master Fu cautioned.

“It’s a long story, but…” Marinette smiled. “I’m sure.”

“Then best of luck.”

When Marinette changed schools, she intended to leave everyone behind and start over, but the most unlikely people had found their way back to her. Adrien took her by the hand and refused to let go. Chloe begrudgingly kept one foot in the door, constantly threatening to close it for good, but something told Marinette she never would.

To Ladybug’s surprise, Chloe actually listened to her instructions to stay out of trouble. When Ladybug found her, she was dutifully ushering other raggedly dressed teens out to the garden. She really could behave when she wanted to.

Chloe spotted her on the balcony, and when Ladybug waved the small box, Chloe raced up the stairs faster than she’d ever run in gym class. She held out her hands expectantly, but Ladybug held up a finger.

“I’m trusting you this time, Chloe, but you don’t need a Miraculous to be a hero, ya know. You can be nicer to those around you all the time,” Ladybug said.

“Yeah, yeah,” Chloe groaned. “Can I have my Miraculous now?”

“Do you promise to be nicer to people?”

Chloe’s cheeks flushed, and she crossed her arms over her chest. “Alright, fine.”

Ladybug tossed her the box, and Chloe ripped it open, completely unfazed as Pollen materialized. She fastened the comb into her hair and smiled. “Pollen, transform me!”

Ladybug didn’t wait for Queen Bee’s transformation to finish before they hit the ground running. Chat Noir had been holding Heiress back on his own, and it was time to bring him some backup.

The two heroines kicked in the front door, leaping straight into action. Ladybug shielded Chat Noir with her yoyo while Queen Bee snagged Heiress’s leg with her spinner and tossed her through the door to the living room.

“You sure kept me waiting,” Chat Noir said.

“It was kind of a long trip, but I thought we could use some help,” Ladybug said as Queen Bee fluffed her ponytail.

“Let’s show this wannabe who the real queen is.” Queen Bee readied her spinner.

“So, what’s the plan?” Chat Noir asked.

“If Queen Bee can sting Heiress with her Venom, then you can Cataclysm her scanner. Avoid getting hit at all costs. There’s no telling how powerful a Miraculous will make her,” Ladybug said.

Heiress was kicking debris from the cabinet she’d crashed into when the heroes found her. They didn’t waste time as she righted herself, taking turns charging in. With a growl of frustration, Heiress flipped back into the foyer, scanning the crystal chandelier in the process. Ladybug’s yoyo wasn’t far behind, snagging her wrist again. Queen Bee bound her legs with her spinning top, but Heiress absorbed enough power from the chandelier to break the stone fountain beside her. Tossing a large chunk at Queen Bee, Heiress freed her legs, using her free arm to sling Ladybug into the staircase. Chat Noir grappled with Heiress while his partners recovered, but Heiress parried his blows easily before taking his wrist and tossing him across the foyer.

Ladybug sat up with a wince, rubbing her back where it had collided with the smooth marble. Her yoyo had bounced to the base of the stairs, too far for her to reach as Heiress closed in. She braced as Heiress raised her scanner, but a flash of yellow shot across the foyer.

“No!” Queen Bee leaped between Ladybug and the red beam.

Vibrant yellows dulled, long golden curls shriveling to dried husks. The bee comb in her hair lost its shine, transforming into a powerless, plastic barrette. Queen Bee collapsed at Ladybug’s feet.

“A noble sacrifice, but even your Miraculous has given me enough power to end this fight quickly,” Heiress said.

“Cataclysm!”

Heiress turned as Chat Noir slid past her, dragging his claws across the tile. The ground crumbled and gave out under his touch, plunging Heiress into the wine cellar below. He raced over to Ladybug, kneeling beside Queen Bee as she sat up.

“She really saved your skin, LB,” he said.

“She saved all of us,” Ladybug corrected. “That was really selfless of you, Queen Bee. Thank you.”

“If she hit you, then things would never go back to normal.” Queen Bee took Ladybug’s hand, pressing the yoyo to her palm. “You’re the only one who can fix all of this, so don’t you dare let me getting hit by that freak twice be for nothing.”

Ladybug nodded, gripping her yoyo tightly before issuing the call, “Lucky Charm!” She caught the small black card as it materialized, turning it over in her hands. “A credit card?”

“Well, she’s certainly got enough money to take you shopping,” Chat Noir remarked.

Ladybug pursed her lips, flicking her gaze around the room. With Chat Noir’s belt, her yoyo, the credit card, and Queen Bee…

“I know what to do. Chat Noir, I need you to lure her into the dining room and be ready to use your belt,” she instructed. “Queen Bee, come with me.”

“But I don’t have any powers.”

Ladybug offered her a smile and pulled her to her feet. “Remember what I told you. You don’t need superpowers to be a hero. Trust me.”

Queen Bee searched her expression, then smiled, and the two heroines retreated up the hall.

“So, what’s the plan?” Queen Bee asked as they entered the dining room.

“How fast can you swipe a credit card?” Ladybug turned to her, and Queen Bee cocked a hip.

“Please, I can swipe one faster than my daddy can realize how much money I’m spending,” she said. “Why?”

“Chat Noir and I are going to subdue Heiress, but we need you to swipe this across her scanner. It’s maxed out, so it’s basically worthless. With any luck, it will short-circuit her powers long enough to get the scanner away from her,” Ladybug explained. She placed the card in Queen Bee’s hands. “I’m counting on you.”

Queen Bee squared her shoulders with a nod. “Okay, Ladybug!”

Footsteps pounded in the hallway, growing closer, and Ladybug signaled Queen Bee to her position. When Chat Noir burst through the door, he removed his belt as Ladybug readied her yoyo. Heiress was hot on his trail, and the two heroes engaged her the moment she stepped through the door.

“Chat Noir!” Ladybug called.

He slid across the floor on his knees, looping his belt around Heiress’s legs and pulling tight. Ladybug lassoed her torso with her yoyo, immobilizing her limbs. Queen Bee slid in, swiping the credit card across the scanner with practiced precision.

Heiress shook them off, but when she raised her arm to scan Chat Noir, no red beams flashed.

“What?” She banged it against her palm.

“Oops, looks like I’ve hit my limit,” Queen Bee said.

Chat Noir kicked the scanner from her grasp, and Ladybug snagged it from the air with her yoyo, slamming it against the ground. The casing shattered, and the black butterfly fluttered free.

“No more evil-doing for you, little akuma. Time to deevilize!” she recited. Queen Bee handed her the credit card, and Ladybug tossed it into the air. “Miraculous Ladybug!”

Her magic spread around the mansion, repairing broken cabinets and missing objects, and most importantly, everyone’s fancy clothes. Chat Noir kissed his baton as it reappeared in his hands. Queen Bee twirled in delight as her Miraculous regained its power.

Gabrielle stood up, averting her gaze. Ladybug approached her, but before she could get close, Gabrielle stalked from the room. A speech from Ladybug wasn’t what she needed—Gabrielle needed a friend.

“It feels so good to be fabulous again,” Queen Bee said with a contented sigh.

“Thanks for your help. You can be really selfless when you want to be,” Ladybug said. “Imagine how much of a difference you could make if you were nice all the time.”

Queen Bee’s cheeks flushed. “Okay, okay, whatever!” She flipped her ponytail over one shoulder. “I’ll think about it.”

Chat Noir joined in, and the three touched their fists together.

“Pound it!”

“Well, I hope this is a lesson to Hawkmoth. If an akuma ever ruins my hair again, he’ll have Queen Bee to deal with.” Chloe removed the comb from her hair and handed it back to Ladybug. She headed for the door with her head high but paused with her hand on the frame. “Thanks, Ladybug. For trusting me.”

Ladybug smiled as she sauntered off, turning to Chat Noir. “Thanks for your help, kitty.”

“We’re partners, aren’t we? I can’t let you have all the fun,” he said, shifting when Ladybug pursed her lips at him. “What?”

“Are you okay? You’re quiet today. Usually, you talk my ear off,” she said.

He eyed her with a pensive frown and shook his head. “It’s nothing. I’ll see you next time.”

He raced off without kissing her hand or even a parting flirtatious remark on how beautiful her hair looked in the light. Something was off about him, but she couldn’t place her finger on what. This wasn’t one of his usual pouts when she refused to go on a date with him, and it had been a while since he’d even asked for one. Was he finally moving on from her?

Ladybug shook her head to clear it. There was no time to worry about him. She needed to find Gabrielle.

♪♫♪ Old Scars/Future Hearts ♪♫♪

 “Gabrielle!” Marinette skipped down the stairs.

The red-head slumping for the front doors turned over her shoulder with a scowl, but her face softened when she saw Marinette—slightly. “What do you want?”

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Thomas told everyone about your family, then you got akumatized,” Marinette said.

“Ugh, you’re such a goody-two-shoes.” Gabrielle rolled her eyes. “You shouldn’t be seen with me. If they catch you being nice, they’ll throw you under the bus just as quickly as they did me. Trust me, it’s better if you just ignore me from now on.”

“But what about you?” Marinette asked.

“What about me?” Gabrielle grunted. “I’m done. Now that everyone knows my family’s out of money, I’m the school laughingstock. As far as they’re concerned, I deserve it. Don’t waste your time on me. It’s more trouble than it’s worth.”

Marinette remained quiet, eyebrows knitting together before she finally muttered, “I’m sorry.”

“For what? It’s not like you spent all of our money,” Gabrielle said.

“Yeah, but I know it must be hard for you.”

“Why do you care?” Gabrielle asked. “It’s not like I’ve been nice to you. I dragged you here against your will, then wouldn’t even let you socialize with me. You shouldn’t care about me.”

“Well, you don’t know me very well,” Marinette said, “but you could. We could be friends if you wanted.”

Gabrielle opened her mouth as if to say something, then shook her head, red curls bouncing against her shoulders. “No. I don’t think we could be. Even if I wanted to be your friend, it’s social suicide for you.”

When Marinette frowned, Gabrielle rolled her eyes and added, “Look, forget about me, okay? Forget any of this ever happened. We’re not friends, and we never will be. Just leave me alone!”

Marinette watched her climb into her town car, a sinking feeling weighing her stomach. Gabrielle was right. She shouldn’t care. But she did. Maybe she was just a goody-two-shoes, but Marinette had seen a more vulnerable side of Gabrielle—one that she likely didn’t show many people. After everything, Marinette truly believed that Gabrielle Burton wasn’t a bad person. She just needed someone to show her how to be good.

“Marinette?” She turned to find Adrien approaching from the living room.

“Hey,” she said lamely. Because what did one say to the love of their life after an almost-kiss in the garden?  

“I saw you talking to that girl, and I didn’t want to interrupt,” Adrien said. “I don’t know exactly what happened, but isn’t that the girl who was picking on your friend the other day?”

“Yeah,” Marinette said, and when Adrien tilted his head to the side, she added, “it’s kind of complicated.”

“Right,” he said. “So, I guess you need a ride home then?”

“What?”

“Earlier you said that girl brought you here, and now she left, so we can take you home if you want.” Adrien offered. Was it possible for him to be any more dreamy?

“Oh… I guess, I do need a ride. Thank you,” she said. And maybe they could pick up where they left off in the garden. Did she dare even think about it? But what if he tried to kiss her again? Oh, the stories they could tell their kids one day.

“Hey!” Chloe called from the base of the stairs.

Oh, right. Chloe.

“Didn’t I separate you two earlier?” she growled.

“Marinette needs a ride home,” Adrien said, and Chloe cocked a hip.

“She’s got legs.”

“Chloe.” Adrien scolded. “She’s riding with us.”

“No.” Chloe whined, but after a stern look from Adrien, she sighed. “Fine, but we’re dropping her off first. I don’t want to be stuck in a car with her for any longer than I have to be.”

“Well, aren’t you sweet,” Marinette said.

“I’m only doing this because Ladybug told me to be nicer to people, so I can still be Queen Bee. Don’t think for a second it’s because I like you.” Chloe retorted.

“Don’t worry. I’d never imagine that you like me.” Marinette rolled her eyes. “I haven’t missed you.”

“Well, I haven’t missed you either!”

“Maybe you two just shouldn’t talk on the ride home.” Adrien suggested gently.

“Fine, I don’t want to talk to Dupain-Cheng anyway.” Chloe flipped her ponytail over one shoulder. “You and I can have glowing conversation, Adrikins.”

“Why do you get to talk to Adrien?”

“Because I’ve known him the longest, so ha!” Chloe stuck her tongue out.

Adrien sighed and fell into step alongside Marinette. “Sorry, I know it’s not ideal, but it beats walking.”

“It’s fine. I don’t get to argue with her much anymore, so this is filling up my quota.” Marinette shrugged.

As Adrien reached to open the door for her, another voice called out from the front door. “Leaving already?”

Marinette’s spine stiffened, and she spun around to see Thomas pacing down the front steps like a predator stalking his prey; however, he wasn’t approaching her.

“I saw you fighting that akuma with Ladybug earlier. Being a superhero is pretty cool, huh?” He looked Chloe up and down. “You’re the mayor’s daughter, right?”

Chloe eyed him with disinterest, her nose wrinkling in disgust. “Didn’t Dupain-Cheng turn you down earlier?”

“Well, she and I didn’t exactly hit it off-” Chloe held up a hand to silence him.

“Save it,” she said. “I’m not anyone’s second-choice, and I’m sure as heck not taking home Dupain-Cheng’s scraps. Buzz off, loser.”

Marinette hated to admit it, but she was actually proud of Chloe. Thomas was sleazy, arrogant, and greedy—just her type. Maybe Chloe really had changed.

“Absolutely not. Move over.” Chloe wedged her way between Adrien and Marinette on the seat.

And maybe she hadn’t.

[snarky-badger]

Snapshots 4/5

Grievous Fuckery part 4! This time with Smut! Lmao.

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Snarling, Grievous closed a hand around the thug's throat and shook him violently, vaguely aware that two of his Magna droid bodyguards had moved to flank him, electrostaffs held up in warning to the marauder's companions. "What did you do with her?!"

The thug clawed at the metallic hand that was cutting off his airway. ".....d-desert...! W-we dropped h-her.....-hrk!- ...desert!"

Bright yellow eyes narrowed in anger and worry. Being dropped into the deserts of Tattooine was a death sentence. Daytime temperatures were known to reach deadly levels. Dehydration could occur in less than an hour, death in two. Any person who ventured into the deserts unprepared was, more often than not, either found dead, or never found at all. And that was only if the vicious tribes of Sand People didn't come upon them first.

And his taisilee had been dumped into the heart of it.

"Give me the coordinates of her last known location, and, perhaps, I'll rethink my decision to have you all killed."

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His shuttle touched down three klicks east of the coordinates the marauder leader had provided, throwing up clouds of sand as it settled in the lee of a rocky outcropping. The ship's sensors were on maximum, struggling to find any life signs amongst the dunes. Topographical maps didn't encourage hope. While they had landed near a series of rocky mountains and outcroppings, the surface temperatures were well above dangerous levels. Dry gusts of sand laden wind were doing a good job of stripping the shuttle's outer hull of it's markings - Grievous didn't want to think about what it could do to unprotected skin.

He left two of his Magna droids at the shuttle, with orders to continue scanning for any signs of life. The other two flanked him as he descended the ramp, his rarely used white cloak billowing out behind him. The heat meant little to him, and even less to the Magna droids. The sand, however, was a different matter. Sand could damage sensitive joints, and in his case, irritate his still organic eyes.

But there was no telling how long the winds would last, or even how much time he had before an inevitable sand storm hit. He had to find Kyra. He only hoped he wasn't too late.

"You two, spread out," he growled to his two guards. "Search the outer ridges. Kyra wouldn't have strayed far from the shelter of the rocks. If she's here, the scanners may have difficulty finding her signal because of interference."

Grievous spun away as he finished speaking, his own sensors stretched to their limits as he sprinted towards a small canyon, stabilizers struggling to compensate for the shifting sand under his feet. Scans had shown a series of caves lining the shallow canyon's walls, the perfect shelter from the overwhelming heat and biting sands.

It was only when his talons hit stone that he stopped, his cloak whipping around him as he let his gaze cut across his new surroundings. Dark shadows dotted the sides of the canyon, outcroppings and shelves of stone making the walls look sharp and unforgiving. The wind buffeted his back, the sensation of sand grating across the back of his skull making him wish his cloak came with a hood.

He was just about to pick his way down to the canyon floor when something caught his gaze, his eyes narrowing as he walked over to crouch in front of a smooth boulder. There, etched into the reddish stone, was a rough copy of the emblem that was on the grey cloak he usually wore.

She had been here! Maybe, was still here.

"Kyra?!" His voice echoed through the canyon, even as he haphazardly jumped from outcropping to outcropping, darting from cave to cave. "Answer me! Kyra!"

Through the echoes of his calls, Grievous caught the telltale howls of hunting Sand People, the sound pulling a snarl from him as he rose his gaze to eye the horizon warily. Knowing time was short, he sped up his search, chemsensors and scanners tuned as high as they would go as he searched for the slightest sign of her, keen eyes cutting across his surroundings for any other possible etchings.

He was halfway through scouring the north side of the gorge when the calls from the Sand People turned into a completely different sort of feral cry. They had found prey. And judging by the sound of blasters, armed prey.

Curious, the cyborg climbed up onto the ridge, keeping low to hide his profile. Using the rough terrain as cover, he darted from boulder to boulder, slowing once he got within visual sight of the fire-fight. Five Sand People were taking cover behind a dune, only reappearing to take shots at a hidden opponent. Grievous narrowed his eyes at the second dune, catching sight of a barrel of a crude blaster before a very familiar glint of fire-red hair sent a shiver of recognition through him. "KYRA!"

She ducked as a shot grazed her cheek, rolling onto her back as she wiped sweat and dirt out of her eyes. The tribe of Sand People had been hunting her for days, having spotted her when she had headed into the canyon hoping to find shelter. While the caves there had given her an advantage - there were mazes of interconnected tunnels in the deepest caves - something had prickled her Force senses, drawing her out of her shelter.

It had been a stupid move. Kyra knew the Tribe had been watching her. She knew they were waiting for an opportunity to catch her. And despite that, she had let her Force instincts draw her out. Even now, while she was dodging blasts, her Force sense was still niggling at her. Though, considering that she had barely slept, and had gone without food for four days, and without water for two, it was possible that she was hallucinating.

With a tired sigh, Kyra rolled back onto her stomach and dared to poke her head over the top of the dune again, her index finger lightly tapping the trigger of her stolen blaster. A shocked gasp left her seconds later when she spied a familliar burnished white form moving amongst the Sand People, four lightsabers whirling with deadly precision.

Grievous dispatched the five tribe members in as many seconds, kicking the final body in disgust before he resettled his lightsabers into the hidden pouches in his cloak and turned towards the sound of shifting sands. Seeing Kyra rushing towards him, Grievous spun and loped down the lee of the dune, heedless of the unstable terrain as he ran over to her.

He reached her just as she stumbled, not slowing as he scooped her into his four arms, taloned feet digging deep into the sand to slow their momentum as he nuzzled his mask into her hair. "Taisilee."

Kyra wrapped shaking arms around him, curling her fingers around bits of his back armor. "I knew you'd find me," she whispered, hearing his low purr/growl as he brushed the lower part of his mask against her forehead, then against her cheek, his upper right hand rising to brush tears from her skin. "I knew you'd come."

"Always," he growled, his voice a low husky rumble. "Always, my taisilee."

Concerned at the pained tint to her scent, Grievous leaned back and really looked at her, a shocked curse leaving him when he saw the horrible sunburn that covered every inch of exposed skin. The marauders had stripped her of everything except a thin tank top and her pants and boots. She looked exhausted, dirty and dehydrated, with little cuts, bruises and scrapes marring her badly sunburned, and sand-grated skin. That she had managed to survive for a week without adequate coverings or water was nothing short of a miracle.

With a protective rumble, he shifted his hold on her, then sent a silent message to his guards, requesting a pick-up. "My shuttle is on it's way," he told her, meeting her gaze. "I made sure to stock some supplies for you."

She leaned into him, feeling him tighten his hold on her. "They took the lightsaber you gave me," she admitted softly, wincing a little when he tensed, a low snarl leaving his vocalizer. "I'm sorry."

Grievous jerked, surprise pushing thoughts of killing the entire lot of marauders from the forefront of his mind. "And why, my taisilee, are you apologizing for something that isn't your fault?"

"....feels like my fault," she murmured sourly.

"Kyra, I saw the state of those thugs. I know you fought them." When she frowned, he ducked his head and gently brushed the lower part of his mask against her chapped lips. "They drugged you, my taisilee. I found the darts they shot you with and had the contents analyzed. With the amount they gave you, you shouldn't have been able to move, never mind fight like you did. You killed three, and wounded seven before the drugs took effect. It was a lost battle that you were forced to fight, my taisilee, and even so, you still fought to the last. It is very..... attractive."

She shivered at the lust in his voice and eyes, blushing when he chuckled and pressed his forehead to hers. Deciding that two could play that game, Kyra lightly brushed a hand across his chest, using a bit of her waning energy to send a teasing thrum into him.

Another chuckle rumbled out of him. "When I get you home, I may just pay you back for that," he purred, snickering when the redness on her face and neck darkened. "All this time, and I can still make you blush, my taisilee."

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.

She passed out the moment Grievous gently set her down on a medical berth, and it took him several tries before he managed to pry her iron grip off of him. Once he was free, he busied himself with carefully slicing away her filthy clothing, tossing it into a waste compartment as he did so. Only then did he do his best to clean the dirt and grime off of her, scowling at the raw, and badly sunburned state of the skin on her face, arms, upper chest and shoulders. Every inch of skin that had been left unprotected to the elements was damaged, and by the sound of the soft whimper that left her, extremely sensitive. The rest of her body was decorated with sporadic bruises, and once he tugged her boots off, he found that she was sporting a badly sprained ankle.

The little first aid supplies he had weren't going to be enough to treat her raw and sunburned skin, and Grievous smothered a growl at the realization. Disgusted at his lack of insight, he settled for dosing her with painkillers and setting up an intravenous drip of saline to combat dehydration. Her body absorbed the water at a frightening rate, making him set up a second bag of the liquid, this time adding a liberal dose of vitamins and minerals that would help boost her recovery.

At the end of his medical knowledge, Grievous sighed and undid the clasp of his cloak, draping the material over her to hide her nakedness. Even though there were only droids on the shuttle, he wasn't about to let anyone other than himself see her without clothing. She was his. And he wasn't above admitting his possessiveness.

The medical scanners gave a warning chirp, and he spun to stare at the readout, hands clenching into fists. Her body temperature was dangerously high. Only one degree higher, and there would be a very serious chance of brain damage.

Cursing, he yanked his cloak off of her, talons shaking as he started to reach for her, only to hesitate mere centimeters from her skin. There was nothing on the shuttle he could use to lower her temperature. And if it edged just one degree higher.....

He whirled and barrelled out of the small room, storming up to the bridge, where two of his Magna droids were piloting the shuttle, eyes narrowing when he realized that they were barely out of the planet's atmosphere. "Why aren't we in hyperspace yet?! We need to get to my Citadel!"

One of the Droids turned crimson optics onto him. "We had to circumnavigate a sandstorm. We'll be in hyperspace momentarily."

"Re-route energy from the shields and weapons," he ordered, giving the console a quick glance. "Push the hyperdrive engines to maximum."

The second guard visibly stiffened before glancing at him. "Lady Kyra?"

Grievous didn't know if he liked the fact that his bodyguards had picked up how much Kyra meant to him. "She requires urgent medical attention," he answered gruffly, barely able to hold back a growl when the droid nodded and turned back to the controls. "Advise me when we land."

.

.

.

He burst out of the shuttle before the ramp had fully lowered, clutching a still unconscious Kyra to himself as he darted into his Citadel and headed for the medical ward, bellowing for his Doctor as he ran.

The medical droid looked rather annoyed at being yelled at, until it spotted Kyra in his Master's arms. Whatever snarky remark it was preparing to give was wisely put aside as it stepped aside to avoid being run over. "Where did you find her?"

"Tatooine's badlands," Grievous answered, pushing past the Doctor and rushing into the cleaning area he usually used to wash the dirt, grime and blood off of himself after a battle. The cloak he had wrapped around her sailed out of the room, landing on the droids head and blocking it's view as the cyborg activated the water jets and lowered the temperature to as cold as he could stand.

It worried him to no end when Kyra didn't even twitch as he angled her under the freezing spray.

The Doctor knew better than to even think about looking at a disrobed Kyra, so it turned it's back to them, scanners running. "How long has her temperature been at such a level?"

"Exactly twenty-one minutes. I administered two intravenous saline drips, a single dose of painkillers, and a vitamin cocktail as soon as I got her onto the shuttle," Grievous told it, grimacing as the cold water seeped into his joints. But he pushed his discomfort aside and kept Kyra's body under the jets, tilting her face against his shoulder to keep her from accidentally inhaling any water. "She lost consciousness as soon as I brought her onboard. I haven't been able to wake her."

"....it has been documented that some Sith and Jedi can enter a sort of healing trance when they are wounded. She may have fallen into such a trance as soon as she found herself safe enough to do so. By doing so, she may have kept her temperature from rising any higher."

He mulled that over for a second. "What are the chances that she contracted brain damage?"

"Statistically? Twenty-five point two percent. However, my scans show an increase in brain activity, and there is a significant rise in theta waves."

"Theta waves? That's not Force related, is it?"

"Unknown. I do not have other scans to compare with. Though her body temperature has dropped oh-point-seven degrees since you arrived. I estimate that another ten minutes under the cold water will bring her core temperature back to a safe level."

Grievous felt some of the tension leave his frame at the information and slumped a little under the stream of water, holding back a curse as the frigid spray hit him in the face. Hissing, he shook his head, blinking the cold water away as he returned his attention to the woman in his arms, frowning down at her worriedly as he split his arms into four.

Three arms cradled her while he rose the fourth to her face, lightly brushing her soaked hair aside and panicking a little when his talons got caught in her tangled locks. With a dismayed growl, he carefully extracted his fingers, then cast his gaze around the cleaning area, grumbling when he couldn't find anything that was safe enough to use on delicate human skin.

"Here, sir."

Blinking, the cyborg glanced towards the medical droid, quirking a hidden brow when he saw the liquid soap container being held out to him. Grunting, he snatched it out of the Doctor's grip, re-adusting his hold on Kyra until his upper hands were free, his lowers keeping her cradled against him.

He spent the following ten minutes washing out her hair and gently scrubbing dirt off of her skin, taking great delight in running his upper hands through the fiery locks once he had worked out all of the tangles and knots.

And when his Doctor announced that Kyra's core temperature was only one degree above normal, he fairly launched himself out of the spray of water, nearly taking out the medical droid in the process.

A distinct lack of towels had him grabbing his cape once again, giving it a rough shake before he wrapped it around her, snarling at the droid in warning when it moved the edge of the cloak aside to look at her sunburn. "Don't even think about putting her in a bacta tank."

"But--"

"No."

The droid let out something very close to an exasperated sigh. "Then I'll prepare a bacta-infused salve for her burns."

"Good." He carefully reintegrated his arms back into two, then held Kyra tighter against him. "Is she stable enough for me to bring her to our room?"

"For the moment. Though I suggest you bring a portable medical scanner with you."

Could have mentioned that before I reintegrated my arms. Stupid droid. With a growl, Grievous split his left arm into two, snatched up the offered scanner, then stalked out of the medical bay, trying very hard to ignore the urge to behead the droid with a lightsaber.

.

.

.

Slowly, being careful of her sunburned back and shoulders, Grievous lay her down on their bed, pausing to brush her hair out of her face before he turned to fetch a roll of elastic bandage from her things. Once he had found one, he moved to the end of the bed and started to wrap her sprained ankle, plasteel talons glaringly white against the dark bruise.

When he had it wrapped to his satisfaction, he returned to her side, stretching out beside her and lightly brushing the fingers of his right hand across her cheek. Now that there was no audience, and thus no reason to hold back any longer, he gingerly slid his arms around her and gently rearranged her onto her side, curling his raptorine body around her as he tucked her as close as possible.

He murmured her name, one hand stroking her cheek as he stared at her face, practically willing her to wake up. "Please, taisilee," he whispered, brushing his curled fingers across her skin. "Please. Wake up."

.

.

.

Moving silently, Grievous slid into the steam filled bathroom, barely managing to hold back a predatory growl as he edged towards the enclosed shower, and the woman within. Her soft humming hid the low click of his plasteel talons opening the shower door, and he struck, cackling at her shriek of laughter as he wrapped his arms around her and pushed her further under the stream of warm water.

"You--!" Laughing, Kyra smacked him on the shoulder, knowing full well that the hit wouldn't harm him in the least. "Don't scare me like that!"

He chuckled, holding her to him with one arm while he playfully flicked her wet bangs out of her eyes with his free hand. "Where's the fun in that, my taisilee?" he teased, gently pushing her back against the tiled wall before he ducked his head and nuzzled his masked face against her neck. "Mm. Besides, I thought I'd help you clean up."

"Oh, is that your reason for pouncing on me?"

"I never need a reason to pounce on you," he retorted playfully, chuckling as he lifted her and carefully interspersed himself between her thighs, groaning happily when she tightened her legs around him, her knees snug against his sides. The stream of water poured over his back, the warmth seeping into his armor and joints as he used his body to keep the droplets from blinding Kyra. He shifted his stance a little to better support her, taloned feet finding purchase on the slick tiles. His hands dropped to massage her buttocks as he closed his eyes to focus on the sensations the sensors across his body was bombarding him with. "Ohh, taisilee...."

Smiling, Kyra wound her arms around his shoulders, placing a kiss on his mask just over his vocalizer and sending a little thrum of energy into him. His eyes shot open, a low growl leaving him as he met her sapphire gaze before his arms split into four, two continuing to support her while he rose the other two to frame her face with his hands.

Purring, he pressed his forehead to hers, closing his eyes again when she lightly stroked one of the sensors on either side of his head. "I want you," he growled, skimming his hands over her shoulders and frowning when he felt her tense, her breath leaving her in a pained hiss.

"Sorry," Kyra grimaced, dropping her eyes from his worried golden gaze. "My shoulders are still a little sensitive. I didn't mean to ruin the moment."

He rumbled and shook his head. "You've ruined nothing," he murmured, brushing her wet hair back so he could study her sunburned skin. "I can wait the few minutes it will take to treat your burns." At her curious look, he chuckled and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her chest flush with his and shivering as the sensors in his armor sang with pleasure. "I have a new batch of the bacta-infused salve for your burns. All this changes is that I'll treat your skin earlier than I had planned."

"Oh, really?" A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "And what else did you plan?"

Another chuckle left him. "Oh, this and that," he said evasively, snickering at the pout she gave him. Her fingers stroked the hidden seams in his chest armor, her touch activating rarely online cybernetic sensors and pulling a deep moan from him. Groaning, he nuzzled his face into her neck, his upper hands moving to knead her breasts. "Mmm. Shower's over."

Taking her breathy moan as agreement, Grievous shifted his lower arms and held her more securely against him, bringing her with him as he carefully stepped out of the enclosed shower. He paused only long enough to shut off the water and snatch up a couple of towels before he carried her out of the attached suite and into the bedroom.

It was only when he was standing at the end of the bed that he gently set her on her feet, brushing his mask against her lips before he knelt in front of her. He locked his arms back into two, glancing up at her playfully as he started to dry her off, starting at her ankles and slowly working his way up her body. He caressed and nuzzled spots of soft skin as he worked, delighting in the growing scent of arousal he picked up from her.

A purr rumbled out of him when she skimmed her hands over his shoulders, and up his neck to his masked face, sending little eddys of power dancing across his sensors.

"Keep your hands to yourself, taisilee, else I won't be able to hold back long enough to treat your sunburns," he chastised her, shivering when she smirked and leaned down to place a kiss on his cheek. "I'll tie you down if you don't listen."

"I'll get loose," she sing-songed, meeting his burning gaze when he surged to his feet and advanced on her, gently pushing her backwards until she bumped into the edge of the bed.

Unable to think of any restraints that wouldn't cause her harm, Grievous effortlessly tore the towel into strips, chuckling at her shocked look. "I did warn you," he teased, laughing when she tried to make a run for the bathroom. He lunged after her, cackling at her startled yelp as he slung her over his shoulder and carried her back to the bed, treated to a lovely view of the curve of her thigh when she tried to struggle free.

"I didn't think you were serious!" she protested, hands scrambling at his back armor as she tried to push herself upright.

"And who's fault is that?" he mused, snickering as he dropped her onto the bed and pounced on her before she could make another run for it. Crouching over her, Grievous deftly caught her hands and wrapped a strip of the torn towel around her wrists, leaning down to brush the lower part of his mask against her lips before he gripped her hips and flipped her onto her stomach.

"Oof!" Kyra tossed her head to get her hair out of the way and glared at Grievous over her left shoulder as he straddled her hips. The cyborg looked entirely too pleased with himself, eyes shining as he met her gaze and gave her an lecherous look, his hands already starting to caress her bare back. Grumbling, she focused on her bindings, giving an annoyed curse when she didn't recognize the type of knot. "This is massively unfair."

He chuckled and reached out to carefully move her damp and curling hair off her partially healed sunburned shoulders. "Behave, and maybe I'll let you go when I'm finished treating your burns," he offered, playfully trailing his plasteel talons down her spine and growling softly as he watched goosebumps break out over her skin.

Moving gingerly to avoid hurting her, Grievous braced himself and reached over the edge of the bed, picking up the jar of salve he had set there earlier before he resettled himself on his knees, still straddling Kyra's hips. The salve, he had discovered, had little to no scent, which, to him, was a boon. He had never understood why some humans obscured their scents with perfumes and chemicals. Certainly, he was glad that Kyra didn't use such things; he liked her natural scent.

"That stuff doesn't stink does it?" Kyra asked curiously, further endearing herself to him without even knowing it.

"No," he assured her, rubbing a hand down her back to calm her when she cast a wary look over her shoulder. "I would not have approved of it otherwise. You know how much I like your scent, taisilee. I'm not about to put some horrid smelling concoction on you. Now, lie still. I don't want your hair getting in the way."

She sighed and lay her cheek on her arm. "I really should cut it."

"Don't you dare," he scolded as he opened the jar and scooped some of the salve onto two fingers. Setting the jar to the side, he reached out to run his free hand through her hair, the locks curling around his digits. "I like your hair, too."

An amused chuckle left her. "Yeah, but you're biased."

He growled happily. "When it comes to you, my taisilee? Always. Now brace yourself, this is rather cool."

"You haven't actually touched my shoulders, have you?" she murmured wryly, shivering when Grievous rubbed the cold salve across her burned skin. The relief was almost instant. The heat and tightness vanished, the aching tension in her muscles easing. Even the painful over-sensitivity calmed, turning his gentle massage into something pleasurable instead of something she needed to endure for her own well being.

The blissful sigh that left her made him purr as he worked the bacta infused cream into her skin, feeling her relax under him. Every patch of skin that radiated heat, he covered with a thin layer of salve, lightly massaging her neck and shoulders. He used the opportunity to explore her back and sides, finding which spots made her bite back laughter and wiggle in an attempt to get away and which pulled pleased moans from her.

Only when he had treated every inch of burned skin did he fully indulge himself, splitting his arms into four and bracing himself on knees and lower arms as he leaned over her, growling as he nuzzled the nape of her neck. His upper hands slid up her sides and under her, to cup her breasts, his growl deepening to a guttural purr when she gasped out his name and arched her back, giving him better access to the side of her throat.

He rubbed his mask into her hair, drinking in her scent. "I have something I want to try," he rasped, shifting his weight back onto his knees so he could free his lower arms, hands brushing over the small of her back before he wrapped his left lower arm around her waist and tilted her pelvis up against his. His right slid around her, fingers finding her core, a low growl rumbling out of him when she mewled and rocked her hips into his hand. "But I want you to promise me that if you feel the slightest bit uneasy, that you'll tell me."

She moaned as he slid a finger into her, his uppermost hands still kneading her breasts as he pressed his chest against her back. "G-Grievous...."

"Promise me, taisilee," he purred into her ear, trying hard to hold himself back, despite how wet and hot her core felt around his finger. He could already feel an echo of her own pleasure starting to warm his innards, her thoughts brushing against his, building the odd loop of pleasure that let her bring him through his own completion.

"I promise!" she said breathlessly, hearing his low chuckle as he slid a second finger into her, slowly pumping his hand against her.

"Good. Now let me feel." Growling, he quickened his caresses, gripping her breasts as he pushed her down into the bed again, grinding his hips against her buttocks to push her pleasure higher, shivering when an echo of what she felt rippled through him. "I want to feel you, taisilee. Now."

Kyra gasped, struggling to reach out with her Force powers, brushing her thoughts against his and shuddering at the want and lust he openly sent to her. "Grievous!"

He hissed in pleasure and closed his eyes, fingers sliding deeper. "Yesss. Now."

A cry left her as her orgasm crashed through her, dimly aware of Grievous' arms tightening around her as her climax echoed into him. He snarled, a shudder wracking him before he moaned and hugged her, gasping for breath.

She was still trying to catch her breath when his comforting weight vanished, listening as he darted over to a small trunk and rifled through it. "Grievous?"

"One moment, taisilee."

Dazed, and with little aftershocks still going though her, she blew her bangs out of her eyes and tried to see what he was doing. That effort was thwarted when he caught sight of her and rushed over to toss a blanket over her head. "Hey!" She struggled to free her head, pausing when she heard a click followed by his low moan of pleasure. "What are you--?"

"J-Just a moment."

Frowning at the odd tone of his voice, Kyra used a bit of power to Force Push the blanket off of her, gasping when Grievous suddenly flipped her onto her back and stretched out on top of her, his eyes fairly glowing with excitement. "What was that all about?"

"I'll show you. But first," he playfully brushed his mask over her lips, all four hands exploring her body. "Eyes closed."

She blinked, but when he didn't elaborate, sighed and closed her eyes, shivering when he gently coaxed her legs open. She was still sensitive, unable to hold back a gasp when he leaned down to nuzzle her abdomen, sliding two fingers into her, going right for her g-spot.

"I wish I could taste you," he growled against her skin, breathing in lungfuls of her scent and purring in pleasure. "Even this won't fully make up for it."

"What--?" Kyra cut herself off with a moan when he grasped her hips with his lower hands, his uppers returning to her breasts. Instinct had her rolling her hips towards him, a startled cry leaving her when he chuckled and copied the motion, something long and hard sliding into her, stretching her.

Her eyes shot open, locking onto Grievous' burning gaze as he held himself above her, fairly trembling as he stared down at her, eyes wide. Unable to help the blush that spread over her cheeks, Kyra glanced down at their linked bodies before looking up at him again. "You didn't."

"Best technology available, after myself of course," he purred, bracing himself on his upper arms as he leaned down to nuzzle her. "It's connected into my neural net. And, oh, it feels so real, like I remember.... And you, ohhh taisilee, you feel incredible." He gently moved his hips against hers, growling at the sensations that shot through his body as his new 'member' was caressed by her core. ".....want you. So beautiful. Want to take you...."

Kyra gasped, automatically moving to meet his thrusts as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her up until she was straddling him. Talons tore through the bindings on her wrists, letting her grip his shoulders for stability while he nuzzled his face against her cheek, panting heavily. She clung to him, crying out when he put a hand to the small of her back and changed the angle of his entry, hitting the spot inside her that nearly tipped her over the edge.

He growl/hissed and closed a fist in her hair, watching her face as he canted his hips to hers, shouting when she caught his gaze and smirked, tightening her muscles around him. It felt so real. As if his cock was flesh and blood instead of carefully crafted plasteel and circuitry. And, oh, the embarrassment of getting it made was worth it. It was perfect. Kyra was perfect. And his. Wholly his.

A snarl left him. "Mine," he hissed, tightening three arms around her, the fourth still gripping her hair. "Mine."

"Yours," Kyra echoed breathlessly, hearing his growl as he snapped his pelvis to hers, going even deeper into her. "G-Grievous! Please!"

He leaned further back onto his knees, legs slightly spread, lower hands going to her hips to pull her onto his thrusts, groaning when he felt her curl her legs around him. She was clinging to him, mewling his name as she leaned her forehead on his shoulder. He felt the familiar sensation of her Force abilities brush against his thoughts, and welcomed it, a shudder wracking him when he felt the echoes of her own pleasure.

Half a dozen more thrusts and Kyra cried out, arching her back as her inner muscles spasmed around him. The feeling sent shock waves through him, a strangled howl ripping it's way out of his throat as his 'attachment' sent overwhelming sensations into his neural net. He convulsed against her, eyes clenched shut at the long-missed sensations of true - if artificial - physical, completion.

Gasping, his breath coming in rasping pants, Grievous rose a shaking hand to brush his fingers across Kyra's cheek, meeting her warm gaze when she rose her head to look at him. "Taisilee."

She smiled weakly, still shivering as little aftershocks washed through her. "....I love you, too," she whispered, placing a kiss on his mask, just under his left eye and gasping when he pressed a hand on the small of her back and smoothly rocked his pelvis against hers. He growled and cupped her face in his upper hands, locking gazes with her as he started moving within her again, his lower hands holding her hips, encouraging her to meet his movements.

"You've given me back what I lost," he murmured, golden eyes staring into sapphire. "I accepted the changes to myself, but I trapped myself in the process. I lost everything. All I had was my rage, and my hate." Purring raggedly, Grievous pressed his forehead to hers, keeping up his slow thrusts into her. "You showed me that I wasn't just what I had become. That I didn't have to.... to limit myself. That I could have more. So, so much more." He punctuated the last word with a strong slide within her, rubbing up against the spot in her that made her gasp, her eyes darkening.

"You never treated me as anything but Kaleesh, never a cyborg, never a droid. You've given me everything I thought out of my reach. Friendship, a mate. That you'd let me touch you, let me find pleasure again..... trust me enough to even touch your thoughts to mine...." He slid his upper hands into her hair, gathering the wild locks into his fists and brushing the lower part of his mask across her lips. "I will never let you go, my taisilee. Never."

She shivered when he growled, expressive reptilian eyes fairly glowing as he pushed her down into the blankets, his hips churning against her, the new angle meaning that every deep thrust brushed her g-spot. He stretched out over her, hissing when she wrapped her legs around him again, letting him drive himself into her. Gasping for breath and mumbling Kaleesh endearments, Grievous locked his arms back into two and grasped her hands, pinning her arms above her head.

Her inner muscles fluttered around his cock, the sensation pulling a deep growl from him as he stared down at her, watching her as he drove her closer and closer to climax. She bit her lower lip as she met his gaze, sapphire eyes glittering, even as she brushed her fingers against his, sending a wave of energy dancing up his arms and across his chest. The pulse went straight to his innards, the pleasure echoing through him in an ever-growing shockwave until it was too much to endure.

He arched his back, roaring as his climax ripped through him, hips jerking against hers, dimly aware of her own cry of pleasure as her core spasmed around him. A long, drawn-out moan left him at the sensation, his heart hammering in it's protective gutsack.

Stunned by the overwhelming pleasure, Grievous slumped on top of her, face buried in her hair as he wheezed, struggling to regain his breath. Limbs twitched with aftershocks, each little movement accompanied with a small flash of bliss. Kyra was trembling under him, gasping, warm breath tickling the right sensor on the side of his head. Still dazed, he regained enough coordination to release her hands, sliding his palms down the length of her arms and across her shoulders in calming strokes.

After a few long minutes, he gently pulled himself out of her, murmuring endearments at her soft moan. Knowing he wouldn't be able to rest while it was tied into his neural network, he carefully reached down and, with a hiss at the pleasure his own touch caused, unlocked and slid the plate the sex-tool was attached to out of the thin groove of his pelvic armor.

He reached back to set the alloy tool on the bed behind him, grimacing when he set it down only for it to roll off and thunk to the floor. Kyra shook against him then, burying her face against his chest, and he glanced down at her, chuckling when he found that she was struggling not to laugh. "You won't be laughing if it's damaged," he teased, wrapping his arms around her and tucking her close.

Kyra snickered. "We made do before you got it," she smiled, placing a kiss on his chest. "Not that I'm complaining."

"No," he purred, brushing a hand across her shoulders and up to stroke her hair. "No complaints." He gently slid his free hand between them, palm pressing against her abdomen. "Did I hurt you?"

She reached up to press the fingers of her right hand to his mask, just over his vocalizer. "You didn't hurt me. Trust me, with how close our thoughts were, you would have known. You're not the only one who lost control for a moment there."

He gave a pleased, very male, growl and nuzzled her cheek, wrapping his arms around her to pull her into the curve of his body. "Good." Purring gutterally, Grievous curled his raptorine body around her, tugging a fur up over her bare back and shoulders to help keep her warm.

.

.

.

tbc

[joaquinwhorres]

alone together (Diego Hargreeves x Reader)

SUMMARY ››››› Dating is hard. But it's even harder to watch the person you love dating other people.

REQUEST ››››› 11 +13 with Diego? (11. Telling them a dumb joke just to see their smile. 13. Playing your fingers through their hair while sitting next to them on the couch.) 

WORD COUNT ››››› 2,261

WARNINGS ››››› dirty jokes

A/N ››››› This idea popped into my head right as I was going to sleep the other night, and it just kind of poured out. I always feel a bit guilty when I turn love story requests into something a bit angsty, soooo I added some fluffy moments in here as well. And let me just say, I love their dynamic. Also I *slightly* changed 13. 

They've been close since the Academy. Not the Umbrella shit, the police academy--which was, pretty much, more of the same shit. Still had to dress up in a dapper little uniform and take orders from superiors who hardly deserved the title. He spent his childhood training to take down the bad guys and some thirty year old asshole who got his badge five years ago and aced some written test knew better than him? Bullshit.

She was one of the few people who put up with him at the time. Everyone else talked their shit and played the stupid game, as if blowing smoke up the instructors' ass would save them in the field. She was the only one who listened. Who took his tips on how to disarm over the trainers. Who questioned rules that would cost lives. Who put him in his place and drew lines between Number 2 and Diego Hargreeves he didn't know existed. 

So yeah, he's been in love with her for a while.

Which is why, when she calls asking him to come over, he turns off the police scanner, takes off the mask, and gets in his car. 

When she opens the door to her apartment, he can't help the small smile that quirks at the corner of his lips. She's so goddamn beautiful even in her leggings and Synchronicity baseball tee he got her as a joke when she graduated the academy. She had laughed so hard she cried and then serenaded him with "Roxanne". It was the wrong album, but he couldn't have given less of a shit.

She, Sting, and the other two bastards are looking at him expectantly, so he quirks an eyebrow hoping that it turns his smile into more of a smirk. "You gonna let me in, or did you just want to show me your front door?"

She gives a mirthless pity laugh to tell him how not funny he is. "I was hoping you were the pizza guy."

"Sorry to disappoint," he shakes his head, and the smile situation is getting out of control.

"Not sorrier than I am," she says, heaving a long suffering sigh as she steps aside to let him inside. He doesn't even make it past her before she breaks and offers him a smile.

 Diego snorts and turns towards what might as well be his second home. Or first. Hell, he's here more than he's ever in his shitty room at the boxing gym. The TV is on, blankets pooled in a semicircle on the couch, a bottle of wine and half empty glass in front of the spot. Her purse and keys sit on the table, heels kicked off under a chair. Other than that, the place is pristine as usual. 

He doesn't like the way this scene looks. 

"Thought you had a date tonight," he remarks, heading into the kitchen to get himself a wine glass. Behind him, the door clicks shut and her bare feet patter lightly against the floor.

"There was a miscommunication."

It's the way her voice is too light-- each word is carefully chosen. How under the chair's legs one shoe is on its side while the other is still standing. The fact that she's drinking red wine instead of those stupid Whiteclaws.

"He didn't show." Diego turns to her as he says this, watching to see the words reach her. When they do, her eyes shoot down to the ground and she gives a small shake of her head. 

"No." Her voice is soft and her eyes run over the scratch marks on the wooden floor from when she had him rearranging the furniture to make her new coffee table "aesthetically fit". It's threelong seconds before she speaks again. "He uh--meant to meet up with someone else."

Anger shoots through him, burning and vicious and fuck wine as a solution. Diego strides forward, heading to the front door, when she reaches out a hand to stop him. "Don't."

He looks at her and tries to arrange his features into some semblance of innocent concern. "I'm just going to my car to get a bottle of whiskey I keep there." He has to pry his gaze away from hers because the look she's giving him makes his heart feel like it's going to implode. She looks at him as if she sees him. She's the only person who's ever given him that look.

"Diego. Do not go interrupt his date to pick a fight."

"Fuck," he curses under his breath because she sees right through the lie. He turns back to her, mouth open to deny the accusation when her look intensifies. 

"I know you Diego Hargreeves." 

No one has ever told him they love him.

But that sounds pretty damn close. 

She releases his arm because she knows that she's won or maybe she has some misplaced faith in his self-control. "I really appreciate that you want to kill him. Really, really appreciate it. But I don't need you going to jail on assault charges. I need you here, drinking wine and watching TV with me. Unless you actually have that whiskey."

He shakes his head, thankful he doesn't have to respond because the fact that she needs him leaves him just about breathless. 

This time she curses under her breath, a soft damn. "You're such a tease," she comments, heading back to the couch and he goes back to get a wine glass from the cabinet.

“It's only for you, baby,” he calls over his shoulder. 

They’re two bottles of wine deep and it’s only 11 o’clock. She had apparently been joking about the pizza guy, much to Diego’s disappointment. When he voiced as much, her eyes got big and bright, and she grabbed his face in her hands. “Then let’s order a fucking pizza.” 

And then she slapped him, one cheek after the other and went to get her cell phone.

They’re still waiting on the pizza.

But his attention has been less on the grumbling in his stomach and more on the fact that y/n hasn't laughed once in the last forty minutes. She hasn't so much as cracked a smile. Not even when Esther stabs her hand in front of Hank. In fact, since the phone call for pizza she's hardly even said a word, and he can see what she's doing. She's torturing herself. Her attention isn't on Barry, it's on the asshole she left at whatever bar to go on a date with someone who wasn't her.  

"Hey," he says, and she turns to look at him, eyebrows raised. At least she isn't that far down the rabbit hole. That's good. He's been there enough times to know how hard it is to pull yourself out of the cycle. To silence out the memories of voices you shouldn't give two shits about anymore and focus on what's in front of you. "How did Burger King get Dairy Queen pregnant?"

Her nose wrinkle and brow creases in confusion, and she stares at him like he's clinically insane. "What?" 

"Come on," he gestures, turning towards her so that their knees brush together. "How'd the Burger King get Dairy Queen pregnant?" 

She seems to catch on then, her face more skeptical than concerned for his sanity. "How?"

"He forgot to wrap his whopper." 

She just shakes her head, turning back to the TV. He wouldn't be Number 2 if he gave up now. "What should you do if you come across an elephant?"

"What?" her voice is flat and unamused, but it's not the same tone she gives him when she's done with his bullshit.

"Apologize and wipe it off." 

She cracks then, her lips fighting against her will to keep a straight face as the corner of her mouth twitches up into a smile. A small burst of air exhales through her nose. It's not a laugh, and it's not a smile, but it's a start.

""What's the difference between 'Oooh!' and 'Aaah!'?"

"Oh no--" 

"About three inches."

She bursts with laughter then, slapping a hand over her mouth to stifle her giggles. Her eyes crinkle in the corner, as she looks at him, shaking her head. He's gotten what he wanted, but what's one more joke?

"What goes in hard and dry and comes out wet and soft?" 

She almost chokes on the wine she's sipping to help her stop laughing. "Diego!" 

"Chewing gum. Why, what were you thinking?" 

"Fuck you," she says, pointing a finger at him, but she's laughing, so he starts laughing too. She sets her wine glass back down in front of her and crawls all the way on the couch, shuffling closer to him so she can beat his arm with both of her fists. 

"It's a good joke," he protests, laughing harder as she continues her assault. 

"It's so not a good joke!" she argues back, tears streaming down from her eyes. But they're from laughter rather than what's going on in her head, so he'll take it. His arm is saved from the punching by a knock at the door. Naturally she moves to get up, but he shakes his head, gently pushing her back down into the couch and reaching into his back pocket to pull out his wallet. 

The guy takes in his tactical outfit with a raised eyebrow, but doesn't say anything about it. Diego feels a bit sorry that he took off his knives. Scaring the pizza guy was always mildly entertaining for himself. Instead he passes along the money with a "Thanks man," and returns to Y/N who has settled back into her spot. 

She gives him a warning look and holds up a finger at him again. "No jokes during the pizza." 

"What?" It's his turn to look at her like she's crazy. 

"I'll choke and die, and you don't want that on your conscience--and don't turn that into another joke," she adds quickly, preventing him from using the innuendo before he can even find it in the sentence.

"Fine," he says, sinking into his seat and putting the box of pizza on the coffee table. "No jokes. Just pizza."

She narrows her eyes suspiciously at him even as she reaches forward to pull out a slice. She doesn't break her gaze until she's swallowed and he bites into his own piece. There's a few moments of quiet between them, but it feels better than it did before the pizza. There's something lighter in the air between them, and he hopes she feels it too. 

"Thank you," she says, suddenly. 

It takes him a second and a quick glance around the apartment to realize that she means the pizza. He scoffs and waves the thanks off. 

"No, Diego, seriously. Thank you. For coming over," she sighs. "I needed this." 

"I'm always here for you," he said, nudging her with his shoulder. "You know that. Can't get rid of me even if you tried." 

She offers a small smile, and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, wincing as she notices the pizza grease on her finger tips. Diego shouldn't be watching her this closely. He should focus on his pizza like a normal person. But he can't take his eyes off her. How she seems just a bit slower, just a bit quieter today. She runs her fingers over a napkin leaving a trail of yellow grease. "Do you wanna hear something sad?" she asks, her voice small.

"When you say it like that, how could I say no?" It was supposed to be a joke, but his voice is too soft.

She doesn't look at him, instead keeping her eyes fixated on the used napkin. 

"This isn't the first time that's happened. It's not even the first time that's happened this month." 

He wants to kill. He wants to wage a war against the boys on Tinder or Bumble or the force or wherever it is she's finding these assholes. But she needs him here. She told him she needs him.

"They're idiots," he says. "Complete fucking morons." 

"Statistics would suggest otherwise," she shook her head, looking back up at the tv, frozen on a close up of Bill Hader's face. "I mean...guy after guy, I'm always the one getting broken up with or ghosted. Is there something I'm not seeing? Seriously, Diego, is there something wrong with me?" She looks at him then, eyes shining and heartbreaking in the earnestness of the question. 

"There's not a single fucking thing wrong with you," he says quickly wiping his own hands off so he can pull her in close. She wraps her arms around his middle, leaning her forehead into the crook of his neck. He can feel her breath against his skin. Feel her heartbeat. He holds her even tighter.

"I'm going to put that in my bio from now on. Not a single fucking thing wrong with me. Verified by Diego Hargreeves." She gives a single quiet laugh at her own joke, and Diego smiles, running his fingers through her hair. He isn't sure if it's as calming to her as it is to him, but her head feels a bit heavier as she relaxes more into him. 

 “I don’t know. I think I’m just done with this all. Maybe I’ll like being alone," she sighs, wiggling a little bit closer. "With you of course. We can be alone together.”

'Yeah," his smile is bigger now, and he can feel her smiling against him too. “Yeah, we can do that.”

[katniss506]

Rachel: MMA

Clarisse: Manly Man Association

Percy: THERES TOOT BEAR EVERYWHERE CAUSE I SPILLED IT

Percy: *root beer

Percy: We’re in Iowa and the air smells deep fried

Meg: *throws cherry into water*

Meg: Like a bad boy

Leo: Like a China in a bull shop

Piper: Jason’s friend daddy

Annabeth: 30 million doses!

Grover: I HAVE MONKEY FEET

Paul: I was driving down the road and I couldn’t see anything. Then up ahead I saw a glowing cross. It freaked me out

Hazel: you dirty rat tinkle

Percy: that’s an obsession

Annabeth: it’s not an obsession it’s a passion

Annabeth: says every obsessed person in the world

Grover’s thoughts: I wish there was a mushroom scanner, so that you could tell which mushrooms are poisonous or not... that’s probably the most useless thing ever

Meg: what are we doing?

Lester: smelling like salad and wrecking dreams

Percy: YOURE OBSESSED WITH SHIT AND ITS STUPID

Annabeth: you mean Shmidt?!