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slimybeth69 · 2 days ago

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Touch: Part 6

Rating: explicit (smut, language)

Summary: Din has another special 'gift' for you-- and then some unfortunate news.

tags: I'm not giving any tags or warnings for this chapter. It's smutty and angsty. Beware. You are responsible for the things you consume.

a/n: I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you read this on ao3, no you fucking didn't. It's still unbeta'd, but proofread!! I did that this time!! I also am re-working the story slightly because I CAN. Spoilers to the show and the book of boba fet and maybe the next season because I helped J. Faveau write it.

The whole day was so much fun. So different than after your arrival yesterday.

Din showed you how to fix certain things on the ship should they break while he isn't here. He also showed you the beginning stages of piloting and flying the ship were you to ever have to do such a thing.

You hope not.

Din is being mostly nice to you, and is acting like he wants to spend time with you. It's a stark contrast to how he treated you before he saw your doodles.

Din never once laid a hand on you, not even a handshake the first night you met.

It's so very subtle, his touches now that you're back— gentle ghosts of the yellow leather across the tops of your hand when he's showing you the buttons on the control panel. He had placed a strong hand on your waist to ground you so he could reach around you from behind to grab something off of a shelf.

Not innocent touches by any means, but they were different from your dynamic when the lights were off.

Things felt good, almost like they did right before you went to go 'play Jedi' on a planet you had never heard of before you got dropped off on it.

You’re not mad he left you on Ossus. No. You wanted that. You wanted to live on that planet so bad you begged him. Basically told him that you’d stay there no matter what he said. So, he made it happen for you. Din spoke to Luke and Ahsoka privately while you and the child sat in the grass, watching from afar. It was scary not knowing what their answer would be. When Din returned he said that they would take you in, only if you trained with Ahsoka.

Which was a very sweet gesture.

Until he left you there for two years. All you did was train! Not being a child meant there was no need for the schooling and the classes that the younglings took. You trained day in and day out. Like a Jedi.

Ahsoka was hard on you, trained you like you were already strong and powerful; you weren’t in the beginning and it was hard. So hard you thought you wouldn’t make it. You did make it though— made it out stronger and faster than before. Better on your feet and more capable than you ever thought possible.

Luke and Ahsoka were so smart— almost like they knew you couldn't resist him.

They are selfish and cruel for doing that to you and Din! Neither one of them even told you they were doing it.

There is still a part inside of you that's furious that Din didn't throw things around and demand to see you! He is a bounty-hunter in a metal suit! He could have made a couple dents and holds in that sex forsaken temple!

Din is the reason you didn’t get offered a lightsaber of your own. That's the only reason. It has to be, you were such a good Jedi outside of the fact that you spoke about Din to Ahsoka daily. All the time when you weren't running until your lungs gave our or being beaten with sticks!

Whatever. You don’t even really care anymore. Barely think about not being offered a lightsaber at all. Almost never.

Right this very second though… you’re looking at the amored man you’ve been pining after for so long, and he’s standing there in only his helmet and the black pants he wears under his beskar.

Getting ready to fight you .

You have nothing but your nightgown on! What does he expect you to do?

Din The Mandalorian shakes his hands out like he’s loosening them up. You’re unimpressed with this foolishness.

This is what children do and you and him are not children. It has absolutely nothing to with the fact that you might be nervous, the butterflies in your belly are going crazy right now.

“You want me to…wrestle you?” You wrinkle your face up at him.

Din quickly shifts his body weight from foot to foot and holds his hands up to block— the Maker- loving helmet. As if his helmet wouldn’t completely crush every single bone in every single one of your fingers.

That is not even close to where you would aim, if you were to wrestle and fight with him, like he’s asking but you’re not going to. This is a ruse of some sort, you’re sure of it.

“Yes.” Din’s two fingers pop up from his fist and he curls them to beckon you over to him. His helmet tilts to the side ever so slightly.

This cannot be happening. He is much bigger than you. Towers over you practically. His shoulders are so broad and he is so strong! If there was one thing you never forgot, even in those two long years, is how much he held back when he touched you! He can’t be serious.

You cock an eyebrow up at him, “In my nightgown?” Looking down, you hold your white nightgown up to him -like he can’t already see it. It’s quite thin, nothing you’d wear to fight in! The fabric goes all the way down to the floor, what does he expect you to do? Really fight him in it?

“It’s white and long. And I have nothing underneath,” your voice wavers slightly as you blink at him again, still not understanding why he wants to do this. You two were just cleaning up the ship together. Picking up after Grogu, who leaves a mess in his path no matter where he’s going or coming from. You follow him around all day and don’t understand how he gets into half the stuff he does.

“I know it’s white, and long." Din starts to circle you slowly. "I can see quite well in my helmet, did you forget?"

There is a weird bashfulness to you right now. It's hard to look at him because you can't fight the smile that's curling at the corners of your mouth, so you keep your eyes on your nightgown and don't even notice that Din has started to move around you slowly.

“It's pretty on you.”

That makes the heat creep up your neck and behind your cheeks. You try to hold back that smile but it’s hard.

“Why do you want to fight?” You look up and he’s two feet to your left. You turn to face him now, “I don’t understand. I don’t think I get anything about you.” You keep shuffling your feet to follow him as he keeps circling. Again so slow, you don’t even notice. He’s so smooth. So graceful.

“You don’t need to understand.” Din speaks calmly from behind the helmet. “You like making me happy. So c’mon. Take your best shot.” He takes one step calculated step forward.

The last two years flood back to you immediately at this sudden and familiar move. You bend your knees slightly and cover your face with your fists, your elbows are tucked neatly into your sides. Just like in training. You took enough rods to the sides and ribs and chest and elbows. You eye him carefully and shift your weight to your back leg.

“Good form," Din says, taking another small step forward.

You drop your right foot back and drag your left across the floor seamlessly an a slow and deliberate attempt to put distance between yourself and the metal man. You try and read him, but it's impossible with his helmet. Ahsoka told you to always watch your opponents eyes- they would tell you where they would try to place their attack.

“You have the upper hand with that helmet.” You start to side step slowly like he is. The tension in the room is palpable. You can drink it out of the air you’re breathing. “You better play fair. I’ll be upset with you if you don’t.” You’re waiting for him to make the first move but he wont.

“I’ll be honest, I’m rusty with my hand to hand. It’ll be good practice.” Din snickers from the modulator. You raise an eyebrow. You’ve gone two full rotations around where you had been standing before. “But…I can bring you in warm, or I can bring you in cold. Up to you.” You think you can hear the smirk on his face behind the helmet.

“Oohh. Warm or cold. So scary .” You mock Din teasingly. You’ve mindlessly coordinated it so that with every step he takes to his right, you take one to your right at the same time. You’ve synced up your movements with his, just like Ahsoka taught you how to do. You anticipate what he’s going to do even though you can’t see his eyes or face, which is where you should look if your opponent isn’t wearing a mask. If they are, you watch their muscles. Those will tell you where they’re getting ready to strike from.

You scan his entire body quickly. His shoulder muscles are tensing and he’s going to come forward with his left arm, you can see it. His right leg flexes slightly. The whole thing goes through your brain in a matter of milliseconds.

That’s when he takes a step towards you with speed and his left hand opens and lightly comes around and tries to swing and graze your cheek or forehead or maybe your chin. You see it coming, anticipating it in your calm mind. The top half of your body leans back about four inches, just out of his reach.

You’ve taken note this entire time exactly where you were going to go for if he made his move and while his arm is crossing over his chest you duck quickly, just below his arm. With a very flat and stiff right hand, you surge forward and connect with the pressure point in his left shoulder.

Din’s left arm goes limp immediately, and he makes a sound of shocked pain from under that useful helmet. It didn't help him see that coming, it sure didn't. He drops his other arm from his hYou think about tapping him on the helmet with your fingers in his defenseless position but you think that would be rude. A real punch to his ego.

“Wh-” Din’s helmet snaps between you and his shoulder twice. “You- How did you do that?” Din’s stunned. Can’t believe you just disabled him. You. The girl. The crier. The girl with feelings and all those things. Yeah, he can’t believe you just put your hands on him like that and it actually hurt.

“ Did you not want to fight ?” You smirk at him and stop moving. Din looks down at his shoulder for a long time. Then his helmet snaps back up to you.

“I was going to go easy on you.” Din said, pointing to his shoulder. “This isn’t easy.” You shake your head at him and shrug your shoulders. You wish you felt bad for him but you actually feel a little better for the fact that he was so cold to you on your first meeting in two years. Even if you were cold to him. Why wouldn’t you have been? He abandoned you on a Maker forsaken planet covered in trees and shrubs and mountains. Okay. The planet was beautiful. A place you wish he would have dropped you off but regardless.

“How was I supposed to know that? You just said you wanted to fight?” You’re watching him as he rubs his shoulder gently and begins to move in circles in the socket. You’re still backing away from him slowly. It’s instinctual, you’re just taking small little shuffled steps back.

“I said I wanted to spar .” Din’s hand fell from his shoulder and now his full attention is on you. It gives you nervous butterflies. You shake your head at him and point one finger in his direction.

“You never said spar, you said fight and wrestle. So how is that the same?” You put your hands on your hips and watch him. You see Din’s legs flex and you know what’s coming; Din is chasing you. It makes your stomach drop and your feet dance on the ground for a second as he’s running. Quickly. You sidestep him and run in the opposite direction, out of the room you’re in and down the long hallway of rooms that have little meaning to you.

Besides that there are weapons in them. You keep the kid out of there. It’s been a pretty difficult task so far. Grogu has been the most fun you’ve ever seen him. He’s so independent and doesn’t really eat a lot of bugs anymore but, oh my Maker. The kid’s getting into everything. It’s blowing your mind. The Force is making him a pain in the ass.

Din has to skip stop when you dodge him and turn in the other direction to chase after you but you’ve already turned into one of the unnamed rooms; a place to hide? You start to look. There is nowhere and now you regret coming in here because it’s just a flat metal table in the center with a bunch of guns on the wall.

You turn around and Din is in the doorway. He’s blocking your only exit. His hands are on the door frame and he’s an X in the rectangle that leads you to freedom. His chest is rising and falling and his helmet is looking at the floor for a moment until he tilts it up to look at you.

“Hi.” You have a sheepish smile on your face. You’re standing on the far end of the metal table. Din lets his arms fall to his side and walks in, keeping his body between you and the door. His footsteps are slow. You have no idea what he’s going to do. Jump up on the table maybe?

“Hi.” He pant’s softly. “ Why’d you run ?” He’s standing on the opposite side of the table from you. You blink at him.

“ You chased me!” You point at him. This is so much fun. You love floating in the stars, running around the ship. Watching him be like this around you makes you feel good. Makes you feel so special and your heart is racing because you’re nervous and you love this.

Din says nothing. He just stands there at the other edge of the table. His arms are at his sides and he’s not moving. He doesn’t even look–

The table suddenly and very quickly slides to your left with a jarringly loud honking, screech across the metal floor. You jump back in shock and alarm and you're pressed against the wall behind you, before you can react Din is taking forward steps towards you. You jump to the right and try to dodge him but the room is too small and he wraps his arm around you waist and pulls you into him

“That’s not chasing.” He rasps.

“Oh my Maker. Yes , that is exactly what being chased is.” You laugh and turn so you can face him. Din’s helmet is tilted down at you. You can feel him looking at your face. You wish you could see him. So badly you wish. Even with all your Jedi training you still want selfish things and wish to see.

“Do you remember what we did the other night?” He asks. You nod and raise an eyebrow. What new weird thing could this helmeted man want from you? You’ve loved every single one of his weird ideas though, so you look up at him dreamily.

“I do.” You smile and bat your eyelashes at him. “Were you wanting to do it again?” You interlace your fingers and place them under your chin. You give him your best attempt at big saucer eyes but it does not work.

“No.” He rasps, gazing down at you. You drop the smile and frown. "Something like that." You lift an eyebrow and look him up and down.

“Oh.” You pull away from him but Din holds you closely and tightly. “What do you want then? Always wanting.” You tease him, because he's a giver. A hard giver who doesn't ask for much in return and it's honestly felt almost too easy. Like, when is the other shoe going to drop. Why does he do that? Give give give. Din has the strangest requests of anyone ever. But you don't hate them.

“I give too. I want to give you something right now.” Din starts to rub himself through his black pants.

Maker…is it actually happening? Is Din going to give it to you tonight? Finally?

“Will you get on your knees for me? Perfect, pretty little one–in her white dress. Please?” Why does he do this to you? His voice, even behind the rasp of the modulator is so mesmerizing, especially when he talks like that . You almost don’t even feel yourself sinking down to your knees. It’s like his words hypnotized you or put you in a trance.

You look up at him while he towers over you with his big, broad shoulders. You can’t help but smile up at him happily, happy that you’re here. One of his big, strong, calloused hands touches your cheek softly. His palm connects with it. Maker, did you send him from flames ? Like from real actual flames because he is always so hot. It used to really worry you, but now, now it’s his familiar touch in the dark when you need him. But it wasn’t dark now. He wanted you to see, and he wanted to see you with no night vision.

“Pretty lips.” His thumb starts to rub over them, dragging them along with his digit gently. “I thought about these lips every day. Kissing them. Licking them. Putting my cock between them. ” When Din says this, between your legs starts to strum happily, like he just started your engine. “I want to be in your throat. So badly. Perfect little one , so badly.” You love the way he’s speaking to you. So nice and sweet and kinda naughty. His thumb pulls your bottom lip down gently and then releases it back up to your top lip with the softest popping sound.

You take his thumb into your mouth without asking, without him offering it. Just suck it between your lips because you just want him to know what you’re willing to give him. You slide the soft warmth of your mouth over the rough pad of his thumb. Helmet never leaves your face. You start trying to Jedi force fuck him into taking if off but you know it’s futile, you don’t have the force in you. Not even a little. You do have his thumb in your mouth though and you're sucking on it softly, trying to make him give you the real thing. Din pulls his hand away and his thumb leaves your mouth with a sucking, wet pop.

“Maker. She is perfect and beautiful.” One hand finds your hair, fingers comb through it so lovingly. So carefully. Din finds a good handful right at the top of your head and grips gently. He lets out a sigh as his other hand leaves your face and pushes the front of his pants down. You’re eager to help, gripping the sides with your fingers and pulling them down to the middle of his thigh.

“Can I, please?” You whisper, leaning forward towards his length but his grip in your hair tightens and he pulls you away. Din’s free hand finds his base and squeezes gently. “Please?” You can’t take your eyes off of it, like it’s casting a spell on you or something. “ Please?” You finally look up to Din who’s gazing down at you still. Once you look up to him, he moves his hips forward slightly.

The tip of his cock presses against your lip as his thumb did earlier. Gently. The hot skin pulls your lips wherever it goes and you stick your tongue out to taste the leaking drop of precome from it. It makes Din’s whole body shudder as you flick the tip along his slit and wrap your lips around the tip. You use a little suction to pull him in and then you wrap one hand right above him and start to move it slowly back and forth.

Din groans softly and lets you. You move your hand and take as much of him as you can and then slide everything but the tip out and replace your hand, jerking him slowly while you suck and swirl your tongue around it, paying special attention to his seam. You can feel him trembling at your touch. Your fist never stops moving on his shaft.

“ Fuck - ing– Maker.” Din breathes heavily. His hips start to buck forward ever so slightly as you start pulling him deeper into your mouth as you stroke him. “Yes. Yes.” Din’s raspy modulated moan is music to your ears as he moves his hand from the base so you can hold him there. You take him until he’s in the back of your throat. “Yes. Please.” It sounds like he’s holding his breath under that helmet again. But you tease him and pull away to just the tip again. He lets out a disappointed sigh. He was holding his breath.

You stroke him again, swirling your tongue. Then you take him into your mouth again, holding him at the base. The tip of your nose touches your fist.

“It’s so perfect. So good. Yes. Yes. So good.” Din strains them out from somewhere in his throat. He starts bucking his hips forward like he can’t control himself. It makes you gag softly. “ Fuck it’s so good,” His modulated rasp groans come from deep in his chest. Din’s only moving a couple inches. Just fucking your face softly and you let him. Your other hand comes up and wraps around the back of his leg, pulling him into you gently.

Din’s engine must be back there because his hips start to thrust a little faster, the head of his cock slipping further and further back down your throat while his drives forward start a little more aggressive. You do your best to try and relax everything inside of you. Every ounce of resistance that you have, you try and make it go away because you want to make Din feel the way he makes you feel. Mind shatteringly good.

“Oh fuck.” Din groans deeply, his fingers grip your hair tighter. “Yes. Little one, you like taking my c-cock like this?” You look up to his helmet and he’s gazing down at you. He’s got his free hand on the wall of the ship and he’s leaning on it for support. You nod as much as you can and moan a throaty sound of pleasure. It makes Din’s knees buckle. You do it again and watch as his hand starts to mindlessly search for something he’s not really looking for on the wall.

You pull him deeper, sucking gently on the hardness in your mouth. Your tongue ungulates against the veiny skin on his shaft. His searching hand leaves the wall and finds your hair. Din pulls you down onto his cock completely, entirely. You gag but you also feel warmth in the back of your throat. It makes you cough against him but he holds you down to his base with his hand.

It’s like he’s choking you, cutting off your airway. You relax your throat as much as you can, even though it’s kind of scary and you’ve never really seen Din like this. It’s not bad, it’s not terrible. It’s a little jarring, but you relax and you take him deeper than you thought you could. Even though you're gagging around it a little harder. The head of his cock is nestled right in the back of your throat and he’s coming. It’s like Din couldn’t help it, the way he’s holding you down onto him.

“ Ohh-fuck– Ohhh, l-little pretty one.” Din chokes out, his hips thrusting forward while he pushes and pulls your head to and from the base of his cock. “Throat s-so perfect…come inside it– fuck.” Din’s head falls back as you feel the length of him throb inside your mouth with each release.

You are doing your absolute best to take everything he gives you but it’s impossible, you have to push yourself off of him before you either gag too hard or choke on what he’s giving you.

The minute your hands touch Din’s waist and press against him, the grip he has on your hair softens and he pulls his hips back from your face. His cock leaves your throat and mouth with the most filthy wet squelch you’ve ever heard and you drop to the floor, coughing and choking on everything that’s built up over this escapade that you two have been participating in; saliva, Din’s release.

There is so much of it.

Tears come to your eyes as you try and keep everything in your mouth. You swallow it quickly and continue to cough, rubbing at the drool that’s dripping from the base of your chin with the back of your hand. That was rough. Very rough. So aggressive and unexpected. It wasn’t that you didn’t love it. It was just hard. And now you’re coughing so hard you feel like you might be sick.

Din is beside you, pants up around his waist again. His hand is on your back now but the heat from his fingertips on your shoulders is making you sweat even worse. You are already so hot. From the activity, from the coughing. It’s so overwhelming. You shrug his hand off and crawl two inches to the right of him and try to breathe but it’s so hard. Tears are rolling out of your eyes and directly onto the floor below you.

“W-wat–” More choking. You can’t even get words out but Din is already standing, running into the dining area to get you what you’re asking for. You stay on the ground, breathing in quick, shallow gasps in between fits of sputtering and wheezing. Din’s padded footsteps on the floor of the ship and then there is a metal canteen of water in front of you. You grab at it; the top has already been twisted off for you.

You take the smallest sip and try to quench the itch making you unable to stop this fit. The water helps tremendously, you sip and then sip again. Cough and sputter. Sip and then gulp. More gulps. It’s so good. So refreshing. Everything about this is heaven right now. You sit back on your bottom, taking in another pull off the canteen before you stop. And gasp. For what feels like ten minutes

Din is beside you again, sitting, holding your shoulders and now his warmth feels inviting. You lean into him and he braces and supports all of the weight you decide to put against him, which is a lot. You’re tired and that was physically exhausting even though you feel like you sat on your knees the whole time. Din did most of the work. His fingertips are so soft when they graze down the side of your arms, he’s being so gentle.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, little one are you okay?” Din’s voice is so soft now, so caring and concerned for you. You look at yourself in the face visor and see your tear stained cheeks and how flushed red they are from everything you’ve been through in the last ten minutes. Your hair is a mess and your lips are puffy and red. Din touches your cheek softly and rubs his fingers over your bottom lip. “I’m sorry.”

“ That’s what you wanted to give me?” Your voice is gravelly and deep. You have to clear your throat and take another sip of water. Din’s modulated chuckle makes you smirk. He’s gazing at you, his fingertip still touching and caressing your bottom lip while you stare into his face visor, watching his finger in the reflection.

“I hope you didn’t hate it.” Soft. Apologetic. Sweet.

You shake your head at him and pant heavily. You didn’t hate it. Needed more warning from Din though. It’s okay. You’d do anything for him— you’re pretty sure as long as it didn’t kill you. You might though, if it meant keeping him safe. You want to keep Din safe, make sure that he always gets back on this ship with you and the green child.

You proved to Din tonight that you could.

“You’re to stay beside me the whole time.” Din is placing Grogu's bag over your shoulder. “I’ll answer any questions you might have when we get back on the ship, alright? Try not to interrupt.” Din tilts the helmet down at you after he places Grogu in the bag.

Your head snaps down at him. “You’ve never seen me interact with one single other person since we’ve known each other. How would you know if I interrupted? I’m very polite. I wait for my turn.” You snip at him and cover the child with your fancy new robe you got from Ahsoka before you left. It’s got a nice hood that’s up over your face now.

“Just please follow my instructions. Don’t make me regret this. You or Grogu," Din places both of his hands on your shoulders and touches the forehead of his helmet to yours. “I’m just trying to keep you safe. Please listen to everything that I tell you? It can be dangerous out there. I mean it. Listen to me.”

Din leads you off the ship and it’s like a desert out here; so sandy and dusty but he’s parked the ship a ways away from a lake. It’s warm and the sun feels good on your face. You are enjoying all of the scenery around you.

Grogu is peeking out from behind your robe, you move the fabric a little so he can see better.

Something big, bigger than you could ever imagine breaks the surface of the water. You don’t even really see what it is.

Just its back is huge. You could have landed the ship on the damn thing it was so big. It swims slowly and then returns back to the depth of the lake. You’ve stopped walking to watch and see that Din has not stopped walking, doesn’t notice you’re not beside him anymore. You see how close to the waters edge you are and you jog quickly to catch up to him, peering at the water out of the corner of your eye.

Din leads you into the mouth of a cave and you walk for a long time. It’s nice to stretch your legs, and Din basically told you to just shut up and listen to what he says. So you do. You’ll ask about the giant lake creature when you guys get back on the ship. You wonder where you are. Din didn’t say.

You both walk through the entrance to a large underground room.

There are Mandalorian people everywhere. You’ve never seen this many before.

A couple in Canto Bight before Din, sure— but never this many. They’re all so tall and so intimidating in their helmets.

You try to keep your head forward and not look at any of them in particular. There is one of them standing on a platform above everyone else. They part for Din and watch as he passes. They look at you while you pass them as well. You hide Grogu behind your robe again.

“Din Djarin.” The intimidating mandalorian woman speaks loudly. “You have removed your helmet. And what’s worse, you did it at your own free will.”

What the fuck, Maker? Did you just hear that terrifying woman in the armor correctly? He took his helmet off? When the fuck did he do that? And who the fuck did he show because it most surely wasn’t you?

Grogu coos up to you from behind your robes— like he’s answering your silent question. Every bone in your body feels like it’s melting away and you’re having a hard time keeping your knees from giving out.

Din took his helmet off and didn’t show you? He didn’t let you see him?

You almost think about running back to the ship but whatever was lurking in the lake just outside the mouth of the cave makes you rethink.

You think you’re going to be sick.

Din and the woman are speaking and you’re trying to listen, like Din told you, but everything sounds muffled and you think your hands might be covering your ears but they’re still at your side.

“I can visit the planet. I could bring you proof.” Din’s voice is clear in your head now.

Where is he going? Visit what planet? Why does he need to go there?

You tried so hard to listen but so many other thoughts were going through your head that it was hard to keep everything straight. “I’ll bathe in the living waters beneath the mine’s of Mandalore and bring you proof. Then by Creed; the decree of exile will be lifted and I would be redeemed.”

Exile!? Redeemed?! What the fuck was Mando doing while you were gone?

The sand in this cave is so nice. You haven’t stopped looking at it since the woman Mandalorian said he took his helmet off. If you dare look up, the tears would roll down your cheek. This way they’re hidden in your robes at least. No one can see.

“Then I will see you again.” Is the last thing the armored woman says!!

The long walk back to the ship is silent. A Mando specialty. Nothing but the sound of the green child babbling from behind your robe and the shifting of the sand beneath your shoes.

You cannot believe this. You thought–stupidly, it’s clear to you now– that if Mando was going to show anyone his face it would have been you. You feel so foolish. As foolish as you felt when you called him your friend after your trip to the market.

You are foolish, it’s obvious.

The ramp to the ship drops down, and you are the first one on. Quickly you're undoing your robes and letting Grogu out of his bag. You hold him in your arms for a while, looking down into his big eyes and at his wrinkly green skin.

You know Din took his helmet off for Grogu. It’s something you're sensing in your heart looking at him now.

If you wore a helmet and had sworn to do whatever Mando had to swear to wear it forever... you'd show Grogu too, for whatever reason.

That still doesn’t make this hurt any less.

No words. No questions. Nothing.

You keep to yourself for the rest of the day, keeping busy sewing yourself a new nightgown. It was going to be short and cute for Mando but now you’ve decided to make it long. And down to the floor. Not cute. Just for sleeping. And it’ll be black. Hmph.

You sew so angrily that you stab your fingers more than once. You honestly aren’t even sewing, you’re just pulling thread through fabric with no reason or meaning behind it. You haven’t put a single thought into one stitch since you sat down.

You hate him now. You really do.

When you thought he hadn’t shown his face to anyone it wasn’t a big deal but now…now you hate him.

It’s a tearing feeling right in your stomach. Every time you breathe or think, or even move it hurts. Brings tears to your eyes.

Mando’s footsteps echo in the hallway towards the weapons room you’re hiding in after Grogu went to bed. You press yourself into the corner and hope he won't notice or isn’t looking for you when he walks in.

“There you are," He rasps as if nothing is wrong. "Are we playing a hiding game?” He leans against the wall your back is on.

You shake your head side to side and go back to pretending to sew. You don’t look up at him. It’s obvious you’re mad. You haven’t said a single word to him since you got off the ship to go into that Maker forsaken cave.

Only to hear the worst news of your life so far; that he didn’t care about you enough. That you weren’t enough.

Once you got back on the ship, you hid- just like he had said. A hiding game.

Fucking Mando!

A part of you-- it may be somewhere in your heart- is telling you to just be grateful for the man in the tin can suit who is standing in front of you.

Another part-- maybe inside your brain, as swirly and twirly as it is sometimes- is telling you to be negative. Telling you to be bitter and cold to him.

You’re jealous and feeling sorry for yourself. You know it. You don’t really care right now. Don’t know if you ever will care with how you’re feeling.

Nothing about this feels good. You had explained your feelings to him, told him how you had felt and he never mentioned any of this? Being exiled? Taking off that fucking helmet!?

Does he not remember the conversation before you left for Ossus' forsaken Jedi fucking temple!?

“I don’t feel well. I think I’m going to bed.” You stand up, gather up all your sewing in your arms and walk past him into the hallway.

Mando follows. “You’ve seemed quiet since we got back to the ship. I feared maybe you were upset with me.” Mando speaks at you while you walk into the sleeping quarters. “Are you alright? Can I get you anything? A warm compress? Water? Are you going to be... ill?”

He hesitates to say the word like it make you ill all over him!

You ignore him and instead of crawling into the bed you shared with him the night before, you set all of your sewing on your nightstand and get into your bed. The one you haven’t thought about since Mando carried you back into his bed last night.

“So you are upset with me.” Mando rasps, like he knew it all along and tilts his head to the side, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I’m not upset about anything-- what would I even be upset about?” You bring the blankets up to your chin.

You didn’t even change into your sleepwear! Just crawled right into bed with the clothes you’ve had on all day! Weren’t even trying to seem unwell.

This is the worst.

Now you wish that he had just dropped you off on Cantonica at Canto Bight, or that some man with a face had tried to make you forget about Mando.

“I assume what was spoken about within the clan.” He rasps softly. “I was going to tell you. I just didn’t know when would be a good time.” His stupid modulator is sounding so apologetic now.

“I’m not upset. I don’t care. Show your face to whoever you want. Don't show it--- Doesn’t matter to me.”

Mando sighs softly from under the helmet.

“I did it so that Grogu would know how much I cared for him. So that he wouldn’t forget me.” Mando tries to help, but his explanation makes things worse.

“It’s fine. I said I don’t care. I get it." Your voice is snappy and mean. "We never talked about the night before you abandoned me with no timeline of when you'd be back."

Mando just watches you talk from behind his helmet, never saying anything-- as always-- and you once again, feel as though you may as well be talking to your reflection alone. It's quiet for a beat before you say anything else.

"We never talk about our feelings ever so you must have none! Unless it’s for the child. Which is fine, I feel the same for him. I just don’t care to speak about this anymore.” You speak so fast trying to get all the words out as a literal planet forms in your throat. Stupid tears burn at your eyes because you do care.

It’s hurting you so badly.

“Was–Did you–...” You can feel Mando looking into the back of your head like he’s got lasers in his helmet. You turn now to look at him.

“What?” You snap. “What could you have to say now?”

“I made Luke and Ahsoka let you stay... because it’s what you desired. I made that happen for you.” Mando’s talking like you’re ungrateful for what he did for you.

"Thank you. Thank you so much for that, I appreciate everything that I learned there. I am stronger, faster, a better protector of my the child for that reason-- and I have you to thank for it. Yes." It's hard to not sound unappreciative now, when you're on the verge of tears and angry about his lack of love for you!

Mando doesn’t speak, as usual. Just watching you talk and also, probably the tears welling in your eyes.

You roll over to hide the wet, glassiness of your eyes, "I care for you so much, and you can't tell me the same? You don't feel it?" The heat pools behind your cheeks and down your neck and into your chest. "I thought you did once," you murmur, almost silently.

“You think I don’t care for you?” Mando sounds confused.

That makes you so your blood boil; what is he confused about? What could he possibly not understand?

“You showed Grogu your face but not me... You obviously didn’t care if I forgot you. Despite what you said last night you didn’t seem to care if I knew how much you cared for me before you left for two years.” You keep your head turned away from him because luckily it doesn’t sound like you’re crying, but you’ve got endless tears rolling down your cheeks.

“Mando.” His voice sounds reminiscent of a time when you only called him that.

“Yes. Mando. Because your real name should be saved for your close friends, and the people you show your face to." You hiss. "I didn’t even get to hear it from you, I had to hear it from the woman in the fucking cave! I hate caves. I hate helmets-- I hate them all so much. Every single one.” You look back at him over your shoulder with tear stained cheeks and red eyes.

“You brought me here to watch the child and to touch me. I don’t know if that’s what I want anymore.” You say quickly, the pitch growing higher and higher as you speak.

Mando stands up from the side of your bed and says nothing. He just leaves the room without a word.

This is it.

It’s actually coming to an end. Your time with him and the child. Officially over.

tag list: @thereaperisabitch @pedrospookie @furiousmushroom @creepycorbeaux

I promise the next chapter is satisfying and doesn't end on a cliffhanger- not really.

I'm still so uncomfortable tagging people in my stories, so like I said, please tell me to fuck off if you want me to stop. My feelings won't be hurt (yes they will), and it's completely fine (I'm a big girl and can handle it).

#mando fanfiction #the mandalorian fanfiction #din djarin x reader #din x reader #din smut #din x you #pedro pascal characters #smut #long reads #din djarin #season 3 spoilers

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jazeswhbhaven · 2 days ago

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Hey, I hope you don't mind if I ask for a headcanon? Could you do something for the kings (+Andraelphus [God, I hope I spelt that right] plus anyone else of your choosing if you want) where the MC finds a random angel child/baby left in hell to die or something (idk) and they are stubbornly saying that they need to keep it. Please and thank you!

Thank you for waiting anon! This would be interesting for MC to find a random angel baby because how were they even born? Is this...a possible trap? Well...let's see what everyone decides in the end.

Andrealphus: He was highly against it when he first saw MC with a child in their arms. He could tell right away this child was an angel, left for dead but he also didn't know what the purpose of this could be. Angels would in deed just leave their own behind, but to have a child in the first place? Where did they come from? MC then convinces Dre that this angel could be raised differently so that they don't grow up to be like the others up in Heaven. It does take Dre a lot of thinking, and he decides to come to compromise. He won't deal with the child until it starts to look like they may be dangerous to Hell.

Satan: As far as he was concerned, any angel left behind alive was meant to be dealt with. But at the same time, this angel is a child after all, and a very young one at that to where it's wings haven't even matured yet. He agrees to have MC keep them, as long as they are aware of the consequences and risks. This decision looks bad amongst a few nobles, Sitri being one of them...but Satan's word is final. He does help MC watch over the child, and with time everyone determines that with enough time in Hell, they were swayed over.

Mammon: Everything in Hell belongs to him, even angel infants that are abandoned and left behind. Normally though, what he would do is much more cruel than what MC had in mind. This time, MC convinces Mammon to keep the angel infant, but they are to stay in their own closed off area away from the majority of the palace being heavily monitored by the various smart ai bots built. MC does help the best they can, but it's hard work with the amount of clearances and precautions they have to make.

Beelzebub: It was horrifying trying to get him to not harm the angel. He literally had the poor thing dangled above his jaws about to swallow them whole. MC even tries to get the help of Bael to try and convince him not to follow through, and it deems tough. Eventually MC gives Beel an ultimatum, and it forces him to comply. So in the end, MC is now the caretaker of the child and Beel side eyes the child at every turn. He isn't afraid to come in and handle things if it goes south, and ultimately he forgets anyway and now it's Bael that has to make sure things don't go belly up. MC has it under control though.

Leviathan: His first words? Absolutely fucking not. He even cursed too. There was no way that he was going to save an angel that was left behind for any reason. Not after what he and others went through and the angel could potentially be an issue for Hell later. But at the same time, MC brings up that with Levi's guidance he could have the angel grow up to be an asset instead of an issue. He takes this into consideration and deems that the angel's training will be twice as difficult to really test their loyalty, but only when the angel is old enough. For now they are under MC's care.

Lucifer: He quietly takes in the child without MC having to say much of anything. Though, Paradise Lost doesn't seem to be the place for the infant. He instead entrusts the fallen angels of the Middle Realm to look over the infant. MC is able to visit them from time to time with permission to make sure the angel is doing okay. And so far, it seems everything is going well and there are no issues.

Belphegor: When asked, he didn't want to deal with it so rolled the dice to decide the angel child's fate. Despite of what MC was protesting and wanting from Belphie, the dice was the deciding factor. The angel child was going to stay in Nifelheim, but MC and Beleth were going to be the ones to look after them. MC agrees immediately and Beleth feels a certain way about it, but with time and dedication both determine that the angel child is not an immediate threat. Especially for Beleth who used to be a former angel. Again, Belphie can't be bothered with them because he simply chooses not to. Everything is up to MC at this point.

Asmodeus: An angel baby left behind from Heaven? How interesting. Well, since he and MC can't have children...he just sees this as he and MC adopting a child together no matter where they came from. He wants to see what happens when an angel gets raised from birth by a devil and a human...maybe they can change their mind so they aren't against devils when they're older. Or it could be a complete disaster and go wrong in every sense of the word. But he's just so curious, and he gets to play 'house' with MC. So far, everything is steady and smooth sailing. And may it stay that way....for MC's sake because otherwise Asmodeus has no problem getting rid of the child in any way he deems fit.

#whb #jwhbasks❓#whb kings #whb andrealphus #hmmm an angel baby how interesting!#ultimately i'd want to know what the angels are planning by leaving their own behind...#it's a trap probably but mc's heart is in the right place #jwhbrequests📬

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kittylover776 · 18 hours ago

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I’ve also seen that fic, I believe, and while it’s unfinished, I’m looking forward to see what happens next! 😁

I have my own head-cannon about her, actually. I posted about it a while ago (it could use some updating, TBH), I want to explain it here.

Basically, Karen was essentially a free-spirit. She loved to travel, and was very spontaneous and fun, which was what drew Kevin to her. The two met in college, and they hit it off right away. Stacy, however, was very skeptical of her, believing she wasn’t gonna stick around very long, nor did she seem to stay in one place (a.k.a, she’s been with plenty of other men in the past 😓). Kevin tried reassuring Stacy that he can handle her, and she seemed opted to change her ways.

Later on (during junior year), Karen wanted to drop out of collage and explore the world, believing collage wasn’t getting her anywhere, and only went because of her parents. She tried convincing Kevin to go along with her, but he wanted to stay and finish his degree, to fulfill his dream to open up a bakery with Stacy. Hurt by his rejection, Karen left, leaving Stacy to help pick up the pieces of what Karen left behind.

Unbeknownst to either of them, Karen became pregnant with Kevin’s baby, and returned months later in hopes to make amends, and to tell Kevin he was going to be a father. Kevin was both surprised and thrilled, but also was a bit cautious, worried she would up and leave him again after their child was born. Karen didn’t make a promise, but assured him she would stay as long as she needed to, and the two got married.

After Olivia was born, things were fine at first. Kevin and Stacy graduated, opened up the bakery, and was able to make a life for themselves, while Karen tried to be as supportive as she could. After a few years, Karen got that itch to travel again, and made this to Kevin known. She wasn’t the most involved mother, leaving Olivia with Kev and going out, trying to feel alive again. She loved Olivia, she did, but her priorities unfortunately didn’t put her first.

Finally, Kevin put his foot down, telling Karen to prioritize her family, or leave to do what she wanted. Unsurprisingly, she chose the second option, filing for divorce and leaving for good.

Stacy did her best to try and fill the shoes Karen left behind. She made sure to look after Liv when she could, but also had a business to run, so it wasn’t easy. They eventually got a sitter until Olivia was at a reasonable age, but even still it was never the same.

Olivia doesn’t remember much about her mother, but would occasionally get gifts for her birthday or other occasions sent her way, along with a note that told her she still loved her very much. Kevin didn’t want to talk badly about Karen in front of Liv, so he made an effort to keep his mouth shut about it. At least she wasn’t a total deadbeat, sending their daughter trinkets from her travels, but it still wasn’t enough.

Eventually, the gifts stopped coming, and to this day Kevin wondered what happened to her…

Sometimes I like to wonder what went on between Kevin and Margaret after they spontaneously got married at the airport. Like, what happened that night when they all got back to the palace? Did they ever talk about what happened, or did they sleep in one room right after? Did they ever think about holding the usual traditional wedding ceremony, or anything along those lines? There’s just sooooo much to cover XD.

#Whew…that was a lot. 😅#Sometimes I tend to go overboard with these but hopefully you got the gist of it. XD #I seriously need to write this all down eventually into a fic.#I’ll make sure to add it to the list of fics I need to complete.#the princess switch

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autisticrosewilson · 4 months ago

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So do you guys actually think that Jason's entire story, relationship to the others, and philosophy amounts to him being a rebellious teen who wants his dad's attention? Like are you 100% serious? I thought you were joking about that but too many of you are saying it with your whole chest.

And what the fuck is this "Bruce antagonizing Jason is fanon!" Shit I've been seeing? You guys are aware that a parent can love their kid and still be a shit parent right? I know you guys don't want to fathom the thought that maybe your blorbo might also occasionally have to face responsibility for consistently endangering children but let's not start being delusional now.

Bruce does love his kids, that doesn't mean that he hasn't hurt them. And I'd also argue that for the most part he feels in the right for it, and he's said multiple times that he believes it's for their own good, so you can't even argue that he's sorry about it. It's okay for you guys to admit that your PERSONAL INTERPRETATION of the character wouldn't do that but don't sit here and pretend that it's not a facet of the source.

#you can argue meta until you're blue in the face #but I can't ignore the ingerent abuse of Batman and Robin because DC is always drawing attention to it #Stephanie and Jason directly died because of Robin #Stephanie wanted to impress Bruce to live up to his idea of a sidekick and prove her worth #Sheila only sold Jason out when she found out he was Robin #Damians life certainly got worse when he became Robin/moved with Bruce #if you bring up racist retcons I'll kill you btw #how are we supposed to read children dying and being tortured and traumatized constantly #and just ignore that these are children #I can ignore the reality of child sidekicks in campy light hearted early comics #but if DC wants to deal with serious topic they're going to have to deal with some serious implications too #Also that post that's going around about “Bruce loves Jason and it's Jason who's causing all the animosity” is such bullshit #what the fuck are you even talking about #and let's not act like Jason is the ONLY one at fault and Bruce is just a poor loving father #is Bruce spreading that utter bullshit about Jason's death and who he was not an act of violence?#was he not the one to cast the first stone by disgracing Jason's legacy and using a version of him that never existed as a cautionary tale #and I know some of you are going to argue that with most of the kids there's nothing Bruce could have done to stop them #and this is the one time in which I will ignore all the very real ways that he could have #but I still think that in universe the characters have a right to be angry about it #Jason always since his debut as red hood been a vehicle for calling out Bruce #he's so heavily steeped in meta narrative because his run is when they started dealing with the real BAD cases #The Cult Garzonas onscreen murders were getting more common #AND NO ONE CAN CONVINCE ME THAT BEING ROBIN DIDN'T MAKE JASON'S LIFE WORSE #THERE WAS NO REASON TO MAKE HIM ROBIN HE COULD HAVE BEEN VERY HAPPY AS JUST A NORMAL KID #But Bruce made having a place in his home synonymous with being Robin because the narrative dictated it had to be #what was homeless orphan Jason going to do? say no?#it was basically coercion and it doomed him and he has every right to blame the adult that put him in that position #dc #bruce wayne critical #bat family

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mbat · 5 months ago

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red flag: someone says that copper in minecraft is useless

#mc #my post #minecraft... the building game.... having materials primarily used for... building.... unheard of #they probably think banners are useless too. and end rods and purpur and #decoration IS A USE. its a building game. not everything needs to only be used for tools or combat or redstone whatever #im mostly heated about this because i knew someone who was obsessed with old and very much utilitarian ugly ass tech #and they would DIE on the hill that copper is completely useless #YES they were the type to just dig a whole in a hill and that was their base. no fancy spot or pretty walls #literally just a dirt hole in the first place they decided to stop for the night #and the only reason it would become more than a sad bedroom was for whatever tech mod stuff theyd mess with #and yes the tech mod stuff wasnt build satisfyingly either #this was a mf who couldnt appreciate art even if they were looking at the most beautiful piece in the world i swear #at a meetup with them and some other friends. the mall we went to had a store that was entirely the type of tech this person loved #and let me tell you my brain was rotting from the boxy blacks and greys of it all. not a single thing in that store to stimulate my brain #but they were running around like a child in a candy shop #no hate to literally anyone else who likes that stuff. but this particular person sucked just in general. so i like shit talking them #i got very off track #i should make a meme wait #minecraft

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arolesbianism · 4 days ago

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Trying to get a better feel of Choice’s design

#keese draws #oc art #oc #ocs #I’m still figuring out stuff but I’m trying to go for a very cardboard and paper vibe with their shapes and such #but like not fully since they only get that stuff from one side of the family #albeit they do draw more from that side #one important aspect of how crafting children works in this world is that single parents for a child are possible it’s just not super #common for someone to only have one ‘biological’ parent due to the toll it can take on the parent’s health #for context all the people in this world are animated by life magic and having a kid basically means clipping off some of your own #life magic to animate the vessel you crafted for them #but since that’s yknow. the magic keeping them alive. generally speaking the less you have to put in the kid the safer the process will be #which is why even those who don’t have any partners but still want kids will often still reach out to friends or public donors #to split the magic needed between them to make the process safer for the parent #it’s still seen as important to be picky with who you let assist though since it will be adding someone new to their family trees #it also of course depends a lot on what materials the aspiring parents have access too #in order for the process to be successful it’s very important the child is made using the same resources that the parent(s) are made of #and resemblance is also important as while they will eventually be able to have their new life magic adjust to being a different person it #will be a much smoother process if the new body is familiar to the magic coming in #but yeah in choice’s case they have 3 parents with one of them providing most of the magic used to make them #the 3 are weapon smiths and really didn’t want all three of them to have to deal with a lengthy recovery period #so they had one of them contribute the most so that the other two would still be able to work while the 3rd recovers #unfortunately they are pretty distant towards choice generally but choice never rly minded much #it’s not that they were avoidant or anything more that they just. didn’t know how to raise a child.#the only reason they had a child in the first place was because they were worried that if something happened to one of them their family #would try to swoop in and claim the threes business #which unfortunately due to the fact that they first started as an extension of said family’s business would be hard to fight #but they figured that if they had a kid then said kid would get first claim #and if said kid wanted to help out then great but if not then they could just let the other two do all the real running #the 3 were also communally raised themselves so they figured choice could be too so she was

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sleepingdiaryzzz · 2 months ago

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"DAD!"

Bruce sighed at the familiar call, instantly recognizing the voice. It was you, the child he never intended to have, thrust into his life by forces beyond his control. He still wasn't ready for this—wasn't ready to be a father.

In the early days, you’d tried calling him "father" or "dad," hoping for a connection. But he’d ignore you every time, barely acknowledging the title. Frustrated, you’d started calling him "Mr. Wayne" out of spite. And to your surprise, he responded. Since then, you'd settled into calling him as if he were just another public figure, like some distant acquaintance. You learned quickly that Bruce Wayne didn't want to be publicly labeled as your father, that he wasn’t comfortable with the label at all.

But now, hearing that word—"Dad"—from you in public, his irritation rose. He’d told you ages ago not to call him that outside the manor. Yet, there was also a sliver of satisfaction; he finally had a reason to confront you over it, something he’d oddly wanted since you’d moved in.

Turning around to find you, Bruce stopped short. There you were, arms around Harvey Dent, laughing in a way that sent a pang through him. It was the kind of bright, easy laughter he’d never heard from you in his presence. The warmth in your eyes, the carefree lightness in your smile—it all seemed reserved for Dent, a scene that felt oddly father-child-like.

His grip tightened unconsciously, fingers curling around the grass he’d been holding. Harvey looked back at you with an almost fatherly pride, and it stung in a way Bruce couldn’t have anticipated. In that moment, the crowd faded around him, and all he could focus on was the two of you, bonded in a way he hadn’t managed to be with you.

Your laughter rang in his ears like a melody he’d never noticed before, something beautiful and elusive. And for the first time, Bruce felt something new—a desire to be the one to make you laugh like that, a yearning to hear it directed at him. He wanted all of it for himself.

Bruce’s hands clenched involuntarily, his fingers digging into his palms. He told himself that he was better than Dent in every way that mattered—stronger, more capable, more disciplined. But in this, seeing how effortlessly Dent could make you feel safe and valued, he felt an unsettling flicker of doubt. Bruce could face any enemy, any challenge, but standing here, watching someone else make you feel what he couldn’t, he felt almost... inadequate.

The feeling was absurd. Jealousy wasn’t supposed to affect him; he’d trained himself to be above such things. But he couldn’t stop the bitterness gnawing at him as he watched Dent with you, a man whose easy warmth contrasted so painfully with Bruce’s own guarded nature. It stung to realize that, for all his power and reputation, he was losing you to his own friend. Dent looked at you with pride and affection, the kind that came naturally to him—and Bruce hated that Dent could offer you what he hadn’t even known you needed.

And then, through the murmur of the crowd, your voice rang out again—“Dad!”—directed at Dent, not him. Something twisted painfully in Bruce’s chest, his vision blurring as he watched you lean into Dent’s embrace, trusting and relaxed. The sight was a punch to his pride, yes, but more than that, it was a revelation of all he’d pushed away, all the moments he’d let slip by because he hadn’t wanted to be vulnerable.

For the first time, Bruce felt an unfamiliar desperation creep in, a fear he’d never faced even in the darkest moments of his life. Losing you to Dent seemed almost absurd, yet it was becoming a reality before his eyes. He was starting to see the damage his own indifference had caused, each unspoken word and dismissed gesture now cutting him deeper than he would ever admit aloud.

If only he’d turned around that first time you called him "Dada." If only he’d been there, shown you warmth instead of distance. Now someone else was in the place he’d abandoned, and he feared—truly feared—that you were already too far out of his reach to bring back.

(A/n: feel free to use this idea to make a story! Though you needa tag me too😼)

#yandere batfamily #batfam x reader #yandere dc #yandere batfam #yandere batman x reader #yandere batman #yandere batfam x reader #yandere batfamily x reader #yandere batboys #yandere batfam x #batman x reader #batfamily x reader #😹- drabble

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acid-ixx · 13 days ago

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ch.5 pt 1: again &. again (platonic! yandere batfam x neglected! gn reader)

directory: preq, chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, chapter four, chapter five pt 1,

read until the end for an author's note.

tw: self-esteem issues, typical implications of trauma and emotional neglect, allusions to self-harm.

you had always been a good kid.

you didn't have a consistent a plus, and you most certainly don't always win awards, let alone shower in a streak of gold medals and thick paper announcing your spot as first place. you're not the picture-perfect kid aunties will brag about and compare their other children to. you're not always refined, as a child born into the streets of gotham, bound to be rough around the edges—

but you were good.

and your momma always told you every night, in her hushed whispers and cuddling arms, after her sweet lullabies harmonizing with the hums of your broken fan, that it's alright if you're not the greatest; as long as you're good.

she taught you manners, to always respect everyone around you, your elders, strangers, even children your age, because blessings always come in the form of good faith if you're kind.

you believe her, of course you do, she's the only person you had in your life, the only person you needed. you should've never desired for anything else; what else could you wish for if not her love and presence only?

she's enough for you, and you're enough because she tells you too, with her siren-like eyes softening when she gazes at you with only love encrypted in her eyes, her once seductive smile plastered all over wanted posters now beaming with joy at having you in her arms rather than inauthentic pursuits of attracting men around her.

you always followed through with her words, because you love her and it's no doubt that she loved you more than enough too, too much that she had to continue on with her prostitute lifestyle to provide for your little family, too much that it was the reason why she had to be killed off in the first place.

because of her, you chose to be kind, you chose to lower yourself, to never raise your voice higher than those around you, to be humble, and to never show when you're at your limit, even to others closest to you other than your mother.

you remember so little of her the more you age, you grasp on straws just reminiscing on every moment spent with her.

"a good kid," she says, her voice almost a tantalizing memory threatening to drift away, "won't finish first, but fate will always make sure that they never finish last. so choose to be good, alright, baby?"

"yes, momma," your reply came in curtly, tiny fingers playing with the ends of her hair, without moment's hesitation, or doubt in the meaning of her words.

because her words are god for someone like you, because she is your mother who always knew what's best—

because she is your mother, and you may not like her for who she is as a person, for all the wrongs she did in the past before throwing it all away to raise you; but you love her either way, and follow whichever path she leads you to like a little duckling...

a good kid doesn't finish first, but they'll eventually get what they always wanted, right?

even if they wait for weeks, months, years; fate will find a way...

so why can't you have you have what he have right now?

why, just why, are you always finishing last?

why can't you receive the same attention tim did when he was first introduced?

elegant, poised, a rich boy with millionaire parents who had so much to spend, standing proudly and confidently at the doorstep of the manor, as if he had already belonged the moment he stepped foot into the staircase. thirteen year old, older and taller than you, better than you.

the memory is still clear as day, because it was the same day you had bothered alfred to update you on your offer to hang outside in the gardens with your father, only for the butler to look down at you with the same sympathetic eyes and tired smile, retelling you in his familiar excuse that bruce is busy.

'papa is busy,' the words echo in your brain in a mocking tandem, you wish to bang your head on the kitchen's mahogany doors at another attempt rejected. you wish to rip at your hair like you always do. but you can't, you just can't because alfred is in the same room as you, aged hands patting the delicate strands atop your head. you feel disappointment, you always do, then it's shame; shame because it's always alfred who has to witness your bated breaths and spilling tears at another day wasted alone—!

shame because this always happens, it's like bruce never wanted you in the first place; he probably doesn't even think you exist.

but of course, your young brain reasons, your father's always busy when it comes to you, only you.

his timetable consists of mourning his dead son, handling wayne enterprises and juggling his philanthropist career. when will you ever be worth enough that he places you in the same pedestal as all his other obligations?

and back then, you thought every night he spends missing are nights spent with multiple women— back when you've not known of his identity.

yet the point stands still, his missions do not relate to whatever situation stands before you now.

why?

why is it him to who answers the door to tim, the young boy's piercing blue eyes looking up at your father in a challenging gaze? whilst you stand, restlessly in a corner at the scene that unfolds before you. why is it him, who at first makes bruce hesitate, yet still take in the boy holding the camera, hand on his back to guide him inside, as the boy speaks cryptic words you couldn't fathom as you watch behind arch of the living room?

your blood curdles, heart starts to pound out if its gilded cage, and you feel your body buzzing in pure, unadulterated envy, the sole emotion you feel clawing its way into your vision; you see green, you can't see anything else but the scene before you. shaky breaths, blurry vision, balance barely stable as alfred could only offer a pat on your back and his pitying gaze on you.

no words, not even comfort, the manor seems dark again, everything feels as if it's closing into your body and devouring you whole.

why, why, why?

the questions circulate, the memories resurface all the time at just how easy it was for tim, just how he didn't even need to beg to have your father, yes, your father to keep his eyes on a boy whom he have only spoken once in his lifetime.

tim doesn't need alfred to relay a message, he doesn't even need to hesitate being in the same room as the man who seems always a mile away from you, who could never look down even when your fingers come up to fiddle with the cuffs of his sleeves, just like how you did with your mother's hair, all in the name of getting him to see you.

but you're not tim, you're perfect, you never will be.

it hurts, everything hurts when a stranger, someone like tim had the opportunity to talk to bruce, you never had any—!

even if you're always good, even if you always tried to succeed in your academics, your extracurriculars, your everything, even if you always try...

... the moment timothy jackson drake stepped into the manor, the moment his shining blue eyes, almost twinkling like yours when you've been first introduced, stared analytically at the man you called father, was the moment it piqued his interest; was the moment you knew that being good doesn't equate getting what you always wanted:

the attention of a father who chose to cope with grief in another new robin partner instead.

to be bruce's child first, rather than an afterthought later.

ever since then, ever since tim came into the picture, it was harder to gain bruce's attention. even alfred was divided between you and your seemingly divine... brother who just decided to take your place, who will soon be bruce's third child, erasing your name off of his memory.

being good was not enough, being great didn't even compare— your mother's words seemed easily overshadowed by the gnawing jealousy at just how wonderful your new brother is, at just how similar he is in regards to bruce, but different and also infinitely better than you.

it was the first crack in your fragile, glass heart after it had been wrapped in thousands of bandages from the heartbreak of your mother, it was the first rip at the seams at the already lacerated wounds that emotional neglect has left you.

from the days, weeks, months, you couldn't recall, trying to form some sort of interaction with bruce, dick and now even tim, instead of having alfred be your medium of communication.

from the cold, rainy nights spent with just your thin blankets and fading memories of your mother to soothe you from the nightmares that relishes in your fear.

imagining what it's like having your father speak words of assurances in a dull, almost alien-like tremor (you've never even heard his voice up close before...) comforted you at first, but now it became thousands of hushed whispers wishing you were never born in the first place if it meant your trepidation would end.

and it would've been better, the dread that buzzes restlessly under your skin could've been satiated if tim had even the decency to acknowledge your presence. but just like bruce, god, just like dick who had easily accepted the smart, academically talented boy as his own sibling— you're still amounted to nothing to be even considered worthy.

good, but not enough, not worth the effort of being greeted every morning, not worth the time spending small talks with. even dick, the athlete who once promised to ditch some patrols in bludhaven in passing moment's as an excuse to swat you away, have now opted to bother the newest addition to the family, forgetting that it was you who idolized him the most—

even if it was tim who met him at the carnival first, before dick's parents had died, going as far to dedicate the entire act for the boy— it was you watching him through the broken down television too, legs swinging back and forth on your springy, dusty couch as you doodle him doing stunts, talking to you because he meant the world to you too after you realized he was considered a brother to you.

tim met him first, yet you did so too, but as his younger sibling instead...! so it's unfair, it's unfair, everything is so unfair. tim and his stupid fucking goals of helping your father cope, your father, not his, his parents are alive, your mother is gone, goddamnit—!

it's all unfair. your mother says the world treats good kids like you right, so why...?

... what else could he want? what else does he want to take away from you?

and how could you blame him...?

he was perfect in the sense that you aren't. he was what bruce needed: a reliable pillar of support, stubborn enough to deal with the stress piling up with the loss of his second child, qualities that couldn't be seeked in you even if anyone tries their hardest to squint past that once wide-eyed, vulnerable exterior of yours.

all they could see is a broken child, but not of their own. they could offer you sympathy, pity at just how terrible your past came to be, but that's what every child of gotham goes through. not even witnessing your mother's last gulps of breath would be unique enough to pique their attention. they couldn't possibly see you being part of their family, never.

you learn quickly, that the world has always been unfair, that sometimes, your mother's words aren't always right, not always the best. you need to be better than best, but you couldn't.

so you still chose to be good still, because what else could you do? who else could your identity be outside of the morals she had taught you?

that's who you always are—

that's who you always will be.

always the lesser one. always the forgotten muse and the unspoken poetry.

because that's what good people are, always belittling themselves for others, always allowing the bigger people to step on them like ants. to crush on their hopes and dreams like the crumbs of bread that spill onto the sides of a pavement.

tim is a good person, it was why he wanted to help bruce in the first place, but you couldn't also forget the fact that he's the perfect son for bruce too— that's the main difference between you both. you're worlds apart. he's naturally smart, almost flawless both physically and mentally, and helps slowly but surely fill the hole in bruce's heart unlike you who realizes that you'll only deepen it instead.

and you're a good kid, you're his good child, you wish you were his kid.

you're kind but never the greatest, talented but not good enough.

and that's who you'll always will be.

just a person defined by their worth, by the words of their mother. just a kid with nothing more than a smile to offer, no matter how strained the side of your lips are, no matter if the tears threaten to crawl out your eyes like spiders the longer your presence get ignored—

you're good, but you'll never be good enough.

... so what made you better now? what made you worthy now that all their eyes are now on you?

you wish it was easy to answer, but life's always unfair to a good kid like you.

has anyone ever noticed why the wayne manor has been so dull lately?

why don't the blooms stand so prideful in the gardens nowadays? surely, alfred's green thumb could fix the problem, but it's been months and the most eminent scent that fixes upon their nostrils could only be obtained if they sniff hard enough to smell fresh flowers amongst the scent of mud after rain or wet concrete.

why does titus seem so down these days? damian tried to play tricks with him; his beloved pet only replied with a loud, high-pitched whine in reply and lay languidly at velvet carpets with a bone on his slack jaw. his owner noticed how his tail seemed to wag less the more the days passed by. and damian isn't stupid, but he notices how titus, with the addition of alfred the cat, would often frequent sniffing and lay on a spot damian's familiar with; one he's sure a certain rival of his would only sit upon whenever they'd hide from him.

why have there been fewer homemade baked treats in the pantry? hell, they seem to lessen every single day someone opens the pantry. wasn't it alfred who baked them? was there a thief who had been stealing, or was the steady decline not mere coincidence? nobody else took a hobby to baking, since they've all been frequently absent, prioritizing their patrols and mostly taking the cookies and crinkles at the end of their shift, munching on the treats all for themself. alfred hasn't definitely been taking a break and refuses any offers to, yet the lack of goods was noticable, and whenever alfred bakes, it doesn't quite share the same sugary, or savory goodness the past deserts have been sporting.

why has there been silence, one that so ominous, for months? dick swore he'd often hear someone conversing through doors with alfred. at first he assumed it would be tim, or cass, but with how feeble and meek the voice was, yet talkative and light with an accent he's sure he heard from bruce. yet he dismissed the implication of another presence in the room. but as of current, he misses that strange voice that speaks of stories about highschool drama and friends for terrible influences.

has the rooms been lacking of music lately? tim frequents the soft, buzzing hums his hyperactive form hears from across the living room or near the fireplace's burning embers. sometimes he'd be lulled to sleeping whenever he hears specific melodies. he'd listen so often that he even managed to recognize his favorite tunes with just a single note, eyes slowly closing every time he's in close proximity with that unknown voice, conditioned to finally sleep like a pavlovian dog. tim has been losing sleep these days, eyebags frequent in his eyes. he misses the music, he misses his only saving grace during restless nights with even energy drinks and bitter coffee being ineffective.

why has the dust been collecting off the bookshelves of their library? whenever jason visits the library, there would always be fingerprints he'd find on certain books, one he'd pick up and come to enjoy reading. some were collections of series, others being short novels. the ghost that graces him these recommendations, who sometimes even brings new books, hasn't been in the library for months now, and he's skittish the more he visits the manor each time. the library was his sanctuary for all the moments he'd have fights with bruce, or felt too deep into his traumatic anguishes. the tastes he shares with this lone stranger who visits the library at different lapses than him was now gone, and he's noticed the anger that pangs deep in his chest every damn time dust has been collected off of books, with no fingerprint in sight.

just, why has it been so silent lately? both physically and figuratively. no music dawns their ears, no hinge of the fridge being heard throughout the night, or at least the faint mutters of an unknown whispering.

these were all unsaid questions buried deep in the minds of the people under the roof of the manor. now the only things they could feel were the heavy knocks of the rain on the window and the cold sensation of tiled floors on their already covered soles.

it wasn't noticable by chance, but it could be felt by everyone, both inhabitants and visitors.

and the answers lie simple: it's a secret.

they're the deals you make when you want someone to keep their mouth shut close, they're the things you swear your life to to never confess upon. they're the unsaid statements which helped torment a certain child under the roof of an already lonely and ghostly manor.

sometimes, secrets don't take in the form of someone making one up, but rather, it takes in the form of an unspoken agreement, a pact with your surroundings, an untold promise with nature or the things around you.

you were never particularly secretive with your talents, for arts, baking, or anything that takes in the field of creativity. you kept to yourself, and don't bother anymore to annoy your family to look upon a sketch only to be dismissed, or to taste the treats you hide by a pantry for later consumption; but you loved it still whenever alfred gave you the creative liberty to stroll around the manor to decorate the bleak place into a less melancholic version of a gothic abandoned house by the forest, left with only the legacy of a long-standing family.

it was just, you never find it necessary to tell anyone why there's a charcoal portrait of alfred hanged in one of the uncrowded hallways, or why the colors of the walls change momentarily, or why certain colors of flowers were more present by the garden than other colors— so maybe you could consider that a secret.

and it made you feel less lonely, if even by a fraction. yet you don't know it, but your acts of service to the manor was what made the family enjoy their stay a bit longer, was what made them appreciate the backdrop of a new wallpaper they had thought alfred had chosen, or find the designs of resin furniture adorable.

you don't know it, but you were what made mundane living enjoyable for those who seek to relish in the sheer feeling of adrenaline instead.

when you were first taken into the manor, you were the reason why all their senses were stimulated. tiny, malnourished you couldn't keep your toes in place once you've been exposed to a new, more bigger environment.

back then, the manor carried this atmosphere of darkness, a reflection of bruce wayne's grief after his beloved parents' passing away from his arms. yet you took that pain, and turned it from its bleak, grayish colors, to an intimate, fluorescent glow. a soft, bright light emits from one of the random rooms, with custom-made beads dangling about and glow in the dark stickers that litter the room. it was one not too blinding to the eyes, and felt warm like the touch of a mother to their crying child.

your cooking of sweet treats were the ones they often like to fight over. it was through alfred's secret recipes he bestowed upon you, and your own alterations for your baking, that the kitches would always smell of cinnamon, brown butter, and caramelized sugar. it was because of you that you made the manor smell sweeter, more homey, like what would've smelled of an apartment during christmas eve. you've made them associate the kitchen with both famous, foreign, and local recipes that they came to love. steph loved it whenever she'd stumble upon a cookie decorated with purple, cass finds the ribbons on some cupcakes cute, associating it with ballet.

every time bruce, tim, or dick needs a place to destress, they often visit rooms with sweet humming or the occasional singing. it was sometimes gibberish, others with lyrics, yet pleasing to their ears all the same. it reminds them of their mothers' singing, whenever they'd knit or praise their precious jewelry. it makes bruce's stiff posture slacken, finding that odd voice sometimes sharing his talking habits through the lyrics they sang. dick would always sing along, feeling as if he was back in time with his mother playing with his hair as she sings circus music, and tim would close his tired eyes, laying his head on his hand as he dreams pleasant scenarios for once in his life.

although you never once felt any of their embrace, they've certainly felt yours in their hearts, minds, and sometimes even their body; a spiritual connection they've felt with you without even knowing it. the last time damian touched you was when he pinned your wrists to your side. and even if he tried his hardest to ignore the raging beat of his heart, screaming at him to release you from the tight cage of his grip, he refuses to. out of sheer anger and petty spite, or the desire to feel the skin of his sibling who struggles to let go from his hold, he doesn't know. but he certainly does remember how your palms lack callouses unlike his does, and how warm your touch felt, even if blazing with cold sweat from his threats.

he had remembered the smell of your sweat and even the taste of your tears by accident and committed it to memory.

it was through your indirect care that everyone felt loved and cared for, and find themselves enjoying the sweet, small moments of living within what was once a stuffy manor holding painful memories.

and nobody knows why — with the exception of dick, bruce, and damian now — that despite the batcave being filled with the entire family, it felt empty all the same.

well, not entirely empty, but bleak with color. every hue remained gray in their eyes, the pipe leaks were eminent, heavy breathing was evident all throughout. no music catched on to their ears, and they all remain skittish and rigid.

it seems as if everyone has catched on, that they're all holding their breath together as the leader of the group, batman, looks around to do a silent head count.

after all, he told both dick and damian to update the family that this meeting is urgent, and no one shall even bother ditching, or else they wouldn't get to the bottom of your disappearance without all the help they could receive.

in a race to get you, they need to burn off all resources or god help bruce because he'd run himself crazy searching for you.

alfred doesn't want that happening, but he understands.

you're important, and no one could dispute that fact. after bruce had gone through your all your diaries, your sketchbooks that he had to pry away from damian's possessive hold, and the box of belongings that you left that he stashed away in his office— he knew he couldn't just leave his child out in the streets of gotham.

you're his child, and a damn child of his means his responsibility. either he likes the obligation or not, it's his duty to protect you from the harm of living in such a dangerous city. and you're certainly not a vigilante, he'd already ran through multiple recent investigations before everyone came rushing down to the batcave to confirm you're not connected with any bad guys; which was good, and bad news.

that means you chose not to undergo the same, dangerous path jason chose, or rebel like damian, yet at the same time you must've been incapable of self defense.

and he knows that even if you fight with normal moves; without his guidance against a gallery of brutal villains out to destroy batman or anyone related to bruce, you're dead meat. bruce doesn't want you dead. the only times he wants to hold you in his arms were the ones unconnected to you laying limp with your last breath, no. he wants you alive, and well, and safe from harm.

his precious baby, his treasure. he wants to see your face in one piece, and he wishes cradle you in his arms. just because you're over eighteen doesn't mean he's fully lost you. he's your father, first and foremost, and your hero second.

that's why it's imperative that everybody follows his orders now, with the primary order being that everyone, under the guise of currently not holding a mission, is required to be in the batcave within the first thirty or forty-five minutes of the announcement. no, there's no excuses that should be said, or buts. this meeting is a priority meeting, and as vigilantes who fight for the safety of their city's citizens, they know not to disobey.

and as family members related to bruce's precious second youngest, it's an obligation for them to care as much as bruce, dick, and even damian does for the search of your disappearance.

though apparently, jason couldn't get that message, and didn't bother to update through comms over where he's at the opposite side of gotham, his devices turned off after he had recently gone off in a rebellious tangent yet again about bruce's refusal to mercilessly slaughter the deserving ones.

he'll lecture his second child soon after he reports to bruce, mentioning your safety on the line while at it, but right now?

right now he needs to address the elephant in the room: the overbearing anxiousness and antsiness everyone collectively feels, bruce's stern eyes replicating the anger, the surge of energy he feels to exact vengeance on every crime that litters the street, the same urgency he felt compelled to drown upon right after his parents have died right in front of him.

whilst alfred's knowing ones stare at each and every one of the culprits of your disappearance, all a direct reason why you had left in the first place.

someone sighs, and it's not bruce who speaks up first amongst the crowd of vigilantes.

"so what now, father? are we all just going to stand here, or are we going to address the main issue? or do you want me to be the one who brings them back home? i wouldn't mind finding them before all of you do."

"this is not the time to be... you, damian, we're all....we all need time to think." it was dick who spoke next, with a sense of urgency, as his eyes that tried his damn best to stare at damian softly, with a smile to accompany it, immediately plasters itself back on his phone, spamming your phone with messages damian was sure were all about him begging for you to take them all back. without any fights, without any hesitation.

ever the pacifist, one would think. but everyone could see wide blue eyes, glinting at the screen. begging for mercy for such a lost case, tears nearly rimming his eyelids, lips bitten raw as blood drips down his quivering chin.

cass could read his movements, she knows he's mad. but not even a master of body language is in need to know just how much dick's rage emanates off his body.

fingers clenched on his phone, teeth gritted as he spoke, eyes frantically searching through messages, scrolling up, then down, as if he's waiting for something. for someone no doubt.

tim deduces that the person they're focused on for this urgent meeting was the same person dick was trying to text. 'must've been related or close to us if it means it's this important for everyone to be involved.'

he'll look through dick's phone later to solve the itching case, his fingers twitching to whip out his side in the batcave's screen and make a new case file.

but he chose to ignore it for now, they all do, each one focusing on their primary worries.

"who's them? wait— what even are we gonna talk about?" duke's voice rang loudly through the cave. it at least broke through the tension, bruce's tense shoulders sagging in relief then suddenly reverting back to its old, rigid pose.

everyone noticed the action. they're trained individuals after all.

barbara flinched through her seat at the sight of the man, with her hands readily available to type at the keyboard. though her eyes stay glued at batman, looking deeper and noticing his fervoured state.

it's as if he is lost in thought.

and with just how much thoughts were racing in his mind, it's easy to drown. to get lost in that mirage of memories trying to link an image of you to anything he tries to remember. even now, bruce wants to see your face first and foremost. he wants to see an image of you sleeping in your tiny, creaking bed, and to erase any of those memories to replace it with new luxuries he could provide you in life; a comfort you should've been blessed with the moment you entered the double doors of his manor.

his string of pearls, his little treasure.

"(name). they left, and i need all of you to listen to me, now. rebuttals later."

when bruce spoke up, gruff and domineering, with no room for anyone to speak back, all eyes were now on him.

dick throws his phone across the room, ignoring the shatter of the pure, aluminum branded back of it. his foot was jittering, and his voice was as ready to command orders with bruce.

blue eyes stare, vicious and hungry, impatient at its prime. with the addition of damian's green, squinted ones, and bruce's stern glare, thundering and clouded.

it was a spectacle to witness the same emotions coursing through their veins. as if they're one and the same; vultures feeding off the feeling of need and urgency to actuate what seems to be an already brewing plan on the trio's part.

the rest, unknowing of what had just occurred half an hour ago within your bedroom, listens.

they ignore the gnawing feeling of intuition, of something, right at this moment, going wrong, just to hear bruce's explanation, with dick and damian butting in.

they listen, fascinated about you being bought up, a name so foreign yet familiar, a mystery in their eyes despite having met or seen you occasionally; a glimpse of you running through hallways or painting in the garden.

they listen, and all the individuals let deep, feral emotions fester within them the longer they allow their ears and their mind to devour the words dick says, all syllables a symphony of praises towards you, each vowel accentuating his favor.

they listen, and learned.

whatever happened within the batcave, is also a secret.

you have your own secrets. they have theirs.

except, yours were discovered, and they choose to let emotions brewing deep in their hearts as obscured within public view.

tim wants to search for you, steph joins in on his sentiment too. barbara's already at it whilst she types and listens in on bruce's words, cass ponders about your invisible presence and just like bruce, tries to think of memories of you stumbling by her, and duke just as much attempts to picture your face and remembers something sentimental; one he'd ponder on later once he's alone.

now they all know your secrets, not everything, but a semblance of it. they discover their neglects, and acknowledge the consequences. why throughout their stirring arguments, they all couldn't find your handmade night-lights that they like to look at during the dark, or smell the baked crusts on your home-made pumpkin pie recipe, or the humming of random music through the halls.

because you've never once visited the batcave—

and it was the only room not graced with your courtesy, care, passions, and love.

they listen to bruce's plan, yet they ignore the growing dread.

they ignore why jason is radio-silent all throughout too.

instead, they focus on you, trying to reminisce on old, buried memories they at least spent with you. good ones, not the ones containing your meek begs, and heartbroken gazes. or the ones where you stood in the corner of a room watching them talk. or the times where you all had dinner together and you're left in the wake of silence despite the chatter filling the dining room.

... and once they couldn't muster anything up, they figured on creating new ones instead.

warm.

this place feels so unnaturally warm, that it seeks shelter under your skin. warm, yet welcoming at the same time.

...where are you?

your bleary eyes slowly open, blinking gradually, squinting out the streaks of white in your vision. it's always a hassle to wake yourself up. sleep has never been peaceful for you: always awoken by nightmares, or tormenting paralysis, sometimes mere insomnia causes you to lay awake and sweating in your tiny room. and your dreams always has to involve your family, one way or another; of course it's always about them, they've been your only source of life despite never being there for yours. but now? now you feel like you've had a complete 9 hour cycle of sleep, with no hint of fatigue in your body.

you've never had any proper sleep. ever since you saw... you saw her dying that it never registers within your mind just how deprived you are of rest, constantly haunted by memories you wish you just could... forget. but you couldn't, not when your beloved mother is the only precious reminder you have in life to stay alive.

your arms, arms that were always sore, in twisted positions, bruised and with faded scars from all the times you felt too impulsed to hurt, the only way to forget the mental torment you've gone through; now lay atop cozy sheets with no pain bared, no extra sheen of sheen on sweat. your fingers stretch, you caress the pillows your head lays on, cold to the touch against your warm, uncrying face.

it feels nice, feels crisp against your skin. your ears don't burn and you don't feel the need to flip your pillow to the colder side.

a yawn slowly escaped your lips. you lick them, they're not chapped, nor dry. they don't feel bitten, nor streaked with blood. you lick again, there's no familiar sting, nor the taste of blood that seeps against cracked skin.

'this is strange.'

you feel unusually relaxed, your breathing's oddly steady. there's no scent of smoke and pollution invading your nostrils, no shadow of doubt cloaking your mind.

you don't feel like dying today.

it feels so nice, the weather's so weird... pleasant. but this? it's not normal, gotham has never felt so quiet today. there has never been a time where you wake up feeling so... human. this is not routine. you're not used to this. god, everything's so strange and yet...

it's been so long since you last felt like you were... home. wispy streaks of particles dance under the soft light that beams outside of crooked, wooden windows. it casts an angelic glow on your surroundings, unlike the shrouded darkness you're accustomed to.

your eyes do a double take, churning mechanically at an angle where you can clearly see the glass panes.

"hm?" windows that always fog up with polluted specks of dust, now clear, and bright as day. it feels like the sun is kissing your skin through the light that enters the glass, you feel the at ease as your bones crack comfortably, and your muscles stretch without ache.

and you...

you're laying in a thick mattress that buries you in deep burgundy sheets. blankets wrapped around your body like a welcoming hug, you're reminded of your mother yet again.

your heart thumps rhythmically, not erratically this time, no— you've never felt so invigorated. it's been a while since you slept in a comfortable bed, in a comfortable setting, with a comfortable atmosphere. not the sound of blades hit your ears, nor the honking of cars, or ringing of phones. wherever you're laying didn't feel stiff like cardboard back in your apartment, the pillowcases are cool to the touch. your clothes don't encase you uncomfortably tight, there's no random thread that persists on irritating your skin.

it feel so oddly peculiar, so comforting, and you want to cry.

you feel light, airy even. there's nothing but the buzz of empty warmth that encapsulates your entire body. you're not used to this, this disgusting feeling of comfort, you don't think it's real.

only one response enters your mind, the only thing you're accustomed to.

'i don't deserve this.' your thoughts drown you into a deep sea of anguish, but the dichotomy of comfort and pain stirs you into satiating confusion. this is the first time you felt blessed, the first time you wish you were good enough to feel like you're worthy of deserving such goodness in your life.

suddenly, you feel like crying, but no tears escape your eyes, and your heart refuses to beat out of its cage. you're in a trance that refuses to release you from its comforting hold.

the hazy tune of birds chirping snaps you out of your deprecating reflection of your life.

when you squint and look out the windows once more, you make out a faint reflection of green, dominating the entire view second floor view of what is supposed your home.

for the first time, you don't feel fear reminiscing on that earthly shade of color.

you're in a... forest.

your nose picks up on the scent of the damp, green, grasslands. your eyes makes out the scenery outside, droplets of water slowly dripping on tall leaves, the rivulets travelling from blades of leaves to nourished, wet soil. it produces this stimulating smell, one you haven't been able to experience for months living in the polluted air outside the windows of your apartment.

petrichor.

you don't know what, or how, or why this is happening.

all you know is common knowledge, something perceived through senses and observations. you're in a cottage, yes, the interior layout is filled with personal trinkets you know you would've bought with money if you even had it, and furniture suited to both you tastes and your mother's... but otherwise, nothing else.

other than memories of a fantasy you shared with your mother, back when you were innocent to the cruelty of the world, of gotham and its merciless passions.

"XX/XX/XXXX, entry no. 23.

i remember one conversation i had with my mother.

it was about something related to where would we choose to live if we had the choice. she asked me that, out in the random, and that took me by surprise to say the least.

huh, during that time, i never knew her intentions for my answers.

i answered her sincerely, told her that, well, i wanted to live in a comfortable cottage, with two floors and a spacious bedroom for me, with hers right beside mine; so she can keep all the monsters away when i got too scared living by my own.

i wanted fairy lights strewn on the roof of my room, and matching glow in the dark stickers of stars and constellations with hers, just like the ones we have in our quaint apartment. i told her it wouldn't be complete without the mini figurines on top of raspberry colored cabinets, the ones that i loved to collect whenever we thrifted at stores, and most importantly the picture frames of us together.

she giggled at my reply, and told me it was such a 'me' thing to choose what i had said. but i retorted and told her she'd choose the same thing. and she said i said what exactly was on her mind.

thinking about that memory now, i feel warm despite the fact that bruce forgot to attend another parent-teacher conference again this week. every memory of my mother... tugs at my heart, both painful and nostalgic. i miss her.

if my momma was here, she wouldn't even hesitate to pull out of whatever side hussle she had for a job at the first second i'd mention something about my school. she always prioritizes me as her only child. it makes me feel special, and loved, and cared for— i haven't felt that in a long time. i won't lie that alfred's presence helps but a mother's love precedes all essence.

i love her so much. i wish i never took her for granted.

now that i think about it too...

if my momma was here, we could've been in that cottage right now, living our lives, carefree, without nothing to worry us. whether it'd be food in our plates or money to pay the bills. we'll always be happy with mushroom foraging and sitting by the warm fireplace i pictured, with her homemade hot chocolate by the table. she'd be nestled beside me, keeping me warm. that's enough to make me happy, enough to dismiss the heaviness in my heart as i write this.

i wish we were at that cottage right now, forever actually. i don't need a big family, all i need is my mom. and sure we'll have some arguments along the way but it wouldn't be as bad as, well, damian threatening to draw his sword on me and stab me at the heart every second i made him mad, which is always...

funny thing is... fuck, i never noticed how she was saving up money and starving herself whilst simultaneously keeping me well-fed so she could pursue my dreams of actually getting a cottage. i was so oblivious to everything that i just, i never noticed that she was earning all this, to build my dreams, so we can escape from gotham and live new lives with each other by our side.

she was doing all this, for the sake of my comfort, my happiness, my everything. she lives her life with no breaks, and retired from her previous job as a... sex worker just so i can live normally, so i wouldn't be ashamed of being her child, of seeing her as my mother. she was everything i needed in my life. she sacrificed, and i took it for granted.

and i wanted to scold her so badly; doing this for such a lost cause as me. it hurts to think about it now.

so what if i wanted a cottage? what about it if i'm now living with my father, huh? i don't care about living comfortably at all, if that meant i didn't have mother by my side, to support me, to actually love me, then what is a house all worth for??? all i wanted and needed was her, just her. and they took me away from my mother.

my mother.

your heart breaks at the seems whilst you write that faithful night, the grip on your pen near to leaving dents on your finger. if it draws out blood, then so be it. your handwriting turns unintelligible, strokes not knowing where to end. what once was clean, white sheets of paper now crumpled by your despair, by the tears that escaped your eyes, by your fists balling at the paper, all your emotions boiling down to mere grief.

if bruce mourns for jason, you do so too for your mother.

yet you continue to write, and write, and write. it's the only medium of comfort you have, the only means to treasure memories long gone, heartaches and comfort all a coagulation of your retreat to the real world.

if dreams can come true, then you wish the fantasies of your mother being with you comes alive, that she'd be by your side, taking your pen away from your hands, kissing your sweaty forehead and matted tresses, assuring you she's fine. she'll smile with crinkling eyes, and set your quivering hands to a stop, then wrap you in her arms, shielding you away from the burden of living without her.

if you were her flower, then she is your hearth. the only warmth you'd feel in such a cold manor, the only one capable of dipping her hands into your chest, taking your beating heart, and melting off the frigid locks that kept your love in place ever since her death.

only then can you say that dreams do come true, only then can you rest; close your eyes without praying for a dreamless slumber, without nightmares, without swords piercing your body, or the dismissive turn of your family's back on you.

but if dreams do come true, what does that say about nightmares?

only reality can tell.

or you can tell.

at you current state, seated restless on your tiny room with barely any illuminated moonlight guiding your tired body, tormented by both past and future, writing endlessly on journals soon to be forgotten— wouldn't that be considered a nightmare? to be subjected upon unwanted isolation, from the very same people who promised their lives to protect lives such as yours.

your family, your father, brothers and sisters. through empty promises alone; all enough to destroy you inside out.

talentless, worthless, out of place.

yet even if your diaries were all torn apart, pages seeping with both blood and tears, you still write.

you write, and you continue through your endeavors. what once were fond memories were the same monsters chasing you through barren halls and empty rooms.

after all, it's the only way to honor her passing, even if it kills you all the same.

you continue, wiping at your sullen cheeks, and brushing away ripped strands of hair; pen inseparable from stubborn, swollen fingers.

now i'm living here, in this big manor, with nothing going on for me. i have alfred, and he's like a father figure right after mom, but it doesn't change anything... it doesn't change the grief i feel, the sorrow, the unwaning depression. nothing. i couldn't even get myself to stand up from bed because i'm so fed up with everything.

if i didn't try so hard in the first place, i would've never been left this destroyed.

i want to give up, i want to die and just disappear off the face of earth. no one would notice, and at least after i die, i would be reunited with her— but I can't. why?

i have to remind myself everyday. i just can't give up and let all her efforts go to waste. she doesn't want me dying, earlier than her age, too. she told me i couldn't just let go so easily, that life is beautiful if you try to find its hidden beauty. i'm still trying to find meaning in all her wise words, i can't just take her honor for granted, especially since i know that despite everything, she has her own anguish and regrets.

does she regret having me?

right now, i feel a spark of motivation. she's been saving up, just for me, and i want to honor her memories at least. if i can't feel like home in this manor, then i'll make myself a home. to honor her, and to build upon both our dreams.

i don't know when, or how i could even engage in this impossible goal. but for momma? i'll do anything for her, even if it means working myself to death. because at least that means proof that i tried, and she'll be proud of me in the afterlife. god, i hope she would be.

we'll get that cottage soon, momma. i promise."

thinking about it now, that was ten entries right after your breakdown during your birthday. it was at a period of time where you fully accepted that you'd never be loved by your family, that you never belonged, and matured just as quickly after taking a break from writing self destructive diaries.

you sigh, looking down at your clenched palms and indenting fingers on skin. you really wish she was here. it could've made everything better, you would've been better if she was by your side.

a knock ensures before your door, and that alone snaps you out of your thoughts. you jump in shock yet feel no pang of panic in your heart, but before you could reach out to defend yourself, the door opens after the prior knock, and your...

your mother enters.

angelic, glowing, beautiful.

she's decorated in a white dress, with a pearl necklace decorating her neck, glinting like diamonds, soft in its assertion. like an angel, rather than the devil she's portrayed to be in the newspapers she hid from you.

she looks beautiful, as always, breath-taking to the point it makes you wonder how you share the same genes as her.

but her beauty now precedes her beauty from when you last saw her bleeding in the cold tiles of your apartment. now, she looks old, yet ethereal. wrinkles flecked her skin, her eyes drooped at the lids, her hairs displayed streaks of white in some areas.

you've never seen her like this.

she had you very young, and you've lost her young. yet she looks as she's rebirthed now, living yet aging like fine wine.

she is happy, and content with her smile, and looks at you with a radiant grin, smile marks on her sunken cheeks, like you mean the world, walking towards your seated form as she hugs you weakly, yet lovingly.

warm, like the spring's gentle blooms, like the feel of petals rubbed against your fingertips.

you're caught breathless.

"momma...?"

beauty that is true, that is honest, and speaks of history. beyond the barriers of photos you see in her at her prime, when she was known as a 'man-eater', a lustful creature that steals from rich to survive.

you've never lied when you said your mother is always going to be the most beautiful woman in the world.

at least, in your eyes. because if she objectively was, then your father could've, should've stayed with her, for the sake of his pride and reputation at the very least. he could've had her by his side, even through a loveless marriage, if it meant it ensured her safety.

you dismiss the bitterness the brews inside you, and opted to focus at the strange, yet welcome circumstances beforehand.

your hands find a way to wrap around her crouched figure, fingers lingering on the once sinewy bones of her spine, now healthy even through the sagging skin.

"my baby..." you look up at her, her hands holding your head so tenderly, cradling you side to side.

"momma..." she kisses your forehead, then both your cheeks, and takes a seat beside you. when she did, you felt a surge of energy and warmth burst throughout both your body and heart. for once, you felt giddy, solitary confinement all but a dream in this fantasy land.

you don't let her hands go for even a second, fearing this moment will be taken away from you. there's warmth emanating off the fingers intertwined with yours, you wish this moment never ends.

the questions that almost left your silken throat took hesitation. you just can't ask why she's alive, where you are and why you're here in the first place; for fear she'll be taken away from you, that you couldn't see her beyond the conjured and brief memories you had of her.

you wish to cry once again, this time, you let out a small hiccup and feel saliva bundling on the back of your mouth. she hums in resounding worry, her other hand swiping away at the hair covering your wide eyes. the softness in her eyes doesn't falter, and she hums a familiar lullaby: one that triggers nostalgia, that reminds you of the days spent without electricity in your tiny apartment with her lighting a candle just so she could read you another one of your favorite stories, huddled beside her.

the last you've heard of her voice, it was parched and inaudible. she always sacrificed for you, and drinkable water was a privilege in the shady parts of gotham.

"you're probably wondering where you are and why we're here, aren't you, sunshine?" she cuts her singing off abruptly, your eyes snap open to look up at her through your eyelashes.

"... y-yeah," your reply comes in, voice barely whisper. unsure and insecure of where this conversation will go, you chose to bury your head in her shoulder. she smells of ripe strawberry and cherries, unlike the mixture bold perfumes mixed with the stench of booze she comes home with after another night of restless endeavor. yet you don't acknowledge the memories of the past, you're here with her now and it's all that matters.

"where are we, mom? am i... dreaming? please, i- i miss you." this time, your tears come out in a steady stream, but your throat doesn't constrict in itself, and you don't feel the urge to rip at your hair at anymore.

now you're just terribly sentimental rather than bitter. no more was the jealousy that aches, or the panic rushing through your veins. it's just you and your mother, and the memories of her passing that buries you at the hilt of your sadness.

"well... you're in the realm between life and death, my little angel," she states with lidded eyes, as if it is a matter of fact. her hands move to scratch your scalp, she hums and swings your crying body side to side, akin to a mother cradling her newborn baby.

you felt particularly reborn, the sudden change affecting you more than you'd like to admit. the light outside your window casts her in a sheen of white, glimmering like rays of the sun, or like the twinkle of the moon.

even if she was old, and grey and wrinkly, she's always been ethereal.

and you're convinced that she's the angel instead.

"you've been through a lot, haven't you?" her questions brought you out of your tearful stupor, she brings her lips to kiss at your forehead and wraps her palms on the sides of your face, wiping away at the waterworks refusing to cease.

all you could do was nod, and feel the warmth reflecting off her body, transferring all to you. even in the plane of death has she always been generous.

"i-i... i don't want this to end, momma..." you utter, gazing at her ever-smiling face. there was a faint translucency in her body, as if her form is slowly disappear. and for a second, you feel fear that she'll disappear. fear that dissipates just as quickly when you hear her heavenly chuckles.

"...baby, i'm here with you right now in because i want to remind you to choose the path to live. it's too early to die right now, it's too early for my baby to join me in the afterlife." her words are too complicated to comprehend with how muddled your thoughts were, her saccharine actions feel like a forbidden touch, and you just couldn't comprehend why, just why does she want you to live...

when there's nothing else left for you in the realm where she's not around.

"but i... i don't understand...? why can't, why can't i be with you, mom—?"

"because unlike me, baby, you have so much to do. i've nothing left of me to offer when i died, baby... at least now, at least you'll find that you're still always loved, even when i'm not with you."

she cuts you off with a hush, pinching your cheeks before another wave of tears and quivering hiccups escape your befuddled body.

but you can't afford to let her go a second time, you can't go back—!

you don't want to be back in that damning structure you call a manor, you don't want to watch your father from a mere corner shrouding himself in the pits of darkness you know you couldn't carry, you don't want to return to begging for dick's attention as he turns a blind eye, you don't want the pitiful stares from tim when he's in the same room as you, or duke, cass, and steph's hushed whisper whenever you pass by, plans being made without your knowledge, without acknowledgement of your presence. you don't want to be blamed by damian for even being born in the first place. you don't want anymore uncelebrated and silent birthdays anymore, or milestones celebrated with just a fucking cupcake and a pat on your head...!

you want your mom, you don't want your other family, not anymore...

even if... even if your disappearance paved the way for a new shift in interests in your family's mind, even if you're now unknowingly the center of attention after months of the manor's solitude without you; just like you had always wanted— you're tired, and you've long since given up and grown from selfish and unrealistic desires of a completely healthy family.

if you could even call them that wretched title.

if you could even consider them as one like how they never did you.

the tears return just like the pain you were temporarily barred from, now it's a waterfall that threatens to throw you off of your escape from the reality of life, stinging your eyes and falling on crumpled sheets as your fingers grip uncontrollably for a sanction of control. from what? from the fear that now is the moment that you'll truly never see her again, not even in your memories.

"... momma, please, stay—!"

but right before you could reason out, desparate words crawling and jumping out your heaving chest and into the spiraling room, right before you could beg her to stay closer with you with her flickering warmth for just a second further as her body slowly dissipates from her hold on you, as your vision darkens and you hear that faint, familiar murmur of gotham's bustling motorcycles and alleyway screaming—

her last words, full of assurances, just like the day she tucked you in that little closet and made you promise that you'd stay silent for her, sacrificing her life just so she could protect you; it grounds you into your spot, restless, broken, and chasing unsaid words to tell her before you lose her once more, and destroys any and all hope for complete, and utter happiness you forced yourself to truly believe.

"... i love you, my sweet angel. be good for me, alright...?"

and just like that, your eyes blearily open to find itself into a completely foreign surrounding yet again.

and this time, it is real and unwanted.

'jason todd, a good soldier,' were the words marked and engraved on his tombstone. buried under the healthy soils of the manor, he felt as if his presence was forgotten all the same.

it was true, he was a good soldier. always obedient, always listening and mirroring bruce's orders, even though he grew up in the ratty streets with a drug-addicted mother and an abusive father, when he was picked up by bruce and lead into the vigilante life with the beaming potential to combat even dick; jason was always the good kid, who, even if he became a tad bit rebellious on the years garnering on teenage life, died honorably for the safety of his biological mother who betrayed him.

jason todd, always the boy portrayed as a warning sign for all the future robins, always the child remembered as just that: a soldier of batman, the kid of bruce who died unfairly; the truth of his death, the truth of joker's fucked up foil to destroy the bat's mentality even further all for a good laugh, hidden beneath restricted case files and bruce's suppressed emotions— all left unattended, just for him to be replaced by another new robin; a telltale signal that felt like bruce was trying so hard to repair the broken fixtures jason left behind.

the implication itself felt as if the world is laughing at his heroic acts, never acknowledged beyond the faults that lie on his stubbornness; a learnt trait all robins grew into once they've been taken in bruce's care.

he must've never been a good kid if life decided to take him away, when his youth was at an all time high, when all he wanted to do was meet his real mother, and to save her even when she had left him to die with explosives laid beside his beaten body.

was it his fault that all he ever wanted to do was to make his father proud? what was wrong with being a hero, being robin with his magical passions?

jason was never the spiteful man everyone assumed him to be. he was never rebellious, or thirsting for vengeance, or came to hate bruce as much as what everyone else thought of when they'd first hear his name.

even when he was revived in that sunken pit of hell, nineteen with a seventeen year old soul, feeling his once lanky body too tall, too big for him to flex his fingers, to kick with his now muscly legs, crying and screaming under all the madness of forcefully having his soul be reunited with his body after two years of peaceful rest.

and when he had returned to his senses, when he discovered that there were two new children running around the manor, one a product of a one-night stand, the other donning the identity of a new robin, did jason become the spiteful image everyone imagine the young boy came to be from when he was just an impulsive teenager.

becoming alive once more, reliving betrayal after betrayal, watching in the background: never the full story, but enough to feel like he's been replaced— it became his sole duty to torment, to do to criminals what has been done to him, just to teach the bat that his moral code was flawed, was what caused a thousand other souls to be lost under the hands of the puny joker.

all this, just to feel a sense of right in a life constantly wronging him.

yet under all the blood-soaked jackets, the aluminum amoury, under clenched teeth and resentful, dead blue eyes stood a boy who loved. who stole tires to provide for his small family who never truly loved him: a father who beats at his body nightly, a mother who dismisses him in favor of her favorite substances. who read books of all genre— classic his all time favorite, jane austen his beloved author, he loved school, loved learning, jason always came home with an A+ in all his subjects, eternally grateful despite the years of betrayal, of heartache, of shredded photos and shattered picture frames.

who advocated his young life fighting crime, kicking ass beside his vigilante partner and a man he came to call his dad, even though he had all the opportunities in the world to turn rotten like the crime infested streets of gotham. because he was a good kid, too, and a soldier the next.

he was never the violent kind. he was the kid who loved above all else. idolizing dick, bruce, all the good people in the world with shining ambitions that should've never been stained so early. he even told bruce he always wanted a little sibling to care for. he wanted to teach another young, unfortunate child what it's like to share kindess in this shithole of a city.

jason todd was a ball of pure joy, loved by bruce to the point his father could've never moved on from his death, never acknowledging the next traumatized child that came after him, and also tim, too, who he always mistakenly call by jason's name.

jason couldn't see beyond the surface of what he knew, masked by hatred for what had become after two years, questions spiraling hid head that accompanies a darkness he never knew could shroud him like a cloak. bruce used to hide him under his curtain of a cape back when he was a small, manourished kid, his vision overtaken by pure black; but now the older version of him knew what true darkness is like without needing his vision disrupted.

death feels like eternal darkness, a void that devours your vision of all colors, no physical form, no thoughts, but unmoving with the feelings grounding you in place, like hell. and with the shadow of doubt that he was never truly cherished by a man he loved to call his father, that no vengeance took place after his death, jason couldn't fathom the pain greater than what he experienced in that cold, dark warehouse; spending hours hoping that he'd be saved.

how long did it take for bruce to replace him? days, months, weeks?

how long did it take for bruce to move on? was he just an afterthought to the man? was he just a good soldier in bruce's eyes?

and why, just why, does he also blame himself for his own doom? for being stubborn enough to pursue chasing after a clown smarter than him, why does he

... if he had never died, things would've never escalated that far, it wouldn't have created a domino effect that ruined not only his life, but his angel's too.

if he had never died, you wouldn't be bleeding in his arms like he did too in bruce's.

... except unlike him back then, you want to simply die now.

jason's passing was not only his guilt or bruce's, it also marked the start of your treacherous journey of thirteen and a half years living in silence, in fear and in constant yearning after your mother's death, for a love so passionate from bruce like the one he gives to all his other children but you.

for a love he had given all up for jason that he never had any to spare to you.

bruce never gave you what you wanted, what you practically needed. all in favor of mourning the passing of his second child, his son who achieved more than the levels you knew you'd never reach. you were never the desirable child, because as good as you were like jason, as nice as you could be, or talented— nobody could replace the hole that jason left within bruce from when he left the world.

you both were good kids, but jason was infinitely better.

when you were first introduced to the manor, jason assumed you and tim replaced him, he watched secretly after his resurrection, with grim prayers for your downfall 'cause he couldn't attack you like he did tim in the tower because of your civilian status, your involvement towards batman was close to zero.

you were a young child, you knew nothing, and he hates you.

he regrets hating you.

all because he hates seeing himself in those young, glinting eyes. he never realized what he felt was fear, fear that someone like you could end up like him, when he had first obsessively did research on your buried past. your world could've been so easily destroyed by the tips of his finger and he had done so mercilessly until it was too late.

he really hated you at first, but he couldn't do anything to hurt you without trespassing the manor and triggering all the signals and alarms he's sure have been updated by the new, puny little robin. he hated you so much for reasons he couldn't pinpoint, blinded by sorrow, and grief, and every piling resentment built on years of animosity he should've only directed only towards bruce, and never someone as innocent, as uninvolved as you.

you, who he calls his angel after the years of torment you've unknowingly and obliviously suffered under him.

but he was so angered, the darkness in his mind clawed him deeper in a frenzy for revenge, that it overpowered the empathy he felt for when he first saw you, standing alone in the kitchen room with an apple in your hand and a blunt knife in the other. not ready to defend yourself at the sight of him, not even pointing it at him, but inviting the man to eat with you your favorite abomination of apple slices and peanut butter— as if you didn't care about the gun in his hands and the window cutter in the other.

you didn't understand why it was so easy to ignore you. it had been years since you have talked, let alone find yourself staring at a person, that you never cared for your safety as long as it meant that... well, you could have someone to finally talk to, with your parched throat from all the moments of unuse, excitedly addressing him as mr. ghost.

he couldn't do anything, couldn't even stare at you for longer, so he ran away at first glance, and failed to see the heartbroken sigh from you agter and the tears that welled up having your hopes raised up only to be shattered once more.

that sight of you standing under the moonlit night triggered conflicting feelings within him– but it was always the strive for vengeance that took over his life, didn't it? even though meeting you bore solid evidence that you were none the wiser, that you didn't deserve anything coming from you; it was through his sheer dedication to destroy all things cherished by bruce that he never once realized that you were merely nothing to bruce— that he ruined an innocent person's life over nothing.

he resorted to praying for your demise if it meant he couldn't physically hurt you. he focused on tormenting you indirectly before the fire in his raging heart was eventually extinguished.

he was the man you see by the hallways, the monster you thought raptured knocks on your window in the middle of the night, the reason for why some of your old childhood toys would be missing eyes, had loosened stitches, or had their stuffings removed and displaced somewhere hidden you couldn't reach.

a cryptic message that made you run and bury your head in alfred's suit, asking the old man to spend the night with you after another one of your toys was ripped apart. a reaction that made jason scoff at your immaturity; as if the inner child in him wouldn't react the same way.

you were only a few years younger than tim, despite arriving in the manor before him, and jason was stupid enough to assume you had been raised well by bruce that you'd be mature at your age, he was such an idiot to think that you wouldn't be as emotionally affected but rather paranoid of the sudden paranormal activity surrounding you. that the cookies you baked were all left to be crumbs, after just leaving them to cool off for a few minute, the pens you used for journalling wouldn't have gone missing— he thought surely, you'd be broken mentally...

but never this... emotionally.

what he didn't expect were breakdowns right after, hair pulling, the biting of skin and panic attacks after panic attacks.

wide eyes staring at the ceiling, perspiration on your skin clinging on to blazing bedsheets at the lack of ventilation, sporadic breathing, bleeding scratches on your skin like a wild animal.

you cry like one, unashamed of how loud your sobs were for such a parched throat, at how long you've been wailing alone whilst hugging your too-little body, eyes closed and misty, as if it would rid you the images of your wrecked bedroom and missing journals.

yet jason never stops to wonder why no one had came running in your room to save you from destroying yourself even further.

he never wondered nobody bothered to acknowledge your crying every night, continuing on his tangent to destroy everything you loved just to prove a point, that you couldn't be worth the effort for bruce to care enough about, despite the internal conflict he felt ruining an innocent kid's life.

and he didn't even need to prove anything, because you were never worth anything. the longer jason went on without bruce's acknowledgement, the more everything felt wrong, the more he felt like whatever he's doing is torture, not retribution.

he's terrible for what he'd done, and slowly resigned to watching over you instead to ensure you'll slowly calm down after months of his monstrous presence looming over you.

but the damage was already done, and you're left to even smaller, shattered pieces.

and here he is now, watching as you bleed out in his arms, crying and babbling at the pain, yet begging under your breath to "please, please don't call batman, don't call bruce... please leave, please, please, please don't do anything stupid, jay..."

whilst pushing him away, as if scared of him, as if you'd rather death than... than to see bruce dismiss another relayed message regarding you.

even if you're dying, you refuse to undergo the same pain of neglect. even if you're dying, you don't wish to ruin their movie night plans just because you were stupid enough to drink yourself to near death to distract yourself from dick's messages.

all because you've taught yourself that you're never worth the wait, and jason takes blame in partaking the destruction of your optimism.

under the flickering light of the lamppost, your swollen eyes and snot-ridden nose don't pose the same satisfaction he felt when he first ripped your plushie apart, not anymore. all he felt was dread now, that you're bleeding, his angel is bleeding and everything happening is very much real.

he feels a hidden awe, too, at just how ethereal and warm your body feels, despite the light leaving your eyes, the fight slowly being replace by another one of your panic attacks. he holds you still, and stabilizes your body with his strong arms to prevent anymore bleeding, despite the wobbly legs and your losing consciousness.

jason couldn't afford to let you die in his arms, he couldn't fathom just how much he misses your presence.

and now he realizes just how much he hates it when you fear him throughout the entire procedure of calming you down. how you shiver in his gaze, how he feels the pricks of your goosebumps against the thick fabric of his gloves.

you never once feared him when you first met him, it was through your lack of it that he bonded with you, keeping the torment he put you through a secret. even though he makes short and sometimes brash comments with his unfiltered mouth, you'll always find joy in his words because he was the only decent guy around the manor, despite his presence being scarce and sometimes nonexistent.

you cherished him, and god, he never knew how much he cherished you too.

but now you're sobbing and mumbling incoherently about how you wish it was never him who saved you, that it could've been someone else, or you prefer to be left rotting in the damn corner, dead and discarded, if it means it wouldn't be him saving you, for damn reasons he doesn't even know.

why do you hate him so much now...? why does his precious angel look at him in a tearful daze, all desparate to push him away despite the soreness of your body, despite the blood dripping from your lower stomach all the way down to the floor in a swirl of nauseating crimson mess?

why does he see himself in you?

why does he see the same broken child who chooses to care for others than themself?

as much as jason hated to admit it, as much as he said he never wanted to die for the sole reason that he cherished the moments with his father at most—

jason wished he could've turned time back right now, at this instant. he wished he could've been stronger, could've been far more resistant of that damn explosion, that he never was stupid enough to fall for one of joker's traps—

if it meant he wouldn't be suffering from the gripping ache on his chest, from the dreaded claws you call paranoia at the sight of your ice-blue lips and dimming eyes from all the blood loss, your arms still trying to push him to a considerable distance despite him wishing to hold you oh-so tightly, as his fingers, shivering from a familiar panic he felt, try to wipe away at the river of tears collecting at the edges of your dirt-stained chin and wobbly lips, his helmet pressed atop your forehead as if to reassure you, mostly himself that you'll all be alright—

that you wouldn't go through the same route as him, scarred and traumatized after this moment under the moonlit night that watches jason wrap his gloved palms on the back of your neck despite the remaining fight and adrenaline in your body, the other bulky mass of muscles under your feet.

the polluted air bares witness to his hasty breaths, the protective hold that refuses to let go, body automated to run to his motorcycle, stepping carelessly on the bloody carnage of the alleyway's floor (they deserve torture after what they put you through, hell, he'll make sure their burial will be damning to both the police that failed to search you even though they were in close proximity to where you screamed, and the other related lackeys involved in this wretched smuggling crime), to bring you to doctor leslie for an immediate surgery.

jason hopes that instead of hate, you'll still feel a semblance of any remaining love for him instead of aching nostalgia after all this time.

he hopes you could forgive him as it is only now that he realizes how vulnerable you truly are, that despite jokingly calling you his guardian angel, he should've been the guardian, the knight, the man who protects you from all evil as what he calls his morals to be.

why were you even out in the first place? just why were you absolutely wasted? why, why, why does the image of your resigned, and tired eyes the only thing flashing and looping in his mind, filtering out the speeding motorcycle cutting through wind and traffic lanes, ignoring red lights and the loud beeps of the other vehicles before him, the pump of engines similar to the wild beating of his heart, as he speeds through shortcuts after shortcuts to take you to immediate treatment before it was too late.

he takes short breaths, too aware of his surrounding, too deep in thought, he couldn't waste any moments thinking about anything but his angel.

he wishes he could've changed so many things. but you couldn't change the past anymore, you couldn't change the grueling form of torture you call silence for a child who wanted the same type of love bruce had for when jason was alive, who had to deal with the aftermath of jason's death.

and now, as the ripe age of eighteen, still too young, and still bleeding, at the mercy of death.

it never occured to him just how interconnected your lives were together. just how much it was through his passing that affected your life.

he was the first brother who saw you without the need for your cries of attention every lonesome passing of time in the ghostly manor.

and you were the first who stared at him through tear-stained cheeks and diluted irises. not out of fear, not out of haste to warn other members of his growing family of jason's (a stranger in your eyes, no less, with armoured chest plates and a crimson helmet glinting mercilessly in the dark, lightless room only illuminated by the wretched moon, with guns loaded with bullets in his holster) sudden trespass within the kitchen windows, not out of every negative emotions he expects of you; but out of sheer shell shock that someone had finally caught you through your nightly sneaking.

out of genuine whiplash of someone finally looking at you eye-to-eye, head faced to one another, your cold fingertips pressing against the swell of your eyebags from restless nightmares and anxious paranoia triggered from academics, as if to tell yourself that this was all mere hallucination.

you matter so much to him, even if he tries to overcorrect his sins, trying his damn best to notice your presence whenever he visits the manor, even if his brash words sting your heart sometimes, even if he couldn't properly show you affection he should've given you—

it's not enough.

it was never enough, that even his gentle words spoken to you whilst he speeds through his motorcycle felt entire foreign. that despite unconscious and limp on his body, you're still flinching and the tears couldn't have enough time to dry. jason could've done so much more for his precious little sibling, he could've been the best older brother in the world like he promised himself to be back when he was an oblivious little child, just like how he sees you right now.

everything he did was not enough, but the doubts that circulate his mind didn't fester in his mind much anymore; because he turned it into motivation, he looks at you through the mirror of his motorcycle, vulnerable, aching with the need for affection (that he could provide, he could give to you infinitely...!) and transforms the regret into motivation.

to be better, to be the one you look up to, not with thoughts of how or when you'll be able to spend time with him, but with confidence and preference for his time. that he'll be the first you choose to look for.

jason promises you his undying loyalty, to protect you from the danger of this world, to savor the light and the warmth that emanates off of your presence. despite the heartache you felt because of him, because of all your tormentors— you were still kind, like an angel who had fallen from grace, but chose to grace the world instead with their remaining salvation.

if you manage to survive throughout it all, through the surgery and the anaesthesia-filled stitchings, with jason's scarred hands wrapped around your fists, daintier compared to the muscles in his. if by the end of this night, jason would have you alive (he will, he'll refuse anything else, even if it takes you being resurrected in the lazarus pit, then so be it) in his arms and resting peacefully in his apartment and not under bruce's roof, out of respect from your sheer insistence that you'd rather anywhere but the manor.

jason swears on his life that he'll make it up to you.

he'll be better for you, for his angel, to atone himself for all the sins he committed upon you.

and even if it means ripping the world upside down at its seems, even if it takes decades for you to feel comfortable within the confines of his arms, unlike the dread that claws at your body earlier, pushing him away, pushing your older brother away— he's willing to undergo even the same torture from joker if it means making up to you.

as long as he has you in his sights.

all this, just to see the fear in your eyes replaced by genuine happiness at the sight of your big brother, ready to do anything for you the moment requests spill out from your benevolent lips and gleaming eyes.

you truly are his saving grace, his angel in disguise.

reblogs and interactions are encouraged and appreciated.

PLEASE READ: 14,200+ words. no beta, we just cry. "i am good, but not an angel. i do sin, but i am not the devil. i am just a small child in a big world trying to find someone to love." it's a quote that inspired this half of the chapter partly. apologies to anyone if jason seems a bit religious here??? he's not, but i'm trying to establish connections on why he even calls you that nickname in the first place (and totally not me relating it to the flashpoint comic where he becomes a priest 😭). again, bit of a boring chapter, but no hate please haha, instead leave comments if you enjoyed reading it!!! more interactions = more content.

there are many lyrics and song references scattered about the paragraphs, can you guys spot it all for me 🫦? i'm a musically inclined guy, and there's also lots of not implicitly stated songs too, i lost count honestly. tysm for all your patience, because writing through my hectic schedule is honestly a struggle.

as stated, there are a lot of jason todd and mc parallels, i love hearing you guys' thoughts about me expanding upon this. they're very different but also share so many similarities, and i like to explore deeper on every character just to make the yandere element more obvious and distinct.

and like my previous announcement too, please please please do not copy off the scenes i wrote. although my writing is mid, it doesn't mean it should be stolen word by word or the entire scenarios or scenes i've written should be taken in and written into your own fanfics too. my potrayals of each and every characters are a bit more unique takes too (i like to make myself believe), so as much as possible, please credit me. i appreciate you all 🩷

yet again, leave comments, interactions, what you think of this chapter (but not too critical comments, or pure hate please). idk what to feel about my writing, i hate it a lot sometimes but oh well! merry christmas, this is my early gift for all of you guys and for the second part, i'll try to post as soon as possible (i need to generate more spotlight to ensure they get equal attention ofc).

taglist: @neerathebrightstar, @ghostdoodlen, @prince-nikko, @daisy-spot, @strawberryglass, @h0neybun-was-here, @confused-they, @weirdcore-fantasy, @mystyque234, @marssthings, @notwhoy0uthink, @aliengutzstuff, @lilyalone, @luffyadolover, @punpunsonny, @lazyemmy, @questionthegrapevine, @oh-nowo-i-got-uwu, @winter-world, @zavavas-dungeon, @budijojo, @altruisticbeauty, @dopepursebasketballplaid, @the-holy-pigeon, @red-phantom-0, @em-draws14, @thypplover, @cens0r3d-blog, @yl90, @sadeem575, @couldeatthatgirlforlunch, @maicenitas, @kiiyoooo, @flyingpansaurus, @farmerboywakatoshikun-blog, @rogueofbullshit, @earlqurl, @dotomuses, @sheep-from-rad, @tsuniio, @thesm1l3yface, @nosochek-3o, @radiantharu, @iwasveronica, @kdjhubby, @ashstwin, @thetreefairypersonalblog, @se-rae2, @0ut0fsweets, @notwhoy0uthink

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bixels · 8 months ago

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Learning that fans hated Applejack and called her "boring" is crazyyy to me because I genuinely, unironically believe AJ's the most complex character in the main six.

Backstory-wise, she was born into a family of famers/blue collar workers who helped found the town she lives in. She grew up a habitual liar until she had the bad habit traumatized outta her. She lost both her parents and was orphaned at a young age, having to step up as her baby sister's mother figure. She's the only person in the main gang who's experienced this level of loss and grief (A Royal Problem reveals that AJ dreams about memories of being held by her parents as a baby). She moved to Manhattan to live with her wealthy family members, only to realize she'll never fit in or be accepted, even amongst her own family. The earlier seasons imply she and her family had money problems too (In The Ticket Master, AJ wants to go to the gala to earn money to buy new farm equipment and afford hip surgery for her grandma).

Personality-wise, she's a total people-pleaser/steamroller (with an occasional savior complex) who places her self worth on her independence and usefulness for other people, causing her to become a complete workaholic. In Applebuck Season, AJ stops taking care of herself because of her obsessive responsibilities for others and becomes completely dysfunctional. In Apple Family Reunion, AJ has a tearful breakdown because in she thinks she dishonored her family and tarnished her reputation as a potential leader –– an expectation and anxiety that's directly tied to her deceased parents, as shown in the episode's ending scene. In The Last Roundup, AJ abandons her family and friends out of shame because believes she failed them by not earning 1st place in a rodeo competition. She completely spirals emotionally when she isn't able to fulfill her duties toward others. Her need to be the best manifests in intense pride and competitiveness when others challenge her. And when her pride's broken, she cowers and physically hides herself.

Moreover, it's strongly implied that AJ has a deep-seated anger. The comics explore her ranting outbursts more. EQG also obviously has AJ yelling at and insulting Rarity in a jealous fit just to hurt her feelings (with a line that I could write a whole dissection on). And I'm certain I read in a post somewhere that in a Gameloft event, AJ's negative traits are listed as anger.

Subtextually, a lot of these flaws and anxieties can be (retroactively) linked to her parents' death, forcing her to grow up too quickly to become the adult/caregiver of the family (especially after her big brother becomes semiverbal). Notice how throughout the series, she's constantly acting as the "mom friend" of the group (despite everything, she manages to be the most emotionally mature of the bunch). Notice how AJ'll switch to a quieter, calmer tone when her friends are panicking and use soothing prompts and questions to talk them through their emotions/problems; something she'd definitely pick up while raising a child. Same with her stoicism and reluctance at crying or releasing emotions (something Pinkie explicitly points out). She also had a childhood relationship with Rara (which, if you were to give a queer reading, could easy be interpreted as her first 'aha' crush), who eventually left her life. (Interestingly enough, AJ also has an angry outburst with Rara for the same exact reasons as with EQG Rarity; jealous, upset that someone else is using and changing her). It's not hard to imagine an AJ with separation anxiety stemming from her mother and childhood friend/crush leaving. I'm also not above reading into AJ's relationship with her little sister (Y'all ever think about how AB never got to know her parents, even though she shares her father's colors and her mother's curly hair?).

AJ's stubbornness is a symptom of growing up too quickly as well. Who else to play with your baby sister when your brother goes nonverbal (not to discount Big Mac's role in raising AB)? Who else to wake up in the middle of the night to care for your crying baby sister when your grandma needs her rest? When you need to be 100% all the time for your family, you tend to become hard-stuck with a sense of moral superiority. You know what's best because you have to be your best because if you're aren't your best, then everything'll inevitably fall apart and it'll be your fault. And if you don't know what's best –– if you've been wrong the whole time –– that means you haven't been your best, which means you've failed the people who rely on you, which means you can't fulfill your role in the family/society, which makes you worthless . We've seen time and time again how this compulsive need to be right for the sake of others becomes self-destructive (Apple Family Reunion, Sound of Silence, all competitions against RD). We've seen in The Last Roundup how, when no longer at her best, AJ would rather remove herself from her community than confront them because she no longer feels of use to them.

But I guess it is kinda weird that AJ has "masculine" traits and isn't interested in men at all. It's totally justified that an aggressively straight, misogynistic male fandom would characterize her as a "boring background character." /s

At the time of writing this, it's 4:46AM.

#mlp #yeah i wrote this last night during insomnia.#yeah i know an embarrassing amount of crap about this kids show #but whatever it's my hyperfixation i'll store as much useless information as i want!!!#i'm gay and neurodivergent i have an excuse #in case you needed more proof that aj's my favorite character #personal #delete later #unless you like this analysis stuff #i get why they didn't reveal aj's parent's death until way later and why they didn't do much with it but i wish they did #cuz narratively there could've been so much material with aj's grief. like. i feel like we gloss over the fact that she lost her #mother and father as a teenager #i tried keeping my personal hcs out of this to keep it unbiased #but i'll put some in the tags #involving rarijack –– i think aj can be (but not always) very self-conscious about her relationship with rarity #anxieties that she's not the right fit or that rarity will move away and leave her some day or that another woman will take her attention #(like in rollercoaster of friendship?? nudge nudge??). basic seperation anxiety stuff #long post #regarding applebloom whenever i think about her and her parents i think about that scene in steven universe where steven looks up at #a portrait of his mother and openly wonders what kind of sack lunches she would've made for him. that episode still fucks me up

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bunny-jpeg · 6 months ago

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i have this little thought bouncing around in my head! single father simon. (a drabble)

*shrug*

simon ends up with his daughter winnie after her mother abandons her at his doorstep. he was the father, it was his turn to take care of her. simon could handle warfare, he could handle guns and sweat and metal. he could handle blood and bruises.

but a fussy newborn was a little too much for him.

enter you, it was your summer off from university and you were making extra money by babysitting for parents who couldn't afford weeks of posh summer camps. it was decent work and you were pretty good with them! so being concerned for your neighbour, simon's well being, you offered to watch winnie.

simon very well fell in love with you the moment you took the baby girl into you arms. winnie instantly got settled into your grasp, almost like you were her mother.

"what a lovely baby girl." you cooed, you looked at her with such affection already. you looked at simon and smiled, "she looks too cute to be yours." a playful jab.

you watched winnie while simon was at work. you didn't know what he did for work, but you tried not to ask too many questions. all you knew was that the checks didn't bounce when you cashed them.

but being with winnie for so many days had gossip go through the apartment building. you had a baby with simon? why were you in two separate apartments? where did the lovely newborn sleep? she SHOULD be sleeping with her mother (you).

when you tried to correct them, simon always said, "ah don't worry. we'll be havin' our own place soon enough!" his large hand snaked around your waist.

you just looked down at winnie who was sound asleep in her stroller. she couldn't care less who her mommy and daddy were. it wouldn't be hard to be the mother she'd otherwise be without, right?

that was the angle that simon too.

you'd make the most perfect mrs. riley. you were already taking care of winnie, but also him when he came home. you shouldn't be the nanny, you should be winnie's mama.

"she really loves you." simon remarked when you went with him to the pool.

you were in a one piece swim suit and you were making sure that the baby was out of the sun and had sunscreen on. you didn't want her to get sick or burned.

currently she was resting on your chest while you were in the shade. in your free hand you had a book in it and the other was on winnie's back. you said, "i don't know what you're talking about." as if you hadn't heard the comments from the little old ladies about how sweet you two looked.

"look like a real mama."

you looked to him and raised your eyebrows, "i thought i was the babysitter, mister riley."

simon placed a hand on your thigh then rubbed up and down, "nah."

it didn't take long for you and simon to get intimate. he asked you to stay because winnie had been having trouble sleeping. you two shared a glass of wine and then you found yourself face first into simon's bed. the scent of him filled your head as he fucked you into the comfortable mattress.

he loved the sound of your pussy as he fucked you without much abandon. the thickness on your hips would only grow once he made sure his next child was inside of you. you'd be such a good mama, unlike that previous bitch who left him.

maybe there was a good reason why she left him.

cum clung to the fuzz on your pussy lips and was a bitch to clean in the shower come morning.

he woke you up and said, "she needs her mama. she gettin' fussy, doll." then watched you stumble around to find clothes to wear while you checked on winnie as if the little girl was your own. his hand was wrapped around his cock. he wondered how many more times he could finish in you before you stumbled back to your apartment.

the answer was four.

it wouldn't be easy carrying for a sprouting little baby plus the baby boy you were currently pregnant with. you've put school off for a little while and moved in with simon, your due date was in the middle of the semester. now you were trying to figure out what food was good for a teething winnie while also trying to manage the riley son that was occupying your womb.

you were making dinner for your growing family with a cute little maternity dress of. simon was at the table with winnie. he knew that one day he'd have to tell her that you weren't her actual mama. but you were raising her and her little brother too.

"see there's mama." simon said in that grumbled voice of his, pointing in your direction.

you didn't imagine that you would've ended up as a stay-at-home mother to two children who were than a year apart. but as you felt the shift of your 'second' baby inside of you, you smiled.

you heard winnie make a little noise to get your attention. you checked on the pot of sauce on the stove before you turned away to check on your little girl.

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yinyuedijun · 8 months ago

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translation

Aventurine doesn't like being understood, but he does like understanding other people. It is essential for manipulation, for scheming, for control. And he likes controlling you especially—for keeping you close but your heart a comfortable distance away, for opening your legs when he wants the pleasure of your body, for playing your emotions however he needs. And the day will come when that skill will be invaluable—the day when he must die without shattering you. (Or: You are the only person in the universe who understands Aventurine in his mother tongue. He often regrets teaching it to you.)

5k words. gender neutral reader, established relationship, angst, non-graphic sex (reader bottoms, anatomy neutral), themes of cultural loss, references to slavery, aventurine’s canonically implied desire to die. MDNI.

Aventurine cannot lie in Avgin.

Deception does not come easily to him in his mother tongue. His command of it is too weak—and too kind. The universe was a different place in the days when his life was coloured by the warble of Avgin dialect. It felt simpler, partly because he was a child and partly because Sigonia was yet untouched by outsiders. There were no corporations, no casinos, no commodity codes. His entire world was sand, desert, mother, sister, father (or more often—ghost), goddess, tent, wagon, luck, sin, rain, blessing, Avgin.

Katican.

Aventurine is sure that he knew more than just those words. He was fluent as a child. He had conversations with his sister that were complex enough to make his heart hurt, though perhaps his heart was just constantly aching anyway. But the rest of his early words escapes him. He could maybe dredge them up if he thinks long enough, but he also isn't sure if his tongue and lips could form the shape of them anymore. Sometimes he still counts in Avgin, memorises phone numbers in it, but he doesn’t remember the last time he actually strung together a full sentence in the language.

When Aventurine was first stolen into slavery (a word that he had not known as a child, and still doesn't know in Avgin), he wasn’t given a Synesthesia Beacon. He had to rely on his ears and his wits, deciphering the harsh edges of the Katican dialect and then the strange garble of Interastral Standard Language. By the time he had a Beacon installed, it was already translating all speech into Standard—his dominant language.

Sometimes he feels a little aggrieved by it, but at least it wasn't Katican. He'd have blown out his brains if it were.

But it is easy to console himself: Avgin is not a useful language anyway. Dead languages have no value, and the Avgin dialect was killed along with its people. You can’t perform commerce in a dead language, can't negotiate contracts, can't enter a gambling den and use your silver tongue to rob people blind. You can't use a dead language to fell governments and extract resources; you can't use a dead language to bring an entire planet to its knees. You can’t use a dead language to gamble your life; you can't use it to save yourself from the gallows.

You cannot deceive people in a language that is defined by sand, sister, goddess, ghost.

Aventurine cannot lie in Avgin. His command of it is too weak, and there is no one left to which he can lie, anyway.

When you ask Aventurine to teach you his first language, he gives you an amused look.

“Why Avgin?” he asks. “No one speaks it anymore. I can teach you Common Sigonian if you’d like. Or we could learn Xianzhounese together. Maybe Intellitron code? I know a little.”

“You speak Avgin,” you argue.

“Not often,” he says. “And badly when I do.”

“But it's still your language. And I want to understand you.”

Aventurine has to stop himself from laughing. Understand him? He hates being understood. When people understand him, it makes him predictable. And unlikeable. Hardly a position from which he can manipulate people in.

You understand him well enough to know that.

“You'll have to give me a better reason than that,” he says neatly. “Make it worth my while. Reward me.”

You look at him as you ponder, your eyes lingering on his. Perhaps trying to read him, though he prefers to think you're just enjoying the sight of them.

“I’ll teach you my language as well?”

“You mean—you'll reward my hard labour with more work?” he says, lighthearted.

You frown at him despite the joke. “You don't want to understand me better than what a Synesthesia Beacon would allow?” He blinks, pausing. “It’ll be convenient too. We can talk shit about other people in public and no one will understand us.”

Aventurine considers you. He doesn't like being understood, but he does like understanding other people. It is essential for manipulation, for scheming, for control. And he likes controlling you especially—for keeping you close but your heart a comfortable distance away, for opening your legs when he wants the pleasure of your body, for playing your emotions however he needs. And the day will come when that skill will be invaluable—the day when he must die without shattering you.

He also likes the idea of talking shit in public.

“I'm listening,” he says, voice lilting. You lean in, smiling. Sweet. It makes his heart feel something he isn't used to. Something addictive. Something disgusting. He scrambles to cover it with one of the usual tools: humour or distraction or maybe just plain old lying—his most reliable weapon.

“I'll throw in a kiss?” you try.

He hums. “Just one?”

“One per day.”

“Three.”

“You drive a hard bargain.”

“Well, I am a businessman.”

You snort, but he knows you're endeared. You have very noticeable tells when you’re flustered.

“Okay,” you say. “Three kisses on days you teach me.”

“Deal.”

Aventurine remembers more Avgin than he thought he would.

It comes to him slowly, painstakingly. You aren't interested in structured lessons, and he wouldn't be able to provide them anyway. He has a nonexistent grasp of grammar aside from this sounds right and that sounds strange, and Avgin dialect is both so niche and so dead that no textbooks are available. The scholars have abandoned the language as much as the politicians abandoned its people. Aventurine only has you, his fragmented memory, and whatever questions come to mind as you live out your days with him.

Mostly, you ask him about basic vocabulary. Sometimes you ask him to repeat sentences from your conversations in Avgin, like he’s some kind of multilingual parrot. Each prompt forces him to wade through the fog in his mind, the one that’s been shrouding his childhood memories until now. He's startled at how naturally the old words roll off his tongue: One, two, three, four. Good morning. Good evening. Good night. Sweet dreams. Five, six, seven, eight. You're lying to me. Why do you always lie to me? I don't know what you're talking about. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Welcome home. Have you eaten? Have some bread. I made you stew. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty. That was dangerous. I thought you wouldn't make it back to me. Sometimes I think you want to die. One hundred, one thousand, one million, one billion. I'm sorry. Come here. Let me kiss you. Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry.

When you say, How do I ask you to let me hold you, he answers easily. He'd heard the words so often as a child: Let me hold you, Kakavasha. Let Mama hold you. His mouth forms the sounds without conscious thought.

He regrets it almost immediately.

When Aventurine hears it from you—stilted, halting, but no less gentle—he stops breathing. Let me hold you. You say it all the time in Standard, but it feels different in Avgin. More painful. A strange sense of panic closes in on him when he's wrapped up in you, thinking in Avgin, thinking sand, sister, goddess, ghost. He holds you tightly, like the rags cut from his father’s shirt, or his mother’s locket won back from the shell-slashers, or a bag of poker chips beneath a card table, clutched within his trembling grip.

“Aventurine, is something wrong?” you ask in Avgin, and he replies in Standard with his usual smile.

“Hm? No. What could be wrong if I have you here?”

Lying is one of his greatest tools. Sex is another one. So he says, “I think I'd like my reward now,” and he runs his lips along your jaw, your pulse, the spot over your heart (there's a word for that in Avgin but not Standard, he tells you), until you're laughing. I thought you wanted three kisses, you tease, and he replies, Who said I wanted to kiss you on the mouth?

But he coaxes open your thighs, and once he's inside you, he collects his payment properly. He kisses you, and kisses you, and kisses you—and you swallow his lies whole.

There are some things that Aventurine doesn't teach you. Mostly, they’re things that he can’t teach you.

There are countless gaps in his Avgin. His speech is painfully childish—probably more childish than it was when he actually stopped speaking it. He doesn't know how to swear (something that disappoints you) and he doesn't know how to flirt (something that devastates you). He doesn’t know any words that would be useful for work either: commercialization, governance, stakes, winnings, profit. When you ask him what his job title is in Avgin (“Was senior management even a thing in Avgin society?”), he laughs and gives you the word for gambler.

Then there are the words that he remembers—has remembered his whole life—but never says. Not to you, and not to himself. He doesn't teach you any prayers. He doesn't teach you any blessings. He doesn't teach you about Mama Fenge, or the Kakava Festival, or how the rain fell when he was born. When you ask him, What holidays did you celebrate when you were little? he shrugs and says, We didn't have any. Sigonia’s too bleak to do any partying.

Then you ask him one day, while your bodies are spent in the afterglow of sex, sticky with sweat and sweetness, how to say I love you. And he goes quiet.

Love is a cheap word in Interastral Standard. In the language of globalisation and trade, love has been commercialised, commodified, capitalised for power. You say it to him in many contexts: I love this, I love that, I love you. He hardly ever reacts, and he's never said it back. It would feel unnecessary and also cruel if he did: Aventurine has only ever said the words himself as either a joke or a manipulation.

But love feels different in Avgin than in Interastral Standard, doesn't sound like a thing that can be traded or bought. Kakavasha only ever said the word love to his mother, to his sister, to his father's grave. Love in his mother tongue feels priceless.

When Aventurine thinks about you saying it—I love you, Kakavasha, in clumsy, earnest Avgin—something so painful swells in his throat that he can hardly breathe.

“There is no word for love in my language,” he tells you.

You blink. “Okay, then what's an idiom for it?”

“There is none. There’s no word or phrase expressing love.”

You raise a brow. “That’s hard to believe.”

“Is it?” He smiles. “There’s no Avgin in the known universe who cares about love. Only scheming, thieving, and treachery—and you can't do those things when love is involved.”

You look at him in alarm. “Why are you saying that?” You're practically squirming in your discomfort. “I don't know why you think I'd believe such a racist stereotype.”

“It’s not a stereotype,” he says. “I'm not talking about the Avgin culture. I'm talking about myself.”

After all, he is the only Avgin left.

It is an unfair thing to say. A cruel thing to say. After all the laughing and kissing and crying and fucking, after all the tender eyes and gentle words from you—it is probably the worst pain imaginable: I don't give a shit about you. He waits for you to cry.

But you only stare at him calmly, studying him. You brush the hair out of his eyes, seeing them clearly.

“If you lie to me all the time,” you say in Avgin, “eventually I'll stop believing anything you say.”

Aventurine is speechless. His heart does that addictive, disgusting thing again. He thinks about leaving, but then you say, Let me hold you, and he can't do anything other than obey.

Avgin dialect was once included in the Synesthesia Beacon list of functions. The Intelligentsia Guild added it before the Second Katica-Avgin Extinction Event, when the IPC was trying to get a political foothold on Sigonia via the Avgin people. The language was alive then, with enough value to be included into the Synesthesia LLM by the linguists.

But since the Extinction Event—since Kakavasha ran away from home—the Synesthesia data on Avgin has been stagnant, a fossil. Aventurine knows because he's subscribed to software updates for certain languages (Avgin Sigonian, Common Sigonian, Interastral Standard, and now your mother tongue). He gets pinged every time there's a new addition for slang, for neologisms—but there hasn't been a ping for the Avgin dialect since he had the Beacon installed. The live translation function hasn't even been available since the previous Amber Era. When he checks its page on his Synesthesia app, it's very clear why—

SIGONIAN, AVGIN DIALECT SPEAKERS: 0 STATUS: Extinct END OF SERVICE: 2156 AE

The complete death of the language has led to an irritating dilemma for you and Aventurine. You keep running into words that he doesn't know—this time not because of his childlike speech, but because they never existed in his language to begin with. Ocean, tropical, rainforest. Starskiff, accelerator, space fleet. Stock market, shortselling, mutual funds. Black hole, event horizon, spaghettification. All things that never came up for Kakavasha, but now come up for Aventurine, and the language has not evolved to include it.

He always wants to switch to Standard to discuss these things, but you're insistent on speaking in Avgin as much as possible. He doesn't know why, but he doesn't mind humouring you—partly because he likes to indulge you, and partly because he’s grown used to hearing the honeyed timbre of Avgin dialect in your household. The place would feel strange without it.

So you start filling the gaps with other languages, filtering them through the lyricism of Avgin. Loanwords, he thinks they’re called. You take ocean, tropical, rainforest from Amazian; starskiff, accelerator, space fleet from Xianzhounese; stock market, shortselling, mutual funds from Interastral Standard. For the astrophysics terms, you try directly translating them—with limited success.

“Can't I literally just say ‘black hole’?” you ask in Avgin, and he nearly spits out his coffee.

“Please don't. That's a dirty word.” He can't bring himself to say what it means, but from the way you’re laughing, you can clearly guess.

“I thought you said you didn't know how to swear.”

“You've just reminded me how.”

“You're welcome.” You look on the verge of cackling. Aventurine finishes his coffee and wonders when you're going to surprise him with your newfound vulgarity.

“Let's just do the space terms based on Standard,” he says. Begs.

“No, that's so boring.”

“Then let's do your language.”

You open your mouth. Close it. Give him a blank look.

“You don't know how to say those words in your mother tongue either, do you,” he intuits.

“Well, ‘spaghettification’ doesn't really come up in everyday conversation, does it?”

“Then maybe we don't need it.” He smiles, senses an opportunity. Smells blood. “How about ‘love’? I'd much rather know how you say that. I bet it sounds beautiful.”

You give him a long look. Your eyes are vulnerable when you share it: Love. I love you. He’s fascinated by the sound of it. Your voice is never that fragile when you say it in Standard. It's never so earnest. He repeats it, staring at you, and your gaze falls to the ground. His mouth curls.

“I like it,” he says. “Let's use that. It'll sound nice in Avgin.”

You try to recover. “Sure. That works. But back to ‘black hole’—”

And the two of you continue like that for days, weeks, months. It feels like a complete bastardization of his mother tongue on some days, in some conversations. Almost unrecognisable. But it doesn't feel bad. It’s all he has, it's all you have, and when he walks into your home, he starts speaking it without thinking: your bastard, patchwork language. The Avgin dialect that exists only in your house. A tongue that can only be understood by a liar.

And then, one lazy Sunday morning, he gets a familiar ping. He expects it to be Interastral Standard, as usual. The language balloons with each planet that the IPC colonises.

But instead, he opens his screen and freezes.

SIGONIAN, AVGIN DIALECT SPEAKERS: 2 STATUS: Endangered. SERVICE RESUMED: 2157 AE NEW UPDATES: 103 loanwords and 5 neologisms added.

He can't stop looking at the status. Endangered. Endangered, which means dying, but alive. The Avgin dialect is alive again. The Intelligentsia Guild determined it, so it must be true. But Aventurine can't agree: there are no Avgin speakers in the known universe other than the two of you, and what you speak isn't real Avgin. The Avgin spoken by his mother and father and sister is dead; the Avgin spoken by Kakavasha is dead. The festivals are gone; the deserts have been terraformed. There are no wagons; there are no dances; there are no prayers. There are no blessings, and he has no home—

As long as you are alive, the blood of the Avgin will never run dry.

His throat locks up.

“Aventurine?” you ask. Your voice is drowsy, but concerned. “Is something wrong?”

He looks at you from his phone, a polished smile on his face.

“No.” His syllables are plain and efficient in the noise of Interastral Standard: “Just looking at details for a new assignment. It’ll be a long one.”

“Oh.” You frown. “Will you be away from home for a long time, then?”

He stops himself from swallowing. “Yes, I'll be away from the house. For several months, probably.”

“Okay.” Your voice is small. “Take care of yourself, okay? I'll miss you.”

Each word you speak resonates with heartbreak. It always does in these conversations, even in Standard—but the sorrow is amplified in Avgin. His mother tongue has an inherently sad quality to it, he's noticed. His people have lost so much over their history—their language is one of loss. It's his language of loss. Kakavasha did all his grieving in Avgin; Aventurine has never felt sorrow in Standard. When the language died, so did Kakavasha—and all his regrets with it.

“You'll come home to me, right?” you ask. It's a beautiful sentence in Avgin. A heartrending one. He feels something that he hasn't known since he was a child.

It's a feeling he has to kill.

“Yes,” he says in Standard. “Of course I'll come back.”

This is not the first time that Aventurine has been mistaken for dead, but this is the longest time.

The latest world to join the IPC network was a tough acquisition. It had been ruled by a despot who wreaked havoc on both the people and the planet, and who was too stupid and reckless to resolve conflicts with his trade partners. He probably would have blown up the whole star system had he been left to his own devices. Aventurine had no qualms about bringing him to ruin, nor did he have qualms about nearly dying in the process.

If things had gone his way, he'd either be dead or missing. This would have been the perfect opportunity to do the latter, actually—to be freed from the IPC. Free to drift alone, speaking with strangers in strange, unfamiliar tongues. No connection to his past, to the cruel history of his luck, to his commodity code. No tether to his inherently unjust destiny. But instead he's back in your house, pockets heavy with his borrowed wealth, speaking to you in his bastardised, childish Avgin. I'm sorry. Come here. Let me kiss you. Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry.

Your Avgin is—shockingly fluent. He doesn't know how. He can't think about it right now. All he can process is the wounded animal noise of your speech as you yell at him, as you cry. Like an injured songbird, or a weeping child. Why did you leave, why did you lie, why do you always lie to me, why don't you give a shit about me, you spit. Why do you want to die, why do you want to die, why do you want to die, you keep saying. Sand, sister, goddess, ghost, he keeps hearing. Sand, sister, goddess, ghost. Don't leave me, big sister. People will die. Why do you have to go?

“I’m sorry,” he tries again, this time in your language. “I'm so sorry. Come here. Let me hold you.”

You collapse into your mother tongue. Aventurine is both relieved and horrified. Relieved that he doesn't need to hear the language of his grief—horrified that he needs to hear yours. He's never heard you cry like this. He's never heard you break like this. These must have been the words you used when the soldiers found you hiding in your closet, when they dragged you out of your home. You were just a child.

Aventurine doesn't know the words you are using—you've never taught them—but he still understands them.

You're very malleable when you’re sad; even more so when you're hysterical. Aventurine understands this about you, and he understands how to calm you—this time in your native tongue—and he understands how to kiss you. He understands that you need to feel close to him. He understands that there are ways to accomplish this other than sex. A normal person would talk it out, have an honest conversation, come to a mutual understanding, and maybe even stop trying to kill himself. They wouldn't fuck you into the mattress while your face is still wet with tears.

But Aventurine is not a normal person. He doesn't know how to have an honest conversation, and he doesn't want to be understood. Lying is his greatest weapon, and sex is a close second. So he kisses you until you’re too breathless to cry, fucks you until you can't think, and makes you come so hard that you’re in too much bliss to grieve. And maybe it's horrible of him, but he enjoys it. He enjoys the way your body takes him in so easily, the way your nails dig into his back, the way you tighten around him when you climax, so wet and needy for him. The way you beg for him in your language for liars as he spends himself inside you: I love you, Aventurine, I love you, I love you, I love you—

Only because it feels good. This is all only because he enjoys fucking you. This is all only because you enjoy fucking him. This is all it'll ever be, and it'll be this way until he gets to meet his end.

(Some months ago, Aventurine started dreaming in Avgin.

It surprised him when he first noticed it. The last time he remembers having a dream in his native tongue, he was twelve years old and still in chains. And even then, it had become a sporadic, strange thing. Awful to wake up from. One minute he was with his mother and sister on a cool, rainy day, speaking fluently in Avgin as he laughed and played—and the next minute, he was being shaken awake in his cage, hearing the cruel lash of Katican.

But ever since he's started speaking Avgin with you, he's been dreaming in it. Vividly. Sometimes he's a child in these dreams, and sometimes he's grown. He's always back in the Sigonian desert, among the tents and the campfires and his family wagons. His mother and sister are alive. Sometimes his father is too. The skies roar with thunder and the stellar winds are always harsh, but they always keep him cocooned up in their arms. He's always warm.

Sometimes Aventurine dreams of nicer days. Clear skies, warm sun, cool breeze—all blessings from the Mother Goddess. On these days, he tends to be an adult, and you tend to be there with him. Your Avgin is fluent but strange, filled with funny loanwords and peculiar slang. His father likes the neologisms and starts using them—but only in wrong ways. His sister finds it embarrassing and keeps apologising to you.

His mother loves you. She loves you so much it hurts. This is how I know you're blessed, Kakavasha, she says, glowing. You’re so lucky to have found such a kind person.

Kakavasha knows this. He knows he's lucky, and in his dreams, that isn't a bad thing. In his dreams, his luck means that his home is not violently excised from his heart: his father never dies; his mother never dies; his sister never dies. The tents are not burned; the wagons are not destroyed. He is never forced to forget his people's dishes, their songs, their language, their joy. And in his dreams, his luck means that he meets you anyway, without all the loss and the chains and the lying.

In his dreams, he is able to bring you to the desert. He is able to teach you the Avgin he spoke as a child, to cook all the meals his mother used to make, to share with you their coffee and their tea. He teaches you prayers. He teaches you blessings. He tells you about Mama Fenge, about how the rain fell when he was born. He takes you to the Kakava Festival, shows you how to dance, sings to you all the Avgin songs until you're singing back. He presses his palm to yours in prayer; he kisses you in devotion, not avoidance.

Sometimes the two of you still fight, the same fights that you have in real life, but he handles them with honesty. He listens to you. He apologises to you. He tells you that he’ll change, and he means it—because this world is a kind one, and he has no need to be so cruel to you.

In this kind world, when you lay in bed with his arms tight around you, you smile at him and say, I love you, Kakavasha. You say it in Avgin—real Avgin, not the dialect born from genocide and deceit—and when he responds, there's not even a little bit of insincerity in his voice. Because Kakavasha never became Aventurine in these dreams, so he has no Interastral Standard in which he can lie to you, no silver tongue with which he can manipulate you, no commodity code that inspires his fear of being controlled by you. Kakavasha only knows Avgin, and he only has his sand, his family, his goddess, his home.

And he has you. Finally, he has you.

He kisses you, and kisses you, and kisses you—and then he tells you the truth.)

Aventurine cannot lie in Avgin.

You noticed this very early on: whenever he lies to you, he always switches to Interastral Standard. Probably he wouldn't be able to do it in his mother tongue. His command of it is too weak, and the words he knows are all too kind. He speaks with the innocence of a child, and children cannot deceive people in the way that adults can. Children cannot perform commerce or negotiate contracts. They cannot use a silver tongue to rob people blind. They cannot save themselves from the gallows.

So Aventurine’s Avgin is defenceless. Vulnerable. So vulnerable it hurts. You are not so vulnerable in your first language because your captors spoke it on occasion, and you learned to lie in it to gain their pity. You told Aventurine that knowing it would help him understand you, but this was a deception. Aventurine’s mother tongue was a language of trust, but yours is a dialect of abuse.

The Avgin language died before Aventurine could be gutted by it; this is why it disarms him so completely. This is why he’s so indulgent and so warm when you use it with him, why he yields to all your requests. Not requests for money or gifts—you’re certain those are meaningless to him—but for affection. Let me hold you. Let me touch you. Let me kiss you. He can never say no.

This is also why he loves hearing you speak his mother tongue, you think—it makes him feel at home, it makes him feel safe. Maybe it even makes him feel loved. He never seems so at peace speaking any other language, so you try to use Avgin as much as possible. You like seeing him happy. You like it even if it means you need to teach him your own native language in exchange, even when it means you need to hear him say all the things your captors used to say. You don't mind it if it's him. You never mind the harm he inflicts on you, especially not when it brings you closer to him.

It is convenient that he cannot lie in Avgin. You only wanted to learn it in the first place because he talks in his sleep—mostly in Standard, but sometimes in his native tongue. And now that you know he cannot lie in Avgin, you also know he's always being honest in his dreams. Honest when he throws his arms around you in his sleep. Honest when he grabs you so tightly that you bruise. Honest when he buries his face into your neck and whispers prayers into your skin.

Most of the words he says are common ones, the earliest vocabulary that he taught you. But there are some things he's withheld from you—and to learn those things, you had to track down linguists from the Intelligentsia Guild, bribe them with your dirty money, have them give you all their deprecated, extinct data. It felt two-faced, and it was violating, but it was the only way. You already know that Aventurine would rather die than translate his feelings for you, would never want this part of himself understood.

I'm sorry for always leaving you.

I'm sorry for making you cry.

I can't bear the thought of losing you.

Freedom would be too lonely without you.

I don't want to hurt you anymore.

I don't want to lie to you anymore.

I missed you.

I want you.

I need you.

I love you.

end

afterword

#aventurine x reader #hsr x reader #honkai star rail x reader #x reader #hsr smut #aventurine smut #lol it isnt really smut but it is nsft i suppose #nsft #yueshuo.fics

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motorsportbarbie13 · 25 days ago

Text

The Princess & The Pilot

In which Lando Norris meets his childhood crush, who just happens to be an actual princess.

Warnings: none Pairing: Lando Norris x BritishPrincess!Reader Word Count: 3.5k or something

(quick note: running late for a meeting this morning but wanted to get this out. I'll update the tag list later tonight when/if I have time. Enjoy the new seriesssss!)

Master List

There must be a foreign power invading London.

That is the only reason you can think that your assistant would be waking you up at 8am the morning after you spent nearly 12 hours entertaining Argentinian foreign dignitaries with your father yesterday. When you had tumbled into bed at 2am after the state dinner the previous night, the last words you had mumbled to Noelle were ‘please don’t wake me up before noon tomorrow.’

This was supposed to be your one day off after attending engagements with your parents four days in a row.

“I’m so sorry, your highness.” Noelle whispers from where she stands at the foot of her bed. You immediately wonder if the palace groundskeepers would be willing to install a set of locks on the doors to your apartments that only you had the keys to.

“Noelle, you’ve been my assistant for how many years now? You can call me by my first name.” You grumble from under the thick cream duvet that you had tugged over your head moments before.

You glare at Noelle but immediately regret it when you see the anxious look on the older woman’s face. This wasn’t her choice, you realized. “What does my father want now?”

Noelle worries at the corner of her lip before holding out her cell phone. “He’s been trying to reach you for an hour now. Insisted I come wake you up.”

“He’s been unable to reach me because he swore up and down last night that I’d get today off from anything family related.” You complain, unable to keep the whine out of your voice.

Tossing off the covers, you swing your legs over the side of your king sized bed before reaching out to take Noelle’s phone from her. You can see the active call ticking away with your father’s name on the caller ID ‘HRH King Edward’

“Good morning Papa.” You expertly adjust your tone, knowing that if your father hears one single hint of grouchiness in your voice you’ll never hear the end of it. “Everything okay?”

“Your brother is sick.” His tone is brisk and you try to tell yourself he doesn’t mean to be short with you. He is literally the King of England after all. You’re sure he’s got a few things on his mind beyond worrying about waking his youngest child up at the crack of dawn.

“Does he need me to bring him something? Soup? Medicine?”

Your father scoffs on the other end of the line. “Don’t be silly.” He scolds. “My doctor has already been in to see him this morning. It’s just the flu, but he is contagious.”

You’re silent on your end of the phone, knowing there is more to come as the news of your older brother being sick didn’t really warrant an early morning phone call.

“I need you to take over the engagement he was going to do today.”

It takes every ounce of royal training for you not to groan. You’d been attending events and engagements all weekend long, standing in for your mother who also was sick with the flu. “Can’t Mike do it?”

Your youngest brother Michael was in his final year at Oxford before he’d go on to do the requisite military training but he was still able to engagements here and there.

“Michael has exams this week, so he is unavailable.”

You nearly suggest your sister-in-law Charlotte take her husbands place but know that would also be turned down as she’s been busy with her new well baby charity and juggling having two young children at home as well. The weight of the expectations of being the second eldest child of the King of England hangs heavy on your shoulders as the sunlight pours in through the curtains Noelle has drawn back. It’s a gorgeous spring day in London, which you know is rare this time of year. You had been planning on spending the day out on the private gardens that are tucked away in a hidden part of the palace not open to tourists reading a book in the quiet.

“What’s the engagement then?” You sigh, resigning yourself to the fact that once again, your family duties were coming before your own personal agenda.

You tried so hard not to be resentful of the weight of who you were and most of the time, you were fine with your station in life. You lived a very privileged, if not somewhat regimented and controlled, life as the only daughter to King Edward and Queen Matilde of the United Kingdom. Your parents, while busy with their own lives and duties, adored you and your two brothers, Sebastian and Michael. They had worked hard when you were younger to make sure that you and your siblings were raised as normally as possible, which hadn’t always been easy.

“You’ll be going out to the Silverstone Circuit in Towcester to meet with some people from the McLaren Formula 1 team. They're the Duke of Dover Awards newest partner and their drivers are doing some laps the track with children from the local schools. They’d like to take you on the track too.”

Your brother had started the Duke of Dover Awards when he had married Charlotte 10 years ago and had inherited the title as the heir to the throne. The foundation awarded hundreds of thousands of pounds each year to kids and teenagers that applied to be recipients of grants to improve their communities, start small businesses, and conduct scientific research. It was your brother’s brainchild and baby and you were shocked that Sebastian had agreed to allow anyone that wasn’t him to go near an event of theirs.

Sighing, you stand and shrug on the silk robe that was hanging form the little hook next to your bed. You were certainly not getting a day off today, now were you? “Okay, sounds straight forward enough. Does Noelle have the details?”

“Yes, Noelle has everything you’ll need. Thank you for helping, little dove.”

Your heart squeezes as the nickname your father has used since you were a toddler. You knew he carried a heavy weight with the crown on his head and expected nothing but the best from himself, and by extension you and your siblings, at all times because of it. He meant well and loved you fiercely, you knew that but sometimes it got lost in the legacy of what it meant to be a Windsor.

“Of course, Papa.”

You hang up and hand the phone back to your assistant. “Papa says you have all the details. Could you have everything printed out so I can read it in the car. Towcester is quite far away, isn’t it?”

“About an hour and a half, if traffic is good.”

You nod, mind jumping into preparation mode. The timeline that had landed in your inbox while you had been on the phone with your father said you needed to be there a little after 1pm, which gave you enough time to get ready. “Can you call Tibby, give her the details and have her pull some outfits for me? I can do my own makeup and I don’t think I’ll need anything fancy for hair, yeah?”

Noelle nods, eyes skimming her emails. “Your brother’s valet says he was planning on wearing jeans and a jumper, so it sounds casual. Natural makeup and a sporty ponytail, maybe?”

“That’s fine, I can do that myself.” Sometimes it chafed at you how much had to go into your appearance. You could never really go out looking sloppy or unkempt because the bad press that it inevitably invited drove your mother crazy. If your father was preoccupied with the weight of his crown, your mother was preoccupied with the weight of what her image meant to millions of people. It was a difficult relationship to navigate and you didn’t always do a good job, so you tried to maintain at least the minimum appearance standards your mother requested just to appease her.

Noelle snaps into action, calling Sebastian’s valet to get some more details on the people that will be present along with any other notes he had thought important. You pad towards your private bathroom to take a shower and get ready for what you assumed would be another routine royal engagement.

And boy, how wrong you were.

“Are you nervous?” Oscar mutters as he comes to lean against the counter in the garage next to where Lando stands, scrolling on his phone.

Lando looks up, confusion knitting his brows together. “Nervous for what?”

As far as he knew, this was just going to be another routine event with some kids and the Duke of Dover, who he'd already met last year during the race at Silverstone. Nothing to be nervous about really.

“To meet the princess!” Oscar chuckles, knocking his shoulder into Lando's.

“Princess?" The crease on his forehead deepens even more. "I thought it was the Duke that was coming. Isn’t it his awards thing that we're partnering with?”

Oscar shrugs. “Zak said the Duke is sick. His sister is coming instead. Apparently she just pulled in as well. Sophie is running around like a chicken with it's head cut off. Something about not being prepared for her."

Oh. A thick sense of anxiety settles in the pit of Lando's stomach. Oh fuck. This changed things. He certainly hadn't been nervous before but now he was, knowing that it was you that he'd be driving around the track instead of your brother.

Like most guys his age, Lando had grown up with photos of you taped to the back of his door and indulged in several...interesting and not very polite fantasies when he was in his teens. In fact, now that Lando thinks about it, you were probably his very first crush. You had been the first princess to be born into the Royal family in two generations and the press had fallen in love with you the day you were born, dubbing you the English Rose that was going to save the monarchy.

Once you reached your 18th birthday and debuted into society, taking your place beside your older brother and parents by working for the family full time while going to university to study international business, the country had fallen even more in love with you. Your family was well loved by the entirety of the Common Wealth but you? You were absolutely everyone's favorite Windsor by a country mile. And that included the British Formula One driver.

"You okay, mate?" Oscar's thick accent shakes Lando out of his day dream.

"Oh, yeah." Lando replies weakly, rubbing the palm of his hand over his jaw, glad he had shaved this morning and put a bit of extra care into his hair.

"Boys!" Sophie, McLaren's head of Public Relations, yells at the entrance of the garage, fists on her hips as she taps her toe glaring at the pair. "The princess is here and everyone is waiting on you."

"Coming." Lando mumbles, desperately trying to tamp down the nerves that are making his stomach do somersaults. This is like a teenage wet dream come true.

Just outside the garage is a group of people clustered around several McLaren sports cars waiting to get started. Lando can see Zak chatting with you from 50 meters away and he loses all ability to think straight when he sees you in person for the first time. You're dressed in dark wash jeans that hug your curves and, much to Lando's surprise, a papaya colored knit jumper. With your hair pulled back in a high ponytail, your delicate features on full display. He couldn't help thinking how much better you looked in real life compared to the glossy magazine photos he used to keep tacked up to his bedroom wall.

Out of the corner of your eye, you see Lando, Oscar, and Sophie approaching before Zak does but you don't allow the group to distract you from your conversation with McLaren's CEO. That kind of behavior would send your mother into a tailspin. She hadn't sent you off to boarding school at the age of 12 for nothing after all. But you can't help how your stomach twists when you lock eyes with the boy with the curly hair. A nervous ghost of a smile plays at the corner of his full lips, sending goosebumps exploding over your skin.

"Oh, there they are!" Zak finally notices the drivers and Sophie and moves to introduce everyone. Behind you, Noelle hovers, lying in wait to correct anyone who might break royal protocol when it comes to interacting with you. You desperately wish she would've let you come alone.

Introductions are made and you try your hardest to ignore the way your skin sparks when you shake hands with Lando. Zak explains how the afternoon is going to go and that Lando is going to take you around the track on a hot lap while Oscar and a few other reserve McLaren drivers take the kids out behind.

"Nervous, your highness?" Lando asks as he checks the chin strap on your crash helmet.

The way your stomach dips when he smiles at you has nothing to do with nerves.

"You're about to whip me around this race track at speeds that could kill me, I think you can call me by my first name, Lando." You tease, deflecting the real reason your palms are sweating.

Lando blushes, eyes falling to the ground. "I guess that's true. Just didn't want your lady in waiting to tackle me for committing some protocol crime, I guess."

The laugh that escapes you would send your mother into a complete fit it's so sudden and loud. "She does look like she's lying in wait, doesn't she?" Your eyes dart above Lando's shoulder where Noelle stands, eyes trained on you as if she's expecting someone to attack at any moment.

"She's just a little...protective." You say, voice going soft. "Last year we had a little incident where I was being stalked for several months. The guy thought we were engaged and he somehow managed to get around my protection officers and into my building at 3 in the morning. They caught him outside my door with duct tape, rope and a knife in his bag."

Your eyes go wide with horror as you realize what you've just said. No one in the public knew about that, your parents had insisted on keeping the investigation quiet. The man had been sent to a psychiatric facility with the blessing of his family and charges hadn't been filed in order to protect your privacy. You had no idea why you had just spilled one of your most closely kept secrets to a veritable stranger.

"Well then I'm glad she's here to watch over you." Lando's voice is quiet, like he knows you don't want others overhearing this conversation. "I'd hate to think of anything happening to such a pretty girl."

For several moments, the busy pitlane falls away a bit as Lando's hands remain on the straps of your helmet and he looks at you like he's known you for your entire life. You're used to people staring at you and being under the microscope but the way Lando looks at you makes you want to squirm in the most delicious way possible.

"Okay, you two!" Zak booms, shocking you out of the little bubble that had grown around you and Lando those few moments. "Lets get you out on the track. Lando, please remember this is a member of the royal family, I'd rather not have to leave the country if you injure her."

"What kind of knight in shining armor would I be if I hurt the princess in my charge?" Lando quips, aiming a wink your way before rounding the hood of the low slung papaya colored McLaren.

You can't help the way you snort in response to his flirting, it's so ridiculous but you also can't ignore the way your stomach twists in delight at the way Lando's tongue works around the word princess while he looks at you.

You had to be careful though. Despite Lando being famous and well off in his own right, you were even a step above that and life had taught you that even the most well connected and rich men saw you as the ultimate prize. Who wouldn't want to marry the only daughter to the King of England, even if they had billions. You can't buy a real royal pedigree. Not like the one you had, dating back generations on both sides of your family.

No, you couldn't allow yourself the luxury of lowered walls but you could allow yourself to indulge in a little innocent flirting, because that's all it would ever or could ever be with Lando Norris.

"Zak, can I file a workplace injury claim if I've gone deaf this afternoon from her screeching?" Lando complained as he held out a hand to help you out of the McLaren 45 minutes later.

"I have no idea what you're talking about! Princesses don't screech." You sniff, smile tugging at the corner of your mouth as you yank your hand out of his grasp the moment you're steady on your feet.

Lando snorts now, rolling his eyes, enjoying the color that flushes in high on your cheekbones. He was the one to make you blush like that and it sends a zing of arousal straight to his cock. While you had been in the car with Lando, before he had scared the daylights out of you, he'd been able to overcome the initial nerves of meeting his boyhood crush and had settled into a flirty conversation. The way you two bantered back and forth so naturally was new to Lando and kind of unnerving to him, but in a good way.

"I'm inclined to believe if the princess was driven to 'screech' that it was all your fault, Lando." Zak jokes with a shrug before turning to you. "Thank you so much for coming out this afternoon and filling in for your brother. We got some great shots of you guys on the track and before with everyone together."

You nod, smiling at the group that's now gathered. Beside you, Lando has wiggled his way between Noelle and yourself so he's settled in at your side. "Wonderful. I'm sure they'll be the perfect content you guys all need. Is there anything else you need from me today? Did all the kids get laps on the track and the merch bags?"

Sophie nods, "Yes ma'am, no one left empty handed."

You sigh internally knowing that the day is almost over. You can taste the freedom of the back seat of the Range Rover where you can finally let your mask down for a few extra moments. You loved days like this, busy and filled with lost of interaction with the public but it was also exhausting beyond measure. You knew you'd sleep well tonight, having attended events nearly every night for the past 9 days.

"Good, thank you." Your eyes find the McLaren CEO who stands across from you. "Zak, I assume we'll see you at the awards gala Saturday night?"

Zak nods, "Yes, Oscar and I will be there."

You can't help the bit of disappointment that blooms in your chest when he doesn't say Lando's name. You hate it and ignore it the best you can because it simply isn't acceptable. So instead you lean on your years of training and upbringing to hide your true feelings. "Lovely, I can't wait to see you both again."

As Lando watches your car pull away, he can't help but feel a little disappointed that your time together is up.

"What awards gala was she talking about? Why wasn't I invited? Lando practically whines, turning to Zak once the Range Rover is out of sight.

Zak chuckles "You were invited Norris and you turned it down because, and I quote, 'you don't do boring awards dinners that aren't written into your contract'."

Lando kicks at a rock with his sneaker, feeling a bit foolish. "Well, I guess I'm just going to have to make an exception for this one then."

Zak narrows his eyes, not liking where he thinks Lando's head is going. "Listen Norris, I know your personal life is none of my business."

"And you'd be right in that assesment, Zak." Lando responds cooly.

Zak holds his hand up, "But I'd be remiss if I didn't remind you that whatever I think is going on in your head about the woman that just left the track is probably a bad idea. A princess like her is not able to have a casual relationship like the ones your used to. Just..." Zak pauses, trying to put his advice in the best words possible. "Just be careful, okay?"

"Message recieved loud and clear, Zak." Lando mutters before turning and walking back towards the garages.

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