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spiderman-homecomeme · 4 years

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i wish i knew how (your eyes are like starlight now)

🎄The Twelve Days of Promptmas🎄 - Day Ten

concepts: baking, cold sleepy cuddles, holiday smut ❆❆❆

Peter’s mind buzzes as he fumbles with the sack of flour, nearly spilling it all over the counter as he trips over his own feet. He feels as if he’s in one of those dumb infomercials—“there’s got to be a better way!”—when he opens the top cupboard and he’s immediately pelted with the box of disorganized seasonings and extracts. There’s a sense of relief when he manages to catch the red, green, and blue food coloring before it hits the ground, though the feeling fades into a mild panic when he can’t remember if the recipe MJ had sent him called for baking soda or baking powder.

It also does not help that his hands might be the tiniest bit sweaty.

So he’s a little nervous for some reason. It’s fine. It happens to everyone when they invite their best friend over for some holiday baking.

Just some casual, friendly holiday baking.

Sure, Ned’s not coming, but that doesn’t mean that this is any different, right?

Right?

So why does his heart skip one or two beats when MJ sends him a text that says she’s five minutes away?

It’s strange.

MJ’s great, she really is. She’s smart, funny, just an all around cool, amazing, good person. The best that he knows. There’s absolutely no reason to be nervous around her. Yeah, she can be a little mysterious, closed-off even, but as he’s gotten to know her, he’s seen glimpses of that soft, gooey person that’s inside.

Yet, even with all of that, lately Peter’s been feeling the exact opposite of “at ease” around her. His stomach always feels like it’s training for the olympics when she’s around, his brain going all fuzzy anytime she talks to him, like he’s stood up way too fast.

It’s the exact feeling he gets when he hears a knock at the front door.

And again, he nearly spills sugar all over the tile.

His body’s kind enough to carry him to the door, and he takes a deep breath, gathering himself before opening it. “Heyyyy.”

He mentally kicks himself for being so weird.

“Hey,” she gives a single wave, lips pressing together into a thin, casual smile. “You ready?”

Nodding quickly, he swallows, folding his arms across his chest. “Yeah. Yeah. Of course.”

He stays like that a moment, his eyes unconsciously taking her in—her soft-looking hoodie, the cozy looking joggers, her black converse.

“Uh… can I come in?”

Peter immediately snaps out of whatever daze he was in, huffing out a laugh as he steps aside. “Shit. Yeah. Sorry.”

She gives another small smile and a single nod, walking past him, her hands twiddling together.

It’s odd, Peter offhandedly thinks, as they walk into the kitchen, as they each put on one of his old hand-me-down aprons from May and Ben, how quiet she’s being. Of course, MJ’s not normally a loud person, by any means, but there’s usually a lot more snark when it comes to anything Peter does.

He’s especially surprised when she only lets out a quiet snort when he drops one of the bowls in his haste to get everything out and ready.

She’s still quiet as she whips out her phone, pulling up the recipe, lips twisting in thought as she scrolls. “Wow, I’m so glad that this lady decided to tell us about the time her sister smashed her gingerbread house before telling us the recipe,” she deadpans, though the corner of her lip quicks upward into a slight grin. “Every cookie recipe needs a good backstory.”

Peter snorts. “If there’s no plot, what’s the point? What’s the motivation?”

He feels MJ’s gaze drift up to him from behind her phone, and he can see her smile growing from the corner of his eye.

For some odd reason, it’s enough to make his ears burn.

A beat passes, neither of them saying anything as MJ continues to read and scroll through the recipe, Peter absentmindedly twiddling with the rim of the mixing bowl.

The silence is broken when she clears her throat, her hand moving to smooth over the back of her neck, resting there. “So, um—I guess uh, preheat the oven to 375. And… Prepare baking sheets by lining with parchment paper,” she reads.

Peter nods, inside of his lip caught between his teeth as he turns to the oven, a slight jitter to his movements as he presses the appropriate buttons. “What next?” He asks, as if he’s just completed the hardest part, grabbing an old cookie sheet from the cabinet beside the oven.

MJ cracks a smile, though it fades quickly when she goes back to the recipe, reading off the list of dry ingredients for them to mix together. The bowl is too small at first—a lapse in Peter’s judgement of what small means—a few patches of flour spilling out onto the counter when his overexcited mixing gets the best of him. The light teasing that MJ throws his way makes his heart do backflips, his stomach leap up into his chest.

It’s the strangest sensation that he’s starting to not really mind all that much.

MJ mixes the butter, brown sugar, and egg in one of the bigger bowls, tongue sticking out between her lips as she wrangles the electric mixer, deep in concentration when they add in the molasses and vanilla; it’s a look that Peter offhandedly thinks is very cute.

Especially with the bit of flour dusting her nose when they start to add the dry ingredients.

And it’s even cuter when they start cutting out the shapes in the dough, the Hanukkah cookie cutter set he’d gotten from May when he’d first moved in finally getting good use. There’s only one man, and they grab for it at the same time, both of them yanking their hands back when their knuckles brush.

MJ takes it, smiling quietly.

It seems like all of these feelings should feel new, given that he’s only just now noticing them. But, in a weird way, they feel nothing like that. Almost the exact opposite. Like they’ve been around forever and he’s just never thought too much about them, whatever they are.

It’s more confusing than anything.

Especially when, after getting the cookies in the oven, and they start mixing the icing together, MJ’s hit with a bold streak, swiping her blue-icing covered thumb over his forehead when he’s busy mixing his own bowl.

“Simbaaaaaa,” she says, her voice comically low and raspy—her best Rafiki impression.

“Hey!” Peter jumps away from her, a laugh bubbling up from his chest as he holds in hands up in self-defense. “What the hell?!”

“You got a little something—” she gestures to her own forehead, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing.

He feels his own smile nearly take over his entire face, feeling a challenge flaring in his chest when he dips the tip of his finger into his own icing bowl, booping her on the nose before she can dodge him.

“Hey—”

“You got a little something,” he says, mocking her from two seconds before, unable to keep his smile from growing even more. There’s a giddiness in his stomach, and he feels as if he’s lighter than air itself when she laughs at him.

MJ’s so cool, he can’t help but think.

And pretty.

Peter shakes his head when she doesn’t look away, and he wipes at his forehead, trying unsuccessfully to get the sticky blue off of him.

“You’ve still got some—right there,” she gestures to herself again. “Do you want me to get it?” She asks, a jitteriness to her tone as she lets out a chuckle. “I can lick it off.”

Peter’s sure that his face is every shade of red at this point. He nearly chokes on nothing, and he suddenly finds that he’s lost all ability to speak as he stares at her with furrowed brows, thoroughly dumbfounded.

“I’m kidding,” she says quickly, laughing it off, looking back down at her hands, stained blue and green from the dye in the food coloring. “Jeez, Parker.”

There’s a hint of something to her tone, but he can’t exactly pinpoint what it is; maybe nerves, maybe the awkwardness from him literally not saying anything at all in response. He’s not sure.

And he tries to brush it off as they clean up while they wait for the cookies to finish baking. A quiet falls between them, both pleasant and at the same time wildly uncomfortable. He clears his throat, placing the mixing bowl in the sink, his focus as he scrubs the dough from the sides failing.

When he turns around and catches her eye, his heart skips as she snorts at the sight of him, blue icing still caked onto his forehead.

“God, okay, let me get that,” she huffs out, grabbing a paper towel. He can almost smell the soft lavender notes of her shampoo when she leans over him to wet the paper towel in the sink. It’s dizzying, he finds, especially when she smiles at him as she wipes across his forehead. And he finds when her eyes meet his, he can’t look away, drawn in. He offhandedly thinks how pretty her eyes are, how soft they look, even when they’re teasing him.

“There,” she says, giving him one last, playful, less than gentle pat on the forehead.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, still seemingly lost in his trance, blinking slowly. “You’ve uh—you’ve still got some. On your nose.”

And almost disappointingly, she wipes it off herself with the same paper towel.

Why he’s disappointed, he has no idea.

MJ’s quick to change the subject—or, start one—before he can even think of anything to say. She’s warmed up by now, less tense, though there’s still a jitter to her movements, a certain breathiness to her laugh that makes the butterflies in his stomach seem to kick into overdrive.

And it’s a back and forth as they start decorating the cookies—after they’ve cooled, of course. MJ wouldn’t let him anywhere near them when she’d taken them out of the oven.

“What did you do to that Menorah?” She asks him through a laugh as he struggles to even out the too-big dollop of icing he’d put on his first cookie.

“I’m not good at this, okay?” He laughs back, letting out a comically quiet scream when the icing drips down onto his hand. He does a double-take though, looking at her cookie.

A man with a too-big, borderline dumb smile, eyes nearly on opposite sides of the cookie, wearing all red and blue. “What is that?”

“It’s you,” she says with a toothy grin, as if it’s obvious. “Do you like it?”

“Why does he look like that?” Peter finds himself laughing more.

“I think he’s cute,” she says simply.

Peter nearly short-circuits, but he honestly has no response. At all.

Because she can’t mean what he thinks she means, right? No. Absolutely not. MJ’s calling the cookie cute. Get your shit together, Parker.

He does feel her glance at him a few times after that comment, almost as if she’s waiting to see if he’ll say anything. Then again, that’s literally just his brain making him think that, making him see and feel things. Obviously.

There’s no way MJ likes him like that.

And it doesn’t even matter really. They’re just friends.

Just some good pals.

The cookies are even more delicious than they’d smelled, and Peter finds himself caught up in just how cozy and safe it feels to be eating gingerbread cookies with his best friend, even when said best friend pointedly bites off the bottom half of the cookie that supposed to look like him. She can’t keep a straight face, though, nearly choking on the gingerbread when he snorts, crumbs flying.

“Gross,” she says through her mouthful, unable to keep herself from laughing.

Peter finally swallows, struggling to get a word out. “You started it!”

They turn on some documentary—though, if he’s being honest, Peter’s finding that he can’t pay much attention to it. He keeps wanting to look at Michelle, glancing at her every few seconds. It’s a sight that makes his whole body flood with warmth, seeing her curled up on the other end of his couch, absently munching on a cookie as she stares at the screen.

There’s a moment where she catches him looking at her, the corners of her lips twitching into a quick smile when they both immediately look away.

Peter swears he can feel his heart beating in his ears.

Though he has no idea when he started feeling this way about her, this weird nervousness, he now realizes how not new it is. He’s always thought Michelle was cool. That she was smart. That she was funny. That she was so pretty.

But if he’s always thought this, then why is this… realization suddenly hitting him like a train? Why is it that he can’t even look at her without his stomach wanting to jump right out of his body? Why when every time she so much as talks to him is he smiling like a damn idiot?

Why now?

And then, it dawns on him when she looks over at him, her lips pressing into a shy smile before quickly looking back at the TV, curling her legs to her chest more.

Oh.

Well, shit.

There’s been a number of time’s where Peter’s questioned his own intelligence. Sure, he’s good at school—ignoring the late and missing assignments—he’s made his own web formula.

But, fuck, he’s a dumbass.

Because he’s been stupidly, deliriously, ridiculously in love with his best friend and he’s only just now realized it.

He’s lost track of time by the end of the documentary, barely registering as the credits roll, and they sit there, neither one saying a thing. Peter feels the awkwardness—again, not entirely the worst thing, for some reason—creeping up his neck. He jumps up from the couch, needing something, anything to do.

With this new realization, Peter feels almost more nervous, terrified of doing something stupid like exposing himself.

It’s almost midnight by the time they finish putting the cookies away, saving the rest for later, of course.

MJ stretches her hands above her head, moving them down to hold herself. “It’s getting pretty late,” she says, her voice soft, tired.

Peter nods, pressing his lips together, leaning on the counter. “Yeah…”

Neither of them move.

“I should probably go…” She trails off, rocking back on her heels, though she still doesn’t make any kind of move to the door. She looks out the window, groaning at the sight of the heavy snow falling. She huffs out a nervous laugh, her eyes meeting his expectantly. “It’s so cold though.”

“I could… lend you a coat? Or something?” He can’t help but cough into his arm, glancing around the apartment as his lips curve into a shaky smile.

MJ seems to get a kick out of that. “Nah. ‘Cause then I’ll have to give it back… and then I’d just end up keeping it.”

There’s nothing that can stop the faint dusting of pink on Peter’s cheeks as he thinks about he wouldn’t mind that at all.

After a beat, however, Peter’s brow furrows in concern, altogether missing the way she’s looking at him. “Did you walk here?”

She purses her lips. “Yeah.”

“I—” Peter clears his throat, not wanting to seem to eager at the idea of her staying. “I could call you an Uber?”

She shakes her head, brow pinched. “No. No, that’s fine. Then I’d have to pay you back.”

“Yeah, you’d probably forget that, too,” Peter finds himself teasing.

“Hey!”

“Kidding…” Peter clears his throat, biting back his smile.

A beat passes again where neither say anything, the two of them awkwardly shifting on their feet as they wait for the other to speak.

Peter’s the first to break. “I mean, if you want, you could… stay here. Wait the storm out.” It feels like it takes about five-hundred years to get those words out, and even longer when MJ’s eyes meet his. And it’s not his best idea, given he’s just figured out he’s in love with her. Having her in such close proximity overnight seems like the las thing he should do.

But he can’t seem to stop himself.

“When it’s not so… cold.”

Her fingers drum against the other side of the counter, the inside of her lip caught between her teeth.

“Good point,” she finally replies.

Peter breathes out a smile, finding himself relieved, though he’d never admit to it. “So…” He clears his throat again, disguising it behind a cough into his arm. “Sleepover?” He asks lamely.

MJ’s expression breaks, and she snorts out a laugh, a sound he wants to hear over and over again.

It goes quiet again though, MJ seeming to be deep in thought before she says anything again.

“I hope it’s okay, though…” She glances left and right, a tint of insecurity in her gaze. “I like to sleep without pants on. If that’s cool… with you.”

And for a moment, Peter wonders if he’s died, or if he’s having a really vivid, cruel dream. He’s short circuited for a split-second; getting any kind of sentence out is damn near impossible. He blinks. Once. Twice.

“Um—” He finds himself saying, though he has no idea where that thought is going. “I mean. Whatever. Makes you… more comfortable. I guess?” He huffs out a nervous laugh, the idea of sharing a bed with a very pantsless MJ drilling it’s way into his brain.

There’s a minuscule upward twitch of her lips as she looks at him.

“I can take the couch,” Peter says dumbly, and instantly, he’s mentally kicking himself.

But it’s for good reason.

MJ needs to be comfortable.

She doesn’t feel the same way, and he doesn’t want to push himself on her. He doesn’t ever plan on telling her how he feels, so there’s no reason to make this any more difficult for either of them.

“And you can take my bed?”

He doesn’t see the way her expression falls ever so slightly.

“Oh—” Her head jerks back slightly, mouth tugging into a faint frown. “I mean. Sure. I guess.”

Peter only nods, feeling his shoulders squeezing up to his ears, every muscle in his body tight. He nearly trips over himself as he walks past her, leading her to his bedroom. She only throws him a fleeting smile as he pulls out a spare t-shirt for her to wear—what friends do—leaving just as quickly as he’d come into the room.

In his haste to get her out of his sight, he’s forgotten to grab his own pajamas. Or blankets. Or pillows.

Oh well.

It’s not like he’s going to walk back into that bedroom. That would be the most dangerous thing he could possibly do.

But then, as he lays down on the couch in just his boxers and his shirt that still has a few flour stains on it, his brain decides to bring back the cruel thought, the tempting image of Michelle in his bed. Without pants on.

It shouldn’t bother him as much as it does. He’s an adult. Not some hormonal teen anymore.

But everytime he closes his eyes, he can just see so vividly, and he can’t help but wonder what she’s wearing—

No.

Bad Peter.

That’s your friend.

Stop that.

He shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut in an effort to rid his mind of the idea of her long, bare legs tangled in his sheets.

Damn it!

It feels like the entire night’s passed by the time he opens his eyes again, only to realize that it’s only been thirty minutes. He huffs, flopping onto his back and staring up at the ceiling. It’s a fruitless endeavor, he knows, trying to fall asleep. He knows that as long as MJ’s in his room, there’s no way he’ll have any sort of peace.

He debates getting up and checking the cabinets in his bathroom for some melatonin or maybe even benadryl, when the floor at the entry to the hallway creaks. “Peter?”

He jolts upright, looking over the back of the couch to see MJ standing in the archway, the Stark Internship shirt he’d loaned her just reaching the tops of her thighs.

One wrong move, and he’d definitely see what she’s wearing.

He swallows, whispering a pathetic, “hey.”

“Uh, hey,” she responds breathily. “So… It’s like… really cold in your room.”

“Yeah?” Peter sits up more, the throw blanket pooling at his hips as he rubs his eyes. “Do you want like an extra blanket or… something?”

She shifts on her feet, her hands toying with the hem of the t-shirt, Peter finding his eyes instantly drawn to the movement.

He drags his gaze back up to meet her face.

“I was actually—uh… wondering if you could just come get in bed?”

He wants to say that all the blood’s left his body, but it’s honestly gone in two different directions. His face, and… well.

A faint, nervous chuckle spills out of him as he reaches up to scratch the back of his neck. It’s a terrible idea, saying yes, but there’s nothing he can do to stop himself from nodding silently and getting up from the couch. “Another blanket would… would probably be too much.”

A wavy smile tugs at her lips. “Yeah. Exactly.”

It’s strictly for that purpose, he reasons with himself. MJ’s cold. She needs another body next to her. Nothing more. No, sir.

And it stays that way in his mind as he crawls in next to her, as they turn to face each other, their knees barely brushing one another’s. It’s dark, but he’s close enough that he can just make out the soft curls on her forehead, the slight uptick of her lips as she looks at him.

It surprises him when she scoots just the slightest bit closer, the way she tilts toward him. A shiver ripples through her.

“Still cold?” He asks, his voice barely above a whisper.

A light chuckle bubbles up out of her. “Yeah. Could you—”

“Do you want me to hold you?” He asks before he can even think.

She laughs again, a breathy, borderline nervous sound.

And he’s frozen solid, a ringing in his ears, unable to move as she nestles against him, his arms wrapping around her. He has no idea what else to do, every muscle in his body tensing when she breathes out, and he knows then that this is where he’ll be the entire night. No sleep.

His eyes squeeze shut, and he tries not to concentrate on the feeling of her bare legs slotting against his, the warmth of her skin making his brain go all fuzzy.

“Is this… Is this better?” He asks, clearing his throat again.

She hums into him, and he can almost feel her smile into his chest. But she pulls back slightly, twisting so that she’s on her back and he’s propped up above her. “Almost,” she says softly, her eyes never leaving his.

“Are you sure you don’t want another blanket? I can—”

His words are cut off as she leans up to press her lips to his, her hand gently resting on his cheek.

It’s brief, barely five seconds, before she pulls away, biting at the inside of her lip.

Peter’s barely had time to process it; the softness of her lips, the warmth of her hand on his cheek. But it hits him in a dizzying flurry as she looks up at him, eyes sparkling, a glint of vulnerability in them as she waits for his response.

“What?” Is all he can ask, breathing out a giddy laugh.

“Was that okay?”

Peter’s smile widens. “God, yeah. But I mean—I’m just… Um… I’m a little surprised.”

Even in the dark of the room, Peter can see the way her face contorts. “Surprised? How?”

And then, it’s Peter’s turn to be confused. Was he not supposed to be?

“Uh… I don’t know it just kinda… came out of nowhere. Again—” He breathes out a chuckle. “—Not a bad thing. At all.”

She stares at him for a few seconds. She blinks. “Peter, I’ve been throwing myself at you this whole night.”

He almost falls off the bed. “What?!” He hisses.

“I thought I was being obvious,” she says, a laugh bubbling up from her chest. When he does nothing but stare at her in shock, she shrugs. “I was.”

“The… I—what? You…?” He laughs. “How?”

“Well—” Her fingers drum over the blanket. “—the icing fight was kinda classic flirty shit. Eating the gingerbread version of you that I said was cute.”

“I thought you were threatening me,” he quips.

“Who says I wasn’t?” She deapans, though he doesn’t miss the way the corner of her lips twitch upward. A beat passes. She blows a puff of air through her lips. “I mean, I dunno, I thought for sure you’d get the message when I said I slept without pants on.”

Pursing his lips, Peter nods slowly. “I did not.”

The silence afterward breaks when MJ lets out a sudden snicker.

“I’m such an idiot,” Peter scoffs to himself, covering his eyes. “God.”

MJ’s hand falls on his shoulder, gently—yet stiffly—patting him. “There, there,” she says. He can hear the smile in her voice. “I still think you’re cute,” she adds quietly. “So there’s that.”

He peeks out from behind his hands, unable to bite back his smile. “I’m a cute idiot?”

Her smile widens, even as she presses her lips together to keep it from growing. She reaches out, smoothing down his curls that had fallen onto his forehead.

“The cutest idiot.”

And as gross and sickly sweet as it is, Peter never wants this to end.

But when she leans in to kiss him again, he doesn’t mind. Not at all.

Her lips are soft against his, gentle and wanting. Her hand falls to his cheek, moving to cup his jaw as his arms coil around her waist, pulling himself closer as he leans over her. It feels like a dream, the warmth of her skin under the fabric of his t-shirt, the soft sighs she lets out as he deepens the kiss, and there’s a pang in his chest when he wonders if he’ll wake up from this, cold and alone.

But he knows it’s real. All of it. All of her.

His hand falls to her hip, slipping just underneath the hem of her shirt to draw soft lines into her skin. “MJ,” he says simply, breaking the kiss only for his lips to find a spot on the underside of her jaw. “I like you. So much.”

He hears her breathy laugh, a sound that makes his heart skip. “I like you, too. So much.”

And he grins against her neck, lips and tongue dragging back up to meet hers again in a searing kiss. Though the room is cold, there’s nothing but warmth underneath the blanket, under her touch, and he thinks that he could stay here forever.

Goodbye college.

Goodbye anything that’s not this bed and MJ.

It’s been a whirlwind; for one, realizing these feelings only just a few hours ago, and now he’s kissing her. His head’s spinning, slowly finding himself getting more and more addicted to the feel of her soft skin under his fingers and palms as they smooth down over her behind, along her bare thigh, drinking every inch of her in.

The sound of her moan against his mouth causes a flooding rush in his brain, the heat pooled in the pit of his stomach to burn, and he’d give anything to hear it again. His hand travels up the inside of her thigh, settling on her stomach, thumb resting on the trim of her cotton underwear.

She breathes in sharply, her muscles twitching underneath him. And he breaks away, muttering an apology into her lips. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she breathes back, and he can feel her smile against his lips as she pulls him back down. “I’m cold.”

It’s at the moment that he wonders if his heart will actually burst through his ribs with the way it’s pounding against them. He laughs breathily before eagerly kissing her, his fingers toying with the waistband of her panties. It almost makes him chuckle again when she subtly raises her hips, encouraging him, but he holds back, still not able to keep from smiling against her as his hands moves to cup her over the fabric of her underwear.

It’s so dizzying, how much warmer she is where his hand holds her, the heat radiating from her, and he has to screw his eyes shut to concentrate, beginning to draw slow lines up and down her center over the thin, damp cotton.

She sighs shakily against him, her head falling back, breaking the kiss as his lips find a home on the underside of her jaw. He brings her closer to him, nestled into his chest as he continues his ghost-like touches.

When his fingers finally brush over her clit, she sucks in a breath, one of her hands coming to comb through his curls.

He’s achingly slow as he circles the bundle of nerves through the fabric, matching the relaxed rhythm with his kisses on her neck. He knows he could go faster, that he could just get a move on, and judging from the way MJ’s grip in his hair tightens when he increases his pressure, she does, too.

But this moment is one he wants to stay in. To savor. He wants to pack up everything he owns and live in it.

But he also knows that his self-control might not last that long.

Again, for the nth time that night, he finds himself smiling, both at her soft whines as he picks up his speed and at the way her hand falls to cling to his shoulder. He can hear in how her breath hitches and quickens, feel how her muscles start to twitch underneath him, how she stiffens, that she’s close.

And right at that moment, he pulls away.

“Peter—”

Her whine is cut off by his hand dipping under the waistband of her underwear, finally touching her. Her mouth hangs open, a choked gasp spilling from her as he dips his fingers into her entrance, gathering her arousal and swirling it over her sensitive clit, and he can’t help but groan into her neck, feeling how wet she is.

How wet she is for him.

Her back arches as she pushes herself into him, his pace on her clit quickening when she moans out his name. And he murmurs hers back, his soft kisses on her skin a contrast to his feverish touches as he eagerly works her heat.

His fingers dip down again to her entrance, teasing faint circles before he slides one in, his eyes once again screwing shut at the warmth, at the feeling of her clenching around him. He works a steady pace, pumping his finger in and out, smiling at her wet gasp when he pushes a second one in, instinctively curling them as he glides through her wetness. Her grip on his shoulder tightens even more, nails digging as he finds that perfect spot inside her.

But then, when he feels her getting close again, he stops, and he wonders if she might hit him by the way she groans in frustration. Still, he smiles—cheekily—as he grabs the hand on his shoulder, guiding it down to her center.

“Can you touch yourself?” He asks, his tone too innocent for such a request, and he knows it.

MJ finds it in herself to laugh, shaking her head and closing her eyes as her hand sneaks under the waistband of her underwear and starts toying with her clit.

And for a moment, in all honesty, Peter almost forgets that he’s a part of this, too entranced in watching her face as she touches herself.

But then, he remembers. A true gentlemen, he peels her underwear from her legs, helping her kick them off before sneaking his hand down again to play with the wetness at her entrance, drowning his fingers in it. An airy smile tugs at her lips when he pushes his two fingers back in, languidly pumping in and out of her.

“Teamwork,” he mutters dumbly into her neck.

Her laugh is a beautiful sound, but it’s broken by a low moan when Peter’s fingers curl inside of her, her eyes screwing shut as she matches her pace on her clit with his buried in her cunt.

“That’s it, MJ,” he whispers hotly as she clenches around him, her muscles fluttering, feeling her teetering on the edge as her thighs start to close around his hand. He watches her expression for a moment, seeing it building and building, before moving to capture her lips into a heated, messy kiss. It’s clumsy, all tongue and teeth as her high climbs.

And she comes with a loud cry, breaking the kiss, her other hand clinging to him for dear life, nails digging into his skin as her muscles flex and twitch. Her breathing is ragged as she comes down, her hand on her clit moving to grab his working her heat. She holds his hand for a moment, leaning up to kiss him again.

It’s slower, yet just as hungry.

Peter moves to wipe his hand on his boxers before placing it on her hip, his thumb rubbing soothing circles against her skin as he kisses her.

When they break apart, she pushes her forehead against his, smiling dreamily.

“Still cold?” Peter asks, a sly grin tugging at the corner of his lips. “Is that better?”

She huffs out a breathy laugh, planting another quick kiss on his smile. She curls further into him, nuzzling into his neck, her breath tickling.

“Much better.”

#spideychelle #petermj #petermjane #promptmas #promptmas 2k20

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nikki-writes-stuff · 4 years

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Chaser - Part One

Pairing: Din Djarin (The Mandalorian) x Reader, Gang Leader!Din Djarin x Bartender!Reader

Summary: No one knows his name, and no one knows his face, but the man who leads one of the most powerful gangs in New York from behind an infamous mask is still feared throughout the city. You, on the other hand, are just a waitress at the club he owns, someone who’s only just barely dipped her toe into the treacherous water of New York’s underworld. But that doesn’t stop your boss from taking a liking to you, and if you weren’t so terrified of all that his attentions could mean for you, maybe you would notice that fear isn’t the only emotion your employer stirs up within you.

A/N: Hello, everyone! I hope y’all enjoy this - the very first part to the very first fic I’ve ever written about The Mandalorian! Any and all feedback is appreciated - this is my first time writing for Din Djarinn, and even though my love for him is as deep and powerful as the Mississippi, I had some trouble finding his vibe while I was writing this. Let me know if I’m on the right track! (Also, if your name happens to be Rachelle, I apologize in advance. Please just...skip over a certain couple of lines in this story. You’ll know what I’m talking about towards the end.)

You could feel the throbbing of a quick, staccato bassline in your chest; you always could while you were working. The Boss liked the keep the music loud, and for good reason. It was the same reason why smoking was not only permitted but actively encouraged – the thick smoke and thumping music made it all the more difficult to hear and to see what happened in the dark corners of Club Razor Crest. Here, there were only two rules – don’t start shit, and keep your mask on. As long as they followed those two basic principles, the Boss’s patrons were welcome to conduct whatever business they saw fit in the crushed velvet booths and intentionally shadowed halls of his underworld playground.

With the tips of your red, glossy fingernails, you adjusted your mask now, pulling the plastic away from your heated skin by just a centimeter or two. You could have groaned from how good it felt to have cool, fresh air rush in to caress your sweaty forehead; after a week of working at the club, you’d definitely learned why anonymity was so important in a place like this, but you still dreaded putting the blasted thing on in the evenings before your shift.

Greta, one of the other girls who worked there, strutted past you, looking light as a feather as she waltzed around in her eight-inch heels with a tray of drinks balanced above her head. You, by contrast, knew that you had to look as clumsy as a newborn deer in your own stilettos; just like the mask, they were a mandatory part of your uniform that you still hadn’t gotten used to, and though Greta and the other girls had promised you that the constant pain in your feet would soon start to fade, your soles still ached painfully with every shift of your weight.

“Mask on,” your coworker whispered to you in passing. “Boss is here.”

You’d been just about to explain that you weren’t taking it off, that you’d just needed some air, but the words died on your lips when you heard the last part of her warning. Your spine straightened of its own accord, and the hand on your mask promptly fell down to hang by your waist. Scanning the space, you tried to make out the infamous man you’d heard so much about through the dim lighting and hazy air.

“Where?” you asked, but either she ignored you or just didn’t hear, because she kept on walking to her table without sparing you so much as another glance.

You gulped before stiffly making your way to the bar, slipping past the ‘Employees Only’ gate before gathering together the four glasses you’d need for your table’s order. You let your hands and body go on autopilot as you set about assembling their drinks; typically, the waitresses would just drop off their order slips to one of the bartenders and wait for them to make it, but you’d mentioned at your job interview that you had some bartending experience and didn’t mind helping out with the cocktail mixing.

From there, the head bartender, Quill, had sat at the bar and watched you make him an old fashioned right in the middle of your interview. With trembling hands, you’d done so, feeling the older man’s eyes on you all the while as he stroked his bushy white mustache. After one sip of it, he’d nodded his head, and you’d felt relief wash through you as he threw back the rest of the drink.

“You start on Monday,” was all he’d said.

Now, as you grabbed some triple sec from the top shelf, you caught a glimpse of him watching you out of the corner of your eye, and you turned to give him a smile. Quill had been working at Club Razor Crest for as long as anyone could remember, and he was the only person inside the building who didn’t wear a mask; evidently, him and the owner went way back. He was quiet – gruff, even – but for some reason you liked the grumpy older man. And, if you were correctly reading the gleam in his eyes as he looked at you from behind his thick, bushy white eyebrows, you thought that he’d taken a liking to you, too. Or, at least, to your old-fashioneds.

“How’s it going, Quill?” you asked, focusing once again on the long island iced tea you were making. “Busy night?”

You were expecting nothing more than a grunt in response; that was all most people got from him, and ever since he’d hired you, you hadn’t heard anything else, either. But instead, he opened his mouth to speak, only talking loud enough for you to just barely be able to hear him over the music.

“After you finish those drinks, leave ‘em here,” he instructed. “Boss just arrived with some of his friends, and he requested you to serve ‘em.”

You nearly dropped the bottle of rum in your hands, one that was worth more than an entire week’s worth of pay, and your hands scrambled to get a firmer grip on it. Shakily setting it down on the counter, you turned to Quill with wide eyes, your lips parted in shock.

“The Boss requested me to serve them?” Your voice was so high-pitched that it cracked as you said ‘me’, and you cleared your throat before trying once again. “Why does he want me? I’ve never even met him before.”

At that, Quill let out a sigh and turned to you, pursing his lips together until they almost disappeared under his large, unkempt mustache.

“…He likes old-fashioneds,” he shrugged, the corner of his lips jumping up so quickly that you almost missed the half-smile he’d given you. That would have been enough to perturb you for the rest of the evening; you hadn’t seen him smile at anyone after an entire week of working there – not even customers. But, as it was, nothing could cool the anxiety welling up in you as you finished making the rest of your drinks.

“I wonder where he heard about them,” you remarked, and you thought you caught Quill glance at you sheepishly in your peripheral vision.

Your eyes flitted over the room, looking for his booth; someone had said something to you on your first day about the table he kept reserved for himself and his ‘guests’, but you’d forgotten its location completely after the whirlwind of your first day at this new, bizarre job.

After finishing the four drinks and setting them on a tray, you turned towards Quill to ask where the Boss would be sitting. But, an idea stirred in your mind, and on impulse you grabbed a small glass before scanning the selection of bourbons and whiskeys the bar had to offer. Biting your lip, you felt eyes on the back of your head as you perused the different brands, but after settling on a good blend of the two, you turned around to find no one looking at you. Quill was busy taking some drunk guy’s order, and the other patrons at the bar were too busy with their own drinks or conversations to pay you any mind.

With a sigh, you shook off the strange feeling and assembled the rest of what you’d need for an old fashioned, hands moving on autopilot as you heard your dad’s voice in your ear. Make sure you only use enough bitters to saturate the sugar, you recalled him teaching you. Between four and six dashes should do the trick unless someone requests something different. Mix it with the sugar until it forms a slurry, and always add the ice in large chunks so it doesn’t get too watered down. Never overmix it once you add the spirits, just a few stirs before putting in a strip of lemon and orange peel.

Your fingers felt sticky as you snapped the citrus peels in half, spraying just a hint of their sweet oils overtop of the cocktail before rubbing them over the glass’s rim. After dropping them into the drink and mixing it one more time, you turned to see Quill watching you with one eyebrow raised.

“What? You said he likes old-fashioneds,” you shrugged. “Um… could you point me in the direction of his booth?”

Once more, he pursed his lips before pointing towards the far right corner of the room.

“It’s the only circular booth we have,” you heard him mutter as you walked away. “Can’t miss it.”

Making sure to thank him over your shoulder, you straightened your back and made your way through the main room of the club. There wasn’t any dancefloor, nor was there a DJ, but in the center of the space, there was a large, ornate fountain. Water no longer ran through it, but fairy lights had been wrapped around its tall structure, throwing shadows and low, scattered light around the entire room. Tables were centered around it, but typically only the low-ranking or occasional civilian patrons sat at them; the booths were almost always occupied by those who had a deal to make, those who had private (which almost always meant dangerous) matters to discuss, or those who were doing something that was, nine times out of ten, incredibly illegal. You’d walked by tables covered in lines of white powder before, their occupants knowing better than to worry about someone seeing and stopping them.

So long as no fights broke out and everyone stayed anonymous, everyone kept to their own business, and the paycheck was too good for you to worry about the moral connotations of working in such a place. No one had so much as laid a finger on you, and no one would, not while you were under the employment of the infamous leader of the Mandalorians.

After rounding the other side of the fountain, you finally saw the booth Quill had been talking about. It was raised up on a small platform, just high enough to be able to see the rest of the club clearly. Its table was, indeed, in the shape of a circle, and a large booth wrapped around three quarters of its diameter. Seated at it were four men and one woman; three of the men and she were wearing masks similar to your own, but while yours only covered your forehead and the upper half of your nose, theirs descended down their cheeks to their jawline, covering the entirety of their face except for their mouths and chins.

As it was, you would have found them extremely intimidating, but now, you didn’t even spare them a second glance. Because your eyes were fixed firmly on the Boss, and you were certain that you could feel his fixed onto you.

No one had told you that his mask covered his entire head, and as you stood there, in shock, you wondered why the fuck no one had thought to warn you about it before. It looked as if it were made out of thin but quality plastic, and various scratches and scrapes covered its grey surface. A voice in the back of your mind whispered that it looked like the goth version of Jim Carrey from The Mask, and you had to fight down a manic giggle as your eyes followed the bottom edge of it, which ran along his jawline, below his ears, and then, presumably, around the back of his head right below his hairline.

The front of the mask was what threw you off the most, though. Instead of having any features carved into it to simulate where a mouth or nose should be, there was only a T-shaped panel of what looked to be black glass. Or was it tinted clear plastic? You felt yourself lean forward, unconsciously squinting to see if you could make out any features beneath it.

You heard someone close by clear their throat, and heat flooded your cheeks as you suddenly realized that you’d been standing there for God-knows how long, just staring at one of the most powerful men in the city. No, staring at his mask.

“I-I,” you stammered, looking down at the floor in horror. It was then that you saw the glass that you were still holding, and you sucked in a breath before looking up again.

“Sorry about that, sir,” you apologized, clearing your throat. You leaned forward, setting the drink down in the center of the table. “Quill mentioned that you liked old-fashioneds, so I took the liberty of-“

You cut yourself off, eyes widening as you realized your second mistake. You looked down at the drink and then up to the Boss’s mask, right at where his mouth would be if he weren’t wearing something that covered it completely. Therefore making it impossible to drink what you’d just offered him.

The horror from just a moment ago paled in comparison to what you felt now as you watched him slowly reach forward, the leather of his black gloves squeaking as he picked up the drink you’d brought for him. His head tilted to the side as he examined it, twisting the glass around between his fingers before setting it down again.

“Lemon and orange, huh?”

You jumped when you heard the voice that came from inside the mask; it was clearer than you’d expected it to sound, but it also had a filtered edge to it. Your guess what that there was some sort of microphone-like device inside of it that projected his voice so it wouldn’t be muffled while he spoke.

“U-um, yes sir,” you nodded, lacing your fingers together and resisting the nervous urge to wring your hands. “That’s how my father taught me how to make them. It adds more of a refreshing aftertaste. Or so I’ve found.”

He let out a short hum, pushing the glass towards the woman seated beside him.

“Was her father right?”

You saw her eyebrows jump up under her mask, but without hesitation she did as instructed, taking a sip of the amber cocktail. Without realizing it, you held your breath as she swallowed, running her tongue along the front of her teeth for a moment as she studied the aftertaste.

“It’s good,” she decided after a moment. “Actually, hold on. That’s really good. Damn. Don’t tell Quill, but I like yours even better than his.”

Relief surged through you, and a smile came to your lips as you let the air rush out of your lungs.

“I promise not to tell him; thank you very much, ma’am,” you nodded, jolting when she let out a loud bark of laughter.

“Ma’am? Pfft.” She turned to the Boss, nudging her shoulder against his as she drained the rest of her drink in one gulp. “Hear that, Mando? She called me ma’am.”

“A decision I’m sure she won’t make again,” he remarked dryly, not even turning towards her as she placed the empty glass at the edge of the table.

“Well. Either way, if you can do that with a drink I don’t even usually like, I’d love to see what you can do with a long island,” the woman grinned. “Think you can do that for me?”

“I actually just made one a few minutes ago,” you informed her; under normal circumstances, you would have felt offended by her question, but something in her smile told you that she didn’t mean it seriously. “What can I get for the rest of you guys?”

From there, you tried your best to recover gracefully from your little bout of foot-in-mouth syndrome. Pulling your small notebook out of the hidden pocket in your dress, you wrote down the rest of their drink orders, noticing that two of the men asked for old-fashioneds. From there, the last of the Boss’s party ordered a whiskey sour, and when you’d turned to ask if he’d like anything as well, he’d simply shaken his head no.

After letting them know you’d be back in just a few minutes, you turned and all but fled to the bar, hands balled up into fists as you approached Quill from behind.

“Why would you tell me,” you demanded, “that he requested me because he wanted to try one of my old-fashioneds if he can’t even drink with that mask on?! Why did you just let me bring that drink over, like an enormous buffoon-“

The older bartender turned around to face you, and you took a step backwards when you saw the wide grin stretched across his face. His shoulders were shaking with barely-controlled laughter, and you watched, stunned, as he fought to gain control over his expression again.

“You were the one who assumed that he wanted to try your drink,” he corrected you, busying himself with salting the rim of a margherita glass. “I never said anything like that, just that he enjoyed them.”

You sputtered in disbelief, throwing your hands up in exasperation before starting on your drink orders.

“So it was just some kind of hazing thing, then, was it?” you asked, not able to deny that you felt a twinge of fondness stir in you after seeing his typical stoic demeanor slip.

Quill snorted, cutting his eyes over to you as you worked side by side with him.

“You think I’d bother with that sorta thing?” You turned to see him watching you with amusement still glittering in his eyes. “Just needed some entertainment to get through the rest of this shift.”

A smile tugged at your lips, and you shook your head with a chuckle before returning to the whiskey sour starting to take shape in front of you.

“Well, laugh it up, cuz I’ll have you know I looked like a complete idiot in front of him.”

“I promise you he’s used to that, kid. Don’t worry about it; as long as you get your work done, he won’t pay you a second glance.”

Feeling mildly comforted by his words, you started on the woman’s drink, eyes darting up towards his table. Now that you knew where it was, you could just barely make out the flash of his shiny helmet through the smoke that had settled around the room. Goosebumps ran up and down your arms as, once again, you felt as if you were being watched, and you hastily turned your attention back to drink making.

When all four of them were assembled, you placed them on a tray before stepping out onto the floor once more. You were hyper-aware of the drinks as you balanced them while you walked, and you kept your eyes fixed on only your tray and the ground in front of you. You were not going to spill any of them; you’d already made enough of a fool of yourself, and you were determined not to add a third strike to your record with the Boss.

And, so, you didn’t catch the way his mask had followed your every movement as you crossed towards his table, nor did you notice the knowing smirk the woman beside him was wearing as she glanced between the two of you. You were blissfully unaware of any undue attention to yourself as you passed out each of the drinks respectively before tucking your tray under your arm and turning to the table with a smile.

“Can I get anything else for you guys?” You kept your tone light and friendly, even though you were mentally begging them to not need anything else.

“Just send Quill over; tell him I need to speak with him,” the Boss said. “Cover the bar for him until he gets back.”

“Yes, sir,” you hurriedly assured him.

Biting your lip, you hurried back to the bar and relayed the message to Quill, who just rolled his eyes and set down the glass he’d been polishing.

“Why he can’t walk over on his own two legs is beyond me,” you heard him grumble under his breath.

From there, the rest of your shift went by pretty normally; you made drinks and polished glasses until Quill came back to the bar a few minutes later, once more only answering you with grunts and noncommittal shrugs. He’d waved you off after you’d asked what he wanted, telling you to return to your section but to keep your eyes on the Boss’s table in case they needed anything.

Which they hadn’t. After returning to take their glasses, they’d declined your offer to get them any refills, and when you went to check on them ten minutes after that, they were gone. From there, you only had an hour left until your shift ended at its usual time – 3:30 am. You could have hugged the girl from the morning shift who came to relieve you – as it was, you’d thanked her so profusely for taking over your section that she’d looked worried for you.

“Um… Have a rough night?” she’d asked, eyebrows pinching together under her mask.

“You have no idea,” you sighed, heading towards the back room. “See you around!”

But your walk to the back came to an abrupt halt when Quill called you over, having to shout your name twice before you heard him over the music. Frowning, you walked over to him, leaning against the bar.

“What’s up?”

“Boss wants you to bring an old fashioned to his office,” he grunted, wiping his hands off on a towel. “Something about not getting to try the last one you made.”

You felt the color drain from your face, and you gulped, nodding quickly before making your way around to the other side of the bar.

“Um… Well, I was just about to go home; it was the end of my shift five minutes ago. Could I ask someone else to bring it to him?”

“Boss asked for you specifically,” he shrugged. “It’s on you if you wanna go against his request.”

Well. Shit. You’d made mistakes in your time, but you couldn’t see yourself ever being dumb enough to deny the kingpin of, arguably, the most powerful gang in Brooklyn.

“I…see. Um. Where exactly is his office?”

“Smart choice.”

After making your thousandth old fashioned of the evening, Quill gave you instructions to the office, and though you were still a bit lost on what to do at the end of the third hallway he mentioned, you had a pretty good idea as to where it was located. And so you set out, holding the drink in a white-knuckled fist as you made your way through the twists and turns of the old building.

A few minutes of wandering later found you standing in front of a door made out of solid, dark wood, and a bronze plaque on its surface read Management – Please knock.

“Well,” you whispered under your breath, “here goes nothing.”

You raised your hand and rapped your knuckles against the door, trying to stamp down the butterflies in your gut as you waited for a response. Several seconds passed by, and you bit your lip as you looked around the hallway you were in; the door to the Boss’s office was the only one on this short hallway, but someone had taken the time to put a potted plant next to the door. You smiled, reaching out with one of your fingers to brush against one of its leaves, and it was in that moment that the door rushed open.

You snatched your hand back, as if the plant had burned you, and looked up to see the Boss standing on its other side. After swallowing thickly, you plastered a smile on your face and straightened your posture.

“Hello, sir,” you greeted, holding out his drink. “I brought that old fashioned for you.”

Without a word, the masked man turned on his heel and walked back into the room, gesturing for you to follow him inside.

“Close the door on the way in.”

You paused, heart pounding as you took a step into his office; the two of you were the only ones there. Glancing behind you to the door, your eyes lingered for a second on its handle, wondering what the smartest thing to do here was. If you said no, then he could do so much worse than just fire you. But if you did as he said, well… Anything could happen to you behind that closed door, and how likely was it that the loud club outside would be able to hear you scream?

“Jesus Christ, I’m not gonna shoot you.”

You jumped so hard that you almost spilled his drink, but hearing his voice spurred you to quickly grab the handle and shut the door without another moment’s thought. You turned back to face him the same moment it slammed shut with a bang, and you winced at how loud of a sound it made.

Smooth.

“S-sorry, sir,” you stuttered, hesitantly walking towards him. You held out the glass, looking up at where you hoped his eyes were beneath his helmet. “I hope it lives up to the hype. The drink, that is.”

His shoulders twitched upwards with a short huff of laughter before taking the glass from your hand, the tips of his gloved fingers brushing against yours. You felt heat rise in your cheeks as your eyes fell from his mask, taking in for the first time what he was wearing.

In the low light of the club, you’d thought his suit was black, but now you could see that it was actually a dark forest green instead. The button-down shirt beneath it was white, and the top two buttons of it were undone, showing off a patch of tan skin just below his collarbone. For some second, your eyes lingered on it, inexplicably fascinated by the only bit of skin visible on the man in front of you.

Directly behind the Boss was a large desk cluttered with notebooks, folders, and stacks of various papers and envelopes, and you watched as your employer cleared off a small space to set his glass down on. You were finally able to break out of your bizarre thoughts about his clavicle once he turned back to face you, and you silently hoped that he hadn’t caught you staring at him again.

“Turn around.”

You blinked once, and then twice, before speaking.

“I, um… I don’t understand, sir-“

“Turn around,” he repeated, twirling his finger in the air. “Face the other way.”

Not fully understanding the purpose of such an order, you bit your lip, reminding yourself that he’d told you earlier that he wasn’t going to shoot you. Slowly, you obeyed him, lacing your fingers together and squeezing them tightly. You were now looking right at the door you’d walked in from, the one you were so tempted to walk through right now.

For a moment, the room was quiet save for the sound of your breathing, and you nearly shrieked when you heard his voice from what had to be just inches behind you.

“Don’t look back,” he commanded. “If you know what’s good for you.”

Letting out a shaky breath, you nodded, noticing a trembling strand of hair out of the corner of your eyes. In fact, your entire body was trembling ever so slightly, and you took a deep breath to try and calm the frantic beating of your heart.

Needing to ground yourself, you looked around at your surroundings, focusing on them instead of what your boss could possibly have in store for you. The walls and floors were a sandy concrete, just like the rest of the club, but there were various personal touches dotted around the space that your eyes lingered on. On either side of the door, there were huge bookcases filled with, yes, books, but also binders and folders and trinkets you wouldn’t have thought a mobster would keep in his office. Things like the small, carved figurine of a horse he had resting next to a copy of Webster’s Dictionary, or the small vase of roses he had balanced on top of a pile of magazines.

After looking over the bookshelves, your eyes scanned the furniture dotted around the room. To your left, there was a black leather couch on top of what had to be a genuine Persian rug. To your right, facing the couch, a loveseat was shoved up against the wall, and hanging above it was a huge mirror in a gilded, ornate frame. As you turned to look at yourself in it, you realized that you could catch a bit of his reflection as well, and you startled when you saw that his hands were on the back of his mask, unsnapping a clasp that held it in place. With a silent gasp, you turned to face forward again, eyes wide.

You held your breath when you heard him pick the glass up again, and it suddenly made sense why he’d asked you to turn around – he just wanted to try the drink without you seeing his face. Your shoulders slumped with relief; you didn’t care if he hated how it tasted. You were just thrilled that he hadn’t brought you back to punish you for staring at him earlier.

There was a long pause as he drank it, and you had to stop yourself from shifting your weight or appearing too restless as you waited for his verdict.

“…Cara was right,” you finally heard, and you gasped at the sound of his pure, unfiltered voice. “Your old-fashioneds are better than Quill’s.”

“Thank you, sir,” you breathed, still recovering from the shock at how rich, how deep, his voice was. “I promise not to tell him.”

“Oh, he already knows,” he assured you. “He told me himself after you got hired.”

Your eyebrows shot up, and you couldn’t fight back a quiet chuckle.

“Quill’s just full of surprises tonight,” you mused.

“Hm. I saw him laughing at you earlier at the bar,” your boss went on, and you heard him pause before something shifted and clicked behind you. “You can turn around again.”

His voice was, once again, the same processed, slightly staticky one you’d heard before, and as you turned around, there was a pang of disappointment in your chest when you saw the mask staring back at you once again.

“People usually have to work here for at least a year before they see him so much as smile,” he went on, turning the glass between his hands as the ice inside clinked together. “And here you are, not even a week in.”

“Well… it’s probably just because I’ve been helping him out behind the bar,” you explained. “I don’t think any of the other girls mix their own-“

“No, it’s not that,” he interrupted, shaking his head. “He has other bartenders to help him with that, and he hates them just as much as he hates the rest of the workers here. But not you.”

You didn’t know what to say, and so you said nothing, wracking your brain for anything – a thank you, an apology, a party trick – anything that could make the air feel less awkward than it had suddenly become. But, eventually, your boss broke the silence, though you never would have guessed what he’d been about to say.

“You’re not a server anymore,” he declared. “I want you behind the bar full-time now. You can replace, uh…” He tapped his fingers against the lip of the glass, and you saw his head tilt upwards as he thought. “…Rayanne? Rachel?”

“Rachelle?” you supplied weakly.

“I was close enough. You can replace her,” he continued. “She can be demoted to a server to take your place, and you’re promoted to bartender to take hers.”

“B-but, sir, I,” you stammered, adjusting your mask as you took a step towards him, “I can’t just steal Rachelle’s job; she’s been working here for three years-“

“And Cara still hates her long islands,” he once again cut you off. “I’ll have Quill email you a new schedule.”

Your mouth was open, but no words came out as you stared at the blank slate where his face should be; this wasn’t really such a bad thing, right? You’d gotten the position honestly, and Rachelle had never been particularly nice to you, anyways.

“…Thank you, sir,” you finally said. “I… I appreciate this opportunity.”

“Mm. How much do you wanna make?”

You pressed your lips together, your nose scrunching up as you mentally did the math.

“Um… Does $13 an hour work?”

Your employer snorted, shaking his head before taking a step towards you. You froze as he reached for your wrist, being surprisingly gentle as he brought your hand up between the two of you, and as you looked up, you knew that his eyes were boring into yours, even if you couldn’t see them. You found that you couldn’t look away as he pressed his empty glass into your hands, making sure your fingers were wrapped securely around it before pushing his hands into his pockets.

“Remind me,” he exhorted, “to never let you negotiate a deal for me.”

You blinked rapidly as he backed away, brain still fizzling a bit from how close he’d just been to you. The spicy scent of his cologne still lingered in your nostrils as he turned back to his desk, and it was only when he leaned against it and inclined his head towards you that your mind caught up with what he’d just said. What had been wrong with $13 an hour? Was it too low or too high? Had you just screwed yourself?

“Um…”

You watched his chest rise and fall with a sigh, but you could have sworn you heard a smile in his voice as he spoke next.

“Report to Quill tomorrow at the beginning of your shift,” he instructed. “You’re getting $15 an hour; he can tell you more about your benefits.”

Too low, then. You paused, not knowing what to say, and, he tiled his head towards the side as he waited for your response.

“…Did you just say benefits?”

This time, it was a full-blown laugh that you managed to coax out of him, and a tentative, hopeful grin spread over your lips as you watched him nod his head.

“Yes, I did,” he confirmed. “Now go home; get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow, sir…”

With that, you turned around, opened the door, and floated down the hall to the break room. In fact, after grabbing your things and getting in your car, you floated the entire way home. It was only when you reached for your steering wheel that you realized you were still clutching his glass in your left hand, but you didn’t bother bringing it back; what was one missing glass out of the hundreds, if not thousands, the club already owned?

_____________________

Din sat at his desk for a while after that, half-heartedly doing the least glamorous part of his job – paperwork. Over the years, he’d done a number of horrible things to even worse people, but he still hadn’t hated any of it – the arson, the beatings, the murder – nearly as much as he hated paperwork. But tonight, he was grateful for the easy, mindless task; he wouldn’t be able to focus on much else, not with you on his mind.

The door to his office suddenly opened, but he didn’t bother glancing up to see who it was; Cara had already gone home with some pretty young thing she’d picked up at the bar, and there was only one other person who would dare come in without knocking.

“I gave her a promotion,” he said, not looking up from the check he was writing. “You’ve got yourself a new bartender. Thought you’d like not having to deal with Rachel showing up late anymore.”

“…I’ve been telling you to replace Rachelle for three years,” was his only answer.

Din looked up, watching as his old friend slowly lowered himself into his favorite armchair, groaning with the strain it put on his knees; he’d always had trouble with his joints.

“…Really,” he finally hummed, turning back to the check and scrawling his signature (which was just a wiggly line that resembled more of a curly fry than it did an actual name, but that only helped him in his efforts to remain nameless) across the bottom right corner of it. “Didn’t realize it’d been that long.”

“Because you blew me off and told me to quit complaining anytime I mentioned it,” he fired back. “Why now, all of a sudden? Why her?”

“Look, do you want me to keep Rachel?”

Quill opened his mouth to speak, but he cut him off before he could, already knowing what he would say.

“Rachelle – whatever her fucking name is,” he grumbled. “You get my point.”

“It still doesn’t answer my question.”

Something in the older man’s tone made Din pause, slowly setting his pen down before turning to Quill once again.

“What’s it to you?” he countered. “You got something against working with the new girl?”

“No,” the bartender sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “And you know it. Just…remember what happened the last time you took a special interest-“

“Out.”

His friend sighed, standing up with a grunt and taking a step towards him.

“Now, Din, don’t get me wrong-“

“I said…”

He stood from his desk, pressing his palms flat against its surface and leaning towards the older man.

“Out.”

Quill bowed his head, the wrinkles on his face deepening as he frowned, but he didn’t feel anything but contempt as he nodded and turned towards the door. Slowly, Din lowered himself down into his chair once more, but his muscles tensed when he saw his old friend pause on the way out.

“I’m just as much worried for you as I am for her, you know,” he murmured. “It would kill me to see you go through…that again.”

The old man shook his head, looking back at him over his shoulder.

“It would kill me,” he whispered.

With that, he stepped out and shut the door behind him, leaving Din with nothing but bad memories and the taste of bourbon and lemon peel lingering on his tongue.

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian imagine #din djarin #din djarin x reader #din djarin imagine #din djarin x you #pedro pascal #pedro pascal x reader

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sumisuchan · 4 years

Text

First Name Basis Ch.1

Hey y’all just thought I should post this to Tumblr as well, but here’s the link to the ao3 for people who are more interested in that: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25889923/chapters/62913253

I don’t know what to say for myself other than I love Kaiba and Jounouchi, and I hope you enjoy this fic <3 Also feel free to leave me a comment. I cherish all of them forever.

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It was a quiet winter morning, the second Monday of January, when Mokuba pushed open the double doors to Seto’s room. However silent he tried to be, they still scraped across the hardwood floor. He had cast a light that shot from the hallway to envelop Seto’s figure in bed, buried beneath a plush comforter.

“Seto — ” Mokuba tried to keep his voice low, leaning culpably against one of the doors. “I'm going to head out.”

Without throwing off the comforter, Seto rose as if accused. The pale morning light made him squint. “I thought I was taking you.”

“I know, but I was going to meet a friend a little bit early. I'll meet you there, I promise.”

“But it's snowing,” Seto laid his head back down. Even with centralized heating, the air was cold. His alarm clock read 6:46 a.m., which made the comforter seem warmer and the mattress more generous.

The door clicked softly shut again. Seto had lost. He closed his eyes and let Mokuba go, the bed’s hold too strong to break. Maybe he would wake at 8:00, or 8:05, or 8:10...

***

It was 8:15 when Seto had hit snooze for the third time, and had finally managed to sit up. He opened the curtains behind him to a chalky sky and a Domino City winterscape, draped in snow. It even obscured the faraway mountains whose dark grey bodies wore pure white caps. Seto sighed visibly into the glass. Another harsh one.

Seto ate, washed, and dressed, finding himself in a partially cloudy bathroom mirror. He had put a sharp white suit over a blue shirt speckled with gold, and fixated upon the second gray hair he had found that month. He leaned in, making the mirror fog up more. Though his hair was still a little damp, there it was — front and center, mocking him.

Seto straightened himself out, turned the bathroom light off, and went downstairs. He could see from the top of the staircase that Mokuba had taken the kimono from its resting place upon the front room sofa—garment bag and all, his geta disappearing from the entrance evidence that it hadn't been just a dream.

***

The traffic to the ceremony was hell. Every damn car in Domino City had congested the roads leading to town hall, each of them progressing only about a meter before stopping again. Snow fell as a light powder, dusting the shoulders of young men and women dressed in expensive suits and long-sleeve kimono. Seto estimated that at least 3/4 of them were rentals. Their parents walked alongside them, shielding them from the snow with clear convenience-store umbrellas, and Seto realized that he had forgotten one himself.

Finally, his driver reached town hall and held open the car door. Parents, brothers, sisters, cousins, who had come to support their own twenty-year-olds, all seemed to turn around at once, then double take. “Isn't that Kaiba Seto?” They whispered too loudly as he passed them. Seto was certain he could feel someone's phone camera pointed at his back as he entered. His watch read 10:37. The ceremony would start soon.

***

The mayor, a slightly overweight man in a gray, cheap-looking suit took the stage, adjusting the microphone and clearing his throat. Several rows of newly-minted adults straightened their backs and lifted their heads. The entire auditorium stopped talking, and the mayor preemptively set his short-fingered hands on the podium. For the final time, he adjusted his legs, shoulder-width apart. Seto noticed a bald spot at the very back of his head, bordered by thinning white hair.

“Everyone, thank you for attending today's ceremony — ” He spoke in a coarse voice.

Seto began searching the first three rows for Mokuba. The young men and women had formed clusters, some still chatting quietly to one another. They made a patchwork quilt of solid black suits and explosions of flowers in red, white, and gold.

Mokuba would be in white. He had insisted. “I'm going to wear a suit for the rest of my life, but I'll probably have far fewer opportunities to wear a kimono.” So Seto took him shopping at one of the most expensive boutiques in Domino City, their winter line of handmade kimono on display. Most of them were furisode — sleeves to the floor and soaked in snow flowers, chrysanthemums, tsubaki .

Mokuba looked uncomfortable. He tensed at the extremely attentive sales assistant, who asked them in exquisite keigo what they needed. He tensed even more when Seto replied bluntly, “he needs an outfit for coming of age day.” He tensed while they brought out the entire cavalry of men's kimono — admittedly plainer than the women's, but just as elegant. Almost all of them bore complex patterns that fit seamlessly into their solid black or white fabrics, allegedly handmade. The shopkeeper ran her hand over each of them as if playing an instrument. It was genuinely surprising when they didn't respond with a musical phrase.

“You’re more than welcome to try on any one that you like, and one of our male employees can help you dress if you require assistance.” She had nearly reached the end of her, “please take your time,” when Mokuba pointed to the one on the very end.

“Uh — that white one looks nice.”

“Oh,” the shopkeeper had to walk to the far end of the table to reach it. “Do you mean this one, sir? Would you like to try it on?”

“Sure. Yes, I can try it on.”

Without prompting, yet another attentive male employee rushed over to lead him to the dressing room. “Please follow me this way, sir.” Seto got a glimpse of the kimono. No discernible pattern. Nothing extra. Just white silk adorned with the shop’s brand insignia embroidered in gold at the end of the sleeves.

Mokuba left the dressing room without the kimono on, yet claimed that he wanted that one. When Seto asked him if he was certain, he only nodded and tensed even more once Seto paid one million yen in cash straight from his wallet.

From his place in the third row of guest seating, Seto searched for that kimono, the stark white against both plain black and noisy flower patches, and found him sitting amongst a group of young women. One of them whispered something to him and Mokuba turned around, missing his shoulder-length hair. Sometime that morning he had gotten it cut. The woman at his side adjusted his bangs, giggling. She said something. “You look like your brother,” Seto imagined. Mokuba pulled away, brushed it off. That must have been it.

***

The ceremony ended and its attendants came gasping into the freezing winter air. The families occupied the bottom of the staircase as their children emerged at the top, posing in formation for pictures.

Mokuba had found a place in the second row, his hands at his side for the first serious photo and then with his tongue out and fingers forming a heart for the silly one. The same girl from earlier in a red kimono and thick-rimmed glasses made bunny ears above his head — something he would find later when they received the photos. They posed for one more before the crowd dispersed and Mokuba turned to her before coming downstairs. He must have promised to rejoin her, but then met eyes with Seto and began his descent.

Finally, Seto witnessed the full body of his kimono, its white sleeves and gray pants making him resemble the snow-covered mountains in the distance. He treaded so carefully down the steps, responsible with his new-seeming long legs, but he had been chipping away toward Seto’s height for a while. That fact hit especially hard when Mokuba ran to embrace him. His long strides had brought him so smoothly.

Someone snapped a picture.

“How did you manage to get a haircut?” Seto asked, maintaining his balance. “Every salon in the city must have been booked.”

“They were.” Mokuba set his hands on top of Seto’s shoulders, negotiating himself against the icy sidewalk, “but I had reserved my appointment months ago. I wanted to surprise you. I guess…” He paused, touching the back of his head. “I didn't realize how much I would resemble you.”

“It suits you,” Seto said. “You look grown up.”

Mokuba smiled but furrowed his brows. Someone shouted, “Kaiba- san ! May I please take a picture of you and Mokuba?” and someone else added, “to commemorate the occasion!”

Seto, who would normally have walked away, turned toward the crowd. He put his hand upon Mokuba’s back and found it to be rigid. Yet, Mokuba smiled for them. There would be articles written whether he did or didn't, so he chose to be pleasant. He grinned into the flashing lights, into a future of magazines that would compare their heights, their faces, weigh their fortune, pondering if Mokuba had found a girlfriend yet and commenting on the fact that Seto never had. It would be a thing for months until it wasn't at all, until something else happened, and the cycle would start over.

Seto felt Mokuba inflate with a sigh that no one would notice. He had become so good at letting it deflate slowly from his nose that only someone standing as close as Seto would hear it.

He called off the pictures and they loaded into the car, leaving barely enough time for Mokuba to wave to the young woman he had left up on the staircase.

#Seto Kaiba #jounouchi katsuya #katsuya jonouchi #puppyshipping #violetshipping #yu-gi-oh #Gay #Mokuba is a character as well

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