#three weeks! and counting! (i think ill be done with this first story probably by the end of this week at this point) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

s-brant · 3 years ago

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Pirates and Princesses (8/8)

(gif: @beccs) (PART SEVEN) (SERIES MASTERLIST)

Summary: JJ must confront his childhood trauma when returning home for the first time since his dad went to jail and prevent it from sabotaging his new relationship. Meanwhile, something sinister happens at the Chateau that brings Y/N face to face with her grief over John B’s death.

Word Count: 13.4k

Warnings: Angst, implied sexual content, strong language, parent/child abuse, mental illness, post-traumatic stress disorder, grief, and fluff.

A/N: Welcome to the final chapter of Tokens! This one has a little bit of everything in it, but it also has detailed scenes about JJ and his dad, so proceed with caution if you’re easily triggered by that topic. The love you guys show this fic warms my heart so much, so thanks to anyone who stuck with this story until this chapter. Hope you enjoy it!

Now that she has been sentenced to both punishments, one as a consequence of the fight with Kacey and the other as a consequence of the stunt she pulled with JJ to break out of ISS, Y/N can confidently say that out of school suspension is superior to in-school suspension by a long shot. Instead of sitting in a humid room with Alec for the duration of multiple school days, she's allowed to stay home, go out surfing, and do whatever she wants in lieu of doing classwork.

She promised herself not to make it a habit, promising the invisible presence of John B that she likes to pretend follows her around that she will never get herself into trouble again, but she sees no problem in enjoying her suspension while it lasts.

For the first few days of her suspension, JJ skipped school to spend it with her. Their memories of the conversation they had at three in the morning on Sunday were fuzzy, but not missing entirely. She noticed a difference in his behavior for the first few hours after they woke up under the tree together for the second time in one week. It wasn't a difference in their relationship or how he treated her, it was a difference in him.

He was quieter than usual as they cleaned up cans of beer and tossed them into the recycling, sending pictures to Kie while she was in class after she made them promise not to throw them in the trash. Rather than cracking jokes or making casual conversation with her, JJ made his way around the yard with the recycling bin in his hands and his head in the clouds. It disappeared as the day progressed, but for a little while, he wasn't completely there.

Today, he went into school instead of ditching to spend extra time with her in between shifts at work and time spent with their friends. Since they can't exceed three consecutive absences without a doctor’s note and he doesn't own a printer or laptop to forage the header from a doctor's office, he had no choice but to part from her this morning.

He bites his lip to contain his smug facial expression at the recollection of her wake up call for him. The hand holding his locker door open for him to lean on in the midst of his not-so-wholesome thoughts of her squeezes the metal hard enough to turn his knuckles white.

The curtains weren't shut all the way when they fell asleep before midnight last night, allowing a shaft of sunlight to shine in and land on his face. But that wasn't what woke him up from the dream he was having. In fact, the reality he opened his eyes to was a hell of a lot better than any dream he remembered.

Most of his memory of those moments spent suspended between consciousness and unconsciousness consisted of feeling her pressing a kiss to his shoulder, then her hands rubbing up and down his waist to slip lower and lower until they settled on the waistband of his underwear. It was then that he woke to find her looking up at him for permission from where she peppered kisses along his chest.

Their eyes met right as she kissed the edge of his nipple with this pleading, needy look that he took pride in causing without actively attempting to. She woke up on the brink of coming undone from a pleasant—to put it tamely—dream about him. With a glimpse at the time displayed on the alarm clock, it didn't take much for her to roll over to wake him up.

It ended with her beneath the sheet, finishing what she started Friday afternoon until he was clutching the pillow beneath his head in the midst of his orgasm. It happened so fast, a fault of how hot he found it to wake up to her wanting him so badly, but it felt slower than it truly was in the early morning haze of exhaustion they felt.

The memory as he relives it is as heady as it felt the first time around. He sees it in fractions; her eyes looking up at his, warm palms finding the familiar planes of his muscular body with the exploratory touch of someone who's never traveled it before, and the intense sensations he felt at the end...It's easy for him to stand here and lose himself in it. Despite the class he has to go to, he bargains with himself for one more second spent in the paradise of his memories before he has to come back to reality.

Reality, as his shitty luck would have it, comes in the form of a familiar feminine voice chirping from behind his back as he replays his morning bliss.

"It's good to see you're alive and well, Maybank."

He decides, based on who he knows he'll see when he turns around, that he might invest in a sharpie to write "Bang head here" on the inside of his locker door for instances like these where he'd rather suffer brain damage than speak to someone he can't stomach the presence of.

When he turns to see Kacey with one arm still stretched to hold his locker open, he doesn't bother concealing the genuine reaction from his face for the sake of her feelings. Any care he had for her and her feelings was thrown to the wind as soon as she decided she could steal from and put her hands on his girl last week. However, after a second of thought, a condescending smirk finds its way to his face.

He says, jerking his chin to vaguely gesture at her bruised up face, "Purple really suits your complexion. It makes your eyes pop, don't you think?"

Though the swelling of her black eye has deflated in the days since the fight that’ll soon tally up to a week, the verbal jab hits right where it intended to if the light leaving her eyes tells him anything. She bounces back after a second, though, ever the relentless pest they've come to see her as.

She offers a sickeningly sweet, yet fake smile to mirror the one gracing his striking features and spins so her back meets the locker beside his, allowing herself to invade his space further.

A collection of Y/N's stickers decorates the inside of his locker door that he briefly entertained the idea of designating as a place to bang his head against. They range from girly, glittery ones to those he willingly picked when she gave him the choice. Whenever they're at his locker together, she sticks one on the inside, and the evidence of the habit catches Kacey's wandering eyes.

Her fingertips brush against the surface of the sticker-covered metal while she ignores his protest of, "Can you not touch my stuff?" to inspect them. Since one of the Pogues in particular is famous for her endless supply of stickers, her expression sours at the thought of the girl responsible for them.

She spares him a quick glance out of the corner of her eye as she continues to analyze the sticker collection against his instructions not to, asking, "Why weren't you at the bonfire?" A failed attempt at a seductive look in his direction makes him fight not to roll his eyes. "After how last year's ended, I thought you wouldn't miss it for the world."

JJ doesn't bother to take a second to think things through before he reaches to slam the door closed with her hand still outstretched inside of it. Watching her pull it away just in time to avoid jamming it in the locker probably pleases him more than it should, but he can't help it. His hand catches on the edge of the door, halting it in place right before it closes where her hand previously rested.

She doesn't look too happy with him when he opens the door with no harm done except for the drop of her stomach when he initially pretended to swing it shut on her bruised knuckles. She didn't get many shots in on Y/N when they fought, but apparently it was enough.

He doesn't bother with the fake niceties she's giving him after the disrespect she showed him, his friends, and, most importantly, his girlfriend. The fact that she thinks she has any right to breathe in his direction, let alone flirt with him, after she stole JB's bandana is criminal. 'Cause not only did she mess with Y/N, she messed with John B on multiple levels, and his loyalty to his best friend hasn't disappeared with death. Kie and Y/N told him everything she said about their departed friend in the locker room last Thursday.

But he's smart enough to know what'll hurt her more, so he doesn't go for the general scolding he imagined giving her in his head. Since he was told everything about the encounter in the locker room, he knows she's still holding their history together near and dear to her heart.

"We stayed home," he says, casual and cool as always, with added emphasis on the first word, "You know how it is, my girl doesn't like parties. Especially not ones with kooks."

Hook, line, and sinker.

She scoffs, "Your girl?"

Looking at her now, he wonders if she was always this stupid, or if this is a new development she's had in the year since he last spent more than a minute or two at a time with her. It’s easier to trick her than it was with Kie and Y/N a few days ago, and those poor girls flew into that trap like moths to a flame.

"That's what I said, isn't it?"

The ire is visible in the way her face tenses up in places, her lips pressing together a little more firmly and her forehead creasing between the brows.

"Doesn't your, um, history bother her?" she asks, and he's gotta give her credit for being a sneaky little shit when given the chance. The girl takes every possible opening she can to strike for a potential weakness. "No offense, but you kinda get around."

He shrugs this time, deciding to drop his casual act and aim straight for the jugular.

"She likes having someone who knows how to fuck her right, actually, but I really appreciate the concern."

Much like Kie's reaction to their matching tattoos in the hot tub the other night, her jaw is unhinged to meet the unswept hallway floor they stand on. It makes him wish Y/N weren't suspended in order for her to see the gobsmacked reaction Kacey has to the harsh dismissal. Though he wouldn't want to incite an extra round of the Kacey vs Y/N WWE showdown by having her watch another girl flirt with him and essentially call him a slut upon rejection, he knows she'd get a kick out of it.

This one's for you, baby, he thinks with a quiet laugh to himself and turns his focus to the sticker collection she so lovingly crafted.

There are plenty of summer themed ones left over from the same pack he gifted her for her birthday with the surfboard sticker she used to tease him, as well as a newer genre of Valentine's Day stickers she started using the closer they grew since first getting together. They're mostly different colored candy hearts with corny phrases ranging from "U SXY THING" to the classic "BE MINE" and one printed with "ANGEL" on it—his favorite by far.

However, others are random ones from her endless stash built up over the years from birthdays and holidays deemed worthy enough by her dad to stop by Dollar Tree for a new pack, so the one he sets his attention on is likely meant for teachers or coaches to give to their students. The opportunity appears too good to be true to him when it clicks, but it isn't.

He peels the sticker off of the locker door, careful not to disturb the ones around it, and leans in closer to her to place it on the front of her tank top.

"Leave us alone or I won't stop her next time," JJ says lowly, past the point of civility, then backs away to slam his locker shut for real this time as his voice raises back to a normal volume, "And keep John B's name out of your mouth, got it?"

All she can do is look down at the sticker placed on her shirt with squinted eyes to try and read it while he walks off in the direction of his next class. It tears away from the fabric with a soft noise, and when she finally reads it, she rolls her eyes.

“Good Try!”

Walking out of school to see the Twinkie parked in the usual spot Y/N takes when she isn't suspended is a delightful treat he didn't know to expect after a rough day in class and his run in with Kacey. His head was hung low on his way to Kie's car to hitch a ride to his house before going home to the Chateau, since he had some things to pick up with his dad out of the picture for the near future, but then he heard her greet them.

JJ's body melts into hers upon contact, and he nearly pushes her up against the closed passenger side door of the van with how hard he hugs her. Though he doesn't want to acknowledge it, his dad has been living in his thoughts more than usual today. Ever since he texted him goodbye, he's been withdrawn inside of his head more and more, and after today's inconveniences, the rising anxiety of his plan to visit home has him two seconds from losing his mind.

Her eyes widen at his zeal, meeting Kie's concerned gaze from over the shoulder she rests her chin on. She stands with her keys swinging around her finger as she watches the couple embrace one another. In an answer to the silent question Y/N asks her in their stare, her lips mouth the words, "His dad," to her.

Deep down, Y/N had a feeling.

It began with his impromptu request to run away with her a few days ago and extended into his uncharacteristically reserved attitude the next morning that receded somewhat, but has yet to fully disappear. There is a part of her that's upset that he hasn't come to her to talk about it, to communicate the way they swore they would, yet she also knows it isn't that simple.

She has to remind herself that she knew what she was getting herself into with him. That's not to say that dating her must be a walk in the park for him, it isn't.

She knows based on the amount of times he had to hold her as she cried, or the time he curtailed her panic attack in this very parking lot, that she hasn't made it easy for him in the aftermath of John B's death. But it's because she knows how it feels that she has such patience with his communication issues.

It's not a conscious choice most times, it's an involuntary blockage preventing the words from being spoken no matter how desperately they long to be. They may have made a promise, but she won't chastise him for succumbing to the same pitfalls as her. It’d be hypocritical.

"Bad day?" she asks.

Her voice is tender with him, prodding gently for a clue as to why he pounced on her on sight. He sinks further into her arms at the sound and lets the sanctity of her touch sway him into submission. Everything about her sets him at ease, if only for a second. Her hand lifts the beat-up red hat from his head to allow the other to brush through his hair.

There's a hum of agreement that she feels vibrating through the center of his chest into hers, and her arms pull tighter around his shoulders in response. This time, when she looks up to see Kie there, she's waving a quick goodbye and setting off toward her car, clearly giving JJ the space he needs.

"We can go to the beach," she says softly, "I have a towel in the back of the van, we can just lay there and talk about it if you want."

The idea of her kind offer to him should add to the comfort he finds in her embrace. It should make him nod and whisper his gratitude to her for being the one person that knows him better than anyone, but it brings him back to the gloomy headspace he was in before seeing her.

It started as a minor distraction when he first arrived at school after carpooling with Kie. It followed him in the quieter moments, only making appearances when he wasn't distracted with more pressing matters. It began as that and built the closer the day came to ending. The sooner his inevitable visit back to his childhood home came, the more he lost himself in his fear, reverting back to a state of helplessness he now occupies with no small amount of shame.

His bottom lip trembles with the urge to cry.

"Can we stop somewhere on the way home first?"

The last place she expected him to drive the Twinkie is here.

As they made their way down each street, taking each turn necessary to bring them closer to the house he seldom let her go to over the course of their lifelong friendship, she felt her heart begin to race. And now, as the van rolls to a stop in the yard in front of his house, she has swallow back the lump in her throat at the sight of it.

She has only been here a few times.

The first time, she was seven years old.

It was a sweltering summer morning in the Outer Banks for her and John B as they set off to retrieve their friend after he missed their plans to meet up at the Chateau for a day of having fun, riding bikes, and playing on the boat. Pirates and Princesses was her favorite game to play with them because JJ would switch roles with her halfway through when she grew tired of being the damsel John B had to rescue from the most cruel and vicious Captain Jesse James Maybank.

The HMS Pogue would rock beneath his feet as he marched across the deck of the boat and took her place as the kidnapped Princess Routledge. He handed off his "sword" to her, a stick he found in the yard, and stood at the edge of the boat with his hands behind his back as though he were a tied up damsel in distress for her to hold captive. The sun setting behind them laid a picturesque backdrop that made the scene all the more vivid to their imaginative young minds.

The boat floated in the afternoon current as John B approached the pair with his best pretend face of worry for the fair Princess Maybank, who had the sharp sword of the pirate queen pressing into his throat with the threat of death should he have tried to escape.

Sometimes, she'd let John B advance on them and tie make believe rope around her wrists and ankles while he and Princess Maybank claimed their victory. Other times, they'd get backed up until the heels of her sneakers hung off the edge of the slippery deck. One move from her brother would have her yell something along the lines of not taking either of them alive, then she'd let her and JJ fall back into the marsh together with gleeful laughs infiltrating the humid air upon their return to the surface.

On the day he didn't show up, none of that happened. She and John B rode their bikes together along sidewalks until they pulled into a driveway marked with the address number he remembered from the other time he sought him out to play before.

Y/N didn't understand what they were hearing when they pushed their kickstands down and called out for their friend, but John B's little face blanched at the sound flooding out of the opened windows of the dilapidated yellow house. It was a combination of banging against the walls, glass shattering, and childlike shouts of frustration and pain. Her big brother placed himself in front of her protectively when the front door opened and smacked against the side of the house, but it wasn't his dad storming out of the house, it was JJ.

His eyes widened at the sight of the siblings standing there, and his heart dropped to his stomach at the realization that they heard it. Maybe not all of it, but based on how the girl peeking out around John B's shoulder looked at him, they heard some.

The van is parked in the exact same place their bikes once were, the exact place she and John B stood years ago when they were first confronted with the harsh reality about their best friend's home life, and he looks like he has fully backpedaled into the state of mind his childhood self inhabited. Even when he turns the key in the ignition and lets the rumbling engine sputter down in silence, he sits in the driver's seat with his lip drawn between his teeth in thought.

Yet as soon as she summons the courage to say something, he takes a deep breath and opens the door without a warning or the typical instruction for her to stay in the car. He doesn't tell her to follow him in, nor does he order her to stay out as he used to when his dad still lived inside. He gives her the choice to make on her own, and, when faced with the opportunity to support him or stay outside like the confused little girl she once was, she chooses the first option.

Her swift steps kick dirt up from the earth onto her ankles as she follows him out of the van to the front steps of the house. She tries not to make her concern for him as evident as it'd be without her intervention on her way up the porch, but it's impossible to erase every sign of it from her face.

It isn't a particularly special or scary house. It's a normal home that'd likely look more inviting if JJ were still living here to mow the lawn and tend to the household upkeep his father saddled him with since he was old enough to be put to work. But she knows better than to trust the street appeal. As he takes her hand to lead them through the threshold of the haunted structure, she is overcome with a sense of creeping trepidation that she can't shake.

"You're sure he isn't here?" she asks.

The entryway is crowded with stacks of mail his father wasn’t bothered to open, as well as empty cardboard boxes that once held cans of beer that are scattered, empty, in various places around the house. Her question is answered by the state of the rooms they breeze past in the direction of his bedroom, but she needed something to say to fill the silence. With them, they usually don’t feel uncomfortable not speaking to each other, but this feels different.

The way he stares out in front of him with his hand squeezing hers hard enough to cut off circulation unnerves her more than the tainted energy of the house itself. He isn't himself. He's a shell of the JJ they know and love, the JJ who is most comfortable tucked away in the safe walls of the Chateau with their friends, not here. If anything, how he is while he's here is the antithesis of his behavior while living with her.

Ever since John B died, he's practically moved in with her. When they're hidden away in her house without the reminders of his home life in sight, he's usually the caretaker of the relationship. It comes naturally to their dynamic, both with him being slightly older and his promise to take care of her, but everything is flipped here. It's an alternate reality for him, or, perhaps, actual reality smacking him in the face after a carefully constructed two months in utopia with her.

They come to a stop in front of his closed bedroom door.

"He's gone," he says, not even sparing a glance at her for reasons she can't decipher, "He texted me a few days ago to say goodbye."

With that, he turns the doorknob and lets the door swing open to reveal the bedroom she only saw one other time.

The second time, she was thirteen years old.

It was a Friday.

Since his dad was supposed to be at work, they stopped at his house on their way home from school exactly like they did today so he could share with their friends what he got from his cousin the night before. Being the good girl she was, she didn't even know what he was showing her when he dug it out of the backpack in the bottom of his closet.

Her brows furrowed at the ziploc bag, more specifically the contents inside of it. She was knelt down on the floor in front of the opened closet door with her shoulder pressed up against his to inspect it. The dried green cluster of a plant didn't look like anything she'd seen before, and she couldn't help but ask him what the hell it was rather than react the way he knew the others would.

"What is it? It looks like dried up moss."

JJ laughed and pulled another bag with rolling papers and a grinder stowed inside.

"It's weed. My cousin Ricky gave me a discount since—"

He halted mid-sentence abruptly enough to startle her, his head turning in the direction of where he heard a trunk pulling up to the front of the house. Her stare was still set on where he was holding the plastic bags in his hands, and she noticed, after he stopped speaking in reaction to his dad coming home, that his hands began trembling. It was so minimal, she almost didn't catch it until she saw the bag wavering under the light coming in from his window.

Before she could open her mouth to say anything more, she felt his hands on her shoulders shoving her into the closet. He followed in closely behind her and crawled in until they were both crammed into the confined space together. With the closet doors shut in front of them, he clamped a hand over her mouth, whispering in her ear for her to be quiet.

She stands with her arms crossed over herself in the center of his room, and though nothing has yet to be said or done to convince her anything is wrong, that's the exact reason why she feels so unnerved by the entire experience of coming here.

He's silent.

The closet doors are wide open as he stuffs the rest of the clothes he had yet to bring to the Chateau into the biggest bag he could find. He rips through his belongings in a fit of melancholy driven anger. His thoughts are swirling with similar memories to the ones she conjures from being here again, but his are tinged with a darkness hers don't have, even with hearing him crying in pain as a child and hiding in the closet with his hand smothering her mouth to evade his dad.

JJ visibly grimaces at the memories he's forced to relive in flashes with every glimpse he gets of the room he spent so much time hiding in. It used to be more tolerable to be here, or at least easier to suffer through. At least he was used to it before, but he got so accustomed to life somewhere else that the second he was confronted with coming back, he started to fall apart.

Whatever he can't live without, he finds space for it in the bag and prepares to leave the rest behind. But every object he touches and step he takes around the room brings him back to the person who he spent his adolescence simultaneously fleeing and wanting more from. More notably, it brings him back to the train of thought that has been nagging him ever since he texted him over the weekend.

The third and final time she came here was over the summer.

It happened right before Hurricane Agatha waged war on the island, when none of the Pogues heard from JJ for two days after he said he had to go home to help his dad with something. She didn't want to track him down to his house after they went over twenty-four hours without a single message. She didn't want to have to go back to the house that gave her chills to think about, let alone go to again after they hid in his closet when they were younger, but he gave her no other choice.

What was she supposed to do except go check on him where he last said he'd be? After all, if she lived in the hazardous environment he did, he'd do the exact same for her. If their friends were involved in her thoughts at the time, they would've gone out on a limb to say he would've gone beyond what she did to protect her if the situation were flipped. If he knew someone was hurting her, he would've come in swinging first and asked questions later, but, in her defense, he strictly told her to never come back to his house. By walking over in the first place, she was breaking one of the fundamental rules of their friendship.

Nevertheless, she found herself crouching around the side of his house to find his bedroom window and check if he was in there. Kie and Pope weren't aware of what was happening with his dad yet, but she and John B accidentally found out years ago, so she wasn't wondering why he wasn't answering them, she was wondering if he was alive.

Part of her truly thought underneath it all that Luke might've killed him. He might've been too drunk or high and went too far when beating him, too far to the point where he didn't want to risk going to jail to take him to the hospital for help. She couldn't live with herself if she didn't check, and if he got pissed at her for showing up against his wishes and didn't want to speak to her ever again, she could live with that.

She knocked on his window in a cadenced beat loud enough for it to heard through the room but not any further. After the first series of knocks, no one came to the window. It ripped her heart to pieces to wonder if she'd see him again as she continued to knock and allowed the sound to increase in volume in hopes that maybe he was asleep, but it didn't bring anyone to the window.

It wasn't until she turned back around to go to the front of the house again that she bumped right into the solid wall of his chest and was pushed back up against the house. The question of what she was doing there was on the tip of his tongue, but she said something that stopped him from asking it.

Her arms were thrown around his shoulders in a desperate bear hug.

"Oh God, JJ, you scared me half to death!" she cried into the front of his shirt, "I thought he killed you!"

He can't help but think of it as he packs his belongings away for a final time to bid his hellish childhood home goodbye: What kind of life are they going to have together if they can't get off this island? Running away may have been an idealistic drunken fantasy for him to entertain after his conversation with Pope got him to admit his true feelings for her, but they both know his consistency can't be trusted.

One moment, he's planning to tell her. The next, a day like today comes along, sweeps his legs out from beneath his body, and he's questioning whether it's worth it to force her to put up with his fickle commitment to her. It isn't fair to her, is it?

Right now is just about when he'd normally start to hyperventilate with an oncoming wave of panic, and he does, but he can't let it fully sweep into him with her here. He fights the urge to smack his head with the heel of his palm, as if that'd forcibly remove the poisonous thoughts infiltrating his mind and ruining the careful work they've done together to remedy their issues with communicating their feelings.

Just like you ruin everything, a thought whispers in the corner of his mind. What made you think this would be any different?

His actions around the room have turned somewhat aimless and distracted, which she notices as soon as he starts to disintegrate into a mess of heavy breaths and self-sabotaging thoughts. She picks up on the shift in his energy as soon as the anxiety starts to wash over him, and she'll be damned if she continues to stand here quietly to let it happen.

It's one thing if he's being silent because being here upsets him, or if he simply doesn't know what to say, but she refuses to let him tailspin into a mental breakdown without doing something to stop it. Whether he knows it or not, after what they went through with him trying to push her away last week, she knows what's occurring within his mind right now.

He flinches at the feeling of her hand grabbing his shoulder to turn him to face her at first, and when she reaches again with her other hand to try to hold his hand as he cries, he shrugs off her touch.

"JJ..." she lets the solemn sound of her own voice murmuring his name trail off, "it's just me."

His head shakes at her consoling words. Everything else inside of his mind is so earth-shatteringly loud, he can't drown it out with logic or reason to bring himself away from the memories of his dad. Those intrusive thoughts keep attacking him with doubled, then tripled force the harder he tries to resist them, and he's so exhausted from it. All of it—the memories, his dad going to jail, and his inability to accept her love to its fullest extent without convincing himself she'll abandon him—is exhausting.

This time, when she rests her hand on his shoulder, he swats it away as the frustration of today crushing him with the force of an avalanche. Not to hurt or scare her, but to get her hands off of him before he bursts out of his skin with the sickness it stirs in his stomach. So detached from himself, he anticipates pain from every touch she gives him, and he knows it hurts her.

JJ hardly recognizes his own voice as he backs away from her a step and says, "Don't."

He can tell it hurts her based on how she looks at him immediately after, but he can't handle being touched right now. How did this happen so quickly? It was overwhelming when they first parked outside, but as soon as he stepped foot inside, it was as if a switch was flipped inside of him and all of the buried feelings he kept hidden over the past two weeks exploded into this.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"You need to leave. I just-I can't breathe and"—He still refuses to look up from the ground or see her face as he paces around the room with no real intent in mind—"You can't see me like this."

That is what breaks her out of her soft spoken, timid attitude to handle the situation the way it needs to be handled. Their natural dynamic worked best for him to take charge when she had her panic attack because JJ acts first and thinks later. He saw that she was in distress and jumped in to help her before things got worse rather than allowing her to keep him at an arms length where he couldn't do anything about it.

Taking a page from his rule book, she takes action.

The room surrounding them is in a state of disarray from him searching through it for the items of clothing and objects now stashed in his duffel bag. There are multiple obstacles in her way as she steps between them like navigating a minefield to reach him after he backed away in instinctual fear, but they don't stop her from reaching him. Nothing could.

Y/N walks right up to him and reaches to grasp his face between her hands, forcing him to stop pacing around and actually look at her for the first time since they arrived her so he hears what she says. To say the least, the way he looks right now is enough to make her cry. There are tears welled up to the brims of his blue eyes, his lips are downturned with his sobs, and he's staring at her like she's about to strike him.

She says it as slowly and clearly as she needs to get it through his head, "He's not here," and before he manages to squeeze out another word of doubt between his rapid inhalations, she cuts in, "Take deep breaths."

He isn't listening to her.

The movement of his chest that hits hers from how close they stand to each other has yet to settle into the familiar pace she remembers from nights of falling asleep with the rhythm of his breaths beneath her head.

Her eyes search his face frantically, from left to right and top to bottom, for any sign of the person she's known for years, but she doesn't see him. Instead, she sees the same panicked child her and John B saw the first time they visited this house. It's uncanny how similar the expression in his face is. It feels to her as if she's been hurled back in time to the moment itself, and when she tries to think about what would've worked with him back then, she doesn't know what else to do except help him escape.

So, with the helplessness of having to watch him turn into a sobbing, incoherent mess, she decides to step into the darkness with him and do what seven year old Y/N would've done. Just like their games of make believe, of pirates and princesses, she assumes the role John B would have and rescues him from what holds him captive. It’s his own mind in this case, but, in the physical sense, it's the house.

She drops her hands from his face and takes his hand in hers to drag him out of the room. The packed bag sits on the floor in their wake as she pulls him back through the bedroom door and into the living room, not caring about what they came here to do.

It doesn't matter anymore.

The various rooms of his dad's house pass by them in a blur as she leads him down the hallway to the front door with one sole objective in mind: get him out of here. If he wants his stuff to bring back to the Chateau, she'll go back inside and get whatever he needs her to, but she isn't letting him inside of this house again. Not under her watch.

Thankfully, since he is undeniably stronger than her and she wouldn't have stood a chance, he doesn't fight it. He stumbles after her guiding hand the same way he always has, just like how he followed her back to the Chateau after she and John B saw him that day when they were kids. She led the way as he sat on the handlebars of her brother's bike, and he watched her hair flutter in the wind with the momentum of their bicycle spokes until the tears dried up.

He watches her drag him out of the home until they've reached the safety of the yard at the bottom of the porch steps, and as soon as the soles of her shoes meet the dirt, she feels his hand slipping out of hers.

"JJ?"

She turns around to see him clutching his chest, rubbing his hand along the front of his shirt over his heart as though it'll loosen up the tightened muscles preventing him from catching his breath. His body weight is leaned onto the railing of the porch steps for support. He's partially slumped on it, looking at her desperately, like she somehow knows the answer to every question screamed inside of his head, and she has never felt as useless.

"You're gonna leave," JJ says through the gasps and cries that leave his cheeks stained with tears.

When she reaches out again to help him remain upright without leaning over the railing, he doesn't shove her hands away as he did inside of his bedroom. It's a small battle won, but she takes it as a win nonetheless.

"What are you saying? I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere—"

"You're gonna leave! Everybody does! My mom, John B, my dad, and you"—his head falls to look at the ground instead of her, and she watches him work through it in his head—"I mean, look at me. You don't want this."

"Don't tell me what I want," she says.

Her voice remains as steady and calm as she can force it to be amidst the turbulent situation, but the way he said it...It takes her right back to sitting in the back of the Twinkie with him at the Cherry Bowl, except it's ten times worse. That felt like a break up, but based on what he's saying, this is one. She hasn't prepared herself for the heartache she feels in response to it.

"You don't want me, you just think you do 'cause I was there after John B died, but you don't. You're gonna go off, find some perfect guy that isn't as fucked up as me, and have a great life somewhere else, but it ain't here," JJ says, his breathing evening out with the distraction of the argument to keep him tethered tor reality, "And it won't be with me."

He can see it every time he's looked at her and debated saying those three titular words that have been floating around in his head since he first met her.

How could she want someone who can't walk into his childhood bedroom without breaking down, or someone who still has years-old scars from cigarette burns on his skin when she touches him? Her bright future contrasted with his pre-designated fate on the Cut, her personality better matched with someone more similar to her, her life continuing on whether he's there or not—it's his worst nightmare, but he's prepared to see it through.

What he doesn't expect is for her to hold her ground.

"You honestly think I'm buying into that bullshit?" she asks.

"What?"

She doesn't put it softly, she states facts with as much harshness as his cruel fantasy had, "You're trying to push me away and I won't let you."

Her typically sweet, soft features have hardened into a bitter expression he's sure he mirrors. The arms holding his waist to keep him upright move to climb up his chest and cup his face between her hands with all of the gentleness her face and voice don't have right now.

She sees right through him.

When he tries to look away again, to avert his eyes to make what he's trying to do easier on himself by not having to look at her when he does it, her grasp on his face holds firm. Her hands guide his chin back up so they're face to face, and he realizes what a mistake everyone makes in assuming her this dainty, broken girl whose only source of strength came from the brother she lost. She's a forest fire.

"You're not hearing what I'm saying—"

Y/N interjects, "I am hearing what you're saying, I'm just saying it's bullshit."

She refuses to let him off the hook, and though it frustrates him on the surface, deep down, it makes him fall in love with her all over again. Her insistence against his speech about her leaving him proves him wrong more than anything else could, 'cause he gave her the perfect chance to dip and she shot it down instantly.

The house looms behind them as a menacing presence that threatens to take control of him again, but she doesn't let it. She keeps his eyes on her no matter how many times he tries to look away and doesn't let anything get in the way of what she says next.

"You think that if you push me away and get me to leave you right now, it'll hurt less than it would if I did it later, and I don't accept that. I won't take the bait and let you torture yourself anymore, okay? I can't speak for anyone else, but I know I'll never leave you. Not willingly, anyway."

She looks into his eyes, and this time its softer, more loving, and he's never felt as understood as he does when she continues to speak.

"I'm in love with you. Whether it scares you or not, it's the truth, and I'll never stop saying it. If you think that your issues with your dad are gonna change that for me, you've officially lost your mind." Their noses brush as she leans in to ghost a kiss over his mouth and pulls away a second later to whisper, her forehead pressed to his, "I love you, JJ. Stop being so stubborn and just let me."

His next breath in trembles as he lets her words sink in, and he's stuck at a crossroads inside of himself without a clue of what to do.

The breeze blows her hair away from her face, the afternoon sunshine painting her golden, and when he sees her hair flutter in the air like it did so many years ago, he can't help but feel as calm as he did during their bike ride home. The further away he got from his dad and the house where it all happened, the calmer he grew, and it hits him at this moment that he's so taken aback by her confession to him, he forgot why he was so upset.

It's sobering. The intoxication of his panic hurtled him back in time to the frightened, childlike state of mind his dad's violent abuse often sent him to, but it was hearing her say those words he's feared for weeks that brought him back. Like the jolt of a defibrillator, he's roused back to life with more clarity than before.

She loves him, but, perhaps more importantly, she said she'd never leave him, and that is what he needed to hear more than anything. That is the statement worth more to him than the four letter word he has agonized over endlessly. No one else every attached the promise of "I love you" with the stipulation of it lasting forever. They said the empty words and contradicted it with their actions, but she hasn't done that. Her actions spoke the words long before her mouth did.

He sighs.

It's a deep, yearning sigh that sends him melting into her with the acceptance of what he's denied for too long. He savors the hands cradling his head, as well as the body pressed up against his that he has memorized down to every beauty mark and imperfection, and makes the right choice.

It isn't like it was the night at the Cherry Bowl, or the night he spoke to Pope about it. It still takes more bravery than he possesses to form the words, but there isn't a physical incapability stopping him anymore. It's just him against the trauma beckoning him into its trap again, and he won't let it lure him back into that house.

"Alright," JJ says to her through a sniffle in acceptance to her command, as if he were agreeing on afternoon surfing plans rather than something as monumental as allowing someone to love him, then continues onto with a timid tone, "I love you too."

Before he can watch for her reaction, she's surging forward through the few inches of space left between them to connect their lips in a kiss.

It's vastly different to the kiss they shared in the hallway at school last Friday. In contrast to that one, the reigning emotion within him that drives the kiss after the hesitant beginning doesn't lead them into increased intensity, it gets gentler. It doesn't explode into chaos and passion, it's a tired kiss that he never wants to retreat from. It's the physical manifestation of his feelings for her underneath the guarded exterior he uses to protect himself: gentle and yielding, yet undeniably powerful.

He feels her smiling through her tears against his mouth. In the face of everything that happened this afternoon, he doesn't feel like he should be smiling back at her, but he does. He smiles while kissing her with tears streaming down his face, still reeling from his traumatic response to coming home for the final time, and wonders how a person can feel such contradicting emotions all at once.

Y/N is the one who starts to pull away first, though it's only to check in on him. If she had it her way, she could stay here with him until the sun sets, but he did just come back from the brink of a full-blown panic attack, so she can't in good conscience ignore his well-being for the momentary bliss of their love confessions.

Her thumb brushes over his bottom lip, her smile drooping with worry as she asks, "Wanna spend the rest of the day on the boat? You always say being on the water makes you feel better. Maybe it'll make it easier to talk about it."

His Adam's apple bobs with how he swallows the lump in his throat.

"Can we maybe take baby steps for now? I don't think I can handle telling you all that shit yet."

It was already enough to allow her to follow him into the house, watch him break down into a fit of panic no one else has seen him in, and tell her he loved her, but it'd cross the line into uncharted territory to talk about everything between him and his dad so openly. Between the minor annoyance of dealing with Kacey to this hellish visit home, he thinks he's reached his quota on feeling uncomfortable today.

She nods in agreement.

"Baby steps."

Drawn back to each other by a force stronger than gravity, they collide again, but it isn't a kiss this time. It's a hug charged with all of the previously unspoken emotions they've buried inside of themselves for years, the same hug she gave him the last time she came to this house with the fear of his potential death lingering in her thoughts.

She throws herself at him with the same desperation she did that day and relishes the feeling of his muscular arms returning the embrace until their bodies are tangled together. She'd usually never refer to something as inherently affectionate as an embrace as violent, but it's the closest she can come to capturing how it feels as their bodies meet. It makes her lose her footing on the bottom step they stand on together, teetering on the edge she'd surely slip off of with the force if not for him keeping her steady.

He's about to say something, a thank you to her for calling him out on his bullshit and not letting him go that easily, when the grating sound of her ringtone blares from the back pocket of her denim shorts.

The contact popping up on the screen along with a series of frantic messages when she pulls away from him to answer shows Pope's name.

Pope You and JJ need to get back to the Chateau ASAP!!

The van doors slam shut behind Y/N and JJ as soon as it rolls to a stop in front of the Chateau.

Under the assumption that something dire happened, as in injury or death or catastrophic damage to the house itself, they bolted off of that porch faster than they knew they could move. She only turned back when she remembered the packed back of JJ's things they abandoned on his bedroom floor and, not wanting him to reenter the house, she brought it back to the Twinkie in record time.

They're preparing to trample up the porch into the house like a stampede of animals when they hear Kie calling them over to the backyard and change direction.

"No one's hurt!" she shouts, knowing that was likely where their minds went after everything they went through during the summer, "You have to see this though, I don't know who did it!"

Sticks and fallen leaves crunch beneath her feet on her way around the side of the house. Her mind races with the possibility of what could've happened that didn't hurt their friends but necessitated a series of texts and calls as frantic as the ones she received at JJ's house. She drove over here in defiance of the speed limit, something she rarely does, and prayed nothing terrible was happening.

It gave her flashbacks to when she found out John B and Sarah died in the storm. The pedal beneath her foot brought the van to an uncomfortably swift speed, then she remembered the sound of Shoupe's voice when he gave them the news. JJ warned her to slow down, then she remembered how it took multiple people to help her restrain him from attacking the new sheriff for letting his men drive their friends into their deaths.

At first, she doesn't realize what's wrong.

Kiara and Pope are standing and waiting for them across the grass near the large tree that sits as a centerpiece to their yard. Based on the body language screaming their frustration and the tears in their eyes, she can tell something bad did happen, but it's not clear what it is until she looks past them to the tree. More specifically, until she looks at what's on the tree.

"Oh my god," she whispers to herself.

Her hand is already up to cover her mouth and conceal the instantaneous frown besmirching her previously relaxed face. They both are stopped in their tracks halfway to where their friends are standing, and she can’t hear JJ's reaction over the rising volume of her hysterical thoughts.

Spray painted in red on top of their memorial for John B are the words "COP KILLER" in bold letters that conceal what they burned into the tree trunk for his gravestone. It sticks out from the beauty of the greens, browns, blues, and swathes of other earthy tones composing the scenery around the Chateau like a thorn amongst flowers, so much so that she wonders how she didn't instantly see it when they rounded the corner to come back here.

Yet that isn't the only thing amiss in the peaceful sanctuary they call home, there are random things strewn around the ground around the tree. An old t-shirt spray painted with the word "murderer" on the front, four ripped up envelopes, and a gorgeous mahogany jewelry box...broken on the grass.

The freshly turned dirt they had the contents of the box buried beneath is scattered around the trashed area as well. It clicks with her a few seconds late that whoever came here to do this must have seen the pinwheel she put in the ground to mark the "grave" and dug it up to add insult to injury.

She moves forward without consciously realizing it and stumbles until she reaches the first object of the debris field. Before this, she was doing a masterful job of holding in her cries, but as soon as she crouches down to pick up the pieces of the jewelry box, the lid snapped clean off the hinges to separate it from the bottom section, it comes rushing out of her against her will. The first unrestrained keen is the first thing to snap JJ out of his shell shocked trance.

He walks after her as fast as his legs will take him without breaking into a run, but she isn't letting him get close before she puts the box back down and shuffles forward to collect the torn letter remains. She doesn't want them to get blown away by the wind anymore than they already might have been, so she scrambles to gather the pieces until they're cupped in her hands to protect them.

"Why?" she asks and looks up at Kie and Pope with tears dripping down her face, "Why would anyone do this? Who would do this?"

Pope says, "My guess is as good as yours. We didn't see anyone leaving when we got here, so it must've happened before school ended. This is all we saw before we called you guys."

For a second or two, JJ is grasping at straws for why this happened and who did it like the rest of them are, but then something Pope said makes it click into place. It sets off a domino effect in his mind as he brings back the memory of a certain offspring of satan being absent from gym this afternoon despite being at school earlier, since his encounter with her before Physics made him, unfortunately, aware of her existence again.

His face is set in anger, jaw clenching with the tension of him grinding his teeth together, and he takes his hat off to fidget with it between his hands for a second. Their friends are too focused on her crying to see him contemplating it, but as soon as he speaks, they look up to see him setting his hat back onto his head in preparation to leave and track Kacey down.

Y/N's head snaps up from the torn letters in her hands to the sight of him storming off across the yard with his only goodbye being the words, "I'm gonna kill that bitch."

Her and Pope stare after him in shock, unable to put the pieces together about who that "bitch" is, but Kie doesn't miss a single beat. While Y/N is crumpled over on the ground in tears, she's rushing after JJ before he can approach the bike parked in front of the house. He doesn't even make it five steps before he feels her hands latching onto his wrist to stop him.

She asks, "Who the hell are you talking about? And why would they do this?"

His eyes narrow at her. His unreleased frustration for the situation in general and having to watch Y/N cry after an emotional afternoon together comes rushing out when he snaps at her.

"Kacey. She talked shit at school and I put her in her place. Now, if you don't mind, I'm gonna pay her a little visit."

He yanks his arm sharply towards himself to free it from her grip, but she's a step ahead of him. Quicker than he can think to stop her, Kie swipes the keys hanging out of his back pocket away and throws them to Pope, who, bless his heart, can't catch to save his life. The key ring jingles with its contact at the dead center of his chest, and she mouths an apology to him before turning back to face JJ.

"What the fuck, Kie?"

He makes to stomp past her and retrieve the keys from Pope only to be stopped by her hands reaching out to grab his shoulders.

"Listen to me, you can't go anywhere. Look at her," she whispers lowly enough to keep Y/N from hearing, pointing behind her to where she sits on the ground with Pope knelt beside her, "I wouldn't put it past Kacey to pull a stunt like this. I'm just as mad as you, but revenge can wait and you know it. She needs you."

The fury visible in his expression is subdued by looking past Kie's shoulder to see Y/N crying softly to Pope about the vandalized memorial.

The last time he saw her so distraught over something, it was the day they made the memorial and buried the box in the first place. She sits on her knees with her mom's broken jewelry box between them, shuddering with the sobs she has no control over, and pours the torn paper into the empty bottom half of the box. Exhausted to the core, she looks more like a sullen, kicked puppy than she does herself.

It makes his anger-fueled instincts that urge him to hunt Kacey down and do something, anything he can to make her feel the pain they do right now bubble down into sorrow. It's visible in his eyes when he looks at her.

Kie knows she's gotten under his skin when he sighs, sparing a parting glance to the bike in the driveway, and nods once at her before setting off back to where they're sitting in the grass.

Meanwhile, Y/N is stuck staring down at the disarray of her backyard with nothing but pain aching through her to the bone.

Her brother did wrong things sometimes as a consequence of being human, but never this, never something worthy of having his name dragged through the mud and being branded a murderer after his death. He stole scuba gear from Ward and broke dozens of laws in their hunt for the gold, but he never crossed that line into moral bankruptcy. Rafe did, and it kills JJ to see someone like Kacey do this to his best friend while hanging off of Rafe and his friends like a leech.

The fabric of his worn t-shirt is tarnished by the dried paint clinging to the front of it to the spell the lie written there, and her vision blurs with tears for what feels like the millionth time in the span of an hour. First, it was JJ. Now, it's John B, and she can't help but wonder if the heartache will ever end. It began to feel better over the course of the week, her grief for him slowly beginning to slip from her mind until now. Until the storm clouds converged again to batter her with another wave of it.

Through the deafening volume of her mind racing with thoughts and feelings to process what's happened, she hears Pope shuffling around to stand on his feet. Then, another person sits down in his place and scoots closer until their bodies are touching, and she knows it's him. She doesn't have to wait to hear his voice or look to see his face, she can tell based on the feeling of his touch and the smell of him she's so intimately familiar with, yet couldn't describe it aloud if she tried.

He doesn't smother her. He sits close enough to touch her and doesn't push it any further.

The background of the pale, cloudless sky frames him in the foreground like the subject of a painting—a living, breathing painting that she could study endlessly. The other trees planted in the yard's leaves flutter distantly behind him and try to draw her gaze away, but she keeps her eyes on him.

Maybe that's how it is, she thinks.

Maybe it'll get better and worse in a dance that'll only stop when they're no longer here to agonize over it. Maybe this is what moving on from John B will always be like. It'll feel like they've made strides in the right direction, then something will come along to shatter it to sharp pieces that'll reopen their stitched up wounds. If that's the case, at least the four of them have each other to lean on when it gets worse again.

JJ sits with her and lets her crawl onto his lap, resting her head on his shoulder, until the sun sinks below the horizon.

The gentle bobbing of the HMS Pogue at the surface of the water steadies her amidst her eddying thoughts. It keeps her present to the moment the way the ropes tying the boat to the dock keeps it from floating adrift into the marsh. It's a motion engrained in her from the start of her life until now from countless days spent on the water. Whether it be for fishing, swimming, or playing make believe with her boys all those years ago, it's as much a part of her as her personality or body itself.

JJ was right about one thing: being out on the water makes it easier to think.

He hasn't followed her out since she woke up before sunrise and snuck out of bed to come here. Despite her efforts not to wake him, he woke up when she disentangled her body from his, silently cursing the fact that they always cuddle so closely, and he tried to pull her back to him with a whine of displeasure in his groggy, half-asleep state. Sleep finally found them after hours of staying up together to talk about what Kacey did, unable to relax from the chaos of yesterday, so he wasn't prepared to wake up that soon.

"Go back to sleep, angel," she whispered as she hovered over him, brushing a chaste kiss to his lips that he was too tired to return.

That was the last time she saw him since this morning, and now that the sun has risen to its peak in the sky without her moving an inch from her perch atop the bow of the boat, she's begun to wonder if he's awake yet. It isn't uncommon for them to sleep in for half of the day when there isn't school or work, so it isn't surprising to her that he's just now waking up when she hears the back door to the Chateau opening and closing.

Unbeknownst to her, JJ has been awake the entire morning since she left bed.

They were so attached to each other yesterday night, he didn't have the time to put it together without her seeing and ruining the surprise, but once he heard the door to the porch close to signify her leaving, he kicked the blankets off of himself and got to work. He wasn't originally planning on starting so early, since they stayed up late into the night together, but once he woke up to the feeling of her sneaking out of his arms, he was too awake to fall back asleep.

The sound of his footsteps on the dock warns her of his approach, but she doesn't raise her head from where she rests it in her palms to stare out at the water.

"I was wondering when you'd finally wake up," she says.

There's another few steps, then the boat jostles with his weight stepping onto it.

He doesn't say anything to her in response. The only clue she gets as to what he's doing are the footsteps on the deck that lead closer to her until she feels him sitting down on the bow next to where she is. And she's about to open her mouth to ask if he's okay when he sets something down in front of her.

It's a shoe box.

Y/N turns to see him, eyes flickering over his tired face, and looks back at the box with furrowed brows.

"What is this?"

His hair is messy, exactly how it was when she left him in bed this morning, and if she weren't more focused on the mysterious box he plopped down in front of her, she'd be combing through it with her fingers. He's gotten used to those casual displays of affection from her; how she runs her hands through his hair on mornings before school when he forgets to brush it, or when she fixes a button on his flannel that he missed.

JJ's lips are tipped in a smile, and she can't help but blush with how he looks at her. She never used to see it, but he has always looked at her like this. Like he's hopelessly, utterly in love with her. Even before they lost John B, back when he'd expend all of his romantic and sexual attention on girls he hardly knew, he still looked at her this way.

He gestures at it and says, "Open it."

The lid of the box is coated in a freshly dried layer of blue paint to match the shade of the sky overhead. She knows instantly that he must have dug through the arts and crafts box she specifically labeled with a warning for him and John B to stay out. It's painted with aimlessly sloppy brushstrokes and stickers placed at every corner of the cardboard box, all of which she recognizes from the stash she kept under her bed alongside the India ink he borrowed last Friday.

As she gives him a skeptical look and reaches to lift the lid off of the shoe box, she makes a mental note to rewrite the label on the arts and crafts box without the warning for him to keep out. Since John B isn't here to steal anything from it and JJ never follows that rule anyway, it's redundant at this point.

Any skepticism is washed away from her face as soon as she flips the lid open to reveal what's inside. It leaves her speechless as she looks down at it all.

"JJ..." she murmurs in awe.

Sitting at the bottom of it is a folded up t-shirt she saw JJ wear multiple times, but never again since John B died. He refused to glance at the shirt his best friend gave him the year before they never saw him again, let alone dig it out of the corner of her closet where he keeps his things...until now.

But that's a scratch on the surface of all of the things about his gift that stuns her to silence. The next thing to catch her immediate attention is a picture she hasn't seen in years.

It's one that Big John took of the three of them together right where she and JJ are sitting. She was much younger in it, flashing a toothy grin with her arms thrown over both boys' shoulders. To her left, John B was leaning his head on her shoulder. To her right, JJ was wearing an eyepatch they crafted out of an old black shirt he stole from his dad. It was cut with the kitchen scissors and tied around the back of his head in a knot.

She brushes her thumb over John B's face, then sets the crinkled photograph back down atop the folded shirt and moves her attention to the last surprise.

Letters.

Torn up pieces of paper painstakingly taped back together sit one on top of the other, some missing pieces here or there, and it makes her mouth part in shock. Her hands shuffle the letters apart to see each one and recognize the handwriting: Kie's bubbly, swirling letters, Pope's neat cursive, hers, and JJ's chicken scratch writing that she's able to decipher from years of proofreading his essays.

She pictures him at her desk all morning while she was sitting out here, ripping tape off of the roll and arranging the puzzle pieces of the ripped letters until he was sure he got it right. It made him want to rip the hair from his scalp, but he sat there and pushed through the frustration to make it as perfect as he could for her. The missing pieces were primarily from Kie's letter, which fluttered away on a balmy breeze when Kacey tore it up and threw it to the ground, but the one he wanted her to have the most wasn't missing more than a single piece.

Y/N looks up from the letters held like a precious treasure in her hands to see him watching her with that same classic JJ smile on his face, but he doesn't let her get a word in yet.

"Go on," he says, leaning closer to pull his letter to John B out and place it on top of the pile for her to read, "I want you to read it."

"You didn't let me read it when I asked before though, are you sure you—"

He interrupts her before she can worry herself over it, "Dude, just read it. I promise I'm fine with it. I want you to."

The letters crinkle under her touch as she looks back down and smooths them out on the deck enough to read through the clear tape. With one last confirming glance to him for permission, she takes a deep breath and reads the first line.

Dear John B,

You really know how to keep a guy on his toes, don't you? You really outdid yourself on this one. I was so sure we were gonna make it, but I guess you had to go all Romeo and Juliet on us, huh? As long as you and Sarah are happy macking on each other in heaven, it's okay.

In all seriousness, I fucking miss you, bro. I miss you more than I realized a person could miss another person. Whenever I need to talk to you again, I don't know what to do. I guess that's why it's good that Y/N made me write this.

Also, I'm really sorry for—

"What does it say there? There's a whole chunk missing," she murmurs.

He scoots close enough to her that she can feel his body warmth radiating onto her through the shoulder of his flannel. Sunlight reflects on the silver rings decorating his fingers as he holds one side of the paper to tilt it enough for him to squint at.

"Macking, I think. It's supposed to say "I'm sorry for macking on your sister."

—macking on your sister. You can totally kick my ass for it, but before you come back from the grave to murder me, let me defend myself, okay? She isn't just another girl for me, John B.

I think you knew it before I did.

Last summer, you asked me straight up if we were hooking up behind your back after I kissed her in front of you on the porch. I laughed in your face, but you were right.

You saw everything before me, man. You knew I loved her since we were kids and waited for us to come to you about it, so that's gotta mean something, right? I hope it means you wouldn't be mad at me for this.

I swear I won't fuck it up with her, but you already know that. That's why you asked me to take care of her,. I didn't know why at the time but I do now. I won't let you down.

I'm keeping my promise.

- JJ

P.S. Don't miss me too much. We'll be shotgunning beers together up there before you know it.

There are tears blooming in her eyes when she lifts her gaze from the tattered paper to look at him again, but they aren't sad. For once, the tears slipping down her cheeks are happy tears, not born from grief, sadness, and pain, but bittersweet happiness.

They're caught staring at each other for a second before he asks her shyly, "It isn't too sappy or anything, is it? 'Cause I thought it—"

"C'mere," is the only thing she can get out before she's tugging him forward by the front of his shirt to kiss him.

JJ stumbles a little with the unexpected force of her pulling him to her, but he takes it in stride. He steadies himself and lets his hands shoot out to grapple for purchase on her waist, keeping her pressed up against him tightly as he kisses her back.

And it doesn't get much better than this, does it? This is it for him. He meant what he wrote to John B, he won't fuck it up with her, especially not because of his trauma with his dad getting inside his head and sabotaging his relationship with her. This is what makes everything worth it.

It brings happy tears to his eyes too.

She can taste the salt of them where their lips meet in the middle. It makes her smile, wrapping her arms around his neck and clenching the letters he mended for her in her fist to keep them from blowing away in the wind, and they both start to laugh into each other's mouths at the poignant feeling they both share but can't quite place.

They pull away from each other to catch their breath after another moment of it, and she can't help but stare. How could she not when she feels like this? It’s less like he’s her boyfriend and more like a piece of her soul has attached itself to his with no hope of letting go in the near future.

"You're the best thing that ever happened to me," she whispers to him.

Plain and simple. No room for disagreement or a bashful rejection of the compliment. She's pulled back from him enough to hold his gaze and make sure he sees her seriousness, and there isn't anything he can do to refute her statement.

He brushes his nose against hers affectionately, dipping down to kiss her again, but when he leans back to see her face, he can't help himself.

"Ditto."

The rest of the day after their moment on the boat, locked away in their own little world where none of the monsters chasing them could sneak through and ruin it, melts away peacefully. After another half hour spent looking through the box together, of her thanking him over and over again, he hops off of the HMS Pogue onto the dock and extends his hand to her in the most gentlemanly manner possible.

His lips are curved into a smirk as he kneels down on one knee as though she's a revered royal and bows his head in subservience, "Princess Routledge."

Her hand fits in his warm, calloused palm as a perfect match, and she steps off of the boat onto the dock beside him with an expression to match his.

"Captain Maybank," she says in her most regal royalty voice.

Her stellar performance breaks into a laugh they share as he stands and throws his arm around over her shoulder to walk back to the yard. The cardboard box is tucked beneath one of her arms while the other slips around his side to hold him back, and her heart feels full with both the presence of JJ and John B alongside her.

They bury it together.

Tag List: @gabiatthedisco, @fangirlvoice, @black-syren, @apparrio, @particularcth, @planetdemon, @idk-ijustworkhere, and @krisphann

Also, now that it’s over, let me know what your favorite part was in the comments or tags if you’d like to :) I’m curious.

#jj maybank #jj maybank x reader #jj maybank smut #outer banks #obx #fanfiction #i'm gonna miss these dorks #🥺#I love how he tries to break up with her and she’s like ‘no❤️’#also totally do not put on ‘seven’ by Taylor Swift during the childhood flashbacks unless u wanna cry #cause I did and my sensitive ass was crying #that song is about John B and JJ okay #it just is

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syndxlla · 3 years ago

Text

Part Fourteen of the More to Love Series

Summary: The wedding is in a week, and you’re suddenly very aware of how little time you have left to figure out what to do. You decide to take matters into your own hands, and formulate a plan. Din invites you to a night of experience, and you admit a simple truth to him.

Word Count: 11.8k words, NO USE OF ‘y/n’

Warnings: SMUT (PiV, a little degradation, praise, creampie, cockwarming, dirty talk), use of alcohol, drunkness, mentions of scars, sexual harassment

Author’s note: HELLOOOO! this is a fun chapter, and i just wanna let y’all know that we are in the endgame now 😭. don’t worry, i still have so many plans for both the princess and din and just the whole world that MTL is set in. thank you for all the support on this story! it never ends and i will forever be thankful for your love!

Part thirteen

You were a fool for thinking the castle would start to settle down after the ball passed. Alternatively, the planning did not lessen, but instead shifted from masquerade prep to wedding prep. The decorations were taken out, and new samples were brought in. It was made very clear to you that this was really Korkie’s wedding and not your own, because every decision and plan that was made was done without your input.

It had been a few days since Din told you everything, and he truly told you everything. You had plenty of time to reflect on it, and process everything. You worked so hard to gain perspective on it, to try and give your future family the benefit of the doubt, and to understand the full situation. However, you ultimately sided with Din, your heart aching for the situation he was placed in. It had been apparent that he would not have told you any of that if he did not hold immense trust in his heart for you, and the word Ka’rta over grew into your thoughts for all these days. The both of you had agreed to tone things down, deciding it would be a fair middle ground. Less nightly endeavors would keep you two apart, and therefore less suspicious, but it especially made the reunions of passion more sweet.

Your mother was long gone, she left three days ago, and finally you felt that you had the palace to yourself again without Hugo and various other guests breathing down your neck. Your time as Corellian Princess was in it’s endgame now as your imminent marriage to Korkie was just on the horizon, and you still had no idea how to escape from it. Most of your days, you spent making up excuses for missing afternoon tea, and trying extra bites of potential wedding cake flavors in the kitchen. Regardless of what you did, however, Din was always there with you, three paces behind. You were also given the opportunity to dismiss him more often now. The eager infatuation with him has slowly become a steady understanding of feelings, and the two of you were able to fall into a groove without the anxiety of wondering how the other felt, and how long it would be until you reunited. Tradition and duty had lightened up as well, and there were less eyes on how Din was treating you, which gave you the liberty to give him back an ounce of his life.

This was one of the best things to ever happen to Din. You would retire to your room early every night, hoping no one would wonder if you were ill, and because you were away from the eye of Kryze, you could allow Din to leave the castle early. At seven, sometimes even six, he would go home to his son. It made everyone happy, and that is why it was important to happen. This was much preferred over a midnight dismissal. You also noticed a change in Din’s presence after this change was made. He was springier, chuckling more, even sitting down when the two of you were alone. He had finally relaxed around you, and you accredit to the pure fact that he was finally getting more rest.

Those were your favorite parts of the day: when you and Din would find a quiet corner in the library, or maybe an empty sitting room, and he would just tell you about the world. He had been everywhere, you were convinced. He went into detail of cities in Coruscant, explaining how they have extravagant silk markets and countless taverns with exotic drinks. He described the heat of the desert, and how he once had to search for a merchant’s missing camel in return for clean water, a story that led to one of the scars on his back and a very rational fear of the desert at night. His favorite place to tell you about, however, was his home. The Nevarro Frontier clearly had a special place in his heart, and he spoke fondly of it’s tall mountains and tight-knit communities.

“Nothing like the Mandalore you know.” He would sigh. A kingdom that may have been fantastic on the outside, but was riddled with war and political division and heartache on the inside. “Maybe I can take you there someday.”

It was those words that sparked your imagination, and the plan began to formulate.

The real dilemma you had been in all this time was trying to figure out how to live happily with a man you truly loved, but also protect your kingdom, home and family. It was a delicate situation, one with many sighs and frustrated nights. However, after Din explained his battle with Bo to you, it’s resolution was slowly becoming more clear. There had to be a way you could win in this story. You would not give hope on that truth.

When Din mentioned taking you to his home, you realized that there was very little keeping you from up and leaving Mandalore in the night. It would be a scandal, it would probably cause an all-out war, but it was worth a try, or at least a dream.

Now, when you had afternoon conversations with Din in the library, you were studying maps of the world. You familiarize yourself with the terrain of Mandalore, how long it might take to get to the Sundari Front, and drawing out escape routes on the backs. Din assumed you had thrown yourself into cartography so you could grasp his stories and adventures fully, which wasn’t altogether false, but it went deeper than that. You tried to keep it under control, but you were slowly becoming more and more consumed by your studies: a recurring issue in your life.

Din hadn’t realized you were becoming obsessed with the geography of the world until about a week after the ball, when you fell asleep by candlelight at a table in the library, your face smushed into the parchment of a map depicting some old blueprints that he had paid no attention to, and your hair falling over your eyes. It was almost dawn, and he had come back from his time with his son already, distressed to see no one had the courtesy to wake you up and take you to your room. He didn’t really expect much else from Mandalore, however.

Din blows out the candle, and gently picks you up, being extra careful not to wake you, and carries you bridal-style out of the library and to your suite. It was these moments that Din looked forward to the most. When he did not have to put on a face, when he did not have a million rules to follow. When your sleepy head rests into his chest, and he can look upon your face with his own eyes, no helmet to obstruct it.

As Din looked upon your resting face, there was much he realized. He first noticed that scar on your body that he hadn’t seen before, and swiped his thumb over it. He also studied the way your chest rose and fell with each breath, how you were perfectly still, and yet completely full of life and beauty and pure goodness as you slept. Din deeply admired how much you cared, how much you cared about everything. The wellbeing of the staff, the customs of Mandalore, him. You threw yourself into your passions, and you had a deep love for the hobbies and aspects of your life that no one else he knew possessed. You were a dedicated person, and he found both attraction and respect ino that.

Din also realized a fundamental truth at the very moment the sky began to lighten up, your cracked balcony doors letting the curtains blow into the suite dreamily. Din felt at peace. It had been so long since he felt peaceful. Too long. He felt the same type of peace here with you that he would normally feel sleeping under the stars with his son nestled to his side. Or the same feeling of peace that he felt when he held his son for the first time. It was a rare feeling, and it was pure. It was so rare that it was only saved for the people most important to him in his life.

You woke up a few hours later, changed out of the pale yellow gown you fell asleep in. Din had not only put you in your nightgown, but had taken the time to pull your hair so it was out of your face. He was more thoughtful than you could have ever imagined. The Knight sits with his back against your door, helmet tilted up at the ceiling, and you wonder if he slept, and why he was not in bed with you. You had invited him several times, and wished he would fulfill the request.

As soon as you sit up in bed, his head lifts, and he stands at attention.

You yawn before speaking, “Were you resting?” You ask, stretching your arms over your head. He shakes his head in response. “What were you doing?” You ask, your arms coming down to rest on your mattress.

“Listening?”

“For?”

He shrugs, “The birds at first, but then it was footsteps. I didn’t want to get caught waiting for you to wake up.” He sighs.

“Well… I wish you would have listened in bed with me.” You glance over at the empty spot next to you. He doesn’t respond, and you are reminded that in many ways, he is still the silent knight you first met from three weeks ago. Din walks over to you, and you smile as he does.

“Did I wake you last night?” He asks, and you were honestly confused about what he was asking. He sensed the confusion, he was always so good at reading you, “When I carried you from the library here?”

“What?” And then you remembered, your eyes blowing wide. “Shit!” You jump out of bed. “What time is it?”

“Uh…”

“Is the rest of the staff awake?” You let your hair down, and slide on the pink satin slippers on the floor of your bed.

“What?”

“Did you bring the map I was studying?” You look up at his emotionless helmet.

“…No?” To be truthful, he didn’t even take the time to glance at the map you studied, he was far too distracted by you.

“Fuck.” You muttered. Din liked it when you swore.

You thought of nothing, and hurried to the door of your suite, swinging it open and marching down the corridor. Din follows you in confusion, trying to catch up to you and bring you back to your room. You’re weary, and just woke up, so you pay no attention to Soniee who passes you in the hallway with your tea, looking at you in confusion, or the maids who were trying to sweep the floor that you scurried over. Din tried to halt you, but was never one to speak unless spoken to, especially not in public and in the presence of others, and felt unable to stop you and ask what was going on. Everyone turned heads to see the future consort in a panic, and were left with questions. Most of them shrugged and ignored it, a few began the rumors.

You practically ran down the stairs, feeling a little out of breath when you finally made it to the doors of the library. The fact that they were closed was still a good sign, and you swing the heavy door open, entering the library with haste. Your heart drops when you see the last person you wanted to this morning: Prince Korkie.

He turns to see the commotion, his eyes are shocked to not only see you out and about this early in the day, but also in your nightgown. He sputters on a ‘Good Morning’, and you don’t even hear it because you’re too panicked to see that he has the map you were reading last night in his hands. You swear in your mind, and your heart falls out of your feet. Din comes hurrying behind you.

“Princess? What is the meaning of this?” He asks, an eyebrow raised, trying to sound chipper as he greeted his fiance. You swallow thickly. Din bows for the prince, and then bends down to whisper in your ear so Korkie can’t hear it.

“Highness, please come back to your room.”

“What? Why?” You say a little too loudly, and before he can reply, the door is opening again with General Vizsla and a group of knights entering.

“Y-your gown.” Din whispers, and you look down to see that it is very sheer, far too sheer to be in the presence of your fiance… and half of the Mandalorian government. You want to shrink from the embarrassment, and notice that Korkie’s eyes are fixed on your chest. What a creep. You fold your arms over your breasts.

“What map do you have there, Prince Korkie?” You ask, trying not to make it seem too obvious that you were clearly in distress, but shaken up by your exposure and the perverted ness of the prince before you. Din wondered what in the world could be so important about that specific map. He stands behind you to cover your back side.

“What is this commotion?” Vizsla asks, interrupting your conversation.

“Nothing, General.” Korkie clears his throat. He turns to you, “Vizsla and I were just about to discuss the plans we have for… the southern border of Corellia.” Korkie awkwardly smiles. You raise an eyebrow.

“Plans?” You ask.

“Yes, you will hear in time.” Vizsla’s obnoxiously nasally voice busts in again. He was always one to unwelcomely invite himself.

You try not to roll your eyes, “And the map, Your Highness?” You repeat yourself, trying not to sound too demanding. You were still a princess, after all.

Korkie nervously chuckles, eyeing the multiple men in the room and shocked by your ambition. He takes a step forward, rolling the map up in his hands as he advances in you and Din’s direction. Din placed a discreet hand on the small of your back, hoping to reassure you. His touch was barely noticeable, but it was enough.

“Princess,” He says, sort of hushed. “You can call me Korkie in front of other people.” It was clear that he had an expectation to fill, and it would be bad on him if his fiance was still addressing him with a title a week before the wedding.

You scoff, “No, I don’t think I will.”

You hold your hand out for the map in defiance, but the prince doesn't hand it to you. He has a dark look in his eyes, one you have never seen before. Din tries to pull back on your bicep, trying to alleviate the situation, but you stay steadfast. “I will take that map now, Your highness.” You bite through the title, wanting it to cut. Korkie lifts his chin with an authoritative look, putting the rolled up map behind his back.

“Get this woman out of my meeting!” He calls out, and turns away. Your face drops, thinking you had the upper-hand, but realize that is taken away from you as two muscular guards pick you up, pulling you away from Din, and walking you out of the library. Korkie always does this, he’s madly in love with you until he’s not. It makes you remember that all of this is probably a ruse for power. Your heart and spirit drop, and you feel nothing but pure disrespect and rage. Din quickly follows. You try to writhe out of the guard’s grasp, not wanting to give up without a fight, but failing miserably. They were both very strong, probably because they had to compensate for how scrawny the Prince is.

“I can take it from here, gentlemen.” Din says, loudly, louder than you usually hear him speak. “I said I can take her!” Din yells when they don’t respond. Then, you hear the indefinite sound of a punch. These guards were still fully armored, but there was no withstanding the strength and brute force of your Knight when you were endangered. The guard Din had punched lets you go as a reaction, and you use it as an opportunity to take your now free hand and twist the wrist of the other guard off of you. All of the self-defense Din had previously taught you paid off in that moment as he yelled out in pain, not expecting your strength or skill. You were taught by the best, after all.

Now that you were free from the clutches of Korkie’s personal guards, you felt Din grab your hand and pull you. The two of you ran through the corridors, down another flight of stairs, and passed the throne room, making sure not to look back in the direction of the library. You ran parallel to the ballroom, and then finally down a final flight of stairs to the foyer of the castle. Din tugs you into a narrow hall, and down a spiral staircase. It was the way to the staff quarters, you remember from the day you went to the ocean. You were shocked and confused about what happened, and truthfully kind of exhausted. You were relieved when Din finally slowed down, and pulled you into Koska’s sister’s room. It was empty, thank the Stars.

“Close your eyes.”

“What?”

“Close them!” Din says and it startles you, but you do it. He pulls his helmet off with haste, tossing it to the floor with a clang. Din places both of his strong hands on either side of your face, pulling you towards him and then kisses you with so much force and hunger that you stumble back in surprise, your eyes cracking open for just a split second. You didn’t see much, because his face was so squished into yours. All you caught a glimpse of was his eyelashes for a millisecond, but that was enough. Din is pushing you against the wall, pinning you to it, and kissing you so hard that you have to pull away to get some air. “I don’t think I have ever been as attracted to you as I was when you stood up to that prick.” He chuckles, and you hum back. Din takes a deep breath before speaking up again, “What was on that map?” He asks, out of breath, too.

You sigh, sort of embarrassed, eyes still shut tightly, “It was the tunnel plans of the castle.”

“What, you mean the blueprints?”

“Yes.” Your eyes stay closed.

“The blueprints that are at least three-hundred years old?”

“Mhm.”

“How did you get your royal hands on those?” Din asks, baffled.

“It doesn’t matter! What does matter is that I made notes on the back of the map!” You blurt, feeling shame, “I wrote the estimated times it would take and which halls to take from my room!” You groan, so badly wanting to open your eyes. You remembered what you said to yourself all those weeks ago, however, reminding yourself that it should be his choice to show you his face and no one else’s. You sigh, “The Prince isn’t stupid! I’m sure he thinks I’m plotting something now!” You hope you don’t sound too panicked, but if you were being honest, you were. Din sighs, clearly frustrated, although you weren’t sure if he was sexually or emotionally… or a little bit of both. “I’m sorry.” You sigh, your hands coming up and searching for his shoulders. “I should not have been so careless.”

“No, you shouldn’t have.” You weren’t expecting him to agree with you, he usually doesn’t. He takes a calming breath, “…Are you plotting something?” He asks, his eyes moving between your closed eyelids in search of a non-verbal answer that he’ll never receive.

You don’t want to answer, but know you don’t have a choice. “Yes.” You feel guilty after saying it, although you aren’t sure why. Din exhales deeply this time. “But listen! We could run! I don’t have to stay here! We can fix this! We can get into Coruscant and they’ll never come looking for us, and then we can go to Nevarro, go to your home! We’ll take your son-“

“Rue.”

“What?”

“My son, his name is Rue.”

Rue. It was simple, to the point, just like Din’s. You liked it. “We’ll take Rue! Please, Din, we need to! It will be the only way we will ever be happy!” Your thumbs rub into the thick skin of his neck. You didn’t mean to vomit so much information on him at once, but he didn’t really give you an option.

He exhales deeply, and you know he’s processing everything you just told him. “We can’t”

“Why not?”

“Because!” He yells and it scares you. You drop your hands, your heart rate rising. A lump grows in your throat and you silently curse your emotions for betraying you. You swallow back a tear. He walks away from you and you hear the helmet pick up from off the floor. He puts it back on his head, and you know from practice and instinct when to open your eyes. When you do, he’s sitting on the chest at the end of the bed, his head dropped and hands pressed to the edge of the wood by his sides. You frown, and walk over to him. Din pushes his head into your abdomen, and you hold him there, just existing in not-so-comfortable silence. It’s tense, and not the type of tension that you usually like to experience with I’m.

He’s surprisingly the one to speak up, however. “We can’t… because Bo will hunt me and kill me and Rue and you… she’ll kill everything I love.” His voice cracks at the same time your heart does. Did he actually…

“Not to mention the war between our kingdoms it will start. Corellia can’t support itself in a war. We both know that.” Din sighs, maybe he was telling himself this just as much as he was telling you.

You sigh. He was right and you knew it, but it didn’t keep you from wanting to run away with him any less. “Din…” He looks up at you. “We have to get that map from Korkie.” You say, more stern but still comforting this time. His head tilts in question. You sigh, feeling guilty. “I wrote something else on it.” You look away from him, your eyes trailing. His hand reaches up to grab your chin, pulling your head to look right at him. Your eyebrows furrow. “Directions to your home.” The atmosphere in the room changes. You can feel it. “I know I shouldn’t have, I know it puts Rue in danger, but it gives us all the more reason to get that map back from Korkie as soon as possible.” His hand drops from your chin. You felt terrible.

“Okay, okay. We can check the library again and… if it’s not there we’ll go confront him. We’ll get it tonight.” He nods.

“Are you sure? What if he reads it?” You were surprised how lax he was, but something told you that he was controlling himself from his true emotions.

“As far as I’m concerned, the Prince has no reason to cause me or my family any harm.” He nods.

“Not yet.”

—

You swallow, your face inches away from the door of the Prince’s bedroom. Din was around the corner of the corridor, both of you knew this was something you would have to do on your own, without his support. You had never been here before, and after ample search in the library for the map all afternoon, there was no other option. It was late, but not inappropriately late. You wore that same dress you wore weeks ago, the soft blue one that was off the shoulder one that adorned your figure elegantly. It was one of the most sophisticated gowns in your closet. More mature than most of the flowy princess ballgowns. It was a diplomatic but still ethereal fashion choice, which you desperately needed after a humiliating encounter this morning. The scar on your shoulder from the endeavor in Keldabe had mostly healed, and only had a pale pink to it. You looked back at Din, who was peering around the corner, for some reassurance. He nodded, and you took a deep breath. Two knocks would be enough. The door swings open, and you are suddenly very aware that you would have to brave this encounter without the support of your trusted Knight. Korkie is who answers the door, and he looks mildly unamused to see you.

“Princess?” He tilts his head.

“Evening, I hope it is not too late?” You suggest, keeping your voice as monotone and unwelcoming as possible. You wanted him to know that you were here for a serious matter.. You noticed he was covering the door with his body, perhaps he was hiding something from you too.

“For my fiance? Never.” You hated being called that, but if it was what it took for him to invite you into the room,you could deal with it. Korkie’s room was large, it was far more spacious than yours. It had a billowing fireplace and sitting area, the ceilings twice the height of your suite’s, and a private library pushed into the northeast corner. You familiarize yourself with your surroundings, and the heir closes the door behind you. You silently scanned the room for the map, you would have to snatch it up without it being suspicious, and you could not explicitly ask for it again. “What do I owe this honor?” He says from behind, charming as usual, although his words did seem a bit slurred. You see that an opened book sat on the seat of a chair in the sitting area. He must have been reading before you interrupted him. You turn around, and lift your chin, trying to look and sound as put together and unsuspecting as possible.

You clear your throat, “I wanted to apologize for this morning.” You nod. It wasn’t true, but you had rehearsed with Din several times the best way to stall time as you looked for the map, and this was the best way of going about. “It was inappropriate behavior, especially in front of the General.” You disagreed with your own words, and felt bad lying, but it came so naturally when done to the Prince.

Korkie sighs, and crosses over the room, looking up at a portrait above the fireplace. Your eyes still searched for your map, but had no clue where it might be. This was your first time here, after all. “Worry not, Highness.” Korkie downs a bit of brandy that was sitting for him. You didn’t like him when he was drunk.

“You’re sure?” You figured that would have made conversation more natural, but he clearly was not in the mood for propriety. He pours another drink, and even pours one for you, offering it. You shake your head and mutter a ‘no thank you’, not really wanting to get drunk tonight. Din wouldn’t touch you if you were drunk. You admired that he respected you that much, but it also deprived you of the one thing worth all the pomp and circumstance. Korkie shrugs and drinks both, and you’re frankly appalled by this conduct.

“Indeed.” He hiccups. “Everyone loves a little show.” He chuckles, and you frown. Was that all your humiliation was to him? A show? “Now, Princess,” He takes a step towards you, and you feel so unprotected. Din would have stepped in by now, you knew that. You didn’t have the same sense of security you usually had when he wasn’t at your side. “Why did you really come here?” He asks, running his hand through his hair.

“Excuse me?” You nervously laugh. How did he figure any of this out? You take steps back that mirror his, trying to keep the same amount of distance between him and you but struggling to when you hit the post of his bed, your back flush against it. Your hands wrap around the wood working, and you look up at him nervously. You felt the same as you didn’t when you were cornered and harassed in the slum of Keldabe. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You clear your throat, trying to solve something, anything. Where could that cursed map be?

“Don’t-“ He says through gritted teeth, he catches himself from lashing out, and collects his composure before speaking again. “Don’t assume I am blind.”

“I would never-“

“Liar!” He spits out and you flinch back. He laughs a few times, it’s that evil, frustrated laugh. It was the type of laugh that people do when they’re trying to calm themselves down, but in turn they simply seem more angry. You were genuinely scared, unsure of what to do in this situation. “What were the directions you wrote on the back of the map?” He asks, and you furrow your brows.

“I don’t know what you mean?” This was partially true. How did he not understand the very neat and clear directions on the back of the blueprints to the secret passages? And in all curiosity, why did he care?

Korkie grunts again. “You are foolish.” He was dangerously close to you, and you wanted to get out of that room as soon as possible. You wanted Din to come protect you, you needed him to. “Are you forgetting who you belong to?” His hand sets on your hip, and you flinch again.

“I belong to no one.” You defy.

“You belong to me.” He grits his jaw again. You closed your eyes out of instinct due to the sheer anger and tension in his tone. His breath smelled of alcohol, and you wished you had the authority to slap him. He laughs his chuckle of malice again, and then before you can blink, he leans in for a kiss. How could he? How could he take advantage of your vulnerable state like this? Your blood boiled, and just in time, you dodge his lips. You swoop under his arm, away from the bedpost and back to the security of a full room you can avoid him in. He looks at you, clearly appalled. You were dizzy, probably from adrenaline. You wished this was surprising, but it was the exact thing you expected The Prince to do. This is when you noticed the map was rolled up and on the floor beside the fireplace. The new perspective of the room is what made you see it. Had he intended to burn it?

“You know,” You say as you take a step towards the map, “You should have another drink.” You offer. “You’re clearly tense,” You stepped between each phrase, “And it would be better for everyone.” Somewhere deep down you wanted to believe that Korkie was only acting this way because he was drunk. But you knew it wasn’t true. You realized that everything inside of you was looking for a redeemable quality in him, a reason to stay perhaps. You wanted to believe he was worth staying for, but you knew that he wasn’t, not when everything you’ve ever wanted was just outside the door.

Before Korkie can take another step towards you, you’re bolting towards the map, snatching it up in your hands and then running towards the door. The adrenaline shoots through your veins, and it only grows when you hear him growl again and his heavy footsteps run after you. You have to physically hold yourself back from squealing in stress, your hand slapping over your mouth. You rip the door open, and try slamming it behind you, but Korkie’s arm is caught in the door, and you smash it. He cries out, and the commotion makes Din run down the hall towards you to check what was going on. Korkie was able to get a hand on the collar of your dress, and he tries to pull you back in, but your strength is enough to get away. You ran to Din, who looked concerned, you could tell by his stance alone. He was tense and his hands balled in fists at his side.

Korkie pulls open the door, holding his arm to his chest, and you look back, your heart racing. You are so relieved when you make it to Din, and you grab his hand, threading your fingers into his and pulling him down the hall in the same fashion he did early that day. Several guards who heard the heir’s yell were running in all directions, but none of them paid any attention to you, thank the stars.

You think you are crying, but you aren’t sure. You felt raw fear being alone with the Prince. You never wanted to be alone with him again, never.

You keep running nonsense in the castle, not really sure where you’re going but wanting to be anywhere other than there. Din is the one to stop you after the mindless escape, pulling you into a branching hallway and against an unsightly window. He grabs both of your arms, and pulls you flush against his chest. He holds you there for a long time, and you both get a chance to catch your breath. You cry into the beskar chestplate, and feel rather foolish for reacting as such. Din was silent, and just held you, his strong arms wrapped around you as tightly as they could be.

“What did he do to you?” He asks, and you sigh out pathetically. Din repeats his question, still calm and gentle, but more urgent.

“I-I was so scared.” You stutter. Din somehow squeezes you tighter after you say this. After you collect yourself a little more, you can speak again, “he was drink-“

“Did he… touch you?”

You weren’t sure why you felt like you were in trouble, but aggressively reminded yourself that Din would never be upset with you, at least not for something like this. “Yes… But not very much, he just touched my hip and leaned in to kiss me.”

“Did he?”

“No!” You say almost defensively, “I got away just in time.” You pull away and look up at him with teary eyes. His hand comes up, and he pulls the glove off. His bar hand caresses your flushed face, swiping a tear off your cheek with his thumb. “I’m sorry-“

“Why?”

“I don’t know!” You breathe out shakily. “For crying I guess? For letting the map get away? For letting him touch me-“ You try to look away but his fingers catch your chin again, pulling your gaze back onto his helmet.

“Stop that. It’s not your fault. He is disgusting for doing that.” Din nods, and you swallow a sob. “Do you understand?” He asks, and you slowly nod once. “And promise me, that you’ll never ever blame yourself for anything like that ever again, okay?” You nod again. “Promise me!” He wasn’t angry or forceful, just steadfast with his words. He meant what he was saying.

“I promise.” You mutter. After you reply you hear his exhale in his armor. He pulls you against his chest again, and you can feel it move with each breath. You wished you could hear his heartbeat again like you could when you wake up next to him. You’re able to finally relax, and his embrace was the most calming thing you had ever experienced.

“I was worried sick about you.” He says, far more soft spoken than his remarks before. You didn’t verbally reply, but he was able to read how you felt. “I don’t like you being alone with him.”

“Me neither.” You sigh, squeezing your eyes shut and letting the final few tears fall out of your lashes. “All the more reason to leave.” He tenses after you say it, and his arms loosen a bit around your shoulders.

“You really want to?” He asks, you nod against his chest. “You know the possible consequences? This could mean the destruction of Corellia.”

“I know. That’s why it’s so hard. I don’t know what to do. I know what I want, and that is to leave here with you, but I don’t want my own selfishness to risk the lives of thousands who I vowed to protect.” You pull your head away from his chest.

“You… really want to live a life with me?” He asks, almost oblivious to your prior remark. You nod nod, or even say yes, but you just look up at him in all seriousness, hoping it would be enough.

It was.

“You don’t even know what I look like.” His arms drop. Did he think you a fool for that?

“We…” You debate your words, “We can change that.” You close your eyes, hoping that it would mean something to him, and maybe it did, but just as always, he didn’t show it. He just takes his cursed, gloveless hand and tilts your chin up to see him.

“In time we will, but only when it is right.” He nods.

It wasn’t the answer you wanted, but it was enough. It was more than anything he had ever given you before.

“Come on,” Din says gently, “There’s something I want to show you.” He beckons with his head down the hall, and you follow, interlocking your fingers with his again, the map in your other hand. You weren’t really sure how he was able to be so calm and reassuring, especially without showing an ounce of emotion through all of it, but it was a Godsend. You weren’t sure if Din loved you, at least not in the same way you loved him, but you were sure that he cared about you, and he wanted you to be safe and happy. And that was all you needed, for now.

“Had he read the map?” Din asks as you walk down a flight of stairs, descending the various levels of the palace and undoubtedly heading for the staff quarters again.

“I believe so.” You sigh, “Although he seemed confused about it. I think he was a little too drunk to fully comprehend, or he was giving me the benefit of the doubt.” You shrug.

“Well, at least we have it now, right?” Din asks, his head slightly turning back to look at you as he says it, and you give a nervous but relieved smile in response. The two of you loop through halls, and you’re very aware of how much the castle is winding down. Staff have retired for the night, doors were closed, even the usual laughter coming from parlors or the ballroom was silenced. Was it really that late? You didn’t really have much of a perception of time anymore after everything that had just happened.

The one part of the castle that was full of life, however, was the staff quarters. As you got closer, you could hear the usual laughter, and warm, welcoming light poured from the low corridor. Music played, it was loud, and your eyes searched for the spectacle that was just awaiting you.

“You said you wanted to get to know the staff better…”

“I did?” You ask.

“A few nights ago, you were really tired, you might not remember.” He shrugged. You didn’t really care whether or not you really said those things, what stuck out to you, however was that Din remembered that. He was observant enough to remember specific phrases you said, and not any phrases, the ones that were sleepy and probably full of nonsense. You would lie if you said you didn’t gush over that a little.

Din takes you into the staff common room, and it’s all clear. The warm smells, the enticing light, the infectious laughter, it all came from the whole castle staff crammed into this one room. There was food, and everyone laughed and danced to the music that a handful of staff members played. Their instruments were humble, probably retired from the royal orchestra years ago, but you could tell there were fond memories and stories linked with every single one. It was hot, and there were a lot of people crammed into the room. The doors were wide open, and the tables were pushed back against the walls so that the floor could be opened to a large and intricate group dance. It was nothing like the pompous dances that the nobility did at the ball, however. This dance was filled with joy, and mistakes were not only welcomed, but celebrated. Expression was the center of the party, and all types of people were involved. Children who were up far past their bedtime joined in the festivities, dancing and laughing and chasing one another, elderly staff sat at the tables, clapping along to the folk music, and the servants who usually give you sour tea and hot bread had their shoes off, jumping on the stone floor of the common area. Some of the knights and guards had their helmets on like Din usually did, and others did not. You realized it really probably boiled down to personal preference, or duty.

You smiled at the spectacle, and it gave you a deep and undeniable sense of community and love. You quickly learned that the livelihood of the castle did not rest in the parties and rules that an uptight Queen set in place, but the very people who made the castle work smoothly.

The laughter and joy was contagious, and you couldn’t stop yourself from joining the fun. You jump into the dance, not sure of the steps, but picking up your ridiculous skirt and starting anyways. You hoped it wasn’t obvious that you had been crying a half hour before, but no one paid any attention if it was. The women in the circle linked their arms with yours, and you spun in a circle. The one to your right couldn’t have been older than fifteen, and she yelled over the noise how to do the footsteps. You couldn’t really hear her, but looked down at her feet and tried to mimic it. You had the cheesiest smile on your face, and the room spun as you danced. Din crosses over to a wall, leaning against it and crossing his arms, watching you.

After that dance finished, another song started, and the moves were rather different. However, a girl pulled you out of the circle, and tugged on your dress. “It’s too big!” She shouts over the music, “You’ll never make it through the next song!” You nod and then walk over to a table. You stand on top of the table after a few jumbled ‘excuse me’s’. You were sure everyone recognized you, but they didn’t treat you differently for one moment. It was… refreshing. You kicked your shoes off, and several people turned to look at you, some cheered, others laughed. You then bite your bottom lip and pull the strings of the corset you wore, loosening it enough to slip out of your crinoline and ruffled-slip, leaving you in nothing but your undergarment petticoat and the top layer of the gown you were wearing. There was laughter, and you didn’t hear or see Din chuckle. You swayed your hips, and after a playful “huzzah!” from the crowd, a few knights helped you off the table. You immediately return to the dance circle, and you’re able to move much easier. You’re thrown back into the stimulating dance. The woman was right, this was much more physical, jumping and kicking was done and it was far more exciting than any of the proper waltzes you had spent your life dedicating time to.

You step out after two more songs, trying to catch your breath and wiping the sweat off your brow. There was alcohol, just hooch, but a bearded man gave you a big mug and you happily chugged it down. Din was impressed with your ability to consume so much so quickly. The men all cheered and hollered as you downed the drink, also impressed with the skill. You didn’t know you could do it, either.

A game of cards is being played, and you’re roped into that, too. You bet some money (money you didn’t have) and helped a tired, old man who usually worked in the stables play, after a few tough rounds, and struggling to learn the rules as you played, you won the pot for the old man. Three other much younger boys who usually worked at the front gate looked in shock as you pulled the money towards you and the man. He laughed and thanked you for your help.

Some little girls examined your crinoline and corset, a few older women all pinched your cheeks, and a fat man gave you a huge helping of mashed potatoes and greens. You got to overeat shamelessly, and it felt so rewarding after weeks of eating like a bird in fear of being judged by your in-laws. It was the most wonderful feeling in the world to be treated normally. You caught a glimpse of Soniee, who braided a boy’s hair. You even noticed that Koska was there, the center of one of the dance circles, swaying her skirt to the beat with another girl, the two dancing together in a vibrant duet of culture and community. Your feet only began to hurt when you were pulled to dance again, and your cheeks ached from smiling so wide. It was the most alive and accepted you had ever felt in Mandalore.

At one point, you found yourself just a few feet away from Din in the dance. You hold your hands out for him, beckoning him to join. “Dance with me!” You shout out. Before you get an answer, however, you're pulled back into the center of the group. It isn’t for a few more cycles and bars of the song that you’re back out by him. “Please?” You try to be as enticing as possible. He shakes his head, his hand coming up to decline. You raise an eyebrow.

“I don’t dance!” He yells back. You roll your eyes and step out of the group momentarily. You grab both of his hands, your face with the cheesiest smile ever, and pull him onto the floor. He tries to fight back, but ultimately loses.

“Yes you do!” You reply, yelling as loud as possible so he might be able to hear you. “You proved it to me last week!” You say and in perfect time, your arms go up together with the beat of the song. He hadn’t done this dance before, but has watched it enough times to know what’s going on, although he looked rather awkward and foolish doing so. You grab his hand, your hips turning left to right in time, and you look down at your bodies, trying to show him as best as you can.

“I have no idea what’s going on!” Din yells at one point, the two of you now in the heart of the party.

“Me neither!” You laugh, “That’s what’s so wonderful about it!” Then came the part of the dance to clap your hands, the two of you clapping up by your face, and mirroring one another. “Now you’re getting the hang of it!” You nod. He rolls his eyes, and is thankful you can’t see it. It would be horrible for his reputation if anyone knew that he was having even a little fun, especially because it was with you. Din doesn’t usually come to these parties. They happen most Saturday nights, but he runs home to his son. Tonight, however, it was important to him that you got to experience it, especially after everything that happened earlier today.

You both start getting the hang of it, and Din mentally thanks his helmet for hiding the smile on his face. Your feet grapevine, and then you both jump. Everyone hoots and hollers, it’s part of the dance. Suddenly, the both of you are in the middle of the dance circle in the same way that Koska was with her partner a few songs ago, and you’re leading the spiral. You can’t wipe the darkish smile off your face and genuinely can’t believe you got him out here.

“Atta boy, Djarin!” Koska yells from a table, standing up and toasting a Ming of hooch. The music picked up in preparation for the big finish. Din and you spun around one another, your bodies coming flush until your palms press flat, your faces only inches apart. You always thought playing off of one another in a dance was important for the emotion during a waltz, but a fancy three-step had nothing on the emotion and passion put into a dance such as this. Somehow, you could still play off of him, and the performance was one of shared respect and assurance. Despite never having seen his face, you got the Knight, you understood him in a way no one ever did. The song ends, the two of you real close to one another, and out of breath. The entire room roared in joy as they cheered for the both of you, and you looked up at the visor of his helmet.

“I want to kiss you!” He yells, and although his request is very clear, no one can hear it over the volume of the room.

“Then kiss me!” You reply. You didn’t give a damn if every servant of the Mandalorian royal family saw it. He laughs, you feel it, and then he’s pulling his helmet up.

He just reveals his lips, but you look upon them with no shame, admiring the way his Cupid’s bow dipped, and the scruff on his jawline. You smiled wide, and he smiled back. You feel honored to share this moment with him. Everyone around you was so loud, and they were cheering for both you and Din. You couldn’t believe how many of them knew his name as they called it out in encouragement.

Din’s free hand wraps around your waist, and pulls it in tight to him forcefully, you blush at the gesture, and the crowd “ooh’s” flirtily at it. Din Djarin then kisses you. He pulls your body into his soft lips and you sigh into it and it;s too quiet for him to hear but as soon as your lips meet, the crowd of staff disappears. Their cheers blur together, and fade out. Your lips move together passionately, and you do so with no shame. He groans against you, and you can feel it more than you can hear it, and it’s all you ever wanted.

For weeks now you just wanted to share your love with him publicly, and now that you have, you’re aware of how personal your love with him really is.

The crowd fades back in, everyone laughing in support and amusement. Your lips softly party and you grin from ear to ear. Din does too, shameless for once. His teeth are nice and straight. Oh God, you loved his smile.

Oh Stars, you loved him.

“Din!” You yell out. “I love you!” It was time to say it, because it was true. You meant it and as you say it, giggle.

“What?”

“I love you!” It’s so loud that you’re even sure if he can’t hear it, you can barely hear it yourself. But, in classic Din Djarin fashion, he doesn’t answer. He was never good with words, and was much better at showing you what was on his mind. He kisses you again, just as passionately, but this time it’s a series of short, quick pecks on your lips that get progressively more sloppy. He smiles into each kiss and you feel those magic butterflies again.

The rest of the night is a dreamy blur, Din dances the whole time with you, the music eventually slows, you notice that there are less and less kids in the common room. It winds down, and your feet ache in the best way. An ache that would be associated with happy memories. It was long past midnight when you decided to stop dancing, and a lone fiddler is all who was left in the band, playing a ballad to end the night. There was still soft laughter, and a few stragglers who slowly danced to the music. Din was one of the few who were still playing cards, one of his fellow knights challenging him to a game. Din was always up for a challenge, and both he and the man he played against looked deep in thought. You realized you were finally able to read him through all that beskar, and he was far more reactive than you ever would have known if you weren’t looking for it. Your cheek sits in your palm, and your eyes are heavy, but you watch him fondly from across the room. Koska sits next to you, handing you a cup of water.

“You had fun.” She hums, taking a sip out of her own cup.

You nervously laugh in response, she wasn’t wrong. “I didn’t realize how connected you all were.” You say with a sigh before taking a sip of the water and being so relieved to finally get some hydration after all of the energy you exerted.

“Yeah…” Koska was in her typical undisturbed mood, relaxed and observant. “These are the people of Mandalore.” She sighs, “They are what we really represent. We aren’t all about war and decoration, there’s so much more to us that the world doesn’t see.” You were touched by that remark, because you had seen it too. “The truth that’s hard for all of us to believe is that the rest of the world only respects us to stay on our good side.” Her voice drops a little. She looks at you, her eyes heavy as always. You aren’t sure how to respond, because it was true. Koska takes another sip before changing the subject, “I’ve never seen him dance before.” She nods towards Din. “At least not like that.” She laughs into her cup.

You smile, “I didn’t think he had it in him.” You tease.

“He wouldn’t have if you weren’t there.” Koska shrugs. “He’s like a whole different person around you. It’s refreshing.”

“He told me about everything that happened.” You reply. “With him and Bo.”

“He did? I don’t think he’s really talked to anyone about it.”

“He just told me last week, after the ball.” You nod. “I had no idea… but it all makes sense in the end.” You finish off the last of your water as his card game finishes, the few people watching cheering as Din lays down his cards and wins. The other knight, whose face was also covered by a heavy, beskar helmet slammed his fist down on the table in defeat. Din took the money that was on the bet.

“He’s better because of you.” Koska says, smiling as he wins. “I’ve had to look out for him in a way for a long time, he’s one of my oldest friends.” She speaks of him fondly. “But I feel like he doesn’t need me as much anymore, now that you can keep an eye out for him.” Koska turns to look a t you, but you don’t notice it. “You love him?”

“I do.” You nod. “Well… I think I do.” You sigh, “I don’t really know what love is I suppose, but I believe how I feel about him is the closest thing to it.” You shrug. “And I’m totally fucked because of it.”

“I wouldn’t know.” Koska explains, “I’ve never been in love either.”

“Really?” You ask, mildly shocked in all honesty. Koska nods. “There’s no one special in your life?”

“Well, there’s one girl.” Koska begins, “But my feelings towards her are more of an… obligation, I suppose.”

“I used to worry that’s how Din felt about me.” You admit.

“Oh trust me,” She chuckles once, “It isn’t like that for him at all.” She hums and you sigh in response, you sit in comfortable silence for a moment after that before Koska speaks up again, “What are you gonna do?” She asks.

“I don’t know.” You admit, turning to look at her, “But now that the majority of the castle staff has seen us kiss, I need to think of something.”

“That was pretty stupid, by the way.” Koska rolls her eyes.

You chuckle, “I suppose it was…” Din starts walking back to you, “But I can’t seem to care. I’m sick of hiding from everyone.” Din makes it to the two of you, and you smile as you look up at him.

“It’s not much,” He holds out the money before pocketing it, “But Rue will be happy.” He laughs and holds a hand out for you to take. “How drunk is she?” He asks Koska.

“She’s fine-“

“I only had one drink!” You roll your eyes, knowing that your night with Din will end very quickly if you were drunk. You take his hand and he hoists you up with him.

“Hm… that’s what you said the other night.”

“She’s okay, maybe a little tipsy but nothing keeping her from holding a perfectly normal conversation.” Koska says to Din, knowing full well why he even asked, a smirk plasters on her face.

“Come on.” Din hums, and pulls you down one of the various halls that branch from the common room, but not the one that both of you were familiar with because of your aid from Koska.

Din leads you through the candle-lit halls, and into a small bedroom. It was cramped, and there was barely enough room for the both of you, but it was cozy. He lit an oil lamp, and it illuminated the room just enough. Din slowly pulls off his helmet, and it’s so dim that you can’t really see anything like normal, but you can make out faint features and the light in his eyes. It was enough. He started to take off his armor too, and you patiently waited with your back against the outerwall that the window was in. He sets the chestplate and pauldrons in a neat pile on the foot of the bed, and kicks his boots off. His arm comes up to rub his neck, and he stretches a few times. He pulls the chainmail up over his head, leaving him in the same peasant blouse and trousers that he wore at the beach all those days ago. You would never get used to how trim his waist was, and how broad his shoulders were. He turns around, and has a smile on his face. You wished you could see him in the light. Din runs his hands through his thick curls and then steps towards you. You close the gap and wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him in for an innocent kiss.

“Thank you.” You mutter.

“What for?”

“For bringing me here tonight… for being with me.” You sigh, and look up at him lovingly. He sighs, and kisses you again. Din starts to deepen the kiss, and you moan into his lips. He was a good kisser, that was for sure.

[SMUT BEGINS HERE]

Din wastes no time, he picks you up by the thighs, lifting you on his waist so you’re kissing down into him, and before you know it, he’s kissing your jaw. Din had learned your body, he knew the sweet spot on your jaw, and always knew just how long he could suck on it before it became a hickey. He never crossed that line, he knew when to stop, but how badly you wanted him to mark you up so Korkie could see, you wanted everyone to see who you loved and why. His strong hands bunch up your skirt, and lift it up so your ass could be uncovered. His arms hold you, and he stumbles back until he falls on the bed in the room. You straddle the knight and get comfortable on his lap. You can feel his hard-on growing, and you’ll never get over the confidence boost that gives you. You start to tentatively rub your hips so that you grinned down into him. You get a sting of pleasure through your spine, and you’re already getting wet. Because you were down in the lower level of the palace, and was totally isolated from most people with thick, stone walls, you take advantage of the opportunity to make noise. You moan into Din’s mouth, and he holds his lips apart for you. His breath against your face was enough alone to drive you crazy, and your fingers twist around the strands of curly, brown hair that sit at the nape of his neck.

Din’s thick, calloused fingers find their way between your legs from the back, and he starts to gently run his fingertips through your slick folds. You gasp at the feeling, he was so gentle with every move. He starts to moan as well as your hips grind further into him in search for more friction and pleasure, and the sound of his voice unobstructed by the beskar is your favorite sound in the whole world. Din settles into his seat, and he pulls you forward onto him. This allows your hips to lift up just enough that he can insert a finger through your cunt. He starts pumping his wrist immediately, fingering you. You pulled your lips away from him, and sat up straight. You throw your head back with a moan, and then bring your hands to the tucked in portion of your shirt. You pull it up over your head, and wriggle out of the slip that kept you clothed. You were finally naked, and you took your free hands and squeezed each nipple. Between the feeling of Din’s fingers deep inside of you, his growing-bulge rutting against your clit, and the added pinch of your nipples, you were already in a euphoric bliss that didn’t take long to reach.

“Din-“ you moan his name, which he loved. He’s eager, and isn’t afraid to show it. Din pulls his cock out from his trousers, and he lets you grind against the tip. You keep it from going in, trying to tease him in the same way that he did the morning after the ball. It was really just driving you over the edge, really, and so before you let his swollen tip prod at your slickness anymore, you steady yourself on his broad shoulders, and take a deep breath before sinking down onto him. Both of you moan out when you do, and he throws his head back, exposing a thick cord of muscle in his neck. You bend down to nip at his adam’s apple before suckling into his tan skin, making sure to leave a massive, purple bruise on the middle of his neck. You bottom out as you do this, and the sensation shoots up your body. You liked being on top for the sheer fact that it gave you a different angle. Din’s length was pressing up into you now, and he filled you up delightfully. Your favorite feeling in the world was being stuffed by him like this.

You could feel every inch of him as you lifted your hips up, you were so wet and it was already such a loud, obscene noise. You kept sucking hickeys into him, and your hands moved from his neck down to the hem of his blouse. You grab the sheer fabric, and pull it up over his head so that Din is finally as shirtless as you. His huge hands stay on your ass, squeezing the fat there and using his own strength to lift you up and down on his cock. It’s slow at first, but it allows the both of you to really savor the feeling of one another. You scratch your fingernails down his pecs, scratching at his abdomen, and then finally trailing in between your legs to circle at your clit as the pace picked up. You lean forward to rest your glistening forehead on his bare shoulder, and your bare chests press into one another.

Din begins to thrust his hips up, and before you know it, you’re bounding on his cock. It’s fast and hard and your weight is slamming you down on to him over and over again with no end in sight. It’s painful in a good way, the same type of ache that would have good memories and passion attached to it. You knew your core would be sore tomorrow, but it was worth it as Din’s huge cock runs against your g-spot over and over again inside of you. Your fingers speed up on your clit, and you bite down on Din’s shoulder muscle to keep from being too loud. He’s grunting and growling and is absolutely feral and the noises eliciting off of his kiss-swollen lips are needy yet dominate at the same time. You could get drunk on his breathy-sighs, his voice as dark and husky as always.

“That’s it,” He groans into your ear, you moan in response to his words. You loved when he was vocal because it was so rare that he actually was. “Are you gonna cum on my fucking cock, Princess?” He asks.

“Mhm.” You pathetically moan.

“Fuck-“ he groans, and then shifts his position. Suddenly, the two of you are standing up, and the way his length moves and twitches inside of you as he stands up pulls an involuntary moan from your lips. Din lifts you up with his arms, arching his torso back so that you can lean on him. He then gets right back at the task at hand: chasing your orgasm. It was close, you could feel it, and somehow Din seemed to have more energy and strength in this position. He lifted you up and down on his cock, and your arms found their place wrapped back around his neck, desperately trying to hold yourself up as he absolutely tears into you. He was so big, you keep forgetting how thick he is until his swollen and hard cock is filling you up like you were only made for this exact thing.

He must have gotten tired, you could tell not only by the sheen layer of sweat on his chest, but he pulled you off of himself, and threw you onto the bed. You giggle at the forceful contact, and like being tossed around in bed. It made you feel small, and it really showed his strength. Din pumps his leaking cock a few times, kneeling in front of you and pulling your legs apart. You bite your lip out of lust before he slaps the head of his length on your cunt a few times. The sound is so dirty, and it makes you even wetter.

“Stars, you’re so fucking wet for me.” He bites his lip, slapping his cock harder against you. “Can you hear that? Can you hear how fucking wet that pussy is?” He asks you. Stars, he was good at this.

“Yes… so wet for you.” You sigh, your hand coming down to play with your clit again. Din mutters a ‘that’s right’ before he slides himself through your folds a few times again before pushing into you one more, and he doesn’t hold back. His hands find their way to your hips, and he presses them down into the bed as hard as he can, pinning you in place. He starts to pound into you, and it knocks the wind out of you because of how abrupt and forceful it is. You can’t even really make noise to show how good it was, and instead a few strangled and helpless cries pull from your throat.

“Do you fantasize about my cock when you’re with your fiance? Hm? Does it turn you on knowing that you’re cheating on him?” He asks, and you can finally moan out. He was right, he knew you would say yes.

“Yes!” You say, “I can’t stop thinking about your cock!” You reply, your voice high-pitched and so needy.

“Do you think about me fucking this pussy like a bitch on my cock when you’re in important meetings?” He asks again. There was something about the disrespect that you loved, it only made things better.

“Yes sir!” You cry. Din chuckles and then smacks your ass cheek. His slamming into you so hard that you can’t believe he hasn’t gotten tired yet. You can see how his muscles flex against the moonlight and your core is aching from the knight but it’s all worth it. “I’m gonna cum!” You warm, arching your back in pleasure. Din then spits on your cut, adding to the hot wetness and dirty sounds, and he pulls your fingers away from your clit and replaces them with his.

“Cum with me,” He groans, and almost immediately, you’re cumming on his leaking cock at the same time that he does. He cums so much, and you’re always surprised by it. His load drips down your folds, and he fucks you through it. It’s filthy and you want to keep doing it for the rest of your life. Your arms come up to grasp his biceps, trying to steady yourself on anything. Din moans loud when he cums, and it isn’t until he starts softening inside of you that he quits thrusting. He doesn’t pull out, however, and he stays stuffed inside of you as he catches your breath. You’re fucked-out, your eyes heavy and breasts heaving with each deep breath that tries to calm your heart rate. “I love cumming in you.” He sighs. You already knew that, but you loved how he told you. He goes to pull out, but your thighs squeeze together, holding him in place.

“Stay inside.” You whine. Din tilts his head.

“Fuck, you’re perfect.” He bends down to kiss your forehead, and then very carefully and slowly turns the two of you so that he is spooning you, his cock still buried inside your dripping and swollen cunt. “You did good, you did so good.” He kisses your neck as he says these, breathing in deep your scent. “S’good… so good.” He catches his breath, and is just as exhausted as you are, if not more. His chest heaves against your back, and his arms pull you against him. You fight against sleep, but ultimately fail, submitting to rest almost immediately after Din pulls the blanket over the both of you. Just before you fall asleep, you hear him mumble something against your neck, although you aren’t sure what it is.

Taglist: @remmysbounty @snow30285 @what-iwish-you-knew @carbonated-beverage @frogllady @baileys-corner @leaiorganas @weirdowithnobeardo @ginger-swag-rapunzel @bewitchedbodyandsol @mograh @justavolcano @theokatz @lowkeytesss @hallway5 @news4bees @istealyof00d @songofcosplay Y @mcueveryday @310ra @thatonedindjarinfan @songofseraphine @callmekane @theelilbritt @bbwithaknife @firstofficerwiggles @jedi-jesi @ironbabey @minttchipp @bel-ppa @cp11 @venomous-ko @bbwithaknife @lunatic-sunsets @1800-fight-me @foundtheavacados @elphabaforpresidentofgallifrey @florenceivy @theanothersherlockian @spideysimpossiblegirl @mandosmistress @floraandfrost @paradoxpictures @stinky-child @goldielocks2004 @kenoobiwan @elinedjarin @uniquebiscuitmongerdonkey @artooies-scream @yuiopiklmn

“If you are included in the taglist, you are expect to interact with the post you are tagged in (ex. Reblogs, Notes and Comments). If I see that you are not interacting, you will be removed from the taglist permanently.”

—

part fifteen

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of-stars-and-moon · 4 years ago

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Hi!! So I'm really new to reading fanfiction, but I've read literally all your Pynch fics and I'm obsessedddd! *that sounds so creepy sorry but like you're literally my hero HAHA* Do you have any Pynch fanfic recommendations for newbies such as myself?

Aah thank you so much!! And no that's not creepy that's such a great compliment!! So I have previous recs here and this post has great canon compliant recs in the reblogs! Also you should check out @uncertainglobalfuture 's fic recs they have great recs too!

Now here are some more recs in order of their word counts:

August slipped away (into a moment of time) by @alteridemlynch - 1k - Canon compliant- Adam's leaving for school. Ronan reflects on their summer together, and knows he can't hold him back. (Based on August by Taylor Swift)

We'll take it slow (and grow as we go) by @pynches - 1k - Canon compliant- What do you do when St. Agnes is really cold? You share your hoodie and your bed of course!

This and more I sat divining by @astudyinfreewill - 1k- Canon compliant- The thing of it was, Ronan thought glumly, that Chainsaw was a filthy little traitor. It was hard enough to stop himself from spilling all of his secrets in front of Parrish; he didn’t need his psychopomp – one of his own secrets! – to expose him like this. Ronan had spent a long time trying to hide the truth of his feelings from himself. He had done this by keeping them mired in self-loathing and buried under self-destructiveness. But something had changed over the summer. The problem was that once he’d started – once he’d thrown open the floodgates – he’d been unable to stop feeling those feelings.

There’s dirt under my nails and fire in my heart by @tinyarmedtrex - 4k - AU- Ronan is fine being a single dad. He’s never minded that it was just him and Opal, his semi-adopted daughter. But when Adam, Opal’s substitute teacher, wanders into his life it forces Ronan to reconsider his perpetual bachelor status

What Happens When You Crash A Car by @fcstation1063 - 4k - Canon divergent- When Gansey gets called up to DC to help his mother, he makes a deal with Ronan. Ronan will show up and be presentable at Mrs. Gansey's party the night before the Senate election, possibly with a date. In exchange, Ronan gets to drive the Pig for three weeks. Ronan crashes the car, and ends up falling for the mechanic who fixes it

Skinny fleas by @hklnvgl - 15k - Canon divergent- “I don’t think I can wait ‘til Monday to keep reading,” Adam confessed, and it was the first time Aurora had seen him smile. He was missing a tooth.

“What’s it about?” Blue Sargent asked, also coming to the desk with the latest issue in a horror story compilation collection between her hands.

Adam bit his bottom lip before turning to face her. “Dragons,” he said, in a somewhat firm whisper.

That made Matthew’s head snap up.

“Dragons are cool!”

(School librarian Aurora Lynch befriends second-grader Adam Parrish)

We Fit All Adding Up by @toast-the-unknowing - 15k- Canon divergent- It's fifth grade and Adam is new to this school, new to this house, and new to having friends

A favour shared by @etoilegarden - 50k - Canon divergent- “That was on me. I’m Adam. Parrish. Ethan’s my brother.”

“Oh,” Ronan said, his surprise evident in his voice, “I thought he said - I was pretty sure he said you were his dad.”

“No,” Adam said, “he probably said ‘Adad’. He does that sometimes.”

Broken Things and Homecomings by @daisyapples - 90k - AU- Ronan Lynch has just returned from war; hot deserts, gunfire and bad memories. He's not sleeping or eating and the only thing keeping him functioning is his army buddy Noah. Adam Parrish got out. He got out of Henrietta, and then he got dragged back in by his dad's funeral and his mom's illness. Now he's back at Boyds trying to figure out how his electrical engineering masters ended with him becoming a mechanic

Finding that love song by @lydia-st-james - 190k- Canon divergent- Ronan Lynch dealt with his father’s sudden death by plunging into music. With high school coming to a close, and without any ambition to go to college, Ronan convinces his best friends to start a band. The only problem? They’re in need of a vocalist, and the young mechanic with the perfect voice is playing hard to get. (In other words, the gang makes a band AU.)

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joachimnapoleon · 3 years ago

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I'm reading a preview of Charles-Eloi Vial's "Histoire des Cent-Jours" on Amazon, in which the author mentions that when Napoleon was on Elba, he reconciled with Murat. Do you know anything about this matter?

The subject of the reconciliation between Napoleon and Murat is one of those things about which I still have as many questions as answers.

Correspondence between the two during Napoleon’s exile on Elba is borderline nonexistent; I haven’t come across any letters from Murat to Napoleon from this time, so unless there’s something locked away in the private Archives Murat in the French National Archives, it probably no longer exists.

But, there was certainly some correspondence between them. There’s really no way to know how much, but Napoleon’s Correspondance Générale contains letters to Murat during the Elban exile and also references to other letters between them made by Napoleon to Bertrand. I was surprised to learn recently--thanks to @josefavomjaaga for sending it to me from her volume of the Correspondance--that Napoleon actually wrote to both Murat and Caroline shortly after his arrival on Elba. Both letters are dated 11 May 1814; Napoleon informs both of them of his having just arrived on Elba. He tells them both of Pauline’s impending arrival and asks for Caroline to send him news through someone she trusts.

Pauline arrives on Elba, and then leaves for Naples almost immediately after; I don’t think she’s on Elba for more than a couple days before she departs for Naples. She remains in Naples for months before her return to Elba, and it’s generally believed that she served as the go-between to effect the “reconciliation” between Murat and Napoleon. It’s assumed she was sending letters back and forth between the two. How many letters? What were the contents? There’s really no way to know. Napoleon references one specific letter from Murat, in September 1814, while writing to Bertrand on 9 September:

I have received a very tender letter from the king of Naples; he claims to have written to me several times but I doubt it, it seems that the affairs of France and Italy set his head straight and make him affectionate.

There’s nothing else until the eve of Napoleon’s departure from Elba. He fires off two letters to Murat on 17 February 1815 to let him know he’s sending him a man by the name of Colonna “in order to communicate to you some important and urgent matters,” no doubt about Napoleon’s upcoming return to France. Colonna, he tells Murat, “is authorized to sign every convention Your Majesty may desire with regards to our affairs…. Your Majesty must in particular trust in everything he tells you about my attachment and the high consideration with which I remain.” The second letter from the same day thanks Murat “for what you have done for the countess Walewska,” reiterates that Colonna is coming and “will tell you some big and important things. I’m counting on you and most importantly on utmost speed. Time is pressing. My love to the queen and to your children.” An undated, ciphered letter from Portoferraio, believed to be written between 22-26 February, tells Murat that he’s just waiting for favorable conditions to make his escape: “The winds have been increasing for the last three days and have forced the English warship to move somewhat away from our shores. But it can return any moment and my brick is not capable of competing with it. If I had one of your vessels, I would leave in broad daylight and I would sink anything that stood in my way.” Murat actually does end up sending a vessel, but by the time it gets to Elba, Napoleon has already left.

So, there probably was more correspondence between them, either written or verbal--but there’s just no record of it.

It’s important to point out that Murat’s “allies” (particularly the British) were looking for any excuse they could find during this period to justify turning on and dethroning him. Proof of a correspondence with Napoleon would’ve given them all the ammunition they needed. This is where it gets interesting. Napoleon will claim later on Saint Helena that the allies “doctored” Murat’s papers (to prove there was a correspondence between the two during the Elban exile). And there is an interesting excerpt from the memoirs of Dedem, who claims that the Congress of Vienna received, via the French Bourbons, copies of letters between Murat and Napoleon, left by a careless person close to Murat. I’m assuming that this individual (whom Dedem leaves unnamed save his first initial) is M. de Baudus, former tutor of the Murat children, sent by Napoleon to Toulon as an intermediary after Murat’s defeat at Tolentino; Baudus was to inform Murat that Napoleon would not receive him in Paris, that he was to stay put for the time being under a sort of house arrest while events played themselves out (Napoleon was on the way to Waterloo), and that Napoleon blamed Murat for having “ruined” France in 1814 and having “compromised her and ruined himself” in 1815. Anyway, here is the excerpt from Dedem:

The Tuileries cabinet had sent copies of his correspondence with Napoleon, and it was on these certified copies that Joachim was tried and condemned. Well, thanks to the thoughtlessness of the Count de B… who forgot (in following the King to Ghent) all his correspondence in an armoire at the chateau, we now know that all these letters had been truncated. Napoleon found the originals with the minutes of the copies drawn up in a way which served to lose Joachim; all the copies were in the hand of M. de B… attached by pins to the letters of the King of Naples.

Dedem includes the following footnote at the end of this paragraph:

It is from a man very worthy of trust, whom Napoleon had recalled to him in his cabinet during the Hundred Days and who neither loved nor complained of Joachim, that I have these details. He assured me that he had seen and re-read the letters several times.

So the Bourbons either found enough damning correspondence between Murat and Napoleon--or altered it enough to make it look damning--and sent it on to the Congress of Vienna so they could justify removing Murat from his throne once and for all.

Now, as to the matter of how sincere the “reconciliation” between Murat and Napoleon was… that’s another story. Louise Murat’s take is that the reconciliation was more sincere on her father’s part than on Napoleon’s:

So it was not long before the reconciliation took place and, if we can affirm that, for his part, it was as complete as possible, I do not know if… we will be able to affirm likewise that all traces of the past were also erased from the Emperor’s mind.

This subject bears some remarking on the relationship between the two men in general. There was a lot of bad blood between them by the time of Napoleon’s first exile, going back years before Murat’s treaty with Austria in 1814. Murat had felt ill-used and mistreated by Napoleon since at least 1809, things had gotten downright ugly between them in 1811, and in the aftermath of the 1812 campaign Murat was increasingly resentful of Napoleon’s treatment of him. Napoleon, for his part, had been incapable of trusting Murat since being informed, in 1809, of a scheme between Fouché and Talleyrand to have Murat succeed him in the event that Napoleon died without a legitimate male heir; much of his conduct towards Murat from that time forward comes across as deliberately spiteful and intentionally humiliating. Murat was vain and proud and it took him a long time to get over these kinds of slights and embarrassments. But, he was also capable of forgiving people he believed had wronged him--for example, Murat had restored Lavauguyon to his service years later after having suspected him of having an affair with Caroline in 1811. And I personally believe he retained a certain amount of affection for Napoleon even in spite of their nearly constant quarrels, and kept hoping to find some way to regain Napoleon’s affections, which he felt he had lost without ever quite understanding why; he concludes a letter to Napoleon in 1810 with “Love me as in Poland, as in Prussia, and I will love life again.” He didn’t enter into his decision to leave Napoleon in 1814 easily, and from everything I’ve seen it seems to have been extremely agonizing for him, and the news that the Allies had driven Napoleon from his throne and into exile in 1814 devastated both Murat and Caroline.

All of that being said, there was still some amount of self-interest in Murat’s attempting to aid Napoleon in 1815, and also in his striking out against the Austrians shortly after Napoleon reached France. Caroline believed that Napoleon would eventually drive them from the throne of Naples if he managed to keep his own, and Murat himself very likely saw the reason in this, and hoped he might safeguard himself by claiming all of Italy.

For Napoleon’s part, I tend to think Louise Murat was probably right; I think he saw Murat, being the only member of his family still on a throne, as a useful tool for his own eventual restoration. There’s a footnote in Bertrand’s Saint Helena cahiers basically saying that Napoleon never gave any indication of having genuinely forgiven Murat for 1814, and I personally think that’s probably the case. In mid-April of 1815--not even a week after sending Murat a letter from Paris, assuring Murat “You can count on my attachment,” Napoleon sends a note to his Minister of Foreign Affairs ordering a report on Murat’s conduct in 1814. My guess is, if Napoleon had triumphed at Waterloo and secured his throne, Murat still would’ve found himself in a world of hurt eventually. Murat seems to have anticipated this himself; in June 1815--actually the day after Waterloo, about which he was still oblivious--he is writing once more to Napoleon--the last letter he will ever write him--basically offering himself up on a silver platter:

I have nothing more to ask of Your Majesty, he can pronounce my fate unsparingly; your wishes, whatever they may be, will be carried out. Glad to be lost for you, no complaints will be heard from my mouth, but you can dispense with sending me in the future what they want to call consolations by people named as my friends; may your ministers make positively known to me the place of my exile; I will go there without a murmur.

#Joachim Murat #Napoleon #Napoleon Bonaparte #Caroline Murat #Caroline Bonaparte #Pauline Bonaparte #Louise Murat #1814 #1815 #asks

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starlightrows · 4 years ago

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At The End of My Rope

Pairing: Din Djarin x f!reader

Word Count: 2.8k

Tags: Angst, pain, hair pulling, biting, co parenting, insecurity, a bit of comfort, early stages of a new relationship

Summary: All kids go through difficult phases, just because Grogu is an old man baby, does not mean he doesn’t go through phases that drive his caregivers crazy

AN: Normally I tend to write Grogu like we see him in the show. Sweet disposition, a little cheeky and mischievous. But I wanted to try something a little different, I was inspired to take on this challenge by this post. I hope I did an okay job!

Din had bid you and Grogu farewell earlier in the day. Giving his son a gentle pat on the head, and you a hesitant but warm embrace. A newer development in your budding relationship. He promised he would com if this job took him longer than the usual 3 days. You weren’t too concerned, this was the set up after all. He hunts, you take care of the child and the ship. But this time was different. You knew you were in for a long couple of days when he refused to eat his favorite dinner. Grogu beat his little hands against the table, tossing away the plate of steamed vegetables and seared meat.

“You better not be getting sick mister,” you warned, mostly to yourself. His skin didn’t feel hot, and he didn’t seem to be having any symptoms of illness. But it was very unlike him to turn down any food, especially his favorite. You cleaned up the fallen bits of food from the floor, and attempted to offer him some of your dinner. But he smacked it away as well.

You sighed and gave him a ration bar. For some reason he was happy to devour that instead. You would have preferred he eat the fresh food. Ration bars are no substitute for fiber and natural vitamins, and even though Grogu outnumbered you in years he was still a growing boy.

After dinner, you put him on the floor on one of the soft blankets you had purchased for him, and tried to entice him into playing with toys or reading a story from the datapad. But he wasn’t having any of that either. He seemed to be disinterested in everything that normally amused him. The only thing that kept his attention now was throwing anything you offered him.

“I think it might be a good idea to have an early bedtime,” you grumbled after catching the datapad mere inches from the floor. Those things aren’t cheap and you’ve only got the one.

You began your evening routine with Grogu. Dimming the lights in the hull. Bringing him into the fresher to wash his face with a warm rag, and brush his six tiny little teeth. He never liked that part, so you tried to be quick about it.

“Ow!” You yelped, recoiling your hand. “Grogu! Not nice. Don’t bite” The bite wasn’t bad enough to break skin, but it sure did hurt for such a little creature. Grogu squeals with delight, apparently unaffected by your scolding and discomfort.

You took him back into the main area of the hull, and tried to place him down in his crib. That wasn’t happening either. The moment you put him down he shot right back up, and yelled for your attention. He had always been a troublesome sleeper, waking up at least two or three times a night. So you picked him up again, and began walking slowly up and down the length of the hull. Braced against your shoulder, and being bounced gently usually did the trick. But tonight, he couldn’t get comfortable. He cried and complained. And you just couldn’t figure out why. So you just kept walking up and down the hull. Over and over and over again, until your feet were numb, your hips ached, and your eyes began to droop.

Grogu finally seemed to be drifting off. You figured you’d be able to keep this up until he was fully asleep, then you’d be able to get some rest too. A quick glance at the chronometer jars you out of your rhythmic pacing... it’s nearly morning. You’d been pacing all night long. Grogu stirred at your shoulder, snapping you back to the present moment. You continued your walking, and he settled easily.

When you were sure he was fully asleep, you lowered him into his crib, and tucked him in. Without bothering to wash your face or even change out of your day clothes, you collapsed onto the bed and fell asleep.

It felt like not even a full minute passed before your eyes shot open again, Grogu was awake and howling for attention. He had managed to climb himself out of his crib, up the storage crates, and up further on to the wall of the crest and gotten himself tangled up in the cargo net attached to the wall. He was dangling from his foot, and wailing. You launched yourself out of bed, and went to disengage him from the netting.

“How did you even get up there?” You ask him. He just giggles and babbles, squirming to get out of your arms. Another glance at the chronometer tells you that the both of you had gotten at least a couple hours of sleep. But not nearly enough by your reckoning. Hopefully he would tucker himself out by playing and the two of you would be able to take a nap in the afternoon. But first, breakfast... another battle of throwing his food at the walls, spitting and crying.

“What’s with you lately?” You ask the little one “You love oatmeal with moon peaches,”

He whines in response. You shrugged your shoulders and took the bowl away from him. Defeated, you unwrapped another ration bar and gave to him. He happily munched on it.

“I know you’re like 50 something years old, but this absolutely has to be your species equivalent to the terrible twos,” you told him, trying to wipe some stray oatmeal from his face and ears. He tried to nip at your fingers again, causing you to pull up short.

“Hey!” You scold him “We talked about this. No biting, remember” He peered at your with those big dark eyes, and shoved the rest of the ration bar into his mouth. You shook your head, and continued cleaning the floor where he’d dropped his oatmeal.

The day dragged on, things got a little better after breakfast. He seemed a little more interested in his toys today, and was content to play mostly by himself. By the early afternoon he was getting cranky and definitely needed a nap. He crawled up into your lap, and whined for some affection. You placed the datapad to the side, and brought him up to rest his head on your shoulder.

“You done being a grouchy pants?” You whispered, patting his back gently “Wanna take a nap with me?” He whimpered out a quiet little response. You decided it would be better not to even get up, instead you leaned back against the wall and closed your eyes. You’ve napped in stranger places.

You woke up again sometime later to intense pain in the side of your head. Your eyes snapped open, and you yelped at the pain. Grogu had a fistful of your hair and was yanking with such ferocious intensity it scared you.

“Grogu! Let go! You’re hurting me,” you cried out. He didn’t seem to be awake yet, it wasn’t on purpose. You shook him as best you could, trying to rouse him from sleep.

His own little eyes snapped open and he gave a final yank. The searing pain intensified as he pulled out your hair. You shrieked in pain. Grogu released the larger chunk of hair still attached to your head. You could not help the tears welling up in your eyes or the pained moans escaping your lips.

You set Grogu down on the play blanket, he rolled over and went back to sleep. The strands of your pulled hair fell to the ground. You rushed off to the fresher to look at the damage. You were relieved to find that it wasn’t all that bad. True he has gotten a fistful to pull on, but he had only yanked out a tiny amount. And it bled a little. Still the pain was excruciating, and it scared you to think your sweet little boy could hurt you this way.

“It’s not his fault,” you reminded yourself. “He didn’t do it on purpose,” You wiped away the blood with a wet cloth, doing a rather haphazard job of it. You went back to Grogu, and did your best to pick up the hair he had plucked.

You hoped the remainder of his nap wouldn’t last too much longer so he would sleep tonight. But alas, luck was not on your side this week. He slept far too long, threw more food at dinner, cried while you bathed him and insisted on being rocked all night long... again. The one silver lining being, he fell asleep at least a little earlier than last night.

The morning came again, and things seemed to be better. He ate two full bites of his oatmeal before throwing it at you. But he ate all of the moon peaches. You decided to count that as a win. He played with you today, and seemed to want your affection. But he refused a nap and by the late afternoon he was getting grouchy and mean. It all came to ahead when he reached up for your datapad when you weren’t looking, and knocked off the edge of the storage crate you placed it on. The screen made an awful crunching sound, and you knew without even looking at it... it was toast.

Grogu was frustrated. He wanted to read stories, but the datapad wasn’t working. “It’s broken honey,” you tried to tell him “it won’t work. The screen is cracked... and there’s probably something else broken on the inside,”

He whined and complained, and just could not be consoled. It occurred to you that he hadn’t had the opportunity to play outside, or with others aside from you and Din in weeks. Maybe this was the reason for his misbehavior and frustration. Maybe if this job Din was on went well you could convince him to take a day or two off at park the ship on one of the safer planets he knew of to let the kid run around and blow off some steam.... but you also knew that he had to keep hunting, and it was your responsibility to keep the kid entertained and safe.

By the end of the night, Grogu was exhausted, not having taken his nap, and unwilling to cooperate. So you skipped washing his face and brushing his teeth. You didn’t even bother cooking dinner for him or yourself, you just gave him the ration bar you knew he would eat. He seemed content to get in his crib, but wanted you to sit by him and rub his back. Exhausted you sat down beside the crib and indulged him.

He’s gone through so much in his little life. And it’s not like human children don’t go through difficult phases. But you were at the end of your rope. Not sleeping or eating enough, you hadn’t showered in a couple days, your head still hurt a bit where he had pulled out your hair... you didn’t even want to think about what you looked like right now.

You wished Din was here. Not that you’d feel comfortable asking for help. He had his own responsibilities to take care of and figure out. But the two of you had grown close in the last few months. A few heated moments and admissions of deeper feelings, but you were both still trying to figure out what it all meant and how to proceed with one another. In this moment you just wanted him close by, if for nothing else another person to witness that you were doing everything you possibly could in this situation.

You fell asleep that night leaning up against the cradle, head bent at an uncomfortable angle and your jaw hanging slightly open. And that’s how Din found you. After pushing his quarry into the carbonite freezer, he was shocked and mildly horrified to see you in such a state.

Puffy bags under your eyes, hair in disarray, what looked like dried blood hastily wiped away on your neck and chin. Grogu on the other looked perfectly fine. Tucked up in his little bed, sleeping peacefully.

Din decided it would be best to take off and leave this planet first, safer in hyperspace. He went up to the cockpit to start the flight sequence. Next he removed all of his armor except the helmet and boots. He gingerly placed your arm around his neck, wrapped his arm around your torso and the other hooked under your knees. He lifted you off the ground, and carried you the short distance to the bed.

He checked you for wounds, the source of the dried blood. He was confused to find no injuries or markings. He would have to ask you about it in the morning.

When morning came you became aware of two things. First, you were warm.... very warm. Warm from being held all night by strong arms, against a warm body. Second, someone was screaming... immediately you bolted out of bed and left Din scrambling trying to figure out why you had moved with such urgency.

Grogu had once again climbed himself up the storage crates, and somehow gotten up even higher on the cargo net before getting stuck. You climbed up on the crate and pulled him down as carefully as you could. Din tumbled out of the bunk, and watched you.

“You have to stop doing that,” you told Grogu, trying to tuck back his whispy white hairs. Only for him to bite your finger, again! You yelped in pain, and retracted your finger. That bite was harder than the first time.

“Hey!” Din’s sharp voice cut through the chaos. You turned to face him, still holding Grogu. Din stuck his arms out to take him, you passed him over.

“Grogu. Did you just bite her?” He asked sternly. Grogu’s ears flattened out, looking guilty.

“We do not bite. You know better,” he scolded. He took Grogu over to the corner of the hull, farthest away from the galley, the bunk, and the storage crates; and set him down.

“Sit there,” he said “And don’t move,”

Grogu’s big eyes watered, as he watched Din walk away. You stood by the door of the fresher, watching this interaction. You turned away, ducking into the fresher when Din turned to you. He followed you.

“Hey” his voice was gentler now “are you alright?”

You tried not to look at him, keeping your back turned. You knew you looked awful, and were feeling extremely insecure about your parenting skills at the moment. So to keep him at bay you nodded your head, “Mhm, I’m fine,”

He took another step towards you, and caught your hand tugging gently. You knew you wouldn’t be able to hide forever, so you gave in and turned to him.

“It’ll be a couple hours before we get there. Why don’t you take a shower and have a little down time,” he said

“I appreciate the offer, but I’m okay really. I’m just a little tired and a little frustrated with this phase he’s in right now,” you replied. His thumb stroked lovingly across the back of your hand.

“You’ll feel better if you rest. He can come sit with me in the cockpit for while you shower and eat. When he goes down for his nap, I want to talk to you about why there’s blood on your neck,” he said carefully. He wanted you to rest, but he also needed you to know that he was worried.

You’re hesitant to accept. He still needed to fly the ship, and probably had to have a video com with Karga. And someone had to mind Grogu while he did those things. You must have taken too long to respond, or maybe he can really just see right through you because he kept speaking.

“You’re not a bad parent for taking a break and having time for yourself. And it’s not your fault he’s going through a phase,” he told you, giving your hand a gentle squeeze.

You drew him in, needing to feel the pressure of his embrace. “Thank you,” you whispered. He rubbed your back. Before he pulled away to let you bathe and rest, he couldn’t help himself, he had to ask.

“Why is there blood on your neck?” His voice was measured and careful, he really wanted to know, but didn’t want to show how much he was freaking out over it.

You gave a somewhat hysteric laugh, “He yanked a clump of my hair out,”

“Stars! Are you okay?” He was utterly shocked, that was the last thing he would have guessed would come out of your mouth.

“I’m fine,” you shook your head “We really need to let him play outside. He’s got too much energy, and not enough stimulation in this bucket of bolts,”

Din shook his head, “Yeah, if he’s bored enough to pull out someone else hair, we definitely need to get him out for some fresh air,”

#Star Wars #The Mandalorian #the mandalorian x reader #Din Djarin #din djarin x reader #Baby Yoda #Grogu #Terrible Twos but for a 50 year old alien goblin #I have actually had my hair ripped out by a toddler before #It SUCKS #But I still love kids #even when they drive my crazy

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not-all-dead · 4 years ago

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angstpril day twenty: the silent treatment

CW: mentions of a breakup but that’s pretty much the worst of it

fic under the cut

November 3rd, 142

Lin,

Mom made me promise I’d write to you, so here’s me doing that. Grandma and Grandpa say hi, and they want you to visit soon. School’s boring as ever and I have no friends here which is just great. Thanks for that. At least they have good food here, the chef is pretty amazing. Still, I think I’m going to run away soon, just for the sake of it. Maybe I’ll find a family actually worth keeping. Anyway, I don’t miss you or mom, have fun arresting people or whatever.

February 7th, 143

Lin,

Heard you’re chief now. Congrats I guess. Does mom finally pay attention to you? Who am I kidding, of course she doesn’t. Anyway, I left Grandma and Grandpa’s. I’m part of this cool travelling circus right now, but I think I’m going to try something new soon. It’s been fun though, lots of flying through the air above lava pits and other super dangerous things. I bet I’m having a better time than you are, stuck in the stupid city.

I call Grandma every week or two to keep her updated on what I’m doing, otherwise she’ll freak out and think I’m dead or something. She told me today that mom called her yesterday. Mom said she was going to Gaoling to drop off her things before travelling wherever just like I’m doing. Guess I have more in common with her than I thought. I also guess that means you’ve got the apartment to yourself now, must be nice.

How’s Tenzin? You two still madly in love? Actually, don’t tell me, I don’t really care. Not that you’re going to respond to this at all. Whatever. I’ve got a performance to get to, so bye.

December 19th, 145

Lin,

I wish you’d write back. I’m much older now, and I’d be happy to talk things out with you if you’d respond. But I guess that’s something you have to want too, and clearly you still hate me, so I won’t count on it.

I know I haven’t written in a while. I was on a pirate ship for a while, learning to sail and such, and we didn’t dock often. Any paper we had on board was constantly damp, too, so I didn’t see the point. After that I live in a sandbender commune. It was really interesting to see how different people lived, especially different earthbenders. I tried learning to sandbend but it didn’t go so well.

But that’s all past now. I’m building a city now, a city entirely of metal. I’ve got this wonderful architect named Baatar helping me with it, and thank goodness I do. I honestly don’t know how I’d execute my plans without him. I think I might ask him to marry me. I mean, I really do like him, and the idea of a family sounds so nice. If I did I’d really like for you to be there.

I hope everything in the city is alright. Last time I spoke to mom, a couple years ago now, she said you were still going steady with Tenzin. I don’t know how you two have stayed together this long already, you always seemed so different from one another to me. I guess opposites really do attract, as they always say. I’ll write again soon.

April 2nd, 146

Lin,

It would mean the world to me if you could make it. Please come if you can, I’d really like to see you again.

March 27th, 147

Lin,

You have a nephew! I was bummed that you didn’t come to the wedding, but it’s alright. Maybe you’d like to come and meet Baatar Jr. sometime this year… we’d welcome you here in Zaofu if you did. We’re still working on building up the outer cities, but the central hub where our house is is fully operational. I’d love to show you how it all works, we have metalbender staff in training to operate practically every part of the city. It’s a busy time, with the new baby and all the construction.

Please tell me you and your airhead of a boyfriend are getting married soon. I mean, come on! It’s been ten years already, I don’t see how you can possibly still be “taking it slow”. You make no sense to me sometimes, Lin. But then again, I’m sure you feel the same about me.

Mom’s been visiting Zaofu pretty regularly. She’s coming in next week to meet Baatar Jr. for the first time. She still seems to be holding a grudge against me. You two really are cut from the same cloth, you know. I might try to talk things out with her when she comes this time, or at least set a time sometime soon for us to flush things over. It would be great if you’d come too so we could put all this family drama nonsense behind us.

May 30th, 150

Lin,

I’m disappointed that you still refuse to answer. Honestly, mom and I have spent two years talking and figuring things out. We’re good now, and there were plenty of opportunities we gave you to join us. I’m sorry you’re still so bitter.

Baatar Jr. is three now, you’d know if you ever cared to visit. He hasn’t shown any signs of bending yet, but Baatar is a non-bender and I started bending late so that’s not too surprising. We’ve got another one on the way, due in a couple weeks actually. I think if it’s a boy we’ll name him Huan, and if it’s a girl probably Hei-Ran. Again, I wish you’d come and actually be a part of my kids’ lives, but you seem dead set against it.

Kya actually dropped by not too long ago. I hadn’t seen her in ages, so it was a nice surprise. She says her travels have been going well, and she’d visited practically every place on the planet! I loved my time travelling, but ultimately family life is what suited me best. She said she was heading back to Republic City soon, so maybe she’ll drop in on you, too. Anyway, hope the triads aren’t causing too too much havoc for you, Chief.

January 16th, 151

Lin,

Look, I don’t know what your problem is, but I’ve given up. If you’re really that set on giving me the cold shoulder, so be it. I’ll stop writing at all.

Sorry you’re not mature enough to handle this like an adult.

If you were wondering, Huan is very healthy and strong. Baatar Jr. too. Baatar Sr. took ill a while back, but he’s alright now.

I don’t know why I’m telling you any of this when I know you don’t care. Well. Sorry I’m such a bother to you.

August 4th, 156

Lin,

Mom told me what happened with you and Tenzin. He’s an asshole, good on you for wrecking the island. You were always too good for him anyway. I know I haven’t written in a long time, I just didn’t see the point if you kept ignoring me. Maybe now you’ll come and see your family, it might be nice after losing Tenzin.

You’ve got a niece, now, too. And four nephews, the youngest being the twins. They’re only just over a year old now, and Opal recently turned three. I tell them stories about their Aunt Lin, you know. The older boys would really like to meet you, and I’m sure Opal and the twins will too when they’re a little bit more grown up. I want to see you again too, Lin, and I wish you’d at least try to let go of the past. Even just a letter back would make my day.

Hope you’re holding up as Chief there, not too much trouble with the triads or whomever else is committing crime these days.

November 7th, 158

Lin,

Baatar Jr. is now eleven, and seems to be quite the budding architect just like his father. Huan has taken up metalbending little sculptures, so for his eighth birthday he got a little studio just for his art. Opal is five now, and growing up fast. I’ve never seen a five year old read as well as she does. Wing and Wei are still just three, but they seem to enjoy throwing pebbles at one another. I think they’ll be strong benders when they're older.

Mom and I finally made up properly. It’s nice to see her with the kids. She said she wrote to you asking you to come and chat too, but you ignored her. No surprises there. I might stop writing again if you keep this up, so don’t act shocked.

October 21st, 160

Lin,

Mom’s here for a few weeks. Opal turned seven this year, Baatar Jr. thirteen, Huan ten, and the twins five. Wing and Wei invented a game for themselves to help with their metalbending training, they call it “power disk”.

I’m not sure what else to say to you anymore. I’m not sure why I’m even writing this now, after eighteen years. Eighteen years, Lin, and you haven’t even bothered to write back. At least I’ve tried to reach out. But now, I’m done. For real this time. Write if you want, I don’t care. I’m not going to keep sending these anymore.

December 6th, 170

Lin,

Are you alright?! Mom had to tell me about you losing your bending, and she only found out through Katara! I can’t imagine what that must’ve been like. All I can say is that it would undoubtedly be awful.

I miss you, you know. It’s been almost thirty years since we last spoke. I know mom misses you too, and my kids would really like to meet their Aunt. It makes me sad that you’re still so sour about what happened, even after so much time has passed. We’ve both grown and changed as people, and I don’t understand why you can’t see that. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe it’s only me who’s changed at all. Even so, I do miss you, and I wish you’d write. Or visit.

I hope you’re alright, Lin, I really do.

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soundsof71 · 4 years ago

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FIVE ALBUMS YOU NEED IN YOUR LIFE RIGHT NOW!!!

aka, My Top 5 of 2020, but I didn’t want to seem too retro!

Yep, I have a classic rock blog. Yep, I think that the best rock and roll in history is being made RIGHT NOW. And yep, ALL of it is being made by women.

(Shown at top, Nova Twins by Ant Adams [x] and The Tissues by Michael Espleta [x]. I was planning to make a collage of all my faves in concert, but not all of them were able to play in 2020. Both of these photos are pre-pandemic.)

There’s been quite a bit of movement on this list, and all five of these have spent some time at Number 1 as the year has done (gestures broadly) All This™. Anyone looking for rock and roll is going to dig any of these.

Rocking out is just the start of it, though. Wrestling with my bipolarity and schizophrenia is tough on a good day, and there haven’t been too many of those lately. The plague has also taken its toll around me, with two family members dead and a third who’s doing better, but will likely never be all the way back. (Mask up, kids!)

I’ve written plenty about how deeply Taylor Swift and Phoebe Bridgers have moved me this year (and will do so again), but in those rare stretches where I’ve had enough spare energy to listen to music at all these days, I’ve mostly been looking for more than beautiful music. Heavy times need heavy lifting, and I find that in heavy music.

The five albums here have all helped carry me, pointing the way toward light.

1) BULLY, SUGAREGG

Alicia Bognanno is a force of nature as a guitarist, vocalist, composer, and producer/engineer. (While working on her degree in audio engineering at MTSU, she interned with Steve Albini, who remains both a fan and an admirer). A Nashville transplant from Minnesota, she’s still a natural fit in her home on Sub Pop: as heavy as Soundgarden, as hooky as Sleater-Kinney.

I was blown away hearing her searing honesty while working through her discoveries of her bisexuality and bipolarity (double bi!), and her triumphant roar lifts me out of my seat every time I listen.

“She sings the hell out of [these songs], her voice fraying to the point of combustion every time she launches to the top of her range. This is phenomenal music for converting anger and anxiety into unbound joy.” ~Stereogum, Album of the Week

Also, check this fantastic interview with Alicia in the New York Times talking about what she’s gone through to get here.

TURN IT UP!

youtube

2) GANSER, LOOK AT THAT SKY

Ganser syndrome is a rare dissociative disorder characterized by nonsensical or wrong answers to questions and other dissociative symptoms such as fugue, amnesia or conversion disorder, often with visual pseudohallucinations and a decreased state of consciousness. ~Wikipedia #it me

‘Just Look At That Sky’ doesn’t presume to offer solutions; it’s an honest document of what it feels like to wade through anxiety, day by day, not a survival guide or handbook of answers none of us actually have. Whether or not you pay attention to this, Ganser are simply one of the most invigorating, exciting new bands. ~Clashmusic

I saw one very positive review compare Ganser to a cross between Fugazi and Sonic Youth, but I think they hit much, much harder than either of those. And as you can surely guess, I also deeply relate to their themes of mental illness and dissociation while trying to make it through All This™. But my god, are they TIGHT. This is a BAND.

Ganser has two fantastic lead vocalists, and on “Bad Form”, bassist/vocalist Alicia Gaines wrote the song for the voice of keyboardist/vocalist Nadia Garofolo. Alicia also wrote a FANTASTIC essay on the strains that making an album during a pandemic puts on the mental health of the entire band at talkhouse: “Writing, recording, reaching out, balancing relationships outside and within the band, I found (and still find) myself under-rested and agitated to no particular end. More than not doing enough, I was not enough.”

(If you can’t relate to that, I can’t relate to you, tbh.)

This video also does a fantastic job of showing dissociation. TURN IT UP!

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3) THE TISSUES, BLUE FILM

“Blue Film” is a ten-song shot of dagger-twisting electro-(s)punk. It’s completely addictive from the very first listen. The tour de force is “Rear Window”, an art-punk masterpiece of slashing guitars and mad caterwauling. Copious doses of jaunty poetics and social commentary reward the earlooker patient enough to untangle Kristine Nevrose’s hysterical meowing about intergalactic salt shakers and hysterectomies, but I’m too emotionally invested to look under the hood.” ~ Sputnik Music

“Rear Window” is in fact my most-played 2020 track. TURN IT UP!

youtube

4) GUM COUNTRY, SOMEWHERE

It’s not all heavy! But even when I’m looking for something light and hooky, I need a bite, and Gum Country has done it with the kind of swirly, feeedback-laden wall of sound that Lush or Yo La Tengo would make if they lived in LA. (Recent transplants to SoCal from Vancouver, I do think that the sunshine has gone straight to their heads, in the very best way.)

Indie music nerds will know guitarist/composer/singer/front woman Courtney Garvin from The Courtneys, and she really does throw up a glorious wall of sound. I adore this video too! Sweet, swinging, fun -- and yes, the drummer is playing keyboard with one hand while slapping the skins with the other!

I mentioned earlier that all five of these albums have spent part of the year at #1 on my list -- I think that this one might have spent the longest stretch there. Like all shoegaze, even as hooky as this, the truth of these songs is revealed in VOLUME. TURN IT UP!

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5) NOVA TWINS, WHO ARE THE GIRLS?

Now, THIS is heavy! Amy Lee (vocals, guitar) and Georgia South (bass) are fucking LOUD, and insanely intense. A mix of grime, hip-hop, metal, punk, and good old rock and roll, they’re a harder-hitting, more theatrical Prodigy, with a pyre of intensity that recalls the heaviest howls of Rage Against The Machine. Indeed, Nova Twins spent a good bit of 2019 playing heavy metal festivals and toured as openers for Prophets of Rage. (Tom Morello has been a fan and supporter from the beginning.)

As you may have noted in the photo at the top of this post, their musical audacity extends to visuals too: they design their own clothes, hair, and makeup, they art direct their own videos, and more. They impress the hell out of me, and I’ve been a huge fan since hearing their first singles in 2018. I’ll plant a flag and say that Georgia South in particular is the most innovative musician on any instrument in any genre right now, but they’re both absolutely monsters.

I’m honestly not at all sure that #5 is high enough for this, but I’m absolutely certain that after this video, you’re gonna need to rest for a little. LOL

“Taxi” is the story of two gleefully and creatively violent women shaking up the local crime syndicate as they use a vintage cab for their moving murder scene. This is the movie that Robert Rodriguez wishes he was making with Sin City, if it were combined with Blade Runner and The Matrix. And gangsters. And a snake.

I’m gonna take your crown I’m gonna, I’m gonna bleed you out We demand it by the hour We devour, control, power

I’m gonna burn it down Even the, even the royals bow

So not the same kind of therapeutic work being explored on this rekkid, but you know what? Fucking shit up is therapeutic too!

Definitely take this full screen, and for the love of fuck, TURN IT UP!

youtube

SO. Not done with the best of 2020 yet? I’m sure not! A lot of my favorite songs aren’t on albums (at least not yet), so for an unedited list of everything I’m finding, check out my Spotify list, 2020: Shuffle This List! 268 songs and counting, over 15 hours, and not finished yet. I’m still checking out everyone else’s Best of lists (including yours! Message me links to yours!!!), so will probably be adding to this for most of 2021, too.

And for more banging tracks by women from 2020, plus a few 2019 gems that I’m still grooving to, check out my more thoroughly curated Spotify playlist Women Bangers: A Tumblr New Classics Jam. (You’ll see a couple of these tracks there!) I’m working on a YouTube playlist and an essay to properly roll that one out. I’m also still tweaking the ending, but the three dozen or so tunes there are definitely bangin’.

Tell me if you hear anything you dig here, and tell me what YOU’VE found! We’re gonna get through this together.

Yr pal, Timmy

#me #new classics #classic rock #women in rock #best of 2020 #bully #ganser #the tissues #gum country #nova twins #essay #youtube #punk rock #punk

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jalapeno-princess · 4 years ago

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I Told You To Never Fall In Love With Me

Mark Tuan X Reader

Word Count: 8.4k

Genre: Angst, fluff, mentions of sex (Oh and if you stan Jinyoung, this story isn’t for you)

Summary: As a college student, you vowed to yourself that you would never get involved with the college night life. Partying, getting drunk on cheep alcohol and getting high on drugs was a big no in your book. But what if the toxic drug you end up getting addicted to isn’t a substance but a person?

A/N: Hey guys! I started writing this story around two months ago but I didn’t have the motivation to continue it until like two nights ago so here it is! Based on the song “Don’t make it harder on me” By Chloe and Halle! Highly recommend that you listen to it before or while reading. Please enjoy!!

“Uh, Y/n—would you care to explain why Mark Tuan is looking at you as if he’s undressing you with his eyes? He’s looking at you like he’s a predator ready to pounce and you’re his prey. Is there something I’m missing out on here?”

Your best friend’s words both annoyed you, yet sent fire to your bones. It was tempting—the thought of turning around and witnessing for yourself what he claimed was Mark gazing at you so endearingly and in a sexual way even. However, Mark Tuan was nothing but danger. He was a drug you were addicted to for longer than you’d like to admit—but you finally came to the realization less than a month ago that you deserved so much better than the boy in question.

The high you got from sneaking and fooling around with Mark faded the second you found out he wasn’t who you thought he was—who you thought he was changing in to; in order to be better for you. You let out a scoff before rolling your eyes at the thought of him indirectly trying to get your attention. What you and Mark had was a secret nobody knew other than the two of you. That was the agreement from the beginning of whatever it was that went on between you and Mark—it was his idea in the first place, you should have known he wasn’t serious about you if he was adamant on hiding your relationship from everyone.

“Just ignore him Youngjae. You’ll only add on to his big ass ego and God knows that’s the last thing anyone needs. There’s nothing going on between him and I. Well, not anymore.”

The last sentence came out a whisper—you didn’t want to lie to him; you and Youngjae told everything to each other. In fact, you knew the older boy better than you knew yourself. He was the younger brother—well, two months younger—that you never had but always wanted. He was extremely loyal to you, he was a great shoulder to cry on and an even better listener. You were dying to tell anyone about Mark—especially when you realized what you were feeling for him was going past the agreement you made with him, but you didn’t want word to spread throughout school about your little affair.

Although you were well aware that Youngjae would never say or do anything to hurt you or get you in to any kind of trouble, you felt like this was something you had to keep to yourself. By the look of confusion on his face and the way he kept opening his mouth as if he wanted to say something but closing it ultimately, you figured that he probably had a feeling that you weren’t telling him the entire truth. Thankfully, he didn’t pry to get you to confess as to why you harbored ill-feelings for Mark—that wasn’t who he was. After six years of friendship, Youngjae was able to depict when the right time was to ask you what was wrong and when he should keep his questions to himself. Unfortunately, his eyes widened in shock and it made your skin crawl when you noticed that his attention was no longer on you.

“Oh, well—um—I hate to say this y/n, but he’s coming over right now.” You could feel your heart rate increase rapidly at his words. What was he thinking? He had to be high right now; there was no way he was going to let anyone else on campus know he was affiliated with you in some way. Both you and Mark came from two different classes on the social pyramid; he was your typical college jock—popular, outgoing and devastatingly good looking. You on the other hand considered yourself a wallflower.

Unlike Mark, you enjoyed keeping to yourself and your small group of friends. You weren’t living the college experience he and his friends were. College parties were a big no to you—you hated alcohol, smoking and loud, shitty music with all these sweaty bodies dancing up against one another. It wasn’t your scene—yet it was all Mark ever seemed to do on his Friday nights; especially since he was the one who coordinated most of the parties.

The two of you were an unlikely pair, but then again, opposites attract and you despised that they did. Honestly to this day you weren’t even sure how you both stumbled in to each other’s lives. You had Mark in one of your classes last semester and you made sure to stay the hell away from him. He was the definition of a flirt—he had to be the biggest player on campus and that said a lot. Matter of a fact, his entire group of friends were notorious for sleeping around with anyone and everyone.

Rumor around your university was that they threw parties every weekend with the desire of bedding someone during or after the party was over. You found it ridiculous that they would use these girls for one thing and one thing only—sex. You had to give them credit though; Mark, Jaebeom, Jackson and BamBam made it their duty to tell each girl they were planning to be intimate with what their plans were. They never fucked the same girl twice, that’s just how it was. Well—that’s how it was for Mark until that fateful night the two of you stumbled to bed together for the first time of many.

What started off as a study session with you sitting practically three tables away from Mark ended up with him fucking you—rearranging your guts and blowing your back out up against his refrigerator. As much as you wanted to say you regretted hooking up with him and that having sex with Mark was a brief lapse of judgement on your part, deep down in your heart, you knew you could never regret Mark.

At one point—he was all you wanted for as long as you could have him. As long as he allowed you to have him. To your dismay, he decided he didn’t want to continue giving himself to you for longer than what was necessary. For the last week, he’s been trying to get in touch with you. You found it extremely weird; he was the one who ended up breaking your trust and ruining everything, so you had a hard time understanding why he began to text and call you—even showing up to your classes once you were done in the hopes that you would listen to what he had to say.

You were really good with ignoring him so far—you let every single call and message go unread and straight to voicemail. He needed to know that you no longer wanted anything to do with him; a decision you should have made a long time ago. Before he could have gained your trust and respect only to make you look like a fool for believing that he was going to give up his fuckboy mentality to settle down and start a relationship with you. Silly you for thinking that Mark Tuan could ever look at you as more than a place to bury his dick. You began to mentally prepare yourself for his actions or what he would say once he got to where you and Youngjae were sitting.

A part of you wanted to pick up your food and walk away—but that would only make you look bad and if anything, Mark would be led to believe that there was a chance you still had feelings for him. If he were to see the effect that just the mere thought of him was currently having on you, you knew he wouldn’t let you live it down.

“Hey Youngjae, how are you?” It’s been three and a half weeks since you left him naked and painfully hard at his apartment. You could still remember the night like it was yesterday, although—you’ve been trying to push the memory to the back of your mind as much as you could. Every time you began to think about how you found a pair of lingerie in Mark’s drawer that didn’t belong to you, you wanted to throw up. The thought of him sleeping with someone else while the two of you had this pathetic excuse of a friends with benefits situation made you sick to your stomach.

Sure, you knew exactly what you were getting yourself in to when you agreed to having no strings attached, but then again—you weren’t planning on falling in love with him the way you found yourself doing in less than a month after your first hook up. Friends with benefits affairs were tricky—most people assumed it was just sex between two consenting adults; they both got what they wanted out of the relationship—mind blowing sex without all the unnecessary drama that comes with a romantic relationship. However, it’s easier said than done. One of the partners always ends up falling for the other whether they liked it or not and in most cases, their love is unrequited and unfortunately, you were one of the unlucky ones.

Mark Tuan could never be tied down—you were crazy to think that one day, he would give up his playing ways to be with you. But at the same time, you weren’t exactly out of your mind. There was a point in your agreement that Mark started acting clingier and touchier towards you—during times where you weren’t being intimate. It was as if he always needed to be touching you in some way.

He always had to be holding your hand, he’d throw his arm over your shoulder while you’d watch a movie, he’d wrap his arms around your waist and place his chin on your head if you were cooking and he’d run his fingers through your hair as you would lie down together. Mark began staying over after the two of you were to reach your orgasms—something that was considerably taboo for people who were simply just “fucking”. He would wake up early to make you breakfast, he’d send you comforting text messages if you had a rough day at either work or school, he’d stay up to help you with homework so your work load wasn’t too much for you to carry, he started to buy you things that he thought you’d like and unlike most people in friends with benefits relationships, right after you’d finish having your way with one another, you and Mark would talk for hours about whatever it was that your hearts desired.

If he didn’t want anything romantic to come out of your relationship, then why was he allowing himself to do all of these things with you that only legitimate couples would do. Did he not think that calling you in the middle of the night because you weren’t able to see each other went past the boundaries that he set up when you began your little rendezvous? Did he not find it weird that the two of you were acting like a couple—kissing you before he would leave your house, joining you on your FaceTime calls with your mom, blow drying your hair for you after you took a shower and preparing lunch for you before you went to school—did friends with benefits do things like that?

You knew you meant a lot more to Mark than he was letting on, even more so when he began trying to get you to talk to him. If what the two of you had was simply a sexual relationship, why was he still trying to get you to hear him out? He could have sex with anybody; in fact, you would have thought that this is what he wanted. Having sex with the same person if you weren’t in a relationship with them was something Mark was obviously not used to. The two of you weren’t exclusive, but two things you asked for was honesty and loyalty.

As much as you wanted to lie and tell yourself that you didn’t want him sleeping with anyone other than you for sanitary reasons, you were well aware that you’d be completely crushed if you were to find out that he was giving himself to other women while you were only allowing him to have you. It didn’t take long for you to realize that you had feelings for him—it took you even a shorter amount of time to realize that what you felt for him was love. Once you realized that you were in love with Mark, there was nothing more you wanted than to tell him—you were starting to believe that he also felt the same way about you. But then again, there were so many doubts clouding your mind. What if he were to end things with you because you broke one of the rules—no feelings.

What if he was only acting so affectionate towards you because he thought it was the only way to keep you around? You felt pathetic and you hated that you were letting yourself go through all of this suffering for a man who probably couldn’t give less of a shit about you other than when you were riding him—bouncing on his cock like you were made to do so. When did you allow someone—anyone—specifically an asshole like Mark Tuan; the sole person you made a pact with yourself that you’d never get involved with—play with your heart like it was some kind of toy? Why did you allow him in to your walls that you’ve set so high—meant for someone who genuinely cared about you—wanted you for you and not just for your body?

Youngjae’s eyes widened at the greeting. He must have been in shock, he’s never heard Mark say anything to him before, let alone call him by his name as if they were well acquainted with each other. Not only did you and Mark come from two completely different worlds, but your friends never associated with Mark’s friends or anyone like them. So you had a feeling with the way Youngjae looked as though he saw a ghost, he was taken a back by Mark’s sudden hospitality. You on the other hand did not buy it at all; you knew he was going to try and coerce Youngjae in to leaving so that he could finally talk to you but there was no way in hell that you were going to allow such a thing to happen. Mark Tuan was in your past and you had every intent on leaving him there.

“H—hi Mark. What can we do for you?”

You had to stifle a laugh at the shakiness in the younger boy’s voice. Youngjae was a very shy and soft-spoken kind of person. He was evidently intimidated by people like Mark which is why you mentally cursed him knowing that he would probably do whatever the older boy asked of him.

“I um—I was wondering if maybe I could talk to y/n?”

Watching him scratch the back of his neck while looking at your friend timidly made your skin crawl. Why was he acting so shy and flustered? It had to be a tactic of his. He wanted Youngjae to go along with it and the only way he knew he could get him to leave was by acting kind towards him. You wanted to laugh in hysterics—was he really acting like he was innocent and had pure intentions with wanting to speak with you? Who the hell was this man and what did he do to the cocky prick who wasted almost five months of your life for his selfish needs? Youngjae looked at you to see how you were reacting to their conversation and he frowned when he saw you furrow your brows at him before turning to Mark and groaning.

“Why are you asking him? You act as if I want to talk to you. New flash asshole, I have nothing to say to you nor do I want to hear you out so if you know what’s best for you, you’d go back to your table of friends who I’m sure is having a hard time processing your presence at our table right now.”

If looks could kill, Youngjae was sure Mark would be six feet under right now. You were sending daggers to the back of Mark’s head and if you weren’t in the middle of the cafeteria, Youngjae knew you would probably do something to inflict any kind of pain on him.

“Y/n, you and I both know we have unfinished business to go over and unless you want everyone in this cafeteria to know what I want to say, then I suggest you and I go somewhere else—“

“I’m sorry y/n—I forgot, I actually have to go meet one of my professors to talk about my grade. I’ll call you later. Bye!”

It was your turn to widen your eyes in surprise. How dare he leave you knowing that you wanted nothing to do with Mark. What kind of friend was he? He might have not known about your dalliance with the junior fuckboy, but couldn’t he tell by your body language that you were uncomfortable and seething with anger? After he grabbed his books and gave you a gentle wave, he made his way outside—leaving you alone with the devil himself.

You didn’t allow Youngjae’s decision to succumb to Mark’s request affect the way that you were going to go about things. Just because the two of you were alone now didn’t mean anything; you meant what you said when you told him you had no intention of listening to what he was seemingly dying to tell you. You started to collect your things—not batting an eye at him while putting all your trash in a paper bag.

“Come on y/n, I’ve been trying to get in contact with you for weeks now. You’ve been avoiding me. Do my efforts of trying to fix things mean nothing to you—“

“Don’t start that shit with me. I’m surprised you’re even talking to me right now in front of all these students—in front of your fuckboy friends. Effort to fix what Mark? There’s nothing for you to fix. What you and I had is over, why are you even trying anymore? It’s obvious that I was just a convenient fuck to you and it took me weeks to come to accept this, but I deserve so much better than you. Give up already—“

Seeing a tear fall from the brim of his eyelids was the last thing you expected to see, but watching Mark cry wasn’t foreign territory to you. The older boy was a very emotional and over-sensitive person. It was a trait of his that you’ve grown fond over—not a lot of men were comfortable enough to show their fragile side to just anyone, but Mark wasn’t afraid to find solace in you whenever he had a problem or needed to let out some pent up anger. Whenever he would vent to you about school, work or even family problems, you’d feel pretty special knowing that you were probably one of the few people if not the only person he would confess all of his doubts, worries and insecurities to you.

It felt really good knowing that he trusted you but it only confused you so much more. You wouldn’t tell somebody you considered a casual hookup all of your biggest fears or the dreams you had for after you were to graduate would you? Mark seemed to have no problem admitting all this information to you—he was an open book when the two of you were alone. You could confidently say you knew every single thing about the older boy and it was a bittersweet feeling. You were shocked to see him showing any kind of emotion in the public—especially because of you.

Deep down, you could tell it took a lot of courage for him to do something completely out of his comfort zone. It had to mean something right? Thinking about how he hurt you, how he broke your trust on top of breaking your heart and ruining your entire aspect on love and relationships, you wanted to continue giving him the cold shoulder—but you couldn’t find it in yourself to be so hostile. Humiliating him in front of all these people who admired him and thought he was the coolest person on campus would definitely feel rewarding. However, that wasn’t who you were—you wanted nothing more than to break him the way he did so easily to you, but you wouldn’t be able to live with yourself knowing that you turned in to somewhat of a monster just to get back at him. You knew better than that.

“I really don’t think it’s a good idea, I’m already seeing someone else. Unlike you, I care if my actions hurt others and I don’t think he’d be all too happy if he found out I went to go talk to you somewhere private. If all you’re looking for is forgiveness, then we can talk right here. But knowing you, there’s a possibility you want something out of our conversation. So apologize and leave before I scream.”

You should have known Mark’s moment of sadness wasn’t going to last long. As soon as the last sentence came out, he gave you a mischievous smirk—it didn’t take a genius to know what his next few words were going to be nor could you say you were shocked. You’ve known Mark for long enough to have an idea how he was going to respond.

“You and I both know I wouldn’t mind that at all. Don’t lie, you love it when I make you scream—“

You released an irritated sigh before roughly picking up your bag and the rest of your items. “That’s it, you lost your chance, I’m leaving.”

With all the energy you had left from how exhausting this entire day had been, you stormed out of the cafeteria and began walking—to where, you had no idea. All you could think about was getting as far away from Mark as you possibly could. Every minute he stayed in your presence only annoyed you yet excited you. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t hope he was still following behind you.

If he claimed that he really needed to explain himself, then he shouldn’t quit while he was still ahead. But why were you allowing this? What you told him about having a new man in your life was the truth. You didn’t want to be that girl. The one who jumped in to a relationship right after she had her heart broken. Although you couldn’t care less about what people said about you, you didn’t want anyone to look at you as desperate or easy. It wasn’t as if you just started dating the first person you saw—you had a thing for Jinyoung for quite some time now. Even before you and Mark began your fling. However, neither of you said anything about liking one another.

You had a hunch that he might have felt something for you by the way you would catch him staring at you every now and then in biology and with how he would always greet you every morning although you weren’t very familiar with each other. Jinyoung was extremely intelligent; he had one of the highest grades in the class, he was also gentle, soft-spoken and very easy on the eyes. In fact, he and Mark probably had to be the two most good looking men you have ever laid your eyes on. But Jinyoung was genuinely nice to you. He made it known that he cared about you and had nothing but good intentions. He adored you and admired you in the way you could only dream of Mark doing for you.

No matter how much Jinyoung treated you like the most fragile piece of glass—the most delicate flower and even if he put you on this high pedestal only two weeks after you started going out, you couldn’t stop wanting it to be Mark in his place. Hearing loud footsteps behind you only heightened your desire to get as far away from him as you possibly could. At this point—you were genuinely afraid of giving him what he wanted. You were afraid of doing something you would ultimately regret later. Mark just had that power over you—you could try your best to move on from him and force yourself to return Jinyoung’s feelings that he never failed to remind you he held, but you couldn’t do it. Not when Mark took up the entirety of your thought process; your heart, mind, body, spirit and soul belonged to him.

The sudden tight grip on your wrist startled you, but you didn’t flinch. You knew exactly who it was and you surprised both yourself and Mark when you allowed him to pull you towards where you knew he was taking you. There was no point in fighting him off—you didn’t want to stir up any attention from passerby’s. When he realized you gave up on trying to leave, he loosened his grip and his tugging wasn’t as rough. The two of you stayed in silence as he led you to a very familiar area—one that was dangerous territory for you. You should be trying harder to escape from his hold; especially because you were well aware once the two of you were to enter the room he was taking you to, there was a chance you would give in to him and end up ruining the relationship that was building between you and Jinyoung.

Once you both made it to the janitor’s closet, he pulled out a key and opened it, allowing you to go inside before trailing right behind you. Till this day you were still confused as to how he had access to this room, but you weren’t surprised. Being who he was, you were sure he had many connections all over campus. You took in a deep breath while your eyes wandered all throughout the room—it was small, about the size of a closet and there was multiple cleaning supplies on the ground and on shelves. There was also a table in the center—one that you’ve been pressed up against for more times that you could count on your fingers.

Mark told you that no janitor ever used that closet and so the two of you made it your little secret hideaway where you would help each other destress from a long day of classes. Images of him ramming himself inside of you, pressing you in to the table as he ate you out like a wild animal would with their prey and going down on your knees to suck him dry were now filling your mind. It was in that moment that you began to feel remorseful. You had such a wonderful man who treated you in ways you didn’t even feel like you deserved.

You’ve wanted him for such a long time—so why were you putting your relationship on the line for the pitiful man standing in front of you who only used you to soothe his carnal urges? You refused to face him; you were afraid of what might happen if you did turn around to see the expression he was wearing. The silence that was filling the room was suffocating. He was the one who said that he wanted to talk, yet no words were coming out of his mouth. It didn’t take long for questions to pop up in your mind—you might not have wanted to talk to him in the beginning but now you were filled with curiosity.

“You brought me here for a reason. I don’t plan on staying long, so hurry up and say what you want to say.”

“All I need is five minutes—“

“That’s not surprising—it’s obviously a time limit you’re used to.”

You chuckled softly to yourself at your comment. Sometimes when you’d give him head, he’d end up releasing his load on to your mouth in less than five minutes. It wasn’t something he was proud of, but it did at fuel to your confidence—you were just that good. You wouldn’t be taken back if you were to hear that your blowjobs were the reason why he came running back to you. The growl that came from the back of his throat sent chills down your spine—he may have never said it out loud to protect his reputation, but Mark was a very jealous person.

Anytime you would bring up another guy in conversation, whether it was a friend from high school or one of your coworkers, he’d grow silent and touchier. He’d also go rougher on you in bed—one time he got so jealous he ended up breaking his headboard because his pace was relentless. That thought alone sent a warm pool between your thighs. Your body was reacting to his presence and the many memories of being one with him and it only made you want to leave without hearing him out.

“I’m sorry.” Y

ou scoffed at his apology—he sounded so insincere. Like a child who was only apologizing to someone because their mother told them to. What was the point of giving you an apology if he didn’t mean it? You turned around to look at him and lifted your brows in disbelief. He didn’t allow you to respond—he must have known you were going to give him a sarcastic comment and knowing him, he didn’t like it whenever you interrupted him in a confronting time like this.

“I know, my sorries probably mean jack shit to you but I am genuinely so fucking sorry. When you left that night, I wanted to go after you so badly but I didn’t want to make you even more mad. I didn’t have a clue as to why you grew so upset all of a sudden. We were having such a good time—both so close to our highs, but then you just stopped out of nowhere and began to tear up before taking your things and leaving. I want to know why—why did you leave? What bothered you so badly that you felt like you had to leave and start over with someone new? What did I do y/n—“

You didn’t mean to laugh, but it was your defense mechanism. Did he really have no clue as to why you no verbally ended your affair or was he just acting dumb on purpose?

“You’re kidding right? You can’t be serious. That’s a fucking joke. You know exactly what you did Mark. Don’t play the fucking victim—“

“I don’t know what you’re talking about! That’s why I’m asking—“

“YOU FUCKED ANOTHER WOMAN MARK. DO YOU THINK I’M STUPID? DO YOU THINK I WAS BORN YESTERDAY? When you were in the bathroom, I went to grab something from your drawer and I found a thong that obviously does not belong to me. Care to explain that? I stayed up for the rest of that week thinking about how you were fucking someone else while you were fucking me. I know I have no right to tell you how to live your life, but I’m involved Mark. We promised we’d only sleep around with one another. You’re the one that said we had to tell each other if we wanted to start seeing other people but you didn’t say shit Mark. What? Did you get tired of being monogamous? One pussy wasn’t enough for you huh? Had to keep up with the body count of your other jerk ass friends? You didn’t want them finding out that you were fucking with the same girl for months—you didn’t want to look pathetic in their eyes if they found out you weren’t this big macho man everything thinks you are. So what is it Mark? Is this some kind of game to you? Am I just a fucking toy to you? You know I’d do anything for you and that I’d allow you to do whatever you want to as long as you’re in my bed at the end of the day. It doesn’t fucking work like that—“

“I FELL IN LOVE WITH YOU DAMNIT. I don’t know why I didn’t tell you this the moment I came to terms with my feelings for you, but I did. Fuck, that’s an understand. I’m so fucking in love with you. I’m well aware you probably don’t believe me, but I love you y/n and if I had the choice, I’d go back in time and change the way things turned out. God I want nothing more than to fix us. I miss you so much—there aren’t even enough words in the English dictionary for me to describe how empty and lost I felt without you. I couldn’t even fathom what you meant to me and how much I needed you in my life until you were no longer in it.” He loved you? There was no way. Mark Tuan wasn’t capable of loving someone other than himself. He definitely did not love you.

“Does it not bother you how good you are at lying? You should try and take acting classes. You almost had me fooled. You? In love? Don’t make me laugh. You wouldn’t know what love was even if it punched you in the face. You don’t love me. You love my body. You love the way I feel—you love how your dick feels inside of me. You love how I am willing to experiment during sex just to please you. You love knowing that you can control me the way you do. So get that stupid thought out of your head. If you genuinely loved me—you would have never fucked another woman. The thought of hurting me would have killed you. What? Was I at work or in school and you couldn’t wait two hours do get your dick wet? Did you think I would be okay with you sleeping with someone else and entering me knowing that your cock was buried in another woman’s cunt? I’m not like all the other girls who would let you hookup with someone else if it meant having you in any way possible. That’s not who I am Mark. I love and respect myself too much to let an asshole like you do such a thing to me.”

Tears began to brim at his eyelids again, but you weren’t going to fall for it. He did you wrong—he had no right to try and get you to feel sorry for him. Did he really think that confessing his love for you was going to get you to leave Jinyoung in order to be with him again? If that was the case, he had another thing coming for him.

“She was a mistake. A huge mistake. I was drunk—I know—don’t look at me like that, I’m not using it as an excuse. I’m just telling you. I didn’t even realize what was going on—I was that cross faded. Hell, I don’t even have any idea how we got back to my apartment nor do I remember meeting her. If I’m being honest with you, I don’t remember what she looks like nor did I even learn her name. Trust me, I felt so fucking mad at myself when I woke up next to her and I didn’t even care if I was rude, I kicked her out once I came to my senses. That’s why I stayed away from you for three days that one week back in May. I didn’t have any final to study for—that was a lie. But I couldn’t look at you without feeling guilty. I hated myself for what I did. You and I weren’t dating, but I felt as if I cheated on you which in hindsight, I kind of did. I was already in love with you at that point—hell, I began falling for you only three weeks after we started hooking up. You’re right. I do love your body. Your body is a wonderland and I lose my damn mind every time I get to love on you. But I love you for more than just your body. I love you for your mind—your deeply intelligent and witty mind. I love you for your kindness, your patience, generosity, your determination and passion towards the things that you love. I love the person you’ve changed me into and I love who I am when I’m with you. I love the way you never fail to make me laugh and smile. I love the way you look at me when you think I’m not looking.”

He began to walk toward you but you were too busy soaking up each and every single word he was emitting. You didn’t realize just how close he was in proximity until he brushed some of your hair back behind your ear.

“I love waking up to you in the morning and going to bed with you in my arms. I love watching your many attempts at trying out a recipe you found online and ultimately failing because you added either too much salt and pepper or not enough. I love how happy you make me and how safe I feel when I’m with you. You make me want to be a better version of myself so that I can be good enough for you. Sure, the sex is so amazing—it’s breathtaking—mind blowing. Sex with you is a wonderful experience, but I’m not sticking around just to fuck you. I was hooking up with all these different girls before I met you and none of them meant anything to me. You on the other hand mean the entire world and more to me. Don’t even get me started on how fucking beautiful you are. I can never find it in myself to tear my eyes away from you—you’re so captivating you know that? I could stare at you all day—well, I can do a lot of things with you for the entire day—but you are both so beautiful on the inside and out y/n. I think this is the part where I tell you why I got so drunk and high that night.”

He released a frustrated sigh before bringing his head between his hands. You were still so lost—his confession was bringing you to the edge of insanity. Each word tugged harshly on your heartstrings and you began to absorb everything he was admitting so freely. Deep down, you knew he wasn’t lying and that’s what you were afraid of.

“Jackson’s dumb ass brought you up in a conversation when we began to play beer pong. I didn’t even know that he knew of your existence, but then he began to talk about you so provocatively and in such a degrading way. He talked about how sexy he though you were and how he wanted to fuck you. That was the first time I’ve ever felt so angry to the point where I was afraid that blood was going to be shed. I could feel my hand that was gripping on the ping pong ready to fling the damn thing at his face. Not only did I hate how he talked about you and described his many desires of what he wanted to do to you—but our other friends chimed in about which one of them would be the lucky guy who got to sleep with you like it was a fucking challenge. They might be my friends, yet I was seconds away from giving them all black eyes—but I didn’t want them to know about us. So I just kept drinking and I went up to one of the rooms some football players were smoking weed in and I took five hits. I was also having a hard time accepting that I loved you—“

“Why? What was so hard about coming to the acceptance that you were in love with me? Did you realize that there are a lot more other girls out there and you wanted to keep your options open? Or did you notice that I didn’t fit in with your friends and you were afraid that they wouldn’t be as accepting of me? Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?”

“I was scared. I told you all about my parents—how I believed that they had a love for the ages and that they were going to be together for the rest of their lives. But I was too young to notice that they were actually going through a really rough time. I found out that they weren’t happy in their marriage when I was seventeen years old and that they were only staying together for my siblings and I. My dad—he actually began having an affair with one of his coworkers, but could it really be considered an affair when my parents were no longer theoretically together? They finally got a divorce a little over two years ago and I mean—they’re happier I guess. But my siblings and I—it still bothers us. Like, we’re still so affected by their separation and it’s been years. I vowed to myself that I would never fall in love with anyone. I didn’t want to experience the heartbreak that came with falling out of love. I didn’t want to give myself—my whole self to someone, fall in love with them, do all these romantic and domestics things with them, get used to having them around and always wanting to be with them only for shit to hit the fan and end up hating that person or being hated by that person. Then you came in to my life—someone who I would have never thought would mean this much to me. But you do. You always will. I don’t remember exactly when I started to love you—but I don’t regret it at all—and I’m not scared anymore. I was fucking devastated when you left—I knew it was over and it was the most painful and gut wrenching feeling I have ever felt in my entire life.”

The more he talked, the more you began to wish he would stop or that he didn’t even open his mouth in the first place. You remembered the night where the two of you were lying down in bed, watching tv and then he got a call from his dad. He excused himself for a few minutes—leaving you alone with a strange legend episode of unsolved mysteries. It wasn’t that you wanted to eavesdrop, but you could hear his voice raise from the other room. Whatever he was talking about with his dad must have really struck a nerve with him because he was in tears when he came back to you. Instead of returning back to the show or taking his leave—he fell apart in to your arms and told you everything.

He bared his entire soul to you and you found yourself crying at how broken he was and how distraught his conversation with his father left him. From that night on, you made a vow to yourself to make sure he was always happy whenever he was with you. You didn’t want to be a reason behind his sadness—even if he was the sole reason of yours.

“You should have known I would never have done anything to hurt you Mark. I’m surprised you didn’t catch on to my feelings seeing as how open I was with them. It’s like I had “I love you Mark Tuan” written on my fucking forehead like a pathetic idiot. I sacrificed so many things for you, I had to keep us a secret because that’s what you asked for but it made me feel like you were ashamed of me. I don’t believe in being friends with benefits—whoever thought that shit up needs a slap in the face. Friends could never just have sex—one always falls in love and that’s the same one who gets their heart broken. Me. Every time you would glance at me in the hallway and look away as if you had no idea who I was—it fucking sucked Mark. What person in their right minds would allow someone to do this to them? I only do relationships—I’m an exclusive type of person but I pushed away all my beliefs just to be with you. I loved you Mark Tuan. More than I have ever loved anyone else—more than I loved myself and it scared me, but I didn’t run away. I didn’t go and fuck someone else because I was afraid of feelings. I could never do that to you. I don’t give a shit that you were high and don’t remember a thing—you still did it and it still haunts me to this day. I’m sorry—I really don’t know what to tell you. I’m sorry about your parents and I’m sorry that their divorce is affecting the way you look at your love life—but why do I have to be punished? Why is my heart on the line for something that doesn’t involve me? It’s not fair Mark.”

His hands were gentle against both sides of your cheeks. He bore his eyes in to yours—but you refused to make eye contact. Your vision was blurry; filled with tears and sadness. Sadness because he hurt you—but also because you were now accepting that you were still so madly in love with the man in front of you. You absentmindedly leaned against his palm but continued to keep your gaze away from him.

“Y/n—I can’t even tell you how sorry I am. I really am so sorry. If I knew then what I knew now, then I would have never let you go. I would have told you that you are the sole purpose of my existence. You’re the reason why I wake up every morning with the biggest smile on my face. I never thought I was capable of experiencing love—loving someone and being in love but now—that’s all I want—with you and only you. I can’t take back what I did, but I can spend the rest of my life proving to you that you’re the one for me and that I would go to the depths of hell and back just to be the lucky man who gets to love you. Tell me you don’t love me anymore. Tell me that it’s too late and that your heart is no longer mine. Tell me that you want nothing to do with me and that Jinyoung is the one that you want. Just say the word and I’ll let you go—no matter how badly I don’t want to.”

You took in a few deep breaths and bit down on your bottom lip in frustration. You began to weigh out your choices—you had such a wonderful man somewhere on this campus; probably wondering where you were. He was willing to give you his heart on a tray like it was the easiest thing to do. But then, there was the man in front of you. The man you loved with every fiber of your being. Every beat of your heart. He might have made a mistake, but he was obviously paying for it and if he was willing to give up his pride and his ego to confess how sorry he was and how he loved you like he’s never loved anyone before—then you had to trust that he would follow his word and take care of you the way he promised he would right?

“Did you suffer without me?” He looked at you and nodded profusely.

“Every fucking day. I took a few days off from work and school because I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I was trying to look for you everywhere but you kept dodging me.” You brought one hand up in to his hair—running your fingers through his brown locks and cupping the back of his neck with the other hand.

“You love me?”

“Yes. God—I can’t seem to do anything but love you. All I ever want to do is love you.”

Feeling him smile in to the kiss did wonders to your heart. He smashed his lips against yours—not giving you any chance to breathe as he roughly molded his mouth with yours; sucking and nipping on your lips, running his tongue lustfully against yours. You’ve missed this. It’s been so long—being away from him. Being held by him. You knew that no matter how much you deserved better, Mark Tuan was your person. Being there with him felt like coming home after a long day and it was such a good feeling. One you could get used to now that you knew where his heart lies. He sat you up on the table and gently pushed you down before attacking your face, jaw and neck with many wet kisses. However, to his dismay, you lifted him off of you and brought his face in between your hands and placed a sweet kiss on his forehead.

“Then I’m yours.”

#got7 imagines #mark tuan #mark tuan imagines #got7 #got7 mark

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vampiresuns · 3 years ago

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This Is How We Say Goodbye (Song To The Open Road) | Asra x Milenko

☽ THIS IS HOW WE SAY GOODBYE (SONG TO THE OPEN ROAD) ☽

1.9k words. Written for Asra Week, day 6: Promise. In which the Plague ravages Vesuvia, there’s an argument and Asra and Milenko part ways.

You can catch up with Milasra’s pre-game canon, ‘Like Thirst Holds Water’, here.

When Anatole and Milenko got involved, Asra and Amparo were already fighting.

Their relationship had always been peculiar. More than friends, they were sometimes mirrors, matchstick and friction, cause and reaction. While Milenko was the one Asra had fallen in love with, and Anatole the one who he rode and died for, Amparo tended to spring Asra into motion. Both of them did things in almost identical ways — Asra’s sun sign was Amparo’s moon sign, her rising sign, his moon. As such, they gave the idea of instant compenetration, of unspoken frequencies vibrating in the same way.

Amparo, the animancer, the actress, the dancer, the impersonator imbued in Asra something the others could not quite describe. That was Amparo’s charm, after all, that pizzaz that made her no one other than La Cassano.

In that way, they shouldn’t have been surprised they would butt heads this way. They shouldn’t have been surprised that nothing could deescalate the fight either. Everyone was tired, everyone was grieving. The City was ridden with the Plague, there were no answers and no solutions offered, and for the first time in the almost 20 years Lucio had ruled the inevitable had happened: the Council of Vesuvia wasn’t enough, and now it was too late for them to remove Lucio from power by declaring him unfit to rule. The mechanisms would not work, the tissue of the Court was almost entirely destroyed, and the people were ill and needed food, clean water and doctors.

Their families had decided to all ride this out together in the Palazzo, with the proper health regulations that they could adopt. The building could house them all without problem but more importantly, it would mean they would be together. Many things were said about them, like how nothing mortal could kill them, based on an old, old story of how the Consul’s office had become theirs. It was no less true that the Radošević-Cassano did not survive alone.

So they grouped, they went back home, and with their location inside the walls of the infamous Palazzo Cassano, they took in their closest friends. Their families had begun as friends, marrying between each other was recent, and only a kink of some very specific sets of family members. To them, family wasn’t blood, family was a choice.

They had asked Asra to move in with them, and with that, to relocate Muriel, no one had to know he was in the Palazzo with them, specially not the Count. Asra, however, wanted to leave, and he wanted to convince Amparo, Anatole and Milenko to go with him, so they all would take their stuff and go, and abandon Vesuvia — a City that had never done anything for any of them. There was no point in dying in it, let alone for it.

Naturally, the proposal turned into an argument. Amparo especially would not leave her mother and parent, Amparo would not leave Anzano, their grandparent, as she knew they would not leave Vesuvia. Anzano was old, very old, but still fit for travel; however, they had once been the High Priest of the Sun and had trained the new one, just like their spouse Atilia Cassano, had been the High Priest of the Moon. They wouldn’t leave a City they felt a sense of responsibility towards, and Amparo herself would not desert her family when they needed her.

Milenko had a similar idea. He couldn’t leave. He couldn’t leave when he could help, he couldn’t leave when his mothers would not go, when his grandfather would not go, when his cousins would not go. Unlike Amparo he had no will to argue with Asra, instead, with the help of Anatole they tried to calm it down, so Asra could see where they were coming from, and they could try and answer Asra’s concerns.

It didn’t work. Everyone was strung, stressed and grieving, so it was a matter of time before one of them said the wrong thing, at the wrong time, with whoever the comment had been directed at not wanting to be understanding about it. It was a matter of time before they were all arguing in the ground floor of the Moonstone and Jasmine, all of Asra’s things packed up as he said he was not staying to die in a City like Vesuvia and how anyone with half a mind would do the same.

Milenko saw the point of no return happen in slow motion: Asra’s words collided with nothing other than the behemoth that was the Cassano’s sense of pride. Whatever they had begun, it could not be stopped now.

A lot of accusations flew around. Amparo tried to tell Asra that he couldn’t just expect her to leave the City she had always lived in, the City that she hoped to die in at old age. Asra told her what did she know about losing homes, she who had been born in the Heart District with a silver spoon on her mouth, who had never had to struggle because she always had a roof above her head. Funnily enough, Amparo’s patience ran out when he told her that she couldn’t even cook for herself.

“Do whatever you want. I’m not leaving. If that’s all you think of me, then forget we were ever friends Asra.”

She disappeared into the upstairs of the shop, into its main living quarters.

“Asra, that’s not fair,” Milenko said. His tone was critical, but he still tried to stay as calm as possible. Maybe if Asra could see that he really would be safe—

Then Anatole spoke, his anger raw, yet cold and precise, like a well practiced fencing blow: “What the fuck is wrong with you. If we were a bunch of superior assholes who did everything for our own benefit—”

Asra snapped. “No, but you sure think you’ll save Vesuvia from Lucio just from existing, as if anyone in this city would ever care if you lived or died, Anatole. That’s what you do, don’t you? Pretend like you can fix his mistakes while everyone else suffers from them.”

The silence that fell between the three of them was abrupt, soon ringing in their ears, but when Asra tried to apologise, noticing he had said the wrong thing, it was too late.

Anatole looked like he had been slapped.

“Toly?” Milenko asked, moving closer to his cousin to squeeze his shoulder, wanting to make sure he was okay. Asra’s words had hit one of Anatole’s greatest fears: that no matter how hard he tried, it’d never be enough.

Before he could reach Anatole, his cousin’s face changed. As his features shifted with anger, Anatole spoke again.

Now he was truly and really angry. “You meant that.”

The issue with words was you couldn’t take them back once you said them. All you could do is hope the other person would forgive you and understand if you had misspoken. As Milenko was once again caught between Asra and Anatole arguing, he realised this was one thing Anatole might never forgive. He doubted it was his place to say, yet Milenko didn’t know if he could even advocate for Anatole forgiving Asra’s words, with time.

The issue wasn’t about who was right or wrong. There was no right or wrong, there was no miraculous answer in this unsalvageable situation. It was that Asra had meant it. Part of Anatole’s language magic was this: he was able to read feelings and intentions in spoken words. As a language manipulator, he could tell everything which people (intentionally or otherwise) imbued into words when they spoke, even if he couldn’t tell the why or the how.

Would he be able to carry on if he could feel that after years of showing honesty and vulnerability because you want the other person to know you, this was what they thought at their worst?

The argument didn’t last much longer. Anatole, not wanting to speak, went upstairs to check on Amparo, while Milenko and Asra stood alone on the ground floor of the shop.

The magician began taking his things, preparing himself to leave for real. Milenko followed him, standing outside of the backdoor as he looked at Asra adjusting his travelling coat. Amparo has gotten it for him. It was handmade, Amparo’s gift to Asra two birthdays ago.

“Aren’t you going to say farewell?”

Asra startled, not expecting Milenko standing there. “I thought there was nothing else to say.”

Once again they stood in silence. It felt like forever, even if it was probably just a couple of seconds. They were aware of every moment they lost to silence, looking at each other under the Vesuvian sunset. They felt far away, miles away.

It hurt to realise, more than Milenko was willing to admit, but Anatole had been right: he still remembered when they were arguing about Asra not asking for help about Muriel. They could be as open as they wanted with Asra, but Asra would never step in time with them, even if he wanted to.

Who better than Milenko to know this, and to know that sometimes, it was through no fault of his own.

Asra spoke first. “You think I’m making the wrong choice.”

Milenko pressed his lips together. “I don’t think there’s a right choice. There’s just the best we can do with the options we’re given.”

“You don’t think I could do better with mine?”

“I don’t know, beloved, could you?”

“Don’t— don’t call me that.”

“I’m sorry. Force of habit.”

“I forgive you,” Asra said, shifting his weight between his feet. He wanted to say something else, yet he said nothing.

“Asra. I’m not judging you. I already told you I am no one to judge.”

“How can you say that to me at a time like this?”

“What? It’s the truth. I don’t like that you’re leaving and I would never make the choices you are making, and I could give you a piece of my mind and point fingers at you. I am angry, I’m hurt, but nothing I accuse you of will make me feel better. Judging you will not make me feel better, so I won’t. I’ve never done.”

“Sometimes,” Asra said, dislodging his travel bag from his shoulder, “sometimes I wish you did. It would make leaving easier.”

To Milenko’s surprise, Asra crossed the distance between them. Milenko didn’t stop his hand from cupping Asra’s cheek. Asra leaned against it, even if he wished he hadn’t. Asra closed his eyes, tears coming through his closed eyelids.

“You know I won’t ask you to stay,” Milenko said, getting teary himself.

“Just like I know I won’t get you to leave.”

“Just promise me you’ll think about it, Asra. Promise me that at the very least, you’ll try to take good care of yourself.”

Asra opened his eyes, his vision blurred because of the tears. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve, letting Faust slither into his arm to stretch herself all the way to say goodbye to Milenko.

Her tongue flicked against his nose, making Asra smile.

“Promise me you’ll take care of yourself too, please.”

Milenko nodded, Asra saying his farewells before turning around and walking away as fast as he could without breaking into a run. Milenko watched him go, until Ursula, his familiar, nudged him inside.

“May Allah keep you safe, Habibi,” he said to the empty street before closing the door behind him.

#the arcana #asraweek2021 #the arcana oc #milenko #asra alnazar #asra #milasra #like thirst holds water #amparo cassano #aelius anatole #my writing

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suituuup · 4 years ago

Note

for the christmas prompts, can you do “you’re in the hospital for the holidays so i came in while you were sleeping to decorate your room i love you merry christmas". Thank you :)

I don’t want a lot for Christmas

rating: T

word count: 1,4k

ao3 link

Like a morning out of two, Beca wakes up to the steady beeping of her son’s heartbeat. She slowly sits up, wincing as she braces a hand over the painful twitch in her lower back from sleeping on that uncomfortable cot.

Her eyes fall on her sleeping son, so small and vulnerable in that large hospital bed. She pushes to her feet and leans over the railing, brushing her fingers through his auburn hair as she bends down to press a kiss to Dylan’s forehead.

The last year and a half has been an emotional whirlwind.

Dylan was diagnosed with Hodgkin Lymphoma right after his sixth birthday, and their whole world shifted on its axis. Chloe stopped teaching so she could take him to chemo and numerous doctor check-ups and Beca asked to only work part-time at the studio so she could spend more time with her family. Six months after the diagnosis, Dylan was in remission. Their happiness and relief were short-lived however, when signs of the illness showed up four months ago. The cancer was back. From LA, they moved to Philadelphia, where a doctor specialized in Hodgkin Lymphoma and Proton therapy.

Dylan’s body hasn’t been responding well to that type of treatment, and his body continued to shut down. He was admitted three weeks ago. The nurses and doctors on the peds ward are kind enough to let one parent stay over every night, so she and Chloe have been alternating night shifts at the hospital.

“Morning.” Beca’s pulled away from her thoughts by her wife’s voice. Chloe is standing in the doorway, two to-go cups balanced on one hand and a paper bag dangling from the other. The one who sleeps at home usually brings coffee and breakfast on the way in, as the hospital coffee tastes terrible. “How’s he doing?”

“Still asleep. Didn’t wake up through the night,” Beca says as Chloe steps further in, setting the items on the tray by Dylan’s bed before kissing Beca hello. Beca leans against her, releasing a sigh as she wraps an arm around her waist. Her eyes fall on the tote bag full of Christmas stuff set by the door. “What’s that?”

“I thought we should decorate, give this room a little holiday feeling.”

Beca smiles. “I think that’s a great idea.”

Once Dylan wakes up and the morning rounds are done, Beca and Chloe work around the room to hang the tinsels and Christmas lights, Christmas music playing through their portable speaker.

“What do you think, dude?” Beca asks when they’re done, lowering herself next to him and wrapping an arm around the seven-year-old’s shoulders as she takes in the newly-decorated room. “Did we do a good job?”

Dylan nods, a toothy grin spreading across his features. “Looks awesome.”

“I think so, too.” Beca presses a kiss to the side of his head. “I have to head to work, but I’ll be back for dinner, okay?”

“K.”

“Don’t destroy Mama at Mario Kart, alright?” She whispers, though she knows Chloe can hear her as she hangs the wreath on the door. “Let her win a couple times, at least.”

Dylan giggles while Chloe casts her a playful glare. Beca chuckles and pushes to her feet, brushing a quick kiss to Chloe’s lips on her way out. “See you later.”

It’s hard for her to truly focus at work when she knows her phone could go off any second if Dylan’s state suddenly worsens. She does her best to be present, but is immensely grateful when her boss assures her they’ll be fine if she leaves an hour early.

Like every night, they watch a movie or cartoon of Dylan’s choice while eating take-out, and read him a bedtime story before one of them has to leave.

“I love you,” Beca murmurs as she tucks the covers tighter around Dylan’s body. Leaving him at night is always the hardest, but they can’t both stay here.

“I love you too, Mommy.”

Chloe follows her out into the hall, where they have their only private moment of the day.

“I hate this,” Chloe whispers into their embrace. “I hate that one of us has to leave.”

“I know. Me too,” Beca mutters, her palm rubbing soothing circles over Chloe’s back as she soaks in her wife’s warmth. “I’ll be back early tomorrow morning.”

“You should get some more sleep,” Chloe says as she pulls away, cradling Beca’s cheek gently. “You’re exhausted, baby.”

Beca inhales sharply, cursing under her breath when a few tears escape the corners of her eyes. She can’t contradict Chloe; balancing work with their situation is exhausting, but they can’t afford to both be on leave. Bills still need to be paid, even when their son is extremely sick. “I’m terrified to miss your call if something happens.”

“You won’t,” Chloe murmurs. She catches the tear drops with the pad of her thumb and presses a lingering kiss to Beca’s forehead. They’re each other’s rocks. One is always there to anchor the other on tough days. “And he seems okay tonight.”

Beca nods. “I know. I just-- I can’t stop thinking of how unfair it all is. He doesn’t deserve any of this, Chlo.”

Chloe doesn’t say anything, probably because there’s nothing to be said. She hugs Beca a bit tighter, and they remain that way for long minutes, wordlessly giving each other as much comfort as they can despite the circumstances.

“I love you so much,” Beca whispers when she eventually lets go of her wife, taking Chloe’s hand and brushing a kiss to her knuckles.

“I love you, too. Send me a text when you’re home?”

“I will.”

The amazing team of nurses at Philly’s Children Hospital turn the pediatric ward into a Christmas Wonderland over the next few days. Service dogs come hang out with the young patients and Santa even visits to give out presents on Christmas Eve day.

It gets even better when Dylan’s favorite nurse swings by towards the end of the day to tell them that, since it’s Christmas Eve, they’re both allowed to spend the night at the hospital. Dylan gets to stay up an hour longer, facetiming with Chloe’s parents who are back on the west coast. Once he’s asleep, Beca sneaks in his presents and lies them in front of the tiny plastic Christmas tree they managed to tuck in the corner of the room.

She slides under the covers next to her wife a few minutes later, puffing out a content sigh. It’s the first time in a month that they get to sleep in the same bed, and Beca’s missed it more than she realized.

“He had a good time tonight,” Chloe whispers as Beca absentmindedly strokes her forearm while they cuddle on the twin sized cot.

“Yeah, I think so. Tomorrow is going to be even better. I’ll go get donuts and hot chocolates across the street before he wakes up.”

“Good idea.” Chloe smiles and nuzzles her cheek. “I wish we could get him a puppy.”

It was the plan up until Dylan was admitted. But the pet wouldn’t be able to stay in the hospital, and it would spend most of the days on its own in their empty house.

“Next year,” Beca says softly. Her heart physically hurts, because she knows another year is not guaranteed, but she can’t afford to let go of her hopes, or else she'll crumble. “We’ll get him one next year.”

Chloe nods, blinking back tears. “Okay.”

They wake Dylan up with a kisses and tickle attack in the morning, his giggles warming Beca's mind and soul.

“Merry Christmas, baby,” Chloe murmurs, letting up on the tickling as she kisses Dylan’s cheek. “Looks like Santa came by last night.”

Dylan gasps as he follows his Mama’s gaze to the tree surrounded by presents.

Beca pushes to her feet to get a couple, setting them on Dylan’s lap. They maybe went a little overboard with gifts, and some parents would probably call him spoiled, but after all he’s been through, Beca doesn’t give a flying fuck.

They play with his new toys for the rest of the day, and if Beca closes her eyes and shuts out the hospital sounds for a minute, focusing on her son's laughter, it almost seems like he's not sick.

It almost seems like things might be okay.

For a minute.

#bechloe #bechloe fanfiction #chloe beale #beca mitchell

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katblu42 · 3 years ago

Text

I have tossed up whether or not to post this, but I've decided to just go ahead and see how it lands. It is very personal to me, and I'm posting it because today is 2 years since I had to say goodbye.

This is basically a rambling vent that came out after the most traumatic period of my life so far. I needed to write it all down, chronicle it and get it out of my head, and the original destination for it was (my other) fandom.

It is more detailed than the story I posted earlier in the week, but it requires all the same warnings for some pretty unpleasant stuff. Please take heed before continuing.

Warnings for Death Illness Hospital Cancer (Medical) Drugs Medical Procedures CPR

Deep breath Late in 2018 my husband, S, began complaining of a sore throat. He's the kind of male who won't go to the doctor unless he is literally dying. He finally went to his GP in January and was told there was an issue that needed more investigating. He was supposed to go back to the GP in 2 weeks, but we were on holidays then, so he ended up not going back until mid March. GP sent him to a specialist, but the earliest appointment was early April. Consultation, camera down the throat and $400 later the specialist says Cancer - two of them, one in the mouth, one in the throat. Next appointment is the biopsy. By now S has lost almost 20kg because he struggles to eat (and because apparently Cancer can do that to a person anyway). Now there are appointments at the local hospital with the Radiation Therapy Dr, the specialist in Chemotherapy and a dental team (who wanted to take all his back teeth out at first, but changed their minds when they saw where the mouth cancer was, and how hard it was for S to open his mouth wide). During all this I'm still juggling work commitments as we are building up to one of our busiest periods, which covers pretty much the entire month of May. I'm sharing appointment chauffeuring duties with his Dad. It is decided that due to S's weight loss and difficulty eating it is advisable to put a feeding tube (that they call a peg) in his stomach. This is basically a precaution in case he can no longer swallow anything at some point during early treatment. Surgery after Chemotherapy begins will be difficult to recover from. As it turns out the peg is never actually used for feeding S. The first cycle of Chemotherapy begins on Wednesday 8th May. The plan was to do at least 2, probably 3 cycles of Chemo and then begin combination Radiotherapy/Chemo. At first things seem to be going okay. Three medications are administered as part of the Chemo - 2 are done on the Wednesday at the Cancer Clinic, and the third he has to carry around with him for 5 days, returning on Sunday to have the rig removed once that one is done. The peg starts leaking during these 5 days. He is given advice over the phone not to worry about the leak - but I wonder about that advice. I can't be with S all day - work is busy, and he's a grown up who can ask for help if he needs it. Only he's the kind of male who will not make a fuss if he's feeling "not okay". By Tuesday (14th May) S is not feeling much like "eating" - which consists of swallowing soft stuff like milkshakes, jelly (jello), custard and the like - and I basically have to force him to go for a walk around the block with me, just to keep him from lying on the couch all day. (Tuesday is my regular day off). He seems okay, in the "so-so" sense rather than the "fine" sense. He's not particularly nauseous, just a bit Blah. Wednesday - while I'm at work - S stays home all day, which is unusual for him. He is a social butterfly who can't resist going across the road to the Bowling Club just to sit with his mates for a bit. The peg is still leaking, and he feels tired and a bit yuck. By now I have asked him a few times if I should be calling the hospital for advice and he says no - doesn't want to make a fuss. I don't stress too much because he has an appointment at the hospital on Thursday - it's with a Social Worker, but I know that he will be at the hospital, where they will ask him how he's feeling, and if they think he needs something they will take care of him. Thursday comes and he doesn't want to get out of bed. I go to work, telling him to make sure he gets to his appointment, even if he doesn't feel like going. His Dad calls me at lunch time and tells me S didn't go to the appointment. He got in the car, they got down the road, then S told his Dad to just take him home. His Dad tells me S doesn't look good, he thinks S should be in hospital and I wonder why he didn't take S straight there if he was that worried. I get home just after 5pm and S is in bed feeling miserable. I don't get much of a good look at him - the room is dark - but he talks

to me. He's not feeling nauseous, not throwing up, but also not eating or moving much. Over the next few hours he's up and down to the toilet at least once an hour. I ask if he has diarrhoea, because if he does I should take him to hospital. He says no, "not much is coming out". It's after 10pm, Thursday 16th May, when he calls out to me from the bathroom. Something about the way he calls out makes me get straight up to see what's wrong - normally I yell back "what's wrong?" or "just a minute", but this time I think I had an instinct that said something was wrong. I find him sitting on the toilet, slumped forward with his head between his knees. He can talk to me at this point, but I have to help him sit up - he really can't move - and his skin is quite yellow (which alarms me). By the time I have him sitting upright he's not talking to me any more, his eyes are only half open and not blinking and he can't squeeze my hand. I run and get my phone and call an ambulance. Now his breathing is laboured, and as the emergency call taker is asking me to "say now every time he takes a breath" his gasps are getting further apart. I have to get him clumsily onto the floor of our tiny, narrow bathroom and give him chest compressions. 2 ambulances are on their way. Minutes later I have 4 ambulance crew members working on my husband in our tiny bathroom, and I have no idea what is going on. By midnight S is in emergency at the local hospital, and I'm in a private waiting room, alone. I call my Mum - I've already called his Dad on my way to the hospital in my car (they didn't take me in the ambulance). It's about 12:30 when a doctor comes to talk to me. Infection. Kidneys and liver struggling. Blood pressure through the floor. No white blood cells. This is by no means good. By the time I get to see him in Emergency I have my Mum and his Dad with me. S is basically in an induced coma and about to be moved up to ICU. It's about 1:30am. Once he's moved to ICU we wait in another waiting room for more news. A surgical consultant comes and sees us - I think it's nearly 3am - she says surgery is not an option. The infection is in his digestive system. There is no clear area to surgically remove, and his system is so weak it would not take well to surgery anyway. S's Dad leaves soon after that. This is hard for him. It was only 3 years ago that he was here in this very ward with his wife. This is where she passed away after an infection she just could not fight. He tells me "don't let them put him down" - I guess because he had to make that decision for his wife/S's Mum. I think it's after 6:30am when I decide to go to the intercom and buzz the nurses station to find out what's going on. They let us in to see him. All they can tell us is that they are throwing every kind of medical support they can at him in the hope they can help him fight off the infection - blood products, meds to raise the blood pressure, antibiotics. He's been ventilated through a tube in his mouth since the ambulance. They have to run a heating vent to raise his body temperature. They let me into the room, but I see no point in holding his hand or anything - he is unconscious, he won't know I'm there. We go home. I had about 3 hours sleep. By the time I could crawl into bed it was about 8am. By 11am people are starting to text me asking what's going on, checking if I'm okay. I had managed to text my boss about needing to call an ambulance while I was in the emergency waiting room. He's now replied to say I don't need to be at work today, but in the back of my mind is the fact that I have a show to work on, starting on Sunday - we are so busy that there will be no one else who can replace me on this show. (And we had a Federal Election on Saturday as well, so I was going to have to fit voting in around visiting S). At some point on this day a doctor calls me to get permission to administer a drug to S. This drug is not approved for use in Australia, but it is approved in the US. As a result they will have to ship it in from interstate, because there is not much

stock in the country, and I have to sign my permission for them to use it. It is a reversal drug for the 5 day chemo medication. It works best if administered soon after the chemo treatment - we are already past the ideal timeframe, but it is our best shot at helping S. S is unconscious and fighting for the next couple of days, and I'm half dreading that call that says things have taken a turn for the worse, come now! Instead, I see him for a short period each day, but he doesn't know I'm there. And I keep doing the work I have to do - at least this show is close to home for me, and close to the hospital. He is being supported by the blood pressure medication (Noradrenaline) which they are slowly able to reduce in dose, his temperature is stabilising, and the chemo reversal drug has had some positive effect. His white cell count is coming up - probably with the help of the blood products he's been given. By Tuesday 21st May S is awake and aware, and they have been able to remove the ventilator tube. The Physio is concerned about how weak he is - movement in his arms and legs is limited. He is breathing on his own, but it's hard work because his muscles are weak. His lips and mouth have been bleeding a bit around where the tube was. Still, we are seeing slow, small improvements and hoping for the best. On Friday they have to re-insert the breathing tube - he is too weak to maintain his breathing without assistance. This is a set-back, and comes with a warning that the breathing tube can't stay in his mouth/throat for too long, because it can cause all kinds of complications, especially in his compromised state. They tell me that without marked improvement soon they may have to perform a tracheotomy and insert the ventilator there. By this stage they have moved from nasogastric feeding to Parenteral nutrition (intravenously). The peg is still leaking. I'm now getting into a rhythm visiting S when I can for as long as I can around my work hours, and answering enquiries about his health and well wishes from family and friends on both my phone and his. I no longer have rehearsals every night, and the weekend's performances go pretty well. I know he's still critical, but he's stable and despite the set back S seems to be on a path of slight improvement again. The next set-back comes in the form of a flare up of the infection. The gut is still very inflamed - particularly the bowel. More blood products, more antibiotics, Noradrenaline dosage increased again. There is a mention that he probably has a slow internal bleed somewhere. Clotting is a problem - the bleeding in his lips and mouth is evidence of this too. Before I go to my Friday show I have to sign the permission for them to perform the tracheotomy - they've decided it needs to be done, and an emergency surgical team will do it but it could be a day or two before the operation actually goes ahead. Through this entire week S has been awake and aware, communicating with me as best he can around the breathing tube and the bleeding lips, which are scabby and sore. He is still very much alive mentally, still able to laugh at our corny jokes and request the music be turned up! Being in ICU he's not allowed flowers of gifts or anything, but they did allow me to take in a little blue tooth speaker so he could have the radio on all day. I see him as early as visiting hours allow on Saturday 1st June - his 42nd birthday. I have 2 shows on this day, and won't be able to see him again until Sunday. I leave the hospital soon after his Dad and brother arrive for a visit, around 11:30. Around 12:30, while I'm running sound checks for the matinee show, I get a phone call asking me for permission to do the tracheotomy. At first this confuses me - they have permission already. Apparently they are now doing it in ICU, not in the emergency theatre or wherever. He was more drowsy on the Sunday, after the tracheotomy, but still essentially in the same condition - stable. I cried off sick for work on Monday and spent a bit more time with him - I knew I had to be at work on

Tuesday for a morning staff meeting. The hospital social worker called me before I went to visit S, wanting to arrange a "family meeting" for this week some time. At first we settled on Friday morning, but later they asked me if we could arrange a time earlier in the week. After re-arranging my work schedule we agreed on 3pm Tuesday, even though S's Dad would not be able to be there anymore. Then I arrived for my Monday visit with S. We had the radio on - S likes to have music playing, even when he's falling asleep - and the announcers were talking about the State of Origin (a Rugby League series of 3 matches between rival state teams, New South Wales and Queensland). I told him I'd make sure we put the radio on the right station on Wednesday night so he could listen. Suddenly the most important thing in the world for him was finding a way to be able watch the game! I told him I'd find a way. Tuesday comes and I get through my staff meeting and a few other things on my now half day before running back to the hospital for this family meeting. It turns out this is just me, S, his ICU team, his oncology team and the social working re-capping what S has been through so far, and then scaring me (and more so S) by saying out loud the words "Palliative care". Essentially they are telling us we are out of further options. He is being given everything possible to assist recovery - the blood pressure meds are now at a low dose, but they still have to support his blood pressure, he is still on a ventilator to assist his breathing, the infection is still not improving, but it has not got worse, they have run out of different antibiotics to throw at the infection, it still seems the bleed is present, the scabs on his lips are still apt to bleed more than they should if they are disturbed. If his organs start to fail there will be nothing they can do - surgery will more than likely not be an option, and one failure will lead to another until his heart, then brain will go and that will be it. So, if we start to see organ failure palliative care becomes the only option. This is the point at which I am in disbelief. He can't be that bad. He is still totally alive mentally. How can we be discussing "making him comfortable until he dies"? And S is even more disbelieving and scared than me at those words. Yes S has looked better, yes he has spent over 2 and a half weeks in ICU, yes he has a lot more hard fighting to do if he's ever going to beat this, but his brain is fine, he is completely aware of where he is and what's going on around him - just a bit inclined to tire quickly. I stay with him longer than I intend to that night because he starts to complain of stomach pain. It gets worse. Really bad. They give him morphine. He says it doesn't help. His breaths start hitching, like something is stabbing him or something. He finally gives me the description "like hiccoughs, but sore". I can see how swollen his stomach is - fluid retention. And he is also complaining that he wants to lie on his side. We have to wait ages for the right number of people to be available to turn him on his side, to a more comfortable position. But his stomach is still giving him intense pain and whatever spasms are causing the breath hitches and grimaces. I have to leave him like that - in pain, but with the nurse on duty doing whatever he can to ease the discomfort, administering Morphine whenever possible - visiting hours are over and I'm asked to leave. On my way to work on Wednesday morning (5th June) I get a call from the head doctor in S's ICU team. He wants to know what time I can be there today - S has had major abdominal pain since last night (I know, I was there!), and they are investigating the cause, but it looks like the kidneys are failing. He tells me he will update me via text when he knows more, I tell him I will get there as soon as I can after work. I get no texts all day. I get to the hospital around 4:45pm - armed with the all important iPad mini for him to watch the State of Origin game on (yes, that is still a priority for S! God

love him!!). I'm told S has been taken for a scan and I need to come back in about an hour. So, when I return and he's back from the scan, I get the iPad hooked in to the Wifi and open the app he needs. Then I have to have the conference with the doctor. His kidneys have failed. Fluid is building up in his stomach. They want my permission to put a drain directly in his belly to ease the pressure. I give it. I have to wait outside while they get this done. There is a brief discussion about surgery - but that would literally be futile. Again we have the conversation about palliative care. This is the beginning of the end. His body is shutting down. S can't fathom this. He says the words that still break my heart, pointing to his head to indicate his mind he mouths "I'm still alive". He has so much to say, but we can't understand him through the scabs on his lips and his inability to make any real sounds. We try to get him to write things down, but his hands are really too weak. The doctor has asked if he wants to have the pain medication increased so he can slip away peacefully. The sentence he writes is "I just want to see how I go" - he wants so badly to keep fighting. He doesn't want to die. Once the doctor is sure he is comfortable for now he leaves us to watch the game - no S has not forgotten the game! He does not administer the pain medication, but he gives the authorisation for its use once S requests it. And although I had not planned to stay and watch the game (which starts around the time visiting hours end), I do. They let me stay. He nods off a bit during the second half, but I know how much seeing it means to him, so I rouse him for the good bits, and make sure he sees the end - a good result for him, a come-from-behind win for his team. I say my goodnight and leave S to get some sleep. I have told my boss how dire things are, and he has told me I have leave starting now for as long as I need. I get a call around 9:30 on Thursday morning asking me what time I will be getting to the hospital. Apparently S has been asking for me. I had a couple of things to do before I could get there, so I arrive just after 11:30am. S is not as awake and aware as he was last night. They have started giving him the pain medication (Fentanyl) the doctor was talking about, and it has affected S's ability to focus, and therefore communicate. He has apparently been asking what's going on - last night he knew the story, now he's unclear. I wish they had held off on administering the drug. I would have liked to speak to my clear headed husband today. His kidneys have failed, the liver is failing. We are out of options. His Dad and brother are in and out today - we are kind of rotating our breaks until early afternoon. A Palliative Care consultant, and the social worker and the nurse looking after S want to have a meeting with me, and it takes me longer than it should to realise that this meeting is for me to give the final word on the beginning of the end. They are focusing on making sure I am okay with what's about to happen. Making sure I know that I have the final say, and once I give the go ahead they will stop all meds that aren't making him comfortable - the Fentanyl dose will increase, but the feeding, the antibiotics and finally the Noradrenaline will be stopped. It will then be a matter of minutes or hours before he is gone. I know they are trying to be helpful, but having them ask if I'm okay, having them tell me how strong I have been for him and how much of an advocate for him I have been is only making my heart break more. That afternoon, his brother, sister-in-law and their 4 kids, my brother and sister-in-law and 2 of their kids all come in to say their farewells. The Fentanyl dose has already been increased, so S knows they are there, but he is so drowsy it's hard for him to open his eyes. His sister-in-law wants to stay with me. She doesn't seem to understand I need to be alone with S for this. But, at last she gives me space. I'm the one who has to give the green light. It's really hard to do, but I know we

are out of options. As soon as they stop the blood pressure medication (Noradrenaline), S opens his eyes and looks at me. He is as focused as I have seen him all day, his grip on my hand is desperately strong, and I explain to him one final time what is happening, tell him I love him, tell him I'm sorry things turned out this way, sorry for all the things we had planned that we won't get to do together, and tell him it's time to stop fighting and just let go. I try to tell him not to worry about anything or anyone, that it's okay to go. I hope he understands. It must be about 40 minutes before he is unconscious. They stop the ventilator. I turn off the radio - he can't hear it anymore, and he and I have different taste in music! I know he can't feel it anymore, but I won't let go of his hand until he's gone. He holds on for over an hour without the ventilator. Then there are no more breaths. I know he's gone. His hand is already much cooler than it was an hour or so ago. I am a widow. It has happened so fast. It feels strange, but I don't think the full weight has hit me yet. I am bursting into tears at random moments. I am thinking of stupid things like "what am I going to do with all these Fruit Loops - he eats those, not me!", instead of dwelling on the hard things like having a funeral to arrange, and dealing with all the people who keep wanting to do things for me, or stay with me.

That was two years ago now. In excess of 300 people came to his funeral service - a testament to how many friends he made, how many lives he brightened just that little bit with his generous spirit and ever-present smile. Of course, I still miss him. I still have my teary moments. I still struggle with guilt. But I remember his smile, his laugh, the way he would sing along to the music and make up his own words (often to make the song about us), his spontaneous dancing and all the love!

#grief/mourning #death tw #cancer tw #hospital #illness tw #medical procedure #medical drugs #tw cpr

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awesomerextyphoon · 4 years ago

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A Warrior’s Heart

Prologue

Main Paring: Stucky x Black!OFC (Ifekerenma ‘Ife’)

Warning: Graphic Depictions of Violence, War Crimes, Corruption, Smut, Mentions of Anxiety, Depression, and possible Panic Attacks

Rating: 18+/Explicit

Word Count: 1,461

Summary: Ife didn’t mean to have her employers be the subject of a hostile takeover by Stark Industries. She just held up the city of Novi Grad long enough for the Avengers to defeat Ultron. So naturally, Tony finds and blackmails her into joining the team. No good deed goes unpunished, huh?

A/N: This is my first long form (12+ chapters) story. I’m including characters and/or aspects from Disney’s Atlantis: the Lost Empire, Lilo & Stitch, Big Hero 6, Gargoyles, Inuyasha, and Toriko. Furthermore, I will be including elements of Netflix MCU and Agent Carter as well. Special thanks goes to @jtargaryen18 for the title. Reposting on any site without my permission is strictly forbidden. Reblogs are welcomed! 😊

Series Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Just keep the lie going.

That’s the line many of us have to repeat every day, and by us, I mean Non-Humans. Throughout history, humans have created myths and legends about us; some are true, others complete nonsense, but most are somewhere in between.

Let’s rewind a bit, okay?

Life on Earth lines up with most of what the textbooks say until about 5M BCE. Beings that would later be called gods and goddesses start to form with Mother Earth (the Amazing Gaea) as the focal point with other beings such as dragons, elves, and giants start to show two million years later.

The Celestials (sanctimonious assholes) came to Earth to see what’s happening after hearing about various fantastical anomalies (or that they were just bored). Gaea encouraged some (about 30K) of the human ancestors (Homo Erectus) to ‘the Space Gods’ direction. It took a few months, but they were able to create the species that later be known as Eternals. They also did some other shit but Gaea kicked them out when they wore out their welcome.

Around 200KBCE, the Kree (galactic genocidal nationalistic maniacs) happened upon a group of Eternals living on Uranus and traveled to Earth to ascertain whether other beings had similar potential. They experimented on a good number of early humans (about 150K survived) thus creating the first Inhumans (Inhomo Supremis). Several members of the Kree expedition tried to turn the Inhumans into weapons of the Kree Empire but were kicked off the planet by remaining Eternals and Non-Human factions.

Ten thousand years later (190KBCE), other early humans congregated around ‘magical hotspots’ which led to the births of the Homo Magi, Homo Superius, and Homo Animalis sub-species.

Soon after (okay, 15,000yrs later. Leave me alone.), the Mother Crystal (a semi-sentient comet, or Matag Yob) descended onto the island continent of Atlantis, imbuing the human inhabitants with longevity, knowledge, prosperity, and protection. At its height (around 55KBCE), Atlantis became the technological/cultural center on Earth (besides the Eternals).

It didn’t last long, though.

Five thousand years later (50KBCE), the first (and hopefully only) Pantheon War broke out. What exactly happened is lost to history (none of the people involved will fess up.), but what we do know is that shit went down.

Hard.

All that is known (admitted) is that almost all of the pantheons got into a Pantheon War (probably over some dumbass reason), a failed invasion by the Kree (really?), and the whole continent of Atlantis ‘sank’ into the sea in the span of three years (though some escaped).

Neat.

Fast-forward about 38K years (yeah, we’re making some jumps here) to the beginnings of the three most technologically advanced human nations of Earth: Wakanda, Sypavê, and Fetuilelagi; each with their own extraterrestrial metals/minerals.

Earth was pretty quiet until the ‘Christianity Dilemma’. So around 90CE, several ‘deities’ from the Greco-Roman, Norse, Germanic, and Celtic pantheons called for a Council of the Godheads’ to discuss ‘the ‘threat’ with Archangel Michael. It worked out well enough (no one wanted another Pantheon War).

Most of the world was in a pretty good state with a few ‘hiccups’ until the Bubonic Plague aka ‘The Black Death’ hit in 1346/7. It ravaged Eurasia and North Africa killing at least ½ the population and was seen as the start of non-belief in Europe. Worse, it was the beginning of Non-Human persecution and discrimination. You see, while the Black Death took out humans left and right, the worse a Non-Human got was a two-day flu. Many started to return to their respective realms once the Plague subsided and their once friendly neighbors started to accuse and persecute them.

The feeling of unease did not end but rather subsided. A tip from a Non-Human in Queen Isabella’s court alerted several groups in the Pre-Columbian Americas. Genocidal rapist, sex-trafficker, and all-around monster, Christopher Columbus does make it to the ‘New World’ (people were already there, dumbass) and devastated the indigenous population for centuries to come. By the time Columbus was executed in 1498, it was too late.

As many as 40 – 70% of the indigenous population was wiped out due to ‘virgin soil epidemics’ such as smallpox and influenza. Pantheons from negatively impacted areas called for a Council of the Godheads and demanded the ‘deities’ of the colonizers take action.

It went about as well as you’d think.

Earth was about to be embroiled in another Pantheon War until a few ‘level-headed’ individuals struck a bargain. No one was to interfere with human affairs whether it be good or ill. It was later amended to not have any ‘divine’ intervention (Sure). So by 1593, they had ‘bowed out’ of Earth affairs outside of their respective demi realms.

Outside of the matters of the ‘gods’, the rest of the world was dealing with its own problems. Tensions between humans and non-humans grew since the immediate aftermath of the Black Death. The Age of Enlightenment had started to pop up in intellectual circles across Europe around 1647. It focused on reason and free-thinking (Neat), but it also stoked up fear and anxiety towards Non-Humans (Boo!). Things came to a head in the 1670s. It got so bad that the Inter-Realm Parliament ordered all Non-Humans that weren’t exiled to return. They later founded the Bureau of Non-Human Affairs, BNA, in 1692 to deal with such matters in the future.

Two white-passing Non-Humans, Marcus Ashton and Jakob Schwartz founded Ashton & Schwartz Inc in 1809 along with a private partner. The company made waves in biomedical, chemical, agricultural, and climate science (they had to explain it to the populace) as well as pollution cleanup/prevention. One of their biggest inventions was a truly biodegradable plastic-like substance called biokivó̱tio or biokivo for short. The company made an even bigger impact with Non-Humans by solving issues pertaining to agriculture, large scale portal creation, and maintenance.

When the founders’ private partner decided to shut down the company in 1928, Ashton & Schwartz were a household name (especially since all major fossil fuel investments ended in 1900).

Barely ten years later and the threat of World War II rocked the planet to its core, especially the dropping of the Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The war Council went behind current President Henry Wallace’s back and had them done on the same day, August 7, 1945.

Well, that got everyone’s attention.

The Inter-Realm Parliament issued an edict that every one of ‘age’ (biologically 18+) would have to spend at least five consecutive years amongst the humans. It didn’t take long for BNA to lay the groundwork.

Wakanda, Sypavê, and Fetuilelagi (who will now be known as The Unconquered Alliance or UA.) saw this as a ‘we need to end this’ type of situation. Within three weeks of the bomb dropping, they formulated a plan and got to work kicking the colonizers out of Africa, starting with Belgian-colonized Congo (80% of the uranium used in the bombs were mined from there). They also made a deal with British-colonized India.

Once they were successful in their test run, The U.A. moved forward with similar models until they were to liberate the continent in 1955. Meanwhile, Sypavian forces kicked out most of the Nazis that fled to South America and ended US/European influence in Central and South America.

The United States tried to play it neutral until The UA (mainly Fetuilelagi) freed Hawai’i from US occupation in 1951. The war was sold as “We must fight to preserve our freedom!” (Keep telling yourselves that).

Once both South/Central America and Africa were liberated, other colonized nations asked for their aid. UA agents/dignitaries offered to relocate Black people from the Caribbean, Europe, and the United States. As many as five million African-Americans took the offer, including former Howling Commando, Gabe Jones. By then the US was clamping down domestically through the FBI and local/state police.

Irked by the knowledge that the UA had satellites, the US jumpstarted the Space Race (they had more than a few satellites, but good for you).

As with most wars, both sides partook in some ‘questionable actions’ (i.e. Syria, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Cambodia, and Laos).

The war climaxed in 1977 when a UA (Sypavian) agent discovered plans for a super-weapon in the US. A Special Ops team led by N’Jobu realized that the weapon was a mega bomb that would’ve wiped out the African Continent.

After weighing their options, The UA came to an agreement with BNA: BNA would gather their most powerful Homo Magi and cast a spell to erase the memory and evidence of the war from every human outside of the UA in exchange for letting some Non-Humans live openly in UA borders.

They shook on it, unaware of the chaos that would follow.

Next>>

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Taglist:@opheliadawnwalker3 @sherrybaby14 @stargazingfangirl18 @hevans-angel @threeminutesoflife @cockslut-padalecki @golden-ariess @sapphirescrolls @holylulusworld

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elucere · 3 years ago

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Sad Late August Quarantine Thoughts 2.0

Last year, I wrote this. Basically my thoughts on how I felt in my life up to that point and what quarantine had illuminated. It felt cathartic then, so hopefully it’ll feel cathartic now. A part of that probably had to do with the fact that the last part was complete bullshit, but we’ll get into that later.

At nearly the slightest inconvenience now, I’ll say “I’m at my limit”. Technically, that isn’t really true because if I was really at my limit, at the next inconvenience I would completely lose it. But no, I’m just simply reminding myself that while I’m constantly met with a series of unfortunate events, I haven’t broken down yet. I might feel like I’m there, but I’m not. I’m just at my limit. Things are bad, but they aren’t the worst they could be yet. So keep in mind, I am very much at my limit as I’m writing this.

Last year I talked about my struggles with my job. Yeah, I got fired in February. It was not pretty either. I knew I wasn’t doing well performance wise, and they invited me into a zoom call that they said was a project meeting a week before my year anniversary and fired me. My supervisor (or I guess, ex-supervisor) cried on call. I didn’t cry until afterwards. It was an entire year of me trying to get better, him promising that it’ll come with time, and then getting sacked because “we didn’t see improvements”. Really, really fucking sucked. And it messed with me for a long time because I kept replaying those last few weeks, trying to decipher what I could’ve done differently to prove my worth and keep my position. There was a lot. I felt really guilty.

I think the worst part is that I got a performance warning in December and realized at that point I’d become so apathetic about my job that I needed professional help. I’d been trying to go to therapy for a long time, but it never panned out. My mom forbade it when I was in high school, it was practically impossible to get an appointment at my college’s mental health facility unless you were considered a threat to yourself and others (which I most certainly did not want on my record), and after school life happened so fast with the pandemic and the fact that I live in a 2 bedroom apartment with my mom and my brother with very little privacy. Even now that I’ve convinced my mom that therapy is okay, actually, she still highly disproves and sees it as some sort of psychological failing on my part. Which is. Sure. Whatever. Why not.The reason I did not enroll in therapy that December is actually because my dad lost his job and with it, his health insurance, and with that, my health insurance. That means I had to enroll in a health plan through my employment, which became an unanticipatedly long process. I actually got my new-but-useless health insurance card in the mail a few days after I got fired. They actually fired me on the last day of the month, so my benefits wouldn’t extend beyond that month. That’s a bit of fun irony.

To quite a few of my friends, this story solidified the idea that insurance=therapy. As soon as I got insurance again, I’d be able to finally get some help. This was a couple of people’s first response to me when I got hired again (yay, I know I don’t have to worry about that anymore but I’m also afraid that I’ll just inevitably be fired again so I don’t let myself have the victory). I know my friends only want the best for me, and I can’t expect them be able to emotionally support me like a professional, but I’m afraid that they think that therapy will be some sort of magical fix of sorts. I don’t mean in the sense of just getting better mentally, but I think being a tolerable person. I know that sounds like I’m just being self-depreciating, but let me explain.

A few years ago I was at dinner with one of my friends. I don’t remember exactly what we were talking about, but she goes “name three things you actually like” because I was probably being negative or something. I said a few things and whatever, but that comment stuck with me for a long time. I thought it was especially poignant or something. Am I so unhappy all the time because I fixate on things I don’t like? It could be connected to the attitude of social media to be outwardly negative. Casual wisdom, you know.

Well, that was the fact until I was out with that same friend and we visited Barnes and Noble. I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading this year and got more involved in the book community, so I have many Opinions. Some are good, some are bad, some are just me being annoying. After an hour of browsing the shelves, we drive home. I start talking about a series I really like in the car and she goes “It’s nice to hear you talk about a book you actually like.” Which kind of stunned me because I had just did a lot of talking about books I liked. How happy I was that kids were still reading Rangers Apprentice, going out of my way to see how many Brandon Sanderson books I could find in the Adult Fantasy section, and more reminiscing in the Young Adult section about books I liked recently or as a teen. The truth is, I talk about stuff I like all the time to people who will listen. Ask me about my favorite books! My favorite movies! My favorite musicals! I promise I will not shut up. It’s one of the few things I have that lift my spirits when I talk about it, I just don’t get the opportunity to much because it’s hard to find people who want to listen.

The thing is, I’m naturally a critical person, I think. I love tearing things apart, in good and bad ways. I also love gossip. I’m an okay gossip, but I know at this point that I’m a good critic. I’m really good at identifying faults and commenting them on an insightful or constructive way. I edit a lot of my friends’ writings for this reason. I don’t find that to be anything negative, it’s just something that’s interesting to me. Basically what I’m saying is, what if it’s not mental illness and I’m just annoying and I’ll not be able to meet the expectations of other people’s idea of progress for me and I’ll be a disappointment. I’m kind of tearing up while typing that out while listening bopping to Disturbia by Rihanna but this is the third time I’ve been on the verge of crying today so yaknow maybe it is just mental illness.At this point, I can either talk about criticism in relation to the particular way I dish it, or I could talk about how I want to receive it. I think the former will take less time to elaborate, so I’ll start with that.

I mention last year how I got an unpaid gig as a critic for DiscussingFilm. Embarrassing at times, I joke with my friends that “DiscussingFilm Writer” is a slur, but it’s cool at times as well. I got a press pass to go to Sundance and gorged on an entire family sized bag of peanut M&Ms while I watched like 14 movies in one weekend. I’m trying to say positive things about this until I start ragging to prove that I’m not an overwhelmingly negative person, but I don’t think that’s working well. Whatever. The point is, if I didn’t like it I would quit, but if I did quit it wouldn’t be because I didn’t like it. It would because there was an…event. I had quite a falling out with one of the higher-ups that run the site and in response my work has taken a hit. I won’t go into too much detail, but I don’t get assigned anticipated releases anymore. My work is often delayed going out and, in turn, I feel less motivated to turn in my work on time. And then on top of that, it’s rarely promoted. I have examples on top of examples, but this stupid thing is getting long enough. To summarize the DiscussingFilm situation, I feel like shit. I have one of the lowest view counts on the site. I’m told that my work is good and it’s valued, but not enough to get reposted, I guess! Why bother. And also because the person I do not work well with is quite up in the food chain, I’ll never see a promotion. I wanted to become an editor so bad (I do editing on the side for my friends and enjoy it), but now it will never ever happen. I don’t have the opportunity to prove myself, it’s just completely off the table by nature of leadership. Ass. Complete ass. I’m doing quite a bit of work for DiscussingFilm including creating the standard for the Instagram, making graphics for the Instagram, performing interviews and writing reviews for the site, and co-hosting a DiscussingFilm branded podcast, and I will never see neither a dime for my work or recognition in any meaningful or significant way. I don’t have a say in anything, and I feel like an insignificant cog whose opinion does not mean much.

I still get insecure with my reviews, but not as much anyways. Sure, I can’t compare to the great writers at trades who do this for a living and have been doing so for years. But, I am better than a lot of writers at my level. Sometimes I try pitching to other publications, but so far I’ve only been met with rejection. It kinda stings to know that my work is not worth enough to be paid for, but I’m kinda over it. I still pitch. I try my best. That’s the thing about me, I just keep going. Rejection hurts like a bitch, but whatever. I don’t want to quit just yet, so I guess I won’t. There isn’t anyone in my corner who’s actively spurring me to keep going, I’ve just decided that I’ll get paid for my work one day and so now I will.This connects with the criticism I want to receive which unfortunately very much is not of the nonfiction variety. Ew I fucking hate talking about this but I need to get it off my chest.

After I got fired, I was slipping into quite a bit of a depression. I started a podcast at this time with my friend to try and prevent that, but I knew that I probably needed another project. I wasn’t watching movies anymore, DiscussingFilm was not publishing my shit, and all I was doing all day was reading (which I don’t anymore, I’m in a slump and it’s definitely connected to the idea I have in the next sentence). So I had the brilliant idea of “hey, I could do that. I could write a book. I should do it to do it.”You see, this has not been my only attempt at writing a proper book. I tried when I was 13, I tried when I was 15 and into online literate roleplay, I tried when I was 18 by doing NaNoWriMo in college (also, I was actually more depressed then). I also tried to get into a short story class in college that you had to submit a story to get into and didn’t even make it on the waitlist. Nothing stuck. But hey, I was unemployed and I came up with a funny premise that I wasn’t too attached to, so why not?

The book is not funny. It was supposed to, but it’s changed a lot. I’m very comfortable writing in camp. It’s difficult because I know sometimes I have my moments, but often I don’t. I also chose to write it in a genre I’m not super familiar with (Young Adult contemporary, I read Young Adult and Adult fiction primarily). I didn’t expect it to be easy, but the things I thought would come easily did not come easily. I have a lot of male friends, so I could certainly write the male characters as real people, right? Right? I’m funny, so the humor would come across well, right? Did I anticipate that after years of pretty much only analyzing films critically I’d subconsciously structure my story using dialogue-driven storytelling similar to a screenplay? No! Not at all, actually! This journey of self-discovery has been ass at every corner!

I recognize that first drafts are shit and authors hate their writing, but also I’m built different, your honor. By 15k words in, I realized I needed an outside perspective. I hated my own writing and I was afraid none of the characters were coming off right. I needed feedback, and I still do. But I hate being perceived. As long as no one reads my writing, they think that I know what I’m talking about and value my opinion on their writing, but once they figure out I’m just an Imposter then it’s game over. They’ll lose respect for me. Logically, I know this isn’t how this works, but I feel physically nauseous whenever someone reads my writing.

Anyways, back to my much-needed criticism. To make a long story short involving several English teacher that caused me to quit pursuing writing altogether in my formative years and decide to switch to a STEM track, I have very little tangible self-awareness of my own writing and how to improve it. I need the outside feedback, or at least I did. I’m 60k words into my first draft now and I’m cripplingly self aware of all my errors, but it feels too little too late. 60k words are a lot of words, and it feels not great knowing that most of them are trash. I really needed this kind of feedback earlier in the process so I could make tweaks early on. I know that writing is like a muscle and you need to work it out and practice to get stronger, but fuck man, FUCK. 60k words is a LOT of words. And I still need people to read it and give me feedback and I’m literally willingly asking people to read shit. It’s so humiliating. I guess I’m just at a point where I wish I could look at it and find something of value in what I’ve written.

I see other authors and I get so jealous. At their confidence, at their lyricism, their mastery of the art, their enthusiasm for their story, their love of their characters. I don’t have that. I’m not even talking about imposter’s syndrome. I know what that feels like. This is something else. I just wish I was the kind of person who could openly be creative without wanting to die. I’m 100% sure if I could be enthusiastic about the story I want to tell, the entire thing would be better. It’s crazy how I noticed that I’m not writing any metaphors into realizing that’s directly connected with my inability to be vulnerable and that I’m detaching myself from my work. That, and the fact that I’m fucking shite at writing metaphors apparently.

It also doesn’t help that I don’t have a writer group of friends and very little people to talk about this with, none of which are like… enthusiastic. It’s not their fault. I attract people into my life who are very much like me. They’re supportive and wonderful but I need someone who’d be excited to talk to me about it. I just feel like such a huge burden all the time. Everytime I bring it up I feel terrible, but it’s occupying so much of my brain space and I have no outlet. But also, getting that group of friends would require me to be vulnerable online and be willing to share what I have so far which I might actually throw up.I think it’s very fun that “crying and throwing up” has become a saying on Twitter considering that I’ve counted a countless amount of times this year and thrown up from stress four times since last November. It might also be connected to coffee consumption, but if that’s true I’m ready to off myself because coffee is one of my few joys. Honestly, it’s probably a mix of both. I’m very healthy, very much okay.

I don’t know. Last year, I ended my little essay on a hopeful note. Here’s the thing, this may seem like very much just stream of consciousness bullshit but there is quite a bit of structuring I do and omissions I make. I didn’t talk about my struggles reconnecting with people and subsequently taking their irregular replies, because there’s a lot to get into there. There’s a lot I could’ve talked about, but no room. There’s a very specific flow, and I feel like any story, it needs a conclusion. So last year, through tears, I wrote a hopeful ending. It was as much for me as it was to the people reading it. Unfortunately, I don’t have it in it for me to conclude in the same fashion this time around.

The truth is, I need to feel okay. I need to feel like I’m good at something, anything, and be recognized for it.

Life is suffering and I’m just constantly going through the motions. I promise you, this stupid thing is 3k words and the second I’m done I’ll go back to working on my b**k even though today I literally started crying thinking about how shit it is. I’m just a tenacious individual. I persist. I don’t feel good about it, and I’m done with being genuinely hopeful, but there’s nothing to do but keep moving. I don’t know if my writing will get better or if I’ll ever get published or if this story is worth it. I don’t fucking know anything and I feel like shit. But what else am I going to do? I’ve been holding onto this hope that I’ll feel better about things for just so long and it hasn’t happened. But I’m not giving up lmao I’m just working with what I have. I am at my limit.

#mine #bean spews

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sandsofoneiros · 4 years ago

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*I don't own any images above. Found them on pinterest.

Disclaimer: It’s finally here! It’s been kicking my ass for weeks but I finally have it ready for you guys! I know nothing about ships and sailing so please don’t hate me! There's so many references in this chapter and I wonder if you can pick up on them! Let me know if you do and your thoughts! I also finally got to use my moodboard! I also tried something new with ending and beginning that I got from one of my favorite authors. Let me know what you think!

Pairing: Poe Dameron x OFC.

Warning: We have a lot. It gets angsty towards the end. Mentions of an anxiety attack, grief mention, and we do have a character death. Some blood is mention. Emotions are every where for these kiddos. I tried to tag everything just be cautious reading the third months. Cursing

Read chapter two here!

Tagging: @thembohux and @booksmusicteaandanimals

Chapter Three: The Privateer.

Months before. . . . .

To some, he was still a boy. Seventeen did not make one a man, and he knew that as he trekked up the snowy hill. The kingdom is known for its harsh terrain and even more ruthless queen. However, the boy wasn’t intimidated. His hood obscured his identity to those around him, and that’s how it would remain until he was facing her. The boy had an offer for the ice queen. An offer that would blossom in time and would contribute to them both, or that’s what he assumed would happen. The bitter wind cut at his cheeks and nose as he went on. He had been on this journey for what seemed like years, but it had hardly been a week; he was losing count of the days. The only thing that mattered was his offer being accepted. This new powerful alliance could be formed. He could hardly wait, and that gave him the last push to get over that hill. For a moment, he paused at the top, looking over the kingdom that was practically camouflaged by the snow. The rumor was that this kingdom had no proper ruler and was run by the most feared individual that asserted dominance. One that the others thoroughly respected. The neighboring kingdoms had always perceived it as unusual. However, the queen of this land had held it in her clutches longer than anyone. The boy was hoping to extend and expand her reign tonight.

In another kingdom, a prince and his father quarreled more and more each day. The tension becomes too much for each of them. The father had sought to end his son’s dreams of adventure and each day he felt his son slipping further and further away. He would venture into the town and come home later with the patrol guards surrounding him. The boy hung around the harbors and taverns, lingering to see if he could slip away with someone or some crew. However, they were promptly told who the boy was and what would take place if they were to leave with him. This kingdom did everything to look after their beloved prince, despite his attempts to break free. The prince was ready to leave this forsaken place and forget his title. He didn’t wish to spend another summer visiting a princess that he didn’t wish to wed. He didn’t want to be told what to do. He wished to be like his mother and explore. The boy only wanted freedom. Freedom to do what would make him happy and not those around him. His anger had led him to another bar, but this time a crew had taken an interest in him. A mysterious girl not older than him had enticed him to accompany her on the sea, and he had never felt more freedom than when he took her hand.

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First month.

Sixteen years old.

She couldn’t accept what the King declared. It was too shocking to even thoroughly comprehend and prayed that this was some trick that Poe was playing. Kes’s haggard appearance was the only thing that told her it wasn’t. Poe had finally done it. He had sought freedom and had gotten taken instead. Kes continued, telling them he wasn’t certain Poe had gotten captured or left freely. The owner of the bar gave one explanation of the story while the people gave another. Kes had been late for getting there to stop the prince. She could see that weighed on his mind heavily, and she couldn’t fault him. Ro had become lost in her mind until Ignis touched her shoulder.

“Princess?” Kes’s voice was low as he observed her. Standing by to see what would take place. Ro hadn’t even heard the question and instead peered at her father before Ignis. This was their first time escorting her to Yavin. Queen Eirlys wasn’t in good health and declined the visit. Moreso, her spouse declared to her, he would take her place this year. Her mom was ill back in Cianna and had been for the entire year. The summer had been the worst of the year. Ro would watch as the woman would fake a smile and make herself do her duties. Her father did everything he could to lessen all the Queen’s duties, but she would scold him. Her mom had insisted that Ro come to Yavin and be with the prince. She didn’t need to be staying with the sick queen. Now, she stood before the Kes and heard how Poe wasn’t even here. He didn’t know where his son was or when the boy would return. This summer was becoming one that she wanted to forget.

“These are challenging times, your highness. My mother is unwell and Poe is missing. It would seem that we are all being tried.” Her voice wavered as she struggled to speak. The poor young woman could feel more cracks developing in her walls. How long would they hold up? How long could she be strong? Pushing her lips into a thin line, she took a minute to gather herself once more. “The kingdom of Cianna will support you, King Kes. I’m confident we can find Prince Poe. My mother would want us to put the prince first and that’s what we’re going to do. Da, send word to Cianna, and let’s get as many as we can spare. I know a privateer that can benefit us. We might need to get our hands dirty, gentlemen.”

Her head was high as she communicated to all of them. None of them expected her to develop a strategy and issue orders. They could see she would not let this go, it was personal for her. For a minute, Jaqen saw nothing but his wife radiating through his oldest daughter. A smile found its way to his face, and he felt pride as he stepped somewhat back, letting Ro have the floor. Ignis followed Jaqen’s lead and let the princess have the floor.

“I will meet with the privateer and get us a ship along with more company. I presume we’ll want to leave as soon as possible. King Kes, I propose packing up.”

Kes couldn’t stop the grin that set across his face. It took him back to the first time he met Aurora. How shy she was. Now she stood before him and took charge of finding his son. Oh, she would make an admirable queen one day. He could see that with no problem.

“I believe you’re right, Princess Aurora. We’re wasting valuable time, gentlemen. Let’s plan to leave by the end of the week.”

“I’ll send for Cianna’s finest.” Her father bowed to Kes.

“Ignis, I need you to accompany me to the city. I need to speak with someone in town.”

Ro didn’t waste any time as she left the throne room, leaving them all in admiration. Her head held high as she left. Her legs brought her to the spot of Poe’s favorite tree. A tree that Kes and Shara had planted when she was alive. Her lip wobbled as she battled back tears. Her knees swayed as she pressed her back to the tree and slid down the trunk. Not caring that it could ruin her dress or possibly scrape her. No, she needed to get her emotions out for the few moments that she had alone. Her shoulders shook as the emotions took over. Why would he leave? Last summer it seemed that he was ready. Evidently, it had been nothing more than a honeyed speech. Her mind advised her he wouldn’t have just left. Her heart told her he loved her, but her gut declared both of them were wrong. Her gut instructed her that when she found him she would never want to see him again.

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Zireael watched as the men loaded up her ship for this job. A job that she wasn’t sure that she wanted in the first place but the reward would be worth it. The reward always made it worth it. Griff stood beside her as they waited on the King of Yavin to join them. Both of them had already decided only one noble could be on this ship. The princess and her guard would only cause more trouble. However, the Ciannaian longboats did make them feel a little more relieved. Numbers would help them given who they had to track down. This prince had gotten wrapped up with the Kijimi Fleet. A fleet that no one dared cross along with their kingdom. How someone could do something so reckless was beyond her but all these princes and princesses were always doing something bothersome. She tapped her boot while her arms crossed over her chest. They were losing time and that was something she hated.

“Calm down, we have plenty of days left to sail.” Chuckling, he ruffled her raven locks and put her hat back down. It wasn’t uncommon for her to lose patience.

“Days? We have three months to find the prince or it was all for nothing.” She spoke as she swatted his hand away from her hair.

“I don’t see why she doesn’t marry the guard. He looked positively love-struck. . .”

“Probably for the same reason why I don’t marry you, Griff. Her heart belongs to another.”

They both shared a look before someone cleared their throat. It was the King of Yavin. He offered them a slight smile and wave before putting his bag down. It was only one bag, and that took Zireael by surprise. She guessed that he would have packed more, but less was always better. The King of Cianna remained beside him as they spoke their goodbyes. He gave her and Griff a knowing look before bowing his head to them.

“Careful on the seas. All of you.”

“Of course, your highness. I’m sure we’ll sing songs and become closer with each passing day.”

Zireael bowed to both the fathers before nodding to the ship. It was time to leave, and she was aching to get out on the sea. The gulls were crying above them, and the sun was high. It was an excellent day. She couldn’t have asked the maker for a more perfect day for them to sail the ocean. Griff had started the climb up the ramp to the deck to speak with everyone about what they would be doing. He was her second in command and no one ever challenged him. They didn’t want to face her wrath.

Kes held his arm out for her to take as they made their climb. “How certain are you that we will find him? There are plenty of uncharted territories out there.” The privateer merely smirked at his question. She wasn’t even certain if they would recover the prince, but he was a dad missing his only son. “I’m positive that we will find him and more, your grace. Don’t you fret.” Once they were on the deck, she brought the king to the commander’s quarters. She wasn’t certain what this job had in store for them, but the least she could do was make sure that Kes was comfortable while he traveled with them. It would be a lengthy three months if the man had to sleep on the bunks down below. There would not be much to do today other than plan out her course.

Her quarters were her sanctuary for the time. Flipping through the pages of her journal, she started studying the statements that she had gathered from the night the prince had fled. She needed a lead. All she knew was that he had got tied up with the Kijimi Fleet, and she wasn’t familiar with their routes. She needed to figure out where they would go next. Rubbing at her temples, she recorded where they could hit and where they had hit. She had to find that pattern. It was there somewhere. They would stop at the next port and ask around there. They would not spend too long searching ports and towns. No, they didn’t have time.

A knock rang through her quarters, and her eyes stared at the door. She didn’t want to let them in. Fixing her hair, she almost didn’t recognize herself as she passed the mirror to open the door. Grinning, she took in the sight of Kes. A charming man. It was no wonder his people loved him and his son.

“You look like you could use some fresh air. There looks to be a party on deck and I don’t think it’s fair that you’re working.”

“Well, I wouldn’t be an excellent captain if I let them have all the fun, would I?”

Kes chuckled with the young woman. She was no older than his son. Yet, she was a privateer that was managing this job and ensured that she would find his son. She had plenty of individuals under her to command and they all respected her. They looked at her for guidance. A leader. However, one looked at her as if it would be the last time. Griff stared at her as if he was seeking to seize her for himself. It made Kes uneasy.

Zireael beamed as she listened to the familiar music and moved behind a few of them. She wasn’t feeling much for dancing. Hoisting herself onto the railing, she searched through the leather pouch that settled at her hip. Plucking out her long pipe, tobacco, and arranging it, she gladly placed it between her lips. Blowing the smoke out her nose made a grin as Griff shook his head at her.

“Does your mother know you do that?” The king asked, while she snickered. Glancing over at him, a playful twinkle in her eyes.

“Who do you think taught me, your grace?”

Their laughter weaved in with the rest of the crew’s. This was the calm before the storm. They wouldn’t always have nights like this where they could rest easy and be cheerful. No, this was a treat, and they all realized that. She let herself sing some songs with them, clapped as they danced, but she hadn’t truly let herself join in completely. It wasn’t until Kes took her hand to join in the dance that she allowed herself. Griff had been the next to spin her around on the deck. The crowd shouted loudly as they watched their captain join in. They all recognized how much this job meant to her and how much she desired the reward. They knew she wouldn’t fail, and they would not let her. She took care of them, and they took care of her. It was as simple as it could get. Zireael was a name just as feared as the Kijimi Fleet. It was recognized but shrouded in mystery. That was the way she intended to keep it. Always keep them guessing, and they might respect her enough to stay out of the way.

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Poe leaned over the rail of the ship, scanning for any sea creatures that might reveal themselves. This was the furthest that he had ever been from Yavin, and he was buzzing with excitement. Sure, the crew was still watchful of him, but that never discouraged his mood. He was constantly ready to prove himself to them. Zorii had vouched for him back in Yavin and he wanted to make sure that he lived up to whatever she had told them. He needed to see more, and it wasn’t long before he hurried up to the crow’s nest. Poe adored being that high up and staring out onto the horizon. The prince would spread his arms out and just enjoy the breeze. It was his favorite spot on the entire ship. Other than beside the fearless young woman who had swept him off his feet. The young woman that wanted adventure just like him. She was a little cold the first few weeks, but she had come around. Now, she was constantly reminding the others how valuable he really was.

“Dameron! What are you looking at up there?” Her voice called as she studied him. Her hand over her eyes to shield it from the sun. He just waved at her to come up with him, which she did with some reluctance. They had been sailing with each for weeks now, and Poe recognized something was flourishing between them. The prince had wanted this with Aurora, but it never unfolded. She had suggested once that she would wait on him, but he knew she might not. He couldn’t blame her. They were children that got forced into something that they didn’t want. He felt she was more than thrilled that he had left. Yet, his mind drifts back to last summer and those spoken feelings.

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Second month.

It was all getting to them. It was hardly the second month of their journey, but they were all suffering the effects. Even Zireael was becoming tired of being on her ship, and she longed to feel solid ground again. Stepping out on the deck and leaning over the rail, she stared at the water below them. It always gave her some sort of relief, even though she was missing the feel of grass between her toes. The breeze swept through her hair as the crew continued working around her. They had been putting extra work in since some storms had blown them off course a few times. She was proud of them and needed to remind them she was. Her thumb rubbed at the silver ring on her thumb as she thought of some reward that she could give them.

“You’re quiet this afternoon, everything alright?” Griff asked. Zireael couldn’t help but note the small braid that had made itself known. Reaching out, she carefully tugged his umber braid.

“I’ve been considering stopping at the next port and letting everyone go enjoy themselves. It seems we’ve all grown tired of the waves below. I could undoubtedly use a hot bath. . .” She grinned before studying her own hair. Fingers working through tangles without even a whimper.

“There’s one not too far from here. A night off the ship might restore our energy for the rest of the journey.”

xxxx

Freshly scrubbed and accompanying her crew, Zireael laughed at their stories that they were sharing with others. The hood of her cloak was up as she rested in the back with her pipe between her lips. Letting the smoke swirl flow from her lips as she listened to her crew enjoy themselves. It was a sight to behold as a man with brown hair sang in the corner. Some of them had requested him to sing a jig instead of the sad song he had opened with. Zireael hummed the words as she lifted her tankard every once in a while. It had been too long since she had gotten to unwind. The king had wanted to enjoy the night sleeping in an actual bed after his own bath. For once they could forget about finding this rebellious prince and the Kijimi Fleet. She could let herself breathe for just a night. Something she hadn’t done since she set foot on that ship. Zireael hadn’t even bothered to ask anyone here if they knew about the prince or the fleet. It was a distant memory and would be until tomorrow morning when they set off again.

xxxxx

Walking into the tavern, Poe wasn’t ready for the boisterous voices that sing off key, but they were lively. The song tells of throwing coins to some hero from what Poe took of it. Zorii had shoved him into a booth in the back and provided the roughness of the shove; she wasn’t overly pleased with him. They hadn’t been getting along very well recently and he couldn’t stop thinking about home. He also couldn’t stop thinking about her. He wondered how much she had changed since he had seen her. How many braids had she gained? He dreamed of his fingers traveling over patterns of the plaits. He imagined undoing her plaits and his fingers combing through those strands. Would he ever see her again? He couldn’t afford to think like that when Zorii was around. She had taken notice of how he changed when he was in deep thought. It led to questions and more confrontation between them. She never appreciated hearing his answers. Exhaling, he searched the tavern as everyone sang heartily with the drinks in their hands. He hadn’t seen a sight like this in so long. He missed moments like this, but Zorii was simply using this to put him in a good mood. This was the first time that he had even left the ship in two weeks. It had been a punishment when he had stopped her from hurting someone who he felt was honest. She wasn’t pleased with him. She still wasn’t, and her actions confirmed it more and more.

His eyes paused on a figure that rested diagonally across from them. They were sitting with their hood up and a long pipe between their lips. Squinting, he could make out some details, but not enough. It wasn’t until one of their crew, or who he guessed was their crew, pulled the hood down. Her long raven hair lay over her shoulder as she smacked at them before pulling the hood back up. The table rocked as Zorii practically slammed their drinks on the table, the liquid spilling over the rim.

“Everything alright?” He asked, but his brown eyes continued watching over her shoulder to the enigmatic young woman. She rested with one leg draped over the edge of the table and the other stretched out, with her foot resting in the chair. Smoke escaping either the corner of her lips or her nostrils. She didn’t look older than him and Zorii.

“It’s fine, Poe. It’s just loud in here.”

She wasn’t mistaken about that, but he embraced the songs and dance of the other company that was here. He speculated on what they were pleased about. Maybe it was just being off the ship like he was. Poe wished to meet them, but that would only annoy Zorii more. Their relationship was constantly tethering on good and just awful. One minute she was applauding him for something and the next scolding him like a child. It was disheartening. When he first met her, he was drawn to her. She had taken him away from Yavin, had shown adventure that he never could have envisioned, but it wasn’t all roses. It was darker than he ever thought. There was another side of the world that his father had sought to protect him from. The thought of his father made him close his eyes. He missed his papa more than he could say. What was he doing right now? How much resentment did his papa have? Would his papa even wish to see him again? It weighed massively on his mind. He asked each day that he would see his papa soon.

Getting a sip of his drink, he watched as the mystery young woman smoked her pipe. He couldn’t figure out why he was so taken by her. Could it be because her crew was cheerful and dancing around their little area? Poe couldn’t say for sure. A sigh escaped Zorii’s lips, and he lifted a brow at her. She must have wanted his attention. Above her top lip, she had gathered a bit of foam from her drink.

“You have something on your lip.”

He looked away once more as she wiped her mouth. He watched as the other got up from her chair to go to the counter and he was already moving, leaving behind a confused Zorii. Nudging his way through the sea of bodies and smacking into a very built man with silvery hair. The man stood silently before Poe murmured an apology and moved around him. However, the young woman was back in her chair and another had scooted in beside her. He had missed his chance. Poe frowned before discovering a vacant seat at the bar and promptly taking it for himself. Maybe the owner would know something about her. He just needed to get the man to talk. Poe did his best to get a better glimpse at the curious young woman, but someone invariably got in the way. A snicker from the barkeep caused his head to snap up.

“It looks like Zireael has captured your eye.”

“Is that her name? Zireael? Where’s she from?”

“Not much is known about her and her crew. They are highly respected wherever they travel. They don’t create trouble with others and frequently are the ones stopping the trouble.” The man responded while he wiped down the counter. He had a name now. Zireael. It varied from anything he had heard before, but it suited her.

“She doesn’t look like much.” Zorii sneered as she took a seat on the vacant stool beside Poe. He had speculated how long it would take for her to follow him, and she had set a record for five minutes. Zorii would never let him out of her sight for too long, anyway. Even during their job earlier, Zorii wouldn’t let him do anything other than hold the goods. Even that was something that she didn’t want him doing.

“Looks can be deceiving.” He retorted without glancing at Zorii. Zorii had deceived him. She wasn’t what he expected when they first met, and neither was the world beyond Yavin. She had been beautiful to him then, inside and out. However, she had a very unique nature. Zorii could be ruthless with upholding the Kijimi kingdom. This was her way of life, and Poe wasn’t certain if he even fit in with it. He was repeatedly working to persuade her that there had to be another alternative in situations that didn’t call for such vicious measures. He felt he was getting through to her. Later the next day she would go back to the old Zorii. He didn’t wish to give up hope on her. He genuinely thought that maybe he could show her a fresh perspective than what she had known.

“I wouldn’t mess with Zireael and her crew.” A gruff voice uttered, and Poe looked at the owner. The silver-haired man in black leather who looked like he could easily defeat anyone in this bar. The man grunted before he made his way back to a table where two others sat. A dark-haired woman and the young man who had been singing earlier. For such a broad man to claim that made Poe curious to learn more about this Zireael. However, he feared Zorii would let him get any closer.

“I’m sure she wouldn’t dare mess with the Kijimi Fleet!” Zorii made certain that her tone rose above everything. It didn’t matter that they still were trying to keep Poe’s identity hidden. That was always the major priority when they came into any town. It didn’t matter how far away they were from Yavin. There was always a risk. None of them were positive if they were being followed still or not. It wasn’t something that they were eager to risk.

His heart was pounding as he watched Zorii, then over to Zireael. Silence settled over the tavern, and no one dared to speak. Zireael’s crew had gathered around their leader and stood by to see what this stranger would do. They were outnumbered, and Poe wasn’t sure how unforgiving Zireael was. He had gotten no claims about that. Even the trio in the very back sat watching to see what would transpire. It became clear to Poe at that moment that everyone here respected this young woman. They had no support or allies here.

“Drop it, Zorii Wynn.” Poe grabbed her forearm and sought to draw her away from any sort of argument with the other. This wouldn’t end well for anyone involved. Zorii had pulled her arm out of his grasp and crossed the way to where the hooded woman remained. She hadn’t even acknowledged Zorii in the slightest. Her head had tilted up to blow smoke out as Zorii cleared her throat. The suspense grew between both of the young women, but the brown-haired girl didn’t take another step. Zireael’s crew circled her, and a taller male stood to her right, daring her to take another step.

“Anything to say, Zireael?” Zorii asked with an air of confidence that Poe wasn’t positive that she should have at this moment. He usually adored when she got bold, but this was something that was asking for more trouble. He gulped as watched from behind given that.The chair scraped against the floor as Zireael rose and faced Zorii. The smug smirk on her lips would not remain much longer. Or that’s what everyone guessed. Her hand lifted to stop her crew from taking another step, and they bowed to her. Then she made a fist, and they went to their seats once more. She didn’t even have to speak a word to them! Poe was in awe of that. Striding across the small distance in front of Zorii, sucked in the smoke from the pipe and held it. Puckering her lips, she blew the smoke beside Zorii’s face before she spoke.

“Sit down, girl. My crew is resting and you have no friends here. I won’t entertain you.”

Zorii had turned her head from the smoke before Poe grabbed her arm and tugged her back. Spotting the small wave Zireael gave him before she moved back to her seat. They had evaded another fight. Without even glancing back at Zorii, he pulled her out of the tavern, recognizing this was his chance to avoid a needless quarrel. He didn’t care that Zorii was yelling at him, she had everything under control. He was fighting the impulse to run back into that tavern and plead for Zireael to let him accompany her or help him get home. Poe was having to fight himself as he hastened his pace to the docks. He needed to put distance between him and that place as quickly as possible.

“She was part of the Kijimi Fleet!” Griff whispered firmly as he slipped into the chair in front of Zireael. Her hood had fallen down and her hand gingerly touched her neck, seeking something. The action led to him to glare, but they had just picked up a lead without meaning to. She had already given two of her women the order to follow Zorii and the stranger that was with her. This was a serious lead in their job, and she was going to see that it didn’t slip away. Poe was close. Closer than she could even imagine.

“I heard. We can’t follow them just yet. We aren’t sure who all is with them and we need to see what the king wishes to do. Don’t rush this, Griff. We need to be careful before we strike.”

Zireael didn’t dare try to rush this, and was going to make sure that they had everything before proposing a strike. They had to see what Kes wished to do before they really acted. Her command went far. But this was his son. She wouldn’t overstep her bounds with that.

“Let’s rest for the night, and when the others come back, we can plan with Kes. I don’t want to raise any alarm. They might have slipped up once but they won’t do it repeatedly.”

With that, Zireael rose up and made her way out of the tavern. Passing by the table where the trio sat, she placed a pouch of coins on their table and patted the back of the silver-haired man.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Third month

They had been tracking the Kijimi Fleet for days. Waiting for the perfect time to seize and board their main ship. Kes remained to her right, and Griff on her left. Zireael felt proud of herself. Everything had fallen into place, and it was time to collect their reward. Ever since that night in the tavern, when she had the pleasure of encountering that girl, she had followed them. She had kept distance not to create any suspicion. It was all about to pay off.

“Zireael, you’ve done it.” Kes grasped her shoulder while the young privateer smirked. Had there ever been any doubt? She was young, but she always got the job done. This had just been another job for her, and she was about to close the deal.

“Don’t tell me that my pretty face made you consider I wouldn’t.” The ravenette chuckled while both the men snorted. However, there was one question that all of them but no one wanted to ask. “Your highness, do you think your boy will return with us?”

Just asking made her feel as if she had taken all the joy and happiness from the moment. This was something that she needed to acknowledge before she communicated with the leader and got near the prince. There were a plethora of challenges that could go down when they got on the main ship. Maybe the prince wasn’t even on the ship. Maybe they had taken him elsewhere and led them on a chase just to shake them off the trail. It wasn’t uncommon for that to happen.

“I - I can only hope that he does.”

That wasn’t the answer that any of them wanted, but it was the best that he could give them. There was the biggest possibility that Poe wouldn’t come with them, and all of this would be for nothing. Poe could run to them and give thanks that his father had come for him. Either way, they were all intimidated by how the leader would handle everything. They could create an unnecessary fight, and that could lead to something more fatal. There were too many risks for Zireael’s liking and with each one coming to mind provoked her to grind her teeth.

Her eyes lifted to the sky, and another obstacle rose. The ominous storm clouds were rolling in. Time was now of the essence, and she could curse all the deities in the world for this. They needed to catch up now or they would waste their chance.

“Let’s hope this storm holds off and let’s pray your boy has a moment of clarity.”

xxxxxxx

“They have been pursuing us for days, Zorii! We don’t even know who they are!” Marinda groaned as they all sat in Zorii’s cabin. Everyone was on edge and had been since they learned they were being tracked. They weren’t even certain who was following them, but everyone assumed it was because of the prince. Poe scratched at the awkward stubble growing on his face and simply shrugged his shoulders. Even he wasn’t sure who it was or could be. Did he wish it was his father and company coming to save him? Yes, but he didn’t think anyone would track him for this long. It had been three months since he had last been in Yavin, three months since he had seen his father, and Ro. He wouldn’t say it out loud, but he missed her. He missed their simple summers together. What would they have done this summer in Yavin? She would have made him go to the water gardens with her. He would have teased her for not being able to reach any of the fruit that grew from the trees. He would scold her about forgetting her shoes on the way back to the castle. Although he would smile as he carried her on his back to the castle.

“Poe? Poe!” Zorii snapped her fingers in front of his face and he jumped slightly. Had he actually been that deep in his thoughts? That perhaps wasn’t the best thing to do during this meeting that they were having. Everyone was already blaming him as it was, and this didn’t make it any better.

“Could you repeat that?” He asked, working a hand through his unruly curls to move them from his forehead.

“Do you have any idea who they might be? Zorii asked with obvious irritation in her tone. He didn’t seem to care at this point. Zorii claimed his hands were just as stained as hers now. He was part of the Kijimi Fleet and always would be. She had even informed him that if his father found out that they would never welcome him home. Part of him absolutely believed her. He wasn’t a prince. Not in his eyes anymore.

“No, I don’t. They don’t have any colors that would link them to Yavin or Naboo.” Poe deliberately left out Cianna. That kingdom probably never wanted him to show his face again. It was probable that they had even declined to support Kes with any sort of expedition to find him. He could hardly imagine what Ro was going through. When he had first left, he considered she might be ecstatic and reveling in her freedom. But that wasn’t the case now. He thought of her telling him she would wait. Was she waiting for him right now? Or was she grieving, like Ignis had envisioned? He imagined Ignis was proud of himself after receiving the news. He had presumably swooped in to save the day. To mend her broken heart. There was that jealous feeling once again. He didn’t want Ignis anywhere near Ro. Yet there was little he could do now. He was miles away and he would never see home again.

There was still the thought of the young woman from that tavern. She differed from Zorii and Ro. Maybe he could find her again and join her company. She seemed far more respected by her crew than Zorii. Her crew feared her, and Poe wasn’t sure how he felt about that. There was a significant difference between being feared and being respected. He wanted that night at the tavern to have gone much differently. Poe wished he had left with the other, but that was a fading memory. He was with the Kijimi Fleet now, and he needed to accept that.

“Fine, let them catch up, and we’ll let them come on board. We’ll have a surprise for them when they do.”

The prince shivered at Zorii’s words. He didn’t need to ask what she meant or what she had arranged. He already knew, and this was going to be another test for him to prove his loyalty to them and hold his sickness down until after the ordeal.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It should have been a red flag when they neared the fleet’s main ship. Zireael ignored her gut instinct, though. This was certainly their moment, and she would not miss it. They had previously established that Kes would remain on their ship. It was much too risky to have the king with them. If they came back with no prince and a king barely hanging on by a thread, the entire kingdom of Yavin would make them pay. The ships were parallel, and she expected to meet the captain, but got approached by the brunette from the tavern. There was no way.

“Well, I can’t believe I’m facing you again. I’ll make this brief. King Kylo of Naboo is searching for a fugitive and I’m under his orders to investigate any vessel that I come across.” Zireael called out as she stepped onto the railing of her ship, Griff standing beside her as another stood beside the brunette.

“The king of Naboo has no say in this far out on the sea, but I will allow it. Make it quick.”

That should have been her first cue not to do it, but victory was in her clutch. Nothing else mattered in this moment to her. Nothing. They set the plank across to allow her and Griff to walk across. Her crew followed them. One false step and it was all over. The Kijimi crew offered no joy at seeing them on board and glared the minute that their boots touched the deck.

“I didn’t catch your name that night.” Zireael spoke as she readjusted her navy blue overcoat and held out her hand to Zorii. At least the ravenette was doing her best to appear civil to Zorii. She realized that the young woman didn’t want to even see at all. The eyes of her crew were burning into her and Griff’s forms. It didn’t matter to them. They were about to close another job, and that was all that mattered. Somewhere on this ship Prince Poe was hiding, but now it was time for him to come home.

“Zorii Wynn, I’m the captain of this ship.” She grasped Zireael’s forearm, and both of the women felt for any weapon that could be on the other. Convinced that they felt nothing on the other, they released their grip and gave each other a forced smile. Now it was time to investigate. She believed she hadn’t given Zorii any reason to suspect her purpose for being here. She believed that this wouldn’t take too long and that it would be an easy recovery, but she was ready either way. Giving the signal, Griff started below deck while she took the top. They could cover more of the ship this way and this would throw Zorii off the actual trail. She wouldn’t know who to follow. Without lingering on Zorii, the ravenette examined the deck and looked through anything that could hide someone. She investigated every crevice and cranny before she started on her way to the captain’s quarters. However, she noted Zorii was now trailing her, and that raised another flag to her. Zorii was hiding something.

Griff had completed a complete job hunting through the lower deck, despite all the resistance he had faced. They continued asking him why he was searching through everything and what he wanted. None of his answers pleased them. However, he had been interrupted by one girl, Marinda, and they had been taking part in a discussion that was being withheld from the others. The other members simply watched from afar and didn’t disturb them. After a few minutes, Griff made his way back to the top deck and went to find Zireael. He wondered if she had made any progress. The climb of the stairs seemed harder this time, and he dreaded the discovery that Zireael might have made.

He made certain to double check over the deck even though she was through, but he was letting take her time. This was going to be her moment, and he didn’t want to take that away. She truly deserved this, and he couldn’t wait to see how she handled it. He remained in the hall before striding into the captain’s quarters. However, the sight they greeted him with made him cease. There was the prince, gripping the hand of the captain, as Zireael simply looked at them. Zorii’s eyes found his, and he simply cleared his throat as Poe tore his eyes off of Zireael and to him. A flash of recognition shone in the prince’s eyes.

“I’ll ask you again. Where did you get that necklace?” Poe asked through gritted teeth. The necklace that Zireael wore was Ro’s necklace that he had given her the summer before he disappeared. That night had been special to both of them and for some stranger to wear it made him see red. It raised plenty of questions, and Griff could only shake his head.

“That is none of your concern!” Zireael’s voice trembled. She was losing control of herself. Her shield was coming down, and she was struggling to pull it all together. The last moments were upon them, and nothing was going as planned. Before anyone could register what was transpiring, Poe had seized the pleats of her coat and pressed her against the wall. This woman could have done something to Ro and stolen her necklace. The necklace that he had given her.

“Tell me!”

Zireael searched his brown eyes, and all she could see was fury. Her hand shook as she gently raised her hand up to her head. Grasping the top of her hair, she lifted off the raven wig and tossed it to the side. Fingers worked to pull out the pins and release the two burgundy braids. Griff shook his head while Zorii watched in confusion, not recognizing who this girl really was. It was all very confusing for her. However, the sight of Poe’s eyes lighting up at the sight almost went unseen. Her emerald hues searched his, and her hands moved out to cup his cheeks. Her thumbs brushing over his cheekbones.

“Poe. . .”

He leaned into her familiar touch and sighed. It had to be a dream. He had daydreamed of her gentle touch for practically three months, and here she was. It was happening, but it wouldn’t last long. He recognized that. Poe wished to hold her and never let her go. He wondered if his father was here with her. She had been searching for her since he had left, and that made his heart swell. She had crossed oceans and possibly suffered so much just to recover him.

“Ro.”

“Who is this, Poe? Get her off our ship! We don’t have time for this! We need to get back to Kijimi!” Zorii reached for Poe’s arm and led him back to her. Her eyes darkened as she studied with the girl who he called Ro. She had heard the stories of this princess, and here she stood. This was one that Zorii had been warned about, and she would not let Poe leave with her.

“Poe, you swore we would go back to Kijimi! We would change the kingdom! You can’t betray me!”

The tears were forming in Zorii’s eyes while Poe looked between her and Aurora. The young woman he had known since he was eight had come all this way to rescue him, and it tore him apart. Zorii’s pleads filled one ear, and Griff stood beside Ro. It didn’t take him long before he realized it was Ignis. His hair was darker, but he could somewhat see the braids that were hidden. Ro didn’t deserve any of this. She deserved far better, and he was different now. He had changed more than she could understand. The prince wasn’t the same, and he couldn’t expect her to accept that. He needed to stop putting himself first. He needed to think of her. It was time to do the right thing. Sighing, he straightened up beside Zorii and let out a nervous sigh.

“I’m sorry.”

It was at that moment that Ro realized Poe would not come back with them. He had taken another path that she wouldn’t be able to follow. This path would keep them apart for the rest of their days, and nothing would bring them back together. Her heart broke at the thought that this was going to be the last time that she would see Poe, and there was so much that she needed to tell him. However, she wouldn’t be able to, and it was tearing her apart. Her fingers were trembling at her sides, and all she craved to do was hug him again. She wanted to tell him that their engagement didn’t matter anymore, and she just needed her friend to come home. She wanted to beg Poe to just come home and be with Kes again. All the words were on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t force any of them out. Ignis kept his grip on her shoulder and lightly squeezed as they all watched at each other. They were only wasting time now.

“Me too.”

That was all she could say, and she wasn’t even sure if it made sense. It didn’t matter to her anymore. An arm draped around her shoulders and she was brought out of the quarters and back to the plank. Ignis stopped as he took her hand while she climbed up on the railing and crossed the slab. Her head was still high as she started the walk, and she didn’t let her own crew see she was defeated. She didn’t want them to see that she had lost and how upset that she actually was. No, she would make certain that they saw her as they always did. All that faded when Kes came to her and scanned around for Poe. All she could do was shake her head and wrap her arms around him tightly. Sniffling as she hid her face in his chest as she tried to hold back tears.

“I’m so sorry.��

The rain had started to fall and for once she couldn’t tell if it was her tears or if it was the raindrops.

xxxxx

Later that night, Poe sat up in the crow's nest, staring up at the sky. The rain had ceased some time ago, but he didn’t care either way. His eyes weren’t nearly as puffy now and couldn’t stop thinking about her. He could still see his father hugging her when he closed his eyes, but this was to protect them. Poe wasn’t the same anymore and had carried out unspeakable acts that would make his father more than disappointed. He was part of the Kijimi Fleet now, and that’s where he was going to remain. Maybe there would come a chance where he could come home and see them again. He might even see Ro again, but right now he couldn’t think of that. He couldn’t dwell on her. The moment he saw her hair, he almost forgot him. It was a simpler style, and he understood why, but missed seeing her hair in those styles. He had even noted how her cheeks held more freckles than he normally observed in the summer when they would see each other.

Zorii had ascended into the crow’s nest with him and for the first time, he realized how much of a tight fit it was. He did his best to scoot further away from her, but it wasn’t enough. Her head on his shoulder caused him to stiffen, and he didn’t care if she noticed. He didn’t care about much at this point and kept silent.

“Never betray me, Poe Dameron.”

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The encounter with Poe and Zorii hadn’t gone over how she planned at all. She would not reveal herself until after they had safely brought Poe back. However, her necklace had given her away. Ignis had advised her it would be a risk before they even left Yavin. However, Ro couldn’t make herself take it off. It had been a gift from Poe. Her last link to Poe and it had exposed her to him. There had been hope that when he realized it was her he would come back, but he simply apologized. She had gotten back on the ship and lied to Kes about not finding Poe.

Aurora had kept herself separate from everyone when she got back to the ship. Ro had even pushed Ignis away the moment they got back. She ordered him to oversee the journey home. It riddled her mind with so many questions, so many concerns, and thoughts of him. One thought that stood out to her was his warm brown eyes carried no light. They were so dull. Poe didn’t look like himself. That wasn’t the Poe she recalled. When he had realized who she was, there had been a small light, but it immediately diminished when Zorii spoke. What has taken place in these last three months? They had both changed, but she wasn’t certain if it had benefitted either of them. All she knew now was that she wanted to get to Yavin, then back to Cianna. She needed to be with her Da, momma, and her sister. Home. She craved home.

xxxx

Aurora remained between her father and Ignis as Kes addressed everyone about the prince’s disappearance. The chamber was remarkably warm, and she cursed her father for forcing her to wear this damn dress. It seemed to stick to her skin and trap all the warmth. Ro felt sick as she listened to the king. She had lied. She had lied to protect Poe and let him have his freedom. Her stomach coiled and churned. She could taste the bile building up and did her best not to get sick. Her index finger clawing at her skin around her thumbs, certain it was becoming red and irritated.

“However, I will honor Princess Aurora’s efforts in attempting to locate my son. I will honor her in the custom of her own kingdom.”

No. No. No.

Her green eyes grew with fear and she stared up at her father, who was just as shocked, and he nodded for her to go. She hadn’t earned a braid. No! That braid would be a lie! It wasn’t properly earned at all! Her knees trembled with each step that she took, head bending to Kes. Pressing her lips into a small smile, she shook her head to him.

“Your highness, I haven’t earned it. I could not bring the prince home to you and his people. I can not accept it.” She whispered as her eyes moistened once again. Kes shook his head before drawing her into a strong hug.

“You have earned more than you think. I will always consider you family.” He murmured into her ear. Her fingers twisted into his robes as she did her best to collect herself. Would he say that if he realized the truth? If he knew, she had lied to him and let Poe go with the Kijimi fleet. He drew back from the embrace and gently spun her to face the crowd.

“My braid won’t be as lovely as King Jaqen’s but I shall do my best.” He laughed, and the court followed. All but her. Instead, she looked down and struggled to keep herself from being sick. The moment that Kes gathered her hair and started a modest braid, she thought of Poe. What would he think about this? Would he tell his father how she had deceived him? How undeserving she really was. The darkness in her mind informed her that everybody knew she was a liar. They all knew, and they were simply mocking her. She would wear this braid and its weight would constantly be heavy with guilt. Shame that would remind her of how she deceived a king and his kingdom. The anxiety in her chest was growing and becoming tighter with each second. Ro wished to grasp his hands and scream at him to stop. She didn’t want this braid. Eventually, Kes had finished her braid and bound with her other ones. The whole chamber applauded and cheered for her, her vision blurring from the tears. These weren’t tears of happiness.

After the address finished, Ro dashed back to her room. Ransacking the room, looking for her dagger or anything to cut off the cursed braid. She opened every drawer and emptied its contents as tears streamed down her cheeks. Upon discovering a pair of scissors, she brought them to the base of the braid and looked in the mirror. Cut it. That’s all she had to do. Cut the damn braid and never think about it ever again. Her lip wobbled as she forced down another scream that had been scratching its way up her throat since she left Poe.

“Ro! Stop!” Ignis immediately slammed her door behind him and clutched her wrist. His other hand seized the scissors and set them on the dresser.

“Let me cut this damn braid, Ignis! I order you to let me cut the cursed thing!” Her fingers curved into tight fists as she tore them out of his grasp. Her nails dug into the skin of her palms.

“No! You earned it! Just because prince perfect didn’t come home is not your fault!”

“Shut up! Shut up! You don’t know him!”

“And you do? He left his kingdom, sailed with the Kijimi Fleet, and chose another girl over you! Poe has never loved you! Poe doesn’t love you, Aurora! He will never love you!”

She didn’t want to hear his remarks, and her hand came to caress her necklace. Shaking her head at Ignis because she couldn’t even find words. His words cut deeper than any blade could.

“No! You’re wrong!”

“Ro, please. I have watched since we were young. I see what you miss. Poe is selfish and will never love you. He established that long ago. Let go.”

Before she could stop him, Ignis had reached out and grasped her necklace. The leather was worn from all the exposure, and it took little for him to break it. However, he wasn’t expecting Ro to sink her nails into his skin as he seized it. He started towards the window and opened it. Her pleas were slipping out the window and without a second thought, he flung the necklace.

“There’s nothing to tie you to him anymore, princess.”

She collapsed to the floor as he quietly left her room. The breezing caused her to shiver before she brought a hand up to her lips. Biting down on a bent knuckle as she finally screamed. The other palm hitting the floor as she gave up control. Her teeth were leaving imprints on her skin and splitting the skin. The slight taste of copper on her tongue as she let the emotions escape her. Her tears hadn’t ceased, and her entire body rocked.

She felt numb.

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Months after. . . .

A queen remained in her bed, struggling with each breath that she drew. Her hand tightly gripped by the husband that she adored, her children curled up beside her. The oldest princess wept the loudest, and her fingers tangled in her mother’s blouse. The princess was no stranger to loss anymore, but it wasn’t becoming easier. In fact, it was harder and harder. The father held his wife into a more comfortable position as she fought to brush their girls’ hair. Her fingers ran through their hair as she murmured a lullaby. With each breath she drew, they held theirs, scared it would be the last. When her eyes closed, their father took them back to their rooms and tucked them in, knowing that one of them would seek the other for comfort. He wasn’t shocked when he closed the oldest girl’s door and heard a wail so agonizing that he begged for the maker to ease her pain. The girl was moving and he could hear her destroying everything in her room, not caring what happened to it. She cursed every god that she had ever learned about. Her sobs and screams wracked through her lithe frame and she sank to her knees with her arms crossed and clutching her shoulders. Rocking back and forth as she let the tears spill down her cheeks. The kingdom all mourned that night, but none louder than she. However, they didn’t cry just for their beloved queen. They wept for her entire family, notably the oldest princess.

The snowy kingdom embraced the boy with wide arms, and the queen was overjoyed to have such a noble boy as her guest. She would offer him whatever he requested, craved, and desired, as long as he stayed. He would be taken care of. The girl held his hand as they walked the corridors of her home and taught him all that she could. However, it didn’t feel like home to him. No matter how many times the girl smiled at him, held his hand, or kissed him, it wasn’t enough. The queen’s gifts, dinners, and parties only drove him to miss home more. He missed the father that would give him advice and tease him. He missed his best friend that would always do his best to help him. However, the boy missed the girl that had always tried to be his friend; the girl was just as stubborn as he was; he missed her smile, her laugh, and more. Most importantly, he just missed her. When the news of another queen passing reached the snowy kingdom, the boy left in the dead of night. Not a word spoken to anyone. It was time to go home.

#TW: anxiety mention #TW: mentions of being sick #TW: character death #Poe Dameron x OFC #my writing #mar's writing #My OC #to capture a heart series #Tw: cursing #TW: Angst #Scheduled post

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