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heartofroses112 · 3 months ago

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Our Own Choices First Draft — Fox and Bly confronting Cody

Bly and Fox shared one last, long look before Bly activated the panel. The doors slid open on near silent tracks. There, across the room, standing by the thick transparisteel window and gazing out into the ever-changing space outside of their ship, stood the Commander. Cody. His helmet was off, nowhere to be seen in the large room.

The way he held himself, arms clasped behind his back and stance strong, was so obviously Cody. Bly didn’t know how he had never seen it before. Well, he had seen it. He’d just thought it impossible. Fox had found reports, had heard it directly from the slimeball Emperor himself of Cody’s death. But here he was, standing before them, fighting alongside them and their brothers for fourteen long years without so much as a hint to his identity.

Bly and Fox made their way across the room, footsteps muffled but just loud enough as to give their movement away. Bly rubbed his arms, wishing for the warmth of his armor. Space was cold. But the plastoid was constricting. It wouldn’t allow him to drag Cody into the bone-crushing hug he had been yearning for since the dramatic asshole had whipped off his helmet and insulted Palpatine in so many colorful ways that he must have spent years coming up with them.

Bly stepped up to Cody’s left side, staring out into space along with him. Fox stopped on Cody’s right, and for several long moments, the three of them stood in silence.

Finally, Bly could not take anymore. “Why?” he said.

“There’re a dozen answers to that question. All depends on what you’re asking.”

Bly choked on a laugh. He’d forgotten how snarky Cody chose to be when it was just their batch. And Rex, but, well, he was practically a part of their batch at this point. He had been, at least. “You know exactly what I’m asking.”

“Then you know my answer.”

“Cody.” Fox cut in, sharp and straight to the point. Out of the corner of his eye, Bly watched the full-body shudder that wracked through Cody. Bly ignored the tight pang in his chest at the hidden motion. “We thought you were dead.”

“And so did I.”

Bly frowned. “We’ve been here for the past two years at least. That’s plenty of time when you could’ve told us. Hell, what about your own men from the 212th? They’ve been here since the beginning, and they’ve been mourning their commander this whole time.”

“Until I arrived on that planet and saw your faces, I was convinced you were both dead.” Cody still hadn’t looked at them. “After the Order went out… I looked for you. But Rex was killed when they turned on Tano. Wolffe was confirmed MIA almost immediately. Fox, you, you were always at the Chancellor’s side, I couldn’t risk that you would ever join me.”

His voice was flat and without any inflection. “So that left you, Bly. But a week later, all I found were reports that you ate your blaster.”

Fox sucked in a breath.

“And I thought about… I thought that maybe… I wondered if you made the only right choice left.” His whispered words should have died at their ears. Instead, they ricocheted around the cold, steel room. “Bly, you were the one I wanted to see most. Because you…” Cody sighed, eyes falling shut even as his head tilted backward. “You were the only one who could understand.”

“Understand what?” Bly thought he knew. There was really only one thing Cody could have meant by that. But how could Bly have never known before now?

Cody’s eyes opened, gaze locked on the rivets along the outer wall. “You loved your general. And I lov—” He cut himself off, tearing his eyes away to instead stare at the ground. “I love—” He tried again.

“Oh, Cody.” Bly’s heart was in his throat, breaking into pieces for the pain that was still so clearly etched across his brother’s face. There was a reason Cody wore his helmet more than the rest of them; he’d never been able to hide his true feelings when he was just so damn expressive. It’s how Wolffe had known if he had pushed Cody too far when they were still just cadets. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Rex told me to wait,” he said simply. “He thought it would be funny if you all saw me and… If you guessed. It wasn’t hard, apparently.” He loosed a breath from between his teeth. “Course, then the Order went out.”

“Cody, I’m so sorry.” Again, Cody shuddered at the sound of his name. Bly longed to drag his brother into his arms. But Cody wasn’t ready for that yet, not after so many years with no more contact than the mission required.

“It can’t be changed.”

“Doesn’t mean it hurts any less,” Fox murmured, stepping slightly closer to Cody. “And you’ve kept this inside for so long.”

“Why wouldn’t you tell us?” Bly asked, suddenly so full of rage at the self-imposed exile his brother placed himself in. “We’ve been here for years now, Cody. And it’s not just us. What about everyone from the 212th? They’ve been mourning their commander, their brother for so long and you’ve just been here the whole kriffing time?”

“I will not expect you to understand my actions.”

“Damnit, Codes, we want to talk to you, not the karking Commander! We’ve been around him enough.” Fox glowered at the side of Cody’s head. But Cody still didn’t look at either of them.

“He’s all that’s left.” Cody’s voice was devoid of emotion. He returned to looking out the viewport, the light of distant stars reflecting on his face. “Cody died the day he shot down his General and felt no remorse.”

“It was the chips,” Fox tried.

“I was still the one to follow the Order. And then my brothers were dying around me, and my batchmates were gone, and there was no one left to understand how I felt, and there was so much riding on my fucking shoulders. So, you do not get to come in here and lecture me. There is nothing else I have wanted more than to look at my brothers without a karking helmet between us, to actually be with them and not just be the karking Commander!”

Cody’s chest heaved, his fists clenched tight against his thighs. Fox and Bly exchanged a look, the same expression of worry and hurt flashing between them. Cody turned and paced several steps away from them. “You have no idea,” he started, voice low and tightly controlled, “how hard it has been this past decade, to see you, my closest brothers, and not be able to lessen your grief, to not hold you close and feel safe.”

“No one is making you do this.” Bly felt as if he were pleading, begging a brother to step back, step off the ledge.

Cody sighed, eyes still squeezed shut. “I know. But… I don’t deserve… I can’t… How can I be happy, Bly, when I killed him? I love, I loved, I loved him, and he loved me too. How can I ever forgive myself when the last thought he probably ever had was of how the men he trusted with his life were now the ones taking it?”

Bly stared at his brother. He had so much pent-up… self-hatred. Disgust with himself. Loathing of his actions that had not been his own actions at all. There was a distinct prickling at the back of Bly’s eyes as he watched Cody desperately try to hold the pieces of himself together.

“Cody.” Fox took a step toward Cody.

Cody’s shoulders shook. “Stop,” he bit out.

“Cody,” Fox said again.

Cody turned his head away, eyes still shut. His scar, the scar that was oh so distinctive, the scar that marked him as Cody, the scar Bly had searched for in vain on every brother he met, caught the faint light from above. “Stop it.”

“Let yourself be you again, Cody,” Bly said, closing the distance between them. The pair of them were once more in reach of their lost brother. “Doing this… hiding yourself away in repentance, it’s only letting Palpatine win.”

Cody flinched, but still, he didn’t look at them.

Fox pushed on. “I didn’t know your General well. None of us did, there… there wasn’t time. But I know he fought for our individuality, our sense of self that so much of the Republic tried to wash away. You’ve always been Cody, our Cody. But you never seemed so much like yourself, so confident in who you were and what you fought for, than after you joined Kenobi.”

“He’s dead now,” Cody whispered with a tremble in his voice.

“So, carry on his legacy.” Bly searched his brother’s face, familiar lines that meant upset and anger and stress, tightness in his jaw that meant stubbornness and fear. “Cody, won’t you look at us?”

“The helmet’s gone, Cody,” Fox murmured. “Let us see you. Look at us, please.”

Perhaps it was the ‘please.’ Fox never said it before, not unless the world was ending, or a brother was dying. Slowly, so slowly, Cody turned his head, entire body still trembling. His eyes slid open, and then it seemed as if he couldn’t get enough, gaze flickering between Bly and Fox and never staying still for more than a moment.

“Won’t it be so much more powerful,” Fox said, “when Palpatine is brought down by Cody and Fox and Bly, not just the Commander and his nameless clones?”

“Kenobi and… and Aayla.” Bly stopped, suddenly unable to speak beyond the burning in his throat. He dragged in a breath and continued. “They loved us, Cody. They loved us for who we are. Don’t erase that. Live as Cody, and do it for him. Do it for us, for all the brothers you have rescued. Please, we… we need you. We need Cody far more than we have ever needed the Commander.”

Cody heaved a broken sob, teeth tight against the sound in an attempt to keep it inside. He looked at the wall again, hands clenched around the edges of his armor. Bly fell silent, just watching his brother. If Cody was to come back to them… it would have to be on his own terms. Cajoling and pushing had never worked to make Cody see sense. He always was too stubborn for his own good.

“The Commander is all I know anymore.”

Bly’s heart threatened to break in two. His vision grew blurry. He blinked, hard.

Fox looked similarly affected. But he swallowed. Then he raised his chin and stared Cody down. “If that’s true, if… if you don’t know how to be Cody anymore, then why did you reveal yourself to Palpatine? Why now, after so many years of hiding your face?”

Cody looked at Fox, brow furrowed. “He was threatening you,” Cody said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Fox froze in place. “He scares the shit out of you, Fox, and nothing does that. No one is allowed to do that.” Cody shrugged, eyes still dancing over Fox’s face. “I thought I’d give him a new target to hate.”

Fox still wasn’t moving. Cody sighed and looked away, fingers still digging into his armor. “I… I should go. There’s a lot to do, now that I’ve karked everything up and—”

“Cody,” Fox breathed. “Oh, Cody, Cody, Cody.” He reached out, hands shaking as he brushed the side of Cody’s plastoid-covered arms. Cody stiffened but did not move as Fox dragged him in, crushing him against his chest. Fox was still repeating Cody’s name, burying his face against Cody’s hair, hands tight around his back.

Cody gasped, eyes wide and body trembling like a leaf in a storm. He crumbled into Fox’s hold, pressing his face against Fox’s neck as they clung to each other. “Cody, Cody, my Cody,” Fox continued to whisper like a prayer.

Bly surged forward, sweeping both his brothers into his arms. Bly and Fox squeezed Cody between them, hard plastoid hampering them only slightly. Bly’s forehead rest against the back of Cody’s neck, and his skin felt hot and feverish, a sign of the long, long years without a touch of comfort and love.

Bly couldn’t hold back the tears that trickled down his cheeks, melting down Cody’s neck and into the blacks under his armor. Cody continued to tremble, hands clutching desperately at Fox even as he pressed back into Bly.

“We’re here, Cody. We’re here, we’re here,” Bly murmured. “We have you. Let go, Cody, we have you.”

And so, Cody let go, the grief and anger and hatred that had been building up for over a decade with no outlet finally pouring from him in devastating waves. Cody did not cry, of that Bly was sure. But he trembled and shook and shattered beneath their hands, dry sobs and broken apologies, apologies that Bly meant to return but just could not find the words.

Bly had failed Cody for years, had failed him the day Bly had faked his death and ran from the Empire. But he would not fail him any longer. Cody would never feel alone again, would never feel the same lack of choice and want. Bly would make sure of it. Fox would as well, and the remainder of the 212th, and the 501st, and every brother in between.

For the first time in many, many years, Bly thought of the Jedi, of his Jedi, with only solid resolve. I promise, Aayla. And General Kenobi, if you can hear me. I won’t let him down. I’ll keep him safe. And we’ll avenge you. Palpatine will suffer for all he’s done, to you and to Cody and to everyone else. But for now, Bly kept his batchmates close and held them as if nothing else in the galaxy mattered. Nothing else ever would.

pt 1 | pt 2

#our own choices #our own choices first drafts #our own choices deleted scenes #just a little fun thing #it's wild reading these drafts i wrote maybe a two months into starting OOC #seeing how much i've changed as a writer #and also how much the plot and my ideas changed from its conception #writing #star wars #clones #star wars the clone wars #commander cody #commander bly #commander fox #codywan #blyla

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misguidedasgardian · 4 months ago

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Wildcats (XXXIV)

XXXIV. In the hen house

MASTERLIST

Summary: The foxes are inside the hen house

Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Zombie apocalypse AU, living dead, zombies, guts, blood, guns, kissing, longing, smut!, talks about torture, THE SANCTUARY AND EVERYTHING THAT COMES WITH IT, meaning ‘slavery’, torture, involuntary imprisonment, hard labour, work for safety, coerce into marrying, polyamorous marriage, might miss some important warnings, but you know what this is about

+18, MINORS DNI

Notes: Sorry for the delay, lost the traction on this story.

It as some sort of ritual they put him through

Daryl was never going to forget the face Negan made, the sick smile he gave him.

“That’s my soldier”, he purred. He gave Dwight a signal and he opened the door, “I told you I was going to get you a new pair of shoes, right?”, he teased, Laura entered the room, Fat Joey and a couple of others entered in tow

“Tell Frankie I want her to… attend… Daryl boy here, as his new rank implies”, Laura just smirked at him and nodded, “and tell Tanya to pull something together for him, and to Sherry”, Negan said this staring directly at Dwight, “ell, just to make him feel more comfortable”, he demanded. “Follow her, would ya?”, said Negan, Daryl looked at him one last time and decided to do it.

There was something different about Daryl now, despite the bruises of the brutal beating they gave him a couple of hours ago, he stood tall this time, his step was more sure, and he had a determined look in his eyes

A look Negan had seen in each of his men, his saviors

He smirked as he saw Daryl walk away from him

The first stop was another room, but this one seemed to be some sort of closet, where piles and piles of clothes were laid, hangers filled with pants and others with henleys, shirts, you name it. For every size and gender

“Pick some clothes savior”, Daryl actually flinched when he heard Laura call him that, but he needed to pick his battles and if it was true that Negan was going to grab you, he needed to get dressed, you couldn’t see him like that, not again.

He grabbed some jeans, a dark blue henley. and underwear, socks and a boxer. and a tank top to wear underneath. But then he remembered something.

“Yeh, give me my vest back”, he demanded, reaching with his hand towards Dwight, who was standing by the door, he smirked as he removed his vest slowly.

“Have it cleaned”, he said to Fat Joey, which he nodded quickly and ran to accomplish his command.

“My bike too”, he said then

“It’s yours, I told you, didn’t I?”, he said, raising his hands in the air. Daryl was learning where he fit in the food chain right now, he turned and grabbed a pair of biker boots on his size, and nodded, grabbing onto the clothes against his chest.

“I’m moving people, just need two vehicles, we are grabbing a very special guest, meet me at the gate in five”, Negan’s voice boomed through the walkie talkie

Then the squadron took him to a big bathroom, in one of the superior levels.

“Please, rinse thoroughly”, mocked Laura as he let him inside.

It was a big bathroom, all white tiles, and a big spacious shower.

Only with you in his mind he regulated the water, not really waiting until he peeled the disgusting suit out of his body, and got in. The water on his tired body felt heavenly, and merely second he looked down and saw all the dirt and grime on the floor of the shower.

He looked around and he saw… anything he could need was in there. shampoo, conditioner, soap, liquid soap, in bar, in all smells and colors, He grabbed a loofah? its that what was it called? and the most manly-smelling soap he could find and he rubbed himself raw with it. Until his skin was red.

He tried to push aside all of his dark thoughts, of all the stuff they pulled on him since they took him. How they left him naked, how they didn’t let him sleep, how they… beat him up.

He had to put it aside… for now… now he got you involved in this, so, now, he was going to have to pull in twice the work, because of any mistake, and you were the one who was going to pay for it. By now he had a pretty good guess of what Negan’s modus operandi was.

He took care of himself like he had never done before.

He shampooed his hair, he even got a bit of conditioner in there, he washed his face thoroughly, he got soap in every nook and cranny of his own body, and made sure to rinse himself too. If he was going to play at being a soldier, he needed to look like one.

There were towels waiting for him, and as he looked around the all white room he thought himself to be in some irreal situation, he couldn’t believe what was going on.

He dried himself pretty quickly, and got dressed.

How long has it been since he had clean clothes?

He didn’t take the one the Alexandriands offered him when he got there, down the line he might grab something on that mission in DC, but it had been a while.

He got dressed pretty quickly, the clothes fit him perfectly, and then he opened the door.

“Oh my!”, mocked Laura, “who would have thought that under all that… a decent man was hiding, (y/n) is a lucky girl”, Laura eyed him up and down with a smirk on her face, Daryl only growled something incoherent.

“Next stop, follow me”, she said.

She led them to the top levels of the factory. He knew this way, he knew where they were taking him. his grim commitive left him in the lunge of all of Negan’s wives

Sherry was there to receive him.

“You said it”, she wasn’t asking, she was accusing him, her face showing how conflicted she was. Sherry then looked behind Daryl, at Dwight

“We’ll take it from here”, she said, and in front of Laura’s amused glance, she closed the double door on their faces.

“He… threatened me with her”, he said shortly, she looked back at him, with sadness in her big brown eyes and nodded

“He tends to do that”, she said, “is she going to be… one of his wives?”, Daryl shook his head

“Nah”, he looked around and he saw all these beautiful women looking back at him with curiosity in their eyes

“No sex”, Sherry warned, and he looked back at her like she just slapped him

“I dun’…”, he denied with heated cheeks, “dun want nothin”

“We are supposed to… take care of him”, contradicted Frankie

“Not in that way”. Daryl didn’t want anything to do with these women, but they grabbed him and made him sit on a comfortable sofa. Frankie went to stand behind him, and started rubbing his shoulders, massaging his back. He flinched at her touch, he didn’t want to be touched by anybody by you, but then he decided to let her touch him, if she didn’t do her job, Negan could punish her.

Sherry came towards him and sat in front of him

“You know how he is now”, she said, “so will have to do as he says… or else”

“He will use ‘er to make me”, he said shortly

“I’m not gonna lie, I don’t get why he let you keep… being married to her”

“We ain’t married”, he said.

“Negan wants to play with you”, she said shortly. He only looked back at her, frowning, he kind of knew that, but still…

He didn’t want to play along, he didn’t, but when Tanya lifted a ridiculous silver top, revealing what she as a chef had prepared for him, he dove right in, not even bothering to use utensils. It was some sort of pasta with a creamy sauce. It seemed like Negan was even taunting him with you, your favorite dish. He just figured out how hungry he was, after days of being fed with nothing but dog-food sandwiches.

He felt watched, all the women on the lounge were staring at him, but he didn’t care, he drank all the beer they offered him and ate the whole thing. Licking his fingers right after.

Sherry brought him a scotch to wash it all down

“Does he do this often?”, he asked her, in a way only she could hear, “offer the lot of you like this?”

“Never”, she said, “I mean sometimes, but he is always in the room with us”, he hummed, “he doesn’t let other men touch us”

“He went to get her, didn’t he?”, she asked him

“Yeah”, she admitted.

Laura came back to the lounge an hour later, when she made sure he had been “treated” good enough. With a nod towards Sherry, he left the room with an uneasy feeling, a shiver down his spine.

“You are one of us now Dixon”, she said, as they got to the main floor of the factory, “which means you are on top of the food chain, you answer only to Negan”, she said looking at him, he wants you here, in the Sanctuary”

“Right”, he mumbled, as he saw the workers, a dread settled in his gut, as he saw all the people there

“They work for points, they work for us”, she said, “you want something, you write your name, you get it, got it?”, she asked, “we give them safety, they feed us”

This was more than just that, Daryl thought, this was worse than the old world order. As he saw all these people down there, and him looking at them from above.

And then he saw him, at the other side of the floor.

Negan was looking straight at him and smiling. He was flanked by Dwight and Fat Joey, Laura took him straight for him.

“There you are!”, Negan greeted, with that mocking smile on his face, “Looking sharp Daryl”, he said, “can’t wait to let you loose on my communities”, he said with a smile. And Daryl didn’t like that, not at all, and Negan could see it in his face, “but first…”, he said, pointing at him with his leather gloved hand. “...I want you to see how good I treat my men”, he started walking, and Dwight signaled him to follow suit, the four of them did.

The walk was painfully slow and long, as everyone kneeled at the sight of their leader and talked praises to him, and Negan, being the theatrical man he was, thanked and greeted each and every one of them.

Then, they stopped in front of the door that they led him that morning.

Dwight gave him his vest back, that he put on immediately, and offered his clothes that where his before they took him, he only retrieved the red cloth he had always on the back of his pants and threw the rest on the floor, “this too”, he said, passing him his crossbow. Daryl took it without a second thought, and then Dwight passed him the little box he had hidden on his vest, the one he let Negan dissacrate.

“Now Daryl, let me tell you, I don’t like it when my saviors live in sin with their ladies, so… make an honest woman out of her would you?”, he mocked. Daryl just looked at him as he pocketed the ring on his vest again. “quickly… if I were you”, now they were back in the front of the door Negan took him in the morning

“Welcome to the rest of your life, soldier”, said Negan, as Dwight opened the door to the room.

Negan padded him on the back before he pushed him in.

There you were, sitting on the bed. Daryl’s breath got caught in his throat when he saw you, “all dolled up” for him, you were wearing a dark green tight dress that hugged your curves and some high heels

“There you go tiger”, Negan teased, “All pretty for her man!”, he laughed, he winked at you and then they closed the door to leave the two of you alone.

You stumbled when you tried to stand up weaning those ridiculous shoes, but it didn’t matter because Daryl was right there to catch you and hugged you tightly in his arms. The hug didn’t last long, he searched your face to eat your mouth hungrily, he kissed you roughly, like he was claiming you, you tried to keep up, caressing the back of his head.

He finally released you, leaving you breathless

“You were crying”, he said softly, caressing your cheeks with his thumbs, you tried to cover it up but you guessed you failed, as Daryl knew you too well.

“I’m sorry, I was scared”, you admitted, “they took me, I didn’t know what was going to happen”, you whispered, “Negan tends to be… unpredictable, you never know what he is going to do with you”, you looked at him wondering where the other shoe was going to drop, Negan didn’t specify much

“Ya safe ‘ere”, he whispered, “yer with me”

“I know”, you assured him, and when you looked at his face, and around, and the way Negan spoke to him… you could only assume

“Did you…?”

“I’m one of his now”, he said, caressing your face with his thumbs

“I’m sorry”, you offered, he looked at you with shiny eyes, he looked like beaten puppy, “because of me you had to say his name, join this insanity”, you whined, he didn’t say anything, he walked towards you and grabbed you, pulling you to your feet gently, and then he grabbed your face and kissed you, fiercely, needily

“You got nothin’ to be sorry fer”, he mumbled. And then he kissed you again, “what the hell ya wearin?”, he asked, releasing you and looking you up and down

“Negan has a very twisted sense of humor”, you mumbled, looking up at him, at his beautiful eyes, “he said that if I wanted to stay here with you, I couldn’t just be dressing like…”, he had also said that now you were the wife of one of his soldiers you needed to ‘take care of him properly’, and that included looking ‘fine’ but you didn’t want to tell him that.

“Ya’ aint in an auto shop”, he said for you, you smiled, “I’ll get ya out of it”, he promised, kissing you again, his big hands were on you in a second, grabbing you by your hips and then caressing everything in their path towards the back of your dress. Oh, he wanted to go all the way, which surprised you a bit.

“Wait”, you called, when he opened the zipper, he stopped immediately, searching your eyes

“Wanna stop?”, he asked

“No, it’s just… right now?”, you asked him, “here?”, you loved having sex with Daryl, but you had this notion that having sex in a ‘safe’ environment, where you both were comfortable, safe and in controlled privacy was the one condition that was not negotiable.

“Yes here”, he said, and kissed you again. You gave yourself directly to him, no more doubts or questions

The cold air hit you as he released you from the dress. He lowered you down onto the bed gently then, with a soft smile on his handsome face.

Now you were only in your underwear, but he took care of that quickly. Now you were naked, with only your heels on, and he looked down at you with such hunger it made you tremble. He was still fully clothed, but he had no intention to change that as he took himself out of his jeans.

You whined in need, the image of him stroking himself, kneeling on the bed, looking down at you, it was just too much. You spread your legs for him, and he dove in, kissing you again roughly.

“Christening the bed of our new home already?”, you teased, and he got comfortable between your legs. He teased your entrance with his thick fingers making you whine, before he even tried to.

“Daryl”, you moaned when he pushed in the tip of his cock inside you, “fuck”, you whined.

“Tell me… yer mine”, he demanded, and even though this part of his truly… surprised you, you looked up at him to see longing in those beautiful eyes of his.

“I’m yours”, you assured him, and looking at him more, all cleaned up, made you glad, a huge contrast of what you saw yesterday. And you wondered if this was his way of… healing, of wanting to get better. Of having you, to assure him that it was all over and he was going to be fine.

You let him, as he filled you up completely, making you tremble and moan under him.

“Daryl, I love you, I’m yours”, you confessed, you surrendered yourself completely to him.

He fucked you roughly against the mattress, kissing you hungrily, caressing every inch of skin he could get his hands on, he made you finish twice before he found his own release, filling you with his cum and a grunt, as he looked down on you, still, fully clothed, his jeans rough against the skin of the inside of your thighs

He used his arms at each side of your head to not crush you under his weight, as he tried to recover his breath.

You tried to caress him, but you only found fabric instead of skin and you did not like that.

“Was I too rough?”, he asked

“No, I’m fine”, you assured him, caressing his arms, his shoulders, trying to give him comfort. He let himself drop to the bed by your side, and the cold of the room made you tremble. He was quick to notice and grabbed a blanket from the foot of the bed and covered you with it.

You cuddled against his side, and he surrounded your shoulders with his arm.

“At least we are here together”, you tried, he hummed, this Daryl, was new to you, you didn't know how to play this game you had been dealt. “When all of this is over”, you said gently, “I think… we should go away”

“What ya’ mean?”, he asked

“We could find a nice cabin… near Alexandria, and we could live there, together, would you like that?”, you asked him, “just us two… in the woods… we could come back to Alexandria whenever we want…to trade, and see our family…”

“I’d like tha”, he said, caressing your back, “just us two”

“You could teach me how to hunt…”, you tried, “I could teach you… something in turn”, you giggled softly.

“I’d like ta teach ya”, he whispered against your temple, kissing it afterwards.

“I love you Daryl”, you whispered, “I’m yours”, saying it right now, ‘sober’, and not in the heat of the moment might be what he needed to hear

“And I love ya”, he assured you back, kissing the top of your head.

taglist @crazyunsexycool @capricxnt

#misguidedcats #the walking dead #the walking dead fanfiction #daryl dixon fanfic #daryl dixon imagine #daryl dixon smut #daryl dixon the walking dead #daryl dixon x reader #daryl dixon fanfiction #daryl dixon #daryl dixon x y/n #daryl dixon x female reader #daryl dixon x you #negan smith #negan #twd

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invisibleanonymousmonsters · 1 year ago

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chapter xxiv – gust & flame

Eris Vanserra x Reader

Eris Vanserra has been a prisoner in his own home since the day he was born. He has done what he had to in order to survive and protect the few he loves. And he is playing the long game. Waiting, waiting, and waiting for the right time to make his move, to usurp his wicked father and become High Lord of Autumn Court. But things become even more complicated when a human girl drops into his life. Perhaps Eris can wait no longer to take his throne.

Word Count: 4,000+

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Cassian continued swaying Y/N around after her confession. He could tell she was panicking, and knew she didn’t want to have a breakdown here and now. So, he distracted her, twirling her unnecessarily around until she was laughing and telling him to cut it out through her giggles.

“We miss you in the Night Court,” Cassian said through a smile, but along with sad eyes she could not miss.

“I miss it, too.” However, there was more to say and he caught it.

“But?” He urged.

“But Autumn feels like…” Y/N dared not finish.

“Like home?” Cassian offered gently.

She shook her head. “The Mortal Lands are my home, Cassian.”

He sighed. “Sometimes homes change, Y/N.”

Then the Illyrians gaze settled on someone over her shoulder.

She turned to see Helion Spell-Cleaver politely standing near them with his hands clasped behind his back.

The High Lord stood tall. His wide and muscular torso was on display from the drapery of his white and gold robes. And his onyx hair was more voluminous and shiny than any woman’s she’d ever seen. In it was his gold, halo crown and band that proved his power and position. He was a beautiful male, that was indisputable.

“High Lord Helion,” Cassian bowed his head in greeting. Though he was not his High Lord, he was still above him in power.

Helion nodded to the General, then bowed to Y/N as if she were Lady of Autumn. “I was hoping for a dance with the female of the night.”

Y/N expected to look at Cassian and find a warning glare on his face. But he seemed only amused. Perhaps she didn’t know Helion as well as she realized and misjudged his intentions at the High Lord meeting where she was interrogated. Perhaps this was actually the male that Leonora had secretly loved for so long.

A small growl came from the floor. Y/N looked down to see Ronan giving another warning growl to Helion as he stood between him and Y/N.

She couldn’t help but giggle at her tiny and brave fox. “Ronan, relax.”

The fox turned to look up at her and stopped growling immediately.

“Go to Eris,” she commanded him softly.

The fox whimpered as he hesitated, before eventually trotting over to Eris on the other side of the room. He plopped his butt down at the High Lord’s feet, but protectively watched her, prepared to come to her defense if she should need him.

Y/N stepped away from her friend and toward the High Lord carefully.

“Behave, Helion,” Cassian warned playfully, but quietly enough that only the three of them would catch it. “Though I would enjoy watching Eris take you on if you do not.”

A new song started and Helion guided them around the floor.

“Is this a game of some sort?” Y/N asked him with clear suspicion.

“I assure you it is not, Lady Y/N.” Helion smiled down at her. “I fear we got off on the wrong foot. But I see now that I judged you too harshly.”

“You fae are distrusting creatures,” she teased darkly as they continued to spin.

He chuckled. “A life if immortality makes us weary of new beings, especially ones who are as subtly powerful as you are.”

Y/N frowned at that. Not knowing the true strength of her new power was unsettling to her and it haunted her most nights.

Helion’s voice lowered and his mouth moved closer to her ear as he said, “Between the two of us, I must confess that my interrogation came from a selfish place.”

Then Y/N caught his gaze flicker to Leonora for hardly a second. If she had blinked, she would’ve missed it.

“I only wanted to make sure the people of Autumn Court were not in danger,” Helion lied quietly.

“Why do you not go to her?” Y/N whispered.

“It is my shame.”

Her eyes squinted in confusion.

“You have not been in Prythian long, Y/N. And you were lucky to only know Beron for the last moments of his existence.” His eyes glazed over as his mind raced through the past of his immortal life. “You do not know the torture she endured. And through it all, I stood back and let it happen. I should have saved her. I should have killed Beron myself.”

“But you are High Lord of Day, it would have started a war. And you would have lost so many lives of your Court.”

Helion’s amber eyes darkened almost to a brown. “What good is power if it cannot be used to protect the ones we love?”

Y/N didn’t know how to answer that. She was not familiar with having the powers that he possessed. But she had now been around enough High Lords to recognize that such strength did not come without its consequences.

“I do not deserve her forgiveness or love,” Helion finished. “You do not know what it is like to see the female you love lose the light from her eyes, all while being treated like nothing more than a breeder.”

Y/N allowed herself to watch Leonora for a moment, who spoke to various courtiers of Autumn, with a polite smile on her lips.

“Do not underestimate how much light you could bring back to her eyes,” she muttered. “I do not think she believes there is anything to forgive. I think she only worries, after all this time, that there might not be a second chance for you both.”

Helion gave her a grateful grin. “You have given me hope for Autumn, Y/N. Perhaps you could visit Day Court soon with your mate, and together we could repair the gap between our two courts.”

Y/N couldn’t meet his gaze as she answered, “I have not accepted the bond…"

Perhaps she shouldn’t be sharing such information to another High Lord. She didn’t know why she confessed it so quickly and easily.

Helion’s brow furrowed. “And do you not plan to do so?”

Y/N looked around, trying to buy herself time on her response.

“Forgive me,” he quickly added. "It is none of my concern.”

Then, as if trying to change the subject, Helion locked eyes on Nesta, who pretended to be annoyed with Cassian’s obvious and heavy flirting. Everyone knew they were claimed mates, so Y/N didn’t know why she tortured him in such a way.

“Though, before tonight ends, I should once again attempt to convince those two in joining one of my parties…”

Y/N rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’ve heard all about your bedroom habits. Which seems like a strange way to reconcile with your lost lover…”

To her surprise, Helion looked guilty from her call out. “It is much easier to forget about lost love and a broken heart when you preoccupy yourself with endless lust.”

“I will confess,” Y/N began with a mischievous smile. “Us Valkyries are desperate to pet one of your Pegasus. Nesta has threatened to proposition both her and her mate to do so. Though I do not recommend taking her up on the offer if you care for Leonora as you say.”

Helion smiled as he found Nesta, Gwyn, and Emerie gossiping and giggling in a corner with empty glasses of wine.

The High Lord of Day stepped away from Y/N and bowed his head slightly to her. “It has been an honor, Lady Y/N.”

Then Y/N was alone on the dance floor. And she quickly made her escape before another male could ask her to dance.

There were two giant doors open to the gardens outside. Suddenly, fresh air seemed like the best thing for her.

Y/N took in the garden before her. Across the pond, the autumn trees glowed with the yellowish faelight floating amongst the branches. To her left, was a fountain surrounded by the red and orange fallen leaves of the court. To her right, was a stone and metal temple that stepped directly into the pond – and Y/N made her way to that.

The wind brushed around her, giving her a delicate touch to her cheek.

Y/N gave a small smile at the companionship.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

The voice behind her made Y/N jump. “You frightened me.”

The male was tall and spindly. He did not have the powerful muscle that Eris, or any of her male fae friends, possessed.

He did not apologize for scaring her, nor did he look even slightly guilty for it.

“May I ask your name?” Y/N continued, looking around them and noting that it was just the two of them outside.

“Muiris,” was all he provided as he took steps toward her.

“Nice to meet you, Muiris. I am Y/N.”

“I know who you are,” he answered back too quickly and harshly.

Y/N blinked at the rudeness.

He stepped past her and looked at the large pond before them, hands clasped behind his back. “This particular garden was built centuries ago. So long ago, in fact, that most in this Court were not even alive to remember a time before it existed.”

Y/N got the feeling he didn’t care if she responded or not. So she remained quiet.

He turned to look her up and down. “But you wouldn’t know anything about that, seeing as you are not of fae blood,” he snipped.

She openly glared at him now.

This male was clearly no friend, Autumn courtier or not.

“How did you do it?” He hissed suddenly.

“Do what?” But her instincts were telling her to take a step back and get away from him.

He only moved closer. “Those of us whom still have our wits about us know your game. You have bewitched Eris Vanserra, convinced him to kill his own father. And you will kill him next. I have known witches in my time, and good they are not. Your kind is only capable of evil. And I will not stand by and watch Autumn fall into your clutches.”

Before Y/N could even wrap her mind around his words, the male unsheathed a dagger from some hidden place on his body.

She was quick though, shooting to the side and unsheathing her own knife strapped to her thigh.

But before she could even raise it in defense, an arrow flew from behind her and hit her attacker squarely in the wrist that held his weapon.

Y/N whipped around to see a Autumn guard had released the arrow, and he was now calling out orders and warnings to his comrades.

Though Muiris had cried out in pain and dropped the dagger, he wasn’t weak enough to abandon his mission.

But as he lunged for her once again, a gust of wind hit him so hard that he was flown backward into the pond.

Y/N blinked and she was surrounded by nearly twenty Autumn soldiers who circled her protectively.

A whip of fire burst out of nowhere and dragged Muiris out of the water by his ankle, scraping his body across the harsh stone steps.

Y/N turned to see Eris slowly walking toward the male.

While his composure was calm, she could only see the fire and rage in his gaze and posture.

A whimper came from below her. Ronan had found her and was pawing at her legs in distress.

Without thinking, Y/N bent to pick him up. She held him as if he was her anchor. And in return, the fox kit licked her face repeatedly.

“I always knew you were a fool, Muiris,” Eris growled. Then he bent to pick up the dagger he’d dropped. It was then that Y/N realized it was made of iron – a witch’s ultimate weakness. “But your stupidity has reached a new low.”

With a snap of his finger, Muiris was shot onto his feet by an invisible power. And flames erupted at his feet, climbing up his body. The male screamed in agony, but he was inflicting pain, not death. Eris was keeping him alive…for now.

“The witch has cast spells on you, High Lord!”

Eris lashed out to grip the males throat, his hand looking more like a demon's talons than human. “Is that so?” He hissed, his tone alone belittling such an accusation.

Muiris gasped for breath. “I only…tried to do what is…best for Autumn Court.”

“I am what is best for Autumn Court,” Eris growled as his grip tightened around Muiris' throat. “And she is what is best for me.”

Y/N then realized they had an audience. Cassian, Rhysand, and Feyre rushed outside to see what was going on.

Muiris found Y/N’s eyes through the crowd. “She will…ruin us.”

Eris moved his face centimeters away from Muiris.

The High Lord's flames did not burn him like they did his victim, only dancing around his skin like they belonged to his body.

“She will save us all,” Eris whispered, but somehow Y/N could hear it clearly from where she stood.

“You are going to die now,” Eris added. But Muiris didn’t react until he added, “And you should know that everyone you brought with you tonight will die with you.”

The males eyes widened in panic. “B-But my son…my son…he was not a part of this!”

“I do not trust such a defense, especially one from your mouth. However, if it is true, then his punishment will simply be his relation to you. An attack on my mate is an attack on this court, and I will counter accordingly.”

Eris turned to look at her. And for half a second, the fire in his gaze blew out.

Then he looked at the soldiers who surrounded his mate. “Escort Y/N back to her chambers.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but she knew better than to challenge Eris so publicly. And then she realized she had no idea what to even say, because there was not a single part of her that wished to spare this male’s life.

So she let the small army escort her back inside.

Rhysand, Cassian, and Feyre all shared looks with her as she left.

The other High Lords and guests from there courts began winnowing their exits.

You should go, Y/N spoke to both Feyre’s and Rhysand’s minds. I am safe here. But Eris will not rest until his wrath is released.

He is only protecting you, Rhysand defended Eris surprisingly. I would do the same for my mate. And his eyes flickered to Feyre’s.

You say the word and we will bring you right back to Night Court, Feyre answered back softly.

But the nobles and courtiers of Autumn remained standing. They watched with disgust – not at Eris’ reckoning, but at Muiris’ actions. Clearly, they did not stand with his beliefs toward their new High Lord and his mate.

Y/N had been escorted back inside.

Half a dozen fae were on their knees with fiery cages keeping them from moving: Muiris’ companions. Eris’ smoke hounds had already been dispatched, guarding each of them as an extra precaution. They growled menacingly with their tales pointed in the air. Not even Y/N’s presence distracted them from their task.

It wasn’t until Y/N was in the hallway that she heard the screams and the sound of fire burning flesh.

She knew Eris burned them slowly.

–🍁–🍁–🍁–

Y/N paced in front of the fireplace in her bedchambers.

There would be no sleep for her tonight. No one told her the Forest House was on lock down, but she heard the running in the hallways and the shouting of orders.

Y/N wanted to go to Eris, but she also didn’t want to get in the way.

If there was one pattern Y/N couldn’t ignore, it was that her endangerment caused Eris to go absolutely feral. She wondered if it it was terrible how little it scared her. The way he protected her so fiercely and without hesitation…it only lit a fire in Y/N’s body. No one – not even her coven – had defended her in such a way. Perhaps his manor of doing so would scream danger to others, but to Y/N…it only screamed love.

There was a knock on her door.

But Y/N’s heart didn’t jump in anxiety, unsure of who it could be.

Ronan awoke from his slumber near the giant fireplace to growl at the door and beat her to it.

But she immediately knew it was Eris, and she rushed to throw it open.

“Y/N,” Eris breathed.

She looked around and realized that all of the guards who had escorted her safely back to her chambers earlier had stayed and stood guard outside.

But that meant the two of them had an audience.

Without thinking, Y/N pulled the collar of his red, velvet tunic from the event that he had yet to take off. Even his armor was still in place.

Eris slammed the door behind him. “I had to secure the Forest House and hunt down any remnants of Muiris’ following.” The words rushed out as if he needed an excuse for keeping her waiting.

Then he grasped her shoulders and frantically looked over her body. She only wore her nightgown now, but could not care less about the propriety of her attire in his presence.

“My soldiers promised me you were unharmed,” Eris practically gasped. “But I…I had to be sure for myself.”

Y/N grasped his face gently. “Eris, I am fine,” she reassured him in a soft voice. “He did not even get a chance to touch me.”

He nodded, his heart finally calming from seeing for himself that his mate was fine. “Then I will return to my rooms.”

But they both knew he wanted to do nothing of the sorts.

Y/N quickly grabbed his hands. “Stay,” she muttered. “Please.”

Then, in an attempt to stop things from going too sobering, she added, “This was your room once, after all.”

Eris smirked. “Aye, and there is nothing but your scent here now.”

“I shall never truly understand the keen senses of the fae. You are far too open about how much you smell," she teased in return.

Eris fully smiled now. “Trust me when I say, your scent is nothing but delectable.”

Y/N’s face felt hot, even from such a strange compliment.

Ronan, annoyed that his sleep was interrupted, had relaxed once he realized it was Y/N’s mate at the door. He trotted back to curl into a ball again next to the crackling fire.

“Do you need help taking this off?” Y/N asked Eris, gesturing to his armor.

He brushed off the offer almost immediately, “I can manage.”

But Y/N ignored him, stepping toward him and beginning to unbuckle the heavy metal on his torso.

“Relax,” Y/N whispered into his ears as she stood behind him, noting how tense his shoulders were as she helped him.

The sound and feeling of her breath caused a rush to go down Eris’ spine.

Eventually, all of his armor and his cloak were politely collected into somewhat of a pile against the wall, leaving Eris in only his velvet arming coat.

Y/N glanced down at her state of undress and then quirked an eyebrow. “Now that will not be comfortable sleeping in.”

Eris narrowed his eyes and tried to hide his smirk as he took the last of his clothes off, leaving him only in black braise, briefs and no shirt.

Like every other time Eris’ chest was exposed, Y/N couldn’t help but stare.

There were scars across his skin, and Y/N wondered how many of them were from battle and how many of them were by the hand of his abusive father.

Without realizing it, Y/N’s fingers began tracing some of them.

“They healed long ago,” he explained softly, as if trying to comfort her.

Her only response was to grab his hand and slowly lead him to her bed.

Though the situation would appear to be leading to a certain intimacy, there was no promise of such an act. Eris didn’t want to ask that of her and risk scaring her away. No, all he wanted right now was to hold her in his arms and prove that his mate really was safe.

Y/N slipped under the covers of the bed first and pulled him in with her. But she stayed close, ignoring the other half of the bed behind her.

Carefully, she placed her head on his chest, her ear sitting right over his heart. Her left arm draped over his muscular torso.

The two of them just lay there for quite some time, only feeling each other and hearing the rustling of the trees outside with their dry, autumn leaves.

“Does my wrath frighten you?” Eris finally said so quietly that it felt like it came from a ghost within the room.

Y/N didn’t move from her place on his chest.

“Perhaps it should…” she eventually sighed, as her eyes drifted off. “But you have never scared me, Eris.”

“You are right: perhaps you should be frightened of me.” He takes in a shaky breath as his eyes stare up at the ceiling. “I am merciful. And that was what I promised myself I would be if I were to ever usurp my father, and live to rule Autumn.”

Then his gaze turned to look down at her.

She lifted her head in response.

“But I will become the villain when you are threatened. I will sacrifice what little good I have left in me to destroy any who dare hurt you, Y/N.”

This is the part where he expected her to run, to confess that he had gone too far and his words instilled fear in her finally.

Instead, Y/N reached up and caressed his cheek. “Then… let us hope it does not come to that.”

Quiet enveloped them once again.

Eris rubbed his hand up and down Y/N’s bicep.

Finally, she had the courage to ask what had truly haunted her from tonight’s events. “Does it not bother you…that there are those who think I have brought evil and deception to your court?”

“Why should I? If they truly cared for Autumn, they would have rebelled against Beron long ago. They are only attempting to test their new High Lord, to find my weakness and see how pliant they can make me.”

“But perhaps I do make you weak…” Y/N whispered so softly he almost didn’t hear it.

“That is far from the truth.” Eris’ voice was strong and now too loud for the quiet room.

And with it, his emotions made the flames of the all the candles in the room spike in height and glow.

“Before you arrived this evening, I was… struggling,” he admitted. “I can command an army to win any battle, gain my troops unmovable loyalty, and oversee this court to exceptional change. But making my people…like me.” He paused. “I had never considered that would be an obstacle during all my years of seeking to become High Lord.”

Y/N let him continue.

“Nearly all of Hewn City despises both Rhysand and Feyre," Eris added harshly. "Yet they do not let such opinions hinder them. What does it matter to be liked by such horrid beings?”

She couldn’t help but smirk. “We are not them, though. And both of them came to rule Night Court in much different manner than you.”

They both knew she was right. Losing a father and High Lord from horrors of war was far different than killing one’s father and usurping him. And Feyre…Feyre was fae. Though by magic and not birth, she would still grow more and more like those she protected in her court.

“It seems unfair to compare ourselves to them. We are…different.” Then her eyes dazed off as she noted that Eris most likely hoped that their love affair would blossom into something similar than those two now have. “I ask that you do not do it again.”

--------

OK OK OK. I am so fucking sorry that I was MIA for so fucking long. My life is....crazy. I'm currently trying to find a new job and I am also working on other personal projects. So I simply have not had the time nor the energy to write.

But please, please, please write a book report for this chapter. I think it will get me to keep in the creative space to write more chapters of this quickly.

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vodika-vibes · 1 year ago

Note

I love your writing. It always leaves me feeling hopeful.

Could you write a story where f!reader doesn't like her body.

I personally dislike my body. My breasts are small and disproportionate, then my butt is flattish. Compared to my mom and sisters I feel unlovable. Doesn't help I've never dated or had anyone interested in me and I'm going on 40.

Sorry that was long. Anyway if you could wrote something with either Fox, Wolffe or Hunter that would be lovely.

Thank you.

You're Perfect

Summary: Wolffe gets home late and finds his mesh’la curled up in bed, upset. And he decides that that’s not going to stand.

Pairing: Commander Wolffe x F!Reader

Word Count: 1027

Warnings: None

Tagging: @trixie2023 @n0vqni @imabeautifulbutterfly

A/N: That might be the sweetest compliment I've ever been giving. Making people feel hopeful. Gosh, you're so sweet. I'm sorry that you feel that way about yourself, and I hope this story helps you feel a little bit better!

Wolffe pushes his hand through his short hair in annoyance as he irritably punches in the door code for his apartment. He loves his brothers, he does, but sometimes they are the most irritating di’kut to walk on any planet.

Not to mention, they made him late.

He was supposed to be home over an hour ago.

He had a plan. Dinner and dancing with his perfect mesh’la, something to help her get her mind off the hard week that she’s been having at work.

But no. Now it’s not going to happen. All because Sinker decided to push the Corries and got himself thrown into a holding cell.

He should have let him cool his heels there for the night.

The door slides open and Wolffe pushes into the apartment, only to pause when he notes that none of the lights are on. His gaze flickers to the coat rack, taking note that her favorite jacket and her purse are still hanging there. Not to mention all of her shoes are lined up neatly on the shoe rack.

So she is home. Yet all of the lights are off, and there’s no sound indicating that she’s listening to music or watching a show or playing any of her games-

Slowly, Wolffe sits on the bench to pull off his armor, all of his senses turned towards the apartment, searching for any hint of what’s going on.

Something is clearly wrong.

Maybe she’s upset that he’s home later than he said he would be? If that’s the case then he’s going to beat Sinker black and blue tomorrow.

He finishes pulling off his armor, and stacks it neatly near the door, and then he heads to the gun safe, and he puts his weapons in it, before shutting and locking the door.

Only then does he head further into the apartment.

“Mesh’la?”

There’s a sniffle from the bedroom, and Wolffe’s gaze snaps to the closed door. He doesn’t even bother knocking on the door, since it’s his room too, and he peers at the large lump under the blanket.

“Mesh’la?

“There’s no one here but us bedbugs,” Her voice is shaky, as though she’s been crying.

Wolffe sighs silently, she’s upset. He’s definitely going to beat Sinker black and blue tomorrow. He sits on the edge of the bed and presses his hand against her back, rubbing soothingly as he feels her trembling under his touch, “I’m sorry I’m late, mesh’la. Sinker got arrested, and-”

Slowly the blanket tugs down so she’s able to peer up at him. Her pretty eyes are rimmed with red, and he feels his heart sink. “Sinker got arrested?”

“Yeah, he picked an argument with Thorn and-” Wolffe sighs, “I’m so sorry that I’m late, I know we had plans. I should have commed…I didn’t mean to make you cry-”

She blinks at him, and then hastily wipes her eyes, though that didn’t help. “I…I’m not crying-”

“You are though.” Wolffe replies gently as he brushes a tear off her cheek.

“Oh.” She pauses, and then she leans into his touch, “Not because of you, or Sinker.”

Quickly, Wolffe reassesses the situation, and his eyes narrow, “Someone upset you to the point of tears.”

“It’s…dumb.”

“If they upset you enough that you came home and cried, it’s obviously not.” Wolffe points out, “Come on, mesh’la. What happened?”

She ducks her head, “It’s just…” She pauses, “Someone said something and-”

“What did they say?” He prods gently.

She seems to curl in on herself, “That I’m not pretty enough to land someone who looks like you. That you’re probably only using me because I’m…I’m easy,” She spits out the word like it’s a curse, “That you don’t really love me-”

Wolffe leans in and kisses her to stop the flood of words. “Well, whoever told you that is clearly jealous of how amazing you are.”

“They-”

“Let’s go over this point by point, shall we?” Wolffe interrupts, “You not being pretty enough for me is nonsense, you’re gorgeous, all of the time. About you being easy-” He makes a face, “If you were easy, mesh’la, it wouldn’t have taken me almost a year to convince you to go on a date with me.”

A flush spreads across her face, and Wolffe grins.

“That was a very long, very miserable year for me, Mesh’la. I can’t believe you spent so long running from me.”

“It made sense, at the time.” She mumbles, and Wolffe presses a light kiss to her forehead.

“As for me not loving you,” Wolffe says, “I spent a year trying to make you even look at me. Is my love for you really in doubt here?”

“I’m sorry-”

“Hey, you don’t have to apologize.” He kisses her forehead again, “I would, however, like to know who exactly made you cry.” She shoots him a look, “I just wanna talk to them. Really.”

“Right. Talk.” She scoffs, “Since when is ‘talk’ a euphemism for ‘beat them senseless’?”

“Since always.” Wolffe replies, he slips under the blanket with her and draws her into a tight hug, “But I’m much more concerned about the fact that you seem to believe them.”

“I…well…”

“Yes?”

“I’m not pretty, Wolffe. Not compared to some of the women that your brothers date. I’m just…bleh.”

“You’re not just bleh.” Wolffe corrects, “And the fact that I haven’t managed to convince you of this yet makes me a terrible boyfriend.” He leans in and kisses her gently. “How can I convince you to see yourself like I see you?”

“I…I don’t know.”

Slowly Wolffe kicks the blanket off the bed and rolls so that she’s laying on top of him, “I have a pretty good idea.” He teases with a wicked grin, “I know exactly how to make you see yourself like how I see you.”

She stares down at him, startled, and then a slightly flustered look crosses her face as correctly identifies the look on his face.

“Ah, you’re so cute and I love you so much.” Wolffe says with a boyish, lovesick, grin on his face.

Somehow, she looks even more flustered, “I love you too.”

#star wars #tcw #commander wolffe x reader #wolffe x reader #star wars fanfiction #x reader fanfiction #f!reader fic #answered asks

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thatonefanficwriternooneknows · 17 days ago

Text

FoxQuin Week Day 5: Fox Kills the Chancellor

Good Afternoon/Morning/Evening/Night!

This is probably my favorite right behind day 6! I had a good time writing a little glance into an AU :D

I've gone ahead and queued up days 6 and 7 on Tumblr, the ao3 version will be out on Monday along with the official update for TOUCHED <3

Day 5: Fox kills the Chancellor/"The Guard doesn't have a Jedi" @foxquinweek

Enjoy :D

“How is this supposed to work, exactly? No one ever set up any rules about how the clones would be tried in a court of law.” Plo Koon questioned with a heavy sigh, his Commander placing a soothing hand on his shoulder, glaring at the small holo of a vod in a cell.

“That would be because clones aren’t people, General. We get decommissioned, not tried.” Commander Thorn of the Coruscant Guard stated blandly enough that every councilor in the room jerked with shock.

“The Jedi Council put a stop to decommissioning, Commander.” Obi-wan spoke carefully, watching the three remaining Commanders of the Coruscant Guard, each standing perfectly straight in parade rest, helmets facing forward. They didn’t even move when someone addressed them.

“Sure, for the GAR.” Commander Thire added.

The Councilors shared uneasy looks.

“No…for all troopers, Thire.” Mace Windu’s Commander spoke even slower, enunciating his words very carefully.

“Maybe you should check that again, Commander. The Guard and the GAR are two separate organizations.” The final commander, Commander Stone, added, speaking just as slowly as Ponds had.

Silence echoed in the chamber while Depa Billaba was frantically scrolling on a datapad.

“While Depa looks for the order. In military tribunals the trooper’s Jedi normally speaks for them.” Mace Windu groaned, messaging his temples with both hands.

“The Guard doesn’t have a Jedi.” The three Guard commanders spoke in unison, the room freezing once more and devolving into silence.

“The Guard doesn’t have a Jedi…what?” Adi Gallia stuttered.

If the Guard Commanders weren’t wearing helmets then their raised brows would have been seen, as it was, every councilmember felt it.

“We had to have assigned a Jedi to the Coruscant Guard, how else were you getting supplies?” Even Piell grumbled.

“You’d have to ask Commander Fox that, sir. He was the one in charge of the Guard.” Thorn responded, all three of them moving their heads to stare at the holo of said vod in a small jail cell.

There was no movement from the holo, considering it was muted, but there were some mumbles and murmurs.

A gasp from Depa Billaba cut them all off.

“What is it, Depa?” Mace spat out, his eyes clenched shut and managing deep heaving breaths between words. Several councilors looked at him in concern, before turning to give Depa their attention as she cleared her throat.

“In the original mandate for the Galactic Army of the Republic it does state that the Coruscant Guard will here on to be considered a separate entity run by the choice of the Chancellor…and no Jedi is listed as being in charge of them…”

“Easy way to answer our questions, there is. Commander Fox, we must ask.” Yoda smacked his gimmer stick on the floor and gestured to Stass Allie to change the holo of said commander to allow for communication.

Yoda cleared his throat and it was picked up by the unmuted mic because Commander Fox’s head snapped to the holorecorder with impressive accuracy.

Obi-wan made a noise of approval and all three Guard Commanders seemed to vibrate out of their skins.

“Greetings, Commander. Under better circumstances, I wish this was.”

Fox cocked his head to the side before spreading his lips to bare his teeth in the barest facsimile of a grin, highlighting a particularly gruesome scar that cut through his face, from top of the forehead through the right eye, over the cheek bone, and into the tight blacks.

There were some minor shuffles of discomfort from the council, but the sight seemed to make the Guard Commanders vibrate even more, somehow.

“What better circumstances could there be, High General Yoda?” His voice was a rasp and with every movement a flash of silver was seen between his lips.

“Assassinating the Chancellor, accused, you are.” Yoda quirked his own brow and frowned when Fox’s vicious grin only widened.

“Accused? Oh that’s not right at all, General. I am not a sentient being, I cannot be accused of anything. In fact, you could argue I could no more break the law than a particularly nice chair.”

Obi-wan choked on air while a few councilors shifted to hide their signs of distress.

“Commander, this is serious. You are accused of assassinating the Chancellor of the Republic, and with no Jedi to represent you in front of a tribunal, you are unlikely to get a fair hearing.” Mace spoke very clearly, despite the furrow of his brow and the sweat beading along it.

Commander Fox snorted.

“A few things I should mention, High General Windu. First, assassination would imply that it was premeditated or planed, this was nothing more than a killing of opportunity. Second, I am a clone, I do not have rights, I am not considered sentient, I was never going to get a fair hearing. And lastly…” the holo shook violently and an ear splitting screech emanated from the projector.

The councilors flinched at the sound, but the three Guard Commanders started bouncing on the tips of their toes, looking for all intents and purposes like they were going to take off running at any moment.

Slowly the sound died down, the councilors all looking at the holo with wide eyes, as the shaking subsided to show a second being in the frame.

Tall, dark locs flowing down their back, Jedi-like robes frayed at the ends, lit lightsaber in one hand and the other outstretched to the still sitting Commander (smiling more softly at the new being with a light in their eye that suddenly made sense).

Fox took the hand gently, the Jedi(?) pulling him into their side with a smooth motion and kissing him soundly on the lips.

Obi-wan let out a strangled gurgle of noise, several GAR Commanders tensing as the being pulled away with a soft lick to Fox’s top lip before grinning up at the holorecorder.

“Quinlan Vos what have you done?” Plo Koon muttered under his breath, softly enough that the microphone couldn’t pick it up.

“I don’t plan to go in front of a tribunal at all.” Fox closed his eyes and sighed as Jedi Master Quinlan Vos bowed to the holorecorder before slicing through it with his lightsaber, flashing his warm brown eyes to the assembled Jedi with purpose.

Before the councilors could consider anything, the three Guard Commanders all took off at the same time, toggling the door open and closed behind them without time for anyone to relax.

“What the absolute kriff?” Commander Wolffe questioned, loudly, at the same time that every Commanders’ comms pinged with a system wide alert.

Commander Cody opened his to display to the entirety of the council.

It was holorecording of Commander Fox, his fellow Guard Commanders and several members of the Coruscant Guard standing behind him. At his side was Quinlan Vos.

“This is a notice to the GAR as well as to any holonews that might pick up the signal.” Fox paused, Quinlan wrapping an arm tightly around his waist and squeezing. Fox took a deep breath and continued. “As of now the Coruscant Guard is making the unanimous decision to leave the Republic.”

Several choked words echoed behind the announcement, with a loud groan coming from Mace as he slid from his chair and buried his face into Ponds’ shoulder when the Commander crashed to the floor to catch him.

“The Senate is corrupt, the Chancellor is corrupt, this whole damn system of government is corrupt, and we’ll no longer have anything to do with it.” Another deep breath. “You may see in the news that I assassinated the Chancellor as we are leaving. It’s not untrue, if it happens, but you may want to read through the data packet I released with this vid before condemning me to villainhood.”

Quinlan growled over the speakers and Commander Fox nudged him slightly with his shoulder before speaking again.

“When you read the data packet, you will know exactly why we did what we did. After this vid releases, you will never be able to find us, so don’t even try. We removed our slave chips and we’re going out into the galaxy to live our lives the way they were meant to be. I hope the citizens don’t suffer too much while the powerful use this opportunity to become more powerful.”

The entire Guard took a collective breath, Quinlan just as in sync as every vod on the holo.

“May fortune favor you.” They intoned before the holo blacked out.

The council room was silent for several beats before it was broken by Commander Bacara (of all clones).

“What did he mean by slave chips?”

#screamhoney things #star wars #commander fox #coruscant guard #quinfox #foxquin #foxquinweek 2025 #quinfoxweek2025 #quinfox week #quinfoxweek #quinlan vos #quinlan x fox

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officeofcommanderfox · 3 months ago

Note

7. You're not as bad as everyone saids you are. (Reader saying to Fox)

22. If you're still wondering who left flowers at your desk I think I'm ready to put your mind at ease. (Reader surprising Fox with flowers.)

I’m excited to see how you would maneuver these into the story.

Thank you so so much for your ask @darkangel4121 and please accept my (@firstofficerwiggles) apology for the delay in the response. Life has been rather crazy for me. Big props to my co-author @imabeautifulbutterfly for keeping the ship running. But now without further ado, we give you...

The Commander & The Civvie, Chapter 6

Previous Chapter | Fic Main

Pairing: Commander Fox x female reader

Rating: T

Warnings: flirting, suggestive talk

Prompts: 7. You're not as bad as everyone says you are. (Reader saying to Fox)

22. If you're still wondering who left flowers at your desk I think I'm ready to put your mind at ease. (Reader surprising Fox with flowers.)

“This is all a big mistake! You dumb clones don’t know who I am, and when you find out, you’ll regret it!” A large man in a cheap suit was making quite the ruckus as Commander Fox marched him down the corridor.

“Get in there and keep your mouth shut if you know what’s good for you,” Fox snapped as he shoved the criminal into the holding cell. His armor was sporting new blaster marks courtesy of his latest arrest.

“Don’t act so high and mighty, clone boy, my lawyer will have me outta here before breakfast,” the sleazy gangster sneered in Fox’s direction.

“Another Black Sun lowlife, I presume?” Thorn inquired.

“Yes, and this one is charged with assaulting a Marshall Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, so he will be going away for quite some time,” Fox announced in a voice loud enough to carry back to the man in question.

A string of rather colorful swearing answered in response.

Fox and his men had been rounding up Black Sun members and their known associates for a couple weeks now. He was determined to find the men responsible for making threats on your life. Unfortunately the slimy underworld dirtbags seemed to have a team of slimy underhanded lawyers at their disposal such that Fox felt lucky if he could get them past arraignment. But charges against a GAR officer were now being taken more seriously thanks to a new bill introduced by Senator Amidala. It often meant baiting these criminals into taking a cheap shot at him, but he felt it was worth it when it meant charges that wouldn’t be easily dismissed.

As your boss made his way back into your shared office space, you couldn’t hold back a sound of worry,

“Oh no! More blaster scarring? I wish you’d stop making yourself a target, Commander.”

“It’s just a scratch, nothing I can’t fix,” he said with a shrug, although secretly he felt a pleasing warmth in his stomach when you fussed over him.

You were already hurrying over to him with a fresh cup of caf and a med kit.

Fox chuckled, “No med kit needed, Starlight, this new armor is reinforced.”

He took off his helmet and took a deep sip of the caf, humming appreciatively as the warm liquid soothed his throat. When he looked back at you, there was a worried frown on your face and you were shuffling from foot to foot. Setting down his cup with a soft sigh, Fox held out his arms and rotated in a slow spin in front of you.

“Go ahead and look, Starlight, no serious damage, I promise you,” he stated.

You carefully inspected him, eyes darting to examine all the sensitive spots between his armor plating. There was a questionable spot on his side, but upon closer inspection. you realized it was just a loose thread from his black under armor shirt. As you heard Fox clear his throat you looked back up at him, meeting his eyes and realized just how close you were standing to him. You could smell his aftershave mixed with the scent of caf.

“Do I need to take off my armor or maybe strip down for further inspection?” Fox asked, raising an eyebrow and smirking at you, “Tell me, Starlight, is that your plan? To finally see more of me.”

The thought of Fox stripping off his armor in front of you gave you a jolt and you suddenly felt overly warm. You surprised yourself by how much you did want to see him like that, to know exactly how well-built your commander really was. Your surprise must have shown on your face because Fox stepped a bit closer, giving you a sly little smile,

“You can ask if that’s what you want, I’m not shy,” he teased.

“I- I- n-no, I don’t need that, you look great- I mean you look uninjured,” you babbled at him.

Fox laughed as he stepped away and went back to his caf, “Thanks for checking me out.”

“I wasn’t- it wasn’t like that,” you blurt out, face burning with embarrassment

“Whatever you need to tell yourself, Starlight,” he quipped before settling in at his desk.

You were making your way home still thinking about the Commander and his teasing. He had kept it up most of the day, smirking at you across the office and saying flirtatious little things to get a reaction from you, which he managed to do each time. It made you feel good, yet surprised,

When did I start wanting him to flirt with me?

This thought was still running through your head as you arrived at your building. There was a beautiful flower and gift shop on the ground floor, and their colorful display window caught your eye.

“Show someone you care!” a large banner declared as it hung above several beautiful arrangements. There was one in particular, full of red and white blooms in a silver cup, that you were drawn to.

“You have a unique eye.”

The voice pulled you from your musings, when you saw the florist, a middle aged man with a warm smile, standing at the entrance.

“I'm sorry?”

“The arrangements. I arranged these for the boys in red. But it's not selling as well as I’d hoped.”

“The boys in red?”

“The Coruscant Guard. I was hoping people would purchase it and send it as a thank you for all the work those clones do. Plus I donate the profits to Dex's diner, where a clone can eat for free.”

The smile on your lips expanded as you listened to his promotion, “That's such a brilliant idea. I work with them and I can tell you, most people don’t realize how hard and how much they work for all of us.”

“That they do, but somehow, I don't think you were looking at the flowers with every clone in mind. You had someone specific running through your head, didn't you?”

Blood rushed to your face, as he spoke. You prayed he couldn't tell.

“Um… yes.” You cleared your throat being as professional as you could, “The Marshall Commander personally saved me from an incident so I was thinking of getting him some flowers. Well maybe not just him.”

“Why don't you come in and we can arrange something special for your savior,” he teased with a smile.

Two hours later as you sat on your couch in your pjs, you couldn't help but replay the order you submitted to the helpful florist. Maybe it was a mistake to send the bouquet, after all you did send a rather large bouquet to the Commander… well, your Commander, as the florist kept insisting. You wondered if the card was enough or maybe it was too much. Was it all too much?

Fox stood on the main floor of the Senate building with all his officers and prisoners, the air was filled with tension and anxiousness. Everyone was on edge, as they waited for news from the squad sent to investigate Fox’s office.

“What's going on?” you asked as you finally made your way through the crowd, once you had been redirected from the Guard building entrance.

“There you are!” Fox exclaimed in relief.

“Commander, what's going on?”

He held up his finger as he commed Thorn, once he informed Thorn you were safe, he turned his attention back to you.

“We're dealing with a possible incendiary device.”

“Oh my gods.” Your hand moved to cover your mouth, as the shock from what Fox said caused you to open wide. “What happened? Did the Black Sun send a threat? Was it a mailed package? Or did someone leave a suspicious looking bag?”

“No. They're too clever for that. They sent flowers.” Fox reported, making the innocent word sound sinister.

“Eep...” a little yip left your lips as you blinked your eyes a few times trying to register what he just said. “Did you say flowers?”

“Hold on,” Fox held up his hand, as Thorn came from the joint corridor between the Guard building and the Senate building, carrying a rather large bouquet of flowers. As you suspected it was the very same bouquet you had sent to the Commander.

You swallowed slowly, hoping no one was looking at you and noticing the look of horror on your face as it dawned on you that you were the reason for the evacuation. If the ground would open up and swallow you whole in this moment, that would just be fantastic. Or a heart attack, better yet, a heart attack would be better. They could just bury you with the flowers and no one would be wiser.

Come on, heart. Just start attacking.

“All clear, Commander. There were no incendiary devices, it was just–,” Thorn snorted as his mouth shifted fighting the laughter, “Flowers. Ahem! For you.” He passed Fox the bouquet of flowers and the card.

Fox felt his face flush beet red, he didn’t know what joker thought this would be a hilarious prank, but the last thing he needed was 500 pairs of eyes watching him and asking a bunch of questions. He straightened up, turned his head and used his Commander voice. “All right. You heard the man. All clear. What are you waiting for?” He ordered his men back upstairs, and led by example, by moving towards the first lift available. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact he needed to be alone or avoid the curious glances directed toward him and his flowers.

As everyone began heading towards the elevators, you remained grounded in your spot, blinking back the tears and shock that you were single-handedly responsible for this debacle, not to mention, the embarrassment of the man you admired in front of his men and what felt like at least half the senate. You closed your eyes praying for sweet death.

“It's all good, mesh'la.” Thorn chuckled, “I think this is yours.” He passed you the invoice. Your eyes drifted to the piece of flimsi, your eyes focusing on that one spot, the one part that shone as bright as the sun, your name, “It was stuck to the bottom of the bouquet. Don't worry I won't say anything.” Thorn continued to chuckle as he left you standing there really hoping you’d die of embarrassment now.

Fox kept the bouquet on his desk, turning the card in his hand over and over, wondering who in the haran would have sent him flowers.

At first, he imagined it could’ve been Senator Amidala, a sort of, keep-up-the-good-work type of encouragement, or maybe he thought this was just a treat from her, but she had no idea what he was referring to. Then he considered it might have been one of his clone brethren, a vain attempt to try and humiliate him, but they all denied it. Wolffe especially seemed offended at such a childish prank, and Cody wasn't going to let him live it down any time soon. Rex, well he couldn’t stop laughing for a good five minutes.

He had spent a whole day on this and nothing. Not one clue. The card itself held a rather cryptic, albeit bemusing, message. There was no name of the flower shop either on the card nor the flowers themselves, and there had been no record of the delivery, which had led to his original assumption that these flowers were ill-intended.

“Ahem! Commander” your voice was barely above a whisper, so it was no wonder that Fox didn't react right away. “Commander.” Your voice rang through a little louder this time.

Fox shifted his eyes away from the flowers and focused on you,

“Oh, Starlight. Sorry. This day has been weird, and my mind is all over the place.”

He cleared his throat and put the card down, giving you his undivided attention, “Anyway, what can I do for you?”

You stepped in, closing the door behind you, as you began fidgeting with the hem of your top, “Um, I need to tell you something.”

“Okay.”

You took in a deep breath, closing your eyes briefly wondering if telling him the truth was the right thing to do. Obviously, it was. After the mess you caused this morning, not to mention his own embarrassment, he had a right… no, he deserved to know the truth.

“Commander, if you're still wondering who left flowers at your desk, I think I'm ready to put your mind at ease.”

“Sorry, ready to put my mind at ease?”

You nodded, trying to avoid looking into his warm, tender eyes, “Please don't be upset. But it was me.”

Fox's eyes widened, “You?”

“You're not as bad as everyone says you are.”

His eyes went from his Starlight to the card he received with the flowers. There was the message just as she had quoted, word for word.

A million questions ran through his mind, and yet rather than asking a thing, he started laughing. He laughed so hard tears came to his eyes and his cheeks ached. It was the most enthusiastic laugh you’d heard in a long time, and it was certainly the happiest you’d ever seen your Commander. He held his forehead as his elbow rested on the desk while he shook his head.

“Starlight, only you could cause an incident on such a colossal scale.”

“I'm sorry. I never imagined–,”

“Did you mean it?” He cut you off.

“Sorry?”

“Did you mean what you wrote?”

“Every word.”

He nodded as he stood walking over to you, gently cupping your cheek, “You… you baffle me.” He gently stroked your cheek, the shock and surprise of his actions written all over your face, which only made him smile brighter, “Starlight. Have dinner with me.”

Send Commander Fox an ask and continue the story!

Tag list 1: @boomtowngirl @becks-things @tailorvizsla @catsnkooks @bitchin-beskar

@acourtofsnakes @grogusmum @buzzybeebee @deannie13 @ladykatakuri @noodlesfics @the-good-shittt @everythingyouwanted @jewfro24 @vaderthepotater @pinkiemme @laichka @myeternalsin @kazthedestroyer @writeforfandoms @trekkingaroundasgard @beskarmermaid @flightlessangelwings @heyitsaloy @pickleprickle @lune-de-miel-au-paradis @cloneloverrrrr @deewithani @pro-fangirls-unsocial-life @atlas-likes-writing @mysticalgalaxysalad @tazmbc1

#commander fox #commander fox x reader #commander fox x female reader #office of commander fox #coruscant guard #commander fox fanfiction #star wars #star wars the clone wars #star wars the clone wars fanfiction #the commander and the civvie

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wistfulforstars · 7 months ago

Text

For What It's Worth - Part 5

Rex x Reader

Summary: Rex prepares himself to leave you behind as the battlefield calls, but his superiors have something else in store.

Warnings: reader is afab, reader isn't present this chapter, Rex is shipping out, Fox continues to be a bro, General Skywalker is easily manipulated, I play fast and loose with military protocols, mature sexual content in later chapters, minors: get out

Tag List: @bambiswriting @jessyhazy

If anyone would like to be added to the tag list, please comment below or message/ask directly.

Rex could not figure out for the life of him why briefings had to be so early.

Not that this one was unexpected, the 501st had been planet-side for a week. The boys appreciated the leave, and The Resolute was in need of a distinct number of special repairs after their last run-in with the Separatists.

General Skywalker (who, to be perfectly honest, was more the cause of the repairs than the seppies were) and General Koon gave the briefing, and even though Rex knew it was coming, his heart still sank at the thought of leaving you.

You had made remarkable improvements in the last week, now able to limp around your apartment like a champ, at least for short amounts of time. Your doctor was very pleased, but had expressly forbid you from going back to work before two more weeks of recuperation and at least one more physical. You were most irate.

For his part, Rex had been spending all his time at your apartment, helping you around your home, learning how to use kitchen utensils and a cookbook (he only burned something beyond recognition twice), and running errands to the shops in your area. You had somehow gotten ahold of some civvie wear for him, and he was barely noticed on the streets. Alentia was grateful to be able to go back to her own job, and Rex couldn’t remember enjoying a leave more.

He’d never experienced domesticity before. He’d never cooked for anyone or run down to a corner store for snacks, or spent a week curled up on a sofa. You were going to have to record the soap opera you’d gotten him into. He didn’t think he could miss it if Sirin and Jera actually got together.

In a week, all by yourself and barely able to move, you’d shifted his world beneath his feet. You’d made him think maybe he could have something simple and sweet after the war. Maybe something that made it all worth it in the first place. He’d caught himself staring into jewelry stores with a full heart and entirely empty pockets several times, wrenching himself away with reminders that it was too soon, and his position was too precarious, and right now he could offer you too little.

And for now, well, he supposed that little daydream was over. These briefings usually ended with a mission plan laid out and orders to give the boys. A ship out date, a plan of attack, and a certain trooper named Fives to find and drag out of 79’s were all looming in his very immediate future.

He didn’t want to go. For the first time since he’d donned it, his armor felt far too heavy.

Standing at silent attention next to Commander Tano, he caught Commander Wolffe’s (non-cybernetic) eye. His brother raised an eyebrow and jerked his head at the battle plans the generals were pouring over.

Okay, so maybe he’d been a little more quiet than usual.

“...should be enough to establish an outpost,” Skywalker finished up. He raised his head and glanced at all the senior staff. “Does anyone here have anything to add?”

The room was silent. Perhaps it was the early hour, or perhaps they all knew that Anakin Skywalker would do whatever he damn well pleased, comments or no. Admiral Ularen stifled a yawn, and the general nodded.

“Alright, you all have your orders, we depart in two days. Dismissed.”

Rex grabbed at his datapad and made sure that the briefing had downloaded to it. He’d review the details later, after he broke the news to you.

He had just turned to leave when General Skywalker’s voice sounded out again, “Captain Rex, would you stay behind a moment?”

On instinct, Rex turned on his heel and stood at attention, “Of course, sir.”

Anakin smiled, “At ease. Could you follow me, please?”

They left The Resolute’s bridge for the officer’s break room just down the hall. It was seldom used, though sometimes Rex and a few others would finish paperwork in the dead of night right next to the caf machine.

When the door opened, Rex’s blood froze. Commander Fox sat at the table, sipping dark caf out of a disposable cup. He looked perfectly at ease.

Anakin had already pulled out a chair, “Have a seat, Rex.”

As he did so, Rex stared daggers at his brother. There was only one possible explanation for his presence here, and if his hunch was correct, if Fox had done what he suspected, it was all over. His relationship with you, his position, his rank, his hope for a future. All because of fucking-

“Commander Fox is wanting to steal you for a few weeks,” Skywalker said cheerily.

…What?

Rex turned his head to stare at his brother, then back at his general, “I…pardon me, sir?”

Anakin shrugged, “As he’s been explaining it to me, anti-clone sentiment has been growing on Coruscant. The Guard has been keeping track of several attacks on civilians that may be linked to the movement, and a rally is apparently being held sometime in the next couple weeks.”

Rex’s stomach started to untangle itself. He was apparently not in trouble. But all of this still didn’t explain why Fox would want to steal him. What Fox was even doing here.

“The Commander tells me that the Guard is spread too thin. Between the threat of the rally and continuing to protect the senate, the chancellor, and the streets, he doesn’t have enough officers of experience and rank to coordinate the guard. Since the 501st is the only legion planet-side right now, and since you have real conflict experience, not to mention an excellent reputation for doing more with less,” Anakin smirked at that. “Fox has asked if I’d be willing to leave you here, under his command, until we return from our newest mission.”

Rex tried to keep the utter shock off of his face. He turned to Fox, who was smiling pleasantly, nonchalantly. His thoughts turned to you for just a moment, sitting on your couch, saddened by the knowledge that he’d come back and tell you he was shipping out. Then he remembered he was sitting next to his commanding officer, a loveable shithead with the talent for reading thoughts and feelings, and he shook the image away.

“What about my men?” He turned to his general. “It’s not…it wouldn’t be right to leave them without someone they can turn to.”

Anakin snorted, “What am I, invisible? The 501st will be fine for a single mission, Rex. Commander Tano and Jesse will act as their immediate superiors, while Commander Wolffe, General Koon, and I will supervise the coordination of all the troopers.”

“I…but…”

“We aren’t forcing you, captain. You can join the mission as planned or you can stay here and assist Fox with the Guard.”

Rex was reeling. He could stay on Coruscant. With you. He could stay until you were better, until you could walk entirely under your own power and cook for yourself and…

He cleared his throat, “What…” he began, turning to Fox this time. “What exactly would this assignment entail?”

His brother tried to hide his smirk, but Rex saw it for what it was.

“Nothing you haven’t done before,” Fox gestured with his hands. “Help me coordinate troopers and prioritize special persons of interest who may be under threat. The victims of the previous attacks, the chancellor, senators like Organa or Amidala.”

Rex very deliberately did not look back at Skywalker as heard that last name. The pieces had fallen into place, “I see.” He paused for just a moment. “Well, if this is the best way I can be of service to the Republic, then I accept my assignment.”

Skywalker clapped his hands together, “Excellent! I’ll leave you two to hash out the details. I have some other business to attend to.” He placed his hand on Rex’s shoulder as he turned to leave. “Good luck, captain. I know you’ll make the most of this mission.”

Rex tensed, but Anakin left the room without another word. As soon as the door was sealed, Fox let out a low chuckle.

“Other business he says,” he folded his arms. “Like Amidala isn’t just getting home from a midnight session as we speak.”

Rex narrowed his eyes at his brother, “What the hell, Fox? Why would you go all the way to Skywalker spouting some story about how you can’t handle the Guard-”

“Thought you’d be excited,” the commander shrugged. “You get to stay in the same city as your girl, go home to her when your shift’s over, make sure she’s okay for a little while longer. And…I wasn’t lying. The Guard is spread too thin, and the chancellor won’t give me any more troopers for the moment. I know what you can do, Rex. I’ve seen the mission reports. I saw a win-win, and I took a stab at it.”

Rex shook his head, “You told him Amidala was under threat, didn’t you?”

“Sure, I’m not above a little emotional manipulation to ensure my men don’t get swarmed. I work with politicians every day, Rex. I’ve picked up a few things.”

“Is she even in danger?”

“Of course she is,” Fox rubbed his eyes. “When is that woman not in danger? She stands for more controversial causes than every other senator combined. No sense of self-preservation, that one.”

“She and him have that in common.”

They laughed together, and the rest of the tension in the room dissipated. Rex looked at his brother, grey hair starting to sprout up amongst the black, and wondered if he looked as equally tired.

“Thank you,” he murmured, and Fox smiled.

“Bout time. I only got you out of shipping off to the battlefield.”

They stared at each other a moment longer, and Rex felt a rush of gratitude for his brothers, for the only family he’d ever known, “You didn’t have to do it, by the way.”

Fox broke eye contact and stared down at the floor. When he spoke, his voice came out smaller than Rex had ever heard it, “At least this way, one of us can…” he paused, shook his head, and met his brother’s eyes again. “At least this way I can live vicariously through you.”

Rex exhaled, slowly, “You’ve never acknowledged it before. That there was something between you and Ularen’s-”

“She was my secretary, before Ularen’s last one had a mental breakdown,” Fox’s jaw had gone tense. “I…ran into her a few days ago.”

“I’m sorry,” Rex thought he had problems, but he couldn’t imagine…

Fox just stood, and fiddled with his belt, “It doesn’t matter anymore. There was nothing I could do for my…situation-”

“So you did something for mine.”

For just a faction of a second, Fox looked like he might cry. But he simply squared his shoulders, and nodded once stiffly, “Take the rest of your leave, report to guard headquarters after your troopers ship out. I’ll give you a full briefing then.”

Before Rex could respond, his brother had his helmet back on and was already out the door.

He stood there for a minute… two… three… ensconced in the surprise of his new reality. Then he slowly brought his comm up, and typed a message to Jesse.

Rex: I’ve been assigned to a different mission. You’re up. Start looking for Fives NOW.

His heart was weighty, but his steps were light as he left The Resolute and took a speeder home. You were waiting.

#captain rex #the clone wars #captain rex x female reader #captain rex x reader #captain rex x you #clone wars fanfiction #sw tcw fanfic #wisteriabyrnefanfic #wistysfics

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weyrwolfen · 8 months ago

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Caveat Emptor: Chapter 1 - Mens Rea

Rating: T

Characters: Gen, Commanders Fox, Thorn, Thire, and Stone

Warnings: canon-typical violence; references to self-harm, injuries, loss of autonomy

I will be posting future chapters here on Tumblr and here on Ao3

“… require to complete your mission?”

Fox’s right hand hovered over his left vambrace. A light was flashing on the right side of his armor’s control panel, signaling the completion of some task. He’d been typing something…

Little gods, his head hurt.

“CC-1010, what do you require to complete your mission?” the same voice, a very familiar voice, repeated.

“Thorn?” Fox asked, looking up. His vision was blurred, but not so severely that he couldn’t make out Thorn, Stone, and Scav lined up on the other side of his desk, all three fully armored and standing at precise parade rest.

Thorn’s shoulders dropped ever so slightly, and he asked, “You back with us, Fox?”

Fox would have liked to answer, but his head was pounding viciously in time with his pulse. His stomach heaved, and he tore at his helmet, pulling it off with shaking hands.

Someone shoved a wastebin on the desk in front of him, just in time to catch the mess as his stomach violently emptied itself.

Thorn cursed a steady stream of invectives in at least three languages. Someone pried Fox’s helmet out of his grip, and a gloved hand landed on the back of his neck, heavy and grounding. He had no idea who it was, and he wasn’t exactly in a position to look up and check at the moment.

Ration bars and nutrient slurry had about the same texture going down as they did coming back up, but the accompanying stomach acids bit at the back of his throat and burned inside his sinuses where some of the vomit had taken a decidedly unwelcome alternate escape route. All of that would have been unpleasant enough, but Fox was much more concerned with the way every move, every twitch, sent burning agony searing behind his eyes.

Something metallic pressed against the side of his neck. There was a quiet beep, a soft hiss, and then a wave of tingling cold.

The pain receded, dragged down by a now-familiar cocktail of powerful painkillers, anti-nausea medications, and stims to try to counter the mental fog and artificial exhaustion caused by the other two. Fox locked his knees, hands braced on his desk to either side of the wastebin to stop them from trembling too obviously.

He karking hated his men seeing him like this.

Scratch that, he just karking hated this. Full stop.

Fox spat in the bin, trying to clear some of the taste from his mouth. “How long?” he asked, throat raw and voice correspondingly hoarse.

“Four hours,” Thorn answered somewhere off to Fox’s left. “We think.”

Four hours. Not so long, all things considered.

Four hours during which his highly-trained, highly-competent body was up and wandering around Coruscant, doing kark even knew what, utterly outside of his conscious control.

Fox forced himself to keep breathing slowly and evenly, clamping down on the sick horror that was creeping down his spine. He really ought to be used to this by now. It certainly happened to him enough.

“Here,” Scav said, voice no longer filtered through his helmet’s vocoder. The hand on Fox’s nape vanished, and an open canteen appeared in his slowly clearing field of vision.

He accepted it, took a small sip to rinse out his mouth, and spat again. A drop of blood landed in the bin, bright red against the rest of the yellowish mess and empty stim wrappers.

“I’m bleeding,” he admitted flatly. They’d been tracking his symptoms for a while now, trying to figure out what the kriff was going on. The headaches and nausea were getting consistently worse. The blood was new though.

“Let me see,” Scav said. It wasn’t a request.

Fox straightened, stance unnaturally stiff to counter his lingering unsteadiness, and gestured vaguely towards his face. Scav just pressed his lips together in a thin, unhappy line before fishing a few squares of sterile pads out of his medkit.

“Here,” he said, handing Fox the pads. “Pinch your nostrils closed with that and tip your head forward. Not backward. You’ve already puked once today.”

The look Fox leveled at Scav was scathing.

The medic just stared back at him, thoroughly unintimidated and unimpressed.

Maybe Fox was slipping. Maybe the shakiness and wastebin of puke on his desk was detracting from his usual ability to intimidate his troopers. Or maybe the Kaminoans electroshocked any kind of reasonable fear response out of medic-track clones. Who even knew at this point?

Fox pinched his nostrils closed and tipped his head forward, glowering out from underneath his lowered brows.

Scav ignored him and instead turned his attention to pulling the liner out of Fox’s wastebin and tying it off. Thank kriff for that.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Thorn asked, hands gripping the back of the chair on the opposite side of Fox’s desk.

Did they really need to do this standing? Stims or not, Fox’s head was swimming.

Kark it, he was still the commanding officer here. He was going to sit down before he fell down.

“I left Disc in charge of security for Senator Leshro’s press conference to respond to a report of outages affecting the cameras in Thesh 16,” Fox said, lowering himself into his chair. The worn, battered thing was more comfortable than it had any right to be. “I spoke to Odal, something about rodents chewing on the wiring. Someone commed me…”

Whatever these lapses really were, they always started with a comm. That had been the first thing they’d recognized. To date, it was just about the only pattern they’d been able to pin down related to these incidents.

It was difficult even thinking about it. Fox’s mind tried to gloss over the gap, slither away from even considering it. As best as they could tell, these blackouts started as soon as Fox arrived on Coruscant, but it had taken months for him to even recognize that something was happening. They’d been infrequent at first, sporadic, but they were picking up in frequency and duration as time went on.

He should have reported the lapses to the Chancellor as soon as he had realized what was happening, but something always stopped him. The same self-preservation instinct they’d all learned back on Kamino, where hiding weaknesses of any kind was necessary to their survival. Sheev Palpatine smiled at all the right times and said all of the right words, but every time Fox was in the man’s presence, he left in a cold sweat. It was irrational; Fox couldn’t identify a single piece of solid evidence to explain his body’s involuntary reactions. But there were only two things he trusted without thought or question: his instincts and his brothers. Everything else had to earn it.

Especially natborn politicians with gentle smiles and cold, sharp eyes.

And so Fox had instead informed a select number of his brothers.

As it turned out, he wasn’t the only one experiencing missing time and unexplainable inconsistencies in his reports. His lapses had just been happening more frequently than the others’.

The fact that he was not the only one had sunk Fox’s initial idea for how to fix the situation. A single death among the Guard’s commanders could be made to look like an accident. But all four of them would be nearly impossible to conceal. And even then, it wouldn’t guarantee that the underlying threat had been removed. If they were all already compromised, then there was no telling how extensive the problem was.

And if anyone outside of the Guard learned about their situation, chances were good they’d all be decommissioned en masse. His own death Fox could accept. But not the deaths of all the brothers under his command.

So they investigated. They’d had no other choice. None of them had been trained for it, but on Coruscant, they’d had to learn. As more and more duties were piled on their heads, they’d had to learn fast.

But finding any actionable leads proved to be difficult.

As the most frequently affected, tracking Fox’s actual movements seemed like a critical first step. However, it rapidly became apparent that one of the first things he – or rather CC-1010 – did when he received those comms was to deactivate his armor’s recording devices. The three times they’d tried hiding a tracking chip or recording device inside Fox’s armor, CC-1010 had removed them, too.

Fox was fairly certain that the others had figured out another way to keep track of his movements. They never said anything concrete, and he made sure to not ask.

Now, if he could just remember something. Anything.

Four kriffing hours. There was no telling what he might have done.

Scav was talking again, words buzzing against the edges of Fox’s wandering attention. He needed to focus, but the meds were making it difficult.

The meds. Sure. Not like a command-track clone would be weak enough to disassociate in the comfort and security of his own office.

Medical scans. Scav wanted permission to perform a medical scan, to check Fox for additional injuries.

Fox nodded.

It took a few minutes for Scav to run his tests and interpret the results. Minutes Fox didn’t want to admit he needed to re-engage with his surroundings.

The others just stood guard, Thorn at Fox’s side and Stone blocking the door.

Fox was mildly dehydrated and his blood chemistry was beyond irregular. The scanner flagged Fox’s brainwaves as ‘anomalous,’ whatever that meant. He had a variety of minor cuts and contusions scattered across his body, but who on base didn’t? There was nothing concrete in those scans, nothing actionable. Scav still wanted Fox to report to the medbay for observation after the other two commanders were done with him.

There was no point in arguing. At least no one tried to object when Fox gathered up a stack of datapads on the way out of the room. The work of running the Guard didn’t disappear just because Fox’s body took the occasional ‘involuntary side-mission.’

Fox was just steady enough on his feet to march down to the room they converted for their off-the-books investigation, buckets back on as an unspoken message to any passing Guard that they were not to be bothered.

When they arrived, Fox put his own codes into the security panel and pushed his way inside. Anyone searching for blueprints of the building would only see a small broom closet surrounded by storage rooms too full of shelves and crates to make it obvious that their dimensions didn’t quite match the ones recorded in the official floorplans. And if any trespassing natborn did get a little too nosy for their own good, the door panel would return a rather benign-looking error message and send out a security ping in response to anything other than a Guard commander’s personal codes.

The Guard’s slicers did good work, and all of them knew when to refrain from noticing things around base.

Fox had never meant for things to go this far, involving more and more of their men in this deception, but they were all in too deep to course correct now.

There was a medical cot situated in one corner of the space. Fox made his way towards it, placing the datapads on a nearby table before turning to face his brothers, hands out and palms up. Waiting.

Thorn and Stone worked over Fox’s body like it was an active crime scene.

Maybe that was what it was. Maybe that was exactly what Fox was.

They dusted his plate for fingerprints and swabbed his gauntlets for chemical residues. They misted him from bucket to boots with luminol and sampled anything that fluoresced. They imaged and tweezed, bagged and tested. All according to cobbled together CSF protocol, all completely off the books. The terminals they were using weren’t networked with the rest of the base. The equipment had been reported as damaged and disposed of in the Guard’s official inventories or ‘borrowed’ from CSF surplus.

Data started to roll in, providing disturbing hints, but no solid answers.

His blasters’ charge packs were at 87% and 92%. They should have been full.

There was blood on his gauntlets, just a single drop nearly lost against the red paint, and even less than that on his right pauldron. The sample on his hands tested as clone-standard. It was most likely his own, probably from his nosebleed earlier. The sample from his pauldron was human but lacked the genetic markers of a Fett clone. To get any more detailed identification, they’d need to run the sample through the CSF’s database, and that would require some creativity and the help of one of their slicers.

In addition to the blood, Fox had traces of chemical accelerants on his hands and greasy soot on his kama, something organic and too degraded from the heat to properly identify.

They brushed all sorts of fine particulates out of the treads of his boots, fibers and foodstuffs and flecks of plascrete. Some of it was identifiable – the red filaments were consistent with the carpeting in several of the hallways in the Senate dome, the keratinous ovals were shed massif scales, the brown grains were crystals of instant caf powder – and some of it was not. Fox doubted any of it would be useful, but Thorn and Stone bagged and tagged it all anyway, storing it away for later reference, just in case.

Then his armor came off and they started the same process on his blacks.

More blood, more chemical residues. Two silver hairs, human or near-human in origin.

Then on his skin.

The entire process was invasive as all kriff, but no more so than their medical screenings had been back on Kamino. At least here, he had datapads of busywork to distract himself from the poking and prodding, swabbing and sticking.

At least he was safe among brothers he trusted.

“Huh,” Stone said thoughtfully. “Thorn, come here.”

Fox looked up from the requisition forms he’d been signing and found his brother hovering in front of him holding a small UV stick next to Fox’s cheek.

Thorn, who’d been entering something into the terminal, immediately dropped what he was doing and walked over to the exam table.

“What does that look like to you?” Stone asked, passing the stick from left to right in front of Fox’s face.

Fox’s eyes tracked the light for a moment, and then took a moment to assess Stone’s scrupulously neutral expression and Thorn’s badly concealed fury.

“Don’t touch it,” Thorn finally said, turning on his heel and going back to the desk.

Fox caught Stone’s eye. “Tell me,” he said, tone just shy of a direct order.

“There’s an oval-shaped bruise here,” Stone said, fingers hovering near Fox’s left cheek without actually touching. “And four more here,” he continued, shifting to Fox’s right cheek and down towards the underside of his jaw. “They’re too faint to see under regular light just yet, but the spacing suggests–”

“A handprint,” Fox interrupted. Someone had grabbed him by the face, palm over his mouth, and squeezed hard enough to bruise. Why? He took a deep breath, ruthlessly stamping out the instinctive need to raise a hand to his cheek to press down on the bruising so he could feel it. He could imagine several dozen different scenarios for how he might have gotten those bruises, each worse than the last. “Any idea whose?”

“Standard human to near-human digit number and configuration, no evidence of claws or other anatomical markers,” Stone reported, keeping the report strictly professional. “We’ll need measurements to be sure, but I’d guess a hand on the larger end of medium human-standard. And there is some kind of residue coating each fingerprint.”

Thorn was back with a recording device in hand. “I need images before we try pulling samples,” he explained unnecessarily. Fox knew perfectly well how this all went.

White light images, then UV. Adhesive peels, then chemical swabs. The chances they could pull a usable print off his Fox’s skin were next to nonexistent, but measurements of the bruising and chemical analyses of the residues might prove useful.

What were the chances?

Thorn and Stone took blood sample, saliva samples, sweat swabs, kriffing urine, but they finally let Fox get into a set of clean blacks and his thoroughly decontaminated plate. Thorn stayed behind to keep running analyses while Stone delivered Fox to the medbay along with the first round of test results.

It took very little bullying from Scav to convince Fox to take a real water shower in the medbay’s ‘fresher. Fox felt unclean, in every possible interpretation of the word.

His usual room was ready and waiting for him, thin scratchy sheets turned down like a sad attempt at kriffing five-star penthouse hospitality.

Scav made an appearance right about the same time Fox had started approving the updates to the Guard’s patrol schedules. The medic ran an IV and hung what he swore was just a saline drip above Fox’s cot.

It wasn’t only saline. The sedatives kicked in when Fox was only half-way through his stack of prisoner-transfer requests.

Medics were meddling shabuire. All of them.

“Fox, wake up.”

The voice sounded distant and muffled, like Fox was hearing it through water. He was usually a light sleeper, but the vague, dark dream he was having seemed resistant to letting him go completely.

“Kriff, how much did Scav give him?”

“Enough to keep him under for a full eight hours.”

“So, enough to kill a mid-sized bantha. What can you give him to get him back on his feet?”

That sounded like Thire. Maybe. But Thire didn’t have red-shot, yellow eyes.

“That’s really not a good idea. His bloodwork is still a trash fire.”

“We don’t have a choice, it’s the Jedi calling.”

“Kriff. Right. Hold on.”

Fox drifted, not really awake and not really asleep, something like dread tugging at the edges of his consciousness. Finally something prickled along his senses, tipping the scales towards wakefulness.

The dull, throbbing ache behind his eyes reasserted itself. It was nothing in comparison to before, of course, but deeply unpleasant all the same. The sound he made was half protest, half dire threat.

“Rise and shine,” a familiar voice said, full of easy sarcasm and false cheer. Thire.

“Get karked,” Fox said, but his voice sounded rough and still half-drugged. He cracked his eyes open and glared at Thire.

That earned a brief snort of amusement. “There’s my cheerful commander.”

“I can and will kill you.”

“Hold that thought,” Thire said, craning around to look at something off to Fox’s right. “I need the room.”

Fox turned his head to the side and caught sight of Clave, Scav’s second, backing out of the door and shutting it behind him with an audible click.

It took some doing, but Fox managed to shove himself up into a sitting position without tangling himself in his IV line. “I take it there’s a situation,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

The false front of teasing fell away, leaving Thire’s expression suddenly grim. “The Jedi council has requested your presence in the Chancellor’s office at your earliest convenience.”

‘At your earliest convenience’ was quite the loaded phrase. Fox could only assume that it meant, ‘Drop what you’re working on and go now.’

“Why the Chancellor’s office?” he asked, scrubbing a hand across his eyes. His blacks were still in reasonable shape, folded on the shelf next to his neatly stacked armor, which Thorn had scrubbed down to the molecular level yesterday. Fox could be presentable and on his way in a few minutes, just as soon as the lingering sedatives lost their fight with the new influx of stimulants in his bloodstream.

It was a kriffing wonder of Kaminoan engineering that his liver hadn’t given out months ago.

And Thire still hadn’t answered Fox’s question.

He looked up and found Thire watching him, expression gone impossibly darker. Fox was about to snap at his subordinate commander when Thire finally answered.

“The Chancellor is missing.”

The words sent Fox’s stomach into freefall, but Thire wasn’t done speaking.

“It looks like you might have been the last person who saw him yesterday.”

That didn’t make any sense, unless…

“I didn’t have a meeting with the Chancellor yesterday,” Fox said, voicing the obvious protest even though he already knew what Thire was going to say. He balled his hands into fists on top of his scratchy sheets.

Something in Thire’s eyes looked anguished, but his voice was as even and steely as before when he said, “Yes, you did.”

AN: This is something of a sequel to Clocking Time, not that you need to have read it to understand this one. Just call it the logical next step when you're in the jaws of a rabid plot bunny.

#caveat emptor fanfic #star wars fanfic #tcw fanfic #clone wars fanfic #the clone wars fanfic #commander fox #commander thorn #commander thire #commander stone #coruscant guard

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tanobatcher · 30 days ago

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mingle

TCW SQUID GAME AU

commander fox (▵ guard) x fem (player) reader

summary: assigned as player 066, you’ve entered the squid games and made it through the first two days. under the assumption everyone around you is a complete stranger, you’re surprised when you discover that one of the guards is an old flame who disappeared on you a few years ago without explanation. warnings: violence and explicit content (oral + vaginal sex) .. also this is kind of toxic so pls don't mistake this for what a relationship should look like ig idk...it's complicated :) a/n: this one shot is inspired by the squid game universe with s2 currently trending rn. there is def canon divergence for there to be more realistic interactions (😏) between the guards and the players (each player has a room with a bathroom instead of the big common room. like what the guards have in the show. hygiene is very important guys!!) tbh this is a crossover i never expected to do but the idea randomly came to me as i was watching and i thought fox fit the guard persona super well. here we are!! if you’re not familiar with squid game, it’s basically a kdrama where people compete against each other in a series of survival games to win a LOT of money. most of them are in crippling debts or need the money for a bad situation. elimination during a game = death so there's a huge morality aspect to participation and just the overall idea. triangle guards like fox are responsible for eliminating losing players, among other things like maintaining order and making sure people follow the rules.

Blood is strangely dark after it’s been spilled for some time. The color only deepens with despair, staining flesh and fabric like a reminder of every choice that has brought you here.

“The lights are out, 66. You’re not permitted to leave your room at this time.”

Exhaling slowly, you look up at the guard standing before you as the door to your private room swings shut with an echoing bang. Unfortunately, you can hardly consider it up to standard with what a room should be. It’s a sanitary little space, but there’s only a cot barely elevated on a rickety bed frame for rest. You’re more grateful for the bathroom attached, given the amount of other players who wound up in these games. Sharing is not caring anymore. It never was.

“I was just wondering if you had an extra change of clothes,” you explain to the guard, “I…couldn’t get all of the blood off.”

Your fingers find the hem of your sweater as you stretch the fabric out to show him some of the lingering stains from a few hours ago. Getting through a series of childhood games thus far didn’t seem so difficult until bullets started raining from the sky. One by one, you had to watch the people around you drop like flies as their blood splattered across your body. It felt like a warning at the time. You’re next.

“The lights,” the guard replies tersely, “Are out. Return to your room.”

A frown tinges your expression as you register this dismissal. It’s hard to read what this guard is thinking—what any of them are thinking, for that matter—because everything about them is kept hidden. Their bodies are completely covered in their pink uniforms. Their voices are altered through a grainy modulator that leaves zero room for vulnerability. It’s as if they’re robots. Finally, to top it all off, their faces are left to question under their masks. This one in particular has a triangle on his. What’s more striking to you, though, is the firearm in his hands. It’s not pointed at you, but you imagine that it could be. Sooner or later.

“This place doesn’t have terrible hospitality…” you begin while thinking about all that’s been provided already. Food. Water. A bed. A bathroom. And clothes, which you’re really hoping to get a new pair of. Showering feels ridiculous if you’re just going to wear the same, dirty thing every day you spend here.

“…So, I’m surprised you’re not able to give us a fresh set of these upon request,” you continue, tugging at your sweater before letting your hands fall to your sides.

“We’re not. I suggest you comply with the rules,” the guard tells you in a monotone. You don’t miss that he’s taken one step forward, too. Just as his fingers tighten around his firearm, you instinctively shift backward and feel your heartbeat quicken.

“Or what?” You retort despite the goosebumps rising across your skin, “You’ll shoot me?”

He’s now right in front of you, still not pointing the muzzle at you even though you know he’s more than willing to do so. Just before, you and your fellow players voted on whether or not to continue the games. Stopping here would have meant walking away with an equal cut of what’s already been collected from the first couple of rounds. But, just as money makes the world go round, it’s also starved most of the people here. Everyone, including you, is hungry for a chance to collect as much as possible from this opportunity.

But the question of whether or not it’s worth all of this bloodshed lingers in your mind. Hence why you keep voting for termination after each game thus far, earning a red patch on your sweater that indicates your unchanging decision. There were many like-minded individuals who felt disappointed upon seeing that the majority consistently chose continuation. Arguments arose, brawls festered here and there, but the triangle guards hardly tolerated such behavior. A simple threat from someone carrying a weapon was enough to silence the crowd. You know better than to test the patience of this one.

So, you don’t wait for his response. Turning around, your hand latches around the cold doorknob that is just about to turn when he speaks from behind you. His voice is cold, unfeeling. Stern and unflinching. Just as someone like him should be.

“Don’t waste your time asking for favors around here.”

“Got it,” you breathe, ignoring the chill running down your spine, “Thanks.”

You steal a glance at him over your shoulder before heading inside your dark room. Expecting the door to close behind you, you’re startled when it’s pushed back open a little aggressively. The action is unpredictable, like the sudden presence of the guard standing in your door frame. Your eyes go wide as he just stands there, heaving a ragged breath. But right when you open your mouth to ask what you’ve done wrong this time, he leaves. The door finally slams shut, and all is quiet except for the question of why he nearly followed you into your room. It’s unclear what his intentions were at that moment, but your thoughts don’t keep you awake. Only your memories do, as you try to sleep away the screams that will haunt you for the rest of this shortening lifetime.

Eventually, your body slips into a half-assed slumber that is quickly interrupted when you hear thuds and curses in the distance. These sounds are muffled through the walls, but there’s no doubt about their existence. You flinch when someone shrieks in pain, sending all sorts of questions about what’s going on tonight. For the past few days, the lights-out period has been your only time of relaxation. But with the growing hunger among your fellow players, it’s hard to determine if you’re still safe without any immediate allies. There have been some groups banding together, some of which cause more trouble than others. The worst ones are always provocative, looking for a fight. Has it arrived tonight? Or have they brought it themselves?

Your doorknob suddenly rattles, startling you out of bed. The sound is quickly paired with banging amid a pleading cry that causes you to stand and move forward.

“Help!” The person on the other side says, “Please, help me—they’re trying to kill me—Open the fucking door!”

Pressing your ear against the cool, metal door, you reply, “Who’s there?”

“Does it matter? Hurry—Please—“

The desperation in his voice wracks your body with a brief shiver. Noticing that the hallway outside has gone quiet all of a sudden, you crack your door open just a tiny bit to catch a glimpse of what’s going on. You’re not even able to blink before you regret this. Having been under the impression that this was just one person seeking solace in your room from whatever threat was nearing, you’re surprised when a rowdy group infiltrates your space as if it means nothing to them. Their faces are shadowed by the lack of lighting, but you don’t need to recognize them to know you just made a mistake when you should’ve minded your own business.

One of them reaches forward to grab you by the front of your sweater while the others circle your position like hawks stalking their prey. They’re definitely all men, bloodthirsty at that. Are they hoping to raise their chances of winning by morning? Collect more money from the silent deaths to occur tonight? This seems to be the only feasible explanation for why they suddenly have you pinned to the floor on your stomach with a switchblade to your neck.

“Told you this one would fall for it,” an unfamiliar voice snickers, “I think we’re getting lucky tonight.”

Despite the voice in your head telling you to fight back—even while the odds are against your favor—your body is locked and frozen. A bead of sweat drops from your forehead onto the floor as you inhale shaky breaths that can’t be controlled no matter how hard you try to remain calm. The blade presses into your neck harder, almost teasingly like the chatter going on around you. At this point, you’d rather these assholes just get it over with and kill you. That would save you from the panic crushing your insides so painfully that you almost can’t breathe.

“Aw, don’t cry…I think we’re scaring her…” The blade is now tracing a line down your cheek, still not digging past your skin. You didn’t even register your own tears until your assailant pointed them out.

“Fuck you,” is all you spit out in return.

“Careful. You’re not really in a position to get rude with me.”

You scoff at this, ensuring the tone is more mocking than meek. “Kill me, then. I hope it’s fucking worth it.”

The blade moves lower, and you fully expect this player to slit your throat right then and there. Biting your tongue, you internally curse yourself for not even trying to bargain or beg your way out of this situation. But it would have been useless. Throughout the past few days, you’ve witnessed the animalistic nature of greed firsthand. Even felt it yourself, at times. There’s no eventual escape in these games. Vote after vote, you now know the only way you’ll ever return home is if you die and search for that peace someplace else. You’re a victim to nostalgia as your final thoughts swarm your mind, but all of that subsides when the door suddenly swings wide open. Your eyes, still blurry from your tears, widen as a shower of bullets pelts across the room like a rainstorm. It’s ear-shattering, causing you to cover your head with your arms as soon as they’re freed from your attackers’ grip. Everything smells like blood and sweat. These two scents only heighten when some bodies, now dead, fall on top of you after hardly putting up a fight. They’re limp but heavy, suffocating you as you try to push them away and sit up.

Through your dizzy and darkened vision, you can see a guard standing in your doorframe, kind of like the one from a few hours ago. This could be a completely different person, though, given how many triangle guards you’ve seen over the past few days. His gun lowers, and he seems to take a step toward you until new orders sound from his radio device. You’re not sure what he’s told to do by whoever is talking to him on the comms, but you do hear his response. “Understood.” It’s one word, clear and firm as he leaves you behind with more blood splattered across your clothes. And now, your floor and walls. Your face. Your hair. Your hands. Everywhere.

The gravity of the situation sinks in as your eyes dart around the bodies strewn across the room with their eyes still open. It’s horrific, just like the oozing bullet wounds gaping through their chests and stomachs. You squeeze your eyes shut and try to make your way to the bathroom, simply feeling your way around with your hand braced against the nearest wall. This is where you remain for the next couple of hours, still stripped naked even after your second shower of the night. Standing over your sink that’s more of a bowl because of its meager size, you plunge your blood-stained clothes under warm water and much more soap than you can spare. Your ears are still ringing, distracting you from the fact that a few guards had come into your room and taken away the bodies at one point in the night. It isn’t until there’s a knock against your bathroom door that you realize someone is still here, inside.

“Yes?” You ask, clearing your throat when you hear how quiet you sound, “Yes?”

There’s no response at first, but you’re not planning to open the door with your current state of decency. Hoping whoever is there can just say their piece and go, you brace your hands against both sides of the sink and wait.

“Are you hurt?”

You straighten your posture, surprised by this question. Judging from the sound of this person’s voice, it’s another guard. Or maybe the same one as before—you don’t even know at this point. It hardly matters, though. They all look the same, talk the same, and kill the same.

“No,” you answer, confused as to why this person seems to be displaying compassionate curiosity toward your well-being, “But…I’d appreciate another set of clothes. I asked someone before, but he was a bit of an ass about it, and—”

“Open the door.”

“No!” You immediately react, surging forward to press your body against the door, “I mean, no. I can’t really do that right now.”

Another silent pause lingers until you hear some keys jingling on the other side of the door. Quickly realizing what’s about to happen, you snatch up your towel and wrap it around your body as tightly as possible. Once the bathroom door opens at the hand of another triangle guard, you furrow your eyebrows into a scowl that doesn’t change the fact that you’re a red, blushing mess.

“Having a master key doesn’t mean you can just invade my personal space like this, you know—”

Your mouth snaps shut when the guard grabs your chin, turning your face from side to side so he can examine your lack of wounds for himself. Keeping one hand on your chest, you press it into your towel as the other pushes his arm away.

“Don’t touch me,” you tell him while taking a step back.

He crosses his arms over his chest and replies, “Full offense, but I really don’t know how you’ve made it this far.”

Your face burns hotter as you copy his movements, but it’s more to cover your chest than anything else. “You don’t even know me.”

His head tilts to the side a bit, and you’re not sure why you suspect that he’s smiling behind his mask. It’s almost ironic how you’re borderline naked while he hasn’t even bared a single inch of flesh to your perception. You can’t confirm this for certain, but you feel his eyes on you. Swallowing the lump in your throat, you glance behind him and notice that his firearm is rested against your wall beside your bed. The room looks a lot cleaner from here already. You’re about to ask about that when his figure suddenly moves, occupying your peripheral so that all you’re seeing is him.

“That won’t dry by the morning,” he nods toward the sink where your bloody clothes swim in soapy bubbles.

“I don’t care. I just…” You inhale a deep breath, not to break in front of him, “I’m just trying to wash off the blood.”

“It’s only going to come back.”

“That doesn’t really make a difference to me. I know I’m not making it out of here alive.”

He’s quiet at this, casting his head down a little. You assume he’s looking at the floor, but there’s no telling where his eyes are fixated. Just like there’s no explaining the reason for his presence—whoever he is. You want to tell him to leave before this interaction becomes more awkward than it already is, but he lifts his head again and seems to stare right at you.

“You shouldn’t even be here.”

It’s a claim, or maybe an observation, but it sounds demanding. Even through his voice modulator, you pick up on a familiar type of tone you shouldn’t be thinking about at this moment. It’s long been forgotten, only because it left you behind first.

“I don’t think any of us should be here,” you reply before pointing out, “But you work here. Don’t know how you sleep at night.”

“Not very well, actually.”

“Oh. Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?”

He chuckles softly, and an odd feeling clenches your stomach as you watch his shoulders shift before relaxing. It’s not that you recognize this specific reaction, but it feels too distinct to let go. Maybe it’s just your nostalgia kicking in, though. Teetering on the edge of death every day has left you reflecting on your life thus far, including what you’ve lost. What you never expect to gain back, even if you survive this place.

“You never go easy on me,” he murmurs, slightly exhaling with his words.

Your lips part in disbelief once this sentence sticks in your mind. Instinct takes over as old memories resurface. Someone has said this to you before, not once or twice, but numerous times during arguments that went in circles until nobody really won. You’ve tried to forget about the yelling, the laughing, and all of the affection he threw away for a reason you will never know. He’s not here to provide that closure. Or so you initially believed, until hearing this timeless phrase for yourself.

“Take off your mask,” you whisper.

The guard leans forward and tells you, “I can’t do that.”

Despite this, he doesn’t move away when you step forward until you’re directly in front of him. You’re so close that your feet slide between his boots, and his face tilts to accommodate your proximity. Fear tingles your fingertips as you push his hood back before pausing in expectance of some sort of resistance. An order to stop. But nothing comes, so you reach for his mask while holding your breath. It doesn’t take long for you to unlatch the covering, but you wait a few seconds to pull it completely away. He’s so still that part of you thinks this is all a joke or a dream.

“Fox?”

The hand holding his mask drops to your side when you don’t receive a response, revealing the face that’s been hidden all this time. Not the complete picture, though. Just the eyes. But that’s enough for you to know that your memory hasn’t failed you when fate certainly has. You let his mask clatter to the ground when he pulls the remainder of his face covering away, never taking his gaze away from yours. He looks…the same. Just more tired and sunken from the lack of sleep he mentioned before, but otherwise…that’s Fox. You can’t deny it. Blinding, hot rage seizes your chest automatically, sending your next actions into an overdrive with no brakes.

“You. Fucking. Asshole!” You punctuate each word with a fist to his chest, “This is where you’ve been? I thought you were dead! Or…you found someone else, and…“

He takes both of your wrists in one hand to stop you from hitting him again. “Are you done?”

You stare at him, breathing hard and heavy from the sudden rush of adrenaline coursing through your blood. He tightens his grip around your wrists before you can respond or pull away, bearing down on you with a hardening glare you find utterly ridiculous. He has no right to be angry at you. Not after he disappeared from the face of this Earth without so much as a simple text explaining himself.

“Let go of me,” you snap, trying to twist yourself out of his hand.

He only tugs you forward at this, causing your frontside to collide with his. “Tell me why you’re here.”

You scoff, meeting his eyes that are suddenly a lot closer than before. There’s barely any breathing room between your faces now, which is both frightening and exhilarating. The sudden rush of emotions accelerating your heartbeat isn’t easy to take in all at once, distracting you from what’s important right now: your survival. Anguish, sorrow, relief, and desire all cloud together in your mind before you blink away the tears that have begun welling in your eyelids. He doesn’t get to see you cry.

“Not unless you tell me tomorrow’s game,” you bargain, purposefully drying your tone of any vulnerability.

You realize this response disappoints him when he clenches his jaw and averts his gaze from yours. “I can’t—“

“You can’t do that,” you admonish sarcastically, “Figures. Let go of me.”

But he ignores this, lulling your conversation into a silence that allows you to register his other hand fisting your towel just along the dip of your waist. He could pull it away if he wanted to. If you wanted him to. The truth of this matter stings your cheeks as you frown at him, unable to mask the pain he caused throughout the past few years. All that you buried for the sake of moving on is now erupting once again, manifesting into pure hatred. It’s hot, and it burns. You feel it everywhere, just as you feel his eyes tracing over you with an uncharacteristic desperation. He looks apologetic—you can see it in his expression—but he hasn’t said the words yet. You’re not sure if you would even accept them, which is probably the reason for their absence. Because you hate him. You hate him so much that you feel the need to prove it just so he can experience an ounce of what he put you through after leaving without a trace.

“I hate you,” you whisper, “And I’m not telling you anything.”

“Is it your parents?” He squeezes his fist around your towel, “Did they—”

“I don’t owe you an explanation.”

“You’re an idiot for coming here. So, you better have a good fucking reason—”

“How long have you known?” You interrupt, pushing your bound wrists into his chest as your eyes widen with your question, “When did you recognize me? Was it tonight?”

A subtle flicker of guilt shadows his expression, so you press harder. It’s not enough to hurt him, not even close, but he looks as if he’s in pain. Good, you think to yourself.

“Since the first day,” he eventually answers, “I thought I was imagining it when I saw you, but…I wasn’t. Clearly.”

“And you didn’t think to help me?” You breathe harshly, knowing he doesn’t owe you that support even though it would’ve been nice, “Did that just not cross your mind once? I can’t even count the number of times I’ve almost gotten killed here, and it’s only been two days. Two fucking days, and you’ve been acting like I don’t exist.”

His scowl deepens, reminding you of the time when such an expression used to upset you. Not anymore, though. There are much scarier things in here than him. He lets go of you just to grab both of your shoulders, meeting your eye level to ensure you’re hearing him loud and clear.

“What do you think I could’ve done?” He replies just as venomously, “Break the rules? For you?”

You betray your resolve when you flinch, but he keeps going. “You’re not even supposed to be here. But you are, and there’s nothing I can do about that. I have a job to do, and—”

“I don’t give a shit about your job. You think I want to be here?” You shove at his chest before fisting his jumpsuit and pulling him closer, “I’m stuck here because everyone else keeps insisting on one more game, but I’m the idiot, right? I’m trying to walk away even though I won’t have nearly as much as I need to survive out there. But you don’t care. You’re just an errand boy carrying a big gun as if that makes you half of the man you wish you were.”

His hands leave your shoulders to wrap around your forearms as they stay rested against his chest. “How much do you need?”

“Why?” You scoff, “Are you going to give me the money yourself?”

“Are you going to answer any of my questions?”

“Seeing as you’re not going to help me, no, not really—“

“I want to help you,” he brushes his thumb against your skin, and it feels warm despite the gloved barrier, “But you don’t understand the nature of this place. I don’t have a choice when it comes to the players.”

“You’re wrong, Fox. You do have a choice—you’re just not choosing me. That’s nothing new.”

He looks at you warily before sighing and shaking his head. “I didn’t mean to leave like that. I’m sorry.”

“You’re not.”

His hands slide back to your shoulders to pull you even closer. “I am.”

Your stomach dips when you realize how little distance is between your faces now, with your noses touching and your lips sharing the same breath. His eyes are on yours until they’re not, lowering inch by inch across your mouth. Then your neck. Then your chest, which is still rimmed with the towel that remains wrapped around your body. You wonder how long that will last. The urge to let go of him screams in the back of your mind as your fists tremble around the fabric of his uniform, but you’re frozen in the past. Right when you expect him to close the distance and kiss you—or for you to do that first—he repeats, “I am.” His voice is hushed but not quiet enough for you to miss its warmth. An irritated muscle jumps in your jaw because you don’t want that gentle apology—it’s a facade, transparent like ice. You’re angry, so you want anger.

“Fuck you,” you hiss before yanking him forward, colliding his lips with yours with all the anger you can muster. His posture stiffens in surprise for a second that’s gone as soon as his arms wrap around your body. One hand fists your hair while the other grabs your towel from the back, tugging but not drawing it away just yet. He meets you halfway in the kiss, forcing your lips to part wider under his so he can take your mouth deeper. The intensity sends a rush of energy through your chest to your stomach, pooling into an ache that heightens when you feel his tongue slide over yours. It’s all so familiar. Recognizing his every move is what grows your annoyance but also your desire.

So, you bite his bottom lip hard, smiling when he grunts into another kiss. Your mouths meet, this time rougher like a test of who’s in control. At this moment, it’s him as he grips your jaw with the hand that was in your hair just before, tilting your face the way he wants every time his lips open and close over yours. Your breath hitches when he slows down and sucks on your bottom lip before soothing your swollen flesh with his tongue. And when he kisses you again, it’s soft—not the way you want it. You push at his chest until his back is against the bathroom wall, neither of you caring about the harsh impact. He exhales a low, disapproving sound before shifting your body so that it’s you pinned to this cold surface now, desperately kissing him in proof of how much you really do hate him.

“Is this why you’re here?” You whisper against his lips, “To fuck me and then leave again?”

He shakes his head and kisses you harder, nearly shoving you into the wall with his entire weight. “I thought those fuckers might’ve hurt you.”

“Don’t bullshit me,” you squeeze his shoulders, “Just take what you came for and leave.”

He leans back just slightly so you can see his face with more clarity. Glaring at you, he replies, “What did I say about asking for favors?”

You glare back at him, well accustomed to his intolerable arrogance. “I think I’d be doing you the favor.”

“Yeah?” He scoffs, “I doubt that.”

Grabbing him by the chin, you pull his face closer so your lips are just barely grazing each other. He can definitely feel every word you reply instead of merely hearing them.

“Prove it, then.” Your tone is soft but taunting, pressing right where it hurts: his ego.

He narrows his dark and glassy eyes at you, but you can still catch a glimpse of your own reflection in them. Instead of seeing the man you were once blissfully in love with, you try to recognize him for who he is now: a merciless killer, also probably victim to his manipulated greed. There’s no room for any remorse for whatever situation might’ve brought him here, though. All you can think about are the players who have already lost their lives to those wearing the same uniform. Perhaps tomorrow, it’ll be you in front of his trigger. Whoever’s arms you’re in now can’t be considered the Fox you’ve tried to forget but failed. He’s not your Fox anymore. And if it’s that easy for him to turn a blind eye to your current situation just to follow orders, then maybe he never was.

He seems to notice the growing hatred in your expression, dropping his gaze from your face to look someplace else. Your lips part in surprise when his hands find the knot of your towel, pausing as he just holds onto it for a moment. He glances up at you with a question brewing beneath his silence, to which you also respond nonverbally. All it takes is your raised eyebrows that ask, “What are you waiting for?” for him to undo the knot and let the towel drop to the floor. It lands at your feet, hardly making a sound, but a sharp exhale escapes your lips once the cold bathroom air hits your skin. Goosebumps rise all over your body that his eyes rake over, shamelessly taking the image for himself.

“Don’t just stand there,” you huff as you reach forward with the intention of undressing him, too.

He ignores this and pushes your hands away before taking off his gloves—the second part of his uniform he’s shed tonight. His hands are still large but also slightly scarred now, which must be why they feel rougher when he grabs your hips and pulls you away from the wall. You don’t get very far because he’s quickly kissing you again, touching you everywhere he can reach as if he can’t decide where to keep his hands. He doesn’t settle anywhere, groaning quietly into your mouth the more he feels his way around your body. You can’t decide what’s the most undoing—his hand around your neck, squeezing your breasts, holding your torso, cupping your ass, or caressing your face. It’s all feverishly desperate, warming your cold skin as the time passes with every kiss exchanged.

“What are you doing—“ you gasp when he suddenly pulls away and drops to his knees.

If he responds, you don’t hear it. A breathy moan sounds from the back of your throat as he drops a kiss against your inner thigh before parting your legs wider with an impatient hand. Closing your eyes, you lean back against the wall and tilt your head back for a surface that might ground you to this quickly escalating moment. You moan again, this time louder and more startled when he sinks his teeth into your skin—dangerously close to where you’re wet and waiting for him.

“Look at me,” he demands, “Or I stop.”

Your eyes are still closed as you push your hips into his face, clearly ignoring his command on purpose. “Fuck you.”

“You will if you’re lucky.”

You laugh at this mockingly, taking his words from before. “I doubt that.”

His lips immediately find your clit as he sucks, just once. You gasp and arch your back, widening your eyes at the sudden sensation that tugs on the growing knot in your stomach. A pulse begins to beat at the center of your body, beginning with that slow and anticipatory rhythm you’re used to. You don’t even realize that you’ve obeyed his command to look at him until you catch his smirk that’s partially masked, given that his face is buried between your legs. But you can see the amused arrogance in his eyes—it’s sickeningly triumphant. He hasn’t even won anything yet. And you don’t want to give him the satisfaction of any prize. This proves more difficult than expected when his mouth meets your pussy again, not even pausing to tell you what to do. Your chest rises and falls at the bottom of your vision as you stare down at him, watching him taste you with every stroke of his tongue. Everything goes spotty once his fingers find your clit, rolling it slowly for more stimulation. You curse under your breath, unsurprised he knows exactly what to do because this dance is just as familiar to him as it is to you.

The knot in your lower stomach only tightens, threatening to snap the faster his tongue pushes and swirls in and out of you with your clit pulsing and swelling in size. You try to control it, desperately writhing against the wall while a series of gasps and moans trap themselves within these four walls. It’s a miracle if your neighbors next door haven’t figured out what’s going on by now. He seems to know you’re about to come when he squeezes your thigh with his free hand before smoothing a caress across this specific area. It’s coaxing you into the release you realize you can’t prevent no matter how hard you try. It’s also soothing, unlike his rough devouring that drops your mouth open in a struggling cry as your body jerks and trembles after this game you feel like you lost. He’s still licking and sucking on you through your orgasm, savoring your taste for as long as possible. You rest your head back against the wall and take a few heavy breaths of air, closing your eyes to avoid looking at anything—not just him. The sudden urge to be alone while also fearing loneliness overwhelms this aftermath like the conflicting forces of your emotions tonight.

His arms quickly find yours, holding you upright before you can begin to slide down the wall. Your knees would have buckled if he didn’t do this, but you don’t tell him that. Opening your eyes, you look up at him and wonder why his expression is so unreadable at the moment.

“Do you have a condom?” You mumble, swiping some hair out of your face.

He snickers under his breath at this while bending down to lift you up in his arms. You’re about to protest when you notice that he’s bringing you to your bed, which is clean of any blood from before like the rest of the room. He’s silent as he lays you down and stands over you, just watching you catch your breath as the two of you hold eye contact. It would have been eerie if not for the noticeable softening of his expression that hardens when you speak again.

“Guess you’re just all talk now,” you hum, shifting under the covers a bit to keep warm.

“I don’t have a condom,” he answers, “And I’m going to guess you got off the pill.”

“Says who? Maybe I’m seeing someone. It’s been years, you know.”

His eyebrows draw together for a fleeting second. “I know.”

Your stomach twists when you hear how quiet his response sounded. It’s not the volume that provokes this reaction, though—it’s the weakness. You don’t want to feel guilty or sympathetic, but old habits are hard to kick. A small part of you wonders if he’s missed you after all this time, too. If he’s thought about you—if the mere suggestion of you finding someone else bothers him because he still…

“You’re right. I’m not on the pill,” you admit, hoping he catches the implication of this.

He runs a hand over his jaw. “Honestly, that makes me feel worse.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You should’ve just moved on.”

The blunt honesty is expected, but you can’t help how your mouth snaps shut at this comment. A lump forms in your throat as you look away from him, already feeling the bubbling return of your anger.

“I tried,” you close your eyes and press your tongue to the roof of your mouth to stop any tears from escaping, “You don’t even know.”

“It wasn’t easy for me, either. It still isn’t.”

“Then why haven’t you left this place yet?”

“This is my job now. I swore my loyalty to the Captain.”

The answer sends a chill down your spine because of how recited it feels. Fox has always been the most conscientious person you know, but to think that he’d ignore all the wrongdoing occurring around here just to be a good employee is almost…terrifying. No, not almost. It is.

“You sound brainwashed,” you tell him while sitting up and staring at his dark figure that’s now rested on the edge of your bed.

He turns his head to meet your eyes, clearly taking offense to this observation. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Yeah, I don’t. I don’t understand how you can go through with this—how many people have you killed here?”

“Players choose to participate in the games. And players who lose get eliminated. It’s the rules.”

“So, tomorrow,” you say, “If I lose tomorrow’s game. You’d kill me?”

His expression hardly wavers at this question, so you don’t notice the flicker of pain that crosses his shadowed eyes. “That’s a hypothetical.”

You lean forward and jab your finger into his shoulder. “Answer it.”

“I don’t know,” he snaps, “But I know what I’m supposed to do. I know my orders.”

You press your lips together and shake your head, not even trying to argue about this. At this point, you’ve accepted he’s not going to help you going forward. It’s been everyone for themselves since you got here, so you hold onto some hope that you can keep going without anyone else. You’ve made it this far, after all. Still, his words from just before echo in your mind like a torturous reminder of the person he’s become now. I swore my loyalty to the Captain. Whoever the fuck that is.

“You were loyal to me,” you whisper, your voice breaking slightly, “And I was loyal to you. Wasn’t that enough?”

You know he hears the vulnerable sorrow in your tone because he lifts his head and stares at you so deeply that you’re scared he can see right through you. Trying to act like these games—this entire situation—doesn’t bother you isn’t easy, but it’s necessary to push forward. With him in the picture now, it’s hard to keep putting up this front even though you don’t want him to know just how badly he hurt you. And just how desperately you want to return to the old days when nothing was wrong, and everything was perfect. That’s all gone now.

“Forget it,” you inhale shakily, not even letting him form a response, “I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about anything right now.”

“What do you want?” He asks sternly.

You shift closer, smiling even though the expression doesn’t meet your eyes. Cupping the side of his face with a trembling hand, you whisper, “I just want to forget about everything. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

He closes his eyes, no doubt feeling your fingers caress his cheek before trailing down his neck. “We shouldn’t…”

You lean forward and drop a kiss right below his jawline. “I know.”

He curses under his breath before yanking you closer by the waist. You think he’s about to say something, but no words form as your faces gravitate toward each other until there’s no more distance. The collision of the kiss is soft and slow this time around. When he lifts you into his lap, though, the pace of your lips intensifies and quickens with breathy sighs that sound from both of you. Your hands find his face, squeezing a bit when his arms ravel around your body like he’s trying to seal this embrace into permanence. But everything about this moment is temporary. Both of you know this, which is why neither of you speaks. His increasingly heavy breathing is all you can hear over your soft gasps as he lays you back down on the bed before standing to undress himself. You prop yourself up on your elbows and watch each piece of his uniform fall away. That’s more like it, you think to yourself.

“You can still back out, you know,” he tells you as he pulls his undershirt over his head, “You should.”

“Would it kill you to stop telling me what to do for once?”

He tilts his head to the side a bit and smirks before pulling you toward the end of the bed by your ankles. “It might.”

You watch him reach for the waistband of his underwear while trying to ignore the sight of his broad shoulders silhouetted in the dark lighting of this room. Among all the things that have changed since you last saw him, you can certainly say his physique is one of them. Not that he’s never looked like this before, though. Before you can satisfy your urge to reach forward and touch him, starting with the hard plane of his chest before moving lower to his narrowing torso, you lift your hand to pause this moment. It’s not a good idea to be looking at him if you’re really going through with this.

“Wait,” you say before turning your body over so that you’re facing away from him on all fours.

You glance at him over your shoulder when his hands find your hips, curious as to why he looks more irritated all of a sudden. From the squeezing pressure of his grip, you suspect he’s about to turn you over, so you shake your head.

“Fuck me like this,” you tell him, “And pull out before you come.”

He briefly narrows his eyes at you. “When’d you become so bossy?”

Rolling your eyes, you face forward again to stare at the wall. “Shouldn’t be too difficult. You’re good at following orders.”

You hear an exhale and some rustling in the background before feeling his hands return to your hips, also palming your ass a bit from the size. You’re pulled toward him just a bit more, so slowly that you grit your teeth in anticipation of his next move. Arching your back, you press your face into the mattress until one of his hands fists your hair, and that’s when you know he wants to hear you like the smug bastard he is. All that escapes your lips is a startled, “Fuck,” before he suddenly slams into you from behind. There’s no warning, no patience. No inch-by-inch slowness that relaxes and stretches you out sweetly. You see stars as he buries his length inside of you all the way, unable to hear yourself moan loudly over the abrupt sensation. He’s thick and throbbing, just like you remember, but you hardly have the time to ruminate over what’s stayed the same. He doesn’t let you collect your thoughts, quickly sliding out of your wet folds just to push back in even harder than the first time. You gasp as he fucks you angrily, and the sound is sharp, unlike the sloppy noises that come from the joining and releasing of your bodies. It’s filthy and disrespectful, animated by the bed frame that’s banging against the wall with each thrust.

“Make it hurt,” you whimper, “Make it hurt, Fox.”

He sucks his teeth and groans, fisting your hair tighter as he doesn’t slow nor speed up. “I’ll fuck you how I want.”

You laugh through a breathy moan and steal a glare at him over your shoulder. “You’re hardly fucking me at all.”

“Yeah?” He pushes your face into the mattress right when he begins to pick up the pace, “What about now? Am I fucking you now?”

You fist the bedsheet as you muffle your cries in the thin fabric that hardly keeps you warm every night. Any control or precision he might’ve been displaying before is now gone. He’s completely lost in your grasp even though he’s the one driving you into the bed with every rough snap of his hips. Your skin collides loudly, leaving both of you raw and sensitive like your pulsing center that’s soaking his length so embarrassingly desperate. You’re so wet for him that there’s barely any resistance as he slips into you swiftly, hitting you deeper and wider the further you collapse with your ass in the air and your legs spread apart. His taunting question is now forgotten but definitely answered through the incoherent mess of your moans and curses, no doubt another win in his books. But feeling him inside of you like this can’t be considered a loss for you, either. You almost forget that you’re now on opposing sides.

“Close,” you moan, turning your face to the side so he can hear you, “I’m close, Fox.”

Your eyes crack open just in time for you to see him clench his jaw. A split second of decision-making crosses his expression before he pulls out of you completely and turns you over. About to protest and shift back to your original position, you gasp when he pins your arms down on either side of your head with his rough hands and leans over you. His stare is molten like his touch, both of which you can’t ignore. He enters you again just as his forehead comes down on yours in expectance of a kiss, but neither of you closes the distance. Your lips simply brush over each other with heavy pants that make it difficult for you to hold his eye contact. For some reason, though, you can’t look away. It almost doesn't occur to you that he’s changed his pacing despite your impending orgasm, slowing down when you’d rather he speed up.

“You don’t,” you gasp, “Fucking listen to me. Ever.”

His responding chuckle is ragged as he dips his head to suck on your neck. You instinctively tilt your face away to give him more access, closing your eyes as his mouth ravishes your sweet spot just above your collarbone. He grunts into your skin when your legs lock around his waist, hiking higher and higher to fold your bodies closer. This low sound only grows louder when you squeeze around him, almost pulling him inside of you every time you feel him pulse against your walls.

“Fuck,” he whispers against your neck before lifting his face to be directly over yours again, “I’m sorry.”

You lean forward to take his bottom lip between your teeth. “Are you?”

“Yes,” he breathes, “I’m so fucking sorry.”

“I don’t care,” you reply before kissing him. He moans and parts his lips over yours, not saying anything further. There’s no more conversation as his slow fucking returns to its normal, faster state that leaves you struggling to kiss him back through the whines and cries he swallows for himself. You arch your back when you feel the tightening knot return, now pulsing wildly in anticipation of your second orgasm for the night. He comes soon after you, pulling out as his cock jerks and releases over your stomach. It’s warm and wet like the last kiss he drops to your mouth once you’re both finished. His lips linger against yours almost innocently, without tongue or any harsh movements that implicate a step further. Your eyes flutter shut as his hands leave your forearms to cup your face, sealing this kiss into his final attempt at apologizing. You don’t say you forgive him, but you do wrap your arms around his neck now that they’re free of his grip.

But when it’s over, the room turns cold again. He pulls back, heaving a few breaths before stalking toward the bathroom where you hear him take your clothes out of the sink. He’s in there for some time, probably handling your forgotten mess, all while you simply stare up at the ceiling not thinking about anything in particular. You know you should probably clean yourself up, but that expectation is solved when he returns with a towel. He pushes your hand away when you try to grab it from him, wiping the sore flesh between your legs before your stomach.

“I’m surprised this shitty thing is still standing,” you remark when he stands again, pushing at the creaky bed frame.

“Are you disappointed?” He asks, taking his underwear from the floor to put it back on.

“No,” you yawn, “I’m tired.”

“You have a long day tomorrow.”

You ignore this, just as you ignore his presence for the next few minutes to use the bathroom and finish cleaning yourself up. There’s not much to wear, given your sopping clothes that Fox seemed to have hung to dry in your tiny shower. Staring at the wet fabric, you feel sick when you see that some blood still hasn’t come off, making your efforts useless. Once you step back into your bedroom area in nothing but your satisfactorily dried underwear, you notice that he’s not completely dressed yet. You look at his gun, which is still leaning against the wall beside him, and you remember all that occurred before he turned your night upside down.

“Will there be more fighting tonight?” You bring up casually so as not to appear scared, “Like the guys from before, I mean.”

He reaches for the outer layer of his uniform while replying, “I don’t know. We’re not supposed to prevent them from happening.”

“But you interfered,” you remember aloud, “That was you, right?”

No answer.

“Fox.”

“Does it matter?” He snaps, “You’re alive. Just keep it that way for as long as possible.”

The hairs on the back of your neck stand as he crosses the room with his mask in one hand and his firearm slung around his shoulder. He looks so different all of a sudden, but he doesn’t feel different anymore. You swallow the lump in your throat and approach him cautiously, reaching for his free hand. He lets you hold it, but he doesn’t look pleased when he meets your eyes. That doesn’t faze you, though. He never looks pleased.

“I might not have many options left,” you tell him quietly, “But you always have a choice. Please don’t forget that.”

“You’ll be fine.”

“What about you?”

A half-hearted smile ghosts his expression before he pulls his mask over his head. Then, the final piece that covers his entire face with that lone triangle. When he speaks again, it’s through the unmistakable modulator that sends goosebumps across your bare skin. But you’re not afraid of him.

“Don’t worry about me,” he answers, “You’ll only waste your breath.”

With that, he drops your hand and leaves your room. You hear the definitive click of a lock before the doorknob rattles like a test of whether or not someone can still enter. When the door remains closed, his footsteps depart into the distant hallway as quietly as they came. All is silent now, including your mind which is devoid of any knowledge of what tomorrow is going to look like for you. So, you sleep on your fears until morning, which is only a few hours away. The classical music that’s woken you up throughout your stay here thus far plays in every room once the clock reaches the hour of your destiny. Rubbing your eyes and pushing your covers away from your body, you catch sight of something at your entrance just resting on the floor. It’s a fresh set of your uniform—Player 066—folded neatly without any blood stains. But that’s not the most surprising part about this gift. A small piece of paper rests on top of the clothes, also folded until you spread it open in your palm. Only one word is written, so only one word is read.

Mingle.

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