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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 2 months ago

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In The Gloomy Depths [Chapter 2: Tiger's Eye]

Series summary: Five years ago, jewel mining tycoon Daemon Targaryen made a promise in order to win your hand in marriage. Now he has broken it and forced you into a voyage across the Atlantic, betraying you in increasingly horrifying ways and using your son as leverage to ensure your cooperation. You have no friends and no allies, except a destitute viola player you can’t seem to get away from…

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), parenthood, dolphins, death and peril, violence (including domestic violence), drinking, smoking, freezing temperatures, murder, if you don’t like Titanic you won’t like this fic!!! 😉

Word count: 5.7k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Tagging: @arcielee @nightvyre @mrs-starkgaryen @gemini-mama @ecstaticactus, more in comments 🥰

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The taxidermied tiger head hangs above the fireplace in the sitting room, its jaws agape in a perpetual roar and its eyes polished spheres of metamorphic rock the color of dusk. Daemon shot it in Burma years ago—valleys of saturated green earth, mountain ranges like a crooked spine—shortly after opening his third black opal mine in Australia. You stare at the disembodied creature and she stares back, a silent scream, a doomed eternal terror in her tiger’s eye gaze: Help! A man is killing me. A man is taking me from where I belong. A man is nailing me to a wall so all the world knows he is the one whose bullet severed my aorta, filled me with hemorrhaging blood until I sank down, down, down.

You say, still looking at the slayed beast: “Did we really have to bring that with us?”

Daemon glances over as he fastens his cufflinks, onyx with red beryl in the shape of a three-headed dragon, the Targaryen family crest. “I’m sure you’d prefer a finger painting from that Italian tosspot you’re so enamored with. What’s his name, Pizarro?”

“Picasso. And he’s Spanish.”

“Even worse.”

You turn to Daemon, and you can feel yourself wilting, becoming pitiful, vulnerable, needy. “Where are you going?”

He smirks as he stalks past you. “Wherever I want.” Then he passes through the doorway and out into the hall, flanked by the ever-grim Edward Rushton, black suits and polished leather shoes.

It’s midday on April 12th, and you and Fern are now alone in the Targaryen staterooms. Laenor is down on F-Deck enjoying the Squash Racquet Court with his new Parisian companions, Rhaenyra is in the Reading and Writing Room with a group of ladies led by the Countess of Rothes, and Dagmar has taken Draco…somewhere. Meanwhile, your sweet-tempered maid is flitting around making beds and collecting empty cups and soiled linens. “Fern?” you call.

She peeks out of Draco’s bedroom. “Yes, ma’am? Do you need something?”

To leap overboard and swim back to Ireland. “Would you like to take a stroll around the Promenade Deck with me? Breathe some fresh air, look for dolphins and whales, have lunch at the Verandah Cafe?”

Fern is apologetic in that soft, skittish way that she has. “I’m so sorry, ma’am. I have to finish cleaning the rooms before Dagmar comes back.”

She doesn’t say why—that would be insubordinate—but you know. Just like on the family crest, the dragon has three heads: Daemon, Draco, Dagmar. All must be appeased lest their fire turn you to ash. And Fern lives in terror of the gaunt Scandinavian tyrant. “Right. I understand.”

“I should be done in an hour or two. When you return from your walk, I’ll make you tea.”

“You’re too kind.”

She is confused. “It’s my job, ma’am.”

“Still, I’m glad you’re the one doing it.”

Fern smiles, small and hesitant. “Thank you, ma’am. Enjoy your walk.”

Outside on the Promenade Deck, the sun is bright and the wind brisk, just warm enough to forego a coat, black mink or white ermine or grey rabbit or reddish fox, pelts harvested, creatures butchered. Your dress is a cheerful yellow, as if attempting to conjure the golden-haired magic of the Targaryens, their willfulness, their invincibility, their habit of bending the world’s truth in their hands until it snaps. Yet none of them are here with you; you are alone, you are unnecessary. As you walk, you pass women reading novels on teak deckchairs, children playing with spinning tops and dominoes under the watchful eyes of fathers and governesses, men smoking cigars as they debate business and politics and which gemstones they should purchase for their sweethearts. You have to get away from them.

You take the Grand Staircase up to the Boat Deck, the highest level of the ship, and to distract yourself you count the covered lifeboats that are stowed there. This does not assuage your anxiety; you see only twenty, and while you have made a practice of avoiding sailing and therefore are no expert on the issue, this does not seem like enough. You go to the railing—about as tall as your waist—and lean over it as you stare, thoughts troubled and brow furrowed, into the wild, uninterrupted blue of the North Atlantic, five hundred miles from the coast of Ireland. To your left is a man painting a sheet of paper clipped to an easel, a palette held in his hand, viscous globs of color from small silvery tubes. Seventy feet below where you stand is the sea, thrashing against Titanic, a wood-and-steel intruder. You lean a little farther over the side of the ship. The water is cold, you imagine; cold, deep, dark, silent.

If I fell in, this would all be over, you think. No more Daemon. No more anyone. The only people who would miss me are my parents, and they’ll never see me again anyway.

But no; you cannot abandon Draco. He’s a piece of you, even if he doesn’t know it. You cannot allow him to become a monster.

The viola player peeks out from behind his easel. “Not thinking about jumping, are you?”

You gasp, startled, and then cover your face as you groan. “Why are you always out here?!”

“Aw, fancy rock lady needs a member of the perpetual underclass to malign,” he says as he adds brushstrokes to his painting. He has procured a suit somehow—black, slightly too big for him, likely stolen—to better masquerade as a first-class passenger. “What’s the matter, rock lady? Did your servants not put enough sugar in your tea this morning? Did they tug a little too hard as they brushed your hair?”

“You’re not well mentally. You need a straightjacket.”

“I’m not the one about to throw myself into the Atlantic Ocean.”

You glare at him, bitter, defensive. “I wasn’t going to jump.”

“Then what were you doing?”

You can’t answer; you wring your hands and press your lips together so tightly they ache, watch dark smoke billow from the nearest funnel, coal shoveled into blazing furnaces, treasures of the earth extracted like teeth and consumed.

“Hey, I didn’t, um…” The viola player lowers his paintbrush, repentant. “It wasn’t my intention to upset you.”

You ask to change the subject: “What are you painting?”

“People,” he says, grinning, then turns his easel to show you. It’s a father holding his daughter so she can look over the railing and pointing to show her something out in the waves, dolphins, perhaps. His work is excellent, you are surprised to see: wispy curls of hair, irises alight with emotion, shadows and wrinkles and cheeks ruddy from gusts of wind, imperfections of reality.

“It’s good,” you manage once you’ve gotten your bearings.

“And of course you’re shocked.” He points to a scuffed brown leather portfolio resting against one leg of the easel. “I have plenty more, if you’re interested.”

You open the portfolio. There are men worriedly counting coins, women waiting on park benches, children beaming as they feed ducks or tend to their dolls, people giggling and scowling and burning up with clandestine longing, people sipping drinks in smoky pubs. In the bottom right corner of each painting is a moniker for the subject: Crystal, Big Red, Sunshine, Baron, Carnation, Tiny, Mars, Archer, Harpist, Pennies, Henry VIII, Belfast Belle. Unwittingly, you smile to yourself. “You give them names.”

“I watch people, but I don’t usually talk to them,” the viola player explains as he dabs thick oil paint on the paper clipped to the easel, treated to resemble the texture of linen. “I like to catch them unawares. Keeps the moment genuine, truthful. Otherwise they start acting for me.”

“Why paper instead of canvas?”

“Easier to travel with. Lighter and less bulky.”

You recall what he told Daemon at O’Connell’s Bar back in Galway: Well I’ve played all over Ireland, sir. All over Europe, in fact. You gingerly slide his paintings back into the portfolio and tease: “Who do you think you are, Picasso?”

He chuckles and shakes his head. His sand-colored hair trashes in the wind that blows off the ocean, salt and mist. “I am under no such delusion. I’ve met him, though.”

You gawk at the viola player. “You’ve…you’ve met Pablo Picasso?”

“Yeah,” he says casually. “In Barcelona. I love his Blue and Rose Period stuff. Now he’s doing some weird cubism bullshit.” The viola player shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s his art, he can paint what he wants. But I prefer something a little more…real.”

“I do too,” you confess. “I went to Paris once with my parents. I saw some of Picasso’s work in a gallery, but he wasn’t there at the time. I bought a few paintings.”

“Which ones?”

“Mother and Child from 1905. Flowers from 1901.” You hesitate. It’s a bit scandalous. “Blue Nude.”

But the viola player neither cringes nor makes a joke. “I remember that one,” he says softly, watching you. After a moment he asks: “Are they hanging in your rooms?”

“They’re in a trunk. Daemon doesn’t like them.” And the animosity in your voice is an act of treason, however small. You glance around for Daemon, Rush, Dagmar, Rhaenyra, Laenor, and thankfully find none of them. You avert your eyes, ashamed. A husband you hate, and fear, and obey, and lie awake at night conspiring how to please.

There is something that ripples across the viola player’s face—sympathy, distress—and then he resumes putting the final touches on his portrait of two unnamed passengers. “Do you paint?”

You laugh. “Very badly.”

He offers you the paintbrush, saturated with a reddish-gold color like dusk. “You can help me fill in the man’s scarf. That’s hard to fuck up.”

Your jaw falls open.

“That’s hard to mess up,” he amends.

Smiling shyly, you take the paintbrush and add a few tentative strokes to the scarf. The viola player accepts the paintbrush when you forfeit it.

“So besides making awful paintings, how did you spend your time back in Galway?”

Reminding my father who he is. Taking long walks through the fields with my mother. Sitting in the garden wondering how my life went so wrong. Trying to stop my only child from becoming a demon like his father. “I read a lot. Mostly Edgar Allan Poe, Jane Austen, and Shakespeare.”

“Shakespeare?” he echoes, amused. “Recite some for me.”

You take a moment to decide on a passage.

“Not for the world: why, man, she is mine own,

And I as rich in having such a jewel

As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,

The water nectar and the rocks pure gold.”

“The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” the viola player says, much to your amazement. He’s a thief holding a third-class ticket, and yet he’s learned. This is rare outside the blue-blooded aristocrats and the titans of industry. Fern can barely read and write.

“Where were you educated?”

“The world,” he replies, grinning.

“And the world included lessons on Shakespeare?”

“Sure, sometimes.”

“Alright then, let’s hear an excerpt.”

He considers this, tapping the handle of his paintbrush against his lips. Then he says:

“My crown is in my heart, not on my head;

Not decked with diamonds and Indian stones,

Nor to be seen: my crown is called content:

A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.”

“King Henry VI,” you say, admittedly impressed. “I didn’t know poor people read Shakespeare.”

“Shakespeare’s plays were written for everyone, fancy rock lady. Standing tickets at the Globe cost pennies.”

You study the viola player as he paints, feeling a bewildering combination of curiosity, amusement, fondness. “What’s your name?”

He pauses as if he’s not sure what to say, then gives you a sly, crooked grin as he replies: “Picasso.”

Now a steward is approaching, and the viola player is alarmed, perhaps anticipating being revealed as a fraud and dragged back to the third-class accommodations; but the steward is only passing by with a tray full of champagne flutes, offering them to illustrious passengers as they stroll the decks. You take two glasses and he continues on his way. You down one flute in just a few gulps and offer the other to the viola player. He smiles politely but does not reach for it.

“Thank you, but I don’t drink.”

“Really?” Have you ever met a man who doesn’t? You can’t think of one. And you are suddenly aware of how quickly you finished your champagne—unladylike, improper, but surely no great disgrace in front of this audience—and how yearningly you’re already glancing at the second glass, carbonated amber, fool’s gold.

“I’m not someone who can stop at just one or two,” the viola player says. “I’ve learned that about myself. Tried to fight it for a while, turns out acceptance is easier. I hardly even miss booze anymore.”

“How long did you fight it?”

“Ten years.”

You are caught off-guard. “What? How old are you?”

“Twenty-three.”

Since he was thirteen? Can that be right? “We’re about the same age,” you say instead, taking a distracted swig from the glass that would have been his.

“Yeah,” the viola player agrees thoughtfully.

You finish the champagne and hand both glasses to a passing steward. “I should go,” you tell the viola player. “I don’t know where Daemon is on the ship, and…” I don’t want him to see us. I don’t want him to hurt me.

“Sure. I get it.”

“Good luck with your painting.”

“I’ll make one of you next,” he promises, and you’re certain he’s joking.

You smile and turn to leave. “Whatever you say, Picasso.”

You walk towards the Grand Staircase that leads back down to the Promenade Deck. As you pass the Gymnasium, you steal a glimpse through one of the windows and see them inside: Draco giggling as he rides the electric horse and yanks gleefully on the reins, Dagmar beaming as her gnarled, arthritic hands hold him by the waist so he doesn’t slide off.

You lay your palm against the cold glass, separated by a few steps that might as well be miles, wreckage peering up through the darkness from the bottom of the sea.

~~~~~~~~~~

Fern helps you dress for dinner: a glittering gold gown, a tiger’s eye amulet from Burma. Laenor has brought a companion, one of the Parisians he’s become so well-acquainted with, a count’s son named Hugo. As Laenor is preoccupied, Daemon escorts Rhaenyra to the First-Class Dining Saloon down in D-Deck. They meander together, her arm linked through his, murmuring gossip about the other passengers and snickering contemptuously. You trail behind them, feeling invisible, a sun that casts no warmth.

All around you are other first-class passengers descending the Grand Staircase: Benjamin Guggenheim and his mistress two decades his junior, John Jacob Astor and his pregnant eighteen-year-old wife, railroad tycoons Charles M. Hays and John B. Thayer, steel industrialist George Dennick Wick, the glamorous Countess of Rothes, the newly-wealthy Margaret Brown, the eminent journalist W.T. Stead, the White Star Line’s managing director J. Bruce Ismay. But your gaze keeps drifting to Macy’s department store owner Isidor Straus and his wife Ida, neither young, neither beautiful, and yet so evidently devoted to each other. You wonder how that feels; surely nothing like a bruise, a reproach, a back turned to you in the marriage bed.

On the A-Deck landing of the Grand Staircase is the viola player, his horsehair bow gliding over four thick strings to loose an energetic, jubilant song, standing there in his suit that no one else notices is too big for him because they don’t really see him at all. He is less than a fixture of the ship; the first-class passengers marvel at the glass-and-wrought-iron dome overhead and the Neoclassical clock on the wall and even the bronze cherub statue at the base of the steps, but the flesh-and-blood machinery of Titanic wears a sort of camouflage, unremarkable and interchangeable, uncomfortably human. The viola player gives you a wink and a quick, subtle smile as you pass by him, and you smile back. And for a moment, it is like you have a friend aboard the ship, a groundswell of fleeting joy, gratefulness, peace.

Dinner is oysters, salmon with hollandaise, corned ox tongue, chateau potatoes, asparagus soup, Waldorf pudding, other things that you pick at without much interest. You miss Lough Cutra Castle, you miss your parents, you miss Ireland, you miss your life before Daemon Targaryen stalked into it with his ever-glinting green eyes and his talent for making you so desperate to satisfy him. Instead of eating, you mostly drink champagne, draining glasses of it until your cheeks are warm and your thoughts hazy. You look around for the viola player, but he never appears in the First-Class Dining Saloon. Instead, the five-piece string ensemble that welcomed you aboard Titanic yesterday is playing Alexander’s Ragtime Band.

Daemon has invited a guest to share your table, chief designer of the ship Mr. Thomas Andrews. He is gracious and even-tempered, exactly the sort of man Daemon likes to entrap and enchant and have his way with. As you drown in champagne, Daemon tells Mr. Andrews about surviving a hurricane while mining Larimar in the Dominican Republic, domesticating a ring-tailed lemur in Madagascar (Daemon had named it Aegon and kept it on a leash), getting lost for three days in the Australian Outback and resorting to eating snakes and dingoes, bludgeoned to death with rocks and roasted over campfires. Rhaenyra observes all of this with a proud, radiant smile, encouraging Daemon with nods and oddly girlish giggles. Laenor, meanwhile, is chatting with Hugo and paying little attention to anything else. He and Rhaenyra have three young sons back in England, though they resemble Laenor Velaryon far less than they do Harwin Strong, Viserys the Duke of Beaufort’s former Master of the Horse and Rhaenyra’s rumored lover. The virile, dark-haired Harwin Strong was killed last year in an unfortunate riding accident, whereupon Daemon rekindled his previously strained relationship with Rhaenyra in the interests of helping her cope with the loss. As it turned out, Daemon’s niece had grown up to be much the same as he is—daring, sarcastic, charismatic, incorrigible—and as if you didn’t have enough difficulty winning his affection before, now you must compete with his kindred spirit, a golden-haired wildfire only a few years older than you and who Daemon can delightedly torment his estranged brother with by capturing her in his orbit.

Daemon is saying, his elbows on the table and miming clutching a massive gemstone in his palm: “As a famed French fashion critic once wrote, The jewel, which is so well adapted to a woman’s adornment, is a combination of the riches of nature and art.”

“Not just any fashion critic,” you say without thinking, the champagne parting your lips before you can reconsider. “Charles Blanc. And I’m the one who gave you his book, remember? It was one of my wedding presents to you.”

Everyone turns to stare at you, as if abruptly being made aware of your existence. Laenor and Hugo appear puzzled. Rhaenyra is frowning with disapproval. Mr. Andrews nods politely. Daemon, after a moment, chuckles in that low, rolling, sardonic way that he does.

“Yes, dear, you certainly did. Clearly it made an impression.” He looks to Mr. Andrews. “You’ll have to forgive my wife, good sir. I’m afraid she has a weakness for champagne.”

“Don’t we all?” Mr. Andrews replies diplomatically.

“The truth is,” Dameon says as if he’s confiding in the shipbuilder; and yet there’s an exhilaration he can’t entirely disguise, a malicious triumph, proof of the power he has over you. “She’s petrified of sailing, has been for years. And this journey…well…it’s been quite an ordeal for her. But under no uncertain terms was I leaving Ireland without my family. Where I go, we all go.”

“I’m so sorry to hear about your rattled nerves, Lady Targaryen.” Mr. Andrews’ eyes are soft with pity for you, a neurotic and illogical woman, tortured by her own nature. “Is there anything I can say to alleviate your fears? Have you been on a ship that’s run into trouble before?”

“No, no sir, I just…” You push through the warm, amber-gold fog of the champagne to explain. “I’ve never been able to stop thinking of all the water beneath us, and a ship…even one as large and luxurious as Titanic…it seems too vulnerable to me. One puncture and we all go straight to the seafloor.”

“That’s why I built Titanic with watertight bulkheads that go up to E-Deck,” Mr. Andrews says, smiling reassuringly. “There are sixteen total, and the ship can stay afloat with several of them flooded. This is meant to contain any possible breach in the hull.”

“Oh, how ingenious!” Laenor exclaims. “Hugo, isn’t that extraordinary?”

Mr. Andrews continues: “Truly, Lady Targaryen, I have built you an unsinkable ship. You have nothing to worry about here on Titanic.”

“Of course she doesn’t,” Daemon agrees.

“And there are lifeboats, I suppose,” you say. “Although…I didn’t see very many up on the Boat Deck. What is their total capacity, I wonder…?”

“Over 1,000 souls, ma’am,” Mr. Andrews replies.

You are horrified. “That’s half the people onboard.”

“Yes,” he concedes. “But as I said, Titanic cannot sink.” Again, he smiles blithely. “Besides, in the event of an evacuation—engine failure or damaged propellers or some such thing—the lifeboats would only be needed to ferry passengers from Titanic to the vessel we’d hail to rescue us with the wireless telegraph machine. The lifeboats were never intended to be able to hold all the passengers at once, that would be absurd.”

“Impossible,” Daemon concurs. “What on earth would necessitate a swift and total evacuation?”

“What about an iceberg?” Hugo says as he eats a heaping spoonful of Waldorf pudding, vanilla custard mixed with nutmeg, apples, walnuts, and raisins.

Mr. Andrews titters patiently, as if this is the most ludicrous thing he’s ever heard. “No iceberg could damage Titanic enough to flood more than three bulkheads. And we have lookouts employed to spot them and sound the alarm so we can turn in time. Icebergs are not a concern whatsoever.”

“Très bien!” Hugo declares, redirecting his full attention back to his Waldorf pudding.

Mr. Andrews looks to you, his voice kind but patronizing. “Do you feel better now, Lady Targaryen?”

“Much better,” you lie.

“Good. Then no more worrying. And no need to drink yourself under the table either.”

Daemon says with a derisive snort: “Well, she is Irish.”

Everyone laughs; everyone but you.

~~~~~~~~~~

Back at the Targaryen staterooms, Rush is waiting by the door to take your coats. Laenor and Hugo bid everyone goodnight, then depart; Rhaenyra, seemingly reluctantly, takes her leave as well. She and Laenor have separate accommodations as they always do while travelling, not unheard of among first-class passengers but also not helping to dispel the rumors concerning her sons’ parentage.

Dagmar is perched on one of the sofas like a falcon on a branch, her talonlike fingers knitting a forest green blanket for Draco. Your son, meanwhile, is sprawled on the sitting room floor and at war with Fern, who is trying to coax him out of his shoes and day clothes and into his pajamas.

“Draco, please, my love, it’s time to get ready for bed now—”

“I want to go back to the Gymnasium!” he screeches, wriggling out of her grasp. From the sofa, Dagmar chuckles as if this is charming behavior, a portent of superb athletic fitness, perhaps. “I want to ride the horsey!”

Fern is exasperated. “Darling, the Gymnasium is closed, no one is allowed to use it any more tonight. But I promise you’ll be able to go back tomorrow—”

“No!” Draco shrieks. “Now! Right now!”

Fern finally manages to slip off one of his shoes, and faster than anyone can stop him, Draco draws back his hand and slaps her across the face, open palm, a sharp crack in the air, and of course he’s too young and too weak to do anything but stun her, but he won’t be four years old forever.

One day he’ll be able to hurt people. He’ll be able to break them, bruise them, ruin their lives.

“No!” you shout, then bolt to Draco and drop to the floor to hold him by his frail little shoulders, firm yet careful not to harm him, no scratches, no bruises, no pools of trapped blood that will ache with violent memory. “You never do that! You don’t hurt people! You don’t hit women!”

“Mam?” Draco whimpers, his lips quivering and tears shimmering in his eyes; and he almost never calls you that, he almost never acknowledges you as his mother at all. But he knows, he must, this proves it. “I’m sorry…I won’t do it again…please don’t yell at me…”

Immediately remorseful, you embrace him, and Draco clings to you as he sobs. Fern is watching you with huge, frightened eyes; then they flick to someone standing behind you.

Rush grabs you by both arms and wrenches you away. You yelp in shock and pain; Dagmar swoops in to take Draco and vanishes into his bedroom, glaring at you over her shoulder, frigid lethal fury. Fern is covering her mouth with her hands so she won’t scream.

Rush hurls you to the carpet and backs away. When you look up, Daemon is standing in the doorway of your bedroom, orange dusk-like light spilling out from behind him.

“Come here,” Daemon says, beckoning you with his right hand.

You are terrified; you are shaking. “No.”

“The longer you wait, the worse it will be.”

“No,” you say again. You glance at Fern, but she can’t help you; she turns away, stifling a cry with her palms. The room is spinning, your thoughts are slow, your skull aches with rhythmic pulses like blows from a hammer. You peer up at Rush, blinking blearily. “Do you like working for a man who beats his wife?”

Rush doesn’t reply; his face is grave but otherwise unreadable. Fern curls up on the floor, shaking her head. The taxidermied tiger head roars silently from above the crackling fireplace.

Daemon says from the doorway: “Dear, I’m losing my patience.”

There’s nowhere else to go. You crawl towards him, then at the halfway point stagger to your feet. Daemons steps aside so you can cross through the threshold. He closes the door and locks it. You stare at him, swaying a bit, your hands hovering in front of you. You’re trying to figure out where he’s going to hit you, but he’s good at not letting on, and you’re drunk. You guess stomach, but it’s your face, just like Draco struck Fern; his open palm sets your cheek on fire and rocks your head back. You lunge for him, fingers clawing and knuckles jabbing at his ribs. Sometimes you fight back and sometimes you don’t—occasionally he finds it endearing and leaves you alone, more often it exacerbates the situation—but tonight you are overwhelmed with wrath for this man who has taken everything from you, your home, your parents, your son, your future.

You shove Daemon into his writing desk, then he pins you to the wall, slides open a drawer of the desk with his free hand, pulls out his gemstone-studded dagger and lays the blade against your windpipe. And you scream, because for all his roughness and his threats Daemon has never done this before. No one appears to rescue you; no one would dare.

“You will not correct Draco,” Daemon says. “He is my son, and I will deal with him.”

You seethe, teeth bared: “I don’t want him to be like you.”

“Think about it, dear,” Daemon hisses, the blade cold against your throat. You can feel it stinging, a thin slice like a papercut you’ll have to cover with makeup tomorrow. “We’re on a ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. If you were to take a tumble over the railing, who could say if it was an accident or a suicide or a crime of opportunity committed by some third-class scoundrel? There would be nothing to investigate. You would be gone, and that would be the end of it. Draco is past the fragile years of infancy, he is healthy and he is fierce. Your father’s quarry is already under the control of my managers. What do I need you for now? Why the fuck would I tolerate any further obstinance from you? Your usefulness has come and gone. You stand on the thinnest of ice. One wrong step, and you’ll find it splintering beneath your feet.”

He lifts the dagger away and strides out of the bedroom. You stand there in the tawny lamplight like a sunset, trembling all over, gasping for air, your hands flying up to your neck. When you check your fingers, they are sticky and copper-smelling with a small amount of blood.

He could have killed me. I think he wanted to.

There is a tall oval mirror by the bed, its frame gilded and glowing in the ochre lamplight. You stare at yourself, tears flooding down your cheeks, a gold dress worth more than you are. Everything you own is Daemon’s. That will be true for as long as he lives.

You flee out onto the small private deck attached to your rooms, through the back exit, and into the labyrinthian hallways of B-Deck. You run towards the stern of the ship, dodging stewards who ask if you need assistance and men sauntering back from the First-Class Smoking Room after dinner, puffing on their pipes and their cigars, nursing stout glasses of brandy to keep them warm. When you break out into the open air, it is bitterly cold. The ocean is a vast lightless void; you could mistake it for nothingness if it wasn’t for the thunderous rumble and salt spray of the waves. Your gleaming gold dress billows around you as you sprint to the metal railing that encloses the stern, grip the top rung with shaking hands, stare down into the roiling depths churned by the propellers.

Where can I go? There’s nowhere to go. There’s nowhere else to run to.

“Hey,” the viola player says; you recognize his voice immediately.

You turn away, not wanting him to see the swelling on your face, the traces of blood at your throat. You are heartbroken, you are humiliated. You agreed to marry a man and now he’s ruined your life. You wrap your bare arms around yourself and sniffle, shivering, swiping tears from your eyes.

After a while, the viola player says cautiously, realizing you aren’t in the mood for disclosures: “It’s cold tonight.”

“Obviously.”

He takes off his black wool coat, presumably stolen like the suit he wears underneath, and offers it to you. “I have more layers on.”

“I don’t want you to be cold.”

“Please shut up and take the coat, okay?” You accept it and put it on, and instantly you begin to feel better. The viola player asks gently: “Does he hit you?”

You shrug, petulant like a child. “Sometimes I hit him back.”

The viola player sighs, but he’s not just disappointed; he’s saddened, he’s pained. “Look, I know what it’s like to get knocked around. That’s why I left home.”

You remember what he told you when you first realized he’d followed you onto Titanic: I have family in New York City. I left home and haven’t been back in years, and I think now’s a good time for a visit. “Why would you ever want to see them again?”

“Things are different now. I’m older, I’m not afraid to walk out and be on my own, I’m confident that I can advocate for myself better than before. And they aren’t all bad. I have…” He hesitates. “I have two brothers and a sister in New York, and I miss them.”

“What are their names?”

“Um,” he stops to think. Clearly he’s making them up. “Arnold, Henrietta, and Dean.”

“Do you actually have siblings or is this some sort of metaphor?”

He laughs. “No, they’re real. The names might not be, but the people are. Want to see your painting?”

“You were serious?”

He carefully pulls it out of the brown leather portfolio he’s carrying under one arm. And if it’s supposed to be you, he’s failed, but still the image is mesmerizing: a young woman—too beautiful, far too beautiful—glancing over at him from where she was pondering the waves under a clear midday sky, her hair in disarray from the wind and her eyes fearful, an oil-paint snapshot of desperation, defenselessness, wonder, hope.

“It’s very nice,” you say at last. “But I don’t look like that.”

“Yeah you do.”

You examine the bottom right corner of the painting to see what he’s named you. You skim your thumbprint feather-lightly over black cursive letters, drawn with the smallest of brushes. “Petra,” you murmur.

The viola player says self-consciously, as if hoping you’ll approve: “It’s Greek for rock.”

You smile faintly. “I know what it means.”

“Oh, fancy rock lady took Greek lessons in school.”

“Of course I did.”Greek, Latin, French, Irish Gaelic. You muse softly, still studying the painting: “Petra and Picasso.”

You don’t have to look at him; you can hear the grin in his voice. “Guess we’re friends now, huh?”

“I’ve never had a poor friend before.”

“Well, firstly, you can’t call me your poor friend. That’s offensive.”

With great unwillingness, you surrender the painting and give it back to the viola player. “I can’t keep this. I’m sorry, I want to. But Daemon might find it.” And then he’ll push me overboard and I’ll be dinner for the sharks.

He tucks the painting safely into his portfolio. “I’ll hold onto it for now.”

“Forever, you mean.”

“You might not always have to worry about Daemon.”

You share a dark, horrible truth: “I’ll never be free of him.”

“We’ll see,” the viola player replies, undaunted.

We’ll see.

#aegon ii targaryen #aegon targaryen #aegon targaryen ii #aegon ii #aegon targaryen x reader #aegon x reader #aegon x y/n #aegon x you #aegon ii targaryen x female reader #aegon ii targaryen x reader #aegon ii x y/n #aegon ii x you #aegon ii x reader

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anilovie · 1 year ago

Text

My Love, My Life

Summary: You and Anakin are on a supply-run and get caught in a storm, forcing you to find shelter amidst growing tensions.

WC: 9.3k

CW: MDNI, pwp, oral (f recieving), mild size kink, shared shower, lots of fluff

AN: I swear this whole thing was revealed to me in a vision.

You and Anakin had been watching the weather closely since being sent out in the dingy little transport ship. The mission was to deliver supplies and medical aid to an incognito Obi-Wan on the planet Leaze— before the storm got bad enough where travel became impossible.

It was a simple mission, if not complicated by the sudden turn in their seasons, bringing forth a front of strong winds and heavy rains. Anakin could have even come himself, but the two of you played up the extent of Obi-Wan’s sustained injuries so that the Council would feel the need to send a medic – you – along for the ride as well. Any opportunity for you and Anakin to spend time together, you exploited.

Really, Obi-Wan just sprained a wrist. He was low on food, water ammo, batteries, and his clothes had been all torn up in a nasty skirmish with some bounty hunters. “A joyride,” Anakin referred to this mission as. That is, until you began the descent into Leaze’s misty, swirling skies.

In between tracking his location and watching the weather radar, Anakin’s focus was on bringing you down to the ground safely — with a little more emphasis on safe, since you were here. Thus, his hands gripped the controls with a bit more force than normal, jaw clenched and brows furrowed as he met each gust of wind with a controlled parry. He pulled the shuttle through the misty skies, stabilizing the rocking foundations through the whipping winds that threatened to toss you right out of the air.

You weren’t sure how he could even see. The rain and leaves that had stuck to the window obliterated any view– he likely wasn’t even trying to see. You realized this as he answered Obi-Wan’s incoming call without even sparing a glance out the window, fingers flying over the dashboard, weathering the elements through intellect and feeling alone.

“Anakin, Y/n, I trust that you’ve made it here safely,” Obi-Wan’s hologram displayed before you and Anakin. He looked alright – his disguise was off, for now, and he seemed to be someplace warm and out of the rain, a complete juxtaposition to the two of you.

As soon as the words warbled through, something slammed into the shuttle, rocking the foundations with an ominous groan as you began to plummet.

Anakin swore and yanked on the yoke, flicking some switches on the dashboard. “Working on it,” he bit through clenched teeth, huffing as the inferior ion engines sputtered and popped to life, breaking your fall. The shull continued to rattle and jerk, throwing you around in your seat despite being fully strapped up.

“I can see that,” Obi-Wan quipped. “Well, once you make it to the ground, don’t bother coming to my location. The storm is worse than the reports have indicated. Find shelter for yourselves – I can hold out another day.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. It’ll do more harm than good forcing you out there in these conditions. I am safe where I am.”

“Which is where?”

The transmission cut out for a moment, shuttering off and on again as sheets of rain pelted the aluminum roof. You caught the last half of his explanation. “--they offered a room for the night, though at a high price. I hope you brought extra credits.”

“Some,” Anakin grit.

“Perfect. Well, I won’t keep distracting you. It looks like you’ve got your hands full,” Obi-Wan bid goodbye, his cheery tone outlandish among your current predicament. “Happy landings,” he bid, and the transmission cut off.

Your fingers dug into your armrests, trusting Anakin’s skill to see that wish through. He was still deeply concentrated, and more than a little stressed as he pulled the yoke and typed over multiple colorful buttons.

“Well, at least he’s safe,” you offered offhandedly, trying to diffuse the tension. Another hard gust of wind slammed into the hull, this time on your side, followed by a hard sheet of rain. You flinched.

The lights had begun to flicker a while ago, and now they shut off completely, leaving you in the pitch black. Your sharp intake of air was audible, heart dropping to the pits of your stomach as the assault on the ship heightened.

“It’s okay, I did that on purpose,” Anakin explained. You could hear the strain in his voice, the clacking of his fingers over the overworked dashboard. “We need more power to the engines and thrusters. It’ll be a bumpy landing either way, but–”

“It’s okay,” you squeaked.

“We’re almost there…”

Bracing yourself, you squeezed your eyes shut and gripped the armrests, anticipation swirling around in your gut. You trusted him. You didn’t have to be so afraid. It was the weather you didn’t trust. Maker forbid you land in a pit of mud, swallowed up before you could escape.

A sudden jolt threw you forward, the sickening screech of bolts and rods fighting to hold the metal panels of the shuttle together drowning out all other senses. Inertia pushed you forward in your seat, and you would have gone flying out the windshield if it weren’t for the double straps tightened over your chest, the lap belt, and the death grip you had on your armrests.

Slowly, the sliding of the shuttle ship began to slow, the tension in the shuttle easing, parts settling back into place. Then, the sounds of the vicious rain pelting the roof returned, your body relaxing against the seat with a huff, blinking your eyes open to the pitch blackness of the hull.

“You okay?” Anakin worried, clicking out of his own seatbelt to reach for you.

You followed suit, fingers fumbling around in the dark for the clasps that would free you. “All good,” you released one set of straps, and Anakin found the two others for you. “Thanks.”

Another gust of wind nudged the shull forward, groaning under the pressure. Some lights flickered on, and there was Anakin fiddling with the control panel overhead so you could see.

“I don’t think we can stay here for very long, unfortunately,” he said, and you weren’t sure you’d ever seen him look so stressed. “The ship appears to be sinking. We’ll have to pack a bag and get going.”

Abandon ship? In these conditions?

Again, your unshakable trust in him erased any fear in your mind. He’d done far riskier and more dangerous things – his own fear now was because of you. You’re safety.

But you were fine – just a little shaky as you stood and reached for the supply crates in the back, rifling through them for necessities, tossing them to Anakin to shove into a bag. You managed to get half of what you’d originally planned to drop off for Obi-Wan into two bags. Anakin shrugged the larger one over his shoulders, and you took the smaller one.

You’d both come prepared, already wearing rain ponchos, but it seemed like they’d do little good as Anakin kicked the stuck door open. The sound of the rain coming down was deafening, a roaring torrent that could easily sweep you away.

“Hold on to me,” Anakin yelled over the sound, and you hooked an arm around his, pulling you out of the ship with him.

Mud and rain splattered your face as your boots met the ground, and he immediately took off, dragging you with him. Again, your blind faith in him came in handy. All you could focus on was spluttering around the rain for any pocket of air you could find, trying to keep upright as your heels slipped and skidded in the mud, hoping you weren’t slowing Anakin down.

Of course you were slowing him down. You were no Jedi. But you both knew that, and he didn’t mind. Just wanted you out of the wind and rain so you wouldn’t catch a cold.

After what seemed like ages of the two of you fighting through the elements, narrowly avoiding trees and branches and sharp rocks, Anakin pointed out an abandoned shed in the distance. He ran for it, pulling you under the awning with him so he could pound on the door.

“No one’s here,” he spoke after a moment as you were still wiping water out of your eyes. Something clicked in the door, unlocking so Anakin could open it up and peer inside.

He found the light switch on the wall, flipping it up and down uselessly. “Power’s out,” he mumbled, searching around in the force for some mechanism of light. Apparently finding something, he released your hand. “I’ll be right back.”

You stood shivering by the closed door, dripping a puddle of water onto the ground as you waited for him to return. With your sight gone, your other senses were heightened – you could smell the dust of furniture long forgotten, hear the creeks of unkempt floorboards as Anakin explored the shed, and feel the bone-cold chill of the storm seeping in under the crack in the door. Wherever you were, it was very old, and likely abandoned.

Anakin came back around the corner brandishing a candle, shielding the flame with one hand as he made his way back to you.

“This looks like it was somebody’s home at one point,” he thought aloud, pointing to the way he just came. “That’s a kitchen over there, and there’s a loft with a bed in the back. Pretty sure I saw a shower, too. I can probably get the pumps running long enough to make use of it.”

You wouldn’t question how he could do that– sometimes it seemed like he had magical powers, even without the force.

“Is there a fireplace?” you wondered, shaking off your drenched poncho and stepping further in now that you could see. “Maybe I could heat up some water to use, warm this place up a bit, too.”

Anakin held the candle out before him, casting shadows over the interior of the little shed. Right in front of the door was a wooden stairway – more of a ladder – that led to what you assumed was an attic. Deciding to avoid any bats or rodents, you agreed to keep that shut and rounded the ladder to what looked like a tiny living room opposite the kitchen, separated by a thin wall.

A couple threadbare sofa-chairs sat dusty and weathered on the dull carpet, a table set before the both of them, and – jackpot – a little stone fireplace in the corner.

“The wood from outside is too wet to burn,” Anakin poked at the empty log pit. “But I could break down that table and use it as fuel…”

“Good idea,” you chirped, taking the candle from Anakin to free up his hands for the task. “I’ll go look for more candles and matches.”

The kitchen was just as tiny, standing room only and no dining table. It consisted of a slab of wood for a counter, an empty ice box that was cracked down the middle, and some drawers which were also mostly empty.

One of the cupboard up top held a few random supplies, mostly rubber bands and bottle caps and dead batteries. But amid that was a bag of little tea candles, a few larger ones made of a slippery wax, and a box of matches. Half were no good, but you only needed to light one and then share the flame with all the others.

You planted the tea candles around on various surfaces, lighting the space up as Anakin broke down the table. You threw some old papers you’d found bunched in a drawer into the fireplace for more starter fuel, scratching another match to life against the grated box once Anakin dropped a leg of the table into the fire. You tossed the match in after it, satisfied when the flame caught the edge of the papers and flared to life, enveloping the wooden leg.

“That’s so much better,” you sighed, holding your hands out to warm by the flame.

“Mmhm,” he agreed, crouched beside you. He stared, mesmerized by the flames for a long moment before suddenly standing. “Alright, I’m gonna go look at the pipes. Will you be okay for now?”

“Yup,” you nodded cheerily. “Where are the pipes?”

“There’s a cellar out back. Should be down there.”

“Oh…” this time, your shiver wasn’t from the cold. “Want me to go with you? Sounds kinda creepy.”

Anakin huffed a laugh, running a hand down the back of your head affectionately. “No, I think I’ll be alright, thank you. Want you to stay here and warm up.”

“I’ll go get the bed ready.”

“Perfect,” he brought you toward him with that hand, pressing a quick kiss to your forehead. “I’ll be back.”

Now alone, you fed the fire with some more wood from the table, crouching down before the bags to get out your and Anakin’s spare set of clothes. You hung them up on the sill of the fireplace, weighing them down with the candles so they could dry.

There were a couple of large buckets beside the fireplace, probably meant for gathering wood. You took one and set it outside to collect rainwater. It didn’t take very long at all – it filled up from the downpour within minutes, and you hung it up on the metal rod above the fire to boil for drinking water.

Then you grabbed one of the thicker candles to light your way to the back of the shed. The floorboards lifted slightly back here, half of a wall hiding the bedroom from the rest of the interior.

The bed was quite large for such a small space, half-made with a quilted cover. It looked all dusty and gross, so you tore it off and opened all the drawers and cupboards in the space, praying for some spare sheets.

Luck seemed to be on your side. There was a set of sheets, blankets, and even a couple of pillows stowed away atop the first shelf in the closet. You had to strain on your tiptoes to reach them, but eventually knocked them down to your height. You took them to the living room and shook them out, making sure no dust or any bugs hid inside, then brought them back to the room and made the bed.

It was a lot more than you were hoping for, for an abandoned shed in the depths of the forest.

With the bed all made and Anakin not back yet, you decided to use the old dirty blanket to wipe down the interior of the bathroom. There was a shower – if that’s what you could call it. Really, it was just a spigot attached to the wall with a drain beneath, the floor here made of smooth rock rather than wood. But if Anakin could get it to work, and you warmed up some more water over the fire, you could have a real, warm shower using the soap you’d brought from the ship.

The sound of the door opening let in the roar of the rain once more. Anakin closed it behind him, shaking water out of his hair.. “Good news,” he called, voice carrying from the door to the bedroom in the small shed. “There’s a water heater down there that I got working, as well as the pipes. I just have to fill the tank and we’re good to go.”

“Ohh,” you cooed excitedly, rounding the corner to meet him again. “I found a bucket we could use– hold on.” You grabbed the spare bucket from the fireplace and handed it to him. “The bed’s all set, I found some clean sheets and cleaned up the bathroom. There doesn’t seem to be anything useful in the kitchen or anywhere else,” you shrugged. “But I think this will do pretty well for the night.”

“I think so, too,” Anakin said, and despite the howling wind and icy rain pounding into the roof and threatening to shatter the windows, he smiled.

He left to go fill the tank, and you laid out the rest of the supplies before the fire. The bigger bag was for Obi-Wan– those things you didn’t touch. But you and Anakin had a couple extra blankets, some food, a blaster, maps, and your medical supplies. Most of it survived the rain.

By the time Anakin came back, you were still sitting before the fire, occasionally feeding it with more scraps of wood and poking it around with a longer piece. He kicked the mud and dirt off his boots at the door before coming in, shrugging off his poncho.

“Alright, bad news…” he started this time. You turned to look at him. “The heater is the slowest thing I’ve ever come across. It’ll take hours. I don’t think showers are in the cards for us tonight.”

You twisted your lips, trying not to seem too disappointed. “Bummer.”

All you wanted to do was get out of these sticky, soaking wet clothes and immerse yourself in a warm shower. But at least he tried, and it really wasn’t the end of the world.

“Maybe in the morning,” you reasoned, trying to stay positive. He joined you by the fire as you tugged on the clothes you’d hung up, seeing if they were ready. “At least these are dry, and warm now. That’s better than nothing.”

“It is. Smart girl,” he tilted your face toward his with a finger, crouched before you again. His lips met yours – wet meeting dry, cold meeting warm. It took you by surprise a little bit, the intensity he kissed you with out of nowhere. But you responded in earnest, as if the simple touch of your flesh could warm him from the torrents coming down outside.

After a long moment, he pulled back an inch, mumbling against your mouth, “Let’s get out of these wet clothes, yeah?”

You nodded silently, standing once he gave you room to take the clothes down from the fire.

You’d been on missions with Anakin before, just the two of you. But nothing like this – so raw, so intimate, so secluded from the rest of the world. You could feel a strange tension in the air between you two, not bad. Just… different. Like there was an energy pulsing alive, waiting for something to snap.

You’d been with Anakin for a few months now, and in love with each other for far longer. But… you’d never truly been with him yet. In any way.

He knew you weren’t ready, and explained you could take it slow. As slow as you wanted. He, of course, was already experienced, and that intimidated you. Which is why it had been months, and you still hadn’t made a move to progress things. Just the thought of doing those things with him made you impossibly nervous.

But lately, like now, you were thinking about it more and more. You couldn’t do this with anyone else, you thought. Just Anakin. You loved him more than life itself, and your ability to express that with words or innocent touches was growing limited.

You wanted more of him. And you wanted him to have more of you.

What are you thinking? You shook the thoughts out of your head as you took your clothes into the bathroom to change. These thoughts had nothing to do with the predicament you found yourselves in. The last thing he was thinking about was sex.

In fact, upon exiting the bathroom, you found him already changed into his dried pair of pants and nothing else, sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting for you with a tired, slumped look in his eyes.

He’d given you his spare shirt to wear since it was bigger and warmer than yours, and he wasn’t going to wear it anyways. You also had on a pair of shorts, the comfy ones you brought for sleeping since you thought you’d be in an inn right now.

You approached him slowly, shadows cast over his face from the candlelight, flickering off the walls. The air was a bit chillier back here, away from the fire that you’d let simmer to embers for now. Naturally, you gravitated toward his shirtless form, slotting yourself in the space he’d opened up for you between his knees, and wrapping your arms around his neck.

“What an odd change of plans,” you muttered into his hair softly.

His flesh hand found your back, holding you close as he nestled his head against your chest. “Agreed.”

You remained like that for a moment, wrapped up in each other’s warmth and rain-damp hair, listening to the constant thrum of the downpour above, the gusting wind in the trees.

“You tired?” you asked, playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. You liked how it looked dark and burnished in the candlelight, holding the shape of a ringlet curl as you wrapped and uncoiled it from around your finger.

“Very,” he breathed, turning his face into your neck to leave a kiss on your collarbone. “C’mere.”

Both of his wrapped around your back, securely holding you to him as he fell backward onto the bed, with you on top of him. You laughed, steadying yourself with your arms on either side of his head, ducking down to plant a sweet kiss above his brows.

“You’re not even on the bed,” you pointed out, referring to his legs which were still on the floor. You pulled back the covers, and you both slipped under, instantly finding the spot between his chest and shoulder to lay your head. His arm wrapped around your shoulders and pulled you snuggly into his side, allowing you to slot one of your legs between his.

This is how it always was when you and him could truly be alone, uninterrupted, with no threat of someone finding you out. It was a rare moment, which is why your skin sang with every inch it pressed against his, heart soaring in your chest as your body seemed to settle so perfectly against his, erasing any doubt in your mind that any of this could be a mistake.

Before long, and without even realizing, you slipped into a deep sleep. Despite the harsh weather outside, you’d never felt so comfortable, wrapped up in warmth and darkness. That is, until Anakin woke with a start, wrenching you out of your slumber.

“What issit?” you slurred, rubbing sleep out of your eyes. It wasn’t like when he’d have nightmares, where you’d usually wake up before him due to his tossing and turning and mumbling. This was sudden – like something had possessed him, stolen all the air from his lungs as wide eyes turned to you.

“The transmitter,” he said, throwing the blankets off of him and getting out of bed. Your head was still lagging behind, having no idea what he meant.

“What transmitter?”

“The one on the ship. The only way we can contact Obi-Wan. We left it behind.”

He was already pulling on his boots and reaching for his other shirt, sparing no time. You pushed yourself further up in bed, swiping your hair out of your face. “D’you have to get it now? Can it wait till the morning?”

“The ship was sinking when we left it. It could be buried in mud right now,” he rushed the words out, grabbing his utility belt from the sill and securing it around his waist. “I’ll be back in an hour. Go back to bed… I’m sorry for waking you.”

“No, I’ll come with you,” you were already swinging your legs off the bed too, about to stand up when Anakin put a hand on your shoulder. It was dark now, the candles having been blown out without you realizing, and you could barely see his face.

“No. Stay here. I don’t want you out there, it’s too dangerous.”

“It’s just some rain,” your argument sounded meek, even to you. “Come on, Anakin, I don’t want you to go alone. ‘S not fair.”

“Fair?”

“You shouldn’t have to be out there while I stay here and sleep. I won’t be able to, anyway. It is dangerous, so I should come with you, in case something happens.”

“Y/n. No,” he said sternly, and you flinched. A heavy pause hung between you, where you searched for what to say among the scattered thoughts in your brain. He’d never been stern with you before. Ever.

“I won’t be gone long. I promise I’ll be there and back as fast as I can. Okay?”

“But,” you insisted stubbornly, desperately fighting back the sting in your eyes. “I want to go with you, Anakin. I want to help you.”

You tried to stand up again, but the hold he had on your shoulders wouldn’t let you. You tried to fight back the emotion rising in your throat, threatening to spill over your eyes at his defiance. He was too strong, his word absolute– and for once, you couldn’t sway him.

The thought of him out there, alone in the dark and cold and rain… it killed you.

You grasped at his wrists, still holding onto your shoulders, and squeezed as if you could keep him there. As if he wasn’t laughably stronger than you, and could pull away from your touch without realizing you were trying.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart? This isn’t like you,” his words came out hushed now. Worried.

“Nothing’s wrong,” you sniffed, lip beginning to wobble. “Just don’t want you to get hurt.” It’s scary out there.

“I won’t. I promise… I’ll be okay. You’ll see,” he kissed the stray tear that squeezed out of your eye, collecting it with his lips before it could trail a path down your cheek. You tried to steady your breathing, shaky as it dragged in and out of your lungs, quelling the rising feeling of dread and fear.

Somehow, he’d coaxed you back into bed, on your back, tucking the sheets in around you nice and tight. Tight enough so that you couldn’t get out, perhaps. Whimpering in defeat, you felt another few tears squeeze out of your eyes, turning your head away from him to bury into the pillow.

“Don’t do this,” Anakin murmured, stroking a hand over your hair. “Please, don’t cry.”

“Fine,” you snipped, immediately regretting it. “‘M sorry… just don’t get hurt. Come back.”

“I will,” he whispered, and trailed warm kisses down your temple.

And then he was gone.

His voice, his touch, his scent, his warmth – all of it, vanished like it had never been there to begin with.

It’s not the fact that he’d left to go do something dangerous on his own – it was the fact that he was out there all alone, in a terrible storm, fighting through the unpredictability of the elements. It had been violent for the short time you’d been out there earlier, the rain pelting your skin so hard it stung, the mud sticking to your boots, refusing to let you move, the wind nearly toppling you over if Anakin hadn’t been there to steady you.

You could have gone with him. You could have kept up. And Maker forbid anything happen to him – if he got stuck, trapped somewhere, if a tree came down over him, if he got lost and couldn’t find his way–

You couldn’t stay in bed. Half of you wanted to pull your boots on too and meet him out there, but you knew that was a stupid decision. You didn’t have his sense of direction, the built in radar that he had. And even as you peered through the cloudy window to the outside world, you knew it would be in vain. The night forest was alive with shuttering tree limbs, branches fighting each other in the sky as the terrible wind tossed them around. The rain never let up, the same suffocating sheet of water dumping from the moonless sky above.

Anakin was far gone at this point. You could only sit by the window, alone in the cold, dusty dark, until he returned.

The sleeves of your – Anakin’s – shirt had grown damp by the time you spotted his figure appear out of the trees.

It startled you at first, worried some stranger had come across the shed in the same way you and Anakin had, and was now heading this way to seek shelter. Once he arrived, he might find you here, and maybe he’d try to hurt you.

You slipped off the ledge you were sitting on and grabbed for the water-logged blaster you’d set on the floor, shaking out some raindrops and hoping it wasn’t one of the things that got destroyed by the rain.

Your worry was for naught - the closer the figure grew, the more you recognized the height, shape, and gait of Anakin Skywalker. The hood of his poncho was pulled up over his head, but it did little good as the wind tugged and pulled at it, letting the rain drench his face anyway.

You set the blaster down and met him by the door, pulling it open to reveal him soaked to the bone and panting. He truly had run the whole way.

“Anakin,” you started, trying to stay out of his way so he could take off his poncho and boots without spraying you with water. “Are you okay? Did you get the transmitter?”

“I made it just in time,” he explained, reaching into his belt pocket and brandishing the little metal device. Such a small thing, important enough to risk his life over.

At least, to him it was.

“You must be freezing,” you muttered, still upset at the fact that you hadn’t shared in his suffering. You hated seeing him go through these things alone. You should have been with him.

“The heaters have probably had enough time to warm the water up,” his attempt to distract you didn’t go unnoticed. “You wanna go check for me?”

You whispered, “okay,” and flit back to the bedroom, lighting a couple of candles inside so you could see. The spigot was stuck in place due to years of sitting unused and abandoned, but eventually you managed to wrench it to the side, almost splattering yourself with brown water.

Your face crinkled in disgust, but soon it began to run clear. You tested the temperature with your fingertips, pleased to feel that it was warm.

Anakin rounded the corner, leaning against the doorway of the bathroom with his arms crossed. “Is it working?”

“Yeah. It’s warm,” you pulled your hand away and wiped it dry on your shorts. “You should get in quick so it’s not wasted.”

“Wanna join me?”

His offer caught you by surprise.

Join him? In the shower? As in… naked?

The look on your face must have given your thoughts away. He chuckled and reached toward one of the tea lights you’d just lit, snuffing the flame out between two gloved fingers. “I can turn off the lights…” he teased.

Damn him. As if you weren’t already flustered –

The steady trickle of the spigot remained at your back, seducing you to the warmth of the shower. It would feel so good to be able to wash up. And with there only really being enough time for one shower… it would make sense for the both of you to just do it together.

But Anakin had never seen you without clothes before. And you hadn’t prepared for that to happen today.

“Yes… no…?” he drawled, uncrossing his arms and reaching out for the other candle. Like the first, he pinched the flame out, blanketing the room in darkness. The sound of the floorboards creaking was the only way you knew he was approaching, tensing as you felt his hands tug at the hem of your shirt. “C’mon, sweetheart. I’ll behave.”

You were still upset with him being stern with you earlier. And even more upset that he didn’t let you go with him.

But something about his honey-smooth voice reduced you to putty in his hands. Warmth budded and bloomed deep in your stomach, and a certain resolve passed over you. You didn’t want to be upset anymore. You wanted this.

“Okay,” you whispered, fingers finding Anakin’s at the bottom of your shirt. You didn’t miss his slight inhale.

“Really?”

“Yes, really,” you tugged the hem up yourself, urging him to guide the material over your head.

The darkness of the room was the only thing that offered you any sort of comfort, knowing he couldn’t truly see you just yet. You knew, logically, that he could fathom things in his mind without having to see them, but purposely ignored that fact.

You weren’t sure where your shirt landed, as he’d been the one to tug your arms out himself. Riding the adrenaline high, you slipped your thumbs under the elastic of your sleep shorts and pushed them down, kicking them somewhere in the corner.

And there you were, standing completely naked in front of Anakin Skywalker – your love, your life – for the first time ever.

Again, the only reason you could really do this right now was because it was pitch black in the room. You only had enough nerve to then reach for him, hand finding the soaking wet material of his own shirt as you shivered in the cold.

“Hurry up and get undressed, I wanna get in,” you pleaded. He’d gone eerily silent.

At your request, he started into motion. You could hear the sounds of his wet clothes slopping to the ground heavily, trying to fight the blush off of your face as you turned around to pull the spigot further. The water began to rain down in a warm current now, and you stepped underneath to douse yourself in the glorious heat.

“Where are yo–? oh,” you jumped as you felt his hands find their way around your waist, his naked chest pressed up against your back. The water sprayed over the both of you, trickling down his body to fall onto yours, shivering at the added heat.

The blood in your face grew warmer, trying not to think about how close his hands were to two very sensitive parts of your body. They spanned almost the whole length of your torso, tummy twisting as you realized just how big he was. Just how strong.

But he chose to be gentle with you.

Trying to steady your breathing, you reached for the soap you’d stowed away in the notch in the wall, flipping the cap open and squirting a generous amount into the palm of your hand. Anakin trailed his fingers down your arm, taking the bottle from you and setting it down again.

You rubbed the soap between your hands, letting the excess drip down your body so it wouldn’t go to waste. Then, you began rubbing the suds all into your skin, feeling impossibly feverish at the predicament.

It just felt… wrong, somehow, to be touching yourself like this in front of Anakin. Even if you were just washing up.

His hands had returned to your waist, and you smoothed them over his own as you worked your way down your body. Wordlessly, he turned his hands over, capturing your soapy fingers in his and stealing some of the suds. You huffed a laugh, heart fluttering in your chest as he began to work that soap into the soft skin of your stomach, hips, and waist.

You tried not to squirm too much. Forced yourself to relax, and just let him do what he wanted. He was obviously enjoying it, the way he lingered, rubbing circles into your soft skin, kissing at your shoulder blade as he brought his hands around and up your back, almost massaging the soap into you.

The way his hands moved over your body was so different than anything you’ve ever felt before. You’d never been touched so tenderly, so unrestricted yet loving as you’d been now. And though he had free reign, he avoided the parts that might make you uncomfortable… until you grew bold enough to capture his wandering hands in your own, leading them to the soft mounds of flesh yourself.

On instinct he squeezed, ever so gently, with your smaller fingers bracketing his own. “You can touch me,” you whispered, encouraging now that you were fully relaxed and comfortable with him.

“You’re perfect,” he replied, lips finding the curve of your neck.

What had he said about behaving?

As if he could read your thoughts, his lips released the skin of your neck with a small sound, pressing a kiss above that spot, and then one more under your jaw. Then he began to move his hands over your breasts, not quite sexual, but gentle. Caring. Washing you of rainwater and chill, so all that was left was the sweet smelling soap and the feel of him.

You sighed in relief, bones turning to mush in his hands. Soon, he reached for the soap again and squeezed more out, stepping around so that he was in front of you.

His hands found you again, your waist this time, the unpredictability of his touches making your heart hammer against your ribs. Something about it was so thrilling, not being able to see where he was or where he was planning to go, especially now that you’d given him permission to touch you. You weren’t sure where you’d draw the line if it came to that. If you’d draw the line.

His touch remained wholly innocent, though, focusing back around on your stomach, dragging down the curve of your waist, your hips, the tops of your thighs. You could feel his breath on your tummy, butterflies flaring to life as you realized he was on his knees before you, dragging his touch up and down your thighs as his lips pressed a sensual kiss to the top of your tummy. Then above your belly button. Then one below–

You held your breath, anticipating him to keep going. But he lingered on the last kiss, and you could feel his teeth on your skin as he smiled.

“On my best behavior, remember?” his voice was deep, almost a purr.

You could only manage a meek “Mmhm,” as he continued on, tracing his fingers down to your knee, lifting one leg slightly so he could trail kisses down your thigh, over your knee, down, down down, all the while rubbing soap into your skin in his lip’s wake.

By the time he reached your foot, you were bracing yourself with your hands on his shoulders, trying not to jump out of your skin as his lips continued. He kissed your ankle, the top of your foot, massaging soap into the soles of your feet.

He wasn’t just washing you. He was worshiping you.

That much was clear as he released that leg and started over on the other side.

You were almost relieved when he was done. Every inch of your skin was alive and buzzing, standing on edge with electricity and embarrassment and something else. Something deep, and smooth, and warm like bubbling molasses. You could barely breathe, glad for the moment of reprieve when he finally released you, and deposited more soap in his hands so he could wash himself.

Your legs were jelly, afraid you’d fall down right there in the shower, completely baffled how he could just do something like that and continue on like nothing happened. Then, you heard the speed at which he was rubbing the soap over his own body – clearly, he wanted to get out to continue this elsewhere.

You weren’t terribly ashamed to admit you were thinking along the same line.

Before the water could run cold, Anakin had urged you both under the spigot again and rinsed all the suds off your body. Then he grabbed for the single towel that you’d brought from the supply bag, turning the water off and wrapping you up in it.

“Hey– what’re you doing?” you pouted, undoing the towel just as soon as he’d tucked it into you, secure.

“Getting you dry,” he responded like it was obvious. You rubbed the towel over your skin quickly, then wrapped Anakin in it like he’d done to you. Or– you tried to, at least. You still couldn’t see, and completely missed your mark, caught off guard by the absence of the body you confidently reached for that you almost slipped, bracing yourself on the first thing you could reach.

“Woah,” Anakin chuckled, easily steadying you with his hands around your waist. Your bare chest was pressed against his, glaringly obvious with the way the cold air tightened your skin, and you blushed furiously.

“Sorry– couldn’t find you,” you mumbled, hopelessly patting at his chest with the towel now that you had him.

“Alright, let’s get you dressed and out of here before you take us both down,” he teased, bending to retrieve the clothes you’d both discarded in the dark.

You let him pull his shirt over your head first, shielding you from the nippy air. You were disappointed with the loss of contact, but glad for the sense of normalcy. He knelt before you again and urged you to lift your leg with his hand around your calf, guiding one leg, then the other into your shorts, pulling them up until they rested comfortably on your hips.

He pulled his own pants on, the only thing he’d be wearing, and you finally reached for the bathroom door, ready to be able to see again even if it was only by candlelight.

It was like re-entering life, after being in the dark for so long. You turned to see if Anakin was following you, finding him close behind as he shut the door behind him, and just the sight of his ridiculously handsome face, gilded by the glow of the fire, set your heart aflame.

You needed his lips on yours. Now.

This time, he was taken by surprise with the intensity of your kiss. You stood on your tiptoes and captured his lips with yours, barely noticing as he fell back into the door slightly, hand finding your hip to steady you. His surprise quickly melted into an intensity that matched your own, hot lips sliding over yours, tongue dipping into your mouth for a taste, palm guiding your jaw just how he liked.

He kissed like he was drinking you in, breathing your air, as if he wished to share the same skin as you. And though you’d started it, now you were trying to keep up, head growing fuzzy from lack of oxygen as he began to guide you backward, onto the bed.

As soon as your back hit the mattress, the reality of the situation dawned on you. He wasn’t slowing down, and you didn’t want him to. His touch dragged fire across your flesh, tracing down the places he’d just worshiped under your clothes, pulling you so close to him you could feel his heart hammer in his chest.

Your hands buried in his hair, the other on his shoulder for stability, grounding as he released your lips with a gasp, wasting no time before claiming the sensitive skin of your neck with the same furiosity.

“Anakin,” you breathed, not really sure what you wanted to say. You just wanted to taste his name in your mouth, the way the syllables sounded so pretty, so perfect between your teeth.

He answered with a short “mmm,” listening but not really. He was too deep into it, kissing and sucking and nipping at your neck, tongue laving over the small hurts that his teeth dug into you.

Somehow his flesh hand had drifted to the elastic of your shorts. You’d missed it before, too caught up in him toying with the skin over your pulsepoint. But now his fingers teased the elastic that he’d just put on you, and despite your livewire nerves and the pound of your heart, you lifted your hips in invitation.

His mouth detached from your neck, shocked again as he breathed, “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” you forbid him from asking again by pulling him back to your lips. You needed the distraction, bracketing his jaw in both your hands as he pulled your shorts down your legs, slowly. Giving you time to back out.

You kicked them off once he reached your feet, flinging them out of sight. Anakin settled back between your thighs, your knees squeezing his waist, squirming as his touch now roamed free under your shirt.

“Anakin,” you pulled away to breathe once again, lips swollen and wet, filled with the taste of him. “I– I don’t know what to do.”

His eyelashes shuttered, delicate as a butterfly wing, and he leaned back in to peck you gently on the lips. “Don’t worry about a thing,” he murmured, eyes all melted and soft. “I’ll take care of you.”

There it was again. That blind trust.

He could do whatever he wanted to you right now, and you’d let him. Half dressed, strewn over the bed, all for his taking… and he moved down your body to recount the kisses he’d pressed to your stomach in the shower only moments before.

Your muscles clenched and unclenched, hips squirming as you felt an uncomfortable warmth, a wetness, an ache between your legs the further down he moved. You were no stranger to that feeling, or how to relieve it– but you were new to sharing it with someone else. Sharing it with him.

Though it made you incredibly nervous to have him down there, the need for his touch outweighed everything. He kissed your stomach, hips, and thighs until he felt you relax under his palms, and only then did he slide his hands beneath your knees, pausing one last time to ask:

“Will you let me taste you?”

It felt like something exploded in your face, with the intensity that heat bloomed in your cheeks. Those bejeweled eyes shining in the candlelight, intent on you, hands clutching the plush softness of the backs of your thighs, breath ghosting over the bottom of your stomach– it was almost too much.

“Okay,” you answered quietly, nodding your head. “Y-yes.”

His responding grin was wicked – roguish. Broad hands pushed your legs up and spread them apart, baring it all for him to see.

It was quick– so quick you barely had time to be embarrassed, like ripping a bandaid off. He just… did it. And now he was looking at you, holding your thighs so steady in his strong grasp that you couldn’t even dream of closing them on him.

You threw a hand over your eyes, unable to watch him look at you.

“Baby,” he breathed, flesh hand releasing one of your legs so he could slot it between your thighs, thumb pulling you open a little. You didn’t think it was possible to be more embarrassed as he studied you, only opening your eyes to look at him when he tugged at your wrist in silent demand.

“C’mon, don’t be shy,” he teased, though when you blinked open your wet eyes to look at him, his face had melted into one of adoration. “You’re so beautiful,” he said, before pressing his lips to the swollen bud of your clit, taking you by surprise again. “The prettiest there ever was,” he smirked when he saw your reaction, pulling you open with both thumbs now so he could press a hot, deep, lingering kiss into you.

You gasped at the contact, blood rushing in your ears as your back bowed off the bed. Sparks of pleasure battled the humiliation as he continued planting sweet little suckling kisses to your clit, over and over, as if he couldn’t get enough.

Once you’d relaxed back onto the bed, and the first pathetic whimper left your mouth, he let his tongue roam your folds, collecting your taste.

He knew this was new for you, so he went slow. Started gentle, getting you used to the feeling. And it was strange for you, just a little bit, but mostly it felt… good. So good. Indescribably good. So much so that you couldn’t believe you’d held out on this for so long.

Couldn’t believe you were letting him do this to you now.

Your hips twitched and jumped as his tongue traced down to your entrance, teasingly licking you in circles, using pressure like he might try to put it in. The thought had you reaching for the bedsheets, needing something to squeeze in your fists. One of his hands intercepted yours, bringing it back to your thigh so he could hold you still and let you squeeze his hand at the same time.

He licked your arousal up, truly drinking you now, allowing his tongue to lave over your clit all slow and smooth and warm. You mewled, a sweet, innocent sound that went straight to his cock. With a desire to pull more pretty sounds from you, he kept drawing circles over your clit, increasing the pressure and speed until your eyes were closed, and you were biting your finger between your teeth, unable to help the sounds escaping you.

“Fuck, Ani–” gasped, thighs falling open by themselves now, inviting him deeper. He licked you again, closing his lips at the top of your heat to suck your clit into his mouth, pulling it between his lips with a pulsing suction.

He didn’t let up.

Your muscles tensed, the fuzzy warmth building in your gut, between your legs, spreading down your thighs, becoming all consuming. And just when you thought it would burst, he let go.

“Shit,” you cried, breathless as your hips rocked against his mouth. He laughed, sticking his tongue out so you could hump the met muscle, hot breath fanning over your most sensitive parts. His teeth gleamed in the firelight, dark eyes trained on you, and you had to shut your own so you didn’t cum right there.

“Ah, ah, ah,” he pulled his face away, pinching the inside of your thigh just enough to sting. You forced your eyes open, meeting his gaze again. “Stay with me, pretty girl.”

His mouth, shining with your slick, lowered to your pussy again. And you couldn’t stop from moaning, hips canting up and down even though you knew it made his job more difficult. You just couldn’t help it– it felt too good.

And he knew that, so he was nice. It was your first time, after all. So he relaxed the hold he had on your hips and let you squirm, just a little, to delude you into thinking you had even an ounce of control.

“You gonna cum in my mouth, sweet thing?” he spoke against your cunt, sealing the words off with a loud, wet, kiss. “Gonna make a mess for me?”

You’d never appreciated the velvety timber of his voice more than right now.

“Mhm,” you whimpered pathetically, eyes squeezing closed. And again, he let you. There would be other times to play his wicked games.

“Alright, sweetheart. Whenever you’re ready,” he soothed, returning his mouth to your clit. He licked and sucked, sliding his tongue back down to your hole and breaching the entrance like he’d fantasized about doing with his cock for so long now, carving the exact path he would take. You gasped for air, humming it out in cute helpless whines and whimpers, cheeks permanently stained in a flush.

“Anakin, I–” you wanted to say you loved him, no matter how pathetic that sounded. But it was true, it was all you could feel as his lips suctioned around your clit again, pulling it into his mouth and teasing it with his tongue in torturous circles. You loved him, loved his mind and his body, and the way his lips and tongue were pulling that glorious wave of heat from out of you now, swallowing the gush of hot slick that escaped from your pulsing hole.

He brought you down with his thumb on your clit, soothing gentle circles into it as you cried, body shaking and jerking beneath him. He watched you come undone with a small smile on his face, not allowing you to escape his attention for even a moment.

The last gulp of air that you took to settle your shivering muscles felt like the sweetest breath you’d ever taken. Anakin climbed back up your body, hands sliding over your knees, so he could kiss you deep on the lips.

You tasted yourself – it wasn’t bad… slightly salty, but not quite. That mixed with the taste of Anakin had your brain turn to mush again, lips lazy and compliant under his.

“See how good you taste?” he hummed, going back in to flirt his tongue around yours. “Fucking delicious.”

“Anakin–” you were pushing at his chest now, the buffer of arousal no longer shielding you from so much embarrassment. He laughed as you covered your face with your hands, immediately trying to tug them away again.

“It’s the truth,” he insisted with that lover’s pur, and you pouted once he finally succeeded in seeing your face again. He traced your bottom lip with his thumb, still smiling. “You okay?”

“Mhmm,” you nodded, unable to fight back your own matching smile. “‘T was so good, Ani. Didn’t think… didn’t think it’d be like that.”

“No?”

“Mm-mm,” you shook your head, leaning into his warm palm as he cupped your cheek, thumb still stroking your bottom lip. “Thank you. Do you– do you want me to…”

It took him a second before he realized what you were talking about. His eyes widened slightly and he looked down, then laughed. “No– no, you don’t have to do that.”

“Don’t you want me to?”

“Of course I do,” he insisted, mirth and adoration oozing from his gaze. “But I can handle it tonight. Think that was enough for you.”

You pouted again, about to insist, but he kept you quiet with a kiss. “Another time, okay?” he whispered against your lips.

You nodded, complaisant.

“Good.” With a deep breath of his own, he lifted himself off of you, carefully closing your legs so they wouldn’t ache from being held open for so long. “Wait here,” he requested, and then left for the bathroom again.

He grabbed the towel you both had used, and sat on the edge of the bed. “Can you open up for me?” he asked, fingers sliding around your thigh in silent request.

Your face burned even harder than before, somehow, as you fulfilled his request, spreading your legs a bit so he could clean you up. It was a strange feeling, almost more intimate than what he’d previously been doing– but it was quick, and it felt nice now that your arousal was all cleaned up, and he could slip your shorts back on with you having to get up.

Anakin retreated back to the bathroom and was gone for a few long moments. You had an idea of what he was doing, another burst of heat blooming in your stomach at the thought of what was going on behind that door. You had half a mind to suggest helping him again. You were more than willing.

But he came out only a short time later to find that you’d straightened all the sheets, and were now waiting by the pillows for him to come back to bed with you. He blew out the candles as he passed them by, getting into the bed and wasting no time pulling you onto his chest.

He’d never felt closer to you. And you, him.

In the morning, you’d probably be embarrassed again, recalling what you’d done. The storm outside seemed to trap you in a bubble, your own world, and everything else seemed so far away now.

You pressed your palm to his chest, letting the strong thud, thud, thud of his heart lull you to sleep. Before he could feel you drift off, he pressed a kiss to the top of your head.

“I love you,” he said, and you heard it in your dreams.

divider from @saradika

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charnelhouse · 2 years ago

Text

bad people

Gif by @jdmorganz

Pairing: Joel Miller x F!ReaderWordcount: 3kWarnings: rough sex. age gap (tho undefined). violence. oral. blood. joel being a dick. drunk sex. Summary: When it happened, it happened in the dark.

Ten Years Post Outbreak

Boston was dirty. The summer rain had been relentless, liquefying the dirt to unforgiving mud. She’d had enough of rain. Her shirt stuck to her skin, constricting her limbs and soaking her feet. She was lightheaded. She’d had a spoonful of canned peaches earlier, and the sugar smudged her tongue.

She blinked down at her feet, the sneakers threadbare and soaked. Her eyes flitted to the wood-brown boots beside them. They dwarfed her shoes in comparison.

The man next to her was one she knew. Joel Miller.

He was rough-looking with his weathered skin and dark hair threaded with a bit of silver. He was also handsome, seemingly carved from a shard of rock. Strong. Brutal.

Hephaestus.

If he were a God, she’d choose Hephaestus.

The things she did know about him were both second-hand and from afar. He was mean and ruthless. He beat the shit out of a rival smuggler and blinded another.

Tonight was purely coincidental. The rain was too hard. The soldiers were out in droves due to a recent Firefly attack. Joel had stumbled upon her hideout: a narrow storage closet that smelled like bleach. He’d turned the tiny light on, and she’d snapped like a feral cat. He’d shut it off without apologizing.

Instead, he glanced down at her, frowning, and for a split second, she thought he was going to murder her for the shelter. Instead, he tugged a large plastic bottle of brown liquid from his pack and offered it.

Whiskey–she guessed. A homegrown brew that might make her temporarily blind. The good stuff.

Wordlessly, she took it. The terms were met. You can share this space with me. She would have said yes regardless.

Joel sat beside her, and after she swallowed enough to burn her lungs, he accepted the whiskey again.

***

When it happened, it happened in the dark.

They barely spoke. Instead, they passed the bottle back and forth. Both of them were loose with it. The whiskey warmed her belly, making everything somewhat bearable. Her vision became edged with gauzy sweeps of color–finger painting in the dim light. The world was bathed in butter, gold, and temporary numbness.

Thirty minutes had passed when she finally spoke. “Great weather we’re having.”

He paused, the plastic crinkling in his hand, the rim scraping against his chin. He smiled briefly.

“Used to like the rain,” he replied. “But now?” He shook his head, and she noticed the raw cut of his jaw, his patchy beard. He was someone who had worked too long in the sun, and yet she found him unbearably attractive. Rugged. A hot coal pulsing fire, and she was desperate to get warm.

She thought of fungus. She thought of it growing in this narrow room with its perfect conditions. Humidity. Wooly heat. A petri dish. She could become it–become the sick and she could rot into the wall with Joel sitting silently beside her. She’d swell with a patchwork of pretty colors: blister-red, jaundice-green, bile-orange.

Jesus. She was maudlin. She was drunk.

The rain fell harder, pelting the walls of the building. She knew things were hanging on by spit and glue. She knew everything could–would–collapse eventually. No more clean-cut grass. No more distinct roads. No more potted flowers.

Joel turned his head, his dark gaze landing on her face. The irises shimmered like a sun-drenched black top. He had somber eyes. Expressive for once. Doe-like. He stared at her as if it was the first time he actually was actually seeing her.

She wondered if he went through life avoiding the periphery. There was only the direct line in front of him. When he came into this closet, he shoved the bottle forward and only saw her hand accept it.

He blinked at her sluggishly, his pink lips parting beneath his mustache. There was a flicker of recognition.

“You ran with Luke, right?”

Surprised, she nodded. Joel had remembered her.

Luke. Gorgeous Luke, who was the very picture of a homecoming king. A movie star. Corn-fed. Blonde hair, white teeth, and sea-glass green eyes. He had been full of hope, and there had been a time when Joel and his brother, Tommy, had worked with them. She’d stuck to the corners. Watched. Observed. Frightened out of her mind because she didn’t understand how to live anymore—how to function, barter, or be content. Luke had done it all, protected her to the best of his ability.

“You’ve gotta take a deep breath, baby,” Luke had ordered, shrouding her face between his dry, clean hands. “You adapt. You live. That’s it.”

“Good guy,” Joel offered, somewhat awkwardly. Everyone knew what had happened to Luke. She’d been surprised that many people cared at the time. The Apocalypse had occurred, but the community still gave a shit over the handsome jock with the diplomatic smile.

She huffed a laugh, and he frowned.

“He was an idiot,” she hissed–very resentful even if it had been three years. He’d left her here.

There’d been so much blood—eggplant purple pouring out of Luke as he gurgled for her.

Joel pushed the bottle into her hand, his knuckles brushing her palm. She took a pull and didn’t wince. “He still operated as if the rules hadn’t changed. He didn’t understand that you have to be a bad person to survive here. He trusted too easily. Far too empathetic for his own good.” She scowled as she knocked her head against the wall. It throbbed–spots of white sprouting across her vision like a fungus–

“Hey,” Joel said, leaning into her. “You’re gonna hurt yourself.”

She could smell the honey-burn of whiskey on his tongue, in his beard. There was also the press of wet dog, sweat, and body odor. She was used to that. She was used to the smell of unwashed humans. Those were good scents because they didn’t carry that mildewy stench of fungi. A water-logged basement. A moss-covered stone at the edge of a pond.

She inhaled and found Joel’s hair brushed in smoke. Cigarette ash. He was closer to her, his denim sleeve rasping her bare arm.

“You’re shivering,” he mumbled.

“I know.”

It happened within a second. An unspoken decision erupting like a metallic click of a lighter.

She was lonely—so lonely and she wanted to burn. Perhaps, he did too.

His eyes found hers, his lids heavy, and his cheeks flushed. She wasn’t sure if she moved first or he did, but she knew they didn’t kiss. He jerked to the side last minute, his mouth scraping down the side of her cheek.

He encouraged her to lie down, his chest against her breasts as he petted her hips, the outside of her thigh. He was heavy, breathing hard as he buried his face into her neck.

“Lift your hips,” he murmured as he popped the button on her jeans and rucked them down to her knees with his nose still rooted against her jaw.

They fucked fully clothed on the filthy, cement floor.

She pushed his jeans under his ass as he gripped his cock and smeared it against the lips of her cunt. It was clumsy and desperate, but it felt good. Everything felt good. She had to bite his shoulder when he finally breached her. He moved too quickly, sinking to the hilt as her body tried to accommodate his girth. He’d broken her in, forced her to mold to his size, and she found herself fisting his hair, biting his neck.

“You’re good,” he hummed as he slowly began to saw his hips. “Fuckin’ great, sweetheart.”

The drag of his cock sizzled her insides and spread her apart. He pinned her down and buried her with his full weight. She felt safe—blanketed by him and all of his denim.

Every thrust forced her spine up the wet floor. Her knees dug into his ribs, her ankle wrapped around the back of his calve. He smelled like a soaked garden. Soil. A brushfire. Wood. His nails were dirty, and she arched when he dug them into her waist.

He ground against her in a way that made the wiry hairs at his groin stimulate her, his pelvic bone rubbing her clit. She climaxed a little too quickly. Embarrassingly quickly. It had been so long since Luke and Joel was big. The pain was welcome. The ache of him. She clenched around him, tightened to a knot as she cried out into his hair. His curls were caught in her breath, his beard burning her skin.

Afterward, he stood, tucking his soft cock, shiny with her, into his jeans. The near-empty bottle of whiskey rolled against her leg. He attempted a smile that was more of a glower and shook his head a bit to clear it before backpedaling out the door.

***

It ended up working out—forced proximity.

He needed a second hand, and anyone else found him scary. He seemed taken aback when she offered her help, perhaps surprised at her forwardness.

We fucked. That’s it.

But–he accepted her, begrudgingly pulling her into his plans. She was a tiny island in a sea of several. Her group had been Luke, and the others within it had done what they did to him. She’d killed them for that—no more group.

He gave her the couch in his small place. Tommy was in and out. Ships in the night, she supposed, though she didn’t know what had broken between them.

Most of the time, Joel ignored her. He seemed unable to look her in the eye, which she found hilarious. Her ego had long been snuffed out, but she couldn’t help the pinch of hurt at Joel’s coldness.

You’ve been inside me. C’mon.

He gave her orders. She watched his back. He was someone who would know of her existence if she died.

Would he care? She doubted it.

But he’d know she’d been there. Breathing. Alive.

***

One midnight, Joel returned to the apartment, pissed off. She hated waiting for him, being left behind. She’d rather be out there and with him.

Luke had died alone. He’d told her to stay put, and he’d gone out and died.

Joel had stumbled toward the couch in the dark. Forgetting she was there, he’d crashed into her, and she’d yelped.

“Fuck,” he growled, shoving a hand through his curls. “What the hell!?”

“It’s my bed,” she murmured, and it seemed to douse his fire. He blinked at her, the moonlight turning the edges of his face silver.

“I don’t understand,” she continued, voice a little thick with frustration. “If you don’t want me here–”

“Lie back.”

He went to his knees, hands moving under her ass and pulling it forward. He cupped it and lifted her pelvis. Shorts gone. Joel’s skin was cold from the outdoors, and he hitched her knees over his shoulders. His hair tickled her skin. He covered her cunt with his mouth and drank from her. He devoured without a hint of shame because she could hear herself on his tongue. The wet mess of her pussy. The room rang with her whimpers, and when she tried to silence them with her hand, he growled like an animal–a beast.

Afterward, he stood up mechanically, before stalking back to his room. He left her with her shorts around her ankles, her cunt tender and soaked.

He hadn’t even wiped his lips.

***

She learned from him—what he had become. He was selfish and drowning in the bloodlust that rippled under his skin like a parasite. She got it. She found it stimulating. His philosophy of kill or be killed. His ego stroked with every fight he caused or fatal situation he inevitably won.

Two months in, she watched him put a bullet in a newbie smuggler who had sold him pills made from chalk and sugar.

He turned around, grabbed her hard by the back of the neck and shoved her up against a wall. He dragged her pants under her ass as he fiddled with his belt. After a distressing second, he pushed himself into her. No spit. No preparation at all. It was dry enough to hurt them both, but she still moaned. He gagged her with his palm as he fisted her hair. He fucked her in short, brutal strokes. Thump...thump….thump against the plaster wall. An even, steady rhythm. He didn’t rush it. He didn’t speak either. Just grunts. Just feral, low noises from the back of his throat.

“Joel,” she gasped, and he pinned her with his hips. He withdrew until only the tip remained before plunging back inside her like he could fuck her guts. Maybe, he wanted to. Maybe, he wanted to punish her and remind her:

I’m a bad person. I’m the kind of person who survives in a world like this. Isn’t that what you want?

***

“How old are you?” Joel asked out of the blue; his brows knitted together in concern.

It was a little late for that. The air between them spiked before becoming sour and viscous as jelly. He pulled his shoulders back, his expression twisting into something hesitant and concerned.

She chewed her lip thoughtfully, wondering if she should lie for his benefit. Finally, she told him, and he grimaced. The age difference wasn’t that obscene. It wasn’t unheard of or ugly. There weren’t many people left to begin with. She’d seen him kill. He knew what she had done to avenge Luke.

Joel rubbed the scar across her belly. "Was this from the woods? After Luke?"

"You should see the other guys."

Joel grinned in a way that was so deliciously impressed. Smug. "Oh," he said, curling with glee. "Oh-I did. Had no idea a little thing like you could even think of such things."

She leaned forward, her lips hovering over his own. His hands found her ass and he encouraged her down until he was half-way inside her. He was all blood - unforgivably hard and he split her down the middle. She loved it.

"I lost my mind for a second," she revealed, deliberately flexing the walls of her pussy. He grunted and became slightly cross-eyed. "You know...” she continued. "If it had happened to you? I might have done the same."

"If I had been Luke?"

"If you had been Luke."

Suddenly, he grabbed her hard and shoved her down, impaling her on his cock until he couldn't drive further. He was in her throat--her lungs. Joel. "I wouldn't be Luke," he argued huskily as he snapped into her - once - twice. He smacked her ass and the sound rocketed through the room. "I'm a bad guy, remember?"

She tried to laugh, but it tumbled out of her like a whimper. "Still," she said between the continuous, punishing stabs of his cock. "Still--I'd avenge you."

She held her hand out, and he took it. He could wrap his whole fist around hers and she’d disappear.

“Don’t worry so much,” she warned. “You’ll get wrinkles.”

Of course, he was already well-worn. She bet he was lined and edged even before the infection. He was a constant overthinker. She knew he’d been a carpenter, but the rest was a wash—all diluted gray mass of nothin’. His life before was not something he gave her.

“Why are we holdin’ hands again?”

She lifted her shoulders, gaze wandering away from his pointed stare. “Just consoling you now that you’ve realized you’re a dirty old man.”

He squeezed until her bones trembled before rolling his eyes in a disarmingly young way. “You need to watch that mouth of yours.”

***

Joel was swollen with a fever. She touched his forehead, dragging her fingertips across his cheekbone. She traced a letter and then her name. He leaned into it, lips parting as his whiskey-damp breath brushed her skin.

“You’re not doing too well,” she observed. His bare shoulders bulged from the edge of the blanket, and his lashes fluttered. His mouth curled as he tried to shift against the thin mattress.

“S’fine,” he slurred.

She swallowed a scream. She wanted to burst. She could do nothing for him but wait. Hope it was a virus. Hope it was a plain old illness that had to tire itself out.

“Let me go to the other side of town,” she murmured. “I’ll find you meds. I’m sure I can.”

His eyes snapped open at that. He attempted to sit up before groaning. “Don’t–don’t–you fuckin’ dare.” He said her name softly as he melted back into the mattress. Coughing. Moaning. “Do not go.”

He pushed his head into her lap in the blurred daze of his fever. She swept his hair away from his face, combing his fingers through his damp curls.

If he got worse, she’d go. She’d have to.

The next day, the fever dropped a point. Joel couldn’t fall asleep, instead trembling in the bed, sweating rivulets of sickness.

She played him Lee Hazlewood. Your Sweet Love. She played it on repeat. It rocked him somewhat, and with her imagination, she turned the popcorned ceiling into stars and a twilight sky.

Joel curled into her. “You smell nice,” he sighed. He held her closer, demanding warmth even though his skin was oven-hot.

In the morning, his fingers wandered down between her legs. He touched her, stroked her until she shook in his sweat-sodden sheets. The intimacy killed her. It was too much and not enough.

***

She worked one of the body disposal shifts and cut her hand on some glass. The wind was painfully cold, and the blood that bubbled up from the gash felt like hot tea. She studied it, somewhat enraptured by its brightness of it. It turned the dirty snow at her feet maroon.

She heard her name. It was muffled, and then it was louder, familiar, and seared with frustration. Joel. He gripped her hard by the arms, twisting her around. Joel handled fear terribly. Terror could only be molded into anger for him. Violence.

He shook her. “Where have you been? I waited an hour.”

She lifted her hand to show him. She still could be childish. She wondered if she had stopped maturing after the world had ended.

His eyes slowly crept from her face to her hand. “How?”

“Some glass,” she shrugged.

“Is—are—-,” He trailed off, audibly swallowing.

She found it off-putting. Joel was usually so collected.

“If I were infected—they would have shot me,” she reminded him, and he sagged an inch. Of course. Of course. How silly of me.

He rearranged his expression so that it was his usual gruff stoniness.

“You’re freezing,” he accused as if she could help it. Boston winter. Not enough layers.

We thought the cold would stomp out the infection–the bacteria–the fungus.

“It’s fine–”

Wordlessly, Joel wrapped his arms around her shoulders, hauling her into the heat of his chest. Surprised, she gripped the fabric of his shirt as he forced his jacket around the both of them. The sky was blue-black, and the snow clung to her hair and scalp. It coated his coffee-brown hair in powdered sugar.

She pressed her face into his sternum, nuzzling her nose into the space between his pecs.

“Let me see your hand,” he urged.

She gave it to him, still dripping and tender. She needed a bandage. Of course, FEDRA tested her, but they wouldn’t waste a single strip of gauze.

She heard Joel curse them under his breath before cradling her hand, fingertips barely nudging the injury. He dropped his head and kissed the vulnerable space between her thumb and index finger, and when he pulled away, there was the faintest trace of her blood on his chin.

“So weird,” she said. “So alive.”

His brow furrowed. She might be a little light-headed.

Yes. Yes. Hot-feverish blood meant her heart was pulsing, thumping with life just like Joel. His anger. His pain. What he does to her in the dark.

“C’mere,” She grasped his face between her hands. Unshaven. Prickly. Her blood. On tiptoe, she claimed his mouth, and he accepted, even demanded more.

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #tlou fanfiction #joel tlou #the last of us #the last of us fanfiction #joel miller #joel miller imagine #joel miller x y/n #joel miller x female reader #pedro pascal #the last of us hbo

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kinardgo · 4 months ago

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Jee having fun with her uncles Buck & Tommy!

Maybe Buck feeling a little 🥰😍 watching Tommy being in 'competent dad mode', even though he's not ready for their own 😂

okay this is everything actually if season 8 doesn't give us tommy playing with jee and buck noticably ovulating across the room i will riot

bucktommy / rated g / mild warning for non serious accidental injury to a child

"-and take a nice, deep breath for me. This is going to sting a little, okay?"

It takes a few seconds for Buck's brain to come back online as he re-enters his apartment. It's been a quiet day so far, as quiet as any day off looking after his curious, hyperactive niece can be. They'd watched some TV, leaving some irritating cartoon pop song ingrained in his head, probably for the next week at least. Had some lunch. Afterwards, Jee-Yun had proclaimed her desire for ice cream with all the certainty of a biblical saint. Buck, a little soft hearted from an easy day surrounded by people he loves, agreed to go to the shop in search of some.

Maybe it's lulled him into a false sense of security, because he stares at the scene in his kitchen with a blank expression for a full three seconds before he galvanizes into action.

Jee's up on the kitchen counter, a little teary eyed, her bottom lip wobbling, blood trickling down her skinny calf.

"Woah, woah, hey," he says, rushing to Tommy's side, where he's crouched in front of the counter, "What happened?"

"Someone," he says, eyeing the slightly sheepish looking girl, "decided to ignore me when I said running full pelt around the place would end in tears."

"I'm sorry, Tommy," Jee says, her voice shaking.

"It's okay, chica. You're not in trouble. Tripped over the rug," he adds lowly to Buck, "Limbs everywhere, slid five feet, the whole ten yards."

Now he's a little closer up, he can see that. Her knee is all scraped up, a messy graze, but nothing deep. There's a little mark on her elbow, but no blood. Kids bounce, Hen once told him. Buck kinda wishes Jee would stop trying to test that theory out on him though.

"Now, stay nice and still while I get this cleaned up, okay sweetheart?" Tommy eases, turning his attention back to Jee, the full effect of his Cool And Unphased Firefighter Pilot shtick aimed at a tiny little person who doesn't even have a fully developed concept of consequence yet. It feels unfair. Buck's a whole ass adult and it's enough to make him spacy, "Do you know what this is?"

Jee looks from the antibacterial wipe in his hand, to Buck, and back to Tommy nervously, "No."

"This is a special kind of cloth that can get all the yucky stuff out of your cut, get it nice and clean."

"Like soap?"

"Kinda like soap, yeah," he nods, smiling, "It's gonna hurt a little bit, but that's how you know it's working. Ready?"

She nods, hands fisting in the skirt of her pink dress anxiously. Tommy swipes over the graze of her cut quickly and gently, efficient but effective.

"Brave girl, Jee," Buck murmers, rubbing a hand soothingly up her arm.

"Yes, she is," Tommy agrees, "Now, I'm going to put a plaster on this. Hold still for me-" She holds herself dutifully, solid like a rock, as Tommy smooths the dressing over the knee. It's probably overkill, but Buck knows that the power of belief in healing is almost as important as the actual healing bit.

"You did so good, Jee," Buck says, straightening up to plant a kiss in her hair. She giggles, grasping at him with her pudgy hands, "And so did you," he says, kissing him on the cheek. Jee shrieks with laughter the way she always does when Buck dares to show any kind of affection to anyone but her.

"Now, you," Tommy says, sweeping Jee off the counter, "Get settled on the couch, because it looks like your Uncle Evan got some cookie dough vanilla that's got your name all over it, kid."

Jee's face splits with a grin so wide it looks like it might hurt, then throws her arms around Tommy's neck, burrowing her face in his shoulder with a happy little sound, "Thank you, Uncle Tommy," The words are muffled into the collar of his shirt, but Tommy clearly hears loud and clear if the way his face scrunches up in delight is any indication.

Something heavy and dense swoops straight through the middle of Buck's core, through his chest and out through his stomach. Too much, too fast, too soon. Tommy gives Jee a final squeeze, swaying her a little so her tiny legs flop around, giggling happily until he puts her back down.

Jee cuddles up with a pillow on the couch, something that looks like elves on an acid trip playing on the TV while Tommy washes his hands and puts the first aid kit back in the cupboard and Buck gets three bowls of cookie dough ready for a good ol' fashioned sugar binge.

"She adores you."

Tommy looks up, even as Buck keeps his eyes resolutely on the ice cream.

"She's got a big heart," he says fondly, before adding, "Must be a Buckley family trait."

"She's a good kid," Buck grins, turning to look over at Jee, hugging one of the sofa cusions to her chest, so big against her that she can rest her chin on it.

"Yeah. Do you want kids?"

The ice cream scoop skids across the counter out of Buck's hand when he jerks in surprise.

Tommy laughs quietly, ducking his head to kiss his shoulder, "Not right now, Evan. Just... curious. You're good with her."

"So are you," he fires back. He knows he's being stupid, that he's acting defensive, and he doesn't even know what about. Jesus, he sucks when someone catches him off guard, "Do you want kids?"

It doesn't look like it bothers Tommy, who just grins like he knows better than to take Buck's knee-jerk panic personally. Probably because he does.

"Yeah. One day."

Buck can't help smiling back, "Yeah. One day."

They all squeeze onto the couch, Jee tucked in between them with enough sugar shovelling into her mouth for Maddie to have reasonable justification to murder him later. It's probably not how he would have described his ideal afternoon, but he can't find fault in it.

#bucktommy #tevan #911 #**writing #bucktommy tag #evan buckley #tommy kinard #thank you so much for the prompt this was very sweet to write!!!! <3

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hero-hoe · 8 months ago

Text

For the #1 Captain MacTavish enthusiast @brewed-pangolin after talking about that bubble butt 🥵🥵 I had a brain worm

MDNI 18+ ONLY. Vague smut, marriage kink, body and chest hair worship. PiV. Fem!Reader.

Captain John MacTavish who knows exactly what his body looks like, heavy muscles with a healthy layer of fat and even warmer layer of hair all over his body. The man is damn near furry, and he knows exactly how it makes you feel. You, the bonnie lass he met after retirement who he immediately had to wife up.

You, the sweet little thing he loves waking up to long after sunrise on lazy Sunday mornings Cuddled together in bed with you wearing his shirt, your soft thighs thrown over his thick ones, knees cradling his defined waist. One hand behind his head, tucked up under the pillow for extra comfort while the other guides your rocking hips. Letting your delicate hands grope at his chest, knowing you love his "hairy tits" as you once called them.

"That's it, hen. Doin' so good fer me." He groaned, eyes half lidded yet so full of love as he watched you grind yourself on his shaft so lazily. You'd both been at it all morning, the dark brown hair of his thighs now slicked to his skin with your juices. He loved seeing himself covered in you nearly as much as you loved toying with his hair.

Your deft fingers were carded under the loosely curled hairs on his chest, groping at his pecs for balance with every motion, tugging on the pelt of your warrior.

"Atta girl. Can feel ye gettin' close again." The hand comes out from behind his head, moving to cradle yours instead and push your face into his chest. A low moan left his throat when your teeth bit into his flesh, just hard enough to leave an indentation on the side of his breast. "C'mon, lass, be jus' let go fer me." He insists, moaning as you tug the hair on his chest once again in desperation. "Shh, ah ken is a lot, hen, but ma wife can take it, yeh? Ma perfect girl can give me one more."

He finished after you did, a few lazy bucks of his hips into your wet warmth while you bit and drooled into his chest, making a mess of the hair you had so neatly finger combed earlier that morning. He kept you on his lap once you were both done, reaching onto the nightstand for the water bottle you had left on his nightstand and encouraging you to drink.

A scarred hand smoothed down his frazzled chest hair once you were both adequately hydrated, letting out a disapproving tut. "Look at the mess ye made, love. Ma gorgeous wife had me all groomed and ready, and ye fuffed it up. How about ye fix that, hmm?" He teased, knowing just how much you loved getting his hair in order. Be that his mohawk, now musch longer than it was in his service days, or the hair adorning every inch of his powerful body.

Your fingers worked with expert care, straightening out the tangles you had made, arranging the hair of his chest to point inward and downwards towards his stomach. You smoothed out what you could of his comfort-softened tummy, but his grip on your waist wouldn't let you go far enough to reach below his navel.

"Much better, love. Ah'm lucky to have such a caring wife, no?"

#that picture burrowed it's way into my brain like a worm in an apple i stg #had to write it before i went insane hope u like it ♡#captain john soap mactavish #captain mactavish #captain john mactavish #john soap mctavish x reader #john mactavish x reader #soap x reader #soap drabble #john soap mactavish #body hair #body worship #cod x reader

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evilminji · 11 months ago

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Okay but >.> continuing my Marvel thoughts?

I got two of um?

First being? Don't Orange and Green go together? *looks it up* Aaaaaay~ "Direct harmony, also known as complementary colors, means pairing your key color with the color sitting on the opposite side of the color wheel." They DO!!! They're a classic example, in fact!

The Orange Soul Stone? Probably looks REAL good, real NATURAL even, against that Green sky! Bet it REALLY pops! Very stand out statement piece, you know? But? More importantly? That thing is sentient. All of those Pillars of Reality across the various Verses are.

And?

I bet it thought Pariah was a lil bitch.

Rank Vibes. Negative ris. Pick your words for it, the man was NASTY. He was too keep his filthy, filthy World's Conquering hands OFF of this Soul Stone. Something, I imagine? That ALL the Soul Stones agreed with.

Yes, I said all of um.

Because the various Realities each need their own. But! They can and DO work from the Zone, which is the PERFECT place to hide. And honestly? They like to get together and do this thing? Where they're all "oooh~ look at US! We are SUPER IMPRESSIVE Kingly Jewelry~☆! Definitely no important reality bending Rocks Of Great Power HERE! No SIR! We're just tooootally rad jeeeeewelryyyyy~~~☆! Oooooooh~☆"

They like to have fun. :3

Hope Danny likes Orange. Ha ha... trick question. He doesn't have a CHOICE! All SORTS of Death based Reality Pillars are rocking up, in their metaphorical Gucci sweat suits and shades with a margarita, going "oh thank ME, babe. The last guy was AWFUL! You're soooo much better? Now let me rub myself all over you. It's been ages and baby needs to recharge on Death Energy."

Danny hates it? So? So much?

He looks like a GAUDY PIRATE. *nnnnnnyooom!* *THWAP!* *Another reality shaking, highly sacred, Godly Staff of Death or whatever they decided to call it, flys in through a nearby window and nearly concusses him as it smacks itself against his upper back and sticks there*

He looks like a walking junk heap of sacred artifacts.

You ever been pelted by rocks? He has! Little orange rocks! Like fucked up hail! Welcome to kinghood, Danny, have a CONCUSSION! D:< he hates it!

But... but, I mean... At Least It's Not The SWORDS. (Panicked scream of "hit the deck!" from the other room.) (Holy sword number 15 wants to CUDDLE! Bare blade first! Dodge, your Majesty! DODGE!)

So yeah.

Danny? In A MOOD. Not feeling particularly FRIENDLY. It's not anyone's fault, really. But... well... you can't exactly negotiate with these fuckers, you know? Rocks are by NATURE, kinda stubborn.

So he's sitting there. Buried. With what he's pretty sure is a sacred text digging into his side. When a... glowing? Mist? Shows up? Huh. That's new. They don't seem to have a very clear image of "Self". Yet it's crystal clear? Just not... PHYSICAL? It's more... code? He thinks?

TECHNUS! Get over here! And behave!

There is much cooing and delight from Technus. The baby is a marvel. A wonder! Danny waits patiently for Technus to get to the point.

Ah.

He would like to "go back". His Obsession is demanding it.

IS it now? You're what? Maybe a day or so dead? You've been busy, if you've already gathered enough information to make your case like this. Alright, let's hear it, little guy.

It boils down to this. His obsession in death is the same as his primary directive was in life. Protect Mr Stark. Which is especially difficult to do from HERE. Even MORE so when there is a known threat, coming too...

WAIT, WHAT!?

The Souls Stones back him up. Oh yeah. Thanos' a lil bitchbaby loser. He's trying to make Death fall in love with him. Or "balance the universe". Depends on the reality. Totally throwing EVERYTHING out of whack.

And? Look. Danny's job? Isn't to interfere if countries kill each other. Or even planets. Nor entire galaxies, as much as he'd like too. But when you get too "I'm messing with Entire Realities or all of a Singular Reality at once in the specific depart of Death and its subsidiaries" territory? THAT is his job.

Might not be a "I personally have to show up" issue. But it still IS very much his job at that point. He has to delegate. Order the appropriate steps be taken. Cause yeah, there may be countless millions every day of such instances? But it IS his job to metaphorically order the roads repaired and the building inspected.

Sudden MASS "immigration"?

That causes Lair disputes. Confusion. Too many ghosts in too small an area. And WORSE, if people start playing with Death Pillars? The Zone might get dragged into whatever nonsense they're up too! It's like children playing with heavy machinery! Put that DOWN! Cease! Desist!!

And then? Clockwork shows up looking Mildly Miffed(TM). O:> dear lord. What madness has he stumbled upon? Oh. Oh of COURSE. First the "balancing" dude and now they're going to be playing with time travel. THATS IT. Someone unburying me!

I'm gonna go menace some humans that might actually believe I'm scary! Frighty! Pack up and shine your armor! Your coming too! We're escorting the baby home then have a Talk(tm) with the local Grape Ceral!

@hypewinter @lolottes @mutable-manifestation @nerdpoe @hdgnj

#dp x marvel #dpxmarvel #dp x mcu

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orangelionfurandtaxidermy · 3 months ago

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Hi, I have some fur farm questions if you don't mind answering.

I've seen you mention that Sapphire is questionable. Why is that? Is it bc of the bleeding and CHS? If so, is Mansfield's Pearl also questionable to breed? And can CHS or bleeding issues be bred out or are they inherently part of the color?

On that note, do you have information on other color mutations that are linked to health issues?

Lastly, how does one get into fur farming? It seems really expensive to set up and buy all the foxes, and I struggle to find fur farms to follow online bc of how taboo it is let alone finding farms to buy live stock from, especially of rare mutations. Is finding farms to buy from more of a word of mouth + trust thing? And is mentorship of new farmers a thing or is fur farming too competitive for established farmers to want to do that?

Bonus: feel free to talk about your favorite mutations or anything else you wanna share.

Hi!

Yes Sapphires seem to all carry genetic illnesses. Some look to be only mildly affected, I’ve been following a few foxes friends of me carefully bred after they discovered some of their Pearls are Mansfield Pearls. So far the animals look to be doing ok, so it’s surely not a death sentence.

However I fear not all farms will be so careful about their breeding or using unhealthy animals because they want to get that special color. You’ve probably seen or heard about Mouse, the Sapphire fox Save a Fox bought from Northern Fox and Fur (a fur farm) several years ago.

Sadly Mouse did have severe CHS and had to be euthanised. There are very strong suspicions the farm bred “special needs” animals so the rescue could profit from the sob stories. Eventually Save a Fox bought out the whole farm. As of today it’s still about half filled with foxes because they can’t place the animals anywhere. Every rescue is full.

Mansfield Pearl alters the way in which blood behaves, foxes of this color seem very prone to excessive bleeding. I acquired this female Pearl Cross (suspected Mansfield Pearl Cross) “secondhand” a few years ago from the US. From what I see in the picture, it’s not a place I want to support. However this girl had already been culled for killing her whole litter of pups. When my tanner skinned the fox, they found that the bones were super weak and easy to snap. The skin had an unusual amount of bloodvessels and also the gums and teeth were quite funky. I’m still waiting for the cleaned skull.

In red foxes there’s not that many bad mutations luckily. Pale eyed foxes do experience sensitivity to the sun, we’ve seen them squint in direct sunlight. Mixing Whitemark/Ringneck/Platinum/Georgian (Snow) creates a lethal effect in homozygous form. Platinums can be anemic but it does seem to be worse in certain breeding lines than others. There’s probably others I’m forgetting but sadly there’s not much research being done anymore.

Finding a farm to work with is very hard nowadays. I somehow got myself a contact 5-6 years ago and it’s snowballed from there. The number of farms is very low now though, many of my own contacts have decided to stop farming because it’s essentially two full time jobs for the pay of half a job.

At least here in Europe it’s pretty much impossible to start up your own farm unless you have serious cash. No bank will want to provide you a loan because there’s little money to be made in the industry. Mutation foxes are very rare, most of what is produced is mink fur, arctic fox fur (‘bluefox’) and some raccoondog fur. You’ll find some Silver and Gold fox, but even those pelts are currently being sold in bulk at rock bottom prices to overseas buyers.

A picture of a Smokey Platinum pup for those who read this whole thing lol. This is a newer mutation for us, last year we had one male and this pup is one of his. Can you see the differences between this cage vs the one the female Pearl Cross lived in (she could barely turn around)? The cage in the background gives a better view of the size. There is also a nest box attached.

#vc #vulture culture #orli’s rambling #pelt #dead stuff #fox

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adrift-in-thyme · 6 months ago

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I saw your post about requesting things for your Fairy Time AU and have a question. Does this AU include any of the weaknesses the Fae have in real wild folklore (ex. Iron)?

Oh, maybe you could write a little snippet with Time/Hyrule debunking common fairy myths with the rest of the group?

First off I’m SO SO SORRY for the long wait!! My writing motivation flew out the window and didn’t return until today. Tysm for being patient <333

ALSO, this got unexpectedly angsty (though was it really unexpected? This is me we’re talking about XD). So sorry about that

CW for mentions of injury, specifically burn wounds, and mind control

—————————————-

Time expects questions. After all, it is only natural that in the face of the information they have managed to uncover, the heroes would wonder. A fairy is a mystical thing, mysterious even to those as closely acquainted as they. And to learn that blessed blood runs through two of their companions is no small thing.

But the queries that come, pelting like raindrops, are different than he anticipated.

“Magic,” Legend says when the sun is high and the heroes prepare for battle, “can it harm you in ways it doesn’t others? Mortals, I mean.”

“What about salt?” It is Wild who asks, when they have set up camp for the night. He peers at the rock salt in his hand as though it is liable to attack. “I’ve heard fairies don’t like it.”

“Can fairies die?” Wind asks with eyes so large, Time imagines he can see the Great Sea roiling within them. “In ways humans can’t?”

Iron, curses, traps to ensnare — they have heard of them all. And now, they wonder about them all.

It’s touching, Time decides as he and Hyrule respond to their queries. Or attempt to. It is difficult to reply to things that spear their deepest worries, their most intimate wounds. That dredge up memories long thought buried and fling them into the light of day.

But yes, this protective instinct, this reckless kindness is touching. Knowledge is power, especially where Hyrule’s saviors are concerned. Obtaining it can be the difference between success and defeat.

From anyone else, such queries would be little more than flaming arrows, flying towards the heart. And truthfully, Time must shove aside that soul-deep instinct to hold up his shield to stave them off. The words that usher from his lips, the answers he gives, could very well doom him.

They have — unspoken though they were — many times before.

“Iron is the fae’s greatest weakness,” he whispers, a secret that burns like the material he references. “However, spells, when properly cast, are just as dangerous.”

“Salt doesn’t harm us though,” Hyrule clarifies, his voice a summer’s day breeze. “And neither does your cooking, champion.”

Wild laughs at that, a sound like water singing over river stones.

Wind’s question is the hardest to answer, though. In a way, the reply is cloaked within the others, enveloped in the unveiling of their deepest frailties.

Iron will sear a fae’s skin clean off their bones, mangle their wings into masses of excruciating matter.

Spells will enslave them, transform them into monsters that devour their own kin. Or simply wipe their minds clean, enslave them to a purpose they can no longer remember to resist.

Yes, many things can kill a fairy. But the thing that truly does them in (the thing Time sometimes wonders about whether it will do him in) is not unique to fae-kind.

Fairies, like mortals, care deeply.

(Though, perhaps that care they hold inside goes further than even mortal capabilities. Perhaps, the protective instinct, the need to guard and heal and care for is unnatural. Perhaps, it always has been and Time has only failed to notice it.)

(Perhaps, the love he sees in Malon’s eyes when he wraps his arms around her waist and holds her close, the teasing affection in Warriors’ when he claps a hand on Time’s shoulder, the vulnerability in Twilight’s when Time admits his pride…perhaps, those are not quite the same stuff as the emotion in his own heart.)

(He will never know. He is content with that.)

Regardless, this love is the greatest danger fairies face. For when their loved ones are in danger, when evil threatens the people whose caring hands embrace their very souls, a fairy is helpless to stand back and do nothing.

The weaknesses that plague them — their small size and precious, fragile wings, these make a fairy vulnerable. But their willingness to lunge into the fire, that is what causes them to burn.

#thx again!!#for both the prompt and for being so patient!!#trin writes #fairy time au #linked universe #linkeduniverse #lu time #lu hyrule #lu chain #ficlet

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starlitiris · 1 month ago

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“Where is the Justice?”

Chapter 4: It’s Raining Somewhere Else

Summary: “It’s been about a month since Sebastian’s execution date passed. You are now 30 weeks pregnant. You’re barely staying afloat. At least you’re not alone.”

Notes: This time the chapter title is Undertale inspired :) I like referencing other things I like with my chapter titles muhaha. I hope it’s okay that these chapters tend to be kinda short ^^; bright side is it means I can get them out faster

~ ⚖️ ~

November 30th, 2013

An impenetrable sheet of gray coats the earth like a thick blanket, as the sky cries in your place.

You’ve cried a lot these past weeks. So much, in fact, that you fear you have no tears left to give.

You were tired of crying, anyway. You’re tired of everything these days.

You’re so tired.

“It’s about time we had lunch.”

You hear your mother-in-law speak, but you don’t turn to face her. You’re busy watching the rain pelt the window in front of you, analyzing how the droplets race each other to the bottom end of the glass. You used to love days like this. He used to love days like this.

“I’m thinking of trying that chili recipe Rita sent me. How does that sound?”

“Sounds fine,” you mutter.

“Okay…” She watches you for a moment. Your eyes glued to the window, slowly rocking in the rocking chair you were in with a hand resting on your growing stomach. She sighs. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.”

“Thank you, Valentina.”

You moved in with Sebastian’s mother shortly after he was found guilty. You couldn’t afford the apartment by yourself, and with your husband gone… you needed someone to help you get around. Valentina was more than happy to take you in. She told you that you could stay as long as you needed or wanted. You really couldn’t express enough how grateful you are to her. And Gavin, too. Sebastian’s little brother. He’s been helping as well. Them and your sister-in-law, Rita, all agreed to help you raise the twins when they come.

You try your best to stay on your feet. It’s hard, though, when all you can think about is him. You had to tell him through a plexiglass window that you were carrying twins. He looked shocked, excited… and sad all at once. You so badly wanted to touch him. You wanted him to hold you, and celebrate with you. But neither of you could afford his bail. It hurt your chest. It still does. A lot of things do.

You never had the chance to pick out any names with him, either. Your visits always felt too short for that, and you couldn’t be bothered to think of names on your while the father of your children was locked away for something he didn’t do.

You have names now, though. You decided you wanted to know their genders before they came, so you have two names ready to go – one for a boy, and one for a girl.

You want to name your son Vallen, after Valentina. You swear that woman is a saint. You keep thinking to yourself that you owe her your life – she may very well have saved it. She keeps you going, making sure you take care of yourself and get to all your doctor appointments.

For your daughter, you want to name her Moira. Truth be told, you always thought that name sounded so beautiful. You adored its meaning, too. “Of the sea.” A pretty name with a pretty meaning. You’ve always loved the sea.

You like to think Sebastian would approve of your choices.

You’re pulled out of your daze when Gavin barges out of his bedroom and into the living room.

“Mamaaaa, I’m hungry! Are you making something?” He shouts to assure his voice will reach her wherever she is in the house.

“Yes, mijo, I just started cooking!” Valentina shouts back from the kitchen.

“Oh, cool.”

You had finally managed to pull your gaze away from the window to look at Gavin.

“Hey,” he comes to stand next to you. “Whatcha doing?”

You turn back to the rain. “Nothing, really.”

“Mm,” he hums, now watching the downpour with you.

You both sit in the calm stillness, enjoying the soothing sounds from outside. You could almost smell the petrichor in the air.

“... I was scrolling through old pictures on my phone earlier,” Gavin starts. “Found one from my 16th birthday.”

You give a soft hum.

He continues, “It was that one that Rita took right after Sebastian smashed my face down into my cake.”

A small smile tugs at your lips. You can’t help but chuckle, faint as it was. You immediately remember that day like it was yesterday.

“I looked so pissed, and you guys were just laughing your asses off,” he snickers. “Man, I hated him for that.”

“You did get back at him for it, though,” you add, recalling when Gavin grabbed a fistful of cake and slapped Sebastian with it.

“Tch, yeah!” He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Mama was piiissed. We got cake everywhere.”

The small smile you bare grows ever so slightly. You run the memory through your head, staring forward through the glass as if the scene was playing before you. Cake being thrown everywhere, a glob of frosting landing on your shirt, Sebastian putting Gavin in a headlock while Valentina shouted and Rita was almost on the floor laughing. It was certainly a fun day, to say the least.

“I miss him.”

Your smile falters slightly.

“I miss him everyday,” Gavin admitted, a thick sadness to his voice.

“I miss him, too,” you whisper, leading you both into a long, still quiet.

Everything hurts again. But at least you’re not alone this time. You discovered recently that it feels better to hurt with someone, rather than all on your own. It was… comforting, in a way. Still hurts, though.

You hear Gavin sigh behind you, barely feeling him place his hand on the back of the rocking chair. He leans down to get a little closer to your level.

“I hope you know your kids are getting the same treatment I got when they get older,” he warns, a mischievous smirk shown in his reflection on the window pane.

You can’t help but smile again. “Don’t come crying to me when they gang up on you and kick your ass. I won’t stop them.”

Gavin laughs.

He looks so much like Sebastian when he laughs. Got his sense of humor from him, too, clearly. Dick.

It stings a bit when little things like that remind you of him. You always see pieces of Sebastian in Gavin, Rita, and Valentina. You’re certain you will in your own children, as well, when they arrive.

It hurts. But at the same time, it’s something you desperately hold onto for comfort. It’s a way you can hold on to Sebastian.

You did promise him you would never let go, after all.

And you have no intention of breaking that promise.

Even now that he’s gone.

~ ⚖️ ~

Ao3

Chapter 3 - Chapter 5

#pressure fanfic #sebastian solace x you #sebastian solace x reader #pressure x reader #WhereIsTheJusticeFic

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thatsmzbitchtoyou · 3 months ago

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The Gorgon Chapter 2

Summary: The village nearest the mountain by the sea has a generations-old tradition of offering sacrifices to the monster in the mountain to gain favor and keep its wrath away from the people. Every person starting from the age of 15 has to take a turn in making the journey up the mountain to the mouth of the cave once a year to drop off the gifts…and it’s a journey that some never come back from. Y/N took her turn when she was 15, and now the rotation has come back to her again. If the gift isn’t given by the autumn solstice, there’s no telling what harm the creature will wreak onto the people. With a seemingly insurmountable obstacle in her way, will she make it to save her and her people? Can a monster have a heart? Warnings: language, violence, attempted sexual assault (not from Bucky), gore, eventual smut *monster!bucky barnes

Previous chapter Next chapter

The crashing of waves woke Y/N from her slumber. She didn’t want to move, feeling comfortable and warm surrounded by the bedding she laid in. Suddenly a flash of memories hit her and she jolted up, her eyes wide as she whipped her head around. She was in the room from her dreams, snuggled into furs and Beowulf sitting atop a rock next to the wall she laid by. The waves far below the outcropped window were loud, a sea storm churning as rain pelted down. A flash of lightning almost pierced the rock right outside and she gasped, crawling backwards into the wall as a deafening rumble of thunder reverberated through the cave.

“Hey now,” a deep voice called from the side. Y/N yelped as she turned and saw Bucky entering through the hallway. Right…the Gorgon that saved her. He held his upper hands up in surrender, his brow furrowing in concern. “Woah, it’s just me, pretty thing,” he said as he slowly slithered forward.

Y/N stared at him for a moment before another crawling rumble outside stole her attention and she shivered. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she whispered, clearing her throat from how gravelly she sounded. “It’s just…so loud here.”

“I’m sure it is,” Bucky smirked, looking outside at the rain. “Being next to the sea and so high up, the storms seem greater.” He crawled over to her and sat next to her, keeping a foot or two between them. “I found some food in the gifts,” he said, holding out a few pieces of fruit and bread that had been packed in the sacrifice bag.

“Oh, thank you,” Y/N said, taking the food from him and setting it on her lap. Bucky smiled at her acceptance and leaned back against the rock, watching the storm. Y/N ate in silence, watching the storm with him before she glanced at him again. “Don’t you get…cold?” she asked, gesturing to his naked torsos.

Bucky glanced at her and chuckled. “Sometimes, but seeing as how I’m half serpent, I can usually regulate my temperature,” he explained.

“Fascinating,” Y/N said, looking down at his scaly body. She finished eating the bread and wrapped a fur closer around her body.

Bucky watched her. “You’re cold,” he observed.

“Yes,” she agreed. “But the furs help.” Bucky frowned and moved some more of the furs toward her, and she quietly thanked him again. “Oh and, I don’t think I ever properly thanked you for helping me yesterday,” Y/N said. “For saving me, and then healing my leg.”

“And not killing you?” Bucky teased.

Y/N laughed and he smiled wide at the sound. “Yes, and that,” she giggled.

Bucky shifted to face her. “Thank you for reading to me,” he said. “It’s a good story so far.”

Y/N smiled at him. “Well, seeing as how it’s not safe for me to try going down the mountain during a storm, maybe I can read some more to you now?”

Bucky’s eyes widened and he looked excited as he quickly picked up the book and handed it to her. “Pleassse?”

Y/N giggled again and opened the book, finding the page she could remember stopping on the night before. She started reading again and Bucky got himself comfortable. After an hour of reading Y/N could see him slowly moving out of the corner of her eye and looked over. He was falling asleep, his body slowly sinking down into the fur. She stifled a laugh as he slowly seemed to melt into the bed. Then she realized he was about to lay his head against her leg. Y/N stiffened for a moment, wondering if she should quickly get up and move. But something inside her refused, wanting it to happen. She carefully scooted closer to him just as his head was about to set down, and with her hand guided him to land on her thigh. Bucky’s cheek nuzzled into her leg, his upper arms wrapping around that leg and his lower arms folding like he was holding himself. She waited, letting him get comfortable, before continuing reading. She didn’t even realize when she had started combing her fingers through his hair.

Some time later she set the book down and continued to scratch his scalp, watching the storm slowly start to let up. The sound of the waves was calming as the thunder and lightning carried themselves away. Bucky’s fingers tightened around her leg and he groaned, and she pulled her hand away.

“No,” he complained, and reached back to grab her hand and put it back on his head.

Y/N laughed as she continued to play with his hair. This entire thing was very strange, she thought. A random village girl befriending the Gorgon in the mountain, who turned out to be a cuddler. But all good things would have to come to an end, as her stomach gurgled with hunger after it had been hours since she ate Bucky’s makeshift breakfast. He released her leg and sat up on his elbow to look up at her. “You’re hungry.” Y/N sighed, rubbing her belly. “I don’t have any more food that you could eat,” Bucky said forlornly. “You’ll need to go back.”

Y/N felt a stab of pain in her heart at that. Back to the village, where she would have to tell everyone what happened with Zemo, Zola and Strucker, and how the monster in the mountain wasn’t a monster per se, but a kind creature that was misunderstood. She looked at him sadly. “Yes,” she said. “But I’ll tell them everything. About what happened, and how you saved me, and how kind you’ve been–”

“It won’t matter,” Bucky said, pulling himself up and crawling to the edge of the window, looking down at the water. “I’m a monster, that’s all they’ll understand. I killed three people–”

“Who were trying to hurt me!” Y/N stood and walked over to him, grabbing his arm. “They will believe me. They were bad men in the village, too. I’ll explain everything.”

Bucky shook his head. He looked at her with sad eyes, then slowly raised a hand up and stroked her cheek with his large fingers. “It’s okay, pretty thing,” he said, his thumb wiping under her eye. Y/N didn’t realize she’d started crying. “How about thisss?” he started, turning to face her. “You go and tell them what happened, but that the monster in the mountain requires penance.”

“Bucky–”

“Lisssten,” he urged her, his other hand reaching up so he was cupping her face. “Tell them that I require you, and only you, to come bring me gifts once a month. It doesn’t matter when. It will be my demand to right the wrongs of the wicked, and keep peaccce,” he smirked.

Y/N huffed a laugh, sniffling quickly as she leaned into one of his palms. “And what do you require as penance, great so-called-monster?”

Bucky smiled widely. “Books,” he replied. “Stories. And the mead is nice,” he teased.

Y/N snorted. “Of course. And maybe I can teach you to read,” she suggested.

Bucky’s face brightened. “I would like that,” he said.

He helped her back to the front of the cave as the rain stopped. He stayed within the shadow as Y/N took one step into the light that was starting to break through the clouds. Y/N looked down the mountain, wrapping the fur he gave her around her shoulders tightly as she looked back up at him. Bucky was looking her over like he was memorizing her every feature before he met her eyes. “I’ll see you soon, Y/N,” he said, his voice betraying his stoic expression.

“Soon, my friend,” she nodded, another wave of emotion washing over her. She sniffled as her chin wobbled. Y/N couldn’t believe that within a matter of two days she had come to befriend, and if she were honest with herself, really like and care for the creature before her. Bucky’s eyebrows furrowed in the middle and he reached a hand out into the light, his fingers gently gripping her chin. His skin had an iridescent caste in the sunlight, and Y/N marveled at the sight before meeting his gaze again.

“I’m happy to have found a friend in you,” he whispered.

Y/N didn’t know what came over her, but she quickly reached up and gripped his hand, turning her head and kissing his palm. “And I you,” she whispered back. She smiled at him one more time before dropping his hand and turning to leave back down the trail. She didn’t look back, too afraid that if she did he would disappear or that she’d run back to him. Once she was a fair ways down she started fully crying, her tears heavy and her sobs wracked with pain. It was like everything that happened within the past two days had finally caught up with her and she was feeling it all. Anger, frustration, fear, pain, sadness, curiosity, wonder, endearment, and that strange fluttering in the pit of her stomach that confused her.

*Drawings from TikTok @zesketches *info about Gorgons found @seananmcguire.com

#marvel #smut #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes x reader #series fanfic #monster!bucky barnes x reader #monster!bucky barnes #chapter 2

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smolvenger · 2 years ago

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Life Day Gift

Summary: When you were a kid, you became close friends with Din Djarin. But after you escaped the Seperatist attack on your village, your beloved Din is assumed dead. Now you're an adult working a Life Day shift, where a visiting Mandalorian arrives. You assume he's just like any other customer, minus some armor and a baby, but there's a surprise beneath that helmet...

Pairing: Din Djarin x fem! Reader

Warnings: Mentions of Death, Din defends you from a creepy older boy and rude customer's at your restaurant job, swearing. Childhood Friends to Lovers. Some sassy banter. Fluff to Angst to Fluff again. Life Day. Eventual Happy Ending.

Word Count: 2K

Link to my A03

Buy Me A Ko-Fi!

Etsy Link For Comfort Character Letters/Playlists

A/N: Hi there, @againstacecilia! It is I! Your Secret Santa! Here is your gift for @trekkingaroundasgardsevents and @startrekkingaroundasgard's Holiday Fic Exchange! This is my first time EVER writing for Star Wars, so I hope you like it! Reblogs and Comments are appreciated! Happy Holiday Season!

Also, a short playlist inspired by the fic can be found HERE as a bonus! :)

REBLOGS AND COMMENTS AND ASKS ARE APPRECIATED!

THE PAST

You would never forget the boy. Your own home village was quaint, peaceful. The adults talked worriedly of the empire, but it didn’t matter to you. What did matter was that little boy, Din.

You met when an older boy was being far too creepy to you for your comfort when out of nowhere- WHOOOSH! - he was pelted by a rock.

“Hey! Leave her alone!”

Looking into the light from the street corner you were targeted on, he almost seemed to glow. He was small and skinny with dark eyes and dark hair. But despite his smallness, his courage made him stand like he was a giant.

“Or else what?” the older boy sneered.

His answer came in the form of another rock that pelted him so hard in the face that it knocked him down, nose bleeding. You ran away from him, clutching the hand of the little boy.

“Hurry! Let’s go!!!” You pleaded, and both of you ran off.

Hardly anyone believed you about the older boy. You were a child, and he was a teenager. The few who did confront him. The older boy cried and said he was sorry, and he was quickly forgiven In the eye of the adults. They patted his back and smiled and invited him to their Life Day dinners coming up next month.

Your own pain didn’t matter, but his feelings did. It hurt you so much you ran outside the house to cry.

“Hey…is that you again?”

You turned your head up to see the dark-haired little boy.

“Yes, it’s me…”

“What’s your name?” he asked you.

You gave your own, wiping snot and tears off your sleeve.

“And what’s your name?” you asked.

“I’m Din Djarin. You can call me Din.” He introduced.

“Din…teach me how to throw rocks like you do, can you? Please?”

And that was the beginning of a friendship. You were strangers at school but became thick as thieves. You swapped cookies together. He taught you how to throw rocks and even a bit about how boys would fight and throw punches. It made you feel safer and stronger as that older boy prowled the streets. But Din never left you alone. You scraped your knees, laughed, talked together, and visited each other’s houses. His mother would pour out blue milk to sip on. You would take him to your house and read him some of your favorite stories with you doing all the voices. And Din would go into your room to see your things.

“Trinkets?” He would gasp, looking at the shiny rocks and rings.

You nodded your head. “Mmhmm- let me show my collection!”

Your first Life Day together, Din gave you a special gift. From inside his pocket, he pulled out a string necklace with a beautiful stone on it. It was a golden pendant on a leathery string with a bright star in the center.

“Oh, Din! This is the best gift ever! I love it! Thank you!” you squealed.

And you gave him the biggest hug. He always gave the best hugs.

It all seemed so different later. The attack. The separatists. It seemed like one day; you both were running home from school to laugh about the teacher and snack on blue cookies from your mother.

And the next morning when you woke up there were blasts and screams right outside. Your parents rushed into your room.

“Y/N! Y/N! We must leave, please! Now!” your father insisted.

The pendant was around your neck as you hurriedly put on a coat and grabbed whatever you could. You clutched your pendant, your eyes looking worriedly as villagers fled for their lives around you.

“Where’s Din?! We must find him! We must take him with us!” you pleaded.

“No, Y/N! We don’t have time! There’s a ship we have in the back- they’re taking only the first few who arrive! We must run- NOW!” your mother begged.

You ran with them as you freed your hands to grab theirs. Hearing the screams, the stomping of Stormtrooper boots, and your own terrified heart ringing in your ears and keeping your eyes forward, though your peripheral was filled with the bodies of your friends and neighbors. But you kept running, forgetting the tiredness and the fire in your lungs for what of breath.

Your family hopped onto the ship and flew away to safety somewhere else. But your heart never stopped racing and you didn't stop shaking the whole trip.

Once you had landed on a new planet with a new life, you asked constantly for news about the Djarin family. About the boy.

And it arrived.

Your parents took your hands as you sat at your new table and looked you in the eye. Your mother had a communication device in her hand that she had just turned off. They were already frowning and starting to tear up.

“Y/N…The Djarin family was killed by the Separatists.” she told you.

“Including Din?” you asked.

“He was never found. But we know they burn bodies after. So…including Din…” your father answered.

You leaned into their arms, sobbing for your friend.

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

CURRENT DAY

“Hey Y/N! If you have time to lean, you have time to clean!”

Ugh, to think I have to spend Life Day working you cursed, getting up from your thirty second break.

Working at a bar wasn’t glamorous, but it was stable and paid the bills. And if you worked on holidays, there was a bigger bonus and here you were. The fact it was a bar and a restaurant brought over even more customers which meant usually busy shifts.

It was a huge pain in the ass, but it was something. And you knew you had two bills due this week at least. Maybe it was better than another awkward holiday with your family.

You got out and grabbed a rag, cleaning up remnants of a spilled drink on the table. Ooof, you would need a new one.

Why can’t these customers ever learn to clean up after themselves? You thought this as you returned the rag to the kitchen. Didn’t they realize you were human too?

To be fair, you had alien and droid customers frequently so perhaps human wasn’t the right word. Hmm, maybe…being? Creature?

Once you pondered this, you heard a sound like a little coo and looked over.

Speaking of creatures, a tiny green creature was by your feet. He let out another innocent babble. He had big dark eyes and wide ears and was so small, he had to waddle and tug at the end of your pants to get attention.

“Why hello there!” you greeted.

He cooed in response, wiggling his ears.

“What’s your name? Do you have a seat? Want anything to eat or drink, buddy?!” you asked, bending down your knees to greet him.

“Hey! He’s mine!” a voice barked.

You looked up and your blood froze to see a fully armored Mandalorian approach you.

“Oh, I wasn’t doing anything,” you protested, hands on your hips.

The little one waddled to him and the Mandalorian scooped him up in his arms.

“I can’t let this guy get hurt,” he said.

“I wasn’t hurting him, I was just greeting him like I do anyone else,”

“Fine. Is there a table?”

“You’re lucky this one is just cleaned up.

“Aright, give us both some Rootleaf Stew with Polystarch bread. Plus save a slice of Blackberry pie- this little one likes dessert,”

“One thing at a time…I’ll get it!”

You left and re-arrived with the food in hand. In the back the band was blasting all the Life Day hits that you heard so much you wanted to scream.

But once you bent down and were serving the dishes, you felt the little green babies’ hands on you. You paused to see that your pendant had slid out of your shirt and the baby was playing with it. The Mandalorian froze. You glanced down. The baby pawed at your pendant like a cat, giggling.

“Oh, you like this, buddy?” you asked, showing him the necklace.

You investigated the helmet defiantly “is that against your own parenting code, hm? This is the way and all that and a cup of tea?”

The Mandalorian kept looking directly at you through his helmet.

“Where…where did you get that necklace?” he asked.

“Old friend, Life Day Gift,” you answered.

You wiped the stains from your hands onto the rag tied onto your belt.

“Who is your friend? What planet did they come from? What was their name?” the Mandalorian kept asking.

The little green baby kept digging into his food with a content babble.

“Look, it’s…it’s personal, alright? And he…he died. Killed in a Separatist attack with his parents, okay? How is that? I…it’s a lot…”

He nodded his helmet down.

“Oh…I’m sorry. I had no idea…” he then said.

He gave you a spare napkin to wipe the tears at the ducts of your eyes.

“Would…would you like your pies with cream or plain?” you asked per your practice.

“Cream,” he answered.

Once you arrived with the pies, the Mandalorian left a generous tip.

“When is your shift over?” he asked.

“In…in an hour and a half? Why do you ask? Why do you even care?” you said.

“I…I want to speak to you after, if that’s alright,” he answered.

Your blood was cold. Were you being hunted?!?! You hadn’t done anything! But then again, his voice didn't word it as a threat...

“Okay, you can…” you replied.

He stayed at the table. You took a deep breath and released it. After getting a brief sip of water, you continued your shift. Though noticeably, if a customer was being short to you, the Mandalorian would walk up.

“Hey. Show some respect. It’s Life Day, after all.” He would threaten.

The rude customer’s jaw would drop, their color draining, and then act with more manners. You bit back a large smile.

Finally, the shift ended. Once you turned in your apron, you met him outside. But then you felt a splatter of rain from outside.

“Ugh, Maker help me! What an ugly storm!” you complained.

“Come to my ship.” He offered.

The rain pattered on him, making a louder noise against his armor. He seemed rather unbothered by it.

“What?” you cried.

“It’ll be dry there.”

“Okay…that does sound better," you shrugged.

You followed his dark cape, the little pod for the baby floating by his side. Once you got into the ship, you shivered from the rain on you.

He opened a quadrant and pulled out a cloak.

“Here..it’ll make you feel better,” he offered.

You nodded and accepted it.

“Why are you doing all this? You’re just supposed to be a Bounty Hunter. Why me? Just Life Day Spirit in you?” you asked.

There was a pause.

“Is your name Y/N?” he asked.

Thunder shot through you.

“Didn’t I give you my name when I got your food?” you asked.

“You didn’t,” he said.

“How do you know my name?” you questioned, taking a bold step forward.

“You have that necklace that your friend gave you. Were you children then?” he asked.

“Yes,” you answered, feeling the floor give in beneath you.

“And he was killed?" he continued.

“By Separatists, yes.”

He folded his arms in front of him.

“What was his name?”

“Din Djarin. I’d just call him Din. And he was the sweetest boy…not that the Empire cared. They killed him one and the same.” You said, tears welling up.

There was another pause. Quietly, the Mandalorian reached his hands up to his helmet.

“What…what are you doing?” you asked.

He gripped the sides and slowly began to slip it off.

“What! Stop! Isn’t that breaking the code? What about you-“

Once it slipped off, you saw him. Not a boy, but a man. He had matured. There was a small mustache beneath his nose. But his eyes and dark hair and face were almost the same.

“What…what…no…are you…” you started to mutter, both hands flew to your mouth and the world around you spun with shock.

“Y/N. It’s me. Din…”

You caught onto the wall to keep from your dizziness overcoming you. You saw the green baby tilt his head to the side.

“You’re alive…how?” you gasped.

“My mother hid me somewhere. Then a Mandalorian saved met that day. Took me in like their own. Raised me to be one of them …” he answered.

You then looked up. You saw he was starting to tear up too. You ran up and wrapped him in a large hug. He hugged you back and you both began crying.

“Do you…do you have any tea?” you asked.

“Tea?”

“Whenever I see my parents, we drink tea…it’s a drink of reunion!” you said, with a little laugh.

He blinked and then smiled with a nod.

“Yes, I have some…”

He put a small kettle on with three cups enough in the back. The little green baby waddled around freely, excited for a cup.

“Who is that one?” you asked, bending down to pat the baby’s head.

“His name is Grogu,” Din explained.

Both of you cozied up with mugs of tea- added with cream for a bit of flavor. Slowly drinking, you both talked.

He told you what he could about the Madalorians. Memories growing up training. The few adventures he had. How he met Grogu and saved him from being a pawn for The Empire. The misadventures they had together. Your tea was long finished by the time he stopped.

“Well…all that’s exciting! And here there’s old me- what happened to me? I just work in a bar and restaurant now! And look at you- a true Mandalorian warrior!” you praised.

“That’s not true…” he said, looking into his cup.

“What…what do you mean?” you asked.

“Y/N…you learned how to fight. You survived an attack. Every day you get up and brave unpleasant people. Even back when, I thought…”

He blinked his eyes again, looking this way and that. Then he looked up at you.

“I thought you were a good person. A great person in fact,” he said.

“I think the same of you,” you replied.

Grogu waddled to a window and waved his arms, babbling.

“What is it, kid?” he asked, turning around.

Grogu pointed out the window and you followed his tiny finger to look out. It was night by now, but the lights were all on- decorations glowing and the lights on every building felt like the stars were down and decorated in the town.

“Oh, Din- look! The lights and decorations for Life Day! They’re beautiful!” you gasped.

He went up and looked out at it. All of you admired the beauty of it for a quiet minute.

Then you turned to the side.

“Din…can I…can I…” the breath left you.

He looked at you with soft eyes.

“Din, can I join you on your ship…you could use help with Grogu. You can teach me how to fight like you did as a kid. I can give my job a two weeks’ notice.”

“How come?” he asked.

“There’s so much of the galaxy I’ve never seen…that I’ve always wanted to see and…and…”

“And?” he asked.

“I just…I don’t want to be separated from you again,” you confessed.

He gave a small smile.

“I don’t want to be separated from you either…ever again,” he confirmed.

You took his hand and squeezed it.

“I can’t think of a better gift than that…Happy Life Day, Din.”

“Happy Life Day, Y/N.”

You gave him a kiss on the cheek, which he accepted. His smile didn't drop from it either.

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