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#I worried they’d forgotten about her
finelinefae · 2 months
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tongue-tied
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synopsis: y/n has a stutter and harry likes to hear her talk
word count: 3.1k
contains: fluff, highschool romance, harry's a football player, popular boy x shy girl, brief mentions of bullying
a/n: happy soft girl Sunday !! I wasn’t planning on posting just because I posted the second part of the aviator a little later than I was meant to but I could resist putting this one out <3
. . .
“E-excuse me!” Y/N weaved her way through the mass exodus of students heading in the opposite direction to the lunch hall. She had tried to leave class a few minutes before the lunch bell to avoid the large groups of people but she had been so invested in writing her essay, she’d lost complete track of time. 
She was running as fast as she possibly could to get to the library, knowing the person waiting for her wouldn’t get too impatient but she didn’t want to waste a second of their lunch break not being with him. Her bag slipped from her shoulder, her braids flying behind her and her knee-high socks falling down her calves. 
Y/N barely registered the people around her, wondering where she could be going in such a rush, until her face collided with soft, grey fabric. Before she could even get embarrassed and profusely have to apologise for bumping into them, long arms snaked around her, hands clasping behind her back. She caught a whiff of his woody cologne and the floral fragranced detergent his mum always used to wash his school uniform.
“There y’ are, Dove.” He murmured, “I was starting to get worried.”
Y/N looked up and settled on those familiar green eyes she loved so much. She relaxed into his embrace, “Harry,” She sighed. 
Harry and Y/N had been dating since they were fourteen. If it weren’t for the fact that their parents all worked together at the local hospital, they probably would never have met at all, although Harry liked to believe they were fated to be together so they would have ended up meeting each other some way or another. 
Harry had always been popular at school. For one, he was on the football team which instantly made him a name within their year group. He was also very handsome for his age. Girls would whisper and giggle whenever he passed by in the hallways even those from the lower years. Despite the fact they had just turned seventeen, Harry could honestly pass for an almost twenty-year-old with how tall and mature he was. 
Y/N was the complete opposite. When it came to her social life she was shy and not often one to make friends easily. She was part of the arithmetic club and had made a few friends there and in some of her other classes. She liked to keep to herself and struggled to talk in class not only because she was quiet but also because she had a particularly bad stutter. 
It had developed when she started High School. She had been to multiple speech therapists to help her get rid of it and although it wasn’t as bad as it used to be, it still never failed to make her life all the more difficult than it already was.
A lot of the other kids liked to pick on her for it too. Whenever teachers picked on her in class and she’d reply, the rest of the class would start snickering, whispering in each other’s ears. She wanted to be invisible to everyone but it was her stutter that made her stand out.
When Harry’s family would come over to Y/N’s house for dinner, her parents would often force them to go off together whilst the adults spoke in the dining room. She remembered the first time she invited him into her room and how embarrassed she was when he saw all her comic books lying on the floor that she had forgotten to put away. But it eventually became the seed of their relationship, the common ground that allowed them to bond. 
Soon Harry was inviting Y/N to his football games and up to his room every other weekend when she’d come over with her parents. They’d exchange comic books and talk about their favourite characters. Y/N was always apologising for her stutter whenever she’d ramble on for too long but Harry never cared, he loved hearing her talk. 
Their first kiss was on her bed whilst their parents were in the room below them. Harry was the one to initiate it and Y/N hadn’t been expecting it so it was slightly awkward at first but then she got used to it and eventually all she ever wanted to do was kiss him. Every weekend, whether at her place or his, all they did was sneak around and kiss each other, giggling and falling in love all at the same time. 
Now, three years later, things were still the same except they were older now and more in love than they were yesterday. 
Wherever you looked, Harry was there, and Y/N was never too far behind. Students had grown accustomed to their relationship, and the bullying Y/N endured wasn't as severe as it used to be. Even teachers couldn't help but be enamoured with their young love — how fortunate it was to find love at such a young age. 
Things were great, everything was great and Y/N had hoped she could finish her last year of High School on a high note. That was until she entered her English class on a Friday afternoon when the teacher announced it was time for their presentations which would go towards their final grade. 
“I can’t Harry!” Y/N cried into her pillow after school, Harry was sitting on the end of her bed with his back against the wall as he rubbed his hand up and down her back. 
“I know Dove,” He comforted her, already knowing the reason she was so upset over it.
“Everyone’s going to l-laugh at me,” She could already picture herself standing up in front of her class and everyone pointing and laughing at her. 
Harry sighed, “Dove,” He shook her gently, “Will y’ look at me?” 
Y/N hesitated before turning her head so her cheek lay against the pillow. Harry smiled and lay on his side in the spot next to her, their faces inches apart, “There’s m’ pretty girl,” He cooed, his heart hurting at the tears on her cheeks. He cupped her cheek in his big hand and wiped some of those tears away with his thumb. 
“I-It’s not fair,” She huffed, “Why’d I have to have this stupid stutter.” 
“Hey,” He frowned, “Enough of that hmm? Everything about you is beautiful, y’ know I love to hear y’ talk. Could sit here for hours and just listen.” 
“But you’re d-different,” She whined, shuffling closer to him so she could hide her face in his grey jumper. Her stutter was rarely ever that bad in front of Harry which was why he was the easiest person she could talk to. 
Harry laughed breathily, his hand going to her hair to play with the strands, “Would it help if I helped you a little?” 
“How?” Y/N asked, her words muffled by his jumper.
“We could practise in the library at lunch, y’ could read me a few things and it might help your stutter.”  He thought.
Y/N’s head looked up to his face where she could count every mole and freckle on his nose and cheeks. She couldn’t help but pucker her lips to kiss his jawline, “That’d be nice,” She murmured. 
“Yeah?” He smiled, kissing the top of her head in return, “I only want to help you so if you don’t enjoy it or you’d rather practise alone then y’ can tell me,” 
She shook her head, “N-No, I want to do that with you. I’d like it very much.” 
So it became a daily occurrence, five days a week during lunch hours when Harry didn’t have practice, they’d sit in the library and Harry would pick out a book for them to read. They started with simple YA books with less complicated words. 
“Good job, Dove!” Harry cheered every time Y/N finished a chapter. 
“Wait I’m not done,” She huffed and then said the last line just for Harry to cheer for her again just as proudly as the first time. 
Now that the day of her presentation was getting closer, they had finally made their way onto Classical novels which Y/N had come to despise. 
They walked with their hands intertwined to the library after Y/N had bumped into him in the hallway. It was natural as they stepped into the library and headed straight to their table in the corner hidden away by two tall bookshelves. 
Y/N placed her bag under the chair whilst Harry unzipped his to pull out the book they were currently reading. It was Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, even looking at the front cover made Y/N’s stomach turn. 
“A-Are you sure we can’t go back to YA books?” Y/N huffed, taking the book and opening it up to the chapter they were last on. 
Harry laughed, “But you’re doing so well, Dovey.” 
“I-it’s hard though and the w-words are so tiny.” She pouts, Harry can’t help but lean forward and kiss her. 
“C’mon, jus’ a few pages and then I can show y’ something I got for you.” He tried to persuade her, knowing the surprise would be enough to win her over.
“Fine,” She sighs dramatically. 
She read for five pages, Harry listening intently to every word. His eyes focused on her lips as she spoke, stumbling over a few words here and there. He tried to hold back from smiling so much with how concentrated she was on each letter of every word. He thought it was adorable how her eyebrows creased and her hands gripped the book. 
Eventually, she had enough, placing the book down on the table and closing it shut. “Good job baby!” He cheered, pressing multiple kisses to her cheek, “M so proud of you.” 
Y/N giggled, “Thank you, Harry.” 
Harry smiled and reached into the pocket of his blazer for the surprise he had promised her. Y/N looked down and saw a small, black pouch in his hand. He gave it to her, her fingers carefully pulling on the ribbon before pulling out the small item inside. 
“It’s an anxiety ring,” Harry explained as she held the silver ring in the palm of her hand. He picked it up and slid it on his pinkie finger to show her, “Y’ can twist this band whenever you feel nervous, thought y’ could wear it on the day of your speech.” 
He passed it back to her, Y/N narrowing her eyes to look at the spinning band which had a small inscription written on it, ‘i love the way you speak almost as much as i love you, your harry.’ 
Y/N’s eyes watered, unable to come up with the right words to say how much she adored it as well as the boy sitting in front of her. Instead, she leapt forward and wrapped her arms around his neck, “Thank you,” She murmured, “I love it. I love you.” 
Harry softened even more from her embrace, “I love you more, Dove,” He whispered. 
Y/N pulled away enough to kiss his lips, she was thankful for the privacy they had in the back of the library since she was never that good with public displays of affection and all she wanted to do now was kiss him because she was so grateful for him being there all the time. 
It wasn’t long before the day of her presentation. After school, Y/N had been working on a short essay. She was going to speak to the class about her favourite comic books and why she loved them so much. She had recited the words out loud to herself and Harry and even her parents, that she could probably speak it off by heart. 
Harry and Y/N stood outside the school. Her English class wasn’t until the third period but she knew she wouldn’t be able to concentrate in her morning classes until the presentation was over. Harry was wearing his football uniform because he had a game against another school in the morning. Y/N had been with him after school as he practised for it, wearing his coat as she wrote out her speech on a notepad. 
They stood side by side facing the school building as if it was some kind of beast they had to tackle, “O-okay,” She huffed, “I can do this,” 
Harry looked down at her smiling and then reached for her hand, “You can do this,” He squeezed her fingers in encouragement. 
“Good l-luck with your game today,” She grinned, standing on her toes to kiss his cheek. 
“Thank you, baby,” He spoke softly, “Y’ can tell me all about your presentation and how well it went afterwards.”
“Okay Harry,” She nodded, completely determined despite how nervous she was. She had spent weeks preparing, she couldn’t let fear get the best of her. 
“Good luck kiss?” Harry grinned, cheekily. 
Y/N playfully rolled her eyes and craned her neck to kiss his lips. Harry held her face in his hands, unable to pull away from her even when she tried to, “I love you,” He murmured against her lips.
“I love you too.” She sighed, blissfully. 
When third period came around, Y/N stood outside her English classroom, counting to five in her head. She clutched onto the piece of paper where her speech was written out in gelled ink, spinning the ring Harry had gifted her on her finger. With a deep breath, she opened the door and stepped foot into her classroom. 
. . .
Harry could hardly concentrate during the football match but he was trying his best. His team were two points ahead and it wouldn’t be long before the game was over. Since it was the morning and the game was mostly practice for the two schools competing, there wasn’t a huge audience watching them. 
He was glancing down at his watch every few minutes when he was supposed to have his eye on the ball, checking to see whether third period was about to start. All he could think about was his little dove and how nervous she was when they stepped into school this morning. 
She had been working so hard on reading things out, even stopping in shops when they went to town together to read the labels on the backs of food containers. He fully believed in her and her ability to speak in front of the class even when she didn’t and it killed him not being able to watch her do it. 
So when the whistle finally blew marking the end of the game, Harry ignored the celebrations with his team after they won the match and ran across the field through the entrance of the school. He raced up the steps, his football boots clicking against the crowd. He knew he probably didn’t smell the best and his knees were muddy from falling over but he didn’t have much time to think about it as he searched for Y/N’s English classroom. 
“Y/N?” He heard the teacher’s voice call her name as he approached. 
“A-Already? O-Oh, O-okay.” He could hear her nerves just by listening to her speak. 
Harry was about to knock on the door but he hesitated, wondering if it would worsen her nerves if he was in the classroom watching her. He knew how much of a big deal this moment was for Y/N and he didn’t want to intervene or make a spectacle of the moment especially since he wasn’t in her class. 
He lowered his hand and instead pressed his ear up to the door. 
“H-Hello,” Y/N started, “My name is Y-Y/N and today I will be sharing with you m-my love for comic books,” Harry’s heart ached as her voice came out quietly. 
“C’mon Dove,” He whispered, wanting her to do well. 
Y/N cleared her throat and let out a shaky exhale, “A-As you can probably tell, I-I am not all that good at speaking. I s-stumble over letters and sometimes even have to replace words with o-others because my mouth t-turns into mash potato and I can’t seem to get t-the words out.” People chuckled and Harry’s heart began to beat against his chest, “T-That is why I love comic books so much because of the l-lack of words. Instead, there are pictures,” Y/N continued, her voice gaining strength the more that she spoke, “T-They tell stories without the need for p-perfect sentences or flawless speech.” 
Y/N continued her speech and Harry spent the entire presentation with his ear pressed up against the door. He ignored the looks of teachers and other students walking past as a huge grin spread across his cheeks the more Y/N spoke in front of the class. 
By the time she had finished, it fell silent before the class responded with a round of applause, “Brilliant work, Y/N,” Her teacher said. 
Y/N felt like she was floating on a cloud as she left her English classroom. Even if her speech wasn’t perfect, she had done it and gotten through it all in one piece. As she stepped out, two arms snaked around her waist and lifted her off the ground, “Harry!” Y/N giggled as he spun her around.
“M so proud of you, Dove.” He kissed her softly, lowering her to the ground but refusing to move his hands from her waist. 
“I-I can’t believe I did it, Harry!” Y/N almost squealed. 
“Heard every word, y’ did so good, M so proud of you.” He rambled, unable to cease his admiration for her. 
“You heard?” Y/N’s eyebrows creased, her lips pouting slightly. 
“I ran here as fast as I could and stood outside to listen to you,” Harry explained, “Y did perfect, honestly, the best speech I’ve ever heard.”
“You really ran h-here to listen?” Y/N asked, still in disbelief.
“I did,” Harry smiled, “It was all I could think about when I was on the field.”
“Did you win?” Y/N asked. 
Harry pulled her flush against him, “You already know I did baby,” He smirked, kissing her. Y/N smiled against his lips.
“Let’s go out tonight,” Harry murmured, “To celebrate.”
“And do w-what?” Y/N wondered, even though the idea of spending any time with Harry was always her favourite. 
“Maybe go to the bowling alley and get dinner after,” He shrugs.
“O-oh and maybe we can stop at the comic book store on the way home!” Y/N said, excitedly. 
“Course m’love,” Harry’s smile widened the more she spoke, “We can do whatever you want as long as I get to hear you talk.” 
Y/N grinned broadly as Harry interlaced his hands with hers, feeling the cool metal of her ring against his skin. Together, they walked hand in hand down the hallway, Y/N unable to stop talking the entire time, while Harry hung onto her every word.
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yxami · 7 months
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meow I’m still bored
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Yandere siren that appears before the familiar sight of the shore, softly humming to himself about whether to kill a few more sailors today. He’s already been scolded by his brothers for killing so often but he’s been so bored lately!
With no sight of a prosperous mate, he’s just been killing disgusting and vile humans that happen to run into him, or maybe he should say humans that sail to their death. Perhaps he should look up what the humans referred to him as in the newspapers.
He knows that the townspeople have been giving names to the sirens that lull sailors to aggressive waters that make their boats crash into sharp and rigid rocks.
His train of thoughts are broken when he hears a voice coming behind the rock he sits on, he slips into the ocean and pops his head slightly up to witness what he heard.
“I’m fine mom, I’m just going to be at the beach for bit. Ugh, no.. I’m not going to swim or anything” You drag your voice in the lie that you weren’t going to take a dip in the relaxing waters. You turned off your phone when you manage to convince her after a few minutes.
The unnoticed siren witnessed you taking off your shirt and shorts, providing a mouth watering sight of you in your swim wear. He couldn’t help but stare until he realized he had to hide from you.
You look over to your left to see the odd movement in waves, but you saw nothing so you ventured further into the cold waters. You were wondering why your mother was so anxious about you being the ocean.
Yeah, there was some dangerous creatures like sirens and mermaids but they were much deeper into the ocean. They’d never dare lay on the shore, right?
“Hello human” The ironically mentioned siren circles around you, before curling his dangerously long tail to trap you. You can feel his smooth yet scaly tail brush against your legs.
You fuss around and scream for help before he frowns and covers your mouth.
“Why scream? I already have you in my grasp so what could a human do to help now?” He tilts his head in confusion, wondering why you truly believed somebody could help. He had already checked the land before you came and it was completely empty.
“I’m sorry!! Please just let me go! I didn’t mean to get in your territory” You started to cry, assuming that you had offended the siren in some way for him wanting to drown you.
But unfortunately that wasn’t the case. You just piqued the interest of this curious siren and now he was confident that you’d cure his boredom.
Poor you.
“My territory? Silly human, I just came here to relax, I’m just interested in why you look so entrancing” He ghosts his finger tips over your stomach, looking at how you shift and turn at the cold touch within the comfortable waters. What did you expect? He was a cold blooded animal after all.
“So you don’t wanna kill me?” You sniffle, trying to wipe your tears but you had forgotten that he wrapped his tail over your arms as well, so he wipes it for you even when you flinch at his fingers raised to your face.
“No no, if anything, I’m interested in courting you, you look so pretty after all” He moves his hands to your hair, feeling how silky it felt and staring at how beautiful you looked, even with your fearful eyes that were glossy with salty tears.
“Courting me? I’m not a siren though..!” You said with an urgent tone, worried you had gotten yourself in a much worse situation than being killed.
“So? I think you’re perfect for me, so dainty and precious, you’re like a shiny pearl, I love it” He whispers in your ear, humming as he explores your body with not only his tail but hands.
“I don’t know..! I have to go back home and—“
“It’s okay my pretty little human, you won’t have to worry about your human life anymore” He shushed you with a hug, kissing your neck and jaw, making you whimper in fear but he took it as a pleased one.
“I’ll take you to my home and you’ll feel much better!” He exclaims, dragging you into the ocean before you could hold your breath.
You were too unlucky to even be presented the chance of death from drowning because he kisses you with puffs of air each time you’re close to passing out. And now you’re stuck in this cage he calls home.
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doqt33th · 10 months
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SINGULARITY
MIRAGE/READER
SUMMARY: You and Mirage have been pining for each other for a while now. A nasty summer storm drives you straight into his arms. Shenanigans ensue.
WORD COUNT: 18k. Sorry I’m insane
WARNINGS: 18+ and I CANNOT STRESS THAT ENOUGH!! Explicit PWP, fingering + oral (fem receiving), penetrative sex, mild spit kink. Reader is fem and uses she/her pronouns but is written fairly androgynous. No descriptors of appearance beyond the basics and no (y/n) used.
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Familiar streets flashed by at increasing speeds, traffic and pedestrians flickering by and blurring together into a smorgasbord of color, all gilded by the setting sun. Unconsciously, you dug your fingers into the seams of the leather seat beneath you, worrying the stitches. Out of the corner of your eye, the radio blazed to life with color and that oh-so-familiar symbol.
“Hey, hey, easy on the merchandise, hot stuff,” Mirage crackled out of the speakers lightheartedly, and you immediately yanked your hands into yourself like they’d been burned. In your worrying, you’d seemingly forgotten about what — or rather, who — exactly was your ride.
“Oh— my bad, I wasn’t thinking,” you said, sinking your weight back and down, instead picking at your nails to give your hands something to do. God, you were so nervous, and for what? Mirage knew all these people— these bots, and knew them well. They were all friends! Or amiable towards each other, at the very least. And they were the good guys. Saved the world and all that.
So why were you so anxious?
“You’re good, don’t worry ‘bout it.” He slowed to a stop at a red light. Your leg started to bounce. “Sooo… you wanna tell me what’s on your mind? Save me a trip to Noah’s repair shop? I’d hate for you to start taking your emotions out on me, y’know.”
You scoffed, eyes sliding to the radio. The grin that pulled at the corners of your mouth was one you were helpless to stop. He just had that effect on you, where around him you became a slave to your laughter and, additionally, also became one half of a terrible joke machine that Mirage happily completed.
Leather creaked as you nudged the inside of the door with your boot to chastise him. “You love when I take my emotions out on you, dick. Don’t lie.”
“Only the good ones,” he shot back, and you could hear the grin in his voice. “You nervous about meeting the others?”
His probe was successful; you fought the urge to shrink at your feelings being read so accurately and so immediately. “I— yeah. I am, and I don’t even know why. I’m sure they’re all great, I’m just working myself up over nothing.”
Red faded to green. Carried on the tide of forward-moving traffic, Mirage rolled ahead, eventually slipping over to make a turn. You watched him twist his mirrors to check his blind spot.
“Ah, c’mon. Nobody could blame you, you’re meeting a bunch of aliens for the first time. Pretty trippy for anyone. ‘specially if those aliens are, like, double your size. And robots.” A short chuckle topped off his words.
“Right. I just don’t wanna fuck it up or embarrass myself, you know how it is. I don’t wanna embarrass you, either.”
“Oh, Primus, trust me. You’re not gonna embarrass me. I don’t even think that’s possible. Prime’s seen me in a lot worse shape than bringing you in to meet him.” The world continued to roll by. Brick buildings blotted out the sunshine in intermittent flashes. “You got good marks from your favorite bot, you’ll be fine.” The dismissive tone of his voice was working, in a weird way, to assuage your fears.
“Excuse me,” you said, crossing your arms over your chest pointedly. “My favorite bot?”
“What, am I not?” A downright theatrical gasp hissed out of the speaker. “Have you been cheating on me?”
Cheeks hot with a flush at even the joking insinuation of being together, you glanced away from the impassive Autobot symbol on the radio and out the window. Still, the laugh barked out of you was sudden and sharp, and quickly dissolved into giggles. “Yes. Mirage. I’m sorry. There’s another ten foot tall alien robot in Brooklyn that’s been vying for my attention. We’re done.”
“I should throw you out on the street right now,” Mirage fussed playfully, his evident pout tinging his voice. “For breakin’ my spark. Also I’m taller than that.”
“You wouldn’t dare. I’m fragile.”
“I dunno. Noah gets his ass kicked around pretty good and he’s still kickin’ it.”
“I am not Noah,” came your tongue-in-cheek rebuttal. “And Noah just refuses to give up even when it’s good for him.”
“Thought qualities like determination were supposed to be big things with you guys.”
“In moderation.”
Mirage barked a laugh. “Ha! Should tell that to Prime. He’ll blow a gasket.” You opened your mouth to reply, only to be cut off. “No, seriously, tell it to Prime, we’re here.”
The easy confidence that your playful back-and-forth had teased out instantly chilled into a dense mass in your stomach; Mirage was rolling slowly up to a nondescript warehouse buried deep within the old industrial part of Brooklyn, and the way the worn brick loomed over you even in the car made your heart rate pick up.
Now or never.
Familiar alien whirs and clicks of shifting and setting metal filled your ears as Mirage rose into his bipedal mode, the driver’s seat gently ejecting you onto your own two legs on the pavement. Following the motion, you took a few steps forward, but still balked a little at the half open door. Inside, you heard voices of varying timbre, and you fought the urge to turn tail.
Now. Or. Never. Gritted teeth accompanied the repetition of your thought.
The displacement of air behind you — and the soft, constant mechanical noises emanating from his body — signaled Mirage’s presence before his voice.
He said your name with surprising care, using a tone that only came out when he was really being sincere. You couldn’t help the way your face warmed at it as you turned, craning your neck up to meet his gaze. “Hey, you, uh, you want me to go in ahead of ya? Normally I’d be like ‘ladies first’ and all that, but you said you weren’t feeling too jazzed about going in—“
“Yeah, actually, if you could, that would be… great. That would be great.”
“Gotcha. Let you psych yourself up a little more before you go in, I see how it is. Let me do the talking,” he affirmed with an easy grin and a nod, bouncing on the balls of his pedes a few times before striding forward. His long legs folded easily under him as he ducked under the lowered garage door, and you traipsed after, smoothing your thumb over your knuckles repeatedly.
The warehouse yawned beyond you, orange shafts of light cutting gashes into otherwise brownish darkness. Old graffiti sprayed across the walls told you that Ramona had been there once, then Nick, then Darnell, and a million others. And you were there now, feeling impossibly small, yes, but a little more resilient with the fading sunlight at your back and Mirage, like always, at your side.
He’d become a permanent fixture in your life from the day you’d met him — when you’d strong-armed Noah into giving up his secret about his Porsche, and the mysterious car had ended up being a twelve-foot-tall robot with a literal motormouth that made a playful pass at you within the first hour of your first conversation. You’d been flustered out of your mind, but had just kept coming back out of unfettered curiosity and outright fascination. Aliens were real, and Noah was friends with one, and it— he could turn into a Porsche.
Mind-shattering observations on the surface, yes. Mirage tended to deflate the grandeur, though, because he never acted like aliens did in the movies or in books. There was no ‘We come in peace!’ bullshit. He was so easy. Everything with him was so easy. He was loudmouthed and extroverted and genuinely hilarious; you spent hours in Noah’s garage trading terrible jokes — mostly bad sexual innuendos — or buckled to Mirage’s driver’s seat as he flew down Central Avenue on the wrong side of the limit and blasted Haddaway so loud it nearly busted your eardrums.
Weird to say an alien robot was your friend, but he was. He gave you rides to work, to your lectures, to your labs, wherever; in fact, he got petulant when you dared to take the bus one day to give him a break, and made it a point to pry your routine out of you so that he could take you wherever you wanted, no fares needed. 
So infuriating. You loved it.
You loved… maybe more than just the back-and-forth. Maybe more than the bad jokes. Maybe more than the late-night drives. You were starting to think— starting to realize you loved big blue optics, and the rumble of a 260 horsepower engine when you made just the right innuendo, and broad, incredibly intricate servos that dwarfed yours in size but were so, so careful…
Man. You tried not to think about it too much. It as a concept made you laugh with its own absurdity. Poor human chick fell in love with the giant alien robot that made her laugh. It wasn’t… debilitating. You still functioned like a normal adult. Mostly. Except for that one night like two weeks ago where you’d been arguing with him about some stupid shit and he’d scooped you up, right off the ground, in both servos and held you there, digits interlaced against your back and thumbs on your front.
It wasn’t the first time he’d ever held you like that — he’d done it a few times — but something was different that night… even if he’d only done it to gain an upper hand in your bickering. The air crackled with latent electricity, made your skin buzz in all the right places, especially when Mirage had gone quiet for once in his life as he stared at you in his grasp. When you’d prompted him with his name, he’d only responded by gently stroking a thumb over the swell of your chest, which had made you gasp air in so sharply that it burned in your throat. The metal left a tingling path on your skin under your shirt in its wake and immediately sent your heart rate skyrocketing past whatever the fuck was a normal BPM.
He’d snapped back to reality at the sudden expansion of your lungs and had attempted to play it all off as a joke. You remembered how you’d still stumbled when your shoes touched the ground, an absolutely insane feeling of genuine heat rocking you as your brain seized the feeling of his touch while it still sparked against your nerve endings and helpfully replayed it over and over and over again. Sure, the rhythm of banter came back after a stuttering beat, but you never really cooled the warmth on your face for the rest of that night — and when Mirage had dropped you off at your apartment, your door was shut and locked for about five minutes before your shaking hand was frantically worked beneath the waistband of your pants.
…Whew. Definitely something a little more than friendly there. Maybe even more than pure love, something a little slicker and deeper that buzzed against your bones and coiled low in your stomach. It made you feel a little weird — just objectively, because of what Mirage was — but damn if it didn’t feel good to indulge.
God, fuck, why were you thinking about that now, of all times? Escapist fantasies be damned, you were going to meet Mirage’s comrades-friends-coworkers and leave a good impression. Not drool over the worn-out memory replaying in your head for the thousandth time this week.
Out of the darkness and around corners, they emerged. The stealth wasn’t on purpose; you didn’t even think they could be stealthy. Oh, one was coming right for you now — tall was the only word your brain could muster. Tall and red and square were added to the list of adjectives as the stately bot approached, servos collected into fists at his sides and shoulders thrown back.
“Priiiime,” Mirage greeted warmly, throwing his arms out at his sides in his favorite pose. “Look, hey, I know what you said about bringing more people around, but I swear— Hey!”
Completely ignoring your friend’s (status pending) greeting, the bot— Prime, holy shit, this is THE Prime, was kneeling down, leaning forward, and he was right in your face. You fought the very biological urge to flinch. Blue optics considered you for a moment before narrowing and flicking to your right from his lowered position.
“Mirage,” Optimus started with a gravelly tone  from behind his faceguard that communicated exasperation above all else. “I explicitly stated that for our safety — and yours — that we were to come in contact with no more humans.”
“Sir, I gotta be honest with you. Kinda hard on a planet that’s got, what, five billion of ‘em? Six?” Mirage glanced at you for backup. You stared back flatly, refusing to say anything that might put you on the business end of a laser cannon.
“You were told to remain incognito so you could recover.” Optimus continued, his gaze returning to you. With a shunk of shifting metal, his faceplate slid away. His faceplates were weathered; the chipped metal around his optics gave the illusion of wrinkles and eyebags. Tired. He seemed tired. “This is not incognito. What is your name?”
You gave it after taking a beat to steady yourself. He repeated it back to you. “How did you come in contact with Mirage?”
“I, uh— Noah, Noah Diaz, he’s my friend. I basically pried it out of him,” you said with a nervous laugh. “So it’s not Mirage’s fault. I’m just nosy.”
At the mention of Noah, Optimus seemed to visibly relax; he moved back slightly, though he remained kneeling, and the narrowed, suspicious squint of his optics rounded out into something much softer.
“…I see. Then I assume you understand the… precarious nature of our existence on your planet.” he said, his tone grave and his optics searching your face.
You nodded, pressing the flesh of the inside of your cheek between your teeth for a moment as you came up with a suitably diplomatic response that still conveyed your friendliness. “I do, yeah. Noah told me most of it. What he could, anyway. I just wanted to make it clear that I’m not— I’m not a threat here. Like I don’t work with the, uh, the government or anything. Whatever you guys need help with, I’m available, even if that just means keeping my mouth shut.”
Christ, you were glad this wasn’t your day job. You’d be such a shit ambassador. I’m available. What the hell did that even mean? Fuck yes, you were available, your brain guffawed, thinking of broad metal thumbs brushing over your chest.
You blinked hard, squeezing your eyelids together until the world came back in a photo negative, to scold yourself.
Although you’d stumbled through your reply, Optimus seemed to approve. He rose with a great creak of metal off of his knee and backed up to give you space, though he still regarded you with those sharp blue optics that felt as though they pinned you to the concrete below. “I see Noah chooses his company well. I should have assumed his sentiments would extend to his companions.” He shut his optics for a moment and dipped his head, as if considering deeply what to say next. “I am not sure how much Mirage — or Noah — divulged to you.”
“A fair amount— well. Any amount that won’t get them in trouble,” you called up, taking in deeper breaths to project your voice up the two stories of height to his head. To your side, Mirage snorted. “I know your name— Optimus, I know that, and I know about the Autobots. A little bit about the— fuck, what were they called—“
“Terrorcons?” Mirage supplied, and you were impressed at how quiet he’d been otherwise.
“Terrorcons, thank you. Other than that, not much. How much should I know?”
“Your knowledge is sufficient. All we fear — and all we risk—“ Optimus added with a pointed look at Mirage, who looked incredibly sheepish. “—at the moment is discovery. So long as you maintain secrecy, no harm shall come to us… or you, for that matter.”
It almost sounded like a threat, but Prime worded it very much like a warning. You decided it was best to heed his word — not that you really had another option.
“Right. Okay. Well— I mean, it was nice to meet you. People — humanity, I guess — aren’t bad. Most of us aren’t, anyway. Just, uh, let me know if there’s something Noah and I can get or do for you.”
Prime’s gaze shifted away from you. In fact, it seemed to shift away from the warehouse in general, looking somewhere far beyond the now-shut garage door. “Your generosity is admirable, but it is not humans primarily that we are concerned with.”
Brows furrowed at his vague answer, you thought it over for a second — and then decided not to push it. He probably knew best when it came to whatever foreboding nebulous space threat loomed over your collective heads; you would leave it up to the experts.
“Oh, well, golden rule and all that,” you still offered in terms of a response. That got his attention. His massive head tilted downwards to look at you once more with curiosity. “If I crash landed on someone else’s planet, I’d want them to be hospitable, y’know? Just trying to make the best of a shitty situation.”
Like he couldn’t handle the terrible punishment of silence anymore, Mirage butted in. “See, Prime? I told you she was cool.”
A short jolt shook the broad, boxy line of his shoulders, and at first you had thought he’d coughed, and then you realized he laughed. It was barely anything, a huff of a chuckle, but you glowed with the indirect affirmation. Just made Optimus Prime laugh. Maybe you weren’t such a terrible diplomat.
He wasn’t looking at you, though, rather at Mirage, and you swore from your low vantage point you could see a barely-there smile on Prime’s faceplates communicating…was that smug amusement? As the tall bot carefully made his way past you, he stopped in front of your companion, and let a heavy servo land on the headlight adorning his shoulder.
“No matter what you may feel, you chose well, Mirage.” Optimus rumbled out, before removing his servo and traipsing off into a darker section of the sprawling warehouse, ducking through a much-too-small cutout and speaking to Arcee about something indistinguishable. However, you couldn’t care less about whatever her and Prime were discussing — what the hell did he mean by Mirage choosing well?
You turned your head towards said bot, mouth open for inquiry and one brow raised. Mirage looked mortified, in every sense of the word; he stood shell-shocked, lips slightly parted and servos up and open as if to defend himself. His head was whipped around to follow Prime’s departure from the room. A whir started, bouncing off the walls — Mirage’s fans came on and off intermittently to keep his ambient internal temperature at safe levels, but the steady hum of this fan let you infer that he was flushing something fierce.
“Mirage? What—“
Interrupting you by breaking, nearly jumping, out of his trance, he clapped his servos together and started talking at a million miles a minute. “Well, damn, look at that, haha, it’s late, ain’t it? You got work in the morning, right? C’mon, hop in, I’ll drive you home—“
“No, Mirage, hold on, what was he talking about—“
“Seriously, c’mon, he was just messing around—“
“You’re telling me Optimus Prime was joking? Is he even capable of that?”
He said your name with a finality that nearly made you flinch. “Look, I can’t really— Just drop it, please?” It wasn’t angry, nor was it even commanding; in fact, his eyes were wide and pleading with you out of embarrassment. You knew the feeling all too well, and in the interest of sparing his feelings, decided to let it go, despite your intense curiosity.
You put your hands up in surrender. “Okay. Dropped.” A few beats of silence passed while Mirage was still tamping down his fluster. “You wanna take me home now or are we waiting for Prime to come embarrass you more?”
“Please, let’s get outta here,” he affirmed, dropping into his alt-mode and popping the driver door for you. As you slid in, you couldn’t help the little mischievous smile that grew on your face as your brain cooked up some other joke to take the edge off.
The garage door opened on its own. Mirage rolled into the noticeably darker alleyway. The burnt umber glow of the sunset-stained sky was only visible overhead; otherwise you were boxed in on the sides by blacked-out buildings.
Stifling silence was broken by a joke. Your joke, actually. “…Can’t believe your dad made fun of you in front of me.”
The noise Mirage made was only comparable to a squawk. But obviously much more masculine, clearly. Still, his tires jerked on the road, betraying his surprise. “Hey— Prime is not my sire— or dad, or whatever you wanna call ‘em. He wishes.”
“I dunno,” you mused, arms crossed over your chest and back sunk deep into the seat. Brooklyn in transition blurred by in messy constellations of lit windows. “He got you pretty good there. Pretty standard dad behavior.”
“Hey, I don’t know what suddenly inspired him to go for comedy, but I do not appreciate it. That’s my thing. He’s stealin’ my thunder!”
“Maybe you’re just rubbing off on him.”
Silence.
The radio crackled. “Ew.”
Accompanied by the loudest eyeroll you could muster, you whacked the dashboard with an open palm, though you couldn’t stop your bubbling laughter. “Oh my god, you are so gross, Mirage! I hate you!”
“Ahh, don’t say that, c’mon! You love it here!”
“You wish.”
The rest of the ride home was spent that way, bickering like normal, and although you couldn’t let go of what Prime had said, nor his knowing look while he said it, you appreciated the return to baseline. When you got home, Mirage parked directly in front of your apartment building, and you lingered on the sidewalk for several minutes after you got out of the car. With the passenger door opened so it looked like you were talking to the ‘driver’ and not completely insane, you leaned on the doorframe and traded jabs with your ride until the humidity of the night air got a little too persistent to ignore. Damn you, Brooklyn. 
“See you tomorrow?” Mirage never said goodnight. He only ever asked when he could see you again, corny bastard.
“Tomorrow. My roommate’ll take me to work, don’t worry about it. I’ll just stick my head in the garage when I get home.”
“I thought we had a thing goin’, man!” His faux petulance returned. “You movin’ on already? You just met my folks!”
Your jaw dropped for a second at the fact he’d turned the damn bit around on you. “I met one folk, and you literally said he wasn’t your dad.”
“Maybe I was warmin’ up to the idea!”
Another lethal eyeroll. Your smile still remained locked on your face. “Whatever. Get the hell out of here, asshole,” you said, playfully shutting the door just a little harder than you needed to and slapping the roof like a horse you were trying to send off into the desert.
Even as you turned to walk into your building, you could hear the way his window shot down, far faster than a normal roll. “Ay! Merchandise!”
You stuck a middle finger over your shoulder, thumb out and all, to give him an idea of what he could do with his merchandise. Tires peeled against pavement as he screeched out of his spot and down the otherwise quiet street, letting you know in return how he felt about that.
Smiling like an idiot as you climbed the stairs to your apartment, you felt… airy. You were always smiling after hanging around Mirage, you couldn’t help it — especially as of late. But still, you were dying to know what Prime was talking about when he was messing with Mirage earlier. You chose well. Chose what? Your brain briefly entertained the thought of Mirage returning what you felt, and it made blood rush to your face.
It couldn’t really… work. You had made peace with your physical differences weeks ago. The both of you got along just fine despite the size difference, and it never impeded your normal interactions. But you doubted Mirage felt the same; no matter how familiar, how friendly you were with him, you could never shake the feeling of being just a little too alien. Your greatest similarities were in personality. The closest resemblance you held physically was the fact you were both humanoid in shape.
That didn’t stop you. No, not at all. It didn’t stop you from dropping into bed after a quick shower with a heavy sigh, your hand inevitably sinking beneath the covers as you thought of digits — Mirage’s digits, so well articulated for their size and so careful — playing with the hem of your underwear instead of your own fingers, pushing the fabric aside just a little roughly to explore your alien anatomy. It took very little time for you to grind yourself to climax; in fact, it was embarrassingly quick, and it left your face hot with some special kind of shame as you slunk out of bed to wash your hands. The entire time, you avoided your reflection in the mirror.
Even with the ancient AC cranked on and chugging away, it took you a long while to fall asleep.
Off in the industrial district of Brooklyn, meanwhile, Mirage was burning rubber as he took ninety-degree turns at sixty miles per hour. His processor was thrumming at max capacity, and his engine felt like it was about to either stall or explode.
Primus, it was all too much. Your teasing always got him some kind of hot and bothered, tight under his interface paneling, but the acidic rush of embarrassment still prickled at his cabling. Prime, come on, man. Mirage was still floored at the fact that Prime of all bots had embarrassed him like that, in front of you, no less!
He had it bad for you, and he knew it, but apparently every other bot in that warehouse knew it too. Ever since he’d met you, you’d stuck in his processor, the way the light glinted off your eyes and your all-teeth smile and the way he could get you to laugh. Sure, his flirts were only playful at first — and he only did them to mess with Noah, who’d harbored an on-and-off crush on you for a while — but the more he did them and the more you returned them, the more he started really… considering it.
It was so shameful. Primus, it was shameful. He’d barely ever interfaced in his life — there was just no time, especially not on Cybertron — and never with organics. After that one night where he’d hefted you up with ease in both servos and completely blanked when confronted with your soft, warm weight in his hold, he’d been on a spiral. It wasn’t just enough to be friendly with you; he was plenty friendly with Noah (though with the amount of stupid passes Mirage made at him, Noah would probably say too friendly) and he wanted something more with you.
He’d lost count of how many times he’d rolled into some long-abandoned warehouse or pitch-black deserted alley and scrabbled at his interface panel to pressurize his spike before he feverishly, frantically humped his fisted servo for relief, mental processors supplying increasingly filthy fantasies of your soft skin against his chassis and your mouth, Primus, your mouth on his own, on his spike, wherever, he didn’t care. Every single time, though, after coming down from his high with steam pouring off his lax frame, he felt just a little more discouraged than the last — because he knew that his fantasies would have to stay that way. Fantasies. Your friendship was enough, had to be, no matter how bad he wanted you, because he’d be damned to the Pit before he scared you off by being stupid and admitting his feelings.
Ugh. Ugh. He took another corner too hard and felt his tires shriek, let the burn travel upward and reverberate in his frame. The chaos in his mental processors quieted as he neared HQ. All he knew was that it was late, and he couldn’t be too loud or Prime would get on his ass for interrupting his stasis.
Can’t believe your dad made fun of you in front of me. Your voice played, unbidden, from some file that popped open in his memory bank. He willed it away with a vengeance as he rolled into the warehouse-turned-headquarters as quietly as he could, transforming as soon as the door was shut and stretching out his back. Clicking echoed off the walls as his spinal struts reset, and the residual burn in his scraped tires tingled.
Mirage turned, and—
Yelped. Bumblebee was standing right there, shoulder against the wall and fiddling with some holographic projection from his forearm. Mirage coughed into his clenched servo to preserve what was left of his dignity.
“‘Sup,” he greeted through gritted denta. “I, uh, didn’t see you there, man. How’s it hangin’?”
Bee gave him a flatly unamused look that communicated ‘No shit, you didn’t see me.’ very well. The projection phased out of existence and left the two of them in the dimmed space in some kind of standoff.
“Well, y’know, beauty stasis and everything, I’m just gonna—“
“I wanna know, what you’re feeling! Tell me what’s your mind!” burbled Bee’s radio in place of his voice. Mirage jerked back for a second, not expecting Information Society at whatever unholy hour of the morning it was.
“Look, man, I don’t really wanna talk about—“
“There are some things you can’t hide!” insisted the same song. Bee gestured for Mirage to talk. Clearly he wanted to know.
This was as good a time as ever to spill, he guessed.
Mirage groaned and clasped both of his servos over his face after explaining the bones of it, his head tilted upwards, optics fruitlessly searching the water-stained warehouse ceiling for a solution to his problem. His… very human, very embarrassing problem.
Not that he thought you were embarrassing— not at all, never. But Prime would have his head over falling for a human. Okay, well, maybe not his head; it was more like Mirage would be in for a lengthy disapproving speech about responsibilities and goals and distractions, and Primus, just thinking about it made the former option of decapitation the preferable one. Even though he seemed to approve of his choice, considering what he’d said earlier, the ‘Bots were still at war, and there wasn’t time for human distractions. Literal human distractions.
It wasn’t like he could help it. You were funny, okay? And smart. And you teased him in just the right way that made his cooling fans sputter, and you were so curious about… everything about him, he thought, remembering your impromptu Cybertronian anatomy lesson with a hot flash in his processor. He couldn’t help but be flattered by your attention.
“Ugh, Bee, I don’t know what to do, man,” he said despairingly after a moment, pacing in circles in front of said squat yellow bot leaned against the nearby concrete wall. “I mean, look at this, she’d be missin’ out if she said no,” he added, arrogance staining his words in an attempt to console himself. It didn’t work; insecurity eviscerated his bravado moments after he said it. “Or… I guess we’d both be, huh.” A short, self-deprecating laugh left him.
Mirage wasn’t entirely sure why he’d come to Bee of all bots for advice, but he was sure as shit not going to Optimus after today, and Arcee would have just told him anyway. Plus, considering that Wheeljack wasn’t even in the country at the moment, his options were slim. Besides, Bee had… experience with this sort of thing. Dealing with humans and all. Just… not in this way. But it was close enough, and Mirage was totally lost; if he thought about it by himself for any longer, his processors were going to fry.
Speaking of, Bee tittered through his gutted voice synthesizer to get Mirage’s attention. Expression drawn into a very human grimace, Mirage turned to face his friend, servos planted firmly on his hips.
“Well, you gotta tell her— wanna know what love is— want you to show me,” Bee’s radio clipped, first from a talk show, then from a nearby station, and Mirage felt energon surge to his face in a hot rush at a very personal song being blared back at him.
He had the words memorized at this point. The shape of them was practically burned into his memory files, considering how much he played it for you. It was reserved for days on both ends of the spectrum, bad and good; Mirage would pick you up in his alt-mode and take you for joyrides across the city, flying over the Brooklyn Bridge at daredevil speeds, all the while blaring music loud enough to make your head pound.
The two of you had discovered a few favorites, but the Foreigner song was at the top of the list, right next to Careless Whisper, of course. The sound of your voice belting at the top of your lungs, softened with that specific human accent, thrumming and reverberating through your chest— you sounded so alive, but so different from what he was accustomed to.
“Dude—” Mirage nearly barked, voice up a full octave before clearing his synthesizer into his fist and repeating himself. “Dude. I can’t just do that. Aliens— we’re aliens. Well. She’s an alien, too, I guess, but we,” he paused to gesture frantically between himself and Bee, “are the aliens here. I don’t really think humans are into the whole giant robot thing.”
“Noah?” Bee played a clip of Mirage’s own voice back at him questioningly.
“Yeah, well, Noah’s a different story.”
With a whir of his actuators, Bee shook his head and looked away for a moment, big blue optics considering the floor. With a soft clunk, he crossed his arms over his chassis.
“Come on, man, you gotta give me something,” Mirage urged, tilting his head to follow the other bot’s motions. “Should I just leave it? I mean, I don’t want it to be weird, I just—“
Bee straightened up off the wall, clearly done thinking. His arms opened out in a shrug and his optics squinted, communicating I don’t know what you want me to say, dude, far better than his vocal synthesizer ever could have.
His radio clipped again, this time a few seconds of a Beatles song and then Noah’s voice. “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah— right?”
“I don’t know, that’s the problem,” Mirage groaned, rolling his head back with a pained expression and letting his body follow the motion as he paced another tight circle. His faceplates felt hot at the insinuation. “And if I ask, it’s gonna be weird. And if I make it weird, I’m never gonna—“
He stopped rambling when a four-digit servo thumped on the headlight atop his shoulder, rooting him to the spot. Bee’s optics stared him down, wide and bright blue, and it made Mirage press his lips together firmly as he awaited whatever sage advice he was about to impart.
ABBA filtered through the radio first. “Should walk right up to her and say—“ What came next made Mirage’s brow ridges shoot up so high he thought they were going to fly off his helmet. “—when I get that feeling, I want sexual healin’!”
Mirage’s jaw dropped. Immensely flustered and ten times more frustrated at his friend’s useless advice, he shoved the other bot off. “Are you serious, dude? Primus, I never shoulda asked you. Thanks, I’ll go walk right up to her and ask to interface on the warehouse floor, that’ll go super well.”
Bee nodded quickly and gave him a double thumbs up with a series of approving beeps and chirps, the bottoms of his optics flattening into an amused look. Mirage dragged his servo down his faceplates in mortification, although his cooling fans kicked on a click higher than normal.
Sometimes he wished he’d been left on Cybertron with Soundwave and all his other goons. This was one of those times. As he dropped back into his alt-mode with an embarrassed mumble about ‘going on patrol,’ Bee whooped behind him, and the last thing Mirage heard before peeling out of the warehouse was “There’s nothin’ wrong with me lovin’ you, baby, no, no!”
Whoever gave Bee access to Marvin Gaye needed to be whacked upside the helm.
Knowing Mirage’s luck, it was probably you.
He stayed out for the rest of the night in his alt-mode, wandering the streets and staying away from your apartment, no matter how bad he wanted to go. The pool of people with any useful advice to offer for his predicament was steadily shrinking; after the disaster with Bee, Mirage just needed to stay away from that warehouse and let his processors cool.
Sometime in the morning he returned, though not to the warehouse. He almost immediately crashed into stasis as soon as he rolled into Noah’s garage, his simultaneously pent-up and exhausted processors eager for a chance to refresh themselves and defrag.
Ha, he thought blearily as he sank into stasis. Defrag.
You were waking as he was crashing, though you weren’t happy about it. The eight hour shift that loomed ahead of you on top of the bullshit from last night was a pretty potent combination for a headache of a day, especially when you couldn’t have your morning jam sesh with Mirage on your way to work. Thankfully, though, your roommate was a kind soul, and there was an extra cup of coffee waiting for you on the counter when you stumbled out of your bedroom.
As you sipped it, you wondered just how long you could keep the front up. By some small grace of God, your roommate’s schedule didn’t align very well with yours; you barely saw them in your daily life even before you met Mirage. It wasn’t on purpose, of course. It just happened that way. But on a few occasions, they’d been home when Mirage had dropped you off, and you’d been just calling him a ‘friend with places to be’ to excuse the fact that he never walked you to your door. Being somewhat prescient, they’d nudged you a couple times about this ‘friend’ turning into a boyfriend, but had never pushed it.
You just hoped it stayed that way.
Breakfast was a quick and quiet affair, though you traded a few jokes back and forth that had the both of you giggling into your food. The ride to your job was similar, and your roommate wished you a good shift before driving off leisurely — such a stark difference compared to Mirage’s affinity for peeling off into the street at Mach-fucking-10. Thinking of him made your face burn and your mind race. You tried not to.
Time was an especially cruel mistress today, though. You swore that people were actively winding the clocks back every time you looked up at them, and your shift felt like a thick slog, knee-deep, that you had no choice but to wade through. The worst part about slow shifts was that your mind wandered with nothing else to do, and like a moth to a flame— or rather, like metal to a magnet, your brain circled around to Mirage again and again and again.
Damn that bot. Damn it all. Every time you thought of him, it was some stupid joke he’d cracked or silly offhand comment he’d made or ridiculous flirt he’d lobbed your way — always accompanied by memories of his body, surprisingly lithe considering what he was made of, all legs and a dramatic waist topped with wide shoulders that made your own engine purr.
“Mirage, did you go upstate or something? You’re disgusting,” you’d laughed as you raked your gaze over his pecs, pretending to eye the dirt smeared there and not something else.
“Disgusting?! You gotta be kidding me, I’m not half as bad as the rest of ‘em. You should see Bee, dude!” He’d gestured out the door of the warehouse, where you assumed the other bot was lurking in dirt-covered shame.
“What the hell were you two even doing?”
“Pfft. Practicin’.”
“Practicing body-slamming each other?”
“Yeah, want me to show you?”
“Mirage,” you’d groaned, laughing despite yourself.
“C’mon, I know a few good ways to pin a bot down,” he grinned, winking at you. You fixed him with the most dead stare you could muster before breaking into a half-smile of your own.
“I’ll pass on the whole getting crushed thing, but I could be persuaded to spray you down by hand,” you flirted back, just for fun. 
No, not for fun. Real flirt. It was real, all of it was, and you couldn’t shake the memory of his optics widening, brightening, with eagerness and the way he’d pleaded. Playfully. Playfully?
“Please,” he begged dramatically, clasping his servos together, optics enormous. “I’ll be good! Maybe even stay still!”
You pinched your nose bridge between your fingers and tried to think about something else, because you were starting to press your thighs together a little and you were still at work, damn it. Professionalism was something you were aiming to maintain.
Hot. It was hot. That’s what you were thinking about. You’d glanced at the weather report earlier in the morning, and seeing a row of little sun icons clued you in on an insufferable heatwave that didn’t have any intention of breaking any time soon. Even now you felt sweat collect under your shirt and dot your hairline; all you could do was wipe your face with the back of your hand and keep working.
And working.
And working.
And. Working.
And then, eventually, you watched the clock tick over the last minute of your shift, and you heard angels sing a holy choir as you all but slammed your things down and sprinted to clock out. Well. You didn’t sprint, but you did speed walk, which counted for something.
Such was your haste to leave your workplace and talk to Mirage that you speed-walked headfirst into the lashing rain outside without a second thought. Genuinely caught by surprise, you stumbled back into the safety of the entryway, eyes wide as you watched the storm front swallow the last dregs of the golden evening sky and pour rain on the streets outside. Ink blots bleeding across paper. Rorschach tests. Some other poetic fluff came to mind over the supremely annoying realization that you were going to have to walk to the garage in wet clothes.
At least it was a quick walk.
Patience waning, you nearly considered calling Mirage — or even Noah — to come get you, but at the last second your roommate swooped in, pulling up outside and honking the horn a few times to let you know your knight in shining Prius was here to rescue you.
They cracked a few jokes at your expense when they saw your wet clothes, but it was nothing you couldn’t handle. Not after the trials and tribulations of Mirage. With a few clicks, the rest of your ride home was filled with Boyz II Men and intermittent conversation as you watched raindrops race each other down the window and considered what the hell you were going to say to Mirage tonight. 
Mostly, you were dying of curiosity to know what Prime had meant to get him so flustered. Thinking about that, though, just made you go down a spiral of what-ifs… especially considering that one of them was ‘What if he feels the same way?’
You could handle rejection. You were an adult who paid taxes. But just this one time, you weren’t sure if you could handle reciprocation. Especially full reciprocation.
Mirage’s friendship was something you felt privileged to have. You were just quite scared to fuck it all up and lose out on all the things that made being his friend worth it — including him. Jaw tightening, you blinked and looked away from the window. No use stewing in it.
At home, your dinner was quick and light — something in a Tupperware that you didn’t look at too hard after microwaving. When your roommate asked about your rush, you came up with some lame excuse about hanging out with Noah, waving your hand dismissively.
Don’t worry about me. I’m going to go break Hynek’s scale of close encounters. Don’t worry about it though.
“In this weather? You’ll be soaked thirty seconds out the door. You were soaked thirty seconds out the door.”
“I’ll bring an umbrella,” you said, barely listening to them over the cacophony of your own thoughts. Mirage. Mirage. Mirage. I’m seeing him tonight. I’m talking to him tonight. I’m not going to pussy out of anything tonight. Now or never. “The place is like two blocks up the street, I’ll live.”
“If you’re so inclined to catch a cold, I’m not gonna stop you. Not making you chicken soup, though.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” you snarked affectionately, and the last thing you heard before exiting your apartment was their familiar laughter. That bolstered you somewhat.
Even if the rain whipping at your face made you reconsider your stupid horny stubbornness.
Only two blocks felt more like two dozen as you tucked your chin to your chest and gripped your hood to keep the wind from snatching it off your head; in your other hand you white-knuckled your umbrella to keep it from tilting the wrong angle and washing water down your back. Thunder rattled your bones more than once and made you think offhandedly of Kris, the poor kid. He hated storms but refused to admit it out of pride; he was probably curled up in a ball under his covers right now trying to block out the worst of the noise. And you thought of Noah alongside him just out of pure association, and you weren’t sure what made your stomach turn, but it did.
God, you hoped Noah wasn’t with Mirage right now. You didn’t want to slam the door open to the garage soaking wet and wrestle Mirage’s true feelings out of him while Noah spectated. Wrestle. Soaking wet.
Fuck my life.
The side door to the garage was jammed like it always was, even after you unlocked it, and you huddled against it to stay under the mediocre cover of the awning as you shoved your shoulder into it to force it open. Old metal hinges wailed as you ground them open, and the blessed dry warmth of the garage — the temperature always heightened with Mirage’s presence — sighed against your freezing skin as you wormed your way inside. 
“Mirage?” you called tentatively as you leaned back against the door to get it to shut and latch. A beat passed before your senses came to you and your hand fumbled behind you to lock it. Not for sordid reasons, honestly. You just didn’t want anyone to even have the chance of walking in on Mirage when he wasn’t folded into a Porsche.
Speaking of, you saw him then, pacing around the garage and seemingly very involved in a conversation with himself. Although the rain outside provided a dull roar of background noise, the whirs and clicks of his actuators and soft whooms of his pedes against the concrete filled your ears with their familiarity. It was Mirage, and you knew Mirage, and it helped dull the edge of abject nervousness in your gut.
He cut a sharp figure under the hanging ceiling lights, making sure to duck and avoid smacking his helm on them. When those bright blue optics registered your existence, you swore they flared with delight; he said your name with such enthusiasm it almost made you excited. For what, exactly, you didn’t know. “Hey, sugar, what’s k— Primus, you, uh, swim on your way here? Or do I just make you that wet? Cuz I appreciate the compliment.” He grinned wolfishly at you. Sparks flew off your rubbed-raw nerves.
The unimpressed stare you gave him was lethal. “That is not how that works,” you said, shaking your umbrella off on the floor and setting it against the wall to drip dry. “All the wetness is— would be in one place, dumbass.”
“Sorry. Wasn’t paying attention during my anatomy lessons. Wanna reteach ‘em to me? I’ll behave, swear on my spark.”
A scoff. “When have you ever behaved in your life?”
“When it counts! C’mon, you know you like it,” he said, gesturing down the length of his body with a flourish of his servo. “I mean, what isn’t there to like?”
“If I answer that question, I’ll hurt your feelings.” Excess rainwater dripped off your jacket as you peeled it off. Mirage’s optics followed the motion intently.
Amber lighting nearly glowed against the sleek metal of his torso. So what if your own eyes had wandered down it at his emphasis? He’d invited it. Expressly. He loved your attention, loved flaunting everything about himself just for a glance his way from you, for anything you’d give him.
It took him a second to register your words. He gasped and clasped a servo over his chassis— his spark, you remembered that from your own anatomy lesson a few weeks ago. “Gonna break my spark talkin’ like that. I hurt your feelings or something, sugar? What’s got you so bent?” With his question, he sank into a deep squat, draping his forearm over his thigh and leaning close to you.
A deep exhale left you. Your shoulders deflated. “It’s not you. Just the weather.” A short huff of a laugh, barely humorous, left you. “I mean, look at me.” You held your arms out and spun in a slow circle, errant droplets flying in every direction. “I look like a drowned rat.”
The lightbulb over his head was nearly visible. “You, uh, want a hand drying off?”
You stopped dead in your tracks. Your hands fell to your sides. Something akin to lightning danced up your spine.
“What?”
“Hold on, hold on, I got an idea,” he said,  holding his hand out at you to tell you to wait, excitement ramping up in his voice. What the hell was he planning? Nothing good, you figured. Or hoped.
Otherwise harsh sounds of metal against metal were softened by the alien chirrs and trills of the mechanical viscera working in his chassis as he settled on the ground in a sitting position. His back was leaned against the wall, carefully adjusted so his darling paint job was away from the rough concrete. To keep his balance, he rested against his tires and scooched his hips away from the wall, kicking his long legs out with a flourish and gesturing at his lap.
Although he was shorter this way, it was still a climb you didn't want to make while you were damp and the general slip hazard was high. “Can you give me a lift so I can see whatever shit you’re planning?”
“I got you, sugar, don’t even worry about it. Just hang on,” came the reply, and your brain blanked just a little at the feeling of his servos on you again, picking you up just like they had done on that night two weeks ago. With zero effort — seriously, you didn’t even hear any mechanical creaking — you were scooped upwards.
Your damp clothes clung to your body, a fact both you and Mirage were painfully aware of; the chill of the soaked fabric contrasted against that fascinating living heat of your skin nearly made the sensors in his servos short-circuit. He’d thought about this, exactly this, so much that it had probably worn a path into his neural processors. So soft. You were so soft.
A shudder ran up his spinal strut and he prayed you didn’t notice.
You were set down with your feet firmly on the flat tops of his thighs, ignoring the slight wobble in your knees. Arms raised a bit for balance, you looked down at the living machinery beneath you. The flight paths of the butterflies in your stomach grew more frantic. Broad servos released you from their hold, but they didn’t leave; no, they skated down, down, down until they settled on the flare of your hips and stayed. They were so heavy.
A breath caught in your throat like a wild animal in a trap. “If I fall, I’m gonna be so pissed off. You know that, right?” Anything to make this more normal. You had no idea how you kept the shake out of your voice.
“Relaaax, hot stuff, I’m on it. I got it, I got it,” he replied, his voice a full octave lower than what you were used to. “‘sides, I’m Mirage, remember? Protecting humans is kinda my thing.”
You scoffed. “Not with the way you drive.”
“Hey, I drive perfectly fine! You’re the one who’s scared of fun.” His servos left your hips to brace themselves on the floor. “Mirage, don’t drive so fast! Mirage, that’s a red light! Mirage, there are cops behind us!” His voice pitched up into something high and nasally to poorly, poorly mimic yours.
It was your turn to be affronted, though your mouth was open in a disbelieving sort of smile. “I don’t even sound like that, you fucker! And sorry for trying to keep us from getting arrested!”
“I dunno, you all sorta sound the same to our audio processors.” He was lying, and blatantly so. He had the distinct tone and pitch of your voice memorized down to the wavelength. “And besides, we wouldn’t get arrested.” His own voice took on a smug, self-satisfied edge, accompanied by the raise of his brow ridges.
“Oh, really? Why’s that? Please, enlighten me,” you snarked, crossing your arms over your chest and staring him down. In response, he leaned his head in, closer to you, closer than you expected, and an insufferable smirk crawled across his faceplates.
“Cuz cop cars can’t drive that fast,” he whispered conspiratorially, like it was a clever response.
What should have been a minute movement — just a shift of the head — actually became very noticeable on a twelve-foot-frame; his hips repositioned of their own accord to account for the redistribution of weight, and the change was enough to trip you up. Especially when you had been leaning in already to match his movement.
The world tilted as you started to fall forward; fearing injury or worse by tumbling off your semi-precarious perch, you jammed your hands out in front of you—
And slammed your palms directly on his chassis. It was all very fast after that. Mortified, you stared down at the planes of metal beneath you, feeling heat creep up, up, up your neck and seep into your face. Mirage had cursed above you out of surprise, and you felt the displacement of air as his servo shot up behind your back and hovered. Right there. He was right there, and he always would be.
You raised your head and made eye contact, and you knew it was over. His optics were wide with surprise, and they searched your face for any expression of pain or discontent. They cycled once, seeing none, and then flickered down to your lips.
He was so done for. Something in his expression sagged at your proximity; in his field of view, he saw an alert stating that his internal temperature was rising beyond ideal levels, and he would have laughed if not for you. Finally. Finally. Finally. He was half-expecting this to be a dream, something cooked up by his fried processors that he would wake up from any minute now. 
His servo was still hovering over your back.
“Can I—“
“Yes,” you said immediately in a sharp exhale — before he could even get the question out — and there it all went.
He surged forward like a flood from a dam, closing the distance between the both of you with a hungry rev of his engine. Explaining the logistics of it would sound silly; all you could do was go with the flow, just like every other time you’d ever kissed someone. All you knew was that it was satisfying, supremely so, and completely encompassing. Every sense was filled by him, and you realized with a kick of your heart that you never wanted it any other way.
Though your hand shook, you shoved past the fear and indulged in everything you had wanted for weeks, let yourself sink deep into that pit of want and refused to come up for air. Your fingers skated his curves and edges; you brought your palm up to the sharp angles of his jaw and smoothed it upward until it ran over the curve of his cheek.
He reacted to your touch like it was a live wire. Minute jerks of excitement ran through his frame, and when your hand rested on the side of his face, he tilted his helm into the kiss with barely restrained excitement. He was so careful, it made something inside you purr. That kind of caution was only reserved for something precious. You were precious. He couldn’t ever risk hurting you. Especially not by his own hand.
First impression was that his lips were far softer than you’d ever assumed. Pliable, hot metal pressed greedily against your mouth — more, more, more was a mantra echoed wordlessly between the both of you. The hovering servo came to rest on your back, pushing your front against his chassis as you shifted up on your toes to keep the angle of the kiss correct. Digits splayed against the planes of skin they found there, pressing down to feel your warmth — your heart slammed against your ribs so hard that Mirage could probably feel it against his palm.
With a hot flash, you wondered if the metal of his lips would bear the dent of your teeth from a bite. So you bit. It was more of a playful nip than anything, but the reaction you got was so instantaneous it was like Mirage had been waiting for it. Again, his engine throttled, the powerful rumble surging through you as his servo pinned you to his chassis. Against your mouth, his lips ticked up into a smile.
Air. You needed air. He let you pull away with no resistance, though his head did trail after your mouth for a moment.
You let your forehead sink down and rest against the top of his chassis for a moment; the condensation from your breath fogged the metal. Out of nowhere, manic giggles erupted from you. They shook your body incessantly as you rose and fell in time with Mirage’s heavy vents, your knees feeling weak and mind frazzled. From one kiss. One.
Laughter rocked his frame too, short chuckles of disbelief as his thumb rubbed circles into your back.
“Oh my god,” you murmured into the warm metal beneath you through shocks of giggles.
“Not exactly, but, eh, I’ll take it,” Mirage replied above you, and while he laughed at his own joke, you groaned and whacked him lightly with a palm. It wasn’t like he was unaffected though — far from it, in fact, judging from the steadily heating chassis beneath you and the tinge of static fringing his words.
“Bring me up,” you said hoarsely, twisting an arm behind you to paw at the servo on your back.
Without question, his other servo came up and curled under your thighs, hoisting you up so that his face was easier to reach. With most of your body now resting on his chassis and very much secured in his grip, you grasped his face in both your palms; he leaned so far into your touch with a shaky ex-vent that your noses almost brushed.
“Again?”
“Yeah, again,” he agreed, and this time you pulled him in, fingers hooking in some unseen seam behind his jaw as you crushed your mouth against his. Hunger, latent and now finally triggered, drove you closer, as close as you physically could, until your skin was starting to hurt from the random edges being pressed into it.
Curious above all else, you licked your tongue into the front of his mouth. The searing heat inside surprised you; it teetered on the edge of uncomfortable and reminded you very much of your computer at home when it ran for too long, with that special kind of mechanical stress and burning warmth that only came with overworked processors.
“‘S like that, is it?” he murmured into your mouth with a grin, his engine kicking up a notch and the vibration of his chassis hitting you very nicely right where you needed it most. You made some soft noise, half-gasp, half-groan, and hiked one of your legs up so it was bent at the knee, flattening your hips against his chest and fuck, there it was. The consistent rumble of his motor pressed a steady vibration right into your cunt over the seam of your jeans; a particular grind made you gasp and falter as you rolled your clit against the line of denim and held it there.
“Whoa-ho-ho! Heyyy, hot stuff, something feel good down there?” His voice was bursting at the seams with some rich kind of excitement; you breathed into his neck cabling as your hips jerked a little against his chassis. One servo pawed at your ass, clumsy with its eagerness, gripping and massaging the soft flesh it found there with intent.
Experimentally, his servo pressed down, pushing your pelvis down with it, and the pressure on your clit pulled a groan of satisfaction out of you that had his cooling fans sputter.
“Fuck,” you hissed through gritted teeth, and before he could say something stupid, you leaned your head down and pressed kisses to the delicate cabling of his neck.
A delighted noise rattled out of him, and his helm rolled back against the wall to allow you more access. Impatient, your kisses soon turned to bites, playful nips that tugged at the sensitive wiring and made his body jolt beneath yours like he’d been shocked. To your utter delight, you found that Mirage’s proclivity for talking extended to situations like these, too — noises streamed from his mouth as your curious teeth and hands worked over such a fragile part of his anatomy in ways that only a human could.
“Oh, Primus, babe, babe—“ he stammered out, and you lifted your head for just long enough of a window to allow him to swoop down and kiss you again, feverishly now.
Something thick and wet prodded past your teeth experimentally. For just a second you balked— and then remembered it was his glossa. His tongue. Yeah, you remembered that from your anatomy lesson; he’d stuck it out and pointed at it in a dumb way then, but fuck if it didn’t have your thighs tightening now. The hot biomesh probed your mouth, and it was so big you inadvertently drooled around it — but Mirage didn’t seem to mind at all. In fact, you were pretty sure the spit dripping from your mouth around him was getting him even more worked up, judged by the way his digits tightened their grip on your ass.
You had been cold when you’d walked in that garage. Keyword there was had. Now your skin seared with a deep flush and steadily increasing heat; mindlessly, your hips started a slow, staccato rhythm that kept your breathing heavy. The servo on your back slid upwards to the point where it encompassed the back of both your neck and head. He could not get enough of your taste. He wanted it burned into the sensors on his glossa, for all he cared. Spit and lubricant swapped between the both of your mouths — you found that the metallic taste that seeped into your tongue did nothing but turn you on further.
Pulling away again for a deep inhale of air, you propped yourself semi-awkwardly on an elbow to look at him. Open adoration was written across his faceplates, along with blatant want that made his optics cycle frantically.
“I thought you were— fuck, I thought you were supposed to be drying me off,” you said, breaking in the middle of your sentence as his servo carefully started to move you. Just barely — just enough pressure to keep your hips working against him and chasing your pleasure.
“You really wanna?” He grinned at you, spit shiny on his chin. “I dunno about you, but I think I’m likin’ you being wet more.”
“You’re awful. That was terrible,” you laughed, brain foggy with arousal and general swelling affection for the bot underneath you.
“How many more of those you got left in you before you start admitting the truth that I’m the funniest bot you’ll ever meet?”
“I mean, you don’t exactly have stiff competition.”
“Aaand the best-looking.”
“I dunno… Optimus is kind of—“
“Hey!” he interrupted, bringing you up for another kiss to silence your thought before you could finish it. You happily complied, laughing into the heat of his mouth and then moaning in the same breath as his servo ground you down against his rumbling chassis again.
Hot. You were getting really hot. The damp clothes sticking to your skin were not helping; in fact, they felt as though they were going to start steaming being pressed against your skin like this. Against your wishes, you pulled backwards again, bracing yourself against the warm vents that substituted for his collarbones. They cycled hot, dry air against your fingertips, though it didn’t burn. Not yet, at least.
“Mirage,” you breathed, and that got his attention immediately. “…Are we fucking?”
“Please,” he instantly replied, so eager that it made your cunt throb. His enormous blue optics watched you with such intent that it almost made you want to shrink away from the scrutiny — but you steeled your resolve. You had him, and you had him right where you wanted. Opportunity of a fucking lifetime. You were not about to waste it.
You glanced down for a reprieve from the eye contact. “Fuck,” you swore softly, staring at the metalwork beneath you for a few heartbeats before shaking your head and glancing back upwards at him. “Okay, well— I— Okay. Let me just— do this—“
Hands shaking slightly, you balled your fists in the hem of your work shirt and wrestled it up and off you; the damp fabric lingered and peeled off of you, which made Mirage’s motor throttle powerfully underneath you. Other than that, though, you got no reaction, which made all that heat in your abdomen cool rapidly into a dense ball of abject horror.
Oh, you made a mistake. This was too much, you were too alien, too different—
The servo not supporting you against his chassis slid around from the planes of your back to your front, and you gasped sharply as he did the same fucking thing that drove you insane the first time, however many days ago. His thumb, warm on the palm-side, gently passed over the peak of your chest. His optics narrowed in on the indent in your soft flesh his digit created. Nerve endings in the trail it left behind sparked.
“Oh, you don’t know how long I’ve been waiting to do that,” he said reverently, voice steeped in a combination of awe and victory.
Oh-kay! You sucked a deep breath in, a litany of responses running through your head. The boost to your ego was very much appreciated, and it helped lighten the sinking mass of worry that had formed in the pit of your stomach.
Mirage nearly groaned when you placed your soft palm atop the junction of his digit and the heel of his servo. “Do it again,” you decided on, and that worked damn well.
As his servo groped at your chest, he leaned in, tucking his face under your jaw. To accommodate, you tilted your head up and away—
Only to swear into negative space as he very much returned the favor from earlier and began carefully sucking the world’s biggest hickeys into the skin of your neck. Breaths came harsh and choppy as the expanse of his glossa, hot and spit-slick, laved over the gentle bites he worried into your skin with his denta. 
“Ah, Mirage, Mirage,” you breathed; every mention of his name spilling from your bruised lips made his circuitry heat just a little more. It was so much all at once — his servos were so broad that their expanse covered huge swaths of skin at once, and his mouth on such a sensitive part of your anatomy wasn’t helping either. Your hands clawed for purchase against his helm and the back of his neck. One palm flattened as much as it could on the back of his head, trying with all of your laughable human strength to bring him as close as possible. The other ended up cradling the side of his head, your thumb brushing over the audial disk there. With no small amount of wonder, you watched the plates of his back ruffle at your touch.
Mirage wasn’t trying to be weird, but he could die happy so long as he had the taste of your skin still registering on his glossa. It was more addictive than any high-grade he’d had back home by leagues. That human flavor of salt and skin and some kind of sweetness had his processors thrumming at maximum capacity; you made his mouth flood with lubricant, a fact you could corroborate by the amount that spilled over your bare sternum. The feeling of his own spit sliding down your front between your bruised breasts made the muscles of your abdomen twitch. Fingers shaped like claws now, you pressed weak kisses against the smooth curves of his helm wherever you could reach.
Your jeans were just getting in the way at this point. The minute shocks of pleasure you derived from grinding your clit against the inseam were just that — minute. You needed something more now or you were going to get frustrated, and you’d dealt with enough sexual frustration over the past weeks to be very sick of that feeling.
“Oh, fuck, okay— Mirage,” you said breathlessly, giving him a light tap on the side of his helm to get his attention. Reluctantly, he pulled away from your chest, optics dimmed with pleasure. They cycled once and returned to their full brightness as he cleared the fog of arousal — barely — away from his processors.
“All systems go, sugar?” Static hissed underneath his words.
You tried and failed to stifle a snort of a laugh. “Corny ass,” you mumbled, although you were absolutely close enough for his audial sensors to pick up on it. He made a sound of indignation, but you pushed forward regardless. “I, um, I need to get these off.” Hooking your thumbs in the waistband of your jeans to emphasize your point, you glanced up at his optics again.
Blankness for a second. Then it registered. “Oh, right, right, of course, haha! You, uh, want help? Or you got it?”
“I think I can manage taking my pants off,” you laughed. “Just— let me sit on like— the top of your chest, there we go,” you instructed, and the hand under your ass pushed you up until you were turned around and seated on the lip of the top of his chassis. For a second, you wrestled with the denim — still not fully dried — but you managed to kick both your jeans and your shoes off. They were thrown somewhere in the direction of the door. God, you were so glad you locked it.
Underwear went next. There was a beat of hesitation — for what, you weren’t sure — but like you’d done so often as of late, you just ignored your trepidation and worked the elastic down your legs. A laugh barked out of you when you lifted the fabric up and saw the downright ridiculous wet spot that stained the gusset.
“Jesus Christ, look what you did to me,” you said with a faux accusatory tone, holding your panties out for Mirage to inspect. Two digits delicately took them from you; he held them up to his face, so close that it made you blush from sheer embarrassment.
“Wow. You weren’t kiddin’ ‘bout all the wet being in one spot, huh?” He examined them with no small amount of fascination, much to your mortification.
“Mirage! Put those down, oh my god,” you said, covering your mouth with a choked noise.
“What, I can’t admire my work?”
“No you can not.”
Mirage pouted at your denial, and mumbled something about you being no fun, but he still lifted you off his chassis regardless. Like he was helpless to your draw, he pulled you in for another kiss, though he couldn’t stop his mouth from wandering. Down, down, down, until his nose was nestled in your chest and he spoke into the soft flesh of your stomach. Shaky ex-vents tickled the damp skin there.
“Shit, baby, tastes so good,” he mumbled, and you were impressed by his ability to sound completely sex-drunk without even having done anything yet.
Your hips rolled against nothing; they bumped into his neck cabling and the top of his chassis fruitlessly, and a noise of frustration eked out of you. Mirage seemed to get the memo and pulled you away. Your body was brought down until your ass was sat firmly on his hips — his interface panel nestled right in front of your dripping cunt — and your back was leaned up against the flat support of his thighs; his knees were tucked up and his pedes placed firm and flat on the floor to give you the most stability. Fumbling for a second before you found somewhere to place your own feet, the enormity and absurdity of the situation brought more of those breathless giggles to your mouth that seized your chest and shook your shoulders.
Toootally breaking Hynek’s scale here. So beyond abduction. Way beyond abduction.
A few careful digits slipped around your knee, wormed their way between your legs. “Can I—“ 
Your thighs fell open without a word.
What had made you fall for Mirage the hardest was his motormouth. He never stopped talking; he always had something stupid to add, something to pitch in with, some silly joke to crack. There was a lightness he teased out of you that even you didn’t expect. But now? Now, for once, he was speechless. It made uncharacteristic shyness flare in your gut and heat your face as he studied your very bare, very human form with slightly parted lips and enormous optics.
His body caught up before his mouth did. The servo on your knee slid over it until it gripped your bare thigh; he watched the flesh shift back and forth under his touch with no small amount of fascination.
“Is it— it’s okay?” Your voice sounded very small. It was a special kind of insecurity to be faced with.
“Oh, yeah, it’s okay. It’s cool, you’re just— just different. A lot different.” He jiggled your thigh again playfully.
“Good kind of different though, right?”
“Very good.” To punctuate it, his engine snarled again, seemingly in response to the drool of your cunt on the hot metal of his interface panel. “Primus, you look good, babe. Shit.”
Ego boost! You smiled. Any other partner — any person — and this would be too much, this position too unflattering, your everything too open… With Mirage, though, it just felt like it always did. Easy.
One of your hands rested atop the servo still holding onto the meat of your thigh. The other slid down over your shining chest, passed over your stomach and pubic mound, and brushed past wiry hair, shiny with slick, in order to slide a finger up your folds. A whine ripped its way out of you at direct contact with your clit after mere heavy petting, and you couldn’t stop yourself from drawing tight circles with your fingers and twitching your hips forward to eke out more of that delicious pressure.
The servo on your thigh dug into your skin. Mirage’s vents became far heavier at the open display of your arousal; it has always been him vying for your attention. Now that it was the other way around, he wasn’t sure if he could handle it. Transfluid was seeping between the seams of his interface panel, joining your own fluids in a shiny pool that sent sparks up his struts. He made you like this, made you so wet you dripped, made your clit swollen enough to be visible, made your cunt tight with heat and Primus, he needed you on his spike so bad, he thought he might die without it.
He verbalized these thoughts with an unintelligible noise of adoration.
It was enough encouragement for you to slide down from your clit and venture two fingers into yourself. Zero friction. They glided. Christ, when was the last time you were this wet? You’d slept with a handful of people, especially in your first couple years of college, but you’d never been soaked like this. Mirage’s cooling fans choked at the sight of your fingers vanishing into you. His thumb dug into the crease of your thigh and hip as he leaned just a little closer to watch.
Very little time passed before it devolved into your fingers working inside your walls, crooking against that one spot that made your breath hitch and hips jump. Mindlessly, you ground against your palm, catching your clit on the heel of your hand with a sweet moan that nearly shorted out his processors. He had to hear that again. Without thinking, he moved his servo over, resting the digits on your lower stomach and gently, gently nudging the heel of your hand out of the way to replace it with his thumb.
“Ah!” spilled from your lips at the insistent, broad pressure of his thumb, and your hips jerked against it, working your fingers that much deeper. Tears pricked at your eyes from pure sensation. “Mirage, mmm, just— just rub, up and down— or circles, just move, I don’t ca—are,” you floundered, the last word breaking as he did as he was told, carefully sliding his thumb up and down on the bead of your clit and sending twinges of searing pleasure up your spine.
You found quickly that just your fingers weren’t enough. Not when the reminder of his servo lay heavily on your lower stomach, tips of his digits digging into the soft fat there insistently. Although you were loath to part with your hand, you pulled your fingers out with a sigh. Mirage froze, optics flicking to your shiny hand as you spread your fingers, examining the strings of fluid that connected them with a far-off feeling of pride.
“Sugar, you’re killin’ me here,” he groaned, and you saw, for one endearing second, a puff of actual steam rise from the vents near his shoulders as he ex-vented harshly.
“Okay, well, here,” you said, unable to come up with anything clever with the purr of arousal in your cunt fanned by the heat of his interface plate and consistent, maddening rumble of his engine. Your hand, still shiny and wet with your fluids, grasped the top of his servo and gently pushed it downwards, until the tips of his digits rested against your drooling entrance. To fight the whimper that threatened to claw its way out of your throat, you nearly chewed a gash into the inside of your cheek. A gasp of an in-vent jolted his frame in awe.
“You sure? I mean— it’s cool?” His flustered stammering was so damn endearing; supreme affection for him swelled in your chest. 
“I’m sure. Just— just go slow.” His adoration was fueling your bravery. You knew he wouldn’t hurt you; if he did, it would never be intentional, and it would never be something he couldn’t fix.
He paused for a second before remembering the position of your own hand and flipping his servo so it was palm side up; you dragged a large enough breath in to balloon your lungs fully at the sight. Anticipation danced in the burn of your spread thighs. For a few seconds, it was just exploration; his digits slid over your silky folds, collecting the gathered slick with minute trembles. One delicious slide all the way up from entrance to clit had you gasping. Mirage silently thanked Primus above that your whole set-up was similar enough to his valve to know at least some of his way around it. It was just hotter. Wetter. Softer. So much softer.
“‘Raj, just— fuuuck,” you groaned out, your head rolling back as the tip of one digit sank into you, soon followed by the rest as it slid all the way to the base. Stars flickered behind your eyelids. The width matched the two fingers put together you’d just pulled out of yourself, though the texture was so wildly different to anything you’d ever put up there that it made your brain stutter for several moments as your nerve endings processed the feeling. The individual ridges and articulations of his knuckles dragged against the silk of your walls in a way that pulled the breath right out of you; your chest rose and fell rapidly with shallow breaths as your thighs twitched.
You were a mess. Mirage was in love. “Holy shit, baby, I get you this bad?” It was only partly teasing. “l— fuck, a second one good?”
“Good, yes, please.”
All thoughts were wiped clean from the forefront of your brain with the addition of a second digit. Slick noises and the sound of dripping fluids landing on metal and concrete filled your ears over the steadily climbing racket that Mirage’s entire body was making — his cooling fans competed with his engine to make the most noise, over top of the typical whirs and clicks that came with his motion. You couldn’t look, could only feel with your eyes squeezed shut as Mirage pumped both digits in and out, in and out, in and out. One arm was thrown up behind you, hooking loosely around his knee to ground you somewhere. The other was occupied: your hand clutched his wrist like a lifeline, white-knuckling it even as your sweaty palm slipped over the metal cuff. When his thumb returned to your clit, swirling clumsy but eager circles on top of it, that only contributed to the tight, hot coil building in your gut.
Mirage had half a mind to pop his interface panel right then and service himself, because the sight of you, shining with sweat and slick with his spit as you rode his digits, was almost too much to bear. The plush folds of your cunt, tight with arousal, were so soft against the hard planes of metal that comprised his servos; the contrast was short-circuiting him. Under his paneling, his spike was already pressurized. Had been for what felt like hours. Your ass was beginning to slide back and forth just a little due to the transfluid collecting underneath you; the rippling motion of your flesh was driving him insane. As were your walls, Primus, your walls that sucked greedily around his digits as they glided in and out of the tight ring of muscle that made up your entrance.
Your name left his lips in a groan that was an octave too high to be suave. The thought of your cunt clamping down on his spike — so soft, so hot, so wet — like it was doing on his digit had his hips rolling against nothing, working fruitlessly for friction they weren’t getting.
Sweat collected wherever skin touched skin. Condensation fogged wherever skin touched metal. The combination of his digits stretching you, curling in you when he realized what a dramatic reaction it incurred, and his thumb working your clit was getting to be too much. Heartbeat roaring in your ears like the rain outside, you clawed a grip into a seam in his leg and jerked your hips against his servo with breathy noises and gasps that you certainly wouldn’t be proud of later. For now, though, all it did was fuel Mirage’s ego and go straight to his spike.
Almost there. You were almost there, grinding your way towards it, sweat beading on your hot skin—
He pulled out. He pulled his digits out. A keen tore out of you at the loss of feeling, tears springing to your eyes as the hot edge you were so fucking close to fell away, your hips working unconsciously against a servo no longer there. With a gasp of a breath, you wrenched your eyes open, blinking away the collected tears and nearly baring your teeth at the bot beneath you — until you saw what he was doing.
In utter astonishment, you watched as the digits that were just inside you slid into his mouth, peeks of his glossa flashing as it worked them clean.
“Oh fuck,” you said before you could stop yourself. One of your hands slapped over your mouth; you tasted sweat and metal. His optics slid to you, lidded and cycling frantically as he processed your taste. A harsh ex-vent slumped his shoulders — the servo not preoccupied with his mouth clutched your hip like you were something precious.
“Sugar,” he breathed, static grating on the word. “Fuck, c’mere.”
Servos hefted you up, and you clutched onto them out of instinct as he helped you up to his face. Without thinking, you lunged forward to kiss, your tongue seeking out his glossa and tasting yourself with a resurging thrum of arousal. He cut it short, though, ignoring your protests as he cupped your ass in one servo and held you aloft. 
For a second, you stared at him in confusion. “What are you—“ Then it hit you. “Oh.” Your heart rate skyrocketed.
The grin stretching his faceplates was downright devious. “Hang onto something, wouldja? Not that you’re gonna fall. Just want you to enjoy the ride.” A short, heady chuckle rounded out his words.
“You’re insane— oh!” Your lighthearted scold was immediately interrupted by the press of your hips against his face and the slide of his slick glossa over the entirety of your sex. “Oh my fuck!” sobbed out of you as your upper body jackknifed over his helm. One arm curled around it with clawing fingers; the other slammed, palm flat, against the concrete wall.
A groan of satisfaction rumbled into your cunt as the taste of salt and sweat and girl bloomed on his glossa — just like earlier but so much stronger now. The proud line of his nose bumped your clit for a second before his glossa followed, narrowing so he could flick at it experimentally. Lubricant spilling from his mouth mixed with your own slick and ran down his chin; his cooling fans sputtered and spun weakly for a second as he pushed up further against your hips, malleable mesh drawing shapes between your clit and your hole.
Your fingernails scraped against the wall as your hips jerked of their own accord; the edge stolen from you earlier had very much returned, and the feeling of his faceplates sliding over the plush, soft skin of your inner thighs was doing something terrible to you.
“Mirage, ah, ah— I’m— fuck, fuck!” Broken syllables and curses streamed from your lips as a substitute for real words. When he closed his lips around your clit and sucked, it was over. It was so quick, embarrassingly quick. The orgasm that had been building suddenly snapped free and tore through you like a fucking hurricane, leaving spasming muscles and a wonderful endorphin afterglow in its wake. As you sobbed out his name, he slid two digits of his free servo back into you just to give you something to clamp down on, and it made tears spill down your burning cheeks from pure stimulus. Mirage drank you; he wanted nothing more than this, to swallow you down and leave your taste buzzing on his glossa like high-grade. Several thundering heartbeats later found you hunched over his helm as his glossa continued to work lazily against you, forcing twitches out of your thighs from pure overstimulation.
“Okay, okay,” you managed to croak, voice hoarse from weeping moans and boneless from what was probably one of the most insane finishes of your life. You tapped out weakly on the side of his helmet. Reluctantly, he pulled your pussy away from his face and cradled you in both servos, one noticeably damper than the other, in front of him.
His chin was shiny with you, his grin wide and completely self satisfied, and his optics dimmed with pleasure. If you were being honest, he’d never looked better, but in your frazzled state you weren’t sure if you had the capacity to string together enough words to form a compliment.
“I gotta say, compliments to the chef,” he hummed, and you stared at him, words not processing.
“Did you seriously— you just gave me head and that’s what you’re gonna say?”
“Uhh, yeah, babe. And I meant it.”
A genuine laugh shook you. “Oh my god. Ohhh my god. Okay. Well, put me back down there, you corny fuck,” you said with a gesture back at his hips.
“Oooh, keep sayin’ that. I’ll start thinkin’ you mean it.” Your body, errant trembles still running through it, was set carefully down back near its original position. This time, you sat in something closer to a straddle, back straight instead of leaning.
The garage air had gone from temperate and warm to fucking scorching. Outside, the rain droned on, occasional rumbles of thunder sounding so far away that they may as well have not been real. Your entire world had been compressed down to one point — a gravitational singularity in this garage, crushing space and time down until only bricks and concrete stood between you and the oblivion outside. All you knew was living metal and Mirage’s voice, trembling with excitement and fuzzy with static, and that was all you wanted to know. His chassis was making so much noise that you probably, under any other circumstance, would have been concerned; if he blew a gasket fucking you, though, you would wear that with pride.
Pure adoration reflected right back at you from his optics as his servos settled on your hips, his thumbs stroking your slick skin. Any concerns he had about Prime’s reaction to you, or to this — well, maybe not to this specifically, but to the both of you being together — were completely null and void in your presence; the reality of your soft weight in his lap was enough to short out his circuits.
Your hands slid down from the cooling fan in his abdomen spinning at maximum speed towards his soaked interface panel; glancing up at him demurely through your lashes, you spoke.
“You gonna let me return the favor?”
“Huh?” He broke out of his reverie. “Oh, right, um— yeah. Yeah, please.”
A smile crawled over your face at the reminder that despite all the poetic words you could come up with in your head, Mirage was still, and always would be, Mirage. Dazed already, he ran the subroutines to open his interface panel. Machinery shifted with a few clicks, and there was a hiss and an outpour of steam as his spike swung up before you, clearly aching for some kind of touch.
You heard more plates shifting lower, too, and out of curiosity peeked downward; something slick glowed lower down, but the nervous shifting of Mirage’s hips and his closed thighs obscured it from view.
Probably better to just focus on what’s in front of you. Your eyes roamed the length of his array first, your mouth going dry just at the size of it. It was bigger than any toy you owned, anyone you’d slept with, and bigger than his digits, too. Still, though… what were humans if not persevering?
And flexible?
You wrapped a hand around it right below the tip, and a full shudder lanced up Mirage’s frame; it was so thick that there was still space between your fingers and thumb left over. Transfluid, milky in consistency but pearlescent pink in color, spilled from the flared head. Curiosity overtook you, and you swiped a thumb up to catch an errant bead of it as it trailed down the side. The fluid was semi-oily, and smelled… fairly innocuous. Metallic, sure, but that came with the territory.
The array itself was as impressive as it was pretty. Like everything else about Mirage, it was fancy, mostly chrome with blue striping up the sides that led to a fully blue head. The biomesh it was made of — similar to his glossa — gently throbbed with alien pulses as you stared at it. Oh, that was hot. Why was that so hot?
Exploration in full was rewarded with soft noises spilling unbidden from Mirage’s lips, his hips twitching uncontrollably as you carefully slid your hand down from the tip to the base in one fluid motion, feeling the transfluid slick under your fingers. “Mmph, I— ah,” he choked out through gritted denta as you observed him.
Oh. Oh. The realization of the power you held over the big mech made a special kind of arousal thrum through you. Another slow pump had his hips jerk up once and a servo clamp over his mouth.
“This was not included in your anatomy lesson,” you said pointedly, a cheshire grin on your face as you hovered dangerously close to his spike. It throbbed in your grip, working another bead of transfluid out of the tip.
“Oh shit, babe,” he groaned, rolling his helm back against the wall. “Uh— hands— hands-on learning?” he offered weakly, unable to focus on anything other than the soft, damp skin of your palm around his spike.
He made the mistake of looking down as you let spit drool out of your bruised lips and spill over his spike for additional lube, and he snapped his optics shut to avoid from a spontaneous overload right there. The noises he made as you slid your tongue over the head were pitiful.
“Fuck, baby, fuck, fuck, fuck,” he hissed, spinal struts clicking as they arched. Primus, was he seriously about to overload in your mouth? Your lips closed around the head and sucked lightly, and he yelped. A servo shot out and carefully grabbed your shoulder, though the tremors running through his digits told you of the restraint he was barely employing. A string of spit and transfluid connected your mouth to his spike as you lifted your head, and he had to force himself to look away for a second with that same servo clutched over his mouth to keep steady. “‘m not gonna last like that, you— can we just—“
“Fuck?”
“Primus, yes.”
“Yeah, we can. I guess.” Despite the leap of excitement in your stomach, you rolled your eyes.
“Don’t even start with that, c’mon,” he said fondly, one servo supporting you as you lifted yourself above his spike and stared down at it with no small amount of trepidation.
It looked a little more manageable from above, but working with something the size of your forearm would cool anyone’s heels, even if there was slick drooling down your inner thighs. Mirage’s servos settled heavy on your hips and you braced yourself on first his knees behind you, then his wrists as you tilted your pelvis to align your entrance as best you could. You sank. The head pressed insistently against your hole. Relax. Relax. Relax.
A deep breath filled your lungs, then whooshed out, deflating your shoulders. Unable to help himself, Mirage inched one of his servos over and ran his thumb through your folds, rolling over your clit and jolting your hips enough to slip the head inside. A long sigh of  “Fuuuuck.” was all that managed to come out of your mouth, your toes curling at the stretch and then the pop of the flared head sliding past your entrance.
Mirage’s entire frame trembled. His vents became shallow and sharp, and the tips of his digits clamped onto the soft meat of your hips desperately as the sensors on his spike reckoned with the realization of just how wet and warm humans really were. “Babe, babe, babe, shit,” he stammered out. “That’s— um, fuck, that’s good!” A weak laugh escaped him as his chin sank down to his chassis, cooling fans hiccuping from stress.
“Hold on, just hold on, I can… shit.” Sweat-dampened palms slid off his wrists for a second before you resituated yourself and leaned back a little, letting your upper back rest against his tucked up thighs. Whatever you were doing worked, because you sank further, and you thanked whatever god was listening that you’d already finished once, making your body quite boneless and that much easier to maneuver.
Mirage, on the other hand, was as taut as a fucking bowstring, made helpless to his own pleasure and completely powerless to you. His optics first scrunched shut, unable to look at you for fear of overloading at the sight of you finally on his spike; then they flew open at the realization that he wanted this burned into his visual processors forever.
Your skin shone with sweat and lubricant; rivulets trailed down your body like a visual pointer to your slick sex, nestled within wiry hair and stretching so beautifully around his spike that it tore an honest-to-Primus whimper out of his vocal synthesizer.
“Mirage, I need you to— mmnh, fuck, I need you to just touch— please,” you gasped, his spike punching the air right out of your lungs. Although your words were broken, he seemed to get the memo, and despite his minute tremors, brought his thumb back to your clit and pressed down. Just the surface area alone made you sigh and roll your head back in pleasure, and it loosened you enough to take him right up until the head nestled against your cervix and your ass brushed his hip plating. There was maybe an inch or two left, but you felt immense pride at managing to work most of his spike in — and immense pleasure, too. If he moved his thumb at all, you were done; you were so fucking full you could barely breathe, and you felt the slow, rhythmic pulses of his biomesh throb through you.
Mirage had never been one for restraint. He did things all-in, one-hundred-and-ten percent, all with a flourish to top it off; the feeling of the hot silk of your walls flexing around his spike just sitting there was enough to quite literally kill his cooling fans via a micro-short in an attempt to divert more power towards keeping his hips still. Senseless praises streamed from his lips, voice whining and roughened by static fuzz. “Yes, yes, yes, sugar, Primus, that’s good— feels so good, please, can I move, please,” he fumbled, jaw slack and optics flickering with the power surges cascading throughout his frame.
“Just— let me start,” was your response, tears pricking at your eyes, and although Mirage groaned pitifully underneath you, he listened.
You had a fair amount of experience with riding toys, and you knew what felt good; the lightbulb above your head became apparent. A shift in your position pushed further weight to the back so that the ridges and nodes of his spike pressed insistently toward the front — though, to be fair, it pressed everywhere — and oh, fuck, right there. Now shoved against that sweet spot inside you, the pleasure teetered on the edge of pain, and you dragged yourself up with a vicious grip on the seams of his thighs behind you. Mirage whined and shifted his hips just slightly; it was enough to pull a moan from your lips as you slid upward. Thick, sluggish droplets of slick swirled with transfluid oozed down his spike. He watched — it was all he could do — with an open mouth and rapidly cycling optics.
The flared head caught against your entrance; a spike (ha!) of pleasure lanced through you. “Okay, now, you can— help me, please,” you stammered out, dizzy with pleasure already and feeling a loopy kind of open-mouthed grin situate itself on your face. 
Your words were all he needed. Although he desperately, desperately wanted to snap his hips up and chase the vice-grip of your slick walls, he’d rather take on Megatron alone with his servos tied behind his back than risk hurting you. Especially while interfacing. He did not want to have to explain that to anyone.
Thumb slowly working your clit, his servos gripped your hips just a little too tight and assisted; you could feel the tremors lancing up and down his arms as he helped you establish a rhythm. At a word, the dam would break, but for now, you maintained tenuous control over the mech and over yourself as you rode him with his help.
Well. Rode was a strong word for it; he all but dragged you up and down the length of his spike, earning each of you luxurious groans from the other, but your quivering thigh muscles assisted as best they could. Heat surged through your body at the drag of his nodes against your walls, and you realized with a hot flash that Mirage was going to fucking ruin you for anybody else, and you liked that. Which was good, because he could have stayed buried in your cunt for the rest of his life and offlined happily just like that.
It was good. It was really good. But even the overwhelming stretch wasn’t enough. Just like earlier — it seemed like light years away now — when you’d still had pants on and hadn’t been completely lost to metal-on-skin debauchery, the grind of your clit on the seam of your jeans had been good, but not enough. Your fingers clawed at his wrists. The burn of your thighs from exertion seared through you, mixing with the jolts of pleasure from your clit to create some new, terrible monster that had you twitching with shameless ecstasy.
“Mirage, Mirage,” you croaked, as he slid you down his spike again and pushed it into your lungs, “I’m— fuck, please, faster, please, please.” In any other scenario, your begging would have immensely embarrassed you; now, though, it seemed like the only viable option to get him to fuck you like you needed him to.
“Shit, baby,” he hissed, and you gasped as he kept moving you, legs jerking uselessly. “You— fuck, you sure?”
“Yes, please, just— oh, fuck!” The cry — and the air in your lungs — was knocked right out of you by a single desperate snap of his hips upward, his spike driven straight home. Your entire upper body crumpled forward, kept upright only by a tenuous grip on his wrists, and then he really started fucking you, and you were gone.
His cooling fans surged back to life as he slammed into you, power no longer diverted towards holding the actuators of his hips back. No, now he was fucking jackhammering into you, and you were barely moving as his spike pistoned in and out of you, slick drooling from your cunt. Like he remembered himself, his thumb began to work furiously against your clit, and you rewarded him with a gasp and more than a few uncontrollable moans of his name, which only served to fuel him more.
Not like he was being quiet, either. You were glad that the building was solid brick and the rain continued to pour outside, because the amount of noise coming from his chassis and spilling from his lips was worrying. Praises and broken mentions of your name streamed from him; he tossed his helm back against the wall with his optics squeezed shut to keep from overloading prematurely. It was too much— it was way too fucking much. Your poor overworked cunt was nearly bruised with sensitivity, barely able to keep up with the stretch of his spike as the nodes pulsing along it raked that sweet spot inside of you mercilessly. Neither of you were going to last long; not your fragile human body nor his torqued-up frame could handle much more of this.
Every sharp thrust paired with the frantic, messy circles he pressed into your clit brought you viciously closer and spilled tears from your eyes. All you could really do was hold on as Mirage wrung pleasure from both your body and his. Impossibly, his thumb worked faster, his pace got even more brutal, and you were almost seizing from pleasure as your nerve endings were frayed raw. That peak was building in your gut, that familiar tight coil of heat, for the second time that night, and you knew it was going to completely destroy you, and you wanted it to.
Without warning, Mirage spread his knees apart, slammed his pedes flat on the floor, and thrusted up. His spinal struts arched again to get his spike that much further inside of your yielding body, his overload imminent and warning signs flashing in his optics’ periphery. “Fuck, yes— yes, baby, yes, yes, ah, shit!” His frenzied whine rang in your ears as steam from his vents heated the air around you; the only thing that rang in your ears besides your thunderous heartbeat was the heady slap of skin against metal, everything slick with your combined fluids.
You responded in kind at the new angle with a cry of his name and some noises that resembled words, but the way he sheathed his spike inside you — fuck, was it all the way in? — and ground his thumb against your clit was too much— too much— you couldn’t—
You shattered. Doubling over from pleasure, you sobbed incoherently as your climax slammed into you. Pleasure crackled through your veins like lightning; a fog of pleasure dulled your senses until the only thing you could focus on was his spike pulsing in your cunt and his thumb still grinding against your clit. Tears pricked at your eyes, joining the ones already wetting your cheeks, as jolts of pleasure lanced up your spine. Maybe you moaned his name, maybe you didn’t. You couldn’t tell.
Mirage went soon after you, because the feeling of your walls clamping around his spike as if trying to suck him in impossibly further did him in instantly. His optics snapped open wide before slamming shut and he cried your name as the best overload of his life wracked his frame; the actuators of his hips trembled violently, along with his servos, as transfluid gushed into you and was immediately forced out by the pure lack of room inside your cunt. Engine snarling, cooling fans nearly spinning off their axles, he held your hips as flush to his as possible while the both of you rode out your respective climaxes, twitching around each other violently. Minute jerks of his hips attempted to work more transfluid inside of you. Brain still wiped blank with pleasure, all you could do was make soft noises and let the aftershocks spasm through you.
Consciousness eventually came back to you in gritty waves. Mirage had set your body down, leaned back against his thighs, his spike still seated within you but depressurizing slowly. Transfluid seeped out of your puffy folds, and you lifted a shaking hand to collect some of it and taste it. Metallic. Like you’d expected.
Enormous vents whooshed through his frame as he attempted to cool his chassis; coolant dripped from him, some of it turned to steam by the pure heat of his internal mechanisms. Body shaking and feeling very small and human, you stroked a thumb over his wrist where you held it, feeling both its ambient warmth and a surge of affection. And satisfaction.
You were absolutely going to feel this in the morning, holy shit. Thank God you didn’t have work tomorrow.
Mirage eventually came back down to earth, his optics cracking open and cycling a few times before they flared to their usual brightness. Lids heavy and a dopey grin on his face, he carefully lifted you off his spike — it slid out of you with a slick noise that made you flush — and brought you up to face-level. With one servo, he held you tight against his torso; he planted the other flat on the floor and resituated his hips so he could slump down further against the wall, his entire frame lax.
Self-satisfaction beamed at you from his faceplates. “Oh, that was good, huh?”
You scoffed, too tired to get riled up at his teasing; you knew he was feeling the same as you. “Yeah, pretty good. I don’t know if I’ll be able to walk tomorrow, to be totally honest.” An exhausted laugh left you.
“Gonna count that as a win.”
“You… do whatever you want.” You waved a limp hand at him dismissively, letting the rise and fall of his chassis with his vents rock you.
“Well, then, I wanna do this,” he purred, and brought you in for a kiss that communicated all his smug affection without any of his stupid jokes. You returned it gratefully, a smile on each of your mouths as you basked in that pleasant post-sex glow.
The rain still droned outside. A boom of thunder rolled through the building; the lights flickered. Both you and Mirage glanced upward. His optics slid back down to you first.
“You thinkin’ about going anywhere in this weather?” he asked, raising a brow ridge.
“I dunno, do I have a ride?”
“Nah,” he replied playfully, kissing you again, and you found that it could storm for the rest of your life, and you wouldn’t really care. So long as you had your favorite — yes, your favorite, not that you could ever admit around him — to keep you company.
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bonny-kookoo · 3 months
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Taehyung/Jungkook
Crowded | Drabble #1
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In which you're gone on heat-leave, and Jungkook is grumpy about it.
Tags/Warnings: Wolf!Jungkook, Tiger!Taehyung, Fox!Reader, Mutual (secret) pining, romance, fluff, slight angst, mention of heat but everything's SFW
-> Masterlist
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“Wait, where’s-” Jungkook asks, only finding Taehyung on the couch of their shared apartment.  
“She left this morning for her hotel stay.” The tiger hybrid replies, watching how Jungkook’s wolf tail slowly lowers down, falling limp behind him as he shows his disappointment.  
“Oh.” He simply says, having forgotten that it’s this time of the year again, when you’ll be gone a lot due to your heat. It happens every year, but that doesn’t mean that Jungkook likes it- especially because he considers you part of his admittedly kind of odd pack.  
He gets upset when Taehyung is gone for more than a day as well.  
You’ve all been living together for a few years now, since rent prices have been rising, and you all had simultaneously started struggling paying for your own apartments around the same time. This, and the long-term friendship you’ve all had, resulted in the decision to simply move in together, with Jungkook’s original apartment becoming the new home for everyone.  
And to him, it had always been heaven- except for times like these. 
Taehyung knows of the crush his best friend has on you, mostly because he himself has the same feelings for you as well. It’s not as complicated between the two guys as one might think though, minus that they don’t know what your own emotional connection to them as of yet. It’s not that easy, after all- if you don’t have any feelings for either of them, you might feel too weird to continue living with them, and that’s just something they’d like to avoid.  
Then again, the moment you find that special someone that’s not them, you’ll leave as well.  
So what to do?  
“Can’t she just.. Stay here?” Jungkook huffs, sitting down next to Taehyung who’s been watching TV on his day off. “I don’t like it when she’s gone so long..”  
“She texted and said she’ll be back tomorrow, Kook.” Taehyung sighs. “And you know very well why she can’t be here.” The tiger hybrid reminds his friend, who just continues sulking on the couch.  
He especially is very much affected by your yearly heat every time- and while he can most certainly control himself, and poses no danger to you at all, he still can’t deny the effect you have on him. It’s one of the main reasons he feels so strongly about you not being here right now- his instincts yelling at him to keep you close and in sight during such a vulnerable time.  
But you’re not his mate, and he’s not your partner. He has to accept your decisions.  
Much to his surprise however, the door opens to reveal you back already- bag in hand and everything. Your more than annoyed expression immediately tells that something must’ve happened for you to come back home way earlier than you said you would.  
“What happened?” Taehyung wonders instantly, a hand on Jungkook’s shoulder keeping the tail-wagging wolf down on the couch until you’ve revealed why you’re back already.  
“I don’t know!” You whine. “But I couldn’t stay at all.” You complain, throwing your bag into your room before you walk into the open kitchen to grab a bottle of water. “Don’t worry, I’ve taken surpressors and basically bathed in scent-blocker.” You motion towards Taehyung holding Jungkook- and the second the tiger hybrid lets go of his friend, Jungkook is right at your side, hugging you from behind while you drink your water.  
To everyone else, this must look like he’s some touch-starved boyfriend. But to you, this is normal. Jungkook is always like this, especially during your mating season.  
And he’s also a wolf- a known kind of hybrid that just has a strong pack-mentality. It’s why Taehyung is a lot more independent compared to him- as a tiger hybrid, he’s more laid back and offers you a lot more freedom. At first, you actually thought he didn’t really like you- but after a thorough talk, you now know that he really does deeply care about you and Jungkook. He was just a little worried to overstep boundaries- that was it.  
But nowadays, boundaries just don’t seem to exist amongst the three of you.  
From Jungkook’s need for physical contact, to Taehyungs casual forms of bonding whenever you want something quiet- sometimes, you wonder if this is all still just a very good friendship. But right now, you don’t really care. Right now, you’re just happy to be back home and with your two best friends.  
“We can look for another hotel you can stay at?” Taehyung asks, a bit nervous at the sight of Jungkook shamelessly sniffing your neck, while his arms are wrapped around you. He knows that Jungkook can control himself, and he trusts him too- but his own instincts still make him a bit uneasy since he doesn’t know how you’ll react during such a time like this.  
After all, this would potentially be the first time you’ll spend your entire mating season at home, and not away from them. And that alone will most likely be a gigantic challenge for both of the hybrid men in this household.  
“No, I don’t know..” You whine to yourself, putting the bottle of water down on the kitchen counter. “I..” You’re quiet now, just staring ahead, and Jungkook perks up at that, looking over your shoulder to check on you.  
“You..?” He asks, wondering what you’re not saying out loud.  
“The.. You know, doctors there said I might..” you sigh, carefully removing Jungkook’s arms from you to put some distance between you and him, and Jungkook stares at you now like a kicked puppy, confused. And it alarms Taehyung too, who stays at a distance, but walks closer anyways. “They said because I live with you both, and have been for some time, I might’ve gotten..” You sigh, crossing your arms. “Instinctually.. Attached.” You mumble.  
It’s quiet for a moment. Jungkook is visibly caught off guard, looking over helplessly at Taehyung who’s just as lost as the wolf.  
Instinctually attached, basically is just a fancy way of saying that your body has started to believe that both Jungkook and Taehyung are your mates, and therefore your permanent partners- in every way, including the more intimate aspects. This is usually what you want to happen in a relationship- but in a mere friendship, this is basically the worst thing that could occur. 
Because this means that your body basically won’t accept anyone else as your heat partner whatsoever unless you’re confronted with flat out rejection. Which is what you expected to happen now- 
But they’re both oddly quiet, nervously looking around instead.  
And that makes you nervous in turn.  
“I mean.. What do you think about that?” Jungkook wonders, while Taehyung’s ears snap towards you as if to hear your answer better.  
“I.. Don't know?” You answer. “I really need you both to.. You know, reject me though. Otherwise we might be facing some issues.” You chuckle dryly, looking down nervously.  
“We can’t.” Taehyung simply answers, both Jungkook and you instantly looking at him. “What? You know even if we did, it wouldn’t change a thing because we wouldn’t mean it.” Taehyung says to Jungkook who’d been shaking his head in a bit of panic.  
“What?” You respond, confused.  
“I.. Well, what Taehyung is hinting at..” Jungkook rubs his neck nervously. “.. is that we both like you.” 
“Which would explain your situation.” Taehyung says, before he walks closer. “And what would explain this even better-” He says, his own tail rising behind him. “-Would be, that the feeling is mutual.”  
You stare at him, ears pinned back, having both of them wait for your answer. And you know you can’t lie. Because Taehyung is right.  
The rejection has to be mutual, and it has to be sincere.  
And you can’t do that.  
Because it would be a lie.  
And the second your body loses all tension, visibly admitting to your own emotional connection to them, Jungkook is right there, hugging you close to reassure you. “Why didn’t you say anything?” He wonders, and you just shrug.  
“Cause I thought it would be weird.” You confess. “And it would ruin our friendship.” You whine.  
“It doesn’t, I promise.” Taehyung reassures as well, now also at your side. “We’ve always been a pretty odd pack after all. Why not evolve into a pretty odd couple?” He shrugs, making you look at him wide eyed.  
“Wait, are you serious?” You ask, confused- But with the way Taehyung smiles, and Jungkook’s tail keeps wagging against one of the kitchen chairs, you don’t actually need a verbal response.  
And you know, they’re not just saying it because of your heat. Because it’s pretty clear to you now, in hindsight, that they’ve been very much openly hinting at it for a good year now.  
You’ve just blinded yourself with some made up excuses as to why it can’t be true.  
“At least you’re back home now.!” Jungkook sighs in bliss, holding you close again.  
“True, if not, he would’ve been yapping into my ear the entire weekend.” the tiger hybrid jokes, making Jungkook huff a bit embarrassed.  
“Well, you won’t have to miss me too much.” You giggle. “Just maybe a little bit when I have to you know, put my room on lockdown.” You say.  
“I mean, we could always help?” Jungkook shamelessly asks, causing Taehyung to shake his head.  
“Shut up you horny dog-” He scolds, but you but into it right away.  
“Won’t it be too fast?” You worry. “I mean.. I don’t know. Like, sure, I love you guys but, we probably should take it easy..” You drift off, looking at both the hybrids in question staring at you with eyes wide. “What?” You wonder, before Jungkook hides his face in the crook of your neck.  
“We love you too.!” He happily whines into your skin, tail wagging again, and even Taehyung can’t help but blush quite visibly, having to hide his face behind his head. And in that moment, one thing is for sure; you’ve always been an odd pack, and you’re already a pretty odd couple as well.  
But you already wouldn’t have it any other way. 
516 notes · View notes
vampiretendencies · 11 months
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concept!! jj noticing you getting jealous over random girls talking to him and he reassures you and acts all lovey dovey 💭
noticeably, jj maybank is a sight for sore eyes. half the girls on kildare throw themselves at him, though he’s made it advantageously clear that he’s unavailable.
hell, the new intern at the local barber thought she had a chance merely because he left her a forsaken tip. since then she’s been giving him free haircuts in hopes that jj would at least acknowledge her existence.
naturally, jj doesn’t bat an eye at the poor girl. because his vision is set on his one and only.
his only message to those that made it their mission to wear at the seams of your relationship was, ‘look, i’ve finally fell in love and forgotten who you were.’
with that, you knew you truly didn’t have anything to worry about because the man is practically a lost dog on a leash, under your compulsion. that’s why you are nearly itching, trying to resist the temptation of jealously at its brink. it was supposed to be date night, with the location being the wreck for dinner, and as he’s at the bar trying to convince them he’s old enough for a glass of beer two girls swarm him like clockwork. it’s irritating the way one of their gently polished hands dust over his shoulder and the other is talking to him a little bit to close for your liking. chatting him up like he has no where to be.
it’s sickening that they’d take great lengths to earn nothing but an irresistible smile in the end. nothing more, nothing less.
“no luck on the beer baby, can you believe them— i mean i definitely look twenty one—“
“why were they talking to you?”
his pure features turn flat from that sudden interruption. even has his large hand letting go of your small one from across the table to adjust his hat as if he didn’t hear you correctly. you don’t mean for your face to turn downward, with an expression like you’d just smelled expired food— stomach churning and frown evident.
“them?!” he points their way, scoffing mixed with a chuckle in disbelief. the jealousy and envy are written on your forehead.
“yes them, who else?” you cross your arms, jj doesn’t appreciate the dismissal so he leaves from his side of the booth and squeezes into yours. a close as can be so you can’t avoid eye contact, whilst he’s trying to make things right.
“she’s heard that i work on cars here and there and asked if i could fix hers, her friend just happened to be there. nothing else, baby you know that.”
“has she also heard that you have girlfriend?
“mhm, she’s heard that m’fuckin crazy about my girl too.”
your irrationality is beneath you upon a grin trying to creep it’s way past, you really didn’t want to but it’s beckoned unfeasible around jj— he’s contagious.
“now go ahead bite my head off some more baby, i love it.”
he’d known true jealousy would be unavoidable, it took a lot for you to get here though— it’s always so painstakingly obvious how devout he is to you.
you shoved his chest a bit; playfully. whilst he pulled you into his lap with ease. peppering many kisses as he can between words. in public and all, whoever wants to stop and watch the show let them. up until your neck he feels the need to worsen the jealous trail by saying ‘get jealous more often, you looked so fucking hot pretty girl.’
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hopepetal · 3 months
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They had been running for some time now, chasing after Gem and Scott ever since proclaiming themselves allies. Chasing, without end, prey that was an expert at evading. It was frustrating, and not to mention exhausting.
Pearl took a moment to gasp for air, her footsteps stumbling to a halt. It took Scar a moment to notice, but when he did he stopped as well, turning to look back at her. “You good, Pearl?” he asked, tilting his head slightly in question. 
“Yeah,” she got out, “doin’ lovely, mate. Don’t worry about me, just need a second.” She bent over, resting her hands on her knees as she gasped. Her lungs and legs burned from the strain, and despite his calm demeanor she knew Scar was feeling the same.
It took Pearl a moment to realize that her hair was cascading down around her, falling into her face despite the fact that she had tied her hair back earlier. With a groan, she realized her ponytail had come loose, the ribbon she had used still tangled in her hair. “Hold on,” she got out, straightening back up, “I have to tie my hair back up. Can’t be fighting with my hair down.”
“Wait!” Scar set down his shield and bow before stepping forward. “I have a better idea.” Before Pearl could protest, he gently took the tangled ribbon from her hair. 
Pearl frowned. “What are you planning, Scar?”
“Sit down, Pearl.” Scar lowered himself to the ground and sat with his legs folded beneath him. “I’ll braid your hair.”
Pearl raised an eyebrow, laughing. She still clutched her bow in her hand, looking around nervously– they were almost a full death game in, and she still was on edge. As if she was planning on winning. “You know we don’t have that kind of time, Scar. Gem and Scott are still out there, and who knows what they’re planning?”
Scar shook his head, patting the ground in front of him. “Sit down. We need this rest, you know. Can’t fight too well if we’re exhausted.”
Pearl sighed, reluctantly setting down her bow as she sat. She kept her shield in her hand, laying it across her lap and fidgeting with the handle. “Alright.” She felt Scar pull her hair back, gently beginning to comb his fingers through her tangled locks. “Y’know, the final fight would go a lot easier if you killed me.”
Scar shook his head, still continuing to carefully brush through Pearl’s hair. “You know why I won’t do that, Pearl. I don’t like all those ‘heroic sacrifices’.”
Pearl laughed, continuing to fidget with her shield. Something about her laughter sounded a little bitter, nostalgic for something that had never happened. “Yeah, I can’t imagine why.”
Scar began dividing her hair up into sections, humming softly as he began to braid. “You have nice hair,” he commented, “very shiny. And soft.”
“You think so?” Pearl asked, free hand drifting up to play with one of her free locks. “Honestly, it just gets in the way during these games. I’m thinking of cutting it.”
Scar gasped, though the smile remained on his face. “Oh, I can only imagine… this game hasn’t even given us hairbrushes, the nerve!” After a moment of silence, he continued. “If you cut your hair, I won’t have any to braid, you know. How’s a man supposed to keep his hands busy like that?”
Pearl laughed, finally seeming to relax slightly as she set her shield to the side. “Grow out your own hair, you goof.” There was a sadness in her voice that Scar couldn’t physically understand– he’d never had long hair, so why did she sound like she was grieving something that never happened? And something so small at that.
For Pearl, the reason why was simple. How could she not grieve the parts of her friends that they’d forgotten they’d ever had? A smile that was missing its mischievousness, a laugh that was missing its depth. A look that had no recognition, no shared secrets. Memories like missing puzzle pieces, lost somewhere unknown. That was what she saw every time blood stained the ground, every time family was pitted against one another like soldiers at war.  
Scar continued to braid Pearl’s hair, humming a cheery tune that Pearl knew he couldn’t recall learning. Deft hands paused, lightly holding the strands of hair, before Scar pulled away to grab something. Pearl heard him pick up his sword then hesitate, considering something. 
“Aren’t you afraid of me stabbing you in the back?” he asked, to which Pearl laughed. “What? It’s a serious question!”
Pearl turned slightly to look at Scar, giving him a smile. “If you were going to stab me, Scar, it would’ve been when I asked you to. Besides,” she added, turning back around, “even if you did stab me now, I wouldn’t be upset. You’d get ten extra hearts.”
“Eh,” Scar dismissed, far too nonchalant for a discussion of death, “I don’t need ten extra hearts.”
Pearl raised an eyebrow, though she knew he wouldn’t be able to see that. “You might not think the same when we’re fighting against Gem and Scott, mate.”
Scar cut something with his sword before setting it back to the side, his hands taking Pearl’s hair in them again. “That’s a problem for future Scar. Present Scar doesn’t kill his only friend in the entire server.”
Pearl felt a pang of guilt shoot through her. She knew that feeling well– loneliness, grief. Loneliness was an old friend that had once been her only companion. She recognized that in Scar, in his voice and his eyes. She had seen it once before, in the second game. Not that he would remember it.
He might, soon. The voice that whispered to her was none other than her own, her deepest thoughts given words. He could win this. He could become like us. 
I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, she shot back, unknowingly tensing up. It was a little silly, getting into an argument with herself, but Pearl had always been a rather silly person. Unconventional, even. At one point, she’d been called insane. Perhaps it was fitting.
And yet you want him to win. The voice made a good point– she made a good point. If she didn’t want Scar to win, she could easily just kill him now. She should kill him now if she so desperately wanted to spare him the fate of the victors. He’d put up a fight, and he was good with a sword. Pearl knew that much, knew that there would be a moment of surprise before his eyes narrowed and heart hardened and the battle began. She also knew that he wouldn’t win against her on the chance she did try her hardest, that she fought with all her might.
Scar knew this too, and perhaps that was why he teamed up with her in the first place. Maybe he had found kinship in their shared loneliness. Maybe he’d wanted protection. Maybe he needed a friend. It was unlikely, but maybe he’d felt drawn to her by a bond he couldn’t quite understand, one made by witnessing the violent and sudden end of a server he couldn’t remember. There were a thousand possible reasons as to why he’d chosen her, and perhaps she’d truly never left the tower after all, because the fact he had chosen her at all still slightly baffled her. 
Well. No matter. He chose her, and in the end they’d all die anyway. 
“You have gentle hands,” she commented. “Joel tried braiding my hair before. Nearly tugged my whole head off my neck, that man. It’s a wonder Lizzie’s put up with him this long.” No matter what memories they lost, it always seemed like Joel and Lizzie’s marriage remained an unchangeable fact. Maybe it had something to do with “‘til Death do us part’”, though Pearl wasn’t really sure. 
Maybe she’d try marrying someone when they got back to Hermitcraft, just to see if it carried over to the next death game. And wasn’t that a strange thought, the next death game? There would be another, Pearl knew, if Grian had anything to say about it. He was a little strange like that, but she’d come to expect those kinds of things from her brother. 
“Why thank you!” Scar was beaming, she could tell by his voice. “This just comes so naturally to me. Maybe I should’ve been a hairdresser instead of a trader.” 
Pearl laughed, remembering the intricate braids Scar would put his hair in during Last Life and their home server, Hermitcraft. Although he couldn’t remember them, he remembered how to do them. That was a small relief, at the very least. It was nice to know that her friends kept some parts of themselves, instead of being the blank slates she had originally thought when she first regained her memories. 
“Maybe,” she responded, starting to pick at the grass in front of her, plucking a small flower from the ground. “I’d go to you all the time if you were my hairdresser.” Her voice took on a teasing lilt as she continued. “Just as long as you promise not to do anything too crazy with my hair, alright?”
Scar giggled, his laughter another part of himself that he had kept even after the loss of his memories. “I can’t promise anything, sunflower! Who knows what might happen if you stop paying attention? I might turn you blonde if you aren’t careful.”
Pearl snorted, twirling a strand of grass around her finger idly. “And where do you suppose you’ll get the dye for that, mate? Or the means to make my hair lighter so it’s easier to dye? We’re not exactly exploding with resources here.”
“Hmm, true…” Scar hummed thoughtfully. “We’ve found ourselves in a bit of a pickle, Pearl!”
Pearl shook her head, rolling her eyes. “No, Scar, we aren’t. I didn’t want to go blonde in the first place, so there’s no need to get the materials we’d need for it. Just keep braiding my hair, you goof!”
“Aww, alright!” Scar laughed softly as he went back to braiding Pearl’s hair. “Almost done.” His voice took on an uncharacteristically serious tone. “How are you feeling? Injuries, exhaustion? General… mental state?” He gave a small chuckle on the last one. “I mean, other than the obvious. This game has been… a trip.”
Pearl groaned, stretching out her arms in front of her. “Tell me about it. I lost all of my Mounders.” Her shoulders slumped. “I really wanted them to win, Scar. I really did.”
“I know,” Scar murmured, “and I’m sorry you didn’t get to see that through. You did your best, Pearl.” He paused. “And what about you? I would’ve thought that after all your allies… got out… that you would want to take up the sword and win for them. But you haven’t really… been doing that. You even offered to let me kill you.”
Pearl held back a shudder, wanting to wrap her arms around herself to fight off the sudden cold that had settled over her. “I don’t want to win,” she mumbled, “Even if I did, I don’t think they’d be too happy if I tried.”
Scar made a confused noise. “What was that? I couldn’t quite catch it.”
Pearl shook her head. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.” She took a breath. “I just don’t want to win. Don’t see the point in all this, really. Never have. What’s a victory when everyone else around you is dead?”
Scar hummed thoughtfully, thinking about it. “I suppose you’re right. But in the end, isn’t it better for it to be them than me?”
Pearl chuckled sadly. “Not when you have to live with the consequences.”
Scar paused for a moment, as if struck by a sudden revelation. “...I think I understand. Thanks for, uh, answering my questions.” He continued braiding for another moment. “Alright, I think we’re all done!”
Pearl stood with Scar, reaching back to gently touch her braid. There was a shallow pool of water nearby, and she walked over to check her reflection. “Really, Scar?” Woven into her braid was a sunflower, which must’ve been what Scar cut with his sword earlier. 
Scar laughed, joining her by the water. “Doesn’t it look pretty? I thought it was fitting. And!” he continued, over Pearl’s soft laughter, “it adds some brightness to the whole ensemble!” He gestured at Pearl’s outfit, the same she had worn in her past games.
Maybe she would change up her red look next game. If there was a next game. “It does, it does,” she agreed, stifling her laughter. “Thank you, Scar. I look very pretty now, and my hair is out of the way.”
Scar looked over at her, eyes wide. “You mean you won’t cut it? You promise?”
Pearl smiled, reaching out and putting a hand on Scar’s shoulder. “I promise I won’t cut my hair, Scar. Not after you put so much effort into braiding it. I wouldn’t do that to ya, mate. That’s just cruel.” 
Scar grinned. “I knew I could trust you!” With that, he turned away from the water and walked back to where he had left his sword and shield. 
Pearl spent another moment there, gazing out at the water. Did he really mean that? Did Scar truly trust her? If so, had it just been this small moment that made him let down his guard? No, surely not. Scar was intelligent and cunning, and rarely did he let his walls down for anyone. Something must’ve happened for him to feel this way towards her. Something she had done, or said, maybe.
And that was just if he was being truthful with his words– she knew Scar wasn’t one to ignore the benefits of weaving lies and charm into his speech. He was a masterful manipulator, she knew many underestimated him for the cheery, unassuming front he put up. But that was just another reason as to why he was dangerous.
“Pearl?” Scar’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts, and she looked back at her ally. “You comin’?”
“Yeah.” Pearl jogged over, feeling much more energized than before. Picking up her bow and her shield, she did one last check to make sure everything she had was in order. Once she was certain, she turned to Scar with a smile. “Lets win this one, Scar.”
Scar grinned in return, red eyes shining. “Why, I think that’s a wonderful idea!” 
Lightning struck the ground as Gem took Scott’s sacrifice, and once again Pearl stopped Scar. “My offer still stands, you know. Kill me and take the hearts, you’ll stand a better chance against Gem if you do.”
Scar pretended to think about it. “I think I’ll stand a better chance against Gem if I have you on my team. So, no thank you! But thanks for the offer. Come on, we can’t let Gem get away!” 
The chase continued, feeling much more light-hearted than the ones at the end of Double Life had been. To be fair, she had gone a little insane in the last few days, but still. Maybe it was Scar’s jovial attitude about killing. Maybe it was the fact that she still had an ally this late into the game. Maybe it was something Pearl would never be able to put her finger on, no matter how hard she tried to think of a reason.
The two inevitably caught up with Gem, who had grown exhausted from the chase. Despite being enemies now, Pearl still felt guilty as she raised her sword to attack, Gem’s wide eyes and shouts of an unfair fight making her hesitate and pull back. It was two against one after all, and Pearl had no intentions of winning. Ganging up on Gem like that felt wrong, but maybe that was just her old bond to the other holding her back. Scar had no such qualms, swooping in when she pulled back to quickly cut Gem down. 
Pearl could hardly believe it had happened until lightning struck the ground, and silence rang between the two as Scar stood over Gem’s body. They’d discovered that bodies remained after the last death when Jimmy had died, but it was still a little disturbing to just see Gem laying there. Like she was asleep. 
It didn’t feel right. 
Pearl had to bite back a snort. Four death games in, and she was still disturbed by the sight of dead bodies. Honestly, it was a little pathetic. She’d killed, and been killed, and yet… somehow, it never got any easier. Somehow, it just got harder. The blood staining her hands had become so much that it was hard to hold onto her weapon, and her scars ached whenever she killed. 
Pearl brushed her braid back over her shoulder and lowered her bow, offering Scar a weak smile. “You did it, Scar. Good job.”
Scar laughed softly, not turning around to face her just yet. “It’s just us two left, then. The last ones alive.” “Mhm. What’s your plan now, Scar?” Pearl kept her voice casual, trying to hide the trembling in her hands. How are you going to do it?
How are you going to kill me?
Scar answered her question by turning and raising his bow. Pearl hardly had any time to blink before he shot her, the force of the arrow sending her stumbling back with a shout. Instinct took over then, and she ran as Scar continued to shoot at her. All thoughts of sacrifice fled her mind as she dodged the flying arrows that missed her just barely, reminding her just how good of a shot Scar was. 
“Going for it immediately, huh?” she shouted back as she ran, pulling her sword. Not that she intended to use it, not to kill. But she would put up a fight. If Scar wouldn’t let her sacrifice herself for him, then she would do the next best thing. She would fight him, and he would earn his victory. Not like the hollow sacrifice Scott made for her, where victory was force-fed to Pearl by his hands. No, she wouldn’t do that to Scar. She respected him too much to throw the fight. 
That didn’t mean she would try to win, not in the slightest. But she would do her best to not make it easy for him. His victory would be painful no matter what she did, but at the very least she could make sure it wasn’t a hollow one.
The next arrow hit her as she ran through the field of sunflowers they had been sitting in just earlier, when Scar had offered to braid her hair. It felt like a lifetime ago as she crashed into the ground, yelping in pain as she tried to scramble back up. “Really, Scar?” She couldn’t help but laugh as she ran, the pain shocking as adrenaline flowed through her veins. 
“This game!” Scar called, continuing the chase as he spoke. “There were more of them, weren’t there? And you won.”
Pearl stumbled, surprise catching her off guard mid-stride. She cursed and turned back, swinging her sword down and catching Scar in the side. He stumbled back, granting her more time to flee– but not enough. As she ran, Scar drew back the bowstring, aiming carefully. A running target was harder to hit, but Pearl was moving in a relatively straight path. All he had to do was aim a little ahead, steady, then release. 
It was over the moment the arrow flew, striking Pearl in the chest and pushing her over the edge of a cliff, sending her plummeting into the caves below. Lightning struck, and then all was silent. 
Scar stood, clutching his bow in a white-knuckle grip. “Pearl?” He took a step forward. The wind blew around him, rustling through his hair and shawl. Sunflowers bowed against the breeze, gesturing in the direction where she’d fallen. “Pearl?! Pearl, sunflower, where are you?” 
The breeze led him a few steps further in a stumbling haze, until he stood at the edge of the caves that he’d sent his friend? Enemy? falling into. He didn’t know what he expected– maybe to see Pearl gazing back up at him, a smile on her face and weapon drawn, hurt but alive– but as he looked down into the caves, he found only the body of his first and final ally.
A presence danced around him, heavier than the wind but acting just like it. She’s dead, Scar. You won. Five words whispered in his ear, as thin as the passing breeze. Five words that would’ve meant the world to Scar, once upon a time. Five words that now meant nothing to him as he gazed down at the body of his only friend.
Crouching, Scar swung his legs over the edge of the cave, slowly and carefully lowering himself down. He had to find footholds so that he wouldn’t fall and possibly lose his life as well– the fight with Pearl had left him with fewer hearts than he would’ve liked. “Hold on, Pearl,” he mumbled as he made his way down to where Pearl lay. “I’m coming to get you, I’m… I’m coming, don’t worry, I’ll be right there.”
He dropped the last few feet, wincing as pain shot up his legs and sapped at his strength. Luckily, the drop wasn’t far enough to cause any actual injury, but it was closer than he would’ve liked. He stumbled to catch himself, pulling himself to a halt in front of Pearl’s body. 
It was hard to look at her like this. Pearl was someone who was so full of life, always. She was strong and fierce, fighting for what she wanted every day, every moment. She never gave up, not once in all the time that Scar knew her. It hadn’t been long, and it was hard to really get to know someone during a death game like this, but Scar had always been pretty good at reading people. 
He knelt by Pearl’s body, brushing her hair out of her face and gently closing her eyes. He didn’t delude himself with pretending she was asleep– what was the point of avoiding death now, when he had caused so much of it? His hands were stained red with blood that he would never be able to wash off. 
Scar lingered a moment longer before shrugging off his shawl and gently wrapping it around Pearl. He was careful with her body, handling her as gently as he could as he settled her back against the stone. There wasn’t as much blood as Scar thought there should’ve been, but he wiped the blood that was there off Pearl’s face as best he could. 
Then, his hands went to the braid. It had held up well, keeping the sunflower he had woven in secured in her hair. He hesitated for a moment before untying the ribbon that held it in place and beginning to undo the braid. 
He began to hum while he worked. Slowly, reverently. A song that came from a place he couldn’t quite remember, a home he once thought he’d never forget. In another world, he would know he was humming the last rites for a loved one, to send them off into the stars. In this world, all he knew of it was the deep, longing ache in his chest and the tears that it caused to spring to his eyes.
Carefully, Scar took the sunflower from Pearl’s hair, placing it down in his lap. He gently combed his fingers through her hair one last time, before tucking it into the shawl. Picking the sunflower back up, he leaned forward and gently kissed her on the forehead. “Good night, sweet sunflower. And goodbye.”
He stood and once more began humming softly, climbing out of the ravine with the sunflower still in his hand. Scar took extra care to not crush the delicate flower as he pulled himself up onto solid ground. The sun was just beginning to set as he made his way toward the Secret Keeper, the intimidating statue that reigned over the entire server. The towering tyrant seemed to gaze down at Scar with eyes he knew he couldn’t see, taunting him with a victory that tasted at best bittersweet. 
It grew dark as Scar approached the buttons, but he held tight to the reminder of the sun’s light in his hand. It gave him the strength to push forward even as his legs threatened to give out from under him. He could not hide the trembling, however, that came from the rush of adrenaline and fear. 
He raised his eyes to meet the invisible ones looking down on him, a challenge held in his gaze, “You wanted me to be the villain?!” he called out, the weight of being watched settling on his shoulders. “Fine! Here I am!” He reached out and pressed the button to succeed. 
Welcome home.
And Scar… remembered. What sounded like thousands of voices overlapping filled his mind, causing him to stumble back with a yelp. He dropped the sunflower, clutching at his head as he was forced to his knees in front of the Secret Keeper.
Sacrifices offered and refused. Atonement rejected, forgiveness given. Arms outstretched, to offer a helping hand. Tears falling into blood-stained water as the two left locked eyes. “For all you have done to keep me alive this long, you may slay me and take the enchanter.”
Bloodied sand, prickling cactus spines, heat waves and cool nights. Two impossible friends, against the world. Traitorous actions, painful fists, a killing blow. “Scar, whatever happens, I think we can count this as a double victory.” 
A loneliness that echoed in the silence around him, howling as the wind at night. Bonds broken off entirely, leaving him with only the stars for company. “Everything that happened last season is null and void. Doesn’t count, okay?”
A bitterness that came from once tasting too much sweetness, like slightly burnt cookies. A loneliness that ached worse than when he had been truly alone, for this ache was born of lies and deceit. “I made them, they’re for your secret soulmate.” 
A moment of joy, in the midst. A time of family, friendship, and security. Before the secrets, before the lies and the pain, before the fire and the red wars. “We’re the cockers!” 
Allies for the first time in what felt like forever. People who truly had his back, no matter what. A place where he could let his guard down and smile, laugh, and live. If only for a moment, he knew what it was like to be loved. He was protected, and he was protective. “You don't go against the family.”
You are seated in a field, surrounded by grass blades, ebbing and flowing through the gusts of your imagination. Each of those blades represent a past life. Memories. Desires. Dreams. And past loves… By plucking one you shall reveal–
“Home,” Scar gasped out, eyes snapping open. “I need to go home.”
You are home.
The presence became louder, more unbearable. Each voice clamored for attention, every new memory begging to be heard. The weight of the universe pushed him into the ground, making him gasp for air in a strained panic. 
It was too much. All the memories, all the emotions– it was too much. Scar yelled in pain as it just grew louder and louder, the pressure growing as the weight pushing him down increased. Just like a volcano, it felt as though he was going to erupt at any minute.
And then a cold wind brushed up against Scar’s skin, weaving and dancing around him. “Enough.” 
The voices instantly quieted, the pressure vanishing as Scar collapsed to the ground gasping for air. He tried blinking away the tears and black spots that cluttered his vision, making it difficult to see properly. 
What he could see, though, took his breath away.
Pearl stood in front of him as a shimmering silver spirit, facing the Secret Keeper with her wings flared out to their full span. She glowed as if she were made from moonlight and stardust, and Scar couldn’t help but stare at her in awe. 
“He belongs with us. You will leave him alone.” Her voice was thin and brittle– as if it might snap were someone able to reach out and grab it. There was an echo to it as well, ringing in Scar’s mind as she spoke.
The feeling of being watched vanished completely, and Pearl turned back to Scar. She smiled a silvery smile, and held out her hand to him. “C’mon, mate. Let's go home.”
Scar took her hand, gasping at the sudden coldness that flooded his body– Death. He stood up, trying not to look down at his body that lay where he had fallen just moments earlier. As he stepped forward to join his friend, he couldn’t help but glance back and notice the sunflower lying beside his body, just inches away from his open hand. Nothing he could do about it now. 
Scar turned back to face Pearl, noticing the three other spirits that had gathered. He remembered them all now. The winners of the previous games. His allies, his enemies, his friends. His eyes caught Grian’s, and he couldn’t help but smile. 
“Well hello there,” he greeted his old ally with a grin, letting go of Pearl’s hand to bow dramatically. “Guess we finally cashed in on that double victory, huh?”
Grian laughed, rolling his eyes. His expression warmed as he took a step forward, reaching out to take Scar’s hand in his. “Little late, but I’ll accept it. How are you, Scar?”
“Well, he’s very dead, so I can’t imagine he’s doing great,” Scott interjected, ignoring the glare the two avians gave him. “What? I’m not wrong.” 
Scar shook his head. “That you are! I’m actually doing much better now that I remember everyone’s going to come back. Makes me feel a lot less guilty about killing all those people!” 
Pearl sighed, though she couldn’t hide the smile on her face. “Y’know, I felt the same way after I won Double Life. And now the games are so much easier for me! It’s nice to get all the murderous urges out now that I know everyone’s going to be fine eventually.”
“This is why everyone calls you two insane,” Martyn muttered, crossing his arms. “Now can we go back home now? I don’t like hanging out in these servers longer than I have to.”
Grian let go of Scar’s hand to pull up some sort of screen, typing commands into it. “Sure, just give me one second.” He continued typing on the screen, swiping through various options and closing others. “Good game, by the way,” he added, without looking up, “I don’t think anyone expected you to win.”
Scar gave a half shrug. “To be honest, G, I didn’t either! Totally thought Gem was going to get this one.”
Grian nodded. “But that’s just how these games go, mhm? Expect the unexpected. Pearl’s win should’ve taught us that much.” He spent another moment typing before closing the screen. “…Alright, we should be heading back to our respective servers soon enough.” He reached out to take Scar’s hand again, taking Pearl’s hand in his other. 
“Can’t believe we almost have all of the Boatem crew here,” Scar blurted out, “do you think Impulse will join us next time?”
Pearl laughed. “I hope so! I don’t think Mumbo will be winning any time soon, though. So we might just have to settle for four out of five.”
Scar nodded sagely. “You speak very wise words, Pearl. I fear Mumbo may be too… how do people say it? I fear he may be too much of a wet cat.”
Martyn groaned. “Oh, don’t remind me.”
Laughter rose from the group as the code began its work, and they all began to fade away. Grian held tightly to Scar and Pearl’s hands, locking eyes with the both of them. “I’ll see you both soon, okay?”
Pearl giggled, squeezing Grian’s hand in return. “See you soon, Griba!”
“Goodbye!” Scar called to Martyn and Scott, their responding farewells faint as the server faded away around him. 
And then there was darkness. 
And then Scar woke up.
473 notes · View notes
jo6hny · 3 months
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Neighbor - Hazel Callahan
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Pairing: College! Hazel Callahan x College! Reader 
Contains: fluff, kissing, slight angst, everyone knows you like each other besides the both of you, drunk hazel,  reader being an idiot, hazel being an idiot, sylvie and isabel mentioned.
Word Count: 2.7k
Summary: A very drunk Hazel Callahan stumbles upon your dorm room thinking it was hers. What happens when your crush and next door dorm neighbor wriggles her way onto your bed? 
A/N: This was written for the anon that requested it! I hope you like it <33 also, sorry if the description of college is inaccurate, i’m not american !! Requests are open! 
Knock Knock. 
The sound of the knock interrupts your reading. Curious, you get out of bed to see who it is. The comfort of your bed and the book in hand long forgotten as you made your way to your door. You rarely get visitors and your roommate, Sylvie, barely ever knocks. She’d usually just barge right in regardless of what you were doing. 
“Hi neighbor.” The brunette greets you on the other side of the door with a smile and a small tupperware dish on her hands. It was Hazel, the girl who occupied the dorm room right across yours. She looked good today. Scratch that, she looked good everyday. There was just something about Hazel Callahan that was charming and adorable.
“Oh, hi Haze.” You smile, greeting her back. “What you got there?” 
Hazel extended the dish towards you and said, “This is for you! There were some leftover brownies from the bake sale yesterday and I thought I’d give you some. I would hate for my beloved neighbor to starve.” 
Your smile grew wider at your neighbor’s gesture. If you weren’t so blinded by hunger, you would have thought that she’d given these to you because she liked you. Not that she did, though. Hazel seemed to be friendly with everyone. And, well, she always seemed to deflect your advances. 
“Aw Hazel,” You cooed, taking the dish from her. It felt hefty, the dish didn’t just contain a few pieces of brownies, it had a lot. Your heart swelled at the gesture.“Thank you so much! I’ll give you something back, I swear.” 
Hazel shook her head at this. 
“You don’t have to. You always do nice things for me, anyway.” She gave you a dimpled smile. Well, that is true. But it was a two way thing between you and her. Always watching out for each other, especially whenever there were inspections. 
You couldn’t exactly pinpoint how you two became close, or well, acquainted. But you knew it was because of Sylvie. She and Hazel were best friends, have been since highschool. Sylvie always told you about their “fight club” back then and how it was a women empowerment thing that saved their school from…football players? The details weren’t exactly clear, especially with how fast your roommate talked. Anyway, you meet Hazel through Sylvie. They’d always hang out at your dorm or Hazel’s dorm, whichever was available. You didn’t mind when they were at yours, they usually just geeked out about weapons and bands and all that shit. Plus, Hazel was easy on the eyes. You could look at her all day if you were being honest. Her hair was dark and soft and always so fragrant. You imagined what it was like to run your hair through her locks, how it’d feel between your fingers. And her eyes were to die for. They were like opals in the sense that they shifted colors ever so often. Most of the time they were blue, but there were times when they’d look silver or green. All of these traits (and more) were what made her so enchanting. 
“Well, no worries, Haze. We look out for each other.” You reply, putting a hand on her forearm. It wasn’t obvious, but Hazel’s breath picked up when you touched her. Because unbeknownst to you, she actually did return your feelings. The tension between the two of you was apparent to everyone except the two of you. Sylvie knows it, Hazel’s roommate Isabel did too. Basically everyone on campus did. 
“So…” You trailed off. Hazel was too distracted by your touch, her mind was elsewhere. “Um, are you going to that frat party later?” 
The blue eyed girl snaps out of her trance at your question and nods. 
“Oh, yeah! I’m going with Isabel and Sylvie. Are you?” 
“I can’t.” You sigh, slightly disappointed. This was supposed to be an opportunity for you to spend time with Hazel (and Sylvie and Isabel, of course). 
“Oh.” Hazel said dejectedly. You picked up on your neighbor’s tone at your reply.
“Sorry, Haze.” You apologize, squeezing her forearm. This caused the brunette to short circuit again. “I have to finish reading this book for my lit class.” 
“That’s-That’s okay.” She replied, feeling uncool at the way she stuttered. 
“Maybe we can hang out another time?” You said, hinting at a date with her. 
Hazel nods at your suggestion. “Yeah! We can bring Sylvie and Isabel too.” 
A frown forms on your face at her suggestion which you quickly wipe off and replace with a smile. 
“Yep. Sure.” You said, not feeling too enthusiastic. Was there something wrong with you? Did she not like you? You didn’t get why Hazel kept rejecting you. 
“I’ll see you, then.” She replies, walking back to her dorm room across from yours.
Back at the comfort of her room, Hazel slaps the palm of her hand on her forehead. It only just registered to her that you wanted to hang out with her without Sylvie and Isabel. 
“Stupid.” She muttered, letting herself dramatically fall onto her bed. The brunette groans at her inability to take cues. It’s not that she didn’t want to be with you, it’s just that she had a hard time taking in what you say sometimes. It was hard for her to discern things especially when you were in front of her. Hazel sometimes wished that she were normal. Normal enough to notice the little things. If she were, you  two would have gone out by now. The brunette groans again at the thought and buries her head in her pillow.
────────────────────────────────────────────
Finally onto the last chapter of your book, you decide to rest a bit before moving forward. Closing your eyes, you ease into your mattress a bit and let your head fall onto your soft pillow. A few more minutes you would fall asleep, the book forgotten. Sylvie seemed to have found herself back into your shared room as you heard the door being pried open. Weird though, she didn’t seem to make any noise as she entered. Usually she’d announce her entrance and make herself known. Oh well, maybe she had too much to drink. Back to resting. 
“Mmph.” A voice that wasn’t your roommate’s grunted across the room from you, the voice wasn’t Sylvie’s. This alarmed you and your head was filled with thoughts of danger. Your mind recalled all of the instructional videos you watched on self defense and you were counting on your brain to remember all the necessary steps when it came to it. 
Taking a careful peek, you notice that the stranger had made themselves comfortable in Sylvie’s bed. They were facing the wall so all you could see was the back of their head. The person had dark brown hair which flowed down to the base of their neck and they had a boyish cut. 
“Oh my head hurts so bad.” The stranger groaned. Recognizing her voice, you realize that Hazel was the intruder. She turns and wriggles around the bed which also helps you confirm her identity. 
“Hazel!” You exclaim, trying to get her attention. She must’ve thought that she was in her dorm room. The brunette didn’t seem to register your voice and continued wriggling around the bed. 
Slowly, you approach her and look at the situation fully. Alcohol reeked through her clothes and there she was in all her drunken glory sprawled all over Sylvie’s bed. Hazel Callahan, your biggest crush, was in your dorm room. The two of you were as close as neighbors could get but you’ve never been alone with each other.  You weren’t sure what to do. Should you wake her up? She seemed out of it, though. You’d assumed that Hazel was the type of person you’d need to drag around back to her own room because of how hard it would be to wake her. Plus, she may not look like it, but Hazel had some serious weight on her. The memory of seeing Hazel in a tank top with her toned arms flashed in your mind and you had to physically shake the thought off before you could get any more flustered.  Deciding against taking Hazel back, you took it upon yourself to gather a bottle of water and some meds (which you keep just in case) to her. 
“Hazel,” You nudge her softly. This caused her to stir a little. “What are you doing here, bub? You got the wrong room.” 
“What?” She replied, opening one eye and scanning the room. “Oh you’re right. This isn’t my bed.” 
Hazel starts to stand and get off the bed much to your disappointment and relief. What she does next surprises you, though. The brunette then decides to plop herself down on your bed and make herself comfortable. 
“This is better.” She mumbles, pulling the comforter up to her chin. 
“Oh, that’s not…” You say unironically. Racking your brain on the best possible move, you ultimately decide to just let the blue eyed girl be. There was no harm in letting her sleep for the night in your bed, right? 
Wrong. Hazel kept pulling you into bed with her until you lost your footing and gently crashed on top of her. Your neighbor quickly used this to her advantage and wrapped her arms around you, securing you in her hold. 
“Hazel, buddy, wake up.” You whisper, trying to get yourself out of her tight (but comfortable) grip. If you had it your way, you would reciprocate the cuddle but she was drunk and she wouldn’t remember any of this in the morning. 
With your free hand, you continuously poke the brunette until she got irritated and opened one of her eyes to look at you. At this, she smiled and uttered your name. 
“Hi, pretty. What’re you doing in my room?” She muttered, patting your hair. 
“It’s not your room, Haze.” You whisper, trying to hide the blush that was forming on your cheeks. Your body felt warm. 
“‘M pretty sure it is.” She mumbled, closing her eye again. Hazel seemed comfortable like this. Like she’d imagine doing this before. It had you thinking about whether or not she thought about you too. 
Ridding your head of the thoughts, you decide to give in. There was no waking your neighbor up and you were pretty tired too. Sighing, you relax your body and try to sleep all the while racking your brain on what to tell Hazel tomorrow. 
You’re awoken by a groan from your intruder neighbor last night. Hazel must be awake. Taking a look, you realized that you were now facing your wall and Hazel’s arm was wrapped around you as she nuzzled her nose into your neck from behind. The thought of your position made the blood on your cheeks warm up. 
“What?” You hear her mumble. Hazel rids her nose off your neck and sees that you were on the receiving end of her hug. You could feel her physically freeze at the sight. Deciding to break the ice, you faced Hazel and gave her a smile. 
“Hi.” You whisper, scared that if your voice was louder you’d freak her out more. 
“H-hello.” She whispered back, unsure of what her eyeballs were seeing. At that, your neighbor rubs at her eyelids to make sure you weren’t an illusion. 
“You okay?” You ask as you sit up. You reach over your dresser and hand her the water bottle and meds from last night. “Here, drink this. It’ll get rid of the headache.” 
Reluctantly, she sits up and takes it from you. Hazel looked lost, like she couldn’t believe what was happening in front of her eyes. Still, she took the meds and ingested it. Her head was killing her and she wasn’t going to reject being saved by an angel. 
“Is this real?” She asks as she finally speaks her thoughts out loud. 
This earns a giggle from you and Hazel’s heart picks up at the sight and the sound of your laughter. God, you were so pretty. Especially with you on her bed, well, it was your bed but that’s besides the point. 
“I’m pretty sure it is, Haze.” You reply, fidgeting with the blanket on your bed.
“Did we?” She trails off, her eyes wide. Hazel clasps her hand over her mouth in an attempt to cover up her gasp. 
“Oh, no! No, Haze. Nothing bad happened, don’t worry.” You reply, putting a reassuring hand on her lap. “You just got lost is all. Got the wrong dorm and you thought my bed was yours. You were pretty drunk.” 
“Oh, alright.” She replied, seemingly disappointed. Hazel wasn’t very good at masking her emotions and you could tell that she felt bad about something. 
“If it matters to you, I wasn’t mad or anything. You can stumble here drunkenly all you want.” You reassure her. The last thing you wanted was to scare your crush off because she found herself on your bed after a seemingly wild night. 
“And I didn’t say anything weird?” She asked warily. Hazel didn’t trust herself whenever she was intoxicated. She didn’t have a filter whenever she drank and she was scared out of her mind that she yapped on to you about her feelings. 
You shake your head at her question. “No, you’re all good. Though you did call me pretty.” 
Hazel’s cheeks turned a slight shade of pink. 
“It’s true.” She said. Ah, maybe she was still a bit drunk. Hazel mentally facepalmed at how she just openly admitted her admiration of you. This wasn’t how she imagined it going. In her head, Hazel confesses to you after a big life changing moment. Not this, not after drunkenly stumbling into your room.  
“I think you’re pretty too, Haze.” You whisper, leaning in closer. This is it. You were going to kiss and confess your feelings. Happily ever after. The thought made your heart race.
Hazel jumps at your action; her eyes were wide with surprise. Did you read it wrong? Oh god, you just made her uncomfortable. 
“I’m sorry.” You blurt out, hands wailing all over the place. “I didn’t mean to, I thought we were flirting. I’m so sorry, Hazel.” 
Hazel does a double take at what you said. The wires in her brain were all flaring up and her eyebrows furrowed. 
“You were flirting with me?” Hazel asks, confusion taking over her senses. She never thought that you’d be into her. Well, maybe you were. She wasn’t good at seeing signs. Sometimes it felt like you were flirting but her brain tries to push it off. She didn’t really see why you would want to be with her, to be honest. Some of the trauma from highschool carried on til this day and it’s something she has trouble with. 
“I have been for the past six months, thanks for noticing.” You mutter, breaking eye contact with the brunette. All your confidence disappeared. You felt dumb for ever thinking that Hazel would feel the same about you. She didn’t even know you were flirting. 
“I’m sorry.” She says as she hesitantly takes your hand. “I didn’t know. Well, a part of me did. It’s just that I’m bad at this.”
“No, Haze. I’m sorry too. I should have been direct with you, to be honest.” You interlock your fingers together and squeeze her hand. 
“For what it’s worth, I do like you.” She replies. Your breath hitches and your mouth is agape ever so slightly. Hazel Callahan just confessed to you. 
“Oh my god.” You exclaim, freaking out. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!” 
“It’s okay, you don’t have to return the feelings. I just wanted to let you know.” Sweet Hazel, again, wasn't reading between the lines. But you didn’t let this bother you. 
Taking her face in your hands, you decide to plant a kiss on her soft lips. Your neighbor was surprised at this but eventually melted into the kiss. It was everything you dreamt of. Hazel’s lips were soft and gentle. She kissed you with such yearning, like she’d dreamt about this moment too. 
“Dummy.” You say, exasperated. “I like you too.” 
Hazel smiles and the dimples on her cheek peeks out. Suddenly everything was quiet in her mind and the only thing she could think of was you. The brunette took your hand and kissed it, a declaration of her love and her loyalty. She couldn’t believe it. This moment was bigger to her than anything ever before. You were the quiet in her mind and the roar of her heart. 
368 notes · View notes
guilty-pleasures21 · 2 months
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HEYEYYH, How about a Jason with a girlfriend who does massages? But somehow his girl's hands ended up on his thigh muscles, which we all know how that ended *cofcofthecofreadercofprobablycofendedcofupcofdoggycofstylecofoncofthecofcouchcofcof* 🫠
(Unfortunately I'm mexican and I know how to give massages so the idea just came up while I was working JAJAJAKS)
— 🐏
I'm back! I did it! It's a little short, but I hope you enjoy 😊!
The massage
Giving boyfriend Jason a massage when his leg is feeling sore.
Warnings: explicit description of sex including blowjob (m receiving) and penetration (p in v).
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     X slid her gaze over to her boyfriend as he made his way to the sofa. He tried to hide it, but she noticed the way he favoured his right leg as he walked, his steps uneven because of whatever injury he might have picked up on his mission earlier that day. He sank onto the sofa beside her, a sigh of relief escaping his lips once he was off his feet. 
     “Jay?” X asked, placing a hand on his thigh. “What happened to your leg?” 
     “Ah, nothing,” he reassured her, shifting in position to get himself more comfortable. “It's just a little sore. I'll be fine.” 
     “I’ll massage it for you,” X decided, getting up and gesturing for him to lay down. “Lie down.”
Jason hesitated, still unused to communicating his needs across to her - across to anyone, really, never mind that they’d already been dating for six months. But she never pushed him about it - she’d always been patient with him for as long as they’d known each other, and that was probably why he’d eventually fallen in love with her. Jason pulled his legs up onto the sofa and lay back, settling himself against the cushions as he waited. X grinned and took a seat at the other end, then began gently rubbing his feet. 
     “How was your day?” Jason asked, relaxing at the feeling of her fingers gently coaxing the tension from his muscles. He liked hearing about her work - about the everyday drama that most people would experience throughout their lifetime. Most people aside from him. But at least he got to experience it through her, his clever and sweet girlfriend. She shrugged.
     “It was okay. Not much happened today. Oh!” Her eyes lit up as she remembered some gossip she must have forgotten about. She leaned closer to him, lowering her voice as if someone might overhear them and his chest warmed at the familiar look of delight on her face.
     “The old intern was telling me that that one scary boss lady wants to hold a meeting for the new interns to teach them ‘proper work etiquette’,” she revealed to him, pausing to give him a shocked look. “Isn't that so embarrassing?! She said that, apparently, a lot of people have complained about them already.” X winced at the idea, then spread Jason's legs apart so she could settle herself between them. 
     “What did they do wrong?” Jason asked, curious now to find out more. X shrugged. 
     “I don't know.” She pursed her lips to think about it, her hands ceasing their movements for a moment. “They're a little loud. And I feel like they gossip a lot.” 
     “About who?” 
     “Mostly people at their school.” She resumed her massage, her hands landing on his thighs now. “Do you want to talk about your day?” He didn't always like going through it - whatever horror he might have had to face that day - so she’d always ask him first, then distract him with stories about her work if he wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. It calmed him down sometimes, knowing that there were other people out there who just continued to mill about their days, even when his felt like it was falling apart. He shook his head, but maintained a relaxed expression, not wanting her to get too worried. 
     “I just helped Dick out with some of Penguin’s goons. Nothing much, just tired.” He knew how much she’d worry about him when he was on a mission, though she’d always try to hide it behind a calm exterior when they were together. She cared about him so much, his sweet little girlfriend, and he always made sure he did his best to reciprocate her efforts. He'd never been very good at expressing his feelings, but he always pushed himself to do better when it came to her: he loved her, after all, and he never wanted her to question that fact.
     “Hmm.” X pushed herself to her knees, her hands moving dangerously close to his centre as she continued to massage the insides of his thighs. “Any plans for tomorrow?” 
     Jason shook his head, trying to ignore the way his core was starting to tighten as she rubbed her thumbs along the joint between his pelvis and his thighs. “No. Anything you want to do? We can go on a date if you're free?” 
     X grinned at the thought. Jason was a lot more romantic than most people would have expected, always planning little surprises for her and gifting her whatever new item she'd been obsessing over for the past week. But she loved just getting to spend time with him; to see the peace grace his rugged features as they went on a picnic or caught a movie or strolled through the park beneath the stars. She inched her hands closer to his centre, delighting in the sight of the rapidly growing tent in his sweatpants. 
     “Hmm, what should I do with my super hot boyfriend tomorrow?” X wondered aloud, feigning a look of innocence as she looked up at him. “Should we go ice skating?” F*ck, she was driving him crazy! The way she fluttered her eyelashes up at him as she continued to massage his erogenous zones? Jason shifted in position, his body starting to get more excited as she continued to run her fingers all over him. 
     “Uh, wouldn't it be too crowded?” he pointed out, pushing himself a little higher up the sofa so her hands fell back down his thighs. It was a weekend, after all - people would probably bring their kids there and then dump them for a few hours while they went and ran their errands. X shuffled forward, her wicked gaze fixed on his centre as she slid her hands back up his thighs. 
     “Hmm, you're probably right. Should we go for a movie then?” She licked her lips as she snuck her hands beneath his shirt and ran them across his hard abdomen. Then she tugged on the waistband of his sweatpants, pulling it down slightly so that her fingers were tantalising close to his d*ck. 
     “X.” Jason placed a hand over hers, intending to stop her, but he ended up just following her movements as she continued to tease him. 
     “Hmm. Jay?” X sat back finally, her hands resting on the tops of his thighs as she looked up at him. “Do you want me to rub some oil on you or something? Just to warm you up a bit?” 
     Shit. He knew exactly what she was really asking him - exactly what she was planning on doing to him - with that mischievous glint in her eyes as she waited for his response. He swallowed hard, but found himself nodding in agreement to all the dirty thoughts flitting over her sweet face. X grinned and shot out of her seat immediately, rushing over to her room to get the massage oil. Jason sighed at her excitement and covered his face with his hands, already regretting his decision. 
     “I'm back!” X sang as she jumped onto the sofa and started tugging his pants down. Jason chuckled nervously as he pushed himself off of his seat, his body already tightening in response to her eagerness. 
     “Slow down, sweetheart,” he told her gently, lowering himself back down once she'd ripped his pants off and tossed them aside. He watched as she poured some oil onto her palms and rubbed them together before returning her hands to his thighs. And then he was gripping on the edge of the sofa, doing his best to control himself as she slid her hands along the sides of his c*ck. F*ck, she was driving him crazy. 
     “X.” X snickered at the tightness in Jason’s voice - at the obvious arousal he was trying so hard to hide from her. She rubbed her thumbs along the insides of his thighs, careful to keep her distance from the one part of him that was throbbing for her touch. 
     “What?” she asked him, her voice dripping with exaggerated innocence. “I’m slowing down, Jace.” Jason sighed at her response and let his head fall back against the cushions. She loved to tease him like this - to play dumb when she was probably the smartest person he knew - just because she loved how frustrated he’d get by it, his thick brows drawing together, his wide lips twisting down at the ends, his teeth gritting together to accentuate his sharp jawline. She went crazy for it. And he went crazy because of it. 
     God, he looked so hot, his body tightening in response to her teasing, his jaw clenching in frustration at her fake naivete. She keep her eyes fixed on his face as she finally ran her hands over his c*ck, watching with delight as he closed his eyes and sucked in a breath. 
     “F*ck,” he breathed, his muscles clenching at the feeling of her sliding her hands all over his c*ck. Shit, she was good, her tender touch easing all the tension that had built up in his body. He’d completely forgotten about his sore leg as she’d played with his c*ck, the pleasure of having her fingers running along his shaft casting all other thoughts out of his mind. X curled her fingers around him, fisting his c*ck tightly, and swiped her thumb across his slit, causing his back to arch off the sofa in response. “X …” 
     “Jay?” Jason looked up at her, his expression dazed as he grunted in question. X grinned and leaned over him, tilting her head so that her hair brushed along the side of his neck. “Do you mind if I take my clothes off, baby? They’re getting a little oily.” 
     He was so hot, her boyfriend, and it thrilled to know that she could get him so aroused: his mossy eyes darkening with lust every time he looked at her, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as she pumped his c*ck in her fist, his teeth sinking into his lower lip whenever she gave him a tight squeeze. And the sounds he’d make?! Holy shit, the satisfied groans and rumbles and the awestruck curses that would fall from his mouth as she teased and pleasured him?!
     She gave him a little pout and Jason felt his c*ck twitch at the sight of her. F*ck, she was cute. His eyes fell to her body, to her delicious curves concealed by her pyjamas, and he licked his lips in anticipation. “Take them off, sweetheart.” 
     X felt a shiver run down her spine at the huskiness in his tone; at the pure desire drenching his voice as he looked at her. She grinned and sat back to start taking her clothes off, and Jason ripped his shirt off as well before sinking back into his seat. He watched with delight as his beautiful girlfriend exposed herself to him, her messy hair spilling over her shoulders and brushing over her full breasts. He muttered a curse as she climbed on top of him, her p*ssy already dripping as she settled herself over his d*ck. Then she glided her hands up his torso and continued with her ‘massage’, her fingers kneading his shoulders as her breasts pressed into his chest, her lips centimetres from his. Jason slid his hands around her waist and sucked in a breath when she ground her hips into his, her soft little p*ssy rubbing against his c*ck. F*ck, she was gorgeous, her tumbling curls, her long eyelashes, her rosy lips. 
     “Mmm, f*ck,” he groaned as he ran his hands all over her body, his movements easy thanks to the slippery oil that had transferred to her skin. Her eyelids fluttered shut as he moved his hands to cup her breasts, and he heard a soft gasp escape from her lips when he began circling her nipples with his thumbs. 
     “J-Jason,” she stammered, her p*ssy throbbing pleadingly as he began moving his hips against hers. “I'm … supposed to be … giving you … the massage.” 
     “I know, baby,” Jason reassured her, his hands kneading her breasts gently. “And you're doing such a good job. Such a good massage, baby, such a … F*ck!” His back arched off the sofa as she wriggled on top of him, squirming at the feeling of his fingers closing around her sensitive flesh. And then he was lifting her off of him and flipping her over, so that she was on her hands and knees in front of him, her legs spread apart and ready for him to enter. 
     X twisted her head back to look at him in question, confused by the sudden switch in position. But then his c*ck was inside of her, stretching her out and filling her up and all she could do was flop over onto the sofa and sigh with relief. 
     “Shit, baby,” she heard Jason murmur behind her as he grabbed onto her thighs. “Gonna … Gonna f*ck you so hard. Gonna reward this … pretty little p*ssy of yours … with a nice massage too.” She let out a whimper as he began thrusting his hips against hers, his c*ck sliding in and out of her at a torturously slow pace. God, he was so hard already, she didn't know how he could possibly control himself. 
     “Jason,” she whined, tearing up with frustration at the way he held her back from her orgasm. 
     “I know, baby, I know, just …” He sped up his thrusts a little, his c*ck pumping in and out of her easily, slick with a mixture of her cum and the oil she'd spread all over him. He rolled his hips around, causing his bulk to brush up against all her walls, and she groaned at the feeling of his tip prodding at that one spot inside of her. Shit, he felt good. 
     Jason chuckled at the way his sweet little girlfriend's eyes rolled back in her head as he pleasured her with his c*ck, the moans and whimpers falling from her lips driving him crazy. She was so f*cking gorgeous, her slender fingers gripping onto the cushions, her soft breasts bouncing against the sofa as he drove himself repeatedly into her. And f*ck, her p*ssy? Her tight little p*ssy that welcomed him in so nicely, her warm and wet walls clinging to him desperately and begging him not to let go. F*ck, she felt good. “You like that, sweetheart? You like the way my c*ck is 'massaging' that tight little p*ssy of yours?” 
     X gave a loud moan in response, no longer able to form words, and Jason sped up his movements, his fingers digging into her ass to keep her in place. He felt so good, his thick c*ck stretching out her walls, his hard abs brushing against her ass, his balls pounding against her clit and teasing her to no end. She tightened her grip on the pillow she'd been clutching, her core tightening around his d*ck. Then she came, her body writhing helplessly as she pulsed hard around his c*ck. Jason slowed his movements, his hips stuttering at the feeling of her p*ssy squeezing his d*ck so desperately. Then he fell over the edge too, his warm c*m filling up her cervix as he relieved himself inside of her. 
     They stayed like that for a while after, the both of them panting heavily as they tried to catch their breaths. Then Jason pulled himself out of her, his hands keeping her in place so he could watch his c*m leak back out of her. 
     “Jason,” X breathed, pushing herself to her hands and twisting around to look at him. His eyes were still fixed on his centre, his expression delighted as he watch his c*m dripping from her p*ssy. X let out a soft snicker and turned around to face her boyfriend, sitting back on her knees and gathering her hair behind her shoulders. He was so cute when he was all dazed with lust, his eyes unfocused as he lifted them to her face. She shuffled forward and cupped his cheek in her hand, then leaned towards him to press a quick kiss to his lips. “How's your leg feeling, Jay?” 
     Jason grinned at her, his lips stretched into a stupidly wide smile. “It's feeling better than before, but I think I'm going to need another massage tomorrow night.” 
     “Oh, really?” X raised an eyebrow, then leaned forward again to press another sweet kiss to his lips. “Then I guess I’d better get more oil.”
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writerslittlelibrary · 7 months
Text
I promise I can explain
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masterlist
pairing: Blackhill x reader, Wanda x reader
warnings: making out, sneaking around, yelling, one mention of a shitty foster family
genre: fluff, angst
words: 1432
a/n: two posts in one day? I must be losing my mind
You do not have my permission to repost, copy or translate my work 
 |——————————— ⴵ ———————————|
Your mothers were supposed to be out for a mission for a few days. You didn’t expect them back until the end of the week. Apparently, the mission was way easier than expected, and that’s how you found yourself in this position, staring your mom in the eyes in pure shock. 
You and Wanda had always been great friends. When she joined the Avengers, you were closest in age. Wanda may have been a few years older, but you two got along wonderfully. Your moms were worried about you bonding with her, finding her a bit dangerous, but once they saw how happy your friendship made you, they couldn’t help but be happy for you too. 
You had been friends for about a year, and you realized you were starting to develop feelings for the witch. You were hanging out more, and having sleepovers at your home all the time.
Natasha and Maria were glad you had such a good friend, happy that you seemed to come out of your shell more. After one sleepover, everything changed. You and Wanda were watching a movie on your bed, and after a romantic scene, she had asked you if you had a crush on anyone. You told her yes, but refused to tell her who.
You had completely forgotten the fact that Wanda could read minds, so when you asked her if she had a crush on anyone, she simply leaned in to kiss you. 
That was your first kiss, and you two made it official a few days later. Because you were hanging out so much already, your moms didn’t bat an eye when you seemed to be out of the house more. 
You had walked out into the living room where your moms were sitting, hoping to ask a question without raising any suspicion. “Can I go watch a movie with Wanda tonight?” you asked them. Your moms looked at each other for a moment, before turning to you. “Of course. Do I need to drive you?” Natasha asked. You shook your head. 
“Wanda is driving us,” you told them, and they nodded. 
“Just don’t stay out too late,” Maria told you, and you smiled and nodded before walking off to your room to text Wanda.
You and Wanda did stay out a little too late that night. After the movie, you and Wanda had stayed in her car, and you were making out when you received a text from your moms. You didn’t notice it at first, but when they started calling, you and Wanda broke it off with a sigh.
You nearly had a heart attack when you saw the time, and Wanda drove you home quickly. You said goodbye to Wanda with a kiss, and quickly made your way up to the apartment. 
When you got inside, your moms were sitting on the couch. Both had a disappointed look in their eyes. You threw your bag down and started apologizing, saying how sorry you were and how you forgot the time. Your moms weren’t mad at you, just concerned, and you had gotten an earlier curfew after that night. 
A few weeks after that, your moms told you they had to go on a mission that would take about a week. They were sorry they both had to leave you at the same time, but you just told them that it was okay.
They apologized a few times, but the moment they were gone, you called Wanda over. You were on a school break for a few weeks and this was the perfect time to spend some time with Wanda. 
Of course you still had sleepovers, but it was nice to know you were free to spend time together without the risk of anyone interrupting. 
You were afraid to tell your moms of your relationship. You didn’t know how they’d take it. You knew they wouldn’t react badly to the fact you liked girls, but you never told them either. You never talked about boys or relationships, and you sure as hell never talked about crushes you had. Maria and Natasha simply believed you just weren’t into that yet, but boy were they wrong. 
It wasn’t very ideal either. Wanda had recently turned 19, yet you were still 16. You and Wanda never really talked about the age difference, because neither of you really cared. You joked about it once, how Wanda was technically doing something illegal by dating you, but since you’ve known each other while you were both teenagers, you never really thought about it. 
Your moms, however, would surely have a bad reaction to it. 
That’s why you were so terrified right now. You and Wanda had spent the day in bed, watching some shows and now, undeniably, making out.
You both missed the front door opening and closing, and missed the sound of footsteps coming to your bedroom. You didn’t miss the slight creak the door made when opening, however, and you quickly got off of Wanda to sit beside her, looking at your mom.
“What the hell is this supposed to be!” she yelled, making you flinch slightly. You hated disappointing your moms, and Natasha had always had a short temper.
“Is this why you’re always staying out too late?! Why you’re always having sleepovers?! Why the hell didn’t you tell me!” Natasha continued yelling, and you could hear Maria approaching your room as well.
You still hadn’t said anything, but Wanda made the subtle move to grab your hand tightly, letting you know she was still there.
Maria entered the room calmly, seeing you and Wanda on the bed and quickly making the connection. “Natasha, love, why are you yelling?” she asked softly, make a move to grab Natasha’s hand. Natasha turned to Maria.
“Our little girl is sneaking around, making out and doing god knows what with Wanda!” Natasha explained, pointing her hand at Wanda as to make her point more clear.
Maria sighed softly, glancing at your terrified form on the bed, and then turning back to Natasha. 
“Nat, love, I know you’re upset, but you need to take a breath. You’re scaring y/n,” Maria explained carefully, rubbing her thumb over Natasha’s hand to help her calm down. Natasha closed her eyes and sighed deeply, turning to you before walking out of your room.
Maria turned to you with a small smile, walking to you and giving you a soft kiss on your forehead. She cupped your cheeks, smiling softly at you. “I love you,” she told you, before kissing your forehead again and walking after Natasha.
You and Wanda stayed in your room for a few minutes, cuddling and trying to calm down. 
Natasha and Maria had adopted you when you were nine, and your previous foster family wasn’t as loving as a family is supposed to be. Yelling frightened you, and Wanda knew that. So did your moms, but you figured Natasha just couldn’t help herself.
After you calmed down a bit, you gave Wanda a kiss on her cheek and left your room, going to find Natasha and Maria in the living room. 
“I’m sorry,” you said as you walked in quietly. Natasha turned to you, and the look on her face simply broke you. She opened her arms, and you quickly sat down, leaning into her.
“I’m the one that has to be sorry. I should’ve never yelled. I’m so, so sorry,” Natasha told you, rubbing your back and kissing your head. “I love you, no matter what,” she told you. You lifted your head to look at her, and smiled at her. “I love you too,” you told her.
“So how long have you and Wanda been, y’know, a thing?” Maria asked, rubbing your back. “A few months… I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t mean to keep anything from you. I just didn’t know how to tell you and I-” “You, did nothing wrong,” Natasha interrupted your rant, cupping your cheeks. “We love you, and while I’m sad you didn’t trust us enough to come to us, it was your decision, and no one is mad at you,” she explained, and you smiled. 
“So are you just into girls, or do you like guys too?” Maria asked, stroking your hair. 
You shrugged. “I don’t know, but I don’t really care,” you explained and Maria nodded. “You don’t have to know. So how about we invite poor Wanda into the room and order some food,” Maria suggested, and you nodded. 
You went and got Wanda, and you enjoyed a night settled on the couch, feeling relieved your moms finally knew.
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yoongikapi · 14 days
Text
returning injured || levi || oneshot
angst
aot masterlist
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levi waited restlessly in his office for the scouts to return. his injured foot kept him from the most recent mission and he’s never felt more anxious. of course he was worried about everyone and hoped they’d all make it back in one piece, but his mind kept wandering to you. why am i so worried about her? he had no reason to be, you were riding along commander erwin and other strong squad leaders, so why? i have no reason to worry about her, they’ll all be fine. but even so, he ignored the throbbing pain in his foot and paced around his small workspace.
a messenger suddenly knocked on the wooden door, making levi freeze in his tracks; “sir! the troops are back!”
he couldn’t stop himself from leaving his office; couldn’t stop himself as he practically ran outside, and couldn’t stop himself from gasping in shock, not only at how many didnt return but also from seeing you on the back of someone’s horse, knocked unconscious. he took in how blood ran from your head and leg while your arm was heavily bandaged.
“what happened here?” levi asked, walking up to the man on the horse as he attempted to get off without you falling. before he could think, he reached up and pulled you off the horse himself, barely hearing the man as he walked away with you in his arms. “she was cornered by titans, we’re lucky she’s even here….”
once again, levi’s forgotten about his own injury as he studies yours. as he studies you he realizes, he wouldn’t know what to do if you didnt come back. yes you’re unconscious, but you’re here now and hes gonna do everything in his power to ensure you wake up.
he gently places you in a cot at the infirmary, covering you and taking the seat next to your bed. he stares at the dried blood clinging to your fingers and he reaches out to you, brushing his rough fingers against the back of your hand.
you better wake up brat.
please wake up.
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jgracie · 26 days
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💭 DO YOU THINK I HAVE FORGOTTEN ABOUT YOU?
masterlist | rules
in which jason wakes up on a random bus with a random girl and the feeling of your hand in his
pairing jason grace x fem!reader
warnings none as far as im aware!
an my first piece of writing on here!!! very very excited :) i know this has probs been done SO much but i had to make it my first fic LOL feel free to give any feedback!
Jason would say he’s never experienced anything crazier than what he was going through at the moment, but he couldn’t recall anything from before he woke up on that bus - not even his own age, or his so-called ‘friends’, one of which was holding his hand right now. She was pretty, but something about it felt very wrong. She didn’t hold his hand like how he was used to, which was another strange thing. Out of all memories his brain could’ve retained, it chose the feeling of someone’s hand in his.
“Jason, you okay?” The girl asked, snapping him out of his thoughts. Nothing was okay, but Jason managed to keep his composure as best as he could. As the day progressed, he eventually figured out many things: his friends’ names (Piper and Leo), the fact that he’s a demigod (that one came to him naturally) and that there was a special extraction team looking for him and his friends. However, none of it was what he was looking for. While he enjoyed gathering more information about the puzzle pieces of his life, ever since Jason had opened his eyes on that bus, there’d been a specific memory that definitely wasn’t fully gone. He’d almost gotten it when he remembered the way someone’s thumb would gently stroke his hand as their fingers interlocked, but it wasn’t fully there yet, not until Piper asked him about the bracelet he hadn’t even noticed he was wearing. 
It was simple, just purple and white beads on a string with an initial that definitely wasn’t his dangling off of it, but Jason was surprised he hadn’t noticed earlier. As soon as he laid eyes on it, he knew it was one of his most prized possessions.
Without missing a beat, Jason said, “Oh, this? It was a gift from Y/N.” 
Ever since then, nothing was the same. All Jason could think about was her. Somehow, the bracelet had unlocked the vault of memories of them he didn’t even know he had. It didn’t matter if he slept in the cold, harsh atmosphere of Cabin One or on a random piece of ground during their quest, his dreams were always the same. Their first meeting, him helping her with her sparring, her laugh – Gods, her laugh! If that’s what it sounded like in his dream, he couldn’t even begin to fathom what it must be like in real life. All of these little moments slowly began coming back to him and when Jason found out that they’d all be going to Camp Jupiter, his home, he was buzzing with excitement. He’d begun journaling his experiences out of fear that he’d forget again, and he couldn’t wait to be able to tell you all about what he was up to.
Time flies by when you’re having fun. Soon enough, Leo was done with building the Argo II and the three, along with Annabeth, began heading for Camp Jupiter. That’s when the worries began consuming Jason’s mind. As far as he was aware, despite clearly sharing some romantic moments with you, you two never formally started dating before he got whisked away by Hera. It's been months since that happened, what if you found someone else? He wouldn’t have blamed you, he probably broke your heart. 
Surprisingly, it was Piper who comforted him. Piper, who’d been fed a fantasy and led on simply for the sake of some Goddess’ schemes. Piper, whose heart he definitely broke the moment he mentioned your name. 
“It’ll be fine, Jason,” she said, standing next to him as Camp Jupiter slowly began coming into view, “the worst is over. I’m sure Y/N will understand once we explain everything. She clearly loves you a lot, trust me.” 
For some reason, maybe her godly heritage working its magic, he did believe Piper. Although things had been awkward with her, she meant a lot to him, and he’d felt really bad during the conversation they had after their first quest together, so he was glad she wasn’t secretly mad at him. Turning away from her, Jason now gazed upon the shapes of his home with a newfound confidence.
And then he saw you. Whatever his brain managed to come up with in his dreams paled in comparison to the real thing. You seemed to glow and glimmer and shine and all those wonderful things as you walked towards the Argo II with Reyna. While Percy and Annabeth had their heartfelt (albeit strange) reunion, you shared your own. 
“Jase!” You said, running to him. Immediately, he picked you up and spun you around. He knew he was probably getting really strange looks from his fellow Romans, but he didn’t care. This wasn’t about them.
Putting you down, Jason wiped a stray tear from your cheek as you began to speak, your voice shaky with nerves, “thank the Gods you’re back! I was so worried when Percy came here and didn’t remember anything, I prayed day and night to anyone who’d listen to bring you home to me with your memories intact. I don’t know what I would’ve done if…” You faltered, unable to even utter the words out of fear they may come true. 
Luckily, Jason had many words for you, starting with these: “do you seriously think I’d forget about you?”
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lace-coffin · 4 months
Note
hello! Could you do something about Asa after he spends like, a good your looking for his newest member of the collection, and when he finds them, their just, surrounded by diff bugs?
Theres like, crickets in their hair, moths and butterfly all over their arms a few spiders crawling around their legs and their holding a praying mantis in their hands and staring at in awe. Their also babying talking it and cooing at it, when they look up and realize Asa is staring at them, they raise their cupped hands a show him the giant mantis resting their, saying with a cherry yet soft voice and smile "I named her Apple!"
I would appreciate it very much if you wrote something about this :)
But you don't have to, for any reason really.
Have a lovely night/day! Be sure to drink water and eat 💕
How would Asa Emory react to finding his new pet coddling his bugs?
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Asa Emory/gn!Reader
Tw for bugs and power dynamics
Requests are open!
Asa moved through the halls of the hotel with efficiency, he knew them like the back of his hand, however that apparently wasn’t helping since he’d managed to...misplace his new pet.
You were supposed to be in your room, you were lucky you had even been granted the luxury of not just being crumpled into one of the boxes, but here Asa is, speeding down the halls and jumping/swerving around his traps like some kind of sick ballet in order to find you. You absolutely won’t be getting out of this without some serious punishment.
Asa curses at himself under his breath for making his place of operations so huge, it seemed like a good idea when he set up here and it was but damn if it wasn’t his Achilles heel in this situation.
Fifteen minutes of searching later his heart is picking up in an unfamiliar way, usually he’s not one to care about others or a stray victim but something in him can’t help but worry about loosing his newest subject already. Whether it’s because he cares for you or because he hates not being in control is anyone’s guess. (He’s soft for you and won’t admit it)
Finally as he’s cracking open a door at the end of the hallway he hears a sweet laugh echoing from further along. Bingo. You’re so dead when he finds you. As he’s about to slam the door open he realises this is infact where he keeps his enclosures for his specimens, he sighs and opts to open the door slowly and quietly as not to startle the bugs.
You don’t even notice Asa enter the room, currently too enthralled in cooing sweet words to the giant mantis in your hands.
Before Asa can demand to know where you’ve been and why, his breath hitches in his throat. There you are, sat on your knees next to the enclosure cases, covered from head to toe in his beloved bugs. The calm careful way you handle them and talk to them like they can understand tugs at his heart, his face softens at the sight, anger long forgotten and replaced by a feeling of fondness, the same one he felt when he was originally scouting you to join his collection.
The crickets cling to your stands of hair, a little messy since you had left your room before Asa got to around to brushing it but he’ll fix that later, sitting contently like they’d never been disturbed in the first place.
Moths and butterflies tap their tiny feet along your arms, fluttering their delicate wings, taking off and landing back with you when they please.
Asa takes in the scene breathlessly, if he hadn’t already been weak for you then he definitely is now. As he approaches by a few steps some thick hairy legs come into view, creeping slowly over your thighs and onto your lap. Tarantulas, two of them, using you as a lap cushion without a care in the world. You really are something special. In the back of his mind Asa makes another note to keep approaching slowly, despite you needing a punishment he’s not exactly wanting his eight legged pets to kick hairs at you in fright.
After a few minutes of blissfully observing one of the tarantulas unhurriedly totters off your leg and begins to move across the room. “Oh, where are you off to little guy? I need you over here with me, I’m already probably in big trouble with sir” you sigh. “I don’t want to loose you and make it worse, besides, I don’t think I could forgive myself if something happened to you under my watch”
In a strange way you suppose you understood Asa’s need to keep you under wraps right now, not wanting this beautiful specimen to disappear from your sight, much like Asa with you.
You swivel on your knees to coax the spider back into your palms, nudging its abdomen for encouragement and letting it waddle back into your hands. From your new position you catch a glimpse of heavy black boots in your peripheral. Oh.
You turn your attention fully to the man above you, heart racing at the idea of what’s about to come, however as you reach his eyes they aren’t filled with the rage or disappointment you were expecting. The black orbs are filled with softness, fondness, almost something sweet you can’t decipher.
Without thinking you present the giant mantis to Asa, still on your knees. “I named her apple!” A beat passes and an array of emotions flutter through Asa’s steely heart, his blank face still giving nothing away. After what feels like an eternity he crouches down in front of you, cupping his hands under your own, assisting in holding the mantis. “A fine name for her, pet. Do you know what species Apple is by chance?” He says in his firm but calm, leading voice, slipping into the tone he uses when teaching his lectures without even realising it.
“Uh-no, no I don’t sir…tell me?” You say, wincing a little at the stumble at the beginning, hoping asking him to tell you didn’t come off as rude or undermining his authority. Asa smiles, not letting anything on.
“She is a Giant Asian Mantis, or Hierodula membranacea, If you want to get technical. These are the most commonly kept mantis as house pets and come in an array of colours, but as you can see, apple is mostly light green. I think your name fits her nicely.” Asa explains matter of factly, hands still cupped under yours for Apple to totter onto.
“Woah” you say without thinking, watching Apple move to Asa’s palms and taking in the information. Asa exhales from his nose in a small chuckle. “Woah indeed, however I think it’s time we get you and Apple back to your respective rooms” Asa says with a quirked eyebrow, giving away that your not going to get away with this unpunished just because he finds you endearing.
Asa helps you round up the specimens and places them back in their individual tanks. After making sure you both wash your hands thoroughly he takes your now clean hand and walks you back to your room, letting you ask him more bug questions as you walk.
Despite how lovely this has been you’ll still be given a stern talking to once you return, Asa can’t bring himself to punish you for your little adventure and entomology lesson but isn’t one to let you off the hook without some kind of consequence, after all he expects your complete submission and obedience and won’t settle for any less. But for now that convocation can wait, and Asa can get you comfy on your knees infront of him, manoeuvring your head via the ring on your collar and finally working the comb through the snags in your hair with care.
I hope you enjoy this! Your rq was super fun to do and the idea was really cool! Thank you so much and feel free to send me more < 3
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mildkleptomaniac · 1 year
Text
type one — jj maybank x cameron!reader
𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭:  “ Hey! Do you think you could do an imagine where the reader is Sarah’s twin and all the pogues are at a party or on the boat and her blood sugar drops really low (she has type one diabetes) and her pump keeps beeping. She is mid passing out, not feeling good and rafe has her Insulin so little bit of big brother rafe worried about his little sister and JJ and her not being together yet but he was super worried about her (like all of the pogues tbh). Thanks xxxx I really love your writing 🥺 every time you post something it makes my day ”
𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 1k
𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: fainting, almost passing out,
𝒂𝒖𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒓'𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒆: my boyfriend is type 1 and i really tried my best remembering everything he has to go through. hope this is accurate enough and y’all enjoy!! we love a sweet brother rafe and caring jj. 
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Summer, the season of warmth and light, a time of vitality and Boneyard parties. Air filled with salty atmosphere and the smoke of the bonfire. Teenagers trickled onto the beach, dragging kegs in the sand, chairs, and stereos. Partiers shed layers of clothing to embrace the heat and the warmth of the bodies next to them. 
Y/N savored the Boneyard parties, enjoying her time with friends and her siblings, the drinks, and the people-watching. She fell into a rhythm of dancing with one of her twin’s boyfriend’s friends, JJ. Sarah mentioned JJ occasionally, but Y/N was surprised at how well they clicked. The first time JJ and Y/N met, he gave her a cold shoulder–until she assisted him in winning a Beer Pong game. 
After several drinks and dancing the night away, Y/N began to feel light-headed. JJ kept his hands around her waist as she slowed down, the scenery around her became spinning. Racking through ideas of why she felt like this–she’d forgotten to take her blood sugar before leaving the house. 
The music and the conversations drowned out the sound of her insulin pump beeping loudly, signaling her blood sugar increased dangerously high. She couldn’t seem to focus on anything around her before her pump began vibrating in her pocket. If she wasn’t light-headed enough, the vibration made it worse. 
“I need to sit down,” Y/N muttered, pulling away from JJ’s grasp. His brows furrow, still holding onto her waist before sitting her down on some driftwood. Weaker and weaker, Y/N began fumbling with her pump. Dread coursed through her at the epiphany she ran out of insulin. Her mouth felt parched.
“JJ–Where’s Sarah?” Her voice was weak, as she glanced around the party to find her twin. Sarah and Y/N were never separated for long, before they knew it, Sarah spotted her sister and raced over.
“Hey, what’s going on?” She questioned before the realization of the situation hit her. 
“Her pump keeps beeping and–”
“Sarah, get Rafe–he has the glucagon in his car–” Y/N waved her hand, limply. 
Her twin didn’t need to hear anymore before Sarah and the rest of the Pogues hunt down Rafe Cameron. JJ held Y/N in his arms, stroking her hair as she lay there, hoping to calm her down. He kept small talk, making sure she didn’t actually pass out. On the edge of his seat, he kept looking for his friends or Rafe, hoping they’d come back soon with insulin for Y/N. 
Explicitly, JJ never stated his feelings for the Cameron twin, but the Pogues picked up on it by his constant desire to be within arms reach or asking if she’d be joining them today on whatever adventures they voyaged on. 
If she wasn’t feeling like passing out, she would be embarrassed. Being seen as weak and vulnerable in front of others was deemed to be her worst fear. JJ’s words blurred together as her hearing faded in and out, her vision becoming hazy.
“Come here, Y/N” Rafe spoke, now supporting his younger sister. Despite Y/N and Sarah being twins, Rafe and she had an unspoken bond. The sibling relationship held no jealousy, but empathy for each other’s struggles and relationships with their father. No competition or underlying hatred–something Rafe held against Sarah for being the favorite child. “I got you, let’s get this going for you.”
Rafe fumbled with the device, despite training for this emergency multiple times. JJ watched him kneel down beside his sister, and the hatred between the two disappeared. Rafe never approved of his sisters hanging out with the Pogues, but when it came to Y/N and her diabetes, nothing mattered anymore.
As the insulin started to take effect, Y/N started to feel better. Rafe and JJ sat with her, keeping her company until she became fully conscious again. Rafe held her hand, stroking his thumb over it. Seeing his sister in such a distressed state only made things worse for Rafe–not wanting to get the backlash from their father. Y/N constantly reminded him that her diabetes would never be his fault if something bad happened to her–she made sure Ward knew too. 
 Pope, Kie, and the couple watched over Y/N s well, worried that they would have to call an ambulance. 
"Thanks, Rafe," Y/N said, feeling grateful. "I'm sorry I'm such a burden and killing the mood."
Rafe chuckled. "You're not a burden," he said. "You're my little sister. I'll always be here to take care of you." A side of Rafe Cameron not many people witness. If anything were to happen to his siblings, under his watch, he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself. 
The night ended shortly after, Pope offering to drive Y/N home s she could fill her pump with insulin. Accepting his offer, JJ rode in the backseat with the Cameron girl. Her head rested on his shoulder, Pope peeking through the rearview mirror to make sure nothing else went awry. The two helped her inside, not wanting to leave until she made herself comfortable, fixed her pump, and got some light food and water in her. 
“Thank you, Pope,” She wrapped his arms around him. She knew how much he disliked Rafe–just relieved neither JJ nor Pope let their feelings get in the way of her health. Letting go, she faced the blonde. 
Pope waited in the car, allowing the two to talk privately. 
“I was hoping we’d have more time together tonight to dance and talk.” She confessed. JJ laughed, nodding his head. He wished the night didn’t end the way it did as well. 
“Hm, maybe tomorrow we can make up for a lost time–only if you remember to take care of yourself.”
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Dirty Work 38
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Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as bullying, familial discord/abuse, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.
This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.
Summary: You start a new gig and find one of your clients to be hard to please.
Characters: Loki
Note: I've been awake since 2am.
As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me.
Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!) Please do not just put ‘more’. I will block you.
I love you all immensely. Take care. 💖
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After breakfast, you get ready to go into town with Frigga and Hela upon their vaunted ladies’ trip. An air of uncertainty persists around what exactly that means. Flowers, shopping, and what else?
You try not to let the mystery overshadow the Odinsons’ hospitality. You’d hate to come across ungrateful after all they’d done. Odin and Frigga hadn’t asked for anything in return all while receiving you with an open hand. Just like with all things, you go along to get along.
The drive has you in a sort of trance as you watch the landscape pass. The lush greens and speckles of violet and pink across the fields, thickening to looming forest of coniferous pines and towering oaks. Finally, the wilds thin into even ground and open into a township with a painted wooden sign.
The buildings are old but well-kept. Not like the large city with its pitted brick and steaming sewers. Every street here is like those that surround Laufeyson’s own estate. Curated and pristine. Just like the Odinsons themselves.
You pull in at a large gated lot. The iron barrier is overgrown with flowers and as you enter, you gape around at the expanse of petals and stems. You’ve never been anywhere so spectacular.
You trail behind Frigga as she browses the selection. You shy away from Hela but she’s hardly concerned with you as she admires a bunch of dark roses. You peer around as an assistant approaches at Frigga’s signal.
“What do you think, dear?” Frigga calls to you, “we want white for the event. Lilies, baby’s breath, gardenia?”
You blink and give some thought, “what about daisies?”
She smiles, “daisies, so simple but pretty.” She turns to the assistant, “do you have many?”
“We should have a few boxes ready for delivery,” she answers.
“Wonderful, we will have some daisies. Oh, and we could have some wisteria hanging. Mm, and miss, white tulips? You have those too?”
The assistant scribbles on her pad, “we can do those as well.”
“Hydrangea,” Hela insists as she approaches, standing behind you, “for the posts.”
“Yes, certainly, hydrangea,” Frigga repeats with a sharp point to the assistant. “Oh and lastly, I spoke with Val about the moonflowers, tell me they’re ready.”
“Yes, Mrs. Odinson, we have those set aside already.”
“Good, good,” Frigga remarks, “well, we’ll look around a bit more and let you know if anything else is required.”
“Yes, Mrs. Odinson,” the assistant nods and prompts strolls away.
“You wouldn’t like a splash of red, mother? Maybe some black?” Hela muses, “this Walpurgisnacht will be blinding.”
“Oh, tosh,” Frigga dismisses, “we have a theme. Which reminds me, darling,” she turns to you, “do you have a white dress packed?”
“White?” You blink, “um, no, I didn’t…”
“Not to worry, it’s why we came to town,” she tweets.
“Oof, mother,” Hela cringes. 
“Well, I know you certainly don’t have suitable attire,” Frigga reproaches.
“Actually, I’ve a marvelous white jumpsuit selected for just the event,” Hela challenges, “I can listen, I just often choose not to.”
Frigga gives a pinch look before she returns her attention to you, “well then, our task will be easier. I think chiffon might be nice…”
“You know, mother, I do feel as if I’m being replaced,” Hela snickers. You send her a guilty look but her smile holds no malice. She winks and arches a brow. “And yet I do think this little creature will look delectable in white.”
“Mm, yes,” Frigga side-eyes her daughter, “you do have a way with words, don’t you?”
“Oh, pardon me, I should be more like my brothers, would you prefer Thor,” Hela mocks and reaches for your hand, taking it as she caresses it emphatically, “oh lady, you are beautiful, I should wonder if what you hide under your skirt is equally as stunning–”
“Hel,” Frigga exclaims, mortified as she snatches her grasp away from you.
“Ah, alright, Loki,” Hela clears her throat and stiffens her posture, adjusting a non-existent tie, “yes, you are rather adequate. Hm, very acceptable.”
“Don’t,” Frigga commands, “you didn’t have to come if you’re only going to make a joke of it.”
“Oh, mother, that’s simply what it is, a joke,” Hela bats her lashes, “loosen up. Is that not what this day is for? To enjoy ourselves?”
Frigga sighs and shakes her head as she turns away. Your mouth slants as you watch after her nervously. Hela clucks and flicks her fingers dismissively, “once she has a taste of wine, she’ll let go.”
You stand in the fitting room, staring dreadfully at the two hangers. One chosen by Frigga, the other by Hela. They are both beautiful but you’re not certain either of them suit you. You feel the long chiffon as you mull over the choice.
“Well, darling, let us see,” Frigga calls through the curtain.
You wince and recoil. You pull down the longer of the two, the flowy chiffon that caught Frigga’s eye. The one-shoulder cut cinches to draped skirt which drowns you. You look at yourself in the mirror and frown. The fabric seems to drown you.
You turn with a swish and pull back the curtain, stepping through awkwardly as you tug the skirt out of the way of your feet. Hela makes a noise somewhere between a snort and a gasp. Frigga fawns and daintily touches her cheeks.
“Oh, gods, that is gorgeous, isn’t it?” She comes forward and pinches a fold in the skirt.
“She looks like she’s caught in a snowstorm,” Hela muses, “please, she won’t be able to do much in all that.”
“I suppose,” Frigga backs up and folds her arms, “but I like the style, perhaps we might find something similar with less length.”
“Try mine,” Hela demands.
You look between them, not daring to argue with either. They seem to do enough of that. You spin and sweep behind the curtain once more. You shed the chiffon layers and pull on the satin sheath. There isn’t much to it. Thin straps and not much length, a slit up your thigh. It’s more lingerie than a dress.
You peek out shyly before you make yourself come out. Frigga’s face flushes and her lips part. Hela smirks and tilts her head as she bites her lip.
“Oh, fabulous,” Hela remarks.
“She cannot wear that,” Frigga throws a hand up.
“Why not, she has nice legs.”
“That isn’t… appropriate.”
“Well, mother, she can’t dress like an old matron either.”
“It was a perfectly nice dress–”
“For 1912,” Hela shoots back.
You shrink before them and let their back and forth fade into the background. You glance over the rack of white garments and zone out. You just want this to be over. You’re tired of being pulled back and forth like a game of tug-of-war.
Your name draws you back and you focus on the women watching you. You wince and teeter on your feet, “sorry, I was distracted.”
“I was saying,” Hela intones, “we should let you choose.”
“Me?” You blanch.
“Well, it is your dress,” Frigga utters reluctantly.
“Oh, but I… don’t know much about… clothes.”
“Never too late to learn,” Hela insists, “go on, have your pick. Surprise us.”
You glance back at the rack and wiggle your fingers. You slowly approach as the two other women retreat, still muttering to each other. You push through the hangers; too heavy, too stiff, too sheer.
You think you like this one. A simple sheath lining with a mesh overlay, little crepe flowers sewn into the out later. The straps are slender but the bodice is straight cut. It’s wonderful and dreamy. You take the hanger and quickly scurry back behind the curtain.
You switch out the short dress for your pick. You look at your reflection and nearly stagger. You love it. It’s adorable. You go to the curtain and brace yourself. What if they don’t like it? You exhale and ready yourself for disappointment.
You step through and the women face you. Neither say a word as they look at you. They consider you, eyeing you head to toe. Oh no! It’s hideous, isn’t it? You have no taste.
“I love it,” Hela chirps, “what about you, mother? Isn’t it gorgeous on her?”
“I… it’s so… you,” Frigga squeals, “yes, it’s perfect. And the little flowers. Ugh, amazing.”
“Really?” You stand on your toes nervously.
“You must have it,” Hela insists, “next, shoes… the pairing must be perfect.”
“Shoes…” you murmur. Does it ever end?
Your day doesn’t end after the boutique. The tumultuous night slumps in your shoulders and droops in your eyelids as the hours stretch on. Your next stop is a sleek white building with sparkling glass doors. As you enter, the sterile lobby has you minimizing yourself in fear of staining the pure white tile or breaking the crystal counter.
Frigga and Hela strut towards the woman who stands behind the glass table and greet her breezily. She welcomes them by name as you trail behind like a mouse. You don’t belong here. Not a place like this. You might be with them but you’re not one of them.
Once more, you sink into a daze, trying to distance yourself from the present. From those feelings of unbelonging. Those old wounds from the schoolyard when you stood by the fence and kicked rocks, not daring to provoke anyone with an errant gaze.
“Dear,” Frigga jars you as she gently touches your arm, “did you have ID?”
“ID?” You say dumbly, not processing her request at first.
“They serve alcohol so it’s required to check-in,” she explains.
“Oh, um, yeah,” you clumsily grab your purse and unzip the top. You dig out your ID card and hand it over. Frigga has a brief glance at it before handing it over. The twitch beneath her eye worries you; has it expired?
You wait as Hela taps her short nails on the counter top. Finally, the woman behind the counter approves you for entry. You still don’t really get what this place is. There’s no signs aside from the marquee in swoopy cursive; Hvergelmir.
Another woman appears and takes you through an angular doorway. You’re guided to a private room with robes on hooks, cushioned benches and small cubbies. You watch Hela and Frigga as they remove their heels and set them on the low rack. You do the same, doing everything they do at a delay.
They tuck their bags into the cubbies and undress without shame, keeping only their underwear on as they wrap themselves in the silken robes. You face the corner as you strip and pull on a robe yourself.
It isn’t until you move on to the next room that you realise what this place is. A spa. You’ve never been to one but it’s exactly like you��ve seen on television. You recline as a woman smears your face with a mask and places cucumbers over your eyes. It’s relaxing even if it feels a bit strange.
After laying there for what seems like forever, a woman comes in to offer stemmed glasses of sparkling wine. You remove the sliced veggies from your eyes and accept one in kind with the other women.
“I think I might get a wrap,” Hela declares, “I need the cleanse.”
“Mm, I think I might do the steam room,” Frigga drawls before she sips from her glass. You take a tiny sip, reminding yourself of your last indulgence and the disaster that followed. Hela downs half the glass in a single gulp.
“What about you?” Hela looks at you pointedly. “Would you like to join me for the seaweed wrap?”
“Um, what is that?” You ask.
“Oh, darling,” Frigga sits up and grabs a leather folio, “have a look. You can choose whatever you like.”
You accept the little booklet and open it up to the laminated inside. You read through each item and the description below. The steam room sounds uncomfortable, you’re not a fan of sweating, and the seaweed thing sounds slimy…
“Mud bath?” You read allowed.
“Good choice,” Hela praises, “I might join you after my wrap.”
“Oh, okay,” you close the book and put it on the small round table close to you.
Frigga picks up the small golden bell and rings it. The same woman appears and Frigga lists off the treatments for each of you. She’s led away first, then someone comes to fetch Hela, and finally, you’re taken away by another woman with a high ponytail.
The woman helps you cover your hair with a towel and hands you back your wine glass. She leads you into a room with long rectangular tubs filled with reddish brown muck. She points you to one at the end and you put your glass on the little ledge that juts out from the side.
She helps you remove your robe, “you can keep your underwear on if you like. We can provide a fresh pair after, but you may want to remove your bra.”
You nod and dip your head down to unhook your bra. She reaches to take it and you hesitantly hand it over. She hangs your robe from a hook on the wall and leaves you there. Alright, so you just get in?
You step over the high wall of the tub and lower yourself into the warm mud. It doesn’t feel too bad. You slide around slightly before you’re able to find your bearings and reclining against the slanted back. Is this relaxing? 
You close your eyes but not for long. You end up staring at the lines between the ceiling tiles. You stir the mud with your fingers. You feel childish, like you're making mud pies.
You stop as you hear voices. You peek over for just a moment as someone else enters. A tall woman with a swirl of black hair escaping the towel on her head strides in, her tall figure draped in one of the ivory robes. The attendant takes her to the tub across from yours.
You try not to watch as she opens her robe, revealing her sleek body shamelessly. She eases into the tub with a sigh and the attendant leaves. You keep your eyes up as tension fills the space.
“The mud is nice today,” she says, startling you.
You nod and look at her as she stretches her arms around the walls of the tub. Her chest is barely concealed by the muck.
“You don’t come here often. I’ve not seen you around.”
You shake your head, “first time.”
“Ah,” her blue eyes gleam, “special occasion?”
“Erm, not really, I… Walpurgisnacht,” you pronounce the word delicately.
“That’s not for a few days,” she intones.
“You know it?”
“Yes, of course, everyone around here does. And this year, with Frigga hosting, it will be a spectacle.”
“You know Frigga?” You wonder.
She laughs, “of course I do. Who doesn’t?” Her tone is dry and her expression haughty, “how do you know her?”
“Um, I… work for her son,” you utter flatly.
“Thor?”
“Mr. Laufeyson,” you correct her.
“How amusing,” she smirks, “what’s your name?”
You answer, your chest binding up tightly. You feel like you shouldn’t be talking to her. Something about the way she grins.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she purrs, “I’m Sif. You might tell my ex-husband I send my regards.”
You swallow dryly and stare at her. Your heart is pounding and your ears ringing. Sif? In the flesh? She’s absolutely gorgeous. You can see why she haunts the Odinsons. She’s perfect. 
Now you know why you will never live up to Laufeyson’s expectations. Why he’s so hard to please. Compared to her, well, you can never compare to her. She is immaculate.
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sinsirellaxx · 2 months
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Forgotten hero, friend and love
Sebastian Sallow x Reader
Requested on AO3: Hey :😀 i habe two requests if you dont mind!
(I suck at writing plus english is not my first language)
Both are Sebastian x F!Reader with HE
First one is with a healed Anne (Solomons death ever happened) and Sebastian (and Ominis, slightly) is too focused on Anne that he kind of forget the friendship and his crush on Reader. Reader is hurt and distance herself from them. Ominis notice this and want all of them to be a quadruplets. Plus Ominis is the best wingman for the two morons 😆
A/N: This is kinda sad at the beginning. 🥲
_
She was happy – she truly was. It had been their mission ever since they met each other after all … but she had not expected to feel this empty, this used after succeeding. After successfully helping her best friend and first love save his twin sister. Anne was lovely – she truly was, don’t get Y/N wrong. She was elated that she could finally come back to school and join her twin and their best friend in tackling all kinds of Hogwarts related stuff. She vividly remembered the way Sebastian’s eyes had lit up before he was overcome by his emotions, running to hug his twin before lifting her up to twirl her. Y/N remembered the way their uncle had tried to hide his tearful face as he apologized for not believing Sebastian.
After this and the threat of Ranrok finally being gone – the girl had expected everything to be better, now that Sebastian’s mood had obviously improved by a million and herself did not have to worry about saving the school anymore.
They were four instead of three people now at school – and she definitely did not expect to feel this lonely. The teenage girl felt like she had been replaced – although she obviously had been a replacement for Anne … and now that she was back, there was no space for her. At least that’s how she felt as she stared at the entrance to the undercroft – her eyes blinking away the tears that were fighting their way up, trying to prove that she was more hurt by the changes than she refused to accept.
Sebastian had stood her up.
Again.
As the first tear successfully rolled down the corner of her eye, her bottom lip started wobbling.
As the first sob made its way up her throat, she slid down the wall, hugging her legs to her chest as she hid her face from the world.
As the first hour passed, she gave up completely and sat in the dark in silence.
-
The next day she glared at the mirror, visibly offended by the treacherous way her eyes had swollen up slightly over the night. There was a brief moment of panic as she thought about an excuse, about what she was going to tell her friends – but she highly doubted they’d notice, so her shoulders relaxed as she got ready for the day.
And just as expected: the trio hadn’t noticed – not that Ominis could even if he wanted to. Even though she knew that Sebastian forgot, there was still a slight sliver of hope that he would apologize for standing her up for the fifth time in three weeks – he didn’t. She knew he wouldn’t, but her heart still broke into a million pieces, leaving a trail behind as she followed the trio to the Great Hall.
Her eyes lifted briefly as she stared at their backs, her eyes stopping at Ominis – he had always been so sensitive to other people’s feelings. But now, even he did not notice – or care to notice that Y/N was drifting away. Y/N understood, he had known Anne for so long and the Sallows were like family to him. She could never be that.
As they sat down to eat, Y/N didn’t bother lifting her head to look at her friends, knowing that they were invested in talking to Anne about everything that she had missed and everything that they’d do together. She pushed her food from one side to the other on her plate until she let the fork slip from her fingers and onto the table with a small clinking sound. Heaving a sigh, she pushed herself up and away from the table as she clumsily climbed over the bench, sluggishly walking away and out of the Great Hall. There was no one calling after her as she left.
-
Sat in Divination she was glad she wouldn’t have to see any of the trio. Leaning back in her seat she stared at the cup in front of her.
“Y/N, is everything alright?” At the soft voice of her dear friend Natsai she looked up and was met by warm yet worried eyes.
“Huh?”
“Are you alright?” She softly repeated her question, her left hand reaching out to softly hold one of her’s. “You look like you have been crying.”
At the last question, Y/N had to bite her tongue to prevent herself from bursting into tears right in front of everyone. The only thing she could manage as a reply was a short nod and blinking eyes. Natsai did not look convinced, yet she did not want to pressure her best friend into answering if she did not feel comfortable in doing so. She gave the sad girl another – hopefully – reassuring squeeze before letting her hand go.
_
At dinner, before she could move to her table, Garreth Weasley stood in front of her, with a wide smile on his face.
“Want to sit with us? We haven’t really talked in a while – and I kinda missed it.” He asked as he sheepishly scratched the back of his neck. The word ‘you’ left unspoken, as it was what he really wanted to say.
“Only if you want to, that is!” He quickly added as he saw the hesitation on Y/N’s face.
With a small smile the girl nodded as she let herself be pulled to the Gryffindor table, her wrist warm from the way he had wrapped his big hand around her small wrist.
As she sat down next to a smiling Natsai she briefly forgot about her heartbreak. It felt nice to be a part of a group again, she thought as she laughed at a joke Garreth told.
_
Days had passed and Y/N hadn’t sat at the Slytherin table ever since the day she had been asked to join her Gryffindor friends. Ominis had been the first one to notice her absence and he immediately felt guilt settle in his stomach at the realization of having completely neglected their dear friend. He walked up to Sebastian’s bed before going to sleep and asked him if he had talked to Y/N in the last few days.
Sebastian frowned as he sat up in his bed. “Not really … honestly. I think I haven’t really talked to her in weeks.” His eyes suddenly widened. “Merlin, I haven’t even been to the f*cking study-dates that we had agreed upon!” He shrieked as he jumped up from his bed.
“We have been completely shutting her out of the group, you realize that right?” Ominis spoke calmly with a raised brow.
Sebastian groaned as he paced their dorm, his hands in his hair as he thought of all the times, he had stood her up without her even saying anything. He remembers the first two times he had forgotten – she had lightly scolded him for having her wait the whole night before she had finally given up. Sebastian had told Y/N then, that he would make it up to her only to forget about it again.
And after that Y/N had not said anything anymore. Sebastian felt like throwing up – how could he neglect the one person he actually fell in love with – the one person, who helped him save his sister without really knowing him or her. She had done everything, faced so many obstacles and dangerous situations just to help him.
“Yeah, you f*cked up big time, Sebastian. But not just you … I wasn’t exactly a good friend either.” Ominis mumbled as he hung his head.
“B-But, where has she been the last few days? She hasn’t been sitting with us at all – right?” The brunette questioned as he let himself fall on his bed.
“She’s been spending more time with Garreth.” Ominis knew that Y/N had been spending more time with all her other friends but he chose to only mention his name, because he knew that mentioning Garreth’s name would ring all the alarm bells in his stupid friend’s head.
“What? With Garreth?!” Sebastian sputtered, the nausea returning tenfold at the mention of his name. He was aware of the crush the ginger-haired boy had on Y/N. “I need to see her.” He jumped up, angrily marching towards the door only to be stopped by Ominis’ firm hand on his shoulder.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Ominis asked, his voice not hiding his annoyance.
“I’m going to Y/N’s dorm.”
“And then?”
“I-I don’t know. I’ll talk to her. Why would she spend so much time with that Weasley?!”
Something snapped in Ominis as he hit the back of his friend’s head. “Are you for real, Sebastian? That’s the only thing you’re worried about right now?” The blonde scoffed. “You’ve been basically ignoring Y/N for the past few weeks, after everything she has done for you – for us – and you are just worried about her being close with Garreth Weasley?” He cocked his brow in disbelief at the male twin’s audacity.
“What are you going to say if you walk to her right now? Aree you going to say: ‘Hey, Y/N. I know I’ve been ignoring you for the past few weeks but – why are you talking to Garreth?’? Don’t be ridiculous, Sebastian.”
“You’re right.” The brunette mumbled as the initial anger melted away. He let himself fall on his bed face first, his voice muffled as he spoke. “What am I going to do?”
“Beg for forgiveness – I don’t know.” Ominis shrugged his shoulders as he thought of a way to save their friendship and Sebastian’s possible future relationship. “You’ll have to think of something.”
Y/N waved her friends goodbye as she walked towards her dorm. It was finally Friday, which meant she – and almost everyone else – could sleep in. The closer she got to the Slytherin common room, the tenser she grew – she hoped she wouldn’t see any of her Slytherin friends.
The common room was weirdly empty – just a few lone students reading or playing card games together. Her shoulders relaxed as she walked up the stairs to her dorm room, her brows furrowing as she noticed a letter lying right in front of her door. Bending down to take the letter into her hand, she turned it around to see who it was addressed to, her eyes widening as she saw her name written clumsily onto the envelope. Turning it around she opened it and pulled out the folded paper.
Please meet me at the undercroft. I’ll be waiting.
S.S.
Y/N clenched her jaw as all kinds of emotions rushed through her, her eyes scanning over the few words again and again. She felt sadness, bitter, petty, curious but most importantly: she felt angry. Sebastian had completely forgotten about her and now he suddenly wanted to see her and asked her to come to him.
Y/N stared at the offending paper for another two minutes as she contemplated about her decision. She had been stood up several times, so why should she go because he asked one time? But if she ignored his request, she’d surely regret it, curious as she was … and a small part of her heart roared as she read his initials. Yearning to talk to him again. With a huff she folded the letter and stuffed it into her pocket before she turned to walk towards the undercroft.
Her curiosity always won.
-
Walking through the entrance there were many things that Y/N had expected – she had expected Sebastian to impatiently pace the room, with weird scripts in his hands that he wanted to show her. She had also expected the room to be empty with no Sebastian in sight. What she did not expect, however, were a trail of rose petals and lit candles leading up to a nicely decorated small table with snacks and drinks – and more roses.
The young girl’s mouth fell open as she took in the sight, coming to a halt as her eyes moved up to Sebastian’s figure standing behind the table with a tense smile on his face. The brunette was obviously nervous as his eyes carefully scanned over Y/N’s features.
“Hey …” Sebastian finally broke the silence – way too impatient to wait for Y/N to say something first. His nerves wouldn’t let him be patient.
“Before you say anything … I want to apologize; I am so sorry for neglecting you – the one person that has helped me through everything. You, who has saved my sister. You put so much trust in me, even though you barely knew me. You were always there for us – for me. And yet I managed to make you feel invisible. I probably made you feel like I used you too …” Sebastian paused for a second, catching his breath as he walked around the table and towards you.
“I know I don’t deserve it – I am a complete twat for all of this – but please. I’m so, so sorry. I need you – I don’t think I’ll ever not need you anymore. Please forgive me. I promise to always put you first.” Sebastian begged, tears welling up in his eyes as he stared into your equally watery eyes. “Because I love you – I know it didn’t look like it the past few weeks – but I really do. I love you. I have loved you ever since you beat my ass in our very first duel.”
At that a giggle forced its way out of Y/N’s lips, her cheeks growing hotter as the male continued.
“You are – you are just amazing. Please … please forgive me, Y/N.” Sebastian whispered as he lifted his hands to wipe the tears that had found their way down her flushed cheeks, before moving to cup them lovingly.
“Sebastian … I honestly don’t know what to say. You truly hurt me and when I got your note, a big part of me didn’t want to come. I didn’t think I’d be ready to see you. I’m still so angry and hurt.” Y/N spoke carefully, her eyes taking note of the way Sebastian’s jaw tensed. “And it is true that you probably don’t deserve it … but I love you too, Sebastian.” She finished as she averted her eyes – and if she had not, she would have seen the way the male’s eyes lit up in excitement, the way the corners of his lips tugged upwards into a beaming smile – his brain too focused on the fact that his crush reciprocated his feelings.
“So … do you forgive me?” Sebastian asked hopeful.
“I guess I will … in time. But it’ll cost you.” Y/N teased as she lifted her gaze, lifting her eyebrow jokingly at him.
“Anything you want. I’ll do anything!” Sebastian rushed out as his thumbs stroked over her cheeks.
“Start with a kiss, then.”
-
A/N: Idk why, but this oneshot started off as rather depressing. Hope you still liked it! I also felt like I rushed through most bits but honestly, this could be a whole chaptered fic in my opinion.
Would you have forgiven Sebastian? 👀
Hope you liked it!
219 notes · View notes
hugmekenobi · 3 months
Text
Next Steps
A Bad Batch Post S2 Oneshot
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Gif by @im-no-jedi
Hunter x femaleJedi!reader
Summary: Although your return to the Batch has made things better, there are still elements of your past you have to face...
Warnings: Canon-typical violence, made-up timeline and what I imagine what Echo will be doing, limited use of y/n, swearing, my views on mindsets, referenced 'dead' characters and nightmares, mentions/descriptions of torture, detailed scar descriptions, angst, light fluff, nickname 'sweetheart', some emotional hurt/comfort, body and general worship, Hunter being dominant but a consent king, hint of a praise kink, Smut (non-explicit descriptions of making out/kissing, grinding, edging, fingering, oral (f) receiving, overstimulation, handjob, unprotected p in v- not in reality please), reader described as strong and powerful, smart and beautiful, Force-communication and more of my general interpretation of how the Force feels/works
Masterlist for S1 and S2
Word Count: 12.8K
Rating: 18+
Author's note: Once again, a massive thank you to @burningfieldof-clover for helping me when I got stuck and who I am very grateful to have as a friend! Dropping this before S3 graces our screens and I hope you all enjoy!
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Chibbier
Echo waited in the forest clearing as the Marauder touched down. “I got your message. It sounded urgent, is everything alright?” Echo asked as soon as the door to the Marauder opened revealing his two brothers.
“Everything is fine, Echo.” Hunter said.
“More than fine.” Wrecker emphasised.
“But we agreed we weren’t to meet until (Y/N) was back with us so unless you’ve found her…” He trailed off as he saw the smile tugging at Wrecker’s mouth and Hunter in particular seemed more at ease than he’d been in the recent months. “Wait a second, you mean-”
“Hey stranger.” You said with a grin as you came into view and stood between Hunter and Wrecker. You laughed as Echo’s expression changed from stunned to happy then to relief in quick succession. You jogged down the steps and embraced him tightly. “Long time no see.”
“I’ll say.” Echo replied with a smile as he mirrored your actions. “You had me worried.”
“Worried?” You queried. It sounded like he had a specific worry in mind rather than the general worries that had plagued the rest of you for months.
“Last news of you I’d heard had me getting ready to tell the boys to launch a rescue mission.” Echo said as he parted from you. “But lucky for us, they found you before I needed to share that.”
If you weren’t so happy to see him, you could’ve punched him. You weren’t far away enough from the other two and you knew Echo’s words wouldn’t go unheard, especially by the clone with enhanced senses. You hadn’t gotten around to sharing that part of your time alone and you weren’t sure that you wanted to either.
Hunter hadn’t forgotten that there was something about your past that you weren’t telling him. He’d noticed small shifts and changes in your behaviour since you’d been back. It was things like you made sure to keep your top layer on at all times and if you had to take it off, you would always go to the refresher regardless of it you were alone or not which was something you never used to do. You hadn’t communicated with either him or Wrecker in the silent way you were able to do where they’d hear your voice in their head which was something you did regularly in the past. You were also more emotionally and physically distant, the latter happening at night in particular and ordinarily it wouldn’t bother him, but he knew the cause was rooted in something you’d gone through. But every time he tried to broach the issue, you refused to talk about whatever it was that was causing it, and it pained him that he could do nothing but watch the negative impact it continued to have on you.
“What’s going on with, Omega? Any new leads?” You asked Echo instead, ignoring Hunter’s hand that now rested on your upper arm.
“(Y/N)-”
“Not now, Hunter. Please.”
Hunter released a quiet and resigned sigh. He wanted to help you if he could, but he also knew he had to wait until you were ready. It was just getting harder to do that.
Echo glanced between the two of you. “I said something I shouldn’t have, didn’t I?”
You shook your head. “Don’t worry about it. Just fill us in.”
Echo’s eyes darted to Hunter who only nodded. He took a breath and waited for Wrecker to join the three of you. “Nothing new. Imperial security on Hemlock is tight and any breakthrough just results in more cryptic information.”
“Yeah, we’ve had much of the same.” You agreed irritably.
Echo nodded before he faced Hunter. “I know we said that we’d come together once we had (Y/N) back with us, but I think it’s better if I stay doing what I’m doing. Rex and I are going to meet and try to pool together what we’ve gathered. We can tell you what we find and send you to follow up on other sources since we can’t cover everything ourselves and you can also keep searching on your own.”
Before Hunter could form a reply, the sound of branches snapping grabbed his attention.
The blaster bolt that immediately followed the noise, skimmed the armour on your upper arm.
You all reacted quickly and took cover behind the trees.
The onslaught of fire was being directed towards you and would only occasionally be aimed to your fellow clones as a way to keep them from advancing towards the source. Evidently you were the main target here.
“Hunter!” You shouted over the sound of blaster fire. When he pressed his back against the tree trunk and his helmet looked over to you, you called on the Force and dragged the assailant out from their spot, and a well-aimed shot from Hunter saw to it that the blaster was rendered useless. You kept that link with your ally to Force-push them into another tree, and they crumbled to the floor.
All of you lowered your blaster for the moment. You needed to find out why they were here, killing them immediately wouldn’t get you very far.
You stepped out from behind your tree and observed the bounty hunter carefully. Throughout the firefight, you’d felt yourself being pulled towards them, but you couldn’t work out why and that urge hadn’t gone away.
Stiff and unsteady movements had you readying your blaster again but as the hunter got to their feet and caught your eye, you understood why that feeling was there.
Your heart stopped and you stayed rooted to the spot as you saw the blade ignite from the hilt they were holding. The ground around them illuminated in a pale blue haze and you understood what was calling you to the hunter now. Your feet suddenly began moving of their own accord.
The other three all shared a collective bewildered look at what was unfolding in front of them.
Hunter collected his shock quickly and raised his hand to order the others to halt their fire as you fully stepped out to into the clearing.
The bounty hunter charged for you, but the attack posed little threat to you. Whoever this was had no idea how to use an elegant weapon like this and their grip was heavy and clumsy. It wouldn’t take much for you to disarm them.
You ducked under their reckless and uncoordinated swing, grabbed their wrist, and bent it back until the weapon fell from their grasp. You landed a hard kick to their chest, and they stumbled back. The hood fell loose- now exposing a feminine face- but she wasn’t a bounty hunter you recognised. You didn’t have much time to dwell on that since she grabbed a small knife from her boot and jabbed it towards your stomach. You parried away her strikes before you grew tired of dragging this altercation out. Landing a strong punch to her jaw, you used her dazed disposition to Force-pull her face down to the forest floor and waved the others forward.
Hunter and Wrecker pressed their knees into her back and brought her arms around to firmly hold them behind her.
You paid little attention to what they were doing. You hesitantly walked over to the weapon left discarded on the ground.
“Who hired you?” Hunter demanded as he held her down.
“Fuck off.” She snarled as she fought against their grip, but they were too strong, and she was in a much weaker position than she’d been in ten minutes ago.
Echo merely bent down to reach into her jacket pocket and pulled out the tracking fob and bounty puck. Your holographic image confirming what they’d all suspected.
Upon seeing that, Hunter found himself pushing his knee deeper into her spine, paying little attention to her groans of protest.
“Where did you get this?” You questioned softly, more to yourself than anything. You kept your back turned to her as you knelt down and studied the familiar design on the hilt. You couldn’t pick it up, not yet. You knew what you would feel if you did, and you weren’t sure if you were ready for that.
“What?” The bounty hunter snapped as she went for another attempt to wriggle free, but the two clones kept her tight to the forest floor.
You stiffened your posture as you turned on your heels and strode over to her. You lowered your mask, found your voice, and crouched down to her eye level. “Where did you get the lightsaber?” You pointed back to where the weapon still lay abandoned.
“I’m not telling you a thing, Jedi brat.” She spat.
At her words, Hunter twisted her arm harder, ignoring her pained cry.
You signalled to Hunter to ease up and you stood tall once more and indicated to them both to get her on her feet.
Once they did so, you pressed your blaster against her stomach and brought your lips close to her ear- your voice a quiet but lethal whisper. “You know who I am and what I’ve done to people to get what I want. Do you want to be next?” At her harsh gulp, you kept pushing. “I can’t imagine what that’ll do for your reputation in your community... then again, maybe I can… shall we find out?” You knew you’d done enough as you sensed her flicker of fear. You took a step back and looked at her with a firm glare.
“It was the client I did the job for.” She muttered begrudgingly. She wasn’t about to be maimed or die for a job that wasn’t paying all that much in the first place. She’d worked too hard to be seen as a contender, she couldn’t lose that now.
“And who was that?” Hunter asked again, his voice steely.
“Some shop owner.” She replied irritably.
“A name.” You insisted.
“I can’t remember.”
You puffed out an exasperated sigh and took a half step forward.
“Kedrin! His name was Kedrin!” She revealed fretfully.
You saw the shared look between Hunter and Wrecker. “That name mean something to you?”
Wrecker nodded. “He was the one that told us to go to Christophsis to find you.”
The name meant nothing to you upon initially hearing it but evidently you were involved somehow. You ran the information over in your head. Shop owner… Kedrin… Christophsis… it was starting to make sense in your head and that would mean… Your breath caught in your throat as it hit you. You hadn’t even known his name and you’d taken his only family away from him.
“Why set the bounty on her?” Echo asked coolly, keeping his blaster focused on her.
“Not really supposed to ask.” She grunted. “He just mentioned a dead brother.” She saw the flash of something in your eyes… it looked like regret. “Oh… you killed him.”
You glared at her. You hadn’t had time to fill Echo in yet and this was not how you wanted to go about it.
Echo’s eyes darted from her to you. “What is she talking about?”
“Echo…” You started but a cruel laugh from the bounty hunter interrupted you.
“Oh, she’s achieved quite the reputation. Can’t go far in the Outer Rim without coming across someone who had dealings with her.”
Echo angled his head to face you, but you wouldn’t meet his gaze. As hard as you were trying to hide it, you looked… ashamed?
“Back off.” Wrecker growled at the hunter as he saw your mask of composure slip for a moment.
“What’s the matter, Jedi? Suddenly the killing and torture got too much for you? If they were all as weak as you, no wonder they’re all gone.” She taunted mercilessly.
“Shut up.” Hunter snarled as he saw the way your fists clenched as you worked on keeping your distress at bay.
But you knew it was a pointless venture. Despite her current predicament, that bounty hunter arrogance was in full flow now that she’d discovered your weakness, and she wasn’t about to stop. Her stare was filled with malice, but you wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of turning away. Your shoulders heaved as you worked on keeping your breathing even and controlled.  
The bounty hunter addressed the clones now. "I didn’t get much guidance from my client aside from ‘kill her’ so ever since I picked up that bounty, I've been trying to think of the most chaotic way to take her out. She's obviously felt enough emotional turmoil that an easy death would be a mercy. Jedi don't deserve the luxury. I like to play with my food before I kill it."
“And how’s that worked out for you?” You retorted though your conviction was weak as her words found their mark and her sneer told you she was completely unbothered about her current situation now. Your only plan involved letting her overconfidence be her own undoing.
“Nice try.” She mocked. “For a moment I believed your threats but now that I’m really looking at you, I know you don’t have it in you to kill me anymore. You’ve gone soft and you’re pathetic I can see it in your eyes- you’re haunted by what you’ve done, Jedi.”
Your jaw clenched and you could feel those emotions you’d worked so hard to control start to rise to the surface.
“I’m getting outta here and I fully intend to finish what the Empire started-”
Hunter’s fatal shot to her chest silenced her and she flopped to the ground.
“Looks like you have something you need to deal with first.” Echo advised Hunter as he destroyed the puck and tracking fob for good measure before he holstered his blaster. He faced you. “I still don’t know what happened whilst you were on your own, but your past is your own, I won’t hold anything against you, we’re still okay.” He reassured you.
You barely managed a nod of acknowledgement as her words were still replaying in your mind, but you wouldn’t let it show. Instead, you took out your vibroblade and cut a section of her clothing. You stayed silent as you took the piece of fabric and wrapped the lightsaber in it. You knew it was a lame gesture- especially since you immediately felt that rush of connection as you lifted it- but it provided you with a false sense of security that you would rather have because the second you made unrestrained contact with it, you knew you wouldn’t be able to resist or turn your back on it again. You held the hilt tightly before you waved farewell to Echo and made for the ship.
Hunter nodded absentmindedly at Echo’s words whilst his gaze was fixed on you. He knew seeing that lightsaber might bring back some memories, but the intensity of your reaction told him there was more to it than simply remembering that period of your life. He pulled himself out of his thoughts and reached his hand out to Echo. “Be safe, Echo. We’ll be in touch once we’ve dealt with this.”
“You too.” Echo replied, meeting Hunter’s hand in a firm handshake before they parted, and he watched Hunter head back to the Marauder.
“See you later, Echo.” Wrecker said warmly as he lightly slapped his brother’s shoulder before he followed Hunter to the ship.
--
“What’s so special about this lightsaber?” Wrecker asked as the ship entered hyperspace.
Hunter leaned against the entrance to the cockpit, arms crossed as he studied you. Your eyes hadn’t left the weapon sitting in your lap.
“It’s mine.” You said quietly.
Hunter immediately straightened up. “It’s yours?” He repeated.
“Yup.” You cleared your throat and brought your eyes up to face the two clones. “I figured it would’ve been destroyed in Order 66. Guess not.” You said with a resigned sigh.
“Woah! Talk about lucky!” Wrecker said excitedly but you didn’t seem to match his enthusiasm. “This is good news, isn’t it?” He asked, tilting his head at you.
“I don’t know what kind of news it is, Wrecker.” You said honestly.
“What’s your hold up?” Hunter asked curiously.
“Yeah, it’s a pretty handy weapon to have and if it belongs to you, isn’t it better that it’s back with you?” Wrecker followed up.
“It’s difficult to explain.” You deflected.
“Try us.” Hunter encouraged gently.
You shot him a look, hoping he would drop it but the look in his eyes told you that he was not for dissuading. You released a short breath. “It would be like taking back a section of my life I was ready to leave behind. That I had left behind… for years.”
“And you don’t know if you’re ready to reconnect with that part of you yet?” Hunter guessed.
You shrugged in complacent agreement. “Making the choice to leave the Jedi Order was already difficult and leaving my lightsaber…. well, that was hard enough the first time and now that I have it back… I don’t know.” You ran a hand over your face. “It’s just complicated.” You got to your feet and carefully put the lightsaber on a shelf in the cockpit.
Wrecker slapped his hands against his thighs. “Well, I always think things look less complicated after a good sleep, what do ya say? We all could use some rest before we sort out this Kedrin guy.”
Sleep didn’t provide you with much respite these days, but you hummed out a quiet laugh and shared a brief smile with Hunter. “Sounds like a good idea, Wrecker.”
--
Hunter jolted awake, panic setting in as he reached for you only to find that you weren’t there, and he had a horrible feeling that he hadn’t woken up yet. But no, he could hear Wrecker’s faint snores, so he had to be awake, and he knew he was back with you, it wasn’t a trick. There would be a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why you weren’t lying next to him right now.
He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. You were here, you’d been here for a while now. He’d found you; you were okay. It wasn’t like before. You were probably just in the cockpit. Yes, that’s where you had to be.
When he felt himself calm down, he got to his feet and noiselessly made his way there but paused in the entryway as he saw you reading one of Tech’s old datapads, top layer still on, feet tucked up beneath you as you sat in the pilot’s seat. He thought he’d gathered them all. “Where’d you find that?” He rasped; his voice still thick with sleep.
You jumped in your chair as you heard him. You had been utterly absorbed in what you were reading, you hadn’t sensed him approach. You looked up to see Hunter standing in the doorway to the cockpit. “Tucked behind the medkit. I forgot how much Tech truly recorded.” You said in fond remembrance although there was an overall sense of sorrow in your voice. You flashed him the title of the current report you were reading. “Remember that mission on Ryloth?”
“You and Wrecker got separated from the rest of us and decided to blow up the target from the inside and escape through the garbage chute if I remember correctly?”
“Right.” You said with a soft chuckle.
“Pretty sure that was the mission that made you a fully-fledged member of our squad, Wrecker couldn’t stop raving about you after that. I was almost jealous.” Hunter managed to joke.
You gave him a small grin at that before you turned off the datapad and properly took him in. “Guess you couldn’t sleep either?” You asked in a hushed voice as Hunter stepped further into the cockpit.
Hunter merely shook his head and sat across from you.
“Nightmares?” You figured as you delicately put the datapad back and sat in your seat once more.
“I prefer calling them recaps.” Hunter muttered dully as he sat across from you.
You reached for his knee and squeezed it comfortingly. “Do you want to talk more about them?”
Hunter shook his head. “You know and lived it all too and being here with you helps anyway. What about you?”
“Just a lot weighing on my mind.” You said airily as you brought your hand back to your lap.
Hunter made a small noise of quiet understanding. He hadn’t been expecting much more by way of a response from you.
“I don’t know how he does it.” You whispered in sad envy as you jutted your chin over to where Wrecker was sleeping soundly.
Hunter followed your gaze and sighed. “It’s the only way he can switch off. Especially in the early months, he struggled with remembering everything.”
“Yeah, any form of healing from all this won’t be easy.” You said with a heavy breath.
“Wrecker might be able to sleep better than we can, but he keeps a blaster by him and has his hand on it at all times. I don’t think he ever wants to be caught off guard again.” Hunter replied solemnly. “Moving on won’t ever be simple.”
You dipped your head in agreement and leaned back in your chair.
The minutes ticked by and the two of you sat in comfortable silence for a while before Hunter cleared his throat. “I’m going to be selfish for a moment, okay?”
You tilted your head at him and adjusted your posture to give him your full attention. “Okay…”
Hunter took another breath, his throat bobbing before he spoke, “You can’t leave me to wake up alone like that.”
It hit you immediately. Fuck, you’d been an idiot, of course you couldn’t do that. If he’d done that to you, you would lose your shit. How could you have been so stupid? “Hunter-”
“I had one night too many of waking up to a cold and empty space and worrying about where you were and what was happening to you. I can’t go through it again, I won’t. Not anymore.”
You’d been so wrapped up in your own head, you hadn’t even considered what that would do to him, but you should’ve known better, especially because your reaction would be exactly like his. You quietly stood up and closed the short gap between you to straddle his lap.
He accommodated you in an instant and his eyes fluttered shut as you gently stroked your fingers through his hair.
“I’m sorry.” You soothed as you placed delicate kisses to his face whilst you moved your hands to rub up and down his chest, his sleep clothes warm and soft beneath your palms.
Hunter caught your wrists and tenderly caressed the scars left there as a result of what you’d endured in Cid’s parlour. “I barely lived through it once and I won’t do it ever again. I don’t care what time it is, if you’re up and struggling with something you wake me up with you. I’d rather that than wake up without you and have that pain and panic set it again. Promise me… please.” He begged, brushing some strands of hair back behind your ear as his eyes looked deep into yours.
You nuzzled into his neck and placed a gentle kiss on his pulse point. “I promise.” Your lips traced his jaw. “And you promise too.”
“I promise.” Hunter agreed and he tucked his fingers under your chin and brought your lips to his.
You had wanted to keep it short and sweet, but you soon found yourself physically incapable. One gentle nip from him on your bottom lip and you were done for. The kiss soon turned hungry and desperate. The two of you were consumed by a passion you’d had no outlet for yet, and you were getting completely lost in the moment. Your hands threaded themselves in his hair and you pressed yourself against him as he deepened the kiss and squeezed your hips to get you to subtly grind against him which were instructions you were only too happy to follow.
It was all over though when you felt his hands start to reach the bottom of your shirt and brush against your bare skin. Instinctively, you flinched away, and you crashed back to reality. You knew what marks you were concealing, and what he would feel if he lifted your shirt, and it wasn’t something he should have to see. “I- I can’t.” You panted against his lips. Your body yearned for him, but you couldn’t bring yourself to go any further, not yet. Everything was still too fresh, and you couldn’t, no matter how much you wanted to.
Even though his body burned for you, he’d never push you into this, but he wanted to share the burden of whatever it was that was tormenting you. “Are you ever going to tell me what happened to you?” Hunter murmured breathlessly as he glanced up at you.
You swallowed thickly. “I want to but-” You released a low, shaky breath. “It’s- it’s hard to talk about.”
Hunter stroked your cheek. “Well, when you’re ready, I’ll be right there.”
You pressed your lips into his palm.
“Come on, let’s try to get some rest. We’ll arrive at Nelvaan in a few hours.” He kissed your forehead before you got to your feet and the two of you made your way back to your bunk.
--
“Y- you’re supposed- supposed to be dead!” Kedrin exclaimed fearfully as he cowered behind the main counter upon seeing you standing in the doorway of his shop, the two clones on either side of your shoulders.
“You should’ve sprung for a better bounty hunter then.” You countered as you walked towards the store owner. “I have some questions for you.”
“No, I’m not dealing with any of you ever again!” Kedrin reached underneath the counter and pulled out a blaster and pointed it at you.
You stopped your advance and raised your hands in surrender. “Kedrin, I just need to talk to you.”
“Fuck you! You don’t get to use my name and talk to me like what you did to me was nothing!”
You internally cringed at the memory of what you’d put him through.
“Did you even know he was my brother?!” He shouted in anger. “Did you even care, you heartless bitch?!”
Hunter tensed beside you.
You lightly grazed his hand with your own to tell him it was fine but at the same time shame coiled in your gut. You lowered your mask and kept your voice low and composed. “Kedrin-”
“Stop using my fucking name, you never bothered with it before!” He then turned his rage to the clone that stood closest to you. “And you! I still have the scar from you!” He yelled at the clone on your right, the blaster in his hand still quivering as he aimed it between the three of you.
Hunter stood unwavering beside you and said nothing.
You saw how unsteady his grip on his blaster was. “You’re not a killer, Kedrin. It’s why you sent the bounty hunter after me in the first place.” You said as an attempt to talk him down but the Force around him was in complete chaos, the only emotion that had any kind of control was his anger and that was dangerous. You knew the kind of pain and wrath the loss of a loved one could unleash, and it was why you’d never wanted to put anyone through it in the first place but now you were seeing the impact of your mistake firsthand.
“You killed my brother you fucking bitch!”
You sensed him getting ready to pull the trigger. “Kedrin-” You ducked as the blaster bolt came straight for your head. You channelled the Force and took the blaster from his hand whilst Hunter and Wrecker used that distraction to advance and subdue him. They shoved his head and torso down to press against the countertop.
“Do you want one to match?” Hunter threatened as he reached for his vibroblade and held the sharp point just above Kedrin’s unmarked hand as he and Wrecker held him down.
“Hunter, it’s okay.” You said, pulling him back from that line the two of you had agreed to keep each other from as you saw the way his grip strengthened and the wince of pain Kedrin couldn’t conceal.
Kedrin kept looking for a way out of their hold but was proving futile. “She murdered my brother.” He whimpered as he continued some half-hearted attempts to free himself.
“You’re right. I did.” You approached him and crouched to meet his eyeline. “And it was a mistake that I’m plagued by to this day. All I can do is say that I’m sorry. I know you’d love nothing more than to kill me too, it would probably feel great but please, please Kedrin, don’t do this. It won’t end well for you.” You begged. When his resistance finally ceased, you turned your attention to Hunter.
“Give us a minute.” You said to Hunter, resting a hand on the top of his shoulder.
“But-” Hunter got ready to argue.
“Hunter.” You interrupted firmly and fixed him with a stern stare.
Recognising that tone and look in your eyes, Hunter released a disgruntled but compliant sigh and nodded to Wrecker to let him go. He holstered his blaster and sheathed his vibroblade before leading the way out.
As you heard the door shut, you stepped back from the counter to give Kedrin some space. “You have no reason to trust me, but I promise that I’m not going to hurt you, that’s not why I’m here.”
“You’re- you’re not here to kill me for the bounty hunter?” Kedrin asked warily.  
You shook your head. “There was a time where that’s what precisely I would do and I wouldn’t even hesitate, but you’re not the person I’m supposed to be hurting and neither was your brother. I know nothing I say will bring you comfort but I am not here to kill you. I only want to talk.” You said sincerely as you put your weapons to the ground and faced him calmly.
Kedrin massaged his right shoulder- which had been on the receiving end of a particularly harsh grip from the clone you referred to as ‘Hunter’- and narrowed his eyes at you. “What is it exactly that you want to talk about?”
“This.” You placed the lightsaber on the counter and unwrapped it. “Where’d you get it?”
Kedrin wasn’t buying that that was all you wanted to know about, you had to be here for revenge. “How do I know you won’t do some magic thing like you did last time?”
You released an irritated sigh. “Because if I was going to do that, I would’ve done it already. I won’t lie, I can’t leave here with you still intent on sending hunters after me or I will have to do some things neither of us will enjoy, particularly you. I will always regret taking yours away from you, it was never part of my plan to leave someone alone, but my family is still counting on me, and I can’t have anything messing that up. Please, leave us alone and I’ll never bother you again after this.”
Kedrin angled his head and regarded you inquisitively. His body was still filled with fear of being alone with you, but it was like there was a different person standing before him- you seemed genuinely upset and sorry; and that in of itself would be punishment enough- better you feel the guilt of what you’d done than have an easy out. “You’re the most terrifying person I’ve ever met but for some reason, I believe what you’re saying. No more bounty hunters.”
You felt into the Force around him but there was no dishonesty or deceit. “The lightsaber?” You redirected his attention to the weapon on the counter.
Kedrin shrugged. “What about it?”
“Where did you get it?” You repeated impatiently.
Kedrin flinched at your tone and- not wanting to risk upsetting you any further- started wiping down some glass cases to channel his nervous energy and spoke quickly. “I’ve had it for a while, couldn’t tell you who gave it to me. Just that they were employed to be a part of the clean-up after your lot betrayed the Chancellor and found it and wanted a souvenir of the experience.”
You coughed and bit back the flurry of insults and threats that nearly escaped your mouth.
Kedrin, now so focused on his task that he was oblivious to your discomfort, carried on in a restless ramble, “Guess they ran into tough times during the transition period and wanted rid of it for some quick cash. No one really wanted to buy it though, it just sat there which was why I gave it to that bounty hunter.”
You felt your heartbeat thundering in your ears as you realised what this could mean for you. Leaving it behind had been an active choice to cut part of yourself off from the Force and now you had a chance to feel the Force flow through you as a single entity, no more jagged or disjointed connections… but you didn’t know if you were ready for that yet, it was too much to even comprehend. If it had survived everything and found its way back to you… did that mean that you could too?
“So, um are you going to pay for it?” He dared to ask but your sharp and cold glower had him gulping nervously and wringing his hands. “Uh, never mind, you can take it.” He said hastily. “Just let us be done with each other.”
You said nothing to him, you only covered it once more, picked up your other weapons and exited the shop.
--
“Everything okay?” Hunter asked as you emerged from the store.
“We were going to go get some supplies if you want to join?” Wrecker added.
“I need a moment. You guys go.” You said, giving Wrecker your concealed lightsaber and avoiding eye contact with them both as you hurried back to the Marauder.
--
Having found a moment of relief under the warm water, you got out of the shower and started to towel off and redress but as you pulled your tank top over you, you realised you’d left your long sleeve out by your bunk. You swore under your breath and only hoped the other two would take a bit longer on the supply run. You dashed out the door of the refresher and started to rummage through the bunk for it.
“Who did that to you?”
You whipped around to see Hunter stood frozen in the entryway to the Marauder. “Dammit Hunter-”
“Who did that to you?” He repeated heatedly, his concern and rage rising each second. The sight of the deep and cruel scars that disappeared from your upper back beneath your shirt to the rest of your back was engrained in his mind and any plans of waiting for you to come to him evaporated as his anger and protectiveness overcame him.
Wrecker stepped up beside his brother, put the supplies down and your weapon on a shelf. He nervously glanced between the two of you and it didn’t take an enhanced skill for him to pick up on the way Hunter was trembling with fury. “Eh, what’d I miss?”
Hunter ignored him and kept his eyes on you. “Who was it?”
You turned back around to grab your shirt and it was then that you heard Wrecker’s sharp inhale as he too now saw what it was Hunter had seen. You fiddled with the fabric, twisting it tightly in your hands. “It wasn’t like it was solely one person. Just forget about it.” You muttered aloofly.
“No, I can’t just forget about it. Who. Hurt. You?” 
You sighed heavily and half-turned to face the two clones. “It was a two for one special.”
“Don’t.” Hunter chided sternly. He couldn’t have you make light of this, not when he’d seen what you’d gone through now. He couldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer anymore and, as awful as a part of him found it, he had to push you now.
There was no leeway in his voice, you weren’t going to be able to dodge and weave your way out of this conversation now. “Basically, it was both Imperial Stormtroopers and their higher command officers.” You swallowed harshly. “They- they worked together on this one.”
Hunter simply stormed away from you to the ship’s controls. “Wrecker, let’s get the ship in the air.”
“You’re going to go after every Imperial officer and stormtrooper in the galaxy?” You scrappily tugged your top layer over you and hustled after the two of them as they strode into the cockpit.
“If I have to!” Hunter growled.
“I’m with the Sarge on this one.” Wrecker agreed severely as he started to power up the ship.
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate the thought but that’s not logical nor practical!” You argued.
“Don’t talk to me about practicality when they did that to you!” Hunter shouted angrily.
“It was my fault, Hunter!” You yelled back.
That caused both of them to pause and Wrecker turned off the engine.
“I did it to myself.” You said, your voice scarcely above a whisper as you braced yourself for the time you were about to relive.
“What are you talking about?” Hunter asked, his voice as quiet as yours now as he studied your face carefully.
“Before I tell you, I need you both to stay calm. Especially you.” You said to Hunter. You knew he wasn’t mad at you; his reaction had been exactly as you’d expected. His fierce protectiveness was a quality you loved about him, but it could be his undoing if he wasn’t careful. “And you need to know and accept that nothing would’ve changed it, it wasn’t your fault, it was mine. I acted in poor and emotional judgement and there was nothing you could’ve done to prevent it. Please, trust me on this.” You insisted with a pleading stare at him before you looked to Wrecker who- albeit hesitantly- nodded. You glanced to Hunter again who was still looking like he could take on the Empire singlehandedly. “Hunter?”
Hunter felt a keen sense of dread at your words, and it was highly likely he wouldn’t be able to view it quite as simply as that, but he allowed himself a deep and calming breath. He’d do this for you. “Tell me.”
You exhaled nervously and fidgeted with your hands. Realistically, you’d known you wouldn’t be able to go through the rest of your life without being found out or talking about it but that didn’t make doing this any easier. “I’m sure I don’t really have to go into how hard it was to find each other, right? I’m sure you guys had your fair share of failed leads and things were pretty hopeless for a while, yes?”
Hunter and Wrecker both nodded.
You took another breath. “Right, well, it was the same for me. During our time apart, nothing I did was getting me any closer to you and I could feel it draining me every day. Lyra and I arrived on Christophsis and decided to settle there but it didn’t help. No matter how hard I searched, no matter how much of myself I gave up when it came to getting what I wanted, nothing was bringing results, and I was angry. I was angry, frustrated and just miserable. And it was in that poor state of mind that I made a choice that I shouldn’t have.”
Hunter knew those emotions all too well and he’d get incredibly impatient and unfocused when they got overwhelming, but he’d been fortunate to have Wrecker around to pick up the load when it got too much. Yes, you may have had Lyra, but he knew you and how you operated, and you would’ve put it all on you, regardless of how exhausting it would’ve been and that’s what made him nervous as he awaited further explanation.
You shuffled your feet. “I was being a bit of a nuisance to the Empire wherever I went, Christophsis was no exception, but I was getting nowhere on the information front so, in my slightly unstable state, I figured the best way to find out about you or even Hemlock was to um well, find it straight from the source.”
Hunter’s heart skipped a beat. “No, no you didn’t.”
Wrecker looked between the two of you in confusion but then it clicked with him too and he stared at you, horrified. “Why would you do that?”
You swallowed thickly. “I thought that by handing myself in, I would be able to get the information I was needing. I figured they would have some form of intel on you I could use.” You huffed irritably as you remembered how foolish you’d been. “Turns out they were a lot smarter than I gave them credit for and they sussed out my plan pretty quickly.”
You winced as Hunter threw his helmet and it crashed against the wall. You expected no less but you needed to reign him back in if you had any chance of recounting the whole story. “That’s not staying calm.”
Hunter got to his feet and paced; his distress evident. “We were on your trail! If I’d been faster and picked our sources more carefully, you wouldn’t have had to-” Hunter seethed. How could he have failed you so badly? You’d put yourself through hell for their sake and if he had gotten to you sooner, you wouldn’t have had to have gone through this.
“Hunter, no.” You shook your head to stop him from putting the blame on himself. “The whole reason I did it was because the trail was running cold, and I was desperate. It was all on me. and I’m not done explaining this yet and it doesn’t get better, but you can’t do this. I understand and appreciate where it comes from, but it won’t help now, okay? Just let me finish it.”
Hunter clenched his jaw but did as you asked. He sat back down and nodded at you to continue but he was helpless to stop the anxious shaking of his leg.
You gritted your teeth as you prepared yourself for what you had to do next and any levity that you’d previously been forcing into your voice vanished. “Since they knew what I was and some of the general history between all of us, it’s like I said, they were aware of what I wanted, and they definitely weren’t up for giving it to me. They finally had me under their control, and they were very good at making sure I wasn’t getting away any time soon. Honestly, they were pretty creative with their methods and I’m sure some of them found doing what they did to me quite therapeutic.” That dismissive attitude slipped back in at the end without you meaning to. Frankly, you probably wouldn’t have noticed it if it weren’t for the sharp and worried looks from Wrecker and Hunter. You mentally checked yourself before you proceeded.
“Where they showed their inexperience however was when they got frustrated at how little I gave them. I don’t think they realised how hard it would be to crack someone like me. Their fists, their whips, their electrostaffs… it all hurt but it wouldn’t get me to talk. So, they went for something different, and that was what got them quite close.” You stopped again and found yourself touching the small pinprick scar as you remembered the sharp sting and then the complete haziness that would follow that would render your completely susceptible to anything they would do and say. “Whatever concoction they’d inject into my neck when they got bored or too tired from physically hurting me was nearly impossible for me to resist and that was a terrifying experience... I was having to fight my own mind while they happily watched on. That interrogator droid would enter, and- and my body would go cold with fear every time.” You paused for a chance to gather yourself and squeezed your eyes tight to rid yourself of the memories of that dark, cramped room they would take you where you were helpless to their cruelty and the last thing you would clearly recall would be the whirring of that droid approaching you.
You took another breath before you continued to speak. “That was what came close to breaking me and they worked that out. Every day they would inject me with that serum to make me submit to their words and they would tell me you were right outside. They- they would tell me that I would see- see you all again if I only told them how much I knew about Omega and where I was hiding…. And every day I would have to remind myself that it was all a lie… that you weren’t there, and I couldn’t reveal anything since that would put Lyra in danger too.” You released a shaky breath. “Or they’d try to convince me that you were going through the same thing I was and- and it was my fault and to get- to get it to stop I would have to tell them everything.” You felt a lump form in the back of your throat, but you forced yourself to talk through it. “They could beat me all they wanted but that was the thing that actually left a mark… these scars merely came with the territory.”
A troubled silence fell upon the walls of the Marauder as you finished. You picked at some imaginary lint on your leggings as a way to bring your emotions under control.
Hunter felt sick to his stomach. He could’ve saved you or made it so putting yourself in that position would never have needed to seem like a viable option. You’d needed him and he hadn’t been there. He’d let you down.
You caught a glimpse of his expression changing from anger to defeated sadness and he didn’t need to vocalise those thoughts; you were perfectly aware of what would be going through his head. “It’s okay.” You mouthed silently to him.
You shouldn’t be the one comforting him. A broken and anguished sigh left his throat. Okay? How was any of this okay? You’d subjected yourself to torture for them and had carried the burden of it by yourself for so long.
“How’d you get away?” Wrecker asked in quiet upset as he imagined you experiencing that.
You coughed and blinked back the tears that threatened to spill from your eyes. “Truth be told, it gets a bit blurry near the end. I…” You trailed off and frowned as you worked on accurately recalling what had gone down the day you got out. You hesitantly started your explanation again. “I remember overhearing that they were going to send me off world to a high security prison and I couldn’t have that. The trooper who put the cuffs on me to take me back to my cell was a rookie, I think he figured I was unconscious, so he used the regular ones that didn’t restrict my Force-wielding abilities. Then the dizziness and blackouts set in, I remember finding the strength to take him out, but I don’t exactly know how I proceeded from there. The next thing I do remember was collapsing outside the door to where we were living and Lyra dragging me inside.”
“Hunter?” You looked to him since he hadn’t said anything yet.
Hunter’s throat had gone so dry, he couldn’t summon words immediately. All that was racking through his head was how he could’ve prevented this and how he should’ve been there to save you. You never should’ve been the one to drag yourself out of that hellhole. The protective part of him wanted to find a way for you to come up with any identifying features that could assist in hunting down those who’d inflicted that pain on you but despite all you’d relayed to them, he was calmer now and he knew that wasn’t what you wanted. He may have failed you then, but he wouldn’t now. His focus now lay in what he could do for you now but there was an element to the explanation he was missing and once he had that, everything else could fall into place. “Why didn’t you tell me?” He murmured instead.
There was no accusation in his eyes, no pointedness or blame in his tone. You knew he just wanted to understand, and it was a fair question. “I was working on compartmentalising it; it was just going badly. And-” You stopped yourself from continuing and instead just started to back away. “Nothing.”
“And what?” Hunter pressed as he got to his feet and caught your hand before you could step away any further.
You shook your head. “It’s a stupid reason, I shouldn’t care about it.”
“Nothing you’re feeling about this is stupid. I might be able to help, you only need to tell me.” Hunter prompted tenderly as he stroked the back of your hand with his thumb.
You regarded him carefully, attempting to find some deception or falseness in his tone so you didn’t have to say it but, unsurprisingly, you didn’t find any. You bit your lip before speaking, “I didn’t want you to have to see them. They’re- they’re not exactly nice to look at.” You muttered as you dipped your head to stare at the floor.
The fact that that was even cause for concern felt like a punch to the gut but at least there was something he could do about it. He may not be able to go after the Imperials like he wanted but he could help you realise that was a non-issue for him and one that hadn’t even crossed his mind. “Wrecker, take a walk. I’ll be in touch when you can come back.” Hunter ordered his brother.
Wrecker wasn’t about to question him, so he did as he said. He rested a gentle hand on your shoulder in comfort. “Thank you for telling us.” He said before he left the ship.
You went to address Hunter, but he spoke first.
“Turn around.”
Your brow furrowed but you couldn’t deny the warmth that bloomed in your stomach at his words. “What?”
“Turn around.” Hunter repeated, his tone quiet but filled with dominance.
Despite your lingering questions as to what exactly it was that he wanted, you found yourself doing as he instructed. You could feel the heat in your stomach start to radiate throughout the rest of his body. Each steady thump of armour hitting the ground had goosebumps rising on your skin in anticipation and you felt him crowd your back and rest his chin in the space between your neck and shoulder.
Hunter kissed the sensitive spot behind your ear and as he felt you relax into him; he slowly grabbed the hem of your long-sleeved layer and lifted it over your head and dropped it to the floor of the ship. He didn’t let his eyes fall to the scars yet. Instead, he caressed the trail of goosebumps on your arms and continued to pay close attention to your neck, softy nibbling the areas that he knew would make you weak at the knees.
He could play your body so well; it was like the two of you hadn’t been parted for as long as you had been. You could feel yourself growing more and more compliant to his touch and desire coursed through your body. You only snapped out of it when you felt his touch go lower and he tugged the bottom of your vest top. You went stiff and immediately grabbed his hands in a panic. “Hunter, no. You-”
“Easy.” He soothed as he pressed delicate, featherlight kisses to the back and each side of your neck. “Trust me.” He rasped against your skin, but he waited for your signal.
You released a low, unsteady breath. You couldn’t live in this state of fear and shame forever. You trusted him with everything you had and that was why you felt yourself letting go of his wrists. Your breathing grew uneven, and your body trembled as you felt his bare hands graze underneath your vest top before, they held onto the hem of it.
“Relax… it’s okay. You’re okay now. Let me see.” He encouraged gently, only lifting when he saw you nod your permission.  
His gaze finally dipped to your bare back, and he had to fight to keep his breathing calm as he felt his heart shatter once he saw the full extent of what had been done to you. Your back was a map of merciless and vicious scars, and he wanted nothing more to take away the pain they’d caused you and inflict it on his own body. But that was the only effect they had. He was not repulsed, not repelled by the sight of them. They did nothing to ruin his physical perception of you. You were every bit as beautiful to him now as you had been when he first met you on Devaron all that time ago. “You’re exquisite.”
You refused to believe that. These were different to the scars you were both used to that came with the impact of battle and you were under no illusions as to how unsightly they were. You went to turn to face him so he wouldn’t have to keep looking at them and to protest his words, but he sensed that and beat you to it.
“These do not define you. They do not define my view of you. You are strong, you are capable, and you are a force to be reckoned with and that is why I love you.” He started to lightly touch each one. “No amount of scarring is going to change that. You. Are. Beautiful. I will be there to remind you of that whenever you need it.” He pressed his mouth to the space between your shoulder blades.  
Your body trembled under his touch and his sincerity threatened to overwhelm you. “Hunter-” You managed to choke out.
“I would tear the galaxy apart for you, if you wanted me to.” He hummed against your skin as he continued to trail his lips down your back, worshipping every mark that had been left on you so as to leave a new association with them now. “But I know that’s not what you need.”
A quivering breath left your lungs at his words and ministrations, and you knew you felt the same way. But it was because the two of you were aware of that line that your relationship worked so well- you could balance the sentiment with intent. You could feel him starting to make his way back up your back.
“So, what is it that you need?” He hummed into your ear before he placed his hands on your waist and sucked a mark over the tiny scar that rested on your pulse point.
You groaned and braced your hands on the wall that formed the entryway to the cockpit as you felt your knees buckle.
“Tell me, sweetheart. Tell me and it’s yours.” He asked again as his fingers started to dip beneath the waistband of your leggings whilst he pulled your earlobe between his teeth.
You knew exactly what it was, it was all you ever really needed. “You.” You gasped and you swore you felt him smile against your skin.
“You have me… always.”
You couldn’t hold out any longer, you turned around and crushed your lips against his with a groan and pushed him to the wall of the entrance to the cockpit. If he was taken aback by your abruptness, he didn’t show it as he matched your enthusiasm immediately, one hand coming to firmly grip your exposed waist whilst the other tangled itself in your damp hair, a desperate and eager noise leaving him as he got to feel your body press against his.
As you kissed him, your hands fisted his shirt and you pulled insistently but made no moves to actually step away to remove it, you were too addicted to the feeling of having him this way again… yet you needed to feel his skin against yours which is why you were thankful that he had enough willpower to separate himself from you and take it off himself.
The two of you breathed heavily and the air was thick with tension, but you were too focused on looking at what rested just past his collarbone. You hadn’t allowed yourself to check if he had held onto it for fear of what it could mean if it was gone, and your breath hitched. You touched the black leather cord and traced the small Jedi Order symbol on the end. “You- you kept it?”
“Of course, I did.” He softly uttered, if a little out of breath. He cradled your face in his palms. “What do I have to do to make you see what I see in you?”
Any answer died on your lips, and he passionately reconnected his mouth to yours, using your surprised gasp to deepen the kiss before he stepped away from the wall and started to direct you both down the narrow hallway to your bunk, muscle memory mapping the way as neither of you were content to separate to make the walk any easier.
A trail of clothes was left in your wake as you made your way to your bunk.
Hunter gently laid you down, his lips never parting yours before he patted your hip to get you to be on your front.
You still found yourself feeling reluctant. His beautiful brown eyes were laden with lust but there was also a deep and devoted sense of care behind them which was why you complied with his request. You trusted him.
Hunter went back to what he’d done earlier as he left delicate kisses to every scar that donned your back. What you endured was something no one should ever have to but what he could do now was make sure you knew that you didn’t need to hide them for the sake of other people- especially him- any longer. “You never have to worry about these. All that matters to me is that you’re here now, you got away, and you will never end up back there. More scars don’t have the power to change how I feel about you, nothing does. I love you for all that you are.” He planted a kiss to the base of your spine before he got you on your back to face him.
Hunter wiped away the salty tears that had escaped your eyes and nudged the side of your nose with his. “I love you. Always.”
“Always.” You repeated hoarsely as you were overwhelmed by the emotions that came crashing to the surface. You stroked back the smaller bits of hair that frequently slipped past his bandanna. 
Hunter kissed your cheek before leaving a trial of kisses along your jawline whilst his hand slowly made its way down your body to rest between your thighs.
Your legs parted for him on instinct and your hips bucked into his touch and a soft moan left your throat.
His voice took on a low purr as he moved his fingers. “Here’s how this is going to work: I am going to tell you everything that I love about you which you are then going to repeat and… if you don’t…” He stopped and took his hand away as he saw that familiar expression on your face, and he couldn’t help the slight smirk that tugged the edges of his mouth as that expression turned into an affronted pout. “I stop.”
Your eyes widened at the very clear implications of what he had in store for you.
“Or this doesn’t have to go any further and we stop now.” He offered sincerely.
No, you didn’t want that. It had been too long, and you needed him like your lungs needed oxygen. You could do this. You nodded your consent.
Hunter angled his head to press his lips against yours before he started to move his fingers again, hungrily swallowing your appreciative gasp. He kissed you passionately, not in any rush to stop right now. He parted from you and took a second to appreciate the throaty sighs that left your mouth at his actions, the way you bit your lip and the slight wrinkle on your brow as you grew closer to your release. He’d missed being able to see you like this, but he was relishing the opportunity to relearn and do all the things that made your body contort in pleasure. “You’re beautiful.” He exhaled in complete awe.
You were so caught up in the pleasure radiating throughout your body that you had already forgotten his plan and you were too put out by the feeling of your climax fading away to recall where your side of the bargain came into it. “Hey-” You cut yourself off as you saw the expectant expression on his face and then you remembered what you had to do to get what you craved but that doubt was still there, and you felt awkward doing it. However, the reassurance and trust that also rested on his face saw to it that you did as he said. “I- I’m beautiful.”
 Hunter bowed his head with a supportive smile before he carried on, the sound of your groan was like music to his ears. “Despite all that’s happened… all that we still have to do… you always find a way to make me smile.”
You were in a state of total euphoria and therefore failed to fully comprehend that he’d said something else. It was only when you felt him pull his hand away and the emptiness that followed that brought you back to the current situation. With a whine, you spoke again, “I- make- make you s- smile.” You ground out as you moved your hips in tandem with his touch as you chased your high.
He let you have your first climax, pausing to let you come down from it. Once your breathing evened out, he went again and kissed you before muttering against your lips, “You’re smart.”
“I’m- fuck.” You were too distracted by seeking the next release you were longing for to remember to respond, and you cried out in irritation as he stopped just before you reached it.  
“Almost.” He crooned into your ear.
As frustrated as you were, you got your bearings and whispered, “I’m smart.”
“Good girl.” He praised, a grin on his face as your breath stuttered at his words, before he continued, curling his fingers in the way he knew would send you over the edge and sure enough, your hips lifted as your release crashed over you and a gratified moan sounded from you. However, he didn’t stop, he worked you through it and said, “You’re caring.”
The process got easier and began to feel more natural. You slowly started to understand that clinging on to that part of your past had made it impossible to fully come back. Keeping yourself hidden and refusing to acknowledge what you’d experienced had made it difficult to fathom that he could still want you this way but each affirmation from his, as silly as you’d initially felt at doing what he said, was helping cement the idea that you may not be able to change or fix what you’d gone through, but it didn’t have to control you anymore. You had a partner and family that loved you and who you adored and would do anything for. You would get through this and now you were beginning to feel like you could do it. You felt yourself believing what he was telling you. A whimper left your throat, and you could already sense that you were hurtling towards the edge again, but you repeated it. “I’m c- caring.” You said through panted breaths as you coped with the overstimulation.
“You’re doing so well.” He encouraged as he kept to his word and continued to touch you. “You’re strong.” He knew he was repeating himself, but they weren’t words he minded reiterating, and he needed you to know and believe it too.
“I’m strong.” You said breathlessly as your hands curled into the blanket beneath you as that feeling overcame you again.
He saw you through your next peak and took his hand away to give you a rest from the stimulation and simply stared at you and the blissed out look on your face. He had it committed to memory, but it never ceased to take his breath away every time.
You gathered yourself enough to smile at him. “Thank you.” You whispered as you lightly followed the shape of his tattoo. You clasped the back of his neck and attempted to pull him towards you, but he worked his way out of your grip and instead kissed the hollow of your throat before kissing his way down the rest of your body. Your head fell back as you realised his intent, but you had thought it would be time for him to take what it was he needed.
He could help the groan that left him as he finally put his mouth on you. He could get drunk off the taste of you, and it had been too fucking long since he’d had the chance to do so, and he wasn’t about to stop now.
You couldn’t help the way your hands tangled in his hair and tugged him closer to you, his appreciative growl sent shivers down your spine, but you were so sensitive, and you didn’t think you could manage another one. “Hunter, I can’t. Just-”
“One more. I know you can.” He encouraged desperately as he planted a kiss to your inner thigh, sucking a bruise into the skin, before he went back to where his attention was demanded. He needed you to fall apart on his tongue, he was addicted to it, every drop of you, every whimper that sounded from you was like his own personal drug and he would never tire of it. “You’ve been such a good girl… done everything I’ve asked for… just give me one more, sweetheart.”
That did it. Your back arched and you finished with a ruined and exhausted moan. You were completely spent but it felt so good. You barely registered him to come rest beside you, his lips pressed against your temple.
“I know that wasn’t easy, but I’m so proud of you.” Hunter murmured into your hairline as he stroked up and down your side.
You regained enough feeling in your limbs to turn on your side “What about you?” You queried, still struggling to catch your breath. You knew you would be sensitive but your overwhelming longing for him swiftly outweighed any concerns.
Hunter slowly shook his head as he brushed his lips against yours, taking them away when you went to deepen the kiss. “This was always about you.”
With each passing moment, you were gaining more clarity over your faculties, and you knew what you had to do. A seductive smile pulled at the corners of your mouth and your hand snaked down between you both.
“What-” Hunter inhaled sharply as he felt your hand wrap around him, and his jaw clenched as he fought the urge to thrust his hips into your touch. “Sweetheart, you don’t have to-”
“You said this was about me and what I need, right?” You hummed as you rested your forehead against his whilst your hand kept moving. You kept your touch teasing but just enough to drive him crazy.
“R-right.” Hunter said through a strained breath as he felt his restraint leaving him with every second you continued to touch him.
“And what I need is to feel you…” You brought your lips close to his, barely any space between you now. “Inside me.” You kissed him, tugging his lip between your teeth whilst your free hand entangled itself in his hair, the actions eliciting the depraved groan you had been looking for, and before you knew it, you were back on your back again with Hunter kissing you with a newfound fervour which you matched in kind. You wrapped your legs around him and drew him closer to you, smiling against his lips at the surprised huff that escaped him.  
Hunter kept kissing you as he started to guide himself into you. He knew you would still feel tender and was careful as he slowly moved into you, both of your breaths catching at the feeling. His head fell to rest in the crook of your neck, biting down on the skin there before he soothed the sting of it with his tongue as he started to move, heavy grunts and pants leaving his lips as he got absorbed in feeling you this way after all this time.
Your nails dug into his back, and you could feel the muscles flex beneath your fingers and a sensual sigh left your lungs as you finally felt all of him.
One thought crossed your mind amidst the fog of pleasure that was spreading over your body. You’d let go of your fear now and you wanted to look for that connection again. Before, it had marked a level of certainty of your place here and overall mindset and if you couldn’t find it after all that had happened, there was a time where you would’ve been sure that it would mean there was no true way back for you. But now you understood that wasn’t and didn’t have to be the case. If it wasn’t there, you could work to get it back.
You used the Force around you to find his unique signature again and you could’ve wept with joy as you sensed it once more and it welcomed you with open arms. It had been waiting for you. You bridged the gap between you and allowed that feeling to flow through you. I love you.
Hunter paused his movements, and he stared down at you, a shocked but delighted cry left his mouth as he saw the broad and affirming smile on your face that told him he hadn’t imagined it. He’d wanted to have that back for so long and his heart soared as he realised what this meant for you. You weren’t holding back anymore; you were officially home.
You stroked a thumb along his cheekbone before clenched around him in an attempt to get him to keep going, a smug hum of laughter leaving you at the almost pained expression on his face as he got himself back under control before he started again.
“Do it again. Please.” Hunter requested frantically as he felt himself approaching his own release.
You smiled affectionately at him and continued to kiss him as you saw him through to his climax. I love you. I love you. I love you.
He finished with a strangled groan, and he collapsed on top of you. He stayed there for a few moments before he gently pulled out of you, stroking your hair as he saw you slightly wince at the action. “I’m sorry if it was too much.”
You shook your head. “It was perfect. You were perfect.” You reassured him as he laid down beside you and held you close to him. We should clean up.
Hunter made a sound of acknowledgement as he pressed his mouth to the crown of your head. “What made you do that again?”
“I let go.” You said simply before planting a chaste kiss to his lips before taking his hands in yours and guiding him to the refresher. “Come on.”
--
“What are you thinking?” Hunter asked as he watched you pick up the wrapped lightsaber from the shelf Wrecker had put it on. You hadn’t touched it since taking it from the bounty hunter.
“I can’t hold on to or fear the past anymore. We can only look to the future now and that future has us getting Omega back. And…” You uncovered the seemingly harmless looking weapon. “I think this will make achieving that easier.” You reached for it, hesitating for just a moment before you picked it up and it was an instant reaction. You took half a step back as the sensation of feeling that connection you hadn’t encountered for years threatened to overwhelm you. Flashes of your past as a youngling and echoes of previous battles and instructions from your master sounded in your head but it wasn’t scary this time, you were merely remembering the periods where this weapon had been your life.
Hunter placed a steadying hand on your shoulder. “You alright?”
You took one long breath. “Yeah. It’ll just take come getting used to, but it’s going to be worth it. I’m not hiding what I am these days, may as well have the whole image.” You said light-heartedly.
Hunter cupped your jaw and kissed you gently, both of you sighing contentedly into the sensation before Wrecker’s hesitant voice echoed through the comms.
“Um, Hunter… I hope I’m not interrupting eh anything now but um I was wondering if I could come back? I’ve started to wander in circles and I’m getting some suspicious looks.”
The two of you chuckled.
“Poor guy.” You said with a humorous shake of your head.
“Yeah, Wrecker, head on back and we can get outta here.” Hunter replied through his comm.
“Wrecker, how’d you fancy having an excuse to shoot at me?” You said into your comm, and the intrigued but excited cheer told you your answer.
“Shoot you?” Hunter repeated, titling his head at you inquisitively.
You grinned as you clipped your lightsaber to your waist. “Yeah, how else did you think I was going to train?”
--
“That’s 15 to 11!” Wrecker whooped as you came to after his stun blast hit your back.
Fuck you. You jabbed playfully as you accepted Hunter’s outstretched hand. He tugged you to your feet.
“You’re lasting longer.” Hunter commented supportively and- knowing you would want to go immediately again- walked away to take up his position.
You wiped the dirt from your clothing and removed your mask to take some deep breaths and find your centre again. Taking on jobs, following leads, mediating and lightsaber training… that was how you balanced your time; you were feeling more like the person you had been before your world had been torn apart. You’d never be able to be her again, but you could own who you are now and allow yourself to feel the emotions you’d been struggling against without suffocating in them anymore.
“But still not long enough!” Wrecker goaded. “I’ll always be in the lead!”
You didn’t take the bait. Instead, you took off your armour, gloves, and long-sleeved top.
“Hey, wait a minute, that’s not fair.” Wrecker protested.
Hunter turned inquisitively and his breath hitched. A soft sheen of sweat graced your skin and your body rippled with strength and untapped potential… and fuck did it make his heart skip a beat and his blood run hot. He was grateful his helmet was still on because the way his eyes widened would’ve given you too much material to work with right now, but he wasn’t able to hide the way his hand slightly fumbled as he unholstered his blaster. He wasn’t embarrassed by finding you attractive in this way, the frequent teasing he’d often received for it just made it harder to focus on the task at hand.
“The training stays the same and my strategy is my own. It’s not supposed to have an effect on you anyway.” You retorted with a smug grin as Hunter’s reaction went exactly as you’d anticipated.
“You better not mess this up for us, Hunter.” Wrecker warned as he shoved his brother’s shoulder to snap him out his reverie.
You laughed to yourself as you watched them. You picked up your lightsaber and ignited it, the blue blade thrumming at your side, and you felt that rush of connection and security. Having a blaster by your side was nothing compared to this.
It was a powerful sight that Hunter never got used to and quite frankly, part of him was relieved he’d never come across you as an official Jedi General during the war because if his reaction to seeing you train and work towards unlocking whatever you had been tampering down for so many years was anything to by, he would’ve gotten himself shot a long time ago- half your earlier victories came from redirecting his own stun blasts to him.
You got into your stance and faced the two clones as they readied their blasters. “Alright, let’s go again.”
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