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jinmukangwrites · 1 year

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weep little lion man (3/14)

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Fandom: Jedi: Fallen Order/Survivor Rating: T Warnings: panic attacks, unreliable narrator, author refusing to back down from Cal's lightsaber definitely being orange. Ao3 Notes: somehow still going strong with every Thursday uploads????

Summary: After defeating Dagan Gera for a third and final time, the Compass ends up in Bode's hands without a scratch. He could go back to Jedha with Cal... but he's holding what he wants. He doesn't see the point in pretending any longer. He makes a split-second decision. Or: Bode's betrayal goes a bit differently.

---

Cal wakes to one of the worst headaches he's sure he's ever had.

Granted, he says that every time he gets even a minor headache.

But this one is different, it feels like he's trapped under the crushing weight of an ocean planet, desperately trying to swim up for air, but there's nothing. He doesn't even know if he's moving.

His temples are pounding, and his tongue feels thick in his mouth. He hasn't tried to move yet, but he can feel a pool of nausea in his stomach just waiting to pounce. The urge to just conk back out is strong, which is saying something as Cal isn't exactly known for wanting to sleep.

So he focuses on his breathing, not moving a muscle, not opening his eyes, ignoring every ache in his body until his stomach doesn't feel like it's going to turn inside out.

But that's the thing, the more he stays still, the more he's aware of those aches in his body. They start mild, something only a little more painful than what he's used to on a daily basis, but they're intensifying. Protesting. Begging him to stretch and shift so he's not so much on one hip and his arms are in front of him. He's been in one awkward position for a long time, it seems.

Alright, he thinks, hyping himself up, if I move slowly then maybe I won't throw up.

However, he finds his efforts quickly halted, nearly before he can even flex his shoulders.

His arms are locked behind him. His legs stuck together.

Unease immediately takes root, mixing horribly with the nausea and the headache like that horrendous cocktail he tried once on some Mid Rim planet that had the famous Tatooine blue-milk mixed in. Didn't sit well, if one wanted to know how to completely down Cal for three days and replace his lightsaber with a barf-bag: it's that.

He tugs on the restraints, and his stomach flips making him gag as something comes dangerously close to reaching his throat.

Or... he would gag if his jaw opened.

His eyes fly open and the situation becomes grimly clearer to him, memories flooding in. He's restrained. Good restraints, too. The kind of restraints that when he reaches out to the Force, he doesn't feel a single thing reach back. There's something locked over his nose and sealed around his jaw, keeping his mouth shut and muffling any sounds he can make with his nose. He's curled up into a cramp, dim space, unable to even try to wiggle into a more comfortable position as there's bags and tools shoved in with him. The only light-source comes from a small panel of white in the center of the ceiling, and when he listens, he can hear the humming of a familiar engine.

Bode.

Red-hot anger floods his veins, but before he can even try to decide what to do with that anger, the ship rattles with unexpected turbulence, forcing Cal to shut his eyes and take deep breaths through his nose, fighting the terrifying urge to empty his stomach and have it have nowhere to go as his mouth is sealed shut.

He wants to kill Bode. Though he backs off from that thought when a softer, 17 year old version of himself thinks that that's a little extreme. He lessens the anger and the betrayal to something a bit more manageable, like thoughts of beating Bode into a bloody-pulp with his bare hands, and when his face is as bloody as Cal's knuckles he'd grab Bode by the color and scream at him until his vocal chords are shot to the point he'd be called "bacta-breath" for the next month.

The thoughts are comforting, but he has no idea what he's going to do once he sees Bode for real.

He's expertly restrained, horribly nauseous, definitely injured. He's not going anywhere until someone gets these restraints off him first, because it's already clear there's no way he'd be able to get free on his own.

There's nothing he can do but seethe.

Turbulence hits the jet again, bad turbulence, but thanks to Cal expecting it he manages his stomach a bit better. However, something new reaches his ears other than the engines and the rattle of metal around him.

The small squeak of a little girl.

"It's okay, baby girl," a familiar voice says softly, the metal walls muffling the baritone of the words. "Nothing your papa can't handle."

Bode.

Kata.

"I know... it's still scary. What if we get lost?"

"See this? It's a one-of-a-kind compass through here. As long as we have it, we'll never get lost."

"..."

"How about we sing that song your mother always liked," Bode suggests at her answering silence. "By the time we finish, we'll be at our new home."

They're a song's distance from... from Tanalor?

The realization sits heavy next to the pool of nausea. They must be in the abyss, navigating through an un-navigational space-terrain to somewhere no one else can reach.

Cal's on his own. No one will save him from this one.

"Will there be friends there?" Kata asks, ignoring Bode's suggestion.

"Maybe," Bode says, voice becoming a little tight. "That friend I told you about... he might come too. We're practically brothers. I think you'd like him a lot."

"Brothers... so, like an uncle?"

She sounds so hopeful.

It tears at Cal's heart.

Bode laughs, "yeah, baby. Like an uncle."

"I hope he comes, then."

"Me too."

Silence settles in the cockpit until there's another bout of turbulence. Only this time, Kata doesn't startle, she just begins to sing a song to herself, one that Bode quickly joins in on.

"Ghost star, wonder where you are~"

Cal sighs and attempts to wiggle into a more comfortable position as the two of them sing their song. He doesn't succeed, he has no movement and he honestly doubts that the way he's tied isn't going to let him be comfortable no matter what position he gets himself into.

So he closes his eyes and tries not to listen to a father sing with his daughter.

He hates this. He hates this.

The emotions swirl like a confusing whirlpool, and he thinks it's unfair for Cal to be stabbed in the back and then next thing he knows his captor is having a touching moment with his daughter. Cal knows this is not Kata's fault, he can't be angry with her and the things Bode's done in her name, but...

But Cal is angry. He's in pain. He's frightened and confused and... and he doesn't know what his friends are doing.

Bode threatened them before Cal lost consciousness. He threatened to turn them in to the Empire if Cal resisted, and Cal resisted.

What if Cere, Merrin, Greeze, Cordova, BD-1... what if they're all dead right now? Cal has no idea if Bode made good on the threat, after Cal got hit with the blaster's handle everything after was foggy and muffled beyond any comprehension. He thought he heard Bode talking to someone, but was it to Cal? To himself? To the Empire?

What would Cal do if Bode did tip the Empire on the Archive's location? Surely, Cal can't take a father from a child, not when he himself knows what it's like to lose the last bit of family and stability he had left when Order 66 was called. Sure, he found a new family, but that trauma, that loss, it follows Cal everywhere he goes.

He doesn't want to be the cause of an orphaned child, but he also doesn't know how he can live on being Cal if he loses his second family for good. It was hard enough when they went separate ways, the thought of losing them to death sickens him more than the nausea can.

Lost. Cal feels lost.

The pair in the cockpit continue their eerie, sad song, and soon enough Bode proves himself right as the final words are sung, Kata cuts off with a gasp.

"Welcome home, Kata," Bode says, sounding breathless.

There's a final spout of turbulence as the ship enters a planet's atmosphere, and Cal closes his eyes and does his best to prepare himself for whatever comes next.

-o-o-o-o-

"Papa, look at the colors!" Kata announces as the ship comes to a stop on solid land. The bounce the suspensions make sent another bout of sickness through Cal's whole being, but a skill he's told he shouldn't be proud of is that he can usually ignore most injuries or sickness until he can throw up at a more convenient time. He's pushed through a lightsaber-to-the-side to get himself and Cere out of Fortress Inquisitorius and escape Darth Vader; honestly holding down some measly stomach bile should be nothing.

He's still thankful that they've stopped moving, at least. He doesn't think Bode thought about nausea when he...

When...

Stars. Bode muzzled him. He doesn't know why that hasn't clicked until now. Bode, a man Cal has considered one of his closest friends, had not only stabbed him in the back, threatened his friends, and kidnapped him, he bound and muzzled him. A different kind of anger flares in him, a rare kind of anger that's felt for himself.

Up until now he's only been worried about his friends, what this meant for his family. He completely forgot that he's been degraded and violated at the hands of a man he used to trust with his life. It's laughably strange; being upset on his own behalf. Humiliated, embarrassed, deceived. Tricked. Used. He hasn't felt anywhere close to this way since... since the time he found out who the Second Sister was and how she related to Cere. And even then, that felt mild in comparison to what twists in his guts now. Cere lied but it wasn't out of malice. The lies Bode's told? They've hurt Cal in the end. Burned him worse than Dagon's lightsaber.

"Yeah, the colors sure are pretty," Bode says while the sound of the cockpit opening accompanies his words. "You see that temple over there? That's where we're staying from here on."

"It looks lonely," Kata says softly.

"Yeah, but it's safe."

Cal listens as Bode's boots scrape on loose pebbled dirt. He grunts then, as he must be helping Kata out of the jet.

There's the sound of footsteps over wild terrain before Kata suddenly protests. "What about my bag?"

"Papa will get it later," Bode says, the footsteps continuing further away. Cal's heart speeds up. They're... leaving Cal behind. Trapped in this kriffing compartment. Alone. For who knows how long. "Don't you want to explore a little first?"

"Okay..."

Their footsteps carry away, and Cal no longer can hear legible words being said.

He's never been claustrophobic. Most people know him as The Guy who's willing to squeeze himself into tight spaces without knowing what's on the other side. However, the walls seem to close in on him now. Everything hurts, one of Bode's bags presses painfully into the small of his back, and he desperately wants to stretch every muscle in his body, but there's nothing he can do.

He wants out. And the only person who can get him out just walked away for who knows how long.

He grunts, panting slightly as panic rakes its claws down his ribcage. He tries to shift, pushing through the pain in his injured knee to get his legs over and bent toward the compartment's door. The nausea from before seems barely noticeable as it's drowned out by the overwhelming need to get out.

He shimmies, wiggles, angrily does what he can with what miniscule movement he has to push bags out of the way so his back is now pressed against the far wall, neck bent awkwardly and his knees pressed to his chest.

He doesn't have much movement, but he does his best to kick at the door anyways. He realizes quickly that he has zero momentum, and he growls in frustration, attempting again. And again. And again until he ends up desperately just pushing against the door with his feet, spine digging into the far wall. He only stops pushing when his vision starts blacking out; there's pain in his ribs like a vibro-blade had been squeezed between each bone. He's not getting enough air. He's hyperventilating and either the compartment doesn't have enough air supply for a struggle while the jet is off, or the muzzle is suffocating him. It doesn't matter, either way it makes him panic harder.

He needs to get out. He needs to get out. He needs to get out-

But he can't breathe. The black spots in his vision aren't going away, just hanging out in his vision like a threat.

Focus. Focus, Cal. He can't have a panic attack right now, ignoring the fact that he probably already is in the middle of one. He painstakingly shifts his legs away from the door so he can better stretch out his chest, squeezing his eyes shut and fighting for the short pants to become longer and more controlled.

It takes entirely too long. Luckily, it seems Cal's breathing problem came from not enough air being let through the muzzle and nose, not from the air supply itself. That fact allows him to calm even more, swallowing thickly on silenced sobs and breathing in, out, in, out, in...

Footsteps.

Heavy-set, sure-footed.

Bode.

Cal desperately wipes the corners of his eyes on his shoulders, hoping it doesn't look like he's just come out of a full blown fit. Bode has to let him out now, right? He doesn't hear Kata's accompanied footsteps, and Bode's gait doesn't seem burdened like he's carrying her.

The desire to leave this kriffing box overwhelms the desire to kick Bode's ass into the nearest red giant.

He stays still, listening to Bode's approach, then fights a sigh of relief as he stops near where Cal's stored even though he knows that sigh would be muted. There's a moment of silence before a small knock sounds through the metal.

"I'm going to get you out now," Bode says, and Cal nearly goes boneless with relief, he almost forgets what he's angry at Bode for. "I'm sure you're angry, and uncomfortable," Bode continues, his voice carefully level, like he's putting effort into it, "-but I promise the moment you're out, I'm taking off that muzzle and we can talk. If all goes well, I'll take everything else off too. Just... don't fight me for a minute is all I'm askin'."

Cal doesn't give a rat's-ass about the muzzle and the restraints right now. He just wants out.

Bode sighs, and soon there's a hiss as the vacuum-seal releases. Daylight filters through the crack as it opens fully, revealing a familiar broad shouldered, muscular man with his lips pressed tight and his jaw clenched.

Cal freezes at the sight of him, and Bode does the same. They stare at each other for a moment, until Bode clears his throat. "Deal?" he asks.

And the anger floods back. A furious, burning part of himself wants to kick Bode in the face right now even if it meant staying in the compartment, but the other part of him remembers the promise of being let out and untied. If he can just... play along until Bode releases him, then he can give Bode a good heel-to-face.

He nods slowly, but tightens his eyes into a glare.

"Alright," Bode says, dropping his eyes from Cal's own, "just hold still. I won't touch you long."

Cal has to focus on his breathing again and force himself to not flinch as Bode reaches in, avoiding Cal's eyes, to get one arm under Cal's knees and the other under the small of his back. He keeps glaring at Bode; he can't speak but maybe this way he can get the message across that he's beyond pissed-off and he's not going to make this easy for Bode. They're not best friends. They're not brothers. Cal is Bode's captive, and Bode is Cal's betrayer. Nothing more. Bode's nothing to Cal.

Bode grunts as he lifts Cal up and out of the compartment. Cal desperately wants to keep his cold glare on Bode as he's lifted out, but the daylight assaults his irises, forcing them squeezing shut to avoid any new unwanted tears from forming.

Bode didn't lie when he said he wouldn't touch Cal for long. It takes just a few moments for Cal to be sat down on a boulder a small distance from the jet, back to the sunlight. Bode raises his hands as Cal catches his balance, groaning at the stiffness of his limbs. The downward motion reignites his need to throw up, but he breathes through it and slowly cracks his eyes open to resume his irritated glower. Bode kneels a small distance back, palms up but eyes looking at Cal's shoulders instead of his face. Cal can't help but drop his own eyes from Bode's face as well to look at his hips. Two lightsabers, three blasters. All on his body.

He glances up quickly so Bode doesn't notice his looking and waits for Bode to make the first move.

"Okay, scrapper," Bode says finally, "Here's how this goes. You can say anything you want to me, everything I'm sure is on your mind. Stars know you look ready to pounce me with every insult you can think of. It's ok, I deserve it, I won't hold it against you or punish you for it. However," his big brown eyes finally level back to Cal's, "leave Kata out of whatever you're thinking. She's innocent in this, she doesn't even know you're here. One wrong word toward my little girl, Kestis..."

The threat goes unsaid. Cal doesn't know if Bode would kill him for threatening Kata, but luckily he wasn't planning on threatening her anyways. In fact, he's almost insulted that Bode would think Cal would stoop that low.

He nods his head sharply. Bode sighs, his eyes turn Cal's face again. "Alright, give me a second."

His hands reach around Cal's face and Cal can feel every muscle tensing in his body as Bode's bare fingers brush the back of his head. It feels like poison, which is heartbreaking because Bode's touch used to be so welcomed.

There's a click, and Bode unpeels the muzzle from Cal's face. Cal leans his head back, gasping and working his stiff jaw open. He hasn't even noticed how tightly his teeth had been pressed together, the roots of his molars ache. Bode steps back and sets the muzzle on the ground while Cal gets used to having free-will over his own mouth again. It takes only a minute for Cal to get his first word out, however.

"Traitor," Cal hisses.

Bode gives a small subdued nod. "I deserve that."

And that sets Cal off. Cal snarls at him, throwing every insult he can think of into long strings of sentences, most of which including words like "sleazy" "liar" "worthless" "monster" and a few slangs he's picked up over the years, the worst originating from the scrappers on Bracca. Bode sits through it all, never meeting Cal's eyes, but wincing at a few particularly choiced words on how Cal feels right now.

"-never should have taken a chance on you-"

"-I wish it was you, not Bravo, Gabs, the Twins-"

"-should never have let you get this close-"

"-I trusted you-"

He keeps going until he stops for a gasping lung-full of air. Then, he just pants and glares.

Bode lets the words float between them for a moment, looking visibly chastised, but Cal has no idea if that's a lie too.

"Can I explain now?" Bode finally asks.

Cal seethes. "I don't give a kriff what your explanation is. But you're not the one tied up."

Bode winces again. "It's all for Kata," he says, and Cal can't fight an eye roll. Bode quickly continues. "Cal, I know I lied about a lot of things, but I won't anymore. You deserve to know the truth."

Bode eases into a story about a young Jedi who was trained and tasked for infiltration and espionage. He was on a mission when the Purge began, and stayed hidden to stay alive. He lived like that, for a long time, before meeting the most incredible woman alive. He married her, loved her, and had a child with her. And then, he got a message to not come home. The Inquisitorius came looking for him, and they killed his wife. He doesn't know how he slipped, how they found out, but it didn't matter. Kata was all he had left of her, and he needed to protect that. The two of them were on the run until Bode decided to contact an old handler. A commander at IBS now. Denvik promised to keep Bode's identity hidden and Kata safe as long as Bode kept useful. He sent Bode on a mission eventually to infiltrate Saw Gerrara's band of rebels, get close enough to known Jedi Cal Kestis, and use Cal to find out the whereabouts of Cere Junda.

That's all this was all about. At first.

But then he begins to tell about how Bode couldn't help but find kinship in Cal, and then everything with Tanalor and the Compass, he saw it as a way out of the Empire, a safe haven for Kata. He couldn't let it get to the Hidden Path, but he didn't know how to do that without betraying Cal in the process. Cal was obviously set in his ways and wouldn't back down from giving the Compass to the Hidden Path. He couldn't allow that. He doesn't expect Cal to understand, or forgive him...

...and that's what makes Cal all the angrier.

"If you told me before you shot me," Cal can only whisper, cuz if he doesn't he'd scream, "you wouldn't need my forgiveness."

Regret flickers through Bode's features, but he quickly masks it by looking at his boots.

"But Bode," Cal continues, he can't keep the fury out of his voice no matter how hard he tries, it shakes his tone, "the Hidden Path can make Tanalor a safe haven for everybody. Even you. And Kata."

"A safe haven doesn't train soldiers, Cal."

"Then we don't have to," Cal stresses. "We can take just the refugees. Start communities. Allow more children just like Kata to grow up unafraid of the Empire. That's what this is about. It doesn't-"

"Cal, do you think I'm the only spy capable of infiltrating a group of rebels?" Bode snaps. Cal freezes, eyebrows shooting up. "Say you do that, and it's good for a long time, but one day one of your refugees is going to be someone like me, and you won't notice until it's too late. The Empire will come, they're resourceful enough to find a way to make their own Compass, if that spy doesn't give it to them first. Could you live with that, Cal? Making a home for hundreds of people, lying to them that they're safe, only to watch as it's all ripped away and Tanalor is lost?"

"That's not fair, Bode."

"The Empire isn't fair!"

It's the first time Bode's raised his voice at Cal, and it feels like he's been shot all over again. It's like up until now, there's been a crack between them, but now it's torn itself into a gaping canyon. Cal can't reach Bode, not like this.

But... does he want to reach Bode?

Cal swallows, fighting to keep his voice from matching in volume. "So what now, Bode? You know I don't agree."

Bode clenches his fists, but he doesn't look like he's about to attack Cal, he's just fighting just as hard to keep calm. "There's no way off this planet for you, Cal. I've already hidden the compass, and soon the jet will be hidden too. It's only you, me, and Kata. I don't expect you to agree, or forgive me, but if you want those restraints off, then you have no choice but to at least play along and accept it. Who knows, sometime in the future, one of us will change our minds."

He says it like he already knows it won't be him. Cal disagrees, but he doesn't say so. There's one more missing piece, one more source of anger he doesn't have an answer to. He swallows thickly.

"And what about Jedha?" Cal demands.

Now, Bode freezes, his eyes going wide. "What do you mean?" He asks, quickly collecting himself.

Cal immediately thinks something's horribly wrong. "You threatened them. You said if I didn't surrender, you'd tell the Empire about the Archive. I didn't surrender."

Bode pauses, then sighs. "Cal, I wasn't going to turn them in, I just said that hoping you'd believe me. After I took you down I... I couldn't do it. They're safe, the Empire doesn't know."

It doesn't sit right. Cal can't bring himself to fully believe it. "You shot at BD-1."

"My blaster wasn't set to kill," Bode says, "if I'd hit the droid, I would have taken him with us. He would have been fine."

Cal shakes his head. "I- I can't trust anything you say,"

"Why would I lie?" Bode asks with a forced smile, his voice becoming a touch desperate.

"To get me on your side."

"I already know you're not," Bode insists, "after getting the Compass, my mission didn't matter anymore. You think I'd stoop to helping the Empire a final time after I just got free? They're safe Cal, they don't know. But, if you make this difficult, that can change."

Cal tenses. His hands form into fists behind him. "Holding my family hostage is low, even for you."

"But it'll work, won't it?"

Cal doesn't back down. "And what if I did the same to you?"

Bode pauses, finally meeting Cal's eyes once again, but then he relaxes. "You wouldn't hurt Kata, I may be protective of her and have made a few threats, but we both know you'd never do that."

"Because I'm not a monster, Bode."

Bode laughs. "Cal, you've never officially completed your Padawan training, and yet, you've successfully taken on armies of stormtroopers, multiple Inquisitors, bounty hunters, Rayvis, High Republic renegade Jedi? Cal, you're a good man, but those are things only monsters can do." Cal startles at that, but he doesn't get to say anything in reaction before Bode continues on. "You're a survivor, Kestis, and survivors are monsters. The difference between the monsters who are good guys, and the ones who are bad, is that one targets the problem, and the other targets what the problem loves."

"Then that makes you the bad guy, Bode."

He shrugs. "I never said I wasn't. Look, scrapper, we can both argue about this until our heads turn blue and our hair gray, but I want to sleep and I'm sure you don't want to be in those," he nods at the restraints, "no more. Clearly, neither of us are willing to give ground right now, so let's just cool off, alright? Give us time to think and time to explore the area. We can always visit this again when we're in a better headspace."

Cal wants to argue that time won't fix this betrayal. Time won't put him in a quote unquote better headspace. He wants to go back to Koboh. He wants to hold BD-1, explore with Merrin, eat Greeze's food, learn from Cere. Being captive on a beautiful planet that the Empire doesn't know about doesn't change the fact that Cal isn't here willingly and he doesn't have a choice in whether he stays or goes.

Instead, he asks a final question. "You promise you didn't call in Jedha?"

Bode, this time, doesn't hesitate like the question's caught him off guard. "I promise, brother."

Cal still doesn't know if he trusts Bode, a broken and betrayed and hurt part of himself can't help but think it's a lie. But Cal doesn't know what to do if that's proven right. So he grabs onto those three words, lie or not, and wraps them in layers and layers of hope. The relief crashes into him, the anger for his situation and the fear for his family melts into a manageable faint lingering sense of betrayal.

He nearly goes limp in his bindings, feeling some sort of relaxed for the first time since waking up in that damn storage compartment. Now with the answer of his family's well-being being promised, every worry washes away to let the pain and nausea return.

His stomach churns. "I'm going to throw up."

Shock at the change in subject visibly shakes Bode, but he makes to rush forward, hands outstretched. Cal flinches away.

"Don't touch me."

He pants, fighting his rebellious stomach, until he feels better enough to look up and snap at Bode who looks painfully lost at the command to not get closer.

"Untie me."

Bode's shoulders sag. "Not yet, I can't."

"What?" Cal snaps. "You said-"

"I know, I will. I need to move the ship first while I know you can't try and follow. I won't be long."

"Bode, what if I'm attacked?!"

"There's no record of violent wildlife..." Bode looks Cal up and down, then sighs. "Fine, let's compromise. I'll take off the rope and put your hands in front of you."

"And give me my lightsaber," Cal says, hoping his voice sounds as firm as beskar.

To his shock, Bode nods. "That sounds reasonable. Can I touch you now?"

Cal hates how concerned he sounds, how sorrowful his face looks as he refuses completely untying Cal. He almost thinks Bode would back off if Cal says no, not yet. Cal finally looks away, no longer to look at him. "Make it quick."

Bode does, untying the rope that Cal hasn't noticed how tightly it dug into his arms and legs until pins and needles spread across his forearms, fingers, and calfs. Bode gives him a warning look as he unlocks one cuff on Cal's hands. As soon as it's off, Bode steps back and pulls his blaster, pointing it at Cal.

"In front, scrapper."

Cal glares at him, then painstakingly moves his arms to be in front of his stomach. His shoulders burn with the movement, he doesn't think he'd be able to fight back even if he tried. One cuff still remains on, cutting off his connection to the Force, and his arms feel like noodles. The last time he tried to fight Bode without a weapon is the whole reason he's in this mess. So he angrily complies, fitting his own wrist back into the other cuff, ignoring how badly he just wants to stretch.

Bode relaxes as Cal finishes doing as he's told. He goes to his hip and grabs Cal's lightsaber, but he doesn't hand it over just yet. "I won't be long. I'll come back before you know it."

Then, he turns, sets the lightsaber down a distance Cal would have to awkwardly hobble to with the shackles, then jumps in his ship like he's afraid the second Cal has his weapon in his hands he's going to attack Bode and take the jet himself.

Cal watches the jet fly away with clenched fists until it goes out of sight. He doesn't bother remembering what direction it went off to, not when he's sure Bode will probably loop around and find some hidden spot no one can find without asking him. He slowly gets to his feet, finally letting himself verbalize his discomfort in a low groan.

The lightsaber sits a taunting distance away, and not for the first time since waking up Cal curses Bode. There's no give in the shackles, his heels are practically touching. That's not even considering the smarting wound in his knee.

Slowly, he shimmies to his lightsaber, grunting every time he pulls his knee a bit too hastily, fighting the urge to hurl. This is cruel, he seethes, an insult to injury.

When he finally reaches his lightsaber, he carefully lowers himself to the ground, stretching his legs out in front of him and holding his weapon in his hands, inspecting it for tampering. He knows every single speck of metal, every detail, every scratch on this thing, and luckily nothing seems out of place. Experimentally, he ignites a single orange blade, staring at its light for a few moments, letting the low hum comfort him before he carefully lowers it towards the shackles.

The lightsaber rests on the metal, and he quickly removes it before the metal would heat up and burn him. Damn. The Empire has gotten concerningly good with lightsaber resistant equipment. If the metal isn't straight up immune, then it's designed with a high melting point where the wielder probably shouldn't bother anyways, especially if that metal is connected to them.

He has no doubts that the cuffs promise the same effect, so he sighs and turns off the blade and latches it to his hip.

He stares around him for a little while, finally managing to study his surroundings without having to worry about making sure Bode knows he's all levels of pissed with him.

Tanalor is beautiful.

Pastel and bright in all the right ways. The flora seems to sparkle with what Cal could almost swear was simple and pure magic, but realistically it's probably pollen or bugs. Pools of deep, bright reef blue settle all around him, contrasting with the white terrain in a mesmerizing way. Jagged mountains stretch in the distance and smaller boulders decorate the landscape nearby with grand cliffs to compliment the highs with breathtaking lows.

It's beautiful in person. He wishes he set first foot here on his own terms.

He allows himself to finally relax, listening to the wind and a nearby waterfall, stretching what muscle groups he can while still lacking full range of motion. He checks his pockets too, seeing what Bode has taken and what he's left on him. His blaster is gone, a given, but so is his locator. His grapple is still on him, as well as a few ration bars and a flask of water. Other trinkets he's collected sit neatly where he's left them; it seems Bode was only concerned about disarming and making sure they couldn't be tracked.

The only people who would think to track him through that would be the crew of the Mantis, which means Bode had to be telling the truth if he was so worried about them tracking him.

He sits there for a decent stretch of time longer, to the point boredom settles in. He misses BD-1 already, it's strange not having his companion to talk to. Cal's a talker, he always had been, the headphones he had on Bracca were actually a gift because Tabbers got annoyed with him talking to himself all the time and thought some distracting music would fix that. He smiles fondly at that. He hopes Tabbers is alright, along with the rest of the guild workers. Cal has no idea what the Empire did to the scrappers after he escaped. Did they punish the guild for housing a terrorist? He hopes they got left alone. The guild itself was hell, but he misses the people.

He pauses. Odd. He's never felt homesick for Bracca before.

Footsteps. Cal sighs, awkwardly rising to his feet a second time and leaning on his good leg. Bode enters through the trees carrying multiple bags, though Cal has no doubt Bode probably even circled around on his walk back to give no hints on the location of his fighter jet. Not that it matters, Cal's sure the Compass is hidden far in some opposite direction.

Bode sets down the bags, giving a small smile but still refusing to meet Cal's eyes. "Let's get you out of those," he says. Cal stands rigid and allows it, the intoxicating concept of moving his limbs separate from each other far overpowers the desire to be stubborn.

Bode thankfully gives space the second both restraints are off, though Cal doesn't miss him stuffing them into one of his duffles as he stretches his shoulders and legs. Bode picks up a second duffle and tosses it at Cal's feet. Cal pauses, admittedly staring down at the duffle like it personally insulted him.

"You look like sewage, scrapper," Bode says, and Cal bites back the and whose fault is that retort. "Stopped at a moon on the way here and grabbed you some changes of clothes. I guessed your sizes, so I hope they fit. There's also some bacta and clean bandages in there, you can reapply it to your knee and chest."

Cal stares at him for a moment before sighing and bending down to inspect the duffle. He remembers this one, it was stuffed under his hip.

Inside is true to Bode's word, changes of clothes and various hygiene supplies. He closes the bag and bites off a grunt as he lifts it to his shoulder. However, before he walks off towards a private place to change, he glances back at Bode, biting his lip before speaking.

"I don't think it will ever be normal with us again, Bode," he says softly, the anger pulsing into sorrow and grief.

Bode gives a sad smile. "I don't expect it to be. I just need you to keep Kata out of it."

Cal turns, he doesn't trust the moisture in his eyes to not fall.

Play along. Find the Compass. Get the Jet. Get out of here and get the others.

He can play Bode's game until then. He just has to be patient so he can leave Tanalor and get back to doing what he's meant to be doing. Stopping the Empire.

"Patience, Cal," He mutters softly to himself. "You'll get through this."

#jedi survivor #cal kestis #bode akuna #jedi survivor spoilers #star wars jedi fallen order #jedi fallen order #star wars jedi survivor #sw jedi fallen order #sw jedi survivor #god i never know what fandom tag to actually use 🙃#jin writes #fanfiction

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ninjastormhawkkat · 1 year

Text

The Fall of Fair City - Chapter 5

"Alright then. Let's go CHF!" With that, Wordgirl zoomed into another villain battle. Her and her sidekick going off against The Learnerer, Dr. Two Brains (her dad) and his henchmen. As usual, each side gave their best efforts during the battle, both trying to seek an advantage. At the same time though, neither side was going to fight tooth and nail to become victorious. Each party having their own reasons for setting this battle with limits. "Huggy, initiate plan 1342-B." Wordgirl commanded at one point. Huggy gave a salute as she grabbed her sidekick and flipped him over to some gadgets placed on a table marked containment. Huggy landed safely, and like the lightning bolt printed on his uniform, the monkey quickly grabbed two rays and blasted them at the henchmen who were charging at him, trying to grab the monkey. Like in a western film, Huggy was able to entrap the approaching henchmen in some type of sticky foam, snaring them stunned in their tracks. "Holy cow!" Dr. Two Brains exclaimed in surprise after he witnessed the whole thing. "When did your sidekick learn to do that?" He asked Wordgirl in bewilderment. "Well Huggy and I have been rereading over a certain heroic guidebook where the author mentioned about using learning new skills to help improve in battle rather than relying on just what you already know. So Huggy and I been practicing on using gadgets for our battles rather than just our physical prowess. I must say Huggy has really improved in his accuracy and aim." Wordgirl exclaimed proudly, complimenting her sidekick who was blushing from the praise. "You really are progressing a lot Wordgirl." Dr. Two Brains commented, trying to sound annoyed and bothered that the local hero was gaining advantage over the villains now. A small smile betrayed how the mad scientist truly felt about Wordgirl's advancement. Wordgirl was soon distracted away from Dr. Two Brains when The Learnerer began using his homemade tractor beam and a few of the inventions against her, trying to entrap her or at least give the other two time to escape capture. Huggy lept into action to help her, leaving Dr. Two Brains to his own devices. Usually the mad scientist would take this advantage and make a clean getaway, but the villain codebook stated that villains in team ups should at least try and help their partner escape when they could along with them. So Two Brains began searching through the storage room, trying to find an invention that would give him and The Learnerer an advantage. His red/pink eyes soon caught the image of white tarp covering something bulky, located in a spacious area of the room. Dr. Two Brains ran too it quickly while Wordgirl and Huggy were distracted with battling The Learnerer. Curiosity and motivation to make an successful villain getaway urged Two Brains to lift the tarp and see what was under it, hoping it could help him. Quickly Dr. Two Brains yanked the tarp off the machine ignoring any snagging vibrations or sounds of tearing. Dr. Two Brains observed the ray. It was metallic in form and color, medium sized, rectangular in shape. One side slanted at an angle. It displayed a control board panel attached to it. There were a few switches, one lever located on the other side, sticking up. Two Brains could see more meters and digital boards on the control panel than switches. Right in the center of the panel, some type of shape resembling a beaker was embossed in the center, a dark hole connected to a small tube was carved at the top of the shape. Two metal rods were stuck to the side of the rectangular device. It looked modified, new, an invention the mad scientist had never seen before in his life. So why was Dr. Two Brains frozen in place, a look of fear in his eyes. His whole body was shaking with that feeling. But there was also something else he was feeling. Rage? 'This doesn't make sense.' Two Brains tried to logically analyze the two pulsating emotions in his body causing him to freeze like a statue and shake violently with fury. @melodythebunny @drtwobrainsstuff

#wordgirl #wordgirl au #dr two brains #the learnerer #the fall of fair city #becky boxleitner au #captain huggy face

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cosmically-powered-starscream · 2 years

Text

Emperor’s New Frame

Notes: You know that one panel that introduces Armada Starscream design into RID comics at the beginning of Dark Cybertron? And the way Saren Stone draws him in the Windblade series? That's all.

This started purely as a short smut drabble but three days later I'm left with... this. Fluff and smut ahead!

Pairing: IDW Starscream x OC (gn, valveplug, 18+)

Word count: 2.9K

[AO3 link]

* * *

Bright red glistened in the very first rays of sunlight of a new day. Shiny fresh paint on Starscream’s newest frame was almost glowing after a new body upgrade he just had installed, sleeker and smoother than his last battle built. And Stormchaser couldn’t stop looking.

“Who’s that handsome bot? And is he single?” they playfully put their datapad down when he entered the habsuite through the balcony, returning from the finalizing tune-ups he had done overnight. Starscream’s face lit up with a satisfied grin.

“Unfortunately, he’s not. But he can appreciate a nice compliment.”

“You look stunning,” Stormchaser was on their feet, standing up to admire the new frame up close. His shoulders were broad, enhanced by the fixed-position wings in stark contrast with a tiny waist they immediately had to fight an urge to take into their servos. Stormchaser was sure they could wrap their fingers all around it. “How do you feel?”

“I feel lighter,” he said, giving his partner a little twirl so they could take a better look at his backside. “Lighter than air.”

“What about the flight?”

“Aerodynamics is great. I barely felt the air resistance. I didn’t try pushing speed limits yet but I already feel the engines can take it,” he smiled, turning back to face Stormchaser. “We’ll need to go for a flight tonight to try it out. After dark, when no one’ll disturb us.” He longingly looked out the balcony door to the sky. “Don’t you miss seeing the stars up close?”

“There’s only one star I care about,” Stormchaser approached him, a gentle touch on his chest over where his spark lay under the layers of armor, lingering. They exvented gently, feeling the pulse through the metal, optics meeting with his. Many thought of this as an act of vanity, their new leader matching his exterior with the newly acquired position of power he longed for so long but his Conjunx knew better. Starscream put his servo over theirs.

“How does it feel? Really feel?”

“I’m… not sure yet. But definitely better from the previous one,” he took both their palms into his, squeezing them gently. “I think it’s the general shape. It fits better.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” a soft smile on their face.

“Do you like it?”

Stormchaser touched him once more, gently tracing his shape. “I love it,” they whispered, “But you know I’d love you in any shape or form. Even if you decided it’s time to see how tires on concrete feel like.”

“Oh, I don’t think it’d ever come to that,” he laughed. “Sometimes I feel like the wings are the only part truly right about my shape. Can you imagine me without them? Now that would be just wrong.”

“The wings always suited you,” fingers running along their edges, slowly moving to his shoulder cannons and vents on his chest. “And the red,” gentle servos travelling lower, down his sides, “I love the solid color, you look absolutely stunning.”

And oh, was he stunning. Stormchaser finally reached his tiny waist they were set on from the beginning – they were right, they could almost hold it whole in two servos - pulling Starscream closer to them, the charge in their field building up. He in turn gently held them by the shoulders, giving them a knowing smirk.

“So, what’s the final verdict? Is this look worthy of Lord Starscream the First, the ruler of Cybertron?”

Instead of an answer, Stormchaser closed the small distance between them, pressing their lips on his, Starscream giving into their touch.

“More than worthy,” their optics lidded, looking into his. “But there’s one more thing I’m curious about.”

“What is it, my dear?” his servos moved from their shoulders to the chest, playing with the blades of their vents.

Stormchaser leaned in and whispered directly into his audial, “What else those powerful engines of yours can do?”

The charge in the air was instant.

“Care to find out?” he purred, gently taking their face into his palm, bringing them closer. Stormchaser smiled, static running down their spinal strut.

“Lead the way, my Lord.”

And then suddenly, to Stormchaser’s surprise, in one swift motion Starscream scooped them up and lifted into his arms, carrying them towards the berthroom door.

“Star!” they yelped but laughed. “My, you are so strong! My knees are weak,” Stormchaser playfully hung off his shoulders, legs in the air. He smiled devilishly.

“Oh, I’m sure they are.”

The berthroom was dim, blinds still halfway down as an orange morning light cast soft shadows on the walls. Gently, Starscream settled Stormchaser on the berth before climbing over them, giving them a whole new angle to admire his frame from. And oh, did they like the sight of him on top of them, held in place between his knees.

“You’re so handsome,” Stormchaser whispered, pulling him closer to touch him all over again. “Absolutely stunning,” their fingertips caressed his face, his cheeks, dragging their thumb over his slightly parted lips, optics half-closed as he bathed in their endless adoration.

“Tell me, what would you like,” his voice was low when he leaned down to bury his face under their jawline, kissing and nibbling at their neck cables ever so slightly with his sharp pair of teeth. Stormchaser exvented deeply.

“Show me what your new frame got.”

Starscream chuckled against their neck. “A little impatient, aren’t we?”

“You asked, I’m answering,” staticky interference crept into Stormchaser’s voice as their interface panel slid away under Starscream’s fingers, exposing pulsing biolights around their valve entrance.

“As you wish,” Starscream straightened up, sliding his own panel open and letting his new spike fully pressurize as Stormchaser watched. It was different from the one on his former frame. The biolights were bright red, matching his paint beautifully, the ridges along the length more pronounced and they spotted a few extra nodes added along the length, both what they imagined were for his own pleasure and more friction upon contact. The shape was more curved as well as a bit thicker than his previous spike, making Stormchaser throb in anticipation.

“Oh dear…” was all they managed to say, looking the spike up and down, optics following the biolight pulses from the bottom to the top. They could feel the lubricant pooling inside their valve, tiny droplets leaking out on the berth under them.

“What do you think?” Starscream looked almost proud.

“I think I need you. About right now.” They pulled him into a heated kiss, glossas meeting halfway. Starscream’s fingers found Stormchaser’s anterior node, rubbing it tirelessly while nibbling at their neck cables. They were unable to stop their hips from rolling into his servo, slick lubricant coating his fingers in the process.

“Patience, my dear,” he whispered but his field burned with desire as much as Stormchaser’s. “I want to hear you.”

“I need you,” Stormchaser repeated, voice full of static, opening their neck to more of his advances. “Let me have this. Show me what that new spike of yours can do,” they caressed his sides with gentle but growingly needy touch, reaching his pressurized member to give it a light stroke. Starscream hummed against their neck and his fans kicked up a notch.

“Yes, like that. Show me how powerful those engines are,” their optics opened and locked with him, all seriousness and firmness in their voice. “Inside me. Now.”

Starscream smiled and with a low rumble of the engines he ran his servos down Stormchaser’s thighs. “If I knew this new frame would have such effects on you…”

When he started rubbing his spike between the lips of their valve, the jolt of electricity from the sensation of the texture against their anterior node almost made Stormchaser overload right there and then.

“It’s your fault for being so fraggin’ good looking and charismatic,” they cursed through gritted teeth, holding onto his shoulders, pulling closer to shower his body with kisses in turn. His jawline, neck, his chest, exventing shakily while he still slowly rubbed his ridges against them.

“Primus, I love you so much,” they couldn’t contain themselves anymore, the overload slowly building around the sensitive node. “But please… just let me have this. Let me have you.”

“Well, since you asked so nicely…” he had his oh so familiar smug face on but Stormchaser could hear the interference in his voice and humming fans too well. He wanted this as much as they did, but he couldn’t do so without all the teasing first, especially seeing his Conjunx this needy – for him and him only. Positioning himself with their throbbing entrance, he slowly pushed forward – the ridges and nodes against the now oversensitive inner mesh sent electric pulses straight to Stormchaser’s core. And he kept pushing deeper. Ridge by ridge, node by node. The new texture and girth were unfamiliar but not unpleasant, making Stormchaser’s frame tense with the slight stretching sensation. Starscream leaned down to them again, brushing his warm lips against theirs.

“How does it feel?”

“Star…”

“Yes?”

“Please… I need friction…”

“You haven’t answered,” he repeated in a low voice right next to their audial. “How does it feel?”

“It feels… it feels incredible.”

“Does it?” he whispered, as he pulled out almost completely and slowly pushed back in.

“Yes… like that,” Stormchaser hissed, tangling their fingers inbetween Starscream’s vents. His tempo was slow but the thrusts were deep, almost reaching the upper node in Stormchaser’s valve, charge rising. Stormchaser’s whole frame was pulsing and contracting, desperately needing more than the pace he set. They started moving their hips to meet him at a different angle, deep ridges of his spike stimulating the sensitive valve, dripping with lubricant.

To their frustration, as soon as they did, Starscream’s servo held them down in place, stopping his movements completely. A small whine escaped Stormchaser’s vocalizer at the lack of friction, looking at their lover whose narrowed optics and clenched jaw said a thousand words.

“Your impatience is maddening,” his voice raspy, fans roaring. Something broke inside Starscream, shattered his composure because the firm hold of Stormchaser’s hips quickly turned into a propped lift as a new, deeper angle opened to his advances. He started moving again, pace way faster now, leaving Stormchaser with a surprised yelp at the sudden change.

“How does this feel?” he rumbled.

Stormchaser was too stunned to speak. It’s been a while Starscream took charge in berth this fast and hard. But the way he moved, the smooth roll of his hips, powerful engines that heated up his new body making it almost hot to the touch, it was their lover’s confidence with this new frame that was so exciting.

“Tell me how I make you feel,” he grunted low, not slowing down in the slightest, “Tell me what I do to you.”

“Yes, you fill me so good… you fit me so perfectly…” they gasped inbetween thrusts, holding onto his arms for dear life, which railed Starscream up even more. “I feel whole with you inside me.”

Starscream groaned and repositioned Stormchaser’s legs to wrap around his waist so he could lean down and kiss his Conjunx urgently on the parted lips. The heat radiating from him was pushing their cooling system to the max, as their own armor was starting to reach higher temperatures. The friction was rising with the fast pace and their inner nodes constantly attacked by his own, overstimulated valve throbbing almost painfully. Static was slowly creeping into the edges of their visual field as their release was approaching fast. Stormchaser’s small moan just as Starscream bit down on their lip in the heat of the moment was suddenly interrupted by a knock on the habsuite door.

“Boss?”

He immediately straightened up as they both froze in an instant, Stormchaser’s servo shooting up to cover their mouth.

“What is it, Rattrap?” the level of Starscream’s voice was surprisingly even and firm for someone spike-deep in his partner on a certain way to an overload. To Stormchaser’s even bigger surprise, at the same time his fingers crept to lightly stroke their spike panel, snapping open immediately upon contact from all the unresolved stimulation. They gasped voicelessly, optics wide when Starscream wrapped one servo around their already pressurized spike, the other brought to his lips with one finger up.

Be quiet, the gesture said. Even though Stormchaser was seen around Starscream regularly, the bond they formed the moment the war was over was kept a secret. The decision to name each other their Conjunx Endura was genuine – a result of centuries long kinship between the two that despite their circumstances grew into something more, although keeping the ceremony and knowledge about the bond’s formation private was a mutual agreement. The last thing they needed now was people knowing their new leader had a confidant, a partner, a possible weakness. And even though who Starscream had in berth was noone’s business, Rattrap didn’t need to know and Stormchaser knew that. But pits, was Starscream going to make a challenge out of it when he started moving again, his fingers around their spike in synch with the roll of his hips.

“I’m getting the twitch.”

“What are you blathering about?” Starscream didn’t even look in the direction of the door, optics locked on Stormchaser, almost smug expression on his face as his servo ran up and down, working them to the edge. He didn’t care about Rattrap outside, he was set on a different course now, that shameless bot. Not even blinking, not wanting to miss a moment of their expression, the gradual buildup of charge and desperation in their already sensitive body. You wanted to have me?, said the expression.

“Don’t feel obligated to answer.”

Show me what I’m doing to you.

“I gets ‘dis twitch when somethin’ ain’t right,” Rattrap continued, unaware what’s happening behind the door. Stormchaser let go of their mouth, opened in voiceless static to hold onto Starscream, still tirelessly thrusting into them, both their engines desperately trying to cool themselves off. Stormchaser was sure Rattrap had to hear them. With each push they moved up on the berth a little, certain Starscream was ruining his new paint like this – though imagining the dents and streaks of shiny red on their thigh and pelvic plating afterwards was bringing them even closer to their already nearing high. Starscream’s optics were slowly narrowing but he still kept the eye contact, despite all the self-control and endurance, he was approaching his own overload as certainly as them. They felt it in his now almost erratic tempo, his spike pushing so deep inside their valve Stormchaser swore he had to be hitting their fuel chamber by now, creating charge and pulses that made their body almost physically vibrate.

But only when he pulled out almost completely and slammed back into them, hitting all the deep valve nodes along the way as well as applying sudden pressure to the base of their spike in a synch with their inner throb, Stormchaser’s back arched all at once in an instant snap of a blinding double overload. Their mouth opened with an uncontained moan, immediately silenced by Starscream’s desperate kiss as he kept thrusting and stroking through their peak. Spike twitching with the release and valve spasming around Starscream’s own spike inside, finally sending him over the edge as well. They felt armor denting under his servos, holding onto them as an anchor in an explosion of charge, his transfluid filling their valve to the brim. Bright white static veiled Stormchaser’s vision, crashing their audio and visual processor for a moment.

“Starscream… dat light outside… dat sunrise…”

“Oh, for Primus’ sake!” he called out in a voice laced with static, Stormchaser unsure if it was the cry of frustration or a verbal release of his own overload before turning his attention back to them, splayed and spent on the berth under him. Stormchaser’s transfluid splattered all over their torso and Starscreams’s shiny new frame didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest. On the contrary, he looked immensely satisfied with his work as he wiped some of the bright liquid off his abdomen and sucked his fingers dry, not breaking eye contact with his lover in the process. He then pulled out slowly, leaving more transfluid dripping down Stormchaser’s thighs. Stormchaser shivered at the sudden emptiness and slick feeling of the leaking fluids, knees shaking. It was an absolute mess.

“I have seen the sunrise,” Starscream nonchalantly continued the conversation with Rattrap outside the habsuit like nothing happened, straddling Stormchaser’s still slightly shaking frame. Vision slowly clearing of the static, they watched him sit there with a smile on his face in an absolute disbelief over what just went down with an unwanted guest still behind the door. He’s truly going to be the death of them one day.

“By Primus, don’t I love you”, they whispered almost inaudibly, servo reaching out to gently stroke his arm, still warm to the touch.

“And while it was glorious to watch it cast its light on the empire of Starscream the First…” he gave his Conjunx a look of complete adoration, together in dim sunlight seeping through the blinds he was so colorfully describing to Rattrap behind the door.

“I love you too,” he mouthed silently to them, taking their face to both his palms, thumbs caressing their cheeks as he softly kissed their lips in a pleasant afterglow before turning to the door one final time.

“Starscream the First would rather spend the rest of the morning familiarizing himself with his new body.”

#valveplug #starscream x oc #starscream #idw starscream #transformers #idw transformers #transformers oc #my writing #chasing stars series #chasing stars fic series

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unknownjpegs · 4 months

Text

instinct

Benji has always slept in fitful bursts. It’s habitual. Colony life brushed insomnia sweetly into his body’s rhythm. Space-faring contract work had sealed sleeplessness like boiling water on a stain. Years of rotating sleep shifts, lookout duty, stretching his waking hours — so Maran could have just a few extra.

As bounty hunters and then as fugitives, sleep was even more elusive. Not just because time became strange on a ship constantly dipping in and out of hyperdrive. Benji’s mind didn’t like taking off from one planet with two moons high in the horizon, only to land on another whose singular sun was just beginning to rise.

And being on the run required awareness. How could he spare the effort for sleep when it was usually spent casting a harried, cornered-animal glance over his shoulder? How was he meant to quiet his brain, coax himself to sleep if the worried sickness gnawed at him. If, at any moment, they would come for Maran again. For him.

How was he meant to sleep if they could spend those hours putting more distance, find another job, squirrel away credits into their escape fund?

It is the crime of his fucking life that sleep, when it rarely comes, is always tinged by dreams. Vivid dreams. Sometimes, he has nothing but the same dream for days, weeks, and months on end.

On a near-abandoned ship that drifts through space like cast-off junk, on a ship ferrying a mostly dead crew into the slow crawl of vast nothingness, Benji slips into an exhausted necessary sort of slumber. He sleeps, he dreams.

The terrible fucking ship colors them. Makes the crawl of them across his subconscious ink-like, rather than a gentle, whimsical pulse. The mirage of memories sticks tp his mind. They’re ten years old now, or nearly. But when they linger like this in his subconscious, they feel fresh.

His first sleep on the abandoned prison ship in the company of a soldier he doesn’t dare trust is less than an hour long. He insists it’s enough. It quickly becomes clear that it isn’t — he gets sloppy. But Benji wants to avoid sleep. And that’s something that Nomi notices first.

“You need to rest,” she says quietly to him. He’s crouched beside her to watch as she works a tiny screen in the panel of the wall. He blinks aching, exhausted-blurry eyes and fights the unfair urge to snap at her. Oh, do I? Oh, is it that obvious? Fucking of course I need to rest. I need to get off this ship, is what I need to do. And you need to mind your own —

The lulling pattern of her fingers makes him doze, instead of bringing curious wakefulness.

“Got another two hours in me.” Benji dismisses with a shake of his head. It’s more to keep himself awake than anything, but clearly the little officer doesn’t interpret it that way.

“Yeah, and you’ll not be any fuckin’ use for either of them if you don’t sleep.” She snaps. Her shiny, candy pink eyes have gone hard. “You’re taking first shift.”

It’s not a question. Benji opens his mouth to worm his way out, and finds her impassive, stubborn face completely blocks his path.

“Fine. Let me take first.” Benji sighs. “You go after me, yeah? That way one of us is always awake with you.”

She scoffs, flicking her chin to toss hair over her shoulder, and gives him a look that reminds him of Matilda, makes his chest ache with concern. “Think I can’t handle myself?”

“Didn’t say that.” Benji quips back, his tired brow raised. “Projecting?”

Nomi mumbles something under her breath — in her pretty lilt makes even the swear sound nice. Benji laughs, aware that it’s tinged more than it should be with amused affection, and rises. He moves to the other corner of their makeshift base; a security room on the outermost wing of the ship.

He moves not because he doesn’t want to be near her, but because he does. And that’s unnecessary. More than. It’s dangerous.

Sitting near Nomi puts him in the headspace of prey like very, very little else. Benji’s whole career has been made on slipping through the cracks, evading, staying mysterious. But Nomi looks at him, with her milky-pink eyes, and he’s peeled apart. Picked clean. Seen. His insides out and made to feel as though he’s always walked through life that way. Benji can only hope he isn’t as transparent to others as he is to her. Nomi’s not some foolish, whiny little coward. She’s a smart coward. She knows how to pick her battles. She knows how to be a bird of prey, rather than the creature darting through the grass.

But for now, Nomi’s assessment is blessedly brief. For now, she shrugs a benevolent go ahead. Benji doesn’t hesitate. He tucks himself to the ground, wedged into the corner so he’s got a view of the whole room. Nomi where he left her at her panel.

And Xavier —

Xavier stood facing the half-shuttered windows, his arms folded as he bends to peer slightly beneath the edge into the star-washed expanse beyond. Benji pulls his gaze away from the soldier. It’ll linger, otherwise.

Instead, he watches Nomi again. Watches her quick fingers tap at the screen. And Nomi watches back for a time. Until his eyes begin to flutter, his chest’s expansion becomes less anxiety-rapid and more exhaustedly slow. The faint edge of unconsciousness is a centimeter away, something sweet and fuzzy yet totally unreachable. It’s a warmth beneath the skin of his fingertips, his eyelids. Close. Tantalizing; a kiss to his forehead, a brush of fingers over his cheek. Brief. Always brief.

Nomi smiles. Her mouth goes soft instead of thoughtful.

Sleep finds him with a chest-punch quickness that he doesn’t expect. That feels somehow wrong with how rapidly his body relaxes into it. A feels-like-falling sensation that scares him a bit as the darkness takes over.

As it overtakes him, Benji knows he won’t feel rested when he wakes. There is another pair of eyes on him. He can feel them. He won’t be rested —

If he wakes.

And he’s there. Dreaming, yes, but there. Inside a ship. This ship. Not this ship. The ship.

It is the same layout, same twisting corridors, same color on the paneled walls, same everything. The strange omniscience of dreams makes him know the ship as intimately as he once had.

In his youth, he’d spent nearly five months memorizing. Even longer planning. He had known every corridor, every winding wire, every fucking bolt on this ship.

But some time ago, he’d taken those memories in his fists and carefully, purposefully ground them to dust Breathed them from the palm of his hand like ashes. He doesn’t want them. He doesn’t want to know the layout anymore. He doesn’t want to know shadowed halls, the distance din of terrorized voices, combat calls.

But he doesn’t have to want them for his mind to conjure them up.

(Or…maybe something else conjures them up for him. Maybe Benji is transparent. Maybe his insides are out.

In the dream, he strides down the hall in harried, footfalls. He has to be careful. The bottom of his boots are slick — no. Not just the bottom of his boots. The floor. It’s everywhere. It’s probably blood. No. He knows it’s blood. And the thing that shed all of it looks at him from a reflection in a crimson splattered, unshuttered window. Beyond lies the galaxy, the universe, all of it, everyone, everything. Every fucking thing.

Benji stares down at the superior officer. He’s bleeding from a gash at the corner of his mouth that shows torn gums, missing teeth. He has an implant of some sort in his cheek. The chip and a wire hang in his mouth and make him look sewn full of worms.

“All for one prisoner? Just one fucking prisoner? All these lives for one man?”

“Just one?” Benji had laughed cruelly, raised the muzzle of his pilfered rifle. “Yeah. And another, to be safe. You’ve got no clue what I would do, mate. No fucking clue.”

“No clue.” Benji murmurs to his reflection, brushing a wetly smeared lock of hair off his forehead. His face is gaunt, washed red under the ship’s pulsing emergency lights. An emergency that he caused. Benji turns to continue down the hall, but he pauses once more.

Just one.

His eyes go again to his reflection. His hair is short, shorn just a bit below his earlobe. Standard length for soldiers is above. Benji’s not a soldier anymore. He’s a deserter, and deserter standards are different.

He continues on, rifle up and ready.

With one last flash, the overhead lights die entirely. The ship’s back-up power restores it to flickering, soft-blue emergency bulbs that barely illuminate five feet ahead of him. He’s bathed in darkness, tossed into near pitch-black. The only remaining source of light its at the far end of the corridor. Benji cannot stop himself from approaching. He tries, but the dream moves him forward. He is moved forward.

Medical, say the flickering white signs. There are upturned gurneys and smashed equipment everywhere. Bodies. Prisoners and guards alike. They’ve already been through this bit, then. Medical.

He hopes it’s empty, and knows that it is not.

The prison ship is old. Decrepit and rusted in places that should be enough for it to be docked at a base for repair — or, preferably, decommissioned. Upgraded to one of the new titans that can hold thousands upon thousands of poor fucking souls. That one doesn’t look much better. Good tech is for the people that can afford it. And prisoners aren’t people to begin with.

But Maran is. And that’s why Benji is here. That’s why Benji has taken so many lives. That’s why the floor is wet, the bottom of his boots crimson, his sleep a decade out troubled.

He’s gone down each block freeing entire swathes of prisoners. Chained, solitarily confined, violated, stripped of their living status — and some have chosen to turn that back on the overlords who made it happen.

Benji gets the anger. He sympathizes with it. But he doesn’t feel it until the medical bay’s doors slide open.

There are dead bodies in beds, slumped over counters, blood splattered by a hand other than his own. It looks as though supplies have been torn through, beds cleared of loved ones or friends. But amongst the carnage and chaos, there’s one locked door.

Solitary. He looks up at the tiny window in the door. He’s scared of going closer to see his reflection, of seeing what lies behind the glass. Not the universe, no. But everything. Everything.

He doesn’t peer inside. Something in him tells him not to. Not yet, it says. Don’t look yet. It’s bad. Get the door open first. Don’t think about what you’re going to see. Don’t get hung up. It’s bad. It’s bad, Benj.

He steels himself with a massive, slow breath, eyes fluttering closed. Benji knows that he will find Maran behind this door — he’s followed the logs and the gossip from other prisoners.

“Maran,” Benji croaks as he works at the door. He repeats it again and again, kicks the panel, pries at the control panel, pounds his fist against the thick metal. Benji doesn’t remember how this door opens. Doesn’t remember the first ten seconds after it finally had. Because — because…

Because he can’t process what waits on the other side.

At first it’s the night expanse. And then it’s the dark nothing between stars. Pitch-black. A light goes on. It goes off. Back on. It stays on. Harsh, cool white-blue. They make Maran look sickly. Color-corrected of his usual vibrance. He looks pale, and Benji can’t recall a day in their lives that Maran has ever seemed ghostly. Not just see-through, insides out, but distant.

Maran lifts his head. It’s syrupy and repeated. The fear and thick choke of bile hit him in the chest, under his throat. Benji gulps. The first thing he notices are the tubes, the highways of them carrying mystery fluid to veins. The second is that Maran’s hair has grown out a bit. It curls against the shell of his ear in dry and frizz-messy curls. Maran hates his hair that long.

“Look awful.” Benji says.

“Feel it.” Maran quips back. His voice is a ragged croak. But when he shrugs, one corner of his mouth lifts.

Benji looks at his shoulder.

“Mar.”

“Yeah.”

A beat passes. The bile rises up his throat, so Benji simply turns to the side and lets it out in the corner of the room. He’s sweating when it’s over, folded in half with a palm against the cool wall and the other clutching his stomach.

“They —”

“Told ‘em, oh he’s here. Told ‘em they were fucked, right? Well and proper.” Maran is sweat-soaked, too. He laughs. He tilts his chin up. “I said that, Benj. I did. To a bunch of fucking soldiers. I told ‘em you were here and they were fucked, because I knew — oh, mate. They did not like hearin’ that.”

Maran shrugs again. He can only do it with one shoulder. It’s a cheeky motion. It’s such a fucking Maran motion that Benji starts to grin.

He realizes, in that exact moment. And his mouth drops from the beginning of a smile to a horrified part. On one side, Maran has his shoulder. He’s been stripped of everything but a pair of beige prisoner’s trousers. They’re messy with blood and orange-brown iodine.

Nice of them to disinfect, I suppose, Benji thinks, staring at his other side, where the arm has been ripped from its socket. There’s a medical sleeve covering what must be a remaining mess of mangled flesh. Or maybe it’s clean. If they sterilized it, he reasons, they might have —

Maran looks much smaller this way.

The dream wobbles. This memory is enough horror, enough fear, that Benji nearly wakes himself up with the weight of it on his chest. Compressing.

“Maran.”

“Yeah.” He laughs again. Tired, croaking. “I know. I know, right? S’fucked. Just do regular torture on a fucker, y’know what I’m sayin’? Take his fuckin’ arm? Stop. C’mon. Like, piss off.”

Benji stares at him.

Maran lifts his free arm. His middle and ring finger are missing, but there’s not a bandage there to hide the torn flesh. Serrated edge of a knife, it seems like. Old school. Meant to hurt.

“Relax, Benj. It’s a good thing.” Maran tries to get to his feet by pushing one palm against the bed. For some reason, Benji’s brain lingers on the dip of the thin cot’s fabric beneath his three remaining fingers.

“It’s a good thing.” Maran is saying. “It’s a good thing I’m right handed, huh?”

His grin is a wild thing. It stretches his freckled cheeks, which are streaked now with free-flowing tears. Benji hopes it’s relief. He’s crying, too. It’s relief and horror and anger. Bitterness.

“Nobody hah the manners to offer a wank, if it’d been the other one.” Maran wobbles close to him, propped himself against Benji’s side.

“Maran.”

He laughs again, dismissive of Benji’s horrified tone.

“Has to go against some peacetime agreements, right? Man, why are you scowling? You’ve still got two perfectly good fists to work with.”

Benji’s own chuckle sorts itself out from the entwined mess of his insides. It races out of him, every bit of hysterical as he feels. He helps Maran to the door, away from his sad gurney and the straps attached to either side Benji cannot look directly toward.

“We did this a lot.”

Maran tilts his head towards him as they move slowly back down the hall. “Hm?”

Benji pats his arm, which has slung around his broad shoulders. Maran is putting an awful lot of weight on him. He’s breathing hard too, although they’ve barely moved.

“This. Carry each other off from some fucking mess.”

“Big fucking mess.” Maran agrees with a nod. “You remember that time we were back on —”

“— in the far cluster where —”

Maran snaps his fingers. “Yeah, and there was that bar —”

Benji steps over a body with a snort. “The android running it hated your fucking guts, mate.”

A blush colors his friend’s cheeks. “Weren’t too happy about the breakup, I think. Pretty sure they were the only reason those bootlickers found us.” He wrinkles his nose. “Oh, yeah. Thinking about it now, they definitely sold us out.”

Benji snickers. He can’t help it, mimicking then android’s disciplined baritone. “Couple of idiots out in the scrapyard. Stealin’ parts.”

They come towards the end of the hall. Maran leans against the wall while Benji works at the panel. While they wait for the dented door (he’d tossed someone against it, he recalls distantly), Maran carries on the story. Looking for parts, stealing what they had no intention of paying for in the first place, they’d been cornered by a patrol and made a break for it. Maran had ended up nicked on something, and Benji’d carried him all the way from the hulking masses of abandoned craft back into town. All the fucking way.

“I’m going to kill so fucking many of them.”

Maran raises his eyebrows at a soldier propped against the wall leading to navigation. Half of his face has been melted away by a blaster shot. Benji’s, specifically.

“Fuckin’ hell, Benji,” he says. Benji can’t recall if he revulsion was there in his voice when he said it, or — “Ain’t many of ‘em left to go through.”

“Not yet.” Benji glances up at the pulsing emergency lights. “Will be more soon, though.”

Maran squeezes him close, tucking his fist against Benji’s cheek before kissing it wetly. “Safe for now, relax. Spare me an arm and I’ll help sort it out.”

Benji groans.

But when he wakes, that noise leaves him as something chest-deep, wounded, and horrified. Not nearly a scream, but just as pathetic. His stomach is churning as alertness barrels into him. He feels like he’ll be sick again — he’ll be sick. He feels as though he’ll be sick. It wasn’t real, the first time. It was the dream.

But it had felt…

“Fuck.”

Benji shifts, stretching his legs out and letting his head loll to the side, heavy on his neck. It aches. His thighs hurt too, like he’d been running. Walking. And his fingers, when he rubs them together, almost feel tacky. A shiver wracks through him violently.

“Cold?”

Benji reels back, throwing himself away from the tucked corner to one of its walls. He flattens against it, heart thudding in his chest. Is the feeling of dread in his gut, twisting and tugging like a cramp, new? Or has it followed him from the dream?

He presses a hand to his chest, taking in the wide-eyed guilt of the corporal beside him. His big, gloved palms are up in the air. Peaceful, spooked-animal splay of fingers. The air between them wavers. Benji swears it. He swears he sees fucking ripples of something, color or light or particles, pieces, bits of invisible matter ebbing like waves.

Benji pinches his eyes shut with a grimace, willing the strange vision away. When they open, the ripples are gone. Just skin, bone, muscle beneath. His eyes drag up to the corporal’s face.

“No.” Benji says. They stare at each other.

The soldier nods slowly, shuffling more to the side. Giving Benji more space. His focus draws there where he’d just been occupying. From the rumble of fabric at the soldier’s flank, Benji figures he’d been…

“Sorry.” He blurts. If he looks long enough at the space between them, the ripples return. “No, not cold. Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

It’s not. Benji shivers again. Wordless, he tucks himself back in place. Their shoulders don’t touch with the height difference, but neither of them acknowledge it. Nor the shared warmth, or the way the holsters on either of their thighs clink together, or the slight lift of the soldier’s arm so Benji can better fit.

“Nightmare?” A hand hovers near his knee for a moment before slapping audibly to the grated floor.

Benji thinks of Maran in an otherwise empty cell. On that ship, on this one, on the transport ship that had brought them here. Benji thinks of him alone. Of Matilda on their shit craft, their little runner, alone.

Before his eyes slip shut, he blinks at Nomi, her back turned to them as she curls on the floor under her jacket. Asleep, too. Benji wonders how long she’s been out. How long he has. When the corporal will get his turn. If he’ll sleep.

Do you have trouble, too? Have you ever had a dream like that? Do you dream? What do you dream about? I hope it’s never anything like —

“No,” Benji lies, shoving his thoughts away. His cheek will have an imprint of the insignia patch stitched to the uniform jacket. He doesn’t care enough to move. “Not a nightmare. Sure fucking feels like one though, doesn’t it?”

There’s a long enough pause between his question and the corporal’s answer that Benji teeters once more on the edge of sleep. He doesn’t remember the answer, or if even a hint of one leaves the other man’s mouth. All Benji remembers when he wakes is that he slept.

When he dreams next, he doesn’t return to the ship. Instead he goes somewhere soft. Warm. Instinct tells him it’s okay to linger there. To rest. In his head, instead of his gut, the voice offers: safe for now, relax.

#writing #bp #xw #mgc #space horror au #bp x xw

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vinylbernard · 7 months

Text

Theatre Bros. Pt. 1

Chip opens his crusty eyes to meet the fractured sunlight shining through the blinds. He sits up slowly fighting the urge to fall into his pillow and into a deep slumber.

The bedroom floor is littered with chips, soda cans, empty creamer cups, and dirty mugs. Chip shuffles past the trash on the floor to dig through his dresser and pull out his stash of coffee beans and a handheld grinder. As Chip grinds his coffee someone knocks on his door.

"Bro are you up? We have to get on the elevator soon or we're gonna be late," a voice says behind the door.

"Yeah, I'm just brewing some coffee, we'll be able to make it Lamp," Chip replies.

Chip puts the coffee grounds into a filter and loads the filter into a coffee machine. He grabs the nearest mug, not looking to see if it's clean, and fills it with coffee.

"Dude you gotta start drinking some stuff that doesn't smell so strong. The fucking landlord is gonna kick us out for having coffee in here," Lamp says through the door.

"Dude chill out, no one is going to smell it from out side the apartment, and there's plenty of people who drink coffee in this complex. If we were kicked out, because of coffee she'd have to kick out a third of the complex," Chip replies.

"Whatever bro, just hurry up and let me get a sip before we leave."

Chip opens the door, finishes off the coffee and throws the mug on the floor. "Get your own coffee," he says looking Lamp directly into his eyes.

"Fuck you," Lamp replies while blinding Chip with his prosthetic hand that is a light bulb and lamp shade.

The two storm out of their apartment running to the elevator, pushing other tenants out of their way. They make it inside the cramped elevator and select floor one. Chip notices that there are twenty other floors they have to stop at on the way down.

"God damn it Chip, you made us late," Lamp says while hitting Chip in the arm.

"Dude we're always late, let's be honest," Chip replies.

Chip leans against the window where the city is displayed like a painting. The artificial sky, held up by steel frames and made with screen panels was projecting an almost perfect image of a morning sky. Pink, yellow and orange light are skewed together like water colors on a canvas. The clouds are fluffy and white as marshmallows. The illusion is ruined by the broken panels displaying a black image, or glitching out. Some panels are outright missing, or hanging on by wires revealing the steel frames holding them from behind.

#cyberpunk #dystopic #dystopia #futuristic #cybernetics #short story #creative writing #writing #writeblr

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lonely-lost-soul · 3 years

Text

A Pirate's Life for Me

Cover Art Done By: @fridaydev-draws and @friday-dsv (Dreamsmp x reader) Pirate Au! Love Interests: C!Wilbur, C!Techno, C!Dream, C!Sapnap, C!Quackity, and C!Schlatt

~~~

Salt burned your lungs as you tossed open your window with a loud bang, the seagulls perching on your flower boxes screeched in protest and flew from your window. “Fucking sky rats get the fuck out of here you heathens!” You snarled out the window shaking your fist at the bothersome birds, the sounds of the ocean crashing on the shore filled your ears as well as the chatter of the dock workers. You let the breeze blow back your hair and you heard someone calling your name from down below.

“Good morning (Y/n)!” You glanced below you and grinned,

“Morning Eret!” They waved back enthusiastically their dress spilling around their ankles, a basket of fruit was balanced on his hip. “Opening early today? I'm sure your patrons would be happy to start their drunken stupor early,” She held a hand to his mouth snickering and you shot them a look.

“If that gets more money in my pocket then so be it, I won't complain too much.” You shrugged, “Will I still see you later tonight?”

“Always do dove, how can I resist a drink from my favorite bartender.”

“You can’t it’s my charm.”

“Will the both of you shut the fuck up!” Another man’s voice growled from another open window, “It’s too early for your bullshit.” You saw Eret click his tongue but smiled up at you despite the man's protests,

“I’m heading to the market anyway. These fruits won’t sell themselves, I'll see you later.”

“See you soon!” You closed your windows once more, but not before urging your daisies to grow one last time. You tossed open the curtains allowing light to spill into your cozy home, a small carpet was in the middle of your room. It was a deep red and the pattern was made of gold yarn, aside from that everything in your residency was made of dark wood. Your shelves were littered with books and empty cups, and your old worn journal sat open on your desk. It was filled with childhood memories and you continued to write in it to this day, it was easier then, things were simple and everything was innocent and new to you. Now your days were filled with sea fairing idiots who liked to drink themselves stupid, but you could handle yourself, you always kept your father's dagger on your thigh at all times. Those who were frequent customers knew not to mess with you and those who were new learned their lesson within the first ten minutes of meeting you. You inherited the bar from your father, a kindhearted man who died a few years before today, leaving you with the bar and the dagger you had on your hip. You fished through your closet pulling out your clothes for the day, your dress was a gorgeous light coffee color and came down to your ankles. The bottom was flared and had dark brown panels on the sides, it faded inward to a light green then back to the coffee color. The corset around your waist was a dark brown with light green trim, you tied it tight with a small huff making sure your waist was sinched perfectly. The sleeves came down to your elbows allowing you to move your arms freely while making drinks. The top of the dress ended just below your collarbone, you strapped your dagger to your thigh before lacing up your knee-high black boots.

You thought back to your tavern downstairs, you were fortunate enough that you weren’t running this entire operation yourself. You ended up hiring help and they were like family and you knew they saw you as such as well. Most of the girls didn’t have a family of their own so you gave them room and board, also money, of course, you weren’t a terrible boss! You opened the door to your room, you watched Cecil, the tavern’s mascot trot out of Juniper’s room. The border collie liked to switch up which rooms he stayed in protecting every one of your girls when you couldn’t be there for them.

The first of your girls was Adelaide or Addie, she was one of the first to fall under your care. She was around your age, a motherly type, sheep hybrid, who cared for the girls, and always gave the drunk patrons with mommy issues a shoulder to cry on. Her long brown hair always hung down her back, she typically worked tables, served food and drinks, and always got a generous tip from patrons.

The next girl was Judas, a squid-enderman hybrid who was taller than you could ever wish to be, although intimidating you couldn’t meet a kinder woman. A jack of all trades the woman helped out wherever she could, black-ish purple hair curled around her shoulders and some people came specifically to hear her sing. Her voice was like rich velvet and lured men and women in like a siren.

Juniper was after Judas, a demon hybrid who was naive but you’d be a fool to underestimate her. She worked beside you at the bar, she can make some mean fruity drinks, Eret always preferred her drinks over yours. Freckles adorned her face and shoulders, her light brown hair curled down to her middle back, purple horns sprouted from the top of her head. You wanted to adorn it with gold jewelry and you were saving up to gift some to her.

Yeti was a human woman like yourself, she didn’t bother with those who were rude or obnoxious. She kept to herself only really talking when she was spoken to or when there was an opportunity to crack a rare joke. She typically stayed on the sidelines, out of the scenes and Yeti liked to help Judas decorate her sets.

Zig was a kind young adult, they got along with everyone who came inside the tavern. Soft emerald eyes drew people in, and they tried to make sure tensions within the bar didn’t rise and start a fight. There would always be one or two that’s just natural, but one look at Zig and his magic words and they seemed to disperse, not wanting to hurt the kid’s feelings.

Vendetta was the tallest member of the group you had taken in, she was stunningly beautiful and didn't take shit from anybody. She was a guard dog if you will, making sure no one fucked with any of the girls in your tavern. While Zig did their best to keep people under control sometimes they couldn’t win. That’s when Ven would step in and ‘kindly’ escort them off the premises with or without force.

The youngest member here was Luvena. She was a moo-bloom hybrid with soft brown hair that sprouted flowers, her cow ears would twitch when she was excited and followed Addie around like she was her daughter. Addie took her under her wing and was training her to be a perfect little waitress, absolutely warming customers’ hearts. Luvena also loved to give out flowers, she was a fan favorite bringing new life into the tavern.

Cecil barked seeing his mama and scampered over to you, you poured food into his bowl as Juniper wandered into the hallway. Her head rested on the doorframe as she gave you a tried wave, “Morning (Y/n).”

“Morning Juni, We’re opening a little early today. Take your time I’m not expecting a big rush of bar patrons this early.” You assured her and she gave a sleepy nod,

“I’ll be down as soon as Ven’s out of the shower.” She yawned, “This beauty doesn’t come naturally.”

“Hardly darling you’re gorgeous just the way you are.” You reassured with a wink, Juniper flushed a little, happily laughing beside you.

“Just go wake the others will you, you flirt!”

Tossing your head back you gave a happy laugh heading down the hallway to make sure everyone was awake and ready to go for later. Addie and Luvena shared a room so she was in charge of waking up the youngest member of the tavern. Judas was already awake making breakfast for everyone when you headed downstairs, Zig was sitting on the counter beside her, they were the designated taste tester.

“Good morning Miss (Y/n)!” Zig chirped, the young adult hummed fondly, “Sleep okay?”

“Absolutely. What about you both? Thank you for making breakfast Judas.” You hummed fondly and Judas had a shy smile on her face.

“I slept well thank you.” Judas hummed softly, “Also it’s my pleasure. Want to make sure everyone’s healthy and alright.” She let out a little squeak as you wrapped your arms around her body, you barely came up to her chest,

“Judas please marry me,” You complained, “Your breakfast is always heavenly and you care for everyone. Please be my wife.”

“(Y/n)! Please.” She sputtered face turning a dark purple, Zig made a noise of protest and held his hand in the air.

“If she won’t marry you I will!”

“Zig! I’d be honored!”

Their entire face lit up with excitement and they hopped off the table to hug you tightly, you hugged them back and pressed a fond kiss to the top of their head. “I got to open up the tavern, you mind setting the table for me Zig?”

“Sure Miss!”

You sent Judas a kiss in the air which her face burned at, quickly going back to her cooking. You smiled eagerly and unlocked the door to the tavern, you shoved a bucket in front of the door to keep it open. The salty ocean air wafted through your nostrils and your eyes sparkled wondrously.

Today is going to be a good day.

Almost immediately a particular bastard caught your eye,

“You’re here early.” You mused raising an eyebrow,

“Heard you were opening early today sweetcheeks,” His voice was a low baritone, rough from years of smoking and drinking. Horns curled around his fluffy ears that stood out against his gruff exterior, he was a ram hybrid at its finest. “Figured I’d take the opportunity to get a special drink from my special girl,” He mused looking you up and down drinking in your figure. You scoffed at the retired man, he dressed like he was cosplaying captain jack sparrow, the gun’s in his belt just added to his costume and so did his large ruffled shirt, he was never one to forget his gold jewelry.

“Where’s Quackity?” You ignored him sitting him at his usual table, he frowned but you knew he was taking it as an opportunity to stare at your ass. He slid into the stool and put his feet up on the table, his boots were muddy but you could only control him so much. He was too much of a regular to get scared off by your threats and scolding.

“He’ll be in at his normal time. He’s not much of a day drinker, although can’t say I’m complaining. Having all your attention on me and all, considering I’m the only one in here. That being said, I’ll have my usual sweetcheeks.”

“Stop calling me that,” You scolded with a certain fondness that was reserved for the man. “You’re lucky you’re my favorite regular Schlatt,” you gave his ears a fond pinch and he bleated. He sent you a scalding look as you walked away, although the look soon fell as he got a good look at your ass once again.

“I’m your only regular sugar tits!”

“Schlatt feet off the table.” Addie criticized whacking his boots with a rolled-up menu, he rolled his eyes but dropped his feet to the floor. “You should know this by now, we go through this every day.”

“Yeah, yeah little lamb I’m on it. Judas here?”

“She’s always here,” She huffed spreading the menu down on the table. “Do you want your usual or something different? Should I get Quackity’s drink ready too?”

“Nah just stick with mine, for now, tell Judas I’d like to see her.”

Addie clicked her tongue and placed her hand on her hip, “fine. But if you’re just going to grossly flirt with her as you do with (y/n), then keep it to yourself.”

“You’re not the boss of me. Just because you look like an old hag-” The way she glared at him sent a chill down his spine, “shit babe take a joke will you.”

Eventually, people began to file into the tavern, as the morning faded into the afternoon and then into the evening. The tavern was bustling with life, Judas’s elegant voice traveled through the crowds and her voices seemed to float above the voices. Quackity joined Schlatt by his side seemingly irritated by a conversation they were having, Schlatt was about five drinks in at this point, which was much less than his usual, and Quackity on his second.

“What are they talking about?” Luvena asked swinging her legs as she sat on the bar beside you. Her moobloom ears twitching every so often as she tried to eavesdrop on their conversation,

“Vena it’s impolite to eavesdrop.” You scolded bopping her on the head lightly, she whined and rubbed the top of her head.

“I wasn’t!” She argued as you rolled your eyes, you looked over at the two men to find Quackity looking over at you. His hand was raised in the air, one finger was up summoning you to get him another drink.

“I’ll be back, why don’t you talk to Ven while I’m gone. She’ll keep an eye on you.”

“I don’t need a babysitter!”

“Good thing she doesn’t want to babysit your ass either, now shoo.” You motioned her to hop off the bar and she did so with a long, dramatic sigh. You looked over at Ven who gave you a silent nod, letting you know she’d watch out for the youngest member of your band of misfits. Meanwhile, you grabbed Quackity another drink and walked over to the two men at the table, “Someone order a drink?”

“Aye! Mamacita! Fancy seeing you here.” Quackity purred a bright smile spreading across his face seeing that you were the one to deliver his drink,

“Hey Big Q,” You greeted placing the drink in front of him, “You doing okay?”

“Better now that an angel walked into my sight,” He flirted and you rolled your eyes. “What? It’s true! You always brighten my day you know? Ow!” Schlatt hit his ex-first mate over the head,

“Take a breath lover boy. Thanks for the drink sugar tits.”

“You’re welcome, what were the both of you talking about if I may ask.” You hummed grabbing some of Schlatt’s empty glasses, an uncharacteristic frown came over both their faces. “Oh? Touchy subject?”

“Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. Just dishing out some old problems, most of which are better left unsaid.” He aimed that statement at Quackity, his jaw seemed clenched and Quackity’s brow furrowed in annoyance.

“Well I just want to remind the both of you,” You passed the tray of empty glasses over to Addie as she walked by, she took them swiftly. You grabbed the side of both their heads and pressed them against your chest, not that you knew but both men’s flushed to the tips of their ears. “No physical fights are allowed in this tavern. If one starts I won’t hesitate to kick your fucking asses. Got it?” They looked over your chest and locked eyes with one another, after years on the sea they could read one another’s facial expressions rather easily and at that moment they shared the same thought,

‘They should fight more often.’

“I said, got it?”

“Yes ma’am,” The repeated simultaneously as you pulled away,

“That’s what I like to hear-”

“(Y/n)!” Vendetta’s velvety voice called out from behind you, you turned and saw a group of newcomers file into your bar. Your body tensed momentarily,

Pirates.

Schlatt turned his head to follow your gaze and he tensed from behind you, “fuck me.” He growled and Quackity raised an eyebrow at his captain, he turned to look over his shoulder and his face lit up.

“Sapnap!”

The pirate who had a white bandana tied around his forehead glanced over at him and a smile lit up across his features. “Quackity? Is that you?”

“My man!” He stood up from his chair heading over to wrap the man in a hug, “I haven’t seen you in years, man.” You zoned out of their conversation eyes locking with a few of the other pirates who walked into the tavern. Vendetta and Addie both greeted them, but everyone who was under your care knew to keep their guard up around pirates. From what you could gather there seemed to be two crews, a crew of what only seemed to be two, Sapnap was included. The fire demon was still talking with Quackity, while the other man took in the view of the tavern, he had shaggy blonde hair, and had a few scars across his face. A porcelain mask sat on top of his head, a forest green cloak was around his shoulders, his hood was lowered around his neck. A sword was strapped tight against his hip and there was another dagger that seemed to be tucked against his side. His eyes gazed towards you and he winked teasingly with a coy smile, you scoffed looking over at Addie.

“Seat those two gentlemen yeah? Be careful, I’ll tell Ven and Yeti to keep an eye.” Addie looked at you, concern written on her soft features but she nodded. While Addie departed, you noticed Ven talking with the other group. Luvena was hiding behind Vendetta’s long legs, although a tall blonde boy seemed very keen on talking to her. You smoothed out your dress and moved towards the group of three, you eyed them up casually. The blonde looked to be around Luvena’s age, he had a shit-eating grin on his face and his uniform matched that of the second tallest in the group. The second tallest was clad in a light blue jacket with large golden buttons on the red collar. He had a cream-frilled shirt underneath and a black belt holding up his brown slacks, those were tucked into black boots. On his back seemed to be a guitar and was the only one of them not holding a weapon, but you knew better than to assume with pirates. His curly brown hair seemed to bounce every time he talked, he seemed to be the ringleader but there was no doubt that the real ringleader was the hybrid standing beside him. He was taller, on par with Vendetta in height, he had long pink hair that was tied in a ponytail on top of his head. A few pieces framed his face elegantly, there was no doubt he was the captain of the little crew that was in your tavern. He had a white shirt on with a deep low cut ‘V’ it showed off a good portion of his scared chest, around his shoulders sat a deep red jacket but his arms were outside of it and crossed over his chest. He seemed content on letting his second in command do all the talking, his red eyes were the only ones to meet yours. His head tilted upwards and before Vendetta could stop him he walked over towards you,

“You own the tavern?” His voice was a low monotone and it sent an array of pleasant chills up your spine.

“I do,” You raised an eyebrow crossing your arms over your chest, “Names (Y/n). You are?”

“Captain Technoblade of the ship Odyssey, I was hoping you had a few rooms and a table available. My brothers and I are pretty exhausted, we’ve been sailing all night.”

Brothers, they certainly didn’t all look alike, but then again you certainly had a mix of girls in your care. Your tongue swiped against the top row of your teeth, “Why don’t you and your brothers take a seat at the bar for now. Juniper will be happy to serve you, I’ll see if we have some free rooms available.”

“Thank you, once you return I’ll introduce them to you if you’d like,” Technoblade bowed his head before turning back to get his brother’s attention.

“I’d like that thank you.” You gave a nod motioning for Vendetta to follow you as you slid behind the bar with Juniper, Judas had also taken a spot sitting on the bar. You figured you’d let her know as well, considering she was another adult figure in the group. You knew either Juniper or Judas would fill in Addie considering the three were close. “Ven, can they be trusted?”

“Not too sure about the masked man, the one Quackity seems to be familiar with seems decent enough. He’s a fire demon though, could smell him from miles away, we all just need to be cautious.”

“Agreed,” Juniper added tapping her finger on her chin. “We should just try to curb all fighting if at all possible, what did the captain of the other group ask you?”

“They want a room, I’m about to check to see if we have availability. Thoughts on that?”

Judas let out a low hum her eyes followed both sets of pirate groups around the tavern, “I say if we have availability let them stay. They seem harmless so long as we don’t mess with them, which we’d never do.”

“Plus I can always stay awake to keep an eye on them.” Vendetta tapped her nails against the table,

“You sure.”

“As if I’d let anything happen to any of you, you’re my family.”

You all smiled softly, and you noticed Judas’s eyes widen, “Zig! Get that out of your mouth this instant!” She shot up from her spot and over to the person in question. The three of you laughed fondly at the nonsense, meanwhile, Juniper saw the three brothers sit at her bar. She moved away from you to greet them, you immediately could tell she was taken with the second eldest brother.

He seemed to be an absolute lady killer.

Vendetta ruffled your hair before going back to stand at her place by the door to keep the peace. You headed up the stairs to the rafters to check on the extra rooms you had, “Excuse me?” You tensed visibly turning around to face the man in all green. His eyes were mesmerizing, a fierce jade green to contrast his cloak, “Do you happen to have two rooms available?” The man held up two fingers to clarify his request,

“Do you usually start introductions with a blatant request like that?”

He chuckled a smile spreading across his lips, “I’m Dream and you gorgeous?”

“(Y/n), it’s your lucky day I’m about to check and see if any are available. My tavern is a hot commodity tonight.”

“Well, I can see why,” he spoke and you raised an eyebrow and tilted your head to the side.

“Oh?”

“It has the hottest owner around. Word spreads fast.”

You couldn’t believe this man was making your cheeks burn, he chuckled softly taking a step towards your figure. “Oh really, word spreads that fast on the open sea, Captian?” It was his turn to turn light pink, but he covered it up quickly with a chuckle.

“Touché.”

“I’ll get on that room for you and your friend. Take a seat, for now, this part is for guests and staff only you know?”

“So I have you all to myself?” He cheekily mused, he stepped towards you and before you knew it you were pinned against a wall. His hand suddenly brushed against your cheek, it was cold in comparison to your warm cheek. You felt Dream’s thumb brush against your cheek slowly, “You know...being on the open sea alone does something to a person.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” You mused pushing your forehead back against Dream’s, “All alone with only your crew with you.” Taking his other hand within your own you slid it up to your hip, you saw his entire face turn red as he stared down at your chest. “You’re probably missing a little love in your life, aren’t you Dreamy?” He nodded dumbly, his eyes still not leaving your chest,

Perfect. You weren’t going to let some pirate boy get the better of you.

He let out a grunt of pain as you spun him around and pressed his head into the wall with your elbow, your other hand has his pinned behind his back. “This hallway is for staff and guests only,” You purred in his ear before letting him go and swinging your hips before heading up the stairs fully. From behind you, Dream’s face was a deep, dark red and he had to clear his throat. Dream wasn’t going to let you go after that, I mean look at you, tough and able to hold your own, it awakened something inside him.

After checking up on the rooms you headed back down into the main hall, three-room keys in your hand. Glancing over at the scene in front of you, you saw Juniper dancing in the middle of the tavern the flirtatious brother at her side. Judas was sitting beside Schatt and Quackity at the bar, Addie was tending to Technoblade and the blonde at their little table. Dream and Sapnap were whispering to one another in the corner but still seemed to be enjoying the show. Vendetta was smiling softly by the door, beside her were Luvena and Zig both playing various instruments. You noticed Eret was also amongst the crowd, she had a brilliant grin on his face, it was flushed pink with alcohol and you smiled to yourself.

It was peaceful, and for a moment you forget half the patrons were scoundrels or pirates.

That was until the man dancing with Juniper locked eyes with you, his eyes lit up and he spun Juniper off into Addie’s arms. She giggled snuggling into the mother sheep’s arms, you heard a distressed “Juni! I’m holding glasses!” Before your vision was overtaken by the handsome flirt.

“Hello love,” He hummed, “May I offer you a dance?”

You were about to refuse but you saw Yeti, who finally made her appearance as it was getting closer to Judas’s set, giving you a big thumbs up “I’d be honored.” You responded taking his hand within your own, he pulled you out onto the dance floor and you felt his other hand politely hover on the small of your back. He allowed you to lean into his touch as he began to elegantly spin you around the dance floor, you were almost embarrassed to say felt like a princess. “Maybe I could get your name?” You asked above the music, “Since it seems you’re my dance partner this evening?”

“Wilbur Soot my love.” He hummed proudly, “The first mate of the ship Odysseus at your service. Plus I play music on the side.”

“Well now you need to play for us,” Wilbur twirled you around in a circle,

“Maybe one day. If you give me your name?”

“(Y/n) (L/n).”

“Beautiful name for a beautiful woman.”

“I was right.” You commented biting the bottom of your lip trying not to smile,

“About what?”

“You.”

“Ah? Already talking about me I see? Is my manliness and gentlemanly qualities that renowned?”

“Not exactly.” He picked you up slightly and pulled you into a low dip, “I was right in thinking you a nothing but a flirty playboy.” Wilbur almost dropped you, you squawked grabbing onto his neck. He began to laugh as you clung to his chest,

“Alright love. You caught me red-handed.”

Wilbur set you on your feet hands on your lower back, you were pulled close to his chest. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“I get them for free hon. I own the place.”

“Oh...oh.” He paled a little, “I didn’t fuck up our chances of getting a room did I?”

“Nah lucky for you and your brothers, I have you covered, same with your buddies over there.” You motioned to Dream and Quackity’s friend, Wilbur’s face paled as he felt the chilled room key get placed in his palm. “What’s your little brother’s name?”

“Tommy.”

“Tell them both we serve breakfast free from 7 am to 10 am.” He nodded as you walked past, Wilbur meanwhile turned to look at Technoblade. It seemed he had his red eyes on the couple the entire time they were dancing. He held up a room key, it was labeled 205; Technoblade nodded his head before leaning back and talking to Addie once more. “Dream!” You called throwing a hand up into the air, instead of Dream, Sapnap looked up he nudged Dream with his elbow. The man was now wearing his mask, but at least you could tell he was looking at you,

“Well hello, darlin’ you must be (Y/n). Name's Sapnap. Dream told me about you, so you have good news for us I hope?”

“Pleasure, I'm sure he told you all about me,” He nodded, his eyes taking in your body especially your ass. “Got you both a room key, your neighbors. Across from the other crew of pirates. Just don’t fight and we won’t have any problems.”

“You mean those jackasses are staying?” Sapnap complained loudly, looking over your shoulder at the other crew members.

“You both didn’t think you were the only patrons, did you? This is a business after all.” You, tossed the keys their way, Dream caught it with ease and Sapnap fumbled it only a little bit. After they were in their hands, you waved them off with a flutter of your palm you turned around to go speak with Judas about her set but before you could take a step you saw Schlatt stumbling up from his seat. “Ah shit,” You knew what was about to happen, you weren’t paying attention to the ram hybrid so who knew how many drinks in he was. You felt responsible, for a while you and Judas had been trying to help Schlatt with his addiction. You couldn’t help but wonder what exactly set him off for him to get this drunk, Quackity caught him in his arms with a grumble. The man was a drunken mess, and as you approached you could hear his slurred speech and could practically smell the alcohol on his breath. “Schlatt,” You spoke carefully and as soon as you got close Schlatt detached himself from Quackity and lunged at you. His head was buried in his chest, he almost purred like he was very happy to be there, you rolled your eyes and ran your fingers through his hair. You were mindful of his horns but he seemed pretty eager for you to touch them,

“(Y/n).” He whined although it was muffled against your ample chest, “Why do pirates have to fuck everything up?”

“What are you on about Schlatt? No one likes pirates.”

“They’re gonna take you away from me, sugar. You’re my safe space, this tavern is my safe space.” You sighed listening to his drunken ramblings, you grabbed his horns and pulled him away from your chest.

“This is my life Schlatt, I’m not going anywhere trust me. Plus my family is here, they need me. So try not to worry okay?” You slicked back the hair on his forehead before planting a fond kiss there, everyone in the tavern narrowed their eyes at the scene. Even your girls were green with envy, at the sight of their lovely boss kissing someone who wasn’t them. He leaned against your lips eyes fluttering closed,

“Well, well, well if it isn’t Captian Schlatt? Or ex-captain if I remember correctly.”

“What?”

You turned your head and felt Schlatt’s arms wrap around your waist and held you close to his chest. The touch was protective and you felt your heart skip a beat, why was he protecting you, and why did you actually feel protected?

“Has the drinking finally caught up to you? Or was it the fact that you lost your so-”

Was that Dream's voice?

“Shut the fuck up.” He snarled and you were shoved behind him into Quackity’s arms, you felt less protected. “I’m not that person anymore and you fucking know that,” Vendetta came to stand beside the both of you a hand was placed on your shoulder protectively. You knew she was desperately wanted to step in and you held up a hand to stop her.

“This isn’t good…” Quackity murmured, “They’re going to fight. Schlatt’s going to get himself fucking killed.”

“Calm yourself. We won’t let it get that far.” Ven grumbled eyeing you waiting for your signal. But you were lost in the conversation or argument, the two were having, you couldn’t believe Schlatt was a pirate. He was so...he just didn’t...he was a drunk okay? That didn’t exactly shout feared pirate to you!

“Oh, are you sure? I remember that look, that’s the look you’d get before you stomped someone’s lights out. No wonder your son disappeared under mysterious circumstances-” Dream was shoved against one of the poles holding up the building. He grunted and Schlatt’s arm was pulled back ready to punch, but his arm was stopped by smaller hands,

“Pardon me Mr. Schlatt but you know how we feel about fighting in our tavern.” Addie bubbled, she had a smile on her face but it wasn’t kind, it was full of warning.

“Get the fuck off me, sheepie. This doesn’t fucking concern you.” Schlatt shoved her away and as soon as his skin made contact with her body he made a sound of distress.

“(Y/n)...” Addie murmured quietly, your father’s dagger was embedded in Schlatt’s arm,

“Fucking hell you bitch!” He snarled baring his teeth, you glared at him twisting the dagger he yelled in agony.

“Touch one of my girls again and next time this dagger is going right into your back.” You ripped the dagger out, splattering the floor with blood. He grabbed his arm tightly and looked at you with slight betrayal in his yellow eyes. “I mean it Schlatt, Quackity take him home.” The man nodded looking at you longingly, he muttered a quiet ‘Sorry’ before escorting him out of your tavern. “You,” You glared harshly over at Dream, “Go to your room.”

“You’re not my mother.”

“Then find another play to stay.” You spat, he turned away and you looked over at Addie, “Are you alright?” Your voice turned tender as you cupped her cheeks. She nuzzled against your palms and nodded her head,

“I’m fine. You didn’t need to-”

“Yes, I did. No one messes with you. With any of you on my watch.”

The sheep hybrid made a little sound as her bottom lip trembled, she wrapped you in a tight hug which you accepted without hesitance. Judas walked over next and wrapped you both in her arms, pretty soon you were surrounded by your girls and Zig.

All of them had the same mindset: comforting both you and Addie.

It was good to be loved.

Wilbur watched the scene curiously and glanced over at Technoblade who stood up from his chair.

“I think that’s our cue to leave for the night.” He looked over at his first mate, Wilbur nodded in agreement grabbing his guitar from the chair beside Technoblade.

“They...Techno were they talking about Tubbo.” Tommy whispered to his brother, his brow furrowing in concern as they all climbed the steps up to their room, “You don’t think-”

“It just might be Tommy.” Technoblade tilted his head to the side, “Guess that’ll be something we ask him when we get back to the ship tomorrow.”

“Well, this trip is going to be way more fun than I thought.” Wilbur snickered lighting a cigarette, taking a long drag, before letting the smoke curl out of his mouth and up into the rafters. ~~~

Tag List: @v01dw4lk3rz, @jam-bombs, @abovenyx, @glitterydigitalart, @phoenixaesthetic19, @luluwinchester, @boiled-onionrings, @pastelmoonwitche, @roxy3457, @alovestruck-fool, @victory-is-here, @mack4676, @fiorenc, @theoneandonlyyeti, @bloodrose0723, @sandyy-woo,

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no-droids · 4 years

Text

Rumors, Freebies, and a Race for Last Place

Part Two of The Bet series

Pairing: Poe Dameron/Reader

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 22.5K DONT say shit alright just don’t

Warnings: Okay. There is degradation in this, some name calling and heated interactions. There is a LOT of smut, dirty talk and rough sex. If these things offend you, please do not continue reading.

***

It’s recommended to read part one first.

***

Getting into the x-wings is always fun.

It actually might be your favorite part. Granted, alarm bells ringing and thousands of jumpsuits scrambling in all directions is never typically a good thing, but there’s also an inherent rush about it, a thrill in launching up the metal paneling as quick as you can and suiting up to provide aid. It’s a side-effect of camaraderie, of being surrounded by like-minded individuals willing to do everything they can to help. You never feel like you’re going to your death, even though that’s often the grim reality for at least one of you on a good day. There’s always a roaring in your ears while you do it, adrenaline sharpening your senses and preparing yourself for conflict, not thinking anything beyond gogogogogo—

But getting out of the x-wing is… not great. At least for you. It’s sluggish. Your body is always completely drained and you never come out of it feeling the same way you went in. Even in times of victory, there’s a somberness inside you after battle. As much as you tell yourself you’re fighting for good, for prosperity against an evil machine hellbent on enslaving the galaxy, there’s only so many explosions lighting up in front of your eyes and screams cutting out through your comms you can take before winning just doesn’t really feel like winning anymore. Most pilots are able to handle it better than you are, but since you joined the Resistance, you’ve never truly felt the desire to celebrate. Not even when you serve a massive, glaring defeat to the other side. There’ll always be at least one missing x-wing, one empty seat at the table, one person not here to celebrate with you.

You came back in one piece this time. Barely.

The whole mission went sideways—literally. You’d purposefully stationed the tandem just outside the coordinates you were meant to be surveilling so that you’d be hidden from sight and dead to the scanners should the fleet arrive, but something must’ve happened. You must’ve powered down a few seconds too early after he turned the thrusters off, because apparently the ship drifted in dead space for close to eight hours without either of you noticing, having no working computers to actively read your location and correct it. You were sitting ducks right in the hyperspace drop zone by the time the First Order showed up, and by that point you had no choice but to engage.

“Gold-Ten,” a voice murmurs from behind you, and you blink, suddenly seeing the base landing platform stretching out long in front of you, hundreds of docking ships and boisterous pilots scrambling out of them to hug their comrades and congratulate them even as medics rush past with white coats and gurneys. They’re never for the pilots, but they dispatch healers anyways whenever a convoy returns in case a straggler gets picked up. There’s an unspoken understanding in space battle—pilots never get injured. They either come back unharmed, or they don’t come back at all.

Dameron.

You turn around and watch him slowly approach you with an unreadable expression, his jumpsuit still bunched halfway down his torso. The once bright white sleeveless undershirt is now greasy and damp with sweat, his dark curls sticking to his forehead. He winces with every bow-legged step—you know the feeling—before he’s standing directly in front of you and something is carefully being pulled out of your hands. You didn’t even realize you were holding onto anything.

Your helmet. You forgot to leave it in the x-wing, and you’ve been carrying it around under your arm aimlessly while mentally checking off the squadrons as they return, counting the numbers you lost today while everybody else hugs and whoops and claps each other on the back.

It’s not as bad as you were expecting it was going to be, not as bad as it seemed just an hour earlier when you were listening to Dameron bellow out evasive flight maneuvers a millisecond before he enacted them and you adjusted your firing at the TIEs accordingly. You used to think you were quick with how rapidly you could suit up and fly out, drop in to assist and engage, but on the other side, it felt like your reinforcements lollygagged for ages before arriving. You were left to defend against an entire fleet in one stupid ship, more lines of TIEs sinking like flies from launch decks every second.

“Gold-Ten,” you hear again, and you blink a few times, needing to focus your vision before you can find his gaze.

Dameron’s palm, previously hovering a few inches above your shoulder, suddenly drops to spread along the curve of it and you take a deep breath, almost wanting to shudder at the feeling of something touching you. You channel all your focus into it, feel his fingers branch out strong along the tight muscles in your neck, giving you an anchor you automatically lean into.

You and him are no strangers to touching. Before today it was mostly reserved to poking and prodding and flicking and light slapping in an effort to piss each other off, but now… you can’t even think about it right now, your body will just fucking glitch out on you. After everything that just happened, you cannot think about where else that hand has been recently, not right now.

“You did… you did really fucking good today,” he tells you quietly, slowly trailing his hand down the length of your entire arm until he catches your wrist and a few of your fingers in his loose grip. “Seriously. That was… we were…”

His touch is so present, so reassuring. Grounding, when all your mind wants is to just float away. You glance down at where his fingers are gently tangled with yours and you feel your hand tighten just slightly, the smallest squeeze while he blinks down at you.

“We almost died, like… every single second,” you barely manage to croak, not really having the words to express it right now. You always need at least an hour or two after missions like this to just sit in one place and regroup. Usually you find yourself wandering back to your room to lay on the bed and stare up at the ceiling while you consider your own mortality, but Dameron interrupted you this time before you could process it by yourself. “We…” Your voice sounds absolutely shredded. “W-We shouldn’t even be alive right now.”

“I know,” he nods in soft agreement, taking a small step closer to you. “But we are alive. Hey.” He dips his head as soon as your gaze starts to drift, catching your eyes once more and drawing your attention back to the present with a squeeze of your hand. “We’re alive, right? Be alive with me.”

You take a big breath in and close your eyes, feeling the oxygen fill your lungs once more, but this time, it’s… restorative. A wonderful, beautiful reminder of your existence. You’re alive. Usually the word just feels like a synonym for persevering. Pushing onwards despite trials and tribulations, not looking back. But the way he says it, especially with his hand in yours and a quiet invitation to tag along, it sounds… breathtaking. Full of light, and hope. It suddenly leaves the dim shadows and slides into a completely different category of feelings, feelings you’d never imagine being able to conjure so quickly after such a close brush with death. Alive—it slots right in next to words like colorful, radiant, sunshine, and butterflies. Enchanting words, ones you’d like to hear again and again.

Your eyes slowly open and there he is, the man you were sure was going to accompany you to the afterlife. You were stuck with Poe Dameron in one of the closest calls you can remember, and strangely, his presence was nothing if not… a comfort. For the first time in your life, you were grateful he was there.

You open your mouth, suddenly feeling the needy, unfounded urge to tell him that. “I’m gla—”

“Dameron!” You hear a series of voices call from somewhere to your left, and he immediately drops your hand to whip his body around and place himself directly between you and the approaching onlookers, using his large frame to hide you from their sight.

“What’s up, Briggs?” Dameron projects to one pilot in particular that seems to be leading the group, his back oddly close to you in this position. Your fingers still feel tingly from where he was holding onto them.

A chorus of congratulatory, “Nice flying, Captain!” and the like can be heard floating through the air from beyond his shoulders, before the leader speaks loudly over them. “Hey—me, Seven, Six, and Twelve were gonna grab some drinks in the mess hall with a few of the Blue girls,” he tells Dameron, slowing to a stop as soon as he sees you standing awkwardly behind him. “Oh hey, Goldie.”

You lift a hand and clear the remainder of the dissociation from your throat, not knowing him well enough beyond the squadron he and his group fly with. “Greenies.”

“Anyways, I guess they wanted to know if you’d come too. These idiots are convinced they’re never gonna give us the time of day unless you—”

“Uh—fine, whatever, just give me a few minutes alright?” Dameron quickly assures him with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I’ll meet up with you guys later.”

A few of them take turns giving him heavy claps on the shoulder and acclamatory words before the group eventually disperses, and he waits a few more seconds for their attention to fully scatter in another direction before turning back to you.

Shit, he’s standing really close. Why is he so close to you? You take a step back and blink up at him, the noises of the landing deck gradually amplifying back up to normal volume as you retreat back into your own space. Since when did he have that effect on you? You suddenly feel wide awake, and the chorus of happy chaos surrounding you is something you’re finally able to take in. You knew it was happening before, but it was like it just existed outside of the creeping numbness. Now, the knot of internal turmoil has untied itself a bit and you feel your surroundings start to fight for your direct attention.

Dameron continues to look at you the same exact way, though. Like you’re still the only one here.

You look down at his half-suited figure and blink at the helmet loosely held in one of his hands. Hey. Hey, that’s yours—

“Give me that,” you hiss, suddenly snatching it from his fingertips. “You have people waiting.”

The cutting words serve to snap him out of whatever spell he’s under. Dameron quickly lifts his head and looks around a few times with sharp eyes, before hooking your elbow and twisting you into a complete 180 until your back faces most of the excitement. You resist, immediately trying to push him off you and worried he’s going to confront you about… things, but he’s determined.

He doesn’t say anything to you at all, though. His fingers quickly grasp the baggy fabric of your jumpsuit even as you sputter and start to ask what the fuck he thinks he’s doing, and you glance down just in time to see him yanking the gaping velcro closed at your crotch.

Your cheeks instantly start burning as he tugs and smooths the fabric down until it’s seamless once more, especially when his eyes flick up to yours without moving his head. Fuck, you’re instantly hot with some wicked emotion, a mixture of embarrassment and outrage and… something else. Maker, you almost wish you were numb and disoriented again, if only so you could avoid feeling whatever the fuck this is.

You quite suddenly shove your helmet back into his stomach with an infuriated sound even as he doubles over with a shocked whoosh of air, changing your mind about returning it to the ship yourself before storming off without another word.

***

Okay, so you’ve done some thinking, and. Well. Fuck him, that’s what you’ve decided.

No—not… fuck him. But like, fuck him. You know. In the negative sense of the word. The bad fuck.

There’s a full tray of food sitting in front of you but you’ve so far been unable to touch it. Mostly you’re just wondering why the fuck you’re even here. Well, you know why you’re here—you should eat, it’s dinnertime and this is the mess hall. You’ve been known to skip out on meals after heavy missions, secluding yourself away and just wallowing for a bit, but you… strangely didn’t feel like doing that today. You don’t want to self-isolate when you feel okay enough to avoid it, not again. So you’re here, because the clock says your tummy should want food, but you can’t bring yourself to even look at it.

No, you’re looking at him. Glaring, actually.

Across the mess hall and beyond the transparisteel divider that separates the cafeteria from the bar area, Dameron is all eyebrows and smiles and side nudges and winks right now. You can’t hear him—the sound won’t travel this far, but you can see him situated in the middle of a rowdy group of pilots. He laughs in that disgustingly charming way of his, where his stupidly cute nose scrunches up all cute and stupid and you want to just ask the Maker why he’s doing this shit to you. What have you done to deserve this torture? Sure, you may have willingly agreed to it, even… conceived and propositioned the idea, and sure, absolutely nothing is stopping you from forfeiting and walking away at this exact second, but does that make it okay? No, you’ve decided. It’s not okay. He’s not allowed to… to make you feel like this, so fuck him. In the bad way.

“Just fuck him already,” a voice suddenly grumbles as someone plops down into the seat to your right, plastic trays of food clattering loudly on the table and snapping you out of your reverie. Gold-Sixteen blocks your view as he silently drops into the seat in front of you and wraps his green lekku around his neck a few times before immediately beginning to shovel food into his mouth, while Gold-Three opens her box of blue milk next to you and continues. “The Blues never fucking shut up about it, it’s getting annoying.”

“Don’t listen to her, Dime,” Gold-Eleven tells you, quickly occupying the seat on your left and biting into a crunchy piece of fruit, talking loudly over the chatter even as he chomps. “Rossi just knows her pool is up tomorrow, she doesn’t want to lose any of her precious credits.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Gold-Three immediately snaps, leaning forward and around you to point the prongs of her fork at Eleven threateningly. “Zhang’s pool starts on Sunday.”

“Oh fuck off, you guys are betting on this now?” You groan, shoving your plate away with a flick of your fingers now that you’re certain you’ve completely lost your appetite. Sixteen immediately snatches up one of your bread rolls while Zhang swipes your juice and Rossi goes for a packet of glockaw sauce.

“You’re the one who announced it in front of everybody, we’re just being active spectators,” Rossi returns, ripping the packet and pouring the sauce on her vegetables with a shrug. “How the fuck do you bet against fucking each other though, that’s my question? It’s a paradox, wouldn’t you both just lose at the same time?”

“Dameron and I aren’t going to fuck,” you tell her very slowly and clearly, starting to get a headache. Why is it impossible to avoid this conversation topic, even with an entire Resistance base to roam around in? “Ever. The bet never had anything to do with fucking each other, it’s about not fucking other people.”

“Literally what is the difference?” You hear Rossi ask with her mouth full, but Zhang speaks over her.

“Somebody should probably tell Nine that, she’s the bookie,” he tosses out carelessly, dropping the core of his piece of fruit to his tray before wiping his hands on his jumpsuit. You bury your face in your hands and let out a loud, exhausted sound into your palms, not knowing which response serves to aggravate your already emotionally overloaded ass even more. Nine is the bookie, of fucking course she is. “But hey, if it makes you feel any better, I don’t think any of it actually goes outside of Gold, so.”

“I’ve heard the Blues talking about it, but that’s it,” Rossi chimes in while chewing some of her veggies. “Maybe some Reds. Point is everybody else thinks it’s already happening, honestly.”

“What the fuck,” you whisper, using your knuckles to rub at the backs of your eyes until bright spots appear. Where are stress headaches localized? Are those the ones right under your brow bone? Because stars, you feel it. “Fucking… why? Why do people think that me and Dameron are…?”

Nobody at the table immediately responds, and you drop your hands after a moment to look at each of their astounded faces in turn.

“You fucking serious, bitch?” Rossi blurts first, her voice completely deadpan, and you growl in vexation.

“Have I not been vocal enough about my severe dislik—”

“And yet you kicked Nine out of your room to let him bunk with you,” Zhang immediately suggests.

“You request mission assignments together,” Rossi adds.

“Spend your off-days together,” Zhang continues.

“You’re both really weird about how long it takes the other person to shower,” Rossi tacks onto the list Zhang is now making on his fingers and you shake your head frantically.

“No—no, that’s so that we know neither one of us is cheating,” you try to explain, and you already know it sounds unconvincing without needing the two quick, lofty and sarcastic nods on either side of you. “Showers and off-days are prime masturb—no, you know what? No. I’m tired of the assumptions, I don’t owe anyone shit. This is super fucking uncool of you guys, you know that? It’s insane that this is what counts as gossip in the Resistance nowada—”

“There’s only so much bad news people can take, Ten,” Gold-Sixteen grunts down at his almost finished plate, and all three of you snap your gazes across the table at him. The forest-tinted twi’lek doesn’t speak much, it’s uncommon to hear his voice without distortion over the comms, but you blink as his sharp teeth continue to form words without looking at you. “Quit being so sensitive. Rather bet on this shit than which system is getting demolished next.”

And with that, Sixteen excuses himself with a silent nod, having gobbled down his full plate while you, Three, and Eleven were bickering. You feel your cheeks flare with anger and shame—you didn’t deserve that, you immediately reassure yourself, but the hidden self-doubt the comment sows just further contributes to your upset. You want to call out to his back that just because the First Order exists doesn’t mean you have to put up with your own fucking squadron turning you and your mortal enemy into glorified race fathiers, but he’s already leaving the mess hall while Rossi and Zhang have moved on to other topics, both of them continuing to grab more food from your tray as they talk.

You have a tough shell. But today was… a lot. You bite your lip down at the table against the sudden wave of emotion, blinking quickly to clear the weakness watering your vision.

See, this—this right here is why you use last names. These people aren’t your friends. Betting on who you fuck for laughs, using you as a source of entertainment without your consent just because they’re in the middle of a war, and then guilting you into feeling like you’re the one acting like a stuck up bitch about it? You’re fighting in the same fucking war—you’re on the front lines just like everybody else and nobody gets to lecture you on the devastation of battle. You almost died today. You fought tooth and fucking nail to stay alive and by all accounts, you shouldn’t even be sitting here right now, much less dealing with this childish shit. This is your squadron. These people are supposed to be the ones closest to you out of everyone, the ones you’ve been flying into chaos in formation with for years, and yet not a single damn person has even mentioned your performance to you today, all anyone can ever seem to talk about is—ugh.

Unfortunately, your unobstructed view also allows you to look at the source of your bad mood once more, immediately noticing the way more people have crowded around him now, and the headache continues to throb painfully behind your eyeballs. You were in the same ship, does nobody realize that? You were gunning, he was flying—you were offense, he was defense—that’s the only fucking difference, and yet, it’s like that side of the mess hall is just completely lit up with hearty laughter and music playing from someone’s holopad and congratulatory drinks being passed around, while yours is… well.

You continue to fume inwardly, struggling somewhere between bitter and hurt, and you can see your reflection through the transparisteel giving him a death glare, wondering how many of the people surrounding him have made bets with Nine. How many of his little entourage have their money wagered on Dameron getting in your pants by a specific dat—

You stop short while staring at his handsome face, an infuriating, horrifying thought suddenly striking you. No… no, he wouldn’t…

“Does he know?” You immediately interrupt the chitchat between Three and Eleven to ask with a deadly edge in your voice, tipping your forehead at pretty boy. Ooh, you can already feel it burning. It would be so fucking typical. Oooooh, Maker, if he’s heard even a fucking whisper about this outside wagering going on amongst the pilots, you will fucking smother his ass in his sleep tonight. How could he not know? With as many friends as he has? If you’re just being made aware of it, then it’s a given that somebody has to have told him by now, which just means that it’s all the more possible—shit, even more likely—that he’s… participating, too. You do your best to keep your voice even, but you can hear the quiet fury shaking in it. “The bet about when me and him are gonna fuck, does he know about it?”

“Who—Dameron?” Zhang turns his head. “No, I don’t think s—”

“Yeah,” Rossi says at the exact same time, and your blood instantly turns ice cold as Zhang leans around you to blink at her stupidly.

“No. Yeah? What?” He says, sounding genuinely confused.

“Yeah, remember?” Rossi confirms with a shrug. “Nine was mad as all shit, came at me in the rec room a few weeks ag—fucking Maker, Eleven, you were there.”

“Oh,” Zhang suddenly exhales, “yeah, that’s right. Oh, yeah, Dime, he knows.”

You’re—fuck, you’re about to rampage. You’re burning a fucking hole through Dameron while he converses animatedly with his numerous buddies, waving an open hand and shaking his head at someone with a smile and then gesturing broadly to this side of the transparisteel. His pool is probably up soon, you figure. That’s why he came onto you so strong earlier today. He was going to get two weeks of your pay, plus whatever he must’ve offered up to Nine that says he’d get it to happen within a certain amount of time. Perfect, your old roomie and the arch nemesis you stupidly agreed to trade her for, two asshole peas in an asshole pod.

“—she thought I was the one who told him—” You know Rossi is still talking but you’re not actually hearing any of it. Nobody has any fucking idea. Nobody has any idea what he did to you today, how unbelievably close you were to… to actually… “—was all just for fun, but then he had a few choice words for her and told his squad that if any of them had made a—” You don’t know why you’re so surprised honestly, you should’ve expected…

Wait.

“Wait,” you suddenly blurt, and while she shuts up immediately, your mind starts whirling even faster. Dameron had some… what? “Wait. Explain. You’re saying he didn’t…” You slowly shake your head, furrowing your eyebrows and trying to piece it together. “He didn’t… place a bet with her, or anything?”

“What? No,” Rossi shakes her head a lot more forcefully than you, getting frustrated. “No, fucking—didn’t you hear anything I just said, Ten? He got all high and mighty for some stupid reason, totally reamed her ass out for it.”

“But…” You blink, stunned. “But… why? Why would he…?”

Rossi shrugs. “Fuck if I know. All she said was that he ordered Black not to throw in, made her lose a fuckton of money from it. Had no idea Dameron would be so touchy about his sex life, honestly.”

He… he isn’t. He isn’t touchy about his sex life—you feel like he never shuts up about it.

Rossi continues talking, but you’re not listening again. You stare stupidly at yourself in the clear transparisteel as Dameron’s voice comes back to you, repeating something you specifically remember him saying earlier today. Something you thought was just a careless jab at the time, aimed blindly at one of your comrades with nothing more than the intent to piss you off.

…I swapped housing assignments with your shitty roommate and slept in the bunk below yours for a month and a half…

You blink beyond your own reflection to focus on him once more, still lost in his own little world, not paying a single lick of attention to you while you’re essentially having a fucking crisis over here. You didn’t think the insult had any real substance to it at all. You just naturally assumed that was the result of him wanting to lash out at anything or anyone remotely close to you, if only to get a reaction, so you never gave him one or paid it any mind.

This is why he said that about Nine? Because he knew she had organized this fucked up betting pool behind your back?

Stars, you need to get out of here, all these rumors are fucking with your head. Your assumptions and the hairpin turnarounds are giving you worse whiplash than Dameron’s… well, admittedly spectacular flying today. You were wrong about wanting to avoid isolating—in fact, that suddenly sounds like a phenomenal idea.

So, you just get up and leave right in the middle of Rossi’s sentence, needing some time alone. Neither of them call out to you as you quickly walk around the table and through the barrier towards the exit, thank the Maker, and you’re just about to retreat with no interruptions until suddenly two Greenies step in front of you and block your path.

You halt immediately, looking up at them with a furrowed brow. “What now?” You grunt, not having the patience to even wait for a response before attempting to squeeze around them.

“Hey, so you really saved our asses out there today, Goldie,” the one on the left quickly sidesteps in front of you and rushes to say, and you settle your weight back on your heels with a huff.

“What are you talking about?” You glance back and forth between them, not recalling a time you’ve ever spoken to either one, before jerking your head to gesture over your shoulder. “Go congratulate trophy boy over there, he was the one flying.”

“We did,” the one on the right tips sideways to look at Dameron behind your shoulder, likely still laughing and joking with someone about something, something super fucking dumb probably. “Well, uh. We tried.”

“What?” You let out a heavy sigh and rub your temples. “The fuck is that supposed to mean? I don’t have the time.”

“He won’t take any credit, just keeps saying that all he did was steer you around,” the other one shrugs as his companion straightens and looks down at you once more. “Wouldn’t accept any drinks we offer him, nothing. So we thought we’d buy you one instead. Unless you’re… leaving?”

It takes you a few seconds to process that, even as he allows the open invitation to hang in the air. You can’t stop the way your torso automatically twists around to study your copilot from across the mess hall in baffled silence, suddenly realizing that they’re… they’re right. Dameron has no congratulatory drinks sitting in front of him even though more and more people have made their way into the bar. He’s just sitting there grinning and nodding along to something someone else is saying, completely and blissfully unaware of the extent to which he’s fucked with you in the past twenty minutes. The past… whole day. Month and a half. Or… fuck, how long have you known him? Two years?

But then Dameron’s gaze gradually drifts this way, before suddenly locking with yours. His eyes flick behind you to look at the two Greenies blocking your exit, and then back to the way you’re staring at him, wide-eyed and startled.

He suddenly stands up and starts to take a few steps towards you, and the sheer abruptness of the movement causes you to react immediately. You stumble your way backwards through the two pilots, feeling a few hands reach out to steady you through the awkward fumbling, but you slap them away and announce loud enough for Dameron to hear beyond them that you’re taking a shower, and you don’t give a fuck how long it’s gonna be this time.

***

The knob squeaks as you turn the water on. Usually you’d step back and wait the grueling five minutes or longer it takes for it to heat up with your arms crossed over your naked chest, but this time you move directly under the freezing spray, hoping to use the ice cold to shock your system.

You're finally alone.

Technically solitude doesn’t really exist within this base. You’ve heard of others that are a little nicer, having a little more room for the ranks, but not here. Housing assignments, showers and restrooms, mess and recreation halls—they’re all communal. Everyone is given rotating shifts, so while that means there’s never any true quiet to be found, it also means that showers are spread out well throughout the day and night.

But, at least for this moment, there’s nobody else around. At least in here, in the tiled chamber with multiple shower heads stationed around you—you’re sure there are a few girls lingering in the locker room and the entry area beyond it, but for right now, you’re blissfully by yourself.

And yet, you can’t seem to enjoy it.

You know you should be basking in the isolation. You should be thrilled at the rarity of only hearing your own flipflops slap against the floor as you turn around and drench your hair with the icy spray, but the lack of an immediate distraction for your focus allows it to wander to things you don’t want it to.

Explosions, mostly. Lighting up like fireworks in front of your eyes even as they flutter closed and let water drip down them. Constant, never-ending. Some of them small—TIEs you shot down, allies drawing fire away from you and then subsequently getting overwhelmed, zipping through dense debris from deadly collisions so quick that you had trouble distinguishing friend from foe. Some of them were massive—star destroyers splitting apart, warp drives overloading, enormous casualty counts. You don’t know how many lives you took today, not directly.

The beginning was the worst—when you were still slightly disoriented, when you were panicked and screaming into the comms for assistance. Then the closest stationed tandem showed up first—Red-Two and Eight, you think it was. Doesn’t matter now. They took some heat off you before the cavalry arrived, but you remember Dameron barking out your name the second their left thruster got nicked and they started spiraling, a ferociously deep, “With me!” cutting through the white noise. It was enough to snap you back, forcing you to instantly flick your eyes away and focus dead ahead without witnessing their demise.

It wouldn’t have normally been necessary. You’ve been flying with the Resistance for years, you’ve seen way too much bloodshed by now. But you’ve never been the catalyst of it—you’ve always been able to confront threats accompanied by your squadron, right between Nine and Eleven, the flight controls rumbling steady under your palms. You’ve never faced down an entire fleet in one single ship. You’ve never had to rely so directly on the skills of another pilot in order to stay alive.

The water slowly heats to a lukewarm while you reach for the shampoo.

Surprisingly, for as much as the two of you clash in normal interactions, it was like everything eventually became… synchronized. Spectacularly so. Dameron started off the enemy confrontation by calling out his flight patterns to give you a chance to adjust your firing in real time, but then at some point, it just stopped being necessary. There was a moment where you both were able to suddenly… get it. Get each other. He didn’t have to say anything after that—you could predict each other without second guessing, react instantaneously, and work your way through the littered battlefield accordingly. You never thought it would be possible to collaborate so well with someone you’ve spent ages despising. Sure, you’d both die if you didn’t—shit, you’d probably still both die regardless—but this kind of teamwork extended beyond the need to survive. It doesn’t matter how much you want to stay alive when reading someone else’s mind is physically impossible, but for some reason… You have no idea why, but it apparently came naturally between you. It fell to pure instinct, pure reaction, and remarkably, his would somehow match yours perfectly, every single time.

You lather the shampoo in your hair, remembering how his voice changed over the course of the mission. How it gradually shifted from panicked roars and barked orders into ecstatic cheers and genuine praise after landing a difficult shot, how he just couldn’t seem to stop whooping.

You smile softly as the tepid water rinses away the dirt and sweat from your body, until the temperature is brought up to a gentle, comfortable warmth raining down you and echoing in the empty shower room.

And, your first name. Dameron kept calling you that, the whole time. The one you’re now absolutely certain you’ve never personally given to him. The one he would’ve had to have listened for specifically. Remembered, or at least asked the right person about. But why? It’s not… it makes no sense, he doesn’t give a shit. He’s notorious for not giving a shit. He can’t even be bothered to remember the names of the girls he’s actually with—so why did he go to the trouble to figure out yours? You’ve been nothing but a thorn in his side the same way he is to you, right?

Right?

Your mind starts recollecting more recent events, trying to work through and process it by yourself. He was… singing your praises today. He was openly giving you credit for the win while you pouted in the corner and assumed the absolute worst of him. As much as you’re frustrated that nobody else seemed to give voice to your contributions, you’re even more surprised that he was the one who did.

And then even earlier. Gold-Nine, holding wagers with members of your squad (and others, apparently) about when you’re going to fuck him. Dameron, tearing her a new one for it, forbidding Black Squadron from throwing in and not attempting to hide his disdain for her from you. He… he defended you. Stood up for you when your own squad was being a bunch of dicks behind your back. And nobody ever fucking mentioned it to you. What did Rossi say—a few weeks ago? He’s known all this time and only today, only after you… openly showed more interest in him than you ever have, after you worked up enough nerve to try in your own little way to flirt back this time instead of responding to his casual comments with contempt and disgust, only today is when he decided to make a real move on you.

…Your mind is completely blank and yet you still feel yourself start to heat up just a bit at even alluding to the events that took place earlier. The way his fingers felt—

Steam begins to fill the open concept chamber while you shake your head against the train of thought and reach for the soap, beginning to circle the bar along your arms and shoulders with a sigh. This is already the longest shower you’ve taken in almost two months, and your body slowly relaxes under the mist and heat as you take forever cleaning yourself, slowly and hypnotically rubbing the soap along your skin.

The second you let your eyelids dip shut at the feeling, you immediately shiver at a flash of Dameron dragging his finger out of his mouth and blinking dark eyes at you through the transparisteel.

Fuck. The soap slips from your hand and you quickly catch it against your body before it falls to the ground completely, suddenly feeling the need to breathe in the misty air a bit harder. Shower, you’re in the shower. Come on.

The dirt and grime is scrubbed from your face and you tilt your head to move the bar of soap across your neck. As it lathers, you can’t help but remember the way his lips felt against the skin right there, the scratch of his beard. You keep working the soap against that same spot for a while, not knowing if you’re trying to wash away the sensation or simulate it, until you gradually slow and make it lighter, softer—yes, that’s closer to how it felt, that’s—

Soon the water is boiling hot and you’re trying not to boil along with it, remembering everything he said against this spot, the filth he whispered to you here. Your pussy starts to throb between your legs as the memories play out in your mind, how close he got you to shattering bliss without even really working for it. If you put it all together collectively, you don’t think he actually touched you for more than a minute or two total today. Mostly he just talked to you, but stars, he hit buttons you didn’t even think you had, had you a split second away from cumming harder than Maker knows while his finger rested just above your clit and provided no stimulation whatsoever.

Fuck, you enjoyed it. You did, you’ll admit it when there’s no one else here but you. You enjoyed the fuck out of it. You wish he’d do it again. Force you to lose, force you to cum so you can at least blame him for it, remove your responsibility from the equation and allow you to put just one more thing on his shoulders, to taste ecstacy instead of expecting you to bear the weight of pretending you don’t need it any longer. He was doing you a favor, you realize that now. Your body is staging a fucking coup and you wish you could’ve called mercy before it got to this agonizing point. He turns you on, you fucking admit it. He inspires violent emotions in you—jealousy, arousal, anger, temptation—thoughts you don’t want to have and consolidating it all into various forms of hatred makes the finer details easier to ignore. Your perception of him has always been skewed by your iron will, but he all but took a fucking sledgehammer to it today, dented it beyond all recognition. You want him, you want to him to take it all away, you want him to fuck you—in the… fuck, in the good way.

You don’t have a thought beyond that. Your hand quickly falls down the length of your body to wash your private parts, biting your lip as your hips slowly start to rock into it. You’re getting clean, you’re getting clean, this is how you clean yourself, this is… yes, as long as you keep the bar of soap pressed between your palm and the top of your curls like this, you’re cleaning yourself and you can just… ease your finger down just a little bit and—

Flipflops suddenly echo from the twisting hallway leading to the tiled freshers, and you immediately snatch your hand back up again, not needing to turn around to know another girl is walking into the room. A knob somewhere to your right eventually makes a dull squeak as you quickly finish washing up and turn your showerhead off, grabbing your towel and wrapping it around yourself.

Maker, you feel like your pussy is plotting your demise. Fuck, you can’t believe you almost cheated in the fucking showers just now where literally anyone could walk in, you thought you would’ve had more self-control than that. You make your way into the changing rooms and grab your pajamas, starting to tug them on without fully drying your body and having only one thought in mind.

Dameron will probably be celebrating late tonight. You can tuck in early, scurry back to your room and cheat there.

Well, no, not cheating, because you clearly remember making a very compelling argument about wet dreams earlier today. Maker, a freebie, the word has never sounded so enticing. What you’d say amounts to a… bye-week orgasm basically, since you know he’s already lost at least one match against his own body and you’re meant to be competing on the same level. It’s only fair to let you persevere through the toughest part of the challenge if he was allowed to throw a game early on and still stay in the competition. Maybe he threw multiple games, you never got a straight answer concerning that, so it’s still under review. He could’ve thrown… three games, even. Or four.

You dress as quickly as possible and then nearly bolt through the entrance area to the restrooms with all the sinks and stalls. The balled up dirty clothes and wet towel in your arms allow you to hide the way your nipples are stiff and tender against your thin pajamas, and you can’t wait to climb into your bunk and take everything off under the covers. You’ll be able to cum, at least once. It’ll relieve so much stress, get rid of this nightmare headache, rip through your body like lightning and paralyze it until you can start over from square one and think like yourself again.

And, you’re just about to power walk your ass back to your quarters when a body nearly slams into yours as soon as you step foot outside the door, your shoulder jerking back just in time to avoid a collision.

A mechanic, you think. You’re not exactly sure, you don’t hang out with too many of them—he’s Chiss and his glowing red eyes don’t even land on you as you gasp and sidestep him at the last second, but it’s not him that catches the majority of your attention. He just exited the men’s room at the same time you left the women’s, and the door takes a moment to swing shut behind him.

You freeze. It can’t be more than a few seconds—but it feels like everything slows down and it lasts a fucking eternity.

Dameron is standing at a sink in the far corner of the room, naked except for a towel identical to the one in your arms wrapped loosely around his waist. He cradles the base of his own throat with one hand and gently drags a razor down the smooth contour of it with the other, his chin tilted up high and regal while his eyelids dip low to concentrate on his movements. He glances down and holds the foamy blade under the running faucet, tapping it twice against porcelain before the door slides him out of frame.

I can shave, a low, silky murmur slowly fills your ears, heat swelling low and hot in your tummy. Tonight, I’ll shave it off. Make it nice and smooth for you.

You feel like your body is just a collection of rigid knots all tied together, and the one between your legs is the tightest it’s ever been. Stars, on another day you’d say it feels like a bad cramp, even though you know your injection makes your period rare and like clockwork. Regardless, the split second image makes you shudder and clamp up painfully, and you just stand there and stare at the closed door for a second, trying not to shake.

Fuck, this is so fucking… presumptuous of him.

Realistically, you know it could have absolutely nothing to do with you. It’s his face—you’re not self-centered enough to have completely lost your concept of autonomy. He can do whatever he wants to his body, and that includes facial hair, full stop. You also know that he’s not being… obvious about it, no matter how much it feels that way to you. He’s using the sink and mirror at the very end of the room, not any of the ones nearest to the door—but even if he was, it’s not like he could’ve planned for you to walk out at the exact moment the metal hinge was angled wide open. He couldn’t possibly have intended for this, for you to see him doing this. He wasn’t making a show, didn’t even notice you standing there. You blame literally everything on him, or at least you always try your absolute best to—but this one…

It sends a hard shudder down your spine and you clutch the fabric in your arms tighter, trying not to drop it. Fuck. This is torture. Fuck him. Good and bad—both ways, all the ways he can be fucked, fuck him. Your head is spinning, you’re sweating fresh out of the shower, you need to cum. Maybe if you hurry, you can get that precious orgasm before he’s finished, because if Dameron is able to intercept you before you can tend to this, you’re… you’re not sure how you’re going to say no to him.

You don’t even think you want to anymore.

You feel like you’re just… holding onto it on principle now. Too stubborn and hardheaded to want change. Too stuck in your own ways to recognize how much everything already has changed.

Somehow, you end up making your way back to your room, but the whole thing is a blur. Your flipflops plap against your heels as you navigate through hallways as quick as you can, emptier than you’ve seen them in months. You know most of the pilots are probably out celebrating in either the mess hall or rec room, but the thought doesn’t really presently register. Almost nothing registers besides your continuous forward motion and the way you feel yourself throb with every step, aching for something you are going to get tonight. Fuck, you are so attached to this orgasm now, it’s not going anywhere and neither are you. You deserve this, you deserve some relief. Come hell or highwater, it’s happening tonight.

As soon as you step into your room and slap your hand blindly against the wall panel to close the door behind you, you’re carelessly dropping the bundle of fabric to the floor and then shrugging out of your pajamas in the cool pitch darkness, having exactly one mission in mind. You don’t bother with lights, with brushing your hair, with literally anything besides clamoring up the ladder to your top bunk and wiggling under the thin bedsheet, making sure to pull it up to your chin before your legs butterfly open. The tip of your finger wets itself on your tongue and then you’re dropping it down and sliding it against your poor clit, the pleasure arcing and flaring so sharp and sensitive even from your touch that you have to give it just a second.

…No, no you don’t. You don’t have to give it fucking anything. You keep moving your finger hard and quick even as your hips naturally want to jerk away from it, shoving yourself through the sensitivity with gritted teeth and a ferocious will.

Fuck, how long do you think you have? Was Dameron shaving pre or post-shower? You can’t remember, all you know is he had a towel around his waist. And that thin gold chain hanging down his neck. Was his hair wet? Fuck, why can’t you remember? His chin and jaw were smooth as silk, you know that much. Post-shower, then. Probably. Probably?

His chin and jaw were smooth as silk. You keep getting stuck on that no matter how chaotically your thoughts whirl; they fling out in different directions at different velocities but all somehow manage to go in a perfect circle and end up at the same place you started. His chin, his jaw, his mouth, his neck, his chin, his mouth, his jaw, his mouth, his mouth, his mouth—

You feel yourself start to clamp down and you speed up, chasing it. The pleasure starts burning deep inside you, the fire slowly licking down your thighs and rising up into your abdomen, and then—

And then a series of quiet beeps from the hallway practically blare like alarm bells to your frantic mind.

You immediately stop moving your finger, snapping your legs tight together and flat to the mattress as soon as the door to your room shifts open and fluorescent light spills inside, and you feel like you could actually fucking cry right now.

All this edging is just a form of self-flagellation at this point. You lay there and try not to make a sound, try not to tremble hard enough to shake the whole bunk with it, but even your breathing feels like it’s going to give you away. Dameron, shirtless with his towel draped over his shoulder, slowly steps into the room and then pauses almost immediately, making your heart stutter for a second at what so blatantly caught his attention.

One quick glance down towards his feet confirms the simultaneous hope and fear—you left everything on the floor. The towel, the dirty clothes, and your pajamas are strewn about haphazardly right where he needs to walk.

You know what it must look like to him. A trail of clothes leading directly to an occupied bed isn’t exactly subtle, even though you didn’t necessarily intend it that way. Still, what can you say? Your hand is shoved in between your legs right now and you’re in your birthday suit under this thin sheet, what the fuck can you say to him? Sorry Dameron, got too caught up with how stupid wet you get me that I left those there on accident on my way to cheat, but totally not because I lowkey want your help doing it. Convincing, that’ll go over great.

Dameron slowly lifts his head to look at you. Or, at least you think he does—the light from the open door behind him casts his body in a dark silhouette, but you know your face is perfectly illuminated for him right now. Blinking down at him from the top bunk with your brows pulled up in the middle, wide-eyed and desperate and caught red-handed. Fuck, you don’t know if he can see the way your knees are clamped tight together and your hand rests perfectly still against your pussy like this from the angle he’s at, but you know it has to be super fucking obvious either way. You’re breaking the rules, you’re touching yourself, and you both know it. You can’t lie, you can’t even sit up without confirming his very valid suspicion. He can call the game at any point, but…

You watch his head fall back down to study the mess you left for him once more. Fuck, are you positive that was an accident? Normally you wouldn’t second guess anything about your own understanding of the interactions that occur between you and him, but—you’ve never done that before. You’ve lived with roommates on this base for years, you don’t just… get naked before getting into bed, that’s bad form. How are you going to get up in the morning without having your pajamas shoved near your feet while you sleep? Wrap this thin bedsheet around yourself and scamper down the ladder until you can snatch them up from the floor, and then what? Climb all the way back up just to wiggle the clothes on underneath the blanket before going back down again? Maker, you fucked up, your pussy is plotting your fucking demise.

But then everything inside you pulls taut as Dameron suddenly decides to move. Slowly, he leans down to catch your orange jumpsuit closest to his feet with a few fingers, before he stands upright and carefully begins folding the fabric without saying a single word to you. Electricity buzzes through you as he very obviously takes his time with it, using nearly his whole armspan to lengthen and fold the sleeves while his chest and chin meet for support. When he’s eventually satisfied with it, he takes a few steps toward the empty desk on your side of the room and then sets the neat rectangle of fabric atop it where you usually keep it.

You bite your lip and you can’t help it—you start to move your finger as he goes back to sort the pajamas you wore for barely two seconds from your dirty clothes, folding and putting away whatever is clean and then tossing the rest into the shared laundry basket that gets collected every week. Somehow it makes you feel even more naked, seeing all your clothes be returned to their proper places, realizing that this is your base state now, this is what you’re going to wear tonight. Nothing. You left everything on the floor and trapped yourself up here, he’s simply shifting a pawn forward two spaces in kind now that you’ve made your first move.

You can feel yourself pulse threateningly against your own fingertip while he collects your wet towel and drapes it over your closet door to dry, and your breath comes louder through your nose while you bite back the noises you want to make, the way your movements so desperately want to speed up. Your hand working the way you want it to under the white sheets would be too much, too revealing, but you don’t know how much longer you’ll be able to care.

But then of course, the asshole has to go and put away his towel and clothes, and you endure through the whole thing while pressing back and forth against your clit so hard and slow that your toes curl and pull the sheet tucked under your chin taut. After that’s done, he makes his way over to the portshade above his desk and slowly slides it open a few inches, the light of three moons outside gradually filling the room. However, when Dameron goes back to press a button on the wall panel and close the door to the hallway, you immediately see how much softer it is in here, how the artificial fluorescents have thankfully disappeared and the room illuminates more than it blinds, glows more than it beams. He presses one more button as the lock inside the paneling slides into place.

You bite your bottom lip and try your best to hide the pleasure you’re building for yourself while he makes his way back to his desk, quietly swiping the radio off it and lowering the volume knob completely before he flips it on. The noise slowly amplifies until you’re able to catch two distinct voices conversing in Huttese—it’s the only lingua franca that still broadcasts on this old technology in this part of the galaxy, but he’s already flipping through the stations in search of something specific.

If you were thinking straight, you may have actually recognized this for what it is, but you’re having trouble even processing the details of your general surroundings right now, your mind is lagging and too slow at reading between the lines. Dameron’s doing exactly what he said he would do. He laid it all out earlier for you in the x-wing, telling you exactly what he wanted plain as day, and now he’s checking the whole list off one by one. The shade is open and the room is lit just enough to make him out, the door is locked, and he’s finding something to listen to. Something quiet, and easy.

If you were thinking straight, you’d realize that there’s a much more obvious reason why he shaved his beard—you never told him the truth about how much you liked it. You never tell him the truth. You allow—even encourage him to think the sharp things you say to him are exactly how you feel. He did it because he believed you.

Oh, but you’re not thinking straight. Your thoughts are scattered and the only thing they can agree upon is how good this feels, even as your breathing starts to grow heavier, grow louder underneath the sound of the radio. The thought stays right beneath your consciousness, tugging at your preoccupied mind. You work your finger with just a little more verve now that he’s flipping through the stations, knowing he’s distracted by spinning the dial through intermittent white noise while different voices and songs fill the room for just a second at a time.

Your bed, his voice suddenly echoes through your thoughts, originating from your subconscious but almost sounding like it’s coming from the radio in your delirious mind. I want you comfortable.

Fuck, the understanding finally clicks the second he flips to a slower song and you start to burn at the thought of what’s next. The silent promise that his actions allude to. You have the realization way too late but at least it still comes at all with the state you’re in. Your hand slows down immediately, not even needing to consciously consider the choice between achieving orgasm through your finger or his mouth. Still, it’s hard to stop touching yourself completely when it feels so fucking good to your deprived body.

Fuck, it’s barely been a few seconds since your realization and yet you immediately bristle in distress at how fucking long he’s taking.

So you open your mouth. You’re desperate and needy and on the verge of something, and it comes out without thought. You don’t think it’s loud enough for him to hear, but his head immediately lifts and looks unseeingly at the wall in front of him for a second, as if he’s questioning if he imagined it. A soft melody plays on a bluesy guitar while you hiccup and wait, but he doesn’t move.

And then you say it again, higher and tighter in your throat, pitched up to an impatient, girlish whine. “Poe…”

The radio is tossed onto the bottom bunk as soon as he spins around and walks towards the ladder, but it’s like your finger has a mind of its own the moment he disappears underneath your line of sight. Your legs spasm against the mattress and you bite your lip, not caring about the frantic way your hand begins moving under the sheet as his muted footsteps climb up the rungs.

Your eyes snap to his as soon as you can see him beyond the railing at your feet, heaving himself up until everything above his waist is above you, too. His pauses there and his lashes quickly dip to the shameless movements between your legs as you work yourself towards that approaching bliss, and then flick back to the way you’re biting your lip and looking at him so torn, wanting so badly to wait for it but not being able to right now.

Slowly, he begins to move forward, crawling his way up the mattress and over your body, noticeably careful with where he places his limbs. You’re not hard to dodge, though—you’re like a rigid stick of desperation under him, knees and ankles still clamped tight together and your arms streamlined as close to your body as possible with tension as you keep rubbing your clit. Not to mention the sheet is thin and shows your figure almost perfectly with how tight you’ve hooked it under your chin, only leaving the finest details to the imagination.

But then there starts to be a little strain against the fabric, an unspoken question he’s still bothering to ask even though you could’ve told him to fuck off ages ago. Poe could yank the sheet down and flip your shit over and destroy you right now if he wanted—fuck, like you want him to do—but his face slowly appears in front of yours instead and his dark eyes search your features for answers. The length of his chain dangles from his muscular neck and glows against his golden skin, his whole upper body stretched long and bare over you.

From the gradually increasing tightness pulling on the fabric, you expect the sheet to rip down your body as soon as you lift your chin and let that resistance go, but instead… stars, it’s slow. Why is he going so fucking slow?? The bedsheet barely flutters down to your collarbone before he’s able to stop tugging on it so hard, and then he just gently inches the hem down from that point on.

Fuck—your eyes drop to his lips as he eventually reveals your shoulders and sternum to the room, and then lower to your cleavage while you let out a hushed whimper, praying he understands the extent of how vulnerable you’re allowing yourself to be. You don’t do this often—and you definitely don’t do it with someone like him. He’s the one who said you needed this, isn't he? So why the fuck is he dragging out the anticipation? Pretending like he doesn’t see the way you’re begging for help in the middle of another warzone that’s breaking out for the second time today?

Poe’s head drops down to give the contour of your neck a long drag of his tongue, slow and hot and wet, the sheet eventually dropping beneath your nipples and exposing them to the cool air. You bite your lip and keep working yourself under the fabric even as it’s led down the length of your tummy, and you just get wetter and wetter feeling him mouth at your skin as the radio continues to play soft from the bottom bunk. He follows the skin as it’s revealed, licking down from your collarbone and working with the increasing rate of your breathing. His lips never feel like they vary in pressure, even as your chest heaves up and down and your lungs work hard for air.

His open mouth slowly drags down the curve of your breast and it makes your blood burn fire through your veins. You nearly choke when your nipple is enveloped in soft heat, his tongue quickly fluttering up under the stiff peak and giving it to you so gently, contrasting so light and vernal with how brilliant and neon bright the need between your legs is. Your hand starts to work quicker, and fuck—you can hear it now, your desperate movements audible over the shallow breaths and the sound of one song gradually fading into another below you. You’re just too fucking wet and your pussy is smushed with how tight your legs are pressed together—the noise is unavoidable, and Poe’s knees are planted too close to either side of your thighs to spread them really at all.

Fuck, you knock against the resistance regardless to let him know what you want, but he doesn’t budge and it makes you just about lose your damn mind. Does he have to make everything so fucking difficult? You couldn’t close your legs earlier and now you can’t open them, and it’s like he’s able to take perfect advantage of each opposing position to prolong your torture.

But then his tongue leaves you even as his jaw opens just slightly, and that’s the only warning you get before his teeth graze your nipple with a sudden arc of sensation and you flare up all at once.

It’s a miracle and a curse that you’re able to stop at the very last second, your hand jerking away from your pussy and flexing into a fucking death claw on your thigh at how close you were, and you don’t know why. Why did the fuck did you stop? There’s nothing standing in your way right now, you’ve consciously given yourself express permission to cum, but still. It must just be learned instinct at this point—hammered into your muscle memory for weeks on end to not allow the pleasure no matter what, especially when you’re this fucking close to it.

Nonetheless you garble out nonsense and cinch inwards on yourself to fight it off now that you’ve apparently decided against it. There’s nothing worse than a half-assed orgasm, and you have to quickly summon the conviction behind your split second reaction before it’s too late and your body takes the pleasure any way it can get it.

Poe’s mouth releases your nipple at the way your whole spine suddenly hunches in and he drops his forehead to your chest, breathing heavy down the slope of your breast as you tremble and grapple for your sanity.

“Did you just cum?” Is the first thing he says to you, his voice is so ragged and stony it’s practically gravel crunching as he speaks.

“N-n-no,” you quickly stammer at the ceiling, trying to remember how to breathe correctly. Inhale, exhale—fuck, which one is inhale again, which one comes first? Maker, does he need to call a fucking medic? “Huhhhhalmost?”

Poe takes a deep breath and slowly releases it with a bassy and warm mmmm rumbling against your skin, so coarse but pleased enough to sound like melted chocolate dripping down your body. The noise sends a violent shudder through you and it’s almost enough to knock you back to that edge again, even without your fingers assisting it.

His head dips and the sheet pulls down even more, just below your belly button now, and you let out a quiet gasp in anticipation, nearly on the verge of begging him to keep moving downwards. But when Poe’s eyes close and his mouth suddenly moves back up to open over your other nipple instead, your patience snaps.

Fuck him, bad way. This is your orgasm, you’re done waiting.

“I’m gonna cum,” you snarl furiously down at him, shoving your hand between your legs even as Poe’s lips quirk against your skin. It’s not a warning, it’s a threat. If he’s gonna be like this, he doesn’t get to share it with you. It’s your orgasm, you’ll give it to yourself if he doesn’t give a shit about it. “Thought you wanted it, guess not.”

You immediately feel his teeth again in response to your admittedly slightly bitchy comment and this time he lets your nipple roll just a bit between them, making you jerk at the sensation and quickly find your clit again. Oh, you’re soaking fucking wet, you’re wet everywhere. Slick and swollen and burning, and it’s not going to take much at all. The sheet sticks to your overheated body and you can’t tell the difference between your sweat, his saliva, or wetness from between your legs—it all just feels damp and slippery as you gradually lose your bearings under his mouth.

“Fuck this, I’m gonna cum,” you breathe once more, possibly nothing more than a mindless reiteration but most likely just one last veiled plea for him to give you what you both want. As if he can tell, Poe quickly lifts his mouth and suddenly the sheet is ripped the rest of the way down your naked body completely, sharp and frustrated, and then his lips brush against your elbow as it twitches, nipping the sensitive skin there.

“Brat,” he growls quietly against your forearm as he keeps dragging his lips down further, following the path it makes along your tummy. “Just likes making shit difficult.”

“You’re the one—” you hiccup, trying to sound angry but just melting into a puddle at the tip of his tongue slowly trailing down your frantically moving wrist, “—you’re the… the o-one who… who…?”

But you’re already sprinting towards that edge, feeling him drop even lower and his hot breath fan against your fingers, and at this point you’re too far gone. Poe gently kisses at your closed thighs, in perfect position and ready for you, but you can’t stop yourself anymore unless he makes you stop, and the longer he waits down there without grabbing your hand to replace it with something better the more you don’t give a shit about whether or not it’s going to happen. You can feel the orgasm rising, you can feel your toes flex and everything start to lock down for the approaching tsunami. You’re going to get it this time, you’re going to cum, you’re going to—

“This is—” you rasp, “—this is a f-free, a fffff-ffreeeeb—”

His tongue softly grazes your knuckle as it works.

And then there’s a moment. A suspended moment that seems to go on forever, where you’re launched directly over that cliff and yet you still seem to be gaining altitude. Where’s the drop? You’re already cumming—you can feel it, there’s absolutely no fucking going back now, but it’s like your sheer desperation has so much momentum that your body tricks itself into believing there’s nothing to land on, no gravity to immediately rip you straight down to your demise.

You choke out his name and your back arches with it and that must be the signal, because Poe finally pulls your hand away and lets his chin dip, and then his jaw falls open and allows you just enough time to catch the glimmer of his pink tongue before it slides wet and slow through your swollen folds.

Heat. It sears through your whole body with a wracked shudder, the slick glide over your clit as his eyes flutter closed, and within the very first second of feeling his mouth on you, you’re instantly cumming inside it.

There. There’s the drop.

The burning erupts into molten chaos, crumpling your whole body on impact like an accordion, but he sinks all his weight down on your legs and forces you to endure it with everything below your waist pinned to the mattress. It’s fucking mayhem. You feel like your voice actually rips itself in half with the ragged cry of blinding relief, so enormous and soul wrenching in power that you couldn’t even hope to muffle it. You can’t move your hips through it, you can’t stutter up to ride it out—you have to experience the whole thing with your lower body completely still while his tongue takes slow, gentle licks at your throbbing clit, only able to sit your shoulders up and slam them back down and grab his head as you endure.

You cum hard. Fucking hard. It’s daunting and explosive and utterly devastating in the havoc it wreaks, and just when you think you’ve seen the worst of it, it’s just so slow. Creeping along and obliterating everything in its path, taking an eternity to pass because of how fucking big it is.

When you’re finally able to float back down into your own body again, the first thing you notice is how tight his hold is. Poe’s arms are wrapped around your thighs to keep them pressed tight together and you can feel the wetness all the way down to your fucking knees as they tremble against each other. Stars, what did he do to you? You feel like you actually wet yourself, there’s way too much dampness on the mattress underneath you to feel anywhere close to normal for you.

His mouth eventually leaves you but his head doesn’t move, nothing else moves. Even his hot breath feels like rough stimulation to your throbbing pussy.

And then Poe shifts and adjusts his body just enough, catching the backs of your knees and slowly spreading your legs up and apart like you wanted to do ages ago. They feel like jelly, wobbly and unsteady even as his thumbs hook right under your knees and easily support most of their weight. Your pussy is soon exposed completely, and his shoulders move down just before his head drops to lick the collection of wetness right from your entrance. Fuck, he couldn’t get it from the previous angle your legs were at, just your clit at the very top—but this is deep and personal and you know he’s probably getting mouthfuls of how hard he just made you cum, using the tip of his tongue to scoop your arousal up and swallowing it quietly before going back for more.

“Poe,” you whisper, and he rumbles low in his throat in response without stopping. This isn’t for you, this isn’t for your benefit right now. Your pleasure receptors aren’t concentrated right here, just the physical evidence of them being overloaded just a few moments ago, but he stays for longer than necessary. He keeps his mouth here far longer than you need to push past the throbbing sensitivity and start to crave the sensation again, forcing you to bite your lip to stop yourself from telling him to move back up just a couple inches.

So you seek it out instead, the lower part of your body clearly not listening to a damn thing your mind tells it right now. Your hips drop and his velvet tongue catches your clit at the apex of its repetitive motion, and you gasp and rock upwards again as Poe groans and immediately rises with you to chase it. He attaches to the swollen flesh and sucks at it gently for you, following your lead, letting your wet fingers comb his hair back from his face and clutch a good fistful of it as you plant your feet and slowly grind up into his mouth.

Fuck. He was right. You needed this. Everything about it is heaven—endorphins pour off you in waves as you roll your hips against his face, and he lets you do it. He’s not just pliant, he’s willing. His tongue works diligently, his eyes close and he moans into your pussy, allowing you to tug his hair and fit to his mouth exactly how you want.

Oh, everything burns. Everything smolders and sparks, because he’s always been so withholding and now he’s just going for it. He’s reading your mind better than he did during the battle today, not necessarily submissive in his approach but… servicing. Accommodating. Finally giving in and putting real effort into helping you chase after another shot of ecstasy without being so stingy about it like before.

As soon as you feel another familiar swell of something deep down, your mouth is suddenly dropping open.

“How many—” your ragged voice comes out without thinking, and it takes so fucking long to actually attach the train of thought to its conduit of translation. You swallow thickly and flex your fingers in his hair, tugging at him to ground yourself, trying to anchor yourself to the very thing that’s about to fling you into oblivion again. “—fuck, how many times did you… how many fr-freebies do I—do I…”

Poe eases his chin back just enough to respond, and the slick sound his tongue makes leaving your clit makes you shudder and miss the wretched words at first. “Mm. Just the one.”

And then his tongue is already sliding back through your pussy by the time your eyes pop open in immediate panic, and your clit is in his mouth again as soon as yours drops to frantically contest.

But the words aren’t coming, it feels too fucking amazing. Your jaw goes slack and your fingers tighten in his hair. Maker almighty, the orgasm swells up so sharp and quick that you have to fucking kick him at the very last second to get away from it. Thankfully Poe’s mouth abruptly leaves you with his oof of shock at your audacity, lifting his head as you snap your legs together and grit your teeth through your miserable retreat from ecstasy. You don’t even notice the way your knee almost knocks into his jaw with it—you just focus on shamefully easing your way back down again from the platform overlooking bliss like you’re too afraid of the high-dive. After a second, you actually have to turn on your side and rock yourself like a child as Poe slowly sits up with a grimace, lifting his arm to rub at his ribcage where your heel slammed into him.

You peek an eye open to watch him do it and oh no, it’s not a good plan. He’s so… fucking hot. Fuck. He’s unbelievably good-looking—his hair curls and frames such handsome features, his body is lovely and warm and seeing his chest bare and up close like this makes you want to reach out and slowly drag your hand down the smooth curve of his side. But then your gaze catches on the dark sweatpants tented shamelessly between his legs and how he’s glistening with perspiration, too, and how he tugs at the fabric covering his crotch and sighs softly, blinking down at you slow and intoxicated with lust.

You have to close your eyes and bury your face into the pillow because your body is latching onto anything to keep you within inches of that edge. The mere sight of him is enough to make you worry for yourself. You take deep breaths and do your best to tune his existence out entirely. Just you, just you in your bed, trying desperately not to cum without even touching yourself. You’re naked and curled up and there's no one here to look down at you with deep brown eyes, no one else breathing and especially not equally as loud as you are. Just you, just you.

And, just when you think you might finally get to the point where you’re not teetering anymore, where you’re at least mostly certain that moving around and looking at things and just existing in general isn’t going to make you completely unravel hands-free at any moment, he has to fucking… go and be himself.

You peek up to see him staring down at you, dark and intimate and devouring, before his hand gently brushes down the curve of your hip. “Maker, you are so fucking hot right now. Was that a close one, pretty baby?”

Your hand snaps out to grab his wrist with a whimper and you don’t know if your intent is to stop him or just hang on for dear life, but your grip is weak and you shake and Poe takes the opportunity to grab a handful of your ass while you do absolutely fuck all to stop him.

“Mmmm. Open your legs,” he murmurs, releasing your flesh just to give it a soft smack. “You’re only making it worse like this.”

“What? W-What do you—” you stammer, but Poe drags his hand down your thigh to catch one of your knees and pull it up without waiting for your babbled reply. Both knees go with him, your pelvis wound too tight and frozen to do anything but rotate your whole entire body on your tailbone.

“You’re just adding more pressure by keeping them closed,” he explains, wiggling his fingers in between your knees to try and get enough of a grip to pry them apart. “C’mon—open your legs, let yourself breathe.”

“Nnnnnnstop talking,” you groan, trying to slap at him, but he’s strong enough to force the movement regardless, levering your knees apart and then pushing them tight to the mattress. And, though he would normally be right about it, you’re fighting your mind to get away from the orgasm just as much as you are your body. The sudden exposure and the positioning and the way he automatically drops his gaze down at your needy pussy with his cock still hidden in his pants like that only serves to displace the cause instead of eliminating the effect. Closing the door and opening a window, shifting the stimulation somewhere else but allowing it to throb steady and aching regardless.

“Much better,” he sighs lowly, digging his fingers into the sore muscles inside your thighs and you just keep your hands loosely attached to his wrists as he works. “Fuck me, baby’s got such a pretty pussy doesn’t she?”

“Poe,” you wheeze up at him, hearing him rumble at the sight of your cunt contracting around nothing, probably shining and glistening with your desperation for him. By this point, you’re worrying again. You have no doubt whatsoever that he could talk you into cumming just like this, with your hands trembling and clutching at his wrists. If he keeps murmuring filth while holding your legs open and staring at your pussy like this, you have no doubt you’ll find a way to get there somehow.

Thankfully, he seems to understand. He goes quiet and just keeps massaging your sore muscles while you try not to writhe underneath him. Stars, it’s like he’s genuinely doing what he can to take it easy on you and you’re still all kinds of fucked up about it, still frantic and desperate while all he’s doing is just squeezing your legs.

“Calm down,” he gruffs, but you can’t. “You’re working yourself up, don’t—”

“Stop talki—” your ragged growl is cut off by your own hiccup as you quickly find the strength to shove at his hands, knowing they’re at least mostly to blame for your prolonged tightrope walk. You can’t fucking think when he’s touching you, you become too hyper-aware of your own body, it feels too good in a way that’s hard to describe and impossible to explain. Poe’s palms immediately listen and raise in front of him in surrender, his back lifting to give you space while you hide your face from him with shaky hands and gasp. It’s pathetic and your legs are still held wide open and your fingers tremble hard enough to resemble a malfunction.

You just. You need a hard reset. You need that thirty seconds of complete idle, of figuring shit out on your own without an electric current running through you before you can start working properly again. It can’t be rushed, it’s necessary when most people just want to power down and then right back up again. The wires connecting your parts are all criss-crossed and tangled and sparks are lighting up at the slightest stimulus, you just need to experience absolutely nothing for thir—

“I’m sorry,” Poe murmurs, still staying in his own space but the gravelly voice shooting a bolt of lightning down your spine. Thirty seconds, of course he couldn’t give you thirty fucking seconds. “Fuck, you’re so hot, I’m sorry—”

“Please stop talking,” you beg him, your fingers curling against your face, “Maker, I—I don’t want to cum—”

“Fuck, I know, it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever fucki—”

You go to kick him again and even though it collides wrong and does nothing more than get your message across, the jostle is enough to knock you back from the approaching oblivion just slightly. It serves to wake you up way more than it remotely hurts him, the equivalent of someone just smacking a piece of machinery and fixing the problem temporarily.

You heave an enormous breath and blink your eyes open behind your fingers, immediately locking with his. Poe’s teeth are digging into his bottom lip but he’s mercifully silent, even when you drop your shaky hands down to your spread thighs and stay equally silent another full minute while you make the effort to right yourself. After awhile though, you realize he must be taking cues from you, waiting for you to speak.

Only, you suddenly don’t know what to say. You’re at a complete loss, looking up at him through your eyelashes in uncertainty now. Something you’ve never been around him, even as your pussy is wide open for him to look at. He hasn’t recently, though, you don’t think. He’s just keeping his eyes on your face, watching you bite your lip and blink up at him while your mind whirls, the only sound that can be heard is the radio continuing to lull from the bottom bunk.

You wish he’d say something. How come he’s choosing right now to listen to what you tell him to do? You don’t… you don’t know what to say to him. Why can’t you figure out something? You fidget but then suddenly feel your expression lose all its struggle and just look… innocent. Needing his help.

“Do you want me to leave?” Poe eventually asks after another moment, tentative of breaking the silence, and you frantically shake your head before he’s even finished speaking. Fuck, something drops in your stomach at how desperate you’re probably coming off right now, but you’re so lost and you know that’s at least one question you know the immediate answer to.

Poe tilts his head thoughtfully, slowly reaching a hand towards your thigh without removing his eyes from yours. “Want me to make you cum again?”

You shake your head again, wide-eyed and worried. He immediately pulls his hand back and blinks slowly at you.

“You want to be edged more?” He asks lowly, and you shake your head vehemently for the third time. Poe sighs and sits back, planting his palms to his thighs and pulling at the fabric of his pants in budding frustration, clearly tired of playing twenty questions. “Well what do you want, baby? You wanna just hang out? That’s fine, I don’t care, but you gotta tell me.”

Fuck, he’s right, what do you want? The only thing that’s standing in your way of feeling better, you soon realize.

“Want you to cum first,” you mumble, cheeks warming at how childish you sound.

“Not a fucking chance,” Poe immediately scoffs, crossing his arms over his bare chest. “And pouting at me isn’t gonna help.”

“Why not?” You breathe, dipping your gaze down his body. “I can use my mouth.”

“I don’t—” he stops short, suddenly registering what you said and switching gears. “You can—?” Poe narrows his eyebrows and looks suspicious. “You’ll let me… cum in it?”

“Okay,” you whisper in breathless agreement, sitting up and reaching for him, but Poe groans and pushes you back down on the mattress with a flattened palm against your shoulder like you just aced a test he was hoping you’d fail.

“Fuck whoever’s idea this was,” he grits darkly to himself while you arch up against his hold, wanting him to grab your tits but knowing it’s not a good idea right now. “Maker, I’m so fucking hard—fuck whoever’s idea this was, making me turn that down—”

“You said,” you pant, licking your dry lips and blinking up at the ceiling, trying to control yourself, “before, you said that you’re… you’re not doing this for a bet, right? So why not?” Your voice goes softer when you flutter your gaze back at him, even though the accusation feels like it should be sharper if anything, since it comes from a very real place of distrust. “Were you just… lying to me about that?”

“Fuck, come on,” Poe groans, his voice starting to waver as he shakes his head and squints one eye at you, exasperated. “You don’t get it. You can’t think of a single fucking reason I don’t wanna blow my load just yet? Really?”

The sentence coupled with his rock solid hold on you skitters a thrill through your body and you automatically reach up to run your hand along his forearm. He looks down at the caress and then back to your face and fuck, even you feel like you’re sending mixed signals right now.

“You could… fuck me,” you whisper, and Poe’s dark eyebrows pull up as his gaze falls down your naked body, nodding and digging his teeth into his bottom lip. An agreement backed by so much unspoken desire that it looks like it almost hurts him just to hear you say it out loud. “And we can just… see who cums first.”

“Yeah?” He croaks, his eyes pinned between your open legs. “Just say fuck it all and race for last place? Okay.”

Your heart pounds, having just enough wherewithal to preemptively establish a safety net for yourself. “And—and we can’t finish at the same time or we both lose.”

“Fuck,” Poe groans, reaching down to catch the hem of his sweatpants with his thumb and lifting his hips until his cock is exposed to the dim room. “We can’t stop once we start, then, we’ll have to see it through.”

Except you don’t catch any of the last part because, uh. Well, to sum up. May the Maker have mercy on you all.

Just like that, the only thought in your mind is… you get it. Okay, you get it. He told you before that girls were only interested in him for his cock, and it actually… stars, it makes so much fucking sense now, you totally get it. You thought maybe he was just boasting as a form of overcompensation at first—or, to put it another way you’ve probably used in conversation with him before, talking big talk but walking small walk. Only now, you’re… humbled. By a fucking dick, you’re humbled.

You haven’t seen more than a few of them in this context, so you know you’re not necessarily qualified to give an informed opinion, but heavens it’s a sight. It’s thick and swollen and just a shade darker than his complexion and everything inside you rockets to attention as soon as he wraps his hand around it. It’s big. It fills his whole palm without much room to spare. Far larger than what you’re used to, and you know that no matter how he fucks you with it, you’re gonna feel it tomorrow. Next weekend, probably.

Your eyes must betray you, because Poe suddenly loosens his grip and breathes your name softly, causing you to flick your eyes back up to his. You didn’t realize you were staring so openly.

“I’ll go slow,” he reassures you quietly, voice gentle and knowing. The complete lack of sarcasm or aggression in his tone is enough to snap you back to yourself, knowing that can’t possibly be right. He’s talking to you like he did when you stumbled your ass out of the x-wing today, when you were barely responsive and lost in dumb shock. He doesn’t have to… be nice to you right now, like you’re still only moments away from losing it. It’s offensive.

“I can handle it,” you harumph, widening your legs while Poe immediately suppresses a grin.

“'Course you can,” he sighs with the slightest note of fondness creeping into his voice, dropping his hips as he lines up at your entrance. “And I’ll go slow anyways.”

You open your mouth to respond but at the first push of his head inside, you inhale sharply and your palm immediately shoots out to press against his chest on complete instinct. The stab of pain is impossible to mask from your features and Poe instantly stops with a shaky breath, watching how your jaw drops at the intrusion and your face contorts.

“Ahh. Shit…” he whispers as his head tips down, dark eyes clamping shut and his hold on you tightening. “What—shit, what the fuck…”

“Keep going,” you growl out, even though you know you’re just making it more difficult on yourself. You can take Poe’s cock, you can take it, he has absolutely nothing to brag about, it’s completely normal-sized��

His hips inch forwards and you gasp at the excruciating arc of sensation, slapping at him harder.

“Keep going,” you babble while locking your elbows and shoving him back, “fuck, keep going, keep going—”

“Baby,” Poe groans, wrenching one of your hands from his chest and bringing your wrist up to his mouth to kiss and breathe hot air on it, “baby, you gotta let me—”

He moves a little more and you cry out, jerking your hand back from his lips and knocking it hard against his chest before you even realize it. Oh shit, you can’t handle it, you haven’t been fucked in so long—

“I’m sorry,” you choke out, trying to be nicer by flattening your palm but then immediately digging your nails in, “fuck, I’m sorry, it’s just—it’s been awhile since I—”

“Shit, I can tell,” he pants brokenly, his fingers dropping back down to flex hard on your hip. “Hoooolyfuck, I can te—ah, fuck, it’s alright, it’s alright, just—nnnnnnshit, okay, just relax, don’t tense up too muuuh… much—”

His cock pushes deeper even as he keeps rambling through it and you feel yourself being rearranged to make room for the slow movement, giving way to a rich pleasure even as the discomfort increases.

Poe stops once more when your hands shove up against him, somehow simultaneously shakier and firmer than all the other times put together and a little more than half of him inside you at this point. You’re so slick and hot between your legs that there’s no resistance besides the stretch, nothing to stop him from slamming home besides your weak hands trembling at his collarbone, but everything about the way he stays completely frozen for ages says he’s controlled and patient.

Everything except his face, you soon realize.

When your body is finally able to come to terms with the sensation and you blink up at him, Poe isn’t looking at you anymore. He’s staring directly over your head at the wall, tangible regret manifesting itself in seething frustration marring his expression. His eyebrows furrow and he scowls but all of it is silent and directed at himself, as if he’s asking why the fuck he actually agreed to do this. You know then that it must be really fucking wet. You know then that you must be just blazing hot and tighter than sin and as if in rhythmic agreement, his cock jumps inside you with each pounding rush of blood through it. You can see the sweat beading at his hairline as he continues to ignore you for the moment, choosing instead to silently lament at the wall like it did something to mortally betray him.

You could… make this a sprint, something devious suddenly whispers to you. He’s struggling through the pleasure and you can outlast. From the severity of that look alone, you can put an end to it before it even starts.

Admittedly, you don’t even let the devil finish his damn sentence before you decide to take your own initiative. You clamp down around him as hard as you can and Poe whips his attention down to you and punches out a curse that sounds like you wrenched the word from his throat before he was anywhere near ready for it. It comes from somewhere high and defenseless in register and then quickly falls down into a growly pit as his hips automatically lurch forwards the rest of the way inside, hard, smacking into yours as you squeeze wickedly around him.

You keep squeezing through the sudden upward shove of bliss, you keep tightening up even though you’re making agonizing noises and your eyes clamp shut and it hurts. But stars, it feels good, why does it feel so good when it hurts so bad? It makes your throat scrape and your face twist up, but you can hear his cursing getting louder and more desperate so you still don’t relax your viselike hold around him.

“Stop it—” he snarls down at you rabidly, “—oh fuck, stop or you’ll make us both cu—”

Shit, he’s right. You know he’s never been more right about anything as soon as his hips stutter and kick up to a full blown gallop in the middle of his furious scolding, and the sudden build of ecstasy is so fast and intense that you sob his name, not being able to loosen your muscles anymore as soon as it overtakes you. But it’s like a closed circuit, you’re both recycling the same pleasure without knowing how to shut it off. The harder you bear down on him, the faster his hips work, the vicious cycle compounding and circling and manifesting in the perfect typhoon within just a few tumultuous seconds.

But then suddenly he rips himself out of you with a gasp and it’s not a moment too soon, because both of you have to scramble and grab onto things to brace yourselves through the worst of it. You choose the mattress and he chooses the railing, and through the searing discomfort and settling of the chaos that’s becoming more and more familiar to you as this exhausting day passes, you know you fucked up. You underestimate his self control, time and time again. But, exactly like earlier today, you feel a thrill skitter up your spine at how he’s going to respond to your brazen treachery in the face of a newly established truce.

“Fuck,” he jerks his head to spit the obscenity at you, sounding more pissed off than you’ve ever heard him, the shredded anger in his voice starting to burn through you. “Fuckfuckfuuuuck—you make me so mad. You make me so mad. I wish I could fuck you right now, on Maker, I’d ruin you. I’d wreck your shit until you learn and you’d deserve every single fucking second of it, you—”

He stops short and growls jagged sharp in frustration, but you can’t help yourself.

“Say it,” you whimper on a dare, feeling your heart pound. The words quiver with an inexplicable sort of excitement as you dig your fingers into the mattress, wanting to hear his voice snarl the mysterious profanity. “Say it. ‘You…’—what? Say it.”

Shock suddenly paints his previously tense expression blank, even though his pupils blow out and his chest heaves. Your voice is too breathless, it’s too needy to sound nearly as antagonistic as you want.

And then Maker, it’s as if the sheer control he’s clinging to serves to spark his vexation even more. Mad that you would ask for something so enticing at a moment like this. Your heart thunders as Poe nearly flashes up close to you and points a threatening finger at you.

“You’re not going to get what you want from me,” he snaps, quiet and furious. “Not tonight. I don’t give a shit, I told you I’d slow fuck you and now I’m gonna do it until you act right.”

“You’re an asshole—” you move to lift up onto your elbows, but his hand suddenly plants against your clavicle and shoves you back down flat on the mattress.

“Not even ten minutes after I make you cum and you’ve already got a fucking attitude problem again,” he shoots back, positioning his cock at your entrance with his other hand once more, and Maker you’re drowning between your legs. His sharp rebuttal and the firm hold on the upper part of your chest makes it that much wetter, knowing you can’t do much more than lift your legs the way you need when he eases his way back inside.

“P-Poe—” you gasp breathlessly, but it's like he doesn’t hear you.

His expression tenses and he shudders out a low growl. “Fuck. Tight little baby. Rude little baby, just wants everything her way but doesn’t know how to behave herself.”

You have to bite your lip hard to hold back a whine when he’s completely sheathed and his hips connect to yours, and… shit. You already feel it. You already feel that simmering starting to take hold deep down once more, that monstrous second orgasm you’ve been fighting now digging its claws into you and licking the base of your spine with fire. And, as if he can tell, his demeanor instantly changes.

“Uh, oh,” Poe murmurs quietly, equal parts lilting and baiting, slowly dragging his cock out and then starting up the laziest pace you’ve ever experienced with his hand still planted high on your sternum right below your collarbone. “Can you feel it coming? Fuck, I can,” he shudders. “Already. Fuck, you’re so wet, you’re so wet—wish you had let me eat you out mor—”

“You can’t c—umm,” you hiccup, grasping his wrist and writhing through the building ecstasy, and you don’t know who you’re talking to at this point. Your other palm slaps at his shoulder with increasing urgency—fuck, he’s been fucking you for barely ten seconds and you’re already struggling to hold everything back. Only, his hand quickly grabs yours and pins it to the mattress, his face dropping closer as he rolls his hips achingly slow. You feel his back working with the steady pace, you see his neck flex as his cock drags so thick inside you, and then your gaze starts to lose focus a bit. It slides up his throat as lazily as he’s augmenting your pleasure, following the contour of his smooth skin until it reaches his face.

And mercy, Poe’s tongue comes out to wet his lips and a dark curl hangs down his forehead, concentrating hard on fucking you steadily without giving into the same creeping euphoria you’re feeling, and you have to turn away and bite back a whimper at the metal railing when the image starts to burn you alive.

“No,” Poe gruffs and his hand slides up a few inches to frame your jaw, twisting until you face him directly once more. “Right here, you stay right here with me.”

Your eyebrows pull up weakly and your eyes flick across his stunning features, the way he’s so present, so focused and determined while you’re starting to drift. His skin is so smooth, so golden when his jawline used to be dark, and—

“I—” you choke, starting to lose it, “—I-I…”

“What is it, baby?” Poe growls, staring down at you with unwavering, intense concentration. “Tell me. You gonna cum?”

“I…” you whimper, blinking at him slowly, “I… liked your… b-beard…”

Poe’s eyes, previously hardened and steadfast, suddenly go a bit dumb, a bit dazed. After a second, his eyebrows lose all strain, his gaze turns warmer and he rolls his hips deeper—

But the swell begins to become the only thing you can comprehend—that and the fact that you should be fighting it. You should be revolting against it, but now he’s looking so softly down at you and you can’t remember what could possibly be so bad about letting him take away all this ache and desperation again. Let him continue to take it away, over and over and over until it’s nowhere to be found at all.

And then Poe leans down and kisses you. And it’s… nothing like you’d expect.

It’s gentle. It’s tender. It goes on forever while he rocks into your soaking wet cunt, easing his throbbing cock in and out of you with such a smooth, repetitive motion that sends sparks of ecstasy down your spine at the apex of each thrust.

You handle it silently. At first. You don’t audibly react to any of it, you force your voice to at least keep quiet if you can’t hide the pleasure from your face or body, but then true to fucking form, he has to go and ruin it all. Poe uses his knees to scoot up just the slightest bit, and then his moan breaks through the absence of the desperate sounds you’ve been holding back as his tongue slowly slides into your mouth.

Your pussy flares, contracting painfully around his cock as it hits a spot that makes your legs shake against his sides. Your eyes roll back as his soft tongue dips into your mouth and everything just gets tighter, and tighter. Poe moans again and his hips push a little bit harder into yours on the next thrust, and it’s almost like a domino effect, except that doesn’t do it justice. It doesn’t topple one by one, it doesn’t take any time at all for the beginning to reach the finish—it’s a house of cards, the whole thing collapses and crashes down in on itself all at once.

You cum.

You lose. Fair and square.

You make a long, anguished whine into his mouth as you just start spasming, clutching hard at his shoulders and drenching his cock with it, your eyes squeezing shut as you cum so slow and fucking helpless around him. Oh Maker, it’s fucking devastating, it feels even more destructive and powerful than the first one. You pull and shove and claw at him equally, mouth slack as Poe tightens his hold and keeps tasting your whimpering cries, fitting his hips snug to yours as he slowly pushes you down through the debilitating ecstasy. You sob in euphoric defeat and a low, bone-shattering groan of satisfaction rumbles through his chest in response, grinding his cock into you and holding it deep as your pussy convulses.

All those weeks of holding out, just to lose. You had a freebie, he gave you an orgasm already and it was like a massive dose of spice to your deprived system—all it did was make your body want it more. Even worse, your orgasm doesn’t immediately inspire one in Poe like a part of you hoped it would, if only so you could reasonably contest the validity of the outcome. He’s able to ride out every twitch and flex as you shudder your way through it, continuing to lazily slide his tongue into your mouth while it’s held open and slack. He tastes like you. He tastes hot and slick and everything about your body feels the same way, damp and unbearably warm from your nape to your elbows to your cunt to the backs of your knees.

You lay there for what feels like a lifetime afterwards, powerless to the way your thighs tremble violently against his hips and letting the tip of his tongue slowly trace the bottom edge of your teeth while he firmly keeps his cock buried inside you. It pulses thickly and you know he wants to cum, you can feel the tension pulling at his shoulders as he keeps perfectly still. But then Poe shuffles his arms up until they’re braced around your head, using himself to box you in completely without moving his lips from yours. His teeth close on your bottom lip as he inches his hard cock out long and aching from your sensitive channel, and then groans and goes back to the same exact dragging pace from before.

Your expression furrows, even as he keeps kissing you and the movement lights up your oversensitive nerves. Fuck, you want him to speed up, it’s all the more shattering and viseral when he takes his time. What is he doing? What is he waiting for?

“Fuck me,” you whine against his lips, demanding a quicker pace. You don’t know why he isn’t just letting loose on you now, giving into his body’s need to cum. He’s aching for it, still rock hard inside of you. “Come on, I already l-lost, just fuck m—”

“Told you before,” Poe whispers back, refusing to speed up. He keeps his pace dragging and steadfast, no matter how much you work to entice him. “Never… fuck. Never gave a fuck about that stupid bet. Suffer though.”

The complete lack of harshness in his tone sears through your nerve endings even though what he said wasn’t exactly nice. You never thought hearing him tell you to suck it up could be delivered in a way that inspires so much arousal in you, but then his tongue is in your mouth again as his hips work slow and easy, and your eyes roll back at how… overwhelming it feels. So intimate. You’re completely surrounded by him, his forearms propped next to your head and his mouth on yours, and… Maker, there it is again. Your body is so deprived that it’s already gearing up to go again. He’s being lazy and you can’t fucking stand how it’s breaking you down. Gradually, with incredible stamina and a patience you never expected from him. When you first feel that pull, part of you still wants to pick up the other end and start a tug-of-war with the sensation. You’ve been fighting for so long that your body almost doesn’t know any different, its automatic reaction is to resist.

A distraction, that’s what you need. That’s what guys do to stop themselves from cumming too soon, right? Fuck, think of something, think of…

—Poe, you can't think of anything but Poe. Fuck. His cock sinking deep, the way he tastes, how his fingers thread into the damp hair at your crown so you can feel him that much more, how you can hook his biceps with both hands and swirl your tongue around his while he fucks you open. Your hips roll up with the pace and almost immediately stutter back down again, not sure if you can handle the wicked shot of oversensitivity—but then Poe groans and shifts up until his thighs are under your ass and he can curl you in more, lift your feet a bit more and make you feel smaller. And—stars, the next thrust in is enough to nearly make you bite him on complete accident, an unexpected sound ripped from your throat as he keeps that specific angle.

Poe keeps going. He keeps kissing you, keeps rocking into you. He lets you claw at him, lets you grapple helplessly while his cock shreds molten hot euphoria deep inside you, and then everything tightens up again.

“Ah, fuck,” Poe breaks away and curses a whole few seconds before you descend into mindless chaos once more, garbling out broken syllables with the absense of his mouth keeping yours occupied. Your voice crescendos and breaks at the same time you do, the pleasure arcing through you over and over and wringing you out repeatedly around his throbbing cock. Poe’s lips quickly move forward and give your whole cheek an open kiss while your expression crumples with it. Teeth drag down your skin as he moans hot air across your skin, his hips slowing to a complete stop with an obscenely slick sound.

You throb and clench around him and his lips are suddenly on yours again, his tongue sinking deep and dominating. Your mouth is slack and all you can do is squeeze him through the bliss, scrape your fingernails down his back and hope it leaves a mark.

Eventually the tremors pass and you’re dead in the aftermath, you don’t have energy. Your body is starting to acclimate to the slow orgasms and just let them steamroll you flat, fully accepting now that you can cum but still putting everything you have into it like every single one might be your last for a while. You come back to yourself enough to feel Poe’s cock solid and achingly hard inside you, and your bottom lip is being tugged between his teeth.

And then he eases out and goes back to fucking you. Same speed, same control.

Your eyes nearly fucking cross. “P-Poe—”

He immediately makes a noise of disapproval with his mouth closed, a nuh-uh but kept tight in his throat. He doesn’t want to hear it, he’s not even letting you finish your thought.

You can’t take it, though, you didn’t think he was capable of this. This is torturous in an entirely different way, overstimulating and shattering you with every thrust.

So, you think back to the one thing that got him to nearly snap earlier, the one time you really got to see that fire you love playing with. Only now, you need that fire, you need him to take everything out on you. Your floor muscles clamp down without warning and squeeze him as tight as possible, squeeze squeeze squeeze until you feel his hips stutter to a halt once more. Your breath catches—fuck, is this gonna work?—but then Poe breaks away from your lips to drop his head and sink his teeth into your neck.

You nearly squeal at how careless he is about it—an animal that bites you lazily even though it sends sharp agony rocketing through you. Again, your attempt at sabotage backfires spectacularly as a subsequent flare of pleasure swells up, and oh, that’s what you want, you want him to be mean—

“Please,” you whimper, hooking your ankles behind his back and locking down hard enough to make your toes curl. Poe groans as you grab a fistful of his hair and tug at the way your skin pinches between his teeth—you know you’re gonna have a bite mark for a few days and it thrills you. “Fuck, please, Poe—please just fuck me, please, I want you to fuck me until it hurts, fuck me the way we both nee—”

“You and me almost died today,” Poe grits into your neck, cutting off your desperate whimpers with a short growl. “Maker, it was so close, I don’t think anybody has any f-fucking…” His hips pull out and then spear deep and you choke, tightening and tightening. “But—shit, we didn’t, we lived and now—oh fuck, now baby’s finally letting me fuck her and I’m not cutting it short, no matter how pretty she sounds asking.”

His words sound slurred against your neck and you can’t tell if it’s his delivery or your perception that’s lagging. But when you feel Poe inch his cock out and start to slowly fuck you through the tightness, you let out a weak little whine and feel yourself drifting… somewhere else.

Things subtly lose their clarity, your eyelashes dip and you stop talking because words won’t come. You can’t tell if you’re staring at the ceiling or your eyelids or the back of your head, but Poe’s voice abruptly breaking through the silence makes you realize you don’t have a concept for time anymore. You couldn’t tell him how long you’ve been floating, but you almost don’t understand what he’s saying at all and it takes you a remarkable delay to fully comprehend. But judging from what he says, it sounds like it hasn’t been long.

“Shit, are you cumming again?” He suddenly gasps into the crook of your neck and grinds his hips achingly hard into yours, “O-Oh—fuck yeah, you are—baby’s cumming again—”

“P-Poe?” You stutter and smack your hand against something, him maybe, not knowing literally anything else. Not knowing what he’s talking about, not knowing where you are, not knowing your own name, “Poe—oh m-my… God—”

“Whhh—W-What—?” You hear him breathe a split second before everything compresses down tight, and then it all shoves forward at once. All of the buildup makes itself known the very moment it becomes too much to control, like a flash flood but the downpour happened miles away. You think you might actually squeak this time, helplessly cry out like it hurts because stars, it does. It hurts so fucking good, it spiders pure plasma through your entire body with rhythmic jolts and wipes your mind completely vacant. Your shoulders shoot you up and knock your chin into something and you think you might be crying? You don’t know anymore. Your spine comes back down to the mattress like the damp fitted sheet covering it is made of pure ice—your body is overheated and you keep tensing and jerking back up until Poe forcefully pins you tight against it, growling filth under his breath as he slow fucks you through it.

You feel his hand dropping down between your bodies and you sob pitifully at the ceiling when the tip of his calloused finger brushes your clit.

***

You lose count.

It’s just… constant, there isn’t a point in keeping track anymore even if there happened to be the ability—which, nope. Not even close.

He ruins you slowly. Meticulously, with nothing more than steady, unwavering determination. Every structure you built, he takes apart by hand instead of bulldozing it the way you beg him to when you find the words. You’re certain you find them—you must find them at some point, but they’re interspaced between babbled gibberish and breathy whispers of his name.

Even though it’s slow—Maker, it’s so slow—you’ve never been so fucking exhausted. He makes you give him everything and then he drains the reserves, the hidden ones you weren’t even aware existed. He never goes fast enough; in fact, you think he’s actually slowed down over the unknown amount of time it’s been since you first called out his name and asked for this. If you were in a frame of mind to notice, you’d probably realize he’s trying harder and harder to not cum, but in your wild headspace, it just feels like a prolonged punishment for you. It still feels like he’s depriving you for his own pleasure, even though he’s actually depriving himself for yours. But you always do manage to find some way to read things wrong with him.

Eventually, he begins to waver. He stops talking so much, stops chastising you when you plead with him. He hasn’t looked at you since he first kissed you—he’s either hidden his face in your neck or closed his eyes as his soft tongue slides across your bottom lip before dipping inside.

But then there comes a point where even you realize he’s struggling not to let go now, and in your faded traces of sanity, you hear your broken voice cut through the sounds of the soft radio.

“Y-Y-You—” you gasp, trembling under him, “—youneedtocum. You need to—”

“No,” Poe grits against your chin, sounding shaky and weak no matter how sharp he makes his consonants. “Fuck, not yet, I—I-I don’t want to yet.”

“Oh no,” you wheeze out, feeling the swell begin again, the familiar flicker of warning you get as his cock slowly rocks into you. Maker, the pleasure is getting raw and painful even as your pussy is drowning his cock with it, allowing him to glide slow and deep into your sensitive channel and letting the sheer tightness of it be the only resistance your body puts up. You can feel the wetness on your cheeks though, the tears of frustration gathering as your body prepares itself for yet another wave of attack. “Oh no, ohhhhhnononononono—”

“I don’t want—” Poe gasps, his hips stuttering just a bit and one of his hands coming down to smack the pillow next to your head as he chokes, “—don’t want this to… e-end yet, I—”

Your next orgasm suddenly slams through you and Poe immediately rips himself out of you before it’s too late. He shushes you frantically while you sob in distress and writhe side to side through the contractions solo this time, having nothing to clamp down on, not even able to grind up into him because he keeps his leaking cock elevated far beyond your reach.

Oh, that’s it. That is it.

“Fuck me!” You wail up at him, water blurring your vision and tears streaming down your cheeks, “Stop fucking around and just fuck me, you asshole! Fuck me and fuck me hard Dameron or I swear to every fucking star in the sk—”

You don’t get too far. He’s immediately scrambling over top of you and a strong hand is clamping down tight over your mouth, muffling your high-pitched cries against his palm. Your legs are shoved apart and one is caught under his arm and wedged back as far as it can go. His head drops to your neck, and then he snarls a ragged, “Brat—“ under your ear before ramming his cock back inside you.

Stars. Stars light up, it’s so much—the angle, the force, the speed, the sound his hips make as they start ruthlessly colliding with yours. Your eyes screw shut and you dig your nails into the meat of his back, but he doesn’t slow down—he speeds up—

“Fuck, you still think that throwing your little fucking fits works on me?” He hisses, drilling into your g-spot with such blinding hard precision that you can’t do anything more than just claw at his chest, gasping for air that just won’t come into your lungs. “Huh? Think you can just be a little bitch to me about it and it’s gonna change anything? You still don’t have any fucking idea, do you? Look at me—” he snarls, grabbing your face and shaking it to get you to respond, “—look at what you fucking do to me—”

But you can’t. You already came countless times and he’s lurching you up the bed with every single rabid thrust into your blindingly sensitive cunt, fucking you into the railing and then the wall behind it. You still feel his fingers grasping at your jaw, forcing you to address him, to look at him, and you can’t seem to focus your vision on his blurry features even when your eyes flutter open. You’re too dumb with grinding pleasure to see anything besides blurs and stars, to say literally anything back to him. But that’s not what he cares about.

“Oh fuck yes, there it is,” his voice whines, pitching up something vulnerable as his hips ram you into the corner hard and unyielding, “fuck, there’s those pretty eyes, that’s what I wanted, baby, that’s all I wanted—th-that’s—fuck, that’s—”

They must cross, or roll back, or something, because suddenly you can’t see him at all anymore. You don’t know what happens—but you know it’s wet. You know it bursts forth something fierce and you shriek his name with a hoarse and shredded voice like he steals the last part of your whole fucking soul with it. Fuck, you’re not even there for most of it, you might actually black out.

In your conscious moments, you can feel his whole body flexing over and over again on top of you. He empties his load deep inside you and takes a fucking eternity doing it, so many breathless praises leaving his mouth so quickly that they slur together and you can’t understand any of it even if you could hear him. All you can do is feel your cunt tighten and convulse in tandem with the throbbing of his cock, rhythmically working the cum out of him until Poe stops stuttering his hips, until he finally trails off into nothing but labored gasps and slumps down on top of you in exhaustion.

You both lay there for a while, dead weight breathing.

You want to hold him, your cum-struck mind quietly provides in the comedown. You want to feel his body now that you can finally think straight and take a moment to enjoy this blissful relief. He fucked you so good and you want to touch him, you want to run your fingers through his hair and massage the tight muscles at the base of his neck.

But then you just start giggling.

It’s stupid. It’s so fucking stupid. You smack your hand over your mouth but the garbled noise easily floats beyond it, completely elated and having absolutely no explanation at all.

Poe quickly pulls his head back to look at you and you try to twist sideways under him to hide it, but you can’t stop—like a complete loon, you snort and start to laugh harder at the ridiculous sound. Oh, you don’t just float, you’re the air itself, so light with endorphins that you close your eyes and get lost in the fit until water wets the outside corners.

After a moment, a hand gently grasps your wrist and slowly pulls it down until he can see the way your mouth opens as you giggle, hear it unobstructed and let the sound bubble up at him and fill the room. And you blink your eyes open just in time to see him slowly break into the most dazzling smile you’ve ever seen him bestow a person.

And… you’ve seen him grin a million times. He’s almost always smiling, as long as you’re not right in front of him. He smiles at his squadmates, he smiles at girls, he smiles at complete strangers, and you always thought it was pretty. Always knew that he could light up a room with it, you always knew he could get anything he wanted with it, but this… this isn’t that kind of smile. That one is practiced and alluring. It wasn’t fake, necessarily, but that smile’s purpose always had more to do with making anyone who happens to witness it feel a certain way than it did about signifying his own emotional state.

This one is… goofy. Amazed, and uncoordinated. Thunderstruck in a way, except the clouds all part at the same time and let you see a rainbow. It makes you feel… alive. Colorful. Radiant. Sunshine. Butterflies.

Poe quickly drops his lips to catch yours and you moan happily, sliding your tongue into his mouth this time. You both adjust, you arch into him as he pushes your damp hair back and makes a deep noise of satisfaction, letting you explore while he wraps his arms around you and finds a way to make this atrocious position comfortable. Every part of you is smushed up against him and there’s absolutely no space to be found, and you’ve never been happier.

“We made a mess,” he groans against your lips, rocking his hips into you with a disgustingly slick sound as if to illustrate, and his cock is soft but it’s still so thick that it stays buried inside your sloppy entrance. “Shit, I—I think I might be bleeding.”

“What?” You ask breathily, and he heaves himself up with his elbows just enough to reveal his chest. You both tuck your chins unattractively to look and you don’t immediately see any blood, but your claw marks are clearly red and visible scraping down his pectorals. “Oh. Pfft. You’re fine.”

He drops back down with a huff and your head is tilted at the perfect angle catch on the tiny droplets of blood decorating the marks criss-crossing his shoulder blades. Oops.

But he’s already kissing up your neck and over the curve of your jaw and making out with you again like he can’t get enough of it, and you forget. You forget everything. You forget every disagreement, every gripe with him you’ve ever had. It’s all wiped away and replaced with giddy, childish adoration. Resetting completely and starting off on the rightest foot imaginable.

“Let’s go to my bed,” he murmurs, and you make a tight noise of disapproval. No. This is good, this is how you want to stay. The railing is digging into your lower back and he’s heavy but you’re perfect like this, this is perfect. “Baby,” Poe pants against your lips in exasperation when you quickly clutch the back of his neck and keep him glued to you, “mmph—you got everything all wet—”

This time you make a low hum of agreement and drag your hand down the bare curve of his spine to his ass to give it a squeeze. A testament to how hard and raw he fucked you. Poe shudders hard enough for you to feel his body tremble but you just kiss him harder, pulling him down onto you more.

“You’re gonna have to give me, just like—I don’t know, at least an hour or two,” he chuckles, grabbing your hands to make it easier to peel himself from your body and groaning when his cock finally slips out. “Come on, let’s hang out in my bed.”

You’re so boneless when he pulls you to sit upright, you roll a little bit and Poe has to catch you, and you laugh again. Maker, you’re a complete mess and absolutely delighted about it. Your attempts at grumbling and complaining don’t hold any sway when you’re still trying not to giggle, and Poe is able to pull you to the top of the ladder and make his way down first.

As soon as he’s out of sight and calling up to you, you weakly slide into position with a groan and feel yourself leaking at the movement. “Gah—look what you did. I’m all… gooey.”

“I know, s’the hottest fucking thing,” he says under his breath from the floor, before beckoning you by tapping on the closest rung a few times. “Come on, be careful.”

You do as he says, easing your naked body down one step at a time with wobbly legs. It’s clumsy and you whine the whole way through, wordlessly grousing and mumbling.

“Oh, I just know it,” he comments on the sound, “nice clean sheets, I’ll get the violin.”

Normally, you probably would’ve snarked something back down at him, but you’re still so loopy and shaky-legged that you just start laughing again. The fact that he’s absolutely right and you’re being ridiculous about something like moving beds suddenly strikes you as incredibly fucking funny for some reason. You don’t realize his hands are hovering inches away from your hips until your legs buckle and Poe quickly supports your weight.

“Maker,” Poe chuckles before giving you a firm yank, and then catching you before you can tumble down the ladder in your naked, teary-eyed mania, “let’s go, giggles.”

He carries you a few steps to the mattress and plops you down on top of the comforter, letting you take up the whole bed while he sits on the end and puts your feet on his lap. Poe grimaces for a second and then shuffles until the radio is pulled out from under him, and you can hear the soft sound of it playing once again. You bury your face into his pillow, inhaling the warm scent lingering there while he tosses it carelessly to the side and rubs your shins for a little bit, watching you stretch out naked on his mattress.

“I’m not giving you two weeks of pay,” you suddenly grunt, and he just grins down at you, not arguing. Not saying anything. Sitting in comfortable silence with you when you’re expecting him to bicker. So you stay like that for a long time, breathing deep and relaxing, until Poe’s hands leave you for a second…

… to pull a bag of chips out.

Maker, at the first squeaky sound of the wrapping assaulting your eardrums, you want to roll your eyes. You want to tease him about how fucking typical it is. Like clockwork, you could probably set your watch to his middle of the night cravings. You don’t know why you thought fucking him would change any of that.

You want to give him shit for it. You even open your mouth, the snark on the very tip of your tongue. But then your stomach growls as soon as he rips the thin plastic apart.

Poe’s eyes shoot to yours and neither one of you move, but apparently your tummy doesn’t get the memo. It takes forever to trail off into silence again, and he blinks. Fuck, you know you should’ve forced yourself to eat at least something earlier. Warmth floods your cheeks and you scramble for something to say, but there’s no way to play it off.

“Would you like some chips?” Poe suddenly asks with a boyish grin, raising his eyebrows and tipping the open bag freely in your direction.

The corners of your mouth pull downwards even as the inside of it waters. You wouldn’t call it stubbornness necessarily as much as it is a… a desire to stick to consistency. After the unbelievably hard time you always give him about midnight snacking, you’re hesitant to partake.

Though, the chips rustle against each other and sound absolutely fucking delicious as Poe shakes the bag and bounces his eyebrows, and you know what? Fuck it.

You snatch it without thinking, cradling the precious food to your chest as you dig your whole hand in and shove a bunch into your mouth at once. You catch him smiling again, but he doesn’t comment.

You both take turns, and by take turns you obviously mean you take turns stealing the bag from each other instead of just setting it equidistant between you and openly agreeing to share it, but it works for you. It seems appropriate. And then it’s quiet again, just munching and crinkling, except for the radio continuing to play from its place in his lap. You have to work to listen over the loud crunching vibrating through your skull, but when you finally manage to stop chewing and catch a few bars, you suddenly find yourself trying not to smile again. Fuck, it’s been years since you’ve heard this song, you love this s—

“Fuck, I love this song,” Poe promptly exclaims with his mouth full, licking the tips of his fingers before scrambling to pick the radio up and twist the volume knob without using his wet fingertips. He starts humming over the melody, loud enough to almost drown it out completely, because of course he does. The one damn time you actually want to listen to his radio and he still finds some way to mildly irritate you.

But this irritation is almost… fun. You want to laugh just as much as you want to yell at him.

“Hey, who sings this song?” You immediately ask over the sound of him clearly not knowing the lyrics, already ready with it. Oh, the round is in the chamber, your finger is on the trigger, you are ready, and Poe’s eyes sparkle as he seems to stop and think about it.

“Mm, not sure,” he eventually shrugs, just before you rush, “Let’s keep it that—”

And then he’s slapping a hand on your leg and belting out the chorus while you scoff, giggling. He ruined the punchline on purpose and is now getting chip dust all over you, but you know any complaint you make will be drowned out by his suspended notes and backing track, so you just roll your eyes and swipe the bag of chips from him while he continues to serenade you.

“My ears are bleeding,” you mutter under your breath.

He has a nice voice, you think.

#poe x reader #poe dameron x reader #poe dameron #reader insert #Smut #no-droids

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ithinkhesgaybutwesavedmufasa · 3 years

Text

Of Constellations & Creeds

Chapter 21: Fire of Devotion

Summary/Author’s Note: Din presents you with a gift that he has had for while. You start exploring what it means to work as a team and meet a fiery mechanic that takes a shine to you.

There is a note at the end for what something looks like if you guys are having a hard time picturing it. I tried to do my best. Thank you for reading!

Pairing: Din Djarin x F!reader (Alpha/Omega/soulmates AU) Word Count: 5k Warnings/Promises: Mature/18+ - language, sexual themes, weapons/shooting

[Previous Chapter] [Series Masterlist] [My Complete Masterlist]

This is what dreaming felt like.

You were the perfect temperature of warm bodies and crisp blankets. Sprawled among the sheets, you lucidly stretched your body as your mind slowly woke up the rest of your limbs. You started by wiggling your toes while you listened to the birds chitter in the trees outside the barn, your ankles, your back, and lastly your arms. You quietly popped your fingers as you brought them up to rub gently at the back of your sore neck with a groan.

"Shit."

You winced as you stretched your arms and suddenly remembered why your shoulder was so tender. Rotating the cuff much slower, you worked the stiffness out of the muscle until you could move it more freely. That was at least a little better.

Before falling into bed last night, Din had ravished you against the wall, then again on the ground, neither one of you able to stop long enough to tear yourselves apart. The idea of moving into the comfort of your bed never came up, due to not wanting to wake the kid and once again...that required you to stop touching each other. Whatever discomfort you felt had absolutely been worth it.

The morning sun was warm on your face and you opened your eyes to find the Mandalorian facing you...still helmetless. You had worried the moment you fell asleep everything would have ceased to have happened. You really wouldn't have seen his face. You really wouldn't have received his mark. But he had sleepily assured you that closing your eyes erased nothing and he promised to be here when you woke up. Everything you had done last night was no dream. It had been very, very real.

“Din?” you whispered almost inaudible, as if to test him.

His eyes were closed and his mouth open ever so slightly as he continued to sleep with his arm bent behind his head against his pillow. He looked younger in the sunlight. The gentle rays tinting his already light brown skin to a warm sienna, it did the same to his hair, finding the small strands of molten gold throughout the tousled dark curls. He was so handsome and you had yet to tell him, but something told you he wouldn't believe you even if you did.

Did Mandalorians have a concept of beauty? When you spent your entire adolescence with a helmet on, you couldn’t imagine it mattered much what the person underneath looked like. It leveled the playing field so to speak. While society squabbled over such trivial attributes, you imagined Mandalore was more concerned with your ability to win a fight, to negotiate, to contribute to your clan.

It used to be easy to look at him with disdain. Then that disdain turned to something little more than convenient indifference. It was easy to blame him for the destruction of your home world, for the loss of your old life. Anger was always easier. And yet as you looked at him now, and fought the desperate urge to trace the bridge of his nose with the tip of your finger, you knew you felt something else towards him. Something that you hadn't felt in a very long time. Something that felt a lot like affection...a lot like love.

Yes, to you Din was beautiful. But then again when you loved someone, weren’t they always? There was that word again. It made you smile quietly to yourself as you mulled it over in your mind.

Leaning forward, you pressed your lips to his, a chaste kiss that caused a soft groan to come from somewhere deep in his chest as his arm slid around your middle.

"Good morning," you whispered against his mouth and he grunted, not bothering to open his eyes.

"Ten more minutes."

You smiled, kissing him again as he pulled you closer. You reached down and grabbed the blanket before pulling it up over the both of you more securely. For a man that never took a break, he loved sleep more than anyone you had ever met.

"Alright, ten more minutes," you said quietly as you moved to kiss his cheek before tucking your head under his chin against his chest and closing your eyes.

Saying goodbye to Omera and Sorgan was more painful than you imagined it would be. She was the first person who understood your struggle. If it weren't for her who knew how long it would take you and the Mandalorian to find one another. But no matter how you felt, you couldn't stay here and she couldn't come with you. It seemed everywhere you went there was something new to lose, a new heartache to experience, and as you hugged her tightly and held back your tears she was added to the long list of loss in your life.

"You'll always have a place here," she said quietly as you squeezed her tighter. It's as if she knew you were trying not to fall apart. She felt the soft cloth that you had used to bandage your shoulder and she leaned back to see your face and give you a knowing grin. “But you are now right where you’re supposed to be.”

"Thank you," you said, wiping your eyes as she fixed the shawl around your shoulders and gave your arms a pat.

“Keep up with your meditations. They’ll help.”

“I know.”

"Take care of them," she nodded to the man behind you who was holding the child and waiting patiently for you by the cart. "But don't forget to take care of yourself."

"I will."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

The trip back through the woods to the Razor Crest was a somber one and you watched as the child stood at the back of the cart and waved its tiny three-fingered hand at the group of children who were waving in return. You leaned forward and rubbed the space between its massive ears gently. However you were feeling was probably nothing compared to the little guy. He didn't know what was going on, or that there were people hunting him, or why you couldn't stay in such a beautiful place where he had made so many friends. It was tough being a kid in such a big world. Maker, it was tough being an adult in such a big world.

You looked back as you felt Din put his hand on the small of your back and lean his helmet against your temple for the briefest of moments. You lowered your walls ever so slightly and accepted the comfort that he sent your way. Maybe Omera had been right, maybe he had wanted to stay too.

Being back on the Razor Crest came pretty naturally to the three of you and to say you were surprised was an understatement. Fresh supplies from Sorgan filled the storage bunker and with more variety to eat than prepackaged rations, your spirits were much higher than they had been previously.

“Come on, kid,” you said, gently as you picked up the child and straightened his burlap cloak. “Nap time.”

“Ba-to!” he squeaked, raising his arms up and giving you a two-toothed smile that warmed your heart.

“Just for a little bit,” you assured him. “Then you can come up front and help pilot. Sound good?”

“Ah-yo!”

“No, no, I promise,” you answered him like you were having a full conversation. “I’ll make him let you. You’re plenty old enough,” you scoffed with a laugh. “You just need a few phone books to sit on.”

He gave another happy squeak as you sat him in the hammock hanging above Din’s bed and tucked him in. You dug out the small stuffed frog that Winta had made for him back on Sorgan, with it’s bright blue felt skin and lopsided eyes, and helped him nestle it under his chin. You gave him a soft pat on the head and waited for him to close his eyes before pressing the button on the panel that closed the door with a quiet hiss.

You heard your name being said from above you and you went to the ladder that led to the cockpit, looking up to see the Mandalorian looking down. He had brought the ship out of hyperdrive for the time being as you researched a plan of action. Without coordinates, it was pointless to travel in circles and waste precious fuel.

“Can you come up here for a second?” he asked and you nodded.

Taking one rung at a time, you hauled yourself up into the main hull and gratefully accepted his help in order to plop your butt on the floor with a smile. You didn’t have to see his face to know he was smiling back.

There had been precious little time for him to take off his helmet once you were back on the ship. Somehow the ship was less private than the bed you had shared in the barn. Although you were disappointed not to be able to look over and see his face whenever you wanted, you understood. This was a new experience for him in a way you would never understand, a type of vulnerability that you would never know, but how you longed to kiss him properly again. You wanted to feel his lips on the back of your neck as he curled himself behind you for sleep. All selfish reasons, of course, but that didn’t diminish them in any capacity.

“What’s up?” you asked as you leaned back on your hands and looked at him where he stooped beside the captain’s chair.

“I got you something.”

“Me?” You leaned up with widening eyes as you put a hand to your chest in question.

“Is there someone else I’m traveling with?” he asked and you glared at him before realizing it was his poor attempt at dry humor. “Yes, you.”

He moved under the chair and dragged a medium sized trunk out from the alcove created by the dashboard and the control panel. You recognized it as the trunk he had received from the armorer back on Nevarro. It was a dark slate colored material and he popped the latches before

beckoning you closer.

“I hope you like them.”

“Whatever it is,” you encouraged him. “I’m sure I will.”

“You don’t have to use any of it if you don’t want to--”

“Din, just show me.”

“Alright, okay,” he let out a heavy breath and lifted the lid before spinning the entire thing slowly around to show you.

“You didn’t have to get me anyth--oh, goddess,” you said softly in amazement.

Inside, carefully protected by a velvet type of lining, were crafted pieces of a silver metal. You hesitated, reaching out to touch one of them and thinking better of it before looking at him as if you needed permission. With a careful nod of his helmet, you picked up one of the cylindrical pieces and brought it closer for inspection.

“Is it--?”

“Beskar,” he nodded. “It’s yours.”

“Din, I--”

He held up a gloved hand to stop any argument you may have had and helped you take the pieces out one by one. Two bracers that fit perfectly over your wrists and protected your forearms about two inches from your elbows. He took them gently and slipped them over your tender skin before locking them into place and letting you get used to the feeling. You made a fist with both of your hands a few times, opening and squeezing, testing how they felt.

“They lock like this,” he said after completing the motion. “They’ll deflect anything. Blaster-proof. Just hold your arm like you would defensively,” he instructed, pulling your arm up to protect your face and tapping it once with his finger. “Ping. Right off the beskar. We can practice.”

“Handy,” you nodded and he dove back into the box for the next piece.

“This,” he offered the single pauldron to you, moving around your body slightly to fit it to your non-dominant shoulder. “Protects your dominant side by sitting opposite it.”

“Because I turn my body away from the blow?”

“Exactly.” He put it over your shoulder and clamped it down around your bicep. Hooking it securely across your torso. “Plus, the added weight on your dominant arm would slow you down if you’re using your staff.”

“Makes sense.”

“Move your arm,” he said and when you did, he adjusted it slightly. “How’s that?”

“It’s extremely generous and useful but--”

“No buts.”

“I--”

“You’re my Omega,” he interrupted you gently. “You have the right to wear it. And it’ll help keep you safe--and if you’re safe, I’m focused.” His hand came down to rest gently over your shoulder blade, covering the still tender skin of where he had marked you.

He had a point but it still made your ears burn with embarrassment. You knew he didn’t mean it as an insult to your abilities. You had more than proven you could handle your own when you first met, but the knowledge that your safety proved a distraction to him still made you feel guilty. You felt the sudden need to apologize but you knew Din wouldn’t want to hear it, let alone entertain such an idea.

“There’s one more piece,” he said gently. He held it out gently and when you looked at him in confusion he offered his hands forward. “Can I?”

You nodded and sat still with your hands in your lap as he made sure any stray pieces of your hair were out of the way. Even with the gloves and his armor, he was always so gentle, so careful. When he was satisfied he held out the silver circlet and slipped it around the front of your forehead and over your temples. The blocky beskar came to a strong point between your brows and the edges came down in front of your ears to frame the sides of your face. Each subtle point that mirrored the larger one turned what would have been an ordinary face guard into something much more symbolic.

“I feel ridiculous,” you said softly, not wanting to hurt his feelings but also having a hard time wrapping your head around the idea that such a piece of finery was really necessary.

“You look breathtaking,” he argued and it made you smile. “You’re an Omega, an Ursa at that--people deserve to know.” He swallowed hard and nodded to the box. “If we find more beskar I can have a proper helmet made instead of--”

“A tiara?” you asked with a bite of wit and he chuckled.

“It has more purpose than that, I promise.” He touched the sides that came down almost level with your jaw line. “These protect your peripherals--keeps light from obscuring your view for long range weapons.”

“Smart.”

“And this,” he touched higher, closer to your ear and a soft static hum came before you heard his next words twice, almost overlapping one another. “Has a direct com line to me.”

“That,” you put your hand over his and spoke into the mic as if to test it the other way. “Is incredibly useful.”

He gave a nod to signal that it had worked and he dropped his hand from your face to rest comfortably on your thigh. You put your hand over his and held in gently. It was beautifully crafted and you were having a hard time coming to terms with the idea that he had spent any of the rarest metal in the world on something for you. But that wasn’t the only issue, no, there was something else. An issue of the timeline.

“When did you have this made?” you asked, tracing the metal etching that lined the outside of the bracer.

“When we got the bounty on the kid--I had it made along with mine.”

“But that was before I agreed to be your Omega,” you said carefully, watching his body for any sign of tension. There wasn’t any.

“I know.”

You bit your lip and looked down. With a shake of your head, you swallowed the lump in your throat before speaking. “What if I would have left? What if I never agreed to this? You--”

“But you didn’t.”

“But I could have,” you argued. “And then all of this would have been for nothing. You--”

“I had a feeling.”

You looked at him in awe and realized how much he had staked on you making the right decision. He would have sooner sold his beskar than taken away your freedom, the freedom to choose what you wanted. He had hoped against all hope that you would eventually want him, but there was no guarantee. To Din it was all left up to faith. Faith in his creed, faith in his people, faith in you. It was hard not to feel undeserving of such things, but it only confirmed that perhaps it was time that you had a little faith in him.

Going up on your knees, you moved the metal storage box out of the way and grabbed him by the front of his chestplate. He said your name softly as you slid into his lap and his hands came around to rest on the swell of your hips. You tilted his helmet back just enough to kiss his lips, drawing a soft sound from them as he tasted you.

“Thank you,” you said quietly and you were glad you could see his mouth move up in a genuine smile.

“You’re very welcome.”

The more moments like this that you had, the easier it became to realize just how ‘all in’ you were when it came to the bounty hunter. When he had stepped off of his ship and chased you through the woods now flight like a lifetime ago and in a way it was. That was a different life completely. And you were okay with that. The world seemed a lot less scary now that you were on the same team.

You leaned in to kiss him again but there was a loud bang and whoosh of energy as something dropped out of hyperspace and the Razor Crest rocked slowly. Din lowered his helmet and the two of you looked around before you slowly climbed out of his lap and to your feet.

“What was that?”

“I’m not sure.”

He moved to the pilot’s chair and leaned over the control board, inspecting the map and waiting for the radar to ping something back. Nearly the exact moment a blip showed up on the neon green screen, a blast screamed passed your vessel and struck the ship, rocking it back and forth.

“Buckle in,” he barked and the two of you moved to your respective places.

You fell into the co-pilot bucket seat to the right of the Mandalorian and placed your feet up on the footrest to brace yourself. As soon as you clicked your seat belt, your fingers instinctively wrapped around the control stick in front of you and reached up to flip the buttons on your side of the dash. Your side of the ship whirred to life as you shared control of the panel with Din, making it easier for him to focus on flying. Like you had told him before, if he handled the fancy maneuvering, you could squeeze a trigger.

Another wave of fire lit up the dark atmosphere around you and Din turned the ship to try and find the culprit behind the attack.

“If the kid sleeps through this, I’ll be impressed,” Din said as he swiveled his own chair around and jammed the buttons for the back up thrusters.

“I’m pretty sure he could sleep through anything,” you agreed.

“Pa-too!”

The two of you both whipped around to see the small, green thing standing in the doorway with its arms in the air and a wide smile.

“You were saying?” the bounty hunter chuckled and the child stumbled its way to you as the ship took a nosedive. You barely had time to grab him by the tiny cloak and haul him into your lap.

“Got ya!” you said and he squealed with laughter. At least someone found your current predicament funny. You tucked him on your lap securely as a series of blaster fire whizzed passed the sides of the ship.

“Hand over the Child, Mando.” A deep voice said through the com-system and when the child in question squealed again you clapped your hand over his mouth. Another round of shots pinged around you and the crest gave a jolt as one of the engines took a hit. “I might let you live.”

“Guild?” you asked and Mando nodded before grabbing a large lever to his right and yanking it down quickly.

“You got both hands on the blaster cannons?” he asked. When you nodded, he continued. “When I say fire, let ‘em have it.”

Another hit rocked the ship as the engine on the left started to sputter and burst into flames before it powered down. Din cursed quietly under his helmet and pulled another lever to quickly power down both engines. “Hold on!” he yelled over the roar of the enemy ship as he rolled the crest out of the way of another round of fire. Stars streaked passed the windows as you both stared upwards and the other ship came directly into view.

“I can bring you in warm,” the enemy bounty hunter said flatly, “...or I can bring you in cold.”

“That's my line,” Din said in a deadly tone before he hit the thrusters and pointed at you and the kid. “Fire!”

You squeezed the trigger on the gun leavers and shots fired from the front of the razor crest, exploding the smaller ship into a wave of orange fire and metal debris. You flinched away from the bright light and the child clapped its tiny hands as Din gave you an approving nod.

“Oh-ah!”

“Not bad, little one,” you laughed softly, kissing the top of his green head between his ears. “Not bad.” Din clicked on a few of the switches above his head and the dashboard lit up in a series of red and orange lights. You watched him carefully and waited until he stopped before you spoke. “How bad is it?”

“We’re losing fuel,” he said, pulling up the map and thumbing through a few different screens. He thumbed through a few of the nearby planets before double tapping the screen and bringing up one of the larger orbs. “Mos Eisley is the closest place where we could dock and get some repairs.”

“Will we make it?”

“Of course.” He pulled another leaver and the ship gave a lurch forward before it evened out. “We have enough in the power reserves to get us there--don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried,” you said, biting your lip to keep a soft smile from gracing your features. The truth was, with Din, you were never worried.

Mos Eisley was the largest spaceport on the planet of Tatooine. Din explained that what it lacked in a centralized docking bay, they made up for in the fact that they had hundreds of hangars that were each maintained by individual workers and mechanics. It sounded impressive but to you it looked like little more than a patch of dust and poorly refined sandcastles.

The control tower told you to head for bay three-five and the Mandalorian copied as he steered the ship in that direction. The Crest had definitely seen better days as it sputtered and landed with jerky movements before finally touching down in a puff of sand and a clang of metal.

As you drifted through the vast emptiness of space before entering the atmosphere, the child had somehow lulled himself back to sleep. It was actually pretty impressive the amount of naps he managed to squeeze in in a day.

You carefully tucked him back into the sleeping compartment and put on the rest of the clothing you had from Arvala-7. It was still breathable but it wasn’t nearly as light as the cloth you had sported back on Sorgan. The leather riding pants and bantha hide boots would keep the sand out of your more intimate places, while the tan corded top and matching cloak kept your skin protected from the harsh sun without absorbing much of the light.

The beskar looked out of place with the rest of your attire, but something told you it was just the fact that you weren’t used to it. What was your favorite mantra as of late? One thing at a time.

You stopped in the doorway to the refresher and couldn’t help but stare at your reflection in the mirror. The metal of the headpiece that Din had tucked gingerly into your hairline. You had spent most of your life running from what you were: an Omega, an Ursa, a royal lineage of some kind that you had no desire to uphold. And yet, the tangible evidence was glittering on your forehead. Had Din designed such a thing or had it been at the behest of the Armorer? Somehow you felt you knew the answer to that.

You saw Din appear behind you in the mirror before you ever heard him and you prided yourself on not nearly jumping out of your skin.

"Good to go?"

When you nodded, he hit the button that started to lower the ramp on the main hull and you squinted against the bright sun. As you walked down the ramp a group of rust colored droids popped up from their current task and scurried towards the Mandalorian. Their saucer-shaped heads bobbed in place making them look like mushrooms on stilts as they surveyed the ship and chipped back and forth to one another.

Din pushed back his cloak and drew his blaster, firing one shot from the hip into the dirt. The droid squealed and jumped into the air before clamming up into a tiny ball.

“Mando!” you jumped and looked at him in surprise before looking back to the shivering droid.

“Hey!” a woman’s voice screeched from inside the building connected to the hangar. She pointed at the two of you through the window of what looked to be a very dusty office. “HEY!” she yelled again, scrambling out the door and stomping over to you.

Next to the Mandalorian she was incredibly short, but her demeanor was so incredibly scrappy that you weren’t entirely sure who you would bet on if the two of them were in a fight. Her grey mechanic’s jumpsuit was dusty and oil stained from no doubt thousands of ship repairs. Her hair was incredibly curly, poofing out in tight ringlets all around her head to her shoulders and seemed to be growing by the second as she jabbed her finger at Din’s chest.

“You damage one of my droids, you pay for it!”

“Just keep them away from my ship,” Din said flatly, pointed his own gloved finger to the fear-filled robot.

“Yeah? You think that's a good idea, do ya?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest before looking at you. “Blink twice if this brute is holding you hostage, honey. Though by the looks of ya, I’d say you can handle your own.”

“I’m sorry,” you apologized on Din’s behalf before you introduced yourself and stepped in front of him. “We just need some repairs.”

“The name’s Peli,” she returned the politeness and shook your hand with strong, jerky movements. “He always this grumpy?” she nodded at the bounty hunter.

“Actually you caught him on a good day,” you smiled and she chuckled. Din sighed.

“Alright, well, let's look at your ship.” She picked up a clipboard and walked over to the crest. Looking it up and down slowly, she made a fist and knocked twice on the main hull and listened to the klonk that came from the inside.

“Is it bad?” you asked.

“Oof…” she winced as she wrote some things down. “Look at that.” She looked over her shoulder at you before gesturing to the sides of the ship. “Bad? You got a lot of carbon scoring building up top. Ya know--If I didn't know better, I'd think you were in a shootout.”

“Well…” you started and Din cleared his throat.

“Can you fix it?”

“Special tool for that one. Oh ya, I'm gonna have to rotate that…” She mumbled. Peli ignored you both as she continued to poke and prod the undercarriage of the ship before pulling down a side panel and coughing at the smoke that it produced. “You got a fuel leak! Look at that, this is a mess! How did you even land? That's gonna set you back.”

Din looked down at her as she walked back up to him and he tossed over a coin purse that jingled when she caught it. “I've got 500 Imperial Credits.”

“That all you got? Well…” she weighed the money in her hand and worried her bottom lip between her teeth. She turned to the droids who were slowly approaching again now that she was there to protect them. “What do you guys think? I mean-- that should at least cover the hangar.”

“I'll get you your money,” Din reassured her.

“Ha! I've heard that before,” she rolled her eyes.

“I promise, we’ll pay you somehow,” you interjected and Peli looked you over again before waggling her finger at you.

“Now, you I believe.”

That made you smile and she returned it.

“Just remember--” Din started.

“Yeah. Yeah. No droids. I heard ya.” She stuffed the credits in her pocket. “You don't have to say it twice. Jeez. Womp rat.” She mumbled the last under her breath as the two of you took her dismissal as a sign you were free to leave.

You waited until you and Din were out of earshot before you glared at him in disappointment. “We have got to work on your people skills.”

Note: When imagining the headpiece Din had made for you, I was drawing heavy inspiration off of Queen Hippolyta’s crown. Something that keeps your hair out of the way, looks futuristic and strong.

Hey guys, as always there is always room on the tag lists! That being said there are about 300+ of you that want to be tagged in this fic and that is totally cool, but I am human and I miss names and forget tags, SO–if your tag didn’t work, I forgot it, or you want to be moved to another group, please message me or send me an ask. Even if you have already sent me one reminding me, I PROMISE it was not on purpose. A lot of times I wont answer until I have PHYSICALLY put you on the tag list that way I don’t forget! Thank you so much. - K

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